The Wheel of Time Season 1 Episode 4: The Dragon Reborn Recap

January 16, 2022January 17, 2022 ~ Metacrone

Much of episode 4 takes place in the Aes Sedai encampment, where Moiraine, Lan and Nyaeve stop for the night after meeting up with the sisters in episode 3. Moiraine reconnects with Liandrin and the other Aes Sedai sisters, has her wound healed and evaluates Logain, the potential Dragon Reborn. Nynaeve learns more about the Aes Sedai and their Warders.

Rand and Mat travel with Thom the gleeman, stopping at a local farm for the night. Egwene and Perrin travel toward the White Tower with the Tuatha’an and learn about their peaceful philosophy, the Way of the Leaf.

Recap

The episode begins with a flashback to the recent past in Ghealan, where Logain (Álvaro Morte) is waging war on his own people. This is the war the Two Rivers villagers discussed in episode 1 that’s taking place in the south. Logain’s peasant army has stormed the gates and is sacking the king’s castle. The king’s retainers attempt to move him to a secure location, but he’s a dedicated leader and refuses to leave the battle. Logain approaches, all power and intensity, repelling attacks with barely a twitch of his finger.

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A Discovery of Witches Season 3 Episode 1 Recap: In Which Diana and Matthew Return to the Present

January 11, 2022January 13, 2022 ~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

Fellow creatures, it’s time to travel back to 21st century France and Britain for the 3rd and final season of A Discovery of Witches. After their sojourn in 16th century Europe, Diana and Matthew timewalk straight into Sept-Tours and find themselves in the middle of several crises- as usual. Before long, Matthew’s brother, Baldwin, arrives to stir the pot further.

Season 2 Summary

At the end of season 2, Matthew and Diana had spent almost a year in Elizabethan London, with a side trip to Prague in search of the Book of Life. While there, they spent time with Matthew’s vampire nephew, Gallowglass, and fostered an orphaned human boy, Jack. Before they left, Diana secretly asked the vampire-priest who ruled the creatures of London, Father Hubbard, to watch over Jack for her. On their way to Prague, they stopped at Sept-Tours and stayed with Matthew’s vampire stepfather, Philippe, who sanctioned their mating and marriage, then adopted Diana as his blood-sworn daughter using a vampire blood vow.

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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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We Are Lady Parts Season 1 Review

December 29, 2021January 1, 2022 ~ Metacrone

Amina Hussain (Anjana Vasan), the narrator of We Are Lady Parts, would like to have it all. And she’d like to have it all without vomiting all over the stage every time she’s the center of attention, thank you very much. She already has quite a lot: she’s working on her PhD in Microbiology, she has understanding parents and a squad of best friends, and she teaches guitar in her spare time. But her friends are all getting engaged and she’s barely dating. And her music is a big deal to her, but it’s a turn off to the young men in her Muslim dating pool. What’s a young, aspiring Bridget Jones to do?

Join an all-Muslim female punk band, obviously. Amina’s parents raised her right.

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Don’t Look Up- Instead, Watch No Tomorrow

December 27, 2021 ~ Metacrone

I considered writing a review of the Adam McKay/Netflix film Don’t Look Up, but I can’t be bothered to review things I dislike. (Here’s a mini review- Don’t Look Up is another expensive, cynical, misogynist, racist, classist “white bros win again, no matter what” film, dressed up as a climate change satire. Not what I was looking for or what anyone needs to watch right now. Or probably ever. Rich, powerful people, stop flaunting your privilege and wealth and competing to see who can be the worst. Get your acts together and actually save the world instead, okay?)

If you are interested in watching a show with similar themes which delivers on its promises, has charming, talented stars, and is an actual romantic comedy/gentle dark comedy-satire, I have just the show for you. No Tomorrow, starring Tori Anderson and Joshua Sasse, ran for 1 season on The CW in 2016 and is currently available on Netflix.

This review was originally written in November, 2016, 6 episodes into No Tomorrow’s 13 episode season, right after we started Metawitches.com. It’s lightly updated.

Recaps for all episodes can be found at the tag. (Listed out of order, because that’s just how I roll. 😉)

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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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Farewell, Anne Rice: Interview with the Vampire, the Monster Within and Surviving Emotional Apocalypses

December 12, 2021 ~ Metacrone

Plus, a Revisit to My Previous Post “A Brief, Non-Exhaustive Tour Through My Favorite Romantic Vampire Media“

Rest in peace, Anne Rice, 1941-2021.

As I note below in my vampire romance essay, my love of vampires didn’t start with Anne Rice. But my lifelong love affair with romantic vampires was brought into full bloom by her first book, Interview with the Vampire. I read Interview with the Vampire as soon as it came out in paperback when I was a teenager. I haven’t read all of her books, but I’ve read most of them, including some from each of the genres she wrote in. The vampires will always be my favorites, but I also love her witches, mummies, Servant of the Bones and Exit to Eden.

Perhaps due to the amount of suffering and loss she went through in her own life, Ms Rice has a way of expressing the emotional imperatives of her stories that are rivaled only by apocalypse and war stories. Her monsters, whether human or supernatural, are sympathetic because she knows that, no matter what our lives look like to others in the moment, many of us live our internal lives in an emotional apocalypse which requires the strengths and weaknesses of a monster to survive.

We are put through the emotional wringer in Rice’s introduction to her vampires – there is no mistaking what is most important to them, and it’s not blood. These vampires have deeply passionate feelings about everything, especially each other. The beauty and intensity of a vampire romance (or any monster romance) lies in admitting that we are the monster and can also love the monster in another, that opposite extremes exist in us at the same time and we can love, or at least accept, both ends of that spectrum.

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