It’s been a while since I’ve done a Quote Challenge, so I thought I’d come up with a new one for you today. This time, however, we’re mixing it up a little and taking quotes from television shows instead of movies.

Here’s how it’ll go: I’ll give you three quotes from twelve different television shows, and you get to guess what each show is. (It was too hard to only pick one quote per series, especially if said series lasted over five seasons.) If you happen to see the name BOB in any given line of dialogue, do not automatically assume that the quote is from Twin Peaks. I’ve just decided to use BOB as a replacement for a character’s name, mostly because I thought it was funny as hell.

Fear BOB! He can be ANYWHERE!

Shall we begin?

1. “BOB is literally on fire today.”
“What kind of fire are we talking about? Michael Jackson in the Pepsi commercial fire or misusing the word ‘literally’ fire?”

“This car makes me want to weep and then die.”

“If I’m not back in exactly four minutes, please come looking for me. But really start giving it some serious thought after two. And if you think that there is anything even slightly amiss after forty-five seconds, you’re the leader here.”

2. “I was raised to believe that men dig up the corpses and women have the babies.”

“I think I’ve figured out how to steer by gesturing emphatically.”

“The monkey is French?”
“All monkeys are French.”

3. “Victory is mine. Victory is mine. Great day in the morning, people. Victory is mine.”

“BOB, on your tombstone it’s gonna read ‘Post hoc ergo propter hoc.’
“Okay, but none of my visitors are going to be able to understand my tombstone.”

“I am making a mental list of those who are snickering, and even as I speak I am preparing appropriate retribution.”

4. “Hand me that foot, would you?”

“BOB, you’re looking grim. I’m afraid I don’t have a supplement for that.”

“Cruella made me wear underwear today. No one makes me wear underwear.”

5. “I like your style, hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. Five counts of attempted murder. That comes to . . . twenty-nine dollars and forty cents. Cash, check, or credit card?”

“I don’t want to be like you. I don’t want to stoop that low. Kirk wouldn’t stoop that low.”
“That was a television show, BOB. And he made Priceline commercials.”

“Shut up! I hate when villains quote Shakespeare!”

6. “Let me just say we accept homeowners of any race, religion, color, or . . . sexual orientation.”

“BOB, it’s your grief counselors. We’ve come to hug.”

“I hope your apple pie is freaking worth it!”

7. “Rule number one: don’t bother sucking up. I already hate you. That’s not going to change.”

“You are eight feet tall. You boobs are perfect. You hair is down to there. If I was you, I wouldn’t have a job. I wouldn’t have any skills. I wouldn’t even know how to read. I would just be . . . naked.”

“Are you really as shallow and callous as you seem?”
“Oh, you want to go out later and hear about my secret pain?”

8. “I feel like I let BOB down.”
“No, he let himself down by coming in this morning wearing a sweater vest.”

“Kiss me!”
“What?”
“I’ll explain later!”
“No!”
“I’ll explain later!”
“The explanation isn’t the issue!”

“You are the AT&T of people.”

9. “I figure people are entitled to their hobbies, and I’m entitled to find those people creepy.”

“That’s my bottle. I’m not going to let you drink it all just because your daddy didn’t hug you much when you were little.”

“I would like a young Gerard Depardieu to play me in the movie.”

10. “I mean, why consummate two years of unbridled passion when we can have pasta?”

“Well, it’s just that sometimes I wish I was more of a free spirit. It must be nice to be a happy-go-lucky sociopath. I kind of envy you.”

“You got an itch, go scratch. It ain’t got to be all complicated either. The male mind understands the difference between love and sex. BOB, come here.”
“Hello, ladies.”
“I want to get busy with you.”
“Outstanding.”
“But I want you to forget about it as soon as it’s over.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
“Don’t be following me around all moo-eyed and ‘baby, I love you’.”
“Yeah, whatever you say.”
“See? No complications.”

11. “When a bomb starts talking about itself in the third person, I get worried.”

“Use grandiose language. He likes to be called sire. And it helps if you say things like, ‘The clever fiendishness of your evil plan is brilliant!’”

“You’re a woman, BOB.”
“Is that an observation or a diagnosis?”

12. “I’m not really a people person. But when you need help — and you will — call me.”

“I’ll be able to go into your brain, even if you’re awake.”
“My brain’s not a nice place to be.”

“Standard interrogation technique. I was bad cop.”
“You’re always bad cop.”
“Why play against type?”

Leave your guesses in the comments section. I’ll probably post the answers next Monday.

Okay, kids. Here are your answers:

1.) Psych

“Lassiter is literally on fire today.”
“What kind of fire are we talking about? Michael Jackson in the Pepsi commercial fire or misusing the word ‘literally’ fire?”

“This car makes me want to weep and then die.”

“If I’m not back in exactly four minutes, please come looking for me. But really start giving it some serious thought after two. And if you think that there is anything even slightly amiss after forty-five seconds, you’re the leader here.”

My love for Psych has faded a bit, over the last few years, but I still enjoy watching it and I absolutely adore the first four seasons of the show. Psych is always silly fun, but at its best, it’s also pretty smart and has some of my favorite looks at pop culture of all time. A few examples of the movies or shows it’s parodied/homaged to excellent effect: the Friday the 13th movies, Twin Peaks, American Idol, telenovelas, The Blair Witch Project, and all things Hitchcock.

And if you’re obsessed with the 1980′s — well, honey, this is the show for you.

2. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer

“I was raised to believe that men dig up the corpses and women have the babies.”

“I think I’ve figured out how to steer by gesturing emphatically.”

“The monkey is French?”
“All monkeys are French.”

Ah, Buffy. I don’t have any deeply inspiring things to say about Buffy because, you know, they’ve probably all been said a bazillion times before. I can say that of all the awesome characters I love and adore . . . I think Oz still kind of remains my favorite. He and Willow were the best. I like Tara, too, but I could watch Willow and Oz clips all day long and never get bored.

We can just ignore Kennedy, can’t we? I do my best to ignore most of seventh season, anyway. (Which isn’t entirely fair because I haven’t gone back to watch it since it first aired. I should, I know, but . . . ugh. I think I liked two episodes in that entire season, and one of them was the finale.)

3. The West Wing

“Victory is mine. Victory is mine. Great day in the morning, people. Victory is mine.”

“CJ, on your tombstone it’s gonna read ‘Post hoc ergo propter hoc.’
“Okay, but none of my visitors are going to be able to understand my tombstone.”

“I am making a mental list of those who are snickering, and even as I speak I am preparing appropriate retribution.”

I absolutely love the first two seasons of The West Wing. Love them. I mostly enjoyed third season too, despite a few problems with it. I then struggled through seasons four and five, and finally gave up somewhere in the beginning of season six. Regardless, I still count The West Wing as one of my favorite shows of all time. The characters, the acting, the dialogue, the humor, the actually interesting and complex political discussions . . . it’s amazing stuff. This show introduced me to the awesome talents of Bradley Whitford, Allison Janney, Richard Schiff, and Joshua Malina, among others, and the death of John Spencer hit me harder than possibly any other actor’s death I can think of in recent memory.

If I blame this show for one thing, it’s for giving me unrealistic expectations of what the press secretary should sound like. Every time I see a clip of Jay Carney fumbling his speech or awkwardly not answering a question, I think, Where the hell is CJ Cregg when you need her?

4. CSI

“Hand me that foot, would you?”

“Mr. Grissom, you’re looking grim. I’m afraid I don’t have a supplement for that.”

“Cruella made me wear underwear today. No one makes me wear underwear.”

This is another show I gave up on seasons ago — not because I hated the direction they were going but because there’s simply a limit to how long a procedural like this can go before every case seems like a carbon copy of every other case they had before it. That, and members of the main cast started leaving, of course. But I watched CSI for years — in fact, I’m pretty sure CSI was the very first fandom I ever wrote for. Nick and Greg were my favorites, although I pretty much liked everyone but Catherine. Not that she didn’t have her moments, but she pissed me off a couple of times (it is NOT okay to be mean to Sara) and I hated almost every single one of her boring ass storylines.

When I first moved out after high school, we didn’t have cable, not even basic cable, and these were the years before Netflix Instant. Basically all I had to watch were episodes of CSI and The Simpsons on DVD. Clearly, these were dark times.

5. Farscape

“I like your style, hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. Five counts of attempted murder. That comes to . . . twenty-nine dollars and forty cents. Cash, check, or credit card?”

“I don’t want to be like you. I don’t want to stoop that low. Kirk wouldn’t stoop that low.”
“That was a television show, John. And he made Priceline commercials.”

“Shut up! I hate when villains quote Shakespeare!”

Farscape is my favorite science-fiction show of all time. I mean, at least at the moment — there are tons of SF shows I haven’t even seen. But of the ones I have . . . I adore Farscape in all its breathtaking, kooky, space opera glory. This is a show that knows how to balance the absurd with the tragic, and I love it. I love how John’s journey changes him. Aeryn is one of my very favorite female badasses ever. D’Argo kind of starts out like a Worf rip-off but totally becomes his own character, and he’s awesome. The relationships are great. The insanity is great. The villains are exceptional — Scorpius? Best. Fucking. Thing. Ever. This show has one of my very favorite version of a love triangle ever, and there’s even an episode with cartoons!

Farscape probably takes at least half a season to really find its own voice, but once it does and goes balls to the wall with it . . . it’s spectacular.

6. Supernatural

“Let me just say we accept homeowners of any race, religion, color, or . . . sexual orientation.”

“Neil, it’s your grief counselors. We’ve come to hug.”

“I hope your apple pie is freaking worth it!”

I used to absolutely love Supernatural. I might have written my very first fanfiction for CSI, but I became obsessed with fanfiction when I started watching this show. Monsters, road trips, angst, brother bonding, and Jensen Ackles? Yeah, I was there.

I stopped watching Supernatural after fifth season, though. I was already struggling some with the show — the whole “is he evil/is he good/I might have to kill him” blah blah blah started getting a little old in third season for me, so sometimes watching this show felt a bit like a chore, as much as I loved certain elements. (Read: Castiel.) And while I wasn’t fully satisfied with how fifth season ended, it certainly felt like the story had wrapped and the series had stopped where it was supposed to. So when I started watching sixth season, it just . . . felt off, inauthentic, I guess. And the brothers still didn’t trust each other. And I was like, eh. I’m out. I’ll watch the rest of the show once it’s wrapped.

Mind you, I thought that would happen after one year, maybe two. I didn’t expect the show to still be going in its ninth season.

7. Grey’s Anatomy

“Rule number one: don’t bother sucking up. I already hate you. That’s not going to change.”

“You are eight feet tall. You boobs are perfect. You hair is down to there. If I was you, I wouldn’t have a job. I wouldn’t have any skills. I wouldn’t even know how to read. I would just be . . . naked.”

“Are you really as shallow and callous as you seem?”
“Oh, you want to go out later and hear about my secret pain?”

Oh, Grey’s Anatomy. You are my ultimate love/hate, on/off show. (It’s currently . . . sort of on. I gave up on it — again — last year, but a subplot I’ve been wanting to see for years finally came into fruition, so I’m watching long enough to see that wrapped up. And then I’ll probably quit watching it again.)

There’s been a lot of talent on this cast over the past ten years, some amazing scenes, and a lot of pretty awesome monologues. (Ellen Pompeo gets a lot of shit, but I don’t think she’s anywhere near as bad of an actress as people make her out to be. And her “You don’t get to call me a whore” speech? Still kind of awesome.) But there have unfortunately been a lot of repetitive and highly unnecessary monologues and a few awful plot developments, specifically characters who should never have gotten together. (Can I be honest? I hated the ghost sex stuff just like everyone else, but George and Izzie as a couple? Actually hated that even more.)

8. Community

 “I feel like I let Mr. Rad down.”
“No, he let himself down by coming in this morning wearing a sweater vest.”

“Kiss me!”
“WHAT?”
“I’ll explain later!”
“No!”
“I’ll EXPLAIN LATER!”
“The explanation isn’t the issue!”

“You are the AT&T of people.”

I’ve talked quite a bit about how much I love Community, so I won’t go over all that again here. I will say that I’m trying not to get my hopes for the next season, whenever it actually airs. With Dan Harmon in and Chevy Chase out, I’m looking forward to it . . . but we’ll see. I have some concerns. And Donald Glover’s only going to be in, what? Seven episodes? Eight? It makes me so sad.

Maybe I’ll just watch the Law & Order parody episode again. That always makes me happy. Honestly, the exchange above about kisses and explanations? Possibly one of my favorite moments on Community ever. I laughed so hard the first time I saw that. You go, Quendra with a Q-U.

9. Justified

“I figure people are entitled to their hobbies, and I’m entitled to find those people creepy.”

“That’s my bottle. I’m not going to let you drink it all just because your daddy didn’t hug you much when you were little.”

“I would like a young Gerard Depardieu to play me in the movie.”

I posted quotes for twelve different shows in this challenge. Almost every show was accurately guessed by somebody. Only two went unsolved. One of the shows only lasted two seasons and has been off-air for over ten years. The other show was Justified.

And now I am sad all over again.

But it’s okay, Justified. I will always love you. I will always know that you have featured some of the very best heroes, antiheroes, and villains, that your dialogue is exceptional, that your supporting cast is brilliant, and that Raylan and Boyd have the very best bromance/frenemy relationship ever. You almost certainly won’t get any more Emmys, but you will always have my heart.

10. Dark Angel

“I mean, why consummate two years of unbridled passion when we can have pasta?”

“Well, it’s just that sometimes I wish I was more of a free spirit. It must be nice to be a happy-go-lucky sociopath. I kind of envy you.”

“You got an itch, go scratch. It ain’t got to be all complicated either. The male mind understands the difference between love and sex. Sketchy, come here.”
“Hello, ladies.”
“I want to get busy with you.”
“Outstanding.”
“But I want you to forget about it as soon as it’s over.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
“Don’t be following me around all moo-eyed and ‘baby, I love you’.”
“Yeah, whatever you say.”
“See? No complications.”

This is the show that first introduced me to Jensen Ackles, so obviously I’m grateful for that. I had a huge crush on Alec when I was, oh, 15? 16? Then Dark Angel went away, and I never saw him again . . . until I watched a promo for Supernatural however many years later and was like, Hey, isn’t that the guy I used to love from that one show with Jessica Alba? And lo and behold, it was.

Dark Angel was not a perfect show, and its second season was particularly rocky. Regardless, it had started to improve quite a bit, and I was getting really into it again when the show was abruptly cancelled. Even after all these years, it still kind of bothers me. For all its faults, Dark Angel knew how to do a season finale. These were big game changing episodes, and I wish I could have seen where the third season would have gone.

Admittedly, the Max/Logan “we can’t touch or Logan dies” disease was contrived bullshit. Maybe they would have finally solved that shit and put it far, far behind them.

11. Star Trek: Voyager

“When a bomb starts talking about itself in the third person, I get worried.”

“Use grandiose language. He likes to be called sire. And it helps if you say things like, ‘The clever fiendishness of your evil plan is brilliant!’”

“You’re a woman, Seven.”
“Is that an observation or a diagnosis?”

Do you people have any idea how hard it is to find three good quotes from this show? It’s not that all the dialogue is worthless — it’s that practically every good line seems to reference the holodeck or Klingons or the Federation or warp speed. Which I guess would have worked for a “Guess the Star Trek” Quote Game, but not as well here.

Anyway. This was a hugely flawed show with so much missed potential, but it’s also a childhood favorite, so it’s always going to have a place in my heart . . . even if I’m still weeping over the bullshit Seven-Chakotay romance or the sheer mediocrity of that series finale. By the way, did you guys read that there’s been at least some semi-serious talk about a new Trek show on television? I’d actually love to see one for a few different reasons, but if it actually happens, I think we seriously need to up our game on just about everything — budget, dialogue, acting, etc.

I’m totally okay with an optimistic Star Trek show, but I think we’re well past the age of low-budget, super cheesy Trek.

12. Justice League

“I’m not really a people person. But when you need help — and you will — call me.”

“I’ll be able to go into your brain, even if you’re awake.”
“My brain’s not a nice place to be.”

“Standard interrogation technique. I was bad cop.”
“You’re always bad cop.”
“Why play against type?”

I’m actually still watching this show (well, Justice League: Unlimited, anyway) for the first time on Netflix, but I’ve been really enjoying it so far. My favorite thing to do is to guess the guest actors’ voices because I don’t think there’s been a single episode thus far where I’ve looked up the cast and not recognized anybody.

Obviously Batman’s my favorite because — say it with me  – KEVIN CONROY IS THE BEST, but Flash is enjoyable enough, and Hawkgirl is pretty awesome. She’s made my list of possible Dragon Con costumes. (Other people on the list: Helena from Orphan Black, Morticia Addams from The Addams Family, and a girl version of Boss Solomon Grundy from Justice League: Unleashed.)

It’s funny. I’m totally obsessed with The Avengers and all the upcoming movies leading up to The Avengers: Age of Ultron, but when it comes to cartoons, I’m almost exclusively a DC girl all the way. (X-Men cartoons have so far been the only serious exception.) Maybe I should try to switch it up a bit and give Earth’s Mightiest Heroes a whirl.

I guess that’s it, folks. Thanks for playing!

Here’s what I watched this month. It should probably be obvious, but in case it’s not: SPOILERS abound. (PLEASE do not leave any Walking Dead comics spoilers in the comments, though. I’m really trying to avoid them.)

Scandal

Oh, how I missed you, Scandal. You are just good juicy fun.

The season premiere picked up right where the finale left off, which was nice. It also retconned the one thing about the finale I absolutely hated, which was also nice. I think they’ve done a pretty decent job of setting up the season, and I’m actually excited about Olivia’s Dad (Joe Morton) being in the mix. Dude, he is EVIL. I can’t wait to see more. (Also, I really hope Olivia slaps the President when she realizes he’s the one who leaked her name to the press.)

I continue to love the moral ambiguity of all the characters in this show. If there was a flaw to this premiere, it’s probably that the side characters didn’t have very much screen time. That’s not actually much of a flaw because this episode clearly was meant to be Olivia-oriented. It’s just that Scandal has a great supporting cast, and I’d like to see a bit more of them. I am happy whenever Joshua Malina pops up on screen, and Harrison and Abby definitely need their own storylines this year.

FAVORITE QUOTE:

“It’s not too late to pull back. Couldn’t we just kill another intern? A bad one. The worst one.”

GRADE:

A-

Arrow

This episode wasn’t exactly amazeballs or anything, but it wasn’t a bad start. I guess I was a little disappointed because I was hoping the ‘Diggle and Felicity retrieve Mopey Oliver from the Island’ storyline would have lasted longer than five seconds. But hey, I was all for the Tarzan/Jane action — it’s nice to know the writers are clearly listening to the shippers. The “you’re really sweaty” line was pretty great.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Laurel acting all mature and reasonable with Oliver — I totally expected a bunch of annoying I can’t look at you anymore nonsense for half a season. That being said, I don’t at all understand her reasoning behind gunning for the vigilante. She says this about Dead Tommy: “He was killed in the crossfire between two archers. And now that Malcolm’s dead, there’s only one archer left and I’m going to help my boss catch him.” Which . . . doesn’t even make sense. Does she really think the Dark Archer wouldn’t have leveled the Glades if our hero hadn’t been around? Why would she possibly think that? Is she just trying to blame the vigilante for her own guilt or something? (I’m not saying Laurel is responsible for Tommy’s death, just that she likely would feel guilty. He did die saving her life and all.)

I’ll have to wait and see how Summer Glau’s character turns out. Right now, I’m not particularly interested in her, but that could possibly change with time. I’m a little more excited about Black Canary and some of the other DC characters I know are headed our way. Also, Walter’s back! YAY! I don’t know if he’ll continue to pop up or not, but I was glad he at least showed up once. I really like Colin Salmon.

And hey, a perfect pun transition — the salmon ladder survived Felicity’s remodel of the Arrow Cave. This is truly excellent news.

FAVORITE QUOTE:

“What I lack in height, I make up for in wicked good hearing.”

GRADE:

B

The Walking Dead

On the plus side, the season premiere introduced a new mysterious plague, which is awesome. I mean, I felt a little bad for nerd kid Patrick and all, but this storyline’s kind of intriguing — presumably the animals are all diseased now, although diseased with what, I’m not exactly sure. I suppose it’s a natural thing, but I couldn’t help wonder if somehow the Governor had found a way to poison the wildlife as revenge against the prison crew. I guess that’s pretty unlikely, but I thought it’d be kind of neat. (You know, I have to psych myself up about the Governor somehow, since I’m still annoyed the bastard’s alive at all.)

Also, Carol’s teaching the kids how to stab things, which is pretty spectacular. Michonne actually smiles, and I shockingly don’t hate Beth. (Although if they were going to make it that obvious her BF would die on the supply run, I’m not sure why Kyle Gallner wasn’t just wearing a shirt that said Dead Meat.) Also Zombie Rain? I am always up for Zombie Rain.

Unfortunately, I found Rick’s whole storyline kind of . . . awkward. Like, I like the whole idea behind it, you know, can you come back from insanity and/or the horrible things you had to do to survive. Both Hershell and Crazy Irish Lady seemed to have different yet fairly valid answers for that, which is cool. But it was just so obvious that Crazy Irish Lady was crazy . . . I just didn’t care about her and couldn’t get into the idea that Rick was following her around the woods. It was such a clear setup for a Big Thematic Moment that I became annoyed by it. And for Christ’s sake, has Rick somehow gotten dumber? Look, I know he’s shaken up by his brush with insanity and his kid’s sociopathic tendencies and all, but he’s trying to wander around post-apocalyptic zombie world without a gun?! This is unacceptable.

So yeah. Some cool ideas, but I’m not totally sold on the execution. I’m not completely disheartened, though — it’s still twelve times better than the season finale. Oh, and while I could be wrong about this — like how long have I been expecting Hershell to finally die, right? — I think this might be the season where either Glenn or Maggie actually bites it.

FAVORITE QUOTE:

“Your face is losing the war.”

GRADE:

B

Once Upon a Time in Wonderland

Despite the fact that I gave up on Once Upon a Time (twice, even), I felt like I should give the spin-off a try. Cause, you know. It’s Alice. And Wonderland. And insane asylums. And . . . genies? Okay, whatever. At least Dr. Frankenstein hasn’t shown up yet.

The series premiere is . . . uh . . . interesting. I think I might keep watching this for a little while because I did like parts of it, and I’m a sucker for fairy tales and such. Still, I have the feeling I’ll drop it before the season is out. (If it even makes it a whole season. I read the show did not-so-good in the ratings department.) I do have something of a soft spot for roguish characters with accents, so obviously I like the Knave. And Alice herself (Sophie Lowe) is pretty enjoyable. I like seeing her kick the shit out of orderlies. She does have a couple of hideously dumb moments, but I like the actress’s performance enough to look past them.

I can’t look past a few things, though:

A: When the hell time does this story take place? Did the Knave go back in time to rescue Alice from a new-fangled lobotomy in what is clearly a Victorian nuthouse, or is Alice from some magical patch of the English countryside where everyone behaves like it’s the 1800′s? Or is this version of Victorian England its own parallel world, separate from ours?

B. I can’t stand the Red Queen. Lana Parrilla, this lady is not.

C. The CGI is the worst. And I watch Warehouse 13, you guys. I regularly look past hideously awful CGI . . . but this shit, from the White Rabbit to the last shot of the . . . ah . . . Yellow Brick Road? It’s so terrible. And frankly, it’s not like ABC doesn’t have the money. I forgive Syfy for their budget issues, but Disney Central? Please.

D. Alice explains to her love, Cyrus, that her dad believes she’s crazy — you know, cause of all the stories of talking rabbits and eat me/drink me potions and whatnot — and she needs to bring proof of Wonderland back to him. Cyrus’s reaction: “So you’re risking your life for someone who doesn’t believe in you. You know, when you really love someone, you don’t need proof. You can feel it.”

Ugh. UGH. This is a terrible message. I feel rage rising inside me even as I think about it. (Or is that bile? Regardless.)

Thankfully, I just need to think of Naveen Andrew’s utterly ridiculous wig, and I’m back to smiling again. (There’s just so much hair!)

FAVORITE QUOTE:

“I think people in your world do this down on one knee — “
“Yes! Yes, I will!”
“. . . but I had a whole speech. It was going to be charming and eloquent.”

GRADE:

B-

Person of Interest is one of my favorite TV shows right now. It’s really raised the bar on just how good a network procedural can be. Unfortunately, it’s also seriously annoyed me with its most recent episode, and when I say annoyed, I mean pissed me right the hell off.

Yeah. This is Finch’s reaction to my WRATH.

Actually, other shows have annoyed me recently too — I mean, sweet Jesus, Walking Dead, what the boring, boring hell — but I’m going to focus on this one today. (Honestly, I’d planned to write quite a bit about Scandal as well, as both Scandal and Person of Interest have made extremely disappointing choices with their female characters of late, but I’d like to get to bed on the sooner side. Maybe next week, folks. I’m pretty sure my ire is going to continue.)

BIG TIME SPOILERS for Person of Interest’s “The Crossing.” If you have not seen it, please do not read.

So. Let’s talk about the death of Detective Joss Carter.

Now let’s be clear. I’m not mad at PoI just for killing Carter. I am, admittedly, a teeny tiny bit frustrated because I feel like, as a character, Carter’s finally come into her own, and I’m disappointed I don’t get to watch her anymore, especially now that she’s totally awesome. But she did bring down HR almost completely by herself, and that’s pretty badass. Also, PoI has been promoting this three-episode “event” of theirs with the heavy implication that someone important will die, and there’s nothing more lame sauce than doing that and then just killing off some random guest star who nobody cares about and has been in maybe a handful of episodes. Taraji P. Henson has been a main cast member since the pilot, and killing her off is a fairly bold move, which I approve of.

Here’s my problem:

Until this episode, Reese and Carter have never had a romantic relationship. I’m not saying they weren’t important to one another. I’m not saying they haven’t had some nice moments or couldn’t have ended up together eventually, but they so weren’t there yet. The Big Moment in this episode couldn’t have felt more artificial if it tried. Reese is just like, yeah, we’re trapped together, so let me suddenly tell you all about how you kept me from committing suicide and gave my life meaning. And while I’m like, “Wait, wasn’t it really Finch and his Machine who gave your life meaning?” Reese and Carter just proceed straight on to Kissy Face.

It’s bad. It’s really, really bad.

Of course, I could get past that hastiness of Kissy Face if Reese and Carter weren’t solely getting together to throw Carter’s ass firmly in a refrigerator.

Look, not every woman-in-a-refrigerator story is automatically bad. Some of them are actually pretty good because, sure, it’s an overused trope, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make it work for you, if you do it right. But this . . . this is pretty terrible. Killing off a girlfriend is one thing, but turning someone into a last minute love interest just to immediately bump her off and give your lead hero Rage Face . . . yeah, that is immensely cheap.

It annoys me especially because I’ve been championing Person of Interest as the best show for women on TV right now, and then they do something like this. Of course, it’s not all bad. PoI still has Root and Shaw, who are pretty awesome. (Zoe, too, although she’s not main cast.) And most of the episode is really pretty solid. I especially like the misdirect — John and Fusco are the ones supposedly in danger, but in the end it’s Carter who actually dies. Still, I can’t help but feel that she deserved a lot better, and I wish like hell Person of Interest had realized that. Maybe I’ll feel a little better about all this once I see how the story actually plays out . . . but right now I’m just feeling bitter and frustrated.

My hope? Fusco, not John, is the one who ultimately kills Simmons. That wouldn’t make up for this, not completely, but I think I’d like it a lot better.

The full list is here, but if you’d like the highlighted edition:

1. Tatiany Maslany gets a nod for Orphan Black!

This is well-earned. I am very pleased.

2. Sadly, Justifed and Game of Thrones were both completely shut out. Again.

3. Lots of Big Deal Shows got shut out this year. Mad Men and Sons of Anarchy failed to receive any love, plus . . . no joke . . . Homeland. Seriously, Homeland, who won last year for Best Lead Actor, Lead Actress, AND Best Series got NOTHING.

I’ll admit to being slightly amused by this. Which is totally unfair because I haven’t even seen the show. Still. Revolution! Who will be our new King of Television? I figure it’ll be Breaking Bad for their final season. (And I will be annoyed if it’s Downton Abbey instead. Look, I’m not saying the show is bad. It’s not bad. I’ll probably give it another try, despite my overall lack of enthusiasm with the third season. But come on, this show? It is not better than Justified OR GoT.)

4. I don’t watch any of the nominated comedies. I’m rooting for Parks & Recreation anyway.

5. I also haven’t seen any of the nominated comedies up for Best Motion Picture, although I’d like to see Her and I’m kind of interested in American Hustle, mostly for Jennifer Lawrence. And for Jeremy Renner’s hair. And Bradley Cooper’s hair.

This right here? This makes me so happy.

6. In the epic showdown between 12 years a Slave and Gravity – sorry, other nominated movies; apparently no one cares about you – I have to pick Gravity because, well, that’s the movie I watched. (I know I need to watch 12 years a Slave, but good God, that sounds heavy. Which, yes, is kind of the point . . . but knowing me, I’m probably going to procrastinate that shit until well after award season, no matter how much I like both Chiwetel Ejiofor and Michael Fassbender.)

As far as Gravity goes, though . . . I know there’s been a lot of criticism of the story’s simplicity, but I still think it’s an excellent film and would love to see it do well here.

7. I have now listened to all the nominated Best Original Songs. (Thanks, Youtube!) I think “Please Mr. Kennedy” is my favorite, and I’ll let Slate.com argue why it deserves to win. Also, Taylor Swift got nominated for a song featured in a movie I’ve never even heard of.

8. Finally, the Best Supporting Actor/Actress in a Series, Mini-Series, or TV Movie category continues to be ridiculous. I say this every year and will continue saying it until the people who run the Golden Globes realizes they’re idiots. So, probably forever, then.

The Golden Globes are on January 12th, 2014. Pretend to come for the awards all you want. We know you’re really there for the fashion.

I recently finished watching the first season of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

I really enjoyed it, and I’m looking forward to watching second season . . . but it just wouldn’t be My Geek Blasphemy if I didn’t post a few criticisms and some deeply insightful fashion analysis.

DISCLAIMER:

Mild spoilers for Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and a little speculation about upcoming Marvel movies.

NOTES:

1. I want to like Wasp, I really do, but I just can’t get past how ineffectual she seems.

It’s the energy beams, I think. I can see how shrinking down to the size of a bug might be useful for some things, like infiltration or evasion, but I’m not convinced fighting supervillains is one of them. Which is where the energy beams are supposed to come in, only the beams aren’t any bigger than she is, so it always looks like Wasp is throwing a handful of cigarette sparks at a giant monster. Which, hey, I’ve had cigarette sparks land on my arm before, and they hurt. But thing is, I’m not a giant sized monster — I’m not even tall — and my skin isn’t protected by shit. It’s not surprising that the greater majority of bad guys just stand there, unmoved, as she throws the world’s cutest firecrackers at them.

Admittedly, it was pretty cool when Wasp became gigantic that one time. I didn’t even know she could do that. Then again, it was one time, and Ant-Man kind of fills that particular function on the team anyway. (I refuse to call him Giant Man when he becomes giant instead of small. It’s the same fucking guy. Unless his actual personality changes during these transitions, he will continue to be Ant-Man for me.)

I just wish Wasp had some other power or marketable skill or something to fight with — because when a villain taunts her at the end of the season by saying even unpowered Hawkeye is more useful . . . well, I enthusiastically agreed, and I’m not sure I was supposed to.

2. By the way, Hawkeye? TOTALLY my favorite.

Cause, yeah. Despite the fact that his costume is particularly ridiculous, even for a superhero, Hawkeye is AWESOME. He’s funny. He’s always coming to the team’s rescue. And he has lines like this: “Uh, does anyone know how to stop this, whatever it is? There’s an elf here giving me a dirty look.”

I’ve now added Hawkeye: Vol. 1: My Life as a Weapon to my ridiculously long To-Read list. I should see if they have it at the library. Man, I wish comic books weren’t so godamned expensive.

3. I like Hawkeye in The Avengers (2012 movie), but he’s certainly not my favorite. (Not surprising, considering Jeremy Renner has probably the least to do.) In the movie, my favorite character is Bruce Banner, and oh, how I love him. So much with the Banner love. Unfortunately for me, Bruce Banner barely exists in EMH. Instead, it’s almost all Hulk, all the time.

In case The Hulk WITHOUT a massive weapon isn’t intimidating enough.

I mean, I get why. Hulk’s the guy you use in battle, and kids are probably going to be way more into a big angry green guy than some mild mannered scientist. The show even comes up with a halfway-decent explanation for why we rarely ever see Bruce Banner . . . but I still miss the guy, and I can’t help but feel that by taking him out of the equation, we’re kind of losing what’s interesting about the character. The first few episodes where we get a back and forth between Hulk and Banner are actually kind of neat, but after that . . . Bruce is just gone. (It also vaguely annoys me that nobody else on the team seems terribly concerned about this, that no one’s like, man, it sucks that Bruce Banner doesn’t actually get the chance to live. In fact, nobody mentioned him for so long that I honestly thought maybe the other Avengers didn’t know about Hulk’s alter ego for a while. This turned out not to be the case.)

It’s also sad because Gabriel Mann voices Bruce Banner in EMH, and I like Gabriel Mann. He was easily the best part about Revenge, and the only reason I regretted giving up the show in second season.

4. While Bruce Banner is my favorite Avenger in the movie, and Hawkeye is my favorite in the cartoon, Thor apparently remains my least favorite Avenger in either.

Not that Thor doesn’t have a certain charm, but . . . I find Asgard even more boring in EMH than I did in The Dark World. Every time we go back there, I’m like, yawn. Wake me up when something interesting happens. Cause I may not have totally loved The Dark World with all my heart and soul, but it still has one big advantage that EMH clearly does not have:

EMH‘s version of Loki? Yeah, not as impressive.

5. There are a few disparities between the movie I love, which introduced me to our heroes, and this series, which I assume is closer to canon. For one thing, Tony Stark is unequivocally the team leader, not Captain America. For another, it is both hilarious and adorable just how much Tony seems to respect and even idolize Captain America when he shows up. Thank God fanfiction prepared me for that — I’m sure I would have otherwise spit out my soda when Tony said something like, “We all look up to you.”

6. One of the things I really do like about this series is the continuing storyline. Storylines, actually. This isn’t really a standalone, monster-of-the-week type show, at least not entirely. Events from one episode definitely lead into the next, which I think is kind of cool. And the season finale, damn. Way to leave us on a cliffhanger, show. (I mean, the second and last season is also on Netflix, so it won’t take me too long to resolve said cliffhanger, but still.) Not to mention, Nick Fury is still missing. I mean, dude. It’s been, like, episodes.

7. I like T’Challa well enough — he’s very dry, and he has some fairly funny lines — but I had some trouble taking his homeland, Wakanda, very seriously.

Maybe it would bother me less if Wakanda was a secret island? I feel like I could buy into that easier than some hidden nation in the middle of Africa that mines all this magical shit. Or maybe it’s because of the magical shit — maybe it hits a wrong chord with me because Wakanda vaguely reminds me of some super secret community of magical negroes? I don’t know if that’s entirely fair, though. After all, the Wakandans have their own problems — they don’t solely exist to help white people with their issues. Maybe I just can’t take any battle for a kingdom seriously if the evil contender for the throne is named Man-Ape.

I wouldn’t mind see T’Challa in a live action movie, one of these days, but I have literally no idea what they do would do for his backstory because I can’t see this playing on a big screen at all.

8. I got my first introduction to Ultron, which was exciting, considering he’s the main villain in the upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron. Considering that Ant-Man is scheduled to release AFTER AoU, I think we can safely say that Hank Pym will no longer be his creator. Which worries me because I’m profoundly unenthused by the idea that Ultron might become Tony Stark’s pet project. (He had input in the cartoon, but Ultron is clearly Pym’s baby.)

It makes me a certain level of sense — Stark is, after all, kind of all about robots, and I can see a possible way to link the conclusion of Iron Man 3 to Avengers 2 with this idea — but I also feel like we’ve DONE Tony’s guilt over the terrible weapons he’s created, and I’m not really excited to see that rehashed on an epic scale.

9. It’s funny — when I watched Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, I always had to check IMDb after every episode to figure out who I was listening to, or to confirm I had guessed the actor correctly. It really seemed like there was somebody I knew in every single episode. Just a short list of some of the guest actors on JL and JLU: Jeffrey Combs, Nathan Fillion, Clancy Brown, CCH Pounder, Robert Picardo, Oded Fehr, Gina Torres, J.K. Simmons, Amy Acker, James Remar, Michael Dorn, Lisa Edelstein, Ben Browder, Keith David, Juliet Landau, and — of course — Mark Hamill.

And it’s not that I didn’t like the voice work in EMH – or that I never recognized any of the actors — but I definitely didn’t have that, “Ohmygod, I know that voice, who IS that,” reaction to any of the episodes. This isn’t a criticism of the show, really, just something I noticed. I was amused to realize that the same guy voiced both Ant-Man from EMH and Edward Nygma from the Arkham video games. (Hawkeye is also in the Arkham video games, or at least Chris Cox, who plays him. Unfortunately, Chris Cox voiced Deadshot. I wanted to STRANGLE Deadshot in Arkham Origins.)

10. Finally, we have to talk about worst fashion cause, wow. Obviously there are some terrible costumes on display. Like I said, Hawkeye’s is pretty bad — there’s no doubt about it — but I don’t think anyone can beat out Baron Zemo for Total Fashion Disaster.

I mean, Good God. What IS that? I can get around the head-to-toe purple and the little crown and the ridiculously giant gold belt, but why in God’s name are you wearing Dalmation fur on your shoulders? AND WHY ARE THERE MATCHING FUR-LINED BOOTS?

Congratulations, Baron Zemo. You and your vaguely Cruella De Vil inspired accessories are the worst.

So, there’s this thing that happens to my brain sometimes. It kinda, sorta gets set on fire? Like, I watch a trailer for something or see a movie I liked, and my brain jumps from that was kind of interesting to holy SHIT I can’t think of anything else and are you expecting me to do something important right now, like work or pay attention to what you’re saying, because, seriously, I’m too busy thinking about this thing I just saw; in fact, I need to watch this thing again, like, maybe another 50 times or so, like, right now. So. Bye!

So, yeah. I do that. It can be kind of annoying, actually, because it can last a little longer than — strictly speaking — is probably normal, but it’s just how my brain works, and as long as I only do it with TV shows or actors’ filmographies and never progresses to actually stalking people in real life . . . you know, I’m not going to worry about it too much. Anyway, about maybe ten days ago, my brain caught on fire again . . . with the MTV series Teen Wolf, of all things.

I have never seen the 80′s movie Teen Wolf. I’ve heard of it, of course, and I laughed my ass off when I saw a short clip on TV and discovered that all the teenagers in this school were apparently just totally chill with this fucking werewolf playing basketball with them . . . but I’ve never felt any particular inclination to see the movie itself, and when I heard that MTV was making a TV series based on it, well, I was laughing my ass off at that, too.

But the thing is, I read fanfiction kind of obsessively — in fact, that’s mostly how I work through my current pop culture flavor of the month — so over the last couple of years, I couldn’t help but notice that a lot of the authors I really liked were all into this Teen Wolf show. And I was like, Really? THAT show? But when I kept hearing decent things about it, especially post season one, I figured, Okay, maybe I’ll check this out sometime.

Sometime was ten days ago, when I decided to look up a couple of clips on Youtube, maybe glance at a fanfiction or two, and check out this “Stiles” character that everybody and their mother seemed to love. I figured I’d see if it looked like my kind of thing or not, and if I wanted to check it out between noir flicks.

. . . and within a few hours my brain was burning, and my long suffering but awesome sister and I sped through the twelve episode first season in two days.

SUMMARY:

Scott McCall (Tyler Posey), an asthmatic and permanent benchwarmer for the high school lacrosse team, is bitten by a werewolf and has to deal with all the bullshit that goes along with that, like gruesome, unexplained murders, hunters who want to kill him and all his kind, and not shifting into wolf form in front of his new girlfriend.

NOTES:

1. The fandom was absolutely right: Stiles (Dylan O’Brien) is easily the best character in the entire series.

Stiles is Scott’s snarky best friend, and while of course it’s true that the geeky comic relief is generally the best character in any series, I specifically kind of love Stiles and all his sarcastic, hyperactive glory. I like that he’s clearly the brains of the outfit. I like his relationship with his dad. I especially like whenever he makes fun of Scott because, good God, does Scott deserve to be made fun of sometimes. (And occasionally punched in the face. I swear, that kid . . . well, we’ll get to Scott.)

Maybe the best thing about Stiles is that he’s the funny one and the nerdy one but not exactly the nice one. After all, he does spend basically the whole first season pretty actively hoping for a main character to die, and that main character is not actually a bad guy. And while Stiles is incredibly loyal to Scott and sweetly anxious about his dad’s safety, he doesn’t seem to have much of a problem tricking or using anyone else to get what he needs. He’s kind of a terrible little shit, in a way, but he’s so much fun to watch.

2. Scott, however, is less of a terrible little shit than an obnoxious, lovestruck twit who’s kind of a horrible friend.

Honestly, I don’t hate Scott. He does have some good moments and a few reactions I totally buy, although I do think Tyler Posey is probably one of the weaker acting links on the show. (He’s pretty young, though, and it’s totally possible he’ll get better with further seasons as he settles into his character.) But by God, all Scott EVER DOES is think about Allison.

Allison is Scott’s love interest, and their star-crossed romance — especially in early episodes — is easily the most boring thing about Teen Wolf. On the upside, the show is pretty quick to call out Scott for his woobiness, his single-minded devotion, and his utter lack of priorities, which is not only gratifying for this reviewer with a cold, dead heart . . . it’s also, occasionally, hilarious. (I can’t tell you how hard I laughed at this one scene. I was dying.)

Allison, herself, is okay. There are a couple of episodes where she was kind of driving me crazy, but she also has a few moments I really liked, and I think I might enjoy her storyline more in Season Two, where it looks like she’ll have more to do than think about Scott and look confused about all the weird shit that’s happening around her and think about Scott some more.

3. Some of my favorite characters in this teen show are the adults. Specifically, Scott’s mom and Stiles’s dad.

Melissa McCall (Melissa Ponzio) is kind of hilarious. She’s pretty no-nonsense, has amazing reactions, and actually calls out her son on some of his bullshit. (You might be noticing a trend here, in what I enjoy in a character.) She seems like a very competent single parent, which is rare enough in television, much less television that features creatures that go bump in the night. If Ponzio had displayed even half this much personality while she guest-starred on The Walking Dead, I would have been a lot more invested in her character.

And then there’s also Sheriff Stilinski (Linden Ashby), who I simply can’t not call Sheriff Johnny Cage — because I’m sadly older than the target audience, dammit, and that’s the movie I’m always going to associate Linden Ashby with. Anyway, he’s also a funny, no-nonsense, competent single parent, and I basically adore every scene with him and Stiles together. I think they have one of the most interesting relationship dynamics in the whole show.

4. Oh, also: Kate (Jill Wagner) is kind of awesome.

I won’t talk too much about her for Spoiler Reasons, but yeah. She’s a crazy badass, and I found her pretty damn enjoyable to watch. It’s funny to think of her as the girl from Wipeout. I always forget that TV show hosts generally have other ambitions in the business besides reality show competition gigs, like acting.

5. He’s not a major player — not yet, anyway? — but so far, I’m enjoying how the show is handling Danny, the openly gay teenager on the lacrosse team.

Mostly because he’s popular and likable and nobody has a problem with him. Like, every single kid at Beacon Hills High is like, whatever, he’s gay, can we get back to ME now? Obviously, it’s good to have shows that deal with all the shit that gay teenagers have to deal with in HS, but I think it’s also equally important to have shows that just don’t make a big deal about it, that it’s just totally normal. Cause, you know. It should be.

6. The real terror the kids at this school have to face? Their teachers.

Holy shit, these teachers. They are all horrible human beings — like, these are not the kind mentors you go to after class to talk about your sad family problems. These are the guys that make fun of you in the middle of class because they clearly hate their lives and are secretly hoping to get fired so they can get back on track with whatever their original dream was. I’m not sure how kindly actual teachers would look upon this show, but I’ll admit to finding these guys pretty (meanly) hysterical.

7. Also? Seriously, who the hell plays lacrosse? Maybe this is because I’m from the wrong part of California, you know, the northern, rural part where the only real sport is football, but come on. I want to know how many public high schools in California actually have lacrosse teams. (Also, two Olympic sized swimming pools. Please.)

And while I’m ragging on silliness . . . there’s a bit of total Asthma Fail in the pilot. Oh yeah. One of these days, we’re going to get a kid who takes his inhaler three times in three minutes — preferably after appearing to have some actual kind of respiratory distress and not just deciding, well, I don’t have a lollipop; why don’t I just put my inhaler in my mouth instead – and he’s going to have some godamned shaky hands. Honestly. Why is no one ever twitchy after this? And why does every asthmatic character ever always take a puff off their inhaler when they’re feeling even the slightest bit scared? I WILL CONTINUE TO MOCK YOU, HOLLYWOOD, UNTIL YOU START TAKING ME SERIOUSLY.

8. My mockery will continue with the werewolf makeup because, duh. Werewolf makeup is always the funniest.

In the show’s defense, the werewolves do have kind of an 80′s look to them, so maybe the makeup itself is kind of an homage. And BTVS continues to have (forever) the very worst werewolves. Still. I laugh pretty much every time I see one on Teen Wolf – especially at all the glowy red and blue and yellow eyes –  which means I laugh basically every episode. It’s a recipe for success, really.

Also enjoyable: werewolves don’t take stairs. They don’t need to. They just leap past that shit. A LOT.

9. It occurs to me that I’ve talked a lot about characters and makeup and not very much about the actual plot. And . . . yeah. I don’t think I’m going to start now — it’s considerably easier to avoid accidentally writing big spoilers that way.

Here’s what I will say: I enjoyed this show from the beginning, but the pilot — and really, the first few episodes — are regularly short of amazing. Even for a teen soap, I think they spend a little too much time on unnecessary romantic complications between the main two characters when there are so many other, more interesting mysteries left hovering in the background.

However, it does pick up, and by the end of the first season, I was genuinely finding myself drawn more and more into the story. And from everything I’ve read, the show only gets better, darker, crazier, and more intriguing every season, so I’m really looking forward to watching Season 2 now.

10. Besides, we all know why everyone’s really watching this show, right?

Cause, let’s be honest. If you can push past the pervy factor — and the actors, at least, are all above the age of consent — there are some decent looking young men in this show who are fairly constantly taking off their shirts for you to admire. Like Derek (Tyler Hoechlin), pictured above — who’s very favorite activity in the first season is to lurk in corners and stare ominously at people. Ominously and hotly.

It should be said, though: despite its best efforts, Teen Wolf is currently losing the Exercise Porn War to Arrow. These werewolves sure do like their shirtless pull-ups, but when they start actually climbing salmon ladders while simultaneously angsting away, then I’ll start being impressed with their exercise regimes.

(I will give Teen Wolf this, though: they know their audience. One of the Special Features on the DVD? Season One: Shirtless Montage. Priceless. Shameless, but priceless.)

QUOTES:

Be advised: I keep out any major plot points and spoilers, but there are a fair number of quotes, so some details are bound to leak through. Also, 98% of these quotes are from Stiles. Cause he’s the best.

Stiles: “That’s the spirit. Everyone should have a dream, even a pathetically unrealistic one.”

Scott: “You know what actually worries me the most?”
Stiles: “You say Allison, and I’m gonna punch you in the head.”
Scott: “She probably hates me now.”
Stiles: “Ugh.”

Coach: “My grandmother moves faster than that, and she’s dead. Do you think you can move faster than the lifeless corpse of my dead grandmother?”

Melissa McCall: “Is my beautiful, talented, wonderful son actually bringing me dinner?”
Scott: “Thought you wouldn’t mind skipping the cafeteria tonight.”
Melissa McCall: “You are the most thoughtful, loving, most conniving little con artist ever. You are so not getting the car tomorrow night.”
Scott: “Mom.”
Melissa McCall: “What? There’s a curfew. No car. But I will take this. Love you!”

Sheriff: “So you lied to me?”
Stiles: “That depends on how you define lying.”
Sheriff: “Well, I define it as not telling the truth. How you define it?”
Stiles: “. . . reclining your body in a horizontal position?”

Allison: “Maybe you should stop pretending to suck for his benefit.”
Lydia: “Trust me, I do plenty of sucking just for his benefit.”

Scott: “Am I gonna hurt someone?”
Derek: “Yes.”
Scott: “Could I kill someone?”
Derek: “Yes.”
Scott: “Am I gonna kill someone?”
Derek: “Probably.”

Melissa: “Can you please tell your friend to use the front door?”
Scott: “But we lock the front door. He wouldn’t be able to get in.”
Melissa McCall: “Yeah, exactly. And, by the way, do either of you care that there’s a police enforced curfew?”
Scott and Stiles: “No.”
Melissa McCall: “No. All right, then, well, you know what, that’s enough parenting for me for one night.”

Derek: “Start the car, or I’m going to rip your throat out . . . with my teeth.”

Derek: “You faint at the sight of blood?”
Stiles: “No, but I might at the sight of a chopped off arm!”

(Kate thinks Scott has stolen something out of her bag — which he totally has.)
Kate: “C’mon, Scott. Prove me wrong.”
Allison: “I’ll prove you wrong. Uh, it wasn’t Scott going through your bags. It was me.”
Kate: “You?”
(Allison defiantly holds up a condom in front of her aunt and father.)
Allison: “Me.”

Jackson: “I am not watching The Notebook again!”
(a few minutes later, in the video store)
Jackson: “Can somebody help me find The Notebook?”

Allison: “Sorry, sorry. I just totally soccer-mommed you.”
Scott: “That’s all right. I’ll just pick up my masculinity on the way back.”

Sheriff: “I’m carrying a lethal weapon. If I want the curly fries, I will have the curly fries.”
Stiles: “If you think getting rid of all the contractions in your sentences makes your argument any more legitimate, then you are wrong.”

Stiles: “Hey, it’s me again. Look, I found something, and I don’t know what to do, okay? So if you could turn your phone on right now, that’d be great, or else I’ll kill you. Do you understand me? I’m going to kill you. And I’m too upset to come up with a witty description about how exactly I’m going to kill you, but I’m just going to do it, okay? I’m gonna — UGH. Goodbye.”

Coach: “So, Stiles. Great kid, zero ability to focus, super smart, never takes advantage of his talents.”
Sheriff: “How do you mean?”
Coach: “Well, for his final question on his midterm exam? He detailed the entire history of the male circumcision.”
Sheriff: “Well, I mean it does have historical significance, right?”
Coach: “I teach economics.”
Sheriff: “Aw, crap.”

Stiles: “You know, this whole women make you weak thing is a little too Spartan warrior for me.”

Scott: “Something smells terrible in here, anyway.”
Stiles: “Really? In a boys locker room? That doesn’t make any sense at all.”

Stiles: “Yeah, it’s called heartbreak. About two billion songs written about it.”

Danny: “You’re a horrible person.”
Stiles: “I know. It keeps me awake at night.”

Stiles: “All right, first off . . . throwing Derek under the bus? Nicely done.”

Scott: “What do we do?”
Stiles: “We get to my Jeep. We get out of here. You seriously think about quitting your job.”

Scott: “I love her.”
Stiles: “That’s great; now, moving on –”
Scott: “No, no, no. Really. I think I’m totally in love with her.”
Stiles: “And that’s beautiful. Now, before you go off and write a sonnet, can we figure this out please . . .”

Scott: “Was that okay? I mean that was a howl, right?”
Stiles: “Yeah, technically.”
Scott: “Well, what did it sound like to you?”
Stiles: “Like a cat being choked to death, Scott.”

(Everyone is barricading the door except for Stiles.)
Stiles: “Guys, can we just wait a second — guys, can you listen to me, wait a second — guys — Stiles talking — can we hang on one second — HELLO!
(Everyone finally turns around)
Stiles: “Okay, nice work. Really beautiful job, everyone. Now, what should we do about the twenty foot wall of windows?”

Jackson: “What do you mean, no?”
Stiles: “I mean, no. You wanna hear it in Spanish? No.”

Stiles: “Call me Biles, or I swear to God I’ll kill you.”

Derek: “By the way, one more thing?”
Stiles: “Yeah?”
(Derek slams Stiles’s head into the steering wheel.)
Stiles: “God, what the hell was that f– “
Derek: “You know what that was for.”

(Stiles gets his father drunk so he can access crime scene and arrest records)
Stiles: “Another shot?”
Sheriff: “No, no. No more.”
Stiles: “Dad, come on. You work really hard. You deserve it.”
Sheriff: “Oh my god, I’m going to have such a hangover.”
Stiles: “You mean you’re going to have such a good night sleep. (aside) And I’m going to have an eternity in the lowest circle of Hell.”

Stiles: “Well, I shouldn’t say I told you so . . . because it’s not strong enough. How about I’m always right, and you should listen to whatever I have to say and never disagree ever, ever for the sake of your wolvlihood?”

Scott: “I’m not letting him die.”
Stiles: “Could you at least think about letting him die? For me?”

Melissa McCall: “Have you told her how you feel?”
Scott: “She knows.”
(Melissa smacks Scott in the forehead.)
Melissa: “Come on, she knows. She knows? Listen, dumbass, I’m going to let you in on a secret that most guys don’t even have a clue about, all right? You ready? Women love words.”

(Someone Bad is forcing Stiles to hack into Scott’s phone to turn on the GPS)
Someone Bad (ominously): “Are you going to save him? Are you going to save your best friend who you know so well that you even know his user name and password?
(Stiles enters the username)
Someone Bad (disbelievingly): “His user name is Allison?
(Stiles enters the password)
Someone Bad (annoyed): “His password is also Allison?”
Stiles: “Still want him in your pack?”

(Intimidating Bad Guys are looking for Scott)
Stiles (lying): “Scott McCall? Um, haven’t seen him since the dance. Jackson, you?”
Jackson (badly nervous): “Um . . . I . . .”
Stiles: “Oh, for the love of God.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Soapy, supernatural, enjoyable fun with, I think, some honest-to-God potential . . . especially if they occasionally ease up just a little on Scott’s and Allison’s romance and put the focus somewhere else . . . Stiles, for instance, or hooking up Scott’s mom and Stiles’s dad. (That’s gonna happen, right? I mean, it just has to.)

MVP:

Dylan O’Brien

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B

MORAL:

Love will save you from yourself. Or, alternatively, you can just always listen to your wisecracking buddy instead, and he’ll save you from yourself.

Amy Acker is kind of the best, and I say this not having even seen her in Angel. (I know, I know. What kind of Joss Whedon fan am I? I blame Mekaela St. George for this one, and really, you should too.) But I liked her in Dollhouse, Warehouse 13, and Cabin in the Woods, and I LOVE her in Person of Interest. (Seriously, she’s so awesome in PoI. It kills me that more genre fans aren’t watching that show.) And now Amy Acker is set to guest star in Agents of SHIELD as the cellist. Coulson’s cellist.

(Across the world, a billion Coulson/Hawkeye shippers are weeping that Clint Barton isn’t secretly the cellist after all.)

I know a lot of people have given up on Agents of SHIELD, and I get why, but I also don’t know that its awkward beginning is nearly as bad as some people have been making it out to be, and honestly, I think it’s gotten so much better in the last four or five episodes. I’m actively looking forward to its return next week. Especially if it keeps getting such quality guest stars — not only is Amy Acker scheduled to appear, but we’re also going to see Patton Oswalt and Adrian Pasdar pop up, not to mention Bill Motherfucking Paxton (who’s returning as Agent Garrett).

I don’t know. Maybe it will just fizz out and be the disappointment everyone seems to be taking it for, but I’m really feeling like Agents of SHIELD is building to something good as this first season closes, and I’m eager to see, exactly, just what that is.

I wasn’t actually planning to do another Teen Wolf retrospective, but Mekaela asked me to write one up after watching Season 2, and, well, her birthday is coming up, so I was like fine.

This probably just means I’ll have to do one for every season now, whether anyone else is interested in reading them or not. Cause, yeah. I kind of love this show. Suck it, haters.

DISCLAIMER:

Sorry, guys. This one’s got SPOILERS throughout.

SUMMARY:

Scott McCall (Tyler Posey) is still a teenage werewolf in love with a girl from a family of werewolf hunters. But now her super evil grandfather has come into town looking for revenge, local alpha Derek (Tyler Hoechlin) is intent on making even more teenage werewolves, and, oh yeah, and there’s a giant lizard-thing killing people. Fun times in Beacon Hills!

NOTES:

1. Have I mentioned that this show knows its audience? Because it does.

This is how Season 2 begins, with a half-naked Abercrombie & Fitch model springing out of the water for absolutely no reason at all. (Okay. I guess it could be kind of an early misdirect, seeing how Jackson’s lizard form absolutely detests the water. But it’s totally not.)

Oh, Teen Wolf. Stay shameless, buddy. Stay shameless.

2. Stiles and his dad continue to have the best relationship ever.

Seriously, this is my favorite parent-kid dynamic on TV since Veronica and Keith Mars. I continue to love how anxious Stiles is about the only parent he has left, and I godamn adore the scene where the Sheriff reveals he lost his job because of the shit Stiles has pulled in the name of fighting evil. For one thing, actual consequences? Generally a good thing to have in your show. For another, this scene just doesn’t play out at all the way you might expect. Like, I would have assumed that there’d be a lot of yelling and grounding and talking about being disappointed — all of which would have been pretty justifiable, from the dad’s point of view — but instead the Sheriff just wears this quietly devastated expression on his face as he tries to reassure his son that they’re going to be okay and that he just doesn’t even have it in him right then to get angry, and it’s just . . . it is a really godamn good scene. So much love I have for Linden Ashby and Dylan O’Brien right now.

If either of their characters are EVER killed off, I will lead a godamn revolt.

3. Of course, most of my favorite scenes from this season include Stiles because — and say it with me now — Stiles is the best. I figured I might as well highlight a couple.

So, in fandom, the big Teen Wolf pairing is Stiles/Derek. (Or Sterek — which I refuse to call it because I only like combining names if they actually create some semblance of a real word, like Tony Stark and Pepper Potts being Pepperony.) I knew Stiles/Derek was everyone’s OTP before I watched the show, before I even knew who these characters were, but what I didn’t expect was that, in the actual show, these guys barely even tolerate each other.

Stiles spends basically all of first season hoping for Derek to die, and Derek — while not quite so actively wishing for Stiles’s death — does slam the kid’s head into his own steering wheel. (In Derek’s defense, Stiles did kind of deserve it.) They’re a little nicer to each other in the second season . . . which is to say, they each save the other person’s life, however reluctantly . . . but that’s about it. The idea of these two characters ever actually getting together (assuming they were even both bisexual) is pretty ridiculous, at least at this point. On the other hand, Dylan O’Brien and Tyler Hoechlin do actually have this weirdly good antagonistic chemistry onscreen, so I totally get where shippers are coming from. I really like watching scenes where they’re thrown together too, and they are thrown together a few times in the season, sometimes pretty literally. Because — as evidenced by Jackson’s aquatic opening scene — the showrunners know their audience, and they listen to their fandom.

Which means we get some total fan service when Stiles has to cling to a temporarily paralyzed Derek to keep him from drowning in a pool while a hydrophobic monster circles around them.

The only thing that could have made this scene more shameless was if Stiles had stripped out of his track suit before jumping in after Derek. (Sadly for Stiles fans, I think Dylan O’Brien is the only guy who hasn’t taken off his shirt for this show — although they did tease it in an earlier episode, where he was changing back out of his lacrosse clothes — only to entirely block his whole body with a locker door. It was pretty hilarious.)

Oh, show. Seriously, never change.

4. The other Stiles scene I want to highlight is a considerably more serious one, where in the aftermath of a hostage situation at the police station, Stiles is talking to the school’s guidance counselor who, naturally, knows more about this supernatural stuff than she’s letting on.

(The counselor is played by Bianca Lawson, who was Kendra in BTVS and Emily Bennett in The Vampire Diaries, so I think we all knew that she wasn’t just going to be another oblivious adult in this show.)

This is a really well-acted and well-written scene that does a couple of things pretty awesomely: it manages to deliver some exposition in an actually interesting way, and it gets us pretty squarely into Stiles’s headspace, showing that, hey, maybe there might be some emotional and psychological fallout from all the entirely insane and violent shit that’s happening all the time. The drowning metaphor stuff is pretty great and eventually, when I’ve caught up on the whole series, you can bet your ass I’m writing a fic that deals with voluntary apnea.

5. The thing about this scene, though — it’s such a good look at Stiles’s frame of mind that it made me realize I’d like to see more of that from some other characters. I mean, don’t take away from my Stiles angst — I like to see my favorite characters in as much emotional pain as possible because I’m a terrible person — but some of the side characters, particularly Derek and his merry band of werewolves, could use a little more interiority, I think, and I’m hopeful we’ll get some of that in Season 3.

6. A positive character change in Season 2? Scott McCall becomes a hero.

Also, he cuts his floppy hair and gains additional muscle mass, which — admittedly — doesn’t hurt. But really, this is the season where Scott takes more of a ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ attitude to his whole werewolf abilities, and that’s a good thing, for both the character and the show. Cause character growth is pretty much always a decent idea, and it also means that Scott probably only spends 60% of his time thinking about Allison instead of 99.999999%. Great for those of us who aren’t really in it for the whole Romeo and Juliet romance BS.

Although. The boy still needs to learn how to answer his damn phone. Seriously.

7. One of the things I like about Teen Wolf is that it’s not always easy to predict where it’s going, not because the showrunners don’t have a plan, but because the characters don’t all break down into easy good guys versus bad guys. There are good guys and bad guys, but basically everyone has their own agenda, which means you get a lot of interesting character dynamics and shifting alliances that frequently change up the game. It’s kind of cool.

8. That being said, I did have some problems with how the season finale wrapped up.

This is Gerard (Michael Hogan — yes, from BSG), Allison’s evil grandfather, and for the most part, I found him pretty campy and enjoyable. But — his secret plan all along was to get bitten by an alpha? Really? Like, sure, he doesn’t want to die, and I’m all on board with that, but dude, this is a super overcomplicated plan just to have Derek attack him with his teeth. There’s got to be a simpler way to get bitten by a werewolf — I mean, Mrs. Argent managed it, and she wasn’t even trying.

Honestly, this doesn’t really bother me all that much — I find it too funny to be too horribly annoyed by it — but it is totally mock-worthy, and thus I must mock.

My other (and slightly more serious) problem is Lydia saving Jackson through the Power of Love.

Really? REALLY?

Mostly because they totally weren’t in love. I mean, as a general rule, the Power of Love is not my favorite method of defeating evil, but it can, on occasion, be done well — assuming you buy the two characters involved are anywhere near love, which — HA. These two? Are you kidding me right now, show? There’s evidence to argue that Lydia cares about Jackson, sure, and I could be convinced that somewhere in Jackson’s tiny, shriveled, lizard heart he has a small amount of secret regard for Lydia — but certainly not the kind of everlasting bond that will cure him of being a monster, okay? I mean, come on. There is absolutely nothing in two seasons to suggest this kind of love between them, unless people think that being dumped by text message is a sign of true affection.

I feel like I should say — the actors aren’t at fault here. Holland Roden is enjoyable as Lydia, and Colton Haynes is very effective at playing a complete tool — to the point where I keep laughing when I see him on Arrow now – but this supposed actual luv of theirs? I know the actors try to sell it in that climactic scene, but I just couldn’t buy into it at all.

9. On the plus side, Teen Wolf did something I don’t normally like and made it work. What, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you: they brought Peter (Ian Bohen) back to life. Peter, I assumed, was a one-season villain, and when I found out that he was going to be resurrected — because I’ve been spoiled for a good handful of things, as you will when you read fanfiction before you see the show — I kind of groaned. But Peter was just so damn snarky and delightful that I immediately started rooting for him despite myself.

10. Sadly, Mrs. Argent will probably not be returning to us next season.

I will miss your crazy intense face, Mrs. Argent. I can only hope that, in your absence – and also in Kate’s absence, who I deeply adored — we will continue to get awesome female villains in Season 3.

11. But, you know, maybe no more werewolf seduction scenes? Cause, like, okay. Derek makes three unpopular teenagers werewolves: Issac, Erica, and Boyd. But Erica’s the only one he comes onto – in a morgue – like a total skeevy fucker. Actually, that’s possibly not true — we didn’t see him bite Boyd, so who knows; maybe he did creepily hit on him as well – but I kind of doubt it. I know this scene is supposed to be sexy and all, but unfortunately, it’s just a little too sexist for me to get into it.

Although I’d totally forgive it if there was a deleted scene with Derek doing some equal opportunity seducing of Boyd in some dark and totally inappropriate place. (Or, possibly, just in the ice rink, with his back up against the zamboni. Seriously, all the fanfiction ideas right now.)

12. In the list of things to keep or not keep for Season Three? Two words: werewolf running. It drives me INSANE that I can’t seem to find a video or a gif of this, but when the werewolves run on all fours around the forest, it’s just . . . it’s the most ridiculous looking thing EVER. So, obviously, keep. Keep keep keep. I love to laugh.

13. Finally, I almost forgot to mention — Season Two comes with opening credits, and they are hilarious.

Seriously, seriously, show. NEVER EVER CHANGE.

QUOTES. LIKE, LOTS OF QUOTES:

Scott: “She ate the liver?”
Stiles: “No, I didn’t say she ate it. I just said it was missing. And you know what? Even if she did, so what? It’s the most nutritious part of the body.”
Scott: “I never ate anyone’s liver.”
Stiles: “Yeah, right, cause when it comes to werewolves, you’re a real model of self control.”

Principal: “You can’t fire me.”
Mrs. Argent: “True. But we can torture you.”

Stiles: “This newfound heroism is making me very attracted to you.”

Coach: “McCall, I don’t know why, but your pain gives me a special kind of joy.”

Scott: “Dude, everyone in here is a dude. I think we’re in a gay club.”
(Stiles is surrounded by a group of drag queens, some of whom are petting him.)
Stiles: “Man, nothing gets past those keen werewolf senses, huh, Scott?”

(Danny has been temporarily paralyzed, along with some other people at the club.)
Scott: “Are you okay?”
Danny: “Did it happen to my ex too?”
Scott: “Yeah.”
Danny: “Then I’m great.”

Scott: “What did you tell her?”
Allison: “That we were part of an online gaming community that battled mythical creatures.”
Stiles: “I am part of an online gaming community that battles mythical creatures.”

Matt: “Photographers call them candids.”
Allison: “Well, police officers call it stalking.”

Scott: “Why should I apologize?”
Stiles: “Because you’re the guy. It’s, like, what we do.”

Peter: “Quite the situation you’ve got yourself in here, Derek. I mean, I’m out of commission for a few weeks, and suddenly there’s lizard people and geriatric psychopaths, and you’re cooking up werewolves out of every self-esteem deprived adolescent in town.”

Danny: “I’m supposed to watch you in bed? You remember all the times I told you you’re not my type?”
Jackson: “Just do it. Oh, and FYI? I’m everyone’s type.”

Scott: “He thinks the Argents have some record of all the creatures they’ve hunted, like a book.”
Stiles: “He probably means a bestiary.”
Scott: “A what?”
Stiles: “A bestiary.”
Scott (laughing): “I think you mean bestiality.”
Stiles: “Nope. Pretty sure I don’t.”

Allison: “I think you mean –”
Stiles: “No, I mean bestiary. And the two of you, I don’t wanna know what’s going on in your heads.”

Derek: “Can you get me out of here before I drown?”
Stiles: “You’re worried about drowning? Did you notice the thing out there with multiple rows of teeth?”
Derek: “Did you notice that I’m paralyzed from the neck down in eight feet of water?”

Derek: “They say he’s in some kind of transparent casing made from the venom that’s coming out of his claws.”
Peter: “That sounds sufficiently terrifying.”
Derek: “They also say he’s starting to move.”
Peter: “Okay, I found something. Looks like what we’ve seen from Jackson is just the kanima’s beta shape.”
Derek: “What, it can turn into something bigger?”
(Peter finds picture of the kanima’s alpha shape)
Peter: “Bigger and badder.”
Derek: “He’s turning into that? That . . . has wings.”
Peter: “I can see them.”

Peter: “Look, someone actually made an animation of it. Maybe it’s less frightening if we — nope, not at all.”

(Stiles is running messages — literally — between Scott and Allison, who aren’t supposed to be seeing each other)
Stiles: “You know, drug dealers have been using disposable cellphones pretty successfully for years.”

(In the locker room, before a big lacrosse game)
Coach: “Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will be joining others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind.”
Melissa McCall: “What?”
Coach: “Mankind. That word should have new meaning for all of us today –”
Melissa McCall: “What the hell is he talking about?”
Stiles: “He does this every year.”
Melissa McCall: “Seriously?”
Stiles: “Yeah.”
Coach: “We are fighting for our right to live –”
Melissa McCall: “Wait. Is this –”
Stiles: “Yeah, it’s the speech from Independence Day.”
Coach: “But as the day when the world declared in one voice –”
Stiles: “It’s Coach’s favorite movie.”
Coach: “We will not go quietly into the night!”
Melissa McCall: “He doesn’t know any sports speeches?”
Stiles: “Yeah, I don’t think he cares.”

Derek: “Why would I want help from a total psycho?”
Peter: “First of all, I’m not a total psycho. And by the way, you’re the one who slashed my throat wide open, but we’re all works in progress, right, so.”

Sheriff: “Why would this kid want most of the 2006 swim team and its coach dead?”
Stiles: “Isn’t it obvious? . . . our swim team sucks! They haven’t won in like six years — okay, we don’t have a motive yet.”

(Stiles is trying to convince his father that the person on the video camera is Matt)
Stiles: How many people do you know wear a black leather jacket?”
Sheriff: “Millions. Literally.”

Deaton: “Don’t worry. You’re still an alpha, but as usual, not a particularly competent one.”

Matt: “Werewolves, hunters, kanimas. It’s like a fricking Halloween party every full moon. Except you, Stiles. What do you turn into?”
Stiles: “Abominable Snowman. But it’s more of, like, a wintertime thing. You know, seasonal.”

Stiles: “Hey, what if it’s Matt? I mean, this whole thing comes back to the video, right?”
Scott: “Well, Danny said that he’s the one who found the two hours of footage missing.”
Stiles: “Exactly! He’s trying to throw suspicion off himself.”
Scott: “So he makes Jackson kill Issac’s dad, one of Argent’s hunters, and a mechanic working on your jeep?”
Stiles: “Yes.”
Scott: “Why?”
Stiles: “Because . . . he’s evil.”
Scott: “You just don’t like him.”
Stiles: “The guy bugs me. I don’t know what it is. Just look at his face.”

Miss Morell: “Think about what Winston Churchill said: if you’re going through hell, keep going.”

Scott: “You saw the lacrosse thing today?”
Derek: “Yeah.”
Scott: “Did it look that bad?”
Derek: “Yeah.”

Sheriff: “What are you doing here?”
Stiles: “What do you mean, what am I doing here? What? It’s a club. It’s a club, we were clubbing, you know? At the club.”
Sheriff: “Not exactly your type of club.”
Stiles: “Uh . . . well, Dad, there’s a conversation that we –”
Sheriff: “You’re not gay.”
Stiles: “I could be!”
Sheriff: “Not dressed like that.”
(Stiles looks down at his clothes, offended)

Stiles: “Oh my God, oh my God. Could this get any worse?”
(Jackson, mostly unconscious in the back of the car, starts to moan.)
Stiles: “That was rhetorical!”

Jackson: “Let me out, now!”
Stiles: “You know, I put those pants on you. All right, buddy? One leg at a time. Being all up close and personal with your junk wasn’t exactly a highlight of my day, so don’t think this is fun for me, either.”

Stiles: “You know we’re actually doing you a favor.”
Jackson: “This is doing me a favor?”
Stiles: “Yes. You’re killing people. To death.”

Issac: “Who is he?”
Scott: “That’s Peter, Derek’s uncle. Little while back, he tried to kill us all, so we set him on fire and Derek and slashed his throat.”
Peter: “Hi.”
Issac: “It’s good to know.”

Sheriff: “I’m not sharing confidential police work with a teenager.”
Stiles: “Is that it on the board behind you?”
Sheriff: “Don’t look at that.”

Boyd: “I just wanna not eat lunch alone everyday.”
Scott: “If you’re looking for friends, you can do a lot better than Derek.”
Derek: “That really hurts, Scott.”

Melissa McCall: “It’s not just this. Although a restraining order is a new low that I didn’t think you would reach quite this soon. It’s everything on top of it, the completely bizarre behavior, the late nights coming home. Having to beg Mr. Harris for you to make up that chemistry test you missed.”
Scott: “I missed a chemistry test?”
Melissa McCall: “Really, Scott? Really?”

Stiles: “Sounds like the beginning of a heartfelt story, but I’m gonna pass.”

Coach: “What the hell is wrong with your friend?”
Stiles: “Well, he’s failing two classes, he’s a little socially awkward, and if you look closely, his jawline is a little uneven.”

Deaton: “This part is for you, Stiles. Only you.”
Stiles: “Uh, that sounds like a lot of pressure. Can we maybe find a slightly less pressure filled task for me?”

CONCLUSIONS:

Totally enjoyable. Despite some wrap-up problems — particularly with Jackson and Lydia — I liked this season better than last season. And I am ALL about the Stilinski Family Feels.

MVP:

Dylan O’Brien. I feel like that might continue to be a pretty consistent thing, although it should be said my second choice this season would have been Linden Ashby, who was just as good; he just has a lot less screen time.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B+

MORAL:

Love will cure you of being a giant lizard. It will not save your relationship when your boyfriend’s kinda-ally is indirectly responsible for your mom’s death, though.

While the greater majority of network TV shows end in May, there are a handful of programs I regularly watch which have recently (or, in some cases, not so recently) wrapped up. Since I like a fair amount of television, I figured I’d help myself out a little by splitting up my Season Finale Report Card in . . . halves? Thirds? Five at a time?

Whatever, here’s what I got so far.

DISCLAIMER: There will be SPOILERS. Just so you know.

Psych

Oh, awesome. So awesome. This was not only the season but the series finale of Psych, and it was basically everything I wanted from the last episode of the show. The case itself wasn’t really a big deal, and that was fine — I didn’t really want or need some kind of huge villain mastermind trying to one-up the Yin-Yang trilogy. (Especially considering I hated how that one concluded. Hated. I’m still a little bitter about it.)

What Psych did instead was focus on all the emotional relationship stuff, and while “The Break-Up” was still funny, it did a great job at hitting all the real moments between characters too, and that was hugely satisfying for me. For Christ’s sake, I actually got all choked up when Shawn was saying goodbye and apologizing to Gus. Lassie’s reaction to Shawn’s confession was perfection. The proposal was adorable, and if Billy Zane wasn’t good enough, holy JESUS, they got VAL KILMER. If you don’t watch this show, you probably don’t know why that’s amazing, but it so totally is. The only way they could possibly have one-upped this episode was if they had managed to get Emilio Estevez on it, since literally everyone else who’s still alive from The Breakfast Club has guest-starred at least once . . . but that’s okay. Because VAL KILMER. Also, McNab got promoted! YES!

I pretty rarely stick with shows until the bitter end, and when I do — well, I often find those ends just too damn bitter to enjoy. But this, this might be my favorite season finale of all time.

FINALE GRADE:

A+

SEASON GRADE:

B

Sleepy Hollow

Okay, so it’s been quite a while since “Bad Blood” aired, and while I thought I wrote down some initial reactions back in, like, January . . . well, apparently, I didn’t. So. From what I remember, I enjoyed this well enough. People’s reactions seemed pretty divided, depending on how they felt about the Henry Parish twist. For my part, I kind of loved it for two reasons: one, John Noble was being wasted in the role of the sin eater, so I’m all on board for seeing him as an actual villain next season, and two, this actually subverts all of my expectations about Jeremy coming back as a hot, whiny, twenty-something year old, which is basically the best news EVER.

Plus, who doesn’t like a cliffhanger? Peril, peril for everyone!

FINALE GRADE:

B+

SEASON GRADE:

B+

The Walking Dead

Hm. About this one, I’m a little . . . underwhelmed. I mean, it’s not a bad episode. Rick’s ongoing morality/immorality wheel is not my favorite thing about this show, but I figure it’s relatively well-handled here, and the scene where you’re just listening to Rick stab the shit out of this guy . . . that’s pretty good. And I also like the actual moment when Rick realized, ‘Hey, I know that watch’  . . . although his automatic ‘Let’s attack the superior forces’ game plan could use a little work. But I don’t know. Everyone gets corralled into the train car, and I just was kinda like, shrug.

Like I said, I didn’t hate it — and it was so much better than the third season finale, Christ — but I was still hoping for a little more. Though, admittedly, I’m hard-pressed to say exactly what that little more should have been.

Next season: Tyrese, Carol, and Baby Judith to the rescue?

FINALE GRADE:

B

SEASON GRADE:

A-

Almost Human

Well, that was . . . underwhelming. Both the season finale and the whole season, really.

This is disappointing because I really, really wanted to like Almost Human. And I do like parts of it, the parts that are named Michael Ealy, anyway. But when I’m not even getting what I want out of Karl Urban . . . who I adore . . . you know there are problems. It’s so frustrating. The way some people feel utterly let down by Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.? That is how I feel about Almost Human. There is so much unused potential that it kind of kills me, and unless I hear about some amazing changes in the works, I doubt I’m going to come back to it next season. (Assuming the show even gets renewed.)

But anyway, the finale itself . . . yeah, not good. I don’t need every season finale to be a cliffhanger, and I did like the board giving Dorian a performance review — as well as the nice moment between the boys at the end of the episode. But when you set up a big mystery at the beginning of a series with an evil ex-girlfriend who works for an evil syndicate . . . yeah, one might expect that to come up again by the end of the first season. Or that you might at least hint at almost anything we’ve learned about — like, for instance, what’s up with the damn Wall.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, though. Nothing about this season makes any sense because FOX, for whatever reason, refused to play the episodes in order. I don’t even . . . seriously, I mean, WHAT? Why? Why, FOX, WHY?

FINALE GRADE:

C+

SEASON GRADE:

C+

Helix

Oh, this show. It started off slow, then picked up into crazypants awesome, and then just totally fell apart in the last two episodes. Seriously, there is absolutely no excuse for having an offscreen conversation explaining what the immortals are when your audience has been waiting for that conversation ALL SEASON. *incoherent sounds of rage*

The finale’s pretty bad. The Scythe turns out to be a major letdown. The twist that Peter was secretly involved the whole time is kind of like “. . . oh, okay.” They brought Supposedly Dead Mom in a box, only to immediately kill her off for realsies this time, and it’s just . . . disappointing, all of it. Oh, and Sarah’s pregnant now . . . cause that’s drama I’m interested in. Plus, man, do I feel bad for any adopted child who watches this. Poor Daniel. I didn’t like him the way I probably should have, but Jesus, I do feel a little sorry for him. (Even though he was totally an idiot.)

At this point, I’m not sure I’m going to continue with this series, either. I think I’m mostly watching for Hiroyuki Sanada and cute boy Balleseros, which I’m just not sure is enough anymore. (Although if they ever kill off Alan, I would get a whole lot more interested.)

FINALE GRADE:

C-

SEASON GRADE:

B-

My obsessive coverage of Teen Wolf continues.

. . . do you think I could list ‘TV Marathon Champion’ as some kind of marketable skill on a resume?

DISCLAIMER:

Here be SPOILERS.

SUMMARY:

Scott McCall and his friends – well, friends, quasi-friends, and vague allies, anyway — have to deal with both an entire pack of Alpha werewolves and a dark druid who’s sacrificing half the population of Beacon Hills.

NOTES:

1. The credits somehow managed to get even funnier. Why? Because Scott, the teenage werewolf, randomly levitates.

I mean, what? Man, I laughed my ASS off.

2. Equally hysterical — the introduction of our Evil Alpha Twins, Ethan and Aidan, who can combine bodies into One Giant Evil Werewolf. I about died, I laughed so hard. This show. Oh, this show.

3. Sadly, there are things about this show that drive me a little nuts sometimes. Like when characters make correct assumptions based on no evidence that I can see — Lydia, for instance, tells the audience Stiles that the human sacrifices are probably about gaining enough power to take on the Alpha pack. Or, for that matter, when Lydia decides that Scott’s not healing his wounds because he feels guilty about Derek supposedly dying, like that’s ever been a thing on this show. (Also, Derek? So obviously not dead. Honestly, people. Come on.)

Oh, and when the product placement is so terrible that even I notice it . . . I mean, that’s bad. That’s really bad. I am weirdly oblivious to 99% of that shit, so if I see it, you are doing an egregiously terrible job at being subtle.

For the most part, I forgive these things because there’s so much about this show that I do like. I will say, though, that I struggled pretty hard with the flashback episode this season. Not because the flashbacks themselves were terrible, but because the timeline made no sense at all.

Like, okay. If your werewolves age differently than the rest of the general population, that’s fine. Lots of supernatural beings do. But you can’t just half-ass answer the question because you’re trying to wiggle your way out of retconning shit, especially when your main character is a werewolf and that kind of thing is probably going to become relevant. That’s called cheating, and God help me, I take a certain amount of issue with it. I’m still not entirely clear on how old Derek is, how old Peter is, how many years ago these flashbacks took place, or why these two look a decade to two decades younger while Chris and Gerard Argent look the exact same age. Confused. So confused about this.

4. It should be said that Derek has basically the most tragic love life in all of existence.

Let’s look at his dating resume, shall we?

Girlfriend A: Paige — Dead. Mercy-killed by Derek when her body rejected the werewolf bite. (Giving him blue eyes — the eyes of a KILLER.)

Girlfriend B: Kate — Dead. Hunter who lied to him, used him, and burned most of his family alive.

Girlfriend C: Jennifer — Dead. Dark druid who spends the majority of this season trying to kill half of Beacon Hills in ritual sacrifices.

So, basically, Derek shouldn’t date. Or, you know, meet people. Cause, really, his tragedy is not limited to his romances — he loses Erica (who dies off-screen and in between seasons, which disappointed me) and Boyd (when the Alphas use Derek’s own claws to impale him — that was depressing). Almost everyone in his family is dead except his evil uncle (who himself murdered one of Derek’s siblings) and his newly discovered younger sister (who’s kind of a brat . . . and, seriously, where has she been this whole time? They, like, never get into that). Derek also gets the shit kicked out of him repeatedly this season and even sacrifices his own Alpha status to save his younger, bratty, weirdly mysterious sister.

Fandom, you are right. Derek is the saddest werewolf.

5. I must sadly inform you that some of the things I had hoped for in Season 3A did not come to pass. For instance, they got rid of the hilarious werewolf running. (I can only assume it cost too much — this is clearly not a show with a hugely extensive budget.) Also, as far as female villains go . . . well, I liked Jennifer well enough, but Kali? Kali is SO ANNOYING.

It’s the bare feet thing. It just kills me. She’d be walking around the hospital with her nasty werewolf toes, and I’d be like, First, how come NOBODY notices this, and also, put on some damn shoes, you furry reject. I was very happy when Jennifer killed her.

However, I must say that I’m noticing a slightly disturbing trend here with our villains: the male ones get to live (Deucalion, Gerard Argent) or come back to life (Peter), while the female ones pretty much stay dead (Kate, Mrs. Argent, Jennifer, Kali). I probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but I can’t believe Scott and Derek let Deucalion live at the end of this season. I mean, come on. What. The. Hell. (Deucalion also wasn’t super impressive. I mean, he was okay — he had the most villainous British accent I’ve ever heard in my whole life — but he was a little hard to take seriously, what with the whole “I AM THE DEMON WOLF!” thing.)

6. On the other hand, there’s a lot to enjoy in Season 3 too. Some of it actually is plot-related — I like that we’ve got two Big Bads who are basically squaring off against each other, and our good guys have to pick sides in sort of a ‘lesser of two evils’ scenario. But the majority of what I love about this show is character-based stuff because that’s kind of what I live for. I will forgive a lot if I buy into the actual characters and their relationships enough.

A few of the specific moments I loved:

A: Stiles talks Scott out of killing himself

Scott’s all hallucinating and suicidal in this one episode and he’s about to set himself on fire with a road flare and a shit ton of gasoline. When Allison, Lydia, and Stiles find him, Allison’s the one standing closest (and also his true wuv and whatnot, even if they aren’t currently together), so you’re thinking she’s going to be the one to talk him down. Which would have been okay, I guess, but it’s so much better when best friend Stiles steps up — or steps forward, I should say, into the pool of gasoline so that Scott can’t kill himself without killing Stiles too.

This is a good scene — the only problem with it is the music. Teen Wolf features a ton of popular and alternative music, which I mostly enjoy — but this is Melodramatic Moment Music that swells the instant Stiles steps into the gasoline. And it’s frustrating because the actors had this, you know? Trust your actors to bring the emotion, guys, cause even though I ultimately liked the scene, the music kind of cheapened the moment.

B: Stiles has a panic attack and Lydia fixes it with a kiss

So, Stiles hasn’t been in a great place, emotionally, since his dad was abducted by an evil supernatural being, but he’s holding on to the fact that Dark Druid Jennifer won’t sacrifice his dad until she gets her hands on Chris Argent. When that happens, Stiles has a panic attack in the middle of the hallway, which is excellent because a) angst! and b) it’s totally keeping in character, as Stiles is basically constantly in a state of anxiety over his dad’s safety, not to mention that he has history of panic attacks, brought up way the hell back in Season One. (Can we get a HELL YEAH for continuity?)

Lydia drags him to the locker room and tries to get him to slow his breathing. And here’s the thing — I was not a Stiles/Lydia shipper for the first two seasons. Stiles had this huge, lifelong crush on Lydia, who basically never so much as glanced at him, and I was really hoping this season would bring a new love interest or something for him. And while they didn’t exactly do that — well, they kind of did, only to kill her off five seconds later — Stiles and Lydia seemed to develop an actual friendship with all these moments where they had to lean on each other, and it was kind of awesome. So when she kisses him, I was like, You know, I don’t NEED these two to get together, but if they do . . . I would totally be okay with that. Which was kind of neat.

C. Basically any moment Allison’s being haunted by her dead mother.

Not just because I missed Mrs. Argent — although I did — but because I like how Allison’s grown over the past few seasons from this lovestruck and slightly whiny teenage girl into this pretty badass monster hunter. Thing is, she’s still a teenage girl, so when she does get understandably upset about something — like trying to sew her ex-boyfriend back up before he dies — the ghost of Mrs. Argent pops up as the pissed off voice of her subconscious, trying to get her to calm down, be strong, and do what needs to be done. Allison’s had a few moments like this in earlier seasons, but I think 3A is the first time I’ve really enjoyed her character consistently. (This is also possibly because she’s not dating Scott anymore, which kind of frees her up to be more than just a love interest.)

D. Melissa McCall is the most badass nurse on the planet.

And I know a fair number of nurses, so I can say that.

First off, Melissa’s all competent and awesome when she saves Danny’s life by herself. (I mean, this was a little ridiculous because I don’t think this show has any idea how many doctors are in-house at any given time, but whatever. I’ll let this go for now, mostly because Melissa is awesome, and it’s pretty adorable how impressed Scott is with her.) But if that wasn’t enough, THEN she saves her kid by knocking out the evil twins in their Ridiculous Giant Joined Werewolf Form with a defibrillator. And she doesn’t even have to do a “clear” joke.

Oh my God, I love you, Mrs. McCall.

E. Danny jokes about having sex with Stiles, and Stiles . . . might be okay if that wasn’t a joke.

One of the things I continue to love about this show is how they deal with the representation of gay teenagers. For instance, Danny continues to be this popular, athletic guy that everyone loves because no one gives a shit if he’s gay or not. Then he actually gets a main character boyfriend this season, Alpha-Twin Ethan. So we now have two gay characters on this show.

And then we get this scene where Stiles is freaking out that someone is killing off virgins, and when Danny jokingly offers to sex him up, Stiles does basically the opposite of having an “Oh my God, I’m not gay, are you actually hitting on me” comic meltdown — which, let’s be honest, is how 98% of all other TV shows would have played this scene. Instead, Stiles is like, hey, that’s kind of sweet, like he’s actually considering it, and then is all affronted and annoyed when he finds out that Danny’s kidding. Which could just be a nice moment, or could open up the door on the possibility of Stiles being bisexual — something that the creator Jeff Davis has spoken about and something I will be coming back to in my eventual Season 3B recap.

F. Stiles purposefully makes Jared throw up so that Coach will have no choice but to pull the bus over (which Stiles needs to happen so that he, Lydia, and Allison can save Scott’s life).

Because it’s funny and a little mean, and because that smile is so ridiculously demented. HEART YOU SO MUCH, STILES.

7. Finally — because I will never stop loving the relationships between these kids and their parents, or at least I hope not — I love that Scott, Stiles, and Allison all sacrifice themselves (at least temporarily) to save their respective parents.

It’s kind of awesome, and it sets up the next season really nicely, with that ‘how will this permanent heart of darkness thing’ manifest for our heroes. Oh, and Scott’s a TRUE ALPHA now, so we’ll have to see how that plays out too. (He’d kind of have to be better at it than Derek, right? I mean, I like Derek, but I’m not convinced that a leadership role is one that particularly suits him. Then again, Scott has issues with priorities himself. Issac’s been seriously wounded and there are evil werewolves running around, but by all means, Scott, let’s take the time to get that tattoo.)

Oh, and, AND the Sheriff finally finds out about werewolves! Excellent! This means he and Mrs. McCall can finally start dating, yes? Yes?

QUOTES:

Stiles: “You okay?”
Scott: “It kind of burns.”
Stiles: “Yes. You just had your skin stabbed about a hundred thousand times by a needle.”

(about his very new — and now vanished — tattoo)
Scott: “It healed.”
Stiles: “Oh, thank God, I hated it . . . sorry.”

(Sheriff trying to get Stiles to stop researching deer-related car accidents and go to school)
Sheriff: “I’m not going to beg you.”
Stiles: “Good, I’m impervious to your influence anyway.”
Sheriff: “Would you consider a bribe?”
Stiles: “Couldn’t meet my price.”
Sheriff: “Extortion?”
Stiles: “You got nothing on me.”
Sheriff: “. . . yeah.”
(Sheriff physically drags Stiles’s chair away from the computer. Stiles, still trying to reach for it, eventually falls on his face.)

Sheriff: “Since the amnesiac in 215 can’t tell us anything, I need the girl with the modified military stun gun in 216 to answer a few questions.”

(Scott and Allison are pressed up together, facing one another, while hiding in a closet.)
Allison: “What are you doing?”
Scott: “Nothing.”
Allison: “Part of you is doing something.”
Scott: “Oh! Sorry.”
Allison: “Stop!”
Scott: “I . . . kind of don’t have control over that.”
Allison: “Okay, I’ll turn around.”
Scott: “Allison?”
Allison: “What?”
Scott: “That’s worse.”

Danielle: “You know your first time is usually kind of gross and it hurts.”
Heather: “That’s fine with me.”
Danielle: “No romance, no love?”
Heather: “When I fall in love, I wanna be good at it.”

Stiles: “Hey, you remember when we were little kids, and we used to come down here all the time and –”
(Heather kisses him)
Stiles: “Yeah, we never did that.”

Heather: “Stiles, I just turned seventeen today. You know what I want for my birthday?”
Stiles: “A bike?”
Heather: “To not be a seventeen year old virgin . . . have you never done it before either?”
Stiles: “Turned seventeen? No, not yet, no.”
Heather: “Stiles.”
Stiles: “Yeah, maybe that other thing too.”
Heather: “Do you want to? I mean, would you be okay with that?”
Stiles: “Would I be okay with that? I believe so, yeah.”

Lydia: “What do you think you’re doing?”
Aidan: “What do you mean?”
Lydia: “I mean, your hands.”
Aidan: “They’re on your waist.”
Lydia: “I know. What am I, a nun? Put them somewhere useful.”

Issac: “I still don’t like him.”
Derek: “Nobody likes him.”
Peter: “Boys, FYI: coming back from the dead has left my abilities somewhat impaired, but the hearing still works. So I hope you’re comfortable saying whatever it is you’re feeling straight to my face.”
Derek: “We don’t like you.”

Issac: “It’s safe, though, right?”
Deaton: “Do you want me to answer honestly?”
Issac: “No. No, not really.”

Stiles: “Is this whole like ‘remain optimistic in the face of complete and utter disaster’ thing a part of the ‘Be a Better Scott McCall’ program?”

Derek: “So I’m just supposed to let them die?”
Peter: “One of them’s already dead.”
Derek: “We don’t know that.”
Peter: “Do I have to remind you what we’re up against here? A pack of Alphas, all of them killers. And if that’s not enough to scare your testicles back into your stomach, try to remember that two of them combine to form one giant Alpha. I’m sure Erica and Boyd were sweet kids. They’re going to be missed.”
Stiles: “Can someone kill him again, please?”

Stiles: “You called the police before you called me?”
Lydia: “I’m supposed to call you first when I find a dead body?”
Stiles: “YES!”

Scott: “Just curious . . . is there a reason the gun is still pointed at me?”

Lydia: “Sweetheart, we’re not in the mood for funny.”

Stiles: “Was he like, could he have been a virgin, maybe? Did he look like a virgin? Was he, you know, virginal?”
Scott: “No. Definitely not. Deaton makes me have sex with all of his clients. It’s a new policy.”

Stiles: “Missing and presumed dead, Scott, because he was probably a virgin. You know who else is a virgin? Me. I’m a virgin, okay? You know what that means? It means my lack of sexual experience is literally a threat to my life, okay? I need to have sex. Like right now. Someone needs to have sex with me today. Like someone needs to sex me right now.”
(Locker door closes and reveals Danny standing behind him.)
Danny: “All right, I’ll do it.”
Stiles: “Whoa! What?”
Danny: “Come over to my place at 9pm. Plan on staying the night. I like to cuddle.”
Stiles: “That was so sweet. Are you kidding?”
Danny: “Yes. I’m kidding.”
Stiles: “You don’t toy with a guy’s emotions like that, Danny. It’s not attractive, all right?”

Coach: “May I remind you that cross-country is not optional for lacrosse players. I don’t need you turning into a bunch of fat asses during the off season.” (looks around at Issac and Danny, who are both shirtless and ridiculously ripped) “So . . . work on that.”

Scott: “Seriously, dude, human sacrifices?”
Stiles: “Scott, your eyes turn into yellow glow sticks, okay? Hair literally grows from your cheeks and then will immediately disappear, and if I were to stab you right now, it would just magically heal. But you’re telling me that you’re having trouble grasping human sacrifices?”

Allison: “It’d make me really happy if you didn’t.”
Issac: “Yeah, well, your being happy isn’t really a big priority of mine since you stabbed me twenty times with knives.”
Allison: “They were actually Chinese ring daggers.”

Stiles: “You know that there’s a temple in Calcutta where they used to a sacrifice a child every day? That’s every day a dead baby day, Lydia, every day. You know what today is? It’s Dead Baby Day. Oh, no, wait, that’s every day because every day is dead baby day, yay!”

Scott: “There’s safety in numbers.”
Stiles: “Well, there’s also death in numbers. It’s called a massacre. Or a bloodbath. Carnage, slaughter, butchery . . .”

Ethan (to Scott): “I don’t know what happened last night, but I’m pretty sure you saved my life.”
Stiles: “Actually, I saved your life, but . . . not that it matters that much, it’s a . . . minor detail . . .”

Lydia: “I’m not a psychic.”
Stiles: “You’re something, okay?”

Melissa: “You’re supposed to be dead.”
Peter: “I get that a lot, actually.”

Melissa: “You’re him, aren’t you?”
Deucalion: “Him?”
Melissa: “The bad guy.”

Stiles: “You know, you’re a lot easier to talk to when you’re completely unconscious.”

Stiles: “You know, the next time I put my lips to your mouth, you better be awake.”

Issac: “Not to bring up uncomfortable memories, but wasn’t the last time you saw them the time you killed Kate and they burned you alive?”

Melissa: “Is she actually going to come down here and slash all our throats?”
Sheriff: “Nah. She’ll come down, strangle us with a garrote, and then slash our throats.”

Scott: “What if it’s someone else from school? Remember Matt? We didn’t know he was killing people.”
Stiles: “Excuse me? Sorry, what? I — yes, we did, I called that from day one, actually.”
Scott: “Yeah, but we never really seriously thought that it was Matt.”
Stiles: “I was serious. I was quite serious, actually, deadly serious. No one listened to me.”

Scott: “Remember that whole thing we talked about where I wasn’t accusing you of being there, and if you were there that you shouldn’t be? Thanks for not listening.”

Scott: “They’re trying to help.”
Derek: “These two? This one, who used me to resurrect my psychotic uncle. Thank you. And this one who shot about thirty arrows into me and my pack.”

Stiles: “Where do you live?”
Peter: “In an underground network of caves hidden deep in the woods.”
Stiles: “Whoa, really?”
Peter: “No, you idiot. In an apartment downtown.”

Stiles: “Lydia, you’re supposed to call us after you find the dead body.”
Lydia: “Oh, no, I’m not doing that again. You find the dead body from now on.”
Stiles: “How are we supposed to find the dead body? You’re always the one finding the dead body.”
Scott: “Guys. I found the dead body.”

Agent McCall: “A Stilinski at the center of this mess, what a shocker. Think you can answer some questions without the usual level of sarcasm?”
Stiles: “If you can ask the questions without the usual level of stupid.”
Agent McCall: “Where’s your dad, and why has no one been able to contact him?”
Stiles: “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in hours.”
Agent McCall “Is he drinking again?”
Stiles: “What do you mean, again? He never had to stop.”
Agent McCall: “But he did have to slow down. Is he drinking like he used to?”
Stiles: “All right, how about this? Next time I see him, I’ll give him a field sobriety test, okay? We’ll do the alphabet, start with ‘F’ end with ‘U’.

Stiles: “Why do I care? Let’s see . . . because over the last few weeks, my best friend has tried to kill himself. His boss nearly got ritually sacrificed. A girl I’ve known since I was three was ritually sacrificed. Boyd was killed by the Alphas. I . . . do you want me to keep going? Cause I can, all right? For like an hour.”

Danny: “What are you doing?”
Stiles: “I’m not doing anything, Danny. This is just a dream you’re having.”
Danny: “Why are you going through my stuff?”
Stiles: “Right, but only in the dream, remember. Dream. Dreaming.”
Danny: “Why would I dream about you going through my stuff?”
Stiles: “I don’t know that, Danny, okay? It’s your dream. Take responsibility for it.”

Issac: “So, we’re going to trust him? The guy who calls himself Death, Destroyer of Worlds? We’re going to trust that guy?”

Issac: “So, your sister . . .”
(Derek stares at him)
Issac: “Yeah, it’s bad timing, I’m sorry.”
(Derek looks away.)
Issac: “I’ll ask later, it’s fine.”
(Derek raises his eyebrows and stares at him again.)
Issac: “Or never. Yeah, yeah, I’m good with never.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Some plot conveniences and retcon-y shit that kind of drove me nuts . . . but still an awful lot of damn fun with great character moments, witty dialogue, and good representation.

MVP:

Dylan O’Brien

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B+

MORAL:

When the bad guys are after you and they all know where you live, by all means, continue to keep hanging out there. For Christ’s sake, Derek.

All right, folks. I have finally caught up — this is the last Teen Wolf recap you will be subjected to until summer, when Season 4 comes out.

Also, in case you were wondering? Season 3B has easily been my favorite season to date.

DISCLAIMER:

All the SPOILERS here, people.

SUMMARY:

When Scott, Stiles, and Allison temporarily sacrificed themselves to the Nemeton in order to save their parents, they accidentally opened a door inside their minds . . . leaving them vulnerable for something else to sneak inside.

NOTES:

1. As I’ve said, repeatedly and with much enthusiasm, Stiles is the absolute best. And clearly everyone on the show has also come to that conclusion because Season 3B is absolutely Stiles’s season, what with him seemingly going crazy and then getting possessed by an evil trickster fox spirit.

Everything about this is awesome. Everything.

But to break that into some specifics? (Fair warning: this could take 1/4 the recap.)

A. All of Stiles’s dreams and hallucinations are made of surreal win.

In the first few episodes of the season, Stiles is having all these dreams within dreams that get so persistent and weird that he starts losing the ability to tell when he’s awake from when he’s asleep. I am an unabashed fan of surreal nightmares, and some of these are pretty great. (The door imagery stuff alone is pretty awesome.) The creepiest one is probably the waking dream when everyone in Stiles’s class starts simultaneously signing at him. I know that doesn’t sound particularly creepy, but it really is. It is especially strange to see Coach in a scene where he’s not the wacky comic relief, if only for six seconds.

I feel like I should also mention that Stiles’s terror is almost palpable in some of these moments. Offhand, the scene that comes to mind is when he wakes up bleeding and trapped in a strange basement and calls Scott for help — he’s basically whimpering over the phone as he tries to describe where he is and who (or what) is down there with him. (I’m simplifying, a little, because it turns out that Stiles is not actually in a basement at all — he’s dreaming all of this and has managed to sleepwalk his way into an abandoned coyote den. The scene where Rafe and Melissa McCall find him is also excellent — Dylan O’Brien has to do a LOT of screaming this season, and he’s disturbingly effective at it.)

B. Void Stiles is made up of EPIC TRICKSTER WIN.

The truth is, I’m wildly attracted to fictional, evil, laughing bad boys, so Stiles getting possessed by the Nogitsune is basically the best gift this show could have given me, ever. I liked pretty much everything about this, from the reveal scene –

– to the moment where he’s twisting a sword in his best friend’s stomach –

– to any time he manipulates the others into doing what he wants.

Oh, this show made me so happy this season.

To briefly go back to the scene where Stiles is torturing Scott — one of the reasons this moment is so effective is because O’Brien delivers a lot of his lines in this really understated way. (Not in every scene, mind. There’s an episode later where, if the actor’s not drawing cues from Heath Ledger’s performance in The Dark Knight, I would be honestly surprised.) Like just the simple way he says “it’s okay” or “hey, look at me” – these are easily the creepiest things he says in the whole scene because it’s just so casual, like Stiles isn’t literally twisting a blade through his best friend’s guts. It’s awesome stuff.

C. Void Stiles vomiting up Real Stiles is the very best what-the-fuckery that money can buy.

So, Scott and Lydia go inside Stiles’s mind in hopes of freeing him and giving him back control over his body. They do manage to find him, and back in the real world, Stiles starts pulling a long rope of bandages out of his mouth. The bandages start coalescing into the Nogitsune, which freaks everyone out. But when Scott thinks to unwrap the bandages, who do they find but Real Stiles. Meanwhile, Void Stiles has taken this moment of confusion to kidnap Lydia and run away.

I don’t know if there’s any way for this scene to make logical sense, and weirdly, I don’t know if I need it to. It is deliciously bizarre. It is the kind of weird shit you would expect out of David Lynch, and I love it. Also, it’s totally fueling my first Teen Wolf fanfiction. (Oh yeah, I wasn’t kidding about that before. I am absolutely working on a fanfiction now instead of working on stories that can actually make me money. Look, it’s a labor of love, all right?)

2. Let’s briefly — if only briefly — leaves Stiles alone for a minute to discuss Allison, and how killing her off is a pretty bold move.

Admittedly, it’s true that Allison and Scott haven’t been together since Season 2, but it’s also true that this show was set up around their Romeo and Juliet style romance, and as much as I enjoy Kira — more on her in a bit — I always figured that these two would get back together by the end of the show. And while technically, they still could — it’s not like we haven’t had resurrections on Teen Wolf before — I feel like that isn’t the game plan here, maybe because those resurrections have, so far, been primarily reserved for villains. In which case, if Allison does stay dead . . . it’s a pretty big deal. It’d be like killing off Angel at the end of BTVS, Season 2 . . . and then having him stay dead.

Season 3B has easily been the darkest Teen Wolf season so far, and I’m VERY curious to see how they follow that up in a few months.

3. In past reviews, I’ve talked a lot about how awesome Scott’s mom and Stiles’s dad are. I have failed, however, to mention how much I also like Allison’s dad, Chris Argent.

And dude, I feel so bad for Chris Argent here. His sister, Kate, turned out to be a psychopath in the first season and was revenge-murdered by Peter. Then Derek bit Chris’s wife, and she chose to kill herself rather than become a werewolf, only she couldn’t do it alone, so she begged Chris to help her. Then Chris’s father turned out to be just as big of a psychopath as Kate was, and he basically tried to sacrifice both Chris and Allison in his big master plan to get bit by an Alpha werewolf. And now Chris’s one and only child has been killed. I just . . . I want to hug Chris Argent so bad.

JR Bourne does a fine job with the role, and all the stuff with him immediately after Allison’s death, having to compartmentalize and taking charge while all the kids flounder around . . . it is brutal, amazing stuff. Assuming Bourne comes back this summer – because this show does like to drop characters in between seasons — I really hope Chris Argent gets something to smile about, like, I don’t know, a puppy or something. I’m aware that a puppy will hardly make up for his psychopathic family and the loss his wife and daughter, but . . . look, it’s all I can come up with, all right?

4. What Chris is actually going to get, though, is the less-than-spectacular news that his previously assumed dead sister is actually quite alive.

Of course, when I say less-than-spectacular news, I mean for him. Personally, I’m totally overjoyed for me. I liked the hell out of Kate back in Season 1, so I’m totally happy to see her back as a . . . blue-faced were-thing? Whatever, I’ll take it. Of course, I’m not actually sure what the Argent family buried in her grave back in Season 2, but I guess I’ll figure that out come this June. (Probably. This show is stupid sometimes when it comes to explaining things. Like, I wasn’t exactly broken up that Cora left Beacon Hills to go be the queen on Reign, but I do object to not finding out where she’s supposed to have gone for six episodes. Especially when the season is only twelve episodes long, and the creators finally choose to deliver this exposition in what’s basically an ‘As you know’ moment. Assholes.)

5. This season also introduced a new character and love interest for our hero: Kira Yukimira.

Kira’s kind of awesome. She has that sort of cute adorkability going for her that makes her a pretty good match for Scott, and she’s also a total badass with the whole thunder kitsune thing, not to mention the swordplay and the ability to walk through all sorts of electricity. Plus, you just kind of have to feel for Kira after her dad publicly (and hilariously) embarrasses her, not once, but twice at school. Supposedly, Mr. Yukimira isn’t any kind of trickster spirit — unlike Kira and her mother — but I have my suspicions. That man is mischievous. And adorable.

6. One of the most surprising and awesome things about Teen Wolf — the show has not wasted a lot of time on unnecessarily angsty love triangles. Like, there ARE love triangles: they set up the Scott/Allison/Issac one in Season 3A, and then complicated things by throwing Kira into the mix in Season 3B, but instead of offering up a lot of whining and melodrama, the show has mostly kept it light, allowing the teenagers to behave relatively *gasp* maturely, and keeping the small amount of tension between Scott and Issac funny rather than frustrating and stupid. It makes for a welcome change.

Of course, Allison’s dead now and Issac’s left the show, so perhaps the show will shift focus to a Stiles/Lydia/Malia love triangle? Although, really, I hope not. I’m still trying to warm up to Malia, although she isn’t horrible, and to be fair, it took me a while to warm up to both Lydia and Allison too. Malia has potential. It’s just . . .

7. . . I’d be a lot more interested in a Stiles/Lydia/Danny triangle, to be honest, because we need to continue our discussion from Season 3A about the possibility of Stiles being bisexual.

So, there’s a scene in this episode — I call it the Rave Episode — where this girl Caitlin kisses Stiles, and Stiles is surprised because he thought Caitlin was a lesbian. So, he goes to clarify, and . . . you know what, let me just give you the dialogue:

Stiles: “I thought you liked girls.”
Caitlin: “I do like girls. Do you?”
Stiles: “Absolutely.”
Caitlin: “Great.”
Stiles: “So you also like boys?”
Caitlin: “Absolutely. Do you?”
Stiles: “. . .”

And then the conversation stops because Caitlin starts kissing him again.

Now, there’s two ways to read Stiles’s hesitation at the end of the scene. The first is that he’s just surprised at the question, and that’s all there is to it. Which is a totally valid interpretation of the scene and is still kind of awesome because, once again, Stiles completely fails to react the way 98% of male characters on TV would probably act, namely, freak out and frantically protest that he likes girls, only girls, girls all the time, yo, and no boys allowed. But there has also been enough hints and nudges at Stiles’s sexuality throughout the show to suggest the possibility that when Stiles pauses, he’s actually considering his answer, and that’s actually pretty cool too. In fact, it’s absolutely something that I’d love the show to develop further in Season 4. Not that they need to label it, exactly — I don’t actually need Stiles to come to any certain decisions — but I like the idea of having a teenage character on TV openly questioning his sexuality, and Stiles seems like a good fit for that.

My honest guess is that, ultimately, the show won’t go in this direction with Stiles and we’ll never get more than the occasional ambiguous hint. But I’d be totally okay being wrong. And if they do go there, Stiles and Derek are still never going to be a thing, sorry, shippers. But I sincerely hope the two characters have more interaction next season because they surprisingly didn’t have much screen time together in 3B.

8. In fact, my biggest problem with this season is that Derek’s storyline, particularly when he and Peter are being interrogated by hunters and all, felt kind of off-balance with the rest of the plot. Also, isn’t Peter going to reveal himself as a villain yet? That was kind of how we ended Season 3A, like it was a Big Deal, and then there was no mention of it ever again. Of course, Gerard is still presumably alive in his nursing home, and Deucalion too, is off somewhere being fiendish, so maybe Peter’s just waiting for the eventual series finale where all the villains who have improbably survived or been resurrected will have one giant Villain Battle Royale.

Also, seriously. Did we ever figure out why Deucalion had Braeden save Derek and Peter’s lives? I mean, I’m happy Braeden is alive and all — I always liked that girl for, admittedly, the one episode she was actually in — but this made absolutely no sense to me.

9. While I’m nitpicking — or pointing out outright flaws — I feel the need to engage in one of my absolute favorite television-watching activities: calling BULLSHIT on basically any scene that takes place in a hospital, ever.

What am I doing, working in this unit again?

For instance, it should be clear that Melissa McCall, much as I love her, is not an ER nurse as much as she’s a Super Nurse. ER nurses, you understand, mostly stick to the ER. Super Nurses, on the other hand, not only take care of their patients in the ER — they’re also scrubbed and present in the OR when those patients need surgery. Because yes. That is totally a thing that happens. Surgical nurses are actually the myth.

Also, Stiles comes into the ER at one point because he has a whole bunch of scary symptoms that might mean he’s going crazy. Melissa basically diagnoses him with insomnia (he’s slept eight hours in three days, so she’s not wrong) and sedates him so that he can actually get some well-earned sleep. On the surface, there’s nothing very wrong with that. In actuality:

A. I’d love to know what Melissa told her co-workers — because I’m pretty sure insomniacs don’t get to take up an ER bed just for eight hours of shut-eye. (Alternatively, maybe he’s not in the ER anymore — maybe he’s in a Med/Surg or Pediatrics unit. But then he’s absolutely no longer Melissa’s patient.)

B. Nurses are awesome and get to administer medicine and do all sorts of things that you need when you’re sick and/or dying. They do not, however, get to choose what medicine you take. The doctor orders the medicine, and then the nurse gives it to you — nurses who shoot up seventeen year olds with sedatives (and tell them what’s in the needle AFTERWARDS) without doctor’s orders generally get fired.

C. I don’t think the sedatives are stored in the patient rooms. Now, it should be said that I could be wrong about this: I don’t work in an ER and never have, so it’s absolutely possible that ER rooms are setup totally different than other patient rooms. (Although now that I’m rewatching the scene, this room really doesn’t look like an ER bed at all.) But . . . it seems both excessive and dangerous to have a Pyxis machine at every bedside in the ER. Although I guess I should be happy that Melissa had to at least unlock something before getting her midazolam, that it wasn’t just sitting there in a drawer or something, waiting to be used on unsuspecting teenagers.

It should be said that — for someone who just spent, like, 500 words bitching about medical inaccuracies — these things don’t very seriously bother me, or I could pretty much never watch TV again. I just enjoy complaining about them. It’s awesome to have insider information on something for once. (And I like to think Mekaela enjoys my rants when I have to pause the television and go, “Oh, NO.”)

10. On the upside, I’d like to extend a warm welcome to Deputy Parrish.

Deputy Parrish (Ryan Kelley) is another new character on this show, and he’s notable for two reasons: a, he’s funny, and b, he’s a deputy who’s lived more than two episodes. This has never before happened in the history of Teen Wolf.

It’s also heavily, HEAVILY suggested that Deputy Parrish has some kind of supernatural thing going on with him, as he was “drawn” to Beacon Hills after the Nemeton got all of its power back — so I’m definitely looking forward to finding out just what’s up with him this summer. Assuming we do find out next season. It did take us forever to find out what was going on with Lydia, after all. Speaking of . . .

11. I really enjoy all of Lydia’s banshee magic.

So we FINALLY found out last season that Lydia is a banshee, and in this universe, that means she hears a lot of spooky sounds and voices when someone is dying or in serious danger of dying. (It also means she screams a lot.) Her abilities aren’t exactly clear-cut, though, and she doesn’t always understand the signals and warnings she gets, giving all of her magic this creepy, surreal vibe that both fits in well with the season and that I just generally enjoy. I’ve got kind of a thing for strange, offbeat magic stories, and I love that she does her detective work by plucking red strings or listening to the GPS in her car when it’s not actually turned on.

12. I also continue to like how Lydia’s and Stiles’s friendship has grown.

These two are often paired together, especially in the first half of the season, and I enjoy them a lot. At one point, Stiles has to try and convince Lydia that she shouldn’t doubt her abilities — which is something she struggles with over the course of the show — and it’s a fairly sweet moment. At another point, Lydia’s perilously close to having a bear trap snap on her ankle, and she has to reassure Stiles that he can figure out how to save her without benefit of instructions because, as she puts it, he’s too smart to bother with instructions. They’re easily the brightest members of the group, and they make a pretty awesome detective pair. (Shit. That is not an AU fanfiction idea I needed. Screw you, show, for swallowing my brain.)

13. I would like it to be said that Rafe McCall is a dick.

Okay, he’s not actually the complete and utter tool you think he is when he first appears. I do like that he’s not a total cartoon — you know, he does his job semi-decently, actually saves Stiles at one point (even though the two kind of hate each other), and eventually speaks in defense of the Sheriff, (although he IS the primary reason the Sheriff’s job is on the line in the first place). Still, he is at least a little bit of a tool, and I want it to be clear that he and Melissa McCall are not allowed to get back together under any circumstances. Even if she never ends up with Sheriff Stilinski — like she totally should — Melissa is far too good for this guy. I will throw things at my television if this ever happens.

14. A bunch of good character moments that I just haven’t had time to talk about yet:

A. Scott talks Stiles down from a panic attack

Okay, so I basically always like it when someone has to talk Stiles down from a panic attack. That is pretty much always going to be a thing that I enjoy. But I really do like this scene when Scott gets Stiles to realize that he’s awake and not dreaming. (He does this by having Stiles count his fingers — because apparently you have extra fingers in dreams? The hell? Ever since I finished watching this season, I’ve been desperate to have a dream where I realize I’m dreaming, just so I can look down and try to count my fingers. It hasn’t happened for me yet.)

B. The Sheriff trying not to openly laugh as Rafe tries to get straight answers out of the kids.

Just because it’s nice to see the Sheriff engage in some subtle, petty revenge. He was totally in Rafe’s position for the last few seasons, but now that he’s in the know, he can at least take some pleasure in the frustration of the man who’s trying to get him fired.

C. The Sheriff freaks out when Stiles commits himself to a 72 hour hold at a mental institution.

Okay, first, I should say that I never bought Stiles going to Eichen House in the first place. At this point, he knows that the Nogitsune has partially taken over his brain, and I get that Stiles is trying to keep himself locked away where he can’t hurt his friends, I do. Unfortunately, if the fox takes over again (and spoilers, he will), that doesn’t mean the other patients he’s locked in with will be safe from him. Here’s a thought: maybe Stiles should be looked after by people who actually know what Nogitsunes are.

Okay, rant over. Point is, the Sheriff takes Stiles to Eichen House to get committed but then starts having a bit of a meltdown when it’s actually happening. It’s super sad and sweet, too, when the Sheriff fixates on the fact that Stiles won’t be able to sleep without his pillow, and Stiles has to kind of gently remind him that he hasn’t really slept in weeks anyway. It’s a very good scene — I just wish I bought the reason they were there in the first place.

D. Melissa tells Scott to be his own anchor.

At the beginning of the season, Scott is having trouble controlling his emotions, which is making him wolf out at inopportune times. In the past, he’s used Allison as his anchor against going all Big Bad Wolf, but now that Allison’s shacking up with his wolf buddy, Scott feels all, like, adrift and shit. And Melissa, being the awesome mom that she is, tells him that Allison is not the only girl he’ll ever love, that he will fall in love again and again, and until he does, he needs to be his own anchor. Which is a message that I really like, relying on oneself, and would be happy to see more of in fiction in general.

E. Sleepy Stiles accidentally calls Melissa ‘Mom’.

Oh, this scene. Okay. Melissa has sedated Stiles, as we’ve already discussed, and Stiles — just on the verge of unconsciousness — slips out a “Thanks, Mom,” which is, of course, all heartbreaking because Stiles’s mom is dead. The look on Melissa’s face . . . man, the whole scene is such an AW moment. I would totally be in favor of these two having more scenes together in the future. I’m kind of a sucker for “second-mom” or “like-a-son-to-me” relationships.

F. Scott insinuates that he’ll cure Stiles by turning him into a werewolf.

So, Stiles’s mom died of this kind of super early onset dementia that basically caused parts of her brain to atrophy, and a lot of Stiles’s symptoms seem to be mirroring his mother’s diagnosis. When he goes for an MRI, he and Scott hug it out, and Scott tells him,”If you have it, we’ll do something. I’ll do something.” Which could just be a generic ‘I’ll find some way to save you’ statement, but the unspoken emphasis to me seemed to suggest that Scott was offering to turn Stiles into a werewolf. (Because being a werewolf cures all that shit. No asthma, epilepsy, or dementia for the wolf-kids.)

I should say that I actually have absolutely no interest in Stiles ever becoming a werewolf and really hope the show never goes that way. On the other hand, I want to see Magic Stiles so bad I can taste it. Stiles absolutely should get his Druid on next season and become emissary-in-training for the McCall Werewolf Pack.

G. Hospital Slaughter is set to “Bad Moon Rising”.

Okay, fine. This is less of a character moment than just a fun scene, but there’s a bunch of slow-motion demonic ninja action, and who doesn’t like that? Besides, I’m totally into this cover of “Bad Moon Rising.” Chaos all the way!

15. I initially wasn’t going to mention the opening credits in this review — 3B’s big change was that everything had a red tint, which was admittedly funny but not, like, Levitating Werewolf funny — but I changed my mind after the Rave Episode when they sped up the theme music for a whole techno remix that was kind of awesome. It is one of my favorite things in the world, when shows switch up their opening credits to match what’s going on in their episode — I always enjoy when Person of Interest does this, and Psych used to do it all the time to hilarious effect.

The only sad thing here is that I kind of missed the rave music once it was gone. Sadface.

16. Finally, the show ends with the best revelation. No, not that Kate is back, although that’s cool — no, it turns out that Danny’s known about werewolves all along, or at least, for a little while now, because he knows that he’s been dating one.

Ha. That’s awesome. Love you, Danny Boy.

QUOTES:

Mr. Yukimura (to Kira, and directly in front of Scott): “You forgot all the research you did for that boy you like.”

Scott: “If that’s you, you’d have to be like 90 years old.”
Mrs. Yukimura: “Closer to 900.”
Kira: “Okay, sure, why not. Dad, how old are you?”
Mr. Yukimura: “43. But I’ve been told I look mid-thirties.”

Miss Morell: “It’s called a Lichtenberg figure. They appear in lightning strike victims. The fact that they’re appearing on you after a shot of wolf lichen is both significant and strange.”
Stiles: “By significant and strange, do you mean hopeful and optimistic?”

Miss Morell: “If your friends haven’t figured out something by the time those marks are gone, I’ll come find you.”
Stiles: “To tell me what to do?”
Miss Morell: “No, to give you an injection. Pancuronium Bromide. It causes respiratory paralysis.”
Stiles: “That sounds a lot like death.”
Miss Morell: “It’s used for lethal injection, yes.”
Stiles: “So when the Nogitsune takes over, you’re going to kill me?”
Miss Morell: “I’m going to do what I’ve always done. Maintain the balance.”
Stiles: “Okay then. I’ve missed our talks. Thanks for the illicit drugs.”

Kira: “Okay, stop. Just stop. We don’t want to hear your Casablanca story.”

Mr. Yukimura: “Sometimes, history does repeat itself, Scott.”
Scott: “Only if you don’t learn.”

(after patient commits suicide)
Administrator: “The accident that occurred is being taken care of.”
Stiles: “You’re seriously referring to that as an accident?”
Administrator: “Incident.”
Stiles: “Slightly better. Still need to use the phone.”

Oliver: “That’s Gary. He thinks he’s Jesus Christ. Dan. Also Jesus. That’s Mary –”
Stiles: “Mary Magdalene?”
Oliver: “No, she also think she’s Jesus. You’d be surprised how many Jesuses we get.”

Mr. Yukimura: “I’ll be taking over for your previous history teacher. My family and I moved here three weeks ago. I’m sure by now you all know my daughter, Kira, or you might not since she’s never actually mentioned anyone from school or brought home a friend, for that matter.”
(Kira, sitting in the back of class, thunks her head into her desk.)
Mr. Yukimura (pointing): “Either way, there she is.”

Mr. Yukimura: “I thought you said you wanted to make friends.”
Kira: “Not like that.”
Mr. Yukimura: “You said you wanted to be noticed.”
Kira: “I could set myself on fire and be noticed.”
Mr. Yukimura: “Well, then you’d be dead.”
Kira: “Exactly.”

Allison: “But you want something in return.”
Peter: “No, I’m dedicating my life to helping out narcissistic teenage girls. Of course I want something in return.”

Deputy Parrish: “Jared, it would be very helpful if you could resist throwing up on the potential explosive device.”

Jared: “You — you look really –”
Deputy Parrish: “Handsome. Thank you. For a second there, I thought you were going to say I look really young, and I was going to have to launch into my explanation of how I’m actually 24, and how anyone can look young if they eat right and exercise, although it’s probably just good genes anyway, right?”

Malia: “What does it mean?”
Stiles: “Self.”
Malia: “. . . maybe you should tell me more?”

Stiles: “Was that your first kiss?”
(Malia doesn’t say anything)
Stiles: “Was it okay?”
(Malia nods)
Stiles: “You wanna try it again?”
(Malia nods)

Lydia’s Mom: “He gave me his card.”
Lydia: “Mom. This is a piece of paper with a phone number written on it.”
Lydia’s Mom: “I know. Still got it.”

Coach: “Class starts in five minutes. Just because there’s no power, don’t expect there to be no school.”
Stiles: “Hey, that was a triple negative. Very impressive, Coach.”
Coach: “Copy that.”

Stiles: “Sometimes your mind can wake up before your body does, so for a split second you’re actually aware that your body’s paralyzed.”
Scott: “And that’s the terrifying part?”
Stiles: “It turns your dream into a nightmare. You can feel like you’re falling, like you’re being strangled, or in my case, like you’re in the center of a grove with magical trees where human sacrifices took place.”

Mr. Yukimura: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Kira: “Are you quoting Samuel Beckett to me?”
Mr. Yukimura: “I thought that was Yoda.”

Sheriff: “Lydia wasn’t on the chessboard!”
Stiles: “She is now.”
Sheriff: “Kanima?”
Stiles: “Banshee.”

Lydia: “What do the different colored strings mean?”
Stiles: “Oh, they’re just different stages of the investigation. So like green is solved, yellow is to be determined, blue is just pretty.”
Lydia: “What does red mean?”
Stiles: “Uh, unsolved.”
Lydia: “You only have red on the board.”
Stiles: “Yes, I’m aware, thank you.”

Scott: “You didn’t steal these, did you?”
Stiles: “No. I just cloned them using an RFID emulator.”
Scott: “Is that worse than stealing?”
Stiles: “. . . it’s smarter.”

Kira: “You didn’t tell him, did you? About the pictures?”
Scott: “Oh, no. I just told him you had some pictures on your phone you didn’t want anyone to see.”
Kira: “What kind of pictures?”
Scott: “. . . naked pictures.”
Kira: “Oh. Good idea.”

Stiles: “Now I’ll text you if anyone comes out, but Scott, if you get caught, I can’t help you. My dad’s under investigation for impeachment cause of your dad, so if anything happens, I will run and leave you both for dead.”

Lydia: “If I wanted to go to a rave, I’d get into a time machine and go back to the 90′s.”

Allison: “Do you want to talk about Scott, or do you want to paint my body?”

Deputy Parrish: “Sheriff, I’m not kidding. This thing’s a few watts away from being a lightsaber.”

Rafe McCall: “Where is everyone? We get a lead on our sword-wielding maniac?”
Deputy Parrish: “Nope, but we’ve got posters up all over town for your guy.”
(Deputy Parrish indicates the wanted posters behind him, which appear to be drawings of Zorro and a samurai.)

Rafe McCall: “How did you know he’d take her to a power station?”
Stiles: “Well, cause he was an electrical engineer. So, where else would he take her?”
Rafe McCall: “That’s one hell of a deduction there, Stiles.”
Stiles: “Yeah, what can I say? I take after my pops. He’s in law enforcement.”

Stiles: “What’s that?”
Sheriff: “Just, uh, files from the office.”
Stiles: “It says ‘Sheriff’s Station, Do Not Remove’.”
Sheriff: “Well, yeah, unless you’re the sheriff.”

Aiden: “Why is your mom teaching biology?”
Lydia: “Because Mr. Harris used to teach biology until his new occupation: human sacrifice.”

Aiden: “Are we even allowed to be here this late? What if security catches us?”
Lydia: “There is no security. The number of homicides in this school have seen to it that no sane person will ever take a night job here again.”

Stiles: “I know what you’re all thinking. That if this works, it might kill me too. But even if it does, you have to go through with it. Stick with the plan.”
Scott: “The plan is to save you. That’s the plan I’m going with.”

Stiles: “Scott, I don’t think you get it yet. You’re an Alpha, okay. You are the apex predator. Everyone wants you. You know, you’re like the hot girl that every guy wants.”
Scott: “I’m a hot girl?”
Stiles: “You are the hottest girl.”
Scott: “I’m a hot girl.”
Issac: “Yes, you are.”

Stiles: “No, wait a second. I know that look. That’s the ‘I know exactly what’s wrong with you and I have no idea how to fix it’ look.”

Scott: “Okay, so what happens to a person who has a near-death experience and comes out of it seeing things?”
Stiles: “And is unable to tell what’s real and not.”
Allison: “And is being haunted by demonic visions of dead relatives.”
Issac: “They’re all locked up because they’re insane.”
Stiles: “Ha-ha. Can you at least try to be helpful, please?”
Issac: “For half of my childhood, I was locked in a freezer, so being helpful is kind of a new thing for me.”
Stiles: “Are we still milking that?”
Issac: “Yeah, we’re still milking that.”

Stiles: “What is the point of him? I mean, seriously, what is his purpose, aside from his persistent negativity and the scarf. What’s up with the scarf, anyway? It’s like 65 degrees out.”

Scott: “Great. I’m an Alpha with . . . performance issues.”

Stiles: “What is it?”
Mrs. Yukimura: “Tea?”
Stiles: “What, like magic tea?”
Mrs. Yukimura: “No, chamomile.”

Issac: “Okay. Do you hate me?”
Scott: “No, of course not.”
Issac: “Do you want to hit me?”
Scott: “No.”
Issac: “I think you should hit me.”
Scott: “I don’t want to hit you.”
Issac: “Are you sure?”
Scott: “Why would I want to hit you? You didn’t do anything, did you?”
Issac: “No. No, I mean, no, um. What do you mean?”
Scott: “I mean, like, you didn’t kiss her or anything, right?”
Issac: “No. No, absolutely not, no.”
Scott: “Did you want to?”
Issac: “Oh yeah, totally.”
(Scott throws Issac into a wall.)

Melissa: “Oh, come on, you guys! This house does not have a supernatural ability to heal, so . . . stop it.”

Scott: “He’s trying to get Stiles’s dad fired.”
Rafe McCall: “That’s not true.”
Melissa: “What are you doing?”
Rafe McCall: “Conducting a case for impeachment.”
Melissa: “Sounds a lot like getting him fired.”

Kira: “I don’t know if I should go in. You’re going to tell Scott that Barrow might have used foxfire created by me to jumpstart the Nogitsune’s power inside Stiles.”
Derek: “Yeah.”
Kira: “Basically that I helped the dark spirit take control of his best friend.”
Derek: “. . . you should probably wait here.”

Aiden: “We’re dead on our own.”
Ethan: “Dead’s still better than being back in high school.”

Aiden: “So no one notices him just kidnapping her right out of the house?”
Deaton: “Most of us were concentrated on the bizarre sight of a creature materializing from out of the floor.”

Deputy Parrish: “Maybe I needed a change. I don’t really know. I guess I kind of felt drawn here. And I knew there were openings.”
Sheriff: “You know why there were openings?”

Stiles: “Hey, Coach. Thought I was in the wrong class for a sec.”
(Coach starts signing at him.)
Stiles: “Uh, okay . . . I don’t actually know sign language. Actually, I didn’t even know that you knew sign language, or that that was even . . . an elective here . . . well, this has been good. I’m probably gonna head out . . .”

Coach: “Sweetheart, sweetheart. You wanna tell me which insane asylum you escaped from?”
Danny: “Coach, insane asylum isn’t proper terminology anymore.”
Coach: “Okay, sweetheart, what nuthouse did you escape from?”

Hunter Boss: “This one will talk. This one loves the sound of his own voice.”
Peter: “You should hear me sing.”
Hunter Lackey: “We want to hear you scream.”
Peter: “No one ever wants to hear me sing.”

(Hunter Boss cuts off one of Peter’s fingers)
Hunter Boss: “Think about it. I’m only going to ask you nine more times.”

Stiles: “Until we figure out if she’s just another psychotic monster that’s going to start murdering everybody, I vote against any and all interaction.”
Scott: “What if she’s like me?”
Stiles: “That girl walked through 1.21 gigawatts of electricity. She’s not like you.”

Melissa: “Been feeling irritable?”
Stiles: “Yeah. Possibly to the point of homicide.”

Melissa: “Do you trust me?”
Stiles: “Well, you’re not holding a needle.”

Stiles: “You know if my dad’s right that means there’s another werewolf in town we haven’t met yet.”
Scott: “I know.”
Stiles: “And if turns out to be something like triplets who form into a three-headed hound of hell, I’m seriously not up for that.”

Melissa: “Sweetheart, let me tell you something no teenager ever believes, but I swear to you is the absolute truth: you fall in love more than once. It’ll happen again. It’ll be just as amazing and extraordinary as the first time, and maybe just as painful. But it’ll happen again, I promise. And until then, be your own anchor.”

CONCLUSIONS:

One or two balance issues with Derek’s storyline, but otherwise, pretty solid season. Whoever first came up with the idea of turning Stiles into an evil trickster needs to be given a medal.

MVP:

Dylan O’Brien, all the way. I might give silver to JR Bourne this season, though.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A-

MORAL:

Foxes are the best.

Oh, summer. The season of hot weather, ant invasions, and pool parties that I ignore in order to sleep longer. It’s also the season of Television Death. Oh, okay, fine, that’s not really true anymore – I’ve still got a few episodes of Game of Thrones left to watch, not to mention an upcoming season of Teen Wolf and new HBO show The Leftovers to try out — but a lot of my favorite shows have abandoned me, leaving me counting down the days till a cooler, ant-less fall.

Before I start sobbing into my strawberry daiquiri, though, let’s post-mortem the rest of the 2013-2014 season, shall we?

DISCLAIMER: Spoilers everywhere. If you are not caught up on the current seasons of these shows, don’t read this. Unless you really don’t care about being spoiled, I guess. Then, you know, read away.

Person of Interest

This was an awesome season finale. For three years, Person of Interest has done pretty big finales, each one more game changing than the last, and “Deus ex Machina” was fucking epic. The trial was spectacular. Camryn Manheim, in particular, is so fantastic here. I cannot say enough about how much I like her recurring guest role. (Also, how ecstatic I am that it hasn’t come to an end yet. I was sure Control was going to bite it in this episode, and I’ve never been so pleased to be wrong in my entire life.)

We also wrapped up Vigilance, brought Samaritan to life, and set the stage for Season Four in a big, big way.

PoI started out pretty slow for me, and I wouldn’t have initially kept going if I didn’t like Michael Emerson as much as I did. But I’m so glad I stuck around because it continues to get better each and every season. (I’m sure I said this during the wrap-up last year, but it continues to be true.) It is absolutely one of my favorite shows to watch right now, and one of the most under-appreciated science fiction shows on television.

FINALE GRADE: A+
SEASON GRADE: A

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

I know Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t live up to a lot of people’s expectations initially, but it steadily improved over the second half of the season, and after the events of The Winter Soldier, it surged into some pretty awesome territory. Which isn’t an unreasonable trajectory for a first season show, and I have hope that they’ll manage to maintain this newfound awesomeness in the second season.

As far as “Beginning of the End” goes . . . I’d say it’s pretty damn good. Samuel L. Jackson is just the best. I know we won’t get him back for some time now (if ever), but I’ll just keep on hoping anyway — because, really, I could watch him and Clark Gregg play off each other all day. Other finale highlights: Garrett ripping out a human rib, Patton Oswalt’s return (as a Life Model Decoy?), the not-redemption of Grant Ward, and the heartbreaking scene between Jemma and Fitz at the bottom of the ocean. (And to think, I didn’t even like Fitz all that much at the beginning. You know, I predicted that Fitz would die a shocking death at the end of the season since the pilot, a prediction which obviously didn’t come true . . . but he did get seriously hurt. I’ll guess we’ll have to wait and see how extensive this near-certain brain injury really is.)

My deepest regret about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.? Ian Quinn lives. Damn it. I hate that guy.

FINALE GRADE: A-
SEASON GRADE: B+

Elementary

I’ve enjoyed the hell out of Elementary this year — it’s a pretty straight up standard procedural, yes, but I love what they’ve done with Sherlock, allowing him to grow and yet stay true to character. Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu continue to be phenomenal leads, and I love their relationship together onscreen.

That being said, I did have slightly mixed feelings about how this season wrapped up. I wasn’t in love with how they handled Mycroft and Joan’s relationship in the last couple of episodes, and I also felt that the finale weirdly ended on one cliffhanger more than was really necessary. (I’m not sure I needed it to be oh no, Sherlock’s going back to England AND oh no, Sherlock’s gonna relapse.) Still, “The Grand Experiment” was overall enjoyable, and there were a few nice character moments, particularly the last scene between Sherlock and Mycroft. That was lovely.

FINALE GRADE: B+
SEASON GRADE: A-

Arrow

Oh, this show. I enjoy the hell out of it, and yet it drives me SO CRAZY. That’s a pretty fair assessment of how I felt about both this finale and the season itself.

Like, okay. “Unthinkable” is a fun enough episode. The Olicity fake out was TOTALLY MEAN but also kind of awesome. I’m interested in Diggle becoming a father. And I’m glad that Sara didn’t die (another prediction I got wrong — I’m falling down on the job this year), but I’m kind of baffled by her character exit. Like, we spent a whole episode showing — in the least subtle manner possible — how Sara is a hero, even if she occasionally kills bad guys . . . but then suddenly she’s leaving Starling City to become an assassin again with the ex-girlfriend who kidnapped her mother because, hey, that’s just what she wants to do now? (Quentin is the only one who seems perturbed by this, which kind of amuses me. Less into his cliffhanger, though — it felt kind of thrown in and a little cheap.)

The thing that continues to drive me absolutely bonkers, though — Thea Fucking Queen. Apparently, I’m the only person who has a problem with this, but . . . look, Thea’s had kind of a raw deal this season. I get it. It sucks that she lost her business (although that was kind of her own fault), and that her mother, brother, and boyfriend have all been lying to her. I feel for her, I do. What I don’t understand is how going off with her psychotic father — who murdered hundreds of people, INCLUDING his son and her half-brother, not to mention the man who raised her – is a valid life choice. I don’t care how betrayed you’re feeling that nobody tells you the truth. This is not how you start over. I shouldn’t even have to say this, right? Right?

FINALE GRADE: B
SEASON GRADE: B

Community

First: Hulu might be reviving Community for a sixth season! I’m not going to get too excited about this possibility until it becomes more than just a maybe, but still. It would be pretty awesome. (Except that I don’t actually have a Hulu+ account and am unlikely to get one when I already have Netflix Instant and Amazon Prime. A girl has to put a cap on her TV obsession at some point.)

Now, I do think this season was a little shaky. A definite improvement over Season Four, mind you, but hardly the gold standard of Seasons Two and Three. This is pretty much how I felt about the finale, too — the whole plot about finding the first Dean was totally okay, but nothing I’d write home about, either. I was incredibly relieved that Jeff and Britta didn’t get together, though. (And yes, I did enjoy my Jeff-Annie shipper moment.) The best part of the finale was definitely the end reel. Depends on What Fails — still makes me laugh. Oh, and also the whole Earth has been destroyed by an asteroid thing. It’s canon.

Unless Hulu saves it, of course. Then I want, nay, I demand an Armageddon parody for the Season Six opener.

FINALE GRADE: B
SEASON GRADE: B

Warehouse 13

Warehouse 13 decided to give us a series finale focused almost solely on character moments instead of save-the-world Big Plot Stuff. (Not unlike Psych did a few months ago with their series send-off.) Warehouse 13 isn’t quite as successful here because this episode, like all of fifth season, feels a little rushed — which is kind of what happens when you only get six episodes to wrap up all your subplots and loose ends.

I’m not sure how I feel about certain things in this episode. Pete and Myka getting together, for instance — I kind of wish they hadn’t, although the two actors do have a certain kind of chemistry, and it’s not like the worst thing ever. (It’s not, for instance, like Sherlock and Joan getting together in Elementary. If the producers ever go back on that promise and make them a couple, I will be DONE.) The whole dance sequence is fun but seems to go on when they’re already pressed for time, and the story with Artie’s son . . . well, I’m of two minds about it. It’s kind of hilarious that Artie has this son he’s never brought up before, mostly because (for once) nothing tragic happened to him — he just lives in San Diego, and they go to Comic Con together sometimes. But ultimately, I just don’t buy it.

Still, there were a lot of awesome character moments that did work for me. I completely bought Pete’s reaction to the Warehouse moving, and I really liked Steve’s memory in all its endless wonder and Inner Space glory. (Also, he made Mrs. Frederick laugh!) Artie yelling at the Warehouse and getting an apple in return totally choked me up. And Claudia makes a totally hot and awesome Caretaker. The episode did produce a lot of Feels in me, so it was successful on some level . . . I just wish the whole season had been given a little room to breathe.

FINALE GRADE: B
SEASON GRADE: B-

Justified

Oh, Justified. I have praised the everloving shit out of you on this blog. I have bemoaned the lack of critical attention you’ve received, while secretly feeling at least a little superior in the knowledge that I knew how freaking amazing you were, even if no one else did. If you were to suddenly become the most popular show next year, I could legitimately say, “Well, I liked Justified before it was cool.”

But holy hell, was Season Five a disappointment.

It started out well. And there were some awesome moments here and there — Boyd’s exploding cigarettes, or Dewey vs Messer — but somewhere between Ava’s boring-ass prison storyline, the Crowes’ underwhelming villainy, Amy Smart’s whole character, Tim and Rachel’s near-complete absence, and Raylan’s inability to man up and be a parent to his own child, I just . . . I didn’t enjoy myself at all. I started forcing myself to watch episodes instead of actually wanting to watch them, and it depressed the hell out of me.

And as far as the finale goes . . . shit. On one hand, at least the Crowe family is gone and Ava is finally out of prison. But I’m not wild about her betraying Boyd to get out of prison. I get why she did it, and it might have worked for me if I’d really bought into the dissolution of their relationship over the course of the season . . . but I hated how the show handled that. Boyd and Ava deserved better. And considering how much I disliked Raylan this season (and godamnit, I like Raylan), I find myself going into sixth season hoping for Boyd to be victorious . . . and knowing just how unlikely that is to be.

I can only hope that Justified manages to get back on track for its last season. I’d hate for the show to go out like this.

Also, RIP Jimmy. You lasted so long, buddy. I will totally miss you.

FINALE GRADE: C
SEASON GRADE: C

It’s been a while since my last TV Quotes Challenge. Let’s play again, shall we?

For new players, it’s pretty simple: I give you three quotes per TV show, and you guess the TV show in the Comments. The shows in question might still be on the air, or they may have ended years ago. I can tell you right now that there won’t be any reality shows or sketch comedies. Also, while I do enjoy perfectly normal television with a weird fondness for criminal procedures, the majority of shit I watch is fantasy and science-fiction. So if you only like Emmy-nominated, non-speculative, serious cable programming . . . well, this might not be the best quiz for you. But you’re totally welcome to play anyway.

Oh, one other thing: if you see the name BOB in any of the quotes, that’s just a placeholder for the character’s actual name — because I still think that’s funny. Don’t get hung up on it; there may or may not be any Bobs in these particular shows.

Now — to the challenge!

1. “Oh, you’re so stolid! You weren’t like that before the beard.”

“I’m going into labor.”
“You cannot. This is not a good time, BOB.”

“I want to see my father! NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW!”

2. “Well, Serendipity is my stripper name.”

“BOB, I did not come here to spy on you. Not the way you think, anyway.”
“Oh sure. The good kind of spying, like ‘Here, have some flowers, and a puppy, and some spying.’”

“Stop. You had me at ‘You’ll be dead’.”

3. “So, come on. Who recruited you? Father? Uncle? Brother? Boyfriend?”
“Aunt. Sister. Lesbian lover.”

“Best sex movie?”
“Body Heat. William Hurt, Kathleen Turner. Smart noir. I like the whole sweaty, chair-through-glass-door thing.”
“I prefer the air-conditioner on, and if somebody threw a chair through my door, I would probably shoot them.”

“If I get anthrax, how will you feel?”

4. “BOB. I’m holding in my hand a box of small chocolate bunnies.”

“There are things you can’t get anywhere, but we dream they can be found in other people.”

“All things considered, being shot is not as bad as I always thought it might be, as long as you can keep the fear from your mind. But I guess you can say that about almost anything in life. It’s not so bad, as long as you can keep the fear from your mind.”

5. “The person of color has successfully purchased your drugs.”

“There are wolves here? Right, of course there are, because what would the worst place on earth be without wolves?”

“Anyone else crave dim sum after fisticuffs? No? Okay, dumplings for one then.”

6. “He irks me. He’s irksome.”

“You’ve never been to a zoo?”
“Yeah, I don’t get zoos. You pay money to look at animals, why?”

“You date pregnant hookers, and your dinosaur eats grass.”

7. “BOB, it would be very helpful if you could resist throwing up on the potential explosive device.”

“I’m 147 pounds of pale skin and fragile bone, okay? Sarcasm is my only defense.”

“So, we’re going to trust him? The guy who calls himself Death, Destroyer of Worlds? We’re going to trust that guy?”

8. “. . . I will meet my end with pride.”
“I’m gonna meet mine kicking and screaming.”

“Does anyone know how to stop this . . . whatever it is? There’s an elf here giving me a dirty look.”

“Don’t panic, everyone. I’m here to save the world. Again.”

9. “I can neither confirm nor deny anything pertaining to this matter, and I will say the same damn thing to every other question until the moment you put that gun to my head and pull the trigger.”

“I miss you like I miss an intestinal parasite.”
“I love your similes.”

“Killing’s not the answer. That’s the best you can do?”
“I don’t know. I’ve killed lots of people, but my friends keep telling me I’m wrong.”

10. “I’ve never had a conversation with a dead guy before. Forgive me if I don’t know the rules.”

“So we’re putting GPS chips on carrier pigeons to find a man who can control electricity. I have you to thank for that, don’t I?”

“So, how many are there? Is it bad?”
“Did you eat?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate.”

11. “You, being all mysterious with your — cheekbones. And turning up your coat collar so you look cool.”

“Oh! You meant ‘spectacularly ignorant’ in a nice way.”

“I’m in shock. Look, I’ve got a blanket.”

12. “I don’t know what it is about me that makes people think I want to hear their problems. Maybe I smile too much. Maybe I wear too much pink. But please remember I can rip your throat out if I need to.”

“I’m sorry you fell in love with a serial killer, all right? But honestly, who here hasn’t?”

“Well, did you call the hypothetical hardware store and buy a theoretical chainsaw?”

Answers to come in about a week!

Shit, I need to make harder challenges, I think. Almost all the shows were guessed correctly, and by the first two commenters, no less. I will resist the urge to immediately come up with a new quiz and just give you guys the answers. For now.

DISCLAIMER: There may be some mild spoilers for Person of Interest and True Blood. Nothing that should ruin the shows for you, but just so you’re aware.

1. Star Trek

“Oh, you’re so stolid! You weren’t like that before the beard.”

“I’m going into labor.”
“You cannot. This is not a good time, Keiko.”

“I want to see my father! NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW!”

I think I started watching TNG when I was about five years old — not very willingly, I might add, although I quickly fell in love with it. I certainly remember being pissed when it was over because, to me, it seemed like it had just started. (It ended when I was eight, so that’s kind of true, I guess.)

TNG was my introduction to Trek, but to this date, I still have not seen all the episodes. Like the series finale, for instance. I know basically what happens, but I never actually watched “All Good Things . . .” And honestly, my interest is pretty low in that particular episode. I’m sure I’ll get there eventually, but I’d really rather just watch “Clues” or “Power Play” again.

2. Warehouse 13

“Well, Serendipity is my stripper name.”

“Claudia, I did not come here to spy on you. Not the way you think, anyway.”
“Oh sure. The good kind of spying, like ‘Here, have some flowers, and a puppy, and some spying.’”

“Stop. You had me at ‘You’ll be dead’.”

I did so enjoy Warehouse 13. It was an uneven show, especially at the end, but I will forgive a lot in ridiculous plot contrivances if I like the relationships between characters, and that’s something I think WH13 excelled at. I liked everyone, even Pete. (I’m apparently in the minority on that. My least favorite character was always Leena because she did nothing the entire time she was on the show. The underused potential in Leena still kind of bums me out.)

It might never actually happen, but I really want Allison Scagliotti and Aaron Ashmore to costar on another series together. I liked Myka and Pete, but Claudia and Steve were definitely my favorite crime-fighting duo. Go B-Team! (Or second A-Team.)

3. NCIS

“So, come on. Who recruited you? Father? Uncle? Brother? Boyfriend?”
“Aunt. Sister. Lesbian lover.”

“Best sex movie?”
“Body Heat. William Hurt, Kathleen Turner. Smart noir. I like the whole sweaty, chair-through-glass-door thing.”
“I prefer the air-conditioner on, and if somebody threw a chair through my door, I would probably shoot them.”

“If I get anthrax, how will you feel?”

Oh, NCIS. I was vaguely interested in this show before it became insanely popular (well, at least in the Parents Demographic, anyway), but I didn’t really start watching it until USA started playing, like, six episodes a day. I did eventually give up on it, though, less because the show did anything unforgivable and more because it literally started over a decade ago, and I’m liable to get a little bored of anything after ten years.

Still, it’s an enjoyable enough show, if you liked criminal procedurals. Again, this has everything to do with the likability of your characters and the chemistry of your cast, and this show has a pretty likable cast, or did, anyway. I haven’t seen any episodes post-Ziva, so I can’t really speak to whoever filled her place on the team.

Oh, Cote de Pablo. I want to see you in things again. Ziva was such a badass. Also, I’m deeply envious of your hair, particularly when it’s curly.

4. Twin Peaks

“Diane. I’m holding in my hand a box of small chocolate bunnies.”

“There are things you can’t get anywhere, but we dream they can be found in other people.”

“All things considered, being shot is not as bad as I always thought it might be, as long as you can keep the fear from your mind. But I guess you can say that about almost anything in life. It’s not so bad as long as you can keep the fear from your mind.”

Sometimes, I’m still surprised I like Twin Peaks. There was so much — SO MUCH — about it that I wanted to change, but there was a lot to love too. The quirky humor really sold it for me, I think. (Well, that, and Kyle MacLachlan.) When what-the-fuckery makes me laugh, I’m generally into it. When it bores me and/or makes me totally squicked out — the way Fire Walk With Me did — I can’t seem to make the leap.

5. Arrow

“The person of color has successfully purchased your drugs.”

“There are wolves here? Right, of course there are, because what would the worst place on earth be without wolves?”

“Anyone else crave dim sum after fisticuffs? No? Okay, dumplings for one then.”

Speaking of a show I enjoy, even as it simultaneously drives me freaking CRAZY – Arrow is a lot of fun, even if I want to change so, so much about it. A short list of things to improve, just off the top of my head.

A. Get rid of Laurel. By almost any means necessary.
B. Fix Thea. I don’t quite know how, at this point. Just FIX HER.
C. Give Diggle something to actually do.
D. Bring back Walter. Just cause I have a soft spot for Colin Salmon and his perfect voice.
E. Give Felicity more screen time. (She has plenty of screen time. I just love Felicity.)
F. Recast Amanda Waller with someone who’s preferably over a size 12, but at least over a size 6.

Very few of these things are likely to happen, but a girl can hope, right?

6. The Mentalist

“He irks me. He’s irksome.”

“You’ve never been to a zoo?”
“Yeah, I don’t get zoos. You pay money to look at animals, why?”

“You date pregnant hookers, and your dinosaur eats grass.”

I was going to give some context for that last quote, but I could only find one of the two clips necessary to do so, and then I thought it might just be more fun not to. Honestly, “You date pregnant hookers, and your dinosaur eats grass,” is one of my most favorite random insults ever. Add it to the List of Things I Desperately Want to Say to People, Just To Seem Them Go “. . . What?”

I genuinely used to look forward to The Mentalist every week, but I eventually had to give up on it. Over the course of a few seasons, Patrick Jane’s irreverence went from charming to obnoxious, and they just took way, WAY too long to solve the mystery of Red John. (And from what I understand, Red John ended up being pretty lame anyway, which is less surprising after a five and a half year buildup, especially when you already had someone PERFECT, only to retcon him out of the way just to make the Big Mystery Last. No, I’m still not over this. If I ever make a list of Ten Big Television Missteps, this is likely to go on it.)

The main reason I stuck with this show as long as I did was for Cho. Well, Cho and Rigsby, I suppose. But mostly Cho. I really hope to see more from Tim Kang after The Mentalist ends because, man. I miss that deadpan.

7. Teen Wolf

“Jared, it would be very helpful if you could resist throwing up on the potential explosive device.”

“I’m 147 pounds of pale skin and fragile bone, okay? Sarcasm is my only defense.”

“So, we’re going to trust him? The guy who calls himself Death, Destroyer of Worlds? We’re going to trust that guy?”

I won’t bore you all (again) with all the things I like about this show, or even the many things that don’t quite work but I forgive anyway because Teen Wolf makes me so happy. I will say that the fourth season premiere just aired last night, and it was kind of awesome. Per usual, not all of it totally made sense — like the electrocution scene is so immensely illogical, I don’t even have words — but it was a lot of fun, and the last few minutes ended on a twist that you see all the time in fanfiction, but rarely, if ever, see in actual television. I laughed my ass off, and I can’t wait for the next episode. (Too bad I’ll be on the road on Monday. Oh, well, that’s what DVR is for.)

8. The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes

“. . . I will meet my end with pride.”
“I’m gonna meet mine kicking and screaming.”

“Can anyone tell me how to stop this . . . whatever it is? There’s an elf giving me a dirty look.”

“Don’t panic, everyone. I’m here to save the world. AGAIN.”

Presumably, there are characters other than Hawkeye who talk in this show . . . but they clearly don’t matter because Hawkeye is the best. I still need to watch the last few episodes of EMH, but it’s gonna happen, if not this week or the next (which are kind of busy), then sometime this summer.

I kind of hope Jeremy Renner has more opportunity for witty quips in the next Avengers movie. Between EMH and Matt Fraction’s comic book series, Hawkeye is becoming one of my favorite superheroes ever, and I’d love to see that reflected on the big screen.

9. Person of Interest

“I can neither confirm nor deny anything pertaining to this matter, and I will say the same damn thing to every other question until the moment you put that gun to my head and pull the trigger.”

“I miss you like I miss an intestinal parasite.”
“I love your similes.”

“Killing’s not the answer. That’s the best you can do?”
“I don’t know. I’ve killed lots of people, but my friends keep telling me I’m wrong.”

Reese is okay, and I adore Finch so much I kind of just want to hug him at every opportunity, but the women . . . the women of this show are superb. The number of great female characters in Person of Interest is one of my favorite things about it, especially as the seasons continue. I can’t even pick my favorite badass. Zoe hasn’t been around much since the actress took a role on The 100, but she’s all competent and awesome whenever she pops up. Carter’s mission to take down HR in Season Three is epically brilliant. Shaw is just the best, Root is pretty much the epitome of Chaotic Good, and Control is A-MAZ-ING. She won’t actually get a nod, I know this, but I’d be totally pleased if Camryn Manheim got nominated for Best Guest Actress in a Drama. Love her so much.

Also, if Root and Shaw were to actually make good on their whole dangerous women UST thing, that would totally work for me.

10. Fringe

“I’ve never had a conversation with a dead guy before. Forgive me if I don’t know the rules.”

“So we’re putting GPS chips on carrier pigeons to find a man who can control electricity. I have you to thank for that, don’t I?”

“So, how many are there? Is it bad?”
“Did you eat?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate.”

Sadly, Fringe didn’t quite go out on the amazing note that I wanted it to, but I still did like this show when it was on the air, and I’m still annoyed that Anna Torv and John Noble were never nominated for an Emmy. (Although that has faded somewhat in the wake of Tatiana Maslany, who deserves an Emmy so bad it’s just ridiculous. Prepare yourselves, people, because if they fail to nominate her again, there will be rage, so much RAGE. I will unleash my fury and pretend that people will tremble.)

This was an uneven show with some pretty dumb plot complications and bad science, but there were also some great plot twists and developments, and once again, the character relationships were usually pretty solid. Olivia was all super competent, Faux-Livia was an awesome sauce badass, Peter was a snark wonder machine, and John Noble was both the crazypants who cooked naked on Tuesdays and the dude who would totally make you cry with his old man tears.

Sometimes, I do miss this show.

11. Sherlock

“You, being all mysterious with your — cheekbones. And turning up your coat collar so you look cool.”

“Oh! You meant ‘spectacularly ignorant’ in a nice way.”

“I’m in shock. Look, I’ve got a blanket.”

I absolutely fell in love with the first season of this show, but I’m also one of the few people who didn’t care much for second season. I don’t exactly have a good argument for this. Sherlock just annoyed me more. (I know I’ve talked about this before, but Sherlock and Sherlock-like characters are difficult to balance. I may like them initially, but nine times out of ten, their selfishness and complete inability to respect anyone around them will get on my nerves to the point where I just can’t deal with them anymore.)

Thankfully, I liked Season Three a whole lot more than Season Two . . . right up until the very end, that is. I won’t say what happens for those of you who haven’t seen it, but I’m hanging on the hope that The Thing Which Seemed To Happen isn’t actually true. Because if it is true, I’m going to hate it. Honestly, TV shows. When will you learn that retconning is terrible 99.8% of the time?

12. True Blood

“I don’t know what it is about me that makes people think I want to hear their problems. Maybe I smile too much. Maybe I wear too much pink. But please remember I can rip your throat out if I need to.”

“I’m sorry you fell in love with a serial killer, all right? But honestly, who here hasn’t?”

“Well, did you call the hypothetical hardware store and buy a theoretical chainsaw?”

I really enjoyed the first few seasons of True Blood. It was a crazy fun night soap with all the kinds of what-the-fuckery that totally work for me. And then . . . the WTF stopped working. I don’t know. I tried to struggle through, even though I hated how they handled Eric’s amnesia storyline and thoroughly despised ‘Jason Gets Raped Multiple Times by Werepanthers’ bullshit. I tried to give it one last chance, and then we got the Vampire Bible, and I was like, “You know, what, I’m out. Sorry, guys.”

All that being said, Pam is amazing. Also, Lafayette. And Terry. Oh, Terry.

Congrats to Pat and Teacups, who, between the two of them, guessed nine out of twelve shows correctly, I believe. Congrats to Bryan for liking a show that I honestly would have suspected was too silly for him. With sincerity, sir. That’s awesome. Congrats to me for posting these results and crossing something off my To-Do list. Congratulations all around, people!

It’s that time of the year again. The 2014 Emmy nominations were announced sometime this morning while I was asleep, and predictably, frustratingly, and stupidly — like mind-boggling stupidly – Tatiana Maslany was left out. Again.

Now, I’m an adult. I understand that the people who decide these things have a hard job. There’s a lot of great TV out there, and I sure as hell don’t watch all of it, or maybe even most of it. I don’t anticipate the greater majority of the stuff I watch to make it on the Emmys. I adore Teen Wolf with all my fangirl heart, but I don’t expect Dylan O’Brien to get nominated for anything, even if he was particularly excellent last season. I think Sleepy Hollow was one of the most entertaining surprises of the 2013-2014 TV season, but I’m not outraged that Nicole Beharie wasn’t nominated for Best Actress, even though Abbie is a wonderfully strong female character, and Beharie did some truly awesome work.

But Tatiana Maslany, you guys. Her work on Orphan Black is OUTSTANDING. She doesn’t just play the lead character. She plays five lead characters, characters who all regularly interact with one another. And even though you know that, even though you know it’s all the same actress — it’s amazing how often you forget that Sarah and Helena and Rachel and Allison and Cosima are all brought to life by just one woman.

I’m not upset when my clearly silly science fiction and fantasy shows aren’t reflected in prestigious awards ceremonies. But when critically acclaimed performances in excellent genre programming are ignored, just because they’re genre, because someone somewhere has decided that because a show is science fiction and fantasy, it has to be silly? That’s maddening. I mean, it’s great that Lena Headey, at least, is finally getting recognition for her stellar work on Game of Thrones . . . but it still took four years for that recognition, despite GoT being on HBO and, like, the most watched show on the PLANET. Maslany has won Best Actress two years running in the Critics Choice Awards, but the Emmys can’t even get it together to nominate her?

Of course, the Emmys has a history of ignoring superb performances from women in genre television — Sarah Michelle Gellar from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Mary McDonnell from Battlestar Galactica, Anna Torv from Fringe, Michelle Fairley from Game of Thrones – but this snub just seems to particularly sting.

I’d like to say I’m going to boycott the Emmys in protest, but that would just be a big lie. I’m one of the rare people who enjoys watching award shows, and I’m a huge sucker for all the pretty dresses. Still, I plan to sit on my couch and grumble a lot because this is bullshit, people.

You have no idea who I am, Tatiana Maslany, and we will almost certainly never meet, but let it be said that I know you deserve an Emmy, even if they Emmys themselves do not.

1. Opinions may be divided, but I actually thought Seth Meyers was a fairly decent host. He doesn’t seem to have the natural energy and charisma that some other hosts have, but I actually enjoyed the majority of his opening monologue, which — outside Tina Fey and Amy Poehler — seems rare for me, these days. I liked that the emphasis was more on industry humor than roasting specific celebrities, for once. (Not that making fun of celebrities can’t be a good time — but the material is often several years old, and sometimes, the jokes are just unnecessarily mean.) I laughed especially hard at this: “That’s right, kids. Jesse Pinkman lived, Dexter lived, but your mother didn’t make it. Sleep tight.”

2. Truth be told, I didn’t much care about who won what, since I don’t actually watch the majority of the shows that were nominated. (I even dropped Scandal last season, although I’m considering trying to start fresh in Season Four and see if I can get back into the crazy soap I once loved.) I was surprised about the The Normal Heart, though — I’ve gotta admit, I kind of assumed it would sweep. But the only thing it took home, in the end, was Best TV Movie or Miniseries. (Admittedly, if you’re going to win only one, I suppose that’s the one to win, although I always think it’s weird when a program or movie wins the top prize if they didn’t win a single acting, writing, or direction award. Then again, who knows, maybe The Normal Heart won a whole bunch of Creative Emmys that I’m too lazy to look up right now.)

Anyway, I was happy to see Sherlock take as many awards as it did. Surprised, but happy. I enjoyed last season a lot more than the previous one, and I liked His Last Vow quite a bit. Up until the last thirty seconds anyway.

3. As you may or may not remember, awards shows are rarely ever scheduled for my convenience. Moving it to Monday didn’t help much, unfortunately, so I did my usual ‘tape the earlier broadcast and hastily watch the recorded version before I have to go to work’ method of Emmy-viewing. And by hastily, I mean I fast-forwarded past the commercials and anything else that looked totally boring. Apparently, I fast-forwarded past one of the better parts of the ceremony, actually, which was some pre-taped thing called Billy On the Street? Oh well, my regrets are limited.

Cause, yeah. I gave Weird Al about two songs before I gave up and moved on. It made me a little sad to do it, because Weird Al was my very first concert, but still. Those parody songs seemed almost painfully unfunny. I also skipped the Q&A session with the stars because that seemed pretty painful too.

4. Other Things That Didn’t Work:

4A: Stephen Colbert’s ‘invisible friend’ bit. Which kills me to say because I love Stephen Colbert, and he did, at least, commit to the whole joke. Still. It was awkward.

4B. Singling out Julia Roberts for a special highlight reel when none of the other supporting actress nominees got the same attention? Dude, that’s kind of bullshit. I don’t care if she’s a Big Time Movie Star. Who thought this was a good idea?

4C. The thing about Sofia Vergara . . . look. I didn’t feel particularly offended by the joke, but I also think it was ill-conceived. Like, I don’t mind someone doing a bit about how sex appeal livens up a boring speech. That’s fine. And Sofia Vergara is an incredibly sexy woman who seems totally confident in herself and her body. That’s great. But here’s the thing: I could be wrong, of course, but I’m going to take a stab and say that nobody suggested a man stand up there on a rotating platform and Just Be Sexy. Which is crap. There shouldn’t be a gender default for sex appeal. If you just want someone to stand around and look hot (and do absolutely nothing else), your go-to shouldn’t ALWAYS be a woman. Because that’s the kind of thing that leads people to think that’s all women should be valued for.

Others might feel differently, but I suspect I wouldn’t have minded this joke as much, or possibly at all, if we could just have some equal opportunity. There’s no reason a man and a woman couldn’t have been on stage together looking hot. I, personally, would have been okay with seeing Matt Bomer up there, or plenty of other actors in the audience. But you know if a man had been up there, they’d have made it a joke — like it’d be Sofia Vergara and some frumpy comedian dude making a lot of exaggerated and awful ‘I’m so sexy’ poses. I find that frustrating.

But in general, putting a live woman on a spinning platform like she’s a new car is probably not going to go over well with a lot of people. I’m a little surprised that needs to be said, but there you go.

5. I might have put the bit about Julia Louis-Dreyfuss forgetting that she made out with Bryan Cranston on Seinfeld in the Fail Section, too — just because it was such an obvious joke  — but it paid off pretty well when she won for Best Actress, and he attacked her with his lips, and she reciprocated in kind, basically all, “Yup, he was that guy on Seinfeld.”

Nicely played, you two. Nicely played.

6. I see that, since MORTAL KOMBAT was successfully averted last year, The Amazing Race has started its second shot at winning ten straight tournaments in a row. Let’s all agree to meet back here in a decade and see how they did, okay?

7. Finally, the most important part of the evening: fashion.

Since Mekaela is usually working during the pre-awards stuff, I usually watch the stars arriving on the red carpet without her and send emails every thirty minutes with updates on who’s wearing what godawful looking thing and why would you ever wear that, WHY, that dress should be burned and its ashes should be scattered so it doesn’t spontaneously resurrect.

Unfortunately, I slept through the majority of the red carpet yesterday — I needed the sleep to make up for the absolute ZERO sleep I’m currently getting right now — so I couldn’t fulfill my usual email commentary tradition, which made me sad. Thankfully, I could still look at the various internet galleries to get a good look at all the dresses I missed.

I think my Best Dressed would have to go to Lizzy Caplan, whose black and white dress I really liked. Honorable mentions, though, go to Sofia Vergara, Uzo Aduba, Laverne Cox, Robin Wright, and Christine Baranski.

But I’ll be honest, I wasn’t particularly overwhelmed by the vast majority of dresses this year. Ugly ass dresses, though, were everywhere to be found. I’m afraid Worst Dressed would have to go to Sarah Paulson because what. The. HELL. But other contenders were Lena Dunham, Laura Prepon, Allison Williams, Claire Danes, and Amanda Peet.

And let’s be clear, Lena Dunham. I don’t care that you’re almost certainly doing this on purpose — I would still put you as Worst Dressed if I didn’t hate Sarah Paulson’s dress so damn much that I’d like to attack it with garden shears.

Well, that’s it for the Emmys this year, folks. Return next year to see if John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight gets nominated for the first time, if Tatiana Maslany gets nominated ever, and who turns out to be the new Drama darling now that Breaking Bad is over.

Okay, it hasn’t really been all that long since my last TV Quotes Challenge, but . . . fuck it. I did it anyway. (Although, I think I’m going to have to go back to movies next time. I’m running out of TV shows.)

You guys probably know the drill by now. I’ve picked out twelve TV shows and given you three quotes per show. BOB continues to be my go-to stand-in for any character name. Place your guesses in the Comments Section and have fun.

1. “Am I the only one zen around here? Good lord.”

“That’s pretty romantic. Screw around?”
(snorts) “I’ll go down first.”
“Even better.”
“Stop.”

“This is bad. This is really bad.”
“Think about something else. Puppies and kittens.”
“Dead puppies and kittens.”

2. “There is not a warmer, kinder me waiting to be coaxed out into the light. I am acerbic. I can be cruel. It’s who I am. Right to the bottom. I’m neither proud of this, nor ashamed of it. It simply is.”

“Don’t touch any of the first editions. Or BOB.”

“I don’t care which cock I’m holding. I just want to know how it got there.”

3. “BOB, the first thing I learned on the street is that any judge who spontaneously makes balloon toys will, at the end of the day, actually hang you.”

“This is classic. The locked door, the scary janitor, the bloody warning, and our soon-to-be first victim.”
“Me? Why me?”
“Well, BOB, it’s certainly not going to be any of us!”

“It was raining. You had an umbrella. I grabbed it, stuffed it down your throat . . . and then I opened it.”

4. “I feel naked, and not in a fun way.”

“I left you behind because you know my backstory. I didn’t want my best pal questioning my objectivity.”
“Dude. That’s what a best pal’s for.”

“If dislike is the opposite of like, is disaster the opposite of aster? See, if things are going wrong, they go right . . . uh, clearly, you’re not feeling the aster. What’s wrong?”

5. “I was clinically insane for a while there, but I’m all right now, near enough. Hey, can I have your goldfish?”

“The first thing you have absolutely no control of: where you’re born. You can leave, but it haunts you like a ghost. And then you come back and you are the ghost.”

“G-man by day, g-string by night.”

6. “Aren’t you worried that one day all the forest animals are going to band together and fight back?”

“You have a friend?”
“You say that with such a discouraging amount of surprise.”

“I mean, did you learn nothing from the moonstone in the soap dish?”

7. “You do not let Vicki Vale into the Batcave! Ever!”

“Ridiculously dangerous. It’s like a danger cupcake with murder icing.”

“I need her to be the stick.”
“Well, remember that time I was the carrot and stabbed somebody?”

8. “You hang onto your pain like it means something, like it’s worth something. Well, let me tell you, it’s not worth shit. Let it go.”

“This is my . . . uh, my girlfriend, BOB.”
“I prefer the term ‘fuck-puppet’.”

“There’s just so many months I could have loved you better.”

9. “I hate documentaries. They’re too preachy, and you can’t clap when someone dies because it’s real.”

“I think we’re both going to have the ‘You’re Hooking Up With My Mom’ Hamburger.”
“What’s on that?”
“Who cares? It’s free.”

“I ate dead baby lasagne?”

10. “When a woman tells a man about her feelings, she doesn’t want him to fix her. She wants him to shut up and listen.”

“There are many paths to the same place. Trust me.”
“Just so you know, you sound like a fortune cookie.”

“Can you guys do me a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Can at least one of you look like you’re going to see me again?”

11. “They say the snow on the roof is too heavy. They say the ceiling will cave in. His brains are in terrible danger.”

“We need to resort to cannibalism.”
“That was fast. Don’t we have rations or anything?”

“Bye now. Have good sex!”

12. “So my Grandma Reynolds was always saying, ‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade’. I wish she was still alive because I’d really like to ask her what she suggests for when life gives you chlamydia.”

“BOB, I was wondering if I could have a word.”
“Anthropomorphic. All yours, big guy.”

“Hotdog!”
“Hotdog?”
“It’s an expression of excitement and enthusiasm. Joe and Frank Hardy and I used to say hotdog all the time while we were waiting for the carhop to bring us our malteds at the drive-in.”
“Drive-in?”
“I hate you.”

Well, that’s it for now. Tune in next week when ALL WILL BE REVEALED.

1. The Walking Dead

“Am I the only one zen around here? Good lord.”

“That’s pretty romantic. Screw around?”
(snorts) “I’ll go down first.”
“Even better.”
“Stop.”

“This is bad. This is really bad.”
“Think about something else. Puppies and kittens.”
“DEAD puppies and kittens.”

It’s interesting. I like The Walking Dead (particularly the later seasons), but it’s not a particularly quotable show. Four seasons worth of material, and I really struggled to pull just three lines. (I did like the one about peach schnapps, but I thought that might be a bit too obvious for current fans.) Obviously, strong dialogue isn’t the only thing that makes a TV show worth watching — acting and atmosphere count for a lot too, not to mention plot and character arcs — but it’s something I highly value in a TV series, and I wonder if maybe this is why The Walking Dead has never quite made the leap from Absolutely Totally Watchable Show to One of My Favorite Shows of All Times.

2. Elementary

“There is not a warmer, kinder me waiting to be coaxed out into the light. I am acerbic. I can be cruel. It’s who I am. Right to the bottom. I’m neither proud of this, nor ashamed of it. It simply is.”

“Don’t touch any of the first editions. Or Watson.”

“I don’t care which cock I’m holding. I just want to know how it got there.”

I was surprised by Elementary. Maybe I shouldn’t have been, given how much I like both Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu, but I was really worried about this show when it first came out. Not, I think, for the reasons a lot of people were worried: most people seemed either concerned that the American show would butcher the source material (which I clearly didn’t care about, considering I enjoyed Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes) or that it was a copycat and/or could never be as good as BBC’s Sherlock. (Which I kind of always thought was a dumb reason to hate something you’ve never even tried, and I LIKE Sherlock.)

No, mostly I was concerned about genderbending Watson, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned about myself over the years, it’s that watching a consistently unequal power dynamic between a man (who’s Oh-So-Talented and therefore a selfish, arrogant bastard to everyone around him) and a woman (who, in theory, is all competent and independent but always ends up acquiescing to whatever the man needs) makes me want to rip out all of my cartoonishly colorful hair. Which is not what I look for in my television programming.

Thankfully, though, I really like how Sherlock and Watson’s relationship has progressed thus far. I feel like they’re on a more even playing field than other adaptations, and that works for me here. I also like that I can watch how they’re both evolving as characters. As long as they never EVER hook up, I think I’ll continue to enjoy this.

3. Boy Meets World

“Cory, the first thing I learned on the street is that any judge who spontaneously makes balloon toys will, at the end of the day, actually hang you.”

“This is classic. The locked door, the scary janitor, the bloody warning, and our soon-to-be first victim.”
“Me? Why me?”
“Well, Kenny, it’s certainly not going to be any of us!”

“It was raining. You had an umbrella. I grabbed it, stuffed it down your throat . . . and then I opened it.”

Damn you, Mekaela. I was sure nobody would get this one. I didn’t think anyone would connect horror movie tropes, homicide by umbrella, and spontaneously created balloon toys to a family-friendly sitcom from the 1990’s which now has a sequel on the godamned Disney Channel. I was all proud of myself and everything. I even specifically didn’t use, “You yelled at me! But I’m Topanga!” even though we say that to each other all the time.

Oh well. I was absolutely a Boy Meets World fan when I was younger. Shawn Hunter was one of my very first bad boy crushes. (Not my very first, though. I’m pretty sure that was Gambit.) You could never exactly call the show subtle, but I still like watching reruns now and again for nostalgia’s sake. (Especially the horror movie parody one. That was, shockingly, my favorite.)

4. Young Justice

“I feel naked, and not in a fun way.”

“I left you behind because you know my backstory. I didn’t want my best pal questioning my objectivity.”
“Dude. That’s what a best pal’s for.”

“If dislike is the opposite of like, is disaster the opposite of aster? See, if things are going wrong, they go right . . . uh, clearly, you’re not feeling the aster. What’s wrong?”

I always have to pick at least one superhero cartoon per TV Quotes Challenge, right? That seems to be a rule I’ve imposed on myself. And I really enjoyed the first season of Young Justice. Well, I should amend that: I initially struggled hard with the first season of Young Justice but eventually became pretty happy with where the story went. At first, though. Man. I basically wanted to punch Superboy in the face, and Miss Martian was inspiring all kinds of feminist rage. I didn’t even particularly like Kid Flash, probably because he kept obnoxiously hitting on the girl who clearly had no interest in him.

But eventually a lot of that got better (I actually thought what they did with Miss Martian’s storyline was pretty clever) and I really grew to like the show a lot. Robin and Artemis are easily my favorites, and Aqualad’s not too bad himself. I do want to see the second season, but I accidentally came across a few things that are going to happen, and I’m not sure how I’m feeling about that yet. I’ll still try it out eventually, though, especially if they finally put it up on Netflix Instant. (This whole ‘only one season on Instant’ thing? It’s bullshit.)

5. Touching Evil

“I was clinically insane for a while there, but I’m all right now, near enough. Hey, can I have your goldfish?”

“The first thing you have absolutely no control of: where you’re born. You can leave, but it haunts you like a ghost. And then you come back and you are the ghost.”

“G-man by day, g-string by night.”

I was fairly confident nobody would get this one right, considering it’s a very loosely based remake of a British television show, only lasted one season, and is only available — so far as I know — on Youtube. (I watched it in the midst of a ‘I need to see everything Jeffrey Donovan’s ever done’ obsession, which actually didn’t go very far. I mostly just watched this. But I briefly CONSIDERED watching Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 because, man. That shit looks hilarious.)

I really liked Touching Evil, though. It was an interesting procedural, and it had a pretty great cast: Jeffrey Donovan, Vera Farmiga, Bradley Cooper, Kevin Durand, and Pruitt Taylor Vance. Donovan and Farmiga, in particular, had wonderful chemistry, and I wish the show had run longer. Or, at the very least, that they’d also put it on Netflix Instant or possibly DVD because Youtube does not have the best quality in the whole world, and I actually wouldn’t mind owning this one.

6. The Vampire Diaries

“Aren’t you worried that one day all the forest animals are going to band together and fight back?”

“You have a friend?”
“You say that with such a discouraging amount of surprise.”

“I mean, did you learn nothing from the moonstone in the soap dish?”

The moonstone quote is basically a dead giveaway to anyone who actually watches The Vampire Diaries, but I couldn’t help myself. I laughed so hard at this line. It had to make the final cut.

On recommendation, Mek and I started watching The Vampire Diaries on Netflix and — once you make it past all that awful diary writing in the first few episodes, oh my GOD, it’s so bad — it’s actually pretty fun. I like a lot of the characters (Elena, sadly, is easily my least favorite), and the snarky sense of humor is great. Damon gets a lot of the best lines and most of the love, but I’m also an unapologetic Stefan fan because I think he’s pretty hilarious. (Although, clearly, the best character is Caroline. She’s certainly the most improved character. Oh, there’s a list in that.) And the pacing of the first couple of seasons is ridiculous, and by ridiculous, I mean AMAZING.

Unfortunately, I started having some problems once the Originals came to town (and, more importantly, didn’t leave town, at least, not for quite a while, anyway, not until they finally got their own spin-off and left Mystic Falls behind). I’m behind on the last season (which had its own set of frustrating problems), but since I already know most of what happened, I’m considering just starting fresh with Season Six and hoping for the best.

7. Leverage

“You do NOT let Vicki Vale into the Batcave! Ever!”

“RIDICULOUSLY dangerous. It’s like a danger cupcake with murder icing.”

“I need her to be the stick.”
“Well, remember that time I was the carrot and stabbed somebody?”

Another show I’m watching on Netflix because it was recommended to me. Mek and I watched the first season at a leisurely pace, swapping back and forth between this (which was my pick) and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (which was her pick). But once we got to the second season, we suddenly started speeding through it and are now currently on the last season. We’ll have to see how it ends, but it’s a fun little heist show with a lot of enjoyable dialogue, geeky references, and likable characters.

Well. Mostly likable characters. I love Parker, Hardison, and Eliot. I very much enjoy Sophie. And if I could occasionally dropkick Nate into another state, I would probably be a much happier person. (Not that he’s terrible, exactly. I am just so very often annoyed by him.)

8. Six Feet Under

“You hang onto your pain like it means something, like it’s worth something. Well, let me tell you, it’s not worth shit. Let it go.”

“This is my . . . uh, my girlfriend, Brenda.”
“I prefer the term ‘fuck-puppet’.”

“There’s just so many months I could have loved you better.”

I loved the hell out of the first two seasons of Six Feet Under. I then struggled HARD with third season because I suddenly despised almost every single character (I think David might have been the exception, and even then, Keith was driving me crazy) and, as we all know, likable characters is a Big Issue with me. So I dropped it for a while, always intending to go back to it, but never quite did. (Per usual, this is mostly Mekaela’s fault.) I’ve seen bits and pieces of later seasons, and I know how the series ends, but I haven’t actually watched it. I really feel like I should save that until I actually watch the series in full. (Which will probably be on my own. Damn it, Mekaela. Leverage? Teen Wolf? When have I steered you wrong?)

9. Cougar Town

“I hate documentaries. They’re too preachy, and you can’t clap when someone dies because it’s real.”

“I think we’re both going to have the ‘You’re Hooking Up With My Mom’ Hamburger.”
“What’s on that?”
“Who cares? It’s free.”

“I ate dead baby lasagne?”

This is that show I tell my geeky friends I watch, and they look at me like they don’t know who I am anymore or maybe just don’t want to. And I’m like, “But! But! There was that mini Community crossover event, remember?” And they’re like, “Yeah, but it’s called COUGAR TOWN.” And then I sigh and just give up, knowing I’m doomed to always be the friend who watches the TV that other TV fiends scoff at.

But terrible and almost completely inaccurate name aside, Cougar Town is actually a pretty good show with a great cast and some hilarious dialogue. I sometimes tire of all the Jules Cobb crazy, but I feel a special snarky nerd connection to Travis and Ellie says a lot of the things I want to say and don’t because I sometimes pretend to be a decent human being. (Stop laughing. I totally do pretend. You have not seen the worst of me.) And for all the wacky antics, this show can be surprisingly moving when it wants to be. I’m really glad TBS saved it (however temporarily) from the inevitable ABC chopping block.

10. Criminal Minds

“When a woman tells a man about her feelings, she doesn’t want him to fix her. She wants him to shut up and listen.”

“There are many paths to the same place. Trust me.”
“Just so you know, you sound like a fortune cookie.”

“Can you guys do me a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Can at least one of you look like you’re going to see me again?”

I was totally obsessed with Criminal Minds for a while. I still like it, but you know, it’s on like its tenth season or something, and I checked out two or three years ago now. I really think TV shows, but especially criminal procedures, should probably cap out at six or seven seasons, max. Still, I love Reid. I love Prentiss. Morgan and Garcia are awesome. (I’m actually not a shipper, but it wouldn’t bother me all that terribly if they did get together. I can see arguments for both.) The only character I never really cared about was Rossi. And maybe Gideon. Like, I liked Gideon because Mandy Patinkin is great, but I also thought the team dynamic was a little more interesting without him.

11. Firefly

“They say the snow on the roof is too heavy. They say the ceiling will cave in. His brains are in terrible danger.”

“We need to resort to cannibalism.”
“That was fast. Don’t we have rations or anything?”

“Bye now. Have good sex!”

I’ve resisted using Firefly for these quotes challenges thus far because it’s probably the most quoted show on the internet, and I knew there was absolutely zero chance that I could pull three awesome quotes that nobody would know. But I tried to at least stay away from the ones you always see on buttons. Like, I figured that “curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal” was probably not the best way to go, no matter how perfect it was.

Firefly was like fourteen episodes long and aired over ten years ago and is still one of the biggest cult shows ever. Some people hate it (which I just don’t understand) and some people are still infuriated at FOX for canceling it (which I kind of get, although I also think those people had seriously unrealistic expectations on how far a sci-fi western show where people mostly swear in Chinese was going to go). I won’t lie: I was pretty devastated when it got cancelled, but I’m also not one of the people who are still clamoring to see it magically come back to television, either. Cause, yeah. I think that ship has sailed, you guys.

I have my Firefly box set, my Serenity DVD, and my memories. Ultimately, I’m okay with that.

12. Veronica Mars

“So my Grandma Reynolds was always saying, ‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade’. I wish she was still alive because I’d really like to ask her what she suggests for when life gives you chlamydia.”

“Mr. Echolls, I was wondering if I could have a word.”
“Anthropomorphic. All yours, big guy.”

“Hotdog!”
“Hotdog?”
“It’s an expression of excitement and enthusiasm. Joe and Frank Hardy and I used to say hotdog all the time while we were waiting for the carhop to bring us our malteds at the drive-in.”
“Drive-in?”
“I hate you.”

Oh, Veronica Mars. You were brilliant and hilarious and often frustratingly uneven. You were also cancelled before your time, although you now have both a movie and a meta spin-off web series, neither of which I ever thought which actually happen, at least, not if you asked me two years ago. I would like to edit the holy hell out of Seasons Two and Three (or just entirely rewrite Three), but whatever your flaws, you were still precious to me, and Veronica Mars will remain both one of my favorite detectives and favorite female heroines of all time.

All right, that’s all. Thanks for playing, everyone.

Tell me the truth: have you been missing my Teen Wolf season recaps? Hush, of course you have. Well, lucky for you, I have another one right here ready to read.

Season 4 is the first season I’ve been able to watch while it’s actually airing (instead of obsessively marathoning it on Amazon). It’s also, unfortunately, probably the weakest season since the first one. But hey, Teen Wolf is my jam. (Sure, shows can be jams.) I will always love it. Even when it occasionally makes no sense of any kind.

DISCLAIMER:

As with all of my TW recaps post Season One, this will have a truckload of SPOILERS.

SUMMARY:

Scott McCall’s Loosely Formed Pack of Lost Toys try to move on after Allison’s death. Not that they have much time for grief, what with Derek being abducted, the return of Kate Argent, and a bunch of assassins gunning for every supernatural creature in Beacon Hills.

NOTES:

1. Despite this being a very uneven season of Teen Wolf, there’s still a good deal to enjoy in S.4. Let’s begin with the Serious Crack.

Oh. My. God. They magically de-aged Derek. They straight up turned Grown Up, Broody Derek into Angry, Lost, Baby Derek. This. I can’t . . . I’ve got nothing. I can’t believe they actually did this. Sure, you see this trope all the time in fanfiction — I mean, seriously, ALL THE TIME — but on a live-action television series? Holy God, no. I laughed my ASS off.

Admittedly, the actual “plot” reason this happened was pretty ludicrous. And the de-aging only lasts an episode and doesn’t really go anywhere, which is kind of disappointing. That being said, I can’t regret them doing it. I just can’t. It kept me giggling for hours after watching the episode. I kept snickering to myself throughout the night at work, which probably didn’t look too creepy, except for that time I was taking a dead body to the morgue. (I kid. I very rarely do that.)

Thank you, Teen Wolf, for continuing to create some of the very best what-the-fuckery that money can buy. Thank you so much.

2. I was also really into the mystery this season. Like I said earlier, this is the first time I’ve been able to watch Teen Wolf while it was on air and, as such, it’s the first season where I didn’t manage to spoil myself for pretty much every major plot development. I still enjoyed the hell out of the past few seasons, obviously, and there were things that clearly took me by surprise. But I knew who really bit Scott in Season One. I knew the identity of the kanima in Season Two. I knew who was sacrificing people in Season Three, and I definitely knew who the Nogitsune was possessing in Season Four.

But here I didn’t know who the Benefactor was. I didn’t know if there would be any big surprises on the deadpool, and I sure didn’t know what names were being used for the cypher keys. But man, did I have fun trying to puzzle it out.

Yup. That’s me at my most analytical and ridiculous. As you can see, I actually even started a color-coding system before I abandoned it. (I was annoyed it didn’t seem precise enough.) Anything that manages to activate my Super Analyzation Powers will get some serious love from me. I think it’s why I like mysteries so much. They engage me. I just want to theorize and speculate and possibly make color-coded Charts of Death. I like to think this makes me a more lovable person and is definitely something I should bring up more on blind dates.

3. Unfortunately, it can’t all be magical de-aging and Charts of Death.

See, because of the unusual scheduling of Season 3A and 3B, Season 4 was kind of rushed into production and, sadly, you can tell. There are a lot of good moments and ideas in this season, but most of them don’t really come together the way you want them to, not to mention there are a lot of giant plot holes and inconsistencies throughout. And I say that having watched all three seasons prior to this show. Some things just don’t make sense. Others are just incredibly lazy writing.

For instance:

3A. Oh my god, the magic tea.

Man, I have to explain the magic tea? Can’t I go back to paralyzing yakuza again?

I actually really enjoyed the majority of “Weaponized” — mysterious illness, quarantine, Stiles in danger! — but the magic tea antidote was such bullshit. Like, I can get around that it just happens to be in the vault. (Oh, the secret hidden vault at the school. I love it. So many giggles.) That’s ridiculously convenient, of course but I can deal with it. What I can’t get around is how Deaton realizes that the tea is the magic antidote.

To demonstrate just how bad this is, I’m going to give you the straight up dialogue.

Satomi: “It infected my whole pack.”
Deaton: “Everyone except for you. That’s the real question: did you not get infected, or are you immune?”

We briefly cut away to another scene at the school before going back to the morgue. The adults talk for a few minutes about other unrelated things. And then . . .

Satomi (to Derek, after he notices her looking at him): “Sorry. I just noticed how much you remind me of Talia. I used to visit her a lot, you know. Do you remember me?”
Derek: “I remember the tea. You always brought that tea that smelled terrible.”
Satomi: “I brought that tea as a gift. Your mother loved it.”
Deaton: “What kind of tea?”
Satomi: “What?”
Deaton: “The tea, with the smell. What kind was it?”
Satomi: “Reishi. Wild purple reishi. It’s very rare.”
Deaton: “It’s also a very powerful remedy for sickness. Satomi, you didn’t get infected because you’ve been inoculated.”

Yeah. This is not okay. Satomi used to visit Talia Hale all the time, even though no one’s ever mentioned her before? That’s fine. Derek just happens to remembers the magic tea? I’m actually okay with that too. But Deaton manages to connect ‘unknown smelly tea that this one werewolf used to drink a lot’ to ‘this must be the only reason Satomi never got sick and is obviously our only hope to save Scott and his friends’? Bull. Shit. I mean, this is Heart Knowledge on a whole other level, and it’s maddening. I forgive a lot with this show because I genuinely think Teen Wolf has a lot going for it and I really just enjoy it so much, but man. There is just no excuse for this kind of lazy ass writing.

3B. Considerably less frustrating (but still kind of hilariously bad): Scott’s dad shoots the assassin who’s about to kill Stiles. Now, this is good because one, we really don’t want Stiles dead, and two, the blood spatter (as well as Stiles’s reaction to it) is kind of awesome.

The problem here is, well, physics. Rafe McCall is standing directly behind the assassin when he shoots him in the head. Stiles, meanwhile, is standing directly in front of the assassin. Both Stiles and the assassin appear to be of equal heights, and the bullet clearly exits out of the assassin’s forehead. Like, that’s not up for debate. There is a giant hole in the center of this guy’s head. So . . . how did Stiles not also get shot in the head?

The only answer I can come up with is magic bullets. People. You never want the answer to be magic bullets. Ever. Just look at X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

3C. There’s also the mechanics of the deadpool list.

I loved the idea of the assassins. Really, I did — a mysterious Benefactor hiring a whole bunch of independent assassins to kill nearly all of your heroes is a great setup for a season. And the assassins themselves are pretty enjoyable, too: the Mute, the Orphans, the PSAT teacher. (Okay, that wasn’t his codename, but obviously, it should have been.) Most of them didn’t last long, but that didn’t really bother me because you always knew there was another bad guy out there, waiting to try his hand at killing everyone. (Although I could’ve been okay seeing more of the Mute because that guy was pretty creepy looking.)

And I was more or less okay with Meredith being the Benefactor, albeit with Peter’s Crazy Ass Coma Revenge Plan guiding all her actions. I desperately didn’t want Peter to be the Benefactor himself — that was about the most boring twist I could’ve possibly imagined — but they managed to make it work in a way that I at least found interesting. I didn’t see Meredith coming at all, and — while pretty weird — I could more or less buy that Meredith heard all of Peter’s Coma Thoughts, since a) it’s been pre-established that he was at least somewhat conscious during this state, b) he was pretty close to death, and c) banshee powers have always been kind of murky, and this didn’t seem totally out of the realm of possibility of something Meredith could do.

But I’m still struggling with Lydia’s grandmother’s giant 70’s computers. Like, what? That’s how the deadpool lists are getting out to people? I don’t even . . . how? WHY? This was so poorly explained and illogical. I’m all about Lydia’s grandmother being a banshee and having a creepy soundproof room, but I just couldn’t buy into the idea that the massive hidden computers were generating these lists. I mean, maybe if Dr. Arnim Zola were involved, but otherwise? Nope. Also, how exactly did the lists start printing out from every printer in Beacon Hills? This whole thing just doesn’t work for me.

3D. I know I just said that I was okay with murky banshee powers, and I mostly meant that, but if they’re going to scream catatonic veterinarians awake, you know, I think that would be a scene worth seeing. (I will table my discussion of the secret Arkham Asylum wing of Eichen House for now, but rest assured: I will be discussing it at some length later in this review. Prepare yourselves accordingly.)

4. Okay, this is just too amazing. I actually have to put my review on hold for this one thing: while trying to discern how to correctly spell Reishi tea (and boy, was I doing a bad job), I tried Googling ‘What kind of tea is in Teen Wolf?’ I then found myself at a website for Adagio Teas, who, in addition to all the normal teas they make, have apparently made a handful of tea blends entirely inspired by Teen Wolf. There is even a Sour Wolf Tea. (They also have teas for Sherlock, Doctor Who, Firefly, and Welcome to Night Vale. Although I had to click on that last one because they referred to as The Town, as I was like, Wait. You have tea for that Ben Affleck/Jeremy Renner movie?)

I am so disappointed that I don’t like tea. Honestly, I feel a little crushed right now.

5. Okay, back to the actual review. Lets spend some one-on-one time with each of the main characters, shall we?

Scott McCall

Scott is never going to be my favorite character in the show, but that actually says more about how much I like the other characters than it does about any dislike for him. I’ve actually grown to like Scott quite a bit since first season — he’s kind of adorably endearing, which is not a character trait you often find in lead male protagonists of any age — and I think Tyler Posey has grown considerably as an actor. When Posey tried to act all dangerous and wolfy in first season, I never bought it. Ever. But he had multiple moments this season where I was like, Hey, that was kind of badass. The scene that springs to mind most readily is when he totally owns Violet in a fight. I was like, Hell yeah, Scott McCall! Cause I don’t want to see Scott lose his puppyish qualities, but at the same time, if he’s going to be an Alpha (a TRUE ALPHA even) of a werewolf pack, it’d be nice if I bought that he could kick someone’s ass or occasionally lose control of his werewolf rage. And I did.

His whole ‘Am I Going to be a Killer’ Arc did not turn out the way I wanted it to, but that’s a longer discussion that I’ll get into a bit later. For now, I’ll just add that I kind of liked seeing him as a Werewolf Daddy to Liam, even if Liam himself pretty much bores the crap out of me (see also: Liam).

Stiles Stilinski

3B was obviously Stiles’s season, so I wasn’t surprised to see they pulled back from him a bit in S4 to focus more on their actual lead character. Disappointed, obviously, because Stiles is my favorite, but I totally get balancing out screen-time. My problem is this: I know Teen Wolf wanted a lighter season after 3B, Season of Death. I get it, and honestly, I wasn’t looking for all despair, all the time, either. Like, I didn’t want TW’s Season 4 to be like Buffy’s Season 6. But when you have Dark Shit happen in your show, (or book or movie), people will generally expect there to be actual ramifications, emotional or otherwise, in the next installment. And while I feel like the show did an okay job dealing with Allison’s death, I was less impressed with the total lack of post-Nogitsune angst. Cause, you know, a main character got possessed by an evil trickster spirit who fucked with his entire sense of reality and, also,  killed a whole bunch of people. I don’t feel like I was expecting too much to hope they’d bring it up more than once.

All that being said, Stiles still gets a lot of the best dialogue, and he did have a few scenes I really enjoyed. A good majority of them are with Malia (see also: Malia), but my favorite Stiles moment was probably this one with the Sheriff:

I will always be a sucker for any scene that has both Dylan O’Brien and Linden Ashby in it. Always. They are the best.

Kira Yukimura

Like Stiles, Kira doesn’t have quite as much to do this season. (Although I did kind of love the scene where she tried to do that stupid sexy walk down the staircase, fell, and was just immediately like, “Hey, I’m awesome. Wanna go to a party?” Also, I loved that she joined the lacrosse team, and it wasn’t even like, “Oh my God, a girl’s on the lacrosse team.” Like, there was zero sexist bullshit about it, which was totally awesome and very Teen Wolf.) I didn’t mind too much, that she had less to do, although I wish Kira would use her electricity powers a little more in fights. Not that the swordplay isn’t cool too, but it kind of drives me crazy that she has this incredible power at her fingertips and never seems to use it. Like, I don’t think she even tries frying the Berserkers. What’s with that?

(Actually, I know what’s with that. I read this interview with Jeff Davis where he talks about how he didn’t want her to turn into Electro, and I get that, but I’m also like, Wait, the only way we’ll get to see Kira learn how to use her awesome electric powers that you’ve ALREADY INTRODUCED is if she has her own spinoff series? That’s such bullshit! The entire interview is both interesting and INCREDIBLY frustrating, and I will be discussing it in greater detail a little later in this review.)

I also hope that next season we see more of Kira as a trickster. Personally, I like her whole adorkability vibe and I want to keep that going, but I also want to see it balanced with developing Kira as this kind of amoral being who loves tricks and mischief. I was excited that she got her first tail at the end of the season, and I’m hopeful this means we’ll get more of her kitsune stuff in Season Five.

Derek Hale

Derek’s big thing this season — other than temporarily transforming into his teenage self — is that he’s losing all his werewolf powers. Also, Lydia has predicted his death. It turns out, however, that he’s not actually dying — he’s just evolving into a better (though still beta) werewolf that can shapeshift into an actual wolf like his mother did. Which is kind of cool, although I feel like the werewolf evolution thing sort of came out of nowhere. Like, I know different wolves can do different things, but I sort of thought that was all budget related Alpha stuff. I don’t think there’s ever been any evidence to suggest that beta* wolves have super special powers, much less that they gain those powers by losing all their other wolf-like abilities (and then ‘dying’ at the hands of a Berserker). Admittedly, I’m not exactly sure how you’d foreshadowed any of that without making it completely obvious what was happening, but still. It’s a minor-to-moderate quibble.

Derek’s other thing is that he gets a girlfriend who A) isn’t evil and B) doesn’t die.

This is cool because Derek’s love life is stupidly tragic, and also because I like Braeden, and I’m all about her having more screen time. It’s also kind of hysterical because these two are so abruptly pushed together as a couple, like, I think they have one tiny scene where there’s maybe, maybe, a smidgeon of sexual tension before she’s seriously injured a few episodes later, and he swoops into the hospital with her in his arms, all, “Help! My lady love is dying!” And maybe an episode after that she’s giving him Sexy Gun Lessons, and then they’re falling into bed together. As you do. The actors have completely decent chemistry with one another, and I’m totally okay with them hooking up, but the speed at which these two become a couple is nothing short of hilarious.

*If you’re wondering why I’m capitalizing Alpha but not beta — and let’s be honest, you’re probably not — well, the truth is, I don’t have a good answer for you. My grammar is apparently without any form of logic. But Alpha just FEELS like it should be capitalized, right? Especially if it’s True Alpha, I mean, I think that’s a given. But I don’t know, Beta Wolf just looks silly to me. Perhaps this is Heart Grammar? It’s like Heart Knowledge, but nerdier. Also, my newest imaginary band name.

Malia Hale

(I debated on Male Hale vs Male Tate, but ultimately decided to go with her birth name, less because it was her birth name and more because it’s the one written on the deadpool. When it doubt, go with the name given to professional assassins.)

I was so-so on Malia last season, but this season she became one of my favorite characters. Having spent the greater majority of her life as a coyote, Malia is the ultimate pragmatist, which makes her both funny and relatable. Especially when it comes to her confusion about math. I definitely relate to the confusion about math. But I like that certain concepts are totally foreign to her and she has to learn how to be a human in a way that the others don’t.

I also think her practicality makes her a pretty good match for Stiles. I wasn’t initially jazzed about the two of them dating, mostly because I was hoping they’d spend more time developing the possibility of Stiles being bisexual (which, sadly, they don’t), but the show pretty quickly won me over. I like the scene where he realizes that she’s using his color-coding detective method for studying. I thought it was cute. And I downright adored the Little Spoon/Big Spoon flashback/dream scene.

There’s a lot of hate in the fandom for Malia, primarily from Lydia/Stiles shippers, but I find her totally endearing, and I look forward to meeting Mommy Desert Wolf next season.

Lydia Martin

Lydia continues to be enjoyable. I adore her banshee magic and will always be happy to see her finding dead bodies or hearing weird voices in strange places. I feel like her story with her grandmother was a little muddled, although I did like parts of it, and I did love the soundproof room (sans computers). Funny thing about that room: there was an amazing technical glitch that some viewers, myself included, got to see: just as we figure out that the room is, indeed, soundproof, the actual sound on the show cut out, so the parts that you were supposed to hear — like Lydia and Mason talking about something that’s clearly very distressing to Lydia — were completely silent. I was like, Wait. Uh, is this supposed to be happening?

Lots of people are shipping Lydia and Deputy Parrish, but I’ve got to say, I don’t quite see it yet. Maybe I’ll warm up to them like I warmed up to Stiles and Malia — I mean, I don’t dislike their scenes — but even without taking the age thing into consideration, I just don’t really see them as a couple. Although I do like Parrish. He’s funny, and I’m excited to see what he ends up being. (Phoenix? Salamander? Ooh, if he does end up dating Lydia, I kind of want him to be a salamander, considering that Jackson was a kanima. I want Lydia to have a lizard type.) I just feel like Parrish is a little bit apple pie or something for Lydia.

Liam Dunbar

Liam is the new kid on the block and is easily my least favorite character in Teen Wolf. He’s not completely terrible. I mean, I actually really like his whole Berserker-PTSD shit because I feel like his fear, while not particularly helpful, is totally appropriate. I like that he doesn’t immediately want to jump in and fight bad guys. That makes total sense to me. And I do find his relationship with Scott interesting, but mostly in how it affects Scott. Liam, himself, does very little for me. I’m not feeling his anger management problems — like, AT ALL — and personality-wise, I’m just kind of bored by him. Time spent on Liam is mostly time not spent on all the characters I’d rather be watching.

Mason

(As far as I know, Mason doesn’t have a last name yet. It’s hiding out with the Sheriff’s and Stiles’s first names, apparently.)

I do like Liam’s BFF, Mason, though. Mason doesn’t have a lot to do this season, other than be the supportive best friend guy who keeps helping out with all the crazy, even though he has absolutely no idea what’s going on. He’s pretty amusing, and I wouldn’t mind seeing him play a bigger role in things next season, since I think the cat’s out of the bag on the supernatural now that he’s seen the Sheriff blow up a Berserker. (Man. Why didn’t any of our teenage heroes just think to start carrying grenades around? That would have made things a lot easier for them this season. Course, apparently Derek can just magic squeeze them to death now, like, oh okay.)

The only problematic thing about Mason . . . and to be fair, it has nothing to do with the actor . . . is that he kind of feels like an uncomfortable Filling the Quota character now that Danny has inexplicably vanished. Seriously, this is weird. If the actor just wanted to go do other things, I’d totally get it, but not only did Keahu Kahuanui not appear in Season Four, they never mentioned him, not once, not ever. There was even an easy scene where Coach could’ve mentioned that Danny’s gone missing or been transferred to another school or something, and they never do. His absence is so strange that I really expected there to be some kind of tease in the season finale, like, oh no, some evil warlock coming in Season Five has erased Danny from everyone’s memory for Nefarious Reasons Unknown . . . but there was nothing. It’s really strange. And the funny thing is, I think I might even like Mason slightly more than I like Danny, but I don’t want him to just be the One Gay Character. That bugs me. I want both these guys.

6. Okay, so this is kind of a tangent, but who am I kidding? My whole review system is based on numbering various tangents, so. There’s this idea that you always have to have at least one human in your group of supernatural kids, that this one de-powered kid somehow grounds the series, and I’m here to tell you that I think this idea is crap.

If only I had magic, I could do something about this.

Sure, it’s totally okay if you just want one of your main characters to be human, but the justification that it somehow makes your show any more realistic or relatable . . . look, there is obviously no making a show about teenage werewolves with glowstick eyes realistic, okay? And I get the idea — it’s too crazy that they’d ALL become supernatural creatures, right? — but I don’t actually think that it is. There are some pretty solid themes in that idea, considering the perils of getting involved in the supernatural world, that you go too far and that you can’t go back and that sometimes you have to become a monster to fight monsters. In fact, I’m pretty sure Nietzsche said something like that: He who fights teen wolves should see to it that he does not become himself a teen wolf.

And as far as relatable goes, I just don’t buy into the idea that the strictly human characters in these kinds of shows are any more relatable simply because they don’t have magical abilities. After all, all the supernatural kids have some kind of vulnerability — Lydia, especially, doesn’t have much going for her in offensive OR defensive powers — so it’s not like we’re being inundated with a castful of Sylars and Peter Petretellis. (Er, for those of you who didn’t watch Heroes — and good for you, bright little things that you are — that means ‘characters who are invincible because they have too many godamned powers’.) I think Stiles — who is clearly Teen Wolf’s Xander — is relatable because he’s hilarious and pop culture savvy and slightly more amoral than his heroic True Alpha BFF, not because he doesn’t grow fur and howl at the moon.

If they don’t want Stiles to be supernatural, then fine. I mean, I’m HUGELY disappointed by this because I personally don’t want Stiles to be Xander. I want him to be Willow, godammit. But I don’t get everything I want, and (I guess) I have to learn how to accept this. But one, please don’t argue that Stiles’s humanity somehow makes the show more grounded because it doesn’t, and two, I think I’d find it helpful if he (and for that matter, Lydia and Mason) got some training with weapons so that they aren’t always immediately helpless whenever a bad guy comes around. I’m not saying they need to be superheroes or anything, but I feel like if I was crossing paths with werewolves and nogitsunes and darachs on a daily basis, I would want some kind of defensive countermeasure that wasn’t a baseball bat. (I was really hoping Lydia telling Stiles that he needed a better weapon meant he would get a better weapon, although the foreshadow for Lydia herself {ineffectually} using the bat in the season finale was fairly clever too.) I mean, Derek was human for about two whole seconds before Braeden’s like, “Dude, you need to learn how to use a gun.” Admittedly, that immediately led to Sexy Times and also hilariously took place when Scott really could have used his help, but I feel the point remains valid: let’s learn some supernatural self-defense, shall we? Or for Christ’s sake, at least upgrade to a taser.

Alternatively, we could just let Mason be our token human and finally let Stiles practice some godamned magic. Come on, Teen Wolf. I’ve been wishing for this since Season Two.

7. One of my biggest problems with this season is how it resolved. Specifically, how it resolved without Scott (or anybody) killing Peter.

Really? We’re letting this guy live? Okay, I’m sure that’s not a terrible mistake.

One of this season’s major arcs was about the possible necessity of Scott killing someone versus his fear of becoming a ruthless killer. I liked this arc, and there are a number of ways I think it could have ended that would have been better than, “I don’t have to kill you, Peter. I’ll just toss you into our top-secret Arkham Asylum Wing of Eichen House that we’ve never bothered to mention before because it was obviously a last minute idea on the writers’ part on how to avoid this being like Deucalion all over again.” (On the positive side, at least I’m not the only one calling it Arkham. The writers, apparently, also refer to it as such.)

Ideally, I think Peter needed to die. And I’d have been sad about that because I, too, like Ian Bohen a great deal and I’d have missed him on the show, but his story basically feels complete, you know? We already have a good number of villains who are improbably still alive, just waiting on the periphery to come back and cause trouble again. I don’t feel like Peter Hale should still be one of them.

And while Scott didn’t necessarily need to be the one to kill Peter, I feel like one of the good guys should have. In that interview I mentioned before, the deeply frustrating one, Jeff Davis likens Scott to Spiderman, basically saying that you don’t want your superheroes to actually kill your bad guys. Which, frankly, I think is debatable, but hey, I’m bloodthirsty, whatever. But my pop culture counter would be, hey, maybe Scott isn’t like Spiderman. Maybe he’s like Buffy, in which case, Buffy kill bad guys all the time. Sure, not so much with the straight up humans. But the vampires, definitely, and I’m not sure that killing an evil werewolf who clearly keeps doing evil shit is really any less moral than killing a vampire doing the exact same kind of thing. The whole idea that Real Heroes Never Kill no matter what circumstance actually doesn’t do much for me, and never has.

But I could still actually be okay with the idea that Scott — as the True Alpha whose powers emerged because of his moral integrity, or some shit — refuses to kill. That seems fair to me. And we at least have our (hastily thrown in) Arkham Asylum now, so this isn’t quite as bad as Season Three. Still, I don’t feel like everyone else in the group would feel the same way, and I would have been happy with basically anyone else killing him. Story-wise, Derek would have worked for me. Stiles would have worked for me. The Sheriff, Lydia, and Malia all could have worked for me. This is even the rare instance where I would have taken the villain cop-out because Kate killing Peter is a perfectly fair turnaround, story-wise. But at the very, very least, if we were going to go with Scott’s play, I really would’ve liked to have seen at least some argument about it. Because killing Peter is the smart thing to do here and, honestly, I’m not convinced it’s the wrong one, either.

This is where that whole “Can’t Go Back” tagline comes in again. I really enjoy that the seasons have their own taglines, like 3A is “This Might Hurt” and 3B is “Lose Your Mind.” (I’m not sure if 1 or 2 have their own nifty three-word phrase.) “Can’t Go Back” is a great tagline for everything that comes after the Season of Death, but I think it would have been a lot more appropriate if S4 had actually been about the consequences of 3B. And I think that’s where a lot of S4 failed for me — because it felt like the writers did want to go back to the funnier stuff, the lighter stuff, the too-easy good-and-evil stuff. And I just don’t feel like that’s a natural progression of the story. It felt like a cheat, and I was disappointed by it.

8. Finally, some more random notes:

8A: The episode where Scott and Stiles try to explain to Liam that he’s becoming a werewolf . . . well. Parts of it are funny, but mostly it’s so unnecessarily painful. Liam should be the easiest person in the world to convince about werewolves, considering that a wendigo just tried to eat his ass and a werewolf bit his arm to save his life. Mind you, both wendigo and werewolf have their game faces on at the time. No one’s hiding anything. Certainly not the wendigo. Look at them teeth:

Yeah. I think Liam might clue into the notion that humans generally don’t have teeth like that.

And even if Liam is the least observant person alive (or really, really good at living in denial), Scott and Stiles are both idiots about how they approach Liam. Like I said, it’s supposed to be funny, but their idiocy is so ridiculous that it’s kind of hard to appreciate the humor.

8B. In theory, I really like the idea of the money problems — it’s nice to see the kids being affected by something so real world — but they kind of come from out of nowhere. Stiles, at least, has some plausible medical expenses from last season, but though Melissa is a single parent, her debt seem very abruptly thrown in for clearly Thematic Reasons. And that goes double for Lydia’s supposed financial problems, which I don’t think even merit more than one (hilariously silenced) line.

I’ll admit, too, that I was kind of hoping Stiles would steal the money for his dad’s surgery. I actually really like the scene where Scott returns the cash to Derek (as well as the scene where Scott talks to Melissa about the money), but I thought Stiles stealing from his best friend would have raised an interesting conflict between the two of them. But hey, that’s what fanfiction’s for.

8C. Turning Scott into a Berserker was kind of cool and I certainly didn’t see it coming, although it didn’t really go anywhere (like, I feel Kate and Peter’s plans were ultimately pretty flawed), and it seemed absurdly easy to break Scott out of his Evil Berserker Trance. Well, it was for Liam, anyway. All he had to do was say something like, “Hey, it’s me, your adopted werewolf son,” and Scott was like, “Oh, wait, I don’t wanna kill you because I don’t like killing people.”

I guess the sire bond is stronger than romantic love in Teen Wolf, though, since Kira’s pleas didn’t stop Scott from stabbing the shit out of her. Poor Kira.

8D. When Meredith (supposedly) hung herself, I immediately assumed that Brunski killed her and was really surprised that nobody else online seemed to think so. Everyone seemed to take the suicide at face value. Admittedly, Brunski didn’t murder Meredith, but I was still really happy that there was more going on there than what initially met the eye. So I give myself kudos. Okay, like, 25% kudos. Like 1/2 of one yummy Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup kudos.

8E. While I’m annoyed that Peter is still among the living, I’m actually happy that Kate survived.

There’s more to tell with her story, and JR Bourne and Jill Wagner are great together. Plus, Kate is awesome. I could totally be down for more of her strolling through a street that’s littered with the dead and dying.

I think the show could only be improved by more of that.

QUOTES:

Stiles: “We’d have to freeze you in carbonite to get you down there.”
Liam: “Okay, where do we get carbonite?”
Stiles: “Seriously? You haven’t seen it, either?”

Sheriff: “Malia, what’s your favorite food?”
Malia: “Deer.”

Peter: “She was listening to the ranting and raving of a lunatic. A former lunatic. I’m much healthier now.”

Kira: “Does this many cards mean you have good credit or bad?”

Coach: “Now what I don’t understand is why anyone would want to get massively falling down drunk in front of an open fire.”

Stiles: “Just give us Derek. You don’t want him anyway. Haven’t you noticed what a downer he is? No sense of humor, poor conversationalist.”

Kira: “Is that what you’d do as a coyote, leave her for dead?”
Malia: “If she was weak and injured, yeah. If hunting had been bad that season, I would eat her. Then I’d leave.”

Lydia: “You’re aware that this is the stupidest plan we’ve ever come up with.”
Stiles: “I’m aware it’s not our best.”
Lydia: “We are going to die.”
Stiles: “Are you saying that as a banshee, or are you just being pessimistic?”
Lydia: “I’m saying it as a person who doesn’t want to die.”
Stiles: “Okay, then, would you mind restricting any talk of death to actual banshee predictions?”
Lydia: “This plan is stupid and we’re going to die.”

Scott: “He hasn’t gotten back to any of my texts.”
Stiles: “Has Derek ever returned your texts?”
Scott: “Once. Definitely once.”

Scott: “I texted him, but he didn’t get back to me.”
Stiles: “You told him his sister came back from the dead by text?”
Scott: “. . . I didn’t have the money to call France.”

Stiles: “So you bit him.”
Scott: “Yeah.”
Stiles: “And you kidnapped him.”
Scott: “Yeah.”
Stiles: “And brought him here.”
Scott: “I panicked.”
Stiles: “Yup. This isn’t going to end with us burying the pieces of his body in the desert, is it? As a reminder, this is why I always come up with the plan. Your plans suck.”

Liam: “What are you?”
Stiles: “Uh, for a little while, I was possessed by an evil spirit. It was very evil.”
Liam: “What are you now?”
Stiles: “. . . better.”

Scott: “We’re brothers now.”
Liam: “What?”
Stiles: “Oh my God, that’s –“
Liam: “What are you talking about? We just met and you bit me.”
Scott: “The bite is a gift.”
Stiles: “Scott, stop. Please stop.”

Malia: “I heard you were coming to talk to Peter. And since Lydia tells me that he’s basically Satan in a V-neck, I figured you probably shouldn’t be alone.”

Stiles: “Perfect. Let’s go.”
Scott: “Whoa, whoa. We’ve got Econ in five minutes.”
Stiles: “All right. Did you forget the part about the family murdering axe murderer?”
Scott: “Did you forget your dad’s the sheriff? They want us to stay out of it.”
Stiles: “Are you guys kidding me? There’s a family murdering axe murderer, and we’re not going to do anything about it?”
Kira: “Maybe we should just let the adults handle it.”
Stiles: “So the two of you, you just want to stay here in school, go to class? Never heard anything so irresponsible in my life.”

Malia: “How much am I worth?”
Scott: “Four million.”
Stiles: “Are you okay?”
Malia: “Yeah. Scott’s worth twenty-five, Kira’s worth six. They’ll take you guys out way before me.”

Sheriff: “The population of Beacon County is just under 30,000.”
Stiles: “And dropping.”

Melissa: “Scott, you can save people’s lives, but you can’t save people from life.”

Scott: “Don’t you want to know why I took so long to return it?”
Derek: “How much do you make at the animal clinic?”
Scott: “Minimum wage.”
Derek: “That’s why.”

Scott: “The game’s the best way to catch him red-handed.”
Stiles: “But what if he’s red-handed cause his hands are covered in the blood of the person he just stabbed to death?”

Stiles: “That’s your assassin speak?”
Chris Argent: “I said he’s dead. What more do you want?”
Stiles: “It was a little dry. You could’ve said something like ‘Target has been neutralized. The crow flies at midnight.’ That’s always cool.”

Peter: “Can’t someone in this town stay dead?”
Malia: “I think they were hoping you would.”

Stiles: “Brunski punched me in the face. Turns out he was a serial killer.”
Malia: “Makes sense.”

Scott: “What are you doing here?”
Malia: “Getting drunk. What are you doing?”
Scott: “Trying to make sure no one gets hurt.”
Malia: “That sounds fun too.”

Peter: “The table’s Italian.”
Braeden: “So are these boots.”

Scott: “If you were paid enough, would you kill her?”
Braeden: “If the money was good, I’d kill you.”

Sheriff: “I want you to be honest with me. Absolutely and completely honest. Have you been time traveling?”
Stiles: “Hang on, what?”
Sheriff: “Because if time traveling is real, I’m done. I’m out. You’re going to be driving me to Eichen House.”
Scott: “We found him like that.”
Sheriff: “Where? Swimming in the Fountain of Youth?”
Stiles: “No. We found him buried in a tomb of wolfsbane in an Aztec temple in Mexico underneath a church in the middle of a town that was destroyed by an earthquake.”

Mama Calaveras: “In Mexico, we just call this a standoff.”

Liam: “I mean, how are you all still alive?”
Scott: “Not all of us are.”

Derek: “I don’t like guns.”
Braeden: “That’s because you’ve never learned to use one.”
Derek: “Or because I’ve been shot. Repeatedly.”

Braeden: “Running out of bullets can get you killed. It also makes you look stupid.”

Derek: “And who is he? Who are you?”
Stiles: “Oh, we’re the guys keeping you out of jail.”

Fahey: “I swear to God, I’ve never seen him, never spoken to him –“
Kate: “I know. See, everybody says the same thing. They don’t know who he is. Where he is. ‘It’s all done electronically.’ ‘I can’t help you.’ ‘Please, I’m bleeding to death.’ ‘Please, stop, it hurts’.”

Malia: “Your notes are great when they’re not written in code.”

Liam: “I don’t care if he’s a foot taller than me. I think I can take him.”
Mason: “Yeah . . .”
Liam: “What do you think you’re doing?”
Mason: “What? Me? I’m agreeing with you. I’m being agreeable.”
Liam: “You think he’s hot, don’t you?”
Mason: “No! No. Not at all. No way. Maybe. Yeah, maybe a little.”
Liam: “He wants to destroy me.”
Mason: “I think you could definitely take him. And then give him to me.”

Mason: “You’re coming. And we’re going to find you a nice girl that you can embarrass yourself in front of and find me a nice lacrosse player. Because statistically speaking, someone on your team has gotta be on my team.”

Liam: “So, you’ve done this before?”
Noshiko: “I’ve seen it done.”
Liam: “Is that just as good?”
Noshiko: “No.”
Kira: “Mom, you’re not inspiring confidence.”
Noshiko: “Good. This is a terrible idea.”

Noshiko: “We told you this was temporary.”
Kira: “That was after you told me I was a kitsune and was going to have to destroy a dark spirit by stabbing and killing one of the few friends I’d made in this town.”
Noshiko: “And you didn’t have to. I call that a win.”

Stiles: “I thought you were leaving.”
Malia: “I wouldn’t leave without you.”
Stiles: “Really?”
Malia: “No, I would never leave without you.” (looks back at Kira and Lydia) “Them, I would leave.”

Parrish: “What’s a kanima?”
Scott: “We’ll get back to that.”

Kira: “We’re not going back to New York.”
Noshiko: “And why would we stay?”
Kira: “Uh. Well, Dad’s a very important teacher at the high school.”
Mr. Yukimura: “In New York, I was a professor at Columbia.”

Stiles: “What’s with all the highlighters, anyway?”
Malia: “Green is for the things I understand. Yellow is for ‘I’m working on it’. And red means I have no clue. I’m mostly using red.”

Malia: “Is this what drunk feels like? It doesn’t feel as good as I hoped.”

(Stiles is trying to fix his Jeep.)
Stiles: “Lydia, could you please hold the flashlight still for a second? It’s really hard to see anything when you keep shaking it like that.”
Lydia: “I’m shaking it like this because we’re in the middle of nowhere with your broken down jeep and we’re being attacked by yet another razor clawed monster. And I’m terrified.”
Stiles: “Well, just be slightly less terrified!”
(Stiles hands her a metal car part.)
Stiles: “And hold this.”
Lydia: “What’s this?”
Stiles: “I don’t know. I’m hoping it’s not important.”

Lydia: “Not all monsters do monstrous things.”

Lydia: “You seriously need to find something better than a baseball bat.”

Parrish: “I’m worth five dollars?”
Stiles: “Five million.”
Parrish: “But I make 40,000 a year.”

Parrish: “You have an expert on teenage cannibals?”

CONCLUSIONS:

Yeah, this wasn’t one of Teen Wolf’s better seasons. It just didn’t quite come together the way I hoped it would. But I still really had fun watching it, and I’m still looking forward to next season. Hopefully, it will be a little tighter and better balanced, considering the writers will have more time to plan it out.

MVP:

You know, Dylan O’Brien is always my favorite (like, seriously, always), but considering he has a little less to do this time around . . . I think I’m going to go with Shelley Hennig. Cause, yeah, Malia was pretty consistently great this season. Kudos to Tyler Posey, too.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B

MORAL:

True Heroes don’t kill people. Even when they totally, totally should.