BOOK REPORT for One by Sarah Crossan

Cover Story: Too Girly For This Cowboy
Drinking Buddy: It Goes Straight to Our Bladder
Testosterone Estrogen Level: Like They Needed More Problems
Talky Talk: Worse in Verse?
Bonus Factors: HIV+
Bromance Status: Grim Curiosity Leads to Lasting Friendship

Cover Story: Too Girly For This Cowboy

It's a beautiful cover, perfectly summing up the 'two in one' theme of the book. But the lacework and heart mean I never would have given this book a second look as a teenager.

The Deal:

So Grace and Tippi are conjoined twins. Separate above the waist, but sharing an intestinal tract and a single pair of legs. They've been homeschooled all their lives. But their father is out of work and the donations have dried up. They're going to have to go to school. Fortunately, they get a scholarship to a fancy pants private academy.

No one in the school has ever met anyone like these sisters, and there's a lot of staring, insults, and rude questions. Luckily, Grace and Tippi quickly meet up with Yasmeen, the resident 'bad girl', and for the first time they have a real friend. And soon they have one more. Jon. The artist with the shaved head and hand tattoos. The handsome boy who treats the girls as two people, rather than one odd thing. The guy who encourages Grace and her dreams. The long looks, the subtle flirting, the occasional hand holding. Could Grace actually have a...boyfriend? And how does Tippi feel about this development?

Drinking Buddy: It Goes Straight to Our Bladder

So it's always give and take with siblings. Who gets the car Friday night, who hogs the bathroom, who's the parents' favorite. But since Grace and Tippi are rather closer than most sisters, they have to deal with unique situations. Like when Tippi starts smoking. It's not like Grace can go in the other room. Or when Grace gets drunk.Tippi can't really be the designated driver. And what's going to happen if Grace and Jon want to get close? They can't ask Tippi go run off to the movies.

And yet, the twins make it work. When they go to therapy, they take turns wearing headphones so the other can have privacy. When they take driving lessons, they're in sync enough to work the pedals. And when anyone brings up the idea of surgery to separate them, they are unified in saying 'no way.'

I'd love to have a drink with both of these two distinct, totally unique sisters.

Testosterone Estrogen Level: Like They Needed More Problems

The sisters' medical condition isn't their major issue. Their father has been out of work forever, and is drinking his troubles away. Their mother's job is in danger as well, so their younger sister, Dragon, has to give up her dream trip to study ballet in Russia.

Of course, if Grace and Tippi were to agree to be the stars of an intrusive reality TV show, then the family's money troubles would be over. Hey, nothing can go wrong there.

The sisters face their problems with the grit and determination that can only come from having no choice whatsoever. But hey, they have each other. They'll always have each other.

Until Grace's heart starts failing.

Talky Talk: Worse in Verse?

This is a book in verse, so it's more or less nothing but Grace's train of thought. That makes for a fast read, rapid plot advancement, and a lot of interior monologues. I enjoyed getting into Grace's head, but not everyone appreciates this sort of book.

Still, it was fascinating to read the tale of two young people in such a unique situation. Readers will not be able to relate to the main characters' condition, but it's certainly a compelling read. Especially when Grace and Trippi have to decide whether to die together...or have one surive alone.

Bonus Factor: HIV+

So why is Yasmeen so cool around the sisters? Why does she never make an ignorant comment or ask a stupid question? How did she get to be so understanding?

Because she's HIV positive. Got it from her mother, breastfeeding. Yasmeen made the mistake of being open about her condition, and now a lot of people avoid her. But she has her friend Jon, and now she has the twins. And when you get enough outcasts together, then they're no longer outcasts.

Bromance Status: Grim Curiosity Leads to Lasting Friendship

I admit, I only read this book due to its odd nature. But I'm glad I did. You're unique and special, and completely weird. Just like all the good books.

Full disclosure: I received neither money nor beer for this review, and quite frankly, that kind of hurts. One is available now.

PREVIOUSLY ON THE X-FILES

After 14 years off the X-Files, Mulder and Scully are lured back in when a Glenn Beck-type conspiracy theorist named Tad O'Malley takes them to meet Sveta, a girl who claims to have been abducted by and impregnated by aliens. Mulder immediately formulates a theory that the goverment co-opted alien technology from the Roswell crash site in 1947 and has been using it ever since to instigate a global takeover and blame it on aliens. Scully rolled her eyes a lot but when both Tad and Sveta disappear, she realizes maybe he's on to something and agrees to help him figure this thing out. X-Files: Reopened.

THIS WEEK'S CASE FILE

The show opens with a tight shot of a bloody eyeball, in case there was any doubt that the X-Files is back, baby! The eye scanner welcomes Dr. Sanjay to work at Nugenics Technology, where he goes into a meeting and proceeds to have a complete breakdown. There's a high pitched ringing in his head, and he hears his co-workers talking about the reclusive Nugenics "Founder," Augustus Goldman, but all Sanjay can hear over the ringing is snippets saying "get the data" and "go now!"

Mondays, amirite?

via

So he locks himself in a computer mainframe room and tries to download data until the ringing is too much to handle, then EW GROSS NO NO WHY HE STICKS A LETTER OPENER IN HIS EAR CANAL. 

Mulder and Scully are on the case! Scully's like "right cool cool he committed suicide the end." But Mulder points out that there must have been a reason for him to try to get data before killing himself. Unfortch, men in suits appear and won't let Mulder take the harddrive as evidence, because apparently it all belongs to the Department of Defense. They won't even tell him where this Augustus Goldman is, but that's cool because Mulder had already stolen a cell phone off the BODY OF A DEAD MAN and used it to set up a meeting with someone named Gupta, who Sanjay was calling every night.

They meet at a bar, and Mulder asks if they can go somewhere to talk alone, so Gupta leads him into a closet and immediately drops to his knees and starts unbuttoning Mulder's pants. Wow, that lead didn't turn out as planned. (Also, is this some sort of weird Sanjay Gupta shout-out that I don't get?) Meanwhile, Scully is performing the autoposy on Sanjay, and as though watching him push a letter opener into his ear canal weren't enough, we have to watch Scully slowly pull it back out. She then finds he'd written the words "Founders Mutation" on his hand before he killed himself. 

Is there literally any better feeling than watching these two walk into a dark space holding a couple of flashlights? No. There isn't.

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Mulder and Scully go to Sanjay's apartment in their Totally Cool All New Ford SUV with this Super Sweet Camera Technology that keeps them from running over teenagers. Inside, they find photos of deformed children posted up on his wall. The police show up, but just as they burst through the door, Mulder gets an awful, ringing headache just like Sanjay had before he died. He isn't able to get the photos of kids and the Department of Defense confiscates them. 

They meet with AD Skinman who is none too thrilled that they lost the files to the DoD but lo! Mulder made photocopies first, duh. No wonder Skinner was never promoted to director. Mulder's thinking genetic testing is what's up, and Founder Goldman is behind it. Trying to find him, they meet with a nun at Our Lady of the Sorrows, where Goldman is a big time donor to their maternity ward. The nun promises to relay the message that they're trying to find him, and when she disappears a pregnant girl named Agnes beckons them over. She needs help getting out of there - even if something is wrong with her baby. Mulder takes the bait: So the founder of Nugenics also happens to be the biggest donor of a maternity ward where homeless girls are kept to have their babies? And for whatever reason he's being protected by the DoD? Sounds like he's using these women as incubators.

All of this makes Scully think about William, the baby she had with Mulder 15 years ago that she gave up for adoption. There's a dream sequence of her walking William to school, helping him when he's hurt, then ultimately, coming into his bedroom where she sees him turning into an alien.

You will go far in life, young William.

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They're finally able to meet with Goldman, who shows them a ward in Nugenics where children are kept locked in rooms, and I kept waiting for Dr. X to wheel around the corner. These kids all have genetic mutations and it's both heartbreaking and, like, SO X-FILES. Scully is definitely feeling the sads about all this, but before she can get information out of Goldman, a girl down the hall has a freakout at the same time that Mulder gets a text. Turns out Agnes was in a hit and run accident, and all she had on her was Mulder's business card. Scully's autopsy report of Agnes shows she was killed by blunt force trauma - but not before the baby was surgically removed. While Scully was autopsying, Mulder found out that Goldman's own wife was convited of murdering their baby and locked up in an asylum, but they never found THAT baby either. 

This leads Mulder and Scully to Goldman's wife, who tells them the story of leaving her husband when she realized their daughter, Molly, could breathe underwater. She figured it had something to do with Goldman's "experiments" and being nine months pregnant with a baby boy, she wasn't waiting around to see what he might do to that kid either. So she leaves in the middle of the night, but hits a deer and crashes her car. She climbs out from under the wreckage and gets a terrible, high pitched headache and hears someone telling her to cut the baby out. AND SO SHE DOES OH LORD SHE CUTS RIGHT INTO HER PREGNANT BELLY and out shoots the tiny bloody fist of an infant WAVING ITS HAND IN THE AIR LIKE IT JUST DON'T CARE. 

FINALLY Mulder and Scully realize that the teenage janitor from Nugenics/kid they almost hit with their car - Kyle - might be involved, so they drive out to his house where his mom yells at them while Mulder gets another terrible headache - but not before realizing this screaming woman isn't Kyle's biological mother. Scully finds him and they bring him in, getting him to admit that he can do the headache/mind control thing, but he can't control it. Because it turns out, THIS is Goldman's son, who told his mother from LITERALLY INSIDE OF HER to cut him out of her belly. Yup. One and the same. And he's searching for his sister Molly. They take him to Molly, who is being held in Goldman's glass rooms. The siblings can talk to each other with their minds, so he explodes the glass room she's in, and when Goldman tries to stop him, Kyle makes BLOOD COME OUT OF ALL OF GOLDMAN'S ORIFICES JESUS CHRIST.

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The episode ends with Mulder having his own dream sequence about William, in which they build toy space ships and watch movies, until the day Mulder comes in and finds William being abducted by aliens, just like his sister was.

BIGGEST COVER UP

The biggest shocker, for me at least, was the fact that Goldman had experimented on his own kids. I knew the janitor kid was important, but I certainly didn't realize he was Goldman's own son!

Runner up: Well, I certainly didn't see that whole BJ scene with Gupta coming, did you?

WORST KEPT SECRET

The janitor kid. He LITERALLY ran into Mulder and Scully twice - once in Nugenics and once into their car. Even as distracting as their Totally Rad Ford SUV product placement was, that was hard to miss.

MONSTER OF THE WEEK

The only "monsters" we got this week weren't actually monsters - they were kids with medical deformities, and some of them were pretty cute. So we'll name the evil doctor doing experiments on them as our Monster of the Week instead. (Though I did scour the web for a GIF of that one kid with a melted face because WHOA.)

THIS WEEK'S TOP RANKING AGENT

I'm awarding this one to Spooky Mulder. He had a hunch, he followed it, and he was right. We know Mulder's hunches only have like a 15% success rate. 

THIS WEEK'S LOSER-HUMAN HYBRID

Goldman, Goldman, Goldman. First you do experiments on your own kids, then you do experiments on sick and deformed kids? This episode was never going to end well for you, bro.

FROM THE BUREAU SURVAILLANCE FILES

"He had a psychotic break and committed suicide. Note the letter opener sticking out of his head." - Scully, cold as ice.

"You want to walk on the wild side but when it comes down to it, you're repressed," said Gupta, secret gay man. "The truth is in here." He pokes Mulder in the chest. Mulder responds, "Yeah, I've heard something like that."

"You're never just anything to me, Scully." - Mulder

"Space is hard." - William, son of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully

BEST SCULLY EYE ROLL

When Mulder asked Goldman's wife why she didn't like cats.

UNSOLVED CASES

- So clearly Mulder and Scully both have some serious issues about their ability to be good parents. Neither of them was certain they could save little William from a terrible fate. Do y'all think we'll get to meet the real William? 

- Why is the Skinman still just an Assistant Director? He's had that same job for like 25 years, at least.

- And is Skinner bathing in the same blood of virgins that Gillian Anderson does?

- Does the X-Files being reopened mean that Scully has quit her surgeon job? Is this even a real job or does she just use up PTO to chase aliens a few days a week?

Welcome to YA Onscreen! Let's hop to. 

Posh wrote up this extremely nuts Allegiant trailer last week, but in case you happened to miss the bananas, here you go: 

In far more successful adaptations of YA dystopian trilogies, Hunger Games gets an official merch store!

Did you watch last week's The 100 Season 3 premiere? So good, right? Posh wrote it up here, and Buzzfeed wrote about how this show has become one of the most "radically queer" stories on television.

BOY HOWDY, Faith's gone and got herself an UnReal web spinoff! 

Gilmore Girls is slowly stoking the reunion enthusiasm with viral posts like this one: 

 

With the REAL LIFE Lane Kim, Helen Pai. Good things are coming... ❤️

A photo posted by keikoagena (@keikoagena) on

Jan 21, 2016 at 11:30am PST

Author Charlaine Harris, whose Sookie Stackhouse novels were adapted on HBO as True Blood, has another TV project in the works, this time adapting her Midnight, Texas books.

That's it for this week! Give us your thoughts downstairs.

BOOK REPORT for A Criminal Magic by Lee Kelly

Cover Story: Cheers!
BFF Charm: Caution
Swoonworthy Scale: 7
Talky Talk: He Said, She Said
Bonus Factors: Magic, Alternate Universe
Relationship Status: Under Your Spell

If the combination of mobsters and magic sounds intriguing to you (and it should), head on over to our Kirkus series for the rest of this review.

Follow the whole rewatch here!

Last week, on Dawson’s Creek.

Welcome back to the Dawson's Creek Rewatch Project! Last week, Meredith asked me if I'm as charmed by Joey's scowly self-absorption as she is, and I have to say, I'm a bit on the fence. There's something endearing about Joey's obnoxious, eye-rolling, holier-than-thou attitude - maybe because it reminds me of myself? I do wish she would stop playing the "my mom is dead so STFU Dawson" card. However, I have to add that I am totally THRILLED that Tamara is gone.

Anyway, I DON'T WANNA WAIT to get into this week's episodes so let's drink to celebrate Tamara getting the hell out of the Creek.

The Dawson's Creek Drinking Game

Drink Once every time:

Joey purses her mouth or chews on her lip

Joey tucks her hair behind her ear

Joey climbs into or out of Dawson's window

Sex makes Dawson and/or Joey extremely uncomfortable

Jen brings up her atheism

Grams says "Jennifaaah"

Someone says the words "black boyfriend" in reference to Bodie


Drink Twice every time:

Dawson mentions Spielberg

You have literally no idea why Joey is mad

Pacey gives someone a really good hug

Cool Jen Lindley is totally crapped on by the universe

1.07 "Detention"

Hey, it's finally an episode that pays homage to something besides Steven Spielberg! "Detention" puts our little group in - where else - detention for a Breakfast Club-themed episode that is obviously nowhere near as good as John Hughes' classic, but still pretty great.

Dawson has one of his jealousy Hulk-outs and throws a basketball at Pacey's face, earning a Saturday in detention.

It's not long before Jen also gets (unfairly) stuck in detention for debating her teacher on the topic of death with dignity, and Joey follows after an altercation with a couple of douchey bros who are basically sexually harassing her. Seriously, what is wrong with this school? Anyway, Pacey gets sent to detention for MYSTERIOUS REASONS, which we'll get to, and then there's the fifth wheel:

Meet Abby Morgan! She's deliciously catty and serves as a sort of chaos agent, shaking things up among our little group of friends by poking at all their insecurities with surgical precision. She is terrible and I love her.

Abby gets the gang to play a game of Truth or Dare, which always leads to awkward kissing, exploited insecurities, and uncomfortable jealousy. It's great. Jen has to kiss Pacey, which upsets Dawson to NO END, and then Dawson has to kiss Joey, which stirs up some Very Serious Emotions that Joey's been trying to ignore.

Dawson is the ultimate, overly-sensitive Ween Machine this week, first freaking out on Pacey for telling Jen about his childhood nickname (Oompa Loompa - like, really, Dawson? Calm down), and then flipping out because Jen kissed Pacey (AS A DARE), and then engaging in some weird macho one-on-one basketball thing with shirtless Pacey in the gym, and THEN refusing to accept that Jen is his girlfriend for a reason.

Abby does a great job of breaking these little whiners down, immediately establishing herself as the Alpha by playing coy about why she's in detention - something to do with Ecstasy and the boys' locker room and an orgy, but THAT'S ALL SHE CAN SAY, OKAY? Really, Abby's in detention for being tardy too often. But that's not as wonderful as the secret reason for Pacey's detention: he got a little too excited when the cheerleaders were cooing over him and trying to bandage up his busted nose, so he went to the bathroom to, um, "relieve" himself, only to have the coach walk in on him, boner-in-hand. Amazing. Great work, Pacey. Really.

All of this culminates in Dawson giving his whiny, baffling "Why don't you want me" speech to Jen, and things get real gooey between them - a little too gooey for Joey, whose face Says It All:

And then Joey breaks down in the most endearingly awkward, heartbreaking way, unable to articulate to Dawson that she so obviously has a crush on him, while dumb Dawson kind of makes it worse by trying to make Joey say what she just can't bring herself to say - in front of Pacey and Jen and that awesomely awful Abby, no less. Ugh, poor Joey. It gets better, girl, and you'll find someone who is not as clueless and selfish and dopey as Dawson Friggin' Leery.

How many times did I have to drink? 10

Oh, Dawson: He has a stuffed E.T. doll. I think that about sums up his emotional maturity.

Least likely dialogue: "Pacey has bigger biceps," Joey says. YOU ARE ALL IN HIGH SCHOOL. NO ONE HAS BICEPS.

Guess who? Monica Keena plays the delightfully manipulative Abby Morgan. You remember her from Undeclared, Freddy vs. Jason, and - if you're like me - Snow White: A Tale of Terror, a campy, oft-forgotten horror take on Snow White starring Sigourney Weaver as the evil stepmother and Sam Neill as the king! It's amazing. And not very good. But I watched it waaaaay too many times on TV.

Least likely dialogue x2: "This is NOT Times Square, Ms. Lindley."

Truest thing anyone said this week: "Guys are attracted to girls for totally superficial reasons." PREACH.

The least cool thing anyone send this week: Jen says The Breakfast Club "stunk." That movie is a certified CLASSIC, Jen Lindley. You shut your mouth.

Best pop culture reference: On the topic of what happened to the cast of The Breakfast Club, Pacey adds, "Emilio Estevez was in those Duck movies, remember?" So was Joshua Jackson! Mighty Ducks 4 Ever.

1.08 "Boyfriend"

Dawson goes from one jealous Hulk-out right into another. Meet Billy!

Okay, don't fuss too much about this city slicker because he won't be around for too long. He's Jen's big ex from the Big Apple, and he drove all the way to Capeside like a total psycho because apparently Jen gives off some Cool Girl pheromone that makes boys act like complete idiots - not that they need much help in that department.

Billy's presence immediately sends Dawson into freakout mode - again, not like he needs ANY assistance there, but he just cannot handle tangible evidence of Jen's past, and like most immature boys, he thinks that any girl he falls for only sprang into existence the moment he noticed her. Heaven forbid she have a life before he entered the picture. Dawson is far more preoccupied with Jen's Past than Jen herself, but he awkwardly tries to force himself to accept it by letting Billy crash at his house for the night which is just, like, WHAT?! Dawson, no.

Dawson and Billy represent two sides of the same, pushy coin. Billy does not seem like a guy who takes "no" very well, which raises some very disturbing questions - in my mind, anyway - about the nature of his previous relationship with Jen. Meanwhile, Dawson is the Nice Guy, the one who also has a hard time dealing with the word "no," but who acts as if his whole clean-cut persona entitles him to a lifetime of Yes. Dawson is one fedora away from being a total nightmare human.

After one "goodbye kiss" and a really disastrous confrontation between Billy and Dawson, Jen excuses herself from the equation - and while her explanation ("I'm 16 and I've never stayed home on a Saturday night! I've never gone stag to a school dance! I'm pretty and I'm lucky!" - basically) is kind of bunk, I am so in her corner on this one. Jen has spent much of her tween and the better part of her teen years orbiting around boys as if her entire existence would cease to be without their validation. Homegirl needs to go solo and figure out what her deal is without a dumb boy breathing down her neck.

Meanwhile, Mitch and Gail are struggling to keep it together - oh, and P.S., Mitch did NOT leave. Instead, they are attending couples therapy and Gail is desperate to find an extracurricular, team-building activity to restore their bond, but an exasperated Mitch thinks that maybe they should just go back to basics and try to repair what they already had instead of trying to figure out something new. Good call, Mitch.

Joey is having a pretty tough time between confessing her feelings to Dawson and dealing with Bessie's new baby, who apparently can only be lulled into sleep if you put on The English Patient. To be fair, that movie will put anyone to sleep. So she decides to let loose and head to Cliff's party (which seems like a very O.C.-type party!), where she gets white girl wasted and hits on a potential date rapist until Pacey valiantly rescues her...

...and she thanks Dawson for it. The nerve.

Pacey gets her home safe and recites the plot of The English Patient to get the baby back to sleep and it seriously makes me wish Pacey Witter would explain the plot of every movie to me for the rest of my life. In the living room, Dawson is getting Joey settled onto the couch, where he tells her that he will always be there for her no matter what, even if their friendship is totally weird right now. And then she kisses him. And because he is Dawson, he acts like it meant nothing because his whole world is Jen Lindley.

Speaking of which, his righteous indignation when Jen dumps him (after they've only been a couple for, like, a few weeks at most) is pretty disgusting and makes me even happier that Jen ditched his whiny little butt.

How many times did I have to drink? 8

Guess who? Billy is played by Eion Bailey, who played a hyena on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was in Fight Club, Center Stage, Almost Famous and Once Upon a Time.

This week's worst outfit: Courtesy of one Dawson Leery. Jen says she likes it. Jen is high.

Dorky Dawson: His E.T. toy is not a toy, it's a COLLECTOR'S ITEM.

Least likely dialogue: "I thought you wanted to make a break from all those guys who sexualized you too young."

Best pop culture reference: Joey wants to rent The English Patient, to which Pacey replies, "May I suggest a movie that doesn't completely blow?"

Most recognizable song: "Dammit" by Blink-182. Show of hands: who had this CD? I made my grandma get it for me. I'm sorry, grandma.

Sickest burn: "You are leaving me for a guy who has an E.T. doll on his bed." TRUTH.

--

That's it for this week! I have a question for Meredith to answer next week: How much do you LOVE Abby Morgan? She's so shady and fun and awful!

Check back here next week as Meredith covers "Road Trip" and "Double Date"!

Welcome back to our TV Preview series, and a discussion of the next shows from the TV Preview: Midseason Shows post.

Warning! Possible spoilers ahead.

The Magicians

Premiered: Jan. 25 on SyFy (Watch online.)

Twitter Pitch

Think Harry Potter, but American, college-aged … with drinking and sexy times. #WhereIsHotNevilleWhenYouNeedHim

Familiar Faces

Rick Worthy as Dean Fogg

Tembi Locke as Dr. Jennifer London

Stella Maeve as Julia Wicker

Michael Cassidy as James

Esmé Bianco as Eliza

Arjun Gupta as William “Penny” Adiyodi

Wayne Pére as Professor Van Der Weghe

Summer Bishil as Margo Hanson

Faces That Might Become Familiar (If You Keep Watching)

Jason Ralph as Quentin Coldwater

Seth Meriwether as Martin Chatwin

Rose Liston as Jane Chatwin

Brian Beckman as Rupert Chatwin

Hale Appleman as Eliot Waugh

Olivia Taylor Dudley as Alice Quinn

Jade Tailor as Kady Orloff-Diaz

Anthony Marble as Bathroom Guy

Redeeming Qualities

I love the idea of a magical grad school, particularly because it seems slightly more feasible for someone of my age to attend than Hogwarts. I’m also intrigued by the overarching plot—who is the Moth Man, and what is his endgame?

It's Not Me, It's You

The first episode seemed a little choppy. Occasionally, the rough transitions between scenes made me feel like I’d missed something, even when I was watching the entire time. Additionally, I feel like Quentin was a little too quick to be OK with the fact that magic exists; even someone who’s been in love with fantasy his whole life should be a little more sceptical when faced with something like this.

Let's Do This Again

I really like the idea of this show. Plus, the first episode was pretty good, so I’ll be checking in again. I hope the subsequent episodes are edited a little less jarringly, however.

Recovery Road

Premiered: Jan. 25 on Freeform (Watch online.)

Twitter Pitch

Stick an alcoholic teen in with a bunch of alcoholic adult misfits and see what happens. #WhatCouldGoWrong

Familiar Faces

Sharon Leal as Charlotte Graham

Alexis Carra as Cynthia McDermott

Kyla Pratt as Trish Collins

Daniel Franzese as Vern Testaverde

Paula Jai Parker as Margarita Jean-Baptiste

Sebastian De Souza as Wes Stewart

Faces That Might Become Familiar (If You Keep Watching)

Jessica Sula as Maddie Graham

Meg DeLacy as Nyla

David Witts as Craig

Lindsay Pearce as Rebecca

Redeeming Qualities

I think it’s important to show how well recovery programs work, even if the portrayal is skewed toward the YA side of things . (The show is based on a YA novel of the same name by Blake Nelson, after all.) Plus: Daniel Franzese is The Best, and I could watch him play the sassy big brother type all day.

It's Not Me, It's You

I’ve seen this show before—i.e., this is a somewhat tired trope—and nothing about this new version felt fresh. The characters all seemed pretty stereotypical, too, and the drama veered toward melodrama almost immediately.

Let's Do This Again

I wish all of the characters luck, of course, but I’m pretty sure I won’t be checking in on their progress.

Did you watch The Magicians or Recovery Road? What did you think? Voice your thoughts in the comments!

Previously: The warlocks have all left the human world, Valentine is Clary's biological father, and Simon got tooken!

What Happened: 

Clary has a (Mortal) Cup conundrum: Valentine wants it in exchange for Jocelyn, and this new crew of vampires want it in exchange for Simon. Never mind that Clary doesn't know where it actually is, but it's the most in-demand cup outside of sports trophies. Since Jocelyn's sitch is a season-long problem the Shadowhunters know who took Simon, they'll work on getting him back first. Although not through official channels, since the Clave totally frowns upon starting a war against the vampires.

To pull off this covert ops, our Shadowhunters need weapons and intel. For the former, they go grave robbing to find an old Shadowhunter stash hidden in a cemetery. For the latter -- sighhhhhh, the obligatory Isabelle Is Sexy scenes of the week. (Nothing against sex positivity, but this is like the only kind of thing Isabelle gets to do.) She seduces the whereabouts of the vampire lair out of her Seelie (i.e., half-angel, half-demon) contact, Meliorn. Meanwhile, Alec goes back ot the Institute to grab his bow, almost undetected until he runs into Hot Hodge, who cautions him against being loyal to a fault. And Jace takes Clary to a vampire biker bar to steal a flying motorbike powered by demon energy, because Reasons. (I mean, flying motorbikes are all the rage -- just ask Sirius Black! (SOB.) -- but there really was no reason why they HAD to use it, esp. given the sorry state of this show's special effects.)

All of this leads the Shadowhunters to... HOTEL DUMORT. Complete with a slogan that says, "Live Your Way Now... and Forever". SUBTLE, SHOW. Simon's being held hostage by Vampire HBIC Camille, who alternates between making out with him and snacking on him, and Camille's underling, Raphael, whose main role is telling Simon to accept his fate as a hostage. The Shadowhunters defeat a bunch of vampire redshirts, and YESSSSS, we have an honest-to-goodness slo-mo entrance!

The Dead Man's Party don't start 'til they walk in...

WIth their backs against the proverbial wall, Raphael helps Camille escape, under the guise of using Simon to buy more time with the Shadowhunters. Instead, Raphael leads them all outside and lets Simon go, out of fear that the vampires' play for the Mortal Cup would piss off Valentine (and for Jace to owe him one in the future), in a rather underwhelming end to this plot. 

But it's not exactly all's well that ends well for our Shadowhunters. Alec's still suspicious of Clary, and Jace is still clueless as to why Alec would help her rescue Simon anyway, which causes a rift between the parabatai (basically, a pair of Shadowhunter warriors who are bound for life -- although the feelings aren't so platonic on one end, as Isabelle's always hinting at). And Simon's time as a vampire juice box has given him a serious case of BLOOD LUST. Dun-dun-dunnnnn...!

Shadowwinner of the Week:

As tempted as I am to keep giving this award to Alec, I'll go with Clary instead, for baby's first demon kill! (Plus, she tied her hair up for the fight, and we were just talking about that in last week's comments!) She was also unintentionally instrumental in my fave moment of the episode, when Alec (of course) uses a bit of ingenuity to kill the vampire that was threatening her. 

Although I question 1) how strong that arrow is, and 2) how weak that wall is. But WHATEVER, IT WAS COOL.

Shadowloser of the Week:

Similarly, I didn't want to repeat poor Isabelle as the loser (mostly since the exact same thing from last episode would still apply), so I went with Jace. The show's attempts at making him charming haven't really worked for me. His retorts and comebacks that are supposed to be amusing just come off like one line too many; it's like the writers can't leave well enough alone because Jace MUST get the last word in, even at the detriment of the lines that come before it. Although props for Jace's mini-rant about how the mundane world is obsessed with vampires. I SEE YOU, SHOW.

Say What?:

"What, are you so desperate to get laid that you'll risk killing us?" - Alec wondering which head Jace is thinking with.

"It's saying you belong together." - Jace showing Clary how to use a sword (not a euphemism). Gee, it's almost as if the weapon isn't the only one that belongs with Clary!

"Remember chocolates? Sometimes the plainest candy shell has the tastiest centre." - Camille, stop trying to convince me that Simon's plain. I've seen his abs.

"I don't know what the hell you are, angel doll, but you're one tasty treat." - In case it wasn't clear, vamps are REALLY into tasty business.

"You'd be a lot happier if you weren't so freaking repressed" - Isabelle, maybe shelve this discussion until AFTER your vampire-killing mission?

ALEC IS MY PATRONUS.

Swimfan Says...:

Here's Shadowhunter Chronicles expert, Meredith (@legallyblonde), with her take!

•  Overall, this episode felt stronger than the previous two, which is hopeful for the rest of the season.  My favorite part of this episode was hands down the final scene, which was both similar and not similar to the book in showing just how oblivious Clary and Jace are to other people's certain feelings that should be obvious (or I'm just reading book knowledge into that), and I loved it.

•  I'm pretty sure I currently like TV!Alec more than book!Alec (definitely more than movie!Alec), so way to go show in keeping a character the same and still making me like him more.  (I can't wait until Alec meets Magnus!)

•  I'm starting to love Dominic as Jace. A lot.  The humor is very similar to book!Jace, and he's good in the role.

•  The whole method/process of rescuing Simon was different than the books (notably, Camille isn't in the books until much later, only Jace and Clary go on the rescue mission, there's no werewolf interference), but in a way that worked for the show.  Raphael's motives were different in the book, too, and I'm curious to see how that plays out.  By the way, this is something the movie could've learned: it's fine to change things if it's in a way that actually works.

Burning Questions:

•  Y'all -- am I under a vampire encanto, or was this episode actually an improvement?! Obvs, the dialogue is still roooough, but the plot was a lot tighter and more focused than it has been so far. (AND NO C-WORD.) Maybe we just have to ride out all this initial exposition and it'll keep getting better? LIE TO ME IF YOU MUST.

•  What am I saying? Of course the best is yet to come, because THE SHADOWHUNTERS FINALLY MEET MAGNUS BANE NEXT WEEK.

Next episode: "Raising Hell"

WOW I did NOT realize how much I missed Jane's Miami, until #Snowzilla2016 dumped 30" of snow on my (rural, uphill) driveway this past weekend. Hey, sunshine! Hey Jane fans! Let's get to it.

AWARDS

THIS WEEK'S MVP(arent)

Alba! She's the expert sleep-trainer, the expert granddaughter supporter, and, surprisingly, the expert model for strong older women accepting—and promoting the happiness of—gay people. Honestly, what *can't* Alba do?

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Thanks, Catholic Church! You made the world a bit better in spite of yourself.

BEST TELENOVELA TWIST

Um, OBVIOUSLY Rafael getting stabbed in the back (metaphorically) and the neck (literally) by his own mother.

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Actual gif not yet available; thanks, as always, PLL, for coming through in a pinch!

I actually jumped halfway out of my chair when that needle appeared from offscreen. Great job, show!

BEST PRODUCT PLACEMENT

Weirdly, a tie between Sports Center and the Catholic Church. What even is this show.*

*Perfection, is what. This show is perfection.

PREVIOUSLY ON JANE THE VIRGIN

Jane broke off with both her ex-fiancé, Worst Detective Michael, and her in-sperm-only baby daddy, Orphaned Hotelier Raphael. Why? Because Michael couldn't keep his temper in check around Baby Mateo, and Raphael couldn't keep his good parenting instincts in check when it came to getting Michael out of their lives at any cost. And since Michael didn't ACTUALLY lose his job when Raphael schemed to inform on Michael's *actual* illegal activities (namely, exchanging a very important flash drive of Sin Rostro's to treasonous ex-Detective Nadine for the safe return of kidnapped Baby Mateo…look, this show is complicated, okay?) to his cop boss, that cost was exactly none. But Jane is mad at him anyway, because human brains are not perfect at logic, especially when human hearts are involved.

On the Solano front, Rafael is finally back on Petra's side, even though she snuck his babies into her belly as a dumb trick to try to win him back. Why? Because Petra's mom killed a guy with her hook hand, then framed Petra for it. And that's not Raf's only mom problem—his own birth mother abandoned him for $10mil payout when he was a kid, and had the ladyballs to try to make peace with him so many decades later, AND his half-sister Luisa's mom turns out to have faked her suicide in order to go underground as the famed pre-Sin Rostro Miami crime lord, Mutter (criminal signature, blue silk ties). 

THIS WEEK

Just When We Thought We'd Seen Peak!Baby!Jane…

Jane has always been a high academic achiever, which fact has already been proven to us many times over in flashbacks to her at every age. The one thing school-related thing she has not historically achieved even mediocrity in, though? Sports. Sports, and predicting when sports players/men are going to take advantage of her good will efforts at making peace. In second grade, this surprise betrayal came at the hands of a little boy whose incessant dodgeball pelting Jane's abuela had interpreted as a crush, but was really retribution for Jane not letting him cheat off of her in math class. In the present day? Well, Raf secretly turning Michael in to Michael's cop boss certainly took her by surprise however many weeks ago. As did Michael's refusal to make nice with her at Christmas after his month in Mexico. And in the very near future, she will definitely be surprised by her school's best b-ballers openly mocking her professorial expectations of them, and of her professorial supervisor openly asking her to give the ballers special treatment.

But that's yet to come! At this very moment in time, the one thing a man has done that she least expected, is Michael showing up at her doorstep to, yes, make peace, and to tell Jane that he understood Raf's reasons for turning him in, and that they, too, have made peace. RED LIGHT, JANE! Or rather, red dodgeball: Michael and Raf ever making peace? You are literally dreaming, girl. 

Who Needs Sleep? (You're Never Gonna Get It)

…and dreaming badly, as one is wont to do when a baby going through sleep regression is waking you up every hour with his wailing. Yep, (BIG) Baby Mateo has reached his newest milestone—sleep training! And Jane, unsurprisingly, is too much of a softie to even consider Alba's insistance that the only way to get through it is to make the baby cry itself out. And thus begins the vicious cycle of technique research and baby wailing that leads to the increasingly sleep-deprived Villanueva women yanking the cord on some plot points that could have simmered dramatically (and ineffectualy) for weeks in the hands of a show less sure of itself.

Plot 1: Jane (Don't) Got Game

Jane is so completely believable as an enthusiastic dork on her first day leading the discussion section of the Great Books 105 seminar. "These *are* Great books! Eh?? GET IT???" Her shock and disillusionment at finding out half her students are ballers looking for an easy A is just as believable, as is her full court press (is that a thing) to learn enough about basketball to make the discussion topics appealing to athletes as possible. She is so hopeful about a paradigm shift in the university vs. university atheltics tradition! Oh, Janey.

She does manage to get most of the students on board, but the team's best player, McBaskets, refuses to kowtow to her firebrand ways, and doesn't even bother turning in a first paper. When he wheedles a second chance out of her, she ends up reading a plagiarized paper (hilariously, a plagiarized paper she herself wrote about as an undergrad). Her sleep deprivation has worn her nerves so thin that this is the last straw, and she refuses to give McBaskets a break—a decision which will result in him losing real game time. Unfortunately, ballers be ballin' for alumni endowments, so…her prof calls her up to ask her to give the kid one final final shot. It is so gross! I hate university sports! I am so thankful my Humanities 101 survey course prof/supervisor was on the same page, and told us regularly not to give athletes any special treatment. Thank you, Dr. Calhoun. I never knew I had it so good. 

So Jane begrudgingly agrees to give McBaskets one last shot as it were (thank you, I'm here most weeks), and catches him before practice to tell him so. He STILL tries to back out of it, because YES THAT IS OUR WORLD, but Jane treats his reticence as a fear of writing failure to be overcome, and so challenges him to a pick-up game: if she can make just one basket against him, he will have to agree to write the paper. Now, this is a very terrible precedent for a first year TA to set for herself at the very beginning of the semester, but it does make for good television, so, allowed.

Unsurprisingly, Jane is a terrible basketball player. She doesn't even get close to making a basket. But her good faith effort wins McBaskets over (he is not there to be won over so he can patronizingly ruffle his TA's hair! he is there to learn from and respect his teachers!), and he agrees to write the paper. And WE agree to believe that Jane is still doing grad classes and leading discussion sections, so that that part of her life can stay between the lines of the next few scripts.

Plot 2: Jane (Don't) Got Back

Anxious about Rogelio's mom visiting, Xiomara makes up excuse after excuse to stay out of the house. One of those excuses is picking up dinner from Jane's—and Michael's—favorite cubano truck, outside of which she sees Michael…with what looks to be a new girlfriend. And because she is so very sleep deprived, she doesn't think about the consequences before telling Jane. And then NEITHER of them think about the consequences before using Facebook stalking of the poor girl as a way to distract themselves from Mateo's failing sleep training. Honestly, they both deserve what comes next: Mateo accidentally kicking "Add Friend" after Jane guiltily retrieves him. Jane immediately retracts the request, but she knows that if the new girlfriend has Facebook on her phone (score one for those of us who do not), she will have recieved the initial alert regardless, and she will definitely be able to figure out that Jane is Michael's ex, and it will definitely come back to bite Jane in her exhausted rear.

The new girlfriend does, and did, and it does bite Jane hard. Michael comes by *for real* the next day to confront Jane about it, and somehow the discussion devolves into only Jane apologizing for and explaining her behavior, and Michael telling her how their future is going to be. He does not once indicate that he never lost his job to Rafael's scheme in the first place, and also that it is just as much on him that he didn't make his intentions with the Christmas Angel clearer. Nope! It's all Jane's fault for originally believing Raf's lie, and for reading too much into Michael's good guy repairman move!

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, he does want Jane to be happy. And I believe him. Just get out of her life already!

Anyway, thanks Mateo, for shortening with your sleepless screams what could have been an insufferable new angle on this insufferable love triangle.

Plot 3: Rogelio's Got a Brand New Dad

The other big event in the Villanuevas' lives this week is Rogelio's parents coming for a visit. Or rather, it was SUPPOSED to be. Glam-pa wasn't well enough to travel, Rita Moren explains when she and Rogelio finally arrive. It is clear that there is something else going on with her, but Rogelio wasn't able to get it out of her on the drive from the airport. Jane suspects she (and Mateo) might be able to get it out of her, so takes the shot (basketball everywhere!) and scores: Glam-pa isn't sick; he's gay. And he's leaving his wife of 47 years for a man. Oh, and Jane can't tell ANYONE.

Okay then! 

Jane gives keeping this secret her all, but quickly breaks down and tells Xiomara after she thinks Xo already overheard enough to start imagining the worst. Pretty quickly, Xiomara breaks down and tells Alba. Look, you want these women to keep secrets, you gotta let them sleep, Jane!

Glamma had told Jane she didn't want Rogelio to know, because he admired their marriage so deeply and learning the truth would upset his whole worldview. Not one Villanueva woman thinks this is the case, a fact Rogelio confirms when their exhaustion leads them to slip the truth to him, too. Rogelio doesn't confront his mother right away, however—no, he takes the most Rogelio of paths possible and throws a gay-friendly dinner, to which he invites Alba's gay church friend and Jane's gay bartending friend (hi, Luca!) and makes a big deal about opening with a very gay inclusive prayer.

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#LOVEWINS

Glamma catches on quickly, and admits that she didn't want Ro to know the truth, because Glampa had said he would move out once Rogelio knew. And now that that's the case, she can't go on pretending it won't happen. Awwww.

ONLY THIS IS QUITE THE CASE! Glampa shows up the next day, baffled as to why he was left behind, and is aghast to hear the story his wife was telling while he was gone. It turns out she has known he was gay for forty years, and they'd just had an agreement about it until now, when he found a man he wanted to spend his life with. Lies and drama! Rogelio so would come from such an amazing background. Perfect.

In a neat twist on the usual formula, it is Glamma who retires to the Villanueva porch swing to wallow in her anxiety, and Rogelio who comes to comfort her. It is on the swing that she finally admits the real truth: she's scared. She moved straight from her parents' house to her husband's, and has never once been alone in her life. Rogelio promises that she will never be alone, and they hug, and I believe even more in the real magic in that porch swing.

Another victory, Mateo! AND you wrangled a whole new family member out of the deal!

Ultimately, it is Alba's "let 'im cry" method that works to break Mateo's sleep regression, and not a moment too soon. The Villanueva women get their sleep, and Mateo gets to start dreaming of brand new ways to make our favorite storylines move even faster.

Mum's the Word

On the other side of Miami, Rafael and Michael are each independently mired in the world of murderous moms. The first set of moms—Luisa's and Raf's own—they are both involved with, as Michael and his new partner Susanna suspect that Luisa's mom faked her own suicide and then switched identities with a crazy woman in order to go into business as the 1980s Miami crime lord, Mutter, and thus are chasing after any information at all that might lead to her whereabouts. One lead? Rafael's mom! That loving woman who was so bummed by her marriage to Solano, Sr. that she took a $10mil pay-off to leave Raf behind and go start a new life. 

Another lead? Our favorite grief-stricken, lustful oddball, Luisa! The woman who is as likely to set up a clandestine booty call with a wanted black widow drug lord as she is to share any leads with the cops! 

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Thankfully—both for the Miami PD's investigation and for the purposes of our entertainment—Luisa has a mad crush on Detective Susanna, and Detective Susanna is very good at using all the investigative tools she has at her disposal. And if those tools just so happen to be her lips, or a very personal memory about her own disappeared father, well, so much the better for all of us. And it works! Sort of. Luisa was so young when he mother disappeared that all she can remember is a dumb bedtime story about a magical pond with glowing fairy fish, but it turns out that that isn't the nonsense it seems. Or rather, it is *exactly* the nonsense it seems, it just happens to match up with the same nonsense in Mia's mental institution journals, and taken together the two illuminate (pun intended) a very real lake in the very real world full of very real bioluminescent fish. 

…unfortunately, that very real lake turns out to be the place that Mia escaped to NOT to set up her criminal mastermind operation, but rather to live out a quiet, solitary life, away from the rest of the world and away from Baby!Luisa. And while they called her death wrong once before, this time, DNA has borne out what Susanna reports to Luisa later that week: her mom is really, truly dead.

Not dead (unfortunately) is Petra's mom, Magda, who not only turned Petra in for no apparent reason (or maybe I've forgotten over the hiatus?), but also planted false evidence by bloodying up a Marbella knife with Petra's prints all over it and claiming it, not her own hook, was the murder weapon. How does Magda even sleep at night??? Sleeping pills, and a fiery will to survive, she answers Petra. "Just ze way I raised YOU!" she adds. Well, she only suggests she raised Petra with a will to survive; I'm inerpolating the consistent use of sleeping pills. 

So Petra is stuck between a rock and a plea deal for a crime she didn't even commit. Thankfully, Rafael is a very good human and leaps into the fray to support her. She'd do a lot, he and we know well, but Petra wouldn't just up and KILL a dude. And anyway, Raf's met Magda. He knows what's up. And so it is that Raf misses all the sleep training shenanigans over at the Villanuevas (which, while I appreciate immensely Rafael finally having some stories that aren't centered around Jane+Mateo, I wish they had either he or Jane referred just ONCE in passing to the existence of the other parent) in order to be emotional, physical, and culinary support for poor Petra. And it is with just that culinary support that the two of them land on two very important conclusions:

1) there is literally no way that Rafael's mother can be any worse than Magda, so he should at least give reconciliation a shot (Chekhov's reconciliation!); and

2) the bloody knife that Magda gave the cops is stamped with the M from the completely new cutlery the Marbella ordered AFTER Ivan's murder. One quick call to the fancy lawyer who'd been pushing for the plea deal later and whoosh! Magda is in cuffs (and fine witch-cursing form), Petra is free, and she and Raf are hugging around her giant baby bump. 

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Rafael's spirits are so high from his and Petra's success that he takes her advice and calls his mom, Elena, over to the Marbella to talk before she can leave Miami once more. Elena explains how she met Emilio shortly after she immigrated to the US, and that they had a whirlwind romance—including marriage and a child—all in her first year in Miami. She tells Raf, too, that she had heard plenty about Emlio's unstable ex-wife, and assumed that was why Emilio fixated on her so hard, and that ultimately that fixation was too much for her to handle; it pushed her into an affair, and, eventually, into leaving. "I hope you and I can have a chance now," she says kindly, as Raf glares back with equal parts anger, sadness, and hope. 

Unfortunately for Rafael, at the very same time he is giving in to his deepest desire to cobble together as much of a family as he can, Michael and Susanna are at the precinct breaking down how the news about Mia's death affects their hunt for Mutter. Whoever Mutter is, she has to have had access to Emilio's company in 1983, when one of Mutter's few (newly) known bases of operations was purchased. Emilio had access, but he's drinking concrete these days; Mia had access, but she went to die near her glowing fishes. That just leaves (dun dun DUNNNNN) ELENA.

Smash cut to Raf searching a storage closet for a box labeled Elena's Things, in which he finds a pile of letters…wrapped in Mutter's signature blue silk cords. He has only just had enough time to put two + mom together and take out his phone and dial Michael, when Elena shoots in from offscreen and slams a needle into her own son's neck. "Where is the flash drive you traded for Mateo?" she hisses. "Rose…we gave it to Rose…" Raf croaks, eyes bulging in pain and disbelief. But Rose doesn't have it, Elena claims. So who did they give it to? "Rose…" Raf tries again, before asking, "why are you doing this? What's happening??" And then she slams tranquilizer into his veins and he drops to the marble floor like so much dead weight.

OH GOD.

NEXT TIME

Sure seems like we should lead with some news on Rafael's assault and kidnap! But nope. At least there *is* this…

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POLL!

Last time we met, 33% of you predicted this pairing would happen quickest. Now that it's arrived in the form of one of Jane's lucid, lusty subconscious daydreams, what are the chances that the pairing will REALLY happen?

<-- Jane the Virgin 2x08: Chapter Thirty 

Jane the Virgin: 2x10: Chapter Thirty-Two -->

PREVIOUSLY ON TEEN WOLF

Previously I wasn't here! I accidentally took last week off, friends. Whoops! Luckily, very little happened that needs reporting:

- Mason told Liam that the only thing Liam had to do to get Scott to forgive him was apologize, and Liam proceeded to do everything to get Scott to forgive him *except* apologize (teenagers, man).

- Meredith told Lydia that the only thing she had to do to break free of her catatonia and save her friends was stay in the astral plane and learn how to make her Banshee voice into a weapon, and Lydia proceeded to freak out over the prospect and not actually accomplish anything.

- The skinwalkers Kira's mom brought her to told her that the only thing she had to do to regain control over the homicidal fox spirit inside her was FIRST take their test, THEN learn their secrets, which meant that of course Kira proceeded to fail the test by letting the fox spirit take over for her, because that is the exact problem she came to the skinwalkers to learn how to prevent. So the skinwalkers made to trap Kira and turn her into one of them for all eternity, but thankfully Stiles and Scott came barreling in in Stiles' leaking, busted-ass Jeep to save both Yukimuras from the skinwalkers' spears (RIP BEAUTIFUL TOYOTA RAV4, we hardly knew ye)(HEYO backseat Scira makeout sesh and fervent I love yous!)(SIDENOTE: did anyone else get the impression that Kira's mom knew one of the skinwalkers, and had a personal stake in "you'll become one of us forever"? Sister, I was thinking sister.)

- Mason started dating Zombie Chimaera Corey for info, but then kind of for real? And Corey tried to explain to him, as Hayden had tried to explain to Liam before, that it doesn't matter really if Theo is evil—he is the one who will be able to do whatever it takes to keep everyone alive once the Beast shows up, not Scott, so can you like, lay off him or whatever?

- Malia still couldn't get it through her skull that there might be more than one way to deal with her deadly Desert Wolf mom than killing her, so kept pushing angel Scott away while simultaneously letting evil Theo in.

- Theo sent everyone but Hayden and Corey off to retrieve Deucalion, for reasons.

- Scott and Stiles kept working on their path to a repaired friendship, and had a really moving heart-to-heart in Stiles' Jeep as they road-tripped to the desert to "save" Kira.

- Which, reminder: absolutely nothing came from Kira, a lead actor, disappearing from the show for two episodes. Zero progress. Just her absence. Cool!

At least this show is gorgeous to look at.

Okay, show. I know you can do better. Let's move on. 

AWARDS

THIS WEEK'S WOLF PACK PUPPY

Tie between Liam and Malia, who are each dealing with the fallout of not trusting Scott to have their back and help them make the best decisions. Liam's torture is internal; Malia's is external. Both are just about dying for lack of Scott. Poor pups! 

BEST REACTION TO SOMETHING SUPERNATURALLY RIDICULOUS

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OBVIOUSLY Gerard's utter nonchalance at the fact that he'd totally have burned an innocent dude's eye out of his head just to prove a point. Oh, those insane (non-Chris) Argent hunters, how I have missed them.

WEEKLY REMINDER THAT BEACON HILLS IS ON A HELLMOUTH

That literal Hellmouth.

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REIGNING PRESIDENT OF THE SCOTT MCCALL FAN CLUB

Argent, probably? I think he is the only one who never actually lost faith in Scott, who still sees him as the hero leader he's been for so many seasons. Everyone else is either lukewarm (Stiles) or too busy sucking up (Liam) or begrudgingly admitting Scott might be the best one to follow, after all (Malia) or just being gone (Lydia; Isaac). Maybe Kira could tie with Argent this week, but despite the episode title being directly related to her storyline, we hardly saw her all episode. 

BEST PRODUCT PLACEMENT

Between the arrival of the Desert Wolf and the return of Gerard, honestly the thing this episode most sold me on was the value of a parentless, divine birth.

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In season 4 it was the humans who were the monsters; this year it is the Old Guard generation who sees their children as a threat. 

THIS WEEK

Scary Movie MCMXVII

Our horror-show cold open this week is Argent and Gerard prowling the utility tunnels under Beacon Hills, trying to do what Scott et al have yet been unable to accomplish: find the Dread Doctors' lair. That, and/or find the Beast. Although from the few details Gerard gives Argent as they search—namely, that the only force that proved a match against the Beast was a young girl carrying nothing but a simple spear—it seems unlikely that this particular pairing has much of a shot.

(Kira, re-trained by her mother's sister, the secret Skinwalker, though, now SHE might have a chance…)

Still, the men are Argents, and trained hunters, so they do manage to find some measure of success. Namely, Gerard manages to trap the Dread Doctors by tuning one of the famed Argent hunting pitch beacons to their frequency, and Chris discovers a pit piled high with the corpses of Beacon Hills' most recent missing persons. The Beast is stockpiling for winter! Or the Dread Doctors are cleaning up after it! Either way, it's really terrible!

The Twenty-Three Body Problem

Parrish especially is gut-punched by the find, feeling like he is somehow responsible for the deaths he has seen in his dreams, or the bodies he knows that he transports in a trance. Sheriff Stilinski isn't putting up with any of that nonsense, though, and firmly reminds Parrish that A) none of this is his fault, and B) what he does next is go to the sheriff's station and start combing through missing persons reports to match up with all the new morgue records. "Do the work; that is your job now. Serve the people." Thank god for the handful of legitimately good Beacon Hills parental figures still standing (albeit with a medical cane).

Scott, Stiles and Kira show up then to debrief with the Sheriff about what they learned in the last episode: the thing wreaking all this new destruction, it's called the Beast. And they think that Dread Doctors are protecting it, like a parent would protect a child.

Later, in the halls of BHHS—so long immune to any real consequences w/r/t security measures following any of the thousands of supernatural incidents around town—the school-going teens of Beacon Hills are finally feeling the (Hellhound-related) burn. Stilinski has ordered his deputies to go march through the school at all hours, hefting gigantic shotguns. Deputy Ken Doll, who by dint of having had lines in no less than three episodes now is probably not long for this world and/or IS the Beast himself, gives Stiles and Scott the lowdown on the Sheriff's new policies, and then offers up his own opinion as to what is going on: "First of all…do you two believe in the supernatural?"

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Down in her dad's classroom, Kira is facing her own supernatural dilemma: that whole trip to the desert to tame her fox spirit ended up in a race from the desert to avoid being trapped by skinwalkers, all *without* taming her fox spirit. "Reminds me of what Napoleon said about the spirit and the sword," Kira's dad muses like the Dad/history nerd he is. Kira's frustrated at this allusion, because no matter how hard she tries, she can't USE her sword to beat the fox spirit inside her. But not so fast, Kira! Your inner kitsune isn't the only trickster at the Yukimura table: it is Kira's own spirit that will ultimately prove stronger than the fox spirit that focuses itself through her blade. And so, she has to stop using her blade. And with a twist, Mr. Yukimure releases the magic holding the belt sword together, leaving Kira weaponless. Get thee a sharp stick, girl!

Necessary Evils

The rest of the episode is spent mostly on the various members of Scott's far-flung pack calling on necessary evils to help them do what they think most needs to be done.

For Lydia's mom, this means signing off on any and all procedures the doctors at the visibly sick Eichen House claim might help her daughter. For Stiles, this means acquiescing to Lydia's mom's rules about who can visit, when, for how long, and asking what kind of questions. For Lydia, this means letting Meredith confine her within the already confined space that is the astral plane inside her head. Lydia needs to figure out her own way to channel her voice through her hands, to turn it into a weapon. And she needs to do it tonight, before any of her friends die. Spurred on by visions of Malia cowering at the Desert Wolf's feet, Lydia finally screams loud and focused enough to break out of her catatonia, and into the opening scene of the season. Unfortunately, we know that this won't lead to a true escape, but rather to a new locked room and a doctor ready to drill into her skull. But it's a start!

For Scott and Chris, this means bringing Gerard out of forced retirement in order to use his skills as a hunter, and encyclopedic knowledge of Argent lore (Peter's laptop burned down with the rest of the Hale house, I guess). For Liam, this means giving in to his sense of…not pride, but something like it, finally apologizing to Scott for a thing that could never fully be apologized for.

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Together, they locate the Dread Doctors' lair, and from there draw some conclusions about what the Beast might be up to, and what role Parrish might need to play—or be kept from playing—as the Hellhound of legend. Oh, right, because now we and they all know officially that Parrish is the Hellhound, because Gerard held a blow torch to his eyeball to force him to wolf out.

Finally, for Malia, the necessary evil means accepting Theo's offer of Dread Doctor tech to help her locate the Desert Wolf before she can either get to Malia first, or kill the kidnapped Deaton (it is still unclear to me why the Desert Wolf would do either). Theo needs to drug Malia with a special kind of wolfsbane to knock her insensate enough that he can be sure she won't be able to track back to where the Dread Doctors' lair is. He then straps her down to a gurney, and, once she's awake and snarling, affixes a horrifying pair of needle-edged steampunk goggles over her eyes so she can see a werecoyotes keno…something. Honestly, the whole thing is just an excuse for some great visual horrors, and for some classic feral-Malia line delivery. 

So where are the Desert Wolf and Deaton? In Beacon Hills! Of course they are! And Deaton is shouting about how it "has to be the full moon!" Of course it does! It's always, always the full moon. Although something about the way the Desert Wolf was gagging Deaton with duct tape makes me think she wasn't totally listening…

So Malia sets of on the war path, stopping only to invade the boys' locker room long enough to demand that Liam tell Scott that he was right about the tunnels being the way to the Dread Doctors' lair. After that, it's straight to Braeden, a pile of guns, and a half-cocked plan that includes using Theo (refreshingly open and smug about his own sociopathy) to storm the old military building the Desert Wolf is holding Deaton in order to kill her.

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Nevermind pausing to consider why the Desert Wolf would have kidnapped Deaton in the first place, nor why she would have brought him back to Beacon Hills and duct-taped him to a chair in an abandoned, fortified building. Nor why Theo so badly wants to tag along. It's almost certainly not a trap!

It's definitely a trap. It turns out the Desert Wolf wants to kill Malia because, by being born a werecoyote, she "took" some of her mother's power and strength, and now her mother (Corinne) wants it all back. And she set herself up in this warehouse so that Theo could go through all that theatre of torturing Malia to make her think she'd figured out something on her own, when in reality he was just delivering her to Corinne in exchange for a set of bioluminescent blue werejaguar talons (or whatever the hell claws that first chimaera had in 5x01). Cool move, dude! At least it can't be said he was pretending not to be evil the whole while.

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Thankfully Deaton is able to get his gag off in time to shout reminders to Corinne about how it really does have to be the full moon for her killing Malia to regain her old powers plan to work. And that gives Malia enough time to catch her breath (literally, from under her mother's steel-toed boot—who would have guessed there'd come a day I'd miss Peter Hale, Not The Worst Of Malia's Parents) AND for the Beast to rip through the wall behind Deaton and play a quick game of peekaboo before reaching one arm in to slowly pull his chair back towards the hole. Channeling her better half, Corinne makes a quick calculation about her chances for survival vs. her need to kill Malia before a full moon, and races out of there, leaving Malia behind to agonize over whether to chase her mother down and finish the fight now, or to race back to Deaton and save him from the Beast's inexplicably slow grasp. Of course Malia chooses the latter, and she, Deaton, and Braeden escape the old army base and make it back to the animal clinic—and a waiting Scott, Stiles, and Kira—alive. Hugs all around!

Meanwhile, back at the Dread Doctors' ranch, Theo finds his pack returned bloody and bruised, but in possession of "the blind alpha," Deucalion. Turns out that cure Scott and Derek procured for him was only temporary! And now Deucalion is out for Scott's eyes on the tips of his claws…

NEXT TIME

It's time for our heroes' annual heist! Last time they found a vault of bankers' bonds under the high school that ended up solving absolutely no one's money problems. What will they find this time?? (Lydia; they're finding Lydia).

So…these sure have been some weeks, huh? Thoughts?

<-- Teen Wolf 5x12: Damnatio Memoriae

Teen Wolf 5x15: Amplification -->

BOOK REPORT for Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

Cover Story: Overboard
BFF Charm: Yay x 3
Swoonworthy Scale: 7
Talky Talk: Four Way Party Line
Bonus Factors: Forgotten History
Relationship Status: Trauma Bond

Cover Story: Overboard

I like this cover for the story: the empty life preservers in the stormy sea are haunting, and set the tone for a book you know is going to break your heart.

The Deal:

The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff during World War II is one of the biggest maritime disasters in history, but hardly anyone knows about it. (9,400 people died, including an estimated 5,000 children.) In this story, World War II is slowly ending, and people are traveling through East Prussia to board a ship that promises safe passage to Germany.

Getting to the ship is an ordeal in and of itself, a trek through snow, dodging bombs, scavenging for food, and making uneasy alliances. Salt to the Sea tells the story of the tragedy through the distinct viewpoints of Florian, an art forger, Joana, a young nurse, Emilia, a pregnant teenager, and Alfred, a Nazi sailor. It’s a heartbreaking story of pain, hope, love, and the lies we tell ourselves.

Trigger Warning: Since this is a book about war, you should expect that there will be references to, if not outright depictions of all the horrors of war, including rape.

BFF Charm: Yay x 3

Three of the narrators in this story are exactly the sort of people I would be friends with, and hope to be like in real life—the girl who manages to doggedly cross Prussia even in advanced stages of pregnancy, the art forger who tries to take small acts of revenge against the Nazi regime and their pillaging of priceless masterpieces, the young nurse who never thinks twice about putting herself in harm’s way if she can save someone else.

Swoonworthy Scale: 6

There’s a love story in this book, but it’s woven throughout the rest of the tale in a subdued and appropriate way. It’s completely believable that these two characters would fall for each other, and there are a couple of really lovely scenes between the two of them, but understandably, their focus is more on survival.

Talky Talk: Four Way Party Line

Aside from the subject matter, the most distinctive part of this book is the fact that Sepetys has written four narrators with completely distinct voices. Joana is practical and warm, Emilia is dreamy and naïve, Florian is haunted and hunted, and Alfred…well, Alfred is the sort of self-righteous, self-important petty tyrant that one encounters on a particularly hellish day of dealing with bureaucracy. (Alfred composes letters to his lady love, Hannelore, boasting of his prowess and importance in the navy while everyone else laughs at him; in this day and age he’d be an MRA.) Each main character’s back story is slowly revealed, and it is to her credit that they all turn out to be complex personalities.

Even with the distinct voices, Sepetys writes beautiful, lyrical prose that’s so evocative I found myself shivering as if I were anywhere near as cold, hungry, and tired as her characters. As in Between Shades of Gray, she vividly paints a picture of the horrors and aftermath of war.

Bonus Factor: Forgotten History

There’s a certain narrative we’re all familiar with when it comes to studying World War II, I think, depending on where you’re from. In America, it has sort of become a black-and-white, remember Pearl Harbor, Rosie The Riveter, rationing and cute dresses, handsome sailors kissing nurses, Nazis-Bad-Allies-Good myth. It’s easy to forget the extent of the devastation and civilian torment in Europe (and Japan), the priceless art that was lost, and the lives that were completely upended. And when you do dig deeper, it often focuses on concentration camps.

So I really loved getting to learn about this forgotten piece of history, which I had never even heard of despite taking an entire upper division college class on Hitler and the Nazi era. The loss of life is staggering and almost too much to comprehend; the way Sepetys chooses to frame it makes it digestible. (There is one striking image she creates, during the sinking of the ship, that had never occurred to me and made me want to vomit in horror.)

Casting Call:

This was really hard, but this is generally how I pictured the characters (with period-appropriate hair and clothing, of course).

Matthias Schweighöfer as Alfred

Nicola Peltz as Joana

Elle Fanning as Emilia

Logan Lerman as Florian

Relationship Status: Trauma Bond

Book, I expected a heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful journey with you, and you didn’t disappoint in the slightest. I wouldn’t call it a feel-good date, but your beautiful prose, introduction to a new-to-me aspect of WWII history, and sobering realities of humanity made me feel like I had bonded with…well, three out of four of your main characters. If you had to make me ugly cry, well, you did it with sensitivity and style.

FTC Full Disclosure: I received a free review copy from Philomel Books. I received neither money nor a pet unicorn for writing this review, despite how hard I wished for one.  Salt to the Sea will be available February 2.

Title: Dark Matter, Season 1
Year: 2015
Fix: Action and Amnesia in Space

Netflix Summary:

After waking up aboard a derelict spaceship with no memories, the crew of the Raza investigates the mystery of their identities and destination.

FYA Summary:

A bunch of amnesiac mercenaries who find themselves stuck together on a spaceship under mysterious circumstances must figure out who they are, what happened to get them where they are, and how they can work together without someone ending up dead.

Familiar Faces:

This is one of those shows that—if you’ve ever seen a SyFy show—you’ll recognize a lot of people, even if you can’t quite remember where you recognize them from.

Anthony Lemke as Three

Anthony has a super familiar face, but the only thing I remember seeing him in in Lost Girl. The role he played on that show is similar to Three, who’s a smug, self-centered Han Solo type (i.e., a mercenary who hides a kind heart, albeit not very well at times). I frequently wanted to punch Three, and his decisions often went against the good of the group, but when that kind heart appeared, all was forgiven.

He was apparently also in a few episodes of Witches of East End as a character named Harrison Welles (not Harrison Wells), which makes me laugh.

Jodelle Ferland as Five

Although she’s had small parts in other shows and movies, the most memorable role I recall seeing Jodelle play is Bree in The Twilight Saga. Five is similarly young, naive and innocent, but has a bit more spunk to her personality. Plus, Five has some seriously fun hair.

Roger Cross as Six

I recognized Roger immediately, thanks in part to his long career playing the strong, stoic soldier/police officer/government agent/rebel leader/hired grunt. Six isn’t a total departure from the norm, but he does have a sweet big brother relationship with Five that proved he’s more than just a looming presence.

Zoie Palmer as The Android

Zoie does an amazing job at the (mostly) emotionless, (mostly) sense of humor-less android. She’s the straight man to the crew’s misfits, but she ends up fitting in nicely and becoming more than just someone/something that’s pure technology. I’ve seen her act—as a “normal” human—in other roles, and the fact that she can do both well shows that she has some impressive acting chops.

David Hewlett as Talbor Calchek

I adore David Hewlett, mostly for his role as the annoying and neurotic but brilliant Dr. Rodney McKay on Stargate: Atlantis. Talbor is a bit part, but David plays it well, and there are hints of McKay in his anxious, self-centered nature.

Torri Higginson as Commander Truffault

Commander Truffault is another bit part, but I was excited to see Torri, another face I missed from Stargate: Atlantis, on this show.

Ruby Rose as Wendy the Android

I’ve never seen Ruby in anything other than this show—I know, I’m behind on my Netflix Originals—but I would pretty much watch her in anything, regardless of her acting ability. The woman is gorgeous. And that makes her perfect for the role of a flawless companion android like Wendy.

Wil Wheaton as Alexander Rook

As much as I thank Wil for all he’s done for the nerd crowd … he’s really not that great of an actor. His characters never feel natural, and even when they’re supposed to be villainous, like Rook, they’re more of stereotypical, mustache twirling villain than one with any real gravitas, like Rook. Frequently, when I see him on screen, I just want to yell "Shut up, Wesley!"

Couch-Sharing Capability: Bring Your (Nerdy) Friends

If you know anyone who’s ever watched a show on SyFy (or its previous iteration, the SciFi Channel), send them an invite for a binge session, dress code: geek chic. Make sure to plan for a few tabletop gaming breaks and pauses for civil discussions on which captain is better: Kirk or Picard (or Sisko or Janeway or Archer or New Kirk …).

Recommended Level of Inebriation: Crack Open the Romulan Ale

You don’t need to watch every second of Dark Matter to know what’s going on, so it’s a great show to watch while you’re doing other things. (See two options, above.) I’m not sure it would be better with booze, however; it’s certainly not the best show ever, nor the most intellectual, but it’s nowhere near being the kind of show you need something alcoholic to muddle your way through.

Use of Your Netflix Subscription: Nearly Out of This World

Dark Matter is one of those shows that could have gone either way: too much cheese and/or melodrama would make for a slog of a watch, and too much “this is a serious vehicle for serious science fiction” might make it insufferable. Thankfully, the show mixes the silly and the serious well, and is a good one to watch if you’re someone like me who misses (terribly) shows like Stargate and Farscape.

All month long, FYA Book Clubs around the world have been reading Stacey Lee's Under a Painted Sky, an unforgettable tale of friendship and adventure, as two girls make their way along the Oregon Trail in the Old West. We're pleased as punch to have Stacey join us today to fill us in on what inspired her novel. Take it away, Stacey!

One of the questions I often receive about Under a Painted Sky is why I wrote a western? The short answer is: my father. He loved western movies. He came to the US from China by himself in 1945. He was eleven. I think he must have envisioned himself as a bit of a cowboy, a solitary figure who has to survive in a hostile country. But the long answer involves books and movies, two of my favorite past times.

1.  Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

Despite a flawed and one-note portrayal of Native Americans, McMurtry weaves a masterful portrayal of friendship in his Pulitzer Prize winning novel between two Texas ex-Rangers, Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call, who drive a herd of cattle from Texas to Montana, despite being past their prime. I’ll never forget the day a partner of the law firm where I was working put the book in my hands and said, ‘read this.’ She was my boss, so I didn’t have much of a choice, but the book hooked me from page one. I was engrossed by the interplay between two such different characters— Gus, easy-going and women-loving, and Call, a workaholic man of few words. Also, as the first western I ever read, it affirmed to me that story always trumps genre.

2.  Star Wars

Let's be honest. Star Wars is really a western in disguise. Themes of conquering the wilderness and/or subjugation of native peoples? Check. Societies living on the frontier with heroes abiding by their own personal codes of honor or justice? Check. Sweeping panoramic landscapes? Yup.

For me, Star Wars boiled down to friendship. Yes, it’s the ultimate hero’s journey, a calling to slay the dragon, but what ultimately causes Luke to lay down his Jedi training? His friends. And if I had to guess what will turn Kylo Ren from The Force Awakens back to the good side, I’m betting it will be because of friends he didn’t know he had.

3.  Thelma and Louise from the eponymous film, starring Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon

Two women embark on a road trip, but disaster ensues after Louise shoots a man who attempts to rape Thelma. I loved the movie when it came out in 1991, and was tickled when my agent suggested we pitch Under a Painted Sky has a YA Thelma and Louise. 

4.  Mattie Ross, True Grit by Charles Portis

Fourteen-year-old Mattie (perfectly played by Hailee Steinfeld in the 2010 movie) seeks revenge for the murder of her father, enlisting the help of an ex-lawman and a Texas Ranger. Mattie is one of the few women heroines to grace a western novel. She is shrewd and tenacious and fierce. I bet Sammy and Andy would've liked her a lot. 

Thank you for letting me share with you!

Thanks so much for stopping by, Stacey! Check out Stacey's website, or find her on Twitter (@staceyleeauthor), Facebook, Pinterest, or Goodreads.

Stacey also brought along one of the books she used for research, Rush for Riches by J.S. Holliday, and a hand felted Samantha figure in violin dress with cowboy hat and cowboy boots to give away! (Isn't Sammy the cutest!?)

For a chance to win, simply leave a comment with your favourite cowboy/cowgirl/cowperson, real or fictional. A winner will be randomly chosen on Sunday January 31st. (U.S. only -- sorry, everyone else!)

Week 1: January 2016 calendar + giveaway
Week 2: Annamae's blackberry cobbler recipe
Week 3: Cocktail recipe
Week 4: Under a Painted Sky influences + giveaway

Want to join an FYA Book Club? We've got locations worldwide! Don't have one near you? Grab a cocktail, send us an email, and start one today!

BOOK REPORT for Front Lines (Soldier Girl #1) by Michael Grant

Cover Story: Propaganda
BFF Charm: Maybe x 4
Swoonworthy Scale: 3
Talky Talk: Sidelines
Trigger Warnings: Mistreatment of Women, Attempted Rape
Bonus Factor: Equality
Anti-Bonus Factor: Period-Accurate Slang
Relationship Status: Waiting for Your Letter

Cover Story: Propaganda

I love the imagery on this cover, and the way it plays on the actual propaganda posters of the WWII era while getting the plot of the book across. Sadly, the amount of text detracts from the power of said image, and it’s, overall, a little too busy to really make the impact that it could have.

The Deal:

In an alternate version of history, a 1940 Supreme Court case makes it possible for women to enlist or be drafted in the U.S. military. Among the young women who join are Rio Richlin and Jenou Castain from a small town in northern California; Frangie Marr from Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Rainy Schulterman from New York City. Each has different reasons for joining up, different ideas of what military life is like, and different paths to get to the front lines, but they all end up there—for better or worse.

BFF Charm: Maybe x 4

All of the women in Front Lines enlist, rather than being drafted, which shows from the very start that they’re dedicated individuals who want to do what they can to support their country and their families. Because the chapters are told from the POVs of Rio, Frangie, and Rainy, you get to know these girls pretty well. That said, I had a bit of trouble really connecting with any of them. Perhaps it’s because I’m so far removed from their situations that it was hard for me to understand, or maybe it was that the girls personalities were a little flatter than I would have expected from a book written about such an emotionally charged era.

Swoonworthy Scale: 3

Only one of the women in Front Lines has any sort of real relationship over the course of the story, which is understandable given that they’re preparing for and then on the front lines of war. But honestly, her “guy” is pretty lame, and I feel like she’s holding onto him out of familiarity or a sense of duty, rather than really liking him. There’s another opportunity that presents itself, but I don’t want to give too much away. (For those of you who’ve read the book, or will read the book: I’m totally team Jack.)

Talky Talk: On the Sidelines

The WWII subject matter of Front Lines is both powerful and familiar. Although I wasn’t around during WWII, nor would I have been able to fight if I were, I have seen or read many a film, TV show, or book that deals with the time period. It was brutal, for everyone. Personally, being that I am a woman, Front Lines is made even more powerful because I could more easily envision myself in the place of the characters.

The book is divided into two sections—one pre-war and one at the start of the women’s actual fighting experience—and features a prologue and epilogue written by a nameless narrator who tells readers she’s here to tell the story of Rio, Jenou, Frangie and Rainy. It lends an authenticity to the story, and ties in well with other versions of WWII stories that are often told from a somewhat removed perspective, at least to start (e.g., Band of Brothers). However, this semi-detached quality never quite goes away. Even when literally in the trenches with the girls, I never felt fully invested in or connected to their experiences. Michael Grant has written a believable account of women in wartime, and I applaud the idea. I was just hoping to be sucked in, to get emotional for the girls’ plights; to have real, visceral reactions to their experiences. Unfortunately, the story never quite got me there.

Trigger Warnings: Mistreatment of Women, Attempted Rape

A lot of the guys in this book are awful people, and especially terrible toward the woman—sometimes just because they’re female, others because they’re not “typical white girls.” (Rainy is Jewish, and Frangie is a black girl from a very poor family.) Nothing ever gets too out of hand, but do be warned that there are many rough parts in this story.

Bonus Factor: Equality

I’m having a bit of an internal battle when it comes to thinking about women fighting in WWII. On the one hand—yay, equality! On the other—Yikes, war! But I’m leaning more toward the positive side, because it’s not like women are less able to fight. It’s nice to read a story in which they were even given the chance.

Semi-related, there’s a great bit of dialogue in the book in which a troop is discussing how to transport a prisoner back to base that made me chuckle:

“Might not be room for the prisoner, though,” Rainy says.
“Might not be.”
“Might be you could tie him to the bumper. He looks healthy enough to run.”
“Now I know why they never let women fight wars,” Sergeant Garaman says. “Too mean.”

Anti-Bonus Factor: Period-Accurate Slang

Front Lines is set at the time of America’s entrance into WWII. So tensions are extremely high, particularly with the Germans and the Japanese. Additionally, things are rough between races. Characters in the book frequently refer to certain groups of people by the terrible slang names of the era. I applaud Grant for being accurate to the time, but that doesn’t make it any easier to read, particularly when they’re repeated so often.

Casting Call:

These women are all much older than the girls in the story, who are all under 20, but I went with how I pictured them in my head. Also, y’all know Hollywood would do the same thing.

Lizzie Caplan as Rio

Juno Temple as Jenou

Emmanuelle Chriqui as Rainy

Lupita Nyong’o as Frangie

Relationship Status: Waiting for Your Letter

Although I’m not fully invested in your characters, Book, I still definitely want to know what happens to them, who finds happiness, if anyone meets an untimely end. So send me a letter when the fighting dies down a bit. I’ll do my best to read through the censor’s redactions.

FTC Full Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from Katherine Tegen Books, but got neither a private dance party with Tom Hiddleston nor money in exchange for this review. Front Lines is available now.

Alexis and Catie here, for a classic posted-late novella! 

AWARDS

#5YEARSFORWARD: BIGGEST SHOCK/BEST SURPRISE

They somehow continue to find ways to make Ezra worse at every beat, while thinking they've made him more sympathetic. Like, you can *feel* the show's wish/need for us to pet and pity him rolling from the tv screen in toxic waves, even as he is spitting lines that are meant to excoriate Charlotte but for real describe his exact own behavior and lack of consequences. It is genuinely impossible for us to believe that this can go on, or that the team behind the show will follow it through to its most horrifying “happy” ending, and yet…

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Yes, please do.

#5YEARSFORWARD: BIGGEST NO-DUH

Lucas is a high-rolling Silicon Valley bro.

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Runner-up: Getting drunk in Radley is always, universally, a bad idea.

MOST UPVOTED NEW COMMENT ON TRIPADVISOR: ROSEWOOD

When I’d heard that Ashley Marin had joined forces with an anonymous investor to refurb the Radley Sanitarium into a luxury hotel and spa, I definitely had my doubts! But Ms. Marin and her mystery partner have far exceeded anyone’s highest aspirations. My girlfriends and I took a weekend to drive over from Raven5wood last month to give ourselves a well-deserved ghost girls’ retreat, and we were SO IMPRESSED. From that ~very~ distinct incense in the sauna to the atmospheric dead-eyed funeral gown mannequins propped up at the bar, Hotel Radley has everything! We’d even heard rumors that Ms. Marin had gotten her hands on a **Jonny Raymond** original, I ~think~ even the first installation he ever made in the local coffee shop, but we couldn’t find it. Next time, I guess! I will DEFINITELY be coming back! - Miranda C., October 2016

MOST LIT ALLUSION

We…didn't catch one this week? Well, except for the fact that the new terror-text sign-off emoji bore a striking, queasy resemblance to the Red Devil from Scream Queens. No thank you!

If any of you caught an allusion we (Alexis) missed, shame us (Alexis) in the comments

THAT'S SO FREEFORM

Courtesy Rosemary (absent from this week's recap, never absent from our hearts):

PREVIOUSLY ON PRETTY LITTLE LIARS

Having learned nothing from their many years of being murdered every time they insisted on not immediately communicating secrets (and the group’s suspicions thereof) with each other, the Liars have returned to Rosewood and immediately divided, not to conquer. Aria is lying about having left her best friends passed-out drunk in Hotel Radley at 3AM while she met up with stand-up drunk Ezra to wander the street of Rosewood and accidentally spy on a wandering, newly freed Charlotte DiLaurentis. Her best friends are lying to her that they snuck a peek at the hotel’s security footage and saw her do the very same. Emily is lying by omission to her best friends/mom about how messed up her life has been since her dad died, and also about some mysterious medical Treatment. Spencer is lying to her best friends/herself about her true feelings for Hanna’s old OTP, Caleb. Hanna is lying to no one about anything because she is perfect. Well, okay, except for the future lying she'll have to do to Lorenzo/Toby/her mom about the fact that she did sneak back alone into the snuck-in security room to be loyal as a Liar and delete that incriminating footage of Aria, after all. Like we said: she's perfection!

THIS WEEK

Summit and Chill/Spill

We open this week on the first true Liars Summit since high school graduation. Why true? Well, for one because one of the Liars (Aria) is absent due to *murder mystery reasons.* Secondly, the remaining Liars are sharing dire secrets openly, in public, where any old crazy avenging blondie might overhear them. Thirdly, Spencer is racing down the crazy train of certainly-wrong certainty like she’s a seventeen year old sleuth savant all over again. And finally? Because Hanna deflates the whole dramatic balloon with a) a shocking admission (she deleted the security tape!), and b) a completely unrelated observation about how utterly creepy their hometown is (the Radley sauna smells like burnt hair!). HANNA. MARRY US (for real—it’s not like Jordan is long for this world, anyway).

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Hanna’s contributions are enough to send Spencer and Emily bolting for the door. Hanna is (naturally) baffled at their reasons/outraged that they’d let Ashley’s voucher gifts go to waste, but one trip down Radley memory lane is enough for Spence, who has a meeting with her mom’s campaign handlers to get to anyway. Emily’s got a “meeting” (appointment) with her “mom” (for Treatment) to go to, too. So sorry, Han! Might as well storm out with the rest of them!

Unfortunately (fortunately?) the impact of Emily’s storm-out is cut down by the fact that she has to immediately turn around to retrieve her forgotten car keys. And when she does, who should she spy but a be-gloved lover of showers lying silently in the “quiet room” two feet off the main room Em and the rest of the Liars just filled with all their loud secrets!

“WHY ARE YOU FOLLOWING ME,” Emily hiss-demands. “MAYBE *YOU’RE* THE ONE FOLLOWING *ME*” Sara Harvey spit-replies. She is wearing a hooded spa robe. Her goth eye-liner is delicately and perfectly applied. This show is (literally) nuts. Anyway, Emily doesn’t believe that Sara has any pure motive for being in Rosewood in the first place, let alone “saying goodbye” to the person who allegedly “scrambled her brain and stole her soul.” But as always, the person most likely to be secretly plotting to terrorize one/all of our Liars just glares back like she is the true victim and forces Emily to scream hysterically and storm (again) out of the room.

Paradise? Lost

So where was Aria all morning, if not at the spa with her friends/Sara? Obsessing over Ezra, obviously! Or more specifically, obsessing over the “pages” from his new manuscript that Ezra had promised (had he really tho?) were on that flash drive that seemed actually to contain hundreds of graphic news stories about murdered foreign aid workers in South America.

“Do not even WORRY about those pages, or even the book at all!” Liam and all of us say, interrupting her mad paper shuffling as Liam stares at her lovingly through his work computer. “Our boss doesn’t even want that drunk’s angry ramblings anymore, anyway. Wait—is that a stuffed pig behind you?”

“Whatdoyoumeandon’tworryaboutthemthemanisageniuswhoisgoingTHROUGHsomethingokay????????” Aria bites back. And while her reason for being shocked is depressing/vomitous, the surprise itself is understandable: their boss basically fired Aria for not being able to wheedle any pages out of Ezra “Modern Genius” Fitz’s hands on her first try—48 hours is a bit short for such a dramatic turnaround on acceptable profit losses!

Speaking of losses, Detective Inspector Gadget Lorenzo is back at Hotel Radley waiting to confront Ashley about the missing twelve hours of security footage from the night Charlotte was killed. He’s got EXPERTS (lol), Ashley! Expert RPD technology officers (lolol) who are picking through the device as they speak to discern if it was some kind of technical malfunction or… “Or what,” Ashley cuts him off. “I’ve been to jail over a pair of muddy manolos that cost more than you make in a month. Spit it out.” Or if someone deleted footage, Lorenzo finishes. Anywhoooo they’ll be calling Ashley and her staff down for questioning later, just FYI!

Nice Guy Vs. Nice Guy

Here’s another FYI: there’s not a single health food store in all of Rosewood, Hanna’s dumb new fashion world friend! Literally the closest thing to a health food store would be Pot Gummy Sabrina’s pantry. So, we guess Hanna getting coffee at Brewbies is actually pretty close!

Unfortunately, Hanna loses her fashion job call to ghosts interfering with cell service just as she is monstrously miscalculating world time zones. FORTUNATELY, those ghosts vanish just in time for her to look up and see none other than Nice Guy Lucas, coming to Nice Guy it up by waving his fancy tech bro money at her. (He legit looks good.)

“What are you doing here!” Hanna laughs, shocked at the sight. “What? You didn’t see me waving?? From my very expensive silver Jag??” Lucas replies, managing to sound juuuuust casual enough to keep us from justifying the use of “gross” while simultaneously not answering her question in any satisfactory way (conspiracists, take note). Lucas, it turns out, sold some (presumably tech startup) company and moved to Seattle, but now splits his time between Palo Alto, Hong Kong, and Rosewood working as a game developer. “Try to look a little less shocked, Hanna!” Ugh. Lucas.

Anyway, two seconds later it is Lucas’ turn to be shocked—first at the sight of Hanna’s finger rock, second at the news that her fiancé isn’t Caleb. “But my new guy…Jack…no, um…Jayd…no, er…JORDAN,” Hanna assures him, “he’s super great! And anyway, Caleb and I are still friends.” Before she can continue, though, she is interrupted by a surprising text, and the flash of glee that crosses Lucas’ face before he concernedly asks if Hanna is alright is either v suspicious, or just one more blip of oddness from this ep’s newbie director. Either way, Hanna is fine.

Across the street, Melissa—not a ghost—strides into Spencer’s hand-built barn like she owns the place, so, like normal. She draws up short when she sees Caleb camped out in the living room, a mock-up of Veronica’s campaign sit up on his laptop. “Oh YOU’RE still here,” she grimaces, as though he never made bank being the tech genius for a top secret company after getting his GED and is somehow rubbing hobo cooties all over her old dining set (hey, it wouldn’t be the worst thing Caleb’s rubbed all over a Hastings’ furniture…). Spencer—no joke wearing a backpack—comes barreling in before Melissa can find a way to insult Caleb any worse, so distraught about how the campaign manager wants her to lie (“hey, don’t knock it until you commit to it for several years and then record the truth on actual tape!” - Melissa) that after handing her his own coffee, Caleb immediately gets up to make her eggs and toast (burnt—their mutual preference).

“When did THAT happen??” Melissa asks when Caleb heads to the main house to retrieve supplies, all razor-toothed smiles about how Spencer is the original Miss Steal Your Guy.

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How is she still such a bitch! “Anyway, just do the non-denial denial with the journalists at Hollis. That’s what we all do.” Oh. That’s how. Welcome back to the world of the Hastings!

Glum-more Girls

Around the corner at the Fields’ house, Em is busy fleeing her mom’s many good-faith attempts to bond with and support her daughter, like by reaching out to her dead husband’s old EMT buddy to write a recommendation for Emily for grad school! Wow, that overreach makes for a real Gordian knot of guilt, huh, Em? The mere thought of it is so overwhelming that Emily doesn’t even think to worry that she should be checking the mail obsessively while she’s home, you know, just in case any one of her many secrets accidentally turn up there. And while normally the worst thing to come of that would be having your parents know *something* is up, we all know how little Pam Fields respects her child’s boundaries, so. Yes. She opens the letter from Pepperdine addressed to Emily, right out there in the open where any mail fraud agent might see. PAM. PAM.

Oh, Em.

“Oh, Hanna,” Ashley sighs three feet away in the lobby of Hotel Radley. “If you or your friends tampered with ANY—” But she is interrupted twice, first by Hanna declaring that no one older than seventeen would ever need to tamper with evidence of any sort, and second by Hotel Radley’s Michel coming to deliver a message from Lorenzo (sorry, Detective Calderon) that his “experts” (lololol) have confirmed that the security tape was erased, not glitchy. And now Ashley has to go down to the station to give a statement! Because, Hanna, the only people in Rosewood who are ever guilty of anything are the ones who have been long-suffering victims!

Any Board Shorts Ale You Have On Tap, Please

Speaking of long-suffering victims: please see Aria’s shirt. What did your closet ever do to you to deserve THAT, Montgomery?

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Oh, also, Ezra. Ezra is a very long, very suffering, very victimized victim. He is in PAIN. Which obviously sets the stage for two things. One, for him to be a writer of vast genius. Two, for Aria to forget every tome of good sense she’s picked up since high school and commit one thousand percent to him, his genius, and his bodily freedom.

“Why CAN’T this poor, wounded man have a beer?” she demands of Ashley when Ashley comes around to remind him that not even a hotel cobbled together from crazy ghost stories can serve him alcohol in public these days. “Why DOESN’T this poor, lovelorn national treasure have a National Book Award, a Pulitzer, a Nobel Prize in Literature already???” she demands of Emily after forcing Em to listen to her read aloud the five handwritten pages of the blatantly mediocre draft Ezra finally gave her at the Montgomery home later that afternoon. “Why WON’T you let me transcribe, proofread, and edit your entire book for you?????” she demands of Ezra when her stockholm whiplash proves so strong that even Ezra is mad at her for it. Look, she just wants the entire world to know exactly who he is—us too!!!

Oh, wait. She doesn’t mean what she ought to mean. She means something else. Fuck it all.

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Yes, it really, truly is.

What’s Hanna up to?

Hanna. HANNA.

Utterly freaking out about the prospect of her mom going to jail (again) for something that Hanna did (again), Hanna follows her gut instinct and races to the one man in Rosewood who has always had her back: Lucas.

“Can you lie and say you brought takeout to my hotel room that one night that Charlotte was killed and me and my friends were passed out drunk?” she begs, barely hearing herself. “Um, that sounds bad, but okay,” Lucas says, probably with less concern than he should have had. Hanna immediately walks her request back, because now she HAS heard it and it IS bad, but too late—Lucas is in. Lucas is always in.

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Safe in the knowledge she has an alibi ace in her back pocket should needs arise, Hanna returns home to start researching munchkin kittens for her Devil in Prada boss, which is how Spencer finds her when she comes barging in through the Marins’ unlocked back door (srsly, ladies) to apologize for how she spoke to Hanna earlier. (Oh, right—Hanna interrupted Spencer’s spiraling “be the change you want to see by voting” interview with the Hollis journalist to ask Spencer to get her mom to play lawyer, which Spencer immediately shut down.) Hanna is very forgiving, though; these girls have been through all of this before. She understands just how complicated protecting your family members from your friends, and vice versa, can be.

Their lovely reconciliation is interrupted by Jordan calling to say goodnight, his ringtone the very funny “Let’s Get Physical.” Hanna’s reaction is so adorable, it makes our hearts squeeze.

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Spencer’s, too. And seeing Hanna so happy inspires Spencer to chance her own potential happiness…with Caleb. What follows is a really quiet and lovely performance from both actresses: these two characters know each other well enough to know what they're each talking about without either one of them actually finishing a single sentence, and after barely a minute of saying everything without saying anything, Hanna has given Spencer her blessing. HANNA KNOWS WHAT HANNA MEANS.

Em’s Dark Cloud

Get it?? Because clouds rain, and rain is just a shower from the sky. (Look, it wasn’t our punny nickname in the first place.)

Anyway, later that day Pam finally chases Emily down to demand some answers (like, literally chases Emily’s car, on foot). Pam is beating herself up—not over the fact that she opened her daughter’s mail like some sort of common postal criminal, but over how dumb she must have looked for all those years, sending off care packages because Emily “didn’t like the cafeteria food.” Knowing that Emily probably needed those packages because groceries cost money she didn’t have, that hits us right in the soft places.

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Em is reticent to come clean about her poor decisions (been there), but the less she talks, the more Pam talks over her, and wouldn’t you know but there’s Sara Harvey, creeping in the park and staring at the Fields women’s confrontation with the focus on a laser, just like she has been creeping on Emily all over town ever since Emily arrived. And so Emily caves, and sits down with her mom outside the Grille to give her the rundown of her early-20s failures. It’s rough, but we for two are glad it’s over with. Em! You’re going to be okay! As long as alt-A doesn’t make your 20s the end of your life, your 20s aren’t the end of your life!!

The Sting

Bolstered by her successful “talk” with Hanna, Spencer gathers up the ladyballs the next day to run a sting op on that smugass Hollis journalist to double check he isn't trying to turn his candidates’ daughters puff piece into a surprised “bunker girls be legit murder suspects, y’all!” takedown.

“You’re so paranoid,” he breathes patronizingly at her, wide-eyed and faux shocked. “I would NEVER.” But then Spencer spies a post-it above his monitor reminding him to “call back Mona V,” and her Spencer-alarms start blaring. Unfortunately (for her), blaring Spencer alarms almost always mean that she is wrong. This time is no different.

Turns out, Mona is working for (um, more like running?) the campaign of Veronica’s opposition, and so is a source for deets on that candidate’s kids. “Mona’s on a campaign?” Spencer asks, shocked. Um, Mona tried to run YOUR MOM’S campaign, Spence. But Veronica turned her down! “Must suck to be outside of your own mom’s inner circle,” the smug journalist smugs. HA, WELL. Joke’s on you, buddy! You’ve no IDEA the number of Hastings Inner Circles Spencer has spent her life on the outside of! She’ll be just fine.

We Tropican’t

While Spencer is busy setting as many fires as she’s putting out over at Hollis, the rest of the squad (coven?) is gathered at Aria’s, where Hanna is pacing and worrying about just everything while wearing a tiny silk robe with giant shoulder pads and a truly hideous flower pattern on it…as a shirt. Y’all, is it possible that Hanna is *also* lying about where she works? Because if that counts as Fashion, we quit life.

Anyway, the third thing she is doing while pacing a trench in the carpet and burning our eyes with Fashion is eating frozen orange juice concentrate straight from the can, which is an extremely, delightfully, perfectly Hanna-weird thing to do. Oh, and the fourth thing is shouting about how obvious it is that Ali is not their actual friend, has anyone even HEARD from her since that prayer-curse dinner?? OKAY, Hanna, you and your shoulderpadded mini-robe can stay.

Aria’s computer dings as Liam RGWB FaceTimes in to change sexily from one RGWB buttondown plaid shirt into another while blabbing to her about Ezra’s book. Aria’s eyes bulge. Emily’s eyes bulge. Liam laughs and hangs up. Hanna is like, LITERALLY who cares about Ezra’s book, what about REAL STUFF like this ACTUAL MURDER. Bless, Hanna. Maybe we want a tiny robe shirt too.

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But seriously, Hanna has zero time for any Ezra bullshit—she’s got a real defense strategy ready to go to cover up all the lies Ezra’s telling about where he went after Aria saw him the night Charlotte was killed, and a crew waiting to hear it. Well, okay, so her defense strategy is basically just a lot of lying, which: haven’t you learned your lesson yet? But before anyone can point that out to her, Emily’s phone alarm bings, and she takes off totally unsuspiciously to the bathroom. As she goes, Hanna tries again to get Aria to budge on her lie about not leaving the room all night—not because it will change Hanna’s Lucas plan, but just because you don’t lie to a Liar, it’s the principle of the thing. But duh, Han, you are all trained Liars! Like Aria doesn’t know how to stick to a single narrative?

Frustrated at their continued impasse, Hanna rolls her eyes and drops the rest of her OJ snack straight into Aria’s bedside trash, but Aria is like “um, ew”, so Hanna grabs the can out of the trash, takes another bite (hearteyes), and goes downstairs to the kitchen. And wouldn’t you know it, but she is just in time to spy Emily through a crack in the bathroom door, injecting herself in the thigh.

Hanna confronts Emily right away, which is refreshing. Also refreshing (although unsurprising!) is how kind, mature, and gentle she is about it. Y’all, Hanna is just the best, bitty robe and all. Her most pressing concern is that Emily is sick (ours, too!!) and at first Emily freezes up at the question. But she barely hesitates a minute before spilling the beans. ALSO refreshing!

So, we already knew that she dropped out of school during her grief over her dad’s death, but now she confirms to Hanna—and us— that she blew through her dad’s money, and has been working as a bartender, not a researcher of ambiguous disease cures. Seeking both a purpose and some cash, she seized on a suggestion from a friend at work: donating her eggs. (Major props to the commenter who suggested this last week!) And she’s actually feeling like she’s doing some good in the world now, helping people have a baby.

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Hanna, once again, is the best: “They’re the luckiest couple in the world.” Damn right they are; who wouldn’t want a baby that is one half Emily Fields??

Paranoia, thy name is Hastings

Fresh off her failure at Hollis, Spencer comes home to find Melissa sitting ramrod straight and staring at a wall in the dark, like a true robot Hastings. Melissa is upset because she thinks she botched things with RGWB Reporter: she saw his notebook and it was covered with words like “source!” “cover-up!” “tape!”, which are words that are only ever associated with terrible misdeeds, and never, like, being a regular reporter. She’s terrified that he’s somehow gotten his hands on that tape she recorded confessing to killing Bethany on the Neverending Labor Day Night. Side note: we’re not sure we properly addressed at the time what a truly poor idea it is to record a TAPED MURDER CONFESSION if you don’t want other people eventually listening to it. Like, this is kinda on you, Mel.

Spencer is all, “god, don’t be so f-ing paranoid,” as she frantically opens her phone and shoots a text to Aria et al, leaping wildly to the conclusion that these reporter-pad-words mean that someone has seen the hotel tape and is Out To Get Them.

Hellzra’s Bellzras

While Hanna and Emily are busy holding down the fort in Normal & Mature-opolis, Aria is still a passport-carrying citizen of Crazytown. Now alone in her room, she gathers up her laptop and Ezra’s notebook and starts typing up his batshit chickenscratch, presumably editing in actually good prose in all the spots that have been made illegible by man tears.

At the sight of Spencer’s text, however, she drops the Next Great American Novel and races over to Ezra’s to force him into a shared alibi before her friends can reach him and force the Truth. She’s waving her arms and groveling, all “I’ll do anything you want if you just type literally any words on this page!”, but she is interrupted from making good on this promise—THANK GOD—by the arrival of every single one of her friends, wielding pitchforks and torches. (Well, we wish). They all stand around, hurling insults at Ezra, and you know what? We could get used to this. We crack open a Board Shorts ale and settle in to watch, popcorn at hand, while Hanna yells, “YOU DIDN’T PROTECT ARIA, I DID” at him.

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Why isn’t the episode just like, at least 75% this? The girls accuse him of killing Charlotte and urge him to turn himself in, so that people stop suspecting them.

Unfortunately, the Liars (save Aria—no really: save Aria) leave before they can bodily remove any of Ezra’s flesh or whatever. He turns on Aria, all WHO DO U THINK I AM. “Well, frankly, who knows??” she says, throwing her hands up in the air. “Ever since five years passed and I went to college and graduated and started working on my own and dating someone normal and possibly age-appropriate, and you went to South America and your girlfriend was kidnapped and you fell into a depression and also possibly alcoholism, it’s almost like we aren’t the exact same people we used to be!” Okay, we just wish she said that.

Ezra says the Liars are right: “The person who made your lives a living hell…” he starts, and we start nodding enthusiastically along with him. “She doesn’t deserve to—” Oh wait, he’s not talking about himself, he’s talking about Charlotte. Yawn. Anyway, he’s not mad Charlotte is dead, but why doesn’t Aria believe that he just doesn’t have murder IN him these days, when there’s so much moping to do?

On the “bright” side, later Liam tells Aria that their boss LOVED those chapters of “Ezra’s” that she sent over, and “whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!” And (cue sarcasm—) there’s really no better (“better”) end to this love story (“love story”) that we can imagine besides Aria doing all of the work and writing the next great American novel, and FUCKING EZRA getting ALL OF THE CREDIT.

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YES. PLEASE ALWAYS DO EXACTLY THIS WHENEVER YOU SEE HIM.

BAN. MEN.

Show-er of Hands

Shower Harvey keeps stalking Emily all over town. And while her eyeliner may be on point (who’s applying it every morning?), SHE is not. Or, she is. If what needs being on point for is stalking. When Emily finally stomps up and confronts her at the bar in Hotel Radley, Sara stares at herself in the bar mirror and says, “I KNOW you feel guilty.” Wait—what? About what?? Her burned hands? We still don’t know what she’s talking about, but Emily, frankly, does NOT feel guilty. It all happened so fast! But Sara studied the Liars through Charlotte’s eyes long enough to know that answering logic with a smirk is usually plenty to kick the girls into destroying themselves, and Sara? She smirks with the best of them.

When Emily makes it home, she finds her mom sitting on their porch, waiting for her. Em’s prepared for another argument, but Pam just puts her arm around her daughter and reminds her that she never wants Emily to feel like she has to go through tough stuff alone—that they’ll do it together. Aww. This sort of makes up for the mail snooping.

Alib-lie

Meanwhile, at the police station, Hanna is being interrogated by Lorenzo. Her tiny robe somehow grew even MORE shoulder pads over the commercial break, and if you thought wearing a shortie robe top around a bedroom looked nuts, just imagine how very cool and normal it looks in a police interrogation room! Yes, wasn’t that a fun time for us all.

Anyway, Lorenzo is really working his Detective Inspector Gadget skills: after hearing half of Hanna’s alibi story, he invites Lucas into the interrogation room with her. This does not feel like proper prisoner’s dilemma procedure! Not that that matters: even with the two of them there to share meaningful looks in order to not contradict one another, it becomes clear extremely quickly that this alibi which they barely established and did not rehearse even once is not holding up ALL that well. Lorenzo is like, “but what did he LOOK like” and “what KIND of water did you drink” and “there isn’t even an ice bucket on the THIRD FLOOR” and Lucas is like, well, this was a mistake. Lucas also makes a really charming and not at all dangerously loaded allusion to coming over to see Hanna because she sounded drunk and he wanted to hook up with her, and Hanna and every one of us who has ever accidentally asked a Nice Guy for a favor is like, WELL…this was a mistake.

Hanna and Lucas meet up at his place later to debrief about said mistake, and he just asks her straight out: “DID you kill Charlotte?” She says no, and she’s glad he was brave enough to ask, unlike her mom. Then she complains about living at home, and without a second’s thought Lucas hands her the keys to his Rosewood Loft and tells her he’s off to the Bay Area and she’s welcome to stay anytime. This seems potentially very kind…or very suspicious and creepy. Time will tell.

The Spaleb Thing

Later that night, Spencer gets home late to find Caleb sitting ramrod straight, staring at the wall in the dark. What is up with this Hastings House of Horror, and why is everyone in it a robot? At least Caleb has the wit to fake like he was reading a gardening magazine, but let’s be real: he was waiting up for Spencer, because he looooooves her.

She asks him what his first thought had been when he’d heard Charlotte had been murdered. “Like, who did it?” he clarifies, because yes, that is always the question in this town. “Well, Shower Harvey IS pretty creepy, even though her eyeliner looks great.” Spencer says something vague about “she remembers more than she’s saying…” and then finally fills us in on…The Sara Thing. See, the girls were playing a prank and they didn’t KNOW she was in the garage when they dropped in those firewo—oh wait, sorry. That was the first one. This time, while they were all pursuing Ali pursuing Charlotte, Emily punched Sara in the face (ah, better times), and Sara just fell over and burned her hands on some box of electricity, from which none of the Liars saved her before racing up to the roof to save Charlotte. Honestly it wouldn’t have been on the Liars if they hadn’t saved either kidnapper/torturer from anything, but that’s how things roll in Rosewood!

Back in #FiveYearsForward, Spencer seems a lot less sure of her lack of guilt than Emily did to Sara’s actual face five minutes earlier. “What if I’m hardened from being tortured?” she confesses to Caleb, breaking down. He just caresses her leg and tells her never! She wears her heart on her sleeve—it just happens to be the sleeve of a flak jacket. They laugh tenderly together and then she confeses further: The Sara Thing is not the only thing she's been judging herself for. And then they…[PAUSE FOR A COMMERCIAL BREAK IN WHICH WE SQUEAL LOUDLY FOR THREE MINUTES]

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…they grab hands in all sorts of weird conformations, and THEN they START KISSING (!!!) and HAVE SEX ON THE COUCH (that’s so #FreeForm)!!! A raspy lady cover of “Ring of Fire” plays, underscoring how this is both extremely hot and possibly a little dangerous. SPALEB 4EVER!

alt-A

Over at Aria’s, she’s still typing away at some traditionally female invisible labor, when she gets a text. And GUESS WHAT? IT’S…wait, what do we even call these any more?? It’s a text from a mysterious being, holding out secrets for blackmail or revenge, and it’s signed with a literal devil emoji. SatAn?? That’s impossible to take seriously. alt-A. Let’s go with alt-A.

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As the scene changes, we see that the song is coming from a little record player propped up on a shelf full with some very familiar objects… the creepy papier mâché Alison masks, doll heads, reams of close-up photos of Aria’s face. alt-A opens a box full of black hoodies and dumps them straight into the trash. Yeah! You tell em! Oh wait—alt-A isn’t just disposing. alt-A is UPGRADING.

NEXT TIME

Real terrorism!(?) Real sleuthing!!(??) Real and really cool new Capital-U Uniforms maybe, if alt-A’s* Website Page search went well!!!(???)

*If they up their game and start putting something a bit scarier than black hoodies in barrels, we'll upgrade the new moniker to CTRL-A. Fingers crossed!

KISSES,

A(lexis and Catie)

<-- Pretty Little Liars 6x12: Charlotte's Web

Pretty Little Liars 6x14: New Guys, New Lies -->

Previously: The season 3 premiere (FINALLY) showed us what everyone was up to after a three-month time jump, and the Grounders’ hunt for Wanheda, a.k.a. The Commander of Death, caught up with Clarke.

THIS WEEK ON THE 100

While Clarke’s captor continues to drag her across the country to—we assume—the Ice Nation, Nyko shows up at Arkadia in dire need of some doctoring. But when Abby and Jackson realize his blood type (RH Null?) doesn’t match any supplies they have on hand, they decide the only option is to take him to Mt. Weather and the “state of the art” facilities they have there. And because traveling in groups is a good idea, Lincoln, Octavia, and Jasper go with. While the doctors do their thing, and Lincoln stays by Nyko’s side, Jasper has a breakdown in the art warehouse and Octavia comforts him. When Nyko wakes, all parties realize that letting Mt. Weather become a tomb isn’t the best course of action.

After biding their time in the trapped rover, Bellamy, Monty, Indra, and Kane make an attempt to leave, but they’re immediately caught … by a bunch of Skikru from Farm Station, including Monty’s mom. The embiggened group makes their way north, continuing on the search for Clarke, but run into problems when they hear the Ice Nation’s war drums. Bellamy, because he’s Bellamy, tries to save Clarke by sneaking in amongst the warriors, but isn’t quite a match for Clarke’s captor … who turns out to have been working for Lexa the entire time.

MOMENTS

- Emori flirting with Malfoy, and the—dare I say it—sexy smirk that follows.

- Monty reuniting with his mom! (But RIP, Monty’s dad.)

- Bellamy’s face when he sees Clarke from across the field, and then her pleading for his life when her captor tries to kill him. *whispers*ennnnddddgaaaaame*whispers*

Thanks to asweetdeception.tumblr.com for this very important GIFset.

HOLY SH*T X 100

- BELLAMY. YOU GET YOUR HANDSOME FACE BACK TO WHERE YOU BELONG AND AWAY FROM THE ICE NATION RIGHT NOW.

- Oh, snap. Not only was Clarke’s captor not leading her back to the Ice Nation, he was working for Lexa and he’s the Ice Nation’s prince?

ARKADIAN OF THE WEEK

Y’all can go ahead and roll your eyes if I’m being predictable, but I have to give Bellamy all sorts of props this week. The guy risked his life to go after Clarke, kind of screwed up his attempt to save her and got stabbed, and then wanted to hobble after her as he was bleeding and in serious pain. That’s dedication, folks.

SAY WHAT

“Oh, a hero? And here I thought you got me.”—Malfoy, getting his flirt on.

“Places are not evil, brother. People are.”—Nyko, speaking the truth.

“We can’t lose Clarke—we ... can’t lose her.”—Bellamy, being our adorable Rebel King (and making Bellarke shippers' hearts glow).

“YOU BITCH. YOU WANTED THE COMMANDER OF DEATH?! YOU GOT HER! AHHH! I’LL KILL YOU! AAHHHH!”—Clarke, dashing the hopes of Clexa fans releasing a tiny bit of pent up anger.

BURNING QUESTIONS

- What is with that new voice-over intro? I hope it doesn’t last, regardless of how much I enjoy hearing Bellamy’s voice.

- Is the City of Light some sort of online world? How is Alie benefiting from people visiting?

- What’s it going to take to make “skrish” happen?

- How many crunches must Grounders do a day to all have such fantastic abs?

- How long do you think it’ll take until Pike tries to take control of Arkadia?

- Whose love interest do you think Roan will be? Because dude’s pretty good looking, and, you know, royalty. (Side note: My husband leans over to me during this episode, while Clarke and Roan were talking, and goes, “Young enough to be a love interest?” I shot that down right quick. We do not need a love quadrangle.)

- What building is Trikru holed up in? I don’t know my Washington D.C. architecture very well.

So much to talk about! Join me in the comments section, won’t you?

Next week: "Ye Who Enter Here"

YAY FOR FRIDAY! I’m covering Pro-Tips this week while Jennie is traveling. Translation: She owes me a souvenir.

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Movie Related Things

The newest Allegiant trailer is out. And FYA’s reaction is here.

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TV Related Things

Choosing Spike over Angel on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

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Nothing will ever again be as great as Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard’s African vacation video.

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Barbie now comes with three new body types and 7 different skin tones! Confession: I think they look great, and I’m totally getting the curvy, blue-haired one.

BOOK REPORT for The Radiant Road by Katherine Catmull

Cover Story: Dazzling
BFF Charm: Meh
Swoonworthy Scale: 2
Talky Talk: The Long and Winding Road
Bonus Factors: Ireland
Relationship Status: Once Upon a Dream

Cover Story: Dazzling

Oh, this is lovely. Haunting, mysterious, atmospheric: you look at this cover and it screams “fairies! Ireland! Magic! OMG!” And y’all know what a fan I am of the wood cut look. Yes, yes, and yes.

The Deal:

Clare grew up in a mysterious house made of quartz and stone, and a yew tree for a wall. But when her mother dies, Clare’s father moves her from Ireland to America. Now, ten years later, all Clare has of Ireland are vague memories of her mother’s stories about “the Strange” - the fairies that bring their magic to humanity. Moving back to her beautiful old home means coming back to Finn, the dark-haired boy of her childhood memories. Finn is no boy-next-door, though; he’s half fairy, and hundreds of years old. Together, Clare and Finn must stop the destruction of the fairy gate - Clare’s yew tree - that binds fairies and humans together. If the gate is destroyed, both fairies and humans will suffer permanent harm, and it will take all of Clare’s and Finn’s otherworldly wits to save them.

BFF Charm: Meh

Clare is not a bad character - in fact, I kind of wanted to be her (family tragedy aside, of course). I mean, she has all the romance I ever wanted: a strange, mysterious house in Ireland, a handsome half-fairy neighbor, and, if we can believe the cover, fabulous hair. That being said, I couldn’t really connect with her. She never seemed to leap off the page for me, and by the end of the book, I still felt like I didn’t really know her.

Swoonworthy Scale: 2

Finn is handsome, strange (in a good way), and, oh yeah, half freaking fairy. So I was a little disappointed at the lack of swoon between him and Clare. Swoon was there, but it never became very intense for me. Overall, the chemistry between them isn’t really the point, and I found myself wishing it was.

Talky Talk: The Long and Winding Road

The writing is as lovely and lyrical as a book about fairies in Ireland warrants. This book is all about the romance - the house, the fairies, the setting, and the writing evokes a classic fairy story. If that’s your thing, then this is the book for you. It does happen to be my thing, but I still found the tone to be a little distancing. It was hard to break through and believe that any of it was really happening, and for a book that has to work hard to build up a really unique world, it might have been better to have a more relatable tone.

Bonus Factor: Ireland!

Magic! Fairies! Green rolling hills! The moors! The mists! IRELAND! I’m sorry, Ireland, I bet you are super tired of hearing Americans romanticize your country. I know it’s not all magic and starshine all the time. But hey - what a beautiful stereotype, right?

Relationship Status: Once Upon a Dream

Book, you had your flaws - you left me wanting more. But your undeniable beauty was hard to ignore, and I think I’m willing to give you another shot.

FTC Full Disclosure: I received a review copy from Dutton Books for Young Readers. I received neither money nor chocolate for this review. The Radiant Road is available now. 

You ever sit back and think, "Hey, past self? Those pipe jeans that were so popular in the 90s...don't"? Would you wage your own personal It Gets Better campaign? Would you try to impress upon yourself the importance of doing well in school, or conversely, would you tell yourself that it doesn't actually matter and to lighten up, for heaven's sake?

Or would you just be glad that you didn't live your life in the public eye, like some denim-clad couples that may or may not be pictured at left?

As always, feel free to talk about anything you want! We'd love to get to know you better. If you're just joining us, feel free to introduce yourself!

Previously on The Originals: Mikaelson Prophecy of Doooom. Tristan talked Vincent into ascending to rule the witches. The macguffin was stolen from Freya, and Cami was [maybe] killed in Klaus’ bed.

The Original Dysfunctional Family Drama

Klaus is having one of his destructive fits in reaction to Cami’s murder. Once Cami wakes up, because of course she had vampire blood in her system, she remembers that while kidnapped, Aurora compelled her to slit her own throat after Klaus was obviously in love with her. It’s pretty horrifying. They then spend the day arguing over whether Cami will or will not complete her transition.

Tristan continues to threaten Vincent with reinserting Finn to have him do his witchy bidding. Marcel is following Tristan, masquerading (or is he?) as a henchman. Vincent tells Elijah that without the pendant, they all do what Tristan wants.

Haley is helping Jackson pack up his bayou belongings to bring to their Quarter apartment when they’re attacked by dart hunters. Of course, their attackers are the mother-effing Strix. They wake up chained in a basement, and pumped full of wolfsbane. Right after Jackson tells Hayley he doesn’t have a good feeling about their situation, and he that he loves her, Tristan comes in and says that, in retaliation for the torture he experienced at Hayley’s hands, he’s decided on the best way to hurt a hybrid. And then he RIPS JACKSON’S HEART OUT. Holy crap, y’all.

Then he sends Jackson’s heart to the Mikaelson compound, where Freya is the only one to shed a tear. Elijah and Klaus (with Vincent’s help) kidnap Aurora, to make an exchange for Hayley. The Strix have a double-cross in mind, somehow still not realizing that Marcel isn’t on their side. At the meet-up, Vincent and Freya have tag teamed their powers to present a false Aurora to Tristan, and to imprison him using the macguffin pendant. And Elijah uses his freakishly persuasive voice to convince the Strix that Tristan isn’t worth fighting over.

Holy Fang

Aurora compelled Cami to slit her own throat! Like, DAMN. Maybe she and Klaus were perfect for each other.

Jackson is like really, REALLY, dead.

Winners and Losers

Winner: Klaus. The woman he loves has decided to become like him. And it looks like he has until next week to figure out that her new blood diet has her acting like someone else entirely. If you think that’s scary, you should have seen me that time I gave up carbs.

Loser: Tristan. The dude lost everything, and he’s been sunk into the deepest, darkest depths, of Elijah-doesn’t-give-a-damn. Good riddance!

Original Snark

“In the meantime, these attacks need to be answered! Our retribution must be swift and it must be brutal!” Strangely, Klaus’ reaction is the same when they get his order wrong at a restaurant.

“Hipsters.” Jackson, on what he needs a bow and arrow for in the French Quarter.

“What does it feel like, to be a back-stabbing traitor?” Looked in any mirrors lately, Vincent?

“I want my wake to be at Rouseau’s. I want it to be epic!” Same, Cami. Same.

“This is not about you, this is about me!” Cami, girl, have you MET Klaus Mikaelson?

“She lives. You can thank Elijah for that. I wanted to flay her, and hang her skin as a flag.” Did anyone see Aurora after that? He may actually have done it.

“If you care for her, you will let her choose.” Our regular reminder that Elijah is better than anyone ever.

Haunting Questions

Did we know that vampire transitionng means your blowout goes all to hell?

So, it does seem that Marcel has been on the Mikaelsons side all along, but now that Strix will probably need a leader, do we think that’s going to change?

Are the du Martells really gone? I may have to throw a party! Cheers to the devil and the deep blue sea!

Hayley talking to Jackson’s corpse, and then the Viking funeral? Are y’all still crying ? I’m still crying. Pour one out for our bayou homie.

Next week: Cami channels Faith. "Wild at Heart"

Previously on The Vampire Diaries: Julian stabbed both Salvatore Brothers into their own personal hellscapes with a magical sword, Mama Salvatore died for her sons, Caroline is supernaturally (and hilariously) pregnant, and Enzo is Matt’s prisoner.

What Went Down

Hell is Groundhog Day! I KNEW IT. Damon is forced to re-live actual events from his time as a soldier in the Civil War, namely when he went looking for deserters in order to get official leave to go home, except it all went completely pear-shaped with quite the body count. Instead of listening to his conscience (in the forms of Lily and Stefan) and facing his guilt, he tries over and over again to somehow get those deserters back to camp without everyone else dying in the process. Consider me amused, show.

Back in reality, Bonnie has managed to return Stefan to his body and the gang is sitting vigil around Damon as she tries to revive him too. Damon is busy on the other side learning what regret and pain feel like, much to the demise of Our Friends when he eventually DOES get back in his own skin.

Holy CRAP

-Candace Accola is super pregnant, y’all. I hope she was sporting DVT socks at all times while on set while also being waited on hand and foot like the fertile goddess she is.

-I don’t really think Damon killed anyone, but he may have seriously injured Bonnie. STOP hurting your BFF, Damon!

-Damon Salvatore shedding actual tears over losing his mom. Aww.

Vamp of the Week: Damon Salvatore

I mean, in no uncertain terms was this Damon's episode, and his eyebrows were on FULL BLAST. Emotional growth and accepting responsibility for mistakes are not exactly in his wheelhouse so let's give credit where credit is due.

Hero Hair/Nefarious Grin

Hero Hair: Everyone in Mystic Falls would've died without you a long time ago, Bon-Bon. I hope you can forgive Damon for unintentionally trying to kill you, boo. 

Nefarious Grin: Damon Salvatore is his own worst enemy, and this episode has proven just that. 

Sound Bites

Damon: “Well, it’s not like I was expecting a parade, but where’s my parade?” Totes reasonable to expect a parade from returning from the dead. Again.

Damon: “Overall I’d give Hell one star for horror and two very disappointed thumbs down for clever use of parable.” Oh, it's not over yet, sir. Not by a long shot.

Stefan: “This isn’t about what you do in her name, Damon. It’s about what you do in her absence.” Yes, Ghost Stefan, you are SO right. WWED indeed.

Burning Questions

-Matt is back in Mystic Falls, so where did he take Enzo??

-Where are The Heretics? Is Valerie ok?

-I know he wasn't onscreen this week but...how drunk is Alaric?

I hope everyone had a great winter TV break! I had the chance to catch up on some old shows and read tons of books, myself. So where do we see the rest of this season taking us? The Heretics seemed to have packed up camp and hauled ass outta town so...now what? Let's convo!