Shadowhunters, Season 3, Episode 10: Erchomai

We have a completely unnecessary recap showing Lillith and child Jonathan reminding us that the evil demon queen of Edom thinks of Jonathan as her evil demonic son. We knew this but hey they had minutes to fill.

In the present Lillith has set up shop atop a high rise with a huge number of cult followers while Jace drags a very angsty Clary after him. She does manage to cut herself and leave a trail of blood which is shockingly smart for her. She must have hit her head. Of course we get more waaaahing over Jace and I’m reminded that three seasons have still utterly failed to invest me in either of these characters

We get some sass between Clary and Lillith because it’s Spunky Protag 101 to have some wisecracking. She’s not very good at it. This should shock no-one.

Magnus is appealing to his dad to get the power to save Jace. Because Jace is all important. This involves Magnus going to Edom, the demon world, at vast personal risk to appeal to his dad for help. This is the same dad he once banished: when he was a child and kicked out by his mortal parents, Magnus was taken in by Asmodeus who was all kind and parental. And evil. Magnus does not remember their time together fondly and it likely left daddy dearest with a grudge. Of course this doesn’t matter, Jace is in trouble

He goes to Edom and has a pretty awesome scene with his very powerful evil father who wants them to be together again (not happening). And since Magnus can’t rely on parental goodwill, he has to make a deal.

Remind me again why Magnus gives a damn about Jace? This is why his relationship with Alec is so abused - it’s just used as an excuse to make Magnus servile to all Shadowhunters

Speaking of people sacrificing for Jace and Clary, Luke ends up suspended from the force because he won’t stay and try to make up some convincing cover for himself, the missing Ollie, his dead mother etc because he and Maryse want to ride to Clary’s rescue. They follow the trail of blood and Maryse asks for a sword so she too can fight and die for her Clariness. But no, Alec protests, he doesn’t want to lose his mother since she has no super powers any more - also Jace will need her. Naturally this sways Maryse: what to do when faced with a choice between Mary Sue and Gary Stu.

Time for a scene that is not about Clary or Jace. I know it’s shocking. But Simon continues to have his utterly heatbreaking scene with his family, going to see his sister in hospital while he hears his mother, Elaine, try to convince the police a vampire attacked her. The whole scene is brutal as Simon positively radiates pain as he goes to his sister, Becca’s hospital bed and waits for her to wake up

When she does wake up she’s afraid and shocked - but he’s in control now. Being a big reader of YA she wonders when she’ll turn but Simon assures he she won’t, telling her of all the many hard steps you have to go through to actually be turned into a vampire. And this horrifies her, because Becca realises her little brother went through all of that alone without her or the rest of his family. And I love this, I love what moved her is the idea she wasn’t there to protect and support her brother, I love that family bond (and I love the protectiveness of a sister to a brother). I love how she resists the idea of having her memory removed because she has his back now, forever. And this is a wonderful scene which deserves to be on a much better show

Superstition, Season 1, Episode 12: Resurrection

Ok this was awful. Super super awful. It’s an offense to this excellent show that this is the episode that actually counts as the season finale. Thankfully, it’s not necessarily plot that is the problem -so let’s dwell on the plot before we have to reach the final battle which was plotted, choreographed, designed and embellished by five year olds.

The Dredge whispers in Calvin’s ear and eventually turns him to the dark side following the convoluted deal Calvin made last episode. Calvin fights despite being very very spooky and creepy - and it’s finally clear how far he’s fallen when he comes onto May. She tells him no - and he presses and starts to get forceful and the spectre of rape is in the air before Garvey interrupts. She tells Rus something is up (and Russ has also developed a supernatural database which could be useful as well. It also implies they’ve let Rus loose in their library)

May, and later Tilly, consult on this and believe Cal may be suffering from PTSD - since he is a veteran who was in a war zone. They do raise the possibility of possession though and do focus on PTSD. May confronts Cal and Cal realises he doesn’t remember anything. May thinks he should get help but he decides he’s a terrible person (he is appropriately devastated by what he nearly did to May), bringing up his dead brother and Dredge who called his soul Black.

Cal goes on to stab the Mayor - not fatally but definitely unpleasantly - and raids the alchemy room. He also has a creepy moment with Isaac when he shows off his new awesome runed bullets - which can kill absolutely everything which both impresses and slightly scares Isaac. But Isaac has a touching father some moment, especially since Cal seems to be trying to say goodbye. He does the same with Tilly which leads everyone to realise that Cal may be possessed and not just traumatised.

Cal also, finally confronts daddy-dearest. Isaac tries to talk Cal into giving up the ring - he’s realised what the cause is. Instead they fight and Isaac may be the better fighter but he’s unwilling to hurt Cal - so Cal wins. And slices open Isaac’s stomach and takes away some of his intestines as one does

Cal does try to fight against possession by trying to commit suicide - this doesn’t seem to work at all. So being possessed makes you bullet proof… He also steals The Dredge’s old host

The mayor is smart enough to speak to Isaac about his son’s stabbing rather than plotting revenge and he and Isaac are both very respectful and mildly menacing to each other.  They get together and decide to stop possessed Cal and try to figure out what he’s doing with this ghoulish scavenger hunt: apparently with the blood of an immortal (how many immortals are there out there that people have made a spell around them?), the blood of an Infernal and a blood of a virgin can all be used to resurrect an Infernal’s body - and make it indestructible. This will be bad.

And that virgin Cal’s using is his own daughter Garvey, which gives us the cringe worthy moment of a man asking his daughter if she’s a virgin. Nope nope nope nope.

Also, do abstinence-only advocates realise they’re leaving our children vulnerable to human sacrifice? Or, given its success rate, maybe they do and they’re secretly campaigning against teenaged virginity?

Star Trek, Season 1, Episode 10: Despite Yourself

I used to look at new Star Trek Episodes like:

From now on my attitude is more likely going to be:

So the Discovery just ended up in a new place, completely unknown and Stamets, their Magic Mushroom wizard is alternating between catatonic and mumbling about castles. And apparently being able to throw Culper across the room

Wait, is it possible Sarek isn’t super strong? Do the writers just not know how hard it is to actually throw another human being?

Also Tyler is setting off Sarek’s threat ganglia which sounds like it should be a euphemism. Tilly is trying to annoy Stamets back to consciousness which doesn’t work - she worries Culper may blame her for not revealing that mushroom jumping was smushing his brain. Culper assures her he doesn’t blame her. Unlike Lorca who he blames 200% and politely invites him to fuck himself twice with a cactus of his choice (well the sentiment is there). Lorca makes noises about official protocol being that a new doctor not connected to Stamets should be called in. Culper points out protocol also says don’t melt your crew member’s brains arsehole so guess they both need to do some studying (perhaps not in so many words).

Culper is not a member of the Lorca fanclub

Lorca continues to be extra shady, with ongoing hints that he did this dimension jump on purpose, a seeming desire to derail them into exploring this world rather than hurrying back home where said shadiness could result in some richly deserved consequences and even a moment which MAY be a touching moment of faith and loyalty between him and Michael but to me kind of feels more like he’s trying to remind her who she owes/where her loyalties should lie especially since he can see her and Tyler are having a Thing (and way more than  mutual oral hygiene practices).

So what is this shiny alternate world? Well when they arrive they get attacked by a ship - a Vulcan ship. Which is rather unusual - but they’re rescued by another Human ship who seems quite casual about killing Vulcans. They do some exploring and find a klingon ship with Vulcan tech and Andorran bodies and doing some exploring of the data there they get the information:

There is no Federation. There is the Terran Empire. A human empire that loathes all things other, a fascist Empire controlled by a shadowy Emperor that revels in brutality and strength and murder

Because Star Trek Discovery needs to go even more Grimdark

The visible shock of everyone is perhaps the biggest exploration of the values of the federation that this is the very opposite of everything they hold dear: this whole episode exploring the shock of it shows more of what the federation is than they’ve really covered all season. Especially with Michael’s excellent speech to Tilly about how the Terrans are strong because they have to be - because they’re constantly afraid and under threat; while they’re strong because they support each other

American Horror Story, Season 7, Episode 10: Charles (Manson) in Charge

Who wants to know more about Kai’s background?

Nobody? Yeah me too - but we’re getting it anyway. Because being traumatised by his parents and keeping their corpses just isn’t enough reason to believe he became a serial killer cult leader

So, back to the past and the election, oh yay, and we have Winter and some white lady friends playing Oppression Olympics between sexism and racism, they’re super confident Hillary will win while Kai dismisses this because they’re underestimating the power of futile white male rage. They argue and Kai slaps Winter’s friend - and she presses charges despite his begging. Yes this is Kai in a more pathetic time

He’s sentenced to Anger Management with the improbable counsellor, Bebe. Yes that Bebe. How anyone could consider her qualified is bemusing. More bemusing is how she decides to recruit Kai to her mission to destroy all men within 10 minutes of seeing him. Seriously can you imagine her office? Within 5 minutes of meeting a new patient she’s trying to recruitment them on her genocide campaign and she keeps her license?

More unlikely, Kai agrees to call himself  a turd and get on board to unleash the mighty power of female rage on the whole world. She’s decided that centuries of patriarchy mean women are just ready to rise up and burn it all down and they just need the number one misogynist to finally provoke them.

This is actually a bullshit argument we’ve been hearing a lot since Trump has been elected - that by hitting the Utter Worst it will provoke a backlash, nearly inevitably from people who on the whole won’t have their lives completely ruined by that Utter Worst. And it comes with a bizarre lack of historical knowledge about just how fecking bad things were. It wasn’t that long ago when men could legally rape their wives beat their wives, women couldn’t own property - and women didn’t explode and murder all men.

Anyway, Kai, after this 5 minutes speech, decides indeed he does want to be a martyr in the name of exploding female rage. Because who needs coherent motives?

To the present we get more political drama with protestors protesting Kai’s naziness and run for Senate. But mainly we have Kai getting steadily more paranoid, believing the feds are everywhere and bugging his house

That would be the house with 3-5 rotting corpses in one of the bedrooms. Seriously if the Feds can sneak in microphones, they will notice the stench of death. You don’t need to record incriminating evidence if you have actual murdered corpses.

American Horror Story, Season 7 (Cult), Episode 9: Drink the Kool-Aid

It’s time for another episode of American Horror Story

And this begins with a quick tour of murderous suicide cults, told from the point of view of Kai all played by Evan Peters. And you may think that maybe it’s tasteless to use so many desperately tragic mass deaths for entertainment foddder

This is American Horror Story

This counts as his bedtime story he tells his own cult of sleep-over mindless cultists all wearing Mormon underwear

I am sure there’s a porn site that looks so much like this.

Kai makes the not-so-subtle point that he wants true loyalty and everyone being ready to die for him and all these guys will for reasons we won’t go into because they’re extras and who cares?

He’s also ranting nonsense at the city council meeting and using his goons to intimidate them into agreeing to his rule that all internet in town is banned except through a specific server which filters the internet

Even assuming the town can possibly afford this, the lawsuit from this will be hilarious. He also wants to run for the Senate. Like people would elect a violent bigoted avatar of vileness for…

...honestly I don’t even know why I began saying that. His dyed hair is likely to be more controversial than his violence

He also notices that the women are all missing

Time to catch up with Ally and Ivy - and Ally is officially done. Having waved her magic wand and banished all of her mental health issues, she demands some explanations from Ivy about why everything

Zoo, Season 3, 12: Westside Story

So this episode the writers realised they were all ready to finish the series but they still had 2 episodes left and quickly threw some random filler episode in with a pointless barrier to delay the inevitable.

This comes with lots and lots of reminders that everything rests on the team on the plane. At Colorado barrier central, Dariela, Logan and Tessa (who is apparently an agent and has been all the time because who even knows any more. If next week they announced Abe is secretly a wereunicorn I will not even blink. It’s Zoo) all point to hybrids and nests EVERYWHERE (seriously, how did Abby even do this? We’re talking vast caverns full of eggs in dozens of cities all over the planet. How do you even hide a vast cavern in the middle of a modern city? You get a vast cavern in London and 3 housing developers zoom, in and fill it with semi-detached except for one corner which will be violated by some atrocity from Grand Designs)  so they need the computer switch the guys on the plane have to turn off the Beacons before the world ends in a few years

While Abe reminds everyone with his grand, impressive speeches about how Clem and her baby are the cure to sterility. Abe does give an excellent rousing speech

Why are we having all these “the future rests on the plane speeches”? Because Abbie shoots them down with a shiny EMP surface to air missile

I don’t know where she got it, she just does. I have no idea why she just doesn’t use a conventional SAM which could actually ground the plane and kill everyone on it rather than give Jamie time to save them from the crash. I also don’t know how she knew exactly where to be and how to get there to shoot the plane as it came low enough.

Because this is Zoo, we don’t know a lot of things.

So here’s the situation: the gang is stuck in hybrid country and if they’re not rescued the world ends.

Also issues: Jackson still thinks Jamie is the worst, so does Jamie herself so she angsts over holding the baby because she’ll taint it with worstness or something (I have no time for Jamie’s angst). Mitch reassures her that he’s also evil and would totally kill Abigail too. Honestly is there anyone but Jackson and Sam now who wouldn’t kill Abigail?

Clem has a new baby and is all fluffy with Mitch, also inviting Mitch to actually grieve for dead daddy Max but Mitch is all repressed and doesn’t have time for that. We also have Sam and Clem do-si-doing and everyone kind of ignoring the fact that Sam was the enemy until 5 minutes ago - in fact we seem to be more focused on how Sam has a grudge against Jackson rather than the fact Sam was Team! Extinction until 10 seconds ago. Oh and Jackson still has familial feelings for his evil sister he never knew even existed 10 minutes ago. Yay unnecessary relationship drama.

With the plane crashed, the IAG sends a rescue team of Tessa, Dariela and a lot of sacrificial extras who promptly get chewed and eaten. Without the kill switch to turn off the Beacons, the IAG resorts to plan b: blow up half the planet. I don’t know why they haven’t been regularly carpet bombing half the hybrid zone for a while rather than build the Impossible Wall but hey, that’s just me.

Due to not being extras, Dariela and Tessa do reach the plane and to get everyone back they plan to use Sam’s hybrid pheromone thing to lure the hybrids away so they can make a run for it. Of course Sam and Jackson, who have all this buried beef between them, decide to do this together. And Sam is still in touch with evil Abbie because ZOMG WHY?! Seriously how can he NOT KNOW she’s trying to destroy the world by now?! HOW?!

Yes he leads Jackson to Abigail. Why, why, whyyyyyy?! They fight and Jackson has Abigail at gunpoint and stands between Abigail and Jackson. Suits me - shoot them both. Apparently not, instead Jackson kicks Sam in a gully to be eaten by Hybrids. Ok, I’m fine with this. That leaves Abigail and Jackson facing off and Abigail begins a dramatic speech - and Jackson shoots her…

Wow… someone… just did something on Zoo I agree with. I am… stunned. Ok it was only in the leg but still! Now in the head. In the head Jackson. Damn it Jackson, stop letting her talk. Instead she rambles on - and apparently Sam is Jackson’s long lost son.

Oh, you are fucking kidding me. Really.

So Jackson runs to save Sam and doesn’t take the 2 second needed to pull to trigger and kill Abigail. I’m going to scream. I’m going to scream. There are soap operas would wouldn’t accept this convoluted storyline.

Everyone else walks to the wall, pausing for some brief medical intervention on Abe along the way because we need to drag this out. As they do the contingency goes in place and they see destruction and doom everywhere. They get to the command room - walking sedately, don’t mind this 50 minute count down until the end of the world people - just keep making your slow dramatic entry. And hey I thought these people were short staffed but they have a couple of dozen people just there to stand around and look impressed with the gang arriving. I mean is that a line item on the IAG’s budget “impressed extras”?

This show… oh gods this show. There’s just no logical coherency to it. It is literally held together by everyone making ridiculous decisions every episode.

American Horror Story, Season 7 (Cult), Episode 1: Election Night

Well… that was painful. No, this first episode was painful. It’s like someone decided to take on political satire without the satire or… well, the wit… and decided to throw in some caricatures and some clowns.

So, we get to relive the last thing any reasonable person wants to relive: the last American election.

Our main characters are a couple - Ally and Ivy and their son Oz. Ally completely collapses with the news and their friends the Changs are similarly hit (with a good rant about not voting and what it costs. This also joins completely unsubtle - onpoint but unsubtle - rant about Ally voting for Jill Stein rather than Clinton because of ideological purity).

Son Oz likes his comics about murderous clowns which is a really not subtle flashback to Freak Show, but American Horror Story loves doing that. This sends Ally into a panic attack. She visits her therapist to explain her coulrophobia, her claustrophobia, her trypophobia, her extreme anxiety and how the election result has basically caused her mental health to collapse. This happened after 9/11 as well but she fought and endured (“white knuckling it”) for Ivy to make their relationship work until Obama was elected and all was bright and sunny again

As her therapist points out, being upset by politics is understandable but her reactions are extreme advises her to centre herself, unplug from the world and distract herself. And take some medication

Except when she goes to the empty supermarket complete with Trump supporting cashier she sees clowns clowns clowns everywhere, some with knives, some having sex over the salad and some in the back seat of her car. She doesn’t handle it well.

Ivy is supportive and helpful but grows more impatient as the weeks pass as Ally’s problems affect their son and the restaurant business they run together. Ally promises to get it together which means they need a new nanny.

So to the next characters: Kai and his sister Winter. Kai is the worst personified who imitates Trump by rubbing his face in cheetoe dust and is celebrating Trump’s win. He not only celebrates but invites himself to a city council meeting where he speaks against providing protection for a local Jewish centre because he wants lots of violence and chaos so everyone can be properly scared and then he and his fellows can rule the scared sheep. He also racistly provokes some latino men so he can film their retaliation as clear ammunition for a race war.

The Strain, Season 4, Episode 7: Ourobouros

Ok… a lot happened here. And while there’s a definite epic moment, there’s also some Problems.

Vasiliy, Roman and Quinn have arrived in New York and fight their way towards Manhattan island, killing Strigoi and planning to cross the bridges. Eichorst has recruited Desai to help him catch his “terrorists” and Desai has the excellent plan of blowing up every bridge connecting Manhattan island to the mainland.

Okkkk so yes it will be hard for Vasiliy to sneak his nuke there now. But wouldn’t it be easier for the Master to… leave? I mean, he doesn’t actually have to be present anywhere to carry out his nefarious deeds. Why stay still at all?

Anyway, Eichorst praises Desai saying it was even better than what Palmer could have managed - which he then takes back realising the Master in Palmer’s body may take offense at this. The Master doesn’t - instead describing Palmer as a “quisling” to his own kind. Ooookkk… Desai is right there. What does that make him? And, hey, Quisling was a Norwegian ruler who betrayed Norway to the Nazis, so, was that a snipe at Eichorst too?

I am also concerned that Roman seemed… reluctant to engage the strigoi… which is especially an issue with everything else that happened in this episode.

The Master has not been happy with Eichorst this episode since he’s pretty much failed at everything. Eichorst makes a big dramatic display of sacrificing himself to the Master’s wrath - but the Master instead taunts him with Abraham winning and Eichorst giving up to chivvy him into getting back into the fight already

Abe and Dutch get Abe’s stuff back and hold up in a church - but Abe is clearly not feeling well; particularly after being experimented on when he was in the facility, he is feeling his advanced age. Dutch is duly worried, especially when Abe starts babbling and ripping up the Lumen so he can paste the pages to the wall… yeah that’s concerning. And then Abe collapses.

Thankfully this is when Ephraim and Alex arrive after spending a little time angsting about Zach (aaaergggh. No-one cares) which is helpful because Abe needs a doctor. Ephraim is an arsehole to Dutch about leaving Abe alone when he was the one who abandoned them while she and Abe were actually locked up in camps. She gives him hell for it, most appropriately

They need medicine so it’s off to Gus - yes everyone on this show is reuniting at last! Creem objects to them giving away medicine without trade but Gus stares him down again and joins them back when they go to help Abe

Preacher, Season 2, Episode 9: Puzzle Piece

Oh Preacher, I’m getting a confused vibe from this show that is similar to how I feel about Z Nation. It just feels all over the map thematically. It will be fun and zany and I’ll love it - but then it will push that bit further and suddenly we have a shed load of rape jokes or suicide jokes and it’s like… wait… no… stop. And then it will be kind of deep and emotional, but then we’ll have weeks of moping and trauma which could be an analysis but just feels jarring and kind of lost. This episode pretty much epitomises everything

Our main gang is pretty sad and tense. Dennis is healing (he’s clearly been turned into a vampire) but Cass, while still saying the right things, is clearly pissed at Jessie for not using the Word to help. Jessie is completely despairing about finding god and he starts to rant on why it matters so much - god is order and rules and there needs to be someone in charge - but Cass both doesn’t care and noisily keeps on working with the kitchen, drowning Jessie out

When Tulip arrives from another night of no sleep and getting shot in the chest and Cass is clearly concerned. He tries to reach out to her and Jessie snaps “we’re good here!”, ignoring Tulip who herself laughs angrily at Jessie’s pronouncement. Jessie uses the Word on her to make her sleep.

Cass does not approve.

All of this is witnessed by Herr Starr when his minions bring their file to him. He hasn’t bothered to read any of it because he is the epitome of not giving a shit. He see the video and being pretty much revolting in every way, sees nothing special and how broken is the word that people think it’s a super power for a woman to obey a man.

He has a date so just orders his minions, Hoover and Featherstone to just kill everyone

So in goes a squad - and I love the whole first persons shooter vibe to this - as they’re taken apart by Cassidy, Dennis (now newly vampired) and Jessie using the word to turn them against each other. Unfortunately, Dennis kills the survivor leaving no-one for Jessie to question.

Herr Starr hears about this on his date where the governor of Louisiana’s daughter rhapsodises about meaning in her life with a terribly condescending story, while Herr Starr reflects how boring his life is, how something is missing despite his awesome power, throws in some contempt for disabled children and tells the young woman to strip and hold a stick of butter under her chin.

I… I don’t know what he intended with the butter before he was interrupted an really really really do not want to speculate.

He returns to the office where Hoover and Featherstone have already put down plastic sheeting in time to be execute, Hoover taking the time to tell Featherstone he loves her, while she focuses on being scarily professional. She agrees with Starr that they should be put down in a scarily fanatical zeal and even works extremely efficiently to clear the jam in his gun so he can do this - and describes how dangerous Jesse is in the process while laying out future plans to bring him down

Dragon Rose (Tales of the Latter Kingdoms #2) by Christine Pope

Rhianne Menyon is just months away from her 20th birthday and as the eldest sister, she is due to marry. Rhianne however is far more interested in painting in her fathers pottery shop despite the fact that isn't suitable work for a woman than tying herself to a man.  

Marriage as it turns out is the least of Rhianne's worries. One night she dreams that the dragon who rules the castle high in the mountains has put out a banner signalling that it is now the duty of the town to provide him with a wife. Given that there will be 100 young women in the lottery, Rhianne believes that the odds of not being selected are in her favor. When Rhianne's engaged best friend is selected in the lottery, given her lack of prospects, Rhianne decides to take her friends place.  This could very well be a death sentence but the 1000 gold coins that will be paid to her family will keep them in comfort, even if it does land her in a cold grave.

I'm all for fairy tale re-tellings because the good ones are creative and add something new to a story that a reader is overly familiar with. As you may have guessed, Dragon Rose is a version of Beauty and the Beast.  Unfortunately however, Pope adds very little to the story to distinguish it from the original . There isn't a tea cup named chip or excessive singing but it's just as saccharine as the Disney version. The changes are so insignificant, it's enough to make me wonder why Pope bothered at all.  Obviously, Rhianne is now dealing with a dragon instead of a beast; however, this change adds nothing to the story and feels random for the sake of random.  

Theran (the dragon) acquired this condition because he told a young woman that he wasn't into her and she responded by taking her life.  What Theran didn't know is that the young woman's father was a mage. The mage decided to punish Theran by turning him into a dragon until he could find a woman who could see through the horror of his being to who he truly is.  What is the moral here? In the original, the Beast was turned into a beast because of his mean and horrible behaviour; it was a teaching lesson.  What exactly did Theran learn from being turned into a dragon for five hundred years? Theran's mistake was simply not being into someone, that's it.  

You would think that given the boring way in which Theran became a dragon that we would at least have an interesting reveal but you would be wrong.  Pope drops it all in the last few pages of the novel, once he is cured by seeing Rhianne's painting of his pre-cursed self. This is particularly irksome after Theran went on a big rant about how they aren't living in a fairytale and that Rhianne cannot simply change him back with a kiss.

The Leftovers, Season 3, Episode 8: The Book of Nora

That’s it?

I put up with three seasons of this nonsense random madlib and this is how it ends? Nothing is explained and explored

In fact, as I said last episode, this entire season has kind of been a wallowing in Nora and Kevin’s brokenness. Which I’m not saying is necessarily a bad thing – but the show was presented as a story about the Departure and we’ve had weird acting dogs and bird and Matt the mystical gambling and Kevin transporting to other worlds/dreams/hallucinations and somehow not dying and we’ve had the Guilty Remnant and… we’ve just had a whole lot of random STUFF that just. Doesn’t. Matter.

And this season finale just kind of confirmed that. The whole last three seasons? Matt and his gospel, the boat with the lion, John, Michael, Evie, Erika, Kevin senior and his dreams and that damn National Geographic everyone was raving about, Patty and whatever on earth was going on with her, the mystical hug guy – in fact everything Tommy ever did – Laurie, Meg, Jill and her angst and all they did – even Mary waking up and being apparently pregnant? None of it mattered. Nearly everything we’ve madlibbed through justfeels nonsensical, pointless. I mean, maybe it appealed to some or set up the brokenness of the only 2 people who actually mattered – but we already established how both of them were fraying in 3 episodes. That’s all it really took to truly emphasise how both of these people were hurting and not doing well – and no amount of lion sex cult or siege of Miracle of Matt getting naked in the stocks, really added to that

So we had all this stuff that answered no questions, added nothing to the world or the plot or, really, the character development and, frankly, I just didn’t find anything entertaining. It’s not that the characters were bad, they were compelling, had powerful emotional reactions and all of it was excellently displayed. Over and over and over and ye gods I get it they’re all broken, over again. I held

But let’s get to the gritty of this. Nora completes her whole newspaper interview to tell everyone she consents to being zapped to find her kids – and with much feeling and build up and nudity she emotionally and painfully goes through the process of agreeing to use the machine. As ever with Nora, her pain is palpable, her emotion incredible – right up until the moment the machine activates

At which point we buzz to the future – to when Nora is calling herself Sarah and apparently exchanging doves with a nun and denying she knows anyone called Kevin. Nora definitely doesn’t want to meet him and seems ready to do a runner when Kevin arrives at her door with an apparent case of amnesia

Yes, Kevin says he doesn’t remember being in Australia before or anything of the last 2 seasons really. He mentions having seen her once for a brief moment and decided that since he happened to be in this out of the way part of Australia and he happened to see her riding past he would invite her to a dance

Yes, really, this is his story. And y’know, with Leftovers I’m happy to believe any kind of utter nonsense and random amnesia just fits that endlessness. But this kind of coincidence running into her? Nah, not buying this. Nor is Nora and she tells him to sod off right now

The one person who knew Nora was still around with Laurie so Nora calls her to interrogate her in her usual aggressive fashion but Laurie is super calm and spies what she sees as the real reason for Nora’s call – permission to go on the date. Of course Nora denies this.

But (after a scene of her struggling to get ready) she does go – and finds out it’s actually a wedding (the couple is kind of awesome and much much much more fun than Kevin and Nora). Kevin keeps up the amnesia all night but Nora catches up on all the people she left behind (Matt is now dead presumably from cancer). They dance, they cry and watch as doves are released with messages of love and a goat with lots of beads around its neck is released (it’s a biblical scape goat, the beads represent sin) before Nora goes home – sick of Kevin’s amnesia act.

At home she finds her birds are missing. She also decides to accuse the nun of a) stealing her birds (why she has carrier pigeons I don’t know, it’s not explained and I don’t care) b) telling Kevin where she lives (which she denies) and c) sleeping with a man who climbed up to her window by a ladder. Why was he there? It’s just another random event – like the nun in the first place. Or Nora falling off her bike because of the scape goat’s discarded beads and her having to save it from where it had been entangled on a fence. Is this deep symbolism? She lost her symbols of hope – her doves? She took on the sins of others? She welcomed in the scape goat that has been burdened with the sins of others? I’m sure it’s all very symbolic but, like everything with Leftovers it’s just laid on a little thickly

Shadowhunters Season 2, Episode 4: Day of Wrath

Jace, our tragic traitor of treachery has now been locked up in the City of Bones – which contains lots of medieval decorating, some nice flickering torches (you know they’re gas and just pretending to be fire) and someone’s even pulled out their sound track of ominous screaming

Y’know, the Shadowhunters may actually have a better job of selling themselves as good guys if they don’t have a torture dungeon.

There we run into Hodge who is also imprisoned and tries to make common cause with Jace as they’re both evil traitors of treason-ness but Jace isn’t having that because Hodge is totally a worse traitor (and no, I’m not arguing Jace’s innocence. By all interpretations Jace has supported Valentine).

In between the spooky Silent Brothers torturing Jace while he sleeps (even before he’s been tried because these are the good guys, folks!) and him suffering still further when Clary visits and attempts to act. Jace would like her to stay away from him. I can understand that – the only thing worse than Clary’s acting if Jace and Clary trying to act together – please, please bring on Magnus. He’s been to drama school!

Anyway time for Jace’s trial where he holds the big scary sharp sword of please-don’t-murder-the-prosecution aka the-sword-of-my-gods-why-does-our-court-rely-on-violent-criminals-being-given-fucking-huge-weapons (deployed before the Hand Grenade of Plea Deals and the Bazooka of Self-Advocacy). This sword prevents him lying when Victor, incompetent and more than a little evil head of the Shadowhunters of New York (this character needs a moustache to twirl because he’s such a caricature of incompetent evil) starts questioning him. About wanting to fuck his sister

No, really, most of Victor’s questions are about how Jace totally gets all hot and bothered about Clary, his sister-but-he-didn’t-know it. Nice to see Victor has his priorities in order. He also asks whether Jace can fully pledge himself to the Clave… which Jace can’t. He can’t because he’s not sure whether the Clave is doing enough to take down dangerous Downworlders. He is sentenced to life imprisonment with lots of torture.

While I want to point to all the evil torture and killing is another good reason to not want to pledge. I’m picky like that.

While he’s being sentenced Valentine moves in to “rescue” him, in the process killing lots of the torturing Silent Brothers (should I be sad about this?). Hodge also dies but Jace refuses to leave with his evil daddy because, y’know evil. However when given a choice between stopping Valentine portalling out (he still has a pet enslaved Warlock) with the Special Sword or saving Cartoon-Villain Victor’s life he chooses the latter

Oh Jace, that was a bad decision on so very many levels. Even Clary would have difficulty beating that one and her decisions in the book were so poor that we named a trope after her.

Let’s drop in on the oh-so-hyped relationship of Alec and Magnus. They actually talk about Jace

About how important Jace is (but Alec kind of remembered you Magnus, sort of)

Yes Jace is very important

Shall we talk more about Jace?

Hey, how about we get coffee some time?

Yes. Then we can talk more about Jace.