phoenics

Interesting how people see things - I thought it was abhorrent the school was taking the stance that it did - and how the school just wanted the kids to ignore casual racism and misogyny. Also, it wasn't just the affair - it was all the stuff about Nick that had nothing to do with any of them they were trying to use to force her out. Also - she wanted Kai to go to that meeting because the dad of that racist bully kid was threatening to press charges - which would completely destroy Kai's life. It wasn't at all about saving her job - and as you said - she made a decision later on to put her family first and resign for their sakes. I think Sophie's demeanor - which is very reserved (she holds things in) tends to lead some to think she's emotionless and maybe that leads to people projecting the worst onto her and not giving her the benefit of the doubt.

I thought the show ending resolved this as he never went on any dating site - that it was Dawn who set up all of the accounts? She was the one chatting with everyone - she tried to chat with Mandy but Mandy shut her down. That's the rub - Nick was completely innocent. Dawn did ALL of the accounts? Right? Ya'll making me doubt what I thought I saw, lol. This show really fooled me. I totally thought Matt was the bad guy and the murderer and whew that twist was so far out of left field I just never even guessed anywhere near that. Wow. I too thought Nick was silly to go to Dawn first - he should have gone to his family first, then the hospital and the police. Dawn could wait - it's not like she was all that mobile. They'd catch her. But of course then we'd have no show. Why don't characters in tv shows make sense when stuff like this happens - go to family, the police or hospital first so you're protected from harm and can tell what happened to you, lol.

Apparently Dylan stole the journals just in case Erin wrote in them who the father was of DJ because he wanted his parents to keep DJ. He threatened Jess because she told and he was angry? It was still pretty flimsy storytelling obviously set up to make us think Dylan could have murdered Erin but in the end, he just wanted to keep DJ with his family. Just another poorly plotted out red herring. Mares also lead from the back of the pack - letting the stallions run in front. Mare seemed whiplashed about by the town more so than her whiplashing other folks, but maybe I'm wrong. I enjoyed the series though and never saw that ending coming. Agree with everyone else that John is a PoS and responsible for all the bad stuff. I don't think this show will have a season 2 - it feels like this was a limited series?

The necklace and photo are of John. The receipt just said "Ross" which is either brother. Mare assumed initially it was Billy. But John bought her that necklace.

It's interesting how people see things - I find Emily Lynd to be the blandest of bland actresses and her histrionics don't come across as "strong acting" to me - just a failed attempt to elicit "Blair". I actually find her to be the worst actress on the show and cringe during her scenes. So the fact that she seems to be more centered in the writing is actually really problematic given who the leads are. It is also problematic how Zoya and JC as characters are given scraps and not elevated in the writing more. Especially JC as she's the top billed lead. With the original show, this wasn't being done on purpose - but here I almost feel like it is, which is a shame. Both Audrey and Teacher Blonde lady (I DGAF what her name is) seem to be centered more in the writing. The writing decentering and giving the more "show moving" storylines to the white women characters is sooooo problematic. But typical. It wasn't an off-hand decision to make GG the teachers and then show the story from their PoV more from the beginning vs JC/Zoya. Even the train scene in the beginning framed Tavi's character AS SERENA vs JC who really is supposed to be Serena Part 2. Why did the show make the parallel with the teacher vs the actual lead? Why did the show center Tavi/Emily at all given they aren't the leads? This stuff is deliberate - if not unconscious. Shows with WoC leads do this All. The. Time. Charmed reboot just did it and lost their best actress over it (and most of the fandom). Twisted did it. Sleepy Hollow tried it. The Flash did it. Each of these shows had woc (mostly black) leads and each of them tried to erase their leads - in some ways they openly sabotaged them to justify running to the white women characters to "save" the show. I hope GG wakes up and properly centers JC/Zoya as leads. I'm sick of seeing this happen again and again. It's erasure and it's gross. Especially on a show patting itself on the back for being "woke". Fans are so quick to write off the woc characters and throw them in the bad writing pile, when EL's been plagued by that this whole time and hasn't elevated her material at all. I found the hospital scenes grating because EL was so obviously trying to channel Blair and failing spectacularly. Half her scenes she comes off as drugged and the other half she's over acting. There is a reason fans are gravitating this way and that and it's partly racial status quo and partly the writing keeps decentering Zoya and JC in stories meant to be about them - this is a common enough pattern on shows that feature woc leads as bait to fans when the shows really don't plan on following through and won't follow through unless forced by the fandom. Making the protest BLM focused would have made Obie look even worse for his performative activism and worse, his judgmentalism directed at two women of color (really, two black women). He judged one for being unable to take off her "activism" hat at the dinner, when she LIVES an experience that makes it impossible for her to do so without burying that part of herself and he judged the other for not being into what he was into and casting her influencer career as shallow and non-impactful, when she rose to being a super prominent influencer as a black woman - which is still super hard in the fashion influencer circles. JC was exemplary just by existing while black as an influencer - her activism WAS her presence. So Obie judging that and Zoya and then being all BLM would have made his hypocrisy even worse. And given no one has called Obie out for his performative activism yet - how would the show handle BLM when Obie has done all the judgment of JC/Zoya? It's bad enough Obie was such a dick to Zoya for dinner when she brought up BLM and was roundly silenced - if the protest had been BLM after all of that and Obie faced no blowback it would have been far worse. It's still bad - but that would be bad on a whole other racist level. As it is, I don't know if the show realizes how badly they've screwed Obie up with their characterization. Frankly I want to see JC and Zoya as LEADS. I don't GAF about Audrey and TBL (who really just seem to be there to appease white fans who refuse to self insert with woc/black characters).

Even though I love this show - the Zoya/JC familY dynamic is sucking me in - I just don't like the triangles that are set up already because I don't see how they work long-term and I'm not invested? The only character I truly like is JC. Oh and Max. Low key wish they'd end up together because that's the only spark I see (the other characters feel uber bland to me - esp Aki and Audrey). Obie going for his ex of 1 day's half-sister is just cruel and mean and ruins Obie for me. I do like Zoya - but she also went antagonistic so fast that she is suspect herself. So I' fine with Obie/Zoya happening because I've decided JC is too good for Obie - and way too sparkly for him. I'd like to escape into this new york elite world and seeing JC constantly dissed for being an influencer and living the life is ... not what I want to watch. Julien definitely let her insecurities drive her with letting her minions take Zoya down, but she's totally redeemed herself by realizing Obie was happy with Zoya and letting that be. But someone like JC shouldn't be single - but right now there is NO ONE on the cast who could be that guy for her. NO ONE. So I guess we're supposed to be looking at Obie/Zoya as Dan or Nate/Serena part deux and Audrey/Max or Aki/Max as the new Chair, but none of those pairings make me want to invest. The Max triangle seems forced and like the writers are desperate to create Chair part 2 but I'm struggling to see it. I love Max but don't find Audrey or Aki interesting enough on their own to go toe to toe with him. Also the leads feel jumbled up. If Zoya/JC are the new Blair/Serena and the leads - then both would need their OTPs but the show set them up as rivals with no obvious other for the loser to go to. Blair/Serena had a triangle with Nate, but then Dan pops up and that's where the story begins. But here - what we're just gonna have the two leads battling over a guy - with JC losing out? meh. Even Obie flipping back to JC seems uninteresting to me - he's so judgy and dull, I just would rather he stay with Zoya to free up JC for something more epic. Can Max have a steamy older brother? With the Max triangle, I'm not sure who's the center? Are they going for a throuple? I'm twisting into a pretzel but basically I don't see how the Zoya/JC/Obie triangle is sustainable past a number of episodes. I also don't see Audrey/Aki/Max having much staying power as a threesome. So eventually the OTPs will have to emerge - which will leave 2 characters OTP-less, unless they bring on more cast members. Basically - lead status will depend on who's romance is front and center - so right now it feels like that's Zoya/Audrey or Zoya/Max? JC feels like she's gonna get the Nate treatment unless a twist is coming up. Not cool. I think the teachers should be arrested and their motivation doesn't match their actions - if they wanted to scare the students why not go after the worst one (Monet), not Zoya, Obie and even JC who seemed to be the least problematic ones. My fondest wish is that they lose control of GG to someone really dastardly and get blackmailed into quitting. And PLEASE don't let Zoya's dad hook up with Kate Keller. Gross. Also - still wondering if KK had a motive against JC before she came to Constance. Her wearing SVW's same outfit from the OG pilot and watching JC videos on the train beforehand feels suspect.

I enjoyed this episode more than the last two - but even I feel the Barry+Iris birthed the Forces thing a bit overwrought. Love Iris as lightning rod - but this kinda pushed a bit too far, imo, though connecting their connection to the Forces was interesting. I feel like there is a better way to tell this story but whatever. I loved the Deion actor chewing up the scenery - that was just good old fashioned villainy and he's pretty compelling. Nice shout out to DMX at the end too. RIP. I am intrigued by this forces storyline but the show's storytelling is just so simplistic and childish that it's killing what should be a GREAT storyline. I gotta admit - I'm gonna be sad to see Cisco and Wells go.

I'm glad the KF episodes are over - given the show didn't actually talk about the actual crimes KF committed, I don't feel she's faced justice at all. I'm also wondering if she ever apologized to Cecile beyond that stupid girls' night episode where she didn't even apologize to Iris for trying to kill her and basically bashed Iris for forgiving her unprompted - she didn't apologize to Cecile either. Neither of these women has ever had a real apology from KF for any of it. I'm tired of this show using the black characters to give KF/Cait a pass for abhorrent behavior. And these two episodes didn't solve any of that - it just made it worse (by ignoring it) and forced me to sit and watch them parallel BLM with the most problematic character/actress left on this show. Sadly I have forgotten this show is even on and it used to be my #1 show. Clearly the casting of you know who is stunt casting in a last ditch effort to save the show. Barry is stuck in this neverending non-growth cycle and it's painful to watch. The only interesting thing right now is the whole SF storyline. That's actually good.

It's not like they killed her in a random traffic stop or killed her during questioning. This show using Joe to draw some kind of BLM parallel to KF's situation is GROSS AF. Especially given KF actually conspired to kill his own daughter - and if it hadn't been for HR, her conspiracy with Savitar would have succeeded and Iris would be f'n DEAD. Joe defending her like his life depended on it with no one ever holding KF responsible for the ish she's actually done just ... WTF. And of course we have a black showrunner signing off on this BS. I SAID when he was hired that I wasn't sure about him because you just never know and I was fully right. GROSS GROSS GROSS and RACIST AF. F this gross problematic show and the writing around KF/Caitlin. F it so hard. The CW deserves to get a deluge of angry letters about this episode.

No, Eric doesn't care about SB - but his white feminist writers DO and they are the ones who keep baiting SB in S6. EW isn't really paying attention to that - but he should. I don't want to see him even try to touch BLM when he's got those writers undermining WestAllen with their crackship writing and continual shoving of Iris into the SBW trope.

I will legit riot if they use KF for that. RIOT.

Yeah - Eric is a textbook comic fanboy who only cares about action and comic plot beats - romance be damned. That's why he constantly writes now to make sure we all know Iris isn't a damsel and doesn't need saving, that she's a strong black woman who can take care of herself, while leaving Cait/KF in the hands of his white feminist women writers who keep baiting SB. I'm tired.

Agree about the Team Flash dynamic. That format has long outlived its usefulness. If the show was smart - it would have minor villains for the supporting cast to pursue while Barry is dealing with the larger villain and then the story could collide - all in the same episode. Team Flash infantilizes Barry and I'm so bummed we won't get smart Barry again because they'd tied it to "he loses his emotions". Also feel robbed of a WestAllen reunion - after all this time we won't get a real hug or kiss after being separated for months? Epic fail and so so unrealistic. This show fails spectacularly at these moments continually and it's exhausting. Contrast that to Hacy on Charmed, where the show is putting focus on their inevitable reunion (due to a magical reason keeping them from being able to touch one another right now) so you KNOW the show plans to do an epic payoff for all of the distance right now. But this show? Nope. We get smart Barry with no emotion and their reunion will likely be completely screwed up or forgotten about. What a waste of CP and GG's chemistry. I am concerned about Iris though - is she going to need that chamber thingee that Eva uses to keep herself sane in the real world (I guess that was a small clue she wasn't the real Eva)? I hope they save Kamilla and Singh, though I fear they won't. One or both I fear is doomed. With Nash gone - did they also drop that Iris from the future hint they gave early on in the season? Remember how his little detector thingee went off around Iris?

Mel has used her freeze power three times - once against Parker, once to freeze the rod to save Jordan in the club and again when showing their dad they were witches. She's used her heat power (or attempted to) three times: once to open the gate at Fort Easton Power Site, once to try to burn that monster in the hallway at some Faction facility when she and Harry went to get the darklighter bottle and also when she tried to burn the hybrid monster at the docks right before they found Celeste. She also used it to heat up coffee or something right after she got the power. And I agree they haven't used their powers enough in S2, but it looks like S3 is fixing that.

Macy shot colored mojo out of her hands in the episode I described in an earlier post (S2 - the episode with the bee demons) - Macy held off a horde of demons with her new power toward the end of the episode. I was glad to see her do it again on sunday because I worried the other time would end up a one-off. Maggie shot colored stuff out of her hands in the first episode of this season when she accidentally incepted Mel. The part in the kitchen when she tries to make Mel go back to normal is where the power came out of her hands. It also happened in S2ep18 when she got really mad and the power burst out of her in a huge shockwave. But the part most like what she did to the creature was S3Ep1 at about the 15 min mark. Mel didn't actually shoot colored stuff from her hands. Her power manifests as light on her hand, but the power is clear - like a wave of hot air - when she does the heat power. When it's cold power I think it might look icy coming from her hand, or nothing, I can't remember. But I get the color differences (Macy - blue, Maggie - pink/magenta, Mel - clear, except the light on her hands, which is gold for heat and not sure for cold) may be hard to see and kinda subtle.

Honestly so happy it got a Season 4! I think a Season 5 could happen as well - especially given their netflix distribution deal. But we will see. 4 seasons is awesome.

I think it was a mistake to kill off the darklighter - Jimmy. I wanted him to merge with Harry and have some little hope maybe that's still possible and he's not really dead? Honestly the darklighter mythology was one of the one things that worked amazingly well for S2 so I'm sad that's gone but Abigael's problematic ass is still here, lol. I loved the hiding places each sister chose - they were all so perfect for each of them. And who knew dancing alone on a beach at night to the sound of waves could be so romantic? I love Hacy. While I did like the personality of the college town atmosphere, the show (imo) leaned too heavily into the childish college storylines centering Maggie and as a result, everyone in the cast felt too teeny bopperish. Mel and Macy were aged down to almost look like undergraduate students too even though they were older. We never really got "older" storylines with them, not really. Everything felt like it revolved around Kappa and both Mel and Macy suffered as characters because of it. And Harry was reduced to a caricature - even though I enjoyed the "full ascot version" of Harry, S2 Harry (with all his flaws, lol) felt more human and relatable and ... well ... like a MAN. That's why I don't want the darklighter to be dead - but for him to have merged somehow with Harry, but we don't know it yet? I just want the complexity there for RE to play with. So all in all - I much preferred S2. That hooked me on this show - even with its flaws. If S2 was more of S1, I doubt I'd be here. And given the ratings, the show had to reset somehow. S1 lost a million fans over the course of the season and while S2 wasn't perfect, it did retain 90% of the audience it had from its premiere episode all the way to the finale in may. So at least it stopped the bleeding and gave the show another chance to slowly bring back in elements from S1, retooled to be darker, edgier and more grown up, which is what I think we are getting in S3. About not having the darklighter storyline and getting more sister stuff in return - the darklighter mostly vanished after episode 6, with only one other episode focusing heavily on him. I personally think abigael being shoehorned into so many storylines this season and her being presented as knowing everything while TCOs and inexplicably Harry knew nothing was as bad as anything at harming the feel of this show. I hope this gets rectified past episode 4. I don't want to see TCOs, Harry or anyone going to her for anything.

I meant to say I prefer the darker tone of s2. I know I'm in the minority, lol. S2 really hooked me on this show when S1 failed to do. But I do hope they manage to balance the best of both.

The house doesn't sit on top of Safe Space. When the house was in Hilltowne it did sit on top of that weird magical crypt place where they were able to amp up their powers though. But I think that's all gone now and didn't come with the house when it was moved to Seattle. Only the Command Center sits underneath Safe Space Seattle - that's why Julian bought Safe Space - so he could dig underneath and get to the tree and amber, etc. This is also why Maggie had to get a job as assistant manager at Safe Space because they needed a key card to get access to Safe Space and the special room that led to the entrance to the Command Center. Since the house was cloaked to keep them from the darklighter, they couldn't use the Command Center marbles to go from the CC to their house and vice versa. The Vera-Vaughn house is somewhere else in Seattle entirely. It was moved from Hilltowne to an empty lot in Seattle and has nothing to do with SafeSpace. IIRC, Julian-Nadia said that it was meant to keep magical creatures out. Which begs the question of whether it would detect and prevent a potion being used on Julian. Since Viv was able to use the bracelet thingee and almost petrify that other man on the inside, I'm gonna go with their faraday cage didn't prevent magic on the inside - only from keeping magical creatures out.

They did each use their individual powers. Maybe the special effects were too similar, but I didn't have trouble differentiating between them? Macy used her force field power, Maggie used her inception power and then Mel used her molecular manipulation power. Maybe if you skipped a lot of S2 or forgot the three individual and amped up powers they got in the S2 episodes (counting the first 3 eps of S3 which were technically from S2), then I could see how this might have been confusing.

Its only Macy that has this power. I think it was S2Episode16 when Macy used it on those demons when Godric was about to kill Mel and Abby and take over as Overlord. Parker phased in and shocked everyone while a cloaked Macy and Maggie freed Mel and Abby. The cloaking spell wore off and left them vulnerable to all the demons present (there were at least 30 of them) attacking. Then Macy reacted and we saw the force field power for the first time. Mel or Maggie asked how she did that and Macy said she didn't know. I almost thought they were gonna never let her use that power again and was so happy to see it on Sunday's episode - so gonna have to disagree that the writing was dumb and lazy since they clearly showed this power before. All 3 of them got powers last season that were slightly more than the powers they had previously (with the exception of Mel, but that's mostly a matter of interpretation). I think it's actually more like the demo-dogs from Stranger Things - given the dimensional rip the next creature came through at the end of the episode, I think the Stranger Things idea fits, although there is speculation that . If so, I am SO excited and can't wait. With only 14 episodes left this season, they won't have time for filler so hopefully the episodes can all be way more intense. Really loving this season (I'm counting "this season" as S3Ep4 onward because technically this would have been the season 3 premiere episode if covid hadn't interrupted filming last year) even better than the last! Feels like a perfect mesh between Season 2 and Season 3.

They are allowing the actress to wear her natural hair texture. Maybe she just needs it without bangs? But I love that she gets to wear her naturally curly hair. Sarah Jeffery talks on instagram about how liberating it has been to wear her natural hair and how it is recovering from years of damage at always straightening it due to the pressure to wear it straight and assimilate. I think people who don't like her new hairstyle might like to take a peek and read what she says about it herself here. I think eventually it will look like her instagram pic on the show too - this must be some interesting in between phase?

No, it was a panic attack. That's why she flashed back to Jordan helping her recover from another panic attack last season. They spent multiple episodes building up the "Maggie has panic attacks" both in the first 3 eps of this season (mostly episode 2-3) and last season (episode 19).

When she's more reserved and keeps things closer to her vest I find her more compelling. It's when she has to act out extremes that her acting chops fail. I compare her doing her scenes with Maggie and being all giddy or enraged to when Macy was doing the demon voodoo doll immortality thing and I cannot see Mel D pulling that off ever. She just doesn't, imo, have the range of her castmates.

He died onscreen - Harry was with him. Harry put up his hand to heal him, but then he watched Julian's eyes turn from blue to dead brown. Then Macy came back and saw he was dead. His death was very much onscreen, though probably not the original death planned for Julian. The writers on twitter said there were some challenges to filming due to Covid - they couldn't get Eric Balfour back in person so they had to do some CGI on him. I was wondering in the previous episode that the scene where he's talking to Macy looked weird and now I know why. It was CGI. It wasn't the season finale - it was the penultimate episode. In S2 it would have been episode 21 of a 22 episode season. The Valentine's Day episode is the real S2 finale. We won't see their S3 course correction until episode 4 and then the season will end 14 episodes later. I actually really liked this storyline, but agree that the threads were hard to follow for some (not for me, but I really liked what I was seeing and remained engaged enough to catch them). My main criticism was that it ended pitifully. All of that build up and Viv was vanquished more easily than the ice dude was in the S1 pilot. LOL - what the hell show? Kind of a cop out. But the magical pandemic? Well now that might have some legs in the stakes department. I personally prefer the darker tone of s1 and I gravitate to huge big concept, world ending kinds of storylines with a major threat that feels insurmountable - but only if the payoff is worth it. And the payoff here was ... lacking ... although in the end, it looks like the real danger was less Vivian, but more her poisoning the entire magical world - which she did. I wish the show had built that ending up more? Like if they had made it some kind of quest Viv was on the whole time in order to do something really bad - like poison the magical world - and actually SUCCEED at it - it would have been better because now we could see in the true s2 finale (on feb 14th) how they overcame the huge obstacle of saving a dying magical world. Instead I thought we were gearing up for some epic battle of TCOs vs a horde of human zombies with demon powers. Also - Viv absorbed all kinds of demon powers willingly - she had to die. And technically they didn't kill her - her own inability to absorb all of that magic did. Gray area? Although I agree with the criticism of the lack of spell casting. Fan criticism that their Power of Three feels more super-hero-ish is fair. In the OG, the witches used their powers a lot and they were kinda super-hero-ish. But the Power of Three spell was always an actual spell. I hope they get back to that in S3 - or level it up a bit. Although in S1 when they faced off against Faith using the power of three that was awesome - the sound effects and visual effect of that was really awesome. I would also like them to bring back some of the bad assery spell casting Macy did when she did the whole voodoo doll immortality stripping spell. Whew. That was so good. I do hope next season brings the sisterhood to the forefront more. I still want to keep Hacy (obvs) but Harry is going to need to step up his side of that - right now Macy is doing all of the work. That's egregious because Harry was supposedly the one who caught feelings first, but he's still never verbalized any of that to her. I read a review the other day of last week's episode and there was a line in there that claimed Harry loved Macy since he first set eyes on her and I was left wondering where I missed that scene? Unless they are getting that from the scene in Macy's past where Harry comes to fix her from having demon fire coming out when she was in college? I mean I can fanwank that is when he fell for her - but if it's true that Marisol wiped his memory of that incident then ... ? I don't have an issue with the girls having love interests - but the sisterhood does need to be centered more. But I didn't have an issue with Macy hugging Harry - she's clearly in love with him and was worried about losing him. The reboot is unlike the OG in that their whitelighter is always there with them - and let's be real - Harry is the most talked about and popular character on this show according to google trends. They can't just shuffle him off somewhere and only focus on the girls. But they shouldn't only show Macy with him alone - last year they did a better job of this than in the last two episodes, tbh (well, except for that part after Macy was rescued from Jimmy - that scene of the sisters Mel and Maggie comforting Harry instead of Macy made no sense to me at all). It should have been them comforting Macy and then Harry coming in later to talk and say what he said to Mel and Maggie and Macy all to Macy. Anyway - here's hoping the real S3 (episodes 4-18) will take the best of S2 and S1 and balance them better.