Midnight, Texas Season 2 Episode 8: Patience Is a Virtue Recap

~ Metacrone

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With episode 8, Midnight, Texas goes off the rails, into full on camp. It’s an over the top episode, with over the top acting, villains, costumes, and even incest, one of the shocking TV sex crimes of choice for the last several years.

The Spanish Inquisition even gets a nod. And no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

The story picks up right where it left off, with Manfred struggling to remove Theophilus’ necklace. It’s stuck and only gets tighter when he tries to pull at it. He and Kai discuss who Patience screwed worse. Kai now realizes that his entire life has been a lie and that she’ll kill him along with everyone else, once she has what she wants. Manfred lost Creek and his body is going to become Theophilus’ new body. It’s a tough call, between them. Let’s just agree that Patience knows how to make sure that she’s not the one being taken advantage of.

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Travelers Season 3 Episode 7: Trevor Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 4 Comments
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The Time Twins

There are more Travelers posts HERE.

Episode 7, Trevor, focuses on Mac, David and Trevor. Trevor begins to feel the effects of his long life and multiple host bodies. He makes a pact with the Director so that his host body can be reused when his mind is gone. This doesn’t sit well with Grace, so she decides to find an alternative.

Assume that this recap should be filled with this emoji: 😭😭😭. I will do us all a favor and not overuse it. But, inside, I’m crying every time Trevor and/or Grace are on screen ripping my heart out. And Philip.

Mac continues his back and forth with Kat. At the beginning of the episode, he’s convinced her that all is well. Their relationship is saved, again. But he makes another mistake before long, which brings back Kat’s doubts and fears. This time, she uses reliable facts when she goes up against Mac, the kind that he can’t turn around and use to gaslight her.

I love it when we get to see Kat’s intelligence.

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Travelers Season 3 Episode 6: Philip Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 6 Comments

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Find more Travelers posts HERE.

Episode 6, Philip, brings back the special ops Traveler team of Hall, Luca and Kyle, for a deeper look into how historians function, what’s up with the Faction now that 001 is in charge, and how Kyle has changed the dynamic of Hall’s team. We say goodbye to more recurring characters in this episode, as the Director’s lack of sentimentality becomes more apparent with every episode. The events of this episode also give us a glimpse into the current state of the future. Travelers in the 21st aren’t supposed to talk about what they left behind, but it sounds like the people they left behind in the future never forget the reason the Traveler program exists.

Soldiers mirror their leaders, and we’re seeing that reflected throughout this season, in ways large and small, from the Faction using the same violent techniques as Vincent to Philip and Trevor losing their tendency to argue with Mac’s decisions based on whether they think they’re the right, moral thing to do. Mac and his team are moving closer and closer to the behaviors and ideals of Hall’s team. In season 1, Mac and his team were appalled by Hall and his team’s behavior and attitudes. The team doesn’t see it, because their journey in that direction will look different from Hall and Luca’s, but with every episode they fall further into the “ends justifies the means” rabbit hole.

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Travelers Season 3 Episode 5: Naomi Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 4 Comments

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All manner of things come to a head in episode 5, Naomi. The title character is a girl who begins the episode on a school field trip to a nuclear power plant. Because a Traveler team is waylaid and can’t carry out the Director’s plan to stop a nuclear explosion, Naomi is pressed into service as a super messenger, with her brain running a program that allows her to shut down the hack that was going to cause the nuclear power plant to go critical and kill tens of thousands.

The Director’s program doesn’t leave Naomi’s head as expected, so she’s left speaking code at inopportune moments. Grace, with the support of Mac’s team, is called in to fix the issue. It’s proves to be a very stubborn program.

Issues are also coming to a head for David and Kat, in the aftermath of their kidnapping and the strain it’s put on their relationships.

Kat insists that Mac meet her at her therapist’s appointment, so that they can work on their issues. He can’t find the emotional honesty that David and Marcy have, that allows them to work around the secrets Marcy needs to keep. Instead, Mac keeps piling on fresh lies and defensiveness. When he gets called back to ops, he becomes even more aggressive and defensive, in order to give himself an excuse to get out of the meeting. But he actually means everything he says.

David decides that he needs to take protecting himself to the next level, which scares Marcy. After David spent season 2 worrying that he could lose Marcy again at any time, in season 3, it’s Marcy’s turn to worry about losing David, and her turn to go overboard with it. David goes overboard himself, because this is about more than just keeping himself physically safe.

This is about protecting his image of himself as a man and as someone who can move through the world with the automatic protections that men take for granted. It’s untenable for him to worry about becoming a victim of violent crime every time he leaves the house, so he needs to confront it, and win, to calm his nerves, even if the confrontation is purely symbolic.

Imagine if he had to consider his chances of being raped every time he went out alone after dark.

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Travelers Season 3: Did Carly Provoke the Director into Intervening with Jeff?

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

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Spoilers Through Season 3 Episode 10, Protocol Omega.

In season 3 of Travelers, Jeff and Carly’s series-long battle finally ends with Jeff being taken over as a Traveler. Later, the Traveler who’s using Jeff as a host, 5416, suggests that the Director only took Jeff because Carly stood her ground during an argument and turned it into a kill or be killed situation, forcing the Director’s hand. In other words, he accuses her of causing Jeff’s death by making the Director choose between allowing both her and Jeff to die, or using Jeff as a host.

During the same conversation, 5416 makes it clear that he knows little about Jeff as a person or his history with Carly. Over the next few episodes, it becomes obvious that his training was lacking in other ways, because the future is getting worse, instead of better. His supposed “calling out” of Carly for causing the Director to take Jeff as a host, when it otherwise wouldn’t have, is based on ignorance, and should be dismissed.

When evidence from all three seasons is examined, it’s clear that the Director planned to use Jeff as a host, and planned to use him for this mission. Indeed, 5416 acknowledges that he’s been training for this mission, and has had training to function as “Jeff”, just not enough.

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Why Does Metawitches Keep Writing About Diversity and Violence Against Women When I Just Want to Read a Recap?

~ Metacrone
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Photo by Tookapic on Pexels.com

Because life is political, so is entertainment, and so is our blog. Because we know that the creators of the shows that we love can do better. If no one points out where the issues lie, how will they know where they need to improve?

We live in the real world, where mass media has an effect on people’s attitudes. It’s important to examine closely exactly what we’re being shown and what messages are actually being delivered. It’s the only way that change happens.

Whenever we start analyzing how a show is doing in regard to its male/female ratio and other forms of diversity, and compare how characters from different demographics are being treated, we are always met with the response:

But aren’t the male (and white) characters being treated the same way as the women?

This is where attention to detail becomes important, plus the ability to count, and the ability to distinguish between a named character and a background character. When we’re discussing violent acts, this argument is frequently made, because there will be so many more men running around on screen than women that, of course, in raw numbers, more violent acts are happening to men than women.

Let’s break this situation down.

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Happy Holidays from Metawitches!

~ Metacrone

May the Forces of Peace, Love and Joy Be with You

Travelers Season 3 Episode 4: Perrow Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 8 Comments

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Find my other Travelers posts HERE.

Episode 4, Perrow, picks up the dropped thread of 001, who went into hiding at the end of season 2, and hasn’t been seen since. The Faction kidnaps Perrow, via car accident, because they want something from her. She’s injured so badly that Perrow’s body is no longer viable, but the Faction can offer 001 a new host in trade, and an army for her to lead.

001, the first Traveler, had been using Vincent Ingram as his host body since he accidentally transferred into Vincent, instead of another man, on 9/11/2001 in Tower 1 of the World Trade Center, minutes before the plane hit the building (S2 Ep1, Ave Machina). Over the course of season 2, he built a consciousness transfer device in the 21st century, with the help of Traveler 004/Simon, a highly trained Traveler who’d been institutionalized after his host developed schizophrenia.

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Travelers Season 3 Episode 3: Protocol 3 Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 6 Comments

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Check out my other Travelers posts HERE.

Aleksander Part 2 Protocol 3 takes us back to an almost forgotten episode from early season 1, the third episode of the series, Aleksander. In Aleksander, Philip was struggling with both his unexpected heroin addiction and the burden of his historical knowledge. He decided to take action and save as many individual lives as he could. This culminated with him creating a fake mission to convince the team to save a young boy who’d been kidnapped by serial killers, Aleksander Andrieko. Aleksander is saved, but the mission turns disastrous and the team discovers Philip’s deceit. The Director orders the team to leave Aleksander behind to die, but Philip won’t let them do it.

I always wondered if Aleksander and that episode would come back again eventually. They weren’t mentioned in season 1 or 2, but dealt with important concepts that haven’t been fully dealt with otherwise. So, I’m happy that the show has returned to Aleksander, and we get to see the effect that being rescued under such strange conditions had on him.

We also get a glimpse at the Director’s process of continuously reassessing timelines and the infinite branches that are always forming and reforming, as every new variable creates new possible futures. This episode shows us that not only is the Director not infallible, its mistakes arise from the unpredictability of human behavior.

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Midnight, Texas Season 2 Episode 7: Resting Witch Face Recap

~ Metacrone

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By the time we’re done watching episode 7, “Resting Witch Face”, the sleepy little town of Midnight, Texas has been turned upside down. Its darkest secrets have been exposed, friends and enemies have switched places, and another character has been lost. With only two episodes left following this one, the show is preparing its stage for a huge season finale.

As the episode begins, Joe is still out looking for Chuy, who is out of control and in his demon form. Walker has followed them. Fiji is hiding just how much her new affiliation with dark magic has affected her. Patience and Kai are supposedly dealing with the aftermath of the hotel being used as the epicenter of the town’s troubles in the previous episode.

And Manfred is still standing on his front porch, in tears, after watching Creek’s ghost disappear in flames. After a moment, he snaps into action and goes looking for Kai, who’s more than ready for a fight. They meet out in the street, shouting threats at each other. Kai tries to take Manfred’s powers from him, against his will. Only Patience is surprised. Lem stops Kai, then Patience takes him back to the hotel. Manfred tells everyone else that he saw Creek’s ghost.

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