Comfortable and Furious

Airwolf and Cheap Beer: A Journal (episodes 19-22)

I feel like I’ve understated the amount of time I spent on the “Airwolf” fan fiction site with my entire body (apart from my touchpad finger) frozen in pure horror. I realize fan fiction is not a new discovery and it’s no great insight to say that it chills the soul, but I was hoping to find four or five pieces of “Airwolf” fan fiction, not eight pages of listings including individual authors who are responsible for literally hundreds of thousands of words of content. I can’t say how popular this stuff really is, but initially I was like “holy shit, there are like 25 reviews for some of these, I can only imagine how many people read it.” Then I clicked on the reviews to see how much thought all of these different people were putting into their reviews of fan fiction…

Oh. Well, you and I might look and that cap and see some kind of weirdo, but whatever makes you happy is OK by me. And our reflexive derision raises the question: do we secretly envy these people and their ilk? Maybe we just wish things could be that easy for us. They’ve found one, simple, obtainable and easily controlled resource for contentment and even happiness. They’ve found the miraculous intoxicant that gives you pleasure and escape, costs nothing, is legal and needn’t destroy your life.  Are they the lucky ones?  The answer to that question is, “no.” I mean, look at this shit.

Going Fishin by airwolf addict

Story Eighteen. Hawke puts aside his own illness to go after his family. Even though it’s an impossible task to save them, he must try even if it costs him his life for fear that he wouldnt ever be able to be put himself back together if they didn’t make it

Rated: T – English – Adventure/General – Chapters: 12 – Words: 15,669 – Reviews: 7 – Updated: 8-18-08 – Published: 8-11-08 – Complete

Airwolf is an X File by SheenaBean

Cross over story between characters from Airwolf Hawke, Caitlin, Dominic, ArchAngel and Marella and the X Files Scully, Reyes and Doggett ! Is Airwolf herself an X File?

Crash and Burn by Cascade Waters

Let me be the one you call. retro-snapshot WARNING: Contains references to non-sexual spanking. Don’t like, don’t read.

Airwolf A New Pilot by MadisonNCC1701E

Domenic Santini, is dying and he has to find a replacement to take over the business of Santini Air Inc. and some other stuff too!

And yes, I concede that me making fun of these people after watching 22 hours of “Airwolf” myself in a couple of sessions so that I could write 7,000 words about is kind of like rain on your wedding day. However, I will go to my grave with the knowledge that I did not write this: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4142967/1/Archangels_Secret

Stringfellow Hawke looked at Archangel, otherwise known as Michael Coldsmith Briggs III. Are you asking me to go into Russia because you need me to or because the Firm needs me to?

It’s complicated Hawke, but it is important to the Firm. The KGB kidnapped a psychic who has been in my personal custody for a long time. They might be trying to use her abilities to find out the Firm’s secrets. The thing is, they don’t know how to tap into her power. The Firm doesn’t either. Neither do I. Only she knows how to use them. When you find her, don’t say anything about the Firm to her. She doesn’t know about the Firm. She thinks I work at a bank. Or at least for right now she does.

You want me to get a psychic? If they can’t force her into using her powers, what’s the point.?


Episode 19: Dambreakers

This combines all off the kitschy staple villains of 80’s Action TV into an evil amalgamation- cultist, nazi, terrorist, paramilitary freaks with a plan for mass murder who all live on some goofy compound. The show begins with a flashback to one year ago of some of the freaks blowing up a dam with a WWII bomber and proclaiming, “the revolution has come to America!” 25 minutes in and I’m still not clear what revolution they are talking about, as they prepare to blow up another dam. The anti-dam revolution? The anti-dam revolution that believes in destroying dams at the rate of one a year? The head of the cult looks like Mark Eaton. Come to think of it, you look a little like Mark Eaton yourself. So. What are your views on dams?

Best JMV line: Those people are rough. If they’re the ones that blew that dam, they don’t give a hoot about human life.


Episode 20: Severance Pay

Hopefully they are picking things up for the end of the season. This is one of the better episodes, featuring a disgruntled FIRM agent who is denied his retirement benefits on a technicality. At first, they think this must be some kind of computer malfunc. It turns out, however, that it is actually an extension of FIRM policy that denies benefits to part time employees. His partner drops dead of a heart attack while screaming about how they are being shafted. The surviving, enraged nerd blows up some computers and releases some embarrassing information to the media, which turns out to be good because it flushes out a mole deep within The FIRM. Plus he’s a pretty good guy, so his acts of treason and terrorism are forgiven and forgotten. So, it’s a pretty good episode driven by spy shit like shoe bombs, stealthy assassins and triple crosses. Again, kind of a dark note at the end as the ultimate source of all the problems is weeded out and says “well, I’ll just wait for the next prisoner exchange.” Archangel, who has a deep streak of Ruthlessness (it has even been suggested that he has known the location of String’s brother all along, but has withheld it in order to manipulate String) says, “we don’t exchange prisoners who we’ve already terminated,” and a couple of goons grab the guy and lead him off for summary execution.

Best Borgnine Line: “Oooohh you’re the guy who gets all the little pieces of this and that from all around the world, puts ’em together and gets all that important stuff.”


Episode 21: Eruption

Not as good as episode 20, and lacking its broad scope, I’m not sure why they made this the season finale. It does have volcanoes and one of the more brutal deaths of the season when an eruption kills a local cop. This is followed with one of those moments where it’s hard to believe that so many people were paid fortunes for working on this show, when String and Dom bring the cop’s body into town. There is some disorder in the town because of the eruption, but nobody else seems dead and it’s not exactly in a state of chaos. Basically, it’s the atmosphere one would expect after a medium-sized LA quake or tornado touchdown. Then here’s this five second scene wedged in for no reason that throws the time line of the story hours out of whack. Borgnine is working on a generator and String and a local walk up. Borgnine is like, “So did you bury the officer?” and JMV is like “yup” and you’re like, “wait, there was a small natural disaster that killed one person and they just decided to bury this guy on their own in some spot of land behind the local supermarket? Good call.” String and Dom discover that the town they are in is a mining town run by a corporate despot who has reduced his employees to indentured servants. Airwolf intervenes (Commie!). It’s amazing how often helicopters happen to turn up, because I don’t remember there being so many helicopters. Like in this episode, the bad guys use three helicopters with rocket launchers… for mining. Airwolf Factoid! …Wolf creator Donald Bellisario himself comes from a coal mining town in Pennsylvania!

BBL: Mama Mia! Hey, this looks like the surface of the moon!


Episode 22: Short Walk to Freedom

OK, the reason “Eruption” seemed like an odd choice for a season finale is that it wasn’t the season finale. The season finale is “Short Walk To Freedom,” which concerns the wacky misadventures of a few students who go on a dig with their professor at some Mayan ruins, only to be captured by a Cuban-backed rebel played by Jenifer Aniston’s dad. One of the themes of “Airwolf” is the use of missile and machine gun fire to puncture fabricated moral ambivalence. While there is a clear right-wing slant to this episode, just as the previous episode was sort of leftist, it goes out of it’s way to articulate the grievances of the rebels and we can easily sympathize when the Colonel gripes about some dumb American kids coming in on vacation to loot his country’s heritage as though it were their birthright (which of course it is) because it still must be very sad to not be an American. But Airwolf is like, “look, whatever, you just don’t abduct children,” and it intervenes. The rebels manage to hit Airwolf during the rescue and it must land in the desert where Borgnine comes up with the brilliant plan of having four college kids drag a ten ton, cutting edge piece of military hardware through the scorching desert using some rope, hoping to cross several miles before the rebels catch up to them so that the mechanic in a small Peruvian village can repair it. Naturally, this works out somehow. I never understood why people in the desert don’t travel by night and sleep by day.

Best Rebel Line: “You know, it is not hard to kill a man. But you… do not deserve a man’s death. Take him away! He offends me!”

BBL: “Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do? My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone In fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this — and I have, countless times, in just about every act I’ve committed — and coming face-to-face with these truths, there is no catharsis. I gain no deeper knowledge about myself, no new understanding can be extracted from my telling. There has been no reason for me to tell you any of this. This confession has meant nothing…”

See you for PCP and “The Jeffersons” in 2013!


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