This week’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine episode “Into the Woods” split the squad up into guys and girls, with Rosa and Holt in the middle. We got to explore the aforementioned and rarely seen character pairing, went out of town with the boys, and also got to experience some classic Amy/Gina. The most enjoyable aspect about this episode was the flawless way Amy and Gina’s story passed the Bechdel Test. It is happening more and more on my favorite shows lately — though it’s still not often enough — so it still deserves recognition when it happens.
Team Michael has a serious leg up right now…
My latest Jane the Virgin review is up!
How is every single episode of Jane the Virgin a delight to watch, but also heartwrenchingly emotional? This week was no exception. As usual, it ran me through the gamut of emotions, from joy that Jane got into grad school, anger over everything related to Petra, relief that Rafael is telling the truth, confusion over being Team Rafael when Michael is also so wonderful, and the buckets of tears produced at Mateo’s baptism. Let’s swim through this sea of emotions together!
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Castle ends an imbalanced season with a decent episode that could have served as the series finale had the stars not signed their contracts and the network had decided to cancel the series.
The Arrow season 3 finale finally gets us out of the Ra’s al Ghul arc that has been killing the shows cred with fans. Now that we’re moving on, hopefully season 4 will be better. That said, this episode splinters our main characters that could lead to interesting places come season 4. I’m also proud of an Aladdin joke and a Captain Planet joke that you should click-through to enjoy in its full glory.
It’s almost the end of the TV season, and thus the end of my mad dash for recap updates here on the blog. Here are the recaps I did last week, for Castle and iZombie. Still working on that Arrow recap and this week’s Castle season finale. Also, I took a look at the trailer for Sense8, the new Netflix series coming to Netflix this June directed by the Wachowski siblings (you know, The Matrix). Click on through!
The penultimate Castle of the season dealt with the death of late night comedy mogul Sid Ross, a Lorne Michaels proxy. With all the shots taken at SNL in the episode, it makes me wonder if there’s a writer who was jilted by the show at some time in their career. While it starts off as a fun episode, it takes a few kind of unnecessary turns before turning into a minute long Carly Rae Jepsen show (a desperate attempt for younger viewers?). Still a fun episode.
iZombie is continuing to win me over. Though the cases are fairly uninteresting, I love the characters and the way they weave Liv’s lessons with the power of the week, even if she usually regresses afterwards.
RAVI NOOO! That was my main concern as I ended this week’s iZombie. That and: hey if Ravi becomes a zombie, maybe we’ll find out if zombies of color turn pale and have to do some absurdly unreal tanning in order to remain their beautiful brown selves.
I wrote about the trailer for Netflix’s Sense8, from the producers of the Matrix and Babylon 5 for HelloGiggles. They sent me the trailer and it looks really cool! Hopefully it pulls its mystery threads together in a way that a lot of shows post-Lost (and including Lost) never did.
The week before last was my birthday (ahh!) and I was working the final week of my time at the Tribeca Film Festival, so I had to spend last week catching up on writing recaps. I managed to do 3/4 (this week’s iZombie is coming soon-ish) and so here they are! Over hiatus, I’ll be working on having more original content for the blog, some binge watch TV thoughts (maybe some Daredevil), hopefully more consistent ConStar Clicks, and more adventures in speccing. Until then, recap city it is!
iZombie is slowing coming into it’s own. Liv eats her grossest brain yet and the show taps into a good murder weapon but a bit of a convoluted plot. But the characters are still great with strong, quippy dialogue. I love Ravi.
Arrow suffers growing pains in it’s most recent two episodes. Thea’s resurrection episode left me conflicted, concerned with the plotting of the episode, but accepting what the writers intended for the story, even if I didn’t buy the execution. However…
Oliver’s first “evil” League of Assassins episode, while strong with potential and great character interactions, swerved into uncharted territory that leaves a sour taste in my mouth as we ramp towards the finale. But I think this is my favorite recap because I reference smart hoity-toity literary works, the Bible, and Aladdin.
I did THREE recaps last week, all for my friends over at The Nerds of Color! I might be a little insane. If you watch Game of Thrones, iZombie, or Arrow, I’ve got recaps for you! (I feel like a dude with a trenchcoat on the train selling watches.)
I connect the major stories of this week’s Game of Thrones to find the common thread: everyone has lost control of their source of power and now they need to rein it in. Daenarys and her dragons, Tyrion and Jon and their compassion, and Brienne’s loyalty have gotten them this far but are now getting them into trouble they need to get out of. Clearly this is what we should expect from season five.
Over on my iZombie recap, I care less about the case of the week and more about knowing more about Ravi. Also, I question why the zombie of color on the show don’t change when the Liv and the other caucasian zombies do. Have they just not figured it out yet?
Finally, on Arrow, I predicted half of what happened and was shocked (and pleasantly surprised) by the other half. Join me in pouring out a little liquor (or sparkling grape) for our absent soldier from Team Arrow.
Soon I’ll have an Orphan Black post or two to share with you and as always, check out my TV MVPs for the week over on Just About Write!
When Jane was 15, she had the perfect quinceanera, until her mother danced to Milkshake and embarrassed her in front of her “superfly” date. But Jane is determined to not let things affect her plan, and this baby won’t either. I’m sorry, I meant “milkshake.”
Jane doesn’t initially want to file a lawsuit, but by the end she accepts that things are really going to change in her life and that she should charge back at the things she can control. Jane didn’t think to look up Rafael and Petra before committing to her decision, so she Googles Raf and learns about his party boy past. She can see that he’s changed now, but as I said in my last review, he’s going to continue to deal with the consequences of his former lifestyle. But he and Jane begin to spark their chemistry, unknowingly in front of the watching eyes of Detective fiancé Michael. She and Raf share a moment in the OB-GYN examination room as well as at the hotel, being open and honest with each other in ways that their actual significant others don’t seem to get.
On this week’s Castle, the team investigates the death of a viral meme star and Castle himself is a victim of the dark side of memes.
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This case was a really interesting one. Aside from a few weak links in why Adam chose these particular stars (I’m curious if it was too much for these stars to have been bullies at Adam’s school–he’d already axed his high school bully before this–making his Snappamatic choices a bit weak), it’s a scary thought that this could happen somewhere. We already know of crimes committed via introductions on the internet, but if someone were to post awful things like Netslayer did (and they do, somewhere), would the number people outraged and reporting the account be greater than or less than people following the account to… enjoy… the show? It’s been a while since we’ve had a serial killer episode (especially one not in some way connected to 3XK) and I think they did a good job of his choices in teasing the cops (if not in the choosing of his victims). There was equal parts suspense and humor, rare in serial killer themed episodes. Read moreCastle Season 7 Episode 5 Review: “Meme is Murder”.
Watch Castle’s viral video here: http://abc.go.com/shows/castle/news/castle-news/141027-official-raging-heat-webmercial
In this week’s episode of Castle, Castle accesses his not so inner child to find out who murdered an ice cream truck driver.
Some of my TV Overmind review focuses on what little Castle reveals about the mind of a child, giving us insight into what may have made little Ricky Rodgers become a writer…
“An experience that powerful is going to find a way to express itself and end up on the page. Even the wildest fantasies have a kernel of truth. As a master storyteller, I am able to separate the makeshift from the tell-tale details of thinly veiled facts.”
I am really loving the ways the cases of the week have been, even in small ways, tying into the larger mystery of Castle’s disappearance and his mysterious childhood encounter. I think more than any other season, it will lead to a large fluidity and connectedness between each episode, even the filler episodes. Castle hints here at whatever he experienced as a child that made him want to become a mystery writer. What powerful experience did he have as young Ricky that changed him so powerfully? What kernels of truth exist among his dozens of novels that hearken back to that night in the woods?
