The Originals, Season 5, Episode 4 Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Oh dear gods

Can I just recap this nonsense by “stupid decisions are made so more stupid decisions will follow”?

In fact, can I just recap ALL of Originals this way?

This is the last season and, y’know what, I’m kind of glad. I’m kind of glad because I am so very very very done with the Original Family, beings who have apparently existed for the best part of a millennium, utterly failing to understand humanity or making any sense at all. Enough, enough already. Enough of 5 entire seasons of Originals being all about of the shitty nonsense Klaus inflicts which then he has to fix causing more shitty nonsense sometimes with tears but usually with murderous rage.

Why is anyone still in New Orleans? I mean I get the witches have ancestor power there unlike witches elsewhere, but if I were a vampire I’d be checking the red eye flights to, I dunno, Milwaukee right now. Anywhere where Klaus isn’t. Boise, Des Moines, Anchorage… anywhere

So, Mardi Gras is coming which is a thing which matters

Klaus is still pissed that Hayley is missing and decides that the best way to do this (beyond compelling lots of police) is by threatening all three of the major factions in New Orleans. His big threat against Marcel is to hold a family reunion and unleash apocalypse powers that happen whenever Mikaelsons gather together because that’s a good idea.

The vampires, witches and werewolves are all pretty pissed by this but Klaus keeps threatening epic violence and Marcel backs it up by threatening more violence until everyone co-operates.

While they’re trying to problem solve by terrifying and enraging the rest (or both). Klaus also gets all tearful with Marcel because Elijah totally rejected him. And without Elijah he has no idea how to act like he has even the slightest ounce of sense (except, y’know, the last five seasons don’t exactly show Elijah having that much of a moderating influence). Marcel all feels his pain (while also being impatient with his fuckery) since Klaus is all tearful and kind of wants to step into Elijah’s shoes. But since he’s as autocratic and violent as Klaus it’s not really that helpful

See, in the 7 years while everyone has been off doing their own thing, New Orleans under Josh, Hayley and Vincent and Freya was a bit more co-operative, democratic and has a lot less rules, threats of violence and more co-operation. Absolutely no-one is happy with Marcel coming back playing All Powerful Monarch or Klaus coming back playing Ivan the Terrible

Greta leads the vampires in being pissed. Lisinia leads the werewolves in being pissed. Vincent is still hella pissed but he also wants to have sex with Ivy the seer so continues to read cards with her and flirt.

For more tension, the death of Henry means the werewolves think the vampires murdered him while the vampires are super pissed that their dead member wasn’t avenged and, on top of that, they’re not thrilled because there are so many venomous vampire killers in the city.

Marcel decides to deal with this hissing and spitting at each other by throttling Greta and Lisinia. Yeah this is his voice of reason stuff.

Fear the Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 4: Buried

With Nick dead it’s time for a roadtrip down memory lane, with Althea asking the three survivors their story while also giving them chance to stop or back off if they wanted to since they’re all clearly doing stuff

They all tell the story of the day when they think everything changed and went terribadly wrong and how they all ended up where they are now. This is the day when they could have stopped it all.

So way back when Madison is still determined to hang around despite the Vultures camping on their doorstep. The head of the Vultures, Mel (I think) has a cautionary tale because he and his brother Ennis back in the day also had a nice settlement in a place surrounded by wildfires. Unfortunately they convinced their fellow settlers to stay and not run from the fires - and everyone but them die. And lo we now know how the Vultures started; they know settlements fail so scavenge from them because their settlement fails. Which… I guess but I think “let’s just not ignore wildfires” may be the better message

Or maybe people could possibly try different locations? Wildfires, rotting oil refineries? Trying to grow crops in a sports pitch - no doubt full of chemicals and heavily pounded and well used? Or maybe not the South-west? I mean a desert or semi-desert? With medieval level technology from a load of urbanites who have never grown a potted plant before? This is perhaps not an ideal place to set up.

Anyways, we flashback to three teams who went out on this oh-so-ominous day. Nick and Luciana, Victor and Cole, Naomi and Alicia. All have basically the same theme - the choice whether to run away or stick with the stadium

Victor and Cole go scavenging food with Victor warning Cole to keep his distance because if they get too close he’s such a bad person. All of this comes with the prior knowledge that Victor is gay and Cole is probably gay and making moves on Victor but without anyone expressly stating it but I’m hoping after this episode we can stop allowing subtext and assumption carry this relationship. Anyway, Cole finds out that Victor has a huge stash of food in case he has to run away which he shows to Cole with an offer that they can both run off together with a huge stash of food and never return.

Cole was just trying to get you to notice him, man, now you want to run off into the sunset together? Put on the breaks and slow it down, Victor?

Cole decides to go with no here - mainly because he really doesn’t want to abandon everyone who is starving in the stadium. But I think also because he may not even know Victor’s last name and he wants to elope.

Cole goes back to town and Victor follows with his own stash, not telling everyone he was about to run and presenting his hoard as something he found

Next group is Naomi and Alicia who find another failed settlement at a waterpark (it had a fence so was secure until the fence failed because water parks don’t really have security against zombie hordes). This involves lots of close calls trying to climb up slippery slides because slides are slippery and this shouldn’t be a surprise because they’re slides. It’s kind of what they’re for. If they weren’t slippery the park would be sued for unpleasant chafing.

They find another stash of supplies and Naomi almost bails on Alicia. Alicia has a really great moment with Naomi, discussing how Naomi doesn’t have to tell them all her past drama - because everyone has past drama - but they do kind of need to rely on her and not have her bail. She also suggests that maybe Naomi’s certainty is wrong and maybe she should give them a chance. Which she does.

And lastly we have Luciana and Nick. And Nick has decided to go to hunt for books because he wants to build a future with hope and stuff. Which is nice but, y’know, starving?

Once Upon a Time, Season 7, Episode 21: Homecoming

Flashback time - young Henry is all chasing after adventures, facing dragons to rescue sleeping princesses by sexually assaulting them while they’re asleep. Unfortunately for Henry, it turns out this princess actually loves someone else who kills the dragon, sexually assaults her awake and then runs off with the princess declaring that Henry is like a brother to her and so wonderful

Please take note, this friendzoning is going to be relevant later and want us to burn people to death because of it

Anyway, Wish!Rumple shows up in all his sparkly to offer him a Happily Ever After in exchange for a deal. Which Henry refuses because ye gods making a deal with a Rumple, any Rumple? Naaaaaah.

So to the present and everyone is super happy because they have their memories and magic back and Henry runs around saying “mother” and “daughter” and “wife” to remind us he has a family because the focus has been away from them for so very very long that we need to re-establish that they’re actually supposed to be important somehow. Of course not everything is perfect - Killian and Alice still have that poison heart thing. And Facilier is missing

Presumed dead via Wish!Rumple and lo the Black man who was a complicated, powerful and mysterious character with dubious motives, genuine affection for Regina warring with his desire for the Dark One Dagger is just unceremoniously snuffed out. That’ll learn you for thinking you could do more than make occasional baked goods.

Regina goes to check on Facilier and finds Rumple - who everyone is calling Gold to draw a line between him and Wish!Rumple. Regina and Gold catch up on how super evil Wish!Rumple is running amok while Wish!Rumple himself whisks away Henry’s new family - he demands Henry get his Dark One dagger because apparently if Gold decides to give up his dagger then Wish!Rumple will also lose his powers and he’s totally not into that.

A quick revenge council is formed of Regina, Henry, Killian and Gold with Henry vaguely thinking about accepting the deal but Regina being clear they’re just going to kick all the arses especially since this Killian is Wish!Killian he has connections with the Wish Realm and he can totally teleport to this realm with his hook. Apparently?

Henry thinks he should go alone because he has delusions of competence? I mean Regina with all her magic, Gold the Dark one and Killian pirate with magic hook. But failed writer is definitely the guy who should lead this? Shall I mention, yet again, that this series has utterly failed to establish Henry as something useful? I mean, he’s the author, he’s the grandson of the Dark One, son of the Evil Queen and the Saviour - you could have loaded this character with woo-woo.

So through to the Wish Realm and what i think is the beginning of a big cast reunion for Once Upon a Time. They’re split into Regina & Henry team A who are in Rumple’s much much much darker castle complete with Peter Pan (Rumple’s father - yes you remember the Neverland storyline I don’t care if your therapist has urged you to blank it from your mind. At least it isn’t the Frozen storyline) who is kept in stocks because Wish!Rumple holds All the Grudges. They don’t even pretend to care and certainly don’t release him but Rumple does show up to show them that he’s locked Cinderella and Lucy in a snow globe. As one does.

Oh and they find Cruella who Rumple has brought in for the big reunion and to defend his castle. Cruella, a woman with no magic or fighting skills. Cruella, a woman who’s main villainy is distasteful fur trade. I mean, don’t get me wrong, she’s super cool but this is just bizarre. Especially since for some reason they give her the ability to sword fight (why? She’s from a Flapper 1920s time line. Flappers don’t fence! Give her a Tommy gun) and then she fights with Henry (in that coat!!! I don’t care what kind of ninja you are, you can’t fight in that coat) while Regina watches because we have to pretend Henry is useful and Regina couldn’t fry Cruella with a snap of her fingers.

Siren, Season 1, Episode 4: On the Road

At the ominous military base, the captured siren is now fighting back - and when they’re trying to take samples from her she manages to escape and pretty much slaughter everyone.

Having slaughtered her way through she meets up with Chris who has managed to stagger from his hospital bed. He’s injured, hurting, has no idea what a mermaid is or that this woman with legs is one. But together they manage to escape. The mermaid killed nurse Donna and stole her clothes. Also her keys and her ID badge

Hey this secure facility doesn’t use photo ID, it seems. I mean I didn’t see the badge but I can’t think of any other way Chris could mistake this Black mermaid (which points for because that’s very unusual to see) for the white nurse called Dionna whose badge she stole.

They escape, Chris having no idea that “Donna” is a siren and failing to communicate with her as she’s all lost and confused by the modern world, radios etc. He’s also still badly injured from being slashed on the boat and not really ready to leave hospital. Having to occasionally follow Donna through the woods when she wanders of is not helping

At the facility, Decker (the guy who was sort of sympathetic to the mermaid - and whose unwillingness to weaken/hurt her further may have given her the chance to escape in the first place) arrives to find everyone dead. Reviewing the tape reveals that mermaids can grow legs for the first time - and also that she’s smart enough to learn things like needing to steal clothing in order to fit in.

Big bad Admiral guy turns up and he definitely blames Decker for Donna’s escape and is super worried at the idea mermaids may be out there masquerading as humans

Meanwhile Xan and Cal have been somewhat inexpertly trying to stalk the real Donna and calls in Ben (and Maddison) who has just been interrupted in the shower by Ryn to build up this very uncomfortable and alien sorta-sexual tension thing brought on by mermaids not having boundaries and maybe having mind control songs. They’re all concerned about bringing Ryn with them since she’s getting pretty dry away from the ocean but she insists.

Helen turns out to have some medication that will help with that (and may have the same allergic reaction with more and more hints that Helen is almost certainly a mermaid herself) though she still thinks Ryn should go back to the ocean. For more Helen-is-a-mermaid proof we have her telling Ryn how silly it was to go near the surface chasing good

I suspect, since Ben’s father runs a fishing company we’re going to have messages about overfishing here.

The Devil's Revolver (The Devil's Revolver, #1) by V.S. McGrath

Family history has caught up with Hattie: her father’s past and connection to a terrifying demonic revolver has lead to a lot of bad attention. Attention that robs Hattie of everything and leaves her desperate to find her sister; in a trek across the magical Wild West with a range of forces arrayed against her. She’s backed by a group of allies - but how many of them can she trust and what is their real agendas?

Well, this is different. Well developed magical steampunk western. Ok, bizarre quirk? I hate westerns but I love paranormal westerns and steampunk westerns. Especially if you throw in some really excellent world building

And this world building is excellent. The way magic is incorporated into the actual world and businesses. Like the Pinkertons are a magical detective agency, the use of Zoom tunnels not just as magical transport, but the way they’ve been controlled and used basically in the same manner as railroad companies. We have magical rich and poor areas but we also have a world where magic is very much integrated into daily life with common ranchers using magic to protect their livestock, competitions regularly checking if people are carrying magic and a general assumption of magic as a common factor in everyone’s world without turning it into an odd fantasy elves-and-wizards-story. There is a suggestion of greater than normal technology as well - a definite steampunk edge but we don’t explore that much because magic and technology don’t mix much and these characters are all magical but it does promise a lot for future books.

But it’s also interesting how the magical setting actually works with the prejudices of the era (which continue to this day) and how it’s considered how magic would change history - or not. Like there’s an exploration of massacred Native Americans and they talk about how magic doesn’t generally work on metal (except very limited special circumstances): and no matter how magically powerful Native tribes were, because magic cannot stop bullets and modern weaponry is just deadly. This is something we see reinforced a lot which does a great job of emphasising why the Diablo is so special: magic is impressive but if men are pointing guns at you? Or gatling guns are being brought out?

Supernatural, Season 13, Episode 22: Exodus

So we have a reunion with everyone and Lucifer tries to act like he’s one of the gang and everyone loves him. Needless to say no-one buys it and Mary clocks him good.

They all also try to keep Lucifer away from Jack - except Jack, after a due amount of moping, is super intrigued about his dad and wants to hear more about his family and the power he has. Lucifer does a decent act of not being entirely awful, especially since he sells the whole “fake news” meme (are Supernatural making comparisons between Trump and Satan? Well if they won’t I will!)  quite well, saying it’s all god’s propaganda and he was locked up so it can’t have been his fault

Disturbingly, Jack starts calling him dad. And mopes a lot about his mother

Dean and Sam get over the whole I-thought-you-were-dead thing because emotion. Dean also wants Gabriel to kill Lucifer but that’s not exactly possible: even at full grace we know which brother is more powerful.

The first snag in the plan is that Mary doesn’t actually want to come home because she’s leading the rebellion and it matters and she can’t abandon her comrades in arms. Dean, of course, loses every last bit of his ever-loving shit over this - because family must be together forever and ever until the co-dependence becomes REALLY unhealthy.

Sam can see her point and manages to find a middle ground between abandoning them and staying in apocalypse world. He thinks they should take the Apocalypse soldiers with them so they can use the Winchester Cave with all of its Men of Letters lore to try and figure out how their tiny, losing forces can actually defeat Michael. Sam is actually much more diplomatic with the soldiers - led by Bobby - than Dean’s utter lack of patience and visible scorn. Dean is a weapon, never a diplomat

But first they have to rescue Charlie and Ketch (and I like that it’s clear Charlie is in charge, less so that she’s being rescued) who have gone to rescue some hostages. Only it turns out to be a trap. The angels decide to torture them for information, calling in their specialist: Evil Castiel (who has developed a German accent and a Nazi style uniform). While the good guys use Good Castiel to question the mole and find out

Yes Castiel kills himself, making it very clear he prefers humans to angels as he kills his evil counterpart. So the rescue happens quite easily

Lucifer is awkwardly trying to be a dad to Jack and decides to introduce him to the family, specifically uncle Gabriel. And Gabe isn’t here for this. As far as he’s concerned Lucifer is the worst, his lies are terrible, his corruption of humanity was unforgiveable and an act of jealousy and, basically, he’s a terribad awful CANCER on humanity that god was very right to lock up and it’s only a shame he didn’t do it sooner before the damage was done. His actual words. And this seems to hit home - there’s actual tears in Lucifer’s eyes in the face of his brother’s rage. Gabriel is pretty savage here

Perhaps because of this he is able to convince Jack to come with them - since Jack very much wants to kill Michael

Everyone is convinced to go to the new world and they all gather at the portal to go through (and see a very surprised and exhausted Rowena who has managed to hold it open with her magic) until Michael arrives

Shadowhunters, Season 3, Episode 8: A Heart of Darkness

Lilith is free, the queen of Edom! The biggest, scariest demon ever who no doubt has schemes that could doom us all. In the face of this the gang has decided to… obsess about Jace and Clary!

Of course, it’s not like there’s anything more important in the world!

Lillith is awfully upset by there being a daylighter running around because he can banish her and ruin all her awful plans. She decides the best thing to do about this is to go visit the Seelie queen, since she’s the one who gave Simon the mark in the first place

She goes to the Seelie realm (possibly because the previous queen, before they became sworn enemies, gave her an invitation) and kills a few of the queen’s knights before confronting the queen. From this convo we learnt that when Lillith pissed off the last queen the Seelie gifted Eve with super-beauty and that the Seelie queen probably gave the mark to Simon as some kind of long term passive aggressive way of fucking with Lillith

To which we know the Seelie are both Supremely Petty and love to fight their wars 8 steps ahead

Lillith plans to kill the queen but she buys her life by selling out where Jace is because unlike everyone else on this show she doesn’t think Jace and Clary are the centre of the universe.

Jace is being imprisoned and doing the classic, pouty possession thing lashing out ineffectually while everyone else gets all serious. Rather than deal with Lillith and her world ending plans, Izzy and Alec decide to play around in Jace’s head helped by Magnus’s magic where we get some child actors trying to play these characters without upstaging the adults which must have been damn hard given the acting quality of this series.

After many little scenes which, in another series, would serve to build and grow his personality. Not this show.

We do have a wonderful scene where Jace begs Alec to kill him, please kill him, so he stops doing bad things.

I second this plea. Alas Alec says no. So he turns to Izzy and, alas, she also says no.

Don’t tease me Shadowhunters.

At this point Lillith arrives to steal Jace away and threaten Magnus. She doesn’t kill Magnus because his demon dad may start a war. Which suggests that that demon is invested in Magnus. Think we may show that at some point? Or is what should be a major character moment and story hook going to be a brushed over?

Westworld, Season Two, Episode Three: Virtù e Fortuna

Virtù e Fortuna feels very much like a filler episode in that its singular goal seemed to be to position Westworld's characters in order to move the narrative along.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, even if it didn't add up to a telling or hair raising episode. Virtù e Fortuna begins at a section of the park aptly named "The Raj". Yes, let that conjure up all of the horrible things British colonialism gave birth to in India.  Naturally, all of the guests are white and the hosts are all Indian - it's kiplingesque escapism and not at all subtle. 

We watch as a man and woman have sex (let's call them Chad and Becky for now), after the woman first establishes that the man is human by shooting him (as you do), thus verifying that he actually wants her and isn't simply programmed to satisfy her.  It's telling that among this horrid fantasy world that guests would seek to establish something real and perhaps even worry about the objectives of the company altogether. Once the sex is complete, Chad and Becky head out on a safari, blissfully unaware that they are no longer playing the game in safe mode. There is some irony here, given that the guests are both white and are in colonised India, end up missing the signs that their privilege, both white and human are meaningless now.  Becky is the first one to notice something wrong and Chad is absolutely incredulous that his robot Indian servant would turn on him. It's almost cathartic to watch as Chad gets shot square in the chest. Oh if only - Rule Britannia my ass.  Becky runs from the carnage, only to catch the attention of a Tiger. Sentient Hosts are dangerous on their own but one with the abilities and drive of a tiger, potentially several time stronger than an actual tiger presents a horrifying situation for our poor Becky.  After attempting to shoot the tiger and failing, Becky takes off running until she finds herself at a cliff with a long drop to the tumultuous ocean at the bottom. The tiger leisurely stalks Becky and she once again tries to shoot but fails again.  The tiger leaps at Becky and the two fall of the cliff. 

This quickly shifts to Bernard in the future.  Charlotte quips that Abernathy keeps escaping, causing Bernard to think about what happened. In what turns out to be the only humorous moment of the episode, Bernard and Charlotte come across Abernathy, who has been captured by a couple of marauders intent on selling their captives for money.  Charlotte and Bernard create a distraction, knock out the kidnapping cowboy and change his operating system to make him moral, chivalrous and an even better shot. The cowboy returns to his victims and set them all loose. Of course, this is when the group of soldiers show up who had planned on purchasing the cowboys captives.  A shoot out ensues with the cowboy chasing after a terrified captive promising to escort her, as she runs for her life.

With the bad guys out of the way, now would be the time to run but Abernathy is so scattered, he decides to make a ridiculous show of bravery.  Charlotte sees the writing on the wall and takes off quickly.  Unfortunately for Bernard, who doesn't follow Charlotte's lead, he ends up captured alongside Abernathy.

Bernard and Abernathy are taken to Dolores' stronghold, where Dolores is stunned to see the shape that Abernathy is in.  This is important to note because Dolores apparently finds her treatment at the hands of humans justifiably horrible and feels manipulated but she seems to have a blind spot re her feelings for Abernathy, whom she still relates to as her father.  Every bit of tenderness Dolores actually feels for Abernathy has been manufactured to fit a story line by humans.

Dolores turns to the one person who can restore Abernarthy to the robot that she knows - Bernard. This is the first time that Dolores and Bernard are meeting with all of the cards on the table. Dolores is all to aware of the fact that Bernard is nothing more than a pale imitation of Arnold and now that Bernard is also awake, he's aware of exactly of who he is. Dolores talks about what the humans did to Abernathy and her plan to take over the world.  Dolores thinks that she's more in the know than Bernard because she's seen the real world while he has not whereas; Bernard believes that the world is more than she can conquer. We have to pause.  There is something deeply wrong with a white woman suggesting that a black man is an uncle tom. Sure, we're talking about robots and humans but that doesn't mean that the racial dynamics of this scene aren't deeply problematic.