Tag: Episode 2

Sleepy Hollow: In Plain Sight – Witness Protection (Review)

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Sleepy Hollow with its new improved Ichabod Crane “2.0” has hit the Washington streets running this season. “In Plain Sight” was a fast paced and suspense filled bit of fun. Also hidden in plain sight was a nod and a wink to that play “Macbeth” for those not beholden to theatrical superstitions) with three not very nice witches.

The gag here was that George Washington hired the three broomstick gals to sniff out the truth. As one character says, somewhat sarcastically, “They must be the real reason George couldn’t tell a lie.” Very tongue in cheek yet, per the guidelines of the main plot, spot on.

Molly Thomas, while not the reincarnation of Abbie Mills, is indeed the new witness and is such a tender age (10) that she will need to be protected. One assumes that Jenny and Ichabod will also be protecting Molly’s mum from this staggering bit of truth as well.

Thus far, Ichabod’s field partner is taking all the mumbo jumbo and “secret” Washington stuff pretty well. She even managed to take in all that “glamour” hocus-pocus without missing too much of a beat.

On a sidenote, Diana got more bent out of shape at Jenny stopping two mean girls from picking on her daughter. Rather than thanking her kid’s saviour she reacted hostilely.  Granted, it made her delight all that more palpable when Molly started talking but…

As one reader noted, this season’s cast are impressive and pretty interesting. Granted, some of them are a tad “trope-worthy,” coming close to becoming a cliche. For instance, Alex Norwood feels a little too Velma-ish, albeit sans glasses and much more of a scrapper, she was all too ready to take on whatever came out of that vault.

She does work out that Ichabod Crane has to be the Ichabod Crane of legend and, in this verse, history. This does not have Alex rushing to befriend the guy, quite the reverse, and despite Jake’s almost instance acceptance, she wants to know more about why Crane is really there.

The main plot line, dealt with season four bad guy Malcolm Dreyfuss collecting a knife from three witches. These magical women have been around since the Salem days and used the instrument Dreyfuss wants incorrectly.

Moll, it seems, had been lying for centuries about the knife’s powers. Faster than one can say naughty Moll, the other two force a snake from her body and kill her.

Diana, Jenny and Ichabod find the body and soon learn that the dead woman looks much different when seen through the lens of a smartphone camera.

The two sisters, after having concluded their deal with Malcolm, go out on the town and kill two lying sleaze balls who cheat on their wives.  Diana and Ichabod visit the crime scene, alerted by the tattoo BOLO they released earlier, and head back to where they found Molly’s body.

Using the smartphone again, Crane finds their hidden witches lair and they investigate. The witches return after Diana breaks their protective spell over the house and pays the price immediately. Jenny rushes to her aid which leave Crane to face the other one.

After a few tense moments the glamour is broken and the two old gals turn to dust. Malcolm is still piecing together his plans of destruction or whatever it is he is up to.

We learn that Molly is indeed the new witness and that Dreyfuss is working to bring back the headless horseman. Previews of the next episode makes it look like the old chap might be in for an upgrade.

Season four of Sleepy Hollow looks like a case of one step forward and two steps back.  Harking back to the more familiar whilst changing the locale and the mission somewhat.

The new cast and the introduction of a very young witness has changed the dynamic. The re-imagining was needed as the show was getting a tad stale. Some of the new players are more interesting than others. Alex, played by Rachel Melvin, is already a favorite character and Molly, as Abbie’s replacement, is an interesting choice, for a kid, Oona Yaffe is showing some impressive chops.

Sleepy Hollow airs Fridays on FOX.  This season is starting off with a bang and if it keeps going in this direction, should get some of its magic back (pun intended).

Cast:

Guest starring Sara Sanderson as Moll, Kelley Missal as Malligo,  Courtney Lakin as Marg and Caroline Arapoglou as Clara.

Shadowhunters: A Door Into the Dark – Jace and Clary (Review)

NICK SAGAR, ALBERTO ROSENDE

Shadowhunters “A Door Into the Dark” reveals quite a lot while managing to take Clary right back to where she was in season one; when Jocelyn was missing. She no longer feels a part of the Institute or part of the Mundane world. Jace, meanwhile, is still accepting the lies that his father Valentine has fed him, until the very end of the episode at least.

Aldertree is turning out to be the best “man we love to hate” by picking on the weaker members of the downworld community. He zeroes on on Simon and, after questioning, the newest member of the vampire community inadvertently shops Raphael as being the leader of the vamps.

Raphael confronts Simon, immediately after he is picked on by Luke’s pack of werewolves again. The white haired female really has it in for Simon. Later she will be stabbed by Valentine after Clary stops Jace from doing it.

Magnus takes Simon to India to hunt for Camille, after Raphael tells him to bring her back to face charges of breaking the Accord. Once there, Simon finally gets his Encanto on and Magnus finds all the stuff that Camille took from him.

Dot is still alive, although Valentine experimented on her. It seems that Jace and Clary’s dad cannot help himself. She enchants Clary making it seem that the downworlders are going to murder every last Mundane until they are all gone.

Jocelyn, turns out to believe wholeheartedly that Jace/Jonathan is evil to his core. She shows her daughter the moment when baby Jonathan’s eyes turned jet black and he sucked the life out of a flower. (It does seem a little bit of an overreaction on Jocelyn’s part. After all it was not like the tyke sucked the life out of a puppy. Just saying….)

Valentine proves that he is still a rotter at the core and has been lying to Jace about everything. On top of that, Valentine’s shadowhunter creations are stealing top fighters from bare knuckle events, Dojos and so on. The process of being turned into a shadowhunter is just too hard on regular mundanes.

Alec and Izzy start hanging out at these fight contests and try to question one of Valentine’s lackeys. The guy slits his own throat rather than talk though.

Clary heads back to the Mundane world to do a little artwork and Jocelyn, along with Luke, catch up to her. Clary is less than pleased with both her mother and Luke and leaves. Right after storming out, Dot, complete with scary black veins all over her face, takes Clary through a portal.

They arrive on Valentine’s ship where Dot give Clary a false vision of the future. Luke gives Jocelyn a gem that Alec can use to find his parabatai. It is a dangerous undertaking and despite Izzy being totally against it, Alec uses it to find Jace.

Clary, with a little help from Dot, manages to get Jace away from his father. Dot will be punished for this transgression as Valentine is clearly furious with her intervention.

Though Isabelle had little to do in this episode of Shadowhunters she did at least get to kick a bare knuckle fighter’s arse in an amusing scene. This season seems to be taking a huge step backwards. Clary is back to being disoriented, disenchanted and disowned by the Institute again.

Alec has resumed hating Clary with a vengeance  and Dot has been brought back from the dead. All very first season but without the kick-arse pilot episode with all the uber cool action and music.

Still, the move to bring Jace and Clary back together, not as a couple but as a brother and sister bound together with the same mission, is a good one. The chemistry works better when these two are working on the same team.

The incestuous overtones are now gone, but not forgotten; as Valentine pointed out last week, the demon blood in Jace means he will always fancy his sister.

By the end of the episode Jace has escaped with sis, Simon has learned how to do the Encanto and Valentine is massively annoyed.

Shadowhunters airs Mondays on Freeform.

Cast:

The Mick: The Grandparents – Alba and Grandma Hitler (Recap/Review)

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The Mick this week takes its comedy to another level entirely. “The Grandparents” sees Mickey take Alba from her Connecticut home, the introduction of a grandmother who could put Adolf Hitler to shame and a loan shark.

The children rebel when Mickey choses to tell them that their parents are not coming back during a meal at Benihana’s.  Sabrina tunes Mickey out, and Chip causes a scene. Everything comes to a halt when Ben licks the grill for a thousand dollars; a suggestion from Chip.

Afterward,  the youngest kid has to wear a contraption that keeps his mouth open and drool drips down his chin.  Chip and Sabrina take the revolt further and Mickey decides to leave them in the care of their strict grandparents.

When Alba learns the the Colonel is coming to stay, she abandons ship with Mickey who takes the electric car as payment for services rendered.  Chip is overjoyed that his childhood hero will becoming to take care of them.

His enthusiasm is crushed when he learns that the Colonel has had a stroke and it is Grandma Pemberton who will be cracking the whip. Sabrina learns immediately that Evelyn does not play around, she slaps the eldest child repeatedly when she tries to ignore the first command that grandma gives.

Meanwhile, Mickey and Alba head to Mickey’s apartment where they find Jimmy has moved in. He is under the impression that Mickey died when he ran her down in the premiere episode. She kicks him out of her apartment but before he goes Jimmy tells her about an Indian loan shark.

Alba gets slipped a mickey by Mickey and the two go out clubbing. The two women go wild and wake up the next morning in the electric car outside of Mickey’s apartment.

They are massively hungover but Mickey notices that a window is open at her apartment. She calls Jimmy and talks him into coming over for sex. He rushes into her home only to be thrown back out through another window.

The loan shark spies Mickey in the electric car and she tries to make her escape but the car runs out of juice.  Mickey explains that she does not have the $4,200 that she owes and the loan shark hits her in the hand with a hammer.

She goes to ask Chip for the money and leaves Alba with the loan shark as collateral.  Back at the mansion the kids are more than ready to have Mickey back in charge. She attempts to remove Grandma Pemberton but fails. It is only when Evelyn slips on Ben’s drool that the grandparents are removed from the house.

As the ambulance takes Evelyn away, the kids ask about Alba who is still being held by the loan shark back at Mickey’s flat.

The Mick has managed to maintain the high comedy level established in the pilot episode.  Show creators Dave and John Chernin continue with the “inappropriate” humor in this second episode of the series. 

Sabrina tries to drug her grandmother, a’la her Aunt Mickey. Chip goes on a rampage in the restaurant and Mickey, in keeping with her propensity of drugging those around her, manages to get Alba as high as a kite. To be fair though, Mickey does join her new BFF by getting stoned as well.

Kudos to Carla Jimenez for pulling being stoned out of her gourd with total conviction.  Kaitlin Olson also does being high very well and Thomas Barbusca once again manages to make Chip hilariously obnoxious.

Mad props to Sofia Black-D’Elia for walking that fine line between rebellion and shock. This young lady has killed it in both episodes so far. Scott MacArthur also brings brilliant life to his sycophantic boyfriend act.

In terms of guest stars, Concetta Tomei was beyond excellent as the horrible grandmother.

The Mick proves that FOX can and does feature comedy that is funny and practically irresistible.  Hopefully the network can keep this one on for more than one season. (Can you say Grinder?) Perhaps this funny and irreverent series can make to another season.

The show airs Tuesdays on FOX. Stop by and check it out.

Cast:

Guest starring Concetta Tomei as Grandmother Pemberton (Evelyn), E.J. Callahan as Colonel Pemberton and Kirk Fox as the loan shark.

‘Travelers’ Episode 2: Protocol 6 – Fitting In (Review)

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Travelers continues to be quite different from the other time travel shows out there in that each person sent back must “fit in” to the life they inhabit. The first episode showed just how difficult this could be.

The mentally challenged young woman, the teenager still in school, the drug addict and the single mother with an abusive former partner were all occupied by travelers from the future who have nothing in common with the host they take over.

A doctor is in the mentally challenged girl, a computer wiz in the drug addict and the hands-on technician is in the teen’s body. Maclaren and Carly, the FBI agent and the single mum, are an item in the future and Maclaren in this time period is married.

The first disaster that the travelers must avert is an antimatter explosion that kills thousands. Historically the thing apparently starts a chain of events that affects the future of the world.

The team intercept the impromptu bomb, the containment device is leaking and this turns the antimatter into a explosive, and put it into a smaller device.  Unfortunately, the new improved model is made equally unstable after the drug addict’s hand tremor almost kills the battery.

Travelers spends enough time on each “agent” to make them likable and empathetic.  Given that we have only seen the characters in one episode, they are established enough that we care about what happens to them.

Philip now knows that Marcy’s host profile was a lie. The social media information, that she was a librarian, was part of an exercise set up by her social worker David.  In turn, as a doctor, she recognizes that Philip’s host is a heroine addict.

Later in the show Marcy must make a deal with David to keep him from interfering. She tells him that she is a doctor and also reveals that a plane from Oregon will crash killing four. It happens and her social worker is thunderstruck. This small disaster’s foretelling almost makes David a believer.

This episode also shows just how dangerous and complicated time travel can be. Two of the travelers wait for their next companion to arrive. A man who is on the history books as committing suicide by eating a bullet, has also taken an overdose. When the traveler enters the new host, he dies immediately after.

The travelers are learning that their historical facts are open to misinterpretation and misinformation.  With their newest team member dead, they must improvise and Maclaren learns that other time travelers who are not on his team cannot exchange ideas or information.

Protocol 6, the rule that prohibits “cross contamination” is very strict and after Maclaren’s team return the antimatter to a safe containment vessel, they learn that despite the  success of their mission, any further infractions of the protocol will result in punitive measures.

(This message was delivered via a young girl scout delivering cookies to Maclaren’s house.)

Thus far creator Brad Wright has given us a show that feels, despite the time travel category being wildly overused at the moment, fresh and interesting. Clearly these travelers are everywhere in Wright’s verse and it seems that they all have miles to go before they sleep.

Travelers is on Netflix for streaming or can be downloaded. This is some cracking stuff here. The characters are interesting and likable. Despite some similarities with other time traveling programs this offering is just different enough to be entertaining.

Cast:

‘Crazyhead’ Episode 2: A Pine Fresh Scent – I Remember Daddy (Review)

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As Crazyhead, episode two “A Pine Fresh Scent” continues the “Buffy-like” atmosphere a lot more is revealed about this demon filled verse. The demon who “hangs around” is not Raquel’s former lover, he’s her dad.

In an expository scene we learn that a demon infested her father  just before having intercourse with her mum. The end result is that she is now “half-demon” which explains her ability to see them and to royally kick their butts…sometimes.

The “Misfits” touch is still present as Raquel and Amy talk a lot about sex, jizz and, at one point, Raquel’s brother Tyler believes he is going to have wild and wanton sex with Amy.

Callum puts out the word that he wants Raquel’s father taken care of and Mercy rises to the task with a few of her minions. Amy drags Jake into the fracas and we learn how to dispatch demons. (A shard of ice driven through the chest on the surface of an ice rink.)

After killing Suzanne in the previous episode, Amy and Raquel go to buy a couple of spades to bury Amy’s former roomie. As they shop at what appears to be a giant Costco, Raquel grabs two tins of Tango and a couple of large spoons.

As they head to the till, they ask if the store sells spades. After freaking them out by alluding to the two women burying a body, the clerk then orders two spades to be brought to the checkout. He does this a number of times.

The two women then bury Suzanne in the woods.

There is still a lot of comic moments in this episode where the show’s creator leaves the Misfits template alone and pays a homage to Shaun of the Dead. (The scene in the nearly deserted store with the vapid music playing over the store’s PA system is reminiscent of the first Cornetto film and Romero’s Dawn of the Dead and the 2008 remake.)

Much of the humor comes from the fact that these two demon hunters are not necessarily the sharpest tools in the shed.  Amy, whose day job is working in a bowling alley, appears to be slightly smarter than Raquel but that may be because the half-demon girl has trouble communicating.

Callum is adamant that the trouble making demon daddy be killed and the violence displayed is, once more, less Bruce Lee and more brute force. There is a brilliant bit of fighting “backstage” at the ice rink where Amy takes a demon out with a giant penguin figure.

Another one is used to knock out Raquel, only this time it is a demon doing the damage. The unconscious demon hunter is taken out on the ice to watch her father get stabbed with a “dick – sized” bit of ice.

Raquel shows some of her demon side by telekinetically smacking down the demons threatening her dad, but too late to save him from being sent back to Hell.

Of course the big shock of the episode is when the “dead” Suzanne comes back from the freshly dug grave. Amy dreams of her bestie turning back up and while brushing her teeth, Suzanne appears behind her.

“You killed me you silly b*tch.”

Cue end credits.  It now appears that Raquel’s formula for driving out the demon inside Suzanne worked after a very dodgy fashion. What remains to be seen is whether Raquel’s father can come back and just how far Callum is willing to go.

Crazyhead is available to stream or download on Netflix. All six episodes are up on the site for binging.

Cast:

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