Stranger Things, Season 2, Episode 8: The Mind Flayer

Ominous lab is now under attack by waves and waves of what I’m going to call demigogs because that’s what Dustin is calling them. And, no matter what Grandfather scientist claims, the polycarbonate glass is not going to keep them out

The facility is in utter chaos, people are dying left right and centre. Bob, Jim, Will, Mike, Joyce and Grandfather Scientist whose name I should really look up - Dr. Owens - make it to the security room. They have to drug Will as he fights them so he can’t psychically transmit their location or plans to the big shadowy monster.

The rest of the facility is an utter horror show - and kudos for the writers and director for truly creating a scary horrifying setting.

To get out they need to reactivate the power and use a computer. Which is very very Jurassic Park, I’m going to give homage points. And while Jim is quick to step up to help, he knows nothing about computers. None of them do, except Bob.

Bob, the genuinely good, normal guy, doing his best and being nicer than nice. Of course Bob is willing to do it, despite the huge risk and despite knowing nothing about guns.

He makes his way to the basement with massively horrible levels of tension, and rests the computers and the locks, giving everyone else a chance to make it to the exit - which they do

Except Dr. Owens - he stays in the security room so he can guide the others using the CCTV to help them avoid the demigogs. Yes it seems like a genuine moment of self-sacrifice from a the head of Hawkings Laboratory, showing again how well this show has taken an ominous lab and utterly humanised the leader (which adds to the complexity as well of Kali’s revenge plot).

Dr. Owens guides Bob to the exit - and it’s unbearably tense. Again, massive points to the horror movie directing of this. It’s awful to watch, there’s a near moment and almost almost almost I think Bob is going to make it. Despite already being sure he’s going to die to clear the way for Joyce and Jim, I thought he was going to make it

Of course a demigog catches him just as he reaches the exit

Raise a glass everyone for Bob, genuinely nice guy. You were too good for this world.

While they were escaping, Dustin, Lucas, Steve, Max met up with a returning Jonathan and Nancy at the lab where they notice shenanigans afoot

Dustin and Lucas also have a lot of arguments about Lucas telling Max everything (which seems to be part of his Steve-led advice to shun Max into liking him) while Lucas is supremely pissed (for better reason) at Dustin keeping Dart secret.

They’re outside the lab when those inside make a run for it and they provide getaway cars to go to Joyce’s house

Stranger Things, Season 2, Episode 7: The Lost Sister

After a season which seemed to have rather neglected El (which is odd given she’s the one with the woo-woo) we finally have an episode that focuses on her

I’m also going to start calling her Jane, as it is the name she starts using, the name her mother gave her, rather than the number that her captors and tormentors tatooed on her arm.

She’s with her aunt Becky and describes the vision her mother Terri shared with her - they focus on the girl who was in the rainbow room with her and believe this is why Terri wanted her to come. When Terri was looking for Jane she produced many files about missing children, including a girl of Indian descent kidnapped from London - Kali.

Jane uses her powers to search the darkness for Kali and has a clue to her location. While she’s doing this Becky tries to call Jim (who is busy with other drama) since he may be able to help them find Kali. But Jane is worried about her contacting home and decides to run

She takes a bus to Chicago and doesn’t exactly fit in in the big city - but she has a confidence that comes from being able to kill people with your mind. She follows her vision to find a gang of people squatting and tells them she’s looking for her sister.

They recognise Kali from the picture, and one of them, Axel, threatens Jane, worried that she’s managed to find them even though Mick is less happy with him threatening a child. Surprisingly it isn’t Jane smashing the weapon from his hand that stops Axel, but the illusion of being covered in spiders which does it

Kali has arrived

Janes introduces herself -as Jane (and why I’m not calling her Eleven any more) and shows her abilities to Kali and explains who she saw Kali. She sounds much more confident. She mentions the Rainbow room and shows the tattoo on her wrist: Kali has the number 008

They call each other sister and hug. And I’m as happy with this as I am curious about the other 9 children.

Jane gives Kali a bit of history - especially how she doesn’t really remember anything - but that Jim is looking after her and thinks he can make a deal with the Ominous Lab to keep them safe. I would share Kali’s cynicism of this if it wasn’t for the Kindly leader last episode. As well as suspicious (she warns Jane they’ll always be “monsters” to them), Kali also  notes that Jim isn’t exactly encouraging Jane to develop or encourage her powers. Kali also explains her own powers - she has the ability to make people see (or not see) anything. And she shows off a pretty version of it with a beautiful butterfly

I like that she’s showing Jane some joy from their gifts - as well as describing how she feels “whole” around Jane.

The rest of the gang somewhat mocks Kali’s “hick” sister - but Kali points out that Jane can find people with nothing more than a picture - which is just what they need for their mission. So much that they’re willing to go out tomorrow to keep hunting - though there’s some concern that they’re still “hot” after killing one of their targets

Their targets are people who worked for Hawkings Lab - the Ominous Lab. Any of the mena and women who hurt the children and experimented on them - it’s a revenge quest. Kali quiets that concern - saying that Jane is “hurting” and needs this. I think there’s a definite sense that Kali is projecting a LOT on Jane - that doesn’t mean she’s wrong but still she hasn’t known Jane very long for deciding she knows what Jane needs. Especially since we see Jane picking up a heartfelt message from Jim about being sorry.

Stranger Things, Season 2, Episode 5: Dig Dug

So, Joyce has a mystery - this means it’s time to radically redecorate her home! I have to say this habit of plastering random stuff on every flat surface every time something odd happens is more than a little disturbing. I like to think that this is only happening because of supernatural nastiness

Actually that’s a terrible lie. I like to think this is a constant habit and any random problems will set her off into a series of truly bizarre collages, because that would be kind of hilarious.

So she has plastered Will’s tunnel network all over her home, while Will is comforted by Mike. Will is not doing well, clearly disturbed by all the shadowy stuff he sees and is now sweating profusely presumably due to the big monster’s love of cold. Mike offers the hope that since Will senses what the big monster senses he can be some kind of awesome spy.

Jim has been examining the Ominous tunnel - and some random tentacle goo creature on the wall squirts poison nastiness into his face, leaving him unconscious on the floor. And the hole he dug is then plugged by vines. This is not good. Even when he manages to regain consciousness, he still stumbles around, tries to find a way out, tries to dig through a wall (for some reason) and in general is in a creepy horror set full of slimy, tentacle nastiness. Eventually he ends up on the floor, covered in tentacles. Really really not good.

Luckily for him, Will psychically senses this and dreams of where he is - pointing it out on his map, which no-one can read. Oops.

Well along comes Bob. Who is quietly awesome. Here to provide some kind of help and comfort for Will who he thinks is sick. After initially worrying that Bob is going to see her disturbing collaging, Joyce realises Bob is super clever and can be really useful in interpreting the pictures - so recruits him on the understanding that he asks no questions

Ah, Bob. He is the definition of a nice guy. And I mean nice guy, as in genuinely decent, caring human being, rather than Nice Guy, arsehole who thinks he can buy sex with common decency. Bob is very worried that both Will looks kind of ill and Joyce has reacted to this by taking up Disturbingly Craft Projects  and though he respects her wish for him not to ask questions he is clearly concerned. But he’s also a brilliant lover of puzzles who, after quickly realising the collage is a map, excellently starts pinpointing where it corresponds to and gets completely lost in the joys of the puzzle and figuring it out

I like Bob. I feel Bob will be eaten by something by the end of this season. But I raise a glass to Bob before this inevitably happens. With his help he pinpoints here Jim is

Let’s also check in on the Ominous People in the Ominous Lab have done some soil sample testing from the various rotting farmers fields and realise that if you apply fire then all of them form disturbing whirlwinds. Note applying fire to one, makes them all whirlwind because they’re all spookily connected. Ominous Lab People decide that this is a definite Oh Shit moment and also head out to try and stop this

Which means when Bob and Joyce find the hole Jim went down, carve their way through vines and rescue Jim (was there any doubt that Joyce would charge in?), they’re soon followed by the Ominous Lab People with flamethrowers

This seems to be their solution to everything. And I approve. So many of the books I’ve read and shows I’ve watched would see all of their problems vanish if they applied the “kill it with fire” method. Also points to Bob and Jim exchanging polite greetings like they’ve just met. It makes my English heart proud to see two men who maintain proper dignity in complete denial of the randomness around them

A downside to this flamethrowy-ness is that Will, connected to the shadow monster, collapses and starts screaming. Only I think it’s less a “I’m in agony and dying” scream and more a “the unholy noise I’m making signals the end times and summons the Thing That Man Was Not Meant To Know” scream.

It is not a good scream. Though I do have a friend who makes a similar noise when she realises there’s no vodka left.

The Stranger Things, Season 2, Episode 4: Will the Wise

Joyce hit the war path last episode after realising that Will’s vision are real and very scary. She finds Will lost and confused at school after following Bob’s advice and confronting the giant cthulu smoke monster. After terrifying everyone with a pause, he snaps out of it and Joyce takes it home

There she reveals what she saw on the video camera, that she knows what is happening to him and, above all, that she believes him. This is powerful and supportive and reminds us that Joyce is a) wonderful and b) contains a terrifying level of intensity.

Meanwhile, Will’s friends are all looking for the slimy swamp monster Dirk, which Dustin actually has hidden at home because he wants a pet and evil monsters from the Upside down are unique and totally not going to blow up in his face. Mike tells the others about Will’s visions and reiterates how much they need Dirk for reasons - basically because they don’t really know what they’re doing but they do know that Will as True Sight. They’re also excluding Max a lot from their secrets -which Max is obviously not a fan of and, not unreasonably, assumes this is because she’s a girl

For added layers of problems - her step-brother Billy the awful insists she stay away from the gang - and Lucas specifically. He’s angry and intimidating of her and he doesn’t specify why she should stay away from Lucas beyond “I’m older and know better”. He doesn‘t spell out his motive - but we can’t ignore that Lucas is the only Black character on the show.

Billy continues to be a dick to Steve but seems to be softening on that largely because he’s kind of won. He’s established himself as the dominant alpha arsehole and can now be benevolently condescending to him.

Dustin is all torn at the idea Dirk may be the key to helping Will - but when he goes to see his evil pet he sees it has grown much bigger and has now eaten the family cat… it may or may not try to eat Dustin at the end. Either way KILL IT WITH FIRE ALREADY

El and Jim’s relationship collapses pretty messily when Jim confronts El about leaving and being seen. There’s lots of screaming and shouting and temper and ugly and oh Jim this is not the way. He shouts about safety, she shouts about freedom - it’s ugly and messy and he decides to ground her by denying Eggos and TV and she pins the television and throws things at him with her telekinesis

It’s getting uglier and uglier. The next day Jim clearly feels uncomfortable with his behaviour and tries to extend both an olive branch while still sticking to his safety guns

When cleaning up the cabin, El searches and finds Jim’s box of research on the lab - including pictures of her mother and her real name, Jane. El uses her power to psychically connect with her in the big telepathic darkness - there she sees her and sees her current mental state. When El touches her, she shifts to smoke and disappears, leaving El crying and devastated.

El’s relationship with Jim is powerful and sad and emotional and I’m hoping that we start turning upwards soon - because their emotions are really real, their positions understandable and neither of them are really experts at social interaction so it’s all just...unfortunate.

Stranger Things: Season 2, Episode 2: Trick or Treat, Freak

We look back at how El ended up with Jim as we see a series of flashbacks

After El killed the demigorgon last season she didn’t vanish - she went into the Upsidedown and searched through it for Mike - eventually finding an ominous red hole leading back to the real world. She quickly used her powers to expand it so she could return to the real world

That ominous red light seems to be a worrisome theme.

She made her way to Mike’s house - only to find it surrounded by Ominous people trying to convince everyone she’s a dangerous weaponised Russian spy. Mike isn’t remotely co-operating and Karen doesn’t seem to be a big fan either.

She flees to the forest, scraping a living killing squirrels with her mind so she could cook them… she was found by a man who seemed to offer help - but possibly discovery too. She used her telekinesis to throw him against a tree… dead or injured we don’t know. But she flees with his jacket and hat; definitely torn and guilty by this.

Until she finds the food Jim leaves her….

And now it’s Hallowe’en and El wants to go out - she can wear a costume and not be recognised… but Jim nixes it. The Rules mean there’s no risk. There’s a huge confrontation and she pouts when he lays down the law. So he offers her a compromise - he will buy lots of candy and they can both get fat eating it. And teaches him the word “compromise”

Awwww they’re soooo cute together. Utterly utterly cute: and El is still learning English

Over to the others: Joyce is still supe concerned about Will. She has great trouble letting him out of her sight and is also very troubled by his clear pictures of the Upside Down. Will, tired of people fussing, lies about having more episodes though Joyce doesn’t believe him. Jim does try to sooth her - because Will’s symptoms are very much like PTSD and they need to support him.

At the same time Jonathan is an awesome, supportive big brother. We also have nice little hints of everyone else’s family as well which is nice to see

The nerd club in geeky fashion have all dressed as ghostbusters (which is cool but also a problem since no-one else at school is in costume and a lot of adults don’t recognise it. But it does have a nifty argument from Lucas at the idea that he must be Winston since he’s Black).

Lucas and Dustin are still obsessing over and stalking Max. Hey I guess it’s ok that they’re getting their own storyline but can it… not be this? She does call them stalkers and call them out for their presumption.

Stranger Things, Season 1, episode 8: The Upside Down

Last episode Joyce and Jim were captured by the Ominous people

They try to convince Joyce to join sides by telling her about the monster that eats people and they totally want her to help them save people because they’re good people who just want to save people, Joyce

These would be the people who faked the death of her son, presented a fake corpse to her to bury in a fake funeral. In other words, Joyce would like to set them all on fire then hit them with hammers.

While they’re questioning Jim with tasers and planning to fake is death via drug overdose. But Jim remains confident and strong and makes a deal - a deal which seems to involve giving up El in exchange they get to see the portal they have in the basement. They’re dressed up in Haz mat suits to head into the ominous black void - all the while Jim has devastating flashbacks of his daughter dying from her illness as they examine the alien landscape, the ruins of Will’s camp, ominous eggs and general ominousness, looking for Will

Nancy and Jonathan are not hanging around, they gather all their monster tools, all their weapons, set an array of weapons and are totally ready to take the monster down. Which is when Steve arrives to make nice with Nancy and then freak out when he sees the state of the house and Nancy and Jonathan on high alert waiting for the monster to come. He won’t leave, he and Jonathan argue - and Nancy points a gun at him

Ok, I want a spin off series of Nancy the monster hunter, I’m just saying.

The lights blink… the monster arrives and since Steve keeps freaking out she just kicks him out. I say again, spin off

The monster tries to eat Jonathan and Nancy’s bullets don’t do a whole lot - but Steve comes back in time to part save the say so they can lure the monster into a trap. And set him on fire

Seriously, these three, monster hunters. Nancy the boss. Make it so Netflix, make it so.

In the void, Jim and Joyce find evidence of the monster’s burning injuries.

The kids are still hold up in the school gathering pudding for an exhausted El and arguing what to do (there’s talk of helping Nancy but everyone recognises now that Nancy has taken several prestige class levels of badass and probably doesn’t need them). El and Mike keep building on that chemistry, talking about dances, El joining Mike’s family and them eventually kissing.

This moment is interrupted when the Ominous squad arrives to try and kidnap El

Stranger Things, Season 1, Episode 7: The Bathtub

Everything is really coming together this episode

First we have the full reunion with Mike and EL, El without her wig and the two kids moving their awkward way through flirting. They’re called by Lucas about Ominous Men coming to the house and manage to get out in time with Dustin and meet up with Lucas on the way. They’d probably still have been caught but El can throw large vans around which is an effective way to stop pursuit

Y’know every time these people chase El they never seem to have any plan for what to do when they catch her. “We have caught the girl who can kill people with her mind! Proceeding to asking her really nicely to come with us!”

Lucas and El both make their apologies to each other and Mike to Lucas so things are a bit smoother there. They head to a hiding place in a junk yard as helicopters swarm overhead

The Ominous men search Karen and her husband’s house looking for signs of El and urging them Karen and Ted to trust them. Ted is a good little drone but Karen, who has been unfailingly awesome throughout this series, is much much more suspicious.

Joyce and Jim get called in to pick up Jonathan who is under arrest after his fight with Steve which Chief Jim quickly makes go away before Joyce explodes messily all over everyone. The police are wary of the monster hunting kit Jonathan and Nancy have been driving around with but Jim and Joyce know the truth and demand an explanation

Joyce is super upset that Jonathan wanted to go off without her to do this and almost tearfully protests that he doesn’t have to do this alone. It’s emotional and works so well with all of Joyce’s reactions because of the undertone -the unspoken acknowledgement that Jonathan kind of has had to do it alone. That Joyce has kind of fallen apart - and even before all this happened I get the impression Jonathan has had to handle a lot alone.

Stranger Things, Season 1, Chapter 5: The Flea and the Acrobat

Hopper continues his infiltration of the sinister lab by means of lots of punching until he finds the scary basement with the weird plant/tunnel/monster/thing

At which point he’s captured and dumped at home expected to sleep it off and forget everything. Instead he tears apart his house looking for a bug - and just when it seems like he’s just being paranoid he finds one.

The rest of the police think he may have lost it - but they tell him that Barb’s car has been found - clearly staged to be found (again by the State police who are so conveniently all involved outside their jurisdiction). And 2 more people have vanished

It seems like Joyce is more stable - but only because Lonnie the terrible is there to help them with the funeral. Jonathan is really not a fan because a) he hates his father and b) he’s now team supernatural doesn’t need someone getting Joyce back on team sensible. Or team withdrawn

At the funeral she is definitely low key, everything focuses more on Lonnie and the whole service is terrible (the pastor runs the worst kind of funeral - one where he seems to spend more time excusing god killing the dead kid than actually focusing on the grieving)

Still Lonnie continues to be helpful, fixing the great big holes Joyce put in the wall searching for Will. He also talks ominously about how the quarry was so very much to blame - yep, Lonnie is planning to sue the quarry. He is here playing kind and nice because he wants to cash in on his son’s death.

Joyce. Is. Not. Amused. Lonnie is giving his marching orders. And out comes the lights again.

Hopper also joins her to tear the house apart finding another bug- and telling Joyce she was right about everything.

The Geek Squad becomes more obsessed with the idea of an alternate dimension which Mike is stuck in and run it past their fellow geeky character who accepts the possibility and throws physics at the idea to try and pass it off as something other than magic. It’s going to need lots of power - so they to El to use woo-woo but first they need to find the place. To which Dustin actually does something and points out all their compassess (apparently everyone carried compasses back in these dark ages before coffee came in 169723 delicious flavours I could order over the internet? What a dark and terrible era). Are pointing the wrong way. Clearly if they go that way they will find the portal

Stranger Things, Season 1, Chapter 2: The Weirdo on Maple Street

Mike, Dustin and Lucas take Eleven back to Mike’s house and quickly realise Eleven is not a usual child, being disturbingly silent and having little concept of privacy. They can’t go to their parents because doing so would reveal they were out at night looking for Will when they were told not to so concoct a plan to have Eleven (dubbed El by Mike, seeing her tattoo) knock on the door in the morning and introduce himself to Mike’s mother and get whatever help she needed.

El remains creepily silent (Dustin and Lucas are not exactly on side with helping her) and the next morning she is adamantly against the plan, signally she doesn’t want to tell anyone as bad people are after her who will kill them all. By what we’ve seen she’s not wrong with poor Benny.

Mike skips school (understood by his very understanding mother who thinks he’s traumatised by his missing friend) to show El the wonders that this era has to offer - reclining chairs and so El can slowly become a little more talkative. We do get an insight into her terror of confined spaces with a flashback of people in an institution locking her in a small room while she screams for her father. Clearly not a happy childhood

She also sees a picture of Will and seems to recognise him. When the rest of the Geek squad return, Lucas is done with them harbouring, what he assumes, is an escaped mental patient and tries to tell a parent - only to have El hold the door closed with her telekinetic powers. This is duly impressive to the three kids who love all things magical and super-powered. They’re totally on side with helping her hide out now. They also thinks she knows where Will is - and she reveals via DnD models because communcation is somewhat difficult for her. Will is hiding from a monster

Jonathan and Joyce are dealing with missing Will… badly. Joyce is imploding messily and emotionally and it’s painful to watch. She’s making flying, melting down all over chief Hooper and convinced that the weird phone call she received was from Will, though it did fry her phone making her go to her place of work, get an advance because she spent all her money on missing papers, to buy a new phone. It’s really excellent acting because it is terrible to watch her completely implode

Jonathan is trying to hold it together and support his mother which is- he goes to see his dad Lonnie to see if Will ran away him. Clearly not - though we do get a suggestion from Lonnie that Joyce is partially to blame for their break up. I’m not entirely convinced as he’s pretty much the worst from what I can see.

We do get a flashback into just how much Jonathan supported his little brother in the face of their parents’ arguing and how Lonnie was trying to force Will into having hobbies he wasn’t interested in but Lonnie considered better or more appropriate (sports vs computer games it seems). It seems Jonathan has been a rock for this family for some time.

Shards of Hope (Psy/Changeling #14) by Nalini Singh

Aden is the leader of the Arrow Squad, the most dangerous and highly trained Psy on the planet. When he and his fellow Arrow, Zaira, wake wounded and captured they know there’s a new enemy out there they have to stop

Of course, holding an Arrow isn’t easy.

While bringing down this new enemy is a focus of the squad, Aden has a deeper mission: how to help his Arrows, his damaged, dangerous, Arrows, adapt to this new world without Silence and hope they can finally find a future and a home; an idea that has become alien to them.

There’s a lot about this book I loved - because this is a story that has been brewing for a while - the story of the Arrow Squad. We had an introduction with Vasic but this really does take their story to the next level of detail.

With the Fall of Silence and with the Arrows going from whispered, almost mythological, force hiding in the shadows to being very open and involved in dealing with the problems of the fall of silence it’s such a huge shift for them

The Arrows themselves are such an excellent representation of the challenges of Silence. All of them have lethal, terrifying powers and were given the strictest and most brutal of training and the most rigid Silence to actually survive them. If anyone cannot live without Silence, it is the Arrows - not only are they powerful and dangerous but they’ve also been deeply traumatised pretty much from birth because torture is how they’re trained

Damaged, lethal, rigidly controlled - it’s going to be hard for them. What I really liked in particular was Aden and Zaira learning how to even behave around children, how to raise children, how to learn the basic thing about them. With all Arrows recruited as very small children and tortured by the program since then the very alienness of play is perhaps more stark than any depictions of the torture they suffered

From that I also liked the little offshoots of concern - like how the older Arrows will manage with this changing world they don’t seem to fit in. Or what to do with those members of the squad who have been so utterly hurt that they’re not entirely functional.

And then there’s those whose Silence did actually cover up a monster - the emotionless killers who secretly enjoyed it. How do you find them and what do you do with them?

I do think that, perhaps, this was just a little but simplistic in some issues, especially in relation to Psy with dangerous powers. I mean, we had Psy literally fearing their own extinction due to their rates of suicide, mental illness and violent crime as well as uncontrolled dangerous powers - this is while Silence was enacted. So introducing their hyper-dangerous Arrow children to having to write essays as punishment just seems… well if that worked then why would the Psy have ever enacted Silence. I think it would have been better if we had seen them incorporating more of the lessons, mental exercises etc of Silence to show WHY these tactics work now.

Slave to Sensation (Psy-Changeling Series) by Nalini Singh

The Psy, the main power of the world, have long embraced a policy of Silence. A policy which trains their children to feel no emotion. The icily emotionless Psy have maintained this policy for generations now, to such a degree that a Psy that feels is considered alien and broken

Sascha Duncan is broken. Daughter of one of the Psy council, a Cardinal Psy with no real power… she feels. She feels intensely and she’s finding it harder and harder to hide the fact

When she starts working with Lucas, alpha of the Changeling wereleopard clan looking for a serial killer, his interest pushes her emotional control to the very limit.

This is going to be a little bit of an odd book review. Way back before we even started Fangs for the Fantasy, when Renee and I were just discussing, debating and mocking the odd book when we talked to each other, I read several books in the Psy-Changeling series and produced this somewhat abortive review. Then they never really appeared again. This is unfortunate because, not only is Nalini Singh a prominent author in this genre and also one I like a great deal, but it’s also her fault that we keep picking up paranormal romances.

If you’ve read Fangs for any length of time, we’ve had a rocky relationship with paranormal romance – generally not liking the tropes or structure of it. If you send us a book review request with a book that appears to be a paranormal romance, we will email you back that we’re generally not a huge fan of this genre so we may not be the best place

Yet we still read the genre because of Nalini Singh. Because I really loved this series – and I really liked her Guildhunter series and I wasn’t going to miss out on other potential awesomeness. So, yes it’s her fault.

And I do like this book a lot. I really love the world building. The whole concept of humanity, Changelings (wereanimals) and Psy (psychic people) is a fascinating one. I love that it’s set a little way in our future to have slight sci-fi themes, but not enough to be completely alien. I love how not only do we have our world with these different creatures, but that we also have the world itself to be dramatically changed. Things like the greater environmental protections brought in by the Changelings, the more extensive forests and influence that brings. While the Psy have shaped the cities and building and have a whole new information source based on their powers

The nature of the Psy powers and the imagination of the psynet are original and drew me in with the originality of it and the implication. It made this whole psychic side of the Psy a much more tangible element in their lives. They weren’t humans with shiny powers – they were entirely separate beings with entirely different ways of living because of this whole hidden world that they’re unaware of.

From Dusk Till Dawn: Season 1, Episode 4: Let's Get Ramblin'

Kate Fuller remembers better times of her father’s preaching while he sleeps off the booze – she decides where they’re going (and gets an email back from the not very assiduous police force about her father’s vehicular homicide issue) and that is to the Dewdrop Inn.

Which is where the Gecko brothers are, with Seth trying to think of a way to cross the border into Mexico. Seth isn’t in the best mood for listening to his brother given the escalating murders. Richie talking about being invisible by closing their eyes probably doesn’t help much.

Meanwhile Freddie’s boss, having found the dead body of Kate’s very-annoying boyfriend, calls Freddie all kind of annoyed that he’s charging off after the Geckos using the “pretext” of the Cartel serial killings. Freddie explains what his expert last week told him and gets an awesome line back

 “my son tells me lots of crazy things when I get home. That’s ‘cos he’s high on weed. Don’t make me listen to it at work.”

While his boss wants him to quit, he recognises that Earl’s last words pretty much make that impossible. I think I may like Crusty Boss Guy.

Back to the Fullers, and Jacob rams his son into a wall for referencing his drinking which just makes his daughter regard him with further outraged disgust. He makes his apologies to her in the room but she’s pretty clearly not very moved by it. She goes to the pool.

Family drama is interrupted by the arrival of the Gecko brothers and guns. Richie is sent to the pool to collect Kate (Seth doesn’t want to leave him alone with the hostages – I’m not sure sending him alone after a girl is a good idea either). She’s check the email – her father lied about the car crash that killed her mother. It wasn’t drunk driving – but it was speeding and an apparent fight between her parents. Richie arrives and starts hallucinating – starting with blood but quickly becoming disturbingly sexual.

Seth explains his plan to Jacob – he’s going to use the Fuller family as cover to get them across the border. Meanwhile Seth is bonding with the underage girl in a bikini and yes it’s exactly as creepy as it sounds. His psychic sight lets him see and comment on Kate’s pain and encourage her to talk to her father. And then really scares her by reading her memories back to her. Well it sends her running back to her room. Jacob makes all the standard pleas about only taking him but, as Seth points out, a creepy old man isn’t nearly as good a cover.

Time for a random flashback to Freddie’s first day on the job – because From Dusk Till Dawn simply cannot operate without a random flashback every 10 minutes. He and Crusty Earl kill a girl’s kidnappers and it’s very very gory, of course. I think this was inserted randomly so we don’t have his entire screen time be spent driving and obsessing over the knife. As he drives, his sat nav acts up, the radio changes, he starts zoning out and he accidentally cuts himself with the knife. All of that pales next to the ghost of one of those long dead kidnappers appearing to tell him to give the knife back to its rightful owners before yelling about tears of blood and spurting blood everywhere.

Their budget for fake blood must be huge.