Still looking for something to carry you over until your favorite shows return this fall? Look no further than this week's offerings: the second season of HBO's award-winning Prohibition show, a highly successful DC Comics cartoon, a British court-based miniseries, the fairytale that is real life, a story of revenge in the Hamptons, the exploration of life after Charlie, and the second season of AMC's post-apocalyptic show about zombies.

Boardwalk Empire: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray(Jacob Sahms)

The mobster drama returned for a second season on HBO, with Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) providing the iron fist that ruled the Prohibition-era Atlantic City and propelling the show toward twelve Emmy nominations. Like most of the HBO shows, it's grittier than your average network television show, but it still hasn't quite sucked me in the way that some others have. And in the second season, it definitively decides that it will be different moving forward.

Thompson struggles to maintain his power over the city, over his home (and his girlfriend Margaret), and over his minions, including Jimmy (Michael Pitt). When things fall apart, they do so in a major way, and Thompson seems unrelenting in his pursuits and unapologetic about the decisions that he makes or the lives he takes (physically, emotionally, or financially). It's not "fun" watching the show, because unlike Game of Thrones, we don't really have anyone we should be pulling for. Everyone is broken, corrupt, or morally vacant.

The special features on the Blu-ray will delight fans though, and fans of period pieces especially. You can explore the sense of living back in 1921, consider the characters who round out this Atlantic City world, and take a look at the times that provide the show its background through producer/director discussions and the time itself.

Green Lantern: Rise of the Red Lanterns (Jacob Sahms)

Cartoon Network's first season of Green Lantern found Hal Jordan dealing with the Red Lanterns led by Atrocitus. Of course, the Red Lanterns thrive on anger, but their anger at the Guardians is justified based on some of the more careless and underhanded ways that these wise little aliens have been less than wise. But Jordan and his pal Kilowog board the brand new spaceship, the Interceptor, and take off for new adventures, and a stop-the-Red-Lanterns-at-all-costs mentality.

The ship is guided by Aya, an artificial intelligence whose abilities and "emotions" grow over the course of the first season, and who provides Kilowog and Jordan some guidance in being more compassionate. Jordan isn't nearly as hotheaded as he is in some of the comics, but when they capture and then adopt Razer, a Red Lantern who appears to want to change, compassion, and forgiveness come to the forefront.

Watching this with your kids, you can imagine that there'll be some conversations about forgiving your enemies, and there's certainly some Biblical evidence that this is a good idea. But adults often have even more of a problem with this than children, and Jordan's distrust of Razer sometimes borders on bullying even after the conflict is over and the tide moves toward this new team. We can learn a lot from their conflict, and from the way that the A.I. is the one who proves to be the peacemaker in the midst of the male testosterone.

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