The Librarians, Season 4, Episode 6: And the Graves of Time

The sinister group this episode are creepy Russian grave robbers robbing graves around the world belonging to Nicole Noon; yes the ex-guardian with dubious motives

While at the Library Flynn and Jenkins are arguing. Flynn has taking Dare’s warnings to heart while Jenkins vehemently declares “screw Mr. Dare” which is surprisingly crude for Galahad. He thinks Dare’s fears are ridiculous, antiquated and paranoid and it’s ludicrous that Flynn should be dodging the tethering ceremony because of it, especially with time running out. He thinks Flynn’s real doubts come down to Nicole - and the doubts she seeded in the first episode. And hey he’s willing to debate Nicole’s guilt (which he still thinks is set) but the Library needs tethering now.

Mid argument, they realise that Eve is missing.

Eve has managed to catch up with Nicole who is trying to stop the Russians from raiding all of her graves. I think if she wanted to keep secret sites with artefacts hidden she maybe shouldn’t put her name on them all.

Eve and Nicole meet with Eve assuring Nicole she just wants to bring Nicole back to the Library, she doesn’t like leaving people behind and she wants her to be part of the team again. While Nicole is also very aware that Eve does not 100% trust Nicole and also wants to keep an eye on her. And she doesn’t need the Library to be a Guardian, she will still be a Guardian working alone. There’s a lot of competition and snark including lots of critique of each others’ fighting styles which ends up with the Russians escaping despite being thoroughly beaten. They are most snarky and I like it.

Nicole tries to run off alone but Eve makes it clear: she accepts Eve and Eve doesn’t call the team. Otherwise she gets 4 Librarians and a Custodian following her around. So it’s Eve and Nicole, not trusting but opening up a little. As Eve sees many graves of Nicole she also sees the memories and photos she stored - including all the people she left behind. It brings home to Eve just how hard being an immortal is, especially without a person to ground them. Nicole touches on her fears but Eve is clear: she IS afraid - but not necessarily of immortality but being alone. Of turning into Nicole, basically. Of course that also raises the fear that maybe the others may leave the Library and leave her

Nicole does try to leave Eve behind but it doesn’t go well

Their actual quest is to find Koshi’s needle, an artefact capable of various terribad awfulness.

At the Library everyone’s tracking Eve and Nicole - and by everyone I mean Jenkins (who doesn’t trust Flynn to be objective) and Flynn, after Ezekiel uses some computer hacking to find them. Being Librarians they quickly catch up on the trail, following them through England...

Ok, can we stop saying “just outside of Lancashire” or “she’s gone to Lancashire” because that is a completely useless direction. Lancashire isn’t a town or city. It’s a county - a region, 3,000+ square kilometers.

Also I am deeply amused that anyone thinks a beverage of choice in Lancashire is “cucumber water”.

...through to Rome and then Ukraine outside of Chechnya - so as Eve and Nicole climb a cliff they find Flynn and Jenkins already there (the riddle closely following the legend of Koschie)

The Librarians, Season 4, Episode 5: And the Bleeding Crown

The magical quandary this episode is a town where everyone is old. Worse, The Librarians made the Florida joke before I could!

So the whole town has been artificially aged and it’s time to investigate why with lots of questions and investigations with all five of the main gang going to the town (ok I know many will disagree but I kind of love that Flynn manages to make the “We’re Librarians” line work when Stone and everyone else never can). We also have a nice small moment of Cassandra being almost intrigued by aging since she’s finally considering the possibility for herself now she’s not facing terminal illness any more.

The gang is attacked by some creepy monsters and are saved by a very dramatic man: a very dramatic man called Derrington Dare who calls himself the Librarian

I’m all ready to call imposter but it turns out we have a genuine time travelling Librarian. I then cringed and expected lots of posturing between Flynn and Dare - but it turns out Flynn is a complete and utter fanboy of Dare’s, having read his Library record and clearly stylising a lot of his persona and technique on Dare’s. His fanboiing is both cringeworthy and cute - and Eve is wonderfully clear in tolerating his silliness.The other Librarians are less amused that Dare considers them “assistants” and it’s annoying that that’s pretty much how they’re considered for this whole episode.

The aging is caused by Dare’s nemesis, Ambrose Gethic. It seems Dare and Gethic have been fighting each other for pretty much ever to the extent that it consumes both of their lives. Gethic was the one who created a time travel portal which Dare followed him through. As Dare recounts his story, Flynn also realises that Dare is close to the date of his death - when he goes back he dies tomorrow. Cue angsty “can’t alter the time line” trope.

There’s lots more adorkable fanpoodling from Flynn and when they go to the Library, Dare keeps calling Jenkins “Galahad” which is always cool. But Dare also has a problem: 4 librarians. He reveals some secret history which Jenkins has kept hidden (Jenkins is kind of repentant but not very): the last time there were 2 librarians (many many centuries ago) they went to war and because of that the Library was cut from the world, cutting off human curiosity and learning and wonder: which caused the Dark Ages

Ok let’s poke this. First of all, the “Dark Ages” are a terribad eurocentric term which should never be used unless you’re only talking about Europe. While Dark Ages Europe had relatively little “progress” (little but not none), the Middle East, China and more were quite happily chugging along with lots of this curiosity and learning and wonder stuff. The Library, as a world wide institution, needs to recognise that

Van Helsing, Season 2, Episode 12: Crooked Falls

We start out with a dream sequence to remind us:

a.            The elder is out there, scary and powerful

b.            Scarlet was adopted and her biological mother could still be out there.

This is one of Scarlett’s ominous visions and dreams and comes with the added ominous worry that Vanessa is no longer part of it.

She and Axel have made it to Crooked springs, the place high in the mountains with the idealistic Jessie sending out red balloons and using the radio to try and attract people to safety because she’s overflowing with hope and positivity. There’s also Dennis who hates strangers and is sulky and not full of positivity. There’s also McGrath who… is there? And Boss Lady

Boss lady is mysterious. She doesn’t have a real name. She is a loner who stalks the wilds to kill vampires and saves people. She’s a scientist. We don’t know who…

Nope, I’m not playing this. I’m not pretending - I don’t believe anyone watching this show didn’t guess Ominous Older Woman is Mummy Van Helsing within 5 minutes. There’s just absolutely no way at all. I’m not going to hang around for a big reveal and pretend to be shocked.

Among the people she rescues is Doc - bringing her back to the sanctuary to have Scarlet be super unhappy that she’s lost the key. And Axel be super unhappy because he hates her and think he abandoned Julius because he hates her so much and Doc is absorbing all the negative and hating herself.

Meanwhile Lucky, Flesh and Jolene are wandering the wilderness, kind of lost because Flesh has no more Vanessa visions (yes we’re playing up the fact she might be dead, I’m not really buying it). They do run across small precocious child Callie who is STILL ALIVE. Seriously she better be revealed as a fae or witch or alien or something because it’s ludicrous this kid is still among the living.

Also, note again that this show is taking place in a not-very-large theme park and if you wander for five minutes you WILL run into the other cast members.

Callie also conveniently has one of Jessie’s red balloons and expertly reads Jessie’s hand drawn map to lead them to Crooked Springs and more reunions. I swear people aren’t even shocked by tripping over each other by now

So pretty much the whole gang is now gathered together in the centre of the square 5 miles where they’ve been orienteering all weekend. So time for some character and relationship development: this includes Jolene learning that Doc took Axel to Vanessa, got him turned back human and all very self-sacrificey and she’s super super impressed and even if Axel hates her she knows Doc is awesome. This leads to Doc sharing her real name (Sarah btw) and hometown and them bonding

Van Helsing, Season 2, Episode 11: Be True

This episode is all about Mohammed and Sam - with flashes of their back story. Including with Mohammed first meeting Sam, being more than a little concerned by how good Sam is at beating vampires to death.

But later he sees Sam apparently about to commit suicide - he runs to intervene to help and Sam gasps that he’s deaf and is unable to communicate with anyone - until Mohammed uses sign language, taught by his deaf grandmother. Sam has someone he can communicate - a friend

And lo this trainwreck began

In the present Sam has kidnapped Mohammed fully intending to bite him and turn him into his vampire minion - but Mohammed quickly tells Sam that Vanessa bit him which means he’s now totally inedible and will turn Sam human again

Sam is very very very against this - utterly opposing the idea that he will ever be human. He is clear that he will always be “him”. It’s clear that Sam’s whole identity is now very very heavily invested in his vampireness.

Mohammed is still dying so Sam drags out one of his human food stock - Cara - and orders her to help Mohammed. This takes some very brutal medicine with lots of debriding flesh and general awfulness. It does give Cara and Mohammed time to bond with Cara noting how little the apocalypse has brought Mohammed down (apparently?) and her determination to escape - even if that means pouring water onto the floorboards until they rot. She’s tenacious. Together they plan to bring down Sam

While Sam is outside listening to Mohammed scream but also having his own flashback of the abuse he suffered from his dad when he was a child - including the attack that deafened him. He has now captured his dad as a blood source and to torture him - finally beating him to death.

When he goes back inside Cara and Mohammed make their move. And it fails - Cara ends up being throttled by Sam while Mohammed begs him to spare her. Sam does… and Mohammed is convinced this shows Sam is good underneath it all (uh… serial killer?) and is quickly proven wrong by Sam then hunting Cara down - because he’s a serial killer

He ties her up and plans to bite her (since he still can’t bite Mohammed), making it clear to Mohammed that this is him. Evil evil evil, super evil.

Mohammed appeals to Sam that Sam owes him from saving him from committing suicide when they first met - only to have Sam turn it round. Sam wasn’t committing suicide - he was luring Mohammed in; he planned on Mohammed being his next victim and it was only Mohammed’s sign language that changed his mind. He adds that Mohammed knew he was a murder - which Mohammed completely denies (though I have a sneaking feeling that Sam may be correct)... Sam still insists Mohammed was a friend

Doctor Who, Season 11, Episode 0: Twice Upon a Time

Time for the iconic Doctor Who Christmas episode. An episode that not only brings us a new regeneration but also has the first Doctor and the 12th Doctor together for most of the episode

And I liked a lot of these dynamics - I love how Doctor #1 is clearly not as reliant on the tech and toys that Doctor #12 is (yet is still effective despite that) and how much the Doctor has grown and changed to become the creature he has

I am more leery with Doctor #1 being not just a crotchety old man but talking down to Doctor #12 because of it. I mean, Time Lords must be used to people being so many centuries older than them while looking younger. I even imagine meeting a future/past incarnation of yourself may be not entirely out of the realm of possibility (how many times have the Doctor done it after all?).

Doctor #1’s sexism - yes it was played for heavy humour, yes it was a nod to the fact the first season of old Who was waaaay back in 1963 and like any show that old there are Problems. And Doctor #12’s utter cringing embarrassment in the face of it was kind of amusing: but we’re still seeing a species of aliens that has somehow adopted human sexism despite a) being ancient enough and wise enough to know better and b) coming from a species to whole, if gender as a concept is even relevant, will be waaay different from what we can conceive of)

We start going back 709 episodes ago (and am I the only one geekily thrilled by that number? And am I further the only one living in horror of the fact I haven’t watched half of these and now I need to watch them all! MUST WATCH THEM ALL) with a really really good mash up of original footage and modern actors playing the role of Doctor #1 and Polly and Ben.

Way back then, Doctor #1 is also resisting the urge to regenerate, same as Doctor #12 - and both of them end up together in Antarctica.

Doctor #12 recognises his old sense and the whole regeneration denial thing but is then completely lost in the joyous nostalgia of his younger self still calling a Tardis a “ship” (and not recognising sonic technology). In a moment of slight hypocrisy, Doctor #12 is horrified that doctor #1 may die and change history so 11 incarnations of the Doctor didn’t exist

This is another major theme of this episode wove subtly through it: The Doctor matters. He is important.

But before they can get into this they’re joined by a British soldier from World War 1. Through Time Shenanigans he has been transported from his deadly yet moving stand off in a crater facing off against a German soldier, neither wanting to fight, neither wanting to communicate - he has now been dumped in the middle of a multi-doctor argument and invited onto the Tardis: Doctor #12’s Tardis (as he says: Always remember where you parked! And oh how the Doctor needed to learn that lesson!)

Doctor #1 is not amused by how the Tardis has been redecorated. Nor about regenerating without a little more youth.

The Captain is also quite upset by Doctor #12 referring to World War “One”. oops, spoilers.

Doctor #1 is also not entirely on board with how Doctor #12 refers to the Earth: It Is Protected (Doctor #1: It is? By who?!)

They are captured by the alien species behind the time shenanigans and pulled on board their ship - The Chamber of the Dead which has advanced time travel technology and people made of glass (again interesting look at how the Doctors operate: Doctor #12 waving around his Sonic Screwdriver while Doctor #1 examines the glass being closely and sees it’s asymmetrical: a computer generated construct would not be). Doctor #1 is also very very disturbed to hear that he’s referred to as “The Doctor of War”.

The people of the Chamber of the Dead want him them to hand over the Captain in the ship and in exchange they will let him speak to “her”

Holidays!!

Hello all - we're entering the holiday season with lots of booze, more food than we can possibly eat (which we will eat any way) and Renee enduring the frozen snowpocalypse which is Canada any month other than August (when it is merely toe-losingly freezing).


The last few months have been a little shaky and rough for us, as everyone's probably seen with our content - but we're weathering and charging on into the holidays (albeit with a snow plough in some cases) and will be aiming for a New Year of more supernatural awesomeness

But naturally this week we will be far far far too drunk (and, for 50% of us, too cold) to be reading and producing reviews

The Librarians, Season 4, Episode 4: And the Silver Screen

Flynn and Eve are going on a date - specifically to see a classic movie and relax and have a date with Flynn turing his librarian brain off for five minutes

Side note I really love the dynamic between them where one says something that the other gets kind of touchy about but they don’t make a big thing of it. It’s cute

It’s also nice to see a subject that Eve knows way more than Flynn. She’s clearly a massive buff and able to annoyingly quote the dialogue in the cinema (to the world: don’t ever do this)

And then they’re sucked into the movie, of course they are

After being missing for a while the other Librarians go to check on them and find the cinema owner, Jade, somewhat perturbed that one of her theatres now has Flynn and Eve looking for a way out and being unable to communicate with the outside world. At least Jake has finally realised he can’t sell the “we’re Librarians” line.

They do some theorising back at the Library, bringing in ley lines, musing about the history of the cinema and the director of the film behind it, with lots of knowledge from Jenkins who seems to have been a fan of the director, and come up with the idea that a new Artefact is behind it. Which should surprise no-one

Ezekiel et al think they should just go into the film themselves to find the answers. Jenkins disagrees with doing something so reckless and foolish.

Of course they do it. Poor Jenkins. It’s not old age that makes him grey, it’s generations of Librarian shenanigans.

The b team don’t end up in the same film as Flynn and Eve:  they end up in a terrible musical western and then into an even more terrible sci-fi film.

The Librarians, Season 4, Episode 3: And the Christmas Thief

Time for a cute Christmas episode

And normally I hate Christmas episodes. I hate any holiday themed episode. They’re all so gimmicky, unnecessarily cutesey and usually jar weirdly with the established canon.

Thankfully Librarians is quirky enough it works - and it helps more that this episode served a bit more of a purpose: the Backstory of Ezekiel Jones

This is needed for any central character and we’ve had it with Jenkins, certainly, we definitely had it with Flynn and we’ve had strong beginnings with Cassandra and Jake so seeing Ezekiel as well definitely fleshes up the main cast

So we begin with that convenient story hook I mentioned last week - a story reason to get Flynn out of the way (and, in this case, Jenkins and Eve. This episode is all about the “kids”). They’ve all been invited by Santa Claus to a holiday party (with Eve playing worried mother concerned about leaving the kids alone. Yes the dynamic is really strong here).

That leaves Jake, Ezekiel and Cassandra with Santa’s sleigh (which they’re under strict orders not to touch) and to celebrate Christmas together. Which Cassandra loves with ugly sweaters and decorations and brimming enthusiasm

Ezekiel, not so much.

He decides to take time out to… go home. Specifically to his mother’s, Lenore Jones, who is celebrating with his three sisters: Hope, Charity and Mercy. Except they’re not celebrating Christmas, but Thankstaking. A holiday in the name of the Patron Saint of Thieves where Lenore’s children give her expensive gifts they’ve stolen and they then anoint the altar with the price tags

It’s corny and weird and Librarians so run with it.

Lenore and the family greet Ezekiel warmly but are not impressed with his gift - because he bought it which is completely against the whole point of the holiday. Also it helps Lenore to know how much the loot is worth if the price tags are on.

It’s evident that the family doesn’t have a lot of respect for Ezekiel’s skills, convinced he cannot steal not that he chooses not to. But it’s also pretty clear that we’re not dealing with thieving masterminds here give them repeatedly mocking Ezekiel for giving Lenore a faberge egg while obviously not having a clue what one is. The mockery - especially asking what Ezekiel is doing with his life, snaps Ezekiel’s temper (ah holidays with family!) and he rants about how he saves all their lives and the lives of everyone in the world as a Librarian

Which causes more mockery

Beneath the Skin (De La Vega Cats #3) by Lauren Dane

Gibson, Bringer of the De La Vega werejaguar Jamboree, has no time or patience for representatives of a much smaller Jamboree violating his territory and makes this very very clear

And then is shot with silver bullets

Thankfully, Mia is close when he is shot and able to get him to safety; a wonderful foundation for a new friendship… but not so much when Mia and Gibson’s families have been at odds for generations. And Mia herself is still recovering from a brutal crime and trying to figure out what to do with her life: getting involved in Jamboree politics in the face of attempted murder was not on the agenda.

I’m going to say I was torn when I first picked up this book. I knew Lauren Dane as an author focuses on Paranormal Romance which I’m just not a huge fan of. This isn’t a criticism of her or the genre by any means, merely an expression of different taste. So that leads me to think “not for me” and back off - except she also wrote the Rowan Summerwaite Series which I love and I consider it to be a deep and terrible crime that there are not more books in this series. So I approach this from a complicated position of high and low expectations.

And so we have this book - which is a paranormal romance with an interesting world, some great characters and generally something I really enjoyed which means in the future I’m going to be even more confused

Oh to add to the ways I unnecessarily complicate what should be a simple review - I managed to pick up book 3 of a series. Yes, so this is me deleting my review complaining “I feel like I jumped half way in to a series and have a missed a whole lot of back story!” It turns out that’s because I jumped half way into a series and have indeed missed a whole lot of back story. Go me. So let me add some praise for this book both giving me enough information about the characters and world setting for me to actually enjoy and understand this book but not trying to dump so much back story into this book as to make it unwieldy. Oh and this series is a spin off from an even larger series. Yes this has not been my best decision.

I often dislike the tropes that are common in most of the paranormal romances I read as they seem to be summed up by “unreasonable people turning minor issues into ridiculous convoluted obstacles”. I generally think all these people should stay away from each other because no relationship that has two people this inclined to drama could possibly work except for the neighbours if they have a big enough supply of popcorn

Magic for Nothing (Incryptid #6) by Seanan McGuire

Antimony Price, youngest of the Price siblings is Not Happy. I mean, she’s never been her older sister Verity’s biggest fan but after she effectively declared war on the Covenant and revealed their continued existence to their old enemy she’s effectively put the whole continent - and her family in particular - at risk

They need to know what the Covenant is planning. They need a spy - and Antimony is the only current family member who doesn’t LOOK like a Price, she has to be the one to do it.

Of course being American - and with her skillset in travelling fairs - she’s also prime recruitment material for the Covenant which has never succeeded in getting a foothold in the US… but being a Price pretending to be Covenant pretending to be a performer certainly doesn’t make things simple

To me this book really proved just how well established and developed the main characters of this series are.

Because I didn’t like Antimony at the beginning of this book - I actively disliked her. Why? Because she doesn’t like her sister Verity and is very angry with her. I’ve read 3 books with Verity as the protagonist; I’ve followed her story, I’ve invested in her, I’ve cheered her on, I’ve loved the Arboreal Priestess. So when Antimony expresses her dislike I’m here on a firm “Excuse you, are you coming for my lady, Verity?! Oh hell no, you go through me Annie!”

Because this is how good those books were and how good Verity is: I’d invested in her sufficiently that I have a knee-jerk need to stand up for her against another fictional character.

(And, honestly, I’m not entirely over it by the end of the book - because while I didn’t dislike Antimony by the end, I still very much like Alex and Verity more).

I quickly grew to like Antimony, of course, because she’s also awesome and her beef with Verity is based on reason. I don’t agree with all of it but there’s more of a kernel of truth to it and it also underlines the great differences between the two sisters (It also means we can look back at Verity and Alex and their opinions of Antimony and see their views of their hostile and excessively violent sister are in turn skewed). Antimony has never had the same conflict as her sister. She has always known who she is and what she wants to be. She has takes her duty and family legacy extremely seriously alongside her dedication to weaponry and skills; she never had Verity’s conflict over what she actually wanted to be and do. Her views of her sister come from this lens and they’re not wrong - nor entirely right - but from such very different perspectives.

From that nuance I also love Antimony’s work with the Covenant. This is the first time we got to see inside the Covenant and learned a lot more about their training regime, their obsession with bloodlines and more of their hatred of all things supernatural and cryptid. I like the way they’re balanced - I expected them to be shown as human rather than cackling maniacal monsters, that kind of is expected now. I even expected Antimony to be somewhat sympathetic to a couple of characters (especially the layers of complexity towards her cousin, the Covenant loyalist who is treated appallingly simply because of the Price family’s defection). But so often when you have these “oh look the evil bigots are human!” it’s used to forgive or forget their bigotry and evil (a habit followed by news media as much as books). But while Antimony can see the humanity of the Covenant, at every single point of introspection she remembers that these people want to murder other sentient creatures just because of what they are. That is never forgotten, that is never downplayed no matter how human the covenant can be. Newspapers should take note.

Z Nation, Season 4, Episode 13: The Black Rainbow

So to DC, with the zombie president, arrive in DC. There’s some suggestion that DC is radioactive - I assume that the end of the world unleashed some nukes along the way?

There’s lots of fighting with the usual level of “is this awesome or is it corny?” moments we see over and over on Z Nation (the answer, always, is “both”)

As they go the zombie president gets more and more abused in Murphy’s clumsy, careless hands (because slacker Murphy of course) and they vaguely speculate about the Man with a Plan who cut off thumbs while following Warren’s visions as they’re led to a bunker underground, through halls full of blind zombies who haven’t seen daylight in years. 10K keeps showing his awesome skills and Lilley is less and less and less subtle about how much she admires him.

The Man with a Plan is also present, throwing zombies at them and trying to get to the drone ahead of them: and with the launch codes he got from Northern Light he may not need thumbs so it’s a race against time.

And we go into Warren’s visions and see why she’s having these: Dr. Tiller woke Warren up during her coma to teach her how to stop Black Rainbow - teaching her step by step. He even apologises for using fire and brimstone to force the memories into her head so she didn’t forget. He hails her as saving humanity

With these instructions Warren sets the team up to use the president and keys to set of the alunch as soon as she replaces the canisters in the drones with the ones she’s schlepped across the country for. But she has to go alone - because this is a suicide mission

We have an extremely powerful and emotional goodbye moment from the gang and Warren goes in like a big damn hero. And confronts the Man With a Plan

Murphy: “He’s shooting at her!” “Never mind, she kicked his ass.”

Because Warren is awesome.

She changes the canisters and seems to be victorious - when the Man with a Plan knocks her out. Horrified and even knowing it’s near certain death, Murphy charges in to help her.

And Warren returns to her visions: only to have Teller joined by the Founder, thanking her for her great role in sacrificing herself for the Reset. Yes, Teller isn’t secretly a good guy (I was beginning to really think he was), they’re not spreading a vaccine: he’s spreading the two canisters that mix together to form Black Rainbow. And she wakes up in time to see one of those canisters break open in the fight between Murphy and the Man With a Plan - and they scream in agony

Warren desperately jumps into the drone, the door closing behind her as it begins to take off. She fights to remove one canister (possibly? Maybe?) - but fails to remove the other before the drone releases it’s Black Rainbow… the drone then begins to crash with Warren inside

Z Nation, Season 4, Episode 12: Mount Weather

The gang needs to find the president to use their thumbs to stop Black Rain from destroying the world

So to Mount Weather (and is it me or has this whole season kind of had an almost Game of Thrones like measure of transportation zooming all over America with relative ease) where, apparently the President and entire government flee and hold up in the event of the US facing a terrible disaster like nuclear war or a Trump re-election.

Lilley confirms this as she used to get orders from there before everything fell apart even more than usual.

Of course there are zombies so there’s some secret service agents to kill - and they find the President’s husband. This is useful because they need his keycard and eye to open the secure door.

Doc uses the eye. And it’s the worst most horrible horrible horrible thing you’ve ever seen on television. There is not enough ewwww in the world.

Inside Mount Weather we find the remains of congress and the senate, all zombies now who have to be killed with lots and lots and lots and lots of political puns.

Of course they do.

Honestly it’s corny but it works, I smiled - and it was a good balance of the zany and the serious that Z Nation does so well. We also have Doc’s snark about always having to have big show downs underground. Poor Doc.

We also have the department of Cryptozoology which I hope is going to be more than a throwaway joke. In the fighting we also get a little snark from Lillely about 10ks superlative accuracy

Until they finally find some living secret service agents. Agent Johnson and Agent Johnson who are not that helpful and certainly not thrilled about letting Warren speak to the President despite her talk of Black Rainbow. She happens to be passing though (the President is an Asian woman) and insists on listening. It turns out that the President and her two secret service agents are the only humans left in Mount Weather, nearly everyone else has already left.

Also she has no thumbs

Van Helsing, Season 2, Episode 10: Base Pair

So after last week I mused whether Vanessa was being written out, this week she reappears

But first we have a random guy with a map and balloon being eaten by a vampire. Bye balloon guy.

Moving on; Vanessa wakes in what is either a really nice prison cell or a moderate-to-decent hotel room (I need to see the room service menu and check the wifi for more). She is greeted by an older woman who is so happy to see her.

To which Vanessa knocks her aside and goes on a rampage. The place is a standard sinister shadowy lab with lots of technicians and vampires in those glass cages shadowy labs always have. They must get them from a whole sale supplier. Vanessa charges through beating up scientists, beating up guards, y’know Vanessa’s standard way of saying hello. She finds the boss man, Dr. Harrison, who insists they’re totally good people even though they gassed her, kidnapped her and abandoned her friends unconscious in a field to die. Dr Harrison gets a thoroughly deserved smaching. He does consider calling the guards, she points out how utterly useless the guards have been against her so far

See, this is the problem with capturing super-humans who are surly on a good day.

She ends up in a room with a nice view so decides to hang around and the older woman turns up because she looks more friendly and everyone would feel far less happy seeing Vanessa lay a hellish beat down on someone who looks like an elderly aunt. She explains they’ve been looking for Vanessa since forever and she wants Vanessa to confirm she can turn vampires human and her name is Abigail. Also they totally are the good guys despite Dr. Harrison’s kidnapping thing. She describes him as “on the spectrum”. Because autism and kidnapping are linked now? Really? Let’s not do this - he can be just an arsehole. That’s an accurate description - unlike “autistic”.

She isn’t confirming anything until she knows her friends aren’t dead.

Abigail manages to convince Vanessa to speak to Dr. Harrison with cunning use of sandwiches and Vanessa recognises him from the farm - apparently his dad. They’re trying to cure vampirisim. Which means… mission accomplished since she can bite everyone in a really kinky saving the world.

They want Vanessa to display her prowess by nibbling on lab tech Martin who is all vampiry after he volunteered to be a test subject for a serum that didn’t quite work. They use lots of words like “gift” and “duty” which impresses Vanessa not at all - but when she goes to storm off Abigail calls her “Essa” the same thing her mother called her: Abigail claims she knew her mother

When Vanessa returns to her room she also hears a mysterious voice being all kinds of cryptic. He claims to be locked up, asks her not to trust anyone and how there’s waaaay more going on than she knows

Personally I think disembodied voices are not necessarily very trustworthy. As she returns to her room he urges her to follow her visions and find the elder