It’s been a long time since our previous games, but it’s time for another written-by-the-numbers drinking game!
Yet again we are putting both our drinks cabinets and livers in severe jeopardy, now we’ve properly recovered it’s time to tackle another sobriety busting challenge: Madlib Mystery shows
Those shows which decide to keep us all in the dark as they tell an ever more evolving story without ever answering any questions. Lost, Leftovers, Under the Dome, 12 Monkeys, Alcatraz, Helix, Between, Fringe - and so many others. There are no shortages
While drinking copious amounts of vodka will not help you understand their plot lines, at least you have a legitimate reason for not understanding and it may convince you that shit isn’t just being thrown against a wall.
- Overarching Plot:
- +1 drink per episode where no new information is added to the Main Mystery
- Empty the glass if you reach the end of the first season with no new information
- Empty the bottle if you finish the second season and still have no new information
- Grab another bottle and empty it if you reach the end of the third season and still have no new information
- Open a brewery and proceed to drain it if you go beyond the fourth season and STILL HAVE NO FECKING ANSWERS
- +1 drink per blatant filler episode
- +1 drink per episode where the protagonist makes no effort to find any answer
- +1 drink per inexplicable action a character takes to make the mystery harder to solve
- Empty the damn glass if their action is never explained and they’re not an antagonist
- Refill the glass and empty again if they’re actually the protagonist trying to find answers
- Antagonists:
- + 1 drink if the motives of the antagonists is unknown after 5 episodes
- +1 additional drink for every episode after 5 where the antagonists still seem to be acting at random
- Empty the glass if you reach the end of the first season and still don’t have a clue why the antagonists are doing what they’re doing
- +1 drink if the the motivation is hopelessly vague (power without definition. Or Freedom”
- Empty the glass if the antagonists blatantly HAVE that already (so a super rich organisation that has a global conspiracy looking for power)
- Refill the glass and empty again if they literally couldn’t be antagonists without this quality they already have
- Empty the glass if you reach the midseason finale and still don’t know who the antagonists are
- Refill the glass and empty again if you reach the end of the first season and you’re still referring to the antagonists as “shadowy unknowns”
- +1 drink if you learn the antagonists names and someone has clearly sat down and TRIED to think of a sinister name
- +1 drink if “Shadowy Unknowns” would actually be a better name
- Empty the glass if major figures among the antagonists never get a damn name so you have to refer to them by descriptions all the time
- Empty the damn bottle if these masters of shadowy secrets STILL feel the name to exposition their entire plan and raise d’etre to the protagonist!
- Refill the bottle and empty again if they don’t even reasonably try to kill the protagonist quickly and easily
- + 1 drink if the antagonist is a shadowy secret organisation
- +1 drink per element that is ridiculous for a secret organisation
- +1 drink per huge, expensive, showy base
- +1 drink per celebrity member
- +1-3 drinks per ostentatious displays of wealth
- +1 drink per very public fight scene
- +1 drink per public landmark destroyed
- +1 drink per involvement in an industry that should have heavy government oversight
- Random Woo-woo
- +1 drink for every unexplained supernatural occurrence
- +1 extra drink if this seems to have no relation to the central mystery
- +1 drink if this seems to not even fit the genre (e.g. magic in a sci-fi)
- Empty the damn glass if you reach the end of the season and still can’t see how this random event fits it
- Refill the glass and empty it again if this random woo-woo has a clever marketing easter egg in the real life AND IT STILL DOESN’T MAKE SENSE WHEN YOU FIND IT
- +1 drink for time travel
- +1 drink if time travel is utterly pointless
- +1 drink per utterly irrelevant flashback
- Empty the glass if it’s so random it might as well be from a different show
- +1 drink if the flashback shows a past version of the character revealing they don’t age (because of bad make up, not random woo-woo)
- Bait and Switch
- Empty the damn glass if the motivation of the antagonists changes dramatically with no explanation
- +1 drink for every character who switches sides
- +1 drink if the reasoning is… dubious but kind of understandable
- +1 drink if it’s just plain dubious
- +1 drink if it makes no damn sense at all
- Empty the glass if it’s never explained
- Refill the glass and empty again if they never try
- Empty the damn bottle if you’re still pissed off about this
- +1 drink for every character whose motivation completely changes
- +1 drink if they might as well kill them off and replace them, they’ve changed so much
- Empty the damn glass if the setting changes dramatically between seasons
- Refill the glass and empty again if the whole mystery dramatically with damn explanation
- +1 BIG drink for every season that passed before the shark jumping (+4 drinks on season 4 shark jump)
- +1 drink per plot element that now makes no damn sense at all
- +1 drink per element they don’t try to explain
- Empty the glass per plot element they TRY to explain and it fails badly
- Refill the glass and empty again if we completely change protagonist/main characters
- Empty the bottle if we have a whole damn reboot
- Empty another bottle if it’s clear the writers are making it up as they go along
- Empty every bottle in the house if the writers clearly don’t give a shit that they’re making it up as they go along and are clearly trolling now (hey there Lost and you Leftovers and Helix)
- DRINK ALL THE BOOZE IF THE SERIES ENDS AND THEY STILL HAVEN’T ANSWERED THE FECKING MYSTERY
- THROW 1 EMPTY BOTTLE AT THE HEAD OF A SHOWRUNNER PER SEASON YOU WASTED YOUR TIME WATCHING BEFORE THE END