Legacies: Season 1, Episode 11: We're Gonna Need a Spotlight

The school gang has decided to lay a trap for the next monster which is triggered - Alaric, Dorian and Hope respond. Yes Hope because, again, Alaric is a terrible head teacher

Inside the trap is a unicorn. Which Dorian thinks they should kill on general principles but Hope is completely against murdering the pretty horse (with the stabby addition we won’t talk about). They decide that by imprisoning it they are safe because while it’s the Malivore Monster they won’t have to deal with any more since they come one at a time

Which is a decent idea except for the creepy worm that emerges from the shiny horse

So the school is now having a talent competition. This seems to be Legacies attempt at a musical episode because all the cool shows are having them. Anyway Alaric hates the talent show and tries to use the excuse of the unicorn to cancel it - but the Honour Council overrules him. Since the monster is a magic pony he and Emma decide to bunk off school and go drinking

While Hope, who nows has a horrible worm in her brain, starts acting all happy and joyful and all lovey dovey with Landon… and how did no-one suspect mind control or possession? She’s a Mikkaelson. They don’t have happy happy joy joy - they have tantrums and brood and practice staring moodily into the middle distance.

Still everyone’s super happy with Hope being all happy and huggy, especially Landon. But not Rafael because he’s extra uncomfortable with Hope being all close and boundariless around him and being so very very extra with Landon.

Josie and Lizzie are back and Josie continues to avoid Penny while Lizzie has a novel way of trying not to be the meanest of mean girls - she has a little magically zappy bracelet that zaps her whenever she is mean so she can moderate her tone. Which she needs to because she’s super super intense about a very dull routine for the witches to win the talent contest and Josie, all head-wormed, is totally not into it, very low key and not willing to stand in the back as usual. She’s also softening towards Penny

The worm in Kaleb’s head makes him lead the vampires in a rather cool song and dance number. It’s kind of irrelevant to everything but, hey, they have it and it’s nifty.

While Hope and Landon have their own talent - cake decorating. Which is going to be super weird on stage but doesn’t get that far as Hope develops glowy green eyes and suddenly think the bestest thing in the world would be to take the Malivore urn. Landon is suspicious - and a burned cake causes and electrical shock (somehow?) well this turns out to be just what you need to de-worm yourself and Hope returns to a rather embarrassed normal. They realise they have a new monster and seek out Dorian - who is guarding the unicorn and has already killed the worm heading for him. To add to the stakes they see the unicorn die - the worm in the brain eventually kills people as well.

They do some research and Dorian is surprised that no legend talks about monsters like this - but Landon points out that mind controlling things inside people is pretty much a staple of sci-fi and maybe it’s a mistake to discount that, sci-fi has to be inspired by something. Which is another way of saying “make this character relevant!”. Anyway they decide the worm first lowers your inhibitions before convincing you to grab the malivore urn and then it kills you

By now most of the students are possessed including Raphael who decides to recite a spoken word poem about how torn and jealous he is of Landon which is totally not awkward. But thankfully everyone gets violent and urn happy so they can be locked up while everyone searches for a solution.

Dark Queen (Jane Yellowrock #12) by Faith Hunter

Jane, the Dark Queen, Enforce for Leo Pelessier, the Vampire ruler of the Greater South East United States is preparing for the duel that is finally here. A duel between Leo and the Emperor of the European vampires - a duel that will dictate the future of all vampire and witch kind

Assuming the visiting vampires haven’t plotted to undermine and interfere before the duel even begins

And assuming the American government doesn’t look at this gathering of the most powerful and dangerous vampires in the world and doesn’t just bomb it.

Jane has her hands full… and ow is really not the time for a man to appear claiming to be her long lost brother she never knew she had, especially when he introduces himself by shooting her

This is something of an epic finale to everything that has been happening for several books now - and the whole book is powerful tense and epic. The massive duel between Leo and the many vampires coming from Europe. We see all of his gathered entourage come out to fight, we see all the complex preparations, the betrayals, the plotting, the counter-plotting and how absolutely no-one is playing fair.

It all has an incredibly tense feel, from the very first page of the book you know some of these characters are going to die, that everything is going to change. It is maintained every second, not for one second do you forget even through side plots, even through the moments with Beast (beast is awesome, beast is best hunter and I have no idea why her writing doesn’t annoy me, but it doesn’t - I love her) that tension never leaves

Jane moves through it all and she’s amazing, powerful, competent, in control yet listening and learning from the people around her, people she genuinely loves and values. And even when she’s sat, maudling, or the fights of the actual duel are dragged out or we have a political scene which goes on and on and on for pages it all works and doesn’t feel sluggish because of that tension, power and sense of change behind everything. Thematically this book is amazing, the writing just works and the emotion doesn’t stop.

I really like Jane’s relationship with her brother. The conflict of it, the hopes mixed with the disappointment, the reactions, the conflict, the quashed ideals all are so powerful. I like the layers, I like that he has his own history and conflict, I like the legacy her example has set but I also appreciate her pain and anger over how he chose to introduce himself and how he chose to re-enter her life.  It created a fascinating complicated story. And, though I know next to nothing about Cherokee history or culture or language, there does seem to be a lot of research and effort into making these meaningful inclusion, ensuring that Jane isn’t just carrying around woo-woo from being Native American and nothing else. But i cannot speak to the accuracy of it.

Charmed: Season 1, Episode 12: You're Dead to Me

After a bizarre little hiatus

In fact, aside, why do American shows do this? Why? I mean I can get skipping an episode because there’s a holiday or something. But several weeks? Several? Why do you do this Americans? Whyyyy?

Anyway so after digging through various letters Macy, Maggie and Mel know the big secret of Macy’s past

So, it turns out Marisol and her husband were distraught by their dead baby daughter Macy so Marisol does the sensible thing and summons a necromancer from Tartarus - see this why she had the scythe to open Tartarus which no-one questioned. Marisol offers the freed necromancer anything in exchange for her baby coming back to life. I know I know, desperate mother and all but I lose all respect for a witch who makes bad open ended bargains like that - because really?

So after much very ominous black magic and hubby being kind of nervous, Macy is resurrected but there’s a price! The price is they can be together for 2 years after which if Marisol sees Macy, Macy will die, like Cinderella without the spinning wheels

Which… ok? I mean hey as far as sacrifices go it’s sad but the baby came back to life. I think you got off pretty easy. And also, this kind of addresses multiple episodes of angst over why Marisol never contacted Macey in a wonderful way. Hey she couldn’t or you died but she loved you so much! ANGST OVER

Angst over?

Why is this angst not over?

So Macy is now super unhappy because she’s DEAD and now ALIVE which makes her UNNATURAL and AGAINST SCIENCE.

Y’know, like telekinesis, teleportation, stopping time, reading minds and everything else you’ve been doing. The UNNATURAL AGAINST SCIEnCE train left the station several episodes ago Macy. She’s super sad so no-one can comfort her but Henry shows up to empathise because he’s also like totally dead and brought back to life. UNNATURAL AGAINST SCIENCE TWINS and it would be super hilarious if he was really offended by what she said but he’s not his all; understanding and says he understands that now you feel out of place and lacking a purpose - but how answers help

I call shenanigans. We’re milking this angst

Anyway - back to Macy in a moment since she’s the main plot line. Lucy, who is kind of awesome, invites Maggie to a Traffic Light party. Which is kind of a party where you have to colour-code your sexual availability? I dunno, it sounds like a much more boring Hanky Code for straight people. Maggie is upset because of Parker to which Lucy awesomely points out that this is not how you get over someone. Anyway, this party where no-one is allowed to look good in black will be relevant later.

Legacies: Season 1, Episode 10: There's a World Where Your Dreams Came True

I think this episode someone on the writing team suddenly realised that Josie and Lizzie exist and ooooh shit, get them out the plot box, this looks super bad for Alaric to forget he has daughters!

And then everyone else on the writer’s team responded with “but but but can we make ti all about Hope?”

The answer to that is, of course they can make it all about Hope. It’s the Legacies after all.

So, Lizzie and Josie have returned from a nebulously labelled “Europe” (my latest petty hobby is when Americans say this I ask “how was Liechtenstein?”) and Lizzie is super pissed because Alaric was supposed to pick them up at the airport but he forgot.

I’m a little miffed that Josie is being super reasonable because it’s kind of making Lizzie look unreasonable and irrational (this whole episode is basically “Lizzie is unstable and dangerous” while ignoring she may have any kind of reason to be upset)... but really? If someone said they’d give me a lift but when I arrive at an airport after a jetlagged transatlantic flight, wait a prolonged period of time for my lift to actually show up then have to find my own way taking three hours to get home? Yeah, I would make Lizzie look calm and reasonable.

So we begin with Lizzie being miffed, which is when the monster of the week appears, going for the urn. The monster is a genie and grants wishes. And Lizzie, who, we have to remember, grew up in a MAGIC SCHOOL decides that this is a super cool idea. How can all these people be so genre blind? Honestly put me in a supernatural world and I would run into a demonic vampire’s open arms rather than spend 2 seconds speaking to a wish giving being.

Now Lizzie could have just wished that her dad pay her the slightest bit of attention or made her a priority in her life or, maybe, decide that she matters as much as Hope. Instead she wishes that Hope never came to the magic school

Yeah that won’t back fire

Uh-huh, it does

So without Hope, Alaric does focus on Lizzie and Lizzie and Josie can both fight now because without Hope consuming all his attention, Alaric pays more attention to them and gives them the training he lavishes on her. Yay for Lizzie

Except the school is a wreck, utterly run down and without the massive luxuries Lizzie has become used to. It seems when Hope went to the school Klaus, before his ridiculous demise, wrote a massive massive massive cheque which is pretty much how it runs (also we had mention of Damon and Elena having children which I think means Julie Plec is planning another spin off and YE GODS SAVE US! SAVE US PLEASE!). I think we can also guess the other Originals chip in because hey, immortal super rich people obsessed with family and all that

Also Hope is the witch who designed the school’s X-Men style cerebro which basically allows them to find budding young supernaturals all over America to recruit them to the school. Without that they’re reduced to literally trawling through newspaper articles for supernatural occurrences and their student body is like 3 people.

Lizzie tries to make up for this by replicating Hope’s spell leading them to a powerful young supernatural who needs their guidance. Hope - and a room full of people she’s slaughtered for food. Alaric recognises her and goes into full on “I’ll protect and guide you” mode playing surrogate dad within like 3 seconds of meeting her (including hugging, the creeper). Lizzie is Not Amused

Siempre Bruja: Season 1, Episode 2

Fangs for the Fantasy continues to review, Siempre Bruja, Netflix's latest show which has so much potential and then poisoned it's core concept

Legacies: Season 1, Episode 9: What Was Hope Doing in Your Dreams?

Time for a new monster because we have a new mcguffin everyone wants - the glowy urn.

Alaric and Hope consult on what best to do and it’s time for my broken record moment! I’ll keep it brief because I’m going to revisit it at length later on - but note headmaster Alaric now has to work with his student, Hope, as an equal conspirator rather than speaking to her as an adult to a child/student. She even refuses to tell him where the urn is, dismissing his adult claims simply because she is the one with super powers. And… she’s not wrong. You can tell because Alaric backs down on this and allows her to be the sole defender of the urn be because he’s human and woefully ill-equipped to deal with this

We do have a couple of elements of angst - Hope is keeping secrets from Landon about the whole missing memories and dead mother thing. She thinks this will bring him nothing but pain but achieve little. Alaric doesn’t force the issue because he’s kind of resigned to being her lackey now. The problem is that Hope is now super awkward about this and is avoiding Landon which sends Landon’s insecurities spiralling (foster kid bounced from home to home, many of them abusive) and he tries to gently poke her with not-subtle-but-kind-of-sad “zomg please love me” near desperation

And Rafael sees this and is super concerned because he’s really really protective of Landon (who does have this whole lost puppy feel to him) and is worried that Hope is going to hurt him and isn’t happy that Hope is keeping secrets. They have a philosophical difference in which she thinks it’s ok to keep secrets and lie if it’s to help people while he thinks that’s completely unacceptable.

To top up that drama, Rafael is also having issues because he’s into Hope and realises this could be a super betrayal of Landon so ANGST

MG is also fighting with some bad self-image issues of vampirism and how vampires have to change while Kaleb is against this anti-vampire turn.

Into this steps in the latest monster - a ghostly woman who invades people’s dreams and torments them with nightmares to make them give up the location of the urn

Which doesn’t really work because only Hope knows where it is and Hope is staying awake. Alaric and Hope consult and again we have a brief debate about secrecy - and they decide the best thing to do would be to inform the school that monsters are coming. Alaric does so and evacuates the youngest students while offering the older students the choice whether they want to evacuate or stay and face mortal peril

And schools shouldn’t work this way!!!! Hey kids, want to make a life or death decision at age 13 (the mandatory evacuees seem to be very young kids)! And honest no social stigma about running away (it’s not like this may affect your reputation and future standing in packs/vampire bloodlines etc).

Yes, more on that later. Several students leave but Hope, Rafael, Kaleb and MG stay. As does Landon despite pretty much everyone telling him to get his human arse out of there. Which to me just emphasises how much Alaric should do the same.

So research - after deciding they’re being attacked by a Night Hag, a monster that manipulates nightmares, they spend a while discovering that what happens in dreams can hurt them. Rafael is injured by a nightmare of an abusive foster family (he also dreams about Hope). Landon has dull, boring first-day-at-school nightmares while MG freaks about about being a murderous vampire and Kaleb tackles his doubts as he fears vampires MAY be terribad awful mixed with his actually enjoying being one

Siempre Bruja: Season 1, episode 1

After so much hope, so much potential, so much excitement, this... this utter horror is what we get?!

Charmed: Season 1, Episode 11: Witch Perfect

The director of an acapella music group goes to Greece and ends up being possessed by an ancient Greek item in a shop in Athens. He even does the patented possession neck snap.

Y’know, life in Urban Fantasy worlds must be damn interesting for anyone dealing with anything historical.

How does this link in to the Charmed ones? Well, Maggie has decided that with her demon boyfriend and little sojourn in Tartarus what she really needs is some close harmony singing

Uh-huh well done, Charmed, that’s a convoluted link almost on par with some of the ridiculous convoluted links of the original series. Hey "Witch Perfect"? It's doing that old Charmed thing of making pop culture references like 6 years after they were relevant

Harry is also kind of depressed because he’s trying to gather his memories about his not!dead son and also seems to have some lingering tartarus badness clinging to him. Oh and he really really disapproves of Galvin knowing the truth but respects the sisters insistence he not have his memory wiped.

But, of course, the true revelation of last week was Macy discovering that she and Maggie are actually full sisters, her dad, Dexter Vaughn, being both their dads while Ray was Mel’s dad. Nervous and excited she tries to explain this to her sisters and it doesn’t go down well

I actually like this argument because all of it kind of goes back to where they all are at the moment and how they approach this revelation.

Macy is happy - because she hasn’t exactly lost anything with this revelation. Her father is her father, her mother is her mother, she still has two sisters but if anything is even closer. More, with her inclination towards facts and knowledge she is fascinated to discover new secrets and new knowledge. She’s happy and interested and excited

While Mel is more reeling - she’s discovered she’s the half-sister after being so close to Maggie for so long. But more, we were told that Mel was always super close to Marisol only now she’s learning that Marisol kept more and more and more and more secrets from her - witchcraft now seems to be the least of it. Mel feels reeling and wounded and hurt.

And Maggie, having already felt betrayed by Parker, wounded by the fact that Ray, her apparently-step-father didn’t come home for Christmas and now her biological father apparently abandoned her is just hurt and deeply deeply upset

On top of that Macy feels attacked by them being a little shoot the messenger while they feel insulted by her glee and Mel actually has a good line about how Macy tries to police how they react to this and push them into how they SHOULD feel about this (positive) rather than acknowledging how they do feel about it,.

This causes all kinds of drama. Of course. Macy goes to Galvin, very angry and expressing that to him while he gently pokes that maaaaaybe they have a point. She decides to do something deeply unwise and cast a secret reveal spell

And my gods how that spell didn’t backfire I do not know. This spell is DESIGNED to backfire. It was written by a supremely messy spiteful witch cackling away as she imagined all the many ways it could backfire.

Legacies: Season 1, Episode 8: Maybe I Should Start from the End

Legacies is back

Yay. Let me contain my joy.

And we begin with some silly time line nonsense I’m not even going to give credit to because I hate it. Tell stories in chronological order! Unless you have time travel there’s no reason to show me what happens tomorrow before you show me what happened yesterday.

So instead Hope has received a message on her magical bracelet that Landon is in danger so she needs to head out to rescue him. This involves trying to leave in the middle of the night where she is caught by Alaric because apparently she knows no stealth spells or anything

She also can’t lie. Nor does she think to put Alaric to sleep or anything. He insists on coming with her to rescue Landon but she’s rightfully wary because after all, why? Why bother with Alaric?

Actually he can drive. Hope cannot. Well done Alaric, you can be a chauffeur. We should get you a hat. This is the first useful thing that Alaric has done since this series began. He also quizzes her on the way over to remind us he’s a teacher while Hope asks if he’s going to quiz his own actual daughters.

Hah, don’t you not-even-remotely-love how Legacies continually shows how much Alaric cares for Hope more than his own daughters and how those daughters clearly are hurt by this?

Now Landon has found his mother, she runs a coffee shop and he keeps buying coffee until he builds up enough courage to say “hey you’re my mother.”

This causes him to have a nice reunion with her, spelling out his who quite sad life and it all looking touching - until she drugs him, ties him up and threatens to burn him with an iron. She doesn’t believe he’s her son, she thinks he has nefarious purposes and when an evil goo monster arrives she’s pretty convinced this is proof of this (she cuts off the monster’s head with a sword).

Landon breaks and tells her all the supernatural stuff which... she believes. Now she’s more convinced that he is actually her son and clearly has experience with the woo-woo. And that they’re being chased - time to go on the run. And she clearly has some pretty supreme skills.

They’re also being chased by an evil organisation -Alaric recognises this because a suspicious man is suspiciously covering their tracks by pretending to fix a gas leak

I have no idea why we’re supposed to be suspicious about this but Alaric needs some point, after all.

They catch up with Landon and Saleh and Saleh points a gun at them which doesn’t work so well because Hope is a witch and just uses magic to take the gun off her. Time for everyone to have a catch up.

Charmed: Season 1, Episode 10: Keep Calm and Harry On

Harry is in Tartarus, the prison where the demons lock up their own worst. A place where you are tortured over and over with your worst memories so you can feel guilty and…

...wait, what? This is a prison for demons that tortures said demons by making them feel guilty? Despite Alistair McEvilName making it clear that demons don’t feel? I mean, showing demons all the bad stuff they did should be more of a greatest hits reel than actual torture? This makes no sense, Charmed.

So Harry is being tortured with memories of when he was alive before he became a Whitelighter which included such terribad awful deeds as bank robbery. What’s interesting is I did see a fan theory that the Whitelighters were actually bad people used to do penance in the afterlife by serving - which is somewhat backed up by his memories here

And also by the Charmed Ones turning to Charity and the elders and having them say “yeah, fuck it”. Partly it’s because they don’t know how but it’s also clear, despite Charity’s personal opinions, Whitelighters just don’t register very highly on their priority meter.

Of course the Charmed Ones aren’t having this and have a tantrum but Charity is determined they stay on topic - Mel to investigate the Sarcana and Macy to discover why Parker’s evil demon dad wants to run her lab in the first place.

While Maggie is in her room grieving heavily over Parker, a boy she’s known for a few days, being a demon and it just HURST SO MUCH. Mel offers comfort by comparing Maggie’s short term crush to her long term relationship with Niko - who, it has to be noted, Mel mourned approximately a tenth as intensely and for far less time. So, yeah… look Charmed I  get that your writers had no clue what they were doing when they started this season and tried to force in a clumsy retcon within like 4 episodes to remove Niko so Mel could hook up with the dark and dangerous Sarcana lady, but the way this has been handled is not just incompetent but also carries some really bad impressions. The same-sex relationship, which should have been longer term, more intense and more important than either Macy/Galvin or Maggie/Parker (both relationships are very very new) instead comes off as massively more dismissive than either.

So Maggie, the Empath, is in a full funk so decides to use magic so she doesn’t feel anything and my eyes are rolling so hard I have friction burns. I’m going to do my best to ignore Maggie and her drama

Macy now has to deal with Galvin who knows all about magic and, since they have no Whitelighter they can’t do the whole memory erase thing. But it’s fine because Galvin is totally cool with the whole witch thing and finds Macy’s magic fun and fascinating. Which I kind of like - I like the idea of people being intrigued and interested and even seeing the coolness factor of magic rather than, as is the usual trope, freaking out and hiding under the bed. What I’m less thrilled by is him putting this down to his grandmother being a Yoruba worshipper - because Yoruba is an actual religion and it seems more than a little exoticising; especially by linking magic directly to the predominantly Black people’s religion rather than putting it alongside.

She recruits him into investigating the company they work for, providing support, quick cover for why they’re there and generally being a great partner in crime and getting super close. So Macy drops the bombshell that she’s a virgin and Galvin is completely speechless and stunned about this way more than he was about her being a witch and my these people take virginity SUPER SERIOUSLY?! This causes a brief blip and them having to have a talk and Macy explaining that just because she’s a virgin now doesn’t mean she wants to be a virgin forever (which… ok? Do people need this explaining?) and Galvin somehow NOT seeing that line as a not-remotely-subtle-come-on hint.

They do discover that the evil company has been up to shenanigans trying to turn human DNA demon - though i don’t think this is nefarious so much as an attempt to heal Parker. They also find the company has run all the Charmed One’s DNA - and the results are weird. While Macy is the half-sister, the results point to Macy and Maggie being full sibling while Mel is the one with a different father

DUMDUMDUM have we ruled out someone mislabelling bottles? Have we considered that? No? Ok, we’re not going there? Ok. Back to the DUMDUMDUM!

Legacies: Season 1, Episode 7: Death Keeps Knocking on My Door

Ok, this show angers me. It actively angers me. Not the teen drama not the classic CW obsession with a main character Hope and her specialness. No, what annoys me so much are the so-called teachers in this school who are utterly terrible (also there’s like only three of them? Three for all these students?) and this episode is pushing me over the edge

So, this is Remembrance day at the school where everyone writes letters to dead loved ones and can they maybe address the fact that most of student body has a herd of dead people to write letters to. Is one school councillor sufficient?

Also someone may want to maybe cancel this whole ceremony focused on death thing when you have an actual necromancer in the basement. Maybe? Because he does what is entirely predictable and summons a dead person to hit people in the feels. In this case, he summons Cassie, Raphael’s dead girlfriend

Hey, remember how Jo buried Josie alive because she was controlled by the necromancer? Well a good thing everyone’s learned from this and carefully guards Cassie and are also prepared for more murderous zombies running about

Oh, they’re just going to let Cassie walk around and not have any preparations for more zombies? Ok, that totally won’t come back to bite anyone at all.

So Raphael is obviously super emotional about this but Hope leaves him because she’s busy with her own things. That leaves Raphael to beg Alaric to do something about making her permanent but Alaric has SOME capacity for learning and points out she could be evil or used for evil. I mean he doesn’t take any precautions against her, but he recognises the evil. Soooo…

Cassie does talk to Raphael about her death - she blames him. But as they talk she also forgives him: she isn’t trying to punish him or make him feel bad but trying to get him to see the truth. She died in a car accident which happened because he got jealous, got angry and drove recklessly. And while he tries to put his rage down to being a werewolf and he’s better now she points out he just had a rage moment. He has a lot of growing to do and he needs to acknowledge that.

He turns to Alaric for this. Good luck with that

While I roll my eyes because we have a Black teenaged girl rather convolutedly like an after school special about how Raphael needs to be a better person. She takes less than 10 seconds to deal with actually being dead. Doesn’t she have any actual personhood or is she just a narrative tool?

Over to Hope, she has decided that since Alaric is completely useless at Necromancer questioning (mainly involves threats of violence to a being that cannot feel pain which is… not useful) she’s going to use woo-woo to do it for him

And yes Alaric is going to pout about this. But can you blame Hope? This is how Alaric works - using the magical gifts of his students to do anything. This is how Alaric operates!

So she recruits MG so he can do that vampire mind reading stuff which this world setting remembers like once every 20 episodes and MG agrees despite it being against his better judgement. Because that’s also how MG works - a servant to the other cast members who need his shiny vampire powers

There follows much diving into the Necromancer’s subconscious, Hope mocking him rather well for his over dramatic posturing, the Necromancer poking Hope’s worries a lot, in particular where her dead daddy is right now. While she pokes him for being completely forgotten because that’s what happens to all the creatures of Malivore. They piece a lot together: Malivore is a place of utter annihilation. By sentencing a creature to malivore - which happened to the Necromancer with someone killing him with the knife, you doom that being to the void and everyone forgets they ever existed. They’re gone and no-one remembers they were ever there.