Correia Solid, Loses 2-0

There were NINE total hits in the game, we had 4 of them.

Instead of talking about another Twins loss, I thought I'd speak of recycled plots on movies and TV shows.

Last weekend we finally got to see the latest Jack Ryan movie, Shadow Recruit. I truly enjoy the Tom Clancy novels that inspired the character, but was in no hurry to see it because of the tepid reviews.

Spoiler alert: I do discuss the ending so if you don't want to know it, stop reading. It's not much of a spoiler though, because he does something heroic at the end to spoil the villain's success. That's what ALWAYS happens in these movies.

It's just that this particular ending has been used A LOT lately.

There's a bomb. The hero can't diffuse it. He's forced to bring it to an area where no one will get hurt by the time it explodes. Everybody then thinks he's dead (for a while.) If you saw the latest Batman movie, you saw Batman do this. If you saw the latest Avenger's movie, you saw Iron Man do this.

If you saw Iron Giant years ago, you saw a version of this.

In this particular movie, Jack Ryan discovers an ambulance parked below the tunnels of Wall Street containing a bomb big enough to destroy the world's economy. Up until that point, it was a pretty good action thriller. He ends up speeding through the streets of New York heading for the bay in a race against time.

Now you might say, "Well, that's a pretty original way of using the exploding bomb gimmick."

But you would be wrong.

You see, as soon as the movie was over, we switched to an episode of Criminal Minds (in syndication on A&E) that we had never seen before. The agent discovers an ambulance in the bowels of the hospital with a bomb in it powerful enough to level the hospital and everyone in it. We later find out that the President was having "secret" surgery there.

At the end, he's speeding through the streets of New York heading for an isolated area of Central Park so that the bomb can explode with minimal damage.

It LITERALLY was the exact same plot, and we really did watch the show immediately after the movie was over. Coincidence?

Nope. I just think that this gimmick is used more often than any writer is willing to admit. And sometimes it blows up in the viewers faces.

Especially viewers who admittedly watch far too much television.

In my defense, I can't watch the Twins much anymore. It's just too painful.

Lately, they've been recycling the same tired plot too often as well.