Colony, Episode Three: Sublimation

The resistance is done fucking around with the aliens and anyone they think is collaborating with them. Citizens are in a long line to try and join the Homeland Security's Red Hats.  Some of them are woefully unprepared but given that resources are so few, joining the Red Hats means extra ration cards. I can see why this would sound appealing, especially if you have a family to consider.  The resistance responds by blowing up the building and then locking the gates before shooting all the would be volunteers. It looks like shooting ducks in a barrel.  The last man who is killed is told that this is what happens to people who collaborate.  

Unfortunately for Jennifer, this means that the heat is on. Bennett, Jennifer's new boss is particularly pissed given that other agencies are now involved in bringing the block to order.  Given that he's been at this job a New York minute and already his power is being usurped, Bennett is determined to assert his authority. Bennett is not particularly impressed by Jennifer, given that before this, she ran data for a a dating site. This of course means that Jennifer is going to turn up the heat on Katie.

In the meantime, Maddie has gone over lock stock and barrel to the other side. 

The Kool Aid is strong with this one.  She's keeping busy picking out worship locations for Nathan, for the next big government approved religion cult. Just drink that Kool Aid down Maddie. 

Katie is taking her own religious tour.  She meets with a group of people who read passages from the bible and compare it to Hinduism, Buddhism, and and Islam.  Clearly, this is part of Katie's way of remembering who she is and not buying into the cult mentality. Katie heads home and talks to Gracie about the religions and tries to encourage her daughter to think for herself and follow her gut. Katie tries to prepare Gracie to live with Maddie but Gracie is adamant that she wants to stay in her own home with her mother.  My heart broke in every scene with Gracie and Katie. I have to say that Sarah Callies sold every damn second of it.

Supernatural, Season 12, Episode 9: First Blood

Before the hiatus, Dean and Sam just saved the world by exorcising Lucifer out of the president of the United States, therefore sparing everyone from the second worst president in US history.

In the process they were arrested for attempting to assassinate the president. There are serious men in suits who frown at those kind of shenanigans.

Murderous young guy just wants to murder the Winchesters (and they’ve managed to gather a further amount of information on the brothers). Older guy who is now the most awesome person ever, responds to this in repeatedly awesome deadpan-ness I think I give special prize to these two exchanges:

Young Guy: Sam and Dean Winchester they tried to kill the President

Old Guy: Oh. Why?

Young guy: assault, murder and multiple accounts of desecrating a corpse

Old Guy: The same corpse?

I could definitely grow to love old guy

Anyway while young guy wants to kill them both so he can bask in their fear and pain (he’s a little creepy to say the least). Old guy is more sensible – he thinks that two guys trying to kill the President and nearly succeeding probably had some level of support network they may wish to investigate

He also scores well for completely writing off torture as a completely useless interrogation technique (which would be doubly useless against the Winchesters as the Men of Letter’s already tried. People who have been tortured in hell and by Satan are not easily persuaded by pain)

He loses points by instead turning for several month long solitary confinement which is, basically, torture.

Meanwhile Castiel and Mary despair of bringing Dean and Sam back. Castiel tries to recruit Crowley but Crowley is blasé because a) he’s evil and the king of hell and b) the Winchesters have been captured and targeted by some of the most evil and powerful beings in the world, himself included, and survive. He “pities the fool” who took the Winchesters

Monsters are still appearing and need killing. Castel tries – and just succumbs further to depression and despair as he utterly fails to actually hunt successfully. Castiel is utterly at a loss and pretty devastated.

While Mary, mummy Winchester, steps up. She starts hunting, she starts filling the void left by her sons.

Grimm, Season Six, Episode Three: Oh Captain, My Captain

"You will face yourself again

in a moment of terror."

This season has thus far been about Nick squaring off Renard and as we have come to discover, when Renard plays bad it's oh so good.  Also, thank you Grimm for shirtless Renard and Nick, you made this thirsty woman oh so happy.

 Shall we get to it now?

As we know, Renard managed to wriggle out of the deal he made with Nick and now he's determined to establish his power in the city. His first order of business is to make Hank and Wu hand in their resignations.  Neither Hank or Wu are pleased about this but at this point, they have little choice. Wu does however make his displeasure known and Hank has to calm Wu down when does his version of a woge.  Hank has to stop Wu because they were both standing in the middle of the precinct but seriously, admit you wanted to see Wu and Renard throw down. 

The cops all meet up at the Spice Shop which seems to have become the new bat cave. As they hash it out, it's decided that one of them has to transform into Renard to stop Renard from becoming mayor. Eve is quick to say that she cannot go through that again. In case you've forgotten, this is the same spell which ended up turning Juliet into Eve. In the end, it's Nick who volunteers for the transformation. Before Nick can change however, they need to hide the stick which brings out Nick's gollum like qualities where the stick is concerned. 

Things should all be going wonderfully for Renard but he hits a snag in his march to power. It seems that his former campaign manager was in love with Rachel.  Renard tries to argue that he was cleared of all charges but Jeremiah isn't buying what he's selling.  Jeremiah gives Renard 24 hours to pay him for his silence.  We all know instantly that this isn't going to end well for Jeremiah, who clearly has no idea who he is dealing with. 

Nick decides to give Adalind a call because for the spell to work, they are going to need a sample of Renard's hair.  Adalind is at the park with the kids and were it not for the seriousness of the situation they are in, it would all be so stunningly normal.  I'm going to say it again because it needs repeating, the writers have made Nick fall in love with his rapist. Never for a moment forget what Adalind is and what she did. 

With briefcase in hand, Renard goes to see Jeremiah.  For Jeremiah, the fact that Renard has decided to pay him off is proof of his guilt.  Renard of course has no need to worry because he has recruited Grossante  to deal with Jeremiah.  Grossante appears out of nowhere, woges and rips out Jeremiah's throat, in the process splashing Renard with Jeremiah's blood.  Renard grabs his suitcase of money and instructs Grossante to clean up the mess.  Having proved his loyalty to Renard through murder, Grossante is now in line to be the new chief. 

For some reason, it falls on Monroe to pick up what they need for the spell from Adalind.  Adalind instructs him to come to her bedroom while she pulls Renard's hair from his brush and starts to gather some clothing.  Why the hell didn't Adalind just grab what she needed and meet Monroe outside? Before Monroe can make his escape, Renard arrives home to change because he's covered in Jeremiah's blood. Adalind is forced to hide Monroe in Renard's closet which almost backfires when Renard needs to get a clean shirt.  Adalind has to think on the spur which is actually quite awkward.  If I were Renard, I would have opened the closet door because Adalind is so damn obvious.  At any rate, Adalind manages to convince Renard that he has blood in his hair and therefore should have a shower.  Monroe takes this as his cue to sneak out of the house.

Magician, Season 2, Episode 1: Knight of Crowns

It’s back

This is not a happy feeling. After the utterly vile nastiness of the last season and the unrelentingly awful portrayals, I cringe to see what terribleness this show will bring us in a second season.

At least the only way is up, I guess. Please tell me that was rock bottom

So let’s start climbing out of that pit.

After some running through the woods, randomly giving up vials of blood to people they run into in the middle of the forest (as you do), the gang finally meets up again. It terms out that chugging god semen (Magicians that sentence is something I will never ever forgive you for. Ever) and god like powers are good for something. Everyone is now alive. Penny has not hands but, given the givens, is relatively chill about it.

They’re all very unhappy with Julia betraying them, though Quentin is quick to defend her as having some pretty good reasons to be following her own agenda. But now they need Plan B to bring down the beast. To the Fillory books! Quentin remembers there’s an arsenal full of super scary dangerous magical stuff which they need to access. And the king has complete access. Fortunately Elliot is king

Except while Elliot is king h hasn’t actually been crowned yet so no-one’s believing the whole monarchy thing.

Back to Fillory, they need to go to a special place so they can be crowned – Elliot as high king and everyone else except Penny as lesser monarchs. I’m not impressed with Penny being left out but apparently there are plans for him

He and Margot take a time out to go to a healy river to get his hands reattached which goes well. But then he’s a complete arsehole to the guy who helped him with the sewing and ends up getting his hands cursed which leads to his magic going wonky.

Everyone else finds an undead zombie knight (he died waiting for kings to show up but didn’t let that stop him working) who demands they prove they are from Earth and worthy of being kings and queens. By testing them on the knowledge of 90s pop culture.

It could be worse. It could be 70s

Elliot wins with a Patrick Swayze impression

I honestly don’t know if Elliot is being sarcastic or just stoned right now.

LGBT Portrayals: Blink-and-You-Miss-It

LGBTQ inclusion on television is improving - the rate is almost glacial, and it’s improving only when you consider that the previous standard was “non-existant”,”evil monster predator” or “tragic tragedy of tragicness who dies tragically. Probably of AIDS” (three genres that are still depressingly robust and enduring) - but things are improving.

While over half the shows we’ve reviewed still don’t have any LGBT representation at all, and a large chunk of the rest only have a character for maybe one or two episodes; we are seeing creeping LGBT inclusion among the extras, side characters and brief comic reliefs. Again, glacial progress but… progress… sort of.

What is still very sadly rare are actual meaningful, involved LGBT characters. Major, important LGBT characters with their own storylines, driving the main plot and generally being integral to the actual show. Major LGBT characters and, most rare and precious of all, actual LGBT protagonist in a show which isn’t all about the tragic-tragedy-tragicness AIDS-suicide-stray-bullet oh woe.

But, slowly, we have been seeing one exception - we have been seeing a very few but growing number of shows introduce bisexual protagonists or co-protagonists or major characters. Major, involved characters who are definitely central to their shows and their plot lines.

And this is definitely something to celebrate. To see protagonists be actually LGBT in a main role is sorely, desperately needed and a huge part of us celebrates every single time we see it. I just wish we could see it a little… longer.

The problem with many of these depictions is that these bisexual characters are only ever briefly referred to as bisexual. It’s not that they’re in opposite sex relationships - a bisexual person is a bisexual person regardless of who they’re involved with (or whether they’re involved with no-one at all) - nor is it any less of an LGBT depiction if we’re depicting bisexual people in relationships with the opposite sex.

The problem is, as we’ve said repeatedly before, portrayal of minorities. The portrayal of marginalised people is important and powerful because, well, it’s portrayed. Because marginalised people can see themselves and their lives on screen, because they are acknowledged as existing

But for many of these examples, the main character’s bisexuality has absolutely not effect on their lives, their experiences, their histories or anything about their portrayal. It’s a simple, usually very brief reference, often in very long running series.

The problem isn’t these characters’ bisexuality, nor these characters’ relationships. The problem is that if your TIVO frazzles or your lose power or your favourite show skips an episode because of some sporting event then you may never actually know that a character is bisexual. Some of these shows have gone on for 3+ seasons and there’s only one short reference in one episode to actually convey this character’s sexuality. You forget to pause it when you go put the kettle on? That’s it - you will never know this character is not straight.

Sanctuary ran for four season and during that time we learned about Helen’s daughter from a heterosexual relationship. We watched as she occasionally flirted with Tesla. Her heterosexuality seemed written in stone and more certainly cannon.  Imagine my surprise when in one of the last episodes of the series, Helen kissed a woman.  Where did this come from all of a sudden? Did the writers figure that since they were done with the show they might as well throw the audience a bone and make a character bisexual. Was it an attempt to collect a cookie and thereby evade the fact that for FOUR YEARS, Sanctuary had absolutely no LGBT portrayal. If one just so happened to miss this particularly episode, you would never know that Helen was bisexual and this has been the trend in a lot of the shows we watch.  When there isn’t a sort wink wink maybe they’re bisexual, there’s absolutely zero inclusion.

Teen Wolf, Season 6, Episode 9: Memory Found

Confrontation time – and nearly everyone has now been disappeared to the Wild Hunt Station. Including Noah Stilinski

Yet Liam and Theo are still running around. It’s like the Hunt wants us to suffer.

They fight the hunt to keep it busy – and manage to do this all episode. All episode. Seriously the most dangerous, skilled fighters in this entire town have lasted no more than 10 seconds but Baby Wolf and Traitor Who Should be Dead manage to fight them for a whole episode?! They actually engage in wrestling.

And Theo sacrifices himself. Because of course he does. Don’t even pretend this character is good now because his murder dreams of his sister make him feel guilty.

Now to characters we care about

Last episode Scott, Malia and Lydia realised the best way to get Stiles back (and, hopefully, save the world) was to remember him as much as possible

Memories involve near death experiences. Apparently. This is how memory works now.

In this case they’re going to freeze themselves nearly to death and hope this induces a hypnotic state and allows them to then access their memories: with Lydia guiding Scott and then Malia’s memories

This leads us to a lot of powerful flashbacks to some of Teen Wolf’s past awesome emotional connections. Including that almost suicide scene. For the inevitable clip show episode it didn’t do so badly, it wasn’t that gratuitous and it was actually quite effective. They discover it’s less about memories and more about emotional connection.

Doesn’t leave me much to write given we’ve spent several years recapping Teen Wolf, though.

Lucifer, Season Two, Episode Twelve: Love Handles

The episode opens with Chloe and Lucifer getting intimate.  Deckerstar fans must have been losing their mind having waited a season and a half for this to happen.  Lucifer doesn't disappoint as Chloe straddles our favourite devil, ripping open his shirt in the process. For the record, I greatly approve of shirtless Tom Ellis. Chloe runs her hands down Lucifer's back, caressing the scars his wings left behind. Lucifer pauses the action for a moment to make certain that this is what Chloe wants to do.  I think that this is a really important moment because he sought explicit consent.  Given how sexually predatory Lucifer was in season one, this is a good step forward. Chloe is all in which causes Lucifer's eyes to flash and his horns to become visible. Chloe grabs Lucifer's horns and then promptly wakes up to find Maze eating popcorn at her bedside enjoying the show. At times like this I really love Maze.

For much of this episode we actually get a role reversal between Chloe and Lucifer.  Lucifer actually goes to see Linda to report that he's decided to take things slow whereas Chloe, who hasn't had sex in forever can't stop dropping hints.

Lucifer is absolutely surprised by the Chloe's suggestiveness but he doesn't actually take the bait.  It seems that Lucifer's main concern is that what he is experiencing isn't real.  Lucifer's mind really gets going when they catch a case where the mystery man from last week, uses people to test his hypothesis.  A famous actor is told that unless he cuts his face, a college student will die.  At first, the actor believes it's a joke but he arrives on campus to find a student dead.  Lucifer is enraged by the cold manipulation of the killer and this leads him to question if Chloe is being manipulated into suddenly being receptive to a sexual and romantic relationship with him. 

The second person to be blackmailed is a world renowned thoracic surgeon. The good doctor is told that if she doesn't cut off her hand that an innocent college student will die.  The doctor struggles with this because she has spent her entire life dedicated to saving life.  In the end, the doctor puts her hand in a garbage disposal despite detective douche trying to talk her down.  The end result is that the blackmailer sends the antidote to the poison that he used on a college kid.

After some great work by Ella, Lucifer, Chloe and Detective Douche learn that a disgraced academic named Dr. Carlisle is behind the blackmail.  Dr. Carlisle was in a car accident and the driver of the car was a college student. Rather than helping the college student, the Dr. Carlisle escaped the car and then went back for his dissertation, leaving the innocent college student to die.  This resulted in the Dr. Carlisle losing the opportunity to obtain tenure and then having to get a divorce because his wife left him. Dr. Carlisle is putting people in these lethal situations to prove that his reaction was normal and human.  I agree that his actions were human but they were cowardly.

While Lucifer and Chloe are busy working on the case, Charlotte has a problem of her own to solve. After encouraging Lucifer to let down his guard and go for it with Chloe, Charlotte has deemed that now is the time to drop the hammer and let Lucifer know about Chloe's divine creation.  Charlotte first goes to Linda to enlist the good doctor's help.  Linda is so onto Charlotte and the fact that she is working an agenda and so absolutely refuses to get involved.  I gotta say, Linda's facial expressions during this scene absolutely cracked me.  Rachael Harris totally has  the whole sexy librarian look absolutely nailed down. Charlotte's next target is Maze, who as we know has mixed feelings about Chloe.

Nightfall (Kingdom of Ashes #1) by Elena May

  

Myra was born after nightfall – after humanity’s Weatherwizard was taken by the vampires, the world was plunged in darkness and the vampires emerged from the shadows, led by their prince

Vampires now rule the world. Humans are a remnant of a remnant, or bred in captivity to feed the vampires. Myra is part of the resistance but with numbers and supplies dwindling all seems lost

They have only one last chance to save themselves – a desperate mission to kill he prince and even that last hope goes terribly wrong when she ends up the prince’s captive and tool in his own driven mission.

I felt a lot that this book has a story/theme it wants to push. So that is what is going to be pushed – we will be going down that path even when it feels forced or awkward.

Part of this is an ongoing theme that art is important, creation is important. And it is an interesting one to develop, especially since we have a whole lot of dystopias where survival is the be all and end all. Often we question, in a dystopian, whether survival really is what we should aim for – especially if we give up things like conscience and law. But it’s rare for dystopians to discuss things like art – one of the big elements of human existence that is lost when we’re reduced to mere survival.

This could be a really interesting conflict to explore. What makes humans humans? What makes our civilisations, our cultures and what is lost when we lose these?

To also have the vampires, glorious overlords of the world they have no conquered, begin to realise this lack as well – to realise the clothes they wear, the books they read, the music they listen to are all created by humans and that, with humanity subjugated, there will never be anything new created again.

But I think this story felt very forced in pushing these themes – it kept them central too often and pushed them in ways that made Myra look rather unsympathetic. She constantly struggles with the conflict over trying to help her people and pursue the war against vampires, or keeping the vampire king’s guidance in making her a better author.

Salem, Season 3, Episode 9: Saturday Mourning

It’s time for everything to go horribly wrong, for me to be immensely annoyed by several characters and for me to generally yell 2nooooo, nooooooo, nooooooooooooooooooo!” over and over again.

Mary Sibley isn’t dead despite the whole blood Marburg curse thing and she is plagued by her baby devil’s voice. Upon hearing his voice tempting her, she crawls to the doorway to hell, draws a knife and is ready to stab ANYONE who comes near her or the door. They will open it over her dead body. Because she is Mary and she is not standing down.

Mary I made of iron

Unfortunately everyone else is made of stupid. Great big chunks of stupid welded together. They’re also made of EXCELLENT moral lessons being made by the WORST PEOPLE in the world

So, Cotton wakes up in the brothel, wanders around a bit, still drunk, pops in on John (more on him later) and runs into Glorianna. Who doesn’t remember him. Or, well, anyone but does remember being helped by the oh-so-nice Anne.

Cotton loses his temper and goes to confront Anne, being very physical and intimidating. She tries to lie her way about it over and over again. And it doesn’t work, except to get Cotton to break all morality by declaring lying worse than murder. He rambles on about how he thought she was a pure, wonderful innocent angel but now she’s just an evil ugly hag

She snaps. She has an epic, awesome rant about his hypocrisy. How he regularly got drunk, visited prostitutes then lived the lie of climbing up on the pulpit to praise god and be righteous. She calls out the whole horrendous Maddonna/Whore Innocent/witch, beauty/hag dichotomy he has going and generally just awesomely calls out the whole double standard and misogyny of the time and the people here.

And I would be cheering but this whole speech is being made by a woman literally trying to justify kidnapping, womb raiding and lobotomising another woman. Nothing she said is wrong by my gods, in the context can we not?! She is waving the flag of misogyny as some kind of excuse for why she viciously abused another, even more vulnerable and powerless woman?! Why couldn’t you have made this speech 3 episodes ago, Anne?!

The Librarians, Season 3, Episode 10: And the Wrath of Chaos

It’s season finale time – so time to put all these plot lines to bed

First of all, Eve is meeting with the General from DOSA and agrees to hand over the Library so long as the Libarians are spared

Naturally I assume this is a plot, especially when she tells the others she’s working with DOSA – and then she arranges a fake mission to get all the Librarians but Flynn out of the Library before having DOSA move in. DOSA start taking artefacts but I’m giving Eve the benefit of the doubt because she has a plan – she uses medusa’s head on Jenkins

EVE YOU ARE DEAD TO ME

Of course, as an immortal and made of awesome, Jenkins would be a major obstacle for DOSA. They also tend to keep him as an artefact.

Jenkins has some stern words for Eve. And no sword is so sharp as Jenkins’s scorn.

Flynn is running around the Library trying to keep Artefacts out of DOSA hands and manages to get in touch with the other Librarians who quickly figure out they’re being manipulated. He tells them to infiltrate DOSA’s library and free Jenkins because he, as the last of the three immortals, has the power to lock down the Library

They free Jenkins from his prison where he has been craftily locked in a box sealed with 3 very stupid locks to fool the Librarians who need to reverse and slow down their brains (or, actually, need to be so arrogant as to assume that DOSA wouldn’t even try to outsmart them). Which is a nice idea except if they really wanted to secure Jenkins they could have 3 password locks actually activated by… passwords? Real passwords? Actual secure, 16-random-digit-changed-every-month passwords? Passwords that you couldn’t break because you solved the puzzle written on the ACTUAL BOX. Or a key?! Y’know anything would be more secure than that. Who are these people on TV and in games who lock things up with puzzles? “I want to keep my shit safe but if a really clever person breaks in they deserve my stuff!”

Eve meanwhile starts to redeem my faith in her by asking the General about Apep’s casket – which DOSA has. Eve asks if it’s safe. Really safe? Really really? Just because it’s scientifically protected against all “known” magic- that kind of relies on DOSA knowing all magic. I mean really? General brings the Casket to show Eve who continues to pour doubt and talks about the magical artefact that the Library would use to contain it. She leaves and the General gets kind of doubtful… so she opens the Casket and is possessed by Apep.

Something Eve realises when she’s thrown across the room when the General and her minions bring a big bomb into the Library

Beyond, Season One, Episode Five: Fancy Meeting You Here

One of the biggest problems with Beyond so far is its snail pace.  We know to some degree who the central characters are but have been given little information about their motivations. Up until this point, I've felt as though I've been waiting for this show to actually start to go somewhere.  I really hope that Fancy Meeting You Here, is the beginning of that, even if Holden's actual role in this episode was easily the least interesting part of it.

So, when last we saw Holden he was sitting in Luke's dorm room after beating the piss out of Yellow Jacket.  This week, Luke tries to teach Holden how to do laundry and they talk about Holden attending class.  Holden is nervous because he didn't even start high school, but Luke assures him that he already knows more than the people he's in school with.  Holden accompanies Luke to his class where he gets a crash curse on Jung, Freud and dreams.  This is enough of an inspiration for Holden to ask Jamie for a second chance when she runs into him again.

In Monte Carlo, Charlie, who seems to be in a mood to have a little fun, instructs a gambler playing blackjack to draw a card on a hard 17.  When he does, he ends up with 21.  When next we see Charlie and the gambler, they are being accosted by casino security because they believe Charlie to be guilty of counting cards.  Charlie explains that what she did was so much more than that but they remain unimpressed with their skills.  Charlie makes her escape by taking a bite of the head of security's hand.

In the absence of Holden, Willa is keeping a vigil at Arthur's bedside.  Willa tries to get some answers out of Daniel regarding the other coma patients but he's very noncommittal in his responses.  Once left alone with Arthur, Willa breaks into Arthur's safe and steals his papers and some recordings of his experiments.

Holden is ready for his big date with Jamie.  Luke and Riley are there as well, making it a double date. They all sit at a table and things are going pretty well.  They drink, tell stories, and Jamie even admits to liking Holden.  For once it seems that Holden is able to shake the visions of the Realm and Arthur that he keeps having. 

When next we see Charlie, she's headed to a street fight. Tess makes an appearance and both women make opposite bets on a street fight. Tess isn't there for the pleasure of gambling but to see if she can get Charlie to work for Hollow Sky.  Charlie has been given this offer of employment several times it seems and she hasn't changed her mind about not accepting.  Tess sweetens the pot by explaining just how strong Holden is and her belief that Holden is able to cross the bridge.  What the hell is the bridge?  Charlie still refuses to accept the job and so Tess reveals that Arthur got to Holden first. That's enough for Charlie to gain some interest.  Tess then offers Charlie a trade which we are not privy to. 

Back home, Willa is going through the items that she collected from Arthur's safe.  Willa goes through the videos of Arthur talking with his patients about the experiences they had while comatose. He explains that the unconscious mind goes somewhere, leaving the body behind. This is clearly treading over ground that we already know. No wonder parts of this episode seemed to just drag the hell on. On the tape, one of Arthur's subjects goes into cardiac arrest. Arthur brings the patient back and then makes reference to consulting with Dr. Frost.  This catches Willa's attention.  Who's Dr. Frost and why does Willa knows the name?  I suppose this is something we will learn about later. The problem is that I just don't care.

One Fell Sweep (Inkeeper Chronicles #3) by Ilona Andrews

Dina’s inn is getting a reputation. It’s not the most popular, it’s not the largest – but after Dina’s previous adventures it’s definite a place to go if you’ve got something difficult or dangerous to organise

And this may be the greatest challenge – a species is actively being hunted to extinction. Their enemies are willing to destroy entire planets to kill them. But an innkeeper always keeps their guests safe. And a good person will try to find a doomed people some chance to survive.

I loooove this series, I love it I love it I love it

But doesn’t that always apply when we have an Ilona Andrews book? I don’t think I’ve ever written a book she’s (or they) written I didn’t love.

I often praise the world building of Ilona Andrews but I think this series takes that above and beyond. The whole concepts of different worlds with an array of alien creatures that have visited Earth and given rise to our many myths and legends which all excellent combines sci-fi and urban fantasy is a really fascinating one

But, like so many of her books, these beings are not just there, but they’ve been created with a whole culture and history. There’s a lot of world building to turn them into far more than just vampires in space – to create the whole culture of the vampire houses and the holy onacracy is just fascinating

And this excellent world is just complimented and expanded by the stories told within it. I loved the introduction of                 Maud, Dina‘s sister. She’s strong and capable and able to use the inn in the same way Dina can. In so many books she would be competition or a threat or she would clash with Dina. We have an ongoing concept that “strong” women must hate or compete with each other. But they don’t, they bounce off each other well. They’re very different women, they have different skill sets and attitudes. Maud has absorbed a lot of vampire culture and is very aggressive and physically orientated while Dina is more mystical but focused on her inn – but they respect and love each other. There’s never a hesitation between them, never a moment when Dina isn’t willing to happily put everything she has in Maud’s hands because she knows Maud will look after it, handle it and be trusted with it

I like that – it’s sad that I find it rare – but I like it.

Emerald City, Season One, Episode Four: Science and Magic

I have to gush a little bit. I cannot remember the last time I stumbled upon a new show in our genre that I love as much as Emerald City.  A lot happened this week so let's dive right in shall we.  The story is still very much being told in a linear fashion; however, since the characters are largely separated, it means that the plot keeps shifting focus.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing because Dorothy is officially working my last nerve. 

Dorothy and Lucas are travelling towards Oz to see the Wizard.  The sexual tension between Dorothy and Lucas is still very high but just before they can kiss, Sylvie comes rushing out of the woods and attaches herself to Lucas's leg.  The girl is clearly familiar with him from somewhere. Dorothy tries to speak to Sylvie but the child does not respond.  Lucas wants to leave Sylvie behind and get moving but Dorothy is determined to return Sylvie to her family. Lucas points out out how stupid it is to rush forth into a village where the Wizard's men are but Dorothy refuses to stop to consider the danger. In fact, she cannot even be arsed to make a proper plan.

Once they get to the town, Dorothy asks everyone she sees about Sylvie, but no one knows who the little girl is.  Finally, a couple approaches and claims to be Sylvie's parents but a suspicious Dorothy demands to see where Sylvie lives.  The couple take her back to their place of abode and Dorothy's suspicions are further raised when the lodgings don't look like a child resides there.  Dorothy demands to see Sylvie's room but before she can push too much further, Lucas rushes in and whisks Dorothy away because the town is now crawling with the Wizard's men. Yes, he's actually saving her again. 

Dorothy is certain that the couple that she left Sylvie with are not her parents and so decides to return back to the town to free the child. It's Lucas who offers up some of his clothing so that Dorothy can wear a disguise. Dorothy manages to safely get to the house and when she enters, Dorothy finds that the two adults who claimed to be related to Sylvie have been turned to stone with their hands still grasping the child.  Dorothy approaches Sylvie and the child nods no while she calms down.  Once Sylvie is back to normal, Dorothy breaks the stone statues to free the child. So far so good.

Dorothy and Sylvie start to make their way out of town when the are stopped by Eammon, who recognises that Dorothy is the young woman he has been ordered to find. Eammon is just about to deliver Dorothy's death sentence when he notices that she is carrying Lucas's sword.  Eammon demands to know where the owner of the sword is and Dorothy claims not to know, even as Lucas is sneaking up on Eammon from behind. Eammon asks again about Lucas and this time when Dorothy denies knowing anything he slaps her across the face. At this point, Dorothy has had enough and she pulls her gun.

 

Dorothy fires a shot into the air to let Eammon know that things are about to get real but he just keeps marching towards her.  Dorothy's bravado takes a bit of a nose dive and she begs Eammon to stop. Lucas steps forward and picks up Sylvie and this is when Eammon recognises him. Eammon calls Lucas Lowen and begs him to stop, as Lucas retreats with the child. Now that it's clearly that Emamon isn't going to stop, Dorothy shoots Eammon in the chest and takes off after Lucas and Sylvie.

Finally, away from the village, they sit by a fire as Sylvie sleeps close by.  Lucas asks if there's magic where Dorothy comes from and she explains that there's science and magic.  Dorothy then pulls out her cell phone and hands an airbud to Lucas and tells him to listen, explaining that it's magic.  Dorothy plays, "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone, (which is one of my fave songs FYI) and this freaks Lucas out quite a it.  Dorothy tells him to simply relax and they listen to the song together. They discuss the fact that Eammon claimed to know who Lucas is and Lucas leans in and says that Eammon knew who he was but the man he is today, is the man he wants to be.  The two then share a kiss. Talk about a plumb job for Adria Arjona, cause Oliver Jackson-Cohen is hot as hell.

Sleepy Hollow, Season 4, Episode 4: Heads of State

We see Ichabod completely moving to DC now, moving into the new home with the help of Jenny and Jake, his new neighbour – selected because it is cheap and has anyone actually figured out where Ichabod gets his money from?

And yes, I was mildly amused when Jake called Ichabod a hipster (and Jenny totally agreed) but I can’t get past the fact this would be so much better if Abbie were here

This is the theme of this episode (hah, this season!) there’s a lot I’d like here which would be so much better if Abbie were here and/or Abbie’s death didn’t permeate everything like a terrible stench. Every little scene – like this house hunting – would just be that much better with Abbie’s input, her eye rolls, her asides with Jenny, her bouncing of Ichabod. The whole show feels like a rip off of what it was without her being present. That core is missing and it shows, I can feel the void.

Jake is also crushing on Jenny. Jenny is not interested. This would be better with Abbie and Jenny able to joke about this.

What gets me especially is they’re moving house, setting up a new team and… it’s rebooted. It’s the third episode and we’ve pretty much started out all over again now. The new team’s established, Ichabod’s new relationships are in place, his new home is set up, the basic conflicts and antagonists are being laid out. But this is episode 3. Three! That’s too soon – where’s the grief, the horror? Sure I can smell the stench of Abbie’s absence – but where’s the shadow of it? Jenny and Ichabod are right there – why aren’t they still grieving? Why isn’t Abbie a constant presence in their minds, speeches, every thought and action? Abbie was a major part of their lives, her presence should still be being felt and I think this episode was absent because it wasn’t.

This makes it feel less like a progression of the series and more like a reboot. Especially since the big bad of this show is The Headless Horseman. Not really Abraham and all the broken #Cranewreck story that came from it – but a quick montage flashed through as Ichabod fills the team in about what the horseman is. And why he’s in DC he’s after the president to cut off her head for reasons. Possibly because he can now pick up severed heads and transform into that person

And, yes, I did see a Black female president which would be great if she actually had a line.

The Horseman is stopped from his head chopping by bright light from the sewers. This is also how NotAbbie Diana draws Ichabod into the case – obvious supernatural creature attacks the president, then Diana, the homeland security agent who knows about magic (because despite EVERY founding father, every last one, being virtual grand warlocks, absolutely none of that knowledge continued down the ages, it seems. Do we need to talk about this? I mean, how does this even happen? The Founding fathers and all their special followers were all woo-woo masters fighting a revolution which was all about demons and magic – but 2 centuries or so later and no-one remembers? They didn’t think it was worth noting).

Salem, Season 3, Episode 8: Friday's Nights

Mary is getting her troops in line for phase two of her master plan

And I‘m going to take a moment to praise this. Here we have a strong female character who is, probably, the least powerful of any of them. She isn’t wielding her husband’s influence and name. She isn’t drawing on her wealth. She isn’t using her mighty dark magic. She isn’t a secret samurai navy seal and she doesn’t have a great big axe and nuclear weapon under her skirt

But she is the mightiest, most dangerous and impressive character in these two episodes because of her intelligence, her skill, her determination and her practicality.

You see this from the very beginning when she gathers all her people: Cotton, Sebastian, John and Isaac. Well they kind of just recap Isaac on the whole end of the world thing but he’ got his own stuff going on which is way way way more important than the world ending, anyway. He does make a plea that the people are what matter so why don’t they just abandon the town – but John points out around the town is dangerous. Also releasing demons everywhere is also kind of not a localised event

John and Sebastian are all snarly at each other because JEALOUSY but Mary, being awesome, is focused on task and thinks all of this relationship nonsense can wait until after they’ve stopped the actual world ending, damn it guys.

John tells them about the angel killing dagger that Tituba had him make. Cotton reveals that he has something of a connection with the Sentinel (baby devil’s brother) and may be able to lure him into a hidden place so John can do the stabbing. Unfortunately he’s already got rid of the Red Mercury world-ending stuff and he’s handed it over to the barber/serial killer/pathologist/cannibalism (a combination of professions which may be the Worst Ever) so they need to find that. Sebastian knows where this is so it really really would be time for him to step up and prove his worth but no he’s having a “Mary doesn’t love me” tantrum. More reasonably he’s also having concerns that John fully intends to kill him at some point so he’d quite like to be integral to the plot rather than pass on his useful knowledge and then suddenly being surplus to requirements. Which isn’t wrong

Mary, being suspicious, wants to check in on Tituba and wonder why she’s conveniently handing out angel killing daggers but not using them to kill Baby Devil. Tituba is quick to dance round it – and hide the fact she is the one who stole Baby Devil’s body. Curses Tituba, I wanted to back you – but no matter what he promised apocalypse isn’t worth it!

Battle Hill Bolero (Bone Street Rumba #3) by Daniel José Older

The dead now rise… up.

The Council has had its own way for too long. Too many souls have been lost. Too much injustice has been swallowed. The Remote districts, the rebels, the dispossessed are rising up – war is coming.

Of course Carlos, half dead, memoryless and very much adrift – is in the middle of this; even as his own history and murky past come crashing around him.

There’s a lot about this book series I love – which are continued excellently in this book. I love many of the characters and the conflicts they face and the lives they’ve lead. I love their voices and the excellent solid realness behind so many of them. Most of the main cast feel like people, complete people, not extras to advance someone else.

Most of the cast are also POC with their cultures, races and origins clearly labelled. As I’ve said before, this book series does so well with racial diversity because it doesn’t just use racial labels as brief descriptors but not involving them in their actual depiction. We have several latino characters (and “latino” is not just a wide vague descriptor but we have notes on the different South American and Carribean nations and cultures that are covered by that label), Black characters, Native Americans, Asians – there is a huge racial diversity in New York City and this is reflected in this series

The ghosts themselves have so many different and excellent little factions – from the poignant spirits of the Black Hoodies – ghosts killed by police, to the ancient, slow incomprehensible and enigmatic ancient ghosts, to the calm and powerful ex-slaves to the fluffy and slightly silly cyclists who died in traffic accidents. All little societies coming together for reasons both meaningful and silly and all very human.

It’s these characters continuing their story from the previous books which truly make this series – not just Carlos and Sasha but the many powerful characters around them as well. But still, Sasha and Carlos’s examination of their past, both the revelations and how they dealt with it – and how they then relate to each other given their very very very very oh-so-very complicated history – are an excellent part of the book (if almost tangential to the main story). Especially with Juan Flores mixing it up even further.

The plot itself had large amounts of epic elements as well. We have a grand conflict, with sacrifice and loss and desperation and power and passion. It was at times very emotional, often very moving and often blood-fizzling exciting

What did make it harder for me to follow this book is that there’s such a huge number of characters in this book. This is the book where everything comes to a head and we have the full blown conflict with all kinds of factions and forces coming together

Colony, Season Two, Episode Two: Somewhere Out There

Last week one of the things I thought this episode of Colony might explain further is how exactly it is that Aliens managed to takeover the earth so smoothly.  This week we learned that it didn't simply happen over night and that the Aliens first started to contact humanity in 1969. No wonder the U.S. government had people in place for arrival day. See we all should have been listening to Art Bell when he talked about area 51. What if X Files wasn't fiction but alternative facts?

Back in present day, things for the Bowman family are not looking good.  In the wake of the actions of the Resistance, it seems that food and supplies are in short order. Things are not any better in the Santa Monica block, where Will has turned to Devin for help to find his missing son.  

Katie heads to try and see Bram and is forced to bribe a guard for information with a mickey, only to learn that Bram is in transit.  Yes, that means that for daring to go under the wall, Bram is going to be transported to the dreaded factory. From last season, we know that the Factory is on the moon. In fear for her son's safety, Katie heads to see her sister Maddie.  Maddie does her best to calm Katie and promises to have Nolan look into it as soon as possible.

Katie heads back home and in despair cooks up the last of  the rice, completely unaware that she's under surveillance.It seems that Jennifer is keeping her eye on Katie. Will may have trusted Jennifer to keep his secrets but with his absence at Homeland Security, things are getting a bit rough.  Jennifer is told by the new boss that he wants Broussard and makes it clear that he doesn't trust her.  He even orders Jennifer's home be searched.  With her back up against the wall, Jennifer approaches Katie at the bar to try and get information on Broussard, revealing that Will just about admitted what Katie was up to before he crossed the border to find Charlie.  At this point, poor Katie is absolutely exhausted and having not spoken to Broussard in a while begs Jennifer to leave them be.  Katie is certain that if she contacts Broussard now that he will know that she has been compromised.  Jennifer makes it clear that she has more than enough intel to convict Katie and therefore Katie needs to trade herself for Broussard.

At home Katie gets a call informing her that Bram has gone to a work house instead of a factory but what she really wants is to have her son at home. Katie tries to keep things as normal as possible for little Gracie but in all of her worry, she missed the fact that her daughter is being indoctrinated by the step ford nanny.  It's not until Gracie worries that her father and Bram aren't coming home because she isn't working hard enough towards the Greatest Day.  Katie assures her daughter that this isn't the case.  What the hell is the Greatest Day?

Maddie tries to press Nolan to do for more for Bram, pointing out that he's just a kid who got into a little bit of trouble but it's clear that Nolan has no plans to stick his neck out for anyone but himself. Dude would sell his own mother to live in comfort.  Nolan says that Maddie is just about to be inducted into their super secret special club and that this has to be a priority.  Nolan also warns that if they cash in all of their I.O.U's now, they won't have them to use the next time that the Bowmans need help. He's more than happy to take credit for Bram being sent to a workhouse though.

In reality, the reason Bram is in a workhouse rather than the factory, is that he figured out while in line with the rest of the prisoners that if he didn't claim to have a skill they could use that he would be sent away.  Bram lied and claimed that he's 20 years old and that he worked in construction. Bram is warned that if steps out of line that he'll catch a beating the first time and be sent to the factory the second time.  He's also warned that stealing will lead to being sent to the factory. Bram ends up losing his mentor who's sent to the factory but he does manage to meet a girl in line.  Yep, I think Colony is about to get a taste of teenage romance.

Salem, Season 3, Episode 7: The Man who was Thursday

The battle against the darkness continues – with Mary lining up her forces.

Sebastian is awful and continues to continue to sexual assault his way into Mary’s affections, kissing her after she said no and generally convinced they can still live happily ever after despite him forcing her to have sex in front of her true love, her totally not being into him oh and her not being able to leave Salem.

He insists it’s not so and he’ll prove it by teleporting her miles away from Salem… and nearly killing her. Oops. Sebastian needs to start listening. Or dropping dead. But it’s a shame he’s still needed – and she keeps aiming him firmly against Baby devil – and having him go to the Essex witches for him

One piece in hand.

Next step is Cotton. Cotton doesn’t like her, this is true but Mary is able to cut threw his righteous objections with some simple practicality. It helps that the house has the new in feature for modern interior designers – a doorway to hell. Behind which is Cotton’s dad, the not-even-remotely-lamented Mather senior who urges his son to say “yes” since defeating the devil is a great idea. Thankfully, all Mary asks him to do is deliver a message to John because he has a pregnant life: this is the theme of the episode. Despite the world about to end, everyone is super worried that Cotton’s unborn baby and doesn’t want him to endanger himself or his evil wife. Never mind the upcoming apocalypse.

He does confirm that Red Mercury is terribad awful and cannot be stopped and has been used to destroy cities by an angry god in the past. Just in case we didn’t get it.

He delivers the letter to John – and then reads it (it seems John can’t read) which is basically Mary’s confession that, yes, she’s totally having sex with Sebastian. But only because she’s trying to use him. It also comes with an epic plea for perspective – yes she may be shagging Sebastian. But if it works and the world is saved they’ll have many many many years in which to get over that. If it doesn’t work? Well they’ll all be burning anyway so who cares?

Oh and John’s like the only one who isn’t all pro Cotton’s baby: because his witch kid turned into the devil. That will make you a convert to birth control.

After letting John know what she’s doing but not asking him to do anything (because she’s totally got this in hand), Mary goes on to poke Baby Devil’s evil brother with more hints that baby devil wants to become the next god, totally in control and she and evil brother will just be servants. She also undresses in front of him which seems to be her basic method. Which is a bit weird since he’s already made it clear he doesn’t care for humans and is actually made of insects. Still the whole servile thing has definitely pushed his buttons since his whole rebellion from god was all about freewill.

Her pieces nicely lined up she has Sebastian go to Baby Devil to report that Mary is about to betray him with the Essex witches and he should totally run into the woods almost alone to confront her.

The Vampire Diaries, Season 8, Episode 9: The Simple Intimacy of Near Touch

Stefan and Damon are still on their massacring spree, well Stefan is. Damon’s along kind of reluctantly for the ride, when Sybil calls

She still wants this sire-killing bell. The bell has three parts: The bell, the tuning fork of ancient devilness we’ve seen before (currently held by Dorian) and an iron ball that Matt used to have which Damon stole at Sybil’s insistence. He’s been carrying it around for a while. Which is why she calls him and asks him to bring it back because no-one escapes Mystic Falls! You will be back! You’ll all be back!

Damon can’t tell her no because of the tinkering in his head though it’s not as strong as it was. Stefan is happy to go along just to get rid of annoying external influences on his brother which is totally killing his murder buzz

So, to Mystic Falls, where we’re having a Mystic Falls beauty pageant

Seriously, this town – how do they get anything done? It’s a non-stop array of parties and parades and pageants. It’s a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, you’d think people would get bored of the endless formal gatherings. No-one in this town wears jeans but they’ve all got 8 tuxes or 11 parties dresses.

Just about the whole gang can turn up to this teenaged beauty pageant – Caroline because she’s organising it (of course she is) and everyone else because absolutely no-one in this town bats an eye at all these adults gate crashing a celebration for teenaged beauty queens despite they’re not being related to any of them. Because creepiness like this is the least of Mystic Fall’s problems

Actually, aside, given how many of these events have ended in massacres, why does the town keep having these? In fact, after all the many many massacres and an event that forced them to evacuate the entire town for months, why is this town even still here?! At this point surely some authority somewhere has decided the best thing to do would be to carpet bomb the whole place and then salt the earth?

Anyway, Damon and Stefan join Sybil and Damon tells her no. She tries to get into his head only to be painfully ejected – Damon isn’t playing her game any more. She’s more than a little shocked by this but Stefan points out her mistake: bringing Damon back to Mystic Falls during the Pageant – the Pageant Elena won and was the first time Damon fell in love with her – was pretty much peak Elena. Sybil only buried Elena in his mind but, as every watcher of this show knows, Elena never, ever, ever goes away. Like herpes.

Lucifer, Season Two, Episode Eleven: Stewardess Interruptus

After a brief hiatus, Lucifer is back and ready for trouble.  When we last left Lucifer, he was sharing a moment with Chloe in the wake of her testimony in criminal court.  I know that fans of Deckerstar went weak at the knees when it looked like these two might finally kiss after a season and a half of will they or won't they, Especially given that the writers chose just that moment to go on Xmas hiatus

Yeah, they're cruel like that.  At any rate, before they could kiss as the title of the episode explains, Lucifer was blocked by Stewardess Interruptus, i.e. one of his lovers showed up for a booty call. Chloe see this as a sign that she should get moving, leaving Lucifer to explain to his lover that there will be no knocking boots tonight.

The episode begins in earnest when the flight attendant who showed up for the booty call is found dead in an alley.  Unfortunately for Lucifer, that makes him the last person who saw her alive. I know I have been critical of the case of the week loop that writers use to move Lucifer's plotline along but this time, it seemed to work.  It revealed to us for instance that Lucifer is indeed bisexual and made it cannon.  Thus far, all we have been able to do is hypothesis because though we have seen him in bed with a man and a woman at the same time, Lucifer was always placed physically next to the woman and certainly was not interacting with the man.  With Lucifer admitting that he sleeps with men, much to Chloe's surprise, his sexuality has clearly been defined.  Unfortunately, it came with his male lover being found murdered and as we know, his heart does not belong to another man but in fact to Chloe Decker. I'm trying not to complain because we have very few LGBT protagonists on television, I simply fear that with the writers determination to ship Deckerstar, (yeah, apparently that's the ship name) it means that we are not going to see a very serious treatment of Lucifer's bisexuality.

As Lucifer's lovers line up to talk about having sex with him and how great it was, Lucifer visibly preens.  His perspective changes however when he realises that none of his lovers actually care for him and instead wrote him off as a one night stand.  This troubles the normally lighthearted Lucifer. I'm sure the Deckerstar people were in a flurry as Chloe questioned Lucifer's lovers and seemed to express relief that despite the fact that he gave them all amazing orgasms, Lucifer never went out of his way to get to know any of them, or do anything special for them.  

Along with the will they or won't they, we had Maze trying to figure out just where she fits in now. With the death of the murderer of Chloe's farther and Detective Douche's involvement, Maze naturally assumed that this is something they should celebrate, she is after all a demon.  Detective Douche naturally is far more worried about getting caught, given his already extremely tarnished reputation.  Poor Maze just wants some acknowledgement for the good she believes that she does and so seeks out Linda for reassurance, completely ignoring that her neediness is blocking Linda from having lunch.  Linda does her best to make it clear to Maze that she doesn't need the thanks of others to accept herself or her actions in a positive light. 

The Vampire Diaries, Season 8, Episode 8: We Have History Together

Damon and Stefan are now working for Cade, which means finding truly bad terrible people and killing them so their souls go to hell. And having a lot of evil fun while doing so

Their definitions of really terrible, evil people is very… lapse though. Compelling someone to admit they’d rather 6 people die so they can live? I mean, sure, it’s not the sign of moral rectitude, but “not a saint” or “not a martyr” seems like a super low bar for evil here. And, of course, it doesn’t bode well for the people they’re killing

Also perturbing Damon is Stefan’s feeding on human blood from the vein. Stefan has a terrible history of ripper-ness where he just goes completely off the rails and massacres people over and over. Stefan’s confident he can test his self control, Damon not so much.

Stefan is definitely having fun and he decides to focus on a doctor. A wonderful kind woman, who is definitely not evil – and he promptly arranges an incredibly elaborate scheme to tempt her to evil: basically to convince her that Damon is the man who killed her parents, put him in her care and then continually prod and poke her to kill him. Not good? Certainly. Worst of the worst? Maybe I just have a low opinion of humanity but I think Stefan’s pushing people into murder this strongly isn’t quite killing the worst of the worst: Damon’s certainly uncomfortable with it. Looks like Cade was right about how much fun Stefan would have as his Ripper.

Of course, the doctor has been chosen for a reason, she resembles Elena, her history is reminiscent of Elena – and she’s all designed to poke Damon’s humanity. He’s been walking around with Elena’s necklace and Stefan is convinced his conscience is poking through: his humanity switch it inching to “on.” To prove otherwise Damon throws away the necklace and kills the doctor

But afterwards goes looking for the necklace still.

I think it says everything about this show that we can totally skip over the killing of a young doctor dedicated so much to helping others, but finding a necklace is the emotional path-to-redemption moment

Oh, and Stefan succumbs to ripperdom and slaughters a hospital: this is like his 9^th massacre and I’m sure we’ll forgive him this one as well.

Over to Caroline who is happily recapping everything for us and now working as a journalist (apparently; not bad for someone who never ever attended school). And she has a job to go report on Mystic Fall high school preparation for Founders day

AAAAAARGH, the horrible flashbacks to early seasons where all these characters ever did was prepare for one founders’ celebration or another?! And my gods how little news can a town have where a story about a high school preparing for a parade makes the paper? C’mon this is a town where every supernatural thing in the world regularly massacres people and this is the news they have?