Yearly Archives: 2016

Television

The X-Files: “My Struggle” effortlessly recaptures everything that matters about this show

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So, it turns out after all these years that The X-Files is still what it always has been.

I was a little worried, frankly, about what this revisitation of the show was going to be, and I wasn’t reassured by the two full minutes of exposition before the opening credits. I suppose it worked to refresh our memories and introduce the show to those who aren’t familiar with it, but it ran a little long and was slightly over-serious. I don’t like the way that the opening exposition and the [unfortunately vaguely Hitler-esque—seriously, how did no one catch this?] episode title frame it all as primarily Mulder’s story, but then, the show always did set Scully up as an observer or accessory to Mulder. It feels almost accidental that Scully became the icon that she is, and I’m not surprised to see her still being treated the way she was twenty-odd years ago. In any case, it barely matters because then the theme song was on, and my response—to immediately turn off some critical thinking parts of my brain—was practically Pavlovian.

This turns out to be a good thing, as there’s quite a lot about this episode that doesn’t really hold up under much scrutiny. The X-Files’ mythology has always been convoluted and at times bizarre, but this newest iteration of it is something else. I’ve always rather felt as if the whole concept of the show was somewhat undermined by the fact that speculating about government conspiracies stopped being fun in light of the scary dystopian realities of the post-9/11 world, and this new show tries to address that with mixed success. Mostly, it tries to address it by combing through conspiracy theory subreddits and chain emails from your gun-nut Trump-voting uncle for material and then combining it all into a sort of grand unified theory of government malfeasance. It’s a weird tactic, but it works about as well as any of the show’s mythology from the pre-9/11 days. Take that as you will.

Joel McHale is entertaining in his turn as Tad O’Malley, and he captures some of what real-life conservative blowhard Bill O’Reilly has in spades—surprisingly good-natured charm. This is a guy that I’d be happy to go out for drinks with, though I was still slightly appalled that Scully would. As a sort of instigator for getting Mulder and Scully back together and, ultimately, having the X-Files reopened, O’Malley is as good as any other idea the show could have come up with. When you have such a deeply implausible premise for a show, nearly anything goes, and this is both one of The X-File’s perennial problems and its saving grace. It’s a little weird to be somewhat rooting for a conservative nutjob, but I kind of like that the show would go that direction. There are few enough ways for a 23-year-old show to do something unexpected; O’Malley is a fun character; and McHale has enough charisma to make him likeable.

The central mystery of the episode, to the degree that it has one, centers around a young woman, Sveta, who claims to have been abducted many times by aliens (or men masquerading as aliens), who performed experiments on her, including forcibly impregnating her and stealing her fetuses. It’s pretty standard X-Files stuff, as is the way Sveta is somewhat aimlessly shuffled around in the episode’s narrative, appearing only when needed and then disposed of unceremoniously. It’s a paper-thin plot, and it’s a little sad to see Annet Mahendru’s talents wasted in such a throwaway role, but I think it’s important to recognize that “My Struggle” isn’t about telling a self-contained story of its own. It’s really only secondarily about reestablishing the show’s mythology. Rather, it’s about getting the old team back together, and everything in this episode is striving towards the moment at the end when Skinner officially reopens the X-Files.

The other thing this episode is about is reintroducing us to Mulder and Scully. To that end, we get a pretty good picture of both how the years have changed these characters and how much is still the same. Mulder has visibly aged, growing grey and a little soft, and David Duchovny still plays him with a certain level of ironic detachment, but he’s still our Fox. He’s as credulous as ever, but he does seem more self-aware, especially when it comes to his relationship with Scully. Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully, of course, is a perfect paragon of beauty and grace and long-suffering. Scully has gotten a little harder with age, but she’s still game for uncovering, well, whatever they’re going to be uncovering. Most importantly, Mulder and Scully still have the chemistry that made them so compelling to watch in the old series, now tempered with the weight of nearly twenty-five years of friendship and love and shared experiences. This is the thing that made the show great and led us to forgive it so many sins over the course so many years, and it’s pretty thrilling, honestly, to see it recaptured in a fashion that seems so effortless and natural.

Here’s the thing about The X-Files: I love this show. With a deep and abiding passion born of having fallen in love with Scully and Mulder at a formative age. This reboot would have to be really, really terrible for me to hate it. The good news is that it’s not really terrible. “My Struggle” isn’t a great episode, but it’s recognizably The X-Files, from its writing to its production values to its lead characters, who feel like they have been right where we left them nearly fifteen years ago, just waiting for us to come back and see them. While “My Struggle” is a bit of a mess, it’s a very familiar and beloved mess that I, for one, am happy to revisit after all this time.

 

Weekend Links

Weekend Links: January 23, 2016

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This week, for me, has been mostly a week of searching out fun stuff, rather than serious stuff. This coming week I have a couple of important (albeit self-imposed) deadlines coming up, but the last few days have been largely about relaxation and self-care. Probably 50% of my reading has been in listicle form, though I’m sad to say I couldn’t avoid the world entirely.

At Inverse, I read about 8 sci-fi illustrations that, in hindsight, feel prescient.

Paleofuture talked about 7 real life products that get their names from dystopian fiction.

At Tor.com, 10 authors weigh in on the perennial “hard vs. soft” sci-fi debate. It turns out that sensible people all agree that it’s a stupid debate.

Winter is Coming covered the 3 new teasers released for Game of Thrones season six. #HouseLannister

Fandom Following imagines what a Benioff and Weiss adaptation of Harry Potter might look like. #ACCURATE

The Toast examined the illegitimacy of Aragorn’s claim to the throne of Gondor. It’s a perfect example of why you just can’t think too hard about a lot of fantasy.

io9 discussed the current trend of Old West-inspired fantasy.

It turns out that fairy tales may be much, much older than originally thought. We’re talking thousands rather than hundreds of years old, which is pretty rad.

Her Universe is getting into publishing, with six titles planned for this year.

Mary Robinette Kowal wonders why there aren’t more women in the SFF section at bookstores. TLDR? Sexism. Sexism is the answer.

Gillian Anderson was apparently offered just half the salary of David Duchovny for the new X-Files. For reasons, I guess. (Also, sexism, obv.)

SF Signal interviewed Charlie Jane Anders about her upcoming novel, All the Birds in the Sky.

My Bookish Ways sat down with David Tallerman to discuss his recently released novella, Patchwerk.

This lovely Star Wars fan film, “Kara,” is a thing that exists, and you ought to watch it:

And there’s finally an honest trailer for Labyrinth…

Just in time for news of a Labyrinth reboot, or maybe a sequel, but either way it’s a travesty. #DoNotWant

Book Reviews, Books, Fantasy, Young Adult

Book Review: Truthwitch by Susan Dennard

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Whew! Truthwitch is an absolutely exhausting, if exhilarating, read. There’s an enormous amount of stuff going on in this book, and I kind of loved it, but the problem with doing lots of things in a novel is that it’s only seldom that they’re all done well. Like many other ambitious and complex works, especially those intended for a YA audience, Truthwitch is a bit of a mixed bag.

The biggest problem with Truthwitch is that, while a ton of stuff happens, nothing is resolved and not all of the things that happen seem to belong in the same story with each other. Some parts feel almost entirely disconnected from the rest, while other parts are both too obviously connected with each other and made to feel much more mysterious than they actually are.

The book opens with main characters Safiya and Iseult in the middle of a “heist,” though it’s never particularly clear what they’re up to, how they planned to get away with it, or why this was how Susan Dennard decided to start the story. It could be intended to establish the girls’ “normal” state of affairs, but it’s made very clear later on that this was something that they did infrequently, as both of them have legit positions in the city they live in that would prevent them from really engaging in a life of crime—not to mention the ways their choices are constricted by their social positions. It’s a strange opening that—even more so in hindsight—feels like the beginning of a very different book than what we’re actually given.

Once you get past the unfortunately confusing and unnecessarily cold open, though, Truthwitch is a fast-paced, enjoyable read. It’s still somewhat scattered at times, with a couple of lengthy diversions into subplots that I’m sure will come to fruition later in the series, but the majority of the book is forward motion. By the final quarter, it veritably hurtles towards a conclusion that is equal parts devastating (in a good way), aggravating, and altogether too neat after the chaotic middle section of the book. This is highlighted by having a final chapter dedicated to wrapping up each character’s story in a few paragraphs to prepare the reader for the next book. This seems to be a common trend in YA series, and I hate it. It’s just too much like handholding, and it puts me in mind of the stilted, at-least-half-redundant fashion in which eighth graders write conclusions to essays.

The other major issue I have with this book is a world-building complaint. While the Witchlands is a big, beautiful, complex fantasy world, the details of its magic system can be frustratingly opaque at times. It’s a great idea, and I loved all the different types of magic, but there are several concepts that are woefully underdeveloped and a couple that are just plain ill-conceived. The worst offenses on this score are Safi and Iseult’s powers, which are both poorly defined and not utilized very smartly in the narrative.

Iseult’s magic as a Threadwitch seems useful, but it’s obvious early on that her abilities are non-normative. It’s also just not really that clear what exactly Threadwitch’s do. Although Iseult’s mother seems to have an important place in their Nomatsi community, it’s never actually explained what her role is or how the Threadwitch magic works. Instead, there’s a lot of sort of mystical explanations that seem at odds with the utilitarian descriptions we get when Iseult actually uses her powers.

Meanwhile, Safi’s magic as a Truthwitch is supposedly extremely rare and ridiculously powerful, but there’s nothing in the narrative to confirm that this is truly the case. Again, there are some descriptions of her using her magic that make is seem extremely useful, but it doesn’t seem to affect Safi’s day to day life that much. Especially when it’s revealed—and relatively early in the book—that Safi’s witchery may not be as accurate or powerful as everyone seems to think, I was left feeling that there’s a good deal of much ado about nothing going on. Indeed, Safi’s magic seems redundant and second-rate when Wordwitches exist; certainly, it doesn’t seem to be powerful enough to be worth starting a world war over, though that is exactly what is happening by the end of the book.

That said, the way that Dennard describes and utilizes the magic of the book’s secondary characters is really well-done. Wordwitches, Glamourwitches, and Windwitches drift in and out of the narrative doing really interesting stuff with their magics, which are shown rather than told about. The Bloodwitch, Aeduan, has his abilities described wonderfully—much more what I would expect of a very rare and powerful magic—and again we are shown how his magic works and the way it fits into the story Dennard is telling. I expect that Safi and Iseult’s magics will play a much larger role in future books, but there’s a coyness to the way they’re used in Truthwitch that I found highly unpleasant, largely because of the way in which it contrasts with the much better fashion in which Dennard shows us literally everyone else’s magic.

The greatest strength of Truthwitch, on the other hand, is its focus on exploring friendship and the families that people choose as opposed to those we’re born into. Safi and Iseult’s relationship is the strongest one in the novel, and no matter what else happens to the two girls, they prioritize their love for each other over nearly everything else. With so many other YA books having a heavier focus on romance, it’s delightfully refreshing to read something where everything revolves around the friendship and love between two young women. At the same time, both Safi and Iseult are distinct individuals with concerns, plans, hopes, and dreams of their own. Though their destinies may be intertwined, they are never subsumed in each other, and their personalities are complementary rather than particularly similar to each other.

That’s not to say that there isn’t any romance, of course, and I found myself rather enjoying Merik and Safi’s hate-to-love journey, though it’s not covering any new ground in the genre. It’s pedestrian, but in a way that is comfortingly familiar. It also helps that it’s not given so much page time that it distracts from other things. Additionally, Merik’s friendship with Kullen is well-portrayed as a parallel to Safi’s friendship with Iseult, so there’s much more than just a romantic subplot going on. Speaking of romance, though, I’m much more interested in whatever is going on between Iseult and Aeduan. Yeah, he’s a terrifying Bloodwitch who is hunting the girls across the world to probably kill them, but there are some sparks there (#iamtrash).

All in all, Truthwitch is a solidly entertaining read and a strong start to an interesting new series. It’s very reminiscent of Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass series, and I’m loving this kind of sword and sorcery trend in YA fiction. While Truthwitch isn’t perfect, none of its flaws are fatal ones, and all are forgivable. I can’t wait to see what happens in the Witchlands next.

Book Reviews, Books, Fantasy, Novella

Book Review: The Drowning Eyes by Emily Foster

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I expected to love The Drowning Eyes, but I’m sad to say I only liked it. The gorgeous cover art and the book’s description had me very excited about it, but it just wasn’t quite what I expected.

In spite of the way the book description reads, The Drowning Eyes is told almost entirely from Tazir’s point of view. I had expected it to be more equally split between Tazir and Shina, so this was a disappointment. Worse, Shina’s viewpoint was utilized suboptimally in addition to simply being underused; while it did offer a point of view through which the reader is given some extra information, mostly about Shina herself, there’s just not enough of it, and Tazir’s stronger personality is much more interesting and entertaining to read. Instead of being a good complement to Tazir’s sections, Shina’s brief POV scenes ended up being a somewhat irritating distraction from the real meat of the story.

I also thought there would be more swashbuckling adventure. Disappointingly, there was basically none. This was largely made up for by Shina’s actually really fascinating weather magic and the accompanying sort of religious order that she’s part of, but still. I feel like I was promised pirates, and all I received was the rather mysterious Dragon Ships, which are never really explained very well and aren’t actually that big a threat to the characters over the course of the journey described in the book. This also has the effect of making it feel throughout the book as if we’re being told over and over again how high the stakes are without it being backed up by any action that the reader is privy to.

It’s a problem, particularly when the personal stakes are plenty high enough to carry the story all on its own. Shina’s trauma could have been handled better and given a little more page space, and I would have loved to see more interaction with Shina and Tazir regarding Shina’s decision to give up her eyes. I love the whole idea of this practice, personally; all the best magic systems have heavy costs for power, and this is one that deserves to be explored more than it was. Tazir in general is a fascinating example of a type of female character that doesn’t usually get to exist—a somewhat grizzled, world-weary, and slightly misanthropic sea captain. I would read a dozen books about her adventures is Emily Foster would just write them. The supporting characters of Kodin and Chaqal are somewhere between underdeveloped and superfluous—especially Kodin—but this is something that, again, could be helped by just a couple more pages dedicated to each of them.

Where things really fell apart for me in this book was the abrupt ending to Shina’s quest and the disorienting shift five years into the future. Frankly, I just don’t care for it, and I would rather have seen Shina’s search for the idol wrapped up a little more neatly. The break between Chaqal and Tazir and then the one between Tazir and Kodin could have still been handled similarly, but closer to the events that actually precipitated these changes in the characters’ relationships. I suppose there’s something to be said for capturing the messiness of human relationships or something, but I would rather read a story that shows things happening instead of reminisces on them years after the fact.

Even with my criticisms of it taken into account, The Drowning Eyes is a wildly enjoyable novella. It’s full of a lot of things that I love in fantasy, and I sincerely hope that it’s part of some larger fantasy setting that we’re only just being introduced to. Probably the biggest issue I have with this novella is that it feels very much as if it’s only a part of something much larger, and I feel frustrated at not having that something larger in my hands to read right now.

Television, The Expanse

The Expanse: As its title suggests, “Windmills” is mostly just spinning its wheels

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“Windmills” is probably the most thematically coherent hour of The Expanse to date, and we’re finally seeing all of the show’s disparate story lines begin to converge on one place: Eros. This is a frustrating episode in some ways, as very little actually happens, but I have high hopes that this is the final bit of stalling for the series before things get really interesting over the next couple of weeks.

The Rocinante is well into its journey this week, on the way to rendezvous with the mysterious Lionel Polanski, but they’ve also got Avasarala’s spy in tow and Martian inspectors trying to board the ship. Unfortunately, these attempts to liven up the Rocinante’s traveling time fall a little flat, acting more as filler to give the crew something to do for an episode while Miller and Avasarala’s plots catch up to where the Roci is. Still, there is some interesting character work in the Rocinante segments of the episode, and dealing with Kenzo Gabriel and the Martians does provide a good framework for both showing what makes the Roci crew tick and exploring how their recent experiences are affecting them.

These scenes also highlight a pretty significant (and kind of fascinating) change from the source material. By this point in Leviathan Wakes, Holden was pretty well-cemented as the captain of the ship, but his position is much more ambiguous and precarious on the show. This makes all of the Roci crew’s dynamics much more compelling, though I did feel this week that they weren’t particularly fun to watch. The conflict between Holden and Amos was nicely done, but Holden ultimately offloads that whole responsibility to Naomi, which is wildly unfair and, frankly, irresponsible. Naomi continues to prove, however, that she’s the smartest and most capable person in every room she’s in by basically saving the day by hacking the Roci’s systems and heroically managing not to punch Holden right in the face. The only character on the crew who still seems somewhat flat is Alex, although I kind of love how much he’s just having a great time flying this badass spaceship.

Meanwhile, Avasarala is back in a pretty big way this week, as she travels personally and alone alone to the farming collective in Montana where Holden was raised so she can speak with his birth mother, Alice. From a kind of objective standpoint, this may be the weakest part of this episode, but it’s one of my favorite sequences so far on the show. First, it’s some of the most perfectly beautiful scenery we’ve seen so far, and it appears to be a real place with only the wind turbines composited in during post-production. Second, Avasarala’s costume for this is glorious. Everything this woman wears is amazing, but this red number, and the way she strides confidently across the pristine Montana snow, is like something out of a fairy tale. Finally, the conversation between Avasarala and Alice Holden shows us yet another new side of Chrisjen. I can’t remember the last time I saw this kind of woman-to-woman real talk, and I found it riveting.

My only complaint about this whole sequence is that I still don’t quite understand James Holden’s origins and the political and economic climate that created this place and these people. There’s a lot that can be inferred about their collectivist lifestyle, the intimation that they are potentially armed and dangerous radicals, and the knowledge of how they groomed Holden to be a part of their political scheming, but there were a lot of missed opportunities here. One way that this could have been improved upon would be to have Chrisjen interview all (or even just several) of Holden’s parents separately, which would have offered us a bigger picture of how this all works and created more and better ways in which to work in some more exposition about the state of Earth and how Holden and his family fit into it. Instead, Avasarala only really speaks with Alice, and most of their talk consists of them bonding over their shared experiences of motherhood, which feels a little simplistic and almost defeats the purpose, in my opinion, of even introducing the idea of this sort of family arrangement. Why bother if it’s not going to be explored when the chance appears?

On Ceres, Miller is left reeling after losing his job with Star Helix, and he spends most of this episode revisiting the places on the station that have figured most prominently in his story so far. He confronts a smug Anderson Dawes in a bar, breaks into Julie Mao’s place, and then returns to his own apartment, where he gathers his few things of value, leaves his hat hanging on the hook, and goes to pawn everything so he can buy a ticket on the next ship to Eros.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

  • “Donkey balls” is not nearly as funny a phrase as the show’s writers seem to think it is.
  • Apparently Miller also sent out some disturbing goodbye messages to his few friends. This was actually moderately amusing to me.
  • I know Octavia is sad now, but someday she will appreciate dodging the bullet that is Miller.
  • As much as I hate Miller’s hat, his greasy hair might actually be worse to look at.
  • There were a lot of wonderful set details this week, but the house in Montana was stunning. I just wish we’d gotten to see a little more of it.
Television, The Shannara Chronicles

The Shannara Chronicles: “Changeling” changes almost nothing for anyone

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“Changeling” is a tough episode to review. On the one hand, it’s a kind of objectively dull hour, with little forward movement, a lot of time spent standing around spouting expository dialogue, and not much actually happening. On the other hand, it’s an episode that is heavily focused on character, and this benefits nearly everyone on the show. It’s also nice to see a good deal more of Arborlon, which now feels much more like a real, living place. So while the episode is certainly flawed, I kind of loved it, and the end of “Changeling,” finally and for real, has our heroes actually setting out on their journey.

Episode four picks up right where the third one left off, with Amberle entering the Ellcrys tree. Once inside, she’s rather predictably subject to a vision and a test wherein she has to overcome her fears and master her emotions in order to prove that she’s capable (at least theoretically) of completing the quest the tree is going to give her. It’s pretty straightforward, standard issue chosen one stuff, but it’s nicely filmed and Poppy Drayton is convincing in her role as Amberle. She’s got an expressive face and isn’t afraid to use it, and this episode is definitely a showcase for her abilities as Amberle has to confront her fears, deal with a trauma, and come to terms with a tragedy before embarking on a journey that is going to change her life even more than it has been already.

The downside of this, though, is that Amberle doesn’t really get a lot to do once she emerges from the Ellcrys besides look very serious and sad and disapproving. This isn’t helped by the fact that she’s also being hunted by a changeling demon that wants to murder her, which keeps Amberle moving around quite a bit through the episode, but always within the palace at Arborlon and mostly with at least a couple of guards in tow. I was happy to see her get a nice quiet moment with her friend Catania. They have a nice chemistry, and it’s obvious that the two young women share a great deal of love and affection. It’s a good counterpoint to Amberle’s contentious relationship with Eretria, though I’m happy to say that the conflict between these two is more substantial than fighting over a boy (even if I suppose that Wil is part of it).

Probably my favorite Amberle scene this week, though, was when her grandfather, Eventine, gifts her with her father’s sword, along with a speech about how like her father she is. This is also a great scene for Eventine, who was kind of a jerk in his other scenes this week. For a guy who no longer plans to abdicate his throne, he sure does a lot of delegating of responsibility. Also, poor Arion! Arion is the worst, but I felt legitimately bad for him when Eventine told him that he’s not ready to be king. Maybe if Eventine had been a better dad, his heir wouldn’t be such a dick.

While Amberle is busy having a very serious coming of age moment as she accepts her sacred responsibility or whatever, Wil is busy banging Eretria and getting his elfstones stolen again. He is seriously so easy, which is cute in a way, but I can definitely understand why Amberle might be very worried about having to maybe kill him, what with his being self-destructively stupid and all.

In any case, Eretria gets caught and is being framed for murder and accused of trying to kill Amberle, but this all ends up with them figuring out that the demon is a shapeshifter. There is some kind of half-baked plot to trick the demon by using Eretria as a decoy, but it doesn’t work. However, Allanon manages to kill the changeling anyway, and by the end of the episode Amberle, Wil, and Eretria are setting out from Arborlon.

I’m curious to see how this works out, mostly because I wonder how long the show is going to make us wait for the inevitable showdown with Cephalo and the Rovers. I’m also not sure what the show is going to do with Bandon and his visions, which seem almost superfluous with Allanon around reading minds and looking stuff up in his magic book that conveniently has all the answers. Also, what is going to happen with Catania? I hope she’s going with them as well; otherwise, it will feel like sort of a waste for her to exist at all.

Mostly, though, I’m just very excited to see the real quest finally getting underway. Hopefully next week will see a lot more forward movement on the main plot—because it’s really the only one. As refreshing as it is to watch a show that is relatively free of subplots, this style of storytelling only really works if there is consistent linear development. Keeping all of the action (if you want to call it that) contained in one small setting (Arborlon) feels claustrophobic and is, ultimately, frustrating, especially when this bit with figuring out the changeling could have been handled in about ten minutes.

Still, I really like that this show seems to be so aware of what it is. It doesn’t put on airs, and it doesn’t try to pretend as if this isn’t a story we’ve seen a thousand times before, but it does seem fairly committed to doing a proper job of it. Though the writing doesn’t often rise above workmanlike and the story is pedestrian at best, The Shannara Chronicles is exactly the sort of gorgeously designed comfort-programming I want to watch these days. “Changeling” and its weird feeling of stasis is somewhat of a hiccup, but if the next six episodes are good, it will be easy to forgive the sins of this one.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

  • The seed prop is cool, but it looks a little too much like metal.
  • Spinning the camera around in a circle doesn’t hide the fact that you’re just filming a group of people standing around spouting exposition.
  • “Accomplishments? What would they be?” BURRRRN.
  • “I’ll never call you short tips again.”
  • “She attacked me in my room.” Oh, Wil. I was a little disappointed when Amberle didn’t point out his red ears.
  • I loved the interior shots of Arborlon. They’re not as nice to look at as the scenery porn in the show’s outside world, but it’s pretty impressive what they’ve done with relatively small sets.
Film

Suicide Squad: New trailer doesn’t look like complete trash

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I was about 95% certain I was going to have zero interest in this movie, and I’m still not totally sold on it, but this trailer makes it looks at least moderately entertaining.

Jared Leto is still a horrible choice for the Joker, in my opinion, and Harley Quinn’s costume is a pile of sexist garbage. But Enchantress looks kind of cool, and Viola Davis and Adam Beach are in this movie.  I guess the question is going to become, is it worth it to me to watch Harley Quinn run around in her underwear in order to see a couple of actors that I like in a movie based on a comic book that I’m only vaguely familiar with?

Television

Supergirl: “Childish Things” is all about Winn Schott’s daddy issues

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I think we all knew, as soon as it was revealed that Winn’s dad was in prison, that his daddy issues were going to rear their ugly head at some point. “Childish Things” is that point. Surprisingly, though, especially considering how painfully boring Winn has been in the series so far, this episode mostly works really well.

My biggest complaint about Winn Schott, from day one, has been that he was a pretty straightforward Nice Guy™ who spent all his time creepily hanging around Kara and resenting her for not wanting to bang him, and “Childish Things” addresses all that stuff head-on. It’s a surprising and refreshing change of pace for a show that has so far been content to leave Winn be, utilizing a constellation of unpleasant tropes pretty much totally uncritically regarding his relationship with Kara. When Winn’s deranged father escapes from prison, though, things come to a head and Winn and Kara are forced to deal with whatever lies between them. Kind of.

The best decision the writers made this week was having Kara react negatively to Winn trying to kiss her while they were sharing a moment of bonding over their respective murderous relatives. I fully expected, and frankly was almost rooting for, them to share an actual confused-feelings-full kiss, but that wasn’t what happened. Instead, Kara pulled away, as one does when someone misreads signals and goes for a kiss when it’s very unwanted. Watching, I was genuinely surprised. Unfortunately, this isn’t fully dealt with by the end of the episode. Though Winn finally lays all his cards on the table and confesses his love to Kara, she’s not equally candid in response, and the future of their friendship is still unresolved when the credits roll.

Winslow Schott, the Toyman, is equal parts ridiculous and deeply disturbing, and letting the audience meet him definitely helps to give his son, Winn, a lot more depth. The problem is that he’s never really a particularly worthy opponent for Supergirl. Although we can see how much interacting with his father affects the younger Schott, and those interactions (and the subsequent talks with Kara about them) are pretty compelling, there’s never much sense of danger from the Toyman himself. Instead, it’s Winn’s behavior that’s most concerning, and his concern that “bottling up his emotions” will turn him evil is something very close to a veiled threat. I suppose, if Winn does turn out to be the same sort of psycho as his father, he can at least rest easy knowing that he’ll be handily defeated by Supergirl in the space of a day or so.

The secondary plots are also only partially successful.

Lucy Lane appears to be officially moving to town now, and she’s getting a job at CatCo. I love James Olsen as much as the next girl, but he was profoundly dull this week. His failure to communicate about his feelings is frustrating, and I suppose works as a contrast to Winn’s newfound openness, but I still don’t understand why he was being so weird with Lucy. I loved Lucy and Cat together, but the conflict between Lucy and James ended up being not a conflict at all and simply cemented them together as one very boring couple.

Meanwhile, Alex and Hank were investigating Maxwell Lord, who is still the absolute worst. Kara’s attempts to encourage Hank to “come out” as a super-powered alien were positively cringe-inducing. I hate the whole idea of using super powers as a metaphor for other oppressions, and this instance of it is especially frustrating. While I liked Hank’s stuff this week, and I can see that he has some very real misgivings about using his powers, which was interesting, the reality is that there are basically zero drawbacks to his being a Martian. I mean, sure, people could be mean to him, but he still has godlike superpowers.

In the end, though, “Childish Things” is more good than not. The character work for Winn and Hank was largely excellent, and it was definitely necessary. And the episode ends with Kara and Alex spending time together—more of this, please (and more of Lucy and Cat).

Miscellaneous thoughts:

  • “She’s so nice!” is the best thing Lucy could possibly have said when emerging from a meeting with Cat Grant.
  • “I want to work for a cool, powerful, kickass woman instead of a bunch of old white men.” You and me both, Lucy.
  • I always loved Emma Caulfield on Buffy, so it was cool to see her show up as an FBI agent.
  • Speaking of childish things, if the snail eggs were delicious, why did Alex spit them out as soon as she found out what they were.
  • “Max Lord is nothing more than a reformed nerd with a God complex.” ACCURATE.
Weekend Links

Weekend Links: January 16, 2016

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This fucking week, you guys.

First David Bowie died on Sunday, and then Alan Rickman passed away later in the week. Both of these losses were unexpected; although neither man was very young, they were both larger than life, with careers spanning multiple decades in which they entertained and inspired multitudes. They are both gone too soon.

After the news broke of David Bowie’s passing, Neil Gaiman shared “The Return of the Thin White Duke” from his most recent story collection, Trigger Warning.

Lou Anders wrote a lovely tribute piece to Bowie over at io9: Something happened on the the day he died.

At Bitch, a reflection on the influence of Labyrinth and David Bowie’s role as the Goblin King, Jereth.

Hodderscape also examined David Bowie’s legacy by talking about Labyrinth.

And Motherboard talked about how David Bowie’s death itself was a work of science fiction.

Dreamy!

While many fans knew him as Professor Snape in Harry Potter, my favorite Alan Rickman role is his turn as Colonel Brandon in 1995’s Sense and Sensibility. The Guardian lists these and eight more performances to remember him by.

In less sad news, Guillermo del Toro is going to be adapting Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark as a film.

The Golden Compass turns twenty this year, and there’s a great interview with Philip Pullman over at Slate.

N.K. Jemisin did a Reddit AMA.

I loved this TV Guide interview with Terry Brooks about The Shannara Chronicles.

However, I loved IGN’s interview with The Shannara Chronicles stars Poppy Drayton and Ivana Baquero even more.

Interviews with Margaret Atwood, though, are one of my all time favorite things, and she popped in over at Electric Literature this week to talk about dystopias, prostibots, and hope.

A new Tor.com novella came out this week, Emily Foster’s The Drowning Eyes. You can read the first chapter here.

Emily Foster was on Midnight in Karachi this week to promote the book, and she was interviewed at the Qwillery.

Speaking of Tor.com’s novellas, the ones from 2015 are available now in ebook bundles. If you haven’t read them yet (and you ought to), this is a great way to save a few dollars on them.

Tor.com has also collected links to ALL of their 2015 short fiction. Perfect for folks like myself who are likely to miss this stuff over the course of the year because we focus more on reading novel length work.

Finally, the first issue of Black Girl Magic is now available for purchase if you didn’t get it through their Kickstarter. From the description of the issue:

Inaugural issue of the Black Girl Magic Lit Mag, a speculative fiction literary magazine featuring Black female main characters and primarily written by Black female authors. Proving Black Girls are Magic one story at a time.

 

Book Reviews, Books, Fantasy, Novella

Book Review: Lustlocked by Matt Wallace

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I received a free advance copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley.

Lustlocked is the second in Matt Wallace’s Sin du Jour series, which began with the riotously funny Envy of Angels late last year. When I read the earlier volume, it was as part of my ongoing project of reading all of Tor.com’s new novellas, but I didn’t expect to like it much. Instead I found it quite enjoyable—smart and fast and a thoroughly fun read. I couldn’t wait for Lustlocked, and I was not disappointed.

It picks up more or less right where Envy of Angels ended, with Lena and Darren still kind of reeling from their experiences during their first days on the job at Sin du Jour and now faced with the decision of whether or not to sign on to the company on a more permanent basis. Of course they do, or there’d be very little story left to tell, and they (and we) quickly learn that there’s never a boring day at this catering outfit. The first job after Lena and Darren sign their contracts is a huge formal wedding for goblin royalty, which quickly gets out of hand when the bride complains that her in-laws aren’t always as nice to her as they could be and resident witch Boosha decides to do something about it.

Where Envy felt a little disjointed and too busy, with the fish-out-of-water story of Lena and Darren seeming almost incidental to the various other, more interesting storylines happening around it, Lustlocked finds a much better balance. There’s still an awful lot going on, including a sort of prologue that still seems somewhat out of place and disconnected from the main plot, which concerns a goblin wedding, but Lustlocked never feels overstuffed the way its predecessor sometimes did. Aside from the prologue, things flow along at a respectable and pleasantly methodical pace.

Where this second installment of the (hopefully open-ended and long-running) series really shines, though, is in continuing to bring to life its world and characters. Every new revelation about the mythology Matt Wallace is creating for this series is a new delight, and between Lustlocked itself and the bonus short story at the end (which was an excellent surprise) there was a ton of character background and development. I loved the sequence where Lena and Darren are being given a tour of the building, where I was glad to meet a couple of new characters. Wallace’s descriptions of food are delectably creative and full of vivid sensory descriptions, while his knowledge of the restaurant/catering/food business is definitely up to the task of making Sin du Jour feel like a real and lived-in place.

My only real criticism of the series so far is that I’m not quite sure what exactly Darren is there for. He didn’t make much of an impression on me in Envy, and he wasn’t much more present in Lustlocked. While Lena is really coming into her own as a character, Darren just kind of… exists. In a series as jam-packed with characters as this one, especially when being told in novella-length pieces, I kind of feel like every character really needs to exist for a specific reason. Lena is his roommate, and even she doesn’t seem to like or think about Darren very much at all, so he sadly ends up feeling superfluous.

In a bittersweet-in-hindsight turn of events, I read Lustlocked the day that David Bowie died, which feels a little like destiny, as it’s heavily implied in the book that David Bowie is/was an actual goblin king. I think this book might always be a little special to me because of that, as it’s a lovely tribute to the man, and one that I especially like because it is such pure, unadulterated fun. Of course David Bowie could be actual goblin royalty—IRL headcanon accepted.