sistermagpie

Don't say it!! He's actively sought out virgins to feed to the vamps, so he might not consider any humans as all that innocent.

Wow, that was one of the most wonderful journeys into weirdness ever. Love every one of the Island of Dr. Lazlo's creations and thought the ending was sweet. I like what they're doing with the pairings this season, with Nandor and Colin becoming friends and Laszlo working wtih Gizmo. Especially with Colin Robinson the cool teacher. It's nice to think the creatures could come back as needed too. They're out there like the hell hound. Born Free indeed.

Because they didn't bring a stake and he was trying to kill them too?

He is a bit of a drama queen.

Or at least immune to them. I'm fine with her in small doses--nice having her show up as a volunteer as her way of "giving back" and that's it. And yet he did read every single one of his diaries to come back to his regular self. So my guess is the cycle that repeats is that as he gets close to death he starts losing his memories and starts longing to know about his origins, then when he's reborn he finds the stuff he arranged when he was at the start of the cycle and remembered everything. Gotta wonder what famously interesting Davey Crockett saw in Colin!

Isn't he dead? I thought Guillermo stabbed him with the "put him down" needle. To save Nadja. He does love them all and they love him back! Not only was Nadja saving Guillermo but Nandor was saving Colin! This was another surprising and delightful episode, including a surprise John Slattery. OMG, he nailed that monologue. There's even the unspoken joke that he finds *Colin's* accident fascinating and hard to pin down when he's got Nandor in the car. Speaking of Colin, I love that he's got a fascinating life that he can weaponize to give back energy. Davy Crockett + ASS forever on a Bowie knife! Guillermo was hilarious when high. "Hey gurrrrl!" Love his floating frogs as well. Why were those hairy little guys so funny?

Just watched Lotus 1-2-3 A lot of season 5 eps blend together for me with the plot, such as it is, advancing in tiny steps. Even the title feels like they cast around for something somebody said and picked Lotus 1-2-3 because it was 80s. I can see them setting things up for the last season, but it still feels like something’s missing while they do that. Like it’s all set up for next season. I guess the Morozovs are supposed to be the main thing, but they somehow don’t feel like it. OLEG Oleg’s family ambushing him with potential wives is pretty funny, especially in contrast to his investigations into corruption. I feel like we’ve got the point already without so many low level people just doing what everyone does and getting threatened for it. Oleg’s wife is never really going to come across as a real character so it almost does feel like he just picked the best of the three at dinner. STAN Renee’s conversations with Stan continue to raise the possibility that she’s a spy, but without me feeling like there’s anything really at stake. They have a conversation about it being easy to not see what you don’t want to see, and it’s odd that when she asks Stan if Sandra knew he was having an affair he has to think about it when she told him, outright, she damn well did. Still, it would be smart for her to be lying about being cheated on, to make him feel guilty while encouraging him to open up to her. And yet…she still doesn’t feel very important to the guy, maybe because she’s so perfect and pleasant, like a Stepford wife. MISCHA Mischa remains the one story I’m really invested in this time. His scene with Gabriel is just so effective. I buy Mischa’s longing for Philip. The actor’s great, and I especially love his expressions when he’s waiting for Philip at their meeting spot. It does seem like Mischa understands that his father doesn’t know he’s in the US. Like he gets that Gabriel has intercepted his message rather than thinking Gabriel has been sent by Philip. On first run I remember that before this ep there was a whole conversation about the likelihood of Mischa being able to speak English. I thought that he’d have to speak just enough to have whatever conversations in English he needed to have, since that always happens on TV (and none of the main actors speak Russian). That’s what happens, but they used his language so much better than I expected. The conversation never breaks down, but you can see Gabriel speaking slowly and Mischa concentrating furiously to try to understand, and I feel his frustration at having to try to express himself only in English. I also like the touch of Gabriel trying to get him someplace private and Mischa attracting unwanted attention by refusing, so they stay. On rewatch I can’t help but notice that Gabriel’s order to Mischa to “forget all this” if he really loves Philip is what Philip tells himself about Henry when they leave the US. If he really loves him, he’ll let him go for his own good. Maybe they’ll meet again, but not this way. In both cases it’s framed as putting the person you love before yourself. HENRY Speaking of Henry, this is the ep where it’s revealed that he’s suddenly good at math. Suddenly good—he wasn’t before, so his parents weren’t missing anything. And they both show up to meet with his math teacher, even if Philip has to come straight from the airport. These aren’t flakey parents who don’t know about their kids. They also have a little exchange about whether Henry’s Chris is a girl or a boy. They are interested in his personal life too. I like the little parallel to Oleg’s family there, in fact. The way both sets of parents are nosy about their kids’ life (which I heard at least one Russian person say is very standard). Of course, Philip and Elizabeth aren’t setting Henry up with potential girlfriends, but he’s 13. They are probably wise to not question him about it if he’s not sharing the info himself, but it’s funny watching them try to spy their way around it. They already suspect what’s going on without his telling them. PAIGE As for our other kid, Paige is glumly moving towards breaking up with Matthew. The first we hear of her, she’s begged off going to a movie with Stan, Renee and Matthew, and that leads into Matthew confronting her about her obvious lack of interest in him. Earlier she’s told Philip that she had a crush on Matthew before, so thought going out with him would make her life better, but it’s only worse, so maybe she’s just meant to be alone. I think her scene with Matthew is supposed to work the way so many of Philip and Elizabeth’s scenes do, where on the top level you see how they’re handling a source, but underneath you see how they’re expressing what’s really going on. Because I think this scene is supposed to be really important. It may be where Paige realizes she has to break up with him—and so be alone forever. (In part because of her unique situation of not being able to talk to him about what’s really going on with her, but also maybe the more mundane discovery that having a relationship doesn’t fix your problems.) That’s going to lead her to abandon her true self and follow Elizabeth. But it just plays like another time where things are hard for her and she’s confused instead of her making decisions and taking clear actions and hitting a wall. It’s more long pauses and slowly choosing words and puzzling out feelings. Sometimes I can’t stop myself from wondering how the scene could play differently. Like a version where it was clearer when she was choosing a fake deflection, or trying to give him some truth before giving up and going back to a dismissive lie. Her last lines are that she’s distant because she just doesn’t know how to act with a boyfriend, to which Matthew replies that yes, she does. That’s the line I think is supposed to hit hard, with Paige of course knowing she isn’t behaving right, that none of this feels right. Because at heart this is central to Paige. She desperately wants emotionally intimate relationships and doesn’t believe they can happen without truth. She does know, despite never having a boyfriend, what she should be doing, and she’s not and she can’t. I did find myself asking if it was realistic that Matthew would so want to continue going out with someone when all their time together seems to be either about either doing homework or listening to her struggle to explain why she’s distracted today, but I actually do believe he’d still be into it. Maybe not if they were older, but here, yeah. ELIZABETH Elizabeth learns that they’ve been wrong all this time about the bug plot, though she’s not bothered by it. I like how her habit of focusing on only the immediate mission and the far-off goal, which always seems to make her better suited to the job, is an easily exploited weakness in S6. She learns this fact from the guy she spends the most time with in this ep, Ben the bug guy. OMG, he is so tedious. Objectively he’s a good guy doing good work, and the stuff he talks about would be interesting in itself in conversation, but I can’t stand him. Maybe because I know every time he appears in a scene there’s going to be lots of dialogue about irrelevant stuff. I found myself asking why he’s dating Brenda Neil the clothing buyer given all his interests and I feel like it’s because dating, for Ben Stobert, is largely about impressing interchangeable women with all his knowledge and experience and stuff. PHILIP Although it’s not immediately apparent, I think Philip’s the most central to this ep, even if he himself isn’t doing anything that memorable. Claudia and Gabriel have a conversation about whether or not to let him meet Mischa that references his file that we now know is going to be important next season. Only the way Arkady reads his file is very different from the way Claudia does. She thinks he’s “shaky.” Arkady thinks the opposite. What really makes Philip central here is parenting. He doesn’t exactly fail all three of his kids in this ep, but he doesn’t succeed with them either. I already talked about Mischa letting him go if he loves him, and how that’s like Henry, and that still means that because of his choices and his job, he’s prevented from giving this kid what he needs. (Btw, it’s again funny how people sometimes claim Henry’s just going to forget about Philip once he’s gone cause Stan’s got toaster pizza when Mischa’s never even met his father and he’s risking his life to travel around the world to talk to him once.) Philip's thinking of his own father here too, flashing back to his childhood hovel and dinners of moldy black sawdust bread while having sex with Deirdre. I don’t know why they leave his brother out of this scene, btw. Philip (Mischa, then) is the only one sleeping at the table when Dad comes home with three bread rations. It made a lot of us wonder if the brother from the first scene had died. They all live in one room—where is he? Is the third ration for him? I think there’s echoes here of Renee’s lines about it being easy not to see things you don’t want to see. Philip was only 6 when his father died, but he also probably didn’t want to question what he’d been told about him or focus on his memories, which is basically the way Henry is about his parents. Oh, and another maybe unintentional parallel is Ben impressing Brenda/Elizabeth by making S’mores in his apartment fireplace like Philip’s mother heats up the hard, stale bread in the flames of their 19th century wood stove. Philip missteps with Henry in awkwardly trying to talk to him about his unexpected promotion into math class. (Elizabeth affectionately rolls her eyes when Philip says he’s good at math, but we’ll learn he really was singled out as a brilliant student—they are alike and walking very similar paths, Henry just doesn’t know it.) Henry winds up accusing him of thinking (and saying) Paige is the only kid he has who does anything good and Philip isn’t sure how to correct him. Then there’s the scene with Paige where she tells him how hopeless she feels about relationships and he doesn’t know what to say to her either. I remember at the time some criticized him for not cheering her up by taking her to the mall or something but I can’t see how that would work. He does seem to genuinely want to be as honest as he can with the kids, and while Elizabeth usually believes whatever easy answer she’s giving while she’s giving it, if Philip is taking Paige seriously here, which I think he is, he knows there is no easy answer. Back in S1 Elizabeth was the one who was often unsure about dealing with the kids. Nowadays she’s gotten a lot more confident—a little too confident, imo—and Philip’s the one questioning himself—because he wants to be better. It literally drives him to a teenager parenting class at EST. The guy is trying. As always, it’s kind of hard to make sense of the EST gobbledygook, but it seems like the point is that the most important thing about parenting is the love that is there, and to not let that get obscured by old ideas about who they are or you are or something like that. As ever, it’s hard to really pin down, but it does seem like this is very central to how Philip is going to consciously try to parent, and that means just trying to make them feel loved and not project his own expectations or desires or issues onto them. Not that this is the simple answer either—he’s eventually going to have to assert authority he’s earned again.

Vicars with strong faith need not apply. Regular crises required!

Didn't she explain that death from that turns up like a drug overdose? They might just explain it away as a relapse on Natalie's part. Agree totally on the Adam story and them getting away with it. It's weird to have them living in the past in a situation where they're stuck in a bad luck situation that they have to deal with, even if they sometimes do it with magical thinking...and then in the future things fall into place in almost cartoonish ways that keep them from dealing with the consequences. It might have been more satisfying if Shauna had just stabbed Adam without killing him and have the point be how that relationship ended for her rather than hiding the body from the keystone cops. Or at least just let the body stay hidden so the focus is on her guilt instead of hiding from the police.

I wonder if, when Grantchester makes a request for a new vicar, they make "drama queen" part of the actual job description?

I've been having the opposite reaction, a little. I think it may still end with him somehow not being a vampire (which I've also always wanted), but I'm impressed with the show giving him this story where he impulsively went for it (and remember he was even reconsidering when Derek bit him anyway) and now being stuck in between and scared and miserable with both sides of his life. The show always really commits to whatever big change it makes. I'm totally emotionally invested in him still, and eventually he was always going to have to really confront his lifelong dream of being a vampire. I wouldn't be surprised if his family ultimately finds a solution. Vampire hunters must get bitten sometimes, after all.

Yes, I believe she's said this is the third time he's made his dramatico goodbye.

But remember, whatever they think of as a dark force isn't necessarily supernatural. It's just them buying into it because of how they feel about whatever. There's an interesting convo to be had about Ben in the future!

Wow, this was an amazing one. When I read the description I thought: how much of a problem could some unwanted attention be? And then they did this. One of my biggest laughs was Nandor the Relentless being introduced without hesitation as Nandor De Laurentiis. Of course. (The Guide feeding on the weathergirl on screen was also a nice little visual gag.) And yet, in the middle of such a funny ep, we get pure tragedy for poor Guillermo. Never thought this one through, did you, Gizmo?

I think part of the issue is that this person isn't new, she's someone who's very attached to Fred that could replace Sam.

Ah! You're right, that is weird. It wasn't explained on the show, but interviews somebody said exactly that, iirc, that there was a flap - but I agree about the healing process!

I think he sometimes does like watching them fail (some critic pointed out that Guillermo works best when he's smug and nervous with a secret), but there was no way he could have explained to Nandor any of that. Whenever he tries Nandor just insists he knows what's right--and in this case he would just accuse him of being jealous of his friendship with Alexander the Jew. He even tried to say something when Nandor decided the problem was they were too different (because he wasn't circumcised) and Guillermo pointed out that the two of them were different. (To which Nandor brilliantly corrected - YOU are, but I'm not. I mean, Nandor's problem here isn't that he doesn't know how humans make friends since it's not actually different from vampires (just ask The Guide). Nandor sees humans as inferior and thinks he should get whatever he wants right away, so he can't listen to that kind of advice.

It is! But it's funny that he does seem to have snow shoes, and yet nobody seems to use them once the snow falls (minor spoiler for season 2). Misty just sees a chance to be part of a group with that, imo. And she's right, given what we see in the first scene of the pilot I've never heard the theory about Misty causing the plane crash. That seems ridiculous to me too. I thought the binder was just something she found in the cabin and isn't really hiding it. Akilah's the one who knows about plants, so I don't even think she's using it to seem knowledgeable. She just saw a use for the shrooms, I thought. That's exactly how they explained it, that she was meant to have a flap of skin they just sewed back together. And the nerves too, somehow. LOL> TBF, if he was a real stalker he probably wouldn't have had the magazine and the book at his place. He'd already know them by heart and wouldn't want Shauna to see them, because he'd know he was lying. Seems like she could have won the election honestly. Maybe more people were intrigued by her than she thought? Looking forward to reading your reactions!

I'm still laughing over last week's "Being tall." Up there with the classic, "Did you kill Carol?" I don't think there could be casting more perfect than Martha Kelly. I always assume they're based on real paintings, since the Nadja painting in the opening credits is so recognizeable as a real painting, just with Nadja's face. Plus, it seems like it's just funnier. Though with the ones from Little Antipaxos I think they might have made up ones to fit what they needed, like I assume the paintings of Nandor (aka "Fucking Persian Frank Zappa") attacking Nadja's village was.

I figured the screen part was what kept him from actually dying, but he still unnaturally burned? Like the other poster, I got worried when he went into the water. Does he not know how sweat works? Plus, I didn't even think he had it on his legs. I thought that's what the boots were for!

I can't remember the context now, but he may have been referring to him just no longer being a familiar who did things for them.

So many great visuals in this ep, and not always special effects wise. Nandor's face in that go pro camera in space was hilarious. Lazlo's whole look on the beach was fantastic and I just loved how Guillermo (aka "gay guy")'s face went from sad to having a good time on the float. And of course, shout out to Colin Robinson's face in the 3-way at the end. Daddy likee what Daddy like-ee, after all.

So much this! "Re-writing" a script that was spit out by an AI is just as difficult if not more so than starting from scratch. They'd be writing the script and getting paid as if they just tweaked it. All corporations are ready to use technology as a threat or cover for their own greed. And still suggest it's people living hand to mouth and actually producing the product that are unreasonable!

I was thinking about this, and I think it's not just the exchange of blood, maybe, but the act of turning. So since Derrick bit the other guy and then the guy drank his blood, it was only the other guy that was being turned. Derrick just drank some vampire blood or bit/was bitten. No matter how much evidence he has to the contrary, he can't get Antonio Banderes out of his head as his future self. Plus probably a lot of sunk cost at this point. They're idiots, but that doesn't mean he has to be, he probably thinks.

I can believe they would never talk about it since it's a familiar thing and too humiliating to think about. But really I just love they came up with it now. Who else in the whole world does she even know? 😟 I think he had no choice but to go to the Baron for help. She did also die, if they're following the same rules. I'm completely gripped by this storyline.