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Stranger Things Season 1 Chapter 5: The Flea and the Acrobat Recap

~ Metacrone

ST105Hopper&TheBlob

We start to get some answers this episode, as both Hopper and Nancy quite literally enter the belly of the beast. The kids enter an homage to the film Stand by Me, with friendships tested and train tracks walked. We’ve entered the Stephen King portion of the season, so viewer beware.

Hopper has made his way into the buildings at Hawkins Lab secretly and alone, because he’s completely lost his mind. And he knows no one will listen to his crazy theories, just like he didn’t listen to Joyce, or even bother to talk to Nancy about Barb. He sneaks and fights his way all the way down to the monster’s lair. He finds 11’s cell on his way down. After that, he races through the halls, yelling for Will.

He takes the elevator to the monster’s floor as Dustin reads the description of the Vale of Shadows* to Mike and Lucas. It’s a scary, dark, mirror world to our own. The boys don’t know how to get there, and neither does El. She just knows that Will is stuck there.

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Stranger Things Season 1 Chapter 4: The Body Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

ST104Joyce

Everything begins to change in this episode, the midpoint of the season, as even most of the pragmatists among the main characters realize that something mysterious and sinister is going on. We’re starting to reach the meat of the story, with more clues about the lab and cover up being revealed, and the characters beginning to work together. This show is so well done that, while it seems obvious how some of it will play out, I have no idea where they’re going to go with other aspects. Will the stock characters and situations stay that way, become modern clichés instead, or evolve into something totally original?

This episode picks up not long after the end of episode 3. Joyce has told Hopper her story, and Hopper has told Joyce and Jonathan that Will’s body has been found. Joyce refuses to believe that Will is gone. Hopper at least does a cursory inspection of the house, rather than dismissing Joyce completely, but he also mainly talks to her as one grief-stricken parent to another. Any outsider would logically think she’s hallucinating, and he’s crushed by his own depression that’s been dredged up again full force.

Hopper goes out to his truck to drive away, but thinks better of it and settles in to spend the night sleeping outside of the Byers’ house. Joyce resolutely goes to the shed and gets an axe, then sits back down in her living room to stand watch, in case Will or the monster come back. Jonathan tries to pretend things are somewhere near normal so that he can get some sleep.

Song that plays at end of opening sequence as Hopper goes to his truck, Joyce gets the axe, and Jonathan puts on his headphones: Atmosphere by Joy Division. Joyce is like a Viking warrior goddess with her axe, ready to take on all comers to protect her home and family.

Is Hopper on suicide watch?

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Stranger Things Chapter 3: Holly, Jolly Recap

~ Metacrone

ST103Joyce&lights

We get two of my favorite things this episode, an epic amount of Christmas lights and new information. The show is done with pleasant introductions, and ready to dive in deep, starting with wherever Barb is- possibly a metaphysical mirror image of the pool she was sitting next to, possibly the monster’s lair. Either way, she doesn’t seem to get out alive. Barb fighting for her life, as she screams for Nancy to help her, is intercut with Nancy and Douchey Steve getting to second base. It’s disturbing on several levels.

Nancy hesitates with Steve a few times, as if she might almost hear Nancy, or she could just be having second thoughts about what she’s doing with Steve. Steve continues to be a douche, and falls asleep when they’re done. Nancy is left to walk home alone in the dark through the neighborhood with the missing kid. At least she’s not a babysitter, or she’d surely never make it back to her house alive, given the horror movie tropes we’re working with. But she does make it home alive, and is met by her very worried mother.

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Stranger Things Season 1 Chapter 2: The Weirdo on Maple Street Recap

~ Metacrone

ST102Barb

The plot thickens in episode two of Stranger Things, with Hawkins becoming a dangerous town for the first time in its history, at least according to Jim Hopper. Some of the kids who’ve clearly been perpetually bullied at school might feel differently about it. It’s a bad time to be a scientist, a good Samaritan, or a best friend in Hawkins, we know that much so far.

Mike and company have brought 11 back to Mike’s basement, and all three boys are talking at her while she tries to cope with being wet, cold, and in a strange environment during a thunderstorm. Dustin adds to the fun by making a loud noise to test his theory that she’s stayed silent because she’s deaf. Mike gets her some sweats to put on. 11 rubs them against her face like she’s never felt anything so soft.

The boys reaction to 11 getting ready to strip so that she can change her clothes is worth the price of admission, possibly the whole Netflix subscription. Mike quickly leads her to the bathroom, but she won’t let him close the door. “No” is clearly a very important word to 11.

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Stranger Things Season 1 Chapter 1: The Vanishing of Will Byers Recap

~ Metacrone

ST101GoodbyeWill

Okay, let’s do Stranger Things! I’m way late to the party with this, but, I figure, what the heck, maybe there are a few other people who want to watch in time for season 2. My first impression, as episode 1 starts, is omg, this is so 80s! Are those bikes going to take off like ET’s? The filmmakers got the look of an 80s show exactly right. Something made by Steven Spielberg, in particular, maybe The Goonies. Oops, Steven King just weighed in. Of course there’s an adorable dog and a little sister. Drew Barrymore might be able to look into copyright infringement here.

We begin on November 6th, 1983, in Hawkins, Indiana, at the Hawkins National Laboratory, run by the US Dept of Energy. This was the Reagan Era and the height of the Cold War. I’m sure a sweet old man like Ronnie wouldn’t have approved of any illegal experiments on children that could go wrong and terrorize a small midwestern town. Or maybe they were actually approved by Tricky Dick, and just continued by Ronnie.

Something is definitely going wrong, if the camera work and sound effects are anything to go by. Sure enough, one of the mad scientists runs by and gets attacked by something mysterious in the elevator.

Meanwhile, in a suburban basement, four preteen boys are playing the most exciting and intense game of Dungeons and Dragons ever, until Mike’s Mom breaks up the game because she totally doesn’t get the importance of fun and conquest. Will, Lucas and Dustin take off on their bikes toward their own houses. Lucas, the man of action, reaches his house quickly, then Dustin, the adorable mascot of the group, challenges Will, the sweet honest one, to a race. Will shows he’s not completely pure by taking off immediately, leaving Dustin in the, well, dust.

Lights have been flickering on and off around town. Will’s bike light flickers as he’s cutting through the grounds of the laboratory. He sees a figure in the shadows and falls off his bike, then runs home. He’s still spooked at home, and goes to the family’s shed to get a gun. The shed light brightens, and Will is gone.

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Sense8 Season 2 Episode 3: Obligate Mutualisms Recap

~ Metacrone

S8203Croome&Will

The world of the sensates is broadening rapidly this season, and within this episode. Will finally breaks through the barrier of Whispers to reach a BPO executive and manages a meeting with Jonas, both of which prove very informative. Wolfgang meets a sensate from outside the cluster. But the new information comes with new dangers, and traps within traps are a major theme for this season.

Will and Whispers/Gibbons/Milton/Matheson/Brandt (How many aliases does this guy have?) are meeting in the nondescript room in London that they’ve talked in before. Whispers concedes that Will has compromised him, and tries to convince Will that they have more in common as two Homo sensorium than Will thinks. Will doesn’t buy the ruse. He wants to talk to Croome, the BPO executive in charge. Nomi feeds Will Croome’s personal information until Croome comes into the room. Whispers starts out relaying Will’s demands for a meeting, but balks when Will says that he wants Whispers out of his head. Nomi texts the message to Croome’s personal number, and also asks for a meeting with Jonas. Croome calls in guards who inject Whispers with a drug that renders him unconscious, and Will is finally free from Whispers’ surveillance.

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Sense8 Season 2 Episode 2: Who Am I? Recap

~ Metacrone

S8202Will&Whispers

The sensates are back, and the wait has been as hard for them as it has for us. Will’s heroin addiction is reaching a critical state as he and Riley continue to hide from Whispers. Nomi and Amanita are also still in hiding from Whispers’ people. Lito is facing new consequences of coming out, while Sun, Wolfgang, Capheus and Jonas all continue to be threatened by forces similar to those that threatened them last season. The difference this season is that they’ve learned to quickly jump in and give support, or take over to help each other, which makes them an effective team. But Whispers is relentless, and knows what he’s doing.

We open on Will and Riley asleep in their latest squat, a church somewhere in Europe, by the looks of it. Angelica, their cluster mother, sits nearby and watches Will. He transitions into “visiting” with Whispers as Whispers controls the mind of another sensate. Whispers sends the man to murder someone else, as a demonstration for others who stand in the room and watch. The mind-controlled sensate has had a neural graft procedure performed on his brain which Angelica helped to develop, working with Whispers. Will’s also experiencing Angelica’s memory of Whispers tricking her about the purpose of the procedure, then he experiences the murder itself as if he’s the perpetrator.  Whispers and Angelica were a couple in her memory. Angelica is filled with guilt in the present day. She tells Will he has to stop it.

Will startles awake, terrified that he’s actually killed someone. Riley comforts him back into reality.

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The OA Season 1 Analysis and Speculation

~ Metacrone

TOAPrairie&Violin

This show is a meta writer’s dream. So many layers, twists and turns, fantastic complex characters, and questions of sanity.

To start with the broadest layer, one way to look at the story is as a metaphor for science and practicality vs art and religion. Hap, Elias, the psychiatrists, the adults of Crestwood, and the weapons represent science and the practical world. Prairie, Russia, her biological father Roman, and the other captives represent art and religion. Prairie’s present day team represents the battle between the two in our communities and schools. At Alfonso’s scholarship dinner, one of the businessmen even brings up the idea after listening to Buck sing. What good is art, since it’s not practical? Elias gives Alfonso an unsatisfying, roundabout answer in episode 8, by implying that Prairie turned whatever really happened to her into a mythological hero’s journey as a way for her and for them to be able to cope with it more easily. The problem is that Alfonso, like many in our culture, can only see that maybe there was some poetic framing in the way Prairie told the story, and thinks that makes the whole thing a lie, thus useless. He forgets the changes the group’s time with Prairie has made in all of them, and the easily verifiable parts of her story. The therapist forgets to mention those to Alfonso, too. She was gone for seven years. She has the physical hallmarks of captivity, like vitamin D deficiency. She did regain her sight. She has strange scars on her back. Something did happen to her, the science shows that. But it can’t tell us what. It can only give us theories. For the rest, we have to rely on Prairie’s memories and interpretations, even if we think she’s using poetic license or is an unreliable narrator because of mental illness or for other reasons (maybe Hap kept them on mild hallucinogens the entire time). Art and religion are the ways we express things when science and practicality fail us, because not everything can be put into those terms. It doesn’t make the metaphor less true, it’s just another way of expressing the truth. Not everything needs to be expressed in literal, factual terms to be true. Some truths can only be approached by circling them, slowly and metaphorically.

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Santa Clarita Diet Renewed for Season 2: Yum!

~ Metacrone

scd110joelaggrosheila

Netflix confirmed today that Santa Clarita Diet, its upper middle class, suburban, zombie sitcom starring Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant, will be back for a second season in 2018.

Announcement teaser trailer using some of Sheila’s snacks 😜  to spell out the number 2 under the cut.

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Iron Fist Season 1 Episode 2: Shadow Hawk Takes Flight Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

 

IF102DannyPunchesDoor2

Danny wakes up from Joy’s drugged tea strapped to a bed in Birch Psychiatric Hospital. There’s a man dressed like a doctor sitting next to his bed who speaks to him in a kindly voice, telling him where he is. Danny asks to have the straps and cuffs removed, because he’s not dangerous, but the “doctor” refuses, on the grounds that a guy down the hall said the same thing, just before he bit another doctor’s nose off. We’re in for a wild ride this episode, kids!

The doctor tries to reassure Danny that, even though it’s disturbing to wake up in a place like this, the staff is there to help. He knows just the thing. Danny needs to kill himself. It’s the only solution for any of us. He’s tried four times, but they keep saving him. He grabs a fork and holds it to Danny’s jugular vein. He says, “Give me the go ahead, and it’s done.” Existentially, he’s correct. Practically, it’s might be too radical a solution to Danny’s problem.

Nurses and orderlies run in just as the doctor/Simon is looking to see if Danny is nodding yes. Simon says he was just saying hello to the new guy. He’s not a doctor, he’s a long term patient. The orderlies tell Danny that they’re going to clean him up, as soon as he takes his prison in a pill medication.

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