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11 thoughts on “539 – A Knife In The Dark (END OF EPISODE 22)”

  1. Keith

    Why am I not surprised.

  2. Scarsdale

    Typical, it’s always someone else’s fault. Revenge is not just best served cold, but by stupid too. “This is all your fault!” Which is wrong, but in his head, it’s right.

    1. steelraven

      It’s also been heavily hinted he has already been brain washed by the zombie worshiping cult.

      1. Scarsdale

        Which, no doubt, made easier because of that under-lying feeling. People are always looking for a scape-goat…

    2. Clint

      I don’t know if you got my callback by intent or not, but it’s great to see almost the same words echoed! https://www.zombieranchcomic.com/comic/203-breaking-worst/

  3. RC

    Honestly, probably the first time he’s ever taken control of and done ever in his life. There’s a reason why they kept him. Give a dog that’s been beat all its life a whiff of conference and control, you got a problem.

  4. Crazyman

    Imagine his surprise when he stabs a pillow. 😜

  5. Zombatar

    He isn’t in control, RC – he’s probably drugged to the very dilated eyeballs, probably with Datura. Back on p.443, Eustace is shown holding a Mojave Rattlesnake on a stick while the Brujefe milks it into a glass. Mojave venom A is a paralytic neurotoxin, like tetrodotoxin. Tetrodotoxin was thought to be part of the legendary Haitian “zombie powder”. The other part was Datura, which contains scopalamine, which messes with memory and concentration, and is supposed to render victims docile and suggestible.
    The question is, where did he get his current dose, and did a little drone whisper in his ear?

    1. TKG

      Except Datura doesn’t do that. You’re thinking of the compound Scoplolmine (AKA the devil’s breath) which generally comes from a specific plant, Borrochero (Brugmansia arbora) that is native to Columbia that the gang in question probably would have had access to. It’s active compound obliterates free will, your conscious, you can function as normal but you are totally open to suggestion which is what happened to McCarty here. Datura just makes you trip mad balls and maybe die, but it does not make you a puppet.

  6. Dr. Norman (not a real doctor)

    Me lleva la chingada !

  7. TKG

    I’m betting money there’s no one in that bed and it’s a ruse to get him caught.

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539 – A Knife In The Dark (END OF EPISODE 22)
Posted on December 25, 2024 by Dawn

Happy Holidays, all! That's a wrap (heh) for Episode 22 just in time for a Christmas cliffhanger! Hope we don't twist the knife too much...

See y'all in 2025 when Zombie Ranch continues!

Three doses o’ grit.

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Clint
Longtime readers of this blog may recall that several months ago I blogged about the movie True Grit. The original 1969 production starring The Duke, that is, although I had recently heard first word of the Coen Brothers remake and was excited for it. Weird, I was just thinking how John Wayne only managed to be The Duke, whereas Elvis got to be The King. I guess Wayne didn’t really give a crap about where he stood in the royal ranks so long as Presley didn’t come by and throw his weight around (or those infamous hips). Tangents: I has them. Anyhow, here we are in 2011 and I have not only seen the True Grit remake, but I decided on whim to check out the Charles Portis novel that started it all. Actually, my “whim” turned out to be me calling about 6 different bookstores until I finally found one that had a copy for sale, which caught me by surprise what with the Coen movie having just been released. Even Amazon had them backordered for at least two weeks. High demand? I’m not sure. It might be something weirder than that, since Amazon now says they’re not getting any more until the end of May. Helluva time to be “between printings”. But I did get my paws on True Grit, and was immediately surprised to see how thin it was. Now I use the term “thin” in relative sense, since this edition is a bit larger in dimensions than your usual pocket-size paperback, but the approximately 230 pages fly by rather fast, especially if you find yourself in a page turning mood. Which isn’t to say the tale in those pages has no merit. Quite the opposite, it has an economy and purity of vision unmarred by the presence of what the narrator might very well consider “foolish flights of fancy”. In this book, every word printed comes from the pen of the adult Mattie Ross, thinking back to her 14 year old self and the journey of vengeance she undertook in her father’s name. The first sentence of the novel, which the Coens (bless their twisted hearts) repeated word for word as the first sentence of their movie, runs thusly:

“People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day.”

Now if you’ve followed the Coen brothers’ filmography at all, you can see how a speech like that would be right up their alley. The puzzling thing about the movie for me, though, is that the book has several more quirky scenes and lines that would also seem ripe for Coen-land, and yet they were omitted. In some cases, their absence was replaced with scenes completely fabricated for the film whose presence I did not quite understand. It’s still soon enough I probably shouldn’t go into any details for fear of spoilers, but let me tell you, experiencing three different helpings of grit in the past year makes for interesting digestion. Such a straightforward, uncomplicated tale, and yet changing some of the details makes for big differences. A big reason for this might be because Mattie is a person thoroughly grounded in details, at least as they pertain to her quest. Also a person of very strong opinions, so much so that you can’t help but wonder if her account of affairs is accurate despite the assured, matter-of-fact way she presents it all. This more than anything is what makes the True Grit novel a fascinating read for me, because neither movie quite gets across the point that for all we know, everything that happens could be akin to watching only a single segment of Rashomon and taking that as gospel. Puts a different spin on the word “True” in the title, don’t it? So on reflection I’m really not sure the Coen version lived up to my expectations, but then, my expectations were very, very high, and that’s always dangerous going in. I do wonder how long ago they might have read it, because I swear the strange “just left of reality” style of speech and circumstance the Coens specialize in just spills out of Portis’ book, not to mention a stubborn-as-a-gov’t-mule woman(girl) who obsesses on an objective, something we often see with Holly Hunter’s characters in Coen movies. Mattie is definitely the type who, like Penny in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, would have ended a dispute with the statement, “I have spoken my piece and counted to three.” Maybe it was too close for comfort, and thus the odd divergences? Well, in any case, both films have their ups and downs, and both led me to the book, which I was also surprised to see had this recommendation in its jacket pages:

“True Grit is the best novel to come my way for a very long time. What book has given me greater pleasure in the last five years? Or in the last twenty? I do not know… What a writer!”

— Roald Dahl

If that name is not familiar to you, I’ll tell you straight up that Roald Dahl is neither a writer of Westerns, nor even an American. What he is, though, is one of my absolute favorite writers of all time, and to see his endorsement on True Grit was both totally unexpected and totally fantastic. Had I known I probably would have given Mr. Portis a whirl a good sight sooner than I did, but regardless, I have the book, I have read it, and it was a damn good yarn. Once it gets its new printing in late Spring, I reckon you could do a lot worse for yourself than giving it a look.
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