Midnight Texas, Season One, Episode Three: Lemuel, Unchained

In a clear act of rebellion against her father, Creek and Manfred finally get it on. Creek makes it clear to Manfred that they don't have a real relationship and that her father cannot find out about the two of them. We've seen that while Midnight might be a safe place for supernaturals that it's not necessarily a safe space for humans but despite that Manfred has no problem letting Creek walk home alone. Quite unsurprisingly, Creek is accosted on her way home by a group of vampires who've just arrived in town.

It's Lemuel to the rescue.  It turns out that the new vampires are lead by Lemuel's creator Zachariah. Lemuel is quick to vouch for Zachariah and his crew, especially when Zachariah declares himself to be a much changed vampire. Midnight Texas has a fairly large cast and we're still getting to know who these characters are and what their supernatural abilities are. Lemuel Unchained is a chance to explore Lemuel's backstory.

It turns out that Lemuel was a slave.  In the flashback, we are treated to Lemuel being tied to the whipping post and scourged.  I'm not going to argue that the whipping of slaves wasn't commonplace but this feels gratuitous, particularly because Lemuel doesn't seem to suffer any ill effect and begins to plot his escape. I've really had enough of black torture porn in the media, especially when there's no context other than entertainment value. Lemuel manages to escape to the desert and meets up with Zachariah. At this point, all Lemuel wants is freedom and he's willing to pay any cost to have it.  Zachariah turns Lemuel into a vampire and together they return to the site of Lemuel's captivity and feast on the slave owners. Lemuel slakes his hate with the blood of those who owned him. 

In the present, the residents of Midnight don't necessarily feel secure, even though Lemuel has vouched for Zachariah.  It's time to gather at the church, a place it seems that the residents don't really utilise much. In a bit more info dumping, we learn that nothing we know about vampires applies. This means that vampires don't need an invitation to enter a home, and that garlic and holy water are useless.  Vampires however can be killed with a stake through the heart, or being exposed to daylight and that silver bullets hurt. Okay, now we know the ground rules. 

At the bar, Lemuel is in full blown reunion mode with Zachariah.  What could vampires possibly reminisce about beyond blood and violence? Olivia, is not pleased with the goings on, particularly when a female vampire gets a little to close for comfort to Lemuel.  Determined to lay her claim on Lemuel, Olivia lays a kiss on him. Maybe Olivia and Lemuel are closer than they appear. Olivia may not want to be turned, but she's not above jealousy. 

After getting a lesson in Vampire 101, Manfred tries to get a hold of Creek. Unfortunately, when Creek's father sees whose calling, he declines the call. Manfred decides to leave the sanctuary of the church to ensure Creek's safety. 

Creek is at home sharpening stakes when her brother walks in.  Creek immediately tries to hide them but is forced to reveal that vampires are in town and that the stakes are just a precaution.  On his way to see Creek, Manfred stops off at a hardware store only to find the proprietor dead. Unsurprisingly, the vampire who fed on the store owner is still hungry and decides that Manfred is his next snack. Manfred is able to kill the vampire with a pencil and a sharp kick. Okay, I call bullshit on the idea that a pencil could be used to penetrate a human body so deeply without breaking and falling to pieces.  

Joe goes into confession mode with Emilio regarding his true identity. We learn that Joe is a fallen angel and is now content to live his life with the man that he loves.  Is anyone else dying to know exactly why it is that Joe has fallen? It better not be because he's gay. Joe tells Emilio about the danger facing Midnight because he plans on leaving town with Chuy and feels that someone should know about the true threat the town is facing.

Johannes Cabal the Necromancer (Johannes Cabal #1) by Jonathan L. Howard

Having sold his soul to the devil in order to learn the secrets of necromany, Johannes isn't pleased to discover that the bargain has not achieved the results he had hoped for and that in fact, he actually needs his soul back.  This realisation results in a trip to hell to bargain with the devil to regain his soul.  Johannes strikes a deal to get 100 people to sign over their souls to the devil in exchange for his own soul back.  With the help of his vampire older brother Horst and a demonic train, it's a race against time to see who will become the victor. 

I must admit to being a little bit conflicted about this book. There were times when the dark humour had me outright laughing and times when the story seemed to drag on because of repetitiveness.  There's only so many times one can read descriptions of gouls and be entertained by them.  Howard is at times needlessly verbose though generally speaking the language helps to cement Cabal's character.

As with any Faustian deal, there is an element of morality to this story.  Johannes is so intent in collecting the 100 souls that he doesn't think about the destruction that his travelling carnival is leaving in its wake. What is the point of regaining one's soul only to lose it in the act of regaining it?  Horst, the vampire is the moral authority in this case. It's Horst who blocks a child from accidentally selling his soul and Horst who points out that there's a difference between getting people to sign who were already destined to go to hell and actively corrupting those who would not have ended up in hell.  Horst can see unlike Johannes that this is so much more than a numbers game.

It's Horst who explains to Johannes that there's a difference between tricking a man who abuses women and discards them into selling his soul and tricking a stressed out and overwhelmed single mother into killing her child. No matter how hard Horst tries, Johannes simply cannot see.  Even when elements of Johannes soften, they don't last long for the simple reason that his drive to regain his soul is so strong. 

It's not until the very end that we clearly understand what is driving Johannes, though there are hints throughout as he reveals his anger at death itself, calling it a thief. Johannes is a very angry, jealous man.  Though Horst helps Johannes throughout with his mission to capture 100 souls, Johannes cannot let go of his jealousy of his brother.  It seems growing up, Horst was favoured by his parents and community, leaving Johannes always striving for attention and love.  The sibling rivalry clearly had an affect on Johannes and warped his personality to a strong degree.  Even though Johannes was responsible for Horst becoming a vampire, he still felt entitled to his brother's help. 

Teen Wolf, Season 6, Episode 12: Raw Talent

So we have a weird and much more depressing spiderman origin story. A super hot guy is sleeping in his car, constantly being moved on by the police day after day after day after day until he is bitten by a spider

The spider climbs under his skin - and he has to cut it out. Which is more than a little creepy - and then the police who are moving him on shoot him for no apparent reason. Before dying he considers calling Scott. I have a feeling I’m supposed to recognise him.

Mason reminds us that something scary has been released by the Wild Hunt  - which also comes with someone being covered in spiders. Icky icky icky. But also there’s lacrosse to play, a brief reminder of hot guys but mainly we’re focused Liam’s ongoing difficulty controlling himself and lots of supernatural shenanigans on the lacrosse field. One point of note is Brett telling Liam he is becoming dangerous to other people. All of this is watched by Tamorah.

Mason, Corey and Liam end up in the school in the middle of the night because everyone does. I mean, seriously, more people have died in this school than most battlefields but everyone just loves walking the halls at midnight. There they find a skinless body in the bathroom (like the fourth in this bathroom this month; they’re not even shocked any more), they assume it’s extra, Aaron, a fellow lacrosse player who is instead sat in the dark in an empty classroom thinking about tomorrow’s history test

No-one thinks this is creepy. To be fair this is Beacon Hills

Scott is having his own creepy time - finding an Argent bullet has left him jumpy, being hunted by the Argents seems to be a very real fear that has lingered with Scott - so much so that when he is found by Sheriff Stilinski and the deputies he attacks the sheriff, glowing eyes and all, before he realises what he did.

Lydia and Scott tell them about the dead hellhound (Parrish is especially disturbed that Hellhounds can be killed as this has been proven to be… challenging) but don’t mention the bullet.

This brings us one of Malia’s awesome scenes:

Lydia: you say anything about the Argent bullet

Scott: Nor did you

Malia: Neither of you did. Wait. Was I supposed to say something?

Malia is much more fun when not embroiled in a romance, her slightly alien way of thinking is really well acted.

They decide to speak to Chris Argent first - and head to his bunker. To find lots and lots and lots of bullets and a brief horror he may have started hunting again (and Malia tries to hack his laptop which is hilarious. Of course the password is Allison).

The Trinity's Dream by Sherif Mekdam

I have an issue with the main three characters who are put forward to be the Trinity. They’re all supposed to be deeply flawed people:

We have an arrogant, rapist atheist who raped his best friend while she slept and who spends most of his life debating Christians (and apparently this gets him a huge fan club of women to sleep with him. Because university campuses are full of women who get so turned on by anti-theological debate).

We have the Muslim who is a wanna-be terrorist.

And we have the Christian who is so self-sacrificing and dedicating his life to trying to find a miracle cure for his sick nephew.

Uh-huh. Rapist arrogant atheist, hateful, misogynist Muslim - and saintly selfless Christian? This does not look good when put next to each other.

Beyond that I think the main issue with this book is fundamentally structural - it’s short. Really short and really full - we have 6 significant characters - both the Trinity above who will save the world and the three characters who actually discovered the world was ending have to have their characters, their back story, their expertise, their families, and their experience shoe horned into a really really small book. That means we have a lot of info dumping, a lot of really clumsy, awkward attempt at development which didn’t even make these brief characters particularly notable or distinctive. Nothing really develops or distinguishes itself - certainly not the characters - so we get really shoe-horned, overly full, quite convoluted characterisation to try and create a full character in very very limited space.

That limited development also made so much of this book flawed - like examining the rapist and not making it just a throw away reference, the misogyny of the terrorist-wanna-be: I mean all of it is pretty much undeveloped but this becomes much more of a problem when covering these fraught topics.

Several of these characters are POC which is something

The Strain, Season 4, Episode 4: New Horizons

Hey it’s another episode of everything is awful and vampires are evil. Which, ok, fine… but we kind of need to go somewhere with most of these storylines. Or any of them.

Instead another go round of most of the cast reminding us that evil land ruled by evil people who are evil is evil is starting to smell a little stale.

Take Sanjay Desai who is living a wonderful luxurious life being a stooge to the Strigoi with Eichorst dropping in on him to remind him he has to do terrible evil things or he will be horribly tortured to death in horrible ways. You get to live a life of luxury only if you continue be evil (turning women into baby factories, forcing pregnancy as often as possible and c-section at 6 months - with no safety consideration for the mother).

I mean ok, it’s terrifying and awful but didn’t we already do that with the pregnancy farm anyway? Didn’t we know this?

So to that pregnancy farm and Dutch in a terrible situation. Sanjay Desai wants Dutch to play nice collaborator and reassure Sophie who is giving birth by c-section. Dutch keeps her calm and co-operative through the whole procedure so they can steal the baby with minimum fuss. If she doesn’t then she goes to a terribad place. And, as one fellow inmate points out, Dutch refusing to actually co-operate doesn’t actually stop the baby being taken. The alternative is another inmate who calls her a terrible evil collaborator.

Didn’t we do the whole collaborator storyline… every episode?

Dutch does the evil collaborator stuff, but when the doctors won’t even let Sophie hold her own baby, Dutch snaps. She holds a blade to Desai’s throat, kidnaps him and uses his keycard to follow the baby - to find a terrible holding factory. There people are impaled on hooks and have all their blood drained

Ok… horrifying? I guess? I mean… strigoi are vampires who kill people and drink blood? The addition of meat hooks may make for terrifying abattoir imagery. Maybe it’s because I read the books so knew this was coming. But I am not entirely sold that this is entirely more horrifying than, say, nuclear winter?

Game of Thrones, Season 7, Episode 4: The Spoils of War

Well, that happened: the inevitable awesome burning action happened and we knew it was coming but it was still very awesome

But first let us join a much quieter but still very awesome and poignant moment in Winterfell

Three of the Stark sibling have now been reunited - Bran, Sansa and Arya. And I think this whole episode really powerfully shows us how much the siblings have changed. Bran has become almost robotic - completely emotionless even as Meera, a woman who has fought desperately to keep him alive, has carried him literally, watched Hodor die for him, watched her brother die for him, says goodbye. He shows no emotion even as she is devastated by this.

When he sees Arya and Sansa he is equally dispassionate with added levels of creepy and spooky. Sansa has heard about his visions and clearly didn’t believe them - until his talking about Arya’s list and journey makes it clear he isn’t just seeing things.

Another person taken aback by Bran’s spookiness is Littlefinger who tries to schmooze Bran with pretty words and the shiny knife that started this whole chaos - the knife that near murdered him, a murder and a knife which cause Catelyn Stark to imprison Tyrion and start the whole war going in an utter disaster

Bran is indifferent (he gives the knife to Arya) but he does mention “Chaos is a ladder” which is pretty much Petyr’s watchword. This freaks Petyr out severely (the Stark kids are rattling him good) while also suggesting that, yes, Littlefinger was the one behind all of this.

We’ve seen Sansa mature and become the incredibly strong, cunning woman she is today and now realising her young siblings have grown in the same time period. Especially poignant is her and Arya reflecting on their mutual difficult, painful stories- but Arya’s determined “this isn’t the end of their story” and it is beautiful to see Arya actually hope now.

Sansa originally laughs over Arya’s list only to have Bran’s visions confirm it - and then see Arya match Brienne (who towers over her) in a sparring match.

And I feel for Brienne - seeing the Stark children reunited as she promised Catelyn she would while acknowledging she did pretty much nothing to make it happen. The Starks are doing it for themselves.

To Dragonstone where Daenerys and Jon Snow are beginning to show more chemistry before their inevitable marriage (and Davos definitely noticing) and Jon showing Daenerys the shiny cave of dragonglass he found complete with cave paintings from the Children of the Forest showing their alliance with the First Men to face off against the super creepy white Walkers.

This is his not so subtle message that they should stand together and Daenerys throws back that she’ll support him if he bends the knee. Yup, she’s broken record. He points out that his people will rebel. She says nope, he’s their king, he doesn’t say “lady, you have not met Lyanna Mormont” but he really should have.

He does speak to Missendei who tells some of her history for some nice characterisation but is really much much more about how totally awesome Daenerys is. And, y’know, it’s nice to confirm that everyone who follows Daenerys does it because they respect and love her and what she’s done and absolutely none of them give a shit about who her daddy was or what noble lineage she has. Which is good because it removes her entitlement to rule just because of her noble name which is a hard sell and full of (very historical accurate) entitlement

The bad side is basically the fact she’s selling herself as the Greatest of White Saviours. The whole Mhysa storyline was a hot hot mess and this being her selling point is just cringeworthy

Also no mention of dragons. I mean “we love her. Also she has burny lizards that kill people. And a legion of angry horsewarriors who think she’s a fire goddess and kill people. Oh and an army of people who’ve been slaves since birth and may not even know they’re free because did anyone actually check? Seriously most of the time Daenerys doesn’t even speak in a language most of them don’t understand, shouldn’t we do a survey or something?”

Orphan Black, Season Five, Episode Nine: One Fettered Slave

One Unfettered Slave, is the penultimate episode of Orphan Black. As the series finale draws near, I find myself nowhere close to being ready to give up my sestras.  The writers are finishing up the story line, hopefully leading to freedom for the sestras but it's come at a cost. This episode opens up with Siobahn's funeral and it's gut wrenching.  The sestras and Felix are all orphans now and so the question quickly becomes who is going to pick up the mantle left behind by S. Sarah and Felix don't have long to contemplate their lost because at S's funeral, they are informed that Helena has been taken. 

Helena

Helena is the clone I hated when she was introduced and has quickly moved to my favourite.  All of the clones have had an episode which featured their backstory and One Fettered Slave is Helena's turn. Given that Helena was raised by religious zealots who twisted her to kill sestras, there's no way that it was going to be anything but abusive. Helena is hazy from the drugs and so she flashes back to her time at a Catholic school. Helena sneaks into a nun's office to help herself to some hidden chocolate. When the nun enters the office, Helena is forced to hide. Thinking herself alone, the nun starts furiously masturbating. A fascinated Helena approaches the nun and is punished for her sinful spying. Helena's head is dunked into a bucket containing bleach and hydrogen peroxide, turning her from a brunette into the familiar blonde that we all know. It also explains why the skin under Helena's eyes is always red. Even though Helena protests that she hasn't seen anything, she's locked in a closet and told to spy in there.  A defiant Helena stuffs her stolen chocolate in her mouth. 

Helena finds what she thinks is reprieve from the closet when Tomas shows up. Tomas assures Helena that she is a very special girl and that he's looked for her for a long time. Tomas, being a Prolethean zealot, teaches Helena during her formative years about copies and originals, as well as the evils of science. 

When Helena awakens, she's in the back of a van being examined by Virginia, on her way to a lab. Mark asks about Gracie and Virginia lies, claiming that they'll be reunited after the twins are born. Helena is taken to what appears to be an operating room to start the produce of inducing labour. 

P.T. is looking a little worse for wear given all of the trials he's had recently. PT's given a shot to give him a bit of a boost so that he will have the energy to make it through Helena's labour. A re-invigorated PT pulls off his nasty wig, now past the point of pretending that he is long lived. Rachel may have exposed PT for the fraud that he is but he's not down and out yet.  PT orders Frontenac to find Hashem Al-Khatib and neutralize him. As part of cleaning up after Rachel's defection, PT is having people murdered. In full control of his facilities, PT heads to the delivery room and orders Virginia to put a rush on Helena's delivery so that he can harvest the twins fetal stem cells in order to create a treatment. PT is so impatient, he wants the babies cut right out of Helena but Virginia argues that a vaginal birth would be a better alternative. 

With the plans for the twins well under way, the next order of business as far as PT is concerned is the elimination of Mark. PT reminds Virginia that it's always been the two of them against the world.  Virginia points out that Mark is the last Castor clone left alive. PT however is not to be dissuaded and he leaves Virginia yelling, "the future is female!"  If there's was any hope of Virginia being even somewhat redeemed, it ends here. Tricking Mark into believing that he's getting an injection of the cure, Virginia actually poisons him to death.  A tired Mark lies down, takes Virginia hand and his dying words are, "good night mother."  

The petocin has done it's work and Helena is starting to have contractions. The pain causes Helena to have another flashback and this time it's to Tomas declaring that Helena is ready to go out into the world and begin her mission. Helena follows a clone into a church and stabs her viciously in the back, only to be surprised when she sees that her victim has the same face as hers.  Back with Tomas, a very upset Helena takes to her bed and bemoans her belief that she to is a copy.  Tomas then informs Helena that the others are the copies and that she is the original, reminding Helena of her uniqueness. In a bid to create some difference between herself and the clones, Helena carves wings into her back. 

In the present, Helena begs Virginia to spare her and her babies believing that Virginia might have some sympathy for her because PT took away Virginia's babies. Helena says that her babies need their mother. Virginia being the cold fish that she is, reminds Helena that she was abandoned at birth and that she killed her fellow clones, thus in Virginia's opinion, making Helena unfit to be a mother. 

Wynonna Earp, Season 2, Episode 9: Forever Mine Never Mind

One thing Wynonna Earp has done an amazing job of is making it clear that just because Wynonna is pregnant doesn’t mean she has to be bed ridden or helpless. Wynonna is still kick arse, sparring and being dangerous even when heavily pregnant.

As we see with her sparring with Waverley and big sticks - and this is even more powerful when we remember the actress herself is pregnant. Yup, that’s not stuffing, that stomach’s all her.

Wynonna is always clear that just because she’s pregnant doesn’t mean she has to take a back seat or that the curse or the mission is any less her’s.

They recap everything nicely and there’s definitely a new level of flirting between Dolls and Wynonna. There’s also a body - which they identify as Tucker’s (the guy who is the worst who was shot and jumped through a window which didn’t kill him apparently. I thought we were done with this character?) despite being horrendously burned. This is confirmed by his Evil Widow sister (wait, didn’t Wynonna already peg Mercedes and Beth Gardener as the Wiws?) who also confirms he was the utter utter worst. She also sort-of-flirts with Waverley which continues to plunge a big wedge between her and Nicole, especially since Nicole is… fraught. I get Nicole’s input and expression of opinion and disagreement with Waverley here but I also get why Waverley - already pissed and touchy - may interpret Nicole’s disagreement as instruction, insisting Waverley is wrong or telling her what she may think or feel.

Note a good point here is when this body arises and Dolls asks if it’s Black Badge’s

Dolls is also striking up a decent rapport with Rosita as she comes up with better and better treatments for Dolls’ demon-dragon thing. He buys her a ticket to a spa as a thank you. Which is… nice… I guess? Maybe? I’m bemused, I think a wad of actual money would be better. Anyway, go spa. Whatever.

Still we are seeing Rosita work really well with the group - that scene with Dolls and later with Wynonna (despite Wynonna planning a private dinner between her and Doc which is… slightly awkward). And then she’s there to comfort Waverley in her need-to-get-her-drink-on after arguing with Nicole again. Waverley is very very frustrated and wishes she could get away from everything for a while - thankfully Rosita has some spa tickets

Of course at the spa Waverley feels super guilty for not being available, but Rosita is there encouraging the theft of towels and the drinking of champagne and giving Waverley someone to talk to about messing up everything by looking at the DNA papers and giving pep talks about how things don’t have to be perfect and imperfections are good - everyone needs a friend like Rosita

We also learn that Rosita has 3 PHDs, no family and is super super super smart.

And Waverley kisses her. And Rosita kisses her back. And I’m YAY MORE BISEXUAL CHARACTERS while also NOOOOOOOOOOO NICOLE AND WAVERLEY! YOU GET BETWEEN THEM AND I KILL YOU WITH ARMADILLOS!

They split up because SUPER AWKWARD and Waverley goes to Rosita to apologise - and finds her dead…

...wait NO I didn’t want this! The armadillo thing wasn’t serious! I take it back, take it back, take it back!

She has been killed by Tucker who is not dead though he has a nasty case of frostbite. I don’t even know how that came about, presumably walking around in the snowy woods (it’s like eternal winter in Purgatory. Is this place Canada?)

He is still obsessed with Waverly in a deeply terrifying, stalkerish, rapey way. He talks about how happy they’ll be together while she tries to humour his terrifyingness. Until Rosita knocks him out with a big bottle of champagne.