My Review of The Vampire Diaries 7.14- Moonlight on the Bayou & The Originals 3.14- A Streetcar Named Desire

Because tonight’s episodes were a 2-parter and shared some major plot points, I am going to review both episodes at the same time, so this is going to be a little longer than my normal reviews.  The good news, you only need to click in one place.  J

The episode sees Stefan running from Reyna, Damon dealing with the impact he’s had on Stefan’s life, Caroline and Alaric moving with the babies, Enzo (re)united with his family, the sire lines being messed with, and a major character returning courtesy of Davina Claire.

Let’s start with Stefan since he spans both episodes.  He is in a major pickle at the moment.  He was marked by Reyna and goes to New Orleans to hide from her.  Klaus is pissed because Reyna will kill any vampire she comes into contact with and that is not good for his city.  I don’t think Stefan knew where Reyna came from, so I don’t think he knew she was from New Orleans.  I do have to applaud the plan he used to lure her to the Strix’s hideout in order to use her as a decoy so Hayley could rescue Elijah and Klaus.  That was smart.  If any one person can stand up to the Strix, it would be Reyna.  Klaus and Elijah may be able to hold them off for a while, but there are so many Strix, I fear they would be overcome eventually.  Reyna, on the other hand, can decimate vampires with the arsenal at her disposal.  So use Stefan’s bad luck of being marked by Reyna to save Klaus.  Nicely done.

It was funny watching him meet Freya for the first time.  She seemed to think that the “friend” portion of the prophecy was more or less defunct and then Stefan, an “old friend” shows up and she was so not happy about it.  To her credit, she managed to figure out a way to hide him from Reyna.  Am I surprised she couldn’t remove the mark?  Nope, that seems to be something that is beyond almost anyone’s abilities.  But hiding it was obviously a whole other story.  I can only assume that he scraped off the mud (or whatever it was) in order to let her track him to the Strix’s hideout.

Klaus is now truly alone.  Davina managed to use the spell to break the sire bond between him and his line.  The good news is that all of our friends on The Vampire Diaries are now safe should something happen to Klaus.  The bad news is that Klaus could now easily have anyone who has pissed off over the last 1,000 years after him without fear of a large portion of the vampires dying off if he is killed.  I wonder if the spell will prevent him from creating a new sire line if he turns anyone from here on out.  Given that the spell Davina performed was meant to undo Esther’s magic, I would suspect so, but they never said.  That seriously sucks for him.  And I got the sense that he was genuinely scared of Reyna.  Could her sword have hurt him?  Obviously it couldn’t kill him, but I would expect that a spell meant to trap his spirit would still work on him.

I found the differences in the ways he treats Caroline and Aurora interesting.  Both of them have tried to kill him at some point, but his feeling for Caroline obviously run much deeper than do his feeling for Aurora.  I’m not sure if that is just because Aurora is an out and out loon or if it has to do with something about Caroline.  When she’s been a part of the plans against Klaus, she’s generally just a decoy and not the aggressor.  And then there is the fact that Caroline obviously has feelings of some sort for him, which has always fascinated me.  He has always done horrible things to her friends, yet she keeps coming back to him when he is around.  And she makes him a better person because he was willing to risk pissing off Reyna in order to save Stefan because Caroline asked him to.

Damon is not in a good place right now.  He is racked with guilt about what happened to Bonnie this week and Stefan last week, so he has decided to take himself off the board.  If we hadn’t seen him in the coffin in the future, I would expect him to kill himself.  Instead, given the previews for next week, it appears that he will just seal himself away in order to protect the people he cares about.

I am trying to figure out how The Vampire Diaries is going to handle things at this point.  Caroline and Alaric are with his kids in Texas, Damon is ready to go into hibernation, Stefan is on the run from Reyna, Bonnie is in the hospital, Enzo is with the Armory, and Matt is in Mystic Falls.  I can only assume that the show is going to jump forward to the future and stay there relatively soon.  If so, does that mean that The Originals will do the same in order to keep both in the same time?

Is the woman (missed her name) from the Armory really Enzo’s descendant and did his father really establish the Armory?  If so, why did they abandon Enzo so long ago?  There are a lot of pieces missing from that particular puzzle and they need to be answered ASAP.  I did feel sorry for Enzo when Bonnie chopped off his hand.  That had to seriously suck.

Having Hayley kill Aya was just perfect.  Aya killed Jackson and was the prime mover behind the whole sire line delinking spell, so she needed to be killed and it was rather obvious that Elijah would never do it.  No matter how much he hated what Aya had become, I don’t think he could have killed her.  My main concern is that this is probably going to throw a major monkey wrench in their relationship.  While I expect him to forgive Hayley, it may take a while.

I loved watching Elijah verbally flay Aurora and expose her for just how crazy she is.  That man knows how to insult people and make it sting, so that was very nice.  Now that Elijah has the gun with the bullets, I expect them to be destroyed, which means that Aurora will no longer be a danger to the Mikaelsons directly.  The only thing she’ll be able to do is hurt those they love.  And since she’s on her own now, I am not sure how effective she’ll be at that.

Kol’s back!  I was so happy about that.  Aside from Elijah, he’s always been my favorite Original, so that will be very cool to see.  I just wonder how Klaus will feel knowing that the magic ripped from him was used to resurrect his brother.

Until next week!

My Review of DC's Legends of Tomorrow 1.06- Star City 2046

Sara and Ray try to adapt to a new reality, Rory and Snart have a fight, romance starts to introduce itself, and we meet some new characters (as well as an old one)...

I have to say that I was very surprised when Connor Hawke revealed that he was John Diggle, Jr.  I was really not expecting that one.  It makes sense, given the fact that his father worked with the Green Arrow, but it was still a surprise.  I was even more surprised to see that the Deathstroke we saw was Slade's son.  That is what we call a serious familial grudge match.  I just want to know when Slade found the time to have a son.  Was it before or after Lian Yu?  Given everything, I am not surprised he went right after Oliver and destroyed the city.  As Slade figured out, the best way to hurt Oliver is to go after that which he cares about the most.

So we know that by 2046, Diggle and Lance are both dead and everyone else is gone.  Oliver never actually said everyone else was dead, so it is possible that they are still alive.  I can only assume that after Oliver went into hiding, the rest of the team (if they were still alive) left Star City for whatever reason.   I do find that confusing given that they protected the city last year after Oliver left, but maybe something changed this time.

Snart and Rory are really going to need to have their issues out.  Rory is not much more than a thug or goon.  He's street smart, physically strong, and he enjoys wreaking havoc.  Snart, on the other hand, is tremendously intelligent and uses that intelligence to get what he wants.  But, as I've noted before, he is also a man with a certain sense of honor.  He doesn't like harming innocents and prefers to commit crimes that don't cause mass destruction. I also suspect that he has some yearning to be seen as a hero or get recognition of some sort.  He is also bonding with certain members of the team, mainly Sara, and doesn't want to abandon them.  I think he sees himself, Sara, and Rory as some sort of weird quasi-familial unit.  He and Rory really just need to figure out how they can mesh their goals if they want to remain a team.

Sara had a really rough week.  Her hometown was in shambles, her father is dead, and her sister is gone.  The man she was (is?) in love with has been beaten and almost broken and the son of one of the men she hates most in the world is responsible for all (or most) of this pain.  To top it all off, Rip was rather hypocritically asking her not to care about what was going on and focus on the future.  While I admire his ability to see the bigger picture, he really needs to start figuring out that this team he has put together is not going to fall in with his plans.  He started off on the wrong foot and has yet to show them why they should trust him.  To his credit, he did ask the team to help Connor, Oliver, and Sara out when they were taking on Deathstroke and his forces.  Once again, this team shows that they are infinitely better together than they are when they are apart.

I found the whole romance storyline to be an interesting aside.  Jax is seriously attracted to Kendra, but hesitant to approach her because of her link with Carter.  And Ray wasn't even thinking of her as a potential love interest until Stein started asking him questions.  I felt for poor Stein and Jax at that point.  Stein was trying to be helpful and make sure that Jax had a clear field, but he accidentally managed to get Ray out there.  That actually ended up being good for Jax because when Ray asked her out, Kendra told him that she wasn't ready for anything like that.  That meant Jax wouldn't have to ask and wouldn't feel put down as a result.  And that little psychic link between Jax and Stein was all sorts of fun to see in action.  It was seriously affecting Stein and gave Jax the hint he needed that Stein had accidentally done something wrong.

Until next week!

My Review of Teen Wolf 5.18- Maid of Gevaudan

The identity of the Beast is revealed, Scott takes a step towards revealing the truth, and the beginning of the Argents is revealed.

Out of all the possible choices, Mason is the one person I did not want to be the Beast.  It makes sense that he's the Beast because they need to have some serious emotional stakes involved in its identity and he is the only person we haven't seen in at the same time we've seen the Beast.  It still seriously sucks though because if the Dread Doctors succeed in restoring the Beast's memories, Mason will be gone.  And the personal consequences for Scott and the pack (particularly Liam) are horrific.  And while I want to yell at Corey for disappearing with Mason, I also want to cheer him on because I want everyone to figure out a way to either split the Beast from Mason or make sure the memories are never recovered.  Sadly, I suspect that the memories will be recovered and something serious will happen to Mason.  I hope not, but I am not at all hopeful on that score.

If people didn't know what Scott was up to before, they have got to know now.  He fought the Beast in front of at least a dozen students in the library.  It seems like he was looking for a way out until he saw that there were a lot of innocents in the library.  At that point, he had to fight the Beast in order to make sure that they could survive if possible.  Thank goodness Liam, Braeden, and Malia showed up in time to keep him from being completely decimated.  That thing is really strong and Scott had no chance of taking it on his own.  But he is the Guardian of Beacon Hills now that the Hales are gone, and that is a role he takes very seriously.  He will do whatever he has to do in order to make sure that as many people are saved as possible, even if it means that he is killed in the process.

I loved Hayden's solution to making Liam's pain go away.  While she only needed to touch him in order to siphon off the pain, kissing him also distracted him.  I get where Stiles is coming from because the gang has often caused damage of some sort in order to jumpstart the healing process, but I suspect that the Beast's claws are slow to heal much like the injuries from an Alpha.  It was the original Demon Wolf and it is really, really powerful.

Parrish leaving is a bad thing.  While the Argents were right that the supernatural controls him, the thing is that he is not really there.  Can the original Parrish actually be in there somewhere?  I suspect so, but I am still a little unclear on everything.  Given what was said last week, I think that Parrish is more like a disguise worn by the Hellhound so that it can pass as human during the day.  If that is the case, then the personality we know is not real.  But I could be wrong.  Maybe the trick is to somehow integrate the personality of Parrish with the essence of the Hellhound.

I'm still not exactly clear on why the Argents think that Lydia can defeat the Beast.  As a banshee, she can sense death, so she can tell when the Beast is loose, but can she somehow do something to cause the Beast to disappear within Mason now?  Or maybe she is the key because of the link between the banshee and the Hellhound.  Maybe she can get it to come out and attack the Beast.  So many questions there.  And we only have two episodes left in the season, so these questions need to be answered.  Fast.

It was nice to see Crystal again.  We've known from the first season that the Beast of Gevaudan was defeated by an ancestor of the Argents and I could have sworn that it was revealed to be the Maid of Gevaudan who defeated it when Allison was researching the Beast int he first season at Kate's behest.  What was a major surprise was that the Beast was also one of the Argents ancestors.  I wonder if that might be why Gerard knew how to fend off the Doctors in the sewers a few weeks ago.  If he knew that they were trying to resurrect the Beast, maybe he was also looking at how to protect himself from them.

Until next week!

My Review of The Fosters 3.15- Minor Offenses

Callie continues to work with Justina which raises concerns among Stef, Lena, and Rita; Nick asks Jesus for tips about dating Mariana; Jesus confronts Gabe; and Stef and Lena deal with the aftermath of the surgery.

I so want to slap some sense into Callie.  I get that she really wants to help foster kids, but doing an ad for a bill without knowing what is going on, calling Rita a scared hypocrite, and completely blowing off Stef and Lena are just bad things.  I honestly thought that after last week, she would have realized that something is up with Justina, but she refuses to see it.  All she's doing is looking at what Justina wants her to see.  I am also finding it very annoying that Callie is just quoting Justina to Rita and accusing Rita of wanting to merely perpetuate the system.  She, of all people, should know that Rita is a wonderful person who only has the best interest of her girls at heart.  As for Justina's comparison of a charter school to privatized foster care, there are some major flaws.  Callie knows that there are issues with the private homes, just witness what happened to with Jack.  Also, comparing a school; which parents choose for their own child; to a business where incentives are given based on the number of children based (not how well they are cared for) is comparing apples and oranges.  At a private school, the teachers and administrators are answerable to the parents directly.  In a privatized foster system, that sort of safeguard doesn't exist.  Is the current foster system working as intended?  No, it's not.  But, generally speaking, privatizing things has not worked out terribly well in most situations. particularly for social services, where the companies are incentivized to cut costs and not to serve people.  I just really hope that Callie wakes up and sees what is going on soon.

I also wanted to smack Monte hard.  While having suggestions for the student council president was not a wholly bad thing, going with her to help her with her project was way over the line.  And I know Monte said the thing about letting Jesus in, but unless my memory is very bad, Lena didn't ask for Monte's help in that case, Monte just did it.  Should Lena have accepted it?  That is a whole other question.  But Monte's habit of casually crossing lines to do what she wants speaks of very poor judgment.  While I appreciate her taking an appreciation in the student's future, Lena was absolutely right.  Giving that level of help (not just suggestion, but help) to one student and not to others is a horrible idea and smacks of favoritism.

Might as well go for three and smack Jesus too.  Telling Nick that Mariana loved burgers and arranging a double date with him and Lexi?  Not cool dude.  And as for the stunt about egging Nick on regarding the drag racing?  Even less cool.  I can't say I blame him for going off on Gabe initially.  After all, discovering that your biological dad in on the sex offenders list would probably be enough to drive anyone up the wall.  And I called it last week.  Gabe in on the sex offender list because he was an adult and had sex with his minor girlfriend.  This is the sort of thing that really shouldn't get someone on the sex offender list.  It was consensual, although she was underage.  Seeing as the original purpose of the sex offender list was to make sure people knew if someone dangerous was around their house, having someone who made an innocent mistake like that on the list is just ridiculous.

It was really nice to see Stef and Lena talk about things tonight.  I totally get where Lena is coming from.  Having your wife lose both of her breasts has got to be hard on you as well and she wants to make sure that Stef isn't hurt.  Add to that the fact that she feels guilty about being whole while Stef isn't doesn't make the whole thing any easier.  At least they talked about it before it got too bad.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Stef testify for Ty at his sentencing hearing.  While it was not the best possible outcome, it was much better than what it could have been.  I'm not sure if he did the things he did in the past to help AJ, but if he didn't that makes him different from Callie, who only did things to protect her brother from an abusive situation.

Brandon better be careful.  His co-workers ex seems to be a not good guy based on the way he was talking to her.  Watching Brandon with her son was just really cute and funny.

Until next week!

My Review of The Originals 3.13- Heart Shaped Box

Aurora continues her games with Klaus and Elijah, the Strix continue to search for a way to break the sire bonds to the Originals, Hayley takes Cami in hand, and Davina reunites (briefly) with Kol.

The more I see Aya, the less I like her.  Even though Marcel is “the leader” of the Strix, she continues to control everything and only seems to let him lead when she wants to let him lead.  And to top it off, she is trying to team with Aurora to get rid of the Originals.  I know she’s pissed at Elijah for abandoning the Strix when Mikael came calling and for what happened to Tristan, but there seems to be something else going on.  Add to that the fact that, according to Kol, she doesn’t keep her promises and you have someone who is totally unscrupulous and is just a bad person overall.

Thank goodness Aurora is such a bad shot.  She had chances to kill both Elijah and Klaus and didn’t kill either one.  In Elijah’s case, however, he mainly survived the second shot because Klaus broke his neck which stopped his heart so that Klaus could dig around in his chest and pull the bullet out.  But teaming up Miss Crazy Pants with Miss No Scruples and the Originals now have some serious competition.

To make matters worse, the Strix now have most of what they need in order to delink all vampires from the Originals.  In an interesting twist, the key to delinking a bloodline is to use the heart of an unsired vampire, which would undo that portion of the spell that Esther cast.  Since there is only one unsired vampire in the world, that made Hayley a big target.  Fortunately for Hayley, Kol was able to work through Davina and knock out the Strix witches, thereby saving Hayley temporarily.  He life was saved permanently when Marcel realized that since her heart and Jackson’s were linked, they could use Jackson’s heart in place of hers.  That does make a certain amount of sense, but now we have the trouble because the Strix can delink everyone and they have access to Aurora who has the one weapon that can kill the Originals.  Can we say “Trouble!”?

Watching Kol and Davina together was really sweet.  Was Kol right when he said that Aya never kept her promises?  From what we’ve seen of her, I would suspect that he is, or if she does it is in some twisted way.  Remember Klaus “reuniting” Elijah with his family during Season 2 of The Vampire Diaries?  Something like that.  Speaking of twisted Klaus, I had to laugh when he dropped the Chief of Police from the balcony after Elijah told him to release him and Elijah just looked at him with exasperation and said, “That’s not what I meant.”  Twisted?  Yes, but still really funny in a totally dark way.

I was so glad to see that Cami is feeling guilty about the issues she caused by stealing the toy from Klaus.  It was fun watching her and Hayley train.  Hayley needed to let off some steam and Cami needed it as well.  And what exactly was the box Cami used on the witches?  It looked sort of familiar, but we’ve seen so many dark objects that I can’t remember them all.

Until Friday!

My Review of The Vampire Diaries 7.13- This Woman's Work

I want to apologize for not getting this out Friday night, but I was having some cable issues, so I was only able to watch this and The Originals tonight.

So, without further ado......

Stefan and Valerie try to help Caroline and the babies, we learn about Reyna’s backstory, and Stefan makes a sacrifice for Damon…

Reyna, the huntress, is the daughter of one of the Brotherhood of Five.  Remember them from season 4?  In 1842, she begged her father to train her so she could kill vampires.  Interestingly, we now know that the Hunter’s Mark is not automatically passed down through a bloodline, at least not to females of a bloodline.  I don’t think we’ve seen a member of the Five who had a child, so that has been a bit of an open question.  We know she wasn’t even a potential Hunter because she couldn’t see her father’s tattoos.

Anyway, she became the mighty huntress she is now after she got seven or eight shamans to give her longer life and power, after Julian forced her to kill her own father, by sacrificing themselves.  At the same time, they created her sword and the Phoenix Stone to help her hunt and kill vampires.  I wonder if Bonnie’s magic wouldn’t affect her.  It could simply be protections of some sort, or it could be that shamanistic magic is different enough from witch magic that she simply couldn’t do anything.  After all, we do know that there are different types of magic: nature, ancestral, Expression, gypsy, and now shamanistic.  It is entirely possible that one type of magic can somehow be immune to other types.  Interesting idea there.

Stefan is having a really, really, no good, very bad day.  First off, his girlfriend’s babies (from another man!) are desiccating her by absorbing her magic and refusing to be born.  So, he got Valerie and the other Heretics to use magic in an effort to persuade the babies to come out of Caroline.  On top of that, he is dealing with the grief from his brother killing Elena and then he gets stabbed in the shoulder by Reyna, thereby marking him and ensuring that he would be hunted by her until she kills him.  Yeah, his day sucks.

Damon’s day isn’t much better.  He is so wracked with guilt about what happened to Elena that he is willing to allow Reyna to kill him because he is already in hell.   Then his brother shows up and gets stabbed for him.  Yeah, that just sucks all around.  On the good news front, Enzo says that he and Tyler switched out Elena’s coffin for an empty coffin and that Elena is safe.  My only question about this is why on earth did Tyler go to Enzo of all people?  That really does not make a whole lot of sense to me.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to have confirmation that Elena’s alive (not that I really thought she was dead!), but that is just a weird person to go to.  So now Elena’s in New York with some of Enzo’s friends.  I am assuming that is where we saw Damon in the flash forward when he was coming out of the coffin.  I honestly don’t remember.

At this point, I am trying to figure out where this season is going.  We’ve gotten rid of Lily and Julian and the Heretics and Stefan are on the run from Reyna, so reclaiming Mystic Falls should be relatively simple.  They just need to figure out a way to get rid of the vampires who are currently living there.  I am also wondering if this season will end with a time jump ahead to the end of the three years.  I would assume so, but am curious.

Until Friday!

My Review of DC's Legends of Tomorrow 1.05- Fail Safe

Rip and Sara are faced with a moral quandary, Stein tries to withhold the secret to Firestorm from the Soviets, and Rory makes his allegiances clear.

I was surprised how upset Snart was at Rip this week. Last week he seemed to almost admire the way Rip took the long view and was willing to temporarily sacrifice people in order to take Savage down.  This week, he was most definitely not happy with Rip at all.  It's not like a lot of time has passed, so he didn't exactly have a long time to reconsider his position, so I am not sure what changed.  I know he wasn't happy about leaving Rory behind, but he seemed to get where Savage was coming from.  And this week we also saw him butt heads with Sara for the first time ever.  I do get his disagreement about how to handle Stein if he broke, but in the long run, Sara and Rip were right.  It would be far better to sacrifice one person to save so many more.  Was it a good plan?  No, but I think that had the situation seriously deteriorated beyond their ability to stop it, it was the best of a bunch of really bad choices.  Fortunately, the choice never seriously came up until the end and by then Rip had the pieces in place to make sure that Sara wouldn't need to take the shot.

Despite what anyone may think about him, I think Rip really does care about the whole crew.  But, like I said last week, he knows that some might have to be sacrificed if there is no other alternative.  We know that he would never do anything that would purposefully sacrifice one of his people except as an absolute last resort.  Like I said, he had other options this week once Kendra and Jax went into the gulag, so he didn't need to sacrifice Stein.

As for Jax and Kendra, I do get why he benched them initially.  As he said, they are the two people Savage wants the most in the world.  He could give Jax to the Soviets and create more Firestorms and Kendra is who he needs to become stronger.  Keeping them safe on the ship was the best option at the time.  Did that change?  Sure, and he acknowledged that when he needed to.  He's a smart guy and he knows when to bow to the inevitable and do what is the best for the world.

Would Sara have killed Stein if Snart and Rip hadn't told her to stop?  Probably.  She is an assassin and will do unpleasant tasks in order to protect that which she loves the most.  I'm not saying that she would have liked it or anything, but I have little doubt that she would have done it.  I'm just glad it didn't get put to the test.  And how much fun was it to watch her take apart those Russians?

I think Ray earned some respect from Rory this week for using his mouth to make sure that Rory wasn't beaten by the torturer.  Not a lot, but some.  Up to now, unless he was in the ATOM suit, Ray hasn't shown himself to be terribly useful where Rory and Snart are concerned.  I don't think Snart is fond of him, but Rory seems to realize that there is more to Ray than a pretty face.  It's a step in the right direction.

You gotta hand it to Stein.  He managed to withstand hallucinogenic drugs and whatever else was dished out to him.  He only broke when he saw Ray and Rory being hurt.  Even then, he managed to not give up everything.  It took Dr. Vostok seeing the scarred writing on Stein's arm before she realized that he was the piece that she needed.  And how stupid was she to not listen to him when he said that she needed the splicer.  Well, maybe not stupid, because it could have been something he was making up in order to delay her, but it was not a good idea as was demonstrated when she exploded after he forced a split.  I was impressed that Jax remembered the writing thing.  Nicely done, nicely done.

Until next week!

My Review of Teen Wolf 5.17- A Credible Threat

Scott and Stiles come up with a plan to stop the Beast from killing at a charity lacrosse game, Kira has trouble containing the fox, we find out some surprising information about Parrish and the Hellhound, and Malia comes face to face with the Desert Wolf.

The surprising news about Parrish?  He's not actually Parrish.  If I am putting the pieces together correctly, Parrish was killed in Afghanistan while defusing that bomb at the same time Scott, Stiles, and Allison were sacrificing themselves to save their parents.  When he died, the Hellhound moved in and set up shop so that it could come to Beacon Hills to help contain the supernatural forces unleashed by the reactivation of the Nemeton.  So the Hellhound is actually a entity completely separate from the person we know as Jordan Parrish.  So during the day, Jordan Parrish moves around and then at night the Hellhound takes over his body and does what is has to do.  It would seem that the Hellhound is much like the Beast, a supernatural being distinct from the person who is housing it.  In a way, that is much the same thing as Kira, a fox spirit exists within her and she can use it.  That would mean that there are supernatural beings who exist as spirits separate from humans, but can join with them under certain circumstances.  That is unlike supernatural beings like werewolves or banshees who are humans with abilities that are beyond the human norm.  The only thing that gets me is that Kira's mom has described both of them as kitsunes, which would imply that the kitsune within is both a part of them and apart from them.  Or maybe I'm just overanalyzing this.

At any rate, I want to postulate that the Beast is much like the Hellhound.  In the case of the Beast it is a malevolent spirit that wants to kill.  I don't think it revels in chaos the same way the nogitsune did, but it does delight in death and carnage.  Either way, that is not a good thing.  The other thing I found interesting is that, like last week, the Hellhound addressed Lydia as "The Banshee" rather than by her name, which implies a certain separateness there as well.  Anyway, given that the Hellhound said that it has had different names, I think that it has probably worked through different humans down through the ages and battled the Beast, which would explain the image on the wall.  The Hellhound is trying to protect the supernatural world from being exposed, so it tries to contain the carnage from the Beast and also to take the Beast out.

Kira desperately needs to get the fox under better control.  There were large portions of the episode tonight where it was clearly in charge.  Only when Scott called out to Kira was she able to come to the surface and regain control.  I'm afraid that if she doesn't get the fox under control, she will be as big a danger to the pack as she will be to anyone else.  The fox was certainly indiscriminate about who it was attacking.

I found it interesting that Scott managed to wrangle Brett's pack into helping him with the Beast.  Given the fact that they were playing Brett's school, it was a very useful idea because Scott's pack is rather small and Brett's pack owes him big time.  They used the girl (Brett's sister?) to try and find if anyone in the crowd had bloody shoes while Corey and Mason searched Devenport's bus.  When Stiles was trying to look at the one girl's shoes, it was totally hilarious the way she kicked him and he hit his head.  That is the old Stiles we all know and love.

Theo needs to be careful because it seems that both Corey and Hayden are more or less throwing their lot in with Scott and his pack, which should make Scott even stronger.  I say should because of the fact that both Hayden and Corey are chimeras and chimeras don't always follow the normal werewolf rules.  However, Scott's pack is a very atypical pack and we do know that he is drawing strength even from non-wolves, so my guess is that he will still become stronger if they stay with him.

Malia facing off against the Desert Wolf was interesting.  Malia hates her with a passion and makes no bones about the fact that she will kill the Desert Wolf if she gets a chance.  I'm still trying to figure out how the Desert Wolf fits into all of the events right now.  Is she with the Dread Doctors or did she just take advantage of the timing to come back and steal Malia's power?

I do want to know what Liam was thinking (if anything!) about jumping to attack the Beast.  That would seem to be a seriously suicidal move and a totally heroic one.  Really hoping he survives the experience....

Next week, we have the backstory of the Beast and the Maid of Gévaudan.  Until then!

My Review of The Fosters 3.14- Under Water

Callie tries to help AJ, Callie and Jude try to help Jack, rumours start about Monte and Lena, the kids get a major bomb dropped on them, Jesus talks with his alleged dad, and Brandon finds out something unexpected...

Callie was super rough on Stef this week.  Can't say that I blame her, given everything.  Stef really does need to figure out how she can separate her job from her life at home.  I know that mixing the two is unavoidable in most cases, but in this case I think her view about what she should do was colored by the fact that two of her kids and their biological mom were involved.  Honestly, I don't know if there was a good way to handle the whole situation.  Ty was involved in a hit and run and AJ was with him.  No matter how it was handled, there was going to be an issue with someone.

I am not sure what to think about Jack.  He is obviously afraid of being pulled out of another home, but the one he is in is not a good one.  I can't say I blame him for looking out for himself, I remember that Callie was very much like that when we first met her.  She didn't trust anyone and did everything she could to make sure things were good for Jude and herself.  Now that she is in a good place, she has the luxury of taking a broader view of everything, but she has to remember that not all kids are as lucky as she was.  I was a little surprised that she forgave Jack so easily, but when he explained what happened, it made sense.  She was the one who thought he was AJ and he went along with it for whatever reason.  Not that he is blameless, but it wasn't like he set out with the intention of tricking her, and that does make a difference.

I hope Mariana keeps her eyes open around Nick because I so don't trust him.  He's really cute, but he also seems to be the type who will use his good looks and charm to get out of any situation.  She does have a good head on her shoulders, but even the smartest person can act stupid around someone they are attracted to.  As long as she remains safe and keeps using that incredible brain of hers, she'll be ok.

Brandon's crush having a kid was a bit out of left field.  That is a complication that is a lot for a 17 year old (or is he 18 now?) to handle.  The two of them are really good together and I think she can be good for Brandon.  She doesn't take any guff from him and teases him in a really nice way.  He does need to get over Callie, and she can help there.  My concern is that he sometimes seems to be the type who falls in love with the idea of love, which is never good for a relationship.  If he wants this to last, he needs to make sure that he really is over Callie first.

That foster advocate still gives me the screaming willies and it seems like Callie is starting to sense something too.  While having the moderators on is not a bad thing per se, not telling Callie about it in the first place was sketchy.  I get wanting to make sure people aren't bullied or anything, but "Fost and Found" was intended to give a voice to kids who have never had one.  Censoring their speech, unless there's a really good reason like bullying, is not a good thing.  Callie definitely seemed to sense a time or two that something was up and I hope she trusts her gut, because it is a good one.  I am afraid that she'll be too blinded by the need for a sponsor who will help fund the app and website to see if a problem starts developing.

That operation for Stef is widely different than any my mom had when she had breast cancer, although my mom's case was a mastectomy to remove full on cancer, not the prophylactic procedure Stef is having.  It's also been almost 20 years since my mom's operation and that changes a lot too.  It sounds like the doctor will be removing all of the tissue inside of the breast and then it will be replaced with saline implants.  That is going to take a while to do.  Fortunately, the kids seemed to handle the news rather well and immediately asked what they could do to help out.  That bodes well for the Adams-Fosters.

I was actually a little annoyed at Lena for having that conversation with Monte.  I get that she needed someone to talk to and she wants to be strong for Stef, but that is the sort of thing that started the trouble before.  She needs to nip all of this in the bud and find someone else to talk to, maybe a therapist or something.  Obviously, talking with Stef is best, but there may be times she needs to talk with someone uninvolved first and Monte is so not the right choice for that, particularly after that tweet about the two of them having an affair.  I hope Monte didn't start it, but I am afraid that she might have if she thought it might break up Stef and Lena.

Gabe was arrested for some sort of sexual crime dealing with a minor.  I don't want to leap to any conclusions, because it could be something as simple as he was an adult and had sex with his underage girlfriend or something relatively innocent like that.  I am just worried that Jesus or Mariana will leap to conclusions about what is going on.  And Jesus going back to see him at work is not a good thing.

Until next week!

My Review of The Originals 3.12- Dead Angels

Cami and Klaus continue their feud from last week, the Strix witches search for the weapon, and Elijah and Marcel come up with a way to distract Aya and the Strix.

I’m trying to figure out if Cami and Klaus are going to continue their relationship or not.  The two of them certainly fight like a couple and they know exactly how to hurt each other.  Poor Vincent was completely caught in the middle and had to play the part of the mediator, which was not an enviable position to be in.  Unfortunately for everyone, the agreement Cami and Klaus came to was ultimately for naught because Aurora got her hands on the white oak horse and then created bullets out of it.

I do wonder how effective the bullets will be.  Unless there is a heart shot, most of the wooden bullets we have seen tend to hurt rather than kill the vampire in question.  Now, I will grant that since it is a vampire who has the bullets, the chances of a heart shot go up tremendously, so there is that.  It is also possible that Aurora is looking to damage Klaus and Elijah rather than kill them so she can do some form of torture, which would be oddly fitting considering what they did to her brother.  If that is the case, the bullets would be perfect.

So, Elijah and Aya formed the Strix which was taken over by Tristan after Elijah fled from Mikael.  I get why Aya would be upset by that, but given how powerful Mikael was and how much damage he can do, she and the Strix should have run with Elijah.  They got killed because they chose to stay when an insanely powerful vampire hunting vampire came calling.  Sorry, not exactly feeling a lot of sympathy there.  Even at that point, Elijah would have had a whole lot more experience dealing with Mikael, so they should have listened to him.

I found the way the Strix choose their leader to be interesting.  Given their emphasis on intelligence and guile, having a contest not based purely on physical fighting was a good idea.  And as for Elijah and Marcel teaming up to trick Aya into supporting Marcel as the leader of the Strix?  Very smart.  By having Marcel steal the charter and then having Elijah appear to be on the verge of breaking the rules, they more or less forced Aya into acknowledging Marcel as the leader.  The only issue is that I don’t think Marcel will put up with Elijah controlling him, but I am not sure if Elijah will try that.  He will probably be satisfied with a role of advising behind the scenes, so that should work out.

What exactly is involved in the spell to break a sire line off from the sire?  That would have to be a powerful piece of magic because it would seem to fundamentally change the nature of the vampires.  It would enable any affected vampires to survive the killing of the Mikaelson who originated their sire line, but how widespread would the influence be?  Would it merely break the link between the sire line and the Mikaelson?  Or would it break all sire relationships?

Until next week!

My Review of The Vampire Diaries 7.12- Postcards From the Edge

We meet the Huntress, Stefan takes action against Julian, Damon spirals out of control, Matt picks up a sidekick, Bonnie is stuck between two feuding Heretics, and Caroline’s pregnancy gets real complicated….

Can I take a moment and rejoice that Julian is dead?  I’ve never liked the guy, so seeing him killed by Stefan as revenge for everything he’s done to the brothers is pure poetic justice.  My only concern is how the other vampires will react to his demise.  I am not sure if he was keeping them under control, but without him, we could have problems.  On the good side, without Julian around it might be easier to get rid of the rest of the vampires.  With Valerie firmly on Stefan’s side, the vampires could be in serious trouble.  Maybe they can finally restore some semblance of order to the town.

Unless, of course, the Huntress comes to town.  Now that she’s be reyouthed by Enzo, trouble is definitely going to hit everyone in Mystic Falls.  Which begs the question, why in the name of all that is good and holy would Enzo restore a vampire hunter to her youth?  The only real possibility that I can think of is that he knows and cares about her, but why would a vampire hunter as ruthless as she obviously is be fond of a vampire?  Inquiring minds want to know.

One thing you have to give Damon, he spirals like no one else.  And this spiral is so much worse than anything he’s done in the past because he “killed” the one person he truly cares about other than Stefan.  And yes, I used the quotes on purpose, because I honestly don’t think they would ever actually kill off Elena Gilbert.  I could be wrong, but I would put the chances of her actually being dead at the same of my winning a multibillion dollar lottery.  Basically zero.  Normally Stefan helps drag him out of these funks, but I don’t see Stefan helping him this time, nor do I see anyone else helping him, which means that he really is on his own, which seriously sucks for him.

The babies are siphons and are stealing Caroline’s magic.  That was an unexpected little twist.  It would be a great explanation about why she’d be out of the show for several episodes after giving birth.  Given the fact that we see her in the future, she obviously survives the experience, but it will be interesting to see how it happens.

Poor Bonnie is caught in the middle of a lovers’ quarrel between Nora and Mary Louise.  I was so glad that she finally called Nora on what she was doing.  Using Bonnie to get under Mary Louise’s skin was effective, but very annoying.  I don’t see Bonnie ever getting seriously involved with either of them given the fact that she has never even displayed the slightest hint of being into other women, so I don’t want to call this a love triangle.  It’s more of a mess between two old lovers who are currently on the outs.  I just hope that the two ladies sort out their issues soon.  I do enjoy seeing Bonnie pal around with Nora, so I hope that doesn’t end.

Matt finally has another ordinary human he can share everything with, which is good for him.  He has been surrounded by vampires, witches, werewolves, and hunters for so long that he really needs someone else who is ordinary like him to share this crazy life with.  Given the flash forwards, she doesn’t last, which sucks, but I hop he has fun while it lasts.

Until next week!

My Review of DC's Legends of Tomorrow 1.04- White Knights

The team travels to 1988 in order to find Vandal Savage, Rip shows a side to himself that Snart likes, Sara and Kendra train each other, and we find out that Ronnie's death is still affecting Stein.

Rip Hunter certainly knows how to take the long view, doesn't he?  Temporarily sacrificing half of the team in order to stop Savage from creating his own Firestorm was certainly a calculated gamble.  To make that sort of gamble, he has to be almost certain that the rest of the team can get Stein, Ray, and Rory back.  While I have no doubt that Sara and Snart will be more than able to hold up their own end, Kendra and Jax are seriously untested.  Can Jax fight?  Sure, but he's never gone up against trained soldiers like the ones the team is certain to encounter in the Soviet gulag.  And Kendra is too out of control to be relied on right now.  When she had Carter with her, she was able to control everything well enough, but without him, she seems to have a lot more trouble containing the warrior priestess within.

As for how the gang will react to Rip's gamble, it is obvious that Snart is perfectly willing to go along because it is the sort of thing he would do.  I suspect that Sara will go along once Rip explains his reasoning, but I am not sure about Jax.  I really don't think he gets the idea that it is sometimes ok to temporarily sacrifice a few pieces in order to get to a larger goal.  Note that I say temporarily.  I don't think that Rip is willing to lose any member permanently unless he was absolutely certain that that move would end Savage.  Until that point, he will look at the big picture and think strategically rather than obsess over the small speed bumps along the way.  That is similar to the way that Oliver thinks, only Rip has a much more complete picture of what the whole board looks like, given that he is from 150 years in the future.  I have very little doubt that Stein will appreciate Rip's plans and Rory will probably accept them (if grudgingly).  Ray is the unknown quantity here.  He is a business man, which means that he is used to thinking about the big picture, but I don't know if he can be as calculating as Rip is.

Having Sara train Kendra in an effort to get both of them to deal with their inner issues was a smart move on Rip's part.  Sara knows how to control the warrior within so she can help Kendra.  Kendra, on the other hand, is empathetic enough to be able to help Sara get in touch with her humanity so she can control the bloodlust.  Unleashing either of them without control is a bad, bad idea.  While they would both be incredibly hard to deal with, the problem is that when they lose control, they aren't able to focus on the enemy enough to be helpful in a fight.  And they both showed how dangerous they can be.  Kendra came damn close to completely taking apart that soldier and Sara came within inches of killing Kendra.  Control is most definitely needed for both of them.

And we find out why exactly Stein has been so hard on Jax.  He doesn't want Jax to die the way Ronnie did.  What he needs to learn to do is try and talk with Jax about what is going on.  Jax is a good guy, albeit very headstrong.  I think that Stein really needs to make sure Jax understands where he is coming from and then listen to Jax.  Stein is right that his knowledge and intelligence are needed to even out the Jax's inexperience and youthful rashness, but Jax is also right that it is his body that is at risk and he needs to be trusted.  Neither of them is nearly as good alone as they are when they work together.  Actually, that statement is true of the entire team.  While each of them is particularly skilled in their own area, when they work together, they are so much more than the sum of the individual parts.

Why am I not surprised that Snart is a skilled pickpocket?  I did love the way he was able to get the keycards so smoothly and of course he stole the wallets too.  Is it the heroic thing?  No, but Snart isn't exactly a hero.  He is a criminal and that is part of the reason he and Rory are along.  They can do things that the others can't or won't do, and that is a good thing.

I also find it interesting that the show appears to be breaking the season into mini-arcs set within a given time period rather than jumping to a new time period for each episode.  I think that is a really smart idea.  Create a series of 3-4 part episodes, each set fitting within the overall arc of stopping Savage.  It's very different from the way Arrow or The Flash operate and that is a good thing.

My only criticism of the show at this point is that the cast is so big that servicing all of the characters well is virtually impossible.  Right now the best characters are those who were on one of the parent shows for several episodes.  The weakest characters are Jax, Rip, and Kendra, each of whom were only on their parent show for a couple of episodes.  They definitely need to be fleshed out more to make them characters we can really care about.

Until next week!

My Review of Teen Wolf 3.16- Lie Ability

Things are finally coming together.  Questions are answered, the gang is back together, and Parrish shows off some interesting abilities.

I have to start with Parrish.  The Hellhound is more powerful than I could have imagined.  Not only is he immune to flame, but he is also immune to supernatural abilities.  Kanima venom, chimera electricity, and mountain ash couldn't even slow him down.  The only thing that could affect him was pure physical damage when Theo threw that rod and impaled him.  And that flame?  It is a dangerous weapon which he uses on Corey when he attacks him.  Not only can the Hellhound break through mountain ash, he can burn it away as he walks through it.  Oh, and to top it all off, he can contain and survive a scream from a superpowered Banshee that blew another person's head half off.  Considering the fact that the Beast seemed to take him down rather easily last week, I am seriously worried about stopping the Beast now.

To top it all off, he has a connection of some sort to Lydia.  I have to ask if this link is the romantic feelings we've seen them display for each other or if the feelings are the result of the pre-existing link.  Or maybe the two of them feed on each other to form a mutually reinforcing circle of some sort.  Either way, he does everything he can to make sure she is safe, which leads me to suspect that she will be key to defeating the Beast.  Her powers appear to be contained for the moment, so I don't expect her to use her scream the way she did on Dr. Valack, but she may be able to use her scream to remind the Beast of who it actually is and thereby foil the Dread Doctors' plans.

It was interesting watching Scott's pack work with Theo's pack this week.  Separate them from Theo and most of his pack isn't that bad.  The lone exception appeared to be Tracy.  Josh and Corey worked well together with Malia and Kira and Hayden worked with Mason to remove the lockdown on Eichen House.  Even Theo cooperated with Stiles, even if it was for his own gain.  He is after Lydia in order to get her to reveal the identity of the Beast so he can steal its power and kill it.  The only problem is that the only way Lydia can see the identity of the Beast is to have her powers magnified to such a degree that she would die in the process.  I am worried now that Theo has the Dread Doctor's mask. Valack wanted to use it to get Lydia to tell him who the Beast is and I suspect Theo wants it for the same reason.

Which leads me to a bit of a mea culpa.  Last week, I speculated that Valack had created or was controlling the Dread Doctors.  Turns out he definitely is not, he is just looking to use whatever he can to find out who the Beast is so he can stop them  I still have to wonder how he knows that the mask will allow people to figure out who the Beast is.  Is the fact that he tried to put it on the nurse last week mean that she was a banshee?  Or will putting the mask on anyone be enough to let him find out who the Beast is if the person is sufficiently strong?  If it is the latter, Theo may risk putting it on anyone in order to achieve his goals.  If it requires a banshee, Lydia will need to be protected from him.  Well, Lydia and Meredith, although I don't know how much help Meredith will be in the state she is in.

Liam is turning into quite the fighter.  He took those two attendees out without breaking a sweat and also managed to take out the big, hulking one too.  Granted, he collapsed afterwards, but he still managed to do it.  His fainting was quite amusing, if only because he asked right before it if the guy was out.  And when exactly did he and Hayden have sex?  Was it before everything happened last week or is that some sort of flashforward.  That was a bit of a weird moment.  Hot and intense, but weird and out of place.  Although I will never complain about seeing Dylan Sprayberry in just his underwear.  And that hash tag #puppystyle?  Too flipping cute!  :-)

I was surprised that Scott didn't think of using his claws to get answers from Meredith before she grabbed his hand.  I know he is gunshy about using it after the last time he forced his way into someone else's head, but since she is incapable of answering questions otherwise, I don't see where he had a lot of choice.  He has grown up tremendously since he was killed by Liam,  Using that particular ability needs a great deal of care, but it is appropriate in circumstances like the one he found himself in.  He just needs to be gentle about doing it, which he was.

I am worried about the blood coming from Stiles' ear.  That sort of thing normally indicates that there is something ruptured which is not good.  I really hope that he hasn't been permanently damaged because he can't heal the way everyone else around him can.  And are they reviving the possibility of Stydia as a couple?  If the two of them can have good, mature relationship, it would be cool.  Otherwise, their friendship is too cool to be discarded.

Malia continues to impress with her growth.  Just like last week, she refused to abandon Kira, even though Kira was urging her to leave.  Nicely done Malia, nicely done.

Other great moments:

[1] Mason attempting to psych himself up to run his car into the wall so he could access the transformers.
[2] Kira and Malia saying Mason knew exactly what he was doing, promptly followed by his panicked phone call saying that he had no clue what he was doing.
[3] Hayden leaping up to the roof.  That had to be 30-40 feet at least.  Quite the jump.
[4] Liam's absolute faith that Mason would get his part of the plan done.
[5] Mrs. Martin tasing Tracy and telling everyone to get her daughter out of there.  There is definitely another adult in the know now.

Until next week!

My Review of The Fosters 3.13- If and When

Stef makes a decision, Brandon and Mat find their Romeo & Juliet, Callie hears from AJ, Jude hangs out with Jack, and Jesus decides to look for his biological father.

My first question is why Jack is pretending to be AJ?  And how the heck does he know about Super Callie?  Maybe she put something on Fost and Found or maybe he knows AJ somehow.  And that boy does seem to be more than just a little socially inept.  He seems to be mainly interested in playing video games and not so much in being friends with Jude.  I hope he's not some super creepy stalker or something.  I guess we'll just have to figure it out later.

I feel sorry for Jude.  Connor is in LA and seems to be ignoring him.  And Jack acting oddly is not helping matters any.  I was surprised that Jude wasn't a little more understanding at first, after all he knows what it is like to be in the foster system.  Granted, he had Callie there for him most of the time, but he is generally an understanding and empathetic person.  I am hoping Callie is right in identifying his behavior as simply someone who's been separated from his boyfriend and is stressing about it.  Then again, a lot of teenagers undergo fairly radical personality changes as they grow up, so this may simply be that.  I just hope we get back our Judicorn soon.

I totally get why Stef didn't tell Callie about AJ, but I also get why Callie is upset.  If Stef had told Callie, she may have said something to AJ; like she did when Brandon told her; which could have caused AJ and Ty to leave.  I think Stef was also trying to avoid sticking Callie into any more of an awkward position than she absolutely had to.  For Callie, I am sure this whole thing brought up some of her trust issues.  I am also wondering how something like this could impact Fost and Found.  After all, it is meant to be a safe place for kids in the system to go and be safe.  If the police can use it to track them down or something, it might make them less likely to use it.  The other thing is that I am really not sure if Stef should have been making any decisions in a case like this.  Not only were her kids involved in the accident, but AJ is Mike's foster son.  The whole thing is fraught with emotional complications that could potentially come back in a court if Ty chooses to make an issue of it.  I am not 100% sure on .that score, but it is a possibility.

Stef has decided to go through with the prophylactic double mastectomy.  As I said last week, I do not agree with the decision, but it is her decision and we do have to respect it.  The problem is that I do get why someone would have this sort of procedure done, but I just have personal issues with doing something that radical without more knowledge.  I do want to note that I would say the exact thing if a guy had a similar issue, so this isn't a sex thing.  I was so not fond of her mother this week or last week.  The blatant emotional manipulation and the way over the top dramatics were just ridiculous.  I get that she is worried about what could happen to Stef, but she really should have been more straightforward and less manipulative.  I also have to say that I am proud of Lena for (apparently) going right along with Stef's wishes.   The two of them do have a good relationship and can generally work things out well.  The way they always emphasize that they respect the other *BEFORE* presenting why they disagree cannot be an easy way to argue, but it works, and that is good for them.

I am really curious about why Ana seemed to lie to Jesus about hie biological father.  I assume that there is something there that she doesn't want him to know, so I wonder what it is.  Maybe he is an addict like she is and she just doesn't want Jesus around him for that reason.  Of course, it is always possible that Jesus' cousin misunderstood what her parents were saying, so maybe he really was just a one night stand.

Poor Mariana.  She didn't get to be the class president.  At least she is Juliet in Mat and Brandon's production.  The only issue?  Mat is Romeo.  To his credit, although he doesn't want to work with her, he knows she's the best and agrees to work with her.  I am totally seeing a whole lot of drama there though.  I do wonder if that was actually Cierra's real voice or if someone else actually sang for her.  If it was her, than she has a really nice set of pipes and totally deserves the opportunity to show off.  That also would mean that three of the actors are also musicians: David, Maia, and Cierra.  I just hope Talia doesn't get too mad, but when she hears Mariana's voice, I hope she understands.

Until next week!

My Review of The Originals 3.11- Wild at Heart

Klaus tries to help Cami adjust to being a vampire, Aya has proposals for both Davina and Elijah, Hayley mourns for Jackson, and an old face returns…

My first question is how the hell did Marcel pass that test?  At first, I thought maybe he switched the cards, but given the fact that the vampire Aya killed was plotting against her, I find that unlikely.  I am wondering if the witches are sensing that he is truly loyal to Klaus and wants to take out the weapon that could kill his sire or if he has truly sided with the Strix.  I am really hoping it is the former because I don’t want to see him turn into one of the Strix.

Aya’s proposal for Davina was an interesting one.  Aya would make Davina a part of the Strix’s coven and, in exchange, would give her power and a spell to resurrect Kol, which is what Davina wants the most.  Davina is certainly in a low place because of the shunning, so between that and the offer to bring Kol back, Davina has got to be tempted.  She is also used to having power, so that has to be a factor too.  The thing I am wondering about is that Davina spent all of last season protesting that she didn’t want to get mixed up in vampire of Mikaelson business again, so I am wondering if she would put that aside.  I suspect she will, but it is a consideration.

As for her offer to Elijah, that was crucial.  I do wonder what the witch saw in Elijah’s head that was so bad that Elijah would kill her.  Was it worse than anything we’ve seen from him so far?  Or is it just something we know that his siblings don’t know, like the fact that he is the one who daggered Rebekah?  I just wish that his efforts to distract Klaus from Cami had worked better.

The problem is that Klaus is genuinely trying to help Cami, but she is refusing to take the help.  I know that Klaus is not the paragon of good vampire behavior, but he does know how to remain more or less invisible to the human world if he wants to and that is something Cami needs to learn.  Yes, she can compel humans to forget what she does to them, but if Klaus hadn’t stopped her, she would have killed that girl.  Cami’s problem is that she is completely out of whack from what happened to her.  Learning from Klaus is not a horrible idea.  I know Hayley rejected Klaus’ help, but Hayley also has always had much better control of herself than Cami has, probably because she was a werewolf first.

Stealing the one weapon that can kill the Originals did not do anything to endear Cami to Klaus and Elijah.  While it may be effective leverage, she is quickly alienating everyone around her.  I think the biggest problem is that she knows everyone well enough (and has psychological training) that she can get in their heads and twist everything around.  I’m sorry, but she was deliberately cruel to Hayley, who was only trying to help her out.  Was she right?  Sure, but it was still really cruel to say.  Hayley is dealing with enough crap without having Cami pile on her too.  I do wonder why Klaus never thought to compel Cami in order to have her do what he wants.  I am sure that he wants her to learn on her own, but compelling her at first might not be the worst thing to do, particularly given how completely out of control she is.

It was really cool to have Josh back.  I would love to have him on more and hope he finds a good guy to love.  He really deserves it.

Until next week!

My Review of The Vampire Diaries 7.11- Things We Lost In the Fire

We get a glimpse of future Matt, Damon and Stefan continue to suffer from their time in the Phoenix Stone, Mystic Falls has new residents, and Caroline throws a baby shower.

First, let’s tackle future Matt.  He’s teamed with the Huntress, aka the woman who has been hunting the Salvatores in the future.  Apparently, the sword the Phoenix Stone goes in was created for her and if you are marked by it, she will stop at nothing to hunt you down.  She has also been hunting the Heretics, presumably that being connected to Julian being in the Stone.  Future Matt is a very hard guy.  Given the crap he’s been through in the past several years, I can’t say I’m surprised.  He’s lost so many people to vampires and he has reason enough to hate them.  He puts up with the Salvatores because they are friends of his friends and Caroline is his friend, so she seems to get a pass.  I should say that the Salvatores WERE put up with.  Given that he is hunting them (and used Caroline as bait!) with the Huntress, something major happened to complete his turn to vampire hunter.  He said something about a girlfriend, who may be the deputy who arrested him.  We’ll have to see how this plays out.

Damon is so not in a good place right now.  Assuming that what we saw is real (which is a questionable assumption), he burned Elena’s body.  As if he weren’t already disturbed enough, having her gone is going to send him completely over the edge.  I do have to say that I would be completely shocked if Elena’s body is actually gone.  Tyler promised Damon to keep everyone (especially Damon) away from Elena, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Tyler had a fake Elena or two stashed around somewhere to keep people from the real Elena.  I also have to say that I am finding Tyler much more tolerable in small doses than as a main character.  So bring him back periodically and that is cool with me.

Stefan is having his own issues with coming out of the Stone.  He is feeling guilty because he had to let Damon go before he could leave the Stone.  I can remember a time when he would have gladly complied with that idea.  He just needs to realize that he can’t save Damon from himself.  While I do love Damon, he is incredibly self-destructive.  I think that the two brothers need some time away from each other in order to get their own lives straightened out separately.

Matt and Bonnie on vampire containment duty could be interesting.  They are the two who hate vampires the most, although Bonnie does exhibit more patience with them than Matt does.  Watching Bonnie be friends with Nora is interesting.  Watching them is sort of like watching Elena and Damon from the first couple of seasons.  The human (ok, non-vampire) is trying to help the vampire fit in and be a better being.  I hope they continue to keep this up.

How long was Damon trapped in the Stone?  Stefan said weeks, but that is a lot of vampires to move in over such a relatively short period of time.  When the Heretics moved in, the humans were evacuated and Mystic Falls was quarantined.  Was that lifted at some point or are the vampires just bringing humans in?

Until next week!

My Review of DC's Legends of Tomorrow 1.03- Blood Ties

Hunter and Sara go after Carter's body, Ray and Stein try and save Kendra, and Snart tries to change his past.

You have to feel sorry for Snart.  He tried so hard to change his past to make sure that his father wouldn't end up in jail and his dad ended up in jail anyway, so nothing changed.  For a bit I was wondering if Snart may simply have been reliving something that already happened, and would end up not giving the emerald to his dad.  Sadly, that wasn't the case and he was unable to save his father from himself and he, his mom, and his sister ended up with an abusive father anyway.  Changing a past event, as Barry showed on The Flash, is not a good idea because the timeline can come along and bite you on the ass.  The problem with messing with time is that there are some people who can't change who they are without some major pressure to change.  Snart's dad didn't have that pressure, so he didn't change.  Snart, on the other hand, wants to change and has people around who can help him.   He'll never be a good guy like Barry, but he can be a better person, which is all that can be asked of anyone.  I just hope he does what he can.

You have to admire what Stein did for Ray.  He lied through his teeth, but it was a harmless lie for a good cause, so that was a good thing.  Ray needed the morale boost and Stein gave it to him.  The two of them have a really interesting relationship.  Both are tremendously smart and have rather large egos, so when you put the two of them together, it is really funny.

It was a great thing that Sara invited herself to go along with Rip.  She is trained in observation and noticed things that Rip completely missed, like the fact that their cover at the bank was completely blown.  Unfortunately for her, the bloodlust can still assert itself.  I just hope she doesn't have the same issue Thea is having right now.  Given how she was stabbing her knife around the guys head at the end rather than beating him to a pulp or something, I would say she has a decent amount of control over the bloodlust.  She is absolutely not a monster.  Dangerous?  Yes.  The thing is that she has more control over herself, particularly when she is paying attention to what is going on.  I think that part of the reason she lost control is that she let herself be completely absorbed in fighting the people at the bank.  I am wondering if there is anything she can't fight in.  She fought in a formal dress (with a big slit) and a skirt tonight, which is pretty rare.  Up to now, she normally wears pants, presumably to give herself more freedom of movement.

I find it interesting that Rip Hunter had already traveled to the past to try and kill Savage.  And he made enough of an impression that Savage's followers know about him and can recognize him on sight.  I am hoping that Hunter starts to trust the gang more.  He pulled them together, but he doesn't seem to want to work with them.  He seems to be changing that attitude, which is a good thing.  Although they are a wildly disparate bunch, they pull together nicely when needed.

Even without becoming Firestorm, Jax can still do a good job fighting.  It shouldn't be surprising that he is using football type maneuvers to fight (tackles, etc.), but it was still interesting to see.  I just hope they flesh him out a bit.  So far, he has been the one member of the group who has been used the least.  Well, him and Rory.  I am impressed that he could repair the ship even though it was from the future.  Maybe Hunter should start using him when the ship needs fixing.

I do want to know how exactly Kendra knew what was going on at the ceremony Savage and his followers were.  Was it her connection to Carter or something else?  I really hope they explain.

Until next week!

My Review of Teen Wolf 5.15- Amplification

The gang finds out what is happening to Lydia and plans a rescue but events and Theo's pack intervenes, another adult starts to make their way into the secret, and we find out something interesting about Dr. Valack....

Is Dr. Valack one of the Dread Doctors or can he just create them?  I guess neither could be true, but given that he put a Dread Doctor mask on that nurse, I really think it is one or the other.  Couple the mask with his propensity for experimentation on supernatural creatures and I really think he is connected to the Dread Doctors somehow.  I want to suggest that he is the Beast and he is controlling the Dread Doctors.  The hole in his forehead has disappeared and he dresses in a very old fashioned manner, much like the Doctors.  We have also never seen him anywhere near the Beast, which could indicate that he is it.  Deaton said that drilling holes in the heads of supernatural creatures amplifies their abilities, so he could have used everything to turn himself into a chimera and then the Beast.  The chimeras aren't affect by any normal supernatural deterrents like mountain ash, so he could still slip in and out of eichen House without any issues.  Also, Parrish didn't turn into the Hellhound until Valack got close to Lydia.  That could have been because Lydia is in trouble, but if Valack is the Beast, Parrish probably sensed the presence of his enemy and reacted.

Speaking of amplification, Lydia and everyone around her is in trouble.  As Deaton mentioned, she is already extraordinarily powerful, so drilling that hole in her head will amplify powers that are already highly charged.  Since banshees scream in order to clear their heads and since their voice can also be a weapon, an out-of-control Lydia could easily kill people all around her if she screamed a supercharged scream while trying to clear her head of all the deaths she would be sensing.  Just remember how far her voice has carried in the past.  When Jennifer was holding her in the school, her scream could be heard by every supernatural creature in Beacon Hills.  Magnify that and the potential for destruction is epic.  We are talking about destruction on a level that is almost unimaginable.  Given that she can use her voice as a weapon, could she team up with Parrish to defeat the Beast?  If her voice is amplified and that potential for destruction controlled and directed, I am not sure if even the Beast could stand up to it.  Just a thought.

Scott and Siles' plan to rescue Lydia wasn't awful,, but it was too reliant on everything going their way.  Kira can barely control her powers, so making her the crux of the plan was not smart.  I appreciate that Scott is trying to bolster her self-confidence. but she is so scared of her own abilities that this was not smart.  Watching Liam reluctantly agree with Scott and the Malia's complete inability to convincingly say that she believed in Kira was funny.  Malia is not a good liar, so relying on her for something like boosting someone's confidence is just not a good idea.  I do have to admire that she did manage to pull through for Kira when she really needed it.  Watching Malia make the case for sticking around to save someone else does show a large amount of growth over where she was during season 4 when she was ready to leave everyone behind in Mexico when things looked rough.  So that is good.

Scott's call to the rest of the pack when he and Liam were under assault was just cool.  That is the type of roar he used when he broke through the barrier to get at Jennifer, so I would not be surprised if he managed to break through the barrier to get to Lydia.  The only issue is that, as he said, there is more than a simple barrier like he faced with Jennifer.  Eichen House is chock full of mountain ash which means he may very well have to fight for every step.  On the other hand, when he broke through the barrier to get at Jennifer, he did dispel the barrier, so it is possible that breaking through could break the power of the mountain ash and make it easier for him and the rest of the pack to get to Lydia.

What I do find interesting that that Parrish was able to get to the isolation wing easily.  Are hellhounds immune to the effects of mountain ash?  Given that they are guardians of the supernatural, they may be able to pass through things that hold back most other supernatural creatures.  It is also possible that he had not run into mountain ash yet, so we may not know how hellhounds are affected by mountain ash.

Methinks Lydia's mom is about to get incontrovertible proof that the supernatural exists.  She arrives at Eichen House when it goes int lockdown, so she is probably going to be confronted by one of the packs or the Dread Doctors.  She is smart and could be useful to the gang as another adult in on the secret.  I just hope she doesn't try and convince herself that anything she sees is something its not.

Next week, the gang tries to escape from Eichen House as Kira loses control of her abilities.  Until then!

My Review of The Fosters 3.12- Mixed Messages

Brandon and Callie get a scare, Stef weighs her options, Mariana and Lexi have words, and Jesus shows some definite strain....

Brandon and Callie really need to get on the same page.  I thought that after their talk on the way back from Mexico last season that Brandon would stop blaming Callie for everything, but there he goes again.  <eyes rolling>  Dude really needs to learn to take the credit for his own mistakes.  Did he and Callie think that she wouldn't be adopted when they slept together?  Yes.  Callie had just helped Rita and was under the impression that she would be turned in for kissing Brandon, which would destroy her chance at adoption.  Were they wrong?  Well, yeah, but that doesn't make what they thought at the time any less real.  They really need to figure out how to coexist and be friends, because that is when they are at their best.  They know each other well enough to push each other when needed.  Unfortunately, they also know how to hurt each other tremendously.  At this point, I really don't think that anything can undo the adoption (thought I could be wrong), so they just need to acknowledge that they made a mistake and move on.

That woman working with Callie still creeps me out.  She is trying to make Callie into a spokesperson for foster kids, which isn't the worst idea, but there is something about the way she is doing it that gives me the heebie jeebies.  Her idea about showing kids in the foster system that they can come out the other side better is not a horrible idea in and of itself, but there is something almost manipulative about her.  I really can't put my finger on what is so freaky, but there is definitely something.  Callie needs to be very careful, because this woman may try and get Callie to do things that are not in Callie's best interest.

If that driving scene with Jesus is any sort of indication, he has PTSD (or something) and is trying to cover it up.  I'm just worried that he'll keep trying to do something stupid in order to prove that he doesn't have any issues from the crash and will end up hurting himself or someone else.  Unfortunately, Jesus is one of those guys who is always trying to prove how masculine he is and just does dumb things.  Add that to the impulsivity from his ADHD and you have a recipe for trouble.  I can practically guarantee you that he won't try and talk with anyone, even Mariana, about what is going on in his head and that will only be trouble.

In that respect, he takes after Stef.  I am going to come right out and say that I agree with Lena.  Absent some serious proof that something as radical as a mastectomy or hysterectomy is absolutely necessary, I don't think they should be done.  I am so not a believer in the idea of a mastectomy as a prophylactic measure.  That being said, it is her body and she needs to be the one to make the decision after getting the facts.  I hated that her mom was trying to manipulate her into having a mastectomy right away, even before cancer was actually detected.  I know it is a bit freaky, I myself have had several precancerous polyps removed during a colonoscopy, so I get it.  At this point, she isn't sick and there isn't anything that desperately needs to be taken care of, if I understand what Lena was saying correctly.  That note at the end was worrisome.  A BRCA gene mutation does put you in a much higher risk category for developing breast or ovarian cancer, but it is not a guarantee that it will happen.  I just hope that Stef actually talks with Lena or a doctor about what is going on and takes the time (which she has) to make a well-informed decision absent any sort of emotional pressure or blackmail like her mom tried to used tonight.

I get that Lexi is feeling left behind, but I think it behooves us to remember that *SHE* gave Jesus permission to date other people before she left.  Yes, he did say that he wouldn't, but that doesn't change the fact that Emma didn't "steal" Jesus from Lexi, Jesus chose to break up with Lexi because of the distance.  Using the whole thing as a chance to lash out at Mariana was really small of her.  Sorry, but I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for her.  Mariana has really blossomed since Lexi left and has come into her own.  I hope she doesn't start to backslide now because Lexi is back.  I do think that Lexi and Emma can get along well if they give each other a chance.  I will also say that the same holds true for Jesus and Hayley.  While he should have waited longer after he and Emma broke up to get with Hayley, the fact is that he was on his own at the time.  Doesn't suck any less for Emma, but there it is.

Brandon and Mat are turning Romeo & Juliet into a rock opera?  This should be very interesting.  Maybe that will help them get over Callie and Mariana respectively.

Jude is definitely showing that he is missing Connor.  However, if I am right, he won't be alone for long.  He and the boy from the foster system Callie met last week seemed to vibe, or maybe that is just my imagination....

Until next week!