AHS: COVEN - THE HEAD

In this week's episode Queenie pays for her betrayal, Delia and Kyle have their natural human abilities restored and the witch-hunting corporation is introduced.

It begins with another flashback, this time to Hank's miserable childhood. His father took him for his (Hank's) first witch hunt, and like in any other movie about kids trying to shoot their first animal, Hank cannot go through with it. In the end, father shoots the witch, but gets his hand burnt by some magic fire. (Was it the reason Hank could not resist shooting the red-head? Unfinished Gestalt and all.)

Back to the modern day, Hank visits his dad, who's now the CEO of a witch-hunting corporation. This season fathers don't seem to treat their children better than mothers, so instead of approval for the taken initiative, Hank is getting yelled at. Why would he go to Marie? Why would he kill that witch in a motel room he paid for with his own Credit Card? His job was to stay with Delia (whom the corporation people blinded to make her depend on her husband) and spy.

Fiona and LaLaurie's talking head pay another visit to Marie (oh, I loved how they shot Delphine's headless body shooing flies) and miss Goode tries to convince the voodoo witch to join the clans to fight the hunters. Marie thinks she's the one who organized the attack, so she refuses. Fiona leaves, Queenie is told to burn Delphine's head, but instead she places it in her room and makes her watch Roots.

Myrtle finds a way to return sight to Cordelia. She invites her former Council colleagues, feeds them with something causing paralysis, scoops one eye from each with the melon baller and gives those eyes to Delia. Unfortunately, this causes Delia to lose her magic visions, so when Hank hugs her in his attempt to come back home, she doesn't know he's a hunter. She kicks him out anyway.

Joan sits by his son's bed, but after she learns through Nan that he knows she killed her husband (God told Luke she put some bees into his father's car and he died from anaphylactic shock), she murders him with a pillow.

The young witches return home and see Fiona playing cards with Kyle (and he's winning!). He also seems to be able to talk normally. Fiona found him and decided to turn him into a guard dog.

Marie practices some voodoo magic on Hank to force him attack the Robichaux, instead he comes to her hair salon and shoots everyone. Wounded Queenie proves Fiona's statement earlier in the show that the female is aggressive and loyal. She protects Marie by blowing her own brains out and because she's a living voodoo doll, this kills Hank. His father's mourning the loss in his fancy office.

It ends with Marie at the doors of the academy, clearly wanting to accept Fiona's offer to join their forces.

To be honest, this seemed like a weak episode to me, especially considering it's a winter cliffhanger. The shooting scene was the strongest part, Oh, Freedom made it quite emotional. Myrtle's lines were pretty cool and Delphine's situation was a little funny, but other than that... The flashback sucked, the corporation stuff SUCKED, all the scenes in the hospital were boring. And Kyle killed the dog! Somehow I'm fine watching him bashing his mother's head, but I started hating him when he crashed the dog :(

AHS: COVEN - THE SACRED TAKING

In this week's episode Queenie gets more involved with Voodoo magic, Delia tries to push Fiona to the grave, and Nan is rescued from a silver bullet.

Shockingly, it doesn't open with a flashback as usual. Somewhere under the bridge Queenie kills a homeless rapist and rips his beating "dark heart" out in front of Zoe and Madison, who came to call her back to the coven. She refuses to leave Marie and tells the witches they'll lose the war to Voodoo clan. Well, game on!

Cordelia, admirably bitchy (and looking fantastic with the cane), declares that Queenie's dead to her and starts planning her mother's orchestrated suicide (Orestes and Clytemnestra story echoes throughout this season a lot). She's interrupted by Misty and Myrtle, who managed to survive Hank's attack and now seek protection. Myrtle thinks Misty is the new Supreme, 'cause she's brought more people back than Jesus Christ. Other young witches seem quite hurt by this assumption, but they still secretly hope she's wrong.

The witches hold a Sacred Taking ritual, which was the easy part. Now they have to convince the selfish bitch (who's still planning to kill the next Supreme once she establishes who that is) to take some extra sleeping pills this night. Madison appears in her room in the red dress and announces that she, the new Supreme, resurrected herself, so now Fiona has two options: to be burnt on a stake or leave fashionably, like Norma Jean. Then Myrtle pushes the dying witch even further, by convincing her the Axeman won't stay with her till the end, so Fiona puts on some makeup and a fur coat, lies down and takes the pills. 

But as Myrtle leaves, the dead Spalding appears and reveals Delia's cunning plan details. Madison is not the Supreme, they think it's a swamp witch. Now let's cleanse you from those pills and plan your vengeance!

Talking about cleansing, Luke had to undergo a process of purification, carefully carried out by his mom (take off your pants!). She locks him in the closet, but Nan finds him and they attempt to run away like boyfriend and girlfriend. Joan stops them at the door, but before she could do anything creepy, Hank puts a couple of bullets into her chest. Luke saves Nan from the third shot and gets hit, she goes with him to the hospital.

Fiona disappoints everyone by not dying and takes great interest in Misty. She dares the swamp witch to use her gift of resurgence on Joan, and so she does. Delia finds the silver bullet on the pavement and figures there's a witch hunter out there. Zoe is very stressed by this news but finds comfort with Kyle, who tells her he loves her. Oh, and she loves him back! Madison overhears this and seems clearly jealous and upset.

Next morning Delia and her mother have a coffee together, and Fiona sort of openly admires her daughter for what she did. Cordelia says she's glad her plan did not work out, 'cause now the coven needs Fiona more than ever. Their conversation is interrupted by the delivery of Delphine's talking head. Tam-tam-tam!!! 

As always, so many things happened, yet the story has not really progressed that much. There are only five episodes left and I hope it all makes sense in the end. 

AHS: COVEN - THE DEAD

In this week's episode Kyle regains limited cognitive functions, Fiona dives into her love affair with the ghost-murderer and Queenie betrays the coven.

It starts with a flashback to Kyle's recent past, and we hear how he explains to his frat brothers why he wouldn't get any tattoos. Apparently, he wanted to become an engineer (bla-bla, Katrina, bla-bla, tattoos ruin image) and planned not to waste his life. Wanna make God laugh, huh. Now the improved version of Kyle checks "his" limbs and sees the stupid pictures his mates put on themselves that day and begins to comprehend something. Then Zoe comes in, planning to put him back to sleep, and sees his suffering. He takes her gun, but as he tries to blow his brains out, she stops him: she's still not ready to let him go. Instead, she tries to teach him how to speak.

Madison wonders around the house and tries to feel something, so she drinks, takes pills, burns her palms and eats like a pig. Since she consumed all the food, Queenie and LaLaurie go out for some burgers (for a person who lives with witches, Delphine seems too shocked by the drive-in mic box is talking to her). During this meal, LaLaurie tells Queenie that other witches will never fully accept her 'cause she's black.

Cordelia discovers Madison and as she touches her, she sees who slit the girl's throat. She then tells Zoe that she could be Fiona's next victim, so they have to kill her first (..."kill her once, kill her good, kill her dead").

Madison seduces Kyle (you're dead, I'm dead, let's waist no time), and Zoe walks in on them, of course. Later all of them have a threesome.

The Axeman invites Fiona to the house of some unfortunate fellow he murdered and hid in the bath tub. She spends a night with him and then tells him she knows about the body. He replies he knows everything about her, 'cause he watched her grow (old). She doesn't believe in ghosts but he shares some details. She runs away, upset, but then comes back to him.

Queenie visits Laveau, where she's offered to join the voodoo clan if she brings LaLaurie. Queenie asks Delphine about the worst thing she's ever done. Madame racist confesses she once turned her husbands and her black maid's bastard baby into a skin serum, so Queenie takes her to Marie's hair salon.

Zoe reunites Spalding with his enchanted tongue and asks who murdered Madison. "FFFFFFFFFFFFiona", he says and she kills him.

Hank's drinking in a motel room, surrounded by guns. He surely misses his wife and plans to pay a visit.

AHS: COVEN - THE AXEMAN COMETH

In this week's episode it is once again confirmed that dying cannot keep AHS characters from being alive, whether there is a decent body to put a soul to or not.

In 1919 witches-suffragettes of Robichaux discuss the Axeman's letter, where he warns the New Orleans that he's going to kill, but will spare everyone who'd have a jazz band playing that night. The girls decide to confront him and play the music that they like instead, and when the Axeman appears they stab him numerous times.

In our time Zoe's looking through Madison's stuff and finds a bunch of old pictures and the Ouija board. She convinces Nan and Queenie to put the board to use to find out what happened to the teen sensation. They manage to get in contact with a spirit who's willing to answer their questions, but it's not Madison, it's the Axeman! This is too much for Queenie, so she ends the séance before they get to know anything. Later Zoe calls the spirit on her own and promises to release him, if he says where Madison is. "Attic..." he replies, and we know he's not lying.

Fiona has a chemo treatment and hears the thoughts of other patients, which is a new gift for her. She's miserable and craving for one last love affair.

Cordelia and Hank enter the room Fiona prepared for her daughter's return from hospital. Hank is trying to help his wife, but as soon as he touches her, she sees the images with him and the redhead again and demands that he tells her the truth now, because sooner or later, she'll see it anyway. He doesn't, so she asks him to leave. At first Fiona's happy that Delia finally sees Hank for who he is, but she's no saint herself: the moment she touches her daughter, Cordelia sees Myrtle burn and gets upset. Fiona wisely leaves before more information has leaked.

The young witches find rotting Madison in the box and interrogate Spalding. He lies to Nan saying (or thinking, rather) that he killed the girl for sex. Zoe doesn't quite believe him, so she brings the corpse to Misty, who's dealing with Kyle's meltdown in her hut. Madison is resurrected, but does no remember what killed her. The afterlife wasn't pleasant for her, according to Madison, it's just black forever (sounds promising).

Hank pays a visit to Marie: turns out she's hired him to kill the white witches (so much for the pact) and he's already killed nine, the redhead was a witch too. Now she demands that he brings her the heads of everyone at the academy or else. Oh, and she claims the acid wasn't hers.

Cordelia wants to lie down but the Axeman appears and starts chasing her around the room with his weapon (hello, Lana Winters). The girls hear Delia's screams and after failing to get inside, read a spell to release the spirit. The Axeman leaves the academy and comes to the bar where he meets Fiona.

I can only say that with this whole Axeman release story, the first season, Murder House, makes a lot more sense.

AHS: COVEN - BURN, WITCH, BURN!

So American Horror Story was renewed for season 4 and no one knows what it's gonna be about. But Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett agreed to return.

This week's episode was about horrible mothers: Fiona and Delphine. It starts with a flashback to LaLaurie's Halloween party where she scares a potential fiancee for one of her daughters, Borquita, by making him touch human intestines and eyeballs floating in the blood. When alone, three sisters lament their impossible marriages with a mother like that and consider killing her. They pay for this conversation by spending a year in cages next to tortured slaves.

In our time, Laveau's army of darkness surrounded the academy. Zoe closes windows and doors, but Luke thinks it's all a joke and goes out to shoo a bunch of "neighborhood kids" away. However, when zombies eat a couple of passers-by after levitating Marie commands them to attack, he realizes he was wrong, but it's too late: one of the undead hits him with an axe. Nan rushes to help him and takes him to the car, which, as it turns out, is not zombie-proof. Zoe saves the couple by making the undead follow her instead. She finds a chainsaw and puts it to work, turning zombies into piles of body parts. She destroys all but one, and of course her weapon stops working, but she manages to turn the last Laveau's soldier back to dead with the help of magic. After voodoo witch falls to the floor, she says there's some real power in the academy now.

LaLaurie, full of remorse, lets Borquita in and tries to talk to her. But her daughter decides to implement her earlier plan and lifts her mother off the floor holding her by throat. Queenie sends Spalding to check if Delphine is OK. As he leaves, she hears the noise and comes out to check it. Turns out Borquita knocked out the butler and now is interested in getting to Queenie. The living voodoo doll tries her magic, but it doesn't help. Luckily, LaLaurie comes in time and stabs the zombie with a fire iron.

Meanwhile, Cordelia is unconscious and permanently blind. Fiona is wondering around the hospital under the influence of drugs and brings a stillborn girl back to life. Like Delphine, she clearly regrets being a lousy mother. When Delia's husband arrives, she has an argument with him so loud a nurse had to interrupt: she tells him she begged her daughter not to marry him, he says Cordelia hates her, you know, the usual in-laws' conversation. After left alone with his wife, Hank takes her by hand and says it doesn't matter what they've done to her, he loves her and will stay. As he touches her, she wakes up seeing what he's done to the ginger girl.

The Council arrives to make Fiona step down as the Supreme. She turns the tables by accusing Myrtle in throwing acid in Cordelia's face and killing Madison. To prove it, she takes Myrtle's red glove off and reveals the damage from acid on her hand. The Council sentences Myrtle to be burnt and they actually carry it out.

Queenie comes to Fiona and says she couldn't live knowing she's framed an innocent. Turns out she used her magic on Myrtle: when Fiona took her glove off, Queenie put her own hand to the acid to give Myrtle the scars. Fiona convinces Queenie to keep quite and promised her possible supremacy if she obeys.

Spalding tries to take decaying Madison out of the box and rips her hand off. Misty finds the remains of the burnt witch and resurrects her.

I guess no one really dies this season.

AHS: COVEN - FEARFUL PRANKS ENSUE

If the episode before was the worst of all, this one was the funniest. I like the show's traditional Halloween two-parters, they are always very special. The male characters have started to speak and reveal their personalities, but boy, I wish they didn't. As always, men are not very pleasant people in AHS (not that the same does not apply to real life, though).

It begins with the violent death of a black teenager, the son of Marie Laveau's friend and co-worker, back in 1961. Marie raises some voodoo zombies, who then kill the boy's murderers.

In our days Fiona finds bleeding Queenie and the bullman in Cordelia's apothecary room. Queenie is very weak, but Fiona and Delia bring her back to life. There is no time to take a deep breath though, as the Council, consisting of one bitchy gay writer, one diva and one clerk-looking woman, is summoned at the doors of the academy. Delia panics and tells them about Queenie's assault and her visit to Laveau, but it's not why they are here. Nan cannot hear Madison's thoughts any longer, and she assumes the girl's dead.

Kyle luckily escapes being poisoned by Zoe, fortunately, it's Halloween, so no one would pay attention to the guy covered in his mother's blood. Marie receives a parcel: the Minotaur's head, still blinking. She wants revenge and prepares to raise zombies again.

Fiona's son-in-law is out of town in a hotel. A girl  he found in a chatroom (Alexandra Breckenridge) pays him a visit, they have sex and then he kills her.

The Council begins interrogations, and it becomes clear that for Myrtle Snow, the Council diva, it is personal: she wants to bring Fiona down, and accuses her of killing Masdison. The story goes back to the day when Fiona was appointed the new Supreme. Myrtle somehow knew who killed Anna Leigh, and she enchanted Spalding's tongue, so he could not keep the truth when asked. Unfortunately, she did not have a gift of foreseeing future: Spalding's tongue was cut off and he could not say a thing. Now, after all these years Myrtle's asking the butler to write down the name of the witch responsible for his everlasting silence, and he writes down her own name. Turns out Fiona had nothing to do with his mutilation: he did it himself to protect her 'cause he loved her. Moreover, Cordelia says Madison wasn't the Supreme, so her mother had no motive killing her. The Supreme must be healthy, whereas Madison had a heart issue. Both Myrtle and Fiona are shocked by this.

Fiona and Delia go out for a drink and then the latter gets acid in her face from a person covered in black clothes. Spalding goes to his room full of dolls and chooses a dress for the latest piece in his collection: dead Madison. Delphine opens the school door to give candy to trick-or-treaters and sees three zombies, suspiciously resembling her daughters.

Two questions: didn't LaLaurie's daughters had too much tissue for the time they've been buried? And why didn't Nan tell Cordelia anything about her husband's thoughts? I'm sure she's heard them.

COPYCATS

Last week two of the comedy shows stole scenes from Friends (I can't guarantee Friends scriptwriters did not borrow the material from somewhere else, but from what I remember, they mainly stole from themselves). I watched Friends over a billion times, so that could not have gone unnoticed.

Modern Family introduced a male nanny, and not only they repeated all the key features of Sandy from Friends, they also referred to him as "manny" - Chandler used the word, 'cause in Tulsa, where he worked at the time, people had a tendency to merge words. Unlike Sandy, Modern Family's "manny" stayed, even though he predictably made the man of the house feel uncomfortable.

The second scene was in The Big Bang Theory, where Penny, after failing to be romantic, shows Leonard a box where she keeps all the stuff reminding of what he did for her. This was a copy from the episode where Rachel, after being confronted over returning gifts, brought a box with all sorts of crap from dates with Ross, because she's keeping things that matter.

The original was better both times, of course.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: COVEN - THE REPLACEMENTS

I think this was the worst episode in the history of AHS. I understand it's hard to maintain the reputation of a "shocking cable show" when all the major news networks show an X-ray of fetus with the bullet in its scull in broad daylight, but unlike real life, fiction cannot afford the luxury of showing things that "just happen", everything that takes place in the good show has to be justified somehow. This is something that I felt was definitely lacking in The Replacements.

Well, let's start, shall we?

The episode begins with the flashback to 1971, which reveals how Fiona got to be the Supreme witch and what was the thing that Spalding saw. Basically, she slit the throat of the previous Supreme, Anna Leigh, after she said she would never let Fiona take the witch throne. The most important piece of information in this act is that as the new Supreme "blossoms", the old one fades away and dies.

In our days Fiona visits some bar, and the scene from the last season is sort of repeated: men stopped wanting her (off: Jessica's voiceover sounded so much better than Taissa's), so she's decided to do the face lift. Her daughter, after failing to conceive a child with the help of snake sex, wants to try IVF (I assume); both women hear the bad news from their doctors: no one would dare to operate on them, their immune system is too weak.

Madame LaLaurie watches Obama giving speech on TV and does what Republicans did on the election night - weeps. Fiona makes her the house maid (or go back to the box!) and later - Queenie's personal slave.

Zoe visits Kyle's "white trash" mother and after seeing how much she mourns her late son (she nearly hanged herself), thinks of a great idea: why not return the Frankenstein monster home? She goes to the swamps, where Misty's managed to get rid of almost all the scars on his body, except for the ones that divide the body from his neck (it is probably meant to stress how different Kyle is from all the frat boys and their parts). Crazy Nicks fan doesn't want to let the boy go and becomes very aggressive, but he seems to want to leave her, and so Zoe successfully delivers him to his mommy.

A very different (and very religious) mother Joan and her attractive young son Luke move in next door to the witch school. Madison and Nan visit their home with cake, where the former has a conflict with Joan and uses her powers to throw knifes and burn curtains. The religious freak comes to Fiona with the Bible to tell what happened and demand that the witches stay away from her home. The Supreme suspects that Madison is her successor and takes the girl out to play pool and test her power.

Cordelia pays a visit to Marie Laveau asking to put a fertility spell on her (with goat's blood and a jar of sperm included), but Marie refuses to help her enemy's daughter.

Turns out Kyles was being repeatedly molested by his mother and when she tries to have sex with him (for the second time after his return), he kills her with his trophy screaming "NO". Zoe comes to the house and sees what he's done.

Delphine is cooking for Queenie, when she notices her Minotaur house boy outside. Queenie goes out and asks the monster to love her (physically), which he seemingly does, but probably not in the way she imagined.

Fiona is convinced that Madison is the new Supreme and asks the girl to kill her. Madison doesn't want to, so they engage in a fight and eventually experience wins: Fiona cuts the young witch's throat and Spalding sees it again. "This coven doesn't need a new Supreme", - Fiona summarizes - "it needs a new rug".

I can practically see what the creative process of AHS writers was, when they were thinking of what kind of horrible stuff they can put into the show. "Let's make Kyle kill his mother!" "But he's good" "OK, what if she's done bad things to him" "Like what?" "Incest?!"

In the first episode Peters' character didn't look traumatized enough to justify this kind of skeleton in the closet, IMO. Same with Queenie, she did not seem that desperate to explain why she would want to have her first sexual experience with a monster. Oh, well.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: COVEN - BOY PARTS

I still struggle to accept the new reality of AHS, mainly because it's a bit too cheesy and neither scary or funny enough to justify that. But I looove Jessica Lange and Kathy Bates together, LaLaurie character is very funny. I find it hard to root for Zoe, luckily, she stopped narrating, so there's not too much of her. Lily Rabe's role doesn't seem to suit her that well, I liked her as the devil more.

Anyway, back to the story:

A couple of alligator hunters are checking their traps, then they hear a Stevie Nicks song and find Misty Day wandering around the gator corpses. She's looking all Mother Earth and acting like a PETA activist. Long story short, she revives the dead animals, who brutally murder the men. Somehow, she doesn't feel much pity for humans, hmm.

In the academy, Zoe mourns Kyle while Fiona asks LaLaurie how she manages to stay alive for all these years. Cordelia interrupts by calling everyone for the morning witch gathering, which looks more like some AA meeting. Queenie tells the story of how she ended up in the school: she used her voodoo doll magic to deep-fry an annoying fast food chain customer's hand. The meeting is cut short by homicide detectives, who came to question Madison and Zoe about the bus crash. At first the girls manage to stay calm, but after Zoe is asked about the accident survivor, who died after she paid him a visit in the hospital just like her late boyfriend, she breaks and tells them everything. The witch stuff too. Luckily, Fiona comes in to save the day: she forces the officers to drink a glass of water with her spit, which seemed to have erased their memory. She then warns the girls that she's the one they need to be scared of.

Cordelia and her husband are trying for a baby the dark magic way (with snakes and blood and spells and fire) after the modern medicine has failed them.

Fiona finds out what happened to LaLaurie 180 years ago and pays a visit to Marie Laveau's hair salon to learn the immortality secret. They trade some quips; regular and voodoo witches don't seem to get along. After Fiona leaves (thanks for nothing and the hair extensions suck too!), Marie goes to the secret room with her Minotaur lover still alive.

Madison takes Zoe to the morgue to resurrect Kyle. The bus crash was so proper, they had to construct his body from various parts of his mates. At first, it seems the spell didn't work, but then Zoe sends Madison outside to say goodbye to the boy and kisses the sleeping beauty. The guard guy interrupts, but Kyle suddenly wakes up and protects Zoe from him. She takes him out of the morgue and can't decide where to drive him, but then Misty shows her presence in the car and suggests to go to the swamps. They come to Misty's hut where she puts some sort of dirt on the monster-boy (who can't speak or act like a human) which is supposed to help him heal. Zoe recognizes Misty as the burnt girl from Cordelia's story, Misty is very happy to see somebody like her. She suggests to leave Kyle with her and hopes Zoe would visit.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon & Michael Goi on AHS Bitchcraft

FUNNIEST VIDEO EVER!

AMERICAN HORROR STORY S03E01

Ryan Murphy has been cursed. Whatever TV show he's working on, after a couple of great seasons he just goes beyond weird, bizarre and "what the fuck?". Luckily, American Horror Story has always been abnormal, to say the least, so the fact that Murphy's curse has started to affect it almost doesn't bother me.

All of the (significant) regulars shined in the first episode: Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Frances Conroy and Lily Rabe; many of the first season cast members are also back: Taissa Farmiga, Denis O'Hare and Jamie Brewer.

The episode begins with the flashback to the 19th century where Madame Delphine LaLaurie (portrayed by Kathy Bates) is torturing her black servants and turns one of them into Minotaur. This all gotta mean that the Great American Horror of this season is slavery.

In our days, Zoe Benson (Farmiga) inadvertently kills her boyfriend: she's a witch and her gift is the ability to cause men's blood seek its way out through the eyes, nose and ears when they have sex with her. This got to be the worst gift ever! Anyway, she's been sent  to New Orleans special boarding school for witches. She meets a few fellow students: bloodthirsty teen movie star Madison Montgomery (Emma Roberts), the living voodoo doll Queenie (Gabourey Sidibe) and the girl who knows everything about everyone else and doesn't hesitate to make the information public Nan (Brewer). The school is run by Cordelia Foxx (Paulson) who's teaching girls to keep their heads low and use their gifts carefully. She tells them the story of a girl called Misty (Rabe) who wasn't careful enough when bringing dead things back to life and was burnt.

Meanwhile, Cordelia's mother, the Supreme witch Fiona (Lange) is on the quest for everlasting youth. She turns to science with all the stem cell nonsense, which naturally brings nothing but disappointment. Eventually, she comes to the witch school determined to teach the girls, despite her daughter's objections. (BTW, Fiona was the one to bring the name of Hogwarts up; self irony detected).

Madison and Zoe attend some party where the latter meets a nice frat boy Kyle (Peters), while the former is being gang raped by his pals. Kyle intervenes the activity and ends up being knocked out on the bus floor as the boys try to escape. Madison then uses her magic and flips the bus over. Tragic.

The next morning Fiona takes the girls to the LaLaurie house. The tour guide reveals Madame's miserable ending: one day the black witch who happened to be in love with the guy who turned to half bull half human avenged his suffering. But she did not kill the sadist socialite. Nan heard LaLaurie's cry for help from six feet under and showed Fiona where she's buried alive. Fiona with the help of two guys digs the damned woman out.

Zoe visits the hospital where the only two survivors of the bus crash were said to be. She prays for Kyle to be alive, but we all know that the worst ones always live: the rape initiator was still breathing instead. She can't let him go on, so she sits on top of him and uses her magic powers to drain him from his blood.

In my opinion, a few things were off: for example, Fiona seems to be able to magically convince people to do something for her (e.g. give the tour for free), yet she had to blackmail the scientist to give her the the treatment. I also think Zoe's gift is extremely uncool and I don't get why she would use it in the hospital, 'cause there are so many other ways to kill an unconscious guy. If they were going for the "poetic justice" of sorts, as the guy was kind of raped too, it didn't feel that way, not really. Finally, I didn't enjoy the occasional first person narration (I hate it in movies), all the more so, because Farmiga is not particularly good at monologues.

Clearly, Misty and Kyle are not really dead and there are so many spoilers by Murphy and the cast this season that we don't even have to doubt it.

Also, Coven reminds Murder House very much, not only because the actors from the first season are back, not only because of Farmiga and Peters duet, but because the characters personality-wise are very similar to those from the first season. Fiona is very Constance, Zoe is very Violet, Spalding at least as ugly as Larry and even Cordelia resembles Billie Dean.

All the minor issues aside, American Horror Story seems to be the only watchable series this season, so there's no surprise the premiere broke the show's ratings record: the viewers count was up by 44% comparing to the Asylum debut. I liked the glam, the witch stuff, the cast and characters and I'm very excited to see what happens next.

REVENGE SEASON PREMIERE

I watched the first episode last night just to see where the series goes without Mike Kelley. I never expected I could say this, but it got so much worse! The dialogues never were the best part of Revenge, but they weren't that bad, now it's like reading a cheesy pocket book written by some miserable housewife (you know, the one where half naked man holds a woman on the cover). The characters have lost the remains of their volume, their actions are in no way based on their nature (Nolan Ross won't do the hacking? wtf?) or the past. Everything in the best traditions of Mexican soap operas.

ABC has done the impossible. They managed to fuck up a bad show.

FAREWELL, DEXTER!

The moral of the series, if one chooses to accept the final season, is: if there's someone after you, make sure you kill them. Never walk away. Never try to do the right thing. Just fucking kill them.

It was stupid to turn Dexter to Revenge, with all these meaningless twists and "overwhelming" emotions. I'm sure there was a way to let Debra go with more dignity, she's not fucking Declan Porter!

Oh, well.

MORE FAMILIAR FACES

Hannah Ware stars in a new ABC show called Betrayal. I wonder if they'll make her speak with an American accent.

FAMILIAR FACES

Wow, Ben Zajac and Sister Mary Eunice are seeking help from Nip/Tuck plastic surgeons! And the story is spooky: they are a married couple, and when they were stuck in a snow he fed her his flesh (which now needs to be replaced). It's so strange to see them together.

GREAT! I DON'T HAVE TO WATCH EMMYS THIS YEAR

Because most of nominations don't excite me at all. American Horror Story did well (I think, they have 17 nominations in total, including best lead/supporting performances by Lange, Paulson Quinto and Cromwell, as well as the best mini-series nomination), which is the only part that I feel somewhat happy about.

Why nominate House of Cards? Bates Motel? Nashville? Why on earth would they choose to nominate Jason Bateman over Will Arnett or David Cross?

Meh, whatever.

DEXTER S08E02 RECAP

In the second episode of Dexter called Every Silver Lining Dexter learns something about his past, Vogel gets some shape, Debra's breaking bad and Batista is trying to turn Quinn into marriage material.

Dr. Vogel shows Dexter her recordings of Harry describing his step-son's violent traits (by the way, it seems unlikely that Harry gave her permission to videotape those conversations). Long story short, it turns out that Vogel was the one who gave Harry this idea of channeling Dex's urges and helped him create the Code. She now needs Dexter's help, as she believes the murder from last week was committed by one of her patients, since she's received that victim's missing part of the brain.

The new body appears almost instantly, Dexter manages to identify the suspect by a fingerprint on the murder weapon, and although Vogel seems skeptical about the candidate, Dex chooses to ignore her.

Debra, in a meanwhile, is on a treasure hunt. She figured out where Briggs kept the jewelry, and went there, followed by El Sapo, who then beat her up and took the bling-bling. But he did not go far - the next morning Miami Metro was already working on identifying his body. Dexter rushes to Deb, worrying about her, but she seems fine and still not in the mood to see him.

After being kicked out by his damaged sibling, Dex comes to the cabin of his suspect only to find him murdered. He still finds it hard to admit that he was so wrong, which is pinpointed by Vogel.

Debra comes to Miami Metro to answer questions about El Sapo (Quinn remembered her asking him to look that guy up once); by that time Dex has figured out she was the one who shot the bastard (go Deb!). He interrupted her "interrogation" and confronted her with this, only to realize that she's not what she used to be.

Vogel calls Dexter and says that someone's broke into her house. They find a CD with the latest "brain surgeon" murder recorded, from which it is clear that the guy Dexter suspected was just another victim of a psychopath on the loose.

Tam-tam-tam!!!

So now I'm quite confident that Vogel is the murderer of the season, because:

a) She clearly knows too much about those killings
b) Like late Travis Marshall, she's the one who shows Dexter all that goodies "the bad guy" sends her: why should we believe that those parts of brain and a murder recording were delivered by someone else? She might have scooped parts of brain herself and pretend there was someone at her house easily
c) There was a perfect motivation for her to have planted that CD with videotaped murder: to prove she was right! You remember how she said that this was important for psychopaths? And undoubtedly, she's one.

But here comes the question - what's her motivation for the actual killings? She, of course, could be eliminating her former patients to avoid career issues, but hardly it was the main reason. So what else?
Well, do you remember this famous brain teaser:

A woman, while at the funeral of her own mother, met a man whom she did not know. She believed him to be her dream partner so much, that she fell in love with him right there, but never asked for his number and could not find him. A few days later she killed her sister.

Question: What was her motive for killing her sister?

I assume she used these murders to get close to Dexter, although, I'm not sure, what for.

Also, Dexter keeps showing how non-psychopathic he is: all this wanting to share his feelings, caring for his sister surprise Vogel. May it be that he was just a damaged kid, who could have never turned into a killer, providing there was a good psychiatrist instead of Vogel?

HOW MUCH WOULD DEXTER SCORE ON PSYCHOPATH TEST?

After the latest Dexter episode I couldn't stop thinking if the main character can actually qualify for a real psychopath, so I found a Hare's elaborated checklist here and unsurprisingly, Dexter scored almost as many points as I did. And unfortunately, neither of us is a psychopath.

Instructions: for each of the 20 characteristics, give a score of 0 if it does not apply, 1 if it applies partially and 2 if it is a perfect match.

He has to get at least 30 points to be diagnosed of psychopathy.

Let's roll!

1. Glib and Superficial Charm. Psychopathic charm is not in the least shy, self-conscious, or afraid to say anything. A psychopath never gets tongue-tied. They have freed themselves from the social conventions about taking turns in talking, for example.

Well, that's easy. Dexter is everything, but smooth in his social interactions, and often says or does some awkward things. He's far from being charming, so 0 points.

2. Grandiose Self-Worth. A grossly inflated view of one's abilities and self-worth, self-assured, opinionated, cocky, a braggart. Psychopaths are arrogant people who believe they are superior human beings.

Remember what Vogel said about the murderer on the latest Miami Metro case? He would enjoy if he knew they were talking about him; but Dexter wouldn't, besides, he never seems cocky. He feels different from people that surround him, but not in a good way. This only changes when he's around his victims, then he definitely thinks he is superior to them, but that could be his step-father's influence. Since he was brought up in the house where murderers were always treated with contempt, the attitude would grow on him regardless of his personal traits. I call 0.

3. Need for Stimulation or Proneness to Boredom. An excessive need for novel, thrilling, and exciting stimulation; taking chances and doing things that are risky. Psychopaths often have a low self-discipline in carrying tasks through to completion because they get bored easily. They fail to work at the same job for any length of time, for example, or to finish tasks that they consider dull or routine.

This one is tricky, because even though Dexter does work in Miami Metro since like forever and almost never travels or looks for any particular excitement, he does tend to run off from work and his second live gives just enough thrill. I give him 1.

4. Pathological Lying. Can be moderate or high; in moderate form, they will be shrewd, crafty, cunning, sly, and clever; in extreme form, they will be deceptive, deceitful, underhanded, unscrupulous, manipulative, and dishonest.

This one is a 2. He's a liar.

5. Cunning and Manipulative. The use of deceit and deception to cheat, con, or defraud others for personal gain; distinguished from Item #4 in the degree to which exploitation and callous ruthlessness is present, as reflected in a lack of concern for the feelings and suffering of one's victims. 
I'd say 1. He does manipulate or deceives others, but sometimes feels guilty about it.

6. Lack of Remorse or Guilt. A lack of feelings or concern for the losses, pain, and suffering of victims; a tendency to be unconcerned, dispassionate, coldhearted, and unemphatic  This item is usually demonstrated by a disdain for one's victims.

If we're talking about his victims only, then, 2 points, otherwise he feels guilty pretty often.

7. Shallow Affect. Emotional poverty or a limited range or depth of feelings; interpersonal coldness in spite of signs of open gregariousness.

2 points

8. Callousness and Lack of Empathy. A lack of feelings toward people in general; cold, contemptuous, inconsiderate, and tactless

2 points

9. Parasitic Lifestyle. An intentional, manipulative, selfish, and exploitative financial dependence on others as reflected in a lack of motivation, low self-discipline, and inability to begin or complete responsibilities.

0 points, he works, he doesn't take loans or borrow money.

10. Poor Behavioral Controls. Expressions of irritability, annoyance, impatience, threats, aggression, and verbal abuse; inadequate control of anger and temper; acting hastily.

This only applies to the last episode, really, where he yelled at his son and nearly killed some stupid driver that cut him off. Normally, he stays in control of his behavior. 0.

11. Promiscuous Sexual Behavior. A variety of brief, superficial relations, numerous affairs, and an indiscriminate selection of sexual partners; the maintenance of several relationships at the same time; a history of attempts to sexually coerce others into sexual activity or taking great pride at discussing sexual exploits or conquests.

0. He claimed to be basically asexual before Rita, and besides her there was what, three more women in like seven years? That's not a lot. 

12. Early Behavior Problems. A variety of behaviors prior to age 13, including lying, theft, cheating, vandalism, bullying, sexual activity, fire-setting, glue-sniffing, alcohol use, and running away from home.

I recall that he was killing animals as a child. I guess this qualifies for 2 points.

13. Lack of Realistic, Long-Term Goals. An inability or persistent failure to develop and execute long-term plans and goals; a nomadic existence, aimless, lacking direction in life.

On the one hand, he doesn't have long term plans, but at the same time it's not possible to say that his life has no direction. 1?

14.  Impulsive. The occurrence of behaviors that are unpremeditated and lack reflection or planning; inability to resist temptation, frustrations, and urges; a lack of deliberation without considering the consequences; foolhardy, rash, unpredictable, erratic, and reckless.

1 point. He's not that good at controlling his urges, but most of the time he thinks his murders through, wraps the place in plastic and such...

15. Irresponsibility. Repeated failure to fulfill or honor obligations and commitments; such as not paying bills, defaulting on loans, performing sloppy work, being absent or late to work, failing to honor contractual agreements.

2 points. It always amazed me how he manages to be present at work so little and make Harrison's babysitters work extra hours.

16. Failure to Accept Responsibility for Own Actions. A failure to accept responsibility for one's actions reflected in low conscientiousness, an absence of dutifulness, antagonistic manipulation, denial of responsibility, and an effort to manipulate others through this denial.

1 point. Though he even invented "the dark passenger" to spare some guilt, when Rita was killed he said "It was me" and felt responsible for her death.

17. Many Short-Term Marital Relationships. A lack of commitment to a long-term relationship reflected in inconsistent, undependable, and unreliable commitments in life, including marital.

0 points. It was not the lack of commitment that made some of his relationships short. 
18. Juvenile Delinquency. Behavior problems between the ages of 13-18; mostly behaviors that are crimes or clearly involve aspects of antagonism, exploitation, aggression, manipulation, or a callous, ruthless tough-mindedness.

We know nothing about that period of time, but he probably was well-behaved. 0.

19. Revocation of Condition Release. A revocation of probation or other conditional release due to technical violations, such as carelessness, low deliberation, or failing to appear.

Never happened. 0 points

20. Criminal Versatility. A diversity of types of criminal offenses, regardless if the person has been arrested or convicted for them; taking great pride at getting away with crimes.

Two points. On top of murders he also commits fraud (forging lab results or hiding evidence), theft and invades homes.

So the total result is 20 points, which is higher than a completely normal person would score, but falls short of 10 points to call Dexter a psychopath. Too bad for Dr. Vogel, huh?

DEXTER (S08E01) - READY FOR GOODBYE (sort of recap)

The first episode of Dexter's final season aired last Sunday and in general I share the "meh" feeling expressed by my better half: it wasn't too exciting and frankly, not particularly promising, however, since I'm a big fan of the series, I naively hope for the best.

So Dexter's moved on with his live, like nothing happened, his son has finally reached the age when he can actually comprehend something, Quinn is fucking someone new (like in every other season!) and this time Angel's little sister is his babe, Batista himself returned to Miami Metro (who opens a restaurant in this economy anyway?), LaGuerta is turned into a concrete bench, and only Debra dived into a self-created version of hell, where she does cocaine along with the full range of other illegal substances, screws a criminal she's supposed to give in (oh yeah, she's a bounty hunter of some sort now) and avoids Dexter, who doesn't get why. "Because you made me compromise everything about myself that I care about. And I hate you for it", says she while shooing him away, when he finally tracks her down, concerned about her.

But it looks like deviant step-sister should be the least of Dex's concerns now, even though she said she should have shot him instead of Maria. Evelyn Vogel, a neuropsychiatrist specializing in psychopaths, who looks more like NBC's Hannibal Lector offered her help to Miami Metro in solving a new murder case (potentially, cases) - a body was found with part of the brain responsible for empathy scooped out. She takes particular interest in Dexter, asking him all sorts of uncomfortable questions about the Bay Harbor Butcher and such.

Don't they look alike?

To her disappointment, he doesn't get paranoid enough, as poor Deb occupies his thoughts. A hitman named El Sapo is after her "boyfriend" slash wanted guy Andrew Briggs, and she might get hurt. Together with Harrison Dexter gets to the Pink Motel to warn her, where he picks a fight with Briggs and consequently stabs him in front of his sister, which makes things even more awkward between the two siblings. "What'd you do? I felt OK around him!". Debra gives another speech about how open her eyes are now, sends him away and calls the police to tell them some lies about what happened. El Sapo watched her so I guess we'll see more of him in the upcoming episodes.

And finally, Dr. Vogel finds Dexter sitting on LaGuerta's bench the next day. He tries to avoid the conversation and then she gives hims the pictures he drew as a child (naturally, with loads of blood). When he presses her against the wall, she says he can't kill her "Because I don't fit Harry's code". Oh, God! She knows everything.

What can I say, there was definitely too much of Deb, and although Jennifer Carpenter doesn't have the gorgeous hair she had last season, which leaves jealousy out, it is still hard for me to like her character. She's too messed up. But I'm glad that Carpenter has finally got a chance to yell "I hate you!" at her ex-husband with no repercussions.

The main question of the episode is who the hell Evelyn Vogel really is. Was she the one who spotted Dexter's "dark passenger" when he was a kid and informed Harry about it? Was she the one who suggested to channel Dex's destructive energy?

The problem I have with Dr. Vogel is that she comes off as a more of a psychopath than Dexter (what could make her study psychopaths in the first place, huh?) To be completely frank, Dexter doesn't come as a psychopath at all, despite the fact that he numerously suggests so himself and that's the problem of this series. I understand that it was revolutionary at the time - following the life of a maniac  - but the maniac was lost along the way, what was left is a version of hero from the action movies in the nineties, portrayed by Stallone, Swartzeneger or Willis (I wonder if Dexter killed less guys within seven seasons than characters of those guys in a single movie).

BRIEFLY

So the final hours of the second season of Revenge left me as frustrated as every other episode of this show (maybe, with the exception of the first three or so). There was a bunch of chaotic events, completely unrelated to each other, while characters' emotions vanished into thin air just as fast as they peaked, Jack's brother died, although there was hardly any need for it in terms of the story line (frankly, I'd prefer Jack's death, he was a useless, weak and quite unsympathetic character back in the first season, and they made him even less bearable now). And the most annoying part was that there was no resolution whatsoever. However, I'm glad to know that there was no "Initiative" in the first place, that explains why throughout the season it never felt like this group really existed.

The former showrunner, Mike Kelley, parted ways with Revenge, apparently, he had different view on how the series should be from the show's home channel, ABC, so it's rather clear whom to blame on the appalling (even for the soap opera!) quality of this season. The rumor has it that Kelley wanted the series to be a 13-parter (instead of 22), which would help avoid all the bullshit the season contained and all the extra characters that came and went (like Emily's mom and her foster brother, Nolan's ex, Victoria's mom, Conrad's business nemesis).  I'm 100% convinced that it doesn't get better, so the wise thing to do is to spare self from the next season.

The same applies to Vegas. They managed to keep the story more or less logical, but it was definitely too long and thus filled to capacity with unnecessary content, and at the same time it was so full of cliches that one could predict the ending after just ten minutes of the episode. All the law guys were disturbingly annoying and it was quite ridiculous, how they almost never killed anyone, while the gangsters went wild.

I didn't even realize that The Americans was over until a week after the finale, so that says a lot. However, overall, the show was not so bad: at times boring, at times a little idiotic (not to the extent of Homeland or Revenge), but at the same time so straight forward, easy to follow and sympathize with the characters.

Despite Laurence Fishburne, who is in my personal top ten of the ugliest actors alive, the annoying character of Will Graham (and a few others), the extremely visual corpses and the weak script, I quite enjoy watching Hannibal. At times, it reminds me of Jamie at Home, only with a much more pleasant host (I mean the magnificent Hannibal Lecter by Mads Mikkelsen, of course). Yes, the creators of the show like to spritz characters' faces with blood as if it's some sort of adult movie, and invent absolutely idiotic, irrational crimes with far-fetched motivation, but most of the time it's a fun watch. And it's surprising to see something like that on NBC.

Orphan Black is not exactly Utopia, but it's one of a few conspiracy series that doesn't annoy me with the irrational plot. There are some iffy turns, but overall, the story is coherent and full of action, even exciting. But we'll see how it ends, that's usually a weak point for this genre.

DON'T ARGUE WITH AN IDIOT

NEW IN MARCH & APRIL

Bates Motel (A&E) is a new TV series produced by Carlton Cuse (Lost) and it's supposed to be something like a prequel to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (Ed Gein again, huh?). The series features Freddie Highmore (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Spiderwick Chronicles) as Norman Bates and Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air) as Norma Bates. Bates Motel premieres on the 18th of March. 

Orphan Black (BBC America) is scheduled to premiere on the 30th of March. It's about an orphan named Sarah (played by Tatiana Maslany) who happens to witness the suicide of her exact double, which later turns out to be her (?) clone. She assumes the dead girl's identity to get her money, but inadvertently becomes involved in some sort of deadly conspiracy. 

Da Vinci's Demons (Starz) is a historical fantasy about early life of Da Vinci created by David S. Goyer. The first episode air on the 12th April.

Hemlock Grove (based on the novel of the same title) is another creation of Netflix, a thriller this time. Like with House of Cards, all the episodes are released at once (April 19). Famke Janssen, Bill Skarsgård and Landon Liboiron are featured in this show.

HOUSE OF CARDS REVIEW or ARE YOU KIDDING ME, NETFLIX?

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS AND A GREAT DEAL OF RAGE.

There are no words to express my anger and frustration caused by this series, so what I'm about to write may be quite emotional and lacking structure.

Plot: The Majority Whip, Francis (Frank) Underwood (D) (Kevin Spacey), doesn't get the position of Secretary of State, which was promised to him during the campaign, so he focuses on getting even a more senior position in the administration anyway. He has a wife, Claire (Robin Wright), as psychopathic as he is, who's running a non-profit "humanitarian" organisation that helps deliver water to the Third World countries, and a nosy reporter Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara), whom Underwood screws and uses to leak some materials (at times fake) about his opponents.

It's a good thing Netflix released the whole season at once, otherwise there'd be no way I'd watch it all. From the beginning I thought of it as of something lame, banal, with poorly written dialogues and unrealistic situations, but because there aren't many ongoing shows about politics at the moment, it still seemed  watchable. Around the sixth episode it started to annoy me a lot, but since I've already invested so much time into this I've decided to finish it, which wasn't a good decision, apparently, - I was literally furious when the closing credits appeared at the end of the last episode. Do you know what I wanted to see in the finale? Frank Underwood being brutally murdered. The more blood the merrier. Alas, there was just a crappy cliffhanger instead.

Why did I hate it so much? Well, there is a number of reasons, not the least of which is the annoying, unsympathetic main character. I hated  him from the opening scene when he strangled his wounded dog, just like later in the series he killed a useless, broken congressman. What surprised me though, was that it felt like the creators of the series adored Underwood. Otherwise I don't know why he kept winning, even though there were no grounds for that. He kept speaking to the camera (I hated when he did that), saying some pathetic bullshit about his alleged power, but he never felt powerful to me, instead, he felt deluded and thus pathetic. He was capable of dirty tricks, no doubt, but those could have only succeeded if all of his opponents were morons. I mean, seriously, an accusation in writing an anti-Israel editorial in a school newspaper over thirty years ago? A brick in congressman's window? A boy killed at the time of teachers' strike, who "should have been in school"? A leaked education bill? In real life none, ABSOLUTELY NONE of this would have worked the way it did in the series. And every time I desperately wanted Underwood to lose; as I said, I fucking hated that empty, moronic, self-absorbed, cheeky bastard.

The characters in House of Cards are incredibly strange, whatever they do or say (especially say) makes very little to no sense. That is especially true with Claire. Her Louboutin shoes the camera often focuses on explain her character better than her lines or her actions altogether. The relationship between her and Frank is weird, to say the least; I'd understand if they'd never talk to each other when not in public, but instead they seem to have some kind of love while openly cheating on and using each other. She overuses a pronoun "we", she plays with the feelings of a photographer, who's in love with her for some reason, and she acts like a Hitler when at work. Nice.

To emphasize the dirtiness of his character, Frank chooses to eat in a shit hole and spends his free time in a gloomy cellar; worthless Zoe lives like a white trash with rotting food and spiders all around, and the moment she realizes that, her affair with the is doomed. That's when she finally turns into a real reporter, although previously she clearly stood against all the journalistic values heavily promoted in The Newsroom. Sadly, we never get to learn if she buries Underwood before he gets to her. But one thing I know for sure: if there is a season two, I'll stick to reading recaps. I've had enough of watching.

WHAT'S NEW?

As I already said, most of the new series are rather bad, and this affects very negatively on my will to recap. So I'll just write a short summary of what I think of winter premieres.

Utopia.  Unexpectedly amazing. I'm not a big fan of long episodes, because of my short attention span (they normally lose me after forty five minutes), but it never feels long with Utopia. It is as exciting and mesmerizing as it is delirious, and its best feature is this incredibly bright, colorful, psychedelic picture, which drags you to the madness and ridiculousness of the story.

The Americans. Talking about long episodes. By the end of the pilot I didn't know what to do with myself. And all this time I kept thinking "Do we really need all these flashbacks?", "Do we really need to hear the entire In the Air Tonight?". The story is about two Russian spies, who "pretend" to be an American family from the suburbs. The guy leans toward betraying his motherland (what can you expect from a person with transvestite-ish eyebrows), while the girl stays firm, although I can't stop thinking that if she was a good spy, she'd get rid of him immediately. They are not allowed to say a single word in Russian (but there seems to be nothing wrong with drinking vodka) to avoid the risk of blowing their cover. The pilot rolls around the traitor they had to catch and deal with while not letting the FBI agent from counterintelligence, who moved into the next house, suspect anything. To sum up: if they manage to cut the crap, this series might actually get watchable, as of now it's a little boring and far-fetched.

Banshee. A masculine version of Revenge. If you like fights and don't care for the story to be in any way realistic, Banshee is the right show for you. Tough guys, sex, crime, torture and a much uglier version of Milla Jovovich as the heroine: that's pretty much what this series is about.

House of Cards. Yesterday Netflix released all the thirteen episodes of its first original series and I watched three of those. I recognize it's a big step for Netflix and I'm glad that they are trying to go in that direction, but objectively it's not particularly good. The essence of the story is fine and it's even shot quite OK, but I can't emphasize enough how poorly it's written. Especially the dialogues. They are not even pretentious, they're simply inhuman, people just don't talk like that! Even if they are politicians. And what's the deal with Kevin Spacey's character talking to the camera all the time? It just diminishes the effect of what's going on; when the character interrupts his supposedly emotional speech, which makes people cry (!), to notify us, the viewers, of his real agenda, I stop being inside the story, I'm suddenly above it. To sum up, this series just made me realize how much I miss Boss.(*bursts into tears*).

The Following. I think there's something fundamentally wrong about making the villain of the show more likable than the main protagonist, especially if your story is about a serial killer, who happens to draw inspiration for his murders from the works of Edgar Allan Poe. There's nothing original about how the story is told, and I fail to imagine a person who would like this series.

Cracked. After suffering from PTSD a police officer is forced to work with a psychiatrist, and together they dedicate their lives to catching literally crazy murderers instead of just shooting them, which apparently is the common practice in Canada. Trivial procedural.

1600 Penn. A "comedy" series about how the president of the United States is also human. His smartest daughter had one night stand and is now pregnant, his oldest son is clearly retarded, his trophy wife is self centered and the other two kids are irrelevant. Neither compelling, nor funny.

Deception. Boring Revenge with black people. Nuff said.

Legit. I'm not a fun of Louie (and stand up comedy for that matter) and Jim Jefferies's Legit is even worse. But I'm sure that people that watch it love it.

Way to Go. A Brittish black comedy about three young guys who are quite successful at wasting their lives. The irony of the series is that they start an assisted suicide business to help those terminally ill. It requires adjustment to the accent and it's not that funny (though I had a few laughs).

On a brighter note, Archer is back and it's hilarious!

UPCOMING PREMIERES

The midseason has been quite a disappointment so far, there's only one gem plus two somewhat watchable shows  in the pile of new TV series. What''s ahead doesn't excite me either; anyway, here's a summary of what's coming.

Netflix's own series House of Cards, featuring Kevin Spacey, Kate Mara, Sandrine Holt and Robin Wright premieres today, February 1st. It's a political drama about Frank Underwood, a ruthless Republican Democrat in Washington plotting against the president. I don't believe it's going to be better than Boss, but who knows.



Monday Mornings, a medical drama created by David E. Kelley (The Practice, Ally McBeal), premieres on Monday (obviously), February 4, on TNT. I don't think I'll watch it, I doubt there's any angle to the usual blood, death and "we're saving lives here" sort of thing.



Conspiracy lovers might find Zero Hour (released on February 14) interesting, although to me the trailer seems a little (?) dull. The series was created by Paul Scheuring (Prison Break), Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Dan McDermott and it features Scott Michael Foster, Addison Timlin and Anthony Edwards. The plot doesn't strike as original, man's wife is abducted, so he has to decrypt a treasure map to save her and humanity (bleugh).



The first episode of Cult airs on February 19 on CW. Investigative journalist Jeff Sefton (Matt Davis, “The Vampire Diaries”) has learned to live with his younger brother Nate’s relentless string of obsessions, especially his latest rant that a hit TV show intends to harm him. However, when his brother mysteriously disappears, Jeff takes Nate’s paranoia seriously, and in the process uncovers the dark underworld of the TV show “Cult” and its rabid fans. Okay.



Golden Boy (debuts on February 26 on CBS) is about how a young cop managed to become a police commissioner in no time and what was the price he paid for this. Frankly, it's hard to imagine why would anyone want to watch that. Underachievers must resent this.



I already wrote about Red Widow and its premiere date is practically a month away (March 3). It's about a woman who gets deeply involved with organized crime after her husband is murdered in front of her eyes.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: AN AFTERWORD

I feel like I need to say a couple of words about the season two of AHS before moving on. Firstly, it definitely wasn't as terrifying as the first one (which is not a bad thing). I don't fear the aliens as much as ghosts; even if they do exist, the likelihood of ever meeting them seems negligible. The Devil was extremely fun and full of life, I mourned her when they killed her off. All the other things, like the Holocaust, mutants, maniacs and mental illnesses, though undoubtedly are utterly disturbing, don't really force you sleep with the lights on. So for me Asylum was more dark than scary.

There were a couple of dead ends throughout the season, I believe. For example, we never got to learn what the hell attacked Lana in the first episode. At the time it seemed like it was the same thing that ripped Leo's hand off, but now we know it wasn't. Transformed Shelley was brought to the playground and exposed, but it didn't even get to a local newspaper. Lee Emerson escaped to never reappear. The aliens took Kit who knows why, etc.

In the end the series turned out to be about Lana, her journey, her last stand and her logical triumph over, well, evil. The only truly nice (tough slutty) person was Kit, yet it never really felt like he (along with the whole alien story) really mattered. Sister Jude had to undergo several personality changes, she's been a cold-hearted bitch, projecting her sins to the inmates of the asylum, then a martyr, and finally just one happy grandmother. Hats off to Jessica Lange.

Despite all the flaws American Horror Story was one of the best shows this fall (maybe just a little behind Boss) and I can't wait for more.