We start at the Improbable Bonfire again and I'll admit that I cheered a little. I don't know what it is about that bonfire. Maybe it represents the few seconds during the beginning where I still understand 100% of what's happening. Namely: FIRE. BIG FIRE.
Democracy Diva: It always just makes me think, FIRE BAD. TREE PRETTY.
Mari: Best thing to come out of that episode.
We zoom, zoom, zoom to 12 Grimmauld Place. Sam Keating (Viola Davis's husband) is all murdered on the floor and Laurel (I think. It's hard to tell in the murder lighting) is just looking at his body.
Democracy Diva: Welcome, Traumateers! I am thrilled to be using my status as a barred-but-under-employed attorney to help Sweeney and Lorraine snark the new Shonda Rhimes drama "How to Get Away with Murder."
Lorraine: I'm cracking up already. #livingthedream
Sweeney: You too can spend lots of money/time/sanity on law school so that you can write about it on the internet. For free.
Diva: Like a boss.
Lorraine: I'm cracking up already. #livingthedream
Sweeney: You too can spend lots of money/time/sanity on law school so that you can write about it on the internet. For free.
Diva: Like a boss.
One of the few (conscious) memories I have of ever watching a complete episode of the OC is from when I was horribly hungover at university, feeling very sorry for myself, and being unable to muster up enough energy to change the damn channel. Even with half my braincells devoted to feeling utterly wretched, my main- and recurring- thought about this show is best summed up as 'what the fuck is this?'.
Caveat: while I have some vague awareness of the characters and their backstories, I have no idea what the plot line is or what the last twenty five episodes have been banging on about and the 'previously on.. ' doesn't really help me at all.
Caveat: while I have some vague awareness of the characters and their backstories, I have no idea what the plot line is or what the last twenty five episodes have been banging on about and the 'previously on.. ' doesn't really help me at all.
Greenwood, Mississippi, 1938. In a bar, Robert Johnson (well, an actor playing Robert Johnson, anyway) plays the blues and it's kind of awesome.
Everyone in the room is listening intently. He stops when he hears a dog barking, but no one else moves. It happens again, and he looks terrified, then runs from the room. Everyone else looks hella confused. He barricades himself in a house, hearing a dog barking and scraping outside the door. His friends break in and find him convulsing on the floor, mumbling about black dogs.
Everyone in the room is listening intently. He stops when he hears a dog barking, but no one else moves. It happens again, and he looks terrified, then runs from the room. Everyone else looks hella confused. He barricades himself in a house, hearing a dog barking and scraping outside the door. His friends break in and find him convulsing on the floor, mumbling about black dogs.
Shrine O'Spielberg. Pacey is eating pizza and generally pissing Dawson off by noting that everyone in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is totally dead right now. After a discussion about how Dawson is Richie Cunningham Jimmy Stewart every nice guy in film/TV history, Jen stumbles in and collapses on Dawson's bed, wasted. This scene basically just establishes that Jen is back to her hot mess Big City Girl ways, and Pacey likes pizza, because it's yummy.
Kirsti: That Pacey. Always the sensible one...
Kirsti: That Pacey. Always the sensible one...
The clock strikes 12.20pm (really?? It STRIKES at 12.20??). A guy answers his phone. We see hazy flashes of him picking up a shotgun and killing people, then back in reality, he says "Alright," and hangs up the phone as a bus drives past. He heads into a store and asks to look at a gun. The shopkeeper is startled because Doc's not the gun-toting type, but shows him a shotgun. Doc asks what kind of shells it uses, and the shopkeeper pulls out a box to show him. Doc loads the shotgun he's holding. The shopkeeper gets shouty. "It's all going to be okay..." Doc says before shooting the shopkeeper. Customers scream, but Doc repeats his previous statement before shooting himself.
A slightly nerdy guy (Neil) sits with a pretty girl (Angela) and says he's got all the supplies there to heal her broken heart, like booze and chocolate. She thanks him sadly. Someone bangs on the door, and Neil goes to answer it. It's Angela's boyfriend. He demands to see her, but when he talks his way past Neil, she's gone. Cut to Angela driving down a rainy highway, crying. Her phone rings and she answers. Her boyfriend apologises and tells her to listen to him. She gets shouty in response, misses a turn and crashes into a barrier. We get a close up of her staring, blood-covered face and hear her boyfriend's voice over the phone.
Shrine O'Spielberg. Dawson and Joey are having a disaster movie marathon because there's a hurricane a-blowin'. Gail and her not-so-secret lover Bob are covering the storm on TV, and are overtly flirting with each other during the broadcast because they're bad at secrets. Dawson's parents still don't know that he knows about the affair, and he's too tired to deal with feelings, so he asks Joey, "You mind if I sack?" Is this an actual thing that humans say? (K: Maybe it was in the 90s??) Anyway, Joey basically tells him to deal with his shit instead of hiding out in the storm. Instead, he broods and watches his mother and her mastress (man-mistress? Guys, it's so sexist that there isn't a word for this!) on the news.
CARRY ON MY WAAAAYWARD SOOOOOOOOON. Sorry. It's the pointy end of the season, and that means we start with a full recap of the season and the show's unofficial theme song. It's a sure sign that heartbreak isn't far away.
Blue Earth, Minnesota. The camera pans over a stained glass window and down to a priest, flicking through a Bible. Meg walks in, and says she needs someone to talk to about all the terrible things she's done. The priest says salvation was created for sinners, earning himself a shiny gold star
Blue Earth, Minnesota. The camera pans over a stained glass window and down to a priest, flicking through a Bible. Meg walks in, and says she needs someone to talk to about all the terrible things she's done. The priest says salvation was created for sinners, earning himself a shiny gold star
Angel sits at a conference room table, anxiously tapping his fingers and rearranging his paperwork.
Kirsti: I'm already distracted because he's wearing his leather coat for the first time in aaaaaaaaaaaaages. YAY.
Lor: He calls Harmony and she tells him she's called everyone for the meeting already. Angel yells at his phone about how he's still sitting there alone, and Harm comes to talk to him in person. She gives us the expository rundown of where everyone is: Wesley is baby-sitting Illyria, Gunn is still in the hospital (as if Angel wouldn't know that) and Lorne is MIA because, and this is what it all comes down to, Fred is dead.
Kirsti: I'm already distracted because he's wearing his leather coat for the first time in aaaaaaaaaaaaages. YAY.
Lor: He calls Harmony and she tells him she's called everyone for the meeting already. Angel yells at his phone about how he's still sitting there alone, and Harm comes to talk to him in person. She gives us the expository rundown of where everyone is: Wesley is baby-sitting Illyria, Gunn is still in the hospital (as if Angel wouldn't know that) and Lorne is MIA because, and this is what it all comes down to, Fred is dead.
Zoomy cameraman winds us through a warehouse as a disembodied voice monologues about the importance of trust in shady demonic business dealings. Our cameraman friend finds his way to the voice and the Shady Demonic Businessman is giving this monologue to Wesley who snarks about how he ain't got time for this shit and would like to get to the shady demonic business dealings. He waves a hand to bring in Fred who Wesley refers to as his muscle. He mostly means the gun she developed and is carrying in a case, but I appreciate it all the same. They made this gun to order, but Wesley isn't giving it to them because Shady Demonic Businessman is just a Shady Demonic Middleman.
First of all, you should know that I'm writing this while watching The Oscars, so I think you should all play your very own Snark Squad Drinking Game of, "Spot the recap's many inaccuracies." It'll be fun. I promise. Maybe.
Kirsti: It won't be fun at all, because Kirsti The Eternally Anal Retentive will have fixed them all. But sure. Fun.
Lorraine: Well, that ruins the game before it started. Okay, guys. I guess you should now all be playing, "drink whenever you spot a place where an inaccuracy may have been!" HAPPY DRINKING.
Kirsti: It won't be fun at all, because Kirsti The Eternally Anal Retentive will have fixed them all. But sure. Fun.
Lorraine: Well, that ruins the game before it started. Okay, guys. I guess you should now all be playing, "drink whenever you spot a place where an inaccuracy may have been!" HAPPY DRINKING.
We open in Sunnydale's main street. It's busier than we've ever seen it, bumper to bumper traffic as people flee the Hellmouth-y vibes.
Lorraine: Only seven season later. Better late than never, population of Sunnydale!
Sweeney: "See, even the population of Sunnydale is peacing out! We promise we're a couple episodes away from a real mega apocalypse!"
K: A+.
Lorraine: Only seven season later. Better late than never, population of Sunnydale!
Sweeney: "See, even the population of Sunnydale is peacing out! We promise we're a couple episodes away from a real mega apocalypse!"
K: A+.
The episode starts looking out at a shed, in a shot very similar to the Pilot. It's five months after the events of the season two finale and the close of summer break. In the clunky way we've come to know and love to make fun of, the girls recap their summers: Aria beat out thousands of applicants for a photography course (S: LOL. Have we ever once seen Aria take a picture?); Spencer took a full load of classes at Hollis College of Pottery and Pedophiles; Emily built houses for the less fortunate; Hanna had a to-do list which she kind of completed.
Sweeney: I feel you, girl. Except, you know, I actually took all those jobs where I worked for free.
Sweeney: I feel you, girl. Except, you know, I actually took all those jobs where I worked for free.
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.