Cleanup thread: Magnificent Bastard

I’m not seeing Black Widow any time soon, so I’m cool either way. Now, an EP I wasn’t expecting.

What is the work?

Of all the things to talk about tonight? Let’s discuss Clue: The Musical.

This is exactly what you think it is - a musical adaptation of the classic board game Clue. The show has No Fourth Wall and is essentially a group game, featuring Mr. Boddy as the host trying to get the audience to figure out where he was killed, how, and by whom. The characters are well aware that they’re in a board game, leaving them free to lampshade the game and have some fun with it, especially with characters like Mustard eating enough ham for a small country. Audience volunteers pick all three pieces of the murder, leaving the whole show variable in how it can go down (with 216 possible finales), but one thing is consistent in all of the scenarios - Mr. Boddy is far more than the Asshole Victim he is in the show’s game.

Who is Mr. Boddy? What does he do?

Mr. Boddy is introduced welcoming the audience to his little game of murder, explaining the rules and introducing the suspects one by one. With the scene set, he welcomes three audience members to the stage to figure out the details of his death, through it all waxing poetic about the game he’s now playing with the suspects. With everyone introduced and the finale set, the game is afoot, and he begins setting the stage for his murder.

Throughout the first act, we see him antagonize the suspects to give them their motives - he underpays Mrs. White, marries Miss. Peacock despite Colonel Mustard’s affections for her, and perhaps most damningly, makes Mr. Green pay him $500,000 after Green tries to scam him out of it, threatening a lawsuit if he doesn’t. Plus, Plum reveals that he bankrupted several companies, which caused their donation beneficiaries like schools to suffer. Through it all, he keeps giving the audience clues to his eventual murder, laying out each scene and what is relevant within each one - he’s clearly enjoying his villainous role, even if I can’t say for certain he’s doing it by choice. Plus, through it all, he’s handing the suspects various items that turn out to be weapons, ensuring they’ll all be incriminated once he’s killed.

However, once we’ve seen all of the suspects gain their motivation, he offers a waltz to his guests, wanting them to know that he knows they all want him dead and not only welcomes them to kill him, but that he will waltz with them so as to show that he holds no ill will to his eventual killer. He eventually offers a toast - “may the best murderer win”, and the suspects all toast to success. At this point, Boddy leads them on a ballet style chase around his mansion, laughing at their misfortune all the while, but eventually the suspects converge on him and kill him - now it’s time for them to find the killer, right?

Well, Mr. Boddy just gets back up, tells the audience not to pity him since he’s meant to be killed, and reveals how he’s going to help the audience catch his killer - he’s hired a detective from outside of the game box, one who is determined to leave the killer in the box for life.

This detective he’s hired throws the game into a frenzy, with no one able to combat someone who is able to decipher their attempts to give alibis for each other. It doesn’t help them that Boddy continues to give both the audience and the Detective clues throughout act 2, especially whenever he performs the show’s signature chant: “Wrench, candlestick, pipe, knife, revolver, rope”. Whenever he does that, the suspects reset their minds, forcing them to cooperate with the Detective despite their attempts to coordinate alibis for each other. He also hands the bag of weapons to her, giving her a leg up on them. This forces the suspects to adapt in various ways - such as Plum attempting to seduce her to get her off of his trail.

With his aid, the Detective susses out all of the suspects’ motives, making all of their attempts to distract her fall flat. Through his aid, not only does the Detective (and likely some members of the audience) deduce the killer, location, and weapon, but she also deduces that Professor Plum is an imposter - and that that Professor Plum was an imposter, with the real killer being the show’s piano player, having been dismissed as a killer by Mr. Boddy and desiring revenge. With his true killer revealed, the suspects all talk about their dreams outside of the game, like Scarlet wanting to star in a Hallmark Original Movie and Mr. Green wanting to go on a Caribbean cruise…

And then Mr. Boddy walks in, once again doing his weapon mantra to reset the suspects. With their personalities reset, Mr. Boddy congratulates those who managed to deduce his killer, then reveals that it’s time to play the game of murder once again.

Is he Magnificent?

My goodness is he. He knows that he’s the Asshole Victim of the tale and relishes in it, happily letting the others kill him if it satisfies them because being able to survive his death is like immortality to him. Plus, even after his death, he still messes with the suspects to ensure the audience figures out who killed him, leaving subtle clues throughout the show both to the audience and the Detective to ensure she figures it out. Plus, he manages to bring in the Detective from outside the game he lives in to throw the suspects off course - their dialogue makes it clear that this has never happened before and don’t even know how it’s possible. In essence, even though his role in the game is to die, he takes it a step further by messing with the suspects even after he’s dead, and through it all he’s in charge of the game. Plus, it’s worth giving him some credit when he’s alive - though he willingly submits to his death, he makes them work for it, leading them on a multiple minute chase throughout the manor and scaring them whenever he can, laughing maniacally all the while, and on top of that he gives them all weapons to incriminate them later - and through it all he’s charming as all hell. There are even a few points where we see him directly control the suspects’ actions like a marionette master and he forcefully resets them at crucial points to aid the Detective, so he’s the boss of the game from beginning to end. When he learns that the piano player was the killer, meanwhile? He just goes on with his life and undeath, resetting the game once again so he can continue to be immortal.

I guess there could be an argument that he’s clearly not using all of his power since he’s not just telling the audience who killed him, but that’s not the point - the entire show is a game to him, and he wants the audience and suspects to play on his terms. Sure, he could just say “it was Mr. Green in the ballroom with the rope”, but where’s the fun in that? He wants the audience to work for it. If anything, that just makes him more cunning to me - he could just shout it out, especially to the Detective, but it’s more fun for him to leave subtle clues and make the Detective and audience figure it out from there instead. Plus, whether or not they win or lose, he takes it like a champ and moves on to another game, so he’s happy any way the cards fall.

I also want to be crystal clear - Boddy is defying the rules of the game in the process of his actions. He doesn’t stay dead, directly controls the suspects at several points, and manages to call in someone from outside of the game, so these actions are not just in his role in the game - he clearly is working outside of the game through these actions, so he has control over what he does in the show.

Is he a Bastard?

So here’s where the medium of the story gets tricky. I could easily be like “he underpays his staff, swindled Plum’s school out of his money, he threatens to sue Mr. Green for his money”… except that this is all in the backstory of the show, and as much as he relishes having the villain role, I can’t say for certain that he has a say in any of the backstory of the game - like I said, he clearly loves what he did, but he’s a piece in the game with a set past, I can’t say he did it of his free will even if he enjoys it - we can only hold him accountable for what he does during the show itself. However, what I can say for certain is that he’s forcing the rest of the suspects to stay in the game against their will. At the end, as the suspects are talking about their wishes outside of the game, he comes in and does his weapon mantra, essentially resetting them to their proper places in the game so that he can continue defying death itself all over again. He even acknowledges that they’re stuck because of him - he outright says “it’s all my fault you’re in this mess, I crave the chance to die”, and a minute later the suspects beg the audience to just play another game so that they don’t have to be stuck in the stressful situation with the Detective anymore. Plus, he calls in the Detective knowing that she could end up locking the killer inside the game box forever just to see what happens with her in the game, so calling her in isn’t just a heroic move either. Overall, even if we dismiss his pre-show actions because of the nature of the story, I think what he does on-stage is enough to count.

Final verdict?

I think he’s a yes - he’s one compelling corpse overall. What about you?

Boddy.

Okay, thanks for the go-ahead! And apologies to Satoshi Bakura.

The work

Black Widow is the latest film in the MCU. Long story short, the USSR saw what HYDRA was doing with the Winter Soldier and decided "Hey, that's a good idea! We should try that!"

They created the Red Room, a program that abducts young girls and trains them into master assassins and spies known as Black Widows. While it originally started with good old fashioned physical abuse and mental conditioning, the modern incarnation takes on a much more... insidious method.

Anyways, one of the Widows, Natasha Romanoff, defected to SHIELD and became an Avenger. I'm sure that's news to everyone reading.

The candidate

Melina Vostokoff is an experienced Widow from the Red Room, having apparently gone through its conditioning five times. In the movie's prologue, she and the Soviet Super-Soldier Alexei Shostakov went undercover in America to steal details on the Winter Soldier project from HYDRA. Accompanying them to make them seem more convincing as a family were two children, Natasha Romanoff and Yelena Belova. They stayed in America for around three years before finally getting their hands on the information they came for, Melina being injured in their escape but still managing to coach Natasha on flying their plane.

In the present, Melina is now a scientist, working on the Red Room's new conditioning methods — straight up mind control. The Widows are completely aware of their actions but have no control over themselves, creating a truly horrific And I Must Scream scenario.

She's eventually confronted by her old family, who wish to destroy the Red Room. She explains what she's been doing, demonstrating by telling one of her pigs to stop breathing, but is horrified when Yelena informs her she was one of the Widows her mind control has been used on. She tells Natasha the truth about her birth mother, then regretfully informs her she's already contacted the Red Room to tell them Nat and Yelena are here. The two quickly begin planning on how to destroy the Room.

Using the cool fake face technology Nat used in The Winter Soldier, she and Melina switch places. Nat-as-Melina goes to confront the Red Room's handler, Melina informing her beforehand about a "pheromonal lock" she'll need to sever in order to actually injure him. Melina-as-Nat is "captured" with Alexi and sent to the prison cells she designed, proceeding to break them out and give Yelena instructions on how to free herself through an earpiece Nat smuggled her.

Melina's attempt to hack into the Red Room's system doesn't go so well, but she improvises and eventually destroys one of its engines, sending them into a controlled crash.

Oh, yeah, the Red Room is a flying fortress. Comics!

Anyways, she and Alexi manage to escape in a jet, reuniting with Nat and Yelena on the ground with minimal injuries. She agrees to help manufacture the cure for the Red Room's mind control, intending to free the remaining Widows around the globe. She takes the other Widows and the de-brainwashed Taskmaster to escape the custody of the approaching US government.

Magnificence

Melina is pretty fun. She clearly cares for her "family," and their return is what motivates her to stand against the Red Room. She and Nat come up with a pretty successful plan to infiltrate and destroy the Room, and is able to think on her feet when the plan starts going off the rails.

Bastardness

Melina is also pretty unempathetic. While you could argue she only complied because of her conditioning, the pig scene perfectly establishes her Lack of Empathy in developing the mind control, uncaring to those not named Yelena who are forced into being murderers.

Thoughts?

Oh look, it's more Spooks stuff. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. And since this is gonna get buried under the Black Widow debate, better put this out beforehand.

Who Is He?

Andrew Forrestal is the Villain of the Week for the Series 3 episode "Outsiders."

What Has He Done?

The episode opens up with Andrew using a laptop to hack into a pharmaceutical plant's industrial line, where he pumps the poison menazorphine into some of the pills. Various civilians take the drugs, hospitalizing dozens and killing nine people. After the first attack, he taunts MI-5 with the message "As the walls crumble down so the hawks will feast on the carcasses of the infidel," indicating that he's not finished. However, Andrew has it written in Arabic and leaves a signature making it appear that Islamic terrorists are behind the attack. Later on, Andrew hacks into Britain's banking system, erasing the money from thousands of bank accounts. Same as before, he leaves another Arabic calling card. Conveniently afterwards, Andrew shows up at MI-5 headquarters to help their officers in tracing the alleged hackers to disguise his suspicion. Andrew lures MI-5 into a mosque and secretly leaks to the press that MI-5 is about to conduct a raid.

Shortly after the raid, several car crashes occur simultaneously around the country, resulting in twenty-one deaths. As it turns out, Andrew hacked into dozens of traffic lights and switched them all to be green. Even worse, he hacked emergency service lines so anyone who called 999 would be redirected to phone sex lines instead. Andrew sends yet another calling card along with a demand: 100 million pounds worth of diamonds. Colin Wells figures out that the unknown hacker cracked a code known as the G and J algorithm, a code that has the ability to control or disable all forms of technology across the country, and the hacker is demanding the money or else he'll release the code into the public. Ruth, who's become obsessed with finding the hacker, shares her ideas with Andrew and he invites her to come home for dinner. While eating dinner, Andrew lets slip a quote from the Arabic poet Abu Nuwas, and Ruth figures out Andrew's the hacker.

Seeing no other option, Andrew tackles Ruth to the floor before she can escape and ties her up, holding her hostage. Later on, he contacts MI-5 demanding the diamonds in a short amount of time (however, MI-5 coat the diamonds with very lethal snake venom that kills upon direct contact). Andrew picks up the diamonds at the exchange using an RC-model chopper instead of appearing in person so he can’t be tracked. After getting the diamonds, Andrew explains to Ruth how he was the one who invented the G and J key, but the actual people who patented it were the ones who made millions, while Andrew got absolutely nothing. He also intends on releasing the G and J key into the public; Ruth tries to explain that doing so could ruin hundreds or thousands of lives, but Andrew has long since stopped caring.

MI-5 eventually find out that Andrew kidnapped Ruth and track him down to his house. They find Ruth tied up, as well as Andrew's corpse amongst his cache of venom-coated diamonds.

Is He Charming? Charismatic? Magnificent?

Yush. Andrew spends his whole time operating from the shadows behind a computer, disguising all of his attacks as typical Middle-Eastern attacks to divert suspicion. He also makes sure to cover his tracks, changing location so no one can track him and even luring MI-5 to an Islamic mosque just to make it appear as though the Middle-East really is behind everything. He even goes as far as helping MI-5 assist them in the investigation. Even when MI-5 realize it's Andrew, Andrew shuts down the power to MI-5 HQ and contacts MI-5 in a "helicopter" that turns out to be a mere toy model no one can track. Hell, the only reason why Andrew didn't get away was because the diamonds were coated in snake venom, something no one would've anticipated at any point.

He also acts very chummy around Ruth, with the two of them going back and forth about their love of literature and dryly joking about how boring and dull their workaholic lives are and why neither of them have any loved ones. He even shares with her that he intends to leave the service and to see the world, try to reevaluate his life.

Is He a Bastard? Too Much of a Bastard?

Also yush. Even if the man was trying to make a point, Andrew's targets are all civilians of all shapes and sizes—one of his victims having been a schoolteacher. He causes various car crashes, kidnaps Ruth, drains thousands of bank accounts, etc. He was also willing to let the hacking program out into the open and letting others use it to dismantle the public if they wanted to.

Not the nastiest one-shot villains in the show, but still someone who endangered several lives using nothing but a laptop and some hacking skills.

Final Verdict?

Unsure. Up for you guys to decide.

... Sorry. Forrestal

Edited by EmeraldEmperor on Jul 22nd 2021 at 5:03:02 AM

That's a to Melina of course.

More discussion on the film to come though! That's dope! EDIT: Also, never mind that last part.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Jul 22nd 2021 at 5:43:38 AM

to Reihou.

EDIT: Okay 3 more EP's came out apparently so uh give me a minute.

Edited by Amanofmanyinterests on Jul 22nd 2021 at 5:06:30 AM

Yes to Mr. Boddy, Melina, and Forrestal.

Not the last time the film will come up.

to Boddy, Forrestal, and Melina (actually saw the film, so I can objectively vote this time).

Edited by DoodSlayer136 on Jul 22nd 2021 at 5:10:47 AM

to Mr. Boddy, Melina, and Forrestal.

Boddy, Forrestal, and Melina

Woah triple post.

...What? :/

@miraculous: I legit was not planning that. I was trying to do my EP before the Black Widow debate and wound up posting it directly after the Black Widow EP. Because that's just how it goes. Apparently STARCRUSHER had a similar idea.

Also Mr. Boddy and Melina Vostokoff.

I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t at the bottom of a page

Yes to Melina, abstain on Forrestal

Edited by STARCRUSHER99 on Jul 22nd 2021 at 8:59:06 AM

Boddy, Melina, & Forrestal

Edited by nwotyzal on Jul 22nd 2021 at 5:23:59 AM

@Tyk It was a joke. Not sure how well it landed though if at all. I removed it from the post since it clearly wasn't a good idea and might've been offensive—or just not clever to begin with either.

Bull and I got something really special coming soon, so…stay tuned.

Also, well done Emerald.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Jul 22nd 2021 at 5:55:58 AM

Yes to Boddy, Forrestal and Melina.

Edited by Klavice on Jul 22nd 2021 at 5:43:38 AM

Boddy, Melina.

Andrew is seeming a bit too nasty for me. I feel like his actions would've been mitigated if he were a Well-Intentioned Extremist, but he was just screwed out of money. Hurting tons of innocent people is a bit much in my mind. Andrew.

to Boddy, Forrestal and Melina.

Yes to Boddy and Melina. Not sure on Andrew. Harry Lime might be listed but “I fucked with drugs to kill unsuspecting civilians” is something that’s rarely played as “cool” villainy and I’m not sure his moments with Ruth offset some of this.

Edit: Yeah, reading this over Andrew's striking me as a bit too petty and malicious.

Edited by 43110 on Jul 22nd 2021 at 9:00:54 AM

I've never seen it, but I just watched Harry Lime talk with Martins on the Ferris Wheel, he's deeply philosophical. He reminds me of Mike Lowen in fact. Is Andrew similar?

Edited by jjjj2 on Jul 22nd 2021 at 9:06:23 AM

On Andrew, exactly how many people are stated to have died? If he apparently flunks the HS for CM, then maybe he can be seen as the lesser evil here?

Heck, how about some clips of him in action? This sounds like a thing that we need to experience to properly judge.

to Dryden, Reinrassig "Reiny" III, Anthony "Honest Abe" Luca, Conan the Barbarian, Z-One, Rita Repulsa, Kevin 11,000, Mad Racer Baron, Sir George, Master of Games, Bruno. Aiden, Terminator, Wrench, Omnara, T-1000, Verdona, Nathaniel Flint, Reihou, Mr Boddy and Melina Vostokoff.

I'll momentarily abstain on Andrew Forrestal until this is resolved. He does sound pretty heinous though.

Edit: Also to the other two Terminators I somehow missed.

Edited by MGD107 on Jul 22nd 2021 at 6:23:37 AM

Lime's largely saved by the era of his film and the time the work devotes into how intricate and charming a planner he is. I wouldn't mind some clips of Andrew. My concern is less whether or not he meets the heinous standard and more how he's supposed to offset some of the truly disgusting things he does when his ultimate motivation is striking me as more petty than anything else.

Actually yeah I'll wait on Andrew.

to Melina and Boddy

Are there any links to Andrews stuff ?