The Librarians S1E01 ...And The Crown of King Arthur

We open in Berlin, to much swearing, because oh FUCK YOU GUYS that's the same fucking alley between sound stages you used in fucking Leverage for the SAME FUCKING CITY. If you're having crossover problems now, join the club and pull up a comfy chair, 'cause we're gonna be here awhile. (Worse, I'm pretty sure I know the exact area of Portland that is, because it looks awfully similar to Grimm's sound stages.) Rather than a librarian in the shape of Noah Wyle (yes, I've seen the movies, there will be references, I recommend watching them for the sheer camp value if nothing else, though you don't need it for the backstory here), we have anxious law enforcement raid music! And a group of people in full raid gear with a blonde woman leading the way. Hi, Eve! I'll just say here that absolutely the only reason she doesn't have a helmet on is because the camera needs to identify her somehow, and while some people miiiight be able to look at body type and the way she moves and say, oh, that's a woman and the rest of them are men and she's taking point so she's the leader, that's not something you generally bank on in the first thirty seconds of your pilot. I deeply appreciate that that IS the only way to ID Eve, too. Well, that and the fact that all her team has assault weapons and she's got a handgun. But again: this is not actually a procedural law enforcement show, and given the audience likely to be watching Librarians you don't want to rely on everyone's knowledge of the visual tropes. Which is interesting, because the entire directing style is very deliberately similar to typical procedural while Eve's the only main character onscreen. Apparently they have a WMD in the giant warehouse! Oh what great fun. And all of Col. Baird's men, with the exception of the guy I'm pretty sure is the new guy, are utterly loyal to her and do not need more than the basic verbal commands. And she has utter faith in them, given that she knows exactly how long it should take the other guys to get into position out of her line of sight. Like. This is such delightful competence porn.

No GIR That's Bad Helix - 1x01 Pilot

So, we open with whiteness, because that's not an overarching motif or anything, the whiteness that swallows everything. It's two days before The Event. And then we have some zombie horror staple, people in clean suits walking down a corridor while a computer says very loudly over the very loud machine humming, Contamination! Contamination! Yes, we get it, computer, we get it, shut up. This is why all alarms of this type should come with an Okay-We-All-Know-Noise-Off switch. This is intercut with flashes of Peter all black-bloodied up, I'm having fond memories of X-Files and the oil slick of doom. Different corridor! The flashbacks become more clear, Peter was running, dragged into this room, and now we have something that's going to become a staple of Helix as we know it, the juxtaposition of jaunty pleasant music and horror. We have a horrific scene playing out mute before our eyes, but when I say mute I mean very little sound is coming from the scene itself especially when compared to the machine humming and the loudass Glados knockoff a second or three ago, but rather the sounds are coming from the jaunty fun soundtrack playing over the background. I've got a pair of brand new roller-skates, do you know the way to San Jose, etc. Though only one of those will become a set of arc words. Well, I'm unnerved, as no doubt they meant me to be, how about you?

Age of State of the Blog

Those of you following me on Twitter may have noticed a recent downtick in activity, especially of the sort that talks about blogging at all. Some of you may have noticed the broken arm and the subsequent WOW I AM HIGH ON VICODIN tweets.

(We're not talking about how much of February I may not remember clearly.)

So! I know we promised to start posting eps around this point for Helix and Librarians, and Kitty is just about ready with her first two eps (I believe she's just got to pull screencaps), but I am... behind. Very, very behind. On the plus side, I have a plan of attack and expect to be able to post ONE ep around March 25th; on the minus side, I actually do have a bunch of stuff I'm trying to catch up with all at once. But I can type and think clearly now, which is a nice change from basically all of February, and I should hopefully be at a point where I can work down a few minutes of an ep most days, more on the weekends.


The story, for those who want it, is that I slipped on ice that'd gotten snowed on while I was in for my fiddle lesson the beginning of February, and while I managed not to land ON the fiddle case (and indeed it wasn't even out of tune), I broke my arm. In two places. And had THE WORST urgent care experience of my LIFE, up to and including failure to take X-rays of my wrist that would have told them about the bone chip. Because I am me and have epic skills, I did this just exactly enough to require Vicodin, a sling, and perpetual ice, and not enough that I needed a cast or surgery. I know. I was impressed too. I'm coming up on six weeks out from it, though, and I've been improving pretty damn rapidly. Those of you who've been around awhile know that this means I'm going to inevitably push, but I will try not to fall flat on my face when it comes to blogging. Or, you know. Fall on my wrist. Again.

The State of the Blog Awakens

As promised, the state of the blog post-Haven, post-holidays, and post-sleeping like we're teaching ourselves to hibernate.

What we're never doing again: That. We are never, ever working to weekly deadline again. It was fun while it lasted, but we're frankly not getting any younger, and we're rapidly becoming the sort of stodgy 30-somethings who want our weekends back for housework. And TV marathons. And sleep. Shut up. Besides, we want to try to bring you better quality analysis, including a lot of the technical aspects that we know we let drop in recent posts in an effort to ensure everything got out on time.

What we'll be replacing live +24-blogging with: Anna is going to start up with The Librarians s1 & s2; Kitty will tackle Helix which has a limited run of two seasons. We'll aim to alternate weeks starting the middle to end of March, after we build up some backlog, so that we have time to continue writing at a reasonably leisurely pace.

The other great thing about this is that we're going to post during any currently-running show's hiatus, which will allow us to evaluate each ep in light of the larger whole of each season. With the move toward a significantly more serialized form of storytelling on TV, this is honestly the best way to continue giving you recaplyses without second-guessing every single week's developments. Sometimes this is fun! A lot of the time it leads to disappointment.

As a result, we're also considering branching out some: we've had at least one request for Jessica Jones, which will have to wait for us to finish watching before we make a decision yea or nay. (Hopefully this week/end!) There's a couple other shows we might do, but frankly we think you'll have plenty to keep you busy reading from now until the next time our lineup changes.

Be Unbroken Haven S5E25 Now

Previously, on Haven. CroaShat was a manipulative asshole of a would-be father, Vince decided to go be a barnvatar because that seemed more useful than grieving Dave and probably killing himself, Laverne became the police station in the noirest episode ever to noir, Duke got pwned in the black-eyed horror of Croatoan, Dwight got his daughter back and is not sure how this is a trap. CroaShatDaddy continues to be abusive but reveals that he can use the Troubles however he damn wants, including to save baby Mara's life, and Duke is blaming Nathan (and Audrey) for his becoming a killer. I… cannot say he's entirely wrong there.

We return to Audrey having gone back to the station, presumably having walked? It's night, she's making her bed on the camp cot in the chief's office, and Nathan is being adorable with his snacks. Aww, she still loves Baby Ruths! Alas, that is granola but he is happy to see her! Ahem. Laverne's apparently decided to dispense only the healthy stuff, or as healthy as you can get out of a vending machine. Oh Laverne. Per Nathan's nudging, Audrey updates him on how much of a world of shit they're in, which is to say: lots! Several worlds' worth. (Say that five times fast.) He's not making threats, he's just promising to make people his idea of happy, which is clearly warped, she's not wrong that that's in a lot of ways more scary than an outright threat. An outright threat has recognizable boundaries on it, not necessarily limitations but it presents a defined scope. A complete stranger coming in and imposing his ideas of happiness on everyone else? That's a lot of unknowns to deal with. And of course he desperately wants his daughter back. I find it interesting that Nathan makes the point (and Audrey doesn't argue) that she's not Croatoan's daughter, whereas they were pretty quick to allow as how she was Charlotte's daughter. Partly that's a pacing issue, but partly I think that's also an indication of how thoroughly they're rejecting Croatoan and all his works. As it were. In the meantime, we revisit for the umpteenth iteration that they need to fix the aether core and that no they don't have any brilliant solutions, nor has Vince come up with anything now that he has access to the databases in the controller crystal. Blah blah Duke, blah blah holing up and Dwight's keeping Vince away from Duke, etc etc etc exposition. Though I do find Nathan's unshakeable faith that they're going to get Duke back awfully adorable and heartrending in light of what happens. But adorable.

Will The Circle? Haven S5E26 Forever

We'll just skip the forever long previouslies and get right to it. Audrey's come back to the station and she's giving Stan instructions about getting the town to stay away from the cloud. Stan's in street clothes! Awwww. And he tosses out a gas leak cover story joke, because that's gonna work so well when a few weeks ago you explained all about the Troubles and whatnot. Although I admit in my vague headcanon for post-series, "gas leak" has totally become an in-joke with the entire town. Audrey is not really having with this levity, telling him to go spend time with his nonexistent family. He says he doesn't have one now, which could be, given he's been awfully stereotypical bachelor cop for the series, the PD's been disbanded and that was his family, or could be a variety of awful things happened to whatever family he had, or could be he moved in from outside Haven and now he's cut off and doesn't expect to ever see them again. That was horribly depressing. Stan deserves all the good things for putting up with this shit for so long, why you so fucking mean, writers. Audrey would like to spend time with her remaining family, except Nathan is not so much with the here.

Simon Says Haven S2E12 Sins of the Fathers

Previously: Audrey found the original Lucy Ripley, who has not gone to the barn and had her memories erased! And… Simon Crocker was looking for AudSarLu when she was Lucy. Oh GOODIE. We will be reminded yet again of how Duke is at the center of everything going on in Haven, and lost Evi as a result. And oh look, part of that involves the Crocker boxes, now with the big version, hi Dwight you're like a big version, and killing AudSarLu. Gee. I wonder what the Rev's plans were for Duke! Let's find out on a moonlit night in Haven. We open with the Trouble, not the town's tarnished trio, which just means the Trouble's going to be inherent to them all as we learn what it is and how it works. Some Dude is asleep when Some Other Dude appears and wakes him insisting he go save a woman named Sheila who's in danger from a guy with a gun! This cannot possibly end badly! First Dude looks like he's about to tell the other guy that he's dead or something, oh yay just what we need. Yes, the guy with a gun is going to be you, honey. Arlo is meanwhile across the street with Sheila telling her to be quiet and careful and he'll keep her safe until Bill gets here. Of course you will. Vindictive ghostly bastard. This translates to mock-strangling her and Bill shooting her through the ghost. As you do. Evidently this was, as one might expect, payback for sleeping with Sheila, who was Arlo's wife. I assume he was hoping for a murder-suicide but will take one out of two.

Next morning, Duke and his truck are headed downtown at the same time as Audrey and… that looks like still a rental? Audrey when are you going to give in and buy a used cheap car. She's headed for the Herald, Duke is headed for her, it looks like after the ulp-ing at the end of last ep they haven't talked since and now things have an extra helping of Awkward. Duke's going to confront this head-on! Honey. Audrey's off to confront other people head-on, she's not upset with you, go hold her flower while she kicks the Teagues' ass. I would pay such good money for that alt-version of this scene. Alas, no, he's determined to explain that he is REALLY not going to kill her, he doesn't take assassination requests from dead as well as deadbeat dads. Audrey please stop being quite so emotionally repressed, you're going to sprain something. She does realize after the bad joke that she needs to take him a little more seriously than that, but the words "I believe you" would help here. A lot. And not leave Duke sighing at the heavens while Audrey storms into the Herald.