Wynonna Earp, Season 3, Episode 12: War Paint

Season finale time - and time for a whole lot of epic! And yes it certainly brings the epic.

Beginning with an epic speech from Wynonna to her army of Revenants. And it’s a really excellent speech acknowledging her murdering past how she’s loved killing them all, how she’s really good at it and how she’s really giving up a lot by putting down her gun. Without it she’s a woman with “stellar hair, loaded last name and tired liver”. And as they’ve shared a curse she’s willing to share her land - removing the wards on the homestead which kept them out. She constantly refers to “us”

It really is an excellent scene

This is when she also reunites with Waverley where they both blow each others’ minds with all the revelations of what has been happening. There’s a lot to digest. Angels, sleeping with Waverley’s dad, Doc eating Charlie, revenant armies et al.

Wynonna and Julian have a moment which is rather awkward - he tells how much he loved Michelle and how she was the one who lured him from Eden. He’d never left or even endered Eden before. He does explain that they choose Wyatt to be their champion and gave him the flaming sword

But Bulshar has his own plans -he needs to be mortal to get into Eden and for that he needs Wynonna’s blood. But first he sends out his minions to cause some damage

They attack Nicole and Kate - and Nicole is still there telling Kate she needs to dump Doc because these two could be such fun together. Especially with them gunning down lots of minions - which they do. But Nicole is injured. Mercedes shows up, is utterly blase about everything including the vampire living in her house, but she agrees to stay with the injured Kate while Nicole goes to Waverley

Except Nicole is much worse hurt than first appeared and instead passes out on the road - only to be saved by Doc and taken to the Homestead. Which is crowded and complicated. Bobo has briefly visited for a heart to heart with Waverley who is not amused by him and he and Julian have a tense moment. What is awesome is how both of them make clear that Waverley is a wonderful, awesome person who owes that to herself and her mother - not her angelness.

This episode just has lots of awesome moments like that.

Doc does have a sword he found in the greenhouse he gives to Julian - a special sword (Wyatt’s champion sword?) which Julian notes Doc couldn’t even touch if there wasn’t some hope for his sword. And Wynonna appeals to Julian to heal Nicole - the love of his daughter’s life. And yes, appealing to an angel to heal a woman on the bases of her same-sex romance is another awesome moment. Even if it does leave Julian so weak in the aftermath he gives up his ring to Waverley.

While this is happening Jeremy and Robin are being super cute together and trying to research which isn’t going so well - Jeremy also has one of his unexplained psychic buzzes that Doc is not ok.

They are attacked by the beekeeper minions and Nedry arrives with guns. Nedry is always awesome - and I even kind of like the biplay about Ru Paul’s drag race.

At the Homestead, Bulshar and his army attack. There is a lot of shooting, big guns, small guns, sacrificing revenants and lots and lots of shooting and fighting

And then wynonna is captured by Bobo and cut so her blood can be claimed by Bulsharr for his ritual. There then follows a queue of people to try and kill her - Julian saves her first but he’s too weak to face Bulshar and Bobo Kills him. Then Doc arrives to fight Bobo who reminds everyone that mortal weapons can’t kill him. So Waverley melts his brain. Killing her dad doesn’t make her a happy person but she faces him with epic disappointment more than anger which is somehow so much more painful

Who wants Waverley to be disappointed in them

Wynonna gathers her army to face Bulshar and be ready to defeat him with her curse breaking touch - but he beats her too it and breaks the curse. The Revenants disappear, their undead lives ended now they’re no longer cursed. Without the curse Bulshar is mortal and can enter Eden. Technically he can be killed - but he vanishes.

Wynonna Earp, Season 3, Episode 11: Daddy Lessons

That was rather unexpected - did not see a lot of that coming - well done Wynonna Earp for being most unpredictable

So, Nicole and Waverly are dealing with the super awfulness of Charlie being dead by Doc’s fangs and wondering how they tell Wynonna. Nicole has to leave because as a precaution she’s having the town evacuated in case Bulshar causes badness to happen (and can I say how much I love Nedry calling her Sheriff?). Alone, a very upset Waverley touches Charlie

And he comes back from the dead.

Now I thought Charlie as rival love interest and all was perfectly placed to be a sacrificial pathos character. Did not expect resurrection.

This throws another spanner in the works because Waverly is rethinking the whole sacrifice thing. I mean it’s one thing to think you have a magic ring doing weird stuff and kind of dodging the whole specialness of that. But when you start bringing the dead back to life it kind of makes your reassess things. Wynonna catches on to this and, after walking past Charlie walking around in a daze (which nearly pole axes Nicole) she goes and tracks Waverly down by the Eden stairs that Wynonna can’t see. Waverly is determined to sacrifice herself and Wynonna can’t stop her

So Wynonna knocks her out. And plans to have someone drive her out of Purgatory. She can’t do it, she has Bulshar to fight. Nicole can’t do it because she’s sheriff and also she can’t tell Waverly no because awwwwwwwww. So they enlist an extremely confused Charlie to do it. While Nicole continues to be dumbstruck by the whole being alive thing

Waverley and Charlie have a few sacrificial conversations, she doesn’t want to die but she will sacrifice herself as a last resort. And he takes her to her mother’s greenhouse… which he shouldn’t know about. More on this later

Because Wynonna has another problem - without Peacemaker she is vulnerable and is kidnapped by some Revenants who want to offer her to Bulshar as tribute as one of his bridges. This comes with witty banter, creepy guy making her wear his dead wife’s dress and gay Revanant doing her hair (Wynonna Earp, look Nicole and Waverly are awesome but you’ve still only just started treating Jeremy as a character and he and Robin are still largely comic relief. Basically you don’t have nearly enough banked to get away with this throwaway stereotyped bullshit).

She’s presented to Bulshar to find that Mercedes is already there. Voluntarily. And she makes a passionate defence of cowardice, survival and how she’s totally going to survive this and if this means being team Bulshar then so be it. And I kind of applaud Mercedes for this - sorry, I love her and I love her unabashed, unashamed willingness to look after herself, to protect herself, to resist her martyrdom without the slightest hint of shame.

Also her take on the Titanic is absolutely awesome. I worship Mercedes

Oooh oooh, who wants a tv show that somehow manages to connect Delle Sayah from Killjoys and Mercedes just going out there and being gloriously terrible people together? You’d watch it. You’d know you would.

Bulshar wants a lieutenant - and Wynonna seems to listen to Mercedes because she offers herself. She wants her family to live. She wants Waverley to live. And to do that she will serve Bulshar, she even offers to beg, she even kneels before him offering service… until she nearly touches him and he recoils in actual terror from her touch and has her locked in a cage

Wynonna Earp, Season 3, Episode 7: I Fall to Pieces

Wynonna and Charlie are still doing their casual stress release thing in a fire engine (which is just awkward) while Nicole campaigns for support to become the new sheriff.

Nedry is all very very supportive of this, happy to retire and snark (Jeremy’s also there and Waverley makes a quip about whether he lives there and this is just Wynonna Earp kind of lampshading that they’ve done so little with Jeremy he doesn’t even have a home) as he sets Nicole and Wynonna together clearing out his weird cupboard of weirdness. Any potential magical artefacts which he’d have trouble explaining he’s stuffed in the cupboard

Wynonna quickly derides this as make work to try and make them work together because Wynonna and Nicole don’t always get on. This has always been kind of bubbling but this episode lays it out: Nicole likes order and rules. Especially since she’s the sheriff which kind of needs some level of rules and orders and planning. While Wynonna likes to wing it, burn it all down and kind of get through it. They clash a lot and eventually their squabbling breaks some of the artefacts

We know that’s a bad idea.

Nedry also tells Nicole that she needs to get the approval of Bunny Loblaw, who controls the city council. And she is a terrible terrible person.

She visits Nicole, is clearly homophobic (and points to the show for knowing that homophobes are often smart enough not to yell slurs but do like their dog whistles: like praising Wynonna for being a “straight shooter”) and equally clearly doesn’t like that Nicole isn’t from Purgatory. She’s also allergic to cats and even thinking of backing Wynonna for Sheriff. She makes one valid complaint - she didn’t like that Nedry lied to her about the supernatural shenanigans in the city and kept her in the dark. She wants to be told

While Wynonna and Nicole bicker away (Wynonna doesn’t actually want to be sheriff but she takes issue with Nicole so passionately insisting how utterly terrible Wynonna would be as a sheriff. I mean, it’s not wrong but it is mean), Bunny sees a gnome and meets Nicole’s cat, Calamity Jane (this is an AWESOME name for a cat and I want to get a cat just so I can call her this!) which is unfortunate as she has a pet allergy and promptly passes out

There follows one of the most hilarious exchanges there has ever been on this show. And this is Wynonna Earp which has some of the biplays ever in the genre. This show is the master of snark and this set a new level

From “Balls, Bunny’s dead”. To Wynonna insisting she knows a dozen places to hide a body, “she’s alive” “fine, I’ll save them for another time.” Nicole insists Wynonna get Bunny’s purse, so which Wynonna relies “yes, cash!” Not medication.

Bunny is actually alive. And doesn’t want to go to hospital because it has too many immigrant doctors - because she is a terrible terrible person.

Game of Thrones, Season 6, Episode 6: Blood of my Blood

A large part of this episode follows Sam and Gilly going back to his parents’

And it’s not a bad storyline, we see how utterly terrible his dad his, how he constantly demeans Sam, how he hates Wildlings and how he really needs to be stabbed with something repeatedly. I also like  how, while Sam utterly fails to stand up for Gilly (that falls to Sam’s mother and sister), Gilly doesn’t hate Sam for that – I think this is important. I know we’d probably all want Sam to stand up to his evil dad, but this is the man who has been abusing Sam his entire life- a lifetime of self-loathing and fear and pain shouldn’t just vanish because Man Now Has Woman To Protect.

Sam decides, somewhat unwisely, to run off in the middle of the night with Gilly, the baby and rhe family sword. This will not end well.

How do I say this without sounding awful? Because I’m sure there’s a lot to unpack in Sam’s story and it’s a very touching little story

But “little” is the operative word. And there’s so much going on in this world with more pivotal characters (Arya) and more world changing events (Daenerys, the Dorthraki, Meeren, Kings Landing, Winterfell, North of the Wall). I’m kind of “ok this is nice… but I’m not sure I care.”

Now to storyline I do care about which better have a twist to it: Margaery has apparently gone all High Sparrow devotee and confessed her sins (her sins are… lying about her brother’s terrible gayness – who is absent, of course, because he’s not a character, he’s a plot point. That’s literally the total extent of them) and is totally ready to do the walk of shame but doesn’t have to because Tommen has also converted

Game of Thrones, Season 6, Episode 5: The Door

This episode is the episode of the Stark children – so let’s cover the others first:

Over in Meeren, Tyrion is quite happy that his newly brokered peace actually seems to be holding – being a consummate politician he decides to double down and follow up with a PR coup. They need  a powerful, well respected and incorruptible body to spread the wonders of Daenerys far and wide.

He reaches out to the Red Priests. Who quite like Daenerys because the whole rising from fire thing really resonates with supporters of R’hollor. There are two downsides though which Tyrion may not have considered and could come back to bite them all:

1) The Red priests are fanatics and not into religious tolerance. Daenerys’s empire is cosmopolitan and she intends to stretch it to the Seven Kingdoms as well – having people on side who like to burn the sinners and unbelievers is going to be damn hard to handle

2) The Red Priests also have terrifying woo-woo as we’ve seen before and as the priestess demonstrates again with Varys. Varys loathes her with the super fiery passion of a thousand suns.

This may backfire on Tyrion.

At the Iron isles we have Theon, sort of son of the Starks, pledging his full support to Yara at the kingsmoot to choose the new ruler. He rejects any chance to make him king (though some tried) and gives an epic speech for Yara. Yara also has an epic yet brutally honest speech about the Iron Born – great sailors but not up to taking the soldiers of the mainland. They raid until they become too annoying then they get squished (as has been recently seen). They need a new tactic and a new vision. Her vision includes a gazillion ships

Unfortunately in comes uncle Euron to claim the throne. I curse him because I want Yara to be queen but his plan: to ally with Daenerys (who badly needs a fleet) actually makes more sense. Ultimately Yara and him could both see the problem but only Euron really has a solution – her plan of a thousand ships was basically more raiding and destruction. Euron has a solution and Euron was also the one who ended the disastrous war by killing the last, useless king. I can see why he’s convincing.

Wynonna Earp, Season 1, Episode 2: Keep the Home Fires Burning

Wynonna is now a proper member of the Black Badge brigade which means Dolls is all official and she is all snarky. He has lots of official research. She has her own family history – and they clash a bit but not so much as to give me a headache. Though I think Wynonna gives Dolls all the headaches. Dolls also puts the sheriff in his place which is kind of fun.

More menacing, apparently the powers that be behind his organisation (founded by Roosevelt) will destroy the town if any news of the supernatural leaks, which is something of a problem given how unsubtle Wynonna is

I quite like that they’re both right in some instances: her about how all of his shiny guns don’t mean much next to the Peacemaker, him about making their home safe

Which is top of Wynonna’s priority list this episode – finding a safe place, what with Revenants invading Gus’s bar and Waverly’s flat. They need a safe place – which would be their old homestead since it has never been attacked by Revenants except for that one time when they lost their dad and their older sister.

Turns out, per Dolls’ research, the homestead is magically protected: unfortunately when she was a small child, Waverly was manipulated by a Revenant posing as her imaginary friend to bury a talisman that voided the protection: they just have to dig it up and get rid of it to get their safe space back.

They do this in the face of this week’s monster – a big shadowy Revenant of scariness who hunts down a target when receiving a living human blood sacrifice. Despite being all shadowy and scary and able to put out lights, and one of the Seven Revenants that took down Wynonna’s father, he doesn’t seem to be all that special and the Peacemaker puts lots of holes into him. In fact, as a villain, he seemed far more invested in being scary than deadly. Not a great bad guy. It does give Wynonna and Waverley chance to bond and be all sisterly which is nice.

The Returned, Season 2, Episode 4: Virgil

Yet again we see that Milan is the worst man ever – and pretty much the demon that haunts everyone.  Think absolutely everyone in his town has been hurt by him at some point

This time we see the new mystery guy who has been hanging around with Camille. His name is Virgil and his parents handed him over to Milan to stop his pesky thieving. Milan does this by brutally and torturously murdering him (and further traumatising Serge so we can properly force the serial killer redemption. There’s this weird unwritten rule that the more tragedy you dump on a bad guy the more you make him a good person).

Milan also has a nasty habit of dropping people into a basement

Which is exactly where Serge dumps him for his inevitable resurrection. Every time he wakes up Serge shoots him again. I approve

Lucy has a more long term solution – she arrives and takes Milan off Serge’s hands. After “forgiving” him while he talks about how he “saved her” she clonks him on the head, chains him to something heavy and drops him in the lake. I don’t think that will hold him, sadly. Though it’s reaching a level of almost comedy that Milan is really this much of a bad guy – he needs a moustache to twirl.

Simon opts out of this whole Milan slaughter thing or even Lucy’s increasing cultyness. He’s more focused on his baby – which he has just kidnapped from Adele at Lucy’s ordering. Lucy then launches a time travel based soap opera by giving the baby to Simon’s own dead and returned parents to raise (they think the baby is Simon) to leave Simon all kinds of conflicted – especially since he hallucinates his father killing his mother and his parents saying all kinds of creepy culty things. Honestly it’s like they read an ominous cult hand book

This is causing Adele some problems with the authorities because no-one (except Alcide) believes her baby has been kidnapped by her undead lover. And given her odd behaviour, her desire to get rid of her child and her general unwillingness to name him or tolerate his presence she’s prime suspect in having done something nefarious.

Simon decides to bring the baby back to Adele and tell her to head for the hells because there’s a limit the creepiness he will tolerate, apparently. Hallucination murder zombie cult parents are across the line. He also helps Audrey back across the lake since Lena has told her that her parents are back looking for her – and believe in the Returned.

The Returned, Season 2, Episode 3: Morgane

In case we were in any doubt, Milan is a very very very bad man.

A flashback to 35 years ago we find that Lucy and Morgane were hooking up and Milan (with some kind of nebulous connection to Lucy) took exception to this. For her “sins” he threw her in a basement until she died. When Morgane arrived Milan threw him in as well

Milan is officially not a nice man. This also explains why, in the present, Lucy is terrified of Milan (and psychically ware of them) and instantly attracted to Morgane when he returns, though he does seem rather zombie-like.

Not convinced? More evil evidence – Léna decides that after arguing with her dad the best thing to do will be to crash at Serge’s place. Because who do you turn to in your hour of need if not your friendly neighbourhood serial killer? Serge wants rid of her asap because Milan is scary. Milan decides he wants to “save” Léna by murdering her. Serge the serial killer objects and Milan tortures him.

Serge tries to fake it but Milan is more savvy than that and stabs her – demanding Serge finish her off. He shoots Milan instead which would be nice but I rather think he’ll just be back again soon. Serge takes Léna’s injured body to the Departed zone and dumps her on Camille and Claire’s lawn

This whole storyline stinks of redeeming Serge the serial killer who targets women. And it’s a very very bad smell indeed.

Simon is, thankfully, not too jealous about Lucy and Morgane, he’s more focused on Adèle who is despairing and conflicted about her new baby that Chloe has dubbed Nathan. It doesn’t help Adèle that Chloe is talking to Simon and knowing stuff that only Simon could know, turning Adèle even more paranoid though, by the end, she does seem to accept her child

Oh look, Simon’s back to romantically stalking his beloved Adèle. Is there any wonder that she has so many problems when every man in her life who has ever pretended to care for her thinks stalking and controlling her and monitoring her is the way to her affections. She needs some better men in her life. Or no men at all.

It doesn’t help that Lucy believes that Nathan is the key to something (no doubt a bad thing).

The Returned, Season 2, Episode 2: Milan

This episode takes the eight gazillion storylines and decides to mix them all up for lots of cross over. Confused – you almost certainly will be

The foundation begins 35 years ago with Pierre murdering Victor’s family – encouraged by someone called Milan who ran their little creepy group.

In the present we learn who Milan is as he’s newly returned: Serge and Toni’s father – and Serge seems to be definitely afraid of him; probably due to his willingness to threaten his own son with a gun.

For more ominousness, Lucy (the creepy psychic in a relationship with Simon) also knows instantly when Milan is back and is very very worried about that. Simon himself is concerned about Adèle who is still in hospital with her newborn baby she wants absolutely nothing to do with no matter how many times the doctor tries to get her interested or warn her that the baby isn’t doing so well.

It takes Chloe to beg Adèle to help the baby – who has apparently died. Until Adèle touches him and he suddenly starts breathing again. My vote is for demon baby!

Lucy and Simon are also concerned with “rounding up” people, who I assume are the new Returned. The fact Lucy refers to people “escaping” suggests said rounding up is now optional. We see more evidence with this as Claire takes in more of the Returning kids who died in the same bus crash as Camille. Only Audrey and now Estéban have no wish to remain imprisoned and hidden from an unknown threat – especially since Claire refuses to tell them anything. Camille is also not a fan – and helps them escape so all three of them can go running

Once free they’re able to see the flood waters and, with some help from a new guy, drama from Camille and a heart-breaking visit to a shrine created for all the kids who died in the crash, they come to accept that they’re dead and Returned.

While doing this lots of people stand around and stare at the ominously. Presumably the ominous staring people are there to stop them leaving (well, if you can call ominous staring stopping anyone). They do, apparently, beat up Claire – well they ominously surround her and later we see her all bruised once they all reunite.

The Returned, Season 2, Episode 1: L'Enfant

A new season of Returned comes with a lot of ominous, beautiful imagery and spooky music. This show has always been more about the theme and feel far more than the actual details of what happened. I would say it fits into the category of an eternal mystery show, except I think the theme and feel are the point, not the mystery.

Season 2 opens 6 months after the last season ended with flood and a horde of newly returned. The authorities have moved into town with a lot of soldiers and a new investigator called Berg but they only know about the flood – few of the locals are talking about the undead (for obvious reasons). They know the locals aren’t telling them everything, and it’s all kind of ominous and spooky.

Of course, a lot of the locals have left after the flood which has still left large amounts of the town under water

Jérôme and his daughter Léna are still around – but there’s a lot of tension between them. Jérôme seems to be the only guy telling the truth so is largely considered a liar. All they get from everyone else is ominous mentions of “thieves” and absolutely no bodies being found

Neither of them are fans of Pierre who is also still going – running the Helping Hand and making it look more and more like a very spooky cult. Pierre’s also recruited Frédérick, Léna’s ex. They’re still very culty.

Adèle is also still in town and heavily pregnant with Simon’s child. This is causing her all kinds of angst, including her daughter, Chloe, wondering if the baby will be a zombie or not and Adèle generally being in a terrible state, not seeing a doctor and repeatedly trying to abort her baby. Something she confides in her closest confidant – a Catholic Priest. Well that’s quite possibly the worst choice but I’m, impressed.

Then Toni returns. Or possibly Returns. Last season Toni drown in the lake but death isn’t that much of a problem on this show. He’s now back – in time to be hit by a car (driven by Berg) and taken to the hospital – where he cause quite a stir among everyone because he’s supposed to be dead.

Another return is Audrey – she seems to have been on the same bus as Camille in season 1 and has just returned, much to the consternation of the local military. One of those soldiers tries to take her home – which isn’t there any more. Instead he wants to take her to where new people have settled.

Undead and Unemployed (Undead #2) by MaryJanice Davidson

It's been a couple months since Undead and Unwed.  Betsy has still not adjusted to the fact that she is queen of the vampires and that with that title comes responsibilities.  Betsy is determined that she will regain some semblance of a life and for her, this means getting a job and paying her own way through life.  It should be simple right?  Well, it might have been were it not for the fact that someone is killing vampires in St. Paul and as Queen of the Vampires, it's Betsy's responsibility to keep her people safe.

In case you are wondering, Betsy doesn't get anymore likeable in Undead and Unemployed. Betsy remains extremely vapid, whiny and just plain sarcastic.  I don't think I have disliked a character this much since Charlene Harris's  Aurora Teagarden and believe me, that's saying something. At this point, I am just going to go ahead and give up on any kind of character development in this series. Yes, I know it's early but Betsy is simply beyond hope at this point, even if she claims to be a feminist.

Betsy's relationship with king and consort Eric, continues to be stormy at best.  On the one hand, I can understand Eric's frustration with Betsy's intentionally obtuse attitude towards everything vampire.  Betsy has access to the Book of the Dead which will inform her about her role in the life of vampires and what she can expect as their queen.  It would make sense for Betsy to read it from cover to cover but of course, Betsy cannot be bothered but whines when she gains new information from Eric and Tina, which she could have learned on her own, had she bothered to read the damn book.

Eric is controlling and possessive in many ways.  Normally that kind of behaviour in a male love interest is beyond irritating to me but I cannot see any other way for Eric to make Betsy see the real danger she is in.  I do however think that Eric took it a bit too far when he showed up at Betsy's job, demanded that she quit and when that didn't work, attempted to use his powers to force Betsy's boss to fire her.  This scene is the only shining moment in the book for Betsy.

"My queen," he said, glaring down at me, "does not work."

"This one does," I said shortly. "And do you hear yourself? Jeez, I knew you were an ancient motherfucker, but even you must know women can have jobs now.  And dammit! You made me say 'motherfucker' at work."

It's the only time where Betsy stands her ground and it actually makes sense.  Yes, vampires are dying but Betsy should have the right to earn her own income as she sees fit and not be dependent upon Eric or Jessica for money.

Undead and Unwed (Undead #1) by MaryJanice Davidson

When some people have a bad week, they really have a bad week.  In the case of former model and now executive secretary Betsy Taylor, being laid off is actually the bottom of her list of concerns.  When Betsy is run over by a car and wakes up in a morgue, she immediately believes that she somehow missed the bright light.  After trying to kill herself  in several different ways and talking to clergy about the state of her soul, Betsy decides to try and pick up the pieces of her life.  Unfortunately for Betsy, this means getting involved in vampire politics and dealing with telling her family that she's actually not dead.  What's a girl to do when she finds herself jobless, dead and without her precious designer shoes? Luckily for Betsy, it turns out she a vampire queen and so perhaps her death might be more interesting than the life she left behind.

Betsy Taylor is easily one of the most unlikable protagonists that I have discovered recently.  Betsy is shallow, with no impulse control, collects marginalized people as BFF's and has a little problem with Kellie Independence.  Originally, Betsy wants to stay far away from vampire politics, convinced that she has to worry about getting a job and finding regular people to feed from. Even when she learns that Nostradamus, the ancient vampire who has been responsible for several massacres might possibly be gearing up for yet another power grab, thus endangering vulnerable humans, Betsy simply wants no part of it.  What finally pushes her over the edge is a bribe of designer shoes.  Really?  I'm supposed to root for this person?

Even if I could get over that, the fact that Betsy's favorite movie is Gone With the freaking Wind, her justification for the book and film are something I simply could not embrace.  Betsy absolutely refuses to acknowledge that this nasty plantation story is not some wonderful antebellum romance but actually a glorification of White supremacy and slavery, even when told so directly by a character of colour.  That little factoid almost made me slam the book closed.

"It's a book that glorifies white people at the expense of blacks."

"The vain white people who ended up alone and unhappy, or the white people who got the shit kicked out of them by the Union Army? Or the white people who starved to death during Reconstruction? Or-"

"All right."

"You know, for somebody who could buy London. you're awfully touchy about slavery.  I mean, no one in your family was ever a slave."

She sniffed. "You can never know my pain."

"The pain of being the first kid on the block to have her own Patek Philippe watch? You poor oppressed creature."

She giggled. "Thank God you understand.  This is of course, why I tolerate your bigotry and snobbishness." (pg 178-179)

Seriously WTF?  Who argues that a black person who has never been enslaved is overly touchy about slavery?  This is supposed to be funny but instead I found it to be horribly racist.  Defending the racist Gone With The Wind, is one thing but absolutely ignoring the connection between slaves and the lives of modern African-American is simply beyond the pale.

I suppose this moves us onto marginalized characters.  Jessica is an extremely wealthy Black woman who has been BFF's with Betsy since they were children.  Yes, this puts her straight into the sidekick category, a label which Jessica actively identifies as. Jessica buys Betsy's home, thus providing Betsy with a place to live after her untimely death and is more than willing to support Betsy for the rest of her life.  Jessica's characterisation is  so absolutely problematic that it makes me wonder if Davidson has interacted with a WOC at anytime or just believes that she can write our experiences from watching some crappy television portrayals.  Davidson actually has Jessica call Betsy's father, "honky". It's clear that Davison simply planned on making Jessica a female George Jefferson with her her own Moving on Up theme song except in this version, Jessica is there to see to every conceivable need that Betsy has.

The Returned by Seth Patrick

I don’t understand this book – I just don’t really understand the point of it.

When I picked it up I thought it would be the book that The Returned television series was based on – my mistake, it’s actually a book based on the television series (both of which are based on another book which is rather loopy). Book spin offs from TV shows happen and we’ve reviewed a few before so while it wasn’t what I expected I was curious about where it would go, given the mystery and unanswered questions of the series

It turns out, however, that “based on” is not exactly an accurate description of this book. “Blatant copy” is much more accurate. This book is a recap of the show. Literally, someone took the script sat down and just wrote it as a novel. The characters, plot, setting, conversations – pretty much everything is exactly the same. It actually reminds me of a blog recap without the commentary. I almost DNFed this book from sheer redundancy since I already knew what would happen in painful detail – but I held on to the end to see if anything changed. Lack-of-things-to-spoil-alert: nothing did. Not one damn thing

The only real difference between the two was medium. Since this was a book we had a lot less of the dramatic visuals and ominous music that were so prevalent in the TV series (which is absolutely terrible because this entire tv show was BASED on the atmosphere – it’s like taking a Michael Bay movie and removing the explosions an half naked Megan Fox – there’s nothing left to it afterwards). We lose a lot of the ominous because of this – for example, when Victor appears on the tv show he is so utterly creepy that the average viewer wanted to kill him with fire – that’s completely lost in the book. And Victor is oddly chatty and not ominously silent.

Instead what we have is the ability to see things through the character’s eyes, from their point of view. Yes, this book is a switching POV 1^st person. And this is AWFUL. It is awful because it takes all the nuanced depiction of the atmosphere, well acted portrayals and layered conflicts and decides to info-dump the hell out of all of it. Do we need to see Jerome struggling with the conflicts over Lucy, his family and his general feelings of failure and inadequacy? Nope because he’s going to info-dump all of that in one big self-reflecting chunk of text! Lena dealing with survivor’s guilt and fear with her returning twin sister? Sure we could show a series of developing conflict – or we could have her exposition an appalling info dump.

The Returned, Season 1, Episode 4: Victor

Open with Victor before he became the creepy kid with his mother reading a bedtime story and telling him about a fairy that will protect him. The fairy is absent when 2 men break into the house and kill his family and, despite the objections of one of them, him as well.

In the present day he is much creepier and trying to play sweet kid getting in Julie’s bed. The screaming saves her from him eating her skin. The screaming is from someone who has found the body of her terrible neighbour – now being eaten by her cats after being murdered and having her tongue torn out

In case you’ve forgotten, annoying neighbour was last seen in the company of Victor.

Rather than, naturally, suspecting the creepiest kid (outside the French version of this show) the police, represented by Julie’s ex, Nikki, think it’s the same serial killer who killed Lucy and who attacked Julie. Victor’s fear of the dark means, when the electricity goes out, he runs to Julie (oh Victor, there’s nothing scarier in the dark than you! And on that note – being in the dark with Victor? Hell no). This introduces Victor to Nikki who points out you can’t actually just collect lost children. It is frowned upon

Just in case Julie missed how creepy Victor is, she finds his drawings of her neighbour dying and being eaten by cats. She finds him hiding, terrified, in the closet just like he did before he was murdered.

Seeing more evidence of Victor being so very troubled, Julie realises she can’t care for him and calls in Nikki. Julie and Victor have a tearful goodbye. Alone Julie goes through Victor’s pictures and finds she has been drawn as the protective fairy from his mother’s stories

Over to the Winships and it seems Jack spent the night. Claire is even considering Jack’s suggestion  of them moving –until the police ask him to come to the station to talk about Lucy’s murder.

Camille isn’t a fan of moving away from home even if she might be staked/shot/burned as a zombie/vampire/chupacabra (spell check, you disappoint me not knowing what a chupacabra is). Lena’s back wound is only getting worse and she’s staggering around like the zombie her sister isn’t. She times her collapse for when she’s at the top of the stairs because if you’re going to have a sucking back wound you might as well be dramatic about it (and it’s hard to properly steal thunder when one’s sister is undead).

To the hospital! Joined by pretty creepy-supposed-to-be-compassionate-but-feels-like-a-predator-and-an-insurance-salesman Peter (also looks creepily like Jack which doesn’t speak well for how much Claire is moving on). Lena blames her creeping wound on Camille; Lena has issues with how much Camille and her death has consumed her parents’ world.

Peter takes the time to explain Lena’s survivors guilt and general issues to Camille. The doctor basically calls Lena’s spreading puncture wound damn weird and Claire opts against revealing her other child is undead.

Having done that he then tells Claire that Jack is under suspicion of killing Lucy who he was having sex with – because the police have no concept of it not being his business. Claire is furious – not about Jack but about Peter violating her family’s privacy to this degree with the help of his friend

When Jack finally arrives at the hospital, Claire asks about Camille’s missing college fund. Jack objects to Lucy being called a “hooker” (not out of respect for sex workers but more out of denial that she was a sex worker). He tries to sell his sex-medium lie. Ultimately he falls back on being a mess and needing something to distract him – she does believe him when he says he didn’t hurt her but she’s not moving away with him.

The Pirate Princess (Jinx #2) by Alice Rozen

Jinx the witch is not shy about using her powers when she think it is warranted, much to the worry of the school authorities. To try and unruffle a few feathers, Jinx finds herself pulled into starring in a school play about the dread pirate captain, Sirena.

She had many worries and jitters about the play – but she definitely didn’t expect Sirena on her fabled ghostly pirate ship, the Flying Dutchman, to actually appear as the performance began.

With the new surprise arrival of Felix, Jinx must match wits with the pirate captain who is determined to sacrifice a witch born on hallowe’en to Davy Jones and isn’t afraid of having to hurt people in the process

This is one of those hard reviews to write – because I don’t have a lot to say but still loved it. I loved it because it’s immense fun. The story is fun, the characters are fun, the world setting is fun. It’s just all so very fun. It’s light, it’s fast paced, the action is perfectly balanced, it’s funny and there are lots of extremely fun, epic moments of excitement that, at the same time, don’t go over the top nor do they try to get too gritty or dark. It’s fun, it’s a fun read, it’s meant to be fun. And I can’t just write a review which says “it’s fun, go read it for the fun because fun!” though, really, what more could you possibly want from a book beyond fun? It’s one of the most difficult aspects of reviewing that when you liked a book for simple, good reasons, the review is short.

Of course, while the fun is by far and away the main reason to read it, there are some nice bonuses on top of that as well. We have a short but intriguing story that involves battling the enemy in ways beyond merely squishing and killing them as well as complex villains with difficult and deep motives that are hide to argue against, even if they are overly idealistic and simplistic. We have some excellent character development in Jinx’s school life and how she uses her powers as you’d really expect a 10 year old to use her powers. This also involves, very refreshingly, a complete absence of the usual “waaah I have super powers, it’s so terrible to be me!” Jinx is a witch, she likes being a witch, she loves her powers, she has absolutely no desire to hide her powers or suppress them and she’s quite willing to let loose when she sees things she disagrees this. Does this give the 10 year old Jinx something of an invincibility complex? Of course – but what 10 year old wouldn’t?

I like how this world has developed – building from the foundation of last book, we’re now expanding outwards. Not only with the introduction of Felix (and it is only the introduction this book, there isn’t much development of it yet – but this is a 100 page book with a lot of action) and a good foundation for that future relationship, but also with bringing in the Illuminati and general hints of meta. After the basics from the first book, this book is littered with little plot hooks promising that there’s a full meaty series to come that is going to be more than what we see. This gives me a lot of hope that there’s a full series run available here.

The Dark Victorian: Risen (The Dark Victorian #1) by Elizabeth Watasin

Artifice and Jim are agents for Prince Albert’s secret commission. Condemned criminals, they have been risen from the grave with a combination of dark magic and esoteric science to be the crown’s agents in fighting criminal dark magic that threatens the city.

Someone is raising the dead and their creations are causing chaos and death throughout London. The two agents must track them down and stop them – and along the way, new agent Artifice learns about her history and what she has become – and realises she has a lot more questions than answers.

I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that was quite like this - the world setting is fascinating and amazing

We have a steampunk Victorian setting where magic is commonplace – all kinds of magic but in particular England has been plagued by lots of dark magic from illicit practitioners getting up to all kinds of naughty shenanigans (and killing lots of people) until something had to be done. And that something was the powers that be creating their own undead agents from condemned criminals.

Enter our characters – brand new agent Art (Artifice, a ghost) and the much more experienced agent Jim Dastard (a skull. A talking skull). This is definitely a unique cast right there. And they have a really fascinating dynamic – Jim is really experienced and knowledgeable, he is Art’s guide to London, magic and the whole world around her; he has all this insight. But he’s also a skull. Providing knowledge is pretty much the entirety of what he can do – he provides knowledge but he is entirely reliant on Art to actually physically act.

And Art has had her memory wiped as part of the resurrection process – but she knows she’s a Quaker (which is a fascinating and rare viewpoint in and of itself). But she knows, by merit of her being undead, she must have committed a capital crime (or have been executed anyway) which brings in lots of guilt and worry. There’s the whole complexity of her having to relearn the world around her, having all these memories but no context to connect them to an knowing absolutely nothing about herself – knowing more about the places around her than her own history. Then there’s added conflict with her having to go out and be focused on the mission, not her charitable impulses and even having to fight, hurt and perhaps kill people as part of her job which conflicts massively with her Quaker morality. But she has to be the one to act – because Jim can’t and she’s so physically capable (she’s extremely strong). There’s a whole lot of depth there and it’s all touched on with a delicate hand. It doesn’t consume the story but it’s all there, it’s wonderfully well done.

Their presence in society is also fascinating: because they are, in some ways, the thing that stands between the general populace and all kinds of evil machinations, almost hero figures. But they’re also police which makes people from vulnerable classes suspicious, and they’re undead and they’re former condemned criminals. There’s a lot of nuance there.

Dead Shifter Walking (The Succubus Executioner #1) by Kim Schubert

Olivia is a succubus and the enforcer for the local supernatural council. She is the one who keeps people in line and chops off heads that step a little too far out of line. It’s a demanding job.

A job that wasn’t made any easier by the vampires, watching far too much modern media, decided it would be a great idea to reveal themselves to the world. Now humanity wants to get involved in supernatural business: Olivia is not welcoming of the idea.

But when an ever growing number of humans are being killed by an apparent supernatural being, Olivia has to act quickly - and with mortal authorities – to stop the killing and put an end to the backlash. If it were all Olivia had to worry about it would be enough – but werewolf and vampire politics are both pulling at her attention as well: one of them coming very close to her own family.

This world setting is extremely rich and diverse and immensely deep. There are a huge amount of different supernatural beings in this book as well as some pretty involves structures around them. So we have vampires, werecreatures, witches and succubae; which lots of magic and the undead all really filling up this world. On top of that all of these creatures don’t just exist in our world, there are political structures and positions and hierarchies and how all of that relates to human politics in this newly revealed supernatural world.

Each of these supernatural creatures also has their own political structure, their own ways of running their societies and even their own cultures which themselves are interesting to delve into – like the way the werecreature pack works. Or the vampires and their very major elements of consent and fidelity in their culture; I especially liked the consent issues that are really powerfully included in their interactions, their sex lives and their feeding. (I think this was especially vital since we have so many books in the genre where vampires are very dubious when it comes to consent).

There’s also the individual creatures, magic and a whole lot more – because this book doesn’t rely entirely on “here’s a vampire, you know what vampires are” and dispense with further description; in addition to their involved culture we have to also consider exactly what they are – this is especially true with Succubae and their emotional manipulation abilities which is not quite feeding and is very involved and layered while being at the heart of who Olivia is, how she interacts with the police, the supernatural community, her role as Executioner and the friends and co-workers she lives with.

Speaking of, there are a lot of characters in this book all of whom seem to fill pretty important roles in the world. Several vampires, several wereanimals, her fellow succubae who live with her in the dance club, Grams who is an associate of hers, a chauffeur/witch, a police contact and a few others. All of them actually feel developed and all of them do have a sense of their own stories or a hint of them at least – even if we don’t see it they feel like more than names.

There’s a lot here and a lot of it is very very good which has really pulled me in

But there’s too much. Or, rather, there’s too much that has been hinted at without a lot of development that left me a little lost. Like the two major vampires Olivia deals with – Blake and Tate; I got the two confused a few times (which didn’t help that one of them is Olivia’s love interest), it took me a while to sort out where they each fit in the hierarchy and I’m still not entirely sure why they decided to follow her around for as long as she did, especially since she’s involved in a murder investigation. I know she’s not the human authorities and outright denies human law – but surely dragging random sex partners with you to crime investigations is an objectively bad idea? Speaking of human law enforcement there was Mercer who liked her then hated her then disappeared for several chapters and seemed to be quite neutral towards her – the book was so full that when he returned I had a “wait… and who are you?” moment. Then there’s Grams who is connected to Olivia but I’m not sure how – it’s somehow related to her dark and tragic past that is alluded to and regularly causes Olivia to have little rage/grief meltdowns but I don’t know much else. It’s also related to the kids she seems to live with who may or may not be Succubae/Incubi. The wereanimals were also guys whose names I often forgot (and mixed up) and it was only towards the end of the book when I realised they were werelions and not werewolves.

I’m still not entirely sure what it means to be a succubus. I’m not sure how their council works how much scope and authority it has, whether she’s one of many executioners or not, and whether she’s defacto leader of the council or she’s just so scary no-one will disobey her which is weird because she doesn’t actually act that scary. She walks around like a colossal badass who every vampire should wet themselves when she comes near them, but when it comes to actual combat? Not so much.

I have to return again and say that I do like these characters, I love this world and I love the potential that has been put in there. I actually suspect the author has really really detailed notes on all these characters and the world that is so deep and rich – but unfortunately that has led to not realising how little of that information actually makes it to the page. There are gaps. I can follow the story, but there are places where I was sure I’d missed something and just really needed some gaps finished.

In The Flesh, Season 2, Episode 1

A new report gives us some quick exposition – 18 months have passed since the zombies have been reintegrated into society (ish) but there’s now a problem of the Undead Liberation Army causing all kinds of tension. There’s also a drug called “Blue Oblivion” on the streets. There’s also a new political party, Victus, with signs and adverts around that is against PDS integration.

To remind us of this tension, we have a kid calling the PDS “rotters” and that they can’t feel, which our old friend Ken (who lost his wife) objects strongly to, reminding him that the medication the PDS takes makes them safe.

Ken on the kid get on a train with 4 PDS who are probably ULA planning a strike. When the train moves, one stands and begins ranting his party piece in dramatic tones. The 4 PDS take the Blue Oblivion – and become full blown flesh eating zombies. There’s a massacre…

They killed Ken!

Steve and Sue Walker (Kieran’s parents) watch the news of the attack worriedly, as Victus and PDS groups both blame the other. Kieran’s worried that his old friend Amy may be involved in extremism, he shows his sister, Jem, a letter from her talking about going on a “secret mission”. Jem and Kieran seem closer though and she’s faced with the mundane worries of school exams rather than her past zombie hunting – but she also thinks Kieran should go to the continent where people are more tolerant of PDS.

He goes to the doctor (with awesome nurse Shirley, who is truly excellent) because his eyes are aching – which is a sign of more nerve tissue growing back. But it also means he’s wearing his contacts far too much – since he never takes them out. They gently tell him he isn’t supposed to do that and Shirley, who is awesome, asks him to run through an affirmation (little speeches to help build confidence). Which he does – quickly and stiltedly, the doctor’s happy but Awesome Shirley looks concerned. She’s also very much in favour of Kieran staying in the UK and very protective of any suggestion he “should” leave – but the doctor think it’s probably wiser to get out of Britain. Awesome Shirley gives him his meds and leads him out – but as she does another nurse tells her about Ken. Ken’s dead (noooooo, I liked Ken!)

He can’t even get out the door without another incident – a man, Gary, dragging in a rabid PDS, in full zombie. He has him in chains and drags him to a cage where another is already. Everyone around seems so used to this that it’s not even worth noticing. Gary gets an £80 - bounty for bringing in an intact rabid PDS; but Kieran points out the PDS has a bullet wound (Gary denies carrying a gun – there’s been a weapons amnesty) – he loses £40 for a damaged rabid PDS

Vicar Oddie, the hater of all things PDS, is still ranting away to his flock, supported by Phil the general council dogsbody (and Shirley’s son) – but that flock is much much smaller. After the service he’s visited by Maxine Martin, their new MP. She wants to talk to the assembled people but notes that this church is apparently not the place to do it.

The Returned, Season 1, Episode 8: La Horde

We start 35 years ago – the day the old damn burst. There’s a large tent with a whole line of covered bodies and Victor walks among them (see, he was always creepy) and Serge and Toni – as children – try to play a trick on him. A woman arrives to collect them (and tell them off for playing with corpses) and she calls Vincent to her as well – calling him Louis. Mrs. Costas is also there and calls the dam officials murderers – and says the dead will have their revenge one day. We see a woman cry over one of the bodies.

Fast forward to a mere week ago and we see that body up and walking about. Walking down the road he sees Camille walking home and calls to her (wait this whole series only covers a week?) She ignores him. But around him we can see a lot more presumably dead people

At the dam Julie and Laure wake up, sleeping in Laure’s car (Victor, as one of the dead, doesn’t sleep) and see handprints on the car – a horde of the dead visited during the night, wanting Victor to come with them. Apparently they left without him – and Laure and Julie see Toni on the lip of the dam ready to jump Julie brings him down – but then Laure points a gun at him, he shot at the police after all.

Most of the town is deserted and strewn with litter. At her house, Adèle finds Chloé’s drawings of both her and Simon committing suicide. Nice, your child has family suicide pics. Chloé wants to see Simon and reveals Victor is also dead. Adèle isn’t exactly calm in a crisis and decides to lock Chloé in her room so she can’t see any of the dangerous dead people.

At Helping Hands, Camille manages to sleep briefly, the black mark on her cheek has grown worse – and someone (I think Pierre the cult leader) has decided to write Bible quotes from Revelations on the wall. As you do. And Sandrine, who had a miscarriage, decides to blame that, the Koretzky’s suicides et al on the rising dead. As you do. Cult Leader Pierre arrives to speak out against scapegoating the dead.

Jérôme follows Pierre and discovers his fast arsenal which confirms a few suspicious about him – though Pierre urges him to think of Camille. Jérôme tells Claire who is very unbothered and very unimpressed that he thinks they should run – accusing him of always running. Camille and Léna continue to bond, Léna is sure that Camille is safe though Camille worries she may become like the dead Léna saw in the woods (who she just knows about).

Back at the dam, Julie hugs Toni and thanks him for saving her 7 year ago, at the underpass, where Serge attacked her. And then a crowd of people arrive – presumably the dead. They jump in the car and flee. On the road Laure confirms with Victor that the horde were dead people who came to the car in the night and Laure decides she has to go to the station and warn people – and Victor can’t stay with them. Julie angrily demands they pull over and she and Laure argue. Inside Toni recognises Victor and they talk – Victor using his creepy kid powers to say Toni killed Serge and his mother. Victor goes into the front seat and takes a gun out of the glove compartment – and hands it to Serge sat next to him. Toni sees Serge shoot him but we see Toni shoot himself in the stomach – Serge wasn’t there; Victor used his creepy vision powers.