Friday, November 20, 2015

My Review of The Originals 3.07- Out of the Easy

Klaus and Elijah throw a dinner party, Aurora reveals what happened to Rebekah, Marcel and Vincent make a startling move to protect Davina, Hayley and Jackson have a fight, and Cami is placed in danger.

Well, if you are the Mikaelsons and are going to have a party to celebrate Thanksgiving, would it be complete without a spot of torture?  Of course not!  Turns out Aurora took Rebekah and dumped her into the ocean.  The problem is that she doesn’t know the exact location.  She knows the latitude and Tristan knows the longitude of Rebekah’s watery location.  This, of course, does not sit well with Klaus, so (in typical Klaus fashion) he takes Tristan hostage so Aurora will give him Rebekah’s location.  Unfortunately for him, he didn’t count on the fact that Aurora knows that Cami means something to him and she will use Cami as a way to bend Klaus to her will.

Freya is obviously upset about everything that is going on.  She can’t locate Rebekah and can’t take her frustrations out on Aurora because she needs her to get Rebekah back.  The one thing that is confusing me is that Freya is supposed to be one of the most powerful witches alive, but she seems to be consistently frustrated by whoever the Triumvirate is using to do magic.  So either they have one super powerful witch (or maybe a coven?) or Freya is not as powerful as advertised.

I get why Jackson is upset with Hayley, but he doesn’t seem to get that her loyalties will always be divided between the pack and the Mikaelsons.  She is a hybrid and her life is bound to Klaus’ (presumably since he is Hope’s father), so she will never escape their orbit.  Then there is also the fact that Klaus is Hope’s father and her feelings for Elijah, which binds her to the Mikaelsons.

Getting the New Orleans witches to shun Davina was a sure fire way to make sure that she wouldn’t be able to help the Triumvirate, but it was also quite cruel.  I have to wonder what effect this will have on Davina.  Since the New Orleans witches seem to get their power from their links to each other and the Ancestors, will Davina be disempowered?  I would assume so, but inquiring minds still want to know.

So now Klaus has Tristan and Aurora has both Rebekah and Cami.  This is a classic standoff.  Klaus is not going to bend and release Tristan and I don’t see Aurora releasing either Cami or Rebekah anytime soon.  The good news is that Lucien (apparently) gave Klaus and Elijah the medallion, so they have part of what is needed.  I also don’t see them giving that up either.  More torture anyone?

Next episode in two weeks.  See y’all then!

My Review of The Vampire Diaries 7.07- Mommie Dearest

Stefan has a plan to get rid of Julian, Caroline and Valerie bond, Enzo and Bonnie look for a car, and Lily reveals some information that leaves her sons reeling….

I will want to know who this person is who is obsessively hunting the Salvatores.  Whoever she is, she carved the symbol into Stefan’s chest and is currently holding Caroline somewhere other than the TV station, which Damon found out when he went to save her and got shot in the back for his trouble.

The brothers certainly got thrown for a major loop by Lily tonight.  First off, she bound herself to Julian in order to protect him from her sons.  Second, she had planned on leaving their father with the brothers in order to protect them from him.  Unfortunately, the plan ended up getting nixed because Giuseppe figure it out.  And can I say that I am glad that man is dead?  I knew that he was a bastard to the brothers, but putting out a cigar on your son’s arm?  That is a whole new level.  If they hadn’t killed him, I’d be tempted to do so myself.

Assuming that everything Lily said is true, it actually makes a sort of sense why she stayed.  While she knew how abusive Giuseppe was, she wanted to make sure that she would be able to escape with her sons in order to keep them safe.  Given her attitude towards her new family, that actually makes sense.  While she can be fairly reserved, she also has a streak of momma bear in her, she just shows it in a different manner than most.

Given the parallels between Giuseppe and Julian, I hope that her decision to turn against Julian at the end was genuine.  She seems to have finally realized how awful he is, so here’s hoping she actually carries through with everything and this is not just a ploy of some sort.

Watching Caroline and Valerie bond over babies was interesting.  These two seem to have come to a bit of a détente.  Caroline knows what Julian did to Valerie and obviously has a lot of compassion for the situation.  I am going to be interested to see her reaction when she realizes that Stefan knew about this and didn’t tell her.  I’ll be honest and say that this is a time when she probably deserved to know.  I know I am normally about it’s none of your business, but this situation is different because of the romantic angle as opposed to merely friends angle.

So the sword that Enzo and Bonnie found can kill a vampire when it is paired with the Phoenix stone?  Oops.  And the fact that Damon stabbed Julian, knowing that he was bound to Lily and thinking that the sword would kill him is just cold.  Granted, he has ample justification for what he did, but it was still cold.

As far as Matt goes, I’m not holding out much hope for this story.  He is one of the characters who has consistently gotten short shrift, so I am suspecting that will happen again.  I hope I’m wrong though.

Next episode in two weeks.  See you then!

Friday, November 13, 2015

My Review of The Originals 3.06- Beautiful Mistake

We find out what Tristan and Lucian have been working together, Rebekah returns, and Cami reveals the supernatural world to Detective Kinney.

The current situation is brought to you courtesy of a decision the Mikaelson siblings made and Elijah carried out.  In the 1100s, in order to get a respite from Mikael, Elijah compelled Tristan, Lucien, and Aurora to think that they were Klaus, Elijah, and Rebekah.  The compulsion lasted for 100 years until Elijah was daggered, which broke the compulsion.  As a result of this betrayal, the three first sired swore vengeance against the Mikaelson’s.  I now have to wonder if the sire war is an actual thing or if it was made up as an excuse for Lucien and Tristan to come to New Orleans in order to get their revenge.

And the revenge is going to be a doozy.  Using a dark magical artifact, Tristan and Lucien are planning on trapping Klaus, Elijah, and Rebekah behind an unbreakable magical barrier, thereby getting their revenge and making sure that none of the remaining lines can be extinguished in one blow.  The thing is, I am not entirely sure that the Mikaelson’s can be killed at this point short of having an uberpowerful witch cast some sort of spell to kill them.  The problem with that is that, if I am remembering properly, any such spell will kill the witch who casts it and I am not sure that any witches would get a second chance to strike at the Mikaelson’s.  You also have the fact that the Mikaelson’s now have Freya in their corner and she is a powerful witch in her own right, unless (like tonight) she gets stuck in an area where her magic is nullified.

Her rescues of Rebekah was quite cool.  Rebekah was handling herself nicely, but I think that eventually the Strix would have overpowered her through sheer numbers.  Freya’s nifty neck snapping spell was cool.  I'm not entirely sure how she could use magic when she was astral projecting (if that is what it was), but it was fun to see.

I love Elijah and Klaus’ method of calmly sorting out their issues.  They managed to almost completely destroy the furniture in the courtyard, but they definitely got things worked out, so that is good.  And Freya took the whole thing in like the older sister she is, resigned to her younger siblings quirks.  Hey, if it works…..

Marcel and Hayley are so lucky to be alive.  Elijah warned Marcel to get rid of the Strix member as soon as he could, but instead Marcel and Hayley tortured him and ended up with his fist in their chests for their troubles.  If it hadn’t been for Elijah showing up when he did, they’d be dead.  So say thank you and listen to teacher when he tells you to do something.

Cami’s plan to try and escape from Lucien was not a bad one.  I don’t remember seeing that particular artifact before, so I am not sure what exactly it did, but (unfortunately for her) Lucien listened to her heart and realized that she was trying to trick him.  At least Detective Kinney now knows that the supernatural exists and that things are a whole lot more complicated than he thought before.  Rough way to learn though.  Problem is that I don’t think he’ll remember anymore since Lucien compelled him.

Aurora having Rebekah’s body could be a very bad thing.  She now has something that Tristan and Lucien desperately want, but it is possible that they could decide to just trap Elijah and Klaus.  But now that the siblings know what the plan is, I don’t know if they’ll be so easily caught.

Until next week, when the Mikaelson’s host a Thanksgiving feast!

My Review of The Vampire Diaries 7.06- Best Served Cold

We find out the identity of Caroline’s fiancée (and it’s a doozy!), the mother of Alaric’s twins (doozy number 2!), and Lily lays down the law with her sons and Julian.

Shocker number 1: Alaric is Caroline’s fiancée!  Throw in shocker #2: Caroline is pregnant with the twins that Jo was carrying when Kai came back and destroyed the Gemini coven, and you get Exorcist level head spinning going on.  Turns out that when Kai attacked at the end of last season, the Gemini coven decided to make sure that the next generation of twins would survive, so they magically moved the twins from Jo to Caroline in order to protect them from Kai.  So now, Caroline is carrying Alaric and Jo’s twins.  As far as an explanation to explain Caroline’s body changing due to Candice’s actual pregnancy, it is very creative and quite a good idea.  It would be virtually impossible to write her off the series for any length of time and it would be hard to hide the fact that she is pregnant, so they needed to do something.  As a retcon, it works, so kudos!

Stefan has seriously lost his mind where Julian is concerned.  I totally get his desire to kill Julian given what Julian did to Valerie, but he does need to calm down and take a breath.  Attacking Julian at the party was a very Damon-like move and not at all smart.  It was weird watching Damon be the sensible brother, even if Damon’s sensibleness was only because he wanted to make Lily suffer as much as he could, which meant waiting for a while before killing Julian.

I was impressed that Lily stood up to Julian and really laid down the law where her sons are concerned.  She was not going to let him kill her sons regardless of the provocation.  She also doesn’t get that Stefan wasn’t aiming his wrath at her via Julian, which may have helped.  I have to wonder how she’ll react when she finds out that Julian killed her grandchildren in Valerie’s womb.  It may not be enough to turn her against Julian, but it will cause a rift, that I am sure of.

Jo’s body is gone.  Turns out that a human body can’t host a vampire’s soul for very long before dying.  At least Alaric got the chance to say good bye this time, which was one of the more heart-breaking scenes in Vampire Diaries history.  He needed to be able to say goodbye, and he got his chance.  It was funny watching “Jo” trying to read a computer like a book in the background as Bonnie was talking to Alaric on the phone.  RIP sweetie.

They really need to just write Matt out of the series at this point because it is really obvious that he is never really going to get a decent storyline.  I don’t see them turning him into a vampire and he doesn’t do anything, so please just put him out of his misery at this point.  Either that or give him some nice, juicy storyline that will allow him to do something meaningful.  I love the character and Zach, but he is being given such a short shrift that it would be better to just have him disappear.

Tonight Bonnie and Enzo took their first steps towards getting together.  Attending the party together was smart and Bonnie twigged into the real reason Enzo wanted her with him and took advantage of the situation to try and make Lily jealous.  That was interesting.  I do want to know what is up with the classroom of compelled zombie-like people.  The explanation is not going to be good methinks.

Until next week!

Friday, November 6, 2015

My Review of The Originals 3.05- The Axeman's Letter

One thousand years ago the first compulsion occurs, Rebekah gets her first progeny, and secrets are revealed.  In the present, those secrets threaten to rip the Mikaelsons apart, Cami runs into some legal trouble, and Davina has a talk with Hayley and Jackson.

So the first three progenies were: Lucien for Klaus, Tristan for Elijah, and Aurora for Rebekah.  We know that both Lucien and Aurora were turned without the sire intending to do so and I have to wonder if Tristan was the same way.  Give the history between those three, I am now more sure than ever that they war between the sire lines has a lot to do with their hatred for each other and that other issues are serving more as proxies than being the true cause behind everything.  And now the Klaus knows that Elijah compelled Aurora to leave him things are only going to get messier.

In Elijah’s defense, he didn’t seem to realize what he was doing at first when he compelled Aurora to tell him that Klaus had killed both Mikael and Esther.  When he had her break up with Klaus, I think that Elijah had more of an inkling as to what was going on but was pissed off enough that he didn’t care about the consequences at that time.  I don’t buy Klaus’ line that this rejection is what set him onto his current path.  While I have no doubt that it helped, Klaus has said the same thing before to both Esther and Mikael, so at this point it just seems like a line he uses to excuse himself from the consequences of his actions.

I am definitely glad that Davina freed Hayley and Jackson from her service.  She is trying to turn over a new leaf and become a new type of Regent, so this was a good start.  So was her decision to allow the guy who tried to curse her to go.  She is seeing if she can get people to want to work with her rather than fear her, so that is a good thing.  I have no doubt that she can get people to fear her if she needs to, but what she is doing now is a good path.

Poor Cami is in serious trouble.  She got caught at the scene of a body after Lucien stranded her there.  Did he kill the guy or did he just smell him and leave her there in order to get her out of his hair?  Detective Kinney has no clue what he is getting involved in and I have the feeling that he is going to find himself so out of his depth unless he is covertly a witch or something.

I was surprised to discover that the story of the Axeman Vincent told Cami is a true story from New Orleans’ history.  I love the way that they work something like that into the story.  Very cool.

I know I keep saying that Lucien and Tristan are fighting each other, but there is one thing that happened tonight to make me question that.  Why is Tristan sneaking off to a building owned byt Lucien?  That really doesn’t make much sense unless they are either working together or Tristan is trying to spy on Lucien.  But I don’t see Tristan spying himself.  He seems like the sort who would have a lackey do something like that.

Until next week!

My Review of The Vampire Diaries 7.05- Live Through This

Damon decides to be a better person in Elena’s and has the decision tested almost immediately, we find out about the Phoenix Stone, Bonnie has a new suitor in the future, and Julian’s imminent arrival causes some wacky hijinks to ensue…

Poor Damon.  He decides to be a better person for Elena and then discovers the Elena is gone because of Lily.  Turns out that she’s the one who suggested that Kai put the spell on her which is keeping her in the coffin as revenge on Damon for refusing to help her get her family back.  Damon is incensed and decides that he is going to let Lily have Julian back just so he can kill him in front of her.  So much for the new Damon.  He was behaving himself and then gets his fresh wounds ripped open again by his mom.  Sigh….

Speaking of wounds being ripped open, Stefan found out that he could have been a father if Julian hadn’t beat Valerie and caused her miscarriage.  He is almost as pissed as Damon, but (being Stefan) he decides that revenge is a dish best served cold.  Between the two Salvatore brothers, I would hate to be Lily or Julian.  I do not see either of them resting until they get their revenge and it is not going to be pretty, particularly if Valerie joins them.  She hate Julian more than either of them do and is convinced that getting rid of Julian will bring Lily back to the person she loves.

I do have to wonder if the other Heretics will do anything if the brothers and Valerie make a move against Julian.  Given the way they helped Lily tonight, I think that they love her more than anything else and will want her to be happy unless Julian does something seriously despicable that turns them against him.

I am seriously confused about Bonnie and Enzo.  What on earth happens to get the two of them together?  While Enzo doesn’t seem to despise Bonnie, she definitely hates him.  He seems to just view her as an annoying thing to be brushed out of the way.  So yeah, I am really curious as to how this whole thing occurs.  And why is Bonnie in a mental institution?  What is this one mistake she is talking about?  Is it something to do with the Phoenix Stone or does something else happen?

Speaking of the Phoenix Stone, it turns out that the Stone is a prison of sorts for the souls of vampires.  So when Julian and Jo were brought back, it really wasn’t the two of them.  Rather, each body was actually possessed by the soul of a vampire from the stone.  This doesn’t seem to matter to Alaric who seems intent on loving whoever is in Jo’s body.  That almost has me suspecting that he is more looking for a companion in the midst of everything and will settle for anyone, especially if that someone is in Jo’s body.

I think Caroline did the right thing when she told Stefan to go be with Valerie.  She knows about the baby, but doesn’t know that Stefan knows.  This whole situation could get very messy if she and Stefan don’t come clean with each other.  I am glad to see that she realized Stefan needed to get some closure with Valerie.  I’m not sure if she realizes what could easily happen now that Stefan’s ire has been raised and his protective instincts have come into play.

Until next week!