Tag: recaps

Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 12: The Real Deal Recap

~ Metacrone

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The 100th episode is here, and the showrunners went for an emotional episode that tugs on the heartstrings of longtime viewers, rather than loading this installment up with cameos from every past cast member they could get to show up. Mike Peterson, who played such a big part in the pilot and in season one, returns for the episode, and Hive gets a cameo, remembering longtime cast member Grant Ward/Brett Dalton. But most importantly, the focus is on SHIELD as a family, facing their fears together, and on upcoming major life transitions for the Agents of SHIELD, including birth, death, and marriage, making this a satisfying episode no matter what the show’s fate is at the end of the season.

The cold open begins with one of Fitz’s dwarfs scanning the technology storeroom after the explosion has died down. It looks like the bomb site that it is. The dwarf spots bloody three-toed footprints (from Vrellnexians), the remains of the beacon and a black robed figure. Also, this, which has been blown into the Marvel Universe from the Dr Who Dimension:

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Hard Sun Season 1 Episode 1: The Sun, The Moon, The Truth Recap

~ Metacrone

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My review of season 1 is HERE.

Hard Sun is the code name for a secret government file of documents that show the progress of a world-wide extinction level event occurring over the course of the next five years caused by changes in the sun. It’s also the code name for the event itself, which is already underway. Though there will be graffiti all over London that reads “Hard Sun Is Coming”, that’s not really true. Hard Sun is already here.

The government doesn’t want you to know that, though, and they’re willing to kill to keep the secret for as long as possible. Hard Sun, the TV show, begins with a government agent reading the Top Secret file in her office, her face turning ashen as she understands its implications. She is Grace Morrigan (Nikki Amuka-Bird), MI5 agent and one of our major characters.

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Altered Carbon Season 1 Episode 10: The Killers Recap

~ Metacrone

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It’s time for Tak and Rei to work out their sibling rivalry issues. In episode 9, Tak got Rei to confess to driving Laurens to temporary suicide, which solved the bulk of the season’s mysteries. But there are still a few new revelations in this episode, along with the big, season-ending battle between the good guys and the bad guys, which everyone takes part in.

Kristin climbs the stairs to her brother’s apartment. She finds him lying dead on the floor, just as Leung left him. She reaches for her gun, but doesn’t have it, so she picks up a candlestick and follows the sounds of gunshots to the boys’ room. There she finds the boys both dead, laid out on the floor in a growing pool of their own blood, partially hidden behind a couch.

She drops the candlestick in shock and starts to panic, but then she hears her mother’s voice. She searches the house until she finds Alazne, who falls into her arms, bloody and dying. As Alazne is dropping to the floor, she warns Kristin, “He’s behind you!”

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Altered Carbon Season 1 Episode 9: Rage in Heaven Recap

~ Metacrone

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Episode 9 is a dark episode, arguably the darkest of the season. But we also hear the real solution to Bancroft’s mystery from the person who orchestrated his evening, so at least there’s closure amidst the real death, betrayal, and disturbing fetishes.

The episode begins with another brief fast forward, this time with two hands playing Rock, Paper, Scissors.

In the present time, Tak sits at Poe’s bar while Poe examine’s Tak’s pardon. Poe pronounces the pardon exceptionally thorough, which is a welcome surprise. Tak says he knows what really happened to Bancroft, but Poe doesn’t take the bait.

Poe’s feeling a little pissy about Tak putting the entire gang in danger and making Poe kill a fellow AI, in order to give Laurens a solution that was a lie. Tak notes that the dead AI was no great loss, and he wanted to turn Lizzie into a sex slave. Poe comments that no one is ever going to hurt his little girl again.

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Altered Carbon Season 1 Episode 8: Clash by Night Recap

~ Metacrone
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The elusive pardon.

Tak’s voiceover: “What we believe shapes who we are. Belief can bring us salvation or destruction. But when you believe a lie for too long, the truth doesn’t set you free. It tears you apart.”

This episode picks up where episode 7 left off. Tak is reeling from the discovery of what his sister has turned into, or possibly always was. He can’t take in the fact that Rei is confessing to killing Quell, the love of his life, and the rest of the Uprising rebels, who had become the family he never had. Even worse, he can’t accept that it was premeditated murder, done in cold blood with no remorse.

Tak: Quell and the Envoys were our family. How could you kill our family?

Rei: They were just soldiers. You and I, we’re family. Our lives will be better now.

Tak: When everyone I ever loved was taken away from me? Do you know what that did to me? What I became?

Rei: I tried to find you.

Tak: How hard did you look?

Rei: And then you got yourself caught by CTAC. They locked you up so tight no one could get to you.

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Altered Carbon Season 1 Episode 7: Nora Inu Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 2 Comments

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In episode 7, present day Tak lies unconscious while Rei heals him. He spends the time reliving his memories of their shared past, so that his brain can try to fit this new development into place. Tak and the audience discover some missing puzzle pieces about present day mysteries as well. None of it is encouraging.

Tak’s voiceover: “The danger of living too many times is you forget to fear death. We dismiss the Grim Reaper as a quaint metaphor. But fearing death- it’s good for you.”

Young Rei sits on the floor in the Kovacs family kitchen on Harlan’s World. Her father tells her to take off her necklace, but she refuses because it was her mother’s. It’s a pendant in the shape of the infinity snake that matches the tattoos Rei and Tak will get on their forearms as adults.

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Altered Carbon Season 1 Episode 6: Man with My Face Recap

~ Metacrone

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In episode 6, Tak gets Kristin the treatment she needs for her wounds, and they continue their investigation, leading to a major confrontation with Dimi the Personality Fragged Twin. Vernon remembers how to be pretty good back up and a pretty good friend, though he’s an impatient dad. Lizzie makes some progress and reveals a new clue. Isaac is exonerated in the murder case, at least according to Tak’s Envoy intuition. We meet a new mysterious new character, Hemingway, and Tak’s sister Rei returns from the dead. Themes of family, protection and revenge run through the episode, culminating with Rei’s reveal.

The episode begins with a brief flash forward and a return of the Mad Mykola song. We see through Tak’s eyes, but his head is covered by a ragged black cloth. He looks down and sees his hands in cuffs and chains.

In the here and now, Tak and Kristin are being driven to the hospital, while Tak tries to keep Kristin alive. She’s bleeding profusely from her wounds. He keeps her talking so she doesn’t pass out. If her sleeve dies, he can put her in a new one, but her mother and the rest of her family, all devout Neo Cs, will never speak to her again.

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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 3 Episode 13: Nathaniel Is Irrelevant./Season Finale Review

~ Metacrone

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This is a photo of Paula, played by the incomparable Donna Lynne Champlin, as she sings a song from the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend season 3 finale about the glorious and joyful process of giving birth, to help Heather feel better about what she’s gotten herself into. The song sounds pretty, everything looks beautiful, and there are even laughs to be had. Champlin sounds like the talented, amazing diva that she is. But as the song continues the lyrics go off the rails, making birth sound more and more like an apocalypse on your genitals. It ends with Heather holding a fake, gray, dead-looking placenta in her arms instead of a baby.

That’s this season, and this episode, of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend in a nutshell. To write the song, Miracle of Birth, songwriter Jack Dolgen had the show’s female writers tell him their labor and delivery horror stories, then he and his cowriter Adam Schlesinger wrote the song in the studio in two hours, based on those notes. So, it’s a simplified, biased part of the experience, filtered 2nd and 3rd hand through the male point of view, turned into a rushed product. That’s season 3 of this show.

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Altered Carbon Season 1 Episode 5: The Wrong Man Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 2 Comments

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Kovacs: “When everyone lies, telling the truth isn’t just rebellion. It’s an act of revolution. So think carefully when you speak it, because the truth is a weapon.”

Tak and Kristin spend most of episode 5 dealing with the aftermath of Tak’s torture. She tells him the story of how her partner and boyfriend, Elias Ryker, ended up on ice. They find a way to spin up the stack from Dimi’s disembodied head. Poe gives them a tip that begins to pull more of the disparate strands of the separate cases together. They grow closer to each other as they work together and learn they can trust each other.

And Captain Tanaka brings on disaster, just like I knew he would.

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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 3 Episode 12: Trent?! Recap

~ Metacrone

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Creepy stalker Adorable male ingenue Trent Maddock returns for a one episode blackmail plot love story this week. He forces Rebecca to blackmail Paula into helping her escape him reinvigorates Rebecca and Paula’s friendship. Josh’s one night stand with his karaoke machine back before the time jump has inspired him to turn it into a long term relationship. He wants to turn that into a business foursome with Beth and Valencia, but Valencia is going through the townie inferiority complex that she would have gone through when she was ten years younger if she was a real, live person. Nathaniel finally makes some decisions about his love life. Heather is still pregnant. WhiJo still has a dog and scraggly facial hair, causing me to fear for his overall health.

Rebecca meets with the girls at the Sugar Shack, where she crochets an afghan and decides to get a “buttload” of cats, now that she doesn’t have a boyfriend. Because in Rebecca’s world, if you go more than 3 days without thinking someone is the love of your life, then you must not be capable of loving another human being and are doomed to be alone forever.

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