Kiss My Wonder Woman

You know, I don't think Sarah is having a very good day. For some reason, I get that impression. Maybe it's because this episode picked up only seconds after the last one, and we got to see Sarah waking up in the car of her kidnapper after they were rammed by a truck at very high speeds, causing a crash, making her hit her head, and also kind of sort of killing sunglasses man.

This? This is not a good day.

The truck was driven by Cal, who came after her, it seems. He swears that Kira is safe, and then proceeds to help Sarah out of the wreckage. Sarah is terrified and panicking. She takes a gun, then tries to convince Cal not to go to the cops (kind of hard since there's a dead cop in his driveway), and then proceeds to freak the crap out. The cops aren't onto them. Yet. And Sarah has successfully convinced Cal not to go to them and to give her and Kira time to get away. Man. This is going to be a fun episode, I can tell.

Cal and Sarah drive away from the crime scene and presumably towards Kira. Sarah is apologetic for getting Cal into this, but Cal insists that he's in it now, like it or not. They need to ditch the truck, and Cal wants to know what the hell is going on. Sarah isn't telling. Yet.

Oh hey, we're back with the Proletheans now. Gracie still refers to Helena as a "thing", and Hank insists that she's part of the family now. Helena herself is awake and confused about what happened to her. Who were all those people and why does her hip hurt? It's pretty terrifying to see the Proletheans gaslighting Helena and telling her that those people were just there to say hi, and that her hip hurts because she's still getting better. From her gunshot. In her shoulder. Riiiiight.

Seriously not digging the rapey undertones here, but then, the Proletheans are supposed to be the bad guys. At least I'm not being asked to like them.

Hank tries to convince Helena that her life will be better now with them than it was with Tomas, but Helena isn't buying it. She's a scary chika, and I have little doubt that she'll be up and about and taking care of herself in no time.

Allison, meanwhile, wakes up in an efficiency apartment type thing after her fall last episode. She took a dive off the stage during opening night of her musical, and for some reason she's still in her costume, but now she has a sling on her arm. Also she's puking, because she took enough drugs and booze to kill a horse. She freaks out and demands to see Dr. Leeky, a reasonable assumption, but she's not at the DYAD Institute. She's in rehab.

Aka, Allison's idea of hell.

You know, we haven't seen Allison's kids in a while. Are they okay? Are they dealing with all of this well? Concerned viewers want to know.

Speaking of children who are going to need so much therapy, Sarah and Cal get to where Kira is hiding, and there is a tearful reunion. Kira's fine. She's safe. And Cal has a surprise for them - he has a camper. That's pretty useful, isn't it? Sarah is suspicious, because if the camper is registered to him, then Cal isn't going to be much help, but he insists it's okay. Which is a bit shady, I think. Still. Sarah's made worse choices.

Art is still surveilling the Prolethean ranch commune thing. The Proletheans are aware, for the record, that Art is watching them. Hank doesn't think it's worrisome at all, but his wife does. She's nervous that bringing Helena there could be their downfall. Hank, of course, isn't. Is he worried by anything ever?

Sarah and Cal continue their family roadtrip through rural Canada. Cal demands answers, and Sarah avoids telling him anything actually useful, just letting him think that she pulled a scam on some big corporation and that they're after her. Then Rachel texts sunglasses man's phone, which Sarah stole, and Sarah realizes that if she fakes responses from him, then Rachel won't know that Sarah's not caught for a while. They can get away. I see a plan forming, which isn't a great sign. Sarah's plans do not have a history of working particularly well.

Gracie goes to bring new linens in to the still recovering Helena and decides to act on her intense and meaningful fearhatred for her. She tries to smother Helena with a pillow. Didn't think she had it in her, honestly. Of course, Gracie's not a seasoned killer, and she stops too soon. Helena's not dead. Helena is never dead. But Gracie is! Actually, she's not. Helena just knocked her out, because she's nice like that. And now Helena is getting the hell off this farm.

In her escape, Helena runs through the slaughterhouse and into a room full of scientific equipment. Ah. She starts to remember that she's been there before. On her "wedding" night. It would appear that the Proletheans are super rapey creeps after all. They artificially inseminated her. Well that's just gross and incredibly horrible.

Helena's escape has been noticed, and now she's running off the property. Art happens to not be able to miss the fleeing blonde in a white dress, and figures maybe now is a good time to do something. Something like delaying the search party that runs after Helena. He stalls them, and points out that they can't take their guns with them. Art is a good guy. We like Art.

We cut then to Cosima for the first time this episode. She's watching more depressing footage of Jennifer Fitzgerald dying in a hospital bed. But then she gets a skype call from Sarah. Sarah tells her the whole gruesome tale while Cal and Kira play outside and listen to a police scanner. Kira's all totally fine with her mommy needing to talk to "Aunt Cosima", and Cal is, as usual, super curious. Also he adorably tries to distract Kira from how many laws they are breaking. Nice try, dude, but this is Kira we're talking about. Kid is a walking felony.

Sarah shows Cosima the photo of Project Leda, and Cosima has an idea. It sounds like military speech, and also the name Leda kind of makes sense for them - Leda and the swan, where Leda was raped by Zeus and then gave birth to demigods. Is that what their creators thought they were making? Demigods? Also Cosima notices something no one else has so far (including me) - there's an armed soldier in the background of the picture. What's that all about?

Cosima declares that Sarah needs to take care herself, and she will look into Project Leda. Then she dissolves into a coughing fit. Cosima is definitely getting worse.

Sarah is determined to go back to Toronto and hunt down Mrs. S. She needs answers and Mrs. S is the key to this entire thing. Cal makes Kira some origami to play with, and it is adorable. Cal gives Sarah the police report, and we wonder again why on earth Cal is helping her. Just saying. This is definitely above and beyond the efforts of most guys who find out their scamming ex is in trouble and oh they have a kid together. Have I reminded you yet that Cal found out about Kira literally three days ago at most?

In Toronto (presumably), Mrs. S is alive and well and scaring the crap out of Benjamin (her bagman who helped her get Sarah away from Art a few episodes back). She wants to know if he was involved in the Birdwatcher's trap for her. And she needs new papers, because she's looking for someone. Someone named Carl. And he's here. That can't be good.

I find it a little bit hilarious that this show is so grim a woman in rehab staring at the smoking ruins of her life is the comic relief. And speaking of Allison, she's not really adjusting to rehab. She hates it and she wants Felix to get her out. The only problem is, Allison actually does have a problem. She doesn't remember anything after the afternoon of her show, not even the curtain going up, and there's a strong possibility that she signed herself into rehab on her own. Felix might just have reached the limit of things he's willing to do to enable Allison.

Also, when she asks how she was in the show, Felix responds by telling her that "people got their money's worth". Not helpful. Still, he does convince her to stay in rehab for a week, tell everyone it's a spa, and "come back, fresh as a daisy." It's a whole week without responsibilities, but more important, it's a whole week without Donny monitoring her every move. Then they'll celebrate with brunch and mimosas. Or just brunch.

Sarah reluctantly leaves Cal and Kira at the camper for the night so that she can go find Mrs. S (and Felix). Kira gives her the origami for good luck, and Sarah says a super awkward goodbye to Cal. He does manage to wangle the name of the corporation out of her though: the DYAD Group.

Oh sweet. A cut to the bushes, where sunglasses man (Daniel) is emerging from where they left him for dead.

Mrs. S makes her way through the back of a nightclub, presumably in search of Carl, and oh does she find him. Also Carl is hot. Just saying. They have a quick knives drawn standoff, and then greet each other like the old friends they are. Slightly more than friends. And now they're making out. A lot. And um, having sex up against a wall. Man, Mrs. S really is fearless.

Sarah breaks into Mrs. S' house, only to get caught by Felix. Things are still tense, but minor amends are made. Sarah's surprised to hear that Allison is in rehab, but Felix thinks it'll be good. "Help her to get back some of her dignity."

So immediately we cut to a scene of Allison being watched while she pees. I don't give the editors on this show enough credit. That was perfectly timed. Anyway, Allison has to get her pee tested, and also she gets a whole speech about what she can and cannot do in rehab. Then she goes back to her room to find Donny waiting. Allison, for some reason, does not want to talk to him. But she has to. Have fun!

Donny is all nice at first, but when Allison demands he stop spying on her, and points out that she can leave rehab at any time, Donny hits back. If she leaves before her week is up, then Donny is going to take the kids. And she won't get access.

Now, here's the thing. I am totally all for Allison's rights as a mom, and Donny is a terrible person for using their children as bargaining and blackmailing chips, but I do think that maybe it would be best if the kids went to grandma's for a bit. I mean, I love Allison, but she's not really super stable at the moment.

Sarah and Felix go through Mrs. S' stuff, and find a photo of Carl. They also find articles that explain that Carl is actually Carlton, the guy who smuggled Sarah to Mrs. S in the first place. He just did fifteen years for human smuggling - his "pipeline". They also find an article about scientists who died in a laboratory fire. One of them had the last name Duncan, as in Rachel Duncan, the pro-clone. Suspicious. Also it turns out that Mrs. S isn't in that Project Leda photo, but Rachel's parents are. And that means Mrs. S has known the whole time.

Carl and Mrs. S have a post-coital glass of wine and catch up. It turns serious and they discuss why Carl's in Toronto. The network has been compromised. And Mrs. S wants answers about Project Leda and the child she brought in "from the black". Carl and Mrs. S both know about the clones then, and Carl will take Mrs. S as far as Gustav, the "ferryman". From there she's on her own. But Mrs. S is adamant about one thing: Sarah can't keep digging into her own origins. It's not safe for her.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what Sarah's going to do. Just not right now. She's off to go back to Cal and Kira, right after she does some research into Rachel herself. By breaking into Rachel's apartment.

Then they leave the house and the camera lingers for a while on the door to the cellar and you just know this won't end well. It doesn't. The door opens, and surprise! It's a Helena who's been listening in on them for a few hours now. Sarah is not having a good day. I mean, she's not in the house anymore, but still. Not a good day.

Sarah sneaks into the apartment by making the concierge prepare it for "Rachel's" arrival. She does sound exactly like Rachel on the phone, after all. And he even unlocks it for her. She sneaks inside, and proves the old adage that you can't hide in minimalist furniture, before getting down for some serious snooping. Cosima and Felix listen on the phone. Also, I find it funny how literally all of the other clones haaaaate Rachel.

Sarah finds home movies from Rachel's childhood while Cosima reads the stuff she found out about Rachel's parents. Sarah was originally supposed to be their child, until her mother, Amelia, decided to run off with the two babies (Sarah and Helena) - which is how Sarah ended up in the black. Not sure yet how the Duncan's got Rachel, but they were geneticists. It's possible they created the clones.

The snooping reveals a few things. Like how Rachel is very narcissistic, and that she has a boyfriend. Her boyfriend is Daniel. The guy that Sarah didn't actually kill and who Sarah has been pretending to be for the past day or so. He's in the apartment. He catches Sarah because you can't hide in minimalist furniture. Then he knocks her out.

Cal comforts a Kira who knows her mom isn't going to be back tonight. Kira's sweet and all, but she definitely has some creepy moments.

Daniel has Sarah tied up in his shower, in case he has to "clean up" after they talk. Blech. He threatens to kill her. And he legitimately seems like he will do it. Daniel starts to cut up Sarah when he hears music in the apartment. He leaves to take care of it, and we hear a struggle. Daniel goes down, stabbed to the throat. Surprise! It's Helena in a bloody wedding dress. She sees Sarah in the shower. She has a bloody knife. Sarah is freaking terrified. Helena is, as usual, creepy as hell.

Helena isn't here to kill Sarah, though. She needs her help. She doesn't think the Proletheans artificially inseminated her, I was wrong about that. Helena thinks they "took something". Like her eggs.

Cut to the Proletheans, who definitely did just that. Hank's looking through a microscope in his secret lab, and it seems that they have in fact taken one of Helena's eggs and fertilized it. A new life begins. Crap.

End of episode.

You know, I really do love this show. Not just because it's cool and fun and it has ladies doing cool and interesting things while surrounded by other ladies, but because this is a show that is one hundred percent about consent and bodily autonomy. I mean, I know I say that just about every episode, but it hits me each time because it's so rare to see a television show, especially a science fiction show, deal so explicitly with bodily and reproductive rights and how the removal of those rights scars a person.

In this episode alone we saw Sarah dealing with the truth of her past and who she really is, Cosima trying to accept her potential death, Allison having her bodily rights stripped by rehab and her husband, and Helena grappling with the theft of her eggs, the possibility that someone has without her consent used her body to create life, and the simple reality that she was a prisoner and they only wanted her for her body.

That's kind of intense, and it was just in one episode. Damn I'm excited to see the next one.

Sisters!

In which we discuss the new Godzilla movie, which I have not seen, because I'm not super into kaiju movies. Except for Pacific Rim. Which I love. We also talk about how the movies you watch in childhood affect your future tastes.

When I was in college I majored in philosophy. Because I am a giant nerdface, I happened to complete almost all of my major requirements before the end of my second year, as well as all of my core requirements (which were minimal because my college is super rad). This left me with two whole years where I could take whatever classes I wanted. I mean, I had to take one philosophy class per semester to stay in the program, but that's still twelve classes that were totally up for grabs.

Needless to say, I took anything and everything that sounded remotely interesting. It's why I am now weirdly well educated about the Bollywood film industry, Chinese propaganda films of the 1960s, vampire lore, Afrocentrist Egyptology, and a lot of other stuff that is incredibly interesting but not super relevant in my day to day life.

One of the classes I took though has turned out to be useful and meaningful in my daily life. That class was Introduction to Islam.

Yup. It's gonna be one of those articles. Couldn't you tell from the title?

Having grown up in a town where religious differences meant being Protestant instead of Catholic, I didn't really know anything about Islam going into the class. And I wouldn't say I'm an expert now. I definitely know enough that news reports about the Muslim world are no longer impenetrable to me, and I get the larger theological differences between sects, the basic tenets of faith and all that, but honestly the biggest and most important reason this class has been helpful to me is because it introduced me to a single book: How Does It Feel To Be A Problem? by Moustafa Bayoumi.

This book pretty much changed my life. We read it as part of our section on modern Muslim culture, and that's what the book covers. But it's more than that. The book itself is a series of profiles and interviews of seven (I think it's seven) young Arab-Americans living in Brooklyn. They're all in their teens or twenties, each of them representing a wildly different subset of the Arab-American experience. Not all of them are Muslim, even. So why did we read this book in a class on Islam?

Because the interviews in the book center around a very specific topic. What is it like to be a young person of Arab descent in modern day America? By which we mean post 9-11 America. What's it like to grow up in a world that views you as not just Other, but so dangerously Other? What is it like to be a problem?

These are questions which, by virtue of my birth, I've never had to ask. I'm white. I glare in the sun and I've never faced religious persecuttion or racial discrimination or anything like that. The only times I get screened by security at an airport are when I forget to take the bobby pins out of my hair (which is more often than it should be at this point). Reading this book made me realize that there is a whole world of experience out there that I don't understand. More importantly, it helped me see that the fact that I couldn't see how privileged I am was another part of my privilege itself.

This has had a huge impact on my life. Finally seeing and being able to react to my own privileged status in the world has changed who I am. It's changed how I go through my daily life. And it's deeply affected how I view media. Now, this wasn't the only book in college that did this for me. A lot of credit has to go to my advisor, who taught me about race and passing and Franz Fanon and Frederick Douglass. I took classes that taught me to value the importance of African history, and I took other classes about modern African politics that made me question America's choices in international relations. But this book is really what I'd point to as the thing that made it all stick.

So. Let's talk about Ms. Marvel.

That may seem like a topic shift, but it's really not. While Ms. Marvel as a title goes back to the 1970s, the current incarnation of the character isn't Carol Danvers (she's Captain Marvel now, and also in space, which is cool). No, the current Ms. Marvel is a nerdy teenager named Kamala Khan. She's the daughter of Pakistani immigrants to the US, a writer of fanfiction and a total Avengers groupie, and a Muslim.

Kamala is a pretty normal teenager, but she's really not one we see very often in comics or television shows or movies or anywhere in pop culture. She loves her family, but she's annoyed by them too. She feels a connection to her cultural heritage, but she still likes standing in a deli smelling the bacon until she's told to leave. She's never had bacon, because she's a good Muslim, but she can tell it's delicious.

In short, she's pretty much like every other teenager I've ever met. Her parents drive her nuts, because they won't let her go out to parties and they never let her wear anything even remotely revealing and they are obsessed with her getting good grades and doing something useful with her life. Her older brother is very devout, but also still lives at home, which causes tension in the family because seriously when is he going to get a job already?

Her best friend, Nakia, is a Turkish Muslim who has recently become more invested in their culture and decided to wear a headscarf. It's her personal choice. Kamala doesn't wear a headscarf. She's not sure how she feels about Islam - not that it's a terrible bad thing or anything, but because it's her parents' religion, and she doesn't know yet what she herself believes.

So, basically, Kamala is me as a teenager. Complete with writing really embarrassing fanfiction. I get this girl. I relate to her super hard. The only difference is that I don't have superpowers.

And neither does Kamala at the start of the story. When the story begins, Kamala really is just a normal teenager. Her experience is pretty typical of a second generation kid or a "third culture" kid. But then she sneaks out to go to a party one night, because Kamala desperately wants to be cool and "normal", and while she's out the city gets taken out by a weird gas. The gas makes her hallucinate and then it gives her superpowers.

Specifically, Kamala hallucinates the Avengers, with whom she is obsessed, and Captain Marvel specifically, with whom she is super obsessed, talking to her. They ask her what she wants, and she tells them:

When "Ms. Marvel" asks Kamala what she wants, her response is both unsurprising and heartbreaking. Kamala wants to be "normal". She wants to be blonde and pretty and strong and popular and cool. She wants to fit in. She wants to be someone else.

Her superpower turns out to be shapeshifting, and it first presents when Kamala wakes up and looks exactly like Ms. Marvel. Old school Ms. Marvel, with the thigh-high boots and the wedgie-giving unitard, actually. She's skinny and blonde and gorgeous for once. And all of a sudden, none of that matters. Because her friend is in trouble and needs help.

The story doesn't gloss over this plot point. It would be easy to look at the book and be like, "Oh, so she's just this nerdy girl who turns into a hot blonde when she rescues people. Whatever, I guess you're trying to sell books." But that's not what this is about. This is about Kamala, and who she wants to be. Like any teenager, that's a shifting target. And like any teenage girl, it's a target that has a lot to do with how she looks and how she feels about how she looks.

When Kamala first gets her power, she's thrilled by the idea of for once looking the way she wants. And when Kamala transforms into what she considers her ideal self, there's one very simple thing we should not be ignoring: her ideal self is white. When Kamala imagines a her that is cool and powerful, she pictures a skinny white girl.

More than that, she transforms herself into a walking pinup. Here's this sheltered teenager who's now walking around in a pair of thigh-high heeled boots and a leotard. At first she likes it because she gets tons of attention this way. People stop and stare at her, and not like they're afraid of her because of the color of her skin, like they want to have sex with her. She likes it. At first.

And then she doesn't. Because it's not useful and it's kind of scary and the heels hurt her feet and it's so hard to run in an outfit like that. But more importantly, Kamala doesn't feel like herself.

It's that old saying, "Be careful or you just might get what you want." Kamala wants to fit in, and she gets shapeshifting powers. Tell me that's not a pointed comment.

This story, for all that it's about a teenage girl stopping crime and saving the city, is more about self-image and race and "passing" than it is about superheroes and powers. Kamala's story is about her trying to figure out who she is, and it's a lot harder when you can suddenly change everything about yourself and be whoever you want. Without those external signifiers of race and class and religion, who are you? How much of who you are is determined by how other people see you?

Now, I should point out that we're still only in Issue Three of the comic (three of eight for this first run), so I can't say with assurance where the story is going, but I think I can give it a guess based on where we've been. And even in these three issues there's been a very strong topic that keeps coming up: how Kamala herself feels about her race.

Like I said above, when she pictures her ideal self, she imagines a white girl who really looks nothing like her. To Kamala, that is desirable. The white skin, the blonde hair, the bikini body. That's what she wants to look like. She doesn't want to look like she does (in the beginning). She wants to erase herself.

Oh hey, there's a quote from Moustafa Bayoumi about that: "But the loudest silence in the book concerns those young Arabs, a minority, who have abandoned their ethnic roots or religion out of either shame or fear or both. They have changed their names and try to pass as other-than-Arab - Latinos most often. Perhaps it is fitting that "The Biography of the Ex-Arab Man or Woman" is present here only by its absence."

Before anyone screams to the comments to tell me so, yes, I am aware that Kamala is Pakistani and therefore not "Arab". But the point stands. Kamala represents a story that doesn't often get told by virtue of how impossible it is to tell: that of the person who abandons their past in order to preserve their future.

One of my professors in college - not one previously mentioned, another one, because I had lots of professors - told us a story about how growing up she lived on the border of two different gangs. There was a Latino-American gang on one side and an African-American gang on the other. And since my professor is a woman of ambiguous racial background, she would get harassed by both sides when she walked to school. Her solution was to simply identify herself with whichever side was harassing her at that moment. If the Latino gang was bother her, well then she was Latino. If the black gang was bothering her, then she was black. She could pass, and so she did.

Kamala feels disconnected from her ethnic and religious heritage because of the treatment she faces both at home and at school. At home her family doesn't understand her because she's too American. She spends hours online and wants to go to parties and would love to someday try bacon. At school her classmates don't understand her because she's too foreign. She's Muslim and she doesn't drink alcohol and her parents are strict and she's never had bacon.

She feels like an outsider wherever she goes, so is it any wonder that she would want a quick and easy solution to that? The thing is, it's not actually a solution. Her superpowers only raise more questions.

What on earth is the point I'm trying to make with all of this? That's the question I assume you're all asking by now. Well, I'll tell you. Kamala Khan is a funny and relatable teenage girl. She is also vastly important. Why? Because this comic, Ms. Marvel, has the opportunity to do for hundreds of thousands of readers what How Does It Feel To Be A Problem? did for me. It has the opportunity to actually bring the issues of race and passing and self-image to the forefront of people's minds. Don't tell me that's not important.

It's important in two ways. First, for all of the many, many people who see themselves in Kamala it's amazing to actually see a character like her taking center stage. To see a brown, Muslim girl with a religious family struggling with questions of self-expression and identity, all while fighting crime and being super kickass - that means a lot. I've mentioned before that I nanny for a couple of not-white kids, and when I showed the girl (she's eight) this comic, her first reaction was, "She looks like me!" It matters, okay?

Second, this comic matters for all of the people who don't see themselves in Kamala, and who have never seen themselves in a character like her. It matters because for the first time possibly, they get to see a story about a minority character dealing with the majority. We never hear stories like this, about Muslim girls who long to taste bacon (not letting that one go - I love bacon) and who wish they were white. Reading this book and sympathizing with Kamala is the first step towards being able to understand the world better. To being able to understand other people more fully. And to being able to respect their experiences.

Ms. Marvel happens to be a really good comic, and for that I am incredibly grateful. Can you imagine if I had to read something like this, that touched on all of these super important topics, but that sucked? That would be terrible. It doesn't even bear thinking of. But this isn't terrible. It's great. And it's important.

I couldn't not post the bacon scene. It was memorable.

I talk a lot of negativity. I am aware of that. I spend a whole lot of time complaining about what I don't like in culture, and what makes me mad, and how I think that all media, especially children's media, is terrible and being a bad influence on us.

So, I thought it would be a nice break to talk about an all-ages comic (that means, yes, you can show it to your children) that actually does things right. A lot of things. Arguably even all of the things.

I'm talking about Lumberjanes, the new BOOM!Box comic by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, and Brooke Allen. You may know of Noelle Stevenson because of her freaking awesome Nimona webcomic, which we'll get around to discussing one of these days. The comic is sort of a friendship adventure story about a bunch of girls (five girls) at a summercamp plagued by supernatural weirdness. Not scary supernatural weirdness, mind you, just...weirdness.

The first issue (there are only two so far, but it just got picked up as an ongoing series, yay!) drops us into the middle of the action to find our heroines deep in the woods fighting a bunch of three-eyed foxes. In the middle of the night. And they're not in their cabin!

The girls (Jo, April, Mal, Molly, and Ripley) are presumably twelve or so and are campers for the whole summer at Miss Qiunzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet's Camp for Hardcore Lady Types, a camp for Lumberjane Scouts and "Friendship to the max!" They snuck out of their cabin because they heard a bear-woman attacking, and then ended up fighting the three-eyed foxes (which mysteriously turn into a pile of gold coins when you punch them in the third eye), and there was some kind of prophecy about "Beware the Kitten Holy". It's all very whimsical and weird, and it can be hard to figure out what's really going on.

That is not, for the record, a bad thing.

Upon returning to their cabin in the first issue, the girls are caught by their not at all easily duped counselor, Jen, and brought to the camp director, Rosie. While Jen is miffed that her girls tried to sneak out, Rosie is intrigued by their adventures and doesn't punish them. She also kind of suggests that there might be more supernatural stuff going on at this camp, which makes sense, but is still intriguing.

In the second issue, the girls have to contend with a really crazy and scary canoeing trip, as well as a battle a three-eyed river monster. But honestly, you don't end up paying a lot of attention to the exact details of the zany adventures the girls get into, mostly because they're, you know, zany adventures. The point isn't what happens, the point is how the girls deal with it.

And I have to give major props to the writers here: every single girl is well-characterized and interesting, distinct both visually and personality-wise. Also, can you name the last time you read a comic that had literally no male characters? Like, none? I can name about ten off the top of my head that have no female characters, but this is the only one I know of with no dudes in it. Just saying. Not that dudes are evil or bad or anything, but that it is really fun to have a comic all to ourselves.

Sure, we're only two issues in, but it's still really easy to tell the differences between all of the girls. Differences that give a really good representation of all the different ways you can be a girl. This isn't Cars. These characters are all super proud of being girls, but do it in totally diverse ways and that is awesome.

Like, April is super girly. She has Princess Ariel level red hair and smacks evil animals with her pink diary and always does her hair really well and delicately and looks super cute. But she's also very clever, and she's the one who thinks to write down all the weird stuff that happens to them. Then there's Jo, who's tall and lanky and very tomboyish, also of vaguely not-white ethnicity which is rad. She looks like the badass of the group, but actually Jo is the one always remembering and citing the rules and trying to get everyone to stick together.

Molly and Mal are best friends, super close, and just honestly really fun. Molly is a hyper-capable experienced scout. Out of all of the girls, I probably relate to Molly the best inherently, because there's this one moment where she's annoyed because they don't have any life preservers big enough for her, and man do I feel that. I felt like Godzilla until the other kids my age started catching up in high school. (I still feel like Godzilla sometimes, but that's another issue entirely.) Mal is a city girl who watches way too many Discovery Channel shows about river monsters and things that can kill you. It's funny because Mal looks really tough, but spends most of the second issue freaking the crap out.

In her defense, there is totally a river monster. So there.

And then there's Ripley, who is a total bundle of crazy and energy. She's devoted to her friends, a complete spaz, very lovable, and likes punching things. Ripley is the kind of girl who would dive over a waterfall to save her friends (and does), but also the kind of kid who will chase down an eagle because it stole her chocolate bar (she does that too). In other words, Ripley's the wild card.

Oh, and Rosie is basically Ron Swanson only a lady, and Jen is the one sane person in the whole story, which means that most of the time everyone is ignoring or mocking her.

My point here isn't just that Lumberjanes is silly fun and that you should probably read it, though it is and you should, but rather that I like to hold this comic up as a rebuttal to everyone who claims that kids' media has to be sub-par, or that little boys can't get into a story with a female protagonist (or five), or that it's just too hard to make a piece of media that is child-appropriate, feminist, diverse, and still fun.

It's not. Read the comic. It's seriously not impossible. The writers even make it look easy.

Part of the reason I love this comic so much, though, is because it reminds me of when I was a kid and I went to summer camp. It was the highlight of my year. I looked forward to it pretty much from the moment I left to the moment I got to go back. Now, I didn't go to a camp as clearly amazing as the Lumberjanes Scout Camp, but Happy T was pretty cool in its own way, and the memories I have from it are the kind of stuff that make you look back and both cringe and grin.

Let me put it this way: I am still very close friends with the camp counselor I had when I was ten. She's a big part of why I moved to Washington in the first place. At my sister's wedding, I was in a dance group with like seven of my former counselors and a couple of former fellow campers. These people, yeah, they were just people I saw at camp, but somewhere along the way they became a part of my family.

When I read Lumberjanes, I like the wacky adventures and the way that they all say "What the junk?!" instead of the swearier alternative, and I love how they use feminist icons as verbal punctuation. (As in, "What the Mae Jemison are you doing out here?!") But what I read the books for is actually the relationships. The friendships. I read it and I see myself and my friends and all the people I know who built really strong friendships at camp. Or in general. This book's motto is "Friendship to the max!", and that totally shows.

Ultimately, I think that's why I want to recommend this book to everyone I meet. When you get an all-ages comic like this, usually it goes one of two ways. Either the story is light and fluffy and nothing really happens, or it's dark and depressing and hard. It's pretty stinking rare to have a book that's all about girls being friends and going on adventures. The adventures aren't without stakes - Mal gets pretty badly hurt in the second issue, and it's actually a little concerning for a second - but they aren't big balls of angst either.

This isn't Supernatural. Sure, we've got protagonists hunting down weird supernatural stuff (and why do all the creepy animals have three eyes, huh?), but they're not upset about it. They're excited! This is camp and they're having an adventure and doing it with their friends.

I mean, isn't that the kind of message that you do want to send to children? That the world can be big and scary sometimes, and that we don't always know what's happening, but that if we work together we can make it good. And that as human beings we have a duty to make the world suck less for the people around us, because we're all in this together.

Basically, friendship to the max!

Amen.

Does anyone else feel like it's been way too long since we last saw the dragons? I know that the dragons cost a fair bit of money to animate, so I get why HBO isn't showing them, but I also feel like it's been too long. Just saying. I need me some dragons.

Dragons.

So, Jaime's a little bit miffed that Tyrion decided to throw away that sweet plea-bargain he'd arranged, but Tyrion's resolute that he did the right thing. Yes, he's sad that Shae turned on him. Yes, he's aware that he will probably now be super murdered. But dang was it good to finally tell everyone the truth and the whole truth of what he thinks of them. Besides, Bronn saved his life in combat once, he can do it again.

Unfortunately for Bronn and Tyrion's desires to continue breathing, Cersei has called in Ser Gregor Clegane to be her champion. You may recall him as that dude nicknamed "The Mountain", the psycho so murderous and sociopathic that he burnt his little brother's face off. Said little brother being, of course, Ser Sandor Clegane, the Hound.

Who is riding merrily (sulkily) along with Arya as they approach yet another hut and possible ambush. Still digging the buddy cops vibe from these two. The hut has been destroyed by someone or another before they got there. There's a dying man sitting outside, and Sandor and Arya ask him why he hasn't bothered to kill himself yet. Arya creeps the hell out of the guy with her deep and meaningful philosophizing about death and nothingness. Arya tells the guy who she really is, because who cares? He's dying.

The Hound gives him a drink, and then kills him. It's a mercy. Sort of. Then he uses the death to teach Arya about anatomy before being attacked by some random guy - one of the men who was to take Arya to the wall, and who threatened to rape her. She kills him. Such a happy child.

Up at the Castle Black, Ser Alistair and Jon Snow continue to get on about as well as two girls trying out for head cheerleader in a stereotypical high school comedy. By which I mean not at all. Alistair insults Jon's direwolf, Ghost, so Jon comes back by insinuating that Alistair can't do his job, etc etc etc.

The real issue of the day is fortifications. The army is coming, and Jon wants them to seal the tunnel through the Wall to keep the army out. He's seen it and he knows that they can't hold them off. Alistair is of course going to systematically ignore literally anything Jon says. This bodes well. Eventually Alistair puts it to a vote, and Jon loses.

The saga of Tyrion and his epic sadness continues. Bronn comes to see Tyrion in his cell and it's pretty clear from the get-go that Bronn isn't going to fight for Tyrion. Cersei's set him up as a match to marry some rich girl. But Bronn does remember that Tyrion offered to double any offers he got. Tyrion can't do that, and Bronn has a better point: why the heck should he fight The Mountain when he could just not fight The Mountain and keep on breathing?

Tyrion begs him to do it out of friendship, but Bronn's retort actually is one of my favorite moments so far this season. "Why should I risk my life for you?" he asks, and Tyrion responds with, "Because you're my friend."

Then Bronn goes, "Aye, I'm your friend. And when have you ever risked your life for me?"

It's perfect because it so thoroughly skewers Tyrion's pretensions. Yeah, he's on trial and he's got the short end of the stick right now. But he still has lived his life in a degree of luxury and protection that Bronn frankly can't even fathom. Tyrion is the hero, so we rarely see things from the perspective of those around him, but between this and Shae's testimony last week, I can at least hope that the writers are trying to remind us that the dominant narrative is not always the correct one. At least, that's what I'd like to think is going on. At any rate, bully for Bronn for looking out for his own interests.

Finally, we get to check back in with Daenerys and her awesomeness. Unfortunately, her awesomeness is faced with a creeper who climbed up through her window and into her room. Not cool dude. Said dude, Daario Naharis, that mercenary who follows Dany around, is there because he really wants to have sex with her and he thinks guilting her into it is the way to go. He seems to have forgotten that Dany isn't a girl. She's a queen.

What follows is one of the most interesting and personally appealing sex/power scenes the show has given us. Why? Because it is a scene explicitly about power, and it's about Dany proving how much power she has in this situation. She has the power to remain completely clothed while the creepy dude who crept into her room strips naked. Rock on.

Speaking of naked people, Melisandre is taking a bath and decides that now is the perfect time to talk to Selyse. One of those nice, "Hey, we're both religious fanatics who are sleeping with the same unsmiling dude," conversations. Super fun times, eh?

Selyse has to get around some complicated doublethink about Melisandre sleeping with Stannis. She's religious enough to think it's all in the greater good, but human enough to be bothered. She also wants to know why the heck her daugher Shireen, who Selyse doesn't like at all, is coming with them when they set sail. The answer is not comforting. "Because the Lord needs her." Historically, that hasn't worked out very well for anyone on this show.

Jorah strides up to Dany's bedchamber to find Daario coming back out, shirt undone. Oh man this must be hard for Jorah "I would do anything for you seriously anything why don't you love me" Mormont. He's quick to state his disapproval to Dany, and she totally doesn't care. She does, however, care about his opinion of what's she's doing next. She's sending Daario and his sellswords back to Junkai, to take care of the revolt there. Her orders are to kill all the masters and free the slaves (again), but Jorah talks her down. Instead, she offers them a choice: live in her new world or die in their old one. She also gives Jorah a little boost by letting him tell Daario that it was him who changed her mind.

Daenerys is very good at making sure that her rival factions keep straight who's in charge. And if she has to set them against each other to do it, she will. I like this about her - that she's willing and able to use her attractiveness as a weapon, and that she is not unaware of how necessary it is for her line of work. I mean, it's sad that she needs to, but I appreciate how good she is at it.

The Hound is trying to stitch up his wound from the skirmish by the hut, and Arya wants to help by disinfecting it with fire. Only The Hound is kind of meaningfully afraid of fire. Also a little bitter about how the Lannisters want to kill him and he's sad he kidnapped Arya. Awww, what a pity. He's depressed that he's gotten into trouble because he kidnapped a small girl. Yeah. I feel super bad about that.

He then gets all deep and personal about that time his brother tried to kill him and how he feels about it. Which is fine and all, but I really do have trouble sympathizing with The Hound. Just, generally. Arya is super nice and still washes out his wound and sews it up for him.

Brienne and Podrick the Inept Squire have stopped at an inn for the night, and Brienne is explaining to Pod how normal people behave. He's still...having trouble getting used to it. Fun moment, though, because this inn happens to be the one where Hotpie (Arya's friend from like season two maybe?) works! And Hotpie is way too eager to talk about his cooking. Like, talk people's ears off eager.

Eventually Hotpie wangles it out of them that they're looking for the Stark girls. But he's spooked (and with good reason, people looking for the Starks aren't usually good people) and he runs. Pod doesn't think they should be telling people they're looking for Sansa, because the Lannisters kill people. And Hotpie does come around. He admits to knowing Arya, and tells Brienne what happened to them. He also gives Brienne a wolf-shaped cookie to give to Arya.

So, point for Brienne on the telling people they're looking for the Starks idea.

Pod happens to know exactly where Arya is being taken - the Eyrie. Which is true. Pod is, as it turns out, very helpful sometimes. And Brienne should probably pay attention to those times, because Pod is useful in precisely the ways that Brienne needs help.

Back in King's Landing, Oberyn and Tyrion reminisce about their brothel moments. Oberyn admits that Cersei is trying to sway him against Tyrion. He also brings up a very old memory - the first time he met Tyrion. Tyrion doesn't remember because he was a baby, but Oberyn recalls how everyone talked about the "monster" that had been born to Tywin Lannister. Only, when Cersei finally showed them Tyrion, the "monster", Oberyn was disappointed. Because it was just a baby.

The story's pretty grim, but it does make one thing clear: Cersei has literally always hated Tyrion. Good to know?

But there is a larger point. Cersei may usually get what she wants, but Oberyn wants something too. He wants to bring all those who hurt his sister and his nieces and nephews to justice. And all those people happen to be here, in King's Landing, siding against Tyrion in the trial. So Oberyn knows what he's going to do. He's going to kill Ser Gregor Clegane for raping and killing his sister, and he's going to be Tyrion's champion.

Did not see that coming.

Up in the Eyrie, Sansa Stark sees snow for the first time since she left home. She builds a little snow castle, that heart-breakingly resembles Winterfell. Robyn comes out to see her, and they have a cute little weird bonding moment about how many people they want to kill, and how Robyn can throw them out the moon door. The moment doesn't last, but hey. They tried. She slaps him. He deserved it. Ah, what a lovely couple.

Then Littlefinger comes up and in a culmination of the epic creepiness that is his attachment to Sansa, he gives her a long speech about how much he loved her mother, and that's she's more beautiful now than Catelyn ever was, and then he kisses her and it is gross and uncomfortable and weird.

Also Lysa is watching, which isn't exactly what anyone would call "good". She freaks the crap out and suggests that Sansa come have a chat with her. Next to the moon door. She tells Sansa she saw what she did, and Sansa, thinking this is about the whole slapping Robyn thing, apologizes. It's not about the slapping Robyn thing. It's about Petyr. It's always about Petyr.

Lysa tries to toss Sansa out of the moon door for daring to tempt Petyr. Petyr comes to the rescue and tries to talk her down. He at least gets her to let go of Sansa. Then he pulls her close and tells her that he only ever loved one woman in his life. Her sister, Cat. And he throws her out the moon door.

End of episode.

There's a lot in this episode that I do like. I love the scenes with Tyrion. Not just because Peter Dinklage is really lighting it up this season, but also because they were all really interesting scenes. The one with Bronn was well written and acted, and strikes to the heart of Tyrion's main problem: he's so used to being the underdog that he forgets how privileged he really is. And the scene with Jaime is just satisfying because it's out there once and for all that Jaime and Cersei have had sex and Tyrion knows about it.

But most of all, the scene where Oberyn establishes Tyrion's humanity and his own motivations for helping him is just plain really good. It's always amazing to see a character finally hear the words they've needed their whole life. And this was no exception. Tyrion needed to be told he isn't a monster, because he's never really believed it. Good, good scene.

Also Daenerys is just generally awesome, and I liked that they showed a scene of her allowing herself to be swayed in opinion. The sign of a good ruler is someone who is capable of heeding her advisors. Someone who is aware that she is not always right. So rock on, Dany.

But most of all, of course, this episode is memorable for the scenes at the end, with Sansa and Robyn and Littlefinger (Petyr) and Lysa. Memorable because those scenes are super disturbing, and also because they don't really leave us in a happy place. I mean, it's easy to look at it and say, "Yay! Petyr killed Lysa and saved Sansa, now everything is okay!" But that's not even a little bit true. Now Sansa is stuck in a castle with her cousin, whose mother has just been murdered, and the murderer, who has made it clear that he wants to have sex with her, whether or not she wants it.

Sansa's situation has not improved.

While I like that the writers make Lysa a bad guy for her accusations of Sansa "tempting" Petyr, I dislike that this is even a thing. Like how I feel about Jaime and his being a rapist, that the plot has totally ignored, I find that Petyr is not sufficiently castigated by the show or the viewers for his definite statutory rape-vibe. Because make no mistake, this is very wrong.

And on that happy note, I leave you for the hiatus (at least I leave off recapping Game of Thrones for the hiatus - I'm not actually going anywhere). Let's hold out the dim hope that on its return, the show isn't going to be quite as obsessed with rape and the sexualization of girls. I doubt it.

You use that cunning and ruthlessness, girl. Use it and save yourself.

Sooooo, apparently last week's episode was actually episode 83 (not 82, like I said it was), which makes this one episode 84. Hurrah!

This week it was just Patrick and I discussing X-Men: Days of Future Past and how Magneto is genuinely terrible at strategy, how Charles and Erik's epic love cannot be denied, and why the movie really should have had more women in it. Because obviously it should have.

Oh, and we have a nice long discussion on how timelines work.

Next week we'll be talking about television, so that should be fun!

It's not super on topic, but I've recently noticed that I really have a thing for frenemies in fiction. Like, I would probably totally hate having a frenemy in my life, because I dislike ambiguity in my relationships, but I totally dig it in my stories. Charles and Erik in X-Men. Enjolras and Grantaire in Les Miserables. Jean Valjean and Javert in Les Miserables as well, for that matter. Steve and Bucky. Faith and Buffy. I love them because they're like opposite sides of a coin: pragmatism versus idealism.

Anyway, I saw X-Men: Days of Future Past on Friday, and I would like to discuss it now.

If you want to be totally technical, I could have written this article and posted it on Friday itself, because I saw the movie early enough, but the good friend I saw it with was kind enough to agree to come over to my house and help me clean, and you never decline an offer like that. So I write to you now from my super clean room in my super clean place, and I am very content with this situation. Also, the movie was pretty good.

Maybe even more than pretty good, if I'm being honest. I really enjoyed this film, and I have to say that I wasn't expecting that. I kind of had an inkling going in that this was either going to be awesome and amazing or effing terrible. I was definitely leaning towards effing terrible, just because the previews did not inspire confidence, and it looked so stuffed with characters and feelings - I just didn't know how they were going to pull it off. To be honest, I'm still not sure how they pulled it off, but they did and I appreciate that.

So, for all of you who only read up until the part where I say whether a movie is good and worth watching or not, yes, it is, and you should go see it. This movie is totally rad and you will enjoy it. That doesn't mean I had no issues with the film, because that would be virtually impossible, but merely that it's thoroughly enjoyable and worth the ticket price and fantastically executed.

Okay. Now let's get down to brass tacks. SPOILERS.

A basic recap for those of you who aren't going to see it or have already forgotten: The movie starts out in the future, sometime distantly past the timeline in the regular X-Men movies. Our heroes, the X-Men are a weary and harried group, forced to fight for survival against terrifying giant machines called Sentinels that seem able to anticipate their movements and act against them. Even managing to transform to adapt to their powers. The mutants are fighting a losing battle, and it's pretty clear that they're some of the only ones left: Bishop (Omar Sy), Blink (Bingbing Fan), Colossus (Daniel Cudmore), Iceman (Shawn Ashcroft), Sunspot (Adan Canto), Warpath (Booboo Stewart), and Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page).

Fortunately, our little group of heroes has a couple of tricks up their sleeves. Namely, that whenever the Sentinels attack, Warpath warns them as quickly as he can, and then Kitty Pryde and Bishop run like hell so that she can use her powers to send his mind back into his body of a few days ago to warn them about the attack before it even happens. Then, when the Sentinels show up, they're gone, because they were never there.

Boom. Time travel. Explained really early in the film. Good job, guys!

The plan is a good one, but you can only run for so long. Instead, they need to think longer term, and Professor X (Sir Patrick Stewart) has an idea. He and Magneto (Sir Ian McKellan) have teamed up (along with Wolverine - Hugh Jackman - and Storm - Halle Berry), and they want to use Kitty's powers for something a little more, well, powerful. Why not send Professor X back in time, to his younger self's body, in order to stop the events that would lead to this horrible dystopian future?

It's a good plan, but it has a small snag. Kitty can't safely send someone back that far. If she did, his brain would shred itself.

Fortunately, there's a solution for this. We'll send Wolverine back, because he can heal from anything ever, and he had a body in the 1970s, so he'll at least not get confused about how he looks. Far from it, actually. He looks almost exactly the same. Then he'll just have to use the limited time he has - which is pretty much as long as they can spare before Sentinels attack their new hiding place, since this is an all or nothing plan - to convince the younger Professor X and Magneto to work together to stop Mystique from killing this random dude and starting a giant massive war. Simple.

Obviously, nothing really goes according to plan. Wolverine wakes up in the wrong city, has to fight his way out of a mob ambush, steals a car, drives to Westchester, and then comes face to face with a shockingly not blue Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult). Said not-blue Hank/Beast then turns blue and furry and tries to throw Wolverine out of the house. The house that is sad and decrepit and overgrown and like a visual monument to depression.

He's stopped by Charles Xavier, the young Professor X himself (James McAvoy), who is, utterly bafflingly, not in a wheelchair. Also not psychic. What on earth is happening here?

Oh, okay. Apparently Hank has developed a serum that allows him to look normal and Charles to walk, but it does so by suppressing their mutant abilities. So, in human form, Hank isn't very strong, and Charles has no telepathy. Hank takes just enough to look normal most of the time, but Charles takes the stuff by the truckload (in a particularly smack-addict sort of way, too), precisely because it suppresses his telepathy. He's sick to death of hearing everyone's pain all the time. He wants some peace.

I guess what I'm saying is that the movie gets off to a charming and totally not depressing as hell start.

Logan (aka, Wolverine) manages to convince them of his bonafides and that they really do need to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from her mission - which is to kill Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), a weapons manufacturer who has used illegal and inhumane experiments on mutants to create the Sentinels, a weapon designed to target mutant DNA and destroy them all. If Mystique kills Trask, appealing though that sounds, she'll actually prove his point about how dangerous mutants are, and cause the US government to order thousands of the things. So, not really her best plan ever.

Charles agrees to help, not because he entirely believes Logan, but because he wants to save Mystique from becoming a murderer, and it's off to the races. But first they need to make a stop. Future!Professor X and Magneto made it very clear that only by working together could the two of them convince Mystique to stop. So, they have to go get Erik (Michael Fassbender).

The thing is, Erik is being held in a really, really, really high security prison because the government believes he was responsible for murdering JFK. Because of course they do. The cell is buried one hundred floors below the center of the Pentagon. So, you know, no sweat.

Actually, it really would be no sweat if it weren't for that little thing where Charles doesn't have his powers at the moment. He can't help them at all. They need to go for outside help, and turn to a hilariously terrible and unhelpful teenage contact of Logan's: Peter Maximoff (Evan Peters), aka, Quicksilver.

Peter agrees to help them, and they do manage to break Erik out of jail, though not without alerting everyone in the known universe to the jail break and also there being some emotional fallout, and oh yeah, the single most entertaining scene in the movie that contains the single greatest sound cue you will see in a movie this year. I'm not saying anything more, but yeah. It's awesome.

Blah blah blah, Mystique tracks down Trask and discovers that he'll be making a presentation on the Sentinel program at the Paris Peace Accords (the end of the Vietnam War). She seduces a Vietnamese official, and then takes his place, all with the intention of straight up murdering Trask in public and then running the crap away. Tragically, Trask carries a handy-dandy mutant detector with him wherever he goes, and he finds her. Then Charles, Hank, Logan, and Erik find her before she can do anything to Trask.

And then everything goes completely bonkers.

Mystique gets tazed, Logan suffers a traumatic flashback (it seems Trask is getting some help from a young William Stryker, who ruined Logan's life), Charles has just a second to comfort Mystique before Erik goes nuts and decides that the only way to keep the world safe is to straight up murder his friend. Mystique that is. He shoots her.

Let us all take a moment to appreciate the fact that Erik Lensherr does not make sound strategic decisions. Like, ever. Ever ever. Ever. Shooting Mystique instead of running like hell away from the scene of the attempted crime is not one of his better ones, but it's also not one of his worst, sadly. I think that plan goes to the pile of crap he comes up with at the end of this film, but you know, his idea from X-Men: First Class was pretty terrible too. I'm just going to bomb the entire US and USSR navies - while they're carrying nukes - and that will make everyone leave mutants alone forever. How did this man manage to lead a mutant terrorist organization? I don't even trust him alone with a stapler.

Mystique jumps out a window and tries desperately to get away, but Erik goes after her and like clearly uses his powers, which means that since they're in front of a massive crowd of people, now everyone knows about mutants and also that they are scary and angry, and then Beast gets involved and...it's not a good time, okay?

Everyone escapes eventually, and regroups. Erik is a creepy creeper in his hotel room and plans his next move. Mystique gets her bullet wound stitched up and tries to figure out if she should kill Trask after all. Meanwhile, Charles and crew return to the mansion just in time for Charle's miracle walking drugs to wear off and his telepathy to turn back on. He doesn't like it, but he lets Logan talk him into getting back in the wheelchair and using his mind.

Specifically, using Cerebro to locate Mystique and convince her not to murder anyone. It doesn't work. At first it doesn't work because Charles is woefully out of practice. There's a cool scene where Charles digs through Logan's head until he reaches his present time and has a super trippy telepathic conversation with future!Charles - it's very confusing but quite touching. Then he's back and manages to have a real talk with Mystique (via all of the people standing around her and hallucinations, but that must be par for the course when you grow up with a super powerful telepath). Mystique refuses to be swayed, because they never explain why she should be, and they have to figure out another plan.

Said plan appears to be just sort of showing up at the big White House celebration where Trask and President Nixon are unveiling the new Sentinels that are going to save us all. Sentinels that Trask doesn't know Erik has already infiltrated and filled with metal so that he can control them.

Unsurprisingly, crap goes down. Choices are made. Charles gets hit in the head and stuck under something heavy because he's in a wheelchair again. Erik continues to carry out the dumbest plan in the history of ever, and then Mystique saves the world. By shooting Erik. To be fair, someone had to.

In more detail, Erik disrupts the unveiling by turning on all of the Sentinels and then hijacking them to start attacking humans, thereby undermining human confidence in the robots. Then he drops a giant stadium around the White House, forces the President to come out and see him, and tries to murder him on live television. The television thing isn't an accident, either. He makes sure all the cameras are watching.

Why?

Like, seriously, why? This is the worst plan. Erik is trying to prevent a world war that would devastate all of mutant-kind, and pretty much everyone else. This war sprang up out of human fear. Fear specifically of mutants. How is the solution to that making everyone pee their pants in fear, Erik? Seriously. I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving my cat alone with you for a week for fear that you would decide to stop feeding her so that she learns to stop meowing for food or something.* Erik logic is the worst.

Fortunately for everyone ever, the plan fails, and Mystique becomes known as the mutant who self-sacrificially saved the President. Also, Charles does the unthinkable and takes control of Erik's mind! Juuuust long enough to get the giant piece of stadium off of him, because Erik is a dick. Seriously.

Then Erik flies away, and Mystique limps off, and it's just Hank and Charles again, like usual. Oh, and Logan, but he's sort of busy dying of puncture wounds and drowning in the Potomac. Whoops. Eventually, he wakes up in the future, and the future is much better. He's at the school - there is a school - and Rogue is there and everyone's still alive (we watched them all die in the future), and Jean is there and unfortunately so is Scott... It's a lot to take in. But yay! The whole thing worked!

After which there is some setup for the sequel that makes legitimately no sense (why on earth would Mystique impersonate Stryker?), and lots of fun times.

That was a bit more detailed than I intended to be, but I feel like with this kind of movie you sort of have to get all the plot points down before it's even worth talking about anything more theoretical. Because while this movie was enjoyable and fun and cool, it was also complex as hell. That's not a criticism, by the way, but an observation. This is not an easy movie. And as a result, we kind of have to remember what all happens in order to figure out what to think of it.

Here's what I think of it. I think that it was very fun, and totally cool, and that I am rather insulted by how the female characters were portrayed. So, the usual?

I love all of the references and jokes and the character development. I love the oblique reference to Erik being Peter's dad (comic book canon), and I love pretty much everything about how they played Peter's character, despite being pre-inclined to hate the ever living crap out of it. I love the storyline and the way they handled the time travel. I love the humor and the costumes and the emotional arc. I love the not at all bromance between Erik and Charles and how they're so wrapped up in each other it makes them stupid. I love that this movie dared to make Charles fallible and weak but still right, and I love that it made Erik deal with his crap.

Pictured: my rage.

However. I do not love that this movie, which ostensibly could have been a film about two amazing women doing incredibly badass things, reduced both of those female characters to plot devices. I more than don't love that. I actively hate it.

Both Kitty Pryde and Mystique are central to this whole thing. Kitty because she is the one whose powers make all of this possible, and Mystique because she is the one who must be stopped from killing Trask. On their own, it seems like they are two developed female characters who contribute to the story, right? Well, they don't.

Kitty exists only as a vehicle for her powers. She is given no character development, no emotions, and no real reason to be in the movie except as a plot device. This is particularly insulting since Kitty Pryde is the one who traveled back in time in the original comics. It makes sense that she doesn't here - since she would be about negative 27 years old, and also she couldn't survive the trip - but that doesn't make it less obnoxious.

This story could have been about two women working together to save the future. Kitty, the one who travels back in time with a message about a horrible future, and Mystique, who must then determine how to prevent that future.

Only it doesn't happen like that because instead of actually giving our female characters emotional arcs or motivation, we got heaps and heaps of man-angst. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy the man-angst, just that I think we could have done better. So much better.

For starters, the film ought to have spent more time on Mystique and her actual motivations for killing Trask. From the very little we do see of her reasons, they're actually pretty legitimate. The dude has been kidnapping mutants and experimenting on them, killing many of her friends. Heck, we even see at one point that Trask had Angel's (Zoe Kravitz) wings brutally pulled off. It's horrific. So, I get why Mystique is doing this. But I don't get what I really want, which is Mystique contemplating the moral ambiguities here.

Like, the whole movie, Charles' goal, and therefore the goal of the "good guys" is to stop Mystique from killing Trask. But is that actually the goal we should be supporting? I mean, yeah, killing is wrong, but the movie makes a big deal about letting Mystique make her own choices, and it completely fails to deliver on that. Mystique is never given the option to hear out the future she could help create. She hears about it third hand, from Erik, in very brief terms.

Furthermore, no one ever bothers to tell her all of the information, they just tell her what to do. Which, if you will recall, was her entire story arc in X-Men: First Class. Getting pissed the hell off at Charles for always treating her like a child.

I want to see Mystique trying to decide how best to build this beautiful future she hears about. I want someone to sit down with her, and give her the option of informed action. I want everyone to stop treating her like a ping-pong ball going back and forth between Charles and Erik, and to actually give her an effing choice.

Just saying.

Also, I didn't appreciate that the only female character of color from X-Men: First Class was brutally murdered and did not appear in this film, nor did I like that none of the even vaguely extraneous characters in the film were women. Like, we got a couple of secretaries, some hookers, a few people in the crowd, and that's it. Which is crap.

Ultimately, though I really did like this movie and enjoy it fully, I wish it could have been more. I wish that instead of giving us all this claptrap about letting Mystique decide, they'd actually been brave enough to follow through. Don't tell me that she's the one making this decision, show me. Give me reasons. Jennifer Lawrence is definitely a good enough actress to give us compelling scenes about the moral consequences of her actions. Give me that version.

I would greatly prefer that, even if you had to cut down some of the Charles and Erik (b)romance a bit to fit it in. I would rather have a Mystique who feels like a real character than this: a film where the only two women who contribute to the plot could be replaced by robots and no one would know the difference.

*I don't actually have a cat at the moment. But if I did, I totally would never let Erik cat-sit.

Whoops! Last week totally got away from me (though I did end up getting a lot of very necessary things done, just none of them related to this blog). Hence, I hereby now present you with last week's episode of Orphan Black, recapped. This week's recap will be up on the site on Thursday. Probably. You know. Fingers crossed.

The episode opens on Dr. Leeky. I haven't mentioned this recently (nor do I remember if I have ever at all), but the guy who plays Dr. Leeky also played Pestilence on Supernatural. I mean, I'm sure he's a nice actor, but that did kind of color my understanding of him. Also, I can't help but assume that even though his name is spelled differently the name "Dr. Leeky" for the head of a research institute investigating cloning and the genetic cause of life must be a reference to the Leaky family, the family most credited with discovering fossil evidence of our earliest human/hominid ancestors. They're very interesting. And messy. You should read Born in Africa by Martin Meredith. Just generally.

Okay. Back to the show.

Leeky is in Rachel's apartment as the cleaners are removing blood stains from the walls. The stains, we are to understand, left over from Helena's brutal attack on Daniel and "saving" of Sarah. I mean, one can assume that Sarah isn't particularly saved, but that's the idea anyway.

Rachel doesn't have to look at the devastation in her home, or at Daniel's dead body, but she wants to. Rachel is a deeply frightening woman. Everyone is clear that Helena is the one that did this, but Leeky and Rachel are both unnerved by the fact that Sarah left with Helena, and now the twins are together. Also Paul is back. Not sure what that means.

In her bedroom, Rachel discovers the tape of home movies that Sarah was watching, and we finally see the ice queen crack a little. She's clearly upset that her inner sanctum was violated in this way. Leeky tries to point out that all of this is happening because Rachel was so heavy-handed with the other clones, and she's not in the mood for a lecture. "Trust me, Aldous," she says, "I've only just begun." Well that's terrifying.

Out in the real world (aka, Felix's apartment), Felix is less than thrilled that Helena is crashing for the night. For some reason. I wonder why? Felix refuses to let Helena stay in the apartment, he just doesn't have a lot of say in it. Because Sarah is going to leave Helena with him while she goes to track down Kira and Cal.

Speaking of which, the ever adorable Kira is complaining about her wet socks to a sympathetic Cal. Cal offers her his socks, but no dice, so instead, he grabs some cash and decides to go out and help her buy some fun new socks. Yay! Except for the part where he grabs the cash from what looks like a secret compartment that also contains a gun and a wad of cash and a passport.

Am I the only one who is beginning to suspect that Sarah has terrible taste in men?

Rachel, Paul, and Dr. Leeky all sit down to discuss the new situation, now that Daniel is dead. Rachel needs a new monitor. Just because she's been aware of her clone status her whole life doesn't make her exempt from the program and its restrictions. She needs a new monitor, and she'd like Paul to do it. Paul doesn't really have a choice in it. And he knows that.

Then we get a charming little revelation: Dr. Leeky has made a lot of progress with his stem cell treatments for the weird lung thing all the clones have. He's planning to use it to treat Cosima (which makes sense, since she's pretty much their clone poster child), but Rachel refuses. She demands that he shut it down. Until Sarah "comes to heel", Cosima will have to suffer. What a bitch.

Cosima, meanwhile, is looking into Project Leda, with the help of her kind of nerdy and creepy friend from grad school. It seems that the DYAD Institute was probably a military contractor when they were coming up with the science. I guess her friend is an expert in genetic patents (which is a weirdly specific thing to be an expert in, but whatever). He wants to know why he can't come work with Cosima and Delphine, and Delphine's response (a deadpan, "Because we'd have to kill his family.") is just priceless.

I get the impression that Delphine doesn't really like Scott (the friend). Also, Delphine has discovered the stem cell research that proves that there's a cure for her lungs. Delphine got the research by mistake. It was an email meant for Dr. Leeky. And that's just a bit hinky - he's supposed to share all his research with them, isn't he? Still, Cosima and Delphine are desperate and determined. They'll try anything.

Kira and Sarah have a stinking cute skype conversation to catch back up. Well, it's cute right up until Kira refuses to be called Monkey anymore, and walks off, telling Sarah that she can "talk to Daddy now." Hmmm. She seems awfully comfortable calling Cal Daddy, considering she'd never met him until like a week ago. Are we starting to see the results of Sarah's super inconsistent parenting coming through? I mean, should I remind us all that this kid was actually raised by Mrs. S?

Sarah and Cal have a quick chat - no, she's not quite ready to catch back up with them, yes, Daniel is really dead now though Cal isn't the one who killed him, and no mention of "By the way I was captured and tortured and now I'm hanging out with my psychotic twin sister." Funny thing.

Looks like it's time to hand over the Helena - Felix has a hot date, so he's giving custody of the crazy to Art for a while. Art is understandably cautious about this (Helena did try to shoot him that one time), but he's agreed. Unfortunately, he's agreed with a sidenote of making her wear handcuffs and removing all sharp objects from his apartment. Which makes sense, but is still kind of insulting for Helena. Why do they keep treating her like a child? She's weird, a little crazy, but still perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

Jerks.

At the Prolethean ranch, Mama Prolethean (seriously do not remember her name) and Hank discuss Gracie's refusal to accept Helena while they do vague science things. Because Gracie refused to talk about why Helena attacked her, she's being punished. Her punishment is that her mouth has been sewn shut. I am seriously super glad that I did not grow up in a cult. I mean, for lots of reasons, but mostly right now because that is gross and horrifying and terrible.

I'd like us to take a moment, though, and appreciate this show for giving us not just a really interesting line of clones to love and obsess over, but also compelling and complicated female characters outside of that, whose stories matter and are diverse and reflect the fullness of humanity. That fullness includes people like Gracie and Kira and Mrs. S and Angie and Aynesley and more. Just saying. I really like it.

Also, Gracie's not talking, which means she keeps the sutures. Ewwwww.

Rachel, our lady of stoic coldness, is sitting alone in her apartment or office - they're both so sterile and clean I can't tell them apart - watching her home movies of her childhood, before her parents passed away in the lab accident. Paul lurks in the background. Rachel notes that by watching these videos, Sarah has shown she's trying to learn everything she can about Rachel. Rachel, in turn, is trying to learn everything she can about Sarah. Quid pro quo, except not because they never see each other.

She then goes on to explain the real details of Paul's role as her monitor. He may report to Dr. Leeky, but he works for her. She grew up with Dr. Leeky, yes, but now she outranks him in the corporation, and more importantly, she's not nearly as sentimental about the clone line as he is, despite being one of them herself. Rachel sees the big picture. Also, it seems that Rachel and company are looking into Cal's background. They have strong suspicious that he is Kira's father, and they probably want to take him in for testing or something.

Rachel, kind and loving heart that she is, smears Sarah's involvement with Cal all over Paul's face, and then demands that he make a choice: who is he going to be loyal to? Sarah or Rachel?

Meanwhile, in Art's not particularly spacious apartment, he's trying to interrogate Helena about Maggie Chen and all those murders way back last season. Doesn't Art know that that was last season? No one cares about that anymore. Besides, Helena has no intention of answering his questions. Not even when he feeds her. Nope, she'd much rather stare at the fish and eat horrible terrifying combinations of foods that do not go together at all.

Mark, that one kind of cute Prolethean dude, goes to visit Gracie in her lockup. He's alarmingly blase about her whole mouth being sewn shut thing, but he is concerned. He even brought her some milk and a straw. Awww! Then he kisses her cheek and begs her to confess so that she can come out of confinement and they can be cute together. Yes please. Not sure why I ship them so much, but I totally do.

More of Helena and Art. Helena eats weird terrifying crap and doesn't answer questions. Art is annoyed. Very annoyed. So annoyed. How did his life come to this? You can pretty much hear the thought reverberating through his brain.

Our babe Felix is happy to finally clean out his clone-free loft and have some company over. It's been a while since he didn't have a bunch of morose "sisters" kicking around, and he's excited to get back to the status quo. Sadly, it would seem that crazy law-breaking is the status quo now. Felix and his date are interrupted mid coitus by a bunch of detectives and also Paul. The detectives are there to search the place at Paul's orders. What will they find? A gun. Daniel's gun. The gun used to murder a cop up North.

Well crap beans.

Also, he forces Felix to touch the gun (and scares the crap out of him and us in the process), which means that Felix's prints are now all over a murder weapon. Then Paul calls Sarah and tells her the score: either she turns herself in within 24 hours, or Felix goes down for murder. Also, they want Kira. Because they usually do.

Sarah immediately turns around and calls Art so that he can figure out if this is legit. Are the cops really waiting to take down Felix? While Art is trying to deal with the crisis at hand, his other crisis slips her cuffs and attacks him, leaving him locked up. Off to do who knows what and who knows where. Man I've missed having Helena around. She really livens things up, you know?

Gracie has decided to confess, and she tells her parents the truth: she tried to kill Helena. She didn't think of it as murder, but more as killing a "coyote coming after our chickens." Which, to be fair, isn't a terrible way of viewing Helena. Honestly, I think Gracie's got the better view on this one, especially since now Helena really wants them all dead. Her parents remove the stitches from her mouth (none too kindly either) and give her an ultimatum. Either she brings back Helena so that she can bear the child they've created (using Helena's eggs) or Gracie will have to bear the child herself.

Please bear in mind, these are Gracie's parents. Eurgh.

Cosima and Delphine break into Dr. Leeky's office looking for the super secret stem cell culture that they're not supposed to know about. Aaaaand, Dr. Leeky catches them like right away. It's embarrassing how quickly he finds them. They confess what they're doing - Delphine is livid that he held research back from them - and Dr. Leeky admits that he's not the one withholding treatment. Rachel is. Which is true.

Then he shows them a picture of Drs. Duncan and Duncan (that same photo Sarah has been carrying around), and tells them that when the lab exploded they lost almost all of their original research. Including the original genome from which the clones were made. Which explains why they are so psychotically protective/controlling of the clones - they are the only physical copies left. It also explains why they can't fix the lung thing. They don't know what's causing it, because their roadmap is gone. That's why they need to know what Sarah knows so stinking badly. Dr. Leeky agrees to give Cosima the treatment. Because he's such a nice guy.

Cal and Kira continue their weirdest custody visitation ever with a burnt dinner in the camper and a quick visit from the cops. This is notable pretty much only for how incredibly shady Cal is. He tells the cop he's from Seattle (he isn't), and gives him a fake ID, and then Kira uses her kid charm to talk the guy out of searching their camper. Also, Kira appears to be slightly precognitive. Are we going to talk about that? Because it's getting pretty noticeable.

Sarah discovers the chained up Art in his apartment, and they both try to figure out where Helena has gone. Lucky for them, she left a clue! Unlucky for them, it's a clue written in Helena speak, which means it's virtually indecipherable.

The clue leads them to some coordinates, and they find the location of Maggie Chen's locker - exactly what Art was looking for, it turns out. But Helena's not there. They find evidence that she's been there. There's a weird little bedroom set up in one part of the storage unit, and it is creepy as hell. Lots of baby dolls taken apart and religious iconography and just the general sort of thing you would expect is in Helena's head. Not nice things.

In there somewhere, they find an empty rifle case, which appears to have contained a sniper rifle until very recently. And a photograph of an old man outside a building that says "Swan Man" on the back. So, someone related to Project Leda. Not just someone even - Dr. Duncan. He didn't die in the lab explosion. Hopefully this information will be valuable enough to trade for Felix's freedom.

It's funny, because I love Felix and I want more of his character on the show, but I also want him to have a nice happy peaceful life. Which would mean that he isn't on the show anymore. Conflicting.

Also Helena is totally going to kill Rachel. Rachel wants to hurt her sestra (Sarah) and wants to hurt the little Kira, who Helena stinking adores. Helena is not going to let that happen. Helena protects her family. Sometimes with high powered riflery.

Across the street, in Rachel's apartment, Rachel is seducing Paul. And by seducing I mean kind of probably raping him. It's really creepy and uncomfortable. Because it's all about the power play, and Paul's just standing there like a ken doll with dead eyes and Rachel is ordering him around and I feel like I need a shower just watching this. Seriously.

I mean, fortunately nothing really explicit happens, but Rachel appears to get off on sticking her hand in Paul's mouth and that is just super weird.

Also, Art and Sarah find Rachel's building and figure out where Helena must be hiding out with the gun. As a sidenote, Helena is talking to herself and cutting the hair on a Barbie doll head so that it matches Rachel. Because Helena.

Sarah bursts in on Helena and begs her not to do it. Not because she particularly likes Rachel or anything, but because she doesn't want Helena to kill anyone. Also, if Helena kills Rachel, then Felix will rot in jail. Helena kind of freaks out a little because Sarah is valuing Felix over her "real" family, and then Sarah bursts out with this huge and touching confession, delivered in front of the sniper rifle. One, she needs Helena to help her find "Swan Man". Two, she was devastated when she thought she'd killed Helena. She had lost a sister, and now she's got her back.

Awwwwwww. Helena puts down the gun, and they stagger out together. "Sestra" and "Meathead". Two peas in a really violent pod. Art pretty much just stands there, baffled.

Cosima gets her stem cell treatment, but we won't know for a while if it worked. In the meantime, Cosima tells Dr. Leeky that the clone club has a proposition for him.

Dr. Leeky goes to a bar and meets with Sarah. They agree to terms. They might be able to get information on what really happened in the lab explosion. The cost is that Rachel give up her hold over Felix. Rachel outranks Dr. Leeky at the company, but he thinks he could make it work. On a more personal note, Dr. Leeky mentions making sure that Cosima keeps getting the treatment, and this is the first Sarah has heard that Cosima is sick.

Dr. Leeky gives Sarah three days, and she tells him that if anyone follows her, she's going to "sic Helena" on them. As Dr. Leeky notes, it's not an idle threat. Not even a little bit. Interestingly, though, it's one that might have to be carried out. Paul was in the bar, watching them, at Rachel's orders. He will now be following Sarah. I forget, is Paul supposed to be good, evil, what? It's very confusing.

Sarah and Helena buckle into Mrs. S' truck for a road trip to "Cold River" where they can find the "Swan Man". Oh man that's going to be one hell of a ride.

End of episode.

Okay so this episode was really clearly about family and the things we are willing to do to protect ours. I appreciate that the writing on this show is so consistent that we can pick out themes like this, for the record.

Sarah spent the episode trying to figure out how to deal with her legitimately insane biological sister, while also trying to help out her foster brother, and worrying over her daughter and the father of her child. Rachel, provoked into a bit of a tizzy by Sarah's invasion of privacy, lashes out to protect her memories of her parents. And also to take everything Sarah has ever loved because Rachel is deeply and meaningfully scary.

Helena's motivation is always her family, it's just that her definition of what that is has slid around a bit through the years. Right now, that means protecting Sarah and Kira, whether they like it or not, whatever the cost. It was interesting to see that that does extend to Felix somewhat, and I am curious as to how much it goes out to Cal and Mrs. S. Worth considering.

No Allison this week, which was disappointing.

Cosima's storyline doesn't seem directly to be about family, but it is about a very related subject: trust. Also, it's about her DNA and her origins as a person, so I suppose that counts. The reason they have so many problems with Cosima's health is because they don't know anything about where she came from. It's very Jungian.*

And while she's not a clone, Gracie's motivation this week was and generally is all about her family. She wants to protect them, even when they don't want her to.

I love that this show emphasizes the social and familial relationships between women, and I love love love how interesting and deep and occasionally crazy all the characters are. Just saying. I also appreciate that while the show has not gone into detail on what was done to Helena (for story reasons, I assume), they do show that she is reeling from it in her own way. This is a show not afraid to show hard stuff, like Rachel raping Paul or Helena being operated on without her consent, and it doesn't flinch away from the aftermath. I'm grateful for that.

I feel like I should elaborate a little bit on this. I'm not glad that they showed Paul's character being raped, but I appreciate it from a narrative standpoint, because it's a storyline rarely used, and even more rarely done right. It remains to be seen how they will handle the aftermath, but I actually trust this show to do a good job. They made it very clear that Paul was not in a position to give clean and clear consent, so I can only assume that this will be dealt with at a later date.

I've never liked seeing a show use rape as a plot point or to demonstrated how evil a character is, but in this case, where we know very little about the situation and nothing graphic was shown, it works. It works because the focus is on Paul. On how Paul feels about the whole thing, rather than it being all about Rachel. That's important.

Next episode is going to be a roadtrip with Helena and Sarah, apparently. Very excited for this mess!

*I don't actually know if it's Jungian specifically, but it's very something.

If you stopped watching Agents of SHIELD, I can't really blame you. Like, seriously, there were a lot of moments this past season where I wanted to stop because I just did not care. And that's a darn shame. I can't blame you for stopping, but as I've finally come to the end of the season, I have to give credit where it's due. I'm really glad I kept watching.

Admittedly, I watched it sporadically, stopping for months before binging on five episodes at a time right before they were about to expire from my Hulu queue, but I did watch it. I made it. I limped to the end of the season.

I feel like I'm not making a very strong case in favor of watching this. Hmm. Let's try again.

Coming out of the gate, Agents of SHIELD was pretty strongly underwhelming. While it does tie in to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it does so in slightly simple and dull ways. Our "tie-in" to Thor: The Dark World was a scene of the characters cleaning up after the movie and moving rubble around, then having to fight some vaguely Norse bad guys. The episodes were, well, episodic, and usually kind of dull.

The arc-plot of the season, at least so far as was evident for the first fifteen episodes or so, had to do largely with Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) and how he's not dead, and with the origin of new agent Skye (Chloe Bennet), who is an orphan with a very shady past. That she doesn't know about.

It's not that those were bad storylines, but more that they didn't live up to the promise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I mean, we're all used to the concept now, and fully disappointed in it, let's be real, but remember again what this show had going for it as we entered the season: a Joss Whedon produced show about the nitty gritty behind the scenes of the Marvel universe, featuring a beloved character back from the dead and another awesome character played by Ming-Na Wen (who freaking voiced Mulan), as well as cameos by actors from the Whedon-verse and tie-ins to the extremely popular and amazing Marvel films.

It was supposed to be awesome. The best thing ever. So cool. And it wasn't.

Here's the thing, though. The show did get better. Good enough, even, that I don't regret powering through the season and am actually really glad I did. The turning point came after Captain America: The Winter Soldier came out. The episodes from there to the end of the season dealt explicitly with the fallout from the film, which did happen to be a bit about SHIELD. You know, the thing where SHIELD has been secretly infiltrated by HYDRA and the whole organization has been branded as terrorists and is being demolished by infighting, a virtual civil war, and military intervention.

Once we got there, we were good. Why? Because finally, finally the show was about something bigger than its characters. With a larger fight to unite and divide them, at last there were stakes to the show, a reason to keep watching, and the general Whedon-fear that someone you love wasn't going to make it out alive.

I tell you this not to castigate the show, but because I'm actually really proud of it. It improved. It got better. I know that sounds super dull as a sentence, but I don't want to lose the importance of that. It's pretty unusual for a show to manage to go from dull to good within the span of a season, especially without being cancelled. I can think of a handful of examples, but not a lot.

There are so many obstacles in the way of a show shifting gears like this one did. Especially in the way of a show connected to so many franchises and companies.

Let me be specific. SPOILERS for the second half of the season from here on out.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier dealt extensively with the idea of HYDRA having infiltrated SHIELD. It showed the battle to take back control, and it even gave us an up close and heart-wrenching vision of how SHIELD must ultimately be destroyed in order to root out HYDRA and save us all. Then the movie fast-forwarded a couple of weeks to show us the aftermath and how everyone was coping. What we didn't see was the immediate repercussions. We didn't see what happened to all of the (presumably thousands) of SHIELD agents who weren't at the Triskelion that day.

Which is precisely where Agents of SHIELD came in, and where it ought to have come in. All of a sudden, our heroes, who had split up to deal with their own crisis, were faced with an even bigger problem: the destruction of SHIELD, the defection of HYDRA, and their new classification as agents of a terrorist organization.

To make it even worse, like I said, the team wasn't together, and one of its members, Simmons, was trapped in a SHIELD facility while a battle raged between HYDRA and SHIELD agents. Simmons being a scientist, she wasn't super equipped to deal with it, oh, and she was trapped with the second-in-command of a man they'd just found out was pretty much a supervillain. Not a good day.

What followed then was an intense and emotionally wrenching hour of television, where Simmons and Triplett (the agent she was stuck with) were tested and had to trust each other and shot at and bonded and all that good stuff. Then we found out that while Triplett wasn't HYDRA, our good friend, Agent Grant Ward, one of the series regulars and stars of the show actually was.

And that, my friends, is precisely where the entire season of powering through this show finally paid off.

All of a sudden, all those scenes of Grant interacting with the team, all that stuff where he slept with Melinda May or bonded with Skye or saved Simmons' life, gained a whole new dimension. And honestly became a lot more interesting.

But more than that, by making Grant a regular cast member, allowing us to love him, and then making us HYDRA forced the audience to humanize the problem in a way that Captain America: TWS, by simple virtue of its plot, couldn't. We now knew a member of HYDRA, intimately and deeply, and we had to figure out what was lies and what was okay and oh my gosh what was going to happen now.

Basically, by making Grant a member of HYDRA, the show forced the audience to feel the betrayal felt all over SHIELD as people discovered that their coworkers, friends, even lovers, were actually members of an underground terrorist organization. By letting us get attached to him and then making him the villain, the show finally did what it said it was going to: it made us look closer and it made us part of the action.

The rest of the season is a whirlwind of great episodes, as we the audience know about Grant's betrayal, but the characters don't for a long time. We had to watch him scheme and plot and kill, while we also saw the team dealing with their new lives and choosing whether to stay or go. And then we got a pretty sweet plot where our little band of misfits had to stop HYDRA and save the world. You know, no big deal.

All of this wouldn't have made any sense or been at all appealing, however, if we hadn't had a whole season of relatively low-key bonding to build up to it. Without the whole first season, bland as it sometimes felt, we wouldn't necessarily feel the same rage at Grant when he defected and we definitely wouldn't feel the same satisfaction when Skye told him off or when Melinda May delivered the smackdown.

Now, I'm not saying that with this ending in mind the season is perfect. It's not. It's still boring as hell. I mean, I get what they did and I appreciate it, but I really did not enjoy it at the time. Booooooring. What I'm saying is that the show finally paid off, and I appreciate that. I appreciate that it finally built on its foundation and gave us a story worthy of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Plus, it was damn satisfying from a storytelling perspective.

The finale itself was thoroughly enjoyable, partly because it was really well written and acted, but also because the storylines covered in it were ones that we'd had enough time to digest and appreciate. Fitz and Simmons, trapped in a box on the bottom of the ocean, with only enough oxygen for one of them to survive? That would be a good setup for any two characters, but these two especially made it sing. It worked because the two of them had spent the whole season up until this point dancing around their feelings for each other. Sacrificing and loving and touching ever so fleetingly but never addressing it until Simmons called Fitz her best friend and he told her that she was so much more than that.

Or how about the scene where Skye and Melinda May, two characters who have been at odds throughout the entire season, bond over dealing with their anger and frustration and rage, then do one better and deal with it. Instead of taking it out on each other, they harness it and take it out on the person who deserves their censure: Grant Ward. More than that, though, I loved finally seeing these two fantastic women sitting down and understanding each other. Why can't we have more of that.

I only wish we hadn't had to wait a whole season to see it.

Finally, who didn't love seeing Samuel L. Jackson turn up unexpectedly in a helicopter and save everyone, snarking all the time, and point out that he was dressed like someone who "lives under a bridge". His rapport with Coulson was, of course, amazing, as was the scene where we discover that the bad guy's entire motivation comes from his mishearing of one of Fury's speeches. That was priceless.

Less thrilling was the overly sentimental way the show chose to close out its "Why isn't Coulson dead?" storyline - because he was an Avenger and way too important blah blah blah - but I did like the twist at the very end. The show finishes its first season with old SHIELD destroyed and a new one to be built from the ashes, by none other than Coulson himself, as the new Director.

Right on, I guess.

There's a lot of promise going into the second season, and I totally love the turn the show took as it developed and grew. Honestly, I appreciate that they managed to course correct so much and so well. That takes skill and guts.

I do have problems with the season overall, like how they killed Agent Victoria Hand, one of the only high-ranking female characters we ever see, and how it took an entire season for two of the most important female characters on the show to have a freaking conversation. I could do without the way that everyone is constantly falling all over Coulson and making him out to be the savior of the world.

But generally, I'm good. I'm glad I stayed. I'm excited for next season. I'm even more excited for the Agent Carter series that we have coming, but I can honestly say that I look forward to Agents of SHIELD coming back. This show surprised me, and rewarded me for sticking with it. It finally did something with its female characters, it finally resolved Mike Peterson's storyline and didn't resort to insulting stereotypes, and it left some good interesting mysteries going for the next season.

So, if you give it a chance, it might surprise you how much this show improved. But then again, don't we all remember how effing terrible season one of Buffy is?

#saveagenthand

I don't know if any of you have ever gone camping with your siblings, but I have to say that someone who writes for Orphan Black has. The show opens on Sarah and Helena settling in for the night in their tent, eating cold beans and being a bit silly. There are some serious notes, though. Sarah wants to know where Cold River is, but Helena points out that if she tells, then Sarah will just ditch her. Which is true and they both know it.

Sarah tries to ask what happened to Helena with the Proletheans, but Helena isn't ready to talk about it, and I don't blame her. All of this is so intense and sad and hard. Fortunately, there are silly moments with shadow puppets to break up the misery. And Helena tells Sarah she's a good mom, which is just cute.

Also, Paul, that creepity creeper, is definitely following them. He's lurking in the campsite and going through their stuff while they're asleep. He finds the photo of Swan Man. That's probably not a good thing, is it?

In the morning, Sarah and Helena continue their epic road trip across Canada with a singalong! To Candy Girl! Which Helena inexplicably knows all the words to, apparently because the nuns in Ukraine really liked it. It's little moments like this that make the show really work. Not just because it's Tatiana Maslany acting against Tatiana Maslany or because it's some serious sister bonding and silliness, but because these are little character details that make the show worth watching.

Cosima and Delphine examine Cosima's arm to see if the stem cell treatment is working. Cosima is weirdly not super enthusiastic. She's bummed out that Sarah knows about her illness now. She didn't want to tell Sarah or worry her. Which is charming and sweet and silly. Of course Sarah wanted to know! At any rate, it's a moot point. She's getting better now, thanks to some stem cells that came from...ground up baby teeth? Well that's disturbing. Cosima's a little curious about how the heck they managed to find a match for her cell type so quickly, but Delphine reminds her that they're not on the outside anymore. The DYAD Group is a multinational corporation, and there are perks.

And then Delphine gets a call from...Scott! That nerdy weirdo that Cosima was having help her on the research. Apparently Dr. Leeky hired him. And Delphine helped. Cosima doesn't want Scott involved, but he is one of the only experts they can trust.

Finally, finally we get to check back in on Allison. She's in group therapy, still in rehab, and she's been called on to share. For some reason, Allison does not want to share. Wonder why? It's not like she can tell them that she was driven to substance abuse by finding out she was a clone and then being chased by a scary corporation and kind of murdering someone... Yeah, I don't think Allison's going to be sharing and caring anytime soon.

There's another hiccup too - Vic, Sarah's ex-boyfriend who was driven into sobriety by a very confusing experience with Allison (as in, thinking that she and Sarah were the same person and perhaps not being disabused of that notion) shows up to group and he definitely recognizes Allison. Well, this will be interesting.

Felix is not having a good day, and it seems that he's drinking all the booze that Allison wishes she had access to right now. Also painting. Angrily. But that's brought to a halt when Art walks in. Sarah wanted Art to check on him. As Felix puts it, "Oh that is so sweet! It totally takes the sting off of being framed for murder."

Then Felix hits on Art and falls asleep. Ah Felix. I want you to have a good life, but you are way too entertaining not to be on the show.

Vic corners Allison after group, and it seems that he is actually rather clear on how not Sarah she is. Well that's good. He remembers her macing him in the parking lot. He asks if they're twins, and she tells him they're clones. Yay! Allison has finally learned that a strong offense is the best defense: Victor will never believe that they're clones, because she gave the information up too easily. And he doesn't.

But he does think that Allison's appearance at his rehab is a signal from the "Godhead". She's there to test him. Allison is understandably dubious of this claim. Apparently Vic found religion! Yay?

Helena has directed Sarah to the church where Duncan (Swan Man) was last seen. Maggie Chen, the queen of offscreen exposition because she's been dead since before the show started, tracked him here. Sarah goes to check it out, but she leaves Helena in the car. And she takes the keys. I'm sure this will be fine.

Quick shot of a lurking Paul.

Sarah goes inside the church, which looks suspiciously exactly like a normal church. It does have some photos, though, that are of big buildings, one of which is the Cold River Institute. Huh. It was shut down in the 1970s. A lady at the church recognizes Duncan from the picture Sarah has, and calls him Mr. Peckham. Apparently he's come in a few times to look at the "archives". When Sarah asks to see them, she gets the runaround. She claims she's a student of Duncan's and that this is for her thesis.

Meanwhile, outside, Helena has found a bar. Yes. This will be epic. Also Paul is still lurking.

Scott has figured out that the DNA comes from clones. He hasn't figured out that Cosima is one of the clones yet. He's all, "Can I see one?" And Cosima is all, "How about never?"

FInally, the part of the show I've been waiting for: Helena in the bar. She's downing shots and mouthing off to truckers. I mean, to be fair, it's not like Helena has anything to fear from big angry truckers. The first one who mouths off to her gets a sprained finger for his trouble. And I'm totally sitting here expecting a smackdown (go Helena!) when another trucker comes to her rescue.

Interestingly, this trucker is played by Patrick J. Adams, who you might know as Mike from Suits, and who also appeared recently in the Rosemary's Baby miniseries with Zoe Saldana. I'm just saying. Dude is having a good spring. Also was very weirdly cast, since I absolutely cannot see him as a trucker. But whatever.

Helena has some game, it seems. She offers the trucker a White Russian, and he offers her a pork rind. She eats about ten. Then, in the background, Prolethean Mark comes into the bar. Drama!

Sarah has managed to sweettalk her way into the archives. The woman helpfully shows her what Duncan was looking into - records from the early 1900s. Records of the Cold River Institute, that is. The woman is worried, because as she says, "What you see here won't leave you."

Allison and Donny continue to have marital troubles. He was supposed to bring the kids, but he didn't (because the show doesn't want to have to pay for the kid actors, I assume). He doesn't think that Allison is taking rehab seriously enough, and he's holding the kids over her head. Which is a dick move, Donny the Monitor. I mean, yeah, Allison is clearly unstable, but Donny is a manipulative, spying jerkface, so... I'm saying that I hope these kids have stable grandparents.

Also Vic clearly overhears Allison and Donny fighting. He gives Allison some "words of wisdom" and Donny promises to bring the kids on "Family Day".

Sarah looks through the Cold River archives. It appears to be some kind of eugenics experimentation thing. Nothing overtly creepy, but definitely not normal.

Back in Toronto, Felix is just waking up while Art puts up some crime scene photographs and demands Felix's help to go through the stuff they found in Maggie Chen's locker.

Allison finds Vic meditating in the gym, and decides to be super nice by disrupting his meditation and reminding Vic that she hates him. He abused Sarah. He attacked her in a parking lot. But it seems Allison is starting to understand why she's in rehab - she is actually an alcoholic. And Vic offers to listen to her problems. Aww, now they're friends.

Helena tells the trucker that she was a detective in Ukraine, "Where I shot many criminals," she feels the need to specify. Then she became a scientist, but she quit to be with her family. It's kind of sad and touching that Helena's invented history for herself is an amalgamation of her sisters' lives. Also the trucker can clearly tell she's full of it, but I mean, if you were sitting with Helena in a bar, wouldn't you be listening intently too?

He thinks she's pretty. And then they arm-wrestle. Helena wins, because she is a terrifying human being. Over that bar, Paul and Mark have a quick chat. You know, stalker to stalker. Paul wants to know who Mark is working for. Mark won't say, but he does admit that he's letting Helena enjoy herself a little before he brings her in. "She's a miracle, I'm told." And Paul admits that he's really here for Sarah.

Speaking of whom, she's managed to call Cosima while she goes through the archives. Cosima sounds like she's having a bad day. And she's perfectly happy lying to Sarah about how well she's doing. But she's not okay. Not even a little bit. The bond between these two is super cute. Sarah finds proof that Duncan was at Cold River. So there's the link.

The trucker and Helena are still arm-wrestling. He tries to disarm her by complimenting her eyes, but it doesn't work, because Helena. They're tied. But instead of the tie-breaker, the trucker decides he wants to dance with Helena. It is clearly the first time anyone has wanted to dance with her, and it is both sweet and sad. Also, I ship it. I ship Helena and the twinky trucker.

In the background, Paul and Mark try to decide the fate of their girls. You know, in a patriarchal way. Dicks. Helena and the trucker kiss, and it gets pretty hot and heavy. On the dance floor in a bar. Then they start pretty much having sex on a pool table. But when another guy interrupts them, Helena reacts in a very typically her way. She beats the ever loving crap out of the interloper with a pool ball.

Loverboy isn't feeling so turned on anymore. Maybe. It's hard to tell.

Sarah comes upstairs and asks the church lady why some of the files are missing - she says that another woman came in and looked at the files. It was...Maggie Chen! It's becoming a bit hilarious how much this show uses Maggie Chen as their excuse for everything.

Helena's gotten arrested, and her trucker boyfriend is sad about it. But, you know, Helena. Helena and Sarah see each other across the street, and it's this poignant moment. Will Sarah come and get her out?

At the police station, the cop reveals that the truckers aren't pressing charges (I mean, it would damage their egos to admit this on a public record). Helena's sister is here to bail her out. Except it's not Sarah. It's Gracie of all people. She doesn't actually apologize for trying to kill Helena, but Helena's cool with it anyway. I mean, it's pretty much a qualification for her to be a sister, right?

They bond. It's cute, I think. I really do want Gracie to end up as Clone Club's crazy little sister, sort of like how Mrs. S is their frightening mom, and Felix is their brother. Ah, family.

Gracie wants Helena to come back to the farm, and she tells Helena that Sarah left her there. Abandoned her. Gracie will take Helena to her "children". Helena's still pissed, but she wants those eggs back. Especially now that they're apparently fertilized and growing. They're hers. Helena is free to go, and she's going with Gracie. Mark gives her the trucker's hat, and Helena demands to be taken to her babies.

Sarah really did abandon Helena. She asks Art to check up on her, but it's clearly too late. Anyway, she asks them to look for the files Maggie stole, and Felix finds them. He finds a patient record for Andrew Peckham - they can see how Duncan stole Peckham's identity. Sarah is pretty sure he lives in the area too. The key will be finding him.

Back at the lab, Scott wants to be let in on all the secrets now. He signed his confidentiality agreement, and he wants to be taken seriously. Hahahano. Still, Scott is useful. He checked the stem cells to see if they were from a clone, but they're not. They're from a relative. Which is confusing. I mean, how many relatives do the clones have?

One. They have one. Kira.

Well, that does explain why the DYAD wants Kira so damn badly. But it also raises a lot more questions: where the heckity heck did DYAD get Kira's baby teeth. From Mrs. S? That's just not good.

Allison and Vic have a moment by the doors. She clearly likes having at least one person to talk to. And Vic dispenses a little bit of wisdom, and agrees to make doilies with her later. But he's acting shifty, and for good reason. Vic goes straight outside and reports to Angie, who is waiting for him in a car. Oh Angie. She's agreed to lift Vic's charges in exchange for dirt on Allison. Yuck.

Art found Andrew Peckham. Sarah pulls up outside the house. She goes up, knocks on the door and finds...Mrs. S?

Huh?

Well, Mrs. S knows about Duncan, clearly, but she says that the reason he changed his name is because he came over to "our side", whatever that means, twenty years ago. They (the Birdwatchers?) hid him in exchange for information on the clones, including information on a surrogate who ran away: Amelia. They used that to track down Sarah in the foster system, and bring her into Mrs. S' care. DYAD has been after them ever since.

Sarah might not believe Mrs. S, but who does she trust? Anyway, the tea is on, and Andrew Peckham (Duncan) is a daft old man playing with his birds. He thinks that Sarah is Rachel at first, but Mrs. S sets him straight. Sarah is the clone that got away. There's no time, though. Mrs. S is getting ready to move Peckham. The DYAD Group is getting too close again.

Project Leda was supposed to be a proof of concept, and Peckham has no idea how many clones there really are. His was not the only implantation team. The military recruited him and his wife to the project, and they cloned human embryos. Then an oversight committee found out and slashed the program. DYAD stepped in as a contractor after that and persuaded them to push on to full term. They hijacked Project Leda.

As for what this was all about, Peckham is pretty straight forward. It was about babies. Little girls.

Mrs. S is prepping to go when she spots Paul in his car outside. She takes a thermos of tea and a gun and then Irish mothers him into talking to her because Mrs. S is the best person ever. She has cookies. She can figure out that Paul is caught between Rachel and Dr. Leeky. Paul can figure out that Mrs. S, as always, has her own agenda. But as she puts it, "I'm a mum. If you want to take Sarah back, you'll have to kill me." All said completely straight-forward and uncomplicated. Just the truth.

Paul's a little bit terrified of Mrs. S, as he should be. Because she knows all about Afghanistan and what happened. Paul could use a new friend. Mrs. S would like to be that friend.

Sarah confronts Peckham/Duncan about his family and how he raised Rachel as a self-aware clone. Also she blames him for how Rachel is a psychopath now. But Peckham/Duncan denies it. She was a sweet little girl with him. He says it's not even DYAD that made her crazy. It was the neolutionists inside DYAD. Dr. Leeky.

Peckham/Duncan is distraught that DYAD stole his daughter. But Sarah reminds him of who his other daughters are. She talks about her sisters, and tells him that Cosima is sick. They all are. They need him to save them because they are dying.

But it's more complicated than that. You see, Peckham/Duncan hasn't been hiding from just anyone for twenty years. He's been hiding from Leeky. Leeky killed his wife and stole his daughter because the Duncans were about to reveal the project. Leeky is the real villain here.

End of episode.

Well dang then. As usual it was a great episode, and as usual it hit on a lot of really important and big scary topics. It was also an episode where each clone character had to face what is effectively her biggest fear, even if she didn't know she was facing it. Like, Sarah had to face the truth about her past and where she came from. This is something she's always been afraid of, and that Mrs. S was all tied up in it was all the more frightening for her. Sarah's always been uncomfortable with her origins, even before she knew about the clone stuff.

Cosima had to deal with fears about her health and about being a burden on someone else. She loves Sarah, but she doesn't want to worry her. She's afraid of being a problem to her family, and I can only assume there's some junk there in her past. I mean, why have we never met Cosima's parents? Or Allison's, for that matter?

Allison is terrified of being monitored, hence why she is now so incredibly cold to Donny (who totally deserves it). But to be stuck in rehab being monitored not just by her husband but also by her newest friend? It's what she fears most, the idea that everyone around her isn't there because they want to be, but because they're watching her and reporting back.

And finally, Helena is afraid of being abandoned by her family, for pretty obvious reasons. She so desperately wants Sarah to love her and value her as a sister, but Sarah has no bandwidth for that right now. All Sarah can see is the path to getting Kira out of harm's way. So Helena is left to founder and fear, unsure who to trust. She wants to be loved. Is that so much to ask?

I appreciated that the show took a moment to really examine how Helena feels about the violation of her body, and I can only assume that this will continue to be explored in the coming episodes. Also, I like the idea of Paul and Mrs. S working together. Though, I do worry a little that we haven't heard anything from Paul about his reaction to the whole Rachel thing at the end of last episode.

Also, I love that Dr. Leeky is the real villain here. It makes it all so much more sinister and I love it. Now let's get all these sisters together and take the man down!

Sisters.

Sheriff Jody Mills has survived another season of Supernatural, and I am overjoyed.

I am also incredibly saddened, however, for the simple fact that this is a statement worth celebrating. Survival is, after all, literally the lowest possible bar for female involvement in a show, and to view this as a milestone feels kind of, well, depressing as all get out. But when taken in comparison to Jo, Ellen, Meg, Anna, Pam, Rachel, Naomi, Tamara, and of course, Mary and Jess, this is good. Great even.

There are relatively few female characters on the show who have now been around as long as Jody - she made her debut in the middle of season five, with "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" - and there are even fewer who are defined primarily by who they are and what they bring to the cases, rather than their sexual agency or how hot they look in a tank top. Which is not to say that Kim Rhodes, who plays Sheriff Jody Mills, doesn't look hot in a tank top, just that this is not why we love her.

We love Jody because she was first introduced as part of a case, but even from the start, Jody was shown to be a character of deep complexity and a lot of layers. When we first meet her, all the dead loved ones in Sioux Falls have gotten up out of their graves and gone back home to their families. The boys of course suspect that this is a terrible thing, not a nice one, and they're right, but when they try to contact the local law enforcement, they get no help. Even less than usual.

Why? Because Jody, the Sheriff, is one of those whose lost loved one has returned. In this case, her young son, who died a few years ago. She and her husband are overjoyed to have their boy back, and are totally willing to not look to closely at the reasons. That is, until he turns violent and deteriorates into being a regular zombie.

Her son attacks and kills her husband, forcing Jody to act. She doesn't want to. It's the last thing in the world she wants. But she does. She kills her zombie son and saves the town.

That's the first time we meet her. It won't be the last.

The second time we meet her, a season later, Jody and Bobby Singer (Jim Beaver), the boys' adoptive father, have formed a funny kind of friendship. She knows about the supernatural now, but there are only so many times she can turn a blind eye while Bobby buries dead monster bodies on his property. The locals are starting to think he's a serial killer (which, to be fair, he kind of is).

The third time, in season seven, Jody is in the hospital, recovering from an appendectomy, when she sees a Leviathan (the monster for that season) eating someone's liver. Obviously she calls Bobby to let him know. But this was the first time we saw Jody as someone not just on the sidelines, but in the middle of the case. She was aware, and awake, and ready to take action if she saw something evil going down.

Granted, this was also the first time we had to see her being a damsel in distress, but still. I'll take it. That she became a damsel for Bobby and not one of the boys was actually kind of nice. I mean, Bobby deserves a little love.

The fourth time, Jody and her cleaning skills help the gang find a way to get rid of the Leviathan once and for all: they're allergic to soap.

The fifth time, she calls Dean and Sam because some weirdo has been mummifying victims in her town. Then, when Dean gets transported back in time because of course he does, she takes care of Sam while they look for Dean. It's a weird moment, because you can't really remember the last time Sam spent time with a woman who wasn't an antagonist or a love interest. She's just...his friend? And Jody, meanwhile, seems to actually be enjoying taking care of Sam for a bit. It's nice. And you can tell she's lonely.

The sixth time, Jody goes on a date with Crowley (Mark Sheppard) unknowingly, and almost gets blood sacrificed because Crowley is pissed off at the boys. They save her, sure, but it's pretty horrible. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this episode. On the one hand, I like that the show actually takes the time to show Jody recovering and moving on with her life. Her husband died, Bobby died, but she's not given up on the idea of trying to find someone to love. Plus, if it weren't for the whole demon thing, Crowley would be a pretty great date.

On the other hand, I don't like that Jody is just a straight up damsel here. She has no control over what's happening to her and must be saved by the boys. On the other, other hand (so many hands), the very fact that the boys care so much about Jody as to sacrifice to save her means a lot. She's not a relative, not their mother figure, not a lover or a girlfriend or even a fellow hunter. Jody is just plain old their friend. And that's pretty awesome.

The seventh time, Jody brings them a case and helps them investigate it - she identifies herself as a hunter now, but she isn't leaving her little domain of Sioux Falls. Someone needs to keep these people safe. And the eighth time, she finds a runaway from a vampire clan and decides to sacrifice (a lot) in order to keep this girl safe. Heck, she even ends up bringing the girl home with her and giving her a place to stay.

In the nine seasons this show has been on the air, eight appearances don't really feel like a lot, but I really appreciate the amount of complexity and character development that the writers have managed to squeeze into these appearances.

Like, Jody Mills is the Sheriff. She's devoted to her job, and we're shown that she really is damn good at it. She loves and protects all the officers at the station, even going so far as trying to keep the supernatural stuff away from them. She doesn't think they need that in their lives, and she works hard to keep them all safe and out of harm's way. At the same time, she was a wife and mother. She loved her family, and she is devastated by their loss. Then she moves on.

She's not just some action chick with a big gun and a vendetta, either. Jody is nice. Really nice. She cares about people, but she can also kick ass. She'll open her home to a feral teenager, but she'll also try to fight a horrifying Biblical monster while doped up on meds from her surgery. In short, Jody Mills might just be the most realistic character ever shown on Supernatural. And that is worth celebrating.

The show operates in a heightened, hyper-melodramatic world where people are always dying, coming back to life, becoming demons, getting trapped in purgatory, all that. So to have a character like Jody, who is absolutely unmistakably human, whose life is as normal as a hunter's can be, coming in and out of the world makes all that other dramatic stuff all the more poignant. It also is a total credit to her character that while other people (like everyone else on the show) would be bowled over by all the tragedy in their lives, Jody just looked at it, had a cry, and moved on.

She got on with her life, because there was still stuff she needed to do.

Look, everyone on this show has a tragic backstory. Everyone. So it's not super notable that Jody's history is full of dead bodies and murdered sons. What is worth recognizing is that she didn't let it destroy her. She took that sadness and frustration and used it to become more caring and compassionate and good. Jody Mills is a good person. And I hope like hell the show keeps her that way. She's stable and strong and totally okay straddling the line between traditional feminine behavior and her socially masculine job. Jody's a rockstar in a humble, down-to-earth body.

Now, does all of this awesomeness excuse Supernatural for the absolute crap job they've done with pretty much every other female character to appear? No. Not even a little bit. The show is still sexist as hell, and that is a genuine problem that needs to be addressed.

One last thing. While I really do love that the show has never explicitly made Jody a love interest for one of the boys, I have to say that I have a soft spot in my heart for Jody/Sam. Not because there's a whole lot of basis for it, I mean, they're friends but that's pretty much it, but because I think that Sam and Jody fit really well together and would be a wonderful couple. Jody is aware of the supernatural, hunts and fights in her own way, but is emotionally stable enough not to let it overwhelm her. Sam craves normalcy, but would never be able to give up hunting completely.

I just...how cute an ending for the two of them would it be? Sheriff Jody Mills and her young, hot, mysterious husband Sam, who lectures on mythology and religious studies at the local community college and does a lot of traveling. The couple seem very much in love, and also go on lots of weekends away, which always gets the gossips going. They take excellent care of their foster daughter, Annie, and have become a touchstone for troubled youth in the area.

I want that so bad, you guys. So bad.

Cutie.

Source [x]

Hey everyone, guess what! I'm not dead! Nope, it was just yet another case of having an important deadline on an important paper. This is the summer of academic writing, I guess. So far I've written papers for a book on popular culture post-9.11 and another book on dystopian fiction. Fun times. And still coming up, I'll be working on papers for Divergent and Philosophy and Doctor Who and Philosophy: Regenerated. So, you know, exciting stuff!

I hope to be back to writing normal articles by tomorrow, but for now, check out this super awesome kickstarter for a really wonderful project: Miss Officer and Mr. Truffles, a heartwarming animated show about a Canadian Mountie and her bear sidekick. (It's based off of the cutest picture in the world, and has the full support of the people seen in said picture, though the real Mr. Truffles was busy being a bear and therefore could not comment.)

Anyway, it's a really cute project, and it's exactly the sort of kids' media we want, right? So support them!

And we'll be back with some much desired recaps tomorrow.

While I am happy to be back to blogging (yay!), it's totally bumming me out that the two episodes to be recapped this week are so overwhelmingly depressing. And sad. And miserable. Guh. Seriously. Convincing myself to recap this is like when you've left the bandaid on for too long and your leg hair is grown in and you know you have to rip it off because it's starting to smell but it's going to huuuuuuurt.

Anyway. Might as well get this over with.

The episode picks up in mucky wet sadness, aka that random town in the North where Sam left Gilly in a brothel. Gilly is not happy. Gilly does not like working in a brothel. The whores aren't very nice to her, because nice people are in scarce supply in Westeros. Probably because they keep getting murdered. Someone should look into that.

Gilly stops their argument when she hears an owl cooing. Except it's not an owl and Gilly knows it. It's the Wildlings, who after like three episodes of doing things off screen are finally back and sacking a town. They appear to be looking for something specific, or else they're just clumping together because it's a good fighting strategy (which it is). Ygritte goes into the whorehouse and kills a bunch of the whores. But not Gilly. She lets Gilly and her son, Sam, live. Probably because she recognizes something in Gilly's cold dead eyes - the North.

Sadly, though, no one has managed to report Gilly's not death to big Sam (Samwell Tarly) up at Castle Black. He mourns her. He loves her. Even thinks of her child as his own, and he's the one who put her in that brothel for safekeeping. He feels responsible.

The other Black Brothers are pissed because some of the men in the brothel were of the Night's Watch, but they aren't being allowed to retaliate. If they do, then it'll become increasingly clear how strained their resources are, and also it will slowly weaken their defenses. Nope, they have to stay there. But at least there's hope for Gilly. As the other men point out, she survived Crastor, living in the North, the Wildlings, climbing the Wall, and even facing up a White Walker for crying out loud. Gilly's fine.

Jon, with his usual cheer, points out that the Wildlings must be coming for them next. They're screwed. There are only about a hundred of them and Mance Rayder has an army of a hundred thousand. Balls.

Oh hey, it's Grey Worm taking a bath and totally creeping on Missandei, who is also taking a bath. She sees him creeping. It is a sad moment of deep and meaningful awkwardness. But generally speaking, I think we can all agree that, Dammit, Grey Worm, you should not be staring at naked ladies who are just trying to get their clothes clean. That is wrong and deeply disturbing. Stop it.

Missandei tells Daenerys, because they are besties, and Daenerys responds with all of the tact and reasonableness you would expect from the Warlord whose only sexual experiences are from being a child-bride who married into a tribe of casual nudists who believe in exhibitionist sex. So, you know, not super helpful. Anyway, Dany points out, the Unsullied don't care what ladies look like under their clothes, because they aren't interested.

Except Grey Worm really clearly was. Then there is a charming conversation about exactly how castrated Grey Worm and the other Unsullied actually are. Also Missandei might have a crush on Grey Worm back. Uh, I feel like this has potential to be the most cringe-inducing plotline yet on the show. From just plain old awkwards.

Grey Worm comes and apologizes to Missandei for his actions. He also says that she is "precious" to him. He even took extra lessons in Westron to learn how to say that, which is, I have to admit, super cute. Oh gosh. Now they're talking about Grey Worm's personal castration experience. Missandei says that she's sorry it happened to him (he doesn't actually remember it), but Grey Worm isn't. He's glad. Because if he was never cut, he never would have become Unsullied, and if he never became Unsullied, he never would have gotten to meet her.

I am in a glass cage of emotion. Grey Worm apologizes again, a lot, and then tries to walk out. Before he does, though, Missandei, who has so far been quiet about how she feels about Grey Worm creeping on her, says that she's glad he saw her. And then he leaves. Neither of them cracked a smile throughout this entire exchange. What's up with that? Smile already! Life isn't so bad! Neither of you are slaves any more, and you know Dany ships it and would totally let you get married and valiantly attempt to have babies.

On a more serious note, I do appreciate that the narrative here recognizes that what Grey Worm did (spying on a naked Missandei without her consent) was wrong and a violation of her trust. How Missandei handles it is really up to interpretation, but I like that at the very least, Grey Worm and Missandei both recognize that he crossed a line (even if Dany is confused why this is a line and what it's doing there). He apologizes, and she accepts. Most important though, he apologizes without prompting. Which is good. He should.

Up in the North (but not as North as Castle Black), Ramsay and Reek are out for a little jaunt with a giant freaking army. Ramsay needs Reek to pretend to be Theon Greyjoy for a while (please bear in mind that Reek actually is Theon Greyjoy) so that he can call the Greyjoy soldiers off and send them back to the Iron Islands. Ramsay needs the Greyjoys to think that the North is still theirs so that he can take it in the name of the Boltons.

What mostly confuses me is why anyone wants this land at all. Look at it. It's not very hospitable, is it? Dany's desert is nicer.

Theon!Reek rides through the battlefield up to the burned out husk of some city or another. The Greyjoys have taken it and taken it with abandon. The problem is that they're now cut off from the rest of the army (by Bolton's forces) and they are way far away from the sea. Since the Greyjoy army's strength is primarily naval, because, you know, islands, this is a problem. Theon gets into the keep and proceeds to give his spiel about how they should all surrender to the Boltons because the Boltons are super nice, you guys. Totally ignore how their sigil is a flayed man.

For some reason the Greyjoy commander is not overly fond of this idea. And he can see through Reek's Theon facade. Reek kind of freaks out. But then the commander (who spat on Reek, nice) gets murdered by his own men, and those men are definitely totally willing to surrender and get to live. They like living. Living is nice.

They don't get to live. Ramsay has them all super murdered, because he is a psychopath. Reek has feelings about this, but he is smart enough to avoid speaking them in front of Ramsay. The question remains, though, if this and the accompanying horrors will be enough to break Reek of his devotion to Ramsay. I hope so?

Petyr Baelish is facing the consequences of throwing his wife out of the Moon Door. I mean, the guys interrogating him don't know that he did that, but come on. Who in that room thinks that this guy didn't do it? Plus, they're all suspicious of him because he comes from new money and owns whorehouses and is well tied to the Lannister family. Which are all pretty decent reasons to be suspicious, actually. Since he is now the acting Lord of the Vale until Robin comes of age.

They don't really believe that Lysa committed suicide. Because obviously she didn't. Anyway, the advisors want to see Sansa (who is there as Petyr's "niece", remember). She's their only witness. And they insist on interrogating her in front of Petyr. She tells them that she's Sansa Stark, not Alleyne, and she tells the advisors that Petyr saved her and that she's super grateful and he's so kind, etc. Which isn't exactly true, but dang is Sansa getting good at this political stuff.

Sansa Stark is, as I have pointed out many times, shaping up to be the most politically interesting character in the show. She's awesome. Anyway, Sansa's testimony is like Oscar worthy and she convinces the council that Lysa was bad and evil and that Petyr totally saved her life and yay, isn't he the best person ever? She insists that she's the one who kissed Petyr, and that Lysa saw it and went nuts and killed herself. And Sansa sobs and the advisors rush to comfort her and Sansa makes some intense eye contact with Petyr to make it clear: he owes her.

The council apologizes profusely to Petyr for doubting him, and then they discuss plans for the future. Petyr points out that the Vale has stayed out of the recent political conflict, and when they ask who they should back (since Robb Stark, the only contender they liked, is dead), Petyr announces that Robin Arryn (aka, crazy whiney weird boy) should claim the throne. Uhuh. So what angle are you playing now, Petyr?

Over in Meereen, Ser Barriston (Dany's old white advisor - it's hard to keep them all straight) gets a message with a very suspicious seal on it: the King's Hand. Well that can't be good. He goes to see Jorah, who is looking at the map and generally brooding. Then he sticks the message, which was apparently a royal pardon signed by Robert Baratheon, in front of Jorah. Now they know. Jorah was spying on Dany.

Well, yes, but that was ages ago. Like, three whole seasons. And Barriston is all protective father "you'll never be alone with her again!" They're going to tell Daenerys. Right now.

Daenerys is not happy. Jorah rightly points out that the document has clearly reached them because Tywin Lannister wants to tear them apart, which is obviously true, but Dany does have a point. It's not forged, it's real, and it's dated from the year they met. That was not a good year for Daenerys. Methinks she does not like knowing that the king was spying on her in that year using her best friend to do it. Because he told them that she was pregnant, and yeah, he helped her avoid a bunch of assassination attempts, but he's the one who caused them, sooooo...

This is the big one. He's her best friend. He was her best friend. She doesn't want to execute him, and she doesn't want him to stay. She doesn't want him anywhere near her. Which is understandable. She sends him back to his "masters" in King's Landing to collect his pardon. And here's the thing. I totally get why she is doing this. She has always believed that Jorah was in her corner, and it turns out that when he first met her he was just straight up lying and spying and being terrible. Does that invalidate all of the good he's done since then?

I think it's interesting that they show Dany here getting rid of her chief and most trusted advisor. I mean, I know it's a pretty valid reaction, albeit a manipulated one, but let's all remember the speech Tywin gave like five episodes ago when he was talking to Tommen: the best ruler is not a strong one or a conqueror or a selfless one or even a just one. The best rulers are wise, and wisdom comes from listening to those who are wiser than you.

So, this is probably not a good move in the long run, is it? As a ruler, what Dany probably needs most is forgiveness. She needs to learn how to forgive people, because dang can she hold a grudge. But that's a hard thing for regular people to learn, not to mention warlords with armies and people and a raging hardon for justice.

Jorah leaves. It's sad.

Ramsay hands over the banner of whatever city that was to his father, Roose, to tell him that the battle is won. Roose is not super enthusiastic. But he does admit that Ramsay did a good job. The last of the Starks haven't been seen in ages (because Bran is beyond the Wall and Rickon is prone to disappearing until the plot needs him again and only the boys count for this, I guess), and the Ironborn are leaving the North in droves. It's theirs. They've won.

And in honor of that, Ramsay Snow has become Ramsay Bolton. He did such a good job that his dad had him legitimized. Since Roose Bolton is Warden of the North, that makes Ramsay Bolton his heir. Yay! Go psychopathic murder guy!

Man, this show totally gives you weird complexes about who to root for, doesn't it?

Back in the Eyrie, Sansa is mending her dress when Petyr comes to visit her. He wants to know why she helped him. And she's very clear. If they executed him, who knows what they would have done with her? Very practical. She knows what Petyr wants (her) and she knows enough to be totally sketched out by it.

Arya and the Hound approach the Eyrie and discuss the news that Joffrey is dead. On the one hand, it should make her happy because she really really hated Joffrey. On the other hand, she didn't get to kill him herself. Oh murder child. As the Hound points out, "Nothing makes you happy." Which is true.

They reach the gate, and the Hound announces himself and Arya. I mean, he has to be open about who Arya is, because he wants Lady Lysa to pay to ransom her. Except there's one tiny snag here: Lady Lysa is dead, remember? Crap. You know, Arya is very quickly running out of relatives who can pay to ransom her. Who's left? Jon Snow? The bastard brother at the Wall?

Arya reacts to this with the full breadth and width of her PTSD. She busts a gut laughing, because, well, isn't it just poetic? And then everyone there who isn't the Hound is terrified. As they should be.

Inside the building, Petyr tries to convince Robin that it's totally okay and he really can go outside. It's fine. The outdoors will not kill him. Figures that he would be agoraphobic after his mother spent literally his whole life indoctrinating him into thinking that the whole world wants to murder him. They don't really. He's not important enough.

But Petyr actually does have some okay advice: "Don't worry about your death. Worry about your life, as long as it lasts." Fair point. And then Sansa walks up, all decked out in a fancy dress and playing Petyr like a freaking fiddle. Man I love this chick.

We haven't had our dose of Tyrion's pity party so far today, so here's our moment. Tyrion is getting drunk in his cell with Jaime while he awaits his trial by combat. Oberyn Martell is fighting for Tyrion, Gregor Clegane (the Mountain) fighting for Cersei and the Crown. Hence this episode's title: The Mountain and the Viper. Oberyn is known as the Red Viper of Dorne.

Anyway, they have a conversation about their dim cousin who liked smashing beetles. It's a super long conversation and I'm sure there's some deep meaningful stuff behind it, but whatever. Mostly it felt like filler. The bells finally ring and it's time for the battle.

Tyrion comes up to where Oberyn is getting ready to fight and he is not impressed. I mean, it's both of their lives on the line, and Oberyn is kissing his girlfriend and drinking wine and wearing very light armor and no helmet! Not comforting at all. But Oberyn is confident. "Today is not the day I die."

For all his bravado, though, Oberyn is a little nervous. His girlfriend, Elia, much more so. They're sweet, and I like them, and I have a bad feeling about this. But it's probably fine. Right? I mean, Game of Thrones is well known for adhering to a romantic notion that the good guys win. Yeah. That could happen. It's not like this is the most relentlessly, ruthlessly realistic show ever when it comes to depictions of violence and political intrigue. Nope.

Oberyn's fighting tactic appears to be mostly yelling that the Mountain raped and murdered his sister (which he did), and then dodging the blows of a much bigger man. They're both skilled, but Oberyn is fighting out of rage, which is actually kind of a problem. It makes him a worse fighter. But for a minute it seems he's going to win. He gets the Mountain down, and the man is dying, but Oberyn won't let him die without confessing. He has to confess. And of course, that is Oberyn's downfall.

The Mountain sits up, punches the teeth out of Oberyn's head, and then crushes his head between his hands and it is super gross. Then the Mountain dies. Elia screams, and Tyrion watches in horror, as do we all.

Ew.

Tyrion's battle is lost, even though the other champion died too, and Tyrion is sentenced to death. Also Elia is going to need so much therapy after this.

End of episode.

So, it would be very easy to go back and talk about hubris and how it clearly was the theme of this episode - not just with Oberyn, but also with Daenerys and Jorah, and with the Hound who is probably dying of infection, and so on - but that seems simple and reductivist. Instead, let's all just take a minute to be really really glad that court cases are no longer determined by battles to the death.

Isn't that nice? I mean the court system in this country isn't perfect, and it has a lot (a LOT) of major issues that need reform, but it's not this bad. So, you know, yay!

And I'm sure next week will be a much more calm and peaceful and not depressing as all get out episode. Because we're nearing the end of the season. Which means...wait a minute. Crap.

At least next season we get to see all of Oberyn's daughters. So there is that.

So, like I said a few times, I spent the early part of this week (and several weeks before that) working on a paper on young adult dystopian fiction. It's a fascinating topic, and one of my favorites. In fact, I like it so much that I'm currently writing another paper on the subject, because I just can't help myself.

But while I've been doing research (which mostly consists of reading and re-reading every young adult dystopian novel I can get my hands on, whoo!), I've noticed something. Not really something particularly weird or bizarre, but more something universal and accepted, that I think we should take a second to recognize. So.

Hey, guys, did you ever notice that almost all young adult novels are written in first person?

I assume that you did. It's kind of noticeable. It's even more noticeable when you factor in how this is true of almost no other genre (except like detective novels, I think). Nope. Just young adult fiction. And of young adult fiction, it's not quite universal, but it is very common. And it is most common in stories with a female protagonist. I'm going to name a few, and stop me when you start to see a pattern:

The Hunger Games, Divergent, Matched, The Selection, The Fault In Our Stars*, The Only Alien on the Planet, Percy Jackson, Ella Enchanted, The Beka Cooper Series, Speak, The Lovely Bones, etc. I could go on, but you get the picture.

Now, admittedly, not all of those are female protagonist stories, but the majority are. And in a couple of those, the story eventually goes to a multiple first person narration system - but it does that later in the series, and starts out just in the head of our lead girl. Why is this? This is weirdly specific, right? Why is it so particularly common in this one genre to have the protagonist narrating the action?

Well, I'm not an expert (not yet, anyway) on the subject, but I would like to hazard a guess. An extremely well educated guess. My hunch is that the reason first person narrative is so popular in young adult fiction because it gives the readers a chance they get almost nowhere else: the opportunity to hear the story of what is happening to their teenage, female hero in her own words.

That seems really small, but it's actually really important and huge and massive and awesome. You see, almost all of those narratives that I listed actually wouldn't work if they weren't written in first person. They need to be in the heroine's own words for the simple reason that only by knowing precisely how she sees it can we fully understand the story. If they were written in third person, or even written in first person but from someone else's perspective, they would lose a huge amount of their power.

I'll be specific. You know the novel, Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson? That book messed me up. I read it in tenth grade, just the year I was starting to become aware of the world outside of myself and my little bubble of friends and family (also the year my English teacher, who assigned this to us, was fired for sleeping with a student, so there's that). Anyway, Speak is written in first person, and there's a very good reason for that. Simply, there is no other way this book would work.

The premise of the book is simple and devastating. After being raped at a party right before she starts her Freshman year of high school, Melinda loses her ability to speak. Not in a physical way, but simply because she realizes that no one will listen to anything she has to say. She called the cops after being raped, but all that happened was that the party got busted, and now she's a social pariah, and the boy who raped her is really popular and older and no one would believe her anyway.

It's not even all in Melinda's head, either. The book shows clearly that even though Melinda stops talking, no one notices for a very long time. And that's part of the tragedy of the story. The other part is that because she can't let the words out, they fester inside her head. They poison her.

It is vital that this story be written in first person, because it's crucial that we, the readers, know. We have to know what happened to Melinda. We have to know what's tearing her up inside. We need to be inside her head to do that, because that's where the information is. That's where the story is. The entire plot of the book is about Melinda's relationship with herself. And you don't understand that if you're not in her head.

There's more to the book than that - I'm simplifying wildly - but you get the idea. Melinda's journey has everything to do with getting the courage to tell your own story in your own words. It has to be in her own words to have the impact it does.

Or what about The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold? Also a dramatic and intense book (also one I read in tenth grade, which is interesting), this book is about Susie Salmon, a sweet thirteen year old who was murdered in 1973. It's written from her perspective, in first person, as Susie narrates the story of her life from heaven. She remembers her death, which was gruesome, and then watches her family fall apart and come back together, all with the quiet grace of someone who is finally at peace but watching things that are decidedly not peaceful.

This story also only works because it's in first person, but for a slightly different reason. If anyone other than Susie were narrating an account of Susie's death, it would feel weirdly intrusive, you know? It would feel manipulative. Voyeuristic. Opportunistic. If anyone other than Susie were to tell her story, it would feel like they were trying to add their own narrative to her pain. And that isn't what we need.

Instead, Susie herself tells us what happened, and how she felt during it, with the calm matter of factness that gives way to quiet devastation. It matters that Susie is the one telling us, because it's her story. And she deserves to be the one who determines how it is remembered.

That brings me all the way back around again to The Fault In Our Stars and Hazel Grace Lancaster. Again, this story wouldn't work if it weren't told from Hazel's distinct perspective in Hazel's distinct voice. Why? Because then it wouldn't be Hazel's story. And the fact that it is Hazel's words and Hazel's story is what makes all the difference.

Characters like Hazel and Melinda and Susie don't usually get to tell their own stories. If you think about it, people like them don't usually get to tell their own stories. We hear about them on the news, about the poor murdered little girl, about the traumatized rape victim, about the cancer kid, but we never hear from them. In some cases we just straight up can't, because they're dead, but in others, it seems like the media puts up huge walls to make sure that the story we hear is the story they've made, not the one the girl in question would tell.

So it matters.

It matters that for once we're hearing these girls (women) speak without any filter or flavor on top. Third person narration is supposed to be neutral, but it really isn't. It becomes a way for us as readers to add our own inflections. But first person doesn't let you do that. It forces you to listen. To reckon with. It forces you to sit the crap down and hear what these women are trying to say. In their own words.

Before I go, one more point. There's this article on Slate right now which is making me sad (a bummer because Slate is usually pretty awesome). The article is about how adults really shouldn't read young adult books because they're immature and we need to grow up. I think this is a terrible perspective. Not just because it's unnecessarily discriminatory towards a whole genre of books, but also for this simple reason: "grownup" books are rarely written in first person, and therefore are rarely stories told to us in the insistent and unavoidable voice of their protagonist. Grownup books are afraid to use first person, and that means that instead of amazing narratives of loss and grief given to us by the people whose voices are so little heard, we get more opportunities to impose our own beliefs and narratives on them.

That's crap. And honestly, I would argue that first person narrative is a massive reason why young adult books are so successful and necessary. I want that. I want stories about teenage girls written in their own words. Because their words matter.

*Incidentally, I am aware that this movie came out today, and I am super pumped to see it. You can read a quick view of how much I love Hazel here, and we'll be talking about this movie as well as young adult fiction in general on Sunday on Crossover Appeal. My review should be up on Monday.

I am not a particularly sentimental person. That shouldn't come as a shock to anyone. So, when I say that I didn't cry at the end of The Fault In Our Stars, I hope you understand that this doesn't mean the ending was unaffecting or unemotional or not good, it just means that it didn't make me, personally, cry. And that means crap.

It does, however, mean a little something that I did cry when I read the book. I cried a lot. Ugly crying, just like you're supposed to. And I was kind of miffed as I walked out of the theater, trying to figure out why, when I so clearly had a strong emotional reaction to the book, I didn't have a commensurate one for the movie. I think I know why.

You see, the movie of The Fault In Our Stars (which is obviously what we're discussing today), is faithful to the book. Very faithful. Actually, I would argue, possibly faithful to its detriment. No, it's not a bad movie. It's a very good one, actually. But I think it might have been a great movie if it hadn't been so blatantly terrified of offending its fanbase, so scared that it didn't even dare change one little line of dialogue.

It was faithful to such an extreme, that I actually didn't have any strong feelings while watching the movie, because nothing in the movie surprised me. At all. I already knew everything that was going to happen, but not just in the way that I am ready for any spoilers on Game of Thrones but still anticipate seeing them and am still freaked the hell out when they happen. No, it was more like this movie was just the filmed version of the book with literally no changes made, and while that's nice, and certainly gratifying for John Green, it left me in the audience feeling a little, I don't know, cheated?

Just kind of meh, I guess. Because I already knew the story, and that meant that there wasn't anything to discover. Nothing was added when they adapted this story to film, and in the lack of anything being added, I think something was actually lost.

For those of you who have somehow avoided this phenomenon, here's the gist: Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley) is a seventeen year old girl who just so happens to have Stage IV thyroid cancer and tumors in her lungs. She's terminal. She's been terminal for a while, and she very well could continue to live for some time yet, but we're never left with any idea that she might make a full recovery and lead a totally normal life. Nope. Hazel Grace is dying, and that's sad.

She's also a bit isolated - by her own choice - spending almost all of her time with her mother and father (Laura Dern and Sam Trammel), at least until one day when she runs into a cute boy at the support group meeting her mom makes her attend. That boy's name is Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort), and he is a total Manic Pixie Dream Boy - more on that later - at least at first. As she gets to know Augustus, though, Hazel starts to come out of her shell and live a little before she dies.

They do very teenager in love things, like pranks and reading the same books and texting and being cute. Eventually, Hazel gets Gus into this book she loves, and they start to correspond with the author, which leads to a trip overseas to meet the writer. They fall in love in Amsterdam in the city, and everything is cute and coming of age and very sweet, except for (arguably because of) the whole impending mortality due to cancer thing.

Then they come home and shit gets real because, you know, cancer, and everything is sad. I'm trying not really to write any spoilers in here, and I think I'm doing a good job, but I've got to explain some of the story for this to work.

Anyway, like I said, the movie is very faithful to the book, which is a good marketing decision. The book is a New York Times Bestseller, extremely critically acclaimed, and recently got mentioned in an episode of Orange Is The New Black, which is the height of stardom for a literary work. It has a lot of fans. And those fans are kind of terrifying in their intensity. (Incidentally, please don't eat me, rabid fans...)

Because the book is so beloved and so inspirational, and because the writer, John Green, has such a strong fandom of his own, I can see why the screenwriters and director and actors all wanted to steer as close to the source material as humanly possible. I get it. But the problem is, the source material is a book. This movie is a movie. And those are two very different mediums.

Look, I teach creative writing. I got my Master's degree in it (don't do that, it's a waste of money - fun, though). And one of the most helpful things they taught us was that the medium in which you are telling a story determines how the story will be told. To some extent, that is obvious. Television and film are really different because a movie has a defined beginning and end, whereas a television show has a defined beginning, but not so much with the end. Similarly, novels are different from comics, because a novel stops, and a comic can keep going or stop or reboot or whatever. They're different ways of telling stories.

The Fault In Our Stars was written to be a novel, and you can tell. How can you tell? Well, for starters, the main thrust of the storytelling is the emotional journey (facilitated by romance) of a teenage girl. That's not a criticism, for the record. It's great. It's just that the entire point of the book is the inward path of this character. We're inside her head and we're completely focused on her internal world. As a result, everything that actually happens, all the plot points, fade into the background compared to the emotional transformation that she is undergoing. So much of the book is about her inner monologue and her thoughts.

You just can't do that in a movie. It's a visual medium. Sure, you can have Hazel talking in a voiceover, which they do, but it's not the same. We live the entire book inside of Hazel's brain, and having a couple of lines of voiceover in the movie just isn't really covering it. And when we transfer to a visual medium, all of that background plot stuff actually gains more importance, because that's what we see. So it'd better be good.

Except it's just kind of meh. We've lost Hazel's internal world, but we haven't really gained a plot that will compensate for that. The novel meanders and goes on tangents and is quiet and slow, and that's fine, because it's a novel. But the movie does that too, and that's less fine, because this is a movie, and we need to actually visually represent the transformation that is happening. To some extent that can be done through acting, and the actors in this film certainly did an amazing job, but there is a level on which the transformation absolutely must be presented through plot. It's just how movies work.

That is why, for my money, the first half of the movie kind of sucks. Nothing happens except Hazel and Gus texting a lot, and it's cute and all, but I feel like it could have been cut down to about fifteen minutes and I would have felt the same about. The second half of the film, however, was amazing, because that's the part where stuff actually starts happening and we see the characters changed by the circumstances in their lives.

Again, though, this gets back to the whole thing where I'm not an overly sentimental or sweet person. I don't actually have an intense desire to watch two teenagers fall in love. At least not in this case. For me, the remarkable part of this story is not that they fall in love, it's how that love changes them and informs their decisions from that point on. The second half of the story is where the really compelling character development happens.

It's where Augustus goes from being a Manic Pixie Dream Boy to being a genuine human being in pain and fear and anger, and where Hazel goes from being a dreamy protagonist to being a person with convictions who takes decisive action. Plus, the second half has a lot more of Isaac (Nat Wolff) in it, and that's always a plus.

The larger point I'm making isn't that the movie is bad or anything. It's not. But it's also not as good as it could have been. Because they were so afraid of offending the fans that they created a very literal representation of the book, the filmmakers have created a movie that is less emotionally affecting than its source material. The book works because it's a book. The movie is basically just that same book, with pictures, and as a result, it's good, but it's not great.

Here's what I would have done. I wouldn't have made any major plot changes, because that would be a terrible idea, but I would have cut down on the beginning part. I would have made all of that a lot shorter, and then expanded the film post-Amsterdam. The hard, emotional, angry stuff would be the bulk of the movie, because, to me, that's what the story is actually about. Yeah, the teenagers fall in love and kiss and that's cute. But the story is really about what happens next. What happens when you fall in love and you're in love and everything is wonderful but you're still dying.

That's what the story really is, and it's why it's so deep and true and real. By focusing so much on the beginning of their love story, I honestly feel that the movie is doing exactly what it claims to hate.

They're sugarcoating it.

I'm not going to lie (I rarely do lie on here, because that would be silly - I don't have to tell you anything so lying would be just weird), the reason this recap is a week late is that I just plain didn't want to watch this episode. Not because I was worried it was going to suck or anything. It's Orphan Black. I'm never worried about that. It's just that last week's episode made me sad. It had Helena and Sarah finally getting a chance to be sisters, only for Sarah's obsession with discovering the truth and Helena's deepseated abandonment issues to come between them.

I don't want that to come between them! I want them to be happy and sisters and fight evil together!

Basically what I'm saying is that I was too emotionally fragile to keep watching. And I'm not exactly saying that I'm any better now, but, you know, I have to do it sometime (I do not actually have to do it, but I will anyway), and now is as good a time as any. So, with that ringing enthusiasm, what happens this episode?

The episode starts off with Alison and her new bff, Vic, doing arts and crafts at the rehab center. Vic, as you may recall, is Sarah's ex-boyfriend, a former drug dealer who is now allegedly reformed, and who happens to be spying on Alison and cozying up to her for the cop, Angie, who is looking into this whole weirdness with Sarah and her lookalikes. Just so we're all caught up.

Alison is confiding in Vic, something she's been longing to do with anyone, about how annoying Aynesley could be. She was so judgmental and snooty. It kind of served her right. What served her right, Vic asks? Oh just that Alison slept with her husband. And then kind of murdered her a little. Or at least allowed her to die brutally and did nothing to stop it.

Vic was...he was not expecting that. He's pretty deeply horrified and scared and uncomfortable right now and it is hilarious. But Alison assures him that he was right, it does feel better to say it out loud! Meanwhile, Vic is trying to figure out how he's going to get out of this mess alive now that it appears sweet soccer-mom Alison is actually a psychotic murderer. Also, she made him some gloves. You can tell they're for him because they're missing a pinky finger from that time drug lords cut off his pinky finger because Sarah stole his cocaine. Ah, memories.

Over at Duncan's terrifyingly gross hoarder mess, Sarah and Mrs. S are helping Duncan pack while they discuss what to do next. Sarah is sympathetic with Rachel, while Mrs. S is still a bit suspicious. Still, Sarah has a good point - Rachel clearly doesn't know what happened to her parents and that it was Leekie's fault, and she probably would care about that a great deal. She deserves to know.

Alison is cleaning up in the craft room when she sees that Vic forgot his lovingly crafted gloves. So she picks them up and goes to return them to him. Vic's on the phone, and Alison is polite, so she waits outside his door. And hears him talking to Angie - Detective Deangelis - about how he has a big scoop to give her about Alison Hendrix. Alison is not pleased. Alison is sick of being spied on. Alison made special gloves for this jerk. Alison is more than a little crazy. Vic is going down.

Out in the camper of uncomfortable father-daughter bonding and crime, Cal is hacking into the DYAD Institute's online system, and Kira is having a nightmare. Just as a sidenote, did anyone else notice that Kira is kind of psychic? I think Kira's psychic. I don't think it's a thing yet, but I think it's going to be.

Just saying.

Anyway, Cal gets up to comfort Kira, and when he sits back down at his computer, he notices something weird. His webcam light is on. And then it blinks off. Well, balls. (For those of you who aren't all paranoid and computer-y, it is possible to remote access someone's webcam, and yes, that makes it very easy to spy on them all the time. Comforting, right?) We can only assume that this was the DYAD Group making sure no one steals their info. I hope.

Sarah's at Duncan's still looking for that one box he refuses to leave without, when she finds a dead mouse, and then accidentally discovers the box Duncan was looking for. It's full of junk, of course. Cal calls and informs Sarah that he's sure his computer has been hacked, and that they have his location. He's going to have to throw them off the trail. He'll call her with a meetup spot.

Mrs. S wants to know who Sarah has watching Kira, and Sarah is sure as hell not telling her. They argue. It's the same argument as usual.

Delphine prepares Cosima for a medical procedure. They're inserting something (stem cells?) into Cosima's uterus (I think) in order to grow it or something. It's science. I don't really science. Whatever it is, it's related to Cosima's cure, and Delphine is hopeful. Cosima not so much.

Felix wakes up in the middle of the night to a phone call from Alison (aka, adoptive sister number two, after Sarah). Alison's snuck over to use the office phone in her rehab, and she's telling him that Vic is there, reporting to Angie, and that she really doesn't want to go to jail. "I don't have the temperament. In the shower, if they touch me, I will cut them." Which, to be fair, sounds totally like something that would happen.

Actually, I think Alison would do alarmingly well in prison. She's terrifying, ruthless, and likes rules. Alison would be awesome at prison. Like she'd get made fun of once, and then when that person has to walk around with a perfectly decorative pattern of bruises on their face, everyone else would just know to steer clear of the crazy bitch in Cell Block A. Just saying.

Out in one of Toronto's many (presumably) deserted boatyards, Sarah and Cal make a clandestine rendezvous. Cal apologizes for DYAD finding him, and then they banter and are cute. Sarah might make bad choices with men, but at least she makes them with cute men!

Back at the DYAD Institute, Paul is reporting in. Sarah and Helena were separated, etc. He followed Sarah, but then here Paul starts lying and says that Sarah didn't find anything. Because she did. She found Duncan, and Paul knows it, so I think we can take this as confirmation that Paul decided to accept Mrs. S' offer of a new friendship. Dr. Leekie is disappointed. Also, he's in the process of developing artificial amniotic fluid for his artificial womb creating hobby. Which is...weird.

Actually, it's telling. Dr. Leekie is one of the chief players at the DYAD Institute, a group that has made its mark by infringing on the bodily autonomy and reproductive rights of women. It seems only fitting then that his hobby involves finding a way to remove women from the reproductive process altogether. They figured out how to clone egg cells, well now they don't even need a woman to incubate them in.

Blegh.

Leekie wants to know what Rachel knows, and Paul assures him he came to Leekie first. But Leekie says to tell Rachel the truth too, especially since nothing turned up about Rachel's dad. Then Paul leaves and Leekie makes a really suspicious phone call, saying he needs to meet up with "Marion Bolton". Hmmm... Is this Rachel's mother, who is also not dead? Just a guess.

Mrs. S and Duncan are still in the process of leaving his terrifying animal hoarder house. Mrs. S reminds him to grab the box of mementos that he made her and Sarah scavenge for, and then he grabs it, knocks it upside down, and it looks like Mrs. S is about to slap the man silly when he grabs a bunch of ancient floppy disks. When she asks what they are, he says, "Everything." So, you know, probably clone stuff.

Sarah wakes up in the camper at the boatyard, and she wakes Kira up too. Kira gets to wake up to her mommy cuddling her for once. And we all said, awwwwwwww in unison. And then we realize that this means something horrific is probably coming, isn't it?

Scott and Delphine are arguing loudly (stupidly) in the hall about not telling Cosima the truth of where the stem cells came from. Cosima obviously walks up and overhears them because obviously, and while she doesn't get the whole context, she gets enough to figure it out. She confronts Delphine - she got Kira's stem cells?

Yeah, but Delphine is pretty sure Leekie set them up. Cosima is furious, not just that they used Kira, but also that Delphine lied about it. Delphine insists she only knew when the tests started working. And Cosima rages that this is her decision, her body, and that Delphine didn't have the right. Which is true.

Anyway, it seems that Kira lost a tooth in the accident (a while ago), and Leekie got it from the hospital because he is a creepy dude. But also because it's a finite source, they don't have enough to cure Cosima. And Cosima absolutely refuses to let them bring Kira in, even if it will save her. She kicks Delphine out of the lab and it's super sad.

"This is my lab. My body. I'm the science! Get out!"

Once more the show emphasizes individual bodily autonomy: Cosima's body is her decision, and Delphine has no right to make medical and ethical choices on her behalf, as much as Delphine is doing it because she loves Cosima. I love this show. It doesn't pull any punches.

Back at rehab, Alison goes up to Vic and very politely asks to speak to him for a second. Vic is understandably wary. She takes him back to her room, where Felix is waiting to castigate him. Felix yells at him, and Vic rationalizes and insists that he has to meet Angie and give her the info. And then Felix plays his trump card - Sarah wouldn't like this. Which means that Sarah's nearby. And Vic is obsessed with Sarah. Well played, Felix, well played.

Dr. Leekie gets his meeting with Marion Bolton, whoever that is. He tells her that Ethan Duncan is alive and that Sarah tracked him down. They wonder how Rachel is going to react to this news (which is a good question). Leekie thinks that Rachel has gotten too emotional and involved in what's going on. Bolton reminds Leekie that if that's the case, they'll just have to fix that, won't they?

And then Bolton leaves, but not before pointing out that Leekie is doing a terrible job at containing Sarah, and subtly hinting that he might get the axe (probably a very literal one) if something isn't done about that.

I like her.

Sarah and Cal continue to be cute while buying hot dogs from a food truck at the boatyard. Has no one noticed the camper parked over there? I don't know of many boatyards that would let a camper just chill there, especially one that isn't really parked particularly well, but whatever. Cal tells Sarah that he's been thinking about Iceland. As in, he has contacts there, could get them new papers and identities, and they could run away and be safe. Obviously this will never happen, which is good, but it's a really cute offer. I don't want the show to do that, but I do want to read fanfic about this happening, if you know what I mean.

Cal is annoyed by Sarah's vague warnings that they can't leave and how there are "other people involved". And then Cal guesses her big secret. She's a...pisces! Hahaha, cue a big sigh of relief from Sarah, and an eyeroll from the audience. Then Sarah gets a call from Felix (and Alison). Alison demands that Sarah come right now to "clean up your doo-doo", because Alison is hilariously incapable of swearing. If Sarah meets with Vic, then he might not tell Angie what Alison did.

Did we mention that it's Family Day at the rehab clinic? Because it is. Fitting, huh?

Felix lets Sarah in through the back door to the rehab center, while Alison gets ready for Donnie to bring the kids to see her and Vic primps himself for Sarah's arrival. Vic is weird. Vic and Sarah sit across from each other at Alison's craft table, and Vic pulls out a list of things he needs to atone for, because that's one of the steps of recovery. She tries to forgive him and move on, but he wants Sarah to apologize to him. Or he's going to tell on Alison.

Donnie and the kids arrive, and Alison greets the children with relish, because she really does love them. She doesn't greet Donnie at all, except to be passive aggressive in his general direction. Ah, Alison. Never change. I mean, if you were a person, I would hate being around you because you are horrible, but as a character on this show and pretty much the only funny person here, please never change.

Meanwhile, back in the room, Sarah and Vic are having a very loud, complex argument. Sarah apologizes to Vic, finally, and then he says that he wants her back. Clearly that's not going to happen, and then there's more arguing, before Vic finally stops, to say his piece, and promptly passes out, face first onto Alison's craft table. He falls in a heap with a broken nose and covered in glitter and feathers.

Apparently Felix spiked his tea. Go Felix.

Um, so now Mrs. S is at the DYAD Institute talking to Dr. Leekie, and I am confused and terrified. Apparently, though, she's not really in cahoots with them, because he knows of her but doesn't know her. He's surprised she's there. Not sure why this is comforting, but it is. Anyway, Mrs. S is there because she has all of the Duncan's research available to her. All of their missing science, on disk, and she wants to know: What is it worth to Dr. Leekie?

But Leekie's not an idiot. He'd need to authenticate the information, with Duncan himself. Mrs. S offers Leekie a deal: She'll give him Duncan, and in return, they'll leave Kira alone, once and for all, and she and S will escape off into the wind. Because Sarah insists on fending for herself, but Kira? She deserves better.

Sarah and Felix are trying to maneuver Vic's insensate body onto the bed when Mrs. S calls. Apparently that was all an act. She was gathering information. Stuff like whether or not Rachel knows her father is alive, or that Leekie wants all the science to himself, etc. I guess this was part of their plan - divide and conquer. Mrs. S is going to take down DYAD, either through Leekie or Rachel.

And then there's a knock on the door, and Alison's rehab lady is at the door wanting to know why "Alison" isn't there. I mean, she volunteered for this, after all! And Sarah puts a hand on her head to hide her not-bangs, and wonders what the hell she's gotten herself into. She grabs a headband and marches off to play Alison just as Alison goes back into her room and finds Felix wrestling with the still unconscious Vic. But there's another problem. Alison's family is going to be in her room after the assembly, which means that they have to find somewhere else to put Vic's body while he sleeps off the massive dose Felix gave him.

Oh great, now Angie's showing up for her meeting with Vic, but he's not there, so she decides to go inside the rehab center. Because this isn't comical enough already.

Actually, to be honest (again, when am I ever not?), I really do enjoy plots like this, with doubles and mistaken identities and secrets and borderline sitcom plotlines. It's why I love Twelfth Night and Much Ado About Nothing so much. Anyway.

Sarah (as Alison) goes into the main assembly because she has to, and Donnie and the kids are of course sitting way up front, waving at her, and then she grabs a seat at the back, where she finds the other Sarah - the one from community theater - is also there and this just keeps getting better. Guess who's giving some opening remarks!

They're not the most Alison-y remarks, but they suffice. And then Sarah has to cover for Alison during the roleplay demonstration. With Donnie. Acting out the issues in their marriage, as their partner. So, now Sarah has to pretend to be Alison pretending to be Donnie. While Alison and Felix sneak Vic out of her room in the background. Fortunately for all of us, Sarah's slouching and confusing do a very good resemblance of a Donnie impression, and everyone is convinced. Even Donnie.

Sarah brings up the whole monitor thing, and the roleplay goes pretty quickly downhill, mostly because Sarah has no idea what she's supposed to be doing, and Donnie is incompetent. Also, Sarah keeps falling into her British accent. So she says she has to "tinkle."

Alison, Felix, and Vic's body are coming through the hall when they see Angie coming inside, and then Vic's phone rings. Angie hears it ringing. She follows the ring down a hallway, then get's a text that he's outside. Which he isn't. But she goes outside anyway.

Back at the room, Alison yells at Sarah for standing in for her, and then Donnie comes in, looking for his wife. He was not expecting this. At all. Alison tells him that he can run off and tell Dr. Leekie if he wants, because Sarah Manning is there! But it's very clear from Donnie's expression that he has no idea what the frickety frick is going on.

Angie comes back inside, because no Vic outside, and she is piiiiiiissed. She sees a crowd surrounding the reception desk, and sees that it's Vic, covered in glitter and feathers, waking up on the floor behind the desk. So, there goes that source, huh?

Way on the other side of town and the emotional spectrum, Mrs. S opens her front door to admit Paul and Rachel. She makes it very clear that if anyone moves against her house, or if Rachel disobeys a single house rule, S will kill Duncan. Rachel is amenable to these terms, because holy crap does she want to see her father again. It's touching.

Finally, finally, Donnie and Alison have the conversation they've been needing to have. About what Donnie was doing, spying on Alison, who he thought he was reporting to (he thought it was a sociology study), and why he did it. And Alison tears him a new one for destroying their marriage. Which is kind of fair. I mean, he did spy on his wife and give the information to someone unknown, and also drove her to substance abuse. So...not great, Donnie. Not great.

Back at DYAD, Rachel is waiting and lurking for Dr. Leekie. She is not pleased with him. Not pleased at all. Leekie explains why he did what he did (he did it for the science), and tells Rachel that she needs to just accept it and not fight. But Rachel tells him that it's already over, and then she calls up the mysterious Marion Bolton. Marion agrees with Rachel that it's time for Leekie to go. He screwed it all up with Sarah Manning, and it's time for some new leadership at DYAD - some Rachel shaped leadership it seems.

She tells Leekie to go. "Don't get in your car, don't go home, and you might survive." He goes. She knows she shouldn't spare him, but as she puts it, "Nurture prevails." He did raise her, after all. He goes out of the building, crying, and doesn't seem to notice that a car is following him.

Sarah returns to the shipyard, but before she can go inside and see Cal and Kira, she gets a call from Cosima. It's not a call Cosima is happy to make, but we can kind of guess what it's going to be about. Cosima hates herself for it, but she really does need more genetic material from Kira in order to fix whatever is wrong with the clones. Because if she doesn't they're all going to die. (Except probably Sarah and Helena, because it is becoming increasingly probable that they are the originals.)

Cal is not enthused about the idea of taking their daughter in to the people that Sarah's been so determinedly running from, and that makes sense. But Sarah loves Cosima. They're family. And she can't let her sister die. Kira, being the probably psychic child she is, overhears them yelling and proceeds to pull her own tooth out to give to Sarah for Auntie Cosima. Nice kid.

It's decided then. Sarah and Kira are going in, because they have to save Cosima. And Cal has clearly developed fatherly feelings for Kira, but he lets them go.

Leekie wanders the streets of Toronto, trying to hail a cab and failing, when the car that's been following him finally makes itself known and pulls over. It's Donnie. He's pissed. And when Leekie laughs and tries to brush him off, Donnie pulls a gun on him.

Donnie tells Leekie in no uncertain terms how angry he is, how violated he feels, that they ruined his marriage, and Leekie is all, "I don't care even a little bit." Then Donnie declares that he won't participate anymore, and he slams his hands on the steering wheel for emphasis.

Hands that are holding a gun. That fires. Into Leekie's head. Is it wrong that I busted out laughing? Now he and Alison are even!

End of episode.

Well, I for one am now very excited to see what happens next. Not that I wasn't before. You know what I mean.

I feel like this episode was about identity: Who are you? I mean, not only was there the deep and meaningful thing of Rachel encountering her father for the first time in twenty years and then having to reconsider how Dr. Leekie shaped and manipulated her childhood, but Cosima was in the same boat. She had to figure out if she really is the kind of person who asks a child for help in order to save herself.

And Sarah and Alison dealt with those questions of identity in a really obvious and comical way, but also in very personal ways as well. Alison finally told the truth about her marriage and even though it hurt, I think she really really needed that. Sarah had the chance at a new and different life, one that was safe and free, and she had to think about whether or not that's really her. It isn't, and she knows that, but it was nice to dream, wasn't it?

Treasure the cute, guys. It's probably downhill from here.

It's surprising that it's taken me this long to write about Mulan, because when it comes down to it, this is probably my favorite children's movie. Or, well, that might be overstating it a bit (there's still Balto and Babe and the movies I genuinely watched most as a child, Endless Summer and Chariots of Fire). It's definitely one of my favorites, though, and of the movies from the Disney renaissance, this one is tops.

I love it for a lot of reasons, not all of which are academic. First off, it's just a fun cool adventure story with a kickass female lead and a lot of great songs. Tell me you can listen to "Make a Man Out of You" without singing along at the top of your lungs, and I'll call you a liar while starting to sing the song myself because it is exactly that catchy.

I mean, there are definitely weird things in this movie (like why a Chinese guardian spirit is voiced by Eddie Murphy), but I love those weird things and everything about this whole film. It's feminist without feeling forced, and it actually has really good messages for kids in there. Plus, hey, it's always nice to watch a Disney movie that isn't super duper white-washed.

Those are the real reasons I love this movie, but I also appreciate it on an intellectual level. It's not just a good movie, it also has some really interesting things to say about a very prickly subject: gender performativity. Awww yes, that's where we're going today. Strap in, it's gonna be great.

So the term gender performativity sounds really complex, but it basically means "how you perform your gender". And, just so we're totally clear, while sex is defined by what's between your legs, gender refers to the social construct and interpretation of that. Sex is pretty neutral, it just kind of is. Gender, on the other hand, because it's socially constructed, can be both good and bad. And because it isn't really innate, like sex is, it's something that we "perform" when we go about our lives. Because it's determined by our actions. Good? Good.

What makes Mulan such a really interesting movie (to me) is that the whole film is about performing gender, and the ways that this is both bad and good. At the start of the movie, Mulan (voiced by Ming-Na Wen, who is awesome) struggles with properly performing female gender. It's not that Mulan isn't a woman - we're pretty clear on that - it's that she is having trouble adhering to the gender requirements placed on her.

And, I mean, it's pretty funny, isn't it? Watching Mulan get all dressed up, clearly not having it, and then be squeezed into some dress all so that some angry old lady can tell her who she's allowed to marry? It feels weird and silly and as a tomboy I totally felt some connection with this awkward girl. Mulan is a "failure" because she's not good at performing her gender, at least not insofar as her society is concerned.

That's what the whole song "Reflections" is about. Mulan isn't seen as fit to be a girl, but she knows that she is. She knows that while she doesn't fit her gender requirements, she's still a girl. She's just not a girl as everyone else defines it.

Which brings us to the crucial decision of the movie. While, yes, Mulan decides to go to war to save her father's life, and it's very noble and everything, there is also an element of personal choice there. It's Mulan saying that if she can't bring her family honor as a woman, and society says that she can't, then she'll try to bring them honor as a man. So she has rejected the feminine, and figures she'll try this way. This masculine way.

But, as we quickly see, Mulan isn't really any better at performing masculinity than she is at performing femininity. She's pretty terrible, actually, and everyone knows it. She's not a convincing man - it's not that anyone doubts that she is a man, but they don't think she's very masculine and they don't like her. Here's where we come to the crucial bit, though. Mulan is performing masculinity in order to fit in, but so is everyone else.

And that's where the real point this movie is trying to make starts to sink in. It's not that Mulan is just some weirdo who is incapable of fitting into gender stereotypes, it's that we all are. Gender stereotypes have elements of truth in them, sure, but it is impossible to completely conform to them. To some extent or another, we are all performing our genders when we go about our daily lives. And it seems to me (as it seems to this movie) that the more insecure we are, the more we either reject or cling to our gender performance.

What I mean is, well, take the men in the army with Mulan, right? All the men there, except Shang and that sniveling bureaucrat guy, are in some way insecure with themselves and their existence as men. They don't feel as manly as they think they should feel.

That's what the whole point of "Make a Man Out of You" is - these men aren't really "men" yet, because they don't conform to traditional understandings of masculinity. One of them loves cooking, the other one is kind of a wuss and not very good at fighting, and there's that one guy who is super tough and masculine, but he's arguably the most insecure because he's short and angry and not very happy with himself.

So all of these guys are basically doing the same thing Mulan is doing: playing at being someone stronger and manlier and more masculine than they really are. It's only when Mulan kind of stops and thinks about it, and then uses her weaknesses as strengths (the climbing the pole scene), that she begins to accept herself, and that the other guys begin to see that their various interpretations of masculinity aren't bad, they're just different.

However. While the movie has, at this point, made inroads into the idea that masculinity is about personal understanding, rather than mass performance, it's still got a ways to go. While they're marching off to battle, the men sing about "A Girl Worth Fighting For", which underscores both their gender ideals (very pretty, doesn't talk much, good cook), and how much Mulan doesn't fit those ideals. it also points out how insecure they still are - they need to assert their masculinity by talking about the opposite. Femininity.

Anyway, Mulan is eventually found out and kicked out of the army (though I believe in the legend this is based on she was never found out, just as most female soldiers were never discovered because it is surprisingly easy to hide). Because Mulan is a badass and amazing, she picks herself up and rides into the capital to tell Shang and the others that the Huns aren't dead and are definitely about to murder the emperor.

In any other movie I might not find this noteworthy, but I think it's worth adding that when Mulan does this, when she finally acts in her own identity, not as a girly girl or a manly man, but as a strong effing woman, she does so in an outfit that is a mix of her previous two. It's definitely a more feminine style of dress, but it doesn't constrict her movement. It's practical, but also pretty. Just saying - this is a movie all about the ways we perform gender, and I think that the clothes she's wearing are probably relevant.

But what I really love is the climax of this movie. The Huns arrive, they kidnap the emperor, and only Mulan and her little band of soldiers can save him. How do they save him? By dressing up as women and sneaking into the emperor's chambers.

Here, what we see is a form of feminine performativity. And part of that is supposed to be funny, because men dressing up as women is usually seen to be funny (let's be real, the joke about the fruit they were using to simulate breasts is amazing), but it's also really important. Mulan had to pretend to be a man in order to fight, and now these men are pretending to be women in order to save China. That matters. What it says is what is ultimately the message of the movie: forget trying to fit into someone else's gender stereotype, you just do you.

Which is why it's so incredibly satisfying at the end of the movie when, having saved the emperor, Mulan looks out at the sea of people, sees them all bowing to her, and decides, you know what? It's time to go home.

I love that moment because it really hits home what this movie is about. Mulan has finally gotten what she wanted (honor for her family), and she's even achieved a level of personal satisfaction and stability. But what she really wants in the world is to go home, because, well, not everyone does desire glory and fame. All she wanted was to figure out who she was and how she could honor her family. And she did.

Plus, the ending of the movie shows that Mulan doesn't have to forego romance just because she's not a stereotypical girly girl - Shang's appearance and his epic compliment of, "You forgot your helmet," are both classics. This is a movie where the girl gets the guy because she was busy doing other stuff and he fell in love with how focused and passionate and kickass she is. She didn't have to bat her eyelashes and wait for him to love her, she got on her horse, punched a Hun, and he swooned into her arms.

Now, I want to take a step back now and talk about the larger impact of this movie. On the one hand, as I think I've made perfectly clear on this blog, I'm not actually much of a tomboy myself. I literally wear dresses every day (because pants are terrible), and I pretty much only ever play sports for the communal aspects of being on a team. I am girly, is what I'm saying.

But I don't think everyone should be as girly as I am. That would make for a very dull world. I also don't think that there is some kind of magic number of girliness that a woman must achieve in order to qualify as a "real girl". That's crap. I can appreciate Mulan and its message because even though I don't have that problem, I like living in a world where gender performativity isn't a huge thing. Where we're not all constantly worrying if we're doing a good enough job being men and women.

And for kids especially, I think this message matters. The Munchkin and his sister are good kids, but the sister already has this idea in her head that girly things are bad and not as cool as boy things. I'm trying to explain to her that that's not true, but I'm also trying not to change her. Because it's fine if she happens to like tomboyish things. That's nice. Just as long as it's not because she thinks girly things are inherently worse.

It matters, is what I'm saying. It always, always, always matters. I am grateful for Mulan because it shaped me a lot as a kid. I like living in a world where it's fine to be girly and it's fine to not. Makes life more interesting, is all I'm saying.

A girl who's got a brain and always speaks her mind? Get real, Ping.

This is it, guys. The buildup to the no doubt devastating finale. Very exciting. But more than that, I guess I’m still curious as to whether or not a blisteringly good ending to the season can make up for the raging awfulness that was the beginning. I don’t know if you remember (I haven’t reminded you in a couple of weeks, so…), but the first few episodes of the season featured a level of sexualized violence that made me uncomfortable. More than that. It made me super pissed off. Because it was unnecessary and gross and offensive and terrible writing.

But in the past couple of episodes, we’ve gotten past that a little bit. There’s been less of it, at least. You know, just a couple of characters getting sexually assaulted per episode. We’re down in the quotas. So I guess what I’m saying is that I still like Game of Thrones, and I would desperately like for this season to end without the degradation of any more characters. No rape, please. Please stop it with the rape.

Also, I have to say, this is the episode where the premise of the show, what we've been waiting for freaking seasons to see, with the fantasy elements facing up against some brutally honest storytelling, finally comes to fruition. It's been a while coming, and I am very excited for this.

Okay, we can start now.

The episode begins with Jon and Sam at the top of the Wall, as per their punishment for speaking out against Ser Thorne at the last meeting of the Night’s Watch. It’s been interesting how while last season had Jon Snow on an adventure quest, this season has seen him battling bureaucracy and incompetent leadership. I’m not saying it’s bad, it’s just a shift.

Sam and Jon are trying to make the time pass as they stand watch, and Sam figures that the best subject to bring up right now is Ygritte. Or, more importantly, what it was like to have sex with Ygritte. I mean, Sam needs something to think about while he’s up there, and he’s never actually had sex himself, so… While ordinarily I would find a conversation like this between two characters to be callous and annoying, here it’s a bit sweet. And besides, what Sam really wants to know is what it feels like to be loved.

Plus, while he and Gilly absolutely love each other, Gilly had just gone through labor and wasn’t really in the sexing mood. But what makes me love Sam here is that what he actually says is first a defense of how Gilly totally wasn’t down for it physically, but also, “She never offered.” Sam didn’t bring the subject up because he knew that Gilly, a victim of sexual abuse, had to be the one to initiate a sexual relationship. Which she didn’t. And he’s okay with that. Which is why we love Sam.

Jon, however, is still flagellating himself over his “breaking his vows” by having sex with Ygritte. He feels all dirty inside. But he shouldn’t because as Sam points out, they never actually vowed not to have sex. Just not to get married or have kids. Jon is a literalist and dislikes this. He also (rightly) points out that Ser Thorne doesn’t like it either. But he relents and agrees to describe sex to Sam. Badly and haltingly and it’s pretty hilarious how bad he is at talking about it. “I’m not a poet,” he tells Sam.

“No, you’re really not.”

Also there’s this super creepy owl watching them that…we transition away and see is controlled by a Warg in the Wildling camp. Oh joy. In the camp, the lead Wildling dude is telling a beautiful story about his one night with “Sheila”. Who is a bear. As Ygritte so succinctly puts it, “I know you never f*ed a bear. You know you never f*ed a bear. Right now, I don’t want to think about the bear you never f*ed.” Which is definitely going down as my all time favorite line from this show. It’s just so good.

But the point appears to be that soldiers on both sides of the skirmish are girding their loins for battle by thinking about homely comforts and sex and stuff. I guess that’s what’s going on. I don’t know. I’ve never been a man or tried to storm a medieval keep.

Ygritte gets a really interesting speech here about how the men from the South came there and put up a big wall and started hunting the Wildlings down - made them hunted in their own lands - and it’s interesting to think of the parallels with the plight of indigenous peoples all over the world. Of course, this would be more moving if all the Wildlings weren’t lilly white, but still.

One of the other Wildlings decides to be a dick about Ygritte’s fighting ability. Seriously? This was a plot point last season, about how the Wildlings fight all together, both men and women, and now we’re pulling this sexist crap? Ugh. Oh wait - he’s not insulting her fighting ability, he’s implying that she’s emotionally compromised because she loves Jon and he’ll be there, and she’s too much of a girl to be able to properly kill him. Nope, she’ll just get all gooey and then have sex with him.

I feel like these guys were written for the express purpose of making you hate the Wildlings. Which, again, bad writing. I can have complex feelings about this battle. I want to have complex feelings about this battle. Because the Wildlings are right, this is their land and the men from the South stole it from them. On the other hand, the Night’s Watch has a duty to make sure innocent people don’t die. It’s interesting. Stop trying to dumb it down for me.

Oh, and big mean Wildling guy implies he’s going to rape Ygritte. So we’re at seven minutes into the episode, and we have our first rape threat. Skippy. Meanwhile, a cloaked figure up on the hill holding a bundle sees the Wildlings all standing around their campfire and promptly goes the other way. So that wold be Gilly, then, right?

Maester Aemon is a sneaky old dude as he pops up to reprimand Sam for wasting candles and reading in the middle of the night. Please bear in mind that Aemon is blind and also the most effective character on the show. I mean, Aemon gets stuff done, even though he’s got to be pushing eighty. He also appreciates the irony of being a blind man in charge of a library. Anyway, Sam is reading up on the Wildlings, and Aemon is totally aware that Sam is in love with Gilly. He knows that because he was once in love.

“You can imagine all manner of horrors befalling that poor girl and her child. Is it so difficult to imagine that an old person was once, more or less, like you?” Smackdown. Win goes to Maester Aemon who is awesome. Also, he points out that of course he has history with women. He was Aemon Targaryen before he became Maester Aemon of the Night’s Watch. He was first in line for the throne. As a sidenote, his abdication is what led to the rise of Aerys the Mad King, which led to the revolt and Robert’s rule, and that led to our current mess. So, you know, dangit Aemon!

Actually though, I appreciate this plot point for the way that it highlights the difficulty of decisions like that. Aemon really had no way to reasonably predict what would happen as a result of his actions. There is no way he could have known. And I like the ambiguity. It would be easy to blame Aemon for every horrible thing that has befallen Westeros in the last seventy years, but it would be wrong. History is much more complex than that.

Sam asks about this girl that Aemon loved, and Aemon has some wisdom to drop on his head, like usual. He could tell Sam about her - in a very true way, she’s more real to him than even Sam is - but there’s no real point in doing so now. Life is for the living, and as Aemon points out: “Nothing makes the past as sweet a place to visit than the prospect of imminent death.” I think Ygritte’s line about the bear is still my favorite, but this one just made a close second. Aemon sends Sam to bed.

He exits the building only to see that there’s a commotion at the gate and it’s…Gilly! Pip doesn’t want to let her in, but, you know, his love and respect for Sam outweigh his fear of Ser Thorne, which is yet another reason why Thorne is a terrible leader. He opens the gate. And then Sam and Gilly rush to each other and have this super tender and adorable reunion that doesn’t involve touching and Sam apologizes for leaving Gilly there, and Gilly begs not to be sent away again. Sam swears that from now on, wherever she goes, he goes too.

That is a very literal definition of breaking your vows, Sam. I mean, I’m okay with it, but it’s still breaking your vows. Just so you know. I’m sure you do. I think you just married that girl is all.

Handily, before we all have time to deal with this concept, and with Pip standing gobsmacked in the background, the horn sounds to say that the Wildlings are coming. The Warg agrees. He tells them that it’s time. The horn has sounded to say that the Wildlings are approaching from the North, and the small band will now approach from the South as well.

Awwwwww, yes. Battle time.

I’d describe what happens next in detail, but it’s mostly just medieval battle prep, and even I’m not that obsessive as to write out every line of that. Suffice it to say, they get ready, it’s very cool, and it’s telling that Jon Snow has his hands down in there, rolling barrels and getting dirty with the rest of the men while the commanders stand and watch and shout commands. Another point for Jon Snow as the eventual Lord Commander, eh?

Jon comes up to report to Ser Thorne. Tells him that they’ve loaded the last of the oil. They’re as ready as they will be. Thorne is looking out at the army, and he tells Jon that “You can say it if you like.” Presumably the ‘I told you so’ that every fan is screaming at the scene by now. But Jon’s classier than that. Again, reason why everyone loves Jon, except for people like Thorne who are threatened by him.

They haven’t sealed the tunnel. They’re screwed. And Thorne recognizes that, but he’s not going to admit defeat. He points out that leadership means making decisions and having everyone and their brother second guess you, while you try not to second guess yourself. So they’re going to make it, and Jon can go on hating Thorne, and Thorne can go on wishing Jon were dead. This is apparently the ideal situation we can hope for. Thanks, Thorne. Good speech.

Sam and Gilly race through the storehouses to find a place for Gilly to hide with the baby. But Gilly isn’t about to be left. She (validly, but unkindly) points out that Sam won’t be much use up there on the Wall, but he will be needed down there, with her. Keeping her safe. Again, who doesn’t love a conflict with valid points on both sides? But Sam believes in his duty. He might not care about the marriage vow, clearly, but he does care about the other ones. He needs to defend the Night’s Watch. Because “that’s what men do.”

And then he kisses Gilly, and she makes him promise not to die, and it’s all very romantic. He promises, and then he locks her in.

More frantic battle prep. Pip is freaking the crap out. His hands are shaking and he doesn’t know what to do. Fortunately, Sam is there, and here is where he really shows his value as a Brother. He comforts Pip while building him up. Reminds him that they’re in the safest place they could be - a keep full of weapons! Anyway, it’s not like Sam isn’t afraid, he’s just dealing.

Pip has a valid question, though, one that hasn’t been addressed all season: If Sam was so afraid, which he was, how did he manage to kill a White Walker? Well, probably because he didn’t know he was going to be able to kill it, but he had to do something. He was so scared that he lost sense of all of who he was, and there was nothing left. And when there’s nothing left, there’s no reason to be afraid.

Damn. That’s a good speech. I need to remember that and then use it on someone who doesn’t watch the show. Memo to self.

He’s afraid now, because he’s “not nothing anymore.” Which is both sweet, and deeply sad.

Ygritte does a little recon on Castle Black from the Southern side. There’s almost no one there, because everyone is above getting ready to deal with the giant Wildling army. So they’re set to attack. So, they attack. The important bit here, though, is Ygritte’s face as the realization dawns on her that for all her talk of killing Jon Snow, now is when she’ll actually have to do it. It’s a lot easier to hate from afar, isn’t it?

More fight fight and battle battle and some really epic aerial shots that made me really engaged and excited and it’s hard to recap when you’re freaking stoked.

The Wildling army has giants, and a freaking woolly mammoth and I really want them to win, okay? I’m just saying, this would end the petty fights over who gets the crown of Westeros so efficiently.

Up on the Wall, Thorne demands the archers nock and draw their bows (flaming arrows, ftw), and one of the Brothers (forget his name) accidentally knocks a giant barrel of oil over onto the ground way below. Not a great start, is it? Even worse, the horn sounds to warn the men on the Wall that the Wildling scouts are also attacking. Nice. Thorne is having a great day. Fight fight, battle battle. Ygritte does not get hit. She actually fires back very efficiently.

Thorne sees how the battle is going below, and it’s like his brain just goes to mush. He hands over command of the Wall and decides to go down there. Does he realize that by so doing, he is basically handing the Night’s Watch to Jon on a platter? I kind of hope he does. It would make him a more interesting character. Anyway, the Watch fires on the giant army, and the army just steps out of range, because obviously. This is not going well.

Apparently their defense on the Southern gate is to just sort of drop rocks on people.

Thorne reaches the bottom of the Wall and gives a stirring speech. I guess he’s okay at them, but mostly I like that while he’s speechifying, men are breaking in. Because there is no time for glorious speeches in a freaking battle, you twat. Man I love this show. You know, when it’s not needlessly sexualizing its female characters. Wildling dude breaks into the gatehouse, and Sam and Pip run the crap away. Stay alive, Sam and Pip! Stay alive!

The army starts to move on the Wall to the North. The dude that Thorne left in charge up there goes promptly mental, so one of the men gently comes up to him and says that he’s needed below. And he toddles off, leaving Jon Snow, like we all knew was going to happen all season, in command on the Wall. Rock on. Everyone looks to him, and then Jon Snow does what he does best. He is angry at things.

He also has some bitchin’ plans. He lowers two archers on pulleys so that they’re parallel with the men climbing the wall and can pick them off. But then a giant with a bow screws things up. Still, giant archers? Thank you show for finally delivering on your fantasy premise.

More fight fighting and battle battling. It’s pretty brutal and great. Sorry, should I be reveling in this as much as I am? It’s just that for once there’s a really compelling and well shot battle on this show, and there is no overt or even implicit rape happening. That’s nice, isn’t it? And also deeply sad, because obvious reasons.

The Wildlings get into the living quarters of Castle Black. Also the commander dude from the Wall sneaks away, and makes his way into the room where Gilly is hiding. Balls. Sam and Pip make themselves useful, and then Ygritte shoots Pip in the throat and he dies horribly. Sam has to comfort Pip while he dies. It’s very sad, and touching and mostly sad.

The defenders on the Wall do some more defending, but it’s hard to fight against a giant and a mammoth trying to tear down your gate. Which they are. Very efficiently. So, you know, maybe Jon should get someone to kill the mammoth now? That would probably be a good idea.

Jon knows that the outer gate won’t hold, but the inner gate absolutely has to hold, and so he sends his friend, that one guy whose name I really wish in this moment I remembered, to take five men and hold that gate. It’s a suicide mission. But the gate has to hold. Guh. What I love most here is that his friend doesn’t even question it. He accepts Jon’s leadership, because Jon has proven his quality. So good.

On the ground, Thorne is doing a good job fighting and protecting the gate. He and the main Wildling have an epic fight. It’s very impressive and stuff. Sorry, I’m not very good at describing action. Then Thorne is mortally wounded and pulled inside the Keep.

Sam, meanwhile, is freaking the crap out because he’s covered with blood, and Pip is dead. But he’s still Sam. So he grabs a crossbow and makes his way into the battle. He kills the Warg, because he has to, and if there’s one thing you can say about Sam, it’s that when push comes to shove, he will absolutely do what he has to. He runs into the men going to defend the gate, and discovers that Jon is in command on the Wall. He has to get to the top. The boy who runs the elevator is scared crapless, but Sam encourages him, because that is his superpower.

Mammoth and giant continue to tear down gate. It is bad. Fortunately, some barrels of flaming oil help, and an arrow fells one of the giants. Then there’s an explosion up above, and men die on the Wall, and the other giant manages to start lifting the outer gate.

Sam reaches the top, and tells Jon what’s happened below. Jon decides to turn command over to Ed (one of the other Brothers we know reasonably but not very well), and goes down to fight. Ed gets the archers ready to fire. It’s all very fatalistic. The suicide squad reaches the inner gate. There is tension. I am tense.

The giant comes inside the tunnel, and the suicide squad starts to freak the crap out. But they recite the Night’s Watch pledge, and then they fight.

Jon and Sam have a moment in the elevator going down, watching the battle below. Jon tells Sam that he doesn’t want him out there in the battle, and Sam gets all offended, like, ‘Hey, you can’t protect me forever! I am a grown man!’ But that’s not what Jon was getting at. He needs Sam to get “him” because “he” will be more useful in this fight. One long panning shot later, and we see that “he” is Ghost, Jon’s direwolf. That’s a valid point, then. Direwolf definitely useful here.

Jon fights the sexist jerk that Ygritte was arguing with earlier. She sees and has really conflicted feelings while she fires arrows at them. Jon appears to be losing his fight, but he’s holding his own. He wins the fight in a particularly icky way, but he’s really freaking banged up now. And Ygritte is standing at point blank range with an arrow aimed at his chest. Jon sort of smiles at her, like he’s accepted his fate and then -

Ygritte gasps as she gets an arrow to the chest from behind. She’s been shot, by the kid who runs the elevator. Slow music, and Jon runs to her side, because he loves her etc. She tells him they should have never left that cave. And then she gets in one last, “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” before she dies all beautifully and stuff. It’s unrealistic, but I’ll let it pass.

The men climbing the Wall are making progress, so it’s time to “drop the scythe”. It’s a giant bladed pendulum. Handy. It looks like they have successfully defended the Wall. For tonight. But they’re still outnumbered a thousand to one. The chief Wildling is still alive, and surrounded and crazy. Jon has him put in chains for questioning later. The Wildling yells that he should have thrown Jon from the top of the Wall, and Jon agrees.

Sam finally comes back for Gilly, and she threatens him with a pork shank before she sees who it is. She’s so relieved to see him. And he’s a bit confused to see the guy who’s supposed to be in command cowering behind a door down there. Especially since Gilly is the one who attacked him with a makeshift weapon.

It’s finally (almost) morning. They held them off for one night. Sam is optimistic, but Jon is devastated. This was just a test of their defenses. Mance still has an army of a hundred thousand out there, and the Watch is running on fumes. They can hold out for another few nights, but then what? So Jon needs a new plan.

He’s going to talk to Mance.

And then probably kill him. Why? Because if he kills Mance, then there’s no one left to unite the Wildlings, and the Wildlings will fall back into their tribes and their disarray - no one to command them, and no strategy, and they’ll fail. They’ll scatter. If Mance Rayder goes down, then the Wall is saved. Clever.

Sam insists that Jon think this through. If he goes, they will kill him, even if he succeeds and kills Mance. They’ll kill him slowly and terribly and it will be awful. But Jon has only one thing to say to that: “You’re right. It’s a bad plan. What’s your plan?”

Jon and Sam walk through the tunnel, where the six defenders, the suicide squad, lie dead next to the body of the giant. They held the gate.

Sam walks with Jon to the end of the tunnel. He tells Sam to raise the outer gate, and then lower it again as soon as he’s out. Then Jon does something stupid: he takes off his sword, because he promised Lord Commander Mormont that he’d never lose it again. He gives it to Sam, “In case I don’t come back.” Which is just depressing to hear from your best friend, I would imagine.

The gate opens. Sam tells Jon to please come back when he’s done. And then Jon steps out into the wreckage and the new day.

End of episode.

Well, that was different than usual. This episode didn’t even pretend to care about the other storylines, which is good, because to move away from this narrative would have been a terrible plan. As it is, this worked out great. Man, what a good episode.

I don’t have any other coherent thoughts. They’re all up above. But I do think that this is Game of Thrones at its best, really. This is a narrative with no clear right or wrong side, people fighting each other to survive, and the audience asked to question what we consider a worthwhile cause. It’s brutal and sad and gross, and totally true (except for that bit where Ygritte died really prettily). It’s not nice. It’s honest. And that is where the strength of this show lies.

Do you know how hard it is to find images from an episode set
entirely at night when your blog background is black? DO YOU?!

A few weeks ago we had a nice little "What If?" moment about the ladies in the Marvel universe getting center stage for a bit. Well, today I want to keep that momentum going with another never gonna happen moment: What if Teen Wolf were actually about the grownups? You know, Melissa McCall and Sheriff John Stilinski and Chris Argent and Peter Hale and Derek Hale and Ms. Morrell and Ms. Martin and Deputy Parrish and Dr. Deaton and Finstock and the Yukimuras and all those other interesting folks?

What would that show be like?

To my mind, it would be better. That's pretty much my bias talking, but here is how I personally think the show would go down. First off, it would be way better than what we've currently got. That's not to say that I don't enjoy the show as it is right now, because I definitely do. I enjoy the heckity heck out of it. It's just that I feel like we could do better. Scott is an awesome little puppy dog of amazing, and Stiles is cute, and Lydia is a fierce goddess, but I feel like the show honest to good ness would work better and be more compelling if the adults were the main characters. Here's why.

First of all, wouldn't it be nice to see the people with actual expertise dealing with the problems for once?

Teen Wolf, like a lot of supernatural shows about teenagers, has this weird problem where the people most qualified to deal with a situation are never the ones who actually deal with it. Nope. The teenagers, who are terrible and dysfunctional and you know, terrible, always end up being the ones fixing the problem. That seems stupid to me.

Instead, why not have Chris Argent, the most talented and resourceful hunter in town team up with the local Sheriff and his trusty deputy to hunt down the evil thing? They can get fixed up if they get hurt by that nice nurse who knows everything and can heal everyone. If they run into something supernatural, that's okay, because they have backup in the form of two former alpha werewolves and two magicky people, as well as a kitsune and whatever Kira's dad is.

Do you get my point? It would be a crapton more efficient, and it honestly makes so much more sense if the adults are the ones taking care of things. They're in the correct position to do so - with the resources, power, and skills - and they don't have homework or lacrosse practice to muddle things up.

Second, because they are adults, the stakes are automatically higher.

Hey, you know what makes drama dramatic? Having high stakes. And sure, the stakes are usually pretty high on Teen Wolf - either we fight this monster or we and all of our friends and parents die - but I guarantee it that they would be higher if it were the parents doing the fighting. Because a parent seeing a threat to a child is more emotionally affecting for the audience than seeing a child have their parents threatened. It's basic common sense. While children (teenagers) are protective of their parents, that's nothing compared to how protective parents are of their children.

Also, the interpersonal dynamics between the adults are honestly more interesting. It's why last season it was so engaging to see Derek and Chris hanging out and working together - they have more baggage between the two of them than all of the kids combined and doubled. Then we factor in the Sheriff and Melissa's kind of sort of relationship with Peter and Deaton's mutual frustration and mistrust, and add a dash of the Yukimuras and the Hales having territory disputes, and you've got an engaging season, don't you?

That's without even bringing Ms. Morrell and Ms. Martin and Deputy Parrish into the mix. Also Finstock, because he makes everything better. What I'm saying is, the adults have complex relationships on a level that the kids really can't reach. They haven't been alive long enough. There's something to be said for having a history with someone, and it definitely makes for some good TV.

Third, the villains are mostly adults, and it would level the playing field.

Okay, so I get that television shows generally thrive by constructing narratives about the underdog going up against the mighty villain and prevailing despite heavy losses and the overwhelming odds against them, hurrah! But I think that sometimes shows take it a little bit too far. In this case, I feel like it's kind of weird. On Teen Wolf, the kids are so incredibly outclassed by their villains that it actually feels almost mean. And besides, like I said above, there's something much more affecting about a story where the characters have history. You just don't get that with teenagers.

Take the whole Kate Argent plotline from the first season. While it was cool and interesting to see it from Scott's perspective, Scott didn't have a freaking clue what was going on or who any of these people were. And that worked. The narrative was largely about Scott and his confusion and trying to figure out what's going on.

However. How much more emotional and intense and amazing would that arc have been if instead of seeing it through Scott's eyes, we saw it through Derek's? And Chris's? And Kate's?

If the plot were to focus more on the adults, specifically in that season, then it would have been much more intense, and I have to say good. Because Derek doesn't just have history with Kate, he's got deep horrible sexual history doused in betrayal sauce. And Chris? I can only assume that Derek either knew Chris at the time or knew of him, which makes it more complicated. When you factor in how Peter ends up being the rogue alpha who killed Laura and all those other people, well, you've made for a really compelling season of television.

What if Derek spends the season thinking that the alpha, whoever he is, will kill Derek too because Derek is the one who gave up family secrets to a hunter? What if we actually saw more of Kate tormenting Derek? What if we saw more of Chris and Victoria's mixed feelings about Kate and her methods? What if the Sheriff were allowed to really piece the plot together? What if Melissa had to heal Derek after he was tortured? What if, what if, what if.

And the same things goes for the other storylines too. The most interesting part of the entire Alpha Pack season was when we found out that Jennifer Blake used to be Kali's emissary, and that they were super close. Excuse me, but I wanted way more of that and way less of the twins oafing around the high school.

I wanted more of the Yukimura's fighting the nogitsune, instead of just egging their daughter on. I want the adults to have problems and deal with them. I want Ms. Martin to go on one date with Peter, then find out what he did to her daughter, and then take vicious violent terrifying revenge on him the way only a Martin woman can. And then I want it to backfire on her, and so on. The adults have history and lives and stakes and so much else that is so interesting, and I want it all. But most of all, I want...

Fourth, Derek should really be the main character.

Again, I love Scott. I adore him, really. He's a sweetie and Tyler Posey is an angel and I just want to squish them both so tight. I think he's the perfect protagonist for the show as it is right now. But we're not talking about the show as it is, we're talking about the version of the show I would find preferable. And in that version it really just makes sense for Derek to be the main character.

Derek is the one everything happens either to or because of. The whole first season revolves around him, and the other seasons only happen because of him. It's funny too, because Derek arguably has the least character development of anyone on the show, but he is hands down the most central character. Ergo, it only makes sense for him to be the main character.

From a storytelling standpoint, though, it makes sense too. Derek is the ultimate tragic hero. He blames himself for the death of his family, he has horrifying traumatic sexual experiences in his past, and he's struggling to rebuild his life.

I want to see that. I want to see Derek learning how to live, and more than that, learning how to be an adult.

Like, I want to see Derek going to the grocery store and buying ingredients he doesn't know how to cook and then calling Melissa in a panic because he doesn't know what to do and then calming down and cooking, all while they discuss the latest supernatural threat and how to stop it. I want to see Derek get a job, maybe at the Sheriff's station, or at the hospital (he can take pain away, after all), or maybe somewhere else. At the library. As a mechanic. Something.

I want to see Derek and Chris learning to be peers, then learning to be friends. I want to see the Sheriff taking Derek in as kind of a secondary son, and Stiles taking the opportunity to prank the crap out of Derek because that's what little brothers do. I want to see Scott worried at first because Derek is so close with his mom, but then accepting it and deciding to be a friend to Derek, because Derek so desperately needs a friend.

I want to see Derek grow up, face his demons, and move on.

I want to see the Yukimura's hosting everyone for Thanksgiving and serving non-Western food and telling stories about the Beacon Hills of the past. I want to see them all fighting monsters together. I want to see Deaton and Ms. Morrell developed beyond their sage stereotypes and into full fledged characters. I want to know Ms. Martin's first name. I want all of these things, for all the reasons above.

When it comes down to it, I'm not going to stop watching Teen Wolf or anything because they aren't making these changes. I don't expect them to make these changes. But I do think that the show I've described here is, well, better. It makes more sense, would be more dramatic, and would have more weight. And I think that it would be good.

What more do you need in a TV show?

I don't know about you, but I need more Deputy Beautiful Eyes.

So, last episode ended kind of abruptly, and also with my realization that I am a potentially not very nice person because I thought that it was hilarious. No, seriously. All of this buildup. All of this, “Dr. Leekie is going to be the ultimate villain of this season!” and then a sharp “Nope!” and some brains splattered all over the windshield.

Classic.

Anyway, this episode starts with a big car chase and some criminals that we presumably don’t actually know. The criminals drive their crime van into a garage and proceed to book it away. One of them has a bandana over his face. Suspicious. The other one has been shot, and they bicker over what just happened. It was an ambush. Were they set up? The guys shooting at them weren’t cops…

I have the sudden fear that two low-level criminals just tried to rob the DYAD Institute. That would be both terrible and absolutely hilarious. Because, you know, DYAD is terrifying.

The shot one is getting worse fast, and the bandana one takes off his bandana to reveal that he is…Tatiana Maslany. Because of course he is. I’m starting to suspect various furniture items of being Tatiana Maslany. Also the shot criminal tells the clone one that they were set up months ago. “That cop” called him. She wanted clone dude for some reason. The cop? Beth Childs. And the shot criminal has a message for her. Well, this should be entertaining and not at all super confusing.

At Mrs. S’ house, Duncan has settled in nicely, and it seems that Mrs. S is enjoying actually having access to her wardrobe again. Sarah is also there, and they discuss how they’re going to bring Kira in. Mrs. S reminds them all that Benjamin has four men on watch, and if Rachel tries anything, like tries to take Duncan or tries to hurt Sarah or Mrs. S, then Mrs. S will shoot Duncan in the head.

As Duncan says, “I like to think she’s bluffing.” But, as we all know, she’s definitely not bluffing. I love Mrs. S. S is confident that everything is fine with Rachel, and that they should wait and see what’s going to happen with DYAD. Also, her men come in with Felix and Kira in tow, because apparently her security is scary good, and also Felix is bad at hiding. Sarah wanted them left out of it until they were sure everything was safe, but that doesn’t appear to be an option.

Still, Kira seems more than happy to be reunited with her grandmother. And Felix is happy to see his mum too. In the background, though, Duncan is creepy interested in Kira.

Over at the DYAD Institute, it seems that Cosima and Delphine haven’t exactly made up yet, because Cosima has revoked Delphine’s access to the lab. But she let Scott in. Hmmph. Delphine has a package from Sarah for her, and Cosima takes it before shutting the door in her face. As Scott aptly puts it, “Wow. Girl fights are mean.”

Scott opens the package: it’s Kira’s babytooth. He’s a little surprised to find that the donor’s a child. While they extract the stem cells, Scott points out that the more effective treatment would be the kid’s bone marrow. Cosima says that, yes, they are aware. But her tone of voice makes it clear that this is not an option. Because Kira.

Over at Chez Hendrix, it seems that Alison has finally gotten to come home to her family, and is ready to put all of the craziness behind her. But Donny’s not really in a place to do that. You know, because he shot a dude yesterday. Or at some point in the recent past. She’s just home and pissed to find that Donny is still in bed, the kids haven’t been taken to school, and there’s cleaning product all over the laundry room. What is going on?!

Donny is not having a good day. Alison is all, Let’s put this behind us and I want to start over and she’s kissing his shoulder but…Donny’s got a hangover and he’s lying in a bed surrounded by empty mini-bottles. The reunion is not going well. I mean, Alison literally just got back from rehab.

Oh this family. I love this family so much. Their kids show up in the doorway just as Alison is pouring booze on Donny’s face while he lies in bed naked, and she’s pulling back to start hitting him with a pillow. Those kids are going to need so much therapy. So much. Alison hustles them out the door to get dressed for school, and then tonight they’re going to stay at Grandma’s house. Donny gets the day to “think.”

In some creepy abandoned park type place, Art is waiting for someone. I assume. Mostly I’m just happy to see Art, because he’s fabulous and I missed him. But he walks up to a car, that he was presumably waiting for, and it’s Tony. Art is…surprised. And Tony wants to know where Beth is. Problems.

The strangest family reunion continues back at Mrs. S’ house. Duncan is still creepily interested in Kira, but Felix is taking off. He’s done with the weird stares and awkward silences for a bit. Also, apparently Art needs his help, and Sarah needs to stay with Kira. Felix leaves, and Duncan mentions that Rachel was about Kira’s age when she was “taken”.

Delphine comes upstairs at DYAD to see Leekie, presumably, but gets Rachel instead. Leekie was fired, after all (they don’t know yet that he’s dead). Inside, Rachel is leaving a message for Paul: he hasn’t contacted her, and she’s annoyed/worried. Rachel takes a fair amount of relish in telling Delphine that Dr. Leekie “suffered a fatal heart attack on one of the DYAD jets yesterday. But, they don’t know that he’s dead? Huh. I guess they’re going with dead to us equals dead to the world too. Creepy.

Anyway, Delphine reports to Rachel now, and Rachel wants to know everything Delphine has on the origins of the experiment, especially now that they know Leekie hid findings. Rachel for the first time seems a little vulnerable as she mentions that they now have a line to get to Sarah, and it might be the breakthrough they need to save Cosima. And all the clones.

Felix goes back to his apartment, and finds Art and cone dude there. Felix has some complex feelings about this.

Clone dude’s name is Tony, and he is royally pissed off that Beth is not here yet. He has sussed out that she’s not coming. Also, he doesn’t like that Art and Felix won’t tell him what’s up. Felix convinces him to stay, and he and Art rush out into the hall to talk. Turns out Art had Beth’s old cell phone, and was shocked when Tony called. Even more shocked to see that he’s a clone. Neither of them know what’s going on.

Or well, they can kind of figure it out. Tony must be trans. Art relays that Tony will only talk to Beth, but that his friend was just killed by “suits” and that he thinks someone is hunting him. Not good. They don’t know whether or not Tony knows he’s a clone, and Art didn’t want to tell him anything because he’s “sketchy as hell.” Felix decides to go with it.

They go back in to find that Tony is stealing things, and also that he doesn’t recognize the clone riddle.* Art breaks the news: Beth’s dead. Tony figures that his business is finished then. Beth called him and said that they might be related. Then she said that she was a cop and he hung up. But Sammy (the shot guy, I guess) had a message for her, and now he’s dead too.

Tony doesn’t want to tell them the message, and Felix and Art don’t trust Tony enough to tell him what they know either. Art’s going to go corroborate Tony’s story, and in the meantime, Tony and Felix will get to hang. And glare at each other, I assume.

Finally, finally, finally, Sarah and Kira are getting some solid mother-daughter time in. They made a mobile, and Sarah points out that they need Auntie Alison’s help. Also the mobile is full of angels, which reminds them both of Helena. Kira wants to know if Auntie Helena is okay, and Sarah says that yes, she is, but she had to be left to her own devices. But she did ask about Kira all the time! Kira likes that.

Then there’s a knock at the door downstairs, and Kira very sweetly asks, “Should we hide?” It’s pretty heartbreaking, not gonna lie. Sarah goes down to check, and Kira peeps down the stairs. It’s Delphine. Sarah is immediately worried about Cosima, as she should be, but that’s not why Delphine is there. She’s there on Rachel’s request. Leekie is dead.

Of course no one is surprised by that, nor do they trust the party line that he “had a heart attack.” But that’s not the point. They need Duncan. His synthetic sequences are the key to a gene therapy cure that would help the clones but wouldn’t require any of Kira’s stem cells. And, of course, it would require Duncan to come into DYAD. Which both makes perfect sense, and ensures that Sarah immediately refuses the offer.

Mrs. S, however, reminds Sarah that they didn’t bring Duncan all this way not to use him. She tells Delphine to tell Rachel that they will consider her proposal.

Cosima goes into her lab late at night to find that Scott has invited over some of his buddies for a game night while minds the incubators. Cosima goes to do her science while they play. Actually, she’s not doing science, she’s looking up Delphine’s work records. Actually, she’s not doing that anymore, because that’s boring. Instead, she’s schooling the guys on how to play their strategy game. And then she’s playing the strategy game. And then she’s absolutely kicking all of their asses at the strategy game.

Cosima for the win!

While she’s dominating them, though, her cough comes back, and it’s worse than before. Delphine’s there too. They need to talk. Delphine tells her that Leekie is dead and that Rachel has taken his place. As she puts it, Cosima is out of time. Delphine thinks they killed Leekie. Kira’s tooth is a bandaid, but Duncan holds the key to an actual cure.

Cosima responds to all of this in a completely appropriate way: She decides to kick out the boys and their game, and get Delphine epically high. It’s an approach.

Back in Felix’s spiraling nightmare, he’s still trapped in his apartment with Tony, who is like the mirror version of his sister, and Felix has so many feelings about this. Felix also notices, while Tony is going on about how terrible his parents are, that there’s a photo of Sarah out in the open. Balls!

Felix asks how long Tony and Sammy knew each other (was Sammy his monitor?), but Tony’s not telling. They’re still stuck at an impasse while Tony goes through Felix’s apartment and rifles through all of his things. Tony wants to borrow some of Felix’s clothes, and Felix calls him out on trying to push boundaries. Tony’s trying to rile him up, and Felix refuses to be riled.

I mean, he has lots of practice not being riled by things. He was a teenager in the same house with Mrs. S and Sarah. He must be very good at not bring riled.

Alison comes downstairs in the middle of the night to find Donny rummaging around. He announces that he’s leaving and she utterly refuses to accept that. Alison has fought too hard and too long for her marriage to give up now. Nope. Nothing doing. Donny thinks that she’s better off without him, and Alison calls him out on it. Then he cries like a lot, and he hugs her, and admits that he hates her mother.

“Everybody hates my mother,” she says, matter of factly.

And then Donny says that he’s made a lot of mistakes. Specifically, one big one, that we can now assume he’s about to tell Alison all about. Well, good. I think. I mean, at least now they’re evenly matched in the accidental murder thing. Hurray!

Serious clone talks continue elsewhere. Duncan, Sarah, and Mrs. S are discussing what to do. If Duncan gives them the files, then he’s handing them the “keys to the kingdom, synthetically speaking.” They’ll have everything, all his research. Which is good and bad. He could cure Cosima, which is good. But DYAD is pretty generally bad. Sarah agrees to have him taken to DYAD. We’ll see what happens now.

Art texts Felix, and Felix makes up an excuse to Tony about going to get some booze. “I can’t stand you sober,” is his explanation. And while I know he’s doing this to go out and meet Art, I think he’s also not kidding about the booze. Tony is super obnoxious, after all.

Actually, as a sidenote, I really like that this show isn’t afraid to give us a character like Tony, who is offensive and annoying and pretty unlikable overall. They’re not afraid that we won’t watch if everyone isn’t super nice and simplistic all the time. The fact that Tony is a trans character, but completely free of having to be a sterling silver representation of that or any other community is also nice. Tony is Tony, and Tony is a dick. It’s kind of refreshing.

Felix and Art confer in the hallway while Tony searches Felix’s apartment. Presumably he’s looking for whatever it was that Felix was sketchily hiding earlier on. (The photo of him and Sarah, that is.) Art’s found out that Tony and Sammy are career criminals, and that Beth and Sammy had definitely met. And whoever shot Sammy is undoubtedly going to come after Tony next.

They’ll tell Tony he’s a clone eventually, but first Felix is going to get him drunk and see if he’ll spill the message already. Also it looks like Tony might have found Felix’s sister portraits.

Felix comes back in to find Tony on the couch doing his testosterone shot. He points out to Tony that Sammy and Beth must have known each other, and Tony fires back by asking how Felix, clearly not a cop Felix, knew Beth. Felix spins a story, but neither of them buy it.

Uh, so now Duncan is reading The Island of Dr. Moreau to Kira, which is the most inappropriate thing ever. Sarah points this out, and Kira rolls her eyes so hard her head falls back. It’s comforting to see them interacting like mother and daughter, have to say. But it’s short-lived. Benjamin is here, and it’s time to move Duncan to DYAD, I think.

Sarah gets a phonecall as they’re prepping to leave, and it’s Felix with his clone problem. He’s trying to explain it all but he can’t, because Tony’s still in the room. Suffice to say that it’s all very confusing, and he needs Sarah to come quick. He hangs up and whoa, there’s Tony, all up in his space wanting to know who was on the phone. Felix says it was his sister.

Tony kisses Felix, and it is uncomfortable. Felix is very clearly aware that the person he is kissing is genetically identical to his sister. Tony is not aware of that, and therefore Felix’s reaction is confusing. I have to say, this show really does manage to come up with the most complex drama.

Anyway, Tony reacts to the weirdness by walking over and pulling up the painting he found. It’s the one of Sarah with the eyes crossed out. “Is Beth Childs your sister?” Tony asks. And Felix demurs, because she’s not, and that’s not a picture of Beth Childs. Tony is not taking this well. But, to be fair, is there a good way to take it? And Felix still won’t spill his secrets until Tony tells what the message for Beth is.

Elsewhere, Cosima and Delphine are, in fact, super freaking high. They’re inhaling helium and dancing around the lab. Eventually they settle down, and Delphine tells Cosima that she loves her. That’s why she didn’t tell her that they were Kira’s stem cells. Cosima asks if this is why Delphine keeps violating her autonomy. Delphine insists that it’s Cosima’s life, and she’s protecting it.

But Cosima has a comeback. Because it’s not just her. It’s all of them. All the clones. If Delphine loves Cosima, then she loves all of them. Delphine agrees to love all of them. And then Cosima blithely points out that if Delphine pulls this crap again, she’s going to bury Delphine professionally because she knows where all the skeletons are now. Good talk.

Also Cosima loves Delphine too.

Donny and Alison are talking about whatever his mistake was and why he agreed to spy on Alison. Alison decides to confess what happened with Aynsley. Donny is pretty shocked, but it does make a lot of sense, doesn’t it? Besides, it’s nice to see these two have the first honest conversation in their whole marriage. And Donny responds to her confession by admitting that he killed Dr. Leekie.

Tony is packing to go. Felix refuses to explain why he has a giant painting with Tony’s face on it, and Tony is done waiting for answers. Not even Felix’s “I want to tell you; it’s not my place,” can sway him. Tony’s out of there.

Fortunately, Tony literally bumps into Sarah on his way out. Good timing.

Inside the apartment, Tony is processing and looking at all the paintings while Sarah chatters on about being confused about how to explain this. Tony wants to process in silence. Interestingly, he’s the only one of the clones to react pretty nonchalantly to the news. “Not our usual identity crisis,” as Sarah says. But Tony explains that he’s good. He knows exactly who he is, and this information isn’t going to change that.

Interesting. It’s very similar to how Sarah reacted (“There’s only one of me.”) in the pilot episode, and it highlights once more how incredibly similar Tony and Sarah are. And also how weird Felix has been feeling all day, living in a twilight world where he’s hanging out with someone who is just like his sister only not. Actually, I think Felix lives in that twilight world at this point.

But it’s finally time to get down to brass tacks. What was Sammy’s message? Sammy was ex-military, and a lot of his jobs came through that. Incidentally, Paul is also ex-military. Coincidence?

This is the message: “Tell Beth, keep the faith. Paul’s like me. He’s on it. He’s a ghost.” So Paul’s not an innocent in this, I guess?

Also, he appears to be missing entirely. Rachel’s not been able to find him. He’s gone. And now she has to deal with her father showing up. It’s awkward and formal and neither of them know how to act. Rachel is upset with herself for being so emotional last time she saw him, and insists that their relationship be professional from this point on.

Duncan uses a literary reference to ask Rachel if she can forgive him for being glad that Aldous Leekie is dead. She can.

Cut to: Donny and Alison opening up the trunk where the body of Dr. Leekie is slowly decomposing. Alison’s reaction is very Alison. Not upset about the murder, just how Donny has cleaned up after it. He didn’t wrap the body properly, and he used her gun! Ugh, Donny!

Felix and Sarah try to suss out the message. So, Sammy and Paul were both military. But what does that mean? Anyway, Sarah has to be going. Felix will be good on Tony-sitting duty for a while longer. They hug. It’s sweet.

Tony is still processing the giant family he has just inherited. He thinks Cosima looks fun, and that Alison looks “like a douche.” Felix defends her, because Alison is fabulous.

Duncan gives Rachel the list of items he needs in order to unlock the synthetic sequences. The technology is twenty years out of date, after all. But once it’s unlocked, then he can work with Cosima to develop a cure. Duncan, however, is still fixated on Kira. He calls her “the prize.” Blegh. And Rachel seems equally nonplussed. Is it possible we’re going to add another fierce auntie to the arsenal of women who would do anything to protect Kira?

I hope so.

Also, Rachel has a very pressing question: Why is Sarah the only one of the clones to have children? Duncan’s answer is not pleasing. Sarah is a failure, not a success. All the clones were designed to be barren, because a self-replicating prototype would be bad for business, wouldn’t it?

Rachel is not happy. Rachel is wrecking things in her mind and holding on very tight to her professionalism and cold exterior. Rachel is going to murder someone. Probably soon. Oh good, Delphine is here to bring Duncan to meet Cosima. “It’s time to begin fixing your mistakes.”

Art’s back, and he has bad news. The cops found Tony’s stolen car, which means that DYAD can’t be far behind. Art will wait downstairs to give them a private goodbye, but he is so over this.

Felix isn’t worried about Tony, which is fair. Tony’s not worried either. Felix gives him a burner phone with only three numbers in it, and Tony kisses Felix before he goes. And then he’s gone.

In the lab, Scott is freaking out about meeting Duncan, and Cosima is helping him get ready. But she has a confession before they go any further. She’s the clone. She’s the science. Scott is a little confounded by this. But he reacts really well, actually. Really sweetly.

“It’s an honor, Cosima. An honor to be working with you.” What an adorable goober.

Duncan and Cosima meet, and it’s sweetly awkward. And then Cosima starts coughing and can’t stop. She collapses into a seizure.

Sarah and Kira wake up in the same bed for the second episode in a row. How cute! Less cute is the part where Kira gets out Duncan’s copy of The Island of Dr. Moreau and starts reading it. It’s full of notes. Duncan’s notes on the genetic research. Huh.

End of episode.

Well, that was certainly an eventful one, wasn’t it? I think it’s interesting how the show keeps expanding its scope without losing sight of the central question. With the introduction of Tony and the idea that Sammy and Paul are actually working for some other organization, the show has now added in another big conspiracy, and it’s not like we’re running out of steam on the Proletheans or DYAD or the Birdwatchers. Still, it’s nice to see the world expand like this.

And yet it all stays the same, doesn’t it? Ultimately the show is about family and personhood and bodily autonomy. It’s harder to pinpoint a theme for this episode, because I feel like it was a bit all over the place, but the closest I can think of is that this episode was about trust. Alison and Donny finally trusted each other enough to tell the truth. Sarah decided to trust Rachel enough to let Duncan go. Cosima chose to trust Delphine (after she got some blackmail handy). And Felix and Art had to choose whether or not to trust Tony with their really big secret.

It’s all about trust, isn’t it? It’s the basis of all human relationships, and it’s crazy hard to live in. Just saying. This is a show with no shortage of complexity in both characters and ploit, and yet it still manages to always boil down to one simple fact. It’s about who we are, and who we are in relationship to those people around us.

And isn’t everything about that, ultimately?

Jordan Gavaris needs more love. He does such a wonderful job as Felix.

*Just one,

I’m a few,

No family too.

What am I?

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