My Review of The Originals 2.01- Rebirth

We reminded why the Originals are not to be trifled with when Klaus and Elijah execute a plan of revenge, we find out just who exactly Esther brought back with her, and why Marcel continues to fight for New Orleans….

When Esther came back at the end of last season, I suspected that it was Finn who came back with her, so I was not at all surprised when it was revealed that he was with her.  To be honest, he is my absolute least favorite Original, mainly because he is the least developed and also because he is such a slave to Esther’s will and plans.  But I nearly fell off of my bed (yes, I watch TV on my bed) when Kaleb was revealed to be Kol.  I was also seriously excited because aside from Elijah, Kol is my favorite Original.  It was also really nice that Daniel got to use his native English accent and not try to sound American like he did when he was Isaac on Teen Wolf.  Since Kol is (after Klaus) also one of the more unpredictable of the Originals, I am really curious as to why he has teamed up with Esther.

Now that the entire family (aside from Rebekah) is in New Orleans, there is going to be a particularly ugly war that is going to take place.  Davina has Mikael under her thumb, Esther has Finn (as a human) and Kol (as a witch), and Klaus and Elijah have Hayley.  This family feud is not going to end well for anyone particularly since neither Klaus nor Elijah seem to have an inkling that the rest of their family is back and in a bad mood.

At least Klaus and Elijah no longer have to worry about the werewolves.  Between Elijah, Hayley, and Marcel, the werewolves leaders have been taken out and the moonlight rings have been destroyed, restoring Klaus to his full power.  No matter how often it happens, I am still shocked at the sheer ruthlessness that Elijah is capable of.  He is normally so cultured that it is easy to forget that he can be as vicious as Klaus when his ire is raised.  And having all of the historic buildings declared public was a good move.  I would almost feel sorry for Francesca and her wolves, but they brought this entirely on themselves.  Family is of the utmost importance to Elijah and when they threatened Klaus, Hayley, and the baby, they crossed a serious line that demanded a response from Elijah, not to mention the personal offense that both Klaus and Hayley felt because they were targeted.  Yeah, that pretty much extinguished any twinge of pity that I may have felt for them.  And as for the painting in blood?  Yeah, Klaus took that one very literally (eeewww…..).

Cami is never going to escape the supernatural beings of New Orleans.  Not only has she been sleeping with Marcel, she helped Klaus and Elijah, and she has been targeted by Finn and Esther.  I am not sure why she is important to them, unless it is a matter of the fact that she is close to Klaus and Elijah.  I doubt it is that simple, but you never know.  And because Kol is getting close to Davina, Mikael is now within reach of Esther’s influence.  Having the two of them team up is even worse that what is happening right now.  Mikael has the stake and bears a hatred for Klaus that boggles the mind.  Esther has already tried to destroy her children during season 3 of The Vampire Diaries, so putting the two of them together will not be a good thing.  Of course, that assumes that they will actually work together and not try and destroy each other, which is almost as likely as the two of them teaming up.

Watching Klaus, Elijah, and Hayley navigate their way through the complicated relationship they have is going to be interesting.  Only Klaus has the experience to advise Hayley about what it is like to be a hybrid, but the two of them can barely stand to be around each other, so that is going to be interesting.  Add onto that the fact that Hayley is pushing Elijah away and you have the potential for a very, very complicated story.

I have to say that Marcel’s reason for sticking around is a good one.  He is fighting to preserve the city and all that it has to offer.  As such, he is a serious wildcard in the upcoming fight.  I suspect that he will team up with Klaus, if only because that is the best way to keep himself alive, but if Davina somehow manages to break the bond between Klaus and his line, then Marcel will probably align himself with whoever is more likely to win in order to make sure that New Orleans manages to stay around.

Speaking of wildcards, I honestly suspect that Kol will turn on Esther unless she somehow has him under her direct control.  Unless my memory is very bad, he turned on her when she tried to destroy him and his siblings and I don’t think that Klaus has done anything so bad recently that would cause Kol to want to kill him.  I could (of course) be wrong, but that is my suspicion.

This looks to be a very interesting season with the plethora of Originals in New Orleans.  Until nest week!

My Review of Vampire Diaries 6.01- I'll Remember

Welcome back to a new season of The Vampire Diaries.  Tonight Elena goes to extremes to avoid mourning, Jeremy does some serious wallowing, Caroline is obsessing, and Stefan has given up.  Everyone else?  They’re dealing….

Not entirely sure if I am surprised that Elena is living in severe denial.  Granted, the lengths she is going to in order to avoid her pain is extreme, but remember what she did when Jeremy died?  Yeah, so not surprised here.  Using witchy herbs in order to give herself hallucinations of Damon, hunting humans on the periphery of the Travelers’ anti-magic spell, and utterly refusing to accept that Damon is gone is par for the course for vampire Elena in mourning.  Her request to Alaric to compel her to forget Damon?  Slightly surprising, but not out of character.  I am surprised that she hasn’t already turned off her humanity in order to avoid the pain.

Jeremy also deals with his loss in a completely unsurprising way.  Drinking, sitting around playing video games, and sleeping with different girls sounds like something someone in severe pain might just do.  Don’t forget, not only did he lose Bonnie, he also lost Elena and Alaric to the spell as well as his hunter abilities.  So yeah, not too surprised.  Then there is also the fact that every girl he has dated has been killed, so it is probably easier for him to me Ms. Right Now in order to avoid pesky emotional attachments.

Caroline’s method of dealing is actually fairly healthy.  She is looking for a way to shatter the Travelers’ spell, thereby enabling everyone to go home.  Not entirely sure that dropping out of school was the smartest idea, but given the amount of time this crew does not spend in school, I am not exactly surprised.  At least she gets to see her mom for picnics.

Stefan has fled to Savannah in order to start over.  I wonder if he was ever actually searching for a way to bring Damon and Bonnie back or if he simply decided early on to just forget it.  I’d like to think that he was actually searching for a way at first, but I can’t say that I would be shocked if he decided not to.  He definitely seems to want to wash his hands of Mystic Falls and start all over.  Yeah, so not gonna happen, but you can tell that is what he wants.  Maybe he think that he is finally giving Damon release after being the one to have turned him into a vampire in the first place.

Everyone else is pretty much dealing with their issues.  Alaric is teaching about the occult at Whitmore, Tyler is a student now and trying to avoid triggering the curse again, and Matt is working with a civilian protection group to protect the town.  The whole group has lost so much over the years, so it is not terribly surprising that they’re dealing with everything fairly well.  Tyler just really needs to learn how to keep that temper of his under control because if he wolfs out, it will be bad.  I wonder if he can remain in Mystic Falls as a werewolf.  I would assume he could because I believe that werewolves are naturally occurring and not magically created like vampires.

And what the heck was up with Damon and Bonnie at the end?  They appeared to be alive somewhere but with the Other Side gone, where the heck are they?

Until next week!

Change of Plans....

Ok, there is a slight change of plans for my reviews.  While I will still be writing reviews for both therogersrevue.com and pop-topia.com, I will be continuing to put reviews for The Vampire Diaries and The Originals on this blog as well.  My reviews for therogersrevue.com will be slightly different than the reviews on here, so it would be well worth checking both out.

So, starting next Thursday, look for new reviews to start coming up here.  See y'all then!

TV Review Sites

I will no longer be putting new reviews during the regular season on this site unless Teen Wolf comes on during the regular season.  Tonight I finalized plans to put my new reviews of The Vampire Diaries and The Originals on therogersrevue.com.  My reviews of Arrow will continue to be on pop-topia.com as will my reviews of The Flash.  All of my reviews already here will stay here unless something major changes.  So keep an eye on those two sites and I will update this blog as needed.

Thanks and love y'all!

My Review of Teen Wolf 4.12- Smoke and Mirrors

We have a face-off that has been 4 years in the making, Derek has a surprise for us, and everyone gets involved in the battle....

Let's start with Derek.  He managed to morph into the full black wolf that seems to be indicative of the Alpha of the Hale pack.  Both his mother and sister were able to become full wolves, but Peter was not, which tells me that Scott was right when he said that Peter was never truly an Alpha.  Derek also managed to single handedly destroy a Berserker, which in and of itself indicates a fair amount of power.  Derek went to Mexico ready to sacrifice himself to save Scott. I wonder if that is what finally enabled him to manage the final transformation.

Scott spent most of the episode as a Berserker until Liam managed to break through to him by reminding Scott of what he told Liam when Liam was first turned: "You're not a monster,  You're a werewolf, like me!"  I can only assume that because Scott is a True Alpha, he was able to break the hold that the ceremony Kate performed (to transform him into a Berserker) had on him.  And Peter was right, Scott is incorruptible.  All season, Scott has been fighting with his animalistic side to maintain control and this week he showed that he could definitely do it when things were at their worst.  Could he have killed Peter?  Sure, but Scott will not kill.  Well, he won't kill unless a life depends on it and then he might be willing to save the life if he has no other option.  So far, he has not been put in that position, so if he would kill is merely speculative.

I was happy to see Liam get his wolf side under control.  While Derek's chant didn't work, the chant from Satomi that Stiles had him use did.  It worked so well that Liam was able to summon the claws at will.  And as Scott's Beta, he managed (as noted above) to get through to Scott so that Scott could break free from being a Berserker.  He has come far from where he started and has even improved over the past few episodes seeing how he managed to stand and fight BerserkerScott when he has spent the last few episodes petrified of the Berserkers.

Kira managed to get her first tail and figured out how to trigger her healing abilities.  I am not sure where that sword came from (don't think it's a tail!), but I was glad she had it so that she could save Scott from Malia and Liam.  She needs to work on continuing to control her abilities, but she is doing a decent job with just that sword so far.

Poor Mason got a serious case of being thrown in the deep end of the pool.  He has known that something weird is going on with Liam, but now he has seen a Berserker and I suspect that he will be skirting the periphery of Scott's pack next season.  While he may become the second human in Scott's pack, I would be a little surprised.  I was impressed that he was willing to attack that Berserker with a baseball bat.  That took some serious guts for someone who is brand new to the whole supernatural thing.

Lydia also gets kudos.  I do get keeping her away from Mexico in order to prevent her from realizing that Scott was the Berserker.  While I was impressed that she was willing to attack the Berserker, I was less so than with Mason because Lydia has been dealing with the supernatural for a while now.  And here's looking forward to her and Parrish working together to find out what the hell he is.  I still say phoenix, but nothing is sure yet.

Stiles is rapidly becoming the wise man in the group.  Along with Scott, he seems to be acting as the balance for everyone.  He got Liam to get control of the wolf, working with Kira he managed to stop Scott from being killed, he is helping Malia look for her mother (who was apparently being hunted by Braeden), and he helps plan things.  He just needs to get through to his dad that he does know what he's doing, not that I expect the Sheriff to worry any less or anything.

When Peter is scared of someone, it is bad.  I am glad that Peter is locked up now (even if it means we'll see less of him) because he is very, very dangerous.  He isn't going to get out of Eichen House anytime soon, so the pack is safe for now.  Unfortunately, Kate is still out there blaming Scott and his pack for Alison's death, so that is not good.

I believe that Teen Wolf is coming back in January or February for the first part of Season 5, and I will (of course) be back with my reviews then.  I'll be on break until the beginning of October when TVD and The Originals come back.  I will also be reviewing Arrow and The Flash for Pop-topia.com, so I hope you'll read those there.  I may write something in the next week or two with some thoughts about what I hope for in Season 5, but that will depend on how much time I have and if I have enough to say.

So, I 'll see you when I see you!

My Review of Teen Wolf 4.11- A Promise to the Dead

Liam is having major issues, Deaton shows a new side to himself, Peter and Kate ratchet up their plans big time, and Scott gets in some major trouble....

Liam is having some serious PTSD or something.  He is seeing Berserkers all over the place and every time he sees one, he freezes up.  This is having the undesirable side effect of causing him to push Mason away rather than accept any help.  While I understand not cluing Mason into what is actually going on (Liam is still sorting this out himself), Liam does need Mason as a friend to help him stay balanced.  He is pushing everyone away and for any werewolf (particularly one with anger issues!) this cannot be a good thing.  Scott had Stiles to help him through the first few months, and while Liam has Scott, he isn't letting Scott help him.  Fortunately Brett is trying to help Liam, not the least by making sure Liam knows how rare and special Scott truly is.  Unfortunately, Scott's absence isn't helping Brett's case.

And Scott isn't absent by choice.  Being kidnapped by Kate and her Berserkers is not a good thing.  Scott actually did a pretty good job holding his own against Kate.  Unfortunately, he doesn't have anywhere near the amount of training she does nor does he let his wolf side take control the way she does with her cougar side.  He was also handicapped by the fact that the Berserker had Kira and he acted to preserve her.  Can I just say how annoyed I was by the fact that Kate and the Berserker interrupted a totally cute date?

Scott's conversations with his mom and Derek about the money went a whole lot better than I could have imagined.  Melissa was very understanding about why Scott kept the money, and let's face it, he did have some good points.  Unfortunately, the money was stolen and does need to be returned.  But as Derek pointed out, the money is Peter's which makes the return less urgent in Derek's eyes.  Fortunately, Stiles and his father no longer need the money since Eichen House decided to forgive their bills.

Who knew Deaton was such a badass?  He fought that wendigo with some serious skill.  The fact that Eichen House keeps a floor for supernatural creatures is seriously disturbing.  I have the awful feeling that we are going to revisit that floor at some point, quite possibly by having the various creatures escape.  And what exactly did Deaton see when he was in the comatose state and how exactly did Lydia wake him up?  I assume (given what she said) that she did her banshee scream or something.  And how exactly did she know where to find Deaton?  Is a comatose state close enough to death to trigger her banshee abilities?

Parrish apparently possesses normal human strength given the fact that he couldn't unbend the rebar Peter stuck in Chris.  But his eyes did glow an orangish color which would seem to indicate that he was doing something with whatever his supernatural abilities are.  I am going to guess that Parrish is a phoenix.  How that will play out in the Teen Wolf universe is up for anyone's guess.

Peter and Kate are definitely not playing out of the same book given that Kate kidnapped Scott and is turning him into a Berserker and the fact that Peter wants Malia to kill Kate.  These two are going to be each other's undoing unless they are very careful.  Both of them want power, but both of them cannot have it.  Kate is also trying to figure out how Scott could cause the downfall of the Argent's.  The problem is that she doesn't get that Scott did not cause their downfall, they did it themselves.  Allison and Chris chose to change the focus of the family's efforts to protect those who needed to be protected and this seems to have caused other hunter's to desert them.  And Kate herself played no small part in the downfall by her perversion of the hunter's code.  Same with Gerard.

How incredibly cute was it to watch Malia try and wake up Stiles?  I loved her ultimate method to just start making out with him.  That definitely got him to wake up.  :-)

Next week is the finale.  I think I saw that it was 75 minutes, so plan on that.  I expect that BerserkerScott will face off against Liam or Kira and that either Peter or Kate will kill the other one.  Until then!

My Review of Falling Skies 4.11 and 4,12- "Space Oddity" and "Shoot the Moon"

Tom deals with the Lexi situation and the Espheni power core, the Espheni unveil a new weapon, and we deal with some serious deus ex machina....

All in all, not Falling Skies greatest season finale.  While not awful, the episodes were awfully predictable for the most part.  I made some predictions last week which all came true, which (I think) says less about my predictive abilities than the predictability of this season.

The first hour dealt mainly with Tom coming to terms with the fact that he needed Lexi on the mission and that he ultimately had to work with her and help her.  I cannot blame him or Anne for the way they treated Lexi.  She did some horrible things and betrayed both of them, which makes it doubly hard to work with her.  But, as Weaver said, Tom and Anne had to lay aside their anger and pain and think about the mission.  Would having Lexi along increase the mission's chances of success?  The answer was yes.  While there was the risk that Lexi was playing some sort of game with them and would betray them to the Espheni, the potential benefits to having her along more than made up for the risks.

If anyone actually believed for more than a second that the dream sequence was real, I will come and smack you upside the head.  It was so incredibly obvious that Tom was dreaming, even before all of the little things about how perfect it was.  Did anyone seriously think that the show would skip over an event they spent several episodes building towards?  Didn't think so.  I did like that it was used to expose just how unnerved Lexi was by everything that was going on.  Like any kid, she wants her parents approval and love.  She was also vividly aware of everything that she had done wrong and couldn't forgive herself for what she did.  I was glad that she admitted that she knew what she did was all her and that she didn't try to deflect any of the blame.

The second hour dealt with the new bomb the Espheni developed and Tom and Lexi getting to the power core on the moon.  This is where things really went off the rails.

First off, the explanation of why Lexi's powers wouldn't work made no sense.  While there is not a lot of gravity in space, there is still some, not to mention the fact that the power station itself would have potential energy in it that she should have been able to harness to destroy it.  It's almost like they realized that they made her too powerful and came up with spur-of-the-moment limitations on her powers for (supposed) dramatic effect.  Sorry, so don't buy it.  Since she can harness any basic form of energy and manipulate it, she should have been able to do something.

Second, the appearances of both Sara and the Volm was just too convenient.  They both show up at exactly the right time to save everyone?  That was stretching credulity more than a little bit.  While it was nice to see them, it felt like a serious case of deus ex machina.

I did think that the bomb was an interesting idea.  The fact that the Espheni figured out a way to skitterize humans with a weapon is sort of terrifying.  Just drop these near any suspected human outposts and let them do what they will.  I'm not entirely sure how the fog (smoke?) did what it did and I didn't completely understand what it did.  It seemed to not allow people to move from where they were on their own, but (like Hal or Ben) they could be moved by an outside force.  It didn't paralyze anything that it touched; witness Pope biting the tube (hilarious!), or Matt throwing the knife, or other peoples actions.  So that didn't make a lot of sense.  The idea was cool, but there seemed to be some flaws in how it operated.

Lexi's suicide to destroy the power core was obviously meant to get rid of her before next season.  As I said before, her powers supposed limitations made no sense.  If she had her full powers the suicide would have been unnecessary and she would have been around next season, which could have potentially been problematic given her godlike abilities.  So they wrote nonsensical limitations on her powers in order to get rid of her.  Sigh....

Where exactly is Tom?  That figure in the mirror didn't look particularly pretty to me, so I assume there was a camouflage of some sort going on.

Until next season!