Orphan Black, Season 2, Episode 5: Ipsa Scientias Potestas

In the aftermath of last week, Leekie has a team examining Rachel’s apartment when she arrives, icily controlled, to see Daniel’s body. Leekie tries to offer condolences (Daniel was Rachel’s monitor and likely lover) about his loyalty but Rachel only says “to you” about his loyalty – Rachel was clearly aware that Daniel was her monitor and reported to Leekie; even if she did care for him. They know it was Helena, they know Sarah was there and Leekie, after snaking at Paul (though Rachel defends him) criticises Rachel’s “heavy handed tactics” which is something of an understatement. But Rachel has “only just begun.”

At Felix’s apartment, Felix objects to Sarah bringing Helena home. He’s played host to just about every clone but he has to draw the line at the serial killer. Of course, where Felix draws the line is completely irrelevant to everyone else and Sarah recruits Felix to be Helena’s chaperone. Because Felix’s entire purpose for existence is to serve and support various clones.

Time for a business meeting at Dyad – Rachel needs a new monitor. Paul is kind of stunned that she had a monitor – but being self-aware since a child doesn’t mean she gets to duck out of the programme, apparently, though she has some advantages form knowing. Anyway, Paul has just been recruited with lots of talk about promotion (he pointedly reminds them he doesn’t have much choice in the matter).

Personally, I don’t think that the Monitor with the proven divided loyalties is really the best Monitor material for Rachel, but that’s just me. Just to remind us that Rachel is evil, she tells Leekie not to go ahead with his newfound cure for Cosima until Sarah gives herself up.

Speaking of, Cosima checks with her patent expert Scott on how you patent a person and his answer is that because the law hasn’t come close to understanding genetics yet, companies just slap a patent on everything and wait to see what’s actually enforceable; also it’s likely Dyad is subcontracting military patents which may be why everything is so hidden. He’d like to work for Cosima but Delphine points out that one of the job downsides is a murdered family (Scott seems pretty ok with that). Delphine is distracted – she has found Leekie’s cure for Cosima – only it has been sent to her by mistake. Cosima and Delphine won’t let that stop them

Kira is still with Cal in his handy-dandy getaway RV which no-one has quite explained why he has an RV set up this way and is looking even more suspicious since it has convenient stashes of cash and weapons. Sarah calls to check in – and Kira has started calling Cal “daddy” and doesn’t seem that overjoyed with Sarah. Since this is Kira, I suspect a cunning plan.

Kira draws pictures of the clones (which Cal asks about) and Kira knows a cop has arrived before Cal (psychic creepy child!) Thankfully Cal has fake ID all ready (which is totally not suspicious) and Kira is a creepy genius child.

Felix takes Helena to stay with Art, who promptly cuffs her, removes the pen she’s managed to hide as a weapon and generally blurs the line between “staying with” and “imprisoned by”. Felix bails when Helena starts making pig noises.

New Releases 18th May - 24th May

What follows is a list of books which will be released between May 18 - May 24.  It can be tough  keeping up with ongoing stories and often, we miss the latest new release, unless the book/series is the beneficiary of a big round of publicity . That is why we are committed to sharing with you books that are the first in their series every week.  Please check out the list and let us know what books you are interested in checking out and why.

Dangerous Creatures (Dangerous Creatures #1) by Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl

A new series returns to the world of Beautiful Creatures. Some loves are cursed...others are dangerous.

Ridley Duchannes will be the first to tell you that she's a bad girl. She's Dark. She's a Siren. You can never trust her, or even yourself when she's around. Lucky for her, Wesley "Link" Lincoln can never seem to remember that; quarter Incubus or not, his heart is Mortal when it comes to Ridley. When Link heads to New York City to start a music career, Ridley goes along for the ride-and she has her own reasons. As if leaving small-town Gatlin for the big city, trying to form a band, and surviving life with a partially reformed Siren isn't hard enough already, Link soon learns he has a price on his head that no Caster or Mortal can ever pay.

Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthors of Beautiful Creatures, are back and casting another magical spell. Their signature mixture of mystery, suspense, and romance, along with a dash of fun and danger, will pull fans in and leave them begging for more.

End Times by Anna Schumacher

Carbon County, Wyoming is like a current running through Daphne’s heart.

When life gets too tough to bear in Detroit, Daphne flees to her Uncle Floyd’s home, where she believes she’ll find solace in the silent hills of her childhood summers. But Daphne’s Greyhound bus pulls over in downtown Carbon County and it’s not silence that welcomes her. It’s the sound of trumpets.

Grimm, Season 3, Episode 22: Blond Ambition

“Turn back, turn back,

Thou pretty bride,

Within this house thou must not abide.

For there do evil things betide.”

It’s the long awaited wedding! Complete with wedding rehearsal and lots of people rushing to defend why Nick must must wear sunglasses. At the rehearsal dinner everything’s wonderful and friendly with old hatchets being buried et al. Awww

Speaking of “awww” Nick and Rosalie come home to a smoke gilled house because Truble is trying to cook for them (awwww).

While they’re all preparing for the wedding, Rogue FBI Agent Steward who works for the Royals is Up To No Good and Adalind is using nefarious magic to impersonate Juliette and visiting Renard. She expresses all kind of worry over Adalind while Renard warns Fake!Juliette that Adalind is super dangerous. Fake!Juliette also plays on the love spell between them, claiming she’s confused and that they have real feelings for each other. She kisses him, says it was wrong, then leaves telling him to call. Renard looks thoroughly bemused. She this a taxi as her imitation spell wears off.

Adalind calls Juliette to warn her that she think Renard’s obsession is returning – and offers a potion which Juliette quickly rejects. Adalind doesn’t give her time to say more before hanging up.

But Dieta makes a play for “worst sister ever” and gets drunk, puts on Rosalie’s wedding dress, declares it cursed (since her weddings wearing that dress ended badly) and spills red wine on it and tears it. The day before the wedding. Which has them turning out early the day of the wedding begging a bridal shop to let them buy a dress early; it’s way beyond Rosalie’s price range but Monroe’s parents (after his dad has made a huge shift of opinions) will pick up the bill. Dieta wakes up with the most epic guilt of all time, but Monroe assures her (between them) that Rosalie and him kind of hated the really old fashioned dress.

Renard calls Juliette to say, though fond, he doesn’t want to start up a relationship and, no, she can’t come and see him. Which confuses Juliette and they have an argument before she hangs up over whether or not she visited last night. Adalind calls and continues to stir things up and leaves as Juliette again – leaving just as Renard finds her storage unit and spell casting gear – but Nick doesn’t answer his phone

Nick and Truble have a Grimm road trip moving the Trailer to a more hidden location and they talk family and Nick’s mother (who is awesome) and the fact one of Truble’s parents had to be a Grimm. They also talk about being a Grimm, the possibility of living a normal life and whether they would choose it. When they go home Truble is becoming uncomfortable living with them – she doesn’t want to live off them forever though Nick is pretty happy to have a Grimm around.

Vampire Diaries, Season 5, Episode 22: Home

Stefan’s dead, everyone is sad and his ghost is concerned since it’s in the Other Side which is all freaky and falling apart – he’s saved from the void by Lexi. Remember Lexi? She’s the earnest vampire who appears whenever Stefan needs to wean off his killing people addiction. Even in death she’s saving him. They wander around being all friendly, discussing Stefan and Caroline’s obvious chemistry and looking for Alaric because if there’s going to be some resurrecting, they might as well grab everyone

Stefan decides to lose his ever loving shit at Bonnie for not being able to pull off a miracle and save everyone. He even resorts to threats which is more than a little ridiculous given that a) the Anchor dying would probably screw over the Other Side and b) Bonnie has never cared about herself since season 1. But Enzo shows up while Damon is doing the big grief recitation (when Damon decided they needed to save people from the Other Side that apparently means “everyone who died, ever”) to let them know he’s found a Traveller if they have witches to cast the spell.

Speaking of, Liv and Luke are running out of town because of the whole attempted murder thing. And, for reasons unknown, when they see Elena in the road (the vampire they just tried to murder) they don’t just RUN HER OVER and drive for the horizon yelling “oh shit the vampires wanna eat me!” but they break. Of course they do. Luke and Liv point out that bringing Stefan back will mean 2 living dopplegangers which will mean witch magic goes away which means all dead vampires – including Stefan. Silly witches, using logic on The Vampire Diaries. Elena decides no they’re just going to kill the Travellers so it’s totally ok (despite them having failed to do so for so long) and Caroline break’s Luke’s neck to give Liv incentive (of course, their coven is going to kill them anyway).

Markos and Sherriff Liz have some exposition – the Travellers are moving the town sign to the radius of the anti-witch-magic spell. They had intended to cover the entire world, instead they got a tiny patch of Virginia. That’s right, the Travellers have changed their curse from “doomed to wander the world without forming a community” to “exiled to rural Virginia.” I will leave you to decide whether they’ve stepped up or not.

To prove how awesome their little town is, Markos throws Julian/Tyler over the boundary – the null zone kicks in and he dies – because a person who is de-vampired is a corpse.

Enzo and Bonnie snark over how ridiculously long the resurrection list is growing.

Amusingly, Jeremy plots the perimeter of the spell on a map by using his Hunter urge. Since he’s driven to kill vampires, he plotted the map based on how much he hated Damon. Damon wonderfully snarks everyone and everything as he lays out his mass murder plan. After all the “bring back the dead” spell requires a mass slaughter of Travellers. This being The Vampire Diaries absolutely no-one blinks at the moral quandary of this.

Glacial Eyes (Salt Lake After Dark #1) by J. K. Walker

Jazz wakes up in the hospital, woozy, confused, possibly victim of a terrible attack – and extremely hungry. She’s quickly dragged away from the hospital to face a trial for the death of a human

A human killed by a big cat.

On probation and ordered to learn, Jazz has to adapt quickly to being a wereleopard and learning about the larger world she is part of and extricating herself from the various political machinations she gets herself enmeshed in – or enmeshing herself further when it comes to a sexy Cajun dhampire.

Let’s hit on a lot of the good in this book – and there was a lot of good.

Firstly, the protagonist – Jazz. She’s definitely a confident, intelligent, fast thinking and generally fun woman. She’s not perfect, she’s not flawless but she’s not silly or foolish – her mistakes are human. She has a personality, she has good friends (female friends, actual female friends she doesn’t hate or look down on) who accept her and care for her. And she has a cat who is awesome. She also has hobbies and opinions beyond the supernatural. She has her own sense of style, her own tastes and she’s pretty secure about all of them - she was a rounded character. And a fun character. Of course, she’s also an orphan, but there are some tropes we just can’t escape and despite being an orphan she isn’t a character defined by tragedy and angst.

I also liked the world, what we’ve seen is quite broad but also with a good foundation. Even at this stage where there isn’t enough time to go into great depth, there’s a lot of detail that reassures me that the different creatures are more than just names. The magic has an actual concrete system and process to it, the Kitsune are more than just “werefoxes from Japan” and even the Snow Leopard has a distinctive history that sets it apart from just being various were animals that were bitten. There’s politics and rules and co-operation and a general sense that there’s a lot to explore here and it’s all pretty solid.

The book also had some pretty excellent pacing. The action kept happening, but it wasn’t so break neck that I couldn’t keep up or felt lost – which can easily be done in the first book of a new series – and nor did it derail into too many long info dumps (as also often happens – a number of first books that read like lecture notes). There were, perhaps, some side quests that didn’t belong and just confused and overwhelmed things a little much (I think the vampire politics angle could have been saved for later in exchange for more of Jazz just adapting to this new world).

I am definitely on board with following this series.

That all being said, some criticisms. This is a full world and it was a bit front loaded – we had a variety of weres and magic and vampires and dhampires and kitsune and magic lessons all there front and centre in the first book. It was all really well done, it was all realistically well done  and none of it was boring but that’s a lot for a first book and takes some of the focus off maybe developing a few more side characters a little more.

Revolution, Season 2, Episode 21: Memorial Day

To reiterate last episode, Neville is now monumentally pissed with the Patriots and wants to burn the whole thing down – and wants Monroe to join him. He also wants Miles to join, but Monroe points out Miles probably isn’t on board with the mass slaughter/wholesale destruction thing

Miles & co have found some level of co-operation from people Marion has talked to and one of them shows them the barrel of mustard gas the Patriots have brought to town. The barrel is the size of a tanker. Also Scanlon is with them but he misses Monroe.

Marion herself spies on Truman while bringing him lunch and playing the doting partner. She finds documents that seem to indicate a plan involving/targeting the President of Texas with Mustard Gas, tomorrow which probably involves, death, destruction and provoking Texas and California to go to war. The plan? Rachel is going to go find Aaron and Priscilla who have wandered off and are being creepy elsewhere (hey, maybe the Nano can eat Rachel?) while everyone else tries to steal the train.

Scanlon turns out to be a mole for Monroe and he and Neville are quite delighted at the possibilities presented by a huge tanker full of mustard gas.

Do you know what we need? More angst. Marion shows up with resistance helpers that don’t meet Miles way-too-picky-for-this-standard but it turns out this man and daughter combo are real gung-ho to kill Patriots because his son, her brother was killed by them. And by “killed by them” we mean brainwashed by the Patriots to kill the Texas President and then Miles killed him. ANNNGST. They don’t know Miles pulled the trigger. For some reason Miles think it’s a good idea to tell them this – albeit it not right now. And also he trusts them, not because he does trust them but because he thinks good guys should trust them. This is totally reasonable reasoning. Marion also has doubts about her ability to be a covert agent as well as the awfulness of it all; Gene is there to reassure her even if he is perhaps the least reassuring person ever. Hey he could appeal to moral authority! The hint of Mustard Gas and she’s out, Gene was happy to be a fun torture buddy for some time

They use their new friends to steal the train and it’s all going smoothly until the horrible bloody mess Charlie apparently left the sentry in attracts attention by raining blood on passers by. After a firefight they get their new friend Joe to get the train moving and drive away (though why I don’t know, between them they killed an almost comic number of Patriot guards). They make off with their train.

Scanlon is waiting with all the lye ready to neutralise the gas – with Monroe, Neville and Connor. Neville and Connor check the perimeter and Connor wants to know what’s happening between his dad and Miles. Neville: “Don’t ask don’t tell”. Of course they do. Connor comes to the conclusion that because of Monroe’s obsession with Miles he’ll never succeed in getting the Republic back while Miles is still around – this is his “you cool with murdering Miles?” not-so-subtle-question.

The train arrives and the Monroe gang steals it at gun point. We have another attempt from Monroe to recruit Miles and Neville points a gun at Charlie. He remembers the whole killing his son thing. Miles steps in the way, which hardly stops Neville but with Miles under threat, Monroe points a gun at Neville. Bteween them they hit Neville and knock him out – a stray bullet hitting the gas barrel

Which is empty.

In town Marion continues to play spy, but she’s nervous and her act is fraying around the edges as she pretends to still be in love with Truman. They go to a big community meeting – also attended by the President of Texas and the President of the Patriot US. Above them are many many many canisters of mustard gas ready to be piped into the room

At the train, Mile hears about the concert from Joe and realises it’s the real target and his team heads back, along with Monroe since, if the Patriots win this, all is lost. Connor elects to stay, not really wanting to go to a town that’s about to be gassed.

Race on The Vampire Diaries and The Originals

Way back in 2011 we made a post about Race in The Vampire Diaries; but a long time has passed since then. It’s now 2014, more than enough scope for things to change, right?

Sadly no, The Vampire Diaries and it’s spin-off show, The Originals continue to make the same problematic depictions. The old themes of death and servitude continue. About the only thing that has changed is that Caroline has diversified her palette.

Back when we wrote that post there were 2 living regular POC characters (Bonnie and Tyler) and now there are… 2 living regular POC characters (Bonnie and Tyler). Oh more have been introduced over the years - but they have all fallen to their inevitable deaths (or, if they’re lucky, fled Mystic Falls, never to return).

Yes, Mystic Falls is not a safe place - the death toll for anyone on this show is high, but the attrition rate for POC is quite ludicrous. In addition to the deaths we mentioned in that last post, we have since seen Bonnie’s father, Rudy; the hunter Connor, The Traveller Maria, Qetsiyah (Tessa), Jesse the vampire, Enzo’s lost love Maggie and a number of POC background snacks, spell fodder or otherwise sacrifices (such as Pam, a POC town member… who was introduced along with her quickly killed husband for the Traveller spell). Frankly, there’s not a lot of POC on the show - and when they appear I can hear a clock ticking down until their inevitable doom.

It’s not even just the death rate - which is huge - it’s the way those deaths were treated. Ok, some of them - several of them - were enemies and we were never meant to feel sad for, like Connor. But did Bonnie ever get to mourn her father? Truly mourn the loss of her dad? Or get to deal with the rapid disappearance of her mother? Did we get any real scenes with Bonnie being comforted for this loss? Or was she too busy trying to hide her own death from her friends? What about Jessie, the disposable experiment for the Ripper vampire? Caroline was so upset when he died… for an episode. Then everyone moved on, his death was just a tool to introduce the concept of the Ripper vampire. The same applies to Marie and Maggie, both deaths were tools - only these characters were fridged to make their men all ragey. Has the death of a single POC on this show been treated as something to mourn?

And The Originals? I can’t even count. Celeste/Sabine, Monique, Agnes, Papa Tunde, perhaps Sophie, innumerable witches whose names I can’t even remember but have been vampire chow forever. Marching bands of humans sacrificed en masse. Diego and numerous background vampires who were chowed on by Klaus or Guerrera werewolves. We had, technically, a number of background POC in both the supernatural groups - and they were the ultimate cannon fodder. There was, technically, a huge number of POC - but when the season ended Marcel and Francesca (an enemy so likely dead next season) were the only ones left standing.

There’s one death we have to look at as well - Bonnie’s. In our previous post we mentioned how much Bonnie existed to serve the White characters - especially Elena. But this season we took it a step further - Bonnie became a noble avatar of self-sacrifice.

First, she died to save Jeremy. Once she had martyred herself for him, her prime concern as a ghost wasn’t coming back to life or even grieving for her father - she was concerned that Elena and Caroline may be sad and kept her death a secret. When they finally discover it they have a beautiful funeral - in which Bonnie comforts her friends. At her own funeral, she was there to make them feel better (and her secret was only discovered because everyone was annoyed that Bonnie wasn’t on call when they needed her).

It’s not just that Bonnie continually exists to save others - she’s not allowed to save herself. Bonnie thinking about herself seems to be a great taboo. When she becomes the Anchor it’s not because she wants to be alive again - it’s because Jeremy wants her back (he even lies to force it on her), Elena needs her and Damon needs her for his plan. When the Other Side is under threat, she just gives up - it’s only when other people are in danger that Bonnie starts investigating a way to stop it disappearing. Bonnie isn’t allowed to say “I want to live. Save me”. She has to live for other people, her life has to be saved as a side effect of helping others.

Just as The Vampire Diaries has Bonnie as a source of so many problems, The Originals has Marcel

Originals, Season 1, Episode 22: From Cradle to Grave

We begin with an artsy montage – Klaus and Hayley being cute together while Hayley writes a letter to her baby – before we see her dragged onto the altar by the witches and Klaus pinned by their magic.

Hayley gives birth to a baby girl – and then Monique slits Hayley’s throat and she breaks Klaus’s neck as they leave with his baby.

Elijah arrives to find Klaus cradling Hayley’s body – Klaus says she’s dead. The brothers grieve and Klaus realises Elijah has been bitten by a werewolf – and gives Elijah his blood. No debate, no negotiation or battling – just gives it to him. Klaus says he was “bested” which Elijah doesn’t take as a reasonable excuse – but they go searching for the baby, Elijah losing that remarkable emotional control. They go to the graveyward, but the witches have cast a spell making it infinitely big

Elijah has a beautiful emotional break about how he let Hayley in – when he never lets anyone in – and Klaus’s endless scheming and enemies have resulted in her death.

Davina sees the carnage caused by Francesca and the Guerrera werewolves and realises all the vampires needs Klaus’s blood to survive – she goes to the place Klaus fought Marcel to use magic to summon his blood from the pavement.

She takes it back to Marcel who says there’s only enough there for one. Davina cries that she can’t choose; Marcel tells her to save Josh because he’s one of his people and he will look after everyone else. Davina is still hallucinating Mikael and Marcel wants to get more blood from Klaus – so Camille takes him to Kieren’s stockpile of weapons, grabbing a Devil’s Star. 1 throw can make a thousand cuts.

In the church, Hayley has laid on the altar – but her wound is gone. She gasps and is alive. Wouldn’t a pregnant woman die with some of her baby’s blood in her system? And if said baby were a hybrid – a super special hybrid – would that make the mother a hybrid/vampire herself?

She remembers the witches took her baby and she does not look happy. She goes and joins Elijah and Klaus in the endless graveyard and they confirm that Hayley is in transition to hybrid-dom. But to be fully reborn she needs to drink the blood of her daughter.

Monique also doesn’t want Genevieve to kill the baby. Not because she has any compunction about baby slaughter – but because, with Genevieve dead, the last Harvest Girl (Cassie) can be restored.

Hayley leads the two men to her daughter using mystical hybrid-hunger senses. But Monique and other-harvest-girl-whose-name-I-can’t-remember-because-she-is-so-going-to-die channel their baby killing ancestors – in the graveyard where they’re super powerful – to hold them off, summoning thousands of ancestors to ghost in now and then with telekinesis.

Which ends when Klaus throws a metal fence rail through the other-harvest-girl-who-just-did-die. Really, Monique, you didn’t expect the vampires to throw shit? She runs to do the sacrifice herself – and Marcel throws the throwing star of a hundred cuts at her – and runs off with the baby.

Davina has her own ill thought out random plan, using items stolen from Camille’s stockpile, she casts a spell to bring Mikael back from the dead. Who then promptly goes to the all the injured, dying vampires and starts eating (Mikael only eats vampire blood).

Klaus follows Marcel to where he’s surrounded by his vampires – who are all dead, thanks to Mikael (well done Davina!) Klaus assumes the Guerrera werewolves came to finish the vampires off – and offers Marcel his blood. And Marcel accepts responsibility for everything for bringing Mikael to town a century ago (which is an awfully one sided version of events). Klaus tells Marcel they’ll hunt down their enemies – looks like they’re on the same team. Klaus holds his daughter and looks so very cute even with the blood stained mouth - watched by Mikael holding the white oak stake.

But he doesn’t get to murder Klaus – because Davina has cast a spell as part of the resurrection to control him. She now can control his every move, make him kneel – and drag him to her loft to use when she chooses.

Genevieve is chained up by Elijah and Hayley and she tells them about the ancestor’s decree – Esther’s decree. After all, Mummy Original tried to kill them all before. Genevieve warns them that the witches of New Orleans, led by the Ancestors, will continue to attack. Genevieve says she’s sorry as the Ancestors begin to kill her – and Hayley stabs her. She’s not sorry. Not one bit. Elijah seems quite perturbed by this.

Back in the house, Klaus sums up the problems – the witches will keep attacked because of Esther (are there any witches left!?) and the Guerrera wolves will keep attacking because Hayley and the baby are werewolf royalty and therefore a challenge to their authority. How can they keep her safe

Hayley has an amazing moment where she tells them how she promised her baby she wouldn’t grow up like she did – sent away and unloved – but on her first day granny wants to shank the child and her own mother needs to drink her blood to become a hybrid. She realises her parents were right – with so many people after the child, hunting the child, the only way to save her will be to send her away. While they stay behind and “clean up the mess they’ve made.” Klaus has a plan to ensure she isn’t hunted

Francesca holds a big press conference about the “gang violence” and making the city safe again by removing the undesirable element. i.e. vampires. Marcel takes the chance to talk to Oliver, one of Francesca’s lackies, to make a deal or he’ll set Klaus on him. Oliver doesn’t believe Klaus will side with Marcel over the wolfpack he created – but Marcel warns him he’ll tell Klaus that the wolves killed his kid: and shows Oliver a box. Whatever’s in that box horrifies Oliver and Marcel says to cremate it if they don’t want Klaus to smell it on them