The Final Episode #131: Early Edition (1996 - 2000)

 

It's gonna be fun here at THE CLAWXBLOG for a few weeks, or a week, who knows. I have gotten portnoyd to guess the next fifteen of these entries. This is the FIRST PORTNOYD GUESSING GAME. Maybe the last. Maybe not. Who knows. Anyway what I want to happen is for portnoyd to go "Wow I never heard of this show" "Wow what asshole did you pick that show out of" and "WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU REVIEW THIS"  I would also like to see if I can pick a show that makes him go "WOW I REMEMBER THIS" but in a positive way. Portnoyd is way too grumpy.  Let's see how many times we get portnoyd to go "wuh". I bet he goes "wuh" a lot. Portnoyd is a wuhguy for sure.

Early Edition was a fantasy comedy drama that revolved around a man named Gary Hobson who gets a copy of the NEXT day's Chicago Sun-Times. He uses the information within to help people before they end up dead or in prison or whatever. It was created by Ian Abrams, Patrick Q. Page, and Vik Rubenfeld and developed for Television by a man named Bob Brush. Bob worked on the Wonder Years which I bring up because I enjoyed watching that show and portnoyd is a smelly hater of the Wonder Years. Kyle Chandler played Gary Hobson and is apparently going to play Hal Jordan in the Lanterns tv series. Weird. Anyway I have never seen him in anything so I hope I like him here! The series also had Fisher Stevens in it! Everyone's favorite WHITE INDIAN guy!

Anyway as with other shows I've never seen before I watch and discuss two episodes. The first episode I decided to watch was Mel Schwartz, Bounty Hunter. I wonder if he uses the Schwartz! Ho ho ho! Yes, getting to make that joke was the one and only reason I chose this episode. Anyway it starts with Gary looking at his paper that says a child will be injured by a rare vase. Before he can even get there he gets robbed by a burglar who takes everything from someone, even their clothes! Anyway Gary gets out of this situation by stealing a mattress salesman's costume.... which is a mattress. So he ends up saving the kid (while scaring the shit out of other kids I mean he's a crazy man running at them in a mattress costume!) AND the vase falls on his comfy mattress costume! Everyone's happy!

Now he's in a courtroom because well he did steal the mattress. Thankfully he gets off with a misdemeanor and just has to pay $200 and get a psych evaluation. His blind lady friend makes a joke about that. It was funny. I laughed. You all need that information to keep your lives in tact. He then saves a pregnant lady in a toy store. She is not happy about being saved. She's a real fuckin bitch in fact. Mean woman, I hope her child grew up safe away from her. Don't be yellin at someone who helped you not get hurt ya fuckin dirt ass. He sees the mugger that stole his clothes and chases after him he then is chased by a weiner looking man in a car. A wiener man. why does weiner look right but its actually spelled wiener? I dont know. One of the unsolvable mysteries of the universe I guess.  Anyway he hells at him to get out of the way because he's chasing him. Gary does so and realizes he needs to go see a shrink. She thinks he's a fucking nutbar.

So he gets home and gets the new newspaper which shows that yes the wiener man (still doesnt look right) electrifies himself with his own stun gun while trying to be a bounty hunter. Gary goes to his house to help him and it turns out that he's married to the bitchy woman who yells at strangers who try to help them not have fucking miscarriages. Now she thinks that he is there to put the crib together. Anyway we turn to Mel Schwartz who reminds me of my fifth grade French teacher. He was not a badass. That is where the comedy comes from in this episode. It's amusing me thus far. Anyway they capture THE CLOTHES STEALER and save Mel from shocking his dumb ass. Gary goes to the next Shrink appointment and Mel goes back to take credit for what Gary did. He also gets his next assignment. He has to go up against OGRE himself. That's right baby this episode has DONALD "GIBBY" GIBB in it! Now that's a mega star!

The shrink calls in THE WHOLE TEAM when Gary runs off. Gary gets into some shenanigans before he finds Mel at the END OF THE ROAD bar. Mel had gone in there looking for GIBBY and just made a fool out of himself. The bikers were about to start throwing darts at Mel when Gary saves him! The bikers end up thinking Gary is a bounty hunter and start kicking his ass instead. Mel runs away like a fucking pussy ass bitch. Mel's a damn baby! AINT NO BABY BOUNTY HUNTERS!!! He ends up trying again going to GIBBYS apartment and GIBBY just tries drowning him in the tub. Gary saves his dopey ass AGAIN. GIBBY slips on some water and knocks himself out. do you think Donald Gibb let's his friends call him Gibby? Also Mel's wife found out where he is and her water just broke! They get to the hospital because they let Gibby drive and Gary is able to show his therapist that Mel is real and he wont have to go to the crazy house. All is well in the world! This episode was a hoot and I enjoyed watching it.

A note if anyone reads this and then steals my dumb idea for YouTube or something, ALWAYS, ALWAYS check wikipedia or some fandom wikia for the CORRECT Final Episode. As in was an episode intended to be the Final Episode but it's the last season and CBS doesn't give a shit anymore so they put it out early. Always check that. It's one of my rules to try to do what was intended as the Final Episode and in this case it was the episode "Time". Time was written by Carla Kettner. Carla has also written for Bones, Judging Amy and the Blacklist. Three shows that are either one of the time period of 1950s to 2000 OR just really boring looking. Sorry ladies I can talk about TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL but I don't think I could do Judging Amy. This episode tells some of how this whole thing works. I think that's not a bad idea for a Final Episode but revealing all of what caused the magic Newspaper is gonna have a wild story behind it. I dunno. I just think leaving it at magic Newspaper works best. Leave a little mystique to the whole thing. 

The episode starts with Gary already having saved someone at a Donut shop. I dunno how but he ends up with some Donuts for the blind black lady. She hasn't been in the show much but I see that shes his receptionist. Do they have like blind receptionists? are there like braile things for blind people to do that job?I guess so. Or at least stuff like that exists within the Early Edition world. the Receptionist lady says "Cool Old Black Man called the archivist for the Chicago Sun Times called. He wants to see you" So Gary goes to see Cool Old Black Man to look through the boxes of a man called Lucious Snow. He had a photo copy of a paper that said Gary had died as a child at age 11! Woah! Now that's a hook to get you to watch the rest of the episode!

Gary freaking the hell out, calls his parents, wanting to know more about this. Then we change scenes and we get to see Lindsay, a kid, she tries to get the purse back for this old lady. She spends time around the courthouse because shes old. Lindsay also spends time around the courthouse because her grandfather is a judge. Her grandfather is played by Charles Durning. He's a judge. Gary ended up saving Lindsay and now is sitting with her watching Charles Durning yell at someone. Charles Durning was awesome. He was the bad guy in the Muppet Movie and like 9,000 other things. I love you Charles!

Gary gets back to his apartment and his mom is there. He learns that he won a trip to the Chicago Sun-Times from an essay contest and I'm like "wow thats the shittiest fucking award you could give someone unless they were like the biggest wiener (still doesn't look right) of all time" I guess Gary is the biggest wiener of all time and excitedly went to the Chicago Sun Times! Anyway he shows her the photo copy thing and says it was the day I was supposed to die.... Lucious Snow saved my life. Also I love that name. So much. I wish my name was Lucious Snow.

Gary sees Lucious Snow after waking up in the middle of the night. He talks to his mom about this and she thinks hes COCO FOR COCOPUFFS. do they still make Cocopuffs? I don't think I ever got to try them. Anyway he sees in the newspaper that his COP FRIEND is gonna get himself in trouble for harassing this guy that the cop believes is a murderer. I should have mentioned earlier that the Cop guy was in the courtroom but I didn't. I really should write these out in a better manner but whatever. If you are coming here for quality you really should leave. Cop Friend seems like bit of a jerk to be honest. 

Gary sees THE JERK COP being a jerk and has to testify again in front of Charles Durning. The Jerk Cop is taken off the Baylor case and he's ANGRY.  Gary then has a memory of helping a girl named Jessica get her cheetos. She needs food before she gives her big speech. Which rhymes somehow. Anyway, Gary goes back to his office home whatever and talks to the receptionist lady and his mom. The repceptionist tells him why not get a copy of the newspaper from 1976 and Gary SHITS HIS PANTS and is amazed by this simple idea. He goes to the CHICAGO SUN TIMES and gets a flashback to the tour they all took. He sees Lucious Snow and argues with a little shitty douchebag of a kid. Should have punched that little shit out Gary!

Gary has another flashback and that little shit takes Jessica's essay and then when Gary takes it back from him he says Gary did it! FUCK I HATE THIS KID!  Gary gets the paper and sees that Baylor is gonna hurt someone in a shooting at a bar so he goes to THE JERK COP and THE JERK COP is a huge jerk about it. I don't like the Jerk Cop. He's probably the son of the kid from the 1970s even though that kid was white. Whatever. Anyway after that we get another flashback with kid Gary in a goofy looking disco suit. (the shitty kid called him a Disco Duck which did make me laugh)  Gary sees CHARLES DURNING and some other lawyer talking about SHADY STUFF in a bathroom. Gary sees Lucious Snow save him and then he goes to talk to CHARLES DURNING. They have one hell of an argument and he leaves. Then we see a scene of him talking to his mother who he finally told all of this stuff too. 

So without THE JERK COP's help Gary goes to the Z-Bar and pretty much keeps the girl from Baylor. However, CHARLES DURNING shows up, sees the Magic Newspaper and runs when Baylor is just going to shoot the girl. Baylor shoots CHARLES DURNING while Gary is there. CHARLES DURNING dies. Gary has one last flashback to when Luscious Snow gave him the MAGICAL POCKET KNIFE that I guess triggers the MAGICAL NEWSPAPER. I dunno. Anyway he goes to Luscious' grave and then sees Lindsay at CHARLES DURNING's funeral. Gary gives Lindsay the magical pocket knife that will trigger MAGICAL NEWSPAPERS to go to her when Gary has passed away. What a weird ending.

FINAL THOUGHTS: This was a show I randomly found while fiddling around on wikipedia and I was intrigued by the idea. It's weird and silly but I like weird and silly. I enjoyed both episodes I watched and hope to watch more in the future. Anyway portnoyd's guess was Dallas and he was WRONG!