Tag: recaps

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 3 Episode 1: Night Recap

~ Metacrone

Handmaid's Tale S3Ep1 June & Serena in Fiery Bedroom 1

We’re back for season 3 of The Handmaid’s Tale in Gilead with June and the gang, since June selfishly nobly didn’t escape in the season 2 finale. She stayed to rescue her first born daughter, Hannah, who had ordered June to try harder to be her mother just a few weeks before the escape attempt. June sent baby Holly/Nichole safely to Canada with fierce mama bear and dragon slayer Emily, knowing that she could trust Emily with the life of her child.

June also stayed in Gilead to help the Resistance, so that all women and girls could be safe from rape, torture and murder. Even if she can’t get Hannah out, she can try to make a better place for her to grow up in. Most of the people in June’s life take a while to understand the sacrifice she’s made. Serena is inspired to make a big change in her own life, as well.

Recap

The season opens with the standard reminder of what’s come before. Season 2 ended with June handing Baby Holly Nichole to her fellow handmaid Emily, and telling her to call the baby Nichole. Then she sent her younger child to safety in Canada, where she knew her loved ones would take care of her. Having fulfilled the promise she made to Holly before she was even born, that she wouldn’t grow up in Gilead, now June turns away from saving herself and toward her older daughter, Hannah. She made Hannah a promise, too, a promise to try harder.

In season 3, June will try harder.

June prays for safe passage for Nichole and Emily as she runs away. She worries that Nichole won’t know her or forgive her if they ever meet again. But, she’s at peace with her decision. “I’m sorry, baby girl. Mom’s got work.”

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Agents of SHIELD Season 6 Episode 4: Code Yellow Recap

~ Metacrone

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On Agents of SHIELD S6Ep4, Deke is back, and he’s making his fortune as a tech genius, which totally makes sense for the grandchild of Fitzsimmons. The space team is still out there, recovering from their hangovers, but we don’t check in with them this week.

We spend the episode alternating between the Lighthouse centered B team, made up of Benson, Keller and Yo-Yo, and new gal Diaz, and the A team of Mack, May, Deke, plus several very welcome new guys, who visit Deke’s new company to stop NotCoulson and his team. It pains me to add Yo-Yo to the B team, but she made some serious mistakes this week. FitzSimmons were missed in the science/med lab more than ever. Yo-Yo could’ve picked up some of the slack with her powers and experience, but she didn’t.

I blame the writers and director. Yo-Yo is better than this.

Recap

The episode begins with a music cue that sounds like it’s going to be the Mission: Impossible theme song, but then it isn’t. The episode’s first visuals are of Deke and new guy Trevor Khan, who’ve gotten stuck in an ’80s scifi action movie. No worries, Deke has learned his clichĂ©s, both verbal and physical. He’s got this covered.

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The Rain Season 2 Episode 6: Survival of the Fittest Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 2 Comments

The Rain S2Ep6 Sad Jean Looming Rasmus

The season finale of The Rain season 2 pays off the concepts the show has played with all season, while also providing a satisfying mirror image to the season 1 finale. As of this writing, June 1st, 2019, the Rain isn’t renewed for season 3, so I hope it gets the chance to finish its story. The path forward is both obvious and wide open, which tells you the writers are doing something right.

This episode continues with the themes of family, responsibility, revenge, romantic love and death. Sarah and Rasmus play out their Romeo and Juliet scenario, while Fie tries to build a stable family for her baby. Simone and Martin struggle to balance their relationship with their responsibilities toward the rest of the group. Patrick takes a giant step forward in his maturity level, while Jean takes a step backward. He’s reacting to losing Lea, so his actions are understandable, but still uncalled for.

Kira joins the group after saving Martin and Patrick’s lives, but it’s not clear yet whether she’s a permanent or temporary member. She suffered so much trauma and betrayal that she’s forgotten how to trust and be trustworthy. She’d be an asset to the group, if she could be open to caring about them.

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The Rain Season 2 Episode 5: Keep It Together Recap

~ Metacrone

The Rain S2Ep5 Sten Sits at Young Rasmus Bedside

After episode 4 of this season of The Rain focused on relationships and doomed love, episode 5 goes full on scifi horror. We thought the survivors were living in a post-apocalyptic world in season 1, but it turns out that the initial plague was just a little prelude to the main event. This episode, Keep It Together, finally shows just how badly everything is falling apart.

The black goo is not only spreading to wider areas of the quarantine zone, it’s now bubbling and smoking on it’s own. It’s consuming everything in its path, including people, at a rapid pace. We’ve known that it’s sentient, but now it’s battling to control Rasmus’ mind.

Recap

By the time Simone, Fie, Rasmus and Sarah return from their trip to Bakken, the Apollon soldiers who infiltrated the base are dead. Due to over exerting herself, Sarah has developed a fever along with a flare up of her illness, so Fie takes to her bed. She suggests that Rasmus rest as well, since they don’t know what the cure will do to him. Simone is confident that it will make him better.

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The Rain Season 2 Episode 4: Save Yourself Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

The Rain S2Ep4 Sarah and Rasmus Sit on Roller Coaster Crop

Episode 4 of The Rain sends the characters off on another road trip, this time to Bakken, a Danish amusement park. But, this is the minipocalypse, so it’s not all fun and games. Klaus escapes from episode 2 and wants his $2 revenge for what happened to Johanne. Rasmus manages to frost the forest with black viral goo, like the angel of death that he is. And Sarah has plans for a perfect day out, with a very specific ending.

Let it rain.

Recap

The episode picks up where it left off, with Sarah and Rasmus following a dry creek bed away from the base. Sarah tells Rasmus that they’re headed to Bakken, the theme park,  because Jakob always promised he’d take her there when she got better.

Rasmus thinks her dreams aren’t cool enough, because they’re too grounded in reality. Sarah thinks it’s silly to dream about things that can’t come true.

They’ve both been shut ins for most of their lives, so any dream that involved leaving the house/bunker/base was unlikely to come true. They developed different strategies for dealing with that. Rasmus went with dreaming big dreams that probably wouldn’t come true even if he was out in the world, which gave him something to fantasize about and allowed him to avoid extra disappointment. Sarah went with practical, low key dreams that had a chance of coming true, which gave her something to look forward to and work toward.

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Agents of Shield Season 6 Episode 3: Fear and Loathing on the Planet of Kitson Recap

~ Metacrone

Agents of SHIELD S6Ep3 Secret Agents Quake and Agent Dr Simmons

Agents of SHIELD Goes Cyberpunk

In a change of pace, this of episode Agents of SHIELD gives everyone a break from routine and goes full on space cyberpunk neo-noir, complete with robots, neon, hallucinations, breaking glass, existential desperation and the chief investigator’s voiceover narration. As befits a cyberpunk dystopia, irony and gallows humor abound. Because this is Agents of SHIELD and not Blade Runner or Altered Carbon, the result is both deadly serious and tongue in cheek.

Thematically, the episode revolves around friendships and Fitz and Simmons’ deep need to be reunited. The friendship pairings of Fitz and Enoch, and Jemma and Daisy, are closely examined in ways that are overdue. Piper and Davis also get a chance to shine both as individuals and to show their affection for each other as partners, despite their recent grumbles. There’s a glancing nod toward Jaco and Sarge, a fascinating pairing when you consider that Coulson was always drawn to talented outcasts, especially powered people.

Calling it now: Sarge/Fake Coulson is a Chronicom hunter. In episode 1, Benson said that Tinker was cybernetic. Sarge has traveled extensively through time and space and he and his team are clearly hunting for specific targets. This episode went from showing a Chromicon hunter capturing Fitz to Sarge setting off a targeting device in Earth’s sky. Otherwise, Earth wasn’t shown in this episode. That’s a pretty huge hint.

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The Rain Season 2 Episode 3: Stay in Control Recap

~ Metacrone

 

Screen Shot 2019-05-25 at 11.12.27 PM

Episode 3 of The Rain, titled Stay in Control, opens with Rasmus testing out his new power to release the virus at will. He successfully sends out black viral smoke and then stops it, staying calm the entire time. Every time he’s released the virus in the past, it’s been because he was emotional and out of control.

After the opening theme, Rasmus stands in the doorway of his room and stares at Fie as she works on the cure in the lab. It’s not creepy at all.

We learn about Fie’s background in this episode. Right now, she’s remembering that time in graduate school when she went to a bar with her boyfriend and did shots all night. Urban legend says she did 30 shots, but she denies it later. She was a star student and scientist, which made all of the mediocre mean girl scientists jealous. How dare she be good looking, smart, have a boyfriend and know how to party?

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The Rain Season 2 Episode 2: The Truth Hurts Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 3 Comments

The Rain S2Ep1 Rasmus Surrounded by Bodies

Episode 2, The Truth Hurts, begins moments after the end of episode 1. Simone has just discovered Rasmus lying unconscious in the lab at the rebel facility. He’s surrounded by the bodies of the scientists who were supposed to cure him and create a vaccine. Despite the fact that he manifested black veins all over, black viral goo instead of blood and poured out a cloud of black viral smoke only moments before, now Rasmus looks perfectly healthy, with his usual smooth white skin.

Simone pounds on the glass between the observation room and the lab, trying to get a response from Rasmus. After a minute, his finger twitches, then he sits up. Simone wastes no time in creating an alibi for him. She tells him to go to the backroom before anyone else can get there. The alarm is still blaring. Rasmus asks if he killed the others. Simone makes up a quick story. She tells him to say that they dropped a sample and got infected. Rasmus doesn’t remember what happened, but he knows it wasn’t that, and tries to argue with her.

Martin and Fie rush into the observation room. Fie turns off the alarm and tries to take in the loss of almost everyone she had left, including her boyfriend, Jakob. Before either can speak, Simone blurts out that Jakob dropped a sample and got infected, then he infected the rest. Before she could do anything, they all just died.

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Agents of SHIELD Season 6 Episode 2: Window of Opportunity Recap

~ Metacrone

MING-NA WEN

In season 6, episode 2 of Agents of SHIELD, Melinda May returns to peak fighting form after an injury sidelined her for most of season 5. She single handedly takes on EvilCoulson Sarge’s team, including the Jaco the Giant and Butterfly Snowflake the dirty street fighter. She doesn’t win the fight, but she does gather important intel, free the hostage and jog Sarge’s memory of the word “Coulson”, so it’s a win for the mission.

The other main storyline this episode is Fitz and Enoch’s big space adventure. They’ve signed on to work a long haul run with a crew of xenophobic Sivians in order to get to Naro-Adzia, the planet where cryo pods are made (Jenna was right in her prediction). Fitz disguised his eye color and Enoch taught him the language so that he could blend in with the Sivians. But Enoch forgot to share some important cultural points with Fitz, which lead to them being outed as Terrans. Fitz has to think fast in order to save himself and Enoch without allowing the rest of the crew to be killed instead.

This episode allows viewers to get to know the alien culture that Fitz is involved with better, and the one that Sarge is part of. The writers also take time to further explore Marcus Benson and Agent Keller’s characters. We find out a little more about Sarge and his crew as individuals, including the fact that some teammates are disposable, a very un-Coulson-like attitude.

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The Rain Season 2 Episode 1: Avoid Contact Recap

~ Metacrone

The Rain S2Ep1 The Gang Gets Scanned

It’s time to journey back to Scandinavia for season 2 of The Rain, Netflix International’s pocket apocalypse series in which rainwater contaminated by a man-made plague virus has killed almost everyone in Denmark. That country, and possibly parts of the countries it borders, have been closed off in a quarantine zone, while the company which created the virus, Apollon, tries to find the cure. The quarantine zone is a post-apocalyptical hellscape, while the rest of the world continues on as if nothing has happened.

Before the end of season 1, our intrepid gang of survivors, Simone, Rasmus, Martin, Lea, Patrick and Jean, discover that, after 6 years, the rain is no longer toxic. But, as was shown in that other famous viral plague series, 28 Days/Weeks Later, viruses have a way of mutating and spreading when they get a sequel. This was set up at the end of season 1, when Simone and the Scooby gang brought Rasmus, the still-infected patient zero, to their father Frederick’s company, Apollon, on the edge of the quarantine zone.

They aren’t at the Apollon compound long before viewers are shown that Frederick’s partner at Apollon, Sten, evil scientist and CEO of the company, intends to use the virus to hold the world hostage. He needs Rasmus alive and still infected in order to enact his plan.

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