The XXII Winter Olympiad

OMG BOB COSTAS LOOKS LIKE QUASIMODO YOU GUYS.

I know it might come as a big surprise to all of you, but I'm a huge geek about the Olympics. Is there any better way to chastise yourself for being a lazy slob than by watching insanely good-looking and fit people compete for medals in insanely difficult sports? WHILE YOU SIT ON THE COUCH AND SHOVE PIZZA INTO YOUR FACE? No. No, there is not. My post will be mostly photos since I'm sick right now and it's easier for me to click my mouse and upload photos and write snarky captions than it is for me to post a bunch of text. So, if you hate clipart, this is your warning to get out now. 

Curse that Yulia Lipnitskaya! Curse her! 

I can't get enough of that. 

The XXII Winter Olympiad is taking place in Сочи, Россия. If you aren't old still butthurt about Sputnik, I invite you to tune in. 

Sputnik is kicking your ass at figure skating, too.

First, let's talk about the opening ceremony. Aside from the slight mishap of the now-infamous Snowflake Malfunction aka Snowflake Gate aka Snowflake Meltdown, I enjoyed the opening ceremony.  I really liked the War and Peace ballet, but I am a dance geek and I took several years of dance so I loved it. IT'S THE FREAKING BOLSHOI, PEOPLE. And look, you've been saved actually having to slog through War and Peace. And what would  you rather see in dance form? Tolstoy or the Book of Mormon? I thought so.

Because shit never goes wrong in live productions.

And I'm sorry, America. You're not allowed to stage a ballet production of Natasha's ball. You'd turn everyone into zombies. 

You know you would.

The trip through Russian history was really creatively staged, although my one quibble was that I don't think Peter the Great was ever that nattily dressed. From what I understand, dude had sartorial issues. I wasn't totally in love with the jellyfish Swan Lake costumes, but it was a creative way to light up the dancers in a way that allowed them to move. 

This is what we did to Swan Lake, you guyz. 

At least Russia didn't subject the world to square-dancing Mormons. 

Seriously, America. Seriously. 

I also enjoyed the avant-garde-cum-Bauhaus Soviet set pieces.

Some people on the internet felt like the ceremony glossed over and romanticized a touchy part of Russia's history. Good thing Americans would never do that.

Like ever. 

And anyway we're used to much higher quality programming.

My favorite part of the opening ceremony was the Cyrillic alphabet opening. It was all so lovely and classy. Хорошо.

Bouncy castle FTW. 

If you couldn't find 'Murika in the Parade of Nations, or were confused about why we came in after Zimbabwe, I can offer you some handy and non-condescending (I promise) assistance. 

The Cyrillic alphabet consists of 33 letters. There used to be more, but Lenin got rid of them. The old style letters are still used by the Russian Orthodox church, much like how the Roman Catholic church still uses Latin. Абвгдеёжзийклмнопрстуфхцчшщъыьэюя. The United States is Соединённые Штаты Америки. So, as you can see, C = S and it falls right about in the middle of the alphabet there, after Zimbabwe (Зимбабве). 

But these...no. 

On to the events. As you may be aware, the Russians won the team figure skating event, which was held for the first time ever. Canada earned silver and the U.S. of A. earned bronze, thanks to an awesome short dance by Meryl Davis and Charlie White (who are from MICHIGAN) and solid performances by Jason Brown for the men and Gracie Gold and Ashley Wagner for the ladies. But there was no catching the Russians.

A Russian pairs' team won gold every year between 1964 and 2010, the only year they lost. So...no pressure.

Biathlon

This is an event I haven't really paid much attention to in the past, but is very interesting for the modern Nordic elf: the biathlon. The biathlon is basically Lord of the Rings but on skis. 

Quick, Legolas! Frodo needs your help getting to Hot Cocoa Mountain!

The biathlon consists of cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. I feel like this is something the Viking gods inventing after having too much grog at a festival during the Vimblewinter. Seriously, isn't shooting a rifle while skiing something you do when you're very drunk? Anyway, it's awesome and fascinating.

We will settle this dispute on the track of our forefathers at the biathlon! To Sochi!

Short Track

Despite my hatred for Apollo Ohno, his greasy hair, and his soul patch, I have always liked short track. One athlete to watch from the U.S. is J.R. Celski, who is from the Seattle area. One Russian athlete who has caught my attention due to his really sad and kind of puzzling story is Viktor Ahn. Ahn is originally from South Korea, but is skating for Russia after leaving the Korean short track federation. Ahn's won a bronze for Russia, but Sang Hwa Lee of Korea has won a gold medal in the ladies' speedskating. This is really an event to watch the Koreans, in both the ladies' and men's divisions. 

Have you been sneaking into the ENCOM program?

Hockey

HOCKEY!!!

Figure Skating

I invite everyone to tune in the figure skating competition. The U.S. is not -- I repeat -- NOT going to dominate the FS events, but if you are a fan of the sport, you will see some really great skating from athletes from all over the world. Plus, come on. You gotta watch Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski commentate. You just gotta.

Tara: What do you think about you and I coming back as a pairs team?

Johnny: I enjoy being thrown.

From what I saw from the team event, the U.S. doesn't have much of a shot at a gold medal in anything but ice dancing, but Gracie Gold might pull out a silver or bronze in the ladies' competition. It really all depends on what happens the night of competition. We haven't seen the young Polina Edmunds skate on the Olympic ice yet, but she did well at U.S. Nationals and placed third over all. I'm expecting Ashley Wagner to finish in fourth or fifth place. Jason Brown MIGHT MIGHT place high in the men's competition. He's very artistically expressive and an entertaining skater to watch, but he doesn't have a quad and the men's field is so strong right now. But you gotta gotta gotta see his Riverdance free skate. Yevgeny Plushenko is back to attempt another gold medal at the age of 31, and based on his performance in the team event, there's no reason why he can't win. Plus he's hilarious.  However, I am sad that Maxim Kovtun wasn't appointed to the Russian Olympic team. He's an awesome skater and totes adorbz.  I don't think either of the U.S. men will medal, but they are very fine skaters. Look for Patrick Chan (CAN) and Daisuke Takahashi (JPN) to round out the medals in the men's singles.

River this dance, bigez.

The pairs' team of Castelli and Shnapir skated solid short and free programs in the team event, and while I don't think they can beat the Russian or German teams, they are a good young team with a great future. The pairs short dance was held Tuesday, with the Russian team of Volsozhar and Trankov easily ranking first with a short dance that screams Anna Karenina to me. They and the German team of Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy are favorites to win the gold.

Yeah, I can totally fix the sink when I'm done here. Two seconds.

For ice dancing, the big rivalry is between Canadians Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue and Americans Davis and White. *Ahem* And this is painful. Go...Blue. There, I said it. 

If you drop me, I swear. I bloody swear.

The teams themselves train together in the Ann Arbor area, but they are the two top ice dancing teams in the world right now. There was a silly rumor on the internet from a French newspaper, claiming that a Russian insider told the paper that the Russians and the Americans were conspiring to help the Russians win the team event so the Americans could win the ice dancing. 

The Russian skaters don't need help winning shit. Neither do Davis and White. Also, keep an eye on little Yulia Lipnitskaya. I've been watching Miss Thing this season, and her performances of her short and free skate at the team competition were the best I've seen her perform both routines. Her Schindler's List free skate was breathtaking during the team competition. Anything can happen in competition, so there may very well be a Russian upset against the heavily favorite Yu Na Kim (KOR). I heard a statistic the other day that I could not believe until I looked it up on Wikipedia and Wikipedia does not lie: No Russian woman has ever won a gold medal in ladies' singles. Ever. Will Yulia be the first? The gold is kinda hers to lose right now.

Obviously, there are many events I haven't mentioned here. I'm also a big fan of the luge (LUUUUGGEE), bobsled, speedskating, super G, super combined, Alpine skiing and ski jumping. They're even letting the LADIEZ participate in the ski jumping event in the Olympics now, despite the known risk to their uteri (which is... none). 

If you want to watch a lot of the Olympics and not just highlights, I'd recommend that you watch online on nbcolympics.com. Or if you have cable, head over to NBC Sports Network. You can watch regular old NBC, but they are only showing highlights and focusing on American athletes. Plus Matt Lauer is hosting for Bob Costas for a few days. So that should at least up your snark-o-meter. 

The problems that people had upon arriving seem to have been addressed, and barring a figure skating scandal a la 2002, this promises to be a successful Olympics. 

#SochiDetroitProblems

Since the Olympics are open to almost every country, that means every country that participates gets a chance to host. How else can people interact with people from other parts of the world, and maybe change minds or attitudes (and it goes both ways) if everyone just stays home? Personally, I'd like to be able to travel abroad without having to tell people I'm from Canada, so if the U.S. could be a little less judgey and bomby and a little more leading by example, it would be appreciated, I think, by everyone. Every country that gets the Olympics also gets the ParaOlympics, and by having them in Russia, this may bring some attention to the fact that disabled Russians are in desperate need of policy change from their government. I'm an incurable optimist, so you never know. Most of the Russians cheering at these events are proud of their athletes and they should be. No country is perfect. Except maybe Canada.

Eh. Maybe not.

What the Olympics are all about.

Also, I want these hoodies:

Next Olympics in 2018 is in Pyonchang, South Korea. Prepare your horse dance, my friends. You will be judged on technical points and grade of execution.

Bitten

Another day, another new Syfy (by way of Canada) show.

This one is about werewolves. I know! How original! Based on the Women of the Underworld series of books by Kelley Armstrong, Bitten is a relatively entertaining and non-offensive entry into the supernatural drama genre. You probably won't love it, but you probably won't hate it either.

From the Syfy website:

Bitten is an emotionally charged supernatural thriller starring Laura Vandervoort (Smallville, Ted) as Elena Michaels, the lone female werewolf in existence. Desperate to escape both a world she never wanted to be part of and the man who turned her into a werewolf, Elena has abandoned her pack and taken refuge in a new city. There, she works as a photographer and hides her werewolf existence from her new boyfriend. When bodies start turning up in her pack’s backyard, Elena finds herself back at Stonehaven, the werewolves’ ancestral domain. Torn between two worlds and two loves, she quickly realizes that – when push comes to shove – she’ll stop at nothing to defend her pack.

The concept is somewhat interesting--the show has been teasing out details of the how and what of the werewolves and addressing why Elena is the only female of the species, but there are still questions to resolve. Bitten also features a large ensemble cast of mostly white guys (an all too common occurrence unfortunately), so distinguishing between all the different characters is a bit of a challenge. But I have to give Syfy props  for creating a show with a strong female lead.

Elena can kick ass with the best of them and struggles with balancing her desire for independence with her duties to the pack, i.e. her family. It's something that most women starting out on their own can relate to--albeit with less fur, claws, and disemboweling. At least, I hope that's not how your adult life got started. Bitten also pairs well with the Canadian-import Lost Girl for a supernatural girl power block on Monday nights.

If it sounds like I am kinda "meh" on the show, well you're not wrong. I've actually read the first book in the series (also called Bitten) and from what I remember the series is tracking the book's plot pretty closely.

Maybe because I already have a general idea of what is going to happen it's difficult for me to get invested in the show, or maybe it's just that it it's kind of average all over. Nobody in the cast is particular bad...or particularly good. They've tried to dress it up with some sex scenes, but even those are only moderately hot. And it doesn't help that there isn't a lot of chemistry between the actress who plays Elena and the actor who plays Clay, the guy who supposedly has a "deep burning love" for her.

Maybe if we stare at each other hard enough, we can convince the viewing public that we are actually attracted to one another instead of wondering if we remembered to set the DVR for Scandal.

If you're a fan of supernatural dramas, it's worth checking out to see what you think. There are some original ideas here regarding the werewolf pack, what makes a family, and where your loyalties should lie. I will stick with it, but mostly because I am a sucker for any kind of creature feature.

Bitten airs on Syfy Monday evenings at 8:00 EST. You can catch all the aired episodes on the show's website here, or on On Demand.

The Superb Owl

Hey, did you know that Super Bowl XLVIII was last week? Yeah, neither did Denver, apparently.

Look, no one thought that this game was going to be some down-to-the-wire, last minute Hail Mary kind of game, but it’s safe to say that no one also expected…that. A game that should have at least been a bit of a give and take quickly descended into a lopsided three and a half-hour long slugfest where Denver could barely manage to find its footing and Seattle somehow came out looking like an actual pro football team. 

Some games are won not because the underdog team did better, but because the favored team just couldn’t pull it together. This was not one of those games. Right from the start, Seattle ran roughshod all over Denver.  It’s worth mentioning that Seattle were the Super Bowl virgins in this game – not only has the franchise never been to the Super Bowl, but no individual member of the current Seattle Seahawks roster has ever played on a team that’s competed in the Big Game. Compare that with Denver, the older more experienced team that has not only a franchise history but also individual players with several rings in their possession. In Elite parlance, “It wasn’t supposed to go this way.”

Ouch...

To wit: the final score was a crushing Seattle 43 to Denver 8. Denver couldn’t even manage to get on the board until the end of the third quarter, quite the feat considering that Denver’s quarterback is the much ballyhooed Peyton Manning, a man who by himself has five MVPs and a Super Bowl win under his belt coming into the game to say noting of the fact that his family is genetically incapable of producing failures. (See: Manning, Eli; Manning, Taryn; and Manning, Archie; to say nothing of Manning, Cooper.) And yet, somehow during Denver’s opening drive, we got this:

Whaaaaaa?

That was essentially the first play of the game - a miscue whereby the QB fails to connect with his own snap leading to a ball flying so far over his shoulder that the first score of the game came less than 12 seconds in and was a safety awarded to Seattle on Denver's drive. It’s fair to say that Denver never truly recovered. In fact, by the first play of the second half where Seattle, already significantly ahead, managed a return from its own territory to secure yet another touchdown, the majority of the country was ready to turn off the Super Bowl to see what was going on over at Downtown Abbey. You hear that, England? America has given up its national pastime in order to see what your turgid melodrama is up to. Clearly, we’ve ceded the culture war to you. Well done, Queen Elizabeth. Regardless of how bored viewers were with the rapidly descending thrill of the game, you have to at least credit Denver with trying to put together something that would qualify as entertaining. They finally managed to score at the end of the third quarter, thus by at least ensuring that they wouldn’t be completely shut out of a game against a bunch of neophytes led by a Quarterback that is barely old enough to buy beer legally.

"Mom says if throw for more than 100 yards I get an ice cream before we go home."

As I’ve written about several times before, the Super Bowl is far less about sports than it is about entertainment. It is to the regular season what Glee is to a Ken Burns documentary on PBS. That’s part of the reason why advertisers pay so much to get an overblown commercial on that airtime – it is, in theory at least, one of the most entertainment-driven nights on television of the year. The worst sin that a Super Bowl can commit is to be boring and, unfortunately, that’s what we got this year, though I suspect Seattle folk found that boredom more bearable than their Denver counterparts did. Still, the job of the Super Bowl is to keep people watching and to provide a active night of television. To quote a tweet from a friend of mine, “Sucks to be the company that bought a fourth quarter ad this year.”

As it is, the most entertaining thing about Super Bowl 48 is the aftermath. There are so many pundits at the “What It All Means For Peyton Manning” Club that they’re going to start running out of beer soon. If it’s a truism that the Super Bowl needs to be entertaining, it’s equally true that for all the love that we as a country generally have for the Manning family, there’s nothing we like more than watching giants fall.  Whether or not Super Bowl 48 marks the end of a long and celebrated career for Manning (personally I think we’ve still got him around for a few years, but he’s veering dangerously toward Brett Favre territory here), the most exciting thing to see right now in this Super Bowl aftermath is the talking about it. 

Careful, Peyton - the Manning family eats their own weak in order to purify their powers. 

Helix

I have a poor track record with Syfy original drama series. Sure, I like their Canadian imports (like Lost Girl), and there have been some winners (Battlestar Galactica), but for the most part I find their shows like Warehouse 13, Eureka, and Haven barely tolerable.

So I didn't have high hopes for the new series, Helix. But the preview looked intriguing--kind of like that episode of The X-Files, Ice, where Mulder and Scully travel to the arctic to investigate a parasitic worm alien thing that was dug out of the ice.

And it turns out Helix is actually better than intriguing: it's tense, creepy, and the plot goes way past what I saw in the previews. Think of it as The Thing + Contagion + The Walking Dead = AWESOME.

From the Syfy show page:

Helix is an intense thriller about a team of scientists from the Centers for Disease Control who travel to a high-tech research facility in the Arctic to investigate a possible disease outbreak, only to find themselves pulled into a terrifying life-and-death struggle that holds the key to mankind's salvation...or total annihilation. Helix is the product of some of the biggest names in genre television, starting with Executive Producer Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica). 

The show takes what has become a standard genre plot (weird viral/parasitic outbreak in the arctic), and adds some cool twists by teasing out details of larger mysteries. What is the real purpose behind the experiments at the research facility? Why is the head honcho creepily obsessed with one of the CDC scientists? Who is the military engineer really working for? I'm invested in finding the answers which is more than I can say for most drama series these days.

Two other things that really make the show work. A certain percentage of the infected people become what the CDC calls "vectors." Meaning they seek to the spread the infection to as many people as possible....which in the Helix world means they become crazy feral monsters who run you down and vomit black goo into your mouth. Think fast zombies, but with less brain munching and more black fluid expulsion. Not only are the current survivors fearful of invisible microbes, they also have to watch out for their friends and colleagues.

This will certainly end well for us all.

The nature of the assaults (the vomiting of the black goo into the victim's mouth) is almost sexual in nature which only adds to the terrifying atmosphere. It's frightening in the same way the Alien moves are frightening--the assault is invasive and violating and all the scarier for it.

Helix is not for the faint of heart--while there isn't a lot of typical gun/knife/punching violence, as mentioned above there's lots of fluid spewing and claustrophobic tense scenes. But there's also a complex and interesting plot which moves the show beyond the typical Syfy series. I definitely recommend checking it out.

Helix airs on the Syfy channel Fridays at 10:00 pm EST and the pilot episode is available for viewing online on the show's home page.

Recapping AHS: The Unholy Powers of Benadryl

The Good old days of 1830. Madame Lalaurie is returning to New Orleans from Paris, “the jewel of civilization” and complaining about having to come back and the lack of intellect and inner light of the black people. Upstairs, a slave has injured himself and is bleeding profusely. The blood begins to give Delphine ideas and we all know where that is going to head. She strings up the slave and flays him in her attic. “I think I’m going to like it here,” she says gleefully.

In the modern day cemetery, the Coven mourns the “untimely” death of Nan, Fiona and Marie leading the Wailing Widow charge. Cordelia is taking it especially hard that she’s lost another student, although in fairness at least Madison came back. No one seems quite aware where Misty has gone to. “Probably shall-twirling down to the Everglades,” Madison helpfully offers. Arriving to pay their respects are Queenie, who has a re-headed Delphine on a leash. Queenie put her back together without scars, Kyle notes. “If I could have done you, you wouldn’t look like you went through a blender,” she tells him.

"I'm trying to muster up crying. Is this what crying looks like?"

In Atlanta, the Delphi corporation knows that the witches have been the cause of their problems. Hank’s father schemes to arrange a meeting with the Coven and pay them off to undo the spell, after which point they’ll come back and slaughter them to a witch. Yeah, no way ANYONE is going to see through that ruse. Either way, Fiona and Marie agree to a meeting, counting on the double-cross.

Delphine, meanwhile, is getting a little sick of this maid life, cutting the fingernails of the witches and cleaning the toilets and listening to Marie talk about how next time she’s going to sever her parts and scatter them. That is until the moment when one of the (black, natch) gardeners comes into the kitchen having cut his hands pruning the fig trees. Delphine, ever so graciously, offers to help the man – by taking him to Spaulding’s old room in the attic, trussing him up and seeing “what makes the n*ggers tick” by cutting off his toes one at a time.

Not a joke: She's seriously singing "This Little Piggy" before removing the digits.

Zoe meanwhile is casting a spell in the bathroom to reveal what happened to Nan and discovers that both Fiona and Marie were responsible. Madison is unhappy with all the attention that Kyle has been paying to Zoe and not her. She tries to intervene with a helpful blowjob, but Kyle rejects her, causing an epic witch tantrum until Mrytle stops them. Madison declares herself the next Supreme and announces the new order begun. Or something.

In the attic, the eviscerated remains of the gardener are causing something of a mess all over Delphine and the dolls in the room. “Not very robust, were you,” Delphine bemoans. Suddenly Spaulding appears, admiring her handiwork and admitting that he’s a ghost now. Delphine takes that news well, but then, she’s immortal so I guess it’s not that shocking. Spaulding tells her that he knows how to release Delphine by killing Marie through means of a magic concoction that he knows of that will render her invulnerable for a few moments.  But first, Delphine must retrieve an item for him.

Queenie is moving back into her old room which was taken over by Misty. Cordelia tries to approach her to welcome her back, but Queenie notes that since Cordelia’s husband shot her kind of puts a wedge between them. Queenie reveals that she, too, has been manifesting new powers just like all the rest of the young witches, even though she was shot with a silver bullet. (Is that a thing for witches?)

Feeling dejected and determined, Cordelia repairs to her conservatory where she mixes up a paste and spreads it around her eyes. Then she grabs a pair of gardening shears and raises them to her new eyes, the ones that gave her sight but took away her powers. Screaming, she plunges them into both eyes.  When Fiona learns what she has done, she finds Cordelia guarded by Mrytle who refuses to let her in. “Your daughter has become something you will never understand,” Myrtle says. “She’s a hero.” Myrtle challenges Fiona, calling her an enemy to the Coven and dares her to touch her daughter and see if Cordelia’s psychic sense has returned.

"I really need more excuses to use words like 'blanched' when describing the living conditions here."

In the attic, Marie has fetched the “magical” item that Spaulding needed – a rare doll that Spaulding is particularly enamored of from the 19^th century. For her part, Spaulding gives her the special potion that will confer morality onto Marie – something called Benadryl. “Never speak its name aloud!” Spauling dramatically tells Marie.

In the conservatory, Myrtle calls Zoe to her, giving her a rare broach (or something – I don’t know fashion, I can’t tell you what it is but my friend insists that it’s by some rare designer that really exists) and tells her to hawk it for money then take Kyle and leave the Coven for their own safety. Myrtle warns her if she stays, Madison will kill both Zoe and Kyle.

At a very professional looking business park somewhere, the Delphi men have arrived in their Escalades and wait for the witches in a large conference room. It’s Marie and Fiona up against ten men. When the Delphi men ask if they don’t want to check for security or weapons, Fiona laughs. “I took down your entire company with less effort than it takes for me to mix a Rob Roy,” she says. The “negotiation” begins – Delphi offers to do whatever the witches want if they restore Delphi, offering that the war between them is outdated and a thing of the past. Each of Delphi’s directors have signed a 100-year truce that they offer to the women. Fiona counters that the only agreement that will work is if they agree to disband permanently. And give them a private jet and their private house in New Orleans. When no one seems interested in this, the waiter in the room reveals himself to be the Axeman and gets to what he does best, slaughtering every member of Delphi. (Marie, hilariously, plays on her iPhone through the carnage, apparently more interested in Words With Friends.) Fiona saves Hank’s father for herself, axing him personally at the end as Marie Instagrams the scene.

"This is so getting me new followers."

That night, Marie and Fiona toast to their success back at the house. Fiona heads out for her Axeman booty call, leaving Marie alone with Delphine and the “magic potion”. While it’s probably not great to mix antihistamines with champagne and Marie is clearly a little fuzzy from imbibing, Delphine has seriously overplayed her hand here and gets a surprise when she plunges a knife into Marie’s chest. Marie screams, but is more annoyed at having to pull the knife out than anything else and chases after Delphine, managing to only slip and fall down the stairs when Spaulding hits her over the back of the head with a doll. Turns out Spaulding was only interested in getting Marie out of the house and recommends that Delphine take advantage of the situation by burying the unconscious Marie in such a way as to ensure that she can’t get out of the ground.

But Spaulding’s not done being creepy! Guess who found Marie’s baby in the house and is thrilled to have a real LIVING doll to play with in the attic? <shudder>

Elsewhere in the house where no one can hear a woman falling down the stairs, Zoe and Kyle are packing to leave. Kyle is afraid to leave because he’s afraid that he’ll accidently kill Zoe like he did the dog. (Still not okay with that, btw.) Zoe tells him that she loves him and she’s not scared of him, just like any good woman about to enter into an abusive relationship. The two flee the house, running for the bus stop where they board a bus to Orlando (Don’t do it, guys! Seriously, the Mouse is scarier than certain death at the hands of a vengeful witch) and hopefully freedom.

Not the actual ending of this episode, but clearly what they're aiming for.

Recapping AHS: Guest Star!

Okay you guys – I admit, part of the reason I was so behind on recaps was because this season has been kind of, well, boring. Despite everything going for it, it’s just been hard to muster the interest, you know? So imagine my relief when we finally got an episode where things actually happened. It’s not the best AHS episode ever, but it is the best one this season so far.

Picking up where we left off, Fiona is offering Marie a cup of tea (and whiskey) and sympathy, offering her shelter from the witch hunters. It’s not clear if Marie has turned to Fiona because she really has nowhere else to go or just because she truly does recognize Fiona as an equal. (I’m hoping for the former – way more fun.) Either way, that night as she sleeps Marie gets a visit from the creepy as all hell Papa Legba who is the source of her immortality. (Thank you Voodoo Gods for finally bringing a scary character into a show that’s supposed to be about horror.) He tells her tonight is the night for her to pay her due, slaughter of everyone she currently knows and cares about be damned. To pay the price, Marie sneaks into the newborn ward in a hospital and selects an infant. Silly Marie – don’t you know babies are tagged so you can’t steal them from the hospital? Silly police who are here to stop her – Marie gets all magic-y and forces the two cops to kill themselves as she walks off into the night with the child.

Strange thing? Still hot.

The next morning, Cordelia angsts over the realization that Hank is the one who went all Columbine on Marie and her hair salon. Marie confesses that she hired Hank to kill the witches, so she’s got a bit of culpability here as well. “You were my sworn enemies!” she reminds them. Either way, Fiona reminds them, witch hunters don’t act alone.

Upstairs, Misty is singing to herself and practicing her Stevie Nicks-style shall turns. Fiona butters her up, though Misty is skeptical about Fiona’s newfound desire to share power with her as the potential new Supreme. To show exactly how magnanimous she can be, Fiona introduces Misty to her “old Friend, the White Witch.” Who is, yes, Stevie Nicks. For realz. Misty promptly faints upon meeting her. “You owe me five bucks,” Fiona tells Stevie. “I told you she was going to do that.”

Later, recovered from her vapors, Misty and the rest of the witches listen to Stevie perform Rhiannon on the grand piano and geek out along with Ryan Murphy behind the camera for getting Stevie on the show. Madison kvetches that she’s a big Eminem fan, so when does he play? “Marshall?” Fiona asks. “You’re not his type.” As she finishes, Stevie gives Misty her shawl and wishes her luck on the Seven Wonders test that she’ll soon have to pass.

OTP!

Upstairs, the younger girls emote over why it is that Misty is suddenly supposed to be the next Supreme (ATTN: Writers – finish these conversations quicker. We don’t need to have this same scene in every episode.) and try to out-witch each other. Meanwhile, the older witches pool what they’ve been able to learn about Delphi Trust, the front company for the witch hunters. Turns out the family dates back to Old Salem and has been hunting witches since the colonial times. Fiona suggests a sideways attack by cursing their money supply and bringing them down financially, rather than coming at them physically. Cordelia wants to help with the spells, but Fiona says she is tainted and can’t help anyone due to her association with Hank. Marie and Fiona cast a spell involving a maze, herbs, mice and a lot of traps as, elsewhere, the SEC and the FBI begins to close in suddenly on Delphi.

The spell, however, takes a lot out of Fiona as she collapses. While Marie tries to help her restore her strength, Fiona asks Marie for her secret for staying young and healthy. Marie reveals that she sold her soul to Papa Legba back in the 1830s. “I thought I was the shit back then,” Marie says. Having just given birth to her first child, she didn’t accept the idea of death until one night when Papa Legba came to her and offered her eternal life in exchange for a price. Thinking she was just going to have to get occasionally sexy with him, she agreed without understanding what he wanted was a pure soul, which meant giving up her newborn child and then one child each year thereafter. File under “Devil, deals with.”

On the streets, Madison and Misty have joined the tail end of a New Orleans jazz funeral procession. Because that’s what you do when you’re young, powerful, and really enjoy eating grilled chicken on a stick, and when your show runners realize that you’ve done almost an entire season and not yet had this iconic piece of the city in a scene. Madison points out that Misty is about to be showered with gifts as the new Supreme and that everyone, even Stevie, was likely just playing her as the new power on the scene. As the funeral makes its way into the cemetery, Misty enchants two gravediggers at Madison’s request.  Madison wants to show Misty that she is just as powerful as Misty is and to do that, she resurrects the man about to be buried. Confused, the man stumbles out of his coffin. Madison convinces Misty to drop the shall that Stevie gave her into the coffin as a way of proving that she isn’t enslaved to anyone else as the new Supreme. Silly Misty does exactly this, turning her back to Madison just long enough for Madison to conk her on the head, drop her into the coffin, steal back the shall, and send the gravediggers back to their work, entombing Misty into a grave. “Stupid bitch,” Madison smirks as she dances away to the tune of the jazz band.

Now, now… more just like naive. 

Nan and Zoe have gone to the hospital to visit Luke only to be told that Luke has died. Nan takes the news hard and insists on seeing Luke’s mother, suspecting her part in his death. The two come to Luke’s house, planning to find Luke’s body and bring him to Misty to resurrect him. Mother tells them that she’s had Luke’s body cremated, producing the urn. (Luke only died, like, yesterday. That’s some quick service crematory service I must say.) Nan is…displeased and forces Mother to her knees. Zoe tries to intervene, but Nan sends her flying into the next room. Nan grabs a bottle of bleach and puts it into Mothers hands. “You have to be cleansed,” she tells Mother and magically forces her to start chugging the bleach.

In the conservatory, Mrytle is playing a theremin despite Cordelia’s attempts to angst herself into an early grave. “Don’t be a hater, dear,” Mrytle tells her when Cordelia asks her to stop making that god-awful creepy noise. Recognizing how defeated Cordelia feels, Myrtle suggests that maybe she should leave the coven and seek out a new life. “Your salad dressing is absolutely magical, maybe you could bottle it?” she suggests.

Fiona, mindful of Marie’s advice that Papa Legba comes to those who are desperate enough for him, prays for his attention in her room. Her devotion (and a few lines of coke) are apparently enough for him to show up out of the blue, mostly invited, like a creepy Adele. Fiona gets down to brass tacks – she doesn’t want to die and is willing to do what it takes to stay alive eternally healthy. Papa Legba says he’ll need her soul and one night a year she needs to perform a service for him, for example “could you cripple your child?” he asks. “Today?” Fiona responds. “Absolutely.” (Comedy!) But seriously, Fiona will do anything. It deal is struck and Papa moves in to seal it with a kiss, but pulls back at the last minute. The deal is off, he tells her. “You have no soul.” Whaaaaaaaa? Well, the Axeman, helpful spirit that he is, appears and points out that all they need to do is find the next Supreme and take her down. “Let’s just kill them all,” Fiona vamps.

Thank you, creepy voodoo man, for finally giving me something in this show to not want to think about when I'm falling asleep. Aside from that enema thing, that is.  

The next day, Nan can hear the thoughts of the baby that Marie stole. Trying to rescue it, she is stopped by Marie and Fiona. Despite needing the sacrifice, Marie has genuinely come to see the baby as being something like her own. Seeing a two-birds-one-stone problem here between Papa needing a pure soul for Marie and Nan who is suddenly a liability,  it’s to the tub where they unceremonially hold Nan’s head under as she struggles to survive. “Oh come on, you’re not the first witch to be drowned,” Fiona tells her because misery loves company?  Either way, Papa isn’t thrilled about Nan’s innocence. “She’s innocent. Mostly,” Fiona insists. “She killed the neighbor, but the bitch had it coming.” The argument is apparently persuasive as Nan’s spirit emerges and accepts Papa’s offer to take her to the other side. “Anywhere is better than here,” Nan says and goes with him.

Later, because we can’t just use Stevie Nicks once, Fiona listens to Stevie play the piano in the parlor, finally letting some of the horror that she’s just been complacent in seep in. And yes, the final scene is total emotion bait, but damn if it’s not beautifully shot and damn is Jessica Lange doesn’t sell all the emotional exhaustion that Fiona, a woman who would like to do the right thing but ultimately is always drawn in by her own dark impulses, is dealing with.

Recapping AHS: Teaching an Old Head New Tricks

Second of two recaps! On the same day! Look how caught up I'm getting! Seriously, more coming soon. 

Everyone, remember back in the halcyon days when our fathers would take us on hunting trips in the woods and give us our first taste of coffee and show us what it meant to be a man? Yeah, that’s what Hank went through in 1991 when his father took him on his first hunt, calming his nerves and telling him that he won’t miss when the time comes because their family has been hunters for generations. And speaking of which, let’s go back us a witch! (you didn’t think this was about deer, did you?) Long story short, dear old dad and Hank hunted down a witch, which means a frightened young woman who lived alone in the hills but Hank couldn’t shoot her when she began to beg for her life, leaving that task to dad. “No mercy,” Hank was told. “Never forget what they are.”

In fairness, she's not doing herself any favors, presentation-wise.

In the modern day, Fiona has had it, you guys. She brings Delphine’s head, still in its box, to Marie’s hair parlor and demands that they talk. Sidebar, I kind of love how put out Jessica Lange plays this, as if another head in a box is just the errand she didn't want to have to deal with today. Delphine’s body is still in its cage in the back and waves at Fiona. Fiona tells Marie that she wants an alliance and for the Coven and the Tribe to join because the witch-hunters have arrived. Marie however sees this as their problem, one that’s likely to be taken care of sooner rather than later given that Fiona is clearly dying.

At the academy, Myrtle recalls Fiona bringing a young Cordelia to study at the academy and tells the adult version that she doesn’t want Cordelia to think that she’s the one who blinded her. Cordelia says she knows that Fiona set Myrtle up, but the witch-hunters are a bit higher priority right now kthanx.

Meanwhile, in Atlanta, Hank has gone to see his father at his “firm” Delphi Trust which is really a cover for their witch-hunting operations. Hank is dealing with some pseudo-sibling rivalry given that Dad, powerful corporate titan that he is, has given the second in command position to another person, David, instead of his son. Hank has been “sloppy” with New Orleans and aligning himself with Marie Laveau was not a smart plan. Dad has had to cover up the murder of Kaylee (turns out Hank used a credit card to book that hotel room. Fool.) and reveals that Delphi was actually behind the attack on Cordelia.

At the academy, Myrtle is holding a fancy dinner party just for her and the other two members of the council. The council members have “such terrible regrets” over the misunderstanding that resulting in her untimely burning and murder. This is all done over melon balls and other fineries, so it’s quite civilized. They want to know all about Misty. Myrtle draws a comparison to the persecution Misty has felt with her own, which she clearly places at the feet of the other council members. Halfway through a toast, the council members find themselves unable to move, Myrtle having laced the melon balls with monkswood which has caused paralysis. “it’s supposed to be quite terrifying,” Myrtle says. But she’s done this not for revenge, but for Cordelia, as she plunges the melon baller into each of their eyes.

If you've got to go in a horrific way, it may as well be with a crazy Francis Conroy yelling at you in a Mid-Atlantic accent.

Later, upstairs, Myrtle unwraps a bandage from Cordelia’s head to reveal that she now has two mismatched eyes, one brown and one blue, and has regained her ability to see, but lost her gift. Fiona is amazed to see what’s happened and wants to know who the donors were who gave up their eyes? Myrtle says they wish to be anonymous. Which is technically true, given that we see Myrtle earlier dismembered the bodies gleefully.

Zoe and Madison find Nan in the hospital, banned from Luke’s room by his mother. Mother tries to have them removed when they enter the room, but Nan begins to tell Mother what Luke is thinking, even despite being unconscious. Mother doesn’t believe her until Nan recounts stories that only Mother and Luke could know. Mother weepily allows Nan to stay with them.

Queenie meanwhile has taken it upon herself to engage Delphine’s head in a little “sensitivity training” in her bedroom by forcing Delphine, who can’t move due to having no body, to do nothing but watch Roots, Mandingo, The Color Purple, and B.A.P.S., the last of which definitely qualifies as torture and should reserve Queenie a place in The Hague for crimes against humanity. Delphine closes her eye and sings “Dixie” as loud as she can.

"I'm less moved by your pain and suffering, more frustrated that my nose has itched for the last two hours."

In his hotel room, Hank is suddenly wracked with pain when a man enters telling him that Marie Laveau sends her regards and will continue to do so unless the white witches die tonight. In the greenhouse, Misty and Cordelia listen to Stevie Nicks and mix up some muddy potions, bringing a long-dead plant back to life, when Hank appears, drunk, but visibly pleased that Cordelia has her sight back. Hank tells Cordelia that his life has no meaning without her and begs for her to take him back. Too late, Hank – Cordelia has already filed for divorce.

Gathering the last of his things upstairs, Hank is confronted by a snarling German Shepherd that Fiona has gotten for protection. Hank says that’s why he’s here, but Fiona mocks him. The dog notices something strange in one of the rooms and when Fiona opens the door she sees Kyle sitting on the floor reading a kid’s book. “Another goddamn boy,” Fiona mutters. “Jesus, these girls…” The dog licks Kyle’s face and Kyle, in return, completely drops a bridge on the adorable thing and snaps the dog’s neck. Note to the writers: As a German Shepherd owner THIS IS NOT OKAY!!! At any rate, the girls soon return home to find Fiona playing gin rummy with a very verbal Kyle, whom she has “spruced up”, and losing. Fiona has decided that Kyle is the best guard dog they could have.

I'm putting this here because fuck you, show - you do not get to add a German Shepherd only to have it die horribly literally once scene later. Not cool. 

At Luke’s hospital bed, Mother tells Nan that she’s a miracle and she can’t thank her enough. Nan has restored Mother’s faith in God. Nan relays that Luke is telling her that there is a God, but He’s judging Mother for having murdered Luke’s father which totally doesn’t come as a shock, right? I mean, the woman gave her son a forced chlorox enema because he talked to a girl. We're not dealing with someone who defaults to logic a lot. Mother insists that her husband died of an allergic reaction, but in a flashback we see that she killed him when she found out he was having an affair with a member of Mother’s book club. This pretty much kills any goodwill between Mother and Nan, obvi, and Mother orders Nan to leave the room, irrespective of whether or not Luke's consciousness is whispering truth-y things to her in her ear.

Actually, this was just them geeking out over the latest True Blood episode, but you get the point. 

At Marie Laveau’s, Queenie is plotting more ways to open Delphine’s bigoted mind when Hank suddenly bursts in, guns literally blazing. He murders each of Marie’s workers (all black, natch) one by one, including Queenie before heading to the back to take out Marie herself. Queenie not done herself, however, manages to get a gun, put it into her own mouth and shoot, causing Hank’s brains to blow out the back of his head.

Later, in his offices, Hank’s father weeps over pictures of his dead son. At the hospital, Luke finally begins to wake and weakly accuses his mother of murdering his father. “Go back to sleep,” she tells him, placing a pillow over his head and pushing down.

And at the Academy, the front door knocks. Fiona answers to see Marie, whom she invites in.  

Recapping AHS: Heads Will Roll

I know, I know! I'm wicked behind on recaps! I'm catching up, I promise! But first, jumping back a few weeks…

In the mean streets of The Big Easy, one woman sets out on a dangerous mission. That would be Queenie, purposefully taking a walk through the rough part of town to murder would be rapists for their body parts for Marie. Zoe and Madison find her and try to convince her to rejoin the Coven. Queenie’s less interested, figuring her luck is with Marie and Voodoo, not Fiona and Witchcraft. “War is coming,” she tells the girls. “And you’re going to lose.”

War is, admittedly, a little under-armed.

Fiona, meanwhile, is getting no better due to the cancer that’s rapidly advancing on her. “I’m starting to look less Samantha and more Endora everyday,” she bemoans. Delia has little sympathy, however, asking her to do them all a favor a kick off before Thanksgiving in order to save them all from her cuisine. What the cancer hasn’t stopped, however, is her sexual relationship with the Axeman, who is still somehow in a corporal body. Yeah, that’s not been explained. Anyway, he’s into her, but she doesn’t want to decay in front of anyone. Thankfully, she’s got a plan – remove whichever of the girls is the new Supreme, and her health comes back.

Which brings us to the next scene – Luke’s mother isn’t pleased that he was spending all that time during the Zombpocalypse at Halloween over at the house with all it’s “devil’s magic” and determines that Luke is unclean. What’s a mother to do with an unclean boy? Cleans him. Via a homemade chlorox solution that she forces Luke to take as an enema, stripping him naked and putting him in a tub. “You don’t have to do this,” he almost whimpers. “Oh, but I do.” She replies. Clearly she learned parenthood from the Norma Bates Correspondence School. (And though this is disturbing, can I say it is nice to see a welcome return to the inappropriate sexual crazy? We’ve been lacking that a lot this season.)

A boy's best friend is his mother and her best friend is a homemade detergent enema pouch.

Cordelia and the girls are plotting a way to kill Fiona when a knock at the door reveals a frantic Misty, who says she’s been driven from the swamp after a man with a gun found her in her shack the previous night. Only a warning from the resurrected Myrtle Snow got her out in time.  Misty reunites the Coven with Myrtle, who has her hair back thanks to “buying in bulk from North Korea for years.” Myrtle recognizes the troubles the Coven has been going through and points out that the one witch with them with real power, the next Supreme perhaps, is Misty.

Zoe is trying to get Kyle to learn through kids language games, but Kyle just wants to get kissy with her. So, your typical frat boy, really. The coven gathers for The Sacred Taking, a ceremony only used three times in history whereby the old Supreme sacrifices her life so that the Coven can continue. Though, in this case, we’re getting a little loose with the word “sacrifice” since Fiona won’t be aware of what’s going on. Once done, Misty will be recognized as the next Supreme. The girls are all a little jealous until Cordelia points out that none of the Supremes have had happy lives, all of them were crushed under the weight of the office, except Fiona who just ran away. Fiona’s going to need a “push” in order to give her own life.

Upstairs, Cordelia vomits before hearing music from her bedroom and seeing Madison dancing provocatively. “Thought you’d seen the last of me?” she coos. Fiona tries to force Madison from the room magically, but can’t muster the strength. Madison gives Fiona a choice – be burned tomorrow or swallow all her pills. She leaves and is replaced, Dickens-like, by Myrtle who catches Fiona trying to pack a suitcase. Fiona wants to run, saying she’s finally found someone she truly loves and begging for the last few months of life with him. Myrtle shows Fiona a vision of Fiona decaying in a hospital bed while the Axeman leaves her.

What we don't know is why all of Fiona's psychotic fever dreams look like Meatloaf videos.

Upstairs, the ruse is working. Fiona puts her face on in order to leave a good-looking corpse and tells Myrtle about the regrets and non-regrets in her life. “I’ve always been rigorous about not staying too long at the party,” she sighs. “I had the good form to know when it’s over.” Fiona dresses in a fine fur coat and high heels and swallows a handful of pills. She asks only that they hang her portrait where she chose and not in the basement with the disgraced Russian witch. (sidebar, I hope to God we hear more about that.) As she lays dying, Spaulding appears to her and begs her to wake up and tries to get her to swallow ipecac. As a ghost, Spaulding can finally speak again and tells Fiona what the Coven is up to and that Madison isn’t the next Supreme. And oh, it’s Go Time on the Revenging Witch Comedy Hour.

Speaking of revenge, Queenie brings Delphine a cheeseburger in her cage. “Whatever did I do to deserve this betrayal?” Delphine moans, rather richly. Marie, clearly, is enjoying the reversal and, to be fair, turnabout is kind of fair play. Delphine is pretty unrepentant with Marie, though, demanding that Marie bring her something to drink like a maid. Delphine points out that there’s nothing that Marie can do to her – she can’t die. Better to put her back in the ground and “when they dig me up in another 100 years, the natural order will be preserved.” By which she means there won’t be a “darkie” in the White House. Going back into the ground is not the only option though, according to Marie. “You suffer from a lack of imagination,” she tells Delphine. And then cuts her hand off. 

Voodoo justice. 

Downstairs at the house, Nan is a little steamed that everyone assumes that there’s no way she could be the next Supreme. She sneaks to Luke’s house, finding him tied up and gagged in a closet. She frees him and tries to get him out of the house when Mother spies the two of them and calls the police. And that’s when shit gets real, you guys – bullets suddenly start flying in from outside, killing Mother and hitting Luke when he protects Nan from the gunfire.

Next door and oblivious to the urban warfare, the Coven waits for Fiona to die. Misty doesn’t feel any differently, though which is all explained when Fiona enters the room and demands to know about the “swamp witch” who is supposed to replace her. Turns out Misty is gone, having fled to the house next door. Luke is taken to the hospital with a serious head wound, but Fiona finds her in the living room with Luke’s mother’s body. As Misty brings Mother back to life, Cordelia finds a spent bullet on the ground and sees that the shooter wasn’t random – it was someone after the Coven.

Zoe hides Kyle, saying that none of them are safe. Kyle manages to say that he loves her and doesn’t want to leave while Madison, who is “sharing” Kyle with Zoe overhears from the hallway.

In the morning, Cordelia fears that Fiona is going to punish her for trying to orchestrate her death but Fiona is frankly impressed that Cordelia would show such grit and determination. “You really are my daughter,” she says. Fiona notices the bullet, a silver one that’s been blessed and concludes that witch hunters are behind this. At that, the door bell rings, but only a box is left on the front porch. Sounds familiar, right? Fiona brings it inside and opens it to reveal Delphine’s severed head, the eyes of which suddenly flip open.

Somewhere, James Caan is enjoying this.

Bridezillas!

This past weekend, I traveled with some friends to Chicago to visit another friend who is enrolled in a grad program at Northwestern.

Spoiler alert: it was cold. 

Mind numbingly cold. And snowy. But surprisingly not that windy. Huh. Anyhoodle, spending a lot of time outside my friend's apartment wasn't really on our agenda, but we managed to get ourselves bundled up and on the El on Sunday morning for a drag brunch at the Kit Kat Club. The food was yummy, the drag queens were fierce, and the martinis? Were HALF OFF. 

So, yeah.. We all got a bit toasted. 

I'm not sure how we got on the subject of the television show Bridezillas--maybe it was because my Chicago-based friend is getting married later this year, or maybe because we were talking about trashy reality tv in general. But in any event, after returning to the Rogers Park apartment, we switched on Netflix, curled up on the couch, and five grown adults spent about 8 hours doing nothing but watching Bridezillas while the alcohol slowly worked its way through out bodies. 

This show is everything wonderful and everything horrible all wrapped up into one. 

The concept is simple: cameras follow around a bride during the week leading up to her wedding documenting every incident of physical, verbal, and emotional abuse she spews at the people around her. The brides seem to come from all over, but they all have one thing in common: they are horrible people. Nobody is safe from the bridezillas ire, certainly not her groom, parents, bridal party, and any vendors unlucky enough to have contracted to provide a service for the wedding day. 

Watching this show raises so many questions. Why would this man marry this woman? How can her parents allow her to speak to them like that? Why are these people her friends? Why would ANYONE hired by these women not just tell them to go fuck themselves and walk away?

Any most importantly, why am I watching this?

It's like a train wreck--you cannot look away. Objectively, you acknowledge that these people are horrible and that you are actually part of the problem; by watching the show you are providing incentive for the brides to act like trolls. But subjectively, it's just flat-out entertaining. Maybe it makes us feel better about ourselves? Whatever the reason, 8 episodes of Bridezillas didn't feel like enough and we could have gone on for much longer. 

 "Why don't people just give me everything I want when I want it and for free? WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME HIT YOU!

I must point out that the best part of Bridezillas is actually the snarky commentary provided by the female narrator. The producers are definitely in on the joke and take every opportunity to belittle and humiliate the "ladies" on the show. I think our favorite example was when a certain zaftig bride was trying to wedge herself into a narrow manicure chair. "Apparently nobody in the bridal party thought to bring a shoe horn or bacon grease," commented the narrator. OH SNAP. Also? Awesome.

So, if you ever need a self-esteem boost, want to laugh at the most heinous women on earth, or just need a mind-numbing activity to engage in (preferably while drunk), Bridezillas is the show for you!

This charming young lady, Danyelle, is a 19 year old "student" bride who got so drunk the morning of her wedding, she could barely climb the stairs to put on her wedding dress. She also stole her groom's credit card, took the last $300 from his bank account, and chose as her wedding theme (I shit you not), "Bros and Bro-Hoes." Here is an interview with Danyelle.

Bridezillas airs on WE (check the schedule) and past episodes can be viewed on Netflix or the show's website.