Return of the Toast Patrol!-- A Visual Companion

1. MUFASA-- In the movie The Lion King, Mufasa dies, then later shows up in the sky. In the picture featured in this Toast Patrol, the Cullens are also in the sky.

2. BEN KENOBI-- In the movie Star Wars: Episode IV, Ben Kenobi dies, then later shows up looking all hazy (and is more or less in the sky). In the picture featured in this Toast Patrol, the Cullens are also looking all hazy (and are in the sky).

3. A DRAGON VOICED BY SEAN CONNERY-- In the movie Dragonheart, the dragon character--voiced by Sean Connery-- dies, then later shows up as the constellation Draco... in the sky. In the picture featured in this Toast Patrol, guess where the Cullens are? I think you know.

4. FUNNY GAMES-- Funny Games is a surprisingly good, psychologically-driven film (foreign, but recently remade as an American film, which I understand is shot-for-shot and therefore, in my opinion, rather pointless) in which two friendly young men dressed in white tennis-y outfits show up at a family's vacation home and proceed to play torturous, homicidal, 'funny' games with them. Unfortunately, Mr. Gumption's comment was just a joke, and neither of these young men showed up at the Cullens' in the Twilight series.

5. M SHADOWS-- Is the lead singer of the band Avenged Sevenfold. Forrest Gumption is of the opinion that his voice makes him a good candidate to emcee a Saturday morning horror show.

6. ON THE EAST SIDE. IN A CASTLE. WITH SOME PIE.-- The theme song of the 70's-80's sitcom The Jeffersons begins thusly-- Well we're movin on up/To the east side/To a deluxe apartment in the sky/Movin on up/To the east side/We finally got a piece of the pie. The Toast Patrol collective is vaguely aware of this.

Chapter Twenty-Four (In which things could have been wrapped up quickly, but then Shmeyer would've had to stop writing)

Well, toastyreaders, we've finally reached the last chapter. Don't get excited just yet, though-- a soggy epilogue is close on its heels.

CHAPTER SUMMARY-- Bella wakes up in the hospital to find Edward sitting in the corner, pretending to nap. He informs her, among other other things, that her mother is off getting coffee and will be back soon. When Bella asks how her vamp-related injuries were explained to her mother, he responds that they're saying she fell down two flights of stairs and out of a window (what's important to note is that Bella is so egregiously bad at basic physical functions that at this point, no one has a problem believing she's capable of such a tumble). The subject of James also comes up--finally--but gets brushed aside with the explanation that Emmett and Jasper 'took care of him'. Alice saw the tape of the incident, including James' long-winded exposition, and therefore knows all about her hitherto-mysterious past. At this point in the proceedings, Bella's mum returns and tells Bella that Phil (formerly known as the Not Very Good Ball Player) has been signed to a team after all, so now they get to settle down in Jacksonville, and Bella can come live with them in the heat and sunshine; however, Bella, much to the surprise of hardly anyone, insists that she's changed her mind and wants to stay in Forks, despite how much she previously raved otherwise. After a bit more fussing and whatnot, Mom takes off for some forgettable reason, and Edward tells Bella in a bit of a roundabout way that she should go live with her mother, 'somewhere he can't hurt her'. Bella, as per usual, goes completely nuts. Edward tries to call the nurse to sedate her, but Bella insists that he's just trying to leave her forever and makes him swear he'll stay. Once he's assured her he won't leave, Bella incites another argument about how he could have just let her turn into a vampire, and thus wouldn't have to worry about accidentally damaging her. The conversation gets Edward a bit huffy, especially when Bella guesses that the reason for Ed and Alice's tension--Alice has had a vision in which Bella is a vampire. Finally, Bella lets Edward order more sedatives and pain meds for her, after he's promised not to leave for the 87th time.

NOTABLE NOTES--

1. While Edward is pretending to nap, Bella's mum comments that he never leaves. We've noticed that, too. Bella shouldn't be so bleeding worried about him leaving-- if anything, she should tell him to once in a while.

2. To collaborate the story of Bella's two-staircases-and-a-window incident, it's mentioned that Alice very enthusiastically fabricated evidence at the hotel where it's supposed to have happened. I would much rather have read a chapter about that.

INTENSITY OF EDWARD'S STARE-- It's not going anywhere. It promises.

Chapter Twenty-Three (In which not many pages are spent giving not much information, and the book lets us down even harder than we thought it would)

We've finally found it-- the shortest chapter in the whole sodding book. That being said, it's not terribly informative, and it reads as if Shmeyer suddenly remembered she had a pint of ice cream waiting in the fridge and thus couldn't be bothered to properly tell us what happened in the mirror room.

CHAPTER SUMMARY-- The chapter kicks off with Bella assuring herself that she must be dead, because she hears an angel. The 'angel' turns out to be Edward--painfully obvious, since we're (unwillingly) in the Shmeyerverse, and thus Edward is the only being who could ever merit a word like 'angel', as he has so many times in this book already. Not only is the bit wildly unnecessary, it reads like the worst of pick-up lines. At any rate, as Bella comes to, she hears Edward flipping his sparkly lid as Mr. Dr. Cullen assesses her injuries-- a broken leg here, some cracked ribs there--and they finally notice she's been bitten on the hand. Bella whines about her burning boo-boo while Edward and Alice have a nice, angsty spat about what's to be done; Mr. Dr. Cullen interrupts and proposes that Edward try to suck the venom out, which sends Edward into a tizzy of angst and self-doubt. He wastes so much time commenting on his emotional tailspin that you can almost feel a noxious musical number about to happen, but he's yanked back into the thin line of the story by Mr. Dr. Cullen's insistence that he has to act quickly. Edward sucks it up (PUN) and sucks the the venom out of Bella's hand. The burning sensation recedes with it, and Bella passes out in Edward's arms.

NOTABLE NOTES--

1. Despite his importance leading into the chapter, James is entirely absent--it seems Shmeyer is so astoundingly unable to write a bit of action that she's unceremoniously stricken him from the story, in lieu of writing a coherent narrative. The only allusion to James' part in the whole messy business (presumably) is the passing mention of a faint gasoline smell.

INTENSITY OF EDWARD'S STARE-- In short, Edward sucks.