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Dec 29, 2012

SERIES TO WATCH IN JANUARY Pt.2

Deception (US residents already have a chance to watch the pilot online, the official NBC premiere date is January 7) looks a lot like Revenge, if I may judge by the trailer. A rich socialite is killed and her best friend tries to solve this murder.



NBC is also going to entertain us with a comedy series about a presidential family 1600 Penn, starring Jenna Elfman (Dharma & Greg) and Josh Gad. The series is scheduled to premiere on January 10. 



On January 21 Fox will release new psychological thriller The Following about some charismatic serial killer.
 

I think that's enough for now. There's also a prequel to Sex and the City that will premiere on January 14, called The Carrie Diaries, but since I never liked the original series, I don't see a reason why I should watch a teenage version of that crap.

SERIES TO WATCH IN JANUARY

On December 30 the first episode of a new British mini series, Ripper Street, is released on BBC 1 (BBC America will air it on the 19th of January). It's a period drama/procedural about a bunch of detectives who have to keep a district inhabited with very low class citizens, Whitechapel, within the law, in other words, solve crimes. The story happens in 1889, after the notorious Jack The Ripper murders took place, hence the title. It's very likely to turn out boring, but then it's only eight episodes, so it doesn't hurt to check it out.


FX managed to produce the two shows that I'm crazy about (AHS and Archer), so I'll definitely watch The Americans, a new series about Russian spies in the eighties, which premiers on January 30th. Let's hope it's better than Homeland.


Banshee will premiere on Cinemax on the 11th of January and the promo looks fine. I understand that it's "Dexter style" action series, about an ex-convict who becomes a Sheriff of a small town, and who'll fight the crime his own way.

Dec 18, 2012

DEXTER EPISODES 10 THROUGH 12

I kind of gave up on Dexter, didn't I? The truth is that with Isaak Sirko gone, the series became a little dull. Anyway, it's time to cover the rest of the season.

Quinn killed George and made it to look like a self defense, but the the girl he did it all for, Nadia, left him.

Maria and Tom investigate the Bay Harbour Butcher case and find out that the cabin Doakes died in was rented by one of Dexter's mother's murderers. That, added to the fact that Doakes never had the boat, unlike Dex, makes LaGuerta and Matthews suspicious. So Tom "interrogates" Dexter, although, the conversation feels more like a friendly warning, and so Dexter lies that he saw that Doakes had a boat. Then the Morgans rent the boat storage and plant the evidence all over the place, which convinces Tom, but not Maria. She has a better plan.

Hannah and Dexter grow closer day by day. She teaches him that there's no dark passenger that controls him; he kills her awful father and imagines how they grow old together. But Debra is determined to put Hanna's sweet ass behind the bars and she got a tip: a name of the girl who saw how Hannah poisoned that chancellor Price was talking about.


So there was nothing for Hannah to do than to dissolve a bunch of pills in Debra's bottled water, which made Deb pass out while driving, so she got to a car accident. She didn't die, but to protect her, Dexter gave her the pen Sal Price chewed on before his death with traces of aconite. Hannah got arrested, and she asked her friend to get her something that made her temporarily collapse. When she regained her consciousness, she fled from the hospital she was rushed into.


Maria arranged the last of Dexter's mom's murderers, Hector Estrada, to be released from prison on parole. Dexter, like an idiot, hurries to kill the guy, but as he has the last talk with his victim in accordance with his routines, he learns that Maria set him up. So he runs, because the cops already tracked Estrada's whereabouts with the help of the GPS, and Estrada himself manages to run away from Dexter.

Maria arrests Dexter for Estrada's murder and interrogates him, but he's very calm. That's all because the evidence she got was planted by Dexter: it was a shirt with Estrada's blood and his wallet, which Dexter took from the evidence room to make LaGuerta look like she tried to frame him. Dex is released.


LaGuerta asks Debra if she was with Dexter at the church on the night of Travis's murder, she said she wasn't, and then Maria shows her the video from the gasoline station. Debra doesn't say anything, but she is scared. Dexter breaks into Maria's apartment and finds warrants for GPS tracking of his and Deb's cell phones. He decides to kill that sneaky bitch to protect his life.

Dexter catches Estrada again, makes him call LaGuerta and kills him afterwards. He wanted to make it look like Maria and Estrada killed each other, but before he finished, Debra comes and ruins everything. Maria asks her to take Dexter down, but Debra shoots her captain instead. And then they go to a party.


So, Debra is a killer now, like Hannah. I wish they could make her conversion look a bit smoother, by making her do a lot more bad stuff along the way. Like that car crash: she could have put those pills into her water herself, to set Hannah up. It feels like there's a huge gap between what Debra was in the beginning of the season and what she is now. Planting evidence and lying to coworkers doesn't lead to killing somebody. It is also quite annoying that the writers never let Dexter murder any innocent people, they always make his women do it.

The story with Hannah is unlikely to be over, I'm sure she and Dexter will try to kill each other next year.

All in all it wasn't the best season, but it was fun to watch. And may I say that Jennifer Carpenter has GORGEOUS hair.

Dec 17, 2012

A MOMENT OF HATRED

I really hate when someone fixes something that isn't fucking broken. That's right, Google, I'm talking about you! I don't like Blogger turning to mobile version on my iPad, it's UGLY and INCONVENIENT! I don't want to scroll all the fucking way down to see the normal version, I want everything back as it was!

You like to think that you know better, but just learn that you don't. Ever since you got to be this "corporation" you've only got worse and worse.

Dec 14, 2012

GOLDEN GLOBES: WELL, THAT'S JUST SAD

I am extremely disappointed with the Golden Globe nominations. Nothing for Boss? Go On is completely off the list? Only one nomination for American Horror Story, which is once again for Jessica Lange's performance, while almost every actor on that show deserves an award? Are you kidding me, people?

The rest of the nominations are occupied by Game Change, The Newsroom, and the appalling, tasteless, idiotic Homeland.  Sarah Paulson is nominated for a boring, almost an episodic role in Game Change and her performance in that TV movie was not even close to that she's done in AHS. Oh well.

I'll never know why the general public likes Homeland, just like I never understood why people enjoyed 24. And so every award this series takes makes me die a little inside. I don't think I can watch the ceremony, it'll be too painful, even the hosts, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, can't save the night.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: WELCOME TO BRIARCLIFF, JUDY MARTIN!

The Monsignor had to pay for his blind ambition, Grace and Pepper are back and glowing, Lana didn't get to kill anyone, Jude learnt the taste her own medicine, and one therapy session in the modern time got a little out of hand.

The episode starts with a Johnny (Dylan McDermott) talking to the therapist about his compulsion. He used to enjoy killing and skinning small animals as a teenager, and looking for the origin of his dark desires, he found out that his real father was Mr. Thredson a.k.a. Bloody Face. So he now tries to live up to his dad by skinning women (he started with Teresa, but the process wasn't flawless, as Johnny Thredson had no medical practice). Long story short, he kills the therapist and probably her secretary as well.


Jude opens her eyes and like Lana in the first episode, she finds herself tied to the bed. Mary Eunice, the Monsignor, Dr. Arden, "crazy Santa" and even Mother Superior - all testified against her, claiming that she was mentally ill and killed Frank. So, Judy is back at the Briarcliff but as a patient. Poor thing. Above all people she knows it's not a great place to be in.


Lana learns that she's pregnant and Mary Eunice is determined to make her have the child. So Ms. Winters has to get creative: she steals the coat hanger and performs an abortion herself. Then she turns to Kit to convince him they need to kill Thredson now that they have a chance, but yet again, he wants to get his confession first. So Lana comes up with a plan: she tells Oliver she's pregnant and gets the confession out of him which Kit managed to record. Then with a great satisfaction Lana tells Thredson  that the baby is already taken care of, and that he's next on her murder list.


Kit hides the tape in the bathroom, and that's where he's found by Dr. Arden, who is acting suspiciously friendly. Arden says he saw the aliens and that he thinks they might come and save their subject, Kit, if anything would seriously threaten his life. So he suggests to try to almost kill Kit and see if the little green men show up. Obviously, he gets a green light.


Timothy finds Leigh "praying" in the church. After a conversation with the psychopath, who is acting all enlightened, he once again thinks that if he "saves" this person, he might get a ticket to Rome. So he uncuffs a very dangerous criminal and baptizes him in a large bath with water. Little did he know about the true intentions of Mr. Emerson: the next moment the Monsignor is drowned in the bath and the next time we see him he's crucified. That's when the Angel of Death pays him a visit.


Lana fails to steal the knife, so she decides to finish Thredson with the coat hanger, but it's too late: Bloody Face is gone! So she looks for him and finds Mary Eunice instead. Lana quickly realized that Sister set the serial killer free and confronts her. But the devil delivers some bad news: the baby is not dead and it's a boy!

Jude enters the common rest room as a patient for the first time. She goes directly to Lana and apologizes for what's she's done to her. She promises Ms. Winters she'll help her get out of the institution, but Lana trusts no one. So to show that she's willing to earn her trust, Judy breaks the record with that annoying song "Dominique".


Dr. Arden stops Kit's heart and naturally, the white light is immediately all over the place. Arden enters one of the wards and finds Grace, alive and very pregnant, and Pepper, talking like a sane person.

So, what do we have? Aliens are "refining some sort of eugenics", if we can believe Dr. Arden. They also are capable of bringing humans back to life and curing idiocy. I guess, there's not much left to this story, I mean, now we know that these creatures are real, don't we?

Bloody Face of 2012 claims to be Dr. Thredson's son. I don't know if it's that easy to find info about your real parents in the internet, but let's assume it's true, since it's kind of confirmed by Lana's pregnancy. The fact that Johnny knows that Thredson was Bloody Face must mean that the world will learn the truth about Oliver, right? 

Judy and Lana seem to form some sort of alliance, which seems promising, though it's hard to say where this is going.

Dec 7, 2012

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: MERRY XMAS! AND NOW PREPARE TO DIE!

I think it was the best Christmas special I have ever seen. A couple of things seemed a little off (like, it wasn't clearly shown how Kit got untied), but this dim, disturbing emotion that dominated "Unholy Night" just came off the screen like the dead girl from "The Ring" and made all imperfection disappear.


I must say something really unoriginal: Lily Rabe was phenomenal. In that scene where Cromwell's character gave hers the earrings, she totally stole the show. I hope the devil will reside in Mary Eunice till the end of the season, it'd be a pity to lose this character earlier.

And then Ian McShane was also great, just as expected. Santa Claus will never be the same for me.

Back to the story.

There's another flashback to 1962 when a psychopath, Lee Emerson, with complicated feelings about Christmas shoots down one careless Santa Claus. The next scene he's already in somebody's home, wearing Santa's costume with blood stains фтв talking to the little girl. She's asking him all these questions like where his beard is and why he didn't come through the chimney like the real Santa. Tired from answering all that, he asks the girl to wake her parents up, whom he then ties up with Christmas lights and kills. We later learn he murdered five (!) families that night, and that was all because around Christmas time he was raped by five (!) jailors. Now I doubt that the families he killed were those of the rapists, these murders seemed more like a symbolic payback for his ruined Xmas spirit.


Anyway, in 1964, Mary Eunice plans to bring Christmas back to the Briarcliff. Sister Jude decided to stop celebrating this holiday, because last year Lee bit off the face of one of the male nurses, who was stupid enough to wear Santa's hat. And so Ian's character has been locked in the solitary ever since. Now, because Jude threw all the ornaments away, Mary has to be creative: she decorates the tree with patients' hair locks and fake teeth.

Frank is eaten up with remorse, and so he tells Dr. Arden that he wants to go to the police and tell them about Kit, Grace and the monster. Arthur tries to scare him by saying that Frank could be arrested for killing Grace, but the "former Irish cop" doesn't care.

The devil listens to some holy music watching flames and not feeling the danger: Sister Jude puts the razor (the letter opener?) from the last episode to Mary's throat. She realized that Mary's pure soul protects the devil from the holy icons and stuff, so she wonders what happens if she kills her protege. Well, she wasn't meant to find out just yet, because at first the devil showed her little psychokinetic tricks, and then Dr. Arden appears. Jude is escorted from the Briarcliff by the guards.


Mary Eunice releases the crazy Santa from "the hole" and gives him the new suit. She later gets a wicked present of her own from Dr. Arden: ruby earrings that a Jewish camper swallowed day after day to keep them till the time she's free again. When she died from internal bleeding, Arthur retrieved the earrings and now he hoped Mary Eunice would be horrified at the story behind this present, and the innocent girl would be back (or so he says), but she wasn't. A little later Mary kills Frank with the Christmas tree star - a present from Monsignor, who finds the new management of the institution very good.


Dr. Arden pleads Sister Jude to help him with Mary Eunice. She agrees and comes to the Briarcliff, however, turns out he tricked, her to prove his loyalty to the devil, and so Jude is locked in the room with Lee, who beats her and canes her. He didn't get to rape her, though, since she managed to get the letter opener and stick it to his neck.

Lana is playing Duchess Kate i.e. suffering from sickness in the Briarcliff infirmary, so there's almost no doubt that even though Sister Jude's done all she could to prevent that, the murder baby is conceived. Lana finds Kit in the same ward, sedated, and so she takes him off the drugs and tells him the truth about Thredson. She then goes to the room with the phone to call the police, but guess, who's there? Bloody face! He says he got rid off all the evidence, and now he wants to be reborn by taking Lana's skin off. He doesn't go through with this, because Kit knocks him out just in time. Lana wants to finish the bastard, but Kit stops her: Thredson is the only person who could save him from the chair. So they tie the killer up and place him to some room where no one ever goes to. Lana says to her tormentor: "One Day I'll bury you!" Well, I hope she will.


And the aliens took Grace's body, when Dr. Arden was taking it to the woods.

Despite all these manifests about Christmas becoming more and more commercial and less and less religious, and the hypocrisy of Santa Claus, this episode for me was about retaliation: at least temporarily, several characters managed to go from the victim to the victor:  Lee, Jude and most importantly Lana.


 The alien line is still out there and still not making much sense. Everything else seems pretty straight forward now.

Score: 9.5/10

Dec 1, 2012

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ANGEL'S KISS

I am a little sick today, so my judgement is compromised, please take this into consideration when reading this.

Anyways, I couldn't help feeling cheated after I watched "Dark Cousin". Now, even though there already is a devil this season, most of the horrible things the series portrayed so far were man-made, so the latest introduction of the Angel of Death (of Suicide?) felt a little over the top. I believe the only story Frances Conroy's new character brought something to was the one with Lana, whose spirit was so strong she did not want to die even after all she's been through.

So Grace is bleeding out and dying. The Angel of Death appears then and Grace says she is ready. Sadly, as the angel leans over to kiss her and put her out of her misery, one of the nuns brings the poor girl back to life. "You should have let me go", she says to her saviors.


Sister Mary Eunice interferes with Arden's gardening practice to tell him about Grace. She says because of sterilization, Grace is close to dying. Arden says he performed no such thing and that as the person in charge of the facility he demands to be talked to with respect. "You really think you're in charge?", she asks and gets slapped. She warns him if he touches her again, he dies. Arden wants to put that to the test and raise his hand to hit her again, but some force then throws him against the wall. The chain of command is clear. Dr. Arden then heals Grace, because he doesn't want to take the fall for her death.

One of the patients, Myles, a schizophrenic, is forced to cuts his hand with a ham slicer by the voice in his head. When Sister Mary comes to the kitchen, she sees a name in ancient Aramaic written on the wall with his blood. "Did you summon her?", she asks the guy, but he wouldn't answer anything comprehensible.

The guy is saved and is tied to his bed. He can take this no more, he says to Frank. When he's left all by himself, he tries to tear up the stitches, so the angel appears and asks if he needs her help. He says yes and so she opens her wings and kisses him and he dies. Sister Mary Eunice enters the room where the Angel of Death is. The latter establishes that the nun is possessed with one of her fallen cousins. The real Mary asks for help, but devil suppresses her. "We'll meet again", says the angel and disappears.


Lana is raped by Thredson, so the idea about modern Bloody Face being Lana and Oliver's son is not so outrageous after all. This is when the angel appears, but Lana is not ready to be kissed. Shortly after Oliver comes to a thought that he was wrong, Lana can't help him overcome his issues, so he wants to kill her. Struggling, she hits him with Wendy's picture and then strangles him with her chain, and runs away. She stops a car, driven by a crazy misogynist, who's just caught his wife cheating on him. He shot himself while driving, and the next time Lana opens her eyes - she's in Briarcliff, as police, who came to take a look at the car accident, found her and sent her there. Lana asks Sister Mary Eunice for Sister Jude, but the nun says Jude no longer runs the Briarcliff. Lana tells her then that Dr. Thredson is Bloody Face, but even though Mary Eunice says she believes her, she acts like she doesn't. I'm pretty sure Mary plans on doing something evil, maybe even invite Thredson to the asylum.


Sister Jude is still sitting at the place of Sam Goodman's murder. Sister Mary Eunice calls there and tells Jude she's a murderer, who drove over a little girl. To a question how does Eunice know about it, she replies "I was in your head, remember?" And Jude finally figures out that Mary Eunice is possessed. The Devil also left a present for Jude: a bottle of whiskey and a razor. Judy goes to a diner to cut her wrists, but she doesn't go through with this and talks to the Angel of Death instead. From that conversation we learn that she wanted to kill herself several times before, and that she can't have children because of syphilis her fiancee gave her.


Before killing herself, Jude comes to the family of a girl she hit with her car. It turns out, the girl didn't die, so essentially, there's no reason for Jude to commit a suicide anymore. God gives Jude another reason to live.


Kit learns from his attorney that Grace might die very soon, so he hits the guy with something like a presse papier and runs to the asylum through the death chute. One of Arden's monsters follows him. Kit finds Grace in the kitchen and wants escape with her. The nun appears in the door, only to be attacked by the monster some seconds after. Kit kills the monster, but then Frank, who came to the screams, takes a shot at him. Grace covers Kit with her body, and finally she is kissed by the angel. The end.

So, unfortunately, AHS goes from bizarre to completely reckless, and I don't think I like that. The story with Bloody Face this episode was incoherent, the Angel of Death scenes felt like an unnecessary extra (plus, the effect from the way she opened her wings every time wore off very quickly). Dr. Arden faced something rather extraordinary, which should have shaken the world of the science lover, but he barely reacted. And next time we'll see psychotic Santa, which is so over the top. But at least I'm sure Ian McShane will be just awesome.




Score 6/10