Sanctuary Review Kush Part 2
Act 3
Coming from part one?
Drama ensues when annoying guy sees Tashi has an amulet from a cult that worships the snow creature they captured.
"This? No, no, it's just a souvenir from Mardi Gras!"
Did Kashi kill people to avenge the taking of the snow creature? Annoying guy, Braun, thinks so. He actually thinks Helen put Tashi up to it.
Throw up a gangsign!
This is a good time to imagine how a normal passenger would view Team Sanctuary. The group is secretive, was transporting a creature, carries weapons, takes command...they really do look suspicious.
Helen and Will are beginning to suspect something more's afoot, though. Helen and Will see different wounds on the same man's arm.
Not across the road
but down the street!
Something's messing with their heads. And if it can control what they see and hear... I really love this idea! We rely so heavily on what we see and hear that the idea of our senses not being reliable is terrifying. How do you track down a killer you can't see or hear - or rather, that can control what you see and hear?
The team figures the creature has different physiology. Blood tests are in order!
Can I get fries with that order of blood vials?
Human blood will freeze. BUT! But if the creature can control what you see... The fact that the team does this experiment despite knowing the creature's powers shows how difficult it is to abandon your senses. Helen looooves blood tests, being a doctor and all, and she just can't break away from them yet.
Gee, it's Braun's blood that isn't frozen!
MISDIRECT! Forget what the writers just said about Jedi mind tricks!
Helen doesn't mess around,
Srs Bsns, dude. She knows Braun stole her tea.
and exiles him to the Box. Locking him in, even though he's protesting, is rather disturbing. Even the lighting makes it disturbing. Props to ya, DP!
And I thought standing in the corner was bad...
Um, did anyone remember to drill air holes?
Kashi wakes everybody up from their near-hypothermia sleep when he discovers Braun dead.
That's how I looked when I found what the dog left me after she ate ham.
Well, sucks to be on Team Sanctuary right about now. Braun had no defense, all because of them. Yet another death due to the team that's supposed to be protecting humans and abnormals.
Well, we may all be murdered in our sleep, but we won't starve! I call dibs on the thighs!
Aaaaand we're out!
Act 4
Everybody freak out!
"Maybe we should just lock everybody in the box?" "Sounds good to me."
{If Nikola didn't catch the creature, he totes would have suggested they tie/lock everybody up.
}
Kashi was right in front of the box, but he didn't hear or see anything. This makes him look even guiltier.
It's always the sherpa. They're the Andes equivalent of butlers.
He dreamed that he was dancing with his wife. Then he felt possessed by evil. This is all through the interpreter, though. So who knows what he's saying. It's a cool parallel between this interpreter, who turns out to be the creature, and eyes and ears (which interpret surroundings) of the people. Both mislead the people.
Test time again! Well snap. Braun's blood is frozen. Helen reiterates that they saw what the creature wanted them to see. FFS, didn't we already know this?! So why's it not killing them all at once? Only logical reason is that it needs them to survive.
I'm too distracted by the lack of foggy breath to make funny comments here.
More Jedi mind tricks! Will sees a lock; Helen doesn't.
Now you see it,
now you don't. Would another person see a pink elephant sitting on the cage, I wonder?
The cage wasn't locked. From the scratch sizes and general signs, they decide that the creature is human sized. OH SNAP. Now nobody knows if anybody is who they seem! It's like invasion of the body snatchers. The coffee issues comes up again. FORESHADOWING.
We discover why Helen shouldn't take a shift at watch. Or Will, for that matter.
Will's dreaming. Awake now. And help's arrived!
That's seriously the most flattering shot of her in this scene that I could get.
But Will senses a disturbance in the Force.
Will discovers why he should be a bit more careful where he sits on the rescue platform.
Seeing your mom who's been dead for years kinda does that.
DANGER, WILL ZIMMERMAN, DANGER!
As does finding the corpse of a woman you thought was alive... Here we find out the translator is the creature. Too bad Will's locked out of the plane and so can't relay this info.
On the plus side, we now have more food rations.
Aaaand we're out!
Act 5
We come back just as Tashi is being killed.
Look, ok, so you might not have liked the Almond Coco Clusters cereal, but isn't this extreme?
Helen sees present!John. She says she loved him with all her being, and that he destroyed her heart. This is an amazing way of showing us how she feels about John.
At least he has the decency to announce that he's a figment of her imagination. Good old Victorian manners!
Will sits next to her...as real!Will pounds on the window. Helen's sensing something's not right.
It's like that Twilight Zone with the creature on the plane wing that only the one dude could see.
Will looking at Will. Boy's gonna need more therapy after this. Good thing he's a shrink.
Meanwhile, Will has to resist the urge to join his mom.
"lalalala! I can't hear you!"
Will, I am your mother! Come to the Dark Side!
Then we discover why it's really important to remember what Helen drinks.
"Coffee?! Can't you bloody idiots remember for two seconds that I effing like TEA?!"
Meeeeltiiiiing!
Will breaks in just then to find the creature dead.
Or maybe he just got punched in the gut.
Slimy skin - best insulation ever. Forget that fur stuff!
Righto, now we've got a sky-high body count, AND the abnormal is dead. Not exactly mission accomplished, is it, Team Sanctuary. But you know, they fail sometimes too.
Great lines here. Will: "The less we use our eyes...[the more we see]." Helen: "Welcome to reality." And yay for being the sole survivors!
We're out on the chopper coming in for the rescue.
Cut to obligatory Niko pic!
Deep in genius thought. Or maybe he's just reading the Cakewrecks blog.
Overall Thoughts:
First bottle ep! These can be tough to keep moving. It's also tough to keep the audience interested but not feeling claustrophobic to the point where they flip the channel. The idea of doing a 12 Little Indians style plot kept the viewer engaged since they wanted to find who the killer was. The cuts to Ash and outside helped break up the monotony of the Tube, so I didn't feel like pausing so I could go get some air.
The mystery itself was very well executed. Even without the dreams/altered reality it would have been tough to pick out who the killer was. The fact that the killer and the "bug" of the ep were the same tied things together nicely, too. And I really love the idea of altered reality. X Files did it with the giant hallucination-causing man-eating mushroom, and I loved it then. Adding abnormals with this kind of power into the Sanctuaryverse really opens up new avenues for plots, too. You could have all kinds of myths be real just by virtue of the fact that an abnormal was altering perception.
The new characters in this ep really came through. Great actors, all of them. I didn't feel anything from the creature-character to tip me off. I suspected the characters they wanted me to suspect - except for Tashi. Having people in this sort of horror movie atmosphere can give rise to clichés, but the writers and actors did a fine job of avoiding this.
The act outs in this ep were strong. They're my pet peeve, btw. I love it when shows can go out strong everytime like Heroes did. Heroes never missed an out! Sanctuary has a good record, but last ep made me kinda go "meh." They nailed them this time around!
Having the team basically fail in their mission on almost all counts except surviving was a good twist. I like seeing vulnerability in our heroes. They don't succeed every time - they are fallible, even if they're abnormal for the most part. Lots of people and a rare abnormal died in this ep, but Will and Helen don't react too much. It's part of the job, I guess. Gives us a look at how they see things, though. I am a bit surprised that Will didn't comment on this, but perhaps this was deliberate to show that he's really become one of the Sanctuary.
Coming from part one?
Drama ensues when annoying guy sees Tashi has an amulet from a cult that worships the snow creature they captured.
"This? No, no, it's just a souvenir from Mardi Gras!"
Did Kashi kill people to avenge the taking of the snow creature? Annoying guy, Braun, thinks so. He actually thinks Helen put Tashi up to it.
Throw up a gangsign!
This is a good time to imagine how a normal passenger would view Team Sanctuary. The group is secretive, was transporting a creature, carries weapons, takes command...they really do look suspicious.
Helen and Will are beginning to suspect something more's afoot, though. Helen and Will see different wounds on the same man's arm.
Not across the road
but down the street!
Something's messing with their heads. And if it can control what they see and hear... I really love this idea! We rely so heavily on what we see and hear that the idea of our senses not being reliable is terrifying. How do you track down a killer you can't see or hear - or rather, that can control what you see and hear?
The team figures the creature has different physiology. Blood tests are in order!
Can I get fries with that order of blood vials?
Human blood will freeze. BUT! But if the creature can control what you see... The fact that the team does this experiment despite knowing the creature's powers shows how difficult it is to abandon your senses. Helen looooves blood tests, being a doctor and all, and she just can't break away from them yet.
Gee, it's Braun's blood that isn't frozen!
MISDIRECT! Forget what the writers just said about Jedi mind tricks!
Helen doesn't mess around,
Srs Bsns, dude. She knows Braun stole her tea.
and exiles him to the Box. Locking him in, even though he's protesting, is rather disturbing. Even the lighting makes it disturbing. Props to ya, DP!
And I thought standing in the corner was bad...
Um, did anyone remember to drill air holes?
Kashi wakes everybody up from their near-hypothermia sleep when he discovers Braun dead.
That's how I looked when I found what the dog left me after she ate ham.
Well, sucks to be on Team Sanctuary right about now. Braun had no defense, all because of them. Yet another death due to the team that's supposed to be protecting humans and abnormals.
Well, we may all be murdered in our sleep, but we won't starve! I call dibs on the thighs!
Aaaaand we're out!
Act 4
Everybody freak out!
"Maybe we should just lock everybody in the box?" "Sounds good to me."
{If Nikola didn't catch the creature, he totes would have suggested they tie/lock everybody up.
}
Kashi was right in front of the box, but he didn't hear or see anything. This makes him look even guiltier.
It's always the sherpa. They're the Andes equivalent of butlers.
He dreamed that he was dancing with his wife. Then he felt possessed by evil. This is all through the interpreter, though. So who knows what he's saying. It's a cool parallel between this interpreter, who turns out to be the creature, and eyes and ears (which interpret surroundings) of the people. Both mislead the people.
Test time again! Well snap. Braun's blood is frozen. Helen reiterates that they saw what the creature wanted them to see. FFS, didn't we already know this?! So why's it not killing them all at once? Only logical reason is that it needs them to survive.
I'm too distracted by the lack of foggy breath to make funny comments here.
More Jedi mind tricks! Will sees a lock; Helen doesn't.
Now you see it,
now you don't. Would another person see a pink elephant sitting on the cage, I wonder?
The cage wasn't locked. From the scratch sizes and general signs, they decide that the creature is human sized. OH SNAP. Now nobody knows if anybody is who they seem! It's like invasion of the body snatchers. The coffee issues comes up again. FORESHADOWING.
We discover why Helen shouldn't take a shift at watch. Or Will, for that matter.
Will's dreaming. Awake now. And help's arrived!
That's seriously the most flattering shot of her in this scene that I could get.
But Will senses a disturbance in the Force.
Will discovers why he should be a bit more careful where he sits on the rescue platform.
Seeing your mom who's been dead for years kinda does that.
DANGER, WILL ZIMMERMAN, DANGER!
As does finding the corpse of a woman you thought was alive... Here we find out the translator is the creature. Too bad Will's locked out of the plane and so can't relay this info.
On the plus side, we now have more food rations.
Aaaand we're out!
Act 5
We come back just as Tashi is being killed.
Look, ok, so you might not have liked the Almond Coco Clusters cereal, but isn't this extreme?
Helen sees present!John. She says she loved him with all her being, and that he destroyed her heart. This is an amazing way of showing us how she feels about John.
At least he has the decency to announce that he's a figment of her imagination. Good old Victorian manners!
Will sits next to her...as real!Will pounds on the window. Helen's sensing something's not right.
It's like that Twilight Zone with the creature on the plane wing that only the one dude could see.
Will looking at Will. Boy's gonna need more therapy after this. Good thing he's a shrink.
Meanwhile, Will has to resist the urge to join his mom.
"lalalala! I can't hear you!"
Will, I am your mother! Come to the Dark Side!
Then we discover why it's really important to remember what Helen drinks.
"Coffee?! Can't you bloody idiots remember for two seconds that I effing like TEA?!"
Meeeeltiiiiing!
Will breaks in just then to find the creature dead.
Or maybe he just got punched in the gut.
Slimy skin - best insulation ever. Forget that fur stuff!
Righto, now we've got a sky-high body count, AND the abnormal is dead. Not exactly mission accomplished, is it, Team Sanctuary. But you know, they fail sometimes too.
Great lines here. Will: "The less we use our eyes...[the more we see]." Helen: "Welcome to reality." And yay for being the sole survivors!
We're out on the chopper coming in for the rescue.
Cut to obligatory Niko pic!
Deep in genius thought. Or maybe he's just reading the Cakewrecks blog.
Overall Thoughts:
First bottle ep! These can be tough to keep moving. It's also tough to keep the audience interested but not feeling claustrophobic to the point where they flip the channel. The idea of doing a 12 Little Indians style plot kept the viewer engaged since they wanted to find who the killer was. The cuts to Ash and outside helped break up the monotony of the Tube, so I didn't feel like pausing so I could go get some air.
The mystery itself was very well executed. Even without the dreams/altered reality it would have been tough to pick out who the killer was. The fact that the killer and the "bug" of the ep were the same tied things together nicely, too. And I really love the idea of altered reality. X Files did it with the giant hallucination-causing man-eating mushroom, and I loved it then. Adding abnormals with this kind of power into the Sanctuaryverse really opens up new avenues for plots, too. You could have all kinds of myths be real just by virtue of the fact that an abnormal was altering perception.
The new characters in this ep really came through. Great actors, all of them. I didn't feel anything from the creature-character to tip me off. I suspected the characters they wanted me to suspect - except for Tashi. Having people in this sort of horror movie atmosphere can give rise to clichés, but the writers and actors did a fine job of avoiding this.
The act outs in this ep were strong. They're my pet peeve, btw. I love it when shows can go out strong everytime like Heroes did. Heroes never missed an out! Sanctuary has a good record, but last ep made me kinda go "meh." They nailed them this time around!
Having the team basically fail in their mission on almost all counts except surviving was a good twist. I like seeing vulnerability in our heroes. They don't succeed every time - they are fallible, even if they're abnormal for the most part. Lots of people and a rare abnormal died in this ep, but Will and Helen don't react too much. It's part of the job, I guess. Gives us a look at how they see things, though. I am a bit surprised that Will didn't comment on this, but perhaps this was deliberate to show that he's really become one of the Sanctuary.