The Last Resort

For my last review ever, I am going to review The Last Resort.

Ah, teenagers. So troubled. So troublesome. For ages they have antogonized their parents, making them stew over how to deal with their problems, as they watch their children who were once sweet angels turn into bitter demons who can’t even turn down the fucking stereo. And yes, it turns out that even in the future, these problems still run rampant. It is part of who we are as humans. Teenagers will always be teenagers, kids will be kids, babies will be disgusting, and the elderly will make us all uncomfortable. Especially if they used to be Batman, and could likely still kick our ass.


Terry is zipping around in the Batmobile talking to Max who is getting him up to speed on the latest gossip at Hamilton High. Terry is shocked to learn that there are now TWO Erics at his school. I would be more shocked that there’s only two, but it’s the future so maybe Eric has become a terribly archaic name to give a child like Rutherford or Napoleon or Frodo. Apparently this gossip review is to make it so no one suspects Terry of anything when he doesn’t know who’s dating who at school on Monday. Like if I had shown up for class one day and not known the latest rumors, I would’ve been accused of being Batman. Who the hell is keeping such close track of Terry that not knowing gossip is going to give away his secret identity?

“POP QUIZ TERRY. WHO IS BLADE DATING? WHO IS SHE DATING?”
“I don’t…I don’t know!”
“IS IT BECAUSE…YOU’RE BATMAN?”
“NO! BATMAN WOULD KNOW! HE KNOWS EVERYTHING!”

Lookit that, I just solved that problem.

Anyway, as he’s flying the Batmobile, he sees a police chase happening and decides to head over and help since he can probably end it sooner and with more property damage. The stolen vehicle is rather large and knocks into buildings really well. It does a gratuitous barrel roll, but Batman snares it and brings it to a stop. Max is incredibly interested in who was driving for some reason, and out of the vehicle stumbles a kid from their high school, Sean. They are both shocked.

The scene changes to a creepy video of a guy named David Wheeler talking about his “ranch” for problem teens, like the one seen here, stealing a car and getting apprehended by Batman. Sending teens to a ranch sounds so much like sending an old dog to a nice farm where he can run around and be happy. Chelsea is talking to Dana and Terry about it, and about all the kids that have already been sent there. It’s amazing that so many have been sent, while apparently none have come back so no one has seen any results from this guy. But sure! Take my child! I’m sick of them!

Chelsea isn’t fond of the idea and sends an e-mail to the school principal to let him know. Probably one of my favorite parts of the episode is the e-mail which gives us solid confirmation of the spelling of “schway.”

The principal is all “oh ho ho really” and calls up Chelsea’s dad who decides to have Chelsea taken away to the ranch as well. I mean, she really might as well be hijacking a car at this point. Plus, he’s sick of having her around.

At the ranch…

God I can’t keep calling it that. First of all, it makes me think of ranch dressing. Secondly, I find myself completely unable to say it without smirking. I think of rowdy teenagers taken away to the farm to be broken like the wild horses they are. Neutered like geldings, and used for mundane farm work at the Hidden Valley Ranch.

Let’s call it camp now.

At camp, all of the teens are skipping around in orange jumpsuits and sitting on an orange couch. Sean notices Chelsea who is wearing her standard issue orange short dress. “You’re in what basically amounts to a correctional facility, but that doesn’t mean you can’t look like a sexy construction worker.”

Sean accuses Chelsea of talking about him behind his back and she says she never did and he says that that’s even worse. See Sean is one of those people you absolutely cannot reason with. Sometimes we call them “shitheads.” Before he gets much creepier in her business, she sees someone she knows! Some guy named Adam! Oh thank god! She runs over to him and is all about to strike up a conversation as he paints, only to find that he is unresponsive and that her Bob Ross buddy is painting a happy little nothing. Chelsea is appalled and Sean explains that it’s because Adam got “iso” recently. And then cackles his horrible laugh.

A bell or alarm or some sort of alert goes off and Sean explains that it’s time for class. Chelsea is confused. Class? I thought we were just going to hang out all day. No Chelsea, you have to go to class, and then it’s to quarry with you to break rocks until sundown.

At class, Wheeler’s head is on a giant video screen and he is yelling at all the kids who are lined up in very nice rows. If we could’ve made rows that nice in marching band, we might’ve actually won something.

Terry is outside spying on it and taping the audio with his Batsuit while he tells Bruce what’s going on. Bruce explains that they’re trying to crush the students with sleep deprivation. Some might call it “getting them ready for college.” The not getting to go to the bathroom thing doesn’t really fit as I totally did that all the time in college. Oh yeah, I think back to my glory days at SDSU. Just freeing my body of its waste products. Good times.

Also what happened to Bruce’s cane here?

A kid asking to sleep is punished with “iso” and as Terry goes to move from the window, bumps into a laser and triggers an alarm. Fucking good one. A bunch of guards give chase, including one flying what looks like a Segway of the future.

Really all that’s missing from the picture for me is a bike helmet.

Terry finally throws down a bat smoke bomb. Duh Terry! And makes his escape. He goes back to the batcave and tells Bruce to take the evidence to the cops. Bruce points out the very obvious “where do I tell them I got it? I can’t believe I let you be Batman.” Thankfully Terry redeems himself by coming up with a plan to get a video camera inside the camp.

He goes to visit Chelsea and is very defensive about the guards taking his backpack. He finally lets them, only to see them just heave the thing as hard as they can into another a room. Thanks guys! It’s not like I might be carrying anything breakable!

He goes to the visiting area where a couple parents are trying to talk to their teen, who is still angsty and troubled despite spending all this time at this great place, go figure! The parents don’t understand, there’s everything a kid could want here. Orange jumpsuits, all of their friends, a palm tree.

It’s like Miami or something!

Another guard comes out and tells Terry that Chelsea cancelled their meeting. He’s like what the hell that is bullshit and when the guard is distracted sneaks in back. He finds Chelsea who looks like total fucking balls except for her sexy orange dress. She says they told her that he cancelled, those sneaky fucks! Terry whips out the camera he brought and starts filming her testimony of what’s really going on at the camp. She explains that iso is “total sense deprivation; no light, no sound.” Which seems like, if you’re sleepy, why not act up and go take a nap in iso? I can’t get that much peace and quiet around the house. And fuck those guys, I got more than 2 senses. The only one they can really mess up is sight. I mean, I can still MAKE noise. I can lick anything. If there’s something to smell, I could smell it. Like…my hands. I can still touch stuff. It seriously just seems like a nice nap time.

Terry tells her he’s gonna get her out of there and that she should just try to stay schway for a couple more days. God what a good friend. And he’s so…so handsome. And strong. Goodness.

Anyway, as Terry is getting ready to make good his escape, Sean that fuck sees him and runs up to try to start a fight because he is a douche. This draws the attention of the guards who were all far away rather than being right by the door, where one would expect guards to be. Wheeler is like “who the hell is this guy, he ain’t in orange!” They search him and Wheeler finds the video Terry made of Chelsea. He instructs the guards to lock him up overnight, along with Sean who was causing trouble. And if no one comes for Terry, then they’re going to kill him in the morning. I can’t even begin to enumerate the things wrong with this plan. Like all of the people that have seen him there? The idea that his death would look like he got lost in the woods and just…I guess died? Except they would have to actually kill him and dump the body somewhere and so they body would actually look killed, I have no idea what this guy thought he would do. I’ll pretend there was more to this plan than he said. IT WAS ACTUALLY A BRILLIANT BRILLIANT PLAN. Except for all of the witnesses.

They throw Terry and Sean into a couple of rooms and are getting ready to move them to “iso” but Terry isn’t about to give up. He tells Sean that the two of them could kick the guards’ asses and be fucking running this place. Bitches up ins! Sean’s not really having any of Terry’s sweet talk though, because he has turned into a fucking Eeyore bitch.

As they move them to “iso” though, oh what’s this? They fight back! And they are so winning. They even get some help from Adam who busts a chair over a guard’s head and gives Terry a knowing “I was just foolin’ with that painting nothing shit” even though Terry didn’t see any of that. Sean grabs the master key off one of the guards. He wonders what Terry’s deal is, as Terry is all about getting his backpack instead.

Of course, the goddamn Batsuit is in the backpack, and he puts it on thankfully without anyone walking in on him. He runs out and begins fighting off the guards with the aid of his army of teenagers.

He notices that Sean is not around and finds him on the roof of the building about to kill Wheeler. He is naturally like “noooo, you helped save everyone!” And Wheeler is just like “whatever!” instead of “How do you know, are you Terry McGinnis?”

“No I’m Batman, I know everything!”

Sean drops Wheeler and cackles his awful cackle again, but Batman naturally catches him and everything turns out ok. Outside the building, the police have somehow been alerted, as have every single parent. The kids all run and hug them, except Chelsea who just completely fucking disses her dad. Fuck yes.

And look! Even Bruce has hauled his grouchy ass out of his cave to make sure Terry’s okay! Isn’t that sweet? He could’ve like, called on the radio in the batsuit, but this works too and is more touching.

And don’t we all like to be touched?

OK! SO MAYBE SOMETHING NEXT WEEK? MAYBE!

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