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‘Better Call Saul’ Season 4 Review: ‘Breathe’ and ‘Something Beautiful’.

By
Christian Angeles
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0

The Following are recaps and reviews of ‘Better Call Saul Season 4: Episodes 2 and 3’. Warning, there will be spoilers.               

Every new Season of ‘Better Call Saul’ sees the series get closer to ‘Breaking Bad’. This season, being the closest in tone to the acclaimed series thus far. Though the series still has its funny moments, particularly related to the antics and actions of its protagonist, Jimmy McGill, season four sees some of the series more violent and dramatically tense scenes to date.

This season focuses on two major plot threads. First, is the ongoing development of Gus Frings’ eventual drug empire (as we know from Breaking Bad), including the fallout (Nacho’s storyline) and growth (Mike’s storyline) of the parties involved that get Gus’ empire there. Second, is the aftermath of Chuck’s death and the intrinsic struggles and lingering guilt of Howard, Kim and Jimmy himself.

S4 E2: ‘Breathe’

Whereas the first episode dealt with the aftermath of last season – particularly Chuck’s housefire and Nacho’s murder attempt against Hector Salamanca, episode two kicks off with a rejuvenated and ready to take on the world, Jimmy.

He is looking for an in-between job while his license is suspended. Immediately Kim, address concern over Jimmy’s mental state and tells him that it would be alright for him to take a break. She, as well as the audience, notices the difference in Jimmy’s attitude since hearing about the news of Howard’s involvement in Chuck’s death. His pushing Chuck out of the firm leading to his unconfirmed suicide.

This of course is a play on secrets yet again. As we, the audience, know that this is not the full story. Part of the reason of Chuck’s expulsion from the firm was Jimmy’s meddling with their law firm’s insurance rates.  Though instead of dealing with these secrets, Jimmy goes off on a job hunt, while a continually more and more disturbed Kim finalizes Chuck’s affairs with Howard in Jimmy’s stead.

Meanwhile, Gus does all it takes to keep his rival Hector Salamanca, alive. Unwilling to let his rival die except on his terms, he hires a specialist from John Hopkins, Maureen Bruckner, to help Hector Salamanca rehabilitate; forcing Arturo, and particularly, Nacho, to have an awkward one-sided conversation with a man in a coma; the same man Nacho tried to murder – in yet another moment of black comedy gold.

While on the job hunt, we see Jimmy apply for a job in sales for Neff Copiers. He sweet talks and wins over the owners, despite some skepticism from them, given his past history as a lawyer. Feeling like the owners made too easy of a mark, Jimmy refuses the position in a very compelling scene that teeters on the extremes of charming Jimmy and emotionally unstable Jimmy.  Leaving the audience with a hints of a tense arc of the series, as we’re uncertain as to where Jimmy actually stands. Is he remorseful for his brother or has he transitioned that far into Saul Goodman, and lost a sense of his humanity?

What’s more important, is that during Jimmy’s interview, he notices some Hummel figurines behind the counter of Neff Copiers. As we’d learned from previous seasons while Jimmy worked with the elderly on the Mesa Verde case, Jimmy recognizes the collectables and knows they fetch for a high value. Later in the episode, he calls Mike about a potential job…

Lydia arranges a meeting with Mike, asking why he had previously infiltrated their warehouse after stealing an employee badge. They debate over Mike’s standing role with Madrigal Electromotive – as Mike would like to stay on as security consultant for their warehouses – to which Lydia disagrees with, as it generates unwanted attention. After a call with Gus, she reluctantly agrees to Mike’s new role.

Kim visits Howard and goes over Chuck’s last wishes and affairs with Rebecca, Chuck’s ex-wife. After some tense moments of passive aggressive insult to injury Kim and Howard speak in private. Kim angrily calls Howard out on his bullshit, in a moment of cathartic integrity several seasons in the making. Howard tries to make things better, to which Kim refuses and leaves.

In the climax of the story, Nacho and Arturo go off to make a deal in name of the Salamanca’s, who are now in a state of turmoil given Hector’s condition. In one of the most ominous scenes featured in the ‘Saul’ universe, in a beautifully overhead shot ambush scene – Gus arrives and murders Arturo with a plastic bag and zip ties, holding Nacho hostage and revealing he knew about Nacho’s attempted murder.

In a powerful moment, he declares that from now on, Nacho… is his.

‘Breathe’ : The Verdict

Overall, ‘Breathe’ had proven to be one of the best episodes of the series. It continually bridges gaps between ‘Saul’ and ‘Bad’, with many reviewers praising its character development, writing continuity to the ‘Break Bad’, and gems of awkward black comedy moments.

Much praise is given to the scene between Kim and Howard. With Rhea Seehorn pulling her most excellent performance in the series to date.

S4 E3: ‘Something Beautiful’ 

                This episode picks up shortly after where we left off in ‘Breathe’. In a beautifully shot scene – we see a series of low-angle car shots leading into a highly intense set-up, with Victor staging the roadway to look like the aftermath of an ambush, making Nacho appear to be the only survivor of a rival gang’s attack. It’s an incredibly thorough scene with spike-strips, scattered shell casings and broken glass pieces – with even its shooting angles well thought out to look like shoot-out. Towards the end, we see them take out Arturo’s corpse, cold-pack preserved in their automobile trunk, and make it seem like he was killed in the ambush. They conclude by non-fatally shoot Nacho – twice, leaving him dying on the side to call for backup.

All of this of course, is all an elaborate set-up for Nacho to return to the Salamancas without suspicion that he’s under Gus’ control. They take him to Caldera, the skeevy veterinarian who has sets up shady jobs for some of main cast in the past. Caldera provides Nacho with just enough care to survive – again, in a sequence that’s beautifully shot. The audience seeing his struggling from his perspective: with blurry vision and fading sensory details, Nacho barely clings onto life.

As mentioned previously, the series is great at showcasing as to what lengths its characters will go to maintain the lie. This one, by far being one of the series’ more brutal moments.

Meanwhile, Gus is informed by Don Bolsa about the attack he himself had staged. With Bolsa concerned about the drug supply coming in from Mexico, he suggests Gus start to considering drug production on the US side – setting the stage for the eventual super lab to be seen in Breaking Bad.

Gus then visits a fan favorite, Gale Boetticher – making his debut for BCS for the first time. For those who remember, Gale was groomed to be Jessie’s replacement, growing an immediately liking to Walter White early on in season 3. He’d liked Walt so much, he eventually leave scribbles in notes and journals about W.W. behind – which would later aid in the discovery of Walt’s identity to his brother in law, D.E.A. agent Hank Schrader.

Gale, in a wonderfully geeky scene where he songs along to the periodic table song, is working at a nearby university. Though in his off time, he pulls secret experiments and secretly tests meth for Gus. After seeing the poor quality of the Meth, he requests Gus for a potential job to cook – which we the audience know, will have an impact in later seasons.

Elsewhere, Jimmy discusses with Mike about trying to steal the Hummel figurines mentioned last episode – though the latter refuses. Jimmy then goes to Caldera (who seems to be having a hell of a day), who gets him in touch with a man named, Ira, to help pull of the caper. Ira gets there yet finds the man from last week’s episode, living in his office due to some at home issues with his wife. Jimmy arrives in time to provided a much needed distraction to get Ira out of there with the loot.

Kim, now back with Mesa Verde, is invited to see the company’s plans for expansion though she seems distracted. She lets her new paralegal, Viola, finish the work and asks to be dropped off at the courthouse. When she later reunites with Jimmy at their apartment, she shares with Jimmy both the leftover inheritance and note that Chuck left behind.

In a moment that’s confounded various reviewers including myself, Jimmy reads it aloud and it’s a touching letter of love and praise – though yet again, Jimmy appears unfazed. This upsets Kim, as she storms off crying to her bedroom, with Jimmy left to question what’s wrong.

It should be noted many reviewers have had various interpretations of the letter. Some  believe that it was forged by Kim, while others think that it was written by a Chuck before the events of the B.C.S. series. Some, even speculate that Jimmy improvised the entire thing – given how harsh the actual letter is, though until we see for certain next week, we won’t know.

 

‘Something Beautiful’ : The Verdict

                Again, pandering off the method of ‘The Secret’ Better Call Saul does a good job on keep its audience on its toes – especially with the Nacho and Gus story lines. Surprisingly, Mike has done little this season. While Jimmy keeps up the song and dance routine even though we know something is terribly wrong here.

Above all else, this season has done this great job continually masking the main characters true emotions. The fans, wanting to know when the great reveal will occur: about Jim and Kim’s true feelings about Chuck’s death. I wonder how this chink in the foundation of trust in their relationship will effect both characters moving forward – though my guess is something happens where Kim soon leaves Jimmy as Chuck did (Though not necessarily by death) and that perhaps his loneliness is what creates the Saul Goodman character.

In the meanwhile, we get to see the rise of Gustavo Fring. Which is something I think no fan is complaining about.

‘Christopher Robin’ – On Nostalgia and Growing Older

By
Christian Angeles
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0

The Following is a Special Feature on Disney’s ‘Christopher Robin’. Mostly, it’s me talking about themes of Nostalgia and Getting Older. If you’d like a straightforward review of the movie, read the segment ON GROWING OLDER.

I watched Christopher Robin about a week ago, on a Thursday morning matinee, one week after its initial release. I watched it with my mom because it felt appropriate. She’s retired and I’m in-between jobs. She’s my parent and I’m a giant man-child refusing to grow old.

So, we watch movies together sometimes. She pays for the monthly movie pass, so long as I buy the popcorn. Usually we pick something along the lines of a summer blockbuster or a PG-13 movie, as these are the movies I’d spent a lifetime watching with my parents, and I don’t really want to watch a ‘Wolf of Wallstreet’ or a ‘Fifty Shades’ with them and deal with that awkward car ride of silence home… again.

Now, I was very excited about Christopher Robin. When I told mom about it the night before, she’d decided that it sounded so intriguing, that she’d decided to watch the first movie on demand through HBO. This, of course, confused me as Christopher Robin is not a prequel nor sequel of any sort, and outside of its connection to the A.A. Milne classic, was a standalone story. Though like many things in my adult and strangely “whom is parenting whom” sort of stage of my parental relationship, I let my mom discover these things out for herself – sort of like a child learning different flavors of ice cream for the first time.

She absolutely raved about Goodbye Christopher Robin and was adamant in the idea that the Christopher Robin we were about to watch, was an in fact sequel. I did not correct her, but I did see how someone who doesn’t watch an abundance of films, who usually sticks to Hallmark Channel or what movie franchises are out there – could have this misconstrued idea that everything was a sequel, an adaptation or some sort of corporate movie chain – especially in modern Hollywood.

Now for those of you who don’t know, Goodbye Christopher Robin is a biographical drama released in September of 2017 about author A.A. Milne, the creator of Winnie The Pooh and Friends, and his troubled relationship with his son, Christopher Robin – of whom the namesake is based off. Christopher Robin is a Drama Fantasy about an adult Christopher Robin from the fictional children’s story, rekindling his friendship with his best pal, Winnie The Pooh.

Instead of correcting her, I let my mom discover to her delightful surprise, that unlike the movie she’d seen the previous night that was very much grounded in reality, this was indeed – a fantasy film. Blatantly evident once a little CGI Winnie The Pooh appeared onscreen for a tea party, to bid a fond farewell to his best friend, Christopher Robin in a heartfelt yet bittersweet opening scene.

And I emphasize the significance of bittersweet here as there is something magical about this moment. It sets the tone of the movie and inspires a sense of awe and unabashed cuteness; this bridge between childhood fantasy and reality, now intertwined. My mother was confused about there being a literal Hundred Acre Woods. Even more so, by the talking stuffed animals, but she found the experience rather enjoyable – even though she’s not a fan of fantasy and reality breaking fiction.

Likewise, though I was a fan of Winnie the Pooh, mostly because it’s cute and in my twisted mind, a positive depiction of mental illness (Is Eeyore not a caricature of pure unadulterated depression?), I couldn’t help but notice this bridge between childhood and adulthood in that very moment. My mother, now in some ways the child, and my own life, growing into this somewhat functioning adult. I was realizing, the motions stirring within me were elicited from the very nature of this movie and the goodbye tea party, and I couldn’t help but feel sad – as if I myself were bidding a fond farewell to childhood.

And I cannot tell if it was the film, or if it was just me at the moment, realizing how much older I’ve become – much like Christopher Robbin himself. In what was very much a movie with a contrived message about the importance of maintaining the sensibility of being a child. Or in simpler terms, how to approach adulthood without endearing insufferable workaholic misery and still keep that childlike sense of playfulness, alive.

I couldn’t help but smile at the nostalgia of the moment. Seeing Winnie The Pooh and friends, beloved childhood icons that they are, playing on-screen in the Hundred Acre Woods for what was to be the last time. Well, not the last time, as we’d see but a few scenes later…

ewan mcgregor GIF by Walt Disney Studios

Disney is great at doing this. In the past few years, between The Jungle Book, Beauty and The Beast, Cinderella and now Christopher Robin, the company has mastered the art of converting their Studio’s animated gems into live-action adaptations. And why not? Why not pull their audience in for nostalgia. As the children of yesterday’s youth have now become the future parents of today.

But there is a problem. While the adults like myself were caught up in nostalgia, I did notice something that the Disney company itself, probably overlooked yet are currently finding disconcerting.

The children in the audience looked bored.

This is sort of issue I, and many reviewers like myself had with this movie. For as much as I loved the film and the Winnie the Pooh franchise overall, the new kids of this generation? I can’t necessarily speak for.

And so I google searched Pooh related movies, books and TV shows – looking for anything Pooh related that’s come out in recent memory. Unsurprisingly, there isn’t a lot of it in the past 8 years… It made me question what have we really given the children of today to miss out on?

For a movie so dependent on feelings of nostalgia and leaving our childhood things behind, I don’t believe the film left room for generating a new audience. Perhaps a bit through Christopher Robin’s daughter, Madeline in the movie, though that segment even felt oddly separate for the movie’s harried final wrap-up act.

I don’t think the next generation of children really know Winnie the Pooh. This, of course, was hard for me to accept as it contrasted nostalgic memories of my own youth. I remember the Tigger Movie being huge, with everyone going to see it. I also remember absolutely loving Pooh in the Kingdom Hearts videogames, which I know, isn’t at all a good representation… but at least I got to be with my round honey loving pal!

The Winnie the Pooh brand – almost like Neverland, is meant to elicit feelings of childlike innocence and never growing up. With Disney, attempting to keep the Pooh brand timeless and parent friendly, as the franchise still generates billions a year and has been a staple of Disney income since the 1960’s.

So what you have here is an odd predicament, as the movie wants to pander towards its now aged audience utilizing two very powerful, very emotionally eliciting devices, Nostalgia and Growing Older, yet struggles with finding a voice with the younger crowd.

ON NOSTALGIA

I waited for the hype to settle down a bit before writing this, as Disney upped the movie’s promotion quite a bit prior to its release and I wanted to write this with a clearer head. After that, I thought deeply about this movie. Growing up, I was mostly an indoor child – I’d spent countless hours with my toys and stuffed animals, playing pretend.

Which is why there’s a lot in this movie meant to generate feelings of fondness and childhood for kids who grew up with their toys as their best friends. I don’t know what it is, but this film just generated nostalgic feelings in almost every scene.

Maybe it was the voice acting? Jim Cummings, the voice of Pooh Bear for the past 30 years, was hired to return to his title role playing both Winnie the Pooh and Tigger the Tiger. He did a spot-on good job. His tone and innocence and soft speaking bewilderment to the world of London and the British countryside gave tremendous heart for such tiny little characters. Its not talked about but this was a big win for voice actors. And admirable, because in many Disney adaptations, the famous voice actors renown for developing these characters tend to be replaced by the more marketable mainstream Hollywood stars.

Or maybe it was the details captured on screen? It’s a beautifully made film, set in a coldly lit sort of Britain – filled with pristine manors, proper etiquette manners, and a great attention to detail – dusky and yet, delightful in its droll source material.

 

Seeing the stuffed animals’ of Pooh, Tigger, Piglet and Eeyore, worn out as if they were vintage toys forgotten about from the attic – beckoned this virtuous wave of childhood emotions… memories of playtime adventures and the guilt associated with leaving our toys behind as we grow older. All of which served as to take us, the audience, back to an age of innocence that never was.

Maybe it was that opening sequence? So powerful in setting a breakpoint in the tone, as immediately we saw Christopher Robin say goodbye and then grow up before our eyes minutes into the movie.  He goes off into boarding school, then as a soldier of war, and finally, embraces full on adulthood. Finding a wife and getting a job and eventually, starting his own family.

Or maybe…. Maybe it was the fact that I was suddenly for the first time realizing that this may be one of the last times I’ll ever have this experience in the movie theatre. Not just for Winnie The Pooh, but for movie theatres on the whole…

Let me explain.

So before the movie, upon arrival, I noticed that things were… different when watching this matinee. To my surprise, the theatre was packed. As summer campers occupied the middle rows, with adult chaperones supervising from the aisles to the side. Confused, I asked a parent chaperone as to why this was an outing – particularly for Summer Camp?

“Many of the kids have never been.”

“Heh, yeah well it’s only been a week.”

“No, I mean they’ve never been to a movie theatre.”

Let that sink.

Apparently, many of the children attending hadn’t been to the movies. Ever. In an period of streaming and smart devices, computers accessible from the earliest of ages and social media – the theatre was very much a foreign place to them. Which when you think about it, makes sense.

Why watch in the theatre what you could watch at your home, or in the shower, or even on a train ride home? I was confused by that revelation. Though it was also deniability – because when I assessed my own watching habits – avoid movie watcher and story consumer that I am, I’d realize I myself also rarely go to the movies.

In fact, I was struggling to even get a dozen films in for the year to make this movie pass my family shares even worth in.

And suddenly, memories of my childhood began flooding in. Going to the theatre to watch films such as Jurassic Park, Star Wars or Mission Impossible. Watching Spider-Man three times in one day with my best friend. Having my first date, the first among many future ones, was in the movie theatre.

These are foreign concepts for the next generation.

So yes, the movie made me nostalgia for childhood and former youth. Of simpler times and old friends.  Days of play that went on for hours, and moments dreaming of intangible things and wasting hours away dreaming away with our imagination.

I thought about my friends who I used to watch movies with all the time. Then I thought about Winnie The Pooh and I started mixing the two.

winnie the pooh GIF by Walt Disney Studios

I thought about my best friend, who was always sort of like Tigger because he was bouncing with energy when we were kids. And then my other friend, who we used to call Pooh Bear – mostly as an inside joke about his weight yet. I was always the Eeyore of the group. Because of how sad I appeared on most days. Hell, most of my friend still see me as Eeyore.

winnie the pooh GIF by Walt Disney Studios

The thing is, many of us have done this: established their own sort of Winnie The Pooh Group, as people look back at the characters with such fond significance. And that’s all that this movie was all about – nostalgia for wasting time with your best friends, because that’s how memorable they were.

It made me miss them. It made me miss who we used to be.

It also made me realize that I was exactly the person this movie was marketing toward…

I can’t speak for others, but I found the film to be invigorating. Really therapeutic for those feeling stuck and wondering about what has happened. It’s a movie meant for those that desire simpler times. When youth felt eternal and where doing nothing was to be expected, and sometimes, the right way forward.

“People say Nothing is Impossible. But I do nothing Every Day.” – Pooh

Now that’s not to say it was a very good movie. Though, it’s not to say was a bad movie, either. I had difficulty writing about this because it’s a film meant to elicit feelings of… loss. This sense of bewilderment and wonder whisked away by responsibility. Something about having Christopher Robin see how much he has changed; all the while, seeing how much his friends think he has changed, sort of broke my heart. Especially when the one exception to the rule, the one person to still value Christopher above anyone else and see the goodness within – was the good old Winnie The Pooh.

Life gets busier as you grow older. Friendships change. People go in and out of your life. This movie was very much about that. So it was odd to feel so emotionally drained by this movie. Still, it’s not perfect. Minus the spoilers, the film goes into very predictable beats but given how heavy the experience felt building up to it – I didn’t mind the formula.

The movie is depressing. Yet it’s also redeemed in moments of clarity, cuteness and reassurance, mostly through its fictional characters such as Pooh Bear and Eeyore and a Christopher Robin that slowly relearns the value about being human.

So I really wanted to write something special. I don’t know if I have accomplished this – though I will say that from what you’ve read, maybe the film will leave you with a bit of a touchingly bittersweet experience too.

And maybe you’ll call your friends too after the movie and tell them how much you miss them.

And maybe you’ll also feel that it’s still possible for something to spark that magic in you.

Movies can do that sometimes. Especially ones that we relate to.

 

ON GROWING OLDER

Christopher Robin, directed by Marc Forester of Finding Neverland and World War Z fame, is a movie worth seeing but not necessarily remembering. It’s both light-hearted and light-headed, selling itself as a movie about the perils of growing older, the re-kindling a childlike sense of innocence, and finding the time for that which matters most; which in almost every Disney movie, is usually about family.

This case being no exception.

It opens with Christopher Robin bids adieu to his childhood. He says goodbye to Pooh Bear and the Hundred Acre Woods and all of his best friends. We then get into an opening credits montage about Christopher Robins’ life. Now decades since his childhood adventures with Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood, we see an older, much more serious Christopher Robin (perfectly played by Ewan McGregor). He is an efficiency expert for Winslow Luggages and has started a family. Has a wife Evelyn  (played by the severely underused Hayley Atwell) and his daughter, Madeline (portrayed by up and coming actress Bronte Carmichael).

I’ve seen people compare this movie to Paddington films – with good reason, as they’re similar CGI techniques. I’ve also seen people compare this to Steven Spielberg’s Hook, which is also with good reason, as the plot points are almost the same. Both are stories about adult men relearning to embrace their childhoods – though Winnie The Pooh lacks the big bad villain appeal as Captain Hook does, unless of course you’re referencing all the Obi-Wan Memes.

Christopher Robinson does, however, have a good deal of big bad moments with Heffalumps and Woozles, which the movie does a fun job of playing around with – as they’re more of a playful metaphor than any sort of big bad in the film.

Again, there are moments of sweetness everywhere throughout the movie; though, it never also feels as if the stakes are that high. Most of the issues in the film, revolve around trying to help the Hundred Acre Wood cast out of the their own antics; And of course, like many great British setting films before it, how to get the truth across while still maintaining proper manners (If enough people reach out to me after reading this, I will do a play-by-play analysis about how SO MUCH CONFLICT SET IN BRITISH FICTION is set about because two well-meaning and mannered speaking characters are unable to convey how they truly feel).

Likewise, for a movie about best friends who’ve grown older, there aren’t many moments of chemistry in action. It’s odd, but we don’t see Tigger and Pooh working together, or feel compelled by Roo or Owl or Rabbit. Mostly, in terms of acting, it’s the Christopher Robin as Ewan McGreggor and Jim Cummings as Winnie The Pooh/Tigger, show. Though of the voice acting, I’ll also mention Brad Garrett, as his Eeyore was spot on and had some of the movie’s funniest moments.

Haley Atwood, the unbelievably talented woman she is in Agent Carter and Black Mirror, is severely underutilized. And although she does her best with the script, there isn’t too much room for Bronte Carmichael and I wondered if act three’s misadventure was more of a later on re-write?

As the writing is not at its best towards the end. It sort of gets there in your typical Hollywood movie sort of wrap up and doesn’t go to new places with the story. I wonder about this. For just as we the audience have grown, so has the idea of Winnie The Pooh – yet the final draft of the scripts fails to capitalize on modernizing the character.

For instance, and I just needed to mention this because it’s a case and point of Pooh relevancy yet disconnection from the modern audience- Winnie The Pooh is also a symbol combating communism in China.

Yes, I’m going to go there at the end of my review.

For those who read my articles, you’ll remember my wariness of Chinese film companies making an impact in Western Markets– particularly in Wanda Corp and Legacy pictures – as the world’s second-largest developing film market seems to censor a lot of foreign films for political reasons. To me, this sort of misses the point of telling stories for myself, both as a critic and a screenwriter. Though rather than listen to me rant any longer you can also just play this John Oliver Clip here:

Final Take

Christopher Robin has strong emotions and stellar performances in its two leads. The writing leaves much to be said and the audience its marketed toward is sort of muddled. Still, it’s compelling if you’re in it for the emotional tones – just hug your best friend from childhood afterwards if you can, for me.

A Space Heist With A Twist on ‘Killjoys’

By
Nicole C
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0

In this week’s episode of Killjoys, a new normal is established where Team Awesome Force must figure out what’s going on with the half human/half Hullen baby with a massive growth spurt, meanwhile children are disappearing on Westerley, and a super sweet heist happens in a place called Utopia.

Heist Heist Baby

With D’av/Aneela/Delle Seyah’s hybrid child growing at an astonishingly rapid rate, the kid doesn’t have long unless they can figure out a way to stabilize him. Since he has both Hullen and human genes, the Hullen ones keep repairing the human ones which causes the massive growth spurt. Johnny says that this is somewhat similar to having a virus and they need an expert in bioweapons. Pippin comes to their aid and tells them about a guy named Craven who is currently located on a giant pleasure fortress called Utopia.

Team Awesome Force heads there instead of going back to Aneela’s armada where Turin and the others are. The R.A.C. officer is able to tell Dutch that children are going missing on Westerley once some power is restored on the armada and that he’s sent Fancy down to investigate. Dutch believes that The Lady is behind it as she has her people search for D’av and Aneela’s son. Not wanting to bring the kid in more harm’s way, she instead sends Pree back to be her eyes and ears while Zeph is still trying to figure out how to slow the aging process.

Pip, D’av, Dutch and Johnny head into Utopia with the first two attempting to get a meeting with Craven. When that fails, Team Awesome Force reveals their real plan which was to kidnap the expert and of course everything goes wrong. D’av is to serve as the distraction by robbing the main lobby of Craven’s establishment while Dutch and Johnny ambush him inside the safe room. Except we discover that the guy they are looking for is no longer flesh and blood but has uploaded his consciousness into a digital format. Inside the safe room, time is running out for the duo as a toxic gas is pumped in thanks to Craven. With the effects hitting John harder, he instructs Dutch to reprogram the system and then tricks the digital intelligence into ejecting himself onto some portable drives.

Children Vanish on Westerley

Meanwhile on Westerley, Fancy has met up with Gared who is managing The Royale while Pree is away. The two talk to a woman whose daughter was taken by two men wearing hoods and red lasers near their heads. Fancy is able to see a hand print on the door after shining an ultra-violet beam on it. They finally track a drunk looking man who places his hand on various doors. Awhile later two hooded men appear and Gared goes after them wanting to prevent another child from being taken. Unfortunately though he is beaten and taken in for questioning. Fancy tries to help but is shot by the drunk man. He regains consciousness after being found by Pree passed out on the street. When Gared wakes up he is inside a room lit with white light and the kidnapped children are there with him. The individuals who’d taken him appear to be Hullen lab assistants.

The Dolls Wake Up

Back on Aneela’s armada, Turin is using the revived Hullen to help him figure out how to re-power the ship with more plasma. He is led to another part of the vessel where he could have sworn that the dolls they initially placed in that section were facing a different direction. Once Turin and the other man go inside the room where they see that the green in here have also been frozen solid, they hear noises and go back outside where the group have disappeared. Turin has the woke Hullen help him find his compatriots and they are soon able to locate them. But eerily they are all now awake and point their weapons at the duo. As Turin is about to engage, the other male holds him back and they aren’t attacked as the dolls rush passed them seemingly with under orders from The Lady. The woke Hullen (who has now remembered his name) takes Turin to the hangers because the dolls have all taken ships and left the armada for some unknown destination.

The Growth Spurt of All Growth Spurts

Meanwhile D’av/Aneela/Delle Seyah’s kid is not having a great day either. He grows from a baby to a toddler in a very short amount of time because of the Hullen genes in him repairing his “dying” human cells, forcing them to grow at an accelerated rate. Zeph and Pip are having a hard time keeping the kid fed because his body is consuming so much energy. Their solution is to get the help of bioweapons expert Craven who is now currently on some portable drives. Johnny has to negotiate with Lucy to allow him to put Craven into her system so that he can help determine how to stabilize the kid’s growth spurt. Once connected, the Killjoy informs the digital intelligence entity that they have a rapidly evolving genetic anomaly that needs an antidote. As the cure is being worked on, the nasty Hullen spider being controlled by The Lady makes its move and takes over Pip’s body. He takes the kid into Utopia with him and secures them passage to some place designated by her evilness. As the younger male asks where they are going, The Mouth answers she’s waiting but the child ominously says that they’ll be dead before you see her. Luckily Team Awesome Force is able to catch up with them before they leave and Pip is completely confused and doesn’t know what he did. D’av knocks the would be kidnapper out with his noggin and tells the kid that he’s his dad.

Back on Lucy, Pip is sedated and tied up with Zeph wondering what he’s done. She genuinely knows he’s a good guy and so is super confused by the turn of events. She tells Dutch that she’s going to run all sorts of tests to get to the bottom of this. The kid in the meantime is in a chamber being administered the antidote to stabilize his cells. As D’av asks his son if he’s ok, the young man asks in return if there’s anything to eat. Oh puberty!

After John sends Craven back to his point of origin within Utopia, Delle Seyah stops by and asks if the kid is really her child whom she last saw as a baby (she’s been sedated for most of the episode). He confirms this and the two ex-Hullens share a moment together having recently regained the full spectrum of their feelings. She asks him when does it go away and Johnny says maybe when she starts making amends for all the terrible things she’s done.

Unraveling The Story

Throughout the episode Johnny and Dutch have tried to chat more about the story Khlyen told her while in the green. There appear to be discrepancies from what she remembers versus how he recalls things and as they both realize this that’s when they start to figure out when her old mentor was doing. Johnny then wonders what if the assassin from that mission is still out there because the man was only held by the R.A.C. until he was transferred to his system. Dutch frowns at this because the assassin was a woman and he argues back that it was definitely a dude. It dawns on her that Khlyen knew The Lady would get inside her head and look at her memories and so he hid something in the story that only John would know was wrong. D’av adds that it’s a code in her head.

 Final Thoughts

  • D’av being forced to wear a mask was wonderful! He looked adorably goofy.
  • But also equally wonderful was Turin being hugged oh so tightly against his will. He looked awkward AF.
  • Technically was it Pip who taught the kid how to speak?
  • Did Pip manage to get Zeph to be interested now that there may be something wrong with him?
  • Now that Delle Seyah is human again, does she plan to return to the nine or will she try to become Hullen again?
  • Fancy Lee needs more screen time! What an unexpected pairing between him and Gared too, it was so much fun to see the dynamic between their two characters.
  • Khlyen’s so deviously clever! Now what juicy code did he hide in Dutch’s mind?
 

Killjoys airs on Syfy Fridays at 10/9c. Relive all the epic moments from seasons 1 – 3 now on VRV.

‘Better Call Saul’ Season 4 Premiere: After the Fire

By
Christian Angeles
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Breaking Bad was AMC’s most critically acclaimed show and one of the most well-received  TV series of all time. It featured the journey of a high school chemistry teacher with cancer, Walter White (Bryan Cranston), and his former student turned drug dealer, Jessie Pinkmon (Aaron Paul), as they slowly dived deep into the world of drug dealing and built a crystal methamphetamine empire.

Breaking Bad redefined TV drama with its unconventional storytelling, sharply focused cinematography and incredibly well-written plots. Which is why it’s prequel, Better Call Saul, created by literally the same showrunners (Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould), is a bit of an oddity.

Starring two of Breaking Bad’s well-received supporting characters, sleazy lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) and fix-it man Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), the series is similar to Breaking Bad, with the exception that it leans a bit more toward the comedic side. And while the publicity is not hitting Breaking Bad levels and the ratings have been on the decline, the show itself has been nominated for several Emmys year after year.

Personally, I’m not sure why people aren’t watching the show. It could be that there’s more competition and television out than when Breaking Bad had aired, though the quality of Better Call Saul is up there with its predecessor. And as the seasons have trudged on, the callbacks to the original series and the bridging of the two timelines have been superb. Especially given how very little of the series was planned ahead of its course. Suffice to say, this technique of mining from small moments in older scripts is some of TV writing at its best.

With Better Call Saul, everything within the breaking bad universe is coming together. Having created a well-established and layered world of crime based in New Mexico, all while showcasing an origin arc for Saul and Mike’s story.

The following is a review of episode one of season four. Some references will be spoilers.

Season 4 Episode 1: ‘Smoke’

After over an entire year of waiting, Better Call Saul returned last Monday, picking up right where the season three finale left off. As such, it is highly suggested to refresh on Season 3 or watch the brief summary posted by the cast before watching the premiere.

Just as ‘Smoke’ rises from the ruins of the ashes, this episode was the revelations from the fallout from last season. Particularly, in regard to Saul’s brother, Chuck, and his apparent suicide, and the attempted murder of Hector Salamanca by Ignacio Varga (Michael Mando).

It begins with the flash forward to present day Gene’s (Saul) supposed heart attack while working his cover identity job as a manager of a Cinnabon. In a series of beautifully done close-ups, Gene is being carted off to the hospital, with some lonesome old-time music playing in the backdrop. (“We Three” by the Inkspots, a band of the Fallout videogame series fame).

We quickly learn his heart attack was a false alarm. Though all is not well. When Gene tries to leave the hospital, he is stopped by the desk nurse, who asks him for his social security number as there was an error in the system. This leads to a classical moment of tension, the series, playing off the fact we know that this is Saul’s false identity. That if they catch him here and now, Saul will finally be caught and meet his end.

Of course, it doesn’t happen. Not this early in the series, anyway. The entire encounter was a clerical error, but it does leave Gene with a feeling of paranoia. He then leaves in a shady cab where the driver leaves him ominous glances. The opening showcases emotions that Saul is both lonely yet tense, and reinforces the idea that at any moment if Saul were to ever let his guard down, he could be caught and imprisoned for his long laundry list of crimes.

This also brings up a signature style be known to many AMC drama fans: The Secret. In almost every AMC drama is a protagonist who keeps a secret from their family, which creates tension throughout the season, up until it is revealed. Don Draper in Mad Men had his many affairs. Walter White in Breaking Bad secretly cooked Meth. Even Rick Grimes in the Walking Dead Season One, held secrets imparted upon him from the CDC doctor.

Better Call Saul is no exception to this. In fact, the series depends on Saul’s secrets for tension, with much of his characterization of being an honest liar being a driving force that gets him into these morally grey territories.

After the flashforward, we return to the series’ present.  Where Chuck (Michael McKean) had just committed suicide after being forced out of his law firm, falling out of favor with his brother, and finding himself utterly alone. At the end of Season 3, in a moment of mental health relapse and depression, he burns himself alive.

Meanwhile, towards the end of last season, Hector Salamanca (Mark Margolis) had a stroke induced by Ignacio Varga, or Nacho for short. Nacho had replaced Hector’s nitroglycerin pills, which more than likely, is the cause of Hector’s wheelchair paralysis and confinement in Breaking Bad. Season four picks up in the aftermath, where Hector survives as he is taken away by an ambulance. Though all is not right, as Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) suspecting Nacho, has him followed by Victor (Gus’ later on henchman murder victim) who observes Nacho disposing the evidence of his wrongdoing. Given the needed alliance between Gus and Hector, yet also, hatred Gus has of Hector as revealed in Breaking Bad (He murdered the love of his life), we’re uncertain what Gus will eventually do with this information.

As for Mike, he has quit his old job as a security guard and is cozying into his new position at Madrigal as a security consultant. Then, out of nowhere, or possibly boredom, he seemingly infiltrates the organization he was hired by. We’re not sure why, but it’s mostly to send his new boss Lydia a message and to showcase the build-up of his eventual career. Which seems slightly unnecessary, as we the audience already know how amazing Mike can be. Though many of his scenes can be seen as a reminder to the audience, whom he is fighting for (his granddaughter) and the kind of person he is (the fixer/infiltrator).

There’s also an interesting conversation at the break room while Mike is playing his round of intrigue, a conversation about who would win in a fight: Muhammad Ali or Bruce Lee. Mike chimes in and the scene is quite a signature piece of Vince Gilligan storytelling, showcasing moments of grounded world building.

Better Call Saul was always the buildup to the dramatic change between Jimmy McGill into Saul Goodman going from out of luck conman with a heart, to complete scumbag lawyer. This episode ties up the end of last season but also showcases a rather drastic moment of potential change.

Many of Jimmy/Saul’s moments in the episode are filled with silence. Moments are spent reminiscing about Chuck, his legacy, and achievements, yet not through Jimmy… but through Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian), who sets up his memorial.

Instead, Jimmy spends most of the episode in silent grief completely out of it. The cinematography is stylistically shot, brilliantly focused on objects and out of focus subjects. There are subtle hints of distraction littering almost all of Jimmy’s scenes and keeping him uncharacteristic quiet up until the end.

It all serves as a brilliant build-up to the most powerful moment in the episode. Where towards the end, Howard blames himself for Chuck’s suicide. He confesses to Jimmy that he pushed Chuck out of the law firm, as a result of an insurance company’s decision to raise malpractice rates due to Chuck’s mental health condition.

Again, this plays on the element of secrets. We the audience know that the reason the insurance raised, was out of spite by Jimmy himself.

This takes us to the climax. The look on Jimmy’s face as he double takes during Howard’s revelation out of bewilderment. That we the audience, and Jimmy himself, know that his actions indirectly killed his own brother.

And what do we expect? A moment of remorse? Of guilt? A startling moment for Jimmy to regain some semblance of moral consciousness?

No.

Once he hears the news, he moves on. Not necessarily happy, but not miserable either. Jimmy goes onto feed his fish, make some coffee, and continues on his day with a pep in his step.

There is something incredibly jarring about this moment. It has many implications for the character and is a wonderful cliffhanger to end on.

Perhaps with Howard’s confession, in a twisted, Saul Goodman sort of way, Jimmy has deflected the blame entirely away from himself. Especially knowing that Howard is taking on the guilt. Or perhaps, Jimmy has now accepted that he inevitably hurts those closest to him, and so chooses to let it all go, rising above the fallout like smoke from the ashes.

We’ll only know as the season unfolds. Though the moment operates so contrarian to the episode, that it leaves us with the sense that this is Jimmy’s metamorphosis. His perhaps even initial transition, into Saul Goodman.

Overall, it’s a very good segway to open the season. Wrapping up the old beats of last season, while opening the possibilities this one. While nothing very memorable happens save for the last scene, the foundations are laid out for a conflicting season. Above all else, the stage is set for the birth of Saul Goodman.

 

Better Call Saul airs on AMC, Mondays at 9 PM.

Zeph Solves All The Problems on ‘Killjoys’

By
Nicole C
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KILLJOYS -- "What to Expect When You're Expecting...An Alien Parasite" Episode 404 -- Pictured: (l-r) Kelly McCormack as Zeph, Thom Allison as Pree -- (Photo by: Ian Watson/Killjoys IV Productions Limited/SYFY)

On this week’s episode of Killjoys, Delle Seyah’s delivery is not an easy one, Dutch wakes up from her coma, and Johnny is caught between his Hullen and human feelings.

Nothing Is Under Control

With Dutch knocked out still and Johnny in confinement, D’avin takes lead trying to figure out what their next course of action should be. First they have to deal with Delle Seyah’s impending birth with Zeph taking on the role of doctor and the newly deputized Pip and Pree as her assistants. The younger Jaqobis in the meantime is banging his head against the wall repeatedly because Hullen parasites are causing a massive inflammation in his brain and skull bashing seems to relieve the pressure. To make matters worse, ever since Dutch emerged from the green all the surrounding plasma seemed to have turned solid including the sample Zeph got from the Necropolis. D’avin says that they’ll just need to hope that the armada will still have some of John’s source plasma so he can be cleansed. Zeph points out that it’s five days travel to get there and they may lose Johnny before then. As he asks Lucy to connect him to Turin on the armada, the ship says there is no response and she can no longer locate its coordinates. Well that can’t be good.

Dutch Wakes Up To Chaos

Meanwhile, unconscious Dutch is remembering her time inside the green with Khlyen telling her that this story could save not just her life but all of theirs. She suddenly wakes up when Aneela appears in her room urging her to find John Jaqobis. As she is trying to orient herself, she remembers emerging from the freezing plasma pool, shooting her best friend, and then passing out. Dutch tells Lucy to open the door but her ship refuses too, eventually saying that she’s under orders not to release her until she speaks to D’avin. So she overrides the security protocol and makes her way down where Delle Seyah is set up to give birth.

Speaking of which, Zeph tells D’av that his baby is growing at an incredibly accelerated rate and that if they don’t get it out of Seyah Kendry soon she’ll have a five-year-old in her uterus. When Dutch appears though the mom to be suddenly starts to have an incredibly accelerated heart rate and as soon as she leaves Delle Seyah calms down. The Hullen mom asks if the baby is ok and Zeph says it was her who had the issue. The other woman guesses its because the Killjoy looks so much like Aneela.

On a different part of the ship, D’av has to explain to Dutch that he was forced to improvise and turn Johnny Hullen in order to save his life from a critical injury. She gets massively pissed after seeing her best friend inside the lounge bloodied and chained up telling her to get out. Dutch slaps the other Jaqobis in anger but he tells her that she’s not the only one who loves John and she doesn’t get to judge because she wasn’t there. He asks her what happened in the green, but before she can respond he gets called back into the makeshift delivery room.

We get a flashback of Dutch in the green where she’s fallen on her back and green veins appear on her skin. She’s approached by a cloaked figure and when she wakes up she is back at their hideout. Aneela is close by making tea, explaining that Khlyen is out looking for her as well. However, it’s not really Aneela as we see that her eyes go completely black when her back is to Dutch. The Killjoy puts down her tea and says that it’s not safe for them here and Khlyen’s taking too long to get back. The Lady posing as Aneela says that she needs to get out of the green with Dutch countering back that she’s open to suggestions because it’s her party trick. The other woman says that they are two of a kind and perhaps Yala can also do what she does. She then gives Dutch the cup of tea again that was still untouched. Before drinking, she remembers the story and that she was supposed to talk to Johnny once she got out. The Lady says that there might be a hidden message that tells her how to escape. Dutch then confronts her saying that she knows she’s not Aneela and asks if the other thought she was really that stupid. Hannah John Kamen does a fantastic job playing this villainous character as The Lady’s voice and facial gestures are totally different from Khlyen’s daughter. Dutch kicks her enemy and runs back out into the forest while being taunted that they’re going to have so much fun.

Killjoys

Johnny is Still in Bad Shape

Johnny is channeling his inner Jack Nicholson from The Shinning as he talks to Dutch inside the lounge. She returns bringing him some water and says that she thinks Khlyen wanted him to tell her something. He tries to trick her into letting him out of his bindings in exchange for this information, but she can tell that he’s lying. He then tries to guilt trip her by saying that if she was his real friend she would have never left and this wouldn’t have happened to him. Dutch is tearing up and admits that he isn’t wrong. She’s going to fix this somehow. Hullen John says that he can tell when she’s lying too.

Dutch changes their course from the Quad to a nearby moon which is supposed to have a Hullen pool. When D’av confronts her to find out why they’ve changed destinations, she says it’s to save Johnny’s life. But uh oh it seems that all the plasma in the entire J have frozen over. The duo go to see evil John and he is pissed that he can’t be cleansed. He blames Dutch for all the pools being solid and tells her that she’s a coward if she can’t end this because he can’t live in between. He keeps losing them over and over again as his heart switches from human to Hullen repeatedly. In a sudden move Johnny comes at them with the restraint still fastened and eventually snaps his own neck. Zeph comes in and examines him, getting a sudden realization that this could actually save John. The injury is causing the Hullen parasites in his brain to die out so she sticks a knife in to prevent his healing. Dutch protests that this could kill the younger Jaqobis but gives in after D’avin says that at least could say that they tried everything. As soon as all the little green dots vanish on the screen, Zeph quickly works to heal Johnny and he thankfully wakes up seemingly his old self again asking for a mint.

The Baby That Didn’t Want To Come Out

Back to Delle Seyah’s current troubles, Zeph has come up with a plan to weaken her Hullen genes enough so that they can get the baby out of her. Earlier when she tried to make an incision, Seyah Kendry’s super healing Wolverine powers acted so fast that the cut sealed up just as soon as it was made. She hooks up D’avin and the former leader of the nine to a cube for a blood transfusion but it goes horribly wrong. Delle Seyah has a really bad reaction and goes into a seizure while vomiting green plasma. Wow what is exactly in D’av’s blood?? He makes the call to stop the transfusion because it is also hurting the baby and so they are back to the drawing board.

After cleansing Johnny, Zeph believes she can replicate the procedure finally deliver the baby from Delle Seyah’s belly. When she tells the pregnant Hullen and then leaves the room, the mom-to-be gets super pissed, knocks Pree out with a bowl of ice chips and goes to look for Dutch. Once she finds the Killjoy, she chokes her and demands to know where Aneela is. D’av arrives soon after though and puts a gun to Delle Seyah’s neck. She reluctantly lets go and is told that her lady love is inside the green with Dutch swearing to go back to get her because the other woman saved her. Pacing like a caged animal, Seyah Kendry explains that the Hullen leader is the only one who can protect the kid because it’s unique having come from both D’av and Aneela. Dutch then realizes that The Lady had orchestrated for this genetic baby to be created. The question is what for what purpose? A bodyguard or sorts?

Delle Seyah agrees to undergo the procedure to become human again in order to give birth. Once she wakes up, her son is born, she has all these intense feelings and totally hates every second of it. Awwww! She hands D’av his kid and the baby quiets down for their first father-son moment.

What a Lady Wants

Meanwhile we’re still getting flashbacks on what happened to Dutch inside the green. After running away from The Lady as Aneela, she collapses and wakes up inside her harem tent with Khlyen watching her. She knows that isn’t really him and they fight! We discover an interesting detail that The Lady isn’t actually Hullen, she’s significantly older and is using them for her own nefarious purposes. Which leads me to wonder, could the Hullen and the plasma have originally a prison for extremely powerful beings? That would make sense since what The Lady really wants is to get out of the green, goodness knows how many centuries she’s been stuck inside. Somehow also Aneela’s ability to get things out of the plasma still remains a mystery to her evilness.

The Lady tells Dutch that she is the missing void of memories and she needs to know why Khlyen hid her. Lady Khlyen then proceeds to beat the Killjoy into submission and even makes her relive her worst memories in order to experience maximum pain, grief, shame, and agony. Hells, that is the universe’s worst mind F. Eventually Dutch is made to drink a liquid and it seems to be the way that The Lady is able to access memories. Her ancientness then went through Khlyen’s story over and over again so that she knew everything except the reason why Dutch’s mentor told her to remember it.

As Dutch tells her experience to a newly cleansed Johnny, he says that he doesn’t know why Khlyen told her their story of arriving at the Quad either.

Aneela’s Sacrifice

So how exactly did Dutch get out of the green? It turns out Aneela was able to send her back and she likely froze all the pools so that she could keep The Lady trapped and give her doppelganger the chance to defeat the ancient creature out in the physical world. Dutch tells the rest of the gang what happened to her and who their real enemy is. She doesn’t know how to defeat The Lady yet, but she knows how it ends and they lose. Now here comes the scary part, back in the green we see what Lady Khlyen showed Dutch a vision of D’av, Zeph, Pree, and Fancy dead inside The Royale. She’s on her knees begging Johnny who has a gun pointed at her. He then says, “Who the hells is Johnny” before pulling the trigger. She knows that The Lady will make her move now that she’s out, but Khlyen gave them the means to defeat the being, they just need to figure out what the story means.

Inside the green, Aneela approaches Lady Khlyen who taunts the other woman that no one is coming to save her. The blonde looks back coldly and says that means the creature is also trapped in here with her. She then drinks the liquid without fear. It’s game on.

Final Thoughts

  • Does the Hullen baby actually have some kind of reaction to Dutch after all because of her unique origin as coming from the plasma?
  • Pip asking Dutch for advice on how to get passed the friend zone, poorly timed but adorable.
  • Best line of the episode goes to Zeph, “I don’t tell you how to shoot don’t tell me how to science.” Bravo!!
  • I suspect that the green must be some kind of prison for The Lady and the Hullen were perhaps a byproduct.
  • I hope we find out why Aneela and D’av can do what they can do with the plasma and what their combined genes would then impart on their son.
  • Speaking of which does that make Dutch an aunt?
  • It was refreshing to see this evil version of Johnny and see the acting chops of Aaron Ashmore, but I’ll happily take teddy bear John back.
  • So now that The Lady has reactivated the Hullen, things are probably going to get real ugly on Aneela’s armada.
  • I’m also really warming up to Aneela now. Sure she’s still not all quite there but she actually does care about Dutch.

 

Killjoys airs on Syfy Fridays at 10/9c. Relive all the epic moments from seasons 1 – 3 now on VRV.

‘State of Decay 2’ Review: When a Video Game Becomes Its Own Worst Enemy

By
Jen Stayrook
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State of Decay 2
There’s a game mechanic in Fallout 4 where you, as the Lone Survivor, are able to create settlements as a way to “improve” the struggling post-apocalyptic world. More often than anyone would like, these settlements are under siege by any number of threats and it will be up to you, the hero, to protect these people from enemies near and far. Should you fail or not make it to the settlement in time, you’ll lose standing with the factions. And there is no beating these radiant quests. They continue until you decide you’re done with Fallout 4. Objectively, they’re the most irritating part of the game.
Now imagine a game based solely around that frustrating mechanic, throw in some Where’s Waldo looting, and zombies, and you’ve got State of Decay 2.
State of Decay 2
Developed by Undead Labs and published by Microsoft Studios, State of Decay 2 is an open-world zombie murdering machine of a game. In this post-apocalyptic land, you lead a band of plucky survivors who get to decide what kind of world will still be around for years to come. You do so by being a do-gooder and helping others survive zombie infestations or by killing them and stealing what little goods they have because hey, times are tough and I need those three jugs of ethanol to poison the girl who keeps picking fights in my base.
Judging by the marketing, State of Decay 2 wants you to believe there’s a compelling narrative to be told. It wants you to feel that you’ll be playing this game for in-game years to come. You won’t. If the story somehow gets better around day 300, no one will know because no one is that much of a masochist to continue looting for that long. And that’s if your whole camp hasn’t fallen to the zombie attacks because NO ONE CLOSES THE GATES, GUIN.
When it comes to choosing your band of heroes, you get a few options between pairs of starting characters. You can be a brother and sister, a pair of old friends, or an odd couple. If you’re a fan of min-maxing, you probably want the Odd Couple, but mostly, choose based on the stats you think will be most helpful. Naturally, I choose the on-again-off-again lesbian couple because I’m nothing if not predictable. I hoped that somewhere down the line in the story I’d see the two interact in a compelling manner but no. Despite carefully cultivating my apocalyptic Themyscira, and forcing the two to go on outings together, there’s hardly any banter between the two that you don’t already see in the tutorial. In fact, there’s little character development at all and most of the recruitable survivors are downright unlikable. I had to kick a survivor out of my base because I wasn’t helping her find her Renaissance Faire Mace replica fast enough and she was so irritated by my slacking off that she picked fights with everyone. Honestly, it was a hostile environment that frankly I didn’t expect from someone who was so into cosplay, but I had to protect my Girl Power community and kick her toxic butt to the curb.
State of Decay 2
Because State of Decay 2 is a zombie game, the only real enemy is, well, the undead. Combat is pretty solid throughout, both with melee and ranged, which is good because you’ll be fighting a lot. Not challenging battles but mostly the repetitive struggles of killing a basic horde or two. There are unique enemies like bloaters, ferals, and juggernauts, which do change how I approach a fight (e.g. I can’t just run over a juggernaut with my car because the vehicles are the best weapons in the game), but once you acquire better guns, they can be dealt with easy enough provided you don’t try to just stand and fight your way through the attacks.
Most of the fighting challenge in State of Decay 2 comes from fighting Plague Hearts and ridding the map of their disgusting presence. If you cheese them like I did, wiping out surrounding plague zombies with a jeep and chucking a dozen molotovs into the infected space, it’ll be easy peasy explosive squeezy. The more plague hearts you kill, the harder the subsequent ones become but I’m mostly a terrible video gamer and I managed them throughout using the above strategy with no problem. And that’s saying something.
Much of State of Decay 2 is spent looting buildings for goods to maintain your base. In every new building you’re given the amount of lootable boxes to find and it’s like a mini-game of Where’s Waldo, only Waldo is a blinking container that sometimes glitches out of existence. And that’s a good thing because you’ll spend a significant time trying to figure out how to haul 8 pieces of loot and 4 rucksacks back to the base or outpost. Because you carry so little on your person, despite the largest backpacks available, much of gameplay is shuffling resources to and from different buildings so that it feels like you’re being productive in-game even though really, you haven’t accomplished much.
The end goal of State of Decay 2 is to form alliances among the different factions throughout the world so that when the final fight rears its ugly head, you’ll have allies to join you in the battle. But in order to gain those allies, you have to frustratingly rescue these helpless groups from any number of struggles: a lack of supplies, an attacking horde, a group of bandits, and so on. And you have to do so within the allotted time. If you’re in the middle of a mission or across the map, too stinking bad. Help them or you’ll become enemies.
Halfway through the game, I stopped responding to the calls for help because I was tired of giving handouts to these apocalyptic freeloaders and it made the game so much more enjoyable. When it came time to fight the final battle I didn’t have any allies and it was one of the most anti-climactic endings to a video game I’ve ever seen. As my leader gave her inspiring Independence Day-esque speech, I missed most of what she said because over the radio a group settlers threatened me for not helping their settlement and that glitch is the perfect description of State of Decay 2. You can try to be a hero but people are going to whine and hate what you do anyway.
But hey, if you want, you can now start a more challenging new game plus version with your previous survivors, doing all the same obnoxious things you did before but on a different map.

‘Outpost Zero’ – Early Early Early Early Access Review

By
Jen Stayrook
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Outpost Zero

Given the amount of Early Access survival games I’ve played in recent years, I like to consider myself somewhat of an expert. Outpost Zero, developed by Symmetric Games, is one of the newest entries into the genre and it’s very Early Access. Even after a slew of updates over the weekend, it’s abundantly clear that it will be some time until Outpost Zero makes its way into the “finished game” category. (Or if it follows tradition, it may never leave Early Access.)

On the surface, Outpost Zero is similar to all of its survival counterparts. If you’ve played any survival game–Ark, Rust, Minecraft, DayZ, the list is endless–there’s nothing new to Outpost Zero. Spawn in an unknown world, gather basic resources, die a few times, build a paltry square base, continue farming resources, fend off mobs, build basic crafting stations, gather, gather, gather, repeat until you die.

Despite all the signs of an early access game, repetitive structure, bland textures, and lacking character design, Outpost Zero does offer at least a rudimentary tutorial for the starting stages of the game. It comes to an abrupt end after a few quests, but it leaves you believing there will be more in the future with perhaps, dare I hope, a more intriguing narrative.

Outpost Zero

Speaking of story, there’s not much to mention so far: you’re a humanoid AI sent to the vast world of Gaiya to prepare for human colonization because the creators have learned nothing from Battlestar Galactica and robot slave labor is all the rage.

After you’ve done all that gathering with a multi-tool that’s reminiscent of Starbound, you can begin to build your corporate shrine of a base. Shockingly, building is the most polished aspect of the game. Ark, a self-proclaimed “finished” survival game still fumbles through its building, but Outpost Zero has streamlined the process while also offering interesting designs into the mix. With a relatively clean UI and crafting process, it is by far the best part of the game and I’m eager to see how the developers improve upon it.

In fact, once you dive into Outpost Zero, you’ll find it offers a mostly clean experience. The UI and inventory are intuitive, crafting is easily understood, and there is enough variation in the world to not feel like you’re doing the same thing over and over. (Except farming carbon. You will always be farming carbon.) Once you’re established enough, you have the opportunity to build drones who can do work for you. Tired of farming iron? Send a drone to collect it. Want them to craft steel bars? They can do that, too. Don’t send them to farm uranium right now though because the adorable little orbs will just suicide on the radiation. The addition to craft new robots to help you, even ones that look like you, is such a unique addition to the genre that has a ton of potential. And while the AIs can be a bit dopey, like running into their doom, or spinning in dizzying circles before crafting more med packs, they listen to commands most of the time. Which is all I can really ask for in an Early Access game.

Outpost Zero

And if you’re playing on a PvE server, because hosting a game for your friends is busted at the moment, Outpost Zero is a calm, almost enjoyable experience. Joining a server is easy and I’ve suffered almost no lag but I suppose that has more to do with how few people are playing the game the game at the moment. Playing PvP, however, is a nightmare.

For a game that boasts twice as many PvP servers than PvE, Outpost Zero’s combat is an outright circus. Hitboxes are a mess and more often than not, whatever item you’re holding will be invisible, so targeting accurately with a sword is a lesson in futility. Because of the shoddy state of combat at the moment, most of your battles will come from NPC space pirates that want to assault your invisible weapons with long-range rifles and outdated video game memes. Still, despite their climbing difficulty levels with every spawn, they’re dealt with easily enough. If you’re planning on using your fighting skills against other players, now isn’t the best time in the game’s development. Mostly because, well, it just won’t happen.

For as popular as these survival base-building games are, relying so heavily on PvP for conflict instead of any sort of narrative, they still cannot find a way to make PvP balanced. In any of these games, players don’t have to fight you to destroy everything you’ve worked for; all they have to do is wait for you to log off the server. Without a player to mount any sort of defense, these power players who rush to end game content, are able to demolish every ounce of effort (see: all the time spent gathering resources) you’ve put into the game in a matter of minutes.

Outpost Zero

Outpost Zero has done nothing to improve on this fatal flaw within the genre. In fact, it may have made it worse. Given the unstable nature of power systems, with generators sometimes not working or powering important structures such as doors and turrets, it might be the easiest robbery these players ever commit. And therein lies the major frustration. Quirks like invisible hatches are fun to joke about, but griefing will deter most casual gamers from playing the game. It’s already known that communities in Rust and DayZ are some of the most toxic online because of the griefing and I’d hate to see Outpost Zero ignore that behavior.

Because of all this, I cannot, in good conscience, recommend anyone plays on a PvP server unless they enjoy playing for most of the day and have a group of friends to join them. If you’re curious, try the game first on PvE and see if it fits, but beware because it’s still a mostly monotonous experience and if you’re looking for more finished game material, give it a few months.

Outpost Zero

I want to like Outpost Zero more than I do. I have hopes that in a few months when I check it out again, it’ll offer the richer sci-fi game experience. There’s potential in the drones and the science that might make it a wonderful game for those looking for a unique survival experience, but I need Outpost Zero to avoid the pitfalls of the genre in order to enjoy it more fully in the future.

‘The Spy Who Dumped Me’ Review – Misses the Mark But Makes a Point

By
Christian Angeles
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0
The Spy Who Dumped Me

The Spy Who Dumped Me, directed by Sussanna Fogel, is a buddy comedy action movie about two female best friends who get thrown into the world of international espionage.

When Audrey, your everyday woman (Mila Kunis), celebrates her 30th birthday she isn’t exactly thrilled. She is working a dead-end job at a grocery store, has no future prospects, was recently ghosted by her now ex-boyfriend, and above all else, is feeling: unaccomplished.

She gets by through her love of shooter videogames and the support of her best friend, Morgan, played by the hilarious Kate McKinnon, of Saturday Night Live fame.

Morgan is a woman whose positive energy and in your face femininity empowers Audrey in a fun, yet often unpredictable fashion.

Shortly after her lackluster birthday, Audrey and Morgan find themselves embroiled in an international conspiracy when Audrey’s ex-boyfriend, Drew (Justin Theroux), unexpectedly re-enters her life with a team of assassins on his trail. He reveals that the reason for the breakup is that he is in actually, a CIA agent on the run.

Needing to get a device from point A to point B for the fate of some unforeseen global threat, he bequeaths his quest to his ex-girlfriend if she so chooses to accept it…

Which obviously, she does.

The Spy Who Dumped Me hits all the right beats for a high concept spy comedy.  The issue is that the story is just that: too formulaic. It’s derivative and predictable. Though there is one exception the movie excels at: it doesn’t shy away from the action. Which was sort of the point of the movie.

“It’s important for me that the action be just as fearless as the action in a male-driven movie, and that we don’t hold back, we don’t try to like soften it.” – Director Sussanna Fogel

Through outstanding action choreography and quite the eclectic comedy range from Kate McKinnon, the movie is enjoyable, yet forgettable.

Here’s me breaking down the movie rather easily:

In act one, we introduce Audrey and Morgan in the world before. Audrey is your everywoman, a nobody who is at a life crossroads in life, working at a dead-end job and feeling like she missed out. The best thing she has going for her is her boyfriend, who is intriguing yet ultimately distant.

She has a best friend named Morgan, a zany, intrepid, heart on the sleeve type of woman that doesn’t shy around about being herself. She is bold, albeit reckless at times, and carries most of the comedic beats.

The breakup is your inciting incident that forces change upon the characters that gets the story moving. The ex-boyfriend bequeaths a mission for our two heroes to go on. They say yes, which forces the break into act two: The promise of the movie premise.

The two besties now go travel across gorgeous European cities acting as pseudo-spies, faking it until making it, all while discovering something about themselves along the way: their true potential. This is where we see most of the premise of the movie, everything we paid money to go see: Gorgeous travel pieces, epic action sequences and of course, conveniently accessible romance, all while being introduced into the world through convenient exposition explaining its rules.

Then we reach act three. Where just as in most spy thrillers, not everything is as it seems. The movie showcases some very foreseeable twists and our heroines put their newfound skills to the test proving they have what it takes to be spies. Throw in a love interest, a climax beating the bad guy/revealing the true enemy, and that’s a very Hollywood spy movie.

Again, it’s formula to the utmost degree. Minus the spoiling details, the film doesn’t deviate from this predictable trope. So it’s entertaining yet again, negligible to keep attentive to.

Worst of all, were the annoying flashbacks forced into the movie to showcase backstory and keep us interested in The Spy Who Dumped Me.  Mila Kunis and Justin Theroux’s relationship was so unoriginal and not an organic at all for the story, that they forced in these randomly placed flashback scenes forcing depth of character. Which, honestly felt more like forced in scenes from older script drafts of the movie than something that fit into the flow of pacing.

What was a pleasant surprise, is the organic chemistry between Kunis and McKinnon. With many reviewers mentioning that while buddy comedies usually see two opposite characters at opposition, these two seem to be more like authentic friends. There isn’t a moment of catty woman vs woman drama, where the two eventually will need to reconcile. Instead, the movie does a good job of seeing best friends be supportive. A refreshing break from the usual.

Which brings us to the real gem of this film: Stunts. It should be noted that renown stunt coordinator form the Bond and Bourne franchises, Gary Powell, directed the action sequences. They are surprisingly high in quality. The violence was over the top yet never gruesome. The stunts were very impressive, edge of the seat thrill ride sort of motions. The scenes shot in Vienna were most noticable, particularly the fight sequence in the café and the chase scene across the city with people stuck atop the cars.

Controversy

I write this because I noticed an issue with the film that many other reviewers also had: sub-genre. Many reviewers were taken aback by the level of violence in this movie. Some liked it, some hated it. Many expected a more female-driven spy comedy, a bit campier and more parodying, along the spy side like a Get Smart as compared to an action-driven movie like John Wick (Of which, was an inspiration for the film). This harms the movie’s potential bottom line, as is it your typical action movie or is it a female-driven comedy?

It beckons the question should Female Driven be categorized as a subgenre? For one, it opens the door to franchises. Wonder Woman or Bridesmaids immediately come to mind. For another, it limits the broader marketing, and therefore audience, potential of watching the movie.

“It’s as though Lethal Weapon, Superbad, and Shallow Hal had all been grouped together and called male-driven movies. It’s not just men who are guilty of this. Woke feminist writers do it too. And I get why: female-driven movies are still a minority. But at some point we should stop calling them such because it’s perpetuating our role as The Other and encouraging us to market our work only to other women.” – Director Sussanna Fogel, in an essay for Glamour magazine.

Cast

The cast does its best with a very cookie-cutter script. Parodying tired and old clichés while poking fun at spies, femininity, and issues of trust in a genre exhausted with the tug of war between secrets and lies.

Sam Heughan, of Outlander fame, plays a brilliant yet often stiff MI-6 agent in Sebastian Henshaw. His performance is on point and rather charming, though we understand almost immediately he serves as the eye candy romantic interest in the movie.

Justin Theroux, whom I personally am a fan of thanks to his penning of gems Tropic Thunder and Iron Man 2, was rather unlikable in this movie. His action scenes seemed epic but there was an odd divide in characterization between caring and unlikable and I think the latter won out a little too conveniently.

An excellent performance in the character Nadedja (Ivanna Sakhno), as a memorable East European gymnast turned assassin. Honestly, the gymnast portion felt strange and slightly forced, akin to the oddities of a Bond Hench villain, up until the final act. Where it all sort of hilariously fit together.

Gillian Anderson, playing the head of the spy organization was a delight, yet also brief, and feeling a tad underutilized. Seemingly there just to portray a power authority figure for Kate McKinnon’s character to pine over.

Kate McKinnon hands down is on point and the best part of the movie. You can tell the director left her with lots of room for improvisation. Her one-liners, gags, and room to play with it showcase here, including some improvised scenes with Mila Kunis that felt authentic and truly friendly.

Mila Kunis, suffered from lead character boredom. She wasn’t whiny but she also didn’t have many interesting things going for her. But by the end of it, on paper, she shows significant growth, yet for some reason, it’s not as enjoyable seeing it within the movie’s runtime. Though she had just enough to have an arc of growth and independence, I think much of it felt lost in gross-out gags, ultra-violence, and bodily insertion jokes.

FINAL TAKE

Watch The Spy Who Dumped Me if you like popcorn films and predictable spy dramas. Enjoy the action sequences as they’re fantastic, as are Mila and Kate’s chemistry, with Kate McKinnon’s comedic beats standing above anything else.

‘Killjoys’ Review: One Hells of a Road Trip

By
Nicole C
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0
Killjoys

On Killjoys tonight, Johnny and D’avin go on an epic road trip in search of more plasma on the Debtor’s Colony within the Alcador Cluster. It appears that the younger Jaqobis brother knows down to his Hullenized cells that there’s more green on this planet. As a bonus this is also how they will find Dutch. Yea there’s probably going to be some issues with that.

Killjoys

Zeph + Pippin = Zippin

Back on Aneela’s armada ship, Zeph and Pip have a super awkward conversation. It’s actually Pip who brings up that while they were on the R.A.C. it seemed that they had a summer romance of sorts and now he was wondering what they were. Zeph agrees that they did have lots of sex because they thought they were going to die and it helped her think. However, she doesn’t do relationships and prefers minimal cuddling. That clearly wasn’t the answer he was looking for, but says that he’s totally amenable with those terms. Oh Pip you’re crushing hard and it’s so adorable.

Turin comes in the room and asks if they’ve had any news about Lucy and unfortunately the answer is a big fat no. Zeph though realizes that since Delle Seyah was also at the Necropolis, the Hullen must have been tracking her too. Bad news is that currently they don’t know how the system works on this ship, even Fancy couldn’t figure it out as an ex-Hullen. Leave it to Zeph though to determine that she needs to study the Hullen dolls to solve that problem and that requires a lot of thinking, aka she will also need to have more sex. She calls Pip promptly to follow her for needed physical activity.

Inside a lab, one of the dolls is strapped to a table for examination. Pip comes up with the idea of switching the man off and on which actually works, sort off. Zeph puts two small devices onto the Hullen’s temples that gives a small electrical charge to restart the brainwaves so to speak. Once she zaps him though, he grabs a gun from Pip and points it at him. When she tells the doll that they aren’t trying to hurt him, he puts the gun onto his own head and pulls the trigger while repeatedly saying she’s coming. Who could that be? The Lady of course.

Killjoys

Delle Seyah Kicks Ass So Hard 

Back at the Debtor’s Colony, Delle Seyah meets the warden who is having his men search for D’av and Johnny. After a little back and forth where she explains that she’s the head of the nine families and can either make him very rich or very dead, the guy doesn’t believe her and she then disables him and his goons. However he doses her with multiple tranquilizer darts and even the formidable Hullen passes out.

Once she wakes up, she finds herself strapped on an operating table where Clay has hooked her up to some drugs meant to speed up her impending delivery. He is aware that she’s supposed to be dead and so no one is going to come for her. When Delle Seyah says that she’s carrying the baby of a queen who will destroy this planet if any harm comes to her or the child, he asks where her royal majesty is and of course she says nothing. She is able to convince Bea to finally help her though, saying that if they fail and die that is better than what she’s been living through. Bea agrees to aid her. When Clay next comes in, he’s wondering why labor hasn’t been induced yet. Seyah Kendry then appeals to his greed and explains that she knows that he’s dipped into the colony’s business. He tells the other woman to leave and asks his prisoner to tread very carefully. She cuts to the chase and says that if he lets her, her baby, and Bea go she can teach him how to grow organs in a matter of hours. As proof he can cut her and watch the amazing Hullen healing properties. This astounds him naturally.

He releases her but as they make their way out of the clinic, other men have arrived and they are there to arrest him. Turns out that Bea and Delle Seyah made another deal with the home office and offered Clay up in exchange for their freedom. Naturally the company didn’t like that one of their employees was stealing from them. As proof the laparoscopic surgical camera inside the clinic was still on which fed directly back to headquarters as he told Delle Seyah his secret activity.

Plasma Road Trip

Meanwhile Johnny’s convinced his brother to go along with his plans for the moment after convincing him that Delle Seyah can’t be trusted after everything she’s done to them. Fair point evil Johnny. They enter a probe site where his plasma detecting machine crash landed (when did he have a moment to build that??). Something must have knocked it off course but John plans to use D’av’s plasma allergy as another tool to help them pinpoint the exact location of the green on this planet.

Speaking of which, the limited amount of green is still giving the younger Jaqobis incredibly aggressive mood swings. He nearly attacks his brother again and D’av has to calmly ask him to let go. Johnny apologizes and says that sometimes things get really messed up inside his head. D’avin says it’s alright, they are going to find Dutch and then get back to Delle Seyah and then to the armada where she can fix him. He then asks what they should do next and Johnny says they just need to rebuild the probe. The two brothers even banter about how their dad used to make them fix an old gadget. Once D’av has his back facing Johnny though he knows that something is still very wrong with the other man. John in the meantime suddenly sees Dutch again who tells him that the longer he has the plasma in him the harder it will be to let go. He counters back by saying that she might like Hullen Johnny more than the bleeding heart one. She then asks what does he think is going to happen once D’av finds out what he’s really up to and he coldly smiles telling her who says he’ll be around to see that. Woa that’s brutal.

The probe gets hooked onto D’avin who’s allergy to the plasma will be used as an indicator of how close they are. Immediately the Killjoy feels sick and so looks like it’s working. However, a small communication device rolls its way in and Clay announces that his men have them surrounded. Johnny then sets up a makeshift bomb to block the entrance so that their attackers aren’t able to get inside. He detonates it but then gets knocked out in the process. D’av manages to get him to an old medical depot. Imaginary Dutch is still there with John and she tells him that she’s all that’s left of the old him and she’s not going to be around much longer.

When night hits, evil Johnny wakes up and tries the guilt card on D’av using their mom as a trigger but big bro isn’t falling for it. He switches tactic and says that he should try switching off his emotions because it will be useful when the baby arrives. Dutch is apparently going to want nothing to do with it so D’avin will have to choose one of them but that’s ok because he’s good at abandonment. Ouuuuch. Evil Johnny is a total mean girl.

They find a massive plasma green pool the next day and D’av takes off the tracking beacon injected behind his neck. But in an expected move from evil Johnny, he is able to break his restraints, take his brother’s gun, and shoot D’avin in the back. Subconscious Dutch appears again taunts John, saying doesn’t he want to kick her ass now that he’s Hullen. He begins trying to hit her but of course there isn’t anyone there to fight. D’av then gets up from the ground because he smartly wore body armor to protect himself and tells his kid bro to stop hating himself. The two then get into a scuffle.

killjoys

Finding Lucy

Zeph is able to restore some basic functions to the Hullen doll and she and Pip are using it to navigate the armada’s control systems. Pip claims to be the Hullen whisperer and is able to unlock the tracking which shows them where the group last follow Lucy. Now was Pippin able to do that because of sheer luck or is it because of the spider inside him? Paranoid Turin comes inside with Pree hot on his heels telling the two to get the doll away from the command console because it could be setting up a self-destruction sequence or calling in for reinforcements. However after Zeph explains that she’s fully in control of the Hullen he relents and says they should take a Black Root ship to follow Lucy to Borian’s Belt. Pree and Pip are deputized into the Killjoy ranks since the badge is may the only thing that might protect them.

The three are able to find Lucy but she’s totally unresponsive. Zeph is able to restore power but the ship seems to have reset herself to protect D’av and Johnny’s location. She tries to use the backdoor that the younger Jaqobis built to get into Lucy’s system but that fails and now the vessel’s purge protocol is activated unless they can input the correct security code. Zeph is able to find some coding within Lucy’s system that is harmonic oriented, deducing that they would need Dutch, Johnny, or D’avin’s voice to utter a specific verbal command except of course none of them are here. She tries a voice imitator to sound like the leader of Team Awesome Force but that is a giant fail. Pree gives it a go channeling his inner Dutch but it’s also a no-go. Pip then tries speaking as Johnny where he gives a really super awkward monologue about only needing one woman, erm ship. The three of them know this little speech is actually meant for Zeph. This also doesn’t work and so Pree suggests that they try this a different way. Their next plan to try and remotely deactivate the purge sequence onboard the Black Root ship instead but the Lucy says noted and then goes into auto-pilot while beginning to vent out all the oxygen on the ship.

With only four minutes of breathable air left, Pip suddenly wonders what if the security code is a song. Zeph remembers that the only reason why Dutch was able to catch Johnny attempting to steal Lucy all those years ago was a because he was blasting music and Pree is able to recall Jaqobis singing it once at the Royale when he was very drunk. Pip then plays the song of Johnny’s old PDD and voila security disengaged and Lucy is back online. The artificial intelligence system then plots a course for the elevator.

They arrive just in time after the warden is taken away and along with Delle Seyah they head to the boys.

Killjoys

Dutch Emerges From The Green

 As the brothers continue to fight, D’av uses his plasma destroying gift on Johnny but stops when the other man asks to be killed. Evil Johnny then gets the upper hand again and just as he’s choking D’avin he gets shot in the back by Dutch who had emerged from the green plasma. Weirdly however the entire pool crystalizes and she then faints.

As the group returns to Lucy, Johnny is restrained and sequestered with his psychosis getting worse, Dutch is in some kind of coma, and Delle Seyah’s water suddenly breaks. It’s definitely going to be an interesting ride back to the armada.

 Final Thoughts

  • So, the Dutch evil Johnny is seeing is what’s left of his old self trying to cling on while the parasite tries to devour his entire being. I wonder though if the only way that he could be cured is if the original source of his plasma is destroyed. But which pool would that be and where is it?
  • Zeph is so badass this season and I love it so much. So fantastic to see a strong female character who does things her own way and routinely comes up with solutions that no one else could.
  • Now I wonder why the pool became solid after Dutch got out. Was that her doing or Aneela’s?

 

Killjoys airs on Syfy Fridays at 10/9c.

‘Killjoys’ Review: Johnny’s Unexpected Transformation

By
Nicole C
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0
Killjoys
KILLJOYS -- "John Dangerously" Episode 402 -- Pictured: (l-r) Aaron Ashmore as John, Mayko Nguyen as Delle Seyah Kendry, Luke Macfarlane as D'Avin -- (Photo by: Ian Watson/Killjoys IV Productions Limited/SYFY)

In this week’s episode of Killjoys, we find out what happened to the Jaqobis brothers and Delle Seyah after aimlessly floating through space at the end of season three. Spoiler alert, they land on a planet and things don’t go according to plan. Naturally the trio soon find themselves in grave danger.

The Trio Land Somewhere

Having crash landed on an unknown planet, D’avin (Luke MacFarlane), Johnny (Aaron Ashmore), and Delle Seyah (Mayko Ngueyen) are walking trying to find any sign of life to figure out where the hells they are, when a vehicle carrying three people fast approach them. A fight ensues with these unknown assailants losing but Johnny’s injury gets worse as his punctured lung takes a beating. Luckily however, they are able to find a depot five miles east of their location and meet some of the locals. D’av demands medical help and one of the residents says they have supplies, but a doctor won’t be in until the morning. There is definitely something weird going on in this place as all the people seem shifty as hell.

Running out of time with Johnny’s life on the line, the trio sequester themselves behind what looks like a rough surgical room and Delle Seyah has a radical proposal. The only way they can save the younger Jaqobis is by Hullenizing him with the small bit of green plasma she has left. With no real supplies to help Johnny, D’avin is forced to agree. The aftermath is when things get really weird.

Hullen Johnny is Crazy AF

Having survived the transition, but not receiving a full transfusion of plasma (through his brain stem nonetheless), Johnny is really mentally unstable. He wakes up and chokes D’avin while angrily asking what he did to him with Delle Seyah pointing a gun at his skull. Johnny starts to laugh though and says just kidding. He wasn’t mad because he’s gotten an awesome upgrade. Delle Seyah and her baby daddy give each other a look that says clearly something is wrong here.

They rejoin the others and get hired by the locals to represent them. One of the women explains that they are a farming collective and that they can’t meet their quota this month and the fines for failure strict. They just need the Killjoys to negotiate a fair deal for them and in exchange they’ll help them get a ship. All of a sudden Johnny asks one of the men for his hat and then grabs D’av’s gun to point it at the dude. The elder Jaqobis calmly says that he knows his younger brother is not himself right now and that he doesn’t have to shoot anyone. John backs down for the moment having regained his cool.

Soon however another group of men arrive and the locals turn on them, their leader telling the new comers to take the Killjoys and that they want out of there. Johnny seems to quickly calculate what is actually going on and is easily able to take out all the people with guns. He tells D’av that this is a con job. Delle Seyah adds that the planet must be a prison and the people there were going to make them do their time instead. But one of the survivors says their wrong and lifts her shirt up to prove that this place is indeed a farm collective, except that the people themselves are the goods. Turns out that they are in a colony for those with debts and it’s mainly unsupervised. They were all there to work for what they owed in one way or another, hers being was being an organ grower. When it’s their time their chip beeps and tells them which depot to go to or else they get tracked down. Once the organ is taken a new one is implanted along with a dosage of regrowth medication where you then start the process all over again. Except no one can really pay off their debt because they charge for food.

All of a sudden, all the chips of the dead men go off and the one of the prisoners explains that now a ship full of men and guns come. This is good new to D’avin though because that means there’s a chance they can use it as their ride out of there. So they come up with a plan where all the detainees get de-chipped so that they can’t get fried remotely. When the reinforcements arrive their group can take them out and seize the space vehicle. As D’av and the others argue, we seem to see Dutch appear and tell the younger Jaqobis to fight it and that he’s losing her. John tells her that she’s not real and she counters that it doesn’t mean she’s wrong. Now that he’s got plasma in him I wonder if that could be a mental reach from the real Dutch in the green.

The R.A.C. Facility in the Aftermath

Meanwhile on the Hullen controlled R.A.C. facility, Zeph (Kelly McCormack) and Pip (Atticus Mitchell) find themselves alone trying to figure out a way off the massive structure. All of their overlords also seem to be mostly unmoving. I wonder if this is because Aneela has been cut off from being able to control them since she is in the green. Zeph comes up with a plan for them to hotwire a Black Root ship and regroup with the others. They are able to find Aneela’s base where Fancy (Sean Baek), Turin (Patrick Garrow), Pree (Thom Allison) and Gared (Gavin Fox) are along with the remaining survivors. Turns out that the Hullen on their ship have gone catatonic too. Zeph asks what John thinks about them and discovers that the Jaqobis are not onboard. Turin explains that the boys went to the Necropolis with Delle Seyah and never returned. They also had no way of getting inside because the elevator is gone. The newest member of Team Awesome Force comes up with a plan however needing Khlyen’s mirror cube and a Scarback willing to help them. Being the only female currently in their small band, Zeph reminds Turin and everyone else not to underestimate her because she survived in the dark and alone (mostly) in a Hullen infested R.A.C. base building tech to get herself out of there. As far as a Scarback to help them, Gared asks what about an ex-Scarback if all the others won’t want anyone to go into the Necropolis because they consider it a tomb.

Help From a Dominatrix

Gared and Pree head to the Westerley White Sands where they meet Fairuza (Anna Hopkins), an ex-Scarback and current dominatrix. It’s obvious that Gared had been there before for her services but he tries to play it off that he heard about her through the grapevine. When it’s their turn, Pree asks the woman that her new line of work seems in contradiction to Scarback beliefs. She responds by explaining that she took pain for 12 years until she found out that her religion was based on crap. Now she’s in charge of who hurts. Gared blurts out that they need help getting into the Necropolis and she tells them to get out. The barkeep protests that he’s a friend of Alvis and they are looking for the person who killed him, but to do that they first need to get into that floating tomb. He goes on to say that they can get inside however require someone who knows the place well enough to guide them. Fairuza agrees to come as long as she gets to keep any artifact she finds. Pree doesn’t have any issues with that condition and is about to leave when Gared suggests they stay to worship since they’re here. The owner of the Royale says why the hells not, he hasn’t been that good anyways.

Inside the Necropolis

Zeph has managed to hack Khlyen’s mirror cube with jump technology from the Black Root ship and it will now allow them to enter the Necropolis if her calculations are correct. Fairuza and Pip come along. Upon arriving, Pip goes down to see if he can find any CCTV footage of what happened while Fairuza provides death rites for the dead Scarbacks. Oh but what’s lurking around there? The Lady’s nasty plasma spiders!

Pip makes it down to the lower levels where he is able to turn on the generator and then looks at the Necropolis’s recording system. Once he replays the footage on the tenth level (where the ladies currently are) he sees that the spiders came out of the green and basically attacked everyone. He freaks out and smacks into a catatonic Hullen who suddenly moves, grabs Pip and opens his mouth where an insect comes out. It’s like every scary alien movie ever.

Up at the worship floor, Zeph takes a sample of the plasma that Dutch and Aneela vanished into when Fairuza calls out saying that she had found something. That something was dead Hullen who had committed suicide. The ex-Scarback suddenly tells the other woman not to move. She then quickly roll over at the count of three. As Fairuza says three, Zeph does as she’s told and the dominatrix fires her weapon at something behind the technologist. What do they find skulking there? A spider of course. The duo then hightails back to the cube heading back when Zeph runs into Pip who seems normal. Except we know he’s not because he’s been infected by a Hullen spider!

Plan B

Back on the organ harvest colony, Johnny hands D’avin a beacon that he made from the chips of the detainees. He explains that he’s coded it to Lucy’s specific frequency so that if his big brother’s plan fails, they have a backup. All it needs is to get hooked up to the elevator and that will increase their chances of getting out of there. D’av gives the beacon to Delle Seyah saying that he needs Johnny there with him to fight. After some bickering between the two Hullens, the elder Jaqobis gives a gun to the woman currently carrying his child and tells her to take care of their baby. Delle Seyah in turn awkwardly says you too. To make things even more weird they shake on it.

Seyah Kendry takes the beacon and connects it to the panel inside the elevator. The detainee Bea is with her and the other woman asks how the three of them survived in there without killing each other. We get a hilarious flashback of D’avin doing a lot of HIIT exercises, Johnny and Delle Seyah playing games, Delle Seyah acting as a therapist for the boys, and her threatening to kill they both if they didn’t stop snoring and farting. As she is able to activate the device the guard reinforcements soon arrive instead of Lucy. Well played John Jaqobis. He fibbed and the guards were actually tracking the chips. Meanwhile back at the depot he killed everyone else and tricks D’av by using laughing gas to lower his guard. He then teases his brother asking what if he had to be cured the way Sabine was cured. D’avin says that he would wreck him. Soon after he gets punched in the face, knocked out, and loaded onto the passenger seat of a truck John has commandeered. His real plan had been to get plasma and apparently he knows where to find it.

Final Thoughts

  • Hullen Johnny reminds me of a jock hopped up on steriod who thinks that they’re invincible. But bravo Aaron Ashmore for showing us this totally new side of John.
  • It’s pretty darned hilarious that Delle Seyah finds herself tied to Team Awesome Force whom she detests. But what do you expect when you have relations with someone who looks exactly like Dutch (Aneela).
  • Since the plasma Johnny got injected with is from Aneela’s pool and not The Lady’s, I wonder if the Hullen leader can have any control over him? With this Jaqobis brother, it seems like the substance is bringing out his most aggressive instincts and feels pretty similar to how Aneela acted in season three.
  • Also that quick brotherly smooch scene, I was not against that.
  • Leave it to Zeph to actually get things done and have them be one step closer to finding out what happened to the Jaqobis and Dutch.
  • Although it was also so nice to see that Turin, Fancy, Pree, and Gared survived the battle. The more important question is that did they find snacks on Aneela’s Hullen ship?

 

Killjoys airs on Syfy Fridays at 10/9c.

‘Killjoys’ Season 4 Premiere: Dutch and Johnny’s First Adventure In The Quad

By
Nicole C
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KILLJOYS -- "The Warrior Princess Bride" Episode 401 -- Pictured: (l-r) Hannah John-Kamen as Dutch, Aaron Ashmore as John -- (Photo by: Ian Watson/Killjoys IV Productions Limited/SYFY)

In the season four premiere of Syfy’s Killjoys, we discover how Dutch and Johnny became RAC agents as well as see the early stages of their friendship. Spoiler alert the tale is badass.

We pick up some time after the season three finale, where Aneela, Dutch, and Khlyen are in the green preparing to hunt The Lady. Their common enemy is the true leader of the Hullen who is seeking to get out of the plasma. While immensely powerful, she seems to be trapped in this alternate dimension of sorts and she needs Aneela to take her out. Additionally, it seems that this being also has special plans for D’avin and Dutch’s child currently residing within Delle Seyah Kendry’s womb.

Inside the green, Khlyen takes an injured Dutch back to their hiding spot where Aneela is standing watch. He begins to tell his protégé a story that will help save her life if she pays close attention. The story turns out to be how Dutch and John Jaqobis became Killjoys in the Quad.

The Warrior and The Thief

The time was seven years ago at the Laryon Docking Station in the Outer J, where Johnny was running a small time con and soon found himself about to get beat up by a group of men when Dutch comes to his rescue by offering the goons some money to get out of there. When the group’s leader is hesitant to accept, she suggests he gets out of there or else she’s going to lose her temper and parts of his manhood will be cut off.

While he’d been grifting she actually found them a job transporting 24 crates of beet wine to a place called the Quad. But it’s not love at first sight for them and the sector that they would eventually call home. In addition, who knew that Lucy did not like Johnny back in the day! It’s super endearing to see how their relationship began too. He apparently attempted to steal the ship some months prior and as a result they got off on the wrong foot. They land in Old Town on Westerley and shortly after get into trouble with Hills Oonan from the Company. Awww I’ve missed you Oonan! Apparently only the Company and Killjoys are able to legally import anything into this area and so everyone else is smuggling. Their cargo is seized with a fine of 10,000 joys. Oh and Lucy is impounded too.

Stuck in Old Town for the moment, the duo head to the Royale for some answers and drinks. There Johnny runs into trouble again when he lifts the wallets of some patrons and one them turns out to be Big Joe, the man who would become Dutch’s Killjoy mentor. After they fight he eventually apprehends the two and takes them to the RAC base for interrogation. They both get questioned by Big Joe separately and the level five Killjoy knows that there is a lot more to Dutch than she lets on. However a hold order is issued on the two outsiders by Hills and they find out that they weren’t just transporting beet wine. The containment hold security footage shows the lid of one of their containers blasting open and the camera goes dead soon after. While at the scene of the crime Johnny finds a remote EMP device that could be triggered from anywhere and Dutch discovers that their stowaway stole poison. Big Joe tells Hills that the two had been with him for the last three hours and that the elder man should put up a big warrant for the stolen goods, he would claim it and then find the missing item. That way it doesn’t get traced back to the Company employee that this happened under his watch.

Back at the Royale, Dutch tells Big Joe that obviously a highly trained assassin is behind this because they are very particular on their method of killing. She sends Johnny off to get them more drinks while she chats with the Killjoy, explaining that it takes one (assassin) to know one. The other man asks her what’s her favorite way to kill someone and Dutch answers using a hair pin through the ear because it makes it look like a brain aneurysm. She offers to find the pro in exchange for letting them go, but he says no can do because people saw her shoot him and that can’t slide. Dutch alters her statement to just let John and the ship go today instead. Big Joe agrees and has her drink a soluble tracker so that he is guaranteed that she doesn’t just jet off.

Meanwhile Johnny has been working on modifying the EMP device so that they can track the triggering signal’s location. Upon finding the exact spot, they pretend to be Killjoys to get information from the men inside. Ian (wearing a shirt with the name Larry) gives in and said that he was just hired to steal something from the impound and apparently doesn’t know where the poison is. Dutch uses her favorite form coersion by nearly breaking the guy’s hand and he relents, saying that the drop is on a ten-year retreat on Qresh. Back on the ship, Lucy explains that Qreshi marriage licenses expire every ten years and that these retreats are a safe way for individuals to try other partners before deciding to renew their marriage.

Dutch Tries To Send Johnny Away For His Own Good

Dutch traps Johnny on Lucy and instructs her ship to fly far away as soon as they land on Qresh. She tells him that she lied and that the clemency deal is only for him. He needs to get far away because people around her always get hurt. Johnny however disables Lucy’s defense protocols and explains that he could rewrite her code so that she would have to obey him but he won’t because he wants her help not her obedience. This is the start of their beautiful relationship as Lucy agrees to let him out in order to save Dutch from herself.

At the retreat, Dutch is being shown around by a hostess when she is asked to log in her credentials to check in. Johnny to the rescue as he naturally has thought of this step and has created falsified information for them. Once they are able to get a moment alone in one of their rooms Dutch is furious that he’s there but he counters that he just saved her so she needs him. Awww they’re so cute. Reluctantly she agrees to do this last job with him but after that they are done. Her plan is for them to look for someone who has manipulated the system to match with their target. The professional would also have to plan for a bedroom date in order to administer the poison.

As she continues to survey the attendees downstairs, Johnny is back in his room going through the digital profiles. He is able to find a one that’s been blocked from matching with anyone else and he tells Dutch through their comm devices that he thinks Harvost Mueller is the target. She goes to find him and makes an offer that he can’t refuse. They head back to his room and she checks him for weapons under the guise of getting frisky. But just as they are on the bed, he starts to weep and says that he doesn’t want to do this and just wants to cuddle. Johnny though tells Dutch that he found a falsified profile and he is able to track the wearer’s bracelet, showing this person is heading towards them. However, instead of Harvost’s room the assassin has come to John’s knowing that he’s been sent there to halt her job. Dutch arrives soon after though and gets into a fight where she kicks ass naturally. She wins, but her partner gets scratched and the poison begins going through his system.

Johnny Saves Dutch

Back on Lucy, Johnny is in his room passed out while Dutch is about to start interrogating the assassin. She asks where the antidote is but the other woman refuses to say. She uses a scanner and finds the small item hidden inside the killer’s shoe, however there’s a lock around it. Running out of time, Dutch takes out her torture box and says that she was hoping she wouldn’t have to use these anymore. The other woman says that they can’t ever be like other people again. Yalena (Dutch) states that Johnny was her chance at normalcy and that the assassin would tell her the code eventually because the one thing girls like them don’t do is die horribly for a job. But before she can start, he comes downstairs having been woken up by Lucy asking for advice on how she would know if Yalena was in trouble.

“You don’t have to do this, we can both start over. Just take this first step and I will take it with you.”

Oh Johnny you and your guyliner are giving me feels! Apparently the assassin was moved too since she whistles and lock opens. The younger Jaqobis brother then quickly drinks the contents of the small vial.

They take the contract killer back to the RAC and Big Joe gives them their cut of the warrant earnings. He tells the younger man to go get himself a soda while he chats with Dutch and offers the two of them jobs. He figures that she might like a simple, clean, legal, and secure way of life. Interestingly enough however when she gets up to leave without accepting his proposal, Turin enters and we see on his badge that Yalena’s DNA had been tagged with the code Red 17 already and they were not to approach. But that isn’t a surprise as Khlyen had been watching her during this time too.

In her personal quarters, Johnny comes in and asks why she didn’t tell him the truth that she had also been an assassin. She points out that’s not the kind of thing you would easily say to someone. He does say though that the other woman was wrong and that she can change. Johnny suggests what if they stayed and joined the RAC, this time not running away. When Dutch asks what if she’s no good at being normal, he proposes a two-year deal. They try out this lifestyle and after that they can choose to renew or abandon their partnership with no blame or tears. She agrees and he gets up to get some alcohol to make it official while teasing her with the nickname queenie. Yalena corrects him though that he can’t call her that anymore because they are starting over with new identities. So John decides duchess instead and voila! Dutch is short for duchess.

Back In The Green

Meanwhile back inside the green, Khlyen tells Dutch that she needs to remember that she and Johnny saved each other. When Aneela asks what the younger Jaqobis saved Yalena from, her father answers himself. She then leaves the room upset. He turns his attention back to the injured Dutch and asks her what the real lesson of his story is. She doesn’t know and Khlyen says that when she has no strength left to fight The Lady, find John Jaqobis because he is her true north and her only way home. When he goes outside to talk to Aneela, she tells him that she should never have left Dutch with him because if they don’t do something soon The Lady will break her. The elder man responds back that this would always happen it was only a matter of when. It seems that he had sent Dutch back out to face their enemy and he had hidden something, possibly in her?

Running through the snowy forest, the Killjoy yells out for The Lady to come and get her when an unseen force attacks and she falls to the ground with tendrils of green plasma entering her body. We hear Khlyen’s voice saying that this is the story of a lonely warrior and the thief who saves them all.

Final Thoughts

  • Oh how I’ve missed Killjoys. It is huge a treat to see how Dutch and Johnny first became Killjoys and witness the turning point that really solidified their friendship. Their relationship is one of the most important aspects of the show and it’s refreshing that it’s not a romantic one.
  • It’s also been so much fun to know that Johnny and Lucy did not always get along.
  • But I can’t wait to find out what Khlyen’s strategy is for winning against The Lady. He must surely have something planned since he’s presumably hidden something in Dutch. I wonder if it’s something that will lessen the Hullen leader’s power once she tries to infiltrate the Killjoy’s mind.
  • I hope we learn more about Dutch’s physiology as a being created in the green. She’s not Hullen nor is she totally human either.
  • Also I can’t wait to find out about D’Avin’s crazy power over the green. Did he get this special skill through the experiments on him during his time in the military? Or did he get this way via another means?

 

Killjoys airs on Syfy Fridays at 10/9c.

Nickelodeon and Paramount Revive ‘Rugrats’ for 26 Episodes and a Live-Action Movie

By
Bilal Mian
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Rugrats

Nickelodeon and Paramount Pictures are reviving Rugrats.

Fans of the ’90s cartoon will find series favorites Tommy, Chucky, Phil, Lil, Angelica and Susie back on TV screens for a 26 episode order. That’s not all as Paramount has also greenlit a live-action movie featuring CGI characters.

Rugrats’ original creators Arlene Klasky, Gábor Csupó and Paul Germain will return to the TV series as executive producers.

“Rugrats is hands-down one of the most celebrated cartoons in TV history, and we are thrilled for a whole new audience to meet these iconic characters in brand-new adventures,” said Sarah Levy, COO of Viacom Media Networks and interim president of Nickelodeon. “What was true in 1991 when the original show premiered is still true today: kids are fascinated with the world of babies. We can’t wait for today’s kids to meet Tommy, Chuckie and pals.”

“Now feels like the ideal time to reintroduce this iconic cast of characters to a whole new generation of young fans,” said Brian Robbins, president of Paramount Players. “Kids who grew up with Tommy Pickles and the “Rugrats” crew will now be able to share that experience with their own children.”

Rugrats will join Rocko’s Modern Life, Invader Zim, and Blue’s Clues as shows being revived by Viacom.

UnREAL’s Fourth and Final Season is Now Available to Stream in Entirety on Hulu

By
Bilal Mian
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0
Unreal
UnREAL -- "All In" - Episode 401 - Rachel and Quinn return to the set of Everlasting changed by the events of last season. In an effort to prove herself to be "loveable" Rachel has molded herself into a suitress of sorts, determined to find a man. Quinn has spent the summer on a honeymoon cruise with Chet and has completely removed herself from planning the season. With old contestants, and a new format, this season is poised to be even more dramatic than ever. Rachel Goldberg (Shiri Appleby) shown. (Photo by: Bettina Strauss/Hulu)

Fans of UnREAL are in for a treat as the series’ fourth and final season is now available in its entirety on Hulu. The deal between A+E and Hulu also brings the complete series to Hulu allowing both old and new viewers to catch up with the drama of Everlasting.

Season four of UnREAL follows Rachel (Shiri Appleby) and Quinn (Constance Zimmer) as they return to the set of Everlasting for an “All-Stars” themed season. Co-creator Sarah Gertrude Shapiro and showrunner Stacy Rukeyser both return for Season 4. New cast members include François Arnaud, Natalie Hall, Meagan Holder and Alejandro Muñoz.

UnREAL has captivated audiences on Hulu since season one, so when this opportunity came to us, we knew we couldn’t miss out,” said Craig Erwich, Senior Vice President of Content, Hulu. “This is a unique way to both satisfy fans of the show, while also continuing to introduce it to new audiences.”

“We love season four of UnREAL and its visionary creativity in bringing back many favorite characters for an all-star competition. When the opportunity to partner with Hulu arose, we immediately saw the huge benefit toUnREAL’s loyal fans, as well as a unique way of recruiting first-time viewers to this ground-breaking series,” said A+E Studios’ Barry Jossen. “UnREAL has been an incredible ride filled with awards, critical recognition, committed fans and, best of all, insightful cultural dialogue throughout its run. We expect season four to deliver another great round of cultural influence with its timely themes.”

The eight-episode final season of UnREAL is now available for streaming on Hulu.

’12 Monkeys’ Series Finale Ends At The Beginning

By
Nicole C
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3
12 Monkeys
12 MONKEYS -- "The Beginning Part I" Episode 410 -- Pictured: (l-r) Amanda Schull as Cassandra Railly, Aaron Stanford as James Cole -- (Photo by: Ben Mark Holzbert/Syfy)

As far as series finales come, I can’t imagine a more satisfying ending to 12 Monkeys as the show answers all the questions we’ve had since season one and brings a brilliant end to one of the best science-fiction shows ever to have graced the small screen.

Here are the unforgettably insane (in the greatest way possible) moments from episodes 410 and 411:

 

12 Monkeys

Athan Visits His Great-Grandmother

I was really hoping that we would see Cassie and Cole’s son one more time before the series ends and the show delivers on this! Athan pays Jones a visit in 2037 just as she and a team of scientists are restarting Project Splinter at Raritan National Laboratory. As she takes the protective sheet off the machine, Athan appears behind her posing as a scavenger. He tells the older woman that he’s not here to harm her and that the gun he carries is more for his own protection. Athan then offers her a cigarette but she declines and he remembers that she gave it up because of the loss of a loved one (Hannah). Now Jones suspects that Col. Foster sent him because how else would he know such an intimate detail about her? He asks if she’s prepared to send men to their deaths since she’s going to need a lot of test subjects and Jones answers back with a resounding yes. Athan comments that it’s awfully selfish of her to kill so many just to save one and it is presumptuous of her to think that she should change the world. He leaves her with the thought that there may come a time when one life to seven billion will be too much, but he asks her to consider that no matter what to save the one. Jones gets distracted as the machine comes to life and when she turns around Athan is gone.

Completing Cole’s Cycle

Back in 2043 Cole, Cassie, Jones, and Jennifer gather around the meeting room coming to grips with the truth that Cole is the demon that needs to be erased. Jennifer is crying (not knowing that all of her visions would lead to this), Jones looks exhausted and broken hearted, while Cassie is furious because of everything that they’ve given up for time. They have all lost so much and she refuses to accept that the man she loves needs to be wiped from existence. Zalman Shaw’s words to her never felt more true that she too would understand what it feels like to be robbed of a love so deep. She storms off after Jones asks her how else is it supposed to end? There might be another way, but they have just run out of time with Olivia already having activated Titan’s ultimate paradox.

Jones tells her grandson that they need to complete his cycle so that he ends up here with the answer. Well hello to you future a-hole. Cassie helps him get ready to intervene in all the times future Cole had gone back to help himself and the rest of Team Splinter. We finally witness those scenes from future Cole’s perspective such as fighting himself back in season three when past him was trying to rescue Cassie from Titan. What he said back then makes sense now that all they will both ever have are the moments in between the beginning and the end, but that’s true for all of us. I’m not crying you’re crying! As Cassie walks up to him at the decrepit Emerson lobby and says that there’s another way we now understand what she means. And lastly after saving Jennifer at the train station she asks which Cole he is and he responds the last one he’ll ever be. One major difference however is that now we can see the ominous red clouds of the paradox storm approaching outside.

As they return to the facility in 2043, a new problem arises. It appears that their machine would take 3 years to process the code provided to them by the primaries when they only have 12 or 13 hours at best before time collapses. Cole proposes that they use Titan because the complex must have massive processing capabilities. They would somehow need to upload the code into that system as well as stop Olivia’s paradox machine. Cassie tells him that they still stop the Witness but he doesn’t have to die, though he argues that this is the way it’s supposed to be because the virus mutates and there’s no one left alive in 2063. In this super serious moment Cole tells her that they can do this together and that he has a plan. After this whole time of winging it Cassie has to smile that it takes the end of the world for him to come up with a course of action to take.

Shock and Awe

As Cole explains his plan, Cassie makes a surprising suggestion to help them pull it off. What’s that you make ask? Bring back Jose Ramse for one last job!! Join me in the collective fangirl screaming because HOLY CRAAAAAAAP the gang’s getting back together! Cole grabs Ramse right before his past self catches up and to pull the trigger in the forest. The two men return to 2043 and duke it out with Ramse finally sobbing that he was sorry. Once things settle down Cole fills his bff in on Olivia being the Witness, her quest to destroy time, and their plan to thwart her. Cassie and Ramse have a somewhat awkward meet and greet but hey, it’s the end of days so they put their beef aside.

The trio then head to the meeting room where Jones, Jennifer and Adler are. The scientist of course is pissed because causality! Cole rightfully points out that it’s not going matter because if they fail everything goes to hell anyways. Casserole then reveals their strategy to take Titan. First things first, they need a sweet ride. Cole and Ramse go back to the past to pick up a car that Matthew Cole had stored away in a garage around the time Hannah had left. Speaking of which he finds a diamond engagement ring that his father intended for his mother to wear.

And that leads us to…

12 Monkeys

A Beach Proposal Y’all

That’s right! Amidst all the insanity that Team Splinter is about to embark on, Cole takes a moment before they jump into their last mission to take his lady love to a beautiful beach. It’s the same place that he had seen in a vision earlier this season. He presents Cassie with the engagement ring his father had gotten for his mom.

“I don’t have forever to promise you, the most I can give you is this moment. But it’s yours if you’ll take it.”

Cassie doesn’t say yes but she lovingly caresses his hair and face while trying not to cry. He then slips the ring on her finger and they hug it out. She then whispers that this isn’t enough. Cole tells her to look at the sun and that it’s so beautiful because it sets. That is real deep Time Jesus. The hue of the scene though begins to change from a mild yellow to tints of red, telling us that the paradox storm has arrived at this moment as well. Darn you Olivia for taking this! Reality catches up and they now must return to fulfill their mission.

Mission Impossible: Take Titan

Their first objective is to make contact with the Witness in order to bring Titan to them. To achieve that Jennifer makes some red tea and visits the house of cedar and pine. Ms. Goines tells Olivia that even though she destroyed the weapon what it was meant to do was in her brain the entire time. Jennifer bluffs that their machine was ready to blast the other woman from existence and purposely antagonizes her. Olivia falls for it and jumps into the primary’s body where she sees Jones sitting on her wheelchair. She tells the scientist that it’s too late and the red forest has begun when Jones challenges her assumption. The Witness then sees the code written all over the walls and surfaces inside a massive room in the splinter facility. She freaks out, jumps back into her own body and orders Titan to splinter to Manhattan in 2043.

Meanwhile above ground, Ramse and Cole are inside the black car and readying themselves for Titan’s appearance. What comes next is just a beautiful moment that had me jumping up and down in sheer joy. Cole suggests that they listen to some music but Matthew was into country and western, not exactly the tunes you listen to when one is about to go out in a blaze of glory.

“I gotta die to a good song brother! A GOOD SONG!” I absolutely agree with you Ramse.

After one more shuffle what comes up next is that iconic song from the soundtrack of Dirty Dancing, “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warner and could there be a more perfect accompaniment for this scene? No because it’s freaking brilliant. Ramse bursts out laughing because he is totally digging it.

“It feels right,” Cole says. Amen to that brother!

Ramse revs the engine just as Titan appears and the camera zooms out as the music continues to play. The moment feels very reminiscent of the Delorian zooming down the street in the Back To The Future films and I love it so much. The song’s light hearted melody to the seriousness of their mission is such a contrast but works brilliantly. The two come barreling through interrupting Olivia’s evil overlord pep talk to her minions. Meanwhile Cassie orders the rest of the Daughters to protect their machine while she andJennifer head to another part of the complex to upload the primary code and have the system process it.. But first Jones splinters the facility from its underground location beneath the Emerson hotel into the heart of Titan. When then Olivia instructs for Titan to move location, Katarina counters that by using her machine to disrupt the towers. Cole and Ramse then need to take out the power station to stop the temporal spire from continuing to paradox time.

Olivia’s advisor suggests that they splinter the central spire, but they would need to stop the sequence in order to do that. The Witness says hell no and commands him to take their troops to destroy Jones’s machine because it is their only weapon. If they stop the paradox now it would reverse everything which she doesn’t want of course. There are only 15 minutes left to go before she achieves the red forest.

12 Monkeys

Don’t You Forget About Me

Outnumbered and outgunned, things are not looking good for Team Splinter inside Titan on all fronts. But who comes to save the day? Old Jennifer and the glorious folks from West VII led by Deacon, who is still alive in 2043!! The ol’ primary radios her younger self requesting a song and here is another perfect moment where the tides turn in Team Splinter’s favor. Turns out that what she had to do when she left the facility was to recruit an army of scavengers, knowing that they would need more manpower to for this last stand. Old Jennifer uses Deacon’s knives to prove to him that time travel and everything she said was true via a paradox demonstration. Thus convinced he heads to Titan and eventually runs into Cole and Ramse after shooting some Army of the 12 Monkeys goons. He asks why he shouldn’t just kill them and the two men show their West VII scars, signifying that no matter what’s happened they are still brothers in the end. As Ramse says, “We’re ride or die.”

With the decoding complete, Cassie and Jennifer head to the controls at the spiral tower in case Cole, Ramse, and Deacon aren’t able to take out the power source. Upon arriving there, Olivia knocks Jennifer out but Cassie puts up a glorious fight. In this epic battle, the Witness seems to have the advantage given her special genes and all. But like most evil villains she has to give a little speech and Olivia tells the virologist that she envies the other woman because she’s never loved anything (except the red forest). In fact Cassie has more need of time collapsing than she does. All she’s done is witness while Dr. Railly has lived up to this very moment. This girl talk has given the CDC doctor the opening she needed to grab the knife strapped to her boot and plunge it into Olivia. Cassie then flips the leader of the Army of the 12 Monkeys over and proceeds to punch her lights out. It’s Jones who breaks this spell of vengeance by crying out through the walkie that they are running out of time. The virologist leaves the unconscious Olivia to head to the controls. Meanwhile the West VII boys did accomplish their directive in destroying the power core.

At the controls Olivia throws in one more scare as she comes up from behind and has Cassie in a neck lock, saying that they are too late. Cassie manages to break free but the Witness merely changes their position and taunts that she and Cole will soon be in the house of cedar and pine forever. But what she doesn’t notice is one of the splinter towers still dangerously active and swinging uncontrollably. As Olivia tells the doctor that she knows the other woman’s perfect moment Cassie says no this is and I am in 100% agreement with her. The other woman is able to push the Witness into the path of the splinter ray and the upper half of her body vanishes. Just then Cole speaks through the walkie and asks Cassie to shut the machine down. Unfortunately she’s been struggling with the anger and desolation of losing him and now at the most critical moment Cassie finds that she wants the red forest. She apologizes to him and Cole knows that he’s got to go to her. As runs faster than he’s ever run before and makes it to the top of the tower, debris blocks his way from reaching her at the controls. She tells him that they can have forever and he says sure they can have it all until it means nothing because it never ends. He adds that they can be together forever until they can’t even remember what it feels like to find each other again. He’ll go with her or they can have now with an ending that makes it real. Dang Cole is spouting such deep truths! He begs her to give them an ending and that seems to do the trick as she finally shuts down the machine. All the destruction is then reversed in an instant.

What Comes Around Goes Around

But wait where did Olivia’s upper half get sent too? THIS IS MY FAVORITE MOMENT OF THE ENTIRE SERIES. We arrive in the year 894 amidst snowy capped mountains where the Witness’s is dying and then we get the voice over of Jennifer saying there’s something about its eyes and another person stating that the body contained a dormant form of the Kalavirus. Time speeds up and the remains become skeletal and we get Olivia’s own voice saying I was a thing in a box and now she’s become just that again. Ladies in gentlemen, the Witness was the Annapurna Remains that we first saw in the Night Room back in season one. HOLY CRAP thank you 12 Monkeys for answering this mystery that has plagued me since the very beginning. Karma is not to be toyed with Olivia.

12 Monkeys

The Last Splinter

Now Team Splinter needs to protect the beginning by preserving what’s left of causality to ensure that Cole arrives at this final moment. That means everyone must return to their original timeline and continue on. Before that though Cassie catches Deacon and Old Jennifer before they depart and she hugs the ScavKing, telling him that he is a good man. The two then go off to have many more adventures.

First Ramse returns to the forest where past Cole will shoot him. He tells future Cole that he’ll save his goodbye for the him that really needs it. James tells Jose that in the end they did the right thing and the two brothers hug for the last time. Next up is Jennifer and Jones tells her that Hannah will become an amazing woman because of her. The primary tries to say goodbye to Casserole but gets choked up, instead she steps up to the splinter seat and declares that an actor doesn’t say goodbye to her audience only good night and wakes up and does it all over again. She lastly bids adieu to the machine and is sent back with her stuffed unicorn.

Finally it’s Cassie’s turn and Cole gives her back her watch that she’ll need since he will find it with her remains. He tells her that he remembers the first time they met while he was waiting in the backseat of her car. James was watching her walk in the parking lot and that he was already in love with her. He recalls thinking that night that he was about to ruin her life but now he gets to give it back. They didn’t have a lot of time but they lived a lifetime together. And cue tears. As she says I love you and gets on the splinter seat, we finally hear the full recording of the message she meant for Cole and Jones to find back in season one.

“My name is Dr. Cassandra Railly of the Maryland CDC. We’re working on containment of the Kalavirus at the CDC station in Baltimore. Jones if you can hear me the plague starts with Leland Goines security designation Frost. But we are the true architects of the plague. The Army of the 12 Monkeys, they’re watching me, I’m running out of time. The answer is among you. Please Cole remember death can be undone, love cannot.”

Jones finishes loading the Titan processed primary code into her machine. Cole suggests the scientist have one more smoke before they perform this final splinter. He tells his grandmother that he had always meant to ask her where she got the cigarettes and she responds that she grew her own tobacco next to the cucumbers outside Raritan. Katarina thanks her grandson for keeping his promise to see this to the end with her. Cole says that he’s never told her what she’s meant to him and says that he had two mothers. He’s glad that she’s here with him now. When he turns around, Jones has her eyes closed and has peacefully passed on, cigarette still in hand. He handles the final task on his own, preparing the splinter sequence and sitting on that chair one final time.

12 Monkeys

The Aftermath – A World Changed

As Cole is erased from multiple moments, time is able to correct itself. We go back to 2013 where in season one Cassie was giving a lecture on epidemics, but now Cole is not in the backseat of her car waiting. However this Dr. Railly gets a flash of herself at the machine controls at Titan. She looks at her watch and then goes to the Emerson hotel looking for a James Cole. Cassie has the strongest sense of déjà vu because she had been there before in a different timeline. When she asks the front desk manager about suite 607 he says that they stop selling those permanent residences in the 1940s. She seems to have remembered the life she had once lived.

But what of the others? Jennifer had successfully bioengineered a unicorn and seems to be looking right at Cassie through the TV screen during a press conference. Lasky and Adler ended up meeting each other and are seen playing chess at the park. Meanwhile Ramse still had Sam for a son despite it all. Deacon and his brother opened up a bar with Old Jennifer being a patron! The Jones’ stayed as a family with Katarina giving birth to Hannah and Elliot never having left. Cassie then finds a listing for the house of cedar and pine and decides to purchase it. Every night she is still hopeful and says see you soon.

As for Cole, well he ends up being sent to the beach that he had seen in a vision as well as where he took Cassie when he proposed. Who’s there waiting for him with a tropical drink? Jennifer! She tells him that this isn’t heaven, just the Keys (they’re in Florida). He asks if this is real and Ms. Goines responds that she’s the wrong person to ask that. The primary reminds him that the right ending is the one you choose, but she then adds that sometimes it’s the one someone else choses for you. In this case brilliant Jones tinkered with the primary code! Athan’s words from the beginning of episode 10 then makes sense as he tells his great-grandmother that no matter what save the one, his father. Jones did scrub James out of the timeline but she made sure he got spit out somewhere. Hey what use is knowing the unwritten laws of the universe if you can’t break at least one? He asks what about the risks and Jennifer says that time knows that but also understands that it owes Cole a big one. Finally accepting that he really is alive, he hugs her saying that she was never crazy and that she was the best out of all of them. He travels from the beaches of Florida to the autumn colored trees of upstate New York to find Cassie. The two are reunited outside their house and it’s happily ever now.

Final Thoughts

Well that’s how to you end things, with a bang and then some! While I am among the scores of fans who aren’t ready to say goodbye, we’ve got to remember Cole’s words that what makes anything worthwhile is that it has an ending. The road to get from season one to now was a maze filled with many interesting corridors, intersections, and crossroads. We got to see so many different periods and places throughout history as well as meet interesting characters with their own backstory. One such unforgettable individual was the primary Lillian played by none other than Madeleine Stowe during season two. Stowe starred in the original 1995 12 Monkeys film as psychiatrist Dr. Kathryn Railly. But wait the TV adaptation even incorporates this as Cassie’s mother was psychologist Kathryn Railly whom we met in season three. This is thoughtful and detailed attention the show gives to the story and there are so many more examples like that.

While we don’t know how Jones was able to manipulate the primary code so that Cole survived the last splinter without time still being messed up, I’m going to take this happily ever now because he has gotten the short end of the stick throughout the entire show and frankly he and Cassie deserve good things.

Since the show’s debut in January 2015, it’s been one hell of a ride through time with a bold, complicated, and cohesive narrative, complex characters, unexpected whimsical humor, compelling villains, gorgeous sets and visual effects, solid musical accompaniment, amazing throwbacks to its source material, and last but not least the stunning cinematography. 12 Monkeys was gripping from the very beginning and joins the ranks of great science fiction television such as Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, Fringe, The X-Files, and Firefly.

To the entire cast, crew, writers, producers, directors, composers, editors, basically everyone involved in this production, thank you for giving us four outstanding seasons of 12 Monkeys. While the series comes to a close, we’ll always have the red forest.

 

Also I’ll be listening to this for a good while.

To read all our reviews on 12 Monkeys click HERE.

‘GLOW’ Season 2 Review: Women and the Workforce.  Wrestling, too.

By
Christian Angeles
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0
GLOW Season 2

Netflix’s Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, or GLOW for short, is probably the best thing I could recommend on Netflix in 2018. It’s not only a dramedy self-parodying 80’s nostalgia and the soap opera nature of wrestling, but it also stars a fantastic ensemble of women. Whose talent and range of cultural representation is remarkable, akin to the hype of Netflix’s other hit Orange is the New Black.

Season 2 of GLOW continues to excel expectations.  With critical accolades all around, it’s only comedy competition this year seems to be from Dear White People and One Day at a Time. Both Netflix shows also in their second season. All three with a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Suffice to say, GLOW is a rather funny show. One with strong female characters, a cheesy 1980’s backdrop, and a whole lot of prominent messages about women. Particularly, women in the workforce.

The following is a review of Season 2.

 

Storytelling

Between GLOW and Stranger Things, Netflix seems to have a thing for stories set in the 1980’s. Featuring music videos shot in shopping malls, neon shoulder-padded jackets, and twilight hour aired cable television – GLOW is not shy about its passion for the age of spandex and hairspray.

Aesthetically, the show excels. Everything in GLOW is like a seamless photograph of the 1980’s. The costume designs, set locations, and especially hairstyles – everything in GLOW is shot, framed, and reproduced with care into reimaging of the 1980’s.

GLOW Season 2

Which is important because of GLOW’s critical timeline. Women in wrestling? Not an easy pitch to sell. Personally, I still have many friends who refuse to watch because it sounds like extremist feminist drivel to them. Or on the opposite spectrum, refuse to watch because of their remembrance of the over-sexualized and poor treatment of women in the wrestling industry.

(If you’re one of these people, I’d suggest watching the first few episodes of Season one. The show does a very good job of addressing both sides of the issue early. Mostly through good storytelling.)

Now a story about feminism, about women making their own break in the entertainment industry, set in the 1980’s against the debonair of sleazy trump era (pre-presidency) toxic masculinity?

That is what you get with GLOW. A reexamination of women in entertainment.

GLOW Season 2

Season two expands on season one. While the first season saw our heroines up and at odds against each other, competing for their roles and accentuating their voices on a platform (wrestling) that very much encourages them to do so, season 2 sees our team up against the 1980’s era itself.

Stories about what it’s like being a woman and trying to succeed in male-dominated industries.

Whether it be in the role of the working mother, the divorcee trying best to keep the strength of appearances, the director of reason getting shafted due to her being a woman, or just the need to find a balance between work and romance; there is so much story about the struggle of the working woman.

And season 2 does a great job of telling it.

It starts off by first showcasing the difficulty of producing a low-budget cable access production. In this case, a women’s wrestling show on at 10 AM in the morning. The first half of the season finds GLOW searching how to move all the pieces, grow an audience, and establish an identity.  All while trying to appease sponsorships and handle pressure by sleazy producers.

The second half then delves into the struggles of keeping the said show alive. How to overcome difficulties such as a loss of funds or a shoot gone awry when things go off scripted or not according to plan. There’s even a bottle episode focused on what happens when one of the girls get hurt.

There has been hype about this season regarding an all too real #MeToo moment within the show. What’s compelling, is that actions have major ramifications. The dialogue doesn’t steer clear of the issue, it addresses it, in what marks some of the most powerful moments of season two. GLOW doesn’t steer clear from the gritty aspects of show business. It showcases the inequality and sexism, and then tastefully finds a way to begin a dialogue. Maybe not always directly, though definitely through its comedy. It’s a harsh look at the weighted difficulty women face in the entertainment industry.

Season 2 makes its a bold #MeToo statement that’s relevant. Though it also balances well, the line of seriousness and silliness, while not overdramatizing its comedic themes.

Innovation

GLOW Season 2

Let me be frank: We’re well into the golden years of television. There’s a show for just about everything. It takes a lot to be creative in the current TV limelight. Which is why most shows need to go above and beyond to capture an audience. Do something different.

Which is why I say, with much applause, that episode 8, “The Good Twin,” deserves its own sort of nod.

In it, Alison Bree’s character Ruth, who plays “Zoya the Destroya” has a secret twin, trying to amend the mistakes of her evil counterpart’s kidnapping of Betty Gilpin’s Debbie, who plays the lead superstar wrestler “Liberty Belle”. We then go on a winded but very funny low budget movie about redemption and cheesy 80’s nostalgia; filled with advertisements, music videos, and cheesy plot points in the stylings of a low-budget tromaesque B-movie.

We also see separate B-stories for all the girls. The episode is very much a hard reset. A one-off with little at stake, that shows character and just how far off the deep end the series can go before rubber banding back in a juxtaposing, slapstick sort of way.

It’s a very bizarre break in the series, especially for an episode-long parody of 1980’s tv tropes. But it works. Not only in the bit, but also in the storytelling of both the women in the show and the characters that they play as. It’s a meta-comedy within a meta-comedy.

Besides that, the show, again, has done a great job with costume and set-design. And if I haven’t mentioned it, the wrestling choreography is on par. Technicality it’s progressing steadily on pace with the skillset the actresses should have. It’s evident that the women have become better at wrestling, though still, are not perfect. With a very prominent episode mid-season showcasing that struggle of building a physical skill until, well, you break it. But see what I mean for yourself.

Character

Just like Liz Flahive’s Orange is The New Black, the female ensemble for this show is impeccable. With tremendous effort into showcasing a host of women from different origins stories.

What’s more surprising, is how delicate they handle its more ostentatious, and slightly offensive, stereotypes. It’s less tasteful elements of character, such as a middle eastern wrestler portrayed as a terrorist, or a black wrestler villain known as ‘Wellfare Queen’, are all examined within a contemporary cultural limelight. Letting the audience in the joke, but also letting them judge for themselves just how much has America changed?

Though the 80’s were far from innocent, it was also, empowering in its own non-conventionalism. GLOW is very much a series about low brow entertainment, but also feminist empowerment. And it’s done so through the ironic lens of the past. With this season’s ensemble often utilizing themes of feminism and women at work.

GLOW Season 2

For example, both Debbie and Tamme are seen before their title match, as struggling working mothers. Adding a layer to an unrealized depth between the relationship of the two women. Sydelle Noel’s character Cherry, arguably the best stunt coordinator on the show, sees herself falter when given one of the few coveted roles as a woman in the industry: co-lead in her own series. Likewise, Ruth, shows promise in directing yet is marginalized by her male cohorts, just as Debbie shows promise as a producer yet is… also marginalized by her male cohorts.

Which is funny, because when you look at Mark Maron’s Sam Sylvia, or Chris Lowell’s Sebastian “Bash” Howard, they’re not bad men. They’re just men that are a product of their era. Who by comparison to some of the other men on the show, seem like saints in comparison.

One interesting turn this season is Sam’s character playing the role of dad, as per the twist reveal near the end of season one. We see this usually gritty and grumpy character, take a softer tone as the series wears on. Establishing a budding partnership with Ruth, though in what capacity, we’ll only be certain of later.

The point is, the characters in this season are very strong. Their personal storylines, layering an already well-established world of grit and feminism – above all else, gumption in trying to make or break it.

In Short

Overall, GLOW is back and better than ever. It feels proper. The series, really delving into this world of wrestling, entertainment, and characterization. This season, we see the girls operate at high levels of engaging entertainment, using every sleazy wrestling and soap opera like trick at their disposal. There’s a bit of dark humor, some tiny budding romances, a good amount of growth, a gross amount of fun, and above all else, a whole lot of entertainment.

 

’12 Monkeys’ S4 Episodes 7-9 Review: The Darkest Hour Reveals Long-Awaited Answers

By
Nicole C
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2
12 Monkeys

In the third week of the series finale event of Syfy’s 12 Monkeys, long-awaited answers are finally revealed and we learn the truth of what the real mission is to fix time and save the world.

12 Monkeys

Daughters

The introduction to episode seven of 12 Monkeys begins intriguingly as we see how two young girls were raised to take very different paths and yet fundamentally both want to please their mothers. Emma was raised by Olivia’s minions and taught the sciences from a young age in order to fulfill her purpose, which is to complete Titan’s true purpose. Her mother had known that Elliot Jones would be killed and thus unable to provide her with what she needed. Meanwhile Hannah was raised with the Daughters, a strong sisterhood created by Jennifer Goines. Eventually she was reunited with her true mother Dr. Katarina Jones and since then she has fought to save time and has adopted Jones’s mission as her own.

Hannah has been sent back to 2007 by the scientist and been told that she needs to know what her mother has asked her to fight for. Jones gives her an envelope to be opened on March 8, 2009, which means that she will experience life in the past for almost two years. Emma in the meantime has returned to Titan and is working on the nuclear paradox to bring about the red forest. It is interesting to see the difference between these two mother-daughter pairs. Emma appears to be somewhat afraid of Olivia and seeks her approval while Hannah genuinely loves her mother.

Emma sees that the people around her in the future are stuck the past, desperately trying to regain what they’ve lost. She finds it sterile, haunted, and devoted to their obsessions. Back in 2008 Hannah sees how people have everything yet are distracted by their possessions that they don’t appreciate what they have. The people there appear empty and lose themselves in their imagery.

12 Monkeys

Time Gets Trippy For Jones

Meanwhile Jones is currently in Titan herself, having hatched a plan with Deacon who did not return with the weapon. Olivia is boasting about how she’s found new ways to see further and deeper through the time stream but she also plans on taking information from the scientist’s mind. As The Witness combs through Jones’s memories she does see the bell but still doesn’t know where it is. She compliments the other woman, stating that her mind is a maze but she’ll find what she needs eventually.

As Jones is led back to her cell, Cole arrives via Athan’s splinter vest that Adler was able to fix. He wants to take her back to safety but she insists that they need to take Deacon as well. Cole once again says that there’s no time. In a blink of an eye she is suddenly being questioned by Cassie at the facility where the doctor is explaining that Olivia may be doing the same thing that she experienced back in season two. Dr. Railly had been taken over by the Witness thanks to a full immersion that allowed the other woman to tether herself to Cassie’s body. Jones isn’t sure if she’s really back or if she’s still in her mind being manipulated. She then runs into Jennifer who is trying to figure out the clue when suddenly Hannah appears. The scientist is confused because she sent her daughter away. Well that should obviously be a big clue that this ISN’T REAL. Jones realizes that she’s still hooked up to the mind and tells the Witness that she’s going to make her way into the other woman’s memories. She is able to find the small box that Olivia was kept in by her father when she was a young child. The little girl begins to cry and then a grown up version appears, follow lastly by the Witness who pushes the scientist back into her own body.

In their second attempt Olivia kills Hannah over and over in order to make Jones spill when and where the primaries made the weapon. Eventually Katarina relents and reveals Hertfordshire, England 1491. Emma had witnessed what her mother was doing to the scientist and seems to understand the cruelty the Witness is capable off. Earlier as Olivia asked for a demonstration of Titan’s nuclear paradox, the system malfunctioned as her daughter explained that it wasn’t ready yet. The elder woman grabbed the younger woman’s neck and forced her over the edge of the building basically saying she had no right to call her mother. Ouch. But it seems however that getting Titan to go that far back in time was all part of Jones and Deacon’s plan. As he escorts her back to her cell Titan is getting ready to go back to the distant past.

With Elliot’s data on the time traveling complex they can use its signature as an anchor and Katarina’s tether telemetry as a beacon Adler will be able to send Cole and Cassie to 1491 themselves.

Old Jennifer Returns

Adler then works to get the calculations right to send Cole, Cassie, and Jennifer back to medieval times. At the last second Ms. Goines says that she’s going first because if Cole is the chosen one he’s too important and her role is to make sure he gets to where he needs to go. It’s an emotional moment for everyone and as Jennifer is being splintered out something doesn’t go quite right as she screams in pain and the light turns red and purple. After she vanishes Adler says that there is no record of arrival when there is a perimeter breach upstairs. When C & C go to investigate they find OLD JENNIFER!! Holy crap this is amazing because remember in 2043 she was still with the Daughters and not dead yet. The older primary explains that she did make it back to the medieval period but that the circle is now imperfect. They needed to hurry and follow her as she’s in a whole mess of trouble. She then tells Adler to fix the vest or else they would all be dead.

12 Monkeys

Marion Woods Part 1

In 2009, after a date gone wrong where Hannah attacked two men that were trying to force their way into the closed bar at the Emerson hotel (she is dating the bartender Brian!) she finally reads the letter that her mother gave to her. Inside Jones writes that she’s totally ok if her daughter walks away from the fight, but if she’s still got on more left in her she has one more important mission to do. The scientist found Marion Woods and she had reportedly been killed March 8, 2009 at a club in the city. After realizing that she just may be too different to live in that time period, Hannah goes to find Marion and when she does the audience realizes that it’s Emma in a blonde wig. Olivia’s daughter had nearly jumped from one of the buildings because she didn’t want to be a demon like her mother. But she realized that she had a choice and so she went back to 2009 instead.

12 Monkeys

Let’s Get Medieval!

Olivia makes her way to 1491 and recruits Andros, the man we saw at the very beginning of the premiere episode this season who burned the other primaries. He turns out to be one as well but renounced his kind as heretics. He has seen the Witness in his visions and dedicates himself to her service. Meanwhile Jennifer has gotten herself captured by some local folks who had been warned that if anyone recognized the symbol of the 12 Monkeys they would be a witch and a heretic. But while imprisoned and waiting her fate at the hands of Andros, the young primary we saw who last had the ouroboros artifact sets Ms. Goines free. In their escape they run into a mob who was waiting for them but luckily Cole and Cassie arrive with guns to save the day. The young girl then tells them that they must go to her father Nicodemus who can help them.

Upon arriving at Nicodemus’s very impressive looking home, Deacon greets them. Of course the ScavKing survived, he killed the other two men who were supposed to end him after Olivia found out that he was still working for Team Splinter when she infiltrated Jones’s mind. He also makes Jennifer take his knife for protection. Awww these two really need to get together! Later on Nicodemus explains to the group that the primaries travelled from all over the world to build the weapon for Cole in parts but he doesn’t know what it actually is. We also learn that Jennifer is still a primary but the voices stopped because the Witness was listening.

Andros leads Olivia to the 12 primaries who are waiting for them. We get to see the full extent of the scene from the first episode of this season. The leader of the primaries tells her that she basically wants the red forest because she is afraid of being alone and the one who truly matters is James Cole, not her. In typical Olivia fashion she threatens the old man asking if he can continue blocking his mind from her even as he screams to which he responds that they have already foresaw this and covered themselves in oil. We also see Nicodemus giving Chorus (the young primary) the ouroboros to guard for the future Team Splinter to find while he takes the group to what looks like an old abandoned church or monastery. To get there they climb a lot of steps. When they get to the main hall, they see the exact same bell and behind it a chair on a raised dais. The weapon turns out to be a freaking splinter machine! Cole hesitates and isn’t sure what to do so Jennifer grabs the bell he is holding and puts it on top of the other to cause a paradox. The paradox then powers the machine but then Titan arrives with Andros and armed minions of the Army of the 12 Monkeys. He and Cassie both grab a bell each and now we find out how Dr. Railly got the strip of white hair ala Rogue that we saw last season.

Olivia waltzes in soon after and decides Cole should die first, when Deacon goads her into taking him first instead. This buys our hero just enough time for Adler to send him the splinter vest and he is able to get Jones, Cassie, and Jennifer out of there. The ScavKing did not make it though as Andros cut off his head. Olivia then paradoxes the church so that Team Splinter isn’t able to use the weapon or save their friend either.

Two Daughters Chat

Back in 2009 Hannah takes Emma to the Emerson and the two reveal their true identities. Hannah says that she’s the daughter of Katarina and Elliot Jones, while Emma admits she is the progeny of the Witness. The short haired woman also says that her purpose was to learn everything she could from the Jones’ so that she could finish Titan’s true purpose of creating a paradox so massive that it could not be undone. As the two women are on the run, Hannah this time tells Emma (who also explains that Marion was just a name she made up for herself) that James Cole is going to be her son and that her role in all of this is to help save time not end it. The two then decide to go to Raritan to seek help from the Jones when the Army of the 12 Monkeys finds them and runs their car off the road. Once they regain consciousness the duo dash into the forest trying to get away from the man trying to kill them. They run into a parked trailer and Matthew Cole comes out to help them. CUE ME JUMPING UP AND DOWN BECAUSE WE ARE WITNESSING COLE’S ORIGIN STORY.

Jennifer Gets Her Primary Mojo Back

After returning to the facility in 2043, Jennifer runs into Old Jennifer the two women briefly chat. The older version says that she’s got to go do a thing when her younger self says that she doesn’t have anything left except symbols in her mind. Old her says that she should go draw them and hands her a piece of yellow chalk. Young Jennifer then realizes that the symbols aren’t random at all and so goes into the zone working for hours before collapsing into Cassie’s arms after completing the project. Cole, Jones, and Adler look to try and decipher it, but it’s Dr. Railly who realizes that they are looking at it from the wrong angle when Jennifer mumbles to start at the center. The virologist takes the group to a higher vantage point where they see that Jennifer’s scribbles were in a spiral. Jones and Adler work on decoding it and discover that it’s a series of dates and coordinates that correspond to splinters that the team has done except for one, April 3, 2018 at JFK Airport in New York. That also happens to be two days before the plague was released worldwide. So Cassie and Cole travel back through time at that exact date and location but they’ve arrived too late. Pallid Man seems to have already released the virus and Cole had accidentally gotten pushed and falls on the broken test tube. They decide to regroup and go back to 2043 where Jones confirms that it is the kalavirus. Cassie suggests that they take the vial before PM can release it and actually find it in a lab at an abandoned Markridge building. We ominously see the silhouette of Pallid Man looking from behind them though so that can’t be good.

The World Turned Upside Down/Marion Woods Part 2

After taking the virus from the Markridge lab, Cassie and Cole return to the Emerson where Hannah is waiting for them. Jones’s daughter had chosen to wait for their return linearly instead of finding them sooner because it was too dangerous. Hannah begins to fill them in on her mission to find Cole’s mom. She tells them about Emma, how she used Marion Woods as a pseudonym and that she had been from Titan. She describes how Emma’s purpose had been to finish the time traveling complex’s capability to create a paradox of time itself, moments upon moments so that it could never be undone. Cassie argues though that they have the virus and they can destroy it but Hannah says that once Olivia turns her machine on she will exist outside of causality. It’s Cole who then understands that the primaries sent them here to cause the plague not to stop it because they need this event to happen for time travel to exist in order to still stop the Witness. Hannah comments how mothers die for their children and that Cole’s had died protecting him. She goes on to describe that his mom seemed lost having grown up without her mother and never knowing her father. Hannah didn’t think that the other woman realized how much her circumstances had shaped her until having to grapple with the idea of giving Cole up. He sardonically states how she then dumps him with his dad and that BS story but Hannah insists that the story isn’t over yet. As Cassie comes out and tells him that they should get going, he gives the scientist’s daughter his tether injection so that she can go home.

At JFK, Cole and Cassie are trying to work out when they will unleash the plague when Olivia arrives by taking over various bodies of her minions who are planted at the airport. She previously decided to end James’s cycle after Pallid Man came to visit the house of cedar and pine to let her know that C & C stole the virus. The Witness finally decides to inhabit a cop in order to use his gun. Cassie is still struggling with the moral implications of killing seven billion people to save the rest of humanity when the police officer pulls his gun and points it at James. Suddenly Hannah jumps in front of him and gets shot instead. Cassie quickly forces the cop to point the gun at his own head shooting himself and pushing Olivia out. As she is in his arms bleeding out, she pats his hair and tells him that its ok and that this is her choice. This was all she could do to protect him one last time and Cole remembers what she told him at the Emerson. It finally clicks in his mind that his real mother is Hannah, not Emma. Hannah in tears as she says that she never wanted any of this for him. As Cassie watches on in utter despair Pallid Man sneaks up behind her saying how time is utterly cruel and that in the end we all lose. But he adds that she might win still if she chooses it, AKA the red forest hint hint. As he walks away, we finally know how the earlier airport scene really played out. The body on the ground was Hannah, people were running everywhere because of the gun shot, and the vial was dropped by Cassie under extreme duress not PM. She makes the choice to sacrifice seven billion to save one life, Cole’s.

12 monkeys

The True Purpose Of The Weapon

Back in 2043, Jennifer wakes up from her nap and is filled in on where C & C went. She is confused by that because why would her drawings provide them hundreds of dates when all they needed was one. It then dawns on Jones that perhaps the weapon-machine in 1491 was not about sending Cole anywhere at all. However before she can figure out anymore, her neurological deterioration worsens and she is unable to fully articulate her thoughts and collapses. Once she is more stable, Jones tells Adler to run a simulation on the primary code against the current time stream. Voila when he executes it the time stream untangles itself but then confirms with the other scientist that the dates aren’t actually all of Team Splinter’s time travels but only Cole’s. Katarina further states that this code was designed to erase a djinn who could not just be erased from one moment but from every moment. The primaries built a machine to erase James Cole and that’s why he’s the only one that truly matters.

12 monkeys

Three Generations

After releasing the virus, Cole and Cassie return to 2043 where he discovers a letter that Hannah left for him in her room at the Emerson suite. We find out what happened to her in the past. Emma had actually died from a gunshot wound and Matthew had taken her to the hospital. When he came back to the trailer, he told Hannah that her friend had kept calling for Marion whom he suspected was her. Her time with Cole’s father was indeed a love story because while she thought about leaving every day he kept giving her a reason to stay. At first she stayed to protect him should the Army of the 12 Monkeys come, but eventually they fell in love. Until one day when he proposed and she knew that she couldn’t stay for both his sake, Cole’s and all those they have yet to save. Then at one point after giving birth to James she left him with Matthew along with the story of the demon and the serpent. Her last words were to thank him for saving her life when she was a child and her soul when he was born. She was in her life proud to be a daughter but proudest to be his mother.

We shift to 2017 where Cole, Jones, and Hannah share a bottle of whiskey amongst the three of them. Grandmother and grandson having travelled back to have one more moment with a loved one. Hannah tells them both that for years she was by herself but never alone. She had seen them, Jones looking over a little girl (her younger self), when Cole lost his father and when he found his brother (Ramse). She tells him that she’ll be there at the end. Cue flood of tears.

12 Monkeys

The Demon

As Olivia has turned Titan’s nuclear paradox sequence on, time begins to collapse everywhere and when. Back at the facility in 2043, the group is gathered around in utter desolation. Cole announces, “I’m the demon.” End scene. UHM WHAT?!?

12 Monkeys

Final Thoughts

WHERE/HOW DO I EVEN BEGIN….

  • Ok Hannah’s talk with Cole in 2018 at the Emerson so cleverly done that she was really talking about herself as she described Emma. Both women went through similar ordeals where they grew up without their real mothers and never knew their fathers. They were also in raised in different periods and sent back in time on a mission. The two women also ended up living a totally different lives in the past and had come to appreciate it. When Hannah took the shot for Cole and told him that this was she could do to protect him one more time, holy crap my heart could not take it. Then that scene with Jones, Hannah, and Cole sharing a bottle of whiskey was just so gut wrenching to watch as they find out the truth only at the very end. Thanks 12 Monkeys for just pushing the knife even deeper into my already bleeding chest.
  • “All this time, it was always us.” I along with Cassie can’t believe the sheer mastery of this move that all along it was never the Army of the 12 Monkeys who released the plague but them, the people trying to stop it. Sheer mind screwing I tell you! No wonder killing Leland Frost did not change history because time travel needed to be invented in order to prevent the Witness from destroying time. Also what a ridiculously amazing throwback to the original 12 Monkeys film where the final scene was at an airport with Cole and Railly trying to stop the plague from being unleashed.
  • There is also the revelation that Cole and not Olivia is the demon. Since only the demon could use the weapon, the time traveler was meant to paradox himself back in 1491. The chair was never meant to send him anywhere but to destroy him from existence in order for time to revert back to its intended course. Another mind-blowing realization that after everything Team Splinter’s been through they were after the wrong person. Yet they likely had to take this path in order to arrive at this moment when Cole understands that he has a choice to make to save humanity.
  • Let’s also take a moment to say good bye to the others we lost in these episodes: Deacon, Emma, and the 12 primaries. R.I.P. Deacon especially had such an amazing character arc in this series that became one of the most surprising yet endearing parts of 12 Monkeys.
  • As Team Splinter finally learned the true mission that the primaries needed them to accomplish, erasing Cole to fix time, audiences everywhere experienced mind explosion because after everything that they’ve gone through it has come to this. But it does makes sense why despite so many opportunities, Cole was never killed by the Army of the 12 Monkeys. Even when Olivia tried in episode 9 Hannah sacrificed herself instead and he survived. Time seems to need Cole to use the weapon in order to remove himself from every moment and reset the natural order.

With the finale airing next week it’s going to be ridiculously hard to say goodbye to this masterpiece of a series. From the writing to the acting, the costumes, the sets, editing, music, and special effects, 12 Monkeys is truly one of the greatest science fiction shows of all times and we’re lucky as hell to have in our lives. Before watching the first season I wasn’t sure how this film to TV adaptation would turn out but it was a home run and then some. We’ve got one more giant episode left and I can’t wait to see how it all ends.

 

12 Monkeys airs on Syfy Fridays at 8/7 Central.

‘A Discovery of Witches’ Trailer Drops Loaded with Supernatural Drama

By
Nicole C
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0
A Discovery of Witches

The first trailer to Sky’s A Discovery of Witches has finally been released and it’s full of vampires, witches and daemons. The clip starts ominously with the narrator saying that once the world was full of wonders but it belongs to humans now with the supernatural creatures having all nearly disappeared.

Look no further as your new supernatural drama obsession is here.

Based on the novel of the same name by author Deborah Harkness, the series tells the story of alchemical historian and witch Diana Bishop (Teresa Palmer) who has been running away from her heritage since the death of her parents when she was still a child. We follow her story as she meets the mysterious and enigmatic Matthew Clairmont (Matthew Goode), a vampire and biochemist. He becomes her unlikely protector after she discovers a magical manuscript with secrets that could change the world.

Sky’s official synopsis:

What happens when a witch and a vampire fall in love? History professor and closet witch Diana Bishop and geneticist and secret vampire Matthew Clairmont find out when they are thrown together in pursuit of the truth behind a strange manuscript found in the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library. 

The series is being helmed by Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter with their company Bad Wolf Productions. It will air on Sky1 and streamed through NOW TV in the UK and Ireland. Harkness serves as Executive Producer and will also pen several episodes. Juan Carlos Medina will be directing and Kate Brooke serving as showrunner.

Currently there isn’t a release date yet for ADOW and fans are still eagerly awaiting for news on broadcasters outside of the UK.

’12 Monkeys’ S4 Episodes 4-6 Review: Blackleaf, The Clue, and The Bell

By
Nicole C
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6
12 MONKEYS -- "Legacy" Episode 404 -- Pictured: (l-r) Aaron Stanford as James Cole, Amanda Schull as Cassandra Railly -- (Photo by: Shane Mahood/Syfy)

On the second week of Syfy’s three episode binge of 12 Monkeys the stakes are raised even higher as Team Splinter has one final chance to stop the Witness from destroying time. We meet characters from the past that play pivotal roles in the race against time’s destruction and we see the scope of plans that have been in motion for decades.

Below are the must know epic moments from episodes four to six.

Welcome To Blackleaf, Montana

As Team Splinter prepares to head back to 1852 to try and find the weapon the primaries built for them, Cole reveals to Cassie in private that the serpent and the demon had been a bedtime story told to him by his father but was written by his mother. She thinks that this could be a new avenue for them and that they need to tell Jones and others, however he disagrees wanting to hold on to his idea of his mom. I highly doubt that is going to work out well for him.

Jennifer, Hannah, Cole, and Cassie are sent back to pioneer times Montana and the group soon encounter some hired guns whose job is protect a nearby town. As the three men are about to fire on them, Cassie and Hannah take them out first after Cole’s negotiation tactics fail. Except for Jennifer, the other three borrow some clothes from the dead folks as well as their horses and wagon. As they roll into town, Cole distracts a woman putting laundry out while Ms. Goines grabs garments from behind. The poor lady is super confused as the time traveler chats about being robbed by bandits by the watering hole.

That evening they enter the local saloon where things are very odd. While Cole finds out they don’t serve whiskey sours at this time, the bottle of liquor that they are served is actually from 1972. Jennifer notices a glock, a man wearing military tactical boots, and someone with an iWatch. She lastly points out that the tune being played on the piano is about 130 years too early. That’s when Hannah turns around and realizes that the man at the keys is none other than her father Dr. Elliot Jones. Just as they are asking themselves what the scientist is doing here, another invdividual enters the establishment and tells Elliot that his employer would like to see him.

His boss turns out to be good ol’ Pallid Man/Tall Man. The guy is actually kind of pulling off the cowboy hat look fyi. PM asks Elliot to make modifications per the request of the home office as insurance. Insurance for what is the question.

Titan In Progress

Team Splinter causes a distraction in the saloon with Cole posing as a robber with their real goal being to abduct Elliot and find out why he is working with the Army of the 12 Monkeys. As the scientist runs to the back of the building, Hannah appears and injects him with a tether that sends him back to the facility in 2043 with herself following moments after. As Katarina asks her ex-husband what he’s doing in the past he explains that he’s spent the last ten years building something monumental and that of course is Titan. As Jones fills him in on what his work had actually led to, we also see that the two still have unresolved feelings for each other. Elliot also discovers that his ex-wife went through with her pregnancy and that Hannah is their daughter. She also reveals that she has only about four weeks left to live thanks to extreme exposure to splinter radiation. As the two continue to chat, Elliot has an epiphany that Titan has enough power to create a massive paradox that punches a whole right through the structure of time and space. This is precisely what Olivia plans to do.

Back in 1852 Cole, Cassie, and Jennifer come upon the partially built time traveling complex after tailing the wagons that had been with Pallid Man. As the trio take a closer look they spot a core that looks incredibly similar to their own. Makes sense of course that the 12 Monkeys would build their time traveling city in the past because of labor and space. Soon however the locals notice them and know that they are outsiders. Shooting ensues but the trio are able to make their escape and regroup.

12 Monkeys

Unexpected Help

As the three are running away from minions of the Army of the 12 Monkeys, Jennifer declares that she wants out of this situation but Cole says no because she’s primary and they need her here. Cassie corrects him by saying that Ms. Goines WAS primary. The other woman confirms that the visions and voices have stopped and she doesn’t know why. Before they can do anything else however, a Native American suddenly appears with a face paint in the pattern of a monkey and tells them that he’s waited a long time for the primary. He takes them to his small hut where he has drawings of the Witness and other events posted. While Jennifer asks if he has seen them (the other primaries) but the man says that he has but not like her. It seems that this dude is doing what the minions of the Army of the 12 Monkeys have done. He sips the red tea and then talks to the primaries. Jennifer tries to take the drink herself because she needs to know what’s happened to her, but their host tells her that she must not because death only waits there. AKA Olivia will find them and the Witness must never know about the weapon the seers built for them. When Cole asks how they can find it, the other man says that they must climb the steps and ring the bell. Enigmatic much?

The ex-primary can’t help herself though and drinks the red tea in order to talk the other primaries. As she sees the group their leader calls her a fool because now the Witness will find them. Of course Olivia does and discovers all about the weapon and that Cassie, James, and Jennifer are in 1852. She even takes over Ms. Goines’s body and says hello to the rest of Team Splinter. Cassie slaps Jennifer to push Olivia out of the other woman’s body but it’s too late.

Preventing Titan From Weaponizing

Elliot and Hannah return to 1852 and he gives them a game plan. They won’t be able to stop Titan from becoming fully built but perhaps they can stop it from being weaponized by destroying all the power cores. If the 12 Monkeys don’t have enough juice they won’t be able to create a nuclear paradox. So Team Splinter is to set up explosive charges at each wagon holding the power cores while Elliot distracts Pallid Man. But since Olivia knows when they are now, she is able to get word to her folks and all hell breaks loose. Who does the Witness send? Deacon of course! He runs into Cassie and Cole, with the good doctor actually relieved to see the ScavKing, that is until he starts shooting at them. He runs into PM and tells the older gentleman that they’ve been compromised and to move Titan to a different time. PM is obviously annoyed but explains that he needs to get Elliot. Speaking of which father and daughter are running away when suddenly the scientist gets shot by Deacon which is very curious. Why kill the guy if he is needed to complete Titan? Hannah goes ballistic though and as he is about to shoot her as well, he gets hit with an arrow instead as Jennifer arrives with their Native American friend. As he lays dying, Elliot gives his kid a thumb drive that he took from PM’s laptop and tells her that at least he got to see the best thing he ever made.

12 Monkeys

No More Secrets

Back at Team Splinter HQ in 2043, the group discusses recent events. Cole says that the Deacon they saw is the one he’s always known but Jennifer disagrees. He snaps back that since she can’t see things anymore she needs to step back from this, while she retorts by asking him how he knew the story of the serpent and the demon. Cassie urges him to spill the beans with an emphatic use of his name when Jones announces that she’s dying from a lethal dose of splinter radiation. Well that puts things into perspective. She tells them that they are family and that her one dying wish is that they act as one. Cole then reveals that the story came from her mother Marion. Jones then finds a copy of his birth certificate from their records and sees the name Marion Woods but no age or birthplace listed.

12 Monkeys

Who Is Emma?

We are first introduced to Elliot Jones’s beautiful and brilliant assistant at the beginning of episode four as he is doing a demonstration of a prototype of the time machine to a class. Katarina is there and when her husband invites her to join in she shyly declines and so Emma jumps in instead. We get the sense that there was some sort of tense energy between mentor and mentee that Jones mentioned to her ex-husband when he was sent to her from 1852 to 2043 by their daughter. He didn’t confirm if an affair happened, but he did say that it wasn’t his finest moment. At the end of the episode we learn that Emma is in fact a member of the Army of the 12 Monkeys. Upon returning to her apartment she dons the robe and the emblem of Titan, drinks the red tea, and visits the Witness at the house of cedar and pine. Inside she is greeted by Olivia without the plague mask. Emma tells the other woman that she knows how to complete Titan and fulfill it’s true purpose. The Witness smiles and tells her to begin then so that they can both have forever in the red forest. The younger female, who actually has a British accent, responds with, “I want nothing more mother.” OH SNAP! Emma is 1971 Olivia’s baby all grown up.

12 Monkeys

Zalmon Shaw Returns

One of highlights of season three was the performance of Christopher Lloyd as Zalmon Shaw, father of Pallid Man and husband of Mantis. We learn his backstory in episode five, discovering why he chose to follow the Witness and who he wants to be reunited with in the red forest. It turns out to be the love of his life, his first wife Isabella whom he had known since they were children. Olivia commands him to find the weapon before Team Splinter does and if he succeeds she will return to him all of his precious moments forever. We then see him next with the group in 1966 after our heroes find the phrase, “climb the steps, ring the bell” scrawled on the wall of a picture with two unidentified men shot to death on the floor.

12 Monkeys

A Very Close Call For Team Splinter

Cole and Cassie head to 1966 after the team discovers that the two dead men where KGB agents trying to buy an ancient weapon that was immensely powerful. As they stakeout a motel where the exchange is supposed to happen, they hear shots fired and run to the room. Cole kicks the down the door only to find the two men dead already and the clue scribbled on the wall. He thinks that the killers left through the window but finds a very large briefcase full of cash. The motel room phone suddenly rings and Cole picks it up and bluffs his way to getting the seller to agree to meet at their suite in the Emerson Hotel. However, the Army of the 12 Monkeys have their eyes on the duo as Shaw and young Pallid Man are outside watching them depart the motel.

Cassie heads to the lobby acting as a watch to make sure that nothing goes wrong with their exchange. But of course chaos ensues. She bumps into the seller who is trying to be inconspicuous but she suddenly gets a massive headache of sorts and is forced to sit down and catch her breathe. Dr. Railly then sees Shaw enter the hotel and is told by a man that the seller is in room 607. She makes her way to him ready to get her gun out, but he anticipates her move and has his minions accost her. Soon after however Cassie is able to knock the men out with sweet moves.

Meanwhile the seller is greeted by Cole in room 607. They have some whiskey, chit chat a little and the time traveler shows the German man the money. Once the guy is satisfied he says that he has a man waiting at the bar downstairs who will give him a lead case. He asks Cole if he even knows what he’s buying to which the chrononaut answers a weapon. The German comments that is what the Ahnernebe thought, but no one truly knows what the item is. The Ahnernebe was a unit within the Nazi SS that researched and studied ancient texts, folklore, and rock engravings to uncover the accomplishments of the Germanic people’s ancestors. Just then the door bursts open with Shaw entering. While we don’t see what happens next, when Cassie arrives the seller is dead and Cole is on the floor unable to breathe. He starts to gurgle black fluid from some kind of poison. She activates her tether and goes back to 2043 to be sent back earlier so that she can warn him. Dr. Adler is only able to send her a few minutes earlier and we find out that the massive headache she felt earlier in the lobby was because the other Cassie was nearby.

Present Cassie heads to suite 607 and explains to Cole that Shaw is here and that she’s going to find him dying soon with the seller dead. He is stubborn though and doesn’t want to leave to head back to 2043 because the weapon is here and this is their chance. Cole lets the German into the room and she slips out. Thinking this is her chance yet again to get Shaw, she has her gun out as the elevator doors open but this time is foiled by young Pallid Man who has struck the back of her legs. He reveals to her that his love for his first wife Isabella is what motivates him to work for the red forest and ominously says that before the end of the day he imagines that she’ll understand too. Shaw then breaks into the room and quickly shoots the seller. He makes Cassie and Cole kneel before each other and has PM poison them both. In order to administer the antidote they must reveal where the weapon is. Cole eventually gives in and says that there is a man at the bar with a leather case. The time traveler tells Shaw to give Cassie the cure. But here’s a question, if the two of them die at that moment doesn’t that mess with the timeline because Cassie must somehow return to 2018 to eventually die at the CDC?

Meanwhile Deacon has also arrived and Shaw tells him about the man at the bar who has the weapon.

12 Monkeys

Jennifer and Gale To The Rescue

Meanwhile after Cassie is sent back to 1966, Jennifer and Jones brainstorm trying to figure out how to help. The ex-primary remembers that Cole had a friend who worked in the FBI but supposedly died in 1961, except of course that Agent Robert Gale didn’t. When he last met the time travelers in 1953, Cassie told him when he would eventually die and so he wore a bulletproof vest in Germany. He tells Jennifer this as she had come to 1966 earlier than when C & C were originally sent. While they are staking out the motel room next door to where the Soviets are, she runs out of patience and shimmies the door open to ask the question about the clue. Except the wall is totally blank and Gale follows her from behind shooting the men. They both then realize that they are the reason why Team Splinter finds the room like this and so Jennifer herself writes the message. Gale and her then slip back into the other room and close the door just as Cassie and Cole burst in.

The FBI agent is able to get activated charcoal to suck up the poison in Cole’s system and then they’ll have to give him a shot that will allow him to breathe again. Gale himself catches Shaw, young Pallid Man, and their minion at an alleyway and the law enforcement officer easily takes down the underling. Shaw says goodbye to his son and that they’ll meet again in the red forest. He turns around and is about to get something out of his pocket forcing Gale to shoot him. It turned out to be the jackstone from Isabella. The older man isn’t able to shoot PM though who looks at him angrily, grabs his father’s hat and runs away.

In the meantime Jennifer gets to room 607 and gives Cassie the charcoal and shot. Dr. Railly puts the charcoal down Cole’s mouth and tell the ex-primary to look for the man at the bar with a lead case because he has the weapon. After Jennifer leaves Cassie hides as her other self finds Cole poisoned and splinters back to 2043. Ms. Goines runs downstairs and into Deacon who already as the weapon in his possession. When she asks how he could do this because this isn’t him. He tells her that he’s exactly where he wants to be and gives her a big wink, the same kind that she had given him when she left the facility to go back to 2017 in season three. He starts singing, “don’t you forget about me” and she realizes that he’s acting as a double agent amongst the Army of the 12 Monkeys.

Gale, Jennifer, Cassie, and Cole regroup and the FBI agent suggests that they go back to when the weapon was first found. Cole then remembers the Ahnenerbe and the other man is able to gather information about the Nazi group for them. He provides his findings with Hannah and Jones in attendance. Gale says that there is an object that the group found called die glocke. In an interrogation report on a Nazi SS officer, the object was described as made of metal with carvings unknown symbology, possessing unknown radioactive properties with a unique effect on time. Looks like Team Splinter needs to go back to World War II.

12 Monkeys

Die Glocke or The Bell

Team Splinter plans to infiltrate a gala held by the Ahnenerbe in 1940 at a manor in France. This event is the only recorded time when the die glocke was exhibited as it was hidden from history during its creation and all the way up to the sale in 1966. This truly seems to be their last chance at the weapon. Jennifer is to pose as a French maid, Cole as a truck driver bringing in supplies for the party, Jones as a prominent German socialite with ties to Heinrich Himmler (head of the SS), and Cassie as her American niece. Barbara Sukowa is sublime as the scientist undercover! She stares down the Ahnenerbe officer in the face without so much as blinking, explaining that she actually owns the manor that he bought and that she’s contributed greatly to the war effort. Plus a little threat of a bad recommendation to Himmler (since her fake husband was childhood friends with the Nazi leader supposedly). Jones tells their host that she’s unimpressed with the artifacts on display based on the resources that was gifted to him. The man can’t seem to resist her bait and says that he does have an item that’s sure to impress and that perhaps once the entertainment is over she’ll be his guest to witness it.

The bell arrives soon after but just as Cole is trying to figure out how to get it, Deacon suddenly appears and they both get captured by the Ahnenerbe. The two men are tied up and being beaten as one of the Nazi minions tells his boss about them. Meanwhile inside the manor Jennifer stumbles on some kind of French resistance plot happening. Two members of the resistance, a maid and an Ahnenerbe officer explain to Cassie and Jennifer that Hitler is coming to see the glocke and the gala is just a cover for that. They plan to explode a bomb in the building during that time to kill the the Führer. If they want the bell they have until 7 pm to get it when the the German leader is to see it.

Jones is struggling as the effects of the splinter radiation continue to affect her body, but she also seems to be having visions. Could her mind now be exposed to the time stream as well as an accidental byproduct?

When the group is able to convene, Cole lets the others know that Deacon had been on their side and has a plan to get the bell. However, a problem comes up as the French resistance drugs the singer who was supposed to entertain the guests. Jennifer decides to perform to give the others more time. She has the band play an orchestral accompaniment to Pink’s U + Ur Hand and Hitler is enjoying it! While Ms. Goines distracts upstairs, downstairs Cassie dons a Nazi dominatrix outfit and gets the attention of the guards protecting the glocke with Cole sneaking in via a side door. Together they kill all the soldiers but the noise is heard above and the Hitler is rushed to safety. Cole and Cassie in the meantime open the case and we finally see the weapon, which appears to be in the shape of a monkey’s face. They leave the case so that eventually the Army of the 12 Monkeys will get it in 1966, but before they all depart Deacon moved the cart bomb into the room where Hitler is in and lets Jennifer activate the detonator as they drive away.

Deacon fills them in on what happened after he returned to Titan after 1966. Olivia opened the lead case and inside was another bell that was on display at the gala. He tells the Witness to send him back to when the switch could have happened and this is when he realized that Team Splinter could have gotten it. They have all reconvened at the Emerson sometime in the past as there is a fully operating bar with a bartender. However Adler is now with them! This must be the first time that the scientist as time traveled. But who is operating the machine then since Hannah is on another mission? While he examines the bell, he shows everyone another inscription that says 1491 Hertfordshire, England. Jennifer says that it’s an invitation to meet the group of primaries she saw when she drank the red tea. Adler says though that their machine can’t go that far back, but Jones says to leave that to her. She and Deacon have hatched some kind of plan as instead of taking the bell with him back to Titan, he takes her to see Olivia instead.

12 Monkeys

Final Thoughts

  • Emily Hampshire killed it performing U + Ur Hand!
  • Cassie agreeing with Shaw during her time of grief at nearly losing Cole makes me anxious. Don’t join the dark side Dr. Railly!
  • I’m happy that Adler got to time travel at least once, enjoy a drink amongst comfortable surroundings and enjoy a moment when it isn’t the apocalypse.
  • Olivia is getting massive eye bags, it must be from all the exposure to the time stream.
  • With how intricate the Witness and the Army of the 12 Monkeys have planned to ensure that they are able to destroy time, it makes me wonder if Team Splinter is able to use the weapon how will they make certain that their foes haven’t got another plan under their belt to compensate? If Olivia was actually killed I can’t imagine that she wouldn’t have some kind of protocol in place.
  • Holy crap that Olivia sent her own daughter back in time to insinuate herself into Elliot and Katarina’s life.
  • Can we talk about Deacon for a second? His character has been one of the most surprising developments throughout the entire series. It’s been so much fun seeing him grow while still retaining the grit and the hardness that’s at the core of his being. He’s a survivor.
  • Jones and Hannah got a chance to be with Elliot even for a little while, despite everything it did give them a measure of closure.
  • Emma must have a bigger role to play in all of this!
  • From a purely organizational and operational standpoint what the Army of the 12 Monkeys have done in their quest to destroy time is pretty amazing. They must have some killer project managers and some insane scrum meetings.
  • The series continues to have the perfect balance between drama, action, suspense, and comedy in unexpected ways. I don’t know what we’re going to do with ourselves once it’s all over.

And if you’ve got Pink’s song stuck in your head like me, enjoy!

 

12 Monkeys airs on Syfy Fridays at 8/7 Central.

’12 Monkeys’ S4 Episodes 1-3 Review: The End Begins

By
Nicole C
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2
12 MONKEYS -- "The End" Episode 401 -- Pictured: (l-r) Aaron Stanford as James Cole, Amanda Schull as Cassandra Railly -- (Photo by: Ben Mark Holzberg/SYFY)

In the final season of Syfy’s 12 Monkeys, the epic sci-fi series picks up right where season three left off with time running out for Team Splinter as Olivia is out to destroy them for good. But as we’ve come to expect, everything is never quite as it seems to be on this show and we wouldn’t it any other way.

Here are the important moments in the first three episodes of season four.

The Primaries

This season begins during medieval times with a narrator telling the story that Cole’s father had told him when he was young.

“There once was a serpent who only traveled in one direction. Always forward, never backward. Until one day, the serpent came upon a demon.”

A group of armed soldiers come upon individuals dressed in robes standing in a circle. The leader of the soldiers addresses the hooded figures as heretics, witches, warlocks, and primaries. He demands to know where the weapon is, but one of the primaries only laughs, saying that they’ve already foreseen this event and have covered themselves in oil. Soon they are all burned and we see someone wearing a medieval looking plague mask accompanying the soldiers. Some distance away, a young girl screams in terror as she sees the bodies engulfed in flames in her mind. An older man hands her a bronze ouroboros artifact and tells her that she must now take it because he can no longer keep it for her. The girl of course is another primary and now it is her mandate to watch over the ouroboros, remember the legend, and the name James Cole.

The Facility Splinters

With the Army of the 12 Monkeys outside their door, things are not looking good for Team Splinter as they can’t possibly hope to outgun their enemies. Their salvation comes in an experimental project meant to use in dire circumstances only. Jones is still seriously injured as she gasps and suggests that most of the facility should be splintered. Project Charon (tidbit: Charon is the Greek mythological ferryman of the dead) is time travel without the time part as Lasky explains that they’ve adapted Titan’s splinter array by modifying the Eliot Jones’s early machine prototypes. They will need to set up repeaters that will disperse the beam at the bottom levels of the facility to form a perimeter and everything within it gets taken along for the ride. Jones asks Cole to trust her one last time (despite her trying to kill him, Cassie, and Athan under Olivia’s influence).

With an assault outside and the core unstable because of the underground river being heated up, Team Splinter needs to hustle hard to get out of this precarious situation. Deacon volunteers to create a distraction and he heads outdoors to collapse the big chimney onto Titan like a giant hammer. He succeeds but at great cost because he ends up getting left behind when the beams are activated. Cassie is fighting Cole trying to somehow figure out a way to get Deacon but the Time Jesus drags her away. Cold Cole, real cold.

As the assault continues, Lasky gets shot in the head (R.I.P. Lasky) just after he sets the coordinates for their new location (it’s underground!). Cassie and Cole kill Olivia’s minions like super trained assassins and hell its impressive. However, the core still needs to get stabilized in order for them to splinter. Like a badass, Jones injects herself with an adrenaline shot to do the deed. Whitley finds her tries to dissuade her from cooling the core manually because she’ll get radiation poisoning, but time is running out for them as Titan’s beams is about to splinter the facility to shreds. The soldier tells the scientist that he’ll cover for her as much as he can. Jones is able to stabilize the power source and heads back to the hallway to find a critically injured Whitley seated on the ground. As the splinter sequence begins he closes his eyes and dies. The facility thankfully achieves its mission (albeit it without Deacon who is trapped on the other side of the beam) just in time before Titan’s beams collapse the outer structure of Raritan National Laboratory. While Olivia believes that their cycle has ended, Team Splinter lives on!

But where exactly did they go? It turns out that they got transported below the Emerson Hotel.

The Plague Has Begun

Meanwhile in 2018, the plague has begun and a very bright haired Jennifer Goines sits at an outdoor café looking at a very familiar sketch of the ouroboros and the monkey at its center in Prague. It turns out that she’s there to procure a very specific item that we first saw at the beginning of the first episode this season, the ouroboros puzzle piece that is supposed to be given to Cole. This old artifact just happens to be on display at a local museum. Once she enters the space, she appears to be talking to another Jennifer through an earpiece. Pink haired Jennifer sends a toy monkey in a car to distract one of the guards, then uses a laser device to create a hole through the protective glass casing. Unfortunately, once she takes the item a pressure alarm goes off. She then runs into the guard, but takes him out with some kickass moves…or does she? The other guard at the security desk watches a CCTV feed showing the actual Jennifer awkwardly tumbling her way into the exhibit. She was just imagining the edgy vaping version of herself! The dude lets her walk out because he doesn’t really care anyways. When the two Jennifers reunite at their hideout, we discover that the piece is the key to everything and that she and Athan both saw it in their visions.

Back to the Beginning

As Cole and Cassie venture outside to look for supplies, the whole team is essentially demoralized. Cassie especially feels that they are just running around in circles. They need an atom cell to kick start the core but to get that they need another time machine. When the survivors gather to discuss their next steps, Cole suggests that they go back to Raritan get the an atom cell from spare core that was left behind. He also shows them Jennifer’s drawing of the ouroboros and the monkey and says that he knows this image (he and Cassie found it inside their old room at the Emerson). He insists that they need to get the machine up and running again because Jennifer is the key and there is more to this than what they’ve experienced so far. But everyone else thinks it’s too dangerous to go back to the lab and Cole storms off by himself. As he walks from New York City to somewhere outside of Philadelphia, he stops and tells whomever is following him just to come out already. Hannah emerges and says that she came so that he wouldn’t have to do this alone. Suddenly though they hear noises and follow the sounds. As the two hide behind an abandoned car, they see Ramse and another Cole walking along talking about Cole’s impending time travel adventure. The duo realize that they’ve didn’t just move through space they have also gone back to 2043, the year it all began. Geez It’s good to see Ramse again.

Cole takes Cassie and Jones with him as they follow 2043 Ramse and Cole back to Raritan after they make a stop to get dead Cassie’s watch at the CDC office where her skeleton is. We saw a part of this scene in previous seasons. As the three chrononauts camp out for the night trying to determine how they got here, Jones postulates that the machine must have scanned through its data history and sent them back during its first successful splinter (give or take a few months). As they debate the danger in stealing an atom cell from their past selves, Cassie says that they need to go after Olivia in the in the 70s because it’s their best opportunity to get her as she’s unguarded. The other woman had apparently been arrested in 1971 for some unknown reason. Aside from this moment she had been always off the grid and protected by the Army of the 12 Monkeys.

They decide to take the risk of robbing themselves and set up a mock outbreak to force a protocol that would have everyone be locked in their quarters. Thus the trio will then be able get what they need without the other party knowing. Cassie decreases the oxygen levels at the one of the decontamination bays, causing the canaries (that serve as a warning for contamination) to die (or pass out). Jones is to prep the time machine to send Cassie and Cole back to 1971. The scientist however suddenly has an idea and tells him to keep out of sight and wait for Dr. Railly.

2043 Jones Meet 2046 Jones

As 2046 Jones decides to lending a helping hand to her past self, Cassie observes 2043 Cole watching a video of her being interviewed in 2018. The virologist on the small screen almost turns to look at her in the future and says that sometimes a circle allows for a second chance. Does this mean that the Dr. Railly being interviewed is actually a future version of Cassie that goes back to 2018 at some point? Meanwhile the Joneses are debating on how future Jones trusted the wrong person (Olivia) and it cost them everything. The 2043 scientist tells her counterpart that if she’s lost hope borrow some of hers and to trust herself. This inspires 2046 Jones and she says suppose that the other her doesn’t remember this moment, to which 2043 Jones says a bottle of whiskey and some meds will take care of that. Her past self asks how to work the tethers to which she answers that time is a curve and to not think of machine programming so linearly. The answer to program with an algorithmic spiral.

There is a clash between Cassie and Cole as she wants to go to 1971 to kill Olivia while he wants to find Jennifer in 2018. Jones says that they can do both, investigate the future and attack the past because there no longer is one single mission. As Dr. Railly is about to leave she asks the man she loves to come with her, but he says not this time. Cole and Jones then enact another plan to steal an atom cell from the 2043 machine in order to power theirs. It explains why back then their core had been so drained because their future selves had used it and then taken a part. Jones tells Cole to wait until the core is offline before going in. As he makes his way to the core he runs into Ramse and the other man asks him what’s wrong.

This is an intense moment for Cole and us the viewers because his best friend currently is clueless about all the craziness that will happen to them, eventually leading to their showdown. He asks Ramse what if they just keep trying to do the right things the wrong way over and over again. The other ex-scav answers that there is no right or wrong, good or bad. You just have to do what matters in the moment. Cole says that he’s trying really hard to forgive himself but he doesn’t know if he can. Ramse tells him to stop trying because only the dead can forgive and that you need to give them a reason to absolve you. The original time traveler is finally gets unload of some of the guilt he’s been carrying over the death of his bff. Before heading off, Ramse states him that he’s going to be ok. Thanks guys I am now a puddle of tears over here.

Cole is able to grab the atom cell after Jones powers down the core. She runs into Whitley in the splinter room and this time she is able to say her own goodbyes to him. She says that she may never say it but she’s grateful for everything he’s done and everything he will do. Whitley is clearly kind of weirded out by this and so excuses himself to look for Ramse. As 2046 Cole and Jones watch their past selves from above the machine, the scientist asks him to promise her that they’ll see this through to the end. He promises.

Jennifer Loses Something Important

In 2018, an Interpol agent (played by Game of Thrones’ Conleth Hill!) has been tasked to find Jennifer and retrieve the missing ouroboros artifact. Ms. Goines in the meantime has been talking to her imaginary cooler self. We discover however that for an unknown reason she no longer is able to hear the voices of the other primaries. This frustrates her to no end because she doesn’t know how to solve the ouroboros puzzle. Not only that but being primary is such an intrinsic part of who she is that it is completely understandable that she would freak out when the visions and voices vanished. Sadly though, even pink haired Jennifer is about to go away as she tells her other self to get out of there because it’s too dangerous. Understandably the ex-primary is freaking out because the imaginary person is all she has left. But the other her says that she doesn’t need the voices anymore because she’s got herself. Her last piece of advice to Jennifer is to not forget her passport, which of course she does in her mad dash out of the building with the police arriving. The Interpol agent catches up to her at the train station and asks her where James Cole is. She takes a cue from pink hair Jennifer and does something totally gutsy and irrationally rational by falling in front of a moving train.

Let’s Meet 1971 Olivia

Meanwhile back at Titan in 2046, Olivia deals with some of her followers doubting her capacity as The Witness because she isn’t primary while Athan Cole was. Olivia decides that paradoxing is not the answer for the red forest and needs a more permanent solution. As she speaks to another minion, she espouses how she understands all the instructions she must give to ensure this cycle except for one, the very first one she gave herself in 1971.

Speaking of which, 1971 Olivia seems to be on the run from her mother and the Army of the 12 Monkeys. She finds help from another young woman and together they live in an abandoned building, stealing and doing what they must to survive. Her mom soon finds her hideout though and she’s forced to run away only to be picked up by the police. In the meantime, Cassie is stalking her, trying to ascertain the right opportunity to use her sniper rifle. Just when she seems to have an open shot, she is fired on herself and ends up in jail too. Guess who’s in the cell next to her? Olivia naturally. The virologist soon discovers though that the other woman is pregnant and she is unable to fulfill her original plan. As the two talk, Cassie empathizes when Olivia says that her mother wants something for her child that she doesn’t. Apparently, she is also supposed to make a terrible choice. The doctor reveals that she knows about the Army of the 12 Monkeys, what their capable off, and what Olivia is capable off.

We then see the young woman’s branding ceremony and when she first speaks to The Witness. After ingesting the red tea Olivia walks through the red forest and enters the house of cedar and pine. There she is told that she has a purpose and that she will have a child for their leader. When her younger self asks why, The Witness responds with the word sacrifice. After sharing her story, Cassie feels compelled to help her.

But all is not what it seems whenever it comes to Olivia and as Cassie goes to find the other woman and her mom, we learn the truth behind the pregnancy. Dr. Railly confronts Mantis (also known as Vivian Rutledge and one of the 12 Messengers) and she tells the virologist that she didn’t want Olivia to give up her child for The Witness and she was trying to protect them both. It had been Olivia who questioned her mother’s faith in their leader then purposely ran away from home to get herself knocked up.

Deacon Has Nine Lives

The ScavKing really has nine lives because this dude survived having a whole building collapsed on top of him. He is taken to Titan where he reveals to Olivia that he isn’t lucky but got left behind, revealing to The Witness of course that Team Splinter survives to fight another day. Now it makes sense to Olivia why she met Cassie in 1971. She has Deacon beat up but he doesn’t actually know or care where the others are.

Jennifer and Cole Reunite

Back in 2018, Jennifer is saved by future a-hole Cole, but forgets the ouroboros artifact which is now with the Interpol agent. This Cole appears to be using Athan’s splinter vest (Jennifer notices the bullet hole) and does this mean we’ll still see the other primary before the end of the series? Here’s hoping! He tells Ms. Goines that she needs to reunite with her Cole who’ll be at the Charles Bridge tomorrow at sunrise. Lastly, he asks her to buy the guy a cheeseburger.

True to form, she gets 2046 Cole a cheeseburger the next morning and they catch up. He explains Cassie’s revenge mission in 1971 and says he didn’t go with his lady love because he had to find her and discover the meaning behind her drawing. Jennifer explains that she and Athan kept seeing this image and hearing tons of voices. Then she found the ouroboros puzzle but left it behind. After nineteen tries they finally find the right Interpol agent Barnum and he tells Cole for them to meet him at the beginning. So they rendezvous with the law enforcement officer back at the museum. Surprisingly the dude turns out to be one of the good guys! He is a descendant of the female primary from medieval times and his family had passed on a story from generation to generation about the end times and the man who they believed could save it. The Interpol agent then gives the artifact to Cole. Time Jesus is able to solve it by remembering the story his mother told him about the serpent and the demon. Once he unlocks the object they find a hidden note that said, “Blackleaf May 11, 1852.”

Olivia Becomes Primary

Meanwhile at Titan, Olivia discovers from Deacon that Team Splinter is still alive and she bids Mallick to find them. He however throws back the question of how. If she’s The Witness she should know how to find them. Olivia decides to take some red tea and ask her future self how she is supposed to lead the Army of the 12 Monkeys when she cannot see the path. The other woman says that only primaries can see the path from above and that even though they weren’t born with the gift, they would acquire it. Titan it seems has another purpose. She uses technology within the structure to open her mind to the time stream and likely because of her own unique genetic structure she survives. One of her chief minions also hooks up substantial life support systems and modifies the plague masque for it. This happens to be the same mask the future Olivia wore when the two women chatted in the house of cedar and pine. 2046 Olivia does indeed bare witness and realizes that Titan is incomplete. It has an even greater objective – creating the red forest via a huge explosion. She now knows what steps they need to take.

One of these steps includes jumping back into her body in 1971 to chat with her mother and Cassie. She tells the two women how the future she sought was given to her in the past. It was Dr. Railly telling her that her child should have purpose and so it would. She goads the other time traveler to take a shot at her as she was meant too and when Cassie does Mantis steps to block her daughter. As more minions arrive, the virologist tells Olivia that she’s coming for her with The Witness saying that she’s counting on it.

Going back to 2046, Olivia has Deacon brought to her along with Mallick and other henchmen. She ends up killing her once ally and offers the ScavKing his position, preying on his vengeful heart to hunt down Team Splinter.

We then see that 1971 Olivia carried out the order of her future self and left her baby in the woods. The child was then picked up by The Witness. 2046 Olivia now made certain to ensure her own creation and the unbreakable cycle so that at the end Titan’s true purpose could be completed and the red forest would come. She then burns the word of The Witness because hey she knows better than that!

Final Thoughts

  • Who does Olivia’s baby turn out to be? Could it possibly be Cole’s mom?
  • Will we find out why Jennifer loses her primary-ness?
  • I still need to know who the dead body (Annapurna Remains) was from season one.
  • It was so nice to see all the people from Team Splinter alive again even for a short while. Especially Ramse and Eckland!
  • We circled back to the beginning (aka season 1) and it’s freaking BRILLIANT to see those scenes from a totally different perspective.
  • The action scenes are amazingly choreographed this season.
  • What could this mysterious primary built weapon be?

Review: ’12 Monkeys’ Final Season Continues to Deliver One of TV’s Best Sci-fi Series

By
Bilal Mian
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12 Monkeys
12 MONKEYS -- "The End" Episode 401 -- Pictured: (l-r) Amanda Schull as Cassandra Railly, Aaron Stanford as James Cole -- (Photo by: Ben Mark Holzberg/SYFY)

*Review based off the first five episodes of 12 Monkeys Season 4*

Season four of 12 Monkeys is upon us and every moment of the first five episodes is everything you could want from the series’ final season.

12 Monkeys has followed Cole and Cassie through time as they raced to stop the mysterious organization known as the Army of the 12 Monkeys from releasing a deadly virus that wipes out nearly all of humanity – and that was just the beginning. Showrunner Terry Matalas, along with a fantastic team of writers, have headed into the final season with a sense of clear direction that many shows in the sci-fi television landscape fail to have planned for (I’m looking at you Battlestar Galactica and Lost). No time is being wasted and every moment of screen time is a valuable reward for the viewers who have stuck with the show. Yes, even the crazy trips through the mind of Jennifer Goines.

Especially those.

The narrative in 12 Monkeys continues to weave in and out of its mysteries with natural cohesion. Questions are being answered and characters are given moments to reflect allowing for much more emotional moments as the series gets ready to say goodbye. There have been unexpected events and multiple reveals that left my jaw agape at a character’s decision. You’re definitely in for a ride. It’s safe to say, you’ll experience a wide range of emotions in the first five episodes of season four.

It’s not just the answers to the series’ overall mythos that makes the final season standout. It’s the small moments with old and new faces. It’s Emily Hampshire delivering even more memorable moments as Jennifer Goines, Todd Stashwick’s Deacon reaching his breaking point and questioning everything to this point, Barbara Sukowa’s amazing performance as Jones reflects on her violent journey to this point, and Aaron Stanford and Amanda Schull’s dealing with the aftermath of the loss of their son, who lived fleetingly in front of their eyes. In a journey riddled with ups and downs, with highs and lows, 12 Monkeys character development never takes a back seat to the story or an unwarranted turn.

As 12 Monkeys winds down with its final eleven episodes, there is next to no doubt in my mind the series can stick its landing. With top-notch action, sublime writing, one of the best ensemble casts on TV, and a strong emotional core, 12 Monkeys kicks off its final season ready to claim its seat amongst the pantheon of television’s best sci-fi shows.

Grade: A

12 Monkeys Season 4 premieres June 15, 2018 on Syfy with three episodes from 8 PM to 11 PM. Editor Nicole C’s recap/reviews will run after air each Friday on TheWorkprint.com

‘Arrested Development’ Season 5 Review: The Good, The Bad, and The Elderly

By
Christian Angeles
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Arrested Development

Don’t be fooled, Arrested Development season five is funny. It edges back to its roots as an ensemble driven comedy filled with meta-references and eccentric characters stuck-in, well, arrested development: people that for some reason or another refuse to change. Which is exactly what feels wrong with this season. Especially in the wake of accusations against Jeffrey Tambor.

The following will be a spoiler-free review of the first half of this season which is available streaming right now on Netflix – with the second half to be debuted on a later date.  Given how difficult it is to separate the work from the controversy, I’ll talk about what’s objectively good and bad about the season itself, then talk about the controversy behind Jeffrey Tambor in The Elderly section.

https://youtu.be/gXg2_yExgVY

The Good

What’s good about season five is that the developers listened to fans’ lukewarm reception of season four. Series creator Mitch Hurwitz went so far as to recut the entirety of season four into a format closer to the show’s original structure and delivery.

It’s not the best and you can see how forced the changes can be, but it’s noticeable that they tried. Better yet, that they cared, especially given that the series is continuing into its twilight seasons.

As a result we see the cast more united as an ensemble and best of all they all actually share a room together! This seems sort an odd thing to be praising, however the show intentionally stands out during these moments.

Using its traditional nod-and-wink style of comedy delivery, the jokes often play off the fact that in this world, it’s 2015. We’ve had a slew of tumultuous changes as a country. Particularly, in the housing market and tech industry – two settings the show intentionally pokes fun at through the Bluth Company and Google. In the real world we are in the midst of a controversial Trump era presidency and are even building an actual border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. This is something that Lucille Bluth herself had suggested again and again.

Despite all these changes, the Bluth family more-or-less acts as if they’ve been “with each other” this entire time. Ignoring the fact that the cast has aged rather significantly. With both the George Michael and Maeby characters, pushing well into adulthood, rounding thirty.

All the while, the series pretends tongue-in-cheek style, like nothing has happened within the five-year gap between seasons four and five, but makes subtle nods to almost all of the ways 2015 now feels quite dated. I could list them, but it’s better to see the contrasts for yourself as an audience member.

The fifth season wraps-up all the loose plotlines from season four within its first two episodes. Then goes off into its more traditional format of narcissistic family members acting out of self-interest, losing themselves in the process, but then finding themselves through each other, usually much later-on, and after some sort of consequence. Cumulating at yet another off-the-mark festival.

This is the formula that has worked for Arrested Development through and through. It works again for season five, yet I also like the show’s incorporation of Ron Howard and his family into the narrative. This seems silly, meta, but above all else like a means of getting us to the end point of the show. However, we hope this explains why Ron Howard shot Arrested Development in the first place.

The rest is pretty much the same. The clever play-on-words and callbacks to old seasons are still littered throughout the writing. The characters, while older, don’t seem much the wiser save for some callback gags and more meta-comedy jokes. Some of my personal favorites subplots of the season: Maeby pulls yet another bunch of clever schemes including one that involves: the elderly (Which I wanted to talk about at the end but felt it fit better here), George Michael and Michael still have a mixed/lingering romance with Rebel Alley, GOB explores his possible homosexuality and possible romantic love for his longtime rival Tony Wonder, and Buster is… well, Buster, a man-child who needs his mother.

What’s good about the fifth season is that it’s a better callback to the original series with much more chemistry, a much less convoluted plotline, and a set of crazy adventures culminating in yet another holiday-that’s-not-really-a-holiday episode.

It’s the Arrested Development you’ve come to expect.

The Bad

Wherein lies the problem. Five years is a long gap. With eight years even before that, the show can start to feel somewhat stale.

So much has changed since Arrested Development’s original run back in 2003. Shows like Modern Family, and the many ABC comedies about families that followed afterwards have really captured what it’s like to see layered and complicated families at odds and ends. Not just with each other as in Arrested Development, but also, with the world itself. Especially when considering narratives of race, business, gender and family structure.

Times have undoubtedly changed.

Shows like Community and 30 Rock, had become cult hits utilizing pop cultural meta-comedy; a technique AD had really popularized. For that matter, The Office and Parks and Recreation cleverly utilized the possibilities of the mockumentary both as a joke and as a plot device. Even Lady Dynamite, a series co-created by Mitch Hurwitz himself, was better at absurdist humor and employing obscene dream logic.

Arrested Development is just not standing out anymore. Which is not to detract from the strength of its value in how it pioneered techniques utilized in the shows mentioned above; yet for itself the series hasn’t really made any real waves in a while.

Perhaps its most creative venture was its structure for shooting season four. While I didn’t dislike season four as much as others, after a dizzying spill of reddit down votes and many bar debates later, I’ve come to realize that I’m in the minority. Personally, I thought season four was a clever in its way of going around business constrictions, getting by scheduling conflicts for a now famous ensemble cast, and working at different locations due to the lack of a dedicated set and shooting schedule.

Given what they had to work with, I thought they did a good job, but critics and fans generally panned season four agreeing that it was the worst of the series. That is until now, which is where this current season may or may not permanently reside, as fans have been lukewarm so far yet are open to seeing how the rest plays out.

Atop a staling premise, the only real notable critique beyond that is the ensemble not sharing as many scenes together as the older seasons. While this season has written the characters together more and the acting plays off each other better – the cast are still rarely fully together. Though much of that is attributed how different their lives are and I doubt the show will ever return to its total ensemble glory.

The Elderly

Which gets us to what most critique sites have been covering on the front page: the scandal. Jeffrey Tambor, who was investigated on sexual harassment allegations on set of the hit show, Transparent, of which, he was the title character, was fired. In a recent report, Tambor claims that much of the actions were blown out of proportion, the set being a sexually charged environment that could often get misconstrued – he also deemed insecurity as a CIS male playing a trans role as partial reasoning for his actions. Afterwards, Tambor would later be accused by several individuals he’d worked with that the actor could frequently be verbally hostile on set with one particular incident involving Jessica Walter on set of Arrested Development. In a New York Times interview with the cast, most of the male actors were chastised for belittling the situation and trivializing Walter’s pain, while only Alia Shawkat empathized with her colleague’s experience.

It should be said that none of this makes the show comfortable to watch whenever Tambor is on screen. And given how much bad press this incident has gotten, it’s hurt the show’s dwindling fanbase.

Don’t get me wrong, the series knows not to take itself seriously. While we are talking about an enjoyable ensemble comedy about a show about a family that refuses to grow, in a lot of ways, it’s just not a popular story to tell anymore in my opinion.

Most of what we see now is what I call progressive comedy. The work SNL does to be political, the critical hits of adult-themed cable dramedies such as Barry or Atlanta, or even some of the animated works such as Bojack Horseman, here on Netflix. Comedy is growing now more so than ever and it does so by going over the line. Arrested Development just seemed to stop doing.  It’s gotten… old. The blowback of the Tambor allegations in its cluttering, fumbling, lack of a timely response or decisive action, might be a sign of its time.

It pains to me say this, but I personally see Arrested Development as a product that originally ended at its prime. These new seasons really just seem like they’re playing off nostalgia to me. And I don’t blame them. It’s what a lot of movies are doing these days – just look at the new Star Wars films, including Ron Howard’s… it’s heavily divided.

Many seem like they want this to be the last season myself included. The Bluths were a funny needed comedy making bold statements during the George W. Bush era. It was important for its time, but there’s just many other places to get your laughs these days.

Still, watch it for yourself and decide.

Arrested Development is available Streaming on Netflix, with the second half of season five to air at a later date.

Supertrash Podcast: “Not Kansas”

By
Alyssa Berkowitz
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Supergirl

Why hello there and welcome to the latest installment of Supertrash where Jen and Alyssa discuss this week’s episode of Supergirl “Not Kansas.”

Well, at least we thought we were watching Supergirl, but based on the story and how out of character everyone was acting, we are not entirely convinced. Alyssa and Jen try to talk through their feelings on this very rough episode which included Kara constantly complaining about how much of a burden growing up on earth was, the most simplistic and convoluted storyline addressing gun control, and finally, the laundry detergent commercial that was Mon-el confessing his love to Kara.

Listen to “‘Supergirl’ Episode 3.21: “Not Kansas”” on Spreaker.

Don’t forget we have launched a Supertrash Patreon, so if you want to support us while also receiving some cool stuff, be sure to check it out! Supertrash Podcast Patreon

Be sure to follow Supertrash and the hosts on Twitter:

Supertrash Podcast: @SuperTrashCast
Jen: @JenStayrook
Alyssa: @TVwithAPB

‘Telltale’s The Walking Dead: The Final Season’ Premieres this August

By
Bilal Mian
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The Walking Dead: The Final Season

Telltale’s The Walking Dead: The Final Season finally has a premiere date.

Episode one of The Walking Dead: The Final Season will be available for download starting August 14, 2018 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Pre-orders will begin on June 8 at $19.99 for the entire season. A Nintendo Switch version will debut at a later date.

Those who pre-order The Walking Dead: The Final Season on PS4 or Xbox One will also receive immediate access to The Walking Dead: The Telltale Series Collection, which gathers all 19 existing episodes into a single package.

What’s in store for the final season? Telltale breaks it down:

Well… after years on the road facing threats both living and dead, a secluded school might finally be Clementine’s chance for a home. But protecting it will mean sacrifice. Clem must build a life and become a leader while still watching over AJ, an orphaned boy and the closest thing to family she has left. In this gripping, emotional final season, you will define your relationships, fight the undead, and determine how Clementine’s story ends.

The Walking Dead: The Final Season will also feature a new over-the-shoulder camera system, greater freedom to explore detailed environments, and scenes with unscripted combat.

BookCon 2018: What We Learned About Queen of Air and Darkness

By
Nicole C
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Queen of Air and Darkness

At this year’s BookCon in New York City, author Cassandra Clare revealed some interesting tidbits about her upcoming novel Queen of Air and Darkness. This will be the third (and last) book in The Dark Artifices series that follows the complicated and dangerous lives of the Shadowhunters at the Los Angeles Institute – Emma Carstairs, the Blackthorn family, Diana Wrayburn, and Kit Herondale.

The ending in Lord of Shadows (book two of TDA) was a huge cliffhanger and thus fans have been eager for new information relating to the epic finale of the series. During her solo panel at BookCon last Saturday, Clare said that a lot of things would be changing in the Shadowhunter world, which is not surprising given the rise of the Cohort thus far. The Cohort is a group of extreme members of the Clave who believe that Downworlders are inferior to the Nephilim and should have their rights restricted. The author expanded that readers shouldn’t be attached to anything because it could easily change.

“A lot of things change in the Shadowhunter world so I guess I would say you should not expect anything that you think is a permanent part of the world to stay the same,” Clare said.

We also gained some insight as to how the the last U.S. elections affected her writing as it modified the way she was shaping her villains. She had to put herself in the shoes of these characters and from their perspective think about realistic choices they would make in order to protect the ones they loved because no one is the villain of their own story.

In addition, Clare also revealed that the characters in QoAAD would be going through high highs and low lows, part of the novel will take place some place we haven’t seen yet, there would be a very painful scene towards the end, and that people will definitely have feelings about the ending itself. Not gonna lie, I am both ridiculously excited and anxious as hell.

SPOILERS FROM LORD OF SHADOWS AHEAD

So many crazy events happened in LoS that my mind wonders which of these events may be related to that super painful scene:

  • Robert Lightwood dies and thus Emma and Julian’s plan to ward of the parabatai curse takes a turn for the worse.
  • Magnus appears to be seriously ill.
  • Annabel Blackthorn is kidnapped by the Unseelie King.
  • Kieran Hunter-Mark Blackthorn-Cristina Rosales love triangle.
  • Livvy Blackthorn’s death at Annabel’s hand (she also killed Robert) – what will this mean for the whole family and especially her twin Ty?
  • Diana’s relationship with the fairy Gwyn ap Nudd – will there be serious consequences from both the Nephilim and the fairies? 
  • Clary’s dark foreboding dreams and the feeling that she was going to die soon (this is why she said no to Jace’s marriage proposal).

The good news though is that Queen of Air and Darkness has been completed and is now in the hands of Clare’s editor. The novel is going to be extremely long and is set to be released December 4, 2018. 

Here’s also a look at the exclusive poster featuring Julian Blackthorn and Emma Carstairs (illustrated by Erin Kelso) that was given away to lucky fans at BookCon.

For even more juicy info on QoAAD, check out Clare’s Tumblr HERE. She’s mentioned that we’ll find out the identity of Kit’s mom!

Here’s the official synopsis:

Dark secrets and forbidden love threaten the very survival of the Shadowhunters in Cassandra Clare’s Queen of Air and Darkness, the final novel in the #1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling The Dark Artifices trilogy. Queen of Air and Darkness is a Shadowhunters novel.

What if damnation is the price of true love?

Innocent blood has been spilled on the steps of the Council Hall, the sacred stronghold of the Shadowhunters. In the wake of the tragic death of Livia Blackthorn, the Clave teeters on the brink of civil war. One fragment of the Blackthorn family flees to Los Angeles, seeking to discover the source of the disease that is destroying the race of warlocks. Meanwhile, Julian and Emma take desperate measures to put their forbidden love aside and undertake a perilous mission to Faerie to retrieve the Black Volume of the Dead. What they find in the Courts is a secret that may tear the Shadow World asunder and open a dark path into a future they could never have imagined. Caught in a race against time, Emma and Julian must save the world of Shadowhunters before the deadly power of the parabatai curse destroys them and everyone they love.

‘Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’ Review: The Beginning of The End

By
Christian Angeles
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In its final season, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt proves to be unbreakable by showcasing the strength and empowerment of its (mostly female) characters, while remaining relevant and unwavering in its comedic convictions.

The first half of season four, which debuted yesterday, tackles controversial topics such as toxic masculinity, the #MeToo movement, and unmet adult expectations – all the while staying topical and meta-driven in comedy. It’s an incredibly ambitious six episodes. Seeing plenty of growth for each beloved character, all the while making a statement and poking fun at itself. Overall, I found the episodes emotionally well-rounded, leaving quite the promise for a happy ending.

This season begins with the ‘Little Girl, Big City!’ premise, a sort of 90’s parody of the shows’ reinvention of itself, or Kimmy’s lack-of ability to. For years we’ve seen Kimmy try to break away from the trauma of her Mole woman roots in noble yet hilarious fashion. This season sees Kimmy as a semi-well-adjusted adult. Perhaps, not getting everything right, but is at least is operating aware of her past while pushing towards her future.

It’s a refreshing variation to showcase Kimmy’s change, especially given how much in the world is different now (at least since last season). Though it doesn’t take long to delve back into the show’s enjoyable mayhem. With Kimmy’s well-intentions and bright optimism often at foil with the bleakness of modern situations; particularly, addressing gender and power discrepancies in the workplace environment, in reference to the #MeToo movement.

Kimmy’s new job also awkwardly explores arrested development and social immaturity, particularly through the lens of those in tech-startups and the different ‘nerds’ of the company.

In fact, this season seems targeted towards the youth of the generation, with two particularly powerful monologues occurring in the later half. One addresses cliques and acceptance of one’s identity, the other, discusses a need for change in defining boyhood masculinity. They’re both powerful messages, especially in a comedy unafraid to get topical. The show really brings to point belittled voices and the disempowered, whom Kimmy, very much aspires to play champion towards this season.

In the meantime, UBK’s more self-centered cohorts see their own unique arcs as well. With Titus on a quest for acting success to win over the heart of his beloved Mikey, Jenna in a surprisingly supportive role as Titus’ agent/manager, and the misadventures of Lillian being… well, more-or-less her loud, proud, and degenerate self; apologizing to nobody, while imparting the occasional wisdom on occasion.

As mentioned, each character seems very self-actualized this season – to great success. Becoming not necessarily the person they originally aspired to be, but at least something close to change; or at least, better grounded as individuals. I’d say Titus’ story stands out the most. As he yet again, overcomes some of the darker, more closeted aspects of his past, in aspiration of being the gay man he needs to be for his true love. Though, also, for the attention. This is Titus after all.

It’s a shame how the show is ending because this is definitely one of their more ambitious seasons. With much praise given to its usual shotgun style of comedy (basically joke upon joke that’s layered in set, in dialogue, and in story: AKA everywhere), conversations on entitled male privilege and sexual harassment, and even an open discussion on abortion. Basically, there’s a lot to praise about this season. And it’s not only hilarious but also only halfway done.

The series also tries something different in episode 3’s unique episode ‘Party Monster: scratching the surface’. It’s a brilliantly timed sort of meta-parody, poking fun of Netflix itself, while presenting us a unique backstory of the reverend’s time as DJ Slizzard, in a true crime documentary that’s one of the funniest parodies since “Daddy’s Boy” or Titus’ “Lemonade”.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt has come far from being a lighthearted show about an abused survivor looking to move forward. It’s come to represent a lot of modern feminist issues. With season 4 staying incredibly topical, as characters reflect back on their roots and move forward with their lives – all while the show makes some bold statements about gender inequality. Poking fun of, and holding men of power, accountable. Something America itself really needs right now.

The first six episodes of Season 4 of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is available on Netflix. The second half of the season will air at a future date.

‘Fallout 76’ Unveiled by Bethesda

By
Christian Angeles
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Three years since the release of Fallout 4, and a decade since Fallout 3, Bethesda left a foretelling “Please Stand By” notice with a Vault Boy bobble head streaming on their Twitch channel. Fans in the tens of thousands, patiently tuned in since yesterday, awaiting the news that dropped just moments ago: Fallout 76.

What does this mean? Well for starters, Fallout 76 is most likely not a direct numeric sequel. It is more likely akin to a Fallout: New Vegas or something new entirely. Rumors about online play have also been mentioned, though little else is known in terms gameplay.

What is discernible is the setting: Vault 76. A vault briefly mentioned in almost every Fallout game since the series breakout Fallout 3.

According to Fallout lore, officially, vaults created by Vault-Tec were meant to service as fallout shelters in case of nuclear war. But the government, and Vault-Tec itself, had never actually believed it to be a real possibility. As such, most of the 122 vaults were to be used as experiments on pre-selected segments of the population. Some with the intention of eradicating disease (Vault 81) or perfecting the human genome (Vault 75). Others, were used for social experimentation. Like studying the effects of isolation after being locked away for 200 years (Vault 13). Or seeing what happens when you lock in a room: twenty men, ten women and a panther (Vault 43).

Vault 76 is one of the rare control vaults. Unlike many vaults in the series, it is supposedly completely normal. Set to open only 20 years after the nuclear fallout of the Great War. Speculatively, Fallout 76 could potentially be the earliest in the timeline of the series, which explains why everything in the trailer looks so uncharacteristically clean and less – end of the world like.

We will find out more during Bethesda’s E3 press conference, June 10th.

 

 

Sarah Shahi and ‘Reverie’ cast talk about why the NBC drama is so unique

By
Alyssa Berkowitz
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Shahi
REVERIE -- (Photo by: Paul Drinkwater/NBC)

Tonight, NBC airs it’s highly anticipated new series Reverie. Starring Sarah Shahi (Person of Interest, The L Word) Reverie tells the story about a virtual reality program so good that some people just don’t want to leave.  Last year are New York Comic Con, we had a chance to sit down with some of the actors and personnel behind the series to tell us a little more about the show.

The vision for Reverie’s science fiction virtual reality world came about when creator Mickey Fisher saw that there was a market for a procedural with an unconventional background story:

Fisher: “Someone was looking for, ‘how do you tell a weekly mystery that’s not a doctor or a lawyer or a policeman?’ I’d had this idea about this virtual reality company that created this program that allowed you to design the world of your dreams, and it was so good that people started getting stuck and they would need to pull somebody out. So there’s this mystery: Who is this person? Why are they stuck? How are we gonna get them out?”

Reverie

Sendhil Ramamurthy, an actor not unfamiliar to the sci-fi genre, plays Paul Hammond, Reverie’s Chief Oneirologist (aka a dream scientist). As the Chief Oneirologist, Dr. Hammond data mines clients’ social media feeds to help build the world they want when they enter into Reverie. If someone has lost a loved one or has pictures of their favorite places documented on their social media feed, Dr. Hammon curates all of that information to make their perfect fantasy world. One thing Ramamurthy found compelling about Reverie was that the science fiction aspects of the story are grounded in reality and real-world scenarios that could actually happen.

Ramamurthy: “It wasn’t about ‘Oh the world is about to be destroyed and we are going to come and save it.’ It’s more about saving a person’s life or making a person’s life better. It’s about wish fulfillment. This whole show and the Reverie program is about wish fulfillment. And it also raises real-world questions: Is it always a good thing to be able to get what you want all the time”

And that is the problem with the Reverie program, people don’t want to leave More people than expected are getting stuck in Reverie and it has real-life consequences. While their mind may be in paradise, their bodies are still in the real world where it needs food and sustenance to survive. If individuals stay in Reverie for too long, the results can be fatal. That is where Sarah Shahi’s character Mara Kint comes in. Mara Kint, a former hostage negotiator who is recruited to help pull people out of the Reverie program, is a very different character from her previous role as Sameen Shaw on Person of Interest, which is what drew her to the role.

Shahi: “How is she different from Shaw? Well, you know, there’s so many differences. I mean, I’m not an assassin, that’s the main difference. Shaw was a character who was very, a lot of things were bottled up inside and she wasn’t allowed to show much emotion. She couldn’t show much emotion whereas Mara is plagued by her emotions and especially now that she’s kind of being haunted by her past. She’s definitely going down that rabbit hole of crazy, and she can’t escape it. Where Shaw was someone who would bottle everything up and she would not let her emotions control her this character is struggling trying to not let her emotions control her[…] One of the things that drew me to this role was definitely that this character was struggling. And she was vulnerable and it wasn’t something that they were afraid to write to. I just really like the idea of playing this imperfect person.”

REVERIE –(Photo by: Sergei Bachlakov/NBC)

 

Reverie is a landmark show with Sarah Shahi as the first Persian female actor to lead a network tv show. But the diversity doesn’t just stop with it’s leading lady; it is present throughout the entire cast and the stories told.

Fisher: “One of the things that we felt, and connected with early on is that this is a show about people from all walks of life and points of view and if they are all middle-aged white males then the fantasies would all be pretty much the same.”

Tom Szentgyorgi (producer): “One of the tenants of the show is that fantasy is a window to character, that if you know what someone dreams, you know something about them. And in fact, what Mara is doing is picking her way through people’s dreams and learning about them in effort to help them, but to do that we needed as many different, you know getting ideas for dreams from as many different places as possible because otherwise, it was going to start to feel monotonous.”

Reverie

Even though Reverie is a sci-fi procedural, at its core the show is about the intersection of empathy, desire, and need, and that is exactly what Fisher envisioned for the show from the beginning.

Fisher: “The line we use a lot, though I doubt will ever show up in a poster, is it’s a show about the distance between want and need. And that fantasy is what you want, and you think you want, you know ‘I want to be rich, I want to be young,’ but need is what you actually require and part of what Mara does is she helps people make that walk from fantasy which is what they “want” to what they need, which may well not be satisfied in a fantasy.”

Reverie premieres Wednesday, May 30th at 10 PM on NBC.

Supertrash Cast: “The Fanatical”

By
Alyssa Berkowitz
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Supergirl

Hey guys! Here is the latest episode of Supertrash where Jen and I discuss this week’s episode of Supergirl: “The Fanatical.

This week’s episode felt like three different shows playing concurrently in a single episode of TV. We have ALOT of feelings about the way Kara and Lena are treating each other (aka: WE HATE IT!). We also discuss how the show addresses racism through James’ Guardian storyline and try to figure out how that bullet caused his helmet to perfectly split into two. And lastly, we talk about our continued frustration at Supergirl sidelining two of our favorite characters, Alex and J’onn, in order to give Mon-El more screen time and action.

Also, don’t forget we have launched a Supertrash Patreon, so if you want to support us while also receiving some cool stuff, be sure to check it out! Supertrash Podcast Patreon

Listen to “'Supergirl' Episode 3.19: "The Fanatical"” on Spreaker.

Be sure to follow Supertrash and the hosts on Twitter:

Supertrash Podcast: @SuperTrashCast
Jen: @JenStayrook
Alyssa: @TVwithAPB

Review: ‘Fahrenheit 451’ Fizzles in its Message

By
Christian Angeles
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Fahrenheit 451

Adapted from the Ray Bradbury science fiction classic, Ramin Bahrani’s ‘Fahrenheit 451’ fails to compel as a cautionary tale. Relying too much on outrage of the modern zeitgeist, whose messages of desensitization through social media and addiction to a constant bombardment of entertainment, feels awfully ironic for a movie most people streamed on their digital devices.

But that’s okay because you can ironically tweet about it using #Fahrenheit451.

Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 is the story about Guy Montag (Michael B. Jordan), a firefighter who starts to question his meaning in life, and his soon to be retired mentor Beatty (Michael Shannon). In this world, firefighters are used as information police, employed to burn and delete all person related information that entails human expression or philosophy. This includes music, literature, or any form of artistic expression that allows people to think freely.

On one mission, Montag gets disturbed by a particular patron met at a book burning. Whose subsequent sacrifice leads Guy to start questioning his beliefs. This gets him to indulge in some forbidden literature, and leads Montag on a journey to find the Eels: rebels dedicated to the preservation of books. There, Montag meets Clarisse (Sofia Boutella), who unlocks the secrets behind the Eels and Guy’s heart.

Suffice to say, the book is much better and there are a lot of critical pieces that were cut from the film adaption. Though there are several engaging elements of the movie.

For one, the world is well-designed scientific noir, with stacks of artificial lighting illuminating the contrasting darkness. It’s a popular stylistic trope in modern sci-fi. Very in tune with a Blade Runner sort of color palate.

Fahrenheit 451

In addition, the acting is about as good as can be expected. With a compelling Michael B. Jordan utilizing some of that passionately defiant demeanor, reminiscent of his performance in Black Panther. His mentor/the villain of the story, Michael Shannon, similarly tries his best to be menacing – albeit can come across as a one-dimensional. His only goal seems to be recruiting Guy as his replacement for retirement, and upkeeping the status quo.

Though he also for some reason, really likes secretly writing forbidden poetry. In an odd attempt at creating layered contextuality for a rather simplistic, fascist-like enforcer.

Both actors do their best with the material. The problem, unfortunately, is the rest of the movie, which falls on the shoulders of first-time big budget writer/director of this film: Ramin Bahrani.

If you don’t know Ramin Bahrani, he’s an Iranian American film director beloved in the Independent circuit who teaches directing at Columbia University’s graduate film program, who once made a short film narrated by Warner Herzog about the adventure of a plastic bag blowing in the wind.

Now, what’s wrong with this rendition are the changes Bahrani implemented made to keep ‘Farenheit 451’ culturally relevant. The director’s commentary on social media and group-think fanaticism greatly overshadows Ray Bradbury’s unique tale regarding censorship and fear in the rise of TV over the novel.

His critique is directed through the script’s vicarious use of technology in a toxic manner, in a similar vein to the British TV show Black Mirror.  Incorporating conventions of an internet called The Nine, which replaces words with images and pictures, an Alexa-like smart device called Yuxie, which equally hinders through censorship and surveillance as it does help via it’s smart functions, and above all else, live streams the firefighters burning books – an allegory to social media obsession – with emojis and real-time feedback from the general audience.

All of this is meant to reinforce the loss of self-identity and freethinking to the grand collective. The problem, is that society today is more complicated than the movie gives credit. For every indulgent snapchat, is a wise website’s blog. Every smart device, the utility of manners of communication never heard of. With every emoji filled chatroom, the occasional integral thread of perspective that can change everything. The movie is so convinced in selling a narrative about how technology is making us mindless zombies yet neglects entirely how it can be used for specialization of communication.

It’s a simplistic take on a very divided subject, especially in today’s climate.

The script was also loaded with the usual Hollywood clichés. Including, though not limited to: a forced romance incentivizing our protagonist to make a lifestyle change, less than subtle allegories tied to excessive burning of art, and a police force cooperating more like something out of full metal jacket than a realistic future dystopia. Which is to say they are nothing more than trigger happy grunts.

What truly befuddles me personally, was why burn that which you can sell out of style? Classic works of literature today already have become overshadowed by seasons of TV shows. I can’t tell you much about Nick Carraway, the protagonist in ‘The Great Gatsby’, but I can talk for hours unending about how awesome Tyrion Lannister from ‘Game of Thrones’ is.

The movie script misses the mark on addressing the evolution of stories; that the all-encompassing and ever-purifying fire, would need to aim at the roots of. Which is not limited to just art and books, but the people, overall. Which is what the Eel rebels represent in the story. The nerds of their culture. The movie just does a horrible job of layering the Eel’s story.

All-in-all though, the movie message is endearing and culturally relevant during a time of hyperbolic ennui. In a time where everything is based on fear, sensationalism, and the need of an audience’s approval, Fahrenheit 451 could have made a statement. Criticizing moments that constantly needed to be reified in seeking of approval, and on a scale of 1 to 10 in American culture, usually played 11 to desperately keep an audience’s attention.

Instead, we got something silly out of the need of subtlety, logic, and above all else, reason.

‘Shadowhunters’: Meet Asmodeus, A Prince of Hell

By
Nicole C
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SHADOWHUNTERS - ÒErchomaiÓ - In the climactic mid-season finale, the team scrambles to find a way to put a stop to LilithÕs plan coming to fruition. But going up against their biggest opponent yet, their odds are not looking good. Meanwhile, Simon makes a heartbreaking choice with IsabelleÕs help and Magnus reconnects with a powerful person from his past. This episode of ÒShadowhuntersÓ airs Tuesday, May 15 (9:00 - 10:01 p.m. EDT) on Freeform. (Freeform/John Medland) JACK YANG

In the winter finale of Shadowhunters season three, we at last met the father of warlock Magnus Bane, the greater demon Asmodeus played by actor Jack Yang. While this Prince of Hell has been mentioned throughout the series before, this is the first time that we’ve seen him in the flesh and oh what sinful fun it was.

On the show, Magnus (Harry Shum Jr.) is forced to go to Edom and seek his father out after Lorenzo (Javier Munoz) forbade any of their kind from helping him save Jace (Dominic Sherwood) from Lilith’s (Anna Hopkins) control. Having no other recourse, he sets up a pentagram that will transport him to his (and Lilith’s) demonic realm. Admittedly this scene was so satisfying to watch because as a book reader we don’t visit Edom until City of Heavenly Fire. It is a barren desert wasteland with winged demons flying high above the orange sky. Magnus makes for a small crumbling structure that turns out to be his father’s home. As the two males reunite, Asmodeus’s eyes turn cat-like and it is identical to his son’s. The two also seem to share similar tastes in fashion.

The greater demon walks with a limp and uses a cane which surprised me because what being could have inflicted that kind of permanent damage on a Prince of Hell? I hope we find out in 3B! Asmodeus calls Magnus his beautiful boy and assumes that the warlock is here because his favorite child finally felt remorseful for banishing dear old dad. We find out that for awhile, father and son spent a number of years together until Magnus realized what the older male truly was. Asmodeus though seems genuinely hurt at the words hurled at him. First Lilith and now him, demons do seem capable of loving their children in their own way. The warlock then says that he didn’t come to apologize but to ask for assistance. Of course that pisses Asmodeus off. While Magnus tries to appeal to his father’s love over his pride, we find out that there’s a reason why calling on a greater demon is a dangerous and costly.

Back on Earth, the two parabatai are fighting in an alley when Magnus arrives and is able to use the power he had gotten from the greater demon in order to destroy Lilith’s hold on Jace. However, the price for that power was to give up his magic. Dad truly demanded a very steep price in exchange for his help.

Shadowhunters

SPOILERS AHEAD FROM CITY OF HEAVENLY FIRE 

Book readers will know that Asmodeus asked for a similar bargain in City of Heavenly Fire. After Sebastian kidnapped the Downworld representatives (Magnus, Raphael, Luke and Jocelyn), Clary, Jace, Alec, Isabelle and Simon made their way to Edom to rescue them. As soon as the warlock entered his father’s realm he was weakened immensely all because Asmodeus wanted  to be called upon. Eventually after Sebastian dies and the pathways between that world and the mortal one closed, Magnus was forced to call his father for help. As a show of his power he even whisks Jocelyn, Luke, and Jonathan’s body back to Idris for free. To send the rest of them back however, Magnus knows that his father wants his immortality in exchange. Unexpectedly Simon offers his own immortality instead as a dayligher vampire. He argues that since he was still young he would survive, though Izzy desperately points out that he’d already died. The greater demon scoffs and says he can easily make Mr. Lewis mortal again. Intrigued by the offer, he adds that aside from Simon’s immortality he will also take away all his memories of the Shadow World (as well as the Shadow World memories of his other friends and family a part from those currently present) so that he will return to his ordinary mundane life. This was to enact a more exquisite torture upon Clary and the squad, to have one of their own ripped away. Simon agrees to this and while everyone else is sent back to Alicante, he returned to New York. Eventually though, Magnus discovers a loophole in their bargain that if Simon remembered anything at all from the Shadow World, he would try to give the former vampire some of his memories back. He could eventually then try ascending to become a Shadowhunter himself. Asmodeus would not be able to harm him after that.

So now the question is whether or not Asmodeus took Magnus’s immortality along with his magic on the show. The warlock is hundreds of years old and his body wouldn’t survive without some degree of magic and so I’m a little worried. On the plus side though, Shadowhunters showrunner Darren Swimmer confirmed to TV Line that we’ll be seeing more of Asmodeus in 3B. We’ll also learn more about Magnus’s backstory and I can’t wait to see more of this complicated father-son relationship.

There isn’t an official date yet as to when the second half of season 3 will air, but it’s expected to be sometime this coming fall. Till then we’ll just have to rewatch the midseason finale a few dozen times to tide us over.

 

Shadowhunters airs on Freeform Tuesdays at 8 PM Central.
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