Ultraviolet Season 1, Episode 4: Mea Culpa

 At a Catholic school, a priest questions a school child, Gary, who forged a note to get himself out of the prayers, claiming to be allergic to the incense and the smoke. The priest asked what changed but the boy just demands to be left alone, that he doesn’t want to be forced. The priest touches him and the boy draws a knife and stabs him before running out of the school.

Angela has her own little family drama with her own daughter and receives a letter; some test samples she’s sent off for Father Harman have come back as “consistent with a non-hodgkins lymphoma” which I think, by her reaction, means cancer. She goes to work to tell him but he’s already left for the mortuary to see the priest who was stabbed.

The boy has left the school and removed the obvious identifying elements of his school uniform and tries to wash the blood off his hands – he squints painfully in the sunlight.

At the mortuary Angela doesn’t understand why it would be a case for them – until Harman shows that the priest had multiple stab wounds and the 12 year old boy who did it had no history of violence. Angela still doesn’t see how they can assume “code 5” involvement, but Harman says the boy was considering the priesthood.

Vaughan and Mike question the other kids and during the questioning Vaughan opens the blinds, several students flinch away from the sunlight. Vaughan is all “this is vampires” but Mike, whose being a cop, doesn’t think it takes vampirism to make a kid an evil little bastard. Vaughan raises the sunlight sensitivity, Mike points out that that’s a diagnosis for meningitis. Angela takes issue and assures him that no-one’s leaping to conclusions so make sure he doesn’t (which makes no sense – he isn’t leaping to conclusions. He’s stopping them from doing so).

In the park, the boy, Gary, is found by a man who brings him home (for nefarious purposes it’s heavily implied). His dog starts barking furiously the minute Gary enters. The dog gets more and more aggressive before attacking Gary. The man dumps Gary at a hospital before running out, going home and dumping his pornography in a black bin bag – it’s hard to tell what it is but I’m presuming paedophilic. He burns it.

At Gary’s mother’s home Vaughan and Mike question her while searching the flat. She says she was relieved that Gary had dropped out of the religious activities, saying it was his father’s idea in the first place. He’d never been violent but was showing sunlight aversion. She says the only social activity he had was choir practice

At the school, Angela examines one of his classmates and finds him not light sensitive (not to electric light anyway) but he panics and is almost in pain when asked to open a Bible. She has the whole school closed and the students sequestered as a ”public health issue” and Mike is furious about the extreme draconian power she uses with so little evidence. She does take some of his complaints to heart and she takes spinal fluid samples. She also does UV light testing on their necks and finds nothing

Mike, meanwhile, is looking at other potential options and questions the football coach about whether the dead Father Downey was a paedophile. The coach says no but Mike searches the priest’s house and finds a computer disk (soooo dated!) and finds some compromising images (which, naturally, they don’t show) of Gary.

He takes the pictures to Father Harman who decides that, since there’s no evidence of Father Downey downloading the pictures, there’s nothing to connect them to him other than them turning up in his house. Which is a pretty huge exception to the idea of “nothing”.  Mike is angry that they won’t turn this other to the police, instead deciding to keep the evidence quiet and deciding to investigate themselves (in episode 1 they already confirmed that they’re not very good at investigating). Mike’s extremely irritated by this, especially since all of these potentially abused children are being forcibly separated from their parents. Angela finally concedes that’s not a good idea since it will draw the media. But Gary still has to stay and Harman is far more concerned by Downey’s reputation than the potential harm to any children (they got that realistic at least!)

They follow up on where Gary was attacked – there was no blood in the park and no-one noticed a dog attack. Vaughan asks if they’re chasing paedophiles or dogs – and Mike says both – and they decide to cf to find paedophiles with dogs.

Angela questions Gary about Father Downey and why he makes Gary sick. When Father Harman enters Gary starts to panic and ask him to go away, Harman ignores him and continues to aggressively question him until even Angela draws the line.

Angela is torn at the idea of vampire infection with no penetration, no feeding which normally infects humans and makes them pliable. They speculate it’s a new form of biowarfare to make the masses more pliant. And it’s time for Angela to give Harman his diagnosis. He takes it calmly, better than her, and they discuss treatment and chances while she dodges giving anything concrete or pessimistic. Meanwhile, Angela’s daughter is giving her the cold shoulder because Angela’s refusal to let her out at night is severely restricting her.

Vaughan and Mike go to interview the paedophile, Colin, with his dog. Colin dodges round all the questioning but Vaughan isn’t having it and grabs him by the neck. The dog reacts and Vaughan kicks it and sends it whimpering out the room. Vaughan tells them they’re not cops and don’t have to play by the rules and starts hitting Colin to make him co-operate. Mike looks away, silently. Colin doesn’t recognise Father Downey but does say he gave his pictures to a man that his dog also barked at  - though the dog was much more scared and he had a “skin allergy” that prevented him going out during the day.

Revolution Sneak Peak!

Revolution will be back with us on the 25th March

Nightingale's Lament (Nightside Series #3) by Simon R Green

 John Taylor has a new case – to rescue the Nightingale. A singer whose voice is so incredible she may be the next big thing in the Nightside where the incredible is the norm. A singer whose sad songs can literally cause people to kill themselves in grief – a fact that only adds to her popularity, not detract from it.

And a singer who may be being held against her will. At least, that’s what her father thinks.

Which sets John Taylor on track to speak to and free the Nightingale – but the Cavendishes, her handlers, managers or owners, guard their prize jealously and have the vast power and influence to ensure that even John Taylor can’t just walk in the front door and make demands. A chain of investigation follows, tracking down what the Cavendishes have done in the past, and discovering exactly what they have done to the Nightingale.

To complicate things, John has upset the powers that be. A necessary act of revenge against the murderer of an old and valued friend has caused a large section of the Nightside to lose all power. The Authorities are not amused and wish to speak to John about it – and they’re quite insistant.

I am rapidly becoming unstuck trying to review these books. It’s difficult because I don’t have a lot of praiseworthy things to say about them. But I love them.

Which is a ridiculous contradiction, but it’s true.

The story is good – very well paced, well written, extremely exciting  and with very well done action scenes. There are no twists though, no surprises that can’t be guessed well ahead of time. It’s somewhat predictable, we know how it’s going to end, we know who the bad guys are, we even know their super super secret that was very obvious from the very beginning.

Yet, it was good. It was predictable, I knew exactly how it was going to end – and it was still immense fun. Sometimes the journey doesn’t have to be surprising to be a fun one. It can still be exciting, still be fun of excellent fight scenes, still have some wonderful and enthralling settings and developments to keep you turning the pages. Even without twists and surprises, the story was compelling and enthralling. Even with the dramatic villain monologues – repeated dramatic villain monologues! In fact, it says a lot about the writing that it can make so many of these tropes that you shouldn’t ever do in writing work. Hard boiled film-noir-ish internal monologues allowing the protagonist to info dump? Yes we have lots of that – and it’s excellent and it works and I love it. Over the top villainous exposition “since I’m going to kill you anyway let me explain all my nefarious schemes!?” yes it’s there, lots of it – and it’s excellent and it works and I love it.

The protagonist, John Taylor, is pretty hollow. He’s a power fantasy – super charged, stare-‘em-down, show everyone who’s boss, power fantasy. And he’s a really good one. It’s hard not to have a little fun with him staring down major powers, with everyone flinching at his name, with him avenging his friends no matter the cost and with him kicking an ogre in the balls. It’s fun, mindless, power fantasy fun. But fun nevertheless. Sometimes some simple mindless fun is exactly what the doctor ordered. I honestly can’t point to any real defining characteristic of John than this – he’s got a nebulous history, he has this whole hard-boiled-film-noir-stereotype thing and vast amounts of power and hardassery over the classic heart of gold. He’s a walking stereotype, he’s a cliché writ large – but I really like him.

It’s all a classic example of how there are no rules to writing if you can do it right. If you’ve got good writing, you can make even the cheesiest clichés work.

Ultimately, what really makes this work is the world. This glorious, amazing, incredibly diverse world. The sheer imagination that has gone into creating this vast cast of the weird, wonderful and terrifying is stunning. The Nightside contains everything imaginable and it’s [portrayed so perfectly with that. Everything is weird, there are not only examples of every creature from every mythology and story you can think of, but also creatures and beings that go way beyond that but by mere existence expand the world even further.

But it’s not just an excellently portrayed world of vast and imaginative possibilities that I really really love, it’s also incredibly creepy. Sometimes overtly with some really well done writing that describes a setting or creature that gives you chills. I can’t praise the writing enough here, it’s ability to truly give a sense of the powers of the Nightside but also that constant creepiness. There is nothing fluffy or nice or safe here. And with just a line of dialogue – just Mr. and Mrs. Cavendish talking to each other, that creepy is really really clear. The book is just supremely atmospheric and, with such a fantastic setting, I’ve never known a book give me such a strong sense of time and place. Even the prologue where John Taylor investigates the power plant gives such a strong sense of time and place – it doesn’t matter what the consequences are, it doesn’t matter how damaging it is, he can’t leave his friends like this and he can’t allow himself to be used and betrayed in this fashion.

Being Human (US) Season 3, Episode 5: Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Mouth

 

Liam, the king pedigree werewolf guy, is hunting the remnants of the vampires with a werewolf sidekick as an opener. Ominous.

And Sally’s eating breakfast with immense glee and playing and gossiping with Sam and Nora about her new job. Until Aidan comes in from his night shift in the hospital, tired (Sally is amused that the creature of the night has trouble being nocturnal) and hungry, which Nora asks about and he flees the question.

Aidan goes to bed and has a dream about a willing donor, free of disease who he then kills because he can’t control his hunger. What you expected Aidan to dream of flowers and fluffy kittens when there’s angst fodder around? Returning to sleep brings a dream of the girls he and Henry killed for food. He’s having a fully cycle of guiltmares.

Nora and Josh discuss and worry over the missing Erin Teen Wolf and Nora is concerned about Aidan being a ticking time bomb with his hunger. Later, at work they’re joined by Pedigree Liam! He’s still checking up on his children and wants to know why they wrote big cheque to Josh and he explains about his research that didn’t go anywhere. Which leads them to explain why Josh isn’t a werewolf anymore and Nora explains it was to save her life, which Pedigree Liam accepts since you have to “put your children first”. Uckies, don’t make calling Nora Josh’s child a thing, please don’t. Thankfully Josh challenges that and points out she’s his girlfriend, not his child.

Sally, meanwhile is at her job and facing the horrible things a mortician has to see – dead guy genitals! And then a more serious problem – she can see the ghost of the dead man and the ghost notices. Poor cute, awkward boss man                Max thinks he’s done something wrong and tantamount to harassment by talking about massages as Sally flees the room.

The ghost catches up with her to tell her that his sons are fighting over his will, but he’s written a new one – and Sally hits him with a  tire iron telling him “I’m sorry, this isn’t the ghost whisperer” and he disappears in a puff of smoke. Ooookay, harsh there Sally.

Later she stays back at the funeral home to clean up and she invites Max out on a not!date so she won’t be the third wheel with Zoe and Nick, which he’s cutely gleeful about. Then she runs into the ghost of Max’s mother (and nearly drives her off with an iron frying pan – apparently iron is the key to ghost disruption, which fits some legends).  Max’s mother is worried about her son and his many relationship failures and wants Sally to be careful with him.

The evening is super awkward because while Max and Sally want to congratulate Zoe and Nick on their upcoming trip to India (and Max is dorky cute), Max’s mother is there putting a Debbie downer on everything (heard by everyone in the room BUT Max) and saying some really racist and xenophobic crap about India, which causes Sally to angrily inform her that she’s Indian, which is a somewhat random non-sequiter in the conversation from Max’s point of view. Sally gets yup and leaves the room, doing the eye-slide to get Max’s mother to come with her and receive her marching orders.

Zoe commiserates with Zoe having Max’s mum around but she isn’t impressed that Sally is dispersing ghosts – especially after what she went through when she died and the help she had from people. Including Zoe herself. But Sally doesn’t think she can help them – because every time she’s used any power she has hurt people.

The evening ends and Sally, to Max’s surprise, hugs him. But when she tries to kiss him when they seem to have a moment, he turns and flees, saying goodnight. The next day at work is very awkward but Max tells her he was kicking himself all the way home and asks for a second chance – which Sally agrees to. She leans towards him. He doesn’t move. She leans more. He doesn’t move. She actually says “Max I’m leaning in here” and then he kisses her. Which escalates

Switch them getting dressed afterwards. And Max freaking out because they did it in the viewing room in the funeral home and that’s so unprofessional. And how can he offer tissues for grieving loved ones looking at their bereaved when he’s going to be looking at the couch and thinking of “naked naughty Sally”. Sally starts out amused, but draws the line at “Naughty Sally” and isn’t happy when he takes his clothes and leaves.

Which is when Linda, Max’s mother comes in to slut shame Sally, literally. It seems Linda has been doing her best to keep Max single ever since she died (saying he’s a virgin) and attacking all the other “sluts” he tried to date and accusing Sally of “throwing it” at him. Sally responds that maybe next time she will throw it at him, she’ll “sling it”.

She goes to see Max polishing the car and tells him she quits. She mentions being assaulted with Max awkwardly protests at it being unprofessional but mutual and she tells him she was curious, now her curiosity is satisfied she’s leaving. She buttons his shirt where he missed a button – and leaves.

Seem out of character? Well as Sally wakes up she is informed of all this by Linda – who possessed Sally. Sally complains about this to Zoe who is quick to point out the karmic justice of it (since Sally used to love possession). But sally also points out how hard it is for Max to have his mother around sabotaging him – and Zoe gives her a Tibetan amulet that blocks possession.

Now so protected, it’s time for a return, a ring of salt – and an exorcism. But she stops when Linda collapses crying saying she just wants Max to be happy. Sally kneels next to her and points out that Max isn’t happy. He’s lonely.

Aidan, meanwhile is hallucinating (again) or possibly being haunted by the ghosts of the two women he and Henry killed. There to help him torture himself for all the harm he’s done. Which is when there’s a knock on the door – it’s Kat, the woman Nora is subletting too and the ghosts little inserts are already making it difficult for Aidan to hold a conversation – and tempting him to drink her blood.

At work he talks to Kenny in his sealed room (the kid who has a damaged immune system and, of course, his living in a sealed room means he can’t have caught the flu) and the ghost girls in lingerie (because they died in their underwear, this is all they ever wear. And blood) are back. They point out he has an empty blood vial in his pocket that he must have put there. He almost leaves – but at the last minute takes blood from him. But the next day another nurse comes to take his blood and he complains about the “double dipping”. The nurse points out there’s no record of blood having been taken.

Warm Bodies

If you have seen any of the trailers for Warm Bodies, you know exactly what you’re getting in for. In fact, here’s a trailer now:

That's pretty much it right there, the whole story. There are no spoilers, the trailer pretty much tells you everything that happened and how it ends.

It’s a romantic comedy with a zombie! And corny as that sounds, it works. Not that it’s not corny, but it’s corny in a very fun, cheesy way. It is silly, it’s happily silly, it’s funnily silly. And the acting passes it off really well – I’m impressed particularly by Nicholas Hault managing to be rigid and monotone and still carrying lots of emotional expression (this contrasts the film very well with Twilight, with which it’s often compared, where the actors are rigid and monotone for no good reason and fail to express any emotion).

The plot is cute, in a clichéd kind of way. It’s a new concept, zombies in love, but don’t think the new concept makes the story original. Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, their love is so precious that it saves the entire world. It’s not original, but as far as clichéd love stories go, it’s one of the better told, better acted and better presented one. It’s also quite nice to see a dystopian that’s so up beat, so much fun and actually has a happily ever after (not a “oh we just survived, but legitimate hope and going forwards).

It’s also funny, sometimes hilariously so. R’s internal monologue was immensely fun and often made me cackle. It really worked.

As a concept and a fun film, it did work. I didn’t mind watching it, I probably wouldn’t see it out, but then, I don’t see out romcoms anyway.

Grimm Sneak Peak!

Grimm will be back with us on the 8th March!

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

R is a zombie – and he’s called R because it’s the one fragment of his name he has managed to remember. He and his fellow zombies follow the parodies of the living, aping human life but never really getting the reality of it. In between raiding the living to find food and, above all, brains – brains that contain the precious memories of the living that reignite what it means to be alive in the zombies. He lives in the airport, in his plane with his collection of human memorabilia and 50s records trying to reignite his humanity.

On one such raid he eat the brain of a man called Perry – and his brain lit up. He saw Perry’s girlfriend, Julie, and was driven to protect her rather than eat her. He brought her home to his plane and slowly they come to know each other. But, more, R sees more and more of Perry’s life and Perry’s memories, reliving his hopes and dreams – and his descent. The longer he and Julie spend together, the more R begins to wake up, the more he can remember and talk and think. The more alive he feels

And this vitality is spreading – but the Bonies, the most rotten and reduced of the zombies, are ready to fight back

This is a book that’s surrounded by some truly confusing marketing. When I picked it up, I was told by all and sundry that it was another Twilight. I cringed, expecting a vapid, personality-less heroine and a creepy, stalking hero who was supposed to be romantic.

This book is nothing like Twilight

I watched the trailers for the Warm Bodies film and expected a comedy, something funny and light and clever and amusing.

This book is not a comedy, nor is it light.

This book is surprisingly deep, amazingly solid and full of extremely powerful food for thought.

This is a dystopia, but unlike many dystopias, this is not decades after the end of the world, nor is it mere weeks. The remains of humanity aren’t in a desperate second by second battle for survival, nor have they built much in the way of a new society. Humanity is surviving. Day by day, in their secure centres, surviving with little or no real hope for an actual future. Everything is about survival, killing the zombies and surviving. Anything else is a distraction, it’s grim, it’s hard and General Grigio doesn’t accept any deviation from that, not even from his own daughter.

Then there’s the zombies, feeding on human brains for some spark of human emotion, trying to recapture some sense of what they were, unable to even pull up their own names, their own identities. They’re trapped in bodies that find so many tasks and even basic communication difficult, but also find even caring to be beyond them. Lead by the Bonies, rotted down zombies that are the very essence of stagnation and inevitability.

It’s a powerful book that asks what life actually is and what it means. What is the point of life if everything is reduced to survival, is it even living if you’re just living to survive rather than surviving to live and are you even living if you don’t have any hope for the future, any desires or any wishes. It asks what living actually means and what actually matters.

We see this really well portrayed several ways – with Julie’s difficulty with the stifling and repressive and empty life they live in the stadium. We see it with R’s slow growth from his near-mindless zombie state. And we see it really well through the eyes of Perry’s memories, as he grew colder and harder, as he lost his hope, as he began seeking death and how, ultimately, he became a dead man walking – as much a zombie as R was before he began to reclaim the spark of life.

Lost Girl Season Three, Episode Five: Faes Wide Shut

Lauren and Bo are sitting in a bar and they are scoping out people for Bo to feed on.  Lauren says that Bo is an irresistible sex machine and that she wishes she could keep up with her. When Trick asks what they are up to Lauren explains that the shots she developed to deal with Bo's hunger are no longer working, so they are searching for a booty call. This makes Trick very uncomfortable and he quickly excuses himself.  Lauren then assures Bo that this is what she wants and that though dating a succubus is not without it's challenges, the secret to any relationship is trust, understanding and compromise. Bo tells Lauren that she is being so mature about this and asks again if she is sure.  Lauren says that that is fine as long as Bo follows the one rule - no wolf. A woman enters the bar who catches both Lauren and Bo's attention and Bo announces "game on," before kissing Lauren and walking away.

Graham is having a drink and picks up a key but then quickly drops it.  A woman enters the room and comments that he is back early.  He tells her that she looks nice and she says that she is trying something different. Suddenly Graham grabs his chest and says that there is something he has tell her. Graham then dissolves into a puddle of goo, splattering her as he disappears.

Bo is having sex with the woman that she picked up at the bar and takes the time to feed, as downstairs, Lauren is working on a new shot for her and Kenzi is on her laptop. Kenzi asks if this is going to take long  (read: the sex upstairs) and Lauren replies that science takes time and that once Bo reaches fulfillment that she will compare her blood sample to a baseline. Kenzi bursts upstairs and says that she found a case for them. Kenzi tells Bo that humans are liquifying in front of their loved ones. When Bo says that she is in the middle of something, Kenzi replies, "you're right, knocking bits is way more important than saving lives," and leaves the room.

Bo comes downstairs and Kenzi says that she has been online looking for people who need their help.  Kenzi tells Bo about a woman whose husband turned into green goo and didn't call the police, because before she could call for help, people showed up, scooped up the goo, took his suitcase and his phone. They told her that they would be in touch after their investigation. Bo says she doesn't think she would be much good right now, so Kenzi asks if she no longer cares about their time together.  Kenzi adds that she thought this was something they could do together. Bo promises that they will look into this and collect some evidence.  Bo rushes upstairs to finish off, as Lauren calls out that she left a cup in the bathroom for a sample when she is done.

Kenzi and Lauren sit down with the wife, who says that the spark wasn't there in the bedroom.  She adds that she was trying to spice things up, but Graham kept pulling away and now he's a puddle.  Kenzi says they're from paranormal hot investigators.  A woman named Dehlia shows up looking for Graham and it turns out that she is Graham's lover.  The woman says that he wasn't cheating and accuses his wife of killing him.  The two women start to fight and Bo enters the room and uses her powers to calm them down.

The mistress says that she and Graham had been together for six months. Bo asks if they got into anything unusual and the mistress replies that there was a cool club that they liked to go to before Graham ran off last night.

Kenzi and Bo head to the club.  As they walk through, Bo comments on the hot people. When she gets a phone call, it turns out that it's Lauren, who says that there were secretions inside Graham which rapidly broke down his body.  Lauren says that she is going to work on an antidote because Graham might have infected his wife and his lover.  Bo continues to be distracted and tells Lauren that the sexual energy in the club goes to eleven.  Lauren tells her to have fun and hangs up the phone.

Bo is approached by a man who tells her that Roman requests her presence, so Bo and Kenzi agree to separate.

Dyson and Tamsin are checking out a crime scene and discover a dead woman.  Dyson sniffs and says that she is fae and had been dumped in the last couple of hours.  They decide to take her to Lauren. When Dyson moves her hair, it seems that this is the woman Bo was with a few hours ago.  Dyson sniffs again and says that he smells Bo on the woman.

Bo is taken to see the Roman God Bacchus. He tells her to enjoy his hospitality and then uses his powers on her.  Bo sits on the bed next to Roman and says that she heard he is the guy to see about sex. Bo leans in and asks for privacy.   Bo then asks what the craziest thing he has ever done in bed and Roman replies, "sleep."

Dyson brings the body to Lauren and asks what killed her. Lauren asks where she was found and if there was any struggle on the scene.  Tamsin asks if the cause of death is an allergic reaction to a succubus.  Lauren says blunt force trauma and adds that she will do a full autopsy. Tamsin asks if the victim's face rings any bells and Lauren lies and says no and that she does not appreciate being treated like a criminal.  When they leave, Lauren picks up her phone and texts Bo.  Since Kenzi has Bo's phone she sees the message but decides to delete it.

Upstairs, Bo is still in bed with Roman and she asks which fae are getting intimate with humans. Roman replies that he doesn't keep track of this sort of thing and that people expect anonymity in a place like this.  Bo accuses Roman of lying and says that a bad bad boy sent someone to clean up a bad bad mess. Bo adds that something is causing humans to go all gooey. Roman hops out of bed and tells Bo that her cheap succubus tricks aren't doing anything for him. Bo grabs her things and tells Roman that he knows how to show a girl a good time before leaving.  Roman instructs his helper to pay a visit to the home of the dead human and to cut Bo's throat if she returns to the club.