The story starts with the attack upon Dana MacArthur, daughter of a Cabal employee. Dismayed by her inability to persuade other witches to form a new coven because of their disapproval of her relationship with Lucas Cortez, Paige Winterbourne is not entirely happy to find his father - Benicio Cortez - on her doorstep with news of the new case.

Lucas and Paige decide to travel to Miami to visit his father and introduce Paige to the family, as well as to hear further details about the attack. They discover that Dana's is only one of a series of similar attacks upon the children of Cabal employees. That night another child, the son of Benicio's bodyguard is killed. The father, Griffin, asks Paige and Lucas to investigate.

Concerned about Savannah, they arrange for her to stay with the werewolf Pack. They then arrange to meet up with Jaime Vegas, a necromancer. Jaime manages to contact Dana, who is believed to be in a coma, getting what details she can from her about the attack. In the process she discovers the girl is dead.

Investigation leads them to the home of Everett Weber. They are unable to find him, but do find a lot of encrypted computer files. Paige breaks the code to reveal a list of the children of Cabal employees. They track down Weber, but before they can persuade him to come with him peacefully, a Cabal SWAT team cause a hostage situation. Paige is injured and Everett taken into custody.

The trial results in Weber's swift execution, but almost immediately another child is killed - the grandson of Thomas Nast.

Jaime, Lucas and Paige go out to the swamp where Weber would be buried to contact him. They meet Esus. He gives them details about the man who hired Weber. When they continue to investigate, they start to be plagued by a ghost, but Jaime struggles to contact it. Eventually, they discover that the ghost is that of a vampire.

Their search leads them to the home of Edward and Natasha, two immortality-quester vampires. Natasha has been killed, she is the ghost, and Edward is looking for revenge. They set a trap, but it backfires. Lucas is shot, and both he and Paige find themselves in the land of the dead. There Paige meets Savannah's mother, Eve, who guides her. The Fates offer them a choice, and their decision returns them to the land of the living, where they find the werewolves have begun to search for them.

A trap is set for Edward at a charity ball, but it goes wrong. Jaime is kidnapped and Benicio ignores the plan in order to save his son. Jeremy, Savannah and Paige help to save everyone. Benicio executes Edward.

Jack Bauer has a bit of a problem with a recent mission. Subsequently, he must accompany the prisoner, FBI agent Frank Hensley (who was later revealed to be an Iraqi agent) and other government officials. The plane crashes and all chaos breaks loose - Frank Hensley frames Jack Bauer for the murder of two FBI agents, Ryan Chappelle has trouble helping Jack from LA, and a weapon has been stolen that could potentially release a virus deadly to the whole of America. Jack Bauer must use all his skill and recruit the help of some Irish woman (Caitlin) in order to break down a highly complicated conspiracy that leads to the government.

Half-demon Hope Adams loves her job. Granted, working for True News tabloid isn’t quite the career her high-society family had in mind for her. What they don’t know is that the tabloid job is just a cover, a way for her to investigate stories with a paranormal twist, and help protect the supernatural world from exposure. When Hope’s “handler” sends her and a date to a museum charity gala, Hope suspects there’s more to it than a free perk. He’s tested her before. This time, she’s ready for whatever he throws her way. Or so she thinks...until she meets her target: werewolf thief, Karl Marsten...

In this story the half-demon Xavier calls in a favour - steal Jack the Ripper's From Hell letter away from a Toronto collector who had himself stolen it from the British police files. It seems simple, but in the process Elena accidentally triggers a spell placed on the letter which opens a portal into the nether regions of Victorian London. With thieving vampires, killer rats and unstoppable zombies on the loose, Elena and the Pack must find a way to close the portal before it is too late. To add to the confusion, Elena herself is pregnant with Clay's child (actually twins).

The story begins with Elena worrying about her current pregnancy. She has concerns about what effect her werewolf nature will have on the unborn child, something with no recorded precedent in Pack knowledge. Clay and Jeremy, also concerned, have imposed a number of restrictions on her actions too, which Elena accepts but is also frustrated by. She is, therefore, not entirely displeased to hear from Xavier Reese who offers her a deal: he will hand over information about a rogue mutt the Pack have been seeking in exchange for the Pack's help in stealing an artefact from a sorcerer - the From Hell letter.

The deal is agreed to and, after the mutt has been dealt with, Jeremy steals the letter. As they leave, however, Clay squashes a mosquito and smears Elena's blood on the document. This activates an inter-dimensional portal, which releases individuals previously entrapped there during the Victorian era. Now zombies, these track Elena, putting her and her unborn offspring at risk.

Attempting to rescue her, the Pack kill these zombies, but to their shock they keep returning. In addition, cholera has infected the Toronto water-supply and the city's rats have become diseased and aggressive. Modern individuals disappear through the portal by accident, whilst murders take place that lead them to suspect that they have released Jack the Ripper himself upon an unsuspecting public.

''Such Is My Beloved'' takes place in a city experiencing the economic hardships of the Great Depression. The main character is Father Stephen Dowling, a young, exuberant priest searching for the meaning of God's love. Dowling decides to try to help two young prostitutes, Ronnie and Midge, turn their lives around. The priest goes to great lengths to try to help them, such as giving them money and clothes, while trying to find them jobs. As the story progresses, Dowling becomes increasingly involved in the girls’ lives. He exhibits agape for the prostitutes and does everything he can to help them redeem their lives. His relationship with the prostitutes is condemned by his rich, self-righteous parishioners and his bishop. In the end, the girls are arrested for prostitution and sent away. Dowling feels that he has failed the girls and becomes grief-stricken. His anguish over the girls’ fate causes him to lose his sanity and subsequently he is removed from the church and sent away to an insane asylum. In the end, Dowling has a beautiful moment of clarity in which he sacrifices his own sanity to God to spare the girls’ souls. The novel closes on his realization of the purely Christian love he bears for Ronnie, Midge and for all of humanity.

Nicky Rogan has written several plays and has achieved success. It's now opening night of his latest effort and everyone around him assure him that this one will be the best yet. But as opening hour approaches, Rogan falls prey to doubts and fears, egged on by another playwright whose last work was trashed by the local newspaper's new drama critic, Steven Schwimmer. He eventually lets those fears drive him to resolve to kill the critic (who he assumes will also trash his play) and he procures a handgun with which to perform the deed.

Instead of attending the play's opening night, Rogan spends time in a bar, accompanied by a lady cab driver and her grandson; earlier in the evening she misidentified Rogan as a local, small-time hoodlum but he doesn't correct her misidentification.

They watch the crucial Game 6 of the 1986 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Mets. The Sox have won 3 games and could clinch the title by winning Game 6 but Rogan, a lifelong Sox fan, knows how easily the team can lose when they should win. He spends the evening waiting for the inevitable, even though the Sox are leading most of the time. When the inevitable does occur (due to an unexpected pair of errors at the end of the final inning), he snaps and leaves to take out his rage on the newspaper critic.

Rogan not only finds the critic but sees him in the early stages of deflowering the playwright's daughter. He begins firing wildly and is finally calmed when he learns the critic is equally devastated by the Sox's loss. They end up together, watching an interminable rerun of the final error by Bill Buckner on a small television set in the critic's apartment.

The game's setting in respect to the novels is ambiguous; the storyline was said to precede the novels by some 150 years. Although Robert Jordan was consulted, the game's storyline is not considered canonical for the Wheel of Time setting.

Elayna Sedai of the Brown Ajah, Keeper of the Chronicles, the protagonist and the player's alter ego, is reading a report from an expedition she sent out when she is attacked by an unknown assassin in her office in the White Tower. She is knocked out, and he makes off with an odd, horn-shaped ''ter’angreal'' but not the ''cuendillar'' seals he was looking for. The Amyrlin subsequently sends Elayna to recover the mysterious ''ter’angreal'', being told only that it is very important.

Elayna follows the assassin and his army of Trollocs to the crumbling city of Shadar Logoth, which is inhabited by unknown evil creatures. She tracks the assassin through the city, battling Trollocs and dark creatures along the way and finally corners the assassin, who admits that he was hired by the Forsaken Ishamael. Ishamael is seeking the seals held by the Amyrlin. The assassin agrees to return the ''ter’angreal'' in return for his life. Just as Elayna retrieves the ''ter’angreal'', the assassin is assailed by Mashadar, the evil that consumed Shadar Logoth, manifested as a mist-like creature.

Upon returning to Tar Valon, Elayna finds the White Tower besieged by Trollocs. After helping to secure the tower, Elayna is told that the Amyrlin wants to see her in the basement with the ''ter’angreal''. On her way to the basement, Elayna overhears a group of Black Ajah Aes Sedai with the assassin from Shadar Logoth and another Aes Sedai named Sephraem, all of whom are working for Ishamael.

When Elayna finds the Amyrlin, she tells her of the Black Ajah. The Amyrlin then tells Elayna of the importance of the odd ''ter’angreal'': Elayna, a weak channeller, has the potential to be the most powerful being on earth. Since her childhood, the Amyrlin has shielded Elayna from the One Power for her own protection, and the odd ''ter’angreal'' is able to unlock that power. Just as the Amyrlin is about to use the ''ter’angreal'' on Elayna, the assassin and Sephraem break in, kill the Amyrlin, and take the ''ter’angreal'' as well as the Amyrlin's seal.

Elayna takes a few moments to mourn the Amyrlin's passing, then pursues the assassin and his minions as the new acting Amyrlin. They lead her to an empty Aes Sedai expedition site outside a Whitecloak fortress. She is captured by the Whitecloaks and thrown in the dungeon, where a few of the Aes Sedai are located. Elayna learns that some Aes Sedai were able to escape through a portal stone outside the fortress. She manages to escape from her cell and makes her way to the portal stone.

The portal takes her into the Mountains of Mist, near the fortress of Ishamael. She finds the escaped Aes Sedai in the dungeon of the fortress, rescues them, and defends them while they make their way back to the portal stone. Once they are all away, she begins to search the fortress for the Amyrlin's seal, which the assassin, now referred to as the Hound, brought to the fortress.

While searching the fortress, she finds some notes on a long lost ritual to remove from the seals the power with the intent to release the Dark Lord from his prison. She eventually finds the seal, guarded by Sephraem. After defeating her and claiming the seal, Elayna is captured by Ishamael, who prepares to torture her. The Hound comes in and uses the odd ''ter’angreal'' to trap Ishamael in a Shield. He then explains that he has succumbed to the chaotic evil of Shadar Logoth, and how he purposefully pitted Ishamael, the Aes Sedai and the Whitecloaks against each other to sow chaos. Elayna and Ishamael are able to escape the Hound's grasp, and Elayna begins gathering seals to complete the aforementioned ritual.

Once they are gathered, Elayna travels to Shayol Ghul, where the ritual must be performed. The Hound arrives, offering to trade the odd ''ter’angreal'', which could bestow untold powers on Elayna, for the seals. To his surprise, Elayna refuses the offer, noting how she had spent her life without those powers. She sends the Hound falling to his death with the artifact and completes the ritual, ensuring that the Dark Lord cannot escape his prison until the Last Battle.

The series is set between 2006–2008 in a world where superheroes exist. However, most of the superheroes in the series' universe are corrupted by their celebrity status and often engage in reckless behavior, compromising the safety of the world. The story follows a small clandestine CIA squad, informally known as "The Boys", led by Billy Butcher and comprising Mother's Milk, the Frenchman, the Female, and new addition "Wee" Hughie Campbell, who are charged with monitoring the superhero community, often leading to gruesome confrontations and dreadful results; in parallel, a key subplot follows Annie "Starlight" January, a young and naive superhero who joins the Seven, the most prestigious—and corrupted—superhero group in the world and The Boys' most powerful enemies.

John Leeming is every sergeant's worst nightmare — immune to discipline and punishment, and given to random acts of defiance, such as wearing his cap backwards on parade for no particular reason. Thus when a mission to fly a prototype spaceship behind enemy lines comes up, he is the ideal candidate to fly it.

The ship is untested, but should be able to outrun anything else in the galaxy. It has no weapons, but is an ideal long-range spy vessel for discovering more about the enemy Lathians and their allies. Since the odds of returning alive are pretty slim, it is also an ideal way of dealing with Leeming. For his part, Leeming is ready to jump at any alternative to life in barracks and the stockade.

For a while the mission goes well, but eventually some of the ship's "propulsors" fail after long use, and Leeming is forced to land on a world far inside enemy territory, which turns out to be inhabited by a dour, reptilian race who make ideal prison guards.

Leeming winds up in one half of a POW camp, of which the other half is inhabited by members of an allied race. Unfortunately, they have never seen a human and so do not trust him. He begins to cultivate an imaginary friend whom he calls Eustace. He convinces the guards that Eustace can go anywhere and spy for him, and also that every human has a Eustace who can do the same. In addition, a Eustace will wreak revenge on anyone who harms their partner. As luck would have it, one guard he threatens with Eustace is shot for allowing a mass escape attempt of the other prisoners.

Furthermore, Leeming alleges that the Lathians, the leaders of the enemy alliance, have invisible companions called Willies, although these are far inferior to Eustaces. He tells the aliens to ask human prisoners on other planets two questions: "Do the Lathians have the Willies?" ("willies" being slang for a feeling of anxiety) and "Are the Lathians nuts?", a "nut", according to Leeming, being someone with an invisible companion. Leeming's captors are convinced by the responses and fear that if they accept more human prisoners, they will have thousands of invisible Eustaces running wild across their planet and causing mayhem. They release Leeming and smuggle him home, at the same time withdrawing from the Lathian alliance and convincing other races to do the same. The enemy alliance collapses, and the Lathians have to make peace.

On arriving home, Leeming's behaviour is, if anything, even more erratic and insubordinate than ever. It is not clear if this is due to his sense of elation at having beaten his captors, or to his having suffered a nervous breakdown from the stresses he has endured.

The plot has obvious similarities to E. H. Jones's ''The Road to En-Dor'' – an account of that author's escape from the Yozgad prisoner of war camp in Turkey during World War I.

Doctors Kazamatsuri and Onizuka are geneticists, researching cures for diseases such as AIDS and cancer by performing experiments to strengthen the human body. The test subject, Shin Kazamatsuri, races motorcycles and is Doctor Kazamatsuri's son. Unknown to the doctors, their operation is funded by a syndicate group who plans to use the research to have the bodies of men strengthened for their own gain. The Doctors were previously unsuccessful with experiments on cyborg soldiers. However, they did not count on Onizuka's own secret ambitions: he wants to create a new species of soldiers by fusing the DNA of a grasshopper and test subjects to start a new civilization and be their God. He may have tested it on himself, but seems to be having greater success with Shin.

Meanwhile, a creature is stalking the city, killing people, as Shin dreams of that creature. While Shin believes he is the one causing the murders, he eventually finds Onizuka's plan and discovers that Onizuka is behind the killings. Onizuka has experimented on himself and altered his genes, making him a humanoid grasshopper. The telepathy of grasshoppers allowed him to communicate with Shin, making Shin a witness to the murders.

The syndicate learns of Onizuka's plans and they institutionalize him. A CIA agent tracks Shin and wants him eliminated, for he doesn't know the true threat Shin could pose. Repulsed, Shin investigates all he can about the experiment.

Stan and Ollie are suffering during the Great Depression and begging for food. A friendly old lady provides them with some sandwiches. Enjoying their meal, they hear that the old lady will be thrown out of her house because she is robbed and cannot pay her mortgage. They don't know that the old lady is rehearsing a play. Stan and Ollie decide to repay the old lady by selling their car. During the auction a drunken man (Billy Gilbert) puts a wallet in Stan's pocket. Ollie accuses Stan of having robbed the old lady, but when they return to the old lady's place they hear the truth. Stan takes revenge on Ollie.

''Age of the Five'' is set in a universe overseen by a pantheon of five gods (the Circle) who are the only apparent survivors of the War of the Gods. Before this war, it is understood that hundreds of gods existed on Earth. The Five control the destiny of the northern half of the world through a priesthood known as the White (the Circle's five representatives in the human world, Ithania). In southern Ithania live opponents of the White, who claim to worship five different gods (known as the Five). Both factions vie for control over their opponents, and eventually engage in war.

Auraya (protagonist) is chosen to be a White. Beginning with diplomatic missions, she later moves on to fighting in a major battle between the north and the south. She discovers she has innate powers far exceeding those of her peers; it later turns out that she is a potential new Wild (a group of immortal sorcerers who have been persecuted by the will of the gods). Later in the series the Wilds are discovered to be at the final stage before godhood, and they discover a way to kill the existing pantheon of gods. Throughout the series Auraya's attitude towards her gods changes from obedience to distrust to hatred, as she realizes their moral defects.

In the end, the pantheon are trapped by the Wilds, whereupon one of the Gods commits suicide killing all the other gods too. The epilogue reveals that humanity spends the next fifty years warring in the power vacuum left by the gods until a new religion (with a single, all-powerful god, the Maker) is adopted by the Sennon emperor to keep the peace.

A group of gypsy caravans set up on the edge of a wood. They realise they are camped on the estate of Count Arnheim who will not tolerate their presence. The gypsies sing and dance to entertain themselves.

Stanley Laurel and Oliver Hardy are the misfit pair of Gypsies in the group. When hen-pecked Oliver is out pickpocketing, fortune-telling or attending his zither lessons, his wife (Mae Busch) has an affair with Devilshoof (Antonio Moreno). A cruel nobleman, Count Arnheim (William P. Carleton), persecutes the Gypsies, who are forced to flee, but Mrs Hardy, in revenge for Devilshoof being lashed by the count's orders, kidnaps his daughter, Arline (Darla Hood), and Mrs. Hardy fools Hardy into thinking she is their daughter since he believes everything she tells him. She soon elopes with Devilshoof, and leaves Oliver and "Uncle" Stanley holding the toddler. Arline is too young to remember her old life.

Twelve years later, the Gypsies return to Arnheim's estate. When grown-up Arline (Jacqueline Wells) accidentally trespasses in Arnheim's garden, she recognises the place and Arnheim's voice, but is arrested by a constable (Jimmy Finlayson) and sentenced to a lashing. Stan and Oliver try to save her, but Stan is too drunk and both are arrested. Just as Arline is stripped in order to be lashed, she is rescued in time by Arnheim, who recognises a medallion she wears and a family birthmark, and both try to rescue Stan and Oliver. It is too late though: Laurel and Hardy had already been worked over in the torture chamber: Hardy emerges stretched to a height of eight feet, while Stan has been crushed to only a few feet tall and the constable just stands yelling and moaning.

A mysterious villain who calls himself the Dragon is attempting to prevent International Airways from beginning service in Mongolia, in order to protect the secret of the mountain of jade for himself.

The serial features a dungeon in the nearby monastery, the kidnapping of an archeologist who stumbles onto the secret, his daughter's attempts to rescue him with Ace's help, a death ray the Dragon uses on the airline pilots, a radio system by which The Dragon communicates with his henchmen via the rotation of Buddhist prayer wheels (each transmission concluding "The Dragon commands!"), and a squadron of his own fighter planes.

Six hundred years ago, a mighty treasure fleet set out to sail the oceans of the world. They reached every continent, discovered every land long before history's great explorers stole the credit for their feats. Now, in modern-day Los Angeles, seven men with nothing in common but their destinies are drawn together in the service of a mysterious young woman. An ancient prophecy must be fulfilled. Something terrible is reaching out across the centuries. There's a world to be saved... and the only hope for us all is a motley crew of so-called brothers and a power too terrifying to be used.

The land is under the cruel control of three evil demonic dragons, who descended on a kingdom to bring darkness and destruction. From the ruins emerged a barbarian hero, who seeks to slay the dragons and restore the kingdom to its former glory.

Caterina (Alice Teghil) is the 13-year-old only child of Giancarlo Iacovoni (Sergio Castellitto), an aspiring novelist and teacher of accounting at a country school in an area north of Rome that one character describes as "hillbilly country." In spite of his often lucid assessments of modern society, Iacovoni is a typically burned-out teacher whom his job (perhaps among other, undisclosed personal experiences) has imbued with bitterness and social resentment, with a sheer lack of perspective concerning human relations, and with an overbearing, holier-than-thou demeanor that is a major plot point throughout the movie.

He relocates his daughter Caterina and his timid, long-suffering wife Agata (Margherita Buy) to his birthplace, Rome, after having finally secured a long-coveted teaching position. The family settles in Giancarlo's former district, where he reconnects with his neighbor and childhood friend, Fabietto (Silvio Vannucci). Once settled in the Italian capital, Caterina enrolls in a fast-track high school. She immediately finds herself pulled between two competing student cliques: a leftist bohemian contingent headed by Margherita Rossi-Chaillet and a right-leaning group headed by Daniela Germano. Both clique leaders come from socially prominent families. Margherita's mother is a noted intellectual and political writer. Daniela's father is a right-wing government minister (loosely inspired by real politician Gianfranco Fini) who married into a wealthy family.

Margherita instantly adopts Caterina as her new best friend. The two girls attend rallies, visit graves of poets, and listen to Nick Cave records. Margherita kisses Caterina, but it's a bit ambiguous as to whether this is to imply sexuality or a pact between them, as she says, to never betray each other. Caterina eventually has a disagreement with Margherita due to being caught by her father drunk and having just gotten a tattoo from Margherita, and begins to gravitate toward Daniela's group. Daniela invites Caterina to join her at a wedding, where Caterina observes a group of neo-fascists pay homage to Daniela's father Manlio who, it is heavily implied, is a covert fascist himself. There is also a subtle hint at an intimate relationship between Daniela and her father's bodyguard.

Meanwhile, Caterina's father is trying to capitalize on his daughter's connections. While Caterina is friends with Margherita, Giancarlo secretly gives Margherita a copy of his manuscript to pass along to her mother (with instructions not to tell Caterina), a highly placed editor. Once Caterina becomes friends with Daniela, Giancarlo pays a visit to Daniela's father's office to solicit favors, after having become enraged on a talk show and a laughing stock. He was fired due to hitting a student who was mocking his TV performance and lost his job, leading him to his visit with Signor Germano. After failing to get help from this source as well, he slowly becomes more and more despondent. Caterina then finds out that Daniela and her friends don't like her and "tried to make her civilised", a disappointment which is compounded by a failed romantic liaison with a wealthy boy from Daniela's clique whom his grandmother forbids from seeing Caterina again. She then lashes out at Daniela and runs away from home only then taking comfort with her neighbor, a young Australian about her age. He has been watching their family and describes them as a soap opera and that she is his favorite character. She then returns home but her family is still in misery. Her father, then, begins shouting about all that matters in the world is tightly knit groups. This is one of the first moments in the movie where Caterina's mother shows her stress and unhappiness by screaming and smashing plates on the floor.

Caterina's father remains in his miserable life only working on his motorcycle until he fixes it. Once he does, his newfound optimism is cut short when he casually finds out that either his wife and Fabietto are having an affair or it is a mere question of time before they do—a fact all the more surprising to him since he had surmised Fabietto to be gay. Unaware that her husband is listening, Agata concedes to Fabietto that she wants to leave Giancarlo but is unable because she doesn't think he could make it on his own. Upon hearing this, Giancarlo then rides off on his motorcycle and is never heard of again; as phrased by Caterina, he "doesn't bother our family more, we like to think he's in a place that's making him happy".

Caterina graduates middle school and is encouraged by Margherita to apply to the conservatory of music. Before leaving on holiday, her young Australian friend explains that he is going back to Australia because his parents are getting back together. She then tells him that, if they ever meet again, she would like to be his girlfriend. She abruptly kisses him; embarrassed she runs back to her mother's car wanting to speed off. The summer includes her playing with her second cousin on the beach, while spending time with her mother and Fabietto. The last shots are of Caterina singing in a performance at her conservatory of music.

"The Lion" will be landing. And at New York's JFK Airport, an elite American task force waits as the notorious Libyan terrorist prepares to defect to the West. Then, aboard Flight 175, something goes eerily, horribly wrong - a mere prelude to the terror that is to come. Ex-NYPD cop, now Task Force contract agent John Corey - together with his formidable and beautiful new partner, Kate Mayfield - will follow a trail of smoke and blood across the country. His quarry: a foe with the cunning of a man and all the bloodlust of a lion . To win a desperate game with no rules at all, Corey must invent a strategy that leaves room for no luck at all.

In 1997, NYPD detective John Corey is on the back porch of his uncle's waterfront home on the North Fork of Long Island recovering from three gunshot wounds while working in his town of Manhattan, NY. He enjoys the fact that the tourist season is just about over so that it's just him and the locals. He listens to music while sitting in a chair and using binoculars to spy on people in a distant boat who are enjoying themselves. The local police chief, Sylvester Maxwell, comes to the back porch and asks Corey to act as consultant in a local murder investigation, as Corey is personally acquainted with the two victims, Tom and Judy Gordon, both employees on the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, a facility suspected of carrying out biological warfare research. They go to the house the victims owned, a waterfront property that appears to have been robbed or searched, and where the two victims have been shot in the head on their own dock. Corey concludes that the victims were near their killer because it is hard to hit a person in the head with one shot at such a range. They cannot find the bullet shells, but by the direction of the wounds conclude that the bullets are in the bay. Max is unhappy because although he's not a homicide detective, his expectations of Corey's findings were high. Beth Penrose, the Suffolk County police detective, arrives. Corey instantly figures out she's in charge of the case without her stating it. She yells at him a bit for being on the crime scene because he appears to be a civilian. He ignores Beth and searches the speed boat that the Gordons temporary docked. When he gets out of the boat she pulls his own gun on him and makes him state who he is. Just before he goes, he asks if they found the chest in the boat that the Gordons used as a trunk while boating; they reply that it's missing. Corey goes to the local bar and orders junk food. He is watching the game as Beth comes in. She invites him to come back to the Gordon house with her to see the government agents involved.

They return to the crime scene and go into the kitchen, where they meet George Foster, an FBI agent, and Ted Nash, who claims to represent the Department of Agriculture but whom Corey immediately recognises as a CIA agent due to being at a crime scene at the late hour. They discuss theories of the deaths, such as the Gordons trading the deadly diseases to which they have access for money and using the boat chest as a container for the items. The TV shows news coverage of the murder and exaggerates the importance of the Gordons' work. Corey silently dislikes how the reporter exaggerates it because there is no public evidence of the work connecting them to biological warfare or theft. Corey is jealous of Beth liking Ted Nash. The two clash over who is the alpha male of the room. Beth, Corey, and Max are able to make Ted cave in to letting them go on Plum Island the next day. Corey then goes through the Gordons' book shelves and pulls out a map of the local boating water. He notices a mysterious code written on one of the pages. The next day he arrives early at the ferry station and sees George and Ted with the security director and other people in suits coming off the ferry, confirming his thoughts of a cover up. They do not see him and he gets on the ferry to Plum Island with the rest of the group from the previous night with Paul Stevens, the security director, who pretends he doesn't know Foster or Nash. They are brought to the island and given a bus tour. The group then walk through the long hallways with the head of the research center who has some humor, but seems to be scripted. The group meets a few scientists who are friends of Tom and Judy who were directing a project. The scientists also act like they are on a script and give cover up theories that suggest that the Gordons were underpaid government workers who stole a vaccine so they could "discover" it elsewhere and become rich and famous.

Ultimately, the killer is proven to be Frederick Tobin, owner of a local winery, whose motive was financial.

Jack "Soldier" Kelly (Lorenzo Lamas), a police officer who served in the Marine Special Forces "Snake Eaters" team in Vietnam. Kelly uses the talents that he learned from the Boss to hunt down the criminals who killed his parents and kidnapped his sister.

The criminals covered their crime, using a bear costume "The Bear". This fooled authorities for their various murders and arson. They also attempted to rape women over the course of many days of captivity, but always failed.

Mike Brennan, a tough, crude, decorated New York City Police Department detective lieutenant, has a dark side and a partnership with certain organized crime figures. Brennan executes a small-time Puerto Rican criminal and then threatens witnesses to testify that he acted in self-defense. The head of the District Attorney's Homicide Bureau, Kevin Quinn, assigns the case to Deputy District Attorney Aloysius "Al" Francis Reilly, a young lawyer and past police officer and the son of an NYPD cop killed in the line of duty. Reilly collects a deposition from Brennan, who claims to have been acting on an informant's tip and to have fired in self-defense. Reilly's information leads him to "Bobby Tex", a Puerto Rican crime boss called Texador, whose wife Nancy Bosch is an ex of Reilly's. She ended their relationship years ago after interpreting Al's surprise when she introduced him to her black father as racism. Al tries to rekindle their romance, but she rejects him because with Bobby she feels loved, protected and accepted for who and what she is.

Al, along with detectives Sam "Chappie" Chapman and Luis Valentin, has doubts about the shooting, knowing the environment of the Puerto Rican underworld. Investigations reveal a link between Quinn and Brennan. Brennan seeks out Roger "the Dodger" Montalvo, the only witness who can disprove his testimony. Brennan tries bribing and threatening Valentin and Chappie for help in finding and silencing Montalvo. Meanwhile, Bobby Tex is "invited" by the Mafia to step aside as a drug dealer, as Brennan's support remains useful to them. Bobby, in turn, begins looking for Montalvo as leverage against Brennan. He also begins shutting down his business to retire with Nancy in Puerto Rico.

Bobby finds Montalvo before Brennan does and they leave for Puerto Rico, where Bobby owns a mansion and a yacht. Bobby summons Al to Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, Brennan finds Montalvo's lover, the transgender José Malpica, and kills Malpica after listening to a message from Montalvo on his answering machine that reveals his location on a boat in Puerto Rico. Al, after informing Chief Deputy District Attorney Bloomenfeld, flies to the island, pursued by Brennan. There Bobby tells Al that Quinn (nicknamed "Skinny") was once part of Bobby's street gang and shot a rival gang member. Brennan is hunting down the gang's former members on Quinn's orders; Quinn wants to erase his past so he can fulfill his ambition to run for New York State Attorney General. Brennan has no choice because Quinn holds an abuse of authority charge over him from his early years on the force.

Brennan finds Montalvo and strangles him. He then slices the boat's fuel line and waits for Bobby to arrive. A phone call made by Al saves Nancy, but Bobby is killed in the explosion. Al procures an arrest warrant for Brennan but fails to catch him at the airport. He returns to the District Attorney's office to find Brennan waiting. Brennan reveals the truth about Al's father: that he was a bagman and bigot who was part of a "line" to keep minorities down. Brennan shoots Chappie when he tries to intervene; Brennan is then shot dead by another officer.

Al is summoned by Quinn, who informs him that he is aware of his activities, but the Department is going to hush up the incident to avoid embarrassment given the upcoming mayoral election. When Al threatens to go to the papers, Bloomenfeld tells him that he has ways of preventing that and reminds Al that sources in the mayor's office could leak evidence of misconduct on the part of his late father, which would deny his mother her widow's service pension. Feeling betrayed and disillusioned, Al trashes his office and resigns. He searches for Nancy in Puerto Rico, hoping she will return to him, but when he finds her, she meets his marriage proposal with silence as she is mourning Bobby's death.

On his 17th birthday, shy and bespectacled "Georgie" LaMain (John Barrymore, Jr.), is dared by classmates to kiss a girl, which he is reluctant to do. At his father Andy's (Preston Foster) bar, beneath a sign warning "No Minors Allowed," George asks if Andy's girlfriend, Frances, will be there too, but Andy is evasive. George is presented with a birthday cake but fails to blow out all the candles. Unexpectedly, influential sports columnist Al Judge (Howard St. John), who walks with a cane, enters the bar and orders George's father to strip off his shirt and kneel. Andy passively complies, and Judge savagely beats him with his cane. Andy will not explain why he submitted to the pain and humiliation, and his bartender Flanagan (Howard Chamberlin) urges George to let the issue lie. However, as Flanagan assists Andy, George takes some of his father's clothes to look more adult, as well as his father's gun, and leaves.

Stopping briefly at a nearby pharmacy, George is asked by the druggist to look after a baby for a moment, where George poses with the gun in front of a mirror. With no clear direction to take, George begins a night journey, going first to a boxing match that he and his father were to attend to celebrate his birthday, hoping that he will find Al Judge there. At the arena, George sells his father's ticket but is accused of ticket scalping by a conman (Emile Meyer) posing as a police officer, who takes the ticket money. Inside the arena, the man who bought the ticket, Professor Cooper (Philip Bourneuf), a journalism teacher, explains what happened and shares his disgust of Al Judge.

Cooper takes George to one of Judge's haunts, where George encounters the conman who robbed him and wins a fight with him. At another club, he also meets Cooper's girlfriend Julie (Dorothy Comingore) and her sister Marion (Joan Lorring) and has his first drink. George is entranced by a Black singer ([https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0528759/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t10 Mauri Leighton], credited as Mauri Lynn) and tries to compliment the singer as they leave, but he uses an unintentionally racist phrase that he regrets.

At Julie's apartment, George passes out but wakes to find that Marion has been watching him. She expresses sympathy and concern and the two kiss, but George reacts hostilely and leaves when he finds that Marion had tried to hide his gun. At Judge's newspaper, he learns the journalist's address and goes there to confront him. Facing George's gun, Judge explains that he had punished Andy because Frances, the missing girlfriend at the birthday party, was his sister and that she had killed herself when Andy would not marry her. George cannot bring himself to shoot Judge, but the writer attacks him and in the struggle, Judge is shot. George seeks shelter with Marion and Cooper for a while, but when he returns to the bar, he sees that police have come to arrest his father for Judge's shooting. Afraid and confused and still holding the gun, George confesses but learns that Judge was only wounded. His father explains that he had not been able to marry Frances because was still married to George's mother, who had run off with another man. Andy had not wanted his son to grow up hating his mother. He persuades George to surrender the gun, and the two, professing their love for each other, go away with the police.

Flashbacks

Flashbacks show both the build-up to, and the event of Jack's wedding to Sarah, a former patient whom he "fixed" after she was injured in a car accident. Jack agonizes over his vows, and his father, Christian (John Terry) surprises him by showing up, giving Jack advice about writing the vows by the pool. His father says that Jack's strength is commitment, and that his problem is that he is "just not good at letting go." Jack thinks over his father's words, and eventually writes his vows just in time for the ceremony, finally settling on extolling how Sarah has "fixed" him.

On the Island

Boone has been critically injured by his fall inside the Beechcraft in the previous episode. He has lost a lot of blood, one of his lungs has collapsed and his right leg is crushed. Jack sends Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly) off to get some alcohol from James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway). On her way back, she discovers that Claire Littleton (Emilie de Ravin) has gone into unexpected labour.

Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews) surprises Shannon Rutherford (Maggie Grace) with a "torchlit dinner". Shannon tells Sayid that Boone is only her step-brother, and that he is "kind of" in love with her.

Boone needs a transfusion of type A-negative. Jack sends Charlie Pace (Dominic Monaghan) to find one of the other survivors with a matching blood type. When he unsuccessfully returns (only four people knew their blood type), Jack decides to give Boone some of his O-negative blood. Jack tries to use bamboo as a needle but can't pierce his skin. Sun-Hwa Kwon (Yunjin Kim) solves the problem by providing a sea urchin. Using the urchin's spines, Jack begins to give Boone his blood.

Jin-Soo Kwon (Daniel Dae Kim), while working on the new raft, hears Kate's call for help and rushes to her and Claire. Despite the language barrier, Kate is able to tell Jin to go and find Jack. Jin rushes to the caves but Jack is occupied with the blood transfusion. Jack tells Jin (with the aid of Sun translating) to take Charlie to Kate and Claire, and gives Charlie instructions for Kate on delivering the baby.

As Jack begins to turn pale Sun stops the transfusion because the blood is pooling in Boone's dead right leg. Jack tries to save Boone's leg but it is beyond repair and Boone will die if it is not amputated. Jack asks Michael Dawson (Harold Perrineau) to find a way to cut off Boone's leg. Boone suddenly regains consciousness and tells Jack to just let him go.

Boone reveals to Jack that he and John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) discovered a mysterious hatch, and Locke told him not to tell anybody else. Boone says "Tell Shannon I ..." but dies without finishing the sentence. Claire gives birth to a healthy baby boy. Jack tells Shannon that Boone had died, Shannon immediately goes to the caves, and cries over Boone's dead body. Jack goes looking for Locke, thinking that Boone was murdered.

Kyle Kingsbury is rich, handsome, and popular; he is also selfish, shallow, and cruel. He plays a mean practical joke on an outcast girl in his class. The girl is really a witch named Kendra in disguise. The witch then curses him for his cruelty. He is turned into a beast; however, because he performed a small act of kindness shortly before his transformation when he gave an unwanted rose corsage to a girl working a ticket booth, she gives him two years to break the spell, or remain a beast forever. The only way he can turn back to normal is if he truly loves a girl and gets her to love him in return, proving the love with a kiss.

Kendra later offers Kyle further aid by giving him a magic mirror that shows him whomever he wishes to see. He is locked in a mansion-like apartment by his equally shallow, image-obsessed father. His only company is his housekeeper, Magda, and, at his request, a blind tutor named Will. Kyle finds solace in a greenhouse for roses that he tends himself. After a year of being in this state, and trying and failing to find love, Kyle changes his name to Adrian, meaning "Dark One", to reflect his feelings of being a completely different person from the conceited, materialistic boy he used to be. When a robber stumbles into his garden Adrian offers him a deal; he will not report the robber to the police if the robber brings Adrian his daughter, Linda. She is Adrian's last chance to break the spell before his two years are up.

Adrian realizes that Linda is the same girl to whom he gave the rose corsage. He fixes up a room for her, leaving roses and books for her to amuse herself with. When she arrives, she at first wants nothing to do with him as she feels he kidnapped her. As time passes, she slowly warms up to him and he finds himself falling in love with her. The two begin to have tutoring sessions together and, during winter, they go to a lodge. Shortly before the last year is up, Linda wishes to see her father once more. Adrian lets her see him with the magic mirror and she finds that he has become sick through drug use. Adrian quickly lets her go to him and offers for her to return to the apartment in the spring if she desires, this time as a friend and not a prisoner.

On the last day of the second year, Adrian looks for Linda in the mirror and sees her being dragged into a building by a man. He rushes to her rescue and is shot in the process. As he lies dying, he asks Linda for a kiss. She kisses him, breaking the spell and turns him back to normal. He explains everything to Linda and the two go back and live in the apartment together. Adrian had also made a deal with Kendra, because of which, Will regains his sight and Magda is allowed to return to her family. Kendra reveals that she was Magda, punished to remain a servant forever because of her careless spell but she can now return home as well.

The game starts with a briefing session in Charlie's office in which the Angels are informed that the Statue of Liberty has been stolen. Gameplay starts on a beach beauty pageant runway. Wearing swimsuits, Natalie and Alex must each individually fight their way from the beach through the community and warehouses to the docks. Joined there by Dylan, the three continue to each fight their way through a series of further locations.

''The Hour of the Pig'' is set in 15th-century France and is based upon the career and case files of Bartholomew Chassenee, an actual lawyer of the time who served as an advocate for animals who were accused of crimes.Marston, David W.; [http://www.thetrial.net/BaltimoreSun_4Sept05.htm "Entertaining stories fill docket in court lore"] ''Baltimore Sun'', 4 September 2005 At the time, animal trials were used to determine if animals were the perpetrators of supernatural mayhem.Kadri, Sadakat; [http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/Our_Titles/Pages/Home.aspx?objid=17509 "The Trial: A History from Socrates to O.J. Simpson"] ''HarperCollins'', 3 July 2006 ( ) Animals were subject to the same civil laws and penalties as human beings under French law, 1403–1596.

Richard Courtois (Firth) and his clerk Mathieu (Carter) have left the decadence of Paris in order to practise law in what they believe to be a quiet rural village, Abbeville, in the province of Ponthieu, then part of Burgundy rather than France. Courtois quickly becomes involved in a number of back-logged cases.

For his first case, he defends a farmer who is accused of killing his wife's lover. Courtois gets him acquitted (the farmer mutters, "I should have done him years ago" as he leaves and offers to help Courtois any time). In his next case, Courtois fails to save Jeannine, a woman accused of witchcraft. He asks for rats to be called as witnesses to testify that she did not bribe them to infect her neighbor; when the rats do not appear the following day as summoned, this charge is struck off. However, Courtois is unfamiliar with the difference between the Roman law of France and the Ponthieu customary law, and she is sentenced to be hanged anyway. As she is led away she tells Courtois, "There is darkness all about you, you can bring the light. Look to the boy, maître. Look to the boy." At her execution, Jeannine says she will not curse the town but blesses it, saying a fine knight will arrive and deliver them from their lying and evil.

Courtois takes on a case defending a pig that is accused of killing a young Jewish boy. The pig, however, belongs to a band of Moors (alternatively/first thought to be Gypsies, being referred to as coming from "Little Egypt") passing through town. Two of the Moors, Mahmoud (Sami Bouajila) and his sister Samira (Annabi), appeal to Courtois to save the pig, as it is their only source of food for the coming winter. Courtois declines. Samira later enters Courtois's room at night and quietly strips naked, offering her body in return for his services, but he refuses this. The next day he offers her enough money to purchase two pigs, but she does not accept this.

As Courtois delves deeper into the case and becomes more involved with Samira, he discovers that there is more at work than a simple murder. His work is brought to the attention of Seigneur Jehan d'Auferre (Williamson), who has his own designs on Courtois. Soon, Courtois finds that he is being used as a pawn in a complicated game of sociopolitical intrigue that extends beyond mere racism and corruption. The Seigneur subtly offers to bribe Courtois, also hinting that his daughter Filette is available in marriage. The Seigneur's son and daughter are eccentric to the point of insanity. The son's main hobby seems to be torturing birds.

Courtois's relationship with Samira becomes common knowledge. The Seigneur decides to sit in at court and uses this knowledge to threaten Courtois into letting the pig be executed. Just as the case seems to be over, the Advent festival begins and the case is adjourned.

The prosecutor Pincheon (Pleasence) tells Courtois that he moved from Paris to Ponthieu as Courtois did, in order to shine in a village in a way he could not in Paris. He urges Courtois to go back to Paris and not waste his life among ignorant, superstitious peasants.

The skeleton of another Jewish boy who went missing over a year ago is found while Courtois's house is being built. Courtois now suspects a human serial killer is at large and the pig has been framed.

During the Festival of The Advent, Samira performs for a gathering of notables at the Seigneur's chateau. She is almost arrested for drawing a knife on the Seigneur's son after he pours wine down her blouse. Courtois boldly leads her away. That night, he rescues a boy from a masked horseman wielding an axe.

Courtois confronts the Seigneur, telling him his son is the killer. The Seigneur does not deny it and reveals that his son has left for England to be treated. At the trial, the pig is acquitted when Valliere, the farmer Courtois saved in his first case at Abbeville, brings in a replica pig which he claims absconded at the time of the killing.

As Courtois leaves, he sees a knight arriving just as Jeannine had foretold. After he has left, the knight takes off his armor to reveal that he bears the characteristic buboes of the Black Death.

The game follows the same plot as the 2005 film of the same name. The game also features the original actors reprising their roles in the game, except for Joan Cusack (Abby) and Don Knotts (Mayor Turkey Lurkey) (who are both replaced by Pamela Adlon and Jeff Bennett respectively).

The fantasy land of Narnia has been under the spell of the evil White Witch, who makes it always winter but never Christmas, but when Aslan comes, it will be spring again and the Witch's reign will be over. Four children enter Narnia and, along with the legendary lion, Aslan, help defeat the White Witch and her evil minions.

The film starts with the loading of a ship called the Merry Maiden. Oliver is first mate on the ship and described as "a bully, the nastiest crew member, after the captain of course". He features a beard and a mustache, rather than his usual solitary mustache. Stan plays Willie Brisling a guy who is engaged to Nelly and they are in love. The captain leaves his ship, he sees Nelly and decides he wants her. Stan has a tattoo of a ship on his chest and shows it to the captain. The captain pours a jug of water down Stan's sweater and abducts Nelly. The captain takes Nelly to his ship and Stan sneaks on board to rescue her. Oliver starts to look for Stan. Stan decides to save Nelly his last hope is to get rid of the crew, one by one. Stan disguises himself as a prostitute. The crew begin to fall for his charms. Stan calls one of the crewmen over, he hits the crewman with a cosh and knocks him out. Then he throws the cosh at Oliver, who thinks the crewman threw the cosh. Oliver throws the crewman |overboard, this is repeated until all of the crew are in the sea.

Nelly is being harassed by the captain. The captain's wife appears at the ship. The Captain takes a fancy to Stan. The wife appears as Stan is sat in the captain's lap. The captain's wife takes a gun and goes to shoot her husband. Stan stops her and takes off his wig. Stan says "this was a test to see if you really love your husband". The captain and wife begin to make up. But then the captain indicates he's going to "deal with Stan later". Stan is peeved, he opens the door and Nelly appears. Stan indicates the captain has been up to no good with Nelly and that four other loose women have already gone. The captain's wife is furious, Stan gives her the gun back. Stan and Nelly leave. There is a gunshot in the room. The wife, still angry, sees Stan and Nelly through a porthole and shoots them. Stan and Nelly's clothes fall off revealing their underwear.

The United States and Confederate States are locked in a stalemate as both of their offensives have stalled; the U.S. in Kentucky pushing south, the C.S.A. in Maryland pushing north. The Confederacy must also deal with their black population rising up in rebellion driven by Marxist doctrine, and a change in administration as President Woodrow Wilson's term ends.

In the Confederate States Presidential Election of 1915, Whig Vice President Gabriel Semmes (apparently a fictitious relative of real life Confederate Navy officer Raphael Semmes) is elected President by a wide margin over Radical Liberal candidate Doroteo Arango of Chihuahua to succeed Wilson.

The war begins to turn in the favor of the U.S. as the Kentucky offensive, led by George Armstrong Custer, manages to conquer enough of Kentucky to readmit it into the Union after 54 years as a member of the Confederacy. He uses the new invention known as "barrels" (tanks) to break through.

The Confederacy, conversely, has begun to lose its gains in southern Pennsylvania, and to be pushed back into Maryland. Washington, D.C., in Confederate hands since 1914, is still in their possession, but as their hold on Maryland weakens, the C.S. is faced with the possibility of losing the old U.S. capital as well.

Meanwhile, Flora Hamburger, a Socialist from New York, gains a nomination from her party, installing her as one of the first women in the House of Representatives in this alternate timeline.

Faced with a shortage of eligible white men, the Confederacy is forced to consider a bill that would allow blacks to serve in the C.S. Army, even though a number of them had rebelled against the same government that is now offering citizenship to volunteers.

The novel ends at the end of the 1916 presidential election where incumbent Democratic President Theodore Roosevelt and Vice President Walter McKenna is re-elected over Socialist Party candidate Eugene V. Debs by a wide margin with the U.S. Army moving further into Confederate territory.

The book covers the period March 5, 1934 (the day after Jake Featherston's inauguration as President of the Confederate States) to June 22, 1941 (the commencement of Operation Blackbeard).

The United States are able to end a war with Japan, but are beginning to prepare for a fourth war against its southern neighbor—but slowly and reluctantly, as the memories of Great War carnage make the population skeptical of calls for increased military spending. In the Confederacy, Featherston and his fascist Freedom Party enact sweeping changes to all aspects of life, including purging and expanding the Army, abolishing the Supreme Court, and using concentration camps to kill off Whig and Radical Liberal politicians before using them to eliminate the black population of the Confederate States. To solidify popular support, Featherston makes good on his campaign promises to mechanize Confederate agriculture and bring electricity to communities across the CSA, including an equivalent of the TVA. These measures also have the effect of war preparations, ensuring that the C.S. will fight their next conflict as a full-fledged, advanced industrial nation. The old-style, somewhat complacent Confederate elites—the planter class—are eclipsed in political life by the mass-based, militaristic Freedom Party, driven by Featherston's burning vision of national greatness and revenge.

As these changes are taking place, representatives of the former Confederate states of Kentucky and Houston along with Sequoyah begin calling for a return to the Confederacy, with Confederate partisans in Houston launching an armed uprising against the U.S. Army. Union President Al Smith (who defeated Herbert Hoover and his running mate William Borah in the 1936 Presidential Election) allows himself to be swayed by the peace factions in the U.S. and gives in to the Confederate territorial demands. Smith is also able to win reelection in 1940 over Democratic candidate Robert A. Taft by a narrow margin. Republican Party candidate Wendell Willkie comes in third place in the election, carrying the electoral votes from his home state of Indiana. On January 7, 1941, plebiscites are held and Kentucky and Houston vote to return to the Confederacy with Houston also rejoining Texas. Featherston promises not to remilitarize them, or to ask for Sequoyah (which due to a massive number of white settlers, voted pro-U.S.) or other former C.S. territory such as the annexed areas of northern Virginia north of the Rappahannock River, northeastern Arkansas, and northwestern Sonora. Within weeks, Featherston breaks his promise and plants his modernized and expanded Confederate Army on the Ohio River, convincing Smith that the time to face Featherston down has finally come.

Tensions rise in Europe when Germany's longtime ruler Wilhelm II dies on June 4, 1941. The new Kaiser Wilhelm III refuses to return the former French territory of Alsace-Lorraine that France's ruling party Action Française had demanded. The United Kingdom, France and the Confederacy soon declare war on Germany, with Russia joining in days later.

With war breaking out in Europe, Jake Featherston feels it is time to have his revenge against his greatest enemy: the United States of America. On the first day of summer in 1941, he orders Operation Blackbeard to begin. The next day — June 22, 1941 — the Confederate States of America bring the war to North America with a surprise attack on Philadelphia and invasion of southern Ohio.

(The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union — in our timeline — occurred on the same day. The name of the German invasion plan was Operation Barbarossa, named after a well-known German Emperor in the Middle Ages who had according to legend, 'a great red beard', thus the C.S. operation's name.)

Rollie Tyler (Bryan Brown) is a well-respected designer of film special effects. He uses his expertise to design high-end robotic toys, such as a robot clown controlled by a telemetry suit and named Bluey, or to create fun effects such as safely setting his finger aflame with a gel covering. When his girlfriend’s ex-husband, Mike Brandon (Tom Mason), is assigned to stakeout a killer who had murdered a model but served a reduced sentence, he asks Rollie to create a trap to put the murderer back in prison. The trap involves using a supermodel getting ready to have a shower in the apartment across the street from the murderer, and once he’s shown to the team watching him that he’s about to take violent action, the supermodel is switched out the apartment’s back door and Mike takes her place to arrest the murderer. Rollie set-up small cameras in the apartment as well so that he could watch from his van in the street. As the murderer enters the apartment, another man appears behind Mike and kills him. Rollie sees this and rushes towards the apartment, passing Mike’s killer in the stairwell before recognizing him. Meanwhile, Mike’s boss Ray Silak (Philip Bosco) enters the apartment with the team and shoots the model murderer. Rollie tells Silak that the killer got away but Silak wonders why he would think that there was a third person in the apartment. Rollie is suspicious and secretly collects his hidden cameras but must leave one behind. Rollie immediately calls Leo McCarthy (Brian Dennehy), a cop he had worked with before, and leaves a message to say that he’s in trouble and needs help.

The next day, Rollie, his girlfriend Kim (Rachel Ticotin) and her son Chris go to Mike’s house to collect some personal items. The house is being thoroughly searched by cops. They are even searching through the files on floppy disks, including Chris’s game disk which is snatched away by Kim. Silak is there. He gives Rollie back the camera from the crime scene, asking why the apartment was being filmed. He now knows that Rollie saw Mike’s killer and plants the idea that it may have been a cop. He asks Rollie if Mike mentioned any old cases he was working on. As soon as they leave Silak, Rollie suspects Mike was set up and drives Kim and Chris to her sister’s house to keep them safe. That night at their loft, Rollie looks through the camera’s footage. He sees Silak planting evidence to indicate that the model murderer also killed Mike. Rollie doesn’t notice the door bolts being unlocked as he searches the recording. Just as Rollie finds footage of the killer, the killer appears before him and demands the recording. Rollie is able to manoeuvre the killer to be in range of Bluey and uses the telemetry suit to control the robot’s actions while it fights the intruder. The killer overcomes the robot and the fight leads to the fire escape, with Leo showing up to save the day in the nick of time.

At Leo’s closed bar, he listens to the story from Rollie and deduces that Silak is interested in an old, unsolved case that Mike was working on in his spare time. The next day, he asks his old police contact Velez if she would discreetly check into Mike’s cases. Meanwhile, Rollie sneaks into Silak’s office and taps his phone. Back at the bar, Leo and Rollie intercept a call from Silak to someone named Neely (Kevin J. O'Connor), an inmate who is given the details to say for his court appearance in exchange for information. The next day, Leo arrives in court to listen to the case that Neely is testifying for. His testimony makes the case. Leo meets with Neely’s lawyer after the court session, an old friend of his named Liz Kennedy (Joanna Gleason). He warns her that Neely’s testimony was supplied to him. Leo visits Neely at the prison and sees him visiting the bedside of a dying old inmate. Although Neely refuses to speak with him, Leo finds out that the old man is Carl Becker.

Back at the bar, Leo brings Rollie up to speed with Becker’s notoriety. The old inmate had stolen solid gold medallions that were cast by Michelangelo depicting the bronze figures in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He was arrested quite shortly after the theft but the coins were never recovered. This was the case that Mike had been working on. While this conversation is happening, the killer follows Kim as she leaves her workplace. Rollie remembers the floppy disk that had Chris’s games on it had a file named Becker. He calls Chris and learns that Kim went to work even though he had told her it was unsafe. Rollie leaves to find Kim while Leo arranges for Chris to send the file to Velez by modem, the nearest one being at the mall. At the mall, Chris is ready to send the file just as his mom arrives, followed closely by the killer who then threatens her. Chris begins the file transfer. Leo is waiting with Velez and watches as the file is received. One name that is new from the file is Samson. The mall closes just as Rollie arrives and barges his way in. He finds Kim and Chris being threatened by the killer. He manages to get them away from the killer and into the mall grocery store. Rollie uses the items he can find to create traps for the killer while they find a way out. All exits are blocked, so Rollie lures the killer to the meat packaging machine and incapacitates him.

Leo takes Velez for a celebratory dinner at his favourite Chinese place - a street vendor in Chinatown. Just as they begin to eat, a single gunshot kills Velez before a drive-by shooting targets the street vendor. Meanwhile, Neely makes a last visit to a dying Becker, asking him to unburden his soul by sharing the location of the coins. Later, Leo drinks in the near dark of his bar as Rollie comes in. They update each other about Velez and the killer, who is just a hired thug. The thug did give up the information that Silak has a helicopter booked for that weekend. Leo visits Liz. His superficial wounds are looked after as her cat demands his attention. He tells Liz his plans regarding capturing Silak at the location where the chopper will be and insists that she be there in person, as it would help her career. Neely meets Silak and they are both followed by Rollie. They go to a cathedral so that Neely can retrieve the hidden coins. Cut to Rollie gathering special effects gear in the back of his van.

That weekend, Neely and Silak enter a large, secluded house with the gold medallions. They are met by several guards, the buyer, and an authenticator. Meanwhile, Rollie sets off various effects to trap the guard dogs and take the guards out of commission one by one. Leo and Liz arrive and Leo gives her a gun just in case there’s trouble. As the authenticator examines the coins, Leo walks into the room with his gun drawn. He is soon unarmed by Liz herself and relegated to informing Neely and Silak about the buyer - he’s part of the mob. The coins are authenticated, a guard takes them out to the boat, and the chopper arrives. Leo asks questions of everyone about the situation and learns that the mob plans to return the coins to the Vatican. Suddenly, an explosion outside unnerves everyone. Leo presses Liz to give up her gun and he is shot as she panics. Neely takes her gun just as the guard, on fire, bursts into the room from the backyard. Neely and Silak grab the money and the coins from the guard and run to the chopper. Once there, Neely shoots Silak but the gun has blanks. Silak shoots Neely instead and boards the chopper. Liz turns her attention away from the chaos outside only to see Leo very much alive. The burned guard turns out to be Rollie covered in the firesafe gel. Rollie runs out to the boat while Leo makes his disappointment known to Liz. He had discovered her involvement in the scheme when he saw the name given to her cat - Samson. Her criminal involvement was confirmed when the backup she was to arrange for didn’t show up. Sirens are heard approaching. It is the backup that Leo had called just in case they were needed. Liz is left to wait for them. Leo joins Rollie in the boat.

In the chopper, Silak becomes worried when the helicopter changes direction and begins to fly haphazardly. He berates the pilot only to see that it is a clown. Rollie, in the telemetry suit in the boat, has Bluey let go of the controls, which Silak quickly grabs. The clown robot reaches behind its seat for the case with the money then jumps from the plane. Rollie and Leo fish the robot and case from the water. Leo wonders how long it will take them to dry the money when Rollie produces the gold medallions that he had safely hidden. Leo informs him that the mob was going to return the coins to the Vatican so he shouldn’t have stolen them. A collection plate is being passed around a church service. It stops between two men and they drop a set of golden coins into it. Afterwards, Leo and Rollie leave the church and decide what they should have for lunch with their newly-dried money. As they walk and banter about food, the camera pans out to show that they are in Rome. During the credits Silak is still in the helicopter and thus ends the movie.

The story starts out in a typical ''Double Dragon''/''Final Fight'' style setting at 64th Street with two protagonists: Rick (Anderson), a calm and intelligent, 35-year-old professional private detective and manager of the detective agency; and Allen (Tombs), a 19-year-old, reformed delinquent trained by Rick, who is "short-tempered and violent when angry". At the start of the plot, an evil corporation known as the Legacy organization, kidnapped the daughter of a mid-aged rich man and left him a letter explaining why they kidnapped her.

Late one night, before Rick and Allen was about to close their office, the mid-aged rich man, rushed inside the office while being exhausted. He asked for help saving his daughter and gave the letter to Rick and Allen. The next day, Allen notices an advertisement in the classifieds with similar sentence structure to the letter left by the kidnappers. Allen couldn't understand it so easily, until Rick told him to look cautiously at both, the letter and the ad. They soon realised that the writing was actually a secret code, only understood by certain crime lords, so Rick and Allen struggled toward the main base of the Legacy organisation to find the truth and save the kidnapped daughter. The setting later takes on a steampunk feel as it goes along, coming to a head in a battle inside a blimp.

'''Hong Kong 1938'''

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, a shy, inexperienced university student, Wong Chia Chi, travels from Shanghai to Hong Kong and attends her first year at Lingnan University. Male student Kuang Yu Min invites her to join his patriotic drama club and she soon becomes a lead actress, inspiring both her audience and her colleagues. Inspired by the club's patriotic plays, Kuang persuades the group to make a more concrete contribution to the war against Japan. He devises a plan to assassinate Mr. Yee, a special agent and recruiter of the puppet government of Wang Jingwei set up by the Japanese occupation in China. The beautiful Chia Chi is chosen to take on the undercover role of "Mrs. Mai", the elegant wife of a trading company owner. She inserts herself into the social circle of Mrs. Yee.

Chia Chi catches the eye of Mr. Yee and tries to lure him to a location where he can be assassinated. Chia Chi is still a virgin, and she reluctantly consents to having sex with another student involved in the plot in order to practice her role as a married woman. Kuang, who has feelings for Chia Chi, is upset by this but agrees to the arrangement. Attracted to Chia Chi, Yee nearly falls for the trap but withdraws at the last minute. Soon after, Mr. and Mrs. Yee move back to Shanghai, leaving the students with no further chance to complete their mission. While they are preparing to disband, an armed subordinate of Yee turns up unannounced and tells them that he is aware of their plans. After a violent struggle, the university students kill the subordinate and then go into hiding.

'''Shanghai 1942'''

Three years later, in Japanese-occupied Shanghai, Chia Chi again encounters Kuang, who is now an undercover agent of the Kuomintang (KMT) secret service the ''Juntong'', which is seeking to overthrow the Japanese occupation forces and the puppet government. Kuang enlists her into a renewed assassination plan to kill Yee. By this time, Yee has become the head of the secret police department under the puppet government and is responsible for torturing and executing Chinese resistance members working for the KMT. Chia Chi's advances to become Yee's mistress are reciprocated. During their first sexual encounter, Yee violently rapes Chia Chi. Over the next few weeks, their sexual relationship becomes more consensual and affectionate, stirring conflicting emotions within in Chia Chi's mind, who is still involved in the assassination plot.

When Chia Chi reports to her KMT superior officer, she exhorts him to carry out the assassination soon so that she will not have to continue her sexual liaisons with Yee, but she is told that the assassination needs to be delayed for strategic reasons. Chia Chi describes the emotional conflict she finds herself embroiled in, sentimentally bound to a man whom she is plotting to assassinate. When Yee sends Chia Chi to a jewelry store with a sealed envelope, she discovers that he has arranged for a large and extremely rare six-carat pink diamond for her, to be mounted in a ring. This provides the Chinese resistance with a chance to get at Yee when he is not accompanied by his bodyguards.

Soon after, Chia Chi invites Yee to accompany her to collect the diamond ring. While entering the jewelry shop, she notices that all her friends involved in the assassination plot are undercover outside. When she puts on the ring, she is overcome by emotion and quietly urges him to leave. Understanding her meaning, Yee immediately flees the shop and escapes the assassination attempt. By the end of the day, most members of the resistance group are captured. Yee's deputy was aware of the resistance cell, but did not inform Yee because he hoped to use the opportunity to catch their leader. Emotionally turmoiled, Yee signs the resistance members' death warrants. They, Chia Chi, are led out to a quarry to be executed. As the resistance members group are forced to their knees at gunpoint, a sad Kuang gazes at her. Meanwhile, Yee sits on Chia Chi's empty bed in the family guest room while his wife asks him what is going on, since his secretary and two men had taken Chia Chi's belongings and some papers from his office. Yee tells her to keep quiet and to continue playing downstairs, to avoid letting anyone know of his affection for Chia Chi.

The show revolves around Buddy, a beagle separated from his 10-year-old owner Jeffy in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and Woof, a large bulldog (to whom Buddy refers as obsessed) who runs away from his owner. Both canines try to survive in the streets of Hollywood and avoid conflict with the Dog Catcher. The show lampoons celebrity stardom in various ways; for example, many of the characters based on real celebrities have other voice actors impersonating their voices (such as Steve-O from Jackass and Wildboyz, who appeared in the third episode). The animation for the show was produced at 6 Point Harness.

A young spy, Cammie Morgan, falls in love with a boy, Josh, but cannot reveal the truth about herself to him. This caused misunderstandings later on and they broke up in tears. In the end, Josh finds out about her being a spy, and all wrongs in the past had been corrected, and hope came back to Cammie. But just as soon as Josh learned the truth, Cammie's mom gave Josh some serious tea that made him forget the truth about Cammie.

Mr. Freedom (John Abbey) is a Washington D.C. police officer who drinks Colt 45 on duty and moonlights as a government-sanctioned, vigilante superhero. After the 1968 Washington, D.C., riots, he is summoned to the Freedom Tower—an office building housing the U.S.'s most powerful companies- to meet with Dr. Freedom (Donald Pleasence), his handler, who informs him that another superhero, Capitaine Formidable, has been killed in France by operatives of the mysterious French Anti-Freedom (FAF) organization. Warning that this could be the first salvo in a Soviet invasion, Dr. Freedom dispatches Mr. Freedom to investigate his death and bring France back under the sway of western capitalist influences. As a last resort, Dr. Freedom equips him with "the big one," a portable nuclear device to destroy the country in the event that it falls to Communist influence.

In France, Mr. Freedom joins forces with Capitaine Formidable's wife, the ''femme fatale'' Marie-Madeleine (Delphine Seyrig), to lead his own anti-communist Freedom organization; Marie-Madeleine explains that she and Capitaine Formidable ran a string of state-sponsored brothels, using the money they earned to finance anti-Communist activities while also gathering intelligence on the various diplomats and politicians who use their services. Arriving at a pro-USA rally, Mr. Freedom delivers an extended speech extolling the virtues of democracy and capitalism while also espousing white nationalist sympathies and warning of the encroaching influence of African Americans (whom he calls "niggers"), Jews, Asians, and other "undesirables" on the national stage. Assembling an army from the attendees of the rally, he expresses his intention not only to secure France against Communist influence, but also build a "white wall of freedom" around the United States.

Mr. Freedom travels to the U.S. embassy (a supermarket) to meet with the American ambassador to France, who warns him of the influence that a pair of foreign superheroes—the Russian Stalinist Muzhik Man and Chinese Maoist Red China Man—have been exerting in the country. Mr. Freedom meets with his French counterpart, Super French Man (an inflatable), who expresses sympathies with their Communist ideologies, prompting Mr. Freedom to kill his sidekicks. Later he meets in a metro tunnel with Muzhik Man and Red China Man (the latter a giant, talking Chinese Dragon/lion dog (another inflatable)) and the three discuss the virtues of their various political ideologies; Muzhik Man makes friendly overtures to Mr. Freedom and disavows responsibility for the death of Capitaine Formidable. After he accidentally knocks himself unconscious, Muzhik Man takes Mr. Freedom back to Communist Party headquarters to recuperate; after waking up, Mr. Freedom kills Muzhik Man's girlfriend, Marie-Rouge.

Returning to Marie-Madeleine's apartment to have sex with her, Mr. Freedom suffers a crisis of conscience when her son calls him a fascist; he later realizes that his guilt is in fact coming from Red China Man, who is broadcasting subliminal messages to a radio receiver hidden in one of his teeth. After having the tooth removed, Mr. Freedom oversees the construction of a secret base from which his operatives can carry out anti-communist activities in France, and delivers a speech that works his followers into a violent frenzy, prompting them to begin looting, raping, and rioting. In response, the French begin holding anti-US demonstrations. Mr. Freedom opens fire into a crowd of peaceful protestors with a machine gun, to the horror of Marie-Madeleine, who subsequently reveals herself as an ally of Red Chinaman and a member of FAF. She further admits that she was the one who killed Capitaine Formidable. Mr. Freedom kills her, but FAF forces, demonstrators, and Mr. Muzhik's soldiers—seeking revenge for Marie-Rouge's death—breach his compound and kill the rest of his followers.

Resolving that France neither wants nor deserves American democracy, Mr. Freedom detonates "The Big One;" in a cutaway, Dr. Freedom admits that he really supplied Mr. Freedom with a "medium one;" the resultant explosion kills Mr. Freedom but leaves everyone else unharmed, and the French continue their anti-US rally.

Ellen Harrod appears to have a happy marriage to David, although his frequent work-related absences are beginning to take a toll on her. While taking night school classes with her neighbor and best friend, Marge Bracken, she is introduced to Larry Retzliff.

Ellen and Marge accept a ride home from Retzliff the same night while David is away. Once Ellen is in her apartment, Retzliff arrives claiming car trouble and asks to use the phone. When Ellen lets him in, he overpowers and rapes her. Unable to reach David by phone, and emotionally unable to report the crime, Ellen decides to put the attack behind her, and tries through three showers to literally wash away the rape.

When David returns, she is still unable to get his attention long enough to tell him about the attack. Having had an anonymous blood test, Ellen makes a serious effort to forget the attack and resume her life. This attempt comes to a crashing halt four days after the initial attack in a parking garage when Retzliff, who has been waiting for Ellen behind the front seat of her car, rapes her again, this time beating her viciously.

After reporting the attack, the treatment that Ellen receives from the police, doctors, and detectives is anything but sympathetic. While the District Attorney, Leonard Alexander, appears to have her best interests at heart, he clearly has his reservations.

Defending Retzliff is ruthless attorney Muriel Dyer who bullies and interrogates witnesses and Ellen herself on the stand in an attempt to get Retzliff off. Dyer's efforts succeed and Retzliff is found not guilty. Following the trial, attorney Alexander comments, "Never try a rape case unless your victim is a 90-year-old nun with at least four stab wounds." After this, Retzliff mockingly apologizes to Ellen, saying "no hard feelings", but Ellen calmly but coldly tells him, "If you ever come near me again, I'll kill you."

A voiceover narration at the end of the movie reveals that shortly after the trial, Retzliff attempts to rape someone else. While trying to escape from the police, he is shot and wounded, and ends up pleading guilty to the rape and sentenced to prison. Ellen and David's marriage is strained by the events of the film, and the narration reveals that Ellen later files for divorce.

Penelope Elcott (Natalie Wood) is the wife of wealthy banker James Elcott (Ian Bannen). Penelope decides to disguise herself as an old woman and rob her husband's bank. While the police, including Lieutenant Horatio Bixbee (Peter Falk), rush to get to the bank, Penelope escapes in a red wig and yellow suit. She donates some of the stolen money to a Salvation Army worker and donates the suit to a second-hand thrift shop. Con artists Sabada (Lila Kedrova) and Ducky (Lou Jacobi) immediately recognize the suit as an original designer outfit from Paris, and purchase it for a mere $7.

Penelope visits her psychiatrist Gregory (Dick Shawn) and tells him all about her criminal activities. She says it began in college when a professor (Jonathan Winters) lured her into his laboratory and attempted to rape her, but she escaped, leaving her dress ripped off in the process. During the chase, she stole the watch fob of the professor. She next stole on her wedding day. When she caught her maid of honor Mildred Halliday (Norma Crane) kissing James, she swiped Mildred's earrings and necklace. Gregory suggests she is stealing to attract attention from her distant husband.

A young woman, Honeysuckle Rose, is accused of being the thief. Gregory wants to return the stolen money to the bank, but panics when he hears police cars arriving. Penelope confesses and tries to clear the innocent Honeysuckle, but Horatio the cop and husband James do not believe her. Ducky and Sabada pay a visit, trying to blackmail her, but Penelope foils their blackmail attempt.

Penelope hosts a dinner party, having stolen from all the invited guests. She tries to return the stolen items, but all claim that they never have seen them before. Penelope, confused and frightened, runs away. She again robs James' bank, but unlike the previous time, she is crying. James begs Horatio to find her. Penelope goes to Horatio with the stolen money, but the cop knows James would not press charges against his own wife.

The psychiatrist explains the dinner guests denied recognizing the stolen items because they would lose the fraudulently inflated insurance claims they collected. Gregory breaks down and begs Penelope to run away with him. She refuses, telling him she is cured. James realizes that he has neglected Penelope and starts seeing her face everywhere he turns. He goes to the psychiatrist's office, where James and Penelope happily reunite.

Eccentric Miss Pudd (Katharine Hepburn) is the owner of what she considers an antiques store but most would call a junkyard. She frequently refuses to part with her merchandise because of its sentimental or historical value. However, she does agree to lend some items to two boys, Alby (Kevin McKenzie) and Chris (Dennis Dimster), who befriend her.

The boys explain that they are repairing an antique hot air balloon that belonged to Alby's grandfather, an adventurous stunt man named The Great Sandusky. In honor and memory of Alby's grandfather, who died one year earlier and is sorely missed by Alby, they plan to take the balloon aloft to celebrate the grandfather's birthday.

The balloon is accidentally inflated and launched, with the two boys and their English sheepdog in the basket. Miss Pudd chases after them in her antique car and ends up riding the anchor dangling from the bottom of the basket. After she is pulled up, the balloon continues to drift and gets lost in a fog.

That night, they drift finally to Los Angeles, where a police helicopter demands that they land. The balloon lands on the stage of the Hollywood Bowl, at an outdoor concert where the orchestra is playing Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. Amidst fireworks, the audience thinks the balloon landing is part of the show and is enthralled as the ragamuffin crew disembarks and is sent home.

Scarlet Traces

The story begins ten years after the abortive Martian invasion of Earth, with bodies being washed up on the banks of the river Thames. The bodies are all female and drained of blood, prompting a local drunk, whose dog discovers them, to think that a vampire is on the loose. Emerging from comfortable retirement in fashionable Bedford Square, Major Robert Autumn DSO and his trusty manservant Colour Sergeant Arthur Currie search for the culprits after being informed that Currie's niece is most likely one of the missing girls.

Autumn is represented as a classic Victorian hero: honourable, perceptive and brave but out of his depth in a new age of ruthless exploitation personified by the bullish, cynical government official Dr Davenport Spry.

After following the investigation across England and Scotland the pair, now accompanied by the drunk from London, discover that a single Martian has survived the bacteria by turning its own war machine into a hermetic chamber. In return for its life - and human blood to sustain it, the alien dubbed "Humpty", has been assisting British scientists in mastering advanced Martian technical skills.

In the finale Spry reveals that Britain, having come to dominate Earth using its newly acquired technology, now intends to invade Mars. In an ensuing fight Currie is killed, and Autumn loses an arm. Spry kills the captive Martian which has now served its purpose, and contemptuously dismisses Autumn as a "dusty relic". Later, a crippled and alcoholic Autumn witnesses the departure of Britain's Stella Expeditionary Force to Mars, amid general scenes of patriotic fervor.

Scarlet Traces: The Great Game

Thirty years after the events of ''Scarlet Traces'', the counter-invasion of Mars is going badly, with the Martians successfully defending themselves using heat ray weapons against the invaders. Charlotte Hemming, an aristocratic young photojournalist, is saved by Robert Autumn from the thuggish agents of an increasingly repressive British Government - led by Spry, now Prime Minister. Autumn asks her to travel to Mars and investigate why out of the thousands of soldiers sent, only three hundred and seventy two have returned from the war. At the same time, the government is shown to be under pressure from a Nationalistic Scottish breakaway faction; plus Canada, Australia and New Zealand who wish to remove their troops from the space combat.

Hemming's spaceship is shot down as it enters Mars' atmosphere. She survives, but her cover is blown. She discovers that the Martians are not in fact native to Mars, but seem to have originated from a now-destroyed planet that became the asteroid belt. She theorises that a previous civilisation existed on Mars and was itself plunged into warfare by the arrival of the Asteroid "Martians", resulting in their extinction.

Hemming also discovers that the Martians have been using genetic techniques to mimic humanity to an indistinguishable degree - but the government is already aware of this, and has been preventing any substantial return of veterans to Earth, in case they are in fact disguised Martians.

Spry's government is about to deliver a coup de grace in some unknown form, and destroy all the remaining Martians - as well as an expendable rearguard left behind when the main body of the expeditionary force is secretly evacuated.

The expected doomsday weapon is delivered, and turns out to be modified Cavorite in capsule form, which sticks to anything it touches, and lifts it off the planet into the vacuum of space. Hemming is amongst those who survive, but they discover that humanoid Martians have taken control of the Lunar colony, and turned its mass driver into a weapon targeted on Earth. The bulk of the returning expeditionary force has been ambushed and destroyed.

Ultimately the Martians are defeated when a Commonwealth space fleet, originally intended to evacuate their own troops, arrives and with the surviving British ships engage the Martians in a crossfire.

Earth is saved, and the British government falls, with Spry being amongst those killed in the mass driver attacks which have devastated London and much of southern England. Some years later, a retired Hemming is approached by officials of the new government who are worried she will expose the truth, which has been repressed. She assures them that she has no intention of upsetting the status quo, and returns to her garden - which contains several Triffids.

Kerrick's tribe, which now includes the two male Yilanè who have elected to remain with him, live an almost idyllic life at a small lake, until a raiding party from Alpèsak captures and rapes one of the males, who later dies. The tribe moves east and find a peaceful island. Later Herilak's tribe joins them.

The scientist Ambalasi studies the primitive Yilanè, in between solving the problems involved in getting the Daughters of Life to work, since they are all regarded as equal, so none may lead the work force.

Vaintè makes her way along the coast to a Yilanè city. She persuades the leader there to let her lead a group in search of the Daughters of Life, secretly planning to seek out and kill Kerrick and the other humans.

The weapons the humans stole from the Yilanè begin to die. Without them, they won't be able to kill the larger dinosaurs which threaten their safety this far south. However, the expedition goes wrong and Lanefenuu, who is the leader of Alpèsak now learns their presence. Ambalasi contacts Lanefenuu to divert the attention while the Daughters of Life try to recruit new members and some males. This mission also fails.

The expedition of Vaintè contacts Lanefenuu and learns the whereabouts of the Daughters of Life. They capture Ambalasi as ordered, but then Vaintè turns on her leader and takes Enge hostage. She finds Kerrick, but before killing him, the surviving Yilanè male kills her.

When waiting for his girlfriend, Touka Miyashita, to arrive, Keiji Takeda sees a ragged looking man stumbling through the town. A short man in a black cloak speaks with the other man after he collapses, then berates the crowd for not helping. When the police arrive, the two escape, but what shocked Takeda most of all was that the cloaked man has the face of his girlfriend. The following day, Miyashita acts as if nothing had happened the previous day. Takeda sought to speak with her after school, but instead spots the cloaked man. Confronting him, the stranger introduces himself as Boogiepop. Boogiepop claims to be a split personality, who has emerged to protect the world.

Boogiepop explains to Takeda that Miyashita is unaware of his existence, and would modify her memories to explain the blank periods. Boogiepop has appeared this time to face a man-eater hiding in the school. Through their discussions, the two come to accept each other, and become friends. In the end, Boogiepop appears to Takeda in Miyashita's school uniform, and explains that the crisis was over, so he would disappear. To the end, Takeda is sure that Boogiepop is merely Miyashita's repressed possibilities, rather than a monster-fighting hero.

Kazuko Suema has an unusual interest: criminal psychology. Despite this interest, she had little interest in the rumors the other girls talk about in class, about a ''shinigami'' named Boogiepop. While walking home with her friend, Kyoko Kinoshita, Kinoshita is attacked by Nagi Kirima, The Fire Witch. Kirima interrogates her about something, but stops when she realizes that she had only caught a 'normal' person; a drug-user. Suema confronts Kirima about this, but was told to let go of the events of five years ago – but Suema had never told anyone about that! Unable to let things happen without her being aware of them again, Suema searches for Kirima's house, and confronts her. However, Kirima reveals little about what she is doing, and only tells her that Boogiepop had saved her five years ago.

Masami Saotome joins a group date with Akiko Kusatsu. Late in the night, he drops a tablet into her drink; when she falls ill, he tells the others that he will get her home. Taking her to an abandoned building, he signals for Manticore to come; she turns the corpse into her loyal slave. Two months prior, Saotome had found the corpse of Yurihara at school, before himself being attacked by Manticore. Rather than panic or fight back, he told Manticore it would be better off leaving him alive and taking the form of Yurihara. In time, the two were deeply in love with each other, as they hatched their plan to conquer the world. As their experiments in controlling people begin to fail, and Nagi Kirima seems to be investigating too close, the relationship between Saotome and Manticore strains, until Naoko Kamikishiro came upon them, calling for Echoes. Manticore kills Kamikishiro, but for Saotome, this was the missing link: he has a plan to solve their problems.

Akio Kimura receives a letter telling him that Naoko Kamikishiro was dead. Two years ago, when they were in High School, he met Kamikishiro when she was confessing her love to Shirou Tanaka. Returning to his hometown to investigate the origin of this letter, Kimura runs into Touka Miyashita. Miyashita tells him that he should get over the disappearance of Kamikishiro, but Kimura tells her that an alien had taken Kamikishiro into space with him. Kamikishiro had told Kimura that she had met an alien named Echoes, who had been sent to evaluate humanity, but he had been cloned. His clone was now somewhere in their town, and he was looking to kill it before it killed the humans. As Kimura and Miyashita go their separate ways, Miyashita – but at the same time not Miyashita – tells him that Kamikishiro had "done her duty".

Shirou Tanaka approaches Kei Niitoki about the disappearance of Naoko Kamikishiro. Masami Saotome suggests they ask Nagi Kirima, a friend of Kamikishiro. Unable to find her around the school, Saotome suggests summoning her over the school's PA. Recognising a trap, Kirima cut the lights to the PA room, and knocked out the three students with a stun gun. When they came to, they were presented to Echoes, who indicated that they were normal humans. After they were released by Echoes, Saotome stabbed him in the throat with a poison-filled mechanical pencil before Manticore attacked. Saotome then slashed Kirima's throat, killing her.

By the time Niitoki comprehended the situation, Echoes was being defeated by Manticore. However, he points to the sky, and transforms into light. Echoes directs the beam of light towards Manticore, but Saotome intervenes; he just barely saves her, but was killed instead. Hoping to take this chance to escape, Niitoki runs, but Manticore pursues. Hearing someone whistling ''Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg'', she heads towards the sound. Niitoki trips, but Manticore becomes trapped in a wire. Niitoki's savior has the face of Touka Miyashita, but claims to be Boogiepop. While Manticore is trapped, Boogiepop calls for Tanaka to shoot it with an arrow; an arrow to the head finishes the creature. Finally, Kirima rises from the dead, apparently resurrected by Echoes as he left.

During the Vietnam War, two Special Forces soldiers attempt to avoid combat duty.

Setting

In 1984, Democratic Party nominee Walter Mondale loses a divisive presidential election to a relatively unknown conservative Republican, the fictitious Governor Thompson of South Carolina. After Thompson takes office, his political and diplomatic advisors draft a report on the increasing complexities of the international geopolitical situation, which will assist the new president in shaping foreign policy direction. The People's Republic of China is becoming the premier economic power in Asia, bolstered by various strategic partnerships with Japanese industry. Various other Asian countries are also performing well as their economies are buoyed by China's recent successes, save for India, which is disintegrating as a political union and devolving into smaller coalitions of mutually hostile proto-states. Egypt's longstanding regime has just been ousted and replaced by an unstable left-wing government, intensifying the Arab Cold War through its bitter rivalry with Saudi Arabia. South Africa has become a federation under the bantustan system but is increasingly threatened by Nigeria, which has committed troops to the South African Border War.

The Soviet sphere of influence is rapidly shrinking, as most of India's larger and wealthier states have declared themselves allies of the US, and North Korea and Vietnam have followed China's lead in liberalizing their economies, which has made them vital partners in the Sino-Japanese trade alliance and considerably less disposed towards Soviet overtures. Despite massive infusions of Soviet arms and Cuban troops, Ethiopia becomes fragmented under the incompetent governance of the Derg, resulting in its loss of several regions to separatists, including Eritrea. The integrity of the Warsaw Pact is also threatened by restive nationalist movements, often accompanied by anti-Soviet sentiment, in Poland and even the Central Asian Soviet republics.

Politburo debate

The Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union comes to the consensus that its economy is stagnating and the armed forces may not retain technological parity with the West for much longer. The Politburo leadership believes that it would be in their best interests to invade Western Europe and decisively expand the Soviet sphere of influence. Although resistance from NATO is anticipated, the Politburo gambles on a quick and easy victory over its European member nations before the United States can effectively mobilize a counteroffensive.

Soviet officials deliberate three strategic options:

''''Variant A'''' involves a sudden mass pre-emptive nuclear strike throughout the entire European theater, including Spain and Portugal. The Soviet Air Force and Aeroflot would drop Spetsnaz forces into areas not under nuclear attack. A land invasion of Western Europe would then follow intended to last seven days, stopping at a line running from Linz-Frankfurt-Dunkirk.

''''Variant B'''' was identical to Variant A, but with chemical weapons and high explosives instead of nuclear weapons.

''''Variant C'''' involves a conventional invasion with a nuclear strike as a backup option in the event of the invasion stalling.

The Politburo debates the nuclear option intensely. Eventually, it was decided that any use of nuclear weapons would inevitably escalate to a full strategic exchange which would leave the Soviets so damaged as to make victory not worthwhile. Variant C was therefore chosen, augmented with some selective chemical strikes occurring where they might prove to be most effective, with the understanding that if the advance of Warsaw Pact forces was halted by Western resistance (led by NATO), nuclear weapons could be used to regain the initiative on the battlefield.

An invasion of the western seaboard of the United States as a distraction from Western Europe was briefly considered but then dismissed as logistically implausible due to the Soviet inability to lift enough airborne divisions and the US Naval and Air Defences along the US west coast.

It was also agreed that it would be Soviet policy to discourage the European neutrals from entry into the war, especially Ireland and Sweden. The Politburo agreed to try to convince France to stay out of the conflict, as this would help create division in NATO and thereby make a Warsaw Pact victory more likely.

The war

The catalyst for conflict comes in July 1985, when a US Marine Corps unit intervenes against a Soviet incursion into Yugoslavia. In response, the Warsaw Pact mobilizes and subsequently launches a full-scale invasion of Western Europe on 4 August 1985 (the 71st anniversary of the start of the First World War). Soviet forces thrust through West Germany towards the Rhine, and also land forces in northern Norway and Turkey. Attacks are also carried out using long-range strategic bombing, naval forces, and even killer satellites in space.

The Soviet Union had hoped that Ireland, Sweden and France would stay out of the war, as this would take some pressure off the invading Warsaw Pact forces, making victory more likely. However, Ireland, Sweden, and France eventually side with NATO, for various reasons, in both direct and indirect ways.

Ireland (having gotten around its reluctance to become a British ally by entering into a bilateral defense agreement with France which allowed France, and thus its allies, to station naval and air forces on Ireland's west coast) enters the war when the Soviet Navy (having secretly planted mines in Irish territorial waters) sinks an Irish naval vessel and the Soviet Air Force launches a missile attack on Shannon Airport—now home to various NATO aircraft including French fighter jets and various NATO submarine hunting planes such as the U.S. Navy's P-3C Orion.

The Soviet Union tries to buy Swedish neutrality with a mixture of rhetoric and veiled threats, but tensions rise as the Soviet Air Force repeatedly invades Swedish airspace to attack Norway. The Soviets believed that because Sweden had not been in a war since the 19th century, the Swedes would not retaliate, but this assumption is quickly proven false. A fierce air battle occurs when the Swedish Air Force attacks a Soviet bomber formation, and the Swedes take heavy losses before the Soviets are forced to turn back. The Swedes fully mobilize for war and contact Norway to begin cooperating on aerial defence, making Sweden a ''de facto'' co-belligerent beside NATO.

The Soviet conventional-force juggernaut quickly loses steam. Stiff resistance by NATO eventually foils the Soviet invasion, and Warsaw Pact forces get no further west (at least within West Germany) than the city of Krefeld, and no further north-west than the Netherlands, which they briefly occupy.

From mid-August, the capacity of the Soviet Union to wage war is significantly reduced by the political and military desertion of some of its demoralized allies, internal dissent at home, and mutinies within its own armed forces.

Outside Europe, the US bombs Cuba, the Chinese invade Vietnam and overthrow its government, Egypt invades Libya, Japan seizes the Kurile islands, the Frontline States and most of the Soviet Union's other African allies invade South Africa, and the Soviet Navy and its merchant fleet are both permanently neutralized.

To prove to the world that they are still a force to be reckoned with, the Soviets launch a successful nuclear missile strike against Birmingham, United Kingdom. The US Navy and Royal Navy retaliate with a joint nuclear strike on Minsk, which accelerates the collapse of Soviet control in its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc.

Angry Moscow citizens protesting over food shortages become convinced a luxury hotel for foreign guests contains hoarded food for the Soviet elite and storm the building, only to find bodies of the murdered guests. The furious crowd charges back out into the streets, growing by the minute, and the few Soviet security troops available to stop them turn on the loyalists in their ranks and join the rioters, meaning that the Soviet government rapidly loses control of anywhere in Moscow except the Kremlin. Elsewhere in the USSR, political dissidents and revolutionaries organize prison breaks, turning all manner of enemies of the state loose in the country. A coup d'etat led by Ukrainian nationalists overthrows the Soviet Politburo, consigning the Soviet Union to history.

Protagonists

Since the style of the book is as a fictional retrospective, much of it is written in a formal, historical tone. Interspersed with these sections, however, are short stories depicting various events unfolding in view of various characters. One character that does appear in a number of stories is Andrei Nekrassov, a 24-year old officer commanding a company of BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles in the Soviet 197th Motor Rifle Division, who engages with NATO forces on various occasions, moving from a credulous young man affected by propaganda into a more cynical, harder man whose experience of war against the west has affected his belief in the Soviet system.

A new post-war world

The ruins of Birmingham and Minsk are preserved as war memorials, fronted by immense causeways. The memorials are called Peace City West and Peace City East, respectively.

German reunification, formerly a goal of both East and West Germany, is not achieved. Former belligerents from both sides of World War III are against it, and interest in and support for it has diminished considerably in both West Germany and East Germany. The two nations have come to possess separate national identities, and East Germany, having outlived the superpower that created it, begins to determine its post-war future by setting its first free and open elections for 1986.

The three new superpowers intend to develop in peace, regarding each other as peaceful friends and competitors in the economic sense, rather than as political and military rivals. The new superpowers are the European Confederation, the United States, and a similar Asian confederation dominated by Japan and China.

Alternate ending

In ''The Untold Story,'' a separate chapter is devoted to an alternative, much darker, scenario, written in the form of radio transcripts and newspaper editorials.

The alternative scenario assumes the following factors have changed from the 'real' story: The Peace Movements in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s have been successful in removing theater nuclear forces from Western Europe. The United Kingdom has scrapped its nuclear missile submarines, abandoning Polaris and refusing to proceed with Trident. The only nuclear forces on the NATO side are the French SLBMs and the US ICBMs based in the contiguous United States. Public pressure, led by the peace movements, prevented a compensatory increase in spending on conventional forces as nuclear forces were reduced, which increased NATO's existing disadvantage in conventional forces. (This disadvantage had previously been lessened by the theater nuclear forces).

In assessing these factors, the Soviet Union believes that NATO is not prepared to aggressively defend Western Europe, and prepares to invade Europe. Given the political repression and lack of freedom of speech in the Soviet Union, the government has not had to deal with demands from peace movements to reduce its forces. It has a high level of capability compared to the waning preparedness of Western forces.

The Soviets begin invasion of Western Europe, quickly overrunning NATO conventional forces in the Low Countries and soon reaching the French border. Driven by their fear of a Soviet occupation, or a punitive bombing campaign if they refuse to comply, France withdraws from the conflict after the Soviet Union assures them that if they do so, they will escape occupation and attack.

Deciding not to risk global nuclear war by using US ICBMs to attack the Soviet positions in Western Europe, the UK and US leaderships sue for peace. All US forces are withdrawn from Europe.

Although not occupied by enemy forces, the UK is forced to accept a set of conditions that allows the Soviet Union effectively to control its military, economic, and political institutions. The UK's European Community membership is terminated, as are her obligations to the Treaty of Rome. A journalist predicts the Soviets will terminate trade union immunities under the law. A joint UK-Soviet Commission will control the country.

The Queen stays in the UK, but the major members of the Royal family are sent to various Commonwealth states. Major parts of the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy escape Soviet control by putting themselves under US or Australian commands.

This chapter is not included in the Macmillan edition.

A girl named Rosemary buys a broom and a cat from Mrs Cantrip, an untidy woman in the market place. When to Rosemary's surprise the cat starts talking to her, she learns that the woman is a witch, selling her possessions to start a new career.

Moreover, the cat, Carbonel, just happens to be King of the Cats, presumed missing by his subjects since the witch abducted him. Unfortunately, he cannot return to his throne until the enslavement spell Mrs Cantrip cast on him is undone. Rosemary, together with a new friend John, have to learn a little witchcraft themselves before tracking down Mrs Cantrip to obtain her at best ambivalent help.

The book details the six-week journey West made, with her husband, to Yugoslavia in 1937. During the trip, West and her husband travelled to Croatia, Dalmatia, Herzegovina, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro.

Jacob defrauds his twin brother Esau and flees. In Haran he gets to know his cousin Rachel, and falls in love with her. Years of hard work later he marries Rachel and reconciles with his brother Esau.

Two years ago, six school friends – Ta, Kim, Por, Tair, Noot, and Ko – were faced with a grudge. Ta's mother died when he was young, and his father remarried Ta's teacher, Miss Panor. Kim was his girlfriend (but is now dating Por). The boyish Tair and stylish Noot might be lovers (though this is never made clear), and Ko is their fun-loving friend.

During their last year at school, Miss Panor seduces Por (though this is not known to his friends). Por subsequently discovers he's not the only one in her bed. In addition to being married to Ta's father, Miss Panor is also having an affair with the sports coach. Fuelled by jealousy, Por suggests filming Panor and the coach to 'prove her infidelity' to Ta's father. The friends, save for Kim, do so, and broadcast it to the entire school. The coach soon discovers it was them and holds the group at gunpoint while he sexually abuses them.

Seeking revenge, the students approach a shaman who agrees to curse the coach. A few days later, Por goes back to the shaman and asks him to curse Miss Panor, too. The coach dies in which numerous fish hooks appear from his body. Miss Panor, who is embarrassed at her sexual exploits being revealed, is found stabbing herself repeatedly in the legs. She subsequently becomes a recluse, returning home to her cottage on the river, away from the city.

In the present, the six friends gather together after Ta's father commits suicide in order to head to the remote village and pay their respects to Miss Panor. Upon arrival at Panor's cottage on the river, Noot's cell phone rings; her uncle wants her to return because her father is in the hospital, so she makes her goodbyes and heads back to the city. Miss Panor is a polite hostess (if a little distant), and Ta's great-grandmother seems harmless enough, though he warns everyone that she is a bit senile. As the group stays at the cottage, Kim experiences some strange occurrences around it such as, the door moving on its own, a white figure appearing underwater, and seeing Ta's great-grandmother devouring a cat.

Miss Panor retires to a secret hut in the jungle, where she has several corpses gathered round, all of them sitting at desks, like students. Each corpse has a photo attached to it, indicating which former student it represents.

At dinner that night, as the friends eat the soup Panor has made for them, each student spits out something: Ko spits up a fingernail, Por spits up a piece of tongue with a piercing on it, Kim spits up an eye contact lens and Tair an eyeball. The group realizes that the meat, which is actually the dismembered body parts in the soup is, in fact, Noot. They search the cottage for Miss Panor. Kim finds a video camera with a tape that shows Miss Panor killing and cannibalizing the shaman who cursed her, and then rushing towards the camera with a tree branch raised and bringing it down on whomever is holding the camera.

Tair begins to have hallucinations of corpses shambling around everywhere. The group flees the house and sees a light outside. They call to the boat for help, but it drives past them. The driver takes a fatal fall from the boat after seeing Miss Panor coming towards him from the other side, which sinks. Kim tumbles into the water and has a vision of Panor and Ta's father. In the vision, Panor is shown torturing Ta's father by ripping off his toenails, on the premise that if she hobbles him, he can't leave her. When Panor leaves the room, Ta's father shoots himself in the head. Kim relates this to the others, and they find the gun. In the same room, there are also some jars filled with pickled mangoes. In one of these jars, the group finds Ta's dead father.

The group runs to the house's dusty old shrine to hide and pray. Tair has a laughing fit and is temporarily possessed by Miss Panor. Ko threatens Tair with the gun, but suddenly starts to writhe and flail as dozens of salamanders claw their way out of his body, killing him.

The youths now decide to split up: Por and Ta go off into the jungle to find Panor, leaving Kim and Tair sitting outside the shrine, with Tair (now free of possession) still seeing visions of corpses. She panics and runs off, and Kim follows into the dense jungle. The boys hear Kim fall down. They run to find her, but are separated. Ta finds Kim and wrenches a piece of metal from her leg. Alone, Por has creepy visions of Panor. Ta leaves Kim to look for Por. Tair bursts from the jungle, cowering away from her visions. After seeing Kim as a walking corpse and in hysterics, Tair rips out her own eyes.

Por finds Kim, who appears to him as Miss Panor, taunting him about their love affair. Firing the gun at Kim, but Ta rescues her just in time. Por runs off into the jungle and discovers Panor chanting in her secret hut. Por flees, but a vision of Panor appears, hamstrings him, and starts pulling out his teeth; Por crawls away and confesses that he had a love spell placed on Panor causing her to seduce him, became jealous when he found out she was also sleeping with the coach and took part in filming them and then placing a pain-inducing curse on Panor as punishment. Suddenly, his vision clears and he sees Kim and Ta. Kim is repulsed by Por's confession; she and Ta leave Por in the jungle.

Miss Panor arrives, ties up Por, and takes him to her secret hut. She stabs him in the neck with a syringe full of a paralytic agent, then pours boiling water down his throat and slowly burns every inch of his skin with a blowtorch.

In the jungle, Ta is carrying Kim on his back. She begs him to continue without her, but he refuses. The two of them come across a small shrine, on which is hanging Noot's bag. Her cell phone rings: it's her uncle, wondering where she is.

In the secret jungle hut, Miss Panor is performing CPR on fatally burned Por in order to inflict more torture on him. Meanwhile, police officers converge outside the hut. As Miss Panor starts to use a power drill on Por's head, the officers break in and shoot her.

Kim is rushed to a hospital. She recovers, and Ta comes to visit her. As they chat, the TV in Kim's room broadcasts a news show, which reports that the five students who visited Miss Panor are dead. Also discovered in the secret hut was Ta's charred corpse.

In horror, Kim turns to see that Ta is actually a badly burned, walking corpse. He never went with them to visit Miss Panor; he was already dead by then. As he pets Kim's hand, Ta explains: the video of Panor eating the shaman was taken by Ta's father, who had threatened divorce after witnessing the tape of her and the coach. For this, Panor tortured him and he killed himself. Panor locked Ta's great-grandmother in a closet and left her to starve. It was Ta's great-grandmother who had told Panor that in order to break the spells placed on her she had to kill the shaman that was paid to perform them and eat his flesh. She also warned Panor that it could drive her insane (it does). It also becomes clear that the coach had also placed a love spell on Panor to instigate their affair just like Por did. Miss Panor was the victim of all these spells. Her attempt to free herself and seek revenge led her into insanity. She tortured Ta in all the ways that will be experienced by his friends. Ta's vengeful spirit had lured the group there so they could feel the pain that he went through. He only saved Kim from being killed because he still loves her.

A flashback of their days in school returned. Kim and a classmate had a crush on Ta. Kim makes a bet with her classmate that if Ta doesn't court Kim within a week, she will "offer" Ta to her. Kim was then seen with the shaman who appeared earlier, who warns her, "Once you start, it will follow you till you die." She receives a clay doll and thanks the shaman.

The film ends with Kim jumps out of the hospital window to her death, holding the clay doll. Ta's burnt form lies beside her declaring his love for her.

After spotting his ex-wife Kimberly in a bar one night, alcoholic high-school teacher Rick Latimer gets into a fight with the man she is with, culminating in his beating the hapless man's car with a baseball bat, and is arrested for the incident.

Finding that Rick's behavior is tarnishing the school district's image, the board of education unanimously decides to transfer him to another school in another part of the district: Brandel High, a crime-ridden and gang-dominated institution where kids who have been sent after they have been expelled from other schools. He is made the new principal. Initially, Rick believes this move is a promotion for him — but he soon comes to realize that it is actually a punishment, because he is viewed as being as lost, incorrigible, & hopeless as the students of “Brand X” (the nickname that everyone derisively calls the school).

Believing he can repair his image by cleaning up the school, Rick attempts to have an assembly to declare his intentions: "No more." No more drugs, running in the hallways or being late to class. During his speech, Victor Duncan, the leader of the main gang in the school, walks in, derides Rick in front of everyone, then walks out. This sparks a small riot, which earns Rick the enmity of not only the teachers but also school head of security Jake.

Eventually, Rick manages to enforce his policy of getting rid of the drugs being dealt in the bathrooms and clearing out the hallways — but not always successfully. As the students are now forced to go to class, some of the more unruly ones become increasingly disruptive, including White Zac, who eventually attempts to rape one of the teachers, Ms. Orozco, with whom Rick is beginning to form a close friendship. Rick is alerted of this, rides his motorcycle into the school and chases down White Zac, who he beats him unconscious.

Victor, meanwhile, continues to assert his influence on the school, going so far as to brutally beat a former member of his gang and hang him by his ankles when the member warms to Rick and actually starts learning. Rick is also ambushed and beaten while Victor's gang defaces his motorcycle. Arturo and his friends in shop class repair Rick's motorcycle for him, painting "El Principal" on the gas tank and on Rick's helmet. After a confrontation in the lunch room, Victor threatens Rick, warning him that if he shows up the next day, he's going home in a body bag. Rick scoffs and walks away as Victor continues to threaten him.

The next day, after classes have been dismissed, Victor and his crew show up and sneak into the school. Jake goes to chain the doors, and while attempting to call the cops, Rick discovers that Victor's crew has cut the phone lines. A game of cat and mouse ensues. Jake gets locked in a storage closet by one of Victor's crew, while Rick hides in the girls' shower room with a baseball bat, waiting for Victor. However, Victor and Jojo ambush him.

While holding Rick at gunpoint, Victor orders Jojo to cut him. Jojo refuses, telling Victor that killing Rick would bring down the crew. Victor shoots Jojo in the head, killing him, but before he can shoot Rick, Arturo intervenes and strikes Victor with Rick's baseball bat. The distraction leads to a showdown in the school halls between Victor and Rick, with Victor seemingly having the upper hand at first. But Rick overpowers him and beats Victor senseless, throwing him through the schoolhouse doors.

Rick's beating of Victor greatly shocks the rest of the school who witness the fight. Several students cheer Rick on, much to the chagrin of Victor's gang members. After a small fight breaks out Rick again declares, "No more!", which stops the fight quickly. Victor is arrest for murdering Jojo and taken away by the police. A student derisively asks, "Hey man, who the hell do you think you are?!", to which Rick responds "I'm the principal, man!" and rides away on his motorcycle.

Christine "Chris" McCormick is a highly paid fashion model whose image serves as the driving force of the ad campaign for a popular brand of lipstick and can be seen in magazines and on billboards all around the world. Gordon Stuart, a part-time composer and full-time music teacher, eagerly accepts Chris's 13-year-old sister Kathy's invitation to come to a secluded beachside photo shoot, so Chris can listen to some of his music. He arrives at her apartment one day to visit her, but is interrupted by a phone call from her lover, Steve Edison.

As Chris talks to Steve, Gordon begins to fume at the thought of Chris's obvious rejection. His hurt soon turns to anger, and he enters her room, assaults her, smears her face with the lipstick she helps promote, and then brutally rapes her. Near the end of the ordeal, Kathy returns home from school, walks in on Chris and Gordon, and flees. Gordon gets up and suggests Kathy join them and "have some fun," but instead cuts Chris free and leaves.

Gordon is arrested, but as Chris learns from Carla Bondi, the prosecutor assigned to handle the case, Gordon's conviction is hardly assured, and she asks her to testify against him. Gordon's attorney argues that the sex was consensual, and that its roughness was the result of Chris's "own twisted desires". He also suggests that even if Gordon acted without her consent, she provoked him by appearing naked in front of him at the photo shoot where they first met, and by the inherent sensuality of the photographs from which she makes her living. Gordon is ultimately acquitted.

Chris leaves her job modeling for the lipstick company and plans to relocate to Colorado with Kathy after her last shoot. Unfortunately, Kathy's school is using the same abandoned building where Chris's shoot is to rehearse a new ballet orchestrated by Gordon. Kathy runs into Gordon and flees when he starts fondling her, but Gordon chases her down and rapes her.

Kathy returns to the photo shoot and tells Chris what happened. Gripped in a murderous frenzy, Chris runs outside to her car and grabs a Remington Slide-Action Rifle she had intended to take to Colorado with her. She spots Gordon driving his car in the parking lot, and shoots at it, causing it to crash. As Gordon climbs out of the wreck, Chris keeps shooting him until the rifle is empty. Later, Carla Bondi speaks to a jury, telling them that their acquittal of Gordon earlier resulted in Chris losing faith in the law. The jury ultimately finds Chris not guilty of murder.

Rachel Vinrace embarks for South America on her father's ship and is launched on a course of self-discovery in a kind of modern mythical voyage. The mismatched jumble of passengers provides Woolf with an opportunity to satirise Edwardian life. The novel introduces Clarissa Dalloway, the central character of Woolf's later novel, ''Mrs Dalloway''. Two of the other characters were modelled after important figures in Woolf's life. St John Hirst is a fictional portrayal of Lytton Strachey and Helen Ambrose is to some extent inspired by Woolf's sister, Vanessa Bell. Rachel's journey from a cloistered life in a London suburb to freedom, challenging intellectual discourse, and self-discovery very likely reflects Woolf's own journey from a repressive household to the intellectual stimulation of the Bloomsbury Group. Toward the novel's end, Rachel Vinrace dies of a fever.

Ten years before freeing the US POWs from a brutal General, Colonel James Braddock (Chuck Norris) was held in a North Vietnamese POW camp run by sadistic Colonel Yin (Soon-Teck Oh), who forces the POWs to grow opium for a French drug runner named François (Pierre Issot), and tries to get Braddock to admit to and sign a long list of war crimes. One of his fellow soldiers Captain David Nester (Steven Williams) has been convinced (likely by Yin) that their country's abandoned them and has become one of Yin's henchmen for which his fellow soldiers denounce him as a traitor. During his team's time in captivity, they are relentlessly subjected to various forms of humiliating torture, such as Sergeant Opelka having an unloaded pistol fired into his head, Yin forcing Braddock and Nester to have a fist fight and Braddock being hung by his feet and having a bag with a rat inside it placed over his head and Braddock being told that his wife has left him and remarried.

Franklin, another US POW, starts to suffer from malaria, and Braddock exchanges an admission of guilt to Yin's charges of war crimes for medicine for the infected soldier. Yin breaks his deal with Braddock, and gives the soldier a lethal dose of opium and later cremates him in front of Braddock. Enraged, Braddock escapes from the camp, plots to free his fellow prisoners and destroy the prison camp. Yin then betrays François, taking his helicopter to search for Braddock and also takes control of his drug ring.

Braddock inflicts several losses against Yin's men, leading to Yin's second-in-command to dress a Vietnamese soldier as Colonel Yin, shoot him and take another POW named Anthony Mazilli hostage in an attempt to lure Braddock into the open. Braddock notices that the decoy is not wearing Yin's boots, and proceeds to kill Yin's men while Nester sacrifices himself in a gunfire to allow Mazilli to escape. Eventually, Braddock fights Yin hand to hand in Yin's quarters. Subduing Yin, Braddock escorts the prisoners to an awaiting helicopter although not before igniting explosive charges planted around Yin's quarters.

Colonel James Braddock (Chuck Norris), Vietnam War veteran, had believed his Asian wife Lin Tan Cang (Miki Kim) to be dead since the war ended in 1975, but he hears from a missionary, Reverend Polanski (Yehuda Efroni), that Lin is not only alive, but that she and Braddock have a 12-year-old son named Van Tan Cang (Roland Harrah III).

At first, Braddock does not believe it, but when cold-blooded CIA boss Littlejohn (Jack Rader) tells Braddock to disregard that information, that's when Braddock knows it's true. Braddock heads back into Vietnam through parachute deployment and with the help of an Australian C-47 pilot. After parachute descent, Braddock outruns Vietnamese Navy patrol boats with a jet-powered speedboat.

Reverend Polanski leads Braddock to Lin and Van. Attempting to flee the country, Braddock, Lin, and Van are captured by the soldiers of the sadistic Vietnamese General Quoc (Aki Aleong). Quoc kills Lin on the spot, and has his soldiers take Braddock and Van to a compound to be tortured.

Later, Braddock overpowers his guards, frees Van, and heads for the mission that is run by Polanski. Quoc anticipates the move and takes all the mission children into captivity, along with Van and Polanski, and Braddock sets out to free them all from Quoc by going to his weapons cache that he had hidden a few days prior. He equips himself with a modified Heckler & Koch G3 battle rifle with an underslung 6-shot rotary grenade launcher and attachments including a spring-loaded bayonet. He raids the camp killing the guards and loading up one of the trucks with all the children including his son, Van and the Reverend. Soon after escaping they are followed and attacked by a Vietnamese-captured US UH-1 Huey.

After they escape Braddock takes the children on foot and find a Vietnamese airstrip. Braddock silently takes out the guards and hijacks a C-47 Dakota plane. The plane is then attacked by Vietnamese guards causing fuel to leak out of the plane, eventually crashing just outside the Cambodian-Thailand border. Braddock then raids the border station where Thai and US troops are watching on the other side, cheering Braddock on. When Braddock kills all the opposing troops, more pour in. Braddock is injured by a grenade. When General Quoc then flies in on a Vietnamese Mil-24 Hind gunship thinking he has Braddock all to himself, two US helicopters on the side of the Thai border confront Quoc's gunship. Taunting each other to cross, Braddock and his son Van fire at Quoc's ship, hitting the pilot. The gunship crashes, killing Quoc. The US troops pour over the border and bridge and help the wounded Braddock and the children.

Conrad Tesdinic lives in Stallery, a small town in the English Alps, a mountain range present in Series Seven worlds where the British Isles are still connected to the European mainland. Conrad's father is dead; his sister Anthea has left home to go to university; and his mother, Franconia, is an eccentric feminist author whose books are sold exclusively in her brother's bookshop, where she and Conrad also live.

In the mountains high above Stallery lies Stallery Mansion, known as a "possibilities mansion," and home to the Count and his family. Conrad's uncle tells him that someone up at Stallery Mansion is pulling the possibilities – that is, changing the details of the world. Judging from the affluence of Stallery, this person is making a great deal of money by doing so, perhaps by playing the stock market; but this is adversely affecting the rest of the world. At first only small details change – the colour of the postboxes, the titles of books – but the changes keep getting bigger and bigger.

According to his uncle, Conrad is going to die within the year unless he kills the person pulling the possibilities—someone he should have eliminated in a past life. To kill this person, Conrad will need to secure a position at Stallery Mansion, and then summon a Walker, someone who will give Conrad what he needs to defeat his nameless foe. Conrad's uncle and his group of magician friends work a strange spell on a cork, giving Conrad, who has possession of it, the power to summon a Walker at will. Conrad needs to be sure who this person is before he summons the Walker, however, so instead of moving forward in school with his friends, he is sent to work at Stallery and study its inhabitants, one of which is the person Conrad needs to defeat.

Conrad soon finds that he is not the only one snooping around the mansion. He befriends his fellow servant-in-training, Christopher "Smith" (really Christopher Chant), who is searching for his friend Millie. Together, they discover that she is trapped in one of the possibilities. Conrad and Christopher must stop the person behind all the mischief, rescue Millie, and fix Conrad's fate, all without spilling soup on the Countess although Conrad's bad Karma isn't helping along the way.

Max Donigan and Leo Porter are two "seasoned" treasure hunters whose adventures rarely result in any notable success. After their latest stint gone wrong, they are recruited by a seemingly-psychic woman, Patricia Goodwin, owner of a treasure map. She convinces them that the map leads to a huge stockpile of gold belonging to the "Firewalker." She then says that someone, or thing, else is searching for the map: a red cyclops.

The map leads them to a cave on a local Native American Reservation. Patricia warns them that the cave is home to "old people, sleeping"; they later discover it is a mass grave filled with skeletons. They find a Spanish Conquistador helmet and mural depicting Aztec and Mayan art, with an anachronistic date of 1527. As Leo studies the mural, Max finds a ruby-pommeled dagger hidden inside a skull. They are ambushed inside the cave by a small group of men and Patricia is taken by one of them. After killing their attackers, Max and Leo confront the kidnapper; upon seeing the dagger, he screams and throws himself into a pit.

While discussing the nature of the dagger at a local bar, Max, Leo and Patricia hear from the barkeep about ''El Coyote'': a local that believes himself descended from the Aztecs —and also happens to be a one-eyed man with an eye patch. The barkeep also directs them to Tall Eagle, a local Native American. He tells them that the Firewalker was a powerful being that flew away to walk in the fires of the sun and gives Patricia a small bag of "magic" to protect her. While trying to figure out where to go next, Patricia stabs the dagger into a map, then faints, giving them a location of San Miguel. Max is later drugged by a woman; El Coyote chants while holding a snake as the woman attempts to murder Max. A chanting Tall Eagle causes Patricia to suddenly wake and rush to Max's defense; she and Leo stop the woman from succeeding. They capture her, but she disappears overnight and a snake appears in her cell.

They travel to San Miguel and barter for information. A man named Boggs directs them to a contact in a village named Chajal; Boggs is later seen to have been working for, and is killed by, El Coyote. Dressed as priests and a nun to avoid detection, the trio make it to Chajal and find it completely deserted. Local militia chase them into the jungle on foot; they escape and make camp for the night. They are found in the morning by a friend of Max's: Corky Taylor, leader of a small group of Central American freedom fighters, who provides them with a vehicle to finish their journey. When they stop that night, Leo disappears; Patricia and Max believe him dead when they find blood and his glasses by the alligator-infested river.

The next morning, Patricia and Max find the temple they have been searching for. Inside, they find Leo alive and dangling from a rope, along with El Coyote. He offers Leo in exchange for the dagger, claiming he has no use for the three of them. After suggesting that Patricia can go free, she leaves and is sealed in a passageway. El Coyote laughs and explains that he will kill them and sacrifice Patricia to appease the gods and become the Firewalker. Max throws the dagger at El Coyote to kill him, but he catches it and leaves the chamber. Max rescues Leo as El Coyote prepares to kill Patricia. They reach her just in time; Max shoots El Coyote in the chest, seemingly killing him. Patricia finds the gold by placing the dagger in a slot on the altar, opening a chamber below it. After gathering the gold, El Coyote attacks them. Patricia stabs him in the back with the dagger just as he prepares to kill Max. With El Coyote stunned, Max is able to fight back, kicking him onto the altar. Patricia then sprinkles the magic bag on El Coyote's body; he bursts into flame as they leave the temple with the gold and the trio reap the rewards of their successful journey.

The film opens up on birdwatcher Sally and her photographer Victor, who are making love in the woods of Camp Blackwood. They are suddenly attacked by a person wearing a boiler suit and clown mask, wielding a machete. The clown kills Victor and chases Sally through the woods, swinging the machete at her before the film cuts to the opening credits.

The story then focuses on Tricia, her boyfriend Steve, Steve's friend Jay and Jay's girlfriend Nicole. These four are going on a trip to Camp Blackwood. But Tricia has reservations about the trip to Camp Blackwood, due to the newspaper reporting on the disappearance of Sally, for her car was found at Camp Blackwood. Steve convinces Tricia otherwise, and the two couples head out to the camp in Jay's car.

Meanwhile at the camp, two deer hunters, Gus and George, discover Sally still alive, bloodied and bruised. The clown then appears and murders the three of them.

Back with the main characters, they’ve been on the road for over an hour, and are in need of directions to the camp. On the side of the road, they stop and talk to a nutty town local by the name of Bromley Thatcher. Thatcher gives them grief for polluting the town with their loud music, fast food trash, ignorance and disrespect to the locals. After a brief exchange that includes a warning from Thatcher about the clown, Thatcher begrudgingly gives them directions to the camp, now known to them and the audience as 'Camp Blood'.

In the woods, they meet their guide, a butch lesbian known as Harris, who seems to be attracted to Nicole, creepily watching her and Jay from time to time. Tricia asks Harris if she's heard anything about the clown or why the place is nicknamed 'Camp Blood', but Harris says she has no idea.

After spending the day doing menial tasks such as collecting firewood and setting up camp, the group have a campfire, wanting to tell ghost stories. Harris reveals that she does indeed know the story of the Camp and of the clown and tells them the story. Twenty years prior, a man by the name of Stanley Cunningham was fired from his job, and came home to find his girlfriend Marylou in bed with a man named Nathan. Stanley knocked them both out in a fit of rage, put them in the trunk of his car, donned a clown mask, and drove them out to the camp where he proceeded to murder them. The police found the bodies three weeks later, but Stanley Cunningham disappeared, never to be seen again. Although, over the years people have gone missing, and some townsfolk claim to have seen the clown wander the woods from time to time. Steve, Jay and Nicole enjoy the story, believing it to be just a story Harris made up to spook them. But Tricia gets creeped out by it, and is unnerved for the rest of the night.

After the group settles down into their respective tents for the night, the group awake in the morning to find the burnt-out carcass of Harris on the campfire. Tricia begins to panic, believing that the clown story is true, and they're going to be picked off one by one. Steve calms her down, reaffirming that it was just a story Harris concocted to scare them, and nothing more. Whoever killed Harris, though, has to still be out in the woods, and they need to leave as soon as possible. Steve begins to lead the group back to Jay's car, but Nicole sprains her ankle, forcing the group to have to carry her. The clown appears, and gets into a fight with Steve, who pulls out his survival knife to defend himself. The fight ends with Steve‘s death as he gets his arm and head hacked into with the machete. The clown punches Tricia, and intimidates Jay to back off as the clown carries Nicole away. Tricia and Jay fight over Steve's knife, but Jay punches Tricia, and goes to get Nicole back, leaving Tricia on her own to escape on her own.

Jay gets lost looking for the clown and Nicole, and begins to lose his mind. Nicole managed to get away from the clown off-screen, but bumps into Jay, who turns around and accidentally stabs Nicole, fatally killing her. The clown appears, and Jay, having completely lost it, allows the clown to snap his neck, killing him.

Tricia manages to get back to the car, but runs into Thatcher. Tricia pleads him to help her, for the clown is after her and has killed her friends. Thatcher reveals that the clown story was made up by him and some of the other locals to scare tourists like her and her friends away. The clown then appears, and Thatcher reveals that he is in cahoots with the clown when he tries to chloroform Tricia. Tricia manages to fight the two of them off, and begins to run away with the clown in pursuit. Thatcher, now in possession of Jay's car keys, gets in and follows them with the car. In his frustration and anger, Thatcher accidentally hits the clown with the car, supposedly killing the clown. Thatcher bawls over his loss as Tricia takes the machete and hacks Thatcher to death. Tricia unmasks the clown, revealing the killer to be Harris. As Tricia gets into the car, Harris dons the mask again, and Tricia hits her again, finally killing her. As Tricia drives away in hysterics, she hallucinates the clown appearing in the backseat, who proceeds to choke Tricia out. Tricia stops the car, and loses consciousness as she hallucinates this.

Tricia regains consciousness, finding herself in a padded room. A doctor and a detective come in to check up on Tricia. She was catatonic when the police found her four days prior, and she has been in there ever since. The detective then asks about all of the victims throughout the movie, and Tricia tells him that it was Harris who did it, dressed as a clown. The detective, however, states that they did not find a clown, but they found Harris Stanley's blood all over Trica's hands, face, and all over Jay's car when they found her four days ago. Tricia then realizes that Harris Stanley ''was'' Stanley Cunningham in the story, and Harris had been using the clown legend to get away with killing people. But Tricia also realizes that Marylou and Nathan were never found; the town believes that the two of them ran off together twenty years ago, for the 'Camp Blood' story to the locals is just a story they made up to scare tourists away. Meaning, Tricia's claim to Harris being the clown can't be proven, and now with both her doctor and the detective believing her to be insane, she will be charged with the murders of her friends and others. Tricia hysterically tries to explain to the detective and the doctor, but they restrain her and have a nurse give her a sedative. As Tricia begins to lose consciousness, and everyone leaves her in the room alone, she hallucinates the clown being in the room with her and screams.

Billy Jack is introduced as an enigmatic, half-Native American Vietnam veteran who shuns society, taking refuge in the peaceful solitude of the California Central Coast mountains. His troubles begin when he descends from this unspoiled setting and drives into a small beach town named Big Rock. A minor traffic accident in which a motorist hits a motorcyclist results in a savage beating by members of the Born Losers Motorcycle Club, led by Danny. The horrified bystanders are too afraid to help or be involved in any way. Billy Jack jumps into the fray and rescues the man by himself. At this point the police arrive and arrest Billy for using a rifle to stop the fight.

The police throw Billy in jail and the judge fines him $1,000 for discharging a rifle in public (the assaulters get a $150 fine or thirty days in jail), which leads him to sell his jeep. He is treated with suspicion and hostility by the police. Meanwhile, the marauding bikers terrorize the town, rape four teenage girls, and threaten anyone slated to testify against them, with the kid brother of the leader being fingered as part of the rape. One of the girls later recants, saying she willingly gave herself to the biker gang after the gang goes to her house and turns the power off before breaking into the house to spook her. Despite the efforts of the police to get her to not recant, her mother (Jane Russell) defends her decision to not testify.

Vicky Barrington, a bikini-clad damsel-in-distress, is twice abducted and abused by the gang. The first time, she goes along with the idea of being a biker mama if she can get drugs from her bike to take as a way to sneak up on a biker to knock him out and flee. Her supposed plan of ditching her bike to flee on foot results in her being caught and raped to the point where she is put in hospital. The second time, the bikers steal a cop car and try to steal her from the hideout after she agrees to testify for the trial. Her attempted escape has her run into Billy, who takes a swing at the bikers and takes Vicky to his location on her bike; she is spooked enough to not testify. The gang comes back to his place when the two are out for lunch and steal his money. Little by little, the other victims are spooked out by the bikers and ineffective sheriffs. In the night, Billy drives out to see the bikers to talk to their leader about his stolen money. He gives them until tomorrow to get it back before leaving. The next day, the bikers confront the two at a gas station. Billy fights Gangrene and beats him before getting some of the money back and taking one of their bikes. Danny offers Vicky to serve as the sexually compliant "biker mama" the easy way rather than being there by force, which she declines. The gang comes to the hideout to ask them to see Danny by their hideout, which reveals they have kidnapped one of the rape victims. The dad tries to intervene, but he fails. Billy is hit from behind with a tire iron and beaten after trying to distract long enough for Vicky to escape, but each fail. It is then that Vicky agrees to be a biker mama to get them to let go of Billy.

At the police station, Billy is unable to get help from the police or the local residents and must return to the gang's lair to rescue Vicky by himself, particularly when the last victim recants. Billy, armed with a bolt-action rifle, captures the gang, shoots the leader (Jeremy Slate) between the eyes in cold blood, and forces some of the others to take Vicky, who's been badly beaten, to the hospital. As the police finally arrive, Billy abruptly rides away on one of the gang's motorcycles.

The anti-authority sentiment continues up to the end when a police deputy accidentally shoots Billy in the back, mistaking him for a fleeing gang member. He is later found, nearly dead, lying by the shore of a lake. He is placed on a stretcher and is flown to the hospital in a helicopter as Vicky and the sheriff give him a salute.

Seattle cop Cliff Garret (Chuck Norris) is severely wounded in a drug bust gone bad—shot by his corrupt partner Ronny “Del” Delany (Michael Parks).

Garret dies momentarily in the emergency room, but is revived with a defibrillator. His police supervisor, Chambers, has the hospital conceal his survival, and Garret is given a new identity. Garret becomes hitman Danny Grogan and, a year later, he infiltrates the organization of mob boss mafioso Marco Luganni (Al Waxman).

The plan is for Grogan to bring together Luganni and his rival, French Canadian mafioso boss André LaCombe (Marcel Sabourin), so they can both be taken down together. After two years of working the plan, a gang of Iranian drug dealers looking to muscle in on everyone's territories suddenly enter the picture when they make a hit on one of Luganni's teams just as they finished making a hit on a team of LaCombe's money carriers.

Grogan plays all parties against one another while befriending a fatherless boy named Tim Murphy (Salim Grant), who lives in the apartment down the hall and is being bullied by a racist white kid in the neighborhood. Tim's mother works three jobs, so he begins spending time with Grogan. Grogan teaches Tim how to fight after seeing him bullied on the street one day. When Tim stands up to the white kid, he gets the best of him, then watches as the white kid is dragged off by his father and beaten for losing the fight. Grogan walks across the street, punches the father in the nose through a screen door, so hard that it knocks the father to the ground, then Grogan walks away.

Grogan’s past returns to haunt him in the person of Ronny Delany, who is secretly working with Luganni. Delany recognizes Grogan as Garret, and ties Tim to a chair loaded with explosives in a bid to force Grogan to cooperate. Delany sets off the chair bomb, but Grogan is unharmed and Tim survives.

Grogan turns the tables on them all. At a meeting to set terms of an alliance, Delany has Luganni's men kill LaCombe and his men. Then the Iranians and Delany kill Luganni, but Grogan arrives on the scene and kills all of them. Grogan leaves an enormous sum of money for Tim and his mother in Tim's hospital room. Tim's mother discovers it and is very grateful. In the end, in retribution for what he did to Tim, Grogan blows Delany up while tied to a chair hanging outside a window, much to the chagrin of Chambers.

Vietnam veteran and retired CSA agent William Lansing works on a wildlife refuge in Northern Alaska, and has been exchanging letters in a pen-pal relationship with Irena Morawska, a 13-year-old orphaned girl in Warsaw, Poland that he's helping out financially. When the letters suddenly stop coming, Lansing heads to Poland to figure out the reason. He discovers that the orphanage that Irena was staying in, which is financed by honest – and unsuspecting – good intentioned Samaritans, is a front for a human trafficking syndicate run by a notorious crime boss and freelance terrorist named Faisal.

The operation is worth billions and all the girls are sold and traded to the highest bidders from all over the world. Through his letters to Irena, Lansing has taught Irena how to use secret codes, which she uses to keep him updated on where Faisal is taking her to. Lansing stays on Faisal's trail, teaming up with Polish police detective Kasia Lato to rescue Irena and the other girls, and bring down Faisal's human trafficking network.

The novel centers on the story of a few summer months in 1998 in Stratford, Ontario against the backdrop of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. The novel is narrated in third-person narrator, which allows change of perspective between the chapters, with Jane Kincaid (a property maker for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival) being the dominant character voice throughout. Jane Kincaid is an immigrant from a southern town somewhere in Louisiana, called Plantation. She left the United States for Ontario to begin a new life as an artist, and to escape her family who was providing her with a modest income from an inheritance. Jane shed her birth-name Aura Lee Terry during the move. She met her husband Griffin, an up-and-coming young Shakespearean actor, and the two lead what seems an entirely ordinary happy suburban existence together with their seven-year-old son Will, dog Rudyard and housekeeper/nanny Mercy Bowman.

Their peaceful existence begins to unravel when Griffin's handsome looks lead Jane to suspect that other women (specifically stage partner Zoë Walker, 21) may be after him. This is the spark for the unease and miscommunication which follows. Tony Preston, a high-school boyfriend of Jane's, then shows up out of the blue and sexually assaults her, ejaculating on her dress and face. A few hours later, Preston dies in a car accident. Jane refuses to mention this to anyone, even her psychiatrist, although the reader gets a glimpse of the assault haunting her through the narrative. The town is also menaced by a rape-murderer, who kills two women before committing suicide by drug overdose. Furthermore, Jane receives a strangely aloof letter from her mother telling her that her sister Loretta has committed suicide.

A telephone line cut by the spade of an over-eager gardener (Luke) serves as the physical manifestation or symbol for the theme of miscommunication and failure to connect. This cut telephone line prevents two phone calls: one from Griffin to his director Jonathan Crawford, and one from Jesse Quinlan to his nephew Luke, the gardener. Due to this breakdown of communication, Jesse descents to a rapist and murderer. The other missed call from Griffin, meant that he missed out on a potential break-through role due to not committing to a sexual affair with Jonathan. This devastates Griffin, and in desperation, he agrees to meet with Jonathan, where they agree to engage in sexual activities. Jonathan, who thinks of himself as "a sculptor of talent" (128) genuinely desires Griffin and believes that Griffin will grow as a man and an actor if he submits to his power: "I want to teach you how to accept the fact of being desired" (139). Griffin gives in and leaves his family without explanation. Jane is the last to find out that Griffin's affair is not with a younger woman but with an older man.

Jane develops her own overpowering desires that are quite independent from Griffin's escapades: when the telephone repairman Milos Saworski, a Polish immigrant with limited command of English, enters her house, she is completely overwhelmed by what she experiences as his unearthly beauty. After Griffin leaves, her pursuit of this "angel-man" becomes more determined and she becomes a living contradiction to Jonathan's assessment of women as sexually mostly passive and incapable of such aggressive pursuit. She asks Milos, himself married and a young father of a dying infant, to model for her in the nude, a proposal which he accepts with knowing innocence and an entirely masculine submission that mirrors the scene between Jonathan and Griffin. Jane's gaze upon Milos' beauty parallels Jonathan's desire for Griffin.

Death and betrayal are common themes in the novel - Jane and Griffin's son Will is estranged from both parents; Milos's baby dies due to his inaction and his wife's insistence to keep the baby out of the reach of doctors for religious reasons; Jonathon's 21-year-old son is killed by revolutionaries in Peru. These events spark the characters to re-think their current choices. Jonathon's sad news is brought by his former wife which makes him to realize the wrong-doings of his own marriage and hence affair with Griffin, leading him to release Griffin and send him back to his own family.

A few months later, in April, the novel comes back to Jane, Griffin and Will, a happy family unit watching a procession of Swans released from their winter domicile indoors. With the help of her mother's money, Jane has bought the house and made it the home she desired. The novel comes full circle to the peacefulness of the beginning, but this renewed peacefulness seems less precarious because it has been tempered by essential conflict and near break-up. The novel ends on a surprisingly hopeful note with a vision of spring and new life.

Ivanov, an exiled Russian and former military officer living in Berlin, has taken up employment as a barber; an apt position, Nabokov notes, as Ivanov's sharp facial appearance had earned him the nickname "Razor" in his earlier life. On a hot day, an unnamed character dressed largely in black enters the barber's, deserted save for Ivanov, and requests a shave. Ivanov quickly realises that the customer is a fellow Russian who, the reader gathers, tortured Ivanov during Russia's period of revolutionary upheaval. With the unnamed character sitting in the chair, his face lathered with shaving cream, Ivanov reminds him of their last encounter. Ivanov then proceeds to shave him, recounting their previous meeting while also strongly hinting at the effect that one slip of the razor could have. The reader half expects Ivanov to exact his revenge. But having told his story, Ivanov relents and the terrified and clean-shaven Soviet flees from the barber's.

A large, dimwitted baby duck wreaks havoc on those who he comes in contact with as his attempts to help and or play result in hilarious consequences. Huey is often unaware of the havoc he is causing, maintaining an innocence even as a hungry fox attempts - and fails - to eat him.

Garrett is a private investigator living in the city of TunFaire, a melting pot of different races, mixed breeds, cultures and religions, though humans predominate. He is approached by the wealthy Tate family. Denny Tate, an old army buddy of Garrett's, has died in an accident. In his will, Denny left an enormous fortune in silver, acquired through questionable means, to a woman his family knows nothing about, Kayean Kronk. Denny's father Willard tries to hire Garrett to locate Kayean, who is believed to be living in the Cantard, the battleground of a generations-old war between the kingdoms of Karenta and Venageta. Having survived his mandatory five-year service there (which many do not), Garrett wants no part of it.

Then Denny's partners try to steal the silver and his writings, the latter so they can continue operating as before. For the 10% executor's fee and also to be reunited with Kayean Kronk (a teenage love of Garrett's), Garrett reluctantly heads off to the Cantard with his half-dark elf friend and assassin Morley Dotes, who has his own agenda, and the Roze triplets. Denny's beautiful cousins, Rose and Tinnie Tate, try to tag along, but Garrett forcibly sends them back.

When they arrive in Full Harbor, a major Karentine base/city, Garrett makes inquiries, but nobody wants to talk about Kayean, not even her brother. Eventually, he discovers that Kayean loyally followed her husband when he and his brother joined a nest of much despised and feared vampires. A centaur named Zeck Zack, who sometimes works with the vampires, and several other parties become involved. After forcing the truth out of Zack, Garrett and his gang set out to rescue Kayean. In a desperate battle, Garrett retrieves her (as well as Rose and Tinnie Tate and Garrett's friend Saucerhead Tharpe) from the vampire lair. Morley kills Kayean's husband and takes her brother-in-law prisoner.

They return to TunFaire, where Garrett delivers Kayean to the Tates. Willard Tate hires TunFaire's foremost expert to cure her. Because she fought the vampire disease, her prognosis is good.

Meanwhile, Morley, with Garrett and Saucerhead Tharpe along as guards, delivers the vampire he captured (currently dormant for lack of sustenance) to the kingpin of the criminal underworld of TunFaire. It turns out that the vampire was the kingpin's right-hand man, until he and his brother fled with half of the kingpin's treasure. The kingpin, expecting to see a corpse (in exchange for forgiving Morley Dotes' transgressions), is instead killed by the famished vampire.

With his new riches, Garrett purchases the house he has been living in with the Dead Man, a murdered Loghyr who reluctantly helps Garrett out on his cases. (A Loghyr's spirit can linger after death, in the Dead Man's case for four centuries and counting.)

Casper the Friendly Ghost is a "guardian ghost" to two female Space Police officers named Mini (who is a rather ditzy redhead) and Maxi (who is a much more intelligent African-American woman with a very short temper) who patrol the ''Jetsons''-style Space City on their flying motorcycles in the year 2179.

They are joined by the rambunctious but good-hearted Hairy Scary, a large, shaggy, thousand year old ghost with a red nose and big bow tie who enjoys scaring people, especially villains and other troublemakers, but because he has a great deal of affection for his little pal Casper he, unlike most of their ghostly kind, tries to accept the fact that the gentle ghost does not like to scare people.

Less accepting, especially toward Mini and Maxi, are their fellow officers Nerdley and Fungo, a pair of bumbling, flying patrol car-driving male chauvinists who are always trying to prove that they are superior to their female counterparts, only to have their efforts undone by their own stupidity and cowardice.

Casper and his friend Hairy Scary are in a house about to be demolished on Christmas Eve and go out to look for a new place to move to after Christmas in California. Then Yogi and his friends get lost and arrive at Casper and Hairy's house and clean and decorate it to celebrate Christmas. Then Casper befriends Yogi and company only for Hairy to try to ruin the party with Casper and his new friends. Then Hairy has a change of heart and celebrates Christmas with Casper and his new friends and ending with Santa Claus saving the house and turning it into Hairy's Haunting Lodge.

On Halloween night, Hairy Scary The Ghost, Winifred The Witch and Screech The Ghost are plotting their mean-spirited spookings. Casper refuses to join them and decides to go trick-or-treating dressed as a real boy, but neighborhood kids see through his disguise and run away in fear. Casper is heartbroken until he meets a special group of orphans who accept him for who he is, a ghost. But their fun is soon spoiled as Hairy Scarey and his ghostly crew interfere. Now it is up to Casper and his new friends to stop their ghastly games and save Halloween before it is too late.

After a scaring spree at a Drive-in theater, the Ghostly Trio's are confronted by Casper who is then confronted by Officer Snivel who informs him that his scare quota is down. The Trio take Snivel's whistle and blow it which summons Kibosh, the perfidious King of Ghosts, who decrees that Casper must scare someone before Christmas Day, according to ghost law which requires him to purposely scare at least one person a year, or he will be banished to the Dark, together with his uncles, for their failed responsibility for him, for all eternity. To make sure Casper scares someone, he confiscates the Trio's haunting licenses and flings them to the Christmas-influenced town Kriss, Massachusetts, on account of the Trio's hatred of the holiday, where they meet the Jollimore Family. When Casper's good behavior starts to act up, which includes befriending the daughter of the family, Holly, the Ghostly Trio call in Casper's lookalike cousin Spooky, who brings along his girlfriend Poil, to do the job disguised as Casper in the hope of fooling Kibosh.

With Casper and Spooky unlikely to scare someone after a series of failed attempts the Trio decide to plot a scaring spree stealing every Christmas present in Kriss, in a reference to How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and taking them to the Jollimores' house where they plan to lure the townspeople then set off scary booby traps to go out with a bang before being banished to the Dark. Casper along with Spooky and Poil scare the Trio using a fake Kibosh made from the Jollimores' giant Santa. Casper then summons the real Kibosh using Snivel's whistle to inform him he scared the Trio, fulfilling his ghostly obligation, however, Snivel informs Kibosh of the booby traps, violating the no scaring order on the Trio. To prevent Kibosh from banishing them to the Dark, the Trio claim they intend to spring the traps on themselves to entertain Kibosh. After the act, Kibosh accepts the Trio's claim and returns their haunting licenses before leaving with Snivel. The film ends with the remaining ghosts celebrating Christmas with the Jollimore family.

A beautiful young woman named Amiranda Crest shows up at Garrett's house. She explains that her employer is the powerful sorceress Stormwarden Raver Styx, whose son Karl daPena has been kidnapped in Raver Styx's absence. They want Garrett to organize the exchange between them and the kidnappers. The Domina Willa Dount, in charge while the Stormwarden is away, explains to Garrett that they only need him as a decoy, and apparently, Garrett's work is over. But when Garrett is attacked on his way home by a band of ogres, his interest in the matter is piqued.

When the kidnapper's demands rise, Garrett is brought back in for his expertise. It soon becomes apparent to Garrett that the members of the Stormwarden's family are all involved in the affair to some extent, as is a band of ogres led by a mysterious individual named Gorgeous. The link between the ogres and the dePenas appears to be a prostitute by the name of Donni Pell, who had both Karl daPena and Gorgeous as customers. Apparently, she orchestrated the kidnapping of Karl by convincing Gorgeous and his band of ogres to help.

The transfer of funds with the kidnappers goes off without a hitch, but when Amiranda Crest is murdered and Karl daPena is found after allegedly committing suicide, Karl's sister Amber comes running to Garrett for help. With the help of Morley, the Roze boys, and underworld kingpin Chodo Contague's brutish lieutenants Crask and Sadler, Garrett storms Gorgeous' hideout, capturing Gorgeous and some of his cronies. The ogres, when faced with torture, offer some information about the kidnapping. Chodo, who believes he is in Garrett's debt, orders Donni Pell to be found and delivered to Garrett.

When the Stormwarden returns to town, she comes first to Garrett to find out just what happened to her family. Garrett then manages to orchestrate a meeting between all the guilty parties, and in a masterful display of deductive reasoning, Garrett implicates Karl daPena Jr., Karl daPena Sr., Amiranda Crest, the Domina Willa Dount, Donni Pell, Gorgeous, and others all in a convoluted kidnapping scheme gone horribly wrong. With the truth out, the situation gets ugly fast, and Garrett and company flee the scene, letting city investigators clear the mess. The Dead Man sheds some light on the few remaining mysteries in the case, including who killed Amiranda and why.

Garrett is hired by a beautiful young woman calling herself Jill Craight to find out who has broken into her apartment and why. Immediately after, a Magister Peridont comes to Garrett to try to get him to investigate the disappearance of some famous religious relics (Magister is the title given to the extremely rare wizard officially sanctioned by the largest and most powerful religious denomination in Tunfaire); Garrett respectfully declines. After getting attacked by a gang called the Vampires, Garrett goes to his old friend Maya, leader of the Doom, a all-girl gang, for advice. Maya informs Garrett that Jill was a former member of the Doom, and that she is a chronic liar. Maya invites herself along to learn his trade.

Garrett turns up no leads and is not even quite sure what to investigate. His one clue is some odd coins tying together Jill and the Vampires. Garrett asks Peridont about the coins, then heads over to the Royal Assay office for help. After learning nothing new, Garrett heads home, where he is visited again by Peridont, who informs him that Miss Craight was in fact his mistress, and now she is missing.

The story gets more complicated when Garrett visits crime lord Chodo Contague, whose house gets attacked by magical forces. Garrett saves Chodo's life. Outraged by this brazen assault, Chodo applies his considerable resources and henchmen to Garrett's case. Garrett and Maya take their search for Jill to the Tenderloin, the red-light district of TunFaire. When they return home, they find the same magical forces that attacked Chodo's mansion trying to tear apart Garrett's home. After the Dead Man fends them off, he informs Garrett that another dead Loghyr is behind the magical attacks. Eventually, Garrett and the Dead Man manage to tie together the church, the missing relics, the other Loghyr, and Jill Craight.

After discovering that Jill is hiding out in a church complex, Garrett and Morley break in and kidnap her and another of her lovers, a high status member of the Orthodox church. Garrett assembles everyone of importance at his house, and he and the Dead Man uncover the motives of all the parties present. Eventually, the relics are recovered and the other Loghyr is neutralized (though forcing a dead Loghyr to leave this existence requires a prolonged effort).

This Garrett novel is a traditional whodunit. Garrett is approached by his old Imperial Marine sergeant, Blake Peters, who calls in an old war debt to get Garrett to investigate the mysterious illness afflicting his current employer, the aged General Stantnor. Garrett moves into the Stantnor mansion, to find that only a handful of people still inhabit the property and keep it from crumbling into ruin. As Garrett begins his investigation, an unknown individual begins murdering the few remaining members of the household. When some of the victims come back from the dead and attack the living house guests, Garrett calls upon his good friend Morley Dotes for backup. As the focus of Garrett's investigation switches to solving the ongoing murders, he continues to be distracted by two elusive beauties seen around the house: one is the general's daughter Jennifer, but the other can only be seen fleetingly by Garrett, who suspects that she may in fact be a ghost.

While Garrett escapes various murder attempts on his own life, other members of the household are not so lucky, and the list of potential suspects grows shorter and shorter. Morley, meanwhile, suspects the general's illness is not a result of poison, but possibly from a supernatural source. As the pieces start to come together, Garrett and Morley hire an exorcist by the name of Doctor Doom, and with the remaining house staff gathered, they confront the sick general in his quarters. It is revealed that the general murdered his wife, Eleanor, and the ghost that Garrett has glimpsed is in fact her. Eleanor's ghost, as revenge for her murder, has slowly been stealing the life away from the old general. Additionally, Garrett and company deduce that all the murders were in fact committed by the general's daughter, Jennifer, in an attempt to keep the family estate intact after her father's death; she has lived there all her life and dreads having to leave it. In the aftermath, both the general and Jennifer die, and Garrett takes as his only payment a haunting, likely magic-touched painting of Eleanor fleeing an unseen horror, as he has half fallen in love with her, and vice versa.

Tinnie Tate, Garrett's girlfriend, comes to visit him and is stabbed in the middle of the street. Garrett and his friend Saucerhead Tharpe chase down the would-be assassin, but before they can interrogate him, he is killed by a crossbow-wielding band of hooligans. The only clue as to the villain's motive is mention of a book. Meanwhile, a big, tough, attractive bounty hunter named Winger visits Garrett; she has also been hired to look for the book. When a young woman named Carla Lindo Ramada wants to hire Garrett to find the book, at least she sheds some light on the mystery. (For one thing, she looks like Tinnie, explaining why Tinnie was nearly killed.) People are looking for the Book of Dreams (or Book of Shadows), a legendary magical tome that enables the owner to take on any of a hundred different identities, along with their abilities. For example, the book's possessor could turn him/herself into a powerful magician.

As word gets out, several parties join the hunt. Among the seekers are Gnorst Gnorst, head of Dwarf Town; Chodo Contague, the crime kingpin of TunFaire; Lubbock, a fat wannabe wizard and Winger's employer; and The Serpent, a witch partially responsible for creating the Book of Shadows.

When his desire for the Book of Shadows grows and he is deliberately misled, Chodo turns on Garrett. In an attempt to save himself, Garrett forms an uneasy alliance with Crask and Sadler, Chodo's main henchmen, to overthrow the crime lord. (The pair had loyally served Chodo, expecting to inherit his power when he finally died, but the book would make him practically immortal.) In a confused battle at Chodo's mansion involving all the parties, Crask and Sadler manage to take over from their boss, while Garrett and Winger escape alive.

When Garrett returns home, he finds that Carla Lindo Ramada has escaped with the Book of Shadows, which had been hidden at Garrett's house the entire time. He manages to track Carla down and take the book. Garrett then destroys it before any more evil can be committed for its possession.

Garrett is relaxing at the Joy House with Saucerhead and Morley Dotes, when Belinda Contague, a psychotic, but beautiful daughter of underworld kingpin Chodo Contague, stumbles into the bar. She is attacked by a wizened old man who spits butterflies from his mouth and tries to drag her into his black stagecoach. Garrett stops him, though the man gets away, then moves on to his next job, tailing a religious crackpot by the name of Barking Dog Amato. Then Captain Westman Block of the city Watch (the ineffectual, corrupt local police) comes knocking. Block needs Garrett's help to solve a series of grisly murders, in which upper class young ladies are being strung up and gutted in bizarre, ritualistic killings.

Garrett soon realizes that the attempted kidnapping of Belinda Contague is connected to the murders. Garrett and Morley track down the coach, and in a bungled sleuthing attempt, Garrett ends up killing the serial killer. Figuring that the case is closed, Garrett finds time to spend on Barking Dog Amato, but Block later informs Garrett that there has been another murder. It seems that an ancient curse is responsible for the murders, so that killing the murderer merely sees the ingenious, complicated spell seize control of another unfortunate and turn them into a serial killer. Worse, the curse learns from its mistakes and becomes more and more powerful with each reincarnation.

Meanwhile, Garrett finds out that Chodo Contague suffered a stroke during his encounter with the Serpent in the previous novel, ''Dread Brass Shadows'', and Crask and Sadler are ruling the crime world in his stead. Belinda Contague, fearing Crask and Sadler, seeks Garrett's help. When Block and Garrett, along with Relway, an up-and-coming, fanatical, uncorrupt member of the Watch, find the new bearer of the curse, he escapes yet again. Ultimately, after a final plot twist, the curse is broken, and Belinda Contague overthrows Crask and Sadler and takes over as ruler of the underworld, keeping her father as a figurehead. Finally, as a gag gift, Morley gives Garrett an annoying talking parrot, which plays a role in later Garrett novels.

With Dean out of town, the Dead Man asleep, and only the Goddamn Parrot for company, Garrett finds himself wishing for something new. When Winger drops by with a job investigating a woman known as Maggie Jenn, Garrett bites. Maggie, meanwhile, hires Garrett to find her missing daughter, Emerald. Everything seems to be going just fine until Garrett is attacked in the street, knocked out, and thrown in the Bledsoe's mental ward. When Garrett escapes, he discovers that the man who put him there goes by the name of Grange Cleaver, also known as The Rainmaker.

As Garrett tries to find out more, everyone urges Garrett to be careful, as The Rainmaker has quite a nasty reputation. As usual, Morley gets involved, but when he and Garrett try to capture The Rainmaker, he manages to get away. Meanwhile, Garrett continues his search for Maggie Jenn's daughter, only to find that Maggie has disappeared. In fact, Morley and Garrett discover that she may not actually be a woman at all and could actually be The Rainmaker!

When the Outfit gets involved in The Rainmaker's business, the city Watch has no choice to get involved as well. Garrett gets off free of charges, but The Rainmaker is still nowhere to be found. As word of a long buried treasure gets out, even more parties climb into the fray, leaving Garrett bruised and battered again. In a typical novel-ending plot twist, Grange Cleaver dies, things settle down, and Garrett is left to mull over the possibilities.

TunFaire is in a state of unrest; with the sudden end of the war in the Cantard, returning former soldiers are at odds with the half-breeds and immigrants who have taken their places in society. Garrett, however, has his own problems to worry about - he gets knocked out, brought before a group of small-time gods known as the Godoroth, and forced into working for them. The goal: find the "key" to the one remaining temple up for grabs in TunFaire, and do so before the Shayir, the Godoroth's rivals. The Shayir find out about the Godoroth's plans. The Shayir capture Garrett and give him their side of the story. Only with the help of a renegade Shayir called Cat does Garrett manage to escape.

As the civil unrest escalates into full-fledged street warfare, the Godoroth and Shayir elevate their search for Garrett, and Cat, who has her own agenda, is apparently the only one Garrett can trust. When the battle between the Godoroth and Shayir spills over into the world of the living, causing madness in the streets of TunFaire, the more powerful gods of the city decide it is time to intervene. After an epic battle between gods, Garrett hopes the trouble is over, but the Dead Man thinks there is still a missing piece or two to the puzzle. Eventually, the Dead Man deduces that there was yet another party behind the struggle between the Godoroth and Shayir. When everything settles down and is sorted out, the remaining gods go back to their own business, leaving Garrett to go back to his beer.

This ninth installment in the Garrett series sees Garrett visited at home by three lovely young ladies, Tinnie Tate, Giorgi Nicholas (Nicks), and Alyx Weider, daughter of Max Weider. Alyx explains that she has been sent by her father to get Garrett to investigate an apparent extortion attempt on the Weider business by The Call, a group of human rights activists headed by Marengo North English. Meanwhile, Colonel Block and Deal Relway strike a deal with Garrett: Garrett will attempt to infiltrate The Call, reporting back to Block and Relway on their activities, while Relway and Block will try to help solve the extortion attempt on the Weiders, as well as ensure the safety of the Weiders and Tates during the ordeal.

In typical Garrett fashion, things start to get complicated when Garrett is attacked by a group of thugs while poking around the Weider brewery. After cleaning up and meeting with Max Weider, Max decides it may be best for Garrett to come to Ty Weider's and Giorgi Nicks' engagement party the following night. When Garrett returns home, the Dead Man concurs, pointing out that it will allow Garrett to investigate the motive of his assailants, as well as help him infiltrate the upper echelons of The Call's society.

With Belinda Contague as his date for the evening, Garrett stumbles into a party that turns dark quickly. By the end of the evening, two of Max Weider's children have been murdered, Max Weider's wife has died, and multiple shapeshifters have been discovered, incapacitated, and arrested. To make matters worse, Belinda Contague gets kidnapped by Crask and Sadler as the evening is winding down.

Garrett quickly hightails it to the Palms, where he has Morley hire an expert tracker, a ratgirl by the name of Pular Singe. With Pular's help, Garrett and Morley track down Crask and Sadler, freeing Belinda and dealing the mafia skull-crackers a serious blow. When Garrett returns home, he's shocked by what he finds: Dean and the Dead Man are gone!

The next day, with help from Colonel Block, Garrett tracks down and arrests Crask and Sadler, who are barely alive from their wounds. With this out of the way, Garrett starts his search for information on the shapeshifters, starting by visiting his friend at the Royal Library, Miss Linda Lee. After getting nowhere fast, Garrett heads back to the Weider's estate, where he and Colonel Block manage to sort out just how and why shapeshifters infiltrated the Weider household.

With Tinnie Tate in tow, Garrett heads out to the estate of Marengo North English, where he continues his search for the shapeshifters. North English, who gets injured in a surprise attack against The Call, has little to offer, but Garrett and Tinnie still manage to uncover one shapeshifter in the midst. With the help of Morley, Belinda Contague, and Marengo North English, Garrett hatches a plan to reunite all the guilty parties back at the Weider manor in an all-inclusive finale.

In the end, Garrett manages to solve the intertwining mysteries of the Weider murders, the shapeshifters, and The Call, and he even unearths an embezzlement scheme that has bankrupted North English and The Call. After a little more detective work, Garrett and company manage to ferret out the last remaining shapechanger in TunFaire, ending the string of murders and impersonations and bringing a small amount of peace to the city. The Dead Man, who returned home with Dean, actually helped mastermind the finale at the Weider's estate, where he had overseen the night's events from his hiding place in a large tank of beer.

Garrett is a detective living in the city of TunFaire. When people have problems, they come to Garrett for help, but trouble has a way of finding him.

Garrett is at home when Playmate visits, with a kid, Kip Prose. Kip has made friends with creatures that cannot quite be described, but because of his relationship with these creatures, other parties are trying to kidnap Kip. Despite his protests, Garrett gets drawn into the mess.

While searching Playmate's stables for clues, Garrett and company are attacked by another group of indescribable assailants. Morley, Saucerhead, and Pular Singe wake Garrett and Playmate after the scuffle, but Kip Prose is gone.

Playmate and Garrett talk to Kip's family, hoping to find clues to his whereabouts. Despite some leads, Playmate and Garrett are unable to locate Kip, although they do encounter an "elf" named Casey, who assures them Kip is in no immediate danger.

When Playmate goes missing, Garrett and Pular Singe track him down, with the Roze triplets tagging along. Pular tracks the scent to Casey's apartment, where there are more mysterious elves. The trail eventually takes Garrett, Pular and the Rozes into the country outside TunFaire, where they find more of the elves, their spaceships, and an unconscious Playmate, Saucerhead Tharpe and Kip Prose. Garrett decides it is time to involve the Watch, who can hopefully clean up the mess.

Meanwhile, a ratman named John Stretch, Pular Singe's brother, attempts to kidnap Pular for his own purposes. While Garrett and John Stretch come to an agreement, Colonel Block and Deal Relway try to manage the situation with the remaining elves. Garrett strikes a deal between Kip Prose, Max Weider, and Willard Tate, in which the involved parties agree to manufacture "Three Wheels", a revolutionary new method of transportation for the citizens of TunFaire.

As a final twist, Casey escapes, thwarting the attempts of Garrett and the Watch to discover the true nature of the "silver elves". Though Relway is angry and suspicious of Garrett, Garrett is on top of the world, with his new stake in the Three Wheel business booming and the Goddamn Parrot missing in action.

On the first day of high school, freshmen Wade and Ryan witness two bullies, Filkins and Ronnie, attack a geek, Emmit, by stuffing him into his locker. Wade intervenes. Filkins and Ronnie begin endlessly targeting Wade, Ryan and Emmit. Emmit also befriends the duo, much to Ryan's dismay.

Wade suggests hiring a bodyguard. They place an ad on the Internet, and after a series of disturbing interviews with ex-cons and hired guns, they end up selecting Drillbit Taylor. Drillbit pretends to be a martial arts expert and mercenary, but is really a homeless beggar. His real intention of becoming their bodyguard was to rob them and use the money to buy a ticket to Canada. Drillbit tells the boys to find some common interests and become friends with Filkins and Ronnie. Ryan challenges Filkins to a rap battle, but gets carried away and ends up humiliating Filkins. As an angry Filkins, alongside Ronnie, ambushes Wade, Ryan, and Emmit, the boys try using a tactic Drillbit taught them; it ultimately fails. The boys are furious with Drillbit's teachings. But they decide to bring him to school as a substitute teacher, and in that capacity he is able to protect them. While there, Drillbit meets a teacher, Lisa Zachey, and they start a sexual relationship.

One morning as his mother is driving him to school, Ronnie sees Drillbit taking a shower at the beach; his mother reveals that he is homeless. Filkins finds the boys and punches Drillbit. Later, at Wade's house, they catch Drillbit's homeless friends stealing everything in sight, leaving the house completely empty. Drillbit confesses that his real name is Bob and he went AWOL from the U.S. Army and his name was Drillbit because he hurt his pinky finger in high school with a drillbit. The boys fire Drillbit, who later recovers all of Wade's possessions and places them back before Wade's parents return home. Unfortunately, the boys accidentally let slip about Drillbit. Their parents take things up with the principal, who contacts the police. Filkins plays innocent and charms all the adults; Filkins continues to ridicule the boys after Drillbit's disappearance. Tensions finally burst when Filkins interrupts Wade's attempt to ask his crush, Brooke Nguyen, out. Without realizing what he was doing, Wade challenges Filkins to a fight. After Ryan insults Emmit, he refuses to help them.

Wade and Ryan arrive at Filkins' house, where he is hosting a party; initially the duo knock him down, but he soon overpowers them. Ronnie shows up to help Filkins against them. Emmit, who has a change of heart, comes to their aid and for a while causes quite a lot of pain to Filkins, and almost defeats him; but Ronnie knocks him out while he is trying to break Filkins' leg. Drillbit shows up and Filkins punches him. Drillbit refuses to fight back until it is revealed Filkins is not a minor (he's 18, therefore, he's not really emancipated). Upon learning this, Drillbit quickly begins fighting to defend the freshmen. He is about to attack Ronnie, but he is spared when he reveals he's only 17. Within minutes, the police arrive and Drillbit flees for fear of prosecution. Filkins then throws a samurai sword at the boys as retaliation, but Drillbit catches it. He saves them, at the cost of half of his pinkie finger in the process. Ronnie reveals to the police that Filkins had bullied him into being his accomplice when they interview him.

Filkins is arrested and shipped off to Hong Kong to be with his parents as an alternative to being sent to prison for breaking several underage drinking laws. Wade, with renewed confidence, asks Brooke out and she accepts, while Ryan finally accepts Emmit, and declares him a friend. Drillbit is taken to jail, but ends up being released within three weeks. He is reunited with Lisa and the boys and is soon employed at their school as a nurse. A post-credits scene shows a student entering the nurse's office telling Drillbit he received bruises from being beaten up. Drillbit then tells him to give the name of the student, assuring he'll be safer from then on.

Things seemed to be going pretty well for Garrett one morning until he finds a strange kid named Penny Dreadful hanging around his house, gets summoned to a meeting by Harvester Temisk, Chodo Contague's lawyer, and nearly has his door knocked down by an ugly thug wearing green plaid pants. Garrett meets with Temisk, who fears there are unnatural events occurring associated with Chodo Contague, who may not be as paralyzed as he appears. Garrett agrees to look into the matter that evening, at a birthday party being held by Belinda Contague for her father.

At the party, when Chodo is introduced to the guests, a number of people mysteriously burst into flames, and in the confusion that follows, Belinda and Chodo somehow get separated. The whole mess seems to have some connection with the Ugly Pants Gang, who continues to harass Garrett at his home and on the streets. In addition, Garrett is getting more attention than he likes from subordinate underworld bosses who suspect that Garrett knows where Chodo Contague is hiding. Garrett can only escape the warring mafia factions for so long, and eventually he is captured, poisoned, and blackmailed by one aspiring leader named Teacher White.

With the help of his friends and the psychic powers of the Dead Man, Garrett survives the worst of the ordeal. While he rests and recuperates at home, the Dead Man organizes efforts geared towards unraveling the mysteries of the Green Pants Gang, the criminal factions, and the spontaneous combustions. Compiling the efforts of Garrett's many friends, the Dead Man deduces that the Green Pants Gang is actually a religious faction from outside of TunFaire, and Chodo Contague had at one point worked with the gang to help him rise to the top of the Outfit.

With some clues from the Dead Man, Garrett, Morley, and company track down and capture Harvester Temisk, who had been hiding out with Chodo Contague. More clever deductive reasoning by the Dead Man reveals a few final plot twists: Penny Dreadful is in fact Chodo Contague's daughter, Chodo was partially responsible for the previously unexplainable spontaneous combustions, and the Green Pants Gang actually knows the secret to drawing dark emotions out from within the body. With the help of Garrett and the Dead Man, Chodo's condition improves, so that he is no longer completely physically and mentally impaired.

As a finale, Morley Dotes drops by Garrett's house, with none other than Mr. Big, Garrett's much-despised parrot which had gone missing for some time, perched on his shoulder.

In a case of mistaken identity, a naive young columnist for ''The Daily Beast'' is sent to cover a war in Ishmaelia. A confused editor, Mr. Salter (Denholm Elliott), acting on the orders of his much feared 'boss', Lord Copper (Donald Pleasence), tells William Boot (Michael Maloney) to cover the ongoing war as the correspondent for the ''Beast''. Boot normally writes about British country life, but is too timid, and worried about losing his job for good, to say otherwise when he is ordered overseas.

Boot is soon up to his neck in intrigue. All the foreign journalists are confined to the capital of Ishmaelia, and they are not allowed to leave unless permission has been given by the Minister of Propaganda. The journalists stick together, drinking and trying to pass time, but they watch each other jealously for signs that someone may have a story to send home. However, Lord Hitchcock, the correspondent for the ''Daily Brute'', is noticeably absent, and this sends the reporters on an insane quest into the desert in the hope of finding the sought-after 'scoop'.

The story is full of bizarre characters: an insane Swedish diplomat who goes berserk when he drinks too much absinthe, the mysterious Mr. Baldwin (Herbert Lom), and a German woman who claims she somehow or other lost her husband. The hapless William Boot appears to be completely out of his depth in the middle of all this chaos and confusion.

Sylvia Guerrero is a young single mother looking to make a fresh start for her three young children. Having escaped an abusive relationship at the hands of the children's father, Sylvia has moved back home to California to live closer to her tight-knit Latin American family. Her father's birthday party is the first big family gathering since her return, and when she arrives, she encounters mixed reactions about her decision to leave her husband. After dinner, the children at the party decide to play a prank by putting Sylvia's son Eddie in a frilly pink dress. Eddie and the other children stand smiling, the adults at the party appear unamused and some look on with disdain.

The film alternates between the family's story and the future trial of two men charged with Gwen's murder. As the prosecutor's witness, a medical examiner testifies that the victim was beaten, strangled, wrapped in a shower curtain, and dumped in the woods. When asked about the victim's gender, she states, “it was that of a normally developed male”.

After the party, Sylvia's sister confronts her about the incident with the dress. Sylvia denies that it is an issue and tells her that Eddie is the best-behaved of all her children. Sylvia says that she is more worried about finding a job to support her children than she is about the fact that Eddie is a little bit different from other seven-year-old boys. Several days later, Sylvia comes home to celebrate her success at getting a job, and finds Eddie wearing a bra and makeup. Her older daughter Chita insists that it is just a game, but Sylvia makes Eddie promise that it will not happen again.

The movie cuts forward and Eddie is now a teenager, starting his first day at a new high school. Although Sylvia encourages her child to act “normal”, after he is dropped off, Eddie makes a last-minute decision to wear lipstick. When Sylvia realizes what has happened, the two have an intense fight and Sylvia begins removing all the traditionally female items from Eddie's room. However, after talking to a counselor at the Gender Identity Project and coming home to find Eddie in tears over being “a freak”, Sylvia has a moment of acceptance and tells Eddie that they need to get him waterproof mascara. At school, a friendly girl named Lisa White compliments Eddie's makeup, and he introduces himself as Gwen for the first time.

At the trial, the defense attorney asks Lisa questions about Gwen. He strongly implies that she was sexually promiscuous and into drugs at the time of his death, which Lisa vehemently denies. Lisa describes herself as Gwen's best friend and constantly corrects the defense attorney when he refers to Gwen using the incorrect pronouns.

Basking in her now openly expressed gender identity, Gwen grows out her hair and wears a dress to Chita's wedding, which shocks and displeases her extended family. At the wedding, she meets Joey Marino, a former Marine who is new to the area. The two hit it off and eventually begin dating. Worried about the relationship, Sylvia eventually outs Gwen to Joey, who breaks things off. Distraught, Gwen agrees to go to a party with Tamara, a female friend of Joey's. The next morning Gwen's aunt wakes up to find her passed out on the front lawn. Jealous that the group of boys at the party paid so much attention to Gwen, Tamara begins to suggest that Gwen is actually a male. The group makes a plan to find out the truth. Tamara lures Gwen to another party, promising that Joey will be there. When Gwen arrives, one of the boys forces her into a closet and pulls down her pants, discovering that she has male genitalia. The boys' initial shock quickly turns to rage, and they begin to viciously beat Gwen to death. Tamara realizes what she's done and screams for the boys to stop. She is told to leave. She leaves crying and ashamed for what she did. Sylvia immediately reports Gwen missing, and when her body is found, the entire family comes together to pay their respects, even in the face of protesters picketing the funeral.

In the final scene of the trial, the defense attempts to blame society for the boys’ actions, saying that discovering Gwen's biological sex challenged their sexual identity in a way that made them “go crazy”. On the witness stand, Sylvia rejects this idea completely, telling the courtroom that the killers’ decision to take her daughter’s life from her was theirs alone and that she blames them every day of her life; the boys to become remorseful as a result of her words. As Sylvia walks out of the courtroom, the people observing the trial begin to clap.

In 1854, Captain Geoffrey Vickers (Errol Flynn) and his brother, Captain Perry Vickers (Patric Knowles), are stationed in India, with the 27th Lancers of the British Army. It is during the period of East India Company dominance over the Indian subcontinent. Perry has secretly betrayed Geoffrey by stealing the love of his fiancée Elsa (Olivia de Havilland).

During an official visit to local tributary rajah, Surat Khan (C. Henry Gordon), Geoffrey saves the rajah's life while hunting, for which the rajah promises eternal gratitude. Later, Geoffrey Vickers (now a major) is stationed at the British garrison of (fictional) Chukoti, along with British military families, within the part the North-Western Frontier controlled by Surat Khan. A British miscalculation leads to premature withdrawal of troops to (fictional) Lohora, unnecessarily exposing Chukoti. Faced with an overwhelming siege, the British commander, Col. Campbell (Donald Crisp), surrenders Chukoti to Surat Khan, who then massacres the inhabitants, including British families. Surat Khan allies his forces with Imperial Russia, whom the British are fighting in the Crimean War, but spares Maj. Vickers and Elsa as they flee the slaughter. This repays his debt to Geoffrey.

The love triangle and the quest for vengeance resolve at the Battle of Balaclava. Aware that Surat Khan is inspecting Russian positions opposite the 27th Lancers, Maj. Vickers secretly replaces written orders by Sir Charles Macefield (Henry Stephenson) to the commander of the Light Brigade, Sir Benjamin Warrenton (Nigel Bruce), to withdraw from the Balaclava Heights. Vickers instead orders the famous suicidal attack so the lancers can avenge the Chukoti massacre. Before the charge, Maj. Vickers reminds troops of the Chukoti Massacre and directs their anger: "Our objective is Surat Khan"! Although the 27th Lancers lose nearly all their 600 strength, they successfully breach Russian artillery positions. There, Vickers finds and kills Surat Khan with a lance, at the cost of his own life.

Later, it emerges that Maj. Vickers wrote a letter to Sir Charles Macefield explaining his actions, which he forced Perry to deliver under threat of court martial, sparing his brother almost certain death during the 27th's charge. After receiving Maj. Vickers' explanation of why he defied orders and the charge happened, Macefield takes responsibility and burns the letter to protect Vickers and to honor him for his conspicuous gallantry in avenging the Chukoti Massacre.

The story takes place in Ossining, New York. Ed Japhet is sixteen years old, and he is a bright, articulate boy. His father Terence teaches at his school. Ed's hobby is performing magic tricks, hence he is the "magician" of the title. One evening, Ed performs in front of the school on prom night, and aggravates school hoodlum Urek. Urek and his gang wait for Ed that night as he is about to go home with his dad and girlfriend. Urek attacks Ed and nearly kills him. Urek is eventually arrested on a charge of serious assault.

At first this looks like a straightforward case. But Urek's dad happens to have a lawyer named Thomassy, who has made it his life's work to defend the low-lifes and the criminals of the area - and to get them off the hook.

When Thomassy started his promising career as a lawyer he joined a firm with WASP surnames deliberately. They took him on and he became their most brilliant lawyer. However, the senior partner told him that as an Armenian he would never get promoted, at least while ''he'' was alive. Thomassy, stung, left and decided to follow a controversial path defending the most undesirable characters in society. He sends a birthday card every year to the old senior partner, as if to say, "You still alive?" As the story unfolds, the reader becomes uncomfortably aware of how an event can be interpreted by the law. It seems as though Ed has the advantage, he is talented, with a nice family and girlfriend, horribly attacked and nearly killed by a brute. But Thomassy manages to play the attack down: he discredits witnesses, intimidates others, and portrays Urek as acting only in self-defense. Now the reader is unsure who the actual "magician" of the title really is.

Also involved is German Jewish Psychiatrist Koch, who has taken an interest in the case. His involvement gives the reader an opportunity to see Urek in more depth, as previously he is portrayed as a mindless, violent and inarticulate monster. Nothing can excuse what he has done, but Koch offers more insight as to why he did it. The book ends on a violent note. Urek walks free from the assault charge and proceeds to attack Ed again, this time by hiding in Terence's car and leaping out at Ed. Ed, newly trained in Karate, can now defend himself against the thuggish Urek, with devastating results. Terence Japhet knows exactly whom to call. The book is written in the third person narrative style, but interspersed at intervals throughout the story are "comments" provided by the key characters. They are written in the style of statements, but the reader never knows to whom they are directed.

Tinker Bell (Mae Whitman) is born from the first laugh of a baby, and is brought by the winds to Pixie Hollow (which is part of the island of Neverland), and Queen Clarion (Anjelica Huston) welcomes her. She learns that her talent is to be one of the tinkers, the fairies who make and fix things. Two other tinker fairies, Bobble (Rob Paulsen) and Clank (Jeff Bennett), show her around Pixie Hollow, teach her their craft and show her her house.

While out working, the trio are hit by sprinting thistles, a type of menacing weed. Tinker Bell meets Silvermist (Lucy Liu), a water fairy; Rosetta (Kristin Chenoweth), a garden fairy; Iridessa (Raven-Symoné), a light fairy; and Fawn (America Ferrera), an animal fairy. They tell her about the fairies who visit the mainland to bring each season. Tinker Bell is thrilled and cannot wait to go to the mainland for spring. After meeting them, she notices Vidia (Pamela Adlon), a fast-flying fairy who immediately dislikes her because of her unusually strong talent. Vidia challenges her to prove she will be able to go to the mainland, and Tinker Bell creates several inventions, but messes up with them while showing them to the Minister of Spring (Steve Valentine). Tinker Bell then learns from Queen Clarion that only nature-talent fairies visit the mainland. She talks with Fairy Mary (Jane Horrocks), the tinker fairy overseer, who tries to please her with who she is, but instead inspires her to "switch her talent".

She tries her hand at nature skills; making dewdrops with Silvermist, lighting fireflies with Iridessa, and trying with Fawn to teach baby birds to fly, but she fails miserably at all of these. Meanwhile, Bobble and Clank cover for Tinker Bell when questioned by Fairy Mary. When Tinker Bell returns, she tries to explain, but Mary simply responds that she knows, and expresses her disappointment with Tinker Bell's actions.

On the beach, Tinker Bell finds parts of a music box and figures out how to put them together. Iridessa, Fawn, Silvermist, and Rosetta witness her doing this, then tell her that she should be proud of her talent — if this is what she's good at, the mainland should not matter. But Tinker Bell still wants to go to the mainland. She asks Rosetta if she will still teach her to be a garden fairy, to which she doesn't respond any differently.

As a last resort, Tinker Bell asks Vidia to teach her how to be a fast-flying fairy, then explains that her friends gave up on her. Vidia craftily tells her that capturing the sprinting thistles would prove her worth as a garden fairy. However, once she sees Tinker Bell making progress, she lets the captured thistles loose, and in attempting to recapture them, they destroy all the preparations for spring. Tinker Bell decides to leave, but after talking with Terence (Jesse McCartney), a dust keeper fairy, about how important his job is, she realizes the importance of a tinker.

Tinker Bell redeems herself by inventing machines that quicken the process of decorating flowers, ladybugs, etc. This allows the other fairies to get back on schedule, thus saving the arrival of spring. Vidia is punished for prompting her to cause the chaos, and Queen Clarion allows Tinker Bell to join the nature-talent fairies when they bring spring to the mainland, which she declines having realised her talent. However, Fairy Mary arrives with the music box Tinker Bell fixed, and gives her the task of delivering it to its original owner, who is shown to be Wendy Darling. The narrator ends by saying that when lost toys are found or a broken clock starts to work, "it all means that one very special fairy might be near."

The book opens with Tex McCormick, a 15-year-old who loves horses, and his brother Mason (Mace), living in a small town and Jamie the girl next door. Tex is growing up mostly with Mace in a small country home. Their mother died years before, and their father goes off for months at a time leaving Mace, a high school senior and a star basketball player, and Tex at home. At the start of the book, Tex comes home to find the two brothers' horses sold. Negrito, Tex's horse, was considered a friend to Tex. However Mace had to sell the horses to guarantee Tex and himself would have enough to eat through the winter. This action by Mace sets Tex against his brother for most of the book.

But the McCormick brothers are not alone. Living in the significantly larger ranch house next door (about 0.5 mi (0.80 km)) are the Collinses which includes Mace’s best friend Bob, Tex's best friend Johnny, and the younger sister whom Tex loves, Jamie. The Collins' children are forbidden to see Mason and Tex because the patriarch of the Collins family, Cole, thinks they are a bad influence. After a turn of events involving Tex and Mace's father, Tex runs away to the city with a family friend and eventually learns that just living life and staying with his brother is the best thing for him.

;Act I

The show begins with two new-age hippie friends, Star Birdfeather (Sears) and Amber Windchime (Williams) driving back to Tuna, Texas at night. They are returning so that they can meet with old friends due to the 4th of July Homecoming Reunion and Fireworks display. They are nervous to see the state of the town, and are also nervous as to whether or not people will remember their 'past lives' from when they still lived in their hometown. They become so upset that Amber forces Star to pull over, and they hum to calm their inner peace (Until Star attempts to hum a Nancy Sinatra song, which angers Amber). They drive on apprehensively under the cover of the night.

The next morning, local radio station OKKK signs on and the DJ's Arles Struvie (Williams) and Thurston Wheelis (Sears) begin giving the daily announcements, which are focused around the 4th of July celebrations. The hot topic of the day is the dropping out of Didi Snavely (Williams) and Pearl Burras (Sears) from the Reunion queen contest, essentially ensuring that the stuck-up Vera Carp (Williams) will win. Also mentioned are several issues which are addressed throughout the show, including the Prayer Posse (led by Vera)'s drive to censor hymns, the members of Free White Texas attempts to declare the town of Tuna a free, independent white nation, and the wedding of Arles and Bertha Bumiller (Sears) the next day. The news is suddenly hit with a new hot topic, in that gay theatre director, Joe Bob Lipsey (Sears), has stormed off from his summer production of Red, White, and Fabulous! due to Vera saying he cannot sing a song about alcohol in a dry county. Local animal rights activist, Petey Fisk (Williams), also makes an announcement denouncing that all creatures with more than four legs are pests.

Meanwhile, at Bertha's home, she is doing her morning cleaning when Petey knocks on the door. They converse, and Petey brings up the subject of how Bertha only has six dogs left (the seventh having just died). Bertha suspects he has brought her another dog, but he explains how it is actually a cat that thinks it is a dog. She ends ups taking it after he shows how well it fends off a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses, that Bertha dislikes because "[she] can't stand a Christian who doesn't like war." She agrees to take the cat, and sends Petey away.

Her extremely pregnant daughter, Charlene (Williams) comes down and is having one of her usual fits over her military husband, Rayford, being gone overseas. Bertha attempts to talk her down, but Charlene eventually has a tantrum over the lack of malted milk balls and locks herself in her room. Her brother, Stanley (Williams), comes downstairs hearing the commotion. They both tell Bertha that they are not going to the reunion for different reasons. Stanley leaves to go visit his Aunt Pearl. Bertha receives a call from her best friend, Vera, who has graciously offered to host the wedding at her home. Their phone call (focused on how Vera thinks Bertha should not wear white tomorrow, as "[she] ''is'' marrying a divorced man"), is constantly interrupted by Vera's menace of a son, Virgil, and one of her Hispanic maids (all named Lupe for ease of remembrance) issues with understanding Vera's cleaning instructions. Bertha ends the conversations, and writes Arles a note saying that when he arrives, he can find her at Didi's Used Weapon's Shop.

Stanley arrives at Pearl's, and he voices his issues with his mother and Arles having sex at such an old age. Pearl reassures him, saying that she did not even start enjoying her sex life until she hit 65. Disgusted, Stanley has to leave. At Didi's Used Weapons shop (motto "if we can't kill it, it's immortal!"), Joe Bob has arrived demanding to purchase a suicide weapon. She tells him she simply cannot, as she has lost too much money over the years agreeing to that, and he leaves. Pearl also arrives, and they discuss briefly how they can prevent Vera from winning, but Didi's senile mother begins to have a fit offstage, and Pearl leaves as Didi goes to attend to her.

Bertha arrives looking for Didi, but cannot find her. Arles arrives, and they begin to argue over details of the wedding and their honeymoon. The argument climaxes in Arles saying that the wedding is off, and storming out. Bertha begins to cry as Didi re-enters, and she comforts her, saying that she is sure she can find Bertha a good maiming weapon. Bertha leaves in sadness, and Didi receives a call from Pearl, who has figured out an evil plan on how to get back at Vera. Didi leaves her shop to go see her, which she is suddenly face to face with her husband R.R. Snavely (Sears), a UFOlogist, who has not been seen for many years. She is upset with him, because in one more day he would have been pronounced legally dead. She begins to scold him and he shows that he has been abducted by aliens when he snaps his fingers, and she is unable to speak. She silently yells at him as they walk offstage.

;Act II

That afternoon, Pearl discovers that her car is unable to start. Virgil Carp has also stolen his mother's car, so Vera has no way to get to her coronation ceremony. They see each other, say their respective silent insults, and politely ask each other for a ride. Vera suggests that they could borrow Lupe's old stick-shift if Pearl knows how to drive it. Pearl reveals she can not only drive it, she can hot-wire it and bypass the lack of keys. After they begin their trip, Pearl suddenly wrecks the car to avoid a head-on collision. As they begin to fight, Vera realizes it is time for the coronation. They turn on the radio, and Thurston reveals that the winner, by a landslide, is Joe Bob Lipsey. Vera is aghast, stating that "this isn't the type of queen we had in mind." Pearl can only laugh, revealing that she and Didi were Joe Bob's campaign managers. The radio is suddenly overtaken by Arles, who has evicted Thurston and locked himself in the broadcast room, stating he will not to leave until Bertha takes him back. He begins to loop the Roy Orbison song "Only The Lonely", in an attempt to get her back. Vera storms off.

At the reunion plaza, ditzy Helen Bedd (Williams) and Inita Goodwin (Sears) have set up their food booth (Helen & Inita's Hot-to-Trot Catering) and are ecstatic over the boys who are returning for the reunion. Helen goes off to see one, and Inita remembers that she left her foot powder for the square-dancing competition in the car. She sets out Pearl's prize-winning potato salad, and tells one of her many dumb boyfriends, Garland (Williams) to watch the booth. The stereotypical redneck is almost incapable of running the food booth, and is constantly distracted by Virgil Carp's firecrackers near the building. Mayor Leonard Childers (Sears) runs up to the food booth, out of breath. He is frantic over his wife, Helen, having taken members of Free White Texas hostage (a subplot started in Scene II), Joe Bob's winning the reunion queen crown, and Virgil's fireworks. Garland calms him with a plate of Pearl's potato salad, which upsets Leonard's stomach. Garland says he doesn't know the issue with it, as it's "tangy, but that's the way [he] likes it." It is revealed that the potato salad has been sitting in the heat for over two hours, having spoiled it. Garland exits to find Inita.

Vera appears, wielding her megaphone. She discovers that the potato salad has gone bad, and almost disposes of it before deciding that since the town listened to Pearl, they can all just eat her potato salad and "God can sort out the rest." She is surprised when Reverend Spikes (Sears) appears, asking how long he has been out of jail. He begins to answer, and then runs off when he hears a siren, not realizing it is the sound of an ambulance, and not a police car. Joe Bob walks over, singing his formerly banned song. Vera begins to darkly insult him, before realizing she can easily dispose of him. She politely offers him a bowl of the rancid potato salad, free of charge. He eats it, and Vera quickly leaves. He realizes what has happened, and runs to find a restroom.

Helen re-enters, and gets a phone call from the maid whose car Vera stole. She says that she found Vera's lipstick in the back seat, and Helen encourages her to call the police. R.R. walks over to the food booth, saying he wants to taste one of Helen's barbecue sandwiches before he heads back out to space. Helen calls one of her girlfriends up to tell the outrageous story, and runs off to spread the rumor more. Star appears, looking for food, and is appalled at the extreme amount of cooked meat at the booth. Amber finds her, saying that she just accidentally ate a spoonful of guacamole with bacon in it, and she found it delicious. Star says she wants to see one more person, then they can go to New Mexico and get Amber cleansed. Amber leaves, and Star watches the "microcosmically militaristic" fireworks Virgil is still firing off. Stanley walks beside her, and he realizes that they used to go to school with him. They agree to head back to New Mexico together, but Stanley says he wants to see his Aunt Pearl one more time before he goes back. They leave, optimistic.

Helen and Inita quickly hear of the poisoned potato salad that has been eaten by almost every member of Tuna, Texas since they left the booth, and they decide they must leave. They pack their bags and take the potato salad away for good. Meanwhile, at Didi's, she and R.R. begin to fight again, and she enters her shop to find a weapon to kill him with. Petey arrives, with several animals that do not belong in the deserts of Texas. He explains to them that R.R. is going to take them to space, and they can come back after global warming, because the only things that will survive that are "coyotes and cockroaches. Madonna'll probably make it too." R.R. takes them, and the lights fade to the sound of a UFO taking off into space.

A radio announcement by Thurston says that the door Arles locked has been opened, and he has disappeared. Thurston says that Vera Carp has been arrested for grand theft auto and a warrant is out for Helen and Inita, but aside from that a good day was had by all. The lights return on Pearl's bedroom, where Stanley finds her proclaiming that she is on her deathbed for the potato salad affair and for wrecking Lupe's car. Stanley tries and fails to bring her to optimism, eventually saying that when she dies, her husband Henry at least won't take long to find a new wife. This puts her ornery fire back, and she shoos Stanley away so that she can find her nightgown with dogs on the front, because "it drives [Stanley's] Uncle Henry wild."

Arles and Bertha have driven to the Starlight Motel and have been eloped. They make awkward small talk, before Arles reveals a book his preacher cousin Slim gave him, which is all about healthy sexual relations. As Bertha reads it, she becomes uncomfortable, jumping at Arles' mere touch. He calms her, saying they have to put the past behind them, and move on to better things. Bertha eventually gains courage and begins to start foreplay with Arles, which leads to Arles removing his pants and chasing Bertha around the stage. They run off, and return wearing only their nightgown and wifebeater, respectively. The curtain closes on the small-town life of Tuna, Texas.

The band started life off-screen, where Simon Wicks (Nick Berry) and Eddie Hunter (Simon Henderson) were bandmates. Before Simon came to Walford, he had borrowed money from loan sharks for their band's musical equipment and was left owing them huge amounts of money that he couldn't pay back. Eddie was happy to leave Simon with the debt and disappeared to work at Suttons Holiday Camp in Clacton so the band dissolved. With the debts finally repaid, and needing an ally to support him in the new band, Simon contacts Eddie and asks him to join.

The reformed group consist of Simon, Eddie, Kelvin Carpenter (Paul J. Medford), Sharon Watts (Letitia Dean), Ian Beale (Adam Woodyatt) and band manager Harry Reynolds. They initially call themselves '''Dog Market''', after dismissing Sharon's "So So Reverso" and Simon's "Bottled Up", "Left Of Arthur" (a reference to Arthur Scargill), "Conjugal Rights" and Lofty's (Tom Watt) "The Harry Reynolds Quartet". Eddie is the lead guitarist. Kelvin's girlfriend, Tessa Parker (Josephine Melville), also wants to join, but she has no musical talent and is refused membership.

They are due to have their debut in The Queen Victoria public house in August 1986, but after their enormous amplifier fuses the electricity in the pub during a performance of "Venus", publican Den Watts (Leslie Grantham) throws them out, shouting after them "You're banned!", after which the group change their name to The Banned.

Simon and Harry constantly disagree with the direction the band is taking. Harry loses his argument to make the band a vehicle for communist propaganda and blames Wicksy for the band taking a more practical attitude. They all decide to enter a competition for young musicians, and both Harry and Simon vow to outdo each other by writing the best song to perform. The rest of the band all prefer Simon's song, "Something Outa Nothing", which infuriates Harry and he starts bad-mouthing him to the rest of the band, saying he is superfluous and a closet BBC Radio 2 listener. Simon then declares that the band has to choose between him and Harry, but as Harry owns all the instruments and equipment, they side with him and Simon quits. Simon writes his own solo song called "Every Loser Wins". He doesn't get very far however, and by the end of the year he gives up his dream of becoming a musician.

Simon allows the band to continue using his song, "Something Outa Nothing", for the competition. The day of the competition comes and for some reason Harry, who is a political activist, decides to sabotage their performance by switching the cartridge in the synthesizer, wrecking any hopes the group have of getting anywhere. They are humiliated, and the rest of the band are furious when Harry confesses that he sabotaged their performance to show them up.

''The Day of Revolution'' revolves around Kei Yoshikawa, a boy in high school who one day is informed that he is genetically female. This shocking realization causes his family to grow closer together and Kei decides that he is going to restart his life as a girl named Megumi. Megumi takes a six-month leave from school and returns as a first-year student with Makoto Yutaka, the niece of the doctor who aided in Kei's transition; Makoto also helps Megumi adjust to living life as a girl. Megumi is quickly found out by her old male friends who all start hitting on her once they discover the truth that she was Kei. Shocked at their new behavior, Megumi is appalled at the thought of ever dating any one of them or even getting a boyfriend. After a traumatic experience with a former enemy, she tells her friends that she has chosen Makoto instead of any of them, though they do not back down in their pursuits.

Megumi, in an attempt to avoid her persistent male friends, starts spending more time at Makoto's house where she meets her younger brother Mikoto, who is home during the summer from an all-boys boarding school. Megumi starts to become more fond of Mikoto, though still only thinks of him as a younger brother, while at the same time Mikoto harbors feelings for Megumi. Megumi and Mikoto go on a date together but are interrupted by Megumi's male friends and Makoto. Megumi attempts to protect Mikoto from her friends' teasing of him, and in the process causes Mikoto to confess his love to her. Megumi and Mikoto begin dating though are still constantly interrupted and are thus unable to progress their relationship very far even two years later. However, they resolve to make progress together.

On a foggy night in 1850, Mary Rutledge and retired Colonel Marcus Aurelius Cobb arrive in San Francisco Bay aboard the clipper ''Flying Cloud''. She had come to wed a wealthy owner of a gold mine, but he has lost his mine at the roulette wheel when the ball landed on red 13 times at the Bella Donna. The men at the wharf reluctantly inform her that her fiancé is dead, murdered most likely by Louis Chamalis, the powerful owner of the Bella Donna restaurant and gambling house. Mary is upset, but quickly pulls herself together.

Mary meets Chamalis and goes to work for him. Chamalis gives her the name "Swan" and showers her with extravagant gifts. Their relationship sours quickly because Swan is angered by Chamalis's destructive power-mongering. She does not, however, mind running a crooked roulette wheel and cheating the miners out of their gold.

Colonel Cobb purchases a printing press, with the intention of starting a respectable newspaper for the people of San Francisco. His first issue includes an article criticizing an unpunished murder by Chamalis and his men. When Chamalis finds out, he threatens to destroy Cobb's printing press and burn down the building, but is halted by Swan. Chamalis demands that Cobb never print anything attacking him. The colonel unwillingly complies.

Swan becomes disillusioned with her life in San Francisco. Her distant behavior irks Chamalis. One morning, she sets out on horseback. When it begins to rain heavily, she seeks refuge in a seemingly abandoned cabin, where she meets poet and gold miner Jim Carmichael. Swan is taken with him, but lies about her current situation after hearing his criticisms of the city. He gives her his book of poems as a memento.

Carmichael decides to return to New York. Because of fog, the ship will not leave for a few days. He meets Chamalis's helper, Old Atrocity, who, seeing his bags of gold is happy to show him to the Bella Donna. Carmichael is surprised to find Mary working there. He is served drugged liquor and plays roulette at her table. He loses his composure, insults Swan and eventually loses his money.

Carmichael wakes the following morning in the Bella Donna's kitchen. His eloquent speech impresses Chamalis, who hires him on the spot as a waiter. Carmichael's presence bothers Mary, who offers him money to depart. Carmichael refuses, wishing to earn the fare on his own.

Cobb puts up a poster telling about a murder Chamalis ordered and how the Bella Donna cheats customers. Seeing it, Chamalis's henchman "Knuckles" Jacoby shoots both the man who put it up and the publisher when he tries to defend him. Dying, Cobb orders his assistant to print the truth. Vigilantes hang Knuckles.

Devastated by Cobb's death, Mary acknowledges her love for Carmichael, and works the roulette table so that he wins back the gold he lost. Chamalis finds out and sets out to kill Carmichael. The lovers decide to leave together. They find a rowboat and attempt to board the ship in the harbor. They have trouble seeing in the fog, but can hear Chamalis pursuing them. He shoots and injures Carmichael, and corners them beneath a pier. Mary begs him, as proof of his love for her, not to kill Carmichael. Chamalis agrees, but tells her he does not want her anymore. The sheriff arrives with a mob, and Chamalis allows himself to be taken away. Mary returns to Carmichael's side aboard the ship as it prepares to set sail.

The story centers around Akira Sakamoto, who is a part of a very unusual family. Everyone in his family is incredibly beautiful, except him. Compared to the rest of his family, Akira is often overshadowed and feels left out of the rest of the family when they go out in public. Despite this, his family has never tried to distance themselves from him and they treat each other the same way. Akira and his entire family also appear in the series ''Princess Princess'' by the same author of ''Family Complex''.

A white supremacist group is chasing Lou Ann (Bernadette Peters), whose husband Roy (Timothy Carhart) is a member. She has inadvertently taken counterfeit money from them by running away with his car (the pink Cadillac), which held the supremacists' stash.

Tommy Nowak (Clint Eastwood) is a skip-tracer whose speciality is dressing up in disguises, such as a rodeo clown, to fool whomever he is after. Tommy takes on the job of finding Lou Ann because she skipped bail.

When he finally finds her in Reno, Nevada, Tommy slowly becomes enamored. Roy and his gang kidnap her baby, whom Lou Ann has left with her sister (Frances Fisher), so Tommy decides to help Lou Ann get the baby back instead of turning her in. While driving through the West, seeking the baby, romance blossoms. They eventually fight the white supremacists and retrieve the baby.

The beheading of international criminal mastermind Dr. Fu Manchu is witnessed in China by his nemesis Nayland Smith. Back in London, however, it is increasingly apparent to Smith that Dr. Fu Manchu is still operating. Despite the skepticism by his close friend Dr. Petrie, Smith is quick to detect that the execution he witnessed was that of a double, an actor hypnotized into taking Dr. Fu Manchu's place. The villain is back in London, and has kidnapped the esteemed Professor Muller, whose research holds the key to a potentially deadly solution from the seeds of a rare Tibetan flower: the Blackhill poppy. The seed of this poppy is sometimes referred to as "The Seed of Life", and Tibetans spoke legends of it being the secret to eternal life. Although the poppy seed's poison loses its toxicity when exposed to heat, Fu Manchu has heard Tibetan legends that the poison was once weaponized. A pint of this poison is powerful enough to kill every person and animal in London.

Nayland Smith correctly deduces that Professor Muller had received his supply of Blackhill poppy seeds from illegal drug trade. After Fu Manchu cut off the drug trade, the poppy seeds were mainly acquired from Hanuman - a warehouse owner who is secretly in cahoots with Fu Manchu. Nayland Smith meets Hanuman in his warehouse to question him on the whereabouts of Professor Muller. In Hanuman's office, Hanuman pulls a gun on Smith, who is able to knock him out before he can fire. Nayland Smith quickly leaves the building and deliberately avoids giving his attention to Hanuman's secretary, whom he recognizes as Lin Tang - Fu Manchu's daughter and partner-in-crime. Lin Tang recognized Nayland Smith when he entered the building, and she phoned Hanuman to kill Nayland Smith before their meeting in the office.

Hanuman regains consciousness, then he and Lin Tang go underground to a secret base under the River Thames. There, Lin Tang informs her father that his nemesis Nayland Smith has gotten involved in their plans. Lin Tang informs Fu Manchu that their prisoner Professor Muller has refused to divulge how to extract the poisonous essence from the Blackhill poppy seeds. To coerce Professor Muller, Fu Manchu has his henchmen kidnap the professor's daughter Maria. After both prisoners are forced to watch one of Fu Manchu's henchwoman drown (as the henchwoman's punishment for trying to free Professor Muller), Professor Muller then reveals that documents detailing the properties of the Blackhill poppy were given to Professor Gaskel by the Grand Lama. The documents were given during the Younghusband expedition that Professor Muller resents not being a part of. The documents are currently locked in a vault that only Professor Gaskel has access to. The vault is in a guarded room of the Museum of Oriental Studies.

Fu Manchu's daughter Lin Tang dons a disguise and infiltrates the museum. She drops a listening device. Meanwhile, Fu Manchu's henchmen break into the museum's guarded room by entering through the sewer tunnels. However, Nayland Smith and his allies kill the henchmen only to discover that the vault had been emptied by Professor Gaskel earlier ago. This information is heard through the listening device of Lin Tang, whom Nayland Smith and company recognize. Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie engage in a car chase after Lin Tang and Fu Manchu, but the duo escapes.

Professor Gaskel is in his study when Lin Tang and Fu Manchu emerge. Fu Manchu hypnotizes Professor Gaskel to be under his control. They go to Fu Manchu's underground lair, where Professor Gaskel works on distilling the poisonous essence of the Blackhill poppy with Professor Muller. As they work, Fu Manchu is informed that the Essex village of Fleetwick is currently under freezing temperatures, so the poppy seed's poisonous properties will persist if used there. He makes an announcement on the radio to let the entire country know of his return, and to obey him. As a show of his power, he announces that he will target Fleetwick. Nayland Smith has British Army soldiers sent there to protect Fleetwick. Fu Manchu has a plane fly over the village, with the Blackhill poppy poison being sprayed onto the almost 3000 civilians and soldiers below, killing them within seconds. By this point, Professor Gaskel has also been hypnotized into committing suicide.

Nayland Smith and his associates use some maps and detective work to deduce the entrances and location of Fu Manchu's hideout. With the intent of flooding the hideout, they break in through the hidden entrance in Hanuman's warehouse. They confront Fu Manchu and his minions, and a brawl ensues. After the lights go out, Fu Manchu and his minions escape to a Tibetan monastery with Professor Muller while the River Thames hideout is flooded. Nayland Smith and his team leave the underground hideout via an exit that leads to a graveyard.

Deducing that Blackhill poppy seeds only grow in Tibet, Nayland Smith and company go to there and find Fu Manchu. He is at a Tibetan monastery receiving Blackhill poppy seeds from the Grand Lama. Nayland Smith and company find Professor Muller, who informs them that Fu Manchu already has all the knowledge and poppy seeds he needs to bring the world to its knees. Nayland Smith reassures Professor Muller by revealing that he has a detonator hidden underneath the poppy seeds in one of Fu Manchu's boxes, and it is rigged to explode. Nayland Smith, Professor Muller, and their allies leave the monastery, much to Fu Manchu's frustration. Fu Manchu ponders why Nayland Smith did not take the poppy seeds. A few seconds later, Smith's detonator blows up and the monastery grounds burst in an enormous ball of flame.

Nayland Smith is riding horseback with his allies and sees the explosion from afar. The film ends with a medium closeup of Fu Manchu fading in over the explosion, and his voice uttering, "The world shall hear from me again... the world shall hear from me again".

When CIA agent, Sydney Bristow, is called in to work on her day off, she knows there must be something serious going down. The order came from the CIA's best mind: her father, Jack Bristow. A fellow operative, Agent Jacobs, has disappeared under suspicious circumstances. His last communiqué to the CIA contained highly sensitive intelligence regarding Sydney's nemesis, Anna Espinosa, formerly a top agent for K-Directorate, now gone rogue. While Sydney's been having free time, Anna has been busy - hard at work taking over the "Followers of Rambaldi" cult, a cabal of zealots hell bent on bringing the visions of 15th century philosopher, physicist and prophet, Milo Rambaldi, to life. Now, Anna has been teaming up with Julian Sark, a slippery and cunning gun-for-hire, along with Sydney's ex-boss, Arvin Sloane, a highly intelligent but utterly corrupt crime lord, and a man Sydney thoroughly despises.

Sydney is tasked with finding out what this trio of 'most wanted' fugitives is working on and discover exactly what "The Machine" is. She is ably assisted by her back-up team; Marcus Dixon, her field partner and loyal friend; Michael Vaughn, her CIA handler; and Marshall Flinkman, a socially inept technological whiz with a gadget for every occasion.

Starting in Agent Jacobs' last known location, a casino in Monte Carlo, Sydney locates a data disc in a dead drop. Hacking into a computer in the executive suite, she discovers that the casino's luxurious exterior hides a huge arms manufacturing facility in the basement. Now, Sydney has to acquire a laser prototype being tested there, sneak back into the casino to spy on a meeting between Anna and Sark, and finally escape from the casino grounds with armed enemies in hot pursuit.

Jacobs' data leads the team to a museum in Saudi Arabia proudly displaying new artifacts...a mysterious set of bones found in the desert with links to Rambaldi. When Sydney covertly enters the museum to acquire the bones, she finds that Anna has the same idea at the same time, except that Anna has brought her task force. Racing against Anna's forces, Sydney must collect all of the bones before getting a trace on a feeling Anna that takes them to ruins in the desert. Here, Sydney's best efforts are thwarted by Anna's underhanded tactics which force Sydney to put friendship before professional loyalty, and incidentally, disarm a rather large nuclear warhead.

While Sydney's been in the desert, Vaughn has tracked both missing agent Jacobs and a mathematician, Dr. Caplan, to an insane asylum in Romania, where prisoners are being held against their will. Breaking into the asylum, Sydney discovers that the prisoners are being used as human guinea pigs for Anna and Sark's experiments with their laser. After freeing Caplan and Jacobs, who in turn free the prisoners, Sydney initiates a daring plan to take Sark into custody and put an end to the experiments by starting a chemical reaction with the laser's components, which destroys the asylum when the reaction goes critical. The horrific truth about the experiments comes out as Caplan is debriefed back at the CIA.

Trading his intelligence for immunity, Sark tips the team off that Arvin Sloane is cutting a specific diamond to Anna's very precise specifications in a laboratory beneath an embassy in Hong Kong. Gaining admittance to the embassy by attending a glamorous party in the ballroom, Sydney gets into the cutting room and manages to acquire the diamond. She is forced to trade it for the lives of the innocent partygoers when Sloane appears on the scene and informs Sydney of the C-4 explosives he has placed around the embassy as insurance. Ignoring Sydney's warnings about Anna, he triggers a countdown on the bomb giving Sydney and Dixon just a few minutes to evacuate the embassy and get themselves to safety.

Tracing Anna to Rio de Janeiro, Sydney tails her to a nightclub where she is scheduled to meet with Sloan. Bugging a meeting between the two, Sydney finally manages to discover the true, awful potential about "The Machine," and its location in an underground bunker in Russia. As Anna marches off a double-crossed Sloane, the CIA operatives receive a surprise visit by the Followers of Rambaldi SWAT team. Realizing there is a mole within the agency, Vaughn attempts to stop the raid only to find that the leaks have come from the most unlikely of sources. The CIA team must regroup to draw up their final make-or-break plans to stop Anna's nefarious plan.

Following a HALO parachute jump insertion, Sydney must use all of the skills she has learned to infiltrate the bunker. By stealth, combat and quick-thinking, Sydney gets past Anna's forces and finds a captive Sloane. Reluctantly agreeing to an uneasy truce with him, Sydney must defeat Anna and figure out how to destroy the mighty Machine to stop ecological disaster being launched on the whole planet. As Anna's grand scheme and the bunker begin to collapse around her, Sydney has to push herself to the limit to escape with her life.

The player commands a small group of NATO operatives who must reveal the mystery behind the sudden appearance of hybrid creatures in a former Soviet military base at a small Polish town near Lubin. The area is surrounded by NATO troops and media from all over the world, and the first group sent into town disappears without a trace. The main hero of the story is the 40-year-old Canadian soldier Cole Sullivan, a commando team member with extensive scientific knowledge. His team's task is to explain the hybrids' presence and to find the missing members of Group One.

The story of the limited series deals with the suicide of Charles Blackwater, whose soul is morphed into Omen, and the visions of Dr. Katherine Reynolds, now a patient in a mental institution, who keeps saying "Fin Fang Foom". Reynolds, who had previously worked with Daimon Hellstrom, was abducted by a group known only as The Agency and given drugs that enhanced her latent psionic powers.''The Legion of Night'' #1

Jennifer Kale, now in college and living with an overweight boyfriend, Bernard Drabble, has not used her magic in years (she was last seen midwifing the "birth" of Quagmire through Man-Thing in ''Marvel Comics Presents'' vol. 1 #29), but suddenly feels compelled to, and receives encouragement from Man-Thing when she dreams that he is sitting next to her on an airplane.''The Legion of Night'' #2

In China, Dr. Chan is trying to explain to officials that there is a new part of the prophecy of Fin Fang Foom that he has only recently uncovered. In New York, Martin Gold is now working for a paranormal magazine, having previously done hard journalism. He has rethought his life after his relationship with Angel O'Hara and her possession by Lilith.

Omen summons the team to the apartment of Charles Atwater, whom Omen had recently resurrected in order to take control of his body.

Blackwater was forced to commit suicide by a former client, The Beyond Reason Spiritual Fellowship, which was resurrecting their hedonistic god, Aan Tanu, through the body of Fin Fang Foom. The Fellowship was based on a rare religious tome that its male leader, Reeve Calder, believed was a hoax. Its female leader, Hildreth, mates with Aan Tanu to create a demonic child. Ariann, however, rips the child out of her womb and kills it.

During the opening credits, a series of comic book panels recounts the adventures of Team Zenith, five young superheroes led by Jack Shepard ("Captain Zoom") and his older brother Connor Shepard ("Concussion"), who fought to protect the world from various threats. The American military sought to enhance the team's powers using an experimental form of radiation called "Gamma-13". This made Zoom faster and stronger but created a psychotic break in Concussion who becomes paranoid and delusional. Thinking Zoom and the team betrayed him, Concussion killed his teammates Marksman, Ace, and Daravia. Zoom defeated Concussion but lost his powers in the process.

30 years later, Dr. Ed Grant, the scientist behind the original Zenith Project, discovers that Concussion is still alive. Zoom's actions propelled Concussion to a dimensional rift who is now on a return trajectory. General Larraby, the military officer in charge of the Project, decides to form a new Zenith Team to fight him. Jack finds himself dragged back into the Project, this time as an instructor. Larraby gives Jack the choice of a lengthy prison sentence should he refuse or a payment of $500,000 for training the team. Jack reluctantly agrees to help. In their secret base Area 52 (a reference to Area 51), he meets Marsha Holloway, who is a beautiful but clumsy psychologist, a big fan of Zoom's, and knows of him only through the comic book adaptations of the team's adventures.

The project holds an audition of would-be members, and four are selected: Dylan West, a 17-year-old boy possessing invisibility, Summer Jones, a 16-year-old girl with telekinetic powers and empathic senses, Tucker Williams, a 12-year-old overweight boy who can enlarge and inflate his body parts himself at will, and Cindy Collins, a 6-year-old girl with super strength. At first, things do not go well, with Jack being bitter about the past, and his sarcastic attitude disappoints Marsha. Dylan keeps trying to escape, Tucker has self-esteem problems and trouble controlling his powers, and the kids are annoyed by Jack's attitude. The team eventually forces Jack to face the fact that he's not really putting his heart into their training. Slowly things begin to come together as the new team's abilities improve, and they adopt superhero identities: Cindy calls herself "Princess," Tucker becomes "Mega Boy," Dylan chooses "Houdini" and Summer takes the name "Wonder".

Only hours before Concussion is set to arrive on Earth, Dylan discovers a new ability, "mindsight", a rare power that allows him to discover where Concussion will arrive. In his vision, he also discovers the project's true purpose: The military is seeking to test new weaponry to subdue Concussion and will use the new Zenith team as a distraction; worse, the military does not believe the new team has sufficient power to hold him at bay and plans to bombard the children with Gamma-13. Zoom is horrified by the revelation and recruits Marsha to help him rescue the kids before they are bombarded with Gamma-13; during their escape, Marsha also reveals that she secretly possesses a form of rainbow-colored super breath. They make it to Concussion's arrival point and Jack opts to confront him powerless and alone, but the kids refuse to abandon him.

When Concussion arrives, Larraby test fires a neutralizing net to trap Concussion, who easily blasts it away towards Cindy. Fearing for her safety, Zoom's powers return and he pulls her out of the way. Working together, Zoom recreates the original vortex using speed and his Gamma-13 energy, while the team and Marsha guide Concussion into it. Just before they send him back through, Dr. Grant yells to Zoom that if he closes the vortex, they can save Concussion. Zoom closes the vortex and the subsequent energy vacuum pulls the Gamma-13 from Connor which both restores his powers to normal and cures his psychosis. Zoom and Concussion are reunited.

Three months later, Cindy is in a school play of ''Rapunzel'', using her strength to pull the "prince" up the tower when he can't make the climb. Tucker is the goalie on the soccer team. Dylan is dating Summer who is on the cheerleading team, using her telekinetic power to help build an upside-down pyramid. In addition, they still work together with Zoom as the new Zenith Team.

One or two players can take the role of a pair of United States Colonial Marines in an altered version of the film's storyline. The action begins with an escape from the spaceship ''Sulaco'' before proceeding to the surface of Fiorina 'Fury' 161, where players must take down hordes of Aliens as well as an army of Weyland-Yutani Corporation troops sent to retrieve specimens by any means necessary. Levels are based on sets from the film and take players through the Mess Hall, Infirmary, Lead Works and more. The game ends when the players defeat the unidentified man, only to be met with more troops.

Workaholic Daniel Miller is forced to drive their family carpool when Diane Miller becomes ill. Daniel is in the middle of a huge advertising campaign for Hammerman's, a large chain of delis, and initially refuses the carpool until Mrs. Miller guilts him. It includes two sons, Andrew and Bucky, two local ladies; Chelsea and her older sister, Kayla, and local weirdo Travis. Meanwhile, Franklin Laszlo is the owner of a failing carnival. Franklin has the bright idea to rob a bank in order to get the money to keep his business going. As Franklin leaves to attempt his bank robbery, he enters a local Hammerman's where Daniel is also at. Two gunmen: Neil and Jerry, who also co-incidentally plan to rob the deli, hold it up and eventually a standoff ensues between them, an older woman, Franklin, and a local detective, Lt. Erdman. Through a series of misunderstandings, Franklin takes Daniel as the hostage and has Hammerman's money that the gunmen had stolen from the deli. Heading to the van, Franklin kidnaps Daniel and the children. The group bonds through a series of misadventures; stopping at a hair salon to use the restroom, evading the police using a disguise, and eventually being chased by an obsessed meter maid, Martha. Franklin reveals to the group the reason behind his robbery and kidnapping: keeping the carnival open so he can see his son.

Eventually, Franklin takes the group to his carnival, where the children enjoy the rides. The gunmen, Neil & Jerry have tracked Franklin through his wallet, which he had dropped in the deli, and want Hammerman's money. A fight ensues, with the controls to the Ferris Wheel being damaged. Daniel uses his advertising materials to jam the mechanism of the ride and climbs up to rescue Andrew. Franklin ties up the gunmen Neil and Jerry, locks them into the Zipper and gets his wallet back. Daniel realizes it's too late to attend his pitch meeting, but Franklin convinces him otherwise. Daniel arrives late and unprepared but successfully pitches to Mr. Hammerman that children don't like his chain and that a revamp to something more kid-friendly would help. Franklin likes the idea and Daniel gains the backbone to tell him he quit. Eventually the police arrive but Daniel does not wish to press charges and Franklin is let off the hook.

Sometime later, Franklin and Daniel are co-owners of the carnival, with Mr. Hammerman supplying them with food. Everything seems to be okay, until Franklin realizes he missed a lunch date with his mother, who is shown destroying a local Sizzler over the closing credits.

A dentist is derided (and eventually has his life ruined) by his colleagues for his natural talent of painlessly pulling out teeth.

A young couple in love — Watty Watts and Starlene — are planning a convenience store robbery. The next day, they are paid a visit by Creepy Cody and Dinosaur Bob, collectors for a local mobster whom Watty has borrowed money from to buy an engagement ring for Starlene. They inform Watty that he must get the money very soon. This is followed by a visit by Watts' drug-addicted former prison buddy, Billy Mack Black, who has a plan for a big score. Against the wishes of Starlene, Watty goes along with the plot and the robbery turns deadly when Billy shoots and kills the stoned clerk.

Following the murder, Billy pulls his gun on Watty and forces him to go to a restaurant to eat breakfast, where Billy pulls his gun on Watty again. Fearing for his life, Watty attacks Billy with a fork and escapes. He then returns to his trailer and Starlene. He asks her to marry him and tells her they have to flee to Mexico. They are then paid a visit by two police officers, who try to kill them as revenge for the murder and robbery. Starlene manages to shoot one of the officers, who accidentally shoots the other one, and the couple escape.

They then make their way toward Mexico pursued by Billy Mack, Bob and Creepy and the police. The two are romanticized in the crime-obsessed media and become celebrities. On the way they stop in to see Starlene's parents, Thaylene and Vergil, who are later found by Billy, Bob and Creepy, leading to a violent showdown in which all are killed except Billy.

Billy catches up with Watty and Starlene and the three of them cross into Mexico together. There the three engage in a showdown in which Starlene eventually kills Billy by injecting him with an overdose of high-powered speed.

The two lovers take some liquid LSD given to them by Starlene's father and drive off into the sunset to start a new life.

Martin and Mary Doul are two blind beggars who have been led by the lies of the townsfolk to believe that they are beautiful when in fact they are old and ugly. A saint cures them of their blindness with water from a holy well and at first sight they are disgusted by each other. Martin goes to work for Timmy the smith and tries to seduce Timmy's betrothed, Molly, but she viciously rejects him and Timmy sends him away. Martin and Mary both lose their sight again, and when the saint returns to wed Timmy and Molly, Martin refuses his offer to cure their blindness again. The saint takes offence and the townsfolk banish the couple, who head south in search of kinder neighbours.

Sarah Casey convinces the reluctant Michael Byrne to marry her by threatening to run off with another man. She accosts a local priest, and convinces him to wed them for ten shillings and a tin can. Michael's mother shows up drunk and harasses the priest, then steals the can to exchange it for more drink. The next morning Sarah and Michael go to the chapel to be wed, but when the priest finds that the can is missing he refuses to perform the ceremony. Sarah protests and a fight breaks out that ends with the priest tied up in a sack. The tinkers free him after he swears not to set the police after them and he curses them in God's name as they flee in mock terror.

The film pretends to be a newsreel from Japanese cinema that was captured by American troops during World War II. Each segment features a separate story supposedly praising Japanese life and the war effort. In reality, each segment contains satirical content, often racist satirical content, to depict the Japanese and their Axis allies as incompetent, pathetic, self-destructive failures.

The cartoon opens with an unseen narrator announcing that footage of Japan has been released to the public. The footage starts with a rooster that is a parody of Pathé with the opening of the ''Defile March'' playing in the background. The "rooster" attempts to crow, but it is revealed that it is actually a vulture in a costume. The vulture has glasses and buck teeth, and is seen rubbing its wings together and saying "Oh, cock-a-doo-doo-doo, prease", all stereotypical traits to show that the vulture is Japanese.

The first segment is "Civilian Defense", and the voiceover presents the Japanese air raid siren system. This "system" is two Japanese men who take turns poking each other's buttocks with a giant needle (a reference to the obscene Japanese gesture kancho) and screaming in pain. A listening post is also shown in the following scene, showing a small Japanese man walking around a pole covered in keyholes. There is also an "aircraft spotter", and another Japanese man is literally painting spots on a plane. The narrator turns to show the fire prevention headquarters, but it was already burned down.

"Incendiary Bombs" gives a lesson on bombs, with text stating that one should not approach them for the first five seconds. A small Japanese man with an umbrella walks onto the screen and reads the text, so he looks at his watch (the watch is covered with swastikas) and counts for six seconds before cooking a sausage over the bomb with his umbrella. The bomb explodes and the man is blasted into a hole in the ground. The man, however, survives and climbs out of the hole, then makes a comment about losing face - having literally lost his face, despite his glasses and hat remaining in place.

In "Kitchen Hints", Hideki Tojo is shown as a cook. He gives instructions for making a Japanese club sandwich out of ration cards. He then proceeds to eat the "sandwich" and hits himself in the head with an actual club. Tojo now has a large lump on his head, and he is playing with his lips.

The next segment is "Nippon-Nifties Style Show", and the narrator presents a "Japanese Victory Suit". The narrator states that the suit has no cuffs, no pleats, and no lapel. This actually means there is no suit, and a small, almost-naked Japanese man wearing a diaper is shivering in the snow and trying to warm himself with a small candle.

The scene switches to a sports announcer, a Japanese man named Red Toga-San (whose name is a pun on sports journalists Red Barber and Stan Thorgerson), talking out of a hole around a black background. As he is making an announcement, the hole closes on his lips, which then fall to the ground and are revealed to be false teeth with the label "Made in Japan". The Japanese "King of Swat" (a reference to Babe Ruth's nickname as the Sultan of Swat) is shown in the next scene, wearing a baseball outfit next to a trophy that is identical to his head in shape. A fly then appears onscreen, and the "King of Swat" attempts to swat it while spinning around. The fly grabs the flyswatter from the "King of Swat" and hits him with it, then flies away with the trophy.

"Headline Poisonalities" shows some personalities that made the headline that week. Isoroku Yamamoto is seen standing behind a desk and introduces himself as he walks on stilts to look taller. He states that he "will dictate peace time in the White House". An editor's note covers the screen, telling the audience that the room in the next scene is reserved for Yamamoto. When the card is removed, there is an opened door and inside the room is an electric chair, and Chopin's ''Marche funèbre'' is quoted.

The scene fades and the narrator explains how General Homma demonstrates "Japanese coolness and calmness during air raid attacks". However, this statement is ironic since Homma is shown running around in a forest and bumping into trees. Homma then panics and runs inside a hollow log. Homma sticks his head out of the log, panting. A skunk also comes out of the log and sniffs Homma in disgust, so it ducks back into the log and reappears with a gas mask.

"Flashes from the Axis" shows news from outside Japan. From Berlin, a caricature of Lord Haw-Haw appears as a donkey named "Lord Hee Haw" ('Chief Wind-Bag'). He brays loudly before reading from his papers, saying that "the Führer has just received a postcard from a friend vacationing abroad". Next a hand is seen holding a post-card, and the song ''O du lieber Augustin'' (due to the association with Germany) plays. It is flipped over, the other side has an image of Rudolf Hess in a concentration camp. The next scene shows that the other hand is that of Adolf Hitler who then twitches his mustache in confusion (in a similar manner to Charlie Chaplin).

From Rome, the "celebrated" Roman ruins are shown as ''Largo al factotum'' is quoted (hence the association with Italy). Each of the ruins are numbered with signs. Benito Mussolini is sitting on the pillar labelled as "Ruin #1" as he plays with a yo-yo with a sad expression on his face.

The next segment focuses on the "Japanese Navy...all at sea" and focuses on the achievements. A submarine appears, and the narrator says that it had launched three weeks ahead of schedule. However, this was apparently done prior to its completion, as workers are still building it as it moves underwater. A small Japanese man runs onscreen and tries to stop the submarine, but it crashes and he stops running and takes his hat off as "Taps" plays in the background. He then shrugs and walks in the opposite direction. A group of Japanese sailors are then seen using what the narrator calls "intricate and technical machinery", but are actually various arcade machines. The song that briefly plays in the background is ''Nagasaki''.

The narrator then introduces a "happy gentleman" riding inside a human torpedo. The narrator then asks him if he has anything to say, and he responds with "No uh, nothing, except...RET ME OUTTA HERE!", apparently stuck inside the torpedo.

The final segment shows literal interpretations of boats and planes. A plane is shot in the air with what is stated to be a "super-duper cataproat device" but is in fact just a giant slingshot, or "catapult". Another plane has tricycle landing gear, made up of a tricycle with a small Japanese man riding on it. The aircraft carrier ''Skinomaru'' passes by, haphazardly carrying the wrecks of crashed airplanes. Finally, a navy minesweeper with arms floats by, and is literally sweeping away mines with a broom. The ship explodes, and after the smoke clears a buoy emerges out of the water with the note "Regrettable incident please".

Earth has been taken over by the Master Race, a galaxy-spanning empire of artificial intelligences, and the best of Earth’s survivors are recruited into the aliens' army. Athol Morrison has served for 20 years, and heads back to Earth for a brief vacation. There, he runs into old friends, and finds it easy to give into his old feelings with his childhood girlfriend, Alexandra (Alix) Moreno.

Alix and the rest of Athol’s friends are involved in a rebellion against Earth’s Master. They ask Athol to help and to join them, and so he helps to train them. Concerned that any rebellion will provoke a genocidal response from the Masters, he betrays the rebellion to the local government, making sure that Alix and Davy Intäke are spared.

Conflicted about what he has done, but feeling as if there was no choice, Athol rejoins up with his new command. Soon afterward comes war with the Hu, the most advanced race yet encountered—they developed hyperspace travel either on their own or stole it from a Master facility. Despite the Hu winning a series of early victories, the Master Race grinds the Hu down in a near-genocidal campaign that leaves the Hu homeworld in ruins.

After that war is over, Athol and one of his concubines visit his alien comrade Shrêhht on her home planet. There, he is invited into another rebellion, one composed of all of the slave races, that has been plotting against the Master Race for over 100,000 years. He returns to Earth a second time and learns that he and Alix have a daughter, Kaye Moreno, and takes her off-planet to be trained as a soldier herself.

Later, the Master Race's empire is attacked by a new foe that the conspirators believe drove the Master Race out of the Andromeda Galaxy and has arrived to finish them off. Athol, now a general, and Kaye ponder whether now would be the right time for the conspirators to revolt against the Master Race and welcome the newcomers, although he worries that if the Masters fall, the subject races will be the "slaves of slaves" forever.

The player takes the role of the manga hero Cobra, who after walking into a bar, learns that a bounty has been placed on his head by the Galaxy Patrol and that he is being hunted by a bounty hunter named Jane Royal. After it is discovered that Cobra's archenemy Crystal Boy is after a treasure hidden by Jane's father, the location of which he encoded in the form of tattoos on his triplet daughters, Cobra and Jane agree to join forces to locate her sisters and defeat Crystal Boy.

Act One

The first act introduces us to Rafael, a monk recently arrived at a convent where he seeks to create his work of art: a painting of'' La Dolorosa'' that brings him so many rich memories that even the convent's Prior and Brother Lucas begin to notice and doubt the spiritual serenity of their new brother. The convent’s orchard turns out to be an ideal place for the inspiration Rafael seeks. Perico, his helper, wants to learn to paint and begs Rafael to explain the painting to him; he consents, singing a painful love song.

In the next scene, Perico is standing alone trying to copy his teacher. Nicasia arrives and declares her love openly. Perico does not want to lose the girl, nor fall under her spell, but her ends up yielding to his amorous desires. As they celebrate their love, the dance is interrupted by Bienvenido, the girl’s father, who forbids his daughter from entering a relationship. José, Perico’s father, tries to keep the peace, and everyone ends up acquiescing to the young couple’s desires.

During the afternoon, Jose arrives at the convent asking for help for a woman who he found carrying a very small child in her arms. Upon seeing them, Perico recognizes in them the features of La Dolorosa that Rafael is painting. When he arrives later to administer medications, he learns from the woman that another man had loved her.

Act Two

The second act continues to follow the two couples. Nicasia and Perico are eagerly preparing for their wedding. Meanwhile, Rafael and Dolores find themselves alone with a free moment to explain themselves. Dolores, who had left Rafael for another man, has been left in turn and is living unhappily with the consequences of her choices. Rafael, for his part, is confused about his feelings toward Dolores and his spiritual obligations.

The scene moves to the interior of the convent. It is the hour for matins and the prior is pondering Rafael's situation when he hears the song of a group of minstrels singing outside. Since Rafael still has not appeared in the chapel, the prior goes in search of him, and upon finding him, Rafael begs for confession and reveals his feelings: he doesn't want to leave Dolores alone in the world.

The final scene is the joyous wedding of Nicasia and Perico. Rafael, having obtained permission from the prior to leave the convent and renounce his oaths, is with Dolores as the two reconciled lovers sing of their joy.

Category:Zarzuelas Category:Spanish-language operas Category:1930 operas Category:Operas Category:Operas by José Serrano

'''Act I: Lavarcham's house on Slieve Fuadh.''' Conchubor, the aging High King of Ulster, has charged Lavarcham to raise the child Deirdre to be his queen when she comes of age. Lavarcham finds that the now-beautiful Deirdre is a willful young woman, without interest in marrying an old man. Conchubor comes to Slieve Fuadh to bring Deirdre to his palace, Emain Macha, ignoring her pleas to remain in the countryside for another year. After he leaves, Naoise, son of Usna, and his brothers come to the cottage seeking Deirdre, and she tells them of her summons. Deirdre is aware of a prophecy that she will be the doom of the sons of Usna; nonetheless she asks Naoise to take her away from Ulster. He agrees, and Ainnle weds them in an impromptu ceremony.

'''Act II: Alban.''' Deirdre and the sons of Usna have lived happily on a remote island for seven years. Fergus arrives bearing an offer of peace from Conchubor, and asks Deirdre and Naoise to return with him to Emain Macha. Lavarcham warns Deirdre not to accept, and Owen, a spy in the service of Conchubor, intimidates Deirdre with suggestions that death awaits Naoise in Ulster. Naoise tells Fergus that he plans to live the rest of his life with Deirdre in Alban, but Deirdre convinces him to accept Conchubor's offer, reasoning that it is better to die young, at the peak of their love, than to grow old and live in the shadow of their past happiness.

'''Act III: A tent near Emain.''' Lavarcham arrives at Conchubor's tent and tries to convince him to give up his pursuit of Deirdre, claiming that she has grown old and lost her beauty. His soldiers arrive and contradict her claims, and he leaves just before Deirdre and Naoise enter. They discuss the possibility of their impending deaths until Conchubor returns. Deirdre nearly convinces him to put aside past grievances and let them live in peace when the sound of a battle between Conchubor's men and Naoise's brothers reaches them. Conchubor and Naoise go to join the fray and Naoise is killed. Fergus and his men arrive, enraged by the king's treachery, and set Emain Macha ablaze. Lavarcham tries to convince Deirdre to flee Ulster, and Conchubor tries to take her to a different castle, but she stays and mourns her dead lover and his brothers. In the end, Deirdre takes Naoise's dagger, stabs herself, and falls into his open grave, leaving Conchubor with nothing.

In an unidentified, vaguely totalitarian future, Detective Stephen Grant (Bokeem Woodbine) investigates a series of strange murders; his partner is killed by a pale man in black who can survive bullet wounds, tosses Grant through a window, and climb up walls like a reptile. After Grant reports the incident, his superiors introduce him to another officer, Aaron Gray (Adrian Paul). Grant learns that vampires exist—Gray is one of them—and plan to gradually integrate themselves with the rest of humanity. One of these vampires is responsible for the murders and the other vampires want to help catch the perpetrator. Aiding the officers is a female vampire named Lucy Westenra (played by Bai Ling).

Lucy Westenra and Detective Grant eventually become lovers and this complicates the lives of the police officer and the beautiful female vampire as later circumstances seem to implicate everyone's hidden agenda, betrayal, and deception. All the various human and vampire characters seem to be up to something sneaky and questionable as the movie progresses.

In absolute secrecy, humans have created a virus that is capable of killing only vampires while leaving humanity unharmed. The virus is made as a failsafe device, in case the plan to coexist between vampires and humans fails. Hidden in a veil of deceit, the elder vampire makes a cynical plan to eradicate humanity if they won't take the cure made from vampire blood and become vampire themselves. The vampire leader believed that as long as humans and vampires remain separate races, there will always be conflict and warfare. He forces the creator of the vampire virus to alter the nature of the virus, making it deadly to humans and not to vampires. The virus creator, Dr. Fleming, doesn't seem to need all that much coercion to make a human biological weapon, as he wanted immortality and the Elder vampire was all too happy to manipulate him. Dr. Fleming pulls a gun and tries to eliminate the police officers when they discover his collaboration with the vampire leader. The vampire leader kills Fleming to silence him when the plot starts to unravel.

A renegade vampire resistance leader mistrusts human-vampire cooperation and would use any excuse to start his human-vampire war to determine who would control the world. On the government side, Seward also mistrusts coexistence and would later order government troops to set up an ambush to attack the vampire migrants, and the vampire police force escorting them.

Only due to the trust between the human police officers and their vampire allies is the deadly virus plot brought to an end. The subplot of the vampire renegade leader and the overly zealous government agent Seward were also resolved without a bloody war. The high-ranking government director ordered Seward to stand down his troops. It's also implied that the surviving vampire leadership reined in the wild vampire renegades with vampire police forces. Human Detective Grant and Vampire Officer Grey become permanent police partners at the end of the movie. Grant and Lucy Westenra seem to have become a romantic couple, and he even moves into her luxurious mansion.

Tom Turner, a con artist, is arrested for working cons he is presently doing to pay off his gambling debt to Junior, a loan shark. He is sentenced by the judge to find a full-time job by the end of the week and keep it for at least a year, or be sent to jail.

Tom finds work at the post office sorting mail in the dead letter office. Surrounded by quirky coworkers, Tom finds out what happens to letters addressed to the Easter Bunny, Elvis Presley, and God, and out of curiosity reads one of the letters sent to God.

While reading the letter, sent by a needy single mother, Tom accidentally drops his paycheck; it is mailed back to her. When Tom comes to retrieve his paycheck, he sees the good it has done and leaves, not knowing that Rebecca, a burnt-out workaholic lawyer coworker doing pro-bono work, has seen him doing so.

Believing Tom sent the money on purpose, Laurie rallies the rest of the dead letter office workers to continue what Tom has started. Tom, becoming the unwilling leader of the group, starts answering more and more letters sent to the post office asking God for help. Hilarity ensues as the group answers more prayers, enriching people's lives, while Tom tries to find love with Gloria, a coffee bar waitress, and keep out of jail.

After the loan shark trashes Tom's apartment, things are replaced by 'God' or rather his coworkers. Webster, Junior's 'heavy', stops by to let him know that he was hit by a bus, so is off the hook for the loan.

Miraculously others begin to step up, replacing Christmas presents stolen from the Salvation Army, the Santa Monica homeless had canned goods delivered to them as requested, and 5,000 in cash comes in. Tom, believing it's a trap, suggests they lay low for awhile.

The postmaster general announces on a news report that it is a federal offense for postal workers to open mail not addressed to them. The postal police show up to arrest Idris Abraham, as he took responsibility for giving a homeless man a trumpet.

Tom confesses, saying it was all him on TV. Rebecca, acting as his defense attourney, calls the other postal workers from the department. As she's making her closing statements Herman, fellow postal worker who sees she's losing, calls in postal carriers from throughout LA. They fill the streets around the courthouse demanding Tom be released.

The judges declares him not guilty, only holding him to complete the 12 months of work sentenced to him in the previous hearing.

Joe MacGonaughgill (Eric Schaeffer) and Lucy Ackerman (Sarah Jessica Parker) are roommates and best friends living in a small Manhattan apartment. Lucy is turning thirty and her love life is embarrassingly dull. Joe on the other hand is infatuated with his attractive neighbor Jane (Elle Macpherson). Lucy then decides to form a death pact with Joe like they'd had back in college. If they do not both find true love by the time Lucy turns thirty, then they will both jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.

Jane comes to an artwork show of Joe's where Joe finally gathers up the courage to ask her out, while Lucy begins dating Bwick Elias (Ben Stiller), a weirdo artist who paints with his own body parts. Joe soon realizes that Jane isn't who he thought she ought to be. Bwick also turns out to be "no Joe" for Lucy. It is at this point that Joe and Lucy realize that they are perfect for each other.

One morning, a dog named Zeus goes to the pier, spots a dolphin, and becomes fascinated by its movements. Afterwards, he returns home to his owner, Terry Barnett, an aspiring musician, and his son, Jordan, who appears to be taking care of him. Later that morning, Zeus chases a cat and subsequently destroys the outdoor garden of Mary Beth Dunhill, a marine biologist and the Barnetts' next-door neighbor. Terry calms Zeus down and apologizes to Mary Beth, although she is agitated by him.

Mary Beth later goes to her workplace and is followed by Zeus, who notices her photo of the same dolphin from earlier. Upon arriving, she is met by her research partner, Becky, and her rival, Claude Carver. Mary Beth and Becky travel out to the ocean on a boat to follow the dolphin they are researching, whom they name Roxanne, and Zeus stows away with them. However, while in the middle of the ocean, he slips off. Roxanne saves him from a shark and gives him a ride back to the boat on her back, which surprises and fascinates Mary Beth and Becky, who find that Zeus and Roxanne can do "inter-species communication". While stopping over on the way home with Zeus, Mary Beth spots her two impossible daughters, Judith and Nora, skating against her wishes. Arriving home, she asks Jordan if she could borrow Zeus for her research on Roxanne, who she hopes to release back into the wild. Jordan agrees, and he and Terry accompany her on her research.

During the following days, Terry begins to fall in love with Mary Beth as he manages to find inspiration for his music, while Jordan bonds with Judith and Nora. After Terry saves Judith and Nora while they are skating in a factory, Mary Beth asks him out on a date. After spending the night at a local beachside resort, they awkwardly kiss. Meanwhile, Claude, wanting research grant money to come to his research and not Mary Beth's, tries to steal hers, but winds up getting comically thwarted by Zeus. Then, he tries gaining the lead in her interspecies communication study, although his attempts to have one of his research dolphins bond with another animal fail one after another.

Through the conniving of Jordan, Judith, and Nora, Terry decides to move into Mary Beth's house with Jordan and Zeus, but after seeing a photo of his late wife, he decides to pursue his original plan of traveling to another town to continue writing his music. This causes both Zeus and Roxanne distress. While staying at a hotel with his owners, Zeus runs away back to Mary Beth's research center. Noticing his disappearance and realizing where he was going, Terry and Jordan return to town, while Mary Beth uses a submersible to go down and investigate the seabed after Claude claims Roxanne was caught in an illegal fishing net and killed. Zeus returns to the research center, where he is captured by Claude, who intends to use him as bait to lure out Roxanne, who is in fact alive, and capture her. However, Zeus and Roxanne work together to trap him and his assistant in a net, where they are arrested by police.

While exploring the seabed, Mary Beth's submersible's propeller is tangled in the fishing nets, and when she opens the main hatch thinking she'd escape through it, water begins flooding the interior. Roxanne leads Terry to Mary Beth, and he manages to free her from the trapped submersible. Afterwards, Jordan, Judith, and Nora convince him to marry her. During the wedding, she is given a grant for her research on Zeus and Roxanne. Immediately afterwards, a pod of dolphins appears, and Zeus convinces Roxanne to join them. Zeus watches happily with Terry, Mary Beth, Jordan, Judith, and Nora as Roxanne leaps into the air with the pod.

Setting

''Soma'' takes place in an underwater research facility known as PATHOS-II in the year 2104. While the station itself has fallen into disrepair by the start of the game, PATHOS-II was a sophisticated research outpost located in the North Atlantic Ocean. Originally established as a thermal mining operation in the 2060s by Japanese conglomerate Haimatsu and European conglomerate Carthage Industries, the facility's primary purpose shifted to space technology and operation of the Omega Space Gun – an electromagnetic railgun designed to launch satellites and other small equipment into orbit without the cost or risks of traditional rockets. All operations and maintenance on PATHOS-II are overseen by the Warden Unit (WAU), an artificial general intelligence integrated with all computer systems in the facility.

The crew of PATHOS-II unexpectedly became the last people to exist on Earth after a major extinction event caused by a comet striking the planet. There, the last humans survived on a day-to-day basis, attempting to fight the negative effects of their collective isolation, as well as other issues that began to pose a threat to their well-being.

Story

In 2015, Simon Jarrett survives a car accident, but sustains severe brain damage and cranial bleeding. Due to his injuries, Simon agrees to undergo an experimental brain scan under the control of graduate student David Munshi. During the scan, Simon appears to black out, and regains consciousness on Site Upsilon of PATHOS-II, an apparently-abandoned geothermal power center. Exploring Upsilon, Simon makes contact with a woman named Catherine Chun, who invites him to Site Lambda and reveals that he is currently in the year 2104, one year after a comet devastated the Earth and left PATHOS-II as the final known outpost of humanity. When the communication platform Simon is in floods, he briefly blacks out and awakens to discover that he is inside a diving suit. Exploring the seabed around Site Upsilon, he manages to find a working train and uses it to travel to Site Lambda. Throughout the journey, Simon encounters hostile robots that believe they are human.

Arriving at Site Lambda, Simon discovers that Catherine is not human, but a brain scan of a PATHOS-II employee downloaded into a storage unit of a robot. Simon himself is the result of his brain scan from 2015 being uploaded into the modified corpse of another PATHOS-II employee by an artificial intelligence named the Warden Unit (WAU), which took control of the center and turned all the surviving humans into bio-mechanical mutants to fulfill its task of preserving humanity. The sole means of anything of human origin escaping Earth is the ARK, a digital black box designed by Catherine that houses a simulated world in which the brain scans of all the PATHOS-II personnel have been preserved. Despite its completion, the ARK has not yet been sent into space. Simon agrees to aid Catherine in recovering the ARK and completing her mission.

As the ARK is kept in the Tau site at the absolute depths of the Atlantic Ocean, Simon heads toward the Theta site to retrieve a submarine named DUNBAT that can withstand the abyssal pressure. Unfortunately, the WAU has preemptively tampered with the DUNBAT, forcing Simon to make his way to the Omicron site to create a new body capable of traveling through the seabed. While searching for the essential components at Site Omicron, Simon receives mental messages from a WAU-converted but still sane artificial intelligence specialist, Johan Ross, who begs him to destroy the WAU. Upon the completion of Simon's new body, Catherine copies Simon's consciousness into it, resulting in Simon having to choose between euthanizing the Simon in his old body or leaving him to whatever fate befalls him.

Descending into the abyss, Simon braves the now mutated fauna of the Abyss and retrieves the ARK from Site Tau and takes it toward Site Phi, where the Omega space cannon is located. However, he is forced to take a detour through Site Alpha, where the WAU's core is located. Here, Ross reveals to Simon that the structural gel with which he created his new body was designed by Ross to poison and destroy the WAU, and that his colleagues refused to use it in time. Ross gives Simon the opportunity to eliminate the WAU, while secretly planning to kill him to prevent the WAU from adapting to Simon's immunity. Before he can do so, Ross is devoured by a mutated aquatic leviathan, from which Simon escapes by reaching the Phi site.

At the Phi site, Catherine copies Simon's and her brain scans into the ARK at the last moment before it is launched into space. When Simon is confused as to why the two remain despite their accomplishment, Catherine explains that it is their copies that are on the ARK; they argue about the nature of their mission until Catherine's cortex chip short-circuits from overexertion, effectively killing her. Simon is left helpless and alone in the darkness of the abyss.

In a post-credits scene, the version of Simon copied to the ARK awakes and reunites with Catherine in an idyllic landscape. Meanwhile, the ARK drifts off into space and leaves the devastated Earth behind.

On November 5, 1699, Lemuel Gulliver washes onto the beach of Lilliput after his ship is wrecked in a storm. Town crier Gabby stumbles across an unconscious Gulliver during his rounds ("All's Well") and rushes back to Lilliput to warn everyone about the "giant on the beach". Meanwhile, King Little of Lilliput and King Bombo of Blefuscu are signing a wedding contract between their children, Princess Glory of Lilliput and Prince David of Blefuscu, respectively. An argument starts over which national anthem is to be played at the wedding; the anthem of Lilliput ("Faithful") or the anthem of Blefuscu ("Forever"). In fury, King Bombo cancels the wedding and declares war against Liliput. He seems to consider changing his mind, but then Gabby rushes in, and a guard pursuing Gabby accidentally grabs Bombo, who takes it as an insult and storms off.

Gabby tells King Little of the "giant", and leads a mob to the beach to capture him. There, the Lilliputians tie Gulliver to a wagon and convey him to the town. The next morning, Gulliver awakens and breaks himself free, terrifying the Lilliputians. The Blefuscuian fleet arrives at Lilliput and starts firing upon the castle. Seeing Gulliver laughing at him, Bombo panics and orders a hasty retreat. Realizing that they can use Gulliver as a weapon, the Lilliputians start to treat him with hospitality and even make him a new set of clothes ("It's A Hap-Hap Happy Day").

Back in Blefuscu, King Bombo is embarrassed by the defeat, and orders his three spies in Lilliput - Sneak, Snoop and Snitch - to "get rid of that giant or else." Meanwhile, in celebration of the defeat, the Lilliputians treat Gulliver to dinner and a show ("Bluebirds in the Moonlight"). When the Lilliputians fall asleep after the show, Gulliver walks to the shore, unaware that his pistol has been taken, and reminisces about sailing ("I Hear A Dream (Come Home)"). The next day, after some horseplay with Gabby, Gulliver notices a building on fire and puts it out, not realizing he just saved the spies who wish to kill him. Later that night, Prince David sneaks back into Lilliput to visit Princess Glory. Gabby overhears the Prince singing a reprise of "Forever" and, mistaking him for a spy, orders the guards to attack the prince. Noticing this, Gulliver picks up David and Glory in his hands, and they tell him of the war's cause. Gulliver suggests that they combine "Faithful" and "Forever" into one song.

In Blefuscu, Bombo receives a message from his spies assuring him that Gulliver will be a "dead duck" whenever he gives the word, and he announces by carrier pigeon that he will attack at dawn. Gabby intercepts this message and warns the Lilliputians. Because of this, the spies aren't aware of the order until they capture Gabby just as the Lilliputians are marching to the beach ("We're All Together Now"). They hastily prepare Gulliver's pistol. As the Blefuscuian fleet approaches Lilliput, Gulliver demands they lay down their arms and settle matters peaceably. When they continue shooting, he ties the Blefuscuian ships together using their anchors and draws them to shore, saving any men who fall overboard in the process to show he means no ill will. The spies aim and fire at Gulliver from a cliff, but Prince David diverts the shot and, while doing so, falls to his apparent death. Using David's body to illustrate his point, Gulliver scolds both Lilliput and Blefuscu for their senseless fighting. While they solemnize a truce, Gulliver reveals that David is unharmed, whereupon David and Glory sing their combined song for everyone to hear ("Faithful Forever"). Both sides thereafter build a new ship for Gulliver, and he sails off into the sunset ("Come Home Reprise").

Reese Holdin (Deschanel) is a depressed bartender/actress living in New York City. She regularly engages in casual sex, cocaine use and self-harm. When a publishing agent (Amy Madigan) approaches her, we learn that Reese is the daughter of a famous author named Don Holdin (Harris) and that her mother, Mary, recently died. Reese did not attend the funeral. The publisher offers Reese $100,000 for a series of letters written between her mother and father at the height of their careers. When Reese learns that the kitten she rescued from the streets is dying of feline leukemia, she drowns it and buys a bus ticket to Michigan's Upper Peninsula to retrieve the letters.

Returning to her childhood home, she finds it occupied by Corbit (Ferrell), a down-and-out Christian musician, and Shelly (Warner), a 23-year-old former student of Don's. Reese's father now lives, writes and drinks in his garage. Reese initially clashes with the doting Shelly (whom she accuses of sleeping with her father) but eventually accepts her after learning of the death of her parents and of Don's support of her during a near-fatal illness endometriosis. She also bonds with the idiosyncratic Corbit, who spurns her sexual advances and has trouble playing guitar and singing at the same time. She feels out of place at home and fights with her father over childhood neglect, stating that her parents gave their typewriters more attention. She eventually finds the box of letters and, reading the emotional communiques, learns to empathize with her estranged parents. Shelly has also read the letters and asks Reese if she intends to publish them. Reese expresses ambiguity over the matter.

Don is still grieving over his wife's death. He keeps the tie she hanged herself with in a dresser in the backyard along with the rest of their bedroom suite, including their bed. He sometimes sleeps in the bed despite the bitter cold of winter. Reese starts to connect with Corbit and Shelly and is honest with her father about her reasons for staying away from the funeral. Soon after, Don overdoses on sleeping pills and Reese finds him unconscious. He recovers in the hospital, where Reese sits by his bed and reads his latest manuscript, ''Golf'', which he had Corbit bury in the yard. The experience helps the father and daughter find closure, and Reese buries the box of letters in place of the novel before returning to New York.

Christina Papadopoulos is a sweet and well-meaning 22-year-old school teacher, engaged to ambitious lawyer Dimitri. Christina's entire future seems planned out for her—albeit planned by her fiancé, her father and her priest.

Lively 17-year-old Nick Polides is a student in Christina's Greek class and a soccer fanatic who supports local Melbourne club South Melbourne FC. Nick finds himself attracted to Christina and makes numerous passes at her which she rebuffs. But her resistance begins to crumble as both begin to rebel against the constricting Greek-Australian cultural restraints put upon them.

When Christina becomes the manager of the school's newly formed soccer team, she and Nick begin to spend more time together outside of school hours. Though Christina is initially hesitant at Nick's continuous advances, she soon gives into impulses and engages in an illicit relationship with Nick. She uses the house left by her friend for rendezvous with Nick outside school hours. Their amorous relationship progresses quickly as they fall in love with each other. But as the news of their relationship leaks out, Christina faces severe shaming at her workplace. She is further berated by Nick's father for breaking the trust placed upon her as a teacher. Her fiancé learns of the relationship and gives her a choice that he is willing to let the matter slide if she promises to act as if her past with Nick never occurred. But Christina, by then very much in love with Nick and tired of her overbearing fiancé, breaks off the engagement and leaves to meet up with Nick. She tells Nick of her decision to leave Dimitri and mentions that she would be pursuing degree for a year until Nick graduates. An overjoyed Nick readily agrees and promises to meet up after a year. The film ends on a positive note with their kiss and soccer-play under the sun.

Set 10 years after the events of ''Return of the Living Dead 3'', the film starts with Charles Garrison (Peter Coyote) traveling to Chernobyl, Ukraine (site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster) to collect the last six canisters of Trioxin 5. Two Russian sellers take him to an empty power station which contains the Trioxin. One of the Russians gets Trioxin on his hands, turning him into a zombie. Upon hearing screams, Garrison runs to see the zombie eating the other Russian partner. Garrison promptly shoots the zombie in the head.

It is then revealed Julian and Jake "Pyro" Garrison, Charles's nephews, were living with him since their parents were volunteers who died a year earlier at Hybra Tech. Julian spends a day at school while Charles experiments with the Trioxin, reanimating an arm. The next day, Julian leaves the house to go motorbiking with his friends, Cody, Becky, Carlos, Zeke, and Darren. During a stunt, Zeke falls and gets knocked unconscious.

Meanwhile, Charles is experimenting with the Trioxin. He manages to reanimate a corpse, and feeds it brains to keep it docile. However, some of the gas manages to escape through the pipes into one of the lower levels of the building and reanimates a dead rat that two homeless men, Crusty and Joey, were eating and it proceeds to attack them. During this, Julian travels to the hospital he was told Zeke would be taken to, and was told by a doctor that Zeke had an unexplained reaction to the painkillers and was pronounced dead on arrival.

Meanwhile, one of Julian’s other friends, Katie, Zeke's ex-girlfriend, was working security at Hybra Tech and noticed Zeke being brought in. She informed the others, and Cody hacked into the Hybra Tech website, where they discovered that Zeke was going to be used as a test subject, so they decided to break in and rescue him.

They manage to get into Hybra Tech using fake IDs, with Katie at the security center giving them advice over walkie-talkies. At the same time, their promiscuous friend, Mimi, distracts her partner, Hector. Along the way, Carlos dispatches the zombified Crusty and Joey with a gun he had brought.

They sneak through the ventilation shaft and find out that Jake has followed them inside. They get out of the vent and find themselves in an armory. After some searching they are found pretty quickly by Charles, who reluctantly agrees to show them where Zeke is.

Charles, at gunpoint, leads them through the facility hallways, where they discover holding cells full of zombies. They manage to find Zeke in a holding cell. Carlos shoots the lock, allowing them to free Zeke, but also setting off an alarm that Katie tries to deactivate.

Cody then leads them into a room of zombie clones in test tubes, and Charles explains that they are to be the new test subjects. At Cody and Carlos' insistence, Charles also reveals that Julian’s parents are alive and being tested on there, before they get distracted by a live test tube zombie. He uses the distraction to escape and lock them in the room.

Katie manages to deactivate the alarm, but Carlos shoots the panel to escape the room, causing it to turn on again. This time, when Katie tries to turn off the alarm, it causes a security failure that releases all the zombies in the complex. Darren gets the back of his head eaten during the chaos, and Zeke is bitten on the neck by a zombie before they reach the armory. They grab some guns for defense and climb back into the vents to escape.

Katie learns of the outbreak through the monitors she is watching, and goes off to find Mimi and Hector so they can escape. While going through the vents, a zombie breaks the floor out, separating Julian, Carlos, and Cody from Zeke, Becky, and Jake. The three of them go off to find a car to escape in while Julian, Carlos, and Cody resolve to try to find Julian’s parents.

Katie finds Mimi and Hector and tries to get them to escape, but the two of them are swarmed by zombies, forcing her to leave them behind. Julian, Cody, and Carlos reach the building where Julian's parents are being held, fighting through the zombies in their way. When they run out of ammo, they are forced to go hand-to-hand with the zombies, and successfully dispatch the remaining zombies in their way. However, when the three are running for the elevator, Carlos takes too long dispatching his zombie. Another one pops out before he can get into the elevator, and Julian and Cody watch in horror as his head is eaten while the elevator doors close.

Meanwhile, Zeke, Becky, and Pyro manage to make it to the parking lot and are able to find keys to a jeep. Zeke empties his rifle before joining them in the jeep, and Becky takes out a zombie that had grabbed Jake by shocking them both with a stun gun she had brought. During all of this, Zeke is in the process of turning.

As they are driving down the road to escape, Zeke completes his transformation into a zombie and tries to eat them, causing them to crash; he retains his mind, but is driven by zombie instincts, the craving for brains.

Julian and Cody, meanwhile, go through the hallways of the facility until they find the lab where Julian's parents are kept. They find Julian's parents turned into zombies in holding tanks, and sees they have been suited up, Julian's mom with circular saws and Julian's dad with wrist-mounted mini-guns to become "uber-soldiers." At Cody's insistence, Julian reluctantly agrees to leave the room, and they get chased by zombies up to the roof. A few minutes later, Charles appears in the room with Julian’s parents and releases them from their tanks.

Julian and Cody manage to rappel down the building where, at the bottom, they encounter the zombified Mimi and Hector. Julian picks up a dead security guard's gun and tries to shoot them, but the gun turns out to be empty. Luckily for them, Katie appears in a new truck and runs the zombies over. Julian and Cody then get in the truck and they go off to find the others.

Meanwhile, Jack and Becky have gotten out of the jeep and are fending off zombies; Jake with a homemade flamethrower, and Becky with a handgun. Zeke runs towards Becky, but Jake pushes her out of the way, and has the back of his head eaten instead.

Becky punches Zeke in the face then sets him on fire with Jake's flamethrower, scaring him away. She holds off zombies with the flamethrower just before Katie arrives in the truck. They pick up Becky, and Julian reluctantly leaves behind his dead brother as they try to escape the zombies.

As they drive down the road, Julian’s dad appears and shoots the truck with the mini-gun, taking it out. After he has finished shooting, Becky gets out of the truck and throws a grenade at him, nearly destroying him. They all get out of the truck and start running, not noticing the mini-guns were still active.

They make it down the road, but encounter Zeke, who accuses Julian of making out with Katie. He then shows that Julian’s mom was there to help him take them out. Zeke starts a fistfight with Julian, while Cody and Becky dodge Julian's mom's attacks. Becky leads Julian's mom towards a power cable, where she drives the saw into the cable, electrocuting her to death. Julian, meanwhile, was losing the fistfight against Zeke who cannot feel pain, who then threw him onto the ground. Julian then revealed that he had pulled the pin to the grenade in Zeke's pocket, which blows Zeke up. Katie comforts Julian on the ground as, down the road, the remaining zombies exit the front doors of the facility.

The SWAT team arrives and shoots down the remaining horde, while also rescuing the four survivors of the group. Unfortunately, Julian’s dad reveals that he's still alive by shooting towards them with his remaining mini-gun. The SWAT team blows up Julian's dad with a tank, but it is then revealed that the zombie had hit Katie with its shots. Cody and Becky are escorted into cars while Katie dies in Julian's arms, and the full weight of everything that just happened crashes onto him, causing him to start crying.

The movie ends with the SWAT team disposing of the bodies, and Charles escaping with the barrels of Trioxin. The closing scene of the movie shows a newscaster reporting about a supposed zombie outbreak, which Hybra Tech denies. In the end, the newscaster is attacked by a zombie as the screen goes black.

The film opens with Charles Garrison arriving at a mortuary with a canister of Trioxin. He is greeted by a team of Interpol agents whose goal is to destroy the last of the canisters to avoid another incident. Nevertheless, one of them sprays three corpses with the gas, and revives them. Charles is killed during the incident, along with the mortuary owner and one of the government officials.

It's Halloween, and Jenny with Julian, Cody and Becky, the last three survivors of the previous film, are now in college and they receive notice of the "murder" of Charles. Julian and Jenny go to search for and possibly sell what belonged to Charles, and they find the last two barrels of Trioxin. One of them is taken to Cody, who tests the chemical inside it. Jeremy, Jenny's brother, tastes the chemical when he thinks that it is a drug similar to ecstasy, but he goes into a spasm, in which he foams at the mouth, and later describes what it was like. The chemical is named "Z" for its zombie-like effect on the living.

Cody, Jeremy and Shelby extract the chemical from the canister and they put the liquid extract into pills which they sell to Skeet, so he can sell the drug around the school. While Skeet informs everyone to only take one pill at a time for health reasons, most take more than one pill at a time which speeds up the process that causes humans to reanimate as zombies.

Gino and Aldo Serra, the only survivors from the beginning of the movie, recognize what is going on when they are shown the severed head of one of the zombies, and they go to question Julian, knowing that he is familiar with Trioxin, but he does not tell them anything of the canisters that he and Jenny discovered. Sometime later, people are turning into zombies, and the drug is being passed around a rave and getting out of control, Cody and Shelby are killed. Jenny kills Zombie Jeremy. Seeing no other option, Aldo calls in military assistance, but he is told that an American bomber plane is already on the way to the rave location. The plane launches a bomb which detonates in the center of the rave. Jenny and Julian emerge from the rubble alive and Aldo asks where’s Gino and tries to find him. It is unclear if Gino died during the blast. At the end of the film, the Tarman desperately tries to hitchhike a ride to the party, but to no avail. After scaring away a woman who almost gave him a ride, he has no choice but to walk to the party, yelling his trademark "Brains!" as he goes to the party.

The corrupt Sheikh Sazabiss has abducted Princess Lurana, and he is utilizing every unscrupulous means of power he has at his disposal to achieve his ultimate ambition of conquering the world. The quartet of valiant and fearless warriors bravely come face-to-face with Sazabiss. As they battle to save Lurana, the foursome, freely using magic, their most prized possession, journey to the castle of Sazabiss to save the princess and the planet.

The mysterious enemy known as DOH has returned to seek vengeance on the Vaus space vessel. The player must once again take control of the Vaus (paddle) and overcome many challenges in order to destroy DOH once and for all. Revenge of Doh sees the player battle through 34 rounds, taken from a grand total of 64.

The play examines the delicate relationship of three women: a grandmother, Dorothea, who has sought to exert her independence through strong willed eccentric behavior, Artie, her daughter, who has run from her overpowering mother, and Echo, Artie's daughter, who is incredibly smart and equally sensitive. After Dorothea (who has raised Echo into her teens) suffers a stroke, Echo is forced to reestablish contact with her mother through extended phone conversations, during which real issues are skirted and the talk is mostly about the precocious Echo's unparalleled success in a national spelling bee. In the end, Artie and Echo come to accept their mutual need and summon the courage to build a life together, despite the terror this holds after so many years of estrangement.

Fletch, a reporter in Los Angeles for the ''Los Angeles Times'', is contacted by the executor of his late aunt's will, attorney Amanda Ray Ross. Ross informs Fletch he has inherited his aunt's plantation, Belle Isle, in Thibodaux, Louisiana. Upon arriving, Fletch is disappointed to find the mansion terribly dilapidated, but he agrees to keep on its caretaker, Calculus Entropy. Fletch has dinner with Ross at her home, and she tells him of an anonymous $225,000 bid for Belle Isle.

Fletch awakens the next morning to find Ross dead. Fletch is charged with Ross' murder and taken into custody, nearly being raped by his cellmate Ben Dover, spared only because Dover is released on bail. Dover's lawyer Hamilton "Ham" Johnson manages to get Fletch released. When Fletch declines a second, even larger offer of $250,000 for Belle Isle, this time presented by realtor Becky Culpepper, he starts getting harassed. First, a hired group of Ku Klux Klansmen harasses him. Then, an arsonist burns down the mansion. Finally, Ben Dover tries to kill Fletch during a raccoon hunt with some locals. Fletch discovers the land on Belle Isle is polluted by toxic waste. He determines to uncover the identity of the anonymous buyer, whom he suspects is attempting to intimidate him into selling.

He learns the local megachurch, Farnsworth Ministries, is interested in obtaining the Belle Isle property. Fletch investigates televangelist Jimmy Lee Farnsworth, and discovers Farnsworth's daughter is Becky Culpepper. The toxic chemicals in the soil of Belle Isle are traced back to Bly Bio, a chemical waste facility in Mississippi. Fletch obtains an invoice from the plant's manager, which proves that Ham Johnson ordered the waste dumped on the Belle Isle land.

Fletch confronts Ham with the evidence at a costume party fundraiser hosted by Ham at his home. Ham admits he polluted Belle Isle out of revenge for the way he feels Farnsworth took advantage of Ham's mother shortly before she died. Farnsworth persuaded her in her confused mental state to give away her valuable land, on which the church then built a profitable amusement park. Ham intended to devalue the land owned by Farnsworth Ministries. He killed Ross when she realized his plan. Becky is captured by Dover and brought to Ham's mansion, and Ham orders Dover to kill Fletch and her. Fletch creates a distraction by spilling out the urn containing Ham's mother's ashes, and Becky and he escape. They flee to the Farnsworth Ministries church nearby, interrupting a televised service in progress. Ham follows them, intending to kill Fletch, but Ham is shot by Calculus. Afterwards, Calculus reveals himself to be FBI Special Agent Goldstein working undercover as part of an investigation of Farnsworth Ministries' financial dealings.

Returning to Los Angeles with Becky, Fletch is thrown a welcome home party by his co-workers and receives a $100,000 insurance claim check for the mansion fire. His ex-wife's alimony lawyer, Marvin Gillett, appears, offering to forego all future alimony payments in exchange for the Belle Isle property. Fletch happily signs over the polluted land.

The novel tells the stories, primarily, of four people living in Manhattan from the 1890s to the late 1920s. The stories are presented in a fragmented, contrasting way, often juxtaposing them to bring out new meaning. The title of the book refers to a railway station, and the way that Manhattan itself was undergoing change.

The primary characters and stories include:

• '''Ellen Thatcher'''—Ellen's father is an accountant and her early life was one of genteel poverty. She aspires to become an actress, which is not socially acceptable to her parents and their peers. Early in her story, Ellen becomes successful, but success brings with it hundreds of rich and famous suitors and she struggles to determine who is sincere and who is not. Eventually, she marries John "Jojo" Oglethorpe, a fellow actor. Ellen engages in numerous affairs, which Oglethorpe tolerates. The Panic of 1896 devastates the local economy. Ellen meets Stan Emery, a wealthy student at Harvard University who has dropped out due to alcoholism, and they begin an affair. Oglethorpe finally snaps, and stands outside Stan's apartment building one night screaming in a drunken fury. Stan ends his relationship with Ellen and marries another girl. Shortly thereafter, he commits suicide by setting himself on fire. Ellen learns she is pregnant with Stan's baby. Although Stan is the only person she ever truly loved, in her fury she has an abortion. Her story then intersects with that of Jimmy Herf.

• '''Bud Korpenning'''—Born to a farming family in upstate New York, he kills his abusive father. He takes a riverboat down the Hudson River to New York City, where he hopes to escape justice by becoming one of the anonymous millions in the city. Isolation, unemployment, poverty, and starvation take their toll on him. He becomes increasingly paranoid, believing the police to be on his trail. He commits suicide by throwing himself off a bridge.

• '''George Baldwin'''—An ambitious, married young lawyer, George at first struggles to build his practice. George then learns about Gus McNeil, a newly married milkman whose truck was hit by a train. George realizes the case will draw much public attention and decides to represent Gus. George begins an affair with Gus' wife, Nellie. Gus wins his lawsuit and becomes wealthy. George, however, fails to capitalize on the lawsuit and his practice still struggles. He loses interest in Nellie, and becomes infatuated with actress Ellen Thatcher. Ellen flirts with him at a bar. When she admits she only flirted with him for her own amusement, George threatens her with a pistol. His wife, Cecily, tired of his endless philandering, divorces him. After World War I ends, Gus, who is now a radical journalist, urges George to run for office. George refuses repeatedly, and then decides to run for office as a reformer. This enrages the radical Gus. After her divorce from Jimmy Herf, Ellen Thatcher marries George.

• '''Jimmy Herf'''—Teenage Jimmy arrives in New York City with his wealthy mother. When she has a stroke and dies, Jimmy goes to live with the Merrivales (his mother's sister). Jimmy is a good student and the Merrivales want him to go to business school, but Jimmy is concerned about social justice and wants to become a reporter. When World War I breaks out, Jimmy enlists. During the war, Jimmy meets Ellen Thatcher in Europe, and they marry and have a son, Martin. After the war ends, Jimmy and Ellen return to New York City. Ellen quits the stage, and they live in extreme poverty. Their marriage unravels and they divorce. Jimmy quits his job as a journalist, and decides to leave New York City. His departure is the novel's conclusion.

Some of the secondary characters in the novel include:

• Anna Cohen—A young seamstress, she is in love with Elmer, a Communist, political agitator, and union organizer. Her mother throws her out of the house due to her refusal to disavow Elmer. When Elmer is deported during the Palmer Raids at the end of World War I, she is heartbroken. While Ellen Thatcher is visiting the dress shop where Anna works, a gas lamp ignites a fire in a pile of fabric and Anna is horribly disfigured.

• Congo Jake—A French sailor missing one leg, he and Jimmy became good friends during World War I. He emigrates to the United States after the war and becomes a bootlegger. Suddenly wealthy, he takes the name "Armand Duval" and lives on Park Avenue where he hobnobs with other millionaires.

• Harry Goldweiser—One of Ellen's friends, his advice proves critical in boosting her career throughout her life. Goldweiser's exact profession is unclear, but he seems to be a theatrical agent (although he does not represent Ellen). He later states his intention to become a producer. Ellen ruthlessly uses him, even though he believes she is a good friend.

• Joe Harland—Known as the "Wizard of Wall Street", he has won and lost several fortunes over the years. A relative of Jimmy's, by the time he appears in the novel he is an penniless alcoholic who begs for money from family and friends. Jimmy is repulsed by Harland, which is one reason Jimmy decides against a business career.

• The Merrivales—The family consists of father Jeff, mother Emily, daughter Maisie, and son James. Jeff dies from influenza. Maisie marries Jack Cunningham, a publicist for the Famous Players Film Company. James gets a job in a bank and is swiftly promoted.

• Nevada Jones—An aspiring actress and friend of Ellen's, she is one of the many women with whom George Baldwin has an affair. She then takes up with homosexual actor Tony Hunter, who is guilt-stricken by his sexuality. She leaves him when he has a nervous breakdown.

• Madame Rigaud—A French woman who emigrates to the United States after World War I, she owns a delicatessen. Her lover is Emile, a young French sailor who also emigrated to the U.S. after the war. When she sees a raging fire across the street from her store, it terrifies her and she decides to marry Emile.

• Phil Sandbourne—An idealistic young architect, Phil plans to revolutionize architecture with his concept for manufacturing inexpensive colored tile. Distracted by the gaze of a pretty girl, he is hit by a car and severely injured.

Joe is a newly divorced, single dad in his forties living in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Though he makes a decent living working as a casino pit boss, and loves the time he is getting to spend with his son, he still longs to start a new relationship. So Joe decides to explore the world of online dating, and while in a chatroom meets a Pittsburgh woman in her twenties who calls herself "sexykitten."

After a few months of exchanging messages, they meet in person. After she arrives at his casino to surprise him, Joe learns that her real name is Tanya Sullivan and he is instantly attracted to her. She also reveals that she is married and has a young daughter. However, both Joe and Tanya don't care.

Through several months the relationship grows from hot, passionate sex, into what Joe believes is love. During those months, they continue meeting and Tanya sends Joe pornographic videos of herself. The relationship seems to be going great, until one day Tanya drops a bombshell. She's pregnant with what she believes is Joe's baby. After she tells Joe of her pregnancy, Joe tries to convince Tanya to leave her husband to come and live with him. But Tanya refuses the offer, saying her husband is very dangerous and would never let that happen. Meanwhile, Joe starts to receive threatening emails supposedly sent by Tanya's husband mocking him and saying he knows all about the affair.

Joe asks Tanya to take pictures of the physical abuse that her husband allegedly causes. It's not long before another bombshell is dropped. Tanya tells him that because of her infidelity, her husband and his buddies have beaten her and raped her by the pool behind the house, in the process making her lose the baby, or so Joe thinks.

At this point Joe can't take it anymore. With the blessing of Tanya, who provides directions, he plots and sets out to kill Tanya's husband at his auto repair shop where he succeeds in shooting him to death late one night. During the weeks following the murder, the relationship between Joe and Tanya disintegrates. She refuses to answer his emails and in fact deletes the file on her computer that contains his messages.

So Joe decides to investigate. He travels to Pittsburgh again. There he figures out that everything that Tanya has been telling him is a lie. Tanya was never pregnant (Joe failed to notice an ultrasound tape given to him by Tanya during the supposed pregnancy was actually 10 years old and had been recorded while Tanya was pregnant with her daughter). Her husband never abused her. There is no pool behind the house where she was allegedly raped. Meanwhile, she has refurnished the house with new furniture from her husband's life insurance policy. And worst of all, Tanya has a new boyfriend. Joe is devastated. He returns to Atlantic City where he falls into a deep depression. He starts to drink again, which results in Joe's son leaving to go live with his mom. Joe finally decides to take his own life.

In his suicide note, Joe instructs his friend Paula to make sure a case under his bed gets to the police in Pittsburgh. Armed with the evidence Joe has left for them, the police arrest Tanya, and is eventually convicted of first-degree conspiracy to commit murder.

The novel follows the childhood of Laura Timmins in the small rural northern Oxfordshire hamlet of Lark Rise and the surrounding countryside. It is a part-lyrical, part-documentary portrait of the actual hamlet, Juniper Hill, where the author was born.

At the beginning of the story, the protagonist (Iason Philippou) is exploring various parallel universes. Before the story began, he had visited our world's United States of which he had a very bad impression, considering it "a sick culture". He then came to the timeline where most of the plot is set. In that timeline, Christian Western Europe was overwhelmed in the tenth century by the combined onslaught of the Scandinavian Vikings from the north, the Magyars from the east and the Arabs from the south. Afterwards, the Arab Caliphate disintegrated in internal discord while the Vikings and Magyars, who kept their original religions, dominated Europe and eventually colonized North America. They developed a high technology, including nuclear energy, while keeping much of their Medieval culture and social structures. This North America, divided into numerous independent principalities, is much more sparsely populated than in our world, with large tracts of virtually untouched nature. While being social inferiors to the Scandinavians and Magyars, Native Americans in this timeline seem to have fared better than in our history.

The story beings with Iason on the run, wanted in a Scandinavian realm where he had been a guest and where he had committed an unspecified offence serious enough to justify his being killed out of hand if caught. He makes his way to a Magyar realm where he asks for refuge. While Iason stays there, a Native American woman attempts to seduce him – but he refuses, stating that he is "under vow." In fact, he is in hurry to meet the local Magyar ruler and receive his firm vow that he would not be extradited, before his Scandinavian pursuers had the chance to talk to the Magyar. This caution was well founded – after talking to his Scandinavian counterpart, the Magyar ruler is furious with Iason, saying "You have sucked my vow out of me, if I had known what you had done I would have killed you myself!". However, the vow is unbreakable, and Iason receives transport to where he could finally get to back to his home universe – the self-styled "Eutopia" which gives the story its name, an Earth where classical Greece came to dominate the planet. He checks in with a superior (Daimonax) and complains of the barbarism of the people he has encountered, but Daimonax contradicts him, stating that people have different views on what it means to be civilized, and that Eutopia's carefully planned society may have lost the simple pleasures of life. The story ends as it is revealed that Iason had seduced and slept with a young boy (the son of his Scandinavian earlier host) before the opening of the story. The Scandinavian and Magyar culture have a strong taboo against homosexuality while Iason's world has kept the Classical Greek attitudes. At the conclusion it turns out that the "Niki" to whom the protagonist's thoughts keep turning is the nickname of Nikias, a young boy in Eutopia who is Iason's lover.

An elderly woman becomes obsessed with her tenant, Mr. Morrison — who may be more than she had imagined.

The play takes place over a period of two years in the 1960s in the staffroom at a Cambridge school for teaching English to foreigners. It deals with the interrelationship between seven teachers at the school, in particular that between St John Quartermaine and the others.

The dominant theme is loneliness, and during the course of the play all of the characters experience the trauma of being or feeling alone. Mark’s wife leaves him; Derek, from Hull, finds Cambridge initially unwelcoming; Eddie is ultimately bereaved by the loss of a partner; Anita’s husband is a philanderer; Henry is trapped in a dysfunctional nuclear family and Melanie is similarly trapped caring for a mother whom she despises. Quartermaine is a painfully lonely bachelor, seemingly with no friends other than his colleagues at the school.

Whilst the play is at times highly comic, it has a very serious theme; and the struggles of each character with their own types of loneliness are moving and sad. Above all, Quartermaine himself is an increasingly pathetic figure lost in his own confused thoughts – and ultimately deserted. His future as the play closes is poignantly bleak.

An Earthman visits the planet Vexvelt, which is shunned by the rest of the colonized universe for unknown reasons. He finds it a utopian paradise, but then discovers to his shock and horror that incest is actively encouraged there.

An orphan and good-hearted lad Simhaadri (N. T. Rama Rao Jr.) is 'adopted' and grows up under Ram Bhupal Varma's (Nassar) family care in Visakhapatnam. The bond they share is like that of a father and son. Kasturi (Ankitha) is Varma's granddaughter, and she likes Simhaadri a lot. Once a week, Simhaadri visits a mentally challenged girl called Indu (Bhumika Chawla). He entertains her and provides money to her caretakers (Rallapalli and Ragini).

When Varma and his wife (Sangeeta) discover Kasturi's wish to marry Simhaadri, Varma decides to get them married. He makes a formal announcement to officially adopt Simhaadri. At this time, it is revealed that Simhaadri is very close to Indu. The alliance breaks off when Simhaadri refuses to leave Indu (who is suspected to be his mistress).

Meanwhile, two separate groups are in search of Simhaadri. They find him at the banks of Godavari River along with Indu. In the ensuing confrontation between one group of gangsters and Simhaadri, Varma and his family are surprised to see that Simhaadri, who used to be calm and composed, is ruthlessly killing many rowdies without mercy. Meanwhile, Indu gets injured. Simhaadri is helped by the second group, who call him 'Singhamalai Anna' (Brother Singhamalai). When Indu comes back to her senses, she remembers her past and the first thing she does is stab Simhaadri with an iron pole. Simhaadri is hospitalized in critical condition. Then we see many buses carrying hoards of people demanding to see 'Singhamalai Anna'. The leader of the second group, who was searching for Simhaadri, explains the 'Singhamalai Anna' story in a flashback.

In the flashback, it is revealed that Varma's oldest daughter Saraswati (Seetha) elopes with her lover, a Keralite named Aravind (Bhanu Chander). After some harsh words and saddened over Varma's rejection over her choice to marry her love, they both settle in Kerala. Learning of the sadness surrounding Varma and his wife, Simhaadri takes up the job of uniting the family and visits Thiruvananthapuram. He joins the medical and spiritual therapy spa operated by Saraswati and her family under the disguise of a patient.

He finds that Indu is Varma's first granddaughter. He convinces the separated family to reunite and ask for forgiveness. During this time, Saraswati is killed by a local goon Bala Nair (Rahul Dev) for witnessing a homicide done by the latter. A don named Bhai Saab (Mukesh Rishi) controls the mafia of Kerala. Bala and Bhai belong to the same mafia. Simhaadri takes the law into his hands and eradicates Bala and his small gang in Kerala. The local Kerala people start calling him 'Singhamalai'. In the ensuing scenes, Simhaadri finds himself developing into "Singhamalai," eradicating Bhai Saab's network and illegal activities. Indu finds herself alone and constantly worrying about him. She proposes to her father that they should return to Andhra Pradesh because she cannot stand their home without her mother, and Simhaadri ignores her now.

Indu and Aravind decide to return to Visakhapatnam. Simhaadri receives a call that Indu's father is carrying a bomb in his briefcase. Aravind is seen rushing to catch a moving train, and Indu was about to lend him a hand. Unable to warn him, Simhaadri has two choices: to let Indu's father die so people on the train can live, or let the bomb kill everyone on board, including Indu and her father.

Simhaadri chooses the first option. As soon as Aravind catches the train bar handle, Simhaadri shoots him in the back. Surprised at Simhaadri's action, Indu jumps off the train to catch her falling father, and she gets hit her head against a pole, causing her amnesia and becoming mentally challenged. After the flashback ends, people are seen and heard chanting "Singhamalai"-"Singhamalai" outside the hospital. Bhai and his men arrive at the hospital to finish off Simhaadri. But Simhaadri has gained consciousness, and with the help of his friends, police and family (now reunited), he takes down Bhai and his henchmen.

The Death and Glories are bored because the salvage business is in decline on the Broads. They see a boat being loaded for delivery to the Lake in the North where the Swallows, Amazons and Ds have their adventures, and Joe (without consulting Bill or Pete) decides that they will go along for the ride to see the Lake. They get left behind at a stop near the Lake, make their way to the lake, and find that the lorry has already left for Norfolk and they have no way to get home. They meet the owner of the boat who takes them to find the Ds. They encounter the Swallows, Amazons and Ds sailing on the lake and make an attempt to rescue Nancy after her boat capsizes.

At this point the story as published ends, though notes indicate that Ransome was struggling to develop a suitable plot line and a way of arranging for the Death and Glories to get home without their impoverished parents having to pay the fare.

Various scenarios are mentioned, including the salvage of Captain Flint's houseboat when its anchor chain breaks in a squall. In gratitude Captain Flint pays for their return journey and gives them a reward.

In 2011 the Arthur Ransome Society's journal ''Mixed Moss'' held a competition for the best outline of a plot to complete the book, but (writing in 2021) no author has yet been commissioned by Ransome's estate to do so. Prior to this in 2009 a synopsis of a continuation of the story was published in Mixed Moss, "Ship's Girl" (Anon), the literary journal of the Arthur Ransome Society. A winner of the 2011 competition was never announced, so the book remains uncompleted.

The episode begins like no other in the series: not with a death, but with a birth. Willa Fisher Chenowith is born prematurely, and Brenda is plagued by visions of Nate, who vicariously conveys Brenda's internal fears that the child will not survive and insists that he cannot accept it if she does make it and that she is "damaged". Ruth stays by Brenda's side during Willa's recovery and stops fighting to keep Maya with her. Brenda later has a vision of Nate and Nathaniel holding Willa, with Nate showing his love for both Brenda and their daughter, suggesting that Brenda is finally positive for Willa's health and welfare.

Ruth sinks even deeper into her depression when Brenda takes Maya back. George tries to comfort her and promises he will help her get through it. Ruth is helped by a phone call to Maggie when she tells Ruth that Nate was happy the night he suffered his ultimately fatal stroke.

Claire gets back into photography with Ted's help, and later receives a phone call from a stock photography company in New York saying they have a position for her as a photographer's assistant. She later finds out that Olivier recommended her for the position. After finding her mother crying, she says she will stay at home to help her, but Ruth insists that she move to New York so she will not regret it later. Ruth also unfreezes the trust fund set up by her father. Claire later finds out that the photo company consolidated its operations and her position is no longer available. As she considers calling off her trip, Nate tells her she needs to go to start a new life in New York anyway, as he did years earlier when he moved to Seattle with no guarantee of employment.

As per Keith's suggestion, David agrees to temporarily leave home so he can recover from the loss of his brother, and returns to the funeral home. During a nightmare, he is confronted by Nathaniel about considering leaving the business and his sexuality. He is then confronted by the attacker in a red hooded sweater that has plagued his recent thoughts. This time, David fights back and finally sees his own face, allowing him to let go of his past

Rico, disillusioned by the direction Fisher and Diaz have been taking, encourages David to sell the funeral home as he has had the business valued and realizes that his 25% share is worth $500,000, which he and Vanessa want to use to buy their own funeral home. David initially agrees, but changes his mind after having a vision of his father Nathaniel telling him that the business is his birthright. Instead, David and Keith buy out Rico's 25% share using Keith's life savings, freeing the Diaz family to pursue their own venture. Brenda also agrees to give David and Keith as much time as they need to buy her share, which she inherited from Nate. Keith and David move into the funeral home with their sons Durell and Anthony and redecorate it. Ruth initially plans to move in with George but changes her mind and instead moves in with her sister while continuing her relationship with George in separate residences.

Nate visits Claire one last time as she prepares to leave for New York.

The extended Fisher family (with the exception of the Diaz family who have their own family dinner to celebrate the buyout) has a farewell dinner for Claire where they reminisce about Nate, telling stories and toasting Nate's memory. The next morning, Claire has a tearful goodbye with her family and drives off into her future.

The episode ends with flash-forwards to milestone events in the main characters' lives and, ultimately, their deaths. The montage, set to Sia's "Breathe Me", is intercut with views of Claire driving out of Los Angeles.

In the flash-forwards, Ruth is seen enjoying life in Topanga; David teaches Durrell about embalming; the extended Fisher family celebrates Willa's birthday; and David and Keith get married. Ruth dies in 2025 of old age in the hospital, with David, Claire, and George at her side. She sees her deceased husband Nathaniel and son Nate before she dies. Ted shows up unannounced at Ruth's funeral; Claire and Ted later get married. Keith is shot and killed in 2029 by robbers while exiting an armored truck owned by his self-named security firm. At a family function in 2044, David dies of a heart attack after seeing a vision of a young Keith smiling at him. While on a cruise with his wife in 2049, Rico has a heart attack and collapses. Brenda dies of old age in 2051 at her home while her brother Billy talks to her about Claire and Ted. Finally, in 2085, having outlived them all, Claire dies at the age of 102 in her own home, with photographs of the Fisher family adorning her walls.

Sylvia Mark is a thirteen-year-old girl who feels like an outcast from the other kids her age. She skipped two grades, is amazingly strong, and has Olympic-level gymnastic agility. Sylvia also feels incomplete, and occasionally has strange dreams. Night after night these dreams seem to be harbingers of something dark. What she does not know is that she is just one of one hundred girls created as part of a genetics experiment, each with their own superpowers. Eight girls were taken out of the facility, and grew up secretly across the country; Sylvia was one of them.

The story spans two parts titled "Afghanistan's Plains" and "Black Arrow" (after a monologue in J.R.R. Tolkien's ''The Hobbit'') each consisting of three issues and centers around a Russian Spetsnaz colonel.

In the first part the colonel leads a Russian team investigating a plane crash in Afghanistan. Violence soon erupts after first British and then American military forces become involved in the investigation. In the aftermath, the colonel helps a wounded British Special Air Service trooper who translates a document found on the plane. The document suggests that there is a high-level conspiracy in the United States; that the global war on terror was started in order to facilitate the west taking over the oil-rich Middle East.

In the second part the colonel travels alone to the United States in order to carry out a self-assigned mission, where he first faces a sheriff troubled by the loss of his wife because of the deficiency of their insurance. The story also focuses on the problems of illegal Mexican immigrants apparently exploited at a slaughterhouse called "McHell". The Colonel eventually assassinates the President of the United States with the intention of stopping the Global War on Terror, using a Lee–Enfield rifle using only iron sights, firing from behind a closed window.

Buster, a sidewalk tintype portrait photographer in New York City, develops a crush on Sally, a secretary who works for MGM Newsreels. To be near her, he purchases an old film camera, emptying his bank account, and attempts to get a job as one of MGM's cameramen. Harold, an MGM cameraman who has designs on Sally himself, mocks his ambition.

Sally, however, encourages Buster and suggests he film anything and everything. Buster's first attempts show his total lack of experience. He double exposes or over exposes much of the footage, and the rest is simply no good. Despite this setback, Sally agrees to go out with Buster, after her Sunday date cancels. They go to the city plunge (pool), where Buster gets involved in numerous mishaps. Later, Harold offers Sally a ride home; Buster has to sit in the rumble seat, where he gets drenched in the rain.

The next day, Sally gives him a hot tip she has just received that something big is going to happen in Chinatown. In his rush to get there, he accidentally runs into an organ grinder, who falls and apparently kills his monkey. A nearby cop makes Buster pay for the monkey and take its body with him. The monkey turns out only to be dazed and joins Buster on his venture.

In Chinatown, Buster films the outbreak of a Tong War, narrowly escaping death on several occasions. At the end, he is rescued from Tong members by the timely arrival of the police, led by a cop who had been the unintentional victim of several of Buster's antics over the last few days. The cop tries to have him committed to the mental hospital, but Buster makes his escape with his camera intact.

Returning to MGM, Buster and the newsreel company's boss are dismayed to find that he apparently forgot to load film into his camera. When Sally finds herself in trouble for giving Buster the tip, Buster offers to make amends by leaving MGM alone once and for all.

Buster returns to his old job, but does not give up on filming, setting up to record a boat race. He then discovers that he has Tong footage after all; the mischievous monkey had switched the reels. Sally and Harold are speeding along in one of the boats. When Harold makes too sharp a turn, the two are thrown into the river. Harold saves himself, but Sally is trapped by the circling boat. Buster stops filming to jump in and rescues her. The monkey gets behind the camera to film the daring rescue. When Buster rushes to a drug store to get medical supplies to revive her, Harold returns and takes credit for the rescue. The two go off, leaving the broken-hearted Buster behind.

Buster decides to send his Tong footage to MGM free of charge. The boss decides to screen it for Harold and Sally for laughs, but is thrilled by what he sees, calling it the best camerawork he has seen in years. They also see footage of Buster's boat footage and the monkey's shot of Buster's rescue of Sally. The boss sends Sally to get Buster. She tells him he is in for a great reception. Buster assumes a ticker-tape parade is in his honor, whereas it is really for Charles Lindbergh.

The novel is set in Bath, Somerset and centres on two main characters: Miss Abigail Wendover and Mr Miles Calverleigh.

At the beginning of the novel, Abigail's niece Fanny claims to have formed a mutual "lasting attachment" with Stacey Calverleigh, to Abigail's dismay. Stacey is reputed to be a "gamester", a "loose fish", and a "gazetted fortune-hunter"—that is, he has a gambling habit, is a libertine, and is on the look-out for a wealthy marriage. Abigail enlists the assistance of Stacey's cousin, Miles Calverleigh, to prevent a clandestine marriage between Stacey and Fanny. Miles is the black sheep of the Calverleigh family, but Abigail finds herself attracted to his wit and unconventionality.

The story tells the life histories about Saint Peter and Paul of Tarsus after the crucifixion of Jesus, and their individual fates in old Rome in the time of the persecution of Christians. Events in the New Testament ''Book of Acts'' by Luke and in the ''Ecclesiastical History'' of Eusebius are dramatized and interwoven with the contrasting histories of political intrigues in the public and private lives of the Caesars from Tiberius through Nero related in ''The Twelve Caesars'' by Suetonius, together with the fictional drama of the lives of two Jews and two Romans: Caleb the Zealot and his sister Sarah, and Julius Valerius the Imperial Guard and Corinna the patrician woman who has chosen to be a gladiator.

After Caleb is condemned to be crucified, his mother is murdered when Roman soldiers carry out Pilate's orders to have Caleb's sisters Sarah and Ruth sent to Sejanus in Rome as "gifts". Caleb is rescued on the way to execution, and goes to Rome to find them. He enlists as a gladiator, takes the name "Metellus", meets and falls in love with Corinna, and is trained as a retiarius. Meanwhile, Ruth, grieving, provokes a Roman soldier to kill her during the voyage to Rome, and Sarah is made a slave in Sejanus' household, until he is executed for treason, and she then becomes part of Caligula's household. Tiberius, after ordering the execution of Sejanus, was himself secretly assassinated by Caligula, who has now become Caesar. Julius Valerius, having met Sarah on Sejanus' estate, has fallen in love with her, and when she is put on the slave block to be sold as part of an imperial fund-raising effort he, with the financial help of his parents and additional funds provided by Aquilla and Priscilla, Jewish tent-makers, buys her for himself and frees her to become his wife. Caleb is informed that Sarah is alive, but he is scandalized that she has married a Roman soldier. He meets Valerius and is soon confronted with the fact that he himself loves a Roman woman, now disinherited and disowned by her father.

Valerius and Caleb participate in the plot to assassinate Caligula, and the stammering Claudius (found hiding) is hailed as the new Caesar. He expels the Jews from Rome, but Sarah is exempt as the wife of a Roman. Caleb/Metellus and Corinna also remain. Aquilla and Priscilla return to Jerusalem. Soon afterward Claudius is poisoned by Agrippina after having designated her son Nero as successor over his own son Britannicus, and she herself is then killed by order of Nero.

Caleb later marries Corinna near her parents' estate under the open sky with "only God as the witnessing Rabbi". The missionary Paul is arrested and Julius Valerius is tasked with escorting the prisoner to Rome; then 2 years later he is set free. Valerius and Sarah convert to Christ and soon become parents of a daughter they name Ruth.

The burning of Rome is used by Nero at the urging of Tigellinus as a pretext to deflect the blame from himself to the Christians. The dramatization of the persecution that follows includes the inverted crucifixion of Peter, the beheading of Paul, and the preparation of Christian children for the arena being dressed in fresh lambskins and led out to be torn to pieces by Roman war dogs. Caleb and Corinna armed with sword, shield, net and trident rush into the arena to fight the dogs to save the children, several of them being killed before the dogs are slain. The crowd is thrilled with the dramatic rescue. During public announcements of more entertainment to come, Valerius enters and grieves over the death of his daughter, only to find afterward that she is still alive and was never in the arena. In grief and rage over Rome's corruption and cruelty, he renounces his military career and his Roman citizenship, and he and Sarah leave Rome.

Linus, long-time family friend of Corinna's, having succeeded Peter, and knowing that Corinna cannot have a child of her own, entrusts a child orphaned by Nero's persecution to her and Caleb, charging them to raise the boy in the faith of his parents. They thank him and depart by ship for Jerusalem. They name him "Joshua".

Following the death of Manu (Resetarits) in a car accident, the film relates the interwoven stories of several people who become indirectly connected by the events and aftermath of the crash.

Arcade

A long time ago, an ugly battle was being waged every day as the world was ruled by demons. The people trembled with fear, with nobody to stand up for them, until one day, a brave young man received a divine revelation from God and was granted the mythical Fire Axe. His name is Roche. Giving the people courage again, Roche embarks on a journey to the Castle of Algerine in order to defeat the demon overlord Argos and restore peace to the world.[https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/?page=thumbs&db=videodb&id=3904 Japanese Lord of King flyer (TAFA)]

NES

Astyanax is a 16-year-old student from Greenview High School who has been having a recurring dream in which a young woman is calling out for his name. One day, while on his way to class, Astyanax is suddenly transported into another dimension. Astyanax meets the fairy Cutie, who explains that he is in the kingdom of Remlia (a possible mistranslation of Lemuria) and has been summoned to rescue its ruler, Princess Rosebud, who is being held captive by the evil wizard Blackhorn. Armed with the legendary axe Bash, Astyanax sets out on a journey to Blackhorn's lair with Cutie in order to rescue Rosebud. In Blackhorn's castle they fall into a trap and Cutie sacrifices her life to allow Astyanax to fight onward alone. He eventually destroys Blackhorn, and is transported back to Earth by Rosebud. Astyanax wonders if he dreamed his entire adventure until he sees Cutie, who has been reborn as a human. As they embrace, he sees a vision of Rosebud saying this is a reward for their bravery.

In the 21st century, a blast of cosmic radiation bombarded Terra-12, a deep-space outpost of Earth, hideously mutating all transplanted life. A fleet of savage beings followed the radiation wave and invaded the planet and began the systematic destruction of all remaining sentient life. Years of battling the alien 'governors' have gone by, and now only one hope survives to avenge the desperate terran colonists.

During a walk with his girlfriend, the player is ambushed by agents of a mysterious crime syndicate who take his girlfriend away and shoot him to death. Now, as a wandering spirit with the ability to possess most others, he is summoned by his girlfriend's father (who researches ghost energy) and is given a mission to save her from the mysterious crime syndicate that holds her hostage, enabling the player to rest in peace. Screenshot of Avenging Spirit Coincidentally, the crime syndicate is also researching ghost energy, and they kidnapped the girl in an effort to force her father to cooperate with them. The player must fight through six stages to infiltrate the evil syndicate's base, collecting three keys on stages 2, 5, and 6. If the player has all three keys upon reaching the final leg of Stage 6, he can open the girl's cell and possess her to help her fight her way out. If not, he must abandon her and face the syndicate's leader alone. After the syndicate's leader is defeated, the base blows up, and the player ends up on a grassy field as his spirit's power fades. If the player fails to save the girl she presumably dies in the explosion and he expects to see her in the afterlife as he fades away. If the player does save her, she approaches the field, and the player expresses a wish for her future happiness as he vanishes.

There are two parts to the novel, '''Iron''', and '''Inconstant Star'''.

In “Iron”, Saxtorph and the ''Rover'', hired by the wealthy Crashlander Laurinda Brozik, set out to explore a newly discovered red dwarf star. When they arrive, they are challenged by a Kzinti warship. Separating the crew onto the shuttles, the ''Rover'' is captured and landed on one of the moons. The first shuttle sets on Prima, the first planet, and is held fast by a planet-sized organism that begins dissolving the shuttle. They broadcast for rescue, and are refused help by the Kzin.

Meanwhile, helpless to rescue their friends, Robert, Dorcas, and Laurinda make a plan to steal a tug and escape back to friendly space with the news of the Kzin base. Dorcas pilots the tug, and takes out the ship guarding the ''Rover''. Robert and Laurinda land, fight off a Kzinti shuttle, and recover the ''Rover''. They are able to rescue Juan and Carita, and destroy the base with a guided asteroid.

In “Inconstant Star”, Saxtorph and crew are hired by Tyra Nordbo to redeem her father's honor, as he was accused of collaboration with the Kzin during their occupation of Wunderland. To do so, they must use notes he had left behind and follow a ship that had left 30 years prior to investigate a concentration of gamma rays. They travel to the coordinates, and find a massive artifact made of an unknown metal. A hole in the spherical artifact is pouring out lethal radiation. As they study it, they learn it is a weapon of the Tnuctip. It is a shell around a “captured” black hole, one that had been holed by a meteorite and is thus releasing the Hawking radiation. They then deduce the route of the original Kzin ship, and head off to the Father Sun, the star of the Kzin homeworld. En route, they locate the ''Sherrek'', where Tyra's father Peter had worked free of his Kzin captors. They rescue him and head back to the artifact. Another Kzin ship, ''Swordbeak'', also finds the old ship. They, too, head to the artifact, and catch the ''Rover'' by surprise. Just when all looks lost, Robert and Dorcas conceive a plan to use the artifact's radiation against the Kzin warship. In a last act of defiance, a dying Weoch-Captain activates the artifact's hyperdrive and heads out into unknown space.

In the small Canadian Maritimes island town of Wilby, Dan Jarvis (James Allodi), the town's video store owner, is preparing to kill himself by jumping off a bridge; however, the presence of the town's lovable handyman, Walter "Duck" MacDonald (Callum Keith Rennie), stops him from doing so. Dan's next three suicide attempts all kept on getting interrupted. His next attempt is to drown himself by stuffing rocks in his pocket at the shore of Wilby Watch, a large undeveloped area on the island, but is forced to leave when local reporters were there, interviewing local police Stan Lastman (Daniel MacIvor) about a police raid at the Wilby Watch. The local newspaper is planning to publish the names of the men caught during the raid.

Dan then tries to give himself carbon monoxide poisoning by stuffing his head into a turned-on oven, but this was also interrupted, this time by Carol French (Sandra Oh), the realtor trying to sell the house. Finally, Dan prepares to hang himself but is forced to stop when he is caught by Jennie (Devon Chisolm), the maid of the motel he was staying. Elsewhere, Buddy (Paul Gross), Carol's husband and Stan's police partner, struggles with discussing his marriage to Carol, and his ongoing affair with Sandra Anderson (Rebecca Jenkins), who is infamous in the town for her reputation as a promiscuous woman.

Sandra's teenage daughter, Emily (Elliot Page), quietly observes her mother's behavior, while hoping for a serious romance for herself, different from her mother's history, although she is dating Taylor (Caleb Langille), a boy whose intentions are a bit more basic than the romance Emily hopes for. Emily's no-nonsense and frank best friend, Mackenzie Fisher (Marcella Grimaux) is the daughter of the town's mayor, Brent (Maury Chaykin), who is considering buying Buddy's mother's house (that Carol is selling). While at lunch with Carol's assistant Deena (Kathryn MacLellan), Sandra encounters a woman whose son she went out with in high school (at the same time that he was dating someone else).

Duck has been trying to get hold of Dan's location all day, by visiting places he might be around, although it's not clear the nature of his intentions are. Dan himself finds that his estranged wife, Belle, has thrown out all of his possessions out of their once-shared home. Carol realizes the city's big banner on the bridge is written as "Wilby Wonderful" instead of the other way around, and after talking to Deena, confronts Duck about the mistake (several characters later hypothesize that Duck is dyslexic), but then Carol rambles on about her failing marriage. Buddy and Stan are investigating Wilby Watch when Stan finds five syringes; Buddy is skeptical about Stan's claim that the syringes must have been left there by drug addicts. Sandra brings Dan coffee he tried to purchase from her diner (which he left after a homophobic encounter) but she failed to crack through his walls.

Sandra then goes to see Buddy and calls him affectionately, unaware that Duck is nearby, and ultimately, both decides to end the affair. Sandra, drunk, tries to force Emily to bring a condom with her on her date with Taylor that night, but Emily refuses, calling Sandra out for her promiscuous ways and vows to have a different romance life on her own. Buddy and Carol host Mayor Brent's family who visit their house, and Mackenzie revealed to Buddy that her father has been trying to play up the scandal and turn the Wilby Watch into a golf course. Sandra leaves the pack early to prepare Buddy's mother's house for the mayor's visit, and Buddy leaves soon after, returning to inspect the Wilby Watch.

Duck, who waited well into the night in front of the motel Dan is staying, is finally able to meet up and talk to him. Duck sets the tone of their conversation to be more and more intimate as it goes, and Dan, who is distant at first, opens up to him, eventually telling Duck his favorite genre of movie. Duck goes to kiss him, but Dan backs out. As Duck leaves, he notices that Emily and Taylor, who are on the same motel in a nearby room, are having a fight over him persistently trying to have sex with her. Duck shoos Taylor away, and calms a breaking down Emily. The two of them talk in Duck's truck, and then witness Dan leaving the area. Emily asks Duck if he wants to say hi to Dan, but Duck says he already tried that.

Dan, trying his luck on killing himself one more time, sneaks into Buddy's mother's house and prepares to hang himself from the ceiling. However, he visibly has a change of heart halfway through, and smiles at the thought of Duck almost kissing him. However, as Dan tries to undone the rope around his neck, the chair he's standing on gives away, hanging him. Carol arrives at the house to prepare for the Mayor's family arrival at that moment, and after cutting the rope off, instead hides Dan's body under the stairs cupboard, hoping to hide him long enough until the Mayor and his family leaves. Mackenzie ends up finding Dan's body, and ambulance is called. At the Wilby Watch, Buddy finds that Stan is planting used insulin syringes as evidence.

The next day, Sandra and Emily forgive each other for their previous drunken encounter. Buddy forces Mayor Brent to abandon his plans to turn the Wilby Watch into a golf course, and then takes steps towards mending his relationship with Carol. Duck brings flowers for Dan, who survived his suicide, at the hospital, and the movie ends with both men tenderly caressing each other.

Batman pursues a group of criminals into a warehouse where he is blinded by a flash of light and knocked unconscious. He awakens in bed as Bruce Wayne, with no memory of how he came to be there.

It becomes clear that something is very wrong: there is no Batcave beneath Wayne Manor, and Alfred knows nothing of Bruce's alter ego nor of Robin. Furthermore, Bruce's parents are still alive and he is engaged to Selina Kyle, who has no knowledge of her own double life as Catwoman. He can find no evidence of his adventures as Batman, and begins doubting his sanity - especially when he sees another "Batman" in action while on an outing with Selina.

Bruce meets with long-time confidante Leslie Thompkins. She tells him that his thoughts of being Batman are merely delusions, arising from his guilt and feelings of unworthiness at having such an easy life, with everything laid out for him. He starts to relax into that life, which appears to be everything he has ever wanted, until he discovers that the text in a newspaper and books from his library is a garbled, illegible mess.

Bruce heads to Gotham Cemetery, evading policemen who are attempting to take him into custody. A storm rises as he climbs a bell tower and finds himself face to face with Batman. Bruce demands answers, saying he knows he is in a dream world, as reading is a function of the right side of the brain, while dreams are entirely left-sided. The two struggle and Bruce unmasks the imposter as Jervis Tetch a.k.a the Mad Hatter, who confirms Bruce's assertion. Bruce's secret identity has not been compromised, as this Tetch is also only a dream and the real Tetch cannot see into the dream world. "Tetch" claims there is no way for Bruce to escape the dream, but Bruce suspects there is one. He leaps from the belfry to his apparent death.

Bruce awakens back in the warehouse as Batman with Tetch's dream machine attached to his head. He escapes and overpowers the villain, demanding an explanation. Tetch tells him that his life has been ruined by Batman and he was trying to give him everything he wanted , i.e., a perfect life just so he would stay out of his. Batman turns him over to the police and leaves, facing reality once more.

In 2003, Grant Taylor (Alex Kendrick) is the head football coach of the Shiloh Christian Academy Eagles, and has yet to make the state playoffs or even post a winning record in his six-year tenure. After his seventh season begins with a three-game losing streak, the players' fathers begin to agitate for his firing. This is not the only problem Grant is facing; his home has a leaking roof, his appliances are breaking down, and his car is an unreliable embarrassment. Then, crushingly, he learns that he is the reason that his wife Brooke cannot become pregnant.

Suffering intense emotional turmoil, Grant stays up all night praying and studying scripture. Finally he is inspired by his old football coach to create a new coaching philosophy and decides to praise God regardless of on-field results. At the same time he influences his players to give far greater effort and tells them that they can win under God's guidance. The improved attitudes of his players influence the rest of the school. From that point on, the Eagles win all their remaining regular season games and qualify for the state playoffs.

The Eagles lose their playoff opener, but are awarded the win by forfeit after their opponent used ineligible players. The Eagles then advance all the way to the state championship game against the three-time defending champion Richland Giants. The Giants race out to a 14-0 lead, but the Eagles manage to tie the game at the start of the second half. The Giants tack on another touchdown and a field goal before the Eagles manage to score another touchdown.

As the clock winds down, the Giants come to within one yard of sealing the game with a touchdown. Defensive lineman Brock Kelley is exhausted and begs for someone else to lead, but is encouraged by Grant to give him 4 more downs. Brock agrees, and the Eagles manage to get a sack, a stop, and a pass block, taking it to 4th down. Richland head coach Bobby Lee Duke, insisting on a touchdown to put the game away, calls for the Giants to go for it. However, Brock causes a fumble, and the Eagles are able to take it to the 34-yard line with 2 seconds to go.

Grant, realizing again that they cannot outrun or overpower the Giants, decides to take a huge gamble, and asks for a 51-yard field goal from kicker David Childers, who was forced to take over when the starting kicker was knocked out early in the second half. David insists that he can't kick that far, but goes out there anyway. After a rousing speech from Grant, and seeing his father Larry Childers, who is a wheelchair user, stand beyond the fence and holding his arms up, David begs for God to help him with the kick. Seemingly in response, the wind suddenly turns favorable, and Grant tells them to kick it. David's kick just barely clears the uprights, allowing the Eagles to stun the Giants and win the game.

After the game, Grant tells his players that they are not inferior or lacking in ability, and that nothing is impossible with God. Later that night, Brooke reveals that she's finally pregnant, causing Grant to break down in tears of joy. Two years later, it is revealed that they have a young son with another one on the way, and in the interim the Eagles have won a second state title.

Tim Heidecker is the host of the web series ''On Cinema at the Cinema'', where he and a cast of guests review films. After transitioning to being an electronic musician and hosting a music festival, he faces murder charges when 20 people overdose and die at the event and an additional 156 are hospitalized. He ends up beating the charge with a hung jury mistrial and sets out to become district attorney of San Bernardino County, despite not being an attorney or a resident of San Bernardino and to take revenge on Vincent Rosetti, the prosecutor of his case.

The film begins with a small crew following Heidecker going door to door to drum up enough signatures for him to be on the ballot as a third party candidate. He works with his campaign manager Toni Newman, who was also the sole juror to not find Heidecker guilty at his murder trial. The duo have an ad campaign made up of social media posts and yard signs mocking Rosetti as a rat and Heidecker briefly confronts him on camera before the D.A. drives away with no comment. Heidecker starts to crack under the pressure, excessively drinking and using the TCH vape system that previously addicted him and was responsible for killing the youth at his music festival.

Newman attempts to get press coverage that falls through at the last minute, fails to buy an ad in the local paper on time, and attempts to stage a debate where neither of Heidecker's opponents attend. Among the six crowd members is Heidecker's frequent guest host from ''On Cinema at the Cinema'', Gregg Turkington. Turkington reaches out to the film crew to convince them to abandon the project and see Heidecker as a criminal and failure who has no passion for film. Heidecker has a meltdown and storms out of the event. Even though he and Newman forge several signatures, his name does not appear on the ballot and Rosetti is re-elected.

In a drug-induced haze, Heidecker calls Rosetti from the hotel room that doubles as his campaign headquarters and starts out gracefully conceding and offering congratulations before devolving into insults and threats. He passes out and the next day, he takes the crew to the condemned site of the music festival, where he creates a makeshift memorial to the youth who died.

Sitting at a desk with a surly co-worker, processing endless forms while fat cats in the office line their own nests, is no way to end a career as a space pilot. So when one ex-spacer finds that an order for a biological irradiator, needed to help wipe out an insect plague on a colony planet, has been sidelined to make way for a shipment of gin for one of his superiors, he takes action.

He invents a fictional new colony called "Nemo", and puts in a high priority order for the irradiator, meaning to re-route it to the real colony when it arrives. He forges several signatures, including his co-worker's and his own. He reasons that if anything at all gets done in the organization it's probably because people are forging signatures they'd have to wait forever to get. His deskmate just says "You can't beat the system."

The middle of the story tells the tale of how the new order progresses through the system, with officials inspecting the factory making the irradiator to see that it is indeed a real and properly patriotic business, and other officials creating official documents stating that the irradiator will indeed have the desired effect on the insects and so on and so forth.

In record time, that is to say mere years, the irradiator arrives, and immediately the bureaucrats smell a rat. The ex-pilot is called to explain to his boss, to the "I told you so's" of his deskmate. He seems oddly confident, however.

He explains to his boss that, yes, Nemo is not a colony. It's a code word for a "tentative priority", that is one which will apply if nothing else intervenes. When asked why he did this, he responds that certain shipments had been getting more priority than they deserve. Bit by bit he admits that the problem was the gin shipment, knowing that his boss is a mortal enemy of the gin drinker. That gets him off the hook, but then he plays his trump card.

He has an idea to stop abuses by creating a tracking process which will monitor a form as it proceeds through the system. His boss is only mildly interested until told of the extra subordinates he will have to hire to implement the process. Like most bureaucrats, his status, pay, perks, and pension increase with the number of people working for him. He decides to adopt the idea for the good of the organization, and gratefully offers the ex-pilot the job of supervisor in the new department.

Returning to his desk, our hero informs his surly deskmate that "You can beat any system. All you do is turn the handle the way it goes, only more so." The response is "Shut up. And don't talk until you can talk sense."

George is the foster son of Sybil, an elderly, somewhat ineffectual sorceress. She brought him up after his "royal parents died of the plague" in his infancy.

He has fallen in love with the Princess Helene but she is kidnapped by the wizard Lodac, who brazenly informs her father that he intends to feed her to his pet dragon in seven days, in revenge for the death of his sister. George wants to go on a quest to liberate his lady love, but Sybil believes he is too young as he is only 20. She tries to distract the youth by showing him a magic sword; a steed; an invulnerable suit of armour; and six magically frozen knights that he will command when he turns 21. The impatient George tricks Sybil and locks her in a cellar, then leaves with the magical implements and the revived company of knights.

Sir George and his party appear before the king and insist on journeying to Lodac's castle to rescue Helene, despite opposition from Sir Branton, a knight who has also volunteered for the perilous quest. The king promises the rescuer his daughter's hand in marriage and half his kingdom.

Seven curses bar the path to Lodac's castle. First, they encounter an ogre, who slays Sir Ulrich of Germany and Sir Pedro of Spain before George kills it. When George tries to save Sir Anthony of Italy from drowning in a swamp, Branton treacherously kicks him in as well. Anthony is killed, but George survives with the help of his magic sword.

Later, Branton meets secretly with Lodac. It turns out that Branton has Lodac's ring, which the magician lost and wants back desperately, as his powers are crippled without it. The kidnapping was solely intended to make Branton look good, in exchange for the ring. Sir Dennis of France comes by and Lodac prepares a trap involving Mignonette, a beautiful Frenchwoman, who distracts her compatriot, before turning into an ugly hag who attacks him. Fortunately, George saves him with his magic shield.

Lodac finally becomes aware that George is being aided by magic. He contacts Sybil and mocks her abilities. Stung, she tries to cast a spell to help George, but ends up inadvertently stripping away all his magical powers.

Sir Dennis and Sir James of Scotland burn and perish from a heat spiral when they reconnoitre ahead. Branton then leads George and Sir Patrick of Ireland into a trap, revealing his partnership with Lodac before sealing them in a cave with deadly green apparitions. Patrick, through the power of his faith, enables George to escape at the cost of his own life.

George sneaks into Lodac's castle and rescues Helene, only to be captured. The magician gives Helene (actually the hag in disguise) to Branton, but once he has the ring, he uses magic to put Branton's head on a plaque on the wall. George is tied up, but escapes with the help of a number of escaped shrunken prisoners. Sybil arrives and finally remembers the spell that restores George's powers, enabling him to slay the two-headed dragon and save Helene. Sybil steals the ring while Lodac is distracted. When the magician threatens the young couple with the seventh curse (himself), Sybil transforms herself into a large panther and kills him. Helene and George get married and the six knights are restored to life.

A year before the "pillar of light", Minahoshi Suiko seemed to have killed herself, but Boogiepop claims that he killed her, because she was an enemy of the world. He calls her ''Imaginator''.

Asukai Jin can see people's hearts as parts of plants such as flowers, leaves, buds and roots growing from their chests, but everyone's plant is missing something important: this represents the flaw in their heart. Asukai saw the apparition of a girl, who claimed to be Imaginator. She offered Asukai a vision of a possible future, but he was initially opposed. He tried sketching the apparition's face, but was unable to capture it. The students who sought his counsel often uttered the phrase "sometimes it snows in April"; a phrase used by Imaginator. After meeting a former student, addicted to drugs, and dying, Asukai gave in and reached for her plant; she died happy. After rescuing a boy and a girl from a group of thugs, Asukai identified himself as Imaginator.

Taniguchi Masaki had just moved back to Japan from Phnom Penh, and found himself incredibly popular with the girls at his school, and equally hated by the boys. One day, he failed to notice a group of thugs moving in to attack him. A girl, Orihata Aya, stepped in to help Taniguchi, though her words and actions were far from normal. Before things got out of hand, a man stepped in to save them. The two ended up going out. While waiting for Taniguchi one day, a large man missing his right ear came up to Orihata, calling her "Camille" – he was Spooky E, and they were both from the Towa Organisation. Taniguchi thought to rescue Orihata from the man, but was rendered unconscious.

Miyashita Touka and Suema Kazuko were studying at the cram school where they had met and become friends. Kinukawa Kotoe approached Suema seeking advice about her relative, Asukai Jin. Unable to let things pass her by, Suema promised to look into things. In Asukai's office, she found failed sketches that looked like Minahoshi Suiko. Whilst hiding, she also saw Asukai do "something" near the chests of two girls on behalf of Imaginator – a name she recognized from a book by Kirima Seiichiro. After Asukai had finished, the two girls looked remarkably similar in their relaxed expression.

After the incident with Spooky E, Orihata had explained to Taniguchi about the ''shinigami'', Boogiepop. She asks him to play the part of Boogiepop, and save people. He dressed up as the rumours described Boogiepop, and uses his Karate experience to defeat criminals that she would lure out. However, this fails to draw out the real Boogiepop, so Spooky E instructs Orihata to try a new plan.

When Taniguchi Masaki transferred into his school, Anou Shinjirou fell in love immediately. Confused by his feelings, he directs anger at Taniguchi instead. One day, he convinced a group of younger students to threaten Taniguchi, and watches on from the shadows. At no point did things go according to his plan, especially not when some man suddenly appears and quickly defeats the other students. Anou watches with disgust as the relationship between Taniguchi and Orihata develops.

Hearing rumours about Orihata's frivolous attitude towards men, Anou tries to prove them, so as to break up her relationship with Taniguchi. Unfortunately, all he learns is that she lives like clockwork, and makes no effort to enjoy life. Anou is found by Spooky E, who turns him into his puppet, and orders him to enter Shinyo Academy – following this, Anou would occasionally cry for no apparent reason. Due to the change in his behaviour, Anou receives a love letter, and is instructed by Spooky E to follow it up, but a chance encounter with Asukai Jin frees Anou from Spooky E's control.

When Anou goes to meet the girl who sent the letter to him, he arrives at the roof of a department store. When he saw a girl there, he begins to speak to her, but his words reveal that he had been freed from Spooky E's control – the synthetic human leaps out to erase him at this, but a microfilament wire saves him at the last second. The 'girl' had been none other than Boogiepop himself, who had decided to kill Spooky E for his actions. Despite being significantly overpowered by Boogiepop, Spooky E escapes, at the cost of his right ear. Boogiepop gives Anou the real love letter, which he had exchanged earlier, before leaving.

Before the start of the new school year, Suema returns to Shinyo Academy, as the new students are being orientated, meeting up eventually and shortly with Niitoki Kei (and hearing that she is no longer head of the Displinary Committee from Niitoki). Anou and his girlfriend arrive at Shinyo Academy, but he questions why he is there in the first place. Whilst looking down at the place where Minahoshi Suiko had killed herself, Suema meets Orihata Aya. Orihata asks Suema about Boogiepop, but she brushes it off as a fantasy to "protect an unstable heart." Suema quotes Kirima Seiichi's ''VS Imaginator'' hoping to reassure Orihata about her way in life.

Folk version

Once there was a beautiful servant named Okiku. She worked for the samurai Aoyama Tessan. Okiku often refused him when he said he was in love with her and wanted to marry her, so he tricked her into believing that she had carelessly lost one of the family's ten precious Delft plates. Such a crime would normally result in her death. In a frenzy, she counted and recounted the nine plates many times. However, she could not find the tenth and went to Aoyama in guilty tears. The samurai offered to overlook the matter if she finally became his lover, but again she refused. Enraged, Aoyama threw her down a well to her death.

It is said that Okiku became a vengeful spirit ''(Onryō)'' who tormented her murderer by counting to nine and then making a terrible shriek to represent the missing tenth plate – or perhaps she had tormented herself and was still trying to find the tenth plate but cried out in agony when she never could. In some versions of the story, this torment continued until an exorcist or neighbor shouted "ten" in a loud voice at the end of her count. Her ghost, finally relieved that someone had found the plate for her, haunted the samurai no more.

Ningyō Jōruri version

Hosokawa Katsumoto, the lord of Himeji Castle, has fallen seriously ill. Katsumoto's heir, Tomonosuke, plans to give a set of 10 precious plates to the ''shōgun'' to ensure his succession. However, chief retainer Asayama Tetsuzan plots to take over. Tomonosuke's retainer, Funase Sampei Taketsune is engaged to marry a lady in waiting, Okiku. Tetsuzan plans to force Okiku to help him murder Tomonosuke.

Tetsuzan, through the help of a spy, steals one of the 10 plates and summons Okiku to bring the box containing the plates to his chamber. There, he attempts to seduce Okiku. She refuses due to her love for Taketsune. Rejected, Tetsuzan then has Okiku count the plates to find only nine. He blames her for the theft and offers to lie for her if she will be his mistress. Okiku again refuses and Tetsuzan has her beaten with a wooden sword.

Tetsuzan then has her suspended over a well and, erotically enjoying her torture, has her lowered into the well several times, beating her himself when she is raised. He demands that she become his lover and assist in the murder of Tomonosuke. She refuses again, whereupon Tetsuzan strikes her with his sword, sending her body into the well.

While wiping clean his sword, the sound of a voice counting plates comes from the well. Tetsuzan realizes that it is the ghost of Okiku but is entirely unmoved. The play ends with the ghost of Okiku rising from the well, Tetsuzan staring at her contemptuously.

Okamoto Kido version

Set in Edo in 1655, a vassal of the Shogun, Aoyama Harima, has fallen in love with a young servant girl, Okiku. Aoyama has promised to marry her but has recently received an auspicious marriage proposal from an aunt. Aoyama promises Okiku that he will honor their love and refuse the proposal.

Okiku doubts and tests him by breaking one of the 10 heirloom plates that are the treasure of the Aoyama household. The traditional punishment for breaking one of the plates is death, which is demanded by Aoyama's family.

At first, Aoyama is convinced that Okiku broke the plate by accident and pardons her, but when Okiku reveals that she broke the plate on purpose in order to test his love, Aoyama is enraged and kills her. He then throws her body down a well.

From then after, Okiku's ''yūrei'' (ghost) is seen to enter the house and count the plates, one through nine. Encountering her in the garden, Aoyama sees that her ghostly face is not one of vengeance, but beauty and calm. Taking strength from this, he commits seppuku and joins her in death.

Okamoto's version is notable for being a much more romantic adaptation of the story, similar to the kabuki version of Botan Dōrō. This was an influence of the Meiji Restoration, which brought Western plays to Japan for the first time. Western plays were much more noticeable for romantic elements, and this was adapted into a style of theater known as Shin Kabuki, or New Kabuki. Shin Kabuki was ultimately an unsuccessful merger of East and West , although Okamoto's Banchō Sarayashiki remains as one of the few classics.

Variations

In some versions of the tale, Okiku is a maid who incurs her mistress' jealousy. Her mistress breaks one of the dishes that Okiku is responsible for and Okiku commits suicide. Similar to the other versions, her ghost is heard counting the plates, but her mistress goes insane and dies.

""There is no mysterious mystery but "deception" there -- ."" The beauty girl who lives a life bedridden in a hospital challenges mysterious incidents which spread over the world by the cool pupil and sharp insight with a partner.

In London, Dr. Richard Mortimer asks Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson to investigate the death of his friend Sir Charles Baskerville, in Dartmoor, found dead by heart failure, lying in the moor surrounding his estate, Baskerville Hall. Mortimer believes that his good friend had been scared to death by the vision of a ghost hound, the same that centuries before killed Sir Charles' ancestor, the devilish Sir Hugo, and relates the story of the "curse of the Baskervilles", portrayed in a flashback scene. Mortimer tells Holmes that he also fears for the life of Sir Henry Baskerville, Sir Charles' nephew and heir, who's just come from Johannesburg, South Africa to take possession of his inheritance and of Baskerville Hall.

Although sceptical, Holmes and Watson agree to meet the young Sir Henry who complains to them that one of his boots is missing. Mortimer, upon arriving, tells them that the Baskerville estate is worth about £1,000,000. A series of peculiar incidents, including a threat from a dangerous tarantula, soon convinces Holmes that Sir Henry's life is indeed in danger. Claiming that he cannot come to Baskerville Hall himself due to a prior commitment, Holmes dispatches Watson to Dartmoor with Mortimer and Sir Henry. Before parting, Holmes reminds Watson not to let Sir Henry go out onto the nearby moor after dark.

On their way to Baskerville Hall, the trio is warned by the coach driver Perkins that a convicted murderer named Selden has escaped from nearby Dartmoor Prison and is hiding on the moor. At Baskerville Hall, Sir Henry is shown around the mansion by Mr. Barrymore, the butler, and Mrs. Barrymore, the housekeeper. When Sir Henry notices that one of two portraits of his infamous ancestor Sir Hugo is missing, the Barrymores are unable to offer any explanation. All they know is that it was mysteriously stolen several months ago. Sir Charles even called in the police from Exeter but they could find no trace of the picture.

The next day, Sir Henry and Watson meet the friendly local pastor, Bishop Frankland, who is also a keen entomologist. The bishop wanted to ask Sir Henry if he can donate something for a jumble sale in the nearby village. While crossing the moor after visiting the post office in the village, Watson gets lost in a wetland called Grimpen Mire and gets trapped in a patch of quicksand. Two people come to help, a farmer named Stapleton and his daughter Cecile, a beautiful and wild girl who immediately bewitches Sir Henry.

One night, Watson sees a light in the moor. He and Sir Henry go out to investigate, but a strange man rushes by in the shadows, then a distant hound howls, upsetting Sir Henry so much that he faints. Watson spots a figure silhouetted on a hill in the distance while he helps Sir Henry back to Baskerville Hall. Soon, Watson discovers that the silhouetted figure was Holmes, who has concealed his own arrival in order to investigate more freely.

Together, Holmes and Watson find the corpse of the convict Selden, wearing Sir Henry's clothes, slaughtered by an unknown beast. The clothing exposes the Barrymores, who confess to have helped the escapee, who was their relative, by supplying food and other provisions each time he signaled with a light from his hideout. However, Holmes has evidence relating to the poisonous spider and the missing portrait of Sir Hugo, that convinces him that neither the Barrymores nor Selden are connected to the death of Sir Charles. He also figures that the tarantula that was found in London was the same one which was stolen from Bishop Frankland. Holmes pays Frankland a visit, who is a bit of a Peeping Tom with his telescope.

After surviving personal danger in an abandoned tin mine while looking for evidence of a hound, Holmes is able to guess who unleashed the hound in pursuit of Sir Charles and why they did it. Believing that a trap has been set for Sir Henry, the detective and his assistant accompany him to the moor where Sir Henry had met Cecile. When Sir Henry meets Cecile this time, though, she rejects him, finally revealing that she and her father are also descendants of Sir Hugo Baskerville, planning to claim the inheritance as their own once Sir Henry is out of the way. The hound appears and attacks Sir Henry. Holmes hesitates to shoot it for nearly thirty seconds to allow it to sufficiently maul Sir Henry. Stapleton attempts to attack Watson with the legendary curved dagger used by Sir Hugo, but Watson shoots and wounds him. After being shot, the hound runs past Stapleton. Stapleton reaches out and grabs the hound so that the hound can maul him to death. Cecile flees. Sir Henry appears unscathed from the mauling. After Holmes kills the beast, he reveals it to be a Great Dane wearing a hideous mask to make it look more terrifying. Cecile tries to escape across the moor, only to fall into the Grimpen Mire where she sinks to her death in the mud. The three men observe this while returning to the Hall and concur that the curse has claimed its final victim. Sir Henry can now claim his inheritance in peace, and Holmes and Watson return to London along with the stolen portrait of Sir Hugo that was found on the Stapleton farm. The picture revealed that Sir Hugo’s right hand fingers were webbed which was a trait that Stapleton himself inherited.

The story covers the last few days of term before Christmas for the students of the Johann-Sigismund Gymnasium. The main characters are Martin, the first student of the class, Jonathan, an orphan who was adopted by a captain, Matz, Uli and Sebastian, students from the Tertia (Year 8). There is a bitter struggle between the students at the Gymnasium and another school, the ''Realschule'' (which is, with some probability, not the Realschule as known today, but an ''Oberrealschule'', as the science -oriented, rather than humanist and focussing on classical philology, variety of the Gymnasium was then called). The so-called "Realists" steal the Gymnasium's pupils' schoolbooks containing their dictations, which the teacher's son (another classmate) was to carry home to his father. The son was also captured by the 'Realschüler'. This results in a brawl between two champions of each side - Matz and one Wawerka - and a hard-fought snow-ball fight, both of which the six friends win, although they end up being reported by a student from the Prima (Year 13) for being late back to school. As a "punishment" they are docked one afternoon's leave, which they are invited to spend with their amiable house teacher Mr Johann ("Justus") Bökh at his office (coffee and cake included) where he tells them a story about his own youth and his struggle with unreasonable prefects from the Prima.

Other parts of the plot include: the friends playing a drama called ''the Flying Classroom'' written by Johnny, their friendship with the "Nonsmoker" (a former doctor who lives in an scrapped non-smoker railway compartment and works as a pub piano player) and the Nonsmoker's own friendship with Mr Bökh, with whom the boys help to re-unite him. Uli, the smallest boy, decides at this time to attempt something which will remove his reputation as a coward. His best friend, Matz, has in the past encouraged him to try to shed it, but he is horrified when he sees Uli about to jump off a tall climbing frame using an umbrella as a parachute. Uli crashes to the ground and falls unconscious. As the boys know that the Nonsmoker used to be a doctor, they fetch him, and he allays their fears that Uli is dead. However, he has a broken leg (in the Canadian version, Uli breaks an arm instead). Upon this, the Nonsmoker re-enters the medical profession as he becomes the new school doctor.

Don Alvaro, a young but wise man, invokes Satan. Upon seeing the young Alvaro, Satan falls in love with him and assumes the appearance of a young woman, Biondetta. He follows Alvaro as his page. In the journey that unfolds, Satan, disguised as a woman, tries to seduce Alvaro who rejects his advances lest he lose his virginity. He is unwilling to compromise his honor by sleeping with a woman before they are married and he will first need his mother’s approval of the union.

Over the course of their journey, Biondetta (the devil's name as a woman) and Alvaro will grow closer and closer. When the protagonist's friend Olympia discovers that Alvaro's "male" servant is in fact of the female sex, she confronts Alvaro, who denies the accusations and sides with his servant. Thereafter, Biondetta abandons her life as servant and proceeds to get closer and closer to Alvaro, surviving an assassination attempt by Olympia. The devil tries to have sex with Alvaro, before their wedding or Alvaro's mother's blessings, but is rebuffed by Alvaro. Biondetta then takes leave, never to be found again. Alvaro returns to his family's court, where his mother consoles him that it was all a bad dream and that if he listen to his mother, he will never fall victim to the devil.

One day, a hot air balloon attached to a huge straw house, lands in the garden of the Dollybutts. The fat old man who owns it is Great-Uncle Lancelot. He tells Mrs Dollybutt and her three children that he is going to find his brother, Perceval, who is lost in the jungles of Africa, looking for gorillas. Perceval, a scientist, invented a magic dust which enables people to communicate with animals.

Lancelot takes the three children, Emma, Ivan and Conrad with him in the hot air balloon, which he has called Belladonna, to track Uncle Perceval. On their way, they meet several animals which they can talk to (because of the dust), such as a swallow, a camel and a fennec fox, who tell them many interesting facts about their lives. In the jungle, the gorillas tell them that Perceval left for South Africa, to meet some elephants.

Lancelot and the three children follow Perceval to South Africa, and then to Australia, the North Pole, Canada, North America, Brazil and Patagonia. On their way, they meet a crocodile, a rhinoceros, some koalas, a platypus, a blue whale, some killer whales, polar bears, musk oxen, beavers, buffalos, monarch butterflies, a boa constrictor, some howler monkeys, penguins and elephant seals. Everywhere, they learn something about the animals, their habitat, behaviour and dangers threatening them.

In the end, the elephant seal tells them that Uncle Perceval has returned to Britain. So they follow him there, and find Perceval in the Dollybutts' house. The chase lasted a whole year, but the children all agree it was not a waste of time after all.

''The Surrogates''

In the year 2054, people use '''surrogates''' (humanoid remote control vehicles) as a form of telepresence in their daily lives and interactions with one another. In Central Georgia Metropolis, Lt. Harvey Greer investigates the destruction of two surrogates. Greer soon discovers a mysterious figure (whom he nicknames "Steeplejack") plotting to permanently disable all surrogates in an effort to eliminate people's dependence on them. Greer considers the anti-surrogate religious leader named "The Prophet" a suspect, but The Prophet is later killed by Steeplejack. Similar to Steeplejack and The Prophet, Greer feels people have become too reliant on surrogates for superficial reasons. Greer chooses to work the investigation in-person after Steeplejack destroys Greer's surrogate. Greer later discovers Steeplejack himself is a surrogate controlled by Lionel Canter, the inventor of the original surrogate. Lionel designed surrogates as a tool for the physically impaired and became dissatisfied with their widespread personal use by the non-impaired. Eventually Lionel/Steeplejack successfully disables surrogates throughout the city. Greer later discovers his wife Margaret, a surrogate-addict, has committed suicide because her attractive-looking surrogate was disabled.

''The Surrogates: Flesh and Bone''

''Flesh and Bone'' is set fifteen years before the original ''Surrogates'' story. It explores the early days of surrogate availability, including riots that take place in the wake of a surrogate-related murder. Harvey Greer is a patrolman investigating the beating death of a homeless person by a teenage boy who uses his father's surrogate without permission. The father's lawyer claims the father operated the surrogate in self-defense. The police reluctantly drop the charges after their witness is murdered by an assassin. Thousands of members of a religious group riot for several days, protesting the dropped charges and the growing popularity of surrogates. The mayor meets with the group's leader "The Prophet" and negotiates an end to the riots by giving the group a large parcel of land to establish a reservation. Greer is promoted to detective after his investigation leads to the teenage boy's involvement in the beating death of the homeless man. The lawyer is charged (framed) with plotting the witness' murder, although the murder was actually orchestrated by The Prophet.

In the heart of the Canadian wilderness, sultry and sexually assertive Vixen Palmer, quickly becomes bored when her husband Tom, a wilderness guide and pilot, leaves for the mountains. The hypersexual Vixen vents her frustration by attempting to seduce anyone within reach including a couple her husband brings home as clients (separately), a Mountie, and eventually her own brother, Judd.

The film finally veers into political satire as Vixen's racism and the creeping threat of Communism are discussed at length among the characters as the film draws to its end. At the end of the film, her husband brings another couple home and Vixen smiles, apparently planning to seduce them.

On the eve of the Battle of El Alamein, Captain Tim Cotton leads a patrol on a raid to destroy a German fuel dump located deep behind enemy lines. Captain Williams of the Royal Engineers is posted to Cotton's patrol to deal with a minefield surrounding a German petrol dump. As a regular soldier, Williams takes time to adjust to the non-regulation way the LRDG operates. He finds a girl's torn up picture in Cotton's billet, who dismisses her as "old news". Later on Williams shows Cotton a picture of his son; Cotton says he has everything to live for.

The mission, which begins with five Chevrolet 30 cwt trucks, starts with a perilous journey through Axis-occupied Libya where the LRDG encounter Luftwaffe spotter planes and Africa Korps patrols. Six of their men are killed and two of their Chevrolets are destroyed by a German armoured car. On reaching the German supply depot, Williams does his job and creates a path through the minefield with the help of Corporal Mathieson. The rest of the group destroys the stocks of petrol but Sergeant Hardy is killed in the escape. However hidden within the dump is a large number of German panzers. Unfortunately Cotton cannot report this to base because the radio is smashed in a German ambush, during which 'Blanco' White is wounded in the leg.

Knowing the importance of the information, the group knows they must return and report it to base while there is time for it to be acted upon. During their return journey they are relentlessly pursued by a German officer determined to stop them. When two half-tracks attack them Cotton is wounded in the arm and Sergeant Nesbitt is killed. Eventually - with just 40 miles to go to the Allied base - the last truck runs out of fuel. Blanco volunteers to stay behind and man a Vickers machine gun, Brody offers to stay with his friend but Cotton says "Everyone who can goes on". While the others head towards base, Blanco sacrifices himself slowing up the last pursuing German halftrack.

The group, with their water exhausted, sight another LRDG patrol on a truck. But before they can signal them, the chasing Germans are spotted. Williams grabs a Sten gun and leads the Germans away from his group. His actions allow the LRDG patrol to outflank and destroy the half-track; however, he is killed. Cotton laments that he had everything to live for.

The film concludes with Cotton reporting the tanks to his CO back at base. They also speak of Williams and the sacrifice he made for the group. The opening barrage of El Alamein starts.

The story is about Hikari Kamijou, a fifteen-year-oldHikari's age and name changes in the different versions of the anime: In the Italian version her name is Hilary and she is fourteen. In the German version her name is Hikari and she is thirteen. In the French version her name she is Cynthia and she is fifteen. In the Spanish version her name is Valentina and she is twelve. girl who develops a passion for the sport of rhythmic gymnastics when she sees her idol, Diliana Georgieva, perform and win a contest of rhythmic gymnastics. Diliana proposes to train Hikari in Bulgaria, and Hikari accepts. She begins her training and joins her school's rhythmic gymnastics team.

At first Hikari lacks natural skill, but then she meets Takaaki Ooishi, a fellow gymnast and popular schoolmate who helps her to improve. With his support, Hikari's talent blossoms, landing her on the map of popularity along with the best rhythmic gymnast at her school, Hazuki Shiina.

As Hikari and Hazuki begin training for the World Cup competition together, a healthy rivalry develops. Hikari longs to embody Hazuki's graceful elegance, and seeks out Mao Natsukawa to help.

Mao is a childhood friend and the lead singer of a rock band, and he dreams of becoming a world-renowned rock'n'roll idol. Mao helps Hikari by creating music for her performances, and together they win the respect and admiration of the viewers who watch them perform.

Over the years, Mao has come to love Hikari deeply, but Hikari has fallen in love with Takaaki Ooishi. While this causes a rift in Hikari and Mao's relationship, he remains a loyal friend. When Hikari discovers that Hazuki also has feelings for Takaaki, they become rivals in sport and love. Hikari does not know how Takaaki feels about her, and worries Takaaki might fall for Hazuki because of her gymnastic talent. Hikari begins to perfect her skills, and is soon competing at the national and international level.

In the TV series, Hikari wins Ooishi's heart and we are shown a little flash forward: Hikari is an Olympic champion, Ooishi is recovering from a lesion but with Olympic expectations, Mao is working on his career as a musician and Hazuki has retired and is working with as a trainer for young children who want to be gymnasts.

The end in the manga version

Hikari goes on to win a national competition, giving her the opportunity to compete at the Seoul 1988 Summer Olympics. While Hikari has finally surpassed Hazuki in terms of ability as a rhythmic gymnast, their rivalry for Takaaki Ooishi's affection is still going strong.

When Hikari, Mao, Hazuki, Takaaki and rest of the athletes competing in the 1988 Summer Olympics travel to Seoul, Hikari finds out that Ooishi and Hazuki are in love and that they are set to be married. Hikari turns to Mao Natsukawa for support, but he becomes frustrated with her for ignoring his own love for her. When Mao leaves Hikari, she realizes that she has feelings for him, too. Even while he is not there to watch her compete, Hikari is determined to prove to Mao that he is an important part of her life and her success.

At the end of the manga, Hikari is competing at the 1988 Summer Olympics. While she is performing, Mao begins to sing an Italian love song, even though vocal music is banned during competitions. Despite this Hikari and Mao finish their performance, prompting applause from the crowd and their friends, Takaaki and Hazuki, who have come to see them perform. Before the winner is announced, both Hikari and Mao exit the competition arena. The manga concludes with Hikari smiling, hinting that in the end she may have not won a medal, but that she will have a bright future with Mao.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson receive a visit from Dr. James Mortimer, who wishes to consult them before the arrival of Sir Henry Baskerville, the last of the Baskervilles, heir to the Baskerville estate in Devonshire.

Dr Mortimer is anxious about letting Sir Henry go to Baskerville Hall, owing to a supposed family curse. He tells Holmes and Watson the legend of the Hound of the Baskervilles, a demonic dog that first killed Sir Hugo Baskerville several hundred years ago (seen in flashback) and is believed to kill all Baskervilles in the region of Devonshire.

Holmes dismisses it as a fairy-tale, but Mortimer narrates the events of the recent death of his best friend, Sir Charles Baskerville, Sir Henry's uncle. Although he was found dead in his garden without any trace of physical damage, Sir Charles's face was distorted as if he died in utter terror, from heart failure. He alone had noticed footprints at some distance from the body when it was found; they were the paw marks of a gigantic hound.

Holmes decides to send Watson to Baskerville Hall along with Sir Henry, claiming that he is too busy to accompany them himself. Sir Henry quickly develops a romantic interest in Beryl Stapleton, the step-sister of his neighbour Jack Stapleton, a local naturalist. Meanwhile, a homicidal maniac named Selden, escaped from Dartmoor Prison, lurks on the moor.

Holmes eventually makes an appearance, having been hiding in the vicinity for some time making his own investigation. Watson and Sir Henry attend a seance held by Mrs. Mortimer. In a trance, she asks, "What happened that night on the moor, Sir Charles?". The only reply is a lone howl, possibly from a hound. After some clever deception by Holmes, he surmises that the true criminal is Stapleton, a long-lost cousin of the Baskervilles, who hopes to claim their vast fortune himself after removing all other members of the bloodline.

Stapleton kept a huge, half-starved, vicious dog trained to attack individual members of the Baskervilles after prolonged exposure to their scent. However, when the hound is finally sent to kill Sir Henry Baskerville, Holmes and Watson arrive to save him just in time. They kill the hound. Stapleton then traps Holmes down in the hound's underground kennel, and sends Watson into the moor to meet Holmes. Holmes cuts his way out of the kennel and returns to the house and destroys the poison that Stapleton had just given to the wounded Baskerville. Stapleton pulls a gun and flees. Holmes says ominously, "He won't get very far. I've posted constables along the roads and the only other way is across the Grimpen Mire."

Holmes is praised for his work on the case, and he turns in.

Annie and Matthew, a young married couple, find their infant daughter screaming with a high temperature and an earache. Matthew calls the doctor, who promises to phone in a prescription to the pharmacist the following day. During the night, the neighborhood wakes up due to a massive power outage. When Matthew visits the pharmacist the next day, he is unable to get the required medicine due to the blackout. Matthew steals the medicine when the pharmacist is not looking. Social unrest ensues due to the persistent blackout, leading Matthew and his wife's best friend, Joe, to buy a shotgun.

When an intruder breaks into the couple's house the following night, Matthew and Joe chase him outside, where a neighbor shoots the intruder. The neighbors conspire to cover up the fact that the deceased intruder was not armed. As the blackout continues for days over a large area, more chaos occurs. As a result, the group decides to flee to Annie's parents' house, 530 miles away. They do not have enough fuel to travel the whole way, so they stop by an abandoned car hoping to siphon some. A man, Gary, is lying in the backseat. After Joe notices that Gary has a handgun, he heads back to their vehicle to get his own shotgun. Joe aims the shotgun at Gary to scare him off, but he shoots Joe and steals their vehicle.

Matthew walks an hour to a farmhouse to try to get help for his family. The occupant, Raymond, refuses to help him initially, as he does not trust him. Matthew collects the shotgun and returns to the house, hoping to steal the car. He breaks in to get the car keys, and a standoff ensues between Raymond and him. When Raymond's young daughter enters the room, Matthew returns to civility, lowering his weapon. Raymond agrees to help Matthew, and soon afterwards Joe is loaded into an ambulance. Society returns to normal once the power returns, though Annie, Matthew and their neighbors are somewhat different from their experience.

The Black Company's current employer, the Syndic of Beryl, is losing control of his decadent city to rival factions. A dangerous monster known as a forvalaka runs amok through the city, killing numerous citizens and contributing to the city's growing instability; the Syndic requests that the Black Company track and kill the beast. Because the creature is virtually indestructible, it kills several of the Black Company's men, including Tom-Tom, one of the Company's wizards. When the Taken named Soulcatcher offers the Company new employment in the service of the Lady, its Captain readily accepts, though he is forced to accept the killing of the Syndic to break the contract.

On the march north to the Lady's empire, the Company acquires two new members. Raven is an uncommonly deadly and (usually) remorseless recruit, even by Company standards. Uncharacteristically, he rescues Darling, a nine-year-old mute girl being abused by soldiers affiliated with the Limper, another of the Taken. The Limper and Soulcatcher are deadly rivals; since the Company was recruited by Soulcatcher, that makes the Limper an enemy to beware.

After weeks of trying to link up with the Limper's forces, the Company (at Soulcatcher's suggestion) takes an important rebel fortress, embarrassing both the Limper and Raker, a leading member of the Circle of Eighteen. The Limper sends his top aide, Colonel Zouad, to stir up trouble for the Company, but Elmo, the Company's Sergeant, leaks his whereabouts to the rebels, allowing them to abduct him for information. Zouad manages to contact the Limper, but Soulcatcher has other plans. When the Limper cracks open the underground room where his minion is being held, Soulcatcher's Taken ally, Shapeshifter, is waiting disguised as a rebel and unexpectedly stuns him with magic. Shifter then rolls the incapacitated Limper into the cellar and causes it to collapse in on itself. Another victory for the Company, another humiliation for the Limper. While the Limper is not killed, this slows him down for a time.

While the Limper is absent from his post, Raker's troops attack and part of the front collapses. The Company is caught up in the general retreat but shows itself to be the Lady's most effective unit in the ensuing battles. The Captain is given authority normally reserved for the Taken.

Raker is targeted next. The Company's wizards, with Soulcatcher's backing, display a fortune in gold, silver and jewels (protected by magic) in a nearby, neutral city – a bounty for his head. Raker has no choice but to try to steal it before half the world tries to collect. Isolated when he ignores the Circle's order to withdraw, he is eventually killed by Raven and Croaker, but not before his disobedience saps the morale of the rebels in the region.

Retreating once more, the Company stumbles upon and captures a rebel training camp. Papers are found that belong to Whisper, the strongest member of the Circle and a military genius as well. One details a future meeting with the Limper, who is ready to defect as a result of his string of disasters. Soulcatcher, Raven and Croaker ambush them. All the while Croaker has a nagging suspicion that someone is watching them who he later learns was Silent which was who he thought it was the whole time. They are captured alive and presented to the Lady, the Limper to face her wrath and Whisper to take her place among the Taken. Limper is sentenced to centuries of torture by the Lady.

After the Lady uses magic she learned from the Dominator to gain Whisper's unswerving loyalty, the new Taken is sent to the eastern front. The war becomes a race: the rebel armies in the north, under the overall command of Circle wizard Harden, drive the Imperial forces back towards the Tower at Charm, the headquarters of the Lady, while Whisper runs amok in the east, laying waste to the heartland of the rebellion.

Harden is killed, but takes the Taken The Hanged Man with him. The Circle suffers more casualties, but massive rebel forces besiege the Tower. A daring sortie by the Company captures the wizards Feather and Journey, weakening the Circle further; they are transported to the Tower to share Whisper's fate.

The battle for the Tower begins. The Circle's forces number a quarter of a million while the Lady can muster a mere twenty-one thousand. Yet so dangerous are the Lady and the Taken that the Circle delays, hoping to find the prophesied reincarnation of the White Rose to lead them. A great comet hangs in the sky for most of the battle. This is a symbol of the prophecy which says: the Lady and the Dominator will be defeated under a comet's fiery tail. Finally, it is forced to attack without her before the empire's victorious eastern armies can arrive. All of the Taken gather to bolster the defenses, killing the remaining members of the Circle, when they're not busy assassinating each other. Except for Soulcatcher, all of the original Taken are slain, some by the rebels, but more from internal backstabbing. During the fighting, Croaker observes that Darling seems to be immune to magic. Finally, the rebels are utterly devastated.

Then, with her plot to take over the empire discovered, Soulcatcher flees, but the Lady, with Croaker along as a witness, tracks her down. The physician shoots her with magical arrows supplied by the Lady and then beheads her. Croaker then learns that Soulcatcher is the Lady's own sister. Afterwards, he speculates that this was what the Lady had intended all along: not only to crush the revolt, but also to rid herself of all the treacherous Taken.

During the confusion, Raven deserts because he knows something he does not want the Lady to learn, taking Darling with him. Raven, Croaker and Silent all seem to believe that Darling is the reincarnated White Rose, who will oppose the Lady and defeat the Empire.

The Black Company is ordered to march thousands of miles across the Lady's vast empire to the Barrowland. A small detachment, including the Company's doctor and historian, Croaker, is flown to Juniper, a run-down port outside the empire, at the request of the local prince, to investigate its magical connection to the Barrowland.

By coincidence, Raven, a deserter from the Company, and his ward Darling are living at Marron Shed's dilapidated hotel in Juniper. Raven has been accumulating money any way he can, including selling dead (and almost dead) bodies to the non-human residents of a mysterious black castle that is steadily growing, fueling the unease of the city's residents. Shed also desperately needs money, to pay his loanshark Krage. Raven does him a favor by letting him participate in his body-selling venture. When Raven and Shed find out that Shed's acquaintance, Asa, has been robbing the dead in the Catacombs, they follow suit. A minor incident escalates into a life-and-death struggle between Krage and Raven, which the former loses; Krage and many of his henchmen are sold for a hefty sum to the castle.

Two of the Lady's most powerful wizards, Whisper and Feather, arrive in Juniper to investigate the castle and determine that it is an attempt by the Dominator to escape. Raven, while trying to protect Darling, had been unwittingly aiding her worst enemy. If the castle gets sufficient bodies to grow large enough, the Dominator will be freed.

Once he learns of Raven's presence, Croaker becomes worried, for he knows why Raven deserted: Darling is the reincarnation of the White Rose, the nemesis of both the Lady and the Dominator. If the Lady ever found out, Croaker and the rest of the Company would be done for. Fortunately, Raven and Darling sail away as soon as the winter ice melts, taking Asa with them, in the ship Raven had built with his ill-gotten loot.

Shed continues to have money troubles, forcing him to sell his embezzling cousin and a treacherous lover to the castle, but is finally caught by the Company. Croaker realizes that he cannot risk handing him over to Whisper for questioning, as the Company's connection to Darling would be revealed, so he fakes Shed's death. Asa returns to the town shortly afterwards, bringing news that Raven has been killed.

Meanwhile, fierce fighting breaks out between the castle's inhabitants and the Lady's forces, now including the Lady herself, the rehabilitated Limper, Feather and Journey, as well as the remainder of the Black Company. Feather is slain. In the confusion of the climactic battle, Croaker, Shed, Asa, the Lieutenant and many of the old-time Company members sail away, rightfully fearing that the Lady will learn the truth about Darling. The Company's Captain dies when he tries in a heroic attempt to save the company by making sure the Lady's carpet cannot be used to chase them down. He does this by flying it on a suicide run into a cliff. The Lieutenant takes command of the Company.

At the next port, the fleeing band find Raven's ship. Croaker determines that their friend had only staged his death and the men begin searching for him and Darling. In the process, they discover that some of the Dominator's minions had slipped away from Juniper and planted the seed for another castle in a new, more secluded spot. Croaker informs the Lady when she contacts him magically.

Back in Juniper, the Lady emerges victorious over her husband. Whisper and the Limper then take an unauthorized side trip to track down the remnants of the Company. The Lieutenant barely gets away in the ship with most of the men, but Croaker, Shed, Silent, Goblin, One-Eye and a few others are left behind. With no other choice, they ambush the Taken and succeed in hurting them badly enough to get away, though Shed is killed.

When they link up with the Lieutenant in another port town, they learn that he had found Darling, and Raven had died in an accident immediately prior to his arrival. They become Rebels—the very group they were fighting against—to protect Darling who is The White Rose. They then prepare to spend the next twenty-nine years on the run, waiting for the return of the Great Comet, which prophecies say will signal the downfall of the Lady.

The Black Company has taken refuge from the Lady in the Plain of Fear. Its magical, non-human denizens are powerful enough to daunt even her. Among them is Old Father Tree, a god manifesting itself as a tree planted in the exact center of the plain. From this sanctuary, the White Rose rebuilds and directs the rebellion.

No wizard in the world can rival the Lady's magical skill and power, but the White Rose is immune to magic and as she matures, the magic-free zone around her expands. (This explains how her former incarnation was able to defeat the Lady and the Dominator.)

After several years of relative peace, the pace picks up. The Taken and their armies gather on the borders of the plain, threatening to swamp the vastly outnumbered rebels. Also, couriers begin arriving from the far eastern reaches of the empire, among them Tracker and Toadkiller Dog, a man and his mutt. Each messenger bears a letter for Croaker, describing what some unnamed rebel spy has found out about Bomanz. The last letter claims that the wizard knew the Lady's true name. With the situation becoming increasingly desperate, the White Rose sends Croaker and wizards Goblin and One-Eye to retrieve that vital bit of information. Tracker volunteers to go with them as a guide.

When they reach the end of their journey, they soon discover that the letter-writer was Raven, a former Company stalwart (who had staged his death at the end of ''Shadows Linger''). He had made his way to the Barrowland and started doing odd jobs for the soldiers garrisoned there. Once he gained their trust, he received permission to live in Bomanz's old house, where he covertly searched for the old wizard's papers. What he found made him attempt something beyond his abilities; he used a spell to send his spirit to check on the Dominator. His worst fears were confirmed; the bloodthirsty tyrant was awake and actively working to free himself. Fleeing in panic, Raven made a mistake, allowing two of the lesser imprisoned creatures to free themselves and leaving him trapped.

Croaker's men search Raven's house, but they arouse the Barrowland guardians' suspicions and are brought in for questioning. With their cover blown, they flee into the surrounding forest, taking Raven's vacant body and the papers he found. When they have trouble shaking their pursuers, Croaker deliberately allows himself to be captured as a distraction. He is taken to the Lady, who has unexpectedly grown fond of him.

With the imminent threat of the Dominator looming, she goes with Croaker to see the White Rose, to form an alliance against their common foe. Goblin, One-Eye, Tracker and Toadkiller Dog return shortly afterwards. They all gather in front of Old Father Tree, who recognizes them, especially the latter two. Unmasked as the escaped servants of the Dominator, they try to kill the White Rose and the Lady, but Toadkiller Dog is driven off and Tracker converted into Old Father Tree's slave. Scorn and Blister, two of the new Taken, try to assassinate their mistress but fail and pay the ultimate price for their treachery.

Soon, both the Black Company and the Lady and her minions travel back to the Barrowland to confront the Dominator, taking along a sapling, the offspring of Old Father Tree. There, both Bomanz and Raven are revived. Meanwhile, Toadkiller Dog lurks uncaptured, awaiting his chance to help his master. While preparations are being made, the Lady, emotionally vulnerable due to her growing fear of the outcome, and Croaker grow closer.

The final battle begins. The White Rose carefully approaches the burial mounds of each of the lesser minions, one by one, nullifying the spells that bind them. When they emerge, they are powerless within her zone of influence and relatively easy to kill. Finally, it is the turn of the Dominator. Even without his magic, he is practically immortal and immensely powerful, but eventually he is overcome, though at the cost of the Lieutenant and Elmo. His body is burned, his malevolent spirit infused into a silver spike which is driven into the trunk of the scion of Old Father Tree.

In the aftermath, the Limper tries to utter the Lady's true name, but guesses the wrong one. His head is chopped off by Croaker while he is helpless in the White Rose's vicinity. Then the Lady speaks the name of the White Rose, depriving her of her unique ability. Finally, Silent, of all people, speaking for the first time in Croaker's memory, truly names the Lady, rendering her powerless. Because the Lady had tied the Taken to her fate, the Taken are destroyed. The remnants of the Company, now led by Croaker as the highest ranked surviving officer, sneak away, taking the not-unwilling Lady with them.

The Dominator was a wizard of immense power who could not be killed by his enemies. He was, however, defeated and his evil essence imprisoned in a silver spike. The power inherent in the spike is so greatly feared and desired that some try to steal it, while others try to keep it from falling into anyone's hands.

Frank Towns is the pilot of a twin-engine Fairchild C-82 Packet cargo plane flying from Jaghbub to Benghazi in Libya; Lew Moran is the navigator. Passengers include Capt. Harris and Sgt. Watson of the British Army; Dr. Renaud, a French physician; Heinrich Dorfmann, a German aeronautical engineer; and an oil company accountant named Standish. There are also several oil workers, including Trucker Cobb, a foreman suffering from mental fatigue; Ratbags Crow, a cocky Scot; Carlos and his pet monkey; and Gabriel.

A sudden sandstorm disables the engines, forcing Towns to crash-land in the desert. As the aircraft comes to a stop, two workers are killed and Gabriel's leg is severely injured.

The radio is unusable, and the survivors are too far off course to be found by searchers. Aboard the plane is a large quantity of pitted dates but only enough water for ten to fifteen days if rationed. Captain Harris sets out to try and find an oasis. When Sgt. Watson feigns an injury to stay behind, Carlos volunteers, leaving his pet monkey with Bellamy. Harris and Towns refuse to allow the mentally-unstable Cobb to go along, but Cobb defiantly follows anyway and later dies of exposure in the desert. Days later, Harris returns to the crash site alone and barely alive. Sgt. Watson discovers and then ignores him, though others later find him.

Meanwhile, Dorfmann proposes a radical idea: building a new aircraft from the wreckage. The C-82 has twin booms extending rearwards from each engine and connected by the horizontal stabilizer. Dorfmann wants to attach the outer sections of both wings to the left engine and left boom, discarding the center fuselage and both inner wing sections of the aircraft. The men will ride atop the wings. Towns and Moran believe he is either joking or delusional. The argument is complicated by a personality clash between Towns, a proud traditionalist aviator, and Dorfmann, a young, arrogant engineer. Moran struggles to maintain the peace.

Towns initially resists Dorfmann's plan, though Renaud sways his opinion, saying activity and hope will help sustain the men's morale. Dorfmann supervises the reconstruction, while Towns remains skeptical. During the work, the fatally-injured Gabriel commits suicide, depressing the men to where they consider abandoning the new plane's construction. Dorfmann, caught exceeding his water ration, justifies it, saying he has been the only one working continuously. He promises to not do it again but demands everyone work equally hard from then on.

Standish christens the nearly completed aircraft, "Phoenix", after the mythical bird that is reborn from its own ashes. When a band of Arabs camp nearby, Harris and Renaud leave to make contact while the others (and the aircraft) remain hidden. The two men are found murdered the next day. Additionally, Towns and Moran are stunned to learn that Dorfmann designs model airplanes rather than full-sized aircraft. Dorfmann defends himself, claiming the aerodynamic principles are the same, and many model planes require more exacting designs than full-size aircraft. With no other choice, Towns and Moran forge ahead with the plan without telling the others about Dorfmann.

The Phoenix is completed but untested. Only seven starter cartridges are available to ignite the engine. The first four startup attempts are unsuccessful. Over Dorfmann's vehement objections, Towns fires the fifth cartridge with the ignition off to clear the engine's cylinders. The next startup is successful. The men pull the Phoenix to a nearby hilltop, then climb onto the wings. When Towns guns the engine, the Phoenix slides down the hill and over a lake bed before taking off. After a successful landing at an oasis with a manned oil rig, the men celebrate and Towns and Dorfmann are reconciled.

Following the defeat of the Dominator at the Barrowlands, the Black Company is down to just six men; Croaker, physician, annalist, and the newly elected captain; Goblin and One-Eye, company wizards; Otto and Hagop, company veterans; and Murgen, the company standard bearer. The Lady, formerly a powerful sorceress and ruler of the Empire of the North, follows along with the company, despondent as she deals with her newfound mortality.

Having decided to journey to Khatovar, the long lost birthplace of the Black Company, the remaining members first travel with the Lady to the Tower at Charm, where the Lady returns the lost annals to Croaker. After relaxing at the Tower for several weeks while the Lady attends to business, Croaker eventually decides to leave without the Lady, arriving at Opal after a couple weeks. Before the Company sets sail across the Sea of Torments, however, the Lady surprises everyone by appearing to join Croaker for a romantic evening, joining them on their journey south.

As the Company continues to travel south, they eventually reach the Temple of Traveler's Repose, where they are able to recover several volumes of annals that were lost long ago. Although the annals give insight into much of the Company's history, the annals containing the origin of the Company and the location of Khatovar are still missing.

The Company's journey south continues through swamps and jungles, where they arrive at the city of Gea-Xle. Here, the company meets the offspring of previous Company members. The Nar, as they are called, are led by Mogaba, a powerful, athletic soldier who is as capable a leader as he is a soldier. The Nar join with the Company, who is recruited to help disperse pirates who have become a nuisance on the trade routes to the south. After outfitting a barge as a military vessel, the Company with their new recruits travels south along the river, where they encounter the pirates after a few days. The Company easily routs the pirates' first attack, but the pirates return a few days later with a vengeance, as well as with a powerful sorcerer on their side. Although the Company is able to defend the barge from the attacking pirates, the pirate sorcerer is too powerful for One-Eye and Goblin to deal with. When it looks like the battle will turn in favor of the pirates, Croaker confronts Lady about a friend she took on in Gea-Xle, who it turns out is the former Taken Shapeshifter. With Shifter's help, the enemy sorcerer is forced to flee, upon which the Company realizes they were dealing with another former Taken in The Howler.

Continuing south, the Company meets two northerners by the names of Willow Swan and Cordy Mather, as well as their friend Blade, who are escorting the Radisha Drah, a noble from the city of Taglios. When the Company reaches Taglios, they are greeted as returning champions by the populace. Croaker, naturally suspicious, meets with the crown prince, the Prahbrindrah Drah, who is in cahoots with Swan and Mather. The Prahbrindrah Drah tries to convince the Company to help them defend Taglios from the invading Shadowmasters, a group of sorcerers from the south that threaten the city. After scouting the area for themselves, Croaker is convinced that the only way to Khatovar is through the Shadowlands, and the Black Company is forced to join forces with the Taglians to try to fight their way through the Shadowlands.

After a monumental effort trying to train the Taglians into soldiers, the Black Company wins a couple of dramatic victories over the invading armies of the Shadowmasters, and so the Company presses the attack into the Shadowlands. After arriving at the city of Stormguard (previously Dejagore), the Company encounters another enemy army and the first of the Shadowmasters. While the Company prepares to attack, Croaker and Lady, who have been developing a tenuous relationship throughout the journey south, finally consummate their relationship the night before the attack. The following morning, the Company wins another battle against the enemy armies, and Croaker prepares a trick to enter the city that night. With the ruse working to perfection, the Company storms the castle at Stormguard, where they find Shifter and one of the enemy Shadowmasters tangled in battle. It turns out the Shadowmaster is in fact the Taken called Stormbringer, who was previously thought to have been dead. She and Shapeshifter fight to near-death, and when they are both weakened One-Eye knocks them both unconscious, and then disposes of them both.

The following day, another Shadowmaster army approaches from the south, and the Black Company prepares for a final battle to break the last of the Shadowmaster forces. In the ensuing battle, it appears that the Company will eventually win, but the fighting becomes chaotic. During the melee, the Lady is swarmed by opponents, and Croaker, who is shot in the chest by an arrow, is abducted by the former Taken Soulcatcher.

The show is about two friends from Union, Ohio, named Derrick (Taran Killam) and Will (Paul Campbell), who send a home video to every network, claiming they can produce a better sitcom than the ones currently being broadcast. The WB takes them up on this offer. Derrick and Will are taken to The WB studios, where they meet the head of The WB, Jeff Tucker (Paul Adelstein), Creative VP Roy Ingold (Bob Clendenin), and Tucker's assistant, whom he introduces as Jill Something (Lauren Bittner). Tucker tells them to create their own sitcom, while working in various sitcom-related sets. In addition, a reality show will be made about their sitcom's birth. Thus, the pair has a camera crew following them around The WB studios, when they are not on the sets, and a live studio audience, when they are working on the sets.

After setting the scene, the rest of the episode focuses on Derrick and Will's first day trying to come up with a sitcom. Over the course of the episode, they hire Jill Something as their assistant and make a pity-hire of Mandy (Mircea Monroe), who had just been fired from The WB gift shop. Meanwhile, Tucker and Ingold interfere by trying to introduce narrative conflicts into the show. Tucker tells Derrick he would rather continue the show without Will and demands that Mandy kiss Will, even though she prefers Derrick.

The title of the show is explained in the last scene: the cast is hanging out in the sitcom set, with the live audience reacting as if it is an actual show, which Mandy thinks is weird but is told to just pretend that "nobody's watching". Will says that "nobody's watching" is a perfect name for the sitcom they are developing (thus, ''Nobody's Watching'' is the name of the fake sitcom in the fake reality television show, ''Nobody's Watching''). Derrick protests that "nobody's watching" is a terrible name, because critics will constantly ridicule them with comments like "nobody's watching ''Nobody's Watching''!" He declares that it would be insane to name a television show that. This is immediately followed by the announcer saying "Next week, on ''Nobody's Watching!''..."

The book follows the storyline of both Lady and Croaker, who have been separated from the Black Company after the company's defeat at the end of ''Shadow Games''. Lady was separated as she was overwhelmed by dying soldiers and her story begins with her digging herself out of the pile. She quickly hooks up with two strange men, Narayan Singh and his partner Ram. Lady, with those two, begins to re-assemble the army of Taglios. Lady is much different from Croaker's style of managing the people of Taglios, eliminating those who try to stand against her.

Narayan Singh is a leader in a shadow religious group who are known as The Deceivers, and worship the goddess of Kina. Kina is a Goddess of Death, and the Deceivers are trying to bring her back to this world. Lady believes that she is using the Deceivers to further her agenda, while avoiding the seduction that Kina appears to be trying against her.

While Lady builds up the Taglios army, Croaker is in the company of Soulcatcher—Lady's sister. Soulcatcher wants Croaker for two reasons: to heal her of the wounds that she received in the Books of the North, as well as to take revenge out on her sister. Soulcatcher's agenda is to spread chaos. She dresses as Lady and attacks the Shadowmaster's army to sow confusion of where anyone is. Her plan backfires as Longshadow, along with his new ally Howler, kidnap her instead of Lady. Longshadow wishes to use the knowledge that Lady has to further his own agenda. With Soulcatcher taken away, Croaker uses that freedom to escape and rejoin the army of Taglios.

Lady and Croaker miss each other and end up on opposite sides of the river, when river rises and makes fording impossible. Lady discovers that she is pregnant with Croaker's child. At the end of the book, it is revealed that the Deceivers came for her baby and escaped. Kina was not after Lady, but Lady's child.

The film is told in an extended flashback. Lorenz Lubota (Alfred Abel), is a clerk in a minor government office, an aspiring poet, and a member of a family headed by a worrisome mother who has a tense relationship with a daughter, Melanie, whom the mother believes works as a prostitute. One day, while Lorenz is walking to work, a woman (Lya De Putti) driving two white horses hits him in the road, knocking him to the ground. Physically, he is unharmed, but from that point forward, the woman in the carriage (named Veronika) consumes his every thought.

His obsession with Veronika costs him his job when he fails to show up for work and threatens his boss for accusing him of stalking her. Believing his poems will be published and anticipating a meeting with a publisher, Lorenz asks his Aunt Schwabe (Grete Berger)—a cutthroat pawnbroker—for money to buy a new suit. Schwabe's assistant, Wigottschinski (Anton Edthofer), encourages Lorenz to celebrate and they reunite with Lorenz's sister, who becomes Wigottschinski's girlfriend. Unable to contact Veronika, who is wealthy and engaged to someone of her own class, Lorenz instead begins courting a golddigger who looks like Veronika (also played by Lya De Putti), lavishing her with expensive things, all the while reliving the day he was run over in his mind again and again. In the meantime Lorenz's mother's health begins to deteriorate due to her worries over her son's and her daughter's actions, and Lorenz's friend Marie (Lil Dagover) and her father learn that Lorenz's poems will not be published after all.

Wigottschinski swindles more money out of Schwabe and gives Lorenz a sizable amount. However, Aunt Schwabe becomes suspicious and discovers that Lorenz will not be a published poet, and she angrily demands that he pay back the money after three days or else she will notify the police. Desperate, Lorenz agrees to Wigottschinski's plan to break into her house after she has gone to sleep and to steal enough money to pay back the loan. She wakes up and discovers them, running to the window to call for the police. A struggle ensues, and Wigottschinski kills her, while Melanie runs off and eventually briefly reunites with her mother before disappearing.

Lorenz is arrested and sent to prison. After his release, the film returns to the present, where Lorenz is finishing writing his life story down, in an attempt to purge his mind from the phantom woman who continually hits him in her carriage. Lorenz also now has a new life with Marie.

Taking place in part during the events of Dreams of Steel, which was told from the point of view of Lady, this story examines the events surrounding Murgen, who is trapped within the siege of Dejagore where atrocities are being committed by both sides. The book also examines events later in Taglios under rule of the Liberator and the increasing tensions between the Black Company and the Radisha, as well as the ever-present threats from the Stranglers and of some new deception by Soulcatcher and the Howler. Bleak Seasons is unique among the Black Company series for the unusual narrative device of Murgen being totally unfixed in time and uncertain of when he will experience another seizure and move between distant past, recent past and a vaguely comprehended present. This narrative device is followed through three-quarters of the novel until we come to understand the traumas that have led Murgen to this point, while the enchantment that has made it possible remains unclear. The tone is introspective, haunted and mysterious. This novel introduces several key elements and characters to the series, including visions of the frozen caverns, Sahra, Uncle Doj, Mother Gota, One-Eye's black spear, and the manipulation of the comatose wizard Smoke.

In an unnamed Latin American republic, in a remote mountainous region of the country, police sergeant Agustin Rejas, a former lawyer who left a job with a prestigious firm to join the police, is in charge of a little used checkpoint. When a pickup truck is stopped at the checkpoint, Rejas grows suspicious of the truck’s occupants. He questions a passenger, who claims to be a laborer but is obviously educated and well spoken. While Rejas is momentarily distracted, a corrupt subordinate solicits a bribe and allows the party to leave.

Several years later, Rejas has been promoted to lieutenant and resides in the capital with his wife and teenage daughter. Struggling to make ends meet on a police salary, Rejas visits his daughter’s ballet teacher, Yolanda, to pay a long-overdue bill. Rejas strikes up a friendship with Yolanda, who tells him that his daughter has a special gift for dance. He finds her a refreshing change from his flighty, self-centered wife, and he is captivated after seeing her dance alone in her studio. The two stop short of beginning an affair - for now.

While working a security detail at a diplomatic reception, Rejas is recognized by lawyer Tristan Calderon, a shadowy figure with ties to narcotics traffickers and the new presidential administration. Meanwhile, Rejas and his subordinate Sucre discover a series of dead dogs hanging from lampposts, all affixed with placards referencing Maoist ideology and a “President Ezequiel.” Shortly thereafter, the name Ezequiel is invoked during a suicide bombing in the capital.

Fearing that political instability will invite democratic backsliding, the chief of police promotes Rejas to captain and tasks him with investigating Ezequiel within the bounds of judicial process. Rejas and his team determine that Ezequiel is the ''nom de guerre'' of a Maoist terrorist leader responsible for a series of atrocities committed in the country's mountains, which were overlooked due to a breakdown in central authority toward the end of military rule. Rejas quickly identifies a prime suspect: Edgardo Rivas, a former academic who considers himself the “fourth flame of Communism.” Rejas recognizes Rivas as the purported laborer he interrogated at the police checkpoint in the mountains. Ezequiel wages a terror campaign in the capital, and after two senior officials are assassinated, Calderon, now the president’s chief adviser, imposes martial law. The Ezequiel investigation is transferred to a military death squad. When Rejas protests, Calderon allows his investigation to continue, but with military oversight.

Rejas and his investigators locate a videotape that confirms Ezequiel’s identity as Rivas and suggests that his hideout is located on one of two residential streets in the capital. Rejas conceals this discovery from Calderon, allowing the police to bring the investigation to a close without military interference. After an exhaustive investigation, his team locates Rivas’ hideout in an upper level of the building housing Yolanda’s ballet studio. Rejas succeeds in apprehending Rivas and his associates without bloodshed, but learns, to his astonishment, that Yolanda is one of Rivas’ operatives.

Rejas ensures that the Ezequiel suspects receive due process, becoming a hero to the political opposition and a plausible contender for the presidency. Meanwhile, Rivas, Yolanda, and their associates are sentenced to life imprisonment under harsh conditions. Rejas meets with Calderon and offers to refrain from a presidential candidacy in exchange for the commutation of Yolanda’s sentence. Calderon agrees to the deal and informs Rejas that, to save face, the president will soon appoint him to a judgeship. Before departing, he marvels at Rejas’ willingness to turn down the presidency, revealing a letter from Yolanda in which she permanently rejects Rejas. The film concludes as Rejas arrives at his daughter’s ballet recital, catching his breath as he sees her dance.

The play covers the trial, condemnation, and execution of Joan, but has a highly unusual ending. Joan remembers important events in her life as she is being questioned, and is subsequently condemned to death. However, Cauchon realizes, just as Joan is burning at the stake, that in her judges' hurry to condemn her, they have not allowed her to re-live the coronation of Charles VII of France. The fire is therefore extinguished, and Joan is given a reprieve. The actual end of the story is left in question, but Cauchon proclaims it a victory for Joan.

A mysterious old woman named Malla (Estelle Hemsley) who claims to have been brought to America 140 years ago as a slave approaches endocrinologist Dr. Paul Talbot (Terry) and promises to reveal to him the secret of eternal youth if he will fund her final trip back to Africa, so that she can be beautiful and young for one last night before she dies.

Paul is unhappily married to the alcoholic June (Gray), who is 10 years his elder. Paul prefers younger women. "Old women," he says, "give me the creeps." They follow Malla to Africa and witness a secret ceremony of the Nando tribe that utilizes orchid pollen and a sacrificial male's pineal gland secretions. The secretions, extracted from the back of the neck via a special ring and mixed with the pollen, temporarily transform Malla into a young, beautiful woman (Kim Hamilton).

After discovering that her conniving husband only brought her along as "a guinea pig who could talk," June takes revenge, choosing him to be sacrificed so that she can use his pineal gland extract to become young again herself, though Malla warns her that the transformation will not last long. She steals the ring and pollen, kills her jungle guide (John van Dreelen) and returns to the United States. Masquerading as her own niece, Terry Hart, she keeps herself young by picking up men and killing them for their pineal extract. But each time the potion wears off, she is older than she was before.

As Terry, June quickly becomes enamored of her lawyer Neil Foster (Williams), a man half her actual age. She kills his jealous fiancée Sally Howards (Talbott), draining her pineal gland and eliminating Sally as competition.

When the police come to investigate the murders that June has committed, she uses Sally's pineal gland extract but finds that it does not work because it is from a woman. Before the police can arrest her, she throws herself out her bedroom window, crashes to the ground and dies. When they see her body, it is much older and much more shriveled than ever.

Cook brings the latest cycle of the Black Company saga to a major climax, as disaster survivors regroup in Taglios and set out to free their fellow warriors held in stasis beneath the glittering plain. They arrive just in time for a magical conflagration that will reveal the bones of the world and the history of the Company.

''Water Sleeps'' is set with most of the leadership of the Company in Stasis, while the remaining company fights a guerilla war. The company is both pitted against the last remaining Shadowmaster, Soulcatcher, a Sorceress of epic power, and the subtle machinations of the sleeping Goddess of Death and her Deceivers.

Croaker, no longer dictator of Taglios or Captain of the Company, resumes his old role as Annalist. Sleepy is now Captain, and no Black Company member has died in battle for four years. But when the Company's old adversaries try to bring about the apocalyptic Year of the Skulls, the Company is brought to the edge of destruction.

Corporal John Bramble is the sole survivor of a British tank crew after Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps capture Tobruk in June 1942 and pursue the British into Egypt. He stumbles across the North African desert into the town of Sidi Halfaya, where he finds the Empress of Britain, a small, isolated hotel owned by Farid. The only other employee is the French chambermaid Mouche, as the cook fled with the British and the waiter Davos was killed the night before by German bombing.

Farid hides the unconscious Bramble when the swiftly advancing Germans take over the hotel to use as headquarters for Field Marshal Rommel and his staff. Bramble assumes the identity of Davos to save himself. When Rommel summons him to a private chat, Bramble is stunned to discover that Davos was a valued German spy, but manages to play along. He learns that he is to be sent to Cairo next.

Later, he steals a pistol from genial, music-loving Italian General Sebastiano, planning to serve the field marshal a bullet rather than coffee the next morning. Not wanting trouble, Mouche steals the pistol and waits on Rommel herself. When some captured British officers are brought to the hotel for a luncheon with Rommel, one of them (a past guest) realizes that Davos has been replaced. Bramble privately explains who he is and what he plans to do. The officer orders him to use his position of trust to gather military intelligence instead.

At the luncheon, Rommel teases his guests, allowing them to ask him twenty questions about his future plans. Bramble listens with interest. From the conversation and later remarks by Rommel, he eventually deduces that the field marshal, disguised as an archeologist before the war, had secretly prepared five hidden supply dumps, the "Five Graves to Cairo", for the conquest of Egypt. The final piece of the puzzle (their locations) falls into place when Bramble realizes that Rommel's cryptic references to points Y, P, and T refer to the precise locations of the letters of the word "Egypt" printed on his map.

Meanwhile, Bramble and Mouche clash. She despises the British, believing they abandoned the French, including her two brothers, at Dunkirk. He in turn becomes disgusted at how she plays up to the Germans. As it turns out, Mouche's motives are not mercenary; she pleads with Rommel to release her wounded soldier brother from a concentration camp. He is unmoved, but his aide, Lieutenant Schwegler, is more appreciative of her charms. He pretends to help her, showing her fake telegrams to and from Germany.

That night however, when everyone takes shelter in the cellar during an Allied air raid, Schwegler discovers the body of the real Davos (identified by his clubfoot), uncovered by the bombing. In the noise and confusion of the raid, Schwegler chases Bramble through the darkened hotel, before Bramble kills the German and hides the body in Mouche's part of the servants' room. When Mouche finds out, she threatens to unmask him. However, she has a change of heart. Schwegler's body is soon found, and Rommel accuses her of killing his aide when she discovered he was lying about trying to get her brother released. To protect Bramble, Mouche confirms this. Bramble leaves for Cairo, but arranges for Farid to present evidence the next day at Mouche's trial that "Davos" committed the crime.

Bramble's information allows the British to blow up the dumps and thus thwart Rommel's plans, culminating in the Second Battle of El Alamein. When Bramble returns to Sidi Halfaya in triumph with his unit, he learns the Germans executed Mouche, even though she was exonerated of Schwegler's murder, because she would not stop saying that the British would be back. Bramble takes the parasol he bought her in Cairo, something she always wanted, and uses it to provide shade for her grave.

A failed actor returns to his small hometown, unaware that he has become a local celebrity. Taking advantage of his newfound fame, he attempts to impress an old unrequited crush who has fallen on hard times.

''Kya: Dark Lineage'' begins with the protagonist Kya and her half-brother Frank home alone. In her upstairs bedroom, Kya hears a suspicious noise and follows it downstairs to finds Frank in a previously unknown room in the basement. While speaking about Kya's father, Frank unwittingly finishes a mysterious puzzle on a table, opening a portal which sucks in both Kya and Frank. Kya awakens with three Nativs (animal-like creatures) looking down on her. They are then ambushed and chased through a jungle by feral werewolves called the Wolfen/Wolfun. All but one of the Nativs were captured during the chase. Kya and Aton eventually reach a strange village, called Nativ City, and meets the village leader Atea.

Atea explains that the Wolfen/Wolfun are merely Nativs mutated by Brazul (formerly Alan), Kya's father. Kya resolves to save Frank and is introduced to Akasa, who teaches her how to fight using mystical bracelets which greatly enhance her strength. Kya is blessed with a power which allows her to exorcize unconscious Wolfen/Wolfun and transform them back into Nativs.

In return for freeing the excorcized Nativs, Atea agrees to help Kya find her half-brother. Kya learns she must find a magical medallion which will allow her to return to her own universe. The medallion was split into seven runes, emblems made of pure energy, which must be housed in a special amulet. During the course of tracking down the runes, Aton leads Kya to an industrialized area dedicated to mining magical amber. Aton betrays Kya, allowing Brazul to ambush her. During the course of the fight Kya collapses part of the mine to escape.

Eventually she discovers that Frank is being held in Brazul's laboratory, and she assaults the complex to rescue him. Upon arriving in the lab proper, she is horrified to learn that Brazul has turned Frank into a Wolfen/Wolfun. Kya defeats the Wolfen/Wolfun Frank and performs the exorcism ritual which returns him to his human form. Kya goes on to gather the last runes required to return home though she is ambushed again by Brazul, who takes the seven runes from her. Kya learns that she is a half alien and she escapes her imprisonment.

Kya journeys to Brazul's fortress, she fights and knocks out Aton who is now a Wolfen/Wolfun but when she gets the chance to exorcise him she doesn't because of falling, heavy crystals. Kya then heads for Brazul and the runes. After a difficult battle, Kya defeats Brazul and returns victorious to a cheering Nativ City, where she activates the portal and finds herself in a desolate place which is not her home. Kya and Frank are in a desert island and are attacked by a creature.

The story ends here, but if all the wolfens are all exorcised it cuts to the credits.

18-year-old April Lancaster, the child of Janice and Hugh Lancaster, enters the hospital for testing as she has been suffering from headaches, blackouts, and eventually passed out in English class.

During this time, April becomes acquainted with Mark Gianni, who suffers from cystic fibrosis, and has been in and out of the hospital since he was born. Mark is very interested in April, and even tells her that he intends to marry her, but she declines his offer to go out, as she already has a boyfriend, Chris.

April is told by her doctor that she has an inoperable brain tumor, a recurrence of the case she had as a five-year-old, and needs to start radiation treatments. Soon after breaking the news to Chris, he ends their relationship, and April begins to date Mark.

Over time, the two fall in love, and Mark proposes to April. She accepts, although her parents aren't thrilled about the match. Eventually, they do reconcile to the idea.

Shortly afterward, the car that Mark is driving in during a race (he is an avid racing fan) flips over and ignites. Mark survives the crash, but he develops pneumonia and dies.

The book ends with April and her parents in St. Croix for a vacation. April releases a red balloon for Mark, as he had once done for her.

The sequel, ''For Better, For Worse, Forever'' begins with April in St. Croix.

At a bus stop in a rough part of town, a carrot-eating drifter and military veteran named Smith sees a pregnant woman on the verge of giving birth while fleeing a hitman. Following them into a warehouse, Smith kills the hitman by stabbing him in the face with a carrot and retrieves the woman's pistol. As more thugs, led by a ruthless man named Hertz, arrive, the woman goes into labor and Smith delivers her baby boy during a shootout. Pursued by Hertz, the woman is shot dead; Smith narrowly escapes with the newborn.

Leaving the baby in a park, Smith hopes someone will adopt the child, but a passing woman is killed with a shot from Hertz's sniper rifle. Realizing that Hertz is trying to kill the baby, Smith saves him and tries unsuccessfully to leave him with a prostitute named Donna Quintano. Hertz soon arrives at the brothel and tortures Donna for information; Smith returns and kills Hertz's henchmen. After a brief confrontation, Smith shoots Hertz and leaves with Donna and the baby. Having secretly worn a bulletproof vest, however, Hertz is alive albeit wounded.

Taking Donna to his hideout, Smith realizes that the baby (whom he names Oliver) stops crying when he hears heavy metal music; he concludes that Oliver's mother lived near a heavy metal club. Pursued by Hertz, Smith shoots his way out of the hideout, and he and Donna head to a nearby club. Above the club they discover an apartment with medical equipment and two dead, pregnant women; Smith concludes that the women were all impregnated with one man's sperm in order to give birth to matching bone marrow donors.

While they are having sex in a motel room, Smith and Donna are attacked by masked men; Smith notices that his assailants' weapons are Hammerson models, unavailable to the public. He brings Donna and Oliver to a war museum and hides them in a M24 Chaffee tank for safekeeping. Smith infiltrates the Hammerson factory, and hears Hertz and Hammerson saying that they do not want the next president to repeal the right to bear arms. He also notices that Hammerson owns a German Shepherd dog named Duchess. Smith booby-traps the facility with an array of firearms, allowing him to kill the thugs and escape.

Smith sees an article about Senator Rutledge, a Democratic presidential candidate who favors stricter gun laws. He deduces that Rutledge has cancer and requires a bone-marrow transplant, which is why he had surrogates impregnated with his sperm (and why Hertz and Hammerson want Oliver dead). If the infants die, the senator would not receive a transplant and would be unable to run for president. Smith tells Donna to leave town and contacts one of Rutledge's henchmen to request an appointment.

Meeting on an airplane, the senator confirms Smith's suspicions and Smith notices dog hair on Rutledge's trousers. Deducing that the hair belongs to Duchess and that the senator made a deal with Hammerson, Smith takes Rutledge hostage. Hertz appears and reveals that he agreed to help Rutledge find a bone-marrow donor, on the condition that Rutledge protects Hertz's constitutional right to bear arms when elected president. Smith kills the senator, whose assassination he explains "will cause public outrage and trigger immense support" for his gun control proposals. Smith parachutes from the airplane and kills several pursuing henchmen, but is himself shot and collapses after he lands. He awakens in Hammerson's mansion; Hertz tortures him, breaking his fingers in an attempt to learn where Smith sent Donna and Oliver. As Hertz prepares to cut Smith's eyes, Smith breaks free and kills Hammerson and several thugs. Cornered and struggling to use his gun, Smith places live bullets between his broken fingers and detonates them with a fireplace, critically wounding Hertz. As they grab pistols and struggle, Smith fires first and kills Hertz.

Smith boards a bus with Duchess, and stops at an ice-cream parlor where Donna works as a waitress while watching Oliver. Surprised to see each other alive, he and Donna kiss passionately. A group of amateur armed robbers suddenly enters the parlor; his hands in bandages, Smith shoots them by using a carrot to pull the trigger.

Set in Japan during an unspecified year of the Edo period, Ogami Ittō, the disgraced former ''Kogi Kaishakunin'' (executioner) to the ''shōgun'', wanders the countryside, pushing a baby cart with his 3-year-old son Daigoro inside. A ''sashimono'' banner hangs off his back: "''Ogami: Suiouryo technique. Sword For Hire. Son For Hire.''" His services are asked for in a most unexpected way, when an insane woman seizes Daigoro from the cart and tries to breastfeed the boy. Daigoro at first hesitates, but after a stern look from his father, he proceeds to suckle the woman's breast. The woman's mother then apologizes for her daughter's behavior and tries to give Ittō money, but the stoic ''rōnin'' refuses, saying his son was hungry anyway.

As he walks in the rain, he remembers another rainy day two years earlier when his wife, Asami, was slain by three former samurai, ostensibly in revenge for Ittō's execution of their young ''daimyō'', but Ittō soon deduces that it is really a complex plot by the "Shadow" Yagyū clan, which controls the ''shōgun'''s spies and assassins, to frame Ittō for treason and take over the executioner's post. He winds up cutting down a senior member of the Yagyū and his men when they show up to finish him as well.

Now a wandering assassin-for-hire, Ittō takes a job from the chamberlain of a rural clan to kill the members of a conspiracy to assassinate the chamberlain's lord and replace him with their own preferred successor. The chamberlain plans to test Ittō, but a quick slash behind his back with his Dōtanuki sword dispatches the chamberlain's two men. The targets are in a remote mountain village that is home to hot-spring spa pools.

As Ittō pushes the baby cart, and Daigoro observes scenes of nature, such as a dog suckling her puppy, and two children singing a song and bouncing a ball, Ittō thinks back again to the time just after his wife was killed. He gave Daigoro a choice between a toy ball or the sword. If the child chose the ball, Ittō would put him to death so he could join his mother – which he secretly hopes for. Instead, the curious child reaches for the sword – he has chosen to take the path of the ''rōnin'' with his father, which Ittō describes as living like demons at the crossroads to hell.

Eventually, Ittō reaches the hot-spring village. He finds that the conspirators have hired a band of ronin who have taken over the town and are raping, looting, and pillaging. As his targets have not yet arrived, Ittō is forced to give up his sword and join several other travelers who have been taken hostage. The ronin leaders discuss killing Ittō and try to provoke him, but then decide to let him live if he will have sex with a fellow hostage, a prostitute, while they watch. The prostitute refuses to have any part in it, but when her life is threatened, Ittō steps forward and disrobes, saying he will do the men's bidding with the woman.

The episode takes one more trip back to the past: Refusing to accept death, Ittō forces the leader of the "Shadow" Yagyū, Retsudo, to allow him to duel the clan's best swordsman with a promise that he and Daigoro will be permitted to become ronin if he wins. Ittō beheads the swordsman by strapping a mirror to Daigoro's forehead, allowing him to blind his opponent with sunlight.

When Ittō finally reveals his true identity to the ronin after they meet with the conspirators, he pulls out various edged weapons hidden in the baby cart, including a naginata and a throwing dagger, and quickly slaughters the ronin in a gruesome, ruthless manner. A conspirator tries to shoot him with twin matchlock pistols, but Ittō quickly upturns the baby cart, which is revealed to be armored underneath, and when the gunman's pistols are empty, Ittō quickly leaps over the baby cart and brings his blade down on the man's forehead, splitting it in two. He then stops the final conspirator from fleeing and slices his chest open with his sword.

Ittō leaves the village. The prostitute, having developed feelings for him and his son, tries to follow, but Ittō makes a motion to cut the ropes on the bridge leading to town to stop her from following. He then quietly pushes the cart as he and Daigoro set off to find their next job.

The premise of the show was set up in the opening scene of the series pilot. In an attempt to connect with the hostage-taker, Matt Flannery (Ron Livingston), a negotiator for the FBI, reveals to him and his colleagues who are listening to his conversation, that he has been sleeping with his partner, Emily Lehman (Rosemarie DeWitt). Their supervisor Cheryl Carrera (Gina Torres) is concerned about how their relationship will affect their jobs. Each episode revolves around the main plot of a hostage situation and the subplot of Matt and Emily's relationship. In the hostage situation, the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit is typically called upon to deal with the hostage-taker.

Among us live the Others. They are humans who can enter the Twilight, a shadowy world that exists alongside our real world, and gain unnatural powers from it. As long as they are in the Twilight, Others are drained of their life essence and may be consumed if they remain in it for too long. Others are made up of two distinct groups - the Light Others and Dark Others. A long time ago, the Light and Dark others fought a fierce battle in which neither side could win. In the end, both sides signed a Great Treaty - a set of laws which would govern them and the use of powers. Light Others created Night Watch, to ensure that the Dark Others wouldn't break the Treaty while Dark Others created Day Watch, to watch the Light Others as well. Both sides answer to the Inquisition—an organization which ensures that neither of the two sides become too powerful.

The book is separated into three novellas:

Nobody's Time

Anton Gorodetsky is assigned by Gesser to investigate mysterious warning letters sent to both the Watches and the Inquisition. In the letters, a powerful Great Light Other promises a human that they will turn him into an 'Other', which the human deeply desires. However, as far as the Others are concerned this is impossible and as such, the Light Other is in danger because refusal to fulfill this human's request means that he or she will dematerialise in the Twilight.

Anton is assigned the case and goes to the Assol, a rich district in Moscow where the letters came from. Vampire Kostya Saushkin from the Day Watch has also been assigned to the case, along with Edgar and Vitezislav from the Inquisition. Anton discovers that the human is a 60-year-old businessman, the son of Gesser. The four confront Gesser about making the promise to turn his son into an Other, but Gesser denies even knowing his son was alive. It is then revealed that his son is a potential Other for whom Gesser claims the right to initiate. It is revealed later in the book that the witch, Arina, used the book of Fuaran to transform Gesser's son into an Other.

Nobody's Space

Anton joins his wife Svetlana (who left the Night Watch), her mother, and their daughter (Nadya) on a vacation in a remote area. Whilst there, he learns of an incident where werewolves tried to attack two human children but who were saved by a mysterious woman living in the forest. Anton magically reads the older girl's memory, and notices that she saw a book titled "Fuaran" on the shelf. Anton can hardly believe it, as Fuaran is a legendary and extremely powerful artifact, believed to be lost ages ago or maybe never to have existed at all. According to stories, the book, written by an ancient witch (named Fuaran) contains a spell able to turn an ordinary human into an Other.

Anton finds the witch's cottage and the witch, Arina, who turns out to be level 1 or higher, but not Fuaran. Instead, all Anton finds is a book about the legend of Fuaran which is co-authored by Arina. The book explains how Fuaran discovered how to raise the power of an Other, and grant a human the powers of an Other. According to the book, the average magical temperature of the world was 97 degrees, while humans had a magical temperature of 97 or higher. Their warmth is fed into their surroundings, while the Others have a magical temperature under 97, and thus soak up the 'warmth' that surrounded them. The lower an Other's magical temperature, the more they soaked up. Seventh level Others had a magical temperature of about 90, while Others without Classification were in the 40s. The rarest type of other is one who had no magical temperature at all, a Zero Other, whose power was near limitless due to the fact they only absorbed magic. After a talk with Svetlana, Anton discovers Nadya is an absolute Zero Other.

Later, as Anton is relaxing in a hammock, he opens his eyes to find Edgar (an Inquisitor) standing over him. Edgar explains to Anton that Arina was wanted for questioning. In turns out the witch played a major role in a joint Watch experiment to create the perfect socialist state in the 20s. Arina was meant to put a potion in the bread that, over time, would cause whoever ate it to fully believe in newly arising government. Instead, all the subjects were turned quickly to the cause, which lead to the downfall of the government and the death of nearly all the subjects, supposedly due to Arina's intentional sabotage.

Confronted by Anton and Edgar, Arina dives into the fourth level of the twilight, where it takes time before the pair manage to follow her, only to find that she had escaped. Edgar and Anton return to the real world and decide that it would not be smart to search a Higher Other's house, as Arina had proven herself to be. Having lost their target, the duo split ways, Edgar to get backup in order to find the witch and Anton to return to his family.

Once back home Sveta and Anton learn that while Sveta's mother was out in the forest with their daughter, her 'old friend' took their daughter for a walk. Sveta and Anton knew instantly it was Arina, and through magical means contact her. The Inquisition had erected a dome to stop the witch from escaping, and she was holding Nadya hostage with demands that they find her a means to escape.

After Sveta sends out magical means to search for Nadya (which nearly blew Anton away) and discovers nothing, the werewolves, who had felt Sveta's power and were afraid she would come after them, showed up. It turned out to be a man in his twenties with three children. They admitted having seen where Arina took Nadya and agreed that as long as they were pardoned for hunting the children, they would help track down and fight Arina.

In the end, after a battle between Arina and a very angry Sveta, Nadya is saved, and with no deaths. Sveta, who traveled to Arina via the fifth level of the twilight, seemed changed, as though she had a new understanding on life. After forcing Arina to agree not to hurt any human or Other unless in self-defense, Sveta agreed to help her find a means to leave.

Nobody's Power

Anton later travels to Moscow in order to talk to Gesar, at which point Gesar receives a phone call, asking him to go to the witches hut, where Anton had only just been. After traveling there with Anton through magical means, they meet Kostya, Edgar, Zabulon and Svetlana. Vitezoslav's ashes have been found in a hidden room with no indication of who could have killed him, except that it would have to be someone powerful, as Vitezoslav was a Higher Vampire. At first, they suspect Arina. However, it soon turns out that the Other who killed Vitezoslav and took the book is Kostya, who himself became a Higher Vampire after drinking a blood cocktail made from donors in order to raise a vampire to this max potential.

Originally, Vitezoslav found the book and phoned Edgar, who didn't believe the vampire had found the actual book of Fuaran. But Kostya wasn't convinced the book was a fake and joined Vitezoslav at the hut. The Inquisitor wanted to see if the book actually worked and tried it on Kostya, using his cocktail of a blood mixture made from 12 donors, increasing his powers exponentially, after which Kostya challenged Vitezoslav to a vampire duel. The loser of such a duel is ashed.

His ultimate goal is to travel to the International Space Station and read the book while looking at the Earth from orbit (the spell of Fuaran works on everyone in the caster's range of sight), turning all humans into Others, so at last he will not be different from the rest. All but Kostya realize that this will be a disaster - "you step on someone's foot in a tram, he curses at you; now he can incinerate you." Also, what most Others do not realize is that it is, in fact, humans who emit magical energy. The Others absorb it more than they emit, allowing them to use it. The magic level of an Other depends on the absorb/emit ratio. There were several "zero" Others in history: Jesus (Yehoshua), Merlin, and Anton and Svetlana's daughter, Nadya. Their power is nearly unlimited as all they do is absorb magic. If Kostya manages to turn all humans into Others, the amount of magic energy available will drastically decrease.

To demonstrate the effectiveness of "Fuaran" to Anton, he uses it on a human, turning him into a low-level Other. What neither Kostya nor Anton realized at the moment was that Anton was affected too - as he was standing right in front of Kostya - turning him into a mage without classification (Gesser/Zabulon/Sveta's level). Kostya makes it to the Baikonur Cosmodrome and mind-controls the humans there to suit him up for the rocket launch. Anton catches up and confronts him, with Gesar, Zabulon, and Edgar all linked to his mind, and feeding him energy from everyone they have the right to leach it from. Each is telling him to use a different destructive spell on the vampire.

They realize that Kostya is not planning to steal a rocket, as not even the Higher Vampire is capable of launching a rocket into orbit by himself. He is instead planning to open a portal to the space station. As a precaution, he is still putting on a spacesuit. However, when Kostya was about to open the portal, Anton took all the energy channeled into him by Gesar, Zabulon, and Edgar and spent it to create a shield around himself in order to shield his thoughts from Kostya.

What Anton did not want the vampire to realize was that because Kostya was an Other (an Other without classification to boot), he would not be able to perform any magic in the vast emptiness of space. There would be no energy there from which he could draw on, in space he was separated from the source of all Others' energy. Kostya, assuming the shield was put up because Anton was afraid and wanted to protect himself from harm, expressed his surprise at such an act of cowardice and opened the portal. Only when the vampire stepped through it did Anton relax - the threat was over. It takes thousands of calculations to put a rocket into orbit. He knew that Kostya could not possibly calculate the exact position of the station. The portal deposited Kostya into orbit, leaving him to float in his spacesuit, unable to perform any magic. He could not make a corrective teleport into the space station - he could not open a portal back to the planet. He could only remain in orbit as that orbit decayed and he ended up burning up in the atmosphere upon re-entry, along with the book.

With the death of Kostya and others in the recent past, the Day Watch in Moscow is down to one Higher Level Magician (Zavulon) while The Night watch in Moscow has four (Gesar/Olga/Sveta/Anton).

Ogami Ittō, the disgraced former executioner, (the Kogi Kaishakunin to the Shōgun), is now living off the land with his three-year-old son Daigoro, traveling the countryside as a hired assassin. Pushing his son in a baby cart, he stops at a bathhouse looking for a room and a bath and is eagerly welcomed by a young woman. However, the manager of the bathhouse views Ittō as a dirty vagabond and scolds the young woman for letting him enter. Overhearing this, Ittō goes to the baby cart and retrieves a bundle and hands it to the manager for safe keeping. It is 500 gold pieces, earned from a recent contract killing. The manager's tone quickly changes, but when he tries to wash Daigoro's feet, the boy kicks water at the man and tromps across the floor, leaving wet footprints behind him.

Ittō's activities are being watched closely by the Kurokawa spy clan of shinobi-class ninja, which have fallen in with Ittō's nemesis, the Shadow Yagyū. They report on his activities to Sayaka, head of the Akari Yagyū clan of female assassins. But the Kurokawa are unsure that the women are up to the task of killing Ittō. Sayaka laughs confidently and tells the Kurokawas' leader to send their best man into the room. She then orders that he to try to exit. He tries by grappling onto the ceiling, but the female assassins set upon him and make short work of his efforts, hacking off his ears, fingers, arms, and legs, leaving the swordsman a writhing heap of just a torso and head before he is finally finished off.

Ittō, meanwhile, is hired by a clan that specializes in making indigo dye and has a secret process. One of the clan plans to sell the secret to the Shōgun. Ittō must kill him. The turncoat will be escorted by the three Hidari brothers, each a master of a deadly weapon: the iron claw, the flying mace, and a pair of armored gloves.

As he travels to the job, Ittō encounters three groups of female assassins. The first is disguised as an acrobat troupe that turns deadly as their gymnastic moves are combined with blades and turned against Ittō. Next, he encounters a pair of women who, with blades on their straw hats, throw the blades at Ittō. Finally, some women washing vegetables by the river turn out to also be assassins and the daikons they are washing are now wielded as weapons. Ittō quickly dispatches them all.

He encounters Sayaka, who captures him, his son, and the baby cart in a thick net. Ittō cuts his way out and engages in a sword duel with her. He delivers what should be a disabling blow to her ankles, but the woman jumps straight up out of her kimono to reveal a tight-fitting body suit. She runs away, bizarrely jogging backwards while keeping him constantly in her line of sight.

The Kurokawa clan are waiting for Ittō. He sees them and puts together his naginata (disguised as railing on the baby cart) and gives the baby cart a shove toward the waiting clan. Daigoro, still in the cart, activates blades hidden inside the cart's rolling axles, which slice off the feet of several of the clan. A fierce battle ensues, and Ittō is injured before he has silenced them all.

Weary from the endless fighting, Ittō struggles along the road and eventually finds shelter in a shack. Daigoro, seeing that his father needs his help, must do what he can. Unable to carry river water in his tiny hands, Daigoro transports it in his mouth. He spits what he is able to carry between his father's lips. For food, Daigoro finds some rice cakes given as an offering to a Buddha statue and takes them to his father, leaving his vest in exchange.

Ittō recovers and finds that his son is missing. Daigoro has been taken by the Kurokawa and Sayaka, and is now tied up and suspended over a deep water well. If Ittō attacks, they will let go of the rope and Daigoro will plunge to his death. Daigoro lets his sandal drop into the well, giving his father a gauge of how far it is to the bottom. Ittō makes his move as the rope unspools, stopping it just in time. He slowly pulls up his son. Sayaka watches silently and makes no move to engage his considerable swordsmanship, perhaps to honor the devotion of a father to his child.

Ittō later finds himself aboard the same ship carrying the three Hidari brothers. Ittō watches silently as members of the indigo-dye clan try to kill the Hidaris, but are bloodily eliminated one-by-one. Another clan member sets the ship ablaze in an attempt to kill the Hidaris, but the three easily escape the fire, jumping into the sea. Ittō tosses Daigoro and the baby cart into the water, the cart easily floating as he pushes it while swimming toward shore.

Sayaka has followed Ittō and his son onto the ship and is in the water with them as the ship burns. She tries to kill Ittō, but she is quickly disarmed. All three find shelter, but they are now cold. Ittō removes his and Daigoro's wet garments and turns on Sayaka, tearing off her clothes. He does not intend to rape her. Instead, he is seeking to get her out of her own cold, wet clothing, while clinging to her and Daigoro. "Three people are warmer than two", he unemotionally explains. She considers taking his sword and killing him, but the cozy, now warming scene, with Daigoro sitting between them and playfully fondling her breast, makes her abandon the plan.

On a vast area of sand dunes, the Hidari brothers are at the head of a caravan of men carrying a palanquin with the turncoat indigo expert riding inside. The brother with the iron claw runs forward and thrusts his claw into the sand, which boils up with blood. There are men hiding in dunes, as he digs his claw into the sand several more times, each time creating a pool of blood and pulling up a hiding swordsman by his head. The rest of the hidden men emerge from the sand to fight, but the three brothers easily dispatch them all.

Ittō now awaits, alone, atop a large dune. Each brother is killed by him in a high-pressure spray of blood, with the last brother eliminated with a lethal strike along his throat, a cut that sprays arterial blood in a fine mist while making a sound like the "howling of the wind". The final Hidari brother says that such a fabled finishing stroke is called the "Mogaribue", wishing that the sound had come from one of his own victims. Instead, it is now coming from his own neck as his life slowly drains away.

Ittō approaches the palanquin holding the indigo expert and quickly finishes him before gathering up Daigoro and setting off again. They are now out of the desert and on a coastal trail, followed closely by Sayaka. Aware of her presence, Ittō stops the cart, looking straight ahead while holding out his outstretched dotanuki blade. Sayaka is holding a katana. Ittō stands quietly still, waiting, until he hears the sound of Sayaka dropping the blade. She realizes that she can never defeat the Shōgun's one-time master executioner.

Over a scene of an opening coffin, a narrator explains that the film's climax is so terrifying that it may kill the viewer, while reassuring the audience that should they die of fright they will receive a free burial service. Inside the coffin is a card that reads "Reserved for You."

Newlyweds Jenni (Peggy Webber) and Eric (John Hudson) arrive at Eric's palatial country home in a gull-wing Mercedes-Benz 300 SL. It is revealed that Jenni is Eric's second wife: his first wife Marion died when she accidentally slipped and hit her head on the edge of a decorative pond on the estate, drowning in the pond. At the home they meet Eric's friends, the Reverend Snow (Russ Conway) and his wife (Tony Johnson), as well as Mickey (Alex Nicol), the mentally disabled gardener. Eric privately mentions to the Snows that Jenni spent time in an asylum following the sudden death of both her parents, who were also drowned, and Mrs. Snow reveals that Jenni is very wealthy.

Jenni is disturbed both by Mickey's belief that Marion's ghost wanders the estate and by Marion's self-portrait inside the house, which Jenni believes resembles her mother. When she begins to hear unexplained screaming noises and see skulls around her house, she believes that Marion is haunting her. Though Eric speculates to Jenni that Mickey, who was a childhood friend of Marion and thus dislikes Jenni, may be behind the trickery, Jenni worries that she is going insane. Eric suggests to remove Marion's self-portrait from the home. Eric and Jenni take the painting outside and burn it, later uncovering a skull from the ashes. Jenni panics at the sight of the skull, but Eric denies that the skull is there. As Jenni faints, Eric withdraws the skull and hides it, revealing that he has been gaslighting her all along.

Believing she has finally lost her sanity, Jenni resolves to be committed. She tells Eric that the entire property will be meticulously searched for the skull as a last resort. Mickey secretly steals the skull and brings it to Snow before Eric can retrieve it. That night, Eric prepares to murder Jenni and stage it as a suicide. Jenni sees Marion's ghost in Mickey's greenhouse and flees back to the house, where Eric begins throttling her. The ghost appears and chases Eric outside, corners, and attacks him, drowning him in the decorative pond.

After Jenni regains consciousness, the Snows arrive. Mrs. Snow comforts a hysterical Jenni and the Reverend discovers Eric's body in the pond. Some undisclosed time later, Jenni and the Snows depart from the house. Reverend Snow declares whether or not Marion's death was an accident will remain a mystery.

The film ends with Mickey drinking from the pond and saying, "They've left. Rest in peace." A vision of a woman's face appears in the pond.

The story concerns an abandoned truck owned by Otto Schenck and George McCutcheon, wealthy Castle Rock businessmen in the post-depression era. After Otto deliberately crushes George beneath his derelict vehicle, the murderer becomes fixated on the truck. Otto insists that the truck is not only moving on its own accord, but planning to kill him. At the same time, he becomes a social recluse, living in a house he built across from the truck itself, and generally begins to lose his sanity. His nephew, who tells the story, finally finds him dead–the corpse has been drowned with oil and there is a spark plug rammed down his throat.

The nephew goes on to describe how, on the day he found his uncle dead, he began to see strange happenings with the truck himself. Also, he couldn't accept his uncle's death as a suicide because there was no jug near the body with which Otto could have fed himself the oil. The nephew would dismiss what he saw as a hallucination, were it not for the derelict sparkplug he took away from the corpse and kept as a reminder.

Ogami Ittō, the disgraced former ''shōgun'' s executioner or ''Kogi Kaishakunin'', is traveling by river on a boat with his young son Daigoro floating behind in the baby cart. A young woman at the front of the boat, clearly distraught, accidentally drops a bundle into the water, which Daigoro retrieves for her. Ittō, draws his sword partway and notices in the reflection on the blade that some bamboo reeds are trailing the boat, meaning that Ittō is being followed by operatives of his mortal enemy, the Yagyū Clan. Later, as Daigoro is relieving himself in a bamboo glade, Ittō slices at several tall bamboo stalks, causing hidden ninja assassins to fall from their elevated perches and to be bloodily killed by him.

A group of four ''watari-kashi'' (wandering lower-class hired fighters, working from one ''daimyō'' to the next), are idling along the road at a rest stop. Hot and bored, they spy an attractive young woman and her mother being escorted by a servant. Three of them run to take advantage of the women, but one of their band, Kanbei, a ''rōnin'' (a samurai who has lost his retainership) and the more honorable of the four, remains. The three knock the escort unconscious and proceed to rape the two women. The servant regains consciousness and is furious when he sees the triad violating his mistresses. He attempts to beat them with his bamboo pole, but is slain by Kanbei, who also slays the two women in order to silence them. Kanbei makes his three companions draw straws, saying the one who draws the short straw will be killed in order to take the blame for the rapes and murders.

Ittō happens upon this grim scene as Kanbei is slaying the losing ''watari-kashi''. Ittō kills the other two rapists when they attempt to attack him because he can speak to their crimes. Kanbei recognizes Ittō and requests a duel now that Ittō is involved. Ittō accepts, and they prepare to fight, but at the last second Ittō re-sheathes his sword and calls it a draw. Kanbei is left to ponder why fate will not let him die honorably as he would like.

At an inn, it turns out that the young woman from the boat is to be sold into prostitution. Her pimp tries to have his way with her, but she accidentally bites the tip of his tongue off while resisting and the pimp dies from shock. The girl seeks refuge in Ittō's room, who steps in to protect her from the local officials. But the town's real authorities show up, the yakuza, led by a pistol-wielding woman named Torizo, from the Koshio clan. Ittō agrees to act as a substitute for the young woman and undergo ''buri-buri'' (literally "angrily"), a form of torture that involves the subject being hogtied and hung in the air and repeatedly dunked headfirst into a tub of water, then beaten to unconsciousness by men wielding thick rattan canes. Ittō endures the torture with his typical stoicism. This frees the young woman from becoming a prostitute.

Torizo asks and Ittō agrees to meet a one-armed man who turns out to be Miura Tatewaki, former first retainer of the Kakegawa clan, whom Ittō recognizes from the time he had to execute the insane ''daimyō'' Kakegawa Ujishige. Miura was forced to restrain the struggling daimyou to make him stay still, sacrificing his arm in the process to Ittō's precise killing stroke. Torizo is, in fact, Miura's own daughter, Miura Tori, who because of the taboo of her being a twin was secretly raised by the Koshio clan. The Miuras want Ittō to kill Sawatari Genba, who sold out the Kakegawa clan to become governor of the district of Totomi. He is also the man responsible for her sister's death and the fall of the Kakegawa clan and its 400 retainers.

Sawatari wants to hire Ittō to kill visiting minister Itakura, but he refuses. While giving the slip to Sawatari's retainers, Ittō is attacked by Yagyu ninjas, who have had been following him. The next day, Ittō has to face the governor's personal bodyguards, one of whom is a sharpshooter and quick-draw artist who wields a pair of American revolvers. With the help of his young son Daigoro, who acts as a decoy, Ittō kills the sharpshooter, taking his pistols. The other bodyguard is dispatched in a sword duel.

Ittō's battle culminates in his facing the governor's army, perhaps 200 men, singlehandedly. For the first time, the baby cart is revealed as holding an entire arsenal of weaponry, including spears, daggers, a bullet-proof shield, and a small battery of guns. All of the governor's men are killed, as Ittō first kills half of them with the baby cart's firepower and the rest with his sword and other weapons. The governor is the last to die when Ittō, losing his sword as he falls down an embankment, takes out the sharpshooter's pistols and shoots him.

Word of the coming fight has been passed to neighboring districts, and the ''rōnin'' Kanbei appears just after Ittō has slain the governor, and again demands a duel. Though battle-weary, this time Ittō accepts. The fight is over in an instant: Ittō is sliced across his back, but Kanbei is mortally wounded, impaled on Ittō's ''Dōtanuki'' katana.

As Kanbei dies, he tells Ittō the story of why he became a ''rōnin'': When his master's convoy was ambushed, Kanbei, seeing his forces outnumbered, seized an opportunity and ran ahead to attack the enemy head on, surprising them, and saving the lord's life. However, because he had left his lord's side, he was dishonored and expelled from the clan. When Kanbei asks what is the true "Way of the Warrior", and if he had done wrong by attacking, Ittō replies that Bushido is not to simply live or die but to live through death. He confirms that he would have acted just as Kanbei had. The dying Kanbei asks the former ''Kogi Kaishakunin'' to act as his "second" during his seppuku, which Ittō is honored to do.

As Ittō leaves, pushing the cart holding Daigoro, Torizo, who had been watching everything from a distance, begins to run after him. She is stopped by her men, who implore her not to approach Ittō, saying he is not human but a devil.

During a Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, a girl becomes the latest victim of the deadly virus "XB". Dr. Clinton Earnshaw (Sam Groom) has been following the outbreak but only is able to diagnose it. The federal government assigns him Jeff Adams (Tom Hallick), who has no medical or scientific training. Though Earnshaw is initially bemused by the assignment, Adams' value emerges when he remembers the 19th century discovery of a virus with similar characteristics. Known at the time as "Wood's Fever", it was discovered by Dr. Joshua P. Henderson (Richard Basehart). Both men know that Henderson's notes were destroyed in the 1871 Great Chicago Fire, his only remaining artifact a gold pocket watch.

Adams introduces Earnshaw to a former NASA physicist and Nobel laureate, Dr. Amos Cummings (Booth Colman), and his colleague Dr. Helen Sanders (Francine York). The physicists have been experimenting with time travel and reveal their plan to send Earnshaw and Adams back in time to find Henderson's cure for Wood's Fever. After being outfitted with period gear, clothing, a small microscope and portable centrifuge, Earnshaw and Adams are briefed on the dangers of time travel. They step through a vault-like door into a room with a view of endless cloud-filled sky, and the process begins.

On arrival, they discover that the machine has placed them a day and a half later than expected in the center of Chicago, instead of near Henderson's home outside the city with three days to achieve their goal. Posing as doctors sent from Washington, DC, they find Henderson at his hospital and ask him about his success with the virus. Henderson confesses that he does not know why his patients are surviving. His treatment involves palliative drugs washed down with homemade elderberry wine. Adams and Earnshaw perform their own tests on Henderson's patients, but are equally baffled by their recovery. While trying to obtain a blood sample from one of the survivors, Adams initially thinks he's killed the man but discovers that he had not been cured and would have died anyway. Their mission is further complicated when Earnshaw and Henderson's niece, Jane (Trish Stewart), fall in love. Earnshaw contracts the virus while working with Henderson's patients.

When the Great Fire breaks out, the travelers are no closer to the cure. Adams decides to take all of Henderson's paperwork and return to the future, but he is interrupted when a suspicious assistant enters the room. The assistant holds a telegram from Washington, responding to Henderson's cable of thanks with the information that Adams and Earnshaw were not sent by the government.

Earnshaw realizes a substance in Henderson's homemade wine is the cure; the only patients who succumbed were those who refused to take alcohol. The race is on to recover the last bottle of wine. They show Henderson the futuristic microscope and centrifuge and recite the inscription inside his pocket watch, convincing him that they are from the future. Despite knowing their fate, the Hendersons remain at the hospital with a trapped patient and perish in an explosion. The travelers return to the departure point with the wine just in time.

In 1976, Henderson's wine saves Earnshaw and also the girl stricken during Mardi Gras. After the success of their mission, Adams and Earnshaw visit the graves of Henderson and his niece in Chicago. They place a letter of thanks from the President on Henderson's grave. Earnshaw admits that in loving Jane he "fell in love with history".

Oyuki, a tattooed female assassin – the renegade member of a ''daimyō'' s personal bodyguard detail – is killing every man that is sent up against her. Along with her deadly use of the short blade, she strips to the waist while fighting to reveal elaborate tattoos on her chest and back. On her front is a kintarō grasping her left breast. A portrait of a mountain witch covers her back. She then cuts off her victims' topknots, or chonmage, which brings dishonor to the dead man and his family.

Ogami Ittō, the disgraced former ''shōgun'' s executioner, or Kogi Kaishakunin, is hired to kill Oyuki. He tracks down the tattoo artist, who explains that she was a "fine" woman who did not scream as he dug into her flesh with his needles.

Meanwhile, Ittō's 3-year-old son, Daigoro, has grown restless waiting by the baby cart his father uses to trundle him about in. He goes exploring and finds a pair of performing clowns on the street. When the clowns finish their performance, Daigoro follows them, hoping to see more. But the clowns shoo him away, saying it is time to go home. Now, Daigoro has wandered too far. He is lost, and has become separated from his father.

Agents of the Ogamis' mortal enemies, the Yagyū, are never far away. A procession of them, accompanied by the sound of gongs and loud shrieks, sends Daigoro into hiding. Ittō must give up his search rather than risk an entanglement with the men, so he travels on alone.

Daigoro spends days looking for his father, searching every temple in the countryside. After entering another temple, he sees a figure at the altar praying, but it is not his father. Rather, it is a man whom Daigoro immediately recognizes as someone who is unfriendly. The man sees something in Daigoro's eyes that alerts him to follow the boy when he leaves the temple.

Daigoro wanders into a grass field as it is being lit on fire by farmers to prepare the ground for next year's growing season. Unwittingly, he is surrounded by the flames, but Daigoro proves resourceful by burying himself in the mud in order to survive.

The man has been following behind and turns his sword on Daigoro, who raises a stick to defend himself, In that instant the man realizes Daigoro is not just any child, but the son of Ogami Ittō.

Ittō arrives pushing the baby cart, and the two ronin recognize each other. The man, it turns out is Gunbei Yagyū, the outcast son of Retsudo Yagyū. Gunbei and Itto had competed for the post of Shogun's executioner, and Gunbei's fierce swordsmanship surely would have won him the post, but in his over zealousness, he ends up pointing his sword at the Shogun, a taboo sword movement that costs him the job and makes him an outcast.

Ittō and Gunbei now have their rematch, but Ittō is much improved and is more than ready for Gunbei. With a swift stroke, he chops off Gunbei's right arm. Gunbei then begs Ittō to kill him, but he refuses, saying there is nothing to be gained from slaying a man who is already dead.

With Gunbei out of the way and father and son reunited, Ittō turns to finding the tattooed killer, Oyuki. He first stops at a settlement of street actors and other performers, of which Oyuki was said to be a member. He talks to the elder and hears more of her story, and it happens that the elder is Oyuki's father, who is opposed to her actions, and cooperates with Ittō.

Ittō finally locates Oyuki at an isolated hot spring and witnesses her in action against more vassals who have come to try to kill her. Then her nemesis, her former instructor who raped her and set her on her bloody vendetta, shows up with his flaming sword and blazing hypnotic eyes. But Oyuki is no longer held in his sway, and when she reveals her shocking tattoos to him, he is distracted and quickly killed by her.

Finally, Ittō and Oyuki must duel, and he makes quick work of her. She dies an honorable death, as Ittō says, "without having to disrobe".

Retsudo Yagyū, meanwhile, has been playing politics. He manipulates a local ''daimyō'' into bringing in Ittō, but he is able to use the baby cart's various hidden weapons to escape from the compound and take the ''daimyō'' hostage. As Ittō is leaving the area with the ''daimyo'', he is attacked by the Yagyū. The ''daimyō'' is killed by Yagyū musketeers and Ittō plunges headlong into battle with their many swordsmen, telling his son Daigoro that he is entering the "crossroads to hell". It is a fierce battle, ending with only Ittō and Retsudo in final combat. They trade sword blows and Retsudo gets a blade thrust into his right eye and Ittō a sword in his back. Ittō easily dispatches the swordsman who stabs him, but Retsudo gets away.

Daigoro finds Ittō, who commands him to pull the sword from his back. Despite being severely wounded, Ittō carries Daigoro to the cart and slowly pushes it away. Watching over the scene from a distance is the now one-armed Gunbei, who is happy to see the master swordsman live to fight another day. He vows someday to be the one who will dispatch Ittō to hell.

In a world where countries are divided into 3 subgroups (green, red, and sweet countries, a reference to First, Second and Third World countries), Lopez (known affectionately as "Lopitos") is a bureaucrat from the sweet Latin American "Republica de Los Cocos" (a play on the term "banana republic") who is stationed in the embassy of the Communist bloc country "Pepeslavia" (a play on words of Joseph Stalin, the nickname for Joseph in Spanish (José) is "Pepe", and the inflection "-slavia" of Slavic peoples under the rule of the USSR).

Lopitos, who is horribly inefficient but quick-witted, is invited (because of the current ambassador's superstition about 13 sitting down to a meal) to a banquet attended by the ambassadors of both superpowers. After the news of a series of coups d'état in Los Cocos arrives throughout the meal, Lopitos quickly rises to the position of ambassador.

At a summit of world leaders, the representatives of the two world superpowers, "Dolaronia" (referring to the American dollar) and "Pepeslavia", court the allegiances of third-world diplomats to tilt the balance of global power in their favor. The last diplomat to remain unaligned is Lopitos, who shocking announces that he will remain neutral. In a heartfelt speech he denounces the superpowers for infringing on the rights of developing countries to self determination, and attacks policies like state atheism and globalization. He speaks of a Christian stance of love and acceptance and then admits to no longer have the power of an ambassador as he solicited his resignation and thus spoke like a common citizen. After a surprising agreement of both parties Lopitos leaves the summit. His secretary goes after him and both leave hoping for the best.

On his travels on "the Demon Path in Hell", Ogami Itto is confronted by a series of five messengers who represent a clan wanting his services. Each assassin in turn administers a specific test of his abilities, and when bested gives Ogami partial payment for the job and, as per his usual stipulation, discloses some of the "secrets and reasons" for the killing. By the time Ogami has defeated all the messengers, he has been informed of a conspiracy to disguise a ''daimyō'' s illegitimate female offspring as a prince and heir to the clan, while the official offspring, a son, is kept imprisoned and concealed. A letter detailing the plot is being delivered by a high priest, who in reality is a "grass" or secret ninja agent, to the ''shōgun'', which would mean the dissolution of the clan, leaving retainers, samurai, and vassals without support—a disastrous end. Ogami is to intercept the priest carrying the letter, kill him and retrieve the letter; the priest will be traveling under the protection of his arch-enemy, Yagyū Retsudō, further complicating the mission.

On a stopover at a town festival, Itto's three-year-old son, Ogami Daigoro, is separated from his father and has his own personal adventure when he gets mixed up with a notorious female pickpocket, named Oyo, being chased by constables. She gives him a stolen wallet to hold for her and asks him to promise not to tell anyone. Daigoro is arrested as her accomplice, but refuses to talk. The law officers publicly flog him in front of the townspeople, but Daigoro keeps his promise even after the pickpocket reveals herself and confesses. Finally the constables release him, impressed by his stoic courage and honor.

En route to intercept the priest, Ogami is contracted by a young woman, named Shiranui, to kill the retired lord, his concubine and the young daughter. Ogami, then in a skilled move, swims underwater to a boat containing the high priest and steals the letter. After securing the letter, he confronts the ''daimyo'' and after a brutal battle with the ''daimyo'' Seven Bodyguards, kills him, his concubine and the young girl, fulfilling his contracts. In the final scene, as Ogami takes Daigoro with him on a boat to sail away, Shiranui appears and before committing harakiri, that the official story will be that the retired lord committed ''seppuku'', thus preserving the clan and order and allowing the concealed heir to assume his rightful place.

After the Shogun threatens to disgrace the Yagyū clan because of their continual failure to kill the wandering swordsman Ogami Ittō and his infant son Daigoro, Lord Yagyū Retsudo sends his daughter and last remaining child Kaori, an expert with flying daggers, to kill them. After she is killed, Retsudo attempts to use the Tsuchigumo, a secretive mountain clan that practices black magic and is commanded by Hyouei, an illegitimate son of Retsudo who is determined to cause the downfall of the Yagyū by killing Ittō and Daigoro himself. Hyouei sends his three most fearsome followers, whose abilities include the ability to burrow through the earth and who kill anyone Ittō and Daigoro come into contact with.

Ittō soon confronts and defeats Hyouei in sword combat along with all of his men. Fleeing to the mountains of northern Japan, Ittō turns the tables on the three Tsuchigumo who cannot burrow under snow and ice and kills all three of them as well.

The story culminates in a final battle between Ittō and the combined Japanese clan groups, numbering nearly 1,000 men, under Retsudo's personal command on a snow-capped mountain, in which the baby cart becomes a sled. Ittō once again uses the baby cart's weapons first by gunning down a third of the army with the baby cart's gattling machine gun, then using the cart's weapons which Ittō ends up shooting, stabbing, slashing, dismembering and beheading the entire army. But the one-eyed Retsudo once again escapes by riding away on a sled, vowing to kill Ittō another day.

Erik Stifler, Steve and Matt Stifler's cousin, fails to live up to the family name as he is about to graduate from high school as a virgin. As the film opens, Erik feigns an illness so that he can stay home and masturbate. His parents and grandmother unexpectedly walk into the door and are hit with Erik's semen, causing his grandmother to die of a heart attack.

Erik's girlfriend of two years, Tracy, loves him but is not ready for sex. Tracy, deciding she's now ready, later invites Erik to her house to have sex for the first time, but they are interrupted when her father comes downstairs for a nightcap; before Tracy's father can catch him, a naked Erik flees from the dryer, in which he defecated while hiding there.

Erik's friends Cooze and Ryan plan a road trip to visit Erik's cousin Dwight Stifler at the University of Michigan for an event known as the Naked Mile. Tracy sees this as an opportunity to give Erik a sex pass, hoping that he can quench his lustful desires.

As soon as Erik and his friends arrive on campus, they witness a drinking contest where Dwight is crowned champion. Later, they lose a rough game of football against a bitter rival fraternity composed almost entirely of midgets. Later at a bar, Erik meets a college girl named Brandi who has a fetish for virgins, prompting Ryan and Cooze to make a bet regarding whether or not Erik will sleep with her.

The following morning, Dwight gets attacked by the midget fraternity while walking down the street, landing him in the hospital. However, he manages to make it to the Naked Mile where he joins up with Erik, Ryan, and Cooze; who are at first reluctant to run, but when Brandi, Jill, and Alexis strip down completely stark naked, they are finally prompted to strip down as well. Finally as Erik and Brandi reach the finish line, they share a kiss which is caught on camera for a TV news report. Watching the report about the Naked Mile at home, Tracy is upset and feels guilty that she allowed Erik the pass. Her friends convince her to also lose her virginity before he gets back.

Later that evening, Erik realizes that he loves Tracy, confesses to Brandi that he cannot sleep with her, and rushes back to see his girlfriend. When he gets to her house, Tracy's dad says she is at a party. Erik rides her horse and shows up at the party, pounds on the closed bedroom door and proclaims his love for her. However, Tracy is not in the room because she had decided that she could not go through with her plans. The two reconcile and they have sex.

When Erik returns to the Beta house to pick up his friends the next morning, each guy shares stories of his sexual experiences from the night before. The guys then ask Erik if he "sealed the deal" with Brandi that night, and Erik tells them no, prompting Ryan to pay up on the bet to Cooze. Erik tells them about his adventure back home to make up with Tracy and finally lose his virginity. The guys are proud of Erik for officially living up to the Stifler family name, and the three friends go home.

During the post-Naked Mile party, Dwight spots Vicky, the girlfriend of Rock, the leader of the midget fraternity, and the two of them head up to Dwight's room to have sex. Later, as the film closes, Dwight sends a DVD to Rock that reads, "Payback's a bitch." It reveals both Dwight and Vicky having sex much to Rock's dismay.

Claudine is a British art scholar who has a terminal case of throat cancer. She is in Venice to give a lecture on the Bosch triptych from which the film gets its name.

Claudine is accompanied in Venice by her lover, Chris, a nautical engineer. Together they explore the canals of Venice. Chris has brought his video camera, and the audience watches Claudine and Chris hang out, make love, swim, converse, rent an apartment, and recreate vignettes from the triptych.

Volume one

Tsemakh Atlas is an advanced Talmudic student/teacher in Nareva, committed to the Musar philosophy, which puts him at odds with most of his fellow Jews, observant or not, learned or not. He initially spends his time recruiting children from the Soviet Union, mostly without their parents' permissions, and smuggles them into Lithuania. After the death of Rav Yosef-Yoizl Hurwitz, his rabbi sends Tsemakh to Amdur to found a new yeshiva, knowing this mission will not succeed. Tsemakh ends up engaged to the plain, quiet daughter of an Amdur storekeeper, but he is told by townspeople that the man is vicious and cruel, and certainly lying about the dowry. He flees to Lomzhe, his hometown where his aunt and uncle live. Their three sons work for Volodya Stupel, a wealthy flour merchant who fondly remembers Tsemakh from childhood school days, but whose arrogance offends Tsemakh. Tsemakh meets Volodya's sister Slava, a wild and vivacious beauty who is so impressed by Tsemakh that she decides to definitely break up with her married lover and instead to marry Tsemakh. When he doesn't return, after a few days Slava befriends Tsemakh's aunt and pays her own visit, impressing Tsemakh with her displays of ordinary kindness.

Tsemakh marries Slava and becomes irreligious. But he can't stop rebuking everyone in the Musar style, including customers of Volodya, to Volodya's financial horror. Tsemakh returns to religion and studying Talmud again, and grows distant from Slava. Volodya's brother takes on a Jewish maid, but his son Lolla gets her pregnant. As plans are made to dump her in some gentile village, Slava pays what turns out to be a curt visit to her ex-lover. Tsemakh learns of the maid's plight, and threatens to expose the whole sordid mess if the Stupels can't find a Jewish home for the maid. They can't, leading to an all-round crisis, just as Slava returns. The maid flees, and Tsemakh leaves Lomzhe to set up his own yeshiva in Valkenik. He tells Slava not to come with him, but to make peace with her family.

In Vilna, Tsemakh recruits three boys, Melechke, Chaikl, and Hertzke. In each case, fatherly opposition must be overcome, sometimes with great difficulty. Tsemakh also recruits an old Hebrew teacher to be his partner.

In Valkenik, Tsemakh faces several challenges and conflicts, often without any effect. He must resist the attractive Rokhshte (Ronya), the married daughter of the yeshiva's cook, whose husband is home only twice a year. He must rebuke a student whose charming friendliness with Leitshe, the unmarried daughter, has led to better food for him, the reputation the two are engaged, and scandal when he officially gets engaged to a rich man's daughter, and fails badly when the student dismisses it, half thinking he can blackmail Tsemakh for his broken engagement from Amdur. The estranged parents of Hertzke show up, the father (Vova Barbitoler) from Vilna, the mother (Confrada) from Argentina, to take the boy away, creating a public spectacle, ending with Hertzke going with his mother, rejecting his father and Judaism. There is sharp disagreement regarding the successor to the town's rabbi, regarding whom Tsemakh refuses to take sides. And to the surprise of everyone, Slava shows up, impressing the townspeople with her beauty and her kind and wealthy bearing, but finds she and Tsemakh are still too far apart mentally, so she returns to Lomzhe.

During the Passover holiday, Tsemakh makes an attempt to convince Ronya's husband to stay on as a third yeshiva teacher, only annoying him. The yeshiva boys return to their families, Chaikl invites his father, Shlomo-Motte to join him in Valkenik for his health. Chaikl and his father end up staying with the Vorobey family, mother Freyda, daughter Kreyndl, son Nokhemka (Nachum), who live in disgrace because the father Bentzye (Ben-Zion) has abandoned his family to live with a gentile woman in a nearby village. (They get by thanks to the American sister of Freyda.) The town's rabbi and his wife retire, leaving for the Holy Land. The new rabbi moves in, and after Lag B'Omer, the first of the many religious summer vacationers (who board out by a cardboard factory out of the way in the deep woods) shows up, the very famous Reb Avraham-Shaye the Kosover, with his sister Hadassah and her children. Reb Avraham-Shaye avoids having anything to do with the town's residents or problems if possible, but he is drawn into a few issues. Most surprisingly, he takes on Chaikl as a roommate and personal student, saving him from a nascent scandal involving Kreyndl, who was attracted to Chaikl. He also rebukes Tsemakh quite strongly, warning him that his Musar talks, by going over the heads of his students, is actually damaging them.

Volume two

Tsemakh takes Reb Avraham-Shaye's criticism to heart and then some, and ceases speaking to the students at all. After Shevuos, the rest of the summer vacationers show up, a disparate group of advanced yeshiva students and rabbis. Into this milieu, Vova returns, now a pitiful beggar, but swearing vengeance on Tsemakh and Chaikl for getting his son to come to Valkenik in the first place. His plan is to simply be a loud-mouthed disruptive boor, endlessly reciting his litany of complaints until the two leave. But when he visits Chaikl in the woods, Reb Avraham-Shaye patiently and respectfully listens to Vova, who ends up reduced to tears of shame when he is told to make complete peace with those he has had trouble with, including Confrada. Vova agrees, and leaves.

The younger Valkenik generation, agitating for a more secular life, have pushed for a library in the town, but they want more. The conflict is so serious that a small riot breaks out in the synagogue on the Sabbath. Meanwhile, they have successfully corrupted most of the yeshiva students into reading forbidden books from their library. When the books are discovered, the students are unapologetic, and Tsemakh refuses to take a stand regarding the books. Meanwhile, one of the most respected of the yeshiva students is accused of getting a mentally ill woman pregnant in the neighboring village. He is absolved when the actual father is identified, but it becomes clear that the charges were deliberately pushed by the library faction. Tsemakh authorizes vengeance, and arranges with the town's crook to have the books stolen and burned. This is too much for the secularists, who take to blockading the yeshiva. The leaders of the Valkenik religious community seek out Reb Avraham-Shaye's counsel. He declares the books must be replaced and Tsemakh must leave immediately. Tsemakh leaves for Amdur, and learns his first fiancée, whom he had abandoned, had died after six months. Horrified at the consequences of his behavior, he returns to Lomzhe. He asks Slava for a divorce, she refuses. Tsemakh stays with his Uncle Ziml, now a widower, vowing to take off and wander as a beggar.

A year later, shortly before Rosh Hashana, Chaikl's father dies. Vova shows up during the overnight vigil, drunk, cursing all his former enemies, proud that he changed his mind about taking Reb Avraham-Shaye's advice. But Vova too dies, a few months later during Hanukkah. At the end of his year of mourning for his father, Chaikl visits the Navaredok yeshiva in Nareva for the months of Elul and Tishrei. A year later, he visits again, arriving just in time for Yom Kippur. There he finds Tsemakh, who has ended his wanderings and returned to Navaredok, a full-time penitent. Chaikl befriends Moshe Chayit the Lohoysker, one of the now grown-up children smuggled out of Russia by Tsemakh. The Lohoysker has become defiant, rude, openly sarcastic in his non-observance and skepticism, but with no skills except rabbinic training, he is dependent on the yeshiva for room and board. When Rav Simkha Feinerman, the rosh yeshiva leaves for a Yeshiva Council funding conference in Vilna, he leaves Yankl Poltaver in charge.

During the conference, an appeal to Reb Avraham-Shaye to adjudicate gets rejected, but Reb Avraham-Shaye personally visits Rav Simkha, asking about Chaikl. Upon learning of Tsemakh's return as the penitent, he tells Rav Simkha that by ignoring his wife, he is not a penitent, and wants Rav Simkha to tell Tsemakh to return. In Nareva, in the rabbi's absence, Lohoysker becomes even more insulting, crashing an all-night Musar meeting. Yankl, having learned his Musar from the younger Tsemakh, makes life miserable for the trustee handling the free loans for widows, on the grounds that the trustee is uncaring and stingy. The trustee resigns, but no one else is willing to take on the job, leading the widows to protest and the yeshiva facing eviction from the congregation that houses it. Yankl also makes life miserable for Melechke since he is not into the Musar philosophy, and Melechke ends up running off without warning, abetted by Lohoysker. Rav Simkha returns, and per the congregation's demands, sends Yankl away to found a yeshiva to be run by Reb Duber, he soon announces success in Amdur. Meanwhile, Tsemakh breaks his policy of non-involvement and violently evicts Lohoysker. Rav Simkha has not yet decided whether to pass on Reb Avraham-Shaye's demand.

In quick succession, one yeshiva student tries to commit suicide, Reb Duber finds himself in Amdur, with Yankl gone and most of the townspeople hostile, Yankl returns and uses Purim as an excuse to tastelessly and publicly insult the trustee, and one of the most beloved of the yeshiva students dies of his weak heart. Slava shows up, and scandalously receives Lohoysker and Chaikl as guests. Tsemakh is forced to leave with Slava, and takes Lohoysker and Chaikl with him. They leave for Vilna, and Tsemakh meets with Reb Avraham-Shaye, who convinces Tsemakh to stay with his wife and to go into business. Tsemakh becomes a quiet sort, although marital harmony is still elusive for him. Lohoysker discovers that he is trapped in the yeshiva world: not only does he have no other skills, he has no other interests, and so he becomes observant again. Chaikl too finds himself trapped, but not quite as strongly.

In the end, Reb Avraham-Shaye and his wife board a train, beginning their relocation to the Holy Land. Tsemakh and Chaikl watch the train leave, deeply aware that their future remains forever tied to the Kosover's influence.

At a reception honoring her work with blind and orphaned children, elderly Lydia Macmillan meets an old acquaintance, Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick, who has been in unrequited love with her for forty years. Soon after, accepting Michael's invitation to tea, she discovers that he has also invited two other men from her past: Bob Willard, a football quarterback she knew when a young woman, and Frank Andre, a pianist who once worked at Lydia's orphanage.

Lydia, now a self-described spinster, reminisces about her memories of each of the men, and one other, Richard Mason, an adventurous traveler. All had been in love with her at one time or another, but she had never married. Most of the following narrative is told through a series of flashbacks with occasional voice-over narration by Lydia.

In Boston in 1897, the young and impulsive Lydia is preparing to go to a dance. Her guardian is her grandmother, a hypochondriac who chases away her doctor. She disapproves of Lydia's dress as inappropriate for Boston society, even though she herself is the widow of a sea captain and came from a less than respectable background. The family butler) intervenes when his son Michael arrives, having just graduated from medical school. Michael humors the old woman's complaints, and she agrees to let Michael escort Lydia to the ball.

On their way to the ball, Lydia tells Michael that she is in love with football player Bob Willard. As they talk, the sleigh is passed by another driven by a young man with a moustache, and Lydia impulsively grabs the reins and races him. Soon after, Bob calls on Lydia at her house, having been coached by Michael about how to speak and act in order to please the grandmother. He gets carried away, however, being apparently drunk and is ejected from the house.

When Lydia tells Michael that she plans to elope with Bob, Michael threatens to tell her grandmother, but changes his mind because he wants to see her happy. The planned marriage does not happen, however, because the magistrate who would perform the ceremony is unavailable. Nonetheless, the couple go to the hotel room Bob had reserved for their honeymoon, but Bob gets drunk and attempts to seduce or assault Lydia. She flees and takes a cab away from the man who had raced her earlier. He agrees to help the "damsel in distress."

In the present, the now-aged Bob tells Lydia that he has felt guilty about that night for the last forty years, but Lydia forgives him. She continues her story. Seeing Michael off to a troop ship heading to Cuba during the Spanish-American War, she realizes that another soldier is the same man who raced her and who gave her his carriage. She finally learns his name, Captain Richard Mason. When the ship leaves, though, Lydia meets a young blind boy and escorts him to his impoverished home. She vows to use her money and time to help such children.

At the school she has founded, Lydia meets blind pianist Frank Andre, who goes to work at the school and also falls in love with her. Lydia, however, turns him down as well, while Michael remains a friend and rejected suitor. At another ball, Lydia is swept off her feet by Richard Mason. The two steal away to her family's seaside home, where the couple share what seem to be a couple of idyllic weeks. Richard leaves Lydia behind when he goes to the mainland on a sailboat for supposed business, but the boat returns with only the home's caretaker, who gives her a letter from Richard saying that he has to settle affairs with another woman who has "a claim" on him. Many months later, in Boston, Lydia finally receives another letter from Richard, asking her to meet him at a church on New Year's Eve, but he fails to appear.

With bitterness and regret, Lydia tells the three men about how she finally accepted Michael's marriage proposal, even though she could not return his love. That match also never happens, however, when her grandmother dies just before her wedding. Lydia decides to devote the rest of her life exclusively to her school.

As Lydia finishes her story, one final guest arrives, the now aged and bearded Richard Mason. Lydia seems willing to forgive him, but Mason does not remember her at all. Lydia describes this event as the "perfect punishment" for her past "sinful" behavior. She finally concedes to Michael that there was never only one true Lydia; she was a different person to everyone who met her.

Through the course of the film, several flashbacks are shown involving the Skuggs brothers, including (in the beginning of the film) the drug-overdose death of their mother Ella (Khandi Alexander), the non-fatal shooting of their drug-addicted musician father, Arthur Romello "A.R." Skuggs (Clarence Williams III) (ultimately at the hands of the man they would later work for—Gus Molino (Abe Vigoda), and a scene where Roemello is offered a full scholarship to Georgetown.

Roemello as a teenager (Dulé Hill) avenges his father's shooting by shooting and killing Sal Marconi (Raymond Serra), Gus's cousin. After contemplating for a while, Roemello decides to quit dealing and start a new life with his girlfriend, Melissa (Theresa Randle), to the disdain of Raynathan, who is scared and hesitant to leave the drug game. However, Roemello learns that getting out is nowhere near as easy as getting in.

A series of events lead up to Roemello's eventual departure from the drug game, such as the death of his best friend, Ricky Goggles (Steve Harris) at the hands of an up-and-coming Brooklyn drug dealer and former boxing champion, Lolly Jonas (Ernie Hudson). The Skuggs brothers and their associates find Ricky's burned body hanging from the side of a neighborhood apartment building. They later go after and then kill Tony Adamo, one of the other men responsible for Ricky Goggles’ death. Because of this, an eventual street war starts off between The Skuggs crew and Lolly's organization.

Melissa becomes more hesitant of being involved with Roemello, because of his lifestyle. After learning of the death of an aspiring teenage “stick-up kid”, Kymie (Donald Faison) in Roemello's neighborhood (Kymie, in fact, saves Roemello's life in a drive-in shooting by Lolly's people), she decides to break off with Roemello and would have one date with basketball star, Mark Doby (Vondie Curtis Hall).

The date starts off fine as Mark takes Melissa back to his house but he becomes drunk, physically and verbally abuses Melissa and nearly rapes her by forcing her to perform oral sex. She barely escapes by punching Mark in the groin and running out the door. As she returns home, she is shamed by her mother for being a “tramp”. She finally returns to Roemello and they begin to make plans to leave New York City.

Before Roemello and Melissa depart for North Carolina, they stop by to visit A.R. However, upon arriving at A.R.’s apartment, they find him dead of a drug overdose. Raynathan gave A.R. the heroin that would eventually kill him, with Raynathan’s reasoning being that he wanted “put him out of his misery”. Raynathan is found across the street, coming out of Gus’ restaurant, where he gunned down Gus, Lolly, and Harry, Gus's son.

Roemello tells Raynathan what happened to A.R., but Raynathan accepts responsibility of their father's death. After seeing Melissa waiting for Roemello, Raynathan fires his gun at her, and the brothers proceed to fight each other and Raynathan accidentally shoots Roemello. Realizing this, Raynathan panics and fatally shoots himself in the stomach.

Roemello and Melissa, sometime later, do move to North Carolina, where they have a young son, but Roemello is found in a wheelchair, likely paralyzed from the waist down (though the extent of the paralysis is not fully explained), however he is enjoying family life.

In order to escape from his life and his lost love, Keaton sets off on his small boat, ''Cupid'', but runs into the whaling ship, ''The Love Nest''. The whaler's merciless captain (Joe Roberts) throws crew members overboard for even the slightest offense.

After his steward accidentally pours hot tea over the captain's hand, the captain tosses him overboard and replaces him with Keaton. Despite a series of mishaps, Keaton manages to avoid the fate of other crewmen.

But Buster desires to escape,and chops a hole in the hull to sink the boat.He escapes in a lifeboat with no idea where land is.

He docks at the rear of a platform he is unaware is a target bullseye for Naval Gunnery Practice.The Navy scores a direct hit and Buster is seen hurtled skyward;angel-wing style.

Buster then wakes up in his own CUPID boat;which had never left the dock.The whole thing had been a dream.

The Cattlemen's Association has called in the Mesquiteers to find cattle rustlers. They get Tex Riley to pose as Stony so Stony can arrive posing as a wanted outlaw. This gets Stony into the gang of rustlers and he alerts Tucson and Lullaby as to the next raid. But Hartley is on hand and unknown to anyone is the rustler's boss and he joins the posse with a plan that will do away with the Mesquiteers.

In the early 18th century, the bandit Fra Diavolo returns to his camp in Northern Italy to tell his gang members about his encounter with Lord Rocburg and Lady Pamela. Disguised as the Marquis de San Marco, he rides with them in their carriage and charms Lady Pamela into telling him where she hides her jewels. He orders his thieves to ride to Rocburg's castle and steal his belongings and Pamela's jewels. Meanwhile, Stanlio and Ollio have also been robbed, whereupon Stanlio suggests to Ollio that they should become robbers themselves. After an unsuccessful attempt to rob a woodchopper, the duo encounters Fra Diavolo, who orders Stanlio to hang Ollio for impersonating him. Diavolo is then informed that his men have stolen Lady Pamela's jewels but have not brought the 500,000 francs hidden by Rocburg.

Diavolo, again disguised as the marquis, takes Stanlio and Ollio with him as his servants to an inn, where he plans to steal Rocburg's 500,000 francs, and where, as Marquis de San Marco, he again romances Lady Pamela. Stanlio and Ollio mistakenly capture Lord Rocburg, who has disguised himself as the marquis in an attempt to win back his wife. Diavolo's attempt to find the francs is, however, foiled after Stanlio drinks a sleeping potion meant for Rocburg. Diavolo's theft of Pamela's medallion is blamed on young Captain Lorenzo, the sweetheart of Zerlina, whose father, Matteo the innkeeper, has decreed that she is to marry a merchant named Francesco the next day. Lorenzo swears he will prove his innocence before Zerlina is forced to marry Francesco.

Meanwhile, Diavolo romances Pamela once again and finds out that Rocburg's fortune is hidden in her petticoat. Just as Diavolo steals the petticoat, Lorenzo finds out his true identity from Stanlio, who is "spiffed" after a visit to Matteo's wine cellar. Lorenzo's soldiers surround the inn and he then duels with Diavolo, whom he bests with a little inadvertent help from Stanlio. The good-natured Diavolo returns the jewels, and when Rocburg will not pay the reward for them to Lorenzo, Diavolo gives Lorenzo the money that he stole from Pamela's petticoat. While the jealous husband rushes upstairs to confront his wife, Lorenzo gives the money to Matteo, thereby saving him from having to sell the inn. Diavolo, Stanlio, and Ollio are then taken away to be shot by a firing squad. When Stanlio takes out his red handkerchief in order to blow his nose, a bull becomes enraged and charges the group, allowing Diavolo to escape on his horse and Stanlio and Ollio to escape on the bull.