ONCE UPON A TIME: Get Out of Hell Free Card (Recap S5: Ep 20)

“Now what the heck are we supposed to do for two more episodes?”
“Disney World, anyone?”

This week on Once, all the disjointed plot points line up in just the right way for everybody to conveniently get out of the Underworld . . . well, everybody except the guy they went in to get in the first place. Also, we learn the true inspiration behind Emma’s fashion choices.

It’s time to finally cash in that “Get Out of Hell Free” card, we’ve been holding on to all season long. Let’s do it, Oncers!

Crimes of Fashion

The year is 2009. The world economy is in the crapper. Twilight: New Moon is in theaters. And Emma Swan is still in the throes of her Emo Glasses and a Ponytail phase of life. When we meet up with Emma, she’s hanging around some fast food joint near where Snow White and Prince Charming abandoned her, by putting her inside a tree with a guy suffering from a rare disease that causes the wrong part of his body to grow when he’s thinking naughty thoughts.

Emma is hoping maybe the people at the fast food joint might remember her parents from 26-years ago, when they abandoned her ass. Apparently, Emma has never worked in fast food. If she had, she’d know that it’s hard enough to remember whether the person in front of you wanted just lettuce and tomato on her burger or onions too, let alone what terrible parents frequented the joint 26 years ago. And that’s assuming any of the same people still work there from back then!

A hip looking middle-aged lady seems creepily sympathetic to Emma’s lost cause, waxing poetic about how “young and beautiful” our protagonist happens to be. But then, just when you think the older lady is going to ask Emma out on a date, she not so subtly lets her know that she’s a bail bondsperson, tasked with collecting Emma and bringing her back to Arizona, where our plucky heroine had apparently recently skipped bail.

This, bail bondsperson, named Cleo Fox, is clearly not very good at her job, otherwise she would have handcuffed Emma, right when she was sitting across from her at the fast food table, rather than eye sexing her for three minutes, and then allowing Emma to get a running head start away from her. Cleo does eventually manage to catch Emma though. Then, she brings her back to her hotel room and chains her to the radiator, while she showers and “changes into something more comfortable.”

Damn, this flashback is getting kinkier than I thought!

Left to her own devices, Emma easily frees herself of her handcuffs, and rifles through Cleo’s stuff, finding some cash, and a picture of a little girl named “Tasha” taken in 1999. Also nearby is a computer conveniently left on a Stalk People for Free website. Suddenly, a lightbulb goes off in Emma’s head. Maybe she can use the Stalk People for Free website to find her no goodnick parents. Emma briefly considers the fact that she can also use it to check up on HER son, who she gave birth to in jail, and then gave up for adoption eight years ago. But meh! Kids are boring!

Emma somehow convinces Cleo to spend the day with her engaged in the futile task of searching court records for her parents, before Emma returns to the authorities in Arizona. This is likely either because Cleo is a moron. Or, she’s super attracted to Emma, and is also a moron.

Emma’s trip to the court house is predictably fruitless, as public records about NOT REAL fairytale characters have always been a bit lacking. “You should buy yourself a nice bright colored leather coat, so you don’t have to think about how sh*tty your parents are,” suggests Cleo.

“Why would a stupid coat make me forget that I was abandoned by my parents 26-years ago, spent my life in the foster system, and was turned to a life of crime?”

“I don’t know,” shrugs Cleo. “Something about the toxic fumes from the paint used to dye the leather causing a very specific type of brain damage. It’s the reason I keep allowing you to drag me around on these wild goose chases against my better judgment. The parts of my brain that deal with emotions and logical reasoning have decayed to basically nothing by now.”

Speaking of brain damage, Emo Emma must have been inhaling some of the toxic fumes in Cleo’s leather jacket, because she leaves the hotel in the middle of the night, to BREAK INTO THE COURTHOUSE and read the exact same records she just found a few hours ago, again. Cleo wakes up and heads to the courthouse to find her, and they somehow both end up being chased by the cops. Rather than telling the cops that she was only on the scene to perform a citizen’s arrest on Emma, Cleo inexplicably jumps out a two story glass window to evade “capture,” and then appears surprised, ten minutes later, when she finds a lethal shard of glass in her abdomen.

(Let that be a lesson to you kiddies, drugs and leather paint fumes are bad for you! Wear cotton!)

With her dying breaths, Cleo conveniently admits that the child in the picture in her wallet is the kid that SHE abandoned years ago. “Interesting,” responds Emma to dying Cleo. “I have a kid too, and I won’t give a sh*t about him for another three years.”

Shortly after Cleo’s death, Emma takes a job as a bailbonds person, herself, and uses all her good stalker software to track down Cleo’s daughter at where she works: a clothing store that specializes in leather jackets that cause brain damage. “Hi Cleo’s daughter,” Emma begins. “I was directly responsible for your mom’s death, but here’s a folder filled with stuff about her, you probably could have found yourself on Google. By the way, can I buy a brain-damaging red leather jacket from you? I want to wear it for five seasons, and never wash it ever, because hygiene is for weiners.”

And that, my Dearies, is how Emma came to own her most prized piece of clothing . . .

Meanwhile, in the FUTURE . . .

The Heart Wants What It Wants

Something is happening to Hades. Every week, he reads his lines slower and slower . . . with . . . more . . . and . . . more . . . unnecessary . . . pauses. It’s to the point where, if this keeps up, every remaining episode is going to have to be over two hours long just to fit in his dialogue. And he doesn’t even have a brain-damaging leather jacket to blame it on!

Anywhoo, Hades wants our Gang of Heroes to help him rescue Zelena, who has been captured by Rumpel and Pan. In exchange, he will grant them all a free pass out of the Underworld. Emma totally trusts Hades, despite having absolutely no reason to do so, because her brain-damaging leather jacket has turned her “Super Power of Always Knowing When Someone is Lying” to complete and utter mush.

Rumpel’s and Pan’s conditions for Zelena’s release are easy. All Hades has to do is rip up the contract giving him rights to Belle’s and Rumpel’s unborn child. Hades does this immediately, and without much fanfare, because he never really wanted Rumpbelle’s baby anyway, it was just a plot conceit to get the two characters involved in the Underworld story.

But then Pan reveals the twist in the plan. Hades can have Zelena back, as long as he gets to remove her heart and use it so that he can leave the Underworld and return to Earth. Fortunately for Zelena, Emma is on hand to rescue her from Pan. As for Rumpel, upon realizing that his baby is free, and remembering that he doesn’t give two sh*ts about his awful father Pan, he quickly disappears to give True Love’s Kiss to Belle, except, GASP, it doesn’t work, and she stays comatose . .. because the actress is still too pregnant to show her belly on camera.

Back in our main plotline, Zelena has been saved! It’s time for her and Hades to finally swap spit. I mean, can you imagine, two of the most evil villains of all time, too pious to get first base, until they’ve dated for nearly the entire season? Was there a plot point where Hades became a member of the Duggar clan (but not Josh!) that I missed?

So, anyway, Zelena and Hades play some tonsil hockey, and this causes some rainbow special effects to fly around the room. You know what that means! Zelena’s a closet lesbian! Just kidding! It means True Loves Kiss, obviously! Now, Hades has become a true mortal, with a beating heart. And this means he can leave the Underworld with his lover Zelena and the rest of the heroes!

And they all lived Happily Ever After, right? WRONG!

Justify My Love

Hades leads the entire cast to a newly opened portal back to Earth, and dutifully removes all the characters names from the tombstones, so they can leave at will, since none of them were actually dead in the first place . . . correction: only one of them was actually dead, in the first place.

With Regina’s help, Emma splits her own heart in two, so she can share hers with Hook to bring him “back to life and home.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. Apparently, Hook has been dead too long, has rotted and decayed too much, and had his corpse feasted on by way too many maggots to be revived by a simple half heart.

Emma is understandably devastated. Sex with a smelly corpse would be such a turnoff, even if that smelly corpse looked like an only slightly rotting version of Hook.

“Don’t worry, Emma. You can go down to my basement and get Hook some munchies called Ambrosia. That will bring him back to life. Why don’t you and Hook go and get that stuff, while the rest of the cast waits around for you and does nothing? Meanwhile, Zelena and I will take Robin Hood’s baby and return to Storybrooke by ourselves. What could possibly go wrong with that plan?” He inquires, before twirling a mustache he doesn’t have, and laughing maniacally at the camera.

“Nothing suspicious to see here . . .”

“I trust Hades,” Emma responds dumbly. (I blame the leather jacket.)

“Me too,” replies David, Regina, Hook and Henry. (I blame plot convenience.)

“What are you guys f*&King nuts?” Robin Hood asks.

“Even I know something is fishy about this guy, and I spent most of my life not wearing underpants . . .”

“I feel so free!”

“Shut up, Robin! You aren’t a well-developed enough character to have opinions on stuff like this,” lectures Regina. “You are grounded. Now, go outside, so you can think about what you’ve done . . . also so Rumpel can steal your heart and give it to Peter Pan, thereby leaving you stuck in the Underworld.”

“Hodor,” responds Robin Hood.

Then he realizes he’s not on Game of Thrones, steps outside and waits patiently for his heart to be ripped out.

Downstairs in the basement, Emma finds that in order to open the pantry door with the munchies in it that she will need to feed Hook, so he can get out of Hell, she first has to weigh her heart, to see if it needs to go on a diet. Just kidding, the weighing process is supposed to show whether she really loves Hook, or whatever.

“Don’t worry. This is all part of the foreplay process. Our heroes love foreplay!”

When Emma first puts her heart on the scale, not only does the Munchies Pantry door not open, but Hook gets engulfed in flames, and Emma suffers from what appears to be a heart attack, even though she isn’t wearing her heart at the time. Instead of rescuing her own heart, Emma jumps on top of Hook to snuff out his flames, also because it’s kind of sexy to jump on top of your boyfriend in the basement of Hell. How many people get to say they’ve experienced that in a lifetime, I mean seriously?

*insert 70’s porn music here*

This act of sacrifice proves that Emma loves Hook more than she loves herself or her brain damaging leather jacket. And so, the Munchies Pantry from Hell opens!

Not so Fast . . .

The only problem is that someone has gone and eaten all the ambrosia out of it already. Those pigs!

Realizing that Hook is likely going to be stuck down in Hell forever, and this whole season / Underworld Road Trip has potentially been a massive waste of time, Hook and Emma share a seriously sweet goodbye. Emma promises not to lock up her heart with brain damaging leather jackets as a result of losing Hook. And Hook promises not to have Emma as his unfinished business, thereby allowing him to get to Heaven. It’s the kind of all-encompassing conversation we all wish we could have had with loved ones prior to their passing, but most likely did not.

Then, Hook and Emma hold one another’s hands for as long as possible, until Emma rises above ground and emerges from the basement.

In other bad news, the rest of the Once Gang finally figures that Hades tricked them, when Cruella and that witch from Hansel and Gretel lock them all in a room, so they can’t make it out to the portal back to Storybrooke.

Fortunately, this bad news is quickly eradicated when a tearful Emma emerges from the basement. Together, her and Regina free the gang in time for them all to get to the portal. But what about Robin Hood? Doesn’t Pan have his heart?

As it turns out, Rumpel was just kidding about the whole stealing Robin Hood’s heart thing. He promptly vanquishes his dad, puts his sleeping girlfriend in a box for safekeeping (Oh the metaphors!), and returns to Storybrooke with the rest of the crew . . . except Hook . . . and Pan . .. and all the people who got turned into sperm this season . . .

Until next time, My Dearies!

[Shameless self promotion alert:  Do you like stories with snark?  Romance?  Friendship?  Awkward sexual encounters?  Vengeance?  Drag queens?  Puppies with two wheels for back legs?  If so, please feel free to check out my new novel, Snarky Goes to Hollywood.  It’s only a $1 on Kindle, Folks … the same amount of money you occasionally give homeless people on the street, when you can no longer avoid making eye contact with them .]

Cross-posted at Happy Nice Time People.

ONCE UPON A TIME: An Easter Bromance (S5: Ep 15 Recap)

Seriously? What’s up with the hats? Don’t they constantly fall off and into your face, when you are trying to steer? Do a family of parrots live in them?

Take a break from biting the heads off the chocolate bunnies in your Easter Basket to come on a high seas journey, where the water is always choppy, everyone smells like mildew, and no one knows how to steer. But hey, we’ve got brothers with dorky hats and Irish accents. Totally worth the seasickness / possible death by drowning, right?

Happy Easter, Oncers! This week’s installment of Once is all about that special bond that exists between siblings. Brothers . . . can’t live with them, can’t watch them fall feet first into the depths of Hell, while they are still wondering whether you are mad at them for committing mass murder.

So slap on some seriously waterproof guyliner, and pray that your sea legs are working, because this is the wettest episode of Once since that one about Ursula . . .

A Skeleton Crew

Before he had a Hook for a hand and love in his heart for a spunky blonde named Emma Swan, Captain Hook was just a young ship drudge with a funny looking pony tail, a penchant for drinking and gambling, and an older brother he idolized.

Hook’s big bro, Liam, at least initially, seems like an OK enough guy, if maybe a bit snoozy. He keeps trying to save up enough money to pave the way for he and Hook to get passage off the ship of the douchebag for whom they currently work. But Hook keeps pissing away the money on booze and gambling (probably prostitutes too, but the writers won’t tell us that, because this is a family show.)

Imagine the kind of things Christian Grey would do with a Hook for a hand . . .

Just when it seems like the brothers Jones are doomed to spend their lives scraping fish guts off the floor for a living, their douchebag boss goes and does this really stupid thing, where he steers their ship into a really bad hurricane, in the hopes that doing so, will help him find this funny looking blue rock that kind of reminds me of what I imagine hairballs coughed up by Grover from Sesame Street would look like.

 

Apparently, Grover’s Hairball is called The Eye of the Storm, and it’s like, super expensive, or something?

Now, before you say that it is unrealistic to think that people would pay a lot of money to wear Grover’s Hairball as a necklace with matching pair of earrings, remember that we live in a world where people pay hundreds of dollars to drink coffee made from cat poop.

The normally docile, Liam is positively appalled that Douchebag Boss is sending his crew into certain death for the regurgitated fur of a Sesame Street character. He is so, appalled, in fact, that he does something his boring ass would otherwise never do in a million years, otherwise. He stages a mutiny.

Then he proceeds to lead this same crew into the exact same hurricane and the exact same certain death Douchebag Boss did. The only difference is that Liam actually succeeds in killing all of them, (except for his brother), and all so that he can keep Grover’s Hairball all to himself . . .

Allow me to backtrack a bit . . . you see, right when Liam is about to save his new crew, Hades appears on the boat. And this, you have to admit, is kind of weird. I mean, how does Hades always know when someone is on the precipice of making a terrible life choice. Is he like one of those people from the State Farm Insurance Commercials?

 

Like a Good Neighbor, Hades is there! (In Hell . . . shoving a poker up your ass!)

Hades knows that Liam wants, more than anything in the world, to captain his own ship (and wear a funny-looking hat that is home to a family of parrots) with his sexy drunkard brother boozing it up by his side. So, Hades offers Liam a deal: sink this boat, murder everyone on this ship except for your brother, and I’ll give you Grover’s Hairball, so you can use it to captain your own ship.

Well, that sounds like a great deal . . . if you are a terrible human being!

Needless to say, Liam takes the deal. And the next thing you know, all his pesky former crew mates and his Douchebag Boss are dead, and he and Hook are on the way to wearing the funny-looking hats they love so much, thanks to Hades, and, of course, Grover’s Hairball.

You’re welcome!

Liam, of course, tells his little brother nothing of his dastardly deeds. And this means that when Liam dies, Hook is still under the glaring misconception that his big brother is the bee’s knees (when, in fact, he’s the bee’s butthole).

My Brother’s Keeper

Back in present day, Emma is trying to seduce Hook, by magicking away all those ugly zombie wounds he’s been sporting on his face this season. Unfortunately, he’s not that into it. (I guess being mauled by a three-headed dog is not so great for your sex drive.)

Whatever the female equivalent of this is, Emma has it right now . . .

Then, Hook’s brother, Liam, pops by to say hello, and proceeds to take a big giant dump on his and Emma’s relationship. (In Liam’s defense, the closest he’s ever come to a real romantic relationship, was that one time when he made out with Grover’s Hairball, following a long, lonely day at sea.)

“You aren’t good enough for my brother, Hook. Because you turned him into The Dark One, rather than letting him die a hero. And if he died a hero, he’d be in Heaven, right now,” Liam explains. “Also an entire hoard of teens would stop watching the show, because the sexy pirate would be gone.”

When Emma confronts Hook about this, the leather pant wearing stud tells Emma that he is not going back to Earth with Emma, after they defeat Hades. Instead, he’s going to stay in Almost-Hell with his brother. Wow, it looks like someone needs a little blue pill to stave off his Big Libido Problem. Where’s Grover’s Hairball when you need it, and does it come in chewable form?

Devastated, Emma heads to Grannys to see Regina, who is 100% the girlfriend to whom you want to turn if you need Tough Love and for someone to tell you that, yes, those pants do make you look fat, and, no you would never make it past the first round on American Idol. Regina scoffs at the notion that Hook would be too good for someone nicknamed “The Savior.” Nonetheless, she offers her once frenemy, now the potential object of her secret lust (maybe, if this show was on HBO or Showtime), some invaluable advice. “You want Hook to start porking you again, convince him to forgive himself for that half an episode where he acted super evil, and wore even more dark eyeliner than usual!”

In other brotherly news, Prince Charming is forced to masquerade as his eviler (translation: sexier) brother James, in order to hide the fact that he’s been snooping around the latter’s workplace. This results in the Prince having to suck some serious face with Cruella De’Vil (who apparently is dating James?, in order to avoid getting caught. (Hmmm . . . wonder if the two of them do it Doggy Style? Get it “doggy style,” because Cruella . . . nevermind.)

Alas, before things get to the M for Mature rated Fanfiction level of random television character sex matchups, Cruella reveals that she knew it was Charming all along. She also lets slip that James has always been jealous of Charming, because their mother chose to let Charming live with her, be poor, and sleep in sheep poo, while she sent James off to be a rich and famous prince / dragon slayer.

Kids can be so ungrateful sometimes . . .

Pride Goeth Before a Fall

While in the forest searching for the Magic Pen That Will Make Stuff Better, Henry comes across The Sorcerer’s Apprentice aka Dirty Homeless Mickey (Obviously, he’s in the forest because he’s homeless. He also probably eats bugs, and uses leaves for toilet paper.)

Dirty Homeless Mickey says his Unfinished Business is that he died before he got to boss around a teenager as much as he’d like, which is pretty much the most pathetic unfinished business since “Never got to touch Grover’s Hairball.” Dirty Homeless Mickey tells Henry that he can find the Magic Pen That Will Make Stuff Better in the Underworld Version of the Sorcerer’s House, but he totally shouldn’t use it, because if he does, Dirty Homeless Mickey will be doomed to Hell for all Eternity.

(That’s pretty much like telling someone “Don’t touch this red button, or you will get a million dollars every week for the rest of your life, and also the ability to eat all the chocolate you want without ever getting fat.”)

Henry, who totally plans to find and use the Magic Pen That Will Make Stuff Better to un-murder Cruella, and screw over Dirty Homeless Mickey, doesn’t initially tell his family about the Pen’s Existence. He does, however, tell them that that the Sorcerer’s House probably has a Storybook in it (with only pictures and no words, so all the characters can understand it), which will probably inform them of Hades’ origin story / weakness, so they can defeat him.

While the rest of the family is distracted searching for the Book with No Words, Henry uses a little reverse psychology on his moms to get some alone time to run around the house to find the Magic Pen That Will Make Stuff Better.

Meanwhile, after being threatened by Hades that if he doesn’t destroy the pictures of Hades’ Deep Dark Secrets in the Book without Words, he’ll tell Hook about that one time in Ship Camp, when Liam killed all those dudes for a hairball, Liam betrays the Oncers, by destroying all the pages containing pictures of Hades, as instructed.

But then, Emma catches Liam in the act, and confronts him about it, all because Liam didn’t wash his hands after ripping the pages out of the book, and now has ink all over them. Eventually, Hook finds out about Liam’s lie. Also now in the know about Liam’s dirty fingers? The entire crew of men Liam killed, Douchebag Boss included, who all just so happen to be in the Underworld too!

And the moral of this story? Always wash your hands thoroughly after the commission of petty crimes, also before making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Anywhoo, Liam’s crew pushes him to the edges of Hell and wants him to “walk the plank” into it. But then Hades saves him, and forces Douchebag Boss to go to hell instead, which, let’s face it, was probably where he belonged in the first place.

Then, Hades screws up, by threatening to, once again, send Hook to Hell. Obviously, Liam, wracked with guilt over his past misdeeds, is not going to let his little brother die due to his mistakes. And so, he sacrifices himself for his brother, earning his forgiveness just moments before he falls into oblivion . . . onto a really small boat . . . bound for Heaven, which is now where he belongs, because his unfinished business with his baby bro is now finished.

The bad news is that he’s got to ride there with all those people he killed, whose unfinished business was not knowing who was responsible for their deaths. Now they know . . .awkward. Also, the boat has no bathroom, so hopefully the water way trip to Heaven from the underworld is super short.

After making amends with his brother, Hook decides to forgive himself for the fifteen minutes of an episode where he was The Dark One, wore extra guyliner, and acted like a HUGE ASSHOLE. He then reunites with Emma, and tells her that he’s totally worth going to Hell for. (Real modest, that one!) He also agrees to return with Emma to Earth after they defeat Hades.

Then, the pair go upstairs and have amazing sex, because, apparently, seeing your big brother ride on a very small boat to Heaven with a bunch of guys who hate his guts is an excellent aphrodisiac.

Operation: Write Stuff Down

In other news, Henry found his Magic Pen that Makes Stuff Better!

Originally, he was going to use it to doom Homeless Mickey to Hell for All Eternity, but after having a nice little heart-to-heart with his grandpa, he decides to use it to just write stuff down about Hades, in order to defeat him . . . Stuff, which no one will read, because the entire cast is illiterate and only understands picture books.

I for one think the former option would have been the better one. Then again, maybe I just have a thing against dirty homeless Mickey’s. They were constantly stealing my mouse ears, back when I was a kid.

Elsewhere in the underworld, Hades retrieves the supposedly destroyed by Liam pages of the picture book with no words, containing all his Deep Dark Secrets, and stares moonily and a particular drawing of him just inches away from sucking face with the Wicked Witch of the West. Weird . . .

Then again, maybe he just really liked her hat . . .

Until next time, Oncers!

Cross-posted at Happy Nice Time People.com

ONCE UPON A TIME: Much Ado About a Dunce Cap (S5: E9 Recap)

(Please note: This is the recap for Once’s Episode 9: “The Bear King”. To read the recap of Episode 8: “Birth” click here.)

Sometimes life interferes with art, and that art, must in turn, adapt itself to life, or perish. Sometimes that adaptation process leads to better, more innovative, art. And sometimes the adaptation process leads to . . . well . . . “The Bear King.”

This is not to say that “The Bear King” was a terrible episode of Once. I for one, have seen many worse episodes of the series . . . like that random black and white one about Dr. Whale / Frankenstein, for example.

Instead, I am merely noting that, the American Music Awards’ upcoming and inevitable preemption of next week’s Once, naturally resulted in ABC having one less week to air a full order of episodes. And this, in turn, resulted in the showrunners’ decision to offer up an immediate follow-up to the series’ landmark episode “Birth” that had significantly less impact on season 5’s main storytelling arc than I suspect it would have, had the episode aired next week, as originally intended.

Let’s review, shall we?

You Hat Me at Hello

 

Once upon a time, in the Kingdom of DunBroch (where being a ginger head is a dominant trait, and everyone has a nearly incomprehensible Scottish accent) Merida’s daddy, then-King Fergus, made a deal with a witch in exchange for a stupid-looking helmet, which was supposed to make Daddy’s clansman like him enough to die horribly painful deaths in battle on his behalf.

The King’s receipt of a Stupid Hat that makes him popular, and everyone else around him dumb and suicidal, couldn’t have happened at a better time. After all, his kingdom is about to go to war. Also his daughter, Merida, is about to fight in her very first battle.

The King hires Mulan to help Merida learn how to fight, probably because the Kung Fu Panda and Buzz Lightyear were busy that day.

https://www.whipclip.com/embed/kqr11/?pid=

On the first day of war, Mulan distracts Merida with training on the King’s instructions, because the King doesn’t want his daughter to die for his popular ginger ass. As a result Merida witnesses from afar, but isn’t able to prevent, her father’s untimely demise at the hand of a masked warrior, who stabs him in the gut, and steals his Stupid Hat right off his dead head.

It’s kind of heart-wrenching actually. So heart-wrenching that I can’t make snarky jokes about it. So instead, enjoy this adorable picture of a basket of puppies . . .

The Bear Necessities

That was then, this is now . . .

In present day, Merida is about to be crowned Queen of DunBroch. But then that witch from the beginning of the episode crashes the coronation, and tells Merida, she needs to return her the Stupid Hat, or all the gingers and people with bad Scottish accents in her kingdom will get turned into bears. . . quite possibly even the cute cartoon bears with the toilet paper on their butts from the Charmin commercials.

A fate worse than death!

Merida finds her old pal Mulan to ask her for help finding the Stupid Hat. But Mulan isn’t in a very helpful mood, due to #LesbianHeartbreak.

Soon after, Merida herself, experiences a setback, when she begins to doubt her family legacy, and by extension, her own ability to lead her kingdom, as a result of her father being dumb enough to think that wearing Stupid Hat would make him popular with a bunch of dudes just because some old lady told him it was so. This revelation freaks out Merida so much, that she actually offers up the ability to rule her kingdom to those three douchebags she almost married during the movie Brave, if they manage to find the Stupid Hat before she does.

“Stupid Hats are our specialty!”

But then Mulan meets up with Erstwhile Werewolf Red, who is back in the Enchanted Forest due to “feeling different than other women,” and “not fitting in,” and suddenly #LesbianHeartbreak Mulan is feeling #hopefulandhorny. And so, with Sexy Red in toe, Mulan leads the charge in finding the Stupid Hat that Merida needs, in order to save her kingdom from becoming #Bear-yUnhappy.

Also searching for the Stupid Hat are King Arthur and Wicked Witch Zelena, aka Mr. and Mrs. The Worst. King Arthur wants the hat because, apparently, spraying his kingdom with Stepford Doofus dust wasn’t enough to secure their loyalty, because he’s just that terrible and inherently unpopular of a person. Zelena wants the Stupid Hat because she’s having a really bad hair day today.

No Fair! Zelena is already wearing a stupid hat. She can’t have two!

Red uses her wolfy sense of smell to ascertain that Arthur was actually the guy who killed Merida’s dad back in the day, which means he should currently be the proud owner of the Stupid Hat, which, as we already know, he isn’t.

When Red, Mulan and Merida confront Arthur, he admits that the Stupid Hat Arthur pried from King Fergus’ dead head was actually a fake Stupid Hat. (Don’t get me wrong, it was still a STUPID Hat, it just wasn’t the same Stupid Hat that had the power to make you popular.)

You know what this means don’t you? Merida’s dad, King Fergus, was a good ginger! Sure, he wore Stupid Hats, and spoke with an incomprehensible Scottish accent, but he didn’t use either of those things to become popular, and make his kingdom members die for him. They were dumb enough to do that all on their own, all dunce caps aside!

Merida is elated! Her dad is a ginger hero! Also, she didn’t have to lose her kingdom to those three douchebags she almost married. In fact, they (and everybody else in town) like her now, because she was willing to give up being Queen to save the rest of the kingdom from being turned into bears by an old witch. So, Merida is popular now. Also, she has the Stupid Hat. She found it in the water, right where her dad buried it right before she died.

Note: It is currently unclear whether: (1) Merida’s getting the Stupid Hat that makes you popular and 2)Merida actually becomes popular are related. But I think we are supposed to think they are entirely coincidental because “morals” and because “impressionable kids are watching.”

You can check out the rest of this recap HERE.

Heroism for Dummies – Once Upon a Time Recap Episode 5:6

You know what’s hard? Being a hero on a Show About Heroes. Why? Because every time you try to do something heroic, there are always at least ten other people lining up to do it first.

ONCE UPON A TIME: The Stepford Doofuses (5:4)

This is going to positively murder the ozone layer . . .

From the same people who brought you “Glass in your eyes that turns you into an asshole,” “Black goo that awakens your inner asshole,” and “People who pull out your heart to control you and make you do assholey stuff,” this week’s episode of Once proudly presents “Dust in your face that turns you into a Stepford Doofus.”

You would think by now these people would learn to wear protective goggles and keep their chests covered. But nope, it’s wide open eyes and oodles of cleavage everywhere . . . all the time.

This week on Once, King Arthur continues his reign of douchebaggery, and Queen Guinevere is also kind of douchebaggy, but we learn that it’s not entirely her fault. Also, this week, young Henry and his girlfriend unwittingly learn that descriptions of horseback riding double nicely as thinly veiled metaphors for sex. And Emma and Hook, upon watching Emma’s son converse metaphorically about sex, get turned on enough to do a little “horseback riding” themselves . . . because that’s not disturbingly Freudian at all!

Voyeurism: good . . . child porn: bad

Let’s review, shall we?

(Note: I’ve decided to tackle this recap chronologically, rather than the flippy floppy order in which the events were displayed in the episode, because it makes more sense from a recapping perspective. I get that this sort of undermines the major “twist” of the episode, namely that King Arthur is an asshole. But considering we all kind of figured that out the moment he set foot on screen . . . not to mention last week, when he, you know, killed a guy for no good reason . . . I’m thinking that’s OK.)

In which King Arthur was a cute kid who grew up to pretty much become Smeagol from Lord of the Rings . . .

Little Orphan Arthur isn’t very popular in “Broken Kingdom” Camelot, which is unusual because, for a child, he is really, really, ridiculously good looking. And good-looking kids are pretty much always popular, unless they happen to be super annoying. Arthur doesn’t seem to be too annoying, in the short clip we see of him.

However, he does have this tendency to go around telling everyone that he talks to a tree and the tree tells him he’s going to be king. As it turns out, talking to trees and bragging about it is generally frowned upon by popular society, more so than being really, really, ridiculously good-looking and not too annoying is smiled upon. And so, Little Orphan Arthur is bullied and not particularly well liked.

Future Queen Guinnie likes him just fine though, possibly, because she looks around at all the dumb, uneducated, unwashed masses in her town, then looks at Good-looking Little Orphan Arthur and says, “Eh, so he’s a schizophrenic and possible megalomaniac. I can do much worse!”

Cut to a few years later, when a now adult King Arthur plucks Excalibur from its stone, realizes it’s broken (because it’s missing it’s Dark One Sword other half, naturally), hides that fact from the people of Camelot, and becomes their king, with Guinevere at his side as Queen.

Unfortunately, fame, fortune, wealth, power and a hot wife is not good enough for Ole Arthur. In fact, he becomes so obsessed with finding the Dark One Sword and making Excalibur whole again (even though no one gives two craps about whether or not it’s whole except him) that instead of hanging out with his hot wife and boning her on her birthday like a good husband, he holes himself up in an attic, studying where to find the Dark One’s sword. He does this for days on end, until he starts to look like this . . .

(But only metaphorically speaking, obviously, because men on Once, even the douchebaggiest ones, are positively forbidden from looking the least bit unattractive ever, unless they are an extra or one of the dwarves . . . No offense to the actors who play the dwarves, of course.)

While Ole Arthur is busy being Smeagolized, Lancelot is downstairs showing Queen Guinne what a total stud he is (not to mention how much better of a catch he would be then her asshat husband) by orchestrating Guiney’s entire birthday, just the way Ole Arthur promised he would back in the day, and captivating her with some serious f*&k me eyes while he offers her a sexy dance.

Then, Arthur finally comes down to the party. And Guiney is instantly willing to forgive him everything. She truly believes he is finally ready to give her the love she deserves, despite the fact that he hasn’t done anything to indicate he’s remotely capable of this since the two of them still had their baby teeth. (We’ve all been there, ladies, am I right?)

But instead of dancing with Guiney, Arthur is all, “Can’t stay and hang. Gotta jet to the forest to find my half a sword. You know how it is: My Precious! My Precious, and all that! Peace out, Guiney, and Guy Who Wants to Have an Affair with Guiney.”

In which Queen Guinevere learns that it’s generally a bad idea to choose a husband based on what he was like as a ten year old . . .

Now, while Guiney may be a bit blinded by kiddie goggles, she’s no dummy. In fact, she may very well be smarter than her asshat husband, Arthur. “Hey Lancelot, I’ve got a plan that involves using this gauntlet to find my stupid husband’s toy sword before he does so I can get it back. Maybe it will make him slightly less douchebaggy, not to mention I could start getting laid every once in a while.”

Lancelot looks at Guiney dubiously. “Honey, all the toy swords in the world couldn’t cure your husband’s massive douchebagginess. But I’m going to come with you on this trip anyway, in the hopes that our obvious sexual tension will enable me to get a little side action while you wait futilely for your jerk husband to come to his senses.”

Guiney and Lancelot find the location of the Dark One Sword in about ten minutes . . . the same sword that Arthur couldn’t find despite looking for over ten years. This is because Arthur, in addition to being a douchebag, also sucks at life. But there are some obstacles.

First, the black sludge tries to capture Lancelot and turn him into a HUGE ASSHOLE. But Guiney saves him, and they end up making out. It’s hot, in a way that only kisses after avoidance of sludge that turns you into an asshole can be.

Then, Rumpel pops up and prevents Guiney and Lancelot from taking the sword on threat of death. Instead, he offers them a very small vial of red dust that he says “makes broken things appear whole again.” Of course, somehow on this show this translates to “dust that turns anyone who comes in contact with it into a Stepford Doofus.”

Guiney returns home, and Arthur basically attacks her, because he thinks she’s hiding the sword from him, but all he finds in her bag is the Stepford Doofus dust. “Oh I am so leaving your ass,” Guiney says.

“No, you are not,” says Arthur, as he throws the Stepford Doofus dust in her face.

Instantly transformed into a Stepford Doofus, Guiney replies, “Of course I’m not leaving you! Please, by all means, continue treating me like crap, spending all your time humping a sword, and threatening to physically abuse me when I have the nerve to disobey your stupid requests. By the way, would you like to have sex right now?”

“Nah,” replies King Arthur. “I’m pretty sure I’m gay because I always look at Prince Charming like he’s a hot piece of man meat, and look at you, you are like my eighty-five-year-old grandma. Why don’t we dump some red dust on Camelot to turn them all into Stepford Doofuses instead?”

“But you’ve already used it on me, and it was a tiny vial. There can’t be enough left for the whole town AND for the people you use it on at the end of the episode too?” Guiney argues.

“Stop sassing me, woman! You aren’t supposed to have original thoughts as a Stepford Doofus.” Arthur insists, before dumping what appears to be way more than the contents of the entire vial of Stepford Doofus dust on all of Camelot.

Meanwhile, over in present/past day . . .

You can check out the rest of this post HERE

ONCE UPON A TIME: Holding Hands While Doing The Wave and Other Tips to Fight Evil (S5:E2 RECAP)

This week on Once, we got to take a longer look at those lost weeks in Camelot, which transformed Emma from a Savior with Greasy Hair and a Slight Asshole Problem . . .

. . . . to the Biggest Asshole on the Planet with a Teensy Weensy Savior Complex.

Also this week on Once, Robin Hood proved that being good with a bow and arrow doesn’t necessarily translate to being good at . . . well . . . anything else.

Robin Hood is the Mr. Bill of Once, basically.

As for the other men on Once, Henry learned that it’s easy to be a pimp when you and the girl of your dreams are the only two people on the show with speaking parts who are within ten years of your age.

And Dopey got to take the title of Second Most Important Dwarf on Once, by getting turned into a tree. DO you know how much oxygen those things produce? Let’s review, shall we?

Tree to Be You and Me

Over in Hangover: Storybrooke Edition, the newly amnesiac dwarves have decided to skip town, because it only has one place to eat, no fun activities to speak of (apart from battling CGI Villains of the Week), and no words in any of its books . . .

(At least the guys in the real Hangover movie got to hang out in Vegas with Mike Tyson and his pet tiger . . . UPGRADE!)

. . . also because they are really scared of Emma, who wears a bun, dresses in black, has weird eyebrows, and therefore, must be the Biggest Asshole on the Planet.

The dwarves want to know what sort of bad thing will happen to them this season when they leave town, so they bully their least valuable player, Dopey, into testing the waters and endangering his life for the rest of them. (Personally, I would have gone with Sneezy, who had already been turned into a stone garden gnome by Emma in last week’s episode and, therefore, really had nothing else to lose.)

At first, Dopey seems fine, but then he turns into a tree, which proves that Emma might be the Biggest Asshole on the Planet, but she’s also a huge conservationist. Last I checked, Storybrooke had seven dwarves, but only like three trees. And since trees are clearly more useful than dwarves, our “Dark One” was just evening the score a little bit, while also, possibly, trying to prevent Global Warming. Why should Emma be persecuted for this? Who knew Storybrooke was filled with so many Republicans?

Sav-ior Ass

Back in Camelot, our fairytale gang learn that another “evil” conservationist went and turned Wizard Merlin into a tree too. “So, if we turn the tree back into a wizard, maybe he can bang the asshole out of Emma,” Hook muses, excitedly. “Except, not in, like, a sexual way, because I’m the only asshole who should be banging stuff out of Emma in that way,” he adds nervously.

“Only the Savior can chop down this awesome tree and turn it into a boring wizard who isn’t even good enough at his job to prevent himself from being turned into an awesome tree,” King Arthur explains conversationally.

Emma is about to reveal herself as the Savior, until Regina puppet masters her with her sword and declares that SHE is the Savior.

“That’s cool,” King Arthur replies. “Let’s throw a party so you all have an excuse to get dressed up in period costumes and dance. Also, meet my wife Guinevere. She has a very thick foreign accent and no other definable personality traits.”

Then some hot dude comes and gives Regina an “I’m the Savior” purple necklace to wear to the ball, while stroking his Evil Mustache and Laughing Malevolently.

Regina, of course, suspects no ill will from this obviously-up-to-no-good guy, because she’s a Good Person now, and all Good People on this show are required to be frustratingly stupid when it comes to predicting the evil machinations of Not Good People.

To Love an Asshole Is to Be an Asshole, Just a Different Kind of Asshole

Back in Storybrooke, Asshole Emma and her Assholey Bunhead are helping us viewers to narrow the field of people who actually betrayed her in Camelot by being somewhat less of a dick to some characters on the show than others. For example, she’s still totally cool with her son Henry. She also propositions Hook to come back to her new crib and bang the sh*t out of her, because, as we’ve previously established, Hook’s spectacular prowess in the sack is one of the main reasons she’s kept him around this long in the first place.

Belle, being no stranger to the overwhelming desire to bang the sh*t out of major assholes, cautions Hook to try to think with the piece of meat between his ears, as opposed to the one between his legs.

But Hook is totally convinced that by sticking his tongue down Emma’s throat, he can lick the asshole right out of her, so he doesn’t listen to Belle.

Needless to say, it doesn’t work. But Hook somehow manages to keep it in his pants long enough to fend off Emma’s advances, thereby, leaving Hook, Emma, and all the TV Viewers with a major case of these . . .

The Fast and the Fury-us

In addition to turning characters with non-speaking roles and no relevance to the plot into useful, oxygen- producing trees, Emma’s curse also apparently involves bringing the cast of Camelot over to Storybrooke, which is really a bigger punishment for the Camelot folks than for anybody else on the show, because, as we’ve already established, Storybrooke is a lame place to vacation.

“Is that all you got? Trees, a bunch of medieval dudes, and a mild case of amnesia?” Regina challenges. “I’ve made poops with more malevolent intent than your Evil Curse.”

Then a big ole CGI creature that looks kind of like the Dementors from Harry Potter, and the Wraiths from Season 2 of this show, and the flying monkeys from Season 3, and the bad guy from Fantasia we saw last season, appears out of nowhere and takes Regina’s boyfriend away. Robin Hood just kind of hangs back and lets it happen, just like he let his girlfriend get body-snatched by a wicked witch last season, and then let that wicked witch fertilize herself with his seed, and then get kidnapped by that same wicked witch.

“It’s a dementor wraith thing from Fantasia flying monkey Fury,” explains Belle. “It’s kind of like the IRS, only instead of taking people’s homes when they don’t make proper payment, they take people’s people.”

“So, someone has to die in order for me to get my boyfriend back, because I may or may not have killed someone in Camelot. Kind of like those Final Destination movies, only the deaths here are nowhere near as fun and gory?” Regina muses.

“Yeah, that about sums it up,” responds Belle, as she goes back to lovingly stroking the petals of the wilted flower that currently stands in for comatose Rumpel’s weiner.

You can check out the rest of this recap HERE!

Game of Groans – A Recap of Teen Wolf’s Season Finale “Status Asthmaticus”

After watching 5 seasons of a show, the characters in it become sort of like your friends.

You know them pretty well.

You care about them . . . most of them, anyway.

You want to see them succeed . . . again . . . most of them.

You want to shake them by their little scrawny shoulders, when they do things that are just so friggin stupid, and counterproductive to their leading long, healthy, successful lives, that you can’t fathom how they’ve survived this long in the world, without accidentally running headfirst into moving traffic, while wearing a red Superman cape, and/or drowning in a 3-foot deep kiddie pool.

While you were watching Teen Wolf this week, you may have heard some strange sound effects in the background that you couldn’t quite place. That was me . . . groaning, grumbling, and vigorously shaking my head, at these teenagers, who, just seasons earlier, continuously stuck together, while each and every one of them took a turn at being temporarily evil, but now, for no conceivable reason, have decided to alienate, lie to, and occasionally try to murder one another, all because some good looking guy suggested it would be a good idea.

In short, the Beacon Hills Scooby Gang has somehow become the kids in the slasher film, who you are supposed to be rooting for, but who make it kind of hard for you to do so, when they are constantly, walking alone into the scary basement with no lights and only one exit, when they should instead be running to the car outside, and booking it the hell away from the Cabin Where All Those People Got Murdered Last Summer.

https://youtu.be/olEbwhWDYwM

Let’s review, shall we?

[A big ole thank you to my pal Andre, who convinced me that it was worth it to recap this series this summer, if only so it would give me an opportunity to enjoy his awesome screencaps of it.]

“Suck on My Girlfriend, Please?”

When you are in werewolf “family,” you are guaranteed to experience some really awkward life moments. . . like when you have to beg your father figure to give the new love of your life a hickey, that will make her really hormonal and hairy, so that she won’t die a horribly painful death.

So, THIS exchange happened on the show:

Liam: “Suck on my girlfriend now! Chew on her really good!”

Scott: “Honestly, I just had dinner, and I’m not really hungry right now? Also, she’s really sweaty. I feel like eating her will make me break out. Thirdly, if I chew on her she may get rabies and die . . . but, like, in a different way than she’s dying right now . . . a wolfy way.”

Liam: “All that stuff didn’t seem to bother you when you were sucking on my arm last season, like it was a chocolate Tootsie Pop!”

Scott: “That was different. You were about to become a main character on the show. And you weren’t as gross and sweaty as she is now. You have really great skin, you know that? Like baby soft, and no pores, whatsoever. You were an absolute pleasure to suck. Your girlfriend will taste like ass.”

Liam: ????

Scott: “Also, you were hanging from a building and definitely going to die. Your girlfriend only has a 99.99% chance of dying.”

Liam: ????!!

Scott: “Look, I don’t want to get to first base with your girlfriend’s gross neck, OK? End of discussion. Now, if you’d excuse me, I have to go further emasculate myself, by sucking on this fake inhaler.”

Then, the crew take Dying Hayden to MIA Vet, Deaton’s office, so Melissa McCall, who is neither a doctor, nor a veterinarian, can fail miserably at saving her life. Hayden, who knows she’s a goner, having placed her life in the hands of a bunch of bozos, repeatedly makes the dying request to see her sister before she inevitably croaks. It’s a request that everyone in the room blatantly ignores, because they are total assholes.

At one point, they actually send Scott out to pretend to go fetch the sister, but he goes to visit with his friend Lydia instead. And, of course, no one thinks of calling this woman on her cell phone, or trying to contact her at the police station WHERE SHE WORKS, because she is not a main character, and, therefore, unimportant.

Meanwhile, inside Stiles’ Jeep Roscoe. . .

Bummer Man

Remember back in Seasons 1 and 2 when Stiles was fun? He was the comic relief of the show! The one who wore adorable tee shirts with cute sayings on them, or pictures of muffins . . . the one who had a quippy comeback for every line uttered on the show . . . the one who somehow managed to find a silver lining inside the death trap that he and his friends found themselves in every season?

Don’t get me wrong, Werebangers. Dylan O’Brien is still the best. He acts rings around pretty much everybody on the show, no matter what material he is given. He even pulled off being the best villain the series has ever seen. And he’s tugged at my heartstrings more times than I can count.

But man, has this character been a Charlie Brown with a rain cloud on top of his head all season!

Somebody get this guy on Wellbutrin! Also, get him to a mechanic whose willing to fix his jeep for free. I mean the thing was literally flipped over and set on fire, and Stiles is still driving the thing. You would think his cop dad, might have a problem with that, seeing as there is absolutely no way Roscoe passes inspection, which means his son is violating about a million traffic laws, every time he gets behind the wheel.

Anyway, Stiles in understandably bummed that his friend Scott is acting like such a turd, and, you know, because, he killed that Douchebag with the weird teeth. So, he throws a wrench at the window of poor, broke down Roscoe the Jeep, which is a total example of Kick The Dog Syndrome.

“I don’t like it when you hit me with tools, Stiles.

“When Malia picks him up (because, apparently, she’s a really great driver now), Stiles is being unusually uncommunicative, so Malia, being the good girlfriend that she is, attempts to break the ice, by telling Stiles it’s totally cool that he’s a murderer and stuff. “You killed some people, as Void Stiles. And killed Weird Teeth guy, as yourself,” Malia explains. “I thought I killed my adopted family. And now I actually want to kill my mom. We are a Killer Couple . . . like Bonnie and Clyde . . . if Bonnie was a werecoyote.”

“Um, can we talk about this after I witness my father having yet another brush with death that could have been prevented, if Scott didn’t suck so badly at being a hero?” Stiles asks hopefully.

“Sure, no problem,” replies Malia. “I’m just going to go hang out in the hidey hole where I lived and pooped for eight years, fondle a baby doll, and ogle unnecessarily naked Evil Theo, who, P.S. is part coyote, and is trying to steal me away from you, so you can go be with Lydia.”

“Try not to look at the naked man in the hallway, baby. You are too young to see such things. Me, on the other hand . . .”

“Sounds great. Bye soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend!” Stiles calls out over his shoulder, as he heads to the police station.

At the police station, Stiles finds out his father is out of the office. He’s actually at the school . . . with Hayden’s sister, and a large, as of yet unseen chimera, who must really hate Beacon Hills High, and, of course, those pesky not-very-good-at-speaking English Dredd Doctors . . .

Ruh-roh!

Also at the police station with Stiles, but not his dad . . .

Naked Garbage Man Finally Gets a Clue . . . Actually Lydia Gets it For Him . . . Because Thinking Makes His Brain Hurt

With bars between them, so they can no longer beat the crap out of one another as a form of foreplay, Lydia and Parrish are relegated to pretending their fingers are sex organs, and poking at one another through the bars.

“Is life easier for you, now that you know you are a banshee, and can finally stop waking up dirty and naked in the woods?” Parrish inquires conversationally.

“Not really,” Lydia replies. “I mean, it would be if Jeff Davis could get a handle on what banshees actually do, but my powers and skills tend to change week to week, so I never really know what I am until I read the script.”

“Hey, I wake up dirty and naked in the woods sometimes, and seem to really have a thing for manhandling corpses,” Parrish muses. “Does that mean I’m a male banshee? It would explain why we are hot for one another, despite our obvious age difference, and the fact that I am a mental midget compared to you, so we couldn’t possibly ever have any interesting conversations with one another, that go beyond a third-grade reading level?”

“Nah. We are only attracted to one another, because we are both attractive people. And teen shows demand that all attractive people must eventually pork one another,” Lydia explains. “Also you aren’t a banshee, you’re a hellhound.”

“I thought I was a phoenix. Wouldn’t that make a lot more sense, given the hints that were thrown out about me last season?” Parrish wonders.

“It would. But then all the fans immediately pegged you as a phoenix. And that pissed Jeff Davis off. So, he decided to throw a curve ball and make you something else that he randomly found on Wikipedia,” Lydia responds.

“OK. But what exactly makes me a hellhound, as opposed to something else . . . like a phoenix?” Parrish presses.

“I don’t know. Let me go to the school library, and put myself in harms way to find out, even though I could probably just Google Hellhound on my smart phone and get the limited information we need to satisfy this plot point,” Lydia answers as she walks out of the police station, completely ignoring Stiles, who is there too.

“I’m going to break out of here, steal some more bodies, and maybe accidentally kill some people, if you aren’t here to babysit me,” Parrish calls out after Lydia, by way of warning.

“I know and don’t care,” Lydia responds, as she closes the door behind her.

Moments later, Parrish breaks out of his jail cell, all red-eyed and dangerous looking. Stiles, who is a kid, and not a cop, tells all the cops around him not to shoot at the clearly violent Parrish. So, they don’t, and, instead just let Parrish go out into the world and potentially hurt some innocents, without going after him in their cop cars, or calling for backup.

Law enforcement in Beacon Hills is the best!

News Flash: Beacon Hills Officially Has a Vampire

It was only a matter of time folks . . . just a matter of time.

Also, Braeden’s back, and fully confused by what happened to this show during the half-season she’s been away having 24-7 sex with Derek Hale.

“So, the guys in the black suits that talk funny? They are the Oni, right?” Braeden asks Malia, with whom she has never before exchanged words, but who suddenly seems like her best pal.”

“No, that was season 3. These are the Dredd Doctors,” Malia explains.

“But they kind of look and act like the Oni,” Braeden muses.

“I know, right?” Malia replies.

“And Parrish . . . he’s a phoenix?” Braeden continues.

“Hellhound,” Malia corrects.

“What the heck is a hellhound?” Braeden asks.

Malia shrugs.

“What about the douchey good looking evil guy that hits on everyone in the cast, male and female? That’s Jackson?” Braeden asks.

“Nope,” Malia replies.

“Aiden then . . . or Ethan? I always get those two confused.”

“His name is Theo,” Malia answers.

“But he kind of looks and acts like Jackson, Aiden and Ethan . . .”

“I know right?” Malia replies again. “Anyway, enough about them. Come help me kill my mother, before she kills me.”

“I thought you’d never ask!” Braeden responds.

I know Malia and Braeden are both supposed to be straight and spoken for, but, honestly, wouldn’t these two be like the best lesbian couple ever?

More Violence Against Women (and Stiles) Ensues . . .

Theo finds Lydia in the library, and punches her in the face, knocking her unconscious, because he’s afraid she will clue in the Scooby Gang to the fact that she “senses death.”

But clearly, he just punched her in the face for the fun of it, because, obviously she senses death, because like 50 teenagers died this season! So, why would that implicate Theo at all?

Theo’s basically been walking around this entire season, twirling his villain mustache, sporting his “I am Evil tee shirt,” everyday, murdering puppies, and eating babies everywhere he goes, in plain sight.  And yet, still, no one, but Stiles, ever suspected him of wrong doing . . . . probably because the entire Scooby gang has apparently spent the summer drinking Moron Juice, which prevents them from engaging in logical reasoning of any sort. So, why punch a girl in the face now, and ruin all this undeserved trust you’ve built up all season, right when your Evil Plan is finally starting to come to fruition? Because it’s the season finale, obviously . . .

Scott takes the bait to come find Lydia, when he should be off collecting Hayden’s sister and taking her to Hayden’s death bed. This was yet another super dumb move on Scott’s part. So, of course, evil Theo has to lock him in the library using mountain ash, and reveal himself as a villain to SCOTT TOO!

“P.S. Your inhaler is fake and filled with wolfsbane,” Theo explains helpfully. “P.P.S. I’m a chimera, who is going to steal your pack from you, even though I’ve been going around punching them all in the face, which would indicate that I have poor leadership skills. P.P.P.S. Liam is going to kill you and take your Alpha powers to save Hayden, and then I’m going to kill him and take those Alpha Powers from him. Now, I’d love to stay and chat, but I gotta go punch Stiles in the face, and hope that it will turn him on enough that he will have sex with me. P.P.P.P.S. I’m secretly in love with Stiles. See ya!”

Theo finds Stiles outside, and the two roll around on the ground for a little bit. It’s sexy in a Fight Club sort of way. At least Stiles is fighting back, so it doesn’t give off that domestic abuse sort of vibe we got when Theo was beating the crap out of Lydia. Then, Theo admits to Stiles that both Scott and his father should be dying by the end of the episode, and Stiles can only save one of them.

Stiles chooses his dad, because his dad is awesome, and, at least lately, Scott, is the worst.

It’s the first good choice anyone has made all season . . .

So Many Zombies, So Little Time . . .

Liam has now arrived at the library, and he’s doing a pretty good job of beating to death Scott, the supposed “True Alpha.”

We are told that Liam is doing this because the Super Moon is making his Irritable Bowel Syndrome Act up, so he’s gassy, and really grumpy about it.

Did I say Liam had IBS? I meant IED. I always get those two confused . . .

Liam is so busy beating up Scott to save Hayden, that he totally misses Hayden’s ACTUAL DYING. (Also, no one ever answered Hayden’s dying request to see her sister at her death bed, so that sucks. Mason just barely stops Liam from killing Scott by informing him that Hayden, is in fact, already dead, which sort of defeats the purpose.

Then, Theo pops by, and is really pissed at Mason for stopping Liam from killing Scott, so he . . . wait for it . . . punches Mason in the face, just so the new pack member won’t feel left out, since he’s already done it to everyone else.

You would think now that Theo is totally screwed, right? Because he’s alienated his would-be pack by beating them all up. Plus, he can’t take Scott’s True Alphaness from him directly, as he’s a chimera, who wasn’t bitten by Scott, and Liam didn’t do it for him.

That would be logical. But this is Teen Wolf, where logic left the building two seasons ago. So, Theo kills Scott . . . for a few minutes at least.

And then, he suddenly has the Alpha powers he needs, to do that neck fondling thing to Lydia, where he finds out where the Nemeton is located . . . because, again, big ole trees covered in dead bodies are near impossible to find otherwise.

This inexplicably renders Lydia catatonic, even though it hasn’t had that effect on anyone else who has been neck fondled on the show . . .

Then, Theo takes the heroin mixed in cocaine and dirty water that the Dredd Doctors were using on themselves, and injects it into Hayden, Corey, Tracey, and that kid he killed on the roof a few episodes back, who liked eating electric wires. This act has the surprise effect of bringing them all instantly back to life, as mindless sycophants, who follow him, just because he’s good looking, even though he ACTUALLY MURDERED ONE OF THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE . . in other words, they act just like our Scooby Gang acted all season, only they have a slightly better excuse for doing so, because . . . ZOMBIES.

“Come with me if you want to live . . . my new pack, who are my second choice, because I punched everyone in my first pack in the face, and they no longer want to play with me,” Theo explains in his best Arnold Schwartzenager from The Terminator voice.

Elsewhere, the Dredd Doctors finally reveal their true plan . . . and it involves . . . wall renovation, and really ugly artwork?

See ya next season, Werebangers!