MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23 This week of internet freedom, Seattle treasures, and the fight for the right to suck blood from babies' wangs kicked off in the world of broadcast television. Our subject: The Walking Dead, AMC's hit drama about the zombie apocalypse, which for five seasons has delighted fans and outraged detractors with its ambitious gore and hardcore violence, from graphic cannibalism to dozens upon dozens of imaginatively grisly killings. Last night brought the latest episode, which introduced two new characters: Aaron, a recruiter for the Alexandria Safe-Zone community and a valuable ally to the survivors, and Eric, his fellow recruiter and boyfriend. However, "as soon as they shared a kiss, half of the fans went berserk and tweeted disgust about the inclusion of a gay couple," as Cameron Hatheway reported at BleedingCool.com, describing the same-sex intimacy as "more upsetting [to homophobic viewers] than any of the gory deaths, child killing, or cannibalism that have been constantly present in the past five seasons." The upset tweeters ranged from protectors of the heteronormativity of the imaginary zombie apocalypse ("I don't like that the walking dead got faggot shit on here now. Is Nothing Sacred !???") to concerned parents who don't want their wholesome family gorefest degraded with same-sex affection ("i have been watching the walking dead for years with my kids,then with no warning u throw gays in there, I'm disappointed"). Rather than get huffy over the outbursts of dumb and proud homophobes, Last Days will instead focus on the words of smart and proud Shonda Rhimes, the blockbuster television creator/producer who eloquently shut down complaints about the "gay scenes" in her shows Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder last fall: "There are no GAY scenes," tweeted Rhimes to an antigay griper. "There are scenes with people in them. If u use the phrase 'gay scenes,' u are not only LATE to the party but also NOT INVITED to the party." (Now that's a spicy ally!) Thank you, Shonda Rhimes, and good luck fighting the zombie apocalypse, Walking Dead gays.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24 Speaking of hot-button social issues, today brought a remarkable tale of protecting religious liberty, a phrase that lately has evoked images of "Christian" bakers being forced to sell cakes to people the Bible allegedly doesn't like, but which today applies to the religious right of adult men to suck babies' bloody penises. Details come from the Associated Press, which identified the mildly embattled practice as "oral suction circumcision," an ancient Jewish ritual in which the performer of a circumcision sucks blood from the wound on the baby's penis. "Oral suction circumcisions first came under scrutiny in 2012 during Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration, which asked parents or guardians to sign consent forms indicating they understood the medical risks," reported the AP, citing such medical risks as the 17 cases of infant herpes linked to the practice since 2000. However, the Orthodox community balked at this bureaucratic intrusion into their religious practice, with one prominent rabbi suggesting the infected babies contracted herpes from some other source. Despite the baby-victim-blaming, today Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration announced plans to remove all red-tape obstacles keeping rabbis from bloody baby wang. "Administration officials said they will ask the Board of Health to vote to rescind the requirement while working with a coalition of rabbinical leaders and medical experts to educate members of the ultra-Orthodox community about the possible dangers of the practice," reported the AP. "If an infant is found to have herpes after a circumcision, officials will ask a rabbinical coalition to identify the [rabbi] who performed it so his DNA can be tested. If he is found to have infected the infant, he'll be banned from performing the ritual." The moral: One culture's religious ritual is another culture's sex crime. Context is everything, we guess.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25 Nothing happened today unless you count the continued freezing of the Northeast, which today brought record-breaking snowfall in Boston and amazing frozen Slurpee waves in Nantucket.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26 The week continued with some seriously good news, as the Federal Communications Commission voted three to two to preserve net neutrality. Speaking at a press conference after the vote, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler praised the Open Internet Order's power to "ban blocking, ban throttling, and ban paid-prioritization fast lanes" while ensuring "that no one—whether government or corporate—should control free open access to the internet." To celebrate, America spent the rest of the day online freaking out over two fugitive llamas and one magic-eye dress.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27 Speaking of urban wildlife and beguiling fashion, the week continued on Seattle's Beacon Hill, where tonight Last Days had the pleasure of returning to Inay's Asian Pacific Cuisine for their popular Friday-night dinner service featuring delicious home-style Filipino food and point-blank drag performance by Atasha Manila. As we wrote back in 2010, "Drag at 7 p.m. in a fully lit restaurant sounds like a recipe for disaster, but... somehow the overhead lighting, Filipino kitchen smells, and Atasha's ferociously deadpan divahood combine to create a perfect storm of hilarity." This all holds true in 2015, with Inay's welcoming new visitors with a Caucasian-user-friendly Friday-night menu (try the curried fish, and if you want deep Filipino delights—e.g., blood pudding—ask for the original menu). But the night forever belongs to Atasha, who offsets all of Inay's warm, homey vibes with her beautifully unhinged drag performance. Atasha is a queen who'll interrupt a lip-synch of Frozen's "Let It Go" to scream about her burning pussy while standing in the middle of a restaurant that is literally serving fish. At tonight's show, this bit inspired a sweet fortysomething lesbian to produce a fat stack of bills to "make it rain" all over Atasha. As another of the guests—a transplant from the East Coast—put it after the whole dinner/show extravaganza, "There is nothing else like this in the world." We agree. Call ahead for reservations.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28 Nothing happened today, unless you count the second national day of mourning for the newly deceased and highly beloved Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy.

SUNDAY, MARCH 1 Nothing happened today either, unless you count the latest episode of HBO's Looking, built around and featuring an amazing performance by (former Seattleite) Lauren Weedman, a ridiculously gifted performer who was tonight given her best showcase yet. With her rare ability to show her gears turning, and her intricate dancing all over the terrain between what's in your head and what comes out of your mouth, Weedman's seeming more and more Gena Rowlands–like, and here's hoping some up-and-coming Cassavetes smartly harnesses her full power for the next several decades.

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