Hemlock Grove, Season 3, Episode 10: Brian's Song

It’s the last episode of Hemlock Grove so time to sum everything up

First of all Johann is officially dead. Let’s take a moment to commemorate the death of the series only LGBT character – revealed as gay in the last season after ignoring his sexuality for two seasons, then linking his sexuality to his abusive childhood. It’s finished off when he is murdered, just after finally deciding to find love (the most dangerous time of any LGBT person’s life in the media). And he’s murdered by himself in a moment of supreme narcissism just to complete the homophobic tropes

This episode begins with his funeral which Shelly says is “syncretic”. Which would be nice if, in the last 3 seasons we had spent any effort at all to explore Johann’s religious beliefs while he was alive (or indeed any religious position at all). Instead this just feels like “hey, he’s Asian. Moosh some Asian religions together. Done”)

With him dead and, apparently, mourned it’s time to turn to the other characters:

Olivia is still determined to live, continued to be followed around by hallucination Chango - and now we have to look at this season’s other recurring character of colour. After following Olivia around for apparent payment or sexual favours or something she murders him and he gets to spend the rest of the season playing comic relief, cringe worthy advice giver, servant and character development tool for Olivia. All while using the name “Chango.” Did I mention this was a hot mess?

Anyway Olivia wants one of her kids, in between various hallucinations and attempted life lessons form Chango and her past on the London stage. She makes a play for Roman but since Johann already gave him a heads up that goes badly for Olivia. Reduced to a petty low point she’s left sobbing and begging and desperately calling Annie to come see her

Which Annie does – and is promptly kidnapped and taken to Godfrey Enterprises for Johann’s assistant to do the body switch. Only this guy has a shred of a conscience and helps Annie escape. Rather than be reborn as Olivia, allowing her terrible evil to continue, Annie commits suicide. A horrible suicide via fire… and another one down.

Olivia, with no recourse, no more children to sacrifice, Olivia is now dying from the disease. Ravaged by it, completely delusional, she collapses while eating her own arm

And another one down. I will actually miss Olivia. Yes, she may have been the worst person on the show, but at least she owned it. She didn’t do terrible things then turn on the angst so we’re supposed to feel sorry for them before doing terrible things again. Olivia was a terrible person and she was GLORIOUS with it.

Bitten, Season 3, Episode 4: A Quiet Dog

Time for the tense sand off – with Elena very much wary of Jeremy’s intentions and plans. While Clay still wants her to trust Jeremy, Elena rightly points out that Jeremy’s priorities are larger than her family. Especially since Katja and Alexei are being used as bargaining chips

Elena is left guarding Constantine, Roman’s son and the Pack’s own bargaining chip as he pokes her history and just why Elena is the only female werewolf (answer – because it’s an annoying trope that happens repeatedly in so many werewolf stories in order to justify a nearly all male cast with a heavy emphasis on Exceptional Woman tropes and a whole lot of delicate-precious-in-your-gilded-cage companion tropes). With a relatively logical series of deduction, Constantine realises that Elena is Sasha’s daughter. Which also makes her the daughter of Natalya – Roman’s daughter.  Ooooh twist.

They fight and Constantine escapes (with a broken wrist) and we have to go to where Jeremy, Sasha and Roman are having tense negotiations to hear the rest of the story

Like any good werewolf, Roman abandoned his daughter Natalya because she’s human (aforementioned only-female-werewolf-specialness) and by universal law she couldn’t know about the werewolves. A law Jeremy agrees with, humans can’t know about them (which is going to get awkward). Because he still cared about his daughter he had Sasha watch her and protect her. Instead cupid hit, he fell in love and decided to show Natalya that werewolves are real.

Roman, following the law, killed his own daughter to keep their secret. Lots of pain, angst, guilt and rage – but all very justified and well acted. That’s a whole terrible, painful mess to unpick. Which, of course, puts Elena in the middle of it.

Jeremy’s attempted plan to bring peace is to offer Roman lots of counterfeit money so he can continue to bribe his large, sprawling pack into obedience (which is how Roman manages to hold his pack together and is getting shaky since the Russian pack is having money troubles).

But roman wants vengeance more, draws a knife and summons his wolves to fight it out. And things get even more messy

Karen, the ex-sheriff continues to investigate the suspicion Russian gangsters who have suddenly come to her town. Following them around she gets in the middle of the fight. She ends up stabbed in the leg by a running Roman (who fled with his big wadge of cash) and she sees Alexei have his first change… and go running off

Grimm, Season Five, Episode Eleven: Key Move

"It is not down on any map;

true places never are."

After staring at the map the five keys produced, they all decide on a location to go and check out.  It's Rosealee who secured fake passports for Nick and Monroe to travel under certain that Black Claw will be looking for them.  Monroe is very excited because the Grimm's who buried this treasure did so in the fourth century and it could be absolutely anything - he even speculates that it's the holy grail.  This is a big leap of faith for Nick and Monroe because they know that the trip itself will be dangerous and have no idea what is buried there. It literally could be anything.

With plans set, it's time to say their goodbyes.  Nick tells Adalind about heading to Germany with Monroe and she is adamant that she doesn't want Nick to go because she feels that it's too dangerous.  I was really hoping that Adalind's fears were about her absolute economic dependency on Nick and the possibility of being a single mother.  When Grimm did delve into this earlier this season, I found it interesting, especially given that this is something all women must consider if they decide to give up work.  Unfortunately, Adalind's issue is because she has fallen in love with Nick.  Let me say that again, Adalind has fallen in love with Nick. Adalind decides to throw caution to the wind after declaring her love, claiming to no longer care about how complicated this will make things and kisses Nick.  Complicated? At this point, Grimm could have scored points by having Nick reject Adalind because she did after all rape him but instead, Grimm actually had these two have sex.  Nick willingly consented to sex with his rapist.

In the afterglow, Nick lay with Adalind in his arms thinking about her various bad acts but never once did he think about the rape.  Since the rape occurred in season four, Grimm has run screaming from the label of rape.  It's ridiculous given that Nick is a cop and would damn well know that what happened to him is rape by deception.  Perhaps this is about society's determination that all rape must be violent, with a stranger jumping out of the bushes.  Perhaps it's because society too often refuses to accept that a woman can indeed a rape a man.  The absolute denial about what happened between Nick and Adalind, is a very good example of how our rape culture works.  Grimm then doubles down by once again having Monroe refer to the rape as Nick sleeping with Adalind.  Nick says that when he slept with Adalind, he thought he was having sex with Juliette, and therefore even by their own definition, this was rape by deception.

A lot of work has been done to rehabilitate Adalind's character in order to make a relationship between her and Nick supposedly believable.  The very idea that a rapist can be redeemed in this way is beyond problematic.  As part of this redemption train, Adalind has been depowered and made absolutely dependent upon Nick.  This is no coming together of equals.

The Originals, Season Three, Episode Fifteen: An Old Friend Calls

With Aurora imprisoned, her brother at the bottom of the ocean and the Stryx essentially dismantled with the death of Aya, you would think that The Originals would be due a break but it seems that since Klaus has amassed so many enemies of the years that there's no rest for the wicked. Klaus's paranoia is at an all time high which is saying something because this is Klaus we're talking about. Over the years, Klaus's penchant for violence means that he has amassed a lot of enemies and now that killing him means that his entire sire line will not die, it's all systems go for taking out Klaus. Elijah and Freya humor him at first, suggesting that what Klaus needs is therapy but even they are forced to take things seriously when they cannot be certain that all of the White Oak has been destroyed.

Kol is back from the dead and after a kiss from Davina, asks her to put a ring on it and by that he means a daylight ring.  It seems that Kol is determined to be worthy of Davina's love and that means blood bags and an end to his violence. Kol's first order of business is to go and see his family.  Klaus greets him with a hug which kind of surprised me given that they haven't universally been on good terms. Elijah is his usual aloof self and Freya and Kol simply acknowledge each other.  Klaus is adamant that Davina needs to disappear because they have family business to deal with.  Kol is quick to jump to Davina's defense but Davina agrees to leave. Considering that Davina is lucky that Klaus hasn't killed her, given everything she has done, it's absolutely makes the right decision at this point. Freya and Kol get to work on a spell to find out exactly where Klaus's enemies are.

As luck would have it Cortez is in town seeking vengeance against Klaus for the death of his father and five brothers.  The Originals, has Cortez get out of a limo filled with dead women and then instruct the driver to get rid of the evidence. The driver complies by setting himself and the dead women on fire.  I know the point of this is to have us rooting for The Original Family but I really don't see the difference between what Cortez did and what the Original Family has done.  There are no so-called good guys in this situation no matter which way the writers try and swing it.

Cami is busy training with Vincent, having become determined that she must find a way to defend herself.  Cami is certain that Aurora will find a way out of the punishment that Klaus inflicted on her and expresses disbelief that Klaus didn't just kill Aurora out right. Cami is certain that this means that when the time comes, she is going to have to find a way to kill Aurora by herself.  Klaus interrupts to seek the therapy that Elijah and Freya suggested he needs.  They head to a little bistro where Cami informs him that she can no longer be his therapist and is no longer invested in his redemption because that part of her was human.  Klaus tries to say that he didn't kill Aurora because she deserves to suffer for what she stole from Cami but she's not buying it. Cami feels that Klaus is more concerned with what Aurora stole from him.

Marcel returns to his NOLA vampires to find them passed out drunk and celebrating being delinked from Klaus.  Josh, (yes they pulled him out of the plotbox) wants to know when the Stryx will be leaving town and they can get back to business as usual.  The Stryx burst in and four of the members are missing and they demand that Marcel do something about it.

In between tracking Klaus's enemies, Freya finds time to do a locating spell and Marcel and Elijah find the bodies in a garbage bin close to where Jackson died.  It seems that Hayley wants revenge for what has been done to Jackson and has been torturing the Stryx members before killing them.  I'm actually cool with this given that often when Hayley engages in battle, she is over powered. My quibble stems from the fact that this is all done off screen and to add insult to injury, it's Elijah who ends up murdering the rest of the vampires on her list.

Cortez heads to see Vincent and demands that Vincent get the elders to tell him where the White Oak is.  Cortez compels a group of humans to hold knives on bar patrons to coerce Vincent into agreeing to his demands.  Cami walks in, sees what is going on, and manages to text Klaus before being knocked unconscious.  Klaus saunters in, surveys the situation and quickly takes out Cortez though this results in three humans being killed.  Cami tries to offer the human blood to heal but Klaus says no because it's already to late.  Klaus gets his kicks torturing Cortez and in the process learns that his enemies have always stayed in contact over the years. Cortez sends off a group text to let them all know that the sire link is broken and that there is indeed White Oak in New Orleans.  With this task done, Cortez informs Klaus that he is happy to die because he knows for certain now that someone will get him.

Vampire Diaries, Season 7, Episode 15: I Would For You

Rayna remains the big bad and we decide to have a moment of nudity for no apparent reason. Anyway she’s rampaging around looking for Stefan, capturing and questioning other vampires to find him and generally being obsessed

Which makes no sense. Rayna’s motivation, as has been made clear on more than one occasion and even repeated in this episode, is to rid the world of all vampires. All vampires. Stefan just happens to be the one vampire who got away… so why the obsession with him? Why go to a town that is literally crawling with vampires (like New Orleans and Mystic Falls, two places she has been and knows is full of vampires) and focus obsessively on ONE vampire? This makes no sense. It’s not even like Julian who she had a personal vendetta against. There’s no reason at all why Rayna would be so obsessed with Stefan. I call shenanigans on this motivation!

Anyway, Matt double crosses her and Damon arrives to kill her and capture her so he can take her away to a little pit and experiment on ways to actually kill her and make it stick

Cut to Bonnie who, along with Enzo (who she doesn’t trust but is happy to make many jokes about the hand she cut off) and Alex at the Armoury who is now trying to make nice and insist that all the naughty behaviour from Enzo was totally unsanctioned and the Armoury would never ever stoop so low.

Yeah, Bonnie isn’t buying it. To try and convince her, Alex gives her a guided tour of their Rayna exhibit including the desiccated shamans who died as a plot device so she could have her awesome resurrection powers. Turns out one of the preserved bodies desiccates every time she dies – she only has 8 rebirths.

And for the second time I’m calling shenanigans and “makes no sense”. Damon just killed Rayna. Last episode on The Originals Rayna just fought a whole room full of Stricks and apparently didn’t die once? She was casually killed with an arm flick by Klaus – AND has apparently had contact with the Originals before since Klaus knows about her. Don’t tell me that she has managed to only die 6 times in her long history, given we’ve seen her die about 4 times already! Shenanigans! Shenanigans have been called.

Anyway, Bonnie tells this to Damon who happily kills Raina again with a shotgun bringing her down to her last life – alas, we have another hitch. Turns out that when she dies for the last time, everyone she’s marked (Stefan) also dies. Personally I’d go ahead and kill her but obviously the show’s not going to have Damon do that. Alas.

Sleepy Hollow, Season 3, Episode 13: Dark Mirror

We open with the kind of scene I really want to see a lot more of – the happy domestic breakfast with Jenny, Joe, Abbie and Ichabod having breakfast, Ichabod being all historical and outraged. It’s cute. Though this time Ichabod is outraged because he’s distracting himself from his immigration issues

Another shadow over this whole domestic scene is Abbie – she’s still very distracted by her obsession with her special symbol, which will come up later.

The monster of the week turns out to be the Jersey Devil which, in addition to being a cryptid Urban Legend, turns out to be an old rival of Franklin’s who turned to Alchemy and turned himself into a green skinned monster with claws and poison and a tail with more poison and horns and a whole lot of other things that the guy considers an advantage despite living in a time of firearms which rends most claws/poisons etc rather obsolete while clothes shopping becomes a pain in the scorpion-tailed arse. It does come with a side order of being immortal and bullet proof though, so ups and downs.

The beast also has his own little video of the Hidden One’s history – which is the main point of this episode.

Way back in time we had super duper gods hanging around humans, being worshipped and occasionally squishing people while getting lots of presents to keep the squishing to a minimum. Boss god happily lives in the sunlight with his super-powerful Hourglass of specialness. While the Hidden One is banished to the basement, hidden away for reasons unknown. Unfortunately, being gods doesn’t make you intelligent, because he’s also locked up with a Box full of evil (Pandora’s Box) which has the power of destroying shiny god’s Hourglass

Do I need to point out the racial problems that comes with good Boss god being made up, literally, or shining light while the dangerous, imprisoned, naughty bad god is a dark skinned Black man?

Pandora was given the job of providing please-don’t-squish-us offerings to the gods and she totally fell for the Hidden One, giving him presents and, at his not-so-subtle manipulations, using the box to kill shiny God by destroying the special Hourglass.

Game of Thrones TV series compared with A Song of Ice and Fire books.

The Novels

‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ is a series of epic fantasy novels, by American novelist and screenwriter George R. R. Martin. It is the first volume of the series Game of Thrones. The series has grown to seven volumes. A Song of Ice and Fire has the viewpoint from a range of characters, in each chapter. Martin’s inspirations included War of the Roses, and French historical novels The Accursed Kings.

A Song of Ice and Fire is a critique of its diverse portrayal of women, religion, magic, violence, sexuality, and moral ambiguity. It takes place in a fictional world, in which the weather seasons last for years. Centuries before the events of the first novel, the Seven Kingdoms on the continent of Westeros’ had been under Targaryen dynasty. The principle story describes the power struggle of the Iron Throne of Westeros, after King Robert’s death.

Games

The novels then were adapted to a TV series, comic book adaptations, cards, board and video games. A Game of Thrones is a collectable card game, and also a strategy board game, which allows the players to take on the roles of several of the Great Houses vying, for control of the Seven Kingdoms. A game of Thrones role-playing game consists of a large, full-colour rulebook, featuring information on role-playing in the Seven Kingdoms, and also background information which is not found in the novels, including a detailed map of the Seven Kingdoms. Video games include the online Blood of Dragons; A Game of Thrones: Genesis, which is a real-time strategy game, and Game of Thrones Seven Kingdoms, which is a massively multiplayer role-playing game.

There are also Game of Thrones online slot games which you can play at Europalace. The game's graphics reflect the style of the stories, giving you a sense of being part of the action. It has two modes: 15 lines or 243 ways, and a free Spins feature, allowing players to pledge their allegiance to one of the great houses of Westeros or indeed to Europalace.

TV Series

 There are countless differences between A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones season one, to make the story adaptable and more dramatic for the small screen. Characters have to be quickly established, and key moments, decision making, and motivations are sometimes changed. Even though Game of Thrones is known for being gruesome and unpredictable, the sexual violent scenes are toned down, or flat-out omitted, compared to what was depicted in the novels, as it was regarded as too hard core.

Wayward Pines, Season One, Episode Eight: The Friendliest Place on Earth

Things are on high alert at Wayward Pines and everyone seems to want different things.  Pilcher naturally wants to be control of absolutely everything that goes on and for everyone to follow the laws that he has created.  He also very much wants to be seen as the benevolent benefactor.  Ethan wants the violence to end and for peace to finally come to Wayward Pines.  Kate, simply wants to the truth and is willing to do whatever she has to do get it.

There's a lot of flashbacks this episode.  We see Kate shortly after being brought to Wayward Pines and she is in a padded cell with Pilcher, who is acting as her psychiatrist using the name Dr. Jenkins. Kate is absolutely convinced that she has become an unwilling participant to some sort of secret government experiment though Pilcher tries to convince her otherwise.  We see Pam doing her evil thing and injecting Kate. Later when Kate appears to have acclimated, she is now in an office with Pilcher and she talks about how all of the questions that she had in previous life still exist.  Kate wants to know if there's a God and why it is that humans breathe but she has come to terms with her new life in Wayward Pines, admitting that it's a lot safer her.  Pilcher buys her story and writes Kate a prescription.  Pilcher encourages Kate to get pregnant, saying that she would make a good mother. Outside the office, we see Kate crumple the prescription in her hand. Kate has convinced Pilcher of her willingness to follow the party line but she's clearly not giving up.

Pam seems to have undergone a bit of character growth this week.  When David marches into the hospital demanding to know how these people could have created a bomb, it's Pam who pulls him aside and reminds him of where he is.  Pilcher is at a loss as to what to do but is clearly considering violence. It's Pam who deflects this urge and suggests that they should hold a gathering and make a celebration of life in Wayward Pines.  At this point, Pam seems a long way away from the woman who gleefully injected Kate with drugs against her will.

Pilcher heads to see Kate to question why she didn't come to him with her concerns.  It seems that he wants impress upon Kate that her actions have caused harm to the community and that she needs to stop her people. Kate however turns the tables when she calls Pilcher by his actual name, instead of Jenkins. Pilcher is stunned that his identity has been revealed and demands to know how long has been aware of who he is but Kate simply responds that it doesn't matter. Pilcher is disappointed because Kate represents a failure for him he had thought that if he could get Kate to conform that he could get anyone to conform.  Kate demands to know the truth but Pilcher simply walks out of the jail. The fact that Pilcher was so determined to break Kate rather than working with her to settle things down shows how his megalomania makes him unfit to lead.

Pilcher's paranoia is running high and he is certain that someone inside of the mountain must be helping the people of Wayward Pines.  He has the entire place being monitored 24/7 and therefore someone must have been ignoring the secret gatherings.  To calm his nerves, Pam agrees to head an investigation. Pam sits down with the surveillance team and asks pointed questions about their family and how they feel about their job.  All is fine until she gets to Reggie, who immediately spouts the company line.  Pam prods more out of Reggie and he finally admits that he sometimes fudges or erases bits of tape when people are actively questioning. Reggie believes that it's human nature to question and that he sees these people crying alone in their beds at night. Reggie doesn't want to be responsible for the death of someone simply because they questioned what is going on.  Pam assures him that everything is going to be okay and dismisses him.

Things aren't going to go well for Reggie because David has determined that what's needed is more discipline.  How this man cannot figure out that this approach didn't work in the town and was therefore not likely to work with the mountain people is beyond me, especially given that he is supposed to be a genius. Pam starts begging David for Reggie's life and says that if someone should punished it should be her.  David determines that there will be no more violence and decides to put poor Reggie in the freezer again in front of the mountain staff.

Ethan is still running around town trying to get control of the situation.  When he finally confronts Kate, she is anything but cooperative saying that he is Pilcher's man now.  Kate accuses Ethan of just following orders and says that her people depend on her and therefore she won't be giving them up to Ethan. It's worth pointing out that Kate has a reason to be mistrustful. She has been in Wayward Pines much longer than Ethan, has actively been lied to, drugged against her will, and watched as people were reckoned for disobeying Pilcher's laws. This would the perfect opportunity for Ethan to tell the truth but  of course he doesn't,even though it's clear that all she wants are answers. Ethan doesn't pause for a moment to consider that it wasn't that long ago that he was in Kate's position determined to figure out what is going on.