Welcome back to YA Onscreen! Let's hop to.

Riverdale, Greg Berlanti's Archie series for The CW, is shaping up, and first let me tell you why I'm excited about this. Berlanti's proven he RULES at comic series adaptations, thanks to The Flash, Arrow, Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow, but you might not realizes he's also AMAZING at teen ensemble dramas, thanks to his wonderful series Everwood and his pivotal work on Dawson's Creek (follow our rewatch here!). So yeah, get excited. 

First up, the synopsis: 

Set in present time, Riverdale is a subversive take on Archie, Betty, Veronica and their friends, exploring the surrealism of small-town life — the darkness and weirdness bubbling beneath Riverdale’s wholesome façade.

KJ Apa will play Archie, and Ashleigh Murray is Josie (of Josie and the Pussycats, WHO WILL ALSO BE ON THIS SHOW!!!).

Luke Perry will play Archie's dad. 

Camila Mendes will play Veronica. 

Lili Reinhart will play Betty, and Cole Sprouse is our Jughead (my favorite!).

And finally, Madelaine Petsch is our Cheryl Blossom.

Also: Ready Player One has finally cast its Wade: Tye Sheridan! Read the FYA review here.

And Sarah Michelle Gellar is headlining the Cruel Intentions TV series, which is, frankly, genius.

Teen Wolf star Tyler Hoechlin has joined Fifty Shades Darker.

And this guy is our new Johnny Castle (NO ONE WILL EVER REPLACE PATRICK SWAYZE).

We've got upcoming adaptations of Legends of the Hidden Temple and Hey Arnold in the works.

And Lucy Hale has confirmed that Season 7 will be Pretty Little Liars' last. (SOB!)

To cheer you up: remember how The O.C.'s Ryan Atwood was totally a lesbian?

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

BOOK REPORT for A Study in Charlotte (Charlotte Holmes #1) by Brittany Cavallaro

Cover Story: Sherlockian Toile
BFF Charm: Be Mine
Swoonworthy Scale: 7
Talky Talk: Modern Watson
Trigger Warnings: Drug Addiction, Stories of Rape
Bonus Factors: Sherlock Holmes, Series Starter
Relationship Status: It’s Elementary

I’m happy to report that the well of good Sherlock Holmes adaptations hasn’t run dry.

Check out my full review over at our series on Kirkus.

UPDATE: every episode of Dawson's Creek is now available on Hulu!

Follow the whole rewatch here!

Last week, on Dawson’s Creek.

Welcome back to the Dawson's Creek Rewatch Project! Last week, Britt asked me who bugs me more: jerky Pacey or desperate Jen? The answer is BOTH, because I expect so much more out of Jen and Pacey. When Joey and Dawson act like idiots, no big deal, but I was V DISAPPOINTED in my two favorite characters last week. 

Let's drink to Tamara's return, because I'm so upset about it I need a drink!

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

Let's get started!

2.04 "Tamara's Return"

Things are starting to warm up between Pacey and Andie, and he's finding himself nearing a normal, healthy relationship with an age-appropriate young woman, so naturally Tamara chooses this moment to come to town and ruin everything. She's actually here to sell a piece of property - to Mitch, no less - but Pacey is GUTTED the moment he sees her, which I guarantee was her precise intent. In fact, he's walking out of school and flirting with Andie when he first runs into Tamara, and she's all sultry and intense-eyed and SO OBNOXIOUS as she tells him, "Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?", making Andie AND ME very uncomfortable. Pacey goes to see Tamara twice more, and there's lots of mooning and quiet, meaningful stares and then he tells her goodbye for real and OF COURSE they make out because Tamara is THE WORST. Like, Pacey should know better, but he's a teenager facing the grown-ass woman who took his virginity, so I declare that the blame for this falls squarely on Tamara and her stupid hat.

NO. NO NO NO NO NO NO. No. NO. No, you guys. Absolutely not. 

Meanwhile, Andie is just being adorable and waiting around for Pacey to realize it. She even goes to Dawson's house to ask if he thinks Pacey likes her, which is THE CUTEST. Dawson's taken aback, but then tells her, very wisely, that Pacey's "obnoxious pig behavior is sometimes his attempt at flirtation." Andie is SO EXCITED to hear this:

Look at that little face! Who could POSSIBLY choose Tamara's sultry cougar face over Andie's sweet, happy punim? Anyway, Pacey doesn't. He eventually realizes this whole Tamara thing is a terrible mistake (thanks, in part, to some more wise advice from Dawson telling him to "stay away"), and Dawson also tells Pacey that Andie likes him, even though Andie explicitly asked him not to say anything, because Dawson's smart enough to realize that means Andie wants Pacey to know. When did Dawson get so wise? So the episode ends with Pacey grabbing a bite of Andie's burger, flirting shamelessly with her, and then staring with solemn resignation out the window as Tamara walks to her car. "Don't you know that woman?" Andie asks. "I did. But not anymore," Pacey answers manfully. Whatever! Take a hike, Tamara! And stop flirting with Mitch, you harlot!

Meanwhile, Joey and Dawson's blissful reprieve into relationshiphood has lasted exactly three episodes before the seams start to show. Fewer, if you count that diary-reading bullshit from last week, WHICH I DO. Joey decides to attend an art history conference, and Dawson joins her and spends the entire time looking bored and belittling the content, just like Ross Geller. Joey is unsurprisingly prickly about this, because she's really getting into art, something the professor picks up on and wants to encourage. Joey has talent - much like her mom, whom we learn loved to draw - but everything Dawson says about it comes across as condescending. Not really his fault - he's trying to be supportive! - but Joey spends most of the episode mad at him for uncertain reasons. (Drink!) AND she ends up at a gallery showing with Jack, who is, of course, incredibly perceptive and passionate about art, because Jack is perfect. Don't compare Dawson to Jack, Joey. It's not fair. Eventually, Joey tells Dawson that she likes having her own thing separate from him, because her entire life has revolved around him for so long, and he's always had his passion for film. Dawson seems SUPER NERVOUS that Joey is embarking on a new path without him, and frankly, he should be. But first, he should be sort of alarmed that this is how Joey sees him:

Finally, Jen is still moping after being rejected by Dawson, and Abby really is doing her damnedest to cheer her up. You know, Abby's a sociopath with no impulse control, but she truly seems to care about Jen. She convinces Jen to join her for a shopping spree, buys or steals her a tube of lipstick (it's unclear), and it seems like they're having a really nice day together. Then, as they're having lunch, Abby spies a hot older dude a few tables over, and she starts blatantly flirting with him. This is Vincent, who seems more interested in Jen than Abby, not that Abby has noticed. They learn he's a fisherman and the next day they scour the docks for him, and when they find him Abby flirts some more, very poorly, calling him a "laborer type." Vincent responds that he's not interested in an "oversexed, condescending teenybopper," and Abby stalks off - but looks back just in time to see Vincent coming on to Jen quite strenuously, to which Jen seems pretty receptive. The next day, Abby tells off Jen in the hall, saying that Jen couldn't abandon the spotlight long enough for Abby to get the attention of one guy. And while some of this is unfair - it's not like Abby had a chance with Vincent anyway - Jen really did break girl code by flirting with Vincent seconds after he rejected Abby, especially since Abby's the only person who's been in Jen's corner the past several weeks. Jen gives a fleeting and fairly lame apology that quickly turns nasty:

Way harsh, Tai.

How many times did I have to drink? 13.

Best pop culture reference: Joey refers to Jack's service skills as those of "Inspector Clouseau," and while that is MEAN, it's also funny. Don't worry, she eats her words soon enough when she realizes that Jack is some kind of an art genius.

Abby's best euphemism: This girl has such a way with words! "I mean, what is so great about Dawson Leery? He's just a guy with a motormouth and a limp billy club."

Pacey Witter's worst shirt: 

Guess who? Vincent is played by TV actor Joe Flanigan, from such titles as Stargate: Atlantis and Sisters.

Belated guess who? I didn't realize this until after Tamara had already exited Season One, but OMG IT'S SHIRA HUNTZBERGER!!!!!!!!! Leann Hunley has played two of my least favorite characters of all time!!!!

The truest thing anybody said this week: Pacey, anticipating Dawson's romantic troubles, "Let me guess. You and Joey are having another love spat and you want my opinion. Well, here it is. Joey is being sarcastic and oversensitive and you, my friend, are being self-absorbed and suffocating."

The least true thing anybody said this week: Tamara, to Andie, "Pacey was a former student of mine." I mean, I guess that's true, but it's MILES from the whole truth.

The saddest thing anybody said this week: Jen to Abby, "I left New York because I couldn't handle being the bad girl anymore, but, I tell you, if being the bad girl means not walking around in a perpetual state of loneliness and depression, then bad girl it is."

The grossest thing anybody said this week: Pacey asks Tamara if she misses "teaching" him, because he sure misses having her "teach" him. Tamara assures him she does, in fact, miss "teaching" him. BRB I AM DYING OF VOMIT. 

2.05 "Full Moon Rising"

There's a full moon in Capeside, and people are acting CUHRAZY. The worst culprits are Dawson's parents, who both invite sorta-dates over on a Saturday night, outside of their Thursday night free-for-all boundaries. (Poor Dawson, repeatedly: "What are Thursday nights?") They keep fighting and saying terribly cruel things to each other the entire episode, with Gail insulting Mitch's perpetual state of unemployment and Mitch haranguing Gail for banging her coworker. And while neither is wrong, exactly, it's like ENOUGH ALREADY! Poor Dawson's tearing his hair out, and Gail's new coworker and Tamara (YEAH. MITCH INVITED OVER TAMARA.) are made extremely uncomfortable, though I'm happy about that in Tamara's case. Dawson finally makes them admit they're in an open relationship and then he wigs out on them, and the whole thing is messy and awful and makes me so sad for everyone. Except Tamara, who deserves this. The next day, Mitch and Gail finally realize they can't make this work, and have their first kind, mature conversation in months. Then Mitch moves out.

Meanwhile, Joey and Jack are working at the Icehouse by themselves when the power briefly goes out, shorting out the lobster tank and potentially losing the restaurant a bunch of money. Joey panics, and they hustle to save the lobsters, and meanwhile a lonely old man gives them wise advice and then disappears when they aren't looking. It's weird. He leaves them a hundred dollar tip and a poem, and suddenly Jack and Joey are kissing by the moonlight! It's so random! Joey, of course, feels TERRIBLE, especially in light of Dawson's parental agony, and she tries to tell him but he's too upset about his parents to listen. She ends the episode hugging him on the roof as he cries. Poor Dawson. 

Pacey finally asks out Andie! They're both so excited! But they get their wires crossed about where they're meeting, and Pacey tries to pick her up at her house while Andie's waiting at the movie theater. When she realizes what happened, she WIGS, but it's too late - Pacey's already met Andie's mother, who's very sweet and vague and keeps talking about Andie's big brother Tim. Andie freaks out and tries to get Pacey to leave, and he thinks she's embarrassed of him, but finally the truth comes out: Tim died in a car accident a couple of years ago, and Mrs. McPhee has never been the same. Mr. McPhee bailed on them and his company is folding, so they're out of money, too. It's a heartbreaking situation, and Andie is trying so hard to control all of it, but it's too much for a teenager to handle on her own - even a teenager as infinitely capable as Andie McPhee. Of course, Pacey says and does exactly the right thing, and I'm so glad Andie has him in her life now. 

In an even more upsetting storyline: Vincent runs into Jen and asks her out, and she agrees. Abby is so pissed! She calls Jen an "easy lay" and Jen slaps her HARD and tells her never to talk to her again. It's intense.

Then Jen invites Vincent over while Grams is out of the house, and they flirt and share a lot of sexually charged stories, and then they start making out on the table and Vincent is going much faster than Jen wants. She tries to get him to stop, several times, and he keeps pushing and it's SO UPSETTING. Then Grams shows up and SCARES HIM TO DEATH with her terrifying Grams face, and it is awesome. 

After Vincent flees with his tail between his legs, Grams gives Jen a really rough lecture. And the thing is, I get it. Jen does need to respect herself more. But she needs love right now, not judgment. 

Way harsh, Tai. 

How many times did I have to drink? 16.

OH SNAP: When Mitch makes a snide remark about Gail's coworker, she replies, "At least I have coworkers." Daaaaaamn, Gail!

Oh, Mitch: 

Blurgh: Dawson, I know you're sad, and I feel for you, but please don't ever say a sentence like this again: "All I want to do for the rest of this godforsaken night is to just stare at your face in the moonlight because that's the only thing that matters to me."

Most recognizable song: The episode ends with a montage of FEELINGS set to Jewel's "Hands," which is so perfect.

Pacey Witter's best hug: Good GOD this man can hug.

--

That's it for this week! Britt, I have a question for you: I never know how to feel about the way Dawson's Creek handles Jen's sexuality. On the one hand, I think the show does a pretty good job of balancing her sex positivity with her need to respect herself and take care of herself, especially considering this was 1998, before "sex positivity" was a thing. But on the other hand, episodes like "Full Moon Rising" start to skate too close to slut-shaming and implying that, had things gone further with Vincent, Jen should have "known better." How do you feel about it?

Meet Britt here next Wednesday morning as she covers "The Dance" and "The All-Nighter," both great episodes!

Ladies and Orlando Brian, FYA's Teen OTP Madness tournament was announced yesterday, and now it's time to vote for the couple that'll become the 16th seed in the U.S.S. Devotion bracket!

But first: we have a change to announce that should please some of you wildcard nominators. Eagle-eyed commenter Sabina pointed out that the original 4th seed in U.S.S. Romance, Harry/Hermione, breaks our own non-canon rule -- whoops! (Those JKR interviews must be getting to our heads.) And many of y'all pointed out that OMG WE LEFT OUT ANNE AND GILBERT, who would have totally been a top seed had we not have had a collective brain fart. Opening up the field to non-YA means way too many options to keep track of, which is why we're so lucky to have great readers like y'all to look over our bracket before it's finalized!

With all that being said, Anne/Gilbert (Anne of Green Gables) is the new 4th seed in U.S.S. Romance!

.... which means y'all also don't have to choose between them and one of the wild card candidates! (And this isn't the last we'll see of Harry/Hermione... )

Many great couples were suggested, with the write-in votes being so close that the wild card runners-up def. deserve a shout-out.

Jo/Laurie (Little Women) and Bright/Hannah (Everwood)

AND NOW. FINALLY. Here are the wild card hopefuls!

Lane/Dave (Gilmore Girls) vs. Jess/Joe (Bend It Like Beckham)

Which couple will join Teen OTP Madness? Vote for your fave by Thursday at 11:59pm Central!

BOOK REPORT for Siren’s Song (Storm Siren #3) by Mary Weber

Cover Story: Turn Arrrrroooooound
BFF Charm: Yay to Platinum
Swoonworthy Scale: 5
Talky Talk: To Hull and Back
Bonus Factor: Fake-Outs
Relationship Status: Happily Ever Entranced

Danger, Will Robinson! Siren’s Song is the third (and final) book in the Storm Siren trilogy. If you have not read the other books—Storm Siren and Siren’s Fury—turn away now. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. If you have read the first book, however, feel free to continue below. I will refrain from major spoilers in my review, but there might be hints at plot points and details about the story.

Cover Story: Turn Arrrrroooooound

Nym has finally finished the twirl she started on the cover of Storm Siren and is ready to head off into the sunset water ripple—wholly appropriate for this final book in the trilogy.

The Deal:

After escaping from Draewulf, Nym finds herself (and her loved ones) in a precarious position: uniting the nations and people of the Hidden Lands against the dire threat, which involves overcoming decades of mistrust, stubborn ideals of “everyone fends for themselves,” and the fact that until very recently she was both a slave and an outcast.

There’s also the looming notion that she—and she alone—could be the savior of her world … or the reason for its complete downfall.

BFF Charm: Yay to Platinum

Over the course of this series, Nym has grown a lot. She started as an angry, uncontrolled young woman—and rightly so—with a passion that brought others to her aid. In learning how to control herself and her powers, she realized that she had so much more to offer than any of her “owners” ever dared to let her believe. She also becomes a true leader, willing to sacrifice for those she loves and leads, and willing to make tough decisions.

Through it all, however, she never let the situations and choices completely wipe away her personality, which remained both sassy and caring. One moment in particular sticks in my mind as an example of this growth: At one point, Nym has a run-in with one of the, if not the, worst of her previous owners. And instead of taking him out murdery-like, which she totally could have done (and might have done earlier in the series), she shuts him down and shows him that she’s so much better than he could ever dream to be. It’s a definite fist-pumping moment.

Nym is certainly someone I’d like to have in my life.

Swoonworthy Scale: 5

After the events of Siren’s Fury, it’s understandably a bit of a struggle for Nym and Eogan to get back to where they were (or where they might have been headed). The fact that they’re fighting for their lives/the lives of an entire world also puts a damper on romantic times. And, even when they tried to make time for each other in Siren’s Song, they were often interrupted. That said, there are some seriously swoony moments that make me think that there’s hope for these two yet.

Talky Talk: To Hull and Back

I’ve mentioned this in previous reviews for this series, but Mary Weber continues to impress with her characters and world-building. I appreciate that I can easily connect with Nym and the rest of the characters in the Storm Siren series, even though we’re so different—from our cultures to our speech*—and as they experience things that I could never fathom experiencing. Weber’s writing makes me want to join the fight, and that’s somewhat surprising, as I’m very much a “content to stay at home and avoid possible death” kind of girl.

*It again took me a bit to get into the language of Siren’s Song, but as soon as I remembered what all the various unusual curse words meant, things got much smoother.

Bonus Factor: Fake-Outs

The ending of Storm Siren remains one of the best/worst cliffhangers I’ve ever read. So, I knew from experience that Weber has a bit of a devious streak when it comes to plot points, and there are a few moments throughout Siren’s Song when that deviousness comes into play. I both appreciate this, as it makes for an overall better story, and shake my fist at it, because I don’t have to like it, darn it. Thankfully, this book doesn’t leave readers dangling from a ledge.

Casting Call:

I cast Nym in my review of the first book in the series, and Eogan, Lord Myles, and Rasha in my review of the second. To them, I’ll add:

Katie McGrath as Lady Isobel

Terrell Ransom Jr. as Kel

Relationship Status: Happily Ever Entranced

It’s been a terrific ride, Book, and even though I’m sad to see our time together come to an end, I’m satisfied at the way everything worked out. I wish you all the best, and hope that we can meet up in the future to update each other on what’s been going on since we last met.

FTC Full Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from Thomas Nelson/the author. I received neither a private dance party with Tom Hiddleston nor money in exchange for this review. Siren’s Song is available now.

It's March, so you know what that means? It's time for Misandrist Madness! In the grand competitive tradition of this month, we will spend the next few weeks sorting through all of the truly terrible men of Rosewood PA, so that one can finally be crowned Most Garbage Man Of All! A dubious honor, to be sure, but it sure will make organizing our hit list more efficient.

We've combed through the archives to dredge up the very worst of Rosewood's men, the shitty dudes to end all shitty dudes, and we've narrowed it down to this final slate, in seeded order:

Ezra

Wilden

Ken Dad

Cousin Nate

Ian

Andrew

Ella’s Pastry Chef

Wren

Lucas

Noel

Fucking Jonny

Holbrook

Lorenzo

Jason

Generic White Boy (Composite)

WILD CARD: Bad Dad Winner

We'll start this week with a wild card vote-in round for the 16th slot: BAD DADS. Ken Dad Laurentis guaranteed himself a highly-seeded spot by being such a transphobic misandrist dick to his whole family, but the Liars' other fathers will duke it out for the final, un-coveted spot. (NB: Wayne Fields is already exempt for being a generally stand-up gentleman.)

Next week: The bracket is revealed, and the race to the bottom begins!

And now onto this week... Catie & Rosemary in the house, co-writing by passing a laptop back and forth across the country just like Ezra and Aria. We love all of each others' metaphors.

AWARDS

#5YEARSFORWARD: BIGGEST SHOCK/BEST SURPRISE

Nothing to joke about this week: the reveal that one major factor in the dissolution of Spencer and Toby’s relationship was a pregnancy scare in her sophomore year, the flashback for which was completely carried by Troian Bellisario’s serious acting chops. For all the serious ethical missteps PLL has had in the past (and present), this topic at least was handled with nuance, kindness, and respect.

#5YEARSFORWARD: BIGGEST NO-DUH

All of the men of Rosewood make important decisions for the women in their lives, and then get mad when the women aren’t completely thrilled.

via

More like MANdled it.

MOST UPVOTED NEW COMMENT ON TRIPADVISOR: ROSEWOOD

“Our car broke down outside of Rosewood, and this was the only garage in town. I guess they did a good job because the car eventually started again, only now it makes this strange wailing noise any time I drive it over 25 mph, and I may be crazy but I feel like someone’s following me. Also, it’s kind of weird that they make you pay by filling an envelope with cash and leaving it tucked into a secret location within the garage. Hasn’t Rosewood heard of AmEx? Two stars.”
– Leon, 2016

MOST LIT ALLUSION

“Did you see what I did with the bridge? I wanted to make it a metaphor for…” “Yes, I got it.” Ezra is every enthusiastic litbro taking his first college creative writing class. Aria is every world-weary TA, who just can’t believe it’s 2017 and stupid boys are still writing stories in which a bridge is a metaphor for connecting two things.

THAT'S SO FREEFORM

#No #KnifeEmoji

Continuing to push its nefarious Ezria propoganda on us while simultaneously writing Liam as one of a v. v. v. small handful of genuinely good male characters on this show.

PREVIOUSLY ON PRETTY LITTLE LIARS

Melissa’s broken suitcase handle matched the murder weapon description. Yvonne’s abortion secret got leaked and Caleb took the blame. Emily found the maybe-murder weapon, lost the maybe-murder weapon, and leapt to many conclusions. Hanna planned Ella's wedding instead of her own. Aria used her newfound minister-ness to join Ali and Elliot, Please in holy matrimony. Please.

THIS WEEK

Liars' Post-Wedding Summit
The Liars are packing up the remains of Ella’s dignity Ella and Byron’s wedding the next morning, and gossiping about Ali and Elliot Please’s midnight nuptials. Each girl responds exactly how you would expect:

Aria: “Actually, it was kind of romantic.” (All I want is to speed-wed a much-older man in the middle of the night.)
Emily: “Ali is just desperate for family.” (My dad died and my eggs were kidnapped, guys.)
Hanna: “She’s smart. No stressful bridal shower!” (Is it that obvious that I don’t actually want to get married at all?)

Spencer’s not there, but we assume she would say something like, “It’s probably a ploy to entice Ali out of the country, leaving Sara Harvey available to cover up the evidence about Charlotte! If only we can find the socks Ali wore last Wednesday, we can prove it! Don’t tell the cops.” (We can only assume the inside of Spencer’s head plays at 5x speed, chipmunk style.) IRL, though, Spencer is off still dealing with the Yvonne fall out, which sucks for Caleb (and Spence) but is also necessary because the cops can’t know about any of this. Cue five straight minutes of LiarLogic™ so speedy and complicated we can’t properly recap it. Just know it basically involves the fact that they can’t go to the cops, which is what all LiarLogic™ boils down to anyway.

Aria’s flipping through photos from the night before on her camera and finds one she’s in, and lest we not forget that Aria was into photography last season five years ago, she points out that hey! She didn’t take this one! She zooms in on a note on the table. “Give Me the Killer” it says in a curly wedding script. She clicks to the next picture. “By Election Night.” “Or You Lose.”

via

emoji-A's photo composition could use some work.

EMILY

Going In Circles
For like the fifth week in a row, Emily doesn’t have much of a storyline, other than someone trying to run her over/steal her eggs/generally ruin her life. She’s on the hunt for the monster truck that tried to plow her down last week, and is now of the belief that Melissa definitely killed Charlotte. She tells Hanna this on the phone as she walks down Rosewood’s only street when a loud car interrupts their conversation. “I’ve heard that sound before,” she says. HMMM OH YEAH WHERE COULD THAT HAVE BEEN?

via

It's the drink of choice at Rosewood lesbian bars, Emily. YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS.

Emily hangs up and heads to the Punky Brewster where she hears the noise again. “Yeah, ugh,” Ezra complains. The noise she hears is whistle tips – Woo! Woo! – installed on a truck, and it’s really messing with Ezra's ability to concentrate, sleep, stalk Aria, and be America’s Next Great Writer. Good job, whistle tips, tell us your secrets!

Emily tracks down a seedy auto shop that installs whistle tips. It’s filled with Hells Angels-types who have never once laid a single beard hair in Rosewood proper. The owner is a greasy woman in a jumpsuit who refuses to help Emily with her queries. So duh, Emily sneaks around and finds the truck in question hidden under a sheet. She snaps a photo, but the owner sneaks up and catches her, admitting “I probably loaned it to a friend or sumpin.” Oh yeah? Did your friend look…..LIKE THIS? Emily holds up her phone to show the world’s most hilariously weird photo of Melissa.

Anyway, no. The friend did not look like that. Emily accomplished zero things this episode. Poor Emily.

SPENCER

A Fighting Chance
At House of Hastings, Spencer is sitting uncomfortably next to Father Peter, who is back in town and back to being a dick as per ushj. Although maybe that is just because Spencer is dressed like the lost fifth member of a hipster barbershop quartet, and he’s more of a jazz fan. Anyway, Peter wants Spencer to issue a “statement” distancing herself from Caleb, because Toby put out a statement of support for Yvonne, so Spencer needs to show the same level of commitment, statement-wise. She’s shocked and really, so are we. Are state Senate campaigns really this big a deal? Where is this statement printed? The Rosewood church bulletin?

Toby sure thinks it’s a big deal, because he shows up at Hastings Manor pissed as hell—and understandably! It’s a low blow, and Yvonne isn’t even a candidate. When Caleb walks in, Toby basically attacks him. Spencer tries to get Caleb to admit that he didn’t do it, but he refuses to come clean. Toby grabs his shirt and yells in his face, but Caleb only says he did what he had to do. AND SO Toby dramatically punches him in the face, flinging Caleb back about fourteen feet. 

via

Nice arm, Tobe.

Spencer and Caleb obviously haven’t gotten the news that the whole world is watching this small-town state senate race, so they relocate to a very public nearby park under a romantic tree. The mood is a bit sexier while she cleans the tiniest amount of blood off his upper lip. Spencer thinks that maybe it isn’t Shower Harvey who is doing this anymore. At least, she’s pretty sure it was Toby who punched Caleb. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you,” Caleb promises. Which isn’t very reassuring coming from someone who just got his ass kicked. They kiss anyway. Sigh.

And, of course, the eyes of the relentless press are always watching. Or at least Peter has a stalker on retainer, because the next time Spencer is home he blindsides her, yelling about how  “Caleb was in the house! And on a park bench! HOW DARE YOU.” He’s a reeeeeeal dick about it and Spencer is not having it. “You can’t ask me to cut someone out of my life,” she says. “DO I LOOK LIKE I’M ASKING,” Peter yells—Peter who hasn’t been around for at least three seasons. Peter who has a secret son with the neighbor’s wife. Peter who has probably killed someone with a shovel or baseball bat or porcelain face mask or rat poison and buried them in that freaking cemetery he calls a flower bed, BUT LOL YEAH OKAY, PETER. Dear men of Rosewood: STOP TELLING US WHAT TO DO.

MONA!
Feeling peckish, Spencer heads to BrewTube where she’s confronted by Mona. “Is this how you thank me for using my magic earring power to get your mom’s medical records?” she yells. Spencer’s like “I mean but did you leak the Yvonne thing? Cuz it’s kinda vintage Mona.” No, Spencer, not only did Mona not leak the Yvonne info, the leak caused the Phillips campaign to go over All The Files with a fine toothed comb and they found out about her helping Spencer and fired her. Her future is ruined! RUINED!

Frequent Liar Miles
Spencer’s other Problem this week, is, as usual, Melissa. She’s jet-setted back to London post-haste (“Does she have a special fugitive rate from the airline?”). Peter tells Spencer she’s fled not because she killed Charlotte, but because she was being blackmailed for killing Bethany. Those don’t sound mutually exclusive to us, but okay. Anyway, someone threatened Melissa with a tape of her confessing to Bethany’s murder. She paid up, but then Charlotte got offed and Melissa was spooked, so she disappeared to London for awhile. The end.

#ThreeYearsBack
After the shower, Spencer meets up with Toby at Brewington Acres in his cop costume UNIFORM, prompting the conclusion of a series of dark-hued, somber flashbacks Spencer’s been having all episode. It’s her sophomore year of college, and she and Toby are seated uncomfortably and silently in her dimmed dorm room, waiting three minutes for (presumably) a pregnancy test to ripen. No one ever says the words pregnancy, or abortion, or baby (#ThatsSoNOTFreeform) so they could just be waiting for the latest Avengers movie to download or whatever, but we’re going to give them the benefit of the doubt. Toby is all gung-ho, and explains to a skeptical and defensive Spencer just exactly how this will all work out: he’s going to move to DC (“Into my dorm room?”), they’re going to start their Adult Lives now (“I’m a sophomore”), why wait? (“I have plans.”)

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As they talk it becomes clear that, as Toby says, when they’re picturing their future together, they’re “not looking at the same picture.” It’s painful, it’s poignant, it’s real—and it shows us clearly that Spencer’s empathy for Yvonne comes from somewhere deep and true. And so when she calls Yvonne up at the end of the episode, saying she’s truly, truly sorry and there if Yvonne ever needs to talk, we know she means it.

Back at the Brew, Toby snaps his fingers in front of Spencer’s face and is like “um, I have places to be…” so she quickly tells him what she came there to say: Caleb didn’t do it, he’s just taking the blame because A’s back. Or Copy Cat A. Evil Emoji. WHATEVER. This new tormenter thinks the Liars know who killed Charlotte and he's trying to ruin their lives over it. Yvonne was just collateral damage. “I couldn’t have you thinking I’d ever judge Yvonne for making that choice,” Spencer says. “Not after we almost had to make that choice.”

Toby leaves and Spencer gets a new text:

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Emoji-A's Guide to How to Win Friends and Influence Liars

HANNA

Wedding Yells
Now that Hanna has officially said the name of a day in the year, it’s bridal shower time! As in, immediately; as in, tonight. Ashley is in full planning mode, asking Hanna about a vintage board game called “Naughty or Nice” with a creepy angel/devil picture that will definitely get co-opted and used by Evil Emoji at some point this season. She’s wondering if it’s too risqué for the shower, which, bee-tee-dubs Hanna would just rather... not. Like, any of it. Hey, Hanna—Aria’s still ordained, right?! Ali can’t come to the shower anyway because she’s honeymooning on an Amish dairy farm. Ashley suggests Hanna invite Mona. It’s rare for all her friends to be in the same place! “Uh yeah,” Hanna rolls her eyes, “we’re here because of MURDER.”

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"Is that a Jackson in your pasta box, or are you just happy to see me?"

Later, at the Radley, Ashley is Businessing when she hears Caleb asking for a room at the front desk, because apparently EVERY SINGLE HOTEL room in Rosewood is booked. How many friends does Hanna have coming up from New York?? Is it all the press covering the great Hastings/Phillips senate race? IS IT FULL OF GHOSTS? Probably ghosts. Ashley senses a lost soul and offers Caleb his old digs in the guest room at Marin Mansion, but he refuses.

Over at Lucas’ Loft of Living Your Dreams, everyone’s decorating for the shower. Ashley walks in with an iPad that basically controls every aspect of the house, which isn’t foreshadowy at all, because the girls have never ever been attacked by fancy showers or freezers or sawmills or airplanes or technology in general. Ashley tried to turn on the AC but got Beyonce instead, so she asks Hanna to help her with this newfangled doo-dad. While Hanna is pressing buttons, Ashley mentions running into Caleb and offering him the guest room. Hanna freaks out over this, accusing Ashley of liking Caleb more than Jordan, which… well. She might be projecting just a little bit.

More Like Bridal (Blood) Bath
The bridal shower turns out to be quite a fancy affair full of strange women who are apparently Hanna’s NYC Fashion Friends, and so to impress them Hanna is wearing a white lacy bustier, which later turns out to be attached to a lampshade-like skirt. It’s Very ugly. FASHION.

The doorbell mercifully interrupts all of the standing-around-awkwardly that everyone was doing. It’s Mona! She brought a gift even though we should be the ones laying gold, frankincense and myrrh at her pedicured feet. Her gift is the Wedding Dream Book she and Hanna made in middle school (d’awww), featuring collages of their dream celeb crush weddings. Ashley invites her in, despite the girls’ iciness, and then tries to get everyone to play trivia games about the bride and groom, which nosedives when it turns out no one knows anything about Hanna or Jordan. “They met at a… work function? No! ...Party?” It’s Tinder, Emily. Tinder.

“Yeah, okay, great! Let’s just do shots,” Hanna says, trying to change the subject. “Also is it hot in here? Someone give me that iPad.” She tries to turn the air down but an alarm blares instead, and also heavy metal music. Then the power goes out. Then a very strong fan begins to blow. Aria gets up to pick up a stray gift bag when the fireplace explodes into flames. Aria—whose entire wardrobe is HIGHLY flammable—is caught in the literal crossfire.

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Most of her clothes are made from burnt plastic anyway.

ARIA

...UGH
Aria continues to be unable to talk to Ezra (ugh) over the phone, so she has to go over to his house to talk to him about the whole book situation. She can’t stay, because Liam (::angel emoji::), but she asks what Ezrugh wants to do and by golly! She’s in luck! Ezrugh has handled (mandled?) it for her by going around her and telling her boss Jillian that Aria wrote the chapters. Even though this could totally get Aria fired, and even though he didn’t ask her what she wanted even a little bit, Ezrugh thinks he is some sort of savoir type for doing it, because he’s pitched Aria as a co-writer on the book with him (“man/woman in dialogue!”), and Jillian seems into it.

Catie’s notes on this section:

Liam takes Aria to brunch where she repays him the kindness by telling him about the book thing. Ezrugh did it, she says, almost by accident! “Nope,” says Liam. “He didn’t fall off a bicycle. He made a decision.” He’s SO RIGHT but he does feel bad for getting a bit snappish with her, because he’s perfect. Writing with Ezrugh is a good idea, he admits, and he’s happy for her.

So, Ezrugh and Aria meet up to write, or at least to say writery words. They are literally just passing a laptop back and forth. Two words for you guys: Google Drive. “What are your thoughts on metaphors? Also powerful female characters! I heart a good juxtaposition,” Ezrugh blabbers. Aria interrupts this to ask why he did it—kindly invited her to be a coauthor on the book SHE WROTE. “Nicole’s voice was taken away and I want to give it back,” Ezrugh says. Hey, Ez? Aria’s (Or Nicole’s!) voice isn’t something for you to GIVE TO THE WORLD. IT’S HER GODDAMN OWN.

Out Of Line
Knock knock! Heeerrrrreeee's Tanner!

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I found out what was in the barrel! JK. LOL. Never.

She wants to speak to Aria alone and Ezrugh goes into attack mode before Aria has to shush him and command he get back into his kennel. Tanner says an eyewitness from the Two Crows saw someone call the DiLaurentis’ house on the night of Charlotte’s murder, and Aria fits the description. Aria’s like “it’s not me bitch, and I’ve never ever even BEEN to that diner, on the corner of Main Street and Other Street, at 2 AM that night of the murder.” Good, Tanner says, then we can eliminate you as a suspect.

So Aria gets to be in a lineup! She looks incredibly shady and nervous; good job Aria.

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"I DIDN'T DO IT!"

After the lineup, Aria stalks around outside the station behind some bushes, waiting for whoever was supposed to be identifying the caller. Someone with a blonde pixie cut leaves, so Aria stomps back in and demands that Tanner tell her if the eyewitness was Sara Harvey, because that’s definitely a thing you can do. She sees the file on Tanner’s desk and while Tanner’s on the phone, she pulls the old “spill coffee on the thing above the thing you want to look at” trick. 

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Aria's trickery is about as subtle as her sweater collection.

Tanner has to pick up the coffee-file and Aria can read the writeup beneath, which says that whoever made the call had a keychain with pink dice. “Five years ago you found me underground,” Aria says. “I just thought you’d take me seriously.” Tanner is an ice cold bitch. “I take everything seriously. Too seriously. For example: this hideous suit I’m wearing. Now leave.”

UGHHHH: Reprise
Aria’s in the hospital when she gets the Evil A text and Ezrugh shows up all panicked, because how dare Aria have an experience he’s not included in. He offers to bring her home, but the doctors want to keep her overnight. Luckily, he’s prepared for that too: he's brought her reading material, some of his sweatpants (LOL, how does he part with them??), gummy bears. He is the MOST patronizing, telling her not to be scared—it was an accident! WHERE IS LIAM.

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"TA-DA! IT'S ME! YOUR SAVIOR!"

Fuck you, Ezra, Aria doesn’t say. She does say, “It wasn’t an accident.” But then she says it’s actually nothing; she shouldn’t have been standing so close to the fireplace in those highly flammable clothes she wears. Oooof. Hi, Aria. BEING ATTACKED IS NEVER. YOUR. FAULT.

Ezrugh is reading to Aria from a very dull fashion magazine when she interrupts him to admit that she had “creative baggage” too—she wanted to make him proud. Because he is BASICALLY HER FATHER. Thank god they’re rescued from this horrifying pronouncement by Liam appearing; his phone died just outside of Philly but he felt that “decent man” bat-signal tugging him back. He shakes Ezrugh’s hand warmly and thanks him for being there, and lets Aria know that Jillian approved the book. He kisses Aria, and basically he’s the best, and YET she still has the gall to look conflicted. ugHHHHHH!!!

The Aftermath
In the waiting room at the hospital, Hanna apologizes to Ashley for being a Bridezilla. We think she’s sort of been the opposite of a Bridezilla (instead of wanting to control every aspect of her wedding, she just doesn’t want it to happen at all) but she definitely hasn’t been the nicest. She promises to bring Jordan around more often. Ashley wants to know why she iced out Mona. Clearly Hanna means a great deal to her – what’s up? This entire show is people saying “nothing, it’s nothing” when it’s definitely something.

Mona stayed to help Emily clean up and found her wedding book all burnt up, which she takes as a metaphor for her life: good intentions that look like trash. You’ll never be trash to us, Mona! As she walks off to her car, Emily sees that Mona is the hot brunette with a pink dice keychain from the eyewitness report.

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"Seven is my lucky number."

“Was it you? Did you call Charlotte from Two Crows?” Emily asks. Mona says “I can’t tell you about that.” To which Emily responds, “Get in that car bitch,” not for the first time probably.

At the Auto Shop, the lady owner pulls an envelope from underneath the SUV, holding a shit ton of cash money. ...Huh?

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"Hooray, now I can afford that purple jumpsuit I've had my eye on!"

NEXT TIME

Everything that's already happened is happening again! And if that isn't an apt descriptor of this show, spinning its wheels in its 6th season, we don't know what is.

KISSES,

CAtie and RosemAry

<-- Pretty Little Liars 6x17: We've All Got Baggage

Pretty Little Liars 6x19: Did You Miss Me? -->

Previously: Clary found the Mortal Cup; the Lightwoods want to restore family honour by marrying off one of their kids; Vampire Camille feasts on Simon; and Clary and Jace kiss.

What Happened: 

Vampire Raphael pays the Institute a visit, and he comes bearing the gift of a silent and unconscious vampire fledging Simon. If he isn't turned or staked by the next sunset, his soul will be trapped for eternity. Unable to break the news of Simon's death to his Not Jillian Michaels mom, Clary ultimately decides to have him resurrected as a vampire. Raphael seizes this opportunity to overthrow Camille for kiiling a mundane and breaking the Accords, succeeding her as the leader of the vampires. And Raph's first order of business is to look after baby vamp Simon, whose self-loathing at his newly gained vampiricism has Clary doubting her choice.

With (truthful) rumours of Shadowhunters interferring in Downworlder affairs, the Clave has sent an envoy to observe and temporarily take over the Institute in Lydia Barnwell. She and Alec investigate a Valentine-sanctioned attack on the werewolves; the creature is discovered to have been made with angel blood and not magic (i.e., one of Valentine's test subjects) -- which allows more of its kind to get past the Institute's protective wards. Alec and Hot Hodge manage to take down the intruder, but SERIOUS SECURITY BREACH, Y'ALL. Esp. with Clary convincing the rest of the Shadowhunters to keep the Mortal Cup at the Institute and all...

Meanwhile, Alec comes up with a solution that both restores the Lightwood family honour and fulfills Lydia's lifelong dream of running her own Institute: strengthening the alliance between the Lightwoods and the Barnwells... by marrying Lydia.

Shadowhighlights: 

•  Clary turning to Luke over the Simon sitch. It's a small moment, but a good reminder of their familial bond.

•  Spinoff idea: Lydia and Luke, paranormal police!

•  MAGNUS WEARING A LAB FACE SHIELD. And also yammering on about Alec instead of focusing on the corpse in front of him.

•  It finally happened: shirtless Alec training scene!

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Shadowlowlights: 

•  Aside from maybe a ~look~ from Alec, there has been absolutely no reaction to or fallout from THE KISS. I know Clary and Jace were preoccupied with the Simon stuff, but what is even the point of having them kiss if it just gets ignored for the entire following episode? Way to squander that moment, Show.

•  This whole Simon storyline has also been weirdly plotted. Pacing wise, the transition could have happened much sooner and spared us of excessive Simon-does-vampire-things-but-no-one-gives-a-shit scenes. And yet, this episode relies so much on Clary and Simon being BFFs, but the emotional impact hasn't been earned at all. It's like the writers have been putting off the vampire stuff until it finally had to be addressed, but then they also forgot to show -- not only tell about -- this vaunted friendship so that the viewers would actually CARE. (At least, this one didn't. Even if Alberto Rosende is trying his damnedest to sell it.)

•  Proposed additions to the drinking game: take a drink whenever someone says "Accord" or "Clave", and take a shot whenever forensic pathology is mentioned. RIP our livers.

Shadowhunter of the Week:

Once it became clear that Lydia wasn't brought in to antagonize the team, I ended up liking her abrasive, no-nonsense style. (Plus: braid goals.) The actress also reminds me of Movie Izzy, Jemima West, so here's hoping the resemblance will extend to Lydia's ferociousness in battle, too.

Say What?:

"First rule of Shadowhunting: when something explodes, just keep walking." - Jace, on why I could never be a Shadowhunter, because I'd be FLIPPING SHIZZ.

"Magnus Bane is, uh, quite magical. He's very good at magic." - Alec Lightwood, ever the smooth operator.

"Oh, you don't have to get dressed up for me." [Alec does anyway] "Fine, but I liked what I saw." - We are all Magnus Bane walking in on shirtless, sweaty Alec.

Swimfan Says...:

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

•  Jace's falcon story was one of my favorite scenes of the episode. Jace was obviously having trouble getting the story out, and sharing that personal story was his way of trying to explain to Clary a sentiment he seemingly couldn't otherwise verbalize. So, props to the show for repurposing a book moment into a great show moment.

•  I really like Lydia Branwell, who is not at all from the books, but her (distant) family relations are. Henry Branwell and his wife, Charlotte (neé Fairchild), ran the Institute in The Infernal Devices series, and Henry and Magnus invented the Portal together.

•  A non-book element that I'm still not loving is the arranged marriage plot. Alec, stop doing things that interfere with Malec and find another way to restore the Lightwoods' honor, please.

Burning Questions:

•  If a fledging vampire is buried but doesn't emerge, they'll be trapped under the earth forever. Can't someone just, like, dig them out afterwards? Why do they have to crawl out on their own? Aside from displaying Simon's gun show.

•  Why is Raphael such a Clave kiss-ass? Self-preservation, or are there ulterior motives involved?

•  How does NO ONE AT THE HEAVILY MANNED INSTITUTE notice that Hot Hodge is being attacked, until Alec and Izzy come in at the end? Lydia was right; their response time is abysmal. Geez, this place is poorly defended.

•  Luke Garroway/Graymark, Clary and Jocelyn Fray/Fairchild -- why do the people on this show have so many last names? (Slight book spoiler: I know there are even more aliases ahead, too. )

•  Speaking of repetitive ideas, who from the parents' generation weren't Circle members, at this point? And will shit hitteth the fan when Izzy finds out that the senior Lightwoods were Circle members? Chalk it up to more Maryse hypocrisy.

•  Are Jace's rules of Shadowhunting and Clary's rules of being a mundane going to become A Thing? Because please no.

•  Wait -- Izzy is the best forensic pathologist in New York? Maybe the demonic version is different, but the mundane one requires med school and a five-year residency. You can't just call people a forensic pathologist and then they are one, Show. (Omg, now they've got me saying "forensic pathologist" a lot, too.)

•  Related to age: the core group is in their late teens -- possibly early twenties for Alec -- but this show is Gossip Girl-ing in treating its characters like they're at least a decade older than they are: Lydia being widowed, and rumours being spread about Alec settling down (not to mention him running the Institute). Has this show forgotten that it's supposed to be about teenagers?

•  So Magnus' old buddy's great-great-great-etc.-granddaughter might marry his crush? AWKS.

Next episode: "Rise Up"

Well, I definitely didn't hate Michael this week, so probably the world is ending. It's been nice knowing you all!

AWARDS

THIS WEEK'S MVP(arent)

Tie between Petra and Rogelio, the former for making hard decisions in the pursuit of her and her daughters' future security and happiness when it would have been so much easier to just give in to Raf's rebounding weakness; the latter for reminding us and Jane both that, in spite of how his many social media presences come across, he is a serious adult who has real life lessons to impart to his daughter.

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In both parents' cases, the takeaway is the same: to be a successful, considerate adult, it is important to recognize when you make a choice, and then to own it. Sorry, Raf and Jane! Not even you are perfect.

BEST TELENOVELA TWIST

The fact that Michael seems to truly have grown into a more responsible and temperate human is so shocking that it FELT like a twist, right?

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My new go-to universal reaction gif (but also, Luisa's backslide is truly sad and hard)

BEST PRODUCT PLACEMENT

Jane's Chevy Cruze got a solid bumper shot again this week, but I was cut off in high velocity traffic at dusk yesterday by a brand new Cruze so I am not really feeling the love. Let's instead go with Maid In Manhattan, the J.Lo classic name dropped by Paola/Lola that a tiny pre-teen (wolf) Tyler Posey co-starred in, which I've never seen but the universe keeps reminding me of.

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Mom. Literally.

(Sorry/not sorry, can never resist a goofy T.Po gif)

PREVIOUSLY ON JANE THE VIRGIN

Michael's insane hunt for Rose/Sin Rostro ended with her death-by-strangling in the middle of a hospital sting op, and now he's arrived at Jane's door with an admission of love and the hope she'll take him back. Petra inseminated herself with TWO BABIES in a gambit to win back Raf's heart, but Raf has been too hung up on an increasingly distant Jane to pay her much more than lip service. The XoRo dream team broke off their newly-minted engagement because of deeply held desires to have (Ro) and NOT have (Xo) babies, now or ever, which is going to suck when Ro's decade-old prison pen pal stalker comes out of the woodwork here in a sec…

THIS WEEK

Five Minute Flashback/Michael's Back, Baby!

Sometimes the best thing in your whole memory is the thing that JUST HAPPENED. Sometimes that is how life goes! And this week the thing that JUST HAPPENED to Jane is that Michael came back into her life, all apologies and admissions of love and confessions that he'd been keeping her at the long-arm-of-the-law's reach until the Sin Rostro case was closed and Rose was incapable of hurting Jane or Mateo ever again. And now she's dead, so! Problem solved!

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Modern Romance

I mean, Imma let you finish Michael, but Rose is only out of the picture because a MORE malevolent crime lord who is MORE CLOSELY tied to Mateo—and through him, Jane—killed her at close, personal range. But you're in a love bubble right now, so I guess that small detail can be put on hold until after you've had a chance to change your clothes at least once.

So Jane and Michael stay up all night on the Villanuevas' front porch, talking and kissing and catching each other up on the last 200+ days of their respective lives. Michael's "girlfriend" was just a coworker! Jane "dated" her professor! Nadine died saving Michael because he couldn't make himself trust her! Mateo is, probably, still a baby! Alba got her green card and everyone just cried and cried and cried! Michael thought about how his temper and behavior hurt Mateo and was unfair to Raf every day since it happened, and he genuinely, earnestly regrets all of it! No word about Ro's new Tiago adventure, but I am sure Michael's reaction was exuberant.

Jane tries to kick Michael out the next morning, wanting to keep their rekindled flame a secret a BIT longer—you know, to avoid having to go into a thousand details with her mom and abuela, and also so she can find time to talk to Rafael one-on-one, to warm him up to the idea. But Xo and Alba are already staring at them through the kitchen window, the embodiment of heart-eyes emoji, and Jane's picking up a few waitressing shifts at the Marbella starting already that afternoon, so, guess the bubble's popped!

Xo and Alba give Jane the time she wants to keep a few details private, thankfully, but Jane is less successful when it comes to confronting Raf. "No," he says, point blank. "ANYONE but him." And look, I love Raf and think he's always had a lot of love to give and so many ruined moments to share it, but dude! Read the room! "I don't love anyone but him," Jane says, to which Raf tries his old standby response of, "he's a bad. guy." Rightfully, Jane takes umbrage at this—both because Michael has legit grown as a person (I say, grudgingly) and because Petra, who is a barely reformed power-clawing narcissist who is tied to multiple murders for whom Jane still threw a baby shower.

Point: Jane! So Raf angrily agrees to meet with Jane and Michael for lunch, and Jane goes home to walk Michael through the short list of DOs and endless list of DON'Ts for said lunch to go over smoothly. DON'T #1? Inside jokes/goofy faces.

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Yeah okay so this is very charming

Needless to say, the lunch goes poorly. Surprisingly, it is Rafael almost completely on his own who ruins it. Michael really has grown, and is completely humble and full of real apologies. Raf, though, is still caught in bruised-ego heartache, and he makes a scene before storming out. Jane spends a lot of the rest of the episode trying to figure out how to work this issue out, to keep Michael in her life without ruining her relationship with Mateo's dad, even going so far as to get Michael to volunteer to quit his job (dude, the Miami PD would NOT miss you), but ultimately, after Raf even rejects this move, she realizes that the issue is not hers and Michael's to solve, but Raf's. And she and Michael kiss and kiss and kiss, and the bubble lives on for at least one more week.

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Kissing in public water surrounded by bare feet, my dream -__-

*Literally Dying*

Raf's drama with Jane is not the only issue on his plate this week. The other? The Marbella's increasingly horrific public image, due to, you know, all the murders that just keep happening there.

Room service +++

Slasher film fauxmercials are now the first hits that pop up when the hotel's name is searched online, and Petra, on a deadline set by her Mt. Vesuvius uterus, has made rebranding The Marbella her top priority. And on the rest of her pre-Vesuvius priority list? 

"Ahhh, nesting, yes, Jane went through this, too," Raf mansplains, mantastically. "Let me just—"

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS, ASK ME WHAT'S ON MY LIST," Petra stops him, eyes burning. And again I say, dude! Read! The! Room! Petra's list is zero nesting, and all moneyed pragmatism. She needs to fix the Marbella's image, then interview night nurses, then hire someone to set up the nursery. So Raf can either help or butt out, his choice, but Petra's got shit to do.

Own Your Choices

Rafael

Faced with idea that his image/role as patriarch of a new branch of the Solano family might not be as set in stone as he wants it to be, Raf immediately promises Petra that he will be there, with her and the TWO BABIES, for everything. But his promises don't last even five minutes, as thoughts of Jane and Michael distract him from Petra's plans to rebrand the Marbella with classic synchronized swimming romance, and he misses night nurse interviews. "I'm not a second class citizen, Raf," she tells him during the swimmers' first rehearsal, reminding him that she knows full well he didn't choose and so therefore is not beholden to this pregnancy, "so get on the boat or jump ship, just tell me your plans now so I know what to do." 

Raf promises AGAIN that he will be there for her, but Petra knows better than to believe him fully. And when Jane breaks his heart for good at the end of the episode, setting in stone her decision to choose Michael over him and letting him know it is now his job to just get over it, and Raf immediately runs to Petra to throw his lot all in with her and TWO BABIES, Petra knows immediately what's up. "What happened now," she asks, wearily. "How did Jane break your heart now?"

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And then she repeats her earlier line of not being a second class citizen, then adds to it that nor else will she be a second choice. She alone might have been able to be that coldly calculating, but she's got two human lives about to explode out of her, and she, like Michael, has actually grown. 

And so it all comes down to choice for Raf: choose to get over Jane choosing Michael; choose to love Petra for herself, without any reference to Jane; choose to go home drunk with the first cute girl he sees at the bar.

Oh, Raf.

Luisa

Luisa, recall, just spent a day in the hospital playing a small part in the sting operation that cost the life of the love of her life, and also cost Detective Susanna Barnett the use of her shoulder for a few weeks. The latter was solved (or at least, helped) by Susanna staying over in Luisa's suite overnight. The former…well, as Jane and Lena's snooping after hours to see who was actually stealing bottles from the bar uncovered, that help came at the bottom of a vodka glass.

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My favorite Monday Scooby Squad

Luisa is mortified to be caught by Jane and Lena, and begs them not to tell Raf. She even goes out of her way to make sure that Worst Boss "Vests" (dumb Scott, the Solanos' ex-assistant) doesn't fire Lena for the theft, which is great. Unfortunately, her solution of having Luca (of Jane's longitme acquaintance and Ro's weird "gays are cool!" dinner party) secretly replace the bottles costs HIM his job, and also, worse than that (I mean, he'll get his job back sooner or later), no one telling Raf anything means no one is stopping Luisa from sliding further down her vodka-soaked hill.

She gets so wasted at the Marbella bar the next day that Jane has to take her to her room and call for help, which arrives in the form of Susanna, there to listen to Luisa explain how the little voice in her head just kept chanting the virtues of alcohol to dull the pain of losing Rose. Thankfully, Susanna has a big voice, and a good understanding now of the pull Rose could have on a person, good or bad, and so she compels Luisa to own her disease and her choices and to check back into rehab, so she can get better and get out and then be TAKEN out, by Susanna, who grips her hand lovingly.

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Keep this one around, Luisa, you could be great for each other

Xiomara

Xo and Ro spend the first half of the episode trying to convince themselves and everyone around them that they can still be friends, that they don't need to go through the sadness and forced space that normally follows a breakup, because they are still family who needs to see each other for the rest of their lives. Jane and Alba don't buy this for one minute, but they let Xiomara and Rogelio figure out their own lives, like adults. 

At first, this manifests in Xo agreeing to keep her promise as his date to the Tiago premiere, and to help him run lines. But those lines, being from a telenovela, quickly propel them into dangerous territory, and soon they are in bed together. Jane comes home with Mateo earlier than expected, and Rogelio tries to make a run for it, but Jane catches sight of him as he flies through the front door and realizes she needs to make her mom face facts. The facts being, when Jane was discussing Michael's possible return with Rogelio earlier, he expressed the opinion that True Love is always meant to be, and that he and Xo are one example, and that maybe, just maybe, she will eventually change her mind about the baby thing. "Basically, Mom, you can't lead him on." She made a choice, and she has to own it.

And so Xo decides to skip the premiere, and to ask Rogelio to give her space. She send Jane in her place, and stays home to catch up on Downton Abbey (a boring British telenovela).

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Memories of watching it with Rogelio, though, force Xo to finally break down and FEEL the end of the relationship she cared so deeply about, and Jane ends up skipping the Tiago lavender carpet to stay home and comfort her.

Misery II, Starring Rogelio de la Vega

…which is the cruel choice that Rogelio eventually requires that his daughter take ownership of. Tiago was a huge night for him, and he was hurting from losing Xo as much as Xo was from him, and Jane made a choice. And he is a goofy diva, but seeing him hurt and simultaneously be a good parent, aware that even adult children can learn how to be better humans (I learn this lesson all the time, thanks, parents!)—and seeing Jane smart at the truth behind his words, and then act on them—is such a great reminder of how nuanced and well-balanced this show's writing and characterization is. 

Rogelio's serious and hurt reaction is exacerbated, of course, by the arrival of his new assistant, Paola. Did he tell you she used to work for J.Lo? Like a million times? Because SPOILER, she didn't! She is his crazy ex-prison pen pal, the one who knows more secrets about his past than anyone, who is stealing his lucky lavender drawers from his drawers, and who has methodically collected all his new personal and home security information all episode while he was distracted by other Xo/Michael-related thoughts! And now she has locked herself into his condo with him, with new locks and a new alarm system and bars on the windows and NO WAY OUT.

Ugh. I've seen Misery, and that once was one too many times. Ro! I hope you get out with all your limbs in tact!

Okay, my brogelios—truth time:

NEXT TIME

Jane and Petra have TWO BABIES (that will never get old).

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TWO. BABIES.

<-- Jane the Virgin 2x12: Chapter Thirty-Four

Jane the Virgin 2x14: Chapter Thirty-Six -->

Please welcome back our friend, Sarah Hannah Gómez (@shgmclicious), who blogs at mclicious.org and other places on the internet!

Like Emma Thompson in Love Actually re: Joni Mitchell, my love for Sabrina, the Teenage Witch is the love that lasts a lifetime. The series finale is one of the few things I can always count on to make me cry a good ugly cry. Sabrina Down Under, the series’ second TV movie, is still on a VHS at my parents’ house, recorded from the television, and I can still tell you which Mazda commercial is at which point and where the commercial breaks are. I love the show so much that I forgive it its terrible final season and its unthoughtful dismissal of Lindsay Sloane (at least we had Bring It On! and how about that short-lived WB show Grosse Point?).

But what am I getting at? We’re here to talk about Sabrina Goes to Rome, the first tie-in TV movie, which aired in 1998.

The So-Called Plot:

Sabrina is on vacation, seemingly having forgotten everything about her life in Westbridge (there is no mention of Hilda, Zelda, Harvey, Valerie...nada. It starts in a taxi cab). She has a letter from her father about one of her long lost aunts, Sophia. She has a locket that belonged to Sophia, and she’s in Italy because it’s the last place Sophia was spotted before she disappeared….forever. Oh, and when she looks in her bag for the locket, guess who’s in it? Salem the snarky cat! Because he’s the best. And because I guess Nick Bakay really wanted to make sure he made enough money to live on.

Sabrina is staying at a cute little pension, and she’s horrified to find out she has a roommate. Because, you know, witch! Talking cat! Awkward turtle, right? BUT it turns out that her roommate is also a witch! And she’s more bumbling and awkward than Sabrina. Her name is Gwen, and she’s English and adorable and I see her in an entirely different light now than I did when I was 11 and watching this for the first time. Sure, it’s hilarious that she’s awkward, but she’s also trying to be on her own for the first time and clearly wanting to use Rome as a chance to reinvent herself. You get the idea that she’s not seen as all that cool back home.

Gwen goes around messing up spells, eventually turning the landlady’s cute son Alberto into a pigeon, while Sabrina tries to figure out how to free her aunt from this locket. It turns out that her aunt disappeared because of True Love and choosing a mortal man over magic. Y’know. Sabrina meets a cute boy, Paul, and his weird, creepy friend. They are photographers, and once they accidentally see Sabrina using magic, they decide that they should get it on tape because this will make them rich! Initiate hijinks, terrible excuses by Sabrina to explain getting caught using magic, and repeated failures to use camera equipment properly.

Casting Callback:

Melissa Joan Hart as Sabrina

Don’t mess with perfection.

Tara Strong (née Charendoff) as Gwen

With her adorable high-pitched voice, I am pleased to see that she is a voice actress now for various animated series.

Nick Bakay as Salem Saberhagen

I mean, this character really was television genius.

Eddie Mills as Not-Harvey Paul

Even for the generically clean cut white guy thing we code as “cute” when it comes to teen television and movies, he was a bit underwhelming.

Melissa Joan Hart as Sophia

Because it’s just that much better when you can go “that’s a 16th century oil painting of your aunt? What an uncanny resemblance!”

Chemistry Grade: B

Paul is underwhelming and has this weird backstory regarding being adopted. It makes very little sense, and as an adoptee, I remember feeling let down by it all, and I felt the same way in a rewatch nearly 20 years (gasp!) after the first viewing. That said, Gwen and her unwavering dedication to kissing every pigeon in Rome (because when she kisses the Alberto pigeon, he will turn back into a man!) is very sweet, and Alberto is as awkward as she is, so they bring the chemistry grade up a bit.

Cliché Count: 14

Sabrina-specific clichés
Never-before-mentioned additional aunt: 1
Brand new rule regarding how witches show off their magic to mortals that is then forgotten in favor of a slightly different rule in some other episode: 1
Talking animals: 2
Turning someone or something into another thing by mistake: 3 (iirc)

Other clichés
Choosing between family/tradition and True Love: 1
Awkward best friend foil: 1 (this could go in both categories, actually)
Bumbling assistant to lead man crush: 1
All-knowing motherly figure gently shuffling main characters together: 1
Parent Trap split-camera scenes: 2 (iirc)
Lead guy with sad past: 1
Learning a big life lesson from another version of yourself: 1
Gratuitous shots of delicious Italian food: 0

Soundtrack: Terrible, Even for a '90s TV Movie

But points for future consistency, because Madonna has a track in this and in Down Under.

Slumber Party Potential: Know Thine Friends

Throwback viewings are always fun, but this lacks a lot of the magical adorkableness of the regular episodes, so it’s only for diehard Sabrina fans.

We're pleased as punch to welcome Lori Goldstein, author of Becoming Jinn (available now), back to the FYA stage. Lori previously visited us on the Becoming Jinn blog tour, and she's here today to tell us about her favourite Jinn in YA. Take it away, Lori!

Jinn are the new vampires. It’s a refrain I heard again and again the closer it got to the release of Becoming Jinn in April of last year. That’s because, though there were few young adult books featuring Jinn on the shelves in 2012 while I was writing my series, by the time 2015 hit, the Jinn had released their magic.

Something that made me as a writer—and as a reader—very, very happy. Because the world of the Jinn is extensive and varied. And the books that have been making their way into the world reflect that. I love seeing Jinn shapeshift their way into YA, with each author plucking pieces of this lore and that, this myth and that story, and creating their own whole new world (pun intended) of what it means to be a genie or Jinn. From retellings to new mythologies, from fantasy to real-world settings, from sexy to humorous, from friendships to romance, the Jinn books offer readers a diverse landscape of stories about the Jinn.

(Oh, and while I’m glad to see the Jinn getting their due, let me be clear about one thing: they will never replace my beloved vampires. Let the Jinn proudly take their paranormal place beside them—especially Klaus and Damon. #TVD and #TheOriginals #forever)

Here are a few of my favorite Jinn releases!

The Forbidden Wish by Jessica Khoury
Dark Caravan Cycle (Exquisite Captive and Blood Passage) by Heather Demetrios
The Jinni Wars (The Fire Wish and The Blind Wish) by Amber Lough
The Art of Wishing Series (The Art of Wishing and The Fourth Wish) by Lindsay Ribar

Thanks for stopping by, Lori! Check out Lori's website, or find her on Twitter (@loriagoldstein), Facebook, or Goodreads.

Pro-tip: Becoming Jinn is currently only $2.99 across all e-retailers! (Promotion runs from February 29th to April 4th.)

Amazon 
Barnes & Noble 
iTunes

The sequel, Circle of Jinn, releases May 17, 2016 and is available for preorder now.

Amazon 
Barnes and Noble 
IndieBound

A free e-short story prequel, Genius of Jinn, will be available across all e-retailers, starting March 15, 2016.

In this prequel to Becoming Jinn and the upcoming sequel Circle of Jinn, thirteen-year-old Azra and her nemesis Yasmin are whisked away to a mysterious land with a special language, awe-inspiring architecture, and quirky toilets: France. As the enchanting French Jinn Tayma guides them through the streets of Paris, they discover not only a book of spells, but a truth neither of them is prepared for: that in their inevitable transition to becoming Jinn, their shared genie ancestry may just make them stronger together than they are apart.

Amazon
Barnes & Noble

BOOK REPORT for Save Me, Kurt Cobain by Jenny Manzer

Cover Story: Blue Jean Grunge-Rock Queen
BFF Charm: Maybe
Swoonworthy Scale: 4
Talky Talk: About A Girl
Bonus Factors: Grunge
Relationship Status: I Like It, I’m Not Gonna Crack

Cover Story: Blue Jean Grunge-Rock Queen

I like this cover a lot (although not as much as the cover for The Carnival at Bray): it hits all the right notes. Right away you’re hit with denim, flannel, and the writing on the jeans (which says “YA” without a wispy, sad-looking teenage girl looking over her shoulder at you).

The Deal:

It’s 2006, and Nico’s mother has been missing since Nico was four years old. Her mother promised to return, but never did, and the police have long since given up the search. Teenage Nico is obsessed with her mother’s life—especially her musical taste. Her mother was at one of the seminal Nirvana shows, right before they hit it big, and to this day, Nico finds a lot of comfort in the band’s angsty sound. When she finds a box of her mother’s stuff, including a photo of her mother at the show with Kurt Cobain, Nico starts getting suspicious. Did her mother know Kurt Cobain?

While visiting her aunt in Seattle, Nico is struck when she sees someone who looks exactly like Kurt Cobain might look now, down to the slight frame and piercing blue eyes. On a whim, she follows him. Now the question is not only “did her mother know Kurt Cobain,” but also, “is Kurt Cobain still alive?”

And maybe, if her hunch is right—could Kurt Cobain be her father?

BFF Charm: Maybe

I’ve got to cut Nico some slack here, because it must be hard to grow up thinking your mother abandoned you (because in her world, either her mother abandoned her…or she’s dead. Neither option is great). I so get the obsession with Nirvana, and on a broader level, all those feelings you get when a band perfectly expresses what’s happening inside of you.

On the other hand, Nico is a teenager, and sometimes teenagers are total jerks to the adults in their life. She is no exception. I felt sorry for her dad and aunt, who get the brunt of her distress. While her dad makes some mistakes with the way he handles her mother’s disappearance, Nico acts exactly the way an angsty teen with somewhat minimal supervision would: selfishly, irresponsibly, and sometimes downright insane.

I think adult Nico and I would get along, though!

Swoonworthy Scale: 4

Romance isn’t the point of this book, but there are still a couple of cute moments throughout.

Talky Talk: About A Girl

Here’s where the book shines. Nico is so obsessed with Nirvana that she collects every single fact about them that she can find—it’s bittersweet because I remember doing the same thing with other bands, but in her case, knowing everything there is to know about Kurt Cobain is also her way of creating a link to her mother.

If this book were just about a girl who thinks Kurt Cobain is her father, it wouldn’t work. Sure, it’s interesting for the adults in the crowd who remember Nirvana and still love them (who wouldn’t? They’re awesome). Luckily, Jenny Manzer has written a story where Nico’s grief shines through every time she justifies why Kurt Cobain could still be alive, and pieces together his personality from what other people have said. She dreams about having an insta-sister in Frances Bean and the idea that her “real” father totally understands her in a way that the man who raised her (assuming Kurt’s her bio dad) simply does not. She’s obsessive and sad in a way only a teenager looking for answers can be, and I thought this part of the book really worked.

There were a few off-notes for me, including the fact that Nico explains the meaning and lyrics of “Sliver” multiple times in the same way. I know that many of The Kids These Days don’t know much, if anything, about Nirvana, but it stuck out in an otherwise well-written book.

Bonus Factors: Grunge

It’s no secret that I grew up on grunge and still love it, from Nirvana to Alice in Chains to Stone Temple Pilots (RIP, lead singers from all of the above). Grunge captures a very specific zeitgeist for a lot of us, but not necessarily for the teens who will read this book. I think Manzer did a pretty good job of laying it out there in a convincing way, although hearing it described as “retro” still makes me shudder. Damn you, inevitable march of time!

Casting Call:

Elle Fanning as Nico

I rely on Elle a lot for blonde, blue-eyed characters, because I like her, but I do think she looks enough like Kurt Cobain to be convincing.

Relationship Status: I Like It, I’m Not Gonna Crack

Book, I wasn’t sure what I was in for when we went on our date, but I was pleasantly surprised by the nostalgia you created. There were a few moments where adult me wanted to shake you and ask WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, but overall, your portrayal of grief and your search for answers was a little heartbreaking. Come on over and listen to my ancient cassette and CD collection anytime.

FTC Full Disclosure: I received a free review copy from Delacorte Press. I received neither money nor a pet unicorn for writing this review, despite how hard I wished for one.  Save Me, Kurt Cobain will be available March 8.

Previously: Raven hooks ALL-E up to the mainframe but ALL-E 2 isn't there, because she was on Polaris, the 13th station that never made it to the Ark. And after warning a Grounder village of an impending Skaikru land grab, Octavia gets kidnapped and Monroe dies. Good times!

THIS WEEK ON THE 100

Settle in, class, for a history lesson about the creation of the Ark and the end of the world. Ninety-seven years ago, ALL-E got loose, hacked a bunch of codes and caused a nuclear holocaust. Her creator, Becca, saw it all happen in space from Polaris, the station where she was working on ALL-E 2, a more humane AI. After two years, her craft was all set to dock with 12 other stations to form the Ark (Happy Unity Day!), but Becca didn't want to give up on ALL-E 2, so Polaris got blown to bits while Becca took an escape pod to earth, where she emerged, seemingly impervious to the radioactive air thanks to the ALL-E 2 code in the the crystal matrix she had embedded in her spine. Got all that? (There may or may not be a pop quiz later.)

Fast forward to the future, where it's Ascension Day, a time to honor commanders of the past. The head villager from last week's episode crashes the party with a captive Octavia in tow, but after Lexa denies his call for vengeance, he attempts to kill her and is stopped by Titus' sweet moves. As a compromise, Lexa sends an army to contain Skaikru and institutes a kill order for any Arkadians who cross the boundary. Clarke and Lexa say good-bye in the language of love, but as the former departs, she finds a bound Murphy and a resigned Titus, who believes that killing Clarke is the only way to bring reason back into Lexa's decision-making. Instead, he accidentally shoots Lexa (!), who dies in Clarke's arms after making Titus promise to never harm Clarke. The new conclave ceremony begins with Titus removing ALL-E 2's crystal matrix from Lexa's spine (!!) and then locking Clarke and Malfoy in the room.

 MOMENTS

- CLEXA SEX-A. You know that was a peace offering to the ship before IT SUNK.

- Murphy vs Titus fight scene!

- Indra joining up with Octavia to help save Arkadia. Or get her revenge. Potato, pot-a-to.

HOLY SH*T X 100

- Titus killing the head villager like NBD and then capping it off with, "Blood must have blood." That's, like, the most hardcore TOLDJA ever.

- TITUS SHOOTING LEXA.

- LEXA DYING. Peace out, Commander.

ARKADIAN OF THE WEEK

I know I should give a Grounder of the Week Award to Lexa, for like, dying and everything, and I realize Octavia's already won this like four times in S3 but I gotta give snaps to my girl for being the ONLY voice of reason on this episode. As usual, she's dishing out the straight talk while taking the high road, and if people don't start listening to her, I WILL BURN ARKADIA TO THE GROUND. (Or the Grounders will do it for me.)

SAY WHAT

"Considering you pray to garbage." - Malfoy to Titus. YA BURNED.

"Let me ask you this. Do you honestly believe that there are enough smart people on these 13 stations to save us?" - Becca, being a weeee bit pretentious and totally underestimating astronauts.

"If you're not there, you're not the person I thought you were." - Octavia, telling it like it is to Clarke. HEED THOSE WORDS, CLARKE.

"You have to go back. They're your people. That's why I l- that's why you're you." - Lexa, almost saying the l-word to Clarke. Even as a Bellarke shipper, I swooned in that moment.

"May we meet again," - Clarke to a dying Lexa. FEELS.

BURNING QUESTIONS

- We got a major helping of mythology in this episode. The sacred symbol of the Commander is Becca's company's symbol, and the Commander label on her spacesuit is what got the whole Grounder Commander thing started. But... what's up with the black blood? It can't just be caused by the crystal matrix, because other members of the conclave have black blood too.

- Are candles the #1 industry of Trikru? Because they are ALL OVER THE PLACE. It's like everyone is trying to get laid 24/7 up in that tower.

- When Titus and Lexa were arguing, they mentioned a gal who got her head cut off. That was Lexa's previous GF, right? And she was in her same conclave, as evidenced by Lexa's tattoo? What's the story there?

- Was I the only person not super surprised by Lexa's death? I mean, after she and Clarke had sex, I was like, oh yeah, she's DUNZO. And while I'm sad to see her go, her demise didn't gut me (pun!) quite like Finn's death. Maybe I'm just getting desensitized, but this episode didn't pack as much of an emotional punch as it could have.

- Who's going to be the next Commander?! Will it be Clarke?!

- WHERE WAS BELLAMY? And Raven? And Monty? And Lincoln? And the entire Arkadia team? Sure, we didn't have to see Pike or hear about the City of Light, but that is a STEEP price to pay, y'all.

Join me in the comments for the processing of feels, the making of predictions and the airing of opinions.

Shameless Self-Promotion: Check out our The 100 themed merch!

The votes have been tallied, and the winner of this year's March Madness wildcard is...Lane Kim and Dave Rygalski, with 66.9% of the vote!

Dave and Lane have to beat out #1 seed Edward and Bella (I will not make a Renesmee/seed joke here, I will not) in the U.S.S. Devotion bracket, which seems like a no-brainer to me, but legions of Twilight fans may disagree! Stranger things have happened.

 
The only thing about Dave Rygalski that sparkles is his wit and charm.

Think you can predict the results of Teen Heartthrob Madness? Not only do we have a fillable PDF bracket for your IRL March Madness pool, but you can join other FYA readers in our bracket prediction challenge! 

To enter, save a copy of the spreadsheet bracket here (with additional instructions included), fill in your predictions, and send the completed sheet to mandy.at.fya@gmail.com by 8am Central on Monday, March 7th. (Please put "Teen OTP Madness Predictions" in the subject line.) Whomever has the most accurate predictions gets the glory...and maybe a little something else? 

Which OTP will take it all? Find out when voting starts on Monday!

Book Related Things

Louise Rennison has died at 64. :(

The surprising power of reading fiction.

Literary Jeopardy! questions.

Here's the scoop on Marie Lu's new series!

Audies nominations for audiobooks in the YA category  (samples available too).

Seriously awesome Alice in Wonderland shoes.

Cover reveal and excerpt for Ghostly Echoes, the new Jackaby novel. So pretty!

Movie Related Things

New photos from the Between Shades of Gray movie (Ashes in the Snow).

Speaking of shades of gray: Jamie Dornan gets to wear a beard in the next 50 Shades, and a hot Teen Wolf dude has joined the cast.

Official Ghostbusters trailer! (But DID IT RUIN YOUR CHILDHOOD?)

TV Related Things

Oooh, this is exciting: Ian McShane is Mr. Wednesday in American Gods.

Yay for a non-white Nancy Drew!

Finn is back in the GIlmore Girls revival. Plus, Lane and Zack's babies!

Reese Witherspoon won't be in the Cruel Intentions TV show, but her character will.

Fuller House is getting a second season. #why

Matthew Goode and Matthew Rhys are coming to your TV to talk about wine. SIGN US UP.

Miscellaneous Things

Awesome former Miss America has died, but what a life she had.

11 unsung science heroines you really should have heard of.

That's it for this week! Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments.

Superpowers: everyone's got at least one. Whether you can always find a parking spot, or your organizational skills would have the people on Hoarders all fixed up in no time, we want to hear it.

Or maybe you have a "tsunami tongue." (Safe for work, but weird, as you might imagine.)

As always, feel free to chat about anything you want, and if you're new to the open thread, introduce yourself!

Previously on The Originals: Mikaelson Prophecy of DOOOM. (Ugh, still with that one?) Davina unlinked the sire bond, and she used the extra power to bring back Kol. Aurora continued to escape death. Hayley felt guilt over Jackson dying because of her.

The Original Dysfunctional Family Drama

Klaus is freaking, since the sire link was broken, assuming every enemy he’s ever made is coming for him now. Since “every last splinter of the white oak has been obliterated”, and they’re not insane, Freya and Elijah are less than sympathetic.

Josh spent the night partying in Marcel’s loft, but The Strix have less reason to party, seeing as how they’re all still linked to Elijah. However, they are concerned that various Strix members have gone missing. Marcel enlists Josh to request a locator spell from Davina. The missing Strix are located, dead in a dumpster, with signs of torture and wolf bites. Marcel warns Elijah that the Strix are going to want the head of whoever did this. But a vengeful Hayley dgaf.

One of Klaus’ enemies, Cortez, newly arrived to the city, has Vincent dramatically summoned to appear at Rousseau’s, and to locate an old artifact, via the witch ancestors. The artifact, of course, is the supposedly destroyed white oak. Cami texts Klaus and he shows up, and dispatches Cortez way quicker than he did that twit, Aurora. Cami is shaken by the ordeal (and more so, by the fact that Aurora’s plan to screw things up worked) and tells Klaus that her feelings for him are gone. She seems less than truthful, but makes him teary nonetheless.

Kol and Davina consummate their bizarre love affair. They’re the only ones getting any happiness, though. Freya does some witchy work that will fool any locator spell into thinking Klaus is there in New Orleans. Klaus, Hayley, and Hope, then drive off into the night, in search of safety.

Holy Fang

Klaus is paranoid about everyone. I kind of get it, because he’s been the worst for a very long time. But also, he’s also still pretty invulnerable.

Kol 1.0 is back in the bosom of his family! Until he turns into a ripper and they have to put him down, anyway.

Hayley is a Strix serial killer! And then Elijah completes Hayley’s kill list! How can one man make murder seem so romantic? She confesses that she loves him. But that Jackson died knowing it, and to honor him, she has to let Elijah go. He nobly agrees that it’s the right choice, but that he tried it once, and it didn’t work. These two kill me on the regular.

Finn is back too! Aw, hell.

Winners and Losers

Winner: Vincent. Things weren’t looking too good for him when he was being tortured at Rousseau’s by a super old vampire. But now, it looks like he might have the last sliver of the stake that can take down the Mikaelsons. I’d start with Finn. But that’s just me.

Loser: Elijah. Hayley finally says she loves him, but it’s followed by a huge “but, goodbye forever.” His expression was the death of me. The only thing sadder than Klaus tears are Elijah tears. GILLIES FOREVER.

Original Snark

“It’s only been a few days since the link was broken. Must you jump into crippling paranoia already?” “It’s a default setting”, indeed.

“Perhaps you should see a therapist?” Way to rub it in, Elijah.

“O negative and tequila. For when you wake up all kinds of wrong.” Hair of the dog is just an expression, Marcel.

“It’s a shame, how some vampires grow so dim with age.” Who exactly can Klaus call old?

“There’s no shortage of vampires who loathe you.” They even have a message board! Apparently their club exists in 1993.

“In hindsight, you could have been nicer to people. Or, at least left fewer survivors.” Stop trying to make me like you, Kol!

Haunting Questions

- I know there are a lot of vampires and wolves to look after Hope, but maybe, between murder and mayhem. they should consider a nanny?

- Why is Marcel always so worried about doing what the Strix want. Is he their damned leader, or not?

- Is the show planning to jump three years into the future, like The Vampire Diaries? It’s kind of looking that way, isn’t it? Let’s speculate about where they’ll land!

Next: The Originals returns April 1.

Previously on The Vampire Diaries: We're introduced to The Armory (hoarders of all things supernatural), Bonnie chops off Enzo's hand to save Damon but ends up in the hospital anyway (THANKS TYLER), Stefan finds some help down in New Orleans, and Klaus and Caroline TALK ON THE PHONE. It was pure magic.

What Went Down

Stefan is running out of Freya's Magical Witchy Herb Paste, and so he and Valerie are on the road again, not just to get a headstart on Rayna, but because they're looking for the witches' equivalent of Home Depot; a place where the herbs that Valerie needs to cloak Stefan from Rayna for good are grown. When they arrive they're knocked out by someone that IMBD lists as Scabbed Woman (LULZ). Turns out that someone ELSE is ahead of our friends because the herb they need has been snatched. Scabbed Woman explains that she tried to fend them off but got blasted as a result. (I mean, fix yourself up a healing balm or SOMEthing, lady. Those burns are going to leave scars.)

Meanwhile Bonnie and Damon are on opposing sides of how to take down Rayna Cruz; Bonnie wants to listen to Enzo's pleas to return to The Armory, believing that they hold more information on Rayna than anyone else (true, true) but Damon doesn't trust them. Officer Matt Donovan alerts Damon to Rayna's presence in Mystic Falls when she destroys a parcel of vamps while he and Officer Penny are out on Vamp Patrol. She announces that she's looking for Stefan Salvatore, and for now Matt is still looking out for Stefan. Damon shows up, does his charming Damon-y thing and kills Rayna. Oh - and he cuts her into pieces and throws her in a well. (I mean was that TOTALLY necessary??) She regenerates (because shaman magic is real AF) and Damon sighs. A brother's work is never done. 

Over at The Armory Bonnie gets to see their Rayna Cruz exhibit, including all of the shamans linked to her resurrections. What Damon DOESN'T know is that each time she comes back to life, not only is she stronger, but when she dies for good on death #9 she'll take ALL marked vampires with her...which means Stefan will also die! TWIST. Bonnie tells Damon and he frantically digs up Rayna, saving her in the nick of time. He's only saved by The Armory, who've sent out a posse armed with tranq guns. Rayna is down and taken off to (I'm assuming) their supernatural prison.

And then all the really terrible stuff happens: Stefan finally realizes that Caroline is never going to leave those babies for him, and he can't be with her without putting her (and them) at risk; he doesn't think The Armory will hold Rayna and he's probably right. Damon decides to lie in a coffin for 60 years until Elena wakes up (due to Bonnie's DEATH), thereby breaking Bonnie's heart, and  Matt is convinced by Penny that he needs to Take A Stand and so he threatens Stefan, telling him to leave town. It's all kinds of awful for our friends. 

Holy CRAP

-Stefan is linked to Rayna as long as he has that scar, and we know it's not going anywhere because of the flash forwards. CONUNDRUM!

-It looks like this episode has finally brought us three years into the future. You know, where all of our friends are scattered to the four corners of the earth and we're left with broken hearts. No big deal.

-The love of Rayna's life was a vampire...that she KILLED? DO TELL.

-Phoenix Sword scars can be transferred. I mean, why didn't she drop that knowledge THREE YEARS AGO?

Vamp of the Week: Stefan Salvatore

No one had it rougher than Stefan this week and he still got through it with his dignity (and hair) intact. Damon left him, Matt told him to leave town, the herbs he needs to stay off Rayna's radar have been taken, AND Caroline is living that domestic life with Alaric and the twins. And it's a life he can never share with her. I never thought I'd say this but thank God for Valerie. Our Stefan doesn't do well when he's alone.

Hero Hair/Nefarious Grin

Hero Hair: To be clear I am only giving Damon's hair a nod this week because of the lengths he went to to keep Stefan alive. OTHER choices he made are decidedly LESS heroic. 

Nefarious Grin: I am SO conflicted, y'all. On one hand I totally understand how Matt Donovan is just DONE with all of this vampire nonsense; he's lost family, friends, colleauges, and now his TOWN because of vampires, but on the other hand people who would die for him? Some of them are vampires too. I audibly groaned when he showed up to Chez Salvatore and told Stefan to leave town. I thought you were loyal, Matt. I didn't think Officer Penny could come in with her shiny hair and her talk of "you need to take a stand" and sway you SO easily to this black and white way of thinking. It's hard living in the grey, Matt, but it's where more truth resides than not. Pull yourself together. 

Sound Bites

Stefan: "If there is even a fraction of you that cares about me, do not walk out that door."
Damon: "Save a bottle of that good bourbon for me, brother. We’re gonna need to sort all this out in about sixty years." Elena is NOT going to approve of this course of action.

Bonnie: "Are we friends? I know why you wanted to do this in a letter. So you could desiccate in peace imagining whatever reaction you wanted. Me reading it and thinking “huh, I’m really gonna miss him.” Well too bad. That’s not my reaction. This is. I'm not okay with this decision. I’m not okay with you choosing yourself. And I’m not okay with never seeing you, my best friend, ever again. This hurts me. This hurts."  Damon Salvatore: Head of Bad Decisions.

Burning Questions

Who burned that poor woman and snatched up all of the herbs that Stefan needs? The Armory? What's their endgame?

How does Bonnie Bennett end up in REHAB in the future? Oh Bon-Bon. #sadface

What isn't Alex (I think that's her name?) St. West telling Enzo? I'm thinking HELLA STUFF. (She's gonna try and come for Bonnie and sh*t is going to get VERY VERY REAL.)

Can the Phoenix Sword be destroyed? This seems like a logical step forward.

Now that we're three years in the future WHAT NOW? And is is just me or does Future Damon seem EXTRA cray? And will we finally get to see Bonnie and Enzo get it on??

So much has happened so come dish with me in the comments! #BEnzoForever

In case you missed the announcement, over the next few months, we’ll be running a Between Two Lockers special series featuring your fave FYA writers and contributors.

FIRST THINGS FIRST

What’s your name?

Kandis Seaver

Where are you from/located?

Austin

What do you do when you’re not writing for FYA?

I'm a former data analyst, currently pretending to be the perfect housewife, and chauffeur to an 8-year-old. But really, when I'm not reading or mainlining TV, I spend way too much time on twitter, and trying to talk friends into playing hooky and meeting me for lunch cocktails.

What do you look like?

Where can you be found on social media?

Twitter, Instagram

THE ACTUAL YA-RELATED QUESTIONS

How long have you been writing for FYA, and how did you start writing for the site?

I started writing for FYA nearly two years ago. I hadn't thought about writing for the site until I had a stress dream about having a book report due that I hadn't even started. Once I quit my job, it was finally time to answer that higher calling to start recapping CW shows.

How did you come to read YA as an adult?

I'm an online shopping addict, and Amazon kept recommending The Hunger Games and Twilight books so often, that it finally wore me down.

Why do you think YA is an important genre, for both actual Ys and those of us who are more A?

The young adult experience is universal, in as far as, we've all been young before. But the number of offerings is so much more diverse now than when I was a kid. When you're young, it can be so comforting to read characters that reflect your experience, to let you know that you're not the only one dealing with those issues. But as an adult, I find it fascinating to also read about characters from different backgrounds, and with different experiences from my own.

What are five of your favorite YA books?

Jellicoe Road
Fangirl
The Dream Thieves
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
Unspoken

Do you have a favorite YA character or couple? If so, who are they, and why are they The Best?

Taylor Markham and Jonah Griggs forever and ever! Their story is epic and emotional, and I love how profanely honest they are with each other. And now I wish I were reading Jellicoe Road again!

THE YA QUESTIONS

If your real life adolescence was a YA book ... What would you, the main character, be like?

Half Eleanor Douglas (Eleanor and Park), half Regina George (Mean Girls). You know, just your typical shy chubby girl projecting bitchiness and narcissism.

Who is your secret crush?

One of my best guy friends that I will never, ever tell.

What is your number #1 source of angst?

Any and all high school theater productions.

At what point would the reader pump his/her fist in victory?

When I score the lead the high school musical. (Spoiler: This never happens. I am tone deaf.)

And who would play you in the film adaptation?

Hayley Hasselhoff, because everyone deserves to be played by a way more glam version of themselves.

THE SLUMBER PARTY QUESTIONS

What is your #1 favorite food?

QUESO.

Tell me about your area of expertise.

I'm an expert at pretending that I'm an expert on everything.

If you could assemble your own Ocean's 11 of fictional characters, who would you pick?

1. Katniss Everdeen: to do what needs to be done.
2. Hermione Granger: so that someone will have actually read the instructions.
3. Tony Stark: for engineering and gadget supplies.
4. Felicity Smoak: for hacking skillz and schematics.
5. Raven Reyes: to tell Tony when he's wrong.
6. Reagan (from Fangirl): for general snark and badass attitude.
7. Ronan Lynch: ditto. And to dream stuff up.
8. Buffy Summers: in case of vampires.
9. Veronica Mars: for sleuthing and fake IDs.
10. Effie Trinkett: to provide disguises.
11. Karou: in case anyone dies.

What is your best karaoke song?

"Material Girl" (which is not to say that it's GOOD).

Tell me something scandalous!

I've never been arrested for public drunkenness. I KNOW. I'm just as surprised as you are.

What is your favorite adult beverage?

Pinot grigio. Just put the crazy straw right in that box. But I'd also accept hard cider, champers, and various bourbon cocktails.

What is the most crucial snack food and/or movie/or anything you'd bring to an FYA slumber party?

Chips and dip + Chasing Liberty.

What book have you read the most number of times?

It's a tie between Diana Gabaldon's Outlander and Jennifer Cruisie's Bet Me.

YA authors are so cool. Who would you give a BFF charm to?

But why can't we ALL be besties?! I'd probably have to go with Rainbow Rowell. I always feel so connected to her characters, and plus? Her accessory game is FIERCE.

Out of all of the characters you’ve read, which one do you most wish you could be?

I would kill to be any one of the girls "stuck" at a Parisian boarding school in a Stephanie Perkins book.

AND NOW, MASH

Kandis made three picks for each category, and I added a fourth. The magic number (chosen by a random number generator) was 4.

M A S H

SPOUSE

Neville Longbottom
Richard Gansey III
Jonah Griggs
Gilbert Blythe

HONEYMOON

Dollywood
District 13
OASIS
Eretz

# OF KIDS

0
1
2
eleventy

JOB

TV critic
lady of leisure
cultural anthropologist
YA book blogger

INCOME

Paid in wishes
Paid in wine
Paid in glitter
Paid in queso

HOMETOWN

Henrietta, VA
Colby, North Carolina
New Orleans, LA
Shermer, IL

PET

A unicorn
A sloth
A magical talking cat
A rock

VEHICLE

Wings
A stagecoach
A DeLorean
The Pig from The Raven Cycle

Do you have additional questions for Kandis? Or maybe just want to comment on something particularly awesome that she said? Head to the comments!

Hello all, Amanda R. here! Let's all pass the tissue box around as we say goodbye to Peggy and friends, but hopefully only for now!  Let's get to recapping:

Small Screen Supes

Speedy Synopses

Gotham 2x12: Mr. Freeze

Although we've had to wait months for a new Gotham, not much time has passed in the actual city. Jim's cleared of any wrongdoing—thanks to no one being able to prove he was actually present at Theo Galavan's end—and is reinstated in to the GCPD. Even when Captain Barnes captures Penguin, Oswald decides that keeping Jim in the clear is worth being confined to Arkham. There, he meets Dr. Hugo Strange, a psychologist with a dark secret—and some very questionable doctorin' methods.

And because one villain is never enough, Jim and Harvey also have to deal with Victor Fries, who's freezing innocents all over town—hence the press-given nickname Mr. Freeze—in an attempt to perfect the art of cryogenics, and in doing so, save his wife, who's dying of some really, really awful-seeming terminal illness. He attempts to turn himself in, after the GCPD take his wife in for questioning, only to find that his latest formula actually worked. (Mandy C.)

Supergirl 1x15: Solitude

Siobhan is still generally unpleasant to everyone at work but Cat, and she’s eager to bring her boss a special and mysterious delivery. It turns out to be a gift from a hacker, offering a list of visitors to an infidelity website for Cat to publish as she pleases.

Cat, however, wants nothing to do with it. The hacker takes over the screens at CatCo Media to voice her disapproval, and proceeds to mess with all of the traffic lights in the city to show what she’s capable of.

Supergirl has decided to fly solo without the DEO, unable to work with Hank Henshaw because of what she thinks he did to her aunt. Kara instead works with James Olsen, who takes her to the Fortress of Solitude to uncover the identity of the hacker. She turns out to be Indigo, AKA Brainiac 8, another one of Fort Rozz’s escaped inmates.

Lucy Lane is also working to find the hacker, and Kara takes the opportunity to try to give her a pep talk about her and James after Lucy was stood up (while he was at the Fortress). Jeez, Jimmy. Kara lets a very personal detail about James slip, and Lucy realizes that James shows Kara sides of himself he lets no one else see.

Winn, working with the DEO, find Indigo’s target, as does Supergirl, James, and Lucy. Indigo fires a nuclear missile at National City, and it takes Supergirl and the DEO together to stop it.

Kara realizes she needs to keep working with them for the best interest of everyone. Alex, however, can’t take it anymore, and she confesses that she was the one who was forced to kill Astra. Kara gives her a hug, and takes Hank’s hand, so it looks like Team Supergirl is back together. Meanwhile, Lucy tells James that it’s obvious he and Kara are in love, and--OMG is that a Supergirl movie Easter Egg at the end?! YES. (Kelly)

Lucifer 1x06: Favorite Son

The case of the week kicks off  with a strangled security guard and a stolen shipping container. Lucifer and Chloe are ready to crack another slightly boring case...until Lucifer realizes that the shipping container in question was, in fact, his own. Furious, and refusing to reveal what was inside, he helps Chloe track down the shady warehouse owner. Chloe uses her detective brain to declare Lucifer a conflict of interest - especially since he won’t tell her what’s been stolen - and moves him off the case. And she finally asks sort-of-ex-husband Dan to start investigating Lucifer’s background - maybe his club will reveal more about the case.

Unfortunately for poor Dan, good old Mazikeen is at the bar, and a demand to see the club’s books and records ends up with him inexplicably waking up, hours later, naked in his sort-of-ex-wife’s bed. A desperate scramble (and a bribe of non-stop chocolate cake to Trixie, who discovers him) help him out of an awkward confrontation. By the time beleaguered Dan can make it back to Lucifer’s club, Mazikeen presents him with the cleanest books imaginable.

After an apology, Chloe allows Lucifer back on the case. But things are uneasy as Lucifer exhibits a lot more rage than his normally unruffled exterior allows, agressively questioning the owner of a biker bar where the docker leader works. A slightly more calm meeting with the leader reveals that although he didn’t steal the shipping container (he just wants to start a fashion line!), he definitely appears to know who did. Following a hunch, Lucifer and Chloe sneakily follow the biker, hoping he’ll lead them to the real criminal. In the car, they share a moment. It turns out that although Chloe really enjoys working with him, she’s convinced that Lucifer is some kind of criminal. Lucifer makes a heartfelt promise to never lie to her, and then reveals what has been stolen: a bunch of Russian dolls. Before he can explain, the murderer they’ve been waiting on appears, shoots the biker, and escapes on a motorcycle. Lucifer is hot on his trail, and ends up cornering the man on the roof of the building. Chloe races to catch up (from tending the wounded biker) as Lucifer learns that the man looked inside the shipping container. Furious, he morphs into his hideous demonic face, demanding to know who this man works for. Before he can learn anything, though, the murderer jumps off the roof.

As things wind down, Chloe tells Lucifer that his shipping container has been recovered - and she hasn’t even looked inside it. A quick look reveals the promised Russian dolls - and, as Chloe turns her back, a secret hidden compartment in the container, now empty. Stolen.

A meeting with sexy therapist Linda pushes several of Lucifer’s buttons. Calling him his father’s “Favorite Son” - and even mentioning his previous name, Samael. It’s a good thing he’s been cast out of Heaven, she says. He should embrace who he truly is - the Ruler of Hell. Totally losing control, Lucifer punches through a wall - there’s no way he can go back now, he says. Because his wings have been stolen. Looks like Lucifer will be on mortal ground for a while longer. (Savannah)

Agent Carter 2x10: Hollywood Ending

PIcking up right where the last episode left off we see that Jason Wilkes is now free of zero matter...but Whitney Frost has absorbed it ALL. Oh dear. Team Peggy manages to give her the slip thanks to Jarvis and they reconvene back at Stark Manor.

Howard Stark! I think we can all agree that Dominic Cooper is WONDERFUL in this role. When Howard flirted with Rose my heart just SWELLED. Is Rose Iron-Man's MOM? (Easy, Amanda. You're getting way ahead of yourself.) Joseph Manfredi arrives and it turns out that he's friends with Howard. Because of course he is. Manfredi genuinely loves Whitney and he's worried about her. Rightfully so; she's not eating or drinking, just staying in her room drawing diagrams and creating equations. Not good. He blames her recent dabble in mass murder on the zero matter and our team collectively (and subtly) roll their eyes, BUT if it means that Manfredi will help them capture Frost they'll smile and nod.

Manfredi manages to distract Whitney long enough from her new life as Will Hunting that Daniel and Peggy get snapshots of all of her work so that Howard and Jason can figure out what she's working on. She wants to open the rift again and Stark realizes that it's a chance to get all the zero matter back to the other side once and for all. Back at Stark Manor Howard, Jason, and Samberley are arguing over naming rights for their invention; Howard wants it to be called The Shears of God (lol). His ego is magnificent.

Thompson shows up and asks to pitch in so Peggy promptly tells him to take the lunch order. Check AND mate, sir! Thompson does as he's told. Once they're at the movie lot (where they plan on luring Frost), they get down to business. The plan is that the rift will attract the zero matter in Frost's body, hopefully leaving her intact. Peggy assures Thompson that she's not going to turn him in and in return Jack shows her that the pin that Dottie stole is actually a KEY. But to what? (We really need a season three, ABC!) The Shears of God are successful at opening the rift AND the rift is successful at pulling the zero matter out of Whitney, but then it becomes unstable. Sousa saves the day by getting close enough to the rift to literally hand-crank it, and the rest of the team hang on to him via a rubber hose until the rift is closed - by storing the gun in Howard's LEVITATING CAR and flying it through! IT. WAS. AWESOME. 

So now what? Well, Whitney is in a mental hospital and spends her days talking to herself and trying to claw at her face. She was an awful person but this outcome is truly grim. Peggy plans on returning to NYC until Sousa kisses her (FINALLY) and Jarvis convinces her that California really isn't all that bad. (That's what best friends are for!) Thompson has had a nice redemption arc this season but as he's packing his bag for the airport he's shot and left for dead by an unidentified assailant. (I saw someone suggest that it could be BUCKY and if that's true I WILL DIE, Y'ALL. I WILL DIE.) And what about Dottie? And Bernard the Flamingo? There's too much unanswered for there NOT to be a third season so make a burnt offering to the gods, everyone. We NEED more Peggy! (Amanda R.)

Legends of Tomorrow 1x07: Marooned

The Legends have lost track of Vandal Savage but as fate would have it a ship has sent out a distress signal, a ship that has a MacGuffin that can help Gideon pinpoint Savage's location in a specifice time and place. Stein (excuse me - Space Ranger Stein), Jax, Rip, and Mick take the drop ship over to the distressed vehicle even though they're pretty sure it's a trap. Which it is. Space pirates!

We see in flashback Rip's time training to be a Time Lord. He trained alongside his future wife, but she chooses to leave her training (even though she's the better candidate) so that she can marry Rip. I mean, I guess that's romantic? Sure. 

Cold and Mick are still on the outs, and it doesn't improve things when Mick decides to help the pirates capture the Waverider in exchange for his freedom and his return to Earth.  Cold and Sara are trying to seal the breach that's been damaged by the pirates, and they end up sealed in with the temperature dropping. Cold shares with Sara that Mick saved his hide time and time again when they were both in juvvie. These two have serious history.  

Kendra helps guide Ray to the outside of the ship to repair the breach from the outside. He almost dies and this is enough impetus to make her decide she DOES want to date Ray. Yay? (I don't feel invested at all, sorry.)

Space Ranger Stein saves the day! Well, sort of. I mean, why didn't Jax and Stein merge in order to defeat the pirates? This seemed like the most obvious course of action. This show's holes are starting to be GLARINGLY obvious. Rip takes a page from his dead wife's book, remembering how she defeated the enemy during a simulation exercise. Pirates are defeated, MacGuffin is obtained and our gang is off to the late 50's. Oh, and it's very possible that Cold kills Mick for betraying the team. (Is it wrong that I'm more concerned for Snart's emotional well-being than I am for Mick's ACTUAL life? No? Good.) (Amanda R.)

Hero of the Week: Alex Danvers, Supergirl

The burden of keeping the truth from Kara - and watching Hank's relationship with Kara suffer because of it - finally became too much for Alex to bear this week. Seeing Kara's treatment of Hank only made Alex more afraid to tell her sister the truth, but when she did Kara could see how much pain Alex was in; pain because she's causing Kara to suffer due to the death of her aunt, pain because she's afraid of losing a sister that she loves so dearly. Kara only needs seconds to process what really happened and she embraces her sister with forgiveness while also reaching for Hank, realizing what he did to keep the sisters' relationship whole. It's so hard to admit mistakes, even if they're made with good intentions, to the people we love the most. Alex was so brave to confess to killing Astra, and that kind of bravery is its own kind of heroism. (Amanda R.)

Honorable mentions: Kara Danvers/Supergirl, Jack Thompson/Agent Carter, Daniel Sousa/Agent Carter

Villain of the Week: Dr. Hugo Strange, Gotham

I mean...was it really going to be anybody else? At least Mr. Freeze is trying to keep his wife alive. This guy is just sadistic. (Amanda R.)

Honorable mentions: Mr. Freeze/Gotham, Indigo/Supergirl, Heatwave/Legends of Tomorrow

Comic Relief: Edwin Jarvis, Agent Carter

Mr. Jarvis, we'll miss you on our small screens. Take care of Ana, and don't let Bernard push you around! (via)

Bif! Bam! Pow!

The kiss heard 'round the world! All aboard the S.S. PegSous! (via)

Pull List

Top Titles

Another Castle #1, written by Andrew Wheeler, with art by Paulina Ganucheau

This brand-new series from Oni Press combines pink and princessy with tough and undeterred. Princess Artemisia (or Misty for short) lives in the kingdom of Beldora with her father, the king. She isn’t content to simply wear pretty gowns or get her nails done; Misty springs into action when she recognizes the dastardly Badlug’s minions are lurking about the castle.

The king doesn’t want her to worry about such things, but Misty strikes out on her own, sword in hand. “Where is it written a princess can’t fight for her kingdom?” she demands, and I fell in love with the book right there. The first issue is a fantastic and intriguing setup for the story to come, and combined with Paulina Ganucheau's glowing, rosy art, this one is going on my pull list. (Kelly)

Unfollow #5 by Rob Williams, with art by Michael Dowling

The numbers are decreasing...140, 139, 138...which for the chosen 140 means their net worth is increasing. A now-dead billionaire and social media VIP has left his fortune to a select group of 140 characters (I see what you did there) with one caveat, they receive it incrementally and their wealth increases the fewer of them there are. In Unfollow #5, we see how the 140, scratch that, 138 deal with this knowledge and then return back to their normal lives. Those of us who have read books such as Ready Player One, The Westing Game, and even Hunger Games know what sudden wealth and fame can do to people, and Unfollow is no different. Is $120 million enough for each of the 140 or will they succumb to the lesser parts of humanity we encounter on social media every day? (Christy)

Vampirella #1 by Kate Leth, with art by Eman Casallos

Vampirella has moved to Hollywood! And it's PERFECT. She and her hot werewolf boyfriend, Tristan, along with their butler/manservant Coleridge are moving into what can only be described as a Bates-like mansion. She doesn't even have time to get her bags unpacked before a masked assailant bursts through her bedroom window. RUDE. There's something bad going on in Hollywood, and I don't mean the Kardashian type of bad; I mean actors being lured onto fake movie sets in order to become dinner for a giant beast. Vampirella doesn't play well with murderous supernaturals, and now that she's got her own PR agent the local demonry better watch out. Fun, sexy and action-packed, this newly designed Vampirella is off to a great start! (Don't worry - she still has the red collared-bathing suit for sexy times with Tristan.) (Amanda R.)

Pick of the Week: Black Widow #1 by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee, with art by Chris Samnee

Black Widow, baby! This first issue in Natasha Romanoff’s new solo series (again) is light on words but heavy on action. The story surprisingly starts in the middle, with a direct order from Maria Hill: Capture Black Widow! S.H.I.E.L.D. agents try their best to prevent Romanoff from leaving the building, but she’s a hard one to keep down.

Why is Romanoff S.H.I.E.L.D.’s number one target? We don't know! But the mystery and action makes me want to know more. I definitely got a Captain America: Winter Soldier vibe from this issue, which is a very good thing. Plus with Waid and Samnee behind the scenes, you already know this one is worth picking up. (Kelly)

As Seen in the Daily Planet

News

Deets on who/what Agent Ward (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) is now. (Anything is an improvement tbh.) Oh, and S.H.I.E.L.D. is getting a fourth season!

Hayley Atwell assures us that she would return for a third season of Agent Carter.

Behind-the-scenes images from Captain America: Civil War.

FOX very quietly removed Gambit from its 2016 release schedule. Guess it needs more time in the oven!

But it looks like we could be getting a Venom movie.

Looks like Legends of Tomorrow could be cycling out its cast, and we may see Connor Hawke again!

Guys...there's a Black Canary EP!

Powerless has the potential to be so much fun (Alan Tudyk! Danny Pudi!), and we've been given names of heroes that are going to show up.

Soooo a Suicide Squad sequel has already been greenlit.

DC Super Hero Girls Vol. 1 hasn't even hit the stands yet but a second volume has been greenlit!

Awww. Big Hero 6 is going to continue, but on our small screens via Disney XD.

Bryan Singer is shopping the networks to get his Red Sonja adaptation picked up. (Fingers crossed it's heavily influenced by Gail Simone's run!)

Official first look at the upcoming Power Rangers movie.

Exclusive preview of Boom Studios newest title, Goldie Vance, courtesy of The Mary Sue. I love me some Girl-Detective stories!

Is your Local Comic Store celebrating the launch of Poe Dameron #1 on April 6th? If so, go and get your swag on!

March is also Women in Comics Month; here's a roundup of interviews from some great ladies in comics, and Marvel Gaming is also doing a Women of Power event all month.

Trailers

Did y'all know that Jimmy Kimmel is in Batman v Superman? (Seriously tho, it's pretty funny)

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. returns this week, so here's a sneaky peek of Tuesday's episode:

What do you think of this split-season for Gotham? I'm digging it! Do you think Kara and James will FINALLY make our ship sail? What comics were on your pull lists this week? Let's convo below!

WELP. Mason's gone! Or is he???

Sorry, friends. I would have had this up last week, but for the fact that every time I started writing I found a reason to start looking for *very specific* Isaac gifs, and before I knew it, the whole day would be lost. Life is hard!

AWARDS

THIS WEEK'S WOLF PACK PUPPY

Corey, Scott's newest pack member by dint of invisible pack meeting participation. Also, protecting & <3-ing Mason.

via

Corey! I hope you get to stick around!

BEST REACTION TO SOMETHING SUPERNATURALLY RIDICULOUS

Josh refusing point blank to take any part in Theo's insane electromagnetic Dread Doctor mask experiment.

via

Look, Theo, you want pack loyalty, maybe buy a dude a pizza or even just learn his last name first next time.

WEEKLY REMINDER THAT BEACON HILLS IS ON A HELLMOUTH

It took our Mason away from us, how much worse could it get?

via

REIGNING PRESIDENT OF THE SCOTT MCCALL FAN CLUB

Kira! Although frustratingly the force of her admiration was so strong it propelled her to…skip town. AGAIN. 

via

Look: the ladies of Beacon Hills are numerous and KICK ASS and each uniquely complex, and that is a lot more than a lot of television is ever willing or able to give, but this is the third time the show's solution to Kira's poorly drawn weakness has been to send her Out Of Town like she's not one of the show's leads. Serve her better, Jeff Davis! She deserves a lot more consistency and thought than she's been getting.

BEST PRODUCT PLACEMENT

For my money, Braeden slowly cracking pistachios and methodically lining up their shells while an antsy Malia looked on, incredulous, recalled some of the best low-key snack product placements from the show's first season. I genuinely expected a Get Crackin' spot starring Braeden in a green leather bomber to show up during one of the commercial breaks.

via/via

O hai, Icebreakders With Attitude!

(any excuse for Isaac, tbh)

According to the (amazing) official tumblr, though, the award goes to the Beautiful Toyotas on all of Beacon Hills' dark streets:

when all else fails, parrish and the pack can always rely on @toyota.

via

Which, okay, fair. Because not only did Lydia's BEAUTIFUL TOYOTA *keep* Parrish from running away from this fight, Kira's own BEAUTIFUL TOYOTA *helped* her do the very same. Equal opportunity car company, that one!

PREVIOUSLY ON TEEN WOLF

The Dread Doctors spent a whole summer season terrorizing the teens of Beacon Hills in a quest to find The One True Vessel who was a genetic chimaera strong enough to take on the powers and latent psychotic personality of history's worst werewolf, La Bête de Gévaudan, whose crimes were so horrific that his own sister slayed him with a pike forged from mountain ash and family blood, then burned every scrap of evidence the man himself ever existed. This is a real historic punshiment! Damnatio Memoriae! It was also a real entertainment treat, as that historic French hunter/sister was a dead ringer for the late, great Allison Argent—a fact which makes sense, as she was also the progenitor of the whole line of Argent hunters. The last two Argents standing/still human explained the whole deal to Scott's pack, stressing repeatedly the fact that the moment the man inside the Beast remembers himself, the teen inside will be lost forever. And then they proceeded to tell Lydia the precise biographical details of the man it is so important for no one to ever remember, so, that was super great! Meanwhile, Scott and Liam finally sniffed out the sneakers drenched in their Hellhound friend's presumably ripe blood, and realized that the teen inside the Beast is, naturally, the best new human in Beacon Hills High history: Mason. ZUT.

THIS WEEK

Scary Movie MCMXVII

For all the Boss Fight/Beast Reveal drama that ended last week's episode, we open this week on a very sweet, serene scene: Mason and Corey snuggled sleeping together…in a sewer culvert. Romance + actual shit! This is our show!

Corey had his reasons for bringing Mason to the sewer, at least: it is provably the one place that Scott et al won't be able to track them by scent. Weirdly, he explains this to Mason, as though Mason wasn't with him the entire trip there from the school parking lot where Scott and Liam broke into his trunk and discovered his bloody secret. Does one's brain turn invisible along with the rest of the body, when acted upon by an invisi-boy's powers? Did tiny, sweet Corey for some reason knock his bae unconscious to drag him to safety? It is very confusing!

via

Simultaneously horrifying and adorable, that's the Teen Wolf we've been missing all this time!

But it is also very sweet. Mason + Corey 5ever, afaiac. Please keep both of them safe and whole and together until the end of time, amen.

Unfortunately, the Dread Doctors are men (and women? maybe?) of SCIENCE, not religion, so that prayer is one that won't be answered anytime soon. Mason has barely had a chance to draw a blank on his whereabouts during every frequency-induced Beast attack before he realizes that, aduh, the sewers are only safe when on the run from supersniffers—ancient mad scientists operating on dread radio waves, their way is completely open! And then, like black magic, there the Dread Doctors are. Corey's invisi-shield, alas, is no match for their science sticks, and just as suddenly as the DDs appeared, they have vanished, dragging an unconscious Mason behind them.

Pack Meeting

Scott, too, spent the night after the Beast Boss Battle in the arms of his bae. Only, he was a lot bloodier than Mason was, and Kira had the compassion to bring him home to recouperate in his own bed, rather than in a cold concrete culvert. There is an awkwardly inserted Chekhov's Gun moment when Kira has to brush some homework and papers aside to make Scott more comfortable, and discovers an envelope labeled SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATION over which Scott, in his bloody daze, opines that he missed the deadline, but then the show is back on track, and it is morning, and Scott has slept off every last centimeter of his injuries. 

HOW? you might ask, when it took most of this half season for him to recover from that one measly death blow at the end of 5B? Well, because his pack is finally united and working together to save someone they love, that's how!

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I think the joke is supposed to be that the former description would be too common to look for, but honestly, in Beacon Hills, isn't that JUST AS TRUE of the second??

Scott's truest True Alpha power is Love, never forget.

Keeping with the theme of the past two seasons ("Find the MacGuffin, Save the MacGuffin, Save the Town"), the pack is trying their damnedest to formulate A) a plan to find Mason, and B) a plan to save him from his Beastly inner self. They have exactly zero leads, which is really bumming everyone, and especially Liam, out, but Scott's not even worried. They WILL find Mason. And they WILL save him. And to help with both? "Let's ask Corey!" And Scott (amazingly) pulls him out by the shirtfront from his invisible perch against Melissa's china cabinet.

Corey is more than ready to help, because obviously who WOULDN'T want to save Mason? But unfortunately, the only information he has that the pack doesn't already is that the Dread Doctors took Mason that morning, and Corey couldn't do anything to stop it. Still, he is on board to be part of the pack's search party, and almost certainly, just to be a part of the pack altogether. Because obviously who WOULDN'T want to jump Theo's pack ship the moment a single good alternate option presented itself??

The Plan: The Pack Splits Up

You may not have noticed this ever before, but while Scott's pack may be full to the fang with love, they are…not great at making plans. Their plan this time around? Split up! Scott and Liam will go on scent patrol; Hayden and Corey will stake out the school (i.e., attend classes like normal); Kira will figure out her whole kitsune deal; Stiles and Lydia will hang around the sheriff's station; Melissa will keep watch at the hospital; and Braeden and Malia will stick around Scott's, in case Mason comes back there/so Braeden can continue protecting Malia from the Desert Wolf. 

Before they can all split up, however, Malia takes Stiles aside to warn him about the Desert Wolf's tangential fixation on Stiles, in response to her figuring out that Malia cares about him. Rather than focus on the news that Malia and him still have a chance, Stiles (wisely) leaps right to the most pressing issue: his immedate safety. Namely, he thinks he should have one of Braeden's guns.

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Welcome back to our screens, classic Stiles slapstick, Part I

After fumbling the unloaded gun impressively, he agrees that the protection of his own father at the sheriff's station that has never once been breached by even one villain will definitely be safer, so he leaves Scott's, gunless.

Unsurprisingly, the wait both at the McCalls' and at the sheriff's station is incredibly boring, and just as unsurprisingly, Malia is the first to crack from it. She calls Lydia to check in on what's going on there, venting her frustration at not being able to be out protecting Stiles on her own.

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Welcome back to our screens, classic Stiles slapstick, Part II

Stiles is back in early season slapstick mode, though, which means he is safe as houses inside his comedy bubble. Malia will just have to worry about protecting herself!

Melissa shows up as Lydia is signing off, carrying a medical file that almost certainly ought to have been confidential. LOL at medical privacy in this town. What's the word on Mason's viability as a genetic chimaera? Well, turns out he had a twin in utero, and absorbed it. There is even an ultrasound image of the twins that seems SUPER PRIVATE that Melissa shares with Lydia and Stiles, about which Lydia spends a significant amount of time suggesting that there must be a significant piece of knowledge to be gained from this revelation. CHEKHOV'S TWIN, basically.

Splitting Up: Still a Bad Idea

Lydia doesn't have much time to think about Mason's baby-twin, though, because she's got a Hellhound deputy to save. At the top of the episode, Stilinski called upon Lydia to help him stop Parrish before he can get out of town. The two formed a united front: Stilinski setting up spikes along the only road out of town to rip Parrish's tires to shreds, and Lydia rolling in with her big eyes and banshee badassery to remind him that she's been foretelling death for longer than he has, and at least he has the power to DO something to stop what he sees. 

Parrish argued again, for some insane reason, that HE is the one causing all the death in town, and even though this is patently false, neither Lydia nor Stilinski said so in so many words. They just hedged about how maybe he is actually the one meant to save everyone, and his visions are of what will happen should he abandon Beacon Hills! And then Stilinski handed him back his deputy's badge, and Lydia made plans with him to go back to the Nemeton the next day to try to find answers.

So now it is the next day, and they are off to find answers, the Nemeton being as easy to find as Starbucks all of a sudden. Parrish kneels down and places his palm on it, and Lydia reaches out and places her palm on him, and WHOOSH, VISION.

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This girl is on fire.

The answers are, Parrish still sees the whole town's bodies burning up around the Nemeton, except now, Lydia's bloodied body is on top of the pile. Welp! It was a good try, Lydia! Kind of! I mean, not really. You could have gone in with some kind of plan for how to work through the vision? Or at least, the *actual* reminder that the Hellhound of legend is a guardian and protector? Idk. Parrish at least does get fired up enough (pun) to seek out the Argents and offer up his Beast-bashing services later on, so I guess that is something.

Dammit, Deucalion

As bad as Scott's pack is at making plans, their plans aren't even in the same league as Theo's. For a kid whose goals are relatively straightforward—prove his own value and strength by stealing first Scott's and then ultimately the Beast's power—the ways he has chosen to go about effecting each step of the process have been ridiculously risky and circuitous. First of all, if the claws he traded the Desert Wolf for are enough to work on the Beast, then spending all of 5A going after Scott via Liam was…completely unnecessary? Second, if he had to resurrect just a handful of the Dread Doctors' dozens of failed teen chimaeras to be a part of your zombie science wolf pack, wouldn't it have been wiser to avoid resurrecting the soft-hearted hero types with romantic ties to the enemy's pack? Third, if he was going to team up with any villain from Scott's past in the same season as Eichen House was broken into a dozen times, why in THE WORLD would that villain be Deucalion, and not Peter friggin' Hale, the dude whose grievances against Scott wouldn't have to be explained with a half-retcon of the blindness-healing Scott and Derek did for Deucalion at the end of the Alpha Pack season. And finally, if Theo/the show DID have a genuinely solid reason for bringing Deucalion out of hiding, why relegate him to sitting literally on the sidelines for all these episodes? You prode yourself on your persuasive charm, Theo! Why keep your best villain ally chained by vein-pump to the wall, when you could have won him to your cause and had him trail you around like Gerard has been trailing Argent all season?

Anyway, the fact that Theo has lost two members of his pack already, and now can't get Josh to use his electromagnetic powers to put on the extra Dread Doctor mask Theo swiped from Eichen House after his pack failed to rescue Lydia, who'd fallen catatonic after he failed to successfully dig her banshee knowledge out with his claws, which tactic he'd resorted to after he'd failed to seduce her or any of Scott's pack to his cause, well, that's no surprise. Nor is it a surprise that Deucalion has been faking his own capture this entire time.

After taking his time FINALLY providing some flashback-back story for the first Dread Doctor, here in the twilight of their villainous run, Deucalion slowly (horrifyingly) pulls the thick tube from the vein in his arm, stands, and immediately breaks Theo's wrist, sucking in Theo's pain as he does.

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Jeez. Us. 

Remember how Deucalion crushed his one Alpha Pack member's skull in in Deaton's clinic, just to make a point and keep Derek's motivation high (or whatever)? I hadn't, not until just now! Nevermind what I said about Peter being a better choice for callback villain: Theo's sociopathy deserves Deucalion, whatever sense his return does or does not make overall.

Deucalion's breaking of Theo's arm is all to prove two points, ultimately: first, that he is and always will be stronger and smarter than Theo, and second, that the key to taking another supernatural creature's power is not through special claws, but rather through administering severe pain, then siphoning it all out, until there is nothing left to give but life itself. 

This is a very dark twist on the sweetest part of being a werewolf in TW mythology! I have rarely been more moved than by when Scott taught Isaac how to take the dying dog's pain that first time, and Isaac saw what a force for good his new powers could be. And now to know that this thing that has been helping our heroes help each other this whole time, that it could be pushed to such extremes that it can become a weapon? That is very cool and scary! I mean, you have to let go of the fact that, if Deucalion has known this all along, then it made no sense for him to keep a whole pack of Alphas rather than stealing their power this way, one by one—or at least, using the threat of it to keep them in line. But whatever! Live and hurt and learn.

So Theo has all the tools he needs to get the Beast's power, now. He puts them into immediate practice, driving his claws into Josh's stomach to take his pain, power, and life in order to be able to use the Dread Doctor mask himself. He does, and sees the Beast's true identity, and with Tracy by his side and Deucalion in the shadows, goes off to broker that information with Scott and Liam.

Sidelining the Ladies: An Interlude

So after Malia and Kira got called back into VERY USEFUL ACTION in the lacrosse episode, they are this week once again sideline to their VERY BORING solo arcs, Malia the werecoyote pacing inside a mountain ash-protected home under the watchful eye of Braeden, a human, and Kira a lightning fox asking her dad for academic instead of her mom for practical advice to overcome her literal demons to help her friends survive, all before getting in her Beautiful Toyota and driving off into the desert, alone. 

To sum up: Malia and Braeden hole up in Scott's house all day and night, ostensibly to be the team to intercept Mason if he should show up there, but ultimately to keep Malia safe from the Desert Wolf. Braeden spends the whole time eating pistachios and saving the shells, and not suggesting to Malia to keep her communications with the rest of the pack vis-a-vis their plans/her location limited to texting, so of course the Desert Wolf overhears Lydia's end of a call at the sheriff's station and heads right on over to Scott's, where for who knows what reason Tracy is waiting to break through the mountain ash barrier. She's a disruptor, I guess. Really resents how Malia used her torture at the hands of the Dread Doctors as her own personal emotional breakthrough.

So yes, less than twelve hours after Braeden and Malia set up shop, the Desert Wolf is in the McCall house, and she and Braeden quickly find themselves in the middle of a gunfight. Perfectly, Braeden's pistachio shells were meant to serve a purpose all along, as she scatters them across the wood floor to serve as warning for when an attack is around the corner. After some close-up scuffling, the two battle for control of Braeden's shotgun, sending multiple shots up through the first floor ceiling into the second floor hallway, where Malia is just running around like she doesn't have super coyote hearing and had no idea what was going on downstairs.

The whole time, all I could think of was poor Melissa and her meager, adult-problems home repair fund.

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True story: I got so mesmerized by the glorious combo of OG Isaac & Melissa that I almost forgot to grab the source link

The Desert Wolf eventually gets the upper hand, and Braeden makes her escape out the front door, re-setting the mountain ash line as she does so, effectively locking the Desert Wolf AND Malia in. Which—idek. Even the Desert Wolf makes reference to the "cage match" that that plan has just set up! BRAEDEN. I expected so much better.

Kira's day doesn't go much better. Her role in the Find Mason Plan is…figure out her sword? I think? I don't know. She finds her dad at school to try to get him to tell her how to put it back together/tell her how to get out to the v #problematic skinwalker reserve without her mom knowing. Her dad's main thing is that Kira is smart and strong enough to figure out how to be strong as a fox without her sword, but Kira's main thing is teenage impatience to save her friends NOW even if it means becoming a skinwalker for eight centuries and also not being smart enough to even notice when he is correcting her grammar, so really, he never had a shot. He eventually gives her his blessing and the keys to his Beautiful Toyota, and Kira calls to leave a quick five or six awkward voicemails for Scott before she hops in the car and drives off the show again.

In the desert, she lays the pieces of her sword out on the sand and calls to the emptiness that she knows they are out there and that she needs their help, no matter the cost. She is willing to pay it. And while the whole concept of the Native American skinwalker spirit women in tiny costumes is tokenistic and Not Great wrt human decency, their entrance through swirling dust and dark is visually arresting. 

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Have you heard of Neutrogena, bc if not, let me blow your mind

Anyway, all of this, these two storylines? IT IS ALL DUMB. It isn't that either the Desert Wolf OR the Kitsune/Skinwalker stories are inherently stupid (necessarily), it is just that they have no space to breathe in the maelstrom that is this already packed two-part season. I'd buy that both storylines were put into place to give both characters something personal to accomplish before Season 6 had been confirmed, but once it had been, it just would have been so much better to set these storylines aside for Season 6, and weave Kira and Malia back into the actual plots of 5A/5B. Although I can see how that would have been difficult to do, as adding Malia and Kira in to the regular action would have overbalanced the strength of Scott's pack and rendered most of Theo's machinations moot/cut most of the fights with any and all comers severely short. Which…I mean, as great as the knowledge that two teen girls are so dramatically overpowering in their awesomeness IS, that is definitely Sign #1 of subar writing.

Fingers crossed for Season 6.

Dread Doctors? More Like DRAG Doctors, amirite

So back to the Mason Problem. Scott and Liam spend all day trying to sniff Mason out, but are interrupted by a call from Theo and Tracey with the news of what Theo saw in the mask. Liam can't believe Scott is willing to work with the last two psychos standing, but Scott is focused on a combination of time running out and the maxim to "keep your enemies closer," so a team-up with Liam it is.

After they exchange information—Theo telling them he saw the original French Beast in the mask, and our boys sharing the ley line map Liam tore out of that library book however many episodes back (there is embedded here a lovely, gross explanation for that body in the tank, which was apparently an alpha werewolf Nazi soldier the Dread Doctors cart everywhere as part of their immortality regimen)—the group agrees to meet up later that afternoon in the woods where the ley lines indicate the Dread Doctors must be hiding. And after Scott and Liam leave, Deucalion comes out from around the wall of lockers he was hiding behind, and cackles loudly. 

Dude, Scott knew an invisible teen he barely knows was hiding in his house; he no way didn't smell you, his old enemy, from a mile off.

Anyway, Scott and Liam do meet up with Theo later that day, and after some false starts trusting Theo on Liam's part, they make it to the new lair where the Dread Doctors have Mason hooked up via a monster pipe to the spinal column to the Nazi werewolf in the tank. It's super gross!

Scott and Liam try to free Mason, but the monster pipe is in too deep for them to do anything without hurting him, and pretty soon, the Dread Doctors have found them. Liam is all ready to take the whole lot of them down, but the Dread Doctors ain't even bovvered. "You have the entitlement and narcissism typical of your generation," the lead DD burrs, finally loud enough to be heard over his own clicking, "in THAT you are a success." It is the drag to end all drags. It is amazing.

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Marry me, MTV

Honestly I feel like they put extra effort into finally balancing the Dread Doctors' creepy voice track JUST so that this epic clapback could be understood with crystal clarity. BOOOOOOOOOOOM.

At that provocation, Theo is off, fighting the Doctors like his life depends on it. Scott and Liam jump in, too, less to save Theo, I'm sure, than to take advantage of Theo fighting on their side to get rid of the Doctors and thus, ultimately, free and save Mason. The Doctors are strong and ruthless, though, and soon all three boys are in deep trouble—Liam most of all. And wouldn't you know, seeing his best friend in mortal danger kicks Mason into high gear, and he pulls the monster pipe from his spine byt his own damn self.

Unfortunately, that show of strength in preparation to save his friend triggers the Beast's first transformation without frequency, which means…the original Beast is back. "Mason!" Liam calls out, testing this theory. "That's not my name," Mason's face says back, as his eyes turn blue and he is engulfed by shadow smoke. And then he IS the Beast, and he is tearing through the Dread Doctors like they are paper, just ripping off limbs and heads left and right before leaping out into the night.

Outside, though, Hellhound!Parrish and both Argent men are ready and waiting, and while Parrish attacks from one side, Gerard and Chris fire some sort of treated projectiles from the other, and soon enough the Beast has transformed back into man.

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HIHIHIHIHIHI

Only, it's not Mason! It is dumb Sebastien, of whom Gerard asks if he "remembers who I am?" To which Sebastien responds, "Argent," and I respond !!!! because this SEEMS to imply that the Beast has been resurrected before, and met Gerard? Unless it is just an Argent blood thing, in which case, wouldn't Gerard have asked if Sebastien remembered who "we" (he AND Chris) were? Unless it just DOES NOT actually matter, and we should just all be glad the finale is coming on Tuesday and we can spend the next many months recalibrating and learning to miss the show again? 

Probably that's the right answer.

NEXT TIME

It's the finale! FINALLY. See you there.

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