The 100, Season Three, Episode Sixteen: Perverse Instantiation: Part Two

 
Well, after all of this build up, season three went out with whimper and tons of angst as far as I am concerned.  I called it right from the beginning that at least some point, Clarke would end up with the flame in her head, cause you know, Clarke's a total one woman saving the world machine with her extra special specialness.

This episode essentially was about free will and living with regret.  As we know, Clarke's got a pretty big death count and is very much haunted by the deaths of the mountain people.  There's also the fact that Lexa, the woman she loves died because of a bullet which was meant for her.  Life on the ground has been hard. Bellamy who is back on team good guy, regrets his part in the slaughter of Indra's army; however, even after all he's seen, Pike is still very much playing the us versus them card, though he is willing to work together for now to stop A.L.I.E.  This however doesn't mean that Octavia is willing to play the same game.

The first opportunity Octavia gets, she slices Pike's leg leaving him wounded to fight off the chipped. She stands back like she's eating popcorn and watching some sort of festival.  Bellamy appears and is shocked by Octavia's decision.  They manage to withdraw and Bellamy tells Octavia to get her head on right. Sure, there's such a thing as time and place but Bellamy is no position to be lecturing anyone right now.

The battle to protect Clarke occurs.  As a last line of defense, Abbie stands next to her daughter willing to shoot anyone who gets to close.  Everyone puts up a good fight but there are just too many chipped people.  Kane is choking the life out of Bellamy and Octavia is down on her back fighting for her life.  Pike sees what's going on and throws off his attacker in time to save Octavia. Octavia is clearly surprised by Pike's decision but this doesn't make them equal.

Inside the city of light, Clarke is starting to struggle because the rate of the blood transfusion has started to slow down. The people in the city have started to take notice of her. Luckily for Clarke, Lexa makes an appearance and takes out the people trying to hurt her. I was glad to see Lexa again especially given how she died.  It's all bittersweet for Clarke but Lexa says that she knew her spirit would choose wisely.  They make their way to the kill area which becomes visible thanks to the work of Raven. I suppose this at least partially redeems Raven for screwing up last week.  Lexa sends Clarke on ahead and promises to keep the chipped people out.  I love this moment even though it's very much a retcon of Lexa's death. I love the idea that Lexa got the warriors ending that she so richly deserved.

Wynonna Earp, Season 1, Episode 8: Two Faced Jack

Last week, Wynonna and Officer Hawt were captured by the last member of the seven and while Hawt is quickly kicked out to a hospital to vanish, Wynonna is still imprisoned

But a brutal, serial killing doctor (a human) who is working for an even more brutal, serial killing Jack, Revenant who enjoys cutting human women up and messing with their organs. Which is what happens to Bethany who we thought died last episode but has been kept around for one more episode before being disposed (and ye gods that was horrendous to see).

Wynonna is tough as a boiled owl (Doc’s words) and not one to be imprisoned often or to believe the lies of the “doctor” (yes it’s the fun pathologist from last episode) trying to convince her that she has been paralysed (and shows her extreme toughness by not reacting even when he tries to cut off her toe). Toughness we expect from Wynonna, intelligence, cunning and restraint not so much, it’s nice to see that.

Wynonna tries several times to escape and is pretty awesome while doing it even if she doesn’t succeed. She needs rescuing

Which falls to Doc and Dolls who follow several clues provided by Waverley’s ever awesome research, including one that leads them to an underground fight club. Yes that old trope. While I appreciate Doc skewering the silliness of “no-one talks about the fight club”, I also am tired of this whole trope because we know that Dolls and Doc are going to end up in that ring

And yes, they do. Of course they do. Only to make it real, the fight club organiser shows Doc a file he got from Bobo. A file on Doc which Dolls sent to his superiors to make them keep them happy. As I pointed out last episode it had to be him of Wynonna. So the powers that be are very interested in an unaging immortal and are very eager to have Doc in a facility to be poked and prodded and experimented on. For the greater good

Zoo, Season 1, Episode 11: Eats, Shoots and Leaves

Most of the gang arrives in Zambia, looking for the mutated leopard that hasn’t been mother-celled yet. While the mutated leopards are looking for them… and well, everyone. As we’ve seen in the media slowly as the show develops, the animal pandemic is escalating. Zambia is in chaos.

The leopards quickly finish off Ray – because that’s one excess character we didn’t need – and we continue with many tense scenes to navigate leopards as huge numbers of civilians are displaced.

They do find a leopard cub – the best mutated animal to carry around that won’t eat them. Though it is immensely cute. They also find some militia which is a somewhat shallow view of Zambia (and, after Argentina and the general lack of global presence of this show, is frown worthy) but they also find an apparent state of the art hospital which excellently pulls back from that. Especially since last episode they seemed to think finding medical equipment in Africa would be difficult.

Even with leopards and crocodiles and bats, oh my, they do manage to make it to the hospital and Mitch makes a cure from Adorable Leopard Cub’s tooth. With Abe catching a dog to test it on (because testing the cure on a wild animal is difficult: how do you know if a wild leopard trying to eat you is a mutant or just a wild animal trying to eat you?)

Of course, not everything goes that smoothly. The hospital is overwhelmed by leopards, Jackson is shot (but a doctor puts him back together again) and everything is shaky. Abe continues to be awesome – gently but firmly chiding Jackson for his endlessly reckless leadership and how he has pretty much assumed leadership by not giving anyone else a chance to lead or offer ideas (to be fair, there’s no indication that any of them have had ideas to offer). He also leads Mitch through his initial set backs, also awesomely

Abe is my favourite character on this show – but his excellent insight and advice and support does tend to express itself through the other characters. He is, perhaps, the heart of the group, the backbone, the one who keeps all the brilliant but slightly uneven characters around him steady. This is an excellent role and definitely not a useless or weak one: but the role of advisor/supporter is one POC often occupy.

Orphan Black, Season Four, Episode Six: The Scandal of Altruism

I am absolutely freaking the hell out.  Just wow. When Orphan Black decides to bring it, it's out of this world.  Did the writers just sit around and think how can we rip out the hearts of our fans and leave them gutted on the floor? Yeah, they must have because the last few minutes of The Scandal of Altruism, left me staring at the television with my mouth gaping open in awe and pain. Damn Orphan Black.

Last week, Cosima met with mommy dearest and a deal was proposed regarding trading the source material in order to attempt a cure for Leda and removing the mouth maggot from Sarah.  The downside of this is that it would give mommy dearest the genetic information needed to create another line of clones.  Given what is at stake, Cosima was partial to the idea and so floated it by Sarah who also agreed.  It's not all is smooth sailing because of course, Siobhan wouldn't be down with anything which might endanger her mother. Together they decide to approach Kendall without telling Siobhan. Once things are set in motion, Sarah drops the news on a very unhappy Siobhan, defending her decision by pointing out that this is about their lives and therefore this is their decision to make.

There are several ways in which this could wrong and chief among them as far as Cosima is concerned is giving Mommy Dearest the genome to work on Castor. When Castor clones have sex with women, it results in the infertility of their lovers. The unfortunate by product of Kendall's leukemia means that they can separate Leda genetic information from Castor. It's not the ideal situation for Mommy Dearest but she agrees to it and promises Ira that they will figure out something to save his life as well. I guess this puts a crimp in their little incestuous romance (yeah I'm still ewww about this). Mommy Dearest's only caveat is that she be there when the blood sample is withdrawn from Kendall.

Cosima is saddened by handing over her research but Scott says that if they had had enough time, they could have cracked this.  It's a great reminder of how much these two have come to mean to each other.  It's been decided that Cosima will go with Sarah to Brightborn, and then stay behind after the removal of the mouth maggot until Mommy Dearest gets the genetic information she needs from Kendall.  What could go wrong right?

There is one little glitch.  Art comes across Krystal, who is busy trying to report to the police that she needs protective custody because Dyad and Brightborn are out to get her. The sergeant at the desk clearly thinks that Krystal is off her medication. Krystal is completely in the dark about who and what she is and fortunately for her, Art runs interference for her which means Duko walks right past her. Art then takes control of the situation and brings Krsytal back to his place.  With everything going on, no one really has the time to deal with Krystal, so Siobhan enlists Felix.  Yep, he's always there to serve.  Siobhan however does throw Felix a bone and says that when this is all over, she wants him to bring his sister back because she is part of the family.

Felix shows up at Art's dressed in the most ridiculous Sherlock Holmes costume I've ever seen. When Krystal recognizes Felix, Art is quick to claim that Felix is from Scotland Yard.  Felix sits down and tells Krystal that she is right about the cosmetic companies genetic testing and she responds by pepper spraying Felix.  It's all played for comic relief but I couldn't help but think that Felix always seems to get the shaft one way or another.  Attempting to control the situation, Felix warns Krystal to leave everything for now because they are investigating.  When Krystal brings up a French doctor, Felix realises that Krystal is talking about Delphine.  Krystal reveals that the she was there when Delphine was shot.

Sarah gets the mouth maggot removed with Cosima assisting in the procedure.  Sarah asks about the purpose of the mouth maggot and Evie explains that it didn't work because Sarah is still alive. Damn that shit is cold as ice. Cosima, with clear regret hands over her research.  Sarah heads back to Felix's place and she finds Kendall's smokes on the ground in a pool of blood.  That's right, as soon Kendall left, Duko grabbed her up. Realising that something is wrong, Sarah rushes into Felix's place and destroys the samples that Scott was creating.  Mommy Dearest is appalled and is quick to deny that she is behind whatever is going on.  They head out and then find that Ira has overdosed.

As soon as Evie gets word that Mommy Dearest is out of communication, she grabs up Cosima, stopping her from getting in touch with Sarah.  Cosima is taken to a field where Kendall is sitting in a van and Duko is guarding her.  Cosima begs Evie not to do this but Evie feels that 100 years from now she will be lauded as a revolutionary and that clones are about as progressive as Betamax.  Evie gives Cosima a few precious seconds to say goodbye but Duko stops the women from embracing.  Kendall, strong until the end, advises Cosima not to cry because their captors aren't worth salt. Kendall then advises Cosima to turn her back. Duko then shoots Kendall in the head and sets the van her body is lying in on fire, thus destroying any trace of the genome.

Supernatural, Season 11, Episode 22: We Happy Few

The end is getting closer, I can almost hear the Wayward Son…

But first, having rescued Lucifer, they now have to convince him to side with Chuck

Y’know I should find Castifer playing the role of stompy, bad tempered teenaged son ridiculous. I should. Yet whether it’s the acting or just the silliness of it, I do kind of love this scene. Yes even the ludicrousness of Lucifer shutting himself in his room playing loud music.

He wants an apology. And Chuck is kind of an arsehole about it. Really. As we saw with Metatron, Chuck has issues with getting personal and emotional, and continues to push the “practical” idea of what he, god, had to do with his broken tool, Lucifer (having Lucifer carry the Mark after they sealed Amarra sent him over the deep end). While Lucifer wants more of an acknowledgement that his dad betrayed him – not god/creation but father/son

Eventually they get their emotional break through and it’s time for a plan. See, to weaken Amarra to seal her before took 4 Archangels – and Michael’s MIA, Raphael and Gabriel are both dead and resurrecting Archangels is time consuming. So they need some other force to rally to match the archangels

Force 1: The witches. Recruiting Rowena who is currently pursuing a plan to go back in time several centuries so avoid the apocalypse. She is convinced to get on side by a godly enhanced Sam and her friend Clea. Clea could be an awesome character. Clea also makes an excellent point the time periods Rowena is choosing since Clea, a Black woman, is very aware of how crap history can be. Clea could have been many things but she’ll never be those things because this is Supernatural and awesome characters who are not cis, straight, white, men die. It is known. And lo, to my utter lack of shock, so does Clea

Force 2 is the demons – led by Crowley, recruited by Dean, who is trying and failing to get his crown back. Crowley apparently doesn’t die. Are we shocked by this?

Race on The 100 #2

We have previously written a post about Race on The 100, but like many shows that last for more than one season, the extra time gave them more chance to double down on their awfulness and our old post badly need updating

So we have to look again at the treatment of POC on The 100, especially in light of Lincoln’s death among so much other awfulness

We already spoke about the problems with Lincoln’s early depiction in our previous post about Race on The 100  - almost instantly willing to abandon and turn on his people for the sake of a White female love interest, spending episode after episode being brutally tortured. Then spending more time as a brutal, animalistic medical experiment. Honestly, it’s almost astonishing that they could do more to Lincoln to exacerbate this given how utterly terrible it was.

Well, they do - partly by not doing anything to him. Lincoln, the man who is both a Grounder and Skaikru affiliated, straddles both worlds in a way only matched by Octavia and maybe Clarke, a man who could bring so much knowledge and insight to Skaikru and should be in every scene providing information, seemed to pretty much fade into the background. Not only did this waste his potential, it quite literally made very little sense to bench him at all. It was almost plot sabotaging to not have him be more prominent. Of course, being nigh invisible is followed up by the inevitable - death.

Lincoln’s death joins other notorious deaths for how utterly unnecessary it was. Lincoln could have escaped - just as Kane did. The whole idea that he would come back and give himself up for the sake of other Grounders taken prisoners is based on the idea he’d trust Pike not to kill the other prisoners anyway (and why would he trust that? Seriously has Pike done anything to suggest he wouldn’t just kill anyone he considered Grounderish?). We have to note that Kane certainly isn’t willing to get down on his knees and pointlessly sacrifice himself for a group of extras (again, Pike threatened to kill said imprisoned extras unless they gave themselves up - they assumed Pike would be happy with only one of them? This all involves a whole lot of trust of the paranoid, violent, genocidal tyrant, guys!). Aside from the imagery of Lincoln being forced to kneel in the mud and be murdered being repellent , this death is repellent for making no sense.

I know that someone is going to hove in with the old excuse that the actor who plays Lincoln, Ricky Whittle, wants to leave the show. It’s the same excuse that was made about Abbie leaving Sleepy Hollow and, again, it’s equally ridiculous and inexcusable. The actor has not only been sidelined all season but he has been treated pretty abominable by showrunner Jason Rothenberg. You can’t drive someone off then turn round and act like their absence is inevitable!

But let’s assume that, yes, the showrunners are completely blameless in Ricky Whittle’s choice to leave - ok… but he still didn’t have to die. In fact the whole reason why he’s still hanging around with Skaikru at this point seems dubious - even Octavia, the woman he pretty much threw all his old loyalties away for has lost all faith in Skaikru. If they had to get rid of Lincoln then have him and Octavia ride off together. Yes, the actor wanted to leave - which, again, we have to make the point is unsurprising given how he was treated both on the show and off it (and is hardly a defence against racism on this show), but there were very easy ways to achieve this without killing him off, especially given that he has very few real reasons to be loyal to Skaikru (which, y’know, could have been developed in all that time where he was pushed so far into the background).

There was no need for Lincoln’s death - and in the end it reduced this character to nothing more than a source of angst and suffering - a cause of the rift between Octavia and Bellamy. His death wasn’t even about him.

This complete lack of real characterisation has hit other POC characters pretty terribly as well - because it leaves them with no storyline or characterisation to add more depth to what little we see of them. So we end up with characters like Monty the Eternal Suffering. Of course, lots of characters on this show suffer; the show loves this suffering. But Monty has lurked in the background for most of the show, being an extra or sidekick to various other characters (and a witness to Jasper’s eternal epic Manpain) and the only storylines left to him have been ones of suffering. He spent half the season being deeply conflicted about his mother, Hannah’s, loyalty to Pike and killing all the Grounders - this depressing angst could have been interesting if we’d focused on either of them or if either of them were actually a major element in either faction. Of course she took the Allie Pill and not only had to die… but Monty had to kill her.

Crimes Against Magic (Hellequin Chronicles #1) by Steve McHugh

Nathan Garrett has had his memory taken from him and has therefore spent the last ten years knowing nothing about himself but his first and last name.  He's spent the intermittent years working as a thief, using magic when necessary to get by.  When a chance meeting leads little droplets of memory returning, Nathan has no idea just how complicated the life he left behind was.  If that were not enough, an old enemy has surfaced and is determined to take make the people Nathan cares about pay to bring about and end to their centuries old feud.

Crimes Against Magic floats between 15th century France and the present day. I normally don't have a problem with flashbacks if they add something significant to the story but found that they kept pulling me away from the exciting action that was happening in the present.  Furthermore, any tension in 15 century France was impossible to maintain for the simple fact that we know that hundreds of years later, Nathan would be facing the antagonist once again.   If anything, the time in the 15th century was used for a blatant info dump about who Nathan is. It certainly didn't add anything to the current days meta.

In what should have been an interesting twist, McHugh created an extremely magically diverse world.  Picture a world in which werewolves, vampires, King Arthur and his court, Mordred, gargoyles, The Fates and Achilles are real and have a role to play. It should have been epic but at times it really just felt like supernatural name dropping. For instance, what is the point of invoking a wizard as powerful as Merlin but then not utilizing him as a character whatsoever? Even Achilles was a fake.

There are several familiar themes running through Crimes Against Magic.  It's best described as Harry Dresden meets Jason Bourne  meets James Bond.   I must admit to being excited by the premise; however, it quickly became clear that Nathan Garrett is little more than an epic Gary Stu. Nathan is so perfect that women either want to play the damsel for him, sacrifice themselves for him, or fuck his brains out.  What they all have in common is that they are all gorgeous.  This means that none of the female characters, even those who are powerful, really get the development that they deserve. Instead, we got the pleasure of having a woman beaten near to death for Nathan's pain. Sure Nathan feels bad but once he figures out who he really is, he's got better things to do than stick around.

12 Monkeys, Season Two, Episode Five: Bodies of Water

It's obvious the threat that the red forest poses in 2044.  Jones is completely at a loss of how to deal with this but not to worry, Eckland is full of snark for her morose behaviour.  While the scenes between these two are brief, it's clear that their unconventional romance works for the both of them and more importantly keeps her on track, even if Jones continues to be in denial about their connection.  I very much love the fact that Eckland seems to enjoy shocking Jones.

With the threat of the end of time looming, it's time to go and visit everyone's favourite disturbed woman, Jennifer Goines. Jennifer is willing to see Cole but instructs Jones to wait outside. This is the first meeting for Cole and Jennifer in 2044 and he's clearly shocked by her advanced age. Even though Cole travels through time, his life is lived in a series of days and so for him, it's only been a few days since seeing the young Jennifer while for Jennifer, it's been years. Cole naturally wants to know about the Primes but Jennifer says that she doesn't see things the way that she used to and so to get the information they need, Jennifer says that they must go back to 2016.

Back at the compound Cole relays Jennifer's message and then drops the hammer saying that Jennifer said that Cassie is the one who has to go back.  There's been a lot of bad blood between Ramse and Cassie but the one thing they can agree upon is their mutual dislike of Jennifer. It's actually hilarious to watch as they both team up against Cole regarding their feelings about Jennifer.

So, Cassie heads to the splitter machine and as she is waiting to shift, there's some competitive juvenile tension between Deacon and Cole as they say goodbye to Cassie.  I know that this was meant to seem cute but I found it seriously irritating.

So, back to 2016 where Jennifer is now doing well in therapy, taking her meds and doing it all to an updated version of the Mary Tyler Moore theme. Yeah, I actually loved the music choice here and it so suited Jennifer's journey to get real treatment for her mental health issues now that she is free of her father's controlling behaviour. I like this version of Jennifer a lot.  When Cassie catches up with Jennifer however, she has no respect for what Jennifer is trying to accomplish and instead sets about attempting to trigger Jennifer to get the information she wants on a primary.  This is part the new cold Cassie persona and I simply cannot stand it. A Doctor's first vow is to do no harm and Cassie is so removed from this vow that she is willing to sacrifice Jennifer's new hard won stability for her end game.

Back in 2044, only one man from a five man scout crew returns.  Deacon is immediately suspicious and believes that he has been sold out.  When in frustration the guilty party blames Deacon for the situation that the 7 find themselves in, Deacon responds by shooting him in the head, much to the horror of Ramse.

Ramse is back in the role of playing the moral guide but he doesn't wear it as well this time around given his role in releasing the virus to save his son and Deacon never tires of letting him know this. Both Cole and Ramse are certain that Deacon is more trouble than he is worth and worry about how vulnerable he actually makes them.  After not being able to get Katrina completely onside, Cole and Ramse decide to take Deacon on a road trip which ends with them handing Deacon over to his enemy the Foreman.

Back in 2016, we learn a lot about Jennifer's haunted past.  Her mother tried to drown her and was also mentally ill but not a Primary.  Jennifer constantly sees visions of her mother.  In her childhood room, Jennifer shows Cassie the multiple drawings that she has made.  It all goes a long way to humanising Jennifer, not only for the audience but for Cassie as well.  It shouldn't have taken the revelation of Jennifer's darkest secrets for this to have happened though.  The casualness with which Cassie sought to trigger Jennifer was absolutely appalling.

The relationship between Cassie and Jennifer gets another boost when Cassie is taken hostage by the 12 Monkeys and placed in the tub of travel by Olivia.  It's worth noting that Olivia is starting to have some doubts because of the uncharted territory they are in but that doesn't stop her from getting to work on Cassie.  Cassie is sent walking to the red field towards the Witness and the broken down house.  What the hell is up with the house? It was featured three times and so obviously has some sort of significance. I love the fact that the Witness answers questions by having them appear on the walls of the house, ratcheting up the creep factor.