TeeVee
Beauty and the Beast 2.1-2.8:
This was me for most of the first 4 or so episodes: "LOLS Vincent is a genetically modified amnesiac government assassin. IT'S LIKE FANFIC. THE GOOD KIND."
Then things got a bit odd.
-I find it interesting hoe the show is determined to say that vincent Keller, in and of himself, is nice and respectful and not really inclined towards violence, and that the violent part of him is almost entirely due to the genetic engineering, and that when he does cross the line because of that, he's called on it, especially by Catherine, but i think they're going overboard with that this season.
-So, Muirfield as a plot is pretty much over and done with, and Reynolds at least thinks he's taken care of all the beasts except Vincent and Tori. Probably for the best.
-Backgroundwise, the "Catherine's secret biodaddy" plot was...about as good as it an get in fiction. But, dude, abducting your daughter's boyfriend and brainwashing him so he'll be your assassin and intending to kill him when you're done just is not going to help you get that "father of the year" award you obviously want. Though the "Is he off cavorting with my daughter? HE BETTER NOT BE." scenes cracked me up. (Though I wonder how much attention he paid to Catherine as a person over the years as he was stalking her from the shrubbery if he bought that act of hers in the last episode.)
-I continue to love how Catherine gets so gung ho and unflinching when she sets her mind to something (season one was "solve mom's murder' season 2 is "save Vincent's humanity" so far).
-I know Heather is gone because Nicole Gale anderson is in Ravenswood (and while i knew she was being seriously washed out there, I hadn't seen her in a few months and didn't realize how much so until I started catching up with this) but couldn't they have at least mentioned that she couldn't make it back for Thanksgiving or something.
-Not big on how the show is so set on creating a "us vs them" mentality between "normal" people and the beasts, especially since, for the main, non-Vincent cast, I feel it's out of character? Well, maybe not for Tess, but that's because I don't think Tess particularly one way or the other about the beast thing and, like vincent herself, her main concern is how it affects Catherine. I mean, her general stance on vincent is pretty much "You're ok and I like you when you make Catherine happy, but when you don't, I'll be happy to shoot you again."
-I was initially excited about Tori, because she's the only female Beast we've had aside from the 10 seconds Bianca Lawson was around, and she was also the daughter of a Beast, and the first one who really had no clue about it at all, and that could have been really interesting to explore. But instead they went with "the female Beast affects male Beasts and they are just so drawn to her (though it does explain her father's treatment of her, though the fact that his reaction was to isolate her and then try to kill her once she interacted with other men probably mostly speaks to his own character more than anything else.) and are also doing the "woman comes into great power we've only seen in men before and can't control it and wants to wallow in the dark parts" bit, and I don't have any faith at all that CW won't decide that she has to die before the season is over. Especially since they're largely playing her right now as the other woman tempting Vincent with the dark side, or whatever. But maybe it'll turn out better than I expect.
-Gabe's "like me CAtherine! please like meeeeee." amused me a lot. I like Gabe He's probably my favorite male character on the show. (I also irrationally feel a teeny bit betrayed because I was really hoping that all his and Tess's scenes and her teasing him about Catherine meant the show might pair them up, which I've been wanting since their first scene together, but nope.)
-I'm glad Joe is gone and out of Tess's life, but I feel the Tess/JT thing was...just to kooh the best friends up? I dunno, it wasn't exactly out of nowhere, but it feels really forced. But at least JT isn't incredibly annoying like he was at first, and isn't likely to respond to Tess telling him to respect her agency by telling her his manpain is more important, like Joe.
-I'm a tad worried about Catherine's emotional and mental state when the show comes back, all things considered.
Haven 4.12-4.13:
Oh show, please tell me you didn't just randomly kill off Jennifer in the last 2 minutes. I'll give you until the beginning of next season (if there is one) before raging at you, just in case Mara somehow fixes her. (New theory: Jennifer is Mara and Williams daughter.)
Somewhere at SyFy, there's a person whose job is to just sit there and think of incredibly depressing troubles.
Dave being adopted was certainly...random. no hint of it for 3 4/5 seasons, and then whammy.
Nathan really needs to stop thinking he can pick and choose what parts of Sudrey are real/should stay.
They actually revealed more than I thought they would this season? But still not as much as I'd hoped.
Also, I swear they keep forgetting what they've done with that lighthouse. In season 1 we had the lighthouse keeper who kept herself chained in there when she turned into a succubus, and then the chief's Trouble destroyed it, and then it was magically all better (I'm not sure how much time has passed in the show, but I'm pretty sure it's a year, max.) and now it's the portal.
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries 2.13: I'd say that this was a delightful "snowbound and locked in a house with a killer" episode, but poor Aunt Prudence was tormented too much for me to call it delightful.
Also, Isabel. I guess she's close to being an adult now and probably inherits all her stepfather's money and property, but I am worried about what happens to her next! I was worried about the girl in the racing episode, too, but at least she had her biological father and her uncle, neither of whom knew about her before the episode, and neither of whom struck me as being well suited to caring for a teenaged girl, but i'm sure they'd try. (Her uncle was the better option, though. He may have been a bit of an irresponsible playboy, but at least he wasn't a sexist douche like her father.) Until told otherwise, I'm pretending Prudene took her in and we didn't see her at Phryne's party because she had a cold.
I was expecting more mistletoe hijinks? But at least Jane had fun with them. (I could hear fandom's wailing when Aunt Prudence interfered with her plot to get Jack and Phryne to kiss.
Also, Jane is back. yay!
Mac's brown coat and hat were quite the combination.
I am very pleasantly amused to see that Phryne now has Jack so well trained that he no longer even waits for her to come up with an excuse to trek across the country anytime she goes somewhere because he knows the dead bodies are coming and she'll decide he's the only competent official to call on.
I'm glad Prudence's husband wasn't guilty of killing the miners, if mostly for Prudence's sake.
Witches of East End 1.10: So glad the show is renewed, especially giving that ending.
But we don't know how Athena managed to be 40-something Penelope, or how she found East End
again! I mean, stealing Killian and Dash's powers probably gave her the boost she needed to break Joanna's hiding spell, but she would have been in her 80s by then.
I...would say that i hope this means the love triangle is over, but we know better. Though I imagine that now it'll be "Freya and Killian are soulmates and Dash is the evil ex." Sadly, Freya being isolated at the docks while Ingrid, Joanna and Wendy are together and watching the portal open really does reflect Freya's arc for the season. Freya the character may not have let her love life come before her family or the mysteries surrounding them, but the narrative surrounding her definitely prioritized the triangle.
Every time Victor said something about being there for them or not wanting Joanna to go through this alone, I laughed bitterly. Very bitterly. I may understand why Freya wants to get to know him better and even why Joanna would be willing to let him back into her life, even to a limited degree, but I am completely Team Ingrid on that subject. (Thuogh, since they don't want us to hate victor, i do think they made a good choice with Joel Gretsch, who isn't incredibly charismatic, but is generally likable.)
Joanna becoming mortal is acceptable (though only because it puts her and Wendy in the same boat, especially since they think that Freya and Ingrid might also be on their last lives.
This was me for most of the first 4 or so episodes: "LOLS Vincent is a genetically modified amnesiac government assassin. IT'S LIKE FANFIC. THE GOOD KIND."
Then things got a bit odd.
-I find it interesting hoe the show is determined to say that vincent Keller, in and of himself, is nice and respectful and not really inclined towards violence, and that the violent part of him is almost entirely due to the genetic engineering, and that when he does cross the line because of that, he's called on it, especially by Catherine, but i think they're going overboard with that this season.
-So, Muirfield as a plot is pretty much over and done with, and Reynolds at least thinks he's taken care of all the beasts except Vincent and Tori. Probably for the best.
-Backgroundwise, the "Catherine's secret biodaddy" plot was...about as good as it an get in fiction. But, dude, abducting your daughter's boyfriend and brainwashing him so he'll be your assassin and intending to kill him when you're done just is not going to help you get that "father of the year" award you obviously want. Though the "Is he off cavorting with my daughter? HE BETTER NOT BE." scenes cracked me up. (Though I wonder how much attention he paid to Catherine as a person over the years as he was stalking her from the shrubbery if he bought that act of hers in the last episode.)
-I continue to love how Catherine gets so gung ho and unflinching when she sets her mind to something (season one was "solve mom's murder' season 2 is "save Vincent's humanity" so far).
-I know Heather is gone because Nicole Gale anderson is in Ravenswood (and while i knew she was being seriously washed out there, I hadn't seen her in a few months and didn't realize how much so until I started catching up with this) but couldn't they have at least mentioned that she couldn't make it back for Thanksgiving or something.
-Not big on how the show is so set on creating a "us vs them" mentality between "normal" people and the beasts, especially since, for the main, non-Vincent cast, I feel it's out of character? Well, maybe not for Tess, but that's because I don't think Tess particularly one way or the other about the beast thing and, like vincent herself, her main concern is how it affects Catherine. I mean, her general stance on vincent is pretty much "You're ok and I like you when you make Catherine happy, but when you don't, I'll be happy to shoot you again."
-I was initially excited about Tori, because she's the only female Beast we've had aside from the 10 seconds Bianca Lawson was around, and she was also the daughter of a Beast, and the first one who really had no clue about it at all, and that could have been really interesting to explore. But instead they went with "the female Beast affects male Beasts and they are just so drawn to her (though it does explain her father's treatment of her, though the fact that his reaction was to isolate her and then try to kill her once she interacted with other men probably mostly speaks to his own character more than anything else.) and are also doing the "woman comes into great power we've only seen in men before and can't control it and wants to wallow in the dark parts" bit, and I don't have any faith at all that CW won't decide that she has to die before the season is over. Especially since they're largely playing her right now as the other woman tempting Vincent with the dark side, or whatever. But maybe it'll turn out better than I expect.
-Gabe's "like me CAtherine! please like meeeeee." amused me a lot. I like Gabe He's probably my favorite male character on the show. (I also irrationally feel a teeny bit betrayed because I was really hoping that all his and Tess's scenes and her teasing him about Catherine meant the show might pair them up, which I've been wanting since their first scene together, but nope.)
-I'm glad Joe is gone and out of Tess's life, but I feel the Tess/JT thing was...just to kooh the best friends up? I dunno, it wasn't exactly out of nowhere, but it feels really forced. But at least JT isn't incredibly annoying like he was at first, and isn't likely to respond to Tess telling him to respect her agency by telling her his manpain is more important, like Joe.
-I'm a tad worried about Catherine's emotional and mental state when the show comes back, all things considered.
Haven 4.12-4.13:
Oh show, please tell me you didn't just randomly kill off Jennifer in the last 2 minutes. I'll give you until the beginning of next season (if there is one) before raging at you, just in case Mara somehow fixes her. (New theory: Jennifer is Mara and Williams daughter.)
Somewhere at SyFy, there's a person whose job is to just sit there and think of incredibly depressing troubles.
Dave being adopted was certainly...random. no hint of it for 3 4/5 seasons, and then whammy.
Nathan really needs to stop thinking he can pick and choose what parts of Sudrey are real/should stay.
They actually revealed more than I thought they would this season? But still not as much as I'd hoped.
Also, I swear they keep forgetting what they've done with that lighthouse. In season 1 we had the lighthouse keeper who kept herself chained in there when she turned into a succubus, and then the chief's Trouble destroyed it, and then it was magically all better (I'm not sure how much time has passed in the show, but I'm pretty sure it's a year, max.) and now it's the portal.
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries 2.13: I'd say that this was a delightful "snowbound and locked in a house with a killer" episode, but poor Aunt Prudence was tormented too much for me to call it delightful.
Also, Isabel. I guess she's close to being an adult now and probably inherits all her stepfather's money and property, but I am worried about what happens to her next! I was worried about the girl in the racing episode, too, but at least she had her biological father and her uncle, neither of whom knew about her before the episode, and neither of whom struck me as being well suited to caring for a teenaged girl, but i'm sure they'd try. (Her uncle was the better option, though. He may have been a bit of an irresponsible playboy, but at least he wasn't a sexist douche like her father.) Until told otherwise, I'm pretending Prudene took her in and we didn't see her at Phryne's party because she had a cold.
I was expecting more mistletoe hijinks? But at least Jane had fun with them. (I could hear fandom's wailing when Aunt Prudence interfered with her plot to get Jack and Phryne to kiss.
Also, Jane is back. yay!
Mac's brown coat and hat were quite the combination.
I am very pleasantly amused to see that Phryne now has Jack so well trained that he no longer even waits for her to come up with an excuse to trek across the country anytime she goes somewhere because he knows the dead bodies are coming and she'll decide he's the only competent official to call on.
I'm glad Prudence's husband wasn't guilty of killing the miners, if mostly for Prudence's sake.
Witches of East End 1.10: So glad the show is renewed, especially giving that ending.
But we don't know how Athena managed to be 40-something Penelope, or how she found East End
again! I mean, stealing Killian and Dash's powers probably gave her the boost she needed to break Joanna's hiding spell, but she would have been in her 80s by then.
I...would say that i hope this means the love triangle is over, but we know better. Though I imagine that now it'll be "Freya and Killian are soulmates and Dash is the evil ex." Sadly, Freya being isolated at the docks while Ingrid, Joanna and Wendy are together and watching the portal open really does reflect Freya's arc for the season. Freya the character may not have let her love life come before her family or the mysteries surrounding them, but the narrative surrounding her definitely prioritized the triangle.
Every time Victor said something about being there for them or not wanting Joanna to go through this alone, I laughed bitterly. Very bitterly. I may understand why Freya wants to get to know him better and even why Joanna would be willing to let him back into her life, even to a limited degree, but I am completely Team Ingrid on that subject. (Thuogh, since they don't want us to hate victor, i do think they made a good choice with Joel Gretsch, who isn't incredibly charismatic, but is generally likable.)
Joanna becoming mortal is acceptable (though only because it puts her and Wendy in the same boat, especially since they think that Freya and Ingrid might also be on their last lives.