Author: Nicole Sweeney

Fifty Shades Freed Chapter 05 – Good morning.

Ana wakes up to find Grey gone-but-not-really because he was just, you know, casually sitting in the arm chair watching her sleep. He tells her not to panic, speaking to her "like a cornered, wild animal," which is either a commentary on Ana's lack of intelligence or the fact that waking up to Christian Grey watching you sleep is terrifying. Maybe both. Isn't this how you'd like to start your days?
Lorraine: Absolutely not. I can't even joke about this shit; that is terrifying.
...but I like that he's wearing GRAY! pants. A+

Angel S01 E18 – Issues for hire

We start under a freeway bridge. A dude in a beanie approaches some guys and asks what they're burning because EW STINKY. The answer? A human arm. And the guys doing the burning aren't so much homeless guys as they are demons with lopsided faces. I'm going to call them the Crooked Smile demons, because if I have to read about ONE MORE YA love interest with a crooked smile, I will scream and I'm secretly hoping this stops all authors from adding it to their stories.
Lorraine: High hopes, my friend, but I approve.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S04 E18 – Nudge nudge wink wink

First of all, Maurice Sendak would be spinning in his grave to know that the title of his book had been stolen for the trainwreck that is this episode. (S: +1, especially as I just declared my love for this book on this blog.) Second of all, I HATE THIS EPISODE SO MUCH OMFG. Right. Now that we've got that over with, let's get this horrific trainwreck over with, shall we?
We open in the cemetery where Buffy, in a pair of shiny snakeskin pants, is fighting a vampire. You know, just for a change. She throws him across the cemetery to Riley who starts punching while Buffy loads her crossbow. Riley holds the vamp still for Buffy to shoot, then a blue horned demon appears out of nowhere to rescue the vamp. She drops the crossbow and heads into the fray.

Pretty Little Liars S01 E03 – A Shitty Turnout

Our Pretty Little Liars are walking through a wooded area. You know, the kind where pretty girls get raped and killed and stuff. Emily is leading the other, somewhat reluctant girls back to the shed, site of the original murder-y slumber party, to build a memorial to Alison. Spencer thinks going back to the scene of the crime looks weird and Emily asks if she's worried what other people think. Spencer is all, "UM, WE HAVE OUR OWN DETECTIVE STALKER WHO THINKS WE KILLED HER, SO YES I CARE."
Sweeney: Word. I love how Emily tries to make it a whole BE YOURSELF! ish thing both because of the pot/kettle thing and, more importantly, being investigated for murder is a whole other level of "Yes, what other people think of you matters."

Angel S01 E17 – That’s so raven.

We start with tight shots of Angel's and Wesley's faces alternatively. Denisof really is a handsome man. Boreanaz truly has a prominent brow. The suspenseful music flares up as they realize all the exits are are blocked and they would be spotted right away. Just as Angel suggests shouting fire, we widen the shot to see they are watching Cordelia in a play. Wesley checks his watch: one hour left. Angel: I thought I knew eternity.
K: Punny Angel is punny.
Lor: Roll electric credits.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S04 E17 – Jonathan Bieber

We start with a classic Buffy beginning: our titular character is fighting off a vampire. We quickly see that the Scoobies are with her, being helpful where they can be and pointing her in the direction of a vampire who scurried away. They follow him into a crypt and find a nest of vampires who are all busy noisily slurping on a person. It's funny to me that sometimes vampires seem to insta-drain someone, but here we get more of an extended meal. I wonder if the quick slurp ever gives them vamp-indigestion.
Sweeney: I feel like this line of thinking can't go anywhere good.

Fifty Shades Freed Chapter 04 – Oppression

Grey has been locked away in the study for over an hour so naturally Ana doesn't even know what to do with her self. She's tried reading, watching TV and sunbathing, though she's sure to tell us it's full dressed sunbathing. I don't even know what that means. Probably sunbathing in a parka, because what else screams "abuse victim on a vacation!"
Sweeney: It's amusing when Ana "tries" to do things other than be around Christian Grey because this, like many other things in this series, is something that she talks about doing -- she often tells us of her arduous efforts to DO things at the "stressful" moments in her narrative, but she almost never actually does much of anything besides wait for Christian Grey to tell her what to do.

Game of Thrones S03 E07 – Unapproved bear mauling.

I gloated during my last episode about how I always get the fun credits. I should've learned from Buffy villains and kept the gloating to a minimum: King's Landing, Harrenhal, Riverrun, Ring of Fire Winterfell, The Wall, and across the Shivering Sea toYunkai.
Jon Snow and his ice-wall-climbing pack of Wildlings are walking along on the green side of the Wall. Which is confusing, because his time spent training at the wall was always very snowy and miserable. Also, there are a lot more Wildlings than I initially thought there were. They only showed us Ginger NotMance (Tormund Giantsbane), Wildling Warg, Ygritte and Jon. But, okay. There's a whole pack of them.

Segue Magic: Internet Origin Stories (Sweeney)

I promise I'll start getting these under four minutes next week. I chopped off a lot of introduction stuff, so the beginning is kind of jarring, but my rambling starts with my 7-ish-year-old self. I have nothing else to say about this video, except that I would love to gush about our late '90s fansites in the comments. Also, that this dress was an unfortunate choice. Womp. I very seriously considered changing and re-recording, but the 20 minutes of babble I started with was exhausting enough the first time around.

Angel S01 E16 – Fight Club

The episode begins with Cordelia and Wesley bickering about all the things. First it's the name of the demon database Cordelia is using (Demons! Demons! Demons!) which is a thing whose existence I love and approve of. As all three Snark Ladies are students who get their research on occasionally, it's amusing to watch the Buffyverse acquire technology. I just hope that nobody scanned any old demonic texts in the making of this database, because that was an awful moment in Buffyverse history that I'd rather not revisit.
K: I recently sat in a class where a lecturer told us about how when online database searching first started, you got charged by the SECOND for using it.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S04 E16 – Mood Ring Fashion

I wish I could tell you that I'm kidding when I say that I spent a good fifteen minutes debating how to name Faith/Buffy in this episode -- whether Faith!Buffy would mean Faith in Buffy's body or Buffy in Faith's body. Obviously that would be the most insane, confusing thing ever. For the sake of this recap, they will be referred to by the character they are, not the body they are in, though I'll occasionally clarify when I feel it's necessary. That is, Faith-in-Buffy's-body will be Faith and Buffy-in-Faith's-body will be Buffy. Got it? Cool.
Outside the Summers home, Joyce and Faith-as-Buffy are being told by a detective (LOL Sunnydale cops) that they're so glad they have "Faith" in custody because they've been looking for her.

Pretty Little Liars S01 E02 – Sex and Bacon

Sara: We open up right after the funeral, with the girls drinking coffee at the local Rosewood diner. They wonder why Jenna would have been at the funeral, because of that whole The Jenna Thing thing.
Lorraine: A nice big cheer for PLL's first gold star ever!
Sweeney: Pretty sure several people earn the star today, so congrats to all! And to the writers, for successfully reducing the number of actual words they had to come up with/string together. We're always proponents of people who manage to do less work at work.

Angel S01 E15 – Daddy issues

Kirsti: We open on a sunny morning with a girl in a historically inaccurate costume pouring water from a well into a jug. It's 1753, and we're in Galway. Oh, sorry. Galway, IRELAND, because the show needs to clarify such things for stupid people who don't know where Galway is.
Sweeney: This is an American show. Our people don't know shit about maps or other places. They can't even put half the US states on a map, so expecting them to identify foreign cities without clarification is just too much.
K: And yet someone decided America should be in charge of the world. Go figure...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S04 E15 – Coma o’ wrath

We open in Buffy's room at Chez Summers. She and Faith (YAY) are putting clean sheets on Buffy's bed, so clearly it's one of those freaky mindmeld dream things from the end of season 3. There's a crapton of foreshadowing awesomeness (seriously, you guys. Whedon is a GENIUS), (L: BUFFY HAS A LITTLE SISTER?!) (SPOILERS, SWEETIE) and then Faith rudely bleeds all over the clean sheets. "Are you ever going to take this thing out?" she says to Buffy, and we see that Buffy's still holding the crazy murder knife in Faith's gut. Buffy twists the blade and we dramatic music over to a hospital room. There's thunder and lightning, and we see a comatose Faith in a hospital bed. The dramatic music turns suspenseful and then the credits roll without a damned thing happening.

Fifty Shades Freed Chapter 03 – How about a shave?

Someone mentioned in a comment how illogical these chapter-to-chapter not-cliffhangers are in this book, because it's not like someone reading this book is going to wait in suspense for days. I'm only bringing it up now because I'm about 99% certain that this "writing" choice is most likely the product of the fact that this was originally Twilight fanfiction, where readers did have to wait for her next abysmal installment. Consider this your semi-regular reminder of that fact and also that the world is unfair.
My personal headcanon of Ana's shock and horror upon looking in the mirror was an existential crisis of sorts, in which she realized what a tragedy it was that she exists. Or fictionally exists. The actual reason? Hickeys.

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