Between, Season 1, Episode 2: Who's the Boss

Day 14: Death Toll 6,043

As should surprise no-one, Adam survived his little jaunt to the fence and has now set up a board of various things to think about – the victims, their ages, the fence et al.

Things are slowly decaying in town with a large number of orphans and drying up food supplies – and kids tasking up driving which doesn’t end well. It’s a nicely ominous “everything is falling apart” foreshadow. Gord and his sister                Francis speak to the little girl, Sarah who lost her brother in the car crash.

To Wylie and her newborn baby. Her sister, Melissa has taken in a lot of kids at the church to look after them and would really like Wylie’s help but Wylie has completely withdrawn, not going out and not even naming her new son.

To the rich folk’s household with kid Chuck completely failing to reassure his sister Amanda about their other sister Lana’s disappearance – she’s been gone for 4 days. Charles senior, arsehole rich guy, has finally died from the virus

Day 14: Death toll: 6,922

It’s time for another town meeting (led by Ms Symmonds the teacher) – but whole the last one was full of sombre and concerned adults, this is full of noisy children. They have a message to play from Minister Miller, the lady who holds some kind of authoritative role outside the fence. She confirms that everyone over the age of 22 is now dead which, bright side, means the rest of them probably will live. She wants the survivors to then burn the bodies.

Francis takes little Sarah to the beleaguered Melissa’s church hall crèche – I wonder if Sarah saying “he died” about her brother will ever be less heart wrenching?

Far more tragic is watching the survivors gather all the bodies of their loved ones to take them to the bonfire. It’s taking so long that Chuck eventually decides to draft all over 12s to move the bodies. Lana is also still missing

Gord goes around being a saint, first of all he and Francis steal food for the orphans from the supermarket and then he stops to lecture Ronnie on stealing drug. Ronnie pulls a gun and to make it worse Chuck and his cronies show up. Chuck is happy to back down from the gun wielding Ronnie, Gord almost has a death wish but they don’t stop Ronnie leaving with the drugs.

Gord and Chuck discuss the grocery store theft – and Gord apologises, he assumed it was a giant chain not belonging to his family, but he adds that there are kids who need food. Chuck does ask Gord talk to him about any future acquisitions – Chuck (and his hockey team minions) wants to hold the town together until the fence comes down and thinks about how to control Ronnie (with force) while Gord uses intelligence (getting Ronnie’s brother Pat to reel him in). We also learn Gord used to be on the hockey team before his dad forced him to quit and help on the farm.

Olympus, Season 1, Episode 9: Pandora's Tomb

Medea investigates Hero’s disappearance, finding the claw marks left by Kronos. They’re ancient symbols of the gods and she needs Xerxes to translate – to the prisoner caves! There she gets him to translate with the grim promise of a much less painful and horrible death. The symbols mean love, heritage and human soul.

Of course, Medea doesn’t even follow through on the grim bribe she offered. He resorts to base flattery.

Medea goes to Daedalus who is worried because he made a mistake – he told Hero where the door to Olympus was based on using big impressive buildings which they took to be god made as surrounding the door – except now he realises the buildings are actually petrified titans killed by the gods during the war – and at the centre isn’t a gateway, it’s a weapon. Oops. The doors to hell and bad stuff.

Medea insists she go to rescue Hero. This involves trudging about in the night, being attacked by wild men who have a theological argument, attempted rape before 1 kills the other and the living one runs away leaving her tied up with a corpse draped over her

Hero goes to his rendez-vous with Oracle – and finds Ariadne instead. She is obsessed with him and convinced he loves me. Best line goes to:

“tell me you feel nothing for me and I will leave you alone”

“I feel nothing for you.” Without even a beat of hesitation. Ouch. Unsurprisingly she doesn’t keep her word.

She also wants Hero to know that she and Oracle are totally besties now. She keeps up with the love thing which Hero doesn’t believe and drags her out at sword point, sure she has an army waiting to swoop in. She kisses him – she’s certainly stubborn. She also adds that Oracle doesn’t love Hero because she loves Ariadne and is a lesbian which is why she’s a virgin and Oracle is so in love with Ariadne but it’s all good because Ariadne loves Hero above all.

Yessss, she is not selling this well at all.

They set off and Ariadne collapses in tears because he doesn’t want her and now she can’t go back without daddy killing her and how she has rejected his father for Hero because she loves and adores him and is willing to do everything for him. Hero rejects her – pointing out the idyllic future she thinks of would be doomed because their son would be cursed just like him. He continues to beg for his love and they kiss

Death Blows (The Bloodhound Files #2) by D.D. Barant

Jace is from an alternate reality and she has been brought to a world were vampires, werewolves, and golems make up the majority of the population.  Jace is tasked with finding and arresting Stoker, a rogue human determined to end the domination of the supernaturals and get justice for the dwindling human population.  Jace is sidetracked from that mission when a superhero created by the government is murdered.  When magical artifacts start to go missing the case intensifies.  Can Jace follow the clues from the comic world to find the killer?

My biggest complaint with this book is that there is simply too much going on.  I am not a fan of comic books and too much of this book focuses on breaking down comics to microscopic levels for clues.  Barant, who is obviously a fan of comics, did some name dropping of famous comic artists, weighed DC and Marvel against each other, and went into the story lines and origin stories of many superheros.  I suppose on some level this is meant to remind us of the similarity between Jace's originating world and the world she inhabits today, and the fact that they are connected but for me, it plain and simple just dragged on and on.

In Dying Bites, Jace had several men seemingly vying for her attention.  I liked that it never really became a paranormal romance type thing but in Death Blows, all of that disappears altogether.  There is one awkward date with Cassius at a save the human event.  I suppose this was meant to build the will they or won't they vibe but the fact that Cassius has "a thing" for humans is just super creepy - particularly after meeting his ex girlfriend.

In terms of character growth, we learned all about Dr.Pete's background and some of Cassius's past as a superhero.  It became clear that Jace had developed a really good working relationship with Charlie, though I would like to see them on a more social level at some point. Jace also really cares deeply for Rachel but despite all of the concern, I have yet to see the work that went into building that relationship.  If Death Blows had spent more time working on the relationships and less on the comic books and weird magical world building, it would have been a far more interesting book.

iZombie and Playing with Identities

At Fangs for the Fantasy one problem we often come across is the Dreaded Fanpoodle. Some fans are unable to accept or tolerate any criticism of their precious. We have often railed against the fanpoodle. We have often fought the fandpoodle. We are not impressed by fanpoodly ways.

With this in mind I am going to criticise iZombie even though a not-insignificant part of me has just surged upwards screaming “HOW VERY DARE YOU?!” at the very idea. But I suppress my inner-fandpoodle and how much I absolutely adore this show to point out some problems.

And there are several problems (quiet inner fanpoodle, there are!), including the borrowing of major and severe issues and marginalised identities extremely shallowly and without a great deal of respect

One of the central premises of iZombie is that zombie Liv and her fellow undead eat brains and relive the experiences of their snack which is great for visions and murder investigation but it also temporarily changes their personalities - and allows them and the writers to play with certain life experiences as Liv finds herself absorbing, among others, a paranoid Asian gangster, an overweight agoraphobic, a possibly bisexual Latino man, an alcoholic, a man with PTSD and Lowell eats the brain of a gay man.

The problem with all of these depictions is how utterly shallowly they were treated. After all, Liv is trying on this identity for the space of a few days and the scope of a single episode, which has to be conveyed to us quickly and heavily to show a distinct personality change. The easiest and laziest way to do this is through blatant stereotyping…

So the Asian gangster gives Liv kung fu. The fat man makes Liv crave unhealthy food. The Latino man is overwhelmingly sensual. The mother makes Liv comically nurturing even the cheerleader is a classic stereotype (almost, amusingly, after Ravi rejects Liv’s stereotyping). They are reduced to one-note and often exaggerated caricatures of identity so the writers can clumsily and unsubtly hammer us over the heads with the personality changes they foist on Liv.

This is a repeated problem with any depictions of marginalised characters, too often they are underdeveloped tokens who are reduced to avatars of their marginalisation (or their marginalisation as perceived by people who don’t share it), with these stereotypes played on to remove the need for development and to really hammer home the “inclusion” to the audience. Liv almost serves as a token by proxy - not in an attempt to introduce minority characters but in the way she is used to try and sum up these characters with brief, broad tropes that is very similar to how tokens are characterised.

There is also a problem with this show being highly minimising with the issues it raises, especially in relation to mental illness. When Liv eats the brain of an agoraphobic who literally cannot leave his house (which, in turn, would have strong related themes for his diet and exercise) it is treated as an irritation and brief nuisance and used as part of her characterisation with Lowell, in that she can tell him why she can’t leave the house rather than having to come up with an excuse. It’s a minor quirk of the week, a brief annoyance that we know will pass by the end of the episode. The one time she has to leave she takes some pills and has some quirky, amusing side effects for us to laugh at. This is much the same as when she eats the paranoid man, the PTSD sufferer and the alcoholic.

Born to Bite (Argeneau #13) by Lynsay Sands

contains spoilers, you have been warned

Armand is an extremely unlucky immortal. To date, all three of the women he has married have been killed.  It's pretty difficult for an immortal to die but given a lack of suspects, Armand isn't sure if the deaths were accidents or murders. Armand's son Nicholas is under council arrest and the only way to prove Nicholas innocent of  the crime of killing a mortal woman and solve the connection to the death of Nicholas's life mate Annie, is to find out what really happened to Armand's wives.  Enter Esche - a council enforcer.  Esche is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, if she can somehow manage to stop being distracted by her desire to be alone with Armand.  Armand may potentially be a mass murderer but he is still her life mate.

Eshe is the third person of colour to appear in the Argeneau series. Armand is her second life mate having lost her first, Orion in battle.  Eshe is the mother of 8 children, of whom 6 are still living.  That's basically all we get to learn about her.  Eshe's main occupation seems to be mouthing off to Lucian.  Eshe's exchanges with Lucian are only mildly amusing and constitute the sole attempt at comedy in Born to Bite.  This story really could have done with a lot more of the trademark Sands humour.  I really feel that beyond the most basic details, we didn't really get to know Eshe.  Furthermore, given the scarcity of characters of colour in this series, it would have been nice if Eshe had been written with more cultural markers.  Eshe felt like a black girl painted white. 

The second character of colour is Anders.  Anders has dark skin, is an enforcer, is handsome, has developed a tight relationship with a dog and has yet to find a life mate.  Ander's is a little stand offish and as in other books, it's Brickers whose given some real characterisation.  So far all we know about Anders is a small connection of facts that barely make him a character.

Eshe and Armand don't declare insta-love and there isn't any real build up to their relationship since they are both immortals.  When Eshe and Nicholas learn that they cannot read each other and both experience a desire to eat food again, they hop into bed.  It all seems rather perfuntionary but given that they were destined to sleep together anyway, it makes sense. Why mess around when both Armand and Eshe are well aware the signs which indicate meeting a life mate?

Salem, Season 2, Episode 9: Wages of Sin

Mary and Wainwright are enjoying themselves immensely and can’t wait to get all cosy with the dark powers. Except first he has to burn all his work since it leads to Mary. He’s not a lover of that but he agrees since it does actually implicate her and she would be horribly murdered for it

He burns his work – and the Malum. I’m sure that’s going to back fire. Do not put evil artefacts in the fire! That’s worse than fireworks

Mary begins the day by being vile to Tituba and going to her kid – and finding evil kiddy John is missing, instead there’s a smug countess Marburg. Hey there’s an upside, every morning should begin with Lucy Lawless.

She points out that evil child is evil and intended to be an epic sacrifice to the dark lord and how wonderfully honoured Mary should be to kill her kid for the greater bad. Marburg totally wanted to kill Sebastien but, alas, it wasn’t to be. She gives the tearful Mary a choice – sacrifice her kid (tomorrow on sacrifice day) or Marburg will kill him, bathe in his blood and wait for the next time round

Marburg is not impressed by Mary’s reluctance towards this honour

Cotton is drunk (how very shocking) and gets a visit from the endlessly annoying and amazingly not dead Hawthorn who, having heard that the powers that be have banished Cotton from Salem, has Cotton kicked out. He quickly talks about the witches and hell and having proof – and insists that Hawthorne speak to Wainwright and be told they need Cotton to stop hellish witches killing them all. Because Hawthorne respects Wainwright’s opinion now?

Of course Wainwright has been nobbled and hangs Cotton out to dry. Cotton is not a happy preacher. Cotton does manage to demand they all go to the Crags to see the hell tar and Hawthorne agrees. Of course while the dead birds are still there, the crags are just a pit full of bodies, not a hell portal. They witches have been covering up – Cotton now doubts his own senses and looks a lot like a drunken fool. Even Wainwright is a little surprised. Hawthorne is not impressed and Wainwright is nicely condescending in trying to defend him. Cotton rages at Wainwright and is dragged away

Sebastien goes to Mary with lots of creepy talk of how he wants her – Mary clearly sees this as a deal, she sleeps with him and he returns her son. When Wainwright arrives, Sebastian presents himself as Mary’s utterly trusted confidante and telepathically tells Mary to play along – for the sake of her son. He also presents himself as Wainwright’s mentor (Wainwright is utterly awed by the glamour that hid the hellgate) since Mary can hardly be seen spending lots of time alone with Wainwright. Mary goes along with it – seeing it as a trade, Wainwright for her son.

iZombie, Season 1, Episode 12: Live Rat, Dead Rat, Brown Rat, White Rat

Assassin and new zombie Sebastien makes his way to the road – where he is run over by a group of stoned kids who have stolen a car. They freak out at the corpse they now have on their hands and worry about what to do – they decide to bury him. And then swear not to tell anyone about it – ever again. I’m sure this is a Horror movie plot.

Sebastian, of course, isn’t dead (or not entirely) and he rises up and eats one of them – the blonde girl. Yup, definitely a horror movie trope. Actually I take back the sarcasm, this was a pure homage.

Two weeks later her body is found by a man walking a dog (honestly between crime drama and true crime shows I am convinced never ever to own a dog. You take it out walking and you find bodies. EVERYWHERE. It’s almost as bad as being an early morning jogger! Can you even complete a lap without finding bodies everywhere?)

The dead girl was called Kimber and has been scattered about in little pieces when the crime solving gang arrive. Ravi quickly derails Liv’s examination and explanation to Clive when he realises a cracked skull points to a zombie murder. This is when Liv decides to tell Ravi about Major stealing brains and swearing death on all zombies. In addition to not volunteering to be number one on the killing spree – it gives Liv a new motive to kill Blaine before Major gets himself killed hunting him

To the morgue with Ravi having some creepy high school reminiscences and Liv giving him the due suspicious gaze in between contemplating her next brainy meal. Liv I also pretty dubious about how drinking “cheerleader brains” will help her tackle Blaine – which Ravi rightly calls her on, just because Kimber was a cheerleader doesn’t mean she wasn’t serious or intelligent.

Also cured zombie rat is now called Hope and Ravi bought her a toy (aww). And she’s dead (aww poor Ravi’s sad face). And, of course, bitter disappointment over the cure. Still Liv doesn’t let it get her down because she is riding on perky cheerbrains – and Ravi is enjoying this far too much

And on those brains she joins Clive in interviewing Kimber’s friend and Clive has to endure perky Liv. But it does work very well on Kimber’s friend Tate. Clive finds it all quite bemusing and Liv desperately reaches for an excuse for why she’s acting so odd. Still they follow a lead to a highschool band that was playing in a message Kimber left

The band are the three other teenagers in the car that day. Through the sarcasm and excuses they manage to be super suspicious with their rehearsed alibis – and Liv has a vision of Kimber in the car with them and Kimber and Nate (one of the band) were “fooling around”.

Devil's Paw (Imp #4) by Debra Dunbar

Having defeated her nemesis in hell, Sam is hoping to settle into a normal life (well normal of an imp living on earth anyway) by throwing her boyfriend Wyatt a birthday party.  Sam doesn't get to enjoy the good life for long because Gregory shows up with the head of yet another demon which has been drained of its energy.  The situation escalates when an angel is also found drained.  Sam is a devouring demon and therefore not only very rare but potentially a suspect.  In order to avoid being blamed for the death of an angel, Sam and Gregory must hunt down the real killer quickly.

I love the Imp series but Devil's Paw did have a problem with over description.  At times it did effect the pacing of the book.  Dunbar really went over the top describing the interior of a home which Sam was investigating and I found my eyes sliding from the page.  It's the first time that I have been forced to skim read any section of this series.   Though Sam and Gregory were working together to solve the mystery of drained and dead demons and an angel, it really didn't make sense to me that Sam continued to withhold information from Gregory.  Sam is a smart protagonist and she essentially fridged her largest weapon, by not informing Gregory,  given that the Iblis sword isn't the most reliable weapon.  Clearly this is a set up to have Sam get captured and forced into a position of asking Gregory to sever the bond.  I can see that it makes sense from a big picture scenario but felt that in context of the story, it didn't work.

In many ways, Sam has changed so much from the demon we met in A Demon Bound. Sure, Sam is not above creating interesting piercings to disturb the TSA, provoking Gregory every chance she gets, or eating raw seal, but when it really counts, Sam cares deeply about those she claims as hers.  Wyatt's sister was changed with a channgling at birth and for his birthday, Sam decides to rectify the situation by arranging to buy Nyalla, his biological sister from the elves.  Sam even advises Amber, the demon/elf hybrid to wait to have sex which is totally against her imp instincts but in the best interests of Amber.

Perhaps one of the largest indicators of how Sam has changed, is her willingness to add demons to her household when Baphomet and Raim are killed.  When Sam is captured, she struggles desperately to try and save Stab, a low level demon.   The scenes between these two are absolutely touching. In her attempt to save Stab, Sam becomes so much more than the trouble loving Imp - she becomes a hero.