I didn't watch any Parks & Rec last week! I don't remember why; I think I might have been trying to get some extra reading done, in preparation for Yuletide and the Ben January book-club.

I did watch the first two episodes of American Horror Story: Freak Show which I'm not particularly enjoying, so I don't think I'm going to watch more of (though my girlfriend likes, so she'll probably continue watching). It's certainly not as bad as it could be, given the topic, but eh. Not for me.

Sleepy Hollow
2.04
I totally approve of ridiculous fairy-tale plots just as much as ridiculous Armageddon plots or ridiculous American Revolution plots, so I love the use of the Pied Piper (which is a really weird fairy-tale on its own, now that I think about it. What the hell is that story even about? Pay your rat-catchers or they'll steal your children and entomb them forever in a mountain, the end? People in the Middle Ages were high as fuck y'all) and hope they continue. Actually, I also want some modern-day American urban legends to introduce Crane too: now that he can drive, he can pick up a mysterious vanishing hitchhiker! Slenderman! Bloody Mary!

I also like this season's dedication to mother themes so far. It's great to focus on Abbie and Jenny's trauma, after last season's overarching plot was mostly about Crane's family. You also so rarely see mother/daughter relationships focused on in genre TV shows or movies, so I really appreciate that. And a lot of people have mentioned this, but I also love that this week's mother was willing to sacrifice her biological child to protect her adoptive children, rather than treating one as more "real". And as this show is often so good at, I liked that two of the adopted kids were of color (I know cross-racial adoptions are controversial, but so is the focus on white boys as the ideal adoptive child, so between the two problems I'd personally prefer the show to go the way it did).

I loved Irving's Matrix-Armageddon vision (and he was way hot in that black tank-top), and his Bible bursting into flames. And this was a very shippy episode; Abbie wiping the coffee foam off of Crane's face was too amazing, as was their flirting (it was totally flirting!) about his driving.

Parks & Rec
6.01-6.06: This season has been so fantastic so far; I've loved every single episode. The evil father of Jean-Ralphio and Mona Lisa! Ben's thing for women on roller skates! The cute new doctor Tom is dating! EVERY SINGLE THING about April, but especially her relationship with Andy! It's all great.

I already posted about the latest episode of Sleepy Hollow last week, but I did see two movies. I've possibly seen The Addams Family a million times, but it's been so long that I'd squished parts of it and the sequel together and forgotten other parts. It's an excellent, hilarious movie that is still so good. This is totally a minor thing, but I was amused by how dated all the other people looked, while the Addams's clothes haven't aged at all. Gomez and Morticia are still the best couple ever, and I love the whole family.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire, on the other hand, I'd never seen before, one of the only Disney movies I hadn't seen. The story was sort of shallow, but the characters and world-building were great. It has a huge cast, which can be a problem – it's hard to give everyone enough time to make them interesting - but I would have liked to know more about every character. But it wasn't a musical! I demand my Disney movies be musicals, dammit. I liked it overall.

Parks & Rec:
5.09-5.15: Okay! I have finally caught up to episodes I hadn't seen back when they aired. I'm really enjoying this season; I love almost all the plots: Ben and Leslie's engagement and wedding are so sweet; Ron and Diane are great (and any episode where Tammy shows up is, of course, amazing); Councilman Jamm is a fantastic silly villain; I'm sort of iffy on the "Ann wants to have a baby" plot, but am willing to go along with it so far; and I always love everything that happens with April.

Iron Man 3
Ah, this was fantastic! I think I like this the best of all three movies. Well, hmmm, I dunno. The first one is really good. I liked this better than Thor 1 and The Avengers, the only other MCU movies I've seen, certainly! And it was randomly a Christmas movie! I had not expected that. This movie feels really dense; there's a ton of subplots that could have been expanded on (like, what was up with the giant Christmas rabbit? "Iron Patriot"! The Vice President being arrested at the end - I somehow entirely missed that plot point beforehand). It's good – it makes it feel complicated and real. I liked the big twist, and it continues the series's theme of the enemy being more the "War on Terror" than "terrorism".

After that I started The Feast of All Saints, which – did you know there was a movie of this? I did not know there was a movie of this. I watched about fifteen very confusing minutes while going "What is happening? What are they talking about? Who are all these people?" before realizing that somehow I was watching Part Two. I'll have to find Part One and try again.

Parks & Rec
5.02: Soda Tax. Two years ago I became obsessed with Parks & Rec and binge-watched the entire thing. Then I caught up to currently airing episodes and promptly forgot to keep up. Now that I'm two seasons behind it's time to binge-watch again! This was very sweet, I love everything about April/Andy, Chris is hilarious, and Tom is my favorite.

I only watched one episode of TV last week! Apparently I was really busy reading? Actually, I don't even know what I did with my time. Anyway:

True Blood
So, it was kind of a boring and terrible episode.
Bill continued to be really determined to die, and decided that the only way to accomplish this was to get Sookie to help him commit suicide. Why? Because a dead Bill is the only way for Sookie to have a normal life: "How many times have you promised yourself, 'no more vampires'?" HAHAHA.
Meanwhile, Sarah Newman hits on Pam, and I briefly ship it, before Pam and Eric kill all of the yakuza and take Sarah captive.
Then, crazily, Hoyt and Jessica decide to get married, today, despite having dated for less than 24 hours. But Bill is dying! And he never got to walk his human daughter down the aisle! None of this makes sense!
Sookie realizes that she can hear Bill's thoughts, and I briefly was convinced that Bill's Super Hep-V was turning him back into a human, but nope. The whole thoughts thing is never addressed or explained at all. Instead, Sookie agrees to kill him using her fairy powers (which will take away those powers and leave her a normal human). But then she changes her mind! No, she still kills him, she just uses a stake to do it instead. Bill is dead! I wasn't sure the show was really going to go through with it.
In the one enjoyable part of the episode, Eric and Pam start a Hep-V Cure company based on Sarah's blood, film a hilarious infomercial describing it as "For vampires - By vampires" and Eric as "THE IMMORTAL VIKING GOD", open the NY Stock Market, and reopen Fangtasia. Sarah is still being held captive in the basement, and I actually feel bad for her. I suppose she was the show's biggest villain - certainly the biggest one still alive, maybe the biggest overall - but her situation is so terrible in the extreme that it's not enjoyable to watch.
Then we skip three years ahead and Jason for some reason is with Bridget (I guess Jason was always fated to be with Hoyt's girlfriend?) and they have way too many children for only three years having passed. BUT OMG ALL THESE BABIES ARE SO CUTE. Sam's baby! Sookie's baby bump! So many babies! Jessica/Hoyt being cute! Lafayette/James being cute (but not actually getting dialogue, ugh)! Arlene/whatever that vampire's name was being cute!
Sookie's baby bump is apparently from her Random Faceless (presumably human) New Boyfriend instead of Sad Vampire Bill, which I feel is very disappointing after all the foreshadowing this season.


And that's the end! I feel let-down.

True Blood

Oh, Sarah Newlin. You have somehow managed to get even crazier. I almost want her to actually turn out to be some sort of messiah, just because I can't think of a weirder ending for the show than that.
Tara's plotline is just bizarre. She needed to come back as a ghost and spend the entire season haunting Lettie Mae so that she could tell her... what? About a memory Lettie Mae already remembered? What was even the point of that? I was hilariously amused by the poor family that had to stand around and watch a bunch of strangers get high and dig holes in their front yard.
Well, that Violet plotline wrapped up quickly. Can't say I really care.
Jessica/Hoyt is sweet, but I am totally rooting for Jessica/Jason.
The Sookie/Eric scene in Fangtasia where he pretends to glamor her was EXCELLENT. I love that narrative trope - I can't think of the name of it (if there is one), but where two friends/allies/lovers are in front of a bunch of bad guys and have to improvise a story on the spur of the moment; I love that combination of danger and their trust in one other, and all while pretending to be strangers or on opposite sides.
Sookie is totally going to have Bill's magic baby.
And meanwhile Bill has decided to be suicidal, because there apparently wasn't enough plot of wrap up in two episodes yet.


The Musketeers

The Homecoming: Man, this "shoot the melon on his head" scene is INCREDIBLY slashy. I'm kinda shipping Porthos/Aramais now.
Awww, tragic bb!Porthos backstory!
The Court of Miracles! I've had a weird fascination with it since I read The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I'm not sure of the historical accuracy, but I totally love its inclusion here. (Actually, having checked Wikipedia, apparently it's more accurate for the 1600s than the 1400s. You have let me down, Hugo.)
OMG THE KING IS SO AMUSED AT HIS OWN PUNS.
Damn, who is this dude playing Charon? He is super hot (I have totally already claimed him as a Benjamin January fancast).
Aaaaaand now I want the Flea/Charon/Porthos backstory.
Man, Athos, you could have broken the news about his son's death to this guy a lot more kindly. Way to be a dick.
OMG SHIRTLESS H/C OT3 SCENE I REALLY REALLY WANT THIS FIC NOW.
"God's on my side." / "Is he any good with a sword?" Haaaa.
This is such a good episode otherwise; I wish it hadn't come down to fighting over Flea. The home vs opportunity conflict is so much more interesting than "who gets the girl".
Alas, Charon died, no sweet reunion fic. I still want the AU.

The Exiles: BABY. CUTE BABY.
Oh my godddddd the king is such a baby. Not a cute baby, though.
Why are d'Artagnan and Aramis keeping the whole stolen-baby thing a secret? Why would they take the mom to Constance instead of the Captain or the Cardinal or anyone with power? THIS PLOT MAKES NO SENSE.
DUN DUN DUN SECRET HEIR. No iron mask, though?
Hey, go Constance, kicking the bad guy's ass! AND HAAAAA KNEEING D'ARTAGNAN.
OMG IT'S THE LOO-LEE LOO-LA SONG THE MOST TERRIFYING OF ALL THE HYMNS. DON'T SING TERRIFYING SONGS ABOUT MURDERED BABIES TO THE CUTE BABY.
"It is so unfair!" NEVER OVER LOUIS XIV AS SPOILED TEENAGE BOY.

A Rebellious Woman: "You are too generous, your majesty." / "I know. It's a weakness." OMG LOUIS.
"That's so medieval." HAAAAAAA.
Oh, a knee bone, hooray. No one ever gives me knee bones. Not even poisoned knee bones.
Man, Ninon, seriously? Athos is the least hot of the Musketeers.
He's not even hot, and then he takes you to the morgue on the first date? You can do way better, Ninon.
"This is the Cardinal we're talking about – why are we running?" Hahahaha!
Aww, Constance/D'Artagnan is very sweet. And then hot.


Guardians of the Galaxy
This was just a lovely little treat of a movie, silly and funny and enjoyable. I don't have any particularly deep thoughts on it, but I liked watching it. If I was into 80s music, I probably would have liked it even more! :D

True Blood

So, the episode starts off with nearly ten minutes of gay porn, starring Eric and Jason. When did Jason drink Eric's blood, to necessitate such a dream? Not that I'm really complaining, mind. I do love how Jason is absolutely, ridiculously bad at being seductive, considering how good he is at flirting with women. Nothing's as funny as the "I hear the water in Alabama is very... hard" line in the Bill/Sam dream, though.

The empty town scenes were very creepy. The graffiti reminded me of Silent Hill: very similar scenes of wondering around desolate urban places with just a few lines of text to hint at what had happened. I'm not really sure how the vampires managed to kill the entire town though: surely no one was inviting them inside? And they don't seem to have been burning homes or otherwise forcing people to come outside.

"Our mayor is a dog-bear!" Oh, True Blood.

This episode was much better than last week's.


Penny Dreadful

The finale!

Good lord, how long was Vanessa supposed to have been sick, if Dorian had time to go to Italy? I'm very amused by Dorian Grey the lovesick puppy, especially when he wiped away a tear and was all "WHAT IS THIS EMOTION?".

I'm glad Caliban did not actually kill or otherwise harm the actress, and that he has enough conscious to regret what he did do. I didn't expect that; I totally thought she was doomed.

Aw, poor Brona. I am unclear on why Ethan smothered her, though - she was dying already, so why couldn't he just have waited an hour or so? Unless he was lying to Ethan, and she wasn't really that close to death? Either way, I hope she gets to be cool next season and not just a mindless monster.

I was really surprised that Malcolm actually killed Mina, but it was nice to get at least one plotline wrapped up. Overall, I was a little disappointed in the episode: it felt flat compared to last week's, and so little was actually resolved. On the other hand, I liked the creepy priest and the cliffhanger ending, so I'm looking forward to next season.


Begin Again
A sort-of romantic comedy, sort-of indie about the music industry, a movie starring Keira Knightly and Mark Ruffalo. I found it insufferable, mainly because Ruffalo's character was a self-absorbed alcoholic dick (and, like, I am VERY SYMPATHETIC to your alcoholic woobies. I give a lot of leeway!) and Knightly's character had no personality or depth. The narrative mainly focused on how being authentic is just, like, so much more real and better than selling out, a trope I hate, and featured a subplot about how Ruffalo's daughter's clothes were too revealing, because ~teenage girls need father figures~. On the other hand, Knightly's ex-boyfriend was a hilarious parody of rich hipster musicians, so that was fun.