Things I'm Slowly Learning from Kung-Fu the Legend Continues

Things I am slowly learning from watching episodes of Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.

1) Being Shaolin means you talk really...really...slow. And vaguely Shatnerian.

2) Peter Caine is the Worst. Detective. Ever.

3) The only person who ever seems to do any real detective work is the computer technician.

4) It's oddly novel to have your computer technician be your most badass character. I think I approve.

5) Tiny people who always wear sunglasses are scary.

6) Poison nets are not nearly as formidable a weapon as you'd think.

7) Speaking of badass technicians who always wear sunglasses and carry around Desert Eagles to "protect their disks"...don't mess with their families. Even if they are named after Muppets . . . Especially if they're named after Muppets.

8) Being old and Chinese apparently entitles you to tell your apprentice and his son each that the other is dead.

9) If you are a baby Shaolin and are orphaned and henceforth adopted by cops, they won't just be any cops, they will be EX-MERCENARY COPS. Because the show really isn't implausible enough.

9 correllary) Have you ever noticed how in the 80s and 90s there was such an animal as the leather jacket wearing independant guy-mercenary who killed people for a living but wasn't exactly an assassin and sometimes had connections with the government and tended to saunter around the main characters like cats in heat?

I mean Alex Krycek's probably the most famous example, but the 80s/90s were chock full of their Lococcos and their Griffins and all that. You don't see them anymore. I kind of miss them.

...okay, really, I just find amoral violence hot.

10) Don't date Peter Caine. You will either be a bitch or dead.

Peter's kind of like Kyle that way. Only somewhat whinier.

Nah, he's pretty much exactly like Kyle.

11) Apparently a grey streak is enough to magically make a forty year old character old enough to have a twenty-five year old (implied) son.*

(ETA: Not referring to Carradine on this one. :-) I'm well aware he was quite over 40. :-))

12) There is a special correllary rule with regards to this show. If you are the biological child of someone who is badass, your adopted parent will be equally as badass in a different way.

If your natural father is a Shaolin Monk, your adopted father is an ex-mercenary cop with Connections.

If your biological father is a scary ex-mercenary, your adopted father is some sort of four-star general.

13) If you are framed for the murder of your girlfriend, the best thing to do isn't trust your Shaolin monk dad or scary ex-mercenary cop friends to do what they do best and actually clear your name, but to flee DURING YOUR OWN TRIAL and get hunted down by US Marshalls.

Oh, and make sure the first place you go is totally back to her apartment. You don't look guilty enough.

14) Peter Caine is kind of an idiot.

15) Cops never seem to mind the inevitable open case files that result from supernaturally inclined villains who get their asses beat by Caine and then run away.

16) Excessive force is never an issue either.

17) It's always a bad idea to let your homicidally inclined pet computer hacker off his leash.

17 correllary) though it's usually pretty funny.

18) If you're unlucky enough to defiantly insist that you're not your father in the form of unfortunate rhyme, the clip will totally end up in the opening theme.

19) Bad 80s hair actually migrates. As soon as one character gets a haircut, another will have it. Even if that character had a crew-cut in the season previous. Scary.

20) It's kind of funny watching characters slowly accept David Carradine's weirdness. In the first and second season, they'd jump/freak out when he'd appear out of nowhere. Third and fourth: it's all "meh."

Except oddly for Peter. Who does occasionally get surprised when his dad appears out of nowhere.

Because he's an idiot.


...

I may love this show.