Thursday, November 29, 2012

'Hunteri Heroici' -- SPN 8x08


Warning: Spoiler Alert

How did the people in charge of Show manage to get Hunnicut to be in such a small role, with so few lines in it? That's kind of impressive. I wouldn't have thought that we would see anyone involved with "M*A*S*H" making a guest appearance on Show, especially since I'm sure that their services probably wouldn't have come very cheap (regardless of how few lines any of them were given within the episode). Though ... if they were going to get anyone from "M*A*S*H", it probably would have been kind of funny if they had gotten David Ogden Stiers, since his character on that show was named "Winchester".

I'm almost surprised that John associated with Fred, what with the way that he had the tendency of thinking that anything that wasn't entirely "normal" human was something that needed to be gotten rid of. Sure, Sam turned out to be one of YED's special kids, and I bet that if he knew about that, he would have been able to turn a blind eye to it (since Sam was always the Golden Boy), but with someone else ... I have a feeling that he wouldn't have been able to just let it go; he was kind of OCD about being "black and white" about things that weren't necessarily black and white. And if John and (seemingly) the boys were ok with a human who had psychokinetic abilities, why wouldn't they be ok with someone who was able to shape shift? It appeared that Fred could do a lot more damage than any of the shape shifters that we've come across in Show up to this point, so I don't see how they could say that the one that is less dangerous is the monster. It seems much more like they are willing to overlook some things that would normally make them chase after someone with pitchforks, if the person is useful to them (and is willing to help them gather the villagers and torches, and make sure they all make it to the windmill in time). Yes, I realize that I'm still wanting there to be logic in this show, even though they've proven for such a long time that they want absolutely nothing to do with logic, but ... it would be nice if they at least made some sort of sense on this, damn it!! (and every time that I want to demand logic from it, I still hear Andreth telling me that I'm never going to get it from genre television. lol)

I did find the inside of Fred's mind pretty amusing (what with all of the "please stand by" type things all around, when Sam and Cas were trying to explain to him what was going on, and trying to get him to help them out with what was going on). It did remind me a bit of the episodes with Gabriel ... back when he was just still Loki (and not an angel yet ... at least to us anyway). Poor Loki Gabriel. I wish he was still around; I liked him.

I still really want to find out about Metatron, and still would love it if s/he suddenly showed up. I don't see why someone who is so high up on the food chain would be mentioned, and then, not make an appearance ... especially when that particular someone is the one that dictated the various tablets. And the fact that there was the mention of Chuck being a prophet (and them not knowing what happened to him) makes me even more want Chuck to turn out to be Metatron (since it makes more sense to me that way).

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

'After Hours' -- Castle 5x08



Warning: Spoiler Alert

I totally forgot that Esposito knew about Castle and Beckett, so when she made reference to the dinner with the parents at the beginning of the episode, I had a moment of "The hell?" But then, it came back to me that Ryan had told him all about what was going on. Dur on me.

And Ryan's reaction to the fact that a nun was going to be coming to the precinct ... lol!! Awwwes. Poor, Ryan. Of course he would have flashbacks to Catholic school and would start getting scared. Bad Esposito for making fun of him for being scared!! And I will admit to being completely amused by the fact that Ryan was amused by Esposito getting scared of the nun. ::points:: ::laughs::

But apart from that ... I can't say that I really dug this episode. Yeah, Martha and Beckett's dad are homies now, but the episode didn't really grab me like some of them do. The mystery around the murder wasn't all that interesting IMO, and I found myself kind of glad when it was finally over. Hopefully, there will be better episodes coming up in the near future.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

'Season of the Hexenbiest' -- Grimm 2x12



Warning: Spoiler Alert

This episode was brought to you by "The Bremen Town Musicians".

It almost seems like things are coming to a head rather quickly. It hasn't been altogether that long that Juliette hasn't been able to remember anything about Nick, and it almost seems like they could have been able to let things go along a little bit longer. But then, I suppose that if they kept things going much longer, they could have thought that people might have started to lose interest in what was going on with Juliette and Nick's relationship ... and how much Juliette cannot stop herself from thinking about Renard.

In a way, I'm kind of glad that both Monroe and Juliette wanted to tell Nick what had happened in the spice shop. I don't think that I would have felt ok with whichever one of them tried to keep the information from him ... even more so with Monroe, when Monroe hasn't lost his memory and still knows that the two of them are friends and wants to remain friends with him. I'm also glad that Monroe had video of Renard and made up his mind to tell Nick that that was who he had seen in the spice shop with Juliette.

And speaking of Juliette after Nick found out about her and Renard ... when Nick went upstairs to get some of his clothes, and she told him that he wasn't sleeping up there ... I seriously got annoyed with her right not. It wasn't the idea of her not wanting him to sleep in the same bed as her, when she didn't remember him ... that's understandable; my problem was in her attitude with him ... as though he had done something wrong. I imagine that the two of them both have their names on the mortgage on the house, so he has just as much right to be in the house as she does, and he has been very patient with the whole thing of her not remembering him; and the tone that she had in her voice just irked me the wrong way ... as though he were putting her out by being upstairs. I kind of wanted to shake her, telling her that she was the one in the wrong there, not him.

Also speaking of Juliette ... I don't see how she wouldn't have gotten suspicious with all of the questions about Aunt Marie's trailer. Even if she thought that she was friends with Adalind, and she thought that there wasn't any reason for her to be suspicious of a couple of questions about some trailer that really didn't mean anything to her, wouldn't she start think that there was something suspicious about the questions when Adalind wouldn't let the topic of the trailer go, and the fact that Adalind kept wanting her to get more and more specific about where it was? And I'm not going to buy the idea that she shouldn't/wouldn’t have gotten the idea that there was something more than just idle curiosity to the nature of the questioning. I'm also not going to buy the fact that she didn't need to keep other people's information to herself; if it wasn't something for her to give, she shouldn't be giving it out to people. But then again, I've never been ok with just giving out other people's information, even if it seems like it might be harmless; I don't know what someone might want any given person to know, or to not know about anything, so better to err on the side of caution and not give away things that you aren't sure about.

And look, Juliette not being able to be quiet about Aunt Marie's trailer means that Renard now knows exactly where it is. Brilliant. [/sarcasm] I had a very bad feeling that Nick was going to need to move it (especially after it had already been found once, which I would have thought would have been his first clue to not keep it in the same place that he had kept it before), and now it's far too late for him to do it. There really doesn't seem to be much point in moving it now that Renard knows where it is, and is more than likely going to ransack the joint trying to find the key. It would be really nice if Renard would realize that the royals are a bunch of douches, and that they aren't going to treat him the way that he would like for them to treat him (and they are much more likely to keep yanking him around as long as it's still convenient for them to do so, and then, possibly killing him once they are tired of that).

So, I'm getting the feeling that we are going to see the destruction of a whole hell of a lot of Grimm heritage now that Renard knows where the trailer is, and that makes me sad.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

'A Little Slice of Kevin' -- SPN 8x07



Warning: Spoiler Alert

I have a bit of an issue with the fact that Momma Tran rolled her eyes at Sam when he told her that the events of the episode were her fault ... cuz she was silly enough to trust a witch with anything. Up until that point, we had seen her be overly protective of Kevin, and to not own her responsibility for the bad things that had happened to him didn't seem in character for her. If she is really as protective and concerned with what happens to Kevin (especially where demons come to play), it would seem much more like she would own the fact that she had messed up so that she could make things better in the long run, and not do that sort of thing again.

Them questioning what happened to Chuck ... I would have hoped that they would have wondered about him before this point, but I guess at least they are they are starting to think about him somewhat now. I would kind of love to find out that he's actually Metatron; I still don't dig the idea that he was really God, even if it was only something that was inferred, and not something that anyone explicitly said. Also, with the addition of Metatron to canon ... I really hope that they don't make me hate the addition the way that I really didn't like the Leviathan. Metatron and Leviathan kind of make me geek out, and I would like it so much more if they didn't suck.

I'm wondering if the office that Cas suddenly found himself in was the office of the Metatron, but at this point there isn't enough evidence of who the office belongs to when talking about anyone; so, it actually could have been anyone's office. Whoever the "woman" was that met him there could have been the Important Person that belonged to that office, and not just an assistant or something, so we may have gotten our first view of who our newest power player is. Could it have been Metatron? Sure, and that would have been cool. But just cuz he got a shout out from the tablet doesn't mean that he's going to be making an appearance. Oh, wait, that's actually an angel named Naomi, so maybe the Metatron mention was just a one off, and that would make it much easier for me to talk myself into saying that Chuck was actually Metatron and not actually God (which is something that I like way better anyway).

So, Cas is back on Show. He's been kind of amusing on some of the episodes that he's been on, but to be honest, I could really do without him. Yeah, it's good for the boys to have people who are in their corner, and they could always use as much help as they can get with the things that they do, but sometimes it seems much more like Cas is more trouble than help. I'm happy for the Cas fangirls, but I just could never get myself all that excited about him. Hell, when you like the vampire that's only been in like three episodes more than the angel that's been in four (going on five) seasons, that's not really a good sign.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

'Swan Song' -- Castle 5x07


Warning: Spoiler Alert

This episode got on my nerves. Bad. The way that the actors kept mugging to the camera wasn't amusing; it was irritating. But I have a feeling that the writers were trying to go for humor with this episode, and the way that the actors kept talking to the camera like they were regular idiots who weren't used to being in front of cameras. Every time they would do it, though, I would end up wanting to shake someone ... didn't matter if it was the person who was trying to impress whoever happened to be watching what they were doing, or the writer of the episode for seemingly thinking that this was amusing.

The thing that gets me about this was that even while I could kind of see Castle doing it somewhat (though, not as over-the-top as it was being done), I have a hard time seeing NYPD detectives being caught up in wanting to impress the cameras ... especially the captain. It seems to me that they would be much more interested in trying to ... oh, I don't know ... catch a killer than trying to impress whatever shmuck happened to be watching the documentary. And maybe it's just me, but catching someone who has murdered another human being is far more impressive than the things that they were trying to do when they were making out with the camera (which was beyond ridiculous at most points). Yes, I realize that this show has a lot of comedy in it (more than what you might expect for a show that's essentially a murder mystery), but a lot of the things that are funny in this show are things that are kind of organic to the characters (and not points where they are trying too hard ... which seemed to be most of this episode).

It still really bugs me about the way that the captain changed for this episode. She hates having Castle there, and is very vocal about it; she doesn't want the cameras there, and wants to review all of the footage before it gets cut into the documentary, and yet she pretends like she's way more supportive of the detectives than she actually is. Yes, she has their backs when she thinks that they are in the right, but she never coddles them the way that she did in this episode. It's one thing to tell someone that they did a good job, and you're proud of the way they handled things ... it's another to treat a grown-up like they are a kindergartener. I would have liked her a lot more (and gotten a bit more respect for her) if she acted the same with the cameras there as she did when they weren't there ... in that she continued to bust their balls and demand that they get things done. The drastic change that she had in this episode really made me miss Montgomery.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

'To Protect and Serve Man' -- Grimm 2x11



Warning: Spoiler Alert

This episode was brought to you by "The Twilight Zone" IT'S A COOKBOOK!! "The Wendigo" by Algernon Blackwood.

Ok, two things struck me early on with this episode ... the first was the title. I will completely admit that as soon as I saw the title, my first thought was of that "Twilight Zone" episode ("To Serve Man"), and I was glad to find out that I wasn't imagining things (what with the eating of people and all). And the other was that this might be the first time that there was a cross-over between "Grimm" and SPN. Sure, it's not a cross-over with characters or actors, but the fact that it is the first time (to my recollection) that they have both dealt with the same monster kind of made me get a little bit giddy. I totally started having flashbacks to back when SPN was actually pretty good, and I didn't want to keep yelling at the showrunners for the choices that they've made. Then, I started to have a few flashbacks to Ravenous, what with the eating of people and all, but that's probably to be a bit expected, no?

Monroe walking in on Juliette snogging Renard ... yikes. If she really does tell Nick at least the outlining details about Renard next week, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that she only did it cuz she was afraid that Monroe was going to tell Nick, and she wouldn't be able to tell him the way that she wanted to ... and he might tell Nick with a little more detail about the snog than she might want him to know. I'm sure she thought that she would probably be safe to have one more snog with Renard before trying to do whatever it was that he thought would help them, but why would you do that in public, when there was a chance that it could get back to the one person in the world that you didn't want it to get back to? It seems like it would make sense to keep that whole thing under wraps as much as you possibly could, no matter how safe you thought that you were, if only to be extra special super safe about the whole thing. Ok, it's true that she would have pretty much been boned as soon as Monroe walked out of the back room and saw that it was Juliette that Renard was obsessed with, but snogging him in the shop isn't going to go very far in the "nothing has happened, and he's only on my mind cuz I can't help it" department. And I'm getting the feeling all over again that the writers may be trying to write her off of the show, which doesn't make me at all happy on the inside.

I can't be the only one who is glad that Hank is the type of guy who would take the information that he's now discovered about Wesen and Grimms and the lot, and would realize that someone that he had testified against might have been telling the truth about the fact that he was being attacked. And on top of that, that Hank is the type of guy who would not only realize that, but would do his very best to make sure that with this new information, he would try to do whatever he could to make sure that the guy wasn't executed. I don't think that I could like him anymore if he saw the article about dude getting executed in a couple of days, and he didn't do anything about it after having some doubts about what really happened. And I'm really happy that the boys were able to find proof that dude was attacked before he was executed. Knowing that there are Wesen out there that want to hurt people, and not being able to prove that someone was only trying to protect himself from a couple of them would have really sucked (especially given the circumstances).


Thursday, November 8, 2012

'Southern Comfort' -- SPN 8x06



Warning: Spoiler Alert

I'll admit that Garth has started to grow on me over the time that he has been on the show, but ... him being the "new Bobby" ... bollocks. There is no "new Bobby" ... there never will be a "new Bobby". Only Bobby is Bobby. ::in a huff::

Ok, now that I've kind of gotten that out of my system ...

It does kind of make sense to have someone fill the need that is presented by the loss of such an important person within the hunter's world. They're going to need someone who is familiar with all kinds of lore, and who will be able to get them the information that they need in a hurry. And while Garth is kind of a goofball, he seems like he might be more suited toward finding out information than going out on hunts (since he seems much more likely to get himself hurt when it comes to dealing with real "monsters" and weapons). Also, it is pleasantly surprising that he has moments of insight that are truly helpful to other hunters and their problems; his goofballness seems to be a bit of a hindrance at times when it comes to picking up on cues ... but then, he has proven that he's rather in touch with being able to pick up on the underlying problems between the boys, so maybe it's that he's good at picking up on the things that are actually important, no? Also, while I can understand that Bobby was important to more people than to just the boys, the boys were family (to him and to them), and it seems weird for other people to try to copy the things that he did or said. Maybe it made Garth feel a little bit closer to his memories of Bobby, or maybe it helped him deal with Bobby's death, but I was totally with Dean for yelling at him for trying to become Bobby ... in a way, it kind of felt like he wasn't taking the death of someone who was so important in the lives of the boys as seriously as he should. I totally get trying to pay homage to the man ... I just didn't dig it all that much.

By Odin's ravens, I am getting so very, very tired of the boys getting pissy with each other. They seem to (on some level) want to cling to each other, but they seem so completely desperate to make each other miserable once they are together. It's like they are in this constant state of trying to figure out if they love each other, or they want to beat the holy living hell out of each other. At this point, I would love to see Sam go off and find someone that he can settle down with (since he's been trying to run away from his family ever since he was ... what? ... 13?), and for Dean to find someone who would actually have his back. Yeah, this has never been the life that Sam wanted, and he's felt like he's been forced into it, but I'm going to have to go with Dean on this; Sam's left how many times, and he keeps coming back, and he keeps making Dean feel like shit (like he doesn't want to be there, like he would abandon Dean at the first chance he got, like family will never be as important to Sam as it is to Dean ...). The longer that Sam stays, the more miserable he is making both of them.

I'm also taking Dean's side in the whole "Benny thing". How is Benny any different than Ruby? Besides the fact that Benny has actually been helping Dean, instead of trying to get him to break a seal? And there's only so much that can be said about the fact taht we didn't know that she was in on the whole thing with YED and Lilith, since she was sneaky from the very beginning, and never stopped being sneaky (or giving me any reason to believe that she wasn't up to something horrible that was meant to hurt the boys). Yeah, I didn't trust her from the beginning, and it didn't matter what she did to "help" them, I never trusted her. Unlike Benny, who (even though he's a vampire) seems to actually be someone that they can trust. Why is it that the more time that goes on, the more I'm trusting Dean on the big things about who/what they can trust, and trusting Sam less and less? Probably cuz Sam makes such bad decisions. Stupid Sam.


Tuesday, November 6, 2012

'The Final Frontier' -- Castle 5x06



Warning: Spoiler Alert

Is it just me, or is the fact that the episode is called "The Final Frontier," when it was directed by Jonathan Frakes (and had a very special guest appearance by Quark Armin Shimerman) give cause for a multitude of geek-gasims? I totally thought that it would. I thought that the "Star Trek" references in this episode were fantastic ... even though the "Nebula" experience reminded me more of "Andromeda" than of "The Star Trek Experience." Yes, the whole "experiencing the show" would probably be something akin to the ST thing in Vegas, but the concept behind the pretend show that they were supposed to be recreating the experience of seemed to have more of the feel of "Andromeda" to me ... at least from the seasons that I have seen (which were more of the early seasons, rather than the later) ... even though I kept thinking of Reavers when they referenced the baddies from the imaginary show ... but then again, they could have been Magog (especially if you consider how they reportedly looked).

Also with the love? Castle slipping in a reference to "that Joss Whedon show" (which was obviously "Firefly" ... I do love it anytime that they reference the 'Verse in "Castle"), and the fact that Ryan is a LotR fan ... even if I wouldn't classify LotR as Sword and Sorcery ("Highlander" is Sword and Sorcery, and LotR is High Fantasy as far as I see it). The more that we learn about Ryan, the more I want to squish him to my bosom until he stops trying to escape, and that is a fact.

But I did have kind of a "derp" around the fact that Beckett was a closet scifi dork. Her having a motorcycle, fine. Her being a baseball fan, seems in step with her. But the idea of her being a closet scifi dork, when she is constantly making fun of Castle for the dorky things that he enjoys ... I'm having a hard time making sense of that. It seems a little bit too out of character for her to be into anything that is that far into the realm of speculative fiction, and even more so that she would cosplay at cons as a character from an obscure scifi show ... especially when she was talking crap about the steampunk fans who were dressing up in steampunk clothes to go to a steampunk bar. Yes, she is/was a fan of "Batman," but that does seem to be in character (if we're not counting the pre-Bale movies), since they are more like detective stories (and perhaps (in a weird way) getting revenge on the people that murdered a parent), and they don't deal in superpowers that come from the sun or a magic ring or something; I also wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that she was a fan of the Holmes canon ... cuz of the detective aspect. It just doesn't make sense to me that she's going to keep making fun of Castle for his excitement over nerdy things, or her lack of understanding of why steampunky people would not only be fascinated by the concept but that they would also cosplay ... if we are going to find out that she also did some cosplay of her own ... and enough that the people from that area of her life were still friendly with her years later. It just seems to me to be a bit hypocritical of her to talk trash about people who are doing the same things that she has done in her own life ... but then, this isn't the only thing about this character that bugs the hell out of me (see my irritation at the way she treats Castle). Sometimes I get the feeling that the writers of shows don't really pay attention to the details of the things that they are writing about a character, and that kind of makes me irritated.


Saturday, November 3, 2012

'The Hour of Death' -- Grimm 2x10



Warning: Spoiler Alert

This episode was brought to you by ... the show's own mythos apparently (which I find completely amusing).

I love the fact that there ware Wesen Grimm's fairy tales within the mythos of the show. In a way, it would make sense that they would have their very own form of fairy tales that were meant to teach their young the things that the older generations thought that they needed to know (since that was pretty much what fairy tales were for). And to find out that "normal" Grimms were not the thing that the Wesen feared the most ... it was really the super crazy Grimms who would go after every Wesen that they could find (regardless if the Wesens in question had actually harmed anyone, or had any intention of harming anyone). But the fact that Monroe mentions the fact that these super crazy Grimms where like the ones you might normally see gives me a bit a hope that Nick and Aunt Marie aren't so very singular as what we may have been led to believe before now. Sure, we don't have all that many Grimms to really have gotten a base reading of how they are as a whole (only ever having encountered Nick (who doesn't know really anything of his heritage), Aunt Marie, and Nick's mom), but the way that most Wesen behave once they realize that Nick is a Grimm would lead the average viewer to believe that a good many of them have been jerk-faces, and have given the Wesen community as a whole a reason to fear them. But perhaps things may have started changing for the better in the more recent past (not only that Monroe states that these super crazy form of Grimm are from the way-back times, but also that there are Wesen who trust Nick even after finding out that he is a Grimm (and I have a feeling that the Eisbiber wouldn't be friends with someone that they know is a Grimm, unless things had started to change a bit).

So, our intern turned out to be a Wesen that wanted to kill other Wesen ... cuz he was doing some serious hero worship of Nick ... or at least, that seemed to be the excuse (or the trigger) for him killing other Wesen. Seems to me that there was a great deal of instability in his life, and he turned it into some self-loathing ... self-loathing that he could only deal with by worshiping Nick as some kind of saint/hero, and trying to kill as many Wesen as he could get his hands on ... and by extension, perhaps kill the part of himself that he didn't want. Perhaps he blamed his mother for the way that they lived and thought that if he could be a Grimm, he could have something better than what he had. Or maybe by killing Wesen (regardless of what kind they were), he was really trying to kill his mother in effigy for letting him down. It's a possibility, right?

We also seem to be getting some forward motion with Renard and Juliette ... even though this forward motion will devastate Nick if he finds out what has happened. It may have been only that one kiss between them (I'm not counting the one that got her out of her coma, since she was unconscious at the time), but the fact that he will see it as her being disloyal to him (even though she doesn't remember anything about him, or their relationship together) will crush him. He may have been rather clumsy when it comes to showing her how much he cared when they could both remember how they felt about each other, but that doesn't mean that he didn't love her ... or that he still doesn't. I have the feeling that things are going to get much worse before they get better between the two of them ... provided that what I have feared since this season started doesn't happen (in that the writers are using this as a reason to write her off of the show).



Thursday, November 1, 2012

'Blood Brothers' -- SPN 8x05



Warning: Spoiler alert

I'm really hoping that after this episode, what we see is a real change in the way that the "monsters" of the show are portrayed. Benny was treated much more like he just might have just been one of the gang ... one of the gang with a slight blood problem ... and I really dug that. Well, he was at least treated that way by Dean, and that seems to be the really big issue here, since in previous seasons, it's Sam that has seemed to be willing to treat the "monsters" like they may not necessarily have needed to get dead by some random hunter, and that there might be some of them that could be taken at their word that they had no desire or intention of hurting humans. And with the added bit of "humans kill more humans than any 'monster'" thing in the mix, it almost seems like what we will be getting is a slight shift in how they are going to be treated ... or at least it seems a little bit hopeful, and that makes me happy on the inside, since I've never dug the whole "everything that isn't human is a monster and MUST BE KILT DED RIGHT NOW!!!1!!ELEVENTY" thing that the show has always done.

And to have this "there are some good 'monsters'" thing come from Dean, I think that it not only shows a bit of growth in his character, but it also makes me happy that he is willing to look at things that way. I can only hope that what we saw from Sammy can be handwaved into him being pissed at Dean for not telling him what was going on, instead of him taking the reversal and becoming someone who is unwilling to see that not everything that isn't human is some kind of monster and that it needed to be killed. The fact that he was the one that used to be much more willing to hope and trust in that regard makes me a lot not happy when it comes to the change in him right now. But then again, it's not as though Sam has never done anything that has made me want to shake the hell out of him (maybe kind of literally).

I'm hoping that we can trust Benny, and that there isn't going to be a giant turn around with him so that we find out that he's only been using Dean to get out of Purgatory, and then, using him again to help him not be dead ... and maybe tricking him into maybe helping him destroy his old next (especially since I don't think that he would have been able to kill Andrea himself ... and I'm really not sure right now whether what he said about the last thing he saw was "father" killing her ... I almost wonder if he knew that she had been turned, and knew that he wouldn't be able to harm her, so he brought along someone he knew would be able to do the job. I hope that's not what it is, since I really want him to be awesome).

I'm also wondering if Benny really killed "father". We didn't see it happen, so by all of the laws and rules of fiction, it didn't happen, but that doesn't mean that I don't really want it to be true. I really want the boys to be able to trust him, and to be able to have a brand new ally, what with the fact that they are now the only ones that they have anymore (it would be nice to have someone else in their corner).