Scott breaks up with Buffy the day after asking her to the homecoming dance. Buffy continues to feed a weak Angel in secret, telling him the others would not understand that he is now better.

At school, Buffy is monitored by two men in a van that are somehow connected to Mr. Trick. They overhear Buffy mention that a limo will pick up both her and Faith to take them to the homecoming dance. The gang sends Cordelia to remind Buffy that yearbook photos are about to take place, but Cordelia is too busy campaigning for Homecoming Queen. After discovering that her favorite teacher does not remember her, and that it was Cordelia's fault that she missed yearbook photos, Buffy decides to compete for the Homecoming Queen title.

Meanwhile, Trick introduces a competition, "SlayerFest '98", with a group of participants including German twin assassins Hans and Fredrick Gruenstahler, "The Most Dangerous Game" hunter Frawley, Kulak, a demon of the Miquot Clan, and Lyle Gorch and his new wife Candy. When Xander and Willow try on their homecoming outfits, tension builds until they finally kiss.

On homecoming night, Buffy is collected by a limo containing Cordelia instead of Faith. Cordelia gives Buffy a note from the rest of the gang who hope that Buffy and Cordelia will make up. Upon exiting the limo, the girls find themselves isolated in a remote location. They find a video tape message, addressed to Buffy and Faith, detailing the hunting of the slayers in SlayerFest '98. The participants attack and after Buffy defeats Frawley, the girls seek shelter in a cabin.

Buffy and Cordelia find a phone and attempt to alert Giles to their situation, but the phone is soon cut dead. They begin to bond when Cordelia admits that she loves Xander and Buffy reveals that she spent a year's allowance on her dress. Kulak arrives and fights with Buffy until the German assassins fire a grenade into the cabin. Buffy and Cordelia escape back to the library, but Kulak is killed.

Upon arriving at the library, Buffy and Cordelia find Giles has been knocked unconscious by Lyle and Candy. Buffy manages to stake Candy, but is knocked out in the process. Cordelia then scares off Lyle by persuading him that she is a bigger threat than Buffy. When Buffy and Giles regain consciousness, they discover the tracking devices in the corsages. Buffy distracts the German assassins as they enter the school, managing to plant the trackers on them and have them annihilate each other with their high-tech equipment. Trick is escorted to the Mayor's office, who recruits him to help control the rebellious youth of Sunnydale. Buffy and Cordelia finally arrive at the homecoming dance to find that neither of them won the title.

Principal Snyder hands out boxes of candy to all the students, which they must sell to pay for new marching band uniforms. Buffy sells half of her chocolate bars to her mom, and the other half to Giles. She then visits Angel, who is practicing T'ai chi. When she arrives home, Buffy finds her mother and Giles eating the band candy.

The next day, Giles fails to show up for study hall, where Xander and Willow are playing footsie. Worried, Buffy goes to Giles' home and finds her mom on the couch. Joyce offhandedly gives her the car keys to drive home, to Buffy's astonishment. Giles, now acting like he did as a teen, invites Joyce out for some fun.

Buffy and Willow find The Bronze packed with adults who are acting like teenagers, including Principal Snyder. They return to Giles' place to find out what is going on.

At the warehouse, the vampire Mr. Trick checks up on Ethan Rayne and the production of the chocolate bars. Trick suddenly accuses one of the workers of eating the candy, and kills him as an example to the others.

Buffy eventually puts two and two together and realizes that the candy is making everyone act like immature teenagers. She sends Willow and Oz to the library and drives to the warehouse. Upon arrival, Buffy finds her mother and Giles kissing in the middle of the street. Inside the warehouse, Buffy catches Ethan; her threat of violence persuades him to reveal that Trick needs to dull Sunnydale adults in order to collect a tribute for a demon named Lurconis. Meanwhile, four vampires enter the hospital to remove four newborn babies. Willow phones Buffy from the library and tells her that Lurconis eats babies. Giles remembers that the demon may be found in the sewers.

Down in the sewers, the Mayor and Mr. Trick wait impatiently while the four vampires chant in a ceremony to summon Lurconis. Buffy, Giles and Joyce crash the party, and the Mayor quickly flees unnoticed. Buffy fights the vampires while Giles and Joyce take the babies to safety. The huge snake-like demon appears and swallows one of the vampires whole. Giles attacks Trick, but is thrown into the path of Lurconis. Buffy pulls down a gas pipe, igniting a fire that kills the demon.

Back at his office, the Mayor asks why Trick fled, allowing Buffy to kill Lurconis. Trick replies that he thought he did the Mayor a favor by having the Slayer kill the demon, leaving one less demon to whom the Mayor would owe tribute. The Mayor warns Trick against doing him any more such favors.

The next day, the adults have returned to their senses. Buffy and Giles meet Joyce, and Buffy exclaims that they are lucky she stopped them before they did more than they did. Joyce and Giles look very embarrassed, but Buffy fails to notice.

Gwendolyn Post arrives unannounced as Faith's new watcher. She is British, rude, confident, and looks down on all the Scoobies, especially Giles. She warns them that the demon Lagos is in Sunnydale looking for the Glove of Myhnegon, a powerful gauntlet.

While doing research, Xander and Willow kiss for a second time. Xander goes looking for the Glove of Myneghon, but is distracted when he sees Angel, of whose resurrection the Scoobies had been unaware. Xander follows Angel, hoping to re-stake him, but observes Angel and Buffy kissing. Angel shows Buffy that he has recovered the glove. As Giles is meeting with Gwendolyn, Xander arrives to tell him about Angel. Gwendolyn does not overhear the conversation, but knows that they are keeping something from her.

The next morning, the gang stages an intervention with Buffy. Both Xander and Cordelia are openly hostile about Angel and see him as a serious threat, unable to separate him from the recent misdeeds of Angelus. Willow is less sure and advises caution, partly motivated by guilt about her own private romantic indiscretions with Xander. Buffy tells them that Angel has the glove and that they are going to destroy it. Giles ultimately comes to Buffy's defense, but in private scolds her for not telling him about Angel's return.

Gwendolyn goes to visit Faith at the motel and mentions that Giles is having a secret meeting with Buffy and her friends. The angry Faith ends up in a bar with Xander, who tells her that Angel is alive and has the glove, adding that Buffy knew about Angel's resurrection and possession of the glove but tried to keep it secret. The two nurse their grudges together; Faith decides to slay Angel and Xander eagerly volunteers to accompany her.

Giles tells Gwendolyn where the glove is, and that "a friend of Buffy's" has it. He wants to discuss destroying it with her, but when he turns his back, Gwendolyn bludgeons him, knocking him out. Xander returns with Faith to get weapons, but he finds Giles unconscious and gravely injured; he calls an ambulance. Faith assumes that Angel attacked Giles, but Xander thinks it unlikely as there are no bite marks. Faith leaves to hunt down Angel. Xander tells Buffy about Faith's goal. Gwendolyn shows up at the mansion first and tries to kill Angel, not knowing that he is a vampire. Faith arrives as Angel is fighting with Gwendolyn. She assumes Angel is after the glove and attacks him. Buffy attempts to stop her, but Gwendolyn tells Faith to attack Buffy, and the two slayers fight.

Having successfully distracted the slayers and enlisted the help of Xander and Willow, Gwendolyn puts on the glove and tests its power to manipulate lightning. The gang now realize who the real enemy is, and unite against her. Angel saves Willow from Gwendolyn's lightning bolt attack. Faith draws her fire which allows Buffy to throw a piece of glass to sever her gloved arm, leading to Gwendolyn's death by electrocution when the next bolt of lightning strikes.

Buffy reconciles with her friends, who show willingness to forgive Angel. Giles finds out Gwendolyn was kicked out of the Watchers' Council 'for misuses of dark power' and went rogue. Buffy tries to reason with Faith, but Faith is thrown and confused by Post's betrayal and retorts that she has resolved not to trust anyone.

At a cemetery, Buffy stalks her vampire prey, killing several new vampires with a little unwanted help from both Riley and Spike. Riley demonstrates quite a bit of enthusiasm and new strength while fighting, while Buffy simply orders Spike to stay out of her way.

Buffy arrives at The Magic Box to train and is pleasantly surprised to see that the backroom has been transformed into an amazing training room. Harmony seeks Spike and his help because she is frightened that Buffy is out to destroy her. The two conspire to kill the Slayer. Joyce is chatting while making breakfast for Dawn, and, in the midst of a sentence, suddenly asks, "Who are you?" before collapsing onto the floor.

At the hospital, an intern, Ben, informs Buffy and Riley that Joyce will be fine, but that doctors are not sure what caused her to collapse. Dawn is playing with a stethoscope and when she listens to Riley's heart, she finds that it is racing much faster than normal. After listening to Riley's heart, a doctor recommends that he stay in the hospital, as tachycardia puts him at high risk of a heart attack, but Riley disregards their concerns. Buffy tries to think of a way to help Riley and finally resolves to go to Riley's place and contacts the Initiative via the bugs in his room. Still part of the government, Graham tries to force Riley to see a doctor, but Riley is stronger than Graham and the other agents and gets away. After speaking with Graham later that day, Buffy takes it upon herself to get Riley to a doctor before he dies. Buffy gives Spike information about the doctor that can help Riley hoping that the vampire could help find Riley and bring him there. Instead, Spike and Harmony kidnap the doctor in order to force him to remove Spike's chip.

Searching for Riley in the ruins of the high school, Willow uses a "Fiat Lux" ("Let there be light") spell to create light rather than use a flashlight. Tara is concerned by this.

Buffy finds Riley in the Initiative caves, punching into rock because he cannot feel any pain. He tells her that he is afraid he will not be enough for her once he lets the doctors operate on him. After convincing Riley to get medical attention, Buffy brings him to the hospital and finds Dr. Overheiser gone. Just after Overheiser finishes sewing up Spike's skull, Buffy arrives with Riley and a fight ensues. As he tries to bite the Slayer, Spike finds that the doctor only pretended to remove the chip from his head. When Riley suffers a heart attack and collapses while fighting Harmony, Buffy and the doctor immediately turn their attention to him. With the humans distracted, an enraged Spike escapes with Harmony, ranting about his disgust with Buffy and his weariness with how she is seemingly the source of everything wrong with his life. The doctor is able to operate successfully on Riley. Later, Graham talks with Riley and releases him from the Initiative.

Afterwards, Buffy goes to Spike's crypt with the intention of staking him; however, when she confronts him, he angrily tells her to kill him. Spike angrily berates Buffy as the source of his torment and yells that he would rather die and be free of her. However, Buffy cannot bring herself to do it and the pair kiss. Suddenly Spike wakes up beside a still sleeping Harmony; he has merely suffered a nightmare, but Spike is mortified at the thought of having feelings for Buffy.

The movie deals with the main character, Elling, a man with generalized anxiety in his 40s, and his struggle to function normally in society. He suffers from anxiety, dizziness, and neurotic tendencies, preventing him from living on his own. Elling has lived with his mother for his entire life, and when his mother dies, the authorities take him from the apartment where he has always lived and send him to an institution. His roommate is the simpleminded, sex-obsessed Kjell Bjarne. The Norwegian government pays for the two to move into an apartment in Oslo, where every day is a challenge as they must prove they can get out into the real world and lead relatively normal lives. With the help of social worker Frank and a few new friends, they learn to break free from their respective conditions.

Disillusioned paramedic and ex-cop Simon Brenner finds himself trapped between the front lines of two competing Emergency Medical Services in Vienna's relentless summer heat. Things turn really hot when Brenner starts looking into the unusually high death rate of elderly patients.

Geologist Arthur Calgary appears at the Argyle home Sunny Point two years after Rachel Argyle, wife and mother of five adopted children, was bludgeoned to death. Her son Jacko was tried and imprisoned, and he died after 6 months in prison. Calgary explains that Jacko is innocent of murder, because his alibi was true. Calgary is the man who gave Jacko a ride to town and talked with him, when the murder was known to happen. Calgary is confused by the family’s reaction to his news. It had been difficult to face them with his failure to appear by the time of the trial, yet no one is pleased at his effort for justice. Brother Mickey Argyle realises immediately that there is a murderer among them still, and visits Calgary in his hotel room to tell him. As the new police investigations proceed, they suspect in turn his father Leo, his brother Mickey, his sisters Mary, Tina and Hester, his father’s secretary Gwenda, and the long-time housekeeper Kirsten. Calgary visits the defense lawyer, who gives him more details of the event and some insights into the family, and the position in which the news puts them. Calgary feels he must now assist the family in the new situation.

Dr Calgary was unaware of the trial because he was hit by a truck within hours after meeting Jacko, and a concussion blocked Calgary's recent memory. He left the country on a lengthy polar expedition when police were seeking the driver of the car. Jacko’s photo jogs his memory upon Calgary’s return to England; he recalls conversing with Jacko. Calgary feels his duty to justice to come forward late, and the police accept his reasons for not appearing earlier.

Calgary next visits retired local doctor, Dr MacMaster, to ask him about Jacko. MacMaster was surprised when Jacko was convicted for killing Rachel, not because murder was outside Jacko's 'moral range'. He sees Jacko as one too cowardly to kill another; instead, he would direct an accomplice. Calgary speaks to Maureen, who reveals Jacko's persuasive ways with older women: initiating affairs and then taking money from them. Hester visits Calgary in London, as she cannot take the tension at home. Each returns to Sunny Point. Calgary meets with one older woman who had fallen for Jacko’s compliments and given him money. The police gather new information from family members as they seek the murderer. Mickey plans to meet with Tina, to learn what she did the night of the murder and tell her of his new job out of England. Mary Argyle and her husband Philip Durrant stay at Sunny Point during this period of upset. Philip tries to find the guilty one among them and his efforts spur the killer to strike again.

At Philip’s request, Tina comes to Sunny Point. As she reaches his room, Kirsten is at the door with a tray, and they see that Philip is dead at his desk. Tina walks away until she collapses outdoors, where Mickey sees her fall and he carries her inside. Doctor Craig arrives and says that Tina has been stabbed in the back and must go to hospital.

Hester tells Calgary about Philip and Tina. Calgary heads to Superintendent Huish, who repeats the words Tina spoke in hospital, that the cup was empty, Philip's cup, meaning Kirsten was leaving not entering the room. At Sunny Point, Calgary reveals to all, in the library, that the killer is the housekeeper, Kirsten. Jacko had persuaded the plain Kirsten that he was in love with her, and persuaded her to murder Mrs Argyle to steal some money he wants, money his mother would not give him. Kirsten learns that Jacko was secretly married, by meeting his wife the day after the murder. Kirsten realises what a fool she has been and sees the evil in Jacko.

Once accused, Kirsten runs away from Sunny Point. The family expect the police will nab her. While Mary mourns her beloved husband, her sister Hester professes her love for Arthur Calgary. She suspects that Tina and Mickey will get together once Tina recovers. Leo feels free to remarry.

A revolution takes place within Ramat, a fictional kingdom in the Middle East. Before their deaths, Prince Ali Yusuf entrusts his pilot, Bob Rawlinson, to smuggle a fortune in jewels out of the country. He conceals the gems in the luggage of his sister, Joan Sutcliffe, and her daughter Jennifer, without telling them. Unbeknown to him, a mysterious woman watches him conceal them from the balcony of a neighbouring room. Three months later, Jennifer prepares to attend Meadowbank School, a prestigious girls' independent school in England. Its staff includes Miss Bulstrode, the school's founder and headmistress; Miss Chadwick, a co-founder of the school; Miss Vansittart, a teacher for several years; Miss Rich, a teacher for eighteen months; Miss Johnson, the girl's matron; Miss Angèle Blanche, the new French teacher; Grace Springer, the new gym teacher; Ann Shapland, Bulstrode's new secretary; and Adam Goodman, the new gardener. Bulstrode is nearing retirement, so she decides to seek a successor. As Chadwick is not the type to lead the school, Bulstrode chooses between Vansittart, whom many believe she will choose, and Rich, who is young and has many ideas of her own.

One night, Springer is found by Johnson and Chadwick, shot dead in the Sports Pavilion. When the police begin to investigate, Goodman reveals to Inspector Kelsey, and later to Bulstrode, that he works for British Intelligence. He is at Meadowbank to track down the gems Rawlinson smuggled out, while monitoring Princess Shaista, Ali Yusuf's cousin, who is attending the school for this term. During the investigation, Jennifer complains that her racquet feels unbalanced since being abroad, and switches it for that of her friend Julia Upjohn, while she awaits a new one. Later, a woman gives Jennifer a new racquet to replace her current one, claiming it is from her Aunt Gina. However, the sharper Julia suspects this is not the case as the two girls had swapped racquets, and Aunt Gina later writes to reveal that she had not sent her niece the new racquet. The following weekend, Shaista is kidnapped by someone posing as her uncle's chauffeur, while on the night of the kidnapping, Vansittart is murdered with a sandbag in the Sports Pavilion.

While many of the girls are sent home, Julia investigates Jennifer's racquet, and finds the smuggled jewels within a hollow in the handle. When someone attempts to enter her room during the night, she quickly flees the school to tell her story to Hercule Poirot, a friend of a friend of her mother. Arriving at Meadowbank to investigate the murders, he learns that Blanche has been recently murdered with a sandbag; the police suspect she knew the killer's identity and attempted blackmail. Interviewing Bulstrode, he learns that she believed Julia's mother Mrs Upjohn, who had served in military intelligence during the war, had noticed someone at the school on Parent's Day whom she recalled seeing from fifteen years earlier.

Poirot eventually reveals to all that the Shaista who attended Meadowbank was an imposter; the real Shaista was kidnapped by a group seeking Ali Yusuf's jewels. When the imposter does not find them, the group extracts her from the school before the uncle of the real Shaista can expose her. Poirot briefly focusses attention on Miss Rich as a potential suspect, so he can put the true murderer at her ease. Poirot reveals that Springer was killed because she caught the killer searching for the racquet. Blanche was killed for her attempted blackmail of the killer in regards to the Springer murder.

Then, through Mrs Upjohn, Poirot identifies Shapland as the ruthless espionage agent known as "Angelica". Ann Shapland had been in Ramat three months earlier and was the woman who had witnessed Rawlinson concealing the gems in Jennifer's racquet. Before Shapland is arrested, she attempts to shoot Mrs Upjohn; Bulstrode tries to shield her, but Chadwick steps in faster to shield both and is fatally wounded. Shapland is disarmed and taken away. Poirot then reveals that the second murder was not Shapland's work. Although Shapland had killed Mlle Blanche in the same way as Vansittart was killed, Shapland had an airtight alibi for Vansittart's killing. That murder was done by Chadwick, who was jealous of Vansittart as Bulstrode's chosen successor. Chadwick found her in the Sports Pavilion and struck her down in a fit of madness. Before dying, Chadwick confesses to Bulstrode.

In the aftermath of the investigation, Bulstrode appoints Rich as her partner and successor, with both focusing on rebuilding Meadowbank and its reputation. Meanwhile, Poirot turns over the gems to Mr Robinson to be delivered to an English woman who had secretly married Ali Yusuf when he was a student and had their son. Julia receives one gemstone as a reward.

''In the following summary, events are not given in strict narrative order.''

Mark Easterbrook, the central character of the book and its principal narrator, sees a fight between two girls in a Chelsea coffee bar, during which one pulls out some of the other's hair at the roots. Soon afterwards, he finds out that one of the girls, Thomasina Tuckerton, has died. At dinner with a friend, a woman named Poppy Stirling mentions something called the Pale Horse that arranges deaths, but is suddenly scared at having mentioned it and will say no more.

When Mark encounters the police surgeon, Corrigan, he learns of the list of surnames found in the shoe of a murdered priest called Father Gorman. The list includes the names Corrigan, Tuckerton and Hesketh-Dubois (the same name as Mark's godmother who has recently died of what appear to be natural causes). He begins to fear that the list contains the names of those who are dead or are shortly to die.

When Mark goes to a village fete, organised by his cousin, at Much Deeping, with the famous mystery writer, Ariadne Oliver, he hears about a house which has been converted from an old inn called the Pale Horse. The house is inhabited by three modern "witches", led by Thyrza Grey. Visiting houses in the area, he meets Mr Venables, a man who uses a wheelchair and has no apparent explanation for his substantial wealth.

Mark also visits the Pale Horse, and Thyrza Grey discusses with him the ability to kill at a distance, which she claims to have developed. In retrospect, it seems to Mark that she has been outlining to him a service that she would be willing to provide. As part of the police investigation, a witness, Zachariah Osborne, describes a man seen following Father Gorman shortly before the murder. Later, Osborne tells the police that he has seen the same man in a wheelchair. Even though he finds out that the man, Venables, is crippled by polio, and is incapable of standing due to the atrophy of his legs, Osborne remains certain of his identification and suggests that Venables could have faked his disability.

Mark's girlfriend, Hermia, does not take his growing fears seriously and he becomes disaffected with her. He does, however, receive support from Ariadne Oliver, and from a vicar's wife, Dane Calthrop, who wants him to stop whatever evil might be taking place. Mark also makes an ally of Katherine "Ginger" Corrigan, a girl whom he has met in the area, and who successfully draws Poppy out about the Pale Horse organisation. Ginger obtains from Poppy an address in Birmingham, where Mark meets Mr Bradley, a disbarred lawyer, who outlines the means by which the Pale Horse functions without breaking the law - that Bradley bets someone will die within a certain period of time and the client bets otherwise. If the person in question does die within that time, the client must pay. (One client who refused fell in front of an oncoming train and was killed).

With the agreement of Inspector Lejeune and the co-operation of Ginger, Mark agrees to solicit the murder of his first wife, who will be played by Ginger. At a ritual of some kind at the Pale Horse, Mark witnesses Thyrza apparently channel a malignant spirit through an electrical apparatus. Shortly afterwards, Ginger falls ill and begins to decline rapidly. In desperation, Mark turns to Poppy again, who mentions that friend (Eileen Brandon) resigned from a research organisation called CRC (Customers' Reactions Classified) that seems to be connected with the Pale Horse. When Mrs Brandon is interviewed, she reveals that both she and Mrs Davis worked for the organisation, which surveyed targeted people about what foods, cosmetics and proprietary medicines they used.

Ariadne Oliver contacts Mark with a key connection that she has made: another victim of the Pale Horse (Mary Delafontaine) has lost her hair during her illness. The same thing happened to Lady Hesketh-Dubois, and Thomasina's hair was easily pulled out during the fight. Moreover, Ginger has begun to shed her own hair. Mark recognises the symptoms are of thallium poisoning, not some sort of satanic assassination.

It is revealed that Osborne has been the brains behind the Pale Horse organisation, and that black magic element was a piece of misdirection on his part. The murders were committed by replacing products the victims had named in the CRC survey with poisoned ones. Osborne's clumsy attempt to implicate Venables was a vital mistake. After Osborne's arrest, Mark and Ginger, who is recovering, become engaged.

Sheila Webb, a typist at Miss Martindale's agency, arrives at her afternoon appointment at Wilbraham Crescent in Crowdean, Sussex. She finds a well-dressed older man, stabbed to death, surrounded by six clocks, four of which are stopped at 4:13, while the cuckoo clock announces it is 3 o'clock. When a blind woman enters the house about to step on the corpse, Sheila runs screaming out of the house and into the arms of a young man passing down the street.

This man, Special Branch or MI5 agent Colin "Lamb", takes Sheila into his care. He is investigating a clue from a note found in a dead agent's pocket; letter M, number 61, and a sketch of a crescent moon written on a bit of hotel stationery (sketched in the book). At 19 Wilbraham Crescent, home of the blind Miss Pebmarsh, a police investigation begins into the murder. The dead man's business card proves false. His clothing reveals nothing else, as all labels have been removed. He was killed with an ordinary kitchen knife. Colin and Inspector Hardcastle interview the neighbours. Their homes adjoin the murder site on the street or from the back gardens in this unusually arranged Victorian housing development. Colin takes a liking to Sheila.

Hardcastle questions Mrs Lawton, the aunt who raised Rosemary Sheila Webb. Rosemary is the name on a clock found at the scene of the murder, but it disappeared before police gathered them up. Colin approaches Hercule Poirot, an old friend of his father, to investigate the case. He challenges Poirot to do so from his armchair. He gives Poirot detailed notes. Poirot accepts, then instructs Colin to talk further with the neighbours.

At the inquest, the medical examiner explains that chloral hydrate was given to the victim before he was murdered. After the inquest, Edna Brent, one of the secretaries, expresses confusion at something said in evidence. She tries but fails to convey this to Hardcastle. She is soon found dead in a telephone box on Wilbraham Crescent, strangled with her own scarf. The dead man's identity is as yet unknown. Mrs Merlina Rival (original name Flossie Gapp) identifies the dead man as her one-time husband, Harry Castleton. Colin leaves Britain on his own case, travelling behind the Iron Curtain to Romania. He returns with the information he needed, but not the person he hoped to find. Following Poirot's advice, Colin talks with the neighbours. He finds a ten-year-old girl, Geraldine Brown, in the apartment block across the street. She has been observing and recording the events at Wilbraham Crescent while confined to her room with a broken leg. She reveals that a new laundry service delivered a heavy basket of laundry on the morning of the murder. Colin tells Hardcastle.

Hardcastle tells Mrs Rival that her description of the deceased is not accurate. Upset, she calls the person who involved her in this case. Despite police watching her, she is found dead at Victoria tube station, stabbed in the back. Poirot's initial view of this case is that the appearance of complexity must conceal quite a simple murder. The clocks are a red herring, as is the presence of Sheila, and the removal of the dead man's wallet and tailor marks in the clothing. Colin updates Poirot on subsequent visits.

At a room in a Crowdean hotel, Poirot tells Inspector Hardcastle and Colin Lamb what he has deduced. From a careful chronology, he deduces what Edna realised. She returned early from lunch on the day of the murder because her shoe was broken, unnoticed by Miss Martindale, the owner. Miss Martindale ''took no telephone call'' at the time she claimed she had, and is the one person with motive to murder Edna. From that fictitious call, the boss sent Sheila to Miss Pebmarsh's house for steno/typing service. Miss Pebmarsh denies requesting this service. Mrs Bland, one of the neighbours, mentioned she had a sister in the initial interview with Hardcastle. Poirot deduced the identity of this sister as Miss Martindale.

The present Mrs Bland is the second Mrs Bland. Mr Bland said his wife was the sole living relative for her family inheritance but she cannot both be sole heir and have a sister. Mr Bland's first wife died in the Second World War; he remarried soon after, to another Canadian woman. The family of his first wife had cut off communication with their daughter so thoroughly they did not know she had died. Sixteen years later, the first wife was announced to be the heiress to an overseas fortune as the last-known living relative. When this news reached the Blands, they decided the second Mrs Bland must pose as the first Mrs Bland. They fool a British firm of solicitors that sought the heir. When Quentin Duguesclin, who knew the first wife and her family, looked her up in England, a plan was laid to murder him. The plan was simple, with additions like the clocks taken from an unpublished mystery story that Miss Martindale had read in manuscript.

They murdered Mrs Rival before she could tell the police who hired her. Mr Bland and his sister-in-law thought their plan would baffle the police, while Mrs Bland felt she was a pawn in their schemes. Mr Bland disposed of Duguesclin's passport on a trip to Boulogne, which trip he mentioned to Colin in casual conversation. Poirot holds that people reveal much in simple conversation. Poirot had assumed this trip took place, so the man's passport would be found in a country different from where he was murdered, and long after friends and family in Canada had missed him on his holiday in Europe. The missing clock, with Rosemary written on it, was traced. Colin realises that Sheila had taken it and tossed it in the neighbour's dustbin, seeing it was her very own clock, mislaid on the way to a repair shop. But the clock was taken by Miss Martindale, not mislaid by Sheila.

Colin turns his note upside down, and it points him to 19 Wilbraham Crescent. Miss Millicent Pebmarsh is the centre of the ring passing information to the other side in the Cold War, using Braille to encode their messages. He has decided to marry Sheila and realises that Miss Pebmarsh is Sheila's mother, and thus his future mother-in-law. He gives her two hours warning of the net closing around her. She chose her cause over her child once, and does so again, clutching a small deadly knife. "Lamb" disarms her and the two wait for the arrest, both firm in their convictions. The novel closes with two letters from Inspector Hardcastle to Poirot, telling him police have found all the hard evidence to close the case. Mrs Bland, less ruthless than her sister, admitted all under questioning.

This story takes place at the Golden Palm resort on the Caribbean island of St Honoré. Miss Marple's nephew has paid for her to holiday there after a bout of ill health. She speaks with Major Palgrave, a well-travelled man with many stories to share. She sits, half listening, until Palgrave tells a story about a man who got away with murder more than once. When Palgrave asks her if she wants to see a picture of a murderer, she listens intently – but after he finds the snapshot in his wallet, he suddenly changes the subject. Miss Marple looks up to see why and spots several people nearby.

The next day, when the maid Victoria finds Major Palgrave dead in his room, Miss Marple is convinced he was murdered. She asks Dr Graham to find the photo he mentioned, pretending it is of her nephew, but it is not found. Meanwhile, she interviews the others: Tim and Molly Kendal, owners of the hotel; the Prescotts, a clergyman and his sister; Mr Jason Rafiel, a tycoon confined to a wheelchair; Jackson, his nurse/masseur/attendant/valet; Esther Walters, his secretary; the American Lucky Dyson and her husband, Greg; and Edward and Evelyn Hillingdon. On the beach, Miss Marple sees Señora de Caspearo, a woman on holiday who says she remembers Major Palgrave because he had an evil eye. Miss Marple corrects her that he had a glass eye, but she still says that it was evil.

Victoria informs the Kendals that she did not remember seeing the high blood pressure medication, Serenite, in Major Palgrave's room before his death, although it was found on his table after his death. That night, Victoria is found stabbed to death. Molly begins having nightmares. Miss Marple finds Jackson looking at Molly's cosmetics who says that if belladonna were added to it, it would cause nightmares. The following night, Tim finds Molly unconscious on the floor, apparently having taken an overdose of sleeping pills. The police are involved, and the cook, Enrico, tells them he saw Molly holding a steak knife before going outside. Miss Marple asks the others if Major Palgrave told people about the photo. Others claim Palgrave said it was not a photo of a wife killer but a husband killer. When police realize that the high blood pressure medicine did not belong to Major Palgrave, his body is exhumed and the autopsy reveals that he was dead by poison, as Miss Marple expected.

At night, Miss Marple is woken by the sounds of a search party. She is told that Tim woke up to find his wife is missing. They find what seems to be her body in a creek, but it turns out to be Lucky; the two women resemble one another.

Miss Marple abruptly realizes who the Major saw that night when he recognized the person in the snapshot as someone on the island. She wakes Mr Rafiel and Jackson, calling herself Nemesis, and they go to Tim and Molly Kendal's house. There they find Tim offering Molly a drink. Miss Marple tells Jackson to take the glass away. She says there is a deadly narcotic in it. While Jackson holds Tim down, She explains that Tim is the wife killer recognised by Major Palgrave. Miss Marple had thought Palgrave saw the Hillingdons and the Dysons over her right shoulder as they were coming up the beach, but had just realised that he had a glass eye on the left so he could not have seen them. Tim and Molly were sitting on her left. Further, the story that the Major told Miss Marple of the husband serially killing his wives and not getting caught, was the story of Tim Kendall. Tim was planning to kill Molly soon and so had to kill Major Palgrave when he recognised Tim. He also killed Victoria, who remembered the Serenite being in the wrong room. Tim put belladonna in Molly's cosmetics to make her appear mad to the others. Tim had asked his wife to meet him by the creek, but Molly had been distracted by a vision due to the belladonna and wandered off. Tim saw Lucky and mistook her for Molly in the darkness. He was about to poison Molly when Miss Marple interrupted him.

Esther Walters suddenly insists that Tim is not a killer. Tim shouts at her to keep quiet. He had been planning to marry Esther, after Molly's death, because he had heard that she was going to inherit a large sum of money from Jason Rafiel.

Mr Rafiel chooses to invest a bit in Molly, as she takes on running the Golden Palm resort herself. Miss Marple takes her flight home to England after her vacation in the tropical warmth.

The basic premise for the series, akin to the much later live-action sci-fi series ''Sliders'', was the story of a band of adventurous, cuddly, dog-like creatures called Fluppies who use a crystal key to open inter-dimensional doorways. They are on a mountain of one world in perilous weather, and use the crystal key to escape, ending up in a jungle world the Fluppies are chased by a big purple dinosaur-like creature, they find another portal and escape into a supermarket on Earth.

Mistaken for regular dogs, they are captured and placed in a pound. However, prior to their capture, one of the Fluppies was seen shouting to the others which was noticed by J.J. Wagstaff, a ruthless businessman. As their only means of escape, Stanley, the leader of the Fluppies, manages to get a woman to pick him as a pet for her son, Jamie; he plans to eventually return to the pound to free the others. Jamie is disappointed at this new dog, which is smaller than he hoped, but he takes him for a walk. Taking the opportunity, Stanley escapes his leash and makes a break for it, but Jamie pursues him so as to not anger his mother for losing his new pet so soon. The chase leads to a construction site and Jamie finds himself in danger, forcing Stanley to reveal his intelligence and humanoid nature to save him. Meanwhile, Wagstaff, whose mansion is filled with hunting trophies and live exotic animals, sees in an old book the talking dogs he had seen earlier; they are identified as Fluppies. Wagstaff vows to add the Fluppies to his menagerie.

Now with a secret, Stanley explains the situation and Jamie offers to help. However, the boy only has enough money to purchase one of Stanley's compatriots, Tippi, and his mother will not let him keep her, though Jamie's neighbor Claire eagerly agrees to take her in. That night, as Jamie and Stanley sleep, the boy reflexively scratches the Fluppy's head, which causes their bed to fly. Once they awaken and learn how to control the flying effect, Stanley resolves to break his compatriots out that night and pick up Tippi to do so, inadvertently revealing their nature to Claire in the process. At the pound, Stanley and Tippi manage to free their friends and barely avoid Wagstaff, who had the pound opened to seize them.

The next day, the Fluppies depart to find another dimensional portal, but they need Jamie's help. He leaves school to aid them. This portal turns out to lead to a water world, and the company are flooded out and have to return to Jamie's home to dry out. Hiding in the basement, the Fluppies discover another portal inside the house, but opening it releases a large rambunctious creature that runs about, throwing Jamie's home into a shambles before they can bring it under control with Clair naming the creature; "Falumpus". Although the gang manages to put the house in order before Jamie's mother comes home from work, she gets news that Jamie cut school. Angry at her son for playing hooky, she asks many questions, which Jamie concocts a long story whilst the Fluppies clandestinely keep the alien Falumpus pacified in the basement by feeding it flowers.

Hoping to avoid ruining Jamie's life any more, some of the Fluppies continue their search on their own while Stanley and Tippi keep the Falumpus hidden in the basement. The venturing Fluppies come to a library and finally locate the portal to their home world, but while they are returning to tell the other Fluppies the news, Wagstaff captures Ozzie, forcing Stanley and Tippi to ask for Claire's help. Jamie sees them depart in Claire's car as he and the youngest Fluppies ride on the Falumpus in pursuit. However, Wagstaff has been expecting this and manages to capture Stanley and Tippi in his home and threatens to call the police on the children for breaking and entering.

With a desperate plan, the Fluppies convince Wagstaff to let the children "say goodbye" and signals them to scratch on all their heads. The combined strength of this magic tears the entire section of Wagstaff's house into the air. As the occupants struggle to keep their footing with the violent jostling, the Fluppies reach the portal at the front of the library and they crash land the building in front of it. As they struggle to open this portal, which enters into the Fluppies' home dimension, Wagstaff and his butler find themselves knocked inside by the Falumpus while Stanley's company bolts to safety. Before Wagstaff and his butler can exit, the door closes permanently, leaving Jamie and Claire alone in their own reality.

Months later in winter, Jamie and Claire have grown to be close friends after their adventure, but they miss the Fluppies. However, Stanley suddenly appears, saying that adventure is an important part of life. His fellow Fluppies appear saying they missed Claire and Jamie, and Stanley reveals that he has found a way to stabilize the portal between his homeworld and Earth. Hundreds of Fluppies line up to pass through the portal, eager to tour Earth.

Norma Restarick seeks help from Poirot, believing she may have committed murder. When she sees him in person, she flees, saying he is too old. He pursues the case finding that Ariadne Oliver sent Norma to him. He believes there is a murder that prompted Norma's fears. Poirot and Mrs Oliver gather information, visiting her parents’ home and her apartment building. Norma does not return home after a weekend visit to her father and stepmother. Mrs Oliver finds her in a café by chance with her boyfriend David. Poirot meets Norma at the café, where she mentions the death again. After describing the odd times where she cannot recall what has happened she leaves in fear again. Mrs Oliver trails David, ending up in the hospital after being coshed on the head upon leaving his art studio. Poirot arranges for Dr Stillingfleet to follow Norma; he pulls her to safety from a close call with speeding traffic and brings her to his place for treatment and for safety.

Norma's father Andrew abandoned her and her mother Grace when Norma was about 5 years old. Andrew had run off with a woman in a relationship that ended soon after. He travelled in Africa in financially successful ventures. Norma lived with her mother until Grace's death two and a half years before. Andrew returned to England after his brother Simon died a year earlier, to work in the family firm, arriving with a new young wife, Mary. Norma can recognize nothing familiar in this man, but accepts him. Norma is the third girl in her flat in the fashion of young women advertising for a third girl to share the rent. The main tenant, Claudia, is secretary to her newfound father; the other girl, Frances, travels often for the art gallery that employs her.

Mrs Oliver learns that a woman in the apartment building had recently died by falling from her window. A week passes before she tells Poirot, who feels this is what bothers Norma. The woman was Louise Charpentier. Norma says that her father ran off with Louise Birell. Later, Mrs Oliver finds a piece of paper linking Louise Charpentier to Andrew. Mary Restarick has been ill from poison in her food. Sir Roderick engages Poirot to find documents missing from his files which brings young Sonia under suspicion.

Norma is lured from Dr Stillingfleet by an ad in the newspaper to meet David, and is again drugged. Frances kills David. She sets it up to appear that Norma did it, but the blood on the knife was congealed when Norma found herself holding it. With police and family gathered in the flat, Poirot announces that Andrew did die in Africa. Robert Orwell is posing as her father to gain the wealth of the family. He had David paint portraits of him and his late wife in the style of a painter popular 20 years earlier as part of the ruse. Most cruelly, he and his wife have been giving Norma various drugs that give her hallucinations and an altered sense of time, to set her up as guilty. Further, the wife had poisoned herself hoping to pin that on Norma, too. Louise wrote to Andrew on learning he was back in England, so Frances killed Louise; this is the murder Norma feared she did. The woman posing as her stepmother was also Frances, who used a blonde wig to cover her dark hair when changing roles. Poirot takes the wig from her bag to make that point. Murder of the two who could expose the imposters was just one of her crimes. Sonia is exonerated when she finds the papers Sir Roderick misplaced, and the two will marry. Poirot had chosen Dr Stillingfleet to help him with Norma in hopes the two would marry, and they will.

The story begins with Michael Rogers, a twenty-two year old, telling the reader about his time as a chauffeur and how he met the architect Rudolf Santonix. He plans to one day have a house built by Santonix. Mike is poor though, and so can't afford to hire Santonix to build the house he wants. Michael explains that he’s a “rolling stone”; he isn't content doing just one thing and so has held down many different jobs over the years. One day he wants to settle down in his dream house with his dream woman, but for now he can't imagine settling down.

Mike is walking along a village road near the Gipsy's Acre property one day when he falls in love with the grounds. He fantasises about one day building a house there with the woman he loves. Curious to see what an auction is like, he goes to the auction for the property. Several people are interested in buying it, but the bid doesn't go high enough and no one ends up getting the property rights. Michael suspects that this is because of the supposed gipsy’s curse over the property.

While lurking on the grounds, he meets Fenella (Ellie) Guteman by chance, a wealthy heiress who wants to escape from her world of snobby friends, begging relatives, and restrictive financial advisors. She introduces herself as Fenella "Goodman," not wanting him to know her true identity as an heiress. They get along quite well and it seems like love at first sight. He shares his dream of owning the acre with her and she seems to reciprocate and encourage the idea. Ellie also mentions her lovely hired companion, Greta Andersen. Apparently, Greta has acted like a best friend to her for several years now and is described as very efficient. Mike appears incredibly jealous of their close relationship, despite never actually having met Greta before.

Mike then sees Ellie on and off over the next few weeks before she has to travel abroad for her twenty-first birthday. While away from Ellie, Michael discovers that the property he wants has finally been bought. He also returns to his mother's house to ask her for money to marry Ellie. It's quite clear that he doesn't like his mother and she doesn't like him. The situation reads as though she simply disapproves of his spontaneous lifestyle, but Michael claims that his mother knows him all too well. He leaves without the money.

When Ellie returns, she reveals to Mike that she is in fact, one of the wealthiest women in America and that she was the person who bought Gipsy's Acre. She wants to marry him and fulfil his dream of building a beautiful house there. She doesn't even mind leaving her home and family in America to move to England for him. Their marriage is a small event without much fanfare, behind her family's back. Michael is poor and Ellie fears that her family would not approve of him. She is correct, and once they find out, they are highly disapproving of Mike. They even fire Greta for helping arrange the secret marriage. Regardless, Ellie refuses to leave Michael.

Once married, they hire Santonix to build a mansion for them on the acre. After it's finished, Santonix remarks that this will probably be the last house he ever builds due to his failing health. On the night they move in, a rock is thrown through their window, telling them to leave the acre. Ellie is shaken by the incident, but not enough to want to move. Ellie entertains the idea of inviting Greta to live with them at the acre, feeling bad for getting her fired, but Michael doesn't like the idea.

Mike and Ellie discover a small alcove near the cliffs on their property. They fix it up and build a small folly there, but they don't tell anyone about it, using it as a secret getaway area just for them.

The newlywed couple spend the next few weeks meeting the villagers. Major Phillpot stands out as a man wealthy in land but not money, seen as the "god" of the village; he becomes close with Michael. Claudia Hardcastle is another villager of note; she rides horses and becomes good friends with Ellie. They start riding horses together regularly. Ellie reveals that although she is naturally allergic to horses, she takes pills to calm her allergies before riding. She offers them to Claudia, who is also mildly allergic. Later, it is revealed that Claudia is Santonix's half sister and used to be married to one of Ellie's lawyers, Stanford Lloyd.

Meanwhile, an old gipsy woman, Mrs Lee, continues to warn Mike and Ellie of a curse and instructs them to leave the house they built. Ellie grows increasingly wary of her, so much so that Michael goes to the police station to inquire about Mrs Lee. He learns from an officer there, that in the past, Mrs Lee had been bribed with money to terrify other residents. Mike wonders if someone is doing that again.

In the meantime, much to Ellie's chagrin, her American family refuses to leave her alone. Her step mother, Cora, has even moved across the ocean to be in the same country as her. Ellie's lawyers also keep in constant contact with her. Some of them claim it's because she is fragile and needs to be protected, since she has a bad heart. Her head lawyer, Mr Lippincott (known to Ellie as ‘Uncle Andrew’) is especially concerned over her marriage to Michael.

When Ellie injures her ankle, she needs someone to help take care of her and she finally convinces Michael to let Greta stay with them. Ellie begins to worry about Michael and Greta, as they don't appear to like each other and even get into a very heated argument one night.

Michael's mother comes to visit them at Gipsy’s Acre, having never met Ellie before. She wants to see her daughter-in-law. Michael has made it clear that he doesn't want his mother to visit the house or see Ellie, so they meet in private. Ellie only mentions this later in passing to Michael, but he becomes enraged that they met behind his back. She finds his anger curious.

One day, like normal, Ellie goes out horse riding in the morning. She goes alone because Claudia is going shopping with Greta at the outlets that day. Before she leaves, Mike invites Ellie to lunch later with him and Major Phillpot. She accepts their invitation. Mike then goes into town with Major Phillpot and attends an auction for various items. Being rich now, he's able to afford whatever he wants and outbids several others to buy a small gift for Ellie. After the auction, he thinks he sees two people resembling Claudia and one of Ellie's lawyers driving away in a car. He thinks it odd, since Claudia was supposed to be shopping at the outlets and the lawyer was supposed to be in America.

While at lunch with Major Phillpot, Mike begins to worry about the fact that Ellie has not yet joined them. She never turns up to lunch with Mike and Phillpot; when Mike rings back to Gipsy’s Acre, he learns that she hasn’t yet returned from her morning ride, which she should have come back from by lunchtime. Mike and Phillpot search the forest around the house; eventually, Mike discovers her dead body, having sustained no apparent injuries. The local police determine that Ellie died of shock when she was thrown from her horse. Several witnesses come forward, claiming that they saw a woman in the woods the same time Ellie was riding her horse. Based on this, authorities believe it was Mrs Lee who scared the horse on purpose and murdered Ellie by accident, not knowing she had a heart condition.

At the inquest, it is revealed that a gold lighter was found in the alcove with the initial ‘C’ on it. It could either belong to Claudia Hardcastle, her riding companion, or Cora, her stepmother. The inquest is left incomplete though, due to the fact that Mrs Lee does not show up in court. Mrs Lee is deemed missing.

After the inquest, Michael travels to America to attend Ellie’s funeral with her family and collect the inheritance. While there, he hears that Mrs Lee has been found dead in a quarry, and Claudia Hardcastle has also died while out riding her horse. He wonders if it can be a coincidence.

From Mr Lippincott, he also officially learns that Claudia used to be married to Stanford Lloyd, another one of Ellie's lawyers (the one he thought he saw her with that day). Mr Lippincott asks Mike if he ever knew Greta before meeting Ellie. Michael says no. Mr Lippincott says that he has a letter for Michael, but that he'll send it in the mail so he gets it when he arrives back in England.

Before returning to England, Mike goes to visit Santonix on his deathbed in California, his failing health having worsened over the course of the novel. Before Santonix dies, he screams, “You should have gone the other way!” Feeling disturbed by this, Mike returns to the UK on a sea voyage, giving him time to reflect.

When he finally returns to his dream home, he opens the door to his dream woman: Greta Andersen. He reveals how he and Greta had met many years earlier in Germany. They had fallen in love and devised a plan to take Ellie’s money. Greta fixed it so Ellie would meet Michael at the Gipsy’s Acre auction that day. In reality, he already knew exactly who Ellie was. Mike and Greta pretended not to know each other and even hate each other so no one would suspect them. They plan to get married and share Ellie's wealth now that she's gone, the cover story being, both of them were so close to Ellie, no one else could understand the loss except each other.

In reality, they killed Ellie with cyanide, putting it inside her allergy pills that she took prior to her horse ride. Mike was the one who paid Mrs Lee to frighten Ellie and raise suspicion of the heart shock theory and the possible curse. To eliminate Mrs Lee as a witness, Michael and Greta pushed her into a quarry. Claudia Hardcastle was unintentionally poisoned after finding and taking some of Ellie's pills in the alcove. She was the one who left the lighter by accident. It is also implied that Santonix, given his proximity to Mike during the false courtship and marriage, was suspicious of Mike’s true intentions.

Michael and Greta celebrate what they have done, but when Michael opens the letter from Mr Lippincott, he is horrified to find a picture of himself and Greta years ago in Germany. He becomes paranoid that everyone knows the plot he and Greta formulated. He starts to lapse and sees Ellie everywhere he looks. Greta tries to assure him that it is nothing, but, in a fit of psychotic rage, he strangles Greta.

Shortly afterwards, the police and the local doctor arrive, their suspicions aroused by Claudia Hardcastle's death. They find him sitting with Greta's corpse, slowly losing his sanity.

It is revealed that after Mike was arrested, he wanted to write down the entire story from his perspective; the novel is the account written down by Mike. He then recounts all of the bad things he has done; as a child, he drowned his friend in a pond to steal his watch. As a young adult, he let another friend bleed to death after a mugging just so he could steal all of the money on his person. He always hated his mother because he thought that she was suspicious of him. She was the only person (perhaps other than Santonix) who could see through him. This is why he was angry that Ellie had met his mother: he was worried his mother might reveal his true character to her.

He wonders if he could have ever actually been happy with Ellie and why he threw his chance with her away. He wonders if he ever did love her. The novel ends.

In 1950, George Eastman, the poor nephew of rich industrialist Charles Eastman, arrives in town following a chance encounter with his uncle while working as a bellhop in Chicago. Although George is regarded as an outsider by the Eastmans, Charles offers George an entry-level job at his factory. George starts dating fellow factory worker Alice Tripp in defiance of the workplace rules. Alice is a poor and inexperienced girl who is dazzled by George and slow to believe that his Eastman name brings him no advantages.

Over time, George begins a slow move up the corporate ladder and is invited by Charles to a social event, where George meets and falls for socialite Angela Vickers, who is also attracted to him. They fall in love. Just as George enters the intoxicating and care-free lifestyle his new life with Angela brings, Alice announces she is pregnant and, unable to procure an abortion, expects George to marry her. George puts Alice off and continues spending more time with Angela without Alice's knowledge. George is invited to Angela's family lake house over Labor Day and tells Alice the visit will advance his career. Alice discovers George's lie after seeing a newspaper photograph of George and Angela boating with friends. Alice calls George at the Vickers home and threatens to come there and reveal herself unless he leaves and returns to her. Shaken, George tells his hosts his mother is sick and he must leave.

The next morning, George and Alice drive to City Hall to get married but it is closed for Labor Day. George is relieved and, remembering Alice cannot swim, begins forming a plan to drown her in the lake by feigning an accident. Alice unsuspectingly agrees to the lake venture. Arriving at the lake, George attempts to cover for the upcoming murder by falsely stranding his car in the woods and renting a rowboat under a false name. While they are out on the lake, Alice talks about her dreams concerning their happy future together with their child. As George apparently takes pity on her, Alice tries to stand up in the boat, causing it to capsize, and Alice drowns.

George escapes, swims to shore, behaves suspiciously when he comes across campers on his way back to the car, and eventually drives to the Vickers' lodge. He fails to report the accident. Alice's body is discovered and her death is treated as a homicide as the evidence against George begins to mount. Just as Angela's father approves Angela's marriage to him, George is arrested and charged with Alice's murder. George's furtive actions before and after Alice's death condemn him. His denials are futile, and he is found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in the electric chair. Near the end, he agrees when the priest suggests that, although he did not kill Alice, he did not act to save her because he was thinking of Angela. The priest then states that, in his heart, it was murder. Angela visits George in prison, saying that she will always love him, and George slowly marches toward his execution.

Sir Stafford Nye's flight home from Malaya takes an unexpected twist, when a woman approaches him in the Frankfurt Airport. The woman claims that her life is in danger, and that she needs his help. Nye agrees to lend her his travelling cloak, passport, and boarding ticket. A colleague in London, Horsham of Security, tells Nye that his action in Frankfurt saved Mary Ann's life; Sir Stafford heard another name announced for her at the airport, Daphne Theodofanous. Nye has dinner with his friend Eric, worried for his professional reputation. Mary Ann returns his passport, taped into a magazine in his post. Nye advertises in the personals section of the newspaper for his mystery woman, signing himself as Passenger to Frankfurt. She replies with tickets to an opera, given at a discreet meeting on a bridge. His great-aunt Matilda hints to him of a terrible world-wide conspiracy, which uses a phrase of music from Richard Wagner, related to the opera ''Siegfried'' (1876). Matilda detects that he has a woman in his life now.

The opera is ''Siegfried'', part of ''The Ring of the Nibelung'' by Wagner. The mystery woman attends only the second half, leaving Nye the tune for young Siegfried marked on a copy of the program, a motif for what she is doing. He attends an embassy party, given by the American ambassador and his wife, Sam and Mildred Cortman. Mary Ann is there, under her real name, Countess Renata Zerkowski. She offers Nye a ride home, but takes him instead to the home of Mr Robinson the financier, where they meet Colonel Pikeaway, Lord Altamount, James Kleek and Horsham. Nye is not seen for a while, as he has been accepted by the close-knit group of British intelligence to aid in accomplishing the tasks Mary Ann has taken on. They travel extensively. Mary Ann warns Nye that one among their own group is probably a traitor.

Some believe that near the end of World War II, Adolf Hitler went to a mental institution, met with a group of people who thought they were Hitler, and exchanged places with one of them, thus surviving the war. He escaped to Argentina, where he married and had a son who was branded with a swastika on his heel. This belief encourages those who want to resurrect the beliefs and ways of the Nazis. The Countess believes she has this boy with his swastika tattoo. The story is told to the Intelligence group by psychiatrist Dr Reichardt, but they know it is false. Hitler had no son. The British Intelligence group explains in several long expository chapters how drugs, promiscuity, and student unrest in the United States and Europe are caused by Nazi agitators. The agitators begin to bring about anarchy, attacking the American ambassador and the French Marshal. The goal is to re-build fascism. Meetings in Paris and London describe the movement of money and arms and their sources, and major players.

Nye's great-aunt, Lady Matilda, goes on her own trip, to visit her school mate, Countess Charlotte von Waldsausen, learning Charlotte's plans to be leader of the fascist world, which she then relates to her nephew. On her return, Matilda tells her friend Admiral Philip Blunt about the scientist Professor Shoreham, who invented something called Project B, or Benvo, which is a drug that makes people altruistic, but may cause a long-term change. Shoreham had a stroke, and he cannot communicate well. He had shelved Project B before his stroke. The Intelligence group meets at Shoreham's home, where he explains the limitations of his benevolent project. Kleek, traitor in the Intelligence group tries to kill Lord Altamount by poison and is blocked, so Miss Ellis the nurse to Shoreham shoots Lord Altamount, who dies of shock. Miss Ellis is recognized as Milly Jean Cortman, who had also killed her husband. The violent incident brings new energy to Shoreham, who resolves to restart work on his project. He will contact his colleague Gottlieb to restart Project Benvo and also arrange a memorial to Lord Altamount, the only politician he had ever trusted.

The final chapter is an epilogue, with Nye at Matilda's house preparing for his upcoming marriage to Mary Ann. The supposed son of Hitler has been brought to England for a more normal life and is about to become the organist at their church. Sybil, Nye's 5-year-old niece, will be the flower girl at the wedding. Nye forgets a best man, but asks Sybil to bring the panda, which he bought for her at the Frankfurt airport, as it has been "in it" from the beginning.

Miss Marple receives a letter from the solicitors of the recently deceased Jason Rafiel, a millionaire whom she had met during a holiday on which she had encountered a murder, which asks her to look into an unspecified crime; if she succeeds in solving the crime, she will inherit £20,000. Rafiel has left her few clues. She begins by joining a tour of famous British houses and gardens with fifteen other people, arranged by Mr Rafiel prior to his death. Elizabeth Temple is the retired school headmistress who relates the story of Verity, who was engaged to Rafiel's ne'er-do-well son, Michael, but the marriage did not happen. Another member of the tour group, Miss Cooke, is a woman she had met briefly in St Mary Mead.

Her next clue comes from Lavinia Glynne; Rafiel had written to Mrs Glynne and her two sisters before his death, suggesting Miss Marple spend the most physically challenging few days of the tour with them at the Old Manor House. Miss Marple accepts Lavinia's invitation. She then meets Lavinia's spinster sisters, Clotilde and Anthea Bradbury-Scott. Touring the grounds, Miss Marple notices a creeping plant about to bloom, polygonum baldschuanicum covering the wreck of the greenhouse. On talking with the servant, Miss Marple learns Verity joined the family after both her parents died, becoming quite attached to Clotilde. Verity is dead now, brutally murdered. Michael Rafiel is in prison.

On the morning of her return to her party, Miss Marple learns Miss Temple had been injured by a rockslide during the previous day's hike, and was lying in a coma in hospital. The group stays over an extra night to wait for news from the tour guide about Miss Temple's health. Professor Wanstead, a pathologist and psychologist interested in criminal brains, had been instructed by Mr Rafiel to go on the tour. He had examined Michael Rafiel at the request of the head of the prison where Michael was incarcerated; he came to the conclusion Michael was not capable of murder. He tells Miss Marple how distant Michael's father seemed, yet wanting justice. He mentions a missing young local woman, Nora Broad, and he fears she will be found murdered. Wanstead takes Miss Marple to see Miss Temple; in a moment of consciousness, Miss Temple had asked for Miss Marple. Miss Temple wakes long enough to tell Miss Marple to "search for Verity Hunt", and dies that night. The three sisters extend their invitation to Miss Marple when she decides not to return to the tour, and she promptly accepts. That night, Mrs Glynne tells the story of Verity in their household to Miss Marple.

After the inquiry into Miss Temple's death, Miss Marple is visited by Archdeacon Brabazon, a friend of Miss Temple. He tells Miss Marple he was going to marry Verity Hunt and Michael Rafiel in a secret ceremony. While he disapproved of the secrecy and worried about their prospects, he agreed to marry them because he could see they were in love. He was most surprised when neither turned up for the wedding, nor sent a note. Miss Marple stays another night with the three sisters when the tour moves on. Professor Wanstead travels to London by train on an errand for Miss Marple. Miss Barrow and Miss Cooke decide they will visit a nearby church. Later that evening, Miss Marple talks with the sisters about what she thinks may have happened and, while they are doing so, Miss Barrow and Miss Cooke appear, to talk to Miss Marple. They stay for a time and are then invited back for coffee that evening.

As they talk about Miss Temple, Miss Marple suggests, albeit dissembling, Joanna Crawford and Emlyn Price (two of those on the tour) pushed the boulder, and their alibis are mere fabrication. As they get ready to leave, Miss Cooke suggests the coffee would not suit Miss Marple, as it will keep her up all night. Clotilde then offers some warm milk. The two ladies soon depart, although each returns to retrieve a forgotten item. At three o'clock in the morning, Clotilde enters Miss Marple's room, surprised when Miss Marple turns on the light. Miss Marple tells her she did not drink the milk. Clotilde offers to warm it up, but Miss Marple tells her she still would not drink it because she knows Clotilde killed Verity Hunt and buried her body in the wreck of the greenhouse, because she could not bear Verity leaving her for someone else. She also knows Clotilde brutally murdered Nora Broad to (mis)identify her body as Verity's and thus throw suspicion on Michael Rafiel. Clotilde murdered Miss Temple as well. As Clotilde advances toward her, Miss Marple blows on a whistle, which brings Miss Cooke and Miss Barrow to her defence — they are bodyguards employed by Mr Rafiel to protect Miss Marple. Clotilde drinks the milk herself, which is poisoned. Miss Marple tells the story to the Home Secretary, including that Verity is buried on the property of the Bradbury-Scotts. Michael Rafiel is set free. Miss Marple collects her inheritance, confident she completed the task given her.

Tommy and Tuppence have decided to retire. They have purchased a new residence for themselves, called the Laurels. The residence is located in Hollowquay, a resort town. The couple have inherited the library of the Laurels' previous owners, and Tuppence decides to sort through its collection of children's books. She examines a copy of ''The Black Arrow'' (1888), as she recalls reading this novel in her youth. Inside the book, Tuppence finds a hidden message: "Mary Jordan did not die naturally. It was one of us. I think I know which one.

Tuppence searches for the grave of Mary Jordan, but is unable to locate it. She instead finds the grave of Alexander Parkinson, who was the book's original owner and the message's writer. Alexander had died at age 14. Investigating the past of the Parkinson household, Tuppence finds out that Mary Jordan was an au pair who worked for the Parkinsons. Mary reportedly died accidentally, poisoned by eating lethal foxglove leaves. The leaves had been mixed into a salad that she ate. The death supposedly occurred 60 years before the present.

Tommy and Tuppence gather information about Mary from aging villagers. They learn that she was involved in "secret government affairs", involving the plans for the development of a new submarine. Tommy contacts his former associates in British intelligence, who confirm this information. The Beresfords learn that Mary was herself a British secret agent.

The Beresfords are initially content to investigate this cold case. But their gardener Isaac Bodlicott is murdered, and left on their doorstep. The couple are apparently close to uncovering a "long-buried secret", and there are mysterious enemies willing to stop them.

Arriving at New York City's Pennsylvania Station after a trip to Cuba, Sheila Bennet (Evelyn Keyes), who is smuggling $50,000 worth of diamonds into the country, realizes she is being followed by the authorities. She mails the diamonds to her husband, Matt Krane (Charles Korvin), instead of carrying them around, and then tries to shake the Treasury agent following her.

Feeling sick, Sheila nearly faints on the street, so a police officer takes her to a local clinic. While there, she encounters a little girl and inadvertently infects her. Sheila is misdiagnosed as having a common cold, and she leaves and returns home. After the girl is admitted to the hospital, she is found to have smallpox.

Meanwhile, Matt has been cheating on Sheila with her sister, Francie (Lola Albright), and then attempts to take off without either of them when the diamonds finally arrive through the mail. However, the fence cannot buy the diamonds because the police are searching for them. Matt will have to wait for ten days for the cash, so he cannot leave New York. Sheila confronts Francie, who kills herself afterward due to Matt's betrayal of them both. This gives Sheila more reason to get revenge on him.

Finding a growing number of smallpox victims, city officials decide to vaccinate everyone in New York to prevent an epidemic, but quickly run out of serum. This causes a panic in the city. Tracking the victims, agents realize that the disease carrier and the diamond smuggler are one and the same. However, an increasingly sick Sheila continues to elude capture. Still unaware that she has smallpox, she returns to the doctor at the clinic to get more medicine. The doctor explains her illness and tries to talk her into turning herself in, but she shoots him in the shoulder and escapes.

Sheila eventually catches up with Matt, who tries to escape from the police, but falls from a building ledge to his death. Sheila nearly attempts to drop herself from the ledge, until the doctor tells her the little girl she met had died. Sheila turns herself in and, before succumbing to the disease, provides authorities information on those she had contacted.

In 2029, an army of alien invaders led by Vile Malmort has planted an "Astrotube" connecting the ruins of New York City with their space station. A team of part-human part-machine soldiers known as the Special Cybernetic Attack Team or "SCAT" has been assembled in order to combat the invasion.

The pilot centers on Harry Broderick (Andy Griffith) who owns the Jettison Scrap and Salvage Co. and is a specialist in reclaiming trash and junk to sell as scrap. His dream is to recover equipment left on the Moon during Apollo Program missions. In the show's opening title narration, Harry states:

"I wanna build a spaceship, go to the Moon, salvage all the junk that's up there, bring it back, sell it."

He invites the former astronaut Addison "Skip" Carmichael (Joel Higgins) and NASA fuel expert Melanie "Mel" Slozar (Trish Stewart) to assist him in this effort. During Slozar's fuel experiments, the Federal Bureau of Investigation becomes concerned over the purchases of chemicals.

Broderick and his ragtag crew complete their mission and go on to further adventures in the subsequent series. A recurring subplot drives numerous attempts to find the appropriate explosive mixture to break an iceberg from the Arctic Shelf, to be transported to the California coast as a source of fresh water.

Richard Jaeckel had a recurring role as Jack Klinger, the FBI agent tasked with keeping an eye on Broderick and his associates. Their relationship is generally rocky, but the Salvage crew fly to his rescue when he is captured during a mission to a Latin American dictatorship.

The ''Vulture''

Harry builds a spaceship dubbed ''Vulture'', made completely from reclaimed salvage and powered by a chemical called monohydrazine. The main body of ''Vulture'' is composed of a Texaco gasoline semi-trailer tank truck with a cement mixer as the capsule. This is augmented with three shorter rocket boosters placed 120 degrees around the main tank.

Niko Bellic, an Eastern European ex-soldier, arrives in Liberty City aboard a cargo ship, the ''Platypus'', to escape his criminal past, pursue the American Dream, and search for the man who betrayed his unit in a war ten years prior. Reuniting with his cousin Roman, he discovers that his tales of riches were lies concealing his small dirty apartment, unprofitable taxi company, gambling debts, and disputes with loan sharks. Niko begins assisting Roman with his problems, which leads him to make his first criminal contacts in the city. He befriends Yardies underboss Little Jacob and is forced to work for Vlad Glebov, Roman's Russian loan shark, whom Niko eventually kills upon learning he had slept with Roman's girlfriend, Mallorie.

In retaliation, Niko and Roman are kidnapped by Russian mobsters on orders of their boss Mikhail Faustin and his lieutenant, Dimitri Rascalov. Indifferent to Vlad's murder, Faustin releases them and employs Niko as a hitman, eventually ordering him to kill the son of Russian crime lord Kenny Petrović. When Petrović threatens retaliation, Dimitri convinces Niko to assassinate Faustin. However, he then betrays and brings Niko to his former employer, Ray Bulgarin, who accuses Niko of stealing from him during a botched human trafficking job years earlier. Niko denies the allegation and a firefight ensues, allowing Dimitri and Bulgarin to escape.

Dimitri's men burn down Niko and Roman's apartment and taxi company, forcing them to flee to Bohan. While Niko finds work for several local drug lords, Dimitri kidnaps Roman in a failed attempt to lure Niko into a trap. Later, Niko discovers that his girlfriend Michelle is a government agent, and she entraps him into working for her agency, the United Liberty Paper. In exchange for the assassinations of several known or suspected terrorists, the agency clears Niko's criminal record and searches for the traitor he seeks. Niko and Roman's fortunes improve when the latter receives a large amount of insurance money from his destroyed business, which he uses to rebuild it and buy an apartment in Algonquin. Roman also proposes to Mallorie, who accepts.

While working for the Irish Mob, Niko befriends gangster Patrick McReary and helps him and his brothers carry out a bank robbery. Niko is later hired by Ray Boccino, a ''caporegime'' in the Pegorino crime family, to oversee a diamond deal, which goes awry. Boccino repays Niko by helping him find ex-comrade Florian Cravic, now known as Bernie Crane, who claims that he did not betray their unit; Niko concludes that the traitor was Darko Brevic. Niko continues working for the Mafia in Liberty City and eventually earns the trust of Don Jimmy Pegorino after killing Boccino, who was suspected of being a police informant. Niko also helps Patrick kidnap Don Giovanni Ancelotti's daughter to ransom her for the diamonds, but Bulgarin intercepts the exchange, and the diamonds are lost.

Eventually, the Paper finds Darko and brings him to Liberty City for Niko to decide his fate. Having achieved closure on his past, Niko is summoned by Pegorino for one final favour: to help with a highly lucrative heroin deal in collusion with Dimitri. Niko must either strike the deal with Dimitri or exact revenge on him. Should Niko go through with the deal, Dimitri again betrays him and keeps the heroin for himself. At Roman's wedding, an assassin sent by Dimitri accidentally kills Roman with a stray bullet. Aided by Little Jacob, a devastated Niko murders Dimitri, who in turn had killed Pegorino. Later, Mallorie informs Niko that she is pregnant with Roman's child, whom Niko vows to protect. Should Niko choose to exact revenge, he finds and kills Dimitri aboard the ''Platypus''. At Roman's wedding, Pegorino, furious at Niko's betrayal, targets him in a drive-by shooting, but accidentally kills Patrick's sister Kate, whom Niko had been dating. Aided by Little Jacob and Roman, Niko tracks down and kills Pegorino. Later, Roman tells Niko that Mallorie is pregnant and that they decided to name the baby after Kate if it is a girl.

Inspired by ''The Baby-Sitters Club'' series of novels, Lisa decides to become a babysitter, but no one takes her seriously because of her age. When Maude is taken hostage in Lebanon, Ned must leave suddenly to get her released. In his haste, he agrees to let Lisa babysit Rod and Todd. Ned puts out the good word for Lisa, who experiences a business boom.

Inspired by the success of Baltimore's revamped wharf, the Springfield Squidport reopens and throws a gala. Homer and Marge attend, leaving Lisa to babysit Bart and Maggie. Bart is upset that his younger sister is his babysitter; Lisa thinks his childish antics warrant it. Bart torments Lisa by having a giant submarine sandwich delivered, hiring Krusty for a bachelor party, claiming that Lisa saw a UFO, dialing for a "sisterectomy", and feeding Maggie coffee ice cream for dinner.

Bart's pranks anger Lisa so much that she lunges at him, causing him to fall down the stairs, dislocating his shoulder and leaving a large bump on his head. Bart realizes if Lisa fails to take him to a nearby hospital, her reputation as a babysitter will be ruined. To make his condition worse, Bart locks himself in his room and repeatedly bangs his head against the door, eventually knocking himself unconscious.

Lisa tries to call for an ambulance, but the operator refuses to assist her due to Bart's earlier prank calls. Lisa considers asking Dr. Hibbert for help, but realizes that would ruin her reputation as a babysitter. Instead, she takes Bart to Dr. Nick Riviera's clinic in a wheelbarrow, bringing Maggie along in a pet carrier because the coffee ice cream has overstimulated her. Lisa is unable to see the doctor due to a long queue in the waiting room.

Frantic, Lisa tries to wheel Bart and Maggie to the hospital. She loses control of the wheelbarrow and it rolls down a cliff into a muddy river — in front of aghast onlookers at the Squidport. The crowd assumes Lisa is on drugs, has murdered Bart, and is about to drown the caged Maggie, and accuse her of bad babysitting.

Later, Bart, whose injuries have been treated, apologizes to Lisa for causing the ordeal and ruining her babysitting business. She forgives him, but feels bad for being called the "World's Worst Babysitter". Much to her delight, she receives babysitting requests from Hibbert and Ned because they cannot find any other sitters.

''Exultant'' is set in Baxter's "Xeelee Sequence" twenty thousand years into the Third Expansion of Mankind, "a titanic project undertaken by a mankind united by the Doctrines forged by Hama Druz after mankind's near extinction." The human-supremacist Interim Coalition of Governance has conquered almost the whole Milky Way — all but the alien Xeelee concentrated at the galactic core around a supermassive black hole called Chandra. The mysterious Xeelee are far more advanced but less numerous than the humans, and the war has been at a stalemate for three millennia even though the entire Coalition has been directed toward the war effort and ten billion humans die at the front every year. In a war fought with faster-than-light technology (equivalent to time travel), each side has foreknowledge of the other's actions and can develop counter-measures to plans before they are made.

Pirius is a fighter pilot stationed at the front. When a battle turns to disaster for the Coalition forces, he disobeys suicide orders to stand and fight, choosing instead to risk survival. In a desperate gamble to outrun a pursuing Xeelee, Pirius captures a Xeelee fighter for the first time in history. Returning to base via FTL travel, he arrives two years previous to the battle, when his younger self is still a cadet. Rather than being lauded as a hero, both instances of Pirius are court-martialed for disobeying orders.

Commissary Nilis of the Office of Technological Archival and Control, part of the Commission for Historical Truth, defends both the older Pirius (whom he calls "Pirius Blue") and the younger one ("Pirius Red") but loses the trial. Pirius Blue is sent to a penal unit at the front as a foot soldier, and Pirius Red is remanded to the custody of Commissary Nilis, who has plans for the fruits of Pirius Blue's battlefield victory. Using the Xeelee fighter and the innovative tactics that saved Pirius Blue, he starts to plan an unheard of assault on the Xeelee's primary stronghold at Chandra itself.

While Nilis and his new team struggle to confront ossified government and military institutions, they try to understand and to develop new and sometimes alien technologies: FTL computers, a gravastar shield to protect them from FTL foreknowledge, and a black hole gun, capable of disrupting a supermassive black hole's event horizon. Meanwhile, in the course of his new duties to Commissary Nilis, Pirius Red is practically taken on a tour of the Solar System and some of the Coalition's most scandalous secrets, rife with references to events from previous books in the Xeelee sequence.

As Nilis's project nears completion, it transpires that the Chandra black hole is home to not only the Xeelee, but a host of other organisms, many of which are based on exotic physics and non-baryonic matter. Regardless, the assault on the black hole continues despite protestations from Nilis. After a brutal fight to reach the surface of the black hole, the team commence their assault, causing the Xeelee to abandon it (and the rest of the Milky Way galaxy) to prevent humanity from harming the black hole's inhabitants.

After the assault, the protagonists realise that the Coalition is unlikely to remain intact, now that the war with the Xeelee is no longer present to hold it together. Luru Parz, one of the team, realises that the Xeelee will eventually return, and returns to Earth to ready its defences for when the return happens.

Dr. Lao rides a golden donkey into the small town of Abalone, Arizona and visits Edward Cunningham's newspaper to place a large advertisement for his traveling circus, which will play for two nights only.

Though quiet, Abalone is not peaceful. Wealthy rancher Clinton Stark has inside information that a railroad is coming to town and plans to buy the entire town while the land is cheap. Stark arrives at the newspaper offices to confront Cunningham about a recent editorial in opposition to Stark's plan. Lao, waiting to place his ad, silently listens to the meeting.

Another of Stark's opponents is Angela Benedict, a widow librarian and schoolteacher. Cunningham displays affection for her, embarrassing her in a visit to the library to research Lao's background, but she suppresses her reciprocal feelings.

At a town hall meeting, Stark announces that the town's 16-mile-long water-supply pipe is decaying and that a replacement would be prohibitively expensive. He offers to buy the entire town. Arguing against the offer, Cunningham introduces George G. George, a Navajo Indian who lives nearby in a town whose residents depend on Abalone's existence. Stark reluctantly allows the townspeople to ponder their choice until the next Friday night.

The next day, Cunningham confronts Lao at the circus site, arguing that Lao's hometown vanished centuries earlier. The mysterious Lao deflects Cunningham's questions. Later, Angela's young son Mike learns that Lao is 7,321 years old. When the circus opens, Lao uses his many faces to offer his wisdom, including those of Pan (the god of joy), the Great Serpent, Medusa and the magician Merlin.

Mike visits Lao seeking a job, displaying his novice juggling and conjuring skills. Lao instead offers observations in the form of a poetic speech about the world, and life, as a circus.

It is learned that on the first night of the circus, Stark's henchmen destroyed the newspaper office. Angela is kept awake that night, plagued by the music that Pan played while nobody else can hear it.

At dawn, the newspapermen are astonished to discover that their office has been fully restored with the press operating. Attributing it to Lao, they rush to produce a short edition of the paper, which Cunningham delivers to Stark in the morning. When he visits the circus site, Lao offers encouragement and calls on Cunningham to keep faith.

That evening, Lao stages his grand finale, a magic lantern show that ends in explosions and darkness. The townspeople find themselves again in the library in a town meeting. A vote is called on Stark's proposal, and to the surprise of Cunningham, Benedict and Stark, it is rejected unanimously. Stark tells everyone about the coming railroad and Angela confesses her love to Cunningham.

Stark's henchmen are confused by their his apparent change of character and trash Lao's circus in a drunken spree, during which they break Dr. Lao's fishbowl. The fish inside it is revealed to be the Loch Ness Monster, which balloons to enormous size when exposed to the open air. After it chases the two thugs away, Dr. Lao conjures rain to wet the monster and shrink it to its original size.

Morning comes and the circus is gone, with only a red circle on the desert floor where the tent had been. At first Mike's reports of the previous night are disbelieved, but Stark finds the hat belonging to one of the henchmen. Mike chases a dust plume that seems to him to be the spirit of Dr. Lao. However, Mike finds only three wooden balls, which he juggles while summoning the spirit of Lao to observe.

Dr. Lao rides away as his advice from two nights earlier is repeated, reminding Mike that the circus of Dr. Lao is life itself, and that everything within it is a wonder.

After Reverend Lovejoy's sermon bores his congregation, Marge voices her concern over his lack of enthusiasm about helping people. Lovejoy explains that his passion faded as he dealt with Ned Flanders's constant trivial problems. Marge begins working for the Church as the "Listen Lady", listening to people's problems and helping solve them. Lovejoy realizes his inadequacy and feels depressed; visions of the saints chastise him for doing little to inspire his congregation.

Homer takes Bart and Lisa to dispose of their Christmas tree at the Springfield dump, where they find a box of Japanese dishwasher detergent, Mr. Sparkle, whose mascot resembles Homer. Disturbed, Homer contacts the manufacturer in Hokkaidō, Japan. Homer is sent a promotional video that reveals that the mascot is a result of a joint venture between two conglomerates, whose mascots, a fish and a lightbulb, merge to form Mr. Sparkle; the similarity to Homer is a mere coincidence.

Ned telephones Marge for help: the delinquents Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney are loitering outside his store, the Leftorium. At her suggestion, he tries to shoo them away, but they harass him. Ned calls Marge again, but when the bullies cut the phone cord, Marge assumes that Ned has hung up and that everything is fine. The next morning, Maude informs Marge that Ned is missing. Marge goes to Lovejoy for help, and they track Ned to the zoo, where Japanese tourists think Homer is Mr. Sparkle. Lovejoy rescues Ned from the baboon enclosure and rediscovers his passion for his career, regaling his congregation with the tale of Ned's rescue.

The film features scenes of Laurer and Waltman taking a guided tour of China, intercut with footage of the pair participating in explicit anal, vaginal, and oral sex acts, with special emphasis on an anal sex scene, which serves as the climax of the film. Waltman admits to being under the influence of methamphetamine and marijuana during much of the film.

Beauregard Bottomley is a polymath who lives in Los Angeles with his piano-instructor sister Gwenn and an alcohol-guzzling parrot they found named Caesar. Beauregard is knowledgeable on any subject—except how to hold a job.

In front of a store window, Beauregard and Gwenn watch a quiz show, ''Masquerade for Money'', hosted by Happy Hogan, and sponsored by Milady Soap. Each contestant dresses up in a particular costume in which their costume determines the type of questions asked, with the prize money doubling with each correct answer, starting at $5 and reaching up to a maximum of $160. A contestant can quit anytime, but an incorrect response results in no money won, only in a reward of the consolation prize of Milady Soap. Beauregard is contemptuous of the show.

A representative of the State of California Department of Employment encourages Beauregard to interview for a job at the Milady Soap Company, which he does. Beauregard meets the company's eccentric owner, Burnbridge Waters, who disapproves of Beauregard's humor and rejects him. To get even, Beauregard enters "Masquerade for Money" as a contestant, dressed as an encyclopedia, and because he does, and consistent with the rules of the show, the host can ask him about anything. Before the questions begin, Happy starts to praise the qualities of Milady Soap, but Beauregard says that it works just like any other soap, outraging Waters. Beauregard easily answers correctly the maximum six questions, then requests one more, which he also answers correctly, earning $320. Beauregard turns down the money and asks to return next week.

Waters decides to invite Beauregard back for one question per show for six weeks and heavily publicizes it. During that time, "Masquerade for Money" tops the ratings, and sales of Milady Soap skyrocket.

At the end of that time, Waters approves of giving Beauregard an impossibly hard question, but when Beauregard answers it correctly, Waters becomes uneasy. Happy offers to take piano lessons from Gwenn to try to find a weakness in Beauregard. Beauregard sees through the scheme, but Gwenn sneaks out on a date with Happy anyway. When Gwenn tells Happy that she and her brother think that he is just trying to get information from her, he admits that he is but also says that he is glad to have met her. Gwenn tells Happy that Beauregard intends to win $40 million, to take everything that Waters has. Happy tells Waters, who cancels the show and sends Beauregard a check for his current winnings ($40,000), which Beauregard refuses to accept.

Following the series' cancellation, sales for Milady Soap plummet, forcing Waters to reinstate the show. Beauregard reaches $10 million. Waters calls in a scheming "Flame" O'Neill to distract Beauregard. Beauregard catches a cold from being in a driving rainstorm, so Flame pretends to be a nurse to him. Beauregard is aware of, but nevertheless quickly succumbs to, Flame's charms (as does Waters). Flame breaks her dinner date with Beauregard to undermine his self-confidence and peace of mind. The night of the show, Beauregard reveals that he (supposedly) never mastered Albert Einstein's "space-time theories". The next question is, of course, about Einstein's views of space-time. Realizing Flame has betrayed him, Beauregard initially struggles but eventually comes up with an answer. Happy says that Beauregard's answer is incorrect and intends to reward him the consolation prize of Milady Soap. However, Einstein himself calls on the telephone before the end of the show to say that Beauregard's answer is correct, whereupon Happy acknowledges on-air that Beauregard's answer is correct after all. Afterward, Beauregard confronts Flame, who has fallen for him. Unaware of Flame's supposed newly found fondness for him, Beauregard spanks her with her hairbrush and informs her that he deliberately misled her, that he actually "spent an entire season with Einstein", but also admits that he fell madly in love with her.

Waters books the Hollywood Bowl for the last show. Happy and Gwenn, and Beauregard and Flame, each plan to marry. Beauregard and Gwenn caution each other that their would-be spouses could be just after the money. Each calls and suggests marrying ''before'' the show, but Happy and Flame each come up with excuses.

For the final question, Happy asks Beauregard what his Social Security number is. Beauregard answers incorrectly. After the show, to the joy of Beauregard and Gwenn, Flame and Happy still want to marry them. Waters shows up at Beauregard's home, bearing gifts, including champagne. (Caesar used to be Waters' pet.) As Beauregard and Flame drive to Las Vegas to get married, Beauregard reveals that he and Waters had made a deal in which Beauregard would lose in exchange for getting his own radio show, some stock, and other considerations. Beauregard was motivated to make such a deal because two T men had signaled their intent to tax a significant amount of his winnings. Beauregard then admits that he actually did not know the answer.

On March 13, 1954, a passenger plane crashes in Japan, killing all but one passenger: a woman who is nine months pregnant. Ultimately she dies in a hospital, but her unborn daughter is saved. However, for a reason inexplicable by the science of the day, the daughter (named Yumi) does not wake up and is essentially in a comatose state. Her wealthy father has her placed in a hospital where she will be cared for indefinitely (and also offers a reward to anyone who can wake her) while he vanishes in search of a cure to her condition.

Seven years later (March 25, 1961) Yuichi (a boy who is roughly seven himself) is admitted to the same hospital (with asthma) and discovers Yumi. After being told of her condition and then reading the story of Sleeping Beauty, he resolves to awaken Yumi by kissing her. Saying, "Wake up, I'm the prince," he kisses her on the lips. This has no effect, but Yuichi is undeterred, and makes a routine of this, even after he leaves the hospital, repeating the same line and kissing her. Although a nurse finds this "cute" and lets him continue, when Doctor Hikawa discovers his actions, he ejects Yuichi from the hospital, infuriated that Yuichi believes that he can awaken the girl, whom he himself could not awaken with all the powers of medical science.

For the next ten years Yuichi does not visit the hospital at all, until February 14, 1972 when he sees a new report on Yumi who, after 17 years, has still never awoken. Overcome by the memories of his childhood, Yuichi returns to the hospital, and although initially thwarted by a new (apparently American) nurse, he eventually resumes his ten-year-old routine, with similarly little results, although more genuine emotion. Doctor Hikawa – now a Director of the Hospital – gradually becomes aware of his actions.

After Yuichi accidentally kisses a girl at school as part of an elaborate setup on the part of his friends, he rushes to the hospital (it would appear he considered it an act of infidelity) despite the rain and late hour, and passionately kisses Yumi. He does not use the "Wake up, I'm the prince" line, but instead begs her (apparently in his thoughts), stating, "I'm no prince, I'm Yuichi Nasagawa, but please wake up, I want to talk to you." Though it would appear to have no effect at first, as Yuichi is leaving he notices some movement, and then he realises that Yumi has indeed awoken.

Promptly, the silent Yumi is besieged by a team of doctors and nurses who start to run series of tests, essentially ignoring and shutting out Yuichi. Yuichi, seeing that Yumi has been revived only to become some sort of human guinea pig, abducts her. Although Yumi has the mentality of a baby (even lacking the ability to walk or talk) they have a mutually enjoyable time together, until Yumi is reminded* of the crash-site in which her mother died, and is returned to the hospital by orderlies.

Yumi is seen in bed, at night, with her eyes open; Yumi does not sleep at all any more.

The next day (the "second day" that Yumi is awake), Yumi has advanced to the mentality of a young child, able to speak and read, and also an amazing talent for photo-realistic art, as she draws the image of her father. Yuichi returns after school and is immediately recognised by Yumi. They (this time by mutual consent, and accompanied by orderlies) walk outside in the grounds of the hospital. Upon sighting a bus (which Yumi seems to want to ride) Yuichi decides to give the orderlies (who have the air of cartoon comic-relief thugs to them) the slip, and does so successfully. They have an enjoyable "date" together (although Yumi is still only capable of conversing in simple terms).

By the third day Yumi has been discovered by the media and is being paraded all over for the press. Yuichi, Yuichi's nurse (who retired), and Yumi's father all witness the report on TV. Yuichi, once more, decides of his own accord that this is not "right" (although unlike when she was being tested, Yumi can clearly be seen to be distressed by many of the questions about her own genesis) and abducts Yumi once more. By this time Yumi has acquired the vocal and cognitive abilities approximately the same as other girls her age.

Yumi and Yuichi have their first conversation as intellectual equals. Yumi asks several philosophical questions about life and death. She declares that she only has two more days left before she falls asleep again (she gives no explanation as to how she acquired this knowledge, but she simply has it). Overall, she only has five days to be awake. She goes on to inquire about a strange emotion she has when she thinks of someone. After hearing the description, Yuichi explains the emotion is probably love. Yumi declares that, therefore, she is in love with Doctor Hikawa, shattering Yuichi.

Yuichi comes to the conclusion that someone told Yumi that she could only be awake for five days while she was asleep, and as such she believes it, but it is not true. He urges Hikawa to marry Yumi, as Yumi apparently loves him, and Yuichi's primary concern is Yumi's happiness. Hikawa does not believe in the five-day limit either, or that Yumi really loves him. Yumi hears their conversation through the door and is herself, heart-broken. She attempts to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff, but she is stopped by Yuichi.

On the fourth day, Yuichi's old nurse returns to the hospital to see Yumi, who is now in a state of depression. After hearing the story from Yuichi, she reveals that Hikawa had been doing something sexual to her at night, and that she left the hospital upon discovering this. Yuichi is infuriated, he confronts Hikawa and punches him, knocking him to the floor. Hikawa does not get up, but simply talks, his head lying down, not facing anything, of how Yumi was abandoned by her parents, and God. She was left only with him, but he was unable to help her. He explains that it was because he was unwilling to admit his impotency that he did what he did.

Yuichi returns to Yumi. Yumi explains that she heard someone, for a long time, praying for her to wake up, and then felt something that made her feel very warm. She thought this was Doctor Hikawa, and as such, that she loved him. Yuichi kisses her, and she realises the kiss was what made her warm, and by extension, it was Yuichi who prayed to her, and he whom she loved all along. They continue to kiss, and presumably make love. The same night they announce to Yuichi's mother that they are getting married.

On the fifth and final day of the film, Yuichi and Yumi are wed. Although Yumi's father watches and is happy to see that his daughter has found happiness, he does not reveal himself, but simply leaves once more, content. Hikawa arrives after the wedding and speaks alone to Yuichi about the fifth day limit. While he maintains that it is simply autosuggestion, he reminds Yuichi that it is real for Yumi. When Yuichi asks what to do, all Hikawa can suggest is prayer.

That night as Yumi and Yuichi depart on their honeymoon on a train, Yumi states, "I will be with Yuichi forever," and that she remembers everything about him, even in sleep, going on to list all the things they did together. Yumi's speech is rather bittersweet. Despite the fact she appears genuinely happy at moments, she is also on the verge of tears. Yuichi has a similar mix of anxiety and sorrow. Yumi inquires if Yuichi believes in God. Yuichi replies, that if God is the one who only allows her to be awake for five days, then he does not believe in him. Yumi says she will tell God that the world is "very big," paraphrasing something Yuichi told her before. Finally, she states she will thank God for meeting Yuichi as well, and then she drifts off to sleep. Yuichi tries to wake her, eventually even resorting to the sleeping-beauty kiss. Yumi opens her eyes briefly and says, "I… am… happy," before falling asleep once more, forever.

Twenty seven years later (August 7, 1999), an aged Yuichi, now a scientist, returns home from work and talks to his wife. Yumi, herself aged, but not dramatically (her hair has greyed, but presumably her face has not wrinkled since she has not been moving) and still sleeps. As he is showing her a picture of a friend's son, he notices she has stopped breathing – Yumi is dead.

As Yuichi watches the video of Yumi talking to the press (before he, in his youth, liberates her – i.e. the third day) he explains by monologue that after her death he had an autopsy performed on Yumi. When her brain was removed, it was completely transparent, and beautiful. He believes that although she was only awake for five days, she was happier than anyone else.

The film ends, replaying the earlier footage of Yumi and Yuichi running from the press. Yumi happily calls, "Yuichi!" and he retorts, "The world is very big, Yumi."

Joe Waters (Joe Pesci) and Gus Green (Danny Glover) are bumbling, blue-collar, yet happy best friends and next door neighbors who live modestly in Newark, New Jersey and have known each other since childhood. They share the hobby of fishing and win a stay in the Florida Everglades to go angling, but promise to return home in time for Thanksgiving.

On the way, however, while stopping at a restaurant, they meet an Englishman, Martin (Nick Brimble), who discreetly steals Joe's car keys and leaves. Joe and Gus are forced to push their boat down the road until they are met by two women, Rita (Rosanna Arquette) and Angie (Lynn Whitfield), who are after Martin and offer them a lift. During the ride, a bump causes the boat to disconnect from the car, leaving Joe and Gus stranded yet again, and the boat is accidentally hooked to a train and pulled away along with their beer and supplies. Joe and Gus hitch a ride with two men, but on the way, they see their car at a gas station and investigate. Joe goes to confront Martin inside the bathroom, but backs down when he catches Martin loading a gun. Joe and Gus flee the petrol station in their car, and discover a blood-stained knife in the dashboard.

Joe and Gus stay at a trailer park for the night, and while watching a documentary on television, they learn that Martin is actually Dekker Massey, a wanted criminal who has conned several women out of their riches and is implied to have stabbed his last victim to death and hidden her money and jewelry somewhere. The presenters offer a bounty for Dekker's capture, and Joe and Gus decide to turn in the knife after their fishing trip. Meanwhile, Dekker begins hunting Joe and Gus down.

Following a recommendation by the trailer park owner, Joe and Gus visit Phil Beasly's boatyard and rent a speedboat, but end up breaking almost every gadget on the boat, losing the knife and wrecking the boatyard by accident. Distraught, they decide to return home early, but end up with a flat tire. While getting the spare tire from the trunk, Joe discovers a map that leads to Dekker's fortune. They book a room in a nearby hotel, and while having dinner, they are found by Rita and Angie, who question them about Dekker and reveal that they are after him because Rita's mother was one of Dekker's victims. Joe and Gus promise to bring Dekker to justice, but that night, Gus sleepwalks and starts a fire in the hotel, destroying their suite and the map. They only barely manage to escape undetected, though their car breaks down on the road and Joe is struck by lightning while they try to fix it. Instead of killing him, the lightning boosts Joe's memory and he is able to lead the way to the cave where Dekker hid his fortune. Despite an altercation with an alligator, they retrieve the treasure and escape, but are accosted by Dekker. At gunpoint, Dekker forces them to push Joe's car into the swamp and ties them up inside a sheriff's office, intending to flee the country with the treasure.

After Dekker leaves, however, Joe and Gus are found and freed by their idol, Billy "Catch" Pool (Willie Nelson), and they set out to stop Dekker. After a long chase across the swamp, Joe and Gus find and capture Dekker moments before his escape via plane and hand him over to the police. Though they claim the reward money, Joe and Gus are forced to spend it mostly on the damages they caused during their trip.

Damien Har Veris — a priest skilled in resolving heretical disputes efficiently, although now spiritually exhausted — is sent by his alien archbishop as Knight Inquisitor to deal with a particular sect that has made a saint of Judas Iscariot.

The sect follows a religious text, ''The Way of Cross and Dragon'', that radically revises the life of Iscariot and his place in Christianity. The text describes how, born of a prostitute, Iscariot mastered the dark arts to become a tamer of dragons and the ruler of a great empire. After torturing and maiming Christ, Iscariot repented and relinquished his empire to become the penitent Legs of Christ, the first and best-beloved of the Twelve Apostles. Returning from proselytizing to find Christ crucified, an enraged Iscariot then destroyed the perpetrating empire and strangled St. Peter for renouncing Christ, only to discover, too late, Christ's Resurrection. Rejecting Judas' violence, Christ restored St. Peter to life and gave him the keys of the kingdom. St. Peter then suppressed the truth about Judas, vilifying his name and exploits. Seeking redemption for his wrath, Iscariot became the thousand-year-old Wandering Jew, before finally rejoining Christ in the Kingdom of God.

Perusing the materials of the sect, Har Veris finds himself enjoying the fanciful, creative but ultimately ridiculous narrative, finding it far more interesting than the more mundane heresies that have developed around power, money and doctrinal quibbles.

Arriving on the sect's distant planet on board his ship, the ''Truth of Christ'', Har Veris confronts its heresiarch, Lukyan Judasson, creator of the ''Way of Cross and Dragon'' narrative, but finds that he is already expected. Questioning Judasson, Har Veris uncovers a conspiracy of nihilistic Liars, who see Truth as entropy and despair, and who wish to soften and color the ultimately meaningless lives of others by creating belief in carefully crafted Lies. In essence, they create faiths. They have perpetrated this Judas cult as well as others, and now want Har Veris to join them. Despite his own spiritual exhaustion, he realizes that, though he may be losing his faith, he has not lost his passion for truth. When he refuses to join the Liars, Judasson wishes to have him silenced, but his senior in the conspiracy, a misshapen psionic mutant, senses the impending Liar in Har Veris, and allows him to go.

Har Veris then uses political manipulation and the public's fear and distrust of psychic powers to turn the tide on the Judas cult, resolving yet another heresy with dispatch. When, much later, he fully acknowledges that he has lost his faith, his superior is indifferent: results are what is needed, and Har Veris is to continue in his role as inquisitor. The priest accepts this, realizing that the psychic was right: he is himself a consummate Liar, perpetuating a faith in which he no longer believes.

However, departing on his next Inquisition, he has named his new starship ''Dragon''.

The story is narrated by a gifted human linguist and poet named Gallinger, who is part of a mission studying Mars. He becomes the first human to learn the "high language" of the intelligent Martians, and to be allowed to read their sacred texts. He comes to believe that Martian culture is essentially fatalistic, following an event in the distant past that left the long-lived Martians sterile.

The Martian high priestess regards Gallinger highly, and over the course of months, his theological and poetical discussion elevate him to a status something like a prophet. Ultimately, he is seduced by a Martian temple dancer and impregnates her, the first such pregnancy on the planet in hundreds of years. The Martians appear not to take this well, as it contradicts their religion's expectation of extinction.

Gallinger sets out to do two things: he translates the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes, which he finds thematically similar to their religious texts, into the High Tongue. As part of the cultural exchange he engages in with the High Priestess, he promises to bring her a rose, since the Martians have never seen one. The ship's biologist grows a rose and gives it to Gallinger.

In anger at Martian religious fatalism and impassioned by his love for the dancer and his child-to-be, Gallinger breaks into the temple during a closed service and reads to the Martians from his translation of Ecclesiastes. He mocks it as he reads it, stating:

He discovers that the Martian religion is more complicated than he had originally realized, as is his role in fulfilling prophecy. It has been prophesied that a stranger will "go shod in the temple", breaking in without removing all unclean items, restoring life to the Martian race and bringing something new. His actions have brought life, and the High Priestess takes the rose vowing to learn how to grow the flower.

The story ends well for the Martians, though perhaps less so for Gallinger, who discovers his dancer was only fulfilling her religious duty by seducing him, not caring for him otherwise. He attempts suicide, but, when he wakes up, he is in the infirmary, and he sees Mars through a port, growing farther away as the ship leaves Mars to return to Earth.

The novel follows a group of eleven immortals from the ancient past to the distant future. Most of the novel follows the various immortals throughout their lives as they try to find others like themselves, avoid being killed, and remain quiet about their gift. Gradually, the immortals begin to meet across the world and form a family of sorts. After they share their secret of immortality with the rest of humanity, the ensuing years result in a human culture they no longer relate to or in which they fit. Consequently, they create and crew a starship to explore new civilizations within the galaxy.

Zadig, a good-hearted, handsome young man from Babylonia, is in love with Sémire and they are to marry. Sémire, however, has another suitor: Orcan, who wants her for himself. Zadig tries to defend his love from Orcan's threat, but his eye is injured in the process. Sémire abhors this injury, causing her to depart with his enemy. Shortly after, Zadig makes a full recovery and falls into the arms of another woman, Azora, whom he marries, but who promptly betrays him.

Disillusioned with women, Zadig turns to science, but his knowledge lands him in prison, the first of several injustices to befall him. Indeed, the ''conte'' derives its pace and rhythm from the protagonist's ever-changing fortunes which see him rise to great heights and fall to great lows. Upon his release from prison, Zadig rises in favour with the king and queen of Babylonia and is eventually appointed prime minister; in this role, he proves himself to be a very honest man, looked upon favourably by the king, as he passes fair judgements on his citizens unlike the other ministers who base their judgements on the people's wealth. He is forced to flee the kingdom, though, when his relationship with King Moabdar is compromised: Zadig's reciprocated love for queen Astarté is discovered and he worries that the king's desire for revenge might drive him to kill the queen.

Having reached Egypt, Zadig kills an Egyptian man while valiantly saving a woman from his attack on her. Under the law of the land, this crime means that he must become a slave. His new master, Sétoc, is soon impressed by Zadig's wisdom and they become friends. In one incident, Zadig manages to reverse an ancient custom of certain tribes in which women felt obliged to burn themselves alive with their husbands on the death of the latter. After attempting to resolve other religious disputes, Zadig enrages local clerics who attempt to have him killed. Fortunately for him, though, a woman that he saved (Almona) from being burned intervenes so that he avoids death. Almona marries Sétoc, who in turn gives Zadig his freedom and then he begins his journey back to Babylonia in order to discover what has become of Astarté. (In some versions there is a further episode in which he visits Serendib and advises the king on the choice of a treasurer and a wife.)

En route, he is taken captive by a group of Arabs, from whom he learns that king Moabdar has been killed, but he does not learn anything of what has become of Astarté. Arbogad, the leader of the group of Arabs, sets him free and he heads for Babylonia once more, equipped with the knowledge that a rebellion has taken place to oust the king. On this journey he meets an unhappy fisherman who is about to commit suicide as he has no money, but Zadig gives him some money to ease his woes, telling us that source of his own unhappiness is in his heart, whereas the fisherman's are only financial concerns. Zadig prevents him from committing suicide and he continues on his way.

Zadig then stumbles upon a meadow in which women are searching for a basilisk for their lord who is ill, ordered by his doctor to find one of these rare animals to cure his sickness. The lord has promised to marry the woman who finds the basilisk. While there, Zadig sees a woman writing "ZADIG" in the ground, and he identifies her as Astarté. His former lover recounts what happened to her since Zadig fled Babylonia: she lived inside a statue when he left, but one day, she spoke while her husband was praying before the statue. The king's country was invaded and both Astarté and his new wife, Missouf, were taken prisoners by the same group. The king's wife agrees to formulate a plan along with Astarté to help her escape so that she would not have a rival for the king. Astarté ends up with Arbogad, the very same robber that Zadig encountered, who then sold her to Lord Ogul, her current master. In order to secure Astarté's release from Ogul, Zadig pretends to be a physician. He offers Lord Ogul to bring him a basilisk if he grants Astarté her freedom; instead of providing the basilisk, the lord is tricked into taking some exercise, which is what he really needs to cure him from his illness.

Astarté returns to Babylonia where she is pronounced queen before a competition begins to find her a new king. Zadig is secretly given white armor and a fine horse to compete with by Astarté. Zadig in his white armor triumphs in the contest which takes place between four anonymous knights, but one of the losing competitors, the lord Itobad, steals Zadig's armour and replaces it with his own before the winner is revealed, and dressed in Zadig's armor falsely claims victory. Zadig is forced to wear Itobad's armor and is recognized as the losing knight by the people. Zadig is ridiculed and bemoans his fate, thinking that he will never be happy.

While wandering on the banks of the Euphrates, Zadig encounters a hermit reading "the book of destinies". Zadig makes a vow to accompany the hermit for the next few days on the condition that he won't abandon the hermit no matter what he does. The hermit claims that he will teach Zadig lessons in life; in one such incident, the pair go to an opulent castle and are treated generously. The lord of the castle gives each of them a gold piece before sending them off. After leaving, Zadig finds that the hermit has stolen the gold basin that the lord allowed them to wash in. Afterwards, they visit the house of a miser and are treated somewhat rudely by the servant and are pushed to leave, but the hermit gives the servant the two gold pieces from the lord and gives the miser the gold basin he stole. The aim, he tells Zadig, is that the hospitable man at the castle will learn not to be as ostentatious and vain, and the miser will learn how to treat guests. They then arrive at the simple home of a retired philosopher who welcomed the travelers in. The philosopher talks of the fight for the crown in Babylonia, revealing that he wished Zadig had fought for the crown not knowing that Zadig is one of his two guests. In the morning, at dawn, the hermit wakes Zadig to leave. To Zadig's horror, the hermit sets fire to the philosopher's home.

In the last encounter, Zadig and the hermit stay with a widow and her young nephew. After their stay the boy accompanies the travelers to the bridge by the widow's orders. At the bridge, the hermit asks the boy to come to him. He then throws the fourteen-year-old into the river drowning him, as he claims that Providence tells that he would have killed his aunt within a year, and Zadig within two. The hermit then reveals his true identity as the angel Jesrad, and opines that Zadig, out of all men, deserves to be best informed about Fate. Jesrad states that wickedness is necessary to maintain the order of the world and to ensure that good survives. Nothing happens by chance, according to the angel: Zadig happened upon the fisherman to save his life, for example. Zadig should be submissive to Fate, he continues, and should return to Babylonia, advice which he follows. (Surprisingly, regarding Voltaire's hostility towards religions, this passage is based on one of the suras of the Quran (Sura 18 (Al-Kahf), v. 65–82), when Moses follows a mysterious character, endowed with great knowledge, through his journey.)

On his return, the final part of the challenge to be king is taking place: the Enigmas. Zadig solves the Enigmas with consummate ease and proves that it was he that won the first contest by challenging Itobad once again to a duel. Zadig offers to fight wearing only his robes and armed with a sword against Itobad clad in the stolen white armor. Itobad accepts this challenge. Zadig manages to defeat Itobad, and takes back the stolen armor. Zadig marries Astarté, is crowned king, and rules over a prosperous kingdom.

During World War II, all Allied and Axis service personnel that end up in Ireland are to be interned for the duration of the conflict. Two pilots, one from the Royal Canadian Air Force, Miles Keogh, portrayed by Campbell and one from the Luftwaffe, Rudolph von Stengenbek, portrayed by Macfadyen, both fall in love with a local Irish girl, Mattie Guerin played by Butler. The relationship is further complicated by Byrne, who plays the unceasingly vigilant internment camp commander, Commandant O'Brien.

The story revolves around Taichi Hiraga-Keaton, the son of Japanese zoologist Taihei Hiraga and well-born Englishwoman Patricia Keaton. Keaton's parents separated when he was five, and young Taichi moved back to England with his mother. As an adult, he studied archeology at Oxford University, in part under the tutelage of Professor Yuri Scott.

At Oxford, Keaton met and later married his wife, who was a mathematics student at Somerville College. The couple years later divorced, with Keaton leaving his five-year-old daughter Yuriko in her mother's care. After leaving Oxford, Keaton joined the British Army and became a member of the SAS, holding the post of survival instructor and seeing combat in the Falklands War and as one of the team members that responded to the Iranian Embassy siege. His combat training serves him in good stead as an insurance investigator for the prestigious Lloyd's of London where he is known for his abilities and his unorthodox methods of investigation.

In addition to his work for Lloyd's, Keaton and his friend Daniel O'Connell operate their own insurance investigation agency headquartered in London. Even though Keaton is extremely successful as an insurance investigator, his dream is to continue his archaeological research into the possible origins of an ancient European civilization in the Danube river basin.

The film centers on the experiences of several teenagers at Camp Ovation, a summer theatre camp. Shy Ellen Lucas greets her friend Michael Flores, a gay teenager who was violently beaten by his classmates after showing up to his junior prom in drag. Nerdy Fritzi Wagner attempts to befriend icy Jill Simmons, but ends up toting her luggage instead. Returning camper Jenna Malloran laments that her parents forced her to have her jaw wired shut in order to lose weight. The campers are surprised by the arrival of Vlad Baumann, a handsome new camper who is, as a staff member marvels, "an honest-to-god straight boy." The camp enlists a guest counselor for the summer: composer Bert Hanley, whose play "''The Children's Crusade''" was a one-hit wonder many years earlier. Frustrated with his lack of recent success, he is now a grumpy alcoholic.

Vlad and Ellen flirt a bit after rehearsal one day. Soon afterward, Vlad is seduced by Jill, who later makes cruel cracks at Ellen for her weight and her inexperience with boys. Feeling guilty, Vlad comforts Ellen and the two begin to inch toward a relationship.

After Fritzi is caught washing Jill's underwear, Jill expresses her disgust with Fritzi and kicks her out of the cabin. Enraged, Fritzi sabotages Jill's next performance and takes her place mid-song, revealing her previously hidden talent.

Vlad convinces Michael to invite his parents to his next play. When they fail to show, Michael flees the stage mid-performance. Vlad reveals to Michael that he has his own hidden problem: Vlad has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and must take medication to make life bearable.

Hanley gets into a drunken rage and tells the campers that theater will only make them bitter and lonely like himself. Vlad finds a trove of music that Hanley has written over the years but not released. During a rehearsal for the camp's benefit performance, Vlad and the campers sing one of Hanley's songs. Hanley's heart is lifted and his disposition changes.

Shortly before the benefit, Michael sleeps with Dee, Ellen's roommate, out of frustration about his unrequited crush on Vlad. Vlad and Dee end up making out on Dee's bed, and Ellen walks in on them. She runs off, hurt, and refuses to talk to Vlad.

The night of the benefit concert arrives, and the campers are starstruck as famed composer Stephen Sondheim is in attendance. The dressing room atmosphere is tense, and gets even more awkward when Vlad's girlfriend Julie shows up to see him. Fritzi sabotages Jill's makeup, causing her to break out in boils. Jill attacks her, injuring her, and both are unfit to go onstage. To replace her, Bert cuts the wires on Jenna's mouth, allowing her to sing a powerful song directed to her parents in the audience, telling them to accept her as she is.

The benefit is a hit, but Vlad, Michael, and Ellen are still arguing. Vlad admits that he is an "attention junkie" and attempts to please everyone in order to gain their good favor. Vlad explains that he still cares about Ellen and that his girlfriend Julie had just broken up with him. After another apology, Ellen forgives him, and the three go swimming.

Picking up sometime after ''Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo'' (1977), protagonist Pete Stancheck has inherited Herbie from his uncle Jim Douglas and travels to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico with his friend Davy "D.J." Johns to retrieve the car. They get directions from Paco, a comically mischievous, orphaned pickpocket to the car lot. Unable to pay the holding fee due to Paco taking their wallets, the pair quickly leave in Herbie to find him, and discover some of Herbie's abilities. Elsewhere, Paco pickpockets one of the members of a trio of three villains who are planning to steal the gold from some forgotten Inca ruins. The trio chase Paco after realizing the film showing the location of the gold is in the stolen wallet, but Pete and DJ catch him first. They decide to let Paco go only to realize their wallets have been taken by Paco again. Paco hides in Herbie's luggage compartment, and is consequently loaded on the ''Sun Princess'' cruise ship, bound for Rio de Janeiro, where Pete and DJ plan to enter Herbie in the Brazil Grand Prêmio. ''En route'', they meet an anthropology student named Melissa and her extravagant, eccentric aunt Louise, who is trying to find a husband for her niece. When Herbie wreaks havoc on board, Pete pretends to court Melissa, intending that her Aunt Louise will sponsor their race.

Meanwhile, Paco is discovered by the crew and locked in the hold by Captain Blythe. Herbie (whom Paco calls "Ocho") helps Paco escape, and they ruin the ship's costume party while trying to escape the crew. Captain Blythe has Herbie dropped into the sea, while Pete, DJ, Melissa and Aunt Louise are ordered off at the next port. Paco evades police sent to pick him up, ending up at a inlet, where a rusty Herbie resurfaces from the water. The pair then goes into business with Herbie as a taxi.

The gold thieves soon find Paco, and threaten to use an acetylene torch to cut up Herbie if Paco doesn't give them the film, which Paco put in Pete's wallet by mistake. Paco manages to get Pete's wallet, but as he and Herbie escape the men they are hailed by both Louise and Blythe. Melissa quickly commandeers a dilapidated bus so she, Pete and Davy can go after them, Paco explains the situation to their unhappy passengers. Herbie tries to hide from the men at a bullfight, only for him and two of the men to end up in the ring. After the bull is defeated by Herbie, he and Paco leave without Louise and Blythe, who are soon picked up by Pete, DJ and Louise, where they explain what's happening. Later at a café, Paco is grabbed by the men. After failing to stop their plane taking off, Herbie goes to find Pete and the others, who are stuck in a small village after the bus finally broke down.

As a rainstorm hits, the men retrieve a large gold disc from the ruins, planning to sell it so they can hire equipment to get the rest. They leave Paco to fend for himself, but Herbie finds them and 'eats' the gold, before locating Paco. Herbie and the group travel to the next major town (using bananas as camouflage) where Blythe and Louise go to get help while the others take the disc to the local university, where they are overpowered by the men. Paco is outside selling the bananas to locals when he and Herbie see the men loading the disc into their plane. Herbie throws the bananas at them before chasing the plane and 'biting' its tail off. The villains are captured by the police, and the protagonists reunite on the Sun Princess. Pete and DJ resume their plans to enter Herbie in the Brazil Grand Prêmio with Paco dressed as the driver (Pete concedes that Paco and Herbie have a better connection than Pete would have if he drove Herbie in the race). DJ finally asks Paco why he keeps referring to Herbie as "Ocho", since that is Spanish for eight. Paco looks at Herbie's "53" and remarks that 5+3=8. Aunt Louise once again tries to get Blythe to notice her, but he is more interested in a passing schooner. After that Pete, Davy, Aunt Louise, and Melissa have a toast hoping for Herbie to win the race with Paco giving Herbie a thumbs up.

Manny, Sid, and Diego are currently living in a large valley surrounded by an enormously high ice wall on all sides. However, the trio subsequently discovers that the ice wall is actually a dam that is barely holding a massive reservoir that could flood the valley to nearly a mile underwater if it fails. A vulture tells them that there is a boat at the other end of the valley that may save them all, but they only have three days to reach it or die. Shortly after, a huge chunk of ice breaks off from the top of the dam, initiating their immediate evacuation.

Meanwhile, one of the glacier fragments that fell earlier actually contains two sea reptiles from the Mesozoic era; Cretaceous, a ''Cymbospondylus'' and Maelstrom, a ''Pliosauroidea'' which later frees themselves and devours a turtle named Stu. When Manny is briefly separated from them, Diego and Sid encounter two mischievous opossums named Crash and Eddie who drive them nuts by playing Whac-A-Mole with them. Manny is still worried about being the last mammoth alive and his family, who had been killed by humans, but is surprised when he encounters Ellie, a female woolly mammoth who believes she is an opossum and Crash and Eddie's adoptive sister. Sid invites her to tag along with the group to escape the flood, and she brings her brothers. After a dangerous encounter with Cretaceous and Maelstrom while crossing a pond, Sid prompts Diego to encourage him to admit and face his fears - Diego insists that "fear is for prey", so Sid points out that Diego is behaving as if HE is the water's prey. They discover an area which Ellie recalls as the place where she was adopted. She finally realizes she is a mammoth and also expresses her suspicions about how different she was from other opossums. Despite this bonding moment with Manny, she distances herself from him when he suggests "saving their species". Ellie and Manny ultimately reconcile when they must co-operate to save the group when the ground cracks under their feet. Sid is kidnapped by a tribe of mini-sloths who believe Sid to be a god. Sid lights a fire for them, and believes that he has finally found respect, but they plan to sacrifice him by tossing him into a volcano; Sid narrowly escapes. The next morning, Sid tells the others about his experience but none are convinced. After being harassed by vultures, the group finds the boat behind a field of hot geysers, which separates Manny, Sid and Diego from Ellie and her brothers when they argue about which way's safest to go through.

Just as the group bypasses the geysers, the ice dam subsequently fails, unleashing a devastating flood upon the valley. Manny is forced to go back to save Ellie after the latter gets trapped inside a cave. Cretaceous and Maelstorm later ambushes Manny underwater but he manages to kill the two by tricking them to dislodge a boulder, allowing Manny to save Ellie from drowning at the same time. He and Ellie reunites with the others atop a boulder but their joy is short-lived as the water is still rising. Meanwhile, Scrat climbs the adjacent glacial wall beside them and inadvertedly creates a long crack when he punctures the ice with his acorn. The crack then widens into a gigantic fissure which splits opens the wall and drains the floodwaters but in the process, Scrat falls within the fissure and gets washed away.

Shortly after, Sid encounters the Mini-Sloth tribe once again. Their leader suggest that Sid joins them but Diego replies that he is a "vital part" in their herd, which makes Sid happy. A group of mammoths later appear from the fissure, proving to everyone that mammoths aren't really extinct. Manny initially lets Ellie go with the mammoth herd, but after some encouragement from his friends, he catches up to her admits to her that he loves her and proposes to her while hanging on a tree like an opossum. The Herd, alongside the opossum brothers then proceeds to venture out of the valley through the fissure as the screen fades to white.

The epilogue shows Scrat having a near death experience after falling into the fissure. He enters a heaven full of acorns. Suddenly, he finds himself being "sucked back" just as he is about to reach a gigantic acorn. Scrat then discovers that he has been resuscitated by Sid, which throws him into a fit of rage. The movie ends with Scrat viciously assaulting Sid for "saving" him.

Dr. Bashir and Chief O'Brien have spent the past week helping two races, the T'Lani and the Kellerun, dismantle deadly biological weapons known as "Harvesters". They assure the T'Lani and Kellerun ambassadors that all files related to the Harvesters have been destroyed, so as to prevent them from ever being created again.

When the moment comes to destroy the final Harvester, two Kellerun soldiers enter the laboratory and begin shooting the scientists, T'Lani and Kellerun alike. Bashir and O'Brien overpower the soldiers, but a drop of the Harvester liquid falls on O'Brien's skin. To escape, they are forced to beam down to the surface of the planet they are orbiting.

The T'Lani and Kellerun ambassadors inform Commander Sisko that O'Brien and Bashir died in an accident, and provide a recording purportedly showing the deaths of the entire science team due to an automated security routine. The senior staff of Deep Space Nine grieve the loss of their crewmates, and Sisko informs O'Brien's wife Keiko of his death.

Meanwhile, Bashir and O'Brien are stranded in an abandoned town on the planet's surface. O'Brien tries to repair a broken communications system in order to inform the T'Lani of the Kelleruns' apparent betrayal. Bashir discovers that O'Brien has been infected by the Harvester and, as O'Brien's condition begins to deteriorate, is forced to take over the repair effort.

Keiko insists that the recording of the supposed accident has been falsified: the video shows O'Brien drinking coffee in the afternoon, something she is certain he would never do. Sisko and Lt. Dax travel in a runabout vessel to visit the site of the "accident", where Dax investigates O'Brien and Bashir's runabout and finds evidence that its logs have been altered.

The T'Lani and Kellerun ambassadors show up together at Bashir and O'Brien's hideout. They reveal that the attack on the science team was a joint endeavor meant to erase all knowledge that could potentially be used to make Harvesters, and prepare to execute Bashir and O'Brien. Sisko and Dax rescue them by transporting them to their runabout. The T'Lani and Kellerun demand their return and fire upon the runabout when Sisko refuses; but he deceives them by escaping safely in the other runabout.

As Chief O'Brien recovers from the Harvester poisoning back on Deep Space Nine, Keiko is stunned to discover that he ''does'' drink coffee in the afternoon.

The show features a hillbilly cat called Punkin' Puss (voiced by Allan Melvin) who lives in a house in the woods of the southern US. Punkin' is preoccupied with a hillbilly mouse called Mushmouse (voiced by Howard Morris) who lives there too, and Punkin' frequently tries to shoot him with his rifle. In many cartoons, one of Mushmouse's cousins visits and gives Punkin' Puss a hard time.

The "Nowhere Bear" has Punkin' Puss continually disrupting an angry bear's sleep. The episode "Small Change" has Punkin' Puss (and later a dog as well) shrinking to mouse size.

The novel is set in a dystopic Toronto, Ontario buffeted by a mysterious plague called sturnusemia, which is believed to be carried by starlings. Against this backdrop Lilah Kemp, a schizophrenic spiritualist "of intense but undisciplined powers", accidentally sets Kurtz free from page 92 of Joseph Conrad's ''Heart of Darkness'' and is forced to find a Marlow to defeat him.

Kurtz becomes head of the Parkin Psychiatric Institute (based on the real Clarke Institute of Psychiatry) and travels among the city's elites, including a "Club of Men" which is in fact a child pornography ring. Marlow, meanwhile, is a staff psychiatrist at the Parkin.

Although the reader is clearly meant to see the parallels between Findley's Kurtz and Marlow and Conrad's original characters, the book is deliberately ambiguous about whether Lilah Kemp has really performed this act of literary magic, or is merely crazy enough to think she has.

Don Henderson is a schoolteacher living with his wife Kath and baby son in the Melbourne suburb of Lower Plenty. On the night of the 1969 federal election Don invites a small group of friends to celebrate a predicted Australian Labor Party (ALP) election victory, much to the dismay of his wife. To the party come Mal, Don's university mentor, and his bitter wife Jenny, sex-obsessed Cooley and his latest girlfriend, nineteen-year-old Susan, Evan, a dentist, and his beautiful artist wife Kerry. Somehow, two Liberal supporters, Simon and Jody also come.

As the party wears on it becomes clear that the Labor party, which is supported by Don and most of the guests, is not winning. As a result, alcohol consumption increases, and the sniping between Don and his male friends about their failed aspirations gets uglier, as does their behaviour toward the women. Mack, a design engineer whose wife has just left him, pulls out a nude photo of her for his friends' approval. Crass womaniser Cooley pursues the available women. The disillusioned wives exchange tales of their husbands' sub-par sexual performance. By the end of the night, Don and some of his friends have begun to grasp the emptiness of their compromised lives.

The play led to a 2011 sequel, ''Don Parties On''.

Drifter Jim Garry is summoned by his friend, smooth-talking Tate Riling. Garry rides into an Indian reservation and finds himself in the middle of a conflict between a cattle owner and some homesteaders. He meets cattle owner John Lufton, and eventually his daughters Amy and Carol. The Luftons suspect that Garry is on Riling's side and are initially hostile, especially Amy. Garry readily admits that he is going to work for his friend. Despite this, Lufton asks him to deliver a note to his family.

Riling tells Garry that he and his partner, Indian agent Jake Pindalest, have devised an elaborate scheme to force Lufton into selling his herd cheaply. Pindalest has rejected Lufton's cattle as unfit to feed the Indians and ordered him to remove his herd from the reservation within a week. Meanwhile, Riling has organized the homesteaders into blocking the move, conning them into believing that he is working in their interest. With no other option, Lufton would have to sell his herd at bargain prices or lose everything. Lufton would never sell to Riling, but he would to a stranger like Garry. Pindalest would then see that the government buys the herd. Riling offers Garry $10,000 for his part in the swindle.

Lufton manages to outsmart Riling and move his herd off the reservation unimpeded; he and Amy assume (incorrectly) Garry read the note, which described the route he wanted Riling to think he planned to take, but Riling was actually tipped off by Lufton's other daughter, Carol, who is in love with Riling. Riling and his men find the cattle eventually and stampede them back onto the reservation. There is not enough time to gather the herd together and move the herd. Garry becomes disgusted when a young man is killed in the stampede, and he switches sides. Amy still does not trust him. Eventually, she comes to trust (and fall in love with) Garry, especially after he stops two of Riling's men from gunning her father down.

To buy time, Garry deceives Pindalest, who is unaware of his break with Riling, into sending a messenger to the government to extend the deadline. Garry then takes Pindalest prisoner. Riling and his gang track them down. Garry flees to the cabin of Kris Barden, the father of the young man killed in the stampede; they are joined by Amy. A gunfight erupts. Though wounded earlier, Garry sneaks out at night, knocks Pindalest out and dispatches Riling's two henchmen. That leaves the two old friends to face each other. Riling is fatally wounded. Pindalest is taken into custody, and Garry decides to give up his wandering ways, much to Amy's delight.

An expedition from Tokyo heads to Obelisk Island, which the greedy Mr. Funazu, owner of ''Playmate Magazine'', wants to turn into a resort. The island natives welcome the expedition, but two members, Hiroshi and Itoko, venture into a forbidden area despite the pleas of a native boy named Saki. They enter a cavern blocked by a fallen statue and find a giant egg, out of which hatches a baby "bird-lizard" monster, referred to as "Gappa". The natives plead with the skeptical scientists not to take the baby away, lest it anger the baby's parents, but they do so anyway. Inside the caverns, Gappa's two parents rise from the subterranean waters beneath the volcano, destroying everything in their path. Saki, the only survivor, is rescued by an American Navy fleet and brought to Japan.

Meanwhile, Gappa makes global headlines and is experimented on by scientists. To the shock of the expedition members, two giant flying creatures appear over Sagami Bay. The Gappa parents ravage cities looking for their offspring and prove impervious to military weapons. Hiroshi, Itoko, Saki, and expedition scientist Professor Tonooka try to persuade the headstrong Mr. Funazu to let the baby go and return it to its parents. Mr. Funazu finally lets Gappa go back to its parents. Then the three go back to Obelisk Island.

The story begins following the first day of Dixie Mae Leigh's job as a customer support employee at a fictional company called Lotsatech. She receives an insulting and mysterious email and, in a fit of rage, decides to find out who sent it. She and a fellow employee Victor search the Lotsatech campus looking for the author of the email, following clues in the email header. They meet up with Ellen, a grad student in computer science, who decides to try to help Dixie Mae.

While they talk, several mysteries arise and convince them that the email may be a kind of warning about something going on at Lotsatech involving a professor named Gerry Reich, who seems to be involved in all the projects on the campus. Ellen finds another clue in the email leading the three to another building where, to their utter astonishment, a second Ellen appears. The only explanation of this is that they are being simulated by a computer. Further clues from another person in the building lead them to an underground lab where they find two researchers working on improving methods of producing and preserving Bose–Einstein condensates.

When Dixie Mae and the Ellens reveal that they are all actually simulations, the researchers explore the email and find a clue that leads them to a 'cookie', a file that is passed from each iteration to the next with messages from the centuries of time they have been simulated over and over. They also find out that it was actually Dixie Mae herself who wrote the email in order to make it as offensive as possible to herself, allowing each iteration of the researchers to access the cookie. The story ends with a sad Dixie Mae realizing she can't do anything herself to stop the endless cycle they are all in, but through the passing of information and ideas from one iteration to the next someday they will have the ability to stop the simulations.

Some 400,000,000 years after an advanced human civilization was destroyed by aliens, 12 direct descendants of the civilization's warriors (called "Sazers") have their powers awakened and form four tribes: Flame, Wind, Earth and Water. Each Sazer is based on a Zodiac sign represented in an animal totem or spirit representation. At first, they wage war on each other, but after learning the truth of their ancestry and their reason for awakening, the Gransazer tribes unite to protect Earth from the Warp Monarch, an alliance of various alien species, from once again extinguishing all life on the planet.

1st Arc: Karin Saeki and the three tribes (1–12)

The archaeologist Ichiro Horiguchi has indeed discovered a crystal tablet that revealed the existence of this ancient civilization and Gransazers. As luck would have it, his assistant Mika (Mithras) happened to be a Gransazer belonging to the Flames Tribe, and they soon met the second member of this Tribe, the impetuous Tenma (Tarious) and also the third one Ken (Lion), who was also Mika's younger brother. Together, they go in search of the other three Tribes and the corresponding Chouseishins.

Unfortunately for them, a scientist named Karin Saeki has meanwhile gathered the members of the Wind Tribe and convinced them that the Flames represents a threat to the Earth. Then start a race against the clock between the two camps to gather the members of the Tribe of the Earth and locate the Chouseishins, even destroying them to prevent the other camp from seizing them.

The Earth Tribe quickly ranks side by side with the Flames, while Wind's members begin to have doubts about Karin's sincerity except for their leader, Remls, who is in love with her. And the result prove them right: Karin is actually an extraterrestrial planet Akelon sent to Earth by a mysterious sponsor to destroy the Gransazers. Her true nature revealed, Karin is transformed into a giant monster that is destroyed by Chouseishins three tribes finally reconciled.

2nd Arc: The Impactors and the Water Tribe (13–24)

After Karin's defeat, the Impacters, a trio of extraterrestrial fighters uniting Logia, Lucia and Radia, are sent to Earth to destroy Leviathan, the Chouseishin of the Water Tribe, before the Gransazers find him. Unfortunately, all their attempts are turned against them. They first send an asteroid crashing on the island where it is hidden but Cloud Dragon (the ship carrying Chouseishins) destroys it and the debris free Leviathan from his hiding place. Radia then turns into a giant to destroy him but he is killed after the Water Tribe has appeared and taken control of Leviathan.

For his part, Horiguchi discovered the existence of a fifth Chouseishin, Guntras, and tried to repair the apparatus to control it with the help of Professor Masaki Wakui and his assistant Shûichi Hoshiyama. Unfortunately, once the device is repaired, it is stolen by Shuichi who was in fact Logia disguised, who uses it to take control of Guntras he intends to explode inside the sun to destroy our solar system. The Gransazers happily fail his project and the control system is destroyed, making Guntras autonomous.

Subsequently, the Gransazers discover that the other Chouseishins can combine with Guntras to form a giant dragon named Daisazer. Thanks to him, they manage to triumph over Lucia turned into an uncontrollable giant, then Dailogian, a giant robot driven by Logia. Vanquished, the latter commits suicide (apparently) using a device of self-destruction.

3rd Arc: Various aliens (25–41)

Unlike the other parts which are characterized by a main plot spanning several episodes and by one or more main opponents, the third prefers to focus on independent stories in one or two episodes using the classic formula of "one episode = an opponent", with the exception of episodes 33, 34, 40 and 41, in which the Gransazers are once again confronted with a living Logia and drunk with revenge.

The different episodes, however, have good suspense and carefully avoid the trap of repetitiveness. In addition, the fact that most of the episodes of this third part give the spotlight to only one Gransazer at a time makes it possible to flesh out characters that the series had difficulty to develop in the other episodes which privileged the team with the detriment of his members.

This third part also introduces a last giant robot designed by the JSDF, Yuhi, and the Gran Vehicles, individual vessels that the Gransazers fly when they do not command their Chouseishins. Unfortunately, after the rise that marked the second part, it all seems a little light.

Final Arc: Bosquito and wolf Manafu (42–51)

The fourth and final part begins when an alien named Luka frees Bosquito, a particularly powerful and dangerous creature with the same powers as the Gransazers. Bosquito is finally defeated after four episodes, many civilian casualties and the sacrifice of Luka, while one of the Gransazers, Ran (Visuel), discovers a great affinity with the crystal tablet that reveals to him that the first Gransazers had been created to fight the Bosquitos who are the real ones responsible for the destruction of the ancient earth civilization, while the famous extraterrestrial fleet had actually intervened at the request of the space union Wof Manaf to help Earth fight them after they took control of Chouseishins.

Unfortunately, convinced that the current earthlings are descendants of Bosquitos, Wolf Manafu decides to launch a new attack on our planet, which is an opportunity to discover that their ships have hardly changed in 400 million years. As the fleet gets closer, the Japanese army and the Gransazers are contacted by Brighton, a "peaceful" envoy of Wolf Manafu, who tells them that Ran is actually a Bosquito. Horrified, she is ready to let Wolf Manafu execute it, unaware that it is a trick to eliminate it because she is the only one able to use the crystal tablet to communicate with the leader of Wolf Manafu.

For the home run, writers set the bar in terms of threats, starting with Bosquito, a formidable predator whose new abilities are constantly being discovered and which will cause the death of many civilians (whereas in previous episodes the collateral victims of the battles of our heroes were generally ignored), before continuing with the threat of a fleet ready to exterminate the human race. It is also in this last part that the writers finally solve the questions asked at the beginning of the series by revealing the reasons for the battle that had opposed the Earth to Wof Manaf while going against the expectations of the viewer, since unlike To the appearance, the squadron of Wolf Manafu did not fight Earthlings but Bosquitos.

The story focuses on two teenage girls from the middle-class Sutherland Shire in Sydney. The girls attempt to create a popular social status by ingratiating themselves with the "Greenhill gang" of surfers, who like many alpha males of this era have a careless attitude toward casual sex, drugs and alcohol over the course of one Sydney summer.

Los Angeles advertising executive Daniel Miller dies in a car accident on his 39th birthday, largely due to his distractedness, and is sent to Judgment City, "where it’s 74 degrees and sunny every day ... but you wouldn't want to spend eternity there ... [the] verdicts are decided by deal-making suits. Everyone thinks they’re smarter than everyone else and your fate is in the hands of a bunch of lawyers in a conference room." Amenities and activities are provided from delicious, calorie-free all-you-can-eat buffets to bowling alleys and comedy clubs.

A Purgatory-like waiting area staffed by all-knowing and efficient but largely condescending bureaucracy who, having themselves moved on to their current new universal phase, mostly seem (through snide comments and glib presumptions) to gingerly look down on the new arrivals who will have their lives (or most recent lives) on Earth judged over a week-long or so hearing (really a trial of sorts), each before two judges.

Daniel's defense attorney, Bob Diamond, explains that people from Earth use so little of their brains (only three to five percent) that they spend most of their lives functioning based on their fears. "When you use more than five percent of your brain, you don't want to be on Earth, believe me," says Diamond. If the court determines that Daniel has conquered his fears, he will be sent on to the next phase of existence, where he will be able to use more of his brain and thus be able to experience more of what the universe has to offer. Otherwise, his soul will be reincarnated on Earth to live another life in another attempt at moving past his fears.

At Daniel's tribunal, presided over by two judges, Diamond argues that Daniel should move onto the next phase, but his formidable opponent, prosecutor Lena Foster, takes the opposing argument. Each utilizes video-like footage from select days in Daniel's life to make their case to the judges.

During the procedure, Daniel meets and falls in love with Julia, a recently deceased woman who lived a seemingly perfect life of courage and generosity, especially compared to his. This explains why her fancy hotel lodgings are so much nicer than his spartan motel-like room.

Following each day's proceedings, Daniel and Julia spend time exploring Judgement City, including the Pavilion of Past Lives (hosted by a version of Shirley MacLaine, famous for her outspoken belief in reincarnation), where people can see all their past lives, often quite shockingly dichotomous.

In the meantime things do not go well for Daniel. Foster shows a series of episodes in which Daniel never managed to overcome his fears, as well as various other bad decisions and mishaps, while Diamond vigorously attempts to portray Daniel's actions more positively, sometimes praising his client's "restraint" and "thoughtfulness".

On the last day of Daniel's hearing, Foster plays footage of Daniel's previous night with Julia, over Diamond's objections. Diamond says he thought they "weren't doing that any more" (i.e. using scenes from Judgment City as evidence) but one of the judges tells Diamond that no one ever told him that. The scene in question is the one in which he declines to spend the night with her despite his strong feelings for her. Foster believes this clearly underscores Daniel's fear and lack of courage. Taken by surprise, Diamond proffers the ludicrously comedic justification that Daniel, coming from a dysfunctional and dangerous world, was afraid of contracting a disease. Daniel gentlemanly clarifies that he did not think Julia had any diseases but that after visiting the Pavilion of Past Lives, he realized that (applying the Earthly maxim on sexual responsibility to avoid STDs, that when you sleep with someone you are sleeping with everyone that person has ever slept with), he would be sleeping with some 25,000 or so people. This causes one of the judges to unexpectedly chuckle.

The next day, it is ruled that Daniel will return to Earth, while Julia is judged worthy to move on. Before saying goodbye, Diamond comforts Daniel with the knowledge that the court is not infallible and just because Foster won it doesn't mean she's right. But Daniel remains disappointed.

Daniel boards a tram poised to return to Earth when Julia yells to him from a different tram. He manages to desperately unstrap himself, claw open a door, and leap, dodging other trams, and suffering minor electric shocks to get to Julia's tram. She is unable to install herself and he is unable to enter her tram. He clings to the outside of the moving vehicle, banging on the door and trying to pry it open. She yells in vain for the driver to stop. They tell each other they love each other. The scene pulls back to show that the entire event is being watched by closed circuit TV by Diamond, Foster, and the judges in the chamber where Daniel's hearing took place. Diamond remarks to Foster, "Brave enough for you?", who gives him a slight smiling acknowledgement. One judge whispers to the other, who then sends a message ordering the tram doors opened. Daniel and Julia are reunited, applauded by the other passengers, and embrace as they are allowed to move on to the next phase of existence together.

Romek (Haley Joel Osment) is the son of a wealthy Jewish couple. When the Nazis invade Poland, the family contacts an old friend and tasks him to hide their son. During this plight, Romek poses as the Catholic nephew of a local farmer (Olaf Lubaszenko), with the aid of a compassionate Catholic priest (Willem Dafoe).

Despite his Jewish upbringing, Romek quickly learns of the Catholic traditions and manages to apply them. The peasants face constant harassment from Nazis, wherein a Hitler youth member rapes one local child. One night, Romek sees the same youth member harassing another local wherein he shoots him dead. A Nazi commander awards him a Nazi uniform and cloak, which he then uses to free some Jews and other locals mistaken as Jews. Tolo joins the other captives in solidarity.

The story is presented as a memory of Diana "Diamond" Armstrong (LisaRaye) sparked by her arrival at the ruins of the raunchy, dysfunctional Players Club she didn't like it at first but she needed the money for her apartment and to raise her son. She explains that she used to work at the club, beginning working there after getting pregnant with her son Jamal and getting into a heated argument with her father about wanting to go to a local historically black college (HBCU), prompting her to move out of her parents' home. Initially, Diana ends up working at a shoe store. There she meets Ronnie (Chrystale Wilson) and Tricks (Adele Givens), who work for Dollar Bill (Bernie Mac) at the Players Club. They convince Diana she would make better money stripping, saying, "Use what you got to get what you want."

Dollar Bill gives Diana a job and the name Diamond. Her job initially goes well and she manages to stay drama free from the club. However, as Graduation nears four years later, her younger cousin Ebony (Monica Calhoun) comes to live with her after leaving Florida. After listening to Dollar's rendition of "The Strippin' Game", she starts working at the club.

Ebony is soon out of control - drinking excessively, staying out all night and influenced more by Ronnie and Tricks, who encourage Ebony to do more out-of-club parties for groups of men. Diamond tries to warn Ebony to stay away from Ronnie and Tricks and to quit doing house parties, but Ebony rebels against being told what to do and ignores Diamond's advice she later regrets it.

After a heated confrontation with Ebony, Diamond has a flashback to a time when she was at a private party with Ronnie and Tricks. Diamond is passed out on the bed drunk, and the men at the party offer to pay Ronnie to perform cunnilingus on Diamond. Ronnie accepts the offer and proceeds to assault Diamond. The flashback encourages Diamond to continue to try to protect Ebony. Clyde (Alex Thomas) and Reggie (Ice Cube) - two watchmen who work for a drug lord named St. Louis - offer Ebony money to come off and have sex with them, but Diamond intervenes.

Meanwhile, Dollar Bill gets confronted by a man who works for St. Louis, a drug lord and loan shark to whom Dollar Bill owes $60,000. He warns Dollar Bill if he doesn't make a payment of $10,000 to St. Louis, he will hunt him down. That same night, St. Louis comes to his club to collect. Lil' Man, the doorman of the club, tells St. Louis that Dollar Bill is not at the club; St. Louis and his men leave. The next day as Dollar Bill tries to leave the club, St. Louis' men Brooklyn (Charlie Murphy) and K.C. (Terrence Howard) confront him. They beat him unconscious and throw him into the trunk of his car. Luckily for him, they are stopped by Freeman (John Amos) and Peters (Faizon Love), two crooked cops. Dollar Bill is found in the trunk and is arrested on warrants; he is later bailed out and returns to the club.

The following night rapper Luke (Luther Campbell) comes to the strip club. Reggie and Clyde discuss him. When Dollar Bill is notified that Luke is at his club, he alerts the strippers via a money alarm, believing he will make a fortune. All of the strippers in the club come rushing down where Luke and his crew are sitting, while Diamond chooses to stay pleasuring Miron. Shortly afterwards, Diamond's professor comes in the club and notices her dancing. Embarrassed and ashamed, Diamond runs away downstairs to the locker room. Ronnie then comes in and attempts to sexually assault Diamond again, but Diamond fights off her advances. Back upstairs, Clyde attempts to meet Luke, but Luke's bodyguard (Michael Clarke Duncan) informs Clyde that Luke is trying to relax and not meet with fans. Clyde insults the bodyguard, causing him to hit Clyde in the back of his head as he starts to walk away. The bodyguard, Luke and the others in the V.I.P. section all laugh. In retaliation, Reggie grabs a chair, smashes it over the bodyguards head and beats down the bodyguard and belligerently fights against Luke and his friends, only for him to be gang-beaten and thrown into a glass window. The dazed Reggie fires his gun wildly while the patrons flee before being knocked out by the bouncer X.L. (Tiny Lister). Clyde then gets up and begins throwing punches himself at the entourage. Back downstairs, a panicked Tricks comes busting in yelling about the shooting upstairs stopping Ronnie from assaulting Diamond.

Further tension develops between Ebony and Diamond when Diamond returns home later that night after fleeing her obsessive customer Miron, who admitted to stalking her and then tried to force entry to her apartment, only to find Ebony in bed with her now ex-boyfriend Lance (after he breaks up with Diamond earlier). Diamond loses it and lunges at Ebony but Lance restrains her. Ebony frantically flees to the bathroom and locks the door and Diamond chases Lance out with her gun, shooting at him several times. Diamond then threatens and taunts Ebony. When Diamond feigns leaving, she punches Ebony when she opens the door and throws her out of the apartment. Diamond begins to grow sick and tired of the drama with Ebony and the club. Days later, Diamond reconciles with her professor; he tells her he understands and promises to help her start her career after she graduates, giving her a card to a friend at the TV network BET.

Diamond then begins dating Blue (Jamie Foxx), a DJ at the Players Club. Meanwhile, Ebony is offered a gig to dance at Ronnie's brother Junior's (Samuel Monroe Jr.) bachelor party, under the pretense from Ronnie that other girls from the club will be dancing there as well (In actuality, Ronnie lied to use her as a way out of stripping for her brother's friends at the party so Ebony can strip for them instead). When Ebony realizes that she will be the only woman in a hotel room full of horny men, she desperately tries calling Diamond (who is out on a date with Blue) to come and pick her up, but Diamond refuses, still being mad at Ebony for sleeping with Lance.

Meanwhile, at Junior's party, Reggie and Clyde, both feeling insulted by Diamond and Ebony from a previous encounter (she aggressively told them she wasn't interested anymore when she first arrived to the party), tell Junior that Ebony will have sex with him, claiming that they "ran a train" on her. Excited, Junior bursts in on Ebony while she is changing. Ebony resists, prompting Junior to brutally beat and rape her, leaving his friends to listen to it in full disgust and disbelief. Soon, Reggie, Clyde and the other guests leave, wanting no further involvement with Junior. When Ronnie discovers Ebony unconscious, she and Junior flee the hotel room as she scolds him. Later, Diamond has a change of heart and she and Blue decide to check up on Ebony at the hotel, only to discover her bloodied and unconscious body on the bed. This proves to be the final straw for Diamond.

Furious, Diamond grabs her gun and goes to the Players Club, where Ronnie and Tricks are hiding out. After scaring the other strippers away by firing a warning shot, Diamond gives the gun to Blue to cover her while she gets into a brutal fistfight with Ronnie, leaving Ronnie badly beaten, avenging Ebony's injured, punches Tricks and this prompts Dollar Bill to firing her from the club. Diamond says final insults to Dollar. While Tricks, Dollar and the others check on a beaten and bruised Ronnie and nurse her facial injuries, Diamond and Blue leave.

Ronnie and Tricks are arrested by the police on charges of the rape of Ebony. Later that night, Diamond's timing proves to be perfect when St. Louis comes to collect. He personally shoots up the club (though he does give warning to the innocent customers and employees beforehand, allowing them to leave). As he desperately tries to escape, Dollar is captured by Reggie, Clyde, and St. Louis' associate, who Dollar Bill met earlier. Later, Brooklyn destroys the club with a LAW rocket, which explains the opening scene.

Ebony, still sporting the bruises from her rape, now has a job working at the shoe store. Having been berated by two strippers who work at a new club, Club Sugar Daddy's, with the same slogan that influenced her and Diana to strip, she firmly stands her ground. Ebony and Diana are back on good terms again. She reminds her to "make that money", which Ebony replied, "Don't let it make you." In voice-over, Diamond narrates that Ebony moved back to Tallahassee, Florida to be with her mother. Blue is a top DJ at a radio station, and he and Diamond are moving further in their relationship. Ronnie and Tricks work at Club Sugar Daddy's after their release from jail. Junior is now serving time for Ebony's rape, and he never got married. Reggie and Clyde were last seen at the "Freaknik" in Atlanta. St. Louis is still "running the South" along with Brooklyn and K.C. Peters and Freeman are still harassing people all day. Little Man manages a strip club in Chicago. Dollar Bill was never heard from again (It can be safely presumed that he was murdered by St. Louis' men for his debts as he was last seen being stuffed into the trunk of their car). Diamond becomes a successful news reporter, having put the past behind her to move on to a new life with her son and boyfriend.

In the 1980s, Billy Wyatt is a thirty-something washed up baseball player living out of a hotel with a cocktail waitress. One afternoon he receives a phone call from his mother, telling him his close childhood friend Katie Chandler has died by suicide.

Flashbacks to the '60s show Billy and Katie's relationship. She was a slightly older neighborhood girl who babysat him for the Wyatts, who were best friends with the Chandlers. Katie mentors young Billy, giving him advice on girls and dating. As he ages he begins to develop feelings for her, and she reciprocates.

Just after Billy graduates high school, his father Sam dies in a car accident. Two months later Katie, Billy, Ginny, and Billy's friend Alan Appleby decide to go back to their summer home "Seasmoke" for the summer as they have done every year, the first without Billy's dad. As summer approaches its end, Billy feels Katie is encouraging his mother to live more freely too soon, and he has a shouting match with her.

The next day at sunrise, Billy goes to Katie for forgiveness, and they spend the rest of the weekend together at Seasmoke. As the weekend draws to a close, Katie asks Billy to pursue his passion for baseball, and to retrieve the baseball necklace pendant from the girl to whom he lost his virginity to just months before. Walking slowly away, she turns and says "I love you Billy boy". The older Billy remembers that was the last time he saw her.

In the present, Katie's father Hank visits the Wyatt family to share the bad news. He recounts how he drove to Seasmoke to check on an upset Katie after her second divorce, and found her body curled up in her bed. "She looked like a little girl sleeping." Katie's wishes are for Billy to be responsible for her ashes, confident he would be the only person to know what to do with them.

Billy reunites with Appleby and they engage in a night of reminiscing and carousing while driving around in Katie's car with her ashes, trying to figure out what to do with them. Suddenly, Billy recalls Katie telling him her fantasy that she could jump off the pier and fly free with the birds. The next morning, Billy goes to the pier, runs down the dock and tosses her ashes just the way she described in her fantasy.

Billy joins a minor league baseball team; taking pride in grooming the field each morning before a game. The film ends with Billy, his girlfriend, and Appleby celebrating after a game that he won by "stealing home" (the same thing he did in the last game he played the day his father died).

As punishment for changing the church's opening hymn as a prank to "In the Garden of Eden" by Iron Butterfly, Reverend Lovejoy makes Bart clean the organ pipes; Milhouse is made to help for snitching on Bart. Bart is furious with Milhouse (who claimed he didn't want his soul to go to hell), and after proclaiming there is no such thing as a soul, he agrees to sell his to Milhouse for $5 on a piece of paper which reads "Bart Simpson's soul". Lisa warns Bart that he will regret selling his soul, but he dismisses her fears.

Bart experiences several unusual phenomena, such as automatic doors refusing to open for him and no longer finding any humor in Itchy and Scratchy. He begins to fear that he really has lost his soul and tries to get it back from Milhouse, who refuses to return it for less than $50. After having a nightmare and being taunted by Lisa, Bart again desperately tries to persuade Milhouse to return his soul. Milhouse informs Bart that he traded the paper to Comic Book Guy at the Android's Dungeon.

The next morning, Comic Book Guy tells Bart that he sold the piece of paper but refuses to reveal its new owner. Saddened, Bart walks home in the rain and prays to God for his soul in his bedroom. When a piece of paper with the words "Bart Simpson's soul" floats down from above, Bart discovers that Lisa bought his soul to return it to him. While she explains philosophers' views on the human soul, Bart eats the piece of paper, overjoyed at getting his soul back.

In the subplot, Moe tries to expand his customer base by turning his bar into a family theme restaurant. The stress of running the business by himself ultimately unnerves him, and he soon snaps at a little girl. The horrified customers abandon the restaurant, forcing Moe's to revert to a run-down tavern.

The film revolves around the intense relationship of the two teenage protagonists, Darren (Cillian Murphy) and Sinéad (Elaine Cassidy), who call each other "Pig" and "Runt," respectively. Pig and Runt were born at the same hospital at nearly the same time and grow up next door to each other. This brings about an extremely close relationship between the two. They live in their own world and rarely interact with other people; when they do, it's mostly to express their hostility toward them. Their relationship, while very intense and unhealthy, remains platonic until just before their 17th birthday.

Around this time, Runt catches and reciprocates the attentions of another young man, Marky (Darren Healy), from their school just as Pig begins to develop romantic feelings for Runt. As their birthday draws closer, Pig becomes more volatile and violent and his new feelings become obvious to Runt when he kisses her after a rampage at a nightclub. Runt does not know how to reject him and they continue their friendship, though relations between them are markedly awkward. Their relationship finally raises concerns at their school. With the cooperation of her parents and Pig's single mother, Runt, considered the more adaptive of the two, is sent away to a boarding school. Pig is devastated by this and decides to run away and retrieve Runt.

Even though Runt is paralyzed with uncertainty and fear at the boarding school, unsure of how to live her daily life without Pig, she starts to adapt, even befriending another girl. On their 17th birthday, Pig arrives at Runt's school and asks her to leave with him, which she does. Elated at their reunion, the two eventually chance upon a nightclub called The Palace. There, Runt sees Marky again and dances with him. In a fit of jealous rage, Pig beats Marky until he dies. The two flee the club and take a taxi to the beach where they often spend time and make love. In the morning, Pig wordlessly allows Runt to smother him, knowing the punishment awaiting him. Runt stares out to the ocean, wondering what the rest of her life will be like.

A meteorite brings a malevolent, sentient extraterrestrial parasite to Earth. The parasite enters the town of Wheelsy, South Carolina, where it infects wealthy resident Grant Grant by taking over his body and absorbing his mind. With the alien in control of him, "Grant" begins to transform into a grotesque, tentacled monstrosity. He also abducts and infects a local woman, Brenda, to serve as a breeder for his alien larvae. His wife Starla becomes suspicious over the changes in his appearance and his behavior, leading to Grant attacking her. When the police arrive to rescue Starla, Grant flees.

During their search for Grant, a posse led by Police Chief Bill Pardy discovers Brenda, whose body has become inhumanly bloated from the larvae impregnated inside her. The slug-like larvae burst from her body, which infest everyone in town except Starla, Bill, Mayor Jack MacReady, and teenager Kylie Strutemyer. Those infected by the larvae become part of a hive mind controlled by Grant, who intends to consume all lifeforms until only his consciousness remains. However, Grant also retains his love for his wife and seeks to be reunited with her. The survivors deduce that killing Grant will eliminate the rest of the aliens before they are attacked by the infected townspeople. Bill and Kylie escape, but Starla and Jack are captured.

Armed with a grenade to kill the monster, Bill and Kylie head to Grant's home, where the infected are being absorbed by the increasingly-mutated Grant. Jack and others are turned into breeders for more larvae, while Grant keeps Starla uninfected in the hope of reclaiming her love. After waking up, Starla arms herself with a sharp brush and goes downstairs to find grant. She tricks him into believing she still loves him and stabs him with the brush. Grant becomes angry and throws her across the room while Bill tries to use the grenade, only for it to fall into a pool when Grant knocks it away. Grant subdues Kylie with a couch and attempts to infect Bill with his tentacles. While one of the tentacles manages to stab Bill in the stomach, he manages to attach the other tentacle to a propane tank. Filled with flammable gas, Grant is shot by Starla and explodes, killing the rest of the aliens in the process. With everyone else in Wheelsy dead, the three survivors head off to seek help.

In a post-credits scene, a cat approaches Grant's remains and becomes infected by the alien parasite.

May wants a dog more than anything else in the world, and, at school, often imagines that everyone in her class are dogs too. But no matter how much she wants one, her parents often say no to the offer.

One day, May tries to show them her such determination by luring, with salami, a pack of ten dogs to her home. But her mother wants them returned, and some time later, May buys a puppy for her mother's birthday using all of her allowance. It does not work to plan, and that same evening, May's parents discuss the trials and tribulations of raising dogs as pets.

Still, as to May having a dog of her own, both of them object, and this leads to their daughter throwing her toys all over her room in outrage. It is not long before May sees one of her white rollerskates roll down the nearby staircase like a dog, which gives her an idea: along with a self-built training course, she can train that skate just like she would a real dog! Her school friends, hearing of her idea and amused at first, want to try walking it.

Another day, May arrives at the neighbourhood luncheonette to check out the newest comic books, leaving her skate outside. Little does she know that her "dog" is being interrogated by a real one! The latter runs away with it, and afterwards, May panics about its whereabouts. With her "try, try again" attitude, she is reunited with the skate by finding it nearby.

In time to come, May and the rollerskate become friends, and the craze as such is catching on with children all over her community. The biggest surprise of all, at the end of the story, is when she finally receives a real dog from her parents as a reward for her hard work.

The game begins when Kururugi enters the family storage shed in modern-day Japan to retrieve an item for father. After falling through a mysteriously etched pentagram on the floorboards, the player is transported to Feudal Japan. On his unfortune, the villagers mistake the time traveler as a demon and attack. After several close calls, Kururugi comes face to face with InuYasha, who notices the stranger's clothes "look like Kagome's".

After introductions with the rest of the cast, the player begins to search for answers as to why Kururugi has been brought back to the feudal era and how to get home. The game progresses as any normal InuYasha storyline, with the InuYasha group travelling from village to village in pursuit of Naraku (and Kururugi's answers), sometimes helping out with a local problem or two. Occasionally traces to Naraku himself are revealed, as well as leads to Kururugi's mystery and the title's "cursed mask", which holds secrets to returning the character to the present. Along the way, Kururugi learns to harness the power of shikigami from a mysterious old villager called Kakuju, a force needed in order to help InuYasha and the others overcome the dangerous obstacles ahead while unraveling the plot of the mystic Utsugi.

Several characters from the anime appear to help, or hinder, the group's progress, including Kikyo, Kagura, Koga and Sesshomaru.

In the end, Utsugi is revealed to be a Hitogata in the image of Kakuju's deceased spouse; Utsugi summoned Kururugi to the past to steal his/her descendant's soul in order to become human and live with Kakuju again. However, Naraku ends up possessing Utsugi for the power of Shikigami. After a long battle, Naraku is sent to Hell and Utsugi dies happy, having unknowingly taken Kakuju's soul and became human. With Utsugi's magic gone, Kururugi is sent back to the present, where it is revealed the festival at the shrine is based on Kururugi's adventure. Kururugi thinks of the member of Inuyasha's group the player spent the most time with.

Characters

; Voiced by: Takashi Kondō (Japanese), Sean Broadhurst (English) : The male version of the main character in the game. He has the mysterious and powerful powers of the Shikigami, which come down to the four elements: fire, water, wind, and light. Animal symbols for his elemental attacks also exist. All co-operative attacks involve his Shikigami enhancing the normal attacks of his friends. Compared to Kaname, Michiru hardly raises his voice when shocked.

; Voiced by: Ryōko Nagata (Japanese), Carol-Anne Day(English) : The female version of the main character in the game. She has the mysterious and powerful powers of the Shikigami, which come down to the four elements: fire, water, wind, and light. Animal symbols for her elemental attacks also exist. All co-operative attacks involved her Shikigami enhancing the normal attacks of her friends. Kaname tends to shriek when surprised or scared. : ; Utsugi : Utsugi is a Hitogata, an enchanted clay doll that was granted life by the priest/priestess Kakuju and the power of Shikigami after Kakuju's original lover, Utsugi, died. Many attempts were made to breathe life into a doll before the final version of Utsugi succeeded, and the imperfect Utsugi-hitogata were discarded in the valley below Kakuju's village. Kakuju mystically sealed the valley and isolated the village to prevent these wandering, imperfect dolls to escape and harm anyone. Eager to become truly human and please Kakuju, Utsugi joined up with Naraku and his incarnations in order to summon Kururugi to the past. Because Kururugi was a descendant on the original Utsugi and gifted with the power of shikigami, Utsugi planned to absorb his/her soul and become human.

; Kakuju : An old man or woman who assists the main character by teaching him/her about Shikigami and more, including his/her past connection with Utsugi. Kakuju traveled to find Utsugi to make amends for his/her past mistakes, and to start over.

; Mahoro : A demon with the ability to transform into a person's loved one or closest friend. He appears in Minomo Village when using this ability to "spirit away" villagers and on Asagiri Island as a merchant the player can buy items from.

; Ogre : Known as "Skeletal demon", Ogre is an incarnation of Naraku that a demon puppet of Naraku releases on InuYasha and the others in Naraku's castle. Its attacks are limited to a full-group blast of miasma and a single swipe at one character.

New Orleans big-band clarinetist Stan Grayson experiences a nightmare in which he sees himself killing a man in a mirrored room, while in the background haunting dirge-like music plays. He awakens to find blood on himself, bruises on his neck and a key from the dream in his hand.

Grayson tells his brother-in-law, police detective Rene Bressard, about the problem but is dismissed. Later, the two men take a picnic in the country with Grayson's girlfriend and sister. Grayson leads them to the empty house from his dream, and it begins to rain. After they find a record player and begin dancing, Grayson's girlfriend bumps into the phonograph, changing the speed. The slowed music becomes the song from Grayson's nightmare. They then discover that the house contains a mirrored room as in Grayson's dream. When he finds that a murder did indeed take place, Bressard suspects Grayson.

Grayson, stressed and suicidal, protests his innocence, which makes Bressard dig deeper. They learn that a hypnotist living in Grayson's building may have caused him to commit the murder. Bressard now must prove that although Grayson committed the murder, he was acting against his will.

''Voyager'' hits subspace turbulence and suffers from power failures. As B'Elanna Torres prepares a series of proton bursts to keep the antimatter reaction in the warp engines alive, Voyager is bombarded with proton bursts from an unknown source. The bursts cause shipwide hull ruptures and casualties, including the deaths of Harry Kim and the newborn Naomi Wildman, while Kes disappears through a space-time rift. As the crew recovers, Torres discovers there is air on the other side of the rift, and believes that it may be possible to rescue Kes. The bridge crew is forced to evacuate the bridge when it is engulfed in flames, but as she leaves, Captain Kathryn Janeway sees a ghostly image of the bridge-crew, calmly at their stations.

The viewer is then shown the immaculate bridge of ''Voyager'', where that version of Janeway watches a ghostly image of herself evacuate the bridge. This ''Voyager'' s proton bursts succeeded in maintaining the reaction, but damaged its doppelganger, of which the crew are aware due to Kes's arrival through the rift. The respective crews are able to make contact with each other, and conclude that upon exiting the nebula, ''Voyager'' and its crew were duplicated as a result of a space-time rift. However, this did not replicate the antimatter, hence the power failures.

The two crews attempt to merge the ships, but the effort is unsuccessful. Janeway from the undamaged ''Voyager'' crosses through the rift along with the duplicate of Kes. The two Janeways meet to discuss options, recognizing they cannot evacuate the damaged ''Voyager'' without creating a quantum imbalance. Janeway from the damaged ''Voyager'' states she will initiate a self-destruct of her ship to allow the undamaged one to regain power. Janeway from the undamaged ship asks her counterpart to delay for 15 minutes to devise another option, and returns to her ship via the rift.

The undamaged ''Voyager'' is attacked by Vidiian ships; Vidiians soon appear on board and begin harvesting vital organs from the crew. The damaged ''Voyager'', however, is undetected by the Vidiians. Janeway from the undamaged ship orders her Harry Kim to collect baby Naomi Wildman and escape through the rift to the damaged ''Voyager'', and then begins a self-destruct of her ''Voyager''. The explosion destroys the ship and the attacking Vidiians, leaving the damaged ''Voyager'' free and returning to normal power-reserves.

The President of the United States, former Astronaut James Norcross (voiced by Paul Frees) is given superpowers as the result of a cosmic storm during a space mission. The future President gains increased strength and the Metamorpho-like ability to change his molecular composition at will to any form required (like granite, steel, ozone, water and even electricity). A hidden panel in the Oval Office allows him access to his secret base, a hidden cave beneath the "Presidential Mansion" (a somewhat modified White House). Super President travels either by using a futuristic automobile/aircraft/submarine called the Omnicar, or by using jets built into his belt.

Despite the fact that the character's name is "Super President," for some reason only Norcross' chubby, pipe-smoking advisor Jerry Sales knows that the leader of the Free World is also a red and white-costumed superhero in his off-hours.

A total of thirty episodes of ''Super President'' were produced. Two episodes appeared in each show. Each episode also included an episode of ''Spy Shadow'' starring secret agent Richard Vance (voiced by Ted Cassidy) who had learned in Tibet how to command his shadow (also voiced by Ted Cassidy) to act independently of himself, an ability he put to good use as an Interspy operative battling a variety of villains, including the evil forces of S.P.I.D.E.R. ("Society for Plunder, International Disorder, Espionage and Racketeering"). Spy Shadow had the power to slip through small openings, hide himself in another person's shadow, and was invulnerable to harm thanks to his insubstantial nature, but his fists remained decidedly solid. Spy Shadow's only weakness is the inability to appear in total darkness for "there can be no shadow without light".

Mendoza tells how she is snatched as a child from the Inquisition in Spain, having first been sold by her real parents to some 'noble Christians' who want her for pagan rites, but are instead arrested. In prison she is called Mendoza, after the name used by the pagans. She does not remember ever having a name of her own before that, her parents simply calling her "daughter" (''hija'' in Spanish). She does not even know her family name, or the name of her village. One of the Inquisitors is Joseph, a cyborg, who is able to deliver her to his fellow agents for 'augmentation'.

Fifteen years later she returns to Spain for her first mission. Although she trained as a botanist and wants to go the New World, she has to spend time in Europe on an expedition to England. She finds that the expedition leader is Joseph, the cyborg who saved her. He is about 20,000 years old, having been recruited from the Basque region as a child when his village was massacred. Joseph is a Facilitator, a 'fixer', a top agent. He is also world-weary, cynical and irreverent. His passion is his work, like all the cyborgs, but he also has a deep-seated hatred of religious fanaticism, partly because his parents were killed by a cult, partly because of what he has seen in his long life. The group also includes Nefer, whose specialty is farm animals, and Flavius, a technician.

The mission is to travel to England as part of the entourage of Prince Philip of Spain, who is going to marry Queen Mary. Then they will go to the estate in Kent of Sir Walter Iden, who has been persuaded to let them sample rare plants from his garden. Mendoza is not pleased by all this. She is already deathly afraid of all 'mortals' as she calls them, and is further dismayed by the prospect of going to cold, wet, violent, disease-ridden England.

When they arrive, without Flavius who stays in London, two things quickly change her mind. One is a hedge of ''Ilex tormentosum'', or Julius Caesar's Holly, a plant with tremendous medicinal properties. It is already rare and, in the future, it is extinct. The other is Nicholas Harpole, Sir Walter's secretary. Nicholas is "tall even for an Englishman" and has a horse-like face but is very intelligent and well-educated. She is immediately attracted to him, and Joseph, always on the lookout for an advantage, encourages her to seduce Nicholas. This she does, and settles in for a long stay, having decided that the Garden is full of unusual plants that will take years to catalogue.

Nicholas, it turns out, has a dark past, having been a member of an ecstatic Christian cult that practised sexual freedom. Deciding that the cult leader was simply exploiting his fellows, he broke away and began preaching radical ideas, for which he was arrested and put in chains. Although Nicholas is illegitimate, he had well-connected friends and was freed with the warning to sin no more.

Mendoza also has problems. As she matures, she finds she emits "Crome radiation", a psychic field which can have unpredictable effects on time and space. This is not supposed to be possible for cyborgs, who are screened for such abilities when recruited. (In a later Company story, we learn that Joseph caused the tests to be fudged because otherwise Mendoza would be tortured to death by the Inquisition.)

As the novel progresses, she is increasingly torn by love for Nicholas and the need to lie to him, to play her assigned part. Nicholas himself is suspicious of Mendoza and her companions. Old Sir Walter Iden, having been given rejuvenating treatments by Joseph as payment for their stay, decides to sell the estate and move to London. The entire household is already amazed by his transformation from doddering old man to virile middle-age. Joseph is furious but can do nothing. Then, while the household is being inventoried for the sale, Joseph is damaged in an accident which would have killed a normal human. Though he talks his way out of the immediate situation with his usual skill, he is eventually found out by Nicholas, who sees him doing self-repairs to his internal machinery.

Nicholas, having been prepared to elope with Mendoza, confronts her, believing her to be a devil in human form. She admits that, even in her own eyes, she is no longer human. Nicholas flees the estate.

Later she learns he has returned to preaching in Rochester, and has been condemned to burn by the new Catholic authorities. She runs away herself to Rochester, but is unable to convince him to recant. At this point Joseph appears, having followed Mendoza. His only purpose now is to prevent her becoming a Company renegade. He denounces Nicholas as just another fake messiah who can only lead others to destruction along with himself. He reveals to Nicholas that he has lived many thousands of years and has yet to see anything resembling the Truth that Nicholas and his like preach. Telling Nicholas that "of all the burnings I've witnessed, this is one I will actually enjoy" he takes Mendoza away.

The next morning, they witness Nicholas' death. Returning to the Iden estate, Joseph promises to pull strings and get Mendoza sent to the New World, as she originally wanted.

In the final chapter, Mendoza arrives at ''New World One'' in the South American jungle. It is a secret Company base run like a luxury hotel, where the servants are Mayans rescued from sacrifices. She settles into her new air-conditioned existence, with an unknowable future.

The film takes place on a tropical island in the Bionicle universe. According to legend, the Great Spirit Mata Nui created the island's masked Matoran inhabitants. Mata Nui was sent into a coma by his envious spirit brother Makuta, who began a reign of terror over the island. His reign ended when six guardians, known as Toa, freed the island from his regime. The Matoran, alongside the Toa and Turaga leaders, live in Element-themed regions of the island. The events of the film take place during the latter half of the 2003 storyline.

The film starts when two Matoran from the fire village of Ta-Koro called Jaller and Takua discover a Great Kanohi, a Toa mask imbued with Elemental power in a cave, and Takua is rescued from a lava wave by the Fire Toa Tahu. The two Matoran later participate in a multi-tribal game of Kohlii, the island's national sport; the match reveals developing tensions between Tahu and the Water Toa Gali. At the end of the match, the Mask is accidentally revealed and the Turaga recognize its powers. They announce that it heralds the arrival of a seventh Toa destined to defeat Makuta and awaken Mata Nui. Jaller and Takua are sent on a quest to find the Seventh Toa, guided by the Mask. In the meantime, Makuta sends three Rahkshi, beings born from pieces of his own essence, to retrieve the Mask. The Rahkshi invade Ta-Koro in search of the Mask, destroying the village. Tahu is poisoned during the assault, causing his behaviour to become increasingly erratic and worsening his already-strained relationship with Gali.

During their journey together, Jaller and Takua receive aid from the Air Toa Lewa, and the Ice Toa Kopaka, the latter of whom temporarily immobilizes the Rakhshi by trapping them in a frozen lake. During their journey through the mountain tunnels en route to the Earth village of Onu-Koro, Takua wanders away from Jaller and is confronted by Makuta, who threatens to kill Jaller and the rest of the island's inhabitants unless Takua brings him the Mask; Takua then abandons Jaller in an attempt to shield him. Makuta then releases three more Rakhshi, who attack Onu-Koro as Takua arrives. Tahu, Kopaka, Lewa and Gali arrive to help the Earth Toa Onua and the Stone Toa Pohatu. Tahu is further corrupted during the battle and goes insane, forcing the Toa to subdue him and flee. Takua decides to rejoin Jaller, while Gali and the other Toa purge the Rakhshi poison from Tahu, resulting in his reconciliation with Gali.

Arriving at Kini Nui, a great temple at the island's centre, Jaller and Takua are confronted by all six Rahkshi. The six Toa mount a united offensive and defeat five of them, but the surviving Rahkshi attacks Takua. Jaller sacrifices himself to protect his friend, and Jaller's final words prompt Takua to don the Mask of Light; the Mask transforms him into Takanuva, the Toa of Light. Defeating the final Rakhshi, he constructs a craft powered by Kraata, the worm-like creatures inside the Rahkshi to guide him to Makuta. Traveling to his lair beneath Mata Nui, the two hold a Kohlii contest to decide the island's fate. At Takanuva's bidding, the Toa, Turaga and Matoran gather together in the chamber, and witness Takanuva merging with Makuta to form a single powerful being. With Takanuva's willpower dominant, the being raises a gate leading deeper beneath the island, through which the gathered people flee. The being also revives Jaller before the gate collapses on top of it. The Turaga proceed to awaken Mata Nui using the Mask of Light, which in turn revives Takanuva. The film ends with Takanuva discovering the long-dormant city of Metru Nui, the Matoran's original home.

''Eureka'' is a drama set mainly in rural Kyushu, Japan, and is almost entirely shot in sepia tone. It tells the story of the lasting effects of a violent experience on three people, a teenage brother and sister, Naoki and Kozue Tamura and a bus driver, Makoto Sawai. These three are the sole survivors after the bus is hijacked by a gunman. The actual violent events which traumatise them are not shown in detail. The extent to which the three have been affected slowly becomes apparent. Naoki and Kozue do not return to school, do not speak and become dissociated from their parents. Some time after the hijack, their mother abandons the family. Later their father is killed in a car crash. It is not clear whether his death is suicide. The two children continue to live alone in the family home. Meanwhile, Makoto is finding it impossible to carry on normal life and takes to the road, leaving his estranged wife living in the family home with his elderly father, elder brother, his wife and their daughter. After some time, Makoto returns home to find that his wife has left him. He cannot return to driving a bus and takes a job as a day-labourer with an old school-friend.

Relationships between Makoto and his brother begin to deteriorate and Makoto moves in with Naoki and Kozue. He takes over the housekeeping and makes sure they eat properly. Kozue now begins to communicate a little but Naoki remains mute. The detective who dealt with the hijacking begins to harass Makoto about the murder of a woman in the neighbourhood, apparently without any evidence. While Makoto is out at work one day, the children's older student cousin Akihiko arrives and states he intends to stay to look after the children. He and Makoto are uneasy with each other but the four people settle down into a kind of family arrangement.

A further murder takes place and this time the victim is a friend of Makoto's. He is arrested and questioned by the detective but is finally released. He talks to his friend and co-worker about his wish to return to driving and forms a plan to get all of them, Naoki, Kozue, Akihiko and himself away from their troubles. He buys an old bus which they convert for living accommodation and they all set off on an extended tour of the island. Kozue becomes more relaxed as they travel around but Naoki appears more disturbed. It eventually becomes clear that it is Naoki who is the murderer. Makoto confronts him and persuades him to give himself up. The remaining three carry on with the journey until Makoto finally loses his temper with Akihiko's cynical and shallow outlook and throws him off the bus. Makoto and Kozue continue on their journey until, finally, when they reach the peak of the highest mountain in Kyushu, both realise they are able to face ordinary life again. As they reach this understanding the film turns to colour.

While hunting in the Mesoamerican rainforest, Jaguar Paw, his father Flint Sky, and their fellow tribesmen encounter a contingent of fleeing refugees, and the group's leader explains that their lands were ravaged and asks for permission to pass through the jungle. Flint Sky notes that the refugees were sick with fear and urges Jaguar Paw to never allow fear to infect him. Later that night, the tribe gathers around an elder who tells a prophetic story about a being who is consumed by an emptiness that cannot be satisfied, despite having all the gifts of the world offered to him, and who will continue blindly taking until there is nothing left in the world for him to take, and the world is no more.

The next morning, the village is attacked by raiders led by Zero Wolf; huts are set on fire, many villagers are killed, and the surviving adults are taken prisoner. During the attack, Jaguar Paw lowers his pregnant wife Seven and their young son Turtles Run into a pit. Returning to the fight, Jaguar Paw nearly kills the sadistic raider Middle Eye, but is eventually captured. When Middle Eye realizes that Flint Sky is Jaguar Paw's father, he kills Flint Sky and mockingly renames Jaguar Paw "Almost". The raiders tie the captives together and set out on a long forced march through the jungle, leaving the children behind to fend for themselves. The refugees from earlier are also shown to have been taken captive. Meanwhile, Seven and Turtles Run remain trapped in the pit after a suspicious raider severs the vine leading out of it.

As the party approaches the raiders' Mayan city, they encounter razed forests and vast fields of failed maize crops, alongside villages decimated by an unknown disease. They then pass a little girl infected with the plague who prophesies the end of the Mayan world. Once the raiders and captives reach the city, the females are sold into slavery while the males are escorted to the top of a step pyramid to be sacrificed before the Mayan king and queen.

Two captives are sacrificed, but as Jaguar Paw is laid out on the altar, a solar eclipse gives the high priest pause, and the Mayans take the event as an omen that the gods are satisfied and conclude the ceremony, sparing the remaining captives.

The remaining captives are then taken by the raiders to be used as target practice and offered freedom if they can run to safety. The first pair of captives to attempt the run across the arena are struck down. Jaguar Paw suffers an arrow wound, but escapes into the jungle, killing Zero Wolf's son Cut Rock in the process. Zero Wolf and Middle Eye take their men to chase after him. Fleeing back into the jungle, Jaguar Paw nearly sinks in quicksand, but very calmly escapes. Reflecting on this, he remembers his father's lesson about fear and resolves to kill his pursuers with the resources the jungle provides him. The raiders are killed off one by one, including Zero Wolf and Middle Eye, until only two men are left.

Later, heavy rain begins to fall, threatening to drown Jaguar Paw's family, who are still trapped in the pit. Seven gives birth to another son, who is born under the surface of the dangerously rising water. Meanwhile, the two remaining raiders chase Jaguar Paw towards the coast, where all three are astonished at the sight of Spanish conquistadors making their way to the shore. As the two raiders are confounded by the Spanish ships, Jaguar Paw uses the distraction to flee and return to his village. Jaguar Paw returns just in time to save his family from the flooding pit, and is overjoyed at the sight of his newborn son.

Later, the reunited family looks out over the water at the Spanish ships. Jaguar Paw decides not to approach the strangers, and they depart, returning into the jungle to seek a new beginning.

The series is set in Los Angeles in the 1980s and opens with Dagmar Laine, a transsexual prostitute and lover to former 1950s film star Beverly Grove, searching for a reel of film taken from the Vatican's collection of pornography. The reel has been sent to Father Frank Murtaugh by his brother who is a Cardinal in the Vatican. Laine tries to grab the reel from Father Murtaugh but the reel is stolen by a nun.

Laine and Grove then get Cass Pollack, a jazz musician and ex-heroin addict who is on the run from the Mafia, to steal the reel in return for them providing Pollack with an alibi. Pollack is also on the run from the police, due to the Mafia killing Pollack's wife and daughter and Pollack being the only suspect.

Laine and Grove (who look virtually identical) provide Pollack with a lead as to where the reel is after the death of Father Murtaugh. This takes Pollack first of all to an occult bookshop called "The Oath of Incannabulata" where he steals a copy of a book about the mysterious "Order of Bonniface". After the bookshop he ends up in a funeral home called "Tanas" where he finds a number of celebrities indulging in bizarre rituals.

Going through Murtaugh's possessions, Pollack finds an invitation to the next meeting of the "Order of Bonniface". He attends this and discovers the Order was formed at the beginning of Hollywood's movie era and that they worship Charles 'Bubba' Kenton, a 1920s film star who was also married to Beverly Grove. He discovers that Kenton forced Grove to give their daughter Sophie up shortly before Kenton became a vampire. After becoming a vampire Kenton forms The Order of Bonniface and turns many of his followers into vampires, including Beverly Grove. This gives Grove the chance of revenge over the loss of her daughter and she switches Kenton's alarm clock so that he wakes during the day and dies in the sunlight.

However The Order want the reel of film as it shows Beverly Grove and Bubba Kenton together in a pornographic film which shows that Grove is much older than she claims to be to the world. They hope she can turn them into vampires and therefore give them eternal youth.

However one of The Order, a young woman called Magda, wants Grove to only make her a vampire. This is because she is Grove's granddaughter, in addition to the nun who stole the reel from Father Murtaugh earlier in the story. Pollack becomes caught in the middle as everyone around him attempts to win, leaving Pollack in a position where he seems unable to survive.

After surviving a Nazi POW camp where comrades were murdered by guards during an escape attempt, Frank Enley is respected for his fine character and good works in the small California town of Santa Lisa, where he, his young wife and baby had settled after moving from the East. What his wife does not know is that Frank moved them in an attempt to escape the fall-out from events in that WWII prison camp.

Frank has a nemesis, Joe Parkson, once his best friend, who lived through the ordeal and was left with a crippled leg. Unable to convince Joe to not make an escape attempt, Frank had alerted the SS Nazi camp commander to the prisoners' plan, taking the camp commandant at his word that he would "go easy" on the men. The prisoners were bayonetted and left to die, and only Joe survived by playing dead. Joe is now determined to exact justice on Frank, whose location he has learned from a newspaper story commending Enley for his civic endeavors.

Joe's girlfriend, Ann Sturgess, knows everything about her man, but cannot dissuade him from his passion to right past wrongs by seeing Frank dead. Joe confronts Edith at their house and tells her the truth about Frank.

Doggedly pursued by Joe, Frank goes to a trade convention at a Los Angeles hotel. Edith shows up to hear the truth straight from her husband, before fleeing back home. Joe finds Frank and they scuffle. Frank runs through downtown Los Angeles and ends up on Skid Row, where he is picked up by Pat, who introduces him to a shady lawyer, Gavery, and a thug for hire, Johnny. A drunken Frank gives Johnny the information he needs to lure Joe into an ambush at the Santa Lisa train station.

Waking from his drunken binge, Frank regrets the deal. He goes home and tries to persuade Edith that it is all over. While she is seeing to their child, he leaves and goes to the station to warn Joe. Johnny is waiting with a gun, but as he fires, Frank jumps in front of Joe and is hit. Frank manages to grab Johnny as he speeds off in his car, causing it to crash into a lamppost, killing Johnny. Frank falls into the street near the fiery crash and dies. Joe, realizing what Frank has done, kneels by his old captain and tells the surrounding crowd that he will be the one to tell Frank's wife about her husband's death.

The story of ''Ground Control II'' takes place in that same universe as that of the original game but starts 320 years later and has little in common with the original game. The human race has discovered faster than light travel and has colonized the galaxy. There are two groups of colonies in this universe, dubbed the Inner Sphere and Outer Sphere. A physical phenomenon causes the communications between the two area to be only possible through a network of special relay stations built at the border of the spheres. Intergalactic travel is also impossible due to an unexplained barrier between the galaxies.

After the battle of Krig-7b that took place in the original video game, Major Sarah Parker (the original game's protagonist) destroyed the Earth's early warning relay station, commandeered a battlecruiser called ''CSS Astrid'' (seen in the original game) and escaped. In the next centuries, a stellar war that lasted 70 years changed the political layout of the colonies. A colony called Draconis Empire subjugated the Inner Sphere and established the Empire of Terra. It destroyed the communication relays, severing communications with the Outer Sphere. The next two hundred years was the age of strife for the Outer Sphere, for they had to rediscover the precious knowledge to which they no longer had access. Eventually, the Outer Sphere colonies formed two interstellar states: The Northern Star Alliance (NSA) and the Intergalactic Trade Guild (ITG). After the two hundred years however, the Empire of Terra invaded the Outer Sphere and began taking over the NSA. In 40 years of battle that followed, the Empire took most of the NSA territory and finally invaded the Morningstar Prime, the capital of NSA.

The game begins with Captain Jacob Angelus becoming a field commander for the NSA. Despite Captain Angelus's "exceptional" battlefield performance, it is clear that NSA cannot win this war and it is only a matter of time before the Empire overwhelm them. An unknown spacecraft crashes on Morningstar Prime which Captain Angelus secures. NSA scientists who study the craft reveal that Major Parker outfitted ''CSS Astrid'' with an ancient device called a ''Singularity Drive'' that enables the ship to bypass the intergalactic barrier and travel to other galaxies. NSA plans to use the ship to evacuate NSA citizens to another galaxy, where the Empire cannot follow. Angelus is sent to find ''CSS Astrid'' but his search is complicated by Imperial forces in pursuit. Eventually, ''CSS Astrid'' is recovered and brought back to Morningstar Prime.

On Morningstar Prime, Captain Angelus must deal with the treachery of an NSA general as well as the arrival of fresh Imperial reinforcements. A tragic final battle takes place in which Captain Angelus and his allies help evacuating anyone they can to ''CSS Astrid'' and see to their safe departure. Despite all the efforts, the Imperials destroy an entire detachment of NSA forces as well as an NSA shuttle, presumably loaded with passengers. Captain Angelus himself does not make it to ''CSS Astrid'' and is stranded on Morningstar Prime.

Andy "Brink" Brinker and his in-line skating crew—Peter, Jordy, and Gabriella—who call themselves "Soul-Skaters" (they skate for the fun of it, not for the money), clash with a semi-professional skating team, Team X-Bladz—led by Val—with whom they attend high school in southern California.

On the first day of school, the Soul-Skaters and Team X-Bladz race on school grounds. Boomer, a skater for Team X-Bladz, is seriously injured during the race, causing Brink to stop mid-race to help him. Brink and the other racers are caught and suspended. Brink learns that his family is in financial trouble; his father, Ralph, has been on disability for six months and is unsure if he will get his job back when he’s well. Brink secretly goes against what he believes and joins Team X-Bladz for $200 a week, as a replacement for Boomer. Ralph didn’t want Brink to spend even more time skating so he forbade Brink from taking the job. However, Brink disobeys him. Ralph being unaware that Brink took the job and since Brink had said he wanted to work, Ralph gets him a part-time job at Pup-N-Suds, a dog grooming business. This, however, is a job which Jordy, Gabriella, and Peter are aware of because Brink had told them that he's working there. For a while, Brink manages to keep his other job in Team X-Bladz a secret from his family and friends by juggling school, both jobs, and practice with the Soul-Skaters. However, Jordy, Gabriella, and Peter discover the truth when they catch him skating for Team X-Bladz at an invitational prior to an upcoming local competition. Brink's friends feel he betrayed them and choose to ignore him upon discovering his alignment with Team X-Bladz.

Brink tries to rejoin the Soul Skaters, but is rebuffed. Val offers Brink a chance to re-join X-Bladz by noting the team won't hold him leaving against him. While scouting the route for the downhill leg of the upcoming competition, The Soul-Skaters and Team X-Bladz agree to a downhill race, with Gabriella against Brink. During the race, Val sabotages the course by tossing gravel onto the road - but tells Brink to take a different route. Gabriella wipes out big and sustains cuts and bruises. Brink realizes what Val did.

Brink visits Gabriella at her house and she calls him a sell-out. Ralph learns about the accident from Gabriella's mother and Brink confesses that he took the job with X-Bladz even though he was told not to. Ralph has a heart-to-heart with Brink and asks him why he didn't tell the family about it. Brink finally confesses his true reasons for joining Team X-Bladz and wanting to be a somebody from it. He admits that though he got what he wanted, it has gotten him into a mess. Brink mentions he has lost his friends and doesn't have fun skating with X-Bladz. Ralph reveals that although the family is in financial trouble, Brink should not be skating for the money and would rather skate for fun.

Inspired by his father, Brink confronts Val at the local boardwalk, quits Team X-Bladz, and returns the team gear (skates / helmet). Val tells Brink to not renege on his contractual obligations with Team X-Bladz. This leads to a heated argument between both boys and Brink to toss a milkshake in Val's face.

In the days before the competition, Brink meets his friends at the skate yard. After giving them new skates, Brink tells them of his plan to sponsor the team under the name "Team Pup 'N Suds". When questioned, Brink admits he got an advance from PupNSuds from his wages to pay for the skates. They forgive Brink and accept him as their friend again.

As friends once again, they compete in the competition with their families' support. In the end, it comes down to Brink and Val in the championship race. Throughout the downhill championship, Val continually attempts to shove Brink off the course. When Val crashes off the course, Brink returns to help him up. Val yanks Brink to the ground to try to get a head start, while ESPN cameras stream the interaction to onlookers. After getting up, with Val in the lead, Brink takes a shortcut to win the race.

Immediately after the race, while Val storms off, Team X-Bladz manager, Jimmy, who saw Val's cheating and kicked him off the team, offers Brink a spot on Team X-Bladz. However, Brink declines. He happily re-joins the Soul Skaters and receives the trophy.

The game begins with the protagonist, SCU agent Ethan Thomas, arriving at the scene of a murder. He and his fellow officers go into an abandoned building that is surrounded by psychopaths and criminals. The crime scene they investigate is one of a young woman. She is on the floor with strangulation wounds, sitting across a table from a male mannequin. Ethan, along with his colleagues, agree that the murder was most likely committed by the Match Maker, a serial killer that Ethan has been investigating. After they collect evidence from the scene, one of the officers smells cigarette smoke. Believing that the smoke must be coming from their suspect, they decide to split up and go after him. While searching for the suspect, Ethan tries to restore power from an electrical box. Due to an electrical surge, Ethan is shocked and drops to the floor, causing his weapon to be thrown from his hand. A man hiding in the shadows takes it and flees. Ethan manages to chase the man into a small, dead-end room, where the man holds Ethan at gunpoint and tells him they have similar goals. Ethan's colleagues enter the room and tell the man to drop his weapon and are promptly shot by the man with Ethan's gun, who then shoves Ethan out a window onto the street.

Ethan wakes in his apartment with Malcolm Vanhorn, a friend of Ethan's father, at his side. Malcolm warns Ethan that he is wanted for the deaths of the two officers who were shot with Ethan's gun. Ethan is determined to prove his innocence, although his own sanity appears to be slipping, as throughout the game he suffers numerous horrific visions, and all the while is forced to fight to the death in self-defence against homeless men and women who have inexplicably been driven insane.

He soon learns that the killer is interested in Ethan's SCU career. Later, he finds the body of the Match Maker, killed by his own modus operandi in an old department store. He presumes that the man at the original crime scene, referred to in the game as "Serial Killer X", is the culprit and that he is trying to kill the serial killers that Ethan is looking for. Ethan searches for the one that he thinks is next, a serial killer dubbed "The Torturer".

Ethan tracks the Torturer and Serial Killer X to an abandoned apple orchard in the rural town of Brier. Shortly before finding the Torturer in the farmhouse, Ethan is attacked by a strange man-like creature. Ethan kills the creature and continues in his search. He searches through the farm where he eventually finds the Torturer dead, also killed by his own modus operandi. Soon, Ethan finds the mysterious killer, who is revealed to be Leland Vanhorn, nephew of Malcolm Vanhorn. Malcolm arrives and knocks Ethan out with a shovel to prevent him from hurting Leland. Leland then knocks Malcolm out.

When Ethan awakens, he is tied up and at the mercy of Leland. He explains to Ethan that he has been killing the serial killers that Ethan had been hunting, and that he intends to kill Ethan as well. As Leland thinks of all the ways that he can kill Ethan, cutting Ethan's finger off in the process, Ethan notices another man-like creature hiding in the rafters. This creature is known as "The Hate" and is identified as the source of the madness gripping Metro City. Malcolm attacks Leland from behind and succeeds in wrestling him to the ground. Ethan manages to free himself and Malcolm tells him to kill The Hate, saying that it is the cause of Leland's madness. Ethan pursues The Hate as it tries to escape, fighting waves of hideously burned homeless men along the way, and eventually corners it in a barn and kills it.

As Malcolm drives Ethan home, Ethan discovers that Leland is alive and in the trunk of the car. Malcolm still believes that Leland can be saved from The Hate's influence, but Ethan does not and is furious at the revelation. When Ethan opens the trunk, he is given the option to shoot the tied-up Leland. If he does not shoot Leland, Leland pulls out his own gun and waves it at Ethan before committing suicide.

Some time later, Ethan and Rosa are having a conversation in a diner when Rosa tips him off that she is wired and the FBI is investigating Ethan, while revealing that she still trusts him. Rosa then leaves the diner and Ethan goes to the bathroom. While in the restroom, Ethan apparently experiences another vision while watching his reflection in the mirror, and his mouth becomes deformed and wide open just like The Hate's mouth, before the game comes to an abrupt halt.

The crew of the ''Enterprise'' are undertaking routine tasks when suddenly the ship is struck by some outside force, rendering much of it inoperable and cutting communications between different sections. They eventually discover that the ship had collided with a fragment of a quantum filament, make emergency repairs, and set course back to the nearest starbase for a full overhaul.

Several different sub-plots are followed among the various crew members:

• Counselor Troi hesitantly takes command of the ship, as the highest-ranking officer on the bridge at the time, and is accompanied by Chief O'Brien and Ensign Ro. They find that the antimatter containment field in the warp core is rapidly deteriorating, and Ro suggests that they separate the saucer and drive sections of the ''Enterprise'' in order to save those in the former. O'Brien objects to this plan, not wanting to abandon any survivors in the drive section; Troi agrees and directs him to divert some of their minimal power reserves to the appropriate panel in Engineering, hoping that someone there can rectify the situation. This is later done by Commander Riker and Lt. Commander Data. Ro apologizes for considering such a drastic action while Troi acknowledges that she could have easily been correct.
• Riker and Data are in Ten Forward along with Worf and a pregnant Keiko O'Brien at the time of the disaster. Ten Forward is set up as a triage area with Worf and Keiko tending to the wounded. Riker and Data realize that without functioning turbolifts, it would be faster to travel through the Jefferies tubes to reach Engineering in order to regain control of the ship rather than to try to make it to the bridge. A high-voltage electrical discharge blocks their way; Data sacrifices his body to disrupt it, but his head remains fully operational and Riker takes it with him. In Engineering, they find the computer offline and Data offers to use his own positronic brain to gain basic control of ship systems. Riker notices the operating panel that indicates the containment field failure, and he and Data quickly set up the proper connections to strengthen it until repairs can be made.
• Captain Picard is giving a guided tour of the ship to three children who have won a science fair, a task he has not been looking forward to as he is uncomfortable around children. They are aboard a turbolift when the accident occurs and Picard fractures his ankle from the sudden stop. He calms the children down, and to boost their morale, assigns them honorary command roles. With their spirits renewed, Picard and the children climb out of the turbolift and up the shaft until they are able to open the lift doors on another floor and climb out safely. Picard comes to appreciate the children and offers to give them another tour once the situation has been resolved.
• Doctor Crusher and Lieutenant Commander La Forge are in a cargo bay examining a recent supply of thruster fuel. When the disaster strikes, they are trapped in the bay and find that a plasma fire has erupted in a nearby panel; it is emitting radiation capable of both endangering their lives and destabilizing the fuel to the point of explosion. By depressurizing the bay, they are able to both expel the fuel into space and extinguish the fire due to a lack of oxygen; they survive by holding on to a ladder and then re-establishing normal air pressure.
• Keiko goes into labor while she and Worf are tending to patients in Ten Forward, forcing Worf to help her deliver her child despite having only basic emergency medical training. Though the delivery is tense, Keiko gives birth to a healthy daughter and names her Molly.

As the year 2000 is approaching, Cartman realizes blood is coming out of his anus, leading him to believe he is experiencing his first period and thus commencing puberty. He makes fun of the other boys for not hitting puberty yet, unaware that his bleeding is caused by a minor stomach infection that has spread across South Park, and that it can be cured with antibiotics. Kenny later contracts the same ailment, and Kyle, not wanting to be left out, pretends he is also afflicted. The boys consequently abandon Stan and leave him out of their next mission, believing he is less mature for not having had his period.

Meanwhile, the people of the world flock around Jesus' house, excited about the new millennium and saying that, at the year 2000, Jesus' father should make an appearance. Jesus contacts his father and tells him about his potential resurgence in popularity, but God (unseen in their conversation) refuses to show up because mankind is not ready. Jesus, wanting to still satisfy the people, books Rod Stewart to play a New Year's Eve concert in Las Vegas; everybody decides to go, because a rumor persists that God will show up.

Stan, meanwhile, prays for his period, but doesn't get it, so he visits Dr. Mephesto and gets a bottle of hormone pills. Using them causes Stan to grow a beard, have a deeper voice, and develop a pair of breasts, but still no "period." Afterwards, Kenny suddenly bursts from inside out and dies. At the hospital, they discover the reason: Kenny had shoved a tampon up his rectum. The doctor expresses concern that "the children are all shoving tampons up their ass because they've seen the Backstreet Boys doing it on TV or something."

The crowd in Las Vegas for the New Year's concert is enraged upon seeing Rod Stewart (portrayed here as very old and incontinent) and they turn against Jesus. With them preparing to crucify him again, Stan asks Jesus why God does not answer his prayers, and Jesus explains that, if God does everything for you, then your existence has no real purpose. Jesus realizes that this was God's message: Jesus had to figure his ''own'' way to get people to follow him. And just as he realizes this, God arrives.

After the crowd's initial shock over God's appearance (distinctly unlike traditional depictions of God), God offers the people the chance to ask one question. The crowd plans to ask the meaning of life or existence, but before anyone else can ask, Stan comes up and asks why he hasn't gotten his period. God explains that boys don't get periods, and tells the truth: that Cartman and Kenny are affected by the colon infection and Kyle was lying to fit in with them. God explains to Stan that he will never get a period (because he is male), but he will hit puberty when the time is right. He then returns to Heaven, saying he will answer another question in the year 4000. Stan is satisfied by this, and joyfully starts singing "Auld Lang Syne", but the angry crowd attacks him for wasting their chance to ask God a profoundly important question, as the credits roll.

The Super Robot Monkey Team is set in Shuggazoom City, a city that takes up a good portion of its planet, named Shuggazoom. The rest of the planet is divided into sparsely or entirely uninhabited zones. The largest of these making up the majority of the visible surface outside of Shuggazoom city is "The Zone of Wasted Years" which is a barren wasteland.

The main character is a boy named Chiro. When he was exploring the outskirts of the city, he stumbled upon a giant abandoned robot partially overgrown with plants but still accessible. Once inside, his curiosity got the better of him and he pulls an old power switch among a series of stasis tanks. In doing so, he awakened the five robotic monkeys that form the Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce. In the process Chiro also fused himself with the mysterious supernatural energy of the Power Primate, allowing him to transform into a stronger, braver fighter and the leader of the team. With the aid of the five Robot Monkeys: Sparx, Antauri, Gibson, Otto and Nova, their mission is to save Shuggazoom City from the Skeleton King, the main villain of the series, as well as any other evil forces that may threaten it.

Since Chiro was not born a superhero, or with any enhanced abilities, the five Robot Monkeys take up training him to hone his abilities which results in him leading the team. With each member possessing a different set of skills Chiro acts as a unifying force keeping them on point where they otherwise might fall to differing opinions, in addition to being familiar with the current culture of Shuggazoom. With the monkeys continuing to train Chiro he grows into the leader they need with the potential to fulfill his greater destiny as protector of the universe.

When fighting with larger enemies the Hyperforce uses the Super Robot, which can operate as a single entity or split into six separate vehicles for versatility. Its main attack, when combined as the whole robot, is Lasertron Fury. This powerful energy beam that is fired from its chest is capable of destroying large objects or hostile entities while an array of smaller weaponry is used to handle other lesser threats. The Super Robot also serves as Chiro and the Monkeys' headquarters and home while parked on its landing pad in Shuggazoom City.

Over the course of the series the history of both Shuggazoom and the Robot Monkeys is expanded upon revealing they were created long ago specifically to combat the evil Skeleton King by a brilliant inventor known only as the Alchemist. Having unintentionally released a great evil into the world with his experiments the Hyperforce was his attempt to prepare for an uncertain future where defenses would be needed. The Hyperforce itself also expanded as the series ran to include various allies and a rogues gallery of enemies as recurring characters.

The story takes place in 1827 on an isolated farm at the fictional locality of Curlow Creek in the mountains of the colony of New South Wales. The two main characters are Michael Adair, an Irish-born officer in the colonial mounted troopers, and Daniel Carney, an Irish escapee and bushranger. Adair had been dispatched from Sydney to oversee Carney's hanging and he arrives at Carney's temporary prison—a stockman's hut—on the night before he is due to be executed.

The narrative details conversations held by Adair and Carney throughout the cold night as they explore their shared Irish heritage. The novel is also peppered with Adair's reminiscences of his aristocratic childhood in County Galway. As the plot progresses, Adair develops sympathy for Carney despite his criminal past and impoverished background. The novel ends with Adair presumed to have let Carney escape into the bush—though as with many of David Malouf's novels, the ending is ambiguous and the reader does not know for sure the fate of the hero.

When a dorm toilet explodes on the first day back to school, a group of misfit girls are forced to leave their housing and search for a new home. They ultimately decide on pledging a sorority. However, not many sororities are normal at South Beach University. The girls decide to pledge the most popular and exclusive sorority at the university, Gamma Gamma, which is led by president Victoria English.

While pledging the sorority, Victoria sends the girls to do a task: collect used condoms. While searching the park, the leader of the group, Gloria, bumps into Victoria's boyfriend Derek, and they become close. The only reason Victoria plans to let the freshmen pledge is to display diversity, which is a requirement for the "FHM Hottest Sorority in the Country" contest. From then on, Victoria declares war on the girls during "Hell Week" but ultimately lets them join, only to kick them out once they have won the contest. This angers the leader of the misfit freshmen, Gloria. Gloria decides to quit the sorority as do her friends. Derek and Gloria realize their feelings towards each other and seal it with a kiss.

Gloria's ex-best friend, Kristen, convinces Gloria to come back. Gloria and her friends come back but only to declare war on Victoria by sneaking into the Gamma Gamma house and stealing embarrassing photos and video footage of her to show to everyone at the Gamma Gamma victory party. The video also showed her badmouthing her sorority sisters, and her past dorky self. She also reveals to Victoria that she and Derek love each other. Victoria becomes embarrassed and eventually realizes how reinventing herself made her into a bad person, so she makes a public apology to the freshmen. The movie ends with a giant food fight at the Gamma Gamma party, and Victoria saying that she loved her cover of ''FHM'' so much she bought the magazine. Gloria becomes the president of Gamma Gamma the following year.

Actress Yvonne Orlac rests after her final performance at the "Théâtre des Horreurs" (styled after the Grand Guignol) in Paris, France. As she listens to her husband Stephen Orlac play the piano on the radio, she is greeted by Dr. Gogol, who has seen every show featuring Yvonne, and unaware of her marriage, is aghast to learn that she is moving to England with her husband. Gogol leaves the theater heartbroken, buys the wax figure of Yvonne's character, refers to it as Galatea (from the Greek myth), and arranges that it be delivered to his home the following day.

Stephen Orlac is on a train journey from Fontainebleau to Paris, where he sees murderer Rollo the Knife Thrower, who is on the way to his execution by guillotine. Gogol later witnesses the execution, along with the American reporter Reagan. Orlac's train crashes later that night, and Yvonne finds her husband with mutilated hands. She takes Stephen to Gogol in an attempt to reconstruct his hands, and Gogol agrees to do so. Gogol uses Rollo's hands for the transplant, and the operation is a success.

The Orlacs are forced to sell many of their possessions to pay for the surgery, while Stephen finds he is unable to play the piano with his new hands. When a creditor comes to claim the Orlacs' piano, Stephen throws a fountain pen that barely misses his head. Stephen seeks help from his stepfather, Henry Orlac. Henry denies the request, upset that Stephen did not follow in his line of business as a jeweler. A knife thrown in anger by Stephen misses Henry, but breaks the shop front's window. Gogol meanwhile asks Yvonne for her love, but she refuses. Stephen goes to Gogol's home and demands to know about his hands, and why they throw knives. Gogol suggests that Stephen's problem comes from childhood trauma, but later confirms to his assistant Dr. Wong that Stephen's hands had been Rollo's.

Gogol then suggests to Yvonne that she get away from Stephen, as the shock has affected his mind and she may be in danger. She angrily rejects Gogol, whose obsession grows. Henry Orlac is murdered, and Stephen receives a note that promises that he will learn the truth about his hands if he goes to a specific address that night. There, a man with metallic hands and dark glasses claims to be Rollo, brought back to life by Gogol. Rollo explains that Stephen's hands were his, and that Stephen used them to murder Henry. He also claims that Gogol transplanted his (Rollo's) head on to a new body flashing a leather-and-metal neck brace as "proof!"

Stephen returns to Yvonne and explains that his hands are those of Rollo, and that he must turn himself in to the police. A panic-stricken Yvonne goes to Gogol's home, and when he comes home and sheds his disguise, finds him completely mad. Gogol assumes that his statue has come to life, embraces her, and begins to strangle her. Reagan, Stephen and the police arrive, but are only able to open the observation window. Stephen produces a knife and throws it at Gogol, then finds his way in. Gogol dies as Stephen and Yvonne embrace.

The superhero team the Specials has never achieved great popularity or prestige, partially because unlike other super teams it is not corporation-friendly and has been unable to secure merchandising deals. Without the corporate or private financial resources of more well-established teams, the Specials often get underrated villains, small disasters, and the occasional alien invasion to repel — all of which are deemed too low-priority for other superhero teams. Even the members with formidable powers have shortcomings that prevented a transition for the team as a whole. Because team-members such as the Strobe, Ms. Indestructible, The Weevil, Deadly Girl, Power Chick, Amok, Alien Orphan, and Eight all possess various social dysfunctions, they've never quite broken through the superhero glass ceiling.

The team welcomes Nightbird (Jordan Ladd), the group's newest member, a teenage girl with "bird powers." Nightbird, who idolizes the Specials, soon realizes that her heroes do not function as a harmonious team but like a dysfunctional family. One of the two greatest points of stress in the team is the slowly fracturing relationship between the Strobe (Thomas Haden Church) and Ms. Indestructible (Paget Brewster), a married couple at the core of the team. Also problematic is that the Weevil is trying to negotiate an exit into a more high-profile superhero team, playing both on his own popularity and his legacy status from following in his father's footsteps.

The cracks begin to show as they prepare to attend a dinner in their honor thrown by Kosgrov Toys, which is releasing a line of action figures based upon the group. The event is a travesty. It becomes quickly apparent that Kosgrov did little research on the Specials, and low-balled the production by utilizing cheap accessories and recycled parts. Worse yet, the leader of the Specials, the Strobe, discovers that his wife, Ms. Indestructible, is cheating on him with the most popular member of the group, The Weevil (Rob Lowe). In a fit of anger, the Strobe disbands the group, and the members go their own ways.

The Strobe goes to Zip Boy's (Barry Del Sherman) house and asks for a job at New Standards Inc., a plastics company in Detroit, denying there's a problem by saying that he's great, now that he has "a great new job as a welding asshole." Ms. Indestructible spends the night watching her old wedding video and crying over a glass of wine. The Strobe's brother, Minute Man (James Gunn), who had had a crush on the new girl, Nightbird, ultimately falls into the arms of Deadly Girl (Judy Greer), who, because of her loyalty to the Strobe as leader, was hurt to learn about Weevil and Ms. Indestructible. Meanwhile, Amok (Jamie Kennedy), Power Chick (Kelly Coffield), Alien Orphan (Sean Gunn), and Mr. Smart (Jim Zulevic) indulge in a night of drinking and dancing.

During the disbandment, the Weevil finalizes his transfer to another superhero team, only to find that his negative press from the Specials still follows him. Reporters focus more on his controversy than his ability to apprehend villains, and the Weevil finds he has gone from being the top dog in a small team to the team runt in the larger one. The Strobe and Ms. Indestructible reconcile, and the Strobe renews his passion for justice instead of image. The team is immediately called back into action and the heroes resolve to do the right thing not because it will bring popularity or glory, but because as misfits, they've become the champions of society's underdogs. They exit to face down another crisis, giant ants attacking the White House; as they assemble, they actively demonstrate their powers for the first time in the entire film.

In preparation for a spelling bee, Cartman's mother buys him a "Hooked on Monkey Fonics" system that features an actual live monkey playing the drums to keep with the beat of spelling and sounding out the words. After spelling a couple of words, Cartman believes he will have a chance to win the spelling bee. While at the spelling bee, the children face stiff competition from two homeschooled children, Rebecca and Mark Cotswolds. Cartman asks the monkey to help him spell his word, ''chair'', but Phonics Monkey is masturbating, and Cartman misspells it as "C-H-A-R-E"; angered, he runs off to chase the monkey. In the final round, Kyle is unable to spell his word, "''krocsyldiphic''" (The study of physiokinesiological dynamics using the computational tools of bioinformatics and specialized mathematical formulas developed by Marcus Krocsyl), correctly and Rebecca and Mark are declared the champions. Although Kyle is annoyed at having been beaten, he ends up developing a crush on Rebecca.

Mark becomes intrigued by the interactions he sees between Cartman, Kyle, and Stan, and begs his father to be allowed to attend public school. His father objects due to how dangerous public schools can be, but reluctantly relents. At the school, Mark, placed in a largely protective hamster ball by his overprotective and agoraphobic father, is tormented for his haughty attitude and superior knowledge, and ends up duct taped to a bench by the other boys. This prompts Mark's father to speak with the adults in Skeeter's Bar and Cocktails about the incident and the fact that Kyle has become smitten with Rebecca and should stop pursuing her. The adults are quick to dislike him as much as the kids dislike Mark; after learning that he does not drink beer but prefers wine coolers, they proceed to duct tape Mark's father to one of the bar's benches.

After questioning Mark about why he has never been seen before and why he does not attend school like the other children, Cartman is introduced to the concept of home schooling. The idea of never having to go to school appeals to him greatly, and, using Mr. Garrison's condescending remarks towards him as an excuse, demands to be home schooled himself. To him, this involves a regimen of sleeping in and sitting in bed while snacking and watching television, while his mother unsuccessfully attempts to get him to study. When Stan and Kenny come to visit to tell him about the Bay of Pigs Memorial Dance, Phonics Monkey kills Kenny.

Meanwhile, Kyle makes many efforts to make his feelings known to Rebecca, although several end up humorously unsuccessful. Ultimately he convinces her to explore the world of public schooling, and she agrees to go to the South Park dance with him. He also explains what love is to her and, out of curiosity, she asks Kyle if she can experiment a kiss with him, to which he agrees. After kissing him, Rebecca immediately changes when she agrees to Kyle's dance proposal ("You bet your sweet ass I'll go.")

At the dance, the band Dio plays their song "Holy Diver". The boys of the school hatch a plan to duct tape Mark to the flagpole while the adults also hatch a similar plan for Mark's father. When Rebecca enters the dance dressed up promiscuously and kissing every boy in sight, Mark is outraged and attacks Kyle for turning his sister "into a slut." The other boys perceive his beating up Kyle as cool and finally accept him; Randy Marsh breaks up the fight, with Mark warning Kyle he's not through with him. Mr. and Mrs. Cotswald arrive and interrupt the dance, looking for their children so they could leave. Mark gets onstage and makes a speech to his parents (particularly to his father) about the benefits of public schools - "...it's the main place where children learn all of their social skills. You can't teach a child social skills. They have to learn them themselves." Mr. Cotswald, affected by his son's speech, agrees to let Rebecca and Mark regularly attend public school; Rebecca and Kyle then share a kiss. Mark's father, however, is then duct taped to the flagpole in front of the school by the adults, regardless of his change in attitude and opinion. Dio restarts and plays "Holy Diver" over the end credits, with Phonics Monkey joining in on drums.

Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky, Petrie, and Spike live a carefree life in the Great Valley under their families' watchful eyes. One day, the gang attempts to get to the sheltering grass to play, but land in the sinking sand surrounding it. The adults rescue them and chastise them for their recklessness. The next night, the children have a secret meeting and decide to prove their bravery and maturity by venturing into the Mysterious Beyond, a location outside the Valley that is inhabited by Sharpteeth. Before they leave, they notice two eggnappers, Ozzy and Strut, stealing an egg from the nest of Ducky's mother. The children pursue the intruders into the Mysterious Beyond. An ensuing landslide damages the Great Wall that surrounds the Valley and protects it from the Sharpteeth, and the stolen egg rolls safely back to the nest, but the group does not notice this in the confusion.

In the Mysterious Beyond, the group discover another, larger egg and mistake it for the original. The gang transports the egg into the Valley, and despite finding the original egg back in Ducky's nest, they decide to hatch it. The gang doesn't realize it's from another nest. The egg eventually hatches, revealing a baby Sharptooth. Although Littlefoot's friends are frightened off, Littlefoot quickly realizes that the baby Sharptooth is not yet dangerous, and decides to raise the newly christened "Chomper" as his parent. This task proves difficult as Chomper is not an herbivore, and Littlefoot has no experience raising a child. Ozzy and Strut appear to exact revenge on the group for foiling their earlier theft, but are driven away by Chomper's enlarged shadow, which they mistake for that of an adult Sharptooth. The rest of the gang meets Chomper and they accept him as part of the group until he hungrily bites Cera by accident. The group's knee-jerk reaction causes Chomper to run off in tears. The others follow him to a smoking mountain, where Ozzy and Strut attempt once more to attack the children, but are stopped when the mountain's eruption sends them plummeting down a canyon. After the group escapes, they encounter two adult Sharpteeth, who have managed to enter the Valley through the opening in the Great Wall. The whole Great Valley population drives the Sharpteeth off, and the children make it back to their families, but Chomper feels left out and runs away again.

The adults inquire as to how the Sharpteeth entered the Valley, prompting the children to explain the events that resulted in the landslide. The adults set off to put together a plan to close the opening for good, telling the children to stay behind. Littlefoot runs to the forest to find Chomper. After finding him, they are chased and cornered by the two Sharpteeth. Chomper roars at them, and they recognize him as their son and leave with him. Littlefoot is then kidnapped by Ozzy and Strut, who plan to throw him off the Great Wall. Chomper hears Littlefoot screaming and leads his parents to Littlefoot's location. Chomper's parents rescue Chomper from an attempted intervention, and inadvertently do the same thing for Littlefoot by chasing Ozzy and Strut back into the Mysterious Beyond. Littlefoot bids Chomper farewell as he follows his parents, and he returns to the Valley to assist the adults in sealing up the entrance between the Valley and the Mysterious Beyond. Following his experiences, Littlefoot tells his grandparents that being young is not so bad after all, but decides he still looks forward to growing up.

In 1986, as a child, Rachel Lang is placed in foster care when her mother, Barbara, is diagnosed with schizophrenia after mistaking signs of Rachel's telekinesis as possession by Satan. Thirteen years later in September 1999, Rachel, an outcast, is living with unsympathetic foster parents and attending high school. After her best friend, Lisa Parker, commits suicide by leaping from the roof of the school, it is uncovered that Eric Stark, a popular football star, rejected her after exploiting her for sex.

A devastated Rachel finds a photo of Lisa and Eric kissing while developing rolls of Lisa's film at a photo lab where she works. Rachel turns the photograph in to police, and explains that Lisa had confessed to her that she had recently lost her virginity. Sheriff Kelton, along with the school's guidance counselor, Sue Snell, pursue statutory rape charges against Eric, who is over eighteen. It is uncovered that Eric and his football player peers, including Mark Bing and Chuck Potter, are competing to see who could seduce the most girls by the end of the year.

Late one night while driving home, Jesse Ryan, another player on the football team, is flagged down by Rachel after her Basset Hound, Walter, is hit by a car on the road. Jesse, who is not as callous as his peers, takes a genuine interest in Rachel, at the behest of cheerleader Tracy Campbell, who is pursuing him. Meanwhile, having discovered that Rachel implicated them in Lisa's death, Eric and Mark attempt to scare her into silence by harassing her at her home, but her unusually strong telekinetic powers frighten them away.

Meanwhile, Sue gradually begins to suspect Rachel may possess telekinetic powers through their counseling sessions. She tracks down Rachel's institutionalized mother, Barbara, whose schizophrenia has stabilized, and Barbara confesses that Rachel's father was Ralph White, the father of Carrie White. Sue subsequently brings Rachel to the ruins of the former high school that she attended, which Carrie destroyed in a telekinetic rage in 1976 after being humiliated at her senior prom. Sue, a peer of Carrie's, was one of the few survivors of the incident. When Sue discloses that Carrie is Rachel's half-sister, Rachel dismisses her as a liar.

Later, the district attorney covers up the statutory rape charges against Eric because the players' families have political influence. Mark retaliates against Rachel by setting up a romantic getaway for her and Jesse, which he covertly films unbeknownst to them. Monica Jones, the girlfriend of Mark's friend Brad Winters, then befriends Rachel under false pretenses, inviting her to a party after a football game. Rachel leaves with Monica to the party, while Jesse is forced to ride with Tracy after his car's tires are slashed. Tracy stops at her house first and unsuccessfully attempts to seduce him. Meanwhile, Sue manages to sneak Barbara out of the institution so that she can confess Rachel's father's identity to her.

At the party, Mark and Chuck soon confront Rachel, revealing their sex game and falsely claiming that Rachel was added to Jesse's list of girls he has bedded. They also project the footage of her and Jesse having sex for all of the partygoers to see. This triggers Rachel's telekinesis, and she seals the house closed. She kills most of the partygoers by causing a large glass window to explode, slashing them to death, and also triggers a fire. Meanwhile, Sue and Barbara track Rachel to the party, but a fire-poker impales the front door, killing Sue. As Rachel pursues Monica, Eric, and Mark through the house, they arm themselves with weapons. Rachel kills Monica by causing her glasses to implode into her eyes, causing Monica to inadvertently castrate Eric with a harpoon. Mark shoots her with a flare gun and Rachel falls into the swimming pool. When Mark goes over to inspect whether she is dead, Rachel appears out of the water and pulls Mark into the pool. Rachel triggers the sensor to the automatic pool cover, and manages to free herself while Mark drowns.

Barbara confronts an injured Rachel and initially attempts to comfort her, but proceeds to accuse her of being possessed, and flees. Jesse and Tracy arrive moments later, and Rachel kills Tracy by causing a piece of ceiling to collapse on her. On a balcony, Rachel confronts Jesse about his supposed list, but he denies it. Rachel then notices that the videotape of her and Jesse, still playing in the living room, captured Jesse saying "I love you" while she slept, and immediately realizes that Jesse's feelings for her are indeed genuine. Moments later, an awning collapses on Rachel, and with Jesse unable to free her, she uses her telekinesis to throw him over the balcony onto the pool cover as she burns to death.

One year later in 2000, Jesse, now studying at King's University, shares a dormitory with Rachel's dog Walter. He has a vision of Rachel appearing in his room, and they kiss before she shatters into pieces. He panickedly awakens, realizing the vision was only a nightmare.

In Hong Kong during the year 1966, business partners Paul Wagner and Nigel Griffith open the Victoria Harbour Tunnel. Paul attends with his wife Katherine and their identical twin infant sons, Chad and Alex. After the celebration, the family is followed home by their bodyguard, Frank Avery, whom they dismiss. Once he leaves, a Triad hit squad follows them. A shootout ensues, in which Paul is killed. Katherine begs the Triads to spare the twins but is shot and killed by Moon, the top henchman. Their maid is able to escape with Alex and Frank eventually saves Chad; the maid leaves Alex at a Hong Kong orphanage and Frank raises Chad in France.

25 years later in 1991, Chad and Frank are running a successful martial arts dojo in Los Angeles when Frank tells a surprised Chad about a new "business" in Hong Kong. The two go to a mahjong parlor and a woman, mistaking Chad for Alex, takes him back to Alex's room. When Alex arrives, he knocks out Chad for being with his girlfriend, Danielle Wilde.

Frank tells them they are identical twin brothers and they need to join together to take down Griffith and get their part of the royalties from the tunnel, but Chad and Alex initially do not get along with each other. Alex takes them out on his boat to sell smuggled Mercedes and cigarettes to some Chinese buyers, but the Hong Kong Police arrive and Chad dumps the cars to escape the cops faster. Back in Hong Kong, some thugs kidnap and beat up Chad (mistaking him for Alex) when he refuses to work for their leader, Raymong Zhang. Danielle, who works for Griffith, begins checking his private files for information, but she is being watched closely by Griffith's bodyguard, Kara.

Alex takes Chad and Frank to an abandoned hotel on an island to conduct their operations. With intelligence from Danielle, they attack a drug operation and blow it up. Next, they attack a club frequented by Zhang by pretending to bring him Cognac smuggled from France, which is actually just crates of bombs, although they fail to kill Zhang. Danielle continues to search for information but is caught and sexually molested by Kara. Danielle later calls the hideout revealing she has found something, but her phone is tapped by Griffith. Unable to find Alex and Frank who are out gathering firewood, Chad takes the boat to rescue Danielle by himself. However, Alex becomes paranoid and begins drinking heavily while imagining Chad and Danielle having sex. Chad brings Danielle home, but Kara follows them in a helicopter and discovers their hideout. When they return, Alex attacks Chad in a drunken rage before the brothers angrily part ways for the night.

The next morning Chad and Alex awaken to see Triads landing on the beach and, although they kill several, Frank and Danielle are captured. They capture one Triad who reveals that Frank and Danielle have been taken to Zhang's boat at a pier. Chad and Alex board and fight their way through the ship; Chad kills Moon (who beat him when he was kidnapped earlier) and he and Alex rescue Frank and Danielle. Afterwards, the twin brothers split up: Chad pursues Griffith and Alex chases Zhang. Alex eventually kills Zhang when he falls to his death from atop a crane. Chad and Danielle are chased through a maze of shipping containers until Griffith threatens to crush Chad with a forklift holding a container. Chad jumps into the water, sneaks around into the forklift, and drops the container on Griffith, killing him. Alex, Chad, Danielle and Frank reunite after the ordeal and appear to set aside their differences.

At the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, the Palestinian terrorist group Black September kills 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team. Avner Kaufman, a Mossad agent of German-Jewish descent, is chosen to lead a mission to assassinate 11 Palestinians allegedly involved in the massacre. At the direction of his handler Ephraim, to give the Israeli government plausible deniability, Kaufman resigns from Mossad and operates with no official ties to Israel. His team includes four Jewish volunteers from around the world: South African driver Steve, Belgian toy-maker and explosives expert Robert, former Israeli soldier and "cleaner" Carl, and German antiques dealer and document forger Hans from Frankfurt. They are given information by a French informant, Louis.

In Rome, the team shoots and kills Wael Zwaiter, who is living as a poet. In Paris, they detonate a bomb in the home of Mahmoud Hamshari; in Cyprus, they bomb the hotel room of Hussein Abd Al Chir. With IDF commandos, they pursue three Palestinian militants—Muhammad Youssef al-Najjar, Kamal Adwan, and Kamal Nasser—to Beirut, penetrate the Palestinians' guarded compound and kill all three.

Between hits, the assassins argue with each other about the morality and logistics of their mission, expressing fear about their individual lack of experience, as well as their apparent ambivalence about accidentally killing innocent bystanders. Avner makes a brief visit to his wife, who has given birth to their first baby. In Athens, when they track down Zaiad Muchasi, the team finds out that Louis arranged for them to share a safe house with their rival PLO members and the Mossad agents escape trouble by pretending to be members of foreign militant groups like ETA, IRA, ANC, and the Red Army Faction. Avner has a heartfelt conversation with PLO member Ali over their homelands and who deserves to rule over the lands; Ali is later shot by Carl while the team escapes from the hit on Muchasi.

The squad moves on to London to track down Ali Hassan Salameh, who orchestrated the Munich massacre, but the assassination attempt is interrupted by several drunken Americans. It is implied that these are agents of the CIA, which, according to Louis, protects and funds Salameh in exchange for his promise not to attack US diplomats. Meanwhile, attempts are made to kill the assassins themselves. Carl is killed by an independent Dutch contract killer. In revenge, the team tracks her down and execute her at a houseboat in Hoorn, Netherlands. Hans is found stabbed to death on a park bench and Robert is killed by an explosion in his workshop. Avner and Steve finally locate Salameh in Spain, but again their assassination attempt is thwarted, this time by Salameh's armed guards. Avner and Steve disagree on whether Louis has sold information on the team to the PLO.

A disillusioned Avner flies to Israel, where he is unhappy to be hailed as a hero by two young soldiers and then to his new home in Brooklyn, where he suffers post-traumatic stress and paranoia. Concerns continue to grow when he speaks to Louis's father by phone and it is revealed he knows his real name and promises no violence will come to him from his family. He is thrown out of the Israeli consulate after storming in to demand that Mossad leave his wife and child alone. Ephraim comes to ask Avner to return to Israel and Mossad, but Avner refuses. Avner then asks Ephraim to come to dinner with his family, to break bread as an allegory to make peace, but Ephraim refuses, perhaps as a sign that neither side will reconcile.

Lt. Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) returns from the Gamma Quadrant in her runabout with a woman that Chief Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney) recognizes as Vash from his time on board the ''Enterprise''. Although the crew is unaware of his presence, Q—a nearly omnipotent prankster—has also stowed away on the runabout. During their trip back to Deep Space Nine, the vessel undergoes a series of unusual power drains.

Soon after Vash's arrival, the station begins to experience similar power failures. In the meantime, Q appears to Vash, apparently infatuated with her. Although Q transported Vash to the Gamma Quadrant two years earlier, now she wants nothing to do with him, much to Q's annoyance. When Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) asks Vash out for dinner, a jealous Q uses his powers to make Bashir fall asleep. Meanwhile, the bartender Quark (Armin Shimerman) arranges to auction off items Vash found in the Gamma Quadrant, including an unusual crystal that might fetch a high price.

O'Brien spots Q on the station, recognizes him from the ''Enterprise'', and warns Commander Sisko, speculating that Q may be responsible for the power drains. When confronted, Q denies any wrongdoing, although he offers no alternative explanation. As the power drains become more severe, the station begins to be pulled toward the nearby wormhole. Q challenges Sisko to a boxing match, and suddenly they are both wearing antique-style boxing costumes. A few punches are thrown, and Q is shocked when Sisko knocks him down.

At the auction, Vash's crystal receives bids in excess of one thousand bars of gold-pressed latinum. Casually joining the bid process, Q ups the bidding to 2501 bars before bidding one million. Soon after, however, the source of the power losses is traced to the crystal itself. The crystal is quickly beamed into space before it can destroy the station. Once outside, it transforms into an alien life form and travels into the wormhole. After the incident, Bashir finally awakens from his slumber.

In the library, Giles shows Buffy a variety of crystals, ostensibly to teach her how to identify them. Later, on patrol, Buffy's strength suddenly deserts her and she is nearly killed by a vampire. Buffy reports the problem to Giles and demonstrates her poor performance when throwing knives at a target. At home, Buffy is disappointed to find that her father is too busy to take her to the ice show for her 18th birthday; she suggests to Giles that he could take her instead. Giles has Buffy stare at a crystal until she falls into a trance, then injects her with a mysterious substance. Meanwhile, Quentin Travers, the head watcher, sets up an extreme test for the slayer, assisted by two men named Hobson and Blair.

Buffy tries to intervene when Cordelia's argument with an aggressive suitor becomes physical, but she is casually knocked aside. Buffy enlists the help of her friends to figure out what is wrong. She visits Angel who gives her a book for her birthday. He tells her about how he saw her before she was the slayer and how he loved her from the second he first saw her. Kralik, the captive vampire intended for Buffy's test, breaks out of his straitjacket while Blair is giving him his pills. He turns Blair into a vampire.

Giles goes to find Quentin at the Sunnydale Arms building, but discovers that Kralik is missing and Hobson is dead. Buffy, walking home alone, is confronted by Kralik. Blair chases her until Giles drives by and picks her up. At the Summers' home, Joyce hears a noise out front where she finds Kralik wrapped up in Buffy's jacket. Giles tells Buffy that she has lost her strength due to the injections of muscle relaxant and adrenaline suppressors he had given her, and about the test. Furious, Buffy returns home where she finds a picture of her mother bound to a chair and gagged by Kralik.

Buffy goes to the Sunnydale Arms building, beats Blair unconscious and then is chased by Kralik until his need for pills becomes unbearable. Buffy steals them away, and slides down a laundry chute where she finds her mother. Kralik breaks through the door and grabs his pills back, washing them down with a nearby glass of water. Buffy had filled the glass with holy water, causing Kralik to burn from within. Buffy frees her mother as Giles arrives and stakes Blair.

Back at the library, Quentin congratulates Buffy on her accomplishment, but Buffy is also angry with him. Because of Giles' fatherly relationship with the slayer, Quentin fires him from the Watchers' Council and prepares to assign a new watcher to Buffy, warning them not to interfere before leaving. However, Giles is still the school librarian and offers to help Buffy as a freelancer.

Xander helps out the gang with another demon vanquishing, but Buffy worries about his safety and asks him to stay out of the fighting, upsetting him.

When a student throws him a football, Xander drops it onto Jack O'Toole's lunch, resulting in Jack threatening to beat him up. Cordelia, having witnessed the event, tells Xander he is useless and extraneous, since all of his friends are slayers, werewolves, witches, and watchers, while he is nothing. Meanwhile, Giles informs Buffy that the end of the world is near. The Sisterhood of Jhe, a group of fierce demons, is planning to reopen the Hellmouth.

Xander gets himself a car in the hope it will make him useful and cool, but accidentally rear-ends Jack, who is sitting in a parked car. Jack threatens Xander with a knife, but when a cop shows up, Xander covers for Jack and gains his respect. They go to get the rest of Jack's friends who, being dead, need to be raised from their graves.

Buffy, Willow and Giles are researching in the library. Giles leaves to contact some spirits and hopefully get their help with stopping the sisterhood.

Xander takes Jack and his group of friends to get supplies. He spots Willow leaving the magic shop and tries to talk to her; she tells him that she loves him before hurrying off to help Buffy. When Jack and friends try to initiate Xander into their group, he flees. He rescues Faith from a member of the sisterhood by hitting it with his car, then they go to Faith's motel room where she seduces him. Afterwards, she kicks him out, clothes in hand.

Meanwhile, back at the library, Willow and Giles struggle to get Oz (in werewolf form) away from the Hellmouth. They sedate him and lock him in the basement.

Xander realizes that Jack and his group have built a bomb. He seeks help from Buffy, but she is too busy having an emotional encounter with Angel. On his way to see Giles to warn him, Xander sees Jack's zombie group and drags one of them with his car until he confesses the location of the bomb. Xander finds the bomb in the school basement and vanquishes three of Jack's zombie minions, but Jack shows up and they fight. Xander positions himself between Jack and the exit door so that Jack has no hope of escaping before the bomb explodes. Jack defuses the bomb with seconds to spare and turns to leave, swearing revenge. He opens the door, releasing Oz, who immediately attacks and eats him. Meanwhile, at the library, Buffy, Angel, Faith, Giles and Willow fight off a giant multi-headed monster and the members of the Sisterhood of Jhe before successfully closing the Hellmouth.

The next day, the bruised Buffy, Willow, Giles, and Oz sit at a table discussing how they saved the world from destruction. Oz finds himself oddly disgusted by his appetite after waking up. Xander, not knowing anything of their battle and vice versa, comes by to chat with them. After a few seconds of talk, Xander decides to keep his harrowing night-long adventure to himself (aware that his friends will never believe such a story, no matter how he tells it). As he walks away, Cordelia once again taunts him over being left out of the group, but Xander merely smiles and walks by... quietly secure and confident in his place in the world and realizing that with or without Buffy, he can survive on his own.

While out patrolling, Buffy and Faith kill a vampire that was armed with swords, one short and one long. The next day in the school library, Buffy's supercilious new watcher, Wesley, identifies the swords as belonging to a cult of swordsman vampires, who were once led by a demon named Balthazar. Wesley instructs Buffy to retrieve an amulet that belonged to Balthazar, who he believes to be dead.

That night, Buffy finds the amulet but a group of Balthazar's vampires arrive before she can take it. Faith impulsively jumps into the vampire nest and is joined in the fight by Buffy, who finds the amulet. After handing it over to Wesley, Buffy leaves to take a school test. She repeatedly tries to tell Willow and Xander about the previous night and notices Xander twitch whenever she mentions Faith's name. Faith shows up at the window and she and Buffy leave to destroy another vampire nest. Exhilarated, the two go dancing at the Bronze where Buffy meets up with Angel. He tells her that Balthazar is alive and looking for his amulet. When Wesley arrives she takes the amulet from him and gives it to Angel for safekeeping.

Buffy and Faith find Balthazar surrounded by his vampires, so they break into a sports equipment store to steal weapons. The police arrive and arrest them, but the two slayers break out of the car, causing it to crash and injure the police officers. The following morning, the Mayor is attacked by one of Balthazar's vampires, who is foiled by Mr. Trick.

Balthazar demands his minions bring him the watchers, kill the slayers, and bring him his amulet. The enemy who crippled him is about to gain ultimate power and he refuses to let this come to pass. Willow presents Buffy with a protection spell and is ready to go slaying that night, but Buffy tells her that it is too dangerous and that she is going with Faith instead. The two run into several vampires and stake them, then Allan, the mayor's human deputy, grabs Buffy so Faith stakes him too. He dies before anything can be done and the slayers scatter. Buffy runs into Angel who tells her about Balthazar capturing Giles, while Faith returns to Allan's body.

Balthazar questions the two watchers as to who has his amulet. Wesley is willing to tell him, but does not know Angel's name. Angel shows up with Buffy, frees Giles and a fight breaks out. When Balthazar captures Angel, Buffy tosses live wires into his tub of water, electrocuting him. With his dying breath, Balthazar warns them of his enemy. In his office that night, the Mayor performs a ritual that makes him unable to be killed. Buffy tries to talk to Faith about Allan's death, but Faith has disposed of the body and says she does not care.

Buffy dreams that she is being pulled underwater by the corpse of Deputy Mayor Allan Finch; when she manages to reach the surface, her fellow vampire slayer, Faith, pushes her back down. Faith's plan to cover up her accidental killing of the deputy mayor fails when Allan's body is recovered from the water. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce orders the slayers to investigate the death to see if anything supernatural was involved. Privately, Faith asks Buffy not to turn her in, warning Buffy that she could also get implicated. Buffy and Faith sneak into City Hall to try to find out what Allan was doing in the alleyway in the first place. They find that all of his papers have been shredded, and that the Mayor is in league with Mr. Trick.

After much thought and discussion with Willow, Buffy decides to tell Giles what happened, only to discover that Faith has already told him that Buffy was the killer. Giles easily sees through the lie, though he lets Faith think he believes her so the gang can keep closer tabs on her and get her off the slippery slope she is on. Giles tells Buffy that accidental human deaths do occur in the fight against vampires, and that Faith is in denial about the killing. Wesley overhears the conversation and calls the Watcher Council.

While offering to help, Xander reveals to the gang that he slept with Faith. Willow tries to play down her reaction but ends up crying alone in the bathroom. Buffy expresses her worry about Faith and the need to deal with the problem now.

Xander tries to reason with Faith, but she throws him on the bed, teasing she could do anything she wanted to him, and proceeds to strangle him. Angel bursts in and clobbers her with a bat, then tries his own brand of reasoning and seems to be making progress. The mayor and Trick watch Buffy and Faith's City Hall break-in on CCTV. The mayor says that the Slayers both have to be taken care of and quickly as there is not enough evidence to put them in jail.

Helped by others with crosses and nets, Wesley attacks Angel and shackles Faith for transport to the Watcher Council in England. She quickly escapes, and plans to hop a boat out of Sunnydale. On his return to the library, a bruised Wesley receives a very hostile reception from the gang. Buffy finds Faith and tries to reason with her but Faith challenges Buffy to join her side instead, eventually inciting Buffy to hit her. Their confrontation is interrupted by several vampires led by Trick. As he is about to bite Buffy, Faith stakes him. Buffy returns to the library, convinced that there is still good in Faith. In the final scene Faith approaches the mayor and offers to replace Trick as his assistant.

In this episode, Walker's ex-wife has a new boyfriend, who she cannot find. She employs Amos Walker in the search, but the new "beau" has a secret life as a government assassin. The events of the book unfold from there, at whatever pace it continues to be read at.

An exotic dancer, Ann Maringer's life is in danger, she is scared and sure someone is out to get her. Ann turns to Amos Walker the irascible private-eye from Detroit but then disappears and Walker is out to find out what happened and where she is.

Porter Wren is a columnist and crime reporter for a New York City newspaper. He is a popular journalist and his stories are widely read. Wren knows how to listen to people and there are people who just need to talk, especially to him. He attends an after-work party hosted by the publishing magnate, where he meets Caroline Crowley.

Mrs. Crowley was recently widowed by the mysterious murder of her husband Simon Crowley. Crowley was a brilliant movie director who would often just disappear at night to videotape stuff. Crowley's body was discovered in a sealed-off building that was about to be demolished. No one could figure out how the body got there.

Caroline invites him to her apartment where she shows him confidential police reports related to the death of her husband. She wants Porter to investigate the murder and as an incentive seduces him even though he is married with children. What follows is a twisted tale of sex, murder and blackmail.

The story is narrated by a Cherokee man in the late 16th century. An English immigrant called Spear-Shaker has been captured by the narrator's tribe, and is essentially adopted by them. Spear-Shaker tries to introduce the concept of stage play to the tribe by producing a version of ''Hamlet'' for them, but mutual cultural misunderstandings make this very difficult.

In September 1942, Captain Yamagami (Susumu Kurobe) is ordered to rendezvous the Yamato with the Combined Fleet that is gathering at the Truk Islands (aka Chuuk Islands) in Micronesia, a key strategic point in the South Pacific. With beautiful clear blue skies above and surrounded by coral reefs below, this South Seas paradise became a strong base for the Combined Fleet and the front lines of the naval war; a place where many fierce battles were fought. Decades later, the sea bed surrounding the Truk Islands is still littered with the remains of more than 60 warships and airplanes.

Among Yamagami’s crew is the cantankerous Divisional Officer Noboru Osako (Yukijiro Hotaru) and the young Ensign Takeshi Kaido (Taiyo Sugiura). Unsure of what the future may bring, Kaido went off to war without declaring his intentions for his childhood sweetheart, Chie Kojima (Mai Nanami). He always carries her photo in his coat pocket, while Chie longs for his return to their seaside hometown.

When the Yamato arrives at Truk, the married Osako decides to ease his worries over leaving behind a pregnant wife by sneaking an island woman named Momoka (Yumika Hayashi) aboard ship for some private recreation. But to Osako’s annoyance, Momoka brings along her elderly grandfather (Mickey Curtis) who insists on telling him a local tale about monsters that has been passed down for generations. The disbelieving naval officer is told that the surrounding waters are home to man-sized, carnivorous Bonefishes…and, as dangerous as the fish are, they are nothing more than an “opening act” for an even greater menace; the legendary Hell King of the Seas called Reigo.

The next night, a lookout spots a massive shape half-submerged in the distance. Believing it to be an enemy submarine, the Yamato fires on it and scores a direct hit. Osako is shocked when the object emits a strange cry as it sinks beneath the waves. He reports the incident and the story of Reigo to his commander and shipmates. Unbeknownst to the crew, they have killed the offspring of Reigo.

Not long after that first encounter, a school of luminous Bonefish launch themselves from the water like flying fish and attack a group of soldiers standing watch on the Yamato’s deck. Kaido hears their screams and rushes to the rescue, but finds the men already torn to pieces.

Just as the old man predicted, the Bonefish herald the arrival of Reigo, a beast 80 meters-long and resembling a cross between Godzilla and a shark. Seething with rage at the murder of its cub, the monster attacks the Combined Fleet with incredible ferocity and awesome destructive power. The naval forces are caught off guard, and Reigo is able to destroy escort ships and damage the Yamato before returning to the ocean depths.

The crew quickly regroups and plans a counterattack, but when Reigo returns it manages to stay one step ahead of the Japanese forces. Almost as if it is aware that the Yamato’s main guns are long range weapons which are ineffective up close, the monster attacks at close range or blasts the ships from underwater with blue bursts of electricity.

Thoughts of family and lovers back home… fear at being confronted by an unknown enemy… conflict and confrontation explode among the officers and crew over the best battle strategy to use against the threat of Reigo.

Over Osako’s loud objections, Kaido suggests a last-ditch plan of attack that will either stop Reigo or sink the Yamato. Now the stage is set for a final battle to unfold between the world’s largest battleship and the mysterious dragon-like monster that glides through the seas at will.

During the late 18th century, Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and their daughters – Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia – live at Longbourn, their estate in rural England. Mrs. Bennet, eager to secure suitable marriages for her daughters, is delighted when wealthy bachelor Charles Bingley moves into nearby Netherfield. At an assembly ball, Bingley, his sister, Caroline, and his friend Mr. Darcy meet the local society. Bingley and Jane are immediately taken with each other, while Elizabeth instantly dislikes the snobbish Darcy and overhears his dismissive remarks about her.

Later, visiting the Bingleys, Jane falls ill and must stay to recuperate. While Elizabeth is visiting Jane at Netherfield, she verbally spars with the haughty Caroline and the aloof Darcy. Jane recovers and soon after, Mr. Bennet's cousin, Mr. Collins, a pompous clergyman, visits the Bennets; as the closest male relative, Collins will inherit Longbourn. Mr. Collins intends to propose to Jane, but Mrs. Bennet says she will soon be engaged; she suggests Elizabeth, which Collins considers an agreeable alternative. The Bennet sisters also meet the handsome and charming soldier, Lieutenant Wickham, who is connected to the Darcy family. He wins Elizabeth's sympathy by claiming Mr. Darcy denied him his rightful inheritance.

At the Netherfield ball, Elizabeth dances with Darcy, though the encounter is strained. The next day, Collins proposes to Elizabeth, who soundly rejects him; despite her mother's anger, her father supports her decision. The Bingley party unexpectedly return to London. Elizabeth urges Jane to visit their aunt and uncle, the Gardiners, who live in London, hoping she reconnects with Bingley. Elizabeth is astonished when her friend, Charlotte, fearing spinsterhood, announces her engagement to Mr. Collins.

Months later, Elizabeth visits Charlotte and Mr. Collins, who reside on Lady Catherine de Bourgh's estate. Elizabeth unexpectedly meets Darcy, who is Lady Catherine's nephew, and is visiting with his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam. Unaware that Jane is Elizabeth's sister, Fitzwilliam mentions that Darcy recently untangled Bingley from an imprudent match with an "unsuitable" family.

Distraught, Elizabeth is then met by Darcy, who surprisingly proposes marriage, declaring his ardent love despite her inferior rank. Offended and angry, she refuses him. He defends separating Jane and Bingley, believing Jane indifferent, and rightly criticizes the other Bennets' occasional social impropriety. Elizabeth also cites his mistreating Wickham. Angry and heartbroken, Darcy later delivers Elizabeth a letter describing Wickham's true character: Wickham squandered the bequest Darcy's father left him, then attempted to seduce Darcy's 15-year-old sister, Georgiana, into eloping to gain her fortune.

Elizabeth returns home, as does Jane. Accompanying the Gardiners on a trip to the Peak District, Elizabeth reluctantly tours Pemberley, the grand Darcy estate. She unexpectedly runs into Darcy, who invites her and the Gardiners to dine at Pemberley. Darcy's manner has softened considerably, his manners impressing the Gardiners, and Georgiana sharing her brother's flattering reports about Elizabeth.

An urgent letter from Jane reveals that Lydia has run off with Wickham. Darcy leaves abruptly, and Elizabeth returns home, certain she will never see Darcy again. Her mother fears Lydia's disgrace will ruin her other daughters' chances for good marriages. After a tense waiting period, Mr. Gardiner sends news that Lydia and Wickham are now married, and the newlyweds return to Longbourn. Lydia lets slip to Elizabeth that it was Darcy who found them and paid for their wedding. He also purchased Wickham's military commission.

Bingley and Darcy return to Netherfield and visit Longbourn; Bingley proposes to Jane, who accepts. Late that night, Lady Catherine arrives to see Elizabeth and demands she never become engaged to Darcy because, she claims, Darcy has been engaged to marry Lady Catherine's daughter since infancy; deeply insulted, Elizabeth orders her to leave. Walking the moor early the next morning, Elizabeth encounters Darcy, who apologizes for his aunt's intrusion. He professes his continued love, and Elizabeth, her feelings radically altered, accepts his proposal. She tells her father the truth of Darcy's actions, and Mr. Bennet gives Elizabeth his consent to marry, overjoyed she has found love.

The main story is set in a British Military Intelligence Office in Whitehall during 1956, where a small group of foreign affairs analysts find their quiet existence disrupted by the Suez Crisis. Mick Hopper (Ewan McGregor) is completing his national service as a translator of Russian documents. Bored with his job, Hopper spends his days creating fantasy daydreams that involve his colleagues breaking into contemporary hit songs. Sylvia Berry (Louise Germaine) is married to the violent Corporal Pete Berry (Douglas Henshall). Sylvia is an object of desire for Mick's fellow clerk Private Francis Francis (Giles Thomas) and a middle-aged theatre organist named Harold Atterbow (Roy Hudd). In contrast to the street-wise Hopper, Francis is a clumsy Welsh intellectual whose academic career has been interrupted by his army call up. The appearance of the bookish niece of a seconded American officer enables the two conscripts to pair off with suitable partners, after initial mismatching.

The main theme of the series is conflict between the old order, as represented by the middle-aged officers in Whitehall plus Francis' prudish Uncle Fred and Aunt Vickie, and the new 'rock n roll' generation represented by Hopper and Sylvia. Though chronologically the series is set in the late summer and autumn of 1956 culminating in the invasion of Suez, many of the songs used, including the title song, were not released until later in the 1950s.

Some of the side themes include the influence of American rock and roll on British society, the gulf between the senior analysts, who are regular army officers, and the conscripted other ranks, the work of Russian playwright Chekhov, and an appreciation of opulent theatre organs. The unusual context – a military culture transplanted into a civil service style office environment – reflects Potter's own national service during the 1950s.

A thirty-year-old housewife, Mi-heun, is visited by a woman in a red sweater. She smirks and tells Mi-heun that her husband is her lover. These few words take away and shatter Mi-heun's life as she knew it, a true terror on an unforgettable Christmas evening.

Swept away by the peaceful, silent town of Butterfly Ville, Mi-heun and her family begin a new life as if nothing had happened. However, the aftermath of that night still haunts Mi-heun with headaches as she vexatiously tries to vent out her heartache, alone. But nothing seems to change.

In-kyu is a not-so-busy country town doctor who enjoys fishing in the nearby lake. The rest of his time is spent on fishing girls out for sex. As the doctor is beginning to enjoy and is getting comfortable with his small-town life, he meets her.

As Mi-heun sits blankly under the blazing sun at a rest stop, a sharp voice comes to her like an alarm and awakes her. She refuses him with all her body and might, but at the same time, falls into him with her entire body and soul.

In-kyu gives Mi-heun an overwhelming answer to her question. When she felt like she was at the end of her ropes, she falls into a dangerous game of sex that would never allow for love. Unaware to herself, she starts to enjoy the lover's game more and more.

Mi-heun's husband wants to make a pond outside their new house. Hyo-Kyung hopes to make the pond to raise some fish and live happily there, together, as a family. However, the one person who should be there sharing his small dream is not there. The lonely pond remains as Mi-heun is walking through the heavy woods that are found outside the only motel in town. What will become of the husband who waits for his wife, and the two star-crossed who choose the path of no return? Is there an end to their never-ending desires?

In early 1950s North Africa, a man (Alec Guinness) is escorted through an angry, clamouring crowd by a platoon of soldiers. They enter a fort and it is clear that he is to be executed. The commander (Peter Bull) orders the men to line up in two rows and gives the order to fire. As the shots ring out, the scene changes to a ferry ship, ''"The Golden Fleece"'', in the docks as the passengers embark for the two days' journey to Gibraltar. Amongst the crew, there is much dismay, and the chief officer, Carlos Ricco (Charles Goldner) takes to his cabin with the clear intention of getting drunk. He is interrupted by an elderly gentleman, Lawrence St. James (Miles Malleson), who had come to speak with his nephew, Captain Henry St. James, on an unspecified, but urgent, matter. He is profoundly shocked to learn that the grief he had encountered on the ship is due to the death of the man he had travelled from England to see. He begs Ricco to explain what has led to such an event. He learns that his nephew Henry was the prosperous owner and skipper of this small passenger ship, which he captained as it ferried regularly to and fro between Gibraltar and Kalique, a port in North Africa.

Flashback to Morocco. Henry St. James lives with his lover, Nita (Yvonne De Carlo) a young, hot-blooded, exotic lady. She is 23 years younger than he and refers to him as "her Jimmy". He takes her out every night to expensive, fashionable restaurants and night clubs, where they lead a loud and wild lifestyle. In Gibraltar, he shares his life with Maud (Celia Johnson) his devoted, domesticated wife, 15 years his junior living a respectable, sober existence, and going to bed every night no later than ten o'clock with mugs of cocoa. St James gives Nita lingerie. He gives Maud a vacuum cleaner. Both are delighted. On board his ship, he disdains all female company, choosing intellectual discussions with male passengers at the Captain's table. He has found a perfect existence his paradise.

Growing perhaps complacent, St. James makes a careless mistake. This leads to Ricco, up until then believing Nita to be the captain's wife, discovering that the true Mrs St James is living in Gibraltar. Ricco is glad to assist St. James in maintaining the deception and is soon called into action when Maud flies to Kalique and by chance meets Nita. St. James arranges to have Maud arrested before she and Nita realise that they are married to the same man. He convinces Maud that Morocco is a dangerous place and that she should never return there.

The years pass by. Maud has twins. She is thrilled with her two boys, but when they are sent to school in England, Maud is no longer enamoured with her existence. She wants to dance and drink gin. On the other hand, Nita wants to stay home and cook for her man. Henry is dismayed and makes every effort to keep everything just the way it was. His attempts to maintain the status quo result in both women taking lovers. When St James discovers Nita's infidelity, he leaves the flat as she continues the argument with her lover, Absalom. Nita shoots and kills her lover. In order to protect Nita, Captain St. James claims that he was the killer.

The execution is then shown, but the firing squad swing their rifles to the left and shoot their commanding officer. St. James hands them money and walks away.

The book is narrated by a school senior ("sixth former" in prep-school vernacular) at an unnamed elite boarding school in the northeastern United States in 1960–61. The unnamed protagonist is a scholarship student who comes from a middle-class family.

He aspires to be a writer, and the school he attends is an embodiment of a certain kind of academic fantasy, where non-English masters (teachers are "masters" here) "floated at the fringe of [the English masters'] circle, as if warming themselves at a fire," and literature is still believed to hold the key to the soul. Robert Frost, Ayn Rand, and Ernest Hemingway, with each of whom the narrator crosses paths, appear in the story, dispensing wisdom, pseudo-wisdom, vitriol. These literary appearances amount to creative satires of these authors, especially Ayn Rand. The novel revolves around themes of adolescence, class, and the role of literature.

The Penguin Random House publisher's blurb describes the book thus:

In his review for the ''New York Times'', critic A.O. Scott writes that ''Old School'' is "about nothing if not the making of a writer — though it is also, just as plainly, about a writer's failure."

Nigel Dennis is a blackmailer who threatens to publish embarrassing secrets in his magazine ''The Naked Truth''. After attempting to blackmail a famous scientist (who commits suicide), and an MP (who suffers a heart attack in parliament, and probably succumbs), his latest targets are Lord Henry Mayley, television host Sonny MacGregor, writer Flora Ransom, and model Melissa Right. Several of them decide independently that murder would be a better solution than paying. However, it is Mayley who by sheer bad luck nearly ends up the victim of both MacGregor and Ransom's schemes. The four eventually join forces and try again. That attempt also fails, but Dennis is then arrested for an earlier crime.

When Dennis threatens to reveal all at his trial, Mayley comes up with a scheme to break him out of prison and send him to South America, with the help of hundreds of his other victims. They phone in numerous fake calls for help, distracting the London police, while Mayley, MacGregor, and MacGregor's reluctant assistant Porter, disguised as policemen, whisk Dennis away.

Knocking Dennis unconscious periodically, they finally end up in the cabin of a blimp on the way to a rendezvous with an outbound ship. To their dismay, when he comes to, Dennis refuses to go along with their plan, as he in fact never wanted to reveal any of their secrets in court. He was, in fact, optimistic about the trial anyway, and reveals that the evidence was his copies of "The Naked Truth" which had been destroyed by the plotters earlier. Happy to have outsmarted his opponents again, but unaware of where he is, Dennis then steps out for some air and plummets to the ocean below. When MacGregor celebrates by shooting his pistol, it punctures the blimp, which shoots away into the distance.

The player, taking on the role of the unnamed astronaut protagonist, returns from a failed 100-year voyage to 61 Cygni to find the Earth devoid of humans. Cars are rusted and covered with moss, the streets are completely barren, and everything appears as though the entire human race had just vanished suddenly. The player happens upon a barely functioning computer terminal that is tied into a storytelling mainframe, Homer. Through this interface, the player, assisted by Homer who attempts to weave the information into a coherent narrative, discovers information in order to piece together the occurrences leading to the disappearance of the human race. For instance, spending some time in the Medical Records section may unlock a piece of data in the Science section, and through these links the player can finish the game.

Cathy Timberlake, an unemployed New York City career woman, goes to the unemployment office to collect her check. There, she is subjected to the unwanted advances of Beasley, the clerk she deals with who only wants to bed her. She meets Philip Shayne after his Rolls Royce splashes her dress with mud while she is on her way to a job interview. Philip sees her outside and wants to make up for the incident.

Philip proposes a romantic affair, while Cathy is holding out for marriage. Watching from the sidelines are Philip's financial manager, Roger, who sees a therapist, because he feels guilty about helping his boss with his numerous conquests, and Cathy's roommate, Connie Emerson, who knows what Philip is seeking. In a minor subplot, Roger discusses the events as they occur to his therapist Dr. Gruber, who is not in the room when Cathy is mentioned. As a result, his therapist believes that Roger is considering a homosexual relationship with Philip.

Philip wines and dines Cathy. He takes her to see the New York Yankees play baseball. They watch from the Yankees dugout (he owns part of the team). Cathy's complaints about the umpire while seated alongside Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Yogi Berra (playing themselves) cause umpire Art Passarella to throw all of them out of the game.

Philip's conscience weighs on him, so he withdraws an invitation to Bermuda, which only serves to make Cathy, indignant about the assumption that she would not go, agree to. While in Bermuda, anxiety-ridden over the evening's sexual implications, Cathy comes down with a nervous rash, much to her embarrassment and his frustration.

The Bermuda trip is repeated, but this time Cathy drinks to soothe her nerves and ends up drunk. While intoxicated, Cathy falls off the balcony onto an awning below. She is then carried in her pajamas through the crowded hotel lobby.

At the urging of Roger and Connie, who are convinced that Philip is in love with her, Cathy goes on a date with Beasley, whom she dislikes, to make Philip jealous. Her plan succeeds and she and Philip get married. On their honeymoon, he breaks out in a nervous rash himself. The film ends with Cathy and Philip months later, walking with their baby and Roger through a park. The two leave Roger alone with the baby for a few moments, during which time Dr. Gruber approaches him to ask how things are going with Philip. In response, Roger joyously displays the baby, causing another misunderstanding with his therapist.

In 1996, Jack Wilson is producing a crime docuseries segment on the Manson Family murders. Narrated via contemporaneous interviews and flashbacks, several former members of Charles "Charlie" Manson's "family" recount their time spent leading up to the August 1969 murder spree. Tex Watson is brought to Spahn Ranch, a former movie set-turned-commune where Manson is housing his followers. Tex ingratiates himself with the group, who spend their time taking copious amounts of LSD, smoking marijuana, and engaging in group sex; meanwhile, Charlie unsuccessfully attempts to get a record deal with his folk music.

Several of the male members, including Tex and Bobby Beausoleil, attempt to recruit Simi, a young woman, into the family. They convince her to take LSD before the entire family gang rapes her at Charlie's command. The group begin breaking into random homes in Los Angeles, stealing items and rearranging furniture while the occupants sleep. Later, during a dispute over a drug transaction, Charlie shoots and kills Lotsapoppa, an African American drug dealer whom he suspects is part of the Black Panthers.

The whole family engage in a mass ritualistic orgy in which they sacrifice a puppy. After, Tex informs follower Patricia Krenwinkel and several others that he is afraid of Charlie and wants to leave. Meanwhile, Bobby and Susan Atkins confront an acquaintance, music teacher Gary Hinman, at his home, planning to raid his house of money, as they believe him to be wealthy. When the plan goes unsuccessfully, Gary is held hostage for two days before Charlie arrives and slices his ear off. After Charlie leaves, Susan attempts to nurse Gary back to health, but she and Bobby find themselves unsure how to carry out the robbery, as Gary does not have money. As a last resort, Bobby stabs him in the chest, after which he and Susan smother him with a cushion. Susan writes the phrase "political piggy" on the wall in Gary's blood before they depart. Bobby is arrested days later while trying to flee town.

Under Charlie's instruction, Tex, Susan, and Patricia Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian depart on the evening of August 8 to break into houses in Los Angeles, and are told to "bring knives." They arrive at a home on Cielo Drive, where Tex shoots Steven Parent, a man sitting in his parked car, near the gate. They enter the home and bind its residents, including Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, and Voytek Frykowski. Tex shoots Jay before stabbing him to death. Tex shoots Voytek as he tries to flee before bludgeoning him with the pistol while the sheepish Linda watches in horror. Susan proceeds to attack Abigail in the kitchen, stabbing her before Tex slashes her throat. Abigail, clinging to life, stumbles outside before collapsing in the lawn. Meanwhile, the pregnant Sharon is brutally stabbed to death in the living room.

The next night, the four members, in addition to Leslie Van Houten and Steve Grogan, viciously murder Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in their home. Two weeks later, several members murder Donald Shea at Charlie's instruction, as he fears Donald knows too much and could provide authorities information in the Tate-LaBianca murders. Later, the family members, including Charlie, are arrested and indicted on the murders. From jail, Manson accrues a cult following of young people who speak out in his support to the media. Whilst watching a segment of the docuseries one night, Wilson is murdered by a group of youths in a style likely inspired by the Manson Family.

In 1984, in Kyiv, schoolteacher Andrej Romanovich Evilenko is dismissed from his position after attempting to rape a pupil. Driven by his psychopathic urges and embittered by the collapse of the Soviet Union, Evilenko begins to rape, kill, and cannibalise women and children. It is hinted throughout the movie that Evilenko somehow gained the power to hypnotise his victims, which accounts for their lack of resistance and his continuous evasion of the authorities.

Vadim Timurouvic Lesiev, a magistrate and family man, is assigned to catch the serial killer. For years, Evilenko eludes Lesiev and psychiatrist Aron Richter, who is assigned to profile the killer. Richter eventually finds Evilenko with a little girl and manages to break Evilenko's hypnotic hold on her, but is killed by Evilenko in retaliation; although it appears to Evilenko that she is run over by a train, the girl escapes alive.

Almost two years later, Lesiev finally captures Evilenko, who by now has killed 55 people, mostly children and young women. On 22 May 1992, Evilenko goes to court, and on 14 February 1994, he is finally executed. Before his execution, two governments expressed interest in Evilenko's psychic abilities and asked for extradition of Evilenko but were denied.

A few years before, a tragic "accident" left him with 78 fewer friends. The only loved-one left was Emmanuel "Manny" Weingrass, a world-renowned architect and a somewhat impossible person. In his first year in Congress, there is an uprising in Masqat - a hostage taking. The events remind him of a man known as The Mahdi whom Weingrass said was the reason for the deaths of his 78 friends. He goes to Oman for revenge and comes back victorious. The Mahdi dead and a tragedy averted. A year later, the inheritors of Inver Brass - the resurrected group of influential people, destroyed in the events of the Chancellor Manuscript, who had been tracking him ever since he went on the Oman operation through a specially gifted computer specialist, exposes the truth of Kendrick being involved in Masqat and they reveal this to the world to have Kendrick as Vice-President of the USA, because they consider him to be morally incorruptible. After the revealing, lives are lost and friendships broken, Kendrick is desperately looking for the people who are responsible for turning his life upside-down. But unknown to the Inver Brass there is a traitor in their midst. Codename Icarus is the last hope to a nation and to a world. The organisation was first mentioned in his 1977 novel ''The Chancellor Manuscript'' and is also mentioned in his later novel ''The Bancroft Strategy''.

Among a group of fox priests who worship the Inari Daimyojin (Fox Deity), one evil fox named Madfox Daimyōjin infiltrated his way to the highest ranks and took over the shrine. After seizing power, Madfox corrupted the land and created hordes of creatures. One young fox (who would earn the name Psycho Fox) has been chosen by his fellow people to rid the land of this evil deity.

Some time after the events at Pinehurst Halfway House, Tommy Jarvis is released from the mental institution, despite still having hallucinations of the mass murderer Jason Voorhees—whom he killed years ago. He returns to Crystal Lake, now renamed Forest Green, to confront his fears, alongside his friend Allen Hawes. The pair visit Jason's grave during a thunderstorm, hoping to cremate the killer's body and finally end Tommy's nightmares. After digging up Jason's corpse, Tommy experiences flashbacks of his last encounter with Jason and furiously impales his body with a metal fence post, just as two lightning bolts strike the post, causing Jason to come back to life as an immortal revenant. Jason proceeds to kill Hawes and don his hockey mask, which Tommy brought with him. Tommy flees to the sheriff's office to warn the police of Jason's return, only to be arrested and jailed. His warning of Jason's return goes unheeded by Sheriff Mike Garris, who is aware of Tommy's institutionalization and thinks he is hallucinating Jason's return. On the road, camp counselors Darren Robinson and Lizabeth Mott get lost looking for the Camp Forest Green and are stopped by Jason, who murders them both.

The following morning, Garris' daughter Megan and her friends Sissy Baker, Cort Andrews, and Paula Mott arrive at the police station to report Darren and Lizabeth missing. Tommy warns them about Jason, but as he is now considered an urban legend, they ignore the warnings, though Megan grows attracted to him. In the woods, Jason happens upon a corporate paintball game; he kills all five members (three members via decapitation, crushed the first member's face into a tree and dismembered the fifth member). Then he steals a machete from them, in the process discovering that he now possesses superhuman strength as a result of his resurrection.

At Camp Forest Green, children arrive, and the teens do their best to run the camp without Darren and Lizabeth. Meanwhile, Garris decides to escort Tommy out of his jurisdiction due to his influence on Megan. On the way, Tommy tries to make a run for Jason's grave but finds that the caretaker had covered it up to deny responsibility for it being dug up, and Hawes' body is buried in its place. Tommy is then handcuffed and escorted out of town by Garris, who warns him to never return. That night, Jason murders the caretaker and a nearby couple who witness the murder. Meanwhile, Cort goes out to have sex with a girl named Nicola Parsley, but Jason kills them both. The sheriff's men find the victims' bodies and Garris immediately implicates Tommy in the murders, believing he has gone insane imagining Jason.

Tommy contacts Megan and convinces her to help him lure Jason back to Crystal Lake. Meanwhile, Jason makes his way to the camp and kills both Sissy and Paula, but refrains from harming the children. Meanwhile, Tommy and Megan are pulled over by Garris. Despite Megan's alibi that she was with Tommy, he does not believe him to be innocent and arrests him, and then goes to the camp to investigate. As Tommy and Megan develop a ruse to trick Deputy Rick and escape, Jason kills Garris and two other deputies when they arrive at the camp.

Jason is about to kill Megan when Tommy calls to him from the lake; apparently remembering his killer, Jason goes after Tommy instead. Tommy is attacked in a boat in the middle of the lake and ties a boulder around Jason's neck to trap him. Jason fights back, holding Tommy underwater long enough to seemingly drown him. Megan rushes out to save him but is nearly killed when Jason grabs her leg; she turns the boat's activated motor around onto Jason's neck, and he releases her. She takes Tommy back to shore and uses CPR to revive him. Tommy says that it is finally over and that Jason is home. Under the water, Jason is shown to be still alive, albeit anchored to the bottom of the lake, waiting for another opportunity to return.

An elderly woman, Evelyn Mercer, is murdered at a convenience store in Highland Park, Michigan when a robbery occurs that results in the death of the store clerk, and Evelyn was left as the one and only witness. The incident brings her four adoptive sons back home to Detroit, Michigan to find out what happened. The oldest is a lifelong criminal, hot-tempered Bobby; the second oldest is family man and Union construction worker Jeremiah; the third oldest is an ex-hustler and former US Marine, Angel; and the youngest is aspiring rock musician Jack.

Originally under the impression the crime was a simple robbery gone wrong, the brothers chase down and interrogate a false witness to the police, after which the brothers discover that the robbery was a cover for a hit put out on Evelyn. The brothers track down the pair of hired guns who shot and killed Evelyn, and after refusing to give up any information, the two hitmen are executed by the enraged Bobby and Angel. The next day, Detroit Police Lieutenant Green and Detective Fowler confront the brothers about the murders. While the brothers deny involvement, Lieutenant Green warns them that their interference with Evelyn's case is ill-advised and that it will put them in over their heads.

After confronting Jeremiah about the revelation of his failing business and benefiting from Evelyn's life insurance, Jeremiah informs his brothers that his construction company was failing precisely because he was not getting involved with gang lord Victor Sweet and that for a project to succeed he had to pay off the right people, which he initially failed to do. In his effort to restore his business and relieve pressure on himself, he tried to pay off Sweet's henchmen. As for the life insurance, Jeremiah explains that the money went directly to him for his daughters, because he paid all of Evelyn's bills while the other brothers were not around. Sweet's men attack the brothers; Jack is shot and mortally wounded during the attack and subsequent gunfight. Bobby and Angel manage to fend off and kill the gunmen. Bobby finds one of the gunmen still alive and questions him about who sent them, confirming it was Sweet.

Lieutenant Green arrives and informs them that Evelyn filed a police report regarding Victor Sweet and his involvement in Jeremiah's affairs, and his partner, Detective Fowler, passed that report on to Sweet. Green warns them to stay out of the matter and let him handle Fowler, and then they will work together on Sweet. Later at a bar, Green physically confronts Fowler, hitting him and ordering Fowler to hand in his badge. After they walk out of the bar, Fowler shoots and kills Green and calls into dispatch claiming two Black assailants had fired upon Green.

The remaining brothers devise a plan to buy Victor Sweet off with the $400,000 from their mother's life insurance. Arriving at Fowler's, Angel subdues him. Jeremiah goes to meet Sweet, while Angel's girlfriend, Sofi, heads to the police station, where she tells them that Angel is planning to kill a police officer. Hearing the sirens in the distance, Fowler believes they are coming for Angel, until Angel opens his jacket revealing a wire. Angel claims the whole conversation was taped, including Fowler's admission that he killed Green. The police arrive at Fowler's in full force, at which point Fowler gets the upper hand on Angel. With his gun pointed at Angel's head, Fowler tells the officers outside to back off, and despite telling him they are there to rescue him, Fowler opens fire on the officers, who kill him.

Meanwhile, at frozen-over Lake St. Clair, Jeremiah meets with Sweet, who reveals that he intends to kill him. Then Jeremiah reveals that the $400,000 is to pay off Sweet's henchmen, who are already embittered towards him because of his blatant mistreatment of them, in exchange for killing Sweet. Sweet angrily demands to know who will be the one to kill him, just as Bobby shows up. Bobby and Sweet brawl, during which Bobby uses his hockey playing skills to get the upper hand, knocking Sweet unconscious. His former henchmen seal his fate, dropping him into a hole carved in the ice.

The three brothers, taken into police custody, are beaten in an attempt to make them confess to the murder of Victor Sweet, but give up nothing. Back home, they set about repairing their mother's house and continuing their lives together.

The story describes the world being under a post-apocalyptic crisis in the near future during the aftermath of a nuclear war that is devastated by a demonic influence of evil sects and terrorists. The spirits of warlords from past ages have been brought back to life, destroying civilization with disease and insanity. The bodies of the strongest survivors, the "chosen", are possessed by these violent spirits to rule the small, peaceful tribes with an iron fist. The supreme leader of this new order is known as Achilles.

The main character is a young warrior resistant to the evil spirits, who has taken the battle-name ''Hero Trojan''; for the name sake in being hired to defeat the gang of an evil dictator whom he once worked under, but rebelled against his leader for slaughtering innocent lives. The player's mission is to infiltrate the lands of the evil army, fighting against pirates and gladiators, exorcising these human-demons from the earth in a gothic/industrial wasteworld with the help of his trusty sword, shield, and his martial arts.

Andreas, a widowed pastor, arrives in a Danish suburb to take over religious duties from the previous pastor who, due to a crisis of faith after his own wife's death, has become irreligious and even punched the organist, causing him to be hospitalized. Believing his stay will be temporary, Andreas stays in the local hotel where he meets one of the employees, Jørgen Mortensen, who is suffering a crisis as he has been asked to fire the temperamental Hal-Finn who works in the hotel restaurant and is also his best friend. Hal-Finn goes to visit hairdresser Karen and is immediately attracted to her, though his visit is cut short when she must go to the hospital to attend to her alcoholic mother.

Meanwhile, clumsy baker Olympia tends to her disabled and abusive father, who constantly berates her. Olympia decides to join a beginner Italian class in order to feel closer to her Italian mother, but the night she joins the class, the instructor dies. She returns home to find that her own father has died as well. Sometime later she learns that her estranged mother has died as well. At her funeral, she meets Karen, and the two discover that they are sisters and that their parents split them up when they divorced. In order to protect Olympia, Karen does not tell her that their mother was not Italian and was an alcoholic.

After finally being fired for being rude to customers, Hal-Finn becomes the Italian teacher and Olympia persuades both Andreas and her sister to join. Karen and Hal-Finn begin a romantic affair but during Christmas Karen overhears Hal-Finn disparaging her mother, and angrily ends their relationship. Jørgen approaches Andreas for advice about his impotence and his trouble talking to Hal-Finn's Italian friend Giulia, and decides to ask her out for a walk.

In the meantime Olympia receives a letter from the bank telling her of a large inheritance from her father. She decides to spend it taking the Italian class to Venice. In Venice, Jørgen proposes to Giulia who accepts, Karen forgives Hal-Finn after he cuts off his too-long bangs, and Andreas suggests that Olympia, whose clumsy behaviour has caused her to be fired from 43 jobs, come to work as a chorister. He then reveals that he plans to stay in the parish.

Francis, a tuxedo cat, moves to a German neighbourhood with his bumbling owner, Gustav, into a poorly-maintained apartment with bad smells and rotting parquet flooring. Francis soon finds the corpse of another local cat, Sascha. Bluebeard (Blaubart in the original print), a deformed local cat, is convinced that humans (cat slang: "can-openers") are responsible for the death and other recent murders. Francis disagrees with this assessment, convinced that the slash on Sascha's neck was caused by teeth. The discovery of the body marks the start of terrible nightmares that afflict Francis and intertwine him with the murders. Another tomcat, "Deep Purple", is the next victim; while visiting the body, Francis notices Deep Purple's sexually-aroused state, suggesting a murderous femme fatale.

That night, Francis hears loud yowls that are coming from the uninhabited upper floors of his house. He finds a strange religious meeting taking place, in which a cat named Joker preaches about a cat known as Claudandus, a Jesus Christ-like figure, who allegedly sacrificed himself and ascended to Heaven. Meanwhile, cats jump into frayed wires and electrocute themselves. Francis accidentally alerts Joker to his presence, and is chased by the cult members. He escapes and falls through a skylight. He then meets Felicity (Felicitas in the original print), a blind Russian Blue who has heard the murderer and his victims shortly before their death. Additionally, Felicity says that she sees images in her mind alongside feelings of fear and pain. Francis believes that the images are actually memories retained from childhood. After leaving Felicity's home, Bluebeard takes Francis to Pascal, an intelligent Havana Brown who has learned to use his owner's computer. With it, he has compiled a list of the local cats. Francis learns from Pascal that Felicity has just been reportedly murdered; her decapitated head is found while her beloved owner sobs over his pet's death. Francis experiences another nightmare that night, in which a large portrait of Gregor Mendel comes to life and plays with dead cats. Unnerved, Francis hunts for rats to distract himself and finds the journal of a "Professor Julius Preterius", a scientist who used the house as a laboratory years prior. Francis learns that Preterius was attempting to create a flesh-binding glue with assistants Ziebold and Gray, using living cats to test it. The glue is unsuccessful, and, desperate, Preterius uses the glue on a stray cat. Due to a genetic abnormality, the glue seals the wounds on the cat instantly. Preterius names the cat Claudandus ("one who must or should be sealed"). Preterius descends into madness, but continues with his project long after funding ceases and his assistants have left. The journal's last entry reveals that Preterius had heard Claudandus speak to him, and was planning to free the cats.

Francis later encounters the strange Persian Jesaja, who alludes to escaping from Preterius' lab and proclaims to be the Guardian of the Dead. He lives within ancient catacombs, keeping a tomb housing hundreds of cat skeletons. Jesaja says that he serves "the Prophet" (Claudandus), who delivers corpses for him to guard. That night, Francis experiences another dream, this time involving a white cat who states he is Felidae. He is surrounded by hundreds of others, many of whom Francis recognizes. The white cat invites Francis to join them on a journey to Africa. Francis awakes, and answers the call of a female in heat. He inquires about her breed. However, she simply states that her breed has no name, but is both old and new. He later learns from Bluebeard that her race is different, and more wild than standard cats. Francis, Pascal, and Bluebeard continue to research the murders. Joker has gone missing, and cannot be located. The three present this information to the local cats, and Pascal presents a logical explanation that places the blame on Joker. The crowd is placated, but Francis is not; he visits Joker's home. He finds Joker dead among porcelain statues. Unlike previous murders, there appears to have been no struggle. Francis immediately begins to connect his dreams to the murders, and also recalls that Pascal's owner idolizes Mendel, that Pascal offhandedly mentioned his owner's name being Ziebold, and that Pascal spoke of Felidae with yearning. Francis concludes that the murderer is Pascal, who really is Claudandus, and goes to confront him. He finds a program on the computer that catalogues the new breed's genetics and breeding, as well as the cats killed to keep from contaminating the lines. Claudandus reveals himself, explaining that he harbours a deep hatred towards humanity due to the suffering inflicted upon him by Preterius. He had killed Preterius and set the other cats free before being rescued by Ziebold. Claudandus had wanted Francis to take over the program, hoping that the cats would eventually evolve into something capable of overthrowing the human race and all other species which he saw as inferior. Francis and Claudandus begin to battle, with Claudandus accidentally destroying the computer and setting the house afire in the process. Claudandus dies after Francis slits his throat.

In the epilogue, Francis states that he never told any others the true identity of the murderer, and that Joker's name was eventually cleared. Jesaja was coaxed out of the catacombs, and has found a home with a bartender. Francis states that all animals have the ability to lose their innocence and humans, who descended from animals, still carry a hint of innocence. The novel ends with Francis urging the reader to never cease believing in a world where all animals and humans coexist, including those "more sublime and intelligent than the latter--for example, Felidae."

In the far future, on an Earth devastated by millennia of war, the Caroline Republic is hostile towards its neighbors despite sharing their dire economic straits. Outside the declining remains of civilization lie ruins and wastelands populated by mutants and monsters. It is generally felt that humanity lost its vitality long ago.

To a leading politician of the Caroline the aged veteran General Toriman proposes a centuries-long scheme to build the nation by taking control of an ancient shipyard hundreds of miles away which was apparently designed to build spacecraft. Ostensibly, the purpose of the project will be the construction of a spaceship seven miles long called the "Victory" to carry the population of the despairing world to a paradise planet called "Home". In fact, the ship will never be completed, but the effort will revitalize the nation's economy and perhaps restore mankind's missing quality.

General Toriman dies and the cynical politicians of the Republic rouse the population to begin the project. The River Road from the Caroline homeland to the Yards is forced with a bloody battle between a Caroline military force and mutants, during which the ghost of the ancient hero Miolnor IV appears to save the day.

Work begins on constructing the ship. Despite their antiquity, the Yards' machinery and buildings seem to have been perfectly preserved and materials for the construction of the ship are discovered. Legends say that the fortifications still standing nearby defended human civilization against Dark Powers over the mountains to the west.

The magnificent city of Gateway grows in the hills above the Yards while the ''Victory'' slowly takes shape. Much of the population of the Caroline moves to the Yards and its society is formally divided into two classes. The Technos supervise construction and are aware of the motivational "myth of the ship" plan while the People believe that the voyage to the planet Home is the actual goal.

Some Technos realize that, although Gateway has become rich and prosperous through the ''Victory'' project, the Caroline homeland is still as miserable as its neighbors. Before they can act on this knowledge the People revolt, led by a man named Coral who claims truthfully that the Technos have lied and do not intend to complete the ''Victory''. Most of the Technos are killed although one is allowed to bring the news to the Dresau Islands in the eastern sea. The Dresau Navy has a proud tradition as the last surviving remnant of vital humanity and its leader believes the ''Victory'' project has a sinister purpose, possibly directed by heirs of the dark power Salasar, which once ruled most of the earth.

After almost two centuries of construction, the ''Victory'' is completed and the women and children of the People are placed aboard in suspended animation. Led by the Dresau Navy the gathered enemies of Coral's triumphant People attack with their restored ships and scavenged weapons. The defenses of the Caroline Empire are ineffective, and an apocalyptic battle rages about the Yards, with millions fighting. At the height of the battle the sea turns red with blood and the dead of past wars rise in support of the assault. The legendary fortresses fire missiles toward the west.

Before any of the men of the People board the ''Victory'' it moves down the ways to the sea. It turns its huge engines toward the shore and they ignite, incinerating the fighting armies, ships, Yards, and Gateway. The ''Victory'' then redirects the destruction onto itself and its millions of passengers. Balls of fire arrive over the mountains to complete the destruction.

When the wreckage of the Yards has cooled, the man who has been called General Toriman, the ghost of Miolnor IV, and Coral arrives. The ''Victory'' project and its opposition have been devised by the heirs of Salasar. He signals the completion of the project; the military powers of the east have been destroyed and invasion by those in the west can begin.

Dr. Larry Roberts (Finney), a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, is puzzled when four beautiful models working in television commercials request cosmetic surgery to make changes so minor as to be imperceptible to the naked eye. When these models later start dying under mysterious circumstances, he discovers they are all linked to the same advertisement research firm.

The Digital Matrix research firm rates advertising models using a scoring system to measure the combined visual impact of various physical attributes in television commercials. In an experiment to increase their scores, some models are sent to Dr. Roberts to get cosmetic surgery to maximize their visual impact. Though the models are physically perfect after the surgery, they still are not as effective as desired, so the research firm decides to use a different approach. Each model is offered a contract to have her body scanned digitally to create 3D computer-generated models, then the 3D models are animated for use in commercials. The contracts seem to be incredibly lucrative for the models; once their bodies are represented digitally, they get a paycheck for life, never having to work again, since their digital models are used for all their future work in commercials.

However, when these same models start dying under mysterious circumstances, Roberts becomes suspicious and decides to investigate Digital Matrix. He has a strong interest in investigating the deaths: he is considered a prime suspect by the police (from evidence planted at the scene of one of the murders) and his most recent patient, Cindy (Susan Dey), with whom he begins a romantic relationship. Cindy is the last of the models to be digitally scanned.

During his investigation, Roberts discovers some advanced technology that the Digital Matrix corporation is using to hypnotize consumers into buying the products they advertise. He also discovers a light pulse device, the Light Ocular-Oriented Kinetic Emotive Responses (L.O.O.K.E.R.) gun, that gives the illusion of invisibility by instantly mesmerizing its victims into losing all sense of time.

Santiago Miranda (Robinson Díaz) is a famous actor in a popular Colombian soap opera, depicting the role of Simón Bolívar, “The Libertador”, a Venezuelan soldier who played a major piece in the independence of South America and became their president. He speaks briefly of Don Quixote, an old novel where an old man wants to be a chivalrous knight of old and the local villagers secretly go along with it to humor him. As he stands, giving a motivational and deep speech before he is to be killed off, he exclaims for the director to cut. He declares that he will not have Bolívar die this way. He leaves the set, still wearing the costume, and heads home to his mother.

His co-star and ex-girlfriend, Manuela/Alejandra Baberini (Amparo Grisales), is then sent by the director to reign him in after they speak with his mental health doctors. While she goes to find him, many people are playfully mistaking Santiago as Bolívar. He seems to start believing he is Bolívar as we see his health slowly deteriorate with each fan's reaction to him. When the mental health doctors finally catch him, they have him placed in a ward/clinic with a straight jacket as if he is a danger to himself. When he is let out by Manuela, they go to the beach together and spend alone time finally to themselves. They talk things out, everything is going well until he pretends he has drowned and upsets her by trying to scare her after she runs to check on him.

He later attends what appears to be a publicity stunt, which goes haywire. He loses himself as time progresses, going as far as kidnapping a government official and making demands. He seems to think he can change their world, as Bolívar was supposed to. Him having a small binge drinking episode does not help, either. Santiago brings the government official onto a boat, where ‘his’ revolutionaries take over when they do not like a command given by ‘Bolívar’. By this time, Manuela has found him and is also taken captive. She tells him that the director will allow him to rewrite the ending for Bolívar, which he seems to no longer care about.

Manuela even plays along, wanting to reach out to Santiago. However, she starts to believe that he thinks he is Bolívar. He asks her, “Do you really believe that I think I’m Bolívar?”. Santiago has written an official declaration for the government official he kidnapped to legalize, had they not been interrupted. It causes confusion of whether or not he really does believe it. Together, Santiago and Manuela plan to rescue the other government officials from the revolutionaries, in which they die from afterwards. Then, at the very last moment, there is clapper board that cuts the scene.

The play opens in Cutlers' Grammar School, Sheffield, a fictional boys' grammar school in the north of England. Set in the mid-late 1980s, the play follows a group of history pupils preparing for the Oxford and Cambridge entrance examinations under the guidance of three teachers (Hector, Irwin, and Lintott) with contrasting styles.

Hector, an eccentric teacher, delights in knowledge for its own sake but his ambitious headmaster wants the school to move up the academic league table and hires Irwin, a supply teacher, to introduce a rather more cynical and ruthless style of teaching. Hector is discovered sexually fondling a boy and later Irwin's latent homosexual inclinations emerge.

The character of Hector was based on the schoolmaster and author Frank McEachran (1900–1975).

María Teresa (Bárbara Gil) is a wealthy young woman who finds herself unmarried and pregnant. She approaches a doctor (Jorge Mistral) to obtain an abortion with the hopes of avoiding a scandal that would affect her family. The doctor, hoping to convince her otherwise, flashes back to an incident of his life to explain his "right to life" stance.

The story begins as a young woman seeks counsel by her doctor after she is left pregnant and debating if she should have an abortion. Her doctor calms her and tells her that he wants to share a story with her before she makes her decision. The doctor's name is Alberto Limonta and he begins recounting the story of the Del Junco family..... Don Rafael Del Junco (Ignacio López Tarso) is the severe patriarch of a respected Veracruz family and demands absolute obedience from his two daughters María Elena and Matilde (real-life sisters Verónica and Beatriz Castro) and his wife Dona Constancia. María Elena manages to have an affair with a traveling salesman named Alfredo Martinez, played by Salvador Pineda. Martinez abandons her after knowing that she is pregnant with his child.

Don Rafael, in all of his fury sends María Elena and her black nanny María Dolores (Socorro Avelar) into hiding to avoid any scandals to his family. The two women are kept prisoners by Bruno, the foreman (Julio César Inbert), who is instructed by Don Rafael to kill the baby as soon as it is born. María Dolores manages to arrange the disappearance of the baby boy and instead flees to Mexico City while the boy Albertico played by Verónica Castro's real-life son Cristian Castro. Albertico Limonta, who took the last name of Maria Dolores, knows nothing about the existence of María Elena.

The storyline has Alberto going back to Veracruz as he takes a job as a resident at the city hospital. It is there where he meets a young girl Amelia, who falls in love with him, but refuses to marry when she learns that Alberto has a black mother. As Alberto decides not to reveal that Maria Dolores is not his real mother, Cristina, a hospital volunteer, played by Erika Buenfil falls in love with him. Cristina is the adopted and grown up daughter of Matilde, who happens to be Alberto's real life aunt.

Alberto develops a relationship with the Del Junco family as Cristina introduces him to everyone. The Del Juncos', with exception of spiteful Matilde are taken by the young man. Maria Elena in fact, feels a special bond for her niece's boyfriend. Maria Elena is by then a nun living in a convent resigned a long time ago to never finding her son and her beloved nana.

A dramatic turn of events happens when Don Rafael del Junco pays an unsuspecting Maria Dolores a visit after he is given an emergency blood transfusion by Alberto. The meeting of these two characters is the paramount event of the entire drama as Maria Dolores reveals to Don Rafael that Doctor Alberto Limonta, the blood donor is in fact the Del Junco heir sent to his death by his own grandfather.

Don Rafael gets home and has a stroke which leaves him immobilized and unable to speak. This ploy prologued the drama for months in which Alberto and Cristina's love story takes a secondary role to the quest by Don Rafael's desire and his inability to tell Maria Elena that Albertico is her son. Maria Elena, eventually meets Maria Dolores who reveals that she had to flee Veracruz to save the child. In a highly emotional episode, Maria Elena, and Maria Dolores tell Alberto the entire truth.

Alberto instead of happiness feels sadness and resentment as he believes that Cristina is his first cousin making them an unlikely pair to marry. It is then when Matilde plagued by remorse and sadness confesses to Cristina that she is adopted; hence, permitting the two to marry. Don Rafael now able to speak, wants Alberto to take the Del Junco name to which Alberto refuses and decides to keep Limonta instead as he had grown up with him.

The book's main protagonist is Nicholas "Nick" Twisp, a 14-year-old boy of above-average intelligence from Oakland, California. Nick's life continues like a normal teenager's with his best friend Leroy, a.k.a. Lefty, and his divorced parents George and Estelle. His mother is dating a truck driver named Jerry, who sells a group of sailors a Chevy Nova that dies soon after the sailors get it. In response, the sailors go for revenge. After outsmarting them, Jerry strategically decides to take a vacation, so they all go to a religious mobile home camp in the resort town of Clearlake.

It is there that Nick meets Sheridan "Sheeni" Saunders and his life is turned completely upside down. Through plots to get Sheeni closer to him he ends up with several crimes on his hands (including arson, grand theft auto, and foul play) and is forced to run from the police. Nick tricks everyone into thinking he went to India, thereby escaping the police. Nick hides out with his sister Joanie and returns with help from his friend in Ukiah, Frank "Fuzzy" DeFalco. He dresses in Fuzzy's late grandmother's clothes, adopting the name Carlotta and a conservative disposition. As Nick does so, he befriends Sheeni and several other people who Nick knew before. While spending the night with Sheeni on Christmas Eve, she reveals to him that she knew from the beginning it was him, not Carlotta. Nick then gets "the best Christmas present a youth could receive," starting a secret relationship with Sheeni.

Nick inherits a fortune when an elderly neighbor of Joanie takes a liking to him and decides to put him in her will. When Joanie's neighbor died, Nick is briefly left half a million dollars richer, until his mother's boyfriend, a somewhat corrupt police officer, seizes the money. Faced with homelessness from the loss of the house he had been squatting in, Nick becomes rich beyond belief when an idea of his, a wart watch, makes it big.

Donald Poultry is a young, intelligent but somewhat socially stunted middle school boy attending Camp North Pines for the summer along with other middle and high school kids. Riding the bus to the camp, he talks into his tape recorder diary, voicing his concerns. All goes well upon arrival; the kids unpack and are given time to play outside before the introductory camp dinner. Donald is caught by a counselor-in-training and bully, Stanley Runk, whose friends call him Runk The Punk. Runk tells Donald it's time for cabin cleaning, but becomes interested in Donald's tape recorder. Donald fools him into thinking it's a computer that analyzes him in an insulting way, and Donald strikes up an immediate enmity with Runk, only to be saved by another CIT, Chris Wade, who dismisses Runk.

At the dinner shortly afterwards, everyone says hello to the returning counselors Ed Heinz and Jack Caldwell, and Ed leads them in a welcoming applause for the new camp director Mr. Warren. Some of the boys recognize him as an old principal from their school and grumble about how strict his ruling of the camp will probably be. Mr. Warren is a middle-aged man with a generally pleasant demeanor, but he is overbearing when it comes to authority, striving to keep things "appropriate" for everyone. He is quite restrained, having limited the rec hall television to only receiving broadcasts from a religious channel, and warning everyone away from a dangerous rope bridge that leads to South Pines, the girls' side of the camp.

Mr. Warren invites some of the younger group to a butterfly hunt, revealing that collecting and studying butterflies is his hobby and specialty. Some of the older boys jeer at him behind his back, calling him "fruity,” except for Franklin Reilly, the CIT of the younger group, who seems respecting of his presence and protective of the young children like Chris.

Some of the older boys sneak off to the bridge after the dinner is over, and Franklin climbs the open-rope loop from start to finish, but they are all caught and reprimanded by Ed. Ed reminds them that summer camp is a place to have fun, not charge headfirst into danger. They all head back to the main camp in time for the evening swim. Chris tries teaching Donald how to swim, but is interrupted by a visiting female doctor who introduces herself, much to the approval of the campers. Continuing on his own, Donald accidentally floats out too far and begins to drown, but the counselors don't notice. Franklin looks up from his reading to see Donald in trouble. Surprised, he glances around to see that nobody else is responding, and jumps in to save Donald himself. When the counselors hear the frantic splashing, they reach the boys as they come out of the water. When Jack asks Franklin what happened, Franklin responds angrily that he's just doing their job for them.

Later, Franklin finds a shy boy named Peter in the cabin by himself. He asks if Peter is okay, the Peter responds that he became scared when Mr. Warren kept lifting him up too high to see some of the butterflies on the hunt. When Runk enters, Franklin implies that Mr. Warren did something inappropriate to Peter, causing Runk to become furious. Franklin convinces Runk to let him take care of the problem on his own.

Later, when the boys are bored in the rec hall, Donald and Chris climb up to the roof to fix the rigging on the satellite dish and unlock the disabled channels. Mr. Warren comes in to see the boys all cheering over a music video featuring half-naked women, and he furiously locks down the rec hall. The next night, during a co-ed talent show in which the girls from South Pines visit, he further angers the boys by ending the event early in response to an inappropriate song contributed by Runk and John Mason, and as punishment, he also cancels the upcoming co-ed dance.

Some of the boys meet that night, including all of the CITs with the exception of Chris, who has been sent to the "meditation center" as punishment for making out with one of the girls after the show. Franklin leads the group in a discussion about how Mr. Warren is ruining their summer, and he proposes staging a coup and shutting away the authority to take control of the camp themselves. When some of the boys appear apprehensive, Franklin assures them it'll be like a game, not serious, and Donald helps by relating the "game" to capture the flag. Franklin, impressed with Donald, appoints him to the position of captain in the upcoming revolution. Stunned, but easily won over, Donald accepts. Afterwards, the other boys are more easily sold.

The next morning, Franklin gets up early and steals a gun the counselors keep locked away for protection. The day begins as an event called Camper-Counselor Turnabout, where the campers and counselors trade places. Everyone is having fun that morning, even counselor Jack, who usually finds it difficult to get along with some of the younger group due to his heavy-duty fitness regimens. At breakfast, camper Shawn poses as Mr. Warren and with his fake authority, he lists several joking changes to the rules that everyone agrees with enthusiastically. However, he is interrupted by a suggestion from Franklin to free Chris from the meditation center, and the suggestion becomes a demanding chant from more than half of the mess hall, startling the counselors.

Franklin and his group quickly run out the back door, pursued by the counselors, who chase them to the meditation center. Though Mr. Warren appears to have the upper hand initially, when he tries to lock Franklin in the building, Franklin takes control by revealing the gun he stole. The other boys help him get the counselors into the meditation center, changing its name to the "pen,” and they pull a bewildered Chris out. Chris tries to convince Franklin not to go any farther, but Franklin replies that he's simply made a citizen's arrest. He further states that the "game" will only last for twenty-four hours. Paul and Runk stay behind to board up the pen while the other boys run off to begin the revolution. While Franklin and Runk visit the girls' camp to capture the female counselors and take over there as well, the rest of the group take over the main office and disable the phone lines. Donald helps Franklin wire the office's intercom into South Pines, and Franklin announces to the girls what has happened.

All the boys and girls gather in front of the rec hall of North Pines, and Franklin explains to everyone that it's time for the campers to have a say in how the camp is run. He appoints some of the boys and girls to ranks and positions, giving them control over certain aspects of the new combined camp. He leads everyone in an oath to the revolution, where the campers all swear not to betray the leaders.

That night, a party breaks out in the rec hall, including even the little kids, some of which drink the spiked punch. Chris and his new girlfriend Heather become shocked at how out of control things are, and they carry off the younger kids and put them to bed. Things get worse when John and Runk drag Mr. Warren out of the pen and into the party to see how he will react to it. Everyone laughs to see him with his mouth taped and his hands tied behind his back. He becomes uncomfortable when one of the drunk girls begins dancing sexily in front of him, but Chris runs back in and stops them. He takes the tape off Mr. Warren and tries to free him, but the other boys take charge again and Franklin pulls Chris outside to have a talk.

Runk leads Mr. Warren back toward the pen, but Mr. Warren starts to struggle. He shows surprising physical strength, twisting away from Runk multiple times and bashing him furiously even with his hands tied. Runk pulls out a knife and threatens Mr. Warren, but Mr. Warren charges Runk and runs right into the knife. Runk becomes shocked as Mr. Warren falls dead to the ground. He runs back over to the main office where Franklin is sitting, and blubbering, he tells Franklin what happened. Franklin almost loses control at the news, but then he pulls himself together and orders Runk to take Mr. Warren out to the caves far behind the camp and leave him in there. He warns Runk to keep the incident a secret and do exactly as he says from now on.

The next morning, Franklin announces to the camp that the revolution will continue, and he emphasizes that campers who show courage and dedication to the revolution will be named officers. He also promotes Donald to Minister of Propaganda and appoints him to the Supreme Revolutionary Committee. He goes on to name Chris Wade and Heather Long as traitors, and orders everyone to shun them. He warns that anyone seen associating with them will also be named traitors. When Chris and Heather venture out into the main camp that morning, they are stunned to see everyone running away from them. When Donald nervously refuses interaction with them, Chris realizes the situation is worse than he thought, and he and Heather run off. A girl named Laurie then asks Donald out to the rescheduled dance that will be held that night, and he accepts, but tells her he doesn't know how to dance. She offers to teach him, and they happily feed the camp animals together.

That night before the dance, some of the campers start a bonfire with Mr. Warren's wooden butterfly collection post outside the rec hall. People laugh at it on their way in. Laurie stands with some of her friends, telling them enthusiastically about Donald, and the girls gush when he arrives to dance with her. John leaves the dance with Debbie to go on a walk with her, but he becomes grabby and she tries to leave him. He angrily pushes her to the ground and sexually assaults her, drawing the attention of Donald and Laurie, who are also out walking, and they run to help. They report John to Franklin, and Franklin holds a meeting the next morning with the members of the Supreme Revolutionary Committee, John's friends, and Debbie's. Donald and Laurie attend as well to support her. Treating the matter like a judge in a court case, Franklin demands John tell him the truth, and John claims Debbie went along with the whole thing and is just a dirty little tease. Franklin asks Debbie what she thinks John's punishment should be, and she claims she wants him dead. The meeting erupts into a confused discussion, but Franklin controls everyone and says he will consider this while John sits out in the pen.

Later, Franklin decides to force John to traverse the rope bridge in a "trial by ordeal" arrangement, mimicking older societies who punished criminals by making them perform dangerous tasks that could kill them. When John successfully loops the whole bridge, the girls become angry at him. They wait for the other guys to leave, and then they carry John off and hang him from a tree.

Donald finds John's body and becomes very upset, deciding things have gone far enough. He jerry rigs the disabled phone lines into the satellite over the main office, using a stolen receiver as a radio. He tries to call through to someone, but only hears static, and he is captured by Officer Blackridge and locked inside the office. Chris visits him and they talk about how the camp has gone nuts, but Blackridge finds Chris and throws him out. The next morning, the camp becomes shocked to learn that Donald will be forced to loop the bridge as well, and some of them begin to realize how dangerous Franklin is. They begin to rally support amongst themselves as the crowd gathers by the bridge in time for Donald's punishment. At first it looks like he might make it, but then Franklin orders Runk to cut one of the ropes on the bridge. The campers realize Franklin wants Donald dead, and they all snap and turn against the Supreme Revolutionary Committee, fighting them off to save Donald.

The police arrive suddenly, breaking up the fight, revealing they received Donald's broadcast the previous night. They take Donald's tape recorded diary for evidence, and Donald and Chris are dismissed as unwilling participants. Franklin and Runk are taken into custody by the police. Heather and Laurie wait together by the bus for home, and are both relieved to see Chris and Donald arrive. They all board together, and the bus roars off, leaving the camp deserted.

Ralph is a mouse who lives in the run-down Mountain View Inn, a battered resort hotel in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California. Ralph longs for a life of danger and speed, wishing to get away from his relatives, who worry about the mice colony being discovered. One day a boy named Keith Gridley and his family visit the hotel on their way through California. Keith leaves a toy motorcycle on his bedside table. While Keith is away, Ralph attempts to ride it, but cannot figure out how to start it. Startled by a telephone ring, both Ralph and the motorcycle fall into a metal wastebasket.

Keith discovers his missing motorcycle in the wastebasket. Although Ralph's mother worries that he is in contact with humans, Keith shows Ralph how to start the motorcycle—make an engine-like noise—and lets Ralph ride it at night. While Keith and his family explore California, Ralph recklessly rides the motorcycle through the depths of the hotel. One night he is spotted by Keith's mother, who initially thinks she is imagining things, but later is sure that she saw a mouse riding a motorcycle. Ralph and the motorcycle are almost sucked up by a maid's vacuum cleaner, but Ralph escapes, riding into a pile of linen and dirty bedsheets. He escapes by chewing holes in the sheets, forced to leave the precious vehicle behind.

After Ralph loses the motorcycle, Keith loses trust in him, though he still brings the mice colony food. One night Keith becomes very sick, because his parents don't have any more aspirin and are unable to obtain one until morning. To regain Keith's trust, Ralph searches the hotel for an aspirin tablet, at risk to himself, for the medicine could prove fatal to a small mouse if ingested (in fact, Ralph's father was taken down with a bad cold and died in spite of all they could do). Ralph is able to find an aspirin tablet and borrows Keith's toy ambulance to retrieve it. When Ralph is successful, Keith's health is restored, one of the hotel's housekeepers had even found his motorcycle among the linens from which Ralph escaped. In gratitude, Keith gives Ralph the motorcycle to keep, Ralph uses the space under the TV set in the lobby as a garage.

The episode begins with a substitute teacher coming in to teach the 3rd grade class. The boys mess around with the teacher at roll call, with Stan pretending that he is Cartman, Kenny pretending he is Stan, and Cartman pretending he is Kenny. Cartman laughs so hard that milk squirts out of his nose (despite the fact that he was not drinking any); this gag continues through the episode whenever he laughs. The teacher gives them all an assignment to make a get-well-soon card for Kyle, and Butters literally ends up being the card. Stan visits his sick friend, who is, according to his mother, suffering from kidney failure due to diabetes and needs a transplant. Since they are unable to find a donor and Sheila is worried about the risks of having Kyle undergo surgery, Sharon suggests to Sheila that she try New Age healing to cure Kyle. They visit the holistic medicine store of a newly arrived shopkeeper named Miss Information, who tells them that mysterious "toxins" are the cause of Kyle's ailments and prescribes a series of herbs to help him; they do not help, but she convinces the people of South Park that they are healing him even though it is not visible. The whole town becomes enamored with her remedies and buys such nostrums as "Cherokee hair tampons" from two supposed Native Americans (played by Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong) who share her store. Before long, everyone is so hooked on "holistic medicine" that Miss Information can get away with selling coat hangers as "dream catchers" for very high prices.

Meanwhile, Mr. Garrison is fired for his incompetence as a third grade teacher and for charges of soliciting sex from a minor. He decides to fulfill his dream of publishing a book and begins to write a romance novel, in which he manages to use the word "penis" 6,083 times.

Stan goes to ask Dr. Doctor for help, and the doctor says that Kyle will die unless he gets a kidney transplant from the only other person in town with a compatible blood type: Cartman. Stan tries to convince everyone that the New Age so-called "healing" is not working and that only a kidney transplant can cure Kyle, but Miss Information insists that the doctor is only interested in making money from the procedure, even as she herself charges exorbitant prices for her holistic healing items. Stan tries to convince Cartman to donate his organ, and Cartman refuses to do it unless he gets $10 million in exchange. Upset at Cartman's callousness, Stan tries to get his other friends to help him take Cartman's kidney by force. However, only Kenny, Butters, and Timmy show up; when Stan expresses disappointment, Butters mentions Clyde would have come too, had there not been tacos for dinner. An attempt to sneak into Cartman's house and cut his kidney out while he sleeps proves fruitless, as he wears a "Kidney Blocker 2000". Resigned, Stan laments to Kenny over Kyle's imminent death at the hands of holistic medicine, but Kenny, furious at Stan for disregarding the fact that Kenny had died in almost every episode up until then, says one of Cartman's catchphrases, "Screw you guys, I'm going home." then walks off, only to be crushed by a falling piano; Stan does not notice as he was busy crying. Mrs. Broflovski brings a very weak and gravely ill Kyle in for a "spiritual healing" by Miss Information's "Native Americans". To the shock of the citizens, the "Native Americans" take one look at Kyle and declare that he is in need of a doctor and they are actually Mexicans. The two Mexicans reveal to the townsfolk that Miss Information is a fraud who convinced everyone that they were Native Americans and that they had simply neglected to set the record straight. Furious of being scammed, the townsfolk attack and beat Miss Information to death, and Stan declares that he has a plan to get Kyle a kidney.

Cartman awakens the next day to find the Kidney Blocker 2000 destroyed and blood all over his bed. Infuriated, he marches to Stan's house and recovers his kidney, then goes to the doctor and arranges to have it put back in, but not before signing a release form. However, it was all a ruse—part of Stan's plan. Cartman's mom had opened the Blocker and spread ketchup on his bed to fool him. The form he signed was fraud in the factum and actually allowed Kyle to take his kidney; the kidney that Stan had given him was fake. Cartman is angered, Kyle is better, and Mr. Garrison - now a best-selling author - comes to give him a signed copy of his book, ''In the Valley of Penises''. Cartman is still enraged as Kyle and Stan laugh at him until milk comes out of Kyle's nose. Cartman expresses relief that Kyle got his "crappy kidney".

In a sleepy New Mexico town, nightclub promoter Jerry Manning hires a black leopard as a publicity stunt for his girlfriend, Kiki Walker, a performer there. Kiki uses the opportunity to interrupt the act of her rival, Clo-Clo, by storming into the restaurant with the leopard on a leash. Angered, Clo-Clo frightens the leopard with her castanets, and it escapes, fleeing into the night. Charlie, the Native American owner of the leopard who leased it to Jerry, begins pestering him for money to replace the cat.

That night, a young local woman, Teresa, goes to purchase corn meal for her family's dinner. Under a bridge in an arroyo, she encounters the leopard, and flees to her house. She is killed at the door just before her family is able to let her back in the house. The medical examiner rules Teresa's death an accident, presuming she was mauled by the leopard. Shortly after, Consuela, another local, goes to visit her father's grave in the cemetery on her birthday. Lost in thought, Consuela fails to leave before the gatekeeper locks the gate, and finds herself trapped within the cemetery's stone walls. When help arrives, Consuela is found, another apparent victim of the leopard.

After learning of the second murder, Jerry inquires to the police as to why the leopard has remained within the city, as he was informed it would naturally flee to the wilderness. Charlie also questions whether the leopard killed Consuela, but is gaslit by the local historian and museum curator Galbraith, into believing he may be responsible, committing the murders during his nightly alcohol binges in which he blacks out. At his request, Charlie is kept in a jail cell overnight. Clo-Clo spends the night with an elderly wealthy man at the nightclub, who gifts her a hundred-dollar bill. After, she visits Maria, a fortune teller, who warns her that "something black" is coming to claim her. En route home, Clo-Clo loses the hundred-dollar bill. When she goes back out to find it, she is attacked and murdered.

Kiki and Jerry prepare to leave on a trip to Chicago, coinciding with an annual procession that occurs in the town, commemorating the mass murder of the Natives by the conquistadors. As they depart for their train, Kiki and Jerry are gifted a bouquet of flowers from Galbraith, which Kiki wishes to place on Consuela's grave before they leave town. At the cemetery, they are met by Charlie, who notifies them his leopard has been found shot dead in the arroyo, and its fur taken; he presumes the cat has been dead for at least a week, suggesting a human may be responsible for the murders. Charlie recalls having seen Galbraith in the area, and suspects he killed the leopard. Jerry attempts to turn Galbraith in to the police, but they do not believe him.

During the procession that night, Galbraith hears a woman's scream at the cemetery. He subsequently enters the museum, where he hears the sound of the castanets echoing. Shortly after, Kiki arrives at the museum, where she offers to accompany Galbraith in viewing the procession. She convinces Galbraith to turn off the lights, remarking they will better be able to watch the procession. Galbraith agrees and, once the lights are off, Kiki drops a pair of castanets. Galbraith attacks her, but she is saved by Jerry. Galbraith flees into the street, where he is eventually stopped amongst the procession marchers. Confronted by Jerry and Raoul, Consuela's fiancé, Galbraith confesses to having murdered both Consuelo and Clo-Clo. He admits to having been inspired to do so after witnessing the leopard maul Teresa to death. Seeking vengeance, Raoul shoots Galbraith to death.

Later, while at the funeral parlor, Jerry and Kiki reaffirm their love for one another.

Following the events of the night before, a badly injured and unmasked Jason Voorhees goes to a lakefront store for a change of clothes. While there, he murders the store owner Harold and his wife Edna. Meanwhile, Chris Higgins and her friends travel to Higgins Haven, her old home on Crystal Lake, to spend the weekend. The gang includes pregnant Debbie, her boyfriend Andy, prankster Shelly, his blind date Vera (who does not reciprocate his feelings), and stoners Chuck and Chili. After running into a man named Abel who warns them to turn back, the gang meets Chris' boyfriend Rick at their destination.

At a convenience store, Shelly and Vera get into a confrontation with bikers Ali, Fox, and Loco. Shelly gets in the car and knocks down their motorcycles, impressing Vera. Later, the bikers show up at Higgins Haven, where they take the gas out of the van and attempt to burn the barn down to get even. Jason, who has been hiding in the barn, murders Fox and Loco with a pitchfork before beating Ali unconscious. That night, Chris and Rick head out into the woods, where Chris reveals that she was attacked by a deformed man two years prior, which prompted her to leave Crystal Lake in the first place; the main reason that she returned was to confront her fears and escape the trauma.

Back at Higgins Haven, Shelly scares Vera with a hockey mask and then wanders into the barn, where Jason slashes his throat. Taking his mask to conceal his face, Jason emerges from the barn. Vera retrieves Shelly's wallet from under the dock and is shot in the eye with a speargun. Jason enters the house and slices in half a hand-standing Andy with a machete. Debbie finishes her shower and rests on a hammock, where Jason thrusts a knife through her chest from beneath. When the power goes out in the house, Chuck goes downstairs to the basement only for Jason to hurl him into the fuse box, electrocuting him. Chili finds that everyone else is dead and is then impaled with a hot fire poker.

When Rick's car dies, Chris and Rick are forced to walk back to the house to find it in disarray. Rick steps outside to search the grounds, but Jason grabs him and crushes his skull with his bare hands, making one of his eyes pop out of its socket. Jason then attacks Chris, who narrowly escapes the house and tries to flee in her van. The van runs out of gas and Chris makes her way to the barn to hide, but Jason attacks her again. Inside the barn, Chris strikes Jason over the head with a shovel, and hangs him. He regains consciousness and temporarily removes his mask in order to get free from the noose, which causes Chris to recognize him as the same man who attacked her two years prior. A still-living Ali tries to attack Jason, but Jason quickly finishes him off. The distraction allows Chris to strike Jason in the head with an axe. He staggers momentarily towards her before finally collapsing. Exhausted, Chris pushes a canoe out into the lake and falls asleep.

Chris has a nightmare of an unmasked Jason running towards her from the house before disappearing, which then turns into the decomposing body of Pamela Voorhees, with her head attached, emerging from the lake to pull her in. The following morning, the police arrive and escort a traumatized Chris away from Higgins Haven. Jason's body is shown to still be lying in the barn as the lake is shown at peace.

Barry 'Bazza' McKenzie (Barry Crocker) travels to England with his aunt Edna Everage (Barry Humphries) to advance his cultural education. Bazza is a young Aussie fond of beer, Bondi and beautiful 'sheilas'. He settles in Earls Court, where his old friend Curly (Paul Bertram) has a flat. He gets drunk, is ripped off, insulted by pretentious Englishmen and exploited by record producers, religious charlatans and a BBC television producer (Peter Cook). He reluctantly leaves England under the orders of his aunt, after exposing himself on television. His final words on the plane home are, "I was just starting to like the Poms!"

In 1945, American forces were closing in on the Japanese-occupied Philippines. The Japanese held around 500 American prisoners who had survived the Bataan Death March in a notorious POW camp at Cabanatuan and subjected them to brutal treatment and summary execution, as the Japanese code of bushido viewed surrender as a disgrace. Many prisoners were also stricken with malaria.

The film opens with the massacre of prisoners of war on Palawan by the Kempeitai, the Imperial Japanese military's secret police (though it was committed by the Japanese Fourteenth Area Army).

At Lingayen Gulf, the 6th Ranger Battalion under Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Mucci is ordered by Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger to liberate all of the POWs at Cabanatuan prison camp before they are killed by the Japanese. The film chronicles the efforts of the Rangers, Alamo Scouts from the Sixth Army and Filipino guerrillas as they undertake the Raid at Cabanatuan.

Throughout the film, the viewpoint switches between the POWs at Cabanatuan, the Rangers, the Filipino resistance and the Japanese.

The film covers the resistance work undertaken by nurse Margaret Utinsky, who smuggled medicine into the POW camps. The Kempeitai arrested her and sent her to Fort Santiago prison. She was eventually released but spent six weeks recovering from gangrene as a result of injuries sustained from beatings. The movie ends with the prisoners being liberated.

Former medical student Melvin has dropped out and now works (after a fashion) in a planning office of an unnamed city. The office supervisor is his big sister, who "mothers" him instead of making him perform well. Melvin accidentally makes telephone contact with an old friend, and they decide to meet for dinner that evening. The friend arrives early for drinks with a lady friend; by the appointed time, four people are involved, each connected somehow to at least one of the others. The evening passes in a leisurely dinner with much conversation, sometimes intimate; the connections among the parties are revealed throughout the evening. The movie includes several flashbacks, which are not immediately explained but become understandable by the end.

The story of Pedro Coral Tavera (Miguel Varoni) is animated, colorful, funny, heartwarming and heartbreaking all at the same time. He is not the typical gallant protagonist; he is not rich, he is not handsome, he does not dress well, he thinks he is a good dancer. Upon arrival in the big city, Pedro 'stumbles' on and immediately falls in love with Paula Dávila (Sandra Reyes), and in less than 48 hours he ends up being her driver and confidant. Not only that, he also becomes the main livelihood of the Pacheco family, made up exclusively of 3 very lively and strong-willed women who have just lost their beloved husband/father. And so, Pedrito Coral finds himself in the perfect setting to perform and display his scales. He creates his own universe, full of big lies, but with good intentions. And, in the end, this recalcitrant seducer ends up being the key person in the life of every human being who crosses his path, spreading joy, kindness and friendship with his 'smile from ear to ear' and his particular way of dressing, speaking and moving. Also

In the far future, an office worker named Johnson leads a dull and mundane life. One Sunday morning, his robotic servant Ben suggests that he go to the Trip Movie Corporation a company that enables its customers to experience a dream as though it were a reality. Johnson asks to be a king of a harem and to command a battlestar.

In his dream, however, Johnson instead becomes "Cobra", an adventurer who explores space with his android partner Lady Armaroid. Cobra wields the Psychogun, a cybernetic arm-laser gun, to fight monsters and the Pirate Guild, an organized crime syndicate of pirates. After a battle with the Guild, Cobra allows its leader Captain Vaiken to escape. Vaiken distributes Cobra's picture to other pirates, making him a wanted man. After the dream ends, Johnson describes the fantasy to an attendant, who is surprised because Johnson's dream should not have any reference to pirates or to Cobra.

On his way back home, Johnson crashes into a speeding car whose driver looks like Captain Vaiken. When Johnson mentions the resemblance, the driver reveals himself as Vaiken. He asks Johnson about "Cobra" and threatens to kill Johnson if he does not answer. Johnson unconsciously lifts his arm and a ray shoots out of his hand, killing Vaiken. The shot explodes Johnson's arm, revealing the Psychogun embedded in it.

Johnson rushes home, where Ben notices the weapon on his arm. Johnson then realizes that he remembers nothing from before the last three years. After looking into a mirror, he finds a knob and turns it to reveal a secret room. There, he finds the revolver which he used in his dream. At that moment, armed intruders break into the house and address him as "Cobra". A battle ensues, and Ben's robot shell breaks to reveal Lady Armaroid, with whom Johnson kills the intruders.

Johnson starts to remember his previous existence as Cobra. Hunted by the Pirate Guild for meddling in their criminal enterprises and tired of life on the run, Cobra surgically altered his face and had his memories erased. Lady Armaroid tells Cobra that the Trip Movie has triggered his subconscious to regain access to the memories of his former life. Cobra and Lady Armadroid resume their adventurous life together.

Brassy blonde B-girl Vivian (Jan Sterling) is agitated and seeking to arrange a meeting with a man she has been dating. In spite of confiding to him she's "in trouble", he refuses to meet her at the bar where she works, "The Grass Skirt," in Boston, and stops taking her calls. She then picks up a very drunk Henry Shanway (Marshall Thompson), so she can use his car to drive to Cape Cod to confront the man face to face.

Vivian drives. When Shanway realizes he's out on the Cape some 60 miles from Boston he demands to be taken back. Instead, she ditches him and steals his car. When Vivian rendezvous with her reluctant beau, he shoots and kills her. He hurriedly buries her body in the dunes and sinks the car in a pond.

Shanway subsequently reports his stolen car to his insurance, but claims it had been right outside the hospital where his pregnant wife, Grace (Sally Forrest), was recovering from a miscarriage. Months later a partially exposed skeleton is found on the beach. Massachusetts State Police Detective Lieutenant Peter Moralas (Montalban), a determined and ethnically proud policeman assigned to the District Attorney of Barnstable County is assigned to team up with another department detective to investigate the case. The pair seeks the help of Dr. McAdoo (Bruce Bennett), a forensics specialist at Harvard Medical School, to learn what the skeleton can reveal.

McAdoo determines it is of a young woman, who was pregnant at the time of her death, sensational angles which the press plays up. Mrs. Smerrling (Elsa Lanchester), the conniving owner of the boarding house where Vivian lived, tracks down and tries to blackmail a wealthy married man Vivian called from her boarding house, James Harkley (Edmon Ryan). Snooping in the man's desk when he is called out of his office, Smerrling goes so far as to steal his gun during her visit. Soon after, Moralas, working at that point in Boston with a partner assigned to him by the Boston Police Department, tracks down the stolen car from police records and questions Henry Shanway. Local authorities on the Cape eventually finds Shanway's car in the pond, and he's identified in a police lineup by a variety of figures he encountered during his drunken foray and afterwards, when trying to locate Vivian at her boarding house. Mrs. Smerrling, who was present at the lineup, never mentions the gun, Mr. Harkley, or, obviously, her blackmail attempt. As a result the innocent Shanway is arrested and charged with murder. Grace can only wonder what her husband had gotten himself involved in, evidently killing his pregnant lover while she was hospitalized after losing their baby.

Still trying to wring more out of his evidence, Dr. McAdoo discovers with Moralas' help a bullet stuck in the car that had shattered one of the skeleton's ribs. As the case develops, Moralas begins to reconsider his conviction of Shanway's guilt. Later, Smerrling shows Harkley's gun to Jackie Elcott (Betsy Blair), a tenant in her building, who is familiar with firearms. Elcott subsequently reads in the paper the killer used a .45 caliber automatic and informs Lt. Moralas that Smerrling has the same type of gun. Smerrling cleverly hides the .45 in a carpet bag and checks it at a nearby train station.

Before Moralas can question her she again attempts to blackmail Mr. Harkley, this time for $20,000, setting up a rendezvous at her home. He arrives and threatens to kill her unless she gives him back his gun. Terrified, she discloses where the gun is, but not its claim check. He strikes her over the head with a candlestick and she's killed. Moralas shows up, but loses Harkley in a car chase. The next morning, Moralas gets a phone call telling him Shanway has escaped. While at Smerrling's home He comes across the baggage claim check hidden in her birdcage, which sends Moralas racing to catch the killer at Trinity Station before he can get to the bag first. Still, Harkley succeeds. Arriving at the train station, Moralas chases down Harkley, apprehends him, and takes him into custody. Morales tells the police to stop looking for Shanway. He calls Shanway's wife over the phone, telling her that her husband is freed of all charges. Mrs. Shanway can only respond with glassy-eyed silence.

After having a meal with Dr. Bashir, Lt. Dax is abducted by a group of aliens while walking back to her quarters. Dr. Bashir alerts Commander Sisko that she has been taken, and the Deep Space Nine crew is able to prevent the abductors from leaving the station.

One of the abductors, Ilon Tandro, accuses Dax—the Dax ''symbiont'', then in the body of Curzon Dax—of murdering his father, Ardelon Tandro, a famous military hero from Klaestron IV; he wants to punish Jadzia Dax for the crime. His claim is based on the fact that during a civil war a coded message informed the opposing side of his father's location, and of the people who knew the location, Curzon was the only one without an alibi.

Major Kira insists that Dax cannot be extradited to Klaestron without an arbitration hearing under Bajoran law. At the hearing, Sisko argues that Jadzia and Curzon Dax are two different individuals, sparking a lengthy debate. The arbiter suggests removing the Dax symbiont and leaving Jadzia behind, but Dr. Bashir says that neither would survive the operation. Ilon argues that failure to punish Trill symbionts for acts committed in past lifetimes would create a perfect crime. Curiously, although her fate is uncertain, Jadzia seems complacent about the entire affair.

Meanwhile, DS9's security chief Odo visits Ilon's mother, Enina. She tells him that Tandro's murder inspired his people to victory, and he has since become a worldwide hero, but she is adamant that Curzon did not betray her husband. Odo discovers evidence of an affair between Curzon and Enina, giving him a motive for the murder. Enina admits the affair to Odo and tells him that her husband was not the hero in life that he was in death. As the hearing resumes, Enina testifies that at the time of the murder, Curzon was in her bed. The arbiter dismisses the case.

After the hearing is over, Enina talks privately with Dax of how no one must ever know that her husband had sent the coded message himself in an attempt to betray his own people, and the rebels killed him for the favor.

Single mother Jean relocates every time she gets her heart broken by another guy, much to the dismay of her teenage daughter, Holly. Holly devises a plan to invent a secret admirer for her mother, so she will be happy and not have to relocate anymore.

Overhearing her friend Amy's uncle Ben ordering flowers for a woman, Holly uses his advice on women (which she acquires by telling him she needs help for a school project on romance), sending her mother orchids, other gifts and love notes, and is soon communicating with her mother as this fictitious admirer (who Holly names Ben) via the Internet.

As her mother becomes more interested, Holly has to find a photo of this admirer. She sends one of the real Ben, and then devises a reason why they cannot meet in person, claiming he is working in China.

While she is developing the online romance between her mother and fake Ben, and preventing her mother and the real Ben from meeting in person, she finds herself drawn to a cute, artistic boy in her class, Adam, but is unwilling to get close to anyone due to her history of being uprooted and having to say goodbye so often.

As the charade continues, and as Holly spends more time with Ben while picking his brain for romance tips, she slowly begins to see qualities in Ben which make her believe he is her mother's "perfect man". Holly asks for Adam's help to disguise himself as Ben on the telephone and break up with Jean. But he fails, as he is revealed to be harboring feelings for Holly as well, in effect telling Holly's mother the opposite of what is planned.

The following day at school, Holly confronts Adam angrily because of his failed attempt to break up with her mother over the phone disguised as Ben. Adam apologizes and tells Holly that he just got distracted. Holly demands to know what he could have possibly been distracted by, and Adam admits his feelings for Holly by kissing her.

That night, Lenny, a man who is infatuated with Jean, proposes to her and she replies with a "maybe". Holly, in an act of desperation, then disguises herself as Ben's secretary and arranges a meeting between Ben and her mother. The next day, when Holly mistakenly thinks Ben is marrying someone else, she disrupts the wedding to tell Ben he should be with her mother, not knowing he was there because the bride is his dear friend, and he was catering the wedding.

A disappointed Ben follows Holly out and she admits the full story. Holly then goes to the meeting place and admits the whole ruse to Jean, who seems to take it terribly. Days pass, and Holly and her mother maintain a cold relationship, and Holly is offended by her interpretation of Adam's drawing of "Princess Holly". Holly begs Jean for them to move again. Her mother is humiliated and wants to stay, but Holly tells her to leave this time for her, as she always has to move for her mother. Jean cannot argue with that so they start to pack. Adam, for what he thinks is the last time, goes to Holly's home and gives Holly's mother his drawing, commenting that the drawing has another side that Holly did not see before she left, which turns out to be Adam telling Holly that he will always be there for her.

Touched, Jean logs onto the Internet using Holly's screen name and talks to Adam. Adam, thinking it is Holly, says that her mom is setting a bad example, getting up and leaving when things get bad and that, in return, is making a bad role model for her own daughters. Jean is deeply moved by this and decides to stay, finding a new job and trying to rebuild her life without running away. She also apologizes to her daughter and tells her to look at the other side of the drawing, making Holly happy.

Meanwhile, Ben is inspired by what Holly told him about her mother, and with Holly's help, Jean and Ben finally meet and Jean finds her "perfect man" at last. Holly is on the road to her perfect man as well since she has some stability in her life and finally opens up and admits her feelings for Adam. At the end, Adam and Holly go to their first school dance together.

Leon and Bobby Anthony are brothers and members of the Deuces, a Brooklyn street gang who protect their neighborhood of Sunset Park. Ever since the death of their youngest brother Alphonse "Allie Boy" from a drug overdose at the hands of Marco, the leader of the Vipers, a neighboring rival street gang, they fiercely keep drugs off their turf. This puts them in strong opposition to the Vipers, who want to continue to sell drugs in the neighborhood. On the eve of Marco's return from a three-year stint in prison, a gang war seems imminent, as the Deuces violently retaliate with suspicion against Vipers muscleman and bookie Philly, who ekes out a vacant nightclub to establish business down the block. Marco, along with hoping to re-establish his drug pushing enterprise, plans revenge against Leon, whom he believes ratted him out to the police for selling the killing "hot shot" to Alphonse.

Bobby falls for a new girl who moves in across the street, Annie, the uninvolved younger sister of Jimmy "Pockets", a Vipers member and heroin dealer, who takes care of their elderly dementia ailing mother. Their attraction for each other complicates the gang rivalry, especially with Leon, who mistakenly fears, feels Annie may be using Bobby. After jumping Deuces member Jackie in kind for the earlier attack, causing more gang fights in the neighborhood, Marco begins his activities again and allows the Vipers to rampage and terrorize residents across the block to establish his return for good. Later, Marco and the Vipers intimidate Bobby while on a date at the beach with Annie, before beating and raping Betsy (Leon's girlfriend) to push him over the edge.

After Leon runs a car through the Viper's main hangout, neighborhood Mafioso Fritzy orders Leon and Marco to make amends; unopposed to Marco's drug dealing, knowing he can profit off of his racket and without appeal to Leon's cause to keep the neighborhood safe, Leon and Marco agree to a gang war, much to Fritzy's disappointment. Annie defends her mother from another one of Jimmy's outbursts with a kitchen knife and having enough of their troubled life in Brooklyn, wishes to run away with Bobby and her mother. As the Deuces and the Vipers meet at the docks for their confrontation, battle ensues. Marco is killed by Leon in a duel, being saved by tag-along kid Scooch, while Jimmy Pockets is shot and killed by Philly, who accuses him of stealing the gang's stash of money. Leon is shot and killed by one of Fritzy's men in retaliation for ignoring his orders.

At Leon's funeral, Bobby and the gang, along with his and Annie's mother, pay their last respects to Leon. In a small epilogue, Bobby explains that his mother will go to live with their uncle in Long Island, he and Annie are free to take her mother to Los Angeles to start anew, gives Scooch and Father Aldo of the nearby Catholic church part of the stolen stash of money to invest and that after the funeral, this would be the last time he would see the Deuces again, as gangs throughout Brooklyn would eventually disappear. Before leaving, Bobby drops a wheelbarrow full of cinder blocks on Fritzy's car, presumably killing him, to uphold Leon's word that "there would be no more junk on the streets".

Buffy and Faith meet a demon who offers to sell them "the Books of Ascension" for $5000. When Faith reports this to the Mayor, he asks her to kill the demon and take the books. After doing so, she goes to Angel and tries to seduce him, but he remains loyal to Buffy. Faith manages to kiss Angel on the cheek as she departs, which Buffy sees from nearby. The Mayor hires a mysterious cloaked sorcerer to take Angel's soul and unleash Angelus. Xander gets the demon's address by bribing Willy the Snitch; Buffy and Faith find the demon dead and Buffy is worried by Faith's strange behavior about it. Buffy tells Willow that she saw Faith kiss Angel; Willow urges Buffy to talk to Angel about it.

Faith approaches Angel at his mansion, on the pretext of apologizing for her behavior the night before. She pours blood onto his shirt as the sorcerer steps out of the shadows. He chants a spell, lights flash and Angel yells as he appears to lose his soul. Angel pulls Faith to him and they kiss before he starts beating her up. The two fight and Faith ends up on top, holding a stake to his heart. A truce is sealed with a kiss after Angel agrees to meet the Mayor.

Willow reports to the Scooby Gang that the Mayor's computer files were emptied before she was able to access them. Buffy leaves to find out what is going on with the Mayor while Wesley takes a flirtatious Cordelia and the rest of the group to the Hall of Records to find information on the Mayor.

Faith takes Angel to meet with the Mayor, and he learns that the Mayor is impervious to harm. He tells the Mayor of his plans to torture and kill Buffy. Angel and Faith walk to Buffy's house; on the way they meet Xander, whom Angel knocks to the ground with a punch. Angel and Faith lure Buffy to Angel's mansion, where they say that they are fighting for the other side now. Angel knocks Buffy out cold.

Buffy wakes up chained to a wall as Angel and Faith get ready to torture her. Faith talks about her painful childhood with a mother who drank too much, and her life as a slayer living in Buffy's shadow. She reveals what she knows about the Mayor's plan, which will culminate in his Ascension on graduation day.

Having learned all that Faith knows, Angel then reveals that his loss of soul was a sham and that he only pretended to be Angelus as part of his, Buffy's and Giles' plan to infiltrate Faith as Buffy frees herself from her chains. The rest of the Scooby Gang arrive as Buffy and Faith fight and end up with knives at each other's throats. Faith tells Buffy that she cannot kill her without becoming like her, then kisses her on the forehead and flees.

At the library, Giles thanks and bids goodbye to the cloaked sorcerer, who faked the spell to repay an old favor. Wesley is angry that Giles arranged this behind his back, and plans to tell the Watchers' Council about it. At Angel's mansion, Buffy and Angel are both shaken by what they had to do and Buffy says she needs a break from Angel. But as she leaves, he asks, "You still my girl?" and she responds "Always."

On patrol, Buffy runs into two mouthless demons and succeeds in killing one, but some of its blood is absorbed through her skin. When her hand starts itching, Giles explains that she may be infected with an aspect of the demon. Buffy worries about what aspect she will be getting and is horrified when Willow wonders if the demon was male.

The next day, as she is walking through the halls, Buffy finds that she can hear the thoughts of others. In class, she answers the teacher's questions by listening to the thoughts of her classmates. She also hears the thoughts of Freddy Iverson, who writes editorials for the school newspaper and who has a negative opinion about everything at Sunnydale.

Later that day, Buffy goes to the mansion to use her mind-reading abilities to check up on Angel and find out the truth about what happened between him and Faith. He informs her that she can no more read his mind than see his image in a mirror. He tells her that what happened with Faith meant nothing and that in 243 years, he has loved only Buffy.

At the library, Buffy tells her friends about her ability to read minds. She learns that Xander constantly thinks about sex, Cordelia says almost exactly what she thinks, Oz thinks extremely deep thoughts, Willow thinks about how she is left out of things, and Wesley thinks about Cordelia romantically but reprimands himself for having amorous feelings for an underage girl.

In the lunchroom, Buffy hears that someone is planning to kill all the students. She tells everyone to get organized and find out who the potential killer is. Buffy goes home to rest while Willow and the others go around interviewing students and faculty.

Angel hunts down the surviving demon and brings its heart in a glass mixed with other ingredients, after Buffy finds the effects of mind-reading to be stressful and distracting. He forces Buffy to drink it and she goes into convulsions. When she wakes up, she is no longer able to hear thoughts.

Willow and the rest of the Scooby Gang locate all the students on the list except Freddy Iverson, so they all go looking for him. They finally corner Freddy in his office and learn that he is not the potential killer. They find a letter from Jonathan apologizing for his upcoming actions. The gang finds Jonathan in the clock tower, assembling a rifle. Buffy takes it from him, and then discovers that he was planning to kill only himself. Xander checks the kitchen and stumbles upon a lunch lady putting rat poison into the food. She tries to kill him with a cleaver, but Buffy knocks her unconscious.

Giles and Buffy recap what happened as they walk in the school grounds. Buffy tells Giles that she now knows he had sex with her mother; Giles walks into a tree.

The Box of Gavrok is due to arrive by courier at the airport; the Mayor offers Faith a knife in return for intercepting it.

Buffy continues to fret about her future with Angel, while struggling to decide between going to college at Northwestern University in Illinois or studying closer to home at UC Sunnydale. Knowing that Wesley and Giles will not let her leave easily with the Ascension still looming, she offers a deal: if she takes the offensive against the Mayor, defeats him, and stops the Ascension, they will accept her resignation as a Slayer so she can attend college in Illinois.

That night, Faith kills the courier, and separates him from the box by taking off his hand. Watching from the bushes, Buffy sees Faith deliver the box to the Mayor. After the coast is clear, Buffy forces the driver to disclose information about the box before staking him.

The gang plan an attack on City Hall to steal the Box of Gavrok. First, Willow will remove the magic protecting the box so Buffy and Angel can take it. Then, Xander and Oz will prepare the ritual Willow will use to destroy the box. Wesley and Giles drop off Buffy, Willow and Angel at City Hall. Everything goes fine until Buffy's rope sticks and an alarm goes off. As two vampires enter, Angel drops to Buffy's rescue. After a fight, they escape with the box. The Mayor's anger and the gang's relief reverse when it is discovered that Faith has captured Willow.

In the library, a heated discussion ensues on whether Willow's life is worth many thousands who could be saved if the box is destroyed. Oz settles the matter by smashing the pot containing the potion needed for the ritual. Buffy tells Giles to set up a meeting to exchange Willow for the Box of Gavrok. At City Hall, Willow escapes from the room she is imprisoned in and examines the Mayor's office. She is reading the Books of Ascension when Faith finds her. Giles's call comes in time to stop Faith from killing her.

During their meeting in the school cafeteria, the Mayor warns Buffy and Angel that they have no future together due to Angel's immortality as a vampire; this after the Mayor watched his own wife age and come to resent him for his own immortality. They make the trade, but are disrupted by Principal Snyder and his security guards, bent on drug-busting. One of the guards opens the box and a large beetle-like creature jumps out and kills him. Another beetle breaks free and the two attack the Mayor and Buffy. Buffy squashes one and Faith kills the other by throwing her knife and pinning the creature to the wall. Despite Willow being rescued and taking a few important pages she tore from the Books of Ascension, Wesley points out that the gang are still no closer to knowing how to stop the Ascension.

At school the next day, Buffy and Willow talk again about their future. Buffy ultimately cannot bring herself to leave her home of Sunnydale knowing that she will always have something to battle, so decides to attend UC Sunnydale. Despite being accepted into multiple prestigious out-of-state colleges, Willow decides to attend college with Buffy instead, having realized that fighting evil and studying Wicca are what she wants to do. Late at night, Buffy and Angel try to reassure each other that they could have a future together despite the Mayor's warnings, but both secretly remain unconvinced.

Xander spots Cordelia taking a long time to browse in a dress store. When he confronts her and suggests she may have been rejected from college because she refused to tell the others where she plans on studying, she shows him acceptance letters from multiple colleges, but does not tell him that she is actually working at the dress store.

The Oumi Kingdom, ruled peacefully by Lord Ogata (Shinichiro Hayashi), was raided by his corrupt general Daijo Yuki (Bin Amatsu), who was assisted by an evil ninja named Orochimaru (Ryūtarō Ōtomo), who slew the lord and his wife, who in turn trusted their young son Ikazuchi-Maru to their soldiers, who escaped the kingdom in a small boat. Orochimaru goes after them, transforming into a giant serpent. He sank the boat and almost succeeded in killing Ikazuchi-Maru, until a giant eagle flew in, injured Orochimaru, and saved the young boy.

Years later, Ikazuchi-Maru (Matsukata Hiroki), now a young man, has mastered the art of ninjutsu and toad magic, thanks to an old hermit named Dojin Hiki (Nobuo Kaneko). When a band of ninja sent by Daijo Yuki try to attack Ikazuchi-Maru, the young ninja puts his skills to the test. Along the way, he meets a beautiful young girl named Tsunade (Tomoko Ogawa), with whom he becomes friends with. Meanwhile, Hiki is confronted by Orochimaru, who turns out to be an old apprentice of his! Hiki also turned out to be the giant eagle that saved the young Ikazuchi-Maru and gave his former pupil a scar on his head (when he was in serpent form). Orochimaru then attacks the old master with ninja magic and poisons him. Ikazuchi-Maru and Tsunade return almost too late, as the dying Hiki tells him all he needs to know about Orochimaru, telling his pupil to avenge his death. And just before he dies, he reacts to Tsunade in shock, as though he realized something about her. Before setting out on his mission to avenge his master, Ikazuchi-Maru says farewell to Tsunade, who is taken care of by an old "spider" woman (Sen Hara), who tells her to follow the young man. She gives the young woman a spider hairpin, with which she can summon a giant spider, but she can do so only once, lest the giant spider will turn on her if used more than once.

The course of Ikazuchi-Maru's journey has him befriending a girl named Saki (Yumi Suzumura) and her little brother Shirota (Takao Iwamura), whose village was oppressed by Daijo Yuki's men. Yuki himself tries to execute Saki and Shirota for treason, only to be attacked by Ikazuchi-Maru, who proclaims himself to be the invincible ninja "Jiraiya"! Demanding revenge against Yuki for the murder of his parents and the overthrow of his kingdom, Jiraiya is then confronted by Orochimaru, whom he duels with spectacular ninja magic. We also learn of a shocking secret about Tsunade; She is the daughter of Orochimaru! Her father urges her to kill Jiraiya with poison (after a hired assassin failed to kill him also). After these failed attempts on his life, Jiraiya sets out to rescue Saki and Shirota from Yuki (who was in the midst of celebrating with his kingdom). He transforms into a giant toad, rampaging Yuki's stronghold. Orochimaru confronts Jiraiya in his powerful giant serpent form, and a spectacular showdown between two giant magical forces ensues.

While drowning his sorrows at the bar of a dive in downtown Los Angeles, Angel notices three guys leave the bar with two women. Angel unobtrusively follows them to a dark alley, where he kills the three men, who are revealed to be vampires. One of the frightened girls, Janice, bleeding from a minor head wound, tries to thank him, but Angel, fixated on the blood, warns them harshly to get away from him, and strides down the dark alley.

Angel makes his way to his new home, a basement apartment beneath a ground floor office, where he finds Doyle waiting for him. Doyle introduces himself, explaining he is half human, half demon, then recaps the story of Angel's life, ending with his recent, painful breakup with the Slayer and his subsequent move to L.A. Doyle explains that Angel's isolation, combined with the fact that he recently drank human blood, puts him at serious risk of relapse. Doyle gets visions from The Powers That Be (accompanied by debilitating headaches) regarding people whose lives Angel must touch; true redemption lies not just in saving lives, but in saving souls as well. Doyle concludes by handing over a scrap of paper on which he has jotted information about a young woman named Tina. When Angel asks why Tina needs him, Doyle replies that getting involved in her life enough to figure that out is Angel's first order of business.

Angel finds Tina during her shift and manages to persuade her to meet him after work. Waiting by his car, Angel is surprised to see her in elegant evening dress, and even more surprised when she pulls pepper spray from her purse. Tina accuses Angel of being employed by someone named Russell Winters, but he slowly convinces her to accept his offer of a lift to the "fabulous Hollywood party" she plans to attend. When they arrive, Angel runs into Cordelia Chase, whom he last saw at her graduation ceremony at Sunnydale High some months earlier. After Cordelia brags about how successful she is, she leaves to talk to "people that are somebody", slightly offending him. Angel sees a man harassing Tina and asks about him. She tells him that he is Stacy, a creep, and says that she would like to leave. On their way into the parking garage, Angel fights off Stacy and his goons.

Meanwhile, in her dingy apartment, Cordelia hangs up her one dress and nibbles snacks she stole from the party because she could not afford food, while listening to her talent agent's discouraging phone message. After Tina falls asleep, Angel spends the night on the public library's computers, searching for information about Tina's friend Denise, who disappeared after becoming involved with Russell. The next morning, Angel tells Tina he believes her friend Denise was murdered. As she listens, Tina suddenly spots Doyle's note listing her name and workplace, and, convinced afresh that Angel has been running some scam for Russell, panics and runs. Angel tries to grab her at the building's entrance, but sunlight burns his hand, causing him to turn vampirish reflexively. In stark terror, Tina flees.

Russell Winters, a well-dressed, middle-aged, multi-millionaire businessman, appears and finds Tina when she returns to her apartment to pack. She allows herself to be drawn into his arms; however Russell is actually a vampire and bites her. Angel races to the rescue, only to find Tina dead, marks of vampire predation livid on her throat.

Later that day at his heavily guarded mansion residence, Russell meets with a young lawyer from the evil law firm of Wolfram & Hart to discuss his airtight (fictitious) alibi in the matter of Tina's unfortunate demise. Then, Russell orders the lawyer to bring him Cordelia, whom he has selected as his next victim after seeing her in a video clip image taken during the Hollywood party.

Angel tracks down Stacy and interrogates him until he reveals Russell's location, then persuades a reluctant Doyle to help him avenge Tina's death. Excited by her limo ride to meet ''the'' Russell Winters, Cordelia is impressed by his ornate mansion. After a servant ushers her into Russell's den, Cordelia promptly spills the story of her life to her seemingly sympathetic host - until she notices the unusually heavy drapes and lack of mirrors, and concludes aloud that Winters is a vampire. Winters vamps and reaches for Cordelia, who flees. Angel arrives just in time, though, and rescues her, though, Doyle stupidly crashes the convertible into the front gate while trying to help.

The next day, Angel stalks into a top floor conference room at the heavily guarded Russell Winters Enterprises building, where Russell is conducting a meeting with his business associates and the Wolfram & Hart lawyer. Unimpressed by Russell's claim that he can do whatever he wants and get away with it, Angel asks the CEO if he can fly... then forcefully kicks his executive chair through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Exposed to direct sunlight, a screaming Russell bursts into flame and disintegrates to dust in mid-air. The chair, scorched and empty, smashes to the sidewalk below. As Angel calmly departs, the lawyer uses his cell phone to report to his firm that, although the "Senior Partners" need not be disturbed by the news of the death of their client just yet, there seems to be a "new player in town".

Back at home, Angel despondently calls Buffy, but when he hears her voice, hangs up without speaking. Later, Cordelia proposes that they put a sign out front and go into the business of saving souls as a team—at least until her acting career materializes. As Doyle observes many people in L.A. need help, Angel stands alone atop a skyscraper, looking out over the bustling L.A. nightscape.

At the office, Angel sits in the dark, alone. He blinks when the lights come on and Doyle arrives, with a Friday-night plan for the three of them to go out together. He wants Angel to get out but also wants him to put in a good word for him with Cordelia without letting her know he is half-demon. Shortly after Cordelia arrives with a box of the calling cards she had printed up for Angel Investigations. Doyle is seized by a vision of a night club, and they all go to the club.

Meanwhile at D'Oblique, the club in Doyle's vision, the lonely and desperate Sharon and Kevin meet and leave the club together, just after the Angel Investigations team arrives. Cordelia immediately begins to pass around Angel's business cards until Doyle stops her, cautioning her to stay "under the radar". Angel makes no progress with people near the bar or the bartender until a woman named Kate asks if he is all right. They awkwardly strike up a conversation, and despite a slow start, Angel and Kate find they have some things in common. Across the room, a guy mockingly speculates that the AI calling cards give Cordelia's number for services of a more personal kind. Cordelia is indignant and Doyle tries to stand up for her, but the guy is backed up by his friend, so Doyle stops negotiating and wades in. Having just declined Kate's invitation to go someplace quieter, Angel charges into the fight and thrashes both guys, before the bartender kicks the guys out.

The next morning after spending the night with Kevin, Sharon calmly gets dressed, unperturbed by the bloody sheets and Kevin's dead body on the bed. At the office, the team spends the day researching any past incidents connected to D'Oblique. Their search turns up a badly mutilated woman and an eviscerated man. While Doyle and Cordelia look for more links, Angel goes back to D'Oblique to see if he can spot the killer. On his way in, Angel bumps into Kate, who takes umbrage when he tries to warn her of a suspiciously non-specific danger. Inside, Angel finds out that Kevin disappeared after going home with Sharon. He finds her in the phone book and runs straight to her place to try to prevent the next murder. Angel arrives at the apartment just in time to see that Sharon is dead while Neil, the geeky guy she took home, is alive and hosting a parasitic demon. Angel and the demon fight, but it gets away just as Kate arrives and finds Angel at the crime scene. Pulling a gun on Angel, Kate reveals she is a detective with the LAPD, and tries to arrest him. Knowing Kate will not be convinced he is not the killer, Angel breaks away and dives out the third floor window. Meanwhile, the demon goes back to D'Oblique.

As dawn approaches, Angel makes his way to Cordelia's dingy apartment, not knowing that Kate has gone to illegally search his own place. Waking Cordelia and Doyle, Angel asks them to research eviscerating burrowers—demons that move from body to body, endlessly seeking the perfect one to live in forever. They discover their burrower is vulnerable to fire. Seeking help to destroy the powerful demon, Angel calls Kate and requests a meeting to prove that he is not the killer. That night at the club, Kate asks the bartender to notify her when Angel arrives. A few minutes later the bartender tells Kate he thinks Angel is out back but, when they get there, the bartender smashes a wine bottle into the back of Kate's head. Angel arrives just in time to keep the burrower demon from transferring to Kate's body, forcing it back inside the bartender. Though weakening, the bartender host is still strong enough to fight Angel until Kate recovers. Then, not wanting to deal with them both at once, the demon tosses Kate and Angel down into the basement and locks them in.

While the demon cruises for a fresh, undamaged body, Kate and Angel escape the basement and split up to search. Angel locates the bartender first and again battles the demon in its bartender host, which is still strong enough to injure Angel. Angel barely manages to throw the demon into a nearby burn barrel before collapsing to the pavement. Engulfed in flames and howling, the demon lurches purposefully toward Angel, who is on the ground and unable to move. Circling back, Kate arrives just in time to shoot the bartender, knocking him to the ground and halting the attack on Angel. After more police and emergency services arrive on scene, Kate admits to Angel that she never would have guessed the bartender was the killer and thanks Angel for saving her life earlier. Agreeing that the bartender had ample opportunity, Angel makes no mention of a body-hopping, parasitic demon being the real killer. After Angel thanks Kate for saving his life as well, she apologizes for searching his apartment. She wants the two of them to start over from the beginning with no secrets between them; Angel then agrees and offers her his new business card and asks her to call if she has future problems.

At the office, Angel generously and very awkwardly suggests that the three of them go out together, but is deeply relieved and gratified when Cordelia and Doyle instead take pity on him and leave him to brood in the dark, alone.

In Providence, Rhode Island, Robert Blake, a young writer with an interest in the occult, becomes fascinated by a large disused church on Federal Hill which he can see from his lodgings on the city's East side. His research reveals that the church has a sinister history involving a cult called the Church of Starry Wisdom and is dreaded by the local migrant inhabitants as being haunted by a primordial evil.

Blake enters the church and ascends the tower, where he discovers the skeleton of Edwin M. Lillibridge, a reporter who disappeared in 1893. Blake also discovers an ancient stone artifact known as the "Shining Trapezohedron" which has the property of being able to summon a terrible being from the depths of time and space. The trapezohedron rests in a metal box with a hinged lid; the box is incised with designs representing living but distinctly alien creatures. The whole sits atop a column which is also incised with alien designs or characters. Blake's interference inadvertently summons the malign being of the title, and he leaves the church aware that he has caused some mischief.

The being can only go abroad in darkness, and is hence constrained to the tower at night by the presence of the lights of the city. However, when the city's electrical power is weakened during a thunderstorm, the local people are terrified by the sounds coming from the church and call on their Catholic priests to lead prayers against the demon. Blake, aware of what he has let loose, is also terrified and prays for the power to remain on. However, a power outage occurs and the being flies towards Blake's quarters. He is subsequently found dead, staring out of his window at the church with a look of horror on his face. His last words refer to his perception of the approaching being. "I see it-- coming here-- hell-wind-- titan-blur-- black wings-- Yog-Sothoth save me-- the three-lobed burning eye..."

Patricia Porker is a shy New Jersey high school girl whose life is changed forever when she is bitten by a genetically-engineered spider and turns into a wall-climbing beauty with superhuman strength. Calling herself SpiderBabe, she uses her newfound powers to enter a wrestling contest and win enough money to move out of her Uncle Flem and Aunt Maybe's home and into her own apartment with best friend Lisa Knoxx. However, a robber murders Uncle Flem and inspires Patricia to use her newfound powers to battle crime in New York City, while she also tries to tell her best friend Mark Wetson that she wants to be his girlfriend and has copious amounts of lesbian sex. Meanwhile, Lisa's ambitious sister, Lucinda Knoxx, uses the same genetic engineering techniques that Patricia's science teacher, Dr. Dowell, had used on a spider on herself, and gains a villainous alter-ego, the sexy and evil genius Femtilian. Femtilian sets out on a quest for world domination that can only be resolved in a head-to-head showdown with SpiderBabe.

The story begins when Rufus summons Bill S. Preston Esq. and "Ted" Theodore Logan for a mission. The boys arrive at different times; first Ted then Bill. They are informed that time-space rebels have gone back in time, kidnapping various historical figures and leaving them stranded in different time periods. So now they must travel to the time periods, retrieve these figures and return them to their correct time periods. This must be done as soon as possible; for if history isn't made right, the boys will miss the big concert that will launch the music career of Wyld Stallyns. Unfortunately, Rufus can only loan out a pay phone-booth for this trip. Once the mission is explained, Ted leaves and Bill arrives later. Rufus states that since they both came alone, it is best that they work separately. From there Bill is brought up to speed on the situation. Bill is instructed to go back in time and leave items to help Ted along the way in each time period he visits. When Bill has done this he will start his own search. Ted will also do the same for Bill's search after he has found a historical figure.

It is Bugs Bunny's 50th birthday anniversary. However, his friends, who were not invited, feel envious and decide to prevent Bugs from getting to his birthday party. By the time Bugs reaches his house, it turns out that his friends were playing tricks on him to stall him until they got his party ready.

Nina Williams, world-renowned assassin, has been hired by the CIA and MI6 to join a team that is attempting to infiltrate "Kometa," a notorious criminal organization. The team's strategy involves gaining access to the target through a fighting tournament being held on the "Amphitrite," a luxury cruise ship owned and operated by Kometa. A leaked video on the Internet showed a Kometa ship exploding within the Bermuda Triangle, and it is feared that they are working on some kind of superweapon in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union. Nina's official cover involves infiltration as a competitor in the tournament. However, Nina is also the team's "sweeper"; should her partners fail, she must finish the job. Nina enters the competition but is quickly discovered and captured. She soon receives a communication informing her of the team's failure and the death of one of the agents named John Doe (killed by Kometa executive Edgar Grant), and that she must now conduct the operation herself.

Nina must fight her way through Kometa's forces and expose the truth behind its criminal activities. As she progresses in her mission, Nina fights the Kometa's top executives, starting with the personal bodyguard and lover of Lana Lei, Bryce Adams. She then moves on to photograph a meeting of the directors, with the help of MI6 agent Alan Smithee.

Nina barely escapes the cruise ship with her life and is taken to a Kometa Island research facility. Here, she encounters Lukas Hayes, a scientist who informs her about Kometa's plan to use satellites to heat and activate methane hydrate on the ocean floor. The result is bubbling, which causes ships to lose their buoyancy. The weapon thus has the power to destroy naval vehicles from afar, sinking them to the bottom of the sea. Hayes' plan was to find a new energy source and alternative to fossil fuels, but his research was twisted into a form of warfare. The project is Salacia, the mysterious operation CIA and MI6 have heard rumors of. Nina realizes that she must stop the project, and takes on the second Kometa executive, Enrique Ortega. However, he is joined by Anna Williams (Nina's sister), hired along with the Tekken Force as bodyguards. After briefly engaging in combat with Anna, Nina continues on her mission and after Enrique's conversation on video link with the head of the Mishima Zaibatsu, Heihachi Mishima, Nina manages to kill Enrique. Lukas Hayes, however, is also killed as Lana Lei arrives and recovers a case which houses the electronics to operate Salacia's satellites. With Alan's help, Nina escapes the base by helicopter, chasing Lana Lei back to the luxury cruise ship.

For a second time, Nina must fight her way through the Kometa boat, only this time against advanced cyborg soldiers, another of Lei's weapons projects. After recovering the keys to her quarters, Nina finds Salacia and engages with Lana. After her defeat, they are interrupted by Alan, who is revealed as Kometa executive Edgar Grant. Shooting Lana, he acknowledges that he is also a sweeper, there to destroy all evidence of his part in the atrocities. Before he can kill Nina, however, Lana shoots him dead and escapes to a secret room. There, Nina witnesses her powering Salacia, targeting methane hydrate pockets all around the United States coastline. Nina finishes Lana off before she can continue with her insane plan, and makes her way to an escape pod as a self-destruct mode is activated on the boat. Her pod, however, explodes, and Nina lands on the ship's edge. As a rescue helicopter comes for her, she is knocked down by none other than Anna Williams. The two sisters face off as the ship nears destruction and almost both fall to their deaths. However, the two grudgingly work together to escape and grab the helicopter rope line, with Nina having a flashback to the events before her father's death, in particular, the moments following when the two sisters comforted one another. Anna drops Nina into the ocean after saying that they are now even. Nina watches on as rescue boats approach from behind her, the Kometa ship exploding and sinking, as Anna leaves on the helicopter.

François Pignon, an unassuming divorced man with a teenage son who ignores him, lives a quiet and unremarkable life. When he learns he will be fired from his job as an accountant in a rubber factory, he contemplates suicide, but his new neighbor Jean-Pierre Belone, a former industrial psychologist, dissuades him from jumping from his balcony and suggests a way to keep his position. Belone proposes that Pignon start a rumor he is homosexual by inserting his image in sexually provocative snapshots of a gay couple in a bar and anonymously mailing them to his boss, Mr. Kopel. The factory's primary product is condoms, so the gay community's support is essential, and Kopel will have to keep Pignon on the payroll to avoid charges of anti-homosexual bigotry.

Pignon does not change his usual mild and self-effacing behavior and mannerisms in any way as part of his masquerade. But his supervisors and co-workers begin to regard him in a new light, seeing him as exotic rather than dull, and his life becomes unexpectedly and dramatically better. Félix Santini, a homophobic co-worker who used to harass him, is warned he could be fired for discrimination if he continues to belittle Pignon, so he begins to make friendly overtures.

The company enters a float in a local gay pride parade, and Pignon is coerced into riding on it; his estranged son sees him in the televised broadcast of the parade and tells his mother. The son is thrilled to learn his father, whom he has always considered bland and boring, has a wilder side, and expresses an interest in spending more time with him. His suspicious ex-wife invites Pignon to dinner and demands an explanation. He has by this point gained enough self-confidence to tell her exactly what he thinks of her.

Meanwhile, Santini's charade of friendship has developed into an obsessive attraction; his wife suspects him of having an affair when she finds a receipt for an expensive pink cashmere sweater, and leaves him when he buys Pignon chocolates. After this, Santini invites Pignon to move in with him. When Pignon turns him down, Santini snaps, a fight ensues, and Santini is institutionalized to recover from his emotional breakdown.

Eventually, Pignon's ruse is discovered when Kopel catches him making love in the office to his co-worker, Mlle Bertrand. However, he has become so assertive that he keeps his job, relates to his son, patches up his relationship with Santini, cheers up Belone, and lives happily ever after.

In 1945, the Losers are sent to a remote island to rescue Rick Flag and the ex-Nazi scientist his unit was escorting. A mysterious tidal wave strands the Losers and they are picked off one by one by the island's dinosaur population until Johnny Cloud and the unit's dog "Pooch" are the only survivors. Cloud meets up with Flagg, who is the only survivor of his own group. Cloud helps Flagg escape, but he and Pooch stay behind to kill the ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' that had slaughtered the Losers. After leaving behind a final message in the cave he had taken refuge in, Cloud manages to kill the T-rex at the cost of both his and Pooch's lives.

In the 1950s, World War II has ended, and the world has entered the Atomic Age. McCarthyism and anti-Communist attitudes has led to vigilantism becoming outlawed; the Justice Society of America disband, and various superheroes are either retired, arrested, or, in the case of the more supernatural heroes, simply left Earth. Government sanctioned heroes such as Superman and Wonder Woman continue to operate while other vigilantes, such as Batman and Hourman, evade arrest. Hourman is eventually captured while Batman and Superman stage a fight that would allow the former to continue to operate without interference from the government.

Hours after the end of the Korean War, fighter pilots Hal Jordan and Kyle "Ace" Morgan clash with North Korean forces unaware of the war's end. Encountering a soldier, Hal is forced to kill him in self-defense, and his traumatized reaction to the ordeal gets him marked as a coward by his peers. Meanwhile, in the early years of the Vietnam War, Superman meets with Wonder Woman, who has rescued a village of women kept in slavery by the Viet Cong, and confronts her about her violent actions while Wonder Woman is incredulous about Superman's idealism.

In 1955, Martian J'onn J'onzz is accidentally transported to Earth by scientist Dr. Erdel, who suffers a fatal heart attack upon seeing the alien. Using his telepathic and shapeshifting abilities, J'onzz takes the identity of Gotham City Detective John Jones, living as an honest cop while studying humanity's present knowledge of Martians. In 1956, Barry Allen is struck by lightning and splashed with chemicals which grant him super speed, turning him into the superhero known as The Flash. In 1957, Jones and Slam Bradley stop a cult from sacrificing a young boy with help from Batman. Intrigued by the book the cult had been using, Jones confiscates it as evidence.

After a boxing match between Ted Grant and Cassius Clay, Captain Cold attempts to rob the casino the afterparty is held in. The Flash arrives to apprehend Cold. Shortly after, Ace tells Hal about a job offer from Ferris Aircraft, which Hal accepts. During his job interview with Carol Ferris, the two begin a relationship. Later, Ace, Matthew Ryan, Leslie "Rocky" Davis and Walter Mark "Prof" Haley survive a devastating plane crash, and are inspired by their survival to from the Challengers of the Unknown. In Knoxville, a black man named John Wilson survives a lynching by the Ku Klux Klan, and takes on the vigilante identity of "John Henry" to avenge his murdered family and launch a reign of terror against the Klan.

After an encounter with a Pterodactyl, Rick Flag, Task Force X, and the Challengers travel to the island Flagg and the Losers were on in 1945 when Flagg recognizes the Pterodactyl as being from there. The group discovers Cloud's final message, which claims that the island "is a living thing" before a mutated dinosaur attacks them. Later, Hal goes through various grueling tests before being accepted by King Faraday to join a NASA expedition to Mars, a response to detection of Jones's arrival to Earth. Meanwhile, Jones is confronted by Batman, who gives him a medallion that the cult leader was wearing. Using the medallion as a key to open the cult's book, Jones discovers to his horror the presence of a alien entity known as "The Centre", which is pulling humanity's psyche into its thrall. Jones later discovers from a rogue NASA scientist and Faraday's mind that a rocket to Mars is being constructed, and is enticed to return home after witnessing humanity's fear and hate towards different races. While testing in a flight simulator, Hal is forced into mission control after his reckless behavior angers Flagg.

Later, John Henry is captured, tortured, and murdered by the Klan. Soon after, the Flash, having survived an attempted capture by Faraday, publicly announces his retirement out of disillusionment. These events convinces Jones to accept that he will never have a place among humans and decide to return home by stowing away on the rocket to Mars. Under the guise of quitting the Gotham Police, Jones hands over all of his notes and investigation into the Centre to Batman.

As the rocket prepares launch, Jones attempts to sneak in, only to be caught by Faraday. Faraday is knocked unconscious in the struggle and Jones is forced to abandon his chance to return to Mars to save Faraday from the fire. On board the rocket, a crew member falls under the sway of the Centre and causes the rocket to malfunction. As Jones is captured by Faraday, Superman and the Challengers attempt to rescue Flagg and Karin Grace, but fail when the nuclear payload on board meant to attack any Martian enemies explode, killing Flagg and Grace.

Haunted by Flagg's death, Hal mingles around the simulator, only to be abducted by a green ring. He's taken to Abin Sur, who had been injured by the explosion that had killed Flagg. Abin declares Hal his replacement as Green Lantern, and dies from his injuries. Meanwhile, Batman meets up with Superman and informs him of Jones's notes about the Centre, passing the responsibility due to the scope of the situation.

Themyscira is soon attacked by the Centre, now revealed to be the island that Cloud had claimed to be sentient, in its path towards the American east coast. A heavily injured Wonder Woman flies in her invisible jet to warn of the attack just as Superman had finished dispatching a scout from the Centre. Lois Lane unveils the Centre to the world in a broadcast, prompting many to gather in an attempt to help defeat the creature, including Green Arrow, Adam Strange, Ray Palmer, the Blackhawks, the Sea Devils and Barry Allen who comes out of retirement. Powering an experimental saucer with his ring, Hal also joins the fight.

The gathered heroes initially butt heads, but Superman manages to rally them. However, his initial attempt to scout the Centre results in him seemingly being killed. Initially disheartened, the group formulate a plan to detonate a nuclear payload within the Centre's interior before using the Flash and Ray Palmer's white dwarf lens to shrink and damage the Centre's atomic structure. Hal, Ace, and Captain Nathaniel Adam launch the first stage of the attack. Adam is seemingly killed in the explosion while Hal uses the ring to save himself and Ace in the nick of time. Jones is overwhelmed by the psychic attack from the Centre and briefly falls under its control, but Faraday sacrifices himself by absorbing the mental strain and is killed. The Flash succeeds in shrinking the Centre's mass, having run at the speed of light across its surface. As the Centre destabilizes, it attempts to continue its rampage. Hal uses his Green Lantern ring to wrap the Centre into a bubble and throws it into space, where it is destroyed. As Hal flies off to enjoy outer space, Aquaman arrives with Superman, who has survived the Centre's attack.

The book ends with a montage of a new age of heroes narrated with the eponymous "New Frontier" speech by John F. Kennedy, as well as the formation of the Justice League of America as it battles Starro the Conqueror.

En route back to the station in a runabout, Major Kira and Dr. Bashir respond to a distress call from a Kobliad freighter and find Ty Kajada, a security guard, and her prisoner, Rao Vantika. Kajada tells them Vantika started a fire on the ship in an effort to escape. Vantika dies and Bashir and Kira take Kajada back to Deep Space Nine, where she becomes convinced that he is still alive. He has faked his death many times before and Kajada has spent most of her adult life tracking him.

Bashir and Lt. Dax come to believe that Vantika's consciousness may be hiding in Kajada's brain without her knowledge. Vantika has indeed taken on another body, and he contacts Quark, a bartender with criminal contacts, to hire mercenaries to hijack an upcoming shipment of deuridium — a compound Kobliads desperately need to survive. Later, when Quark meets with the mercenaries, they are interrupted as Kajada falls from the second floor of Quark's bar while eavesdropping on them.

In the infirmary, Kajada reveals that the real Vantika pushed her. Dax finds a device under the dead Vantika's fingernails that he used to transfer his consciousness to someone else and tests Kajada for signs of the device's usage. Meanwhile, Quark and the mercenaries meet with the real Vantika, in the body of Bashir.

One step ahead of the crew's investigation, Vantika and the mercenaries manage to gain control of the freighter carrying the deuridium. The station traps the freighter in a tractor beam but Vantika threatens to destroy the freighter, along with Bashir's body. One of the mercenaries objects to such a plan, prompting Vantika to shoot him. Dax is able to disrupt Vantika's control of Bashir's body long enough for a confused Bashir to lower the freighter's shields and allow himself to be transported to the Infirmary. Once Vantika's consciousness is removed from Bashir's brain, Kajada formally takes possession of Vantika's stored consciousness and destroys it and thus rids herself of him once and for all.

Xenoc, the heart of the universe, holds the valuable energy source known as Xeno-energy. It has the power to create or destroy. For eons, this cosmic energy gathered and destroyed civilizations until the wisest and oldest species , Zenterrans, managed to land containment chambers on the planet surface, which they built with the help of Fyran mechanics. Fearing that every race would be warring over the contained energy, the Zenterran Master Khadan issued a contest. Each alien civilization would choose a champion to race for this great power, and whoever controls the most Xeno-energy will decide the fate of the universe. Since the Zenterrans maintain their neutrality, even the Kragnans were welcome to compete. The Kragnan Empire, a race of fierce crablike creatures who travel in spaceships made of lava and land vehicles made of bones (which they built using knowledge they obtained from the Fyran brains they consumed), have enslaved or eaten half of the universe. They seek more energy for their new generation of eggs. The protagonist, Ultrox, knows there is more to Xeno-energy than even the Zenterrans know. While studying a planet damaged by Xeno-energy, he notices a Kragnan ship crash-land nearby. He saves its imprisoned occupant, a Fyran boy named Jek, from a squad of Klaw Troopers. Just before he was vaporized by another Kragnan ship, the gangster named Seadrok dropped his space anchor on the ship, thus saving his life. After persuading him by also dropping the N'tal champion G'rog, Ultrox joins the races as Alpheron's champion.

On the planet Krag, the Kragnans, knowing that they can't steal the Xeno-energy or eat the Zenterran brains (when the Kragnan Warlord Zanth ate Undermaster Akhil's father's brain, the power proved so overwhelming that his body exploded), entered one of their warlords, Gnarl, into the races. The Zenterrans created an enforcer from Xeno-energy named Gamekeeper Kytani to enforce the strict set of rules they imposed on the races. During the first race, Jek followed Kommander Necraal, the Kragnan Klaw Trooper who had kidnapped his uncle, until he kidnaps the young Fyran and tells him they ate his uncle's brain. In an attempt to fix the race, Skrash, the lone zombie native to Xenoc, detonated a mountain in the hopes of taking the other racers with it.

After the first race, the Kragnan commander attempts to steal the Command Matrix. But when Ultrox and Khadan warned Necraal of the trap Undermaster Akhil set that would unleash Xeno-energy on the entire Kragan Empire, Undermaster Akhil mind-controlled the Kragnan into springing it. The resulting trap sent destructive streams of Xeno-energy to every Kragnan like Necraal, except Gnarl, who was shielded at the time. Master Khadan explained that the Xeno-energy only wiped out the Kragnans identical to the commander, so because they did not match Necraal's pattern, the Empress and her new breed of eggs were spared. Even though he saved the universe from the threat of the Kragnan Empire, Akhil was executed for his illegal use of mind-control, but promised to return. The Zenterrans continued to hold the races, while Gnarl continued to compete in them in the hopes of winning enough Xenocells to restore his empire's former glory. Meanwhile, Ultrox has to keep winning Xeno-cells for Alpheron as much as possible so he can continue to study Xeno-energy. But because he often neglects the rules and the races to save people, he is often disqualified from races he would otherwise win, and Alpheron's Minister Prime Apex often comes close to replacing him.

As the races progressed, Ultrox discovered that the Xeno-energy was becoming more violent because of the races, and a new more violent and unpredictable form of it called rogue Xeno-energy was steadily growing throughout Xenoc.

A violent con, Vincent Canelli, escapes prison on the night of his execution. With the help of a phony newspaper reporter and Canelli's girlfriend, the con takes along five hostages, including a priest.

Another inmate, Peter Manning, is taken along because Canelli wants the money Manning hid before going to jail. Manning is injured badly in the escape and leaves a bloody trail.

The gang ends up at a hideout where they're surrounded by police. Canelli threatens to kill hostages if he's not given safe passage and murders a kidnapped prison guard to make his point. Manning is horrified and ends up killing Canelli, then giving up himself and the others to police.

A young boy named Karl Berger (a surname given in the sequel) murders his abusive mother with a meat cleaver after she beats him for returning home late. Twenty years later, in the mid-1970s, the imprisoned Karl is being transported to an unspecified location by the police, but manages to kill his captors and escape into the wilderness, somehow acquiring a cleaver in the process. Over the course of several days, Karl commits a series of murders across the countryside, mutilating and occasionally cannibalizing his victims. After one double homicide, Karl faints and flashes back to the day he murdered his mother, revealing he had been coerced into killing her by a demon (which a line of dialogue indicates might be his father) he had encountered in the cellar after being locked in it.

At one point, Karl also encounters an apparition of Jesus crucified in the forest, which he hacks open, and crawls inside. After this encounter, Karl commits an additional dual murder outside a church then collapses in a field. His skin (which had been inexplicably decaying throughout the film) rots off, and he dies by ripping himself open, revealing a baby covered in blood.

One morning, while pondering the stress of his latest assignment at his uninspiring job, the narrator of ''Kangaroo Notebook'' feels an itching on his leg that seems to indicate an unusual hair loss. The next morning he wakes to discover that he has daikon radish sprouts emerging from his shins. After battling to be seen in his local medical clinic, he enters a hospital, where a physician prescribes hot-spring therapy in Hell Valley.

Hooked to a penile catheter and an IV bottle, the narrator begins a harrowing journey on his hospital bed through the underworld that seems to lie beneath the city streets. Here he seeks, not so much health, as simple explanations for what is happening to him and the strange people he meets: abusive ferrymen, waif-like demons, vampire nurses, and a chiropractor who runs a karate school and has a side job carrying out euthanasia procedures.

In the third edition of ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'', author and critic John Clute writes of ''Inter Ice Age 4'': "It is a complex story set in a near-future Japan threatened by the melting polar ice caps. The protagonist, Professor Katsumi, has been in charge of developing a computer/information system capable of predicting human behavior. Fatally for him, this system predicts his compulsive refusal to go along with his associates and his government in the creation of genetically engineered children, adapted for life in the rising seas. Most of the novel, narrated by Katsumi, deals with a philosophical confrontation between his deeply alienated refusal of the future and the computer's knowing representations of that refusal and the alternatives to it. The resulting psychodramas include a mysterious murder and the enlistment of his unborn child into the ranks of the mutated water-breathers."

Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) notifies Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) that a group of Trill scientists will be arriving soon at Deep Space Nine to perform experiments related to wormhole physics. The Trill are a species of humanoids, some of whom host a sluglike symbiont implanted into them. The symbionts live far longer than the hosts, and are moved into a new host when the old one dies. Jadzia is the eighth host of the Dax symbiont. Sisko tells Dax that the head scientist is Lenara Kahn (Susanna Thompson), and offers to grant Dax a leave of absence while the Trill scientists are aboard, but she turns it down. Upon Dax and Kahn's first meeting, Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) notices that they are very familiar with each other; Dax tells her that Kahn used to be her wife. Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) later explains to Kira that previous hosts of the Dax and Kahn symbionts were married to each other, but Trill are forbidden from reassociating with partners and lovers of past hosts.

At the welcome party for the visiting scientists, Dax and Kahn warm to one another's company once more. Afterward, they begin to socialize as they work together on Kahn's wormhole experiment aboard USS ''Defiant''. They agree to have dinner, but to also bring Bashir along as a chaperone. At dinner, Bashir is effectively ignored by the two Trills as they reminisce about their past hosts. Later, back on the ''Defiant'', Kahn successfully creates an artificial wormhole and Dax hugs her in celebration. Kahn's brother Bejal (Tim Ryan), who is on the science team, speaks to her separately and highlights his concerns regarding her contact with Dax. Despite this, Kahn goes to Dax's quarters and a discussion between the two leads to a kiss; Kahn leaves before it goes any further.

Dax confides in Sisko that she knows she is in love with her former wife. He reminds her that Trill customs mean that if they resumed their relationship, then they would be exiled from their homeworld and their symbionts would never be joined with a new host, but says that she will have his support either way. Kahn and Dax continue to work on the experiment, but it goes wrong and ''Defiant'' is severely damaged. Kahn is injured in the explosion, but Dax rigs a force field across a plasma fire that allows her to reach Kahn, coming to the realization that the relationship is worth exile. After returning to the station, Kahn recuperates from her injuries. She decides against resuming her relationship with Dax, and—with the experiments complete—departs with the science team, leaving Dax heartbroken.

In Fort Bragg, North Carolina, three recent paratrooper training graduates are temporarily attached to an airborne infantry company as they await orders to report to Vietnam. Because most of the men in the company fought together in Vietnam, the three newcomers are treated as outsiders and ignored. When money and personal property are discovered missing from the barracks, suspicion falls on the three newcomers. The narrative structure of the book contains several shifts of tone and point of view as the story unfolds.

It is 199X A.D. In Kushiro, Hokkaido, the Drago Knights of the Dragon Empire attack. Possessing overwhelming destructive force, they attack the city to awaken their master, the devil god Jashin Drago from the Rock of Sealing he was trapped in. Two hundred years ago, Drago was trapped in the seal by a holy warrior with the tattooed mark of the Liger. Assuming that the warrior is dead, Drago and Empress Zara are free to conquer the Earth using their army of giant biomechanical beasts. Even the Japan Self-Defense Forces are no match for the Drago Knights' awesome power. One of the people fleeing is the protagonist, a milquetoast 12-year-old 6th grader named Ken Taiga. Unbeknownst to the Dragonites, Ken realizes that he is the descendant of the Lion Clan that once summoned Liger. In a burst of anger, Ken's Liger birthmark appears, and he rises his palm into the air, shouting the henshin (transforming) command, "LIGER!" which then covers him in demonic, long-haired biomechanical armor. Ken transforms into Jushin Liger to fight the evil forces of the Dragon Empire.

A corporation called RX Tech excavates the crash site of a meteorite that impacted on Antarctica millions of years ago and finds strange Rapa Nui-like statues alongside the grave of one of HMS ''Beagle'''s sailors. Meanwhile, archaeologist-adventurer Lara Croft is searching for an artefact known as the Infada Stone in the ruins of an ancient Indian Hindu temple once inhabited by the Infada tribe. After taking the artefact from a researcher working for RX Tech, Lara is approached by RX Tech scientist Dr. Willard, who explains that Polynesians came across a meteorite crater in Antarctica thousands of years ago and found that it held incredible power. Using rock from the meteorite, they crafted four crystalline artefacts, one of which is the Infada Stone. They fled Antarctica for unknown reasons, but in the 19th century, a group of sailors travelling with Charles Darwin came to Antarctica and rediscovered the artefacts. The four artefacts were distributed across the globe. Dr. Willard has been able to track the artefacts by using the diary of one of the sailors. Lara agrees to help him find the other three.

Travelling to a South Pacific island, Lara encounters a wounded soldier who gives her hints about the existence of a powerful deity. While pursuing the deity, Lara learns that one of Darwin's sailors brought one of the artefacts to the island. She infiltrates a temple and defeats the deity, who has immense power granted by the second artefact, the Ora Dagger. In London, Lara searches for the third artefact, the Eye of Isis, now in the possession of Sophia Leigh, the head of a cosmetics corporation. Lara learns that the corporation has performed experiments on humans in order to achieve immortality and eternal youth for Sophia's personal gain. Lara confronts Sophia in her office and ultimately obtains the artefact. In Nevada, Lara makes her way through a desert canyon and tries to enter Area 51, where the fourth artefact, Element 115, is located in an alien spacecraft guarded by the US government. She is taken prisoner after her attempted break-in fails. Freeing herself, she escapes the security compound and stows away in a truck to Area 51, where she obtains the artefact.

After collecting all four artefacts, Lara travels to Antarctica and discovers that Dr. Willard had been using the knowledge gained from the meteorite to perform experiments on his own men, turning them into horrible mutations. Angered by this revelation, she confronts Dr. Willard, who reveals that he is planning to encourage the mutations, only on a global scale, using the combined power of the artefacts and the meteorite from which they were carved. As Lara voices her opposition to his operation, Willard betrays her, steals the artefacts, and disappears into the excavation site. After fighting more mutants and navigating the treacherous ruins of the ancient city built atop the meteorite crater, Lara faces Willard, who has now used the power of the four artefacts to greatly speed up the evolutionary processes of the human body and thereby turned himself into a spider-like creature. Lara deactivates the meteorite by recovering the artefacts, kills the mutated Willard, and escapes by helicopter.

Kimberly Joyce is a precocious, narcissistic, sociopathic high school student at Roxbury Academy, an elite preparatory school in Beverly Hills. She and her best friend Brittany take Randa, a new Muslim student who recently emigrated from the Middle East, under their wing. Kimberly's home life is troubled; her bigoted and disaffected father Hank, an electronics executive, shows little interest in her life, while her vapid stepmother, Kathy, constantly attempts to reprimand her for her coarse language and attitude. Kimberly dreams of becoming an actress, and obtains a coveted role as Anne Frank in the school play.

The school drama teacher, Percy Anderson, orders Kimberly and Randa to after-school detention one day for disrupting class, and forces Kimberly to write an essay reflecting on her transgression. Percy takes the essay home that evening and has his wife, Grace, read it aloud provocatively as a role play before the two engage in sex. After Brittany is publicly humiliated by Percy during an acting exercise, Kimberly devises a plan to accuse him of sexually harassing each of them. Unable to afford an attorney, Percy agrees to his friend Roger - a clueless high school law teacher who passed the bar - acting as his attorney. In court, Roger proposes that the accusations are in retaliation to Kimberly having been replaced in the school play after referring to her Jewish classmate Josh's lawyer father as a "money-grubbing shyster."

The case becomes a media sensation covered extensively by Emily Klein, a local lesbian reporter. Shortly after the trial begins, Kimberly has a sexual encounter with Emily. She manipulates Josh with oral sex into convincing his father Larry, a renowned defense attorney, to defend Percy ''pro bono''. When Larry cross examines Brittany, she confesses on the stand that she, Kimberly, and Randa fabricated the accusations. When Emily confronts her outside the courthouse, Kimberly reveals she filmed their sexual encounter, and uses it as blackmail to receive favorable press coverage.

Overwhelmed with the shame brought on her family by the false accusations, Randa shoots herself to death at school. Grace, now aware the essay Percy had her read was written by Kimberly, leaves him. In the storm of media coverage, Emily extolls Kimberly as a mere "victim" of society, and the ensuing press incites Hollywood producers to give Kimberly a bit part on a daytime soap opera.

When Brittany visits Kimberly at her house, Kimberly reveals she manipulated Josh into having his father defend Percy as she knew it would cause Brittany to buckle under pressure in court. When Brittany asks why, Kimberly explains that she devised the calculated plot to garner publicity for herself, as well as exact revenge against Brittany for having stolen her ex-boyfriend, Troy. Brittany lambasts her and leaves, vowing never to speak to her again. Kimberly turns on the television and sees herself on the episode of the soap opera. As she watches herself onscreen, tears begin streaming down her face.

Homer and Marge go Christmas shopping at a Try-N-Save megastore, where frenzied shoppers are snatching the holiday season's most popular toys. Homer, posing as a store cashier, buys toys that customers tried to buy from him.

At bedtime on Christmas Eve, the family makes last-minute preparations at home, Marge tells everyone that no one can open their presents until 7 AM the next morning and confiscates all of the alarm clocks. However, Bart drinks 12 glasses of water to wake up early and unwrap his gifts, one of which is a remote-controlled fire truck. He plays with it until it sprays water on an overloaded electrical socket, causing a fire that engulfs and melts the plastic Christmas tree and all of the presents beneath it. Bart hides the evidence beneath the snow in the front yard.

When the family comes downstairs to find the tree and presents gone, Bart makes up a story about how he caught a burglar taking off with their tree and presents. The police investigate and Kent Brockman does a human interest story on the case.

As a result of the report, everyone in Springfield gives them a new Christmas tree and $15,000. With the donations, Homer buys a new car. Driving it home, Homer gets stuck behind The Plow King and impatiently passes it. He drives the car onto a frozen lake, forcing everyone to jump out. The ice cracks, causing the car to sink and blow up.

The next morning, a guilt-ridden Bart admits the truth to his family. Though furious, they go along with the lie when Brockman and his news crew arrive to do a follow-up story. When a cameraman, with help from Santa's Little Helper, finds the tree's remains, the family is forced to explain the truth; Springfield's citizens, feeling scammed, shun them in public and mail them angry letters demanding they pay back the $15,000. Marge attempts to raise the money by appearing on the game show ''Jeopardy!'', only to lose $5,200 and be confronted for it by Alex Trebek who urges her to pay him the lost money (which doesn't happen in real life).

Dejected, the Simpsons arrive home to find everyone in Springfield as well as Trebek gathered on their lawn and Marge thinks they have forgiven them. However, while that is the case, they steal all of their belongings, including Santa's Little Helper and Snowball ll, to cover the debt owed to the town. The family playfully fight over a tattered washcloth, the only thing they have left.

In the distant future, the gargantuan blue humanoid Traags (in French and Czech spelling: Draag) have brought human beings (who are called Oms as a play on the French word for "man", ''homme'') from Earth to the planet Ygam, where they maintain a technologically and spiritually advanced society. The Traags consider Oms animals, and while they keep some as pets, others live in the wilderness and are periodically slaughtered by the Traags to control their population. Traags have much longer lifespans than Oms, but reproduce much less.

When an Om mother is tortured to death by three Traag children, her orphaned infant is found by Master Sinh, a key Traag leader, and his daughter Tiwa, who keeps the boy as a pet and names him Terr. Tiwa loves Terr and is careful not to hurt him, but, in accordance with her parents' instructions, gives him a collar with which she can pull him in any direction. She brings Terr to sessions in which she receives her education using a headset that transmits knowledge into her mind; a defect in Terr's collar allows him to receive the knowledge too. Around the time that Tiwa grows into her teens and first performs Traag meditation, which allows the species to travel with their minds, she loses some interest in Terr, who has become a young man and acquired much Traag knowledge. He escapes into the wilderness, stealing Tiwa's headset.

There he runs into a wild female Om, who cuts off his collar and introduces him to her tribe, which lives in an abandoned Traag park full of strange creatures and landscapes. Terr shows them how to use the headset to acquire Traag knowledge and literacy, winning the right to do so in a duel. The literacy they gain allows them to read a Traag announcement that the park will be purged of Oms, and, when the purge comes, some are slaughtered by Traag technology while others escape, joining forces with another tribe. They are attacked by two Traag passers-by and manage to kill one of them before escaping to an abandoned Traag rocket depot, much to the outrage of Traag leaders.

They live there for years, joined by many other Oms. Due to the knowledge acquired from Terr's headset, they manage to replicate Traag technology, including two rockets; they hope to leave Ygam for its moon, the Fantastic Planet, and live there safe from Traags. When a large-scale Traag purge hits the depot and many Oms are slaughtered, a group led by Terr uses the rockets to flee to the Fantastic Planet, where they discover large statues that Traags travel to during meditation and use to meet beings from other galaxies in a strange mating ritual that maintains their species. The Oms destroy some of the statues, threatening the Traags' existence; the genocide of Oms is halted on Ygam, and, facing a crisis, the Traags negotiate for peace. The Oms agree to leave the Fantastic Planet to the Traags for their meditations, and in return, an artificial satellite is put into orbit around Ygam and given to the Oms as a new home. This leads to an era of peaceful coexistence between the two species, who now benefit from each other's way of thinking.

A petty con man named Arky Lochner, pursued by the demon Volkerps, begs mob boss Nino Lancaster for help, even though he owes Nino $1.5 million. Arky explains that he made a deal with Volkerps to pick horse race winners in exchange for his soul. The horses all died as they crossed the finish line, either packed full of dope or due to other maladies, which caused Arky to lose all the money lent to him by Nino.

Nino decides to help Arky. First, Nino wants to know how Arky found Volkerps. Arky claims beauty shop owner Cassandra Fishbein located the demon for him. Nino threatens to drive Cassandra out of business, forcing her to call on Volkerps. Considering this a betrayal, Volkerps kills Cassanda and then turns his eyes to Nino. Arky and Nino's men flee back to headquarters. Nino arrives, saying he got away using fancy footwork. He orders his men to cover every inch of the office in lead paint. Nino then leaves to procure an item that will defeat the demon.

Nino returns with a small stone box and waits for Volkerps to arrive. As the clock strikes midnight, Volkerps appears in the office in a flash of light. Nino demands he cancel the contract with Arky. Volkerps laughs at this. Nino has Arky and his secretary close the door. He pulls something out of the stone box and uses it to strike Volkerps with bolts of energy, driving him into the stone box. Volkerps finds his father also trapped within the box. As Arky thanks Nino, Nino's eyes begin glowing, revealing that Nino is also a supernatural being.

Two scientists, Dr. Elena Kinder (Kathleen Turner) and Dr. Heep (Christopher Lloyd) use genius-baby studies to fund BabyCo's theme park "Joyworld". According to Dr. Kinder's research on toddlers/babies, babies are born possessing vast, universal knowledge and speak a secret yet impossible-to-translate baby pre-language called ''Babytalk''. However, at age 2–3, the knowledge and language are lost as the babies "cross over" by learning how to speak human languages. All babies raised in Dr. Kinder's underground research facility were adopted from the orphanages Babyco supports (As they serve to filter out which babies should be raised under the Kinder Method and which babies shouldn't be raised under the Kinder Method) and transformed into small geniuses through use of the Kinder Method, and then used in experiments to decipher this secret yet impossible-to-translate language used by the eight baby geniuses.

One mischievous toddler, Sylvester (the only one of her toddlers raised via the use of the superior version of the Kinder Method), nicknamed "Sly", makes repeated attempts to escape Dr. Kinder's research facility. One night, Sylvester goes into a diaper truck and succeeds. The next morning, he is surprised to run into his long-lost normal twin brother, Whit, in a Joyworld playground. Although Sylvester and Whit share a telepathic bond, each has no idea of the other's existence. The guards from Dr. Kinder's research facility capture Whit, mistaking him for Sylvester, and take him back to Dr. Kinder's research facility. Sylvester is taken home by Whit's adopted mother, Robin (Kim Cattrall), who is Dr. Kinder's niece. Dr. Kinder and the seven other baby geniuses are shocked that Whit and Sylvester switched places at the mall, but Dr. Kinder becomes excited and begins to see this as an opportunity to do a cross-evaluation on the twins. However, when she comes to Dan Bobbin's (Peter MacNicol) place, she realizes that Dan can understand babies. After the attempts to retrieve Sylvester fail, Dr. Kinder decides to move the research facility to Liechtenstein, and they have no choice but to make Whit the only normal baby to be raised in this research facility until they can find a possible way to get Sylvester back to her research facility.

The babies at Bobbin's place hypnotize Lenny (Dom DeLuise), the bus driver, to drive to Dr. Kinder's research facility. Once at the research facility, Sylvester goes to the control room to set the robots from the theme park on the lab scientists. When the Bobbins return home, their natural daughter Carrie tells her father that the children are in Dr. Kinder's research facility. At the end of the fight, Dr. Kinder captures Whit and takes him to the helicopter pad on the roof. Robin and Dan chase them to the roof, where Dr. Kinder reveals that she and Robin are not related and that Robin was adopted at age 2. After Dr. Kinder is arrested by the police, Sylvester and Whit come together on the roof to cross over.

Dan and Robin adopt Sylvester. Dan is still curious about the secrets of life; but, as the twins have crossed over, they no longer know those secrets. Carrie, their sister, doesn't reveal anything (just giving her father a Sly smile) because adults are never meant to know their secrets.

In the year 1999, Simon Foster is unemployed. He pawns all his valuables, but the broker realizes Simon has a larger need for money, and tries to interest him in memory transference, an illegal variation of the trendy technology of "memory-dipping". Memory-dipping involves renting people's copied memories. Copied memories do not provide a perfectly real experience, so a black market has emerged for actual memories cut from a person's mind and transferred over. Simon is hesitant, but after a threat of eviction he returns to the pawn shop and sells his high school graduation. Simon gets enough to pay his rent, but when the landlord sees Simon now has money he begins extorting him. Over the next months Simon sells his fifth birthday, his first steps, and his first time at the circus.

Simon gets a job interview, but as part of the interview he is quizzed on minute details of his college years, which he can no longer remember because of how long ago he graduated. He returns to the pawn shop and sells the first time he told a woman he loved her. After the procedure, Simon pulls the broker's gun on him and demands his memories back. The broker points out that he cannot get them back because they have been sold to third parties, but Simon refuses to listen. The broker then says there is a way but it is not perfect.

Simon has another job interview with the unemployment agency. When he is questioned about his typing experience, Simon starts rambling on at great length about his memories, taken from different and in some cases contradicting lives, not letting the interviewer get a word in edgewise. How and why he obtained these memories is not revealed.

Buffy and Riley fight a Suvolte demon on the streets of Sunnydale, but it escapes and they pursue him to a dam in his car. Riley's wife, Sam, arrives and jumps into the fight. Buffy recovers from the shock of Riley being married and Riley tells her about his life since he left. Buffy snaps the demon's neck, shocking Sam and Riley, who had hoped to take it alive.

At the house, Sam explains that the Suvolte demon has come to the Hellmouth to lay a nest full of its offspring. A demonic dealer in Sunnydale by the name of "The Doctor" is suspected of holding the eggs for a fee.

Buffy questions Spike about "The Doctor", but he has no immediate answers. Buffy and Spike sleep under a blanket together. Riley walks in on them and accuses Spike of being The Doctor. Riley finds the Suvolte eggs on the floor of Spike's crypt. Spike explains that he is holding them for a friend. When they hatch, Buffy destroys them using Riley's grenades. Buffy admits to Riley that she and Spike are involved. She apologizes to Riley for hiding her feelings before he left; he forgives her. The next day, Buffy finds Spike at his crypt and ends their relationship.

The game's story picks up shortly after the end of ''Serious Sam: The Second Encounter'', with the hero of the series, Sam "Serious" Stone, continuing his goal to defeat his nemesis, Mental. The game begins with Serious Sam being summoned before the Sirian Great Council, where the Council provides him with guidance on how to accomplish his goal to defeat Mental. The Council reveals to Sam that he must collect all five pieces of an ancient Sirian medallion, each held by various races on five different planets, and states that once Sam has the entire medallion, Mental will be vulnerable. All the planets (except Kleer) are populated by friendly, bobble-headed humanoids, but the problem is that all the planets are under Mental's control. The Council then instructs Sam to visit all five planets in order to recreate the medallion, only then will Sam become "The One". Confused at the moment and with nothing better to do, Sam accepts the mission. With the medallion finally complete, Sam is now ready to begin the final assault against the greatest enemy of humanity... Mental, who is located on Sirius, once the planet of the great Sirians that visited Earth many times, now the domain of Mental himself. But in order to gain access to Sirius, Sam is asked to storm Kronor, a moon orbiting Sirius that has a massive cannon which could be used to remove Sirius' protection shield, which was a last line of defense for the Sirians against Mental. And so, Sam's mission continues. In the endgame, Sam enters Mental Institution after disabling it and into Mental's throne room. Sam finally encounters Mental in person while the lights are off. Mental tries to reveal to Sam that he is his father, but Sam interrupts by shooting him, thus silencing Mental forever. After that, the Sirian Great Council, even the inhabitants from the planets, celebrate their long-awaited victory against Mental. When the lights come back on however, it is revealed that Mental wasn't there at all and it was instead just a speaker attached to Mental's throne, implying that he actually tricked Sam in order to escape in his starship into deep space (in the Xbox version, the game doesn't show this scene). The credits roll after that, where a dialog of three unknown people is played discussing how this ending might just be another one of Croteam's bad jokes and how big Mental's boss fight could be.

After the credits, a silent-motion scene shows Sam returning to the Sirian Great Council with the medallion in hand. As they take the medallion however, Sam soon discovers that the Council had cardboard boxes full of those medallions. Sam then becomes enraged and chases the Council around their room.

The richness of the Treasure Valley, high in the mountains of Stiria or Styria, southeastern Austria, is lost through the evil of it owners, the two elder "Black Brothers", Hans and Schwartz, who in their foolishness mistreat Southwest Wind, Esquire, who in turn floods their valley, washing away their assets, and turning their valley into a dead valley of red sand.

This personified wind has the power to keep things this way through his influence with other winds that had caused the valley's unique fertility. Forced into a trade other than farming Hans and Schwartz become goldsmiths. They cruelly melt their younger brother Gluck's prize heirloom, a golden mug, which consists of the head of a golden-bearded man. This action releases the King of the Golden River for Gluck to pour out of the crucible as a finely dressed little golden dwarf. The Golden River is one of the high mountain cataracts that surround the Treasure Valley. Gluck fancies that it would be good if that high majestic river would actually be what it appears in the setting sun, a river of gold. The dwarfish king disagrees with Gluck, but offers a proposition: if someone were to climb up to the source of the river and throw into it at least three drops of holy water, it would become for that person only a river of gold. That person must do it on his first and only attempt or be overwhelmed by the river to become a black stone.

Hans and Schwartz desire to take the challenge, duel each other with the result that Schwartz is thrown into jail for disturbing the peace. Hans, who had the good sense to hide from the constable, steals holy water from the church and climbs up the mountains to the Golden River. He has a hard time of it on a glacier and gets away without his provisions and only his flask of holy water. Overcome with thirst, Hans is forced to drink from this flask, knowing that only three drops are all that's needed. Along the path, Hans comes across three prostrate individuals dying of thirst, a puppy, a fair child, and an old man. Hans satisfies his own thirst while denying the three needy individuals.

The surroundings on his journey turn bleak and inauspicious, climaxing in Hans being transformed into a black stone once he has hurled the holy water flask into the Golden River. Gluck secures the release of his brother Schwartz, who, buying his holy water from a "bad priest", eventually fares likewise, spurning in his turn the fair child, the old man, and his brother Hans lying prostrate in his path. The Golden River then acquires another black stone around which to rush and wail.

''Gluck and the King of the Golden River'', illustration to a later edition by John C. Johansen

Gluck takes a turn at climbing the mountain. He encounters first an old man walking down the mountain trail who begs water from the flask. Gluck allows him to drink, leaving only a third of the holy water. He then encounters a fair child, lying by the road, whom he allows to drink all but a few drops. Following these unselfish acts, Gluck's path is made bright and pleasant making him feel better than he had in his whole life—no doubt, due to his kindness. He then comes across the prostrate puppy, whom he gives the final drops of the holy water. The puppy turns into the King of the Golden River, who tells Gluck the reason for the deadly fate of his two brothers: the water they had thrown into the river was made unholy by their denying it to those dying of thirst on the way. Thereupon, he shakes three drops of dew from a lily into Gluck's flask to throw into the river and then vanishes by evaporation. Gluck throws the dew drops into the Golden River, and it forms a whirlpool where it goes underground and then emerges in the Treasure Valley. The Treasure Valley becomes lush and fertile once again. Gluck the new owner is a wealthy man, who never turns away the needy from his door. Ever afterwards, though, the people show and tell travellers the tale of the two black stones in the Golden River, known as The Black Brothers.

Kyle is watching the ''Terrance and Phillip Show'' with Stan, Cartman and Kenny, but it is a rerun. They are upset and complain, but an ad for a live show featuring Terrance and Phillip at the Denver Coliseum airs. They become excited to see the show, but at school the next morning, they find out that they will not be able to go because Earth Day is only a short time away, as three unscrupulous environmentalists who care about Earth Day brainwash people with the Jedi Mind Trick into believing what they say. Kyle, who got tickets for the four, eventually comes up with the idea of Terrance and Phillip performing at the Earth Day show, and everyone else agrees.

The day of the performance comes, and everyone who attends is shocked to find out that not only has Terrance become morbidly obese, but Phillip is not with him. Instead, there is a stand-in who performs with him, much to everyone's dismay. The boys manage to sneak in backstage, and demand to know what happened between the two performers. Terrance acknowledges that his stand-in is talentless, and tells them that he and Phillip have split up due to creative problems. They are in fact arguing over who deserves most of the credit for their show. Terrance informs the boys that Phillip is currently in Toronto, performing Canadian Shakespeare, but with or without him, he is willing to perform. The boys tell everyone at the Earth Day show about this issue. The environmentalists become violently angry, as they have already heavily promoted the appearance. The boys are told to go to Canada immediately to convince Phillip to perform, or face the consequences. The foursome travel to Toronto to see his performance in ''Hamlet'', which they find exceptionally dull. They inform Phillip of the Earth Day show after the play ends, but he initially refuses when they mention Terrance will be in it. Kyle lies to Phillip by telling him that the people of South Park only want to see Phillip anyway, and not Terrance. This placates him and he agrees to come, but all four boys worry about what will happen when they both come across each other at the festival and begin to argue.

The boys try to explain the problem to the environmentalists, but they do not care, as they are incredibly committed to their job. They instead threaten to kill them and chop off Kenny’s left arm with a butcher knife. Reluctantly, Terrance and Phillip agree to work together. During their rehearsal, they begrudgingly do a routine, which eventually boils down into an argument until they both leave in a huff. After the environmentalists chop Kenny's right arm off, the boys work together and present the audience with a documentary of Terrance and Phillip's rise and fall, featuring, among other clips, the duo appearing on ''The Ed Sullivan Show'' when they were children. While they are fascinated, the overreactive environmentalists become largely convinced that the boys "ruined" the festival once again, and they chase them, eventually chopping off Kenny's left leg. Terrance and Phillip watch the video from different viewpoints, and before they could leave the festival, they come across each other and reconcile.

The environmentalists corner the boys, chop off Kenny's right leg (rendering him completely limbless), and they almost kill the rest, but seeing Terrance and Phillip perform together finally convinces them to stop. This thrills everyone, including Kenny, who, by that point in severe pain, is nevertheless still alive.

The story begins with Vitalstatistix receiving a missive from his brother Doublehelix in Lutetia (Paris), to ask for the education of Doublehelix's teenage son, Justforkix. Justforkix then arrives in a sports car-like chariot. The village holds a dance in honour of his arrival; but he is unimpressed by the traditional way of dancing, snatches Cacofonix's lyre, and sings and plays in the manner of Elvix Preslix (the Rolling Menhirs in the English version). Some of the younger villagers dance to this new form; but Cacofonix tries to show off his own skills, and is struck down by Fulliautomatix. Justforkix thereupon suggests that Cacofonix's talents would be better appreciated in Lutetia.

Meanwhile, a Norman crew arrive in Gaul to discover "the meaning of fear", on grounds that they are fearless to the point of not understanding the concept, but have heard of people "flying in fear", and believe that being afraid will grant them the ability to fly. Most of the Gauls welcome the chance of a fight; but Justforkix is horrified and decides to return home. Viewing Justforkix as an expert in fear, the Normans kidnap him to teach them; but this fails, and he remains their prisoner until Asterix and Obelix come to the rescue. A small Roman patrol is also involved in the resulting fight. At length, Norman chief Timandahaf orders an end to the battle and explains his mission to the Gauls. To teach the Normans fear, Asterix sends Obelix to fetch Cacofonix, while himself remaining as a hostage. When Obelix reaches the village, he finds Cacofonix gone to perform in Lutetia, and pursues him through a series of tell-tale clues.

Meanwhile, Timandahaf becomes impatient and tries to force Justforkix to teach the secret of flight by tossing him off a cliff. Just before this can be carried out, Asterix challenges the Norman warriors; and seeing him surrounded, Justforkix gains the courage to fight as well — albeit to no visible effect. Obelix and Cacofonix stop the fight, and Cacofonix's discordant songs are exhibited to the Normans, which provokes their first real fear, and an immediate retreat to their homeland. When Asterix questions the Normans' interest in fear, Getafix replies that courage is achieved only by having first been afraid, and superseding the fear to the desired effect. Thereafter Justforkix is claimed to have gained courage himself, and the story ends with the customary banquet, but with Cacofonix as guest of honour and Fulliautomatix tied up, with his ears filled with parsley.

Billy Weaver is a seventeen-year-old youth who has travelled by train from London to Bath to start a new job. Looking for lodgings, he comes across a boarding-house and feels strangely compelled by its sign saying "Bed and Breakfast". Through the window, he notices a parrot in a cage and a sleeping dachshund on the floor. When he rings the doorbell, it is instantly answered by a middle-aged landlady. Billy discovers that her boarding-house is extremely cheap, and finds the woman somewhat eccentric and absent-minded, but very kind. When Billy signs her guest-book, he finds only two names, both dated more than two years ago: Christopher Mulholland and Gregory W. Temple – names which seem curiously familiar to Billy. The landlady invites Billy for some tea, and Billy tries to remember where he has previously heard the names in the guest-book. He seems to recall that Mulholland was an Eton schoolboy whose disappearance was reported in the newspapers. The landlady assures Billy that her Mulholland was a Cambridge undergraduate, and that Mulholland and Temple are still staying upstairs in her boarding-house. She says that Billy is a handsome young man, as were the two other guests. Billy is surprised to find that the parrot and dachshund he had seen through the window are both stuffed. The landlady says that she stuffs all her pets when they die. Billy finds that his tea tastes faintly of bitter almonds. He asks the landlady whether she has had any other guests since the two young men. The landlady replies, "No, my dear. Only you." (The implication is that the landlady has poisoned Billy's tea with cyanide and intends to stuff his corpse, as she has already done to Mulholland and Temple.)

In 2003, Alan (Michael Gibney) is a boy who is at a summer camp at Camp Manabe. The movie shows that Alan is a socially awkward and immature teen with a slovenly appearance. He tries to act tough against small kids like Pee-Pee but does this in anger as other kids bully him. Among his abusers are his stepbrother Michael (Michael Werner) and his friends Vinny (Christian Hess) and T.C. (Christopher Shand), and some of the girls at the camp, mainly a girl named Bella (Shahidah McIntosh). Several boys are lighting farts one night. Alan tries, and after failing, he threatens the other boys, but is soon stopped by camp counselor, Randy (Brye Cooper). In the dining hall, Alan gets into a violent confrontation with Randy after he complains about the food. Ronnie (Paul DeAngelo), the head counselor (from the original) who is nice to everyone, allows Alan to go into the kitchen and get something else to eat, but Alan gets in trouble with the short-tempered and lazy assistant cook Mickey (Lenny Venito), who attacks Alan for taking an ice cream sandwich from the freezer. Alan throws a butcher knife at Mickey and the camp owner, Frank (Vincent Pastore), yells at Alan. Alan runs away, with Michael chasing him. Soon after, in the kitchen, Mickey is killed after being held above and dumped into the deep fryer. His body is then dumped in the trash compactor.

During a social, Alan is fooled by campers Terry (Adam Wylie), nicknamed "Weed", Spaz, and Stan (Chas Brewer) into smoking dried cow manure, which makes him cough and fall on Stan's crotch. Camper T.C. nicknames him "Blowjob." After the social, Weed is tied to his chair and gasoline is squirted down his throat. The killer tapes his mouth shut with a “Drugs are for dummies” sticker and pokes a hole through it with a lit cigarette, causing his insides to explode. Ronnie suspects the murders that happened twenty years ago are happening again, but Frank states the murders were accidental. A week later, Alan manages to convince two girls, Karen (Erin Broderick) and Marie (Samantha Hahn), to go to his "secret hideout", which is just a place in the woods where he eats junk food and enjoys watching the frogs. Michael makes Alan look like he skinned the frogs, and Karen and Marie run away. Alan catches up to Karen to try to explain what happened, but T.C. gives Alan a wedgie, and he falls in the water. Later that night Michael, T.C. and Marie force Karen to lure Alan to the back of the stage, where they take his clothes off, tie him up, blindfold him and embarrass him at the social.

Ronnie suspects that counselor Petey (Kate Simses) is the killer for always being nearby when Alan is in trouble. Petey always makes a point to stick up for Alan and angrily lashes out at Alan's tormenters. After returning to his cabin, Frank is knocked unconscious with a hammer and wakes up with his head inserted in a birdcage. The killer opens the birdcage and places two rats inside the cage. The rats eat through his head and down into his intestines. Randy and his girlfriend Linda (Jackie Tohn) go to the pump house to have sex. Whilst Randy urinates, the killer ties him to a tree, using fishing line to wrap around his penis. Upon returning, Linda panics after hearing Randy placate the killer and drives off in the jeep, but the fishing line is tied to the jeep and tears off Randy's penis. Linda crashes after driving through a wrapped barbed wire line, which wraps around her face.

After Spaz visits T.C., a wooden spear comes through a hole in the floor while T.C. is looking into it and gouges his eye out, whereas he forces it through his head by walking into a wall. Ronnie and another camper, Jenny (Jaime Radow), find Frank dead and begin rounding up everyone. Bella goes to her cabin, where she finds that the bunk above her has been replaced with a board with spikes. The killer jumps down from the rafters and lands on the top bunk, causing the spikes to impale and kill Bella. T.C. and Bella are found dead and Ricky Thomas (Jonathan Tiersten), Angela's cousin, is called by Sheriff Jerry. Karen runs through the camp. She finds Randy and Linda dying before bumping into the killer and fainting.

Karen wakes up with a rope hanging from a basketball hoop tied around her neck. The killer flips a switch to raise the net, causing Karen to be lifted off the ground. Michael arrives, prompting the killer to run off, and lowers the net. After Karen tells him she thinks Alan is the killer, Michael grabs a croquet mallet and runs to Alan's secret hideout, where he finds Alan, and starts beating Alan with the mallet. However, the real killer appears behind Michael as the screen fades to black.

Ronnie, Ricky, and Jenny find a badly wounded Alan. Sheriff Jerry walks up, explaining through his mechanical voice box that the victims never learned, felt the need to be so mean all the time, thought they could do anything to their victims and get away with it, and eventually got what they deserved. The killer is revealed to be Sheriff Jerry, who in turn reveals himself to be Angela Baker, the murderer from the first movie, which causes Ronnie to say "I knew it was you!" Jenny finds something on the ground and runs away screaming. Ronnie and Ricky investigate and find Michael skinned alive on the ground. The film ends with Angela laughing maniacally before suddenly stopping and staring evilly into the camera.

In a post-credits scene, a flashback set three weeks before the film shows how Angela escaped from the psychiatric clinic. She causes a brake fluid leak in a car and flags down Sheriff Pete (Carlo Vogel), the real sheriff. She murders him by dropping the car on his head and steals his uniform and equipment to become the new sheriff.

The arcade game begins with the following introduction:

In the arcade version's story, the year 19XX sees the rise of dread creatures, not seen since before the Common Era, led by Ligar. Dominating the world, Ligar and his forces oppress humanity. The only thing that preserves humanity's will to survive is a prophecy that Ligar's rule will be opposed by the return of a long-dead warrior of Argos. That warrior does return to the world of the living, and he alone can save humanity.

Information gleaned from console manuals reveals that the evil being Ligar has taken over the land of Argool, and Rygar, a dead warrior who has risen from his grave, must use his Diskarmor to stop him. In console versions clues and limited dialogue are given in the form of large, sage-like men encountered in green stone temples throughout the game.

In the Japanese original, references to "Ligar" and "Rygar" are one and the same because the Roman syllables "Li" and "Ry" come from the same Japanese character. In this version, the hero is only referred to as "The Legendary Warrior", while both "Rygar" and "Ligar" refer to the main villain.

The assassination of Tokyo's governor Takayama causes a stir of public outrage in Tokyo, Japan. Upon hearing news of the incident, the U.S. FBI asks the CIA's Tokyo office to investigate the killing, believing it to be linked to the Yakuza, a dangerous Japanese mafia syndicate. The Japanese branch of the CIA starts sniffing around under the auspices of the United States Department of Homeland Security. CIA agent Travis Hunter & his rookie FBI agent understudy Sean Mac are assigned to work on the case & to track down the perpetrators. During their work, Mac proves to be primarily a distraction to Hunter, especially as he is neither very knowledgeable about CIA procedures nor Japanese customs. Hunter, on the other hand, having been raised in Japan, has a strong understanding of the Yakuza & their mysterious, eccentric and sinister ways.

Hunter & Mac discover a plan by Kuroda, the boss of a new Yakuza outfit, to build an enormous drug-dealing network using his export company in cahoots with a Chinese Triad outfit leader named Chen. Kuroda is killing everyone who gets in his way. While reviewing security footage of the assassination, Hunter identifies a medallion seen around the neck of the shooter that links Kuroda to be the mastermind of the governor's assassination. As Hunter has been told that Kojima, the second-in-command of an old school Yakuza group run by elderly 'godfather' Oyabun Ishikawa, is the only Yakuza player who is capable of defeating Kuroda, Hunter turns to him for help. When they speak, Kojima tells Hunter that the new Yakuza have gained more power after joining forces with the Triads, and are ready to eliminate any other Yakuza gang. Kojima then reveals and he and Hunter have something in common - permanently ridding of Kuroda, adding that it will be interesting to see which one of them kills him first.

Meanwhile, Hunter's relentless pursuit of Kuroda increasingly endangers those associated with him. First, Kuroda has godfather Ishikawa murdered, making Kojima the new leader of Ishikawa's Yakuza outfit. Mac gets out of his depth while investigating & is also brutally murdered. But when Kuroda has Hunter's fiancée Nayako savagely slaughtered by sword, Hunter's search for Kuroda becomes devastatingly personal. Teaming up with CIA operative Jewel & tattoo artist Fudomyo-o, whose wife & young child were also killed by Kuroda, Hunter sets out to take down Kuroda.

By nightfall, Fudomyo-o and Hunter arrive at the temple Kuroda uses as his hideout. One-by-one they take on all the members of Kuroda's group with katanas. Mei Ling, former student of Hunter and daughter of his sifu, who was killed by Chen, also arrives just in time to save Fudomyo-o and then teams up with the two men. After Fudomyo-o survives being shot during a confrontation Kuroda. Hunter then appears and ferociously battles Kuroda, ultimately killing him by slashing his chest. They then leave Kuroda's temple hideout.

The next day, Mei Ling, Fudomyo-o & Hunter hold a memorial service to offer their respects to Nayako. At the same time, a Yakuza ceremony is held to formally make Kojima the successor leader. Jewel and her CIA "professional cleaning company crew" arrive at Kuroda's hideout & quickly coat virtually everything with a gooey blue substance. The local authorities arrive shortly thereafter to investigate the scene, and are puzzled by what they find. They take the bodies of Kuroda and his henchmen for autopsy as the weapons are collected for forensic criminal investigation. As the chief inspector comments that the blue goo will keep them from gathering fingerprints, Hunter returns to the park where he & Nayako used to hang out in order to grieve & remember her.

The series is supposedly a modern updating and sequel of the mythology of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'', although the similarities are mainly superficial. Set in present-day New Orleans, the series follows the activities of Victor Frankenstein, now known as Victor Helios, as he continues to create new life forms for his own purposes. Opposed to his activities are a pair of homicide detectives and Frankenstein's original monster, now known as Deucalion.

While the original Monster was made with parts from dead humans, Victor Frankenstein is now using modern technology to create more creatures, particularly synthetic biology. The new race he is making is constructed and designed from the bottom-up, and can be seen as bio androids, artificial humans made of flesh. Their knowledge and behavior is even based on programs downloaded directly into their brain, which appears to be an advanced wetware computer.

Ko Chun is a world-famous gambler, so renowned and talented at winning various games of chance that he is referred to as the "God of Gamblers". He keeps his identity secret from the public (and avoids photographs so his face is not recognised), but is known for three characteristics: his slicked-back hairstyle, his love of Feodora brand chocolate, and his jade pinky ring.

Ko Chun arrives in Tokyo, accompanied by his girlfriend Janet and his assistant and cousin Ko Yee, for a match with Tanaka, the country's top ranked gambler. After convincingly defeating Tanaka in games of Mahjong and dice, Tanaka concedes defeat and asserts that Ko Chun "really [is] God".

Tanaka asks Chun to help him take revenge on Chan Kam-sing aka the "Demon of Gamblers", a famous Singaporean gambler who cheated Tanaka's father before driving him to suicide, by besting Chan in a high-stakes poker match. Ko Chun agrees, merely asking for a box of chocolate as payment. In gratitude, Tanaka sends his bodyguard, former Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces Operative, Dragon, to accompany Ko Chun for protection.

Meanwhile, Little Knife, an avid but mediocre gambler who idolises the God of Gamblers, sets a trap for an Indian neighbour as a practical joke. After a fight on a train between Ko Chun, Dragon, and henchmen sent by one of Ko Chun's rivals, Ko happens to accidentally stumble into Knife's trap. Ko falls down a hill, hitting his head, and subsequently suffers from amnesia and regresses to a childlike state.

Knife, not knowing who the unnamed stranger is, takes him in and names him "Chocolate" due to the man's seemingly obsessive love for the candy. Initially Knife is impatient with Chocolate's childish innocence and often yells at him, but soon recognises that "Chocolate" has innate gambling talent and begins to exploit his abilities in local poker games and gambling dens. As time passes, Knife comes to care for Chocolate and seeks to find a way to restore his memory.

Back at Ko Chun's mansion, it is revealed that Janet has been searching for Chun for ten days to no avail. Ko Yee, who is jealous of Chun's success and wealth, makes advances on her, which she rejects; finally, while attempting to rape her, Yee accidentally knocks Janet off the balcony, killing her. He discovers that she has been recording what has been transpiring and proceeds to burn the tape. Later, Yee allies himself with Chan Kam-sing and Ko Chun's other rival and they send assassins to find and kill Chun.

Eventually, the assassins find Chun, Knife, and their friends and attempt to kill them, but Dragon arrives to protect them after tracking Chun down. A fierce shootout ensues in a shopping centre, in which Knife saves Chun from an attempt on his life by Ko Yee. During the fight, Dragon is wounded, causing Chun to snap out of his child persona briefly to kill the rest of the assailants. However, after regressing back to his childlike state, Chun becomes horrified at the carnage and runs out into the street where he is struck by a vehicle.

Chun awakens in the hospital with his regular persona, but no memory of the events or people he met after the fight. He is informed by Ko Yee, who is feigning loyalty, that Janet had killed herself. Knife arrives and attempts to warn Chun of Ko Yee's treachery but Yee has Knife thrown out. Later, Ko Yee gives Chan Kam-sing special eyeglasses that will allow him to cheat during his upcoming poker match with Chun by reading invisible markings on the cards.

Chun, Yee, Tanaka and Dragon arrive on Chan Kam-sing's yacht for the climactic game of five-card stud. Knife, having sneaked onto the boat, again attempts to warn Chun of the danger he is in. Chun agrees to hear Knife out later but admonishes him not to interfere with the poker game.

With his ability to see the markings on the cards, Chan Kam-Sing dominates the first two rounds. After losing all of Tanaka's money, Ko Chun puts up his entire personal portfolio of wealth and holdings against Chan's wealth. Chan, using his glasses to see that Ko Chun has an inferior hand, agrees, showing his cards and gloating over his victory. Ko Chun, in turn, reveals that he actually has the superior hand and has won the game, having secretly altered the markings of the deck and using special contact lenses to read them.

Subsequently, Ko Chun tricks Chan Kam-sing into shooting Ko Yee. As Yee lies dying, Chun drops Janet's tape (which actually never finished burning) onto his body. Ko Chun then departs (as police arrive to take Chan into custody for murder) without speaking to Knife, much to the latter's dismay.

Ko Chun later surprises Knife at his home and reveals that he remembered Knife in the hospital and knew about Ko Yee's betrayal all along, but had to feign ignorance to execute his plan properly. He promises to make it up to Knife by taking him to Las Vegas as his gambling partner.

Mary Pearl receives a note from her recently deceased husband, William, a man given to emotional abuse due to his controlling nature.

The letter tells how Landy, a doctor, approached William, about his cancer, six weeks before William's death. He suggested William undertake a procedure, which he explains in great detail. His brain would be transplanted from his body after death, and attached to an artificial heart. The brain would be bathing in a Ringer's solution. One of his eyes could also be retained, as the optic nerve is essentially an extension of the brain. Although the doctor is uncertain whether the brain would regain consciousness, he remains hopeful.

William initially reacted violently to this suggestion, but by the end of their discussion has warmed to the idea. He is initially concerned with the idea of phantom limb, believing that as a brain alone he may be in terrible trauma, wishing for the use of his body. However, he writes, he eventually embraced the idea, being very fond of his brain and liking the suggestion that it could live on. He adds that by the time she reads the letter, the procedure should have been undertaken a week earlier, and suggests she contact Landy.

She reflects on his many instances of reproach toward her behavior and is outraged that he might have undergone such a "perverse" operation. Mary has been rebelling against her husband's restrictions after his death: she has bought a television and is smoking, both actions William had disapproved of in flashback. However she ultimately makes the decision to contact Landy.

The procedure has gone as well as could be expected, and William had regained consciousness within two days. His connected eye also appears to be functioning properly. Mary finds the previously dominating William to be attractive in his helplessness and wishes to take him back home, asserting right of ownership over her husband's "remains". Landy, not at all expecting such a reaction, tells her she should stick to being a widow, and finds her newfound happiness revolting.

As the story closes, William sees Mary smoking, and is infuriated by it, his eye clearly registering a look of fury. Mary departs, but not before blowing the cigarette smoke in William's eye.

The advertising designer Lo Ka-yiu is sentenced to three years of imprisonment in a Hong Kong prison for manslaughter. He was convicted for pushing a man who had robbed the grocery store of his father onto a street under a passing bus.

He is assigned for work at the prison ward where he meets Chung Tin-ching. The men befriend each over and Yiu asks to be transferred to the laundry where Ching is working. Yiu observes how a member of the gang of triad boss Micky steals scissors from Ching (to use them as a weapon). Yiu notifies Ching who manages to get the scissors back, but as a consequence Yiu gets bullied by the triad members.

During a cell inspection forbidden items (playing cards and improvised weapons) are found and several men from the cell (among them Yiu, Micky and Bill, the boss of another triad) are brought to ranking warden officer Hung for questioning. Hung is nicknamed "scarface" by the prisoners due to a characteristic scar. He tries to recruit Yiu as an informant, which he refuses. Following that Hung questions Micky, asking him to let his henchmen search for tools which went missing in the prison work shops (serving as makeshift weapons). In return Hung would transfer one of Micky's rivals to a different prison. Since someone needs to be held responsible for the improvised weapons, Micky proposes to claim that Yiu blamed one of Bill's men. Hung accepts the deal and transfers several triad members to another prison as "punishment".

The following night Yiu is dragged into the cell's lavatory by Micky's men and beaten up. Ching attempts to stop them to no avail. When one of the guards hears the noise and intervenes, Yiu tells him he just slipped and is left alone for the time being.

Yiu's girlfriend visits him in prison and announces to study in England for nine months. Yiu is agitated and asks her to stay in Hong Kong, but is ultimately unable to convince her. Later the day Micky approaches Yiu in the laundry and demands a compensation for the punishment of his triad men. Yiu publicly accuses him of calumny and punches him, which results in a brawl. Yiu keeps his opponents on distance with a sharp piece of broken glass until the guards arrive, but also accidentally hurts Ching with it.

Yiu and Ching are summoned to the prison warden. When asked what started the fight Ching accuses Officer Hung (who's also present) of having tricked Yiu. The warden promises to have the case investigated and moves both into temporary solitary confinement as punishment. Micky is ultimately moved to a different prison and the situation calms down.

A year later on New Year's Eve, Ching tells Yiu why he's imprisoned: four years ago he caught his wife prostituting herself, for which he unintentionally killed her before finally attempting suicide. However, he was charged with murder. Their son now lives with the grandmother and regularly visits him in prison.

The following summer Micky is transferred back to the prison. He's still seeking revenge since being a triad boss he was never assaulted before. Yiu asks Officer Hung to move him and Ching to a different prison, but Hung brushes him off. During the next prison inspection, Yiu approaches the inspector and demands a transfer to protect them from the triads. Hung - who's also present during the inspection - denies the presence of triads among the prisoners and claims the two were having problems due to gambling debts. The warden requests a report, but ultimately Yiu and Ching have to remain in the prison.

Some time later, the members of Bill's triad initiate a hunger strike to protest against a price surge for cigarettes. Micky's men and the other prisoners join the strike. Hung approaches Micky and demands him to stop the strike, otherwise he'd put all triad leaders in solitary confinement while telling them Micky had accused them of initiating the strike. Micky doesn't want to rat them out and instead defames Yiu as the instigator. In addition Hung whispers to Ching in the presence of the others, alluding Ching would rat on them. When the prison warden enters the room he demands everyone to resume their meals. While Micky obeys, Hung threatens Ching to also resume eating, which enrages him to the point that he and Yiu assault Hung. They are restrained and Hung has them moved back to the cell (where they are at the mercy of the triads).

Back in the cell Micky's men start beating up Yiu and Ching as soon as the guards leave the cell. The other prisoners however demand that Micky fights against Ching man to man. Without the support of his henchmen he doesn't stand a chance. When Micky goes to the ground, his men intervene nonetheless and support him. In the meantime the guards are alarmed by the noise of the fight, but are unable to take action since the absent Hung locked up the cell. Ching wins the upper hand against Micky and almost strangles him to death with a bed pole. When the guards manage to get a hold of Hung and storm the cell, Ching needs to let go of Micky who he had almost killed. A huge brawl arises and Ching knocks Hung down with a drop-kick from a bunk bed. Laughing madly he jumps on Hung and bites his ear off.

A few months later Yiu is released from prison and being welcomed from his family and his girlfriend. When leaving the prison they see how Ching (who had been moved to a hospital after the fight) is moved back to the prison in a bus.

Deep Space Nine makes first contact with a Gamma Quadrant species known as the Wadi. Upon arriving, the Wadi head straight to Quark's bar. When the Wadi leader, Falow, realizes Quark has rigged a gambling table against them, he convinces Quark to play "an honest game".

Meanwhile, the station's senior officers Commander Sisko, Dr. Bashir, Major Kira, and Lt. Dax find themselves in a bizarre labyrinth. Security chief Odo finds them missing from the station; he and Quark come to realize that the missing officers are part of the game Quark is playing.

In the game, the officers are faced with bizarre and deadly puzzles. On the second level they find a young girl singing a rhyme and playing a version of hopscotch; a force field prevents them from crossing the room, until Dax realizes that to get through the force field they must sing the song and copy her hand gestures. On the third level they find themselves at a party in a room filling up with a deadly gas; only by drinking the partygoers' drinks can they survive. Later, one piece is removed from the game, and Bashir disappears from the maze.

Quark is faced with a choice between a shorter, more difficult path or a longer, easier one for his remaining players. He chooses the shortcut, explaining that with risks to his players involved in every move, advancing them home as soon as possible is the wiser choice. However, the results of his next roll force him to sacrifice one of his players.

Quark begs Falow not to make him choose, so the game chooses at random. On the sixth level, Sisko, Kira, and Dax are faced with scaling a mountain during an earthquake, and Dax's leg becomes stuck between two rocks. Although she tells Sisko to leave her behind, he and Kira help her cross a ledge on the rock face. They slip, however, and all three fall into the abyss—only to re-materialize in Quark's, along with Bashir. Quark is elated and begins to collect his winnings, but Falow explains that all his players were lost; the crew was never in any real danger: "It's only a game!"

As Sisko is about to angrily confront Falow over what they have experienced, Odo tells him that he would do better to talk with Quark about his attempt to cheat their guests. The Wadi quietly depart.

In New York City, television reporter April O'Neil is investigating what is dubbed as a "silent crime wave" of everyday items and luxury objects such as televisions, radios and truck loads of equipment being stolen out from under their owners' noses. One night, while leaving the station, she is mugged by a group of thieves, but is saved by unseen vigilantes. It is revealed that her rescuers are four anthropomorphic turtles: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles—Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael; the latter of which loses his sai in the fray, which April discovers and takes with her. The group returns to their secret Den in the sewers, and to their master; an anthropomorphic rat named Splinter who presses the importance of being unseen. Raph; upset after losing his weapon argues with Leonardo and storms out to a movie while the others enjoy takeout pizza. Afterward, he encounters a hockey-masked vigilante named Casey Jones accosting a pair of bag snatchers in the park and intervenes due to Casey's more violent methods, but loses him when Casey knocks him into a garbage can with a cricket bat. April runs afoul with Police Chief Sterns, blaming him for not following up on rumors of a group of thieves known as the "Foot Clan"; however a mysterious figure orders April silenced. Later that night, she is ambushed on the subway and knocked unconscious before Raphael reclaims his weapon and fights them off. Taking her back to their Den, he fails to realize he's being followed. When April awakens, she is introduced to the group and becomes friends with them after learning their origins about being mutated by a strange glowing green ooze that had fallen into the sewers. They take April home, and stay with her for a time, only to return to find their den had been demolished and that Splinter was missing. With nowhere to go, they return to April's place.

Chief Sterns finds that they had arrested April's boss Charles Pennington's son Danny for stealing and uses him as leverage to get April to loosen up about the Foot Clan. In the morning Charles warns her, while Danny becomes suspicious when he thinks he sees Michelangelo. While Charles takes Danny to school, they get into an argument and Danny runs away to the lair of the Foot Clan where a large portion of the city's teenage and outcast populace has been welcomed. When their leader The Shredder announces their search for the turtles, Danny speaks up. April continues to antagonize Chief Sterns in her report while the turtles get used to their new living situation. Leonardo and Raphael get into a fight and Raph goes to the roof to cool off while April takes the others on a tour of the thrift store she lives above. Casey spots Raphael from an adjoining rooftop just in time for him to be ambushed by dozens of Foot Clan members. The battle becomes intense when a beaten and unconscious Raph is thrown through the skylight, Casey soon joins and eventually a fire breaks out, forcing the turtles into a retreat as the building burns down but not before Casey hears a message from Charles, firing April. They go to April's abandoned family farm to recover; Leo is wracked with guilt over the argument he had with Raph and begins to meditate as Splinter taught him, Donatello and Casey bond over repairing an old truck and April documents the events by drawing sketches of the turtles. Eventually Raph wakes from his coma and the four begin training for their return. Leo makes contact with Splinter through meditation and invites the others to join him; Splinter gives a farewell speech to them, professing his love for his sons, which spurs the four to return. Meanwhile, Danny meets Splinter at the Foot hideout and hears the story of how a violent ninja named Oroku Saki killed his master Hamato Yoshi and he realizes that Saki and Shredder are one and the same and he leaves.

Upon their return the turtles encounter Danny hiding out in their Den; he offers them moldy pizza and April gives him one of her drawings. Feeling claustrophobic in the sewer, Casey goes to sleep in the truck on the street and spots Danny sneaking out after everyone's gone to sleep. He follows Danny to where the Foot's hideout is and confronts him; overhearing Shredder ordering Splinter's extermination after learning of the turtles' return, the two rescue him, defeat Shredder's lieutenant Tatsu, and inspire a group of teens to leave with them. The Foot Clan attacks the turtles' hideout and are ambushed by them and April. The fight eventually spills into the streets, then up to a roof where they encounter Shredder, who defeats each of them easily. After pinning down Leonardo, Shredder threatens to kill him unless the other Turtles surrender their weapons. Although they give in to his demand, Shredder decides to kill Leonardo anyway, only for Splinter, who has made his way onto the roof, to intervene and confront Shredder. Splinter reveals to him that he knew him as Oroku Saki. Shredder lunges at Splinter with a yari, only for him to dodge and throw him over the edge of the roof with Michelangelo's dropped nunchaku, leaving him dangling over the city streets. He tries once more to kill Splinter with a throwing dagger, which Splinter catches as he lets go of the nunchaku, dropping Shredder, who falls into the back of a garbage truck; Casey then activates the compactor, crushing him. April is rehired by Charles to provide an exclusive coverage on the story, she urges Casey to kiss her and the turtles cheer them on. Danny reunites with his father and the teenagers also turn themselves in and provide a location to Chief Sterns to the Foot Clan hideout.

This drama charts the development of the friendship between two different girls living in the UK, Holly (Michelle Williams) and Marina (Anna Friel), from their teenage years during the late 1970s to the present day.

The first scene depicts the girls at 12 years old in 1973. Although they are next-door neighbours, they come from different backgrounds. Holly is Jewish and has an overprotective mother, while Marina has a mother who is much more laid back and a father who is almost never around. At this point, Holly develops a crush on Marina's older brother, Nat.

The film then cuts to 1978, which finds them lying on Marina's bed smoking because they're bored. Later, Marina runs over to Holly's house to tell her that she has found out about a party that Nat's girlfriend, Carolyn, is having. When the girls get to the party, the others ask if they would like to "play a game", although the "game" simply involves shooting heroin. Nat's girlfriend soon leaves with two other guys; while Marina wants to follow them, Holly begs her not to. However, when Marina gets up to leave, Holly kisses Nat and the two end up sleeping together. Marina sees them and becomes angry, telling Holly that Nat only had sex with her because he was stoned and probably did not even recognize her. The next morning, Nat wakes up Marina and asks her to give a note to Holly that says what happened last night was "beautiful" but a case of bad timing, and that he looks forward to their future. However, Marina angrily rips up the note and goes to see Holly who is sitting in her yard reading a book. When Holly asks Marina if Nat said anything about the night before, Marina lies, and says "no", but reassures Holly that they will always have each other.

The film then jumps to 1982, when Holly and Marina are attending university together. They are sleeping with the same professor; a man that Marina had at first thought boring. Nat comes to visit, and he and Holly reconnect. Holly decides she wants to be with him. But, when she goes to end things with her professor, she sees Marina kissing him goodbye. She runs back to Nat, so upset she forgets about the relationship they were about to enter. Holly soon confronts Marina and the two fight. While Marina soon makes up with Holly, she ruins things between Holly and Nat by telling them both that the other one did not want to talk. Later on, the three of them are reunited at a New Year's party, where Nat announces his intention to marry his girlfriend, Isabel.

The next scene finds the girls in their late 20s, in 1989. Holly is a writer, dating a man Marina has chosen for her. Marina is dating a Jewish doctor. Nat comes over to Holly's place and tells her he talks to her in his head all the time. They are interrupted by Holly's boyfriend returning, at which point she tells Nat to leave. Shortly thereafter, she decides she wants to go to America, but Marina tries to stop her by telling her she is pregnant.

Some time later, the characters are reunited at another New Year's Eve party. While playing "Guess Who?", Nat begins to describe someone in a very deep way. Holly guesses Isabel, but Isabel claims it's Holly. Marina says she's bored with this game and they should play sardines. As they wander through the dark house, Marina begins to kiss Holly's boyfriend. Holly and Nat then find each other, however, and Holly tells him she also talks to him all the time in her head. When Holly's boyfriend refuses her advances, Marina freaks out and runs outside. Holly confronts her, and tells her they have to stop being friends. Marina tells her "there's no me without you!" Holly tells her there is. As Holly walks away, Nat catches up to her and asks if he can come. The two take a bus together.

The final scene finds the characters in 2001. Nat and Holly have a daughter, and Marina has a daughter and a son. Marina and Holly do not appear as close as they once were, although each accepts the other's presence for the sake of their two young daughters, who appear to be best friends.

Marshal Richard "Dick" Dix, a special detective, saves a fast food chain restaurant from a terrorist hostage situation, much to the displeasure of the police chief. He drives away and back to the police station, where he meets his boss, who is with a police worker, Cassandra Menage. She retells her experience of the cloning of the President of the United States of America, Bill Clinton, who remains unnamed throughout the film.

Dix is sent to the cloning facility, a Moon base called Vegan. He causes a mayhem on the way there, reaches Vegan and is met by Lt. Bradford Shitzu at the security check. On the way to meet the main suspect in the cloning, Dr. Griffin Pratt, Dix experiences strange happenings throughout the colony involving certain Aliens who live there.

During a very strange incident involving an Alien about to explode, Dix meets Capt. Valentino DiPasquale, with whom he will share his quarters. Dix and Shitzu get to Dr. Pratt's quarters, and talk to him. Shitzu leaves, and Pratt takes Dix on a tour of his cloning facility. While on the tour, he meets Dr. Uschi Künstler, with whom he takes the elevator to meet Ms. Menage. Dr. Künstler deserts the two, and they make their way to a party where the suspects may be.

Pratt and Menage have dinner, while Dix has a bizarre escapade with Pratt's toupe. He leaves the party and goes to his quarters with Valentino. There he shows him his huge array of disguises. Dix gets a phone call from Ms. Menage that they are about to raid Pratt's quarters. Dix destroys his Vegan model and spreads paint all over the place. Then he stumbles on the radio, and it starts playing the cancan very loudly.

Pratt comes back to his room, only to discover that Dix escaped. He goes to his apartment and threatens him. Dix tells Menage, and soon enough, Menage gets abducted by Pratt's goons. Pratt pretends to help Dix find the President and rescue Ms. Menage, but Pratt's goons trap them. Ms. Menage uses her martial arts skills, and the President, Dix, and Menage escape back to Earth. The President they rescued is then replaced with the president in the White House, and suddenly Dix finds out that he put the clone in the White House.

They find out that Dix's boss is also with Pratt. Dix, the President, Menage, Valentino, Shitzu and Künstler go to a concert by the Three Tenors, who are singing ''Village People'' songs. The presidents are involved in an onstage fight, and the whole concert is ruined by Shitzu's fumbling with the control panel. Then Künstler double-crosses Dix, and reveals she is actually an alien. After Menage kills her, the president is replaced, and Menage goes with Dix to a restaurant for a date.

The plot follows James Bond Junior while he tries to uncover what is going on at Hazeley Hall. He and Sheelagh Smith, his "girlfriend," follow the clues of this mystery, but the information is given to the commander of the police, Sir Cuthbert Conningtower, when James is injured. Conningtower ultimately gets the credit for solving the case and threatens James if he says anything.

The film tells the tale of a man called George Taylor, who returns home to the U.S. from fighting in World War II. He is suffering from amnesia, having been badly injured by a grenade. He tries to find his old identity, following a trail left behind by the mysterious Mr. Larry Cravat. He ends up stumbling into a murder mystery involving Nazi loot.

Arthur Jamison (Anthony Hopkins), a wealthy criminal defence attorney, is facing a costly divorce from his wife, Louise (Blythe Danner). Arthur deals with the predicament by imagining numerous schemes in which he kills her. As a defense attorney, Arthur is familiar with both the courts and the minds of criminals, and he spends much of the film consulting an officious imaginary version of himself (a double played by Donegan Smith) for the perfect scheme to rid himself of Louise. Arthur runs each murder, or the subsequent trial, through in his mind, searching for problems, loopholes, and the elusive watertight alibi.

Arthur's mistress, Jackie Willis (Swoosie Kurtz), meets up with Louise in secret. The two concoct a scheme to kill Arthur. They confront Arthur at gunpoint, planning to stage his murder as a suicide. Unfazed, Arthur takes control of the situation, pointing out the flaws in what was supposed to be their foolproof scheme. For one thing, Arthur tells them he has been cheating on both of them with a third woman and was about to go out on a highly anticipated date with her, so was not of a mindset to commit suicide.

Furthermore, Arthur reveals that he had been recording the entire confrontation with Louise and Jackie. He uses the tape to attempt to blackmail Louise, but, enraged by the implosion of her plan, she chases her husband with a gun. A brief struggle ensues, and Louise is shot dead. Now, however, Louise's accidental death implicates Arthur for having murdered her. Arthur had only been bluffing about the tape, there is no evidence that the shooting was an accident other than the word of Jackie, his mistress, who may not be willing to testify to exonerate him. Arthur imagines himself in court, his imaginary self now his own prosecutor, and how the case will unfold.

At this point the film shows Arthur back at home, again poking holes in the scheme. It is revealed to be yet another of his unrealized, purely imaginary plans.

Louise arrives home, shoots him dead, and phones Jackie to inform her the deed is done. The film ends with Louise rearranging the living room to cover up evidence of the murder.

Insurance investigator Joe Peters (McGraw) and his partner Harry Miller (Louis Jean Heydt) solve a lucrative recovery case and prepare to fly home. Joe meets and gets played by Diane (Dixon) at the airport. Lacking enough money to fly on her own she pretends to be his wife without his knowledge in order to get half fare on her ticket. They wind up assigned to the same hotel room after a storm forces an unscheduled stop. An uneasy detente develops.

Joe is attracted to the comely but diffident Diane, despite his dislike for "chiselers". She makes it quite clear she loves the finer things in life, which "Honest Joe" (as Diane calls him) cannot possibly afford on his small salary of $350 a month. They part uneasily when they reach Los Angeles.

When Joe and Harry are assigned to check out the prime suspect in a string of fur robberies, Kendall Webb (Lowell Gilmore). Joe runs into Diane, who has become Webb's mistress. Their mutual attraction flares up and Joe, in order to finance a dream life with Diane, decides to use inside information on a $1,250,000 cash shipment to set up a robbery for Webb in return for one-third of the take.

Unaware of the deal and disillusioned at being a kept woman, Diane decides that her love for Joe is greater than her avarice. When she tells Joe she wants to get married he tries to back out with Webb. However, Webb convinces him that Diane might not feel the same after a few months living on his paltry pay.

The railway mail car robbery is successful, but a railroad employee is injured and later dies. The robbery coincides with Joe and Diane's honeymoon, giving him an alibi. One of the robbers is then identified and arrested. With the investigation closing in Joe confesses to Diane what he has done.

Desperate, Joe arranges to meet Webb on a desolate stretch of highway by telling him he has a plan to get them out of their mess. Instead, he knocks Webb out and stages a car accident in which Webb is killed and his share of the money partially burned.

Harry figures out that his partner is involved and pleads with him to turn himself in. Cornered, Joe tries to flee to Mexico with Diane, but is tracked down and shot. He dies in Diane's arms.

In 1973, a U.S. Air Force Major Charles Rane returns home to San Antonio with U.S. Army Master sergeant Johnny Vohden, and two other soldiers, after spending seven years as a POW in Hanoi. He finds a home very different from the one he left when he meets his wife Janet, his son Mark, and local policeman Cliff, waiting to drive him home. Rane soon realizes that his son does not remember him, and that Cliff seems overly familiar with Janet and Mark. Janet admits that she has become engaged to Cliff and has no plans to break it off, despite still having feelings for Rane. Rane stoically accepts this, but privately reacts by self-imposing the same institutionalized daily regime he had in captivity.

The town is intent on giving Rane a hero's homecoming, and at a grand celebration, he is presented with a red Cadillac and 2,555 silver dollars – one for every day he was a captive plus one for luck – by the 'Texas belle' Linda Forchet, who has worn his ID bracelet since he left. Shortly after, Cliff attempts to make peace with Rane; the latter, however, seems resigned to losing his wife, but he is determined not to lose his son and makes efforts to build a relationship. Linda spots Rane in his new Cadillac at a gas station and invites him to have a drink at the bar where she works. She makes advances toward him, but Rane is emotionally distant and perhaps even unable to connect with anyone.

When Rane next returns home, four border outlaws are waiting for him: "The Texan", "Automatic Slim", "T Bird" and "Melio". They demand the silver dollars and torture Rane to get them. Rane is totally unresponsive, having flashbacks to his torture in Hanoi as they beat him. The gang resorts to drastic measures and shoves Rane's hand down a garbage disposal, mangling it. At this point Janet and Mark return, and are immediately taken hostage. Rane lies with a mangled arm on the kitchen floor while his son finds and hands over the silver dollars. The gang shoots all three of them, leaving them for dead. Rane survives but his wife and son do not.

Several weeks later, Rane is convalescing in a hospital where Linda and Vohden visit him separately. Vohden has signed on for another ten years in the Airborne Division, due to his uncertainty as to what else to do with his life. Although he gives no details to the police, Rane has ideas regarding the identities of his attackers and prepares to take vengeance. His first move upon discharge is to saw down a double-barreled shotgun and sharpen the prosthetic hook which has replaced his right hand.

Before leaving for Mexico, Rane visits the bar where Linda works and invites her to go with him. She leaves with him, having no idea she is accompanying him on a vendetta. He sends her into a seedy Mexican bar to look for "Fat Ed." She is taken into a backroom where a sleazy lowlife named Lopez immediately begins to harass her. Rane comes to her rescue while also extracting some information. Linda now realizes Rane's intention and though she is alarmed, continues to help. Linda is sent into another seedy bar in a nearby town, as before. Rane locates Automatic Slim and a vicious bar fight ensues; Rane escapes only by wounding Automatic Slim in the crotch with his hook hand.

Conducting his own investigation back in Texas, Cliff finds the sawn-off barrel of Rane's shotgun and realizes Rane's plan. Using his police contacts to trace Rane's car, Cliff finds his way to the Mexican border town in which Rane encountered Lopez. Cliff is led to Lopez, and they scuffle. After Lopez leads Cliff on a foot-chase through a stockyard into an abandoned house, a gunfight follows. Cliff shoots and kills Lopez and two other attackers before Automatic Slim sneaks in behind him, calls to him and shoots him as he turns to respond. As a wounded Cliff crawls toward his dropped weapon, Automatic Slim mercilessly shoots him again, killing him.

Linda and Rane begin to connect further while on the road, with Linda talking about her tomboy past, and Rane talking about things he liked before the war. In a motel room in El Paso, she tries to talk Rane out of revenge one last time. Rane leaves a sleeping Linda behind in the motel with a sizable sum of money, and despite her earlier insistence that she would call the police, she cannot bring herself to follow through, as she hangs up the phone when the police answer her call.

Rane, dressed in full uniform, goes to Vohden's house. Vohden, emotionally distanced from his family, asks no questions and immediately gets in his Army uniform and is ready to go. Rane plans to attack the remaining members of the gang in a whorehouse. Vohden goes in first and picks up a prostitute named Candy. Once they are upstairs, Rane takes out a guard in the rear yard and goes in the back entrance. Rane signals to Vohden and kicks off a bloody, violent shootout. After surprising The Texan with a hooker, Rane declares "It's your time, boy" before shooting him. T-Bird, Melio and several other men are dealt with likewise before the final standoff between Rane and Automatic Slim. Rane kills him, emotionlessly shooting him several times. Bloodied and wounded, Rane and Vohden, supporting each other, walk out of the brothel.

James J. Kelly, a former soldier in the American military, finds out that the American and Soviet governments are about to conduct tests of a new kind of neutron bomb called the ''model b'' or the nC, which will kill every living thing on the planet, leaving it uninhabitable for centuries. The American generals know the cataclysmic effects of conducting these tests but they acquiesce to the tests anyway, ignoring a report provided to the National Security Council which predicts the end of the world if six or more nCs are simultaneously exploded. Mistakenly assured that the Soviets would not explode reciprocating nCs, the generals are unwittingly about to destroy the whole world.

Kelly decides to save the human race through an elaborate religious hoax, declaring himself to be Kalki and announcing the end of the world. His secret plan is to kill off everyone in the world except for himself and his wife Lakshmi. They would become the Adam and Eve to a new human race by giving birth to three sons and six daughters over the next twelve years, who would then intermarry; in approximately two centuries the world would be fairly well populated again.

In addition to himself and his wife, Kalki decides to bring along three more people to his new world, teachers called Perfect Masters, chosen for their knowledge and the fact that they are all sterile. These three people will teach various fields of science to the new race. Teddy Ottinger will teach engineering, Geraldine O'Connor biology and genetics, and Dr. Giles Lowell medicine. Kalki's wife Lakshmi is herself a physicist, and Kalki is a chemical engineer.

Kalki succeeds in carrying out his plan and the entire world dies, leaving behind only Kalki, his wife Lakshmi and the three other Perfect Masters. However, Kalki's plans go awry when Lakshmi miscarries the first baby girl and it is learnt that Lakshmi is incapable of having children with Kalki. At this point, the only other male in the group, Dr. Lowell, announces that he never had a vasectomy and is the only one now with whom Lakshmi can conceive a child. It had been his plan all along to be the one to father the new human race with Lakshmi, whom he claims to be in love with. When Dr. Lowell admits his treachery, Kalki kills him.

The story ends with a postscript from Kelly/Kalki, 43 years after the apocalyptic plague. In the interim period, Teddy died 27 years after the plague and Geraldine (Teddy's lover and Kalki's second consort) died, as has Lakshmi. Kalki has become the last human alive, and with his death, the human species will become extinct. It is implied that simians will inherit the post-apocalyptic world.

Daisy Rain goes to her apartment in the Lusman Arms, a former luxury hotel undergoing renovations, and is beaten to death with a hammer by a man wearing a balaclava. In another room, new tenants Nell and Steven Barrows, a teacher, and a medical intern are introduced to the amenities and a few of the residents by Byron, the building manager. As Steven works long hours, Nell is left alone most of the time, and befriends Julia Cunningham, a neighbor down the hall, and Chas Rooker, an elderly man who reveals some of the history of the structure, mentioning it was made by Jack Lusman, who disappeared mysteriously, and that builders died while working on it.

As days pass, the Lusman Arms are plagued by mysterious circumstance; strange noises are heard throughout it and coming from the intercoms, Nell finds a trinket containing human teeth in a wall, and Julia and another tenant vanish, having been killed (with a drill and a nail gun, respectively) by the ski-masked murderer, who hides their bodies. While looking into Julia's disappearance, Nell speaks with Chas, who offers cryptic warnings about the nature of the building, and sneaks Nell a note reading "Look for her in Room 504". Nell takes the advice and discovers that there is no Room 504 and that all the other floors lack apartments whose numbering should end with 4.

Nell goes to the Los Angeles Preservation Society, where an employee tells her that Jack Lusman was an occultist who associated with a society that tried to mix science and magic and that the symbols (which Nell copies down on her arms) decorating the building are part of a spell. The blueprints for the Lusman Arms also reveal that there is a townhouse hidden within the structure, hence all the missing rooms. Nell returns home and finds a hatch on the roof of the building that allows entrance into the townhouse, where she uncovers a room dedicated to the Golden Age of Hollywood, torture chambers, and dozens of corpses. The killer, who had just butchered another tenant and the handyman, appears, and removes his mask to reveal that he is a monster, which the credits refer to as "Coffin Baby."

A teenage resident discovers that the webcam he had been using to spy on Julia had recorded her death, prompting him to go to Steven, who finds Nell's notes about the building, and goes looking for her along with the boy, Byron, and the doorman. The men send the teen to get the police after they find a passageway into Coffin Baby's lair, which they enter. Coffin Baby kills Byron and the doorman, and gives chase to Nell and Steven, the former of whom theorizes that Coffin Baby needs death and the Lusman Arms to continue existing. The Barrows are found by Chas, who tries to lead them to safety, and murmurs that Coffin Baby came into the world when he clawed his way out of his dead and buried mother's womb.

Coffin Baby leaps out from under a pile of human remains, fatally throws Chas at a wall, and captures Nell, but she is saved by Steven, who bludgeons Coffin Baby, and knocks a shelf onto him. The authorities arrive and take Steven to a hospital, and as Nell returns to her apartment, the police lift up the debris that fell on Coffin Baby, who has disappeared. Coffin Baby crashes through Nell's window and tries to kill her, but is disoriented by the runes she had earlier drawn on her arms, distracting him long enough for a pair of police officers to barge in, and shoot him out a window, causing him to be hanged by a cord Nell had wrapped around his neck. The officers check on Nell, then go to the window, only to find that Coffin Baby has once again vanished.

Bill Whitney lives with his parents and sister in a mansion in Beverly Hills, California. Bill tells his therapist Dr. Cleveland that he does not trust his high-society family. When his sister's ex-boyfriend David Blanchard gives him a surreptitiously recorded audio tape of what sounds like his family engaged in a murderous orgy, Bill begins to suspect that his feelings are justified. Bill gives the tape to Dr. Cleveland, but when he later plays it back, the audio has changed to his sister's coming out party. When Bill attempts to meet Blanchard to obtain another copy, he finds an ambulance and police officers gathered around Blanchard's crashed van. A body is placed into the back of the ambulance, but Bill is prevented from seeing its face.

Bill attends a party hosted by his upper-class classmate Ted Ferguson, who confirms that the first tape was real. Angry and confused, Bill leaves the party with Clarissa, a beautiful girl he had been admiring. The next day, Bill confronts his parents and sister. At Blanchard's funeral, Bill and his friend Milo discover that Blanchard's corpse may be fake. Bill is contacted by Martin Petrie, his rival for the high school presidency. At their arranged meeting, Bill discovers Petrie with his throat cut. When he returns with the police, the body is gone. The next day at school, Petrie shows up, alive and well. When Bill arrives at home, he confronts his family again, but with Dr. Cleveland's help, they drug Bill. As Milo trails him, Bill is taken to a hospital. Bill awakens in a hospital bed and thinks he hears Blanchard crying out, but discovers that nothing is there. Milo and Clarissa try to warn him, but he drives back to his house.

At home, Bill finds a large, formal party. Dr. Cleveland reveals that Bill's family and their high-society friends are actually a different species from Bill. To demonstrate, they bring in a still-living Blanchard. The wealthy party guests strip to their underwear and begin "shunting" physically deforming and melding with each other as they suck the nutrients out of Blanchard's body, absorbing him. Their intention is to do the same to Bill, but he escapes and runs around the house, finding his family engaged in similarly disgusting activities as he does. He confronts Ferguson, killing him by reaching inside him mid-shunt and pulling him inside-out. Bill escapes with the help of Milo and Clarissa, who is also of the alternate species but has fallen in love with Bill.

In a rural village west of Bangkok, Mak (Winai Kraibutr) is conscripted and sent to fight in the Siamese-Vietnamese War (1831–1834). He has to leave behind his pregnant teenage wife, Nak (Intira Jaroenpura). Mak is wounded and barely survives. He eventually returns home to his beloved wife and their child.

A friend visits and sees Mak living with Nak. The villagers, knowing she had died months earlier, realize Mak is spellbound by her ghost. But those who attempt to tell him are killed in the night by Nak's ghost, who is desperate to stay with her husband. When Mak confronts Nak about the rumors, she lies and says the villagers disliked her after he left for the war. She claims they are also telling lies about their son not being Mak's. Mak believes her and lashes out at anyone who tells him she is dead.

Mak eventually discovers the truth. Crawling under their house one night to retrieve an item, he trips on something sticking up from the dirt. Curious, he digs it up and finds a corpse making him wonder why Nak would always prevent him from going down there. Looking up through the creaks of the wood floor, he sees Nak sitting and brushing her hair. Dropping the comb through a crack, her arm eerily extends all the way to the ground to retrieve it. Mak covers his mouth to stifle a scream and continues observing Nak. Nak picks up her crying baby, who Mak realises is a corpse as well. A series of flashbacks reveal that Nak had a difficult childbirth and both mother and child died from complications. Mak flees in terror to the local temple to hide. Nak follows him and attempts to win him back, but he is too frightened of her. The villagers attempt to drive out Nak, burning down her house and at last summoning an exorcist. Nak refuses to leave unless Mak returns to her. Mak pleads with her to leave to the netherworld. He loves her, but they can't be together since she is dead. He tells her that he is going to cut his hair and become a monk in order to pray for her sins and allow her spirit to find peace. She still refuses.

The kingdom's most respected Buddhist monk, Somdej Toh, intervenes and, in a tearful farewell, Nak repents, leaving her husband for this life. The monk has the centre of her forehead cut out, thus releasing her spirit, and makes a girdle brooch of it. The epilogue states it later came into the possession of Prince Chumbhorn Ketudomsak. It was thereafter handed down for generations, with its current owner unknown.

In the year 2001, the space station Silicon Valley was launched, housing numerous animals. Seven minutes after its launch, it vanished. Believed to have disappeared forever, it reappears in the year 3000, and the many expeditions sent to retrieve the space station vanished without explanation. Following this, the duo of Dan Danger and Evo were sent to investigate; they discover that the animal cargo has evolved and merged with the station's technology, resulting in animals such as an electronically-powered fox with motorised wheels, and a steam-powered hippopotamus. Evo sets out to fix the control station, which is on a collision course with Earth. Upon arriving at the control room, Evo confronts the Evil Brain, who is fascinated by Evo's abilities and wants to keep him to complete the collection of robotic animals. The Evil Brain threatens to destroy the Earth, but is quickly defeated by Evo. Despite this, Evo is unable to stop the space station from spinning out of control; it collides with Earth, landing in New York Harbor. The robotic animals escape and flee around New York City, and Evo sets out to terminate them before they terrorise the planet.

In 1943 in the South-West Pacific, some Australian and American airmen discuss the story of "Smithy", Charles Kingsford Smith. The Americans are told the story by an old officer of Smithy, along with a waiter, Stringer, who knew him.

The story starts in 1917 with his recovering from a wound incurred in fighting over the Western Front. Kingsford Smith is rewarded with the Military Cross and is determined to make a career out of flying.

After the war Kingsford Smith visits America and has a brief romance with Kay Sutton but later falls in love with and marries Mary Powell.

He attempts to enter the England to Australia Air Race in 1919 but is stopped by Prime Minister Billy Hughes. Kingsford Smith then decides to become the first person to fly from the United States to Australia across the Pacific. He does the trip with Charles Ulm in an aircraft called the ''Southern Cross'' and becomes world-famous.

Kingsford Smith attempts to set up his own airline but is not successful and is forced to take people on joy flights to make a living. He breaks another record, crossing the Pacific from the Australia to the United States in a single engine aircraft with P.G. Taylor. Kingsford Smith almost dies flying to New Zealand with Bill Taylor and John Stannage, and subsequently, retires the ''Southern Cross''.

In 1935 Kingsford Smith attempts to fly from Australia to England but disappears over the Indian Ocean.

The story is set in high school. Pia (Angel Locsin) is beautiful and wealthy. She is the campus sweetheart that every guy is dreaming of. However, she is unhappy because her father (Tonton Gutierrez) constantly blames her for her brother's death, and makes all the decisions with regard to her future. Eric (Richard Gutierrez), Pia's high school classmate, is intelligent and has a good heart, but lives in poverty. Both of his parents have already died. He is left with his kind and loving grandmother who continues to encourage him to pursue his dreams and his love for Pia, no matter what obstacles get in his way. Eric works as the school's janitor during the day to support his studies, and to provide for him and his grandmother's needs. He has always admired Pia but never really had the courage or the chance to even talk to her. Although they belong to the extremes of social classes, Pia and Eric's paths cross when they share the same seat in class - Eric during the night (as part of his scholarship program) and Pia during the day. Eric becomes Pia's anonymous 'savior' as he answered Pia's school-related questions, and promised to always be there whenever she needed him. Are they destined to be with each other because of this sign? Or is fate playing a trick on them?

Meanwhile, in the background, one of Eric's best friends, Luigi (Mark Herras) is the typical playboy, and often changes his girlfriend. This has gone on since they were in highschool. Luigi best friend is Eric, but on the sidelines, Alex (Jennelyn Mercado). Alex is a tomboy who has a crush on Luigi. After five years, she changed and blossomed into a beautiful girl, with Luigi falling in love with her.

The film begins at the beheading of Anne Boleyn, which turns out to be an erotic daydream that introduces teenage protagonist Kevin, who is having sexual fantasies when he's supposed to be doing his history homework. Kevin has tried to lose his virginity for three years. He and his best friend Perry go to a newsagent's to buy a pornographic magazine. Like all of Kevin's previous attempts at sexual exploration, this ends in failure when he sees his father and pretends to fall on the street to hide the magazine.

The boys decide they want to go to Ibiza to become DJs and get "guaranteed sex", but when Kevin's parents, Ray and Sheila (James Fleet and Louisa Rix), see his bad school report, they forbid the trip. But later they compromise: the boys can go if they get jobs to pay for it. The boys search fruitlessly for jobs and end up at a house party, where a popular local girl, Sharon, passes out drunk next to Kevin. Perry, seeing the two in bed together the following morning, assumes Kevin has lost his virginity and Kevin lies, saying he had sex with Sharon but gets overheard while leaving the party. In the town centre, an angry Sharon later confronts and humiliates Kevin about this, mocking him and calling him "virgin".

Kevin arrives home in misery, just in time to sign for the delivery of his dad's new credit card. He seizes the card and takes it to the bank to steal the plane fare from his dad's bank account. At the bank, he accidentally foils a bank robbery and the bank manager rewards him and Perry with a large amount of cash with which the boys plan to fund the trip. As a reward, Kevin's parents approve of the trip, as long as they can accompany the boys, much to Kevin's horror.

Once in Ibiza, the boys spot the 'girls of their dreams' Candice (Laura Fraser) and Gemma (Tabitha Wady). They also meet arrogant club DJ and record producer Eyeball Paul (Rhys Ifans) (whose nickname derives from his practice of vodka eyeballing). The boys spend the day at the beach and chat with the girls but are unsuccessful in seducing them.

That night, the boys walk down the high street filming the events around them. Kevin films a couple snogging, and they turn out to be Ray and Sheila. Kevin sulks while he and Perry hang out with Ray and Sheila, finally ending up at the club "Amnesia" where they dance the night away—without Candice and Gemma, who were refused entry by the doorman (Paul Whitehouse), who holds a hand-mirror to their faces and comments that they're "ugly" and "offend [his] mirror."

The next day the boys go to Paul's and he makes them clean his house in return for his listening to their tapes. When they leave there, they spot Candice and Gemma, but again their clumsy attempts to woo them end in failure although the girls bond with the boys when realising they know Eyeball Paul and they may be able to get them into the clubs.

The boys wait outside the girls' hotel for 4 hours while the girls have a makeover, and they are admitted to Amnesia with Kevin and Perry, but yet again the boys "strike out" when they get vomited on by other revellers and they leave, embarrassed while the girls later meet two other attractive men in the club. That night, Perry videotapes Ray and Sheila having sex. The next day, Paul listens to the boys' music as they clean his kitchen. He stumbles across the parents' sex tape and shows it to everyone. Kevin lashes out at Perry when he realized that it was Perry who filmed them. Baz, Paul's manager and chauffeur driver later persuades Paul to give the video back to the boys.

Kevin spends the rest of the day sulking around alone and becomes dejected when he sees the girls with the two other men from the club. Perry spends the day at the beach where he bumps into the girls and the two men who are revealed to be gay lovers who the girls had befriended. Gemma reveals she is attracted to Perry and Candice admits to liking Kevin. Perry then runs into Eyeball Paul, who says he likes their song and he'll play it in the club that night. Perry hurries to tell Kevin the good news and the friends reconcile.

That night they and the girls go to the club again in Paul's limousine. Their track is played, but the boys and Ray and Sheila, who had wanted to visit the club, are embarrassed to find that Paul has incorporated the sex tape and the boy's love messages to the girls into the track in an attempt to humiliate the boys.

Nevertheless, this backfires on Paul when the track becomes an instant club favourite and the entire crowd, including the girls, love the boys and their mix. Paul is unhappy at the boys' success and turns off the track, which angers the crowd. Paul becomes annoyed and attempts to destroy the boy's vinyl record but is stopped by Baz. Paul fires Baz who quickly punches and pushes Paul off stage before returning the record to the boys to continue the set and the crowd continue to party.

Kevin and Perry take over as DJs and keep the club dancing through the night. Early the next morning, Kevin and Perry finally have sex with Candice and Gemma respectively, on a beach surrounded by other similarly involved couples having sex.

In the Epilogue, the girls become the boys' girlfriends while Kevin and Perry are seen signing copies of their record in a music shop with Baz as their new manager. Sharon reappears and receives a signed copy of the record, she then boasts that she and Kevin had sex before he was famous while Kevin's parents sign copies of their videos about better mid-marriage sexual intimacy.

The Sixth Doctor investigates the mysterious bar known only as "Bianca's". Getting in his way is his old friend Iris Wildthyme, but this time she has a rival for the Doctor's affections — Bianca herself. With Iris getting drunk on Tequila, the Doctor must uncover Bianca's true identity and find out just who the voices are he and Iris keep hearing…

Set 130 years after the events of the '''Heritage of Shannara''' series, the Free-born and the Federation are still at war. The story follows a quest organized by Walker Boh, the last surviving Shannara Druid. Thirty years before the story begins, the Elven prince Kael Elessedil led an expedition in search of a legendary magic which was said to be the most ancient and powerful in the world.

At the beginning of the narrative, Kael is found floating in the sea of the Blue Divide; a map is found with him, covered with mysterious symbols. Walker is the only man who can read them.

But there is another: the Ilse Witch, a beautiful but twisted young woman who is as practiced in magic as Walker himself. She will stop at nothing to possess the map and the magic it leads to. To stop her, Walker must find the magic first.

Thus begins the voyage of the sleek, swift airship, the ''Jerle Shannara''. The company chosen by Walker must fly into the face of unknown terrors while the Ilse Witch and her dark allies pursue.

The voyage to find the lost magic takes the companions to the continent of Parkasia. Here, they are split up, and Walker, despite all his plans and his enormous power, finds himself caught and trapped by an unseen force, a supercomputer built by the ancient humans. Antrax was created to store data and information from its time and it is given a duty, an order to protect the information that it holds. However, when the Great War broke out, the last of its creators returned, and gave Antrax its final task: protect the information at all costs, no matter what the price. Antrax then began to build its own arsenal of defence mechanisms: lasers and Creepers.

Above Castledown, the crew of the ''Jerle Shannara'' find themselves besieged by evil forces, and the Ilse Witch confronts the Druid's protégé, Bek Ohmsford, who claims that she is actually Grianne Ohmsford, and that he is the brother she last saw as an infant - now a young man who carries the Sword of Shannara and wields the magic of the wishsong. Truls Rohk keeps protecting Bek buying him time till the Ilse Witch finally takes up the Sword of Shannara to realize the truth of her life.

In parallel plot Ahren Elessedil works his way in retrieving the lost elf stones, also Quentin Leah with the help of locals finally are able to kill the minion created by Antrax.

Meanwhile, Walker realises that the 'magic' they have been searching for is actually the science of the Old World, stored on Antrax, which could be used to rebuild society with new technology. But there is no practical way to access this information, so Walker chooses to destroy the power-hungry computer, which is quickly becoming a danger to the whole world. However, he is mortally wounded in the process. In the end a fleet of airships reach Parkasia under leadership of Morgawr willing to kill all left of the company and take the magic for himself.

It is believed that Antrax was in fact initially known as Oronyx Experimental and appears in ''The Elves of Cintra''.

The Morgawr is a centuries-old sorcerer of unimaginable might, who feeds upon the souls of his enemies. With a fleet of airships and a crew of walking dead men at his command, he is in relentless pursuit of the Jerle Shannara. His goal is twofold: to find and control the fabled 'magic' of Parkasia, and to destroy the Ilse Witch (his disciple) to keep her from using the magic to destroy him. He gets more annoyed when Ahren Elessedil escapes his imprisonment and the seer, Ryer Ord Star is able to lead him astray as directed by Walker even at his death.

When Walker Boh persuades the witch to use the Sword of Shannara, she is exposed to its awesome power and forced to confront the truth of her horrifying deeds as the Ilse Witch, causing her to flee deep into her own mind. She has only one protector: her brother Bek, who is determined to redeem her. In the last stand taken by crew of Jerle Shannara, Redden Alt Mer alone destroys all of Morgawr's fleet after stealing the lead ship and using it against them. Bek and Rue kills the company of mwellret led by Cree Bega, while Cree Bega is killed by Ahren Elessedil. Bek finally reaches the confrontation of Grianne and Morgawr to find his sister already in trouble and triggers a feeble magic of his wish-song just enough to raise the spirit of castle, hence destroys the Morgawr.

They go home to the Four Lands. But rather than going home with Bek, Grianne Ohmsford will be going now to Paranor, for Walker charged her with a very important task before he died: she is to foster a new Druid order.

Tony Carpenter is a self-made millionaire who turned his South London minicab firm into a successful chauffeur-driven car service. He lives in a large detached mansion in Esher, surrounded by Rolls Royces and BMWs, with a domestic staff who respect him, and whom he adores; Witty and insolent butler/driver Sam (who is also a childhood friend of Tony), acerbic secretary Maggie and cook Mrs Wembley (responsible for the series' catch-phrase of "Just the one", used to respond to the offer of a sherry even if it was her third or fourth).

Despite all these advantages, Tony's life is full of conflict:

• His working-class background and sensibilities make him uncomfortable with the idea of having domestic staff, and in dealing with local snobs.
• Nothing he does seems to please his snooty wife Ruth, who hates his downmarket behaviour, constantly suspects him of infidelity with either his secretary Maggie or friend & model Dawn (both of whom are significantly younger than herself), and cannot abide the "chummy" relationship he has with "servants".
• Then there is daughter Stephanie, away from home at a Public School and thus being inculcated with upper / middle class sensibilities, who is embarrassed by both her father's differing outlook, and by the unsettled relationship between her parents.
• Finally there is his mother, who is still living in a South London terrace, and never seems impressed with his achievements, finding herself unable to understand why he lives "all the way over there" (in reality about 14 miles away) in his big house.

The third series ended with Tony looking set to enter a happy relationship with new love interest Jane Webster, a single mother from Stephanie's school, as well as romantic interests for all three staff, but also closes on a slight cliffhanger as it is displayed that Tony and Ruth still share feelings for each other. A fourth series was initially planned, and was mentioned in in-house BBC literature for the Autumn 1993 season on BBC One, but never came to fruition.

A socially awkward clerk, who is also a pathological liar, attempts to fulfill a fantasy with a supermodel who happens to be visiting the hotel in which he works, unaware that she is also a pathological liar and a psychotic murderer.

The story follows Micky O'Neill (Dunbar) as he tries to revive the fortunes of his Liverpool nightclub by promising his patrons he will present a performance by the legendary Irish tenor Josef Locke. After a series of unfortunate bookings (including Franc Cinatra, a Sinatra impersonator), Micky books the mysterious Mr. X, a man who insists he cannot be booked as Joe Locke due to the legal issues that would invariably ensue. The elusive Locke left England during the 1950s to avoid paying taxes, leaving behind "a beauty queen, a Jaguar sportscar, and a pedigree dalmatian, all of them pining." O'Neill's personal and professional life are left in ruin after the beauty queen, Kathleen Doyle, exposes his Mr. X as a fraud. O'Neill returns to Ireland to find the true Josef Locke and bring him back.

Several years after the death of Jason Voorhees, a teenage Tommy Jarvis is tormented by nightmares of the mass murderer, resulting in his internment in numerous psychiatric hospitals. He is eventually transferred to the Pinehurst Halfway House, managed by Dr. Matt Letter and his assistant Pam Roberts. There, Tommy meets a circle of other teens, including lovers Eddie Kelso and Tina McCarthy, the stutterer Jake Patterson, the goth Violet Moraine, the serious Robin Brown, the compulsive eater Joey Burns, and the young Reggie Winter, whose grandfather George Winter works as the facility's cook. The group is disliked by their neighbor Ethel Hubbard as Eddie and Tina have made a habit of engaging in sexual intercourse on her property. For this reason, Matt forbids the group from venturing outside the facility's premises.

Vic Faden, another patient in the institute, is gripped by a fit of madness caused by Joey's constant pestering and brutally kills him with an axe, leading to his arrest. That evening, two greasers Vinnie and Pete are murdered by an unseen assailant after their car breaks down, and a diner waitress and her boyfriend are killed the following night. The sheriff hypothesizes that Jason Voorhees has come back to life and is the perpetrator of these murders, while Tommy himself is rendered a suspicious party.

The next morning, Eddie and Tina disobediently go into the forest and have sex. They are spotted by Ethel's farmhand Raymond Joffroy who is killed soon after. After returning from washing off in the creek, Eddie finds that Tina has been murdered, and he soon meets the same fate. Meanwhile, Reggie begs his grandfather for a visit to his brother Demon, who has just returned to town, and Pam offers to accompany him while bringing Tommy along. As Pam and Reggie enjoy some enchiladas with Demon and his girlfriend, Tommy meets Ethel's son Junior and gets into a fight with him, but then runs away into the forest after realizing his actions. After Pam and Reggie leave to find Tommy, Demon has a severe case of diarrhea from the enchiladas and runs to the outhouse. While using the outhouse, he and his girlfriend are slaughtered. Upon Pam and Reggie's return to the institute, they are warned of the disappearance of Matt and Reggie's grandfather. Pam goes to search for them, entrusting Reggie to Violet, Jake and Robin. At this time, Ethel and Junior are killed, as are Jake, Robin and Violet after Reggie falls asleep. Reggie awakens just as Pam returns, and they discover the trio's corpses in Tommy's room. Moments later, the killer, seemingly a resurrected Jason Voorhees, bursts into the house.

After a long chase in which Pam and Reggie find the corpses of Matt and Reggie's grandfather, Jason is struck by a tractor and then lured into a barn. Tommy returns and is attacked by Jason, but defends himself. Eventually, Tommy throws Jason from the loft window onto a tractor harrow, killing him instantly. In the process the killer's hockey mask comes off, revealing that he is in fact Roy Burns, one of the paramedics who arrived at the scene of Joey's murder. The police later identify Roy as Joey's father, and determine that he went insane after his son's death and sought revenge inspired by the stories of Jason's killing sprees. While recovering in the hospital, Tommy has another hallucination of Jason, but he faces his fears and makes him disappear. He then hears Pam approaching and smashes the window to appear as though he has escaped. When Pam rushes in, Tommy appears from behind the door wearing Roy's hockey mask and wielding a kitchen knife.

Similar to both ''Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!'' and ''Josie and the Pussycats'' on CBS, the show depicts the adventures of the titular teen pop group. The band consists of 4 heartthrobs: Butch Cassidy (lead vocals and lead guitar); mini-skirted blonde beauty Merilee (tambourine); sensible Stephanie, nicknamed Steffy (bass guitar); and curly-haired Wally (drums). Accompanied by Wally's dog Elvis, these popular rock stars lead double lives as government-backed crime-fighters.

The teens are advised by a supercomputer named Mr. Socrates, who is (somehow) violently allergic to dogs. When the group meets with Mr. Socrates in his lair for their latest assignment, Elvis is always told to stay outside. Yet Elvis always ends up inside the lair, by his own ingenuity and/or by Wally's forgetfulness. Elvis's mere presence causes Mr. Socrates to sneeze and go haywire; Mr. Socrates then sends the group out of the lair, and off to their assignment. Butch, designated as "Sundance 1", wears a special communicator-ring which keeps him in contact with Mr. Socrates.

An unnamed Italian aristocrat falls off his horse while playing the role of Henry IV during carnevale festivities, which take place annually before Lent. After he comes to, he believes himself to be Henry. For the next twenty years, his family, including his sister and now his nephew, Marchese Carlo Di Nolli, maintain an elaborate charade in a remote Umbrian villa, decorated to resemble Henry's imperial palace at Goslar and staffed with servants hired to play the roles of Henry's privy councillors and simulate the eleventh-century court.

De Nolli's dying mother requests that he bring a doctor, Dionisio Genoni, who is referred to as the latest in a succession to try to cure Henry. All the action of the play occurs on the day of the doctor's visit.

Accompanying de Nolli and the doctor are: * Lady Matilda Spina, (whom Henry loved, unrequited, before the accident), a widow. A portrait of the young Matilda in costume from the pageant, dressed as Matilda of Tuscany hangs on the wall of the throne room. * Frida, her daughter, de Nolli's fiancée. Frida is now the spitting image of her mother as she was then. * Baron Tito Belcredi, Matilda's lover * Two valets in costume * Giovanni, an old servant * Four so-called Privy Counselors: Landolph (Lolo), Harold (Franco), Ordulph (Momo), Berthold (Fino)

In the first two acts the visitors play parts from the period whilst interacting with Henry.

The play begins with the induction of Berthold into the band of privy councillors. He has prepared for the part in Henry IV's court. The visitors then arrive and are later introduced to Henry. Henry mistakes the disguised Belcredi for the monk Peter Damian and reacts angrily, but is later calmed.

Act two begins with speculation among the visitors about Henry, as well as what he sees in Matilda, who argues constantly with Belcredi. Henry enters once more and his behaviour is increasingly erratic. Once the visitors arrive Henry declares to his councillors that he is not truly mad, but has been aware of the nature of his existence for some time. However he has preferred to stay as he was than to live in the 20th century (the play is set around 1900). His behaviour and speech remain abnormal.

Upon learning of this revelation the visitors confront Henry, who acts angrily to them, particularly Belcredi. At the end of the act he grabs Frida, who is dressed as in the portrait in preparation for the Doctor's plan to shock Henry out of his madness. In the ensuing altercation Henry stabs Belcredi. The visitors flee, and Henry resumes his regal persona as the curtain falls.

Set in January 1948, the film opens in an officers' mess of an unnamed Highland Battalion, Jock Sinclair announces that this is his last day as acting commanding officer. The hard-drinking Sinclair, who is still only a major despite having been in command (as a gazette lieutenant colonel) since the battalion's last full colonel was killed in action during the North Africa Campaign, is to be replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Basil Barrow. Although Sinclair led the battalion through the remainder of the war, winning a DSO as he took it "from Dover to Berlin" (He also holds an MM a medal only awarded to Other Ranks), Brigade HQ considers Barrow—whose ancestor founded the battalion—a more appropriate peacetime commanding officer.

Colonel Barrow arrives a day early and finds the officers dancing rowdily. He declines sharing a whisky with Sinclair, taking a soft drink instead. They exchange histories. Sinclair enlisted as bandsman in Glasgow and rose through the ranks, Barrow came from Oxford University. He served with the battalion in 1933. Assigned to "special duties", he has lectured at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Sinclair humorously notes that he was in Barlinnie Prison's cooler for being drunk and disorderly one night in 1933. When Sinclair presses Barrow about his war years, he replies that he, too, was "in jail". Sinclair recalls that Barrow was a prisoner of the Japanese and belittles the experience—"officers' privileges and amateur dramatics". Barrow simply replies that Barlinnie would have been preferable. At 3 am, Sinclair and Scott are drinking, alone. Sinclair reveals his frustrations and plans: "I've acted Colonel, I should be Colonel, and by God... I bloody well will be Colonel!"

Meanwhile, Morag, Sinclair's daughter, is shown secretly meeting an enlisted piper, Corporal Piper Ian Fraser.

Barrow immediately passes several orders designed to instill strict battalion discipline. Particularly resented is an order that all officers take lessons in Highland dancing to prepare for the cocktail party Barrow plans for Feb. 20, the first postwar official barracks party. Men who have been dancing for decades are insulted and angry at being told not to raise their arms overhead, for example. The townspeople enjoy the party, but when the dancing becomes rowdy, Barrow is infuriated. Red-faced and screaming, he ends the party. He flees in a jeep, accompanied by Capt. Cairns, in whom he confides. The thought of leading this battalion kept him alive while the Japanese drowned him repeatedly. When a sympathetic Cairns says that he triumphed and survived, Barrow replies that he did not “survive.”

Sinclair finds Corporal Fraser with Morag in a pub and punches him. "Bashing a corporal" is a severe offence, and Barrow decides to begin an inquiry, meaning a court-martial. Sinclair persuades Barrow to back down, promising support in the future. Once safe, he reneges, and other officers virtually ignore Barrow in the mess. In the billiard room, Major Charlie Scott – with glacial cruelty – says that Sinclair is really in charge and suggests that Barrow join the other acolytes. Face wet with tears, Barrow walks upstairs. Jock and others join Charlie in the billiard room. Suddenly, a gunshot echoes from upstairs. Barrow has shot himself in the tub room.

Sinclair is calm when explaining what must be done to the young officer of the day, but when he is alone, he whispers as he backs out of the room: It's not the dead body he fears, it's the ghost.

He calls a meeting to announce his plans for a grandiose funeral, "fit for a field marshal" as one man says, complete with a march through the town in which the pipers will play all the "Tunes of Glory". When one officer points to the manner of the colonel's death, Sinclair insists it was not suicide, but murder, he being the murderer and the other senior officers accomplices. While Sinclair loses himself in his vision of the cortège, all leave, except for Cairns and Scott. Sinclair disintegrates, burying his head in his tam and sobbing, "I'm fashed"!…Oh my babies. Take me home". They support him from the barracks, and Cairns rides with him as he is driven away, officers and men saluting as he passes. Bagpipes play as snow begins to fall.

King of Hell, Takes place in the past in the Land of Korea and its corresponding realms of afterlife, commonly referred to as the next world or hell in the manga . The story primarily revolves around Majeh, the envoy to the next world, and his existence as a servant to the King of "Hell".

In the beginning the King of Hell focuses on Majeh's work as the envoy for spirits to the next world and his various other roles as the servant for the King of Hell. As the storyline develops, we learn of Majeh's past life in which he was a legendary swordsman and martial artist. Because of his past life, Majeh, upon his death, was sent to a special realm in the next world. This realm, known as "Moorim of the next world," is reserved for great warriors who past lives were deemed to be either evil or to be a great threat to other and possibly a threat to the Kingdom of Hell. Upon His arrival to Moorim, Majeh was challenged by over 50 warrior at once and he easily defeated them without any struggle. Because of this incident, Majeh was considered to be one of the most dangerous people in Moorim and was removed by the King and made envoy to the next world.

Beginning of the series

Aware of Majeh's incredible power, the council of the Next World declared that he was too dangerous and placed a seal on him, causing Majeh to revert to his teenage form and suppressing the vast majority of his powers. However, even in his teenage form, Majeh is still an incredible martial artists who has no trouble in defeating most of his opponents as well as any martial artists he may come across in the living world. Samhuk, A member of Hell's greatest inspection organization, is observing Majeh's movements as he was ordered to by the King of Hell. Early in the manhwa, Samhuk is caught by Majeh and forced to be his slave or die by his hand. Samhuk, being told of Majeh's power, reluctantly agrees and ends up as a slave and a punching bag for Majeh. It is soon discovered that a rift between the two worlds has opened letting demons crossover and Majeh is ordered to hunt them down.

While on his task to rid the world of the newly freed demons, Majeh is ordered to return to Hell where he learn of a new calamity has occurred and Hell's most wicked Demons, those who resided in Moorim, have escaped into the world of Mortals. However, because the escaped fiends are malignant spirits and evil they must find the body of a recently deceased martial artist to fully utilize their lethal martial arts. Majeh is tasked to arrest these formidable enemies to which He refuses.

The King of Hell, with not other choice, tricks Majeh into going back to his preserved body. Upon his return to the mortal world into his old body, Majeh reverts to his teenage form, due to the sealing spell that was placed on his spirit in the next world. Now back in the mortal world, Majeh has no choice but to complete his task, but is now severely disadvantaged due to his body being that of his teenage years.

Martial Arts Tournament Arc

Shortly after being returned to his body, Majeh meets Chung Poong, a skilled martial arts disciple who is constantly paralyzed with fear in battle, and Dohwa, a female fighter who specialized in the art of poisonous needles.

Just for fun, Majeh decides to accompany them to a martial arts contest which is for fighters under the age of 15. Dohwa, being older, is unable to participate due to the fact that the contest for martial artists over the age of 15 had already finished its registry a day earlier to their arrival. Majeh, his natural state being suppressed to that of a teenage boy, enters the contest with Chung Poong. Also entering the tournament are five martial arts prodigies.

These martial art prodigies are as follows: Crazy Dog (martial artist, no affiliation), Young (assassin, Mooyoung Moon Sect), Dohak (monk, Sorim sect), Poong Chun (Shaman, Shaman Sect), and Baby( ??, Blood Sect). As the tournament progresses, the Majeh meets and learns about some of the prodigies and somewhat of their backgrounds. Meanwhile, in the backgrounds of the tournament, it seems that there are people undermining the tournament to ultimately cause a rift between the light and dark sects to put into motion a possible war between the two factions. The tournament itself if being held by one of the light sects and one if it seminaries Mo Young, a good man who believes that there are forces that are trying to start a war in the world but is unsure to what end.

After two day of the tournament, two of the five prodigies, Poong Chun (defeated by Majeh) and Dohak (Defeated by Crazy Dog), and as well as Chung Poong were eliminated from the tournament. The next fights were Majeh versus Crazy Dog, and Young versus Baby. The fight between Young and Baby resulting in Young resigning stating "My senses are telling me it would be a mistake fighting you." The fight between Majeh and Crazy Dog does not finish as the tournament is interrupted by one of the Moorim demons. Crazy dog is killed by the demon when he attacks him for interfering in his and Majeh's fight.

The fight that ensues is the hardest that Majeh has had yet in the Manhwa. And it is soon realized the power gap between Majeh (in his current form) and the Moorim Demon. Mo Young attempts to intervene but is quickly out matched. Samhuk leaves and informs the King of Hell of the situation and the king informs Samhuk that hope is not lost, because as Majeh gets closer to the line between life and death, the special seal that limits his power weakens and Majeh is allowed to return to his adult form. The end result is that the Moorim demon is no match for Majeh in his adult form.

Missing martial artists

After the martial arts tournament, the assassin prodigy, Young, tags along with Majeh to find missing martial artists while Dohwa and Chung Poong go on a side mission to find a magical tablet that will help make them stronger. Majeh and Young uncover the crimes and plans of an old group called the Sa Gok, a group thought to have been wiped out, this group plans to rule the world by eliminating both the White and Dark Sects, they were planning new plots to go on with their task. The Sa Gok had turned the missing martial artists into zombies and would use them to start a Great War between the "good" and "evil" sects in Korea.

Majeh then dragged Young out to Devil Mountain to investigate rumors of a tomb recently found there. This is where the title King of Pa Chun first comes up, a legendary swordsman from 300 years before who rocked the martial arts world. The funny thing is that Majeh happens to know exactly where the King of Pa Chun and his legendary sword was buried and it is not in Devil Mountain. Majeh eventually reveals to all of his fellow treasure hunters, including Chung Poong and Dohwa, that the rumors of a tomb and treasure were an elaborate trap.

Majeh was able to stop the Great War cold then left to continue hunting down the remaining six escaped fiends. The first one he encounters is the old man that interrupts the young dragon tournament. He encounters another fiend while on a side errand for the martial arts leader and helps the monk it was trying to possess destroy the fiend completely. He encounters two more on Raven Ghost Ilse leaving only three (the second one was defeated by the "heaven sage" monk at his death) more for him to find. The only problem is that to get enough power to defeat them he has to die.