Saturday, October 6, 2018

Fear the Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 16.... I Lose Myself




Althea is still alive - running from zombies, alone until she runs into Martha who has a mission for her - she wants Althea to take a message to Morgan

Althea’s not having that

So, after a scuffle, Martha knocks her out - but does safely deliver Althea (she doesn’t hate Althea because Althea doesn’t help people - she trades for their stories which isn’t the same as help) to the rest of the gang with a video of Martha saying… well the same thing she’s always been saying. Let’s face it, Martha isn’t exactly a person with multiple messages and themes.

But the gangs together and Morgan tells them all about Alexandria and it’s time to head there - but on the way they’re going to Polar Bear’s truck stop so they can pick up boxes and still help people.

Except Morgan wants to help Martha, even though she’s sick, even though she’s dying, even though she continually trying to kill them over and over and over again. Morgan wants to help her and decides to go off alone to do that. John agrees to wait with the rest at the truck stop for 2 days before coming to find him. That gives them time to reflect on moving on, building a new future, making up for the bad stuff they’ve done and for June and John to have an “awww” moment.

Morgan and Martha meet up with Morgan killing zombie James and she’s clearly very very ill, unable to stand and generally sick. He insists on trying to help and offers her medicine and she continually refuses. He forces her into a police car so he can drag her back - while she struggles and fights and resists

He rightly concludes she’s lost someone and she tells him about her dead husband Hank. He tries to tell her how it’s all not her fault she doesn’t have to do this - and Martha isn’t to blame and is who he used to be etc etc etc they’ve been saying the same words over and over since she first appeared

But drama - all of the gang at the Truck Stop are suddenly horrifically ill and awful and call Morgan to say something’s wrong. It turns out that Martha has poisoned the bottled water with antifreeze as punishment for them helping people. Morgan steps on it to try and get back as soon as possible to tell them (his walkie doesn’t have the same range as the Truck Stop’s transmitter) - and Martha drives them off the road.

After the crash Morgan has something impaled in his leg and is all woozy as Martha draws on his face as she does all her prezombies with “Lose someone lose myself” just in case we missed the oh-so-subtle message here. Morgan again tries to save her and she reveals she’s been bitten

She made sure he couldn’t help her. And now he has to kill her to help his friends. He fights her but he’s utterly terrified that if he kills her he will change back to what he was. He’s also afraid that if he loses everyone, suffers another loss, he will also go back to the evil Morgan. This was why he left Alexandria in the first place - he didn’t want to lose more people he cared about and was afraid of what he would become. He refuses to kill her and instead leaves her handcuffed to the car so when she turns she can’t hurt anyone else

Really? She has been BITTEN. This is a point where putting her out of everyone’s misery would be quite reasonable here Morgan

He then staggers off on foot (did he even try to drive the car?), fighting zombies, hobbling, desperately trying to help his friends. He does get close enough to call them and tell them what they’ve been poisoned by - and June knows ethanol is the cure. They have a tanker of that but when they all fight to recover it, working together, rescuing each other, they end up losing it when Althea has to use the Big Guns on her truck to clear out the zombies.

Or apparently lose it

Fear the Walking Dead: Season 4, Episode 15: I Lose People





At the end of last episode, Morgan had one of his massive emotional yo-yos and is all depressed on the top of the hospital roof. James continues to insist on blaming Morgan for him being bitten but no-one else really buys into that - with Wendell happily volunteering to murder him and save everyone the trouble

June still has a borderline disturbing faith in Morgan still. But at least she’s not waiting around for him to lead. Oh she’d like him to lead but is willing to take charge but he can help. Because Althea is still down in the building somewhere and probably in need of a rescue.

The rest of the group have met up - Victor and John being found by Alicia and Charlie. Because everyone here is emotionally see-sawing at the moment it’s not John’s turn to be super depressed and give up hope. While Victor has come round the other way. Even though they’re at opposite ends of the lake full of monster alligators, he’s seeing Alicia working with Charlie. And if Alicia can forgive Charlie after all the devil child has done to her than anything can happen and everyone can come together and be all shiny and hippy.

Especially when Alicia hears June on their walkie-talkie. Except Morgan is a little less shiny because Martha is listening to them and he’s still full of self-blame and guilt and moping. Alicia isn’t buying it. Yes she was all fragile and close to breaking and needing a win last episode - but she has got her win. She’s on top of the world

I can’t decide if the hyper emotional see-sawing of everyone on this show is exhausting or perhaps a well written indication of how very emotionally damaged everyone is. Maybe both.

Alicia plans her next step, how to get to Victor and John across the island when Martha attacks. She’s furious that they’re trying to help and, seeing her wounds, Alicia and Charlie offer to help her. Martha gets rather agitated about that. She continues her ongoing spiel about helping making people weak. And then collapses because she is injured

This does leave them free to grab Althea’s big machine gun van which is perfect for crossing the water and rescuing Victor and John

They also take Martha captive because good guys never kill their enemies. And they really really really really need to start. She’s angry of course about all the helping stuff and also because they broke her “chain” (she kills a helper, makes them into a zombie then uses that zombie to kill the next one and takes that zombie. Yes she’s not rational).

Friday, October 5, 2018

The Alchemist's Illusion (The Accidental Alchemist #3) by Gigi Pandian





Zoe Faust has lived for centuries as an alchemist, wandering the world to hide who she is. But since arriving in Portland and with her new housemate, Dorian the immortal living gargoyle, she’s starting to put down roots, make friends and even a family.

But one of the cornerstones of her wandering is that her old friend and mentor, the alchemist Nicholas Flamel, abandoned her. Now she learns he may have been imprisoned over the centuries - centuries waiting for her to rescue him. She has to act, even under the shadow of a suspicious death and through some very shady art dealing


This series probably epitomises “cozy mystery”. It’s not action packed. It’s not full of death defying feats and we don’t even have a huge amount of scary tension - albeit still with a few to maintain the stakes and not remove from the fact it is a murder mystery

That’s not because it’s boring - far from it - but because it’s story doesn’t rest on blood fizzing and massive drama even while we still have carefully maintained threads. It’s not a book that nails you to your seat, but it is a book you can coil up in your seat and relax

I really like how Zoe and co manage to be pulled into the murders of this series. A lot of the time with cozy mysteries it’s a little weird how we get these protagonists involved in the mystery - and why the police even tolerate their presence - or why they don’t mind their own business, especially when Zoe has such a big secret to keep - her immortality and, therefore, fraudulent identity.

But by linking the murders to Alchemy and, more importantly, giving the characters a mystery that is more relevant to them (the abduction of the famed Alchemist, Nicholas Flamel) we get a  lot more personalised motive to actually get involved in the mystery. At times it seems odd compared to the rest of the genre - because there’s a murder and Zoe & co all seem far more interested finding a painting which may lead them to Nicholas than they are about the dead man. It almost feels callous - until you remember just how ridiculous it is for the man in the street to decide to just muscle their way into a police investigation (especially lacking appropriate investigative skills despite Dorian’s enthusiasm). Instead they involve themselves where they should be and where they are the most invested and where they have the relevant skills

Zoe and Tobias struggle with protecting their secret identities and have a very good reason to avoid police scrutiny with them being decades or hundreds of years old and Tobias’s identity definitely frays around the edges. This book also follows on the previous two books of Zoe trying to put down roots, make friends and have an actual home. We saw this building over the last two books and this time it grows further - but Tobias is a walking warning as to how hard that can be, newly bereaved after the death of his wife, grieving but having to desperately do so in secret or at least hiding the identity of who his elderly wife was. Zoe herself is opening her life considerably - with old friends coming back, with Tobias present and with her secret being known by more people, Zoe’s life is changing a lot. But how much in her control and how much safely is still to be seen. Zoe is definitely launching into a very uncertain future.

Thursday, October 4, 2018

Dead Handsome (Buffalo Steampunk #1) by Laura Strickland






Clara has a gift - she can raise the dead. It’s not a talent she uses often - but when she needs a husband to keep her home and protect the children she keeps safe she can think of no other way to get a man quickly

Though he turns out to be far less pliable than she imagined.


Steampunk! Sign me up

Steampunk with magic! Sign me up twice! I do so love a paranormal steampunk.

This is a moderately low-key steampunk and magical setting though. The central premise is that Clara does have the power to raise the dead. And I can see you looking at me now and questioning how “low key magic” and “resurrection and necromancy” can actually co-exist - but this, so far, seems to be the sum total of the magic of this book. Clara doesn’t have an army of zombies in the basement, but she can raise the recently dead so long as they’re not too beat up. And she uses this ability, for the first time, on Liam - because she needs a man. But after that she doesn’t use it much nor does she have other magic to fall back on to help her in her hour of need. The battle instead rests far more on the limited resources they have at their disposal with a lot of that limited by the prejudices and injustices of the world and time they live in

Clara has turned her house into a haven for the dispossessed. Most of them are children- abused by parents or employers, poor, injured and disabled from industrial accidents and generally desperate in a time when there’s no support and no care for the weakest and most vulnerable in society - including child labourers and the extremely lethal factories that were so common in the Industrial revolution. We also have Georgina, a Black woman and a former slave who has also joined the household - who is clever, honest, tough and deeply valued by Clara. She also has a whole side storyline of her romance with Clara’s lawyer and the whole scandal of that atr the time

Liam himself is Irish and is considered both inherently criminal and utterly disposable by many of the wealthy and powerful characters in this book.

The central conflict of the book - trying to fulfil the legal requirements to keep the house feels a little… odd. I mean the terms her grandfather set is that she has to be married by the age of 21 or she is evicted. Granddad clearly wants this and will maliciously pursue kicking her out… but… why? I mean, why set the condition in the first place? Why even stick to these conditions? I want to see these legal papers that the grandfather has signed that legally compel him to give a house AND annual income to his granddaughter which he doesn’t have the power to just tear up and declare “nah”. And if he was so against his daughter’s husband and his granddaughter, why even give them anything at all? If it’s social status and a fear of being seen kicking his family out onto the street, why doesn’t he fear this still? I mean, in these sexist times, a wealthy patriarchy kicking his unmarried 21 year old granddaughter into the street doesn’t exactly look good either.

Still running with it isn’t hard and it’s still fun if you don’t dwell on that which isn’t hard as it isn’t overly that central. The internal logic of the McGuffin doesn’t matter so much as the journey

An element I just can’t get past is the examination of Clara’s morality. It’s very good that we have this moral hand wringing from Clara about whether she is a terrible person in how she decided to use Liam for her own well being. Treating him as a blank slate because she needed him to keep her home rather than viewing him as a person or considering whether he has any kind of history at all. I mean this is all extremely good debate and we see Clara repeatedly make some really difficult decisions as she considers the easiest path that would save them all but be morally reprehensible. There’s one thing she doesn’t consider

Fear the Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 14: MM54






It’s time for some history for Martha (i.e. muddy woman) - which is pretty necessary when you create a character that is pretty much “frothing psychopath” which is both problematic and really really really damn lazy.

So way back in presumably the early days of the apocalypse (I presume by the number of cars since you won’t see so many of them in current stage apocalypse) Martha and her partner where in a car when they had a terribad accident in which he is badly impaled. He is suffering and dying slowly and she tragically, tearfully reassures him someone will stop and help them. She tries to flag down several cars

None stop

In a truly tragic scene he dies and he turns into a zombie - and Martha has to kill him. She then buries him and has a complete breakdown lying on his grave getting steadily muddier. When she leaves she finds a woman leaving one of the boxes and Martha corrects her spelling (she was an English teacher. Also it’s clear these box deliverers are really really uber hippies because she even thanks Martha for nitpicking her spelling in the Apocalypse) and then kills her - for the crime of helping and suggest Martha helps

Martha then goes from box to box, killing helper after helper, turning them into zombies and then using said zombie to kill the next helper. She wants to find the person who started this - Polar Bear, ranting that people who are helped don’t learn to take care of themselves.

And she hears Morgan on the radio

To the present when she has used Althea’s truck to unleash a hail of bullets against our heroes. And miraculously while everyone’s a little beat up no-one is actually dead or seriously injured. She stops the truck to try and finish them off - but Wendall gets out of the truck and shoots her (laying on the floor since his wheelchair was destroyed) - bird shot - but he does shoot her. This has her hiding in her truck and driving off mid rant. Not necessarily because she’s given up - but because a horde is arriving. And the truck - with all the boxes in it - explodes. An ever increasing number of zombies has gathered and the gang has no choice but to try and run and keep ahead of it.

They stagger down the road, kind of injured conscious of the fact that the zombies are following and they’re kind of beaten up. Morgan sees a sign for a hospital and thinks it’s a good place to hide and hold up and have June check their injuries

I mean… he’s kinda not exactly wrong with this reasoning. But in the zombie apocalypse I can think of few places more likely to be full of zombies: hospitals, residential homes, prisons.

James starts having a tantrum about how Morgan has led them astray and caused all these problems and no-one else is especially thrilled with this - Sarah in particular is quick to speak up in Morgan’s defence and demand James kind of get in line.

They arrive at the hospital and find that they do have something of a sanctuary for a little time, long enough for June to confirm no-one is that badly hurt and to get Morgan a wheelchair. We also have some character exploration: Althea, the journalist of eternal questions, asks Wendell what caused him to need a wheelchair (which… look “journalist” doesn’t justify intrusive unnecessary questions). He was hurt as a 10 year old child saving another child. This actually gave him a drive to help people - enough to join the marines who laughed him out without even looking at his application. Wendell is not entirely unsympathetic to to Martha’s point - helping people gets you hurt. (Which isn’t entirely Martha’s philosophy since she thinks helping people hurts them). This is also why Sarah left the Marines - not agreeing how they treated and devalued Wendell.

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Wynonna Earp, Season 3, Episode 12: War Paint




Season finale time - and time for a whole lot of epic! And yes it certainly brings the epic.

Beginning with an epic speech from Wynonna to her army of Revenants. And it’s a really excellent speech acknowledging her murdering past how she’s loved killing them all, how she’s really good at it and how she’s really giving up a lot by putting down her gun. Without it she’s a woman with “stellar hair, loaded last name and tired liver”. And as they’ve shared a curse she’s willing to share her land - removing the wards on the homestead which kept them out. She constantly refers to “us”

It really is an excellent scene

This is when she also reunites with Waverley where they both blow each others’ minds with all the revelations of what has been happening. There’s a lot to digest. Angels, sleeping with Waverley’s dad, Doc eating Charlie, revenant armies et al.

Wynonna and Julian have a moment which is rather awkward - he tells how much he loved Michelle and how she was the one who lured him from Eden. He’d never left or even endered Eden before. He does explain that they choose Wyatt to be their champion and gave him the flaming sword

But Bulshar has his own plans -he needs to be mortal to get into Eden and for that he needs Wynonna’s blood. But first he sends out his minions to cause some damage

They attack Nicole and Kate - and Nicole is still there telling Kate she needs to dump Doc because these two could be such fun together. Especially with them gunning down lots of minions - which they do. But Nicole is injured. Mercedes shows up, is utterly blase about everything including the vampire living in her house, but she agrees to stay with the injured Kate while Nicole goes to Waverley

Except Nicole is much worse hurt than first appeared and instead passes out on the road - only to be saved by Doc and taken to the Homestead. Which is crowded and complicated. Bobo has briefly visited for a heart to heart with Waverley who is not amused by him and he and Julian have a tense moment. What is awesome is how both of them make clear that Waverley is a wonderful, awesome person who owes that to herself and her mother - not her angelness.

This episode just has lots of awesome moments like that.

Doc does have a sword he found in the greenhouse he gives to Julian - a special sword (Wyatt’s champion sword?) which Julian notes Doc couldn’t even touch if there wasn’t some hope for his sword. And Wynonna appeals to Julian to heal Nicole - the love of his daughter’s life. And yes, appealing to an angel to heal a woman on the bases of her same-sex romance is another awesome moment. Even if it does leave Julian so weak in the aftermath he gives up his ring to Waverley.

While this is happening Jeremy and Robin are being super cute together and trying to research which isn’t going so well - Jeremy also has one of his unexplained psychic buzzes that Doc is not ok.

They are attacked by the beekeeper minions and Nedry arrives with guns. Nedry is always awesome - and I even kind of like the biplay about Ru Paul’s drag race.

At the Homestead, Bulshar and his army attack. There is a lot of shooting, big guns, small guns, sacrificing revenants and lots and lots of shooting and fighting

And then wynonna is captured by Bobo and cut so her blood can be claimed by Bulsharr for his ritual. There then follows a queue of people to try and kill her - Julian saves her first but he’s too weak to face Bulshar and Bobo Kills him. Then Doc arrives to fight Bobo who reminds everyone that mortal weapons can’t kill him. So Waverley melts his brain. Killing her dad doesn’t make her a happy person but she faces him with epic disappointment more than anger which is somehow so much more painful

Who wants Waverley to be disappointed in them

Wynonna gathers her army to face Bulshar and be ready to defeat him with her curse breaking touch - but he beats her too it and breaks the curse. The Revenants disappear, their undead lives ended now they’re no longer cursed. Without the curse Bulshar is mortal and can enter Eden. Technically he can be killed - but he vanishes.

Wynonna Earp, Season 3, Episode 11: Daddy Lessons




That was rather unexpected - did not see a lot of that coming - well done Wynonna Earp for being most unpredictable

So, Nicole and Waverly are dealing with the super awfulness of Charlie being dead by Doc’s fangs and wondering how they tell Wynonna. Nicole has to leave because as a precaution she’s having the town evacuated in case Bulshar causes badness to happen (and can I say how much I love Nedry calling her Sheriff?). Alone, a very upset Waverley touches Charlie

And he comes back from the dead.

Now I thought Charlie as rival love interest and all was perfectly placed to be a sacrificial pathos character. Did not expect resurrection.

This throws another spanner in the works because Waverly is rethinking the whole sacrifice thing. I mean it’s one thing to think you have a magic ring doing weird stuff and kind of dodging the whole specialness of that. But when you start bringing the dead back to life it kind of makes your reassess things. Wynonna catches on to this and, after walking past Charlie walking around in a daze (which nearly pole axes Nicole) she goes and tracks Waverly down by the Eden stairs that Wynonna can’t see. Waverly is determined to sacrifice herself and Wynonna can’t stop her

So Wynonna knocks her out. And plans to have someone drive her out of Purgatory. She can’t do it, she has Bulshar to fight. Nicole can’t do it because she’s sheriff and also she can’t tell Waverly no because awwwwwwwww. So they enlist an extremely confused Charlie to do it. While Nicole continues to be dumbstruck by the whole being alive thing

Waverley and Charlie have a few sacrificial conversations, she doesn’t want to die but she will sacrifice herself as a last resort. And he takes her to her mother’s greenhouse… which he shouldn’t know about. More on this later

Because Wynonna has another problem - without Peacemaker she is vulnerable and is kidnapped by some Revenants who want to offer her to Bulshar as tribute as one of his bridges. This comes with witty banter, creepy guy making her wear his dead wife’s dress and gay Revanant doing her hair (Wynonna Earp, look Nicole and Waverly are awesome but you’ve still only just started treating Jeremy as a character and he and Robin are still largely comic relief. Basically you don’t have nearly enough banked to get away with this throwaway stereotyped bullshit).

She’s presented to Bulshar to find that Mercedes is already there. Voluntarily. And she makes a passionate defence of cowardice, survival and how she’s totally going to survive this and if this means being team Bulshar then so be it. And I kind of applaud Mercedes for this - sorry, I love her and I love her unabashed, unashamed willingness to look after herself, to protect herself, to resist her martyrdom without the slightest hint of shame.

Also her take on the Titanic is absolutely awesome. I worship Mercedes

Oooh oooh, who wants a tv show that somehow manages to connect Delle Sayah from Killjoys and Mercedes just going out there and being gloriously terrible people together? You’d watch it. You’d know you would.

Bulshar wants a lieutenant - and Wynonna seems to listen to Mercedes because she offers herself. She wants her family to live. She wants Waverley to live. And to do that she will serve Bulshar, she even offers to beg, she even kneels before him offering service… until she nearly touches him and he recoils in actual terror from her touch and has her locked in a cage

Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Killjoys, Season 4, Episode 10: Sporemaggedon





So Aneela is back - and everyone’s not super ok about that as D’avin and Johnny hurry her onto Lucy to answer questions and make it clear that they’re super not happy with her given the number of people she’s stabbed and all.

There she reminds them that body swapping is totally something you can do - Khlyen and D’avin did it last season. She also tells us what the Green is - well she mentions lots of woo woo but ultimately the green is a big repository of memory: a big transdimensional space where nothing is forgotten and everything exists. So kind of like a giant Wayback machine

No this doesn’t explain the super healy Hullen - but that’s nothing to do with the Green, that’s just The Lady’s shenanigans. She has a plan, she and D’avin go in, they grab Dutch and D’avin uses his strange Anti-hullen woo granted by the military experiments on him and when she’s stunned they leave.

Johnny insists he wants to come as well and Aneela warns him that since the Green is a big sea of memory, The Lady can use your worst moments, your memories against you and the more you care the more it’ll hurt. Since Johnny is a big ol’ carebear, this isn’t ideal. It’s also why Aneela wants to know nothing about her son Jaq - if you care about someone it can be used against you.

Of course Johnny insists so it’s off to the RAC and the pool of green. Which is a problem because Turin knows who Aneela is and has HUGE issues with all the people she’s killed, people he cares about and is prepared to shoot her in the face. And after the death of Pip Zeph doesn’t want to see anyone with Dutch’s face

But Aneela talks woo-woo and science with Zeph, intriguing her and eventually D’avin gives Turin the Green killing spore to reassure him he has options - but first they need to rescue Dutch,

To the Green!

In the Green Dutch and Aneela meet up to talk about a box Khlyen left for Dutch to give Aneela and I’m not even sure what is going on here because the layers are just confusing.

Everyone quickly enters their own hellscape as the Lady throws all their worst memories against them. Dutch and D’avin manage to meet up and they have to pull Johnny away from a heartbreaking scene with Pawter where Johnny tragically asks them to stop him turning round to look at the fake Pawter. Ouch

However when the Lady throws fake goons at them so she can talk to Aneela, D’avin points out since this is all their memory they can easily access memories of the various armouries they’ve been in - and fight back with big guns. Until D’avin pulls out his super power which is very very effective.

Killjoys: Season 4, Episode 9: The Kids Are Alright





It’s time for Jaq to go into hiding - and Jaq rightly predicts that his dad is going to Snot Cry because he’s just so fluffy and emotional.

D’avin and Johnny track down Delle Sayah in her hidden base - turns out it’s one of Khlyen’s hidden safe houses. She’s there dragging up all the research he hid about the Hullen and green. She does intend to track down the Nine and take over - but only when she has Aneela by her side because she’s still very much in love. So much so she even moves Johnny to declare he’ll bring Aneela back. Despite him not being a fan of Delle Sayah after the whole murdered Pawter thing

They leave Jaq with her - she’s not thrilled with the new name and Delle Sayah is clear that Osman is his middle name - and Dutch urges him to learn from her as there are many ways of fighting

Dutch also reveals to Johnny about the weird scars appearing on her back - which Dutch assumes to be Aneela. Johnny isn’t thrilled at being left out of the loop here

The plan now is to take back the RAC - to free all the kids captured on board and to seize the pool of green. This means a big reunion with Turin and Fancy and Zeph and Pip (who is slightly nervous about Dutch after she headbutted him when he was first possessed by the brain spider but as Zeph reassures him that if Dutch wanted him dead he totally would be. She’s… not wrong).

Turin gives out his tactics for the attack - with Dutch snarking all the way until Turin has to take her aside to tell her off and threaten to demote her - and she rightly points out what bullshit this is, this isn’t about Killjoys and he has no rank.

Instead they settle into a kind of fun dynamic where Turin is the grumpy father figure and they’re all his wise-cracking kids who respect him and love him but don’t necessarily do as they’re told. Especially Pree and Dutch who are the Problem Children

The plan is to send Weej in first and while everyone has reservations, Turin is clear that this is NOT TO BE QUESTIONED and he trusts Weej )and points to Johnny for the “isn’t it hard when a younger cuter model comes along” snark at Fancy because that is definitely an A+ burn.

Unfortunately there’s a new Hullen forcefield around the RAC and Weej ends up splattered. Alas poor Weej, I thought you’d be an interesting character, what a shame.

To take down the shield Johnny says lots of science things but basically they need a magic box (Johnny is also fretting a little about being a third wheel now that Dutch and D’avin are back on but Lucy is always there for him) which involves Dutch and D’avin going undercover in a hippie cult (the horror! The horror!) before claiming the box and taking it to Johnny. Of course being Killjoys this means they only have a limited time before it causes seizures. Of course there’s a time limit.

Zeph also does some research on the scars on Dutch’s back which have been transmitted by Aneela: she visits the Scarback dominatrix who can confirm what they are and what the symbols mean individually - but not what they mean collectively as one symbol. And despite lots of thinky sex with Pip, Zeph can’t figure it out

Monday, October 1, 2018

Wynonna Earp: Season 3, Episode 10 The Other Woman




Flashback! Basically to remind us that way back in the day (1887) when Bulshar was first defeated with an alliance of Juan Carlos (a priest and angel), Bobo and Constance. But there was also another woman present recording Juan Carlos’s memories. This will be relevant soon. They also refer to a Champion

In the present Bobo is imprisoned and so broken than even he doesn’t want to be released. He is barely making sense but bringing extra levels of bleakness for Wynonna who is very very very hopeless. And research isn’t Wynonna’s thing either so she leaves it to Jeremy and Waverley (who are despairing and recapping everything because it’s all getting a bit conmplicated) and takes her Quintiple shot latte to go spend some time with Charlie

Charlie’s kind of sad at being kind of sidelines and hot firemen are not used to being sidelined. While he has a point, Wynonna has way way more going on than Charlie’s feelings or their relationship. She pretty much tells him that they’ll pick this up in Spring and he slopes off in a huff. Look it’s not like he’s not informed here, he knows about the supernatural, he knows about the woo-woo, he knows what’s at stake - he needs some perspective here.

Anyway relationship drama aside, Wynonna has a visit from Kevin, a woman and heir to basically the Powers That Be who watch but don’t interfere. Except they totally interfere because THEY ALWAYS DO. This is a genre rule. People who can’t interfere constantly interfere but then have weirdly arbitrary limits so they can’t use their super powers to make things easy.

Oh and Kevin is played by Anna Silk. And one of her reasons for helping is that she’s sick of the powers that be boy’s club.

Not that Kevin is especially confident with Wynonna Earp and Wynonna isn’t arguing at all about being clueless, under trained or an alcoholic. But she has a lead on a weapon that can kill Bulshar - his arm. His arm which he lost when he was entombed in a dangerous rickety mine (he got a new one). So that’s Waverley and Wynonna off on a road trip.

They arrive at the mine to find a revenant that Waverley remembers from her research - he’s a one armed Revenant who was trapped in the mine long ago. But he also has both arms - because apparently Revenants and Bulshar can share body parts. So they need to take his arm back … except this mine is a uranium mine. And the Revenant is radioactive. When Wynonna touches him she’s burned and staggers back sick and ill