The Returned, Season 2, Episode 1: L'Enfant

A new season of Returned comes with a lot of ominous, beautiful imagery and spooky music. This show has always been more about the theme and feel far more than the actual details of what happened. I would say it fits into the category of an eternal mystery show, except I think the theme and feel are the point, not the mystery.

Season 2 opens 6 months after the last season ended with flood and a horde of newly returned. The authorities have moved into town with a lot of soldiers and a new investigator called Berg but they only know about the flood – few of the locals are talking about the undead (for obvious reasons). They know the locals aren’t telling them everything, and it’s all kind of ominous and spooky.

Of course, a lot of the locals have left after the flood which has still left large amounts of the town under water

Jérôme and his daughter Léna are still around – but there’s a lot of tension between them. Jérôme seems to be the only guy telling the truth so is largely considered a liar. All they get from everyone else is ominous mentions of “thieves” and absolutely no bodies being found

Neither of them are fans of Pierre who is also still going – running the Helping Hand and making it look more and more like a very spooky cult. Pierre’s also recruited Frédérick, Léna’s ex. They’re still very culty.

Adèle is also still in town and heavily pregnant with Simon’s child. This is causing her all kinds of angst, including her daughter, Chloe, wondering if the baby will be a zombie or not and Adèle generally being in a terrible state, not seeing a doctor and repeatedly trying to abort her baby. Something she confides in her closest confidant – a Catholic Priest. Well that’s quite possibly the worst choice but I’m, impressed.

Then Toni returns. Or possibly Returns. Last season Toni drown in the lake but death isn’t that much of a problem on this show. He’s now back – in time to be hit by a car (driven by Berg) and taken to the hospital – where he cause quite a stir among everyone because he’s supposed to be dead.

Another return is Audrey – she seems to have been on the same bus as Camille in season 1 and has just returned, much to the consternation of the local military. One of those soldiers tries to take her home – which isn’t there any more. Instead he wants to take her to where new people have settled.

Eighth Grave After Dark (Charley Davidson #8) by Darynda Jones

Charley is heavily pregnant and ready to give birth any day now to Beep, the prophesised daughter who will save the world. Until then she has to hide in their new home on hallowed ground so the 12 Hellhounds don’t find her and kill her

Confining Charley is… an interesting experience for everyone. Especially since Reyes is definitely up to something in the name of her protection

Not that she’s bored in her hideout. She has weddings to arrange, a case to solve, an evil stepmother who keeps visiting and a whole lot of prophecies to make sense of

Take a deep breath for this book – because this is when it all happens

This is when we finally delve into truly what Charley is – as we’ve been threatening and nearly achieved in the last book. Here Charley is finally approaching her full power, she’s mighty, she’s strong, she’s terrifying. She’s also pregnant and finally giving birth to the much anticipated Beep, revealing the truth to many of the prophecies they’ve been agonising over for so long. We even have an appearance of the ultra-big-bad, Reyes’s dad, Satan himself. We even, finally, get an explanation for Mr. Wong.

In short, a lot of the storylines which have been brewing pretty much since the first book all come to fruition. On top of that we have ongoing stories of Charley and her much hated step-mother kind of had some kind of rapprochement and her murdered dad’s ghost drops in to be cryptic about something involving the Vatican. Oh and Cookie got married. There’s also

Then we have an actual case from Special Agent Kit and her friend who want to recruit Charley despite her inability to leave her new monastery home because of the 12 hellhounds. On top of that there’s also a ghostly nun with a story to tell as well.

Or, to put it another way –ye gods there’s a lot happening in this book! Honestly, there’s perhaps a bit too much happening in this book. So many plot lines, some of the could really have waited to the next book while we digest the vastness of the prophecy and what Charley is and the amazing new directions and revelations of this book (though, honestly, I think the whole revelation about the twelve is… contrived and unlikely and smells a lot like a retcon).

Hemlock Grove, Season 3, Episode 1: A Place to Fall

A guy and a sex doll in a cab. Well way to set the tone Hemlock Grove!

While… distracted, he runs into Peter running naked across the road – who then turns into a wolf in his usual very gory fashion and he and 4 more wolves surround the luckless trick driver. Said drive falls to his knees and prays gloriously terribly (yes, I laughed, I’m a terrible person) only to look up and see the wolves are gone – and someone has stolen his truck.

Peter and his fellow werewolves celebrate the heist, everyone very impressed by Peter’s willingness to be hit by a truck. He’s not going to do another job, though, since he still wants to find Nadia and Miranda.

They pass on the stolen goods to a fence who also updates Peter on how his mother’s doing (she moved back to eastern-Europe last season) and passes on some family jewellery, his granny’s ring. He passes that to Andreas along with the family blessing to marry Destiny.

Destiny, the seer (because we’re still hitting every Rroma stereotype) has an ominous dream about the giant manta-ray things that Miranda’s doctor turned into at the end of the last season to kidnap Miranda and baby Nadia. I still have no idea what they are

Roman is missing his baby, the ominous eye-ball-destroying Nadia

Destiny is trying to use her psychic powers for Roman and Peter to find Miranda and Nadia – and gets nothing, while the detective Roman’s hired has a whole lot of not-very-polite-scorn. He’s done a whole lot of investigation looking for the baby but, ultimately, hasn’t got any clues or leads. Being a good detective he has found a whole lot of suspicion though, not least of which the fact Nadia has no birth certificate or that Roman is not going to the police about her disappearance. Of course Roman isn’t divulging anything.

In the bar, Roman and Peter reflect on how impossible it is to tell their detective anything given the givens. Peter is also going to stay with Roman for a while to give Destiny and Andreas space while Roman makes intense eye-contact with an ominous woman in the bar who then vanishes. This is a bad bad idea. She’s also waiting for him outside when he gets a blowjob from another woman he finds. She vanishes then as well.

Two vanishings is enough, Roman now starts looking for her and finds her the next day (and a very unhappy woman who he dumped the day before) and begins flirting – only to have her vanish on him again

2015 year in Review

As is our habit, with another year passed, it's time for us to look back over the 200+ books we've read and innumerable shows and Friday discussions and have a review - and look to the future

Sparky

What were you Top series/books you read this year?

I’m not going to mention all the old faithfuls (well, I’ll get to them) because Kate Daniels and Kara Gillian would always dominate this list

Normally I’d say the same about the Magnificent Devices series but I think it needs mentioning simply because of how the books are shifting and changing and still being awesome. They’re not maintaining their current awesomeness but moving to a whole new awesomeness

I also give a nod to The Astounding Antagonists being utterly awesome, and Don’t Tell My Parents I Blew up the Moon carrying on the awesome fun of this series. I’m also overjoyed that the Habitat Series is continuing and expanding. Sorcerer to the Crown also promises a whole lot of awesome to come.

What book(s) pleasantly surprised you?

I’m going to go with the Charley Davidson series because it is fun. Many series have drama, many others have angst, many have horror - but so few actually have hilarity. Sometimes you need some fun

What was the worst thing you read this year?

I am currently reading the House of Night Series. This must be a violation of several laws against cruel and unusual punishment

What was the worst thing you watched this year?

Under the Dome and Falling Skies can go head to head for being the utterly worst series because they lacked even the remotest pretence at coherence. And considering how many of these shows play fast and loose with their canon, it speaks volumes about how terrible these have been.

Stick a fork in ‘em, they’re done: Shows that need to be cancelled:

Why is Vampire Diaries still happening? Whyyyy? You’d think getting rid of the protagonist would earn us a reprieve!

What was this year’s guilty pleasure? Which book/series are you embarrassed to admit you liked?

Supernatural is probably always going to be on this list. It has a litany of fails, it repeatedly enrages me and, with the death of Charlie - and yet of all the shows we follow I find myself enjoying it more than most shows

Biggest Disappointment of the Year:

For books I think my biggest disappointment is simply that I didn’t get chance to read a new installment of some of my favourite series - Rivers of London, Dresden Files, Iron Druid Series.

Apparently I did get to read a new Kara Gillian Series book his year but it was soooooooooo long ago!!! At least I had Kate Daniels and Rowan Summerthwaite and the Others to comfort me.

Once Upon a Time probably takes the prize for disappointment I think. With Merlin, the return of Lancelot, Guinivere the much hyped return of Mulan and Regina and Emma being so very very very awesome together I thought we were going to see some legitimate reversals of the terrible treatment of minorities on this show. I thought it was going to turn it around and it looked like we were heading that way and then…. nope, death, shelved, plot box.

Were your expectations for 2015 met?

Looking back at last year’s post I apparently was looking forward to the return of Helix. My gods was I drunk?! And Olympus?! Someone get me the Doctor, I need to go back to last January and slap myself

iZombie was, thankfully, even more awesome than I anticipated, though its treatment of minorities has been sadly lacking.

One thing I am disappointed by is how this genre has not stepped up. Diversity has become a much more prominent discussion over the last year and some progress has been made in some areas - but Urban Fantasy really does seem to be lagging now. Relatively few of our shows has a minority protagonist or even significant prominent secondary characters: and the ending of Lost Girl, Defiance and the shakiness of Sleepy Hollow aren’t adding to hope

The book front hasn’t added a lot, LGBT protagonists, POC protagonists and Disabled protagonists are still few and far between

What are you looking forward to in 2016?

The discourse around diverse books has made more conversation out there and more lists - I am clinging to the hope it will help us find more books with minority protagonists. The only problem is both these lists tend not to include our genre and a few tend to be… optimistic about the diversity mentioned (I’m not a fan of side characters being presented as major)

I also want to make more of a point of looking for books with diverse characters written by authors who reflect that diversity - because there is power and importance in authentic stories.

And, just as there are shows ending, there are some opportunities for diversity in 2016 (GOOD diverse shows with non-tokened, non-troped minority characters!) Killjoys (ok, not quite our genre) is awesome, The 100 good go to excellent places, and Into the Badlands has been surprising while Sens8 is shockingly amazing, flawed in places, yet amazing.

I’m also definitely intrigued by Lucifer. Old favourites, Penny Dreadful, Orphan Black

And, in the plus side, Falling Skies, Under the Dome, Helix and Da Vinci’s Demons have ended which, cynically, means I don’t have to recap them

Renee

What were you Top series/books you read this year?

I think my favourite series this year is the Imp series by Debra Dunbar.

Sam is a demon who has spent years hiding on earth.  When she comes to the attention of an arch angel, things get really rough.  Sam knows that she should be on her best behaviour but the imp in her just cannot resist trouble.  I love this series despite its problematic elements and find myself constantly laughing at Sam’s antics.  I love how she has grown and her various relationships.  I came across this series quite by accident and am very happy that I did.

What Was The Best Thing You Watched This Year?

This is the year that I absolutely fell in love with Peter Capaldi as the Doctor.  I was never a really big fan of Matt Smith though I do acknowledge that he had a tough time having to follow David Tennant.  I wasn’t completely sold on Capaldi during his first season as the Doctor but that completely changed in the very first episode of series 10. Just like Tennant, Capaldi has managed to embody the soul of the Doctor. Sometimes without even a word, Capaldi says so much and you can see the years of pain and loss on his face.  

What was the worst thing you read this year?

That’s actually quite easy, the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon.  This series was recommended to us and though a little bit outside of our genre, the fact that he had been turned into a television series peaked by interest.  On every level that I can possibly think of, the Outlander series fails.  If that were not enough, the series is absolutely rapetastic.  I had to pause reading them because each book felt like hardship.  I know that there’s a lot of talk on the internet about the show and the book being woman positive but I think that they are given far too much credit.   

What was the worst thing you watched this year?

This is actually pretty tough because some of our shows this year were pretty horrendous.  I think I’ll have to at least mention Helix which rebooted itself for the third freaking time and made even less sense than usual.  It’s a relief that the damn show has been cancelled really.  I think I will also have to give a nod to The Leftovers because like Helix it also did the reboot thing and made absolutely no sense.  From the very first episode when we were suddenly shifted to prehistoric times with absolutely no explanation I knew this season would be a problem.  The Leftovers is all about asking questions and providing no answers and I have little patience for that.

Stick a fork in ‘em, they’re done: Shows that need to be cancelled:

I am more than ready for The Vampire Diaries to be finished now.  I had hopped that with the loss of Elena, that we would see Bonnie do more awesome things but instead we saw the fumblings of Damon and Stefan.  None of what is happening in Mystic Falls makes any sense or is even remotely interesting.

I also think it’s time for the Leftovers to wrap up. They are pulling the Lost thing where they ask questions and never provide answers. None of this previous season even made any sense at all.  I cannot believe that it got renewed.  

And finally, I have to nominate Sleepy Hollow.  I had a little bit of hope when they finally killed off Katrina but the show simply hasn’t gotten any better.  They have replaced Katrina with Betsy Ross and are meandering along with the whole Pandora thing.  They threw a hail mary with a crossover episode with Bones which made no sense, even for Sleepy Hollow.

Biggest Disappointment of the Year:

Without doubt my biggest disappointment of the year is Star Wars: The Force Awakens.  I wanted this movie to be epic.  I had so many hopes when the previews showed a Black stormtrooper only to find the character of Finn hopelessly problematic.  Even George Lucas wasn’t thrilled with Star Wars: The Force Awakens.  I understand that from Disney’s perspective the aim was to draw in new and perhaps younger fans but they gave nothing to the Star Wars faithful. I could say more but am refraining for the sake of spoiling it for those who have yet to see it. We do however have a review posted on Fangs.

The Biggest Disappointment of the Year

Due to various health matters and family issues, I wasn’t able to read as much as I normally do.  I guess that my biggest disappointment is that I fell behind on so many series that I have come to love and I hope that in 2016, I will be able to find more time to curl up on my couch and lose myself in a great story.

What are you looking forward to in 2016?

Being a massive Doctor Who fan I am anxiously awaiting the return of Doctor Who.  I want to know who the new companion is and what adventures the Doctor will have now. I am also looking forward to the next Star Trek movie.  I love the idea that the series will be returning to its roots having the staff of the enterprise boldly going where no one has gone before.  I have also heard whispers of Star Trek returning to television and if that is indeed the case, I will truly get my giddy on.  Having grown up watching the original series in reruns, this is something from my childhood that I have continued to not only embrace but enjoy.

I am very much looking forward to the new series Lucifer.  

Burned (House of Night #7) by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

Zoey’s soul has been shattered but, sadly, because my suffering has not ended that means everyone is running around trying to save her.

Meanwhile Stevie Rae is determined to make even worse relationship decisions than Zoey. That sounds like a near impossible task, but she is up to the challenge.

This book is… so very typical of the House of Night series.

We have a plot line that completely rests on Zoey even though it really should be about someone else – Heath. Heath is the one who died – but no, it’s all about Zoey and her shattered soul. Y’know, I’d be a teeny tiny bit of sympathetic towards her if every last death in this series wasn’t all about her. Heath just follows Stark and Stevie Rae as yet another death that was all about precious precious Zoey.

So with Zoey properly centred as all important, nearly everyone else (except Stevie Rae, which we’ll come to) runs around trying to help her. This involves, inevitably, cryptic clues, poetry and everyone spending far far far far far too long trying to interpret everything because Nyx is incapable of being clear and the rest of the cast don’t have two brain cells between them.

Of course all of this happens with Neferet and Kalona planning terrbad naughty things and with Neferet manipulating the Council to try and make them believe she’s still on team good guy. And Nyx, while happy to send cryptic poetry, happy to send prophecies, happy to have little conversations with Aphrodite and Zoey and is even willing to slap Kalona upside the head in the Otherworld. But she STILL cannot bring herself to send her precious High Council a memo, or informative bowel problems or anything. Seriously, you’d think they’d be due a text or something. A tweet. Smoke signals, carrier pigeons (or raven monsters) something, anything. Nyx is trolling, pure and simple.

But while we’re discussing Kalona let’s touch on the intolerable retcon and redemption we can see hoving into view with inevitable awfulness: Kalona is going to be redeemed. I know this is coming because we spent time in this book AGAIN saying how sad and tortured poor Kalona is with an added side dish of how terribad evil Neferet is. Yes, she is definitely promoted to biggest of big bads and directly connected to the Darkness more than Kalona (more than that later) and is even imprisoning and forcing the poor tortured evil Kalona. I’ve said before, this series is much much more invested in having a female villain. The last two books have tried very hard to downplay Kalona’s villainy while bigging up Neferet’s awfulness.

Da Vinci's Demons, Season 3, Episode 10: Ira Deorum

After a brief interlude with Rahim and Leo, the new battle is on. Leo, Laura, Nico and Dracula intend to lead their teeny tiny forces against the Turks (who lost all their tanks episode) and rely on the Book of Leaves-inspired lightening device to fry all the Turks who are conveniently wearing lightening attracting armour.

Of course all this may fall apart because Zoroaster and Sophia were captured last episode. Thankfully Lucrezia has also being captured. Lucrezia doesn’t stay captive for long – and when Bayezid goes to question her he finds that chaining her up only gives her new weapons to throttle him with. He’s duly strangled to death before Lucrezia happily goes on a little rampage (finding a convenient crossbow from somewhere) to free Sophia and Zoroaster.

They then head to set up the machine – with Zoroaster failing and badly injuring himself (and seeming to be dead – this episode does a series of “zomg this character is dead!” moment most of which don’t come to pass. I actually think it would have been much more dramatic, especially as it’s the last season, if a huge number of the cast were duly slaughtered. This probably says how little I’m actually invested in these people).

While the battle begins (Laura is kind of awesome) and we have several near-death moments (including Vlad being stabbed by his brother Gedik – who is probably Radu – who is not all that happy that Bayezid is dead) Leo finally declares surrender and orders his men to take off their (highly conductive) armour

Just in time for Lucrezia to finish putting together the lightening machine (albeit taking an arrow in the process) and then we have lots of zappy zappy zappy – the entire Ottoman army is slaughtered. The remains surrender and the city is free.

Except for Lucrezia who, of course, dies in the name of Maximum Manpain for Leo. We always knew that she was heading for the nearest walk-in fridge and she’s finally settled herself in among the ice trays.

That’s a very quick summation but there weren’t a whole lot of twists there – and we kind of expected everything to go the way it did. It’s not a bad ending, it’s a quite satisfactory conclusion to the whole Ottoman storyline, but it’s a bit… predictable? Safe? Lacking in twists or intrigue or interests? Leo geniused the enemy and everyone is now dead?

Happy Holidays

It has been a very busy year for Fangs, and definitely not always a smooth one - but this is our 5th Christmas and we're definitely going to be celebrating

Hope everyone has an excellent Holiday and if we can't visited by the Doctor this year, I suppose Father Christmas would be a decent consolation prize...

...or Carol. Carol would be good.

The Librarians, Season Two, Episode Eight: And the Point of Salvation

A top secret military lab is working on creating an advanced computer using technology from Atlantis. It not long before the scientist find themselves way in over their head and are forced to call for the evacuation of the facility.

Back at the library, Jenkins summons a fey to ask three questions. When the fey realies that ze is dealing with a knight, ze offers to tell Jenkins how he can die. Jenkins is momentarily distracted but decides instead to find out more information regarding Prospero and his plans.

In the main Library, the clipping book opens up and leads the librarians to the military base.  Eve issues a strict warning about what will be acceptable behaviour and takes care to inform Jones that he is not to take souvenirs.

Once at the base, it's not long before the Librarians find themselves in a time loop a la Ground Hog Day. Jones tries to explain to the rest of the team but they don't take him seriously.  Clearly, it's now Jones's chance to have his own episode to show what he is all about. They go through loop after loop and each time, Jones has to watch the members of the team die.  Each time they return to the beginning, Jones once again explains about the loop and each time the team is incredulous. Watching the Librarians die is beginning to tear Jones apart. In frustration, he takes a bat and starts destroying items in the reset room.  It's then that a help box suddenly appears.  Jones then realises that they aren't actually in a time loop but are in fact caught inside a video game.  Every time one of the librarians dies, they return to the reset area and have to start all over again.

Ezekiel goes through the game several more times and continues to return to the reset area with the Librarians.  Each time he has watched his friends die and it tears him apart. Finally, Jones locks the Librarians in a room and decides that he is going to play the game by himself so that he doesn't have to watch his friends die anymore.  In each stage, Jones yanks out a member of his team to teach him the different aspects he needs to move forward.  The team become impressed with the sacrifices that Jones has makes for them.  Eve even tells Jones a story in which she implies that he is the bravest man she has ever known.  This is a truly touching moment.

The situation turns critical and Jones realises that this time a death is going to matter because the game is going to go into reset.  Jones helps the team move through the game and ends up sacrificing his life for them to live.  Jones has never been my favourite character but I must admit that in this moment I was sad.  I guess Jones has grown on me far more than I realised.  In the end, the team come together to save Jones but because of the game reset, he has no memory of everything he went through to save everyone.

Back at the Library, Jones is still very much in disbelief that he did the things that he was told that he did. Jones is certain that this is out of character, leaving the group to finally tell him that it doesn't matter that he doesn't remember but what matters is that they now know who he is.