My Review of The Fosters 3.17- Sixteen

The fallout from the kiss continues, Jonnor hits some serious rocks, Brandon and Callie's secret is revealed to someone, and Mariana makes a decision to help Gabe.

I am not sure what the truth is in the whole debacle with Monte and Sally.  It's obvious that Sally is not straight like her mom thinks, but it is an open question what her sexuality is.  I think the main problem is that Monte never said anything about being kissed until Lena confronted her.  And Sally's parents are being completely unreasonable and more than a little obnoxious.  Demanding that Monte be fired without determining the truth behind what happened?  The tells me that there is something that they don't want coming out.  It could be as simple as they don't want to consider that Sally is not straight, or it could be more.  I am seriously worried that Monte's helping Sally and Lena could seriously come back and be twisted into something to look like she initiated something with Sally.  Monte's lack of candor and her questionable decisions in the past are certainly not going to help her here.

I was glad to see Mariana help Gabe.  While I can't say that I am completely against the idea of a sex offenders list, Gabe is the sort of person who should never have been on the list in the first place.  Ana's parents were right that he was technically an adult, but given the fact that they were dating and he never actually raped her, being labelled a sex offender for the rest of his life is just wrong.  In all candor, I do have issues with the whole sex offender lists.  While they can be good because they can let people know if someone truly dangerous is around, all too often they seem to catch people like this, people who simply made a mistake and then have to keep paying for it for life.  And this situation is very different from Dani and Brandon because in that case he was drunk and could not have consented to having sex with her.  If they had been together or in love, it might have made a difference, but they weren't, so it doesn't.

I just want to know what happened at Gabe's between him and Ana.  He had to know that she's an addict who has been sober, so offering her a beer was not a smart move.  I hope that he just did it unthinkingly, but I am afraid that her parents won't want to help him now.  It is also possible that she got drunk/high somewhere else and not at Gabe's place, but somehow I doubt that.

Stef's talk with Jesus was perfect.  He's been having issues recently and is feeling rejected by Gabe.  And his methods of dealing?  Not good.  I am worried that this could all be connected to the accident and he needs to find someone to talk with.  Whether it's a counselor at school or a therapist, he needs to deal with whatever is going on.  It was great to hear him reaffirm that he loves having two moms and everything, but I think he just wants to find out where he comes from.  Seeing that his biological mother is an addict and his biological father wants nothing to do with him can't be good.  I am hoping that Gabe doesn't want him around because he feels guilty about not being there for the twins and not something else.

I am very confused about what is going on with Connor and Jude.  I get that getting a picture from Connor could have given Jude the impression that Connor was looking for sex, but Jude's reaction seemed a bit extreme.  I am wondering how much of his reaction has more to do with being mad that Connor left and how much has to do with Connor sending him that picture.  Neither of them seems to be putting a lot of effort into their relationship which is part of what is confusing me.  Connor is an athlete, so his being involved in sports makes sense.  But if he wants to stay with Jude, he is showing it in an odd way.  And Jude isn't making things any better with the whole passive-aggressive thing he is doing.  It almost seems like he wants to force Connor to break up with him.  I keep hoping that the two of them will work this out, but it may be too late for them.  If they want to save their relationship, they need to get in the same city and have some serious time to talk things out and really figure them out.

Brandon and Callie also need to figure things out.  Cortney is being really cool about the whole thing.  She has her own complicated situation with her ex, so she knows that Brandon and Callie have some stuff to figure out.  AJ's reaction, on the other hand was not good.  He knows that something is up, but I suspect that he thinks it is ongoing, when it really isn't.  The problem is that the two of them have this lingering awkwardness of sleeping together and their feelings for each other that they can't act on.  Getting between these two right now is not going to be good for anyone.  The good news is that they are both really trying to move on, even if they aren't being terribly successful.

Until next week!

My Review of The Originals 3.15- An Old Friend Calls

Kol returns, Klaus faces the consequences of his sire line bond ending, Hayley deals with her grief, and another old face returns….

Finn is back.  <groan>  The most insufferable of the Original siblings has returned and I don’t see any good coming from it.  Seeing as he’s dedicated his immortal existence to ending his siblings and all vampires, I am worried.  If he’s like Kol, he is a vampire again, which is actually a blessing.  He won’t be able to do magic anymore, so that is one less weapon in his arsenal.  I am just worried that he will use what he knows about his sibling to pit them against each other.  I suspect that Freya is their best defense against him, but I am not sure if she would do much against him.  I so wish we had only gotten Kol back.  Oh well….

Speaking of Kol, he made himself immediately useful.  While he may not be a witch anymore, he knows enough about magic to help his siblings out.  Klaus is worried about his old enemies returning now that he can be killed without threatening his sire line.  Kol’s spell which would allow Klaus to leave while making appear that he is in New Orleans was a brilliant idea.  I can only assume that he came up with it as a way to protect himself and his siblings from the wrath of Mikael.  Kol does need to work on his self-control.  He promised Davina no killing and then broke that rule.  He may be gorgeous, but I don’t think she’ll let deaths slide just because of that.

I have to say that Hayley’s method of dealing with grief was singularly spectacular.  I don’t like the Strix, so seeing her kill the vampires who killed Jackson was a not too horrible thing.  The problem, as Elijah saw, was that if the Strix discovered it was her, she would be hunted down.  So his idea about making it look like Klaus’ enemy Cortez did the killings was a smart move.  By doing that, he not only made sure that Hayley was protected, but he gathered a group of fighters to help protect himself and his family.  Very smart.

Klaus is really not having good luck recently.  Last week he lost the sire line bond and this week he lost Cami.  Granted, he lost Cami because she isn’t sure what he’d do if/when Aurora returns, but that still had to sting.  And now he is going to disappear with Hayley and Hope to protect himself from the myriad of enemies that he has managed to amass over the centuries.  I’m not quite sure whether or not I should feel sorry for him.  After all, he’s been a bad guy for so many years that he’s earned some seriously bad karma.  Then again, he has also lost almost everything now and has to depend on other people to survive, not exactly Klaus’ specialty.

Is Cami right to worry about Aurora?  Probably.  I am not sure how she’d be able to get out of the prison Klaus had made for her, but if anyone can do it, I am sure she can.  I also suspect that she pushed Klaus away for his own good.

I do wonder if The Originals is going to do a three year jump in order to keep pace with The Vampire Diaries.  That would allow the shows to stay on the same page time wise and would explain the comment to Caroline last week that no one had seen Klaus in years.  If they do jump, it will be interesting to see.

Until April 1!

My Review of The Vampire Diaries 7.15- I Would For You

Damon decides to solve the Rayna problem but runs into an unforeseen problem, Matt decides to make a stand, Stefan and Valerie look for a way to shield him from Rayna, and we catch up to the flash forwards.

I loved Damon’s brutally direct way of dealing with Rayna.  Since she keeps returning from the dead and only has so many lives, keep killing her until she stays dead.  It’s a charmingly direct way of dealing with the problem that is oh so very Damonish.  The only problem is that when the shamans cast the spell linking her life to theirs, they made it so that any vampire she had marked would die when she died for the last time.  Which means that if Damon kills her, Stefan dies too.  And that is not something Damon is willing to do.  Fortunately for everyone, the Armory caught her and imprisoned her before she could kill Damon.

And we finally found out how Damon ended in the coffin in the future.  He put himself there because he couldn’t stand the fact that he would hurt everyone around him while waiting for Elena to come back.  So, he put himself in the coffin to desiccate for 60 years until Bonnie died and Elena came back.  Which leads us to the flash forwards (or now the present) where he has offered to allow Rayna to transfer the mark from Stefan to him in order to save Stefan.  She seems willing to do it, but I suspect that Stefan will still do everything he can to save Damon from Rayna.  This is not going to be good.

I can almost respect Matt’s stand against vampires.  The problem is that He’s allowing himself to be persuaded to see the world in black and white, and the world is not that simple.  I get that he is simply trying to rebuild his hometown, but I don’t see it happening.  I want to know how he intends to keep all vampires out.  Will he have someone do something like the Traveler’s spell to create a barrier?  And will he keep Caroline out as well?  I really hope he actually thinks this through.

If that one garden was the only place to get the herb Freya used to shield Stefan from Rayna, than how on earth did she get it?  Did she just keep some lying around in case she needed it?  Actually, now that I think about it, that is possible.  If she wanted to shield herself from Dahlia, she may have needed that particular herb.  And if she did, you’d think she would have made sure to keep some safe for future use.  Just seems like a weird plot hole to put Stefan in a position where he couldn’t keep running from Rayna.

Bonnie’s last speech to Damon was heartrending.  I totally get why she is mad and she totally deserves to be.  Was Damon making the right choice?  Probably not, but he is blinded by grief at everything that has happened and he is not thinking straight.  It did allow us to skip forward though.

When the show returns, I am really hoping that we get some answers about how Matt ends up working for Rayna and betraying Caroline, why people end up with the people they are with, and how the brothers are going to save each other without killing Rayna.

Until April 1!

Some thoughts on DC's Legends of Tomorrow

I've been sitting here for a while trying to get myself to the point where I can write a decent review of the episode.  The problem is that this show, while enjoyable, is not nearly as compelling as either The Flash or Arrow.  I'm not sure if it's just that the cast is too large or what, but it is no where near where either of those shows are.  I know it's the first season and all, but when I am questioning a show this early, it seems like there's an issue.

Consequently, I am going to take a hiatus from writing about this show for a few weeks and then decide whether or not to keep writing reviews.  Don't get me wrong, I intend to keep watching it pretty much no matter what; unless it seriously jumps the shark; but I can really only write about shows I am seriously into and this show just isn't there.

I will get reviews for The Vampire Diaries and The Originals up over the weekend.  I'll be out tomorrow night and probably won't be able to watch the shows until Saturday or Sunday.  Until then!

My Review of Teen Wolf 5.19- The Beast of Beacon Hills

The gang rushes to save Mason leading to an unlikely alliance, Theo takes some serious steps to finding the Beast, Braeden and Malia face off against the Desert Wolf, and Lydia and the Sheriff work on keeping Parrish around.

As much as I admire what Corey was doing for Mason; and his reasons for doing it; leading Mason away from Scott and the gang was a stupid move.  It's true that theo wants to kill Mason in order to get the Beast's power, but Scott is looking to save him.  And leading Mason away from Scott and his pack ultimately made it much easier for the Dread Doctors to capture him and move towards the fruition of their plan.  But, all that being said, Corey did what he did because he loves Mason, so it makes it all completely understandable.

And we finally found out why Mason could become the Beast and why no one ever looked at him as a possibility before.  Turns out that he had a twin.  But somehow he absorbed his twin in utero and that made him a genetic chimera.  I can only assume that because there was a twin involved and their DNA would have been virtually identical, this somehow made Mason a better candidate to become the Beast than other people who had DNA from people who were not related to them.  The scary thing is that Mason managed to turn into the Beast without any frequencies being used to turn him.  Again, here I can only make assumptions because they haven't explained it yet.  I suspect it was one of two things.  Either the big needle in the back of his neck brought Sebastien's memories to the surface, completing the change and allowing the transformation or seeing his friends in danger from the Dread Doctors gave him the impetus he needed to make the change.  Either way, Sebastien has resurfaced and Theo is apparently gone.  Oh, and the Dread Doctors are apparently gone too seeing as the Beast was tearing them apart.

I'm glad the gang went into the alliance with Theo with open eyes.  They know he is probably going to betray them in order to get what he wants, but if they know it and can keep an eye out for the betrayal, they are more likely to be able to make sure Theo can't do too much damage.  And it doesn't look like he'll be able to.  The Hellhound has shown up and is ready to do battle with the Beast and anyone who steps in the middle of that particular clash is probably not going to survive the experience intact, if they survive it at all.

What were Chris and Gerard talking about that might save Mason?  While Gerard dismissed the idea out of hand, Chris seemed willing to believe that there might be something to save him from the Beast.  Is ti possible that there is something which can separate the two so that the Beast can be killed?

And what is the price Kira will have to pay for the help from the shifters?  She wants her sword back because she believes that she needs it to fight the Beast and save her friends, but what will they ask of her?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Next week is the season finale.  We still have Deucalion to contend with, the price asked of Kira, and whether or not Mason can be saved despite the fact that Sebastien has emerged from the Beast.  Until then!

My Review of Blindspot 1.11- Cease Forcing Enemy

While Jane is reeling from the news Oscar gives her about her memory and tattoos, the gang heads to Turkey based off of one of Jane’s tattoos.  Meanwhile, Mayfair and Patterson deal with a different threat in the office.

Well, that was an informative hour for Jane.  Not only is she Taylor Shaw, not only did she cause herself to be tattooed, and not only did she cause her own memory to be wiped, but she has a specific plan in mind that involves her being in New York office of the FBI.  Also, she and Oscar see the FBI as bad guys.  So yeah, this is going to get really complicated.  I can only assume that she picked the New York office because of Mayfair and Operation Daylight, given that so many of her tattoos have related to that.  And I suspect that Weller’s name is on there because he is a connection to her past as Taylor Shaw.  Beyond that all I have is some general speculation, which I’ll share at some future point when we get more information.

I think her big problem now is deciding how much she can trust herself and Oscar.  We know that he has videos of her, but we don’t know if she made the videos of her own volition or if coercion of some sort was involved.  It is also entirely possible that when she was kidnapped as a child, she was brainwashed to accomplish the task of bringing government secrets out of the shadows (or something similar) and that she made the videos in that mindset.  Honestly, I am not entirely sure we can trust any of her memories.  After all, if they can wipe memories, what’s to say that they couldn’t have used suggestion to implant memories?  Quite the pickle she has gotten herself into.

Weller and the gang are oblivious to the issues Jane is going through.  I think her getting involved in a case right now was a good thing.  It gave her a chance to clear her head a bit and do what she does best: kick some serious ass.  When she was gliding that plane in for a landing, I choked a bit because I am honestly not sure if that could be done.  It seemed a bit far-fetched to me, particularly give how quickly they stopped, but I know so little about flying that I could really be wrong.

Poor Patterson had a lot on her plate this week.  Mayfair was shielding her as much as she could, but Patterson didn’t make Mayfair’s job any easier by admitting that Mayfair didn’t know that she was using David to help crack the case.  That OPR guy is definitely going to be a nemesis for Mayfair and possibly for the whole team.  I just wonder if he really is a guy just doing what he thinks is right or if he is really after Mayfair’s job and will do whatever he needs to do in order to take over.  I loved it when Patterson told him she did the math in her head and to shut up.  He was right when he said that Patterson screwed up, but she knew that already.  I think Mayfair knows that no one is going to punish Patterson more that herself, so suspending her was just a step too far.  I am nervous about that guy.

Next week, the gang meets someone whose memory has been wiped by a drug like the one that wiped Jane’s memory….

My Review of The Fosters 3.16- EQ

Jesus is having trouble dealing with everything, Stef teaches a class, Brandon gets an unwelcome surprise, Rita and Callie have an unpleasant encounter with Rita's daughter, and Lena gets an awkward piece of news.

Did Monte really kiss the student body president?  I know I don't think highly of her, but that is hard to imagine even for her.  I don't want to discount the news immediately, but I also don't want to jump to any conclusions.  I don't know why the student body president would lie, but (as I said) I also can't imagine Monte going that far.  I know she's shown certain people preferential treatment and has crossed lines, but that particular line is one I have trouble picturing her crossing.  I'm just afraid that if Lena does anything about this, Monte will use the fact that she decided to jump Jesus to the front of the admissions line as revenge or something.  Either that or she'll try and make Lena look like an evil schemer out to get the job she lost to Monte.  Not good, not good at all.

I totally get why Stef was hard on Jesus, and I can't say I blame her.  He left a school, came back, starting looking for his biological father behind his mothers' backs, lied about his age to get a job with his father and went to see him even after he was told not to, and has been getting drunk.  And that doesn't count the drag racing with Nick.  Was she too hard on him?  Probably, particularly with that crack about his father not wanting him.  Not a good thing to say to a kid who was abandoned by his mother.  Other than that, I think she was in the right, but that comment definitely took it over the edge.  I was glad that Lena stepped in and told Stef off for that one, because Stef needed to be brought up short.  It was also good for her class to hear an adult (particularly a police officer) admit that they screwed up, so kudos on that.

As for the play, I think that was a tricky situation.  While I totally get that certain things can be triggers for people, I do think that it can be taken too far.  The popular interpretation of the play does lend it self to a romanticization of suicide as the ultimate act of love, but I think Brandon had a good point.  Show the play as an example of kids in love doing something stupid, which is something that anyone who has been that age is familiar with.  Anyone who is in love is more liable to do something that they might not normally do because they're not thinking clearly.  That being said, I do think that having the play off campus is a good idea because then people can choose whether or not to attend.  But, would it have been any different if the play had been in the school's theater?  I assume attendance would have been optional, so maybe it wouldn't make a difference at all.

I'm glad that Rita and Callie decided to just agree to disagree.  Sorry, but I think Callie is acting like a brat about this whole thing.  She has purposely said some incredibly hurtful things to Rita about the bill and about her daughter.  Was she right in this instance?  Sure, but given Chloe's history of crying wolf where committing suicide is concerned, I have a hard time blaming Rita for ignoring it.  After all, look at what Chloe said to Callie.  She was just trying to get money, supposedly for an apartment.  I can get that any suicide threat should be taken seriously, and would normally agree, but when someone is consistently threatening to do something and then doesn't do it, it can be hard to take them seriously.  Overall, that was a seriously messed up situation that had no really good answer.

I'm still not sure what to think of Nick.  I am having a hard time trusting him because he seems to morph into whatever he needs to be at the time.  He may be a genuinely good guy, but I need to have some hard evidence before I'll believe that for sure.  I just hope Mariana continues to keep her eyes open and is smart about him.

I have to admit that it was nice to see Callie and AJ together.  They do really get each other and she is a good influence on him.  Not to mention he is a whole lot more appropriate for her than Brandon is, so there's that.  When they put Jesus to bed, I was totally giggling when she was just staring at his bare chest.  It was sort of funny.

Until next week!