Wynonna Earp, Season 1, Episode 11: Landslide

Last week we found that Willa was apparently back – and one DNA test later, it is proved. She is Willa, the elder Earp and technically he heir. So we have two

This is noted by Dolls but Wynonna is more emotionally broken by the knowledge that her sister was alive for this time and they stopped looking for her – Gus steps up for some excellent comfort for the very conflicted Wynonna.

In fact the whole emotional conflict over Willa’s return and her returning memories (which is, perhaps, awfully fast tracked) is really well done.

Waverley is somewhat excluded and self-conscious because Willa and Wynonna have a lot of history and bonding while Waverley was very young. Waverley feels definitely pushed out and isolated as Wynonna and Willa grow close together (with Dolls providing support)

While Wynonna deals with the fact that Willa was trained. Willa was prepared. Willa was taught by her dad. Wynonna had none of that and generally went through hell dealing with it since then. She’s conflicted with both resentment and imposter syndrome.

While Willa – well she gets her memories back awfully quickly and adapts even more quickly to going from hippy to revenant hunter. She also comes with disturbing revelations that seem to confirm that their dad did indeed expect the Revenant attack

He was also a bit of an arsehole when training Willa

With her new found fighting instinct Willa decides to kill a Revenant in a bar, get in a bar fight with Wynonna and rage at Dolls and Wynonna for trying to be subtle rather than all kill happy in the street. Willa sees them as hunters and Revenants as things to kill. She doesn’t see innocent bystanders at all

Orphan Black, Season Four, Episode Nine: The Mitigation of Competition

The Mitigation of Competition was the penultimate episode of season four and OMG.  The writers are going to do me in.  I think I need a fan and a moment.  Jeesh. Evil Evie is now playing the role of hometown hero by opening Brightborn headquarters in her her declining hometown.  Things are looking up for her because she now has the approval of Health Products and Food Branch (HPFB) of Health Canada for testing.  At this point, she seems unstoppable. Things do not look good for clone club though they have all agreed to work together.  Rachel and Sarah have the whole the enemy of my enemy is my friend thing going on but it's clear that they cannot stand each other.

Rachel absolutely has not forgiven Sarah for putting a pencil in her eye though thanks to that little mishap, Rachel is having visions which she believes are the result of someone trying to tell her something.  Rachel keeps seeing a swan being chased by lumberjack style men.  The swan is then captured and decapitated. At this point, I have to admit that I have no idea what the message means beyond the fact that the Leda clones are in danger but given that they been in a constant danger since the beginning, I'm not sure what the urgency is.

Rachel and Sarah clearly have different styles and this leads them to clash.  Rachel has found out that two mothers left the Brightborn Institute after finding out about genetic manipulation on the children they were carrying. It's never really explained how Rachel learned about this.  With Trina's help, Sarah and Art manage to track down Kendra, whose baby has been born blind.  Kendra is reluctant to trust Art and Sarah at first but then she shows them a video of a baby being euthanized after being born with defects.  Art and Sarah want Kendra to come with them and they argue that the video alone will not be enough to get Evie but Kendra is rightfully worried about her safety.  Rachel, who clearly doesn't believe in the virtue of patience, decides to call Kendra and threaten her using the fact that she knows the location of Kendra's other son against her.  Right on cue, Neolution assassins break in and while Sarah and Art deal with them, Kendra slips out the door right into Ira's car.  Naturally Sarah is pissed when she realises what happened.

A pissed of Rachel confronts Ira about Rachel, sure that Rachel only wants to use Kendra to get her position of power back at Neolution. Rachel actually surprises me by acting like a decent human being for a change and uses the video plus her knowledge of where Kendra is to trick Evie into admitting that Brightborn euthanized infants and then sending the video of Evie's confession and the video Kendra took to the media.  Suddenly, things no longer look good for Evie. Clone powers activate (yeah that's a reference to the Wonder Twins hush).

Donnie is out on remand and the first thing he wants to do is have sex.  I'm not a prude at all but something about Donnie and Allison having sexy times creeps me the hell out.  Allison is not initially interested because she is having a crises of faith. Though Allison is playing Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar she doesn't feel  able to pray. Allison's religious side is something new but I suppose at some point all of the drug dealing, violence and murder had to catch up to the suburban mom. They end up having sex which really I could have done without, especially given that Donnie wanted to be told that he ran the cell block. With the sex over, Allison wants to run away and so they decide to head to Niagara Falls because Donnie cannot cross the border, having handed over his passport as a part of his bail agreement.

The Hendrixs start packing and who should up but the dude who accosted Donnie while he was in jail. He hold a gun to Donnie's head and Allison immediately starts praying. In Orphan Black's world, the answer to prayers is Helena, who promptly uses a bow and arrow to take out the threat in a moment of absolute awesomeness. God, I've missed the hell out her and I never thought I would say that.

All in all, Orphan Black brought the awesome this week.  Even Susan and Cosima working together was amazing and I loved Cosima pointing out that the founder of Neolution was a racist who thought poverty was some sort of genetic defect. I loved Cosima calling out Susan on continuing this path, even though Susan tried to make excuses for her actions.

Outcast, Vol. 1: A Darkness Surrounds Him (Outcast #1) by Robert Kirkman, Paul Azaceta (Illustrator), Elizabeth Breitweiser (Colorist)

Trigger warning for discussions of child abuse 

All of his life, demons have surrounded Kyle Barnes in one way or another.  With his is life in shambles he is haunted by memories he just cannot seem to shake; Kyle lives alone, wanting nothing more from life than to be a hermit in peace.  The demons however aren't done with Kyle yet and if he has any hope of getting his wife and child back, he needs to find out the extent and limit of his power and why they are so attracted to him.

A Darkness Surrounds Him, is the first graphic novel in the Outcast series from the creator of The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman.  Just like its predecessor, though Outcast ostensibly is about demons, it's actually about what happens when someone is confronted by the impossible and how they survive. What happens to a child when a loving mother suddenly turns abusive and violent and how does this then effect said child into manhood?  Kyle is so obviously suffering PTSD that his pain simply echos off the page.  It is symbolized in part by the locked door in his home that he cannot bring himself to enter - the room where he finally fought back against his demon possessed violently abusive mother. Kyle lives in filth, there's no food in his home and all he wants is to lay his memories of violence to bed - to stop them continually playing in his mind.

Kyle at least has his foster sister Meagan, who tries valiantly to lift him out of the abyss but even this relationship has been tainted with violence.  As a child, Kyle started sneaking into his Megan's bedroom to sleep on the floor.  Kyle became Megan's only defense against an older foster brother who would sneak into her room and molest her.  By the time Kyle ended up as Megan's foster brother, he was already used to taking a beating and so he took beatings repeatedly to protect Megan. It is why his brother in law staggers to understand why a man like Kyle would be abused of beating his wife and child.

The violence against children doesn't end there.  Kyle runs into a local preacher who knows a little bit about Kyle's past.  When a local child needs an exorcism, the Preacher approaches Kyle in a parking lot in belief that Kyle somehow chased a demon out of his own mother.  Kyle is completely resistant to this but decides to help anyway.  This is when he sees demon activity for the first time and discovers that somehow, his blood scares them away.  Thus begins Kyle's work to cast out demons; he is the Outcast. Kyle begins to visit his comatose mother and for the first time realises that she doesn't hate him and had been possessed. This realisation however leaves him with questions that are in need of answers if he is ever to get his life back.

Make no mistake about this, none of this is easy to read whatsoever.  It seems at every point, someone is being abused. Even a good deed leads to violence.  When Kyle exercised the demon out of the child, he was in a physical fight with said child which entailed, punching and kicking. Think about that for a moment.  A grown man is punching and kicking a child with all of his strength.  It is absolutely unrelenting and serves to show how dark and grim this world is.

Wayward Pines, Season Two, Episode Three: Once Upon a Time in Wayward Pines

The Abbies are gone for the time being and the rebellion has been squashed but that doesn't mean that all is calm in Wayward Pines.  Jason is busy making plans to expand outside of the wall in the belief that they can use fire as a tool to continue to keep the Abbies at bay but he hits an unexpected snag - the return of Pam.

For much of season one, I must admit to not liking Pam in the slightest.  It wasn't until David let the Abbies into the town, an event now known as the invasion day that Pam realised the fanatic that she had become.  For her part in ending Pilcher's life, Jason sentenced her to banishment inside the walls. With all of the violence however, Pam decided that she could no longer stay on the sidelines.  Given everything that she has seen and done, I had really hoped for a much changed Pam.

Pam spent most of the episode poking her nose in all over Wayward Pines and dropping some snark on Theo, who seems to believe that the reason he and Rebecca were chosen was because of his medical skill.  When Pam asks if Theo thought their kidnapping in Hawaii was all about him, that really got me thinking. With everything that happened, it was easy to forget that in season one, before the Abbie invasion, Pilcher had real doctors working in the hospital and Theo was after all in group C.  Clearly, Theo isn't as important as he thinks he is.  With Pilcher's dream of rebuilding, it makes sense that he would want Rebecca who is an architect.  If this is the case, I hope that Rebecca rises in prominence because women have had precious little to do this season beyond die, pull strings at the sidelines, nurture men and mourn.

A lot of Once Upon in Wayward Pines, was told through flashbacks.  We got to see Jason as a little boy and learned that as not only part of the first gen but actually the first child of Wayward Pines, from the very beginning, Jason was set up tor rule this twisted little town. For guides, Jason had Pam, Megan and David.  There was never any chance that Jason would grow up to value human life or see beyond his own narcissism. If anything, his narcissism was actively encouraged by Megan, who creeps me the hell out.  Jason's response to not getting the respect he thought he was due was to kill.  It was Pam who pointed out that every life matters.  When Pam originally made this point I thought it came from pragmatism given her easy acceptance of cullings in the past, but it seems that Pam morally does believe in the value of human life, or at least to a point anyway.

Pam's big plan for Wayward Pines was to use smallpox to wipe out humanity and after injecting herself with the virus, her first act was to cozy up to Jason. Were it not for the intervention of Theo and Megan, this plan might well have worked. Pam justifies her decision to become a typhoid Mary by saying that she wants to end the violence that they are doing to each other.  She's actually disappointed with the killings and the wars and it's ironic given that she's the mother of it all.  Pam had no problem with the cullings of Wayward Pines citizens before invasion day.  Pam also very much seemed to believe that the utopian society she dreamed of was now impossible.  I really would like to know Pam's definition of utopia given what her rule with David looked like.

Despite all that she has done, it's clear that her bond with Jason remained strong.  They absolutely saw themselves as parent and child and that is why it broke David to strangle Pam to stop the spread of small pox.  As much as I had a problem with her character, I think Pam deserved better than to just be tossed on a fire like refuse.  Sure, Jason took the time to strangle her with his own hands but it was still a sad way for this twisted character to end up.

The Awful Misogyny of the House of Night Series

After many many weeks of unspeakable torment (for which Cyna (who did suffer along) and Mavrynthia and Merriska will face eternal condemnation for), I have finished the House of Night Series.

Where’s my damn medal? Where’s my award? Where’s my squad of UN cheerleaders hailing my name?

Maverynthia knows how I've suffered

Over these weeks I have pointed out many many many, oh dear gods so many, problems with each of these books in my reviews. But with many of these long series the issues are not the individual books, even if the fuckwittery raised in those books was indeed beyond anything I anticipated, there are far more problems with the ongoing themes of the series as a whole

Even if pointing out what’s wrong with this series makes this look difficult.

From the beginning the House of Night series tells us that vampire (or vampyre, since these books are so terrible that spelling flees them in terror) society is pro woman. It’s matriarchal, female led and everyone reveres a female deity. Femininity is revered and vampire society is vastly more advanced and forward thinking than terrible sexist human society

This is one of the examples that, while telling rather than showing is a bad literary tool, it is infinitely better than telling while showing the complete opposite. Because if there’s one thing worse than a book saying “this is feminist!” without showing it, it’s a book saying “this is feminist, you ‘ho!”

Because if this society is really all about the awesomes of women, it does a terrible job of conveying that to the actual characters - the actual female characters. Every book is absolutely overflowing in specifically anti-female language: slo, slut, hag; over and over again. They’re not just insulting others, it’s aimed specifically at women for being female - the main characters: Zoey, her Nerdherd and Aphrodite, display constant venomous derision for any woman they deem beneath them. This has to be the simplest step to creating an actual woman-honouring society: do not default to misogynist slurs every other sentence.

It’s no surprise that a pro-woman book that can’t even go a chapter without throwing sexist insults also has some other serious flaws in it’s oh-so-progressive matriarchal society. One glaring element is gender roles: which look pretty much exactly like our patriarchal society

Oh they have women in leadership positions, certainly (though it has to be said that, while we have characters like Thanatos and Sgiach manage to be powerful leaders for a brief period of time, we also have a whole lot of evil female leadership from Neferet and outright incompetent and pure absent leadership from the High Council. Honestly, the female leadership of Vampire society has not exactly covered itself in glory), but through the rest of society? We see female healers, female priestesses. We see as witches and spiritualists… we do not see them as warriors, as fighters. Those roles are firmly coded male.

This is reinforced from the very beginning of the series with teachers openly shaming a boy in class because he won’t be proper warrior to protect the womenfolk. That’s it, that’s his role, that’s his future - this isn’t his dream, this isn’t his ambition: this is his life as ordained by society. His one worthwhile role. This continues through to the last book where Eric Night, vaguely pointless antagonist, is duly shamed by the other men for not being a “warrior” until he steps up and insists on being a protector (whether he can or not isn’t actually addressed. He is a male vampire, he needs to protect and not doing so is a matter of shame)

The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant (Fred, the Vampire Accountant #1) by Drew Hayes

Fred did not lead an exciting life as an accountant.  You would think that dying would finally add some excitement to Fred's existence but you would be wrong.  Sure, as a vampire he had to change to a largely liquid diet and begin working from home but beyond that, Fred's life was all good red wine and cheese, and working at night from home. Contrary to everything that Fred had read and the movies he had watched about vampires, becoming one didn't really change the essence of who you are.

Fred's life (read: unlife) might have stayed boring had he not decided tot take a risk and go to his high school reunion.  When a former acquaintance starts to flirt with him, Fred isn't exactly receptive because with his new vampire senses, he can tell that she's playing around and not really into him. Being teased and learning that the captain of the high school football team is still in great shape and attracting women should have been the worst thing to happen that night.  When werewolves show up determined to slaughter the graduating class, for the first time Fred realises that vampires aren't the only parahumans who go bump in the night.

I have to admit that I chose to read this book based largely on its title.  I've always been a sucker for odd urban fantasy novels.  I like that Fred is absolutely socially awkward and dresses in sweater vests. He's a nerds nerd, who has a lifetime of bullying to back that up.  I love that becoming a vampire didn't make Fred into a suave lover who sparkles in the sunlight but simply gave him things like enhanced hearing, strength and balance.  Because Fred is a fledgling, he's just as ignorant of the world that he inhabits as the reader.

The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant isn't told in one cohesive story and instead reads like a collection of short stories with Fred collecting people and information along the way.  Towards the end of the book, I found myself becoming tired with this writing device for the simple reason that had I wanted to read a collection of short stories, I would have picked one up. Though I still want to find out what happens to Fred in the next book in this series, I really do hope that Hayes drops this kind of format and sticks to a traditional plot line for a book.

The Last Ship, Season Two, Episode Thirteen: A More Perfect Union

With Sean dead at the end of Cry Havoc, episode twelve and the contagious cure ready to go, things should finally be running smoothly for the crew of the Nathan James right?  Well in this case, just because the head of the snake has been removed, doesn't mean the snake is in fact dead. Michener and Tom are worried about Kevin McDowell, Sean's third in command and the man who found and recruited Michener.

Michener is in full presidential mode and he tries to talk Kevin into turning himself in with the offer of a pardon or at the very least to stop trying to infect people.  Michener goes as far as to threaten to send a missile to end Kevin.  Kevin is, however, smarter than the average bear and quickly picks up on Michener's equivocation, taunting him about how broken he was after the death of his family.  To muddy the waters, Kevin then claims that Europe needs his attention and disconnects the call. To follow through on this ruse, Kevin sends the phone they use for communication away.

As they sail down the Mississippi, Michener begins to make plans for the future and this involves deciding that, because of its strategic position, that St. Louis will be the head of his government. They make plans to make three stops and spread the contagious cure.  The most important thing is to get the message out because each person they infect with the cure will only be able to pass it on for 5-6 days.

As they prepare to land, Jeter's in laws reach out to ask if they should come and meet him at the ship. After assessing their situation, Jeter instructs them to stay where they are, promising to travel back and find them.  The problem with this is that he said it over an open line.  By the time the ship makes land, scarcely over a 100 people show up, and Rachel believes that they need over 10,000 if there's any chance to spread the cure.

Kevin proves to be just as homicidal as Sean.  Kevin and his men have managed to capture a truck load of infected and have managed to secure navy uniforms from a surplus shop.  The plan is to drop off the infected at the second Navy landing spot thus infecting more people and while convincing the people that the Navy is responsible.  As things go, it's not a bad plan really.  Unfortunately for Kevin, one of the immunes he left behind happens to run into none other than Tex and he is more than happy to tell Tex Kevin's plans. Tex naturally contacts the ship which passes it's information to the group they have on land.

Tex finally makes it to the location where he believes his daughter and ex wife are only to learn that his daughter has gone to the third landing spot to meet the ship and his ex wife is dead thanks to looters.

At the landing spot, Tex finds his daughter in the crowd and he also spots Kevin and his men, who are in the process of bringing the infected into the area.  The people at first greet Kevin's men like heroes until one announces that this is a trap to infect more people. They fire their weapons in the air to further panic people (of course).  Tex communicates with the ship and they ready the aerosol cure for delivery to stop further spread of the contagion. While waiting for the helicopters, the crew of the Nathan James takes out Kevin's men and actually manages to capture Kevin.  The helicopter does a flyover and the men on the ground encourage the civilians to breathe in the cure.

Revisionary (Magic Ex Libris #4) by Jim C Hines

Isaac Vainio has revealed the magic to the world. It seemed he had little choice in the matter and he had some amazing dreams – even now with the New Millenium project he hopes to bring in so many amazing things to improve the world and humanity. Magic can make the world better

Unfortunately for his dreams, people are suspicious, scared, angry, prejudiced, panicked, demanding and also quite creative in the many many ways magic can make the world a whole lot worse.

Between magical terrorists, conspiracies, government crackdowns and growing international chaos – Isaac has to try and bring some level of peace and order before everything completely falls apart.

We had a major game changer in the last book – the existence of magic was revealed to the entire world. All world governments are now aware that magic exists and the supernatural exists and everyone is reacting as you’d expect.

With general panic and confusion and a whole lot of chaos

I like how this is presented. Even if we’re focused on Isaac in the US, we do get regularly little inserts letting us know what is happening in different parts of the world. We see many different approaches and a lot of it is unpleasant and a lot of it is complicated. I really like that we have something in between genocidal slaughtering rage and utopian love and acceptance. I think this is very true of the real world. I think humanity would react with fear and hate in many cases… but I also think that at least some humanity, enough, would be…. Uncomfortable with the idea of a whole scale extermination. Certainly many would be on side. And they’d certainly be on side with limits and restrictions – but there would be enough discomfort to make genocide not an automatic go-to.

So we have a lot of complexity. And that includes with Issac is wonderfully idealistic. He wants to use magic to solve all the world’s problems. He has big dreams about the amazing things he can do. He can cure all these diseases! He can make a portal to the moon! He can make everything awesome all the time isn’t it going to be wonderful.

And then we have the ghost of Gutenberg, a senator who is on his side and basic reality slapping him – not with evil (though there’s that as well) but just how short sighted his idealism is. Like he wants to cure all the people – but this effectively means medical experimentation (on children no less!) with no scientific oversight or testing for side effects. It’s alright for Isaac to say “no the book says it’s fine there’s no side effects in The Lion the Witch the Wardrobe” but there’s no way you can expect the greater scientific community to accept that without some level of oversight. Or there’s Isaac insisting he will never weaponise magic – which is fine; but what about when enemies of the United States clearly are? What about China and Japan sabre rattling to war? What about Russia drafting supernatural creatures into the army? In this position can you just decide weaponising magic is completely off the table? On top of all that we have the fact that, as the book points out, the Porters are not an American organisation and there are more Libriomancers in Indian and China than the US – so where does that leave the Porters when one country is weaponising and the whole nebulous concept of sides and positions

I like how Issac’s very earnest, very well meaning moral positions are just severely challenged because things are rarely that simplistic. It works so well with the world building and bringing a heavy dose of reality to Isaac’s very hopeful stance.

Isaac has become pretty much a very very powerful Libriomancer in this book, even while working within clear limits as well. He has definitely turned into a badass, at least a little. There’s always a risk of mighty Gary Stu here – but not in this series which loves to fight that. Yes Isaac is a badass, but not more so than Lena who is definitely kicking arse with epicness at all stages. And while he may be a rocking Libriomancer, there are other Libriomancers who can do things he cannot. And I even love that he assumes the big bads are going to use his discovery and his egotism is poked when it turns out to be something else entirely. Nothing else indicated it would be his discovery that would be used: it was his own assumption (and an assumption the book led me to the same and, in turn, wonderfully challenged with the twist).