The Innocents Season 1 Episode 5: Passionate Amateur Recap

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June and Harry meet another shapeshifter in episode 5, the passionate amateur who left a comment for June at the end of episode 4. The new shapeshifter lives a very different lifestyle from what the teenage couple had in mind. When she tries to manipulate June into breaking up with Harry and joining her party crowd, their friendship goes wrong. There are consequences for Harry and June as well.

At Sanctum, tensions continue to grow between the three women. Elena begins to gain control of her shifts. Sigrid prepares to move back into the world. Runa grows more unstable. Ben prepares to bring June into the fold. It’s hard to imagine that incorporating June into this powder keg will go well.

Elena has already made progress in her therapy. Her overall emotional trigger is love, which explains a lot about her life. Ben has created a slide wheel that’s tailored to her triggers, filled with images of mothers and children, sex and death. Elena watches it, and tells a story from Ryan’s childhood, when he was chasing butterflies down a path.

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The Innocents Season 1 Episode 4: Deborah Recap

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This episode, we get some back story on the beginnings of Sanctum and more insight into Ben’s relationships with Steinar and Runa. As Sigrid inches closer to leaving Sanctum, her confidence grows and so does her willingness to engage in harem rivalries. Ben loses control of his harem, proving it’s probably not the best place for a teenage shifter.

Steinar and Alf have a misunderstanding that leads to a major falling out between them. Alf finally calls Sanctum what it really is, a cult.

John is proven incapable of sharing information, no matter how vital. Probably because it would require him to speak in full sentences, possibly even paragraphs. Christine starts to put together some old and new puzzle pieces regarding Lewis’ case, even though Doug still wants her to drop the matter.

Harry and June figure out some of the basic rules of shapeshifting, while June takes a brief excursion away from reality. Ryan proves to be the best once again. And Harry and June reach a major new milestone in their relationship.

It’s a very productive episode.

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The Innocents Season 1 Episode 3: Bubblegum & Bleach Recap

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Best episode title ever.

There they go again. With so many people chasing them, June and Harry are always moving from place to place, trying to stay once step ahead. It’s a stark contrast to the Norwegian portions of the show, which are based on the subtle, slow moving character arcs of the people living in the Sanctum compound. You can’t help but compare June and Harry’s youthful exuberance to the damaged, uncertain middle-aged adult shapeshifters at Sanctum. Is June doomed to also lose her confidence and identity, or will Harry’s love and a supportive community help keep her psyche intact?

Harry gives Christine a rare chance to parent him without any interference in this episode. With just a few words she shows what an impact a supportive community can have. He’s overwhelmed by the ramifications of June’s shapeshifting, and not sure he can cope with how huge the whole thing is, plus he’s worried that he’ll end up injured by one of her shifts. When he tells Christine this, in very general terms, she says that’s how love works. Things change, but it’s still the same person.

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The Innocents Season 1 Episode 2: Keep Calm, Come to No Harm Recap

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Episode 2 of The Innocents picks up roughly where the pilot left off. After June (as Steinar) has forced her way back into their hotel room and shown her boyfriend, Harry, that Steinar reflects her image in the mirror, Harry does the only sensible thing and makes a run for it. He runs for freedom, through a field of wheat, in an image similar to images from earlier this year in The Handmaid’s Tale, season 2.

June Osborne ran through a corn field toward freedom in one episode and then a grassy field in a later episode. She didn’t make it to freedom either time, and neither does Harry. His June, June McDaniel, follows him, still in Steinar’s body, trying to convince him that she’s herself, not the Norwegian henchman. She flails and cries, and finally quotes one of his love letters, which makes Harry stop and really look at her. “You told me that you kept all my letters and that you weren’t embarrassed. Harry, I don’t know how, but it’s me. It’s really me.”

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The Innocents Season 1 Episode 1: The Start of Us Recap

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Metawitches full review of The Innocents is HERE.

The Innocents is finally here. It’s time to go on the run with June and Harry, a teenage shapeshifter and her stalwart sidekick devoted boyfriend, who leave their home and strict families for something better, only to discover that it’s a cold, cruel world out there, and everyone has been lying to June about who she is for her entire life.

Except June isn’t secret royalty or a mob princess, she’s a werewolf shapeshifter, whose body takes on the form of the first person she touches during stress-triggered shift-states. June discovers this accidentally, when she’s alone with an unconscious man. Later she has to convince Harry that she is who she is, despite the way she looks now. Love and mirror reflections (see the photo at the top of the page) conquer all, eventually.

It’s Twilight meets Orphan Black, with some Altered Carbon thrown in.

This show is for fans who’ve missed classic supernatural teen romances set against the background of larger mythology and ideas, like Roswell and the early seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Vampire Diaries. The soulmate aspect is important, and as the season goes on, it’s explored not just through June and Harry, but through other couples as well.

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Netflix’s Upcoming Series The Innocents: Poster and Trailers [Updated 8/22/18 with Reviews and More Videos]

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Let’s take a look at Netflix’s new supernatural series, The Innocents, a story of Romeo and Juliet among the shapeshifters, which will be released 8/24/18. Season 1 of the British show, filmed in Britain and Norway, has 8 episodes. Hania Elkington and Simon Duric created, executive produced and wrote the series. Simon Duric previously worked on The Force Awakens and The Crown.

8/22/18: The reviews are coming in and they’re fantastic. More after the jump, including a Behind the Scenes video and interviews with the cast.


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Netflix’s Altered Carbon Renewed for Season 2: Anthony Mackie Takes Over as Takeshi Kovacs

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Netflix has given us some great news to start the weekend! They’ve finally officially announced the season 2 renewal of their neo noir sci fi thriller Altered Carbon. It seems they were waiting to make the announcement until they could also announce who the new co-showrunner and star would be.

Anthony Mackie, who’s most well-known for playing the Falcon/Sam Wilson in the MCU Captain America and Avengers films, will play the new sleeve of former Envoy and Protectorate soldier Takeshi Kovacs. Mackie has been in numerous other films, notably the critically acclaimed The Hurt Locker. His only other major foray into television was the 2016 HBO film All the Way, in which Mackie played Martin Luther King, Jr opposite Bryan Cranston’s Lyndon Johnson. That film was also well received.

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Kiss Me First Season 1 Review (Spoiler Free)

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Kiss Me First is a new Netflix/British Channel 4 series that is loosely based on Lottie Moggach’s 2014 debut novel of the same name. The six episode first season focusses on Leila (Tallulah Haddon), a young woman whose mother has just died, and Tess (Simona Brown), a mentally ill woman with a troubled history.

Both women escape from the difficulties of their lives using a ubiquitous gaming program called Azana Planet, but Tess, known as Mania within the game, has found her way into a hacked section of the program that’s set up as a private meeting space. It’s reserved for friends of a gamer who calls himself Adrian (Matthew Beard), who collects troubled young people and theoretically gives them what they need.

Eventually Leila, who goes by the name Shadowfax in the game, also finds her way into the private space. The club and its virtual clubhouse are known as Red Pill, for the pill Neo took to get out of the Matrix, rather than the Men’s Rights Activists’ delusion of choice. Before long, Leila suspects that Adrian isn’t as benign as the others thinks he is. Her real world investigation of Adrian involves the rest of the Red Pill members and becomes high stakes, as members start meeting sinister fates, one by one.

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Netflix Renews The Rain for Season 2

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This is actually slightly old news, but I figured I’d post it for anyone else who hasn’t checked before now.

New photos and the announcement after the jump.

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Sense8: The Series Finale Official Trailer…One Last Mission

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Netflix has released a full length trailer for the series finale movie that wraps up season 2 of Sense8, the innovative story of a diverse cluster of telepathically linked humans that comprise a possible next step in our evolution, created by the Wachowskis.

Watch the trailer after the jump.

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