Reprisal Season 1 Episode 9: “dammit” Recap

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In episode 9 the characters brush off their failures and recreate themselves, weaving new legends that fit the past and future as they prefer to see it. Meredith wakes up in Katherine’s motel room, but her loyalty is still to Burt, so first she tries his latest version of events on for size, in trade for Katherine’s location. Katherine has other plans for the evening, since it’s her and Bash’s anniversary. They remember the past and take care of unfinished business.

Burt chooses to believe Avron’s version of the duffel bag story, which implicates Matty. This is probably because he perceives Matty as a Joel loyalist, having been gone for the last 2 years of Matty’s Burt worship. This is not a wise decision on Burt’s part, especially combined with the easily dismissed lies he tells to Meredith.

The old man is slipping. Or self-destructing. Either way, the romances are over in this episode.

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Snowpiercer Season 1 Episode 6: Trouble Comes Sideways Recap

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In episode 6, Melanie saves the train from derailment and a workers’ strike, Andre tries and fails to assassinate Melanie, and the train has a party. It’s another busy day in the life of Mr Wilford and the Train Detective, odd couple of the apocalypse.

However, the train is bleeding and none of Melanie’s fixes address the underlying causes.

Recap

Snowpiercer S1E6 Oz Finishes Shaving

Oz gets the voiceover this week. It’s the morning after Till knocked him out so she could help Josie save Layton. He seems not only recovered, but feeling good after his ordeal in the Drawers and wherever he disappeared to while she was gone.

Oz is in his tiny, industrial gray cabin, shaving with a straight razor.

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Reprisal Season 1 Episode 8: The Horse Cabbage Heart Recap

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Reprisal S1Ep8 Queenie Confronts Burt & Joel

In episode 8 of Reprisal, the characters deal with the aftermath of Katherine’s attack on the Bang-A-Rang and other recent events. Joel tries to go backsies on Konstantinov’s death, but Jukes points out that if there’s anything you can’t take back, it’s a relatively unprovoked murder. Avron discovers that the Monster Ring had an inside man among the Brawlers, but Bru doesn’t want to believe him, since no one likes him anyway. Ethan, the inside man, knows Avron’s right and alerts Katherine.

This is the episode of hitting bottom. Between Burt and Katherine’s messes, most of the characters feel angry, betrayed, helpless and confused, even Katherine herself. They’ve all made mistakes and are letting their emotions get in the way of good judgement, compounding the mistakes. This episode is spent gathering information while also ignoring the obvious. Or mentally escaping and then forming the beginnings of their next terrible plans.

We also learn more about Katherine and Witt’s pasts. Katherine is the queen of personal reinvention that allows one to stay the same deep down and Witt is the king of lying to oneself in order to ignore painful truths forever. Both skill sets allow them to protect their true selves when Burt and the Brawlers try to break them.

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Snowpiercer Season 1 Episode 5: Justice Never Boarded Recap

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In episode 5 of Snowpiercer, LJ goes to trial for her part in the murders of Sean and Nikki, Josie goes uptrain to search for Andre and Miss Audrey takes action to ensure that Melanie will get Nikki the justice she deserves. The Folgers pressure Melanie to go easy on LJ. Bess moves in with Jinju and gets a 2nd class chip implant to go with her bourgeois 2nd class privileges.

It’s a tough episode for Melanie, but she manages to find some stress relief.

Recap

We begin with Andre, who is sealed up tight in a drawer. He normally looks so robust, despite 7 years in the Tail, but now he has a grayish cast to his skin. The version of kronole used as a suppression drug is so poisonous that it gives the entire body a death pall, while turning the insides jet black, which can be seen externally by viewing the gums.

As Nikki claimed, it’s not like sleep. He’s having a combination of flashbacks and dreams. He’s back in the Tail, reliving memories of subduing the cannibal cult. That story was real, and largely happened the way he told it, if these dreams reflect reality. But he killed the cult leaders alone, at the insistence of the rest of the Tail, using a shiv they’d created, instead of the story about group solidarity overcoming an evil villain that Andre told in the Drawers.

The Tail leaders did all share in eating the heart, including Josie, Pike, Last Australian, Z-Wreck, Strong Boy, Big John and Lights.

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Agents of SHIELD Season 7 Episode 4: Out of the Past Recap

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CLARK GREGG as LMD Coulson in Agents of SHIELD S7E4

Due to a glitch in LMD Coulson’s matrix as he’s rebooting from the EMP, Agents of SHIELD goes full on black and white film noir in episode 4. The team is still in 1955, dealing with Daniel Sousa and the aftermath of the destruction of Helius Project.

Sousa quickly moves on to his next assignment, transporting an artifact to Howard Stark in Los Angeles. But according to history, this was his last assignment. Once he turned the artifact over to Stark, he was murdered, becoming the first official SHIELD agent to die in the line of duty on US soil (still not letting you erase Bucky Barnes, MCU), and inspiring generations of SHIELD agents with his dedication to duty.

The history books forgot to mention that Hydra and the Chronicoms were competing to see who could get to Sousa first.

Or that there was a ragtag team of dogooders from the future trying to keep him alive.

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Agents of SHIELD Season 7 Episode 3: Alien Commies from the Future! Recap

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There are 4 lights.

Agents of SHIELD visits 1950s era Area 51 in episode 3 and this time, they are the alien invaders. In addition to the Chronicoms, the other alien invaders who want to use a failed SHIELD science project to take over the world. Obviously.

To infiltrate the base, Jemma impersonates Peggy Carter while Coulson impersonates a second agent who’s been abducted by alien invaders the SHIELD agents. It all goes great until Peggy’s old partner, Daniel Sousa (Enver Gjokaj), shows up to supervise the latest experiment.

Recap

It’s time to go back to the future from the past! But we’re not ready to go back to the present yet. First, the Chronicoms make a stop in Groom Lake Nevada, 1955, home of alien conspiracy theory ground zero, Area 51. Zephyr 1 is hot on the Chronicoms trail, so they pop into the Nevada sky soon after, startling a couple of teens who are out stargazing in the desert.

The agents quickly take stock, remembering that Enoch didn’t make it onto the ship and figuring out that they’re still 65 years from home. Coulson reasons that it’s better to be in flight and cloaked when they jump.

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Dark Season 3 Full Length Trailer and Analysis: Gordian Knots and Second Natures

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Netflix has released another trailer for season 3 of Dark. This one is fast paced and full of intriguing images. I’ve learned one very important thing from it.

I refuse to live in a world without Jonas. Or Winden. Why only 3 seasons, Netflix, why?

Trailer and analysis after the cut.

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Agents of SHIELD Season 7 Episode 2: Know Your Onions Recap

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In episode 2 of season 7, the Agents of SHIELD have to protect Freddy and get him to his rendezvous point before the Chronicoms can kill him. Knowing who he will become makes the job more difficult for some. Ernest Koenig comes along for a ride in the Zephyr.

Recap

Mack drives the getaway car as he and Deke help Freddy escape the Chronicoms with the vial of serum and some cases of bootleg liquor. Freddy convinces them the liquor is what he’s transporting to his contact and hides the vial of serum in one of the bottles.

Deke tries to contact the rest of the agents using his radio. Mack explains to Freddy that it’s like a phone. Freddy tells him it’s not working because he needs to plug it in to something.

Koenig figures out that Daisy and Coulson aren’t who they say they are and gives them a hard time. Jemma and Elena arrive, dressed in period clothes, so that Jemma can remove the bullet from Freddy’s Hydra contact. Koenig goes through more fussing over his lack of control in the situation and their dislike of his ward, Freddy.

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Snowpiercer Season 1 Episode 4: Without Their Maker Recap

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In Snowpiercer episode 4, Sean’s murder is solved, Josie visits 3rd Class, Andre visits 1st Class and Melanie pulls out her bottle of poisoned sake. Andre and the writers go with the “Lolita made me do it” murder defense to explain why a trained soldier killed several people.

This is a disappointing development for Snowpiercer. No matter what layers and nuances the show might add to the scenario later, a young woman has been publicly blamed for provoking the crimes of her abuser. This is an abuse tactic in and of itself.

Recap

Jinju provides tonight’s opening monologue. As she speaks, she prepares a meal of sushi for herself and Bess, starting with gutting the fish and ending with the two lovers toasting each other over beautifully presented food.

Meanwhile, Erik finishes slaughtering Nikki and lovingly examines his handiwork. Presentation also matters to him. He takes care of his appearance, and Sean’s corpse was certainly presented in a very specific way. Nikki’s is as well.

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Snowpiercer Season 1 Episode 3: Access Is Power Recap

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Episode 2 of Snowpiercer takes us deeper into the logistics, relationships and class system of the train, plus we attend a big prize fight in the Night Car. It’s very aspirational. And educational. After Melanie reestablishes her dominance over him (That’s hot- Metamaiden, editor), Andre conducts a series of interviews, first with Roche as his partner, then switching back to Till. Not all of the interviewees realize they’re being interviewed. By the end of the episode, he may have solved the case.

This show is worth watching for the acting performances alone, both those of the core leads and the ensemble. Daveed Diggs (Andre), Jennifer Connelly (Melanie), Mike O’Malley (Roche), Lena Hall (Miss Audrey), Happy Anderson (Dr Klimpt), Susan Park (Jinju), Mickey Sumner (Till), Sheila Vand (Zarah), Sam Otto (Oz), Katie McGuinness (Josie), Kerry O’Malley (Lilah), Timothy V Murphy (Grey), Madeleine Arthur (Nikki), Iddo Goldberg (Ben) and more- it’s a huge cast- all bring the characters, the writing and the Snowpiercer world to life in a way that science fiction lives and dies by.

They all fully inhabit not just their characters, but the circumstances of Snowpiercer and their individual places in it. In a dystopian reality, no matter how realistic or unrealistic the sets and special effects are (and these are also amazing, don’t get me wrong!), it’s ultimately up to the cast to sell the emotional reality of the premise. This cast is all in.

I praised Daveed Diggs and Lena Hall in particular in my episode 2 recap. I was remiss to leave Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly out of the explicit praise. She has the difficult job of finding the humanity in an ice queen dictator. The show’s fantastic writing helps her out, but in the end, Melanie’s character lives and dies based on Connelly’s performance.

It’s the nuances in her delivery that help us realize that Melanie actually cares about the entire population of the train, including the Tail, and desperately hopes to keep them all alive. These are HER people, just as the Tailies are Andre’s people, and she’s fighting at least as fiercely as he is to keep them alive. But her job is complicated by living a double life and the complexities of keeping the train running.

Each episode, we watch Connelly pull Melanie back together at the beginning of the day, then we watch Melanie hold the train together for 12 hours through the sheer force of her iron will, strained compassion and large intellect, as the energy that takes slowly breaks Melanie down inside. Because of Connelly’s performance, we can see that process, but few on the train notice it. In someone else’s hands, she might be a tropish dictator. Thanks to Connelly, I want to weep for her struggle by the end of each episode.

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