Batman:The Long Halloween, Parts One and Two

Part 1 premiered June 22, 2021.

Part 2 premiered July 27, 2021. 

A note from your trusted holiday bloggers:

This animated special contains multiple murders, bloody corpses and curse words.  It's intended for an adult audience and is NOT recommended for young children.

It's Halloween in Gotham City.  At Wayne Manor, Bruce Wayne (Jensen Ackles), aka The Batman, is spending a quiet evening at home.  His butler Alfred (Alastair Duncan) has candy to hand out, but Bruce points out that no children have trick or treated at the mansion for years.

Elsewhere, Gotham's police commissioner Jim Gordon (Billy Burke) is preparing to take his children Barbara and James trick or treating.  Their plans change quickly when Gordon is called into work.

District Attorney Harvey Dent (Josh Duhamel) arrives home to find his wife Gilda (Julie Nathanson) sitting alone in the back yard.  She wants them to spend Halloween together at home, but unfortunately, his job doesn't allow Dent to take off for Halloween.  

A mob informant named Johnny Vitti has been murdered, shot to death.  Dent is furious, because the next day, Vitti was supposed to turn state's evidence against his uncle Carmine Falcone (Titus Welliver), better known as "The Roman." 

Falcone is the head of a major organized crime family.  Gordon believes that all hope isn't lost.  If he, Batman and Dent work together, they can still take down Falcone.  He says Dent will work "in the light" while the Batman works "the other side," and instructs them to "bend the rules, never break them."  Batman has a long history with Falcone, since his father Thomas Wayne conducted business with the Roman.  

During his search for the killer, Batman is aided by his sometimes-villain/sometimes-girlfriend Catwoman (Naya Rivera).

At Falcone's headquarters, the Roman fumes over his nephew's death and believes Dent is to blame.  When it's time to discuss business, Falcone dismisses his bookish son Alberto (Jack Quaid), who the Roman describes as is "32, going on 13."  

Later that night, when Dent returns home, he's seriously wounded when his home is firebombed. 

The next month, Mickey Chen (Greg Chun) and his gang are gunned down during their Thanksgiving dinner.  The Chen gang had been employed by Falcone.  

This makes Batman and Gordon believe they have a serial killer on their hands.  They nickname the murderer "Holiday," since the killer only strikes on holidays.

Gordon and Batman question imprisoned villain Calendar Man (David Dastmalchian) in Arkham Asylum

The carnage continues on Christmas.  This time, Batman's greatest enemy, the Joker (Troy Baker) shows up and joins the list of suspects.  

Can Batman bring Holiday to justice before they commit another holiday murder?

J.A. Morris says:

It's worth noting that the first part of this movie premiered this past June, while the second part debut in July.  We're treating it as one film presented in two parts. 

I'm a big fan of superheroes and Halloween, and I've read the comic book miniseries that was the basis for Batman:The Long Halloween, so I went into this expecting to enjoy it.  And I did, especially Part One.  It features scenes that take place on Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve.  This movie is tailor-made for this blog!

In addition to Batman, it features the Joker, the Caped Crusader's greatest nemesis, and Catwoman, who assists Batman in his quest to unmask Holiday.  We get plenty of fight scenes that feature Batman taking on various antagonists.  There's a great scene involving the Joker attacking Gotham City with a plane.  

The mystery behind Holiday's identity is a good mystery that I didn't immediately solve.  

Fans of "Mafia" movies will appreciate visual and dialogue references to movies like The Godfather which feature prominently in the Falcone family scenes.  The scenes that feature Falcone berating his son Alberto are also well done.  I found myself feeling sorry for Alberto.

The voice actors all did a good job in Batman:The Long Halloween.  Jensen Ackles (best known for his role on Supernatural) voices Batman and provides solid work.  Naya Rivera plays Catwoman.  This was Rivera's final role before her tragic death and the film is dedicated to her.  In a small role, Fred Tatasciore is great as the zombie Solomon Grundy.  

Part One of this two-part film is very good.  The second part is much weaker.  Holidays in the New Year are barely mentioned in Part Two.  Granted, Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day pale in comparison to Halloween and Christmas, but I think the filmmakers could've done something more interesting with those occasions.  It makes for a disappointing finish to the story.

Batman:The Long Halloween, Parts One and Two is a movie that will be enjoyed by all fans of Batman and Holiday programming.  Since it features multiple holidays, it's something that can be enjoyed year-round.  However, the lackluster Part Two prevents me from giving it a higher rating.

J.A. Morris' rating:

2 and a half jack o'lanterns.

RigbyMel says:

Batman: The Long Halloween is a good animated adaptation of the comic miniseries of the same title by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale.   The animated version suggests the art style used in the comic without straight up copying it and the story is a lot of fun.   

By virtue of the extended nature of the year-long string of murders,  we get multiple visits to Arkham Asylum and encounters with an assortment of villains from  Batman's extensive rogue's gallery. 

Poison Ivy (Katee Sackhoff) really makes an impression in Part 2 and Troy Baker's channeling of a Mark Hamill-esque Joker in Part 1 is fantastic.   

As J.A. Morris mentions above, there are fun meta references to other movies.  For instance, the scenes where Batman and Commissioner Gordon go to try and glean information from Calendar Man have strong Silence of the Lambs vibes.  

The notion of the serial killer who only operates on holidays is an interesting and creepy conceit and the mystery has enough surprises for Bat-afficionados and neophytes alike. 

Thanksgiving dinner a la gangster

My only real complaint is that it feels like the filmmakers got bored with the holiday murder concept by the time they got around to Part 2 and give it short shrift in that installment.   Still,  The Long Halloween makes for entertaining superhero/holiday viewing.   

RigbyMel's rating:

2 and a half jack o'lanterns

Glee: "Heart"

First Aired February 14, 2012

"Let's hear it for luuuvve!  Your assignment Valentine's week is to find and perform the world's greatest love songs."
-Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison)

Valentine's Day is approaching and love is in the air in the hallways of McKinley High!

Sugar Motta (Vanessa Lengies) announces she's throwing a huge Valentine's Day party. Every member of the New Directions glee club is invited, but they must bring a date. Both Artie (Kevin McHale) and Rory (Damian McGinty) want Sugar to be their Valentine date. Each boy sings a love song to Sugar and they try to win her affection with gifts.


Rachel (Lea Michele) and Finn (Cory Montieth) announce their engagement to the rest of the glee club. Some are in favor of the wedding, some think it's a terrible idea that will destroy their dreams.


Rachel's dads Hiram (Jeff Goldblum) and Leroy (Brian Stokes Mitchell) , have given their blessing to Rachel and Finn to marry. But this is actually part of a plan to postpone the wedding through reverse psychology.

Finn & Rachel announce their engagement to New Directions.

Principal Figgins (Iqbal Theba) stops Santana (Naya Rivera) and Brittany (Heather Morris) from kissing each other in the hallway. 

He has received complaints about their displays of affection. Santana says Figgins is a hypocrite, since heterosexual couples kiss in the hallways all the time.Kurt (Chris Colfer) keeps getting Valentine cards and presents from a "secret admirer". He believes the gifts are actually from his boyfriend Blaine (Darren Criss), but he may be in for a huge surprise.

Mercedes (Amber Riley) breaks up with her boyfriend Shane because she is still "in love" with Sam (Chord Overstreet). But she tells Sam they can't date because she feels guilty about breaking Shane's heart and it would be bad to start a relationship under those circumstances.

The God Squad (a club for Christian Students) is trying to raise money through singing telegrams for Valentine's Day.

Santanna wants to pay them to sing for Brittany, but the God Squad must first have a debate about singing for gay couples.


All that, plus lots of song-and-dance numbers!

J.A. Morris says:

As you can tell from the summary, there's a LOT going on in this episode. There's actually too much going on and most of it involves characters I don't care about. Rory and Sugar don't bring much to the table.  There's also a big plot-hole here regarding Sugar's party.  She says only people with dates may attend and that single people aren't invited because they're "sad" and "don't exist" in her world.  Then Artie shows up...without a date with no explanation.  I don't think the Mercedes/Sam (A.K.A. "Samcedes") relationship was handled well either.

The most important thing about this episode is the introduction of Rachel's dads. Jeff Goldblum and Brian Stokes Mitchell are a lot of fun in "Heart", and they're the best part of the episode too.

Rachel's dads make a surprise appearance in the school auditorium.

The dads could have been played for easy laughs, but Goldblum and Stokes Mitchell are funny and make this episode twice as entertaining whenever they're onscreen.  I was also amused by Hiram's story about meeting Leroy when they both performed with Up With People.

The big "show-stopper" song features Amber Riley performing "I Will Always Love You". It should be noted that Riley's performance was recorded several days before the death of Whitney Houston, and this episode is dedicated to Houston.

Mike and Tina don't get a plot in this episode, but I thought they had the best performance.  They perform a duet of the standard "L-O-V-E.".

There's also an ensemble performance of the B-52's "Love Shack", featuring a decent Fred Schneideresque vocal from Chris Colfer.

This isn't a great episode, but the two performances mentioned above and the scenes that feature Hiram and Leroy make it worth watching at least once.  But I don't see this becoming a perennial Valentine's Day favorite.

J.A. Morris' rating:








Two and a half Valentine Hearts


RigbyMel says:

Season 3 of Glee was where the series really started to go downhill in my estimation and this episode kind of demonstrates why.   As J.A. Morris says, there is way too much going on here and not much of it pays off in anything resembling an intelligent fashion.  

We start with an "assignment" for the club members to show off some of their favorite love songs and are not treated to very much that fits into the "great love song" category.   The assignment also seems to be pretty much forgotten after the first 5 minutes.

Artie's attempt to woo Sugar with the song "Let Me Love You" comes off as gross and creepy.

Mike and Tina are adorable.  The inter-cutting during their song and dance number?  Not so much. 

Mike and Tina's rendition of "L-O-V-E", while very cute,  is inter-cut with the stupid Artie/Rory competition over Sugar, which is not at all cute.  This might be ok if it was intended ironically, but seems to be meant to be taken at face value.

Rory is trying too hard

One also wonders why anyone (highschool horndog or not) would be interested in someone as vapid and superficial as Sugar  -- so the Artie/Rory fight over her lacks any sort of resonance.    Speaking of resonance, the ever-present auto-tuning of voices on this show always gets my goat.

Brittany's Valentine playlist for Santana is pretty amusing, actually

The "God Squad" plot thread feels tacked on just to clumsily make a foregone conclusion point about being accepting of attractive young people sharing PDA regardless of sexual orientation.

Kurt receives a "Gorilla-Gram" from his secret admirer

The reveal  of Kurt's secret admirer is only surprising if you've never watched tv or seen a movie involving a secret admirer.

The best things about this episode are Rachel's dads (despite the silly reverse psychology plot they have to carry),  the cute "L-O-V-E" number (marred by the aforementioned inter-cutting) and Chris Colfer's channeling of Fred Schneider during "Love Shack", but this is not enough for me to give this episode a ringing endorsement.

RigbyMel's rating:

1 and a half Valentine hearts