In Which I Review Once Upon A Time in Wonderland (1x1)

Television spin offs are either wins or losses. Very seldom are they in between. Fraiser is an example of a win (having followed in the wake of Cheers); Joey is an example of a loss (trying to cling to the popularity of Friends). There is neither rhyme nor reason--it all depends on the audience. One Upon a Time was one of the golden children of ABC in the past few years. Its ratings were high and its fandom loud. The second season took a bit of fall but the fandom remained just as loud and loving. So ABC decided to try for a spin-off. Introducing, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland which tells the story of an all grown up Alice, the love of her life the genie Cyrus, sarcastic curmudgeon The Knave of Hearts, the evil Red Queen and her partner in crime, Jafar. There is also a rabbit in a hat which is my very favorite thing about this show so far. Alice in Wonderland (and through the Looking Glass, which a good portion of OUATinWL is based off) is a bit of a bizarre book, and made for a very interesting Disney animation. Young Alice falls down a rabbit hole (or goes through a mirror) into Wonderland (or the mirror world, which is not Wonderland) and has all sorts of adventures involving creatures that defy imagination--a cat that grins, a rabbit in a waistcoat, a mad Queen, talking chess pieces, and puzzles and games. Hollywood has been good to the book, churning out both big and small screen adaptations. OUATinWL is an 11 episode mini series that will tell the story of what happened to Alice after she left Wonderland (twice). Let's break it down. 

Alice 

The show opens with a very familiar sight: 10 year old Alice exploding (literally) out of rabbit hole in her blue dress and white apron, running home to tell her father all about her adventures in Wonderland. But Alice has been gone for so long that her father thought her dead, and when she turns up on the porch telling stories about a smiling cat and a smoking caterpillar, he deduces that Alice is insane. Alice longs to prove her father wrong and thus spends the next 10 years of her life traveling back and forth trying to bring back proof that she is not crazy. On her last visit to Wonderland, about a year ago (actually it's 28 years but we will get to the timeline headache in a second) Alice met and fell in love with Cyrus, a somewhat exotic gene in a bottle (you gotta rub him the right way) from Agrabah.

They traveled to far off lands, had adventures, and fell in love. Cyrus proposed to Alice on the cliffs near the boiling sea and then disaster struck. The Red Queen stole Cyrus from Alice after a sword fight and Alice believed him dead, returning home to London where her depression finally forced her father to lock her up in an Asylum. After a year (28) in the Asylum, the doctors approach Alice with a procedure that will rid her of her pain and Alice consents. But the morning she is scheduled to go under the drill, her old friend the Knave of Hearts (Will) and the White Rabbit break her out with the news that Cyrus is alive. And it's off to Wonderland we shall go!

Cyrus

We know very little about Cyrus at this point. He is not a traditional fairy tale character--creators Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitsiss has stated that he is NOT Aladdin and NOT the Genie of the Lamp from said story. In fact Cyrus lives in a bottle. Somehow he is able to leave that bottle and go with Alice on amazing adventures. Before falling to his "death" he shows Alice how their hearts are entwined on his magic necklace so that whenever they are near, it will glow. Cyrus, as you may have already guessed, is not dead. He is being held captive by Jafar in a gilded cage, dreaming of Alice--while she dreams of him. Ah, true love. Before they were separated, Cyrus gave Alice three jewels that represent the three wishes he is allowed to grant. Those are important. Remember them.

 The Knave of Hearts (Will)

His name his Will, he has a history with women who dress in scar--red, and Robin Hood will be coming onto the scene. I want you to think about that and then report back to me who Will really is.
The Knave doesn't like Wonderland and it turns out, Wonderland doesn't like him! He has been on the run for some time, though we aren't sure of his crimes. In the books, the Knave was put on trial for stealing the Queen of Heart's "tarts." Wanna bet he was caught stealing Cora's hearts instead of tarts? He is a very relcutant companion of Alice. The Knave doesn't want to be in Wonderland or think about Wonderland. He wants to go live his life but Alice blackmails him: "long ago, I helped you get back your heart. Now you you've got to help me get back mine." The Knave is also hysterical--really, he's obviously the comic relief in the show. There are wanted posters for the Knave in Wonderland so he's obviously in deep trouble--the posters don't even care if he has his head or not. 

The Red Queen

The Red Queen was one of the characters I was most excited for. In the book, she is a chess piece and I was intrigued to see how that could translate on screen. For one, she lives in a giant chess palace and talks about setting the board and the game that must be played. She is also cold, clinical, calculating, and detached. All things a chess player should be. She doesn't come across as ruthless however and she is certainly nothing like Regina on ONCE. Regina is fireballs and spitfire; the Red Queen has ice in her veins. I also strongly suspect she is Alice's sister and the wife of Jefferson the Mad Hatter. For some unknown reason, the Red Queen has struck a bargain with Jafar but we don't know what she wants out of it. A fair bit of warning, the voice Emma Rigby has chosen for her character is a wee bit grating. I'm used to Lana Parillia's low evil voice but Rigby has chosen a higher almost nasal one (again trying very hard to be the anti-Regina). While it seems that Jafar is the more powerful, I doubt it. This is the Wonderland story so I bet the Red Queen has more to do with Alice's story than Jafar. Chess is going to be important--or at least the idea of chess. Taking pieces, getting as close to the queen as possible in order to knock out the King, all integral in chess. She has also got some interesting outfits.

Jafar 

Here's my theory: when Sayid sacrificed himself by taking the bomb in the sixth season of LOST, it actually magically transported him to Agrabah where he grew out his hair to a magnificent perm and then he declared himself ruler and wizard. He has magic because of the island.

No? Ok then. It's VERY nice to see Sayid back on my screen, even if he's not Sayid. As a devotee of LOST, I have missed him. And oh boy he is creepy. Unlike with the Red Queen, we do know what Jafar wants. He wants the wishes Cyrus granted to Alice (see, told you there were important). Just based on the final scene, I would wager that Jafar and Cyrus have a history--a long complicated rough history. And that's just from one look between the two of them.

The Plot

Find Cyrus.

What? Too vague?

Oh very well. Here's the thing I am very worried about: if you haven't watched ONCE or if you're not a crazy person who can literally recite the episodes and eat spoilers for breakfast (*ahem* me) then you might be a wee bit lost. There are so many things about this week's episode, "Down the Rabbit Hole" that some people are going to be confused about. First off, Alice lives in Fictional London, not real Victorian London. Second, the Knave walking through Storybrooke in the beginning was right after the Curse was broken by Emma and Rumple set the Wraith after Regina. The Mad Hatter is a guy named Jefferson who is currently living in Stroybrooke (when he's not running around with Captain America). And Alice was in the Asylum for 28 years. How, you ask, when she's only 20? Oh fine. *cough* The Evil Queen Regina cursed all the people of the Enchanted Forest (and apparently other lands) to our world where their happy endings were taken away. They were "asleep" for 28 years (frozen and with amnesia) until the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming broke the Curse with True Love's Kiss (please see: season one of Once Upon a Time). Alice was frozen in the Asylum for 28 years but awoke when Emma arrived into Stroybrooke and time began to move. Thus, to her, she's only been in the Asylum a year. (It took 3 pages of forum writers who literally spend hours and hours and hours talking about ONCE to figure this out).

Another thing to be mindful of: this show loves flashbacks. When Alice is in her purple dress or in general when she is with Cyrus, it is a flashback--28 years ago, the last time she visited Wonderland. The Knave, Cyrus, The Red Queen, and Jafar will also have flashbacks over the course of the series. But the main thrust of the series is to find Cyrus and defeat Jafar/The Red Queen. Along the way, we'll see characters from Wonderland and other worlds that should be recognizable.

Miscellaneous Notes from Down the Rabbit Hole 

--This show is in what we call "the death slot." Nothing--and I do mean nothing--is going to take down The Big Bang Theory. We have to fight for every viewer.

--ABC, if you want this show to be a success, you need to funnel in some money for the CGI. The animal CGI's were great but the rest of it needs a lot of work.

--The White Rabbit (who works for the Red Queen, relcutanly) is adorable and I love him and he has a hat. I am obsessed with this rabbit and his hat.

--Cheshire Cat! Slightly demonic.

--"We don't do damsels in distress."--Adam and Eddy. Clearly. Alice is totally kick-ass.

--Mallow Marsh. Excellent

--I'm already annoyed by the overly plot device-y love necklace. Expect it to be brandished about like a sword.

Overall Verdict: Check it out. I will always encourage people to watch ANY iteration of ONCE.

In Which I Talk About Social Media and Fandom

If you’re old enough to remember life without Twitter, then chances are you are old enough to find the concept of fandom and its relationship with social media a bit perplexing. Without going too grumpy-old-man, fans of the older generation can be heard bewailing the new young innovations with cries of, “In my day, fans had nothing but conventions and snail mail! You were lucky if you got a package in the mail every other month with a magazine and a trinket.” To put it another way, in the years following the birth of Twitter, fandom has moved out of its parents basement and, blinking somewhat owlishly, stepped into the sun. Gone is the stereotypical "fan" as a white male with his comic book collection and ability to recite entire episodes of Star Trek; here to stay is the self absorbed adult, somewhere between the ages of 13-39, who clutches greedily at their smart phone and/or tablet, who speaks only in LOLz and hashtags and who will go down with their ships. However, when we look at the inner workings of fandom and social media a question does spring to mind: what is the overall relationship of the two?

Let’s clarify something first: fandom is nothing new. So long as there have products to be excited over, there have been fans. Trekkies, for example, have been around since the show began in 1966. Cult television has always produced legions of dedicated followers who stubbornly and passionately stick with the show, even after it goes off the air. But with advent of social media (and for my blog here I’m really only going to focus on Twitter even though Tumblr works in a like manner) the shift has been in power relationships. Suddenly the fandom feels that they can directly affect their product; through hashtags, tweets, retweets, and social campaigns, fans have a larger voice in the inner workings of their favorite TV show—or at least their perception is that they do.

Let’s talk Twitter. Network TV seems to have finally caught up to the 21^st century in 2013 when Nielsen, the TV ratings gurus, announced that they would be incorporating tweets into their overall ratings system. Fans chuckeld ruefully, delighted that Nielsen had finally figured out what most fandoms have known for quite some time now: TV is no longer a passive event. In the days of yore, families gathered around their set and simply watched TV. Maybe the next day you discussed it around the proverbial water cooler, but that was in passing. Can you image the reaction to Ross and Rachel’s “break” if Twitter had existed? It would have trended for days. Watching TV is now—for fandoms—an acitivity. Laptops and phones in hand, getting your show to trend is almost as vital as the actual plot. And the networks are finally clued in. 

Take for example ABCFamily’s golden child, Pretty Little Liars. Now there is a show that knows how to make itself heard! Partly due to the fact that its key demographic is adolescent to teenage girls, most of whom are on Twitter during the airing of the show, PLL has become an expert at hashtag usage. In its summer finale, fan favorite “liar” Aria attends a hoe-down and ends up line dancing. It’s ludicrous and has little to do with the plot, but a hashtag down in the corner of the screen prompted fans to tweet using #MovesLikeAria and within minuets it was trending in the United States. Through various key moments of development, new hashtags pop up on screen—some with wild success and others fizzing out after a few minuets of tweeting. The big three networks—ABC, NBC, and CBS—have also picked up this trend, promoting special hashtags for individual episodes (such as #Tinkerbell for the third episode of ABC’s fantasy Once Upon A Time) and hashtags that are meant to carry the fandom through long TV arcs (again, from Once, the #SaveHenry campaign that began in the summer of 2013 and thus far has trended every episode of the third season). The amount of tweets for an episode has become a point of pride—ABC's Scandal putting out a promo where it not only speaks of its 10 million live views but its close to 200K tweets on its premiere night, thereby validating it as “the most talked about show on network TV.” Fans become excited when they realize something from their show is trending and often snap pictures of it to send to the actors as proof of love and loyalty and their own power and prowess. And in return, the networks play into the fans love by offering special rewards: 2,000 retweets will get you a script tease for the next episode; 3 million likes on Facebook and you’ll get a special scene from a new episode. And like Pavlovian dogs, we hear our bell and expect our treat.

 

But how much can a fan really affect their fandom? Can they, for instance, cause the writers and show runners to change storylines to suit fan agenda? Some think so. The Supernatural Family—fans of the CW’s Supernatural—constantly try and make their favorite ship, Destiel (Dean and the angel Castiel) canonized by participating in internet shipping polls. Nine seasons in and it doesn’t look like the fans are any closer to making Destiel real. However this doesn’t mean that fandoms don’t have power. Sometimes a powerful fandom can save a show. Fox’s Fringe only got to have a fifth season because fans of the show lobbied for it, to have a real close to the show they loved so dearly. It didn’t hurt that the Fringe fandom had a habit of smart trending on Twitter and knowing how to get attention (using specialized hashtags, for example and thereby appealing to the advertisers who fund programing), despite pulling in low numbers. So while there is power in fandom nevertheless it is often aggrandized in the eyes of the fans.

There is something to be said about how far fandoms can reach. Often times TV shows are localized to a certain geographic region. Take Doctor Who, undoubtedly one of the reigning kings of internet fandom. It’s a small, 50 yr old British show that somehow has become an American sensation. When it was announced that current Doctor, Matt Smith, would be leaving, the BBC held a 30min special in order to announce the new Doctor. By less than (ahem) legal methods, somehow, American fans managed to tune in with the Brits, making Matt Smith, Peter Capalldi, and Doctor Who all trend—in America—for long after the special. Doctor Who now has a special place in American popular culture, from the convention halls to the shopping malls and the proof is in the Twitter pudding.

The final point I want to make here about social media and fandom is the concept of identity. Fandoms come up with unique names for themselves that serve as identity markers: Oncers, Whovians, SleepyHeads, SPNFamily, Gladiators, ect. What’s interesting is that on Twitter people self identify in their profiles. Instead of having information about your actual self (age, location, job, ect) it has become a place to identity by fandom. Take my Twitter for instance; there is nothing there about my educational background or where I am from, but rather what fandoms I consider myself apart of: MCRmy (My Chemical Romance), Whovian (Doctor Who), Oncer (Once Upon A Time) and Nerdfighter (followers of John and Hank Green). These identity markers serve as unifying forces. “I belong with them,” they say.

So who is affecting whom? To be sure fandom affects social media—they are what causes trending and conversation. To a lesser extent social meida affects fandom, occasionally offering up tidbits and special prizes for those who are apart of the social media phenomenon. Overall, social media has made fandom more accessible for everyone and fandom in return promotes the product better than the network or creators ever could. These two are uniquely tied from here on out.

In Which I Review Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D (1x3)

Moralistic television can be annoying. This is not to say there exists TV that doesn't have a moral message--all TV does. But if the program in question beats you over head with its sugary sweet message of goodness and righteousness, it can get old fast. I don't want to say that Agents of SHIELD is going down that road--because it's a Whedon show and he knows what he is doing--but this is the third episode in a row that sets up a moral quandary and then focuses on how the characters do their best to uphold that moral in the face of adversary. It can feel a little pretentious and precious. The first week it was the idea of the everyday hero; the second episode focused on teamwork and unique individuals forming a collective whole; in this weeks episode, "The Asset," the so-called "defining moment" took center stage. A defining moment is when a person is confronted with a choice: stay and fight or run. This week we saw Skye have her own defining moment, we heard about Ward's moment and to a lesser extent May made her own choice. 
One final word before the review: Whedon's season one of television. There is a reason why I'm sticking with SHIELD for now and it's because I know what typically comes after a lukewarm season one: epicness. I grew up on Buffy and Angel and love them dearly but when you go back and watch season one of both, they are slightly cringe worthy. It takes time for the show to find its niche. Season one of Buffy, while good enough, is nothing compared to season two, and certainly nothing compared to seasons 4-6. The same with Angel, it took until the second season for it to hit its stride. I think if SHIELD can find a better mix of morality and action/adventure, it can be really good. 

 The titular "asset" this week refers to one Dr. Franklin Hall, super science genius. The episode opens with a truck driver (and SHIELD agent) assuring his handlers that "the cargo is secure." This is, in TV land, cue for the cargo to become decidedly un-secure. And lo, two black unmarked (they are always unmarked) vehicles approach the truck and it's battle of the heavy armored cars! Until the truck starts to fly, which I admit was pretty wondrous--I actually put down my pen and just watched--until it crashed. The people in the black cars break into the now crashed truck and take Dr. Hall. We then cut to the other asset of this episode--Skye, our hacktivist who is being pushed and trained by Ward. Skye, because she's a bit of a child and very unappreciative, complains the entire time about how she doesn't want to train or condition her body because it "doesn't come easy to her" like computer science. Whine whine whine. She reminds me a bit of Cordelia Chase from Buffy, has one skill and one ability and doesn't see the need to improve in other areas. Of course, once Cordy got off of Buffy  and went to Angel, she really grew on me, so Skye will probably receive close to the same treatment.

As Skye whines, Ward treats her to our moral message of the week: everyone has a defining moment in which you decide to stay or you run. Most of us know this as the natural "fight or flight" response, but it sounds more superhero if we call it a "defining moment." Skye tries to pry into Ward's background and figure out his defining moment but they are interrupted by Hall's disappearance. This is when we get a lot of science mumbo-jumbo. Ready? Hall is an expert on something called Graviton, which is a theoretical material which, if put into a theoretical machine, can change the rules of gravity and make everything topsy-turvy. Hall has been kidnapped by Ian Quinn, billionaire philanthropist advocate who continually steals Hall's work. He has brought Hall to his villa in Malta, outside of international law, to force him to power his machine in order to bring down the USA, EU, and SHIELD because they are hindering technological progress. With the help of an insider at SHIELD (dun-dun-duuuuun) Quinn was able to kidnap Hall.

So what is SHIELD to do? They can't go after Hall because of extradition laws and their hands must be clean. Cue Skye. She has no association with SHIELD because she is just a consultant and not an official agent. After some fancy hackery, Skye finds herself invited to Quinn's villa where her mission is to get Ward and Coulson in. Naturally, this does not go as planned and Quinn figures her out and Skye proceeds to dance and lie and sell out SHIELD--on the surface. Quinn has a rather enticing offer for Skye--come join my freedom fighting team and put your skills to use. For awhile it seems like Skye may actually be considering this offer, but just prior to this Skye and Ward had a little heart to heart where Ward reveals his own defining moment. Ward was the middle child and his older brother was a bully who would beat Ward and his younger brother for simple things, like eating his cake. So it should come as no surprise that when Skye is found out and Quinn questions why someone of Rising Tide would betray her principles for SHIELD, Skye defends SHIELD, that it is the brother who protects the little guy because of cake. Skye and Ward are so obviously the romance of this story, it's not even subtle.

Meanwhile, Ward and Coulson have landed on the beach, ready to invade the villa and take back Hall. But Hall doesn't want to go. He has a mission and he wants to complete it. Turns out, Hall was the insider mole who sold himself out to Quinn. Coulson, being Coulson, tries his hardest to convince Hall to come with him and be part of the good guys, but in the end he is forced to sacrifice Hall (make the hard decision) for the greater good. Hall falls into the graviton machine and is sucked into the metallic void. The episode ends with reflections of these defining moments. Melinda May, who again was relegated to doing next to nothing, finally steps up and says that she wants to be more active, she wants to be "in." She's tired of running and has decided to stay. Thank goodness; I was getting really tired of her just flying the plane. And then there is Skye who was given an out this week and did not take it. She reciprocates Ward opening up to her with her own tragic story: foster child, unloved, unwanted, so she runs. But this time, "I made my choice. I want this. Bad." She's here to stay for SHIELD! (Until they do something questionable that offends her principles and she goes back to Rising Tide, breaking Ward's heart. It's TV people. It's how it works).

Oh and Hall is alive inside the graviton.

Miscellaneous Notes on The Asset 

--This episode was much better than last week, despite my rather sarcastic review.

--Coulson is the man. Can we please talk about how he shows up in Malta wearing an expensive suit while Ward in head to toe in his black ops gear, but somehow Coulson looks more epic.

--Great visual effects this week. This really is a high budget show.

--I think one thing that would really help SHIELD right now would be a beginning to flesh out a bad guy. You need to have a Big Bad, and while we have the Centipede people, we need more than just an organization. We need an actual human to root against--we live in a world of Loki's and Red Face's. I hope we see this by episode 5.(afterthought: someone getting caught in a theoretical substance of Graviton is the perfect set up for a villain arc)

--What are we calling Skye and Ward? Sward? Waye? (The shipping name is almost more important than the actual ship).
 

In Which I Review Sleepy Hollow (1x4)

I have a Masters in religion and occasionally it comes in handy. As a pseudo-scholar of religion, it's nice when I can do something more than say "well if you look at the Greek...." This weeks episode of Sleepy Hollow, "The Lesser Key of Solomon," went slightly overboard with the religious texts and ideas. There were secret orders, demons, rituals, black magic, religious figures, and quite frankly a lot of really wrong ideas. I gotta get on my soap box here for a minute. 
History lesson the first:

King Solomon is traditionally thought to have ruled around 970-931 BCE in the united Monarch of Israel. The Israelites were a semi-monotheistic farming culture. King Solomon is today remembered for his wisdom--namely the legend of the baby and the two mothers. He is regarded as the first builder of the Temple at Jerusalem (before Babylon though it would look really pretty on fire) and for being a (mostly) righteous and pious man. As the years passed, legends and apocryphal texts sprung up around Solomon and his abilities: genies, demons, angels, magic, the so-called "Seal" of Solomon, ect are all part of the extra stories that now surround King Solomon. The reasons for all the miscellanous legends of Solomon is another story for another day (short version: Greeks. Always blame the Greeks) but I think it's important to understand that most of these are later day tales and Solomon's appearance in the Hebrew Bible isn't anything as heroic and magical. 
History lesson the second:
Judaism in the time of Solomon did not have a concept of Hell. This is where Sleepy Hollows really went off the rails for me last night (you'll see why in the review proper) but Hell as we in our modern Judeo-Christian world understand it was not an actual thing. The concept of Hell really follows in the wake of the Greeks and the Hellenistic time period, after the conquests of Alexander the Great (334-323 BCE), which did have a concept of an afterlife and Hades (again, topic for another day). What we can talk about is Gehenna, which is just a place for the "shades" of the dead to rest. However Gehenna is not Hell (despite the New Testament often using the two almost interchangeably)
So what are we seeing in Sleepy Hollow this week? A romanticization of apocryphal texts and legends that have very little historicity. In other words, something very Hollywood. I can shrug it off, but I'd prefer you all to not be ignorant. 

Guess how this episode began? If you said dream sequence, then you're wrong! Sorry, that was mean of me. It did begin with a rather grainy unfocused flashback of the 1773 Boston Tea Party. Ichabod, in his super spy capacity, has--with the help of Sam Addams-- devised a distraction for the British Redcoats while he sneaks aboard a ship to steal an elaborately decorative crate. The flashback ends with Ichabod' voice over giving a very rousing speech about true love and how it can make the mundane a marvel...to the OnStar lady. Comedic gold right there. Seriously, let's make Sleepy Hollow a comedy where Ichabod just tries to navigate our world and does really funny things. 

The episode essentially picks up right where last week ended, Jenny has escaped from the psych ward and now Abbie is racing against the clock. She wants to find her sister before the SWAT team does--which makes no sense. Why is Jenny such a wanted individual? Her crimes were not homicidal and she was declared unfit. Why would an entire SWAT team be needed to bring her in? She's not exactly dangerous, or at least no one has any reason to believe so. For whatever reason, Abbie manages to get a head start on finding her sister, who has headed to a bar to pick up her bag of necessities which holds guns and newspaper clippings. Underpinning all this is some sort of German secret order who are determined to find Jenny before Abbie. Everything but the kitchen sink was thrown at the wall in this weeks episode.

The twists and turns of finding Jenny yield a few interesting tidbits. Abbie finally lays out what happened to her parents: dad took off, mom went crazy and was locked up which caused young Jenny and Abbie to be shipped off to foster care. If you believe any of this then I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. There is no way that this is the real story. Maybe it's what Abbie believes but there is more, got to be. There was no reason to dance around this issue for 3 episodes if the story could be told in about 10 seconds of exposition. Another tidbit we learned was that before Jenny was put into the institution, she traveled quite a bit, including "to someplace called Somalia." (I think I might be slightly infatuated with Ichabod). Finally, after a lay over at Jenny's old foster house, they catch up with the rogue sister at a most unexpected place.

It is revealed that Jenny had a relationship with Corbin, the sheriff who died in the series opener. All this time Abbie thought she was Corbin's special project, but it turns out that the kind hearted Sheriff had an equally soft spot for her sister. While Abbie was recruited into the police force, Jenny was given tasks that pertained to Corbin's fascination with the occult. Sent out on missions to find rare objects and answers, Jenny has been fighting the dark coven for much longer than Abbie. Eventually Corbin sent Jenny to Sleepy Hollow (and then she went into a mental ward?); the night before he was killed by the Horseman, Corbin came to see Jenny and revealed that he was scared that "Death" was following him. Corbin then entrusted a sexton to Jenny, for safe keeping.

The sexton--a tool used at sea for traveling-- is no ordinary sexton. Naturally. Instead, Ichabod remembers that the magical chest he was sent after back in 1773 was decorated with the same markings as the sexton. Using his knowledge of how spies and their fancy technology work, Ichabod deduces that the sexton is really a ye olde projector and when you put light up to it, it reveals a map. And on the map is an X. And the X is where you will our team will find the chest.

And then the Hessians arrive. Hessians were German mercenaries, so why we're still calling them by this name is beyond me. But the Hessian leader who has been trailing Jenny all episode, reveals that it is not the chest itself but rather what is inside the chest: "a doorway to the 7th circle of Hell where 72 souls wait." Got all that? Good because let's get more complicated. Jenny, being an expert on the occult, recognizes that the item to which the Hessian refers is in fact the Lesser Key of Solomon, a book of black magic written by King Solomon that has the ability to conjure demons. It was found by the Knights Templar (of course it was, gotta get them in here somehow) and then lost for many years.The Hessians are after it for one reason: to summon Moloch, the horned demon who has been trailing Abbie and Jenny and appearing in mirrors.
These Hessians are the servants of Moloch. Moloch has been controlling the Horseman and is responsible for summoning him. Again, I have issues here and it all goes back to making the Headless Horseman DEATH. Death is not a servant that can be controlled or fought. It is not a foe, it is a reality of life. I suppose theologically we can say that God controls it, but for some horned demon to be able to control DEATH seems really far fetched. Did no one die prior to this? Did DEATH take a holiday? And why would a demon who is super powerful need DEATH when he can obviously kill people himself (he killed Sulu Brooks in the jail cell by making his head snap back).

RECAP: the sexton is a map that shows an X where you'll find a chest that holds a book written by Solomon that summons demons from Hell that has been lost for many years after the Knights Templar found it. And Hessians want it because it's will somehow help Moloch rise.

The Hessians manage to take the Sexton but lucky for us, Ichabod has a photographic memory and is able to relocate the X on the sexton-map and the trio of Jenny, Abbie, and Ichabod head off to fight the Hessians. The chest is in a church and when they arrive the ritual to summon the demons has already begun. Demons are literally crawling out of some tar soup but Abbie manages to stop it by throwing the book into the flaming tar pit of tar soup. I'm not even sure why this works, but at this point I'm going to go with it. The final moments of the episode give us an answer to what is I'm sure a burning question: who is Moloch. Ichabod recalls a passage from Milton that Moloch is a demon of child sacrifice and apparently he's holding Katrina hostage. (Go with it. Just...go with it)

Miscellaneous Notes from The Lesser Key of Solomon

--I'm slowly coming around to the idea of Icabbie. They are rather cute together. I love how he calls her Lieutenant.

--The sister heart to heart was nice. I wonder how much more of Miss Jenny we will see.

--Week three without any sign of the Horseman. Come on, Sleepy Hollow. Get it together and give us something to hold on to. This episode was better than the past two--despite your kitchen sink approach--but you need to bring back the Headless Horseman soon.

--The string of murders that revolved around the episode that I didn't touch on were creepy.

--I remain torn about Ichabod's clothing. On the one hand, he should never take off that coat. But how much longer can he wear the same clothes, which technically are now 200+ years old?

--Thus far, I'm getting a lot of Fringe moments from this show. Ichabod is very Peter/Walter Bishop combined into one. Abbie is a lot like Olivia and Jenny is giving me Fauxlivia memories.

--Sleepy Hollow has been renewed for a second season already and apparently John Noble (Walter Bishop of Fringe) will be appearing sometime soon.

In Which I Review Once Upon A Time (3x2)

When it comes to identity, negotionating who we are can be a very tricky game. Somehow we have to synthesize who we think we are, who society thinks we are, who are our peers think we are, who society and peers want us to be, and perhaps most importantly who we want to be. Often times, who we think we are doesn't match who we really are or want to be. Are you the Savior or the Orphan? Are you the Princess or the Queen? Are you the Dark One or a Coward? And are these ideas mutually exclusive? In this weeks episode of Once Upon A Time, "Lost Girl," Emma, Snow and Rumple struggle with the question of : who am I? 

No One's Daughter 

This season of Once Upon a Time already feels like it will truly be Emma's season. Last episode, she swan-dove (pun intended) off the side of the Jolly Roger to break up a fight then declared herself a Mother and the Leader of the little clan of mismatch heroes and villains. This week, creeper Peter Pan (who continues to be exceptionally freaky) set Emma a test: to find Henry you must recognize who you really are. And when you do that, your path to Henry will be made apparent. The trek through the jungle is not going well; it has been many years since Hook set foot on the island and things have changed a wee bit. As the Jolly Roger Five take refuge for the night, Emma is awoken by the crying of the Lost Boys. Interesting that no one else can hear the cries, something Pan remarks on. Is Emma's abandonment situation unique enough to warrant this special ability--or is Pan playing a trick on her? Can Pan control Neverland in this way? Hook was abandoned by his father too, or so he claims. Regina did not have a happy upbringing. Why can't they hear the cries? My only guess at this moment is that they all knew their families, however cruel it might have been. Emma, on the other hand, was less than a few hours old when Snow and Charming put her in the magical wardrobe. She never knew her parents or really any kindness at the hands of others until she 18 and met Nealfire. She was utterly alone her whole life--much like the orphans of Neverland. Emma has a connection to these kids, and it's something I expect to come up time and time again this season.

In order to find Henry, Pan gives Emma a magical map that will only reveal Henry's true location when she admits who she is, when she "stops denying who [you] really are." The problem is that Emma--and her great walls of China--prevent her from opening up and saying who she really is. As she talks to the map she starts out very basic: Henry's mother, bails bondperson, sheriff. And then slowly goes into territory that is still new to her--the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, the product of true love, and then something she denied for almost two whole seasons: "the S word" as Regina so snarkily said: the Savior.  Emma's entire life was built around being the Savior, the only person in existence who could break the Curse and bring back the happy endings. But even this belief isn't enough to trigger the magic map.

After a very cool fight between the Jolly Roger Five and the Lost Boys, Emma--more defeated than ever--finally opens up to Snow about who she really is: an orphan. She's a scared lost little girl who has never had parents or a reason to believe that her parents ever loved her. "On this island," she says, "I just feel what I've always been: an orphan." She, more than anyone on this show, was really and truly abandoned. Even if it was "to give you your best chance" she still grew up totally and wholly alone. And Snow, who wants to be a mom to Emma, needs to reconcile how she sees her daughter with how her daughter sees herself. Emma may have called Snow "mom" at the end of season two when they all thought they were going to die, but it doesn't hold weight anymore. In Neverland, people have no future meaning they must confront their past. Snow and Charming's new job is not to be the parents to a princess like they hoped, but to fragile, broken, orphan Emma. "It's my job to change that," says Snow. I look forward to a lot more Snow and Charming parenting moments and Emma gradually opening up to letting them be parents to her.

The Once and Future Queen 

The first flashback on the new season felt very classic Once Upon A Time--Snow White and Prince Charming vs the Evil Queen. Having just awakened from her sleeping curse, Snow and Charming have pledged to take back the kingdom--but Regina would never make it that easy, now would she? Regina offers Snow White a deal: give up your claim to your father's throne and I'll let all of you live. If you refuse me, then it means war and I'll kill your subjects. We've seen many sides of Snow White--spoiled brat, dignified princess, bandit, and warrior. But this Snow is unsure of herself; all she knows is that she doesn't want to be alone. She'd rather take Charming and the dwarves and go live on a farm than have to fight for what is rightfully hers. Notice the parallels between Snow and Emma here--Snow doesn't want to be alone like she has been in the past; all Emma knows is being alone and suddenly the idea of having family around her only reinforces how alone she was for so long. But unlike Emma, Snow has a Knight in her corner. Charming devises a plan that allows Snow to remember who she is--the rightful Queen of the Enchanted Forest. The whole Camelot and Excalibar plot felt a little heavy handed to me, and I think it was pretty obvious that Charming was tricking his beloved, well intentioned of course but ONCE needs to remember that simplicity is better. Even bringing in the idea of Camelot is going to make it hard to not go there someday.

And it also felt like the writers forgot that they already introduced Camelot and Arthurian legend in season two's "Lady of the Lake." So now I'm wondering why Snow didn't mention that she knew more about Camelot to Lancelot in that episode. Keep focused, writers. Your fans know this stuff like the back of our hands. In the end, war is declared between the two sides, as we knew it would. Snow will not let her subjects be left to the Evil Queen. Snow recognizes that she is not the scared little princess anymore, but a warrior, a bandit and a Queen.

I Will Follow You Into the Dark

Let's go ahead and make one thing clear: I ship Rumbelle harder than I've ever shipped anything. It's a little scary how much I love these two. Blame the fact that "Beauty and the Beast" was my favorite Disney movie as a child. Blame my love of Rumple. Blame my own damaged tortured inner psyche. Blame what you will: I squealed like a crazed fangirl during the Rumbelle scenes. They were dark but beautiful. Poignant and sweet and altogether a perfect example of just WHY Rumple needs Belle so much. She is his moral center, his conscience. When Rumple contemplates doing something evil or wrong, or taking the easy path, she is there to remind him that there is good inside of him and that he can be a good man. Rumple's self doubt is obviously evident this episode. His thinks his past and his future are one and the same; he is the Dark One, leather clad and all. In order to stay the Dark One, he carves out his shadow (side note: WOW) and send his shadow with his dagger into hiding. If Pan knows Rumple is on the island, the dagger is a severe liability. Rumple cannot be controlled right now--which is somewhat ironic as Rumple is being controlled by other things, mainly his fear of being just like his father.  Rumple is torn between how he perceives himself--the coward and heir to his father's cowardice--and how he wants to be perceived--The Dark One, who isn't afraid of anything.

Rumple has a physical reminder of his father and both his father's and his cowardice--the doll. This week we learned that the doll is the last thing Rumple ever received from his father before his father left him (cue my heartstrings). When Rumple admits that he's a coward and just like his father, it is heart breaking but there is Belle, the only person who has ever seen the goodness in the Dark One reminding him that just because can make the selfish and wrong decision, doesn't mean he will. And so Rumple rejects the past, and throws the doll off a cliff into the water abyss.

And THEN IT COMES BACK. This is freaky. This is--in fact--beyond freaky. This is something out of a horror film. Can Pan control the doll? Can he continually resend it back to Rumple? Because first the doll of doom and sadness drops out of the sky to land at Rumple's feet. And then he burns it, only to have it appear in front of him again! My on going theory is that the doll will only finally be destroyed when Rumple truly accepts the past and accepts who he is. In this episode, we saw Emma acknowledge that she's an orphan; we saw Snow embody a Queen but we did not see Rumple make a definitive decision about who he is. He is still a lost boy--coward, Dark One, lover, son, father. All these things define Rumple, but he is torn between the extremes.

Miscellaneous Notes from Lost Girl 

--Raise your hand if you secretly thought that Emma would learn she was a succubus.

--This was a heavy CaptainSwan episode. I enjoyed their banter. It reminds me of myself and my best friend and we're about as sexual as a slug and a tree stump. It's pretty much exactly how we talk. And no, I'm not at all biased in this interpretation by my SwanFire goggles. (adjusts goggles)
However, I do admit that the conversation between Hook and Emma about how Hook is depicted in the Disney version of his story was hysterical. As was this little gem:
Hook : “Looks like we’ll be venturing into the Dark Jungle after all”
Emma (deadpan) “You mean the place you told us to never set foot?”
Hook: “That’s the one!”

Fine. They're cute together.  *grumbles and retreats further into SwanFire land*

--Regina has the best outfits in the entire show.

--Rufio shout out! (But what is Hook's history with Neverland and Peter Pan?)

--"I can feel his smugness." Cue the Regina/Peter Pan shippers in 3...2...1...

--Oh no, Charming! I have no doubt that he'll be saved in the nick of time but look for a lot of White Knight angst as Charming struggles to hide his injury from his family. 

In Which I Review Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D (1x2)

I'm having a rather hard time deciding if this show is blog-able. On the one hand, there is some sort of arc happening--the scientific experiments that were set up in the pilot--but on the other hand it is very "plot device" of the week as demonstrated by this weeks "0-8-4" and with Sleepy Hollow being my limit on episodic television, I'm not sure if I have the energy to cover SHIELD as well. It's not to say that this weeks episode wasn't good--it was a perfectly fine second week episode, if overly predictable. In any given show where you have a wide array of personalities, at some point you have to give them a common goal or enemy to bring them together so that they learn the value of teamwork. It's supposed to unify them and give the audience a preview of what will come--people using their own individual strengths to others advantages. But the problem was that beyond learning to work together, there was very little point in the overall episode. 

 The episode begins with Coulson's voice over saying that everything is blue skies, as the SHIELD plane flies serenely through the air. This is, naturally, followed by the side of the plane exploding and chaos ensuing. We then flashback 19 hours to see the events that led up to this incident. It more or less picks up where last weeks left off: Skye is now a consultant for SHIELD though no one really knows what that means; an 0-8-4 has been called in and, like Skye, no one is really sure what that means. All they know is that an 0-8-4 is a device of unknown origin that needs to be intercepted before some rogue government or rebel army can get their hands on it and destroy the world. The 0-8-4 is supposed to be paralleling Skye as she is also an unknown asset. Can she be trusted? Will she betray the team? And what is her purpose? She's not a rocket scientist super nerd like the FitzSimmons duo; she is not an expert fighter like Ward and she's not even a trained veteran like May. She's a hacker who spent most of her time trying to uncover and expose SHIELD--like the weapon she may have the power to destroy the entire unit. The paralleling is fine, if heavy handed.

The artifact in question lies deep inside an Inca temple in Peru and is supposedly 1500 years old but somehow German in origin. As the science team of FitzSimmons try to figure out what exactly it is and what it can be used for, the national police lead by former Coulson flame, Camilla Reyes, pulls up and a small turf war breaks out. But it's all good because Coulson and Camilla are obviously friends and they all want to work together. If you believe any of this, you don't watch nearly enough television.

This attempt at camaraderie is interrupted both internally and externally. Internally, the agents of SHIELD are having trouble getting along: the scientists want to be careful and perform tests to determine origin, May and Ward are trying to feel each other out while Ward tries to dig into May's past, and Skye mostly walks around confused and in the way

trying to figure out what her purpose is. Externally, rebel fighters show up wanting the 0-8-4 and a gun fight ensues. The national police under Reyes and the Agents make it to the Super Plane; there the 0-8-4 is determined to be fueled by tessearct technology, which if you don't speak nerd is pretty terrible. Basically, the 0-8-4 is a weapon of mass destruction powered by alien tech. Go watch Thor, Captain America and the Avengers and then come back and see me. The only safe solution is to get the 0-8-4 to "The Slingshot" secret SHIELD base so that no government can have it. Along the way, of course, the national police under Reyes reveal their true colors and, of course, they are there for the 0-8-4 and not to be helpful. The manage to disarm Ward, May, FitzSimmons, and Skye and tie Coulson up. There's a lot of big talk about why Reyes wants the 0-8-4--something about government and rebels and how the device was originally commissioned by the Peruvian government in the first place. Frankly I was just waiting for the Agents to do what we all knew they were going to do: work together to get out of the situation. Which they did by blowing up the side of the plane. The action sequence itself is nicely shot with

fisticuffs and the vortex of open air sucking things out. The ultimate solution for the plummet was rather contrived--Skye opening a life raft to cover the gaping hole, but it was her contribution I guess.
It ends with the team arriving at the "Slingshot" and the 0-8-4 being put into a hold. The team then sits back and enjoys a beer (except Skye of course because she's not a member of the team and symbolism) and watching a rocket be shot out into space while some swelling orchestral music plays in the background.
So what is Skye's deal? At the end of the episode she receives a text from her Rising Tide cohorts wanting to know if she's "in." To which she replies that she is in fact, in. It's worth mentioning that she did hesitate but that's to be expected. They're clearly setting her up as the betrayer with a conscious. Will she actually betray SHIELD? During this episode, Skye was put in a life or death situation, managed to get out of it with her new found friends, was congratulated and thanked and made to feel appreciated, something I suspect Skye has had little of in her life. Ward is now going to take it upon himself to be her supervising officer and see her through and I suspect there will be some romance that goes along with that. In the end, she won't betray them but she'll come very close and her dynamic with the team will change. Predictable so I hope they tell it well.

Miscellaneous Notes from 0-8-4

--Last week I said that if they wanted the show to really succeed, they needed to find someway to bring in the Avengers. So what did they do this week? They trotted out references to almost every single Avenger. Skye is a consultant like Stark (Iron Man). The last 0-8-4 was a hammer (Thor). The explanation to what fueled this 0-8-4 was Captain America's story. And then who should appear at the end of the episode? Director Fury yelling at Coulson over what happened to the plane. Next week I suspect Hawkeye and the Black Widow will show up to give Skye fighting and shooting tips. Don't spend your credit all in one place, SHIELD. Spread out the love.

--Some pretty funny one-liners this week:
"You took a bullet?" "--ish"
"Device fueled by evil sitting in our cargo hold"
"You're having a midlife crisis" "After life crisis" "Don't even get me started on the red convertible" "Her name is Lola."

--Melinda May continues to be mysterious, though this week we did learn that she's referred to as "The Cavalry" which I suppose means they send her in when almost all hope is lost and they need a miracle. Other than this piece of information, she's still a boring character, given very little to do thus far.

--Once again Coulson refers to Tahiti as a magical place but he never says anything more about it. I suspect it will come up every episode until we get the full story.

 

In Which I Review Sleepy Hollow (1x3)

Say your prayers little one
Don't forget my son
To include everyone
I tuck you in
Warm within
Keep you free from sin
'Til the sandman he comes
Sleep with one eye open
Gripping your pillow tight
Exit light
Enter night
Take my hand
We're off to never never-land

---Metallica, "Enter Sandman"

I'm not sure when TV decided that the Sandman was more than just a delightful little pixie man who sprinkled his magic dust for good dreams into the eyes of children, but ever since they did, they've run with it. Maybe it has something to do with the idea of vulnerability when we're asleep and how we fear that we might never wake again, and thus a being who assists in sleep is suddenly seen as malevolent and dangerous. This episode dragged once again. The overarching arc was put on hold for another MotW episode, this one less scary than the previous and also much less fun. I laughed less and found myself looking at the clock more. Step it up, Sleepy Hollow. Don't fall into the MotW trap and forget your pilot episode because kitchy and cute are great but you can't rely on it forever.

This is now the third episode (out of three mind you) where dreams have played an important part. In the pilot, Ichabod and Katrina had a plot altering dream moment, and then in last weeks episode both Ichabod and Abbie had dreams, though of a different nature. In this weeks "The Triumph of Evil" Abbie has a prophetic dream that sets up our Monster-of-the-Week and then Ichabod and Abbie go on a magical mystery dream tour together. Shirtless. But we'll get to that.

Following a similar trend, this Abbie centric episode starts off with a dream that at first appears realistic. Abbie has been called into work to question a suspect, one with some sort of mental issues because a never-before-seen psychologist is trailing Abbie in her dream. Irving, the Captain of the station, leads Abbie to the interrogation chamber where Ichabod is questioning the suspect. This should really be your first big hint that something is amiss. It's bothering me how much leeway Ichabod has been given by the police force. Suddenly he's Abbie's new partner, despite most of the force believing that he's a mental patient. Irving, who is taking way too much on faith for me trust him, is fine with Ichabod at crime scenes and leading investigations. How is this not suspect? 

But I digress. The reality of the world quickly shifts as we learn that the suspect being questioned is Abbie herself, and suddenly we're in dream land. There are flashing lights and jumpy cuts and then a tall, albino like creature with talons and black pits for eyes, sand pouring out of them. We are then jolted out of the dream landscape and into reality as Abbie wakes up to a police emergency. There is a woman threatening to jump off a building and to no one's surprise, it's the psychologist from Abbie's dream. The woman, now with white cloudy eyes, gives a few creepy statements before jumping off the the building. Turns out she knows Abbie's sister Jenny. This isn't surprising. Last week we were formally introduced to Jenny, who looked like she was gearing up for a fight and even then I predicted that our two main characters would find themselves in need of her help. But there's a twist: Abbie and Jenny don't exactly see eye to eye. 

When Abbie and Jenny had their experience in the woods, Abbie kept a lot to herself. The girls were missing for 4 days and when they awoke, before being rescued by a farmer, they saw the horned demon creature moving through the woods. When questioned by the authorities, Jenny told the truth about what they saw, but Abbie was afraid she would be taken away from her foster family and so she lied and said she didn't see anything. Jenny was taken to a psych ward and Abbie lived with the guilt. 

Ichabod meet Jenny. Jenny meet Ichabod. Play nice. 

Jenny has a serious case of "bitch face" while talking to Ichabod and you can tell that unlike her sister, Jenny will not be taken in by Ichabod's pretty face and smooth accent. Jenny is unwilling to help but spends the entire meeting derailing Abbie and how Abbie lied all those years ago. The meeting is fairly fruitless except that it gives Abbie the chance to tell Ichabod the truth. Confessing her past lie, Abbie realizes that the monster will strike the old farmer who found the girls next. She's right and arrives in time for him to tell Abbie that "she's next" before he kills himself. 

So who is "he?" He is a Mohawk dream demon that Crane knows about because he fought along side Mohawks during the Revolutionary War. Go with it, it's convoluted and a little over contrived but at least they didn't get this knowledge from some book stored in their "convenience library." This dream demon comes for you if you've wronged someone, or turned a blind eye to their misfortunes. It's rather shocking that more people haven't died but for some reason he singled out Abbie--killing those who knew Jenny and refused to help her. Is Jenny in league with the horned demon? She seems pretty anit-demon to be honest, but she also has a lot of resentment toward her sister and her past. Since the demon is Native American in origin, Abbie and Crane go in search of a Native to help them out. This leads them to a used car salesman which seems rather politically incorrect even as Ichabod delivers his "politically correct" rant about how the Natives were the backbone of America and how could we wipe them all out. The Shaman-Salesman agrees to help out the duo and puts them into a dream state which involved magic tea, being half naked, and scorpions. It felt like everything except the kitchen sink was piled into this episode. Abbie and Ichabod come together in the dream world and defeat the dream demon when Abbie tells the truth about what she saw; the demon turns to glass and then shatters. The Monster-of-the-Week defeated, Abbie goes to see Jenny to try and resolve their issues only to discover that Jenny has managed an escape. Cue dramatic music. 

Miscellaneous Notes from The Triumph of Evil  

-- Eyes exploding into sand. Again with the pretty cool visual effects 

-- Hence forth, I shall refer to Ichabod as "Ichy" because of reasons. 

--What happened to the Mills' parents? This is the second time the story of Abbie and Jenny's family has been swept under the rug. It's obvious that they're saving that for a really big moment so it is probably monster related.

--Why did Ichabod and Abbie need to get undressed for the scorpions? And why didn't Ichabod have a fit over this? Last week he went on a rant about the price and tax on a bag of donuts; this week he was amazed by an energy drink, but somehow, having a half naked lady next to him doesn't upset his Revolution sensibilities? Because it should. You missed a gold moment here, Sleepy Hollow. That would have been comedic gold.

--People are already shipping Ichabod and Abbie. Abob? Icabbie? I'm not sure yet. They obviously have chemistry and it was very sweet how Ichabod wouldn't let Abbie go into the dream world alone but his wife is still very much on his mind. 

--Captain Irving knows something. I refuse to believe that he's just the man in charge and only shows up when he has to give Abbie orders.