Lionsgate announced today that it will join entertainment companies in the U.S. and the Netherlands to squeeze more money from red hot dystopian teen-on-teen murder nightmare franchise The Hunger Games.

From the AP:

Lionsgate, Dutch media company Imagine Nation and U.S.-based Triangular Entertainment said Friday that the stage spectacular featuring "innovative and immersive staging techniques" will open in 2016 at a new venue beside London's Wembley Stadium.

Variety reports the show will be produced by Robin de Levita, who recently created a 360-degree rotating auditorium for a production of the Dutch musical Soldier of Orange in Holland. Maybe for this production the audience will be part of the population of poverty-stricken District 12 and two members of the audience will be forced to fight to the death during each performance? Just thinking out loud, I am not a theatre producer!

Lionsgate Chief Marketing Officer Tim Palen spoke about de Levita's involvement:

"Robin de Levita and the entire production team are the perfect partners for extending 'The Hunger Games' franchise into a live theatrical experience. Their creative genius, combined with world-class production values and state-of-the-art technology will provide a uniquely immersive experience for fans around the world."

The show will open in the year following the November 2015 release of Mockingjay: Part 2.

What Hunger Games related treat awaits us in 2017, I wonder? (Probably this!)

[image via Lionsgate]

"Teach a man to fish, and he'll eat forever!" the man said brightly, extending his fishing pole towards me. Man—or machine? This was the worst visit to Disneyland's animatronic Country Bear Jamboree I'd had yet. And I'd had a few.

The koan: "Is That So?"

The Zen master Hakuin was praised by his neighbours as one living a pure life.

A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was with child.

This made her parents angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin.

In great anger the parent went to the master. "Is that so?" was all he would say.

After the child was born it was brought to Hakuin. By this time he had lost his reputation, which did not trouble him, but he took very good care of the child. He obtained milk from his neighbours and everything else he needed.

A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth - the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fishmarket.

The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child back.

Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was: "Is that so?"

The enlightenment: Hakuin spoke only a few words of English. Big surprise—he was Japanese!! Luckily it didn't get him into too much trouble this time.

And isn't that what it's all about in this world—luck?

This has been "Zen Koans Explained." Four feet of chain link fencing.

[Photo: Shutterstock]

The White House announced today that President Obama has authorized the deployment of 1,500 additional troops to Iraq in the continuing fight against ISIS, doubling the United States' current presence in the country. Officials confirmed to CNN that the additional troops "will not have a combat role."

Shade court is back in session and I'm feeling especially judge-y today. This week we welcome into our shade chambers a mouthy six-year-old (a youth after my own heart), some classic southern lady shade and a special bonus ruling that I had to hand down to keep the republic in order.

Shade Court Docket #2014JZ000013

The Case: This case was submitted by a reader named Melissa. Years ago, Melissa was a student at a wealthy private college in the South. Having been given a full ride due to both merit and financial need, Melissa found herself feeling out of place amongst the kids who thought they were rich because their parents were.

She describes a visit from an old family friend who grew up in the college's town.

The Defendant: Melissa's frenemy

The Evidence:

She picks me up from a cab and I'm talking about how out of place I feel having to work and, you know, not getting bottle service and shit and she goes "Yes, I guess you are a tad... eccentric for [school name]."

I always thought eccentric meant weird in a good way, but now I'm thinking she may have meant poor.

The Deliberation: Yeah, I'm thinking she meant poor too, Melissa. I feel like there are few cases where "eccentric" is meant to be a compliment. This reminds me of when I started wearing my hair natural and my grandmother said: "Oh, your hair looks... different."

The fact that this woman said you were eccentric for a specific place as opposed to just an eccentric person in general kind of seals the deal here.

The Ruling: Shade. Powerful shade too, because you remembered.

Shade Court Docket #2014JZ000014

Image via Getty.

The Case: Usher told one of those kids say the darndest things stories about his six year-old son, Nayvid. Nayvid is marginally aware that his father makes a living as a musician, but Nayvid finds the whole situation very questionable.

"He doesn't care about what I do as much... He's like, `I'm the star. Who are you? You sing?'" Usher said in a recent interview.

"He told me the other day, he says, `You're not a great singer,'" Usher, 36, continued with a laugh. His reply to his son: "What? I'm a great singer!"

The Defendant: Huffington Post Black Voices

The Evidence:

Usher's son throws shade at his dad: "You sing?" http://t.co/hSMvVDebdV

— HuffPost BlackVoices (@blackvoices) November 3, 2014

The Deliberation: This is a tricky one. "You sing?" is most definitely shady and is particularly disheartening coming from a child, because it's not like their standards are particularly high. I also love the visual of Usher holding a microphone or sitting in a recording booth as his son raises an eyebrow and expresses faux-surprise at his father's occupation.

You mean your singing career actually puts food on our table?

However, he follows that first comment up with an outright insult against his father's singing abilities, which we all know by now is not shade.

The Ruling: Not shade, but I have the utmost faith in Nayvid's shade-throwing future

Shade Court Docket #2014JZ000015

Image via NY Daily News.

The Case: Sophia Loren recently shared the story behind that infamous photo of her giving some extreme side-eye to Jayne Mansfield. Loren explains:

"I'm staring at her nipples because I am afraid they are about to come onto my plate," the 80-year-old film icon explained to Entertainment Weekly. "In my face you can see the fear. I'm so frightened that everything in her dress is going to blow—BOOM!—and spill all over the table."

The Defendant: Elle Magazine

The Evidence:

The story behind the ultimate shade-throwing photograph: http://t.co/NoZJspDOHy pic.twitter.com/JgIxkWXK8j

— ELLE Magazine (US) (@ELLEmagazine) November 4, 2014

The Deliberation: I know everyone thinks that the photo itself is evidence of shade, but really it's how Loren explains the story that the shade comes out. I love how she chalks it up to concern and fear. "Oh, I was so worried about her nipples." No one is ever truly worried about the well-being of another person's nipples unless they have recently been born and need them for sustenance.

This is a great trick by many master shade throwers: the feigning of earnest concern. It's a perfect tactic, because no one wants to be the asshole accusing you of being disingenuous. You can get away with a lot of shady shit by cloaking it in genuine worry for the other person. Throw in an understanding shoulder pat and you might as well be in Paris Is Burning Part 2.

The Ruling: Shade, glamorous shade

Shade Court Docket #2014JZ000016

The Case: A reader named Natalie describes the wedding of a friend who was under a tight budget. Because Natalie wears makeup and her friend does not, Natalie offered to do her makeup for the big day. In an important note to the court, Natalie explains that she's not some sort of Kardashian contouring addict: all she wears regularly is eyeshadow, eyeliner and mascara.

The Defendant: Natalie's friend's brother

The Evidence:

[...] the night of the rehearsal my friend mentions to her brother that I'm doing her makeup the next day. He then looks at me and says "we don't need a bride with a smoky eye" and walks away.

The Deliberation: You know when someone is trying to say something witty but they don't know what the hell they're talking about? Yeah.

Generally, men know absolutely nothing about makeup. (I'm going to go ahead assume that the young man in question isn't a makeup artist or else he'd be doing the makeup himself, wouldn't he?) Guys will run around saying that they love that you don't wear makeup when you've got foundation, bronzer and mascara on. They are clueless.

The brother revealed his ignorance with that snarky "smokey eye" jab. He obviously thought he was being clever but he was just throwing out the only makeup term he knew. I get what he mean to say: Please don't do her makeup the way you do yours. However, he blew it by trying to be too much of a smart-ass.

The Ruling: Shade in intention; not shade in delivery

Shade Court Docket #2014JZ000017

I was only going to do four rulings today, but Erin just sent me a request for an emergency Shade Court ruling and I am here to serve the people. (I am also aiming to produce enough verdicts that they will ask me to replace Ruth Bader Ginsberg when she steps down.)

The Case: In an act of obvious irony, The Advocate has named Vladimir Putin as its Person of the Year.

Image via The Advocate.

The Defendant: The Star Observer

The Evidence:

Controversial or ultimate shade? @TheAdvocateMag names Vladimir Putin Person of the Year, w/ Hitler-esque front cover http://t.co/8iLZcISaOd

— Star Observer (@star_observer) November 7, 2014

The Deliberation: As a general rule, when you decide to draw a Hitler mustache on someone, you're probably not going for subtlety.

Look, we all know Vladimir Putin sucks. Truly, he's awful. However, comparing someone to Hitler is not so much shade as it is grossly offensive. Much like nothing but actual slavery is slavery, no one is Hitler but Hitler. You don't have to compare someone to Hitler to make a point about how horrible they are. Comparing Vladimir Putin to Vladimir Putin is really all you need. We get it.

The Ruling: Not shade.

On Wednesday, BuzzFeed published a series of photographs—archived here—depicting West Point cadets wandering around a forested area of the United States Military Academy in upstate New York. The site said the black and white portraits “explore ideas of masculinity, allegiance, sexuality, and vulnerability.” But a cross-section of baffled military reporters and commentators saw something else: a collection of homoerotic photos. Following the confused response, photographer Kristine Potter asked BuzzFeed to remove the entire gallery.

The reaction to BuzzFeed’s post was immediate:

all of these made me laugh uncontrollably http://t.co/0ODRNFur0u pic.twitter.com/NUJDggLUnS

— Paul Szoldra (@PaulSzoldra) November 6, 2014

@PaulSzoldra lol what is this i don't even pic.twitter.com/Jpf9nI9Eik

— Andrew Exum (@ExumAM) November 6, 2014

@ExumAM it needs a Brazzers logo on it

— Paul Szoldra (@PaulSzoldra) November 6, 2014

.@ExumAM @PaulSzoldra Lol, this one's about to get REALLY intimate!

— Marko Krobot (@MarkoKrobot) November 6, 2014

Most ridiculous bit of posed photography I've ever seen. Is this supposed to be serious? http://t.co/gfNhkG6RfC pic.twitter.com/U8kQdjLl1Z

— Geoffrey Ingersoll (@GPIngersoll) November 6, 2014

This puts in photographs almost all the jokes I've told about West Pointers over the last ten years. Pure Gold. http://t.co/qh4WptnS4e

— Josh Weinberg (@josh_weinberg) November 6, 2014

A retired Army officer named Mike Nemeth later published a parody of the original photos on BuzzFeed’s community platform. One caption reads:

Mike’s photos capture the graduates after they are fully formed soldiers and officers to explore ideas of masculinity, allegiance, sexuality, vulnerability, career satisfaction, and sarcasm.

Copyright law prevents us from publishing some of the original gallery’s more questionable photos, many of which Potter removed from her personal website. But you can find versions of the same gallery around the Internet, and a few copies still linger on Potter’s web server. One photo depicts two cadets posed as if they were wrestling in the dirt; another catches a different pair strolling along a forest path, perhaps to a more secluded location. (Update: The website Archive.Today is hosting an archived copy of BuzzFeed’s post.)

“While traditional portraiture of soldiers serves to show their achievements, excellence and their sense of duty,” Potter told BuzzFeed, “these images seek to describe the complicated psychologies under their developing personas.”

Potter’s representative didn’t immediately return a request for comment. In an email to Gawker, a spokeswoman for BuzzFeed said that “the photographer was surprised and uncomfortable with the reaction to the photos, and felt very strongly that they should be removed so we deferred to her as a courtesy.”

Gawker readers are invited to share homoerotic military photos of themselves or others below. No judgment.

Here's another piece of Hollywood lore to add to the list of mysteries we'd like to see solved in our lifetime: Did Christina Aguilera say "yeah, whatever" to Valerie Bertinelli at a Van Halen concert that took place somewhere on Planet Earth an indiscernible amount of years ago? Valerie says yes!

On last night's Watch What Happens Live, a viewer—perhaps the disembodied, vengeful spirit of Valerie Bertinelli herself—called in and asked Bertinelli about whether the rumors about the "longstanding feud" between her and Christina Aguilera were true. "I didn't have a feud with her," Bertinelli responded, before going into detail about the origin of her feud with Christina Aguilera, via Page Six:

"I was a fan at that time, a long time ago, and I went up to her because she was at a Van Halen concert."

Bertinelli said she greeted the songstress, 33, with "Oh my God, I think you're a beautiful singer."

But the actress alleged that Aguilera completely brushed her off and said, "Yeah, whatever."

She added that Aguilera "gave [her] the cold shoulder," and she thought, "Bitch, I'm a fan. You can't be nice to me?"

Bitch! Why can't you be nice to Valerie Bertinelli when she tells you that you're a beautiful singer at a Van Halen concert?! Valerie, there isn't anyone out there who can heal your wounds—I know that, believe me—but I do think I know someone who can at least understand.

[image via Getty]

A James Wolcott think piece on why selfies are "here to stay" is just what the America of 2007 has been waiting for.

Stephen Colbert hasn't quite jumped on the very popular "arrest climate-change deniers" bandwagon yet, but he proved last night that he's ready to go as far as "mock climate-change deniers mercilessly."

Despite a consensus among 97% of climate scientists that humans are contributing to climate change, denialists won big in this week's midterm elections, putting conspiracy theorist James Inhofe (R-Magical Christmas Land) in control of the Senate Environment Committee. Even Colbert's conservative TV persona understands he's an idiot.

But Inhofe is not alone. Watch Colbert masterfully take apart every GOP politician who's ever excused his climate change stance with the old "I'm not a scientist" routine. It's condescending, but in the most satisfying way.

[h/t Digg]

Twitter has endured an exodus of executives and managers from the company's ranks following its IPO. And those departures have become such a problem, the Wall Street Journal reports, the company is turning resigning leaders into corporate ghosts.

Frequent reorganizations led to defections at lower levels, prompting management to ask some senior staffers who planned to leave to delay their official announcements in exchange for higher pay. Over time, these staffers came into the office less and less until their final exit, which some employees called "getting ghosted."

According to the Journal, the brewing dissatisfaction comes from CEO Dick Costolo's shifting strategies and the company's lagging growth. Some of their biggest investors have already pulled out of the company, and one portfolio manager says, "People are losing confidence in [Costolo]."

To contact the author of this post, please email kevin@valleywag.com.

Photo: Getty

In Colorado, where weed is legal, class was temporarily disrupted for a group of lucky teens today after a student's gravity bong "released smoke in a classroom," the Denver Post reports. The haze placed Adams City High School on a modified lockdown that was quickly lifted. Friday rules!

The school released a statement on the grievous threat to its students safety:

"As a precautionary measure, our students were placed on a modified lockdown to limit movement throughout the school," the school said in a statement, adding that teenagers who had been near the device were examined by medical personnel.

"As always, students' safety is our number one priority," it said. "All students were fine and the school is resuming business as usual."

The school said it was working with the proper authorities to resolve the issue, and that it would provide more information when available. It did not give details on the student who brought the pipe to class, nor possible disciplinary measures.

A gravity bong, you'll surely recall, requires a sizable amount of water and a vessel in which to carry it—the kitchen sink is especially fun if your parents aren't home, but a bucket will do in a pinch. Even if we assume that our teen hero built himself a portable version, it's hard to imagine how it could have somehow accidentally released its payload, as the language in the Post's reporting implies. As far as smoking goes, hitting a gravity bong is a pretty elaborate process.

What probably happened: our teen hero, dizzy with anticipation for the weekend and the adrenaline that comes from living in a state where you'll be able to toke up without fear of punishment in a few years when you turn 21 as long as it isn't repealed before then, hit the bong in class.

Police are investigating.

[Photo via Flickr]

Loretta Lynch, who has served as Brooklyn's chief prosecutor since 2010, is expected to be named by President Obama as the next attorney general, replacing Eric Holder, who said he would resign once a successor was announced. If confirmed, Lynch would become the first black woman to helm the Justice Department.

Joe Coscarelli is leaving Daily Intelligencer. We hear he’s going to The New York Times to cover music. Another departing New York magazine staffer, Vulture editor Amanda Dobbins, is leaving for Glamour.

"I can do more from Canada than at Rikers," Adam Tang told me over the phone minutes ago, the first official admission from Afroduck that he flew the coop and escaped to Canada while facing charges of reckless driving. He also claims he was tipped off that the jury was rigged against him.

Yesterday, a jury found Afroduck guilty of reckless driving and reckless endangerment in the 2nd degree, all for driving around Manhattan faster than anyone else before. He covered just over 24 miles in just over 24 minutes, posted a video of himself doing it, and incurred the wrath of two city administrations. There was a manhunt, a throw-the-book-at-him trial, and now Afroduck claims they're going after his wife.

Afroduck fled the country after his last appearance in court, on Monday. He told me that he received a Skype call later in the day from someone claiming to be a friend of a juror. This Skype caller said that the jury was going to make a "political example" out of him.

One juror did admit to make an example out of Tang, as stated in the New York Time's report on the guilty verdict.

A second juror, Damascus Sookbirsingh, 61, said he at first was inclined to acquit Mr. Tang, because he had stopped at traffic lights and seemed to be an adept driver. But Mr. Sookbirsingh said other jurors persuaded him that Mr. Tang had taken unacceptable risks and that a message needed to be sent. "This is basically to set an example," he said.

"What kind of legal system is that?" Tang asked me.

Afroduck fled to Canada thereafter, leaving his pregnant wife behind.

The judge in his case put out a bench warrant for him and he has 30 days before he's charged with bail-jumping. That would mean two years in jail, not one.

"If you're going to get wet, you might as well go swimming, right?" he asked, rhetorically.

Afroduck claims the police went after his wife while he was in Canada, trying to get her for aiding and abetting.

"They want my pregnant wife to serve," Afroduck fumed. "That's too far."

"I can't even call my wife because my phone is tapped," Afroduck continued.

Adam Tang encouraged the NYPD to get him across the border. "They can come to Canada," he stated. "They can play with Ottawa. They can play with the Canadian system. Then we'll see what a real legal system is like."

Afroduck said he will be taking interviews with all the major networks tonight, openly admitting he's in Canada.

"They knew," Afroduck described the border guard. He says they asked him if he'd had any speeding tickets lately, approved his crossing, then let him by with, "good luck Afroduck."

Verifying any of these claims is difficult, but by his own admission Tang is a man on the run, angry but somehow increasingly more confident the worse off his situation gets.

Photo Credit: AP

As of 2010, there were around 205,000 women in prison in the United States, and a million more under some kind of criminal justice supervision, counting those on probation and parole. But would the country benefit from not incarcerating women? At all? Ever?

That argument, while it's sure to drive men's rights activists and fans of the penal system into a crimson-faced rage, was put forth with surprising persuasiveness in the Washington Post today by Patricia O'Brien, an associate professor at the Jane Addams College of Social Work at University of Illinois at Chicago.

O'Brien writes that some members of Britan's House of Lords are advocating that the U.K. do just that: stop imprisoning women, full stop. It's a move mainly supported by the House's female members, including Baroness Jean Corston, who in 2007 put out a report on the ways that English women are made especially vulnerable by the penal system. She didn't exactly argue that no woman should be in prison, but pointed out that in a system designed by and mostly stocked with men, women's needs weren't really being considered.

"We must find better ways to keep out of prison those women who pose no threat to society and to improve the prison experience for those who do," Corston wrote in her executive summary. "One example is the regular, repetitive, unnecessary overuse of strip-searching in women's prisons which is humiliating, degrading and undignified and a dreadful invasion of privacy. For women who have suffered past abuse, particularly sexual abuse, it is an appalling introduction to prison life and an unwelcome reminder of previous victimisation."

This summer, another House of Lords "peer," Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill, took up the cry, arguing in a June floor debate that women make up only 5 percent of the prison population, and serve, generally, very short terms for largely non-violent crimes. "It is now accepted that short sentences have the worst reoffending outcomes," she said in her written remarks. "More than half of all women leaving prison are reconvicted within 12 months. Of those serving sentences of less than 12 months, the reconviction rate rises to 62%." She argued that fewer custodial sentences—the kind where you get locked up—and more community-based rehabilitation would save money as well as allow women to make their amends to society without disrupting the lives of the families: six out of 10 women in prison in the U.K. have dependent children.

Let's pause right here to acknowledge that—although many of the issues are the same for women in U.S. prisons—this will never, ever happen here. The U.S. penal system, combined with the parole and probation industries, is an enormous cash cow, tripling in size since 1980 and making up much of the $200 billion we spend annually on public safety. The extent to which the prison-industrial complex has its hands jammed in the pockets of our nation's lawmakers is profound: the three major prison corporations—Corrections Corporation of America, The GEO Group, and Management and Training Corp.—have spent $45 million on lobbying in the last decade, a report by the Associated Press found.

And yet, if we were ready to have a clearer, less greed- and fear-driven conversation about prison's grip on society, there are any number of reasons to think harder about the way we lock up women, because something—or more like many things—are seriously wrong. For one, as a study from the Sentencing Project found, women's incarceration rates have risen by 646 percent between 1980 and 2010, suggesting not an increase in the number of lady criminals, but the criminalization of things like drug addiction and the new imposition of mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes. Latino and black women are imprisoned at higher rates than white women. And women are much less likely to be in prison for violent crimes than men, as the Sentencing Project study found, and more likely to be there for drug and property crimes.

There's also the fact that three quarters of sexual misconduct reported in prison involves women being assaulted by correctional officers. (And that's just what's reported.) All that's without even touching the especially serious problems that transgender people, especially trans women, face in prison: increased risk of sexual assault, for starters, lack of appropriate housing settings, ill-informed prison staff, and, too often, a lack of appropriate medical care.

So yes, in a saner country, we'd be talking about ways to keep more women—and men with non-violent offenses—out of prison and in the community. In her op-ed in the Post, O'Brien has a lot of suggestions for how that might look: better diversion programs and community sentences, or, at the very least, slowing the expansion of women's prisons. But here in America, where we're still fighting about whether it's okay to shackle incarcerated women in labor by their hands and feet, that conversation is still probably, and sadly, a long way off.

Orange is the New Black screengrab via Netflix/YouTube

We've heard of poppin' some molly and sweatin', but not popping molly, snorting some coke, having a seizure, car-jacking an ambulance that was sent to help you, careening every which way through traffic, and then jerking off in the police station. That'd probably make for a better song, though.

The above scenario was just a night out for Colorado State student Stefan Sortland. Sortland took the above-mentioned drugs before heading off to a Halloween party. At some point in the night, Sortland noticed an empty ambulance outside, and thought, Shit, time for some joy riding! According to police reports acquired by Denver's ABC 7, police tracked the vehicle and found it in bad shape:

Loveland police officers said they found the ambulance in the middle of Highway 34 with several doors open, heavy front-end damage and fluid leaking.

One officer said it appeared the driver of the ambulance had hit the raised median, jumped the curb, hit a sign, went the wrong way and crossed back over the median before stopping.

Officers said they found 18-year-old Stefan Sortland standing about 30 yards from the stopped ambulance wearing an EMT vest. Officers shot him with a stun gun when he refused their commands. Sortland had a blanket, a cell phone and a box of Wheat Thins with him.

After eventually subduing the 18-year-old, the cops took him back to the station, where more hijinks ensued:

Sortland was taken to the Loveland Police Department.

There he "stood on a bench, kicked the wall, and masturbated," according to the police report.

Police said during his interview with officers, Sortland made a reference that his "friends/roommates were dead, in heaven, and had committed suicide."

Somebody find that kid a better dealer. That was some bad molly.

[BroBible]

Coming on Tuesday. pic.twitter.com/ObIAS5lodw

— Rachel Morris (@RachelMorris) November 8, 2014

Tonight and this weekend on TV we've got plenty of recommendations, including Weekend Stream for stuff that is not of this precise era, but if you, like me, are more about the moment, the now, then perhaps this all will be illuminating.

FRIDAY

At 7/6c. there's more Haven on Syfy, and the last of Cartoon Network's week-long spree of all ten episodes of this season of Over the Garden Wall. I don't expect you to actually watch either of those things, but we must document the passage of time if we're ever going to feel anything, is my hypothesis.

AT 8/7c.

• The Amazing Race hits Palermo, Sicily ("Pretty Fly for a Food Scientist," regrettably, unless they are talking about actual flies, which, you never know),
• Last Man Standing and Cristela try to explain their not-really-competing versions of America once again on ABC,
• And TNT helps people achieve their dream situation, in this case, of getting On the Menu of everyone's favorite Factory (for celebrating the birthday of your least favorite coworker): The Cheesecake one.

AT 9/8c.

• America's Next Top Model worries about one of its less-likely top models, "The Guy Who Parties Too Hard,"
• H2 looks into the Ancient Alien Mysteries of the Sphinx, which I didn't even know were a thing, and
• Jerry O'Connell persists in garbaging up your TV screens with TBS's latest prank show Deal with It.
• Kendra: Remains On Top.
• There's the usual panoply of Friday TV that apparently somebody watches—Grimmstantine, Hawaii Five-0, Shark Tank—while
• PBS has a confusingly titled "Arts Fall Festival Special Salute to the Troops in Performance at the White House," which is all your favorite things at the same time, and
• Showtime's got a special on Lance Armstrong called "Stop at Nothing" and say what you will but I for one still haven't forgiven him for the time he gave Sheryl Crow cancer, and I doubt he'll be talking about that. He will "stop at nothing," except for copping to that one I bet.

At 10/9c. the America's Heroes Channel has a show, as you know, called Ancient Assassins that is a rousting good time, but did you know that tonight's episode is called, simply but redundantly, "The Assassins"? I have my theories about this but I will wait to declare them. Ditto whether CBS's show Blue Bloods has Tom Selleck on it or not, nobody's ever confirmed for me if that's correct. Finally at 11/10c., HBO's Foo Fighter show continues to exist.

SATURDAY

AT 8/7c.

• We've got Ovation's Artful Detective ("Return of Sherlock Holmes," somehow) and
• An episode of My Cat From Hell entitled, "When the Fat Lady Sings," which I can only hope is about an enormous cat, that would be great, while
• CMT goes Inside the Fame of Lady Antebellum, but I'm telling you there's no way they're going to answer the two majorest questions about Lady Antebellum, to wit: Number one, How come sometimes the man singer looks very cute and other times he looks like he's dying or turning into uncooked pastry dough and number two, Why the fuck is your band called that
• In TV Movie news, Lifetime's got Dead on Campus—sorority rush becomes sexual peer pressure becomes murder and thence to blackmail and meangirling—while on Hallmark, it's apparently already time for
• Something called The Nine Lives of Christmas, in which Brandon Routh adopts a cat and discovers heterosexuality, which leads us directly to
• Sister-network LMN's Haunting Of the baby-faced former Desperate Gardener and lifetime Tisch alum Jesse Metcalf, whose show Dallas was recently canceled, meaning he now has, at the least, two problems.

AT 9/8c.

• It's the 90-minute Season Eight finale of Doctor Who, as Dr. Who finally faces off against Mrs. Huh? and the vexing Professor Counterclockwise,
• Hell on Wheels is still about trains, or racism, and probably has dynamite in the episode; I've noticed that a lot of Western things involve dynamite and when there are also trains, that likelihood skyrockets, so: probably,
• The underrated Survivor's Remorse comes to its Season One's end,
• Los Lobos and Thao & the Get Down Stay Down are on ACL,
• Syfy's Mutant World is another TV movie that is probably about romance, cat adoptions, and/or Christmas,
• CMT's Saturday night buffet of swamp-related programming continues with Swamp Pawn,
• H2's America Unearthed returns to unearth the American secrets of the Alamo, while another third season premiere arrives for
• ID's Fatal Vows, a show about people who should probably not be getting married.

I feel like you are already making a promise of sufficient weight that you should know yourself and the other person well enough to reasonably believe you are going to keep that promise forever—or else why bother getting married, this isn't Downton Abbey, you can fuck whoever you want, it's the '90s for God's sake—but of course that tends to overshadow simpler and more specific truths such as, at the very least you should know yourself and your prospective mate well enough to know that you are not literally going to murder each other.

Like, just say to yourself these two questions, and answer honestly:

• Am I likely to brutally murder this person, unexpectedly?
• Does my affianced seem like the kind of person who would kill a human being without warning?

If you cannot answer both questions with a firm No, I would suggest seriously exploring whether or not you have made the perfect match. You have to believe that brass ring will come around again—that you worthy of more love than a simple, shrugging "so I got killed, so what, I got a Vitamix" into which you are now walking with eyes open.

At 10/9c. it's OWN's Flex & Shanice, a new episode of Pit Bulls & Parolees on Animal Planet, yet more Transporter: The Series on TNT, an episode of Scorned: Love Kills called "I'll Have What She's Having"—which is I guess the experience of being scorned and/or killed—and a new episode of TLC's masterpiece Sex Sent Me to the ER entitled, God love 'em, "Pole Position," before Adult Swim produces at 10:30 an episode of Black Dynamite called variously "'How Honeybee Got Her Groove Back' or 'Sexodus' or 'Night of the Living Dickheads.'"

SUNDAY

At 7/6c. comes Disney XD's original telefilm Pants on Fire, which stars every kid from every other Disney show as usual, and is about a boy whose lies start coming true. A moral lesson may well be imparted.

AT 8/7c.

• Hallmark's got A Cookie Cutter Christmas, a movie for people who don't think that's an insult (aka, people who watch the Hallmark Channel) and are into a movie about some creepy looking white people who mostly what they care about is cookies, plus Alan Thicke is there,
• Debi Mazar, the female Udo Kier, and her husband introduce you to a Tuscan Thanksgiving on the Cooking Channel, and no that is not a typo, all of those words are on purpose, because we all know how Tuscany likes to celebrate American Thanksgiving every year, and who doesn't aspire to be a member of Debi Mazar's household if we're being honest, and
• The Problematic Housewives of Atlanta premieres its seventh season on Bravo.

For full-deck highlights you've got:

• CBS's Madam Secretary, The Good Wife and CSI nonsense sandwich that airs just whenever,
• ABC's similarly counterintuitive Once Upon a Time ("The Snow Queen"), Resurrection, Revenge journey, and
• Fox goes Simpsons, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Family Guy ("Brian the Closer") and Mulaney. Duck duck duck goose.

AT 9/8c.

• In drama it's Showtime ( Homeland), AMC (Walking Dead) and HBO with the Newsroom's final season premiere, which is called "Boston," which should tell you what we're going to be dealing with this week/this year,
• Trainwreck programming includes a two-hour seventh fucking season premiere of Finding Bigfoot—this episode titled for some reason "Alaska's God Squatch"—and in basically the same arena America's #1 Squatches Kourtney & Khloé remain blind to why it is that they'll never actually Take the Hamptons, and on TLC it's "Touchdown" for one of the 90-Day Fiancés, which takes us to some weird consent places if you think about it.
• And in Mom shows, we've got the Holiday Cooking Madness premiere on Food, loveable rake Anthony Bourdain touring such Parts Unknown as the previously undiscovered Jamaica, and Oprah tries to figure out the current whereabouts of George Hamilton, Morgan Fairchild, and Micky Dolenz, which is basically a Leslie Neilsen movie waiting to happen is where they are.

AT 10/9c.

• The big news is of course the second seasons of HBO comedies The Comeback and Getting On, both of which are genius, before the equally genius John Oliver, but there's also
• The Affair, which is nearly half over! So sad, but not as sad as a show called
• Ghost Stalkers, which I pray is about ghosts stalking people and not people who stalk ghosts, but it's on DA so that would actually be more likely in this case, and there are new episodes of
• House of DVF on E! and the uncomplicated heterosexuality of
• My Five Wives on TLC, plus a new
• Lisa Ling on CNN called, and presumably focused on, a "Gay Rodeo," although...

I guess it's not out of bounds to suggest that you could really call anything that and be mostly right, or at least anything on the website page you are currently reading. "ABC's big gay rodeo Revenge," you could say and be right. "The Comeback premiere is sure to be a gay rodeo," you could say and be one hundred percent accurate.

Morning Afteris a big gay television rodeo brought to you by Gawker. What are you watching this weekend? What are we missing out on? Recommendations and discussions down below.

Jeremih, the R&B singer known for “Birthday Sex,” caused quite a scene at a Montana Fuddruckers. According to TMZ, he and his entourage “allegedly went nuclear,” causing $700 in damage and injuring a frier.

KULR reports:

Police learned the men started hitting on a juvenile woman who worked there. She told the manager she felt uncomfortable about the incident and the manager asked the men to sit down and wait for their food. The men then started calling the manager a racist, and the manager began to process a refund for these men. Police say the men then started throwing beer bottles at the manager.

Billings police officers took more than two hours to respond to the disturbance, by which time Jeremih and his crew were long gone.

TMZ—who went with the perfect headline "Jeremih Causes Fuddruckus at Fuddruckers"—says the men "ordered cheese sticks and chicken fingers."

[Photo Credit: Associated Press]

According to hospital officials, 15-year-old Andrew Fryberg died late Friday from wounds sustained during October 24's deadly school shooting at Washington's Marysville-Pilchuck High School.

Andrew was shot when his cousin Jaylen Fryberg opened fire using a .40-caliber handgun on a group of students in their school's cafeteria. Jaylen later turned the gun on himself.

Andrew's death follows the deaths of 14-year-olds Gia Soriano and Shaylee Chuckulnaskit, both of whom died in the hospital days after the attack. 14-year-old Zoe Galasso was killed during the shooting.

Andrew's family released a statement through Harborview hospital:

We express our thanks for the amazing support from the community, as well as from everyone around the world that have been praying for us all through this tragic event.

We also want to say a special thank you to all the amazing staff that have cared for our son and brother here in the pediatric intensive care unit at Harborview.

Our family is overwhelmed with the love and care that has been provided to our loved one during this time and you all will forever hold a special place in our hearts.

But we also ask that you respect our privacy at this time of our deep loss.

14-year-old Nate Hatch, another cousin of shooter Jaylen Fryberg who was injured in the shooting, was released from the hospital this week.

According to USA Today, students returned to Marysville-Pilchuck High School on Monday for the first time since the October 24 shooting. Co-principal Ron Lowry said, "There were more smiles and hugging than there was crying. Grief counselors were on hand, but they weren't needed to the extent that we feared they would be. Hopefully, that's because they're healing."

[image via NBCNews]

According to Robert O'Neill—the former Navy SEAL who claims he shot Osama bin Laden—the Al Qaeda leader "died like a pussy" and "knew that we were there to kill him."

In a previously unreleased audio interview aired last night on CNN, O'Neill told freelance journalist Alex Quade that he had used details of bin Laden's death to bring closure to the families of 9/11 victims, saying:

"[O]ne thing I tell them is 'All right, Osama bin Laden died like a pussy. That's all I'm telling you. Just so you know. He died afraid. And he knew that we were there to kill him.'"

"You can quote me on this bullshit," said O'Neill.

Bin Laden's alleged killer also told Quade that SEAL Team Six was sent after the Al Qaeda leader "because they wanted him dead" and that "it doesn't matter anymore if I am 'The Shooter.'"

"I don't give a fuck," said O'Neill. "We got him. We brought him out and we lived."

[Image via Leading Authorities]