Some folks may remember that the first half of this Tarrantino/Rodriguez classic is about a botched bank heist, and the second half is about the world’s biggest bordertown bar, secretly dominated by vampires. Well so far, the series version is all First Half, with a little touch of eerie screwballishness mixed in.

We begin with some completely unnecessary and wholly forgettable voice-over, as a sexy Latina from an indeterminate time period runs through the woods, pursued and ultimately captured by Mayans who throw her into a snake-pit. Literally. The snakes don’t like her much, except as an entree. They watch with mad severity as a huge snake slides into the screaming girl’s mouth, Prometheus style. (Would that be considered a boa job?) and with that little bit of unexplained horror, we CUT TO:

Modern day, in a deserted desert town. Sheriff Earl, played with weary familiarity by Don Johnson, is driving with his partner Frederico, who smells all earnest and newbie. They stop at Benny’s World of Liquor, and Earl goes into the use the john while his partner looks at gruesome pictures of a vic with her eyes eaten out.

Inside Benny’s, Earl shoots the shit with the shop owner, buys a bottle of hooch and heads for the john. But he’s got the whim-whams, too. “Has anybody strange come by today?” he asks. “Not more than usual,” he’s told. “I’m looking for a couple of brothers,” he says. “Name of Gecko. Killed some Rangers, guard. Took a teller hostage.” No such around here, the store boy says as Sheriff Earl goes to the john. Theres plenty of foreshadowing all over the place – a switchblade in the bathroom, for one. But he does find time to remind himself has only has 237 days till retirement (which isn’t nearly as good a name for the serires: 237 Day to Retirement), but he does remind himself how good he looks in that had. For an old guy

 He barely has time to step out of the crapper before a well-dressed guy in horn rims steps out of the snack section and POW, shoots him in the back, so hard it comes out the front. Ranger Earl falls and…

TITLES. And…

KABOOM, an undamanged Ranter Earl wakes up in bed. It was all a dream! A 12-minute start-the-series-without-me dream!

He picks up his partner Frederico, has some breakfast, and talks a lot. A lot. Then back in their unmarked car, the non-cop radio tells them about the escaped brothers mentioned in his dream.

Cut to the Geckos Brothers, Jimmy in the glasses and Set with the beard. Bank robbers on the run. And – uh-oh! – they’re going into Benny’s House of Liquors, as in the dream! (They dress very well for escaped convicts. Wonder why? And handsome? Ooh la la!)

In the bathroom, Seth gives himself meaningful looks in a filthy mirror and flashes back to the botched bank robbery. All those dead people. Richie in the flashback, however, rather enjoys the blood and violence. He’s a baaaaad kid.

 A pretty girl in hot pants – hey, remember hot pants? – attracts Richie’s attention. It’s disturbing that the 21-year-old doesn’t remember Jolt! Cola or Dougie Houser. But at least Richie has some sexy-bad visions of the girl. She says, “You’re creepy,” and BOY, is she right. Jessie coolly rejects him and joins Libby, another pretty girl and a strip—ahhh, dancer – at the counter. Richie won’t let them leave.

Seth comes out of the men’s room and finds Richie holding Jessie and Libby hostage. And…the Rangers show up. We’ve already seen part of this in Earl’s dream, so we know they’re going back to the back of the store.

Here we go: same scene, new angle. But now we know there’s a second cop, Frederico, still in the car. Just as before, Ranger Earl goes into the john. Outside, Seth engages in more confrontation with the counter man, and Richie enjoys more hallucinations about the girls being secret monsters. Ranger Earl comes out of the john and KAPOW, gets shot all over again.

During the commercial, we wonder what the whole dream sequence at the beginning was supposed to accomplish. Ranger Earl apparently doesn’t remember it; he hasn’t referenced it at all; the knife in the bathroom didn’t actually tell him anything, and now he’s still shot in the back. It’s just odd to have such a lengthy precognitive dream and not use that in any way. Was it just a tease? To tease me, Bro.

Back at Benny’s, the stand-off continues. Richie keeps seeing the girls as monsters, but…are they? Or is just nuts? Or are they and he’s just nuts? Clealry, we’re going to have to suffer through a lot more pseudo-Tarrantino dialogue to find out.

Seth makes a call to Wilmer Valderrama, the exceedingly well-dressed Mexican criminal sponsor of the bank heist (that’s not a racist remark; he’s a  criminal mastermind and he’s in Mexico. With an accent and a very neatly groomed beard. He’s like an evil Ricardo Montalban.) I’ll come get you, he says, but in the meantime, “Trust your brother. Because he sees things you don’t.”

Back in the action we see that Earl is taking a very long time to die, and seems intent on talking us to death while he gets there. What’s more, the counterman who took two in the chest at close range is still alive, and aware enough to work a four-number combination safe upside down. What, do they use popcorn for bullets in this town? One more round of Trarantino dialogue between Seth and Ranger Fred: “Everybody’s gonna live unless you don’t surrender right now.” Whaaaat? Frederico gives up.

During the new commercial break, we lament at the poor attempt at Tarantino dialect. It’s not fst enough, it’s not smart enough, but it is just as annoying. Rodriguez’ gleeful violence may be all over this thing, but you can tell Quentin’s not in the house.

Back to the action – or rather early in the morning of the action, where we see Frederico and his wife discussing Earl as a viable godfather for their infant son Billy. THEN we jump to the present moment as a bloodied Fred applies pressure to Earl’s sucking chest wound – the one that seem incapable of significant blood loss or keeping this guy from talking, talking.. Fred does the same: he tries to talk his way out of this, but no go. And Seth has about as much luck talking Richie down. Zmaybe he didnt’ get the memo: this guy’s nuts.

Finally, finally, Earl dies. Or at least passes out. Frederico swears Batman-like vengeance; he will follow these bad boys to the gate of hell to bring them to justice, if need be. Then comes the silliest sequence of all. Earl stands up, bloody hands in the air. The not-dead-yet Counterman, hidden behind the bar and unseen by anybody, pulls a handgun from the safe and tosses it straight up in the air. The supposed-to-be dead Ewarl suddenly rear up, catches the gun, turns and shoots an astonished Jimmy in the palm of his hand. Frederico gets shot many times in the chest – so much for Batman-like vengeance – while Earl runs out of bullets, and Seth finishes killing him – after a wholly unsuccessful last hat-flick of bravado – while Richie hallucinates the beautiful women who turn into monsters. All Seth sees is out-of-uniform strippers kicking his brother to death.

No matter. He lets them go, ’cause he obviously doesn’t like killing nearly as much as brother Richie. Then Seth sets fire to the place and escapes with his hallucinating brother in tow. No other survivors.

But oh, wait! Frederico was wearing a vest! He lives to fight another day, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!

So…no dusk, no dawn, and no vampires. And by the way, Richie is nuts.