The baby raccoon in Calvin & Hobbes is pretty wrenching, but I think even more than that the strip that opens with the sketch of the dead bird and then discusses the nature of life and death and how we can never truly understand is one of the saddest, loveliest things I've ever read.

In fairness, I don't believe you can pin this one on Marvel, as it takes place in Fox's universe. Though obviously you can in other circumstances, like Wright with Ant-Man. But despite the constraints they place on directors via the connected universe, I think they've actually done a decent job letting filmmakers…

Walton Goggins is going to be so good.

Indeed. Many of the mysteries were like a teenage, golden-age Hollywood noir feel, if I recall correctly. But I also remember quite a few weird details, and normally that means they were really good books (for sneaking in cool weird stuff) or really bad (for just being really weird.)

I'd love the AV Club to tackle the "juvenile mystery" series that I remember most fondly, despite it's relative obscurity: The Three Investigators. I haven't revisited thosse in years, but from what I remember, it was quite odd, yet good.

Ah, Next Level. My brother and I have spent way too much time playing Super Mario Strikers on the GameCube. Stupid how fun that game is.

I was 9, but it was my inner crush song as well. Crazy how that works.

I just reread this last night. It's so, so good.

Snow Day is great on that EP as well. Really, it's just a great little collection.

I'm enjoying the Dule Hill/Omar Benson Miller scenes. West Wing flashbacks. I keep expecting Bradley Whitford to get run over out of nowhere.

Punch Brothers, Phosphorescent Blues. It was great. That's all.

I remember being sort of excited by the McShane casting, then sort of bummed out by the rest of the news about it, then not seeing it once the reviews came out.

That's what did it for me, too, originally. Also having watched Vince Vaughn struggle to sell some slightly off grammar ("ain't got no" type stuff) I'm probably going to spend all season wishing Walton Goggins had the role.

Oh, for sure. I didn't mean it resembled a grim episode of Justified, it's much darker than even the darkest versions of that show. Rather if you removed all the fun from Justified and added HBO-levels of grisly violence/dialogue. I just meant more in terms of how it is setting up a season where we see the mystery…

The Dark is Rising and The Grey King are both amazing, amazing books. And they could have made really interesting movies, thanks to their dependence on lesser-used elements of YA fantasy. I wish they'd been optioned for a mini-series instead, preferably a BBC version. (Edit: obviously the rest of the series is solid…

This ep had a grim Justified feel to it.

Nigel Thornberry always seemed a bit negligent.

I've always thought he looks and sounds like he could be Chris Thile's dad. (Punch Brothers)

That one got me too.

I stumbled on this Wiki page on notable disappearances, and Durst is at least tangentially connected to multiple women disappearing, beyond what may have been covered on the show (I didn't watch it. ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…