So, a couple very awesome things transpired in entertainment this year so far. The Avengers was a huge popcorn smash, Community was renewed for another season, Breaking Bad returned, and most recently The Dark Knight Rises closed the Batman trilogy in champion fashion. It was just an amazing film all around and it made me applaud the art of cinematic story telling. I think Christopher Nolan should be given the regular and post season MVP award at next year’s Academy Awards.
Anyway, another great thing that happened this year was this season of Justified. If you’re familiar with this site, you know that Raylan Givens, Batman, and Jay-Z are the ultimate definition of cool by our standards. And Leo DiCaprio. And Frank Sinatra. And speaking of Sinatra, on this year’s season premiere of Justified, we were introduced to a character named Fletcher “The Ice-Pick” Nix who looked like he could have been the leader of the Rat-Pack if the Rat-Pack was a killer gang that moonlit as entertainers back in 1960′s Vegas.
He was such a cool compliment to Raylan’s badassery. He wore a cool hat, he was handsome, and his signature death blow was that he would place a gun on a table, have you countdown from 10 and when he gets to 1, he makes you think you have a fighting chance to reach for the gun, but instead pulls out an ice-pick to stab your hand with. Unfair? Yes. Cool? Extremely. But, **spoiler alert**, when he finally has a showdown with Raylan at the end of the episode, Raylan one ups him in the coolest s*** ever department and bests him with a move I can only describe as “Never in my life would I have thought to do that and therefore would’ve died.” Watch the video below if you wanna see it.
By the end of the episode, his character was out of the picture and we never saw him again the rest of the season. Here was one of the coolest bad guys I’ve ever seen on TV or film and he was used for one episode and never heard from again. And according to producers and writers of the show, they didn’t and don’t have any plans to bring the character back. I can’t believe that and refuse to accept it. The character was played by Desmond Harrington, who’s credits include Dexter, Gossip Girl, and Rescue Me. All popular TV shows, but this guy was too cool in one 60 minute episode of Justified to not have more credits to his name.
I do have a point and I’m getting to it. So I’m watching The Dark Knight Rises and there’s a scene where Joseph Gordon-Levitt‘s character is trying to get a school bus full of kid’s out of Gotham City before tragedy strikes and the only bridge out of town is being guarded by police officers. And the leader of this group of cops you just wanna punch is non other than Desmond Harrington. I pointed at the screen with this excited recognition. “Hey, it’s Ice Pick! Good for him for being in The Dark..hey where’d he go?”
Not only did he piss the whole theater off with his ignorance, but he wasn’t given any more screen time after that. He didn’t even have a name. His IMDB page credits him as Uniform in The Dark Knight Rises. Uniform? That’s all he gets? Does Chris Nolan not watch TV? I know just being a part of the production is a great honor and to have any role at all in this trilogy is something to be proud of, but this guy was just too cool to be barely seen and barely heard. If Thomas Lennon can score a role as a Learned Doctor in this great trilogy, certainly Fletcher “The Ice-Pick” can get a role as Bane’s homeboy or Guy Who Batman Makes His First Comeback Elbow to the Face on. Something a little more significant than Uniform would have sufficed.
I don’t know. I’m not criticizing Nolan or the film by any means. I guess seeing him was just a reminder that a cool actor and character is being underused. I think fans of Justified and fans of Batman should rally behind Mr. Harrington and get him back on the next season of Justified. And I’m talking about a huge rally. The way Bruce Wayne and Commissioner Gordon rallied behind Harvey Dent before he started yelling at people. The way the city rallied behind Batman when he rose to roundhouse kick Bane in the face. And the way everybody rallied for Obama or Taylor Swift. Let’s bring Ice-Pick back.
#BringBackFletcherIcePickNix