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Mr. Rose, what I want could not be more simple, and it’s something I feel I’ve truly earned---my track record speaks for itself. Every man in my position dreams of the same thing: full creative control of his next project, without interference from yes-men, revisionists, or silly focus groups. After eleven almost flawless hits, surely you must agree I’m entitled to this modest level of trust. Who more than me deserves to take out Willie the Plank in a method devised, planned, and executed by me and me alone? What I envision for poor misguided Willie would be considered by many to be a bit daring, a bit edgy, especially my ideas concerning floating his bullet-ridden body down the Hudson on a raft made entirely of the bags of counterfeit fifties he tried to pass off on Eddie Ecks (himself a very underrated killer, whose early experimental work laid the foundation for my penchant for strangulations involving chicken wire). But if you take a look at the budget I’m proposing, it’s really no more expensive than Shoehorn Vlad’s hit on Dom the Pelican, and I promise you that when I’m done, you’ll be able to see every penny right there in Willie’s terrified expression as his grieving widow identifies his carp-nibbled corpse. But I want no interference this time, and I want to be able to hire the crew I want, and I want my name front and center on the whole project, which means that in any sort of grand jury testimony, I want to be the one accused of putting Willie down, not some organization flunkie. I can toil in the shadows no further, Mr. Rose---my hits now must bear my personal stamp, just as the entire east side knows immediately just from the pattern of the blood spray on the wall of a meat locker that a certain whacking was Saul the Flautist’s original conception. (Not that his latest projects haven’t been without their glaring flaws, particularly the clumsy pacing of the Marconi wedding reception shootout.)

There are certain other matters I want to go over with you, but before we get into all that, I want to go over the rules of this game one more time so we’re ready for tonight. Basically, it really does help to have seen the show so that you can answer some questions when you pick a trivia card, but it’s okay if all you know is that the main characters are named Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda, they’re all heterosexuals, and they all have high-paying jobs that seem to be extremely easy. It’s essential that you answer a single question from each of the five categories, but I think in your case, we’ll focus on “stealing” a player’s correct answer chip when the DVD stops on the No She Didn’t! screen. Now, I cannot stress this point enough: do not, under any circumstances, call out an answer that you suspect might not be correct, as the risk for a wrong one far outweighs the reward for getting it right---a subtle kink in the design of the game that I believe we can exploit to our benefit. Of course, we might also consider pulling out machetes midway through the Plodding Voice-Over Mashup round and murdering Zoho’s entire crew. Totally your call.