Legacies: Season 1, Episode 11: We're Gonna Need a Spotlight

The school gang has decided to lay a trap for the next monster which is triggered - Alaric, Dorian and Hope respond. Yes Hope because, again, Alaric is a terrible head teacher

Inside the trap is a unicorn. Which Dorian thinks they should kill on general principles but Hope is completely against murdering the pretty horse (with the stabby addition we won’t talk about). They decide that by imprisoning it they are safe because while it’s the Malivore Monster they won’t have to deal with any more since they come one at a time

Which is a decent idea except for the creepy worm that emerges from the shiny horse

So the school is now having a talent competition. This seems to be Legacies attempt at a musical episode because all the cool shows are having them. Anyway Alaric hates the talent show and tries to use the excuse of the unicorn to cancel it - but the Honour Council overrules him. Since the monster is a magic pony he and Emma decide to bunk off school and go drinking

While Hope, who nows has a horrible worm in her brain, starts acting all happy and joyful and all lovey dovey with Landon… and how did no-one suspect mind control or possession? She’s a Mikkaelson. They don’t have happy happy joy joy - they have tantrums and brood and practice staring moodily into the middle distance.

Still everyone’s super happy with Hope being all happy and huggy, especially Landon. But not Rafael because he’s extra uncomfortable with Hope being all close and boundariless around him and being so very very extra with Landon.

Josie and Lizzie are back and Josie continues to avoid Penny while Lizzie has a novel way of trying not to be the meanest of mean girls - she has a little magically zappy bracelet that zaps her whenever she is mean so she can moderate her tone. Which she needs to because she’s super super intense about a very dull routine for the witches to win the talent contest and Josie, all head-wormed, is totally not into it, very low key and not willing to stand in the back as usual. She’s also softening towards Penny

The worm in Kaleb’s head makes him lead the vampires in a rather cool song and dance number. It’s kind of irrelevant to everything but, hey, they have it and it’s nifty.

While Hope and Landon have their own talent - cake decorating. Which is going to be super weird on stage but doesn’t get that far as Hope develops glowy green eyes and suddenly think the bestest thing in the world would be to take the Malivore urn. Landon is suspicious - and a burned cake causes and electrical shock (somehow?) well this turns out to be just what you need to de-worm yourself and Hope returns to a rather embarrassed normal. They realise they have a new monster and seek out Dorian - who is guarding the unicorn and has already killed the worm heading for him. To add to the stakes they see the unicorn die - the worm in the brain eventually kills people as well.

They do some research and Dorian is surprised that no legend talks about monsters like this - but Landon points out that mind controlling things inside people is pretty much a staple of sci-fi and maybe it’s a mistake to discount that, sci-fi has to be inspired by something. Which is another way of saying “make this character relevant!”. Anyway they decide the worm first lowers your inhibitions before convincing you to grab the malivore urn and then it kills you

By now most of the students are possessed including Raphael who decides to recite a spoken word poem about how torn and jealous he is of Landon which is totally not awkward. But thankfully everyone gets violent and urn happy so they can be locked up while everyone searches for a solution.

Dark Queen (Jane Yellowrock #12) by Faith Hunter

Jane, the Dark Queen, Enforce for Leo Pelessier, the Vampire ruler of the Greater South East United States is preparing for the duel that is finally here. A duel between Leo and the Emperor of the European vampires - a duel that will dictate the future of all vampire and witch kind

Assuming the visiting vampires haven’t plotted to undermine and interfere before the duel even begins

And assuming the American government doesn’t look at this gathering of the most powerful and dangerous vampires in the world and doesn’t just bomb it.

Jane has her hands full… and ow is really not the time for a man to appear claiming to be her long lost brother she never knew she had, especially when he introduces himself by shooting her

This is something of an epic finale to everything that has been happening for several books now - and the whole book is powerful tense and epic. The massive duel between Leo and the many vampires coming from Europe. We see all of his gathered entourage come out to fight, we see all the complex preparations, the betrayals, the plotting, the counter-plotting and how absolutely no-one is playing fair.

It all has an incredibly tense feel, from the very first page of the book you know some of these characters are going to die, that everything is going to change. It is maintained every second, not for one second do you forget even through side plots, even through the moments with Beast (beast is awesome, beast is best hunter and I have no idea why her writing doesn’t annoy me, but it doesn’t - I love her) that tension never leaves

Jane moves through it all and she’s amazing, powerful, competent, in control yet listening and learning from the people around her, people she genuinely loves and values. And even when she’s sat, maudling, or the fights of the actual duel are dragged out or we have a political scene which goes on and on and on for pages it all works and doesn’t feel sluggish because of that tension, power and sense of change behind everything. Thematically this book is amazing, the writing just works and the emotion doesn’t stop.

I really like Jane’s relationship with her brother. The conflict of it, the hopes mixed with the disappointment, the reactions, the conflict, the quashed ideals all are so powerful. I like the layers, I like that he has his own history and conflict, I like the legacy her example has set but I also appreciate her pain and anger over how he chose to introduce himself and how he chose to re-enter her life.  It created a fascinating complicated story. And, though I know next to nothing about Cherokee history or culture or language, there does seem to be a lot of research and effort into making these meaningful inclusion, ensuring that Jane isn’t just carrying around woo-woo from being Native American and nothing else. But i cannot speak to the accuracy of it.

Wild Hunger (Heirs to Chicagoland) by Chloe Neill

Elise is the first vampire born, the first vampire who has never been a human - and the first vampire with a dark secret presence in her mind

She has left home to live in Paris for several years to try and get some space to find herself. But with the talks to try and establish a lasting peace in Europe, she finds herself back in Chicago

And facing the beast inside her - and a plot to end the peace talks and put the whole city at risk

I… can’t say I’m a huge fan of Elisa? I mean I don’t feel any especially personality with her. And I’m trying hard not to compare her to Merit - but it’s inevitable that since this series is literally the heir to the previous Chicagoland series; the protagonists are going to be compared. And Merit with her love of books and junk food and baseball, her snark and close relationships, her determination to face down Ethan and her father - Merit had personality, Merit was a character and she was surrounded by other characters.

Elise… isn’t? I mean she likes coffee… that’s kind of like the only thing I know about her. Her personality,wishes, desires, hopes, everything is subsumed into both her struggle with the Beast and her I-hate-him-but-we’re-definite-love-interests-Connor.

What’s most frustrating is how much meat there’s there! She’s the first born vampire. She grew up never seeing the sun and literally not knowing what she was and surrounded by supernaturals. She moved away to France and spent years there trying to find herself. How can this not inform her character? How can someone so unique with such different life experiences BE SO BLAND?! Why doesn’t her years in France inform any of her character except her hanging around with French vampires who are shuffled out of the way before we have to focus on them too much. Why isn’t her being the

And there’s the “beast” which is again, blandified. If your character is literally hosting a powerful magical entity that feasts on rage and turns her eyes red I expect it to be… more? I mean now and then she struggles to control it - as in we have a paragraph of her saying no to the Beast, and we move on. And when she loses control? She beats up someone who kind of deserves it? She fights hard in a situation where she’s already fighting? The unwillingness to make Elise do anything truly bad or awful with the Beast (she beat up a man who stole from and was going to sexually assault her best friend? Merit would do that twice, no need for the Beast) makes it all feel limp and, yes, bland

To add to the blandness we have the characters around her. Merit worked because she was surrounded by fun an awesome characters as well -he conflicts and romance with Ethan was interesting. She had Mallory her best friend which waxed and waned, there was Catcher and Jeff and her grandfather and the fraught relationship with her parents and even her frustrating relationship with Morgan. There were PEOPLE in her life and they were all informed enough and interesting enough to add to the story, to her story.

Legacies: Season 1, Episode 10: There's a World Where Your Dreams Came True

I think this episode someone on the writing team suddenly realised that Josie and Lizzie exist and ooooh shit, get them out the plot box, this looks super bad for Alaric to forget he has daughters!

And then everyone else on the writer’s team responded with “but but but can we make ti all about Hope?”

The answer to that is, of course they can make it all about Hope. It’s the Legacies after all.

So, Lizzie and Josie have returned from a nebulously labelled “Europe” (my latest petty hobby is when Americans say this I ask “how was Liechtenstein?”) and Lizzie is super pissed because Alaric was supposed to pick them up at the airport but he forgot.

I’m a little miffed that Josie is being super reasonable because it’s kind of making Lizzie look unreasonable and irrational (this whole episode is basically “Lizzie is unstable and dangerous” while ignoring she may have any kind of reason to be upset)... but really? If someone said they’d give me a lift but when I arrive at an airport after a jetlagged transatlantic flight, wait a prolonged period of time for my lift to actually show up then have to find my own way taking three hours to get home? Yeah, I would make Lizzie look calm and reasonable.

So we begin with Lizzie being miffed, which is when the monster of the week appears, going for the urn. The monster is a genie and grants wishes. And Lizzie, who, we have to remember, grew up in a MAGIC SCHOOL decides that this is a super cool idea. How can all these people be so genre blind? Honestly put me in a supernatural world and I would run into a demonic vampire’s open arms rather than spend 2 seconds speaking to a wish giving being.

Now Lizzie could have just wished that her dad pay her the slightest bit of attention or made her a priority in her life or, maybe, decide that she matters as much as Hope. Instead she wishes that Hope never came to the magic school

Yeah that won’t back fire

Uh-huh, it does

So without Hope, Alaric does focus on Lizzie and Lizzie and Josie can both fight now because without Hope consuming all his attention, Alaric pays more attention to them and gives them the training he lavishes on her. Yay for Lizzie

Except the school is a wreck, utterly run down and without the massive luxuries Lizzie has become used to. It seems when Hope went to the school Klaus, before his ridiculous demise, wrote a massive massive massive cheque which is pretty much how it runs (also we had mention of Damon and Elena having children which I think means Julie Plec is planning another spin off and YE GODS SAVE US! SAVE US PLEASE!). I think we can also guess the other Originals chip in because hey, immortal super rich people obsessed with family and all that

Also Hope is the witch who designed the school’s X-Men style cerebro which basically allows them to find budding young supernaturals all over America to recruit them to the school. Without that they’re reduced to literally trawling through newspaper articles for supernatural occurrences and their student body is like 3 people.

Lizzie tries to make up for this by replicating Hope’s spell leading them to a powerful young supernatural who needs their guidance. Hope - and a room full of people she’s slaughtered for food. Alaric recognises her and goes into full on “I’ll protect and guide you” mode playing surrogate dad within like 3 seconds of meeting her (including hugging, the creeper). Lizzie is Not Amused

Legacies: Season 1, Episode 9: What Was Hope Doing in Your Dreams?

Time for a new monster because we have a new mcguffin everyone wants - the glowy urn.

Alaric and Hope consult on what best to do and it’s time for my broken record moment! I’ll keep it brief because I’m going to revisit it at length later on - but note headmaster Alaric now has to work with his student, Hope, as an equal conspirator rather than speaking to her as an adult to a child/student. She even refuses to tell him where the urn is, dismissing his adult claims simply because she is the one with super powers. And… she’s not wrong. You can tell because Alaric backs down on this and allows her to be the sole defender of the urn be because he’s human and woefully ill-equipped to deal with this

We do have a couple of elements of angst - Hope is keeping secrets from Landon about the whole missing memories and dead mother thing. She thinks this will bring him nothing but pain but achieve little. Alaric doesn’t force the issue because he’s kind of resigned to being her lackey now. The problem is that Hope is now super awkward about this and is avoiding Landon which sends Landon’s insecurities spiralling (foster kid bounced from home to home, many of them abusive) and he tries to gently poke her with not-subtle-but-kind-of-sad “zomg please love me” near desperation

And Rafael sees this and is super concerned because he’s really really protective of Landon (who does have this whole lost puppy feel to him) and is worried that Hope is going to hurt him and isn’t happy that Hope is keeping secrets. They have a philosophical difference in which she thinks it’s ok to keep secrets and lie if it’s to help people while he thinks that’s completely unacceptable.

To top up that drama, Rafael is also having issues because he’s into Hope and realises this could be a super betrayal of Landon so ANGST

MG is also fighting with some bad self-image issues of vampirism and how vampires have to change while Kaleb is against this anti-vampire turn.

Into this steps in the latest monster - a ghostly woman who invades people’s dreams and torments them with nightmares to make them give up the location of the urn

Which doesn’t really work because only Hope knows where it is and Hope is staying awake. Alaric and Hope consult and again we have a brief debate about secrecy - and they decide the best thing to do would be to inform the school that monsters are coming. Alaric does so and evacuates the youngest students while offering the older students the choice whether they want to evacuate or stay and face mortal peril

And schools shouldn’t work this way!!!! Hey kids, want to make a life or death decision at age 13 (the mandatory evacuees seem to be very young kids)! And honest no social stigma about running away (it’s not like this may affect your reputation and future standing in packs/vampire bloodlines etc).

Yes, more on that later. Several students leave but Hope, Rafael, Kaleb and MG stay. As does Landon despite pretty much everyone telling him to get his human arse out of there. Which to me just emphasises how much Alaric should do the same.

So research - after deciding they’re being attacked by a Night Hag, a monster that manipulates nightmares, they spend a while discovering that what happens in dreams can hurt them. Rafael is injured by a nightmare of an abusive foster family (he also dreams about Hope). Landon has dull, boring first-day-at-school nightmares while MG freaks about about being a murderous vampire and Kaleb tackles his doubts as he fears vampires MAY be terribad awful mixed with his actually enjoying being one

Legacies: Season 1, Episode 8: Maybe I Should Start from the End

Legacies is back

Yay. Let me contain my joy.

And we begin with some silly time line nonsense I’m not even going to give credit to because I hate it. Tell stories in chronological order! Unless you have time travel there’s no reason to show me what happens tomorrow before you show me what happened yesterday.

So instead Hope has received a message on her magical bracelet that Landon is in danger so she needs to head out to rescue him. This involves trying to leave in the middle of the night where she is caught by Alaric because apparently she knows no stealth spells or anything

She also can’t lie. Nor does she think to put Alaric to sleep or anything. He insists on coming with her to rescue Landon but she’s rightfully wary because after all, why? Why bother with Alaric?

Actually he can drive. Hope cannot. Well done Alaric, you can be a chauffeur. We should get you a hat. This is the first useful thing that Alaric has done since this series began. He also quizzes her on the way over to remind us he’s a teacher while Hope asks if he’s going to quiz his own actual daughters.

Hah, don’t you not-even-remotely-love how Legacies continually shows how much Alaric cares for Hope more than his own daughters and how those daughters clearly are hurt by this?

Now Landon has found his mother, she runs a coffee shop and he keeps buying coffee until he builds up enough courage to say “hey you’re my mother.”

This causes him to have a nice reunion with her, spelling out his who quite sad life and it all looking touching - until she drugs him, ties him up and threatens to burn him with an iron. She doesn’t believe he’s her son, she thinks he has nefarious purposes and when an evil goo monster arrives she’s pretty convinced this is proof of this (she cuts off the monster’s head with a sword).

Landon breaks and tells her all the supernatural stuff which... she believes. Now she’s more convinced that he is actually her son and clearly has experience with the woo-woo. And that they’re being chased - time to go on the run. And she clearly has some pretty supreme skills.

They’re also being chased by an evil organisation -Alaric recognises this because a suspicious man is suspiciously covering their tracks by pretending to fix a gas leak

I have no idea why we’re supposed to be suspicious about this but Alaric needs some point, after all.

They catch up with Landon and Saleh and Saleh points a gun at them which doesn’t work so well because Hope is a witch and just uses magic to take the gun off her. Time for everyone to have a catch up.

Van Helsing, Season 3, Episode 13: Birth Ritual

Ok, things have just got… mystical. Super mystical. And I know you’re all saying “it’s a show about vampire apocalypse, how is it not mystical?” because it isn’t… I mean, apocalypse/dystopian shows tend not to be. While there’s been suggestions of woo-woo round the sides, we’ve played more into genetics than magic which is why the holy man felt so out of place last episode. Dystopian/Post-apocalyptic shows rarely involve actual woo-woo, even when they have things like zombies and vampires: they need that Realness to be impactful

But before we get to woo-woo, let’s catch up with Denver

So, Denver hasn’t entirely fallen, just one sector of it, so far. And this sector still has the time and resources to send out people to murder escaped prisoners? I call shenanigans.

Anyway Sarah is being investigated by Scary man from Black Tech (and you knew the evil company of evilness was definitely operating in Denver). He had CCTV hidden in the room and knows Sarah engineered Caitlin’s death and is almost impressed by her cold blooded remorselessness. The mayor of Denver is not amused to be covering up a murderer because he believes in the rule of law and all that. He’s adorable. Sinister science person makes it clear, oh-so-politely, who is really in charge and it’d be a shame of Black Tech lost faith in the mayor

Honestly he just has to say “I’m afraid of accidents” in a sinister tone to complete the whole thing

Black Tech wants Sarah around because she’s crafty. She also claims to have turned the repellent they use into a super vampire poison which is really useful…

… if it’s true. I don’t know. Sarah could be planning anything. Her main goal is to continue her DNA study of the ancient vampire blood Scarlett gave her - and whatever the results are she’s super shocked

Julius is trying to help the defenders to try and save Denver, in particular forcing them to change their tactics. They want to wait until reinforcements arrive (from Black Tech) because the vampires are contained… which they would be if they were feral, mindless and vulnerable to sunlight. But intelligent and immune it’s only a matter of time before they bypass the defences and everyone is screwed. Julius convinces them to go on the offensive and volunteers in a near suicidal mission: something Sarah objects to (and this is why i doubt her claims about the vampire poison).

They find Frankie dead so Julius can have more angst and guilt. And the Sisterhood using several captured humans as bait, including Kelly. Remember her? I swear Kelly is the dark one, she’s survived everything!

Angst angst time for a confrontation with with Scab and a cliffhanger.

Right now to the heady woo-woo of Vanessa’s story

Vanessa has returned to the asylum place where they killed the first elder to confront the big bad, Mohammed sort of following and being kidnapped by Sam who is also honing in guided by the shadowy figure known as the Oracle in the credits so we’ll run with that

The Oracle lures them both inside where it’s all ominous - and Vanessa confronts Sam, her eyes glowing red and there’s a brief, savage fight which Vanessa seems to have the edge… until the Oracle arrives and uses shiny woo-woo to freeze them both so she can talk at them

There’s a lot of talk and denial and anger but basically there is no fourth elder. This is the audition for the fourth elder (or something more since we seem to end up with a vampire who is way way way more powerful than the previous elders) and the choice is between Sam and Vanessa. Sam’s all in for this while Vanessa is in natural denial - though the Oracle, Sam et all keep poking her over what she’s done to turn herself into what she is.

The Oracle leads them into a secret labyrinth which is huge, impressive, ominous and has a great big thunderstorm. Which is perhaps a little over the top but hey we’ll run with that, we need a little melodrama. The Oracle continues to talk about what a disappointment Vanessa’s denial of her true destiny is - it feels like she really wants Vanessa to be the elder but she’s super unco-operative. The Oracle demands their tokens, because all elders have to have a token of their pain and suffering (for reasons): Sam has his tooth jewellery and Vanessa has Dylan’s ribbon…

Van Helsing: Season 3, Episode 12: Christ Pose

As Van Helsing heads towards its season finale, someone on the writing staff has decided “let’s really annoy Paul with big shallow hot takes on things that need way more analysis”

And lo it’s time for the next episode for this. Now we have Scarlett stranded on an island for some indeterminate amount of time… long enough for her to do a full Tom Hanks - Wilson skit. She also shows herself to be not the smartest person around with her spending a long  time making a raft but not checking the island with a lighthouse for boats

One would expect boats in such a location

Anbyway she arrives on shore and manages to catch up with Axel and… ye gods how much time has passed? What has Vanessa been doing? I mean Axel has travelled from San Francisco to Denver then to wherever he is now and now Scarlet went from San Francisco to this island and now wherever Axel is

In the apocalypse. With apparent hordes of vampires around. In fact, where are these hordes of vampires? How come travelling is this easy? Even Game of Thrones wasn’t as fast and loose with distance.

So there’s much kissing and Axel briefly tries to convince her to move in with him somewhere and have lots of little ninjas but she insists on going to help Vanessa. Though Axel adds a little angst to that by asking if Scarlett will be ready to murder her sister should Vanessa have fallen to the Dark Side of the Force

Road trip time and along the way they find a pack of day walker vampires which use their new found intelligence to pull them into a trap. Which would have worked if they weren’t immortal vampire killers who slaughter them all with ease

Except Axel fires a shotgun and it misfires and badly burns his face and eyes. Wait, wasn’t Axel sort of immortal like everyone else? After coming back from being a vampire? Just like Julius and Phillip? He can be mauled by vampires but this brings him down?

Badly injured, Scarlett drags him to a random guy who happens to be in the area for help

Said random guy does help despite all her snarling because he’s Super Holy Guy. He is a man of deep and abiding faith who firmly believes in god and everything is god’s will and all you need is prayer - and that includes Axel’s fate when he gets an infection (wait, again immortal guy has an infection? Really?). Holy guy insists on prayer, everything happens for a reason etc. He also walks around the apocalypse with no weapons, he’s a dedicated pacifist who relies on faith to keep him safe.

What a lucky lucky man. That’s Scarlett’s point of view. But Holy Man invokes faith, telling his story of miraculously surviving a hurricane. Scarlett is still not a big fan of this idea because they’re living in apocalypse world and all - which Holy Man refers to as “god’s discipline”.

Yeaaaahhhhh so special holy man gets to survive and walk around untouched by vampires, but 90% of the population of Earth is slaughtered for “discipline”? Yeah, that’s really really twisted. And part of the utter problem of divine intervention saving you means there are millions upon millions of other people suffering horrendously who are somehow unworthy of such intervention. Throw in the idea of god’s “discipline” causing genocide and I dearly hope a vampire eats the man.

Instead they go looking for antibiotics (which have a use by date, y’know, so this many years after the apocalypse may be a bit...ineffective). Along the way Scarlet saves Holy man’s life (yes he thinks this is divine intervention, of course he does) and they go to help Axel… except a horde of Walkers appear

Van Helsing: Season 3, Episode 11: Been Away

Mini storyline first - Sam is still hunting down the one he loves, Mohammed. He pauses along the way to kill Mike (I’m fairly certain he’s killed Mike before but hey, sacrificial gay men was apparently delayed. These characters exist entirely to die for Sam’s evilness) to tell him that love is the source of all suffering. That people hurt and suffer the most because people they love are taken from them which is such pain

Obviously Mike disagrees, but his refusal to defending himself, repeatedly, because Sam threatens the people he loves. He ends up dying horribly and Chad watching him die which Sam takes as further proof that love is the source of all pain

He insists he’s trying to remove love from himself but the woman vision following him says he hasn’t yet - and directs him to where Mohammed and Vanessa are.

Right, now to main plot…

Actually that’s a lie. I don’t think there was any real main plot here because I’m not sure anything that happened this episode was actually relevant to the main plot which is something I’ve been saying about Van Helsing all season. Did we really need an entire episode to give Axel a tragic past? Really?

So Axel continues his road trip and eventually ends up in his home town waiting for Scarlett. He even turns on the lights to draw attention from passing vampires though apparently it’s for Scarlett. I guess. He has a memory board and one of them is a newspaper clipping of his sister Polly who apparently went missing when he was a

While hanging around he meets a group of survivors who are using sirens to distract vampires while they loot stuff. It doesn’t go entirely well and someone gets eaten. Axel charges in to the rescue and they all run off together. We have Lorne, a man with obvious dementia and memory problems, Axel remembers from his childhood. And Axel is remembered as well - but briefly due to his dementia.

We also have Carter who is aggressive and harsh and scathing - especially to Lorne. Nelson who is, well, there. And Kelly.

Carter doesn’t welcome Axel because GRRRR ARGGGH I’M THE ANGRY ONE. Kelly does welcome him because she thinks he’s cute and I’d be kind of really happy with this except Carter is pretty scornful about it and Axel openly is a “Good Man” by saying she doesn’t need to trade herself for protection. Which is super condescending and don’t tell me Axel has body image issues and doesn’t realise how hot he is because he definitely knows he’s hot. Hey, a woman can want to have sex with a hot guy because she wants to have sex with a hot guy. This is a legitimate desire and can we not have everyone making an issue of it?

Anyway she dies later.

Axel decides to help them on a raiding run because their plan of using the siren distraction then stealing lots of stuff won’t keep working on the more intelligent, organised day walkers. So Axel makes a plan (Carter is both scathing of the old plan and scathing about Axel’s ability to make a new plan because she has a characterisation as the Angry One damn it) and they go in with lots and lots of power tools

This may actually have been the point of the episode - someone wanted to kill vampires with a chainsaw. Which is a legitimate wish I perfectly understand

During the attack Kelly is bitten and Axel shoots her to stop her turning so tragedy. Well if anyone cared. No-one really does. It’s also sort of Lorne’s fault because he charges on the scene firing his gun randomly before running to the cellar. Carter kind of freezes and needs to be snapped out of a fugue state to get her to move and they all retreat to the basement.