Legacies - Hold On Tight

 

Discussing Ep. 3.4 - Okay, this was complete bullshit. This is wandering into TVD S5 territory of writing where the storylines all turn and end on a dime and there doesn't seem to be any long term plan or storyline in place at all.

I'll get my biggest gripe out of the way first. Alyssa Chang. What the fuck? This is writing at its worst, like...this is Riverdale level of writing! I have no idea what to make of this character. Is she good? Is she bad? Is she traumatised? Is she narcissistic? What the fuck is she? "Oh, she's just complicated!" Fuck you! Just like it was last season, she started out as some troubled witch who was being a pain in the ass to the other students and faculty. She became an outcast and decided to exact her revenge on those who she thought were against her, only to change her mind on a whim (mainly because of MG) and join with the very people she was hellbent on hurting. And guess what? She did the EXACT SAME FUCKING THING THIS SEASON!!!!

She starts out this season as some bitchy student who kept putting all the other students down, only to be checked by Lizzie...she then goes and joins NecroTed and is bent on getting revenge on those who wronged her...only to have her mind changed by the Wonder Twins and MG? Really? Are the writers so bereft of ideas that they had to do the exact same arc for this character that they did last season? The way she is able to change her mind (or have her mind changed by others) is ridiculous. Not to mention how her entire personality changes! Now she's a good person and not a bitch anymore? Why? And her story about how she lost control of her witchy powers and incinerated her parents was such a weak payoff! I was expecting so much more in terms of her background. Instead, she's like the witch version of a Ripper, but not really since she obviously does have control of her powers. So what's the point? And to boot, she gets the guy in the end. She got MG! Why reward this goofy character like that?

Then we have Malivore, the big bad that has been essentially the catalyst for all the fairy tale monsters for the past two seasons. He shows up here without any fanfare or build up, meeting Landon and taking over his body. I forgot what Malivore's intentions were throughout the first two seasons but it didn't matter anymore. He seemed bent on destroying NecroTed because he possessed him or something. He's given the chance to talk after possessing Landon and he doesn't say anything noteworthy. Hell, I thought he would end up possessing Landon permanently. In the end, he's in the prison world with NecroTed for all time. It's like he's the Silas of Legacies, this big bad from last season that should have gone out in a blaze of glory at the end of the season only to go out like a candle at the beginning of it!

And the same can be said for NecroTed. Not that I mind his departure seeing as how I viewed him as little more than a rodeo clown. Other than unleashing Malivore on Earth, he seemed directionless. And he came off as too comical. No doubt he'll return and will have made peace (if not an alliance) with Malivore and will come back proclaiming the end of the world and all of that nonsense once they find their way out of the prison world. And on that note, fuck these prison worlds! I suppose they made a self-deprecating joke when Alyssa commented about how much Bennett blood they actually have on hand, but I don't even know why Bennett blood is even necessary. Bennett blood was required to open that prison world that Bonnie and Damon and Kai were in because Grams Bennett used her blood to create it. That's it! That's all! Why do they need Bennett blood to CREATE one?!? Why not use anyone's blood? 

And now that they have a supernova that will continue to explode for the next few years, they can seemingly open as many prison worlds as they want! It's amazing how this franchise takes the 'specialness' out of every single anomaly that they create. They have to one up it somehow and in the end make that what was once special and unique seem pedestrian and ordinary. A werewolf-vampire hybrid (Klaus)? We can beat that by making a witch-vampire mix (Heretics)! An alternate dimension (the Other Side) created by a powerful witch (Qetsiyah)? We can beat that by making several alternate dimensions (prison worlds)! A witch-vampire-werewolf tribrid (Hope)? We can beat that making fairies and phoenixes and mud people!  

Speaking of tribrids and of people with no direction, once again it seems like Hope's world revolves around Landon. And once again, I ask...why? Why is it that there is nothing else in this girl's life? From the moment she woke up to the very end of the episode, her thoughts were of Landon and finally having sex with him. Great! So now what? You had sex and he suddenly disappeared (I'm sure many a woman can relate to that experience! HA! I made a funny.). So what's next? I'll tell you what's next. She's going to spend the next episode trying to find him and save him and be with him and all that bunk. I had such high hopes from last episode because they touched on the areas of Hope's life that they could explore and develop her character with but they choose not to.

In a lot of ways, she's like a warped version of Elena. I always felt like they were trying to make Elena into the TVD version of Buffy but it didn't work, trying to fit her into a hero role that she didn't fit into at all. Buffy was thrust into a job that she didn't want. She was born a Slayer and endowed with certain abilities to perform her duty as a Slayer to kill vampires and other monsters and to give up any semblance of a normal life to do so. And though she tried to have romantic relationships with the likes of Angel, her duty as a Slayer would always interfere with that. It's not the same with Elena or with Hope. Not by a long shot. Though the show keeps telling us that she's the hero and she always saves the day and they do show it, they don't show or tell us why. She's been touted as the hero, more by Landon than by anybody else, but she has no obligation whatsoever to fulfil that role. 

She did at one point, seeing as how her tribrid status was the only thing that could defeat Malivore. But after that, why does she do what she does? One thing that seems to hit all hero types in different genres is that they become tired of always 'saving the day.' They become uniquely qualified to be a particular hero (either by birth or a science experiment/accident or by their own sense of justice) but they find that the work of fighting evil and saving the day never ends and they hit that point where they want to quit and walk away. But with Hope, I don't know what her motivations are to save the day, to be the hero. For the past two seasons, her tribrid nature has barely played any kind of role in creating any drama in her life. They certainly don't qualify her for being the hero when you have phoenixes and fairies and siphon witches wandering about. Is it because it's what Landon expects from her? It seems like her whole life revolves around Landon: to save Landon; to kiss Landon; to fuck Landon; to talk with Landon; to live up to Landon's expectations. What is her life at this point without Landon? What would her motivations be without Landon?

Don't get me wrong. I'm beyond chuffed that she chose Landon as her boyfriend. But my issue is that she seems to have made him her entire world. That's a fucking red flag if I've ever saw one! And this is why I say she's like Elena in that I remember Elena saying in one episode that she had to discover who she was without Damon, only to go back to Damon in the very next episode! Who is Hope without Landon at this point? What would she do on the show without Landon? It's funny, if not ironic, that in the last episode, when she wasn't with Landon, that we got to see her hobbies (painting) and see her come to grips with her feelings on Klaus. Like I said, there are so many aspects to Hope's character that they could explore, so many other challenges and personal vices and character development that they could work with if they would just stop focusing on the teen romance bullshit! By all means, keep Landon in the picture but don't have him be the focal point. Rather, have him be an ally....like in a normal relationship!

I will say that I'm curious to know what they all will do now. Malivore and NecroTed are gone, so the two big bads of the season have been wiped out. Alyssa turned good so she's no longer a threat. What do any of them do now. Looks like Josie is taking a break, which is sad since she was actually one of the few characters that was interesting since she was struggling with her dark side. Lizzie could be too but she's going to be busy now regretting not getting together with MG. MG and Alyssa are a thing. Landon is gone and Hope will be busy looking for him. What do they do now?

I'm actually not that intrigued to find out!
  

Legacies - Salvatore: The Musical

Discussing Ep. 3.3 - This was somewhat entertaining and oddly enough, addressed a lot of my complaints about the previous episode and especially in regard to Hope and her background. At the same time, it was as though they addressed the elephant-in-the-room and laughed at it and are going to go on their merry way.

This is the Hope and her struggles that I wanted to see. You could tell that DRR actually had something to work with here, as she got passionate (for once) about something (i.e. her family and history being used for a musical). At the beginning, when the students are reading about the history of Klaus and realizing that he's Hope's father and it got her upset...THAT'S the Hope Mikaelson I wanted to see. That's the kind of struggle that I wanted her to encounter and finally overcome. Her wondering if Klaus was ever really proud of her and what she's done with her life since his passing...I liked that. I feel like she's not at a point yet where asking that question has more meaning (because she really hasn't done anything these last two seasons) but this is the kind of character development that I've always wanted to see from her.

And fuck me! Go figure that I should complain that they never show her engaging in a hobby and she's here, in this episode, painting like her father once did! I liked seeing this aspect about her because it is a nod to her family history and to Klaus. And it also shows that she has certain coping mechanisms that are healthy and are not destructive. Will we ever see this side of her again? I'm doubtful but at least we got to see it in this episode.

What I thought was weird, though perhaps in line with what they're trying to make her character to be...she had to save the whole production at the end. Once again, Hope saves the day by taking on the role of Elena after Josie got her arm broken. I thought this was just utterly stupid and it didn't make a lick of sense. I thought Landon wrote the score for that scene as a backdrop for a scene with Klaus and Hope (in line with showing that Klaus was not a complete monster) and not for Elena. So having "Elena" sing it didn't make sense at all. I suppose it was a set up for Hope to sing it and have that scene at the end with Landon, which I utterly despised, but it is what it is.

Speaking of Josie, I thought they did a really good job of making her look like Elena! I fucking legit howled with laughter when Josie was reading the script and says "I don't get Elena at all! She doesn't know what she wants and when she does decide, she makes a super selfish choice!" I'm really curious if Plague simply took all the criticisms of the show and put them in here as a tongue-in-cheek kind of thing. It was even funnier when Josie concluded that Elena wasn't really selfish at all, she was "just being honest about how she changed," which was complete bullshit! Other lines that I found hilarious and self-deprecating were how "Bonnie disappears for long periods of time" (and adding a final and ironic insult along with that...she wasn't even featured in the musical at all! At least they're consistent). I liked how "Elena" sang about all the different balls and festivals that occur on a daily basis in Mystic Falls and that nothing ever changes. Overall, it was entertaining how they made fun of the franchise.

I thought it was funny, if not odd, how Lizzie assumed that Caroline was "perfect." I mean, considering all the details that they got regarding all the other characters, would they not have found out that Caroline cheated on Tyler with the guy who killed Tyler's mom at Christmas? Would they not have found out how Caroline essentially strung Alaric along for months, being 'engaged' to him but never becoming physically intimate with him, having it go so far to have Alaric sleep in the guest bedroom of their house, all the while she still pined for Stefan and would eventually dump Alaric for Stefan? I mean, who are we talking about here? 

Speaking of Caroline, I suppose we got her long awaited cameo...sort of. Candice King obviously narrated the letter sent to Lizzie, which I thought was kind of cool. And I have to admit that I did like the message as it's a message that can apply to anybody...that you don't wake up one day a changed person but that it happens over time, applying yourself daily to changing for the better. I liked that and I liked the way they incorporated Lizzie's character as the main reason for the advice. 

I will say that I also liked that they haven't completely turned Alyssa's character around as though she turned off her humanity. Her deciding to warn MG about Puck and sort of playing NecroTed for a fool is at least is consistent seeing as how she had a huge crush on MG and it would make sense that she would be looking out for him. Still, I wish they would have given her a greater motivation for playing the double agent. And perhaps they will...perhaps she'll betray NT because she wants to make up for her previous misdeeds or wants to prove she's not the evil person they all believe her to be. I'm hoping they will add something to her character.

Overall, it was an amusing episode. Although it was rather annoying in that they were able to reveal such details from Elena and her friend's lives as though they had seen it on TV. Where would they have gotten all that info? From Elena's diary? That didn't make sense. Nor did it makes sense how Landon was able to piece it all together all by himself and create the score and choreography. Give me a break! I also think that this kind of episode should have taken place at the end of Legacies' run and not in the middle of it. I think it would have been really cool if Nina and Ian and Paul and Candace and Kat made a cameo at the end as members of the audience. Maybe Stefan couldn't because he's dead but Damon and Elena could, seeing as how Elena does have a medical practice in town. Caroline should return since her daughters are there and Bonnie is still alive so I don't see why she couldn't make an appearance as well. Hell, they could have a vision of Klaus and Elijah and have Freya show up, representing The Originals faction. Maybe a vision of Hayley as well. This would have been a great send off for this show as it descends from both The Vampire Diaries and The Originals and would have been a nice homage, as it were, to the two shows that helped make it what it was. 

But that idea is gone and so I have no idea where they're going with this now. 

Legacies - Goodbyes Sure Do Suck

 

Discussing Ep. 3.2 - I don't know if this episode was supposed to occur during last season or not because it felt so arbitrary and anti-climactic. I can even begin to explain how annoyed I was with this episode.

So this was supposed to be Raf's swan song, his final goodbye, so to speak. I felt nothing. I think it's because they slotted this in as the second episode of this season and not as the final episode of last season. You get the feeling that that's how it was supposed to go considering the ending with NecroTed and Alyssa and the Sphinx. Raf has been such an infrequently used character on the show that dedicating a whole episode to his goodbye felt pointless. If this were a character like Lizzie or Josie or even Alaric, I might have felt something. I didn't feel anything. And considering how non-permanent death is in this universe, why would anyone feel any kind of grief over this character saying goodbye?

I will say that the one moment that I did feel something was when Raf's mom met him for the first time. When he called her mom and she felt she didn't deserve to be called that, I liked that part. The rest was all bullshit. The idea that this woman, who apparently abandoned Raf and his dad when he was born, would suddenly feel the need to do the right thing and stay in a prison world indefinitely with the two men she could not have cared less about when she left them? Utter bullshit! As was the idea that Sheriff Mac KNEW that she would come back. "She's a mother." So what? Believe me, there are tons of mothers out there who have selfishly fought against that maternal instinct and abandoned their children in favour of themselves. Why would this woman, after 17 years of being on her own, go back because of maternal instincts? It's a bit too convenient for me. I mean, she said it herself! The biggest selling point of her joining Raf and his dad was that there was no full moon! So I can't foresee that trio living in peace in that prison world for very long. 

And speaking of that prison world....what the fuck was this nonsense about using a supernova to create it? Why a supernova? Why use an astronomical occurrence that the writers clearly know nothing about? A super nova takes YEARS to occur:

"So, how long does a supernova take to explode? A few million years for the star to die, less than a quarter of a second for its core to collapse, a few hours for the shockwave to reach the surface of the star, a few months to brighten, and then just few years to fade away."

This is not like seeing a solar eclipse. It doesn't happen in a day! And plus, if they could even see one with the naked eye, rest assured two things occurred. One, that the core collapse of the supernova occurred HOURS if not DAYS, WEEKS, MONTHS or even YEARS before they actually saw it! It's called light speed folks! Consider that if the sun were to explode right now, we couldn't "see" it for another 8 minutes! That's how far away the sun is. Imagine how far another star is from us? We can't see it 'exploding' in real time. It would take time for the sight to reach us! Secondly, it wouldn't have been as clear and as bright as they made it out to be. It'd look like a regular star that got brighter and then dimmed. You wouldn't even notice it unless you were looking for it! And most certainly not it the daytime. So them treating the supernova exploding like it's an event equal to a bunch of firecrackers in the sky is completely asinine!

As is their use of Hope at this point. I've said this before and I'll say it again and keep saying it until something changes: I don't know the directions that they're giving DRR, if they're telling her to act like she's only there for the paycheque and nothing more because that's how it comes off. Even with the absence of Josie, Hope still feels sidelined like she's a recurring guest character like a Sheriff Liz or an Alaric on TVD rather than the lead character. And her demeanour, yet again, feels so off! With Landon constantly saying that Hope will come and save the day because that's what she does, it feels like lip service and that Hope's character does it ONLY because it's like a job to her rather than something she WANTS to do. Even her relationship with Landon, that is now the hallmark of her character, feels so forced at this point. In that talk they had by the pier, she seemed genuinely amused at Landon's gripes rather than concerned. Her face said it all. It says it all the time. She looks bored! She looks dispassionate! She looks like she's forced to sit there and talk with people when in reality she'd just like to get the hell out of dodge and do something else!

And if that's the case, who can blame her? She has ZERO purpose at this point, other than loving and caring for Landon and being his girlfriend and always coming to the rescue to save her friends. When I sit here and think about it, what's her character like beyond that? They don't focus at all on her tri-brid status. They don't focus at all on her family history. They don't focus at all on who she is as a person. No hobbies, no ambitions for life, not even a career goal that would conflict with her supernatural nature. I mean, they have SO MUCH to work with and to give DRR as a way to create a struggle for her character: her trying to control her powers and her rage that is both inherited by her father and is a by-product of being part werewolf; her trying to repair or recreate the Mikaelson family name in the world (since all the world knows of that name is pain and suffering) and the pressures and burden of trying to do that all by herself; her trying to navigate the depression of most of her family dying in the tragic way that they did; her grappling with enemies of Klaus or the Mikaelsons who still hold a grudge and would love nothing more than to take it out on her. When this series started, I thought those were elements they were going to address. If anything, it seems like the writers forgot where Hope came from (i.e. The Originals). They forgot that this was a spin-off show of The Originals and that Hope was supposed to be the star of it!

My other gripe, yet again, are the villains and what their over-arching goal is. Oddly enough, I agreed with Alyssa in that NecroTed's ambition was rather weak. But, so is hers. She seeks to team up with NT and subdue Malivore and bring back all these monsters so that she can get her revenge on the Salvatore School? And then what? At least hers is a basic revenge story. But I think that's what makes the threat so weak overall. It's simple pettiness that has no basis for making a bunch of people suffer. Alyssa's character is just so undefined. Yes, she's a potential psychopath but it was never established whether she is one or not. Last season, it was all about her crush on MG and being rebuffed by him and her taking it out on the Wonder Twins. And yet, when she had the chance to kill them, she didn't. Now, she seems to have no problem with someone dying at SS and causing pain and suffering. She's a character that really came out of nowhere as a villain and her motivations, though justified to a certain extent, seem very immature and I think that only adds to the overall sense of triviality of the show. And NecroTed is more of a jester than a real threat. You can't take that guy seriously at all. I'll admit I liked him at his debut last season but they really made him out to be little more than comedy relief. And I can accept a comedic villain but you have to have that element of danger and deadliness, that behind that clown facade is a killer who will not hesitate to kill you. I don't get that from NT at all now. He comes off as more like a guy who will go on and on about how he will kill me rather than actually killing me!

I'm hoping that since they've established NT and Alyssa's goals as the villains, that perhaps things will pick up in regards to giving Hope and the other something to work towards. I don't like this day-in-the-life writing that they have going on. Each episode feels is more isolated in their storyline rather than being part of a season-long story arc.

I can hope that it changes but I don't think it will.

Legacies - We're Not Worthy

 

Discussing Ep. 3.1 

Ya know, I thought that with this pandemic and all the time off that folks had, that perhaps the creative juices of the team would have had time to ferment and they could have come up with some really good stuff.

I was wrong.

As I have said before, I get it that with all the stress and what not of the pandemic and especially all the political nonsense that might have taken it's toll on people, especially in the US this past year, that perhaps that's why people are not churning out their best in terms of quality. But how long will that excuse last?

This was a very weak episode to come back on. It did little to get me excited and onboard to see more of what's going to happen, that's for sure. If anything else, it really seemed like the same old, same old and they have to change the formula somehow.

Let's start with the so-called "main" character, shall we? I mean, it must have been the easiest shooting day of Danielle's career at this point, spending most of it sleeping on a bed and having all of 2 minutes of dialogue, if even that. Her revival was so fucking stupid, as though she were Sleeping Beauty or something like that. No one knew how to wake her up. The way they built up her coma-like state last season, you'd have thought she went somewhere ethereal or something and that perhaps Landon and  Raf would have to go there to get her. But nope! It was the kiss of true love that woke her up! Fuck off! 

The question is, does anything change with her character now? I've said this before, how the characters will pay lip service and say they need Hope as though she's the main character....but she's clearly not! I mean, Raf came to save the day, not her (more on Raf later). She was sleeping the entire episode, so how important is she really?!? Last season, other than the initial four episodes or so, she felt completely irrelevant. It felt like whatever scenes she was in, they did it because they HAD TO, not because they wanted to. They clearly were putting the Wonder Twins (and I like how the show adopted my nickname for them) front and centre and kept Hope as an afterthought. Will it change this season? 

I mean, does any character change this season? I don't get what was up with returning Alyssa into her bitch self again. I get that's her character but given the fact that she turned on a dime last season and she actually died, I would have thought that she'd be a bit more introspective about things. And also, I don't get how they dropped her whole childhood issue. Lizzie brings it up (and rightfully puts hypocritical Alyssa in her place....seriously, that was just too easy) asking about her parents, but the issue was never clarified. We never found out what she did and what her problem was. Not that it matters at this point considering she's probably going to be an acolyte to NecroTed, but it would have been nice had her background been more fleshed out and figure out why she's even there at all.

Then we have the Wonder Twins. I sort of agree with the direction they went with Josie at least. I thought it was rather ironic when Lizzie said that the focus has to be on Josie now considering the focus last season was all on Josie! I do wonder how long her absence will be and if that will create room for Hope to be the focus of the show for a change. Since Josie had a nice little arc and thought it came to a rather disappointing end last season, I'm hoping they can at least build off of it. I also wonder what they're going to do with Lizzie. She's sort of in a rut right now too, spinning her wheels in trying to change. Which, to be fair, is a realistic development. Like someone trying to break a bad habit, you don't accomplish it in one day. You fall of the wagon constantly so I'm not upset that Lizzie goes back and forth between being who she was and who she is trying to be. But I don't know where she goes from here without Josie there as a motivation. I'm not confident about her direction either.

Nor am I confident about Landon's direction. I don't like how his motivation revolves around Hope and vice versa. That's pretty damn weak. He was fully willing to stay dead as a way to protect his friends. But Raf shows him a sleeping Hope and he just abandons his principles and says "fuck it" and goes and does what he said he wouldn't do. While I suppose there is some additional motivation for him to be there since Malivore is still around, again it feels like there's very little to work with in terms of character progression. I'm more confident in Raf, who apparently descends from King Arthur (I'm curious how that even works considering King Arthur was a fictional character and of Anglo-Saxon descent, and Raf clearly is not!). But I think Raf has a better future on the show and I hope they focus on him a bit more.

Which brings me to the subplot of this episode, with the Lady of the Lake and Excalibur and the Green Knight. Anyone who has ever read Sir Gawain and The Green Knight in high school or university knows that this portrayal of the Green Knight and the Arthurian legend was just bullshit. Now, I'll give them some leeway since we are dealing with fairy tales and so they can manipulate things in whatever way they want. But this subplot just felt really lazy to me, as though it was something they came up with as a means to get characters to reach a certain point by the end of the episode. And I worry that every episode will be like that. Need to get Landon to show his courageous side? We'll get him to save the Three Little Pigs from the Big Bad Wolf! Need to show MG his leadership skills? We'll get him to lead the Three Billy Goats Gruff across the bridge and fight against the Troll. Need to show Lizzie her compassionate side? We'll get her to help Goldilocks appease the Three Bears. While I appreciate the show's take on the various fairy tales, I don't like that they're bringing in each one in merely as a plot device and there is no unifying reason for it all. It's more like a story-of-the-week and it doesn't really tie into what the TVD/TO universe was all about.

I suppose the only consistent baddie is NecroTed, and even he feels like more of a caricature than anything else. I think that's what been missing in Legacies that was around more in TVD and in TO.....an element of seriousness and danger. The early seasons of TVD, you felt that element of danger, whether it was from Damon or Katherine or Klaus. Same thing in TO, with Mikael or Lucien or Dahlia providing that menacing touch. Here, it's all a joke. NecroTed is played more for laughs. There's no real sense of danger or that anything is at stake. And though I don't know how many episodes they have this season due to the virus, I'm not convinced they can pull of anything meaningful. Seeing as how they have a musical episode coming up, it's clear they're playing all of this up like Riverdale and not in the tradition of TVD/TO. The tone is completely different and I'm not a fan of it at all!

Riverdale sucks, and that is not the kind of show any producer should want to emulate! 

The 100 - Anaconda

Discussing Ep. 7.8

So after having to put some stuff on hold to tend to other stuff, I was finally able to catch up on the episode that I missed (I am glad that there is a break in new episodes right now). This was the backdoor pilot to The 100 prequel show and I have to say, I don't know how I feel about it.

Right off the bat, it was somewhat of a relief to know that the "key" wasn't necessarily Clarke herself but rather what she was carrying, which Bill thought was the Flame or the Key, as he called it. So it doesn't seem like it's necessarily anything to do with Clarke herself but rather with what she carries, which is presumably the personality and memories of Calliope, his daughter, and the knowledge of what Becca saw when she went into that special wormhole. I will say this about Clarke though. Even though she can be hypocritical and intolerable at times, I give the character credit for being complex and severely flawed. She's not the anti-hero, per say, but she's definitely not a character that you can look to as a Mary Sue or one dimensional to the point of being unrealistic.

Which could not be said of the prequel character of Calliope. Not that she was a Mary Sue but rather her character was a bit too noble, too righteous, too good considering her family environment and dynamics. I fail to see how she could possibly turn out the way she did and not be influenced at all by the personality of her parents, especially Bill. Bill is a legitimate narcissistic sociopath! That was the diagnosis her mother, Grace (a clinical psychologist), gave to him. Whether she said that as a joke or was serious, Bill's behaviour throughout the episode more than confirmed that diagnosis. Now, maybe I've watched too many videos on narcissism and such and therefore I'm a bit too sensitive on the matter, but it just seems so unlikely that the Cadogen family could exist at all the way it was portrayed in this episode.

Like I said, Grace is a clinical psychologist. It's her job to discover and treat mental illness, disorders and such. The fact that she diagnosed Bill as a narcissistic sociopath AND was married to him AND had two children by him makes absolutely no sense. I'm not saying it doesn't happen in real life, but it seems highly unlikely. Why would she marry him? Why would she stay with him? Why would she have a family with him? That's like a counsellor for sexual abuse and rape survivors knowingly and willingly getting into a relationship with a serial rapist! What possible motivation, other than perhaps money or a sense of survival, could Grace have for getting involved with Bill? She, more than anyone, would know that Bill would be completely devoid of empathy and remorse to the point that he would be both a bad father and a bad husband. Why knowingly create a family with someone like that? Now, if Grace herself were a narcissist, I could probably buy into that more. But that's not the impression I got of Grace at all. The fact that she was willing to die with Callie if Callie didn't agree to board the helicopter was proof that Grace wasn't narcissistic or a sociopath herself. So why be with Bill? How could she be with Bill?

Maybe she fell in love with him and felt like she couldn't turn away from him. That's possible but highly unlikely. She came off as a strong willed person in her own right. Maybe she fell in love and felt like, as a psychologist, she could "cure" him of his narcissism and sociopathy. A better assumption, but it doesn't speak well of Grace and portrays her as either arrogant or naive. In the end, I find it highly unbelievable that Grace could or would marry Bill and stay with him the way she did. I'm sure there's a bigger backstory to it all but making her a clinical psychologist was dumb. They should have given her some other profession and THEN I would have bought it that she fell under his snare and unknowingly enabled him and raised a family with him that produced a second narcissistic sociopath in Reese. And I have to say this....I don't know if the writers were watching Endgame when they wrote this, but having Grace say that Bill "is a lot of things, but he is not a liar!" was stupid. Part of being a narcissistic sociopath involves being a liar! It just does. Gaslighting, manipulation, and attempting to get away with any kind of crime or sin, by default, has to involve lying and deception. To remove that from Bill's character makes absolutely no sense at all! That was a fucking stupid thing to say.

Which brings me to Callie...the girl who should not be. She has a narcissistic sociopath for a father. She has, at best, an enabler for her father's sociopathic behaviour in her mother. She has a narcissistic sociopath in her brother. But Callie somehow, someway, managed to turn out as this righteous and virtuous do-gooder who takes part in protests and activism and seeks to help mankind? Bullshit! The best way I can describe how completely awkward and unrealistic this is is to compare it to the Trump family. You have Donald, the narcissistic sociopath. You have Melania, who at best enables everything Donald does (but to be fair, she seems rather narcissistic in her own right). You have the two sons Eric and Don Jr., who emulate their father's narcissism and insecurities. But instead of Ivanka as the daughter (who bears all the signs of narcissism that her father and brothers do), rather imagine that it was Greta Thunberg who was the daughter in the family! Someone like Greta, with her personality and sense of empathy and wanting to make the world a better place rather than have the world serve her needs, arising out of the Trump family would not, could not and does not make any sense at all! Someone like Ivanka coming out of that family makes total sense. But if she were like Greta, it would make no sense. So how is it that Callie arose out of the Cadogen family as the activist and morally sound character that she is? She can't!

Her brother, Reese, made sense. I could totally see someone like him arising out of that family. I totally wanted to punch him in his smirking fucking face! But that was the point. And credit where credit is due, Reese did show some degree of remorse. He later brushed it off, but you could see in his face when he burned Becca at the stake, when he betrayed Callie, when he saw his mother locked out...there was conflict within him. I like that. I can accept that. Callie on the other hand was far, far too good. Far too noble. And add to all of that, she was the one who created the Trigedasleng language? Considering that JRR Tolkien created his first constructed language when he was a teenager, I suppose it isn't that much of a stretch, so I won't harp on it too much. I'm assuming the prequel series would explain exactly why she created it because it felt like such a random thing to do.

But speaking of unbelievable characters, here we have Becca. The famous Becca, creator of nightblood, creator of ALIE, creator of the Flame. As if those accolades weren't enough, she had to be portrayed as such a genius, such a prodigy, such an amazing and intelligent character that she went to Harvard University....at the tender age of 10! Fuck off! Fuck the hell off! Why did they have to make her into a super fucking genius? It would have been just fine if they had said that at 15 or 16 years old, she went to Harvard and cut through all the programs like butter. Not 10 years old! I swear, whoever wrote this episode feels like they were writing some really bad fanfiction. It just felt like they really stretched the abilities of these characters to a point that they went into the realm of the absurd.

So I'll get to some of the more interesting and positive elements of the episode. I don't know when this episode was filmed or written, but I found this particular shot rather apropos, with the Russian Ankovirus spreading and everyone on the TV screen wearing masks. I thought that was rather funny and I'm assuming that the writers are playing both on the coronavirus and the news of Russian interference in American affairs, so they had no problems attributing a virus to the Russians.

This shot was rather interesting, if only because I had seen something similar before.

In Terminator 3, at the end when Skynet launches all the nuclear missiles to various parts of the Earth, they basically used the exact same shot. I'm assuming it was homage to T3 because if they're going to claim otherwise and say it was a coincidence....I'm not buying it. The shots appear far too similar to be coincidental.

I am very intrigued by what Becca saw when she stepped into the wormhole. What exactly did she see and does it have anything to do with what Murphy saw? She saw it as Judgement Day (another Terminator reference) and felt that humanity, especially Bill, was not ready to encounter that just yet. So what does Judgement Day look like? Was it Heaven? Was it a place that they could all actually go to using the Stone? I think that'd be kind of eerie, almost like Event Horizon where the were able to open an actual wormhole to Hell! Also, why is it that none of the Commanders or those who had the Flame ever knew about this? I'm assuming that the Flame contained records of Becca's experience so why hadn't any of them ever sought to find the Stone on Earth? Why are we only hearing about this now?

On the whole, I don't know if I'm sold on seeing The 100 prequel. They'd really have to work on Callie to make me invested in her as a realistic and relatable character. Though it was nice to see how some of the things that we've come to know on the show came to be, like "from the ashes, we will rise" slogan and Trikru and the language and all of that. Maybe with it's own series, the writers could flesh out everything better so that it all makes sense.

Definitely needs some work though. Onto catching up with the next episode!

The Vampire Diaries - Re-imagined

My alternate version of Season 6 of The Vampire Diaries is further completed with the remaining chapters of Part 2. Onto writing Part 3!

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13060315/1/TVD-Season-6-Rewritten-Part-2