The Walking Dead - "Go Getters" - Season 7 Episode 5

November 22, 2016

If there’s one thing I hate in shows and movies, it’s a coward. Sniveling and useless, they can only ensure their own survival, and usually at the expense of the heroes of the story. Gregory is one such asshole, and his attitude towards the Saviors and Maggie and Sasha will prove to be problematic later. Not in a dramatic, climactic way but in the eye rolling unnecessary death/danger sort of way.

Maggie and Sasha have only begun to grieve Glenn and Abraham, but it’s already time to go according to Gregory. Their deal to take out the Saviors went south, people died, they’re a liability, etcetera. We can assign some of the blame on Rick and the others for not doing their homework on Negan, but really the hasty raid on the Savior outpost can be blamed on Gregory. Still, the coward is blameless and unable to see anything beyond what may befall him. In this case, it’s what the Saviors will do to him once they find he’s harboring two people Negan is very interested in.

They send a message to Hilltop by way of an armored Gremlin, a few bonfires, and open gates. I’m not sure exactly how they snuck in, built raging pyres, opened the gates and wheeled in a shitty car with an awful stereo system in complete silence but hey, whatever. Sasha and Jesus spring into action, as well as a few others, to kill the walkers and close the gates. Maggie does her part by crushing the car with a tractor, even though the doctor JUST got done telling her any more stress will separate the fucking placenta from her baby. For someone who just lost her husband, she is sure doing her damndest to lose her child too. It’s uncomfortable to watch, regardless of how dutiful and full of fight Maggie’s character is supposed to be. Still, it’s nice to see some good, clean, non-depressing zombie killing action.

The Saviors come in force the following day, and I’m not sure if Negan trains all his dudes in the art of being a smug, shit talking jokester bad guy or if the power trip just makes them all act that way, but I’m kinda done with it. Sure, Gregory deserves to get slapped around a bit but the sense of danger is sucked out. Even in what was supposed to be the biggest Oh Shit scene in the episode, where Gregory gives up Maggie and Sasha, Simon’s antics suck all the drama out of it.

No matter, because Jesus pulled the ol’ switcheroo on Gregory and they only end up losing a box of top shelf booze. He begrudgingly allows them to stay but the heat is on to try to figure out a way to fight the Saviors, and Sasha tasks hipster ninja Jesus to find Sanctuary. Tactically, this should have been the first god damn thing they did when deciding to raid the Saviors in the first place. As he hitches a ride in the back of one of the trucks, he finds Carl chilling back there too.

Carl isn’t the best shot anymore, but that doesn’t stop him from wanting to deepen his sociopathic and homicidal tendencies. After watching Enid sneak off to go see Maggie, he decides to catch up with her and join her on the way to Hilltop. Not because the roads are potentially crawling with Saviors, one of whom already implied sexual harm to her, but because he figures he might run into Negan or at least be led to him. The road there is a nice scene of blossoming love between two mentally unstable teenagers, complete with hand holding, roller skating and a kiss. It’s nice to see things are not all bad though. From hearing Maggie’s baby’s heartbeat to seeing Carl and Enid kiss, we know that there is still some hope for the future. That’s why it’s frustrating to see these characters insist on getting into harm’s way. Harm is the name of the game on this show but that doesn’t mean the characters have to make decisions equivalent to drunkenly staggering along the train tracks when the horn can be heard in the distance.

Also I hope the Jesus/Carl recon mission, along with Eugene’s bullet casting, is the start of organizing a counter attack. The show has lost a lot of steam since the premiere, and we’ve spent more than enough time watching Negan and the Saviors shit on Alexandria, Hilltop and the Kingdom. Minus the premiere and Daryl’s fun time at Camp Sanctuary, the bulk of this season has been devoted to painting a picture of the Saviors’ asshole complex, but the problem is there is only one color being used. I don’t have high hopes for next week either, as we check in with Tara and Heath, who will become bigger characters but if they waste an entire episode on their hijinks, I’m gonna need another few beers to slog through that.

And what does Carl hope to hit with that terrible fuckin’ aim of his? To be fair, I’m not that great at darts either.

Westworld - "Trace Decay" - Season 1 Episode 8 Review

November 21, 2016

Bernard has had a pretty rough day. Not only does he realize he is a host, but he’s also murdered his lover and corporate spy, Theresa. He’s not just any host however, he’s Dr. Ford’s right hand man, built to counterbalance all his ideas. His curiosity about human nature added depth and spectrum to the hosts, ironically making them more human than Ford alone was able to. Yet when he is allowed to remember what he’s done, to grasp that his memories of his life were his personal programmed storyline, he seems to be ready to be rid of those burdens. Indeed, all of human joy and suffering is all in the mind, and memory is a loose narrative of what’s happened before, but again, it only exists in some dusty room in our consciousness. There is no qualifying difference between a host and a human and the hosts seem to have the better end of the deal. Bernard’s anxiety over “false” memory and the guilt of being a murderer is washed away with a few taps on Ford’s tablet. We on the other hand carry the weight for the duration of life.

There’s still work to be done of course. Bernard dutifully covers up the murder and Ford, in his quiet menace, reasserts his dominance of Westworld over Charlotte. She knows that he knows that Theresa was a mole, but ever the cunning strategist, she recruits Lee to help her smuggle the stolen data out through one defunct host: Peter Abernathy. I think she doesn’t know exactly what she’s doing, and using Peter will prove to be messy.

Dolores and William are still searching for the place she has a vague memory of, or the place Arnold is leading her. She seems to be remembering bits of old roles but with Arnold’s specter guiding her, she is becoming more and more confused, if such a thing is possible. As it turns out, she’s being called to an old town that was scrapped, but is now being repurposed for Ford’s new storyline. The burnt church seems to be the important part but we won’t find out any time soon since Logan and his new friends show up as Dolores and William try to make their way back to Sweetwater.

Maeve is not only “power leveled” but also has admin privileges at her disposal so she’s technically the most powerful being in Westworld, as far as hosts go, but her increased awareness also brings about some grim realizations. She perfectly recalls her past roles and has always had trouble letting go of memory and emotion, we learn. It’s heartbreaking to see how casually she’s been repurposed, how very real tragedy is treated as a plot point that didn’t “sizzle,” and that she never really forgot any of it and is more a product of her trauma than her programming. She can feel elements of her past selves, and in the context of the show it makes sense, but it would be like us recalling past lives. Is it so far-fetched now? Are all of our idiosyncrasies and fears and quirks and such merely the product of biology, or have we been who we are for much longer than a mortal lifespan, just in different places and times, collecting bits and pieces of “soul information” along the way? Is the idea of the soul just the ghost in the machine taking formation?

Either way, Maeve is pretty much done with Westworld and continues to manipulate Felix and Sylvester to help her escape. She wants to recruit an army, of hosts we assume, but after she accidentally (?) kills the new Clementine and won’t respond to commands, the techs close in on her. Surely this is one of the things Ford is aware of, right?

In all of this mess, we have the Man in Black and Teddy still on Wyatt’s trail. It’s about god damn time Teddy remembers a little piece of his “past” because he’s been a sucker since the show began. I mean, he’s still a sucker but at least he isn’t the only host who just keeps blindly following his narrative loop. He tries to get answers out of MiB but a survivor of one of Wyatt’s killing sprees turns out to be one of his people and stabs Teddy with a god damn arrow. Before that, we finally get to make more sense of the MiB and what he’s doing in Westworld. A rich and charitable man on the surface, but his true nature is cold and beastly. So much so that his wife kills herself and his daughter pushes him away. Plagued by these revelations of his true nature, he finds himself in Westworld for the sole purpose of being cruel, to see if the game can strip away his mask. Instead, in Maeve’s suffering, he catches a glimpse of genuine life in the hosts. He has a chance for his actions to have consequence, and is willing to give the hosts the agency they play at to achieve that. Just as Teddy is unable to win at playing hero, the Man in Black is unable to be punished for his cruelty. What will happen to the two of them when the center of the maze is reached? As Wyatt’s cult encircles them, they may be getting a step closer.

And Elsie? I’m sure she’s...just enjoying her time off.

Supernatural - "Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox" - Season 12 Episode 6 Review

November 21, 2016

We start this episode with a flashback where we are introduced to Asa Fox. Asa was a kid when Mary saved him from a werewolf in 1980 inspiring him to be like her and become a hunter. But as Mary has said before, all hunters end up the same: dead. And Asa was no exception. Right after we seen his montage, we see him hung from a tree. Not the most intense way for a hunter to die, but the end result was still the same. The Winchester men find out about his death from their good friend Jody who met him while he was hunting, and they vow to accompany her to the wake. They have never been to a Hunter gathering aside from the ones they had thrown together, so off to Canada they go.

Unfortunately for them, the flow of war stories and memories gets interrupted when the hunters become the hunted and one of their new friends, Randy, is killed while getting a beer. But before they even find out what happened, Mary appears. Talk about shocked! The boys had no idea where there mom was, and then she appears at the house of a hunter they had only heard stories about. It was clear by the montage we saw previously that Asa was important to Mary, but it wasn’t clear if her sons knew the extent of it. Jody’s reaction to finding out that Mary was back from dead was classic, and over the top. I was just happy to see that Mary was okay. I’m not going to lie, part of me was wondering if she really was on a sabbatical of her own free will or if she was captive somewhere by one of the many people who don’t care for the Winchesters. She told them she was retracing her steps and reading John’s journal to catch up on all the things she missed while she was, well, dead.

Dean was obviously upset that Mary dropped everything when she heard of Asa’s death to go to Canada but had only sent him a few texts since she took off. I don’t blame him to be honest. He has waited decades to see his mom again, and then when she is back, she is quite distant. That has to hurt. And I also didn’t blame Asa’s mother’s reaction to Mary. She blamed her from her son’s death. After all, he did become a hunter because of her. But they had to push all that aside when they finally saw Randy the hunter, dead and strapped to the ceiling. They’re lucky two of the hunter’s with them were raised by a witch and know some magick, as they were able to see that the house had been warded, leaving them trapped inside, all but Dean. He had been outside clearing his head when it went down. One of the other hunter’s seemed to know who had killed Randy: a crossroads demon, Jael. Who had a vendetta against Asa from the sound of it.

As Dean is outside he sees Billi, the reaper he knows a little too well. She informs him that she just reaped a soul from inside. Unfortunately the ward put on the house also keeps him from getting in. This gives Billi the upper hand once again as she strikes a deal with him to get him inside. I can’t even imagine what kind of favor he will owe her for that. And after screwing her over with a deal in the past, I was shocked she would even help. And this demon, Jael is a tricky little bugger. He keeps skipping from vessel to vessel, keeping the hunter’s on their toes. They have no idea who to trust among them because at any time the demon could be among them. That’s not cool. So much for enjoying the hunter’s gathering huh?

When Jael claims the life of Elvis, I was upset I won’t lie. He seemed like such a sweet guy, desperate to connect and make friends. That makes two hunters dead now, so thank goodness Asa had all of the tools he did at his house, because the rest of them weren’t ready for the hunt. They thought they were going to a wake, not a demon hunt. And when Jael takes over Jody, we find out some very interesting news. Bucky had been the one to kill Asa, and Jael was pissed. Jael wanted that kill. But as we know, hunters only kill other hunters if they absolutely have no choice, so I was on pins and needles ready to hear his reasons. And when he confessed to pushing Asa I was shocked. An accident had claimed the life of Asa, not a hunt. But even with this revelation Mary still seemed upset, and everything still seemed so wrong to her. But even with Billi’s offer to take her back to Heaven, she declined. And with reapers unable to take lives, Billi will just have to wait for Mary to die. Giving her just one more reason to be annoyed by the Winchesters. I have a feeling Billi is not going to let go of this very easily, and we will be seeing more of her this season. After all, taking Dean’s mother away from him would be the ultimate payback that she’s been looking for for quite some time now. I’m also hoping we see more of the twin hunters. Their knowledge of magick could really help the Winchesters in future hunts. And with Lucifer still on the loose, they’re going to need all the help they can get.