“Have you not asked yourselves why, why you were chosen? The nature of your mission? Everything Washington and I learned about the Witnesses is in this chamber.”
- Thomas Jefferson
It seems our Witnesses are up against a lot of foes these days without really knowing who they are fighting against. As they visit a war memorial, Abbie points out she misses when they knew the endgame and what they were fighting against. At least they’ll be on an interesting case this week. They’ve got some missing engineers (one of whom is the brother of a journalist played by “White Collar” actor Sharif Atkins). The engineers were exploring the tunnels under the town and found a cover to another lower chamber. They manage to get it open and then are dragged down by a creature. Abbie and Ichabod take a look themselves and our 18th century man determines that the chamber below was designed by Mr. Thomas Jefferson. Our Witnesses are trying to figure out what’s being guarded by evil creepy crawlies and Ichabod admits he thought he was friends with Jefferson but one day out of the blue he got “un-friended” by Jefferson for no reason. I’m interested to see where this goes.
Elsewhere, Frank approaches Jenny and asks her hack into police evidence so he can get his wedding ring back. Knowing that he’s in league with Henry now, I can’t help but worry he’s going to set Jenny up and get her arrested and locked away so she can’t help the Witnesses when the time comes. It seems something Henry would concoct and I doubt Frank has much say in the plans these days. He’s just a walking meat puppet. Well I’m not entirely wrong. Frank isn’t looking for his wedding ring. He’s grabbing stuff from the Hellfire Club. Jenny catches him in the lie but he knocks her out and takes off before she can stop him. She chases him down and he explains that after he came back, he was filled with evil but to pass the test Katrina did, he found a rune in one of Henry’s books that bestows temporary salvation. So he’s sort of the old Frank at the moment and his purpose was to steal information on the Hellfire Club and funds Henry sent to them. He wants Jenny to give it to Cynthia so she and Macey can get far away from Sleepy Hollow before Frank reverts back to a soulless servant of Henry.
Down in the tunnels, Abbie and Ichabod encounter the demonic creatures. There are far more of them than they realized and so they start scurrying back up to the surface to get some more firepower when the journalist appears. He is going to get our Witnesses in serious trouble if he’s not careful. After some posturing, Abbie agrees to give him limited access to the investigation. He is told to stay put while our heroes go do a little extra research. The inscription on the seal talks about reavers (not the kind from “Firefly”) and Ichabod explains they weren’t demons but Washington’s private security force and these guys probably had some supernatural juice pumped into them to ensure whatever they were protecting would stay safe. Abbie and Ichabod head back down the tunnel (using the journalist’s camera as a blinding tool to get the reavers away from the hole. Things take a turn for the weird when, as they are fighting off sentries, a door opens and our Witnesses rush in. Who should they find alive and well but Mr. Thomas Jefferson himself.
Well actually, it’s not Jefferson exactly. He did die in 1826 but this is a part scientific part magical spirit version of him. He’s been waiting for the Witnesses to come along so he could impart knowledge on them for their fight against Evil. Ichabod and Abbie try to explain to him that the need to find the engineers is more important at the moment. Abbie even discovers the reaver nest right under the chamber and the two engineers who are still alive. The problem is Jefferson is unwilling to risk destroying the nest because it would destroy the power source of the magic and all of the knowledge he and Washington gathered about the Witnesses would be forever lost. I can see the dilemma. They want to rescue the guys but they need this information in their fight. Ultimately, it’s no real decision at all. They rescue the guys and realize that to keep other people from finding the tunnels and the reavers, they have to destroy the chamber. Ichabod takes care of the deed and gets to share some final parting words with Jefferson’s spirit. Jefferson apologizes for rebuffing Ichabod. It turns out that in order to ensure that Ichabod and Abbie had the knowledge they needed, Ichabod needed to be kept at arms’ length. It was Jefferson’s biggest regret. Ichabod eventually convinces Jefferson that the ideals that built this country can still be honored even today. Jefferson understands and tells Ichabod where to set his charges to make sure everything blows. And Jefferson gives Ichabod some interesting parting words, that he (Ichabod) is as much a founding father of this country as the rest of them.
After the fact, Abbie explains to the journalist that things are still going to be happening and he needs to stop digging for the truth for a little while. After all it’s hard to be a Witness and do what they need to do with cameras going off in their faces. At least he seems to respect that. And it wouldn’t be Sleepy Hollow without something creepy going on with Katrina that no one else knows about. She wakes to find Henry sitting by her bed. He’s got some dead roses and he ends up pricking her hand, claiming he killed Moloch for her and he wants to reunite with her. He’s seriously got mommy issues. But it was a dream or so she initially thinks until she goes to splash some water on her face and her hand starts bleeding. I do hope our Witnesses find out what’s going on with Katrina before the finale in 2 weeks. They can’t be fighting threats from all sides.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Constantine 1.12: "Angels and Ministers of Grace"
“Nobody’s ever ready. Not for what we do. But this is the labyrinth we chose to walk, isn’t it?”
- Constantine
It’s hard to believe but we are one episode from the season (or more likely series) finale of “Constantine”. It’s been an interesting and crazy little show while it lasted and I for one am glad we got this chance to hang with Constantine and his crew. Speaking of, things are still a little off with our gang. Zed has kind of retreated from the world (into something of a Zen garden in the house). She seems to be afraid of her powers after what happened in New York. But she’s going to need to come out of hiding because Manny pays Constantine a visit (courtesy of Chas’s body) and says that they need to get to a particular hospital because there’s a girl named Taylor being brought in with an apparent overdose. We see her get some drugs from a guy and then something demonic attacks her and plunges both syringes into her chest. So, with a little coaxing and Chas stabbing himself in the leg with a screwdriver, they get to the hospital. Unfortunately, after Zed touches Taylor and has a rather scary vision about a burning hot light, she starts having another seizure.
Zed is sent for a CT scan and she’s kind of freaking out in the machine (understandable). Meanwhile, Constantine drags Chas down to the morgue to look at Taylor’s body. With a quick spell they determine that something made of dark matter killed her and it might be loose around the hospital. I’m guessing it might be just generally messing with people. There’s a guy who is getting skin grafts who got drunk and in a bar fight and wants to get fixed up and he’s just generally rude to the nursing staff. He yells at the custodian, too (who is constantly drinking on the job) but it’s the custodian who is the next victim.
It seems, too, that Zed’s visions may not be a divine gift after all. The ER doctor comes in and explains she’s got a small mass on one of the lobes of her brain and it could very likely be the cause of her visions and headaches. Constantine brushes it off but Zed is clearly upset. And at this point, Chas doesn’t even know because Constantine sent him back to the house to do some research. Constantine heads up to the roof to have a smoke when another doctor comes by to bum a light. Manny takes over the body and ends up in an argument over Zed’s condition with Constantine. So what does Constantine do? He uses some air from Hades to knock out our resident angel and then binds him to the body for a while. Manny protests this, claiming that he loses all connection to the angelic host and his powers by being in a body but Constantine doesn’t much care. They’ve got another dark matter attack to investigate and it turns out there custodian guy had a piece of the heart of darkness in him. According to Manny, there was a sorcerer who was super powerful until God kicked his ass and his power solidified into a giant rock of evil which got shattered and spread across the world in the Great Flood. Constantine tasks Manny with finding out if there were any connections between the two victims while he goes to home to check a theory. He has a piece of the dark diamond thing and he uses Chas to see how it works. While Chas is getting all evil and angry, Manny is experiencing some of the more sensual side of humanity. Namely the nurse who is flirting with him dragging him into a storage closet and giving him a blow job.
Constantine pages Manny and thinks they’ve got an idea on who the killer is once they realize the other victims were addicts who got sober and then fell off the wagon. The rude skin graft guy is who they are after until Constantine finds him and he’s being attacked by someone else. Unfortunately, Constantine doesn’t manage to save the skin graft guy. While he’s getting his ass handed to him, Manny does have a chance to talk to Zed (Constantine doesn’t handle emotions well as we’ve seen). Before they have a little heart to heart Zed’s doctor explains the biopsy procedure for the tumor and the audience learns he served in the military and has some shrapnel in his chest. Once he leaves and Zed calls Manny on not being a doctor, she is comforted to know that the tumor is there for a reason and her powers aren’t evil. Manny can’t confirm that they are a heavenly gift but Zed seems pretty relieved that she’s not demonic.
When Manny finds Constantine, the pieces start falling into place. The killer is Zed’s doctor and he gets very upset when Zed refuses the procedure and is checking herself out. Constantine and Manny show up and Constantine proves that the doctor is the killer because shards of the diamond are drawn together and it’s pulling on the doc’s chest something fierce. They have to chase him down and things are not looking good when a gate closes behind them all, locking them in. Zed says she understands now what her vision was and I have a feeling it’s going to be some light from heaven to scorch the doctor but we’ll see if I’m right. I was sort of right. Constantine reverses the spell on Manny and Manny ends up coming down and taking the doctor to heaven. The shard of the diamond is left behind and it combines with the shard that Constantine had but is safely tucked away in a little container. So not really smiting but still a good way to end. Zed ends up in the chapel and Constantine shows up to tell her that every morning he imagines all of the people he cares about are dead so when it actually happens, it won’t hurt as much. That’s a rather morbid way to start each day but in his line of work I suppose it’s reasonable. And now Constantine isn’t the only one who can see Manny. Constantine leaves Zed and Manny to chat about where Zed’s visions come from. She looked so at peace. The calm before the storm.
- Constantine
It’s hard to believe but we are one episode from the season (or more likely series) finale of “Constantine”. It’s been an interesting and crazy little show while it lasted and I for one am glad we got this chance to hang with Constantine and his crew. Speaking of, things are still a little off with our gang. Zed has kind of retreated from the world (into something of a Zen garden in the house). She seems to be afraid of her powers after what happened in New York. But she’s going to need to come out of hiding because Manny pays Constantine a visit (courtesy of Chas’s body) and says that they need to get to a particular hospital because there’s a girl named Taylor being brought in with an apparent overdose. We see her get some drugs from a guy and then something demonic attacks her and plunges both syringes into her chest. So, with a little coaxing and Chas stabbing himself in the leg with a screwdriver, they get to the hospital. Unfortunately, after Zed touches Taylor and has a rather scary vision about a burning hot light, she starts having another seizure.
Zed is sent for a CT scan and she’s kind of freaking out in the machine (understandable). Meanwhile, Constantine drags Chas down to the morgue to look at Taylor’s body. With a quick spell they determine that something made of dark matter killed her and it might be loose around the hospital. I’m guessing it might be just generally messing with people. There’s a guy who is getting skin grafts who got drunk and in a bar fight and wants to get fixed up and he’s just generally rude to the nursing staff. He yells at the custodian, too (who is constantly drinking on the job) but it’s the custodian who is the next victim.
It seems, too, that Zed’s visions may not be a divine gift after all. The ER doctor comes in and explains she’s got a small mass on one of the lobes of her brain and it could very likely be the cause of her visions and headaches. Constantine brushes it off but Zed is clearly upset. And at this point, Chas doesn’t even know because Constantine sent him back to the house to do some research. Constantine heads up to the roof to have a smoke when another doctor comes by to bum a light. Manny takes over the body and ends up in an argument over Zed’s condition with Constantine. So what does Constantine do? He uses some air from Hades to knock out our resident angel and then binds him to the body for a while. Manny protests this, claiming that he loses all connection to the angelic host and his powers by being in a body but Constantine doesn’t much care. They’ve got another dark matter attack to investigate and it turns out there custodian guy had a piece of the heart of darkness in him. According to Manny, there was a sorcerer who was super powerful until God kicked his ass and his power solidified into a giant rock of evil which got shattered and spread across the world in the Great Flood. Constantine tasks Manny with finding out if there were any connections between the two victims while he goes to home to check a theory. He has a piece of the dark diamond thing and he uses Chas to see how it works. While Chas is getting all evil and angry, Manny is experiencing some of the more sensual side of humanity. Namely the nurse who is flirting with him dragging him into a storage closet and giving him a blow job.
Constantine pages Manny and thinks they’ve got an idea on who the killer is once they realize the other victims were addicts who got sober and then fell off the wagon. The rude skin graft guy is who they are after until Constantine finds him and he’s being attacked by someone else. Unfortunately, Constantine doesn’t manage to save the skin graft guy. While he’s getting his ass handed to him, Manny does have a chance to talk to Zed (Constantine doesn’t handle emotions well as we’ve seen). Before they have a little heart to heart Zed’s doctor explains the biopsy procedure for the tumor and the audience learns he served in the military and has some shrapnel in his chest. Once he leaves and Zed calls Manny on not being a doctor, she is comforted to know that the tumor is there for a reason and her powers aren’t evil. Manny can’t confirm that they are a heavenly gift but Zed seems pretty relieved that she’s not demonic.
When Manny finds Constantine, the pieces start falling into place. The killer is Zed’s doctor and he gets very upset when Zed refuses the procedure and is checking herself out. Constantine and Manny show up and Constantine proves that the doctor is the killer because shards of the diamond are drawn together and it’s pulling on the doc’s chest something fierce. They have to chase him down and things are not looking good when a gate closes behind them all, locking them in. Zed says she understands now what her vision was and I have a feeling it’s going to be some light from heaven to scorch the doctor but we’ll see if I’m right. I was sort of right. Constantine reverses the spell on Manny and Manny ends up coming down and taking the doctor to heaven. The shard of the diamond is left behind and it combines with the shard that Constantine had but is safely tucked away in a little container. So not really smiting but still a good way to end. Zed ends up in the chapel and Constantine shows up to tell her that every morning he imagines all of the people he cares about are dead so when it actually happens, it won’t hurt as much. That’s a rather morbid way to start each day but in his line of work I suppose it’s reasonable. And now Constantine isn’t the only one who can see Manny. Constantine leaves Zed and Manny to chat about where Zed’s visions come from. She looked so at peace. The calm before the storm.
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Galavant 1.08: "It's All in the Executions"
“Everyone! I’m going to kill my brother! Drinks are on me!”
-King Richard
So let’s be real here. I have mixed feelings about the season finale of “Galavant,” the show I was so hoping I would insta-love. There were some very, very funny scenes, especially a sequence that made great use of the comedic and vocal chops of Tim Omundsen and Joshua Sasse. Let’s just say that drunk Galavant and King Richard was pretty darn epic. The final minutes of the episode also sent my imagination running through possible scenerios and adventures for a second season. That whole second season thing is the fundamental problem with this episode, though. As in there probably isn’t going to be one, if the ratings are any indication. Instead of a satisfying conclusion to this adventure with the promise of more to come in the future, we got a bunch of cliffhangers, one of which was especially creepy. Will we ever see Isabella rescued from the pinkest of Pretty, Pretty Princess locked bedrooms (that will make more sense soon – I promise)?
When we last saw our heroes, they had just been introduced to Richard’s older brother, Kingsley, who wants to take over the kingdom, including Valencia. Now they are all back in the dungeon. When the Jester finally stops singing the episode’s introduction, Galavant says he has a plan to free them all. He doesn’t exactly go into much detail about said plan, although he says he wants to use his wits as part of the plan. That would be a first! Isabella, overcome with the unresolved sexual tension gets close to Galavant and says she has confidence in him. The two almost kiss, but Galavant pulls away at the last minute. I think he’s afraid of something real with Isabella, although this isn’t really explored in depth. Sid warns Galavant that if he keeps it up, Isabella is going to friend zone him sooner rather than later.
Sticking with the goal to use his wits instead of brawn, Galavant manages to get an audience with King Richard by saying he has gossip to share about Madalena. Gareth doesn’t think King Richard will care, but shocker, he does. Very much so. Since Richard thinks he still has a chance with Madalena and all. Galavant tells Richard stories about how gross Madalena’s feet are, and they have a good laugh over it. Galavant suggests that he and Richard go for drinks, and Richard accepts. What follows is possibly one of my favorite scenes of “Galavant” (tied perhaps with the introduction of the Pirate King and his land pirates). Galavant and Richard go to a tavern, and they commiserate over how Madalena has burned both of them.
Near the end of their drinking session, Galavant plants the idea of killing Kingsley in Richard’s mind. Richard thinks it’s a fantastic idea, and they sing a pretty hilarious song called “Off on a Secret Mission” as they not-so-quietly sneak through the castle on their way to Kingsley’s chambers. On the way, they stop by the dungeons, and a drunk Galavant is kind of an ass to Isabella. He talks about how pretty she is (and to his credit, says he likes her brain too), and he tries to kiss her. Isabella, however, wants to make sure his feelings are genuine, so she tells him to try again when he’s sober. Shut down by Isabella, Galavant and Richard finally head to Kingsley’s chambers. Just as they’re about to stab him in his bed, the real Kingsley appears from behind a door with a bunch of guards, who of course catch Galavant and Richard and send them down to the dungeon. Kingsley even takes Richard’s crown to add insult to injury.
In the dungeon, Galavant slurs a bit more at Isabella (who kind of ignores him) before passing out. Before he falls asleep himself, Richard sings “Goodnight my Friend,” which is apparently a lullaby his nanny sang to him and Gareth when they were growing up. Because of where he is sitting in the dungeon, the song is some how piped throughout the castle, and it seems to give Gareth a change of heart about following Kingsley’s orders and being his champion. The next morning, Gareth goes to the dungeon and says he’s getting Richard out, but Galavant has to come too. Galavant (temporarily) fights off Gareth and (finally) kisses Isabella, but then he’s knocked out by a recovered Gareth.
Gareth takes Richard and Galavant to the beach and delivers them both to the pirates. Apparently Galavant and Richard are supposed to sail back to Richard’s kingdom, with Galavant as Richard’s bodyguard, basically. Gareth gives Galavant care and feeding instructions for Richard, which is kind of adorable. Gareth then goes back to the dungeon and frees everybody but Sid, who he keeps for “insurance.” Poor Sid! Gareth’s next stop is the throne room, where he is very honest to Kingsley and Madalena about the fact that he hasn’t killed any of the people they told him to kill. Kingsley is very pissed off about this, and he is just starting to really yell at Gareth about it when Madalena stabs him and he dies. Then she offers to make Gareth king. He accepts, and he sits on the throne next to her. Which is just weird, really. And what happens to Sid!?
Finally, Isabella, her parents, the Jester, Chef, and Gwynne all show up at Cousin Harry’s kingdom. Apparently it was the only place they could think to go after their big escape. Harry tells Isabella that he has a room all prepared for her. It’s actually kind of a separate tent thing, and inside is the girliest girly room you can imagine. Poor Isabella just looks resigned as she walks into the room and Harry locks the door behind her. She looks out the window much as Madalena did in the pilot episode, presumably hoping Galavant will come rescue her someday. It’s really super creepy and almost ruins the whole thing for me. Galavant sings a big, meta song about how whether or not they get a season two, it’s time for more adventures. I don’t love that there were so many cliffhangers, but I get what the creative team was trying to do. Whether or not the show is renewed, the hope is that the viewers will use their imaginations to continue the legend of Galavant. But did the ending have to be so darn creepy?
Marvel’s Agent Carter 1.05: “The Iron Ceiling”
“I’ve been trying to tell that story since I came home from war.”
- Thompson
We are starting to come into the home stretch of our time with Agent Peggy Carter. But before we pick up with the latest drama in the hunt for Howard Stark, we get a glimpse into Dottie’s past in Russia in 1937. There are lots of young girls and they’re being trained to fight. Young Dottie ends up killing her opponent. Yeah, so we now have seen the origins of the Black Widow program, even if they didn’t give it a name. In the present, Dottie is having breakfast with Peggy and with a little spy craft manages to snag Peggy’s room key out of her bag. Peggy obviously doesn’t notice as she’s got more pressing matters to deal with. Jarvis shows up and tries to get her to still help Howard but Peggy’s just pissed at being used. When Jarvis points out that the guys at the SSR don’t respect her, she says she’ll make them respect her. And it seems she will get that chance very soon. The office is in a tizzy over the coded message that popped up on the typewriter. When the code breaker the Chief brought in can’t crack it, Peggy jumps in. The message is a meeting about an exchange of weapons and it’s supposedly linked to both Leviathan and Stark.
Peggy doesn’t quite beg to go on the mission but she does have to flaunt a little of her skills (namely her connection to the Howling Commandos) to get put on mission. She’s forced to change in the men’s locker room and Sousa ends up stumbling across her (thanks to Thompson being a dick) and sees a couple of Peggy’s gunshot wound scars on her shoulder. Peggy thinks nothing of it as they head off to Russia to meet up with the Commandos. It seems they at least have respect for Peggy’s war efforts. It seems like none of them knew Peggy was so closely linked to Captain America. Well they sure know it now, thanks to one of the Commandos blabbing about Peggy’s connection. As they head over the border towards Russia, Sousa looks over photos of the mystery blond woman and spies the same scars (which he confirms via Peggy’s personnel file. She’s got some explaining to do when she gets home.
Thompson’s team and the Commandos settle in at camp and are exchanging stories when we learn a little more about Thompson and his war record. He got a Navy Cross for saving his entire camp from some Japanese soldiers. I guess it humanizes him a little bit but I still think he’s a sexist prick. Back in the US, the Chief meets with a reporter friend who explains that Stark was at the battlefield in Russia to do clean up and got into an argument with the general on site and then turned down a seven figure contract with the Army and severed ties. It seems the reporter isn’t too convinced that Howard is involved with selling weapons or that he was involved in the massacre at all.
Back in Russia, the group infiltrates the drop location in two teams of four. It turns out to be the same place where we saw young Dottie getting trained. They find a little girl and one of the Commandos tries to get close to the girl and tell her that everything is okay when the girl stabs him in the chest and takes off. I could totally see that coming a mile away. I do find it interesting how the show is building all of this mythology for the movies we already have. I know some people don’t like how interconnected all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is but I think it’s pretty cool. One of the other Commandos gets shot and the girl gets away. In tactical mode, Peggy takes over the lead and for once Thompson doesn’t seem to mind. They find an old man and a young guy locked up in a room. Interesting.
Back in the States, the Chief approaches Jarvis and starts to talk to him about Stark and the massacre. He explains that he’s not trying to railroad Stark. He just wants the truth. I want to believe him because the SSR were the good guys (though there probably were some Hydra agents in there somewhere) but I can’t completely do it. And we find Dottie break in to Peggy’s room and snoop around. She doesn’t find the hole in the wall with Cap’s blood but she does find photos of all of Stark’s inventions. She doesn’t take them but she still knows they are there.
It turns out that Leviathan stole blueprints for one of Stark’s inventions and they have mentally ill scientist trying to build it. Peggy busts them out of the prison but they end up in a fire fight and the scientist kind of loses it. He tries to bargain the lives of the Commandos for his freedom. Thompson ends up shooting him and then gets hit with some PTSD and freezes up. Peggy takes charge and gets them out of there (minus one SSR agent) and back to the States relatively safely. Thompson admits on the flight home that the soldiers he killed during the war were carrying a flag of surrender and he’s felt guilty about it ever since. It seems he’s got a new respect for Peggy which is good and I did kind of feel bad for him, carrying around all that guilt. Back at headquarters, Thompson, Peggy and the Chief kind of agree that there’s more to the story than they have but they don’t think Stark is involved with Leviathan. That’s something at least. But Sousa is still acting kind of weird around Peggy. I have a feeling he’s going to confront her soon about her involvement with Stark. And as if Dottie wasn’t creepy enough, that night, she climbs into bed and handcuffs herself to the headboard like they did to her at Black Widow camp.
- Thompson
We are starting to come into the home stretch of our time with Agent Peggy Carter. But before we pick up with the latest drama in the hunt for Howard Stark, we get a glimpse into Dottie’s past in Russia in 1937. There are lots of young girls and they’re being trained to fight. Young Dottie ends up killing her opponent. Yeah, so we now have seen the origins of the Black Widow program, even if they didn’t give it a name. In the present, Dottie is having breakfast with Peggy and with a little spy craft manages to snag Peggy’s room key out of her bag. Peggy obviously doesn’t notice as she’s got more pressing matters to deal with. Jarvis shows up and tries to get her to still help Howard but Peggy’s just pissed at being used. When Jarvis points out that the guys at the SSR don’t respect her, she says she’ll make them respect her. And it seems she will get that chance very soon. The office is in a tizzy over the coded message that popped up on the typewriter. When the code breaker the Chief brought in can’t crack it, Peggy jumps in. The message is a meeting about an exchange of weapons and it’s supposedly linked to both Leviathan and Stark.
Peggy doesn’t quite beg to go on the mission but she does have to flaunt a little of her skills (namely her connection to the Howling Commandos) to get put on mission. She’s forced to change in the men’s locker room and Sousa ends up stumbling across her (thanks to Thompson being a dick) and sees a couple of Peggy’s gunshot wound scars on her shoulder. Peggy thinks nothing of it as they head off to Russia to meet up with the Commandos. It seems they at least have respect for Peggy’s war efforts. It seems like none of them knew Peggy was so closely linked to Captain America. Well they sure know it now, thanks to one of the Commandos blabbing about Peggy’s connection. As they head over the border towards Russia, Sousa looks over photos of the mystery blond woman and spies the same scars (which he confirms via Peggy’s personnel file. She’s got some explaining to do when she gets home.
Thompson’s team and the Commandos settle in at camp and are exchanging stories when we learn a little more about Thompson and his war record. He got a Navy Cross for saving his entire camp from some Japanese soldiers. I guess it humanizes him a little bit but I still think he’s a sexist prick. Back in the US, the Chief meets with a reporter friend who explains that Stark was at the battlefield in Russia to do clean up and got into an argument with the general on site and then turned down a seven figure contract with the Army and severed ties. It seems the reporter isn’t too convinced that Howard is involved with selling weapons or that he was involved in the massacre at all.
Back in Russia, the group infiltrates the drop location in two teams of four. It turns out to be the same place where we saw young Dottie getting trained. They find a little girl and one of the Commandos tries to get close to the girl and tell her that everything is okay when the girl stabs him in the chest and takes off. I could totally see that coming a mile away. I do find it interesting how the show is building all of this mythology for the movies we already have. I know some people don’t like how interconnected all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is but I think it’s pretty cool. One of the other Commandos gets shot and the girl gets away. In tactical mode, Peggy takes over the lead and for once Thompson doesn’t seem to mind. They find an old man and a young guy locked up in a room. Interesting.
Back in the States, the Chief approaches Jarvis and starts to talk to him about Stark and the massacre. He explains that he’s not trying to railroad Stark. He just wants the truth. I want to believe him because the SSR were the good guys (though there probably were some Hydra agents in there somewhere) but I can’t completely do it. And we find Dottie break in to Peggy’s room and snoop around. She doesn’t find the hole in the wall with Cap’s blood but she does find photos of all of Stark’s inventions. She doesn’t take them but she still knows they are there.
It turns out that Leviathan stole blueprints for one of Stark’s inventions and they have mentally ill scientist trying to build it. Peggy busts them out of the prison but they end up in a fire fight and the scientist kind of loses it. He tries to bargain the lives of the Commandos for his freedom. Thompson ends up shooting him and then gets hit with some PTSD and freezes up. Peggy takes charge and gets them out of there (minus one SSR agent) and back to the States relatively safely. Thompson admits on the flight home that the soldiers he killed during the war were carrying a flag of surrender and he’s felt guilty about it ever since. It seems he’s got a new respect for Peggy which is good and I did kind of feel bad for him, carrying around all that guilt. Back at headquarters, Thompson, Peggy and the Chief kind of agree that there’s more to the story than they have but they don’t think Stark is involved with Leviathan. That’s something at least. But Sousa is still acting kind of weird around Peggy. I have a feeling he’s going to confront her soon about her involvement with Stark. And as if Dottie wasn’t creepy enough, that night, she climbs into bed and handcuffs herself to the headboard like they did to her at Black Widow camp.
Sleepy Hollow 2.15: "Spellcaster"
“We don’t fight against something. We fight for something. Love, family, a life. I pray we never lose sight of what is important.”
- Ichabod
We are nearing the end of our second year with our Witnesses and things are starting to get a little strange. At an auction house, a curator comes across a journal of John Dee. No sooner does he hand it off to his assistant and take a phone call then a man in seventeenth century garb appears and steals the book, killing the assistant and a guard via blood magic. Yeah, that’s not a good sign. Elsewhere, Ichabod is house hunting and he needed Abbie to translate realtor speak. Of course there’s more to buying a house than that, many items which Ichabod doesn’t have (an income, a credit history). But he’s trying to look forward. Abbie clues Ichabod in on the case and they seek out Katrina’s help. With a little research on her part and some snazzy FBI technology, they get an image of the killer and Katrina IDs him as Solomon Kent, a warlock that all witches fear. As they talk about him, we see that he’s performing dark ritual via blood magic and trying to raise evil from Dee’s journal.
Speaking of raising evil, we find that Henry has been hiding out in long-term hotel lodging. It seems he just wants to be left alone but flipping through channels on TV alerts him to the present murder case and he recounts that he’s seen blood boiled in a body before. I have a feeling he’s either done that type of magic before or seen it. I don’t think he was old enough to have crossed paths with Kent, although at this point we don’t’ know when he was put to death. I am happy to see that Henry is back. He’s been sorely missed these last few episodes. But he does sort of bond a little with the hotel manager’s son who has come to fix the broken faucet. I really want to see him team up with mom and dad to kick Kent’s ass.
We get a rather interesting twist on the Salem Witch Trials once Abbie learns that Kent settled in Massachusetts and was a pastor. Katrina gets to fill in the rest thanks to her own family’s history there. Kent was once a good man and the leader of a strong coven, which is why Katrina’s grandmother settled there. Unfortunately, Kent fell in love with a woman who didn’t reciprocate his feelings and he used dark magic to cover up the fact he accidentally killed her. Kent was solely responsible for starting the trials and he even had Katrina’s grandmother hanged when she tried to implore him to see reason. Katrina’s family fled Salem and eventually the rest of the coven found Kent and banished him to Purgatory. Mrs. Crane also believes she might be able to follow the journal’s magical signature so they head to the auction house. She doesn’t know where it is but she sees that Kent’s attempt to access the magic within fails because the book has been split. Dee apparently made it so that the book had to be whole to work. So now they’re off to find the rest of the journal before Kent. And we still don’t know how Henry is going to factor into all this yet.
The gang heads to a warehouse after Abbie discovers that the missing pages were in a delayed shipment. She also gets a brief visit from Irving. He’s not holding grudges and he understands the hesitation to trust him but he claims Katrina said his soul was clear. I really don’t know for sure about that. But we will have to ponder it later because Kent makes it to the warehouse, too. He takes out Ichabod and Abbie and Katrina gets to throw a little power around and sort of taunt him with the fact that she’s going to stop him for her family’s sake. But he throws the fact that she’s limiting herself by being good back in her face and then uses some blood minions to keep the Witnesses busy. Kent tries to convince Katrina to give in to the dark side and she kind of goes there for a brief moment but pulls herself back. It’s enough time for Kent to insert the missing pages and abscond with the journal.
Katrina feigns being too weak to face Kent again. But she sort of admits to Ichabod that she has lots of parts to her magic that she’s never accessed or explored. While she’s resting, Abbie seeks out Irving to find out what she can about his return to prep for a zombie apocalypse. But it turns out that Kent’s plan may not be to resurrect his lost love but to go back in time and change the past to keep her from dying in the first place. Ichabod points out just how bad that would be for them and the history of the country in general.
Back at the hotel, Henry overhears an argument with the owner and some thugs who are staying there. It looks like Henry wants to smite the crap out of said thugs but he just turns around and goes inside. I’m seriously waiting for him to do something other than mope around because dude needs to take some action. This isn’t really an identity crisis as much as just moping around. While he’s mulling over his future, the Witnesses and Irving face off against Kent. They use modern technology and the elements to defeat him. Well to weaken him enough for Ichabod to get close and pound the ever living shit out of his face for hurting Katrina and her family. Things are not as they seem though when the Witnesses go off looking for Irving and he steps over Kent’s body, breaks his neck and steals the journal. He readily lies to them that the journal is gone along with Kent’s body. I guess it was a good thing I felt a little off about Irving because after Henry starts using his powers again (he kills the thugs but not out of a sense of defending the weak) he meets up with Irving and takes possession of the journal. Irving is most definitely Henry’s servant. Whether Katrina saw it or not is unclear. She’s dealing with her own magical problems as she starts exploring the darker side of her own powers. Abbie and Ichabod better be real careful about the people around them.
- Ichabod
We are nearing the end of our second year with our Witnesses and things are starting to get a little strange. At an auction house, a curator comes across a journal of John Dee. No sooner does he hand it off to his assistant and take a phone call then a man in seventeenth century garb appears and steals the book, killing the assistant and a guard via blood magic. Yeah, that’s not a good sign. Elsewhere, Ichabod is house hunting and he needed Abbie to translate realtor speak. Of course there’s more to buying a house than that, many items which Ichabod doesn’t have (an income, a credit history). But he’s trying to look forward. Abbie clues Ichabod in on the case and they seek out Katrina’s help. With a little research on her part and some snazzy FBI technology, they get an image of the killer and Katrina IDs him as Solomon Kent, a warlock that all witches fear. As they talk about him, we see that he’s performing dark ritual via blood magic and trying to raise evil from Dee’s journal.
Speaking of raising evil, we find that Henry has been hiding out in long-term hotel lodging. It seems he just wants to be left alone but flipping through channels on TV alerts him to the present murder case and he recounts that he’s seen blood boiled in a body before. I have a feeling he’s either done that type of magic before or seen it. I don’t think he was old enough to have crossed paths with Kent, although at this point we don’t’ know when he was put to death. I am happy to see that Henry is back. He’s been sorely missed these last few episodes. But he does sort of bond a little with the hotel manager’s son who has come to fix the broken faucet. I really want to see him team up with mom and dad to kick Kent’s ass.
We get a rather interesting twist on the Salem Witch Trials once Abbie learns that Kent settled in Massachusetts and was a pastor. Katrina gets to fill in the rest thanks to her own family’s history there. Kent was once a good man and the leader of a strong coven, which is why Katrina’s grandmother settled there. Unfortunately, Kent fell in love with a woman who didn’t reciprocate his feelings and he used dark magic to cover up the fact he accidentally killed her. Kent was solely responsible for starting the trials and he even had Katrina’s grandmother hanged when she tried to implore him to see reason. Katrina’s family fled Salem and eventually the rest of the coven found Kent and banished him to Purgatory. Mrs. Crane also believes she might be able to follow the journal’s magical signature so they head to the auction house. She doesn’t know where it is but she sees that Kent’s attempt to access the magic within fails because the book has been split. Dee apparently made it so that the book had to be whole to work. So now they’re off to find the rest of the journal before Kent. And we still don’t know how Henry is going to factor into all this yet.
The gang heads to a warehouse after Abbie discovers that the missing pages were in a delayed shipment. She also gets a brief visit from Irving. He’s not holding grudges and he understands the hesitation to trust him but he claims Katrina said his soul was clear. I really don’t know for sure about that. But we will have to ponder it later because Kent makes it to the warehouse, too. He takes out Ichabod and Abbie and Katrina gets to throw a little power around and sort of taunt him with the fact that she’s going to stop him for her family’s sake. But he throws the fact that she’s limiting herself by being good back in her face and then uses some blood minions to keep the Witnesses busy. Kent tries to convince Katrina to give in to the dark side and she kind of goes there for a brief moment but pulls herself back. It’s enough time for Kent to insert the missing pages and abscond with the journal.
Katrina feigns being too weak to face Kent again. But she sort of admits to Ichabod that she has lots of parts to her magic that she’s never accessed or explored. While she’s resting, Abbie seeks out Irving to find out what she can about his return to prep for a zombie apocalypse. But it turns out that Kent’s plan may not be to resurrect his lost love but to go back in time and change the past to keep her from dying in the first place. Ichabod points out just how bad that would be for them and the history of the country in general.
Back at the hotel, Henry overhears an argument with the owner and some thugs who are staying there. It looks like Henry wants to smite the crap out of said thugs but he just turns around and goes inside. I’m seriously waiting for him to do something other than mope around because dude needs to take some action. This isn’t really an identity crisis as much as just moping around. While he’s mulling over his future, the Witnesses and Irving face off against Kent. They use modern technology and the elements to defeat him. Well to weaken him enough for Ichabod to get close and pound the ever living shit out of his face for hurting Katrina and her family. Things are not as they seem though when the Witnesses go off looking for Irving and he steps over Kent’s body, breaks his neck and steals the journal. He readily lies to them that the journal is gone along with Kent’s body. I guess it was a good thing I felt a little off about Irving because after Henry starts using his powers again (he kills the thugs but not out of a sense of defending the weak) he meets up with Irving and takes possession of the journal. Irving is most definitely Henry’s servant. Whether Katrina saw it or not is unclear. She’s dealing with her own magical problems as she starts exploring the darker side of her own powers. Abbie and Ichabod better be real careful about the people around them.
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
New Girl 4.13: "Coming Out"
“I’m not gonna sit around here all day like an off-duty ice cream truck driver!”
-Schmidt
“Coming Out” was an interesting meditation on several of the roomies deciding to really seize what they want from life. I still don’t buy Jess and Ryan’s relationship (yeah, I know he’s adorable and British, and while that’s a great start, I don’t see what else Jess likes about him), but I appreciated Jess taking charge and owning her supervisory position as vice principal. It’s a lesson I feel like I need to work on myself. When you’re a supervisor, you can’t please everybody all the time. You can only do your best and own your decisions once you’ve made them. I think it was an important breakthrough for Jess, and I thought it was kind of cheapened by her declaring her love for Ryan in front of the whole faculty. Schmidt and Nick also had to learn how to achieve a better work/life balance. I’m definitely more on the Schmidt end of that spectrum, so there were lessons in abundance there too. The less said about the “Winston and his crystal necklace” plot, the better. Poor Winston needs to get more plot love!
The episode opens with the aforementioned Winston and his crystal. Winston’s new LAPD coworkers are having him wear the crystal as a sort of hazing ritual, but Winston actually likes it because it makes him feel powerful. He discusses this with Nick and Kai, who haven’t moved from the living room couch since Thursday. Have I mentioned yet how bad I think Kai is for Nick? She enables his laziest tendencies, when he could be much more. Schmidt enters the room and is clearly having stomach pains. Nick and Kai convince Schmidt to go to the doctor, where we learn that Schmidt has had ongoing stomach ulcer issues, but he hasn’t been taking his medicine. The nurse at the doctor’s office tells Schmidt that he needs to take some time off work, but he really doesn’t want to. He thinks Gina really needs him, and if he just keeps at it, he’ll get the more challenging accounts (like “red potatoes”) that he really wants.
That same morning, Coach walks in on Jess and Ryan in bed. He’s done a bunch of research, and he doesn’t think Jess and Ryan need to keep their relationship a secret. He found a court case that says someone in Jess’ situation can’t be punished. Coach is invested in the situation because he wants to be the “hot teacher” at school again, and currently all the ladies on faculty are fawning over Ryan. Jess goes to the principal and tells him about the relationship. He says he’s good with it, but he warns Jess that once they find out, the other teachers are going to tear Jess apart at any hint of favoritism. Jess is tested immediately when, after she announces the relationship to the faculty, she has to evaluate field trip proposals. Ryan’s proposal is clearly the best by a long shot, so Jess chooses it, but the rest of the faculty are in an uproar over favoritism.
Back at the loft, Schmidt is trying to leave for work against doctor’s orders, so Nick and Kai ambush him. Schmidt keeps protesting that Gina needs him, but eventually they swaddle Schmidt to get him to take a nap instead of going to work. Schmidt takes one day off, but after that, he’s really itching to get back to work. He takes an old school (seriously...from the 1980s) Macintosh into the bathroom (Nick calls this computer his “word processor”) and tries working on that. Nick finds Schmidt and gets upset that Schmidt isn’t resting. The two have a big fight over their respective work habits. Schmidt is disappointed that Nick has become a lazy bum when he used to always have good ideas and want something more out of life. Nick is disappointed that Schmidt is working himself into health issues for a boss who doesn’t really care about him. Each of them have valid points. The scene ends with the old school computer playing the theme of the old PBS game show “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” 8-bit style. Which is awesome, although the old Carmen Sandiego computer games never (unfortunately) used the theme song from the TV show.
Jess holds her usual office hours, and instead of nobody showing up, she’s got a long line of very angry teachers to deal with. Jess offers to hear their concerns one-by-one, but none of them really have anything substantive to say. They’re all just angry. To get everyone to calm down, Jess offers to switch the field trip to the creepy biology teacher’s foliage viewing idea. Ryan is upset by all of this (since Jess was clearly upset enough to change the field trip), and he offers to find a different job to improve the situation. Jess tells him not to do that. The field trip itself is a complete disaster. It turns out to just be a chance to have all the kids do the massive amount of yard work at the creepy biology’s teacher’s farm. Jess calls the trip off, and in the chaos, the biology teacher disturbs a wasp nest. Everybody ends up stung pretty badly.
Even with Jess and Ryan’s relationship out in the open, Coach is still not getting any love from his coworkers. Apparently the ladies have all decided they want someone like Ryan. We finally harken back to a characteristic we learned about Coach way back in the pilot – his tendency to yell even when he doesn’t really mean to. Winston, of course, advises the use of a crystal necklace. Coach instead tries dressing like Ryan (although Winston still recommends the crystal). Coach eventually decides to just be himself around the ladies, and they do show a little more interest, but the whole thing gets derailed when Coach admits that he has a wasp sting in his crotch area. Guess that’s kind of a buzzkill!
After their argument, Nick and Schmidt each try to change their ways a bit. Nick actually gets up before noon and tries to be a little productive, which completely freaks Winston out. Schmidt goes back to work, but the ulcer is still bothering him. He finally flat-out asks Gina for the red potato account, but Gina says she wants to keep him right where she can find him as a mid-level employee forever. He’s good at what he’s doing right now, so why would she want to sacrifice that? After work, Schmidt and Nick apologize to each other. They decide they want to try working together again, although a “jamming ideas” session, doesn’t exactly go well. Nick really wants to build some sort of robot, but Schmidt thinks that could be a bad idea.
At the bar, Jess talks with Cece and Coach about the disastrous field trip. Cece says that jess needs to own her decisions, and she can’t please everyone all the time. The staff doesn’t need to always like Jess, but they do need to listen to her. Jess takes this advice to heart and has another staff meeting where she tells it like it is. She says she’s going to make some decisions folks don’t like, but they’re going to have to deal with it. She loves her job and she loves Ryan (again, where the heck did that come from?). She finally earns the respect of her staff, and Ryan is quite pleased, too. At the end of the day, the gang is back at the bar, and Winston gives Coach the crystal necklace. Then they all line dance to some country music playing on the juke box (apparently country line dancing was Coach’s biggest fear, and by the power of the crystal, he is now able to overcome it). I do always like it when a “New Girl” episode ends with dancing.
-Schmidt
“Coming Out” was an interesting meditation on several of the roomies deciding to really seize what they want from life. I still don’t buy Jess and Ryan’s relationship (yeah, I know he’s adorable and British, and while that’s a great start, I don’t see what else Jess likes about him), but I appreciated Jess taking charge and owning her supervisory position as vice principal. It’s a lesson I feel like I need to work on myself. When you’re a supervisor, you can’t please everybody all the time. You can only do your best and own your decisions once you’ve made them. I think it was an important breakthrough for Jess, and I thought it was kind of cheapened by her declaring her love for Ryan in front of the whole faculty. Schmidt and Nick also had to learn how to achieve a better work/life balance. I’m definitely more on the Schmidt end of that spectrum, so there were lessons in abundance there too. The less said about the “Winston and his crystal necklace” plot, the better. Poor Winston needs to get more plot love!
The episode opens with the aforementioned Winston and his crystal. Winston’s new LAPD coworkers are having him wear the crystal as a sort of hazing ritual, but Winston actually likes it because it makes him feel powerful. He discusses this with Nick and Kai, who haven’t moved from the living room couch since Thursday. Have I mentioned yet how bad I think Kai is for Nick? She enables his laziest tendencies, when he could be much more. Schmidt enters the room and is clearly having stomach pains. Nick and Kai convince Schmidt to go to the doctor, where we learn that Schmidt has had ongoing stomach ulcer issues, but he hasn’t been taking his medicine. The nurse at the doctor’s office tells Schmidt that he needs to take some time off work, but he really doesn’t want to. He thinks Gina really needs him, and if he just keeps at it, he’ll get the more challenging accounts (like “red potatoes”) that he really wants.
That same morning, Coach walks in on Jess and Ryan in bed. He’s done a bunch of research, and he doesn’t think Jess and Ryan need to keep their relationship a secret. He found a court case that says someone in Jess’ situation can’t be punished. Coach is invested in the situation because he wants to be the “hot teacher” at school again, and currently all the ladies on faculty are fawning over Ryan. Jess goes to the principal and tells him about the relationship. He says he’s good with it, but he warns Jess that once they find out, the other teachers are going to tear Jess apart at any hint of favoritism. Jess is tested immediately when, after she announces the relationship to the faculty, she has to evaluate field trip proposals. Ryan’s proposal is clearly the best by a long shot, so Jess chooses it, but the rest of the faculty are in an uproar over favoritism.
Back at the loft, Schmidt is trying to leave for work against doctor’s orders, so Nick and Kai ambush him. Schmidt keeps protesting that Gina needs him, but eventually they swaddle Schmidt to get him to take a nap instead of going to work. Schmidt takes one day off, but after that, he’s really itching to get back to work. He takes an old school (seriously...from the 1980s) Macintosh into the bathroom (Nick calls this computer his “word processor”) and tries working on that. Nick finds Schmidt and gets upset that Schmidt isn’t resting. The two have a big fight over their respective work habits. Schmidt is disappointed that Nick has become a lazy bum when he used to always have good ideas and want something more out of life. Nick is disappointed that Schmidt is working himself into health issues for a boss who doesn’t really care about him. Each of them have valid points. The scene ends with the old school computer playing the theme of the old PBS game show “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” 8-bit style. Which is awesome, although the old Carmen Sandiego computer games never (unfortunately) used the theme song from the TV show.
Jess holds her usual office hours, and instead of nobody showing up, she’s got a long line of very angry teachers to deal with. Jess offers to hear their concerns one-by-one, but none of them really have anything substantive to say. They’re all just angry. To get everyone to calm down, Jess offers to switch the field trip to the creepy biology teacher’s foliage viewing idea. Ryan is upset by all of this (since Jess was clearly upset enough to change the field trip), and he offers to find a different job to improve the situation. Jess tells him not to do that. The field trip itself is a complete disaster. It turns out to just be a chance to have all the kids do the massive amount of yard work at the creepy biology’s teacher’s farm. Jess calls the trip off, and in the chaos, the biology teacher disturbs a wasp nest. Everybody ends up stung pretty badly.
Even with Jess and Ryan’s relationship out in the open, Coach is still not getting any love from his coworkers. Apparently the ladies have all decided they want someone like Ryan. We finally harken back to a characteristic we learned about Coach way back in the pilot – his tendency to yell even when he doesn’t really mean to. Winston, of course, advises the use of a crystal necklace. Coach instead tries dressing like Ryan (although Winston still recommends the crystal). Coach eventually decides to just be himself around the ladies, and they do show a little more interest, but the whole thing gets derailed when Coach admits that he has a wasp sting in his crotch area. Guess that’s kind of a buzzkill!
After their argument, Nick and Schmidt each try to change their ways a bit. Nick actually gets up before noon and tries to be a little productive, which completely freaks Winston out. Schmidt goes back to work, but the ulcer is still bothering him. He finally flat-out asks Gina for the red potato account, but Gina says she wants to keep him right where she can find him as a mid-level employee forever. He’s good at what he’s doing right now, so why would she want to sacrifice that? After work, Schmidt and Nick apologize to each other. They decide they want to try working together again, although a “jamming ideas” session, doesn’t exactly go well. Nick really wants to build some sort of robot, but Schmidt thinks that could be a bad idea.
At the bar, Jess talks with Cece and Coach about the disastrous field trip. Cece says that jess needs to own her decisions, and she can’t please everyone all the time. The staff doesn’t need to always like Jess, but they do need to listen to her. Jess takes this advice to heart and has another staff meeting where she tells it like it is. She says she’s going to make some decisions folks don’t like, but they’re going to have to deal with it. She loves her job and she loves Ryan (again, where the heck did that come from?). She finally earns the respect of her staff, and Ryan is quite pleased, too. At the end of the day, the gang is back at the bar, and Winston gives Coach the crystal necklace. Then they all line dance to some country music playing on the juke box (apparently country line dancing was Coach’s biggest fear, and by the power of the crystal, he is now able to overcome it). I do always like it when a “New Girl” episode ends with dancing.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Galavant 1.07: "My Cousin Izzy"
“It’s too late now, isn’t it? It’s out there. It’s ratting around in my head taking up space where fight thoughts should be.”
-Galavant
“My Cousin Izzy” was a fairly entertaining episode with some of the best music since the “Galavant” series premiere. Galavant had a big ballad about his “Moment in the Sun” (that we didn’t actually get to hear much of because he kept being interrupted). And Chef and Gwynne had an adorably dark “Sweeny Todd”-esque duet about how they should poison the food of all the royals. The season is rapidly coming to a close, and this episode sets us up for the big finale. It was kind of marking time, plot-wise, but it was a fun way to mark time. We also got to learn a bit more about what makes Galavant tick, which is always welcome. Now if only we could learn more about what made Madalena so heinous other than growing up poor. Because there has to be more to it than that.
The episode opens with a flashback to “30 winters ago” that features a young Galavant. Not all that surprisingly, young Galavant was a bullied kid. His father (played by the awesome Anthony Stewart Head of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Merlin” fame) finds Galavant sitting, dejected in his “underarmor.” Galavant’s father tells his son that he needs to learn to suppress his emotions, because that’s the only way he will ever be a true hero. He starts to sing the song I mentioned in the intro about Galavant havings his “Moment in the Sun,” but he’s interrupted by his nagging wife. It was great to get to see Tony Head sing again – the only other show where I’ve seen him sing is “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” where he has a coffeeshop performance in the fourth season and of course does a great deal of singing in the sixth season musical episode, “Once More, With Feeling.”
In the present day, Galavant and crew are still in the dungeons (although they seem to be solidly locked up now – very strange considering they discovered the cells were unlocked in the last episode. Galavant really wants to save everybody (himself, Isabella, Sid, Isabella’s parents, and the Jester), and he is convinced that will be his “Moment in the Sun.” He starts singing about it, but then he gets interrupted. Unfortunately for Galavant, Isabella’s parents don’t approve of him. They tell Isabella that they have written to her cousin Harry asking him to come save them, and they remind her that she is engaged to him. Isabella wants to talk to Galavant about their feelings for each other, but Galavant says he’s in “hero mode” and needs to put all that aside for a little while. He does, however, sing a little more of “Moment in the Sun” before all the prisoners are brought upstairs to the throne room.
In the throne room, Madalena introduces the whole sorry cast of characters to Kingsley. Richard and Kingsley are going to duel for the kingdom. Since he’s nothing if not a coward, Richard wants each of them to choose a champion to fight, “Game of Thrones”-style. Kingsley immediately chooses Gareth because he knows that will really upset Richard (Gareth has always been Richard’s champion since childhood). Richard is stuck choosing Galavant. Galavant, for his part, is super psyched about this and starts singing (again) about how he’s going to save everyone and it will be his “Moment in the Sun.” This time however, he is interrupted by a good chloroforming.
Everybody is brought outside to the big tournament field for the duel. Inside, there’s a cute (but sad) scene between Chef and Gwynne where Gwynne says she doesn’t want to get too attached because they are both probably going to die. There are multiple royal families fighting, and when that happens, the poor are always the ones to suffer in the aftermath. Galavant and Isabella also have a bit of a moment, where Galavant tells Isabella again that he has to put his feelings for her aside for now, because if he didn’t, they would definitely affect his mindset in the fight ahead. Just as the duel is supposed to start, Prince Harry and his army arrive. It turns out that Prince Harry is a little kid. My reaction to that was just “Ew!”
King Richard is nervous about losing his kingdom, so he delays the big duel by saying that protocol dictates the need to throw a big welcome feast for Prince Harry. Chef is asked to put all the food together on very short notice, and he’s pretty pissed off about it. In the course of a very Sondheim-esque, right out of “Sweeny Todd” duet, Gwynne convinces Chef to poison all the food for the feast. They plan out a separate, painful poison for each course of the meal. This number was very entertaining (although quite morbid). Ultimately, though, Chef can’t bring himself to be a mass murderer. Over the years, he has learned the food allergies of all the members of King Richard’s court, so he decides to include ingredients everyone is allergic to instead (must be mildly allergic, because nobody goes into anaphylactic shock or anything). Chef figures that if they (all the servants and the poor) are going to die, they can at least enjoy watching the discomfort of the royals first. Gwynne is happy to be reminded that there are still goodhearted people in the world.
Meanwhile, back down in the dungeon, Sid hears all the commotion outside and thinks Galavant is dead. He and the Jester work up a plan to free themselves and Isabella’s parents (they steal some keys off a guard). After some sneaking around, they wind up in the throne room, where the big feast is in chaos due to everyone having allergic reactions. Sid throws Galavant his sword, and Galavant starts fighting people, but the fighting doesn’t last for long. Galavant and Isabella get close to each other (Galavant warns her off eating the crab she’s allergic too), and they almost kiss, but Galavant starts singing “Moment in the Sun” (again) instead. If only he wasn’t such a darn narcissist! Anyway, Harry decides to leave because Isabella clearly has feelings for Galavant. Richard decides he’s going to fight in the duel himself, even though it means he’s going to have to fight Gareth. No matter who wins, though, everyone agrees on one thing. Chef is going to have to die for the allergy attack.
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