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Castle - Season 2, Episode 6: "Vampire Weekend". Original Air Date: 26 October, 2009.
America's current vampire obsession has invaded... my half of the world...
It's Halloween, and Castle is preparing for a big party. He keeps mentioning it to Beckett, reminding her that costumes are mandatory, and hinting that he'd love to see her in something sexy. But even more important is the case: a vampire was murdered by a stake through the heart, in a cemetary. Yeah. Apparently this boy, Crow, belonged to a small geek community of vampires [I say geek meaning a person who is fascinated by one specific thing or culture and strives to live as close to the object of his emulation as possible, no negative connotations intended]. He was a young artist, who, together with his friend Damon, also found murdered, was creating a graphic novel about a real life NYC vampire named Morlock. The team finds Morloch and takes him into custody. He's a case, because he has a condition, I forget what it's called but its nick-name is the Vampires' Disease, and he is very sensitive to sunlight, to the point where his skin burns and blisters up with contact. With that condition come hallucinations and other craziness, so it's no wonder he actually believes he's a vampire. In the end, it was his insane babble and crazy talk that solved the case. Crow's step-mother had killed his mother so she could marry the father, and now, many years later, Crow figures this out and so she kills him too, trying to frame his group of vampire friends because of his father's disdain for them, in an effort to keep her husband close to her. In the meantime, Alexis is going to her first 'real' high school party with her friend and co-parent [for a health class baby egg project], and her dad knows she won't get into any trouble, but he tells her to call him if she feels uncomfortable or compromised in any way because he will come get her, no questions asked, no punishment. She thinks she won't have to, but she does because the punch was spiked and her friend was really wasted. Castle picks them up and does the right thing in calling the girl's parents, despite Alexis's protests that she would get in a lot of trouble. In the end, the friend was so mad that she broke the egg baby.
The episode was good, and very Halloweeny. Castle began the episode by saying how much he loved Halloween, but Beckett says it's the worst as far as weird crimes. I think the show did a decent job, too, and not making fun of the geeks. Of course, individual characters mocked the vampire Covent a little, but the way they were portrayed in the show was as a little weird, definitely different from the 'norm', but not dangerous or bad or stupid. And, I know I say this a lot, but I really love the relationship between Alexis and her father. There are so few 'like me' teenagers on television, whether it be adult programming on basic channels, like this, or on pre-teen shows on Disney. This girl is well-adjusted, has a few issues, but nothing she can't handle, and she's not angsty or slutty or deceitful like so many TV teens are. In this episode, she had to learn a bit of a lesson between choosing the right thing and the easy thing, but she followed her father's orders, and doing differently in that situation could have ended really badly.
Heroes - Season 4, Episode 6: "Strange Attractors". Original Air Date: 26 Oct 09.
This was a fun, sad, and scary episode. It starts with sex - Sylar and Mrs. Parkman? Oh wait. That's Matt. Or.... What? Apparently Sylar has been taking over Matt's body little by little and it's driving Matt insane. His storyline quickly heats up, and eventually, he realises that the only way to protect his family from Sylar's control is to leave, and he tries to explain this to Janice. She insists that he stays in the house and she'll go. After she leaves, Matt starts drinking and he realises it's making Sylar hurt. He drinks and drinks until Sylar disappears, but then he blacks out. Janice comes back with the policeman who'd been helping Matt through therapy, and they wait until he wakes up. But now it's Sylar in control of the body and Matt is just the premonition; he has no control whatsoever. Scary!
There's also a Claire and Gretchen storyline. They get kidnapped and taken to some faraway location, which turns out to be a slaughterhouse, to do some initiation thing for the sorority. During the scavenger hunt there, Invisibitch tries to kill Gretchen twice; eventually there's a fight, and Claire ends up slightly impaled. Of course, that's no problem for her or Gretchen, but for the other two pledges, well let's just say they were more than a little freaked out. And this might mean uprooting Claire all over again. Sad!
And then there's Jeremy. He's being kept in the town jail and Noah can't get him out. He calls in a favour with Tracy Strauss, and he forges some paper work that makes her Jeremy's 'aunt' so that she can sign him out of jail. A brief meeting between Tracy and Samuel leaves Tracy wondering whether she should bring Jeremy to the carnival where he'll be at "home" or give him a new life where he can be invisible. When they finally get him out, half the town is lined up outside in protestation, and one man breaks through the police line and starts threatening him. Jeremy uses his power and kills the man and walks back into the jail. That night, a few cops decide to take the law into their own hands; they chain him to a pick-up truck and they drive away, leaving him dead. Noah is, of course, very upset, knowing that he failed him, and Tracy is equally as upset. Then Samuel comes in and destroys the police station with his brainnn.
And some little comments: I don't like the way they shoot Matt in close-ups, and Gretchen has the same IKEA comforter as I have at home! ♥ A fun quote from Gretchen: "Sounds like some crazy-ass conspiracy theory. Which... pretty much describes your entire life."
It was a good episode. It was gripping, to use the traditional review language. I wanted to keep watching, and I was genuinely upset when it was over because I wanted to keep watching. I'm a little tired and way behind on watching, so that's about all the opinion you'll get. Have fun watching this one!
Glee - Season 1, Episode 8: "Mash-Up". Original Air Date: 21 October, 2009.
The great slushy war has begun!
Apparently, Finn and Quinn have dropped down to the bottom of the high school 'food chain' when news of their baby went public.
Emma and Ken decided they need to have their first dance, but the problem is, Emma wants My Fair Lady's "I Could Have Danced All Night" but Ken wants "The Thong Song". Yeah. So they approach will and ask him if he'd be able to work on some sort of mash-up for the two... and for dance lessons. So later, Emma shows up in Will's classroom after school for her first lesson, and they dance, but then he trips and pulls her down on top of him. It's awkward. And Ken sees.
In another story arch, Quinn and Finn visit Emma for advice on how to be cool. She says 'sunglasses' but then quickly changes her answer to something along the lines of 'the most important part is being yourselves'. In the next scene, Finn and Quinn don sunglasses and they think it's working for them, until the entire football team surrounds them and bombards them with slushies.
Apparently Noah is hot for Rachel. He had a dream that he was with her, and so they hooked up once. "Rachel was a hot Jew, and the Good Lord wanted me to get into her pants." The next day, he sings a song for Rachel - "Sweet Caroline", and it was great - but Quinn seems to think it's for her. Heh. Eventually, they start dating. It's pretty weird, really. But because of this, someone slushies him, and Rachel is stuck cleaning him up. He shows her a sensitive side that the audience didn't really know existed.
Finn's getting hate from all sides. A fight breaks out on the football field when other players openly question his leadership ability, and his masculinity. Because of what Glee Club seems to be doing to the team, Ken adds a mandatory practise at the same time as Glee rehearsal, and the boys who do both will have to make a choice. Will goes to talk to Ken about the practises, but Ken says he's sick of being 'settled for'. Ken knows that Emma is only settling for him, but he loves her enough that he doesn't care. But when it comes to football, he says they'll just have to see who's being settled for.
Noah tells Rachel he's going to choose football practise over Glee "I feel like such a bad Jew." When it came to that dreaded rehearsal, the two football players that aren't Noah and Finn showed up. And then Noah did too! But Finn never showed up, so everyone was sort of mad at him. Oh, the things we'll they'll do for masculinity. *Sigh*
Will goes to talk to him, and he tells him that he's making the wrong choice, and he plays the 'you remind me of how I used to be' card. Good play. It worked. So Finn goes to Ken and after a little persuading, Ken cancels the mandatory practises so they four can do both.
Another dance rehearsal takes place in a bridal shop. Emma needs to make sure she can dance in her dress, so Will pops in the Karaoke version of "I Could Have Danced All Night" and tells her to sing along. Do you know how excited I got when he said that?!
A cool thing in this episode is that Sue gets a storyline, and it's really something. A man at the news station asked her out on a date, and she thinks she's in love. She even gets Will to teach her to swing dance to impress him. But just days later, she catches him making out with another woman. The jerk says, "You didn't think that we were... exclusive... did you?" So now happy-Sue is back to mean-Sue. She yells at Quinn, calling her a disgrace and forcing her off the squad. So no, that part wasn't cool.
Will goes to talk to Emma: he can't get the songs to go together, no matter how he tries. She knows. It's symbolic, obviously.
And Finn comes back! Of course. He buys everyone slushies. Quinn's in normal clothes. Wow. She says she'll have to start every day with a slushie facial, and Will says that's okay because she's got eleven friends to wash it off for her. Then they all slushie Mr. Shu.
So some other stuff!
- I feel so bad for Emma! *cry* And for Ken, too, but to a certain extent, he's getting... a little bit of what he wanted...
- Will performs "Bust A Move", and wow, can he dance!! That was really impressive. I didn't like when he made Kurt stand up and he started singing to him about some girl, but I did like how Kurt rolled his eyes and mouthed 'Oh my God' and walked away. Good for you.
- BUT! I'm pretty sick of Will singing these pop songs. They're offensive songs, and I get that it's funny for plot, but... ugh.
- GLEE WORK ON YORU LIP SYNC ITS NOT BELIEVABLE
- By the way, Sue thinks you should marry your dog.
- JAYMA MAYS HAS AN INCREDIBLE VOICE ♥♥♥ I figured she wouldn't, since she's portraying a non-Glee Club role, but... wow. :D
- Will, stop falling in love with Emma. It will make everything awkward.
- Oh the things we do for masculinity. Sigh.
- Oh the seven-11 product placement.
- KURT! He took one [a slushie] for the team. It's a good thing he's in love with Finn.
Overall, a very good show, but they need to play down the heteronormativity and the offensive pop songs, as usual.
