The Case of the Suspicious Sapphic Storyline

The past day had been hot, hard, and long, and I was just realizing how many strange Google hits this opening sentence was going to bring to this blog. I had spent the day trying to solve the Case of the Angry Assistants. The solution turned out to be easy: Their bosses were assholes.

That's what I do, I find answers, I'm a dick.

Damn, now I'm going to get a lot more weird Google visits than the story with the giant rooster.

Anyway, I had staggered into my office, beat tired and slumped in my chair like a sack full of jello.

Correction.

I slumped in my chair on a sack full of jello.

"Who put a bag full of jello on my chair?" I asked.

"Hey," said voice from the corner, "that was my desert."

I spun around, my piece in my hand.

"Why are you pointing a piece of cake at me?" asked the voice from the corner.

"It's my desert," I said, "and my desert is free of butt prints. Now who are you and why are you here?"

"Don't you know me?"

The figure stepped out of the shadows. He was short, pimply, had an awful haircut, an even weaker attempt at a beard, and a Masters of the Universe T-shirt that didn't quite master the universe of his stomach.

"Sam Deehaygo," I said recognizing that face anywhere. He was the ultimate fanboy, there wasn't a single thing in the geek world that didn't have his sticky fingerprints on it. "What brings you here."

"I need a dick," said Sam.

"Well," I said, "I'm sort of flattered, but I don't swing that way, and just because a woman won't touch you doesn't make you gay. It might mean that you make them gay, but that's a totally different thing--"

"I mean a private detective," snapped Sam.

"I know," I answered, "I was just milking an old hackneyed joke. Much the same way I'm milking an often incorrect stereotype with your character."

"Admitting that is very meta-fiction of you."

"It's that kind of story," I said scraping the jello off my chair. "Now, what can I do for you?"

"There's a question I need answering," said Sam. "Do you watch Heroes?"

"Sweet mother of monkeys," I growled, "not another goddamn NBC story."

"Do you watch it?"

"I never got into it."

"Well there are stories going around that the Cheerleader character will have some sort of lesbian relationship on the show."

"Like Willow and Tara on Buffy the Vampire Slayer?"

"Yeah."

"Just a minute," I said as I went into the next room.

"Furious?" asked Sam. "What are you doing in there? Furious?"

"Okay," said sitting back at my desk.

"What were you doing in there?"

"Let's get on with the case," I said.

"I want you to find out why the show it doing this," he asked, "I'm not complaining, I just want to know why."

"All right," I said, "I'll take the case."

#

I figured that I'd go right to the source to find my answers, mostly because I wasted a lot of time with the introduction scene. So I leaped into my a chocolate colored 1971 Lamborghini Miura everyone called The Brown Hornet, and realized that it was not a convertible, but thanks to my girth, it now had a new sunroof.

Anyway, after the fire department got me out, I put the pedal to the metal and tore down to Universal City. If there were answers to be found, it would be there.

The backlot was a ghost town. In the distance I could hear the footsteps of runaway productions, and the weeping of some executive wondering why reshoots were needed for The Wolf-Man after $85 million had already been spent on the picture. I went into that big black slab that served as the executive office building and met the receptionist.

"What a pleasure meeting you here Sugartits," I said to the receptionist.

"Aren't you getting tired of using the gag where receptionists are always being named after sexist terms?" asked Sugartits McGee. "I mean it's a cheap gag, I'm talking Family Guy cheap."

"You know," I said, "this reminds me of the time I was Johnny Depp's--"

"Don't start doing cut-aways!" screeched Sugartits. "Just tell me who you want to see."

"I need to see the person in charge of Heroes," I said.

"Do you know who it is?" she asked.

"Don't you?"

"This is NBC," she said, "no one's sure of anything. Just pick a random office, I'm sure you'll write it so that it'll turn out to be the right guy."

I followed her advice, went into the elevator, picked a floor at random, and then picked a random office.

She was right.

"So you're the show-runner for Heroes?" I asked.

"Yeah," said the guy as he nervously sipped a cappucino. "For now, who's asking."

"I am Furious D," I said, "I'm a private dick, and I'm looking for some answers."

"About what?" asked the show-runner. "And make it fast, I'm getting fired in an hour."

"A lot of folks are wondering about the rumours about that cheerleader character having a lesbian relationship in Season 3."

"Oh," said the show-runner, "that."

"Well," I said.

"The ratings for the past two seasons stink," said the show-runner. "And I mean dead squid on a beach stink. We need something to attract attention, and I was watching reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, saw that whole Willow/Tara thing... Hey, where did you go?"

"Go on," I said as I returned to my seat.

"What were you doing in my closet?"

"Just finish your story," I said.

"We figured getting two girls making out on television would boost the ratings."

"Doesn't that seem like a cheap play for attention."

"Oh it is cheap, really, really cheap," said the show-runner, "it's like every time Megan Fox opens her mouth."

"Why go that route?" I asked. "People are already getting sick of her."

"Because this is NBC," said the show-runner, "we've got nothing else."

I nodded and was glad to have an excuse to get away from that network, the whole building had that whole Dawn of the Dead feeling to it, and I skedaddled. I had my answer, so it was time to declare---

CASE CLOSED