Creamerie Season 1 Episode 1: Pilot Recap

January 8, 2022January 9, 2022 ~ Metacrone

Creamerie, a new half hour, 6 episode dark comedy from New Zealand, takes place eight years after a plague kills all the men, when women have had time to rebuild society in their their own image. Alex (Ally Xue) and her sister-in-law Jaime (JJ Fong), who run a local organic dairy farm, and Jaime’s best friend, Pip (Perlina Lau), who works for the mayor, live together peacefully, even blissfully, in a small utopian community modeled on Wellness philosophy. The mayor, Lane (Tandi Wright), is positively evangelical about ensuring the Wellness of her constituents, down to the most intrusive details of their lives.

If this is starting to sound dystopian on the order of Brave New World, you’re on the right track. Creamerie also takes cues from The Handmaid’s Tale, Y: The Last Man (obviously), Mad Max: Fury Road, Stanley Kubrick‘s work and the Wellness industry. Creamerie blends these influences into an unpredictable, wickedly funny send up of the modern world while also leaving viewers with hope for the future.

The comedy, which is streaming on Hulu in the US, was co-created by showrunner/director Roseanne Liang (Shadow in the Cloud) and its three main stars, Fong, Lau and Xue. All four previously created the web show Flat 3 together, which is available on Youtube.

Recap

The episode opens on a men’s locker room with Reb Fountain’s cover of What A Wonderful World playing over the scene. As we watch, the helpful ticker at the top of the screen fast forwards through the first 2,920 days of the apocalypse. On day 1, the guys celebrate their team’s victory, until one sneezes bright red blood. By day 14, women in hazmat suits scrub blood from every surface of the room, while outside the men’s bodies burn in a heaping funeral pyre that belches thick black smoke. At day 30, all that’s left of the guys is the funeral pyre, which soon becomes a pile of ashes that then turns into a hill growing grass and a memorial tree.

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The Wheel of Time Season 1 Episode 3: A Place of Safety Recap

January 2, 2022January 4, 2022 ~ Metacrone ~ 2 Comments

After a brief flashback to Nynaeve’s capture by the trolloc, episode 3 picks up where the previous episode left off, with Nynaeve’s knife at Lan’s throat and the four villagers on the run from the sentient evil of Shadar Logoth. Once they get past their initial hostilities, Lan convinces Nynaeve to help treat Moiraine’s infected wound. Perrin and Egwene encounter a pack of wolves who chase them toward a group of travelers. Mat and Rand find a mining town with an inn, where they have some educational encounters.

Recap

Before the opening credits we jump back to the trolloc battle in Two Rivers, moments after Nynaeve (Zoë Robins) was taken. As a trolloc drags the Wisdom out of the village by her impressive braid, Egwene can be heard crying for her in the background. Nynaeve’s captor drops her on the ground while he stops to brutally murder and cannibalize a wounded trolloc comrade.

I’m sure it was a mercy killing.

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Y: The Last Man Season 1 Episode 10- Victoria Recap

December 30, 2021January 14, 2022 ~ Metacrone

Episode 10, the season, and potentially the series, finale, brings us the Battle of Marrisville vs the Amazons. Beth and Jennifer escape the Pentagon and hide out in Jennifer’s house, while Kim and Christine sleep in a barn. The Culper Ring lets 355 know that they’re still watching her.

As of this writing, Y: The Last Man is a one season show. We love this show and are really hoping someone picks it up. Season 1 can be watched as a complete story, but the ending sets up what are sure to be fascinating season 2 storylines. Y: The Last Man explores human nature in a unique way, far beyond the fact that most of the cast are women. The writing, acting, production design and technical values work together to build a world with a depth that’s rarely seen on television, let alone built in 10 episodes. Showrunner Eliza Clark and her team deserve the chance to show us more of that world.

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Y: The Last Man Season 1 Episode 9- Peppers Recap

December 26, 2021 ~ Metacrone

In episode 9, Roxanne fully embraces her role as societal enforcer, moving beyond her Mariska Hargitay impression in order to take her rage and lust for vengeance to a whole new level. She and Nora continue their struggle over who the Amazons should be as a group. Yorick, Allison and 355 develop closer ties to the people of Marrisville. Beth and her resistance friends use the security information Christine gave her. General Peggy turns against Jennifer, which gives Regina and Kim the leverage (and military backing) they need to stage a coup.

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Y: The Last Man Season 1 Episode 8- Ready. Aim. Fire. Recap

December 19, 2021December 19, 2021 ~ Metacrone

S1 Episode 7: My Mother Saw A Monkey Recap is HERE.

Episode 8 focuses solely on the PriceMax Amazon storyline, showing flashbacks of Roxanne’s origin story and how she joined forces with the women from the domestic violence shelter. In the present day, Sam continues to clash with Hero and the rest of the group until things come to a head. Nora works to convince Roxanne that she and Mack belong with the Amazons, even though they haven’t had experiences with men that she considers abusive or traumatic.

Ted Campbell forced Nora to fire a gun. (He was her boss and the POTUS. She couldn’t say no.) As someone who’s had traumatic experiences with guns, that would have been tough for me to get past. What else did he coerce her into that she never fully processed because she’s lived her life in survivor mode? There’s evidence that Nora was numb to most of her feelings and sleepwalking through her life before The Event.

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The Wheel of Time Season 1 Episode 2: Shadow’s Waiting Recap

November 30, 2021January 3, 2022 ~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

In episode 2, Moiraine, Lan and the four young villagers begin their journey from Two Rivers to the White Tower, where they will get help from the Aes Sedai. The trolloc army follows close behind, forcing them to make dangerous choices. Moiraine grows weaker from her wound due to the trolloc poison that was on the weapon.

Recap

The episode’s opening scene is not for the faint of heart.

A young boy crosses a Whitecloak encampment with a breakfast tray for Eamon Valda (Abdul Salis), a Questioner- think Witchfinder General, with all of the attendant misogyny, torture and murder. The Whitecloaks, or Children of the Light, believe that all uses of the One Power lead to the Darkness and must be stamped out with prejudice.

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Hanna Season 2 Episode 5: A Way to Grieve Recap

November 29, 2021 ~ Metacrone

In episode 5 Hanna wrestles with the real-not real game that is life at the Meadows. As she grows closer to the other trainees, the feelings about Erik’s death that she’s held back for months resurface. Marissa works to escape from solitary confinement, while Mannion seeks a way to help her and Hanna.

Recap

After her failed escape attempt in episode 4, Hanna resigns herself to life at the Meadows for the moment. But she hasn’t been brainwashed into thinking this is a good or normal life, the way the other trainees have. The photos and memorabilia from her fake life are continuous reminders of the life with Erik that’s gone.

Both of her parents sacrificed themselves so that she could live. She doesn’t need to pretend that she was loved, the way the other trainees do. There’s no way she would betray her parents by replacing their memories. If Utrax wants to succeed with her, they should present the new identity as a cover story, not as an erasure of her past.

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Hanna Season 2 Episode 4: Welcome Mia Recap

November 28, 2021November 28, 2021 ~ Metacrone

In episode 4, Marissa finds a way into the Meadows and meets with Hanna. Hanna and Clara work through their differences. Jules and Sandy plan a heist followed by a party. Leo teaches the trainees about the Face/Trigger method of approaching a target.

Recap

Marissa (Mireille Enos) wakes up in an inn in Northern France covered in bruises from her fight with Hanna in the truck on the ferry. She assesses the damage, then calls the organization who screened her apartment for bugs in episode 2. When Stephen Mannion (David Avery) answers, she gives the code name Vesuvius and says she needs help with a problem concerning Utrax she’s been trying to solve on her own. Mannion replies that Utrax no longer exists. Marissa tells him it’s still alive and he accepts her word. But their conversation is interrupted by an incoming call from John Carmichael (Dermot Mulroney), so she hangs up.

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The Wheel of Time Season 1 Episode 1: Leavetaking Recap

November 27, 2021January 3, 2022 ~ Metacrone ~ 2 Comments

Amazon Prime’s new high fantasy series The Wheel of Time is based on the 14 novel series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. The series takes place in a future universe that looks like the late medieval past, after a cataclysmic battle between good and evil thousands of years ago brought societal collapse and confined the use of magic to women. Men are driven insane when they wield the One Power. Time is cyclical and as the Wheel of Time spins it creates the Pattern of Ages, with human lives as both the threads of the tapestry and drivers of the Wheel.

Souls are reborn, with some able to channel power and meant to change the course of history. 3500 years ago, one such soul, who became known as The Dragon but was a man named Lewis Therin, fought the Darkness and won, but at great cost. The world has never recovered. Now prophecy states that the Dragon has been reborn and will stop the Dark One again. The Aes Sedai, a powerful magical sisterhood, seek to find him before he comes into his power. He must be carefully managed so that he doesn’t destroy the world a second time.

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Y: The Last Man Season 1 Episode 6: Weird Al Is Dead Recap

November 23, 2021December 19, 2021 ~ Metacrone

In episode 6 of Y:The Last Man, 355 and Yorick are on the run with Dr Mann, who adds a third, distinctly different opinion to the discussion. Regina Oliver is ensconced in the Pentagon’s power structure, positioned as a foil for whatever President Brown tries to accomplish, no matter how large or small. Kim and Christine each try to figure out how far they can push the other with regard to Christine’s pregnancy. Hero, Sam, Nora and Mack discover more about the harsh methods favored by Roxanne and the Amazons at PriceMax.

Recap

As the episode opens, General Reed’s elite squad of 3 trackers reaches Boston and questions Corporal Permar and her tear gas team from episode 5. Meanwhile, Agent 355 (Ashley Romans), Dr Mann (Diana Bang) and Yorick (Ben Schnetzer) have stopped for a pee break. While the two women wait for Yorick to finish, Allison wonders whether Yorick masturbates. She feels it’s too early in her dysfunctional relationship with Yorick for her to bring it up. What is the correct amount of time to wait after stabbing someone with a chef’s knife before discussing the details of their sex life, anyway?

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