The Goodies are asked to help with the public image of the police, because nobody likes them. The police have no idea why they are so unpopular because of their rotten behaviour. Deputy Commissioner Butcher of the City Police, and the sergeant accompanying him, rough the Goodies up, demanding that they help. The Goodies are terrified, but they agree to help anyway.

The Goodies, dressed as policemen, turn an Identikit into an Identikit Game (for all the family), and open "''The Coppe Shoppe''" (where they sell handcuffs as a 'charm bracelet', and also sell police helmets). Riding their trandem, they give flowers to people, take away restrictive traffic signs and traffic meters, paint LOVE on the road, block off some streets so that children can use the streets to play in, and go swimming in a "no swimming" area at a park. Everyone begins to love the police, including small children (who run to the Goodies and mob them, whenever they see them).

The Goodies are eventually arrested for 'breaking the law' and appear in Court on trial for their misdeeds. They discover that the Judge is actually the Deputy Commissioner who hired them, and that a policeman is acting as both the Prosecutor and Defence Counsel. The jury, likewise, is completely composed of policemen (who also double as witnesses in the trial) and they all declare the Goodies guilty immediately — even before the trial begins. All seems hopeless, until Tim makes an impassioned plea to the Judge, commenting that it was the Judge, himself, who asked them to make the police more popular.

The Goodies are asked to take care of 12-year-old Cecily and her house while her Uncle and Aunt (with whom she lives) are away for a day and night. It seems to be easy money for the Goodies, so they agree. Tim is to be Cecily's nanny, Bill is to be the cook, and Graeme is to be the gardener (a play on his surname).

The Goodies ride their trandem to the house and meet Cecily's rather grave, spooky-voiced uncle and nervous, giggly aunt. They tell the Goodies cryptically that Cecily will likely not be living with them for very much longer, and then leave. The pair seem to give the Goodies the shivers, but the trio agree to go through with the job, starting on the to-do list left for them. Graeme struggles with the garden, which is a practical jungle that seems to have a mind of its own, while Bill and Tim have the same issues in the kitchen with equipment and objects that bizarrely refuse to work. Eventually some of the garden plants come to life and steal the oven out of the kitchen, prompting Bill to give up the hopeless task of cooking an egg and cheese savoury pie and just make an urn out of the clay-like dough instead.

Tim goes to wake Cecily, who was taking a nap, only to be attacked by her as soon as he wakes her. She apologizes and says that she thought he was going to hurt her, and explains that her Uncle and Aunt mistreat her and kill any nannies that come to the house whom she likes. Tim dismisses this, until Cecily shows him the skeleton of one of said nannies in the cellar. This sends Tim into a state of shock, and Graeme and Bill ask Cecily to explain what's going on. Cecily claims they kill all her nannies and leave the skeletons for her to find, attempting to frighten her to death. She shows them a will which states that she is the primary heir of a fortune, which reverts to her Aunt and Uncle if they outlive her. She also explains the whole house and garden are booby trapped in hopes of killing her or scaring her to death and making it look like an accident, and furthermore they have put a magic curse on her to haunt the house and grounds in further hopes of killing her. Tim, trying to be brave, says that this must all be a misunderstanding and takes her out to play. However, he finds himself bearing the brunt of many strange happenings and booby traps, including the famous kite and river scene that was used in the opening credits of the Goodies for many seasons.

At night, the three Goodies send Cecily to bed and promise to stay up keep watch, starting a game of Happy Families. However, the house comes to life with monsters, ghouls, and goblins, prompting the trio to spend the night outdoors. In the morning, they whisper to Cecily at the breakfast table that they are going to help free her of her Aunt and Uncle. Said Aunt and Uncle arrive unexpectedly early, but the Goodies refuse to accept payment for their services (fearing it may well be a trap) and hurry out to the summer house, where they have packed some of Cecily's things. She meets them there and they give her what they've packed and send her away in secret. Almost immediately, they are confronted by her panicked Aunt and Uncle, who reprimand them for letting Cecily loose. It turns out SHE is the psychopath and author of all the strange happenings, not them, and this statement is proved a moment later when Cecily blows up both the summer house and the main house with dynamite, leaving the Aunt and Uncle and the Goodies to flee the scene in smoking rags.

The story begins as a scientist, known as the Professor, flees through space from a mysterious enemy known only as the "CosmoNOTs" (Cosmic Nihilist Organization for Terror). He crash lands on a strange planet, losing the "cells" that power his ship. Without power, he is stranded. He enlists the help of Terry, a young boy. Terry agrees to help the Professor by exploring the planet and locating the cells. Helping the Professor is the only way that Terry will be able to get home, but the Klaxon Army are tracking them down, the cells are hidden in some dangerous areas and, as the game progresses, the Professor's intentions are slowly thrown deeper and deeper into question.

The player is included in the story-line as a separate character from Terry, and the game's characters recognize the player as "controlling" Terry using the DS, breaking the fourth wall, and assisting him through the use of 'decals' - sticker-like items that apply specific, often powerful effects. Throughout the game, the Professor will talk directly to the player to give hints on how to use the controls and to voice his concerns about Terry. The Professor is eager to keep the player's existence and their role in Terry's life a secret from the boy.

The protagonist, Mercer, who lives within the Empire, has been convicted of "a crime that has no name". He is condemned by the Empire to the planet Shayol, in which he lives in a penal colony whose inhabitants must undergo grotesque physical mutations caused by tiny symbiotes called ''dromozoans''. Most grow extra organs, which the Empire harvests for medical purposes. The bull-man B'dikkat administers the prisoners a drug called super-condamine to alleviate the pain of their punishment and from their surgeries.

More than a century pass. Mercer has found a lover, named Lady Da. B'dikkat shows the couple a sight that horrifies him. Children have been sent to Shayol, alive, though with their brains removed. Lady Da knows how to contact the Lords of the Instrumentality, in order to intervene. The Lords arrive on Shayol. They are shocked by what they find. The children are the heirs to the throne. Apparently, the Imperium has become so bureaucratic and corrupt that it condemned them to prevent them committing treason when they matured.

The Instrumentality voids their permission to allow the Empire to exist and to maintain Shayol. They will free the still sentient prisoners and to cure their suffering with a substitute for the super-condamine, namely an electronic "cap" which actives the pleasure center. The mindless prisoners are decapitated, leaving their bodies to be handled by the dromozoa while their heads are destroyed. Lady Da claims Mercer as her consort.

Commander Suzdal appeared in "The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal", a story set earlier in fictional history than this one. It apparently takes place in the Bright Empire from other of the Instrumentality works.

Ross (David Schwimmer) and Carol (Jane Sibbett) inform the others that their son Ben (Jack and Charlie Allen) has an audition for a soup commercial, which Joey (Matt LeBlanc) finds hard to accept. When he learns that the TV commercial also has a part for the father, he volunteers himself for the audition. Both Joey and Ben are chosen for the callback but a lack of similarity in looks among the remaining actors makes the director cast them with different individuals, therefore ensuring only one of them can be chosen for the commercial. Joey is paired up with a famous child actor. He talks to Ross about the callback in an attempt to make Ben back out of the audition which Ross finds unreasonable as it was Ben's audition in the first place, and Joey just invited himself along. Both end up fighting over it, which drags on until the callback is held. Joey messes up his two-word line: "mmm soup", ultimately losing him the part. Later, Ross consoles him, and then hypothesizes that subconsciously, Joey sabotaged his own audition because he cares about Ben, to which Joey agrees. Ross then informs him that Ben also did not get the part.

On her first day working at Ralph Lauren, Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) tries to get along with her new colleague and boss, Nancy and Kim. The latter two are smokers, and go on a cigarette break, which Rachel cannot join as she does not smoke and she is angered to find that Nancy and Kim are busy making company decisions without her during the smoking break. Rachel fears for her position, as Kim and Nancy spend more time together during smoking breaks and have a better chance to bond, and thus Nancy is most probably going to get promotions. To make an effort and bond with her co-workers, Rachel goes with them and smokes a cigarette. She is not enthusiastic to fall into the bad habit and tries to talk Kim and Nancy into quitting which comes to no avail, later catching them smoking behind her back. Kim warns Rachel that she would fire her if she catches her with a cigarette as she does not want to "drag her down with them". She forces Rachel to leave, just as she invites Nancy to go on a business trip to Paris with her.

Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) and Monica (Courteney Cox) organize a surprise party for Rachel one month ahead of her birthday, but Monica's insistence to take responsibility over everything leaves Phoebe with only cup and ice duties. However, Phoebe vows to get back at Monica. At the party, the apartment is overflowing with decorations and made of cups, and everyone is enjoying the snow cones Phoebe has made with the ice, meaning all of Monica's food is ignored. Rachel arrives home and is very surprised to find the party, given that Chandler's (Matthew Perry) birthday is before hers.

In the tag scene, Chandler arrives up on the Ralph Lauren rooftop to take Rachel to lunch, only to be informed by Nancy and Kim that she is in her office. However, Chandler, distracted by all the smoke, quickly puffs at Kim's cigarette before leaving.

Combat screenshot

Immediately prior to ''Brotherhood of Steel'', the three playable characters (Cain, Cyrus, and Nadia) have joined the Brotherhood as new Initiates. After selecting which character to play as (hereafter referred to as the Initiate), the game opens with the Initiate searching for missing Paladins in the nearby town of Carbon. Minor investigation leads the Initiate to question the Mayor of the town, who demands the destruction of a radscorpion lair before he will reveal any information. Also, the Initiate gains the trust of Jesse, a trader, and Vidaya, the town doctor. Once the radscorpions are defeated, the Mayor informs the Initiate of the direction the paladins were last known to be traveling. The Initiate goes into the Crater near the town to find the Paladins. Unfortunately, the Mayor reveals himself shortly afterward to be a treacherous man, and attempts to murder the Initiate using explosives. However, he only succeeds in causing a rock slide and killing himself. Blocked by the rocks, the Initiate heads back to Carbon to find it being looted by raiders, who must then be defeated. The townsfolk have holed up in the warehouse while the Initiate rescues others who didn't make it to the warehouse. When that is done, the Raider lair is discovered to be the nearby former steel mill. The Initiate (with some inventory help from Jesse) goes in and defeats the Raider Matron. While here, the Initiate meets up with the Vault Dweller (the protagonist from the original game) and get directed to look for the Paladin Rhombus in the ghoul town of Los (formerly the outskirts of Los Ybanez).

The Initiate leaves for the town of Los, they meet up with Harold and many of the ghouls in the town. Paladins from a separatist faction of the Brotherhood formed a cult known as the Church of the Lost. The leader of the separatist faction, Rhombus, accompanies the Initiate on a quest to kill Blake, the leader of the cult. The Initiate moves around the town of Los killing mutants who are following Blake, and meets up with some ghoul brothers that are competing merchants. Along the way, Rhombus is captured, and the Initiate frees him after killing Blake. The Initiate discovers a key on the cult leader's body. In their haste to escape, however, Rhombus is mortally wounded by kamikaze ghouls and the Initiate must go on without him. Inquiring around the city, the Initiate learns of a nearby vault that may be held by the Super Mutant army, under the direction of Attis.

The Initiate goes to the vault, but is found by the mutant general Attis. After a brief fight, Attis severs the left arm of the Initiate and dumps him in some ruins of the vault. Having been left for dead, the Initiate is discovered and assisted by Patty some time later. After regaining the use of the left arm again, the Initiate helps the residents of the vault to evacuate. The Initiate goes deep into the computer core of the vault to open the AUX AC ducts so the residents can escape. The Initiate goes back into the Ruins to find the Laboratory passkey to find Attis. After retrieving the passkey, the Initiate finds that the Super Mutant army has found the Garden area where the residents were hiding and started massacring them all. One of the residents sacrifices himself to give the residents time to escape. After clearing out the Mutants in the Garden, the Initiate heads down into the Laboratory. Attis went there to find a "cure" of sorts, because of the FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus), the Mutants are sterile. While the Initiate was searching for Attis, Patty followed him and got caught when Attis exploded. During the climactic battle, Patty is caught by the blob, and it begins to consume her from the inside. The Initiate, before being caught by Attis as well, is able to start a self-destruct sequence for the vault and quickly performs a mercy killing on Patty before escaping the ensuing destruction via monorail.

Mike Raglan, a middle-aged man who specializes in paranormal investigations (and normally debunking the phenomena) has received urgent phone calls and mail from an old friend of his, Erik Hokart. Hokart was an independently wealthy scientist, inventor, and businessman who made his fortune in electronics. He was investigating a mysterious mountainous area in the Southwest, intending to build a secluded home on top of one particular mesa around which rumors had long swirled. His messages to Mike intimated that he was in deep trouble and desperately needed someone of his talents.

Hokart doesn't show up at the designated meeting spot, but the next day Mike receives a package from him, delivered by an exotic female beauty. A man breaks into his room to try to steal the package, and is chased off with an Eric Ambler book and a threat from a .357 Magnum.

The package contains Erik Hokart's journal of his quasi-archaeological expedition. The first night on the chosen mesa, glowing lines appear on the blueprint, of a kiva (a room used for religious rituals) attached to the ruins of the house Hokart was using as a makeshift shelter. Hokart is a little perturbed when the glowing lines turn out to be correct, and he begins to excavate the underground kiva even though it looks to have been deliberately buried. It creeps out both him and his large guard dog, "Chief".

Fully excavated, the kiva reveals itself as anomalous in having no sipapu but rather a blind window made out of a curious gray substance. After he finishes, Hokart discovers that a pencil of his had been stolen and replaced with a jar. Afraid, Hokart begins to leave; Chief mistakes his abrupt movements for an intention to attack the kiva and plunges through the window and into a far invisible distance through to an alternate dimension. Erik begins to consider the legends and beliefs of the Hopi: they say their people originally came from the Third World, which was evil, and so they climbed up into a kiva in this, the Fourth World, to escape it; the obvious speculation is that a malign power of the Third World was sealed by the burial of the kiva and that it wants the window to this world opened back up.

Erik rests. His pencil is returned the next day, worn down to a nub. He resharpens it and sets out again. They too vanish, as well as one of his cardigan sweaters. The sweater returns with a newly made twin. Two days later, Chief returns, apparently none the worse for wear.

Having read thus far in Hokart's journal, Mike prepares to travel to the mesa, to personally investigate. He pauses to read further. As Hokart resolved to leave now that his dog had been returned, he is confronted by a striking raven-haired ivory-skinned woman who imperiously orders him to accompany her back through the portal in the kiva. He refuses, struck by a sense of menace and evil radiating from her, and leaves immediately. On the way down, he meets a young girl named Kawasi, who explains that she is a renegade from the Third World and that the woman was a "Poison Woman" who intended to imprison or kill him. They escape, and stop at a restaurant for dinner. He instructs Kawasi to get his journal to Mike, when the restaurant is surrounded by hired thugs. The journal ends with Erik making a break for the jeep and ordering Kawasi out the back.

Mike discovers that the restaurant concerned had been destroyed that night in an abrupt and inexplicable fire. He finds Kawasi waiting for him in another nearby restaurant. She tells him, that night ended in Hokart's kidnapping. They are approached by the local constable, Gallagher. They forthrightly answer his questions and tell him the tale up to that point. Gallagher doesn't quite believe them, but he maintains an open mind.

Raglan determines to go into the Third World (named Shibalba by its inhabitants, who suffer under the decaying and decadent totalitarian regime of "The Hand" and his Lords of Shibalba) to rescue Hokart; the kiva entrance is surely guarded now, so he intends to use a map to Shibalba he was given by an old cowboy who had stolen gold from, and barely escaped alive, the Third World. On his way, he meets "Tazzoc", a historian/archivist of Shibalba's forgotten archives, who tells Raglan much about Shibalba and its rulers; he wants to dissuade Raglan from his quest because it is hopeless and could only lead to trouble.

At the designated place, Raglan is frightened off by the presence of a squad of investigating Shibalban soldiers, "the Varanel, the Night Guards of Shibalba". Raglan confers with Gallagher and Tazzoc again, who promises to leave some native clothes at the kiva entrance so Raglan can better blend in; Raglan promises to do what he could to save Tazzoc's archives and get them into wider circulation. A confrontation with a local agent of the Hand, Eden Foster, only ends up as a brawl which Raglan wins.

He enters the Third World, enlisting the aid of Johnny (an old cowboy who had been trapped in the Third World for decades) as backup. Raglan rendezvouses with Tazzoc in his archives, located within the mazy trap-filled citadel the Hand lives in and where Hokart is presumably being held, the Forbidden. The archives hold an ancient map from when the Forbidden was first built, and with its aid he finds Hokart's cell – although he is hunted through the Forbidden by the ambitious and arrogant agent Zipacna and his Varanel goons. Raglan's pistols win through the Varanel and rescue the starving Hokart. They break out and Johnny discourages pursuit with his big rifle laying down covering fire on the pursuing Varanel.

A day later, as the portal back to the Fourth World quavers and begins to collapse, they meet Volkmeer, an old friend Raglan had left to guard the kiva who has entered the employ of the Hand, and attempt to escape the Third World. Raglan, Hokart, and the others escape, but Volkmeer is caught in the portal as it becomes quiescent, and is killed.

The film concerns a middle-aged railway pointsman, Maloin (Miroslav Krobot), who lives in a decrepit apartment in a port town with his highly-strung wife Camélia (Tilda Swinton) and his daughter Henriette (Erika Bók). One night while in his viewing tower at the port's rail terminus, Maloin witnesses a fight on the dockside. One of the shady combatants is knocked into the water along with the briefcase he carries; when the other flees the dark quayside, Maloin makes a clandestine descent from the tower and retrieves the briefcase, which he finds full of sodden English banknotes. Maloin conceals the money and tells no-one of what he has seen. The next morning, he visits a tavern where he plays chess with the barkeep (Gyula Pauer). On his way home, he stops by the butcher's where his daughter works, and finds to his indignation that they have her washing the floor. Later, from the window of his apartment, he notices Brown (János Derzsi) watching him from below. At dinner, Maloin is increasingly irascible, addressing Henriette brusquely and arguing with Camélia. Meanwhile, Brown searches the water at the dock's edge without success before noticing the watchtower overlooking the quayside, and Maloin within.

Later at the tavern, a police inspector from London named Morrison (István Lénárt) discusses with Brown the matter of the stolen money. Morrison claims to be working on behalf of a theater owner named Mitchell, a theatre owner from whose office safe the £55,000 was stolen. Morrison proposes that Brown, being intimately familiar with Mitchell's office, is the only man he knows who was capable of making away with the money without raising alarm. Morrison indicates that Mitchell cares only that the money is returned swiftly, and is even prepared to offer a two nights' theater takings in exchange. When Morrison mentions having visited Brown's wife and asks what he should tell Mitchell, Brown leaves the room under a pretense and slips out a side door. Nearby playing chess with the barkeep, Maloin has overheard the conversation.

Maloin calls to the butcher's and drags Henriette from the store against her will and over the protestations of the butcher's wife (Kati Lázár). He brings her to the tavern for a drink, where he overhears the barkeep telling another patron the story of Brown's meeting with the inspector, revealing that Morrison had called the local police when Brown absconded. Though Henriette refuses her drink, Maloin buys her an expensive mink stole. They return home to the consternation of Camélia, who cannot comprehend why Maloin has ruined Henriette's chances of a job and spent what little savings the family had on the extravagant stole. During Maloin's shift the next night he is visited by Morrison, who questions him as to the previous night's events as the body of the drowned man is retrieved from the quayside below.

The next day at the tavern, Morrison meets Brown's wife (Agi Szirtes), and tells her that Brown is under suspicion for the theft and for the murder at the quayside. He asks for her help in finding him and repeats to her Mitchell's offer to Brown, but she remains silent. At home, Henriette tells Maloin she found a man in their hut at the seaside, and in fear locked the door and ran home. An agitated Maloin tells her not to tell anyone, and leaves for the hut. He unlocks the door, and receiving no response to his calling Brown's name, steps inside, closing the door behind. Minutes later he re-emerges, breathing heavily. After pausing to compose himself, he locks the door and leaves. In the next scene, Maloin presents the briefcase to Morrison in the tavern, and asks him to arrest him, confessing to having killed Brown an hour ago. Morrison leaves with Maloin for the hut, dismissing the frenzied inquiries of Brown's wife about her husband and handing the briefcase to the barkeep on the way out. Brown's wife follows the men to the hut, and emerges weeping with Morrison moments later. Back at the tavern, Morrison prepares two envelopes with a small portion of the recovered money in each. One he leaves with the grieving widow to whom he apologizes and wishes well, while the other he gives to Maloin, telling him that his case was one of self-defense. As he is preparing to leave, Morrison advises Maloin to go home and forget the whole affair. The camera focuses on the expressionless face of Brown's wife momentarily before fading to white.

Jeremy, an émigré from Manchester, owns a small New York City café. It becomes a haven for Elizabeth, as he provides her with clues which soon reveal that her boyfriend is cheating on her. Devastated, she leaves, but returns for solace and to share stories.

Jeremy explains his bowl of keys, and the story behind each, while she gluttonously eats his blueberry pie until she falls asleep. He tries to steal a kiss while Elizabeth sleeps, and she pretends to continue sleeping. But after the kiss she subtly smiles, but he doesn't see it. Elizabeth leaves Jeremy's café and he puts the key to her and her ex's in the key bowl.

Elizabeth, now calling herself Lizzie, eventually drifts to Memphis, Tennessee, where she takes two jobs, waitress by day and barmaid by night, to earn enough money to finance the purchase of a car. She regularly sends postcards to Jeremy, taking a liking to him, without revealing where she lives or works and, although he tries to locate her by calling all the restaurants in the area, he fails to find her. Later on, he decides to send out postcards to any restaurants she may be at to try to find her.

One of Lizzie's regulars at both jobs is local police officer Arnie Copeland, an alcoholic who cannot accept his wife Sue Lynne has left him. She flaunts her debauchery by openly socializing with a younger man. He shows Lizzie his many attempts at getting sober have not worked, with a pocket full of AA sobriety tokens.

One night off duty in Lizzie's bar, Arnie drunkenly threatens Sue Lynne with his gun if she leaves. Later on, he drives drunk, crashing into a pole and dies. Lizzie comforts Sue Lynne at the crash site, also where she had met him, suggesting he may have committed suicide. Before both women say goodbye to the town, Sue Lynne gives her Arnie's tab money, admitting she had made a mistake and she misses him.

Heading west, Elizabeth – now Beth – gets another server job at a casino in a small town in Nevada. Here she meets Leslie, an inveterate poker player who has lost all her money. Beth lends her her $2200 in exchange for the money back, plus a third of her winnings or her car, a new Jaguar XK, if she loses. When she loses, she fulfills her promise by giving Beth her Jaguar, but asks for a lift to Las Vegas to borrow money from her father, whom she has not seen in a long time.

En route, a call comes from a Vegas hospital informs Leslie her father has been admitted and is dying. She believes the call is a ruse to lure her back, but upon arrival she discovers he actually died the previous night. Leslie announces she's keeping the car, which she had stolen from her father. He had sent her the title and registration despite their estrangement. She confesses she actually won the poker game and subsequently helps Beth negotiate the purchase of her dream car.

Elizabeth returns to Manhattan and the café, where Jeremy has had a stool at the counter reserved for her ever since she left. As she eats a slice of blueberry pie, Elizabeth realizes her feelings for him are reciprocated. She 'passes out' on the counter after spending the night in conversation. Jeremy again steals a kiss while she is asleep, but now she returns the kiss as the film ends.

Introducing Nobuta

Shuji Kiritani (Kazuya Kamenashi) is a very popular high school boy who is close to Mariko Uehara (Erika Toda), the most popular girl in school, but whom he does not actually love. Akira Kusano (Tomohisa Yamashita), his classmate, does not really have any friends - something that is attributed to the fact that he cannot read the atmosphere well, or rather, he chooses to ignore the atmosphere. One day, a very shy girl, Nobuko Kotani (Maki Horikita) transfers to their school and is instantly picked on by a group of girls for her shyness. As a testimony to their youth, Shuji and Akira team up and decide to "produce" her, to make her popular. They nickname her "Nobuta".

Production of Nobuta

The various episodes deal with the pair's attempts at making Nobuko popular by making her more appealing. Amidst this, a mysterious person insidiously attempts to waylay all of Shuji and Akira's efforts. Fortunately, the trio always manages to pull through with ingenuity.

Finale

Shuji has to cope with his loss of popularity after he is caught out lying about Mariko and does not assist when a classmate is beaten up. Despite this, with the knowledge that his two true friends, Akira and Nobuko, will always be there for him, Shuji gets over it. There is also the revelation of Aoi, Kotani's first friend besides Shuji and Akira, as the mysterious antagonist of the story. In the final episode, Shuji discovers that he and his family must move out of Tokyo because of his father's job. Akira follows Shuji to his new hometown and surprises him by showing up at his new school. Nobuko is left alone in Tokyo, but she has overcome her shyness, and is finally able to smile. She also becomes popular among the other students, and is no longer bullied. The end of the drama sees all three characters being able to "live wherever [they] are", having learned the meaning of friendship and love.

It is a time of great unrest in England. With King Richard the Lionheart held for ransom, the evil Prince John seizes the throne, and declares himself the King of England. The entire nation soon falls into civil war as greedy nobles war amongst themselves and Prince John sends forth armies to shackle the country under his unjust rule.

In this time of lawlessness, only an outlaw can lead the people to freedom. One man, the embodiment of true honor, vows to save his people and restore peace to the land. This man is known as Robin Hood. From the small-scale skirmishes with the Sheriff of Nottingham in Sherwood Forest, Robin finds himself drawn into the larger battlefields of England, and the hero of the poor must become the savior of an entire nation.

The novel is about schoolboys in Józsefváros neighbourhood of Budapest and set in 1889. The Paul Street Boys spend their free time at the ''grund'', an empty lot that they regard as their "Fatherland". The story has two main protagonists, János Boka (the honourable leader of the Paul Street Boys) and Ernő Nemecsek (the smallest member of the group).

When the "Redshirts"—another gang of boys, led by Feri Áts, who gather at the nearby botanical gardens—attempt to take over the ''grund'', the Paul Street Boys are forced to defend themselves in military fashion.

Although the Paul Street Boys win the war, and little Nemecsek repeatedly demonstrates that his bravery and loyalty surpasses his size, the book ends in tragedy: Nemecsek dies of the pneumonia that he caught in the conflict.

In 2100, millions of people were starving due to massive food shortages and has caused civil wars around the world. Centuries later, however, the world government had sent colonists to Mars which began to solve these problems. At a nearby farm, the Infinity chip was discovered and it revealed all the technology of the advanced civilization. In 2309, a Declaration of Independence has been sent to Earth. Large armies have been amassed on Mars, and a gigantic armada was waiting for any attack from Earth. The Earth government sends out a fleet of battleships followed by a special air raid unit called ACID; ACID is equipped with a new fighter ship known as the Mosquito. Their mission is to enter Mars, stop the rebel violence, locate and destroy the rebel leader, whoever... or whatever it may be...

Characters

Crash Bandicoot's model was the only one to be altered for the non-Japanese releases

A number of characters from past ''Crash Bandicoot'' games return in ''Crash Boom Bang!'', though only eight are playable. The playable characters include Crash Bandicoot, Coco Bandicoot, Crunch Bandicoot, Pura, Doctor Neo Cortex, Tawna, Pinstripe Potoroo, and Fake Crash. All of the characters physically appear as they do in official Japanese ''Crash Bandicoot'' artwork and promotions (making the game the only Sierra Entertainment entry in the series to use the Japanese artwork and promotions), though Crash's model was altered for the non-Japanese releases to closer resemble his ''Crash Twinsanity'' model. The host of the party, the Viscount, is an original character designed specifically for the game. His name in the original Japanese version is "Viscount Devil", a reference to the Tasmanian devil native to Australia. Other past characters make cameos in the game at one point or another, such as the Lab Assistants, Doctor N. Gin, Tiny Tiger, Doctor Nefarious Tropy and Polar. Aku Aku serves as the player's tutor, while Uka Uka makes a cameo appearance as a purchaseable item in the shop.

Story

While developing a resort in Tasmania, the Viscount finds a map of an ancient city containing the fabled Super Big Power Crystal. He attempts to find it himself, but due to the large amount of puzzles, he fails miserably. In the resort, the Viscount decides to gather up the world's cleverest and strongest bunch of characters and con them into finding the Crystal for him. He sends an invitation to Coco Bandicoot, inviting her and Crash to the World Cannonball Race, where the winner earns $100 million.

The race starts in a Port Town, with the winners traveling in a boat to a large desert. Legend has it that four stone tablets are buried somewhere in the desert, and the contestants are sent out to dig for them and bring them to the Viscount. According to the stone tablets, the actual location of the Crystal is hidden somewhere on the ancient map. Before he can investigate the matter further, Doctor Neo Cortex swoops in and snatches the map. As the two struggle for the map, the map is torn to shreds.

Cortex sends his loyal Lab Assistants to find the pieces of the map scattered throughout the big City and bring them to him. Now that the contestants know about the map, the Viscount decides to reveal his true intentions: the Super Big Power Crystal can grant a single wish who whoever obtains it, and the Viscount is willing to give a large sum of money to those who help him find it. Finding the Power Crystal is impossible without the Final Key, so the Viscount boards his plane to travel to the North Atlantic Ocean in search for the Final Key. But the plane is full, and only a select number of the contestants are able to board. Propelled to the skies by an explosive volcano, the contestants are able to board the Viscount's plane.

On the Viscount's ship, the Viscount tells the group the story of an explorer who found the Final Key, but was unable to find the Power Crystal. That explorer was the Viscount's grandfather. As the explorer sailed back to his homeland to recollect his thoughts, his ship crashed into an iceberg and sank, taking the Viscount's grandfather to a watery grave. "Sounds like a movie", remarks one of the attendees. The Viscount tells them to dive to the sunken ship and retrieve the Final Key, much to their shock, considering the near-freezing temperatures. Despite this, the group is able to find the Final Key before freezing to death. With all the pieces of the puzzle at hand, the Viscount victoriously enters the Tower, where the Super Big Power Crystal awaits its owner. Just as the Viscount is about to make his wish, Crash steps forward and makes his wish of a large pile of Wumpa Fruit, much to the Viscount's grief. "May peace prevail on Earth", says Coco.

''Ephemeral Fantasia'' is similar to ''The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask'' in that the story transpires over a constantly looping period of five days. This is caused by a time loop created by the main antagonist, Xelpherpolis. In order for the time loop to be halted, Mouse must travel through the same five days multiple times.

This game follows Mouse, who has been summoned by a powerful figure on a remote island to compose a song. Xelpherpolis invites Mouse to play at his wedding, no doubt because of his fame as an excellent musician. Of course, Xelpherpolis doesn't expect him to solve the mystery of the island and free its inhabitants.

The scene is set sometime in the near future, after some type of apocalypse or war, and Thailand has been taken over by the United States.

Just released from prison, aging assassin Bae Buffgun is offered a job – killing Bangkok's police chief. Buffgun forms a team of killers, comprising his old partner, Ghost Rifle and two newcomers, Dog Badbomb, a short-tempered explosives expert and Elvis M-16, who's suffered some of trauma that makes him think he's Elvis Presley.

Meanwhile, Thailand's most deadly assassin, Kit Silencer has also been hired to kill the top cop. Confusion ensues, and even though the chief is killed, the crime lord who hired the killers wants them all dead anyway.

All the hitmen have issues: * Buffgun is guilt-ridden over abandoning his daughter years earlier. * Ghost Rifle is haunted by the accidental shooting of his beautiful wife. * Dog harbours a secret reason for his allegiance to Elvis. * Elvis really believes he is Elvis Presley (and not an Elvis impersonator), and because the real Elvis didn't speak Thai, Elvis M-16 is incapable of understanding the language and can only respond to English commands. But none of the other hitmen speak English. * Kit Silencer is driven by avenging the deaths of his parents, who were killed by a man with a trident tattoo on the inside of his right wrist. He checks everyone he kills or comes into contact with for that tattoo. Buffgun happens to be wearing a bandage over the exact spot on his wrist where a tattoo might be, so Kit suspects the older gunman.

Pete Garden, the protagonist, is one of several residents who own large swathes of property in a depopulated, post-apocalyptic future world. These residents are organized in groups of regular competitors who play a board game called "Bluff". These contestants (or "Bindmen") stake their property, marriages, and future status as eligible game players on its outcomes. Pete also experiences bipolar disorder, which may adversely affect his competence as a Game participant.

The Game is administered by amorphous, silicon-based aliens from Titan, Saturn's largest satellite. These creatures, known as the vugs, are obsessed with gambling. In addition, the Game's exogamy/outcrossing helps to promote human fertility after the devastation of global warfare, after satellite-borne "Henkel Radiation" weaponry from Red China sterilized much of the Earth's population. The vugs exert hegemony over Earth but do not occupy it as such. Instead, it is visualized as a paternalistic relationship. Moreover, while the vugs are telepaths, they do not allow the use of human telepathy or precognition within the context of the Game. The vugs are also involved within human society, using induced hallucination to maintain the semblance of human form. They also perpetuate the charade through the use of physical human shells or simulacra.

At the beginning, Pete has lost his favorite property, Berkeley, and his wife, Freya. Moreover, Berkeley's new owner has sold it to a notoriously corrupt Bindman from the East Coast, Jerome Luckman. Pete misses Freya, and worries about the compatibility of his new wife. He is also attracted to Pat McClain, a mysteriously fertile woman living within his remaining property, as well as Mary Anne, her eighteen-year-old daughter. Pat is a telepath, while her husband Allen is precognitive, and their daughter manifests telekinesis. These telepaths resent the fact that they are not allowed to participate in the Game, due to possible abuse of their abilities during the contest. Pete breaks off his tentative relationship with Pat when he discovers that his new wife, Carol, is pregnant - a rare occurrence in this largely infertile, depopulated world.

Luckman, the new owner of Berkeley, is murdered, and Pete is implicated, along with six other members of his group, Pretty Blue Fox. Pete and the other group members are suffering from induced amnesia, and this only makes them look even more suspicious in the eyes of both vug and human law enforcement officials. Pete discovers that vugs are abusing their own psionic abilities to appear human. However, the vugs also have their own political factions, which further complicates matters. "Extremists" favor subversion and conquest of Earth, while "moderates" favor the status quo of paternalistic collaboration. Fertile humans begin an underground resistance against the vugs, but in the ultimate ironic twist, they are replaced by vugs posing as humans. Pretty Blue Fox syndicate members are teleported to Titan where they play a decisive end-Game with Titanian vug counterparts for the geopolitical future of the United States.

Terms used in the book to refer to sci-fi technology and psychic powers ("psionic abilities") include "Rushmore effect", "Henkel Radiation", and "Pauli effect"/"synchronicity".

In the small fishing town of Nightmute, Alaska, 17-year-old Kay Connell is found murdered. Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) detectives Will Dormer and Hap Eckhart are sent to assist the local police with their investigation. They do so at the request of police chief Nyback, an old colleague of Dormer. Ellie Burr, a young, local detective who is also a fan of Dormer's investigative work, picks them up when they arrive.

Back in Los Angeles, Internal Affairs is investigating one of Dormer's past cases. While in the restaurant of their hotel, Eckhart reveals that he is going to testify against Dormer in exchange for immunity. Dormer responds by noting that many criminals whom he helped to convict using questionable evidence could go free if their cases are reopened.

Dormer cleverly attracts the murderer to the scene of the crime, but the suspect flees into the fog, shooting one of the police officers through the leg. Dormer spots a figure in the fog and fires with his backup weapon when his primary jams. Rushing to the fallen figure, Dormer picks up a .38 pistol the suspect has dropped. He then discovers that he has shot and killed Eckhart.

Because of Eckhart's pending testimony, Dormer knows that Internal Affairs will never believe the shooting was an accident, so he claims that Eckhart was shot by the suspect. He does not mention that he has the .38 pistol. Burr is put in charge of the shooting investigation, and her team finds the .38 caliber bullet that hit the officer. That night, Dormer walks to an alley and fires the .38 pistol into an animal carcass, then retrieves and cleans the bullet. At the morgue, the pathologist hands him the bagged bullet retrieved from Eckhart's body, but she is unfamiliar with its type. Dormer leaves and switches the .38 bullet for the 9 mm slug from Eckhart's body.

Over the next few days, Dormer is plagued by insomnia, brought on by his guilt over killing Eckhart and exacerbated by the perpetual daylight. Dormer starts receiving anonymous phone calls from the killer, who claims to have witnessed Dormer kill his partner. When the police learn that Kay was a fan of local crime writer Walter Finch, Dormer breaks into Finch's apartment in the nearby village of Umkumiut. Finch arrives at home, realizes the police are present, and evades Dormer after a chase. Dormer returns to Finch's apartment and plants the .38 to frame Finch.

Finch contacts Dormer and arranges a meeting on a ferry. Finch wants help in shifting suspicion to Kay's abusive boyfriend Randy Stetz and in return will stay silent about the Eckhart shooting. Dormer gives advice on handling police questioning. After Finch leaves Dormer on the ferry, he shows the detective a tape recorder he used to record the conversation.

Finch calls Dormer and tells him that Kay's death was "an accident"; he beat her to death in a fit of rage after she laughed at his sexual advances. The next day, Finch gives false testimony at the police station. When Finch claims Randy has a gun, Dormer realizes Finch has discovered his plant and has hidden it at Randy's home. Randy is arrested when the gun is found at his house. Finch asks Burr to come to his lake house the next day to collect letters indicating that Randy abused Kay.

Burr returns to the scene of Eckhart's death and finds a 9 mm shell casing, which conflicts with the bullet type from Eckhart's body. She reads her own case study from an investigation Dormer was involved in and learns he has carried a 9 mm, leading her to suspect that he shot Eckhart. Meanwhile, on his last night staying in the hotel, Dormer confides in the hotel owner, Rachel Clement, about the Internal Affairs investigation: He fabricated evidence to help convict a pedophile he was certain was guilty of murdering a child and who would have walked if Eckhart had testified.

Dormer learns that Burr has gone to Finch's. He finds Kay's letters in Finch's apartment and realizes that Finch intends to kill Burr. He learns of Finch's lake house and rushes there. At the house, Finch knocks Burr unconscious just as Dormer arrives, and takes Burr's gun. Dormer is too disoriented from lack of sleep to fight off Finch. Burr revives and saves Dormer, while Finch escapes. Burr reveals she knows Dormer shot Eckhart, and he admits that he is no longer certain if it was an accident. From his shed, Finch shoots at them with a shotgun, and Burr returns fire with Dormer's gun while Dormer sneaks around to Finch's location. After a scuffle in which Dormer grabs Finch's shotgun, Finch shoots Dormer with Burr's gun, and Dormer shoots and kills Finch with the shotgun.

Burr rushes to the fatally wounded Dormer and comforts him by affirming that Eckhart's shooting was accidental, then moves to throw away the 9 mm shell casing to preserve Dormer's reputation. Dormer stops her, however, telling her to "not lose her way" as he had. Dormer says his last words "just let me sleep" and dies just as Burr puts the bullet back in the evidence bag.

When 17-year-old Tanja is found murdered in the city of Tromsø, far up in the Norwegian Arctic, Kripos police officers Jonas Engström (Stellan Skarsgård) and Erik Vik (Sverre Anker Ousdal) are called in to investigate. Engström is a police inspector formerly with the Swedish police who moved to Norway after being caught having sex with the main witness in one of his cases. Vik is nearing retirement age, and his memory is failing.

Engström devises a plan to lure the murderer back to the scene of the crime, but the stakeout is blown and the murder suspect flees into the fog. Events take a turn for the worse when the fugitive shoots one of the pursuing unarmed Norwegian police officers. Without telling his colleagues, however, Engström carries a gun from his days in the Swedish police, who routinely carry firearms. While shooting at what he believes to be the suspect, Engstrom accidentally kills Vik, who had mistakenly run right instead of left as ordered.

Engström initially tells the truth about the shooting, but realises that everyone assumes that the fugitive shot Vik. He decides to conceal his culpability. When one of his colleagues, Hilde Hagen (Gisken Armand), is assigned to investigate Vik's death, Engström becomes worried about ballistic fingerprinting and tampers with evidence to support his story. Haunted by guilt and unable to sleep with the midnight sun of the Arctic, Engström becomes increasingly unhinged and starts hallucinating about Vik. Things become even worse when he learns that Tanja's murderer saw him shoot Vik.

Engström learns from one of Tanja's friends that she had been seeing Jon Holt (Bjørn Floberg), a crime novelist. He correctly deduces that Holt killed Tanja, but Holt blackmails Engström with his knowledge of the Vik shooting. The two meet and decide to frame Tanja's boyfriend Eilert for her murder, with Engström later planting Holt's gun under Eilert's bed. However, Hagen is not convinced of Eilert's involvement, and when new evidence emerges, Engström knows that it's only a matter of time until Holt is arrested.

Engström tracks down Holt in some rotting wooden buildings at the waterfront and tries to talk with him. Holt suspects that Engström has come to kill him and holds him at gunpoint. He explains how he killed Tanja in a fit of rage when she rejected his advances. Holt tries to flee across a pier, but the rotten floorboards give way and he falls into the water below, striking his head on the way. He drowns as Engström watches. When he rummages through Holt's nearby house, Engström finds Tanja's dress, which Holt had removed before dumping the body. With Holt dead, and this definitive proof that he was the murderer, the case is closed.

Just before he leaves town, Engström is visited by Hagen, who shows him a cartridge case found at the site where Vik was shot. She notes that it is a Norma case, which Engström confirms is a brand used by the Swedish police. Engström expects Hagen to arrest him, but instead she simply places the cartridge case on a table and leaves. Engström drives out of town, his face and eyes showing great weariness; he seems not to have recovered from his insomnia.

Opening sequence

Emma Swan's yellow buggy is featured in the forest for Part 1, and snowflakes are featured in the forest for Part 2.

Event chronology

The Arendelle events take place after "Family Business" and more than thirty years before "Fall". The Enchanted Forest events take place after "Family Business". The Land Without Magic flashback takes place in 1982, after "Operation Mongoose, Part 1" and immediately before the flashback with the Snow Queen in Boston in "Shattered Sight". The Storybrooke events take place after "The Snow Queen".

In the Characters' Past

Outside of the forest of Arendelle, Ingrid races off to find a place for the box containing the Sorcerer's Hat, freezing it over hiding it under a rock. Then, she heads to the Enchanted Forest to visit the Apprentice's cabin, and offers to make a deal with him: she'll return the box in exchange for the Sorcerer finding her a perfect match for a third sister she wants.

Back in Arendelle after the meeting, Ingrid is determined to use Elsa by manipulating her to turn on Anna. She 'warns' Elsa that her sister is plotting to trap her inside the urn, just as Gerda did to Ingrid in the past, instructing Elsa to talk to Anna herself in the palace dungeon cell. Unknown to Ingrid, Elsa is only pretending to believe her aunt, and when she visits Anna in her jail cell, the two sisters decide it's best to play along with Ingrid's lie. The two come up with a plan to place Ingrid back inside the urn when she least expects it; so Elsa breaks Anna out of the cell, and with help from Kristoff they search the closed-off east wing of the castle, and find the urn in a closet (along with a still-frozen Hans). They also find a cracked mirror with a missing fragment, which unknown to them, is the Mirror of Shattered Sight. Anna takes the urn into her cell to wait for Ingrid to come check on her. Unfortunately, Ingrid was on to their scheme; she had been waiting for Anna all along, and Anna finds herself trapped in the cell with her.

With Anna in chains, Ingrid asks Anna to recall the tale of a king who lost his only daughter, and as a result, used a mirror to cast a spell on his whole kingdom, making them see only the worst qualities in those around them, leading them to kill each other. Ingrid uses a small shard of the mirror to cast the same spell, the Spell of Shattered Sight, on Anna, resulting in Anna becoming negative and resentful against Elsa for deserting her during their childhood. Elsa suspects a spell has been cast on her sister when Anna comes to the dining room carrying the urn and saying only negative things about her. Ingrid demands that Elsa freeze Anna to prevent her from trapping Elsa inside of the urn; however, Elsa refuses to hurt her sister, crossing her arms to hold in her magic. Still under the spell, Anna traps Elsa inside the urn, even as Elsa tells her that no matter what she does, she will always love her. Anna realizes too late what she has done when Ingrid takes the urn from her, and Kristoff arrives to stop Ingrid. Unfortunately, Elsa's entrapment was not Ingrid's original plan, and in her anger, she uses her powers to freeze Anna, Kristoff, and the entire Kingdom of Arendelle. Rumplestiltskin appears in the dining room, finding Ingrid practicing her Rock Troll magic, pulling memories from Elsa, still inside the urn, over to a rock in her other hand. Rumplestiltskin asks her to give him the Sorcerer's Hat box; when she refuses, he magically takes and hides the urn and Anna's necklace, saying he will return them only in exchange for the box.

Ingrid returns to the cave to retrieve the box, but while attempting to call Rumplestiltskin, she is stopped by the Sorcerer's Apprentice, who, knowing that all she wants is happiness, tells her that if she gives the box to Rumplestiltskin, she will never find that happiness. Then, he tells her that the Sorcerer has decided to accept her deal, that he has divined that the third sister she wants will arrive in the future, and that she can be sent there - in exchange for the box. He also promises that one day she will be reunited with Elsa. Ingrid agrees to give the Apprentice the box, and thaws it out. The Apprentice conjures up a door for Ingrid to walk through. Ingrid walks through it, emerging in 1982 Boston, where she will begin her real world life as Emma Swan's future foster mother.

In Storybrooke

In the forest, Emma, whose powers are still out of control, wakes up from her vehicle and finds Henry standing there, telling his mother that everyone was looking for her. But as he tried to approach Emma, she accidentally pushes him away with her magic, resulting in Henry's ear being cut. After Henry takes off, Emma is visited by Ingrid, who tells her that she should embrace her true self, but Emma takes off after the conversation, and heads to Gold's Pawn Shop, where Gold, sensing Emma was in the place by the way the items were coming to life, offered her a chance to rid herself of her powers, and gives her a location as to where to meet him; unknown to Emma, Gold has other plans for her. Back at the loft, David, Mary Margaret, Killian and Elsa ponder their next plan by planning another search, when Henry arrives and tells them he found her, but failed to help her regain control of her magic.

Regina later arrives with a locator spell to make their tracking of Emma easier. However, after Henry mentioned that Emma drove off, Hook suspects that Emma went to see Gold, so he sneaks off and makes a phone call to warn Emma about Gold's deception. Meanwhile, David and Mary Margret decide that it might not be so bad if Emma got rid of her magic and became "normal," which causes Elsa, who overheard their conversation, to sneak out of the room with the locator potion to try to find Emma on her own. Hook isn't the only one to suspect Gold, as Ingrid soon discovers Gold's plot after he visits her. It turns out that he needs Emma's power, which means that in order to do that, he has betrayed Ingrid by preventing her from taking Emma. Ingrid realizes Gold intends to trap Emma in the Sorcerer's Hat and absorb her powers, so he can no longer be controlled by the Dark One's Dagger. When Ingrid tries to stop Gold, he uses a spell that he collected from remnants of the urn, creating a force field to prevent Ingrid from warning Emma or interfering in the events to come. As Ingrid sees Emma traveling to the mansion, Ingrid uses her mirror to send an illusion of her to stop Emma. When Emma sees the sudden appearance of Ingrid's figure in the middle of the road, her car spins out of control and crashes, causing Emma to temporarily lose consciousness.

When Emma regains consciousness, she gets out of the car to confront Ingrid, believing that she was there. But Emma refuses to believe Ingrid when she warns her that Gold only wanted to hurt her for his own self-benefits. Emma notices that the image is an illusion as she tries to touch Ingrid, so she returns to the car and speeds off to the mansion. As Emma arrives at the place, Gold sets up the hat to absorb her and her powers in a closed room. Emma waits for Gold at the other side, and before she opens the door, Gold appears behind her, telling Emma that everything will be fine once her powers are gone, and that she will be able to live a normal life. Emma then thanks Gold, not knowing will happen next as she ponders about opening the door.

At the loft, Regina has a chat with Henry about Emma, and tells him that he should be proud of his mother for having magic, then heals his ear. Henry mourns the fact that he is normal and has no special powers, but Regina insists that he possesses the heart of the truest believer and tells him that he is just as powerful as either one of his mothers, even without magic. Regina then goes downstairs to talk to Mary Margaret and David after overhearing that they believe Emma is doing the right thing in getting rid of her powers. Regina talks them out of it by saying that her powers are part of her and that they are her gift. She insists that she only needs to channel it the right way and use it to protect the town. The two eventually agree with Regina and as they decide to search again for their daughter, they notice that the locator spell and Emma's scarf missing. Then, they also notice that Elsa is gone.

Meanwhile, in the Vault, Regina has woken up after she and Robin Hood spent the night together. As Robin wakes up to embrace Regina, she is more concerned with the ''Once Upon a Time'' book and explains to Robin she that wants to find her happy ending and the author. Robin takes it upon himself to help Regina find the book's origins, so he steals the book after Regina raced off to the loft and pays a visit to Granny's, where he sees Will pouring his "Lunch and Dinner" (from a liquor flask) and asks for his help. Will tells Robin about how the events played out in Storybrooke until Emma's arrival and points to the place where it began. The two stop by the library, where after searching through several books, Robin notices a page falling out of his bag. He then calls Regina, who while helping the others find Emma was talking to Mary Margaret about the difference between being a hero and a villain. Regina was comforted by Mary Margret who insisted that neither one of them were all good or all evil. As Regina leaves to meet Robin, Mary Margret tells her that happy endings are hard to come by, but that she can have one if she is willing to fight for it.

At the same time, Hook arrives to the mansion to warn Emma, but Gold thwarts his efforts, erases his phone calls to Emma, and ties him to the fence. Inside the mansion, Elsa finds Emma, whose powers are destroying the room they are in, and tells her that she sees her doing the same thing that she once did, blaming herself for not being able to control her powers because her family was harmed, and that she should be blessed to have this gift. Elsa then asks Emma for her hand and she takes it, resulting in Emma's powers returning to normal. Outside, Gold, upset over what he just saw, becomes furious over his failed attempt to take Emma's power, which pleased Hook. However, Gold says that despite the setback, he will find a way to acquire the power to free him of the Dagger of Kris. But Gold also needs another item: the heart of someone who knew Gold before he became the Dark One. Since Killian is the only one left alive, Gold takes his heart. By doing so, Gold makes Killian his puppet and vows to use him to find another way to get Emma's powers, before he will kill him. As Hook reunites with Emma and kisses her, Emma wondered what got into him, and after she and Elsa walk away, he grabs the Sorcerer's box and hides it inside the jacket. Regina arrives at the library, where Robin shows her a page that featured the two together at the pub back in the Enchanted Forest, leading to indications that whoever wrote the story wanted them to be together. Back at the Snow Queen's lair, Ingrid, now free of the force field, follows through with her plan to bring her three sisters together by sending out her ribbons to Emma and Elsa. As Emma and Elsa are reunited with David, Mary Margaret, and Henry, she unleashed her magic into the sky, which creates colorful auroras and then fireworks. Unfortunately, Emma and Elsa notice the yellow ribbons on their left wrists too late, and that they can't remove their ribbons, even while the ribbons are siphoning away their powers.

Finally, Gold shows up to confront Ingrid, blaming her for ruining his plan, but Ingrid says it that was Elsa who interfered, remarking that they were "like sisters." Gold vows that he'll make Ingrid pay, but now that the Snow Queen has harnessed Emma and Elsa's powers after she placed the ribbons on their wrists, she claims that she has become much more powerful, possibly even powerful enough to defeat Mr. Gold and decorate her palace "with his bones." When she wonders whether she should give it a try, Mr. Gold warns her not to overestimate her powers, but Ingrid warns Mr. Gold not to underestimate her powers, in response. Then, the Snow Queen smiles with delight while using her new-found powers to cast the Spell of Shattered Sight over Storybrooke, which shatters her mirror in the process.

''Psycho Soldier'' takes place many years after ''Athena''. In ''Athena'', the title character is a mystical figure loosely based on the goddess of Greek mythology who fights her way through several otherworldly lands in order to destroy various monsters and evil beings who threaten the peace of the land. After her journey is complete, she returns to heaven, only to fade completely from the minds of the mortals who live below.

In the modern times of ''Psycho Soldier'', a young girl named Athena Asamiya, who is the descendant of the original Athena, displays special psychic abilities that allow her to unlock a number of hidden powers within herself, and hopes to one day use these skills not only to help others, but to advance her stage career as a future pop idol. Several evil beings appear in her hometown in Japan, and along with her friend and fellow gifted psychic Sie Kensou, she uses her talents to protect her friends and home from this new menace.

Grady and his family the Tuckers have moved to Florida into a house next to Fever Swamp because his father Mr. Tucker, a scientist, wants to determine if swamp deer from South America can survive in Florida. Grady’s father keeps the deer in a pen but plans on releasing them in the swamp. Grady and his sister Emily get lost while exploring the swamp and meet a swamp hermit who lives in a shack. As the hermit chases after them, they run away ultimately making their way back home. A few days later, as Grady is going outside to meet Will Blake, one of his new friends, a big stray dog jumps onto Grady. Grady thinks the dog resembles more a wolf than a dog and decides to call the dog Wolf. One morning, Will tells him that a neighbor, Ed Warner, went missing after hunting in the swamp. Cassie O'Rourke, a girl who lives in the neighborhood, suggests that a werewolf is the reason for Mr. Warner's disappearance.

After going out to investigate some howling, Grady finds a hole that had been ripped from the deer pen and a murdered deer laying on one side. Mr. Tucker sees paw prints around the pen and blames Wolf for the murder. He plans on taking Wolf to the pound, but Grady is convinced that a werewolf killed the deer and other animals in town, and he helps the dog flee before Mr. Tucker can capture Wolf. That night, Grady hears howling and observes Wolf slowly moving towards the swamp shortly afterward. As Grady follows the dog he runs into Will, who says he heard the howls and decided to investigate them. While they are following Wolf, Grady gets separated from both Will and the Wolf.

Eventually, Grady comes across the swamp hermit's shack and begins to hear loud howling coming from nearby. Worried that the swamp hermit is a werewolf, he starts to flee before he is attacked by Will, who is revealed to be a werewolf. During the struggle, Will sinks his fangs into Grady’s shoulder, causing Grady to become a werewolf. Wolf reappears and fights off Will before Grady passes out. When Grady regains consciousness, he learns from his mother that the swamp hermit found him and carried him home. His parents also let Grady keep Wolf after discovering that the dog saved his life. During the next full moon, Grady (now a werewolf) and his dog go out to hunt.

A new teleportation technology ("telpor") makes travel by spaceship obsolete. A new colony in the Fomalhaut star system, Whale's Mouth, has been the destination for forty million emigrants, but it is a one-way trip - teleportation back to Earth is supposedly impossible. The only way to return is by spaceship, an eighteen-year journey for passengers who are subjected to a limited form of suspended animation.

Rachmael ben Applebaum, whose spaceship business has been ruined by teleportation, decides to make the journey to Whale's Mouth in his own craft, the ''Omphalos''. Driven by a powerful hunch that the utopian claims may be false, he chooses to make the trip the old-fashioned way in case some of the colonists wish to return. Powerful figures oppose his journey.

''Lies, Inc.'', the expanded version of ''The Unteleported Man'', includes a new first chapter and about one hundred pages of additional exposition. This previously unpublished material begins in Chapter 8 with the phrase, "Acrid smoke billowed about him, stinging his nostrils." What then ensues is a truly horrific drug trip, described in excruciating detail, that Rachmael endures after arriving at his destination and being hit by an LSD-tipped dart. The expansion material finally terminates in Chapter 15 just before the repeated phrase, "Acrid smoke billowed about him, stinging his nostrils."

Confusion may arise in the reader, however, over Dick's attributing at least part of the perceptual chaos to a deliberately incorporated effect of the teleportation process. Circumstances had forced Rachmael to abandon his original plans and to journey to Newcolonizedland via energy transfer instead. Sinister modifications to the "Telpor" technology apparently cause its victims to experience a variety of so-called "paraworlds" which are thought to actually exist, somehow, as viable alternate realities. Participants are fearful that consensus or agreement amongst themselves as to the paraworlds' descriptions could somehow cause one or the other paraworld to manifest itself ever more aggressively until eventually displacing the current reality-paradigm altogether. And Rachmael's own paraworld experience is said to be the worst one of all.

Félix, a young gay man of Arab descent, living in Dieppe, is currently unemployed and HIV positive. While cleaning out the apartment of his recent deceased mother, he discovers that the father he never knew is living in Marseilles. Félix decides to hitchhike south to meet him, promising to see his lover Daniel there five days later.

Carrying with him only a small bag, his HIV medication and a rainbow kite, Félix takes to the road. He witnesses a racist attack and is beaten up by one of the assailants. He is unable, however, to bring himself to report it to the police. Later, Félix encounters a series of people who form an alternative family for him: a young gay man studying art, who Félix teaches to draw, a lone old widow, who shelters him in her house, a handsome railroad worker, with whom he has a brief sexual encounter, a mother of three children by three different fathers, and a kind, middle aged fisherman. As he calls each of these characters "brother", "cousin", "grandmother" and the like, he gradually constructs a sort of family and new understandings of life through this odyssey, no matter whether he actually meets his "true" father at the end of the story.

Félix is haunted by the racist crime he witnessed, in which he learns, the victim died, and in his inability to do anything about it. Stopping at a hotel, he sees the police arresting the murderer. When he arrives at Marseilles, Felix decides not to see his father and goes instead on a romantic holiday to Tunisia with his lover.

The film is based on the first two books of the Book of Mormon: First Nephi and Second Nephi. The source material contains much theological discussion, and parables, some of which have been cut from the adaptation due to their unsuitability as narrative material. Some of the visionary material is retained.

The film starts in Jerusalem around 600 BC, where the audience meet patriarch Lehi, his wife Sariah, and their four sons: Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephi. Lehi and his wife are devout believers in God, as are their sons, Nephi and Sam. Laman and Lemuel are more wayward and do not tend to agree with the commands of God or their father and brother Nephi.

While in Jerusalem, Lehi prophesies that the city will be destroyed. This elicits a negative reaction from many people, to the point of their wanting to kill him. The family flees into the desert at this point and becomes nomadic.

While in the wilderness, Lehi sends Nephi and his brothers back to Jerusalem to try to get hold of the Brass Plates, as commanded by God. The Brass Plates are inscribed with ancient scriptures and records that they need to take with them on their journey and which will form part of the basis of the Book of Mormon.

However, these plates are within the compound of a powerful and violent man called Laban, who has many men under his command. They first try to persuade Laban to hand over the plates, but eventually a fight ensues and they are forced to flee. One of Laban's servants, Ishmael, ends up defecting to Lehi's side and joins his family in the desert.

Ishmael and Lehi's families intermarry, but Ishmael dies in the Arabian wilderness. The group is ordered to build a boat to take them to the new Promised Land, which they do with limited resources. Laman and Lemuel once more start complaining about this idea, but they all end up boarding this ship and leaving the Old World for the New.

They arrive in the New World after this voyage, but the quarrel within the family continues. After Lehi dies in the promised land, Laman and Lemuel, and their families, rebel again, and turn to evil things. The Lamanites separate from the Nephites. Because of this, Nephi and his allies have to escape them, and once more go into the wilderness.

Set in 1940, a young playwright, '''Tsubaki Hajime''' (Inagaki / Kondo) comes up against a government censor, '''Sakisaka Mutsuo''' (Yakusho / Nishimura). The censor's job is to prevent anything political or taboo from getting into the pre-war media, but this censor has a thing against comedy, too.

Tsubaki comes to have his script checked by the censors before rehearsals begin. But the censor, who is looking for an excuse to shut down the comedy troupe at which Tsubaki works, tells him that his whole play is rubbish and Tsubaki would have to rewrite it completely before Sakisaka would let it be performed.

But what starts as cruel teasing makes the once poor-quality play better and better as Tsubaki returns day after day to have it torn to shreds and criticized over and over again. Finally the play is perfected and Sakisaka's dislike of Tsubaki turns into respect for his talent.

Part 1

During a stake-out at a construction site, Batman and Robin catch a gang of mobsters trying to sabotage it, as the wealthy architect refused to be extorted by them. While all but one of the mobsters escapes, Batman catches the straggler and demands the name of his boss. The criminal refuses to speak to him or the police, but when Batman shows he's not joking, the criminal blurts out the name "Billy Marin", a name that seems to disturb the Caped Crusader. When they return home, Robin is left wondering who Marin really is, but Batman insists that Robin stay out of this one: he works alone for the time being. Following Batman's departure, Robin and Alfred Pennyworth use the Batcave's criminal database to determine the real identity of the crime boss. Robin discovers that Marin is really an alias for Tony Zucco, someone he crossed paths with nine years ago in an event which changed his life.

As a young child, Dick Grayson was in a popular circus acrobat trio with his parents, "The Flying Graysons". While performing at a Wayne Charity convention in Gotham City, Dick overhears Zucco threaten the ringmaster, Mr. Haley, telling him that if he doesn't pay money for "protection", accidents will happen. Haley, who takes pride in running an honest business, violently refuses, and in response, Zucco partially saws through a trapeze rope to be used in the Graysons' act. During a portion of the trapeze act involving Dick's parents on the same trapeze, the rope snaps and his parents plummet to their deaths in front of his eyes. Bruce Wayne, who is in the audience, takes pity on the boy, as they are both the orphaned sons of parents murdered in their presence. Upon hearing of Dick's telling of what he saw, Lieutenant Jim Gordon fears that he will have no place to go, as he is a material witness, but Bruce steps in and adopts Dick. As Batman, he becomes obsessed with finding Zucco, to the point that he is rarely home, leaving Dick mostly alone.

Batman tracks down Zucco at his uncle Arnold Stromwell's mansion, where he overhears Stromwell angrily disowning Zucco for bringing Batman down on their heads. Suddenly, Stromwell's guards are alerted to Batman on the property. After fleeing from Batman, Zucco slips out of Gotham, leaving Batman frustrated for not catching the Graysons' killer. As Batman returns to the Batcave, Alfred reminds him that Dick is feeling unloved and scared, which prompts Bruce to realize he must spend more time with him. He tries to comfort the boy, but Dick breaks down in tears and says that he feels responsible for his parents' death. Bruce says that he felt the same way when his own parents were murdered, but assures Dick that the pain will ease in time, and hugs him for the first time.

After discovering the crook's identity and reliving the tragedy, Robin realizes that Batman left him out of this to keep him out of the way. Robin begs Batman one last time to let him help, but Batman refuses. Vowing revenge, Robin deliberately disobeys Batman's orders, saying "Not this time, Alfred. Maybe not ever again." Robin leaves on his motorbike to find Zucco.

Part 2

Batman tracks Tony Zucco while, secretly, Robin seeks to find Zucco to avenge his parents' death. As the investigation narrows to an abandoned amusement park, a series of flashbacks finish Robin's origin story.

After Zucco's escape from Stromwell, Bruce and Dick grow closer, engaging in a playful fencing match. Alfred then tells Bruce that Jim Gordon is convinced that Zucco might soon try to flee from Gotham, prompting Dick to take matters into his own hands. After running away from Wayne Manor, he unsuccessfully tries to track his parents' killer. While searching a run-down section of Gotham and avoiding Batman, who, unbeknownst to Dick, is also searching for Zucco, Dick rescues a woman threatened by a large man (implied to be a prostitute and her pimp). Using his gymnastic skills he defeats the full-grown attacker, knocking him unconscious. The woman treats Dick to dinner in a local diner where a waitress identifies Zucco from a photo. She informs Dick that Zucco is squatting in the condemned building across the street. Dick and Batman find Zucco at roughly the same time, but Dick attacks Zucco, who throws him over a spillway. Batman rescues Dick before he can go over a waterfall, but Zucco uses the distraction to escape. Batman brings Dick back to the Batcave, revealing his secret identity. He then suggests that Dick's "temporary" stay become indefinite, which Dick accepts.

As the flashback ends, Robin continues his search on his motorcycle. He uses a phone tracer to obtain Zucco's address; in a fit of paranoia, Zucco fires a sub-machine gun repeatedly into the ceiling, worried about a noise. An injured Batman falls through the weakened ceiling. Using a smoke bomb as a diversion, he limps from the room. Hiding in the amusement park, he hardly has time to treat his wounds before being attacked by Zucco's henchmen. Though limping, he picks off the thugs one-by-one through stealth, fighting several on the carousel. After the brawl, however, Zucco has the advantage over Batman and prepares to shoot him. At the last moment, Robin crashes through the fence while riding his motorcycle, drives straight at Zucco and, grabbing him by the collar, drags him to the end of a pier. He holds Zucco over the edge, determined to kill him. Batman arrives and desperately implores Robin not to let his emotions control him, but Robin lashes out at his mentor, exclaiming that he cannot know how he feels. When Batman remains silent, Robin suddenly remembers that Batman is actually the one person he knows who ''would'' know. Abashed, Robin apologizes and relents, handing Zucco to the police.

As Zucco is hauled away, Robin tells Batman that Batman was right to leave him out of the investigation, as his emotions made him unstable. In a rare moment of vulnerability, Batman explains that he distanced Robin from the investigation because he feared his partner would be killed. The two crimefighters reconcile and leave the pier.

After two pregnancies out of wedlock, Faat Kiné has earned a place for herself as a successful gas station owner in patriarchal Senegalaise society, raising her two children alone and providing fully for their needs.

After passing their baccalaureates, Faat Kiné's children, Djip and Aby, try to fix their mother up with Uncle Jean, a Christian businessman, who outwardly objects because Kiné is Muslim, but is actually pursuing her.

Throughout the film, Kiné reminisces about her life. She was very close to getting her own baccalauréat when she was impregnated by one of her professors. She was subsequently expelled and disowned by her father. Angered at the shame Kine brought on their family, he even attempted to burn her but her mother shielded her; surviving with severe burn scars on her back. Kiné later started working at a gas station as an attendant to support herself. Only a few years after her first pregnancy, she became pregnant again and was abandoned by her fiance who took her life savings and tried to flee the country. Since then, Faat Kiné has been successful; buying a house for herself, her two children, and her mother. Back in the present, Kiné is very happy when her children present her their baccalauréat diplomas.

At the party to celebrate the graduates, Djip's father shows up, but Djip consistently refers to him as "Monsieur Boubacar Omar Payane, a.k.a. BOP" rather than "father." Aby's father, M. Gaye, also comes to the party, and she asks him to finance her college education. Her father is offended and tells her to ask Kiné, despite the fact that it is Kiné who has raised Aby her whole life, while Gaye has given her no support. After an altercation involving BOP, Gaye, and Djip, the two men are booted out of the party. At the end of the party, Djib and Aby are delighted to discover that Faat Kiné and Uncle Jean have become a couple, which they attribute to their matchmaking skills, but it is clear that Faat Kiné and Uncle Jean were attracted to each other from the beginning.

When marine biologist Steven McKray learns that a friend died in a mysterious shark attack in South Africa, he decides to find out what really happened. Upon arriving in the village, he meets Lawrence Rhodes, a local hotel owner, and scientist Miles Craven, who informs Steven of the mysterious increase in shark attacks in the area. When Steven teams up with his late friend's sister for a fact-finding dive, they make a surprising discovery.

Cassidy Merteuil (Kristina Anapau) is a beautiful, manipulative student at an exclusive Santa Barbara college. Jason Argyle (Kerr Smith) and Patrick Bates (Nathan Wetherington) are roommates there.

They pull off a devious plan where Patrick beds Cassidy and disrupts a potential relationship she had been pursuing with a British prince. This then helps Jason win a bet he made with Cassidy (which turns out to have been Patrick's bet all along). When Patrick (who also reveals his awkwardness and social ineptitude to be an act) and Jason reveal their deception to her, she is devastated.

She later encourages them to compete against each other. Jason has to seduce Sheila (Natalie Ramsey), who is in a steady relationship with Michael (Tom Parker), and Patrick has to seduce Alison (Melissa Yvonne Lewis), who is already engaged.

Jason succeeds in his part, but Patrick is rejected by Alison, who says she does not want to cheat, and does not find him sexually attractive. When classmate Brent Patterson (Charlie Weber) shows an interest in Allison after being rejected by Cassidy, she succumbs to temptation and sleeps with him, not knowing Patrick is taking photos. Patrick blackmails Alison, using the photos of her cheating on her fiancé. He tells her how he succeeded before he throws her on her bed, pulls down her white thong and rapes her in order to fulfil his part of the bet.

Meanwhile, Jason and Cassidy strike up a relationship. As Patrick is left unsatisfied and angry by the rape, he attempts to seduce Cassidy, but she rejects him. So, he convinces Cassidy that the man she loves, Jason, is only staying with her because he wants to win the bet he and Patrick had made, which was to see who could sleep with Cassidy first.

Seemingly angry with Jason, she succumbs to Patrick, and Jason walks in on them. Patrick snidely remarks that both Jason and Cassidy have been victims of his cruel game to show them that they underestimated the evil in themselves. They ask him if he has ever been a victim, and he tells them no. Cassidy reveals that this had been her plan all along. She began the little charade so Patrick and Jason would seduce Alison and Sheila; before sleeping with Patrick, she took one of his sleeping pills, planning to tell the policemen that he had drugged and raped her.

As Patrick is led away by the police, bewildered and protesting his innocence, he is warned that another victim has come forward, and he will get the punishment he deserves for raping Alison. In the end, Jason and Cassidy are shown together, making another bet with each other, over the British prince from the opening of the film.

Alban McGill, a member of the Wopuld family, has sold most of his shares in the family firm, and resigned from his job in the company to become a forester, but has had to retire on medical grounds because of white finger. He is distracted from affairs of business by his relations with his family and with his teenage love, his first cousin Sophie.

McGill is approached by another cousin, Fielding, to help prevent the sale of the family company to the American Spraint Corporation. He also seeks a resolution of certain questions about his family background, and closure of his relationship with Sophie. Much of the book is a build-up to the Extraordinary General Meeting which will decide on the sale, which takes place at the family estate at Garbadale in Sutherland. His current girlfriend, mathematician Verushka Graef, is a hillwalker, and near the end of the book Alban goes for a walk in the hills to think. On his return he takes the steep approach back to Garbadale.

Significant portions of the action are set in California, Singapore and Hong Kong, as McGill reminisces about his world travels during his gap year. His mother's suicide is described in detail, as is his relationship with the family matriarch, Grandma Win.

Banks takes the opportunity, as in ''Dead Air'' and ''Raw Spirit'', to make points about the morality and wisdom of the War on Terrorism, when McGill meets representatives of the American capitalists who wish to acquire the family game symbolising the British Empire.

The book has intermittent contributions from McGill's friend and ex-colleague Tango, who lives in a council estate in Perth, Scotland.

Frank (Simm), a librarian in the United Kingdom, falls in love with a mysterious American dancer named Miranda (Ricci). Frank appears naive, but his character is as complex as Miranda's. Graphic scenes of sex and seduction illustrate Frank's fantasy and unrealistic love for Miranda. She suddenly disappears, and he tracks her down in London, discovering she is actually a con artist. He leaves her, returning to Northern England.

Miranda and her boss (Hurt), who not so secretly "loves" her, are in business selling buildings that they don't own to unwitting customers. These buildings are really being prepared for demolition. In one scene in which Miranda is negotiating the sale of a warehouse with Nailor (MacLachlan), Nailor sees men putting down cable around the building. He asked Miranda what were they doing and she replies that they are putting in cable TV when, in fact, they are preparing the warehouse for demolition. After making a big score, by successfully conning Nailor to buy the warehouse, her boss leaves her, and Nailor seeks revenge against Miranda.

Frank realizes that he should not have left her, and returns to London, with a very quirky friend who is instrumental in saving Miranda from a knife-wielding Nailor. While Frank's friend distracts Nailor with fancy jiu-jitsu moves, Frank slams a table over Nailor's head. The film ends in comic relief with Frank and Miranda living the good life off Miranda's ill-gotten gains.

Twelve-year-old Luke Garner is brought to Hendricks School for Boys by Mr. Talbot, the father of his dead best friend Jen. Luke is his parents’ third child and so is illegal under the country's Population Law; if he were to be caught, both he and his parents would be executed by the Population Police. After Jen is killed leading a rally to protest the Population Law at the end of the first book in the series it is no longer safe for Luke to remain in hiding on his parents’ farm. Mr. Talbot arranges for Luke to take the name and identity of Lee Grant – a boy who died just before the novel opens – and arranges for him to attend Hendricks, an exclusive boarding school. Mr. Talbot shakes Luke's hand as he leaves and slips him a note, which Luke hides in his pocket.

Having only ever met six other people – his parents and brothers, Jen, and Mr. Talbot – in his entire life, Luke is overwhelmed by the size of Hendricks, and the hundreds of boys who are always around him. He ducks into one class after another simply to avoid the teachers and monitors who patrol the hallways, and finds that no one will tell him what classes he belongs in, or what he should be doing. He is never alone and so can't read Mr. Talbot's note, and the first night in his dorm room one of his roommates (who he thinks of as ‘jackal boy’) bullies him until well after lights-out. For the next week Luke is miserable; he is frightened that he will give away the fact that he is an illegal child and be caught, he goes to classes he doesn't belong in to just to avoid drawing attention to himself, and he is bullied by jackal boy every night.

One morning Luke sees an open door that leads to the outside. When he is sure no one is looking he slips through it, and runs into the woods a short distance away. Luke looks back towards the school to make sure he hasn't been followed, and notices that the school building has no windows. He remembers the note from Mr. Talbot and reads it. During the last week he has convinced himself that the note will answer all his questions about how to survive at Hendricks, but Luke finds that it only says: “blend in.” Luke becomes angry and considers running back to his parents’ house, but in the end goes back to the school.

Luke begins to pay attention to everything and everyone at Hendricks so that he can devise a way to get to the woods every day without being caught. He learns how to navigate the school's many hallways and staircases, and after poking his head in every room in the school realizes that there are no windows anywhere. He also notices that many of the students behave strangely. Some sit and rock back and forth for hours, while others sleep all the time; the teachers pay no attention to any of it. Although he can't understand much of what he learns, after a week Luke feels confident enough to start going to the woods for a few hours each day. After he notices a raspberry plant growing in a clearing one day Luke decides to plant a garden, and spends the next few days cultivating it. He returns to the garden one afternoon and finds that it has been destroyed, and believes that other boys from the school are responsible. That night he hides near the door to the outside and when he hears some boys go through it, he follows them.

Luke follows the boys deep into the woods, where they are joined by a group of girls. Luke sees that the leader of the group from Hendricks is jackal boy, and as he listens to their conversation he realizes that they are all illegal shadow children, just like him. Luke announces himself to the group and after he is told that his garden was destroyed by accident jackal boy – whose real name is Jason – asks Luke to become a part of his group. Luke agrees, and learns that many of the shadow children in Jason's group are hall monitors at school, and that most of them – including a boy named Trey – are afraid of the outdoors. Jason gets Luke a list of the classes he should be attending, and Luke immediately throws himself into his studies. Jason says that since it is only a week until finals he will never catch up, but that Luke needn’t worry because Jason can fix his grades for him. Although joining the group has made things easier for him, Luke finds that he does not fully trust Jason, and spends every free hour studying anyway.

The night before final exams Luke is unable to sleep. He hears Jason leave the dorm room a few hours after lights-out and follows him. Luke overhears Jason talking on a phone, saying that no one knows he works for the Population Police. Realizing that Jason is a traitor and planning to betray members of the group, Luke knocks him unconscious and leaves him with the school nurse. Luke then calls Mr. Talbot, who works for the Population Police, but sabotages them whenever he can, and tries to tell him what is happening but Mr. Talbot seems not to understand and hangs up on him. The next morning at breakfast, a Population Police officer comes into the dining hall and announces that he has a warrant for the arrest of illegal third children, but before he can read the names on his list Mr. Talbot arrives with Jason following behind him, in chains. Jason says that he can identify a number of illegal children, but Mr. Talbot convinces the officer that he is lying and Jason is taken away to Population Police headquarters.

That evening Luke is taken to the Headmaster's cottage where he talks with Josiah Hendricks, the founder of the Hendricks and Harlow schools, and Mr. Talbot. Luke learns that the schools have been set up as a first stop for shadow children after they come out of hiding and start living with fake IDs, and have been designed as a place where they can overcome the emotional disorders that have resulted from their having spent their entire lives in hiding. Once they have dealt with their fears and can fit in with others, they are sent on to the next school. Both Mr. Hendricks and Mr. Talbot believe that Luke is ready to move on, but Luke asks to stay so that he can help those boys like Trey who are afraid of the outdoors overcome their fear by teaching them how to tend a garden. Mr. Hendricks agrees and Luke starts helping other shadow children.

The novel is set in the town of Comala, considered to be Comala in the Mexican state of Colima.

The story begins with the first person account of Juan Preciado, who promises his mother at her deathbed that he will return to Comala to meet his father, Pedro Páramo. Juan suggests that he did not intend to keep this promise until he was overtaken by visions of his mother. His narration is interspersed with fragments of dialogue from the life of his father, who lived in a time when Comala was a robust, living town, instead of the ghost town it has become. Juan encounters one person after another in Comala, but the narrative is often ambiguous as to whether conversations are real, visions, dreams or hallucinations. Midway through the novel, Preciado dies while still looking for his father. From this point on most of the stories happen in the time of Pedro Páramo.

Most of the characters in Juan's narration (Dolores Preciado, Eduviges Dyada, Abundio Martínez, Susana San Juan, and Damiana Cisneros) are also presented in an omniscient narration but much less subjectively. The two major competing narrative voices present alternative visions of Comala, one living and one full of the spirits of the dead. The omniscient narration provides details of the life of Pedro Páramo, from his early youthful idealization of Susana San Juan to his rise to power upon his coming of age to his tyrannical abuses and womanizing, and, finally, to his death. Pedro is cruel, and though he raises one of his illegitimate sons, Miguel Páramo (whose mother dies giving birth), Pedro does not love his father (who dies when Pedro is a child) or either of his two wives.

His only love, from a very young age, is that of Susana San Juan, a childhood friend who leaves Comala with her father at a young age. Pedro Páramo bases all of his decisions on, and puts all of his attention into trying to get Susana San Juan to return to Comala. When she finally does, Pedro makes her his, but she has become mad and constantly mourns her dead husband Florencio and spends her time sleeping and dreaming about him. Pedro realizes that Susana San Juan belongs to a different world that he will never understand.

When she dies the church bells toll incessantly, provoking a fiesta in Comala. Pedro buries his only true love, and angry at the indifference of the town, swears vengeance. As the most politically and economically influential person in the town, Pedro crosses his arms and refuses to continue working, and the town dies of hunger. This is why in Juan's narration, we see a dead, dry Comala instead of the luscious place it was when Pedro Páramo was a boy.

Plot summary and timeline

The sequence of events for the plot is broken up in the work in a nonlinear fashion and is at times difficult to discern and the same occurs with the characters as it is often impossible at first for the reader even to tell which characters are alive or dead. Each plot event is stated and then defined in more detail. * Fulgor Sedano arrives at Media Luna: His old patrón, Lucas, told him that Pedro is totally useless and that he should go and get a new job when he dies. * Pedro's grandfather dies: His family prays for him after his death to help shorten his time in Purgatory. Pedro himself does not feel like doing this and instead thinks about Susana. * Susana San Juan and Pedro Páramo play during their childhood: Pedro thinks about this often. They would fly kites near the village, and Pedro would help Susana fly hers. He is scolded for taking so long in the outhouse by his mother while he recalls this event. * Señora San Juan dies. This event is assumed since Dorotea cannot remember seeing Susana with her mother ever. Susana also talks about how her mother died. She recounts that she was sickly and never visited anyone and how no one came to her funeral. Susana laments about having to pay for Gregorian masses for her mother and the heartless transaction of money required to be able to do that. The San Juan family moves to the mining region. Not much is known about this other than they lived there for many years and later returned to Comala. * Susana and her Father explore the Andromeda mine. Señor San Juan drops Susana, at the end of a rope, down into the old mine shaft and tells her to look for gold coins. She is unable to find any, only a skeleton. Lucas Páramo was killed: He was shot at a wedding by a bullet that was meant for the bridegroom. Pedro later killed most of the people at that wedding. He also permanently crippled a man, which Juan hears about in the grave. * Florencio dies (exact time unknown). Susana's husband dies, and she tragically becomes mad. She still thinks that he is living. She stayed up late that night waiting for him, but he never arrived at home, and in the morning she found out that he was dead. * Fulgor Sedano tells Pedro about his father's debts: Sedano had avoided Pedro in the past because of the warnings of Lucas but stayed on the hacienda because he loved the land. He has to tell Pedro about the debts. Pedro answers, "I’m not interested in how much, just to whom." They concoct a plan to get Dolores Preciado to marry him to eliminate the debt to her family. * Sedano and Dolores Preciado talk: Sedano tells her a lie about how much Pedro had wanted her and that he is really a very shy man. To this, she replies that she is having her period and cannot be married so soon. Sedano is scornful of this reason. * Osorio warns Dolores Preciado not to sleep with Pedro on her wedding night. She begs Eduviges Dyada to go and sleep with Pedro in her place. Eduviges does this, but Pedro is too drunk to have sex. * Miguel Páramo is killed by his horse: He is going to Contla to visit his girlfriend and to have sex with her when he attempts to save time on his journey by jumping his horse over a fence that his father had built. His horse's name is El Colorado, and it was said that this horse would be the death of him one day. His ghost came back to tell Eduviges about this. * Miguel Páramo is absolved by the Church: Father Rentería absolves him after Pedro Páramo gives him some gold coins. The priest realizes that he cannot afford to anger the leader of the town, Pedro, by not doing so. The priest is upset that he absolved his brother's killer and niece's rapist. * Father Rentería talks to his confessor: He is not forgiven of his sins as he did not give absolution to the dying. The other priest chastises him for not doing his job and saying that the people of Comala believe in God more out of superstition rather than actual adoration. They talk about how the land is bitter in Mexico. * Dorotea confesses: Dorotea goes to Father Rentería and tells him that she was the one who was procuring girls for Miguel Páramo. She is drunk at Miguel's wake. She tells the priest that she had brought girls for Miguel for years and years and that she had lost count of how many she had gotten. The priest said that there is nothing that he is able to do about it. He cannot forgive her and says that she will not "go to Heaven now." * Toribio Aldrete is hanged: He was plotted against by Fulgor Sedano and Pedro Páramo, who accused him of "falsifying boundaries". Toribio owned some land that Páramo wanted to add to his hacienda. Pedro orders Sedano to write charges for Aldrete's conviction. One night Aldrete is drunk and goes into Eduviges Dyada's house (the corner room) and is hanged. He is left to "turn to leather" and to never have salvation. The key to the room is thrown out. Ironically, Eduviges gives Juan Preciado this room in her house in which to stay the night. He then hears an echo of the past while sleeping and awakens suddenly. * Dolores Preciado (Juan's mother) leaves Pedro Páramo and the Media Luna hacienda: She is looking at a crow in the sky and says that she wishes that she was this bird and could fly to her sister's house in the city. Pedro becomes angry enough to finally dismiss her. She leaves and never returns. She and Pedro are never divorced. * Eduviges Dyada kills herself: Her sister, Maria Dyada, tells Father Rentería that it was out of despair. "She died of her sorrows." But the priest laments that all her good work has gone by the wayside and that she will be unable to get into heaven. The priest says that only with prayers will she be able to get into heaven, and even then nothing is certain. * Start of the Mexican Revolution * Return of the San Juans: Señor Bartolomé San Juan refuses to read the letters from Pedro asking him to come and be his administrator. He is finally found and comes back to Comala only because the Revolution makes the countryside dangerous. He finds out the Pedro wants only his daughter. * Señor San Juan dies: Before, while working, he had realized that he would die and that he must die. Additionally, Sedano and Pedro conspire to have him killed. He dies and goes to heaven. His "spirit" comes to say goodbye to Susana. Susana laughs that he came to say goodbye to her while Justina cries. He must have been killed since his ghost does not haunt the town. * Fulgor Sedano is killed: A scared man comes to Pedro's house with the news. He says that the revolutionaries stopped him and Sedano and told Sedano to run and tell Pedro that they were coming for him and then shot him as he ran. * Pedro joins Revolution: He calls the local revolutionaries to his house for supper. He promises to give them much money and support, even more than they had asked for. By doing this he managed to remain safe and prevent the soldiers from attacking his lands. * El Tilcuate, the revolutionary leader, and Pedro talk: Pedro tells Damasio that he has no more money to give to him to fight and that he should go and raid a larger town to get supplies. * Susana San Juan dies: She refuses absolution by the priest. She is simply waiting for death to come and take her. Father Rentería gives her communion, but she is semi-delirious and is talking to Florencio. Susana says that she "wants to be left in peace". She dies without receiving the last sacraments. * The party: The people of Comala have a large fiesta, which is full of drinking and wild revelry. This greatly annoyed Pedro, who wanted people to mourn his loss of Susana. He says, "I will cross my arms and Comala will die of hunger." And that is what happened * Refugia Martínez dies: She was the wife of Abundio. He had stayed up all night with her, and she died in the morning. He is out to get drunk to forget his troubles. He goes to the Villalpando's store to do so. * Damiana Cisneros's slaying: Abundio Martínez frightens Cisneros, and she begins to scream. In his drunken state he becomes confused and begins to stab her. While doing so, he thinks about his wife and that he only wanted money for her burial. He is then captured and dragged back into town. * Pedro Páramo dies: He is stabbed by his illegitimate son, Abundio. Pedro dies after thinking about Susana. It can be discerned that with her death, he died, too. He realizes that he cannot move his arms and the ghost (apparently) of Cisneros comes to him, and then he dies. * Dolores Preciado dies: Her death wish is for Juan to find his father and get what he deserves from him after all of these years. * Juan Preciado comes to Comala: He meets the ghosts of Abundio, Eduviges, and Damiana. * He is taken in by Donis and his sister/wife: He is scared to death. * Dorotea and Juan die, buried in the same grave.

The sequence of events for the plot is broken up in the work in a nonlinear fashion and is at times difficult to discern and the same occurs with the characters as it is often impossible at first for the reader even to tell which characters are alive or dead. Each plot event is stated and then defined in more detail. * Fulgor Sedano arrives at Media Luna: His old patrón, Lucas, told him that Pedro is totally useless and that he should go and get a new job when he dies. * Pedro's grandfather dies: His family prays for him after his death to help shorten his time in Purgatory. Pedro himself does not feel like doing this and instead thinks about Susana. * Susana San Juan and Pedro Páramo play during their childhood: Pedro thinks about this often. They would fly kites near the village, and Pedro would help Susana fly hers. He is scolded for taking so long in the outhouse by his mother while he recalls this event. * Señora San Juan dies. This event is assumed since Dorotea cannot remember seeing Susana with her mother ever. Susana also talks about how her mother died. She recounts that she was sickly and never visited anyone and how no one came to her funeral. Susana laments about having to pay for Gregorian masses for her mother and the heartless transaction of money required to be able to do that. The San Juan family moves to the mining region. Not much is known about this other than they lived there for many years and later returned to Comala. * Susana and her Father explore the Andromeda mine. Señor San Juan drops Susana, at the end of a rope, down into the old mine shaft and tells her to look for gold coins. She is unable to find any, only a skeleton. Lucas Páramo was killed: He was shot at a wedding by a bullet that was meant for the bridegroom. Pedro later killed most of the people at that wedding. He also permanently crippled a man, which Juan hears about in the grave. * Florencio dies (exact time unknown). Susana's husband dies, and she tragically becomes mad. She still thinks that he is living. She stayed up late that night waiting for him, but he never arrived at home, and in the morning she found out that he was dead. * Fulgor Sedano tells Pedro about his father's debts: Sedano had avoided Pedro in the past because of the warnings of Lucas but stayed on the hacienda because he loved the land. He has to tell Pedro about the debts. Pedro answers, "I’m not interested in how much, just to whom." They concoct a plan to get Dolores Preciado to marry him to eliminate the debt to her family. * Sedano and Dolores Preciado talk: Sedano tells her a lie about how much Pedro had wanted her and that he is really a very shy man. To this, she replies that she is having her period and cannot be married so soon. Sedano is scornful of this reason. * Osorio warns Dolores Preciado not to sleep with Pedro on her wedding night. She begs Eduviges Dyada to go and sleep with Pedro in her place. Eduviges does this, but Pedro is too drunk to have sex. * Miguel Páramo is killed by his horse: He is going to Contla to visit his girlfriend and to have sex with her when he attempts to save time on his journey by jumping his horse over a fence that his father had built. His horse's name is El Colorado, and it was said that this horse would be the death of him one day. His ghost came back to tell Eduviges about this. * Miguel Páramo is absolved by the Church: Father Rentería absolves him after Pedro Páramo gives him some gold coins. The priest realizes that he cannot afford to anger the leader of the town, Pedro, by not doing so. The priest is upset that he absolved his brother's killer and niece's rapist. * Father Rentería talks to his confessor: He is not forgiven of his sins as he did not give absolution to the dying. The other priest chastises him for not doing his job and saying that the people of Comala believe in God more out of superstition rather than actual adoration. They talk about how the land is bitter in Mexico. * Dorotea confesses: Dorotea goes to Father Rentería and tells him that she was the one who was procuring girls for Miguel Páramo. She is drunk at Miguel's wake. She tells the priest that she had brought girls for Miguel for years and years and that she had lost count of how many she had gotten. The priest said that there is nothing that he is able to do about it. He cannot forgive her and says that she will not "go to Heaven now." * Toribio Aldrete is hanged: He was plotted against by Fulgor Sedano and Pedro Páramo, who accused him of "falsifying boundaries". Toribio owned some land that Páramo wanted to add to his hacienda. Pedro orders Sedano to write charges for Aldrete's conviction. One night Aldrete is drunk and goes into Eduviges Dyada's house (the corner room) and is hanged. He is left to "turn to leather" and to never have salvation. The key to the room is thrown out. Ironically, Eduviges gives Juan Preciado this room in her house in which to stay the night. He then hears an echo of the past while sleeping and awakens suddenly. * Dolores Preciado (Juan's mother) leaves Pedro Páramo and the Media Luna hacienda: She is looking at a crow in the sky and says that she wishes that she was this bird and could fly to her sister's house in the city. Pedro becomes angry enough to finally dismiss her. She leaves and never returns. She and Pedro are never divorced. * Eduviges Dyada kills herself: Her sister, Maria Dyada, tells Father Rentería that it was out of despair. "She died of her sorrows." But the priest laments that all her good work has gone by the wayside and that she will be unable to get into heaven. The priest says that only with prayers will she be able to get into heaven, and even then nothing is certain. * Start of the Mexican Revolution * Return of the San Juans: Señor Bartolomé San Juan refuses to read the letters from Pedro asking him to come and be his administrator. He is finally found and comes back to Comala only because the Revolution makes the countryside dangerous. He finds out the Pedro wants only his daughter. * Señor San Juan dies: Before, while working, he had realized that he would die and that he must die. Additionally, Sedano and Pedro conspire to have him killed. He dies and goes to heaven. His "spirit" comes to say goodbye to Susana. Susana laughs that he came to say goodbye to her while Justina cries. He must have been killed since his ghost does not haunt the town. * Fulgor Sedano is killed: A scared man comes to Pedro's house with the news. He says that the revolutionaries stopped him and Sedano and told Sedano to run and tell Pedro that they were coming for him and then shot him as he ran. * Pedro joins Revolution: He calls the local revolutionaries to his house for supper. He promises to give them much money and support, even more than they had asked for. By doing this he managed to remain safe and prevent the soldiers from attacking his lands. * El Tilcuate, the revolutionary leader, and Pedro talk: Pedro tells Damasio that he has no more money to give to him to fight and that he should go and raid a larger town to get supplies. * Susana San Juan dies: She refuses absolution by the priest. She is simply waiting for death to come and take her. Father Rentería gives her communion, but she is semi-delirious and is talking to Florencio. Susana says that she "wants to be left in peace". She dies without receiving the last sacraments. * The party: The people of Comala have a large fiesta, which is full of drinking and wild revelry. This greatly annoyed Pedro, who wanted people to mourn his loss of Susana. He says, "I will cross my arms and Comala will die of hunger." And that is what happened * Refugia Martínez dies: She was the wife of Abundio. He had stayed up all night with her, and she died in the morning. He is out to get drunk to forget his troubles. He goes to the Villalpando's store to do so. * Damiana Cisneros's slaying: Abundio Martínez frightens Cisneros, and she begins to scream. In his drunken state he becomes confused and begins to stab her. While doing so, he thinks about his wife and that he only wanted money for her burial. He is then captured and dragged back into town. * Pedro Páramo dies: He is stabbed by his illegitimate son, Abundio. Pedro dies after thinking about Susana. It can be discerned that with her death, he died, too. He realizes that he cannot move his arms and the ghost (apparently) of Cisneros comes to him, and then he dies. * Dolores Preciado dies: Her death wish is for Juan to find his father and get what he deserves from him after all of these years. * Juan Preciado comes to Comala: He meets the ghosts of Abundio, Eduviges, and Damiana. * He is taken in by Donis and his sister/wife: He is scared to death. * Dorotea and Juan die, buried in the same grave.

A Judge (Finlayson) sentences a murderer, the Tipton Slasher (Noah Young), to death. The murderer vows revenge on the judge.

Following the escape of the condemned man, the judge engages a detective agency which sends its two least-skilled detectives (Laurel and Hardy) to protect him.

In a sequence that establishes their routine, their hats blow off and land in a cemetery. They are scared to retrieve them. Stan is scared of his own shadow, thinking it is another person. Meanwhile the Slasher is in the judge's house, taking on the role of a butler.

Hardy demonstrates his shooting skills to the judge, claiming his uncle was William Tell. He tries to shoot an apple from Laurel's head but destroys a nearby vase.

The judge's wife sees the butler with a huge knife and screams. He hides in a bedroom where Laurel and Hardy sit in bed together. The judge is having a bath. Laurel and Hardy overpower the Slasher but Hardy gets handcuffed instead of the Slasher.

The judge in a large white towel falls down he stairs and an odd mask jams on the back of his head. From the back he looks like a ghost and scares the Slasher. The police arrive and arrest the Slasher.

The sleuths, after many mishaps, manage to capture the murderer.

Stan and Ollie are salesmen attempting to sell a washing machine; they fail constantly after several near misses. One would-be sale has them carrying the machine up a large flight of steps, only to find out that a young lady wants them to post a letter for her. The boys later get into an argument knocking off each other's hats, which eventually involves scores of others. A police van eventually carts all those involved away except Stan and Ollie, who afterwards try to find their own headgear amongst the hundreds of others lying on the street.

Fleeing a group of forest rangers, who are rounding up tramps to serve as firefighters, Laurel and Hardy take refuge in a mansion. The owner has gone on vacation and the servants are away, so Hardy pretends to be the owner and offers to rent the house to an English couple. Hardy gets Laurel to pose as the maid. Unfortunately, the owner returns and tells the would-be renters that he owns the house. Laurel and Hardy then flee again and are caught by the rangers and forced to fight wildfires.

Alicia is a poor girl living in the city with her family. When her father receives an inheritance, he is able to follow his dream of becoming an artist and moves his family near an artist's colony in the country. There he falls prey to a scheming widow, and he and his wife separate. Alicia, meanwhile, has become involved with a young man who is the widow's accomplice, and she throws over her former suitor, Dr. John Osborne. The young man is a proponent of free love, but he gets a little too free with Alicia and she beans him with a small statuette. She goes running back to her doctor sweetheart, and her parents decide to reconcile, since their separation obviously isn't doing their children any good.

Ollie brings Stan home for dinner and promises a big juicy steak, mushroom sauce, strawberries, whipped cream, a cup of coffee and a big black cigar. Despite the offer of such a delicious temptation, Stan still feels the need to ask if the meal includes any nuts.

When Oliver introduces Stan to Mrs Hardy (Mae Busch), she does not welcome the surprise and storms out in a huff. Mrs Kennedy (Thelma Todd), a neighbor from across the hall, offers to help the boys cook dinner; they, in turn, help to set her dress on fire. Mrs Hardy and Mr Kennedy (Edgar Kennedy), a cop, return and the boys hide the slip-clad Mrs K in a trunk.

Mrs Hardy apologizes to Oliver for earlier, and even brings some nuts for Stanley. However Oliver doesn't entertain her and announces that he's packed his trunk and is leaving for South America. This leads to a quarrel between Oliver and his wife, loud enough for Mr Kennedy to interrupt. Mrs Hardy explains the situation to Kennedy and runs off crying into the bedroom.

Kennedy warns them that if any man would interfere in his marriage, he would cut their throat. Oliver tries to hastily leave the room, with the trunk, but Mr Kennedy stops him and slams the trunk. This causes Mrs Kennedy to scream. Mr Kennedy understands what the boys are up to, so he calls Mrs Hardy and tells her to prepare a nice dinner for the boys, while he instructs them to take the trunk over to his apartment. Stan and Ollie do as they are told, and when Kennedy gets them behind his closed door he applauds their efforts, in a round-about way.

Unaware his wife is within earshot, Kennedy starts bragging to the boys about his "technique" in extramarital liaisons. His furious wife then confronts him about it, before giving him a bit of her own technique: throwing everything within range at him. Next door, Stan, Ollie and Mrs Hardy continue eating while trying to ignore the crashing, banging and shouting coming from the Kennedys' apartment.

When it eventually stops, Mr Kennedy shows up, battered, bruised and in a terrible state. He leads Ollie out with a whistle and beats him up. He then prepares to do the same to Stan, but his wife has not finished with him yet. She comes out of their apartment wielding a gigantic vase and, despite Mr Kennedy's efforts to protect himself, crashes it over his head, putting him out for the count. Having evaded a beating, Stan leaves as though nothing has happened, but then falls down the stairs (offscreen) -- as Ollie watches, flinching with every thump and loud crash as Stan reaches the bottom.

''Alegrijes y Rebujos'' follows the story of the ghost of an eccentric millionaire, Don Darvelio, who is said to haunt the mansion. With a jealous stepmother, an inattentive father and a mean brother, Sofia has many problems.

Nonetheless, she wants to find out if there really are ghosts in the mansion, inhabited now by a strange former servant named Chon. Sofia secretly enters the mansion to recover a picture of her mother, who died when she was a baby.

There, she meets Alfonso, Chon's grandnephew. To their amazement, the children discover Don Darvelio is not dead, and he is the one who has been "haunting" the mansion for the last few years.

The old man finds the happiness he had been yearning for in Sofia and Alfonso and he names them "Alegrijes" (or Happies) who enjoy life, never lose hope, share good and bad times, and keep the wonderful gift of amazement.

Sofia, Alfonso and Don Darvelio have incredible adventures that they share with other neighborhood children: Allison, Ricardo, Ernestina, Pablo and even Esteban, Sofia's disagreeable brother.

Don Darvelio decides to transform his mansion into a place where all the children and their families can live together. However, he becomes seriously ill with the arrival of Helga, his wicked ex-wife, who wants to take over the mansion and destroy the dreams and love the old man has created.

In order to overcome Helga and her mean allies, the "Rebujos" (or Grumpies), the children must employ their best values: friendship, truthfulness, fair competition, love, and happiness.

''National Velvet'' is the story of a 12-year-old, horse-crazy girl, Velvet Brown, who lives in the small town of Sewels in Sussex, England. She wins a spirited gelding in a raffle and decides to train him for the Grand National steeplechase. Velvet is aided by a penniless young drifter named Mi Taylor, who discovered Mrs. Brown's name and address among his late father's effects, though he is unaware of why it was there. Hoping to profit from the association, Mi accepts an invitation to dinner and a night's lodging at the Browns' home, but Mrs. Brown is unwilling to allow Mi to trade on his father's good name and remains vague about their connection. Nevertheless, she convinces her husband to hire Mi over his better judgment, and Mi is brought into the home as a hired hand. It is revealed that Mi's career as a jockey ended in a collision which resulted in another jockey's death. Mi has not held a job since, and now hates horses.

Velvet names the horse she won "The Pie" because his previous owner, Mr. Ede, called the troublesome gelding a pirate. Seeing Pie's natural talent, Velvet pleads with Mi to train him for the Grand National. Mi believes it a fool's errand, not because the horse lacks ability, but because they have no way to finance the effort. He makes his case to Mrs. Brown, but she consents to Velvet's desire to train the horse. To cover the entrance fee and other costs, Mrs. Brown gives Velvet her prize money for swimming the English Channel. Velvet and Mi train the horse and enter him into the race.

Mi and Velvet travel to the Grand National. Mi hires a professional jockey, but the night before the race, Velvet senses he lacks faith in the Pie and will lose. Velvet dismisses the jockey, leaving them without a rider. That night, Mi overcomes his fear of riding and intends to race Pie himself. He discovers that Velvet has donned the jockey silks and intends to ride. Knowing the dangers, Mi attempts to dissuade Velvet, who is determined to ride. As the race unfolds, Velvet and Pie clear all hurdles and win the race. Elated but exhausted, Velvet falls off her mount at the finish. However, since rule 144 required that the winning jockey not dismount before he reached the enclosure, Velvet and Pie are disqualified. When it is discovered that the jockey is a girl, Velvet becomes a media sensation and is offered large amounts of money to travel to Hollywood and be filmed with Pie. To her father's disappointment, Velvet tearfully refuses the offers, claiming that Pie would dislike being stared at. Velvet says that she raced Pie at the Grand National because he deserved a chance for greatness. Velvet chooses a normal life for her and her horse. At the close of the film, Mi, ready to resume his old life, takes his leave without bidding Velvet goodbye. Before he gets too far, Mrs. Brown gives Velvet permission to reveal her relationship with his father. Velvet gallops off on Pie and finds Mi on the road. She tells him that his father was Mrs. Brown's coach as the first woman to swim the English Channel.

Elizabeth "Lizzie" Wurtzel is a 19-year-old accepted into Harvard with a scholarship in journalism. She has been raised by her divorced mother since she was two years old and has not seen her father at all in the last four years. Despite his lack of interest and involvement, Lizzie still misses her father, a contributing factor to her depression. Through a series of flashbacks, it is clear that there was a total communication breakdown between Lizzie's parents, which is soon reflected in Lizzie's own relationship with her mother.

Soon after arriving at Harvard, Lizzie decides to lose her virginity to an older student, Noah. Lizzie proceeds to alienate Noah by throwing a loss-of-virginity party immediately afterwards with the help of her roommate Ruby. Although she and Lizzie begin as best friends, Ruby soon becomes another casualty of Lizzie's instability. Although Lizzie's article for the local music column in ''The Harvard Crimson'' is presented an award by ''Rolling Stone'' early into the semester, Lizzie soon finds herself unable to write, stuck in a vicious cycle with substance abuse. She begins a relationship with another student, Rafe, but after travelling to his home in Texas and discovering that his sister has an intellectual disability, Lizzie accuses Rafe of being 'a creepy voyeur' who gets off on witnessing the pain of others. Rafe breaks up with her.

Lizzie's promising literary career is at risk, as is her mental and physical health. Her mother sends her to expensive psychiatric sessions towards which her father, pleading poverty, implacably refuses to contribute anything at all. After a long period of treatment under medication and a suicidal gesture, Lizzie stabilizes and begins to adjust to her life.

In a remote fishing island in the 1950s, Pepito (Jomari Yllana) grows up learning the trade of his mother, Rosa (Elizabeth Oropesa), the only midwife capable of delivering the newborn babies of their community. At first, the young son doesn't mind the unusual arrangement, but as he grows older, he begins to resist the role traditionally meant only for women.

In time, Pepito's coming of age intersects with the lives of other islanders whose beliefs and struggles become critical impetus to his maturity. Eventually, embarrassment and prejudices are overcome by acceptance and love between mother and son.

José Rizal is imprisoned in Fort Santiago due to his dissident activities. Meanwhile, in a small Balintawak field, Andrés Bonifacio and his fellow secret organization, the Katipunan, commence the uprising against the tyranny created by the Spaniards by tearing their cédulas as a sign of freedom from Spanish slavery.

Soon, a first lieutenant of the Artillery, Luis Taviel de Andrade, visits Rizal. Taviel de Andrade does not waste time to study carefully Rizal's case. In just a short period of time, Rizal and Taviel captured each other's sympathy and eventually became friends as they had usual meetings in Rizal's cell in Fort Santiago. Taviel was even able to celebrate Christmas with Rizal in the cell where they drink and sing together. In addition, Governor General Ramon Blanco also sympathizes with Rizal's cause but is later secretly ousted by corrupt Spanish officials and Manila's archbishop, who replace him with Camilo de Polavieja.

Flashbacks of Rizal's life are shown, from his childhood to his education, until his professional life as a doctor. He soon begins writing his two novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, which are then published. In addition, key scenes from the two novels are also shown.

After Christmas, Rizal was sent to the Real Audiencia, the colonial court of appeal, to hear the trial against him. Soon after, the magistrates decided to condemn him under firing squad on the 30th of the morning in Luneta.

At the night before the execution, Rizal hallucinates, seeing his alter ego—protagonist, "Simoun" (the former Crisostomo Ibarra), from his second book, ''El Filibusterismo'', tempting him to change the climax of the novel.

On the morning of his execution, his kin receives a small alcohol stove (not a gas lamp as commonly portrayed) from his cell containing the last poem "Mi último adiós". Stopping at the place of execution facing the rising sun, Rizal requests the authorities for him to face the firing squad, but the request is denied. Calm and without haste, he requests to have his head spared instead and the captain agrees. At the moment the firing squad aims at his back, he utters his final words: ''Consummatum est'' ("It is done").

In the events following Rizal's execution, members of the Katipunan begin their armed uprising, completely catching the Spanish forces off guard, seizing their mounts, munitions and rifles. After that, the organization captures a church and the members execute the friars in an act of vengeance. Later that night, Bonifacio and his top generals meet in their headquarters to plan a new offensive seeking to capture ten towns in a duration of one week from the Spaniards. As Bonifacio continues speaking, the camera pans to Rizal's picture at the wall of his headquarters before revealing Rizal's hat which sat by the shores of Manila Bay, concluding with the text of events that transpired after his death.

Though widowed, ex-cop, Homer, (Ricky Davao) is a kindly father to his ten-year-old son, Rex (Lester Llansang). He is considered to be something of a bully in the poor Manila neighborhood where he lives. After mistaking a child retrieving a snarled kite for a burglar, Homer kills the boy and then hurriedly tries to cover up his error. Unbeknownst to his dad, Rex witnessed the event, too. As the two separately wrestle with their consciences, the neighbors find out and chaos soon ensues.

16-year-old Sonny Corpus (Cogie), born and raised in the slums of Manila, frequently hangs out with his friends Celso, Jimmy, and Rodel, who also pressure Sonny to spend more time with them. Unbeknownst to Sonny, his friends plan to rob a house one night. During the robbery, Celso accidentally fires at the owner of the house (Anita Linda), killing her. Police arrive at the scene and Jimmy and Rodel are killed, prompting Sonny to freeze and Celso to run. The police find Sonny at the scene and arrest him.

Sonny is detained and cross-examined, and his lawyer points out that his client is still a minor. However, he fails to show ample evidence. Although Sonny didn't kill anyone during the robbery, he is found guilty of murder and subsequently sentenced to death row. After a harsh introduction to prison life during his struggle to come to terms with the court's verdict, he finds his place among the convicts.

'Mayor' Mio, a fellow inmate who holds a position of power in the prison hierarchy, attempts to recruit Sonny as a dealer for his cocaine smuggling business. Sonny hesitantly accepts. The cocaine business is known to the jail warden Fajardo (Spanky Manikan) who is also an accomplice in the illegal business. Gabino (Pen Medina), Mio's second-in-command, attempts to win Sonny's support as part of his secretive preparations for a coup against Mio.

Fellow inmate Lolo Sinat (Eddie Garcia), a 77-year-old gangster who appears to be the most powerful and senior inmate on death row, eventually takes Sonny under his wings. He advises Sonny to stop his involvement in the drug business. When a high-ranking official visits the prison, Sonny confesses to him about the drug business. Gabino exacts revenge by giving Sonny a severe beating; he is also raped and tortured.

Sonny seeks the help of Gina (Jaclyn Jose), a public attorney who also handles the case of Lolo Sinat, to appeal his case. Lolo Sinat does not trust Gina, often calling her a stupid lawyer; she responds by telling him he does not know how to love. Lolo Sinat tells Sonny about his past and how he was brought to jail. The two become closer, and Lolo Sinat promises Sonny that he will help the boy so that when Lolo Sinat faces God, he could say that for once in his life, he has done something right.

With the help of Lukas (Mon Confiado), Lolo Sinat and Sonny manage to escape, but are caught the next day. Gina then tells Lolo Sinat that his death penalty will be served the next week. With his death drawing near, the old man encourages Gina to help Sonny appeal his case. Gabino tries to rape Sonny again, but the boy fights back with a bread knife and stabs Gabino several times, killing him. Lolo Sinat covers up for Sonny.

Before being brought to the lethal injection chamber, Lolo Sinat gives his old walkman to Sonny.

After several weeks, Gina's appeal for Sonny's case becomes successful. Celso is found and brought to justice and Sonny is released from jail.

During a bus ride along a rural road during March, 19-year-old orphan Jennifer is awakened by a mysterious boy who presents her with an unfinished, homemade storybook and asks her to read it. The boy runs off the bus before Jennifer can return the book to him, and Jennifer follows him to the dilapidated Rose Garden Orphanage. In the courtyard Jennifer encounters several orphans who are seen beating a bloody sack before dragging it inside.

Jennifer infiltrates the seemingly empty orphanage, and the boy from the bus leads Jennifer to a room in the attic where he addresses her from atop an altar and requests that Jennifer finish reading the storybook he gave her. After Jennifer finishes reading, a voice over the loudspeaker announces that a funeral is about to begin. The boy informs Jennifer that the funeral is for her "dear friend". At the funeral site, Jennifer senses something important to her buried there. As she digs up the coffin, Jennifer discovers the bloody sack from earlier inside, but before she can open it the orphans of Rose Garden surround Jennifer. The voice on the loudspeaker announces that an airship will be taking off soon, and the orphans force Jennifer into the coffin and lock her inside.

Jennifer wakes up tied to a pole in the bowels of an impossibly large and luxurious airship. The boy who led Jennifer off the bus introduces himself to Jennifer as the Prince of The Red Rose. The Prince forces Jennifer to join the Red Rose Aristocracy, a class hierarchy, as the lowest ranked member. All members are under the command of the Prince and Princess, and each member is required to provide a specific monthly gift to the Prince and Princess. Failure to provide the gift means death at the hands of a monster called Stray Dog.

While living with the Aristocrats, Jennifer continuously finds herself in conflict especially with another low-ranking member Amanda who becomes obsessed with her after they are each forced to punish the other by higher-ranking members. Jennifer is also blamed for several incidents caused by high-ranking Aristocrats, and despite being brutally punished for them she is spared from Stray Dog because she narrowly manages to provide the monthly gifts. Jennifer also rescues and adopts a golden retriever named Brown, who assists in finding gifts, and befriends the sickly orphan Wendy who is excluded from Aristocrat club activities due to her illness.

After several months on the airship, Jennifer is kidnapped by a strange man and left in a rose garden on the ground with the man, Gregory Wilson, standing over her. She follows Gregory to his house and goes inside, where she discovers the man contemplating suicide. Jennifer is caught and locked in the man's basement bedroom. While in the basement, Jennifer finds and takes a stuffed bear with her. Jennifer also discovers a series of letters between Wendy and a boy named Joshua, in which Wendy offers to help free Joshua from the basement. Suddenly, Wendy arrives at the basement window and releases Jennifer, and they escape back to the rose garden after stealing Gregory's gun to prevent him from committing suicide. Before leaving, Wendy trades a rose-shaped brooch for Jennifer's bear, and names the bear Joshua after the unknown boy.

Jennifer returns to the airship with Wendy, and the club is urgently tasked with finding the stuffed bear Joshua after it goes missing. The reward for finding the bear is a Red Crayon, an official invitation to the higher ranks of the Aristocracy. Although Wendy is originally suspected of stealing the bear by the other Aristocrats, Jennifer eventually discovers that Amanda was the thief and takes the bear back from her. After returning the bear to the Aristocrats, Jennifer nearly receives her Red Crayon but is instead attacked by the orphans and prevented from joining the Aristocracy officially.

Jennifer awakens back in the orphanage in a locked room. After escaping, she is ignored and silently harassed by the children and even the headmaster of the orphanage. Wendy informs Jennifer of an important meeting between the Aristocrats, and shortly afterward both Wendy and Brown go missing. As Jennifer searches for her friend and dog, she discovers that she and Brown have become the gift of the month, as 'Filthy Jennifer' and 'Filthy Brown'. Jennifer follows a bloody trail to the orphanage's attic, and finds a bloody sack surrounded by all of the orphans. Amanda informs Jennifer that her friend is in the bag, and she opens it to find Brown's corpse. Wendy then steps down from the club altar and reveals that she is the Princess of the Red Rose and had ordered Brown's death. In retaliation for Brown's murder, Jennifer slaps Wendy and throws away her rose-shaped brooch. Jennifer denounces the Aristocrats and Wendy leaves the Orphanage humiliated.

It is revealed that the boy the stuffed bear was named after is actually Gregory Wilson's missing son, Joshua, who Gregory replaced with Jennifer after kidnapping her from the remains of a real airship wreck. Wendy discovered Jennifer living under the name Joshua as Gregory's son. Despite initially believing that Jennifer was a boy, their friendship becomes psuedo-romantic and the two profess their love for each other. Wendy eventually helped Jennifer escape, and returned to the Rose Garden Orphanage together. Together, Jennifer and Wendy formed the Red Crayon Aristocrat Club, with Jennifer as The Prince and Wendy as The Princess. The two girls then made an oath: "Everlasting, true love, I am yours", and exchanged Jennifer's stuffed bear for Wendy's rose-shaped brooch. Wendy named the bear Joshua after Jennifer's former identity.

Wendy is deposed as the Princess after it was revealed that Stray Dog was a lie in order to control the Aristocrats, based on Gregory Wilson and newspapers about a serial killer. Wendy disappears entirely, and without a leader, the orphans began violently infighting. The violence causes all of the orphan's adult caretakers mysteriously disappear, leaving the children to fend for themselves. The Aristocrats approach Jennifer in the hope that she would replace Wendy as their leader and bring order back to the club, but before Jennifer can decline the offer, the girls notice Wendy approaching the orphanage and leave to go turn her away.

Shortly afterward Jennifer hears screaming from outside, and discovers The Prince leading a monster appearing to be Stray Dog. The Prince approaches Jennifer and reveals that he is actually Wendy in disguise. Unknown to the orphans, Wendy had gone to live with Gregory by disguising herself as his son Joshua, and used the disguise to torture Gregory into becoming Stray Dog. She then ordered him to kill all of the Aristocrats out of revenge. After the massacre of the orphans, Wendy regretfully confesses that she had Brown killed out of jealousy. After adopting Brown, Jennifer had begun to neglect her club duties and, believing that she had forgotten the oath she made, Wendy demoted Jennifer from the position of Prince, replacing her with the stuffed bear Joshua as a figurehead. Wendy ordered the other Aristocrats to bully and ignore Jennifer in the hopes that she would remember her promise and beg to return to her side. When this didn't work and Jennifer remained at the bottom of the caste with Brown, Wendy had Brown killed to try and force her into submission. After confessing, Wendy gives Jennifer Gregory's gun, and Wendy is then killed by Gregory. In a moment of lucidity Gregory asks 'Joshua' to give him back the gun. Jennifer gives it to him, and Gregory shoots himself.

Jennifer reawakens as a child and explores her memories of the empty orphanage while reflecting on the Aristocrats. Jennifer vows to remember the other children, especially because the media coverage of the children's deaths had diminished after it came to light that Jennifer had been the only survivor of two horrific events. Finally, Jennifer leaves the orphanage and visits Brown in a shed nearby. She puts a collar with his name around his neck, promising to protect him and her memories for eternity. Jennifer then closes the shed's door on Brown, symbolically locking his memory deep inside herself.

On holiday in France, the Goodies are riding leisurely through the countryside on their trandem when they suddenly become aware of a large number of cyclists riding very rapidly behind them. The Goodies speed up to escape the onslaught, and as a result of this, cross the finishing line of the ''Tour de France'' before the competitors. The Goodies are awarded the prize, as the winners of the ''Tour de France'', because of crossing the line in first place.

As a result of their success in winning the ''Tour de France'' so easily, Graeme becomes obsessed with them winning the ''Le Mans 24-hour'' race. However, there is a problem—they do not have a car, and none of the Goodies are able to drive a car.

Tim volunteers to drive the car in the race, despite not being able to drive, and Graeme instructs him how to drive (by reading from a book)—doing so in a substitute 'car' consisting of two living room chairs (for driver and passenger), as well as a large plate as a steering wheel, a wooden spoon for the gear shift, and Bill's feet as the brake and accelerator. Tim passes his driving test, and all is ready to go.

Graeme designs a sleek-looking racing car, using a photograph of a racing car on which to model his design. He then sets about building a car based on the blue-print of his design. The end result is not anything like the car on the drawing board—it is a chunky strange-looking vehicle, with no windscreen, and special "hand signal" traffic indicators for "turning right", "turning left" and "turning nasty".

There is a villain in their midst—Baron de Boeuf, who is determined to win the race at all costs, and who will stop at nothing to achieve this end. The Baron sabotages the cars of all the entrants, with the result that most of the drivers are forced to withdraw from the race. The Goodies, likewise, are left with no car. However, Graeme is determined not to give in, and he modifies their office into a special type of car, with a window becoming the car's windscreen. Baron de Boeuf immediately tries to destroy the Goodies new "car" so that he will have no rival to worry about. Eventually, the Baron is eliminated from the race, but the adventure for the Goodies continues, with a nail-biting conclusion.

When all seems lost, Graeme reveals yet another surprising feature of his remarkable car.

The plot is quite straightforward: a middle-aged man takes the train in Paris to visit his lover, Cécile, whom he has not informed of his arrival, in Rome. They have met in secret once a month for the past two years: each time that his business trips have taken him to the Italian capital. He now intends to tell her that he has finally decided to leave his wife, found a job for her (Cécile) in Paris and is ready to take her back there and live with her.

The novel describes his gradual change of mind. His initial enthusiasm and hopes of a rejuvenating new start slowly give way to doubt, fear and cowardice. He eventually decides to spend the week-end in Rome alone, go back to Paris the following Monday without telling anything to Cécile and leave the situation as it was until their relationship eventually ends. He will write about this failure in a book which happens to be "La Modification" itself.

Tordesillas, 1554. Seventy-four years old, Queen Joanna of Castile, called Juana la Loca (Joanna the Madwoman), is still mourning the loss of her husband who died a half century before. Joanna remembers with emotion the man she loved passionately, but who brought her ruin. She does not fear death, she says, because death would allow her to be reunited with her husband. Their story goes back almost 60 years.

In 1496, Joanna, the third child of the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, is leaving Spain through the port of Laredo. She is headed to Flanders to marry the Archduke of Austria, Philip, nicknamed the Handsome, a man she has never laid eyes on. The marriage has been arranged for political purposes. Joanna's siblings and her mother, Queen Isabella, bid her farewell.

Once in Flanders, Joanna, young and inexperienced, is immediately smitten by her handsome fiancé. He is equally pleased with his beautiful bride and orders the marriage to take place at that very moment so they can consummate their marriage without any delay. Their union is initially a great success. The political alliance between their two countries has been consolidated and Joanna and Philip are very attracted to each other. With his good looks and bed manners, Philip completely captivates his wife. Their passionate love making soon produces results. Joanna has a daughter, followed shortly after by a son. This combination of love, lust and emotional dependency make the passionate Joanna deeply attached to her husband. Her love becomes consuming, but the intensity of her passion turns Philip away. He is a restless man who finds entertainment in going hunting and in the arms of other women. The deaths of Joanna's brother, the stillbirth of her brother's daughter, her older sister's death and her sister's son's death unexpectedly make her heir of the Castilian and Aragones crowns. However, she is not interested in government. Obsessed with her husband, Joanna surprises him in bed with a lover, who Joanna later successfully identifies as Inés de Brabante, one of the court ladies. In a fit of jealousy, Joanna cuts the long red hair of her rival. While Joanna despairs at her husband’s unfaithfulness, she receives further bad news. Her mother has died. Joanna thus becomes Queen of Castile and has to return to her kingdom. Her tantrums over her husband’s infidelities have made her start to become known as Joanna the Mad.

At the Castilian court in Burgos, the Queen is happily greeted by her subjects, but her marital life is still in turmoil. Philip is soon bewitched by the charms and spells of Aixa, a Moorish prostitute who uses her sexual attraction and black magic to secure Philip's favour. With this new lover, the King becomes noticeably indifferent toward his wife, which adds to her increasingly insane jealousy.

Against the background of this troubled marriage, there are two opposed political parties at court, one Flemish, the other Castilian. The conspiring Flemish usurpers are headed by Señor de Veyre, Philip's right-hand man. Their objective is to have Joanna declared insane and for Philip to take power away from her. Joanna has her own set of supporters, the loyal Castilian royalists, headed by the Admiral of Castile. The Admiral and the Queen's friend and confidant, Elvira, try unsuccessfully to rescue Juana from her marital obsessions.

However, it is not the government that is on the Queen's mind; she is fixated on retaining her husband’s love. To avoid any temptations at court, she hires only ugly-looking maids of honour to serve her, but in fact Aixa has been brought to court by Philip, passing as one of the court ladies under the name of Beatriz de Bobadilla. Unaware of this, the Queen relies on Beatriz to find a spell to help her retain her husband's love. Joanna is equally misguided in her attempt to regain Philip's attention by simulating a love affair with Captain Álvaro de Estúñiga, a close friend from her childhood. The Queen’s lack of control permits the manipulation of her enemies to have her declared incompetent to rule. The King, encouraged by Señor de Veyre, resolves to take the rule of the kingdom for himself and shove Joanna out of the way. He finds an unlikely ally in Joanna's own father, king Fernando, who has remarried and has no further interest in either the fate of his daughter or in the kingdom of Castile.

While her fate is decided at a court assembly, Joanna is able to successfully make her case, counting on the unquestionable support of her subjects. However, her powerful speech coincides with Philip falling gravely ill. Although she devotedly takes care of her husband, the doctors are unable to do anything for him. On his death bed, Philip apologises to his wife for his past excesses. After the death of her husband Joanna, heavily pregnant, takes on a long journey to the south of the country to bury her husband. She does not go far. Forced to stop to give birth to a daughter, Joanna never reaches her destination. Although she retains her title as queen, at the age of 28 she is locked as a madwoman in the castle of Tordesillas for the rest of her long life.

Philip's body was laid to rest in a nearby monastery, which Joanna was allowed to visit from time to time.

An artifact has been forged which enables time-travelling spells while it remains in Sunnydale. A group of vampire-assassins are travelling into the past in an attempt to kill previous Slayers, and disrupt the Slayer lineage. They are led by the spellcaster Lucien, whose aim is to ensure that Buffy does not interfere with the ascension of the Master. When they discover that killing Buffy in the past merely changes the way in which the Master is killed, they become frustrated and decide to go further back.

When Buffy becomes aware of their plans, the vampires have already left and she is forced to follow them into the past. With Giles, Willow and Xander, she travels to first-century Anglesey in Wales where a Druidic stronghold is being invaded by Romans. Next they travel to Uruk in ancient Sumer where they encounter Gilgamesh. Xander inadvertently arouses a plague god, and Willow accidentally summons a snake-demon while trying to banish the god.

Then they return to the American Civil War period, where they find themselves in the middle of the Battle of Shiloh. They destroy many vampires feeding on the soldiers. Finally they head for Paris during the French Revolution where they witness executions on the guillotine and meet Angelus and Darla.

When the United States Army asks the Goodies to get rid of a large container, with the words Tomato soup on its side, they take it out to sea in an attempt to ditch it — but without success. They then take the container to their office, where they open it and find a strange-looking mixture inside.

In an effort to make the mixture look more like Tomato soup, and more palatable, Tim pours red paint into the mixture in their soup bowls, and the trio attempt to eat the mixture. The 'soup' tastes horrible and makes them feel ill. The Goodies sell the remainder of the mixture to Thirtes (who intend to serve the mixture as soup at Motorway service areas), and to service stations (which intend to use the mixture as petrol).

Back at the Goodies' domain, something strange is taking effect — Tim's nose has turned red. Bill comments that he had never noticed that Tim had a small red nose before. Tim states that he does not have a 'small red nose', to which Graeme replies: "No, you don't have a small red nose - you have a BIG red nose!". Tim is turning into a clown — closely followed by Bill and Graeme also turning into clowns.

The Goodies discover that people, everywhere, are turning into clowns, and come to the conclusion that the 'soup' was not soup after all, but something else. Arriving back at the base the Goodies find a sheet confirming the 'Soup' was in fact a prototype liquiadised nerve gas that caused people and certain objects to behave in a clown-ish manner.

The Goodies confront Major Cheeseburger about what is happening, and he exclaims: "Well, I'll be horn-swoggled!" to which Graeme comments: "Your private life is no concern of ours." After the confrontation with the Major, who claims he was "Just obeying orders", a screen appears showing the Major's superior in the Pentagon, who then reveals the nerve gas was a key factor in their planned invasion of the United Kingdom and making it part of the US.

A small US platoon of troops land on a beach with little expectation of resistance. To their surprise, the Goodies, still in clown form, overwhelm them in various clown methods. Despite getting blown, blasted and pied, the US troops are about to launch their final attack when out from nowhere, a US plantation owner comes out from nowhere and orders the troops to get back to his farm. The Goodies watch silently as the farmer whips the troops back to America, knowing Britain is saved.

Fifteen disparate African American men board a bus in Los Angeles bound for Washington, D.C., where they plan on attending the Million Man March. Other than their race, destination, and gender, the men have nothing in common: George is the trip organizer; Xavier is an aspiring filmmaker hoping to make a documentary of the March; Flip is the vain but charismatic and openly homophobic and sexist actor; Kyle and Randall are a homosexual couple; Gary, a biracial police officer; Jamal is a former gang banger turned devout Muslim who has evaded prosecution for the murders he committed; Evan Jr., is a petty criminal who has been permitted to break probation to attend the march on the condition that he remain handcuffed to his father, Evan Sr.

As the bus travels across country, Xavier conducts interviews with the various attendees, allowing them to express their views on race, religion, and politics. The interviews often provoke outbursts from other men on the bus, invariably leading to many political confrontations. Jeremiah, the eldest member of the group, is an 80-year-old former alcoholic who lost his job and family, has found new meaning in life and is energized by the Million Man March, and embraces his African heritage; his philosophies on the black experience and stories of precolonial Africa serve to unite the men and ease tensions and the infighting among them.

En route the bus breaks down and the men are forced to board another bus, driven by an ethnically Jewish white man named Rick. A couple of the passengers harass Rick as a white man, and Rick ultimately refuses to drive any further, citing the group's prejudice and his opposition to antisemitic remarks made by the leader of the march, Louis Farrakhan. George, himself a bus driver, accuses Rick of cultural racism, but begrudgingly agrees to cover for Rick, who leaves. George takes over driving for the remainder of the trip, with help from Evan Sr.

As the bus passes through the American south, the men are greeted hospitably by several white southerners at various restaurants and rest stops. At one stop, the men pick up Wendell, a wealthy African American Lexus salesman who sees attending the march as a way to make business connections. Wendell, a self-proclaimed conservative Republican, makes disparaging remarks about whom he sees as lazy and stupid African Americans. Though he gets some agreement from Kyle, ultimately the other men perceive Wendell as too insulting and just wanting to make money off the march; they forcibly toss him out of the bus.

In Knoxville, Tennessee, the bus is pulled over by a pair of racist state troopers, who accuse the men of using the bus to smuggle drugs. The bus and its passengers are checked by a drug-sniffing police dog, turning up no evidence of drugs; the troopers then condescendingly allow the bus to resume its journey.

As the bus nears Washington, Jeremiah passes out and is rushed to a hospital. The doctors there discover that Jeremiah is suffering from advanced coronary artery disease, which made the stress of the trip potentially deadly for him. Evan Sr. and Jr., Gary, Jamal, and Xavier opt to stay with Jeremiah at the hospital and watch the march on television while the rest of the men leave in the bus to attend. Shortly after they leave, Jeremiah dies. The rest of the group returns to the hospital, saying that, to stay true to the spirit of the March, they chose not to attend the march but to return and be with Jeremiah.

As the bus prepares to return to Los Angeles, the men find a prayer that Jeremiah wrote with the intention of praying it when the bus arrived at Washington, D.C. The men drive to the Lincoln Memorial, where George leads the men in Jeremiah's prayer, and the film ends with Evan Jr. and Senior's handcuffs left at the Lincoln memorial.

Taking place in another galaxy, a space pilot is returning to his home world of Volfied, only to discover that it is under attack by an unknown alien force. The few remaining Volfied inhabitants are in an underground location of the planet and signal the pilot to their aid. The pilot flies to Volfied using his ship's defensive weapons in order to eliminate the alien threat and save his people.

The freedom of the world is once again in peril as the Spy Corps must call on their trusty envoy, Spy Fox (voiced by Mike Madeoy) to neutralize a plot engineered by the Society of Meaningless Evil, Larceny, Lying and Yelling (S.M.E.L.L.Y.)

The Giant Evil Dogbot, a villainous weapon, is masquerading as a statue at the World's Fair. The Dogbot's collar cleverly holds the Chateau LeRoach, a revolving restaurant where SpyFox will find Napoleon LeRoach, mastermind of a plan for revenge, dining. LeRoach has held a grudge against the population of the world for a long time, ever since he was denied entry to the Famous French Pastries of the Past at the World's Fair because of his insufficient height.

With the entry of each fairgoer, the turnstile winds-up the Giant Evil Dogbot's gears. Then, before the millionth customer moves through the turnstile, Spy Fox slips through the Achilles’ heel of the evil Dogbot by sneaking past the breath analyzer to install the OFF switch and set the activation code. If possible (to get the bonus ending) Spy Fox tricks LeRoach into entering prison through its sewer pipes.

Car thief Dick Kanipsia gets out on parole from a penitentiary. He intends to go straight, but first he goes directly to see an old friend Harry Moss, only to be shocked to see Harry get shot. Harry's dying words tell Dick to find Barry Fenaka, a guy who supposedly knows where to find a stash of stolen cash that Harry has hidden, and mention the name Vincent Palmer to Fenaka. Then, instead of dying slowly, Harry blows himself up with dynamite. As Dick flees the scene, a black van lurks in the trees.

Dick hitches a ride with Kitty Kopetzky, who starts out as a friendly free spirit, then turns into a nut case who robs a diner where she and Dick go to eat. Dick flees during her robbery and catches a passing bus.

Fenaka turns out to be a small-time bandleader. He explains to Dick that he and Harry embezzled $320,000, and paid Palmer to stash it for them. He and his wife take Dick to go get the money. They travel by car, with an Air Stream Land Yacht in tow. At Palmer's office, they find a man named Hollenbeck who tells them that Palmer moved to Pismo Beach.

As they follow Palmer's trail, the trio worry about the black camper van that seems to follow them. It is labelled Willow Camp for Boys and Girls. At the beach, Barry finds out that Palmer is now in Susanville. Somehow, Kitty tracks Dick down and joins the crew. An identical black van joins the first, and when Barry disappears, Dick and the women become convinced that he is in one of the vans.

They track the vans to a trailer camp. Upon approaching the black vans in the dark, four men jump Dick and beat him. He returns to the Airstream in pain with what Kitty believes to be a collapsed lung. Dick realizes this attackers are people he has encountered throughout the entire trip. Fearing he will be beaten again at the trailer park, Dick ducks into a bingo game and begins to play, then feigns leaving. He stops at the exit and turns around to see the four men that beat him standing up from their places at the bingo tables. Kitty then arrives and sits next to Dick, who points out the four men. Kitty goes over to one of the men (played by Alex Rocco) and sweeps the bingo markers off the card of a large man playing next to him. The large bingo player then punches Rocco's character, starting a brawl that involves all of Dick's attackers, and allowing Dick and Kitty to escape. One of the black vans leaves the camp in a hurry, and Dick pursues them. In the ensuing chase, the other black van eventually catches up and drives Dick and the Airstream off the road. Dick creates a roadblock and forces the black van to crash into a waste pit.

In a shootout with one of the men from the van, Dick wounds his attacker and tracks him to a roadside vegetable stand. The wounded man is Hollenbeck, who confesses that he is really Palmer. He put all the money into the camp, but the location wasn't suitable, and the business failed. Barry arrives in a tow truck, revealing that he had simply gone for a tuna sandwich when Dick and the women thought he was abducted. He is thrilled to learn that the money was used to buy land. Dick walks away in disgust at the whole mess while Barry plots with his wife about how to make money off the land.

The play takes place in Dennis Ziegler's family's apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in March 1982.

Dennis's friend Warren Straub, a dejected 19-year-old, has just been kicked out of his house and stolen $15,000 from his abusive lingerie tycoon father. Dennis, the more wily and domineering of the two, spends some of the money on cocaine, hoping to sell it to a friend for much more. Jessica Goldman, an "anxiously insightful" fashion student, arrives, and Warren hopes that he can use the money to entice her into bed.

The play explores timeless issues of adolescence and maturity, as well as the Reagan Era in which it is set: the characters feel adrift in 1980s-style materialism.

War between Earth and insectoid-dominated Alpha III ended over a decade ago. (According to the novel, "Alphane" refers to the nearest star to our own system, Alpha Centauri). Some years after the end of hostilities, Earth intends to secure its now independent colony in the Alphane system, Alpha III M2. As a former satellite-based global psychiatric institution for colonists on other Alphane system worlds unable to cope with the stresses of colonisation, the inhabitants of Alpha III M2 have lived peacefully for years. But, under the pretence of a medical mission, Earth intends to take their colony back.

Against this background, Chuck Rittersdorf and his wife Mary are separating. Although they think they are going their separate ways, they soon find themselves together again on Alpha III M2. Mary travels there through government work, Chuck sees it as a chance to kill Mary using his remote control simulacrum. Along the way he is guided by his Ganymedean slime mould neighbour Lord Running Clam and Mary finds herself manipulated by the Alphane sympathiser, comedian Bunny Hentman.

The inhabitants of a planet called Iszm, a species known as the Iszic, have evolved the native giant trees into living homes, with all needs and various luxuries supplied by the trees' own natural growth. The Iszic maintain a jealously guarded monopoly, exporting only enough trees to keep prices high and make a great profit. Ailie Farr is a human botanist who goes to Iszm (like many others before him, of many species) to try to steal a female tree, which might allow the propagation of the species off world and break the monopoly.

The episode centers around the continuation of a storyline in which Democratic President Josiah Bartlet publicly admits that he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and concealed it from the public throughout his campaign for the presidency. In this episode, set in the Christmas holiday season, Leo McGarry has been served with a subpoena to testify before the United States House Committee on Oversight and Reform as a high-ranking official in the Bartlet campaign and one of Bartlet's closest friends.

Leo is asked by the committee how he initially persuaded Jed Bartlet to run for office, causing the show to flashback to a scene where Leo stops by Bartlet's office as Governor of New Hampshire. In trying to persuade him to run for President, Leo pulls out a cocktail napkin, licks it, and sticks it on a nearby easel, revealing that it reads "Bartlet for America".

A recess is called when Leo, while being questioned by Congressman Darren Gibson, admits that Bartlet had a previously undisclosed multiple sclerosis "attack" while campaigning for office, on the night of the third debate. Leo tells his lawyer that on the night of the debate, he was meeting with Gibson, then a CEO, and another wealthy individual; he trying to shore up the campaign's money. Leo tries to avoid the drinks offered to him without revealing that he is a recovering alcoholic, but ends up having a glass of scotch. After the two leave, Leo gets drunk, and when Congressman Gibson re-enters the room—having forgotten his wallet—he sees the several empty bottles Leo has left on the table. Meanwhile, the Republican Senate Majority Leader and Majority Counsel Cliff Calley have pulled Gibson into another room, where he tells them the same story and signals his intent to use the debate collapse as an excuse to publicize Leo's story and embarrass him. Calley objects, telling Gibson that the questioning is immoral and irrelevant. At Calley's urging, the Majority Leader postpones the hearings until after the Christmas holidays. Later, President Bartlet gives Leo a Christmas present in his office, which he unwraps, revealing the original napkin that read "Bartlet for America" in a picture frame. "That was awfully nice of you", says the President, before turning to leave. The episode closes with a shot of Leo crying at his desk, holding the frame.

The episode takes its name from the fictional town of Hartsfield's Landing, New Hampshire, which has an eligible voting population of 42. It is election day for the small town, and Josh is focused on winning the town for President Bartlet because the town's population finishes voting within ten minutes of midnight, feeding their results into the news cycle for 21 hours until the rest of New Hampshire finishes voting. While the election is only preliminary, the town has a reputation for predicting the next president in every election since William Howard Taft. Josh, therefore, makes Donna canvass for the votes of her connections in the town. Donna spends the next few hours standing outside the White House, in the cold night, trying to remind the voters of the president's accomplishments. Josh eventually calls off the effort, recognizing that the voters are their own individuals and that he cannot control the outcome.

Meanwhile, the president has returned from India with new chess sets, gifting them to Sam and Toby and challenging both to a match. Toby's match, set in the Oval Office, is a follow-up to the conversation the two had in a prior episode, where Toby criticizes the president for hiding his intellect in favor of folksiness and linked it to his father, who always despised his intellect. The president, though still angry at Toby, explores the two sides of the argument with him; at one point, after Toby calls the president's father an "idiot", he puts Toby in check and angrily storms out of the room. Toby, however, has the final word on the president's situation, telling him that he far outclasses his opponent intellectually and should not play his game of plainspoken folksiness.

Sam's match is set in his own office. Rather than re-election, the two discuss a dispute unfolding between China and Taiwan, and the president's diplomatic maneuvering to prevent the conflict from escalation. This conversation serves as an opportunity for the president to act as a mentor, leisurely telling Sam to "see the whole board" as he wins the match anyway and assuring Sam that he will run for president one day. For humor, the episode includes a subplot of C. J. and Charlie pranking each other following Charlie's refusal to unconditionally give C. J. the president's private schedule.

The episode centers around preparing Josiah Bartlet for his sole debate against Robert Ritchie, the Governor of Florida and Republican nominee for president in the upcoming election. The opening scene of the episode depicts a prank related to debate preparation—Bartlet bets ten dollars against the rest of the White House senior staff that he can dupe Toby Ziegler into believing that Bartlet is a having a "crisis of confidence" for the upcoming debate. After learning that he'd been tricked, Toby simply comments to Josh Lyman, "he's ready". Josh is also tasked in the scene with finding "ten word" answers, sound-bite answers to policy questions that show that the Bartlet campaign can be folksy and in touch with the American public.

After Toby alerts C. J. that a Democrat is going to be providing support for Ritchie in the post-debate spin room, Toby tells C. J. to find Albie Duncan, a Republican at the U.S. Department of State, who has agreed to similarly provide support for Bartlet. Despite objections that Duncan is "a little bit" crazy, C. J. prepares Duncan for the spin room on the flight to the debate. After practicing an answer on free trade, Duncan tells C. J. that trade is complicated, and that these simplified sound bites are misleading. Duncan also criticizes Josh for trying to get him help Josh come up with the ten word answers. During the debate, Ritchie answers a question on his tax plan simply by stating that "The American people know how to spend their money better than the federal government does." Bartlet, although given time for a rebuttal, ignores the content of Ritchie's answer, responding with the following:

There it is... That's the ten-word answer my staff's been looking for for two weeks. There it is. Ten-word answers can kill you in political campaigns. They're the tip of the sword. Here's my question: What are the next ten words of your answer? Your taxes are too high? So are mine. Give me the next ten words. How are we going to do it? Give me ten after that, I'll drop out of the race right now.

Meanwhile, Sam Seaborn, the Deputy White House Communications Director, goes to California to meet with Will Bailey, who is managing the congressional campaign of the deceased Democrat Horton Wilde against a seven-term Republican incumbent. This is the first appearance of Will Bailey on ''The West Wing''. Sam tries to get Will to suspend Wilde's campaign at the request of the President, telling him that it's become "a national joke", but Will refuses. Sam goes to watch Will hold a press conference, where he defends Wilde and the campaign against the idea that a dead candidate should not be voted for. After the debate, Sam visits Will at a bar, and after further discussion, Will still refuses to back down from his campaign. Will tells Sam that Horton Wilde's widow, Kate Wilde, wants assurance that a Democrat will run for the seat should a special election occur, and after further discussion, Sam tells Will that he can tell Wilde that Sam grew up in Orange County, and would be willing to run for the seat should Wilde win.

Meanwhile, the ''Mastico'', a ship in the Mediterranean Sea bound to the nation of Qumar, was stopped by the U.S. Navy on the suspicion that it was smuggling arms to a fictional terrorist group known as the Bahji. In an attempt to get the Qumar to turn the ship around, Leo McGarry summons the Qumari Ambassador to the United Nations, Ali Nassir, to the White House, along with Leo's lawyer, Jordon Kendall. The two argue over the death of Abdul Ibn Shareef, a Qumari cabinet minister secretly assassinated by the United States, because the Qumari government was spreading disinformation that Shareef was assassinated by the Israeli government. After Nassir attempts to de-escalate by telling Leo that he knows that Bartlet couldn't admit Israel's complicity during a close election, Leo laughs, responding that to win in a landslide, all Bartlet would have to do is "blow the Sultan's brains out in Times Square, then walk across the street to Nathan's and buy a hot dog". Leo tells the ambassador that he has to turn around the ''Mastico'', and stop attempting to link Shareef's death to Israel.

The episode centers mostly around White House Press Secretary C. J. Cregg, who is portrayed by Allison Janney. C. J. is scheduled to give a speech at her high school's twentieth year reunion party, titled "The Promise of a Generation". Toby Ziegler urges a reluctant C. J. to go, booking her on a flight. At the airport in Dayton, C. J. reconnects with an old classmate named Marco Arlens, with whom she agrees to go to the reunion. However, she remains largely focused on doing her job at the White House from afar until she arrives at the house of her father, Talmidge Cregg. The house is cluttered and chaotic, and Talmidge Cregg is significantly affected by his case of Alzheimer's disease, shifting frequently between lucidity and forgetfulness. C. J. learns that her father's new wife, Molly, has left him, and goes to confront her the next morning. Molly, while apologetic and ashamed, calls her marriage to Talmidge Cregg a "mistake" and says that she does not want to be his caretaker. When C. J. and her father go fishing, he momentarily cannot recognize her in a rant, and when C. J. tells him that he needs care, he refuses. C. J. even offers to quit her job to take care of him, to which he replies that he would rather she keep her job than watch the "demolition derby going on in my brain". They visit Talmidge's friend, a neurologist, who recommends a nursing home and tells them they need to start making plans today, because the condition will only get worse. Marco Arlens comes to Talmidge's house to pick up C. J., and while Arlens is fixing a pocket watch Talmidge has been carrying around, Talmidge says that he cannot recognize a framed picture on his wall, which has C. J. in it. They go to the reunion, and in the middle of C. J.'s speech, she receives a call from Toby Ziegler, telling her that there was an attack on a U.S. embassy. She leaves, and while she initially wants to return next week, Talmidge tells her that she could not reasonably fly to Ohio and back to Washington regularly, leaving the two to hug each other goodbye and walk to the car.

When the characteristic "double-flash" of a nuclear detonation is detected over the Indian Ocean, President Bartlet calls upon his administration to investigate which state has joined the "nuclear club." The administration covertly contacts the governments of Russia and China asking them to communicate with Iran and North Korea, respectively, to ascertain whether either was behind the test. Vice President Russell, who is seeking a more important role within the administration, is briefed on the situation but does not seem to grasp it. North Korea is eventually ruled out, leaving Iran as the most likely suspect and fueling fear that a nuclear weapon could reach the hands of an Islamic terrorist group. Because Iran and the U.S. do not maintain official diplomatic relations, the President calls Iran's ambassador to the UN from New York to the Swiss embassy in Washington. Leo McGarry grills the ambassador over Iran's nuclear program, but he rebuffs their accusations and gives no conclusive indications that Iran was behind the test.

Nevertheless, the administration remains suspicious and the President orders B-2s scrambled for potential simultaneous air strikes on five Iranian uranium enrichment facilities. McGarry tells Communications Director Toby Ziegler to have a statement ready once the strikes are carried out, as Ziegler unsuccessfully tries to convince McGarry that the situation would be better handled by the UN. Vice President Russell steps in, recounting to the President and the Joint Chiefs an encounter he had with a drunken Israeli government official who revealed that the country had secretly developed its own nuclear submarines. Russell surmises that Israel (which, having developed nuclear weapons technology years ago, would have no apparent reason to perform a test) needed to test a weapon that had been miniaturized to fit on a submarine-based missile, earning new respect for himself within the administration. The President calls off the air strike, averting an international crisis, and invites the Israeli Prime Minister to Washington under the pretext of discussing the settlement of the West Bank. President Bartlett shares his concerns over proliferation and escalation with the Prime Minister, who says that the submarines are part of an essential second-strike capability against Iran, which he is certain will eventually develop nuclear weapons.

A subplot throughout the episode consists of NASA officials trying to convince Josh Lyman to push the administration and Congress to authorize funding for a potential human mission to Mars. At first, Lyman harshly dismisses the idea, citing high costs and a recent string of technical failures by the agency. However, an attractive female administrator (Christina Chang) takes him stargazing and rekindles his enthusiasm for space exploration, and he composes an inspiring speech in support of the idea. The episode ends with shots of Lyman looking through a telescope into the night sky and President Bartlet watching the satellite feed of the nuclear test in the Situation Room as "Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground" plays, juxtaposing the possibilities made accessible by modern technology for both innovation and advancement, as well as for violence and destruction.

In another development, a conservative television pundit, Taylor Reid (Jay Mohr), chides Press Secretary C.J. Cregg, who feels somewhat neglected by the administration.

A US E-2 Hawkeye AEW aircraft goes down over North Korea, and five crew members are lost in enemy territory. President Bartlet, faced with the choice between negotiations with the North Korean government and attempting a rescue operation, chooses the latter. The operation is successful in retrieving the crewmembers, but one of the SEALs dies due to complications from the jump-in. The event brings back memories for Leo about his own time serving in the Vietnam War, when his life was saved by his good friend Kenneth Sean "Ken" O'Neal (DeMunn). Ken, now the CEO of Mueller-Wright Aeronautics, a major defense contractor (and a company Leo also used to work for) is currently having difficulties with the Senate Armed Services committee over a $10 billion (originally just $6 billion) helicopter contract. Leo, in Chicago to present Ken with a humanitarian award, says he will look into it. When Leo confronts the committee's chairman, Arizona senator Matt Hunt (Hall) about the issue, the senator suggests there might be legitimate cause for scrutiny. Infuriated, Leo says that if Hunt calls for a hearing on the issue and has Ken subpoenaed, he will testify himself.

Josh realizes the potential scandal if the White House Chief of Staff were to testify in a case concerning a company where he used to be a senior executive (easily susceptible to accusations of a conflict of interest). Josh tries to explain this, but Leo (in a rather knee-jerk manner) immediately dismisses him without hesitation, saying, "Thanks. I'll take it from here." Unnerved, Josh goes to Toby, and they both come to the conclusion that since Leo cannot be convinced by logic to come around to their position (as Josh says to Toby, "Leo knows he can't testify on behalf of a major defense contractor. What's he thinking?", to which Toby responds, "He's not thinking"), they bypass him and go straight to the Oval Office. The president immediately goes next door to see Leo, upholding his deputy's judgment, and reiterating Josh's reasoning why Leo cannot voluntarily testify, but Leo refuses to back down. At this point Senator Hunt personally shows up at Josh's office unannounced to get Josh to prevent Leo from taking the stand, revealing that O'Neal circumvented a compulsory AoA (Analysis of Alternatives) and hired the Defense Department procurement officer who was overseeing the bidding process at nearly four times his government salary as incentive to secure the contract for Mueller Wright. Josh tries to contact Leo, but Leo has already gone to meet with Ken privately. Ken now comes clean on his transgressions, and says he will take the Fifth Amendment. Leo, devastated, returns to the White House, where he expresses to the president his terrible disappointment with the man he looked up to, and to whom he owes his life. Leo says that many men died saving their lives in Vietnam and they owed it to them to live good and decent lives. Bartlet commiserates, adding that the corruption of the best is always the hardest to take, and that Leo's own life honors the men who died saving him many times over.

In parallel storylines, C.J. finally gives in to the on-air taunts of news show-host Taylor Reid (Mohr), and agrees to do an appearance on his show. After a poor start, she comes back stronger after the commercial break. Reid claims the First Lady violated the terms of the presidential censure by volunteering at an inner-city medical clinic, but C.J. turns the tables by accusing Reid himself of being in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry. Returning to her office, she learns that she has just missed her college boyfriend Ben Dryer (Brian Kerwin), who came to call on her. Meanwhile, Josh lets intern Ryan Pierce (Jesse Bradford) prepare a presidential briefing on a congressional proposal of a tax cut for stay-at-home moms, but comes off looking bad when he lies about the material and Pierce corrects and contradicts him in front of the president. Also, in a short scene at the very beginning, it becomes clear that the president is less than enthusiastic about the notion of a presidential portrait.

Doing another appearance on Taylor Reid's news show, C.J. gets blind-sided with news about resigned Vice President John Hoynes. A ''New York Times'' interview leaked on the internet has him claiming the President and Leo asked him to stay once the sex scandal broke (which, as seen on "Life on Mars", is true). C.J. manages to get a copy of the interview, and it becomes clear that he is trying to portray his former boss and the Chief of Staff in a bad light. When it also emerges that he is writing a book (titled "Full Disclosure"), the White House staff suspect he is planning a presidential run, and that his tactics will involve a smear campaign against the current administration to distance himself and thereby appear in a better light. As a pre-emptive response, they draw up a long and detailed list of Hoynes' worst policy blunders from his time in office, to use if he should decide to campaign at their expense.

C.J., however, seems more than reasonably distressed by the whole incident. She pays Hoynes a visit to give him a warning, and it becomes clear that she was one of the women with whom the Vice President had an affair. She makes it clear to him that, should he attempt smear tactics against any of these women, she will fight him on it, and he says he had no plans to include information about her in his book. C.J. later relates to Toby how deeply she regretted sleeping with Hoynes. Distressed and in need of comfort, she decides to finally call her college boyfriend Ben, who has been trying to get in touch with her (and been ignored or shunted aside) for some time.

In parallel storylines, Toby has a meeting with union leaders concerned about cheap imports from China – in particular bras. Imposing trade restrictions, however, could be damaging to the US auto industry. Josh has a meeting with the Base Closing Commission. Deciding which military bases to keep and which to shut down is not only politically hazardous, but a job he finds extremely boring. Leaving the room, he comes back to find his intern Ryan in the act of pulling a confidence trick to get a powerful Congressman's favor regarding a base in his district, without his approval. He tells Ryan to clean out his desk but the intern seems to think Josh is kidding in order to throw the Congressman off the track of their "secret plan". When the Democratic mayor of Washington, D.C. (Pickens) comes out in favour of a pilot school vouchers program, everybody is surprised, but after taking advice from Charlie about his public school experiences in the city, the president agrees to support the plan.

Republican Congresswoman Barbara Layton (Cherry Jones) starts a campaign against publicly funded NIH projects into sexually transmitted infections. The attack is based on a list of seemingly useless projects, but by association, her real target becomes the president's daughter Ellie, who is working on a study into the human papillomavirus that researched conditions for prostitutes in Puerto Rico. The President is infuriated at having a family member dragged into political battles, and Toby tries to discredit the attack by finding its source. At first the list seems to originate from a far-right group called the "Traditional Values Alliance", but Toby's assistant Rina uncovers an updated list that shows it came from within the administration. Toby immediately suspects the Vice President's office. When confronted, Will takes full responsibility, and assures that the list was compiled purely for internal use and not leaked on purpose. Will suspects that his boss might have leaked the material on purpose, however, and Russell in private agrees he has ties to the Republicans on health issues and notes that having some distance from the President isn't a bad thing for him. Will is left utterly disgusted with the Vice President.

Meanwhile, President Bartlet tries to persuade Ellie to speak to the press to contain the incidence, but Ellie insists she is not as comfortable with the spotlight as the other members of the family. She later watches her mother make an airy appearance on ''Sesame Street'' to defend her right to practice medicine even after voluntarily giving up her license. This inspires her to follow her father's advice, and give a passionate public statement about the necessity of a politically independent scientific community.

In parallel storylines, Josh tries to end a deadlock on the appointment of a Sixth Circuit judge. His old friend Eric Hayden (Gaston) has been waiting for a year for confirmation from the Republican-led Congress, and is offered the position of dean of Georgetown's law school. But Josh suggests making a temporary recess appointment that will at least put the issue on the agenda and Hayden agrees. When Josh goes to suggest this to Leo he is told that the issue will have to wait, as one of the Supreme Court justices has died. Having assumed the ailing Chief Justice, Roy Ashland, was the fatality, Josh is surprised to learn that the dead Justice is 52-year-old Owen Brady, who suffered a heart attack. C. J., meanwhile, tries to reconcile with her boyfriend from college, Ben, whom she has been forced to ignore due to her workload. Based on Ben's reaction at the end of their very brief conversation, C. J. regrets her approach and fears that she may have caused things with Ben to end before they could even begin. Upon voicing this concern to Toby, he advises her to go to Ben and fix it. Ryan Pierce, the intern working for Josh, uncharacteristically fails to show up for work. Josh has failed to notice until Donna voices her concern as she tries, unsuccessfully, to contact Ryan.

The story in "The Supremes" begins at the end of the previous episode, entitled "Eppur Si Muove", after Josh Lyman's attempt to pack the United States circuit courts ends with news of the death of Owen Brady, a fifty-two year old Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. In the current episode, the White House senior staff works to find a replacement for Brady, taking interviews with judges who are considered potential nominees to fill the seat. Josh and Toby Ziegler take a meeting with Evelyn Baker Lang, a liberal U.S. circuit court judge, although Lang is not seriously considered as a potential candidate. Instead, Lang is brought in as a diversion, with Josh and Toby hoping that when rumors spread that the White House is considering Lang, the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, which is controlled by the Republican Party and has the power to block judicial nominees, will be frightened into easily passing a more moderate candidate.

However, Josh is impressed by his meeting with Lang, in which she correctly deduces the meeting's role as a political tactic and demonstrates in-depth knowledge of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Josh wants to put Lang on the court, but after she tells him and Toby that she had a legal abortion in law school, the senior staff argues that nominating her for the seat would be harmful to both her and the White House's public image. President Bartlet insists that Lang's name be put on the shortlist anyway, although he agrees with Leo McGarry that the probable nominee is going to be E. Bradford Shelton, a moderate. Shelton is brought into the White House to meet the President, where he tells the President that "I don't position myself on issues... my allegiance to the eccentricities of a case will reliably outweigh any position you might wish I held," confirming that he would not consistently vote with the incumbent Chief Justice of the United States, liberal Roy Ashland.

Donna Moss, talking to Josh in her cubicle, shows Josh a tin of cookies given to her by her parents, with a picture of her parents' two cats taped to the top. She explains that when her parents went looking to buy a cat, they disagreed on which cat to buy, leading each parent to buy the one they like and live together with both cats. Josh, inspired by the story, proposes a strategy to Toby; Lang will be nominated to be the first female Chief Justice, in exchange for offering the Senate Judiciary Committee the opportunity to select a conservative to fill Brady's seat. Toby disagrees, but when Josh goes to tell his idea to the President, Toby follows him, leading to an argument between the two outside the Oval Office. While Toby argues that the White House might have the opportunity to nominate someone else to the Chief Justice's position, letting the White House select both candidates, Josh reminds him that both candidates would then be moderates. Toby responds that moderate justices are more deliberate and less eager for attention, but Josh argues that "if we had a bench full of moderates in '54, separate but equal would still be on the books, this place would still have two sets of drinking fountains".

Josh and Toby go to Roy Ashland to propose the idea, to which the Chief Justice laughingly tells them to go ahead, and "see what segregationist, anti-miscegenationist, Isaiah-quoting gay-bashing bastard they come up with." When Josh goes to Lisa Wolfe, the Republican staff director for the Senate Judiciary Committee, she gives him the name Christopher Mulready as the committee's choice for Brady's seat. Toby immediately objects, characterizing Mulready as "The man [who] wrote a book that flushes the entire doctrine of enumerated rights down the … the garbage disposal! No right to use a condom. No right to get an abortion, certainly. No protection from electronic searches. No substantive due process." Bartlet is similarly unreceptive to Mulready's appointment. After some time, though, Toby comes back into Josh's office, expressing reluctant support for his plan.

Judges Mulready and Lang are both brought in to the White House to meet with President Bartlet. While Toby is waiting with Mulready in the Roosevelt Room, the two argue over the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, and when Lang joins the conversation, she informs Toby that Mulready was merely "yanking [his] chain", as Mulready was already opposed to the law because it was an overreach of federal power over the states. Mulready and Lang begin to debate on a second topic, but Mulready is then brought into the Oval Office. Mulready is unimpressed by Bartlet's inclination to nominate Brad Shelton, quipping that "in the event that Carmine, Lafayette, Hoyte, Clark, and Brannigan all drop dead, the center will still be well tended." Mulready argues that "the Court was at its best when Brady was fighting Ashland", and when Bartlet responded that moderation has created good law in the past, Mulready counters that ideology and principle have lain the foundation for future shifts in perspective from the Court.

Bartlet, impressed, agrees to nominate both Mulready and Lang to the Supreme Court. The final scene depicts the White House press corps giving a standing ovation as Bartlet announces his nominees.

Anna has been rejected by her college, her girlfriend broke up with her, and her big sister is getting married. She meets Sadie, who invites her to join Clits In Action, or C(i)A, a radical Third-wave feminist group. Anna soon gets in touch with her political side. She takes part in illegal activism with the group and becomes more aggressive in her daily life.

Anna starts falling for Sadie, who has been involved for years with an older woman named Courtney. Courtney works with a more mainstream feminist organization and disagrees with the C(i)A's method of creating awareness through public art, which usually involves vandalism.

The group travels to take part in a gay marriage protest – instead of being for or against it, they argue that marriage is the wrong goal, as it is an institution rooted in sexism. Despite being warned by another member of the C(i)A, Meat, that Sadie uses people, Anna shares a night of passion with her while they stay in a hotel. At the rally the next day, the outspoken Shulamith ends up nearly coming to blows with a protester. The fight is caught by a local news crew and the group's message is misconstrued as violent and homophobic. Meat also reveals that their website – which they considered the center of their activism – has not received hits from anyone besides themselves.

C(i)A attempts to have a meeting at Courtney's home, but personal conflicts come to a head. Anna believes Sadie is going to leave Courtney to be with her, but Sadie remains dependent on her partner. Meat and Shulamith announce that they're giving up on the group, Sadie stays behind with Courtney, and Aggie (a transgender man who's part of the C(i)A) comforts Anna, who is heartbroken over Sadie's rejection and the loss of the C(i)A. They end up partying together and having a one-night stand. In the morning, Aggie has prepared breakfast and procured a flower for Anna, who only considers him a friend. Sadie arrives to talk about what happened the night before. Anna tries to explain that her night with Aggie meant nothing. He overhears and is deeply hurt. Sadie leaves and Anna finds herself truly alone.

In an attempt to fix things, Anna formulates a master plan to get C(i)A national attention. Meat and Shulamith like her idea, but insist she must make things right with Aggie. Anna apologizes, Aggie forgives her, and the four carry out the plan, without Sadie.

Anna attends her sister's wedding, bringing joy to her family, but leaves early to execute her part of the plan – sneaking into the studio of a popular talk show with Aggie and Meat. Courtney is appearing on the show to argue about the appropriateness of a celebration over the (arbitrary) anniversary of the construction of the Washington Monument, which she feels is a distraction from real issues. When the host requests a live shot of the monument, the C(i)A feeds their footage in. With the expert help of one of Shulamith's lovers, Calvin (who was discharged from the military for being a lesbian under Don't Ask Don't Tell), and Meat's prowess with sculpture, a giant phallus has been erected atop the Washington Monument and is blown off with explosives. Back at the studio, Aggie pulls the fire alarm and the group escapes.

In the getaway car waiting for Anna, she is surprised to see Sadie, who has finally broken it off with Courtney. Sadie apologizes for her behavior, and the two agree to just be friends, but then kiss. Through text in the epilogue, it is revealed that Shulamith and Calvin volunteered to take the fall for the explosion, and received a reduced sentence because no one was hurt. Aggie started hormone therapy, started a new feminist group for men and got a girlfriend. Meat's sculpture appearing on TV launched her art career. Courtney took the talk show host, Marcy, out to dinner after fleeing the building together. Marcy subsequently left her husband to move in with Courtney. Anna and Sadie remain together, and Anna now attends college, where she has created a group focused on positive body image called the Itty Bitty Titty Committee.

Three years after his release from Camp Green Lake, Theodore “Armpit” is living in Austin, Texas trying to build a stable lifestyle by working for a landscaping company and caring for his neighbor Ginny McDonald, a ten-year-old girl with cerebral palsy. He meets Rex "X-Ray" Washburn, a friend from Camp Green Lake, who asks for his help in a ticket scalping scheme for teen pop star Kaira DeLeon's upcoming concert. Armpit tries to use two tickets to impress a crush, who cannot go; instead, he takes Ginny. When they present the tickets, they turn out to be counterfeit, and Armpit is beaten and handcuffed by police officers. Ginny has a seizure, which the officers misinterpret as a reaction to drugs. When singer Kaira finds out, she invites them backstage, and she later forms a friendship with Armpit.

X-ray later reveals that he sold the original tickets and the ones he gave Armpit were photocopies; he returns the profit to Armpit. Later, Armpit is questioned by Detective Debbie Newberg of the Austin Police Department, and he invents a fake suspect to avoid getting accused of ticket scalping.

Kaira invites Armpit to San Francisco, but before he goes, he is attacked by members of the scalping ring. They threaten to expose Armpit unless he gives them a letter from Kaira. Armpit meets Kaira in San Francisco and asks her for a new letter to sell, but she feels like he's using her, and they have an argument. Later Kaira's manager and stepfather, Jerome "El Genius" Paisley, attacks Kaira with a metal bat as part of a plan to steal her money. The attack continues until Armpit and Kaira's bodyguard intervene. After Kaira is safe and Armpit has returned to Texas, he is interviewed again by Detective Newberg, who admits she figured out about the scalping ring but will not be pressing charges. Jerome goes to jail, and Kaira discovers her mother's best friend has stolen her savings. She decides to continue making music to recoup some of her finances.

The story ends when Armpit hears Kaira sing a song she wrote about him on the radio and accepts that his life cannot revolve around her; instead, he decides to continue with his plan of taking small steps towards making a better life for himself.

The game takes place in the fictitious Isle of Ishmeria. Once upon a time, six wizards, each wielding a unique brand of magic, used their powers to protect the island and maintain peace. This was disrupted when they were collectively challenged by a Fire Dragon, summoned forth by a wizard intent on plunging the country into darkness.

The sea-dwelling dragon of peace known as the Pastha charged the six wizards with the task of fighting back. They succeeded, sealing the Fire Dragon away into a ruby at the top of a crown, and themselves became the six jewels around the crown's base. The crown, called Gemfire, was a symbol of utmost power and authority.

When Gemfire fell into the hands of the now current King of Ishmeria, Eselred, he sought to abuse the object's power, using it to embark on a tyrannical reign, instilling fear within his oppressed subjects. Ishmeria fell into despair as his power flourished. Finally, his young daughter, Princess Robyn, could not bear to watch her father's grievous misdeeds any longer — she seized Gemfire and pried the six wizard gems loose, causing them to shoot upward into the sky and circle briefly overhead before scattering themselves to different parts of Ishmeria. When a furious Eselred learned of Robyn's actions, he had her locked her away in a tower; but it was futile as the deed had already been done, and Robyn had taken the crucial first step toward freeing her people.

Meanwhile, the six wizards each take up residence with a prominent family of Ishmeria. The two most powerful of these clans are the Blanches, led by Prince Erin and supported by Zendor, Emerald Wizard and Wielder of Lightning; and the Lyles, led by Prince Ander and backed by Pluvius, Sapphire Wizard and Caster of Meteors. Four other clans (Flax, Coryll, Chrysalis and Molbrew) also have wizards (Scylla, Empyron, Chylla and Skulryk respectively) of Gemfire at their disposal in the beginning. With the breaking of the spell on Gemfire, each of these clans sets out to unseat Eselred, claim the throne as their own and restore order and peace to Ishmeria.

The Animorphs meet survivors of Elfangor's Dome Ship, the ''GalaxyTree''. One Andalite called Gafinilan-Estrif-Valad suffers from a genetic disease called Soola's Disease while Mertil-Iscar-Elmand, is crippled, or a "vecol", as Ax puts it, missing half of his tail.

Gafinilan attacks Marco when he gets too close to the human home he owns, while Ax comes to his defense. Both enter his home and Gafinilan asks to meet Ax's prince, not realizing his "prince" is human, as Visser Three had captured Mertil and had offered his release only if Gafinilan brought him a healthy adult Andalite (as Mertil was a vecol, and Visser Three discovered through Mertil that Gafinilan had a fatal disease, rendering them both as useless, in the Visser's perspective). The Animorphs assume that since ''Soola's'' Disease is genetic, and the only 'cure' is for Gafinilan to acquire and morph another Andalite, this is the reason why Gafinilan wanted to meet Ax's "prince", not wanting to acquire Ax himself because he would prefer to morph the adult Andalite he believes Jake is, as Ax's body would take too long to reach physical maturity.

Jake agrees to meet with him, with the intention of laying a trap for Gafinilan, and they overpower him by force of numbers. When they tell Gafinilan what they assumed his plan was, he is shocked at the mere thought, as Andalites consider using morphing to escape an illness as an act of cowardice. He confesses his real intentions, justifying his attempt at betraying one of his own kind by saying he cares deeply about his partner Mertil, and he did what he was told to do by the Visser in order to ensure Mertil's safety. Although still skeptical of Gafinilan's motives, they join forces with him and help rescue Mertil from Visser Three.

Ax, who is so far in the series seen as an honourable character, shows his open disapproval of Mertil and the thought that he should be treated with as much respect as other Andalites, on the grounds that he is disabled, which may have been a trait he picked up from his Andalite upbringing, as Andalites as a whole are shown in this book to not take their handicapped kind seriously. However, when Marco accuses his kind of being unfeeling, Ax points out that humans are similarly flawed, as people with handicaps are often pushed away from the limelight and kept hidden away in hospitals and institutions, instead of being allowed to live the kind of life they would have had, were they not disabled.

The softer side of Marco's personality is also shown in this book, as he shows concern about how Mertil, a morph-incapable Andalite, would survive in a human world once his partner Gafinilan succumbs to his illness and passes away. He visits Mertil at the end of the book and offers his support and company, should Mertil ever feel he needed it. Although he fears that Mertil might regard his offer as impertinent, as Andalites are a proud race that do not like to be seen as vulnerable, Mertil thanks him, and appears to consider his offer.

Various members of ''Voyager'' s crew discover a holodeck simulation called "Insurrection Alpha", in which the Maquis members of the ship's crew mutiny against the Starfleet officers. The program appears unfinished, and its author is unknown. As the program becomes popular, Tuvok admits he wrote the program himself, to train his security officers in the event of a possible Maquis rebellion; however, as the Maquis proved to integrate well with their crewmates, Tuvok abandoned the program, believing that it would only exacerbate tensions on board the ship. However, given how popular that Insurrection Alpha has already become amongst the crew, Tom Paris offers to help complete the remainder of the program with Tuvok's help, turning the program into a full-fledged holonovel.

When Paris and Tuvok start to work on the program in the holodeck, they suddenly find themselves trapped in the virtual brig. They are addressed by the simulation's version of the former crew member Seska, who admits that before she had escaped the ship, she had discovered Tuvok's program, and created this trap should he attempt to alter it. Seska's alterations not only affect the holodeck but other parts of ''Voyager'', threatening the well-being of the whole crew. While Tuvok and Paris attempt to survive the simulation, Captain Janeway and B'Elanna Torres attempt to effect changes in the simulation to help them. Ultimately, finding themselves cornered by the virtual Seska and her Maquis crew, Tuvok causes one of the simulation's phaser rifles to overload; the impact ends the simulation, and allows Tuvok and Paris to safely exit the holodeck.

Beginning with the woodcarver Joseph Becker, the novel's timeline shifts back and forth between his life in 19th century Ontario, and the pre- and post-war lives of the grandchildren Klara and Tilman. Told in three parts, ''The Stone Carvers'' starts within Canada, moving to France as the characters negotiate their grief, and explore the human need to live, remember and memorialize.

The Needle and the Chisel

In the mid-19th century, Father Gstir is sent from Bavaria to Canada to minister to German-Catholic communities. He is drawn to Shoneval, a farming town situated in a valley in Ontario, and is determined to build a stone church with a bell. Joseph Becker, a master woodcarver, helps him.

Shifting to the 1930s, Klara is introduced as a middle-aged spinster alone in Shovenal. However, the narrative then rewinds to when Klara and her brother Tilman were children. Here we learn that they are the grandchildren of Becker who tries to pass on his carving skills to his grandson. However, the boy is reluctant and unenthusiastic; suffering from wanderlust, Tilman is unable to stay in the same spot for long, and often runs away from the small town. When Tilman reaches 12, his mother is overcome with the stress of losing her child over and over again, resulting in the use of some unorthodox ways to keep him to Shoneval, including literally tying him down. However, unable to be kept in one place, Tilman leaves for good. By contrast, Klara is eager to learn the carving trade and Becker teaches her while her mother passes on her skills of needlework.

In her youth, Klara falls in love with the silent son of an Irish family, Eamon O'Sullivan. Eamon does not stay in her life for long, as he leaves to fight in World War I with plans to fly an airplane and come back a hero. After he is reported as missing in action, Klara is devastated and attempts to shut out her memory of him and her emotions, and the narrative returns to her life as the spinster.

The Road

After leaving home, Tilman spends several years as a hobo on the roads and rails. He eventually meets up with a tramp named Refuto, who had left home because he felt guilty for indirectly killing his brother. Later, Refuto decides to try returning home, fearful that his family will not forgive his wrongs. Refuto brings Tilman with him to the Italian district of Hamilton; Tilman befriends Refuto's son Giorgio and lives with the family for a time, doing the odd job in this steel town. But when war comes, Tilman serves in the trenches of France.

The Monument

Aged in his 40s, Tilman returns to Shoneval, and Klara is reunited with the brother who had been assumed dead years ago. Here it is learned that Tilman is a veteran of the Great War, and lost his leg in the battle of Vimy Ridge and walks with a prosthetic.

Upon learning of the construction of the Vimy memorial, the elaborate monument dedicated to the lost soldiers without a known grave, Klara becomes determined to travel to France with Tilman to work on it. After overcoming her brother's reluctance they travel to France and start work on the monument, Klara disguised as a man. After some weeks, and without permission, Klara sculpts Eamon's face on a key statue on the memorial, the torchbearer, symbolizing all of the young men who lost their lives. Despite his initial anger, the designer, Walter Allward, sees amazing carving skills within Klara, and how the portrait of the young man's face increases the much desired allegory for those youthful men who were lost in the war. Ultimately deciding it enhances the monument, Allward keeps the alteration.

While working alongside Tilman's friend Giorgio, Klara falls in love with him, and for the first time since Eamon's death she opens up her emotions. Tilman also opens himself up to physical intimacy for the first time, with a male war-wounded French chef. Both Tilman and the chef, Recouvrir, find love and healing in each other's damaged bodies.

The novel ends with the imposing memorial completed, Allward all but forgotten, and Klara and Tilman now leading emotionally fulfilling lives with their partners in Canada, having memorialized the people they knew who had been taken by the war. The concluding statements of the novel tie together all of the story lines, revealing the vast experiences of the creation of the nation of Canada.

Having lost a job because he was high, Towelie decides to write his memoirs, but a publisher turns him down as uninteresting and irrelevant to the public because Towelie is a towel. He then submits the manuscript again, under the guise of a human author called Steven McTowelie, and he is accepted. Having been invited to appear on ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', Oprah Winfrey loves and promotes his book. Meanwhile, Oprah's vagina, Minge, is depressed that the overworked Oprah never pays attention to him any more. Gary, her anus, conspires with Minge to get Oprah fired. As Minge realizes that Towelie is not a person, they call Geraldo Rivera and give him the information. Subsequently, Towelie is interviewed on ''Larry King Live'', during which Rivera reveals that the author of the book is a towel.

Mobs congregate to protest wildly; Oprah invites Towelie back on the show, saying that he can explain that he wanted to make the book more relevant and easily understandable. However, she erupts in anger and calls on the audience to lynch Towelie. As she brought the audience onto her side, Minge and Gary's plan is foiled. Just as Oprah and the crowd prepare to lynch Towelie, Minge tears through Oprah's pants with a revolver. Taking hostages, he guns down a police officer and begins making demands. Towelie, using his inherent flatness, manages to free the hostages, as police open fire on Oprah, leading to the death of Gary. Distraught at his death, Minge blames Oprah for not spending time with them before turning the gun on himself and commits suicide. Oprah survives, but is still taken away to the hospital to be treated. Towelie is forgiven by everyone else and is hailed as a hero. Towelie apologizes for lying and learns that he should not get high to come up with ideas – he should come up with ideas first, and then get high as a reward.

In the year 2071, humanity sees the appearance of mechanical cell clusters, known as WORMs. The technology begins sweeping away the human race on a massive scale, destroying one-third of the human population in just under two years. This leads humanity to overcome their national differences, and unite as a single force. Not being able to turn the situation in their favor, humanity decided to permit the use of weapons of mass destruction. Finally, they succeeded in the annihilation of the WORMs, but after paying an enormous price, and wreaking havoc on the planet. All the major continents were broken apart. Antarctica disappeared, and half of the remaining land mass was submerged. The largest damage this war caused was the loss of 90% of all military-age personnel, namely men in their twenties and thirties. Over a decade later, the WORMs re-appear, to the surprise of those who thought they were eliminated.

Created by Keith Leonard and John Kane, the show was made by London Weekend Television for ITV from 1984 to 1988. It starred Richard O'Sullivan as Simon Harrap and Joanne Ridley as Samantha. Simon runs an advertising agency called Eyecatchers and the series centres on his relationship with his daughter, his business partner Derek Yates played by Tim Brooke-Taylor and a string of romantic liaisons. Simon's mother-in-law Nell would frequently interfere in his attempts to raise Samantha alone, but usually had her granddaughter's best interests at heart.

Other writers included; Bernard McKenna who also served as script editor, Colin Bostock-Smith, Mike Walling and Ian Whitham.

The theme song was written and performed by Peter Skellern.

The story begins when a Belgian journalist, Hugo van Eyck (Jerome Willis), broadcasts a documentary about Nazi war criminals, and investigates the whereabouts of the former Chief of Gestapo and SS of Belgium, ''Sturmbannführer'' Ludwig Kessler (Clifford Rose) with the help of West German intelligence officer Richard Bauer (Alan Dobie). Kessler has changed his name to Manfred Dorf and is now a rich industrialist, with factories manufacturing plastics, explosives, and pharmaceutical products. His wartime Belgian mistress Madeleine Duclos (Hazel McBride) is deceased, but after the War the couple married and had a daughter, Ingrid (Alison Glennie). Kessler is part of an organisation called the ''Kameradenwerk'', made up of Nazis on the run, trying to evade trial for their war crimes, led by Kessler’s close friend Colonel Hans Ruckert (Ralph Michael), a character based on Luftwaffe ace Colonel Hans Rudel.

Ingrid is sleeping with her father's manservant, Franz Hoss (Nicholas Young), and they are part of a group of young Neo-Nazis who dream of leading Germany back to Nazism.

Van Eyck invites three other ''Secret Army'' characters to his studios: Albert Foiret (Bernard Hepton), Monique Durnford (née Duchamps), (Angela Richards) and Natalie Chantrens (Juliet Hammond-Hill). Some of the serial's first scenes take place outside the Restaurant Candide in the Grand Place in Brussels. The trio reminisce about their wartime activities running the resistance organisation Lifeline. Monique and Natalie are certain that Dorf is Kessler, but Albert claims to be less sure.

Van Eyck and Bauer meet a young Israeli woman soldier called Mical Rak (Nitza Saul). Mical's mother's family was sent to Dachau to be killed, on Kessler's orders. Mical breaks into the grounds of Kessler's home to see him, but is discovered and forced to flee. Her companion Ruth Lieberman (Ishia Bennison) is murdered by the Kameradenwerk, and Van Eyck becomes their next victim. Mical is kidnapped from outside Kessler's London hotel and beaten by Franz, before being thrown into the River Thames. However, she survives and is rescued. Mical and Bauer team up to get Kessler. Bauer's agents break into Kessler's home and find a photo album, which proves he is Kessler. When it is discovered, Kessler, Ruckert, Franz, and Ingrid travel to Paraguay, and Bauer and Mical set off in pursuit. After a brief detour in Buenos Aires, the pair arrive in Ascunsion.

Kessler and Ruckert stay with a Nazi-sympathizing Paraguayan aristocrat, Don Julian Yqueras (played by Guy Rolfe, who previously appeared in the ''Secret Army'' episode, "Russian Roulette" as Oberst von Elmendorf). Yqueras is partly based on the former President of Argentina Juan Peron, a Nazi sympathizer who welcomed war criminals into his country and prevented their extradition, and partly on Paraguayan President Alfredo Stroessner - still in power in 1981 - who also allowed his country to become a safe haven for Nazi war criminals. Mical and Bauer stay with pigeon-fancier Jose Garriga (John Moreno), who quickly charms them and wins their friendship.

Ingrid and Franz meet fellow Nazis and discuss a plan to convince Kessler to take over their group and to bring with him a fund of 48 billion Deutschmarks, to be used to support the exiled Nazis. Kessler and Ruckert also meet their comrades, under the command of Martin Bormann, who does not appear on screen, apart from one arm. At the same meeting, Kessler is repulsed to be introduced to Josef Mengele (Oscar Quitak), Auschwitz's "Angel of Death". (In real life, Bormann had died in 1945, but this was not revealed until 1998. Similarly, Mengele had died in 1979, but this did not come to light until 1985.)

Kessler realizes that the Kameradenwerk are just too old and too tired to lead Germany back to Nazism. They care much about their own safety, little about building a new Nazi regime in Germany. After much soul-searching, Kessler decides to turn his back on them and turns instead to the young Nazis, agreeing to give them the Nazi fortune.

Deciding that Mical has become too much of a threat, Ruckert orders his followers to kill her. Ingrid and Franz go after her for the same reason. After killing Garriga, the assassins mistake Ingrid for Mical and shoot her and Franz dead, thereby killing the only people who could have resurrected Nazism. Mical and Bauer find their bodies and proceed to blow up the Nazi convoys, but Ruckert escapes. Bauer and Mical corner Kessler. After a discussion about the Holocaust and Communism, Bauer informs him of Ingrid's death. Realizing his dream of a new Nazi dawn is over, and having lost the one thing he has left of Madeleine, Kessler shoots himself. Mical and Bauer leave, knowing the Nazis will never now get their hands on the billions and will never be able to return to power.

A young English woman named Nikky Ferris and her aunt, Frances, a folk musicologist, travel to the village of Elounda, on the island of Crete. They rent a room at the Moon-Spinners Inn, though the innkeeper, Sophia, initially refuses them until her teenage son Alexis and Aunt Frances persuade her. Sophia's older brother, Stratos, not wanting any guests at the inn, questions Aunt Frances about why she chose the Moon-Spinners Inn, then reluctantly allows her and Nikky to stay one night.

During a wedding party at the inn later that evening, Nikky meets a young Englishman named Mark Camford, who invites her and Aunt Frances to dinner. He hints that Stratos is more than he appears. Mark then invites Nikky for a morning swim in the Bay of Dolphins. Later that night, Mark follows Stratos when he goes night fishing at the Bay of Dolphins. While watching Stratos, Mark is attacked.

The following morning, Nikky is disappointed to hear that Mark has abruptly checked out. While out walking, Nikky follows a trail of blood to a church basement where she finds a wounded Mark hiding. He asks Nikky to fetch some supplies, refusing to explain how he was shot. Nikky returns with a first aid kit, brandy, and a travel rug. Mark urges Nikky and her aunt to go to the nearby town of Agios Nikolaos for safety.

Returning to the inn, Nikky runs into Stratos, who is looking for her after learning about the missing items from Aunt Frances. Stratos sees through Nikky's cover story and searches the church, which is empty. Stratos ties Nikky up in a windmill while enlisting his crony Lambis to find Mark. Mark and Alexis later rescue Nikky.

Nikky and Mark take refuge in The ruins of an ancient temple. Mark reveals he is a former bank employee. While transporting jewelry from the bank to the Countess of Fleet, he was attacked and robbed, then fired. Mark believes Stratos stole the jewels and hid them somewhere in the Bay of Dolphins.

The duo spend the night hiding in the temple while Stratos hunts for them. The next morning, the British consul at Heraklion, Anthony Gamble, finds the pair and takes them to his summer villa in Agios Nikolaos, where his wife, Cynthia, looks after them. Anthony, who is actually Stratos' partner in crime, assures Stratos that he will deal with the couple.

Nikky learns from the Gambles that a rich woman named Madam Habib is arriving on her yacht. Mark surmises that Stratos intends to sell her the stolen jewels. Cynthia drugs Mark so that the Gambles can send him, along with Nikky, to an Athens hospital. En route to the airport, Mark awakens, tells Nikky he has to stop Stratos, kisses her, and leaves. He fights Stratos but fails to prevent him from absconding with the jewels. Nikky steals a motor launch and heads to Madame Habib's yacht.

Nikky tells Madam Habib that Stratos is a thief and is selling stolen jewels belonging to the Countess of Fleet, who happens to be an old friend of Habib's. Stratos arrives for the transaction. Mark, Frances, and Alexis arrive with the police and a fight ensues. Stratos is arrested and Madam Habib returns the jewels to Mark. Alexis leaves by boat, waving at Mark and Nikky, implying that they will be married by the time they return to Crete.

Joey and Turkey are members of the Wanderers, an Italian-American greaser street gang living in the Bronx. Joey tries to dissuade Turkey from joining a rival gang, the Fordham Baldies. Before Turkey can ask, Terror's girlfriend Peewee overhears Joey insulting the Baldies, calling them a "bunch of pricks with ears". Joey and Turkey flee and the Baldies chase them. Richie—the leader of the Wanderers—and Buddy come to help but they also flee from the Baldies. After being cornered, the Wanderers are helped by a tough stranger named Perry, who has recently moved to the Bronx from New Jersey. After much persuasion, Perry joins the Wanderers.

In school, the Wanderers get into a racial dispute with another gang, the Del Bombers who are all African-American. Both gangs agree to settle their dispute, seemingly a street fight, but the Wanderers struggle to find a gang willing to back them. With no other options, Richie asks his girlfriend's father, alleged local mafia boss Chubby Galasso, who agrees to help solve the gangs' dispute.

During a game of "elbow-tit", Richie gropes a woman called Nina. He feels ashamed of himself, apologizes for his actions and persuades Nina to accept Joey's telephone number. The Wanderers then decide to follow Nina in Perry's car.

After Perry becomes lost, the Wanderers are attacked by an all-Irish-American street gang called the Ducky Boys. They escape after Perry's arm is broken.

While drunk, the Baldies are tricked into joining the Marines. Before reporting for training, they decide to crash Despie's party, where Turkey—who has recently joined the Baldies—is told to draw the Wanderers outside. After drawing them out, Turkey realizes the Baldies have abandoned him. He tries to chase them but fails. Upset, Turkey visits a nearby Catholic church. After being spotted by a member of the Ducky Boys attending Mass, Turkey is chased down the street. After climbing a fire escape ladder in an attempt to escape, he falls to his death.

In school, while the Wanderers are mourning Turkey's death, the rest of the gang oust Richie for sleeping with Joey's date Nina. After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Richie rekindles his relationship with Despie. When Chubby discovers his daughter is pregnant, he forces Richie into marrying her.

In the climax, we discover the Wanderers and the Del Bombers are settling their dispute not with a street fight but with a football game organized by Chubby. Richie uses the opportunity to make amends with Joey. A member of the Ducky Boys interrupts the game, as the Wanderers momentarily turn their heads, hundreds of Ducky Boys invade the field. Many of the Wanderers and the Del Bombers flee, but some stand their ground. The remaining players join forces with spectator gangs in the stands, including one called the Wongs and even Emilio. After a long and bloody battle, the Ducky Boys flee.

After being physically abused by his father Emilio, Joey decides to spend the night at Perry's apartment. Perry tells Joey he is planning to leave the Bronx and move to California. Joey asks Perry if he can go with him; after an initially skeptical response, Perry agrees. Emilio, drunk, enters Perry's apartment and fights with him; Joey knocks Emilio unconscious with a glass bottle. Joey and Perry quickly leave the apartment and head to Richie's engagement party. At the party Richie notices Nina walking by and quickly follows. Before he catches up to her, she walks into a bar where Bob Dylan is performing "The Times They Are a-Changin'". Accepting that their relationship is over, he makes his way back to the party.

Upon his return, Joey and Perry say an emotional goodbye to Richie, and when they leave, Richie realizes things will not be the same. At Richie's party, members of the Wanderers, the Del Bombers and the Wongs embrace one another while singing "The Wanderer". The movie ends with Joey and Perry traveling to California.

Set in a near-future version of Japan, the games tell the story of a martial arts tournament created to determine the country's strongest woman. The tournaments are sponsored by a number of family restaurants, who in exchange for their sponsorship, are given promotion in the form of having a tournament entry work as a waitress. As a result of the popularity of the tournaments, the restaurants experience a boom in patronage.

The winner of the tournament is awarded the title "Virgin Goddess", as well as a large cash prize of ten billion yen, and a house erected anywhere on the planet they should choose. However, when a given waitress is defeated, they are required to publicly strip themselves of their clothing (self-fondling and public masturbation may be forced upon the loser, and in the most extreme cases, the loser is raped/gang-raped, either in private or in front of an audience), in order to teach the so-called "true" shame of defeat. In spite of such humiliation, the tournaments often draw many competitors, each placing their pride and their dreams on the line as they battle for the top.

Brett Eisenberg is an ambitious yet unconfident New York City assistant book editor living in the literary hotbed of Manhattan's Upper East Side. Struggling to become a full-fledged editor, a task made harder after her mentor and boss is fired and replaced by Faye Falkner, Brett meets the notorious and much older publishing playboy Archie Knox. After spending time with him she realises how unhappy she is with her immature boyfriend Jed and breaks off their relationship in order to pursue one with Archie.

Archie is revealed to have several issues such as being an alcoholic, although he is almost three years sober; suffering from diabetes; and having an estranged daughter. The age gap between Brett and him is made clear through their different lifestyles, such as his lack of understanding how to use a Blackberry and Brett taking him to a candy shop. Although this does not affect their relationship in the beginning—Brett appreciates the advice and confidence he gives her to stand up to her boss—she soon begins to resent his patronizing attitude. He eventually begins drinking again and sleeps with another woman in order to break off their relationship.

At the same time, Brett is shown to be incredibly close to her father; she is seen constantly explaining her situation and asking for his advice. While visiting her family home she is shocked to discover that he has cancer and that she was the last to know behind her brother Ethan, because her father felt she could not handle the news. Feeling depressed and unwell, Brett makes an awful impression on a celebrity client until Archie appears and rescues the situation. They decide to give their relationship another try and Brett introduces him to her family, who are uneasy with the age difference; her father especially after learning that Archie is an alcoholic when he is admitted to hospital. Brett's father tells her that she shouldn't have to spend her life taking care of Archie.

Later, it is revealed that her father has died and Brett realizes she must finally deal with her problems without his support. Following this, Archie proposes using the Blackberry Brett bought him but she turns him down, telling him that they see each other as teacher and student and not as equals. She says she needs time to be happy and grow up on her own.

The end of the film finds Brett finally confident in herself as she finally wears a pair of leather pants she was previously too scared to wear, and editing her work in a decisive way by using a pen instead of a pencil, as is seen throughout the film.

Alcoholic Bart Hunter (Arthur Kennedy), his long-suffering wife Sylvia (Dorothy McGuire), and their teenage son Johnny (Troy Donahue) operate a crumbling inn on Pine Island off the Maine coast. The inn was previously Bart's elegant family mansion in an exclusive resort, but as his family fortunes have dwindled, the Hunters are forced to rent rooms to paying guests. Bart receives a reservation request from an old acquaintance, Ken Jorgenson (Egan), who was a lowly lifeguard on the island 20 years ago, but is now a successful research chemist and millionaire. Ken wants to bring his wife and daughter to the island for the summer. Bart suggests that Ken is just coming to lord his new wealth over Bart, who is no longer rich. Bart wants to refuse the reservation, but Sylvia insists that he accept because they badly need the money, even going so far as to move themselves into the small guest house so their own master bedroom suite can be rented to Ken and his family.

Ken arrives with his wife Helen (Constance Ford) and teenage daughter Molly (Sandra Dee). Helen and Ken have an unhappy marriage, sleep in separate bedrooms, and frequently argue, including over proper behavior standards for their daughter. Helen is a prude who disapproves of Molly's developing figure and healthy interest in boys, particularly Johnny Hunter, who is also attracted to Molly. Ken is much more relaxed and permissive, and tells his daughter that her natural desires are not shameful. Helen also tries, unsuccessfully, to put on airs and impress the upper-class residents of the island, while Ken is not interested in pretense and is even happy to talk with older people who remember him from when he worked as a lifeguard.

As it turns out, Ken and Sylvia were lovers 20 years ago, when they were teenagers. It soon becomes apparent that they still love each other and have missed each other for many years, and that Ken returned to Pine Island in hopes of seeing Sylvia again. They had broken up because Ken was a poor college student, while Bart was the son of a rich, established family, so Sylvia married Bart, and Ken, after seeing Sylvia's wedding announcement in the newspaper, married Helen. Both marriages were unhappy, but Ken and Sylvia stayed in them because of their love for their respective children, Molly and Johnny. Ken and Sylvia find themselves drawn to each other again and begin secretly meeting every night. They are soon spotted by the island's night watchman, who informs Helen. Helen initially keeps quiet, on her mother's advice, planning to catch them in the act to ensure a large divorce settlement.

Ken goes on a business trip for a weekend, during which time Molly and Johnny, with Ken's permission, go sailing around the island. Their boat capsizes in rough water, stranding them on the beach overnight. The Coast Guard rescues them the next day, but Helen is suspicious that the teenagers were intimate on the beach, although they deny it. Helen sends for a doctor to forcibly examine Molly to make sure she is still a virgin, finding she is. Horrified, Molly runs away and sees Johnny, who threatens to kill Helen if she hurts Molly ever again. Helen contacts law enforcement, and then in a fit of anger, reveals Sylvia and Ken's affair in front of Bart, Ken, Sylvia, and Johnny. Bart reveals he has long known about Sylvia's love for Ken, and offers to forgive her, but she cannot go back. The Hunters and Jorgensons each go through an acrimonious public divorce, and Molly and Johnny are sent to boarding schools several states apart. Molly and Johnny are angry at Ken and Sylvia and stop speaking to them, becoming increasingly dependent on each other for emotional support, despite Helen's constant interference and criticism of Molly's morals.

Ken and Sylvia eventually marry and move into a Frank Lloyd Wright beach house. They talk Molly and Johnny into visiting them there, to which the teenagers agree largely because it will give them a chance to be together away from Helen, who is unable to prevent the visit, owing to a court order. During their visit, Molly and Johnny secretly consummate their love. Ken and Sylvia suspect that the teenagers are sleeping together and are concerned about the possible ill effects, but in view of their own past teen history, feel they cannot order Molly and Johnny to stop loving each other. Soon after, Molly discovers she is pregnant, and Johnny and she run away together planning to get married. They seek Bart's blessing, but he is about to be admitted to the veterans' hospital to treat ulcers due to his drinking, and drunkenly tries to talk them out of marriage, later calling Helen to let her know what happened. The local justice of the peace sees they are under legal age to marry, and turns them down. In desperation, Molly and Johnny go to the house of Ken and Sylvia, who are supportive. In the end, happy Johnny and Molly, just married, return to Pine Island for their honeymoon.

Nicholas Seafort is a seventeen-year-old midshipman who boards the UNS ''Hibernia'' on his first space assignment, a three-year interstellar voyage to the colonies of Hope Nation and Detour. He beats back a challenge to his authority as senior midshipman by Vax Holser, the next most senior. During the trip, he strikes up friendships with Third Lieutenant Harv Malstrom and an attractive passenger, Amanda Frowel.

A disastrous rescue of a passenger injured while sightseeing on the wreck of another ship results in the deaths of Captain Haag and his two senior lieutenants, elevating Malstrom to the captaincy and Seafort to second-in-command of ''Hibernia''. When Maelstrom falls ill with a quick-acting cancer, Seafort, believing himself to be unqualified to command, begs him to promote Holser to lieutenant, but Maelstrom dies without doing so.

The other surviving officers (outside the chain of command) share Seafort's opinion of his leadership abilities and try to get him to relieve himself, but he cannot find any regulations that permit it. They back down when Seafort points out the penalty for mutiny.

Seafort is immediately faced with a difficult decision. Malstrom had condemned three crewmen to death for assaulting the sergeant-at-arms in an attempt to conceal their drug-making operation. Their punishment was extremely unpopular with the rest of the crew. However, despite the danger of a revolt, Seafort has two of the men hanged; the third's sentence is commuted to several months' confinement. His resolute handling of the situation quells the unruly crewmen. This action estranges him from Amanda, who feels the executions to be barbaric.

Other dangers follow. By thoroughness and sheer stubbornness, Seafort discovers that the ship's sentient computer, Darla, has been corrupted by careless naval programmers and would have sent the ship hopelessly off-course on the next leg of their journey. Darla was also responsible for the explosion that killed Captain Haag. To fix the problem, Seafort has a backup restored.

When the ship arrives at its next stop, Miningcamp, a small mining colony in an otherwise uninhabitable system, mutineers from the space station try to take over the ship. Seafort single-handedly holds them off until the crew can regroup and deal with the intruders. Eventually, Seafort ends the rebellion and finds out the cause. An ore barge and the starship ''Telstar'' are long overdue, which resulted in the panic that led to the trouble.

When the ''Hibernia'' reaches Hope Nation, Seafort expects to be relieved, but discovers that not only has the admiral in command of the naval garrison died in a strange viral epidemic, but a captain has deserted, leaving a Hope Nation commanding officer who is junior to Seafort. Seafort finds himself in charge of all naval forces in the system. During a tour of the planet, Seafort, Amanda (with whom he has reconciled) and one of his officers run into the officer who had deserted. He is hiding in the mountains with his wife because he believes he saw meteors spraying something in the sky shortly before the epidemic broke out. Believing the man to be mad, Seafort dismisses his story as fantasy, but does not force the couple to return to civilization.

Seafort recruits several officers from the local personnel, then continues on to the next stop, Detour. He finds that two of the new men are poor officers, dumped on him by their former commanders. However, he manages to deal with the situation.

Then ''Hibernia'' s sensors detect the ''Telstar'', adrift in space with massive rents in her hull. Seafort leads a boarding party to investigate and, to his horror, encounters a strange alien life form resembling an amoeba in the ship's corridor. When it attacks, it becomes clear that it was responsible for the disabling of the ''Telstar'' and the death of its crew. Fortunately, Seafort is able to escape unharmed. After a stop at Hope Nation to warn the residents, Seafort takes ''Hibernia'' back to Earth to report the news.

Nicholas Seafort, newly assigned commander of UNS. ''Challenger'' and part of Admiral Geoffrey Tremaine's task force, has his ship taken from him when the Admiral decides to make ''Challenger'' his flagship, under the command of Captain Hasselbrad. Seafort is given command of the Admiral's far smaller original flagship, UNS ''Portia''. Tremaine's task force has the task of reaching Hope Nation, and eliminating any aliens (called Fish) found on the way.

''Portia'' is given the task of transporting a group of Lower New York 'transpops'—uneducated and often violent street children—to the colony of Detour beyond Hope Nation. Seafort initially sees the transpops as simply a danger to his ship (drugging or imprisoning them were considered as solutions). The squadron is attacked by Fish that board Portia, releasing their lethal virus into the ship and killing dozens of her crew and passengers, including Seafort's baby son. Shortly afterwards. Amanda Seafort, driven insane by grief, commits suicide, and Nicholas suffers a temporary breakdown as a result.

After his recovery, ''Portia'' encounters ''Challenger'', crippled by a Fish attack. Seafort is transferred to the ship and is left alone, save for passengers and crew that Tremaine hates, including the transpops, and abandoned in space. After overcoming a mutiny, Seafort sets about preparing ''Challenger'' for an eighty-year voyage back to Earth, conscripting passengers into the Naval Service and scavenging from the wrecked sections of the ship. Barely weeks into the trip, radiation from the ship's damaged propulsion systems attracts the aliens, leading to a series of desperate battles in which Challenger is further damaged, and more of her already tiny crew killed. Ultimately, Seafort uses his dying ship to ram an alien, only for it to Fuse (accelerate to faster-than-light speed), taking ''Challenger'' with it. For sixty days, ''Challenger'' remains lodged in the alien, her crew dying of malnutrition until, almost miraculously the Fish Defuses in Earth's solar system.

In the aftermath of the voyage, Seafort meets his father in a naval base on the moon, and is given command of his old ship, ''Hibernia'', to return to Hope Nation.

Captain Nicholas Seafort is planetside on Hope Nation while recuperating from injuries, some of which were sustained from a duel with Admiral Tremaine. The injuries include a lung which must be replaced, as well as psychological trauma accumulated due to the many traumatic experiences he has been through. Among the injuries Seafort has sustained is the ruined friendship with his former shipmate, Vax Holser. Vax resents Seafort sending him away from Challenger, wanting to remain with his captain no matter what.

The admiral in charge of the United Nations fleet in the sector makes a bargain with Seafort: due to his supposed good relations with some of the planters, he can meet with and report on what their grievances are, and attempt to allay them. Despite being made liaison to the plantation owners of the lush colony planet, this appointment does not sit well with him, as he would much prefer to be assigned a captaincy. However, the UN space fleet retreats Earthward after tangling with the space threat discovered by Seafort in his first voyage on the ''Hibernia''. This leaves Seafort the sole United Nations authority on the planet, which makes him a target.

Some of the planters, disaffected by the long history of unfulfilled promises, and seeking greater autonomy in their future, mount a rebellion. The initial casualties include Alexi Tamarov, who is injured in an explosion meant to kill Seafort, but which instead leaves him in a coma. Coming out of the coma, Alexi has suffered amnesia, not knowing his old friend, or anything about his naval responsibilities. Additionally, Seafort has married the former transient Annie Wells, but is left feeling betrayed when she has what she considers a meaningless sexual encounter with an old friend.

Seafort must avert the rebellion while dealing with his wounds, both mental and physical, and lead the colonists against the space invaders who have begun to attack not just the fleets in orbit but also the planet. To do so, he must turn his back on his oath to the UN Navy and commit high treason.

Reaching the station in orbit above Hope Nation, Seafort manages to transmit skewed N-Waves which attract the "fish", and uses the automated weapons on board the station to kill thousands of them. He also arranges for the stations fusion reactor to detonate, which is tantamount to a nuclear explosion. Such an act is punishable by death, but Seafort no longer cares about his life. In the process of conducting this exercise, Vax Holser arrives at the last minute with a ship and arranges to come aboard the station. While there, he incapacitates Seafort, and sends him back on his launch, remaining in his place. This results in Vax's death.

Seafort now must assume command of Vax's old ship, with a crew who don't trust him (blaming him for their captains death), passengers who don't like him (including Annie who has been driven insane after an attempted rape by criminals on Hope Nation, Alexi who has no memory, and Jarence Branstead who is a potential goofjuice addict) as well as his dealing with own internal sense of justice which he feels demands his death for his failures.

Reaching earth, Seafort finds that the ban on nuclear weapons has been adjusted due to the repeated attacks by the fish aliens, and his actions are deemed laudable by the navy and worthy of a reward. Not feeling he deserves this attention, Seafort seeks to resign. Instead, he is persuaded to take over the command of the naval academy, training the next generation of cadets, in the hopes he can prepare them to be better than he was.

The play takes place in seventeenth-century Massachusetts. It is in four acts. Years ago, Justice Gilead Merton deserted his mistress Goody Rickby after she gave birth to a son. The child later died because Goody was unable to obtain medical help for him. In the years following, Goody has learned witchcraft from Dickon, the Devil himself. To avenge herself on Merton, she and Dickon manufacture a scarecrow, bring it to life so that it resembles a human, and take him to Merton's house, with the intention of having the Scarecrow seduce Merton's niece, Rachel, away from her fiancé just before their wedding. The Scarecrow is introduced into society as Lord Ravensbane, with Dickon as his tutor. Ravensbane seems to enjoy smoking a corncob pipe, but the truth is that the pipe actually keeps him alive. Unfortunately for Goody and Dickon's sinister plan, the Scarecrow soon develops kind-hearted feelings of his own. His true identity is revealed at a party, when his reflection in the Mirror of Truth, which Rachel has bought from Goody, reveals a scarecrow, rather than a man. The other guests panic and flee, all except Rachel and her fiancé Richard Talbot, who are the only ones that return. The Scarecrow, horrified, and finally realizing the true meaning of his "mission", breaks his corncob pipe and collapses, only to momentarily revive and see in the mirror that his sacrifice for Rachel has transformed him into a real human being. With a look of wonder and happiness on his face, he falls back dead. When Talbot examines him and says, "He's dead", Rachel triumphantly, yet sadly, answers, "But - a man!" The curtain falls.

The play's language is a sort of cross between seventeenth-century and what was considered modern English in 1908.

In 1914, German spies are everywhere in London. After a spate of assassinations of important British politicians, a retired British intelligence officer, Colonel Scudder, realises his life and his mysterious black notebook are in danger. He turns to Richard Hannay, a mining engineer who is visiting Britain for a short time before returning to South Africa, who happens to be staying in a flat in the same building. Scudder tells Hannay of a plot by Prussian (German) 'sleeper' agents, who are planning to precipitate a war against the Triple Entente powers by assassinating the Greek prime minister visiting the UK.

Hannay reluctantly gives Scudder shelter in his flat, despite his initial distrust of him. In the morning, Hannay leaves to purchase a train ticket to his family hometown, the village of Strathallan in Scotland, while Scudder remains at work on his notes in the flat. When the Prussian agents attempt to enter the flat, Scudder flees down the fire escape but he is spotted. Posting a package containing his secret notebook in a pillar box, Scudder flees to St Pancras railway station, where he knows Hannay will be, to give him a second black book.

At the railway station, just seconds before he can reach Hannay, Scudder is murdered by the agents. With his dying breath he gives Hannay a message he doesn't understand. Hannay is mistaken by witnesses at the railway station as being the assailant and is arrested but is soon captured by the Prussians while being transferred to jail. During their interrogation of Hannay, they ask what he knows of the "Thirty Nine Steps". The Prussians allow him to escape in the hope he will lead them to the secret notebook. At St Pancras, Hannay manages to find Scudder's second notebook, but this turns out to be a dummy, with only a three-word riddle in it. Only Hannay can understand the riddle, which sends him to Scotland to find the real notebook. Hannay flees to Scotland on a train, but he is forced to make a daredevil escape on a bridge when the police board.

Hannay attempts to solve the mystery whilst on the run from the police, led by Chief Supt Lomas (Eric Porter), and the Prussian agents, led by Sir Edmund Appleton, a Prussian sympathiser highly placed in the British government.

On the Scottish moors Hannay, claiming to be on the run as part of a wager, meets Alex Mackenzie and her fiance, David Hamilton. On the run again, Hannay has to pose as a Liberal Party orator and ad lib a speech at an election husting. He indicates the identity of the Prussian agents to Alex Mackenzie and David Hamilton and with their help Scudder's book is found, but Hamilton is killed by the Prussians. The coded information is partly deciphered and the true plans of the Prussian agents are revealed. The agents intend to murder the visiting Greek Prime Minister by planting a bomb in parliament, thus leading to unrest in the Balkans and causing a world war. The "Thirty Nine Steps" refers to the number of stairs in the clock tower of Big Ben (from "Lauderdale Door to the clock itself").

When the police and Hannay reach the top of the clock tower, the agents have already planted the bomb and have locked the clock room. Hannay realises that the bomb is to be set off by the clock at 11.45am. To give the police more time, Hannay breaks the glass of the clock-face, climbs out onto the face of the clock and physically stops the minute hand as it moves towards the figure IX. By hanging from the end of the minute hand, Hannay manages to jam the clock at 11.44am long enough for the police to break into the clock room where they kill the remaining spies and deactivate the bomb. The clock mechanism stops working and the clock's minute hand falls into a vertical position, but Hannay hangs on and one of the officers saves him with a looped rope. Lomas recognises a River Police uniform and at the docks Hannay and other officers capture Appleton, who had also stolen details of the deployment of all Royal Navy ships.

Sir Edmund Appleton is convicted of treason and Richard Hannay is declared a hero for helping Britain gain valuable time to prepare for the Great War. In the closing shot, Hannay is shown walking arm in arm with Alex Mackenzie.

A hapless hero who is evicted for not paying his rent is befriended by a stray dog. The man encounters a thief in the process of robbing someone. The thief, who has accidentally placed his victim’s money into the young man's back pocket, turns from his first victim to rob the young man. The thief then steals the money that he had already stolen from the bemused young man who had thought that he was broke.

The young man and the dog escape and the dog befriends a poodle. The poodle’s lady owner persuades the young man to enter his dog into the local dog show. When his entry is refused for not being a thoroughbred, the young man sneaks into the show but is quickly ejected, followed by all of the dogs in the show. The young man spots the poodle’s owner outside looking for her dog and offers his dog in its place. She accepts and offers to take him to her home. This scene is witnessed by her jealous boyfriend, who meets the thief. The men plot their revenge on the young man.

At the lady's house, the young man is introduced to the boyfriend and the thief, in disguise as a Swiss count. The boyfriend proposes marriage and is rejected, while the thief attempts to shoot the young man, but the gun misfires. The boyfriend chases the lady around the house while the thief tries to attack the young man with a stick of dynamite. The dog picks up the dynamite as if it were a stick, chasing the thief and the boyfriend into the garden. When beckoned, the dog drops the dynamite and returns to Laurel and the girl, leaving the two men to be victims of the exploding dynamite.

''Wassup Rockers'' is about a group of Guatemalan American and Salvadoran American teenagers in South Los Angeles who, instead of conforming to the hip hop culture of their gang-infested neighborhood, wear tight pants, listen to punk rock, and ride skateboards. Avoiding the violence of their dangerous home turf is an everyday challenge. The climax of the film occurs out on a skate-ride around Beverly Hills, California. Racial tension fumes the air of Beverly Hills as the pack of skaters effortlessly manages to coincidentally run into trouble. Janice Dickinson makes an appearance in the film as a rich alcoholic divorcee and former soap opera actress whose Spanish-speaking maid helps Los Rockers. Fashion designer Jeremy Scott appears as a photographer.

Hornblower has just finished his tour blockading Brest in command of the Royal Navy sloop ''Hotspur''. As he travels back to England for his next assignment (and his promised elevation to post rank), he is asked to participate in the court martial of ''Hotspur's'' new captain and officers. ''Hotspur'' ran aground and was lost the day after Hornblower turned over command.

Following the court martial, the officers travel back to England with Hornblower. On their way, they are pursued by a French brig, which they engage and disable. During the battle, Hornblower boards the brig and finds important papers in the French captain's quarters. Back in England, he travels to the Admiralty with the documents. He arrives at the same time as the disappointing news that the French fleet under Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve has escaped into Ferrol, Spain after an indecisive engagement.

Hornblower presents a daring plan to the Admiralty secretary, to send false orders to Villeneuve, made possible because the papers brought by Hornblower include an example of Napoleon Bonaparte's new signature. The orders are to draw Villeneuve out of a safe harbour and into a decisive engagement with Admiral Nelson.

The unfinished book stops at the point where Hornblower is persuaded to attempt the mission himself. Notes left by Forester indicate that Hornblower would carry out the mission accompanied by South American revolutionary Francisco de Miranda, with Hornblower posing as his servant. They deliver the false orders to Villeneuve without arousing suspicion, prompting him to take his fleet to sea; this ultimately leads the destruction of the Franco–Spanish fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar.

This book also includes two short-stories, "Hornblower and the Widow McCool" (a.k.a. "Hornblower’s Temptation"), set early in Hornblower's career, and "The Last Encounter", set in 1848 when he is living on his country estate in old age and retirement.

A merchant loses all his money when his ships are lost at sea, and is forced to move his three daughters to a lonely countryside house called Rose Cottage which was left to his youngest, Beauty, in a will, and thus is not subject to his creditors. The garden of the house is full of strange thorny bushes and vines, which neither of the merchant nor his three daughters can identify. Beauty asks in the town and discovers that they are the roses the cottage are called after and begins to tend them, because she loves gardening and she remembers the smell of her mother's rose perfume. Roses are very rare because only great magic or great love can grow them. The roses bloom under Beauty's care, and the sisters sells wreaths of them in the town. After some time, the merchant hears word that one of his ships might have made it back and journeys to find out if it's true. He asks his daughters what presents they would like him to bring back, and Beauty requests a rose, as her bush has not blossomed that year because it has been so cold and rainy and miserable.

The ship had come in, but the creditors had remembered the merchant's old debts and seized upon the goods before he could reach them. A man who had once worked as his clerk and was now employed by a rival had let the merchant stay with him, but his employer found out and demanded that he be turned out. Finding that he was nothing but bad luck in that city, the merchant refused another offer of aid and set out to make his way home on a stout pony allowed to be lent to him, in spite of the fierce winter weather. On the way he gets lost in a snow storm, and ends up at a magnificent castle where he is given food and shelter. As he is leaving he notices a beautiful rose on a table and decides to take it back for Beauty. This enrages the castle's owner - a terrifying beast. When the merchant explains his actions, the Beast agrees to let him go on the condition that Beauty comes to live with him in the castle.

The main part of the book follows the basic plot of the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast but with a few alterations: Beauty stays at the house for what seems to be seven days, during which she revives the roses in the Beast's greenhouse and calls small creatures (bats, birds, frogs/toads, hedgehogs) back to the palace, and the Beast has filled the roof of his mansion with beautiful paintings. During her time in the castle, Beauty dreams every night of her family, and when she speaks to the Beast of how real her dreams seem and how strange they are, with the amount of time passing in them, he admits to her that they are true reflections of reality, and Beauty is distressed to have missed so much of her sisters' lives. She begs to be allowed to return home to visit, which he allows, but warns her that if she does not return to him by placing a petal on her tongue before the last petal falls from the rose he gives her, he will die.

When Beauty returns to the Beast and declares her love for him, she is given a choice. Either the Beast returns to his human form and regains his wealth and power, thereby also returning her family to their former status, or he stays as is and they live a peaceful peasant life in the village. Told that their names would be spoken throughout the land if she chooses the former, she asks how they will be spoken, and on hearing that it would be in fear and dread her choice is easily made. The pair return home to Rose Cottage, to Jeweltongue and Lionheart and the merchant, and all three girls are married to their respective beaus.

Catherine Cassilis, known as Coquette, born in France and orphaned by the recent death of her father, comes to Airlie near Saltcoats in Southern Scotland, to live with her uncle, the Minister. Her Catholic upbringing brings her into immediate conflict with the sternly Presbyterian household, and she quickly seeks sympathy and friendship with the more free-spirited nobleman, Lord Earlshope.

During a yachting trip around western Scotland Earlshope makes a half-hearted confession of his love to Coquette (which she reciprocates), although he is already married, but estranged from his wife. But when this wife is seen in Glasgow, and his secret is exposed, Earlshope abandons Coquette and disappears.

In due course Coquette accepts the marriage proposal of her devoted cousin Tom "the Whaup", although she does not truly love him. Their wedding is to be delayed until Tom has completed his medical studies.

The crisis comes suddenly. Earlshope returns unexpectedly and meets Coquette: he begs her to run off to America with him and she agrees. But on the night of the planned elopement Earlshope's boat is run down in a storm and he is drowned. Coquette believes he has left for America without her.

It is only after her marriage to Tom that Coquette finally learns the truth. She persuades her husband to drive her to Saltcoats to look at her lover's grave—the sea. Shortly after she collapses and within a few short weeks, she too is dead.

Category:1871 British novels Category:Novels set in North Ayrshire

In McKinley's version of the classic fairy tale, ''Sleeping Beauty'', a wicked fairy named Pernicia appears on the princess' name-day and places a curse on the baby, claiming that the child will, on her 21st birthday, prick her finger on a spindle and fall into deathly sleep. The cursed princess is rescued on her name-day and secretly taken away by a young fairy, Katriona, to her village, a town called Foggy Bottom, located in the damp and swampy section of the country known as The Gig. There Katriona and her aunt (affectionately known as Aunt) raise the princess as an ordinary village maiden, naming her Rosie after the last of the princess' twenty-one names.

Throughout the book, Rosie grows from a headstrong, stubborn child into an intelligent and courageous young woman. With the help of a rare talent—beast-speech, a small bit of magic unknowingly passed on from Katriona—and the silent encouragement of the town's taciturn blacksmith, Narl, Rosie becomes a talented and well-known horse leech, more inclined to wear breeches and whittle spindle ends than wear dresses and practice embroidery, as her more ladylike friend Peony does. However, when Rosie is 20 years old, Ikor, a mysterious powerful fairy, appears and reveals to Rosie that she is actually the country's hidden princess, and announces a plan to defeat Pernicia: a spell will be cast over Peony and Rosie which switches their identities, but only until Rosie turns 21 and Pernicia's spell is broken.

In addition to the magic that infuses almost every aspect of the book, ''Spindle's End'' deals with the importance of family love, especially that between Rosie, Katriona, and Aunt, (and, later, the love between these people and Katriona's husband and children, as the family grows) but also of Rosie's mother, the Queen, who longs for her lost daughter. Peony, Rosie's best friend, has a deep need to be loved and accepted by a family, because her adoptive parents don't care for her in the same way Rosie's adoptive family cares for her.

Animals also play a central role in the book. Animals of various kinds help Katriona get Rosie to The Gig, a journey of about three months, and animals assist in the final defeat of Pernicia.

Connection to Other Works

Despite not being a sequel, it is implied that this book is set in the same world as McKinley's Damar books; at one point Damar and the character of Harimad-sol are mentioned as historical events, though from a different country. The events of McKinley's ''Deerskin'' are also referenced obliquely, as the Queen, Rosie's mother, is said to come from a country best known for the fleethounds bred by its king and queen.

The trio lives on a stage constructed in Hideki's daikon patch in the Nerima ward of Tokyo. They dream of building a concert dome on the site and performing their musical act to sold-out crowds. They must avoid both an overzealous policewoman who has caught on to their money-making schemes and the desires of powerful people who want to take over the daikon field. The characters are aided in their adventures by the show's director, Shinichi Watanabe, who injects himself (in the form of his Nabeshin character from ''Excel Saga'') into the story as a rental shop owner.

The show parodies many famous people and institutions in Japan including Junichiro Koizumi and his political followers; Michael Jackson; the fortune teller Kazuko Hosoki, ''Star Wars'', Host club entertainers among many others. Until recently, anime television series did not make overt jokes about the current news topics like homosexual love, consumer credit, or the success of Korean artists in Japan such as Bae Yong-joon. ''Nerima Daikon Brothers'' features overt sexual gags such as in the first episode where a male casting director fondles Ichiro's crotch as he sits there and moans.

In the fall of 1979, the Golds, consisting of a recently pregnant Melanie Gold and her husband Michael Gold, moved into the small town of Bainbridge, New Hampshire. They moved in next door to the Hartes, another coincidentally pregnant couple, and through their shared interests, the women, Gus Harte and Melanie Gold, began to forge a lasting friendship. Their husbands, James Harte and Michael Gold would follow suit and the families would soon raise their firstborns together.

From the moment they were delivered from the womb it seemed that Emily Gold and Chris Harte were destined to be together, and their parents certainly hoped that to be the case. By the time Chris and Emily were teenagers it was easy for them to develop feelings for each other and before they knew it they were dating. Everything seemed perfect, until a 3 a.m. telephone call to both family homes sent them running to the hospital. Chris and Emily had been found at the carousel where Chris worked, he was unconscious with an open head wound, and she had a gun shot to the head from a gun Chris' father owned. Emily was later pronounced dead in the emergency room

When a detective comes looking for Chris to answer questions about Emily's death, he learns that he is the main suspect in her death, which is being investigated as a homicide. However, Chris claims that he and Emily made a suicide pact, and he had fallen unconscious before he had the chance to end his own life as well. When a grieving Melanie caught wind of this, she is relieved to have the finger turned away from herself after struggling to believe she had not seen Emily's suicidal tendencies. Melanie focused all her anger at her daughter's premature death on making sure that her murderer (i.e. Chris) paid for his crime. Meanwhile, her husband, Michael, did not believe that Chris could have done such a thing after seeing the way he treated her with such care while they were friends and subsequently in a relationship together. Michael considers the possibility that his daughter may have kept more from him than he had thought. With mounting evidence against him, and an autopsy report that revealed that Emily had been several weeks pregnant at the time of her death, the state of New Hampshire had enough evidence to arrest Chris. He was soon after charged with first-degree murder. During this time, Chris met his lawyer, Jordan McAfee, who would deny him of revealing the truth about the night of Emily's death because to McAfee the only truth that mattered was the one that was most likely to help his client. Due to the severity of the charge, Chris is remanded to jail without bail until the trial, which would be several months away.

When Melanie Gold comes across a hidden diary belonging to Emily that contains proof that Chris had not known about the baby because she had not told him, she destroys the book in a fire. Meanwhile, Michael Gold agrees to take the stand as a witness for the defense after his convictions would not allow him to believe that Chris was guilty. During the trial, it is revealed that Emily had been molested as a young girl and kept it to herself for the remainder of her life. Emily also feared that her pregnancy at such a young age would ruin her reputation and her ability to meet the expectations that she had set for herself in her youth. It is further revealed that Emily loved Chris like a brother not as a boyfriend and future husband. She felt her pregnancy would trap her into a potential marriage and forever tie her to Chris which she did not want. Emily secretly attempted to get an abortion, but she backed out at the last minute when a male doctor inadvertently gave her a flashback to her assault as a child. Feeling like she has no way out from her situation and from the self-deprecating thoughts in her head she begins to contemplate suicide as her only option.

Chris' trial begins and it appears as though McAfee could give his client a fighting chance with the jury. It is up to Chris' last witness, Gus Harte, his mother, to speak for her son's behalf, but she cannot find it in herself to remain composed after her visit with Chris the previous night, when he angrily told her that he had in fact shot Emily. In a last minute decision Chris requests his mother's removal as a defense witness, and instead wishes to testify on his own behalf. Much to his lawyer's dismay Chris takes the stand and tells the truth about what happened the night of Emily's death. He begins telling the story a few weeks before that fateful night when Emily first told him she wanted to die by suicide, and he had dismissed her statement, but then she brought it up again and he could not ignore it any longer. Chris explains that at first he wanted to tell someone, but quickly realized he would be betraying Emily's trust, and that the burden of saving her fell onto him alone. In order to maintain Emily's trust, he plays along with her plan and brings his father's gun loaded upon her request to the carousel that held so much sentimental value for them. After basking in each other's presence for some time, Emily lifted the gun to her head and found that she was too scared to do it on her own so she begged Chris to do it for her. In that moment he felt the pain that she was trying so hard to escape from and knew that he would do anything for her. Chris held the gun to Emily's head and could not find the strength to shoot her. He felt the pressure of Emily's hand over his own on the trigger and then a shot was fired. From Chris' account it was clear he was not sure if he truly had pulled the trigger or if Emily's hand had pushed his fingers onto it. Jordan McAfee continues to question Chris after his confession, and pressed him to remember exactly who had pulled the trigger, until Chris finally admitted that he could not definitively say who had ultimately fired the gun.

The jury had reached a verdict, and neither McAfee nor anyone else supporting Chris thought there was much hope of the decision being in his favor after his confession on the stand. However, in a surprising turn of events the jury found Chris not guilty. Since the end of the trial, life went on for both the Hartes and the Golds, but neither were the same after what had happened, nor were their friendships.

A reporter is killed in his car on his way to work. Inspector Kras gets a call from his informant Peter Cornelius, a blind fortuneteller, who had a vision of the crime but not the perpetrator. Meanwhile, Henry Travers, a rich American industrialist, checks into the Luxor Hotel, which has been outfitted by the Nazis during World War II to spy on people in every room. He becomes involved with Marian Menil, who is being threatened by her evil club-footed husband. Hieronymus B. Mistelzweig, purportedly an insurance salesman, is also a guest in the hotel and always seems to be lurking about. These disparate characters eventually get together to solve what appears to be the re-emergence of the long-dead Dr. Mabuse.

Rebecca, a young girl, is always picked on by her older brother, David, who "has the worst case of bedhead you've ever seen".

David is a generally unruly sort. At breakfast, he eats a cockroach and makes a big mess with his cereal. After breakfast, Rebecca goes to play with one of her dolls and discovers it has been defaced by David.

Enraged, she attacks David, but then falls and hits her head. When she comes to, she discovers that she has telekinetic powers. At first she thinks of how her newfound powers could benefit humankind (including making herself the first Mexican-American as well as the first female president of the United States). But she first decides that she will take revenge on her brother and tame his bedhead.

Overwhelmed by her powers, but still unable to smooth David's unruly hair, she drags the boy behind her bicycle, and in the process hits her head again. She wakes up in a hospital and decides that she will never abuse her powers again, but as far as David knows, she will continue to be a threat.

In 1862, Mr. March, an abolitionist and chaplain in the Union Army, is driven by his conscience to leave his home and family in Concord, Massachusetts, to participate in the war. During this time, March writes letters to his family, but he withholds the true extent of the brutality and injustices he witnesses on and off the battlefields. He suffers from a prolonged illness stemming from poor conditions on a cotton farm in Virginia. While in hospital, he has an unexpected meeting with Grace, an intelligent and literate black nurse whom he first met as a young woman staying in a large house where she was enslaved. The recovering March, despite his guilt and grief over his survival when others have perished, returns home to his wife and Little Women, but he has been scarred by the events he has gone through. The novel accurately reflects Bronson Alcott's principles, notably his belief that boys and girls of all races had a right to education and his wish to follow a vegetarian diet. It presents the young Mrs March as a fiery character with strong verbal and physical expressions of anger.

A severely deformed man is found dead in the Arizona desert. Dr. Matt Hastings, a doctor from the nearby town of Desert Rock, Arizona, is called in by the sheriff to examine the body, which appears to be that of biological research scientist Eric Jacobs, an acquaintance of Hastings. Puzzled, Hastings asks to perform an autopsy. The sheriff judges it unnecessary, since no indication of foul play was found, and Jacobs' colleague, Dr. Gerald Deemer, refuses permission. Deemer says Jacobs died of "acromegalia" (acromegaly), but Hastings is unconvinced, since acromegaly takes years to reach its current state. Deemer acknowledges that Jacobs's development of acromegaly was rapid, over just four days, but insists that such anomalies are to be expected on occasion.

In his home and research laboratory in an isolated desert mansion, Deemer keeps rabbits, white rats, hamsters, and a tarantula, all of enormous size, some as large as Golden Retrievers. Deemer's assistant, doctoral student Paul Lund, is now deformed like Jacobs and attacks Deemer, smashing the glass covering a tarantula's cage and setting the lab aflame in his rampage. Lund grabs the hypodermic needle that Deemer was using on the lab specimens and injects him with the contents. As flames engulf the lab, the tarantula leaves and Lund collapses and dies. Deemer regains consciousness, grabs a fire extinguisher and puts out the fire. That night, Deemer buries Lund in the desert.

A newcomer to town, Stephanie Clayton, nicknamed "Steve", has signed on to assist in Deemer's lab. Told by the hotel clerk that she will have to wait until the only taxi returns, she accepts a ride from Hastings, who is also going to Deemer's lab. At the mansion, they encounter local journalist Joe Burch, who is asking questions about Jacobs's death but getting the runaround from Deemer. Deemer tells Hastings and Clayton that the fire was caused by an equipment malfunction, all the test animals were killed, and Lund has left his employment. Deemer explains his work: the use of a radioactive element to produce an artificial super-nutrient which, once perfected, could provide an unlimited food supply for humanity.

Days later, the sheriff asks Hastings to accompany him to Andy Anderson's ranch as he investigates picked-clean cattle carcasses and large pools of a thick, white liquid. The tarantula, now grown to the size of a tank, is the cause. That night, Anderson and two men inside a pickup truck are killed by the Tarantula.

The next day, at the scene of the wrecked truck, Hastings looks round at the request of the sheriff, and once again finds pools of the white liquid, which he takes samples of. He calls Deemer to ask him to analyze the liquid, and Clayton answers. Deemer ambushes her, and the phone call is cut. Hastings drives back to the mansion, where he finds Deemer near death, suffering from severe acromegalic deformities. Deemer divulges all that he knows about the nutrient and says that Lund and Jacobs tested it on themselves against his advice.

Hastings takes the samples of white liquid and flies them to the Arizona Agricultural Institute in Phoenix. The substance is determined to be tarantula venom. Dr. Townsend assures Hastings that tarantula venom is not potent enough to be dangerous. However, he acknowledges that a tarantula large enough to produce the pools of venom Hastings describes would be a genuine menace.

Hastings flies back to Desert Rock. As night falls, the tarantula, now larger than a house, attacks the mansion. Deemer is killed, but Clayton escapes. Hastings returns for her in his car. The tarantula pursues them down the highway toward the town. The sheriff's men intercept, but their guns have no effect. Dynamite is gathered from town, but a blast large enough to blow up the highway does not faze the tarantula. As they evacuate the town, an Air Force fighter jet squadron (Clint Eastwood), summoned by the sheriff, launches a napalm attack, incinerating the tarantula at the town's edge.

Saul Naumann is a somewhat controlling Jewish husband and father. A Religious Studies professor at UC Berkeley, Saul wrote his graduate thesis on the Kabbalah. Because he was a devout Jew, his wife Miriam converted to Judaism when they married, and he nurtured his son Aaron as a traditional studious Jew like himself. When daughter Eliza wins her class spelling bee, they embark on a course of Kabbalah study to help her win. The film follows the family and the spiritual quests upon which they journey, in large part because of Saul: Miriam's attempt to make herself whole, Aaron's religious uncertainty, and Eliza's desire to be closer to her father.

Miriam lives a secret life throughout her entire marriage to Saul, trying to fulfill the religious idea she learned from him, ''tikkun olam,'' or "repairing the world" and "reuniting its shards." In momentary flashbacks by Miriam, we glimpse a scene of a crashed car with shattered glass, apparently the basis of an underlying hurt she has been suffering since childhood, perhaps the death of her parents. The beautiful life she had before the accident, symbolized by the kaleidoscope she always carried as a child, through which she was presented with its beautiful view of the world, is suddenly shattered when the accident occurred. Thereafter, seeking to restore the broken shards, Miriam compulsively creates beautiful light gathering objects (sometimes stealing them) and storing them in a secret warehouse.

Saul's son, Aaron, grows unsure of the Judaism foisted on him by his father, and in trying to find a faith he personally believes in, he becomes a Hare Krishna after meeting a woman named Chali in the park. For Eliza, her experience begins with a desire to be as close to her father as Aaron is; the two would often have discussions about Judaism and play music together. Saul's graduate thesis on Kabbalah writer Abraham Abulafia (who believed that careful analysis of words could lead to contact with God) brings Saul and Eliza closer together when Saul learns Eliza has won the district spelling bee.

Upon learning of her success, Saul takes control of Eliza's life, coaching her in the Kabbalistic teachings he knows so well. Eliza enjoys the renewed attention of her father and pursues the competition for her father's involvement. This comes at the expense of Aaron, who receives less time with Saul, even as he falls deeper into religious questioning. At the center of the film, Eliza becomes Saul's newest religious project. Eliza continues to do well at spelling bees, utilizing her spiritual gift, as Abraham Abulafia described: visions appear to her and help her spell words no matter how difficult.

Saul's obsession with his daughter's gift and the opportunities it presents to him consume him to the point that he is callously ignorant of the collapse of his family around him — his son's interest in Hinduism, which soon comes between him and his father, and his wife's psychological problems suddenly thrust upon him — it seems that the entire family is now "broken," like a microcosm of the world; but can it be fixed, can the broken shards be restored? This is where Eliza enters the picture, a child with a mystical gift.

The night before the final round of the spelling bee, Eliza uses her father's notes on Abulafia's system to obtain "the ear of God," allowing God to flow through her. Her body convulsing epileptically on the floor, Eliza apparently makes that mystical connection, providing her the healing power of God. In the final scene, Eliza, on the verge of winning the national spelling bee, and now empowered with the ability to heal her family, deliberately misspells the word origami, thereby losing the competition. Immediately upon her sacrifice, healing apparently takes place between Saul and Aaron as they embrace and openly express loving emotion; and Miriam, watching the competition on television from a sanitarium (where she has been following her arrest and the subsequent discovery of her secret), is apparently in the process of being healed as well.

The year is 1883. Clay, a gunfighter with health problems, is interned in Drunner Labor Camp. He's determined to prove his innocence since he was framed by Fox, the current Sheriff of Clay's former home of Mesa Encantada. Fox has subsequently been hired by the townspeople to protect them from Ortiz and his bandits. Instead, Fox now runs a protection racket, extorting and terrorizing the complacent citizens, threatening them with violence if they do not pay exorbitant taxes to him. Clay rides out to meet Ortiz, who tries to hire him to kill Fox.

Ortiz's mistress Estella, whom Clay saved earlier from an attack by Fox's men, lets Clay escape the Ortiz encampment. She tells him Clay stole gold from him, prompting Ortiz and his gang to seek out Clay. This enables Fox to ambush both of them. Fox kills Ortiz and captures Clay. She helps Clay escape and, despite losing his sight, manages to decimate Fox's gang one by one. Realizing he is unable to see clearly, Fox seeks him out in one of the town's stables and tries to lure him into shooting his own daughter, Nancy during the final showdown.

In an epilogue in only European prints of the film, the military guards from Drunner Labor Camp pay Jonathan a large sum of money for getting rid of Fox and Oritz. As they ride away, Clay emerges and speaks with Jonathan then rides away, removes his glasses tosses them into the air and fires a single bullet through the lenses. In the English version, the film ends shortly after Clay fires on Fox and falls to the ground. He confesses to them about their relationship and instructs her to collect the $10,000 reward for his capture, then dies.

In 1949, guilt-ridden Holocaust survivor Herman Broder lives in New York with his wife, Yadwiga. During the war, Yadwiga—the Broders' gentile servant—saved Herman's life by hiding him in a hayloft. Believing his wife, Tamara, to have perished in a concentration camp, Herman took Yadwiga with him as his wife when he emigrated to the United States. He tells her that he works as a traveling book-salesman; however, in reality, he is a ghost writer for the avaricious Rabbi Lembeck. He also is having an affair with Masha, whose own experiences in a concentration camp have left her embittered about God and Judaism; she emigrated to New York with her mother and married Leon, an older man from whom she is estranged. Masha wants them to divorce their respective spouses and get married, but he continually puts her off.

After answering an ad in the newspaper, Herman is shocked to learn that Tamara not only survived the Holocaust, but has come to New York to be with him. Herman confesses to her both his current marriage and affair. Accepting that he has moved on from her emotionally, Tamara agrees not to pursue her claim as his wife and befriends him. In short order, both Masha and Yadwiga announce each is pregnant. Masha procures a divorce from Leon, who warns Herman that Masha is manipulative. After she swears on her own life that Leon is lying about her, Masha and Herman find a Rabbi to perform the ceremony without asking questions. Herman now has three wives.

Masha experiences internal bleeding, and the attending physician tells Herman that she was never pregnant. Rabbi Lembeck, having met Masha, invites the couple to a party. There, the wealthy Nathan Pescheles - who happened to meet all three wives by chance - reveals Herman's polygamy to the assembled crowd. Feeling angry and betrayed, Masha leaves Herman. He becomes more religious to help Yadwiga convert to Judaism. Tamara helps him by getting him a job with a rabbi.

A few weeks later, Masha calls Herman, hoping to convince him to bolt to Florida or California with her. Admitting to Tamara that Masha's pull on him is too great but promising to support his unborn child, Herman leaves Yadwiga for good. But before they can leave, Masha's mother dies. Unable to pay for the funeral but realizing she can't bear the thought of not being buried next to her mother, Masha asks Herman to commit suicide with her. Herman agrees, but when they realize neither has ever been completely truthful with the other, he leaves. Masha takes a lethal overdose of sleeping pills.

Rabbi Lembeck pays for Masha and her mother's funeral and takes care of the hospital fees for Yadwiga. Tamara and Yadwiga raise the child, named Masha, together. Letters occasionally arrive containing only money to help care for the child.

John and Alice Clayton, Lord and Lady Greystoke (True Boardman and Kathleen Kirkham), are passengers on the ''Fuwalda'', a ship bound for Africa. When the vessel is taken over by mutineers the sailor Binns (George B. French) saves them from being murdered, but they are marooned on the tropical coast. After their deaths their infant son is adopted by Kala, an ape, who raises him as her own. The young Tarzan (Gordon Griffith) grows to maturity among the apes, becoming their king. Binns, returning to find the Claytons after ten years’ captivity among the Arabs, discovers the ape man and travels to England to report his survival to his family. An expedition led by scientist Professor Porter (Thomas Jefferson) is launched to investigate. Meanwhile, Kala has been killed by a native, who is killed in turn by the now-adult Tarzan (Elmo Lincoln). The villagers kidnap Porter's daughter Jane (Enid Markey); Tarzan rescues and romances her, and she comes to accept his love.

At a Paris railway terminus, Gabriel greets his sister Jeanne, who leaves her ten-year-old daughter Zazie with him and goes off with her latest lover. Gabriel takes the child out to the taxi of his friend Charles, to Zazie's dismay: she wants to go on the Métro but it is on strike. They arrive at Turandot's café, above which Gabriel lodges, and he hands the child over to his wife Albertine, who puts her to bed. Gabriel gets himself ready to go to work, on the way out getting into a dispute with Turandot, who is appalled by Zazie's precocity and filthy language.

In the morning, Zazie sneaks out alone but Turandot spots her and follows her. When he tries to take her home, she accuses him of pedophilia and a crowd gathers. Turandot is obliged to slink away and, when Gabriel returns from work, over several glasses tells him what has happened. After talking to Gridoux, the cobbler next door, instead of searching, Gabriel decides to go to bed. Zazie meanwhile is happily exploring Paris, trying every Métro station but all are shut. An elegant man picks her up and takes her to the flea market, where he buys her a pair of jeans and treats her to a dish of mussels. To reward his curiosity about her, she tells him how her mother killed her father gruesomely with an axe but was acquitted. She then describes life with her mother's lover, who got too interested in her, so she has been passed on to her uncle.

Sensing that the stranger also is getting too interested in her, she picks up her jeans and leaves. He accuses her of theft and a crowd gathers. He pretends to be a plain-clothes policemen and escorts Zazie back to her uncle's apartment, where a surprised Gabriel submits to the fake cop's interrogation. After a suggestion that Gabriel is prostituting the forward little girl, he is forced to reveal what his night job is: a drag act in a club. After the alleged cop then accuses Gabriel of homosexuality, he is thrown out of the flat and retreats to the bar below. Meanwhile, the café waitress, Mado, takes lunch to Gridoux next door, who is concerned over the nosy stranger. She however wants to talk about the cabbie Charles, who she hopes will marry her. When she goes back to her work, the stranger tries to pump the intractable Gridoux.

Gabriel and Charles now set off to show Zazie the sights of Paris. Various adventures and misunderstandings follow, particularly at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Zazie keeps annoying both men by trying to find out if her uncle is really homosexual. He however is a hit with a group of good-looking German girls, who think he is cute. As he walks along with Zazie, still pestering him over his sexuality, the two attract the attention of the overdressed widow Moaque. When the German girls descend on Gabriel and drag him onto their tour bus as their mascot, she finds a policeman to report this kidnapping. The cop, called Trouscaillon and identical to the man who earlier accused Gabriel of pimping and illegal sex, immediately becomes the object of Mouaque's desire.

After various adventures and misunderstandings, the three eventually find Gabriel, who has invited the German girls to see his show that night. He then invites Moaque and Trouscaillon to eat with him and Zazie at a restaurant. Seeking attention, Zazie does not behave well. Ringing the bar below his flat, Gabriel asks the waitress Mado to ask his wife Albertine to bring his costume to the club, as he is busy entertaining his friends. Mado tells him that the cabbie Charles has at last proposed, so Gabriel asks the two to join his swelling party. At the club, Gabriel orders champagne for his friends and waits anxiously for his costume. Albertine has however fallen asleep, to be woken by the fake cop from the morning who starts another of his bizarre interrogations. When he moves from words to attempted rape, she jumps out of the window. After his drag act, for which Albertine brought him a dress just in time, he takes everybody off to a bar. What starts with a couple slapping each other turns into a massive saloon brawl, which wrecks the place and brings on an army of cops. The group are rescued by Albertine who shows them a way into the Métro tunnels, through which they can walk in safety as the system is still on strike.

In the morning, Albertine carries the sleeping child to the railway station, where her mother Jeanne regrets that she will have to find a better-performing lover. Waking up, Zazie says her experiences have made her a bit more grown-up. Outside, all the escalators of the Métro start up because the strike is over.

''Princess Daisy'' tells the story of a young girl who is sent to England to live with her father, Prince Valensky, after her mother's death in a car crash. Unfortunately, Daisy is immediately separated from her twin sister Dani, who is a special needs child not accepted by their father. When Daisy turns 16, their father dies in a plane accident. The girl is forced to take care of her life herself, especially when her half-brother starts seeing in her more than just a sister.

The story takes place in a land ruled by young characters, the Ketchup Kingdom, which is also filled with devices like Jack-in-the-Boxes. The protagonist is a hare-like boy in blue clothing named DeMille, who lives in a school bus with no wheels in a village on the outskirts of the Ketchup Kingdom called Cobore Village. DeMille is an outcast because he dislikes tomatoes. As a result, he and other kids in Kobora who dislike tomatoes are looked down upon as "Droppers", banished for heresy, and locked up in Cobore Village until they change their attitudes towards tomatoes. While watching television, DeMille sees that the main antagonist, King Abīra, is celebrating a holiday called Tomato Day, while showing his project he created called the Super Cara-Cooker, a laser-like gun that transforms people, places, and things into dolls, toys, and playgrounds. After DeMille's television set gets severely damaged, he visits his neighbor and friend Seremo and asks him if he could fix his television set. Seremo says he will and gives DeMille his first Gimmick, called the Gear Yo-Yo.

After Seremo teaches DeMille how to use it, DeMille's girlfriend Patharan comes to tell him that she wanted him and her to venture into the dangerous Toy Ruins to look for her Fantastic Toy, the Gimmick Robo, but by the time they arrive, it is absent. Then, two purple creatures with zippers on them, Brikky and Grikky, capture Patharan with a hook. DeMille grabs on to her while being pulled up to the airship, the Carorna No.2, piloted by Brikky and Grikky. As soon as DeMille and Patharan come aboard the airship, Brikky and Grikky receive a call from King Abīra to bring Patharan to the palace and drop DeMille out of the airship. After DeMille fights Brikky and Grikky, they drop DeMille from the airship into the Tomato Pond, only for him to notice that he is standing near King Abīra's home, the ''Gimmick Palace'', a tall, red, tower with a tomato-shaped top. When he decides to enter and save Patharan, he encounters a wall that he cannot pass through. Then, a mole named Rereku tells him that in order to pass through the wall, DeMille has to defeat the six Super Kids and obtain the six key items called Toy Parts. While DeMille goes on his adventure, he befriends some people for them to join forces with him to defeat King Abira and save Patharan and the entire Ketchup Kingdom. His partners in order of joining him are Arisa, Sofubi, and Rereku.

Plateau, a colony in the Tau Ceti system, was settled by humans some 300 years before the plot begins. The colony world itself is a Venusian-type planet with a dense, hot, poisonous atmosphere. It would be otherwise uninhabitable, except for a tall monolithic mesa that rises up into a breathable layer in the upper atmosphere. This gives the planet a habitable area about half the size of California. The Captain of the first colony vessel named the feature Mount Lookitthat (from his interjection at first sight of it), and the colony became known as Plateau.

After landing the slower-than-light ships, the Crew sign an agreement, called the Covenant of Planetfall, with their former passengers (who had just emerged from suspended animation and were in a weak bargaining position). This agreement gives the Crew (and their descendants in perpetuity) all control over the new colony. A system of medical care evolves, in which organ transplantation is the only method of treatment, even for cosmetic defects (such as baldness); a justice system evolves, based on the Hospitals in the two immense "slowboat" spacecraft which had brought their ancestors to the planet; all crimes are punishable by death, followed by involuntary donation of the perpetrator's transplantable organs (including skin, scalp, and teeth). Not surprisingly, only Colonists are ever arrested for crimes; and only Crew are eligible to receive transplants, except as a rarely granted privilege in return for service to the Crew. Some Colonists become dissatisfied with the system and form a dissident group called the "Sons of Earth".

The prologue of the story begins with a dissident Colonist escaping Implementation, the local police force, by jumping to his death over the "void edge", the high cliff that forms the sides of the mesa. On Mount Lookitthat, all crimes are punished by being dissected for spare parts. Thus, this is considered to be the greatest of all possible crimes, as it leaves nothing to harvest.

An automated Bussard ramjet arrives from Earth, carrying an unknown cargo of great importance, which the government immediately finds and conceals, but not before the cargo has been observed and photographed by Polly, an agent of the Sons of Earth.

Meanwhile, Matthew Keller, an ordinary miner, gets casually invited to a party and is drawn into a conversation about psi powers. Matt strikes up a flirtatious conversation with Polly, but she suddenly loses interest. Angered, Matt hooks up with a woman named Laney and is in the middle of having sex with her (his first time) when Implementation agents raid the house, which turns out to be full of Sons of Earth members. Matt manages to escape in a stolen car. The Implementation chase him to the edge of the Plateau, where he dives into the poisonous gas. Implementation leaves him for dead, but he manages to survive and resurface.

Feeling guilty, he makes an attempt to enter the Hospital where the captured Sons of Earth have been taken and rescue Laney. He has several strange encounters with the Implementation where they suddenly fail to be able to see him. He makes his way to the Vivarium, where those of the Sons of Earth who are still living are being kept, and sets them free. He, along with two of the leaders and Laney, steal another car and flee to the home of Millard Parlette, a prominent political figure and direct descendant of the captain of the original colony vessel.

Matt explains to them how he rescued them and they conclude that he has a psionic power: the ability to influence the optic nerves of anyone whose attention is focused on him. When he is excited or frightened, people focused on him are compelled to contract the pupils of their eyes, and thereby lose that focus to the point of short-term memory loss – even if he has just threatened them with a weapon.

When Millard Parlette returns home, he allows himself to be captured by Matt with little difficulty. However, the others overreact upon seeing him enter the house and knock him out with a stun gun. Matt and Laney leave to go back to the hospital. Matt intends to rescue Polly, having realized that her rejection of him was an outcome of his nervousness and psionic power. Laney intends to rescue the rest of the Sons of Earth who were recaptured.

In the house, Millard Parlette reveals what the cargoes of the ramship were. They consist of four medical breakthroughs: a symbiote that regenerates skin, technology to culture a human liver, another to culture a human heart, and a second symbiote that lives in the bloodstream and grants many benefits: it fights disease, dissolves blood clots, repairs and cleans fatty deposits from the circulatory system, and maintains hormone levels at those of an adult. These advancements are amazingly beneficial, but that is the precise problem. Colonists, once they learn of them, would assume that the organ banks had become obsolete, and expect Implementation to disband. However, these advancements only reduce the need for transplants; they do not remove it entirely. But when Implementation continues to take colonists to the banks, they would assume that necessity had given way to malevolence. Every colonist on Plateau would revolt. At least half the population would perish in the conflict, and technological civilization might come to an end. Thus, the political figure Parlette wants to negotiate a replacement for the Covenant of Planetfall with the rebels in advance, and thereby prevent such a conflict.

Though the rebels are perfectly willing to deal, there is still one significant problem: Implementation. Any settlement with the Colonists would involve reducing the power of the Crew's police force. As such, Implementation would be on the side of the conservative Crew faction: those who would die before accepting a compromise with those they currently hold the power of life and death over. Implementation controls the best weapons on Plateau, and they have already made a decision as to the impact of the ramscoop's cargo.

At the hospital, Implementation leader Jesus Pietro Castro has been interrogating Polly. Specifically, he has been enraging her by explaining the situation; first, he reveals that Implementation permitted the Sons of Earth to exist solely as a constant source of organ donors - thinning it periodically as if it was a herd of husbanded animals. Second, his "father" was over seventy when he was conceived, and required supplementary testosterone; instead of periodic injections, he chose to be transplanted with the testicles of an executed Colonist - the class schism between Colonist and Crew means that the two have effectively become distinct races, both of which consider miscegenation a greater taboo than incest - and the revelation that Jesus is half-Colonist disgusts her even more than the revelation that she and her fellow Colonists are nothing but cattle to the Crew; cattle that have just been completely culled. As the ramship cargo has sharply banked the need for organ transplants, the decision was made to eliminate the resistance entirely, knowing that they would revolt violently once the cargo was revealed. Every other Son of Earth has been broken up for organ stock. Polly and the four who escaped in the car hidden under the residence are the only surviving rebels on Plateau.

Meanwhile, Matt and Laney are able to enter the facility with no real problem. Matt tricks Castro into leading him to where they are keeping Polly, and Matt sets her free. However, this turns out to be a mistake: Implementation moved from psychological interrogation to sensory deprivation, and she is now insane. He makes love to her and in so doing restores her ability to function. But when she learns of their location, she becomes determined to avenge the genocide of the Sons of Earth. She flees Matt, intending to detonate the nuclear reactor on one of the slowboats, to destroy the Hospital and kill as many Crew as she possibly can. She is unable to reach the reactor and instead settles for the ship's long-defunct control room. She then ignites the ship's landing motors; this severely damages the Hospital, kills many of the crew, and thrusts the ship off the "void edge" to its destruction. Matt manages to jump from the ship before she does so.

Millard Parlette assumes control of the Crew in the aftermath. However, the Colonists have won the war, as the Sons of Earth - though only numbering four - have claimed control of the most powerful weapon on Plateau: ''Matt Keller''. If the Crew does not restructure Plateau's laws along cosmopolitan lines, Keller will use his psychic power to act as an unstoppable assassin. Keller accepts this, but demands a position of power among the rebels. And he's just discovered a new wrinkle in his power. Not only can he compel someone to lose focus on him, he can compel someone to intensify that focus, putting them in a hypnotic trance, which by implication makes him the true master of Plateau.

As the story began with a robot ramship in flight, it ends with another ramship headed from Earth to the human colony known as 'We Made It' (in the Procyon system) with the same discovery. This ship is observed by alien Outsiders, who follow it in hopes of selling faster than light technology to the locals. This sale will lead to the advanced multi-species society portrayed in "Neutron Star" and ''Ringworld''.

Set in Auckland, New Zealand, the film centres around four Samoan boys: ladies' man Michael, party boy Sefa, good boy Albert, and weird Stanley, who although they are in their mid 20s to early 30s have a reputation for behaving immaturely at special occasions such as family weddings. After four particular incidents (Michael having sex with one of the bridesmaids in the wedding limousine; Albert dropping the bride while she was hoisted up on his shoulder; Sefa getting drunk and passing out while going through the wedding cake and the table; and Stanley setting a reception hall on fire), the local minister of their Samoan church rules that the four are to be banned from the wedding of Michael's brother, Sione.

This is hard news for the boys, especially since Michael was supposed to be the best man, however Albert comes up with a solution – bring a date to the wedding. He proposes to the minister that being with a girl at the wedding would force the men to be on their best behaviour. The minister allows them to go but requires that the boys must have a serious relationship with their dates or Eugene (the groom at the wedding where the reception hall burned) will forcibly block them. While the boys think it is an easy plan, they soon realise that finding a girlfriend is not as easy as it looks, especially since the wedding is just one month away.

A British actor attempts to impress visiting American relatives by having the cast of his drawing-room comedy pose as his aristocratic family. The American mother persuades the butler (Hope), really a struggling American actor playing a British butler, to come to the United States with them. She sends a telegram home, referring to him as a "gentleman's gentleman," which the rural western townfolk misunderstand as being an aristocrat and presumably the future husband of the family's tomboyish daughter (Ball). Hope must now pretend to the family that he is a British butler while pretending to the rest of the town, and the visiting President Theodore Roosevelt that he is a politically savvy Englishman.

The deception is eventually uncovered, and the actor and the family's daughter eventually fall in love.

The novel is based in a future where the majority of the human population live underground. Alan Powys works at the transport department. His grandfather, Simon Powys, is the minister for space transport and is the presumptive nominee for his party to succeed the current president. Alan's cousin Helen Curtis is leader of the Radical Liberal Movement, the government's opposition.

The arrival of the Fireclown in the lower levels of the underground city and his performances featuring fire captivate those who see it. He is thought by Simon Powys to be a dangerous rebel, his niece thinks conversely that the Fireclown is there to reignite people's passion for democracy.

A fire breaks out in the lower levels forcing the Government to shut them off, people revolt and the Fireclown flees. Unconvinced by his grandfather's, and the Government's, assertion that the Fireclown is a terrorist, Alan sets off to find the Fireclown for an explanation. Helen accompanies him providing a ship and desperate to believe the Fireclown is a great healer.

After arriving at an orbiting monastery they do, eventually, find the Fireclown. He takes them out in his specially designed starship ''The Pi-Meson'' and shows them at incredibly close quarters, the sun's corona. It transpires that the Fireclown is neither a terrorist nor a saviour. After a private conversation with Alan, the Fireclown allows both him and Helen to return to Earth.

Upon returning they decide to try to find evidence that the Fireclown really was innocent in the matter of the fire in the lower levels. After travelling to London and attending a shadowy basement meeting, Alan discovers a plot to manipulate the public, acquire weapons of mass destruction and a very personal vendetta against the Fireclown stretching back many decades.

A tribe of primitive humans lives in a barren, rocky wasteland and struggle for survival, despite a lush, plant-filled land on the other side of a nearby river. They refuse to cross the river because of a law that evolved from an ancient tale warning of a god lurking there who brings death with a single touch.

A young man of the tribe challenges the law and is eventually followed by other male members of his tribe, who fearfully cross the river in order to bring him back. They soon encounter the terrible god, a large, horribly burned but strangely human-like creature. Despite the young man's peace overture to the god, another tribal member, out of fear, lays a trap and stones the creature to death with a large rock; the young man then shoots and kills that tribesman with one of his arrows. The others gather around the now-dead god and discover that the creature is actually a much older ''man'' with long white hair. He is wearing some kind of strange, unknown outer garment with a fearful hood. They find another strange thing in the old man's possession; they are puzzled by this flat, thick object that opens and contains mysterious markings and vivid black, white and gray images that show an even stranger human world unknown to them.

In a surprising denouement provided by the old man after his death, the truth is revealed in voice-over as the tribesmen page through his book: He was actually a survivor of a long-ago nuclear holocaust, forced to live for decades inside his now-ragged, discolored and bulky radiation suit (which is implied to have once been covered with deadly radioactive fallout). The old man has wandered the land for decades, while the primitive remnants of a devastated human race have slowly increased their numbers; his frightening outer appearance caused them to fear and shun him.

A final, cautionary question is asked in voice-over by the old man: will humanity someday repeat its nuclear folly after civilization has once again risen to its former heights?

An American (Charles Bronson) living in France must face his past when his wife and daughter are kidnapped by former fellow convicts turned narco-dealers he once double-crossed.

Ten-year-old Felicity Merriman is growing up in Williamsburg, Virginia, just before the American Revolution. High-spirited and independent, Felicity decides to tame a wild horse owned by a leather maker/tanner, Jiggy Nye, who mistreats the horse. Even though her parents Martha and Edward forbid her, she runs off to be with the horse, which Felicity names Penny. She eventually tames Penny and the two become fast friends.

Meanwhile, tension grows between the colonists. Some, including Edward and his apprentice Ben Davidson, wish for independence from King George III of England. Others, like Felicity’s grandfather and her best friend Elizabeth Cole’s family, remain loyal to the king.

Suicide Squad leader Amanda Waller begins sending her agents on missions in the apparent pursuit of her own private agenda, the so-called "Janus Directive", bringing the Squad into conflict with other metahuman villains and government agencies. All-out mayhem breaks loose among these groups, involving various metahumans associated with the United States military and civilian agencies.

It is revealed that Waller has not gone rogue - cult leader Kobra tried to murder Waller and replace her with a subservient doppelgänger in order to manipulate and mislead the various government agencies to keep them from stopping his own plan. Kobra plans to activate a massive space-based microwave pulse cannon that would fry all electronic systems (not to mention human nervous systems) in the eastern United States, unleashing the Kali Yuga, the age of chaos he believes it is his destiny to commence. Waller has murdered her double and is playing the role of traitor in order to ferret out the true mastermind behind the Janus Directive. Eventually, the truth is revealed, the groups unite and storm Kobra's space ark, capturing him and destroying his weapon.

The fallout of the Janus Directive results in an irate President Bush reorganizing the various agencies to bring them under executive control; he dissolves Task Force X, the umbrella organization under which both Checkmate and the Squad operated (the component agencies becoming autonomous), and makes Sarge Steel a Cabinet-level official with overall control of all governmental metahuman activity on the civilian side. General Wade Eiling is made his equivalent in the Department of Defense. Waller is put on probation by Bush because of her "lone wolf" tactics, much to her displeasure.

Waller is soon imprisoned for taking matters into her own hands after leading an assassination team to personally liquidate the Vodou-oriented drug ring called the Loa. This leads to the shutdown of all Suicide Squad operations for one year.

The story begins in September 1290, when Catherine describes her world: her father's manor, her father and mother themselves (her father is bawdy, loud and disagreeable; her mother, kind and sweet), and the people she encounters daily. The novel is marked by the Catholic Saints' Days. Catherine is called "Birdy" because she keeps many birds as pets. She has three older brothers. The eldest, Robert, is a knight. He weds his betrothed though she is only 12, and she dies from complications while giving birth to their child. Catherine's second brother, Thomas, is in the king's service. Edward, with whom she corresponds and is closest, is a monk who lives in an abbey nearby.

Catherine's relationship with her parents is a pervasive element in the plot. Her mother wishes her to be an accomplished and docile lady, while her father wishes to make advantageous social connections through her marriage. Several suitors approach Stonebridge Manor with the intention of wooing Lady Catherine, but all fall short of her expectations and devices. Eventually, Catherine's father demands that she marry an old, repulsive man she calls "Shaggy Beard" in her diary. She spends the year described in her diary fighting the marriage, devising various escapes and alternate versions of her life where she will run away and be a monk, or escape overseas and go on the Crusades.

One of the book's largest subplots occurs when her favorite uncle, George, comes home from the Crusades and falls in love with Catherine's best friend, Lady Aelis. Because George does not have a high position in society, they cannot marry, and both end up wedding others: George, an eccentric older Saxon businesswoman named Ethelfritha, who was struck by lightning; Aelis, a seven-year-old duke. Catherine begins to wonder about fate, love, and responsibility.

As the day of Catherine's wedding approaches, she runs away to her uncle and aunt. She realizes that she will be the same no matter whom she marries; thus, she allows her uncle to take her home. But when she arrives, she is confronted with the happy news that Shaggy Beard has died in a tavern brawl and she is now engaged to his son, Stephen, who is clean and young and educated. This match pleases her greatly, and she starts to dream about being married to him, counting down the days to when she can see him.

''Catherine, Called Birdy'' discusses everything from the mundane events of her life (killing fleas, spinning and embroidery) to festivals and holidays (such as Easter or May Day, many of which are celebrated by the entire village) to her travels in England, which are limited (she goes, for example, to Lincoln with her father, or to spend a few days at Lady Aelis's manor).

Jan Paul Beahm grows up in Los Angeles through a troubled childhood: He does not know his biological father, his mother is an alcoholic, and his older brother dies from a heroin overdose. An avid reader, he develops into a "frighteningly intelligent" student at University High School, where his antisocial behavior leads the administration to give him straight A's if he agrees not to return. In December 1975, at age 17, he proposes to his friend Georg Ruthenberg that they start a band, showing him potential lyrics and claiming to have a "five-year plan" inspired by the David Bowie song "Five Years". They con money for instruments, and a lineup coalesces with Jan Paul on vocals, Georg on guitar, Terri Ryan on bass guitar, and Becky Barton on drums. Jan Paul comes up with the band name Germs, representing the germination of an idea.

The Germs play their first gig in April 1977: As they are heckling the Damned outside the Whisky a Go Go, Claude "Kickboy Face" Bessy of ''Slash'' magazine suggests that they perform at an open mic across the street. They give an impromptu performance of their song "Sex Boy", but do not know how to play their instruments and are heckled by the audience. Jan Paul responds by throwing flour at them and dipping the microphone in peanut butter; the band is thrown out but excited by the experience. Jan Paul comes up with pseudonyms for the members: Georg becomes Pat Smear, Terri becomes Lorna Doom, and Becky becomes Donna Rhia. Jan Paul renames himself Bobby Pyn, but soon changes this to Darby Crash. Becky is soon kicked out and the band goes through a series of replacements. Chris Ashford becomes their manager and presses their "Forming" single, the first punk rock single from Los Angeles.

At the Masque the Germs meet Don Bolles, who becomes their new drummer. Darby also meets Rob Henley, and the two begin a homosexual relationship. Darby comes up with the Germs' logo, a blue circle, as well as the "Germs burn", a symbolic circular cigarette burn on the wrist. The Germs build an audience at the Masque and advance to larger venues, playing a chaotic show at the Roosevelt Hotel on Halloween 1978. Rob vies with Don for Darby's approval, and he and Darby begin experimenting with heroin. The Germs appear on Rodney Bingenheimer's radio program and convince ''Slash'' to fund their album, ''(GI)''. Tensions rise as Rob convinces Darby that Don's drumming is not fast enough, and when a woman named Amber begins doting on Darby and declares herself his manager.

Darby's heroin use increases, as does violence at the Germs' shows, and they are banned from most clubs in Los Angeles. Darby is upset to learn that Don has started a side project. Penelope Spheeris features the Germs in her film ''The Decline of Western Civilization''. The band plays at the Whisky a Go Go in December 1979 under the name GI, for "Germs Incognito", and when Don is late Darby replaces him with Rob. Rob does not know how to play, however, and the show is aborted when the crowd riots. Finding Rob having sex with a female fan, Darby effectively breaks up the Germs by taking off with Amber to London for several months.

Darby returns to Los Angeles with an Adam Ant-inspired fashion and a tall mohawk. He enlists Pat for his Darby Crash Band, then organizes a Germs "farewell show" at the Starwood in December 1980 with Pat, Lorna, and Don. The show goes well, with Darby telling the crowd "This is for the people who wanted to know what it was like when we were around. But this is the only one; you're not gonna see this again". Alone and despondent after the show, he enters into a suicide pact with friend Casey Cola: The two intentionally overdose on heroin; Casey survives, Darby does not. Pat receives the news as he is watching reports of the assassination of John Lennon. Darby's funeral is sparsely attended, with Pat reading a poem titled "Astrid" that Darby had written near the band's outset.

The frame story has Martinus Harinxma, a senior tugboat captain home after a long voyage, catching up on correspondence. He opens a letter from a young man who is the son of a Canadian naval officer killed aboard Harinxma's ship during escort duty during Second World War. In the letter, the son asks the Captain, "How was my father killed, and what was he really like?" As he begins to write the boy, Harinxma is forced to remember, and re-live the events surrounding the Canadian officer's time aboard his ship, and his eventual death.

In 1940 Harinxma, then a young tugboat officer, escapes to Britain. The Kwel company has managed to get away much of its fleet and personnel, one jump ahead of the advancing Germans, and sets up to continue operations from London. Harinxma gets his first command, at an earlier age and under much more difficult conditions than he would otherwise have had.

A central element of the book are the complex relationships between the crew members, in whose depiction de Hartog's personal nautical experience is manifest. Among other things the young and inexperienced captain must face the dilemma of whether to cover up for a severe mishap by the ship's engineer, who is his personal friend, or report him for the sake of the ship's safety and risk his getting fired.

While still being merchant seamen not formally inducted into any navy, Harinxma and his fellow Dutch exile sailors are inexorably sucked into the fighting, their ships given (often inadequate) armaments and sent into some of the hottest arenas of the World War II naval war. Again clearly based on De Hartog's own experience, the book vividly conveys the feeling of suspicion and cordial dislike between the exiled Dutch and their British hosts and allies.

The Dutch sailors feel (and not entirely without reason) that they are being set up as cannon fodder (or rather, U-boat fodder). Many of Harinxma's fellow Dutch end up on the "South-Western Approaches" to the British Isles, acting as "stretcher-bearers of the sea" in submarine-infested waters – which turns out to be a task involving an extremely high casualty rate. (That experience had formed the background to a previous (1951) de Hartog novel, published variously under the names ''Stella'' and ''The Key'' and made into a film starring Sophia Loren).

Harinxma himself eventually ends up in an even more horrendous environment: the convoys to Murmansk, carrying the military matériel which the Soviet Union desperately needed to repulse the Nazi invasion of its territory. Wending their long way in frigid Arctic waters, the convoys were for most of their course extremely vulnerable to constant German submarine, warship and aerial attacks emanating from occupied Norway, making them among the war's most dangerous postings.

The same background, with the combination of extreme belligerent action and inhospitable nature pushing protagonists to the edge of endurance and beyond, was already the scene of ''HMS Ulysses'', the first novel (1946) by Scottish author Alistair MacLean. While the two books have very different writing styles, characterization and underlying philosophy, they do share some plot elements.

Harinxma and his crew go again and again into that hell, with only short rest periods before they have to go there yet again. While under this constant danger, Harinxma gets into a personality conflict with a diminutive and touchy Royal Navy captain hailing from the Isle of Man, who first appears arrogant and ridiculous but ultimately sacrifices himself and goes to the bottom in a touching and heroic – yet believable – way.

In what would turn out to have a profound influence on his later life, Harinxma works with a sensitive young Canadian liaison officer posted to his ship, who quixotically dies in a futile attempt to shield an injured kitten from an attacking German plane. Later, Harinxma has a brief and guilt-ridden affair with the Canadian's widow.

Things come to a head in a particularly disastrous convoy of which few of the participating ships survive to reach their destination. (Both De Hartog's book and MacLean's seem to be inspired by – though not be following in every detail – the case of the historical ill-fated Convoy PQ 17 of July 1942).

Harinxma loses his ship, and very nearly his life, but purely by chance a depth charge falling from the ship sinks a German U-boat as well. He pulls from the oily water and into the lifeboat a German boy who was a cook's mate on the submarine and is its only survivor (and who would become a prosperous businessman in post-war Germany and send each year a big box of cakes to his Dutch saviour).

Sick and tired of war, Harinxma returns to London and confronts the formidable aging patriarch of the Kwel Company. He declares his firm decision to become a conscientious objector and quit the sea – and gets told "God has sown you on the bridge of a tugboat, and there you will grow".

Eventually, a deep-seated feeling of loyalty to all the Dutch and British who sailed with him and went to the bottom impels Harinxma to indeed take up again command of a ship – but a completely unarmed one, where he would be exposed to the full risk of German attacks but not be in a position to kill anybody even inadvertently.

This message reflects the position of de Hartog himself, who became more and more of a pacifist towards the end of the war years and eventually joined the outspokenly pacifist Quakers. What saves the book from becoming an ideological tract is the wry sense of humour evident even in manifestly non-humorous situations, and the first-person narrator's ability to laugh at himself.

Harinxma returned in several later de Hartog books, such as ''The Commodore'' and ''The Centurion''.

In the novel's first section, the protagonist loses his teaching job due to a false accusation of seducing a 10th-grade student. He then seduces the student, and having done so, departs on a trip to France. In France he assumes the name of a friend, 'Herbert', and pretends to be a curator looking for lost drawings of Allan Stein.

The protagonist uses his new identity to become close to the son of his hosts, a moody 15-year-old named Stéphane. The narrator projects onto Stéphane an idealized memory of his own childhood, when he visited France with his mother at age 16. Enchanted by Stéphane's mother as well as her son.

After two weeks, the narrator succeeds in making Stéphane his lover, and the two run off together to the South of France. But Stéphane returns to his parents when he discovers that the narrator has lied about his name. It is only at this point that the reader discovers the real name of the narrator: Matthew.

Twelve-year-old Robin Garr is sent away to summer camp at the behest of her workaholic mother and her stressed-out father, both of whom fight and argue often. At camp, Robin befriends Amelia, an overweight girl with scars on her back who claims to be happy about being free from her controlling mother. After coaxing Amelia into a deep lake for a prohibited nighttime swim, Amelia, who cannot swim, quickly drowns while Robin screams for help. Robin is sent back home to her bad home situation; her mother has just changed her job and moves to another city, but visits on the weekends; it's a big chance for her and she thinks the change will be good for the family. Robin is frustrated with this turn of events and confides in a friend at the local park, a boy her age named Calvin, that she still feels guilty about Amelia's death.

One day Robin meets a pleasant woman named Dorothy, who is eccentric and enjoys feeding the birds bread crusts. Robin immediately likes her for her candid approach to grief and sadness, and is even happier to discover that Dorothy is a neighbour in the same building she and her parents live in. They soon become friends, but the closer they get, the more uncomfortable Robin feels. Dorothy takes Robin's photograph without permission, rearranges her room in a way Robin doesn't like, yells at her for using the wrong ingredients in a batch of cookie dough, and tells Robin a disturbing, graphic story about how her own sister (who happens to have been named Amelia) fell out of a third-storey window when Dorothy was supposed to be babysitting her. Dorothy's sister was killed in the fall, an incident that has traumatized Dorothy since childhood. Mrs. Garr is frustrated by the bizarre relationship Dorothy is forming with Robin, and demands that it taper off. Dorothy begins to become obsessed with Robin, clandestinely placing a walkie-talkie in her bedroom. Each night, when her parents are putting her to bed, Dorothy listens in on their conversations. Mrs. Garr realizes that Robin is also uncomfortable with the relationship and tries to get Mr. Garr to put a stop to it. Mr. Garr thinks his wife is overreacting, and he ignores the request.

One night, Mr. Garr asks Dorothy to stay with Robin while he is away from the apartment. Dorothy becomes weirdly authoritarian and angry, yelling at Robin and forcing her to approach her homework assignments with perfectionism until no typographical mistakes are made. Robin finds this silly, and demands to call her parents. In a burst of rage, Dorothy hits her, knocking the girl into the side of a doorframe and causing her to fall unconscious. Mr. Garr comes home to find both Dorothy and his daughter gone, and he sees blood on the doorframe. Mrs. Garr returns home and after a heated argument, they call the police and convince their landlord to unlock Dorothy's apartment. The parents and landlord are stunned to find that Dorothy has neglected to unpack her cardboard moving boxes, and moreover, that Dorothy appears to have built a sort of makeshift shrine that combines things she has collected from Robin, as well as the walkie-talkie. In a panic, they both realize that they know nothing of Dorothy's real identity. The landlord reveals that he only knows the information he was given, and the parents come to an understanding that Dorothy gave the landlord fraudulent identification. They convince Calvin, Robin's friend, to alert other children in the park that Robin is missing and needs to be found. Calvin reveals that Robin was uncomfortable around Dorothy and that he himself didn't trust Dorothy, who had earlier-on warned Robin not to trust any boys at all.

Meanwhile, Dorothy tries to brainwash Robin into believing herself to be Dorothy's daughter. Robin awakens in a little girl's bedroom, tied down and disoriented. She recognizes some of the items in the room and realizes a grim truth about Dorothy: Amelia, the friend who drowned at summer camp, was Dorothy's daughter, who in turn was named after Dorothy's deceased little sister, unveiling a pattern of severe mental illness in which Dorothy has the obsessive need to control "Amelia", even to the Amelia proxy's own harm. This comes to light when Robin fights back against Dorothy. Dorothy lights a candlestick, waiting for the wax to burn down, and holds a piece of iron over it, causing it to heat up. To Robin's horror, Dorothy plans to use the hot iron to burn and brand her skin as a form of punishment (which is how her friend Amelia got the scars on her back). Robin is trapped in what is presumably Dorothy's real home, with no way to get help.

Robin's parents come across Amelia's file at the summer camp, discovering that Dorothy's real name is Gretchen. They track down Gretchen's home address, despite being told by the police to wait at home. When Robin tries to escape, Gretchen grabs the screaming girl and attempts to brand her arm with the hot iron. Luckily Robin's parents arrive just in time to rescue her, and Mr. Garr breaks down the window and the door to the bedroom. Gretchen insists that Robin is really her daughter Amelia. The detectives and police arrive shortly thereafter, pretending that they all know that Gretchen is telling the truth in order to fool the insane woman into releasing Robin, which she does, only for Robin to be given back to the Garrs.

Gretchen is arrested, handcuffed and led to a police car, where she lapses into a complete breakdown, believing herself to be a young girl back in childhood, talking to her deceased little sister. She calls out things such as, "Amelia... want to play hide and seek? Yes, yes, I'll find you... you HIDE! GO HIDE!" (then proceeds to count manically backwards in the voice of a child). She continues to act this way as police take her into custody. Robin, despite the ordeal, feels sorry for Gretchen and wonders where she will end up now that she's been caught. She and her parents then return home. Mrs. Garr decides to quit her job, deciding that she doesn't need it as much as she needs her family; this revelation causes Robin, who is pretending to be asleep in the backseat of the family car, to smile placidly.

Anna Montgomery (Olivia d'Abo), a teacher who is on an exchange program from Surrey, England, is placed into a school in the fictional small town of Elma, Texas. She initially struggles to connect with her students, as they believe they are underachievers doomed to dead end lives. One day, instead of teaching geography to the inattentive class, Anna breaks the globe in an attempt to pique the kids' interest. After some confusion, the children start learning the game of soccer. After the first practice, Anna tells them she has entered them into a league in Austin, Texas, but their first game is the following day. The town Sheriff's Deputy Tom Palmer (Steve Guttenberg) becomes co-coach while at the same time begins falling for Anna.

The team travels to Austin to play the Knights, who are the top team in the league. However, none of the kids fully understand know how to play, and they lose 18–0. They decide not to play anymore, until they discover the talent of new classmate Juan Morales (Anthony Esquivel), but have to persuade his reluctant mother to let him play. The team, now known as the Big Green, steadily improves with Juan, and they go on a remarkable run with a record of eight wins, two losses, and one tie, which earns them a re-match against the Knights in the championship. As the town goes crazy for the final, hometown boy and current Knights coach Jay Huffer (Jay O. Sanders) returns to Elma, and finds in the bar the drunken and prejudiced father of Kate Douglas (Jessica Robertson), one of the players. He tells Jay, who works as an auditor for the IRS, via bribery that Juan's mother is an illegal immigrant. Later, Tom is forced to investigate the matter, forcing Juan and his mother to flee Elma. Kate is left furious with both her father and Tom over the situation, but Anna convinces her to stay on the team.

On the day of the championship, Tom searches for Juan, but is unable to find him before the start of the match, and by halftime the team is down 2–0. With 10 minutes left in the game, Juan arrives with Tom and his mother, where Tom announces he is now the sponsor for Juan's mother, meaning they can stay in the country. Juan enters the game and sets up Elma's first goal, and with the last kick of the match, scores the equalizer to tie the game, 2-2, forcing the championship to be decided in a penalty shootout. In the final round with the score still tied, the Knights captain and son of the coach, Jay Huffer Jr., steps onto the field. The Big Green goalie Larry Musgrove (Patrick Renna), who suffers from visions of the opposition players becoming "monsters," manages to turn himself into a monster in his own fantasy, in order to psych out the opponent and save the kick. The final kick for the championship is taken by the Big Green's smallest and youngest player, Newt Shaw (Bug Hall). He scores on his kick, giving the Big Green the championship. Huffer, having made a bet with Anna if his Knights were to lose, kisses the Big Green's goat mascot, much to his disgust.

The final scene shows a new billboard in Elma, featuring the team and highlighting their success on the field and in the classroom.

Flashbacks

Desmond Hume (Henry Ian Cusick) is being released from a military prison in 2001 with a dishonourable discharge, for unknown reasons. Upon leaving, he runs into Charles Widmore (Alan Dale) who reveals that he prevented communication between his daughter Penelope (Sonya Walger) and Desmond while he was in prison, and strongly warns Desmond against attempting to reform a relationship. Desmond, wanting to prove that he is not a coward, travels to the United States from the United Kingdom to train for a sailing race around the world, sponsored by Widmore. He meets Libby (Cynthia Watros) in a cafe, and after a deep conversation, Libby gives Desmond a yacht owned by her late husband. While Desmond is training, Penny tracks him down and angrily questions him. (There is a moment in the background where Jack is seen arriving at the stadium to run.) Desmond tells her that he is determined to win Widmore's race and promises that he will return. However, while sailing, Desmond gets caught in a bad storm, and washes up on the island. He is rescued by a man in a yellow HAZMAT suit, Kelvin Inman (Clancy Brown) (who also is the American intelligence officer that releases Sayid in one of his flashbacks) who takes him to the Dharma Initiative Swan Station and shows him the Orientation film. He explains that it was edited by Stuart Radzinsky, his former partner who faked a lockdown event and created an invisible map on the blast doors with him and then committed suicide while Inman was asleep. Inman also explains that the incident was a "leak" of electromagnetic energy from the Swan that builds up and has to be discharged by pushing the button unless someone accesses a fail-safe and "blows the dam." Desmond lives together with Kelvin for three years before he finds out that Inman is secretly planning on escaping the island using Desmond's boat. Desmond violently confronts Inman about this, accidentally killing him in the process. After almost letting the countdown timer run down and causing a "System Failure", Desmond starts drinking liquor and a few days later, contemplates suicide. Before he shoots himself however, he hears John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) banging on the hatch door, and turns on a light. Desmond then realizes that there is still hope and decides not to kill himself.

On the island

While at the funeral for Ana Lucia Cortez (Michelle Rodriguez) and Libby, a boat comes into view out at sea. Jack, Sayid, and Sawyer swim out to it and climb onto the boat. They hear music coming from inside it. Shots are fired from inside the boat through the boat hatch entrance. After breaking the hatch open, they find a drunken Desmond piloting the boat. The next day, after Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) prevents Locke from destroying the computer that controls the timer, Locke enlists Desmond's help in letting the timer run down to zero. Desmond hotwires the blast doors shut, locking Eko outside the computer room and Desmond and Locke inside of it. Eko, distraught, seeks Charlie Pace's (Dominic Monaghan) help. The two attempt to use dynamite to blow the blast door open, but the blast doors are unscathed, while they are both injured.

Meanwhile, Desmond and Locke discuss the purpose of the stations and discover that when Desmond accidentally caused the "System Failure", the magnetic force pulled Oceanic Flight 815 toward the island, thus causing the crash. Locke continues to doubt that the timer has any meaning, but Desmond assures him that it is all real. As the timer passes zero, causing another "System Failure", Desmond retrieves the failsafe key he obtained from Inman and crawls underneath the hatch, saying he will "blow the dam". After he turns the key in the system termination switch, a shrill humming noise and violet-white light envelops the entire island, causing the Oceanic 815 survivors and the Others alike on opposite sides of the island to bend in apparent pain. That night, Charlie is the only person to return from the hatch; the whereabouts of Desmond, Eko, and Locke are not revealed. Charlie reconnects with Claire Littleton (Emilie de Ravin), and they kiss as they sit among their fellow plane survivors.

A local dock in Hawaii, as seen in "Live Together, Die Alone".

The survivors split up into two groups to head to the Others' camp. Michael Dawson (Harold Perrineau), Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox), Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly), James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway), and Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (Jorge Garcia) walk on land to the camp, bringing guns and ammunition with them. Meanwhile, Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews), Sun-Hwa Kwon (Yunjin Kim), and Jin-Soo Kwon (Daniel Dae Kim) plan to use Desmond's sailboat to go by sea. Sayid plans to use black smoke as a signal, saying that "this time, they will know that we are coming", a reference to the attacks in the first-season finale. When the boat reaches the Others' camp, Sayid finds it to be deserted. Meanwhile, Michael, Jack, Sawyer, Hurley and Kate engage in a gun battle with some Others that were following them, and Sawyer kills one. Jack confronts Michael about leading the group into a trap, and Michael confesses to the murders of Ana Lucia and Libby. They realize that Michael has led them to a location other than the beach, ruining their former plan to meet up with Sayid. There, they see a large pile of pneumatic tubes, suggesting that the reports sent out from the monitoring hatch discovered in the episode "?" had never been read. Shortly after the discovery of the tube pile, they hear whispers, and suddenly Sawyer, Kate, and Jack are incapacitated by electric darts. The hostages, bound and gagged, are brought to a dock, where it appears that the Others are led by Henry Gale (Michael Emerson). Gale keeps his bargain with Michael, returning his son, Walt Lloyd (Malcolm David Kelley), to him and giving them an old fishing boat with instructions to sail on a heading of 325 degrees until they are rescued. Michael threatens Henry that he could tell the outside world of the island's location. Henry responds by telling him that it wouldn't matter as they would not be able to find the island, should they return. He also gives Michael a counter-threat: if he did tell people of the island's location, people would know what he did to get his son back. Michael reluctantly accepts but asks who Henry and his people are, to which Henry responds "We're the good guys, Michael". Michael uses the boat to get him and Walt off the island. Hurley is then released and sent back to the other survivors with a message that they are to stay away from the Others' part of the island. As Hurley is let go, the other three captives are taken away.

Epilogue

The scene shifts to a cramped research station somewhere far from the island, in a polar climate; two Portuguese-speaking men who are playing chess are interrupted by an alert on a monitor displaying the message ">/ 7418880 Electromagnetic Anomaly Detected" (the number 7418880 being the product of the numbers, 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42). One of the men makes a frantic phone call that wakes up Penelope in the middle of the night, telling her, "I think we've found it."

Richard, a young American seeking adventure in Bangkok, stays in a drab travelers' hotel on Khao San Road where he meets a young French couple, Françoise and Étienne. He meets Daffy, who tells him of a pristine, uninhabited island in the Gulf of Thailand with a beautiful hidden beach. Daffy explains that he settled there in secret several years earlier, but difficulties arose and he left. Daffy commits suicide, leaving Richard a map to the island. Richard convinces Françoise and Étienne to accompany him to the island, and the three travel to Ko Samui. Richard meets two American surfers who have heard rumors of the island and gives them a copy of the map.

En route to the island, Richard becomes infatuated with Françoise. After swimming to the island from a neighboring one, they find a cannabis plantation guarded by armed Thai farmers. Avoiding detection, they make their way across the island and meet Keatey, who brings them to a community of travelers living on the island in secret. Sal, the community's English leader, explains that the farmers allow them to stay so long as they keep to themselves and do not allow any more travelers to come to the island. Richard lies that they have not shown the map to anyone else. The trio become integrated into the community.

One night, Françoise invites Richard to the beach where she tells him that she is falling in love with him and cheats on Étienne with Richard. Despite hoping to keep it secret, the community finds out. While angry, Étienne says he will not stand in their way if Françoise is happier with Richard.

Sal selects Richard to accompany her on a supply run to Ko Pha Ngan. They encounter the American surfers who are preparing to search for the island and mention Richard's map. Sal is upset but believes Richard when he says they have no map. In order to ensure that Sal will not tell the rest of the island about the map, Richard has sex with her at her order. On their return to the island, Richard lies to Françoise about having had sex with Sal.

When the surfers turn up on the neighboring island, Sal orders Richard to send them away and destroy their map. She tells everyone that she and Richard had sex, which leaves Françoise angry and heartbroken, causing her to return to Étienne. Isolated from the group, Richard begins to lose his sanity, imagining that he is conversing with the deceased Daffy.

The surfers reach the island but are discovered and killed by the farmers. Shocked at witnessing their deaths, Richard gathers Françoise and Étienne to leave the island.

Richard is captured by the farmers along with Françoise and Étienne. The farmers are furious with the community for breaking their deal to not allow any more newcomers. The lead farmer gives Sal a gun loaded with a single bullet and orders her to make a choice: kill Richard and the group will be allowed to stay, or else they must all leave immediately. Sal pulls the trigger, but the chamber is empty. Shocked by her willingness to commit murder, the other members of the community abandon Sal, leave the island, and go their separate ways.

Back in the United States, Richard receives an email at an Internet cafe from Françoise with a nostalgic group photograph of the beach community in happier times.

New Orleans narcotics detective Anthony Stowe (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is a heroin addict who is teetering on the edge of oblivion, and he could not care less. At the moment, he is trying to bring down his former partner Gabriel Callahan (Stephen Rea), who has become a drug kingpin. Callahan is trying to, and slowly succeeding at, taking over the New Orleans underworld.

Stowe botches a sting operation against Callahan, resulting in the death of fellow cop Maria Ronson (Rachel Grant), whose fiancé, fellow cop Van Huffel (Adam Leese), nearly comes to blows with him over it. Chief Mac Baylor (Gary Beadle) has a very blunt chat with Stowe, who is dismissive. Stowe is approached by fellow cop Walter Currie (Trevor Cooper) to help his nephew beat a drug-dealing charge; he instead turns Curry over to Baylor, who fires him. After barricading himself in the station bathroom, Walter confronts an unrepentant Stowe and condemns him for betraying his fellow officers.

That night Stowe meets with his estranged wife, Valerie (Selina Giles), who tells him that she's pregnant, but that he's not the father. Valerie, whose marriage with Stowe is close to collapse, has been seeing a man named Mark Rossini (Mark Dymond), the gym teacher at the school she is principal of. But he may not be the father either. Stowe brashly accuses Valerie of being impregnated by Callahan, and she tells him she never wants to see him again.

The only thing keeping Stowe from total collapse is his dogged pursuit of Callahan. But he drunkenly stumbles into an ambush masterminded by Callahan, and is shot in the head by Callahan's right-hand man Jimmy (Stephen Lord). Stowe undergoes emergency surgery, and ends up in a coma. Months later, he recovers to the point that he opens his eyes, and is transported to his and Valerie's house to recover properly.

Seven months later, Stowe is slowly learning to talk and walk again. He manages to survive an attempt on his life by someone posing as a police officer. Eventually, Stowe attempts to get his job back but Chief Baylor refuses in light of having discovered his heroin addiction. The coma has led to his decision to become a better man, and to right some wrongs. He reconciles with his wife, although awkwardly, and gives Walter a significant portion of insurance money that compensated his time in a coma. Finally, he visits the grave of fellow police officer Serge (William Ash), who once saved Stowe's life but has been killed by an unknown attacker following another failed sting operation.

Valerie packs up to move out of the house so she can live with Mark, but after realizing the change that Stowe has undergone, she later decides to leave Mark and come home. Stowe is convinced by his friend Chad Mansen (Wes Robinson) not to let his wife go, and goes after her. They miss each other by a few minutes.

Just after Valerie returns and meets Chad, some of Callahan's men show up. Jimmy kills Chad and kidnaps Valerie. Stowe returns to the house to find Chad's body along with Jimmy waiting for him.

Jimmy takes Stowe to a warehouse where Callahan is waiting. Along the way, Stowe manages to overpower Jimmy and take his gun, but he finds that the odds against him are impossible and Callahan has Valerie hostage. Van Huffel is revealed to be Callahan's mole in the police force, and the sting operation at the beginning of the film was a set-up. Walter suddenly arrives and saves Stowe. Together they kill all of Callahan's men, including Jimmy and Van Huffel, as Callahan tries to escape with Valerie to his helicopter. Walter is shot in the leg during the gunfight and Stowe rearms him with the weapons of the fallen thugs. Stowe then leaves Walter to go after Callahan. Just as Callahan and Valerie are about to reach the helicopter, Stowe fires multiple shots at it, which makes the pilot lift off in fear. Callahan, seeing his means of escape is gone, shoots Stowe, undeterred he keeps coming towards Callahan and Valerie. Callahan fires several more shots at Stowe, gravely wounding him. Stowe reaches Callahan, grabs his gun hand and helps aim it at his head, simultaneously pointing his own weapon at Callahan. Two shots ring out in quick succession, and two bullet casings are shown falling. The screen goes dark.

Chief Baylor decides to give Stowe his job back. Baylor shows Stowe the found footage of Callahan executing Ronson and the other undercover cop during the botched sting earlier in the year. Van Huffel, present at the execution, steals the deceased cop's body camera to hide the evidence of his involvement.

Three years later, Stowe and Valerie have a tender moment at home playing with their 3-year-old daughter, Nadia—the baby that Valerie was pregnant with.

Although Stowe survives the U.S. version of the movie, some European releases of it have a different ending in which Stowe is killed in the shoot-out with Callahan.

Puck's introduction

The story is narrated by the protagonist, Puck, who opens with a monologue describing the basic reasoning underlying his philosophy, as well as the film's general interpretation of Anarchism, as he walks through the commune he lives in, while events of his daily life are presented.

Other members of the commune include Johnny Red, a 1960s radical who constantly refers to Sweden as an ideal society; Gin, Red's hippie girlfriend; Karla, a bisexual with issues of misandry; Sweeney, a promiscuous DJ who worked at a local record store; Double D, an unintelligent but goodhearted commune member, and Puck's best friend; and "The Trolls", a ragtag group of "crunchy types" who lived in tents in the backyard of the house and home schooled about a dozen children. The commune, referred to as "Sam", is funded by a collective Anarchist bookstore, where the members take turns operating the front desk. Throughout the film, this group is referred to as "The Family", and their way of life is described as peaceful and happy, until the day Johnny Black, a mysterious, militant nihilist with a forceful personality, appears.

Johnny Black shares much of the rebellious philosophy of "The Family" when he shows up; however, he disrespects what he sees as the narrow-minded and shortsighted protest tactics Johnny Red espouses. However, politically weak within the framework of the Family, Black cannot challenge Red's authority for the time being.

Frustrated and unhappy with his social life and lack of direction, Puck seeks a girlfriend. He eventually meets a young woman at a night club, Jody, who he learns is a young Republican college student. However, when his new observations of Jody's political beliefs and academic success causes him greater internal conflict and personal embarrassment, Puck decides to temporarily leave the Family and ventures out to find a new job and home. Still unhappy and directionless, Puck opts to return to the Family.

The rise of Johnny Black

In the time that has transpired in Puck's absence, Black's influence over the family has steadily grown. Encouraging the group to forge alliances with "like-minded" organizations, over time, Black undergoes a more militant shift in personality. At a meeting for a planned protest demonstration against a petrochemical plant, Black denounces the peaceful, non-violent approach most of the attendants support, and presents two tools to be used in their attack on the plant: semtex and ''The Anarchist Cookbook''.

Johnny Red describes the book as "a relic from the past... it taught you how to make bombs, how to make drugs... and it meant something once." He also accurately mentions that the author, William Powell, has disavowed the book. He continues, commenting, "the book's not the problem. The problem is the kind of people who look to it for answers."

A few days afterward, Johnny Black discovers Red's private journal, in which he admits to being sexually attracted to young boys. He places this in the open for Gin to discover, and after reading a passage in which Red admits to his pedophilia, she dumps him. Following this, Red's personality becomes more anxious and submissive to Black.

One day, while carrying science kits, Puck, Double D, and Sweeney are approached by a police officer who randomly stops them and requests to inspect their contents. After complying, they receive a ride from the officer to Sam, explaining that their run down house is in fact an orphanage the kits are intended for. The officer decides to visit the building, and enters to discover Karla in the midst of using cocaine with Johnny Black. The entire group, except for Johnny Red, is promptly arrested and brought to trial, the presiding judge ironically being a spurned, former lover of Karla. The flop house, Sam, is shut down by the city; Johnny Black receives time at a medium security prison, with the possibility for parole in four months; Sweeney and Double D each receive 250 hours of community service; Karla, aside from being insulted by the judge, is made to receive a mandatory psychiatric evaluation; and Puck is placed under house arrest for 180 days, and forced to move into his parents' home in the city of Plano, Texas. Puck chafes in his suburban life, but comes to accept it with Jody's encouragement, until Johnny Black is paroled after four months. Black appears in Puck's apartment and easily convinces Puck to remove the ankle bracelet that tracks him and rejoin the Family.

Escalation and Puck's resolution

Puck soon discovers that Karla, Sweeney, and Double D are all suffering from drug addiction, and have relocated to a new squat which they name "Son of Sam". The next stage of Johnny Black's strategy for his movement is the creation of a coalition of organizations which agree with any facet of his goals. However, these include extremist groups, such as neo-nazis and militia men.

Black offers ''The Anarchist Cookbook'' as an instructional booklet to the other groups, while they pledge to offer various arms and explosives, and plans a "joint mission" to attack a local university. Puck attempts to leave the organization, but is under constant surveillance. He commits to remaining in the group, so as to watch over Double D, for whom he feels responsible. This situation eventually ends in tragedy when Double D overdoses on diazepam. Puck finally resolves to escape from the group and prevent the mission, and convinces a sober Sweeney and Johnny Red to help. Together, they devise a plan to intoxicate the extremist group members with pancakes laced with the very drugs Double D overdosed on.

Once the entire organization is unconscious, the surviving members of the Family split up. Alone, Puck decides that once the group awakens he would be in immediate danger, and so decides to report the organization and cooperate fully with the FBI, for which he receives a reward of $200,000. Immediately afterward, Puck considers his options and realizing that he now has the money and time to commit to his future, decides to take Jody's advice and return to college. Alone, he begins to hitchhike to California to join Jody as she interns at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Receiving a ride from a truck driver, Puck is asked what his name is, and after some internal thinking, decides to accept his legal name and chosen name together: "Peter Puck". The final monologue by Puck meditates over his new perspective on life and his personal philosophy, and renounces the concept of "freedom without responsibility", which contrasts with his idealistic opening-sequence monologue.

Conrad and Sally Walden live in Anville with their single mother Joan, who works for neat-freak Hank Humberfloob as a real estate agent and is dating their next-door neighbor Larry Quinn. One day, Joan leaves her children at home with lethargic babysitter Mrs. Kwan while she goes to the office, forbidding them to enter the living room which is being kept pristine for an office party she is hosting that night.

After Mrs. Kwan falls asleep, Sally and Conrad meet The Cat in the Hat, an anthropomorphic talking cat with a red-and-white striped top hat and a large red bow tie who wants to teach them how to have fun but the family's pet fish does not want the Cat around while Joan is away. In the process, the Cat leaves a trail of destruction throughout the house (such as jumping on the living room couch, baking cupcakes that explode, and ruining Joan's dress by cleaning the wall with it) and releases two troublemakers, named Thing 1 and Thing 2, from a crate which he locks and forbids Conrad to tamper with, explaining that it is a portal to his world. He tells the Things to clean Joan's dress but they instead trash the house as they always do the opposite of what they are told. Despite the Cat's warning, Conrad picks the lock on the crate, which grabs on to the collar of the family's dog Nevins, who the Things throw out the window. While they search for Nevins, the trio find themselves at a birthday party for Sally's former friend Denise. The Cat attempts to hide by posing as a piñata and is subsequently beaten by the kids.

Meanwhile, Larry is revealed to be an unemployed slob who is in debt, and also a con artist posing as a successful businessman in order to marry Joan for her money. He plans to get rid of Conrad by sending him to military school. While the trio spy on Nevins, they see Larry kidnapping him which prompts them to follow him into the city with the Cat's super-powered car. Upon discovering Larry going into Joan's office, the Cat tricks him into giving them Nevins and they escape. Larry attempts chase but loses them at a party. When they see Larry anxiously riding with Joan, Conrad has the Things stall them by posing as police officers so they can get home first. Despite being held up, Larry witnesses the trio drive past in his car and races after them on the Things' police motorcycle.

When the trio return to the house with the lock, Larry cuts them off and orders them inside the house, where he sneezes uncontrollably due to his allergy to the Cat, who takes the advantage and scares him away, only for them to find out that the house has been transformed into "The Mother of All Messes", with Larry falling into a gooey abyss within the Cat's world. The trio ride on Mrs. Kwan and navigate through the surreal house to find the crate and lock it, whereupon the house returns to its normal proportions but immediately collapses. In a heated argument, the kids discover that the Cat planned the whole day and order him to leave.

Conrad resigns himself to facing the consequences when Joan comes home with Sally sharing the blame, but the Cat returns with a cleaning invention and fixes the house. Conrad and Sally reconcile with the Cat and thank him for everything, and he departs just as Joan arrives. Larry, covered in goo, comes in, thinking he has busted the kids, but when Joan sees the clean house, she does not believe his story and dumps him, much to his humiliation and dismay. After the successful party, Joan spends quality time with her kids by jumping on the couch with them, while the Cat and Things 1 and 2 walk off into the sunset.

A group of space explorers from Earth return from an expedition to a remote star system, where they discovered the remnants of an advanced civilization destroyed when its star went supernova. The group's chief astrophysicist, a Jesuit priest, is suffering from a deep crisis of faith, triggered by some undisclosed event during the journey.

The destroyed planet's culture was very similar to Earth's. Recognizing several generations in advance that their star would soon explode, and with no means of interstellar travel to save themselves, the doomed people spent their final years building a vault on the outermost planet in their solar system, whose Pluto-like orbit was distant enough to survive the supernova. In the vault, they placed a complete record of their history, culture, achievements, and philosophy, hoping that it would someday be found so that their existence would not have been in vain. The Earth explorers, particularly the astrophysicist-priest, were deeply moved by these artifacts, and they found themselves identifying closely with the dead race's peaceful, human-like culture and the profound grace they exhibited in the face of their cruel fate.

The final paragraph of "The Star" reveals the deepest root of the priest's pain. Determining the exact year of the long-ago supernova and the star system's distance from Earth, he calculated the date the emitted light from the explosion reached Earth, showing that the cataclysm that destroyed the peaceful planet was the same star that heralded the birth of Jesus. The scientist's faith is shaken because of the apparent capriciousness of God:

Martin is a young hobo with a fondness for trains. One night, as he is considering whether to abandon crime, a large unmarked black train pulls up beside him. The train conductor offers Martin anything he wants, in return for which he will "ride that Hell-Bound Train" when he dies. Martin requests the power to stop time, which he plans to use at the happiest time of his life. The conductor accedes to this request; however, over the years that follow, Martin discovers that he cannot choose which moment is his happiest. In the end, he dies, never having stopped time, and indeed boards the train. However, he likes the sinful look of the passengers and chooses to stop time then and there. The train never reaches the depot and Martin, now the brakeman, finally finds happiness.

Setting

The setting for ''Strawberry Panic!'' is , a very large hilltop where the three affiliated schools of Miator, Spica and Lulim, are located. Each school has its own student council, which governs the matters of each respective school. Periodically the three student councils, along with the Etoiles, meet in the Astraea Joint Student Council. The Astraea Hill school system employs the Scottish system of grade numbering. Students are ranged from grades one through six, the equivalent of the three years of junior-high and high school in Japan, and seventh through twelfth grade in North America.

The hill is known as a sacred area which no men are allowed to enter. A prominent feature is a very large Catholic church in the center of the hill near a small lake; the church can be seen from a long distance away. There is a horse ranch at Spica. The students may go and study for their classes at a library on the lake's shore. Although only implied in the anime, the manga explains that the library building has another name, "The Secret Garden". It is well known on campus as a ''rendezvous'' for secret lovers.

Students living on campus occupy a dormitory referred to as the , although its correct name is ''Astraea Dormitory'', named after Astraea Hill. The building is a triangular shape, allowing for the segregation of students from the three schools; each section is about the same size. It was built about 100 years before the story begins, around the same time that Miator was established, for students whose homes are far away. Each student is assigned a roommate in their year until graduation. If there is an odd number of students enrolled in a given year, one of the new students must live alone until a student in their year transfers into their school.

The building's name is based on its similarity to the cross-section of a strawberry viewed from above. When ''Strawberry Panic!'' was initially created, the three schools were arranged in a triangle, with the Strawberry Dorms in the center, and the dormitory was not a single building but three separate dormitories also arranged in a triangle around a central courtyard.

Story

The plot of ''Strawberry Panic!'' revolves around the lives of the adolescents who attend one of three affiliated all-girl schools which share a campus and dormitories. The schools are: St. Miator's Girls' Academy, St. Spica's Girls' Institute, and St. Lulim's Girls' School. There are twelve characters the story revolves around, four at each school. The story's main character is Nagisa Aoi, a young girl entering her fourth year at St. Miator after being transferred from another school. On first entering the campus grounds, she is overcome with joy by the overall appearance of the surrounding area, but her joy is soon turned to sorrow as she accidentally stumbles down a hill, causing her to be lost and disoriented. While walking around the grounds trying to work out where she is, Nagisa comes across an older student named Shizuma Hanazono, who happens to be Astraea Hill's Etoile, a very important person who acts as a representative between the different schools and has specific duties that she must fulfill. Nagisa is instantly overcome by Shizuma's beauty, and after Shizuma kisses her on the forehead, Nagisa loses consciousness and awakens in the school's infirmary. In an adjacent chair is another girl of the same age, Tamao Suzumi, who informs her that they are to be roommates in the dormitory.

In the ensuing story, Nagisa is introduced to other students from each of the three schools; some she admires, some she is intimidated by, and some are merely friends encountered while attending St. Miator. The series encompasses the relationships the characters build with each other, climaxing whenever two of the characters start dating. The central focuses of ''Strawberry Panic!'' are the lesbian relationships and friendships between the girls from the three schools and the Etoile position and competition; the anime is more relationship-heavy while the manga is more competition-heavy. The story of what happens to the other half of St. Miator's Etoile pairing is explored in the latter portion of the anime. Depending on the media type, the depiction of the relationships between the girls is variously presented, with more explicit fan service – appealing visuals of the girls in provocative situations – in the anime adaptation than in the manga or light novels. A hint of astronomical star imagery is seen throughout the series, as well as minor Catholic religious undertones including a St. Mary statue on campus and a large Catholic church in the center of Astraea Hill.

Main characters and schools

At each of the three schools, there are four main characters, who comprise the original twelve characters created for the short stories when the series began. Only those twelve appear in the subsequently adapted visual novel version. Other characters were introduced in the manga and light novel versions to create plotlines and conflict, and these additional characters are also featured in the anime adaptation.

;St. Miator's Girls' Academy : , the oldest of the three schools which has a history of over 100 years, is known for upholding old traditions. It was founded on a monastery and is seen as the school for "brides", reinforced by the existence of extracurricular classes including tea ceremony, flower arrangement, and Japanese dancing. It is not unusual for students to be engaged before graduation. The school uniform is a long black dress, designed in the Gothic Lolita fashion. At Miator, the class names are associated with objects from nature, such as , and . In the Strawberry Dorms, there is a concept called the room temp system for students from Miator. Every underclassman entering the dormitories, if they are chosen to serve the upperclassman as room temps, perform maid duties, which include cleaning the room of the students they are assigned to serve.

:Nagisa Aoi is the main character of the story. She is a cheerful girl who finds pleasure in making new friends, which she finds easy to do because of her open personality and sociable attitude. The first person she meets at Miator is Shizuma Hanazono, a mysterious upperclassman and the Etoile as the story begins, which gives Miator significant influence. Nagisa at first finds that she is strangely affected when in the presence of Shizuma, who in turn is extremely interested in Nagisa in both the manga and the anime. The next girl she meets is Tamao Suzumi, who becomes her close friend and roommate. Tamao is well regarded among her fellow Miator students; among the first-years, she is seen as a viable Etoile candidate. She expresses some light and playful interest in Nagisa, but it is much less overt than Shizuma's interest and is very downplayed in the manga. The last main character from Miator is Chiyo Tsukidate, a timid first year student who is employed as the room temp for Nagisa and Tamao; in the anime, she deeply admires Nagisa.

;St. Spica's Girls' Institute : has the white colored buildings and uniforms, and was built after Miator. The school prides itself in advancing the independence of women who play a role in improving society. It is well known for its culture and the accomplishments of its sports program compared to the other two schools. Spica has what is known as the St. Spica Choir, or the "Saintly Chorus," which consists of students from Spica who perform at special events and even concerts for students at Astraea Hill. At Spica, the class names are numbers in French, such as ''un'' (one), ''deux'' (two), and ''trois'' (three). Spica and Miator compete with each other quite aggressively, which often ends in dispute when students from these two schools get together.

:Hikari Konohana, a shy and quiet girl, is the main focus among the main characters who attend Spica. The next Spica character is Yaya Nanto, a rebellious girl who is Hikari's best friend and roommate in the dormitory. In the anime, she is very much enamored with Hikari, but Hikari sees her as a friend; in the manga, Yaya is not a prominent character. Both she and Hikari are members of the St. Spica Choir. Hikari meets an older girl named Amane Ohtori early on in the story who is seen much like a prince from a fairy tale by other Spica students due to often riding a white horse named Star Bright. Amane is admired by many of the students from Spica as well as students from the other two schools, although she does not enjoy the attention. In the anime, Hikari admires her deeply, and she and Amane have mutual interest in each other. The final girl from Spica is Tsubomi Okuwaka, a young first year student who acts maturely for her age and gets on Yaya's nerves. She too is in the St. Spica Choir, although Hikari was her main motivation for joining. In the anime, her interest in Hikari seems to purely be one of friendship; in the manga, she, like Yaya, is not a prominent character. Tsubomi once remarked that Yaya was more skilled than Hikari at singing in the choir.

;St. Lulim's Girls' School : (originally Le Lim) is the newest of the three schools, and has pink colored buildings and uniforms. Its uniform is modeled after a traditional Japanese school uniform style. At Lulim, the class names are the letters from the Latin alphabet: A, B, C, etc. Students at St. Lulim's are traditionally free and relaxed, and are rarely seen fighting. The students enjoy a lot of freedom in terms of activities, or the clubs they are allowed to form. In effect, there are a wide range of clubs at St. Lulim's ranging from dancing, to cooking, to anything else a group of at least three people can think up.

:Of the three schools, St. Lulim has the least emphasis on romance between characters, although the Lulim characters are typically found together. The leader of their friendly group is Chikaru Minamoto, the student council president of Lulim, and a born leader. She has a friendly and supportive personality which she often uses to offer advice or simply a shoulder to cry on. The other three girls include Kizuna Hyūga, a very outgoing and excitable girl who enjoys following Chikaru's decisions, finding fun in doing so. She is very expressive in her actions and words, not wasting a chance to introduce herself to anyone new. Her close friend is Remon Natsume, who is much like Kizuna in personality, but is not as accident-prone as her. Of the pair, Kizuna is the more talkative; Remon often agrees with her companion and will offer up an opinion when need be. Lastly, there is Kagome Byakudan, the youngest of the group, who is typically accompanied by her stuffed bear which she often talks to as if it were alive. Although she does not talk or express her emotions much, she has a heightened perception of others' emotions and can tell when those around her are distraught or in emotional pain.

Etoile system

is a French word meaning ''star''. The Etoile system of Astraea Hill is employed as the internal politics between the schools and governs school operations. Little is shown as to the influence the teachers and sisters have on the inter-school politics. The system is designed for two Etoiles to be instated at the same time in order to work as a team. In the anime, Shizuma Hanazono is the sole Etoile, the other Etoile having died, which is explained in the latter part of the story. The two Etoiles are seen as figureheads for Astraea Hill. Although Astraea has three schools, both Etoiles must come from the same school. They have certain specific duties, such as greeting new students arriving at Astraea Hill, participating in important school events, and serving as mediator between disputes in student council meetings of the three schools, among others. They are given a private greenhouse in which to grow flowers for use during school events.

The Etoiles are elected after going through what is known as , which consists of three competitions in the light novels and the manga versions. The higher scoring pairs from the first two competitions carry on to the third competition, and the pair that wins the third competition becomes the Etoile Couple. In the anime, the competition aspect of the story is toned down. Still, it facilitates the culmination of the story in the finale, and thus serves an important purpose. Once the winners have been named, a special ceremony marks the end of the election, at which the president of the student council from the school that won the election presents two necklaces for the winners to wear during their tenure as Etoiles. They are both identical except for the colors of the pendants: one is red, the other is blue. The older student receives the blue pendant and the younger of the two is given the red pendant.

Lone Wolf, Kai Grand Master of Sommerlund, has just completed a successful quest when he learns that the Dark God Naar is about to send a large group of fire-breathing dragons against the Kai Monastery. Lone Wolf has to deal with assassins sent to intercept him before he can reach the monastery and lead the new Kai Lords into battle.

This is the second half of Lone Wolf's apprentice’s voyage to the Isle of Lorn to return the Moonstone to its proper place among the Shianti.

The book is notable for retracing, in a sense, the steps of the protagonist Grey Star in The World of Lone Wolf series. Major characters and events from that series, such as Grey Star, Agarash the Damned, Shasarak the Wytch-King and Mother Magri, are referenced in passing, and a number of important locations such as the city of Shadaki and the Inn of the Laughing Moon in Suhn make cameo appearances.

Ever since her son Kevin was a baby, Eva has struggled with parenthood. She gave up her career to concentrate on giving her son a good upbringing, but something has gone wrong, because as a teenager her son is developing sinister psychopathic traits. As the situation turns catastrophic, she tries to figure out where she and Kevin's father Franklin went wrong.

In the wake of a school massacre committed by Kevin Khatchadourian, the 15-year-old son of Franklin Plaskett and Eva Khatchadourian, Eva begins writing letters to Franklin in November 2000. She reflects candidly on the history of her relationship with her husband and the events of Kevin's life up to the killings. She also relates her current life: she was involved in both her son's criminal trial and a civil lawsuit against her for parental negligence by the mother of one of her son's victims. Eva sold the family home to pay for legal expenses, but in order to be near Claverack Juvenile Correctional Facility where Kevin is incarcerated, she lives in the same town and is shunned by the community. She regularly visits Kevin in prison, where they have a cold relationship.

Eva unwillingly stepped back from a successful career as a travel writer to raise Kevin, and has struggled with him from his difficult infancy. Kevin seemingly regards everyone with contempt and hatred, especially his mother, yet is manageable when Franklin is around. Eva perceives him as deliberately antagonistic, with his behavior ranging from seemingly petty sabotage of Eva's belongings to possibly encouraging a girl to gouge her eczema-affected skin. Kevin resisted toilet training, which Eva reveals led her to lash out and break Kevin's arm; Kevin told Franklin this was an accident and used the secret to manipulate Eva.

When Kevin is severely ill as a child, he briefly accepts Eva's care for the first time and rejects Franklin, seemingly too tired to put on an act of apathy. Eva reads ''Robin Hood'' to him and he takes pleasure in learning archery after he recovers, but seems otherwise unable to relate to human passion. As he grows older, he also takes an interest in manipulating his sycophantic friend Leonard, engaging in vandalism, and collecting computer viruses on floppy disks. He unsettles his peers, expresses his disdain for convention by wearing uncomfortably undersized clothes, and follows news of school shooters and mass murderers. In high school, Kevin, Leonard, and two other boys accuse their drama teacher of sexual abuse; Eva is convinced he orchestrated the false accusations.

As Kevin's behavior worsens, Franklin defends him, convinced that his son is normal and often misunderstood. Kevin plays the part of a loving, sensitive son whenever Franklin is around. Eva's apparent dislike of her son and their distrust create a rift between the couple. They have a second child, Celia, whom Franklin believes Eva favors. Kevin is often aggressive to Celia and takes advantage of her affectionate nature. When Celia is six years old, her pet rodent disappears and shortly later the kitchen sink is clogged, which Eva clears with a caustic drain cleaner. While Kevin is babysitting Celia, she supposedly finds the cleaner and accidentally destroys her eye and scars her face. Eva is certain she put the cleaner away and that Kevin had attacked Celia. This accusation leads Franklin to ask for a divorce, intending to take custody of Kevin; Kevin overhears them.

When relating the story of the massacre itself, it is finally revealed that Franklin and Celia are dead. Kevin had killed them both at home with his crossbow before going to his school, where he lured and trapped seven classmates, a cafeteria worker, and a teacher in a gymnasium and attacked them. Eva speculates that he did this because separation in the divorce would deny him a final victory over his mother, or to avoid being trapped in performing normalcy for Franklin. She also believes he selected people he resented for having interests they were passionate about for his victims. Kevin ensured a light sentence by timing the attack for three days before his 16th birthday in order to be charged as a minor and by using a prescription for Prozac to argue that he was experiencing violent psychotic side effects.

The novel ends on the second anniversary of the massacre, shortly before Kevin will turn eighteen and be transferred to Sing Sing, a maximum security prison. Subdued and frightened, he gives Celia's prosthetic eye to Eva and apologizes. Eva asks Kevin for the first time why he committed the murders, and Kevin replies that he is no longer sure. They embrace, and Eva concludes that, despite what he did, she loves her son, and she awaits the day he is released and she can welcome him home.

Natalie is an academically-focused student, with the intent of going to Duke University on a tennis scholarship. Natalie, with several other of her classmates, frequents an outdoors party place called The Brick. There, she bonds with Rafael, a new transfer student. Meanwhile, in chemistry, Natalie is paired with Keith, a carefree boy with a rebellious view of life. When Natalie asks Keith to help her with a lab report, he drives her out of school to trespass into an office building, bringing her into his easygoing lifestyle. Even though Rafael becomes Natalie's boyfriend, Keith persistently asks Natalie to go out with him, though insisting as friends and calling his offers "non-dates".

Gradually, Keith and Natalie get closer, and Natalie goes on non-dates with Keith. Her continued interaction with Keith starts to make Rafael jealous. One night, Keith and Natalie have an argument just as Al and a boy named Billy turn up. The relationship between Al and Billy is not made clear. Keith's kindness towards Billy causes Natalie to think that Keith is "a softy". After driving for a while, Natalie tells Keith to turn into a dirt road leading to a cliff overlooking The Brick, which happens to be Keith's favorite spot. They talk and eventually share a kiss. The next day, Natalie and Keith go to the cliff and discuss their future dreams. While lying down and talking in the back of the truck, Natalie notices that the truck is moving. She panics and gets out of it, screaming at Keith to jump to safety. Keith, however, remains lying down, relaxed and rambling on. Just before rolling off, Keith swiftly moves into the driver's seat and hits the brakes. Natalie is furious at Keith and asks him if he wanted to kill himself. When Natalie gets home, she is still wearing Keith's jacket and finds antidepressants in his pocket.

Worried, Natalie wants to speak to Keith about the medication, but he does not come to school for several days. When Natalie fails to get his address from the school's office, she remembers Keith saying that he lived at the old white house with a big porch, and decides to go visit. When she arrives, she realizes Keith lied to her about his residence. Two weeks later, Keith appears, and Natalie is irritated with his lies. She decides to find out his real address by breaking into his locker, and is suspended from school as a result. When Natalie visits his house, Keith refuses to see her, so Natalie hides in the back of his yellow truck. Later that night, Keith comes out of the house and drives off to the clifftop. There, Natalie expresses her love for him, and Natalie loses her virginity to Keith in the back of his truck. As Keith drives Natalie home, Natalie is excited to begin a relationship with Keith, but he says that they should forget about what happened, leaving Natalie heartbroken.

Natalie's tennis rankings drop, and she is on the verge of losing her scholarship. She also dumps Rafael. On the road, Natalie sees Al, who is revealed to be Keith's counselor. Natalie is informed that Billy died of cancer and that Billy and Keith received chemotherapy treatment together, leading her to realise that Keith is dying of cancer. One night, Keith appears at her house, and Natalie leads Keith to the airport so that he can follow his dreams for the short time he has left. Keith finally expresses his true feelings for Natalie, and Natalie tells Keith that she wants to be with him despite what the future holds for him. They kiss and the camera pans out.

The film then cuts to when Natalie graduates; Keith has presumably died, and Natalie has adopted many of Keith's old habits. She has become a grease monkey and drives Keith's yellow truck. She decides since Keith did not get to live out his dream, she will do it for him. She drives to London, Ontario to put Keith's yellow truck in the annual truck show.

The Brooklyn Ice Palace shuts down after the Ice Frolics pack up to go to another show somewhere else. But during their departure, the Ice Frolics crew forget their star performer, Playboy Penguin. Playboy is found by Bugs Bunny, who vows to take him home. But upon discovering penguins come from the South Pole, exclaims, "Ooh, I'm dyin'!"

To go down south, Bugs and Playboy hitch a ride on a freight train to New Orleans.

Once in New Orleans, Bugs puts Playboy aboard a ship named the ''Admiral Byrd'', which he believes is going to the South Pole. Afterwards, Bugs orders a carrot martini at La Bouche Cafe and stays for Mardi Gras. After hearing that the ship is actually headed for Brooklyn, Bugs swims out to it to rescue Playboy and finds him hanging upside down in the ship's kitchen among uncooked chickens, but rather than swimming back to New Orleans, they end up on a tropical island.

While Bugs strums a guitar and composes a calypso ballad (six years before the style was popularized by "The Banana Boat Song"), Playboy is forced to build a dugout boat. As Bugs is playing, Humphrey Bogart, straight out of the film ''The Treasure of the Sierra Madre'', appears and asks him if he can "help out a fellow American who's down on his luck". Bugs reaches into his pocket, digs around, pulls out a coin, and flips it at him and tells him to "hit the road".

After 10 days at sea, Bugs is beginning to feel hungry, having not taken any food with them. Upon looking at Playboy, Bugs remembers a hobo on the train saying that penguins are practically chickens and decides to eat Playboy, but immediately snaps out of his daze and apologizes to Playboy, just as he spots land. The land, however, is the Panama Canal and when the guard at the first lock demands a quarter for passage through, Bugs refuses to pay it and decides he and Playboy will continue the journey on foot.

While trekking rough South America, Bugs and Playboy end up in a cauldron of cannibals and are about to be eaten by the chanting natives when one comes running shouting "El Bwana," which scares the other natives away. Bugs Bunny intrepidly awaits "El Bwana," which turns out to be Bogart asking again, "Pardon me but could you help out a fellow American who's down on his luck?" Rather than berate him again, Bugs just gives him a coin for saving his and Playboy's life. Then he and Playboy resume their journey.

Bugs and Playboy's route continues down through the rest of South America nearly straight to the South Pole, with Bugs having to swing through trees, outswim a hungry crocodile, scale a mountain in the Andes, and sail a boat through the South Pacific to the Antarctic.

Bugs brings Playboy to the exact South Pole and says that he has brought him home like he promised and is leaving, causing Playboy to cry. Bugs asks what the problem is now, to which Playboy shows Bugs a flyer for his performance which reads "The Ice Frolics PRESENTS The Only Hoboken Born Penguin In Captivity Skating", and Bugs (realizing that he would still have to travel more than half the Earth to get Playboy to his true destination) yells, "Ooh, I'm dying again!" Bogart appears yet again and starts to ask for Bugs' help. This time, Bugs interrupts and asks Bogart if "he can help out a fellow American who's down on his luck." With that, he thrusts Playboy into Bogart's hands and runs off into the distance while laughing hysterically.

Elizabeth Bayley Seton (1774-1821) is a happily married New York Episcopalian socialite and mother of five whose life gets turned around after her husband, William Seton, dies of consumption in Italy after his shipping business went bankrupt. As a widow with five children, she opens a small school in an effort to support herself and family.

She decides to convert to Catholicism, much to the protest and distaste of her friends and family. As a social outcast, she is left with nothing so she and her daughters took refuge in Baltimore. Under the wing of John Carroll, the first American Catholic bishop, she opens a school, establishes a religious routine and takes religious vows, thus becoming `Mother Seton.' Eventually she, her daughter, and a band of young women who have joined her rattle west in a covered wagon into the countryside, to Emmitsburg, Maryland., where, on an initial diet of salt pork and carrot coffee, she sets up a school and a convent for her growing sisterhood, Sisters of Charity. She dies from consumption at 46. The Roman Catholic Church requires 2 attested miracles to become a saint and 3 were attributed to Mother Seton. Mother Seton was canonized in 1975.

Ross' ex-wife Emily is getting married again, so the group does its best to distract him. Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) returns from a ride-along with her cop boyfriend, Gary (Michael Rapaport), which prompts the guys to follow suit and share the experience. Joey buys a delicious sandwich but is not allowed to eat it in Gary's car, so he keeps talking about it, much to the annoyance of Ross and Chandler. Ross accidentally turns on the beacon, prompting Gary to move him from the front seat. During the ride, a car backfire scares them all, leading to Joey diving over Ross in an attempt to save him. This causes problems between Chandler and Joey because Joey apparently wanted to save Ross instead of Chandler, his best friend. However, it turns out that Joey was not trying to save Ross, but only his sandwich. To show Chandler how much he values their friendship, he allows him to have one bite of the sandwich.

Monica decides to organize photos, but Rachel accidentally drops a box of other pictures on it, ruining all Monica's work. Due to being upset, the two decide to make margaritas, but they do not have the ingredients, so they decide to steal them from Ross' apartment, where Rachel intercepts a message from Emily, who has second thoughts about her upcoming wedding and the divorce with Ross. Monica thinks they should erase the message, but Rachel thinks Ross deserves to know the truth. During the discussion, she accidentally erases the message.

After being "saved", Ross is filled with a new-found respect for life, which he reports to his own answering machine, resulting in the message being heard by the girls, who are still at his apartment. Rachel tells Ross about the message from Emily, but Ross wants to call her back, because he wants to seize every new opportunity. Rachel talks this idea out of Ross' mind by convincing him that it is not the day of seizing stuff, but escaping from stuff, such as "death" and from Emily.

The book begins at the funeral of its protagonist. The remainder of the book, which ends with his death, looks mournfully back on episodes from his life, including his childhood, where he and his older brother, Howie, worked in his father's shop, Everyman's Jewelry Store. He has been married three times, with two sons from his first marriage who resent him for leaving their mother, and one daughter from his second marriage who treats him with kindness and compassion, though he divorced her mother after beginning an affair with a 24-year-old Danish model, who subsequently became his third wife. Having divorced her as well, he has moved in his old age to a retirement community at the New Jersey shore, where he lives alone and attempts to paint, having passed up a career as an artist early in his life to work in advertising in order to support himself and his family. The book traces the protagonist's feelings as he gets increasingly old and sick, and his reflections of his own past, which has included his share of misdeeds and mistakes, as he ponders his impending death.

The unnamed everyman, while an ordinary man and not a famous novelist, has much in common with Philip Roth; he is born, like Roth, in 1933; he grows up in Elizabeth, six miles away from Roth's native Newark; and he recounts a series of medical problems and a history of frequent hospitalization similar to that of the author's.

The film centers around Paul Tracy (Charlie Sheen), aide to the influential United States Senator Kitteridge (Raymond J. Barry). Paul has political aspirations of his own, and hopes to win the Senator's favor to advance his ambitions of gaining a Congressional seat.

Paul is asked to transport Robin (Kerri Green), the Senator's delinquent daughter, to an institution for girls. He asks his aspiring writer roommate T.S. (Alan Ruck) to come along for the trip. Robin is initially drugged by her father and put nearly unconscious into the back of their car, but as soon as she wakes up she tries everything to escape.

Eventually a romance develops between Robin and Paul, and he begins to take her claims of her father's abuse more seriously. Along the way they pick up Missy Butler (Tefkin), a southern belle interested in T.S.

After Robin escapes again, they manage to find her. Rather than take her unwillingly, they offer to make a detour to locate her estranged mother Blanche (Sally Kellerman), hoping Robin can live with her. Robin agrees to go, but Blanche refuses, clearly out of fear of the repercussions of her powerful ex.

With no other options left, a devastated Robin is taken to the institution, but when Paul sees firsthand the institution's workers' rough treatment of her, he is more determined than ever to break her free, and develops a ruse. Blanche also arrives, demanding to see her daughter, but is turned away at the gate.

However, Paul uses his initial visit to regain entry, which is granted by security. Paul tells Robin he's come to rescue her, but a now despondent Robin has accepted her fate and doesn't want to make things worse. Paul takes her to a window, where she sees Blanche looking gloomily through the fence and in her direction.

Realizing her mother does want her, Robin agrees to allow Paul to help her escape. This is quelched by the unexpected arrival of the Senator, as he questioned Paul's loyalty. Paul rejects the Senator, effectively losing his job.

Blanche drives up to the gate, this time with the intent of taking her daughter with her at all costs. When the Senator threatens to have her arrested, she in turn threatens to expose his dastardly deeds (likely with information provided by Paul and Robin), including the rape of a babysitter. The Senator tries to reason with Blanche, but is interrupted by her sucker punch to his jaw.

As the group drives out of the institution, all of the girls there stage a mass escape from the facility and the staff make a largely futile attempt to stop them. The movie ends with Robin, Paul, Blanche, T.S. and Missy driving out into the open road to start a new and happy life.

The story follows the life of Diana, a pre-teen who lives in a neighborhood called Buenaventura, along with her friends, Alonso, Federica, Rodrigo, Alejandro and Dany. Christian has moved from New York to Mexico due to his parents' divorce. Diana and Christian quickly become best friends, despite their families hatred for each other. Years before, Christian's father and Diana's mother were in love, but their relationship was soured by Severiano, Christian's grumpy and selfish grandfather.

However, the neighbors of Buenaventura have even darker futures, as they are in danger of losing their homes, their school and much more, because the evil old Severiano plans to tear down the neighborhood and build an enormous shopping mall in its place. To accomplish his plan, Severiano is willing to resort to any means, and will provoke a series of disasters to drive the inhabitants away.

The decrepit old theater is the children's favorite spot, and this is where they meet a mysterious little man who will change their lives and the fate of Buenaventura forever. Chaneque, a friendly elf, is a magical being who is on an important mission: to save his elf-world from destruction. Chaneque convinces the group of young friends to join in his quest to save his dying world. From that point, the children and their new friend embark on an exhilarating series of adventures. During their fantastic journey, they gather important clues to save their own neighborhood as well. But once this mission is accomplished, will Christian and Diana also find a way to end the feud between their families and bring them together forever?

Gobbolino is a little black kitten born in a witch's cave, high up on Hurricane Mountain. He has sparkling blue eyes and one white paw. This sets him apart from other witch's cats like his twin sister Sootica, who have pure black fur and green eyes. While his sister is eager to begin her training as a witch's cat, Gobbolino longs to be a humble kitchen cat and to have a loving human family of his own. Gobbolino tries to adjust to his life in the cave but fails to complete a single task set by his mistress. After being rejected as an assistant by every witch in the area, he is left abandoned.

Initially distraught, he soon realises that he can now pursue his own dreams, and embarks on a great adventure to seek out his heart's desire. He tries to be a normal kitchen cat, first at a farm, then an orphanage, then the mayor's house, but his magic always gets him into trouble. He becomes a show cat, but the other cats are jealous and reveal him as a witch's cat. He becomes a ship's cat for a brief period but returns to shore after using his magic to save the ship from a witch, making the sailors suspicious.

He is adopted by a sick princess, but when she is well again she leaves for boarding school without him, so he joins a Punch and Judy show as 'Toby the Dog', but a witch in the audience reveals him as a witch's cat. A knight finds him and gives him to a lady as a gift, but when Gobbolino tries to help the knight win over the Lady, he only causes more trouble. He leaves and is adopted by a woodcutter, but the woodcutter's great-granddaughter sells him to a pedlar-woman for a dress.

Finally accepting his magic, Gobbolino becomes the pedlar-woman's assistant, but his good heart and unwillingness to cause pain mean he fails at every task he is set. The pedlar-woman leaves him in the care of his sister, Sootica, and her mistress, but once again he is unable to complete his tasks. The witch puts a spell on him, removing his magical powers, and he finds his way back to the farm where he began his journey, his coat having faded to an unrecognisable tabby. Here, he finds his old friends welcome him back happily, and he becomes the farm's kitchen cat.

Prince Horace also known as price brat, frequently misbehaves. Since he is a prince, no one may raise a hand against him. Therefore, his family provides him with a whipping boy, Jemmy, an orphaned boy who will be punished instead of the prince instead the prince's instead. Though he has learned to read, write and do mathematics while living in the castle, Jemmy is beaten several times a day and longs for the freedom he had on the streets. When the prince decides to run away on a whim, he demands that Jemmy act as his servant during his journey. While on the run, the boys are picked up by two notorious highwaymen, Hold-Your-Nose Billy and Cutwater, who hatch a scheme to ransom the prince. Jemmy talks them into believing that he is the prince, and sets into motion a plan of escape. The prince misunderstands Jemmy's intentions and betrays him. Nonetheless, the boys escape. They come across a girl named Betsy searching for her lost dancing bear, Petunia, and she directs them to the river where they find a kind man with a wagon full of potatoes. The boys help the man - whose name is Captain Nips - get his wagon out from the mud, and in return, the potato man gives the boys, the girl, and the bear a lift to the fair, but they are soon intercepted by the highwaymen. Still believing Jemmy is the prince, and believing it to be a crime worse than murder to beat the prince, they beat Horace instead.

Petunia scares the highwaymen away, and everyone arrives at the fair. Betsy earns a few coins with her bear, Captain Nips boils the potatoes and sells them, and Horace and Jemmy head down to the sewer to catch some rats. On their way, they hear some people talking about the missing prince - one woman makes a remark about how much worse things will be when the prince becomes king. Horace's feelings are hurt very deeply, but he does not show his emotions. When the boys learn that the king has posted a reward for the whipping boy, who has been accused of kidnapping the prince, they go into the sewers where they see the highwaymen. They trick the highwaymen into the most dangerous sewer, where rats attack them. Afterward, the prince decides that he wants to finally go home. When they return to Captain Nips, Horace reveals himself as a prince and suggests that the potato man collect the reward for capturing the whipping boy.

The story begins with the story of a young couple. Mary is engaged to Joe Davidson ("David's Son" referring to the lineage of Christ coming through the line of David). Even though she is a virgin, she is found to be with child before they are married. This child is conceived of the Holy Spirit. Joe considers not going through with the marriage, but is visited by an angel who tells him that it is the will of God that is occurring and not foul play, so he marries his girl. Due to an income tax audit, they must then travel to Gainesville; on the way, Mary suddenly goes into labor. There's no room for them at the Dixie Delight Motor Lodge, but the manager helps Joe break into an abandoned trailer out back, where the baby, Jesus, is born: "They wrapped him in a comforter and laid him in an apple crate". Jesus grows up like no other child in Georgia with his neighbors befuddled and his parents often at a loss as to what to do. Jesus then is baptized by a wild preacher named John the Baptizer, and begins to teach the people and convince the disciples. He shares with them the love and peace he offers, and miraculously heals and feeds many. During this time Jesus gathers a band of constant followers (known as the Apostles in the Bible.) This group eventually heads off to Atlanta with a mixed air of excitement and foreboding.

In suburban Ontario, Cliff is a young gay man who lives with his mother, Madge, an unconventional woman who owns her own chocolate delivery company, and his savvy adolescent sister, Cookie. On his 18th birthday, Cookie encourages Cliff to take a trip into Toronto, celebrate, and lose his virginity. Cookie gives him a skateboard and a spliff. In the city, he encounters a gay ghetto where he meets Butch, a hustler in his 20s. Cliff is immediately infatuated with Butch, and manages to strike a conversation with him. After a while, the two begin kissing passionately in an abandoned flat, but Butch stops the encounter and leaves, declining Cliff's suggestion that they get coffee together. Cliff follows him to an alley where Butch spends his time with a group of street kids and punks. Cliff manages to ingratiate himself with the group, and spends the evening with them at Paradise, a local club. Cliff is pursued by a young pregnant woman there, but he explains to her that he is not attracted to women.

In the early morning, Cliff goes back with Butch to Butch's apartment, where they share a bed. Later, shortly after they wake up, Cliff expresses romantic interest in Butch, but Butch is evasive about becoming too invested in him. During breakfast, Butch tells Cliff he feels aroused, and the two engage in mutual masturbation. Butch and Cliff quickly grow close, and Cliff brings him to meet his mother and little sister. Butch and Cliff lie to Madge about the origins of their relationship, claiming to have met at Kmart, where Butch says he works as a shelf stocker. Madge takes a liking to Butch, but warns him not to hurt her son. After dinner, Cliff admits to her that Butch is in fact a hustler.

Cliff and Butch's relationship progresses, and Cliff grows more comfortable with Butch's regular clients. Among them are Stanley, a middle-aged gay man who likes to engage in non-sexual sadomasochism. One day Butch suggests Cliff participate in a sexual transaction involving one of his clients. In order to muster courage, Cliff gets drunk, and he and Butch arrive at the apartment of the man, who says he only wants to vicariously observe the two men have sex. Butch has anal sex with Cliff for the first time in front of the man. The encounter leaves Cliff humiliated, and he shoves Butch to the ground as the two leave, telling him he never wants to see him again. Cliff becomes profoundly depressed.

Some time later, Cliff and Butch meet to talk, and Cliff finds that he has been abusing prescription medication and other drugs. Later, while alone, Butch goes to meet Cookie, who is eager to see him, outside her school. Shortly into the conversation, Butch asks if her if he could buy the Ritalin she is prescribed for her attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but she tells him she does not have access to it, and that it is dispensed by the school nurse. Butch leaves, dejected. Later, Butch calls Cliff and asks him to meet him at Paradise. Cliff reluctantly agrees, and arrives to find Butch kissing an older man, Greg, whom he says he now lives with. Butch's behavior is erratic, and he appears to be experiencing a noticeable drug high. The two go to Greg's apartment alone, where Butch suggests the two flee to Hawaii and live together. Cliff leaves, unable to console him. Butch subsequently dies of an overdose.

Cliff, Madge, and Cookie attend Butch's funeral. During the wake, Cliff hallucinates Butch sitting up in his casket, and reminiscing about how much fun the two had together. Later, Cliff and Cookie go to a diner, where Cliff catches the attention of a young man. Adopting a newfound confidence, Cliff proceeds to cruise him in the bathroom. Following the encounter, Cliff gives Cookie a hug before the two part separate ways. Cookie watches as Cliff throws his skateboard into the street-side garbage, and walks away.

Long ago, Vashna, the greatest of all Darklords, was defeated in battle by King Ulnar of Sommerlund. But the victory was not complete, for while his body was destroyed, his spirit, as well as the spirits of his troops, remain trapped deep within the Maakengorge. Now, Lone Wolf learns of strange sightings in the area near the Maakengorge, suggesting that there may be a plot afoot to resurrect Vashna. Lone Wolf and the reader set out to uncover the nature of the threat, and to see if, indeed, Vashna will return.

The show begins with a recording of lowrider cars decorated with the common "Cholo" themes including large paintings of The Virgin Mary and extremely detailed wall painting in the hoods and roofs of the car. The cars previously mentioned are heading to the theater in "El Paso, Texas" where The Original Latin Kings of Comedy are giving their show.

The next scene shows an auditorium full of people awaiting for the stand up comedians to appear. After that, Cheech Marin appears in the stage and greets the audience, including the ones who couldn't get in to the show because "they did not buy tickets". Marin begins with light jokes to later introduce the first big comedian of the night: Joey Medina.

Medina goes into stage and greets all the people and begins to joke about the oddities of El Paso, which includes the children who sell chewing-gum, the Mexican immigration checking Latinos out, and that you can, supposedly, drink all night in Mexico with just 5 Dollars. The next subject of fun that Medina starts to talk about is the races, he compares races and what positive and negative things they do. He finally ends up with jokes about Men and Women.

As Joey Medina walked out the stage, Cheech Marin appears again releasing some jokes to immediately after introduce Alex Reymundo. Reymundo's first subject is couples and genders and the differences in their performing in society. He continues to talk about the typical Mexican father and the myth that Mexicans are lazy.

When Alex Reymundo walked out the stage being cheered by the public, Marin walks again into stage to continue with his simple jokes and introduce the third comedian of the night: George Lopez.

Lopez began joking pretending that he was using a microphone with translator and when he spoke in English he was very polite but in Spanish he was cursing Americans. As he continued the main theme of the jokes was the Mexican living inside the family and friend circles. The main point was that Mexicans are ruled by tradition of not being happy to ever have a casual meeting with anyone and that we can be very negative when it comes to some subjects. George Lopez was one of the most applauded comedians.

As Cheech Marin walked again for a last time again he tells again of his jokes and introduce to the "chief" of the show and the most awaited comedian: Paul Rodriguez.

Paul Rodriguez goes into scene talking about the weather in El Paso, to later compare it with Chicago and how it affects mainly men. He continues to joke about his family that was composed of 12 brothers and sisters plus their parents.

As the show continues, he explains that the name of place, Payaso Café, is a tribute to his mother as she always reprimanded him for "running around and telling jokes" and that it was not going to take him anywhere in life. He stopped so people could realize that he became a successful comedian, and later said that she doesn't says that anymore and she only asks "Mijo, no tienes otro thousand?" ("Son, don't you have another thousand (dollars)?").

He ended up with a joke about him washing his father cars with a feminine towel, because he never was told anything about sex, because Mexican parents don't teach their children about it. The main point was that her sister was very worried 28 days later after he washed the car, and approached to her mother to say that she got the "pussy green", and her mother asking that why was that and that if she had been eating too much "Guacamole". The last line is her sister saying after her mom asked if it hurt. "No it doesn't really hurts, and you know the hair is really shiny". Paul closed the show with that and the people stood to cheer him.

At the 2nd book Kou's new mission is to protect Shingo Tachibana. Shingo's best friend was a photographer and accidentally took a picture of a sniper shooting someone from the top of a building. His best friend was murdered, but never revealed where the picture was hidden. Lonton (the sniper working for the Chinese Triads who'd killed Shingo's best friend) is now after Shingo, thinking he knows where the picture is located. In the end Shingo and Kou take out Lonton and he is sent to prison.

Kou stays with Shingo for the next few books, and not soon after Shingo begins to fall in love with Kou. Kou tries to remain emotionless and focus on the mission at hand, to protect Shingo), but she too is falling for him. Shingo goes through a lot trying to tell Kou he loves her; the first time her told her was when a car had just hit him and he was dazed. She heard him, but instead pretended that it was her double and that in his daze he couldn't recognize the difference between 19 (her male double) and her. She pretend she never heard, and Shingo remains quiet about it, thinking of a better way to tell her.

Ben Quick is on trial for barn-burning, but when no solid evidence is found, the judge expels him from town. Ben hitches a ride to Frenchman's Bend, Mississippi, with two young women in a convertible, Clara Varner and her sister-in-law Eula (Lee Remick). Clara's father, Will Varner, is the domineering owner of most of the town.

Ben goes to the Varner plantation. Will is away, but his only son, Jody, agrees to let Ben become a sharecropper on a vacant farm. When Will returns from a stay in the hospital, he is furious at Jody for hiring a notorious "barn burner", but soon begins to see in Ben a younger version of himself and comes to admire his ruthlessness and ambition, qualities that Jody lacks. Will is also disappointed with the man that his 23-year-old daughter, Clara, has been seeing for five or six years: Alan Stewart (Richard Anderson), a genteel Southern "blue blood" and a mama's boy.

Will therefore schemes to push his daughter and Ben together, to try to bring fresh, virile blood into the family. However, she is openly hostile to the crude, if magnetic, upstart. Will is determined to have his bloodline go on, so he offers to make Ben wealthy if he marries Clara. Meanwhile, Minnie Littlejohn (Angela Lansbury), Will's long-time mistress, is dissatisfied with their arrangement and wants to get married.

Jody becomes increasingly frustrated, seeing his position in the family being undermined. After Ben sells some wild horses for Will, he is rewarded with the position of clerk in the general store, alongside Jody. Will even invites him to live in the family mansion.

This is the final straw for Jody. He pulls a gun on Ben and threatens to kill him. Ben talks his way out by telling Jody about buried Civil War-era treasure he has supposedly found on a property that Will gave him, a down payment to seal their bargain over Clara. Jody starts digging and finds a bag of coins. He is elated, thinking he might finally free himself of his father's domination; he buys the land from Ben. Late that night, Will finds his son, still digging. After examining one of the coins, Will notices that it was minted in 1910. Jody is shattered.

Ben aggressively pursues Clara. She finally asks Alan what his intentions are, and does not like what she hears. A defeated Jody finds his father alone in their barn. Jody bolts the entrance and sets the barn on fire, but he cannot go through with it and releases Will. The incident leads to a reconciliation between father and son. Men from town assume Ben is the culprit and start toward him, but Clara persuades him to get into her car and they drive away. Then Will defuses the situation by saying he accidentally started the fire by dropping his cigar.

The smell of fire brings back bad memories for Ben, who confesses to Clara that his father was a real barn-burner. He tells her how, at age ten, he warned a farmer that his father was about to set another fire. Ben's father got away, never to be seen again. Ben tells her he is leaving town, but Clara makes it clear she has fallen in love with him. An elated Will confides to Minnie that life is so good, he may have to live forever.

The game begins with Silas (voiced by Phil LaMarr) sitting in his chamber, tightening a spiked metal cilice around his leg. He then picks up a handgun and leaves. The game cuts to Robert Langdon (Robert Clotworthy), a Harvard professor of symbology in Paris for a lecture, arriving at the Louvre, where he has been asked to view a crime scene by Cpt. Bezu Fache (Enn Reitel). Jacques Saunière (Neil Ross), Langdon's friend and curator of the museum, has been murdered. In flashback, Silas is shown asking Saunière where something is. Saunière tells him, and Silas responds, "I believe you. The others told me the same," before shooting him.

In the museum, Fache shows Langdon that before he died, Saunière wrote a numeric cipher and a message, "O Draconian Devil! Oh Lame Saint!" in blacklight ink. At this point, Sophie Neveu (Jennifer Hale), a member of the cryptography department arrives, explaining the cipher is part of the Fibonacci sequence, although the numbers are out of order. She then secretly tells Langdon he is in danger, as Fache thinks he is the murderer. In the toilets, she reveals the police have planted a GPS tracking device on Langdon. Neveu tells him that also written in black light ink were the words "PS. Find Robert Langdon." She explains that Saunière was her grandfather and "PS" was his nickname for her; "Princess Sophie." She believes that Saunière included the numerical cipher in the message to insure her involvement in the case.

Langdon throws the GPS device onto a passing car, and most of the police leave the museum to follow. He and Neveu return to the body, and Langdon realizes the numbers are out of sequence to tell them that the letters are also out of sequence; the words are anagrams. He deciphers "Draconian Devil" as "Leonardo da Vinci" and "Oh Lame Saint" as "The ''Mona Lisa''". As they head to the painting, Langdon speculates "PS" could also refer to the Priory of Sion. His theory is strengthened when Neveu remembers seeing the letters together with a fleur-de-lis when she was a child; "PS" combined with a fleur-de-lis is the coat of arms of the Priory. At the ''Mona Lisa'', they find a substitution cipher written in black light ink on the glass around the painting. The clues lead them to Saunière's office, where they listen to a message in which Sister Sandrine of Saint-Sulpice tells Saunière "the floor is broken and the other three are dead." A window is heard smashing and a man says, "Your fate was sealed the moment you stood against Manus Dei." As they continue to follow clues left by Saunière, eventually Neveu concludes they must head to his chateau. She and Robert split up as she heads to the chateau and he heads to Saint-Sulpice.

Once there, he finds a monk attacking a young nun. He knocks the monk out, and the nun, Sister Marguerite (Jane Carr), tells him that Sandrine is dead, killed by Silas, who was looking for something that Sandrine refused to give him. He left moments before the monks arrived, who seemed to be trying to erase evidence of his actions. Langdon concludes the monks are members of Sanctus Umbra, a militant subgroup of Manus Dei. Langdon examines the broken floor at the base of the Gnomon of Saint-Sulpice and finds a stone tablet with Job 38:11 inscribed on it; "Hitherto shalt thou come but no further." He deduces that Silas was misled by Saunière and the others. He heads into the crypt, where he finds a list of Priory Grand Masters, discovering Saunière was the current Master.

Meanwhile, at the chateau, Neveu heads for Saunière's underground grotto. She evades both Silas and the police, and follows a series of clues to find a key with the address of the Depository Bank of Zurich. Meeting up with Langdon, they head to the bank, where they open Saunière's deposit box, finding a cryptex. They then head to Château Villette, the residence of Sir Leigh Teabing (Greg Ellis), Langdon's friend and one of the world's foremost experts on the Holy Grail. Teabing and Langdon explain to Neveu that the Grail is not a cup, but a reference to a woman. Looking at da Vinci's ''The Last Supper'', Teabing explains the image of John is actually Mary Magdalene, to whom the historical Jesus was married. This marriage was suppressed by the early Church, who needed its followers to believe Jesus was divine. Teabing explains that the chalice that held the blood of Christ, the Holy Grail of legend, was Mary herself, as she was pregnant with Jesus' child. At this point, Silas arrives, revealing he murdered Saunière under the orders of "The Teacher." Langdon and Neveu incapacitate him, and with Teabing and his servant Remy (Andres Aguilar), they head to London, taking the unconscious Silas with them.

Landing at Biggin Hill, they head to Temple Church. Langdon and Teabing go inside, but in the courtyard, Neveu sees Remy betray them and send a gang of thugs in after them. Langdon wakes up in a dungeon, but manages to escape, and meets up with Neveu. He tells her Remy is holding Teabing hostage to use him as a bargaining chip for the cryptex. Inside the church, Remy and Silas confront Langdon and Neveu, who flee and head to Westminster Abbey, where Teabing is being held. Once there, they decide they must solve the cryptex to bargain for Teabing's life. Following a series of clues left by Saunière, they do so, but before they can open it, they are captured by Remy. He takes them to Teabing, who reveals himself to be The Teacher. He shoots Remy as he no longer needs him, and reveals Silas has just been arrested for the recent murders. He tells Langdon and Neveu the Priory was supposed to make public the contents of the cryptex on the eve of the New Millennium, but Saunière decided against it. As such, Teabing determined to reveal the documents himself. He asks Langdon and Neveu to join him in revealing the truth about Mary Magdalene, but they refuse and Langdon destroys the cryptex. Teabing is arrested as he laments the truth being lost forever.

However, Langdon had removed the document before destroying the device. Following the clue contained within, he and Neveu head to Rosslyn Chapel. There, they find a family tree for the Saint-Clair family, running back to the Merovingian dynasty. In a series of documents, they learn that when Sophie's family were killed in a car accident, newspaper reports said that all of the family were killed; mother, father, and two children. The reports also state the family's name was Saint-Clair. Langdon realizes the truth; Neveu survived the accident, and the Priory put out the story she was dead to protect her, as she is a living blood relative of Jesus. Neveu's grandmother then arrives, explaining the family changed its name for protection. She introduces Neveu to her brother, who also survived the crash; he came to Scotland whilst Neveu went to France with Saunière. Neveu's grandmother then tells Langdon that the grail is not in Rosslyn, it is in France. He realizes the clue in the cryptex didn't point to Rosslyn but to the Rose Line in Paris. He says goodbye to Neveu and heads to France, finally understanding the grail lies beneath the Louvre Pyramid.

The film is a pseudo-documentary about a filmmaker who throws a Valentine's Day party at an old theater that is about to be demolished. The filmmaker invites numerous single friends, including his brother, the real estate agent who sold the theater to a developer who is going to build a modern shopping mall, to the party and then quizzes them on camera about their lives, failed relationships, intimacy issues, and loneliness.

Keith (Bill Hader) writes a letter to his sister, as Dave (Andy Samberg) asks what he is doing. As Keith responds, explaining he has not seen his sister in a long time, Dave suddenly and inexplicably shoots him. In the following overly dramatic, slow-motion death overdubbed by a cue of "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap, Dave is seen visibly shaken as Keith, in shock, collapses. As Dave gathers his bearings, Keith suddenly shoots him, having recovered from his injury long enough to exact his revenge to the same music cue.

Another man, Eric (Shia LaBeouf), enters looking for them. Dave comes back to life to shoot Eric in the stomach; he collapses, once again to the same music. The sister herself (Kristen Wiig) enters the scene, and begins to read the letter, until she too is shot several times by each of the three men on the ground, with the music cue restarting with every shot.

The short ends with two police officers (Jason Sudeikis and Fred Armisen) observing the crime scene. One (Armisen) finds the letter, left on the table near the brother's body, and begins to read. The letter is revealed to be a prediction of each shooting, in detail, and ends claiming that two police officers will come across the letter and then shoot each other after reading it. While the reading officer laughs it off, his partner turns and shoots him, as the reading officer shoots his partner as well, to overlapping "Hide and Seek" cues.

A pilot who has been handed a very difficult assignment to destroy the menacing alien forces that have captured six planets in a neighboring allied solar system. The aliens have enslaved all of the inhabitants of the planets and must be killed.

German countess Nina von Halder (Bisset) is a student in veterinary medicine in Berlin, Germany on the eve of World War II. Ostracized by her family due to her liberal views and opposition to the Nazi government, she lives alone, independent and strong-willed. The film opens with Nina studying at the library the day Germany invades Poland. She is angered and tells a classmate she knows the reasons Hitler gave for the invasion (to allegedly rescue ethnic Germans from Polish attackers) are a pack of lies.

One day while on errands Nina witnesses two Hitler Youth boys attacking a vendor. She also sees a man attempting to help the vendor. She confronts them and demands to know why he is being attacked. They say they beat him because he sells to Jews. She tells them to leave the man alone or she will report them to her brother-in-law, a high-ranking officer. Later, while attending an informal party hosted by her friend, she recognizes the man who came to the assistance of the vendor. Her friend, Erica, tells her that his name is Fritz Friedlaender and he is a writer. She is immediately attracted to him, but Erica warns Nina that it would be illegal to date him under the Nuremberg Laws because he is Jewish. The headstrong Nina ignores this advice, however, and begins a relationship with him.

When he returns home, he finds Nina desperately waiting for him. He tells her what happened. She has worse news for him; the Resistance has discovered that the Nazis are taking the Jews to concentration death camps in occupied Poland and gassing them. She still believes his mother is still safe in Theresienstadt. She then tells him about a train going to Switzerland. She and her friends are smuggling several Jews on board. She professes her love for him, but wants him to go where he will be safe. That night, they go to the train depot, where he and other refugees are placed in boxes with a small supply of food and water. As she leaves, she sees Fritz running up to her; he loves her so much that he's unable to leave her. Together they return home.

During the war's ending months, Germany is invaded by the Soviet Union in 1945. Nina knows that the Russians want revenge for the millions of their countrymen murdered by the Third Reich. Attempting to hide in the cellar, they are caught by the Russians and forced outside. Nina yells to the soldiers that Fritz is Jewish, but they ignore her. Once outside, Fritz is forced to kneel as the Russians prepare to shoot him. He starts singing "Shema Israel". The Russian soldier lowers his gun and says that he is Jewish too. During the voice-over while the camera pans over a bombed-out and devastated Berlin, Nina tells the audience that Ruth Friedlaender is eventually transferred from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz, where she is gassed. Eventually Nina and Fritz marry; Fritz dies in 1973.

The movie is about a kid named Izzy who lives in the New York City neighborhood of Washington Heights. His family faces a crisis after his father, Paul, suffers from a stroke. His mother, Sue, is an English teacher whose salary is only enough to pay the rent for their apartment. Izzy is trying to find ways to escape his problems by breaking into people's apartments. Izzy does not steal things from houses, instead he eats food, moves around the furniture, writes words on walls, takes showers, and burn pieces of paper. Izzy hangs out with a group of kids who are hoodlums. When Paul's medical insurance is running out, Sue decides to bring Paul back home and take care of him by herself. When Izzy tries again to break in, he gets caught when the homeowners are at home having sexual intercourse. Izzy is subsequently taken to the local police station.

Elaine breaks up with her boyfriend Kevin, but they decide to remain friends. Kevin proves to be a much more reliable friend than Jerry. Jerry suggests to Elaine that Kevin is "Bizarro Jerry", and explains how the Superman character Bizarro does everything in an opposite manner.

While using the restrooms at a company called Brandt-Leland, Kramer aids an employee with a printer and is mistaken for a co-worker by the staff. He begins showing up at regular work hours with no contract and no pay, simply appreciating the structure that a steady job adds to his life. Kramer is "fired" by Leland because of his incomprehensible work.

Jerry starts dating Gillian, an attractive woman whose only flaw is that she has "man-hands", i.e. her hands are large and coarse like a man's. George gets into a club of attractive female models by saying that a photo of Gillian is his late fiancee Susan. He accidentally burns the picture with a hair dryer. Jerry breaks up with Gillian due to her hands. While Jerry tries to get another picture of her from her purse for George, she grabs Jerry's hand, crushing it. Jerry becomes bored at home, now that Kramer is working, Elaine is hanging out with Kevin and his friends Gene and Feldman (Bizarro versions of George and Kramer, respectively), and George refuses to bring him along to the club.

George tries to use a picture of a model from a magazine to get back into the club, but he accidentally approaches the same model from the magazine picture and is kicked out. Jerry, George and Kramer head to the coffee shop and bump into Elaine as she is meeting up with Kevin, Gene and Feldman. Elaine decides to stay with her "Bizarro friends." However, they reject her when they do not take to some of the things she usually does with Jerry, such as eating olives directly out of the jar from Kevin's refrigerator without asking first, and pushing Kevin so hard that he falls.

George takes Jerry to the location of the club, but all they find is a meat packing plant, with the photo George took from a magazine lying amid the sawdust.

Conway is replaced on the ambulance ship Rhabwar by Diagnostician Prilicla. Conway visits healer Khone on the planet Goglesk, and witnesses first-hand their destructive racial mass-hysteria response to physical proximity. He inadvertently links minds with Khone and learns a great deal more. Back at Hospital Station, Conway decides to treat some Hudlar accident victims with a rear-to-front limb transplant, because stranger transplants require permanent exile. Conway also proposes staving off geriatric Hudlar problems by elective amputation. At the end, he successfully delivers a sentient telepathic Unborn (seen in the other novel of the series ''Ambulance Ship'') from its violent non-sentient Protector.

The protagonist of the story is Sommaradvan healer Cha Thrat. She bravely saved a human pilot who crashlanded on her planet, despite a complete lack of knowledge about his physiology. Contact with her species was established by the accident, so knowledge of their social customs is still virtually non-existent. However, she is invited to join the Sector General staff.

Cha Thrat innocently wreaks havoc by following her instincts and social customs. First she befriends a hypochondriac Chalder. Next, she is invited to assist at a therapeutic surgery operation to amputate the limb of a Hudlar, which will prolong its life (following events depicted in the previous novel in the series, ''Star Healer''). When given the honour of cutting the limb, she obliges – and then deliberately cuts her own arm off as well, in accordance with the custom of her people. Next she saves the untouchable patient Khone (see ''Star Healer''), and then finds a weird parasite species on a derelict spaceship. Due to the chaos she causes, every department in the hospital now refuses to allow her near their patients. O'Mara values her unusual approaches, and decides to add her to his staff.

The dejected Surgeon-Captain Lioren is disappointed that his Court-martial has rejected the death penalty for him, and instead has assigned him to O'Mara at Sector General. He is plagued with guilt, because he is responsible for the genocide of an entire race. At moments during his new tasks, he ponders the individual events that led up to the alien deaths.

First contact with the Cromsag planet was quickly followed by the discovery that their entire population was wasting away from some unidentified disease. They were starving, and their birth rate was abysmal. Additionally, they were continually in hand-to-hand combat with each other, presumably competing for food.

The Sector General ships hurriedly provided food to malnourished people everywhere, along with medical aid for combat injuries, and tried to determine the cause of the mysterious disease. Despite their best efforts, deaths from the plague continued to increase. Lioren grew frustrated with the slow process of sending samples back to Sector General and awaiting diagnostics and full tests to ensure the effectiveness of potential cures. In his arrogance, he administered a treatment to the entire population ... and they rose up and slaughtered each other, wiping out their own race.

Interspersed with recalling these events, he shares some of his story with people at Sector General. Lioren speaks to the terminally ill Dr. Mannen, eventually reviving Mannen's interest in life. Lioren also offers encouragement to the isolated alien Khone (see Star Healer.) Next he is asked to speak to a gigantic Groalterri, whose race is so advanced they have until now refused all contact with the federated planets. The humans are desperate to make any sort of progress with this race, but the Groalterri patient won't communicate with anyone. Bit by bit, Lioren shares his own guilty history and talks the suicidal alien into lowering its emotional barriers. From its story he manages to figure out the Groalterri's hitherto unknown injury and arrange surgery that will change its life. Finally, at the end, Lioren meets with the handful of Cromsag survivors.

A famous chef wangles an appointment to Sector General for the challenge of creating food for so many different species. Like the Sommaradvan healer Cha Thrat (Code Blue - Emergency), he creates chaos everywhere he goes.

He first meets the swimming "crocodile-like" Chaldars, who complain that their food is unsatisfying. Realising that they are accustomed to capturing their food live, he develops motile food for them. They are delighted, but they completely destroy their hospital ward charging around chasing it.

Next, he learns that the spray-on food used to nourish the Hudlar is uninteresting. His investigations show that it needs small toxins to "flavor" it, which would be found naturally on their home planet. He visits a Hudlar ship, but causes a huge cargo bay accident expelling him into space. He rescues himself by riding some sprayers back to the station, but is in everyone's bad books.

Sympathetic staffers hide him on the ambulance ship ''Rhabwar'' for an upcoming assignment. In the meantime, an epidemic at the hospital turns out to be a major nutmeg overdose caused by a sous-chef foolishly using ten times the required amount in a recipe.

The ''Rhabwar'' is sent to a starving planet, whose people think their dwindling meat supply is the only desirable food and are shamed by its lack. He is able to commune with their first Cook better than the diplomats are doing. He finds ways to improve their sad vegetarian diet, and helps to set more positive attitudes toward it. The Cook's son is wounded on a game-hunting expedition, and the medical ship takes him on board for healing. The populace grows very angry, mystifying the team. They finally recall the aliens' cannibal tradition and produce him alive.

A man suffering from multiple mysterious illnesses and allergic reactions is labelled a hypochondriac. Finally he is sent to Sector General as a last resort. He befriends his fellow alien patients, telling them his life history. Rather than dismissing his complaints, the attentive hospital doctors develop a theory, and bring him back to his home planet. At the scene of a childhood accident that seems to have started it all, explanations are found.

Sector General's director O'Mara is headed for retirement. His memories of life at the hospital are shown through flashbacks, while in the book's 'present' time he goes through the process of selecting his own replacement.

Having informed the King of Sommerlund about the fate of the Kai Order, Lone Wolf is instructed to make a journey to their ally, the neighbouring country of Durenor, to retrieve the legendary Sommerswerd, which is Sommerlund’s only hope at repelling Darklord Zagarna’s massive invasion. Lone Wolf is given the Seal of Hammerdal and sets off on a ship bound for Durenor, but when a traitor on board sabotages the ship, he is forced to make his way on foot to Durenor despite the enemies that await him around every corner.

The game begins inside a temple, where a large red dragon named Ignitus is watching over an egg; it is the "Year of the Dragon" (not to be confused with the third Spyro game), a time every twelve years when new dragon eggs are brought to the realm. A dragons' prophecy tells that every ten generations, a rare purple dragon will be born, who will direct the fate of that era; Ignitus is looking after such an egg.

The dragons are, however, at war with an enemy known as the "Dark Master", who also knows of the prophecy, and lays siege to the temple, intent on destroying the brood of eggs. Ignitus escapes with the purple dragon's egg, leaving it to drift downriver into a swamp, hoping for the best. The egg is discovered by a family of dragonflies, and upon hatching, they name the dragon Spyro and adopt him into the family and raise him as one of their own, alongside Sparx, a dragonfly born the same day.

One day, after coming under attack by strange foes and discovering that he can breathe fire, Spyro is told that he is not a dragonfly himself but a stranger from a distant land; Spyro decides to leave the swamp in search of his true home; Sparx, though reluctant at first, decides to follow along. Spyro is pursued by hostile forces, but eventually comes into contact with a distraught Ignitus, who, although pleased that Spyro is alive, fears that with the Dragon Temple under occupation by their enemy, led by a black female dragon named Cynder, their war is already lost.

Spyro convinces Ignitus to lead him to the Temple, and is able to drive Cynder's forces out, after which Ignitus tells Spyro more about their war against the dark armies, offers Spyro some training in the art of the fire element, and then sends Spyro off to rescue three other dragons from Cynder's forces. One by one, Spyro clashes with Cynder's armies, rescues the three other dragons, Volteer, Cyril, and Terrador, while gaining powers over electricity, ice and earth, acquiring new skills and training along the way, as well as running into new friends such as Kane and the Atlawas on Tall Plains, and Mole-Yair, Exhumor, and The Manweersmalls on Munitious Forge respectively. It is learned that Cynder has been draining the dragons' power into crystals.

Cynder, however, starts fighting Spyro who shortly after rescues the final Dragon Guardian, Terrador; Ignitus intervenes to fight Cynder but is captured. It is revealed that it was the four dragons who originally sealed away the Dark Master, and that Cynder is using the dragons' drained powers to open the seal. Ignitus's power is the final key in unsealing the Dark Master, so Spyro is sent on a final, direct assault against Cynder's fortress.

Spyro attempts to fight Cynder, but Cynder succeeds in draining Ignitus's power of fire into a crystal, and escapes to the sealed realm of the Dark Master. During the fight, Spyro had noticed there was something familiar in Cynder's eyes. Ignitus then tells Spyro the rest of the story of what happened the night of the attack on the temple. After sending Spyro's egg down the river, Ignitus had returned to see that the Dark Master's forces had destroyed the brood of eggs, except one - for only a dragon born in the Year of the Dragon can open the portal and release the Dark Master: Cynder, who had been transformed by the Dark Master's sinister powers. Ignitus fears that it is too late to stop her, but Spyro pursues Cynder and forces a showdown, eventually using all of his power in a final attack which defeats her, purging her of the Dark Master's influence and returning her to her true form, a young dragoness the same size and age as Spyro. The realm begins to collapse in on itself; Sparx insists on making a quick exit but Spyro declares he will not leave Cynder behind with the Dark Master; though barely, Spyro is able to grab Cynder and escape safely.

Though victorious, the battle cost Spyro much of his own strength and powers, and both Spyro and Cynder suspect that the Dark Master is still alive somewhere; the war is still far from over. The story continues in ''The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night''.

After defeating Darklord Zagarna’s invasion, Sommerlund has begun rebuilding and little scars of war remain after one year. Work on rebuilding the Kai Monastery was about to commence when disturbing news from the north came. The merchants returning from summer trading to Kalte told of Brumalmarc, leader of the Ice Barbarian, has fallen to a hunch-backed magician. The description fit Vonotar, the former wizard from the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star, who betrayed Sommerlund and helped the Darklord Zagarna in the invasion and massacre of the Kai Order.

Apparently after his defeat, Vonotar made his way to the frozen wastes of Kalte and to the ice fortress of Ikaya and through deception, managed to trick the Cruel Brumalmarc to adopt him as his magician and thus cost him his life and fortress. News of his survival spread in Sommerlund like wildfire with people demanding he pay for his treachery. The king is obliged to promise that the traitor be brought back and stand trial for his crimes and thus has asked you to go capture and bring him back.

Falco's closest friend, Petronius Longus, has finally caught one of the leading criminals in Rome, Balbinus Pius. But a quirk in Roman law allows a convicted felon, even a murderer, time to depart before the sentence is carried out. Balbinus' departure has left a vacuum in the underworld of Rome, and there is a crowd of criminals trying desperately to fill the void. Their first step is to engineer a robbery that reverberates throughout the city.

Falco is again called upon by the Emperor Vespasian to supply answers, as quietly and quickly as possible. A couple of murders, a kidnapping or two, and more suspects than Falco cares to count takes him, and his patrician girlfriend Helena Justina, to places a family shouldn't have to go.

In the beginning, a teenage boy named Lester, who is "kind of geeky" and "kind of sleepy" recently got a new issue of the ''Super Duper Hero Squad'' comic book. He was reading it while walking on a dock, until he fell asleep next to a cargo crate lying beside a cargo ship. After he and the cargo were loaded onto the ship by a crane and cruised off, the ship got hijacked by pirates who scuttled it. Lester luckily found a life jacket and swam toward the most adjacent island while the cargo ship sank. Lester must find his way home by exploring the island for someone or something that can help him survive.

Sister Gertrude, a nun who works in a Catholic hospital for the elderly, returns to work after healing from surgery to remove a brain tumor. Gertrude suffers from significant anxiety following her surgery, and believes that her cancer has returned, despite the hospital's lead doctor, Dr. Poirret, assuring her there is no evidence for it. The Mother Superior of the convent also dismisses Gertrude's fears as hypochondria. Sister Mathieu, who has an unspoken sexual attraction to Gertrude, believes Gertrude's worry is legitimate.

Unbeknownst to the convent, Gertrude begins leading a double life, venturing into the city and pursuing sexual encounters with random men. Gertrude also begins to intravenously abuse morphine and heroin that Sister Mathieu steals for her from the hospital. A change in her personality is noted by Dr. Poirret, as Gertrude begins to mistreat patients and revel in reading gory hagiography on the lives of tortured saints to them. Gertrude successfully manages to have Poirret fired from the hospital. While Gertrude is in a drug-induced state, Sister Mathieu's grandfather, a patient at the hospital, is bludgeoned to death with a lamp, and his body thrown out a window so as to appear as a suicide. Sister Mathieu finds Gertrude's veil with his body, but, pledging her loyalty, assures Gertrude she will not implicate her, promising to burn it to hide the evidence.

Following Dr. Poirret's dismissal, the young and handsome Dr. Patrick Rowland is hired as his replacement. During a rainstorm, Gertrude witnesses Jonathan, an elderly male patient, having sex with a young female orderly outside. Later, she awakens from a nightmare in which she suffocates Jonathan, though she is unable to discern whether it was merely a dream or if she might have actually committed another murder. Jonathan's corpse is found the following morning lying in the grass. After leading a prayer for Jonathan, Gertrude has a nervous breakdown. Shortly after, Janet, another patient, is bound and gagged by an unseen assailant before being ritualistically stabbed in the face with needles and slashed in the head and neck by a scalpel.

After Janet's body is found hanging in an elevator shaft, Dr. Poirret sedates a panicked Gertrude. When Gertrude awakens, she confronts Peter, a middle-aged patient on crutches, who claims to have knowledge of who is committing the killings. Gertrude believes him, assuming she is being framed, but he will not reveal any further details to her. In response, she steals his crutches from him. After Peter's body is found in the boiler room, Gertrude is escorted out of the hospital and met by the Mother Superior, who scolds her for her behavior and has her sent to an isolation cell to be sedated. Meanwhile, Sister Mathieu confesses to Dr. Roland to stealing drugs for Gertrude, and threatens suicide if she is exposed. She then begins to seduce him.

Meanwhile, isolated in her cell, Sister Gertrude sits in a catatonic state, detoxing from her drug abuse. As she regains mental clarity, she recalls the first murder committed in the hospital, of Sister Mathieu's grandfather. Gertrude realizes that it was in fact perpetrated by Sister Mathieu, as Gertrude watched in an intoxicated state. Gertrude, psychologically fragile and in a state of perpetual drug use, mistakenly assumed she was committing each of the murders, when it was in fact Sister Mathieu, motivated to kill by the sexual abuse she suffered as a child by her grandfather.

The story takes the form of an eclectic and quirky fairy tale with satirical elements and dealing with philosophical concerns. It is told via the framing device of Moonshadow, now 120, looking back on his earlier life. The action concerns the events leading up to the "awakening" of Moonshadow, the child of a hippy mother and an enigmatic alien father. The alien, who resembles a glowing orb of light bearing a stylized human face, abducted Moonshadow's mother from Earth in 1968 along with her black pet cat, Frodo. When the idealistic and naive Moonshadow is orphaned at approximately age 15, he becomes friends with a venal and opportunistic furry humanoid named Ira. Moonshadow and Ira and Frodo the cat set out to find a life for themselves in the stars.

Moonshadow loses his innocence, but eventually makes peace with the world and reconciles himself to the actions of his seemingly capricious alien father.

While on a vacation on Pokitaru, Ratchet and Clank meet a little girl named Luna who is writing a school report on heroes. Shortly after they meet her, Luna is kidnapped by mysterious robots. Clank then stumbles upon a mysterious artifact from an ancient race, the Technomites. Although Ratchet is initially skeptical about their existence, Clank believes they do exist. Ratchet and Clank set out to save Luna and in the process, encounter Captain Qwark, who is attempting to find his biological parents. Ratchet allows him to use his ship's computer to aid in his search, in order to make him stop following them.

On Kalidon, Ratchet is kidnapped by Luna, who had faked her kidnapping, and Clank is left in a junkyard on Metalis, however Clank transforms into his Ultra-Mech form and sets off to destroy enemy troops and to save Ratchet. Meanwhile, Ratchet's DNA was taken in order to produce an army of clones. Emperor Otto Destruct, leader of the Technomites, has recognized Ratchet's potential and hopes to use his DNA to produce the ultimate soldier. Finding out that Luna is actually a robotic puppet and ship, the duo track it down to Dayni Moon, where Luna reveals the clone plot to Ratchet and Clank and explains the Technomites are bitter for never receiving credit from the general population for their technological advances.

After destroying the Luna puppet, Clank tries to get the clone factory co-ordinates from it, but is infected with a computer virus and malfunctions, allowing the Technomite soldiers inside the puppet to enter Clank. Ratchet uses his shrink ray to go inside Clank, meeting his internal security system, and they collaborate to eliminate the intruders and restart Clank's processor. Clank reveals that he did obtain the factory co-ordinates before being deactivated, and they head to a planet known as Quodrona. After Ratchet kills dozens of clones, Otto reveals that what Luna told them was a "(cheesy story)", and his real plan is to steal the intelligence of every being in the galaxy, using a special machine that transfers the intelligences from one being to another.

Qwark, persuaded by Otto, thinks Otto is his father and temporarily fights on his side. Ratchet and Clank eventually defeat him after a long and hard battle. After beating Otto, they learn from Skrunch that Qwark's real parents were killed by defective equipment made by the Technomites. Qwark tries to use Otto's machine to give Otto the intelligence of himself, Skrunch interferes and Otto then gains the intelligence of Skrunch. Back in Ratchet and Clank's apartment, shrunken Ratchet clones are sold like toys and keep the shrunken Qwark company, while the two watch a commercial for the new toy line.

The story is set in Adjikistan, a fictional country that is experiencing civil unrest. At first, it appears that the Adjikistani rebel factions are simply terrorists, but as the story progresses it is revealed that the president of Adjikistan, Ismail Karim, is in fact corrupt and using his influence and hired European mercenaries to crush all who oppose him.

A well-known Iranian director, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, plans to make a film for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of cinema. He placed an advertisement in a newspaper in order to hire one hundred actors. He has prepared 1000 application forms, but 5000 people show up. The result is a riot in which the applicants are trampled on and wounded. Mohsen Makhmalbaf auditions dozens of men and women in front of the camera; their statements, which are by turns funny and touching, reveal the reality of life in Iran. Thus, the director enables us to see and understand those intellectuals, students and children and above all the women, who can not normally be heard or seen. It shows, once again, that cinema is of vital importance in countries such as Iran.

Tony Fitzjohn (John Michie) has just come to work on Kora, a lion preserve, for two elderly brothers, George and Terrence Adamson (Ian Bannen). On his first day, Fitzjohn ignores George's advice not to run and is nearly mauled. Being informed this is how the last person to fill his position died, Fitzjohn writes the whole place off as crazy and decides to leave. After a last minute change of heart, and a lion cub brought in from a zoo for him to train and reintroduce into the wild, he discovers his life's true calling.

Years pass and Kora's lions are being picked off by herdsmen one by one with bullets and poison and the elephants and rhinos are being poached at an alarming rate for their tusks and horns. The Adamson brothers are expending all of their energies in protecting the wildlife but can hardly compete; as Fitzjohn observes “A ranger may make 800 shillings a month but a poacher will pay him 10,000 just to turn his back for a day”. The odds seem to be insurmountable as the poachers pile in and the animal death toll rises, while the local government decides that it does not really want a wildlife preserve at all.

The film follows the meandering (sexual) adventures of the poet and drunk, Charles Serking, laying bare the sleaze of life in the less reputable neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Serking's life takes a turn for the better when he meets Cass, a young hooker with self destructive habits. They have a stormy relationship. When Serking gets an offer from a major publishing house, Cass tries to stop him from leaving, but fails. Serking gives in to the temptation of the big bucks, but soon realises his mistake and returns to L.A only to find that Cass has killed herself in his absence. Devastated he hits the bottle in a nightmarish drinking bout, but finally reaches catharsis and returns to the seaside guesthouse where he spent his happiest moments with Cass. Here he rekindles his poetry with the aid of a young admirer in one of Ferreri's trademark beach scenes.

''Toxic Crusaders'' cleaned up Toxie's act considerably. Toxie was still a grotesque mutant endowed with superhuman powers, but underneath it all, he was a good-hearted, law-abiding citizen of the fictional town of Tromaville, New Jersey (the setting of most of Troma Entertainment's films). Another change from the films was that the toxic waste also mutated his mop into a sentient being that would sometimes battle enemies by itself or motion to Toxie ideas on how to solve problems. The villains were still polluters, albeit polluters from a different world. Hailing from the planet Smogula, Czar Zosta, Dr. Killemoff, and Psycho wreaked ecological havoc with the help of Tromaville's corrupt Mayor Grody. Bonehead, a street punk who bullied Melvin, joins them in the first episode.

Dr. Killemoff and Czar Zosta were cockroach-like extraterrestrials from the planet Smogula, which is a world where pollution is natural as fresh air and water is natural to Earth. Natives of Smogula thrive on pollution and need it to survive. For unexplained reasons, Czar Zosta and other Smogulans were able to withstand Earth's atmosphere without problems while Dr. Killemoff wears a breathing apparatus to survive. Dr. Killemoff, like most villains, also had a seemingly endless army of foot soldiers called Radiation Rangers.

Other villains and heroes made their appearances on the show with equally ridiculous origins as the Crusaders. Few if any of these characters made more than one appearance.

In 1860, Baron Victor Frankenstein, sentenced to death, escapes execution by the guillotine by having a priest beheaded and buried in his place with the aid of a hunchback named Karl. Three years later, Victor, now going by the alias Doctor Stein, has become a successful physician in Carlsbrück, catering to the wealthy while also attending to the poor in a paupers' hospital. Hans Kleve, a junior member of the medical council, recognizes Victor and, as an admirer of Victor, requests an apprenticeship with him. Together with Karl, Victor and Hans continue with the Baron's experiment: transplanting a living brain into a new body, one that is not a crude, cobbled-together creature. The deformed Karl is more than willing to volunteer his brain thereby gaining a healthy body, particularly after meeting Margaret, the lovely new assistant at the hospital.

The transplant succeeds, but when the excited Hans tells Karl that he will be a medical sensation, Karl panics and convinces Margaret to free him. Hans notes that the chimpanzee into which Victor had transplanted the brain of an orangutan ate its mate and worries about Karl, but his concerns are brushed off by Victor. Karl flees from the hospital and hides in Victor’s laboratory, where he burns his preserved hunchback body. He is attacked by a drunken janitor, who takes him for a burglar, but manages to kill the man. Victor and Hans discover Karl is missing and begin searching for him.

The next morning, Margaret finds Karl in her aunt's stable. While she goes to fetch Hans, Karl experiences difficulties with his arm and leg. When Hans and Margaret arrive, he is gone. At night, Karl ambushes and strangles a local girl. The next night, he rushes into an evening reception. Having redeveloped his deformities, he begs Victor for help, using his real name of Frankenstein, before he collapses and dies. Victor, disregarding Hans' pleas that he should leave the country, appears before the medical council, where he denies being the infamous Frankenstein. The unsatisfied councilors open Victor's supposed grave, only to discover the priest's body, and conclude that the real Frankenstein is still alive.

At the hospital, the patients violently attack Victor out of hatred, and Hans rushes his dying mentor to the lab. The police arrive to arrest Victor, but when Hans shows them Victor's dead body, they leave. Hans then transplants Victor's brain into a new body that Victor had prepared earlier, which he made to resemble him. Sometime later in London, Hans, who is now the superior doctor, assists Victor, now calling himself Doctor Franck, in welcoming some patients.

In the 20th century in the fictional village of Clagmoor Heath in Cornwall several locals are dying from what is deemed to be the "Black Death". Harry Spalding inherits his late brother Charles' cottage and arrives with his new bride, Valerie. The inhabitants of the village keep clear of the newly arrived couple and only the publican, Tom Bailey, befriends them. Tom explains that the hostility exhibited by the townspeople is the result of many mysterious deaths in the community.

The sinister Dr. Franklyn, the owner of the nearby Well House, is the only resident in the vicinity of the cottage and he lives with his daughter Anna. Franklyn treats Anna with cruel contempt and she is attended by a silent Malay servant.

Hoping to learn something of the deaths, Harry invites the local eccentric, Mad Peter, home for dinner. After warning them that their lives are in danger, Peter quickly departs only to return later that evening with his face blackened and swollen before dying. The Spaldings attempt to alert Franklyn, but he arrogantly states that Peter's death is not his concern, explaining that he is a Doctor of Divinity, not a surgeon.

In an attempt to help Harry clear up the mystery, Tom illegally unearths Peter's corpse and discovers a strange neck wound like a snake bite. Harry and Tom dig up Charles’ coffin and find that his corpse also has those same marks. Realizing that they are threatened by something far worse than they had ever imagined, Harry is quick to answer an urgent message from the Well House. There, he is bitten by a mysterious reptilian creature, but he still manages to return to his home and recover from the bite.

Meanwhile, at the Well House, Valerie witnesses Franklyn's attempt to kill Anna, who was changed into the reptile creature after being abducted and cursed by a Malay snake cult that included the Malay servant. A struggle ensues between Franklyn and the Malay, accidentally causing a lantern to be knocked over and setting the house ablaze, killing the Malay. Franklyn is bitten by Anna and dies from the bite. Anna attempts to bite Valerie too, but dies in the fire. Harry and Tom arrive and save Valerie. The three escape safely and watch as the house is consumed by the flames.

The story takes place in a (then-future) fictional 1998, and centers on Anarch Peak, a black religious leader who had died in 1971 and is expected to rise soon. Sebastian Hermes, an owner of a small Vitarium (a business that digs up the dead and gives them the treatment they need before returning them to society), discovers Peak's resurrection is imminent. After accidentally discovering the burial place of Peak, he decides, against the law, to dig up the body before the Anarch awakes. (As with contemporary controversies about brain death, it seems not to be judged morally significant if a heartbeat can be heard, but it is illegal to dig anyone up before they start talking, which suggests resumed brain function is a marker of "old-birth.")

Various groups are interested in controlling the affairs of the 'old-born', such as the Vitaria (technically, a person resurrected is in the legal custody of their Vitarium until claimed by family members) and the Library, an organization dedicated to erasing books which have passed beyond the initial date at which they were written.

Religious institutions are also interested in 'old-birth', particularly in the resurrection of Anarch Peak in the case of the Udites (an African-American religion) and The Rome Syndicate (the highest authority in Caucasian matters, as well as the owner of numerous religious artifacts and other items, like a syringe that can stop the Hobart Phase for short periods of time). These factions then argue over the ownership of Anarch Peak after his resurrection. When the Library kidnaps Anarch Peak, both factions send Sebastian Hermes to recover him. In the end Peak is killed and there may be an interracial war as a consequence of Peak's permanent death.

The Hobart Phase

The Hobart Phase is the new order of life where people rise from the dead and are rejuvenated. Time reversal apparently began in 1986. Other than aging, Hobart Phase resurrection has changed nutritional and excretion processes and associated social taboos. People do not eat, but instead consume "Sogum" anally through a pipe, and later "plop" out food orally, which is done in private, due to its 'shameful' nature. As for smoking, cigarettes are no longer smoked, but the smoke instead blown back into them, making them grow back to normal size (this also clears and freshens the air). "Goodbye" and "hello" have reversed their order within standard greetings, and "food" is used as a drop-in replacement for the expletive "shit". It is stated that Mars colonists do not have the Hobart Phase on their world, and it is limited to Earth, and presumably its lunar colonies as well.

Divided USA

As hinted in the book, the United States of America has been partitioned into eastern and western segments. Hawaii and Alaska have also seceded from the WUS and FNM, but this is only mentioned in passing. In the WUS (Western United States), California is predominantly white, while the eastern "Free Negro Municipality" (FNM) is inhabited by African Americans. The fictitious religion of Uditi is the national religion of the East. Uditi is an offshoot of Christianity with apparent influences from Roman Catholicism and the Rastafari movement, and is centered on "the udi", an experience of a group mind.

Inhabitants of the WUS view the religion with suspicion, and it is hinted that their media demonizes its adherents. Library-sanctioned murders and civil unrest are claimed to be the works of religious fanatics. FNM currency is claimed to be worthless, as is WUS currency (stated earlier in the book), but its citizens ignore this due to patriotism.

The adventures between the two friends range from the real life (such as going to school for the first time, making a playhouse out of a piano box, and dressing up to go calling) to the extraordinarily fanciful (such as being taken for a ride in the milkman's magic wagon by his talking horse, and flying away on a cloud while enjoying a picnic). The fanciful adventures are provided by Betsy's active imagination and her love of telling stories. The book deals with the themes of shyness, with the birth of new siblings, with the joys of an active imaginations, and even touches on death within the family.

Betsy returns to New York from her European trip, where Joe Willard is waiting for her. He wants to take her to Tiffany's and buy an engagement ring, but the more practical Betsy suggests he buys a wedding band instead. They spend the day in New York City enjoying many of Joe's favorite places, but more importantly renewing their love.

Betsy takes a train to Minneapolis, where her parents and younger sister are now living. She breaks the news of her engagement to her family, who are surprised that Joe wants to marry Betsy without first asking her father and without having a job in Minnesota. Her father is very upset. He thinks that Joe should have a job. When Joe arrives at the train station, Betsy tells him that her father is uncomfortable about him not having a job. He immediately drives from newspaper office to newspaper office before finding a job on a publicity campaign to help the people of Belgium (who were the victims of atrocities during World War I). Betsy's father respects Joe's go-getter attitude and allows the wedding to proceed. Joe and Betsy live with her parents while looking for an apartment to rent. With younger sister Margaret's help they find the perfect newlywed's home. Betsy struggles with her first forays into cooking, but eventually becomes a very good cook - and even has fun making some of Joe's favorite foods! Several happy months later, Joe's widowed aunt asks to live with them & Joe tells her yes, although Betsy resents her coming. Joe is aware of her feelings (she had been hoping to bring a baby into their happy home; not Joe's aunt) & this is the first serious difference of opinion in their marriage. Betsy wants to agree with Joe but cannot help feeling bitter until she has an epiphany & realizes that Joe's generosity is one of the things she loves about him. In the end she enjoys Joe's aunt's company and her wonderful stories, especially when Joe begins working the night shift writing headlines for the newspaper. Meanwhile, Betsy and Tacy unite to try to find a husband for Tib. They introduce her to Mr. Bagshaw (a colleague of Harry's), who quickly falls in love with Tib. He proposes & Tib turns him down. Betsy and Tacy are relieved, having realized that if she had married him, Tib would have moved to NYC. Betsy then introduces Tib to Rocky, a "Tramp" journalist they meet at "The Violent Study Club" (a group of friends & fellow writers with whom Betsy & Joe hone their writing skills). But Rocky is terrible to Tib, even ridiculing her in front of friends! Finally Tib ends the relationship with Rocky & he leaves (thank goodness)! Eventually Tib meets a kind & handsome soldier while ice skating and they fall in love.

As the book ends, America enters World War I and Joe goes to a nearby officer's training camp. They rent out their house & Betsy returns to her parents' home to live with them for the duration of the war. Before Joe leaves, they are able to attend Tib's wedding in Deep Valley with family members and old friends.

Eddie Hopper is a construction contractor from Long Island, New York, with two grown daughters. One of them, Betsy, is about to be married.

Money is tight in the Hopper household, but Eddie, much to the distress of his wife, Lola, decides that it is important to throw a lavish wedding to impress the well-off family of the man Betsy is to marry. Everyone in the family is throwing advice Eddie's way, even the ghost of his father.

A new house Eddie is building is adding to his financial and emotional woes. In desperation, he turns to his crooked brother-in-law, Oscar, who ends up getting Eddie involved with loan sharks. A young man named Stevie Dee is sent to keep an eye on Eddie, but instead turns his gaze to Connie Hopper, who is not only a police officer but the bride's sister.

Betsy's wedding ultimately goes on as scheduled, but is disrupted by a torrential downpour of rain.

''The Killing Dance'' takes place in May, about a month and a half after ''Bloody Bones'' and like the previous novels, ''The Killing Dance'' begins with a potential job for Anita in her role as an Animators, Inc. employee. In this case, Anita and Jean-Claude are in Anita's office meeting with Sabin, a master vampire, and with Dominic Dumare, Sabin's human servant. Sabin and Dumare explain that Sabin, in order to please a mortal lover, promised to abstain from feeding on the blood of live humans. As a result, he has developed a condition in which his body is irreversibly rotting away, and is beginning to lose control of his powers. Dumare, a necromancer, believes that if he and Anita join their abilities and his experience, they may be able to cure Sabin, and Anita agrees to help if possible. Jean-Claude and Anita ponder the parallels between Sabin's relationship with his unnamed mortal love and their own romantic relationship, and Anita leaves for a date with her other boyfriend, Richard. (Although Jean-Claude, a vampire, is in the process of consolidating his leadership of the city, Richard is locked in an ongoing struggle for leadership of the werewolves of the city with their current Ulfric, Marcus, primarily because Richard, unlike Jean-Claude, is not willing to kill in order to assume or maintain power.)

Anita and Richard go to a dinner party at Anita's friend Catherine's house. There, they meet one of Jean-Claude's vampires, Robert, and his wife, Monica. Monica announces that she is pregnant, which Anita had previously thought impossible for a vampire of Robert's age. Monica is also very friendly with Anita, notwithstanding her assistance in the plot to hyponize Catherine and blackmail Anita in ''Guilty Pleasures''. Anita wonders if Jean-Claude deliberately planned for Robert to attend the party to spy on her and Richard. She and Richard are forced to leave the party early after she receives a call from Edward. Edward, one of the world's premier assassins and a sort of friend of Anita's, tells Anita that he has received a proposed contract to kill Anita. He has refused, but wants her to get home and begin making plans to protect herself while he investigates the identity of the person putting out the contract on her life.

Anita and Richard arrive at her house and meet Mrs. Pringle. Anita suspects that someone is in her apartment, and, while Richard helps Mrs. Pringle move a television, she engages in a gun battle through her closed front door, ultimately killing Jimmy Dugan, a local thug known as "Jimmy the Shotgun". Anita is taken to police headquarters and questioned for quite some time by Detective Branswell, who eventually lets her go. Anita and Richard argue about her decision to confront Jimmy the Shotgun without asking Richard to back her up, and Anita agrees to move into Richard's house for the time being in order to protect her neighbors from any potential collateral damage.

Edward contacts Anita at Richard's house and tells her that the contract on her life has been increased to $500,000 if the murder is performed within 24 hours. Edward suggests that Anita try to deduce the identity of the person offering the contract by figuring out who would need her dead that quickly, but she doesn't have any ideas. Richard then receives a call from Stephen. Stephen is being forced to participate in one of Raina's pornographic movies, and is desperate for Richard's protection. Richard and Anita leave to rescue him.

At the farmhouse where Raina shoots her movies, Richard and Anita confront several werewolves and various crew members. Richard reassures Heidi, a non-dominant werewolf trapped in the middle of the conflict between Marcus and himself. One of the werewolves, Sebastian challenges Richard, but Richard easily subdues him with the raw power of his beast. Approximately 30 werewolves gang up on Richard, including Sebastian and Jamil, and Anita realizes that the situation was a trap to kill him. She goes to rescue Stephen while Richard holds off the wolves.

Anita follows the sounds of Stephen's screams and finds a room where Stephen is being tortured on film by his brother Gregory while being restrained by Raina and Gabriel. Anita removes Stephen and finds Richard fighting off the twenty werewolves outside the filming room. She and Richard confront the wolves, and Anita realizes that because the wolves do not believe Richard is willing to kill, they are not afraid of him. She threatens to kill Raina if anyone uses Stephen in a film again, setting herself up as a challenger for Raina's position as the pack's lupa. After returning to Richard's home, Richard stays awake as guard while Stephen sleeps in Anita's bed for protection.

Later morning, Anita wakes to find Jason, Sylvie and Lillian at Richard's house. Lillian tends wounds while Jason and Sylvie attempt to convince Richard that he must be willing to kill to lead the pack. Anita and Richard go to a separate room to argue and come close to having sex, only to be interrupted by the weres on the other side of the door. Anita worries that her relationship with Richard makes her vulnerable, because unlike Jean-Claude, Anita can't count on Richard to make the hard decisions necessary to survive.

Anita leaves the bedroom to find that several more shapeshifters have arrived—Rafael, Christine, and about fifteen others. She learns that Jean-Claude and many of the city's shapeshifters support Richard's attempt to dethrone Marcus as Ulfric, but that as long as Richard is not willing to kill, his claim is weakened. Richard ultimately declares Anita as his lupa and declares himself willing to kill Marcus if necessary to assume control of the pack. In order to assume a dominant role within the pack, Anita is forced to fight Neal, one of the werewolves present until first blood is drawn. She maneuvers him into a position where she can judo throw him through a window, drawing blood.

As Neal cleans himself off, Edward arrives. Edward thinks that whichever assassin accepted the contract will try to kill Anita during her date with Jean-Claude at the opening of ''Dance Macabre,'' Jean-Claude's new club. Over Richard's objections, he and Anita make plans to use Anita as bait to draw out the assassin.

Jean-Claude and Anita arrive at the club and are mobbed by reporters, "outing" Anita as the vampire's girlfriend. Under pressure from Jean-Claude, Anita admits that she wanted to keep their relationship secret and that her desire to do so was unfair to Jean-Claude. Anita meets Liv and Damian, two new and powerful vampires in Jean-Claude's retinue, as well as Cassandra, a new addition to the Thronos Rokke clan of werewolves. During the floorshow, Anita is forced to intervene to stop Damian from permanently hypnotizing one of the guests. Anita helps the guest into the women's bathroom with the help of another patron, Anabelle Smith. Smith draws a gun on Anita, but is distracted when some women enter, allowing Anita enough time to draw a knife and kill her. The police arrive and arrest Anita for the second time in two days.

Detective Greeley does his best to get Anita to talk, but Dolph ultimately convinces Greeley to turn Anita over to Dolph by telling Greeley that Anita is a suspect in other crime. Dolph takes Anita to a suburban home in Creve Coeur, and shows Anita the crime scene—one of Jean-Claude's vampire's, Robert has been staked out inside a magic circle and ritually killed. Anita, as a necromancer, is unable to cross the circle, which was designed to block the magic of the dead. She hypothesizes that the circle was used to prevent Jean-Claude from learning of Roberts' death, and meets Tammy Reynolds, a new member of RPIT. Anita guesses that the crime must have been performed by at least two supernatural beings with enough strength to restrain Robert, in addition to someone with sufficiently detailed knowledge of necromancy to perform the ritual. Because even John Burke and Anita herself lack the expertise to perform the ritual, Anita tells Dolph that Dominic Dumare is the only suspect she can identify. Anita and Dolph clash over what she can tell Jean-Claude about Robert's death and about whether her loyalties now lie with Jean-Claude or with RPIT.

After some more investigation, Anita accompanies Robert's widow, Monica to the hospital. While at the hospital, Anita speaks to Edward, who tells her that the contract on her life has been extended another twenty-four hours and convinces her to take cover in the Circus of the Damned while he attempts to identify who is behind the hit.

At the Circus, Anita tells Jean-Claude about Robert's death and learns for the first time about Jean-Claude's past with Asher and Julianna. Jean-Claude tells Anita that Asher has petitioned the Vampire Council for permission to kill Anita as revenge for Julianna's death. Later, Jean-Claude and Anita discuss their relationship, both with each other and with Richard. Jean-Claude tells Anita that he loves her, and promises not to stand in her way if she chooses Richard, but demands that she see Richard change into a wolf before committing. They kiss, and Richard enters. With Richard's control weakened by the approaching full moon, Jean-Claude baits Richard and Richard knocks Anita down in the course of attacking Jean-Claude.

Jean-Claude leaves to prepare for the approaching dawn, and Richard and Anita discuss ''their'' relationship. Jason arrives, severely beaten as a result of his attempt to prevent Richard from entering earlier, and acknowledges Richard as his master. Richard feeds from Jason's blood and feeds Jason some of his own blood and power. Shaken by Richard's display of inhuman behavior, Anita worries that perhaps Richard is right that killing Marcus will mean surrendering too much of his human identity. After some hesitation, Anita proposes that Richard sleep with her that morning, and that they marry as soon as possible. Richard refuses, promising to sleep with Anita and to marry her, but only after she sees him as a werewolf.

Anita is awakened by Cassandra leaning over her bed in darkness. Cassandra apologizes for the fright and explains that Richard and Jean-Claude have a plan. The men explain that they wish to experiment calling the power that the three of them summoned accidentally in ''The Lunatic Cafe''. Richard sees the power as a way to force Marcus to back down without a death, and Jean-Claude sees it as a means to secure his control of the city and his safety. Anita reluctantly agrees to the experiment after forcing Jean-Claude to promise that he will not mark either of the others as his servant.

As the three engage in the initial stages of a ménage à trois, Anita is first uncomfortable, but soon overcome by a combination of lust and magical power. Acting on instinct, Anita demands blood to complete the ritual, and Jean-Claude bites Richard even as the two men continue seducing Anita. Anita is flooded with power, and instinctively raises the dead, much as she did when flooded with power by inadvertent human sacrifices in ''The Laughing Corpse'' and ''Bloody Bones''. As Anita makes plans to investigate what she has raised from the dead and where, Richard and Jean-Claude sense an emergency and race her to the location of an old cemetery within the Circus. Anita learns that she has raised scores of zombies, as well as the resting forms of three vampires: Damian, Liv, and Willie. The three discuss their relationship some more—Jean-Claude and Richard are threatened by Anita's power and need for dominance, while Anita and Richard are threatened by Jean-Claude's ongoing seduction of them both. (On the other hand, Cassandra, a post graduate student of magical theory as well as a werewolf, is more clinically interested in the magic than in their relationship).

Unsure whether, after raising them as zombies, Anita will be able to return the vampires to death in a way that allows them to rise as vampires with the setting sun, the group decides to call Dominic Dumare for assistance. (Anita reveals that a woman alibied Dumare, eliminating him as a suspect in Robert's killing.) Dominic and Cassandra are both intellectually fascinated by Anita's power to raise vampires, and, at Dominic's request, Anita experiments with the power, learning that she can heal vampires that she raises during daylight. Dominic helps her develop a ritual to combine her powers with Jean-Claude's and Richards and lay the vampires and zombies to rest, and they agree to try to use the technique to heal Sabin the next day.

Jean-Claude, Richard, and Anita discuss their mutual relationship some more. Richard has agreed to accept Jean-Claude's marks as his animal servant, but will not accept a subordinate position to either Jean-Claude or Anita, and threatens to kill Jean-Claude if he attempts to assume control. Anita, for her part, will not even accept the marks. Jean-Claude claims to be threatened by Anita's new power and by the prospect of a three-way battle for dominance "for all eternity," but he is intrigued by the amount of power the three of them can raise.

Edward arrives, with an assistant, the psychopathic mercenary Harley. Edward explains that he has learned that Marcus was behind the contract on Anita's life, and Jean-Claude hypothesizes that Marcus wanted to distract Richard from concentrating on that night's battle of succession. Anita and Richard dress for the battle and leave, with Edward and Harley as backup. Using Jean-Claude's mark, Anita and Richard unite their three powers once more, this time magnifying Richard's power. Holding Anita's hand, Richard helps her "ride" his power, allowing the two of them to run through the forest like wolves.

At the wolves' sacred clearing, Richard and Marcus face off. Sebastian stabs Richard in the back in order to help Marcus, but is killed by Edward, who has taken up a sniper's position nearby. Without further interference, Richard tears out Marcus's heart, killing him.

In order to prevent her from killing Raina, Richard grabs Anita. He holds her down bodily as he changes to his wolf-man state. He invites Anita to share his power again, but she flees in horror, just as the pack begins eating Marcus. Anita runs back to the Circus and Jean-Claude. Distraught, Anita finally gives in to Jean-Claude's ongoing seduction, in the first of the many detailed scenes of erotica that Hamilton has since introduced into the series.

The next morning, Richard arrives, and is devastated by the combination Anita's rejection of him the previous night and discovering that she has had sex with Jean-Claude. After an emotional fight, Richard declares that he will always love Anita and leaves. Cassandra arrives to help Anita clean up but then, to Anita's surprise, knocks Anita unconscious and delivers her to Raina and Gabriel.

With Anita safely bound on the set of Raina's porn films, Cassandra explains that she, Dominic and Sabin are a triumvirate. Cassandra was the lover who convinced Sabin to give up feeding on humans, causing him to develop his degenerative condition. Dominic believed that by sacrificing Jean-Claude's triumvirate, they could heal Sabin, and the three of them came to St. Louis to do so. Discovering that Anita was not marked by Jean-Claude, they are going to try the sacrifice with just Jean-Claude and Richard. Anita attempts to reason with Cassandra, and promises to heal Sabin by raising him during daylight the next day. Cassandra refuses, stating that they do not have even one more day before Sabin loses his mind permanently, and leaves Anita to be raped and killed in Raina's snuff film.

Gabriel, a psychotic sadomasochist, has been fantasizing about arming Anita with silver knives and raping her while she tries to kill him. Anita talks Gabriel into trying out his fantasy and gives her the knives. Unknown to Gabriel, Anita accepts the first and second vampire marks from Richard and Jean-Claude while waiting for the scene to begin; with her weapons and the extra power from the marks, she is able to kill both Gabriel and Raina. Together with Edward and Harley, Anita races to the sacrifice site to save Jean-Claude and Richard.

At the site, Dominic has prepared another circle of power against the dead, which Anita, a necromancer, is unable to enter. Edward crosses the circle and kills Dominic to stop his spell but is knocked unconscious by Sabin. Harley shoots Cassandra. Anita kills Sabin and is then forced to kill Harley, who has lost control without Edward to anchor him to reality. She rushes to Richard and Jean-Claude and finds Richard dying, his heart pierced by Dominic's blade. Jean-Claude explains that he is shielding Anita from Richard's pain, and that he and Richard will probably die. Anita is unable to cope with losing both men and agrees to accept the third mark, giving blood to Jean-Claude and saving Richard and Jean-Claude's lives.

In the epilogue, Anita explains that Monica's baby is doing well, and that she and Jean-Claude remain lovers, but that Richard has frozen them both out of his life, rendering the triumvirate useless. Even more ominously, Edward has declared that because Anita killed Harley, she now owes him one favor, which he will collect when he sees fit.

The movie, based on a novel by Jorge Franco, deals with the life of a beautiful woman involved with the subculture of sicarios, the motorcycle-riding hitmen of the slums of Medellín, Colombia, in the late 1980s-early 1990s. Rosario, a dangerous woman who was molested and raped as a child, and now claiming to be owned by no man, lives a life on the edge while trying to come to terms with her past and the men in her life, not making the best choices along the way.

The film is told in flashback from the point of view of Antonio, a young man from the upper class of Medellín. While at a Medellín disco one night, both he and his best friend, Emilio, simultaneously lay eyes upon the beautiful Rosario. Emilio pursues her and begins an affair with her, despite knowing that she is involved with drug cartel leaders, and despite getting entangled in her violent life. However, Emilio's family rejects the relationship, which crushes Emilio. Antonio continues his own platonic relationship with Rosario as her confidante. When Rosario's brother, Johnefe, with whom Rosario lives, is killed, Antonio and Rosario grow closer. All along, Rosario starts falling in an spiral of drugs and violence, dragging both Emilio and Antonio with her. Rosario, who often kisses the men she then kills, is a marked woman, and she eventually meets her comeuppance. Antonio takes her to the emergency room, from where he relates her story.

Frank, Joe, Chet and Tony travel to Puerto Rico to investigate the mystery behind a coded letter they received from the Hardy father. They later go in a race against time to stop a criminal mastermind from using an atomic bomb to take over the government of the fictional country of Tropicale.

Two police officers, R and Noma, hunt down renegade cyborgs. The cyborgs serve a number of duties, ranging from military commandos to "dolls", engineered for companionship. They have a limited 3-year lifespan, although black market technology has been developed to transfer a cyborg's artificial intelligence into the brain of a human host.

This breakthrough compels R into finding Cyon, an orphaned prostitute, who may serve as the host for the mind of his doll Ria. He has fallen deeply in love with his doll and she has only a few days left to live.

Eventually, R must make a decision between leaving the colony with Ria to spend her last days with him on a paradise-like planet or save his friends when a renegade combat cyborg takes over the police headquarters.

In 1984, Corporal Victor "Vic" Vance (Dorian Missick) is stationed in Vice City's army base, Fort Baxter. To raise money for his sick brother Pete's medication, Vic agrees to help his corrupt supervisor, Sergeant Jerry Martinez (Felix Solis), finding himself involved in the city's drug trade. After a deal goes awry, Martinez frames Vic for hiding drugs under his bed and bringing a prostitute to the base, resulting in Vic being charged with high treason and dishonorably discharged from the army. Forced onto the streets, Vic assists eccentric gunrunner and self-proclaimed army veteran Phil Cassidy (Gary Busey), whom he met during his work for Martinez, in exchange for a place to stay to rebuild his life. Martinez later hires Vic and Phil to do more jobs for him, only to betray and try to have them killed, leading to the pair cutting ties with him after escaping the trap. Meanwhile, Vic also works for Phil's brother-in-law Marty Jay Williams (Jim Burke), leader of a street gang called the Trailer Park Mafia, who frequently abuses his wife Louise (Chelsey Rives). Angered over Vic's growing relationship with his wife, Marty eventually attempts to kidnap her, forcing Vic to kill him and save Louis.

With Marty dead, Vic takes over his gang and renames it the Vance Crime Family. Aided by his recently arrived brother Lance (Philip Michael Thomas), he slowly begins to take over rackets from rival gangs to increase his power. In the process, he earns the respect of the Los Cabrones, a Cuban street gang led by Umberto Robina (Danny Trejo), for taking out their rivals, and deals with a corrupt DEA agent (Daniel Oreskes) who was posing as a drug dealer to steal the Vance brothers' money. Upon stealing a major drug shipment, Vic and Lance find themselves kidnapped by the Mendez brothers, Armando (Yul Vasquez) and Diego (Ruben Trujillo), Vice City's biggest drug kingpins and the shipment's owners. Lance lies to them that Martinez, who regularly deals with the Mendezes, is an undercover DEA agent and stole the drugs as evidence. After being released, Vic and Lance begin working with the Mendez brothers, who introduces the former to transsexual film director Reni Wassulmaier (Barbara Rosenblat). While assisting Reni and their friend Barry Mickelthwaite (Timothy Spall), the talent manager of Phil Collins (himself), Vic finds himself tasked with protecting Phil from Mafia hitmen, to whom Barry is indebted, before and during his concert in Vice City.

Reni later introduces Vic to Ricardo Diaz (Luis Guzmán), a drug baron who seeks to take over the Mendez brothers' operations and employs Vic and Lance for several jobs. However, Armando and Diego grow distrustful of them, and eventually make an attempt on their lives after Martinez exposes their lie. After escaping the Mendezes' trap, Vic works with Diaz to bankrupt them as revenge. The Mendezes retaliate by kidnapping Louise and Lance, leading to Vic assaulting their mansion and killing Armando, though he fails to rescue Louise, who dies from injuries she received. Swearing revenge against both Diego and Martinez, Vic works alongside Diaz and Phil one final time to track them down and steal an army chopper from Fort Baxter. Using the chopper, Vic assaults Martinez and Diego's hideout and kills both men. After Lance arrives too late to assist, he tries to persuade Vic into taking part in another drug deal that he plans to set up. Vic firmly stands his ground and states that he has no interest in drugs anymore. Lance accepts Vic's choice and the two brothers leave Vice City to give Pete money for his medication.

Kiju Han, a journalist, must face his memories of Vietnam as he writes a series of articles on the subject for his local newspaper. The articles attract a fellow veteran, Chinsu Pyeon, who begins randomly appearing in Han's life. The film, through a series of flashbacks, depicts both the events in Vietnam and their aftermath in the lives of these two soldiers.

Close friends Judd Steiner (based on Nathan Leopold and played by Dean Stockwell) and Artie Strauss (based on Richard Loeb and played by Bradford Dillman) kill a boy, Paulie Kessler, on his way home from school in order to commit the "perfect crime". Strauss tries to cover it up, but they are caught when police find a key piece of evidence — Steiner's glasses, which he inadvertently left at the scene of the crime. Famed attorney Jonathan Wilk (based on Clarence Darrow and played by Orson Welles) takes their case, saving them from hanging by making an impassioned closing argument against capital punishment.

Leonard Junger tries to find a rent-controlled New York City apartment, and to interest various women.

Lon Chaney plays Grumpy Anderson, a railroad engineer with an obsession for running his train on time. His slavishness to promptness causes several tragedies which alienate him from his family. By the story's end, the engineer restores their faith in him and validates his obsession by forcing his train through a flood to bring badly needed Red Cross supplies to the victims.

In London in 1813, a Swiss father, William Robinson, wishes to escape the influence of the superficial profligacy of London on his family. His eldest son, Fritz, is obsessed with Napoleon, whom he considers his hero. His middle son, Jack, is a foolish dandy who cares only about fashion and money. And his dreamy son Ernest is preoccupied with reading and writing to the exclusion of all else.

William Robinson sells his business and house, in order to move with his wife and four sons to Australia. They set out on a brig bound for the faraway country. Following a long voyage, the family is shipwrecked on a remote deserted island after the captain and crew are washed overboard during a storm.

The family members collaborate to create a home for themselves in the alien jungle environment. They gradually learn to use the unfamiliar plants and animals to create what they need to live and thrive. They have many adventures and challenges and make many discoveries. The mother, however, misses her elegant home and community in England, and wishes to somehow be rescued and return. The father slowly convinces her that living in the natural environment is better for the family and that they are meant to be there. In the end, Fritz and Jack board a ship home while the rest of the family stay on the island.

The film opens by describing the final day of Jake Hannaford, an aging Hollywood director who was killed in a car crash on his 70th birthday, with narration from an elderly Brooks Otterlake, who had been a protégé of Hannaford's. Just before his death, Hannaford was trying to revive his waning career by making a flashy film, laden with gratuitous sex scenes and violence, with mixed results. At the time of Hannaford's party, this film (titled ''The Other Side of the Wind'') has been left unfinished after its star stormed off the set, for reasons not immediately apparent to the audience.

A screening of some incomprehensible parts of Hannaford's unfinished experimental film takes place, in order to attract "end money" from studio boss Max David. Hannaford himself is absent, and a loyal member of his entourage, the former child star Billy Boyle, makes an inept attempt to describe what the film is about. Intercut during this, we see various groups setting out for Hannaford's seventieth birthday party at an Arizona ranch. Hannaford arrives with a young Brooks Otterlake, a commercially successful director with a talent for mimicking celebrities, who credits much of his success to his close study of Hannaford.

Many journalists attending the party brandish cameras, and shoot out invasive questions, eventually querying Hannaford's sexuality and whether he has long been a closeted homosexual, in spite of his macho public persona. Hannaford has a history of seducing the wife or girlfriend of each of his leading men, but maintains a strong attraction to the leading men themselves.

Several party guests comment on the conspicuous absence of John Dale, Hannaford's leading man in his latest film, whom Hannaford first discovered when Dale was attempting suicide by jumping into the Pacific Ocean off the Mexican coast. As the party proceeds, Hannaford finds out that Dale's suicide attempt had been faked, and that he had actually set off to Mexico to find Hannaford. Meanwhile, guests are shown more scenes from the film at the ranch's private cinema. One scene makes it clear why Dale left the film – he stormed off the set in anger, in the middle of a sex scene in which he was being goaded by Hannaford off-screen.

As the party continues, Hannaford gets progressively drunker. He is washing his face in the bathroom when he breaks down in front of Otterlake, asking for the young director's help to revive his career. A series of power outages in the middle of Hannaford's party interrupts the screening. The party continues by lantern-light, and eventually reconvenes to an empty drive-in cinema, where the last portion of Hannaford's film is screened.

Having realized at the party that Otterlake is not going to financially support Hannaford's new film, the two have a mournful last exchange in the drive-in theatre, realising that their friendship is at an end. Intrusive journalist Juliette Rich has asked Hannaford the most explicit questions of all about his sexuality. At this moment, Hannaford slaps Rich in drunken outrage, while a drunken Billy Boyle mounts an impassioned defense of the director. As dawn breaks at the ranch, Dale is walking around the mostly empty house, having only just arrived the morning after. He finally arrives at the drive-in just as a drunken Hannaford is leaving and asks him to get in the sports car with him, but Dale does not. Hannaford drives away, leading to his fatal car accident.

Meanwhile, Hannaford's symbolic film finishes screening to a now-almost-empty drive-in theatre. The only person still watching is the actress who starred in it. She watches the final scene, and drives off as Hannaford's closing narration says:

::"Who knows? Maybe you can stare too hard at something, huh? Drain out the virtue, suck out the living juice. You shoot the great places and the pretty people, all those girls and boys – shoot 'em dead."

Plot of the film-within-a-film

Hannaford's experimental film-within-a-film, shot as a spoof of European arthouse cinema typified by Antonioni, and performed without any dialogue, is visually striking, but has very little narrative coherence. The following scenes are shown, in this order: A graphic lesbian steamroom scene, rapidly intercut, featuring Oja Kodar, which Hannaford is in the process of filming at the start. Several expressionistically shot chase scenes between Oja Kodar and Bob Random amid the skyscrapers of Century City, Los Angeles, with various optical illusions, in which it is not immediately apparent whose character is chasing whom. At the end of these scenes, he buys a doll for her, and she rebuffs him, driving off into the night with her boyfriend. The two characters meet again in a nightclub. She steps out into the toilets, where various hippies are engaged in various sex acts, and changes her clothes, before coming back in again. He gives her the doll. She produces a pair of scissors, rapidly cutting the doll's hair, then cutting out its eyes. They step out from the nightclub into her boyfriend's 1968 Ford Mustang fastback. The car takes off in the rainy night, and as the boyfriend drives, the pair have sex in the passenger seat next to him. After a few minutes the boyfriend stops the car, grabs the girl off of Dale, and appears to make an attempt to engage her for himself. She rebukes him and the pair is then tossed out. John Dale, with his pants halfway down, lands in a large puddle. The next morning arrives and Kodar's totally naked character has found shelter in the second story of a house. From there, she climbs carefully out of an open window, drops to the ground, and wanders to an empty railroad car, where she finds Dale asleep on the floor. More chase scenes with optical illusions ensue, around the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios back-lot (including Kodar's character going into Andy Hardy's iconic house). There is then a sex scene on raw bedsprings left on the studio back-lot. Off screen you can hear Hannaford giving Dale direction, and after some awkward badgering, a naked John Dale decides he's had enough and leaves the set. Hannaford watches him go and calls out through the megaphone ..."goodbye Johnny Dale." The production is now without a leading man. There is then a scene – which Hannaford's manager 'The Baron' complains is presented out of sequence – in which a now-clothed John Dale walks alone around a dusty, windy studio back-lot. The final scene features a nude Oja Kodar attacking a giant phallic symbol with a pair of scissors, and it deflating and collapsing in front of her.

The point-of-view character, a physicist with a time-travel theory, is approached by retired Senator William Proxmire. Proxmire has come up with a scheme to abolish such money-wasters (as Proxmire views them) as space travel. His plan is simple; many of those who worked for or advocated space travel cited the science fiction of Robert A. Heinlein as their inspiration. However, the iconic writer only began his career after being discharged from the United States Navy due to tuberculosis. If a time traveler were to cure Heinlein, he would presumably remain in the military and this impact on history would be negated.

Sure enough, the scheme is carried out. However, Proxmire finds out that he has not succeeded as well as he would have liked. Although Heinlein's absence from the literary world of the new timeline ''did'' neutralize the science fiction magazines of the 1950s, other authors took Heinlein's place just a decade later – in mainstream literary magazines such as ''The New Yorker''. Science fiction thus gained an air of respectability, and inspired people to even greater achievements. Proxmire's political career ended when this culture of science fiction fans boycotted Wisconsin cheese in response to his Golden Fleece Awards.

The new timeline is far more technologically advanced; solar power satellites can be seen in the night sky, a lunar colony exists, and a mission to Mars is underway. The healthy Heinlein turned out to be as skilled an officer as he would have been an author, and is now an admiral with great influence over an equally healthy space program – he denies the Russians spacecraft, but has placed a number of cosmonauts on the Mars mission as payment for fusion bombs to be used in the ship's ORION drive.

The plot concerns the efforts of an astronaut and geologist/anthropologist, known to the natives as "Purple", to escape from a primitive world on which he is stranded and return to his people. The events are seen from the perspective of Lant, one of the natives, who becomes, in the course of the novel, Speaker (chieftain) of his people.

The natives, a fur covered people, believe in magic and the book shows how sufficiently advanced technology would be perceived by a primitive society.

Purple lands in an egg-shaped vehicle. He casually disrupts the lives of Lant's people, and thoughtlessly demeans Shoogar, the village magician. Shoogar gets revenge by destroying Purple's vehicle, which results in an atomic explosion. Many of the villagers are dead or injured: the rest, including Lant and Shoogar, are forced to flee. Purple is presumed dead.

The villagers eventually wind up on a fertile peninsula, which, as the summer approaches, is rapidly becoming an island (thanks to the influence of the two suns, the shorelines on this world are somewhat variable). To the annoyance of the existing inhabitants of the area, the villagers contrive to be trapped in the verdant area by the rising seas. The villagers are less happy when they learn that Purple is here, serving ineffectively as local magician, having succeeded the incumbent, Dorthi, by killing him by landing on him in a fall from the sky in an impact suit.

Lant's people wish to flee, but have nowhere to go. Lant, who becomes Speaker of the villagers more or less by default, and the local Speaker persuade the two magicians to swear to a peace treaty.

Purple can call his mother ship to get him, but must return to the distant area of the old village to do so. Everyone is stranded on the island for a considerable length of time. Purple conceives the idea of fabricating a flying machine to return him to the area. He persuades his villagers (who are actually anxious to get rid of him) and Lant's, to join in the scheme.

The ship will have balloons, sails, and pedal-driven steering. A good part of the book deals with the tribulations of Purple in trying to create this work, beyond the technology of the local people. He creates 'aircloth' (a thin, airtight cloth), a rubber-equivalent, and splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. He is successful in building the ship.

But in so doing, he has changed the lives of the villagers forever. Not only do they have these new technologies, but he has created problems with crime, intoxication, the ecology, and has altered the relationship between the sexes. In addition, he has introduced money into the culture.

Purple, Shoogar, Lant, and Lant's adult two sons take off for the old village. They get there, and Purple is able to summon the mother ship and depart. There is a brief epilogue---after the return home, Lant notes that a new flying machine, much larger than the first, is to be built, thus continuing the industrial revolution started by Purple.

When bootleggers Jake Jackson (Walter Percival) and Dan Dickson (Jere Delaney), who have been hiding out in a small upstate New York town, learn that they finally can return to New York City, they try to convince a young kid named Eddie Morgan (Cullen Landis) and his friend, a local barber named Gene (Eugene Palette) to come with them.

With a promise from Jackson and Dickson that they will help the young men establish a barbershop in the city, Eddie asks his mother, Mrs. Morgan (Mary Carr), who owns the town's Morgan Hotel, to loan them $5,000 of her savings. Eddie and Gene set up the barbershop in New York City but soon learn that it is merely a front for a speakeasy.

Frustrated and yearning for a return to the quiet life, Gene and Eddie vow to go home as soon as they earn enough to pay back Mrs. Morgan. Eddie is in love with Kitty Lewis (top-billed Helene Costello), his hometown sweetheart, who preceded him to New York. Now she is a performer at ''The Night Hawk'', a nightclub owned by Hawk Miller (Wheeler Oakman), notorious bootlegger who controls the speakeasy behind the barbershop. Although Hawk's longtime mistress, Molly Thompson (Gladys Brockwell), warns him not to pursue Kitty, he coldly dismisses her, saying that their relationship is over.

After a police officer is killed in a bootlegging raid of a supply of Old Century liquor, Hawk tells his henchmen, Sam (Tom Dugan) and Collins (Tom McGuire), that they must find someone to take the blame to keep the police from closing him down. They suggest that Hawk frame Eddie, thereby "killing two birds with one stone." When Eddie comes to the club to visit Kitty, Hawk summons him to his office and asks him to hide his supply of Old Century, saying that it is only temporary, in case the police raid his club. When Detective Crosby (Robert Elliott) comes to the club to question Hawk and implies that he is behind the policeman's murder, Hawk says that the only person he knows who has a supply of Old Century is Eddie.

A short time later, Hawk goes to the barbershop and is killed by an unknown assailant. Fearing that they will be blamed, Eddie and Gene put Hawk's body in a barber chair and rub his face with shaving cream just as Crosby arrives at the shop. After Eddie leaves, a nervous Gene pretends to shave Hawk, but the body slides from the chair, revealing its identity to Crosby. Although Gene swears that the absent Eddie is innocent, Crosby deduces that Eddie has gone to Kitty's apartment and follows him there. Crosby is about to arrest Eddie and Kitty, when Molly arrives and reveals that she killed Hawk because he no longer wanted her. As there was a reward for the killer of the policeman, dead or alive, Crosby tells Molly that things will not go badly for her. Now freed from their obligation to Hawk, Kitty and Eddie take the next train home.

The protagonist, the Mindworm of the title, is an orphan, the result of a liaison between a U.S. Navy lieutenant and a nurse aboard ship during viewing of early atomic tests. He is a mutant, as a result of the atomic fallout after the testing, and he can "hear" the thoughts of others around him.

Cast out into the world as a young adult, he is about to be gang raped by hoboes when he discovers an ability to feed off strong emotions, killing one of his assailants in the process. He uses this to eliminate the rest of his attackers. He moves from town to town, eavesdropping on the thoughts of people around him, and using his abilities to induce the intense emotion he craves, and to gain material wealth. The thoughts he hears often represent a brutal side of America, as he hears the large and small cruelties people inflict on each other, ranging from family quarrels to beatings carried out in dark alleyways.

He can hear thoughts in other languages, though he cannot understand them. As he moves into communities where new Eastern European immigrants have congregated, he starts hearing the term "wompyear". Just as he realizes that this is their pronunciation of the word "vampire" and they have recognized him, his neighbors burst in and kill him.

In the near future, a race riot results in the destruction of an area just outside Los Angeles. The city sells the construction rights to a private company, which then constructs an arcology, named Todos Santos. The higher standard of living enjoyed by Todos Santos residents causes resentment among Angelenos. The arcology dwellers have evolved a different culture, sacrificing privacy – there are cameras (not routinely monitored) even in the private apartments – in exchange for security. The residents are fiercely loyal to the arcology and its management, and the loyalty runs both ways. During the course of the novel, Todos Santos is compared to a feudal society, with loyalty and obligations running both ways, hence the title of the novel. The systems at the arcology are run by MILLIE, an advanced computer system, and some high-level executives have direct links to MILLIE via bio-electronic implants in their brains. Other workers in the arcology work by telepresence, including one woman who remotely operates construction equipment on a lunar base.

Todos Santos causes resentment among Angelenos, but has improved their lives as well. The company that owns the arcology tows icebergs in, solving the water shortage for all Southern Californians. Todos Santos has dug a Los Angeles subway using a digging machine, which uses an oxyhydrogen torch. Todos Santos is at the hub of the subway system, and contains a huge mall, which Angelenos may visit. This easy access causes Los Angeles' city officials to complain about the shopping dollars and tax revenues going outside the city limits.

As the story opens, three young Angelenos sneak into the maintenance areas of Todos Santos. When they are detected by Todos Santos' security systems and personnel, they give every appearance of being terrorists, including spoofing the correct electronic access codes. When non-lethal means of stopping the three fail, Deputy Manager Preston Sanders orders lethal gas released rather than risk a bomb going off. Two of the intruders are killed. They turn out to be youths, with high tech equipment and boxes with such labels as "bomb", but without the actual means of harming the arcology. It soon turns out that they were duped by the "Friends of Man and the Earth" (FROMATE), anti-technology zealots who want to see Todos Santos destroyed or abandoned, as a means of forcing the arcology to turn off its lethal defenses for a later real attack.

The deaths of the two youths cause political problems. Sanders is charged with murder. While arcology manager Art Bonner is quite prepared to defy the city authorities, Sanders turns himself in. The arcology is forced to turn off its lethal defenses as the FROMATEs planned. When that happens, they soon face a full-fledged attack by the FROMATEs, which they deter by non-lethal means, until the intruders prove they have deadly weapons, at which point Todos Santos security responds in kind, shooting and killing most of the intruders. While city authorities are still reacting to this, the arcology launches a jailbreak, the idea of chief engineer (and resident genius) Tony Rand. They tunnel under the jail using the tunneling machine that the "Saints" used to build the L.A. subway, release sleep gas into the jail, and free Sanders.

Los Angeles soon retaliates with arrest and search warrants, but they are soon defeated by the sheer size of the arcology and the ability of the Todos Santos executives, aided in part by their direct links to MILLIE, to hide Rand and Sanders. After Todos Santos shows that it can cause Los Angeles trouble, such as by contaminating the Los Angeles water supply with salt water, and by work stoppages among the telepresence operators, a truce is arrived at: Rand and Sanders will leave the country permanently, and relations between Los Angeles and Todos Santos will be restored. In effect, Todos Santos has won, if only by restoring the ''status quo ante.''

Notable Quote: "Think of it as Evolution in Action" (Tony Rand)

Setting

''Ai no Kusabi'' takes place on the world of Amoi, which is ruled by a computer named Jupiter. After initially being a product of unrestricted scientific research, Jupiter gained self awareness, and overthrew its human creators. It banished humans from Amoi's central city, Tanagura, and created its own, improved, version of humanity - the Elites. Elites are cyborgs, their bodies entirely artificial, save for their enhanced, organic brains.

The human population was relegated to second class citizens who now lived in Midas, Tanagura's satellite city. Jupiter imposed strict social norms both on the elites and on the humans: Noram, the class system which, based on their hair colour, ranked the elites and assigned them specific social roles, and Zein which controlled and determined every facet of human life in Midas (and was not based on hair colour).

Eventually, tired of their lack of freedom, some humans rebelled against Jupiter in what was known as the Ceres Independence Rebellion. Jupiter graciously allowed them this independence without bloodshed, but what seemed to be a victory soon proved to be pyrrhic. Ceres was cut off from the rest of Midas and no longer acknowledged by Tanagura, and was left to fend for itself - a task it failed to do. Eventually, the area descended into chaos and became the slums. Its denizens, now derided as slum mongrels, were viewed as the lowest class, abhorred by the rest of Midas. Ceres was no longer bound by Zein and unlike Midas, practiced natural reproduction, however for reasons unknown to them, the birthrate of boys was much greater to that of girls, which resulted in the skewed ratio where males outnumbered females 9 to 1.

The society of the elites, who enjoyed every luxury possible, put great value on social class. Pets, who were genetically engineered humans bred in various "production centers" in Midas, were kept by the elite for entertainment and served as status symbols. It was expected that the pedigree and rank of the pet would be appropriate to that of its elite owner, with Academy produced pure bred pets reserved for the highest ranks - the 13 Blondies. As cyborgs with an artificial body, elites themselves had no interest in sex, however the pets were used for voyeuristic entertainment and were made to copulate with each other at so called "mating parties", as the elites observed. They were not viewed as having intrinsic value and were at complete mercy of their owners, to be treated as nothing more than pretty decorations to be discarded once they served their purpose.

Tending to both pets and the elites were "Furniture", castrated, adolescent boys viewed as nothing more than objects. They were "installed" in each elite's domicile and expected to take care of the home as well as their master's and pet's every need.

The film starts as the Looking Glass recaps the story of "Snow White". The cruel evil Queen is gone forever (following her death), and the kingdom is now at peace as Snow White and the Prince prepare to get married.

Meanwhile, back at the late Queen's castle, her animal minions celebrate their freedom by throwing a party for themselves. The Queen's equally evil wizard brother, Lord Maliss, arrives at the castle, looking for his sister. After learning about the Queen's recent demise, he vows to avenge her death by any means. He transforms into a wyvern and takes control of the castle, transforming the area surrounding both the castle and the kingdom into a perilous wasteland. Afterwards, Scowl the owl starts training his companion, a purple bat named Batso, on the ways of evil.

The next day, Snow White and the Prince are in the meadow picking flowers for their wedding, when Maliss, in his wyvern form, begins attacking Snow White and the Prince as they are traveling to the cottage of the Seven Dwarfs. Unfortunately Scowl who's trying to help Maliss got in his way when trying to capture Snow White again, He captures the Prince, who tried to fight him off but was knocked unconscious by Maliss' magic, but Snow White manages to flee into the woods and reaches the cottage of the Seven Dwarfs.

The next day, Snow White meets the Dwarves' female cousins, the Seven "Dwarfelles": Muddy, Sunburn, Blossom, Marina, Critterina, Moonbeam, and Thunderella. She learns that The Dwarves have left the cottage after they bought another mine in a different kingdom, but the Dwarfelles gladly assist Snow White, taking her to visit Mother Nature at Rainbow Falls. Mother Nature has given the Dwarfelles individual powers to assist her; she holds Thunderella accountable for not being able to master her powers correctly, accuses the other Dwarfelles of improperly using their powers, and threatens to take them away as punishment if they don't learn. Maliss attacks them, but Mother Nature shoots him with lightning, causing him to crash and return him to his human form. Before leaving, Maliss informs Snow White that the Prince is being held captive in his castle.

Snow White and the Dwarfelles travel to Maliss' castle in the Realm of Doom, encountering a strange cloaked humanoid known as the Shadow Man, along the way. Maliss sends his horned wolves after the group and they manage to escape with the help of the Shadow Man. Maliss is furious at this failure and transforms into his wyvern form, finally succeeded in capturing Snow White by himself and taking her to his castle. The Dwarfelles follow them and sneak into the castle as well, while fending off Maliss' minions, including Scowl and Batso.

In the castle, Snow White is reunited with her Prince, who begins acting strangely, and takes her through a secret passage to supposedly escape. When Snow White realizes that he is not the real Prince but he is actually Lord Maliss in disguise. Maliss attempts to throw a magical red cloak on Snow White to petrify her into stone. He almost succeeds, but he is attacked by the Shadow Man, whom he overpowers and seemingly kills. As Maliss tries again to petrify Snow White, the seven Dwarfelles arrive and attack him as well, but fail to do so and become petrified by Maliss. The only one unharmed is Thunderella, who finally gains control of her powers and assists Snow White to defeat Maliss. The cloak is thrown on top of him and he is permanently petrified in mid-transition between his human and wyvern forms.

As the sun shines onto the castle, the Dwarfelles are restored back to their normal selves while Snow White tearfully mourns the "Shadow Man" believing that she has lost both him and her prince until Mother Nature arrives at the scene. Suddenly, the Shadow Man wakes up and he turns out to be the Prince; as he is waking up he comforts Snow White, telling her not to cry as she notices that he is back to his normal self. The Prince reveals that Maliss had cast a spell on him and he has been watching over Snow White during her journey, guarding her with his life. Mother Nature decides to let the Dwarfelles keep their powers because they have finally proven themselves by working together as one, and she allows them to attend Snow White's wedding.

In the end, Mother Nature takes in Batso and Scowl to be trained as her new apprentices; in the process, Scowl has stopped smoking-(thanks to Sunburn) and is able to breathe again as he wasn't able to before, he then comments to Batso that working for Mother Nature won't be so bad. With Snow White and the Prince reunited with each other, the film ends as the two of them share a kiss, and begin to live happily ever after.

The story opens with a panoramic view of the Salinas Valley in winter. The focus narrows and finally settles on Elisa Allen, cutting down the spent stalks of chrysanthemums, in the garden on her husband’s ranch. Elisa is thirty-five, lean and strong, and she approaches her gardening with great energy. Her husband, Henry, comes from across the yard, where he had been arranging the sale of the thirty steers. Then he offers to take Elisa to town so they can celebrate the sale. He praises her skill with flowers, and she congratulates him on doing well in the negotiations for the steer. They seem to be a well-matched couple, though their way of talking together is formal and serious. While talking about their plan to go out, Henry jokingly asks Elisa if she would like to see a fight. Showing no interest, Elisa refuses and says she wouldn't like it. They agree on dinner and a movie instead. Elisa decides to finish her transplanting before they get ready to leave for town.

Elisa hears “a squeak of wheels and a plod of hoofs,” and a man drives up in an old spring wagon (He is never named; the narrator simply calls him “the man”). Earning a meagre living, he fixes pots and sharpens scissors and knives. He travels from San Diego to Seattle and back every year. The man chats and jokes with Elisa, but she admits that she has no work for him to do. When he presses for a small job, she becomes annoyed and tries to send him away.

Suddenly, the man’s attention turns to the flowers that Elisa is tending. When he asks about them, Elisa’s annoyance vanishes and she becomes friendly again. The man remembers seeing chrysanthemums before and describes them: “Kind of a long-stemmed flower? Looks like a quick puff of colored smoke?”. Elisa is delighted with his description. The man tells her about one of his regular customers who also gardens. He claims this customer has asked him to bring her some chrysanthemum seeds if he ever finds some in his travels, and Elisa is happy to oblige. She invites the man into the yard and prepares a pot of chrysanthemum shoots for the putative woman’s garden. She gives him full instructions for tending them. Elisa envies the man’s life on the road and is attracted to him because he understands her love of flowers. In a moment of extreme emotion, she nearly reaches for him but snatches her hand back before she touches him. Instead, she finds him two pots to mend, and he drives away with fifty cents and the chrysanthemum shoots, promising to take care of them until he can deliver the chrysanthemums to the other woman.

Elisa goes into the house to get dressed for dinner. She scrubs herself vigorously and examines her naked body in the mirror before putting on her dress and makeup. When Henry sees her, he compliments her, telling her she looks "nice," “different, strong and happy”. When Henry and Elisa drive into town, she sees "a dark speck" ahead on the road. It turns out the man tossed her chrysanthemum shoots out of his wagon, but kept the pot Elisa had put them in. She feels hurt. Henry does not notice and Elisa does not mention it to him. It's then that Elisa brings up an interest in the fights that night. She asks if "women ever go to the fights". Henry answers "Oh sure, some", but reminds her that she probably wouldn't like it. She agrees and says the night out alone will be plenty. She turns her head so he cannot see her crying. She also says she feels like an old woman.

There is unrest in the upper class Marshwood house as Nigel, the Earl of Marshwood, is engaged to a film actress, Miranda Frayle. However, many disapprove because this would mean Nigel would be marrying below his class.

When Nigel brings Miranda home to the Marshwood estate to meet his family, Lady Marshwood's maid Moxie reveals that Miranda is her sister; they devise a charade so that Moxie may meet her sister as an equal. However, when Miranda lies about her past (stating she's a cockney and that Moxie was a drunk and is now dead), Moxie finds it harder and harder to hide her identity. Meanwhile, Miranda's ex-boyfriend and fellow film star Don Lucas arrives, wanting Miranda back.