Zoo, Season 1, Episode 3: The Silence of the Cicadas

Jackson and Abe have travelled to Japan to follow the rest of his father’s research. Their first surprise was finding out that Richard married again, a woman called Minako. This causes Jackson no small amount of angst because he realises Minako faithfully stuck by Richard as he was abandoned by his job, his other family and had a complete breakdown – especially now that it was clear that Richard may have been wrong. Of course, Abe is there to make Jackson feel better

Minako takes them to an irradiated island off Fukushima which Richard used for all his research where, after their plane encounters some angry bats, they crash and Minako dies

Really? Already? She was introduced, made it clear she was the perfect, mild, supportive wife (heya stereotype) and then promptly dies? And, again my complaint from last week is that we’re making a big thing about this being a global problem but so far Abe is the only POC and the only non-western character as part of the group.

On the island of Dr. Oz they find he has been pursuing some creepy experiments, including pulling out horses’ eyes when the “defiant pupil” appeared and generally being very ominous without producing much useful data. Seriously, so far every piece of data that Richard produced says the same thing “animals attack! Defiant pupil! End of the world!” no wonder he was kicked out of the academic community. Random assertions are not evidence even if you do repeat them over and over and over again.

In Los Angeles, Jamie manages to convince Mitch to come see a senator she knows with his evidence of telepathic lions. Mitch is unwilling because he’s Mitch and because he doesn’t exactly have a whole lot of evidence but Jamie insists. Of course when they get there, Mitch learns that Jamie has actually been fired from the paper and this is all her pulling him along. But she manages to convince him to go to an emotional tour of the graveyard where there are many deaths from the “cancer cluster” she asserts was caused by Reiden chemicals. This keeps him on side long enough to speak to the Senator – only to see the Senator has pretty much given up. After many many investigations into the company they’ve just failed to make any ground.

Supernatural, Season 11, Episode 16: Safe House

Nostalgia time!

This episode has Sam and Dean going hunting down a monster that Rufus and Bobby (Bobby! Oh how I miss you) once hunted as well – and we have a lot of flashbacks of how the two teams worked.

And I loved it

I loved the genuine affection both teams had – though Sam and Dean have a heavy dollop of cockiness (especially from Dean) and snark, while Rufus and Bobby are much more cautious and have a wonderful sense of world weariness about them.

I like that – it would have been easy and lazy to try and make both teams the same: the make Bobby and Rufus just a duplicate of Sam and Dean – but it wouldn’t work. Bobby and Rufus aren’t as close and have also been doing this a whole lot longer. We have parallels (I like that both teams are taking this case as an easy win to distract themselves from world consuming horror they can’t quite figure out how to deal with it).

And, of course, all the world must love Bobby calling Sam and Dean “my boys” and when Rufus even thinks of challenging that Bobby doubles down. Sam and Dean are his all-but-sons, not even questioned. Doubly so when we see Bobby’s tormented nightmare is the death of Sam and Dean. Even when they take him for granted and he calls the idjits, there’s so much care there.

I miss Bobby.

Rufus and Bobby also work so well together – maximum crotchetiness, lots of experience and confidence without as much of the macho bravado of Dean or the endless emotional issues and Manpain. I would almost say spin off – or at least more of these since it would also do a good job of increasing the number of recurring POC in the series – except Rufus has already been killed off.

Small Change by Andrez Bergen

Roy Scherer and Suzie Miller run a detective agency. Though their clients are a little different from what you see in the usual Film Noir. They’re hunting the werewolves, resolving the hauntings, dealing with angry spirits and tripping over the odd vampire

Well, usually. It doesn’t always go to plan. Usually it doesn’t. But with copious alcohol and few resources, who else are you going to call?

I can see what this book is trying to be. It’s trying to be a zany, funny collection of irreverent short stories, taking the grittiness of so many hunter stories we have out there and throwing in a heavy dose of the silly, sarcasm and general hilarity to make it a whole new thing. Still a little dark, with the heavy drinking protagonists and more than a few jokes, but comedic and silly – the slightly inept hunters flailing through a series of encounters with monsters and leaving (sort of) success and hilarity in their wake

I’ve seen this attempted before in other books – and I’ve utterly loved it. The horror and the humour, the grittiness and the silliness it can mesh so well and has literally created some of my favourite stories.

But… in this case it didn’t really achieve that. Mainly because I simply didn’t find it funny enough. I mean it was amusing and had moments of laughter, but there were nuggets within a story that as a bit meh. The thing is, without the hilarious quips and fun, this kind of story falls flat because there’s not much else there really to sell it

There is a story behind there. The origin story of Roy and him working for Miller, Suzie‘s father who then joined the firm. The two of them coming together, him resenting her, grudgingly starting to respect her and them moving their way down to romanceville. And I really loved how Suzie went from naive ingénue harder than Roy by the end. But this plot line and the world (which is more a series of random encounters than a world) aren’t really there for their own sake. I don’t think the author intends me to be super invested in these characters any more than I’m supposed to be super invested in characters from a comedy sketch. Nor do I think I’m meant to marvel at the world. These characters and this world is supposed to provide a good framework, a decent backlot, against which the hilarity can happen. But there isn’t enough hilarity so I’m left looking at the backlot a bit too much which is… fine, I guess. I mean, it’s not bad but not enough to sell it on its own.

iZombie, Season 2, Episode 15: He Blinded Me With Science

iZombie is back and so is back from the dead Blaine, newly zombied and happy to groan “brains” at Ravi.

Because he’s Blaine, and he’s nearly always awesome (though don’t make jokes about Ravi being attracted to him if you’re not going to through in an actual LGBT character please). He snarks. Ravi snarks (he is also an awesome snarker. In fact this whole show is all about the awesome snark).

But, on a more serious note, it also means that Blaine may be about to die like the zombie rats who took the cure did… and while no-one cares too much about Blaine dying, having all the city’s zombies lose their source of brains would be a very very very very bad thing.

Thankfully to help that, the murder this week is a research scientist – which both Liv and Blaine partake in and start spouting surprising scientific insight

Ok, can I have a little side here – Liv is a doctor. Liv was brilliant in medical school. The amount of surprise she faces because she speaks all sciency is kind of annoying. Liv isn’t uneducated, her knowing these things is not surprising.

Anyway the murder investigation does lead them to Max Rager since the dead woman did work there for some time. This leads to some clumsy undercover work, Liv terrifying Ravi by putting on make up to look human (or, more likely, took the make up OFF and returned to the actor’s actual skin and hair tone. And yes, it does look creepy when Ravi says it) and getting a vision of fully rotty zombies in Vaughn’s basement lab

Unfortunately for Liv, it turns out the murderer was someone else entirely, found by Clive doing actual police work (I appreciate this. I like that even with Liv’s visions, we’re still seeing Clive solve these cases with dedicated, conventional investigating despite Liv’s enthusiasms).

Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments, Season One, Episode Eleven: Blood Calls to Blood

Alec's beard is determined to put Izzy on trial because the law is the law.  Though Alec tries to assure Izzy that somehow Jace and Clary will make it back in time, Izzy wants to deal with the reality of her situation and that means finding an advocate to represent her.  Izzy chooses Magnus Bane and so Alec heads off to see him.  Magnus agrees to represent Izzy but as payment asks Alec to hand over himself and when Alec refuses, Magnus demands his magical weapons.  It's a tough price but Alec agrees to this because of the love he has for his sister.

Jace and Clary are shocked to find that Michael Wayland is still alive.  When Michael recounts a memory that only Michael Wayland can know, Jace becomes convinced of his father's identity. The Ravener venom is actively killing Jace and he is beginning to succumb but thankfully, Valentine has his very own portal, so the three head to see Luke to get Jace medical attention.

At The Jade, they determine that what Jace needs is a blood transfusion.  Who better to get blood from than a vampire?  Paging Raphael. Michael, Jace and Luke stay behind while Clary and Simon head to the hotel to blackmail Raphael into giving them the human blood that Camille had stockpiled. Naturally, Raphael isn't anxious to help the shadowhunters but that's nothing that a little blackmail won't overcome.  Heavily implying that they will tell the Clave about the role Raphael played in Simon's turning is enough to get him to comply.

It's trial time and Magnus brings the panache. Magnus suggests that while Izzy's actions appear to be going against direct instruction, what she did was to stop them from breaking the Accords. Magnus then gets to the heart of the matter.  He believes the issue isn't so much that Izzy stopped Meliorn from being tortured but that Clave will stop at nothing to get the Mortal Cup. Magnus then goes on to say that since the charges are ridiculous that the case should be dropped altogether but the inquisitor is simply not having it.

Jace gets the transfusion that he needs thus saving his life. It's time for Clary to have some one on one time with Michael. Michael reveals that he knew that Jocelyn was preggers and that Valentine has always loved Jocelyn.  I suppose it's comforting on some level to know that Jocelyn's kidnapper has feelings for her but Clary focuses on how it is that Michael would know about Jocelyn's pregnancy. Clary decides to take her suspicions about Michael to Jace.  From the story Jace told her about his father killing his pet falcon, Michael doesn't seem to be the same coldhearted bastard. Jace explains that Michael was just trying to teach him a hard lesson. It's time for some spit swapping cause people coming back from the dead and being on the outs with one's parabati is cause for kissy face time.

Izzy takes the stand at her trial and lies and claims that she acted alone in helping Meliorn escape. The inquisitor goes all side eye at that and it's no wonder because lying is clearly not Izzy's strong suit. It's time to get dirty and it's heavily implied that Izzy's real goal was to help Valentine and why not, considering that her parents were once traitors. Izzy however denies the assertion and responds that the downwolders lives have value.  She stop short of saying Downworlder lives matter. Yes, the appropriation is thick here. Izzy argues that because they are part mundane that their fear and anger often manifests in cruelty. It's this cruelty which Izzy believes will ultimately divide them and turn Shadowhunter against Shadowhunter. Unspoken is the fact that this has already happened because Jace and Alec are at odds.

Michael reveals that Valentine pumped him up with Downworlder blood and as a result, he gained enhanced vision and hearing.  Michael claims that he just happened to overhear Valentine's plans and says that Valentine has decided to move to an abandoned hospital near the institute.Gee, that's nice and convenient isn't it.  Apparently, Valentine also took Jocelyn with him when he left, leaving Michael behind to die.  Clary and Luke head to investigate while Michael and Jace stay behind.

It's time for Lydia the beard to take the stand and it seems that she has changed her mind about her prosecution of Izzy.  Lydia The beard starts off with the expected the law is the law but then quickly changes to add that what they need to focus on is love, loyalty and justice. It seems that she has learned by the fact that Alec was willing to sacrifice for his sister and that Magnus accepted payment of a weapon he didn't want to cover for his desire to help. I guess it would have been too much to ask for Lydia The Beard to figure this out before she decided to call the po po.  Lydia The Beard decides that she is going to drop the charges against Izzy. Unfortunately, the inquisitor is not feeling the love and declares Izzy guilty of all charges which means stripping her of all of her runes and kicking her out of the Shadowhunter club.  Ahhh, don't panic, the inquisitor offers an out: all charges will be dismissed if the Mortal Cup is handed over within 24 hours.

While Clary and Luke are away, Jace takes the opportunity to spar with Michael.  Michael of course notes that Jace is much weaker than he should be. Umm he barely survived the Ravener venom, so how about we give dude 24 hours to get back to himself. Jace explains that Alec weakened the bond between them when he was trying to find him.  Michael surmises that Clary is the real problem and suggests that Jace actually cares more about Clary than he does his parabatai. Michael is adamant that being with Clary is going to make him weak and while he wishes Jace happiness, he should be wary of any connection which weakens him.

iZombie, Vol. 1: Dead to the World (iZombie #1) by Chris Roberson

Gwen Dylan isn't what one would normally think of when zombies come to mind.  She holds down a job, sure, it's as a gravedigger but how else is she supposed to get access to brains?  The brains taste awful but eating them is a small price to pay once a month to hold onto who she is and to keep her memories intact.  If only her monthly diet didn't also come with the memories of the deceased.  It's particularly a pain in the ass when Gwen eats the brain of someone who has unfinished business and wants justice.  Gwen feels compelled to help and fortunately, being part of a great scooby group which is made up of her ghostly best friend Eleanor and Spot/Scott the wereterrier  makes giving the dead their desire easier..

I chose to pick up this comic after falling in love with CW's I Zombie.  Naturally the basic premise of a self aware zombie surviving in our world is very much a part of this graphic novel.  Even certain things, like Gwen's getting the memories from the brains she eats remains the same; however, there are several characters in the graphic novel which aren't in the show.  It's still light, irreverent and a joy to read.

In Roberson's version of the story, the world is much larger. He includes the aforementioned were terrier, ghosts as well as vampires and mummies.  I personally love Scott/Spot though he spends way too much time mooning over Gwen.  When he is not actively hoping that his relationship with Gwen will turn romantic, he works in IT and uses the internet to hunt down clues to help Gwen give closure to those whose brains she has eaten.  Scott/Spot is the classic socially awkward geek but seems to have a bit of a sense of humor about the fact that of all the supernatural creatures he could possibly be, he's a were terrier.  Gwen doesn't seem to respect Scott/Spot and I think that it's a stretch to call her feelings friendly.  Gwen seems to have no problem using him for his expertise and accepting gifts from him yet, she's absolutely dismissive about his feelings for her and even ditches him when she thinks she sees someone she knows.

Gwen is a much better friend to Eleanor, her ghost bff, who died forty years ago.  Eleanor is a a dreamer and would love to see the world but unfortunately, ghosts can only travel to places where they went in their lifetimes and since Eleanor never got far from home, this means her options are really limited. Even with her limitations, Eleanor is not content to just waste the night away at the graveyard with Gwen. Eleanor wants to go out and experience the parts of the world that she is able to.  Just because Gwen is better with Eleanor than Scott/Spot doesn't mean that she's great.  Gwen never tires about going on about how flighty and emotional that Eleanor is.  To me it feels as though she is discounting Eleanor's feelings.

Thus far, the vampires we have all met are women.  I like that they stick together and that they are smart business women.  In order not to attract attention, they women up a paintball business and then separate their prey from their friends long enough to feed.  It's a smart business if you think about, 'cause the food comes to them.  It allows them to take enough to survive without leaving any bodies behind.  I would really like to know more about the organization of their society.

Damien, Season 1, Episode 3: The Deliverer

This episode tones down some of the endless ominousness of the series so far. Oh, don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of ominous music and ominous scenes – like a long painful recitation of atrocities that Damien has witnessed with Ann deciding it’s all because of Damien and his dark evilness. This is also sprinkled with lots of reminders of Damien’s ominous past and evil childhood.

Still while there is the ominousness, we also get some actual advancement of the plot: Damien turns to one of his high powered contacts: a former secretary of state called Jack who does his very best to warn him off Ann, the ominous ominous Ann. He even implies she *gasps* murders people who get in her way

But, surprise, he and Ann are part of the same organisation (and she’s made the point that there are several ominous organisations all interested in Damien, anarchists, Satanists, people who want to bring about the second coming, people who want to keep the world the way it is…. All the while carefully not telling Damien which organisation she is from). Only he’s decided Ann is being too softly-softly for his taste.

Jack wants to force the issue – he wants to “bring Damien in” and he wants to force the plan forwards. Ann doesn’t agree with this, but Jack assumes she’s gone soft and decides his lackey Troy will take over

Ann’s not having that. Taking advantage of Damien watching her (because he’s not entirely a fool to completely trust his stalker) she manages to set up a nice scenario, pushing Troy’s buttons, faking and attack and setting Troy running with Damien chasing after him. The chase leads to a subway and poor Troy having a nasty accident with an escalator. There’s certainly something worse than Ann watching him

And Jack has been taught a nice lesson there as well. Do Not Mess With Ann.

While on the Subway Damien gives up the chase to save the life of a boy that fell on the tracks – yes, an unsubtle message that Damien may be the son of satan but there’s still good in him.

The Magicians, Season 1, Episode 10: Homecoming

Penny uses the new button to transport to himself… not to Fillory but to a place called the Neitherlands (yes, really) a place with a whole lot of fountains that transport you to many many different realms. Which would be nifty if it weren’t for the angry Beast-serving people who try to throw fireballs at him. He does his Nightcrawler thing to dodge them and end up being dropped into the huge library underneath. This apparently contains copies of every book and a very powerful librarian. She has wisdom, snark, the ability to see the future and power enough to be not impressed with Penny – she does banish Penny from her library with a few pages of a book written by one of the kids from Fillory (she predicted Penny would try to steal the book, they’d fight, she’d win but he’d manage to get away with some pages of the book. By photocopying the pages instead she manages to save her book from damage

More of her please.

But Penny’s stuck in the Neitherworld and his only contact with the outside world is to invade Quinn’s sex dream (poor Penny can’t keep out of Quinn’s disturbing brain) involving Julia and Alice making out and cosplaying (y’know, after the treatment of LGBT characters these last three episodes they really should step back from women making out for a man’s pleasure).

So Penny has recruited Quinn for help – having to actually ask for help from Quinn which is so very galling.

Where do they go? Well Alice’s mother knows a traveller, Joe (from another world and with an unpronounceable name) which means going to Alice’s parents. Who are enjoying a Roman orgy and are generally sexual enough in front of their own child to cross the line from “quirky” to “creepy, predatory and possibly abusive”. It also greatly overturns any conceptions we had of Alice as a virgin – lack of experience of relationships and fleeing from her parents’ example shapes her a lot more.

In between the awkwardness and learning a whole lot more about Alice there is an interesting exchange between her and her mother: she’s furious at her mother for not caring about what happened to her brother. Her mother hits back with some quite good points about other people having feelings and not everyone has to deal with emotional trauma the same way Alice did. It’s a nice point and a surprising one: just because someone doesn’t grieve as we grieve doesn’t mean they’re not hurting.