Today I was ordering a panini from the local sandwich joint, when I saw behind the counter that they had individually packaged slices of bacon. Though I have tried many a cured meat throughout the years, including dubious meat sticks, I have never seen individually packaged, fully cooked, flavored bacon. Of course, I knew I had to try every flavor they had available, especially since they were only a buck a piece.
Check these bad boys out:
These bacons come to us from Riff’s Smokehouse, creator of hot sauces and bacon, apparently. Here we have four out of their five flavors, as the fifth flavor was not available to me.
Each piece is 110 calories, and has 5g of protein per slice. When selecting my pieces, I actually rifled through the shop’s selection a good bit to find some sizeable pieces, as slice sizes were not all that consistent, funny enough. There were some skinny mini pieces of bacon! So, if you find these in the wild, find yourself a thicc slice.
Thankfully, you can see through the back to the full picture of what you’re getting into:
Anyways, the package says to microwave them for 5 seconds, but I figured most people who are buying these “on-the-go” bacons will not have immediate access to a microwave, so I actually tasted each piece right out the package first, and then microwaved them and tried them all again. Science!
I started with the Sweet flavor. The bacon was sort of stiff, like a bit hard to chew through. It was a little sweet but not as sweet as I would’ve imagined the flavor “Sweet” to be. Definitely not overwhelming if you’re not the biggest fan of overly sweet meats. After microwaving it for five seconds, it didn’t seem all that warm, so I microwaved it for another five (ten total, for those counting along at home), and promptly burned my mouth on the literally sizzling piece of meat. So, don’t do ten seconds.
For the Sweet & Spicy flavor, it was actually a little bit tougher than the previous piece. Reminded me a lot more of something like a jerky. Jerky-esque, if you will. Initially, I didn’t think it was spicy at all. It just had sort of a more savory, smoky flavor, but after microwaving it it actually got more of a kick to it, leaving a touch of heat in the back of my throat.
For the Red Curry, I was sure this one would be spicier than the rest, but it was oddly sweet. The spices involved gave it a nice complexity that the regular “Sweet” didn’t have to it. This piece had a really good texture with lots of fattiness throughout (I like chewy, fattier bacon). After microwaving it, it crisped up just a little bit and tasted even better warm.
Finally, for the Raspberry Chipotle, I once again expected heat what with chipotle being in the name. No heat came, but it had an excellent raspberry flavor that wasn’t artificial tasting or too overwhelming. This piece had a nice, softer texture and was the thickest cut out of all the pieces I’d had. This was my favorite of the four.
If you go on Riff’s website, you can buy a variety pack of all five flavors, with three pieces of each, for a little less than $33. This comes out to about $2.15 a slice. If you commit to just one flavor, you get 12 pieces for $23 bucks, which comes out to $1.91 a slice. So, pick your poison! I’d go for the variety pack, because variety is the spice of life. If you get it and try the fifth flavor I didn’t get to, let me know how it is.
Are you a crispy bacon or chewy bacon person? Do you like maple syrup with your bacon? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
Caller: "Can you forward me to her?" Me: "She no longer works here, so no. I can give you the phone number, and you can call her." Caller: "Can you forward me to her?"
Me: "Hi, [Team Lead], I have [Employee] asking for access to the Billing files for [Team]. Is this okay?" Team Lead: "No. Take him out of everything and do not reply to his requests."
Coworker #1: "Hi, [Manager], I don’t have access to this link." Manager: "It's my private notebook." Coworker #2: "How do we update our notes if we don’t have access?" Manager: "Please edit your section before the meeting, just like before."
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<p class="syndicationauthor">Posted by Christina Orlando</p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/book-review-spoiled-milk-by-avery-curran/">https://reactormag.com/book-review-spoiled-milk-by-avery-curran/</a></p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/?p=843268">https://reactormag.com/?p=843268</a></p><post-hero class="wp-block-post-hero js-post-hero post-hero post-hero-vertical"> <div class="container container-desktop"> <div class="flex flex-col mx-auto post-hero-container"> <div class="post-hero-content"> <div class="post-hero-tags font-aktiv text-xs tracking-[0.5px] font-medium uppercase"> <span class="mr-3"> <i class="inline-block w-2 h-2 rounded-full mr-[5px] bg-blue"></i> <a href="https://reactormag.com/articles/books/" class="inline-block link-no-animation" aria-label="Link to term or tag Books 0"> Books </a> </span> <span class="mr-3"> <i class="inline-block w-2 h-2 rounded-full mr-[5px] bg-blue"></i> <a href="https://reactormag.com/tag/book-reviews/" class="inline-block link-no-animation" aria-label="Link to term or tag book reviews 1"> book reviews </a> </span> </div> <h2 class="post-hero-title text-h1">Boarding School Trouble and Trauma: <i>Spoiled Milk</i> by Avery Curran</h2> <div class="prose post-hero-description prose--post-hero">Alexis Ong reviews “a must-read for boarding school fiction junkies.”</div> <div class="post-hero-wrapper"> <div class="post-hero-inner"> <p class="post-hero-author text-xs font-aktiv uppercase font-medium [&_a]:link-hover">By <a href="https://reactormag.com/author/alexis-ong/" title="Posts by Alexis Ong" class="author url fn" rel="author">Alexis Ong</a></p> <span class="post-hero-symbol relative top-[-2px] hidden tablet:block">|</span> <p class="text-xs uppercase post-hero-publish font-aktiv"> Published on March 23, 2026 </p> </div> </div> <div class="quick-access post-hero-quick-access mt-[17px] tablet:hidden"> <div class="flex gap-[30px] tablet:gap-6"> <a href="https://reactormag.com/book-review-spoiled-milk-by-avery-curran/#comments" class="flex items-center text-sm font-aktiv tracking-[0.6px] font-semibold uppercase translate-x-[1px] translate-y-[1px]"> <svg class="w-[22px] h-[22px] mr-[7px] icon-hover" viewbox="0 0 18 18" aria-label="comment" role="img" aria-hidden="true" aria-labelledby="icon-comment-quick-access-"> <title id="icon-comment-quick-access-">Comment</title> <g fill="none" fill-rule="evenodd"> <path fill="#FFF" fill-rule="nonzero" d="M6.3 18a.9.9 0 0 1-.9-.9v-2.7H1.8A1.8 1.8 0 0 1 0 12.6V1.8A1.8 1.8 0 0 1 1.8 0h14.4A1.8 1.8 0 0 1 18 1.8v10.8a1.8 1.8 0 0 1-1.8 1.8h-5.49l-3.33 3.339a.917.917 0 0 1-.63.261H6.3Z" /> <path stroke="#000" d="M5.9 14.4v-.5H1.8a1.3 1.3 0 0 1-1.3-1.3V1.8A1.3 1.3 0 0 1 1.8.5h14.4a1.3 1.3 0 0 1 1.3 1.3v10.8a1.3 1.3 0 0 1-1.3 1.3h-5.698l-.146.147-3.324 3.333a.417.417 0 0 1-.282.12H6.3a.4.4 0 0 1-.4-.4v-2.7Z" /> </g> </svg> 0 </a> <details class="relative quick-access-details"> 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3.08607 2.06857 4.43684 1.2803C5.78761 0.492029 7.26273 0.0979004 8.86223 0.0979004C10.4617 0.0979004 11.9368 0.492029 13.2876 1.2803C14.6384 2.06857 15.7079 3.13999 16.4962 4.49458Z" fill="currentColor" fill-opacity="0.2" /> </svg> </a> </li> <li class="flex"> <a class="flex items-center hover:text-red" href="https://reactormag.com/feed/" target="_blank" title="RSS Feed"> <svg class="w-[17px] h-[17px]" width="18" height="18" viewbox="0 0 18 18" fill="none" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" aria-label="rss feed" role="img" aria-hidden="true"> <g clip-path="url(#clip0_1051_121783)"> <path d="M2.67871 17.4143C2.12871 17.4143 1.65771 17.2183 1.26571 16.8263C0.873713 16.4343 0.678046 15.9636 0.678713 15.4143C0.678713 14.8643 0.874713 14.3933 1.26671 14.0013C1.65871 13.6093 2.12938 13.4136 2.67871 13.4143C3.22871 13.4143 3.69971 13.6103 4.09171 14.0023C4.48371 14.3943 4.67938 14.865 4.67871 15.4143C4.67871 15.9643 4.48271 16.4353 4.09071 16.8273C3.69871 17.2193 3.22805 17.415 2.67871 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13.4143 3.69971 13.6103 4.09171 14.0023C4.48371 14.3943 4.67938 14.865 4.67871 15.4143C4.67871 15.9643 4.48271 16.4353 4.09071 16.8273C3.69871 17.2193 3.22805 17.415 2.67871 17.4143ZM14.6787 17.4143C14.6787 15.481 14.312 13.6683 13.5787 11.9763C12.8454 10.2843 11.841 8.80097 10.5657 7.52631C9.29171 6.25164 7.80871 5.24764 6.11671 4.51431C4.42471 3.78097 2.61205 3.41431 0.678713 3.41431V0.414307C3.02871 0.414307 5.23705 0.860306 7.30371 1.75231C9.37038 2.64431 11.1704 3.85664 12.7037 5.38931C14.237 6.92264 15.4497 8.72264 16.3417 10.7893C17.2337 12.856 17.6794 15.0643 17.6787 17.4143H14.6787ZM8.67871 17.4143C8.67871 15.1976 7.89971 13.31 6.34171 11.7513C4.78371 10.1926 2.89605 9.41364 0.678713 9.41431V6.41431C2.21205 6.41431 3.64538 6.70197 4.97871 7.27731C6.31205 7.85264 7.47471 8.63597 8.46671 9.62731C9.45805 10.6186 10.2414 11.781 10.8167 13.1143C11.392 14.4476 11.6794 15.881 11.6787 17.4143H8.67871Z" fill="currentColor" fill-opacity="0.2" /> </g> <defs> <clippath id="clip0_1051_121783"> <rect width="17" height="17" fill="white" transform="translate(0.678711 0.414307)" /> </clippath> </defs> </svg> </a> </li> </ul> </div> </details> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-hero-media "> <figure class="w-full h-auto post-hero-image"> <img decoding="async" width="740" height="407" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/review-spoiled-milk2-740x407.png" class="w-full object-cover" alt="Cover of Spoiled Milk by Avery Curran" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/review-spoiled-milk2-740x407.png 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/review-spoiled-milk2-1100x605.png 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/review-spoiled-milk2-768x422.png 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/review-spoiled-milk2.png 1400w" sizes="(max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" /> </figure> </div> </div> </div> </post-hero> <div class="wp-block-more-from-category"> <div> </div> </div> <p>If figure skating is competitive gender performance, then all-girls boarding school is a godless pageant where gender isn’t so much a rehearsed performance but an endless clown car of ordeals. Enid Blyton’s boarding school books—hello, St. Clare’s and Malory Towers—were a formative part of my preteen reading, and it is through this cloying miasma of midnight feasts and social grooming and stiff-upper-lip camaraderie that I went off to real girls boarding school where it became immediately obvious that Enid Blyton was full of shit. But that’s the beautiful thing about this very specific subgenre: If done well, it’s wholly transportive for the right reader. It can revive a powerful sense of escapist nostalgia for a time when these stories—trite and absurd (and in Blyton’s case, sometimes problematic) as they are to contemporary eyes—actually made you <em>feel </em>something. </p> <p>Avery Curran’s debut, <em>Spoiled Milk</em>, is one of those books. The novel follows the recollections of Emily Locke, a precocious sixth-form student at Briarley, a small rural boarding school for girls in the late 1920s. It is with slight trepidation and sick glee that my eyes soak up the words “Church of England” and immediately flash back to the pastoral foundations of my own Anglican education—the smell of wet wool, cold chapel pews, our stone replica of Caedmon’s Cross that traveled from the bowels of North Yorkshire to Australia—because now <em>Spoiled Milk</em> is personal. Emily, though, loves Briarley. Hers is a tiny, tight-knit class—just six seniors—overflowing with all the hormonal neuroses and messy politics that drive teens at this age. Things start to spiral when Emily’s best friend Violet dies in a suspicious fall; Emily is convinced that the young French teacher, Mademoiselle, is the murderer. Cue foul omens like worm-riddled fruit, bad well water, and hallucinations. The girls visit the village medium, who gives them an ominous warning that some inexorable <em>thing </em>is coming. </p> <p>I was initially wary of <em>Spoiled Milk</em> in that stupid soliloquial way where any story that overlaps with personal experience is always going to chafe against petty indignance and righteous exceptionalism; at one point my most petulant thought was, “these girls aren’t nearly shitty enough to each other,” as if there’s some real-life yardstick for “realistic” teenage spite. I sulked at Emily’s insights, either because she was being impossibly mature or because she reminded me of my high school’s interpersonal dynamics. This is, of course, a me problem, but getting jumpscared by these childish ancient feelings after 25 years felt like a weird meta bonus, given the themes and setting of the book. </p> <section class="wp-block-shop-the-book shop-the-book"> <h2 class="shop-the-book-headline">Buy the Book</h2> <div class="shop-the-book-content"> <figure class="shop-the-book-image-desktop image-cover"> <img decoding="async" width="447" height="670" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Spoiled-Milk-1.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full" alt="Cover of Spoiled Milk by Avery Curran." /> </figure> <div class="grow shrink basis-0"> <div class="flex items-center"> <figure class="shop-the-book-image-mobile image-cover"> <!-- <img decoding="async" width="447" height="670" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Spoiled-Milk-1.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full" alt="Spoiled Milk" /> --> <img decoding="async" width="447" height="670" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Spoiled-Milk-1.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full" alt="Cover of Spoiled Milk by Avery Curran." role="presentation" /> </figure> <div class="grow shrink basis-0"> <h3 class="shop-the-book-title text-h3">Spoiled Milk</h3> <p class="shop-the-book-author">Avery Curran</p> </div> </div> <button type="button" class="inline-block px-8 py-4 text-center btn tablet:py-3 text-h6 bg-red text-white shop-the-book-button" id="buy_book" data-trigger="modal" data-target="#modal-1774324976" aria-open="false" aria-label="Buy Book"> <span class="inline-flex items-center button-label btn-label"> Buy Book </span> </button> </div> </div> <div id="modal-1774324976" class="shop-the-book-modal"> <div class="shop-the-book-modal-inner"> <button class="js-modal-close absolute top-5 right-5 z-10" type="button" aria-label="icon-close"> <svg class="w-[19px] h-[19px]" width="18" height="19" viewbox="0 0 18 19" fill="none" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" aria-label="close" role="img" aria-hidden="true"> <path d="M1 17L17 1" stroke="black" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" /> <path d="M1 17L17 1" stroke="black" stroke-opacity="0.2" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" /> <path d="M17 17.0809L1 1.08093" stroke="black" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" /> <path d="M17 17.0809L1 1.08093" stroke="black" stroke-opacity="0.2" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" /> </svg> </button> <div class="shop-the-book-modal-content"> <figure class="shop-the-book-modal-image-desktop image-cover"> <img decoding="async" width="447" height="670" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Spoiled-Milk-1.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full" alt="Spoiled Milk" /> </figure> <div class="grow shrink basis-0"> <div class="flex items-center"> <figure class="shop-the-book-modal-image-mobile image-cover"> <img decoding="async" width="447" height="670" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Spoiled-Milk-1.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full" alt="Spoiled Milk" /> </figure> <div class="grow shrink basis-0"> <h3 class="shop-the-book-modal-title">Spoiled Milk</h3> <p class="shop-the-book-modal-author">Avery Curran</p> </div> </div> <p class="shop-the-book-modal-label">Buy this book from:</p> <ul class="not-prose ebook-links ebook-links-shortcode"><li><a class="btn" target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0FCSD7P7Z?tag=tordotcomgeneral-20" data-book-title="Spoiled Milk" data-book-store="Amazon"><span class="inline-flex items-center button-label text-h6 text-white font-aktiv">Amazon</span></a></li><li><a class="btn" target="_blank" href="https://www.anrdoezrs.net/links/7992675/type/dlg/sid/tordotcomgeneral/https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/9780385551595" data-book-title="Spoiled Milk" data-book-store="Barnes and Noble"><span class="inline-flex items-center button-label text-h6 text-white font-aktiv">Barnes and Noble</span></a></li><li><a class="btn" target="_blank" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/isbn9780385551601" data-book-title="Spoiled Milk" data-book-store="iBooks"><span class="inline-flex items-center button-label text-h6 text-white font-aktiv">iBooks</span></a></li><li><a class="btn" target="_blank" href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780385551595" data-book-title="Spoiled Milk" data-book-store="IndieBound"><span class="inline-flex items-center button-label text-h6 text-white font-aktiv">IndieBound</span></a></li><li><a class="btn" target="_blank" href="https://www.target.com/s?searchTerm=9780385551595" data-book-title="Spoiled Milk" data-book-store="Target"><span class="inline-flex items-center button-label text-h6 text-white font-aktiv">Target</span></a></li></ul> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <p>Curran takes time to establish the ritual and detail that this subgenre demands, because elaborate formalities and careful hierarchies are a defining part of the English institutional atmosphere. Generally speaking, this whole domain is an age-old petri dish of racist, sexist, classist monstrosities that rely on rather homogenous tropes. At best, it can be a magical realm where children are free to discover their inner potential among peers; at worst, it’s a grooming pit designed to sustain conservatism, trauma, and abuse. Armed with a strong understanding of this rich and miserable history, Curran injects fresh blood into the traditionally rigid paradigms of English girlhood narratives. </p> <p>There’s a lot to parse in this book about gender and queerness and the dynamics of young women packed away like uniformed sardines; Curran taps into every trope and stereotype about boarding school girls while largely avoiding flat cliches. There is the idea that girls are meaner to each other than boys, wielding microdoses of spite and cruelty like a thousand hidden needles; there are countless shows and books and films about the complex cruelty and sociopathy of teen girls who play the long game. There is the age-old trope of Schrödinger’s lesbians, that an all-girl community must be a hothouse for sapphic deviance, and one can only really tell if one actually wants to look. It was hard for my mind not to drift toward Sophia Coppola’s adaptation of <em>The Virgin Suicides</em>; we have our very own Lux Lisbon in the form of Violet, whom everyone at Briarley is obsessed with. </p> <p>It is this peer fixation and competitive infatuation that jumped out at me: the all-encompassing strain of teenage limerence that defines so much of high school. It was a huge part of my own experience, watching friends and enemies alike attach themselves to popular girls on a chaotic spectrum of queer desire and coming-of-age crushes—platonic and romantic—that seem to evaporate after graduation. Emily’s observations run from petty and childish, critical but peppered with self-doubt, to jarringly honest and relatably impatient; Curran does a great job of balancing the staid atmosphere of a period drama with a protagonist who stays sharp and light and appropriately stubborn and myopic (we’ve all been there). Everything about Emily is urgent and fierce in her hardheadedness, lending a useful momentum to the narrative; Emily’s friends are, in comparison, the voices of reason to her dogged need for answers. Then, of course, there’s prim, obnoxious Evelyn, the object of Emily’s disdain, who of course, evolves into something more.</p> <p>As for the spiritualist themes of the book, this is also something we did in my first year of boarding school, although ours was just a Ouija board scrawled on a sheet of A4 paper and a coin for a planchette. I can only say that had I been alive during the 1920s in an all-girls boarding school with superstition and religious hysteria coming out of the walls, I would have found new ways to scare myself to death (complimentary) on the regular. Curran mostly keeps the supernatural elements of the story loose, focusing on the core group of friends; the idea of a Scooby-Doo ride-or-die squad was such a huge selling point of Enid Blyton’s stories for young me, at least before I was rudely shoved into a reality where I had to line up in a single file to go to dinner. This is the sort of story that would sink under the weight of over-exposition—the subtle fantasy of camaraderie in a place that actively worked to diminish it—and honestly the less we know about why and how Briarley became a bodysnatchers-style epicenter of eldritch terror, the better.</p> <p>At first blush, <em>Spoiled Milk</em> might feel like it offers neat analogies to teenhood and queerness and growing up: a story about a tortured, forced farewell to childhood and order. There is a lot to unpack about everything—Englishness, gender, western civilization, sexuality, patriarchy, class, and so on—but few concrete answers. There is nothing neat and clean about Emily’s journey, and there shouldn’t be. Later on in the book, Emily becomes a little more concerned with the end of England, or the world, but Curran keeps our focus on this small microcosm of terror to great claustrophobic effect. My biggest personal takeaway was how much <em>Spoiled Milk</em> made me reflect on my own experiences with (all of the things above) on a larger scale, and how well Curran’s style engages with the reader’s own history; it feels strikingly like a conversation, perhaps even a confession, that resonates with the present. It is a refreshingly self-aware debut, built on a rich tradition of gothic cultural capital as well as history, and a must-read for boarding school fiction junkies.[end-mark]</p> <div style="height:5px" aria-hidden="true" class="wp-block-spacer"></div> <p class="has-sm-font-size"><em><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/777777/spoiled-milk-by-avery-curran/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Spoiled Milk</a></em> is published by Doubleday.</p> <p>The post <a href="https://reactormag.com/book-review-spoiled-milk-by-avery-curran/">Boarding School Trouble and Trauma: <i>Spoiled Milk</i> by Avery Curran</a> appeared first on <a href="https://reactormag.com">Reactor</a>.</p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/book-review-spoiled-milk-by-avery-curran/">https://reactormag.com/book-review-spoiled-milk-by-avery-curran/</a></p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/?p=843268">https://reactormag.com/?p=843268</a></p>
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<p class="syndicationauthor">Posted by Sarah</p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/babylon-5-rewatch-a-view-from-the-gallery/">https://reactormag.com/babylon-5-rewatch-a-view-from-the-gallery/</a></p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/?p=843453">https://reactormag.com/?p=843453</a></p><post-hero class="wp-block-post-hero js-post-hero post-hero post-hero-horizontal"> <div class="container container-desktop"> <div class="flex flex-col mx-auto post-hero-container"> <div class="post-hero-content"> <div class="post-hero-tags font-aktiv text-xs tracking-[0.5px] font-medium uppercase"> <span class="mr-3"> <i class="inline-block w-2 h-2 rounded-full mr-[5px] bg-blue"></i> <a href="https://reactormag.com/articles/column/" class="inline-block link-no-animation" aria-label="Link to term or tag Column 0"> Column </a> </span> <span class="mr-3"> <i class="inline-block w-2 h-2 rounded-full mr-[5px] bg-blue"></i> <a href="https://reactormag.com/tag/babylon-5-rewatch/" class="inline-block link-no-animation" aria-label="Link to term or tag Babylon 5 Rewatch 1"> Babylon 5 Rewatch </a> </span> </div> <h2 class="post-hero-title text-h1"><i>Babylon 5</i> Rewatch: “A View from the Gallery”</h2> <div class="prose post-hero-description prose--post-hero">Two maintenance workers take center stage as aliens attacks the station.</div> <div class="post-hero-wrapper"> <div class="post-hero-inner"> <p class="post-hero-author text-xs font-aktiv uppercase font-medium [&_a]:link-hover">By <a href="https://reactormag.com/author/keith-decandido/" title="Posts by Keith R.A. DeCandido" class="author url fn" rel="author">Keith R.A. DeCandido</a></p> <span class="post-hero-symbol relative top-[-2px] hidden tablet:block">|</span> <p class="text-xs uppercase post-hero-publish font-aktiv"> Published on March 23, 2026 </p> </div> </div> <div class="post-hero-caption post-hero-caption-vertical [&_a]:link"><p>Credit: Warner Bros. Television</p> </div> <div class="quick-access post-hero-quick-access mt-[17px] tablet:hidden"> <div class="flex gap-[30px] tablet:gap-6"> <a href="https://reactormag.com/babylon-5-rewatch-a-view-from-the-gallery/#comments" class="flex items-center text-sm font-aktiv tracking-[0.6px] font-semibold uppercase translate-x-[1px] translate-y-[1px]"> <svg class="w-[22px] h-[22px] mr-[7px] icon-hover" viewbox="0 0 18 18" aria-label="comment" role="img" aria-hidden="true" aria-labelledby="icon-comment-quick-access-"> <title id="icon-comment-quick-access-">Comment</title> <g fill="none" fill-rule="evenodd"> <path fill="#FFF" fill-rule="nonzero" d="M6.3 18a.9.9 0 0 1-.9-.9v-2.7H1.8A1.8 1.8 0 0 1 0 12.6V1.8A1.8 1.8 0 0 1 1.8 0h14.4A1.8 1.8 0 0 1 18 1.8v10.8a1.8 1.8 0 0 1-1.8 1.8h-5.49l-3.33 3.339a.917.917 0 0 1-.63.261H6.3Z" /> <path stroke="#000" d="M5.9 14.4v-.5H1.8a1.3 1.3 0 0 1-1.3-1.3V1.8A1.3 1.3 0 0 1 1.8.5h14.4a1.3 1.3 0 0 1 1.3 1.3v10.8a1.3 1.3 0 0 1-1.3 1.3h-5.698l-.146.147-3.324 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7.27731C6.31205 7.85264 7.47471 8.63597 8.46671 9.62731C9.45805 10.6186 10.2414 11.781 10.8167 13.1143C11.392 14.4476 11.6794 15.881 11.6787 17.4143H8.67871Z" fill="currentColor" fill-opacity="0.2" /> </g> <defs> <clippath id="clip0_1051_121783"> <rect width="17" height="17" fill="white" transform="translate(0.678711 0.414307)" /> </clippath> </defs> </svg> </a> </li> </ul> </div> </details> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-hero-media "> <figure class="w-full h-auto post-hero-image"> <img decoding="async" width="740" height="493" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-01-740x493.jpg" class="w-full object-cover" alt="Bo (Lawrence LeJohn) and Mack (Raymond O’Connor) in Babylon 5 "A View From the Gallery"" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-01-740x493.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-01-1100x733.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-01-768x512.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-01.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" /> </figure> <div class="post-hero-caption post-hero-caption-horizontal [&_a]:link"><p>Credit: Warner Bros. Television</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> </post-hero> <div class="wp-block-more-from-category"> <div> </div> </div> <p><strong>“A View from the Gallery”</strong><br>Written by Harlan Ellison & J. Michael Straczynski<br>Directed by Janet Greek<br>Season 5, Episode 4<br>Production episode 505<br>Original air date: February 11, 1998</p> <p><strong>It was the dawn of the third age…</strong> In hyperspace, an alien ship destroys a probe. Corwin reports to Lochley that the probe was destroyed by the alien fleet that the Gaim warned them about. Lochley puts the station on alert and tells Corwin to set aside a lifepod for Sheridan and Delenn to escape in if necessary. Corwin points out that they won’t go, and Lochley says to leave that to her.</p> <p>Two of the maintenance crew, Mack and Bo, mutter about how they always have to clean up the messes made by the command staff.</p> <p>Lochley and Sheridan pass by Mack and Bo as the latter are working. As Lochley tries to convince Sheridan to use the lifepod if it becomes necessary, Mack and Bo comment on how much they appreciate that Sheridan gets his metaphorical hands dirty, always right there in the action with everyone else.</p> <p>Mack and Bo take their lunch break. Bo has salami, which impresses Mack, as that’s hard to get. Mack is having spoo, and convinces Bo to trade half his sandwich. Bo is revolted by the spoo, while Mack is in heaven getting to eat salami.</p> <p>Bo is sent to medlab to fix a console. He overhears Franklin giving instructions to the medical staff on dealing with casualties. Bo makes a comment about why he bothers to set up to treat the enemy. Franklin tells the story of when his father was a POW, and was treated by an enemy doctor—he would’ve died if not for that alien physician. That was when Franklin decided he wanted to be an MD rather than follow his family’s footsteps as soldiers. Ironically, that alien doctor was killed for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img decoding="async" width="1100" height="825" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-02-1100x825.jpg" alt="Dr Franklin in Babylon 5 "A View From the Gallery"" class="wp-image-843520" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-02-1100x825.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-02-740x555.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-02-140x105.jpg 140w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-02-768x576.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-02.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: Warner Bros. Television</figcaption></figure> <p>Mack is sent to CnC to fix the secondary targeting console—just as the aliens come through the jumpgate. Mack fixes it—there was an insect inside the console—just in time for it to be needed in the firefight.</p> <p>That was the first wave, and Lochley tells Corwin to be ready for the next wave, while she goes off to yell at Garibaldi. Mack and Bo are riding the lift when Garibaldi and Lochley enter, the latter yelling at the former for the incomplete intel the Gaim provided about the aliens.</p> <p>Bo and Mack continue their maintenance work, and they notice a boarding pod attaching itself to the station hull. The two of them wind up in the middle of a firefight in a cargo bay, but Allan is able to cover them while they get to safety.</p> <p>Safety turns out to be with Byron and his gaggle of telepaths. At one point, Bo mentions that he wishes he was out there in a Starfury fighting the good fight. Byron telepathically links him with a Starfury pilot so he can experience what’s happening. Mack, freaked out by the telepaths, suggests they go to one of the shelters, and leads Bo away to one of the designated shelters.</p> <p>They share the shelter with, among others, Mollari and G’Kar. The former laments that the universe hates him. The latter says that this feels like home to him, as he spent most of his childhood in shelters like this while the Centauri bombed his homeworld. Mollari further laments that he didn’t have a childhood, he had too many responsibilities. They depart the shelter together.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img decoding="async" width="1100" height="825" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-03-1100x825.jpg" alt="Mollari and G'Kar in Babylon 5 "A View From the Gallery"" class="wp-image-843519" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-03-1100x825.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-03-740x555.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-03-140x105.jpg 140w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-03-768x576.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-03.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: Warner Bros. Television</figcaption></figure> <p>En route to deal with a fire in Red Sector, Bo and Mack come across Sheridan and Delenn. The president orders to the two of them to escort Delenn to a lifepod—he can’t ask security, as they’re all too busy repelling boarders. However, Delenn is able to convince them to let her go with a combination of empathy for their positions and threats to sabotage the pod if they put her in it.</p> <p>The <em>White Star</em>s show up and rout the aliens. Soon it’s all over and the station is safe. Mack and Bo complain that they have to clean up all the messes now, but they pass by Franklin checking the many dead bodies of Starfury pilots, at which point they realize that there are other messes here to clean up that they’re not involved with.</p> <p>In CnC, Mack, while making repairs to damaged consoles, tells Lochley that she’s all right in his book. Later, the pair pass Delenn and Sheridan, and Delenn impresses them by remembering their names.</p> <p><strong>Get the hell out of our galaxy!</strong> When Lochley asks Sheridan if he’d do anything different if their positions were reversed, Sheridan has to admit that he wouldn’t. But he also refuses to report to the lifepod when the fighting gets rough.</p> <p><strong>Never work with your ex.</strong> Lochley runs the battle as best she can while waiting for the <em>White Star</em>s to show up.</p> <p><strong>Ivanova is God.</strong> Mack and Bo discuss the rumors flying about regarding Ivanova’s departure, which is a bit of meta commentary on the rumors flying about fandom regarding Claudia Christian’s departure from the show.</p> <p><strong>The household god of frustration.</strong> Garibaldi is apparently just as mediocre at being the head of covert intelligence as he was as the head of security…</p> <figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img decoding="async" width="1100" height="825" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-04-1100x825.jpg" alt="Delenn speaks with Mack in Babylon 5 "A View From the Gallery"" class="wp-image-843517" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-04-1100x825.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-04-740x555.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-04-140x105.jpg 140w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-04-768x576.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-04.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: Warner Bros. Television</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>If you value your lives, be somewhere else.</strong> Delenn likens Mack and Bo to the Worker Caste of the Minbari, and not only asks their names, but later remembers their names, neither of which Bo and Mack expected.</p> <p><strong>In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic…</strong> As a member of a prominent aristocratic family whose father died when he was very young, Mollari didn’t get much of a childhood.</p> <p><strong>Though it take a thousand years, we shall be free.</strong> G’Kar spent his youth in bomb shelters taking refuge from Centauri bombardment. We also learn that the Narn day is 31 hours long.</p> <p><strong>The Corps is mother, the Corps is father.</strong> Byron is apparently a strong enough telepath to insert someone’s mind into someone else’s so they can experience what the other person is experiencing. Either that or he can put a <em>very</em> convincing illusion in someone’s mind…</p> <p><strong>No sex, please, we’re EarthForce.</strong> After Delenn remembers his and Bo’s names, Mack declares that he’s in love. When Bo reminds him that she’s married (indeed, they earlier discussed how much in love she and Sheridan are), Mack shrugs and says they can work something out.</p> <p><strong>Welcome aboard.</strong> Joshua Cox—who has been upgraded to a billed-at-the-beginning-of-act-one guest star for this final season—is back from “<a href="https://reactormag.com/babylon-5-rewatch-no-compromises/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">No Compromises</a>” as Corwin. Robin Atkin Downes is back from “<a href="https://reactormag.com/babylon-5-rewatch-a-view-from-the-gallery/reactormag.com/babylon-5-rewatch-the-paragon-of-animals/">The Paragon of Animals</a>” as Byron. Both of them will be back in “Strange Relations.”</p> <p>Bo and Mack are played by, respectively, Lawrence LeJohn and my fellow Bronx native, the late great Raymond O’Connor.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img decoding="async" width="1100" height="825" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-05-1100x825.jpg" alt="Bo (Lawrence LeJohn) and Mack (Raymond O’Connor) in Babylon 5 "A View From the Gallery"" class="wp-image-843522" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-05-1100x825.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-05-740x555.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-05-140x105.jpg 140w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-05-768x576.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-05.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: Warner Bros. Television</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>Trivial matters. </strong>The aliens who attack are never identified and never mentioned or seen again.</p> <p>The <em>White Star</em> fleet isn’t immediately available because they were almost all deployed to the Enphili homeworld in “<a href="file:///F:/Keith%202/B5%20Rewatch/reactormag.com/babylon-5-rewatch-the-paragon-of-animals/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Paragon of Animals</a>.”</p> <p>One of the things that was promoted during the run-up to <em>B5</em>’s premiere in J. Michael Straczynski’s online campaign to create buzz for the show was the involvement of Harlan Ellison as a creative consultant, also with the likelihood that he would write some episodes of the show. Given that Ellison’s history includes plenty of teleplay writing (<em>The Outer Limits, </em>the 1980s iteration of <em>The Twilight Zone, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Starlost</em>, <a href="https://reactormag.com/star-trek-the-original-series-rewatch-the-city-on-the-edge-of-forever/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the original <em>Star Trek</em></a>), this wasn’t a real surprise. However, in the end, he only contributed to two episodes, of which this was the first, and in both cases it was only sharing story credit with Straczynski. According to Straczynski, the original concept was Ellison’s. (Ellison’s second story credit will be “Objects in Motion” toward the end of the final season.)</p> <p>Mack’s description of the <em>White Star</em>s as looking like plucked chickens was apparently Straczynski’s initial reaction when he saw the designs of the ship.</p> <p>Byron, for the second time in two episodes, quotes <em>Hamlet</em>, this time the “Alas, poor Yorick” speech. Given that Tom Stoppard’s <em>Hamlet</em> spinoff play <em>Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead</em> was one of the inspirations for this episode, quoting that play is particularly apropos.</p> <p>The crawler Mack picked out of the console was a Madagascar hissing cockroach with fake wings and a crest.</p> <p>That Bo is, like Straczynski, tall, bearded, and speaks softly but intently and Mack is, like Ellison, short and more outspoken and glib, is <em>probably</em> a coincidence.</p> <p><strong>The echoes of all of our conversations.</strong></p> <p>“We spent our days in shelters we made ourselves. We sang songs, we prayed, we ate, we slept. I spent my life in one such shelter or another. I will tell you the truth, Mollari: this is probably the closest thing I have to a home.”</p> <p>“Yes, well, don’t start singing. You’ll frighten the children.”</p> <p>—G’Kar and Mollari bantering.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img decoding="async" width="1100" height="825" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-06-1100x825.jpg" alt="Bo (Lawrence LeJohn) and Mack (Raymond O’Connor) in Babylon 5 "A View From the Gallery"" class="wp-image-843518" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-06-1100x825.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-06-740x555.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-06-140x105.jpg 140w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-06-768x576.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Babylon-5-Gallery-06.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: Warner Bros. Television</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>The name of the place is Babylon 5.</strong> “It tastes like chicken.” This is a really promising first draft of what should’ve been a great episode. Which is frustrating to me, because this is the kind of story I generally adore, from Tom Stoppard’s <em>Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead</em> to <em>Star Trek: The Next Generation</em>’s “<a href="https://reactormag.com/star-trek-the-next-generation-rewatch-qdatas-dayq/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Data’s Day</a>” and “<a href="https://reactormag.com/star-trek-the-next-generation-lower-decks/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Lower Decks</a>.” J. Michael Straczynski has said that he wrote this script in a single eleven-hour period, and sadly, it shows. It’s possible to write well under pressure, of course, but it’s also very easy to not write well under that same pressure.</p> <p>Some of the dialogue here sparkles. The Mollari-G’Kar scene in the bunker is classic, as exchanges with those characters almost always are, but it’s Mack’s coda that really nails it: “So how long you figure they been married?” Bo’s line about how he understands Sheridan after seeing Delenn smile—“I’d claw my way out of hell and straight through ten miles of solid rock to see that smile again”—is a letter-perfect description of Mira Furlan’s radiant smile. And Franklin’s explanation of why he became a physician is one of Richard Biggs’ best bits in the show’s entire history.</p> <p>Others, though, fall completely flat, from the “grow bigger shoulders” rhapsody in clichés to the awkward colloquy on how the station is bigger than all of them at the very end, which just feels a little too self-congratulatory on the part of the scriptwriter. Sheridan’s convincing of Delenn to go in the lifepod also just rings wrong on every level, and Lochley and Garibaldi’s argument about intelligence providing just feels constructed and fake.</p> <p>Some manage both—for example, Mack and Bo’s discussion of Sheridan gets a little too precious, but it ends magnificently. “I heard he was dead once.” “Yeah, well, nobody’s perfect.”</p> <p>The episode is still mostly watchable, mainly due to the usual suspects of Andreas Katsulas and Peter Jurasik, as well as guests Lawrence LeJohn and Raymond O’Connor, who make Bo and Mack feel real. That “mostly” caveat is due to, once again, Robin Atkin Downes and Tracy Scoggins, who are completely ineffective as Byron and Lochley. This was Lochley’s first real spotlight as the new captain, and she managed to make it perfunctory and somnolent. The one exception, interestingly enough, was at the very end when she gives Mack a bright smile in response to his saying she’s all right in his book. It’s the first time Lochley feels like a person rather than an automaton.</p> <p><strong>Next week:</strong> “Learning Curve.”[end-mark]</p> <p>The post <a href="https://reactormag.com/babylon-5-rewatch-a-view-from-the-gallery/"><i>Babylon 5</i> Rewatch: “A View from the Gallery”</a> appeared first on <a href="https://reactormag.com">Reactor</a>.</p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/babylon-5-rewatch-a-view-from-the-gallery/">https://reactormag.com/babylon-5-rewatch-a-view-from-the-gallery/</a></p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/?p=843453">https://reactormag.com/?p=843453</a></p>
It's an interesting thought, but I would think if someone had a GPS blocker that could affect the drivers it would be affecting my GPS too, which it definitely isn't. There is some kind of weird stuff in apps about my building, but that's not uncommon in Chicago, to be honest. If you try to enter my building number into certain apps, it sends you to the alley rather than my front door or it sends you to a nearby park. My office moved about a year ago but the old office address would do the same -- entering the address would send you to the loading dock instead of the actual entrance. I used to have to walk to a nearby Dunkin Donuts and call a ride from there. Especially in downtown, Lyft will sometimes try to tell drivers to go miles out of their way to get to a certain destination that's only 10 minutes away. I've had drivers go "This is fucked up, you don't care if I go a better way, do you?" and I've had to go "Yeah uh, this isn't the first time, go ahead."
What's so strange to me is that it's not simply a matter of drivers being unable to find my address -- that's part of it for sure, but other aspects include restaurants regularly getting so far in the weeds they cancel my order, restaurants delivering unbelievably incorrect orders (I once got three orders of wings instead of the wings, pasta, and sandwich I ordered), and drivers delivering to obviously and visibly wrong addresses, like the guy who delivered to an address with both a different street number and a different street name, a block away. There have been at least two car crashes. One time, the power went out at the grocery store my Instacart driver was shopping at, literally as he was in the process of paying. I got a message that the shop had been completed and he was on his way to me! And then he cancelled the order and I had to call Instacart to find out why! I've had drivers call and text to say they've arrived and my phone simply never received either despite never having reception problems.
I'd also chalk this up to me living in the downtown area of one of the largest cities in the country, where things are just...more stressful and complicated for everyone. Downtown restaurants are under more pressure to put out more food faster, this is true. But this doesn't happen to anyone else I know. I have friends who live in my building and never have these problems. At this point the fact that I order delivery like, twice a year might be causing some bias, because I would imagine if you order food weekly the odds of you having this kind of issue every time goes way down, but I don't have either the budget or the mental health to risk it.
I'm not even mad -- by not ordering delivery I save money and I learn to cook food I really like, and I live within walking distance of plenty of restaurants. It was a real advantage during the height of the pandemic. But there are days I would really like to just order a pizza and have the pizza I ordered arrive to my address within an hour.
A shiver down your spine… a giggle in your throat? Horror comedy may sound like a contradiction, but the genre is nothing new. In fact, some consider One Exciting Night, a film released in 1922, to be the first-ever horror comedy film. Other early examples of the genre include Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, a 1948 film that took a very straightforward approach to horror comedy by literally introducing a monster to a comedy duo. But horror comedy is no relic of the past—in fact, it seems to be everywhere these days. The only issue is, has anyone noticed?
At the 2026 Academy Awards, four Oscars, including for Best Screenplay and Best Actor, went to the decadent Sinners, which can be fairly argued to be a horror comedy (and a costume drama, and a musical—it’s a very cross-genre film, which is part of its charm). Also in 2025 came winking killer-robot flicks Companion and M3gan 2.0. In 2026, the Scream movies are back yet again, while the delightfully campy Ready or Not (basic premise: what if the Parker Brothers, as in the board games, were a large family instead of a pair of brothers, and also in league with the devil) has an even campier sequel. Clearly, there’s a hearty appetite out there for horror comedy. But why?
Well, maybe we all need an escape. We live in tempestuous times, and the gleeful excesses of horror comedy can let us forget that for a little while. Escapism is underrated, but powerful. In a college writing class, one question we were asked to grapple with was the purpose of fiction “beyond simple escapism.” Even then, the phrase struck me. Beyond? Simple? Escapism is vital; it wouldn’t be a tradition that spans all the way back to Homer if it wasn’t (and frankly, The Odyssey could definitely be played for horror comedy in bits, especially the parts about Circe and the animal transformations).
It’s also difficult to do well. Watching some of the lower-budget 80s horror comedies, or Messrs. Abbott and Costello introducing themselves to yet another member of the Spirit Halloween Gang, it’s easy for your mind to wander. One reason I, at least, had such a good time watching Sinners was that, for the full two hours and seventeen minutes of its runtime, I wasn’t thinking of anything but these musicians and vampires in 1920s Mississippi. When Ready or Not premiered in theaters, I didn’t get around to it on the big screen—but watching it during a long flight, after an exhausting drag to the airport, I found myself captivated.
Why is the horror comedy renaissance happening? Maybe we should be asking—why does it matter? Because it does matter. And it matters because, even as a genre that’s been belittled, and associated with corny gags and buckets of red corn syrup “blood”, horror comedy can be art. And when it is art, when the formula works, between the screams and the laughs and the gasps, it’s breathtaking.
But maybe there’s a little more going on than that. To understand the current horror comedy renaissance, maybe you have to look at the appeal, more broadly, of horror comedy as a genre. While horror movies can provide things like social commentary and a way to reflect on our feelings, they can also serve another, equally important purpose: catharsis.
The word catharsis comes from two Greek words; katharos, meaning “pure” or “clean,” and kathairein, meaning to purge, or purify. In ancient Greece, theatres were found next to temples because attending the theatre was considered a holy thing, in part because the emotional catharsis experienced by the audience was considered a form of purification, which Aristotle described in Poetics, praising the “purging of emotions” theatre could enable. Horror movies provide that same catharsis, a way of letting out shock and fear, and that same sense of relief when the film ends and the lights go up.
Horror comedy, meanwhile, takes that feeling and doubles, or possibly even squares it. The ancient Greek theatre was famous for its tragedy, but also for its comedy, and the emotional catharsis provided by “a good cry” or getting your socks scared off you can also be felt by the kind of laughter that makes your stomach ache.
Horror comedy as a genre arguably predates horror comedy movies at all. Before there were films, or even cameras, there was theatre. And in theatre, there was horror, comedy, and horror comedy. In Paris, when the Théâtre du Grand-Guignol opened in 1897, they ran programs of double features, where over-the-top gore in the horror plays alternated with comedy shows, for an effect the theatre owners likened to bathing in hot and cold water. A visit to the Grand-Guignol could even be followed up with a glass of wine at a horror comedy restaurant, the Cabaret de L’Enfer, a Parisian hell-themed establishment that had guests enter through the mouth of a demon, only to be mocked by waiters dressed as devils who called coffee “molten sin.”
It was certainly a memorable way to spend a night on the town. And it definitely didn’t leave you feeling underwhelmed.
Horror comedy may be the ultimate cathartic film genre, satisfying some of our most intense emotional impulses, and, when done well, leaving the audience with a satisfaction that’s almost like physical exhaustion from a good workout. There’s even a third layer, which comes from the element of surprise—you don’t expect to laugh at the monster, or be frightened of the jokes, so when it happens, it has an extra punch.
Are people in any particular need of catharsis right now? Oh yes. Whatever your take on the current state of the world, it’s inescapable to note that times are tense. The heyday of the Grand-Guignol and the Cabaret de L’Enfer was a tense time too; these thrived in the leadup to World War I and in interwar years, as the world held its breath in the uneasy armistice, and as technology changed the landscape at an increasingly rapid pace. This may also be a reason that the 1980s saw an absolute outpouring of horror comedy—the height of the Cold War was another decidedly tense era. To scream, to laugh, to be transported—all of these are a release of tension.
The Grand-Guignol closed in the early 1960s; the owners believed that witnessing the real horrors of the Holocaust had diminished public appetite for horror theatre. The postwar years in America saw horror comedy relegated to Abbott and Costello meeting an increasingly unlikely cast of classic movie monsters, the far end of the “silly and scary” scale. It would be over a decade before the genre picked back up; in the immediate postwar years, an era where everyone was already exhausted from the hard-won end of the war, people simply didn’t need it.
As the Cold War tensions grew higher, the need returned. The 1980s were, in some ways, the golden age of an especially lurid, throw-your-popcorn-over-your-shoulder school of horror comedy, although the form had started in the 60s and 70s. Think Little Shop of Horrors—the original movie, not the movie musical, where there’s far less singing, more chomping, and a much darker ending.
Today’s tense era is one where, at least in theory, we have more ways to vent and experience catharsis than ever before. Anyone who’s ever done time on a microblogging platform knows that getting into a low-stakes fight online is about as easy as falling off a log. But in a world of social media catharsis, which is fostered on mutual exchange (“like, comment, and subscribe!”), and live events which proudly, and sometimes erroneously, bill themselves as “immersive,” watching a film asks less of you. No one expects you to contribute to the experience; you’re doing your job by sitting and watching and screaming and laughing.
And that’s just it—we are doing our job. The films keep getting made because we keep watching. Because like Aristotle looking to purge his emotions, we need this. We need the human experience of sitting, all of us alone together in the dark, with the screen illuminating our faces as our expressions shift from fear to glee. Amidst the ambient chaos that is being a person in 2026, we need a chance to laugh, and scream, and escape. And then the lights go on, and we stand up, feeling lighter, and having been purified.[end-mark]
KPop Demon Hunters is an international phenomenon. Just this past week, on top of numerous other awards, it won Oscars for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song. The characters, the songs, the story, have taken over the world.
It’s a great story. The king of the demons has been trying for centuries to conquer humankind and feed on their souls. There’s always been a trio of demon hunters holding him back with the magical barrier called the Honmoon, sustaining it with three-part harmony and the passion of their fans. Each group of hunters is a girl group, and they perform in whatever genre is most in vogue at the time.
This time it’s K-Pop, Korean pop music, and Rumi, Mira, and Zoey set out to raise the greatest power of all, the golden Honmoon. That and that alone can drive out the demons forever.
There are numerous complications and a number of reversals, some of them devastating, but we’re here for one beloved trope, and that is the Adorable Animal Sidekick (singular or plural). Walt Disney built an empire on it. Hero after hero, princess after princess, has a sidekick flitting around, cracking wise and offering advice and occasional chaos. From Jiminy Cricket to Mushu the teeny dragon to Sebastian the crab, no protagonist can be without this essential living accessory.
KPop Demon Hunters gives us a pair of animal powers: a demon tiger and a six-eyed magpie. They’re not named in the film, but the creative team calls them Derpy Tiger and Sussie Bird. Both are very much a part of Korean folk culture, and they’re often seen together in lore and art.
We first meet them in the demon realm, as ominous shadows attached to the demonic musician Jinu. As the film progresses, they emerge into the light. The bird is a geometric masterpiece in black and white with a tall-crowned hat, and the tiger is a vivid blue creature with enormous fangs set in a perpetual grin, and lambent golden eyes.
Their primary function in the story is to serve as messengers between Jinu and Rumi. They can melt into the ground or the floor and rise up out of it, as they please. The tiger carries messages in a card on its tongue. The bird rides the tiger’s head or shows up on the sidelines, watching with its multiplicity of eyes.
In spite of their dark origin and their foreboding introduction, neither the tiger nor the bird turns out to be evil. At worst they’re neutral. They have a job to do and they’re diligent about it. There’s nothing scary about them, though the tiger is huge—tiger-sized—and the bird is kind of weird.
The power they wield is the power of cute. Cute is a great force in the world. Maybe the greatest.
Disney knew. In Japan it’s an entire thing called Kawaisa, the Cult of Cute. Cute animals rule the internet and dominate social media.
Cute doesn’t need to be small or fuzzy or harmless. It can be a tiny insect (jumping spiders, omg) or a big furry mammal. It can be a creature normally thought of as terrifying, like a shark or a snake. Humans can find cuteness in just about anything. It’s not without its dangers—hence the meme, “If not friend, then why friend-shaped?” It can be a hard lesson when humans fall for the cute but miss the real nature of a wild animal.
But that’s getting away from the purpose of the tiger and the bird in KPop Demon Hunters. They’re there to show us that Jinu may not be entirely evil. The telling point for me is when Rumi asks Jinu why the bird wears a hat. “I made it for the tiger,” he answers, “but the bird keeps taking it.”
A demon makes a hat for his companion animal. That’s such a human thing to do. There’s a whole subreddit of snakes in hats. (Also, cats wishing death on humans who try to inflict clothes on them, but that’s a different set of memes—and one of the underlying themes of another Korean genre film, The Cat.)
It’s not just the sartorial choice that does it. It’s the way both Jinu and Rumi act around the tiger. An affectionate glance. A casual stroke of the hand. A purr in response. They’re showing us that they have the human impulse to bond with other species.
It’s a form of empathy, and a manifestation of the capacity to love. That’s the heart of the film. It’s one of the things that makes it great, and an essential component of its success. The music and the characters could carry it on their own, but the tiger and the bird add that extra bit of something. I can’t imagine it without them.[end-mark]
One exhibitor sold AutoCAD systems and also offered training. It is fairly easy to learn the basics of a CADD program, but the real benefit comes with learning what can be done with the more complicated features of the program. Customer: "What if I pay for my employees to get the training and they leave?"
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Today I was ordering a panini from the local sandwich joint, when I saw behind the counter that they had individually packaged slices of bacon. Though I have tried many a cured meat throughout the years, including dubious meat sticks, I have never seen individually packaged, fully cooked, flavored bacon. Of course, I knew I had to try every flavor they had available, especially since they were only a buck a piece.
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