Van Helsing: Season 3, Episode 12: Christ Pose

As Van Helsing heads towards its season finale, someone on the writing staff has decided “let’s really annoy Paul with big shallow hot takes on things that need way more analysis”

And lo it’s time for the next episode for this. Now we have Scarlett stranded on an island for some indeterminate amount of time… long enough for her to do a full Tom Hanks - Wilson skit. She also shows herself to be not the smartest person around with her spending a long  time making a raft but not checking the island with a lighthouse for boats

One would expect boats in such a location

Anbyway she arrives on shore and manages to catch up with Axel and… ye gods how much time has passed? What has Vanessa been doing? I mean Axel has travelled from San Francisco to Denver then to wherever he is now and now Scarlet went from San Francisco to this island and now wherever Axel is

In the apocalypse. With apparent hordes of vampires around. In fact, where are these hordes of vampires? How come travelling is this easy? Even Game of Thrones wasn’t as fast and loose with distance.

So there’s much kissing and Axel briefly tries to convince her to move in with him somewhere and have lots of little ninjas but she insists on going to help Vanessa. Though Axel adds a little angst to that by asking if Scarlett will be ready to murder her sister should Vanessa have fallen to the Dark Side of the Force

Road trip time and along the way they find a pack of day walker vampires which use their new found intelligence to pull them into a trap. Which would have worked if they weren’t immortal vampire killers who slaughter them all with ease

Except Axel fires a shotgun and it misfires and badly burns his face and eyes. Wait, wasn’t Axel sort of immortal like everyone else? After coming back from being a vampire? Just like Julius and Phillip? He can be mauled by vampires but this brings him down?

Badly injured, Scarlett drags him to a random guy who happens to be in the area for help

Said random guy does help despite all her snarling because he’s Super Holy Guy. He is a man of deep and abiding faith who firmly believes in god and everything is god’s will and all you need is prayer - and that includes Axel’s fate when he gets an infection (wait, again immortal guy has an infection? Really?). Holy guy insists on prayer, everything happens for a reason etc. He also walks around the apocalypse with no weapons, he’s a dedicated pacifist who relies on faith to keep him safe.

What a lucky lucky man. That’s Scarlett’s point of view. But Holy Man invokes faith, telling his story of miraculously surviving a hurricane. Scarlett is still not a big fan of this idea because they’re living in apocalypse world and all - which Holy Man refers to as “god’s discipline”.

Yeaaaahhhhh so special holy man gets to survive and walk around untouched by vampires, but 90% of the population of Earth is slaughtered for “discipline”? Yeah, that’s really really twisted. And part of the utter problem of divine intervention saving you means there are millions upon millions of other people suffering horrendously who are somehow unworthy of such intervention. Throw in the idea of god’s “discipline” causing genocide and I dearly hope a vampire eats the man.

Instead they go looking for antibiotics (which have a use by date, y’know, so this many years after the apocalypse may be a bit...ineffective). Along the way Scarlet saves Holy man’s life (yes he thinks this is divine intervention, of course he does) and they go to help Axel… except a horde of Walkers appear

Z Nation, Season 5, Episode 6: Limbo

We open with an epic and disgusting zombie fight - because Z Nation always brings the icky. Doc, George and Warren are following the markings of the Talker hiding and it leads them to Limbo

Yes, the same place the blends told Murphy they were waiting. It’s a… club. A casino. And general place of debauchery ranging from the standard table dancers and roulette to chainsaw duels and whack-a-mole.

Murphy runs the place now wearing a ridiculous outfit which honestly he kind of makes work and he’s much beloved by his people (there’s also a moment where he says he’s in a bisexual threesome relationship which would be more noteworthy if it wasn’t a single throwaway line for comic relief and to emphasise the debauchery of Limbo rather than actual representation.)

We have lots of scenes of the general ickiness and it’s notable that there are a huge number of Talkers in Limbo. Murphy claims to be apolitical and not involved in Altura’s issues but Warren notes that his is the only settlement in Newmerica which allows Talkers to move around freely. AND Limbo is marked as a safe place for Talkers - so it seems Murphy is not nearly as apolitical as he claims

They do have a gang of Talkers now, but they’re very very hungry and Murphy isn’t THAT kind - most of the Biscuits in Limbo are used for stakes in gambling. Among the Talkers is Marjorie - Dante’s wife.

He insists that the Talkers are just dropped on his doorstep from a truck and he knows nothing. George changes her opinion of Murphy and hits him with the full weight of her super empathy and gives him one of her awesome speeches

Murphy is impressed - but not buying. Even George’s beautiful idealism runs aground on Murphy’s cynicism. Murphy also remembers Estes from Zona - and thinks he was dispatched on a secret mission not that he left as Estes claimed. There’s also a hairy moment when the near zombie Talkers need to be corralled

They’re interrupted by the arrival of the truck Murphy mentioned - and he has a psychic sense of Lucy. He hurries down, thinking his dead daughter has somehow come back and opens the door to find…

ADDIE

Yes it’s Addie! I called it last episode! That spiky mace had to be Addie! She’s back! She’s back. And… perhaps a little broken. She’s deeply sad about Lucy’s death and she, Murphy and Doc drink to her passing, reminiscing and sounding deeply sad (the least said about the booze they’re drinking, the better). She resists the idea that she’s a saviour for the Talkers despite clearly being so - and angrily backs off when they mention Dante. She thinks there’s absolutely no way he’ll get anything resembling a fair trial and she leaves angrily

Z Nation, Season 5, Episode 3: Escape from Altura

After the bomb last episode, there is obviously the painful aftermath. The injured need treating, the Talkers need to be given Biscuits so they don’t go on a rampage and the dead and newly risen need Biscuiting as well. There’s also a whole bunch of zombies from somewhere which need killing

It’s messy - but the gang (all of which survive uninjured) are on it. George, again, really steps up and shows what an inspirational hero she is (and I have to give props to the show for just how well they’ve done this). The zombie attack is suspicious as well as the bombing as they don’t normally get large numbers of zombies around Altura

Warren rightly thinks this is an assassination attempt - either aimed at the delegates for the election, Estes or George (she continues to fail to see how important she is). But Estes steps in and reveals he has received information that a Talker was involved. He also moves to confiscate Citizen Z’s recording (which suggests Dante was in the area) so he can examine it. Not to stop anyone else from seeing it, honest. He also discovers a hole where the fence has been sabotaged

Estes is formerly from Zona and already had suspicious bodger written all over him. He’s also in an illicit relationship with Pandora the creeper Talker in the creepy mask who has Creepy views about humans - I think she’s using him because it’s blatantly obvious. She also has an ominous silent follower just in case we’d missed the fact that evil lady is evil.

Estes quickly rallies everyone to hunt down Dante - and quarantine all Talkers which is a bit of a leap which George finds especially off given that the election results were a landslide and very much in favour of Talker rights

I get that George is positive and inspiring but I think they need to be careful about making this excellent character naive. She still goes through Altura managing to calm violence with her presence but it’s clear hatred against Talkers is growing

The Talkers are rounded up and put in “quarantine”, large cages and Altura is put into lockdown. Sun Mei is outraged that one of her chief assistants, a Talker, is dragged into quarantine. (Which at least stops them messing with someone’s brain for science because ew ew ew ew). And in quaratine they’re not giving them Biscuits so they’re reverting to zombieness

Murphy is duly paranoid being the red guy who looks like Satan and he is out of there as soon as the alarms go off, knocking a guard out who demands to check his pulse to see whether to put him in quarantine. He then jumps in a truck with Dante and leaves, charging through the gates

Van Helsing: Season 3, Episode 2: Super Unknown

Way back in 1906 we catch up with Lily, a Van Helsing ancestor. She has herself committed to an asylum so she can then break out, kill a rapist with dazzling fighting skills and try to take down a vampire…. Which then manages to kill her with weirdness.

More weirdness, yay

So in 2020 we have the Van Helsing sisters and Axel hunting down Susan!Elder’s totem. The elder helpfully tells them repeatedly “you’ll know it when  you see it.” Like porn, apparently (why she couldn’t have said “it’s bracelet!”? I don’t know). They follow the Elder to an asylum - getting a guide along the way who the elder eats because she’s a vampire and it’s what they do

Scarlett and Axel are duly horrified by this while Vanessa is pretty indifferent. Vanessa is also becoming even surlier - which is impressive - with lots of brooding silence and snarling at Axel and her sister. Honestly this personality shift would be more notable if she weren’t already a seething ball of poorly focused rage.

Oh and her eyes keep glowing red which is sorta worrying. And Scarlett just wants to connect with her sister but finds that hard because Rage Ball.

So they explore the creepy asylum at night and Vanessa suggests splitting up because YE GODS THIS WOMAN HAS NEVER SEEN A HORROR MOVIE EVER.  Axel and Scarlett, being much more genre savvy, put a hefty fuck no on that one. They also leave the elder behind because she’s evil and unhelpful

They find a room full of a brand new kind of vampires - these vampires fight by just standing there and glowing blue at their targets. This causes the screen to vibrate and a whole lot of weird noises which seem to represent some kind of mind zapping. There’s also telekinesis. They’re kind of menacing but they kind of just stand there and zap. Scarlett pauses to scream now and then but is otherwise able to cut quite a path through them. Axel is even more debilitated but even he managed to shoot several of them while Vanessa doesn’t seem all that inconvenienced at all

I do like the contrast of Scarlett and Vanessa’s fighting style: Scarlett’s elegant skill and Vanessa’s berserker brutality

The vampires are killed pretty easily. They’re probably better off focusing on biting people. Scarlett bites one of them and lo she can change vampires into humans again. He’s Dr. Karloff and has no idea where the Totem is but he does tell them all about their ancestor. Because he reads historical files for fun? I mean, really?

So pulling out the files they study this and decide that the Elder’s totem is clearly buried with Lily…

...because she’d take it into the asylum with her when she already handed off her elder blood to her husband in case goes wrong. And this same totem would then be buried with her by the asylum and not claimed by her clearly-aware relatives or appropriated by corrupt staff. This makes no sense at all… absolutely none.

The Walking Dead, Season 9, Episode 2: The Bridge

Per our previous post: some of our recaps and reviews are now coming in video format.

Andrew Lincoln and Maggie leaving The Walking Dead

Z Nation, Season 5, Episode 2: A New Life

Warren and Cooper are all wonderful together and it’s so sweet and loving and real - so it’s definitely going to go to hell

And it does when Murphy arrives. He runs into Cooper first who is duly suspicious of this bright red guy suddenly appearing asking after Warren. As Murphy talks it becomes increasingly clear he is who he says he is and Cooper is faced by the realisation that Warren has friends in Newmerica she may want to be with.

That Warren may leave him

So he knocks Murphy out and locks him in the trunk of his car. Which isn’t very effective because Warren quickly finds out, sees Murphy in the trunk then slams it closed again to confront Cooper.

He protests that he’s doing it for them and he desperately wants her to promise to stay with him and try to explain things - even adding that this “devil” is going to destroy their dreams. Warren is enraged and sad and confused and repeatedly hits Cooper even as he tries to drag up an explanation for what he did. Warren’s not having it, there is no justification for this and she knocks him out

She frees Murphy and locks Cooper in the same car boot Murphy was restrained in. She then leaves him - telling Murphy that she’s leaving it to Darwin.

And that’s just sad… because I liked Cooper and Warren together - it was good, it was sweet, it was beautiful. And I think if they were going to go with his obsession over her and delved into his own guilty and loneliness they could probably have done more with this. But then he’s not technically dead so this could still happen.

They then leave on a Tractor

The rest of the gang have arrived at Altura, one of the larger outposts that is looking to become part of Newmerica. They’re all heading up to the Signing the Constitution to form this new nation - even though the Constitution isn’t exactly written, the vote is more a vote on the concept of Newmerica. Of towns working together for common value as a nation state in which both the living and the dead have a presence.

And central to that is George who is clearly one of the greater founders of this movement and massively respected by everyone, even people who disagree with her. She wants this to go ahead not just because it’s her dream, but since the Black rain zombie attacks are becoming more frequent and more intelligent - as she explains to Roman Estez, the founder of Altura, rich guy and genius (yet so far not evil - and rich + genius = evil unless there’s angst. It’s a TV law) that if they don’t decide to unite then a lot of the smaller outposts will be on their own and totally devastated by the new menacing zombies

The gang go through quarantine and medical testing though this seems less exclusionary and more to make sure they pick up everyone who is a “Talker” so they get their biscuits. 10k (oh, they fill in his paperwork as 10k which is amusing - but everyone is now calling him Tommy) fuzzes the radar a little - after all he’s been through he’s not exactly living and not exactly a zombie but who knows what he is. He is adorable. They get work orders - but that again will be super liberalised with the new constitution (I do think they put a whole lot of hope in this change)

Van Helsing, Season 3, Episode 1: Fresh Tendrils

Last season brought us… nonsense. So much nonsense. And everyone not having a damn brain in their heads. But Vanessa did release this super old powerful vampire and he bit her.

So let’s rejoin the randomness starting with a flashback to 1986 where we learn that one of the Van Helsing children, Scarlett, was dumped on the Harkers while Vanessa was taken away, there was a car crash and she entered the foster system - but not before some shadowy veiled figure took her hand all ominous like

I think this is supposed to be why Vanessa is a lone wolf made of rage?

Anyway in the present she wakes up on a hospital bed and, lo, the Elder is there. Being Vanessa she attacks him and he fights back by changing his appearance to look at various people she cares about. Honestly it’s pretty useless as it’s pretty clear what the vampire is doing.

Until eventually he turns into Susan - her dead friend and neighbour - and that gives him chance to create a woowoo connection between her and Scarlett. This allows Scarlett to infodump the whole last episode to Vanessa because the writers realised that, oops, Vanessa needs to know a lot of shit and she doesn’t. So, along with a dying mother, Abbie, which everyone’s supposed to be sad about though she’s only just appeared, no-one really has spent enough time with her to care about her and honestly meh to her dying. Vanessa is also angry. Because she’s kind of always angry? Anyway Vanessa learns that the Elder is pledged to their family so has to obey them. The Dark One, first vampire, is super super bad and should never escape (he is so going to escape) and they must never ever face him (they’re so going to face him) and to stop it they need to collect the magical shiny things each elder has. Because who doesn’t like a nice collection quest? We drop in family angst about them being infected by the First Vampire’s blood which is why they are the most Special of Specialness. Oh and there’s the family book which has some mysterious clue. Ancient tomes, super special protagonists with Destiny and special blood and a collection quest? Someone’s gone all out for storytelling staples

Abbie dies because tragedy. And Vanessa is returned to her body with Elder!Susan (she will be continuing like this from now on to spare the make up department the effort of making up the Elder every time). Vanessa also believes this vision and the obedience of the Edler… despite the fact we already have proof that the Elder is really really good at messing with people’s heads. But we need her to know all this so run with it.

Vanessa does a wander through the lab and kills some wounded guards so she can feed on blood. She’s pretty savage on it - Vanessa is definitely embracing her full dark side. She runs into the woman who pretended to be her mother and Is Not Pleased. She calls her out and evil lady decides to reveal she was the one who deliberately taint the blood of two small children out of sheer curiosity (what? What kind of supervillain nonsense is this? It’s not even “for science!” it’s for shits and giggles!). She also shoots Vanessa which does nothing because super powers - and gets brutally, slowly and agonisingly stabbed by Vanessa. Vanessa is sprinting towards the darkness. She also gets her family book back

Iron and Magic (Iron Covenant #1) by Ilona Andrews

Hugh D’Ambrey, the great Biblical wizard’s Warlord, has been banished from his presence. For decades, longer, Hugh was Roland’s servant and a lethal, terrifying fighting force and general. And now he doesn’t know who he is

But his soldiers rely on him, people hold grudges, his rival Ness especially. They need safety, they need a home - but who would trust them

Ilara and her people need protection. They’ve been driven to run for too long but are now secure in an actual castle… but they have no soldiers. And Ness wants their land.

It’s not a romantic match… but it is a practical one.

It is so hard to review an Ilona Andrews book. It’s hard because the things that make these books so special - the awesome world building, excellent characters, massively fun storylines and tight, descriptive yet well paced writing are pretty much the same in every book. Early on they set the bar at awesome and kept repeating the same levels of awesome and that leaves me with a happy stunned with joy, grieving because I’ve finished it and then flummoxed on how to produce a review that isn’t a duplicate of the last review

This book follows Hugh D’Ambrey - a very different standpoint from Kate given how he has been such a major villain for much of the Kate Daniels Series and how he is, pretty much, The Worst. I admit to having some reservations - I’m not against redeemed villain narratives but all too often they’re done far too simplistically which rarely if ever actually touches real redemption and usually amounts to a handwaving of their past

But this worked. Because it didn’t try to redeem Hugh. Hugh is a monumental bastard and always has been. He doesn’t claim to be different, Ilara doesn’t think he’s different, even the fact he wants to preserve his people isn’t presented as making him a good guy. Even exploring his toxic relationship with Roland and how Roland controlled him isn’t used to redeem or excuse him (though it does include some really excellent character growth moments as Hugh basically learns how to be Hugh without Rolan’s overwhelming presence). Even meeting old enemies who are grudgingly willing to work with him isn’t presented as forgiveness, even when he apologises. Even his own levels of self-hatred and self-recrimination: all of this is here but, at the same time, I don’t think the book ever intended me to think “Hugh is a good guy now”.

And I really like his relationship with Ilara. Firstly she’s an equal - she has her people and he has his both are the supreme leaders who have earned a vast amount of loyalty and even as the two factions begin to blur, it never happens in a way that undermines either of them. Neither are ever the junior partners and while he clearly has combat advantages over her in some situations, she is equally clearly the one with by far the most powerful magic.

And they hate each other which I love. Yes, I know I talked about persistence not being a virtue and love interests whose dislike is worn down by one party’s persistence. But that isn’t happening here - Hugh and Ilara marry for political reasons, so people will believe that their alliance is real (especially since Hugh. under Roland broke a whole lot of alliances). But Hugh and Ilara despised each other from the very first day and their sparring is glorious. Their searing loathing for each other (even as it slowly melts into respect but is never ever not a battle) is hilarious and mutual - Hugh isn’t setting out to win Ilara’s heart and Ilara

Into the Badlands, Season 3, Episode 8: Chapter XXIV: Leopard Catches Cloud

The Abbot is back - remember her? She’s meditating when she declares “it has begun”

That is never ever ever good.

Things are heating up with the Widow’s camp. She’s been brought back to her roots by the whole execution rebellion last week; Gaius of the cheekbones points out that executing rebels is kind of what a Baron should do but she remembers that the whole point of these shenanigans was to stop maintaining the status quo - not to create a status quo empire.

Which means she’s also having doubts about the whole army surge thing because throwing away the lives of your soldiers is a very baronish thing to do. Instead she’s decided that she, Gaius-of-the-Cheekbones and Tilda-remember-her? Will lead a raid on Castle Whitebone and assassinate Baron Chau

While the rest of her army is fights to distract led by Nathaniel. Still lots of death but probably not as much.

Since it’s the eve of battle we have the necessary sexy romance and pledges of devotion because this is what one does before war. Gaius pledges his sexy loyalty to the Widow forever and ever and they kiss

And Nathaniel and Lydia have a thing too, talking about the future, kissing, sex and Lydia deciding she is coming to the war as well because a) she’s good at strategy and b) if the Widow should unfortunately get stabbed or something they may need an inspiring leader to take over

At this point Lydia is just following the Widow around waiting to jump into her shoes before they’re even cold. I imagine scenes like the following happen a dozen times a day

People: the Widow has fallen from her horse!

Lydia: Good people, fear not; though the noble Widow has fallen, I, your new Baro-

People: She’s getting up! She’s fine!

Lydia: TOTALLY LOYAL TO YOU WIDOW!

So it’s off to the wars and a really pretty fight scene with lots and lots of conveniently placed pieces of burning wood for people to fall on and be all dramatic. Also they have artillery because we need explosions despite the general sword aesthetic. Also also, absolutely no-one fought wars like this. Except for a few Big Damn Heroes everyone else is literally pairing off. It’s like a gazillion neat little duels. Also also also, I’m going to introduce pole-arms and fighting in rank and file and own this whole damn Badland.

Nathaniel, before going into battle with the vanguard tells Lydia that she must hold the line with the rear guard as they’re literally the only troops between Chau’s forces and the sanctuary and everything else. No matter what she must hold the line

Time for some Epic

Nathaniel charges through on horseback slicing and dicing as he does - and is hit by a crossbow bolt

Lydia holds the line

Nathaniel, injured and off his horse continues to fight several times his own number of men in obviously dazzling style. Several times he is severely outnumbers and nearly overwhelmed

Lydia holds the line

Sun Warrior (Tales of a New World #2) by P. C. Cast

I did it, I read Sun Warrior. It was a book I picked up with a great deal of trepidation and no small amount of dread. The House of Night Series remains one of the worst I have ever endured and Moon Chosen manages to plum still deeper depths. I did not have high expectations for Sun Warrior

Which made reading Sun Warrior, almost a pleasant surprise. Oh, not because it was good. Not because it came even close to good. Not because it could even see good on a clear day with a telescope. Because it wasn’t remotely. Nor was it not deeply problematic in many many ways (especially dwelling on a lot of rape as well as some really terrible treatment of the former slaves the Companions controlled) But it managed to avoid a whole lot of the most awful traits of the first book by… basically pretending they never happened or by retconning or by brushing over them super quickly.

Like the book tries to emphasise what a wonderful caring healer Mari is… we’re all completely avoiding the way she just abandoned her people and listened to them scream. At best we have a brief nod while everyone rallies round Mari to tell her she’s amazing and we spend the rest of this book with just about everyone treating Mari like the second coming. Or there’s the racial coding and Blackface of the last book which is just ignored in this book. The description of Earth Walkers as ugly vs the “refined” features of the Companions has been dropped entirely. The  Nightfever is there, but handwaved and we’re all far more concerned by the new plague from the Skin Stealers. She even develops a whole new load of traditions about Clan Weaver weaving - which sounds simplistic, but last book Mari didn’t think her people were capable of art.

It’s not that the book has changed, dispensed with or otherwise redeemed the badness of the last book: it’s just pretended none of it ever happened.

It does have its own problematic elements which largely stem from the writing: it’s horribly slow pace, the endless telling-with-no-showing and the Mary Sue omniscience of the main characters held together with a whole lot of magical plot glue.

This book, this oh-so-long-book, covers about a week, maybe a fortnight. And in that time Mari and Nik decide to create a whole new society called the Pack where all people come together in mutual love and tolerance. Which sounds nice - except remember like 2 days ago these Earth Walker women were imprisoned and enslaved by the Companions. They were enslaved for generations as a people and some of these women had literally spent many years in captivity. It is REASONABLE for these women to be at least a little wary of the Companions. It is reasonable for these women to be more than a little concerned when Mari decides to host several Companions in their BIRTHING BURROW. The place where pregnant women of the Clan give birth. And some of these Companions were literally among the raiding party that kidnapped several Clan women AND killed Leda, Mari’s mother and pretty much destroyed the Clan, a few weeks ago. Hey, y’know, it’s not exactly an act of vicious bigotry for the these women to think that they’d rather their enslavers not camp in the most sensitive parts of their home. But Mari treats them as grossly intolerant and drives some of the women out for not embracing them men who hunted and owned them 2 days before - and no-one challenges her on this

Into the Badlands, Season 3, Episode 6: Chapter XXII: Black Wind Howls

Sunny and Bajie have arrived in a giant shanty town on the river which has lots and lots of gritty signifiers with lots of violence and dog fighting and dangerous gambling games. And a contact of Bajie’s who is playing said dangerous gambling game which involves impaling your hand because that’s fun. Her name is Lily, she’s accused of cheating which leads us to a whacky fight scene - which involves considerably more octopus than usual and Sunny letting Bajie fight his own battles at least for a little while

Which does remind us that while Bajie is no Sunny, he can actually fight

Eventually they end up on a boat sailing away and Lily is annoyed because she insists she would have been fine and got the money… it looked doubtful. But she’s ornery anyway, really not a fan of Bajie and not moved by sob stories of sick babies. She does want money to pay her considerable debts - so Bajie gives her a pouch of coins. Which is nice but that was the money she was winning at gambling he managed to steal so doesn’t exactly thaw her any

Oh, and the fact she’s Bajie’s ex-wife doesn’t help matters. They have unresolved issues: but during the night she does explain her history with Bajie to Sunny. How he was a pirate with her and cunning and devious and killed the captain and they managed to live a great life. Until Bajie heard a rumour about Asra, took all their money and abandoned her.

Yes she has some good reasons to be pissed. And it also very much shows how much this search for Asra has consumed Bajie’s life and why he was less than thrilled with his old mentor.

Sunny’s also having more childhood flashbacks of being on this boat.

Bajie tries to bury the hatchet with Lily with some booze - it doesn’t go well. I really like the acting here, there’s real chemistry and Lily does a great job of portraying ALMOST being sucked in and then ferociously pulling back

She’s also sold them out to the River King because the bounties on their lives are worth a whooooole lot of money which does a lot of paying down her debts. And the whole hating Bajie thing. The River King and Sunny also have history so, yep, it’s time for another pretty fight scene

I do so love these fight scenes.

With everyone properly dead and the River King now held at sword point - and Lily continuing to dance that complicated line on deciding which side she’s on by not stabbing Bajie and saving Sunny, the River King offers a deal: his life for help in getting to Pilgrim.

Back to the Widow’s territory and Odessa is furious with Lydia for becoming a baron and abandoning the refugees so they can be attacked by Chau’s forces. Lydia still holds that you need to be in the system to change it while Odessa has doubts about what real change is going to happen. She’s also out - she’s done with fighting