In a nutshell: Haylee and her father Andy have lived their lives running from the memories that plague him after his time spent in the army. That is until Andy decides he wants to settle down in his old hometown so Haylee can graduate from a real school. Haylee struggles with school, struggles with managing her alcoholic and suffering from PTSD father, she struggles with her feelings for cute boy Finn, struggles with her memories of the past and she probably struggles with all her struggles too.
It's a struggle bus.
Simon analyzes some data on a screen as Book disregards his thinky face and starts chatting. Book is being the person who sees you with headphones on and strikes up a conversation, but like the space-cowboy version of it. Something like that. (S: A+)
Anyway, he asks Simon if he's ever read the writings of Shan Yu, the psychotic dictator who "fancied himself quite the warrior-poet." Apparently this crazy dictator poet wrote a lot about torture and human endurance, and Book wonders if the people who messed with River's brain did it to see how much she could endure. Simon doesn't think so. He shows Book a picture of River's brain and points out that there is pattern. Besides, if the bad guys' aim was just to hurt River, they wouldn't still be after her.
Anyway, he asks Simon if he's ever read the writings of Shan Yu, the psychotic dictator who "fancied himself quite the warrior-poet." Apparently this crazy dictator poet wrote a lot about torture and human endurance, and Book wonders if the people who messed with River's brain did it to see how much she could endure. Simon doesn't think so. He shows Book a picture of River's brain and points out that there is pattern. Besides, if the bad guys' aim was just to hurt River, they wouldn't still be after her.
We start zoomed in on a bundle of newspapers with the headline, "Crime Wave Shuts Down City." I'm not sure why no one is helping this city, but okay. City Shut Down. Connor grabs the bundle and uses it to hit a vampire he's fighting. It's actually a group of vampires and more keep appearing. He dusts a few of them with a, "Welcome to LA," though he doesn't add the obligatory, "bitch," that I feel belongs there.
Sweeney: Bad form, Connor.
Lor: Connor looks up and there are lots more vampires coming at him from both sides.
Sweeney: Bad form, Connor.
Lor: Connor looks up and there are lots more vampires coming at him from both sides.
Lorraine: Sunnydale Bus Station. A young woman of color (LOOK KIRSTI) (K: Season 7, otherwise known as "that one time Sunnydale had POC characters who survived more than two episodes...) who is wearing some Overalls of Overall Sadness gets off a bus. I don't actually know if she's sad, but it's been a while since we've had overalls and I wanted to call them that again.
Sweeney: Season 7 has a lot of nostalgia to deliver and those overalls were definitely plucked from early season Buffy's closet.
Kirsti: Plus, it lets us bring back a tag that's been languishing unused since season 3. HURRAH.
Sweeney: Season 7 has a lot of nostalgia to deliver and those overalls were definitely plucked from early season Buffy's closet.
Kirsti: Plus, it lets us bring back a tag that's been languishing unused since season 3. HURRAH.
We open at an airport where some guy is looking super anxious. He heads to the bathroom and is splashing water on his face, and a random other guy says not to worry because your odds of dying in a plane crash are 20,000 to 1. YEAH, NOT WHAT I WANNA HEAR, MAN. Let me just go ahead and tell you that flying is my absolute biggest fear and the majority of my nightmares center around plane crashes, so I'm pretty sure this episode is going to ruin me.
Kirsti: I'm not afraid of flying on account of I've been doing it on the regular since I was like nine months old (also because I live in Australia and it's really fucking time consuming to get ANYWHERE if you don't fly), but bathroom guy is a total asshat for listing that hugely unhelpful statistic.
Kirsti: I'm not afraid of flying on account of I've been doing it on the regular since I was like nine months old (also because I live in Australia and it's really fucking time consuming to get ANYWHERE if you don't fly), but bathroom guy is a total asshat for listing that hugely unhelpful statistic.
HERE IT IS, DEAR READERS. If you're unclear on what's happening here, there's a tiny bit more explanation (not much) and a few gifs on the original nominations post. It's pretty basic: we're reviewing 2013 on this blog. All the material we covered and all of our favorite (or most traumatizing) recurring themes. It's up to you to vote and determine the winners.
The idea behind the two week delay between nominations/ballot was to give you all some opportunity to post about it, though there weren't enough posts to warrant a separate roundup post. If you're curious, though: Ashlea blogged about it, I vlogged, and we retweeted a few tweets about it. So there's your expert commentary before you make your final decisions.
The idea behind the two week delay between nominations/ballot was to give you all some opportunity to post about it, though there weren't enough posts to warrant a separate roundup post. If you're curious, though: Ashlea blogged about it, I vlogged, and we retweeted a few tweets about it. So there's your expert commentary before you make your final decisions.
Random people in Los Angeles (a father and child, a postalworker, YOU, DEAR EVERYMAN VIEWER!) are watching the news or the sky in shock and horror about the "localized abnormality" that is the blotted out sun. It's funny, particularly for us joint-watchers, to have them address this, "No, the sun's not gone in Sunnydale, because of reasons! Don't worry about it." Also, the news is being reported by KTLA5 and I always get a little giddy about that, because that was the nightly local news I watched. Or, like, kept on in the background because I didn't feel like turning the TV off while I played Roller Coaster Tycoon.
Lorraine: People throwing up on my clean sidewalks used to carry over into my dreams. Man, I loved that game.
Lorraine: People throwing up on my clean sidewalks used to carry over into my dreams. Man, I loved that game.
WE FINISHED ANOTHER SEASON! It was a slow crawl to the finish line on this one partially because of real life stuff and also because this show where nothing happens inexplicably decided to have a 25 episode season. WHY? In last week's finale post we rejoiced to learn a thing! Mona is A! Except actually we get to take two steps back because THERE'S A WHOLE A TEAM! And the mysterious alarm clock!
Remember last season when we complained about how impossible this show was to rank? Given how much nothing happens and how long it took us to slog through all that nothing (but, like, super pretty nothing!) we all agreed that there was simply no way we could rank this season.
Remember last season when we complained about how impossible this show was to rank? Given how much nothing happens and how long it took us to slog through all that nothing (but, like, super pretty nothing!) we all agreed that there was simply no way we could rank this season.
Xander is cleaning up the broken glass, lamenting that he's trapped in a "loop" in which he replaces the Chez Summers windows for all of eternity. (K: This is hilarious because he spends most of the rest of season 7 repairing those fucking windows.) This joke acknowledging the recurring destruction of the Summers home is obviously fantastic, but the word "loop" makes me twitch because I'm trying to learn actual code so that I can fix all the things that keep breaking on this website, but failing because it all looks unsettlingly like math. I feel you, Xander. I sometimes wonder if Snark Squad database errors are going to be ruining my life forever, too.
Lorraine: I really hope it isn't rage ninjas breaking our website.
Lorraine: I really hope it isn't rage ninjas breaking our website.
It is no secret that we have a lot of thoughts/feels on all things popular culture. There are only so many hours in a day and so we simply cannot recap everything, placing some constraints on what we can dissect here. Having said that, I came across something the other that gave me so many feelings that I needed to sit down and work them out somewhere. I probably should have done it THAT DAY, because such is the relevance and shelf life of these things but, as always...we do what we want.
Variety posted, “Diversity Done Wrong: How SNL Mishandled Casting a Black Woman.” For those of you who are unaware, SNL received a great deal of criticism in the fall when it introduced half a dozen new featured players, nearly all of whom were white men.
Variety posted, “Diversity Done Wrong: How SNL Mishandled Casting a Black Woman.” For those of you who are unaware, SNL received a great deal of criticism in the fall when it introduced half a dozen new featured players, nearly all of whom were white men.
After the previouslies make me reach for the brain bleach again, we're in Angel's room where he's sketching The Beast. (Welcome back, Angel/art OTP!) Lorne walks in with a glass of blood and Angel basically tells him to get out. Lorne says that he's done with the game playing, and Angel's all "What game playing?" Lorne adopts a moody teenager voice to say "Don't interrupt me, I'm brooding," which is quite possibly the greatest thing to ever happen in this show.
Angel claims to be researching rather than brooding, but Lorne's not buying it because everyone else is researching downstairs as a team, not alone in their mopeyness. Angel says that he works better alone, and Lorne retorts that it's not all about him and that champions (SHOTS!!) don't get to take personal days.
Angel claims to be researching rather than brooding, but Lorne's not buying it because everyone else is researching downstairs as a team, not alone in their mopeyness. Angel says that he works better alone, and Lorne retorts that it's not all about him and that champions (SHOTS!!) don't get to take personal days.
We open pretty much immediately after the end of the last episode because everyone's wearing the exact same outfits. The Scoobies are putting the living room back together after that whole Dawn Fought A Demon thing blew everything up, with the girls cleaning up the broken stuff while Xander repairs the windows. Dawn is sassy about Spike's presence, and Willow unconvincingly says that Buffy knows what she's doing. Anya's on Team Stake The Evil Bloodsucker, and asks Xander for his support. He refuses to give an opinion. She says that they need to prepare themselves for the possibility that William the Bloody is back.
Lorraine: We're privileged as the audience, so we know more about Spike's whole soul quest, but Anya and Dawn have a point.
Lorraine: We're privileged as the audience, so we know more about Spike's whole soul quest, but Anya and Dawn have a point.
Our fine looking fibbers are at the Hastings House, watching news coverage of Garrett's murder arrest. Spencer tells the girls that her mom knows someone working the case, and that Jenna Marshall is the one who turned in the evidence against Garrett. Aria wants to know if this means they can finally lay Ali to rest, and I answer her, "No," because we know there are at least two more seasons. Sorry girl.
Sweeney: Poor Aria. Not even her magnet for Getting All The Things She Wants Always Without Consequences can stand in the way of the will of the TV Gods.
Lor: Hanna still thinks Melissa and Jenna are guilty parties. Speak of the forever-pregnant devil, Melissa comes in and says, "love gone wrong."
Sweeney: Poor Aria. Not even her magnet for Getting All The Things She Wants Always Without Consequences can stand in the way of the will of the TV Gods.
Lor: Hanna still thinks Melissa and Jenna are guilty parties. Speak of the forever-pregnant devil, Melissa comes in and says, "love gone wrong."
It's still raining hell fire. Angel turns away from where he's been watching Cordy and Connor... You know. He takes out his legit anger out on a nearby door. There is lots of off screen angry grunting and punching.
Sweeney: This is our way of letting you know that you missed nothing when you were leaning over dry heaving.
Kirsti: Seriously, all you missed was a dude in need of anger management therapy.
Sweeney: This is our way of letting you know that you missed nothing when you were leaning over dry heaving.
Kirsti: Seriously, all you missed was a dude in need of anger management therapy.
We took a break. It was nice. It's over now.
Buffy visits Xander at 4:30 in the morning, looking for Spike, who isn't there. Xander asks if Spike's in trouble, and Buffy says she hopes not.
Cut to In Trouble Alley where Spike for reasons I'm sure will be explained later, proving that Spike is a good boy (I swear I haven't watched ahead) is burying a dead woman's body while humming.
Kirsti: The use of humming in place of music dramatically ups the creep factor for me. That and the fact that what he's humming is a song that my brother's choir used to sing...
Buffy visits Xander at 4:30 in the morning, looking for Spike, who isn't there. Xander asks if Spike's in trouble, and Buffy says she hopes not.
Cut to In Trouble Alley where Spike for reasons I'm sure will be explained later, proving that Spike is a good boy (I swear I haven't watched ahead) is burying a dead woman's body while humming.
Kirsti: The use of humming in place of music dramatically ups the creep factor for me. That and the fact that what he's humming is a song that my brother's choir used to sing...