Superstition - General Discussion

[jhlipton]

How could you not like the conversation between Isaac and the Mayor, ending with "I believe this is the beginning of a", then Isaac, knowing that "beautiful friendship" is coming because he's seen Casablanca, too, says "Let's just take it one step at a time".  LOL

[AnimeMania]

The scene when they were talking about abortion was too dark, it was not a spooky scene and people can't eat in a room that dark. I think that they did it to do the window raindrops as tears on faces special effect. This is yet another scene were they make things too dark, my biggest complaint about the show, my next would be using Black & White shots and filters to create a creepy atmosphere. Let your makeup department's hard work be seen in it's best light, not in a fuzzy haze.

In a small town where everybody thinks the Hastings are up to no good, how could the townspeople not know that the husband was having an affair and not tell the sheriff to investigate when the wife suddenly drops dead. How could the coroner not realize that the wife had been murdered, are they horrible at their job? I think they should drag the sheriff and the coroner to the middle of town and beat them to within an inch of their liv... OOPS, They are our main characters, they are wonderful!

[raven]

Garvey and Russ venture into an old house designed by a mysterious clock demon, who traps them inside; Calvin, Isaac, May and Bea's cousin Leon try to free them.

[raven]

The TVDB details were off on this one; Garvey and Russ get trapped in a clock and there's no cousin Leon but there's and Uncle Bubba.

I thought the inside the clock effects were decent and I mostly enjoyed this one even though there was so much going on - angry husband, poltergeists, teen angst, Garvey being special, goofy relative, May/Calvin angst. 

I think last week's with the creepy doll was better since there was a bit too much packed into this episode but overall I've liked these last two the best.

[FormerMod-a1]

All caught up now.  I do like this show, can't say I love it, but I'll put it on the DVR.  :-)  I am loving Mario Van Peebles and Robinne Lee and Demetria McKinney and well, almost everyone.  The writing isn't always great, but I am enjoying these characters.

[AnimeMania]

On 12/29/2017 at 8:47 PM, raven said:

the inside the clock effects were decent

I sound like a broken clock, I wish they would stop using "black and white" and filters to create spooky effects. We get it, it's supposed to be a creepy alternate reality, but it would be nice to get a good look at what is supposed to be scaring us.

[raven]

Calvin tries to get to the bottom of some mysterious deaths at a nearby military base; Garvey and Russ experiment with her powers; Tilly buries her recently deceased mother.

[Dizzychickstar]

I enjoyed James too. I think he plays well off the other characters too. I think the show is settling into itself and there is enough here-the adult female characters and MVP, the bits of mythology and humor that I will continue to watch. 

[Dizzychickstar]

Was cool to see Jasmine Guy cast as Aunt Nancy. Was interested enough to do a little reading on the alternate forms of Anansi. The show did an excellent job with the mythology around Aunt Nancy, the spider imagery, her tour of the alchemy room, & the convo with Tillie.  Now I feel invested as each episode improves. 

[Dizzychickstar]

I think maybe I wasn’t paying as much attention to this episode, but I wasn’t really understanding the connection between Calvin’s war memories and the Dredge’s attempts to manipulate his thoughts. I think it’s that I’m not interested in his backstory. I did, however, enjoy James and May teaming up. I like their chem?

[Dizzychickstar]

What feels groundbreaking to me, though I do get Dee’s point, is the inclusion of the small details of this immortal black man’s story, like him being a Black Panther and seeing the image of himself lynched. This type of show is right up my alley, but on other types of supernatural shows, the inclusion of such details would signal a very special Black episode, a one off, if you will. So I love that. 

Dolls kind of freak me out too, so a doll episode, was cool to see. Linking it with the traditions of the dead woman was a nice tie in. I think, as Calvin says, that the woman was ill so dying by asphyxiation may have made sense if she was breathing with assistance, idk, I’m just spitballing based on my limited tv murder medical knowledge.

I also like the gray area set up with Isaac’s deal with the mayor—Interesting to see where that goes as he won’t be terribly predictable. I was honestly surprised Isaac let him live tho. 

Again, I appreciate that Tillie/Tilly? has her own thing going on and isn’t just some drone character. She thinks differently from the Hastings women; in her comments about abortion, for instance, she shares her past and later doesn’t just stay, even at Bea’s assistance. That feels realistic and moments like these are important in a supernatural show. The show also wasn’t preachy, one way or the other. Tillie wasn’t shamed or made out to be a villain and Bea didn’t hit her over the head with her views-it also wasn’t Pollyanna-ed away and Garvey’s questions felt genuine.

I agree that sometimes it’s too dark and it’s hard to see some details, but I think the limited budget doesn’t show as much as it did in the pilot. They did a lot with a little with this doll episode—it kind of always takes me out of a show when they attempt to show little legs moving about.

Okay, this may be overly long—apologies?

[Dizzychickstar]

Aw, the babies kissed. The wackiness of Uncle Bubba made me think of certain Buffy and Charmed episodes. I just realized that Tilly was gone this episode. Too bad. 

[jhlipton]

5 hours ago, Dizzychickstar said:

this may be overly long—apologies?

No apologies needed (from me, at least) for a good comment.

[AnimeMania]

Easiest evil guy kill I have every seen.

[Dizzychickstar]

Unfortunately I was watching this episode on the website and it was a little glitchy, so I missed some details, but there was a lot of build up for the djinn(?)/shiek to be dispensed of so readily.

I did appreciate that Ross and Garvey weren’t able to just start using magic all willy-nilly tho. There were consequences in a way that made sense and the bits with Isaac raking Ross over the coals was fun. Ugh, the blood spurting—but again, it made a weird kind of sense. 

I also think the actor playing Ross has settled into the character more, so he doesn’t grate as much. 

[raven]

18 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

Easiest evil guy kill I have every seen.

One punch with the  magic ring, LOL.

I really liked this one, the focus on Calvin's adventure off the homestead and Tilly handling her mom's death.  I appreciated that Isaac said that they were versed in Wiccan funereal customs, which makes sense.  I also liked when Tilly said that she is usually the last human touch on the bodies she works on - I never really thought of it that way and it helped to understand her character a bit. 

Russ and Garvey having a little magical exploration was fun, if bloody, and at least she was smart enough to do it where they could call Grandpa for help when they inevitably needed him.

Nothing wrong with a MOTW episode. 

[raven]

The Hastings family is trapped in a time loop designed to end in their deaths unless they can find the root of the loop and break the spell.

[raven]

The Dredge possesses Calvin to break free of the Ring of Solomon and re-inhabit his original body.

Season finale.

[AnimeMania]

I usually hate groundhog day stories, but since this one was different each iteration (sometimes wildly) it didn't irk me as much as others.

[raven]

Heh, I'm the opposite, I like groundhog day stories.  This one was OK, so the point was to have the Dredge get Calvin to make a deal with him. 

I was thinking they were figuring it out kind of quickly and then Aunt Nancy drops that it's been over 300 days.  I guess I'm not supposed to think about that too hard (time was still passing in the world but no one wondered about the Hastings in the loop?  Yet Isaac and the Mayor were outside of the loop?).   I liked how they name dropped time loop stories, I had thought of Star Trek's Cause and Effect right away, which is one of my favorites.

We got a little more background with Aunt Nancy and Isaac too.   I'm warming to Russ and Garvey together, they're cute.

[AnimeMania]

Why wasn't Isaac gutted like a fish?

[luckyroll3]

I have no idea what was happening in this episode.  It made absolutely no sense, even more than normal.

[raven]

I just have to get this out of the way - the show doesn't have the budget for special effects, so should stop trying to pull them off.  I know they wanted to go for a big finale, but the effects were so, so bad it was distracting and made me laugh occasionally.

59 minutes ago, luckyroll3 said:

I have no idea what was happening in this episode.

The Dredge possessed Calvin (and I am glad that everyone figured out his possession fairly soon) and made him do bad things, including assaulting May and stealing the old dead Dredge body.  The Dredge needed the blood of an immortal, an infernal and a virgin so he could be resurrected into his old body and made indestructible (I think).

Isaac apparently has a hellmouth tunnel under his house and they used those tunnels to get to the site of the resurrection.  Of course they were too late so a terrible CGI fight broke out in a sort of nonsensical way, with Tilly's coven showing up in the nick of time to help save the day, except Bea was killed (and maybe the rest of the coven, we didn't see them) and the magic ring disappeared.  Also, possessed Calvin let down the wards around the house so any infernals who weren't killed can run around now I guess.  The mayor joined up with the good guys (isn't he an infernal?) and got some snarky lines.

22 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

Why wasn't Isaac gutted like a fish?

Because the bad guys always want to gloat and/or monologue.  Plus he had stuff to do and since Isaac was going to regenerate anyway he just gave him a flesh wound.  Afterwards I figured that the Dredge assumed he could destroy Isaac for good when he was fully resurrected.

Calvin is pretty but not very bright - his deal with the Dredge got his mother (probably) and almost got his whole family killed and unleashed all the infernals.  He should have at least told his parents and asked for help.  I still like the show, terrible CGI and weird editing aside; the family interactions work for me and I like the atmosphere; hopefully it will be back with some things tightened up.

[luckyroll3]

20 minutes ago, raven said:

I just have to get this out of the way - the show doesn't have the budget for special effects, so should stop trying to pull them off.  I know they wanted to go for a big finale, but the effects were so, so bad it was distracting and made me laugh occasionally.

The Dredge possessed Calvin (and I am glad that everyone figured out his possession fairly soon) and made him do bad things, including assaulting May and stealing the old dead Dredge body.  The Dredge needed the blood of an immortal, an infernal and a virgin so he could be resurrected into his old body and made indestructible (I think).

Isaac apparently has a hellmouth tunnel under his house and they used those tunnels to get to the site of the resurrection.  Of course they were too late so a terrible CGI fight broke out in a sort of nonsensical way, with Tilly's coven showing up in the nick of time to help save the day, except Bea was killed (and maybe the rest of the coven, we didn't see them) and the magic ring disappeared.  Also, possessed Calvin let down the wards around the house so any infernals who weren't killed can run around now I guess.  The mayor joined up with the good guys (isn't he an infernal?) and got some snarky lines.

Because the bad guys always want to gloat and/or monologue.  Plus he had stuff to do and since Isaac was going to regenerate anyway he just gave him a flesh wound.  Afterwards I figured that the Dredge assumed he could destroy Isaac for good when he was fully resurrected.

Calvin is pretty but not very bright - his deal with the Dredge got his mother (probably) and almost got his whole family killed and unleashed all the infernals.  He should have at least told his parents and asked for help.  I still like the show, terrible CGI and weird editing aside; the family interactions work for me and I like the atmosphere; hopefully it will be back with some things tightened up.

Thanks for the recap.  Just as idiotic as I thought.  And despite that, I also hope it will be back with a second season.  But I won't hold my breath.

[AnimeMania]

I thought for sure that Russ was dead when he flew away from the large group holding hands. I was surprised the large group was flying when all the individual dead bodies didn't move. Did the tornado only suck up living people? My favorite bad special effect was Prince in a turban flying around shooting fireballs. The main characters (mayor, May, and James the half-infernal) that were killed in the fight were way more interesting that the main characters that lived.

[Dee]

May & The Mayor survived the fight. Bea & James seem to be the only two main/major recurring characters who didn't make it.

[AnimeMania]

May Bea I got them mixed up. Bea and James were way more interesting than the other main characters.

[jhlipton]

On ‎1‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 5:31 PM, raven said:

The Dredge needed the blood of an immortal, an infernal and a virgin so he could be resurrected into his old body and made indestructible (I think).

The mayor joined up with the good guys (isn't he an infernal?) and got some snarky lines.

Why does no one consider the males when seeking virgins?  It would have been good for them to go off-trope by picking Russ.  I would have loved to have Garvey say something like "Yeah, I may not have had sex, but I'm a modern 17 year old girl -- that "virgin" thing is lonnnnnnng gone!"

I like the Mayor.  He is an infernal, but realized he liked "pushing papers and kissing babies" a lot more than Eeeeeevil, so he and Isaac have worked out an (uneasy) truce.

[Rockstar99435]

I'm super late to the party. I've had this show saved on my DVR for months and finally had time to watch the first three episodes.

I'm getting really sick of the daughter and her mother giving Calvin crap for not being around. As far as I can tell, the time line goes: (1) kid brother dies, (2) Calvin gets angry/upset at their lifestyle, breaks up with May, and leaves town to become a Marine, (3) May finds out she's pregnant and doesn't contact Calvin to let him know, (4) May tells Calvin's parents the truth but tells them not to tell Calvin, (5) Calvin's parents and Tilly lie to Calvin whenever they talk and don't tell him about his child, (6) Calvin has a vision of his father's death and comes back to town, (7) Calvin's parents and Tilly continue to lie to Calvin and still don't tell him about his child, even after the two meet, and (8) Daughter hates Calvin for not being there for her. Why is the daughter blaming the one guy who had no knowledge of anything and forgiving everyone else? Why isn't the daughter angry at her mother and her grandparents for lying to her father for her whole life and denying her a chance to have him in her life? Also, why isn't Calvin angry at May or his parents? He should be pissed that they have stolen his child from him.