Review: Angel & Faith #6 - "Daddy Issues, Pt. 1"

PLOT SUMMARY

Angel is at Highgate Cemetary, looking for a demon, when he smells blood across the way, leading to an insane person committing a series of gruesome murders. That leads to a flashback of Giles, going through his "final exam" at Watchers' Academy, which is taking place in Highgate Cemetary. He and his group of four other students are supposed to be hunting a vampire, but they come across a Lorophage demon instead. The demon kills Giles's four classmates, but he gets saved at the last second by his father and another watcher.

Back in the present day, Nadira and company nearly kill a human who thinks he is (and is acting like) a vampire. The human was driven insane by a vampire going by Mother Superior, who refused to sire him (per Harmony's rules). Angel and Faith realize their problems may be connected, and pay a visit to Alasdair Coames, who gives them some info on the Lorophage. Faith wants to head into action against Mother Superior, and they track her to a church. Angel and Faith bust in, bust some vampire heads, and meet Mother Superior, aka...

Modern Family "Little Bo Bleep" Reaction

Wednesday's episode of "Modern Family", "Little Bo Bleep" was controversial before it aired, because one of the main stories involved two-year-old Lily uttering a bleeped-out curse word (Note that on-set, the actress playing Lily was saying the word "fudge", so not to extend the controvery to the actress herself). The funny thing is the people who were demanding that ABC pull the episode probably hadn't seen it, and once the episode aired, it actually turned out to be one of the series' best and most true to life in terms of raising a toddler.

Lily's brush with profanity boiled down to this: she was saying "fuck" (and there's no need for me to bleep it here) because it made Cam laugh. She wasn't saying "fuck you" or "go fuck yourself" or even "what the fuck". She had no comprehension of the word's meaning, and there was no malice behind Lily's use of it. She just heard a word -- the show never got into where she heard it or placing blame on either Cam or Mitch for exposing her to it -- realized it made one of her dads laugh, and so she kept using it.

This isn't an uncommon occurence with toddlers. I remember when my niece first started saying the word "fork", it sounded a lot like "fuck". And my family would laugh when she said it, so she kept saying it. And like Mitchell tried to do with Cam, we tried to keep ourselves from laughing, knowing that was the only thing that was keeping up her frequent reptition of the word. Eventually we contained our laughter, and she eventually figured out how to say "fork", and she stopped saying "fuck".

Obviously in a sitcom universe, Lily was going to say "fuck" in the most inappropriate setting possible, which led to the funniest moment of the episode (non-Autotune category): a church full of people breaking out laughing when she said it right as a wedding was getting started (and again, she only said it because she saw Cam crying and wanted to make him laugh). Why was everyone laughing? Well, because it was funny, dammit. When you separate the word from its meaning -- as Lily has obviously done, since she has no idea of the meaning of the word -- it loses all its power and becomes a source of comedy, rather than negativity.

I'm sure even after seeing the episode, there will be some people who complain about a storyline that has a two-year-old uttering a profanity, but those are the kind of people who are just looking to stir up shit. In reality, Modern Family handled the storyline well, made it funny, and ended up with one of the best episodes of the season.

Gossip Girl "The End of The Affair?" Reaction

"Gossip Girl" returned after its annual month-long winter break last night with what I thought was one of the strongest episodes of the season, striking the right mix between resolving old stories and laying the groundwork for new ones.

The episode didn't pick up immediately after December's car crash cliffhanger, instead jumping forward to the "aftermath of the aftermath" as it was, which I thought was a good creative decision. Any savvy viewer knew they weren't killing off Chuck, so why spend a whole episode with his life in the balance when there are jucier matters to get to.

I do have to admit that at first the jump confused me; I thought the initial scene with Chuck and Louis in the rain was a Chuck dream sequence. But the flashbacks and Blair's eventual explanation to Serena of everything that had happened filled in all the gaps. A linear narrative might have made things easier to understand, but would have killed some of the intrigue with the Dan/Blair/Chuck storyline. Sometimes misdirections can work really well for this show (sure, they use them way too often, but when they nail them, like they did Monday, they nail them).

As much fun as all the Blair/Chuck stuff was in this episode, it's pretty obvious where that's going, which draws my interest away to other plotlines. In this episode, there were two in particular that I wanted to see more of -- or, more accurately, I'm looking forward to seeing more of in future episodes.

First, there was the whole Charlie aftermath. We learned that Charlie/Ivy went through with her plan to leave right after the accident, but didn't come completely clean with Rufus and Lily, who are still in the dark about her true identity. Lily tries getting in touch with Carol to talk to Chivy about coming back, but Carol's been evasive (which leads me to think she doesn't know where Chivy is either), so Lily hires a private investigator to find Chivy. Only, instead of finding Chivy, the investigator tracks down Famous Original Charlotte Rhodes (still living in New York) -- who Lily and Rufus proceed to dismiss as just a stranger who happens to have the same name. Only (DRAMA!) a scene at the end shows Famous Original Charlotte with a picture of her and Carol in her wallet, so she's the real deal. Don't think this is the last we've seen of her.

Then there was the big moment with Nate and his secret source at the end of the episode. He gets a text at one point telling him the paparazzi didn't cause Chuck and Blair's limo to crash, and he investigates. Turns out the brakes were cut. It also turns out that Blair and Chuck got in the wrong limo... NATE'S LIMO. OOOOhhh... who has it out for Nate? We don't know yet. But we do know who's got the dish FOR Nate... Gossip Girl (who, otherwise, has gone dark since the accident).

The best moments in this episode were definitely centered around Blair, whether she was sharing scenes with Dan, Chuck or Serena. But the best developments from the episode going forward were the B and C stories. Add it all up, and it makes for one great hour.

So Who IS Buffy's Baby Daddy?

It's been a few days since Buffy Season 9 #5 dropped the baby bomb on the Buffyverse, and Dark Horse has confirmed both that Buffy IS pregnant (ruining my "it's still part of her dream" speculation) and that she doesn't know who the father is.

Now, just because Buffy doesn't know the father's identity doesn't mean that the creators of the book don't know. In fact, it'd seem pretty unlikely that they'd make a move like this without knowing exactly how it happened in-universe and where it's going. It also doesn't prevent us from speculating, which is what I'm about to do here.

First, while Dark Horse hasn't officially confirmed it (at least that I've seen), they've certainly leaned in the direction that Buffy got pregnant at the party seen in Issue #1. Putting aside how problematic that timeline is, that means we can eliminate a number of potential fathers. It's not Angel (or Twilight) and it's not any random person Buffy would have hooked up with in San Francisco between Issues #39 and #40 of Season 8. So we can narrow our candidates list to the males who appeared at the party at the start of Season 9.

So who are they?

Well, by my count, there are seven potential candidates from the party, not including the two police officers and other random unnamed partygoers. Rather than try and rank the likelihood of each candidate over the next, let's just take a look at each of them in alphabetical order.

Andrew

Review: Buffy Season 9, #5 - Slayer, Interrupted

PLOT SUMMARY

A haggard-looking Buffy, Xander and Dawn are fighting off a horde of zompires at Buffy's apartment building. They make their way to Buffy's apartment, but once they're safe inside, Buffy sees that Xander and Dawn have been turned. They attack her, but are staked from behind by The First Slayer, who tells Buffy "You are not The Slayer." Buffy realizes it's a dream and jumps at the First Slayer, who punches Buffy in the gut, causing her to wake up with real-life nausea.

Buffy retells the tale to Willow, who asks why she didn't ask any of the other Slayers if they had slayer dreams. Buffy admits that she's not in communication with them (save for Kennedy, who still blames Buffy for the breakup with Willow) and wonders what the First Slayer meant. Willow suggests she look in the Vampyr book Giles left Buffy.

Buffy pulls out the book, but quickly falls into another dream. The First Slayer points to a horde of zompires and the Scythe, broken and stuck in stone. The First Slayer says "Only The Slayer can pull the blade from the ground. You are not The Slayer." Buffy jumps at the First Slayer and tackles her to the ground. She turns into a faerie, at which point Buffy wakes up.

Buffy consults with Willow again, thinking her dreams are being hijacked. Willow says the only way she's going to solve this is in her dreams, so she comes over to watch over Buffy while she sleeps. Back in dream world, the faerie explains her presence (she'd witnessed the death of the Buffy impostor in S8 #5 and was there to punish Buffy, who the faerie thought was the impostor), and says that when she was planting the nightmares in Buffy's head, she found something Buffy needed to know.

The fairy and the First Slayer bring Buffy back to the scythe. Buffy tries to pull it from the stone, but she can't. Willow, however, can, and says it may be the key to restoring magic. She tells Buffy she needs to leave, and it may be a long trip. Buffy lets Willow go, the dream ends, and the faerie again says Buffy is not the Slayer. Buffy says she needs to wake up to tell Willow about the dream, but the faerie says that Willow already knows, and Buffy realizes that the goodbye in the dream WAS goodbye. Buffy wakes up and Willow and the scythe are gone.

Buffy runs outside to find her, but quickly becomes nauseated again. She has an epiphany, and when we se her coming home, she blows off her roommates and heads straight to the bathroom. Buffy's roommates say they know she's a slayer and they're not sure it's safe to live with her, but Buffy has bigger problems (highlight for spoiler): she's pregnant!

REVIEW