Doctor Who, Season 11, Episode 7: Kerblam!

The Last Ship: Season 5, Episode 6: Air Drop

The Last Ship: White Male Saviour & his Fawning Masses

American Exceptionalism in Speculative Fiction

The Last Ship: Season 5, Episode 2: Fog of War

Issues with Toxic Masculinity

Depictions of Mental Illness

The Last Ship, Season 5, Episode 1: Casus Belli

American Exceptionalism

Why we're over Captain Chandler

Immortally Yours (Argeneau #26) by Lynsay Sands

Beth has had a thing for Scotty, the Scottish laird for as long as she's been an immortal but unfortunately, Scotty has proven time and time again that he's far from Beth's number one fan. With most of the North American hunters in Venezuela, Scotty shows up in Toronto to lend a hand to the North American hunters. Beth's libido might be happy to see Scotty again but she's not exactly pleased to be working with a man who thinks so little of her.  Scotty and Beth become intertwined when they are forced to travel to B.C. to deal with the daughter of the head of the Russian Council, exposing Beth to a second attempt on her life. Knowing someone is trying to kill you is a tough thing to deal with but Beth is actually more uncertain about the fact that Scotty seems to have changed his mind about how he feels about her. 

This is the twenty-sixth novel in the series and so by now, it's pretty formulaic. Unlike the previous books, Sands doesn't try to add anything new to the world.  Immortally Yours, is entirely predictable with no real twists and turns. Sure, Sands tried to turn the identity of the person trying to kill Beth into a mystery but a two year old could have figured out who the antagonist is from the very beginning. Because the mystery is so uninteresting, the only real thing to draw the reader is the relationship between Beth and Scotty.

As a female protagonist, I like Beth very much which is not something I often have to say about Sands's female characters. Beth is very strong, independent, smart and most importantly, she's a survivor, who has no interest in being saved or having her past erased. Beth has completely accepted who she is and the path that led to her current identity. Beth was sold into prostitution by her father, had her virginity auctioned off to the highest bidder and was beaten regularly until an immortal intervened in her life. For most of Beth's life she worked as a prostitute, determined to be self reliant until the end.  I absolutely love that she pushed back against the shame society and even Scotty tried to make her feel. 

This review wouldn't be complete if I didn't take the time to talk about Sands's treatment of sex workers in this novel. Sands floated back and forth between the socially constructed hooker with a heart of goal, and the money grasping evil whore.  It would not be understating it to say that Sands's treatment of sex workers is absolutely toxic and misogynistic. Scotty spends much of the book disparaging Beth because of her past as a sex worker.

Now that he was being forced to confront his feelings on the subject, he admitted that before meeting Beth he'd always thought prostitution to be the lowest of trades. He'd been raised to believe prostitutes were shameless, deceitful whores who cared only about coin... and he couldn't bear knowing that Beth had once been one. (pg. 200)

Odilia, in part based her hatred of Beth on the fact that Beth was once a sex worker.

"You are a prostitute! A whore! You probably spread your legs for half of London back in the day, and half of Toronto since you got here. He will believe it, and he will see how cheap a slag you are and how unworthy you are of him and the love he proclaimed for you. (pg339)

Even characters like Magnus are more than happy to make excuses for Scotty's slut shaming by suggesting, "We come from an earlier era, one that forged our morals and opinions. We were taught prostitution was an abomination to our Lord God. Of course you would struggle with it." Even when Scotty does do a turn around, it's only because Beth has redeemed herself in his eyes with her willingness to care and sacrifice herself for others. It was further cemented by him realising that Beth chose to continue her profession because she didn't see that she had any other options. By telling her story, Scotty came to realise that not all women prostitute themselves because "it was easy coin, or because she enjoyed the power of controlling men with her body." 

To make matters worse, we learn that Scotty's disdain for sex workers is because of his hatred of his cruel mother. 

"And then there was me mother. She was a whore. No' professionally. At least, she did no' have a pimp or live in a brothel. However, she traded sexual favors for -" he shrugged helplessly, his chest moving under her -"basically for whatever she wanted. She slept with the king to gain favor for her father, and boost his - and by extension her- position at court. She slept with high ranking officials, lairds ... basically anyone who could do something for her that she wanted. And then she slept with me father."

Through Scotty's description of his mother, we learn that he saw her as a conniving social climber. This description is heartlessly cruel when put into social context.  Men held all the power during that time and the only influence women often managed to gain was through using sex expertly or manipulating social associations to their best advantage. Scotty didn't bother to interrogate the world which gave women few choices but instead shamed women for utilizing the only path to power they had.

Z Nation, Season 4, Episode 10: Frenemies

This episode has Sketchy and Sleezy. Oh yay.

This is a shame - because this season has managed to bring some backbone to Z Nation which has always leaped between being a deep, powerful apocalypse show and a zany slapstick comedy. Except for the jugaloo episode I’m trying to forget, these season has finally seemed to marry these elements: with a serious storyline, some genuine emotional moments, but still being happy to throw in jokes, one liners and the odd slapstick moment without overly derailing the plot or wasting our time

It’s an odd beast, Z Nation, and often gets it wrong but between the swings it can find a balance that works and largely has this season.

And then we have this. Honestly there’s not a lot to recap here because it’s mainly slapstick nonsense

There’s a storm of toxic foam which causes Doc and Murphy to seek shelter in a barber shop where Sketchy and Skeevy are also hiding. Absolutely no-one questions why there’s a fully functioning barbers in the apocalypse - it just is and everyone’s quite willing to let complete strangers with bared blades near their faces because of course they are.

It’s all a weird trap to rob people, because folks often drop into a barber shop in the apocalypse and we have lots of shenanigans, including Sketchy and Skeezy trying to want then, Doc trying to remember the main robber, the inclusion of a Deaf character which would be noteworthy if, well, it wasn’t this episode and it wasn’t just fodder for more gags. We have Tanned Zombie which I will never be able to unsee, vomit everywhere, absolutely everywhere, which I’ll also never be able to unsee, 10k and Lilley joining in the fun,m everyone in their underwear (including 10K which I will be very happy to not unsee) and some final random extra characters with improbably accents until everyone ended up dead except the main cast and, alas, Sketchy and Skeevy

American Horror Story, Season 7 (Cult), Episode 7: Valerie Solanas Died For Your Sins

American Horror Story has decided to return to its grand old tradition of barely coherent nonsense.

Still clinging to the storyline we find Ally is in prison but the mass shooting and attempted assassination of  Kai by Meadow has been firmly blamed on her - since there’s footage of them

The violence was more than enough to tip the polls in Kai’s favour and sweep him to the lofty heights of city councilmen. This has apparently greatly impressed lots of alt-right neo-nazi guys since Kai is now surrounded by a lot of sinister looking white men all dressed in exactly the same not-quite-but-almost uniforms - they’re one tiki torch and a white polo shirt away from a racist statue loving nazi rally.

Bev goes to see Kai and is very very very quickly aware of how hostile everyone is to her and exactly what these men are. Suspicions which are confirmed when Kai brushes her off and dismisses her. She is Not Happy. And she is Dangerous

Introducing Bebe Babbitt and saying goodbye to reality, who meets up with Beverley and is taken by her to Ivy and Winter to tell her story

So, Bebe Babbit was the ex-lover of real life person Valerie Solanas, who tried to assassinate Andy Warhol because she thought he stole/lost her work (true) and because he dismissed her as a woman (possible). She also wrote SCUM, (actually in real life) and in American Horror Story world set up a cult - which Bebe was a member of. They formed a cult of violent women and self-hating, masochistic gay men (including using the term “gender traitor” which is a loaded slur) who are constantly degraded and abused. Per Valerie’s manifesto they start murdering men (and women who sleep with men - yes the lesbian not only hates all men, but straight and bisexual women as well) at Valerie’s instruction while she’s in prison for shooting Warhol.

Their brutal murders become the real world Zodiac killings because, well, American Horror Story. They don’t claim credit for the killing which seems like a dubious manner of getting their message across (Valerie has a somewhat… unrealistic ambition of killing a thousand people with a further unrealistic belief that 1,000 deaths will undermine the entire patriarchy). Of course then a man sends murder secrets to the papers meaning their SCUM murders are being stolen. Valerie doesn’t take this well and brutally murders one of the gross gay men following her cult - including brutal genital mutilation.

She tries to confess to the serial killing and claim credit - but the sexist police don’t believe a woman capable of such crimes and dismiss her. Defeated by patriarchy and misogyny at every turn, Valerie becomes more and more unstable and as she descends her cult leaves her. Until she hallucinates a final indignity - Warhol telling her that her legacy, all she will be remembered for, is trying to kill him - and dies.

American Horror Story, Season 7 (Cult), Episode Three: Neighbors from Hell

The episode begins with Dr.Vincent meeting with a patient and her husband to discuss her fear of coffins due to being locked in dark cupboards as a child by her father. After some extensive therapy the woman now feels that she has been cured and can move on with her life.  In a case of best laid plans of mice and men, the clowns break into the couple home and trap the woman and her husband in matching coffins.  This means that if you had any doubts before, now you know without a doubt that Dr. Vincent is at the very least complicit in the whole home invasion murder spree that the clowns are on. There's no way they could have known to pick the exact fear of Vincent's patient.  What we don't know is why he is involved. Alternatively it's just utterly random for the sake of randomness.

Last week ended with the death of poor maligned Pedro and this week we learn that there will be no consequences for Ally for shooting him to death on her doorstep. Detective Samuels carefully talks Ally through a stand your ground defense making sure she sticks to the script whenever she is tempted to stray: hes' there to make sure there are no consequences for killing this latino man. For Samuels Ally's actions make sense particularly because the police were already interested in Pedro thanks to the murder in the restaurant the week before. Ally of course is relieved that she isn't going to be charged but is worried about how seeing her murder someone will affect her son. 

The police may not be interested in holding Ally accountable for her actions but that doesn't mean that society agrees that she is blameless. When Ally and Ivy show up at the restaurant the next day, they discover that people are protesting out front.  A frustrated Ally cries and screams about being one of them (read: a good liberal). The supposed persecution of Ally continues when the in a news report she is called the "lesbian George Zimmerman". Leave it to American Horror Story to appropriate the death of an innocent Black teenager for entertainment value. If that were not enough, the Wiltons show up at Ally's door wearing sombreros to let Ally know that they think she is a horrible racist woman who shot Pedro because of his brown skin. Harrison goes as far as to site his DNA results from 23andMe claiming that because he apparently has some Latino blood in him that Ally would probably like to shoot him as well.  The Wiltons want to know in particular how Ally feels about exercising her White privilege.  At this point, I very seriously considered changing the channel because really, should anyone be subjected to this?

This whole nonsense is literally painful to watch

In between the shrieking and declarations of just how good she is, it's clear that Ally is starting to get defensive and absolutely believes that she is being persecuted. Kai of course encourages this belief by assuring Ally that she has nothing to be ashamed of and that she killed Pedro in self defense. 

Kai is also working with her neighbours the Wiltons, encouraging each of them to pinkie-swear reveal their worst fears and secrets (to the shock of no-one this includes regret that they married since she’s afraid of never having sex again or having kids and he just wants out and would rather she be dead). He seems to have a creepy, violent control over them which is definitely cultish and probably what this season was about before some bright spark decided to shoe-horn in a lot of racism and political nonsense.

He is also working on Ally, seeming to have the magical power to clear crowds of protesters with a word (again, showing a cult like following rather than the political nonsense

For further cult leanings we have Detective Samuels also apparently spending his evenings round at the Wiltons. Ivy also convinces Ally to let Winter come back as a babysitter for Oz since it’s hardly her fault Ally murdered someone.

More randomness - there’s a truck coming most night dropping green gas everywhere and one night they even take a side trip to spray Ally’s lawn. This seems to cause a whole lot of dead birds - which is worrying for anyone but really not good for Ally

Ally is changing from screaming panicking break down lady, to paranoid, raging, aggressive lady. This is not an improvement. She is particularly set off when a harasser puts a vile misogynist and homophobic advert on craigslist inviting men to turn up at her house naked for sex. She decides, in a moderately random fashion, to blame the Wiltons and escalate their little war (even as her probably-cult-member-therapist tells her what a bad idea this is). He is more concerned that her phobias and paranoia have contributed to her killing someone and maybe she needs to address this.

The Mist, Season One, Episode Nine: The Waking Dream

The Waking Dream is the penultimate episode of The Mist.  More than any other show that I've watched this season, I cannot wait to see the back of The Mist. It's been horribly homophobic as well as sexist.  The characters have jumped from zero to world ending panic in a fashion that makes absolutely no sense.  In short nothing the writers have come up with to expand the scope of King's novella are sensible or make The Mist even somewhat entertaining. 

The Tunnel

When last we left Nathalie, she was leading Conner, Ursula and Trevor through The Mist in an effort to reach the mall. Having chased a few suspects through the sewers, Conner is confidant about them finding their way. Conner talks about a suspect finding himself covered in rats and being horrified.  Thanks for telegraphing what the characters are going to face writers. At any rate, Trevor falls, breaking his leg badly and so calls out for help.  Nathalie is insistent that there's nothing they can do because they cannot carry Trevor.  Ursula argues to save her husband, suggesting that they could go and get help but still Nathalie will not relent. As Ursula pleads for Trevor, Nathalie and Connor keep exchanging looks.

Ursula begins to climb down some stairs to get to Trevor and after one last look at Nathalie, Connor approaches Ursula.  Promising to help Ursula, Connor moves closer as he pulls out his knife. Connor promptly stabs Ursula and pushes her down the stairs, causing her to land on her husband with a thud.  The two start to beg for help but Connor and Nathalie will not be moved. Rats approach Ursula and Trevor and start snacking on the couple like they've been presented with an all you can eat buffet.  Nathalie explains to Connor that this is all part of the cycle of life and death. They've now provided nature with food which it will recognise as harm and allow them to pass by unscathed.  Nathalie picks up a passing rat and then passing it to Connor, encouraging him to feel the love. 

I don't feel any pity for Ursula and Trevor mainly because they existed only to be killed to cement Connor's loyalty to  Nathalie.  Furthermore, Ursula and Trevor participated in locking people in the church and burning them alive.  Clearly the scene with the rats was to intended to meet The Mist's weekly quota of creep factor.

Adrian, Mia and Bryan

As we know, Adrian took a shot at Kevin and then took off to the car, claiming that his father killed Kevin.  Bryan and Mia talk about going back to ensure that Kevin is indeed dead but decide to push forward, not wanting to take the risk and believing in Adrian's assurance. When they arrive at the mall, they agree to go their separate ways since Mia and Bryan are technically criminals. The moment he's by himself, Adrian practices what he is going to tell Alex and Eve about Kevin's supposed death. This is clearly meant to remind us of how calculating Adrian is. 

The mall continues to be a cesspool of panic and nonsense.  Having blamed Alex for Shelly's death, Gus is now in a corner.  The residents of the mall want to hunt Alex down and make her pay for Shelly's death based solely on his lie about seeing Alex running away from Shelly's body.  Jones tries to tell the mall cop that this is getting ridiculous but when the mall cop makes it clear that someone is going to have to pay for Shelly's death, Gus gets on side pretty quickly.

Mia and Bryan take shelter in an outdoors store and they talk about what might have happened if they hadn't gotten together because of The Mist. I don't care how hard they try to sell these two as a couple, I simply don't buy it. When Bryan closes his eyes to daydream about the whole white picket fence scene he has created, Mia opens up her duffle bag which contains a shit ton of money.  Mia wants Brian to agree to run away with her. Bryan agrees to this and to look for supplies. Is anyone going to wonder how far the Mist extends cause if it involves more than their small town, that money is going to be useless to them?

Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie She's Dead (ToadWitch #1) by Christiana Miller

It's Mara's birthday and according to her tarot card reading things aren't going to go well for her. Proving that Mara's skills are top notch, it's not long before Mara finds herself banned from Beverly Hills, unemployed and facing homelessness after being evicted from her LA apartment. Luckily for Mara, she inherits a home when her Aunt Tilly dies. Unfortunately for Mara, this house is haunted by a very pissed off Aunt Tilly, who's certain that Mara doesn't have the sense God gave cabbage and not at all pleased that Mara is responsible for her death. Is anything going to go right for Mara this year?

As you might have guessed from the cover, Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie She's Dead is paranormal chick lit. It's not meant to be serious whatsoever and in fact never takes itself seriously.  Miller tries to infuse her book with humour, through awkward situations and back and for conversations between Mara, our protagonist and her GBFF Gus. Unfortunately, most of it is problematic as hell, thereby sucking out whatever humor was possible.

For all of Mara's string of bad luck, she's actually had a pretty good life.  Mara lived in an apartment in LA with a pool for well below market value thanks to the kindness of her gay landlord.  Normally I wouldn't mention the sexuality of someone's landlord but Miller goes to great lengths to establish that Lenny is gay and is only kicking Mara out of her apartment in order to get laid by Manuel. Apparently, Manuel's family has a problem with Mara's witchcraft but no problem with his sexuality. Yeah, these kind of bigots tend to hate everyone who doesn't conform to their belief system, not just pagans. Of course, Mara feels betrayed by Lenny because he chose a hot young lover over her. Lenny is not only gay he's flamboyantly so. Lenny even blames Mara for her eviction because of her unwillingness to hide her religious practice.

"Honey, we live in a Moral Majority word. Flaunt your religious beliefs and sexual preferences at your own peril. It's something we boys have known for centuries. Done is one." 

Given than Lenny is only a minor character, his homophobic representation is bad but could potentially have been overlooked; however Miller doubles down with her portrayal of Gus.  Gus is downright sassy and seems to spend a good portion of life listening to Mara whine and pretty much being at her beck and call. Every damn thing about Gus is fabulous, including of course his attire. Apparently, "Gus is more fond of skirts than any woman" Mara has ever known. Mara of course is largely celibate but not Gus who always seems to be fucking someone, which mystifies Mara.  

"How the hell do you find dates so fast? It takes me months."

"My secret club. It's a whole, incestuous, underground network that we don't let you fag hags in on. A place for us who shine like a veritable sun to share our boy toys . And our Viagara".

Do you see what happened there? Mara, as well as the other straight characters don't engage in promiscuous sex whereas, the gay characters are either constantly having sex or allowing sex to take over so much of their lives that they make major decision based on whether or not they are getting laid. 

Along with being Mara's personal cheerleader and general support, Gus is also super bitchy.  Yes, yet another trope. When one of Gus's numerous lovers decided to cheat, Gus curses him to have hives.

"Maybe I did mix a little pennyroyal in the massage lotion. He deserved it, I caught him in a hot clinch with that curvy tranny singer over at the Queen Mary, when he thought I was in the john."

I have to pause now to talk about the slur "tranny".  Putting that word into the mouth of a gay character does not suddenly make it not a slur. Throughout Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie She's Dead, Miller uses the words "faghag, as well as queer".  All of these terms are clearly problematic because they're homophobic and putting these words into the mouth of gay characters doesn't suddenly make it okay. It further doesn't help that Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie She's dead, is written by a straight woman.

The Trinity's Dream by Sherif Mekdam

I have an issue with the main three characters who are put forward to be the Trinity. They’re all supposed to be deeply flawed people:

We have an arrogant, rapist atheist who raped his best friend while she slept and who spends most of his life debating Christians (and apparently this gets him a huge fan club of women to sleep with him. Because university campuses are full of women who get so turned on by anti-theological debate).

We have the Muslim who is a wanna-be terrorist.

And we have the Christian who is so self-sacrificing and dedicating his life to trying to find a miracle cure for his sick nephew.

Uh-huh. Rapist arrogant atheist, hateful, misogynist Muslim - and saintly selfless Christian? This does not look good when put next to each other.

Beyond that I think the main issue with this book is fundamentally structural - it’s short. Really short and really full - we have 6 significant characters - both the Trinity above who will save the world and the three characters who actually discovered the world was ending have to have their characters, their back story, their expertise, their families, and their experience shoe horned into a really really small book. That means we have a lot of info dumping, a lot of really clumsy, awkward attempt at development which didn’t even make these brief characters particularly notable or distinctive. Nothing really develops or distinguishes itself - certainly not the characters - so we get really shoe-horned, overly full, quite convoluted characterisation to try and create a full character in very very limited space.

That limited development also made so much of this book flawed - like examining the rapist and not making it just a throw away reference, the misogyny of the terrorist-wanna-be: I mean all of it is pretty much undeveloped but this becomes much more of a problem when covering these fraught topics.

Several of these characters are POC which is something

The Mist, Season One, Episode Seven: Over the River and Through the Woods

There are only three more episodes left in The Mist's freshman season and at this point I think that the whole damn show just needs to be euthanized.   It's clear that The Mist has become incoherent and riddled with so much BS that the writers themselves might actually be lost in the fog.  For my continuing perseverance in writing this up, I think I'm due a stiff drink or at the very least, some high quality chocolate.

The Church

From almost the beginning, a war of ideology broke out at the church. On one side we have Nathalie, who I'm assuming is a pagan and of course the very catholic Father Romanov. Last week, the mist drew religious blood for the first time when Link, the alter boy, for some reason decided to become a religious zealot and attempt to put a stop to Nathalie, who he felt was corrupting the faithful.  Things didn't end well for Link.  Nathalie of course played up her injuries which hit a nerve with Connor, who having tossed aside his badge still has a strong urge to be protective.  As a cop, Connor has seen the worse of the worse and he deems that anyone who would beat an old woman to be vile. For once, I agree with Connor on something.  With Link now dead, Connor decides to take his pound of flesh from Father Romanov, whom he believes talked Link into physically abusing Nathalie.  The residents of the church look on with horror as Connor punches and kicks father Romanov repeatedly.  A knowing Nathalie only hums.

Having taken a beating, it's time for Father Romanov to lick his wounds.  Father Romanov heads up to the room that Link was locked in and speaks to the now dead Link about seeing the light and thanking him for his sacrifice.  On the other side of the door, we are shown Link's remains and they are suitably horrific.

Having made his peace with Link, Father Romanov sets off to save his people by challenging Nathalie to see which one of them can survive the mist. Romanov suggests that the residents will know for sure who to follow based on who survives and since he's confident that God will save him, he's happy to take this test. When the residents of the church are informed of this decision, they rightfully balk but both Nathalie and Father Romanov are determined to see this through to the end.  Father Romanov gets dressed in his best vestments and Nathalie strips down.  Together, Romanov and Nathalie leave the church. Nathalie is calm and stands with her eyes closed, whereas; for all of his faith, Father Romanov is clearly nervous. It's not long before the four horseman of the apocalypse show up and after a momentary pause, set their sights on Father Romanov.  Romanov is shot with an arrow and dragged away through the Mist. 

When Nathalie returns to the church, she talks about hearing Romanov die and how beautiful it was because everything sounds differently in the mist. Nathalie explains that she had her eyes closed and wasn't worried because she knew that Nature wouldn't see her as a threat. 

The Mall

Of all the settings in The Mist, the people at the mall are the ones who have over reacted the most and the fastest.  It seems that the writers are determined to carry on this trend.  They people in the mall have only been trapped there for a short time and they're already panicked about a food shortage.   

Gus isn't as worried about food because he has his own private stash in his office. I know that The Mist is set in a dinky ass town but how could they possibly run out of food so quickly? Gus has no problem snacking on his own sweet treats while hiding away in his office but when Gus is informed that the mall cop is helping himself to extra rations because the mall cop believes that the military is going to rescue them soon, Gus is quick to put a stop to it, rationalizing that they don't know when the military is coming. Shelly of course sees this as an opportunity to rile up people about Eve and Alex.  Shelly is particularly incensed when Eve shows up to request some of their board games to help pass the time for the people she is holed up with. Proving just how smart she is, Eve leaves behind a baby monitor so that she can spy. 

Alex is still cuddling up with her potential rapist which makes Eve very unhappy. Eve would love to give Jay the boot and quite rightfully so; however, Alex actually goes on the defense, claiming Jay should stay with them because he's afraid of the other mall resident because they exiled the kid who accidentally let the mist in.  Eve tries to say that the other residents aren't that bad but Alex ups the ante and questions if her mother would be fine with her joining Jay to be with the other residents.  Why the hell is Alex standing up for the boy who may have raped her? I suppose this round goes to the very misguided Alex.

The Mist, Season One, Episode Six: The Devil You Know

Because of The Mist is not a reasonable answer to all of the events that took place in this episode.  From the very beginning, The Mist has had its characters jump to feelings of immediate peril and act in ways that seem far out of proportion from what they've personally witnessed.  Unlike the 2007 movie of the same name, a television show has time to expand upon a plot and slowly move towards a crescendo.  The pacing at this point is absolutely horrid and has destroyed any kind of enjoyment in this show.

The cast continues to be large, unwieldy and divided. In a show of this nature, a large cast is necessary because it will require a large rate of attrition. The entire point is to have The Mist ever so slowly cause death and unbalance among the cast members but it seems as though the writers just want to do 0 to 60, bribing the audience each week with a few good shots.  This week for instance, we got the Mist coming out of Mia's mother's smashed in head and the Mist coming through the key hole of a door.  Yes, those scenes were awesome and added to the whole creep out factor but it's not enough to making for the continual problem of bad pacing. 

At the church, Link takes his concerns about Nathalie's idea about the mist to Father Romanov, who has seperated himself from his parishioners.  It's clear that Link feels that Romanov is shirking his duties by hiding in his office and that the only way they're going to get through this is by prostrating themselves before God. Before this episode, Link showed absolutely no signs of being some kind of freaked out religious fundamentalist but the writers escalated this minor character in order to increase the already overly tense situation between Romanov and Nathalie.  Unsurprisingly, it turned out that Nathalie can handle herself just fine and though she had to endure a slap across the face, she had no problems sacrificing Link to the Mist and then playing feeble old woman in need of protection, thus triggering Police chief Connor Heisel's protective instincts. Connor may no longer see himself as a cop but that doesn't mean he doesn't feel a drive to protect others.  

Speaking of Connor, it's clear that he saw something in the Mist and he is slowly bonding with Nathalie, even as Romanov tries to remind him of civilisation by talking about being by his wife's beside when she was dying.  Romanov is trying to play on Connor's sense of loyalty by pointing out that he didn't let the Heisel family down and that Connor's wife was faithful to God, even in the face of an early death from cancer.  It's clearly manipulative and Connor sees right through it.  At this time however, it's worth pointing out that Connor made such a big deal about Mia and Bryan being criminals in episode four and yet by episode six, with no explanation, he's ready to take off the badge that clearly means so much to him without us seeing any further escalation which would engender such feelings.

At the mall, Alex and Eve decide to work out their angst riddled relationship with a little shopping and why not, they're in a mall. Alex wants to know why the smoke monster bypassed her and is certain that this means that there's something wrong with her. Look, I get Alex is a teen but really? Couldn't the reason be that there's something special about her rather than something wrong? Who whines about not being eaten by a mist monster? 

Eve decides that since the shopping trip distracted Alex that the residents of the mall need some distraction as well. She prints off some pamphlets encouraging citizens to stay indoors, making it look as though the pamphlets came from the government or the military. Gus catches Eve at this task and Eve of course responds with snark, causing Gus to wonder how they got there. Yeah, I wanna know how you got there as well Gus. When the residents of the mall find the pamphlets, conveniently just next to the doors, they experience a sense of relief as a cautious Gus looks on.  This of course is going to come back to haunt both Gus and Eve.

Her Mad Hatter (Kingdom #1) by Marie Hall

Dannika isn't like all of the other fairy godmothers because she's a fairy godmother to the badboys.  Dannika has no patience for princesses who are awaiting their Prince Charmings and think that all they need to do is "bat lashes, wiggle bottom, ad mauseam". You'll never catch Dannika saying," bippity-boppity-boo", or turning mice into footmen.  No, Dannika is going to take care of all the bad boys who have just been misunderstood. Dannika takes her duties seriously but an urgency is added to her mission when she learns that if she doesn't find true love for her terrible five that a bad fate awaits them within the year. Taking stock of the situation, Dannika decides that first up to bat will be none other than the Madhatter.  Unfortunately, because Dannika has brought him many women named Alice over the years, the Madhatter isn't exactly open to love anymore, certain that there's no one out there for him.  

This is another book in which the idea behind the story was excellent but the execution let it all down.  I love the idea of Wonderland being created from the mind of the Madhatter. The idea that fairy godmother would turn her back on princesses who she deems to be simpering twits in order to focus on fairy tale characters who have a bad reputation and are more in need of a happy ending is fun.  In fact, I'd argue that Hall's take on Dannika is absolutely brilliant.

I went into Her Mad Hatter knowing full and well that it's a paranormal romance book but I decided to give it a chance based on the concept.  I thought that most certainly there would be romance but that there would be a lot more meat to the story than Hall provided. If you're going to twist a fairy tale world, other than having elements of the fairy tale like the white rabbit, tea with the Madhatter, or any upside down house, something new and substantive should be added to the narrative to make it worth the time for the reader. And no, having the Hatter fall in love with Alice is not enough.

Perhaps what's most irritating about Her Mad Hatter, is the fact that it's clearly fanfic.  It's not even really Alice in Wonderland fanfic but Tim Burton, Alice in Wonderland fanfic. It's impossible to doubt for a a moment that Hall has a thing for Johnny Depp and I know this because Depp is mentioned several times and it's clearly his version of the Hatter that Hall has a thing for. 

Now perhaps if it were Chocolat Johnny Depp, I cold get behind Hall's obsession. 

The Leftovers, Season 3, Episode 3: Crazy Whitefella Thinking

Dear gods why am I watching this? Seriously, why did I just spend an hour of my life watching this? I could have spent it doing something more interesting, like cleaning the tile grout in my bathroom. It’s already clean but even that’d be more productive than this.

For some reason – possibly some vindictive need to make the world suffer – this episode follows Kevin Garvey Senior who is now in Australia.

And what is he doing in Australia? Continually stalking, stealing from and generally appropriating Aboriginal culture. It’s cringeworthy, it’s awful, it’s disgusting and it’s morally reprehensible and it’s all about the awfulness of cultural appropriation writ large as this white man tries to steal and copy sacred Aboriginal culture, music, tradition and even lying and claiming Aboriginal identity.

The bright point of this? The bright point is that just about everyone he meets is thoroughly disgusted and appalled by his actions. His misdeeds are clearly labelled and people do their very best to not just express their utter disgust at his nastiness but shun him and try to spare the Aboriginal people from his endless nonsense. At no point does this show present what Kevin senior is doing as remotely acceptable or tolerable. It is treated every bit as offensive as it is.

I won’t even follow the ridiculous chain of random events that have led Kevin senior in his trek around Australia. He has a copy of Matt’s holy book about his son – and he hates it because it’s not all about him because he’s decided he’s the messiah, because of course he has. By a series of random events he explains to Christopher Sunday, a Cleverman (played by David Gulpili an Aboriginal Australian), that through a series of dubious convoluted signs he has decided the world will flood with the anniversary of The Departure if he doesn’t collect the songs of many Aboriginal people and sing them. Christopher decides that this damn fool on his doorstep might as well be useful for fixing his roof

Instead Kevin falls off said roof and lands on Christopher. He then gets dumped in the middle of the outback by ambulance drivers who have no damn patience for his appropriative bullshit.

He wanders the outback, randomly runs into a random person randomly setting himself on fire, because this is The Leftovers and more random is always needed. He decides to eat a snake which is a damn silly thing to do because one does not fuck with Australian wildlife, it is known. He’s promptly bitten

Here’s me hoping he dies but, alas, no, he staggers to a shrine where he is found and, alas, saved. The people he’s saved by are building a boat in the middle of the Outback, as you do. They also tell him that Christopher Sunday is dead so there’s no chance of him collecting all the songs according to his drug-fuelled visions.

This is where we meet Grace – the lady who just drowned the local sheriff

See Grace and her husband were very religious people, they adopted several children and generally appear to have been nice people. When the Depature happened, the religious Grace assumed this was the Rapture. In the chaos that followed she worked her way home and found her house empty – she assumed everyone had been Raptured: and she was happy, her husband and children had been called up by god and rejoice.

The Magicians, Season 2, Episode 12: Ramifications

As we approach the last episode, it’s time for some storylines to come together and to close off some major themes. Some well and some… not so well.

Julia and Quentin now have Alice’s shade and go to Mayakovsky to try and bring Alice back. He’s not a fan since it will involve draining his batteries of magic he has spent so long developing. Quentin tries to appeal in the name of life which the cynical Mayakovski responds with “that assumes life has value”.

But this episode brings us Quentin who is willing to cut to the bone more than once. Here he hits on why Alice went to Brakebills – to learn about her brother, who became a Niffin to help the student who was badly hurt trying to win Mayakovsky’s affections which is why he was banished. That’s a big wad of guilt and it works

They put together the spell (also, noteworthy: Magic using words not just gestures. Is this the first time?) and manage to re-merge Alice

Alice is back! I have to say I always kind of suspected it. I knew Alice was going to be around for a while – and I did think that maybe that would be as a Niffin, maybe a humanised Niffin. But really the unrivalled power of niffinness made her too much of storybreaker for them to keep with that much power AND as actually part of the “hero group”

Still, either way, I’m really happy to see Alice, one of the two actual heroes of this story (the other being Julia) back in the show

And she is not happy with this at all. She was an all powerful Niffin who knew so much about magic and now, now she’s a nasty nasty human again. Mayakovsky advises Quentin go somewhere else for a time.

This leaves Mayakovsky with a despairing and raging Alice, desperately trying to record all the knowledge she is so rapidly losing. To which Mayakovsky wins several prizes with awesome cynical pleas for a better world from:

Niffin care only for their minds – a perfect life with no meaning

And when Alice says humans are weak shit he agrees: but that magic is a way of making shit better, even a tiny bit – and that is not weakness. More, if you hate the shit world that gives you an incentive to make it better.

I could grow to love this character, yes yes I could.

Quentin, meanwhile, is joined by Elliot who explains he has been banished from Fillory and is looking for a way back – which is a problem because Quentin traded the Fillory travelling button to the dragon of awesome. So time to follow some clues and Quentin’s encylopedic knowledge of Fillory to find another portal to get back since Elliot has a pregnant wife, fiancé and kingdom to get back to

Grimm, Season Six, Episode Twelve: Zerstörer Shrugged

"You shall break them with a rod."

Zerstörer Shrugged is the penultimate episode of this series and to say I'm pissed doesn't even begin to cover it. Dear writers of Grimm, you need to fix this next episode. I will not accept an ending to Grimm which brings about the death of the only two reoccurring characters of colour in the entire six year run of this show. I WILL NOT ACCEPT THIS. I will also not accept that the Zerstörer is this horribly scary devil dude, when so much of what happened is clearly the writers trying to squeeze in relevance in the later stages, rather than spending this entire season building a believable story around the Zerstörer.

When we left Nick and Eve, they were stuck in the other world about to do battle with the Zerstörer. Eve goes all ghastly uber hexenbiest but isn't really able to put up much of a defense.  It's Nick who realises that the Zerstörer is toying with them and instead of actually killing them which he could do easily, he's trying to trap them. Things don't look good for these two.

With Diana now firmly asleep, it's time to try and figure out how to get Nick and Eve the hell out of the other world. Adalind and Renard argue about who is going to open a portal.  If Renard's informant is on point, and Diana is indeed the Shaphat, Monroe suggest that Diana can actually open up a portal using the stick. To back him up, Monroe pulls out his family Wesen bible.  Renard at first has no patience for any kind of biblical talk until Monroe explains that the bible does describe an area like where Nick and and Eve might actually be. It buoys Monroe's case that the bible includes an illustration of the Zerstörer. 

At the Spice Shop, Hank, Wu and Rosealee are looking for myths across cultures for any references which could be useful. They come across an ancient German text which Rosealee uses google translate to decipher.  They learn that the text says,"evil darkness trapped" and "Grimm pull child wife" followed by "follow and flee." 

It's then that the scoobies realise that it's March 24th, the day the cloth warned them about. I know that there's been a lot of shit going on but did no one think to mark the days off on a calendar? Are we supposed to believe that the scoobies are really that forgetful when they've done nothing but spend time researching this damn prophecy all season? Now they begin to wonder if maybe just maybe, the Zerstörer stalked Eve, so that she'd going looking for him, forcing Nick to follow, thus causing the opening of a portal allowing him to escape. Did you follow that because it's convoluted as fuck? Look, I know that this shit was foretold but the assumptions that had to be made for this plan to work are downright astronomical.

Beyond, Season One, Episode Ten: Into the Light

Into the Light, marks the season finale of Beyond, and I have to say that I want the ten hours I spent watching this back. We still don't know what the hell the Realm is, or how it's connected to our world. Into the Light, confirmed that Holden is indeed the super special chosen one but that's something we known all along.

With Willa alone in the Realm, and Luke being held captive, Holden feels he has no choice but to give in to Frost's demands and take him into the Realm.  Frost makes it clear that if anything happens to him, Luke is going to die.  He assures Holden that he wants the best for Willa because she's his daughter, a fact which surprises Holden. The two make their way into the Realm and end up on the outer edges, in the middle of a snowstorm.  Holden is pissed that this is the chosen landing area because it hasn't been mapped.

Luke actually manages to make his own escape from the room that he's locked in, only to run right into Tess.  Luke quickly realises that his last meeting with Tess was not an accident and accuses her for preying upon peoples sadness. Tess makes it clear that she may not believe in heaven or an after life but she has a firm belief in making money.

At this point, Luke is completely feeling himself believing that there's nothing that Tess can do to stop him.  Of course, Tess alerts security and they are quickly surrounded.  Tess then takes Luke to the machine so that he can see Holden.

Z Nation, Season Three, Episode Eleven: Doc's Angels

This week's episode feels very much like a twist on the Clint Eastwood movie The Beguiled.  It begins with Doc chasing down the signal he is picking up on the radio, desperate to get a hold of Citizen Z, so that he can get a message to Warren about Lucy's kidnapping.  Doc manages to track the signal to a radio tower in what appears to be some sort of castle but is quickly attacked by zombies for his trouble. Doc fires his gun but gets nowhere because the zombies have been bedazzled which just happens to act is effective armour.  Yes, bedazzled zombies.  Fortunately for Doc, it seems that zombies are more interested in pestering him than eating him.  

Doc passes out and when he awakes he finds himself in a comfortable bed, surrounded by three women.  Sarah, Linda and Camilla decide that Doc is their guest of honour.  Doc clearly is uncomfortable but decides to go with the flow of things.  The women take Doc to their radio and he tries to send a message to Citizen Z, completely unaware that the radio is disconnected.  When the power goes out, the women encourage Doc to spend the night and try the radio again in the morning.

The guest of honour treatment continues through the evening with Doc being fed what he believes to be vegan food which we later learn in anything but. After dinner, the ladies decide that it's time to feed their pets and that is when Doc learns that the women have taken cat lady to all new level because they have domesticated the zombies.  One of the ladies has even bedazzled the zombies.

From what I've written thus far it must be clear to you that Doc's Angels is yet another filler episode. The one thing that has become true of season three is that it has absolutely become dependent upon Doc for comic relief.  Z Nation has always floated back and forth between a serious treatment of zombies and glorious cheese.  Some episodes have been more successful than others but this season, I think it would be fair to say that Z Nation has lost all clue of what it is or even what it intends to be. At this point, throwing in a Doc episode to hide the fact that there's no discernible plot is not working anymore. Sure, Russell Hodgkinson is fun to watch but it's too much to ask that he carry this show on his back.  

Predictably, Doc ends up in bed with the three women though he acknowledges that this isn't going to end well.   When Doc wakes, he hears Kaya calling out to Operation Bite Mark, causing him to rush to the transmitter hoping to make contact.  It doesn't take long for Doc to realise that the wires aren't connected but before he can do anything about it, Linda enters the doorway. Doc takes off running and this is when he learns that the women have decorated their home with human hair, skin and bones. The weed they smoked the night before was somehow grown out of a dudes head and that the women are keeping male prisoners.  Doc manages to free the arms of one of the prisoners and is warned to run while he can.

Z Nation, Season Three, Episode Eight: Election Day

This episode made me want throw my hand in the air with disgust.  Z Nation has always been a show which has difficulty deciding whether it's going to be serious or simply wallow in cheese. After moving the meta along slowly for seven episodes, Z Nation has once again returned to a parody episode.  Unfortunately, it's far from amusing.  I am however going to acknowledge that I watched this in the wake of the election of the talking orange shag carpet and therefore might have felt differently about it if I'd seen it before America had a giant temper tantrum in front of the world. 

When we last left off, Addie and Doc had separated from Warren in Co, on a mission to find Lucy.  At this point, they can hear Kiera's broadcasts but cannot communicate with her.  They make it as far as the South Dakota badlands before the truck they're using breaks down.  They don't have to think about what to do for long because a presidential motorcade arrives.  It seems that once again, Sketchy and Skeezy are the middle of yet another con.  This time, Sketchy has taken on the role of the POTUS and to back up his claim. the duo broke into the Clinton president library and stole his limo.  I hope that they wiped that shit down with antibacterial wipes before they sat in the seats.  Since Sketchy and Skeezy are headed in the same direction, they offer to travel with Doc and Addie.

Once they all arrive in Wall Drug a supply store which is acting as housing to a group of people, Sketchy and Skeezy immediately start their con.  Sketchy takes on the identity of Thurston Howell IV. Yes, that's right, Gilligan's Island.  How completely fitting. Sketchy claims to be president by virtue of being the 137th in line of succession.  His big plan is to build a wall separating the humans from the zombies and to get this done, he needs donations from the populace. Addie and Doc are shocked to see the small group of people eating out of Sketchy's hands.

Sketchy and Skeezy don't get to seal the deal because an opponent shows ups with a different plan. John J Lannister shows up wearing a cheap Trump wig with a plan of his own.  Lannister suggests that they need to dig holes and then drop criminals into the holes to encourage the zombies to jump in and feast on them.  According to Lannister, his plan is a winner because it presents a two prong solution to the ills of apocalypse society. Lannister and Sketchy trade barbs back and forth quoting familiar lines from past politicians, sounding more and more ridiculous with each passing moment but the fact is, people at this point are desperate and need something to be hopeful about. It's a ridiculous mockery.  Because there's no agreement between Lannister and Sketchy as to whose plan is best or who has the right to call themselves president, it's decided that an election is needed and that comes with a debate.  Addie is chosen to act as the debate moderator because she's supposedly neutral. Yes, Z Nation went there.