Fantastical Musings

I never thought I’d say these words, but I LOVE demon Dean (Dean-mon, as I have been calling him). It’s just nice to see Dean totally unchained and doing whatever he wants! I mean, for the past few seasons, he’s been tormented by guilt and a crushing sense of responsibility, so it’s nice to see him having FUN again. Plus, it’s fun to watch Dean being a demon. Supernatural has become an increasingly serious show over the years (although, it was pretty serious to start with), so it’s nice to see some fun injected back into the series. I mean, if Dean singing a bad karaoke version of “I’m Too Sexy” isn’t fun, I don’t know what is. I don’t completely understand the nature of Dean’s particular demon, but it seems to be a little different from a standard demon. It seems like he can turn it on and off at different times, but the demon always casts a pall over Dean’s personality. It’s Dean’s natural personality for sure, just carried to extreme lengths. I’m just glad to see that Dean didn’t

Well, that was a jolly good mystery!  The show has escalated very quickly from relatively tame missing persons cases to murder! I was, however, very impressed with the way Miss Scarlet handled this case.  I have to admit that if I caught someone standing over a dead body with a knife, I would also believe pretty firmly that the knife man did the killing (the plot reminds me a bit of the novel  Murder on Cold Street ). Miss Scarlet, however, was very clever about finding out the truth of the situation. And, obviously, I'm glad that she saved an innocent man from dying; although, it sounds like he might be sentenced to ten years hard labor anyway.  I was also genuinely surprised to learn about the wife's role in the case, and I was pretty stunned to see that she was cold enough to wear the red coat to watch her husband DIE. That is BRUTAL. However, as interesting as the mystery was, I thought the character revelations we saw in this episode were far more intriguing. I'm reall

I have to admit that it’s refreshing that Dean died and no one had to sell their soul to get him back. Instead, he only had to become a demon (or, should I say a Dean-mon). No big deal, right? I kid. I kid. But, seriously, that was a pretty big twist in the episode! If season ten is going to be about un-demonizing Dean (say that ten times fast) I’ll be happy. It seems to me that that’s a better plot than most of the conflicts we’ve seen in recent seasons. I probably should have caught on earlier that Dean might be becoming a demon. Ignoring cheeseburgers and vomiting blood were probably clues. Crowley telling Dean that Cain himself is a demon was definitely the BIGGEST clue. However, I let that slide over my head somehow. In any case, I certainly realized long ago that bearing the Mark of Cain wasn’t going to be a trip to the spa from Dean. That being said, it seems like taking on the Mark of Cain was worth it. Without it, the Winchesters and co probably wouldn’t have been able to defe

Let us all take a moment to grieve for Tessa. After Cas, she was the best angel/reaper on the show. (By the way, if you can explain how the reapers suddenly became angels, please let me know in the comments. Maybe they’re honorary angels? It’s unclear to me). Even though Tessa hasn’t been on the show in a long time, her death felt unnecessary. From a plot perspective, Dean had to kill someone so that the other angels would be upset with him, but it didn’t have to be Tessa! She was one of the last remaining characters from the early seasons of the show! They could have used her character more productively, and I’m disappointed. Aside from Tessa’s death, the rest of this episode felt like a wash to me. There was no distinct plot or story going on in this episode. There weren’t even any particularly clever moments (aside from the calorie obsessed, ice cream snob at the very beginning of the episode). It was just more of the same. More of trying to foil Metatron. More angel conflict. If yo

 I love cozy mysteries. That's why I was over the moon when I saw that Miss Scarlet and the Duke , a British television drama (seriously, all the best shows come from the UK), was coming to PBS. The show follows a young, Victorian lady named Eliza Scarlet who decides to take over her father's private detective business after he dies of a heart attack.  I was initially drawn to the show because the premise reminded me of Sherry Thomas' Lady Sherlock book series. However, after watching the first episode, I am pleased to report that  Miss Scarlet and the Duke takes an original look at the Victorian, lady detective motif.  In the first episode, the viewer is introduced to Eliza Scarlet, a young woman who is interested in solving crime but is constrained by the mores of her time. While struggling to be taken seriously as a potential detective, Miss Scarlet learns that her fathers has died, and decides to take over his private detective business in order to support herself and

Netflix's latest cinematic triumph The Dig combines all the things that I like to see on my screen: history,  archeology, and all things Anglo Saxon or Viking. So, as you can probably imagine, when I saw this film pop up on my Netflix account, I knew immediately that I had to watch it.  The Sutton Hoo site has long been a source of fascination for me. I learned about it for the first time in an English literature class in college, and it has been connected in my mind with the fantastical tales of Beowulf and the doleful poem "Wulf and Eadwacer" ever since. In case you don't know,  Sutton Hoo is an archeological site in Britain that includes several Anglo-Saxon burial sites. In 1938, as World War II loomed on the horizon, one of the burial mounds was excavated, and the remains of a ship burial were discovered. Archeologists discovered the impression of a ship, the remains of a helmet and shield, as well as pieces of jewelry, bowls, and spoons.  The Dig tells the stor

Well, the plot has certainly thickened in this episode! I hope it doesn’t get any thicker than this because, honestly, I’m starting to lose the threads of the plot. Like, I can’t even keep up with what Cas is doing. Let me try to get this straight. Cas is playing the villain because that’s what Metatron asked him to do, but he is also trying to legitimately find a way to defeat Metatron...which means that he’s kind of triple-crossing everyone, right? Like, don’t get me wrong, I love Cas, but Sam and Dean should have stopped trusting him a long time ago. Cas always thinks he’s doing something for the best, refuses to tell the Winchesters, and lets everything blow up in his face. Go ahead, tell me I’m wrong! HOWEVER. I think I’m burying the lead. Abaddon is gone! Ding-dong, the wicked witch is dead! It was about time. Her usefulness as a character was beginning to come to an end. Don’t get me wrong, she was a good villain, but, after a few seasons, all the villains lose their pizazz. Tha

So, I like to think of this episode as West Side Story with monsters. It has everything from warring gangs to star-crossed lovers, and I thought it was excellent. I did find the episode a little difficult to follow at first, but once I learned everyone’s name and caught on to the five families idea, everything made much more sense. The only thing that was confusing about this episode was the end. Although it was clear that the writers were setting Ennis up to become a hunter, they really left the story hanging when they ended the episode with Ennis receiving a phone call from his dead father. I mean, unless this episode is part one of two, what the heck kind of ending is that? I sort of have a feeling that the writers were trying to set up a spinoff show here, and it just didn’t work out. (Or, maybe it did; I didn’t really look into it.) Anyway, spinoff show or not, I wish Ennis happy hunting. Aside from the abrupt ending, I thought this episode was really entertaining. As I said, it

This may or may not be my favorite episode of the season. I still have a handful of episodes left to watch, so it’s too soon to say, but I can say this for sure: this episode was really, REALLY good. In case you need a recap, this episode focused on a vampire “family” that kidnapped a child and raised her as their family member. The girl is forced to help the vampires lure humans to their nest. She finally decides to run away and ends up running into Sheriff Jody Mills and the Winchesters. Through a series of DRAMATIC events, Jody and the boys end up killing the vampire family and rescuing the girl—who is named either Alex, Annie, Alexis, or Ann—from becoming a vampire herself. The plot was WILD in my opinion. It was really original, which is hard to do on a show with literally hundreds of episodes. It was also really dramatic and had good emotional pacing, which is what really drew me in. Everyone seemed to view Alex Annie Alexis Ann as a sort of daughter figure. She filled an emoti

Guys, I’m not sure if I liked this episode. I was disappointed in Cas, that’s for sure. I just can’t understand why he would make an active choice to play into Metatron’s plans. Surely, that’s going to be a catastrophe, right? As much as I love Cas, he makes a lot of bad decisions as a character. I think he’s lacking the common sense gene. That being said, Metatron has made himself basically unbeatable at this point. If you can’t restrain an angel with holy fire and sigils, you’re out of luck. Plus, allowing Cas to understand every pop culture reference in the world is its own super power. Speaking of Metatron and his merry band of angels, I was disappointed that Sam and Dean couldn’t kill Gadreel. It may be obvious to say, but that guy really screwed them over. You could tell that it was eating the Winchesters up that they couldn’t end him then and there. I was also annoyed that Gabriel both was and wasn’t in this episode. You can’t taunt us like that and then reveal that he’s actuall

This episode was actually, legitimately scary! It was kind of surprising to me because we haven’t seen a truly frightening episode of Supernatural since season one or two. These days, the show is mostly about celestial politics and deciphering prophecies, which is interesting but not as visceral as earlier seasons. So, bring on the black demon eyes, the random murder, and the sinister messages written in blood! We could all use a good scare. Seriously though, this episode was pretty creepy! Any time you’re dealing with demon nuns in a creepy, abandoned building, scary is a matter of course. I commend the writers of this episode for concocting the perfect blend of horror plot elements. Anyway. Setting the atmosphere of this episode aside, we did learn some important things about the major plots of this season. First of all, we learn how Abaddon came to earth and became involved with the Men of Letters. We also learn that Abaddon is creating her own army through soul theft. I mean, who