Tag: Subtlety is for people with too much time on their hands

Dawson’s Creek S03 E15 – Remember this?

Remember that whole thing from AN ENTIRE SEASON AGO where Joey was into art? Yeah. Apparently she's into art again, because she's painting a mural on a wall at school. She's also borrowed Buffy's Overalls of Overall Sadness. (D: Between this and the "tabula rasa" reference later in the episode, I'm considering this two #crossovermagic episodes in a row.) (K: Motion carried.) Pacey walks up and smiles at her fondly. I flail a little. She asks what he's doing there, and he says he's hoping he'll absorb some of her genius by osmosis or something. Joey joins the dots and realises that he's been kicked out of home again. Pacey says that his eldest sister has left her husband and moved home, along with her small screaming children. Oof.

Gotham S01 E16 – Cirque du Suck

We open with a few quick establishing shots of various Gotham residents: Bruce is asleep on the sofa, his murder-investigation notebook open on his lap. Penguin is proudly watching his mother singing on stage in his new club. Fish wakes up on the floor of her prison and claps her hands, giving her fellow captives permission to get up and drink some water.
Clocktower Apartment and OH, GOODIE. Barbara’s back. (M: NOOOOOO.) She arrives home wearing a sexy black dress to find Selina and Ivy camped out in the living room. Selina explains that Jim dropped off his keys last week.

Gotham S01 E04 – Eyeball Trauma Assassin

We begin where the last episode ended, with Oswald arriving at Jim's door. Barbara shows him in and he introduces himself as Peter, a friend of Jim's. Barbara is lovely and jokes about not getting to meet Jim's friends. Jim walks Oswald out to have a chat about work things.
Alex: Oh, whoops. I totally assumed Barbara knew who Oswald was at the end of the last recap. Apparently not. But I'm sure that when she opened the door last week she looked worried, whereas now she's just being all charming and upbeat.
Marines: I mean, every other character in this show has been all, "YOU. PENGUIN." so it wasn't unreasonably to assume that she would also guess who he was. But no.

Gotham S01 E02 – Cat got your eyes?

Baby Batman is continuing his slightly suicidal exploration of his fears by burning his hand on a candle. Alfred walks in and startles BB, who hides his burnt hand. Alfred demands to see his hand and then freaks out at the sight, calling BB stupid and shaking him into a hug. There is no other way to describe that. I'm not sure I understand what this show is doing with Alfred. (A: Me neither).
Selina Kyle sits with some of her homeless friends playing with a necklace kind of like how a cat would play with yarn. (wink.)
A van comes down the alley and puts Selina on her guard. Two overly peppy people in outfits I cannot explain jump out of the van and claim to be from the mayor's outreach program.

Gotham S01 E01 – Subtlety is Overrated

Necessary disclaimer: we know nothing about Batman. I've maybe seen all of the Batman movies made in my lifetime, occasionally watched the 90's cartoon as a kid, and love Batman The Ride. I also just remembered that I suppressed memories of thinking Chris O'Donnell was dreamy when I was in the 4th grade, thanks entirely to Batman Forever. That is my entire Batman CV. My comic book IQ is pretty low, in general, and Batman is definitely not on the list of superheroes whose stories I could feign competency in. To the best of my knowledge, this is also true of Lorraine (L: Yep.) and Alex, who agreed to join us for her first series recapping gig with the internet equivalent of a shrug and nervous laughter (A: Thanks again for the invite! And I think I've only seen two Batman movies ever).

Charmed S01 E06 – Bridezilla

A young woman (Allison) walks through a garden having lots of feelings. We know this because she touches a rose and sighs. She's met by a man (Elliot) who hands her a white rose. She says they've spent lots of time planning their wedding and she doesn't want anything to go wrong.
Their kiss is interrupted by a woman with an uptight hairdo, asking Elliot, her son, about the marriage certificate. They couple has plans to get it handled the next day but Mommy Uptight wants them to do it RIGHT NOW. Elliot asks what her deal is, but she doesn't answer because the soundtrack just whooshed at her.

Pretty Little Liars S02 E21 – Shady money exchanges.

Our Pretty Liars are congregated in front of Spencer's locker at the Rosewood School for Discussing Secrets Loudly. They are discussing their secrets. Loudly. Emily wants to know how Spencer got $2000 for their informant so quickly, and she vagues about having a relative who helped.
Aria and Spencer are going to meet the informant, Jonah, at 6pm and they will meet with Hanna and Emily afterwards. Hanna wants to know why she doesn't get to go make shady money exchanges; Spencer explains that showing up four deep might freak Jonah out. Emily shouts about wanting to be there to learn the truth but Mona strides up and they have to cut their conversation short. The Liars greet Mona with a tepid, "hey," before she pulls Hanna away to chat about shopping plans

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S05 E01 – Mind Control Does Not Equal Consent

Sweeney: Season 5 has mixed reviews from all of you, but anything beats S4 in my book, so let's get started and leave that disappointment behind us. Buffy is lying in bed with Riley and unable to sleep because she knows her relationship is doomed. Or because she knows there's a vampire out there waiting to be staked. Whatever. She gets up, runs through the cemetery and gets to staking before returning to bed, knowing that it's just her doing the slaying and no more Initiative, and all is well in the world.
Lorraine: I got all sorts of Buffy answering the call of duty vibes from this scene. A lot of those very! significant! moments in Restless told us about Buffy coming up against her slayer nature and really belonging to this world.

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+

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S01 E02 – Or why you should carry an Exacto knife.

I feel like we should start this second post of Buffy recaps with a disclaimer. We will not be devoting an entire post to each episode. Because that would be CU-RAAAAZY, and I’m pretty sure both Lor and I would go insane after the 144 posts that would require. At the end of “Welcome to the Hellmouth”, Buffy is trapped in a tomb with a huge, ugly vampire dude, and he’s about to bite her. Which bring us to... “The Harvest” So apparently the huge, ugly vampire dude (whose name is Luke) has really terrible aim when it comes to necks. Or he was trying to bite her boobs? Either way, he ends up with a mouthful of the enormous crucifix necklace that Angel presented Buffy with in the last episode.