Criminals Are a Superstitious, Foreshadowing Lot

I’m going to get this out of the way right at the beginning:  I’m a huge Batman fan, but I hate seeing his origin story.  The reason is because I’ve seen it so. Many. Damn. Times.  And now, come to your television and mine, is Gotham; yet another origin story for Batman.  And as the TV Sluts most dedicated comic book nerd, I’m here to break it down for you.  Fair warning: I’m getting Bat-nerdy ALL OVER THIS MOFO.  I won’t feel badly if you need to turn back now.

I"m so desensitized to this image that for all I know, this could be from Modern Family.

The saving grace of this take on Batman’s origin is that it is told through the eyes of a young Lt. James Gordon, the man who will one day become Gotham City’s famous Commissioner of Police.  As we see how Gordon will eventually become the paragon of law and order, the show is promising to focus more on the development of the various rogues and ne’er-do-wells that will eventually becomes Batman’s famous villains than on the Dark Knight himself.  As such, it’s sort of Batman without the Batman, though a young Bruce Wayne is a regular character.

The first episode sets the stage for us with a variety of characters good, bad, and ambivalent react to the shocking murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne, the wealthiest couple in the city and, obviously, parents to young Bruce.  We see the reaction to the crime from the three different factions of people Gotham has laid out for us: the police investigating the crime, the mob factions who see it as a potential leverage point, and the people caught up in between, most of whom have rather familiar names.

They're like the Brady Bunch.  With more secrets.  And darker clothes.  

And that’s where Gothamearns a lot of its nerd street cred right off the bat.  Seriously, you guys, there hasn’t been a finer collection of Easter Eggs in one place since the last White House Easter Egg Roll.   All the mainstays of the Batman universe are here:  Sarah Essen is Jim Gordon’s captain.  His partner is Harvey Bullock.  The CSI-guy who helps them understand the ballistics of evidence is Edward Nygma.  Bullock and Gordon, who work in Homicide, are envious and jealous of two other cops always showing them up from Major Crimes, ReneeMontoya and Crispus Allen.  And that’s just the police force.  The show opens on a teenage Selina Kyle just learning how to be a thief.  The daughter of a mob lackey is a young Poison Ivy.  Mob boss Fish Mooney’s underling is none other than Oswald Cobblepot.  Right off the bat (heh), your Batman geeks are SQUEEE-ing all over the place.

The risk for the show, then, is how to tell a major story that everyone knows, how Bruce Wayne becomes Batman, with this many characters, most of whom are the ones that are usually in the periphery.  Gothamaims to tackle that problem by running largely like a police procedural with an emphasis on the job that James Gordon has fallen into as the Last Good Man in Gotham City.  We can only presume that the deeper stories, already starting to be seeded in the pilot episode, will begin to fill in the holes that a Law & Order: Gotham would be unwilling to.

So how does it do in its first four episodes?  All told, not too bad.  Let’s start with look and feel.  Production value is high and the show looks slick.  The show gets a lot of free atmosphere simply from filming in New York rather than Los Angeles or Vancouver and as such, Gotham City looks and feels real.  New York is stylized, blending the actual architecture of a gritty city with enhanced fantastical elements to give it a more gothic feel.  The skies are always moody, the streets are always dirty.  To a comic book nerd like me, it looks very close to how Gotham City is supposed to look.  Denny O’Neil, one of the all-time greatest Batman writers who help shaped the character, once described Gotham as looking exactly like New York below 14^th street at 10 minutes past midnight on the coldest, wettest night in November.  The show has followed that lead, effectively making Gotham City a character in and of herself.

So how about the story?  Wisely, the central mystery that we’re given (who actually killed the Waynes?) is carried through the first four episodes without being overbearing.   The show is devoting much more time to showing how corrupt Gotham City is and what it means to try to keep this city, built on a precarious system of checks and balances between the warring crime families, the police, and the emerging underclass of citizens who are taking matters into their own hands, from falling into chaos.  The writing itself is, for the most part, good while obviously trying to find its pace and hit its stride, a common issue for new shows.  Some truly clunky dialogue in the first episode is thankfully significantly improved by the third, which gives me a lot of confidence for the rest of the season.  (Though for the sake of full disclosure, I would watch this show no matter what just because of the topic.  I’m a sucker.)   

This course of action is not uncalled for in my case. 

The performances vary from middling to fascinating.  Donal Logue’s Harvey Bullock and Robin Lord Taylor’s Oswald Cobblepot in particular steal just about every scene they’re in.  Taylor lets his proto-Penguin be sleazy and slimy while at the same time making you want to know more about this kid who is so clearly set on a bad path.   By episode four, Oswald has already started to become a minor player in the nascent gang war that has started to erupt since the death of the Waynes.  Likewise, Logue nails Harvey Bullock as the cop who is just going along to get along in a city as corrupt as Gotham is, despite the fact that underneath it all he really wishes he could make a difference.   The actor having the most fun with a role, however, is clearly Jada Pinkett Smith, cast as a mid-level mob boss named Fish Moody who nominally is in service to Carmine Falcone, the head of the most powerful mob family in Gotham, but scheming to improve her own station.  Watching Jada Pinkett Smith as she Eartha Kitts al over her scenes is legitimately fun.   And while Ben McKenzie is solid as James Gordon, it’s hard to get too creative with a hero character who has to carry all the action.  His best scenes so far have been playing off young Selina Kyle, cast here as a street orphan who’s ridiculously talented at getting by on her own.  (Selina is perhaps the character that the writers have nailed most solidly.  Every line she has absolutely sounds like something the 13-year-old version of Catwoman would say.)

"Purrrrrfect?"

That kind of devotion to the comics without being hemmed in by them is part of what makes Gothamso enjoyable for me.  The writers are playing with any number of nerdy references: Gordon and his Fiancé, Barbara, live in a curiously lavish penthouse apartment with the main feature being a huge clockface that doubles as a window.  Comic readers know that this couple’s future daughter, who becomes Batgirl, is frequently drawn in her own high-tech apartment in a prominent clocktower somewhere in Gotham.  Episode four revolves around a development deal to bring back the abandoned Arkham Asylum.  (A map showing the neighborhood even refers to the area as “Arkham City.")  Characters meet at the corner of Fourth and Grundy.  The dancers at Fish Moody’s night club are dressed curiously as harlequins.   There's even a struggling comedian who auditions at the same club.  (The producers have stated that they will tease exactly who becomes the Joker over time, and likely ambiguously owing to the ambiguous nature of the character's origins in the comics.)  

A Batman TV show has been something of the Holy Grail for both networks and Warner Brothers for some time.  For as popular as the character is, there are a dozen reasons why the last time Batman was on live action television, he was played by Adam West.  And while Gotham bears no resemblance at all to the 1960s Batman, fans of the Bat universe will be more than pleased to see it brought to them each week.  Whether or not it can win over more casual viewers is now the question.

Gotham airs Monday nights at 8pm on Fox.

Once More Into the Breach, Dear Friends

Game of Thrones is back, everyone, and Maggie Cats and I are here to chat about it as per usual. Season four’s opener, “Two Swords”, brought us back to Westeros in the aftermath of last season’s brutal and climactic Red Wedding. Though both of us have read the books, the chat below is almost completely spoiler free with one or two very minor exceptions.

 Maggie Cats:  So. Thoughts?

 Clovis:  Broadly, it's always good to see these characters again. And by "these characters" I mean Arya.

I really liked how they're showing her taking one step closer to becoming a total badass.

 Maggie Cats:  Well, if by total badass you mean sociopath, then yes, yes they are.

 Clovis:  But that's the thing, she kind of is one, right? Like, Arya is totally the Batman of Westeros. She's seen her family destroyed in front of her, she's now traveling the world to learn how to become the ultimate badass to go back to destroy those who did her wrong.

 Maggie Cats:  I mean, once she puts on a cape and a mask I will see your point more clearly.

 Clovis:  Given that she sometimes wears a cloak, she's basically only two pointy ears away from becoming a dark knight avenger.

"Lannisters are a superstitious, cowardly lot..."

 Maggie Cats:  I would say she is more of archetype than Batman specifically, but what's great is she kind of busts through the archetype because she is a 12 year old girl.

 Clovis:  Yeah, exactly. And she's learning from the cruelty of everyone around her. She's getting corrupted, but in a way it's the kind of corruption she was always likely to get if she could have gotten her way and been allowed to be a knight.

 Maggie Cats:  Westeros is a cruel, cruel world. it doesn't pay to be ANYBODY.

 Clovis:  Except maybe Littlefinger. FOR NOW...

 Maggie Cats:  Like last year, I was so impressed by the actual structure of the episode. I was impressed that we managed to see almost all the characters and have great moments with all of them.

 Clovis:  I feel like this show has consistently done that well - all the seasons' first episodes do a good job of bringing you back to each character.

 Maggie Cats: AND we met Prince Oberyn. Whom I already adore.

 Clovis:  I liked that they kept him bisexual! I was worried that would get washed away.

"I will attract ALL THE THINGS!"

 Maggie Cats:  Again, HBO. The more sexual the better. I don't understand what it is about HBO that makes even the basic craftsmanship of their shows so much better than network television. It can't just be money.

 Clovis:  I think it's also the commitment that HBO generally puts into seeing something from the bigger picture. That said, sometimes they still tank. This is the network that cancelled Carnivale, after all.

 Maggie Cats:  Still never seen it

 Clovis:  It was amazeballs. I will have to do a blog post. Note to self... But speaking of perplexing, why was Daario played by a different person? The show totally pulled a Darren on us. 

 Maggie Cats:  Oh, it's the same actor who plays Finnick in The Hunger Games. I assumed it was because of his shooting schedule. [Ed note: Actually, Daario was originally played by Ed Skrein, who left Game of Thrones to take up a role in the Transportermovie franchise. Finnick in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire was played by Sam Clafin. In fairness, Skrein and Clafin do look a lot alike.]

 Clovis:  Also, having now read the books (all bloody 5000 pages of them) I'm kind of disappointed that Daario isn't as garish in the show as he is in the books. I liked all the descriptions of his weird blue hair.

 Maggie Cats:  I agree, I wonder why THAT would be something they would change. Maybe they are going to have evolve into that as they spend more time in the city?

 Clovis:  I suppose the producers wanted to keep the character more in the world that they've established? Grittier and less bright? [Ed. Note: it’s amazing what you can find online. More info here about the shift from a prettier Daario to the new one.]

 Maggie Cats:  but it seems odd not to follow through those notes. Perhaps, and also set him up as a very romantic lead. Remember, in the books Dany doesn't go for his shtick for a loooong time.

Before.

After.

 Clovis:  That's true. (Spoilers!)

 Maggie Cats:  I mean, it's clear she's going for it now. She is charmed despite herself. Who wouldn't be, right? I hope they make him a bit swarmier.

 Clovis:  Agreed - I like him a bit smarmy. Makes him more interesting when he's not so earnest. Another thing that's different, but I'm enjoying is how much more developed Margaery is in the show relative to the book and the possible hint that she's going to get more screen time with Brienne.

 Maggie Cats:  oh, god yes, Margaery and her grandmother are two of my favorite characters. Margaery is one smart cookie, but I think she is also a genuinely kind person. When she took Brienne's arm in friendship it felt real.

 Clovis:  It would make a neat change of pace to have someone who is a schemer and a game player, but not have her be a total ass as well. That's a different combination than we've seen.

 Maggie Cats:  Maybe she is just that good at manipulation, but I feel that she is just a nice person. So I am sure she will raped, mutilated, and murdered sometime very soon.

 Clovis:  It's bound to happen. Though, maybe she could end up like a Queen Elizabeth - a good player, but also someone who is generally beloved by people. Or maybe I'm just opening my heart to be stomped on by GRRM and the rest of the team because I've never learned my lesson.

 Maggie Cats:  In my perfect world, Bran ends up overlord with the West with Margaery as Queen, Tyrion as the Hand, and Arrya, the head of the Kinsguard. Actually strike that –  Margaery is in charge of everything, Bran is the master builder, Dany can have the East.

 Clovis:  Podrick takes over Littlefinger's whore houses. The whores go along with this VERY willingly.

 Maggie Cats:  YES, PODRICK! I am trying to remember...but I think in the books he knew all the Dornish house sigils as well. Love that he is smart and sexy. He would totally be the hot nerd in our modern world.

"They say this cat Podrick's a baaaaad mutha - SHUT YO MOUTH! Talking 'bout Pod..."

 Clovis:  He kind of is in Westeros. Basically, it's only going to be so long before some enterprising writer goes back and retells the entire Game of Thrones story from the perspective of Podrick, "Rosencranz and Guildenstern are Dead"-style.

 Maggie Cats:  I would read that. Change of topic: do you think Tywin knows Jamie's REAL reason for wanting to stay in Kings Landing? So he can fuck his sister, I mean.

 Clovis:  Oh he totally does. He doesn't want to admit it, but there's a part of his brain that knows.

 Maggie Cats:  And what is Cercei's ailment do you think? I don't remember anything from the books about it so discussion shouldn't be a spoiler. Maybe it's the dreaded "change.”

 Clovis:  Yeah, that's was suspicious. I mean, she didn't have the "sudden cough of death" that would suggest she's about to die of tuberculosis, so I'm not sure.

 Maggie Cats:  if it was set in the 1800s she totally would have been hacking. Maybe she has alcohol-related issues.

 Clovis:  Perhaps (avoiding spoilers here) given where Cercei's story arch is about to go in the books, they've written something else into that to make it more poignant or something? Or they could go full soap opera and we could find out that she's pregnant from sleeping with that cousin of hers.

 Maggie Cats:  Perhaps! I like not knowing everything that is going to happen.

 Clovis:   I think they're wise to make slight deviations from the books and give us different stories. The Arya/Tywin scenes from Season 2 were some of my favorites - I loved how well those scenes worked. And they're nowhere in the books.

 Maggie Cats:  almost all of my favorite moments are actually scenes between characters not in the book, like Cersei/Robert Season 1, Arya/Tywin Season 2, and any time Littlefinger and Varys bitch at each other. FLOVE!

 Clovis:  All the more reason why I'm hoping for more between Brienne and Margaery. Those two would make for some interesting scenes given that Brienne actually loved Renly and Margaery, well, probably didn't but was willing to play the game.

 Maggie Cats:  Good point. I like scenes with Margaery and anybody.

"OMG Totes BFF!"

 Clovis:  So without skirting too close to the spoilers, how quickly do we think we're getting to the royal wedding?

 Maggie Cats:  It looked like next episode, but I don't believe it.

 Clovis:  The first ep said it was two weeks again “in world” time. I'm eager to see how they do this. I imagine we'll have lots to chat about after that happens.

 Maggie Cats:  Most definitely!! I love this show. I enjoyed the first season but wouldn't say I loved it, but as they get more and more into it (and surprise me with changes from the books) I really love it.

 Clovis:  I'm just impressed it ever got made. I read this article that points out all the previous shows that needed to fail for us to get Game of Thrones.

And with that, we’re out for this week. Tune in again next week for discussion following Season four’s second episode, titled “The Lion and the Rose.”

Recapping AHS: Our Long National Nightmare is Over

Yup, it's been forever on this one, everybody. I wish I could say it was entirely because I was too busy to write this, but it's more than that. I'll explain more at the end, but in the meantime how do we start the final episode of the season? With a music video! Starring Stevie Nicks, naturally! Seriously – it happened.  Vaguely because we needed to see a montage about how each of the girls study for their finals the Seven Wonders, but really it just came off looking a lot like an early 90s VH1 hit.

The night before the trials begin, Myrtle has literally prepared a last supper modeled after DaVinci. Mrytle explains that any of the four girls competing could die in the process. “Childhood is over, my girls,” Cordelia tells them. “Kick ass tomorrow.”

The first wonder! Each of the girls must use telekinesis to move a burning candlestick across the table to their hands. Misty goes first and nails it. Queenie, Madison, and Zoe each follow. No elimination round here!

What "light as a feather, stiff as a board" would like like if high schools had sorority hazing rituals.

The second wonder! Mind control! Misty is up first again and makes Queenie smack herself repeatedly. Queenie retaliates by forcing Misty to pull her own hair. Madison gets more personal, however, and compels Kyle to make out with her in front of Zoe. Zoe, however, will cut a bitch and makes Kyle come to her for an extended make out. Madison then forces Kyle to strangle Zoe until Cordelia interrupts the entire test.

The third wonder! Descent into Hell. As Queenie learned last time, getting down isn’t hard, it’s the coming back before dawn that’s tricky. Each of the girls lies on the floor and descends into their own private hell. Queenie is back in the fried chicken shack. She rolls her eyes and makes it back first. Madison follows closely – gasping for breath. “It was horrible,” she cried. “I was stuck on a network musical. It was a live version of the Sound of Music. I wasn’t even the lead! I was Lisle.” Zoe surfaces later, coming out a hell where Kyle didn’t love and kept breaking up with her and oh Jesus really, Zoe? I don’t even want to talk about that. Misty, however, is not shaping up so well – she’s stuck in high school biology dissection class. Misty keeps reanimating her dead frogs until her jerk Bio teacher makes her cut apart a live one. Over and over. Poor Misty is not getting the point, screaming each time she’s forced to kill the frog. It’s getting light out and she’s still not coming back to the land of the living. Cordelia wants to help, but there’s nothing anyone can do but Misty herself. Unfortunately, the time runs out and Misty’s body decays into ashes in Cordelia arms. Which I seriously have problems with, because Misty rocked. Ugh.

Misty, we hardly knew ye...

The fourth wonder! Transmutation. Which basically just means playing tag, but with lots of vanishing. The girls actually start to break into levity, beginning to have fun until Zoe transmutates herself onto the spikes on top of the gates and impales herself where no one can reach her. Bummer. Time for the fifth wonder! Bringing the dead back to life. Queenie attempts to revive Zoe but isn’t able to for some reason. “Guess who isn’t the Supreme,” Madison crows. Cordelia tells Madison that the only way to prove that she can be Supreme is to bring Zoe back to life, proving that she can perform that Wonder. Madison, however, isn’t too keen on bringing in another competitor, especially since Queenie has effectively been eliminated. Madison finds a third way, killing a fly and then bringing it back. Game, set, match. “I’m starting to think Fiona had the right idea,” Madison crows. “Crown me, or kiss my ass.”

That night, Cordelia confesses to Myrtle that she feels she’s failed for allowing the Coven to die out if Madison is the best they can produce. Myrtle, however, sees it differently – Cordelia herself could be the next Supreme. Her own lack of building on her power has been because Fiona has held her back all these years. Game on! Freaky Eyes Cordelia goes into action the next day, lighting fires from a distance, making Queenie dance, levitating a grand piano, and generally making Madison start to sweat. It’s not until she comes back from Hell and still manages to transmute herelf across the house that things get serious though.

On to the sixth wonder! Each of the three witches must magically devine the location of particular items that belonged to former Supremes in the house. Cordelia locates hers within moments. Madison, however, has a much more difficult time. She’s unable to ascertain the location of her item, suggesting several possibilities and never getting a single one right. She throws a temper tantrum. “I’m going back to Hollywood, where things are normal,” she screams.

Like getting paid to make out on camera with the frankenstein'd version of your real-life boyfriend.

As she angrily packs upstairs, a grief-stricken Kyle approaches her and grabs her neck, demanding to know why Madison let Zoe die. Madison cries that she loves Kyle and that she did it for them. Kyle does what he does best and strangles Madison, leaving her body on her bed. But because not even death can stop things from being creepy, Ghost Spauling is on hand to “help” by removing the body for Kyle.

In the greenhouse, Cordelia makes her move toward the final of the Seven Wonders, reanimating Zoe’s dead body. Now fully a Supreme, Cordelia finds her eyes magically restored and she herself now in the full bloom of “glowing, radiant health.” And what to do with her new-found Supremacy? Press conference! After the passage of some time, Cordelia makes the decision to announce the presence of witches to the world and is being interviewed by Cable News. She issues an open call to all potential witches, urging them to come out of the shadows and come study at Miss Robichaux’s.

As the applications begin to pour in, Cordelia tells Myrtle that she wants to restart the Council with Zoe and Queenie as members. Mrytle agrees, but is more concerned about moving forward on a new era, needing to “clear the rot of the past.” By which she means that it is only right that Myrtle, as the one who murdered the past Council, needs to die. “At the start of your glorious reign, the last thing you need is a Watergate,” she tells Cordelia. Cordelia thinks of Myrtle as her true mother and isn’t keen on this whole process, but it’s what has to be done.

Back to the Stake! Myrtle is back where she started, doused in gasoline and about to be put to death for the second time. At least this time it’s done in love? Or something? And she gets to chose her own dress and her own last word. (“BALENCIAGA!”) And with that, Cordelia lights Myrtle aflame and heads back to the Academy.

Before long, there’s a line of goth girls trying to get into the real live Hogwarts. Cordelia officially asks Zoe and Queenie to be her right hands and her Council. The three of them go downstairs to open the doors, but first Cordelia says there’s one more thing she needs to deal with.

In the living room, who should be there but a withered and decaying Fiona. Turns out that vision of her death was planted into the Axeman’s head by Fiona as a rouse to suss out the next Supreme. Obviously, it didn’t go exactly as planned. Either way, Cordelia figures out what happened and can tell that Fiona is in her final moments. Fiona explains that all her life she saw Cordelia as a reminder of her eventual death, though she “loved you plenty” in her own way. It’s actually a testament to how good both these actors are and how good they are at playing apart from each other that this entire scene is ridiculously intense when it’s just two women sitting in a nice living room talking. It’s hard to figure out when exactly Fiona is going to strike and she feels like someone who you just can’t trust asking for a hug. The tension is so well played that when Fiona begs for and end to her own pain from Cordelia, you legitimately don’t know what’s going to happen. Until Fiona, true to her word, slips quietly away, dying in Cordelia’s arms.

Goodnight, horrible princess. And a flight of demons, etc. etc.

And then, Fiona awakes in a simple bed in a country house somewhere, nice but far from the glamorous surroundings we’ve seen her in. The sun is shining and she’s healthy, but she’s confused. The Axeman comes in from fishing and Fiona is repulsed. “Why are you always like this?” He asks her. Every morning, she wakes up and she doesn’t know where she is. It’s been like this for “eternity”, according to the Axeman. As she begins to realize where she is, a place that “reeks of fish and cat piss and knotty pine”, the Axeman tells her he’s in Heaven with her and she’s not going anywhere. Somewhere in the shadows, Papa Legba catches Fiona’s eye and laughs.

And in the academy, the doors are opened and a vast new generation of witches streams in. All wearing black, naturally. “We’ve survived,” Cordelia tells the witches-in-training. “It’s our time to thrive.”

And there we are – the end of American Horror Story: Coven. What with the bevy of talented actresses, the luscious sets, the gorgeous atmosphere provided by filming in New Orleans, it seems like this season had all the makings of an amazing season of television. So why did it feel so...flat? Somehow it became an example of something where the parts were greater than the sum. To borrow a quote from a friend of mine, the season was like a Bloody Mary - a final product that just wasn't good, even though each of the pieces are enjoyable on their own. This season also suffered from a critical sin - it just wasn't scary. Lance Riddick's too-little-too-late turn as Papa Legba brought some welcome chills, but by the time we made it to him the show was too far gone into the overly drawn out plot line of the next Supreme for us to really ever get scared. Given that the first two seasons did such a good job delivering genuine "pillow of fear" moments, it was a serious letdown to lose those here.

I'm not calling American Horror Story's death nell just yet - even strong shows can have weak seasons and given that this show is an anthology, we can't expect every story to be as good as the others - but I will say that the writers need to take a serious look at what they need to accomplish in next season's story and learn how to ensure that spectacle doesn't completely drown out what makes the show interesting to watch. 

The Superb Owl

Hey, did you know that Super Bowl XLVIII was last week? Yeah, neither did Denver, apparently.

Look, no one thought that this game was going to be some down-to-the-wire, last minute Hail Mary kind of game, but it’s safe to say that no one also expected…that. A game that should have at least been a bit of a give and take quickly descended into a lopsided three and a half-hour long slugfest where Denver could barely manage to find its footing and Seattle somehow came out looking like an actual pro football team. 

Some games are won not because the underdog team did better, but because the favored team just couldn’t pull it together. This was not one of those games. Right from the start, Seattle ran roughshod all over Denver.  It’s worth mentioning that Seattle were the Super Bowl virgins in this game – not only has the franchise never been to the Super Bowl, but no individual member of the current Seattle Seahawks roster has ever played on a team that’s competed in the Big Game. Compare that with Denver, the older more experienced team that has not only a franchise history but also individual players with several rings in their possession. In Elite parlance, “It wasn’t supposed to go this way.”

Ouch...

To wit: the final score was a crushing Seattle 43 to Denver 8. Denver couldn’t even manage to get on the board until the end of the third quarter, quite the feat considering that Denver’s quarterback is the much ballyhooed Peyton Manning, a man who by himself has five MVPs and a Super Bowl win under his belt coming into the game to say noting of the fact that his family is genetically incapable of producing failures. (See: Manning, Eli; Manning, Taryn; and Manning, Archie; to say nothing of Manning, Cooper.) And yet, somehow during Denver’s opening drive, we got this:

Whaaaaaa?

That was essentially the first play of the game - a miscue whereby the QB fails to connect with his own snap leading to a ball flying so far over his shoulder that the first score of the game came less than 12 seconds in and was a safety awarded to Seattle on Denver's drive. It’s fair to say that Denver never truly recovered. In fact, by the first play of the second half where Seattle, already significantly ahead, managed a return from its own territory to secure yet another touchdown, the majority of the country was ready to turn off the Super Bowl to see what was going on over at Downtown Abbey. You hear that, England? America has given up its national pastime in order to see what your turgid melodrama is up to. Clearly, we’ve ceded the culture war to you. Well done, Queen Elizabeth. Regardless of how bored viewers were with the rapidly descending thrill of the game, you have to at least credit Denver with trying to put together something that would qualify as entertaining. They finally managed to score at the end of the third quarter, thus by at least ensuring that they wouldn’t be completely shut out of a game against a bunch of neophytes led by a Quarterback that is barely old enough to buy beer legally.

"Mom says if throw for more than 100 yards I get an ice cream before we go home."

As I’ve written about several times before, the Super Bowl is far less about sports than it is about entertainment. It is to the regular season what Glee is to a Ken Burns documentary on PBS. That’s part of the reason why advertisers pay so much to get an overblown commercial on that airtime – it is, in theory at least, one of the most entertainment-driven nights on television of the year. The worst sin that a Super Bowl can commit is to be boring and, unfortunately, that’s what we got this year, though I suspect Seattle folk found that boredom more bearable than their Denver counterparts did. Still, the job of the Super Bowl is to keep people watching and to provide a active night of television. To quote a tweet from a friend of mine, “Sucks to be the company that bought a fourth quarter ad this year.”

As it is, the most entertaining thing about Super Bowl 48 is the aftermath. There are so many pundits at the “What It All Means For Peyton Manning” Club that they’re going to start running out of beer soon. If it’s a truism that the Super Bowl needs to be entertaining, it’s equally true that for all the love that we as a country generally have for the Manning family, there’s nothing we like more than watching giants fall.  Whether or not Super Bowl 48 marks the end of a long and celebrated career for Manning (personally I think we’ve still got him around for a few years, but he’s veering dangerously toward Brett Favre territory here), the most exciting thing to see right now in this Super Bowl aftermath is the talking about it. 

Careful, Peyton - the Manning family eats their own weak in order to purify their powers. 

Recapping AHS: The Unholy Powers of Benadryl

The Good old days of 1830. Madame Lalaurie is returning to New Orleans from Paris, “the jewel of civilization” and complaining about having to come back and the lack of intellect and inner light of the black people. Upstairs, a slave has injured himself and is bleeding profusely. The blood begins to give Delphine ideas and we all know where that is going to head. She strings up the slave and flays him in her attic. “I think I’m going to like it here,” she says gleefully.

In the modern day cemetery, the Coven mourns the “untimely” death of Nan, Fiona and Marie leading the Wailing Widow charge. Cordelia is taking it especially hard that she’s lost another student, although in fairness at least Madison came back. No one seems quite aware where Misty has gone to. “Probably shall-twirling down to the Everglades,” Madison helpfully offers. Arriving to pay their respects are Queenie, who has a re-headed Delphine on a leash. Queenie put her back together without scars, Kyle notes. “If I could have done you, you wouldn’t look like you went through a blender,” she tells him.

"I'm trying to muster up crying. Is this what crying looks like?"

In Atlanta, the Delphi corporation knows that the witches have been the cause of their problems. Hank’s father schemes to arrange a meeting with the Coven and pay them off to undo the spell, after which point they’ll come back and slaughter them to a witch. Yeah, no way ANYONE is going to see through that ruse. Either way, Fiona and Marie agree to a meeting, counting on the double-cross.

Delphine, meanwhile, is getting a little sick of this maid life, cutting the fingernails of the witches and cleaning the toilets and listening to Marie talk about how next time she’s going to sever her parts and scatter them. That is until the moment when one of the (black, natch) gardeners comes into the kitchen having cut his hands pruning the fig trees. Delphine, ever so graciously, offers to help the man – by taking him to Spaulding’s old room in the attic, trussing him up and seeing “what makes the n*ggers tick” by cutting off his toes one at a time.

Not a joke: She's seriously singing "This Little Piggy" before removing the digits.

Zoe meanwhile is casting a spell in the bathroom to reveal what happened to Nan and discovers that both Fiona and Marie were responsible. Madison is unhappy with all the attention that Kyle has been paying to Zoe and not her. She tries to intervene with a helpful blowjob, but Kyle rejects her, causing an epic witch tantrum until Mrytle stops them. Madison declares herself the next Supreme and announces the new order begun. Or something.

In the attic, the eviscerated remains of the gardener are causing something of a mess all over Delphine and the dolls in the room. “Not very robust, were you,” Delphine bemoans. Suddenly Spaulding appears, admiring her handiwork and admitting that he’s a ghost now. Delphine takes that news well, but then, she’s immortal so I guess it’s not that shocking. Spaulding tells her that he knows how to release Delphine by killing Marie through means of a magic concoction that he knows of that will render her invulnerable for a few moments.  But first, Delphine must retrieve an item for him.

Queenie is moving back into her old room which was taken over by Misty. Cordelia tries to approach her to welcome her back, but Queenie notes that since Cordelia’s husband shot her kind of puts a wedge between them. Queenie reveals that she, too, has been manifesting new powers just like all the rest of the young witches, even though she was shot with a silver bullet. (Is that a thing for witches?)

Feeling dejected and determined, Cordelia repairs to her conservatory where she mixes up a paste and spreads it around her eyes. Then she grabs a pair of gardening shears and raises them to her new eyes, the ones that gave her sight but took away her powers. Screaming, she plunges them into both eyes.  When Fiona learns what she has done, she finds Cordelia guarded by Mrytle who refuses to let her in. “Your daughter has become something you will never understand,” Myrtle says. “She’s a hero.” Myrtle challenges Fiona, calling her an enemy to the Coven and dares her to touch her daughter and see if Cordelia’s psychic sense has returned.

"I really need more excuses to use words like 'blanched' when describing the living conditions here."

In the attic, Marie has fetched the “magical” item that Spaulding needed – a rare doll that Spaulding is particularly enamored of from the 19^thcentury. For her part, Spaulding gives her the special potion that will confer morality onto Marie – something called Benadryl. “Never speak its name aloud!” Spauling dramatically tells Marie.

In the conservatory, Myrtle calls Zoe to her, giving her a rare broach (or something – I don’t know fashion, I can’t tell you what it is but my friend insists that it’s by some rare designer that really exists) and tells her to hawk it for money then take Kyle and leave the Coven for their own safety. Myrtle warns her if she stays, Madison will kill both Zoe and Kyle.

At a very professional looking business park somewhere, the Delphi men have arrived in their Escalades and wait for the witches in a large conference room. It’s Marie and Fiona up against ten men. When the Delphi men ask if they don’t want to check for security or weapons, Fiona laughs. “I took down your entire company with less effort than it takes for me to mix a Rob Roy,” she says. The “negotiation” begins – Delphi offers to do whatever the witches want if they restore Delphi, offering that the war between them is outdated and a thing of the past. Each of Delphi’s directors have signed a 100-year truce that they offer to the women. Fiona counters that the only agreement that will work is if they agree to disband permanently. And give them a private jet and their private house in New Orleans. When no one seems interested in this, the waiter in the room reveals himself to be the Axeman and gets to what he does best, slaughtering every member of Delphi. (Marie, hilariously, plays on her iPhone through the carnage, apparently more interested in Words With Friends.) Fiona saves Hank’s father for herself, axing him personally at the end as Marie Instagrams the scene.

"This is so getting me new followers."

That night, Marie and Fiona toast to their success back at the house. Fiona heads out for her Axeman booty call, leaving Marie alone with Delphine and the “magic potion”. While it’s probably not great to mix antihistamines with champagne and Marie is clearly a little fuzzy from imbibing, Delphine has seriously overplayed her hand here and gets a surprise when she plunges a knife into Marie’s chest. Marie screams, but is more annoyed at having to pull the knife out than anything else and chases after Delphine, managing to only slip and fall down the stairs when Spaulding hits her over the back of the head with a doll. Turns out Spaulding was only interested in getting Marie out of the house and recommends that Delphine take advantage of the situation by burying the unconscious Marie in such a way as to ensure that she can’t get out of the ground.

But Spaulding’s not done being creepy! Guess who found Marie’s baby in the house and is thrilled to have a real LIVING doll to play with in the attic? <shudder>

Elsewhere in the house where no one can hear a woman falling down the stairs, Zoe and Kyle are packing to leave. Kyle is afraid to leave because he’s afraid that he’ll accidently kill Zoe like he did the dog. (Still not okay with that, btw.) Zoe tells him that she loves him and she’s not scared of him, just like any good woman about to enter into an abusive relationship. The two flee the house, running for the bus stop where they board a bus to Orlando (Don’t do it, guys! Seriously, the Mouse is scarier than certain death at the hands of a vengeful witch) and hopefully freedom.

Not the actual ending of this episode, but clearly what they're aiming for.

Costumed Aggression

Welcome back, my minions. In all seriousness, I am still recovering from the shock I received watching last Sunday's episode, and I actually think I am going to skip recapping that one, to be perfectly honest with you guys. 

If you are picking up where we left off of the season premiere (at around the 50 minute mark, give or take), Granny has just given Lady Mary a good talking to about being a SURVIVAH. 

In Ripon, Lady Cora and Lady Rose are meeting with Edna about the lady's maid position. Edna makes up a story about caring for a nonexistent aunt so she won't have to go interview at Downton. HELLO YOU ARE APPLYING FOR A JOB THERE, DEARY. THIS MEANS YOU WILL HAVE TO GO THERE SOMETIMES. Anyway, she's apparently trying to avoid Mrs. Hughes. Her scheme is to get hired before Mrs. Hughes tells Lady Cora that Edna is weird and creepy. She admits to having worked at Downton as a parlour maid, and hands her the ref from Mrs. Hughes. She tells Cora that the reason she left service at Downton was so she could train as a lady's maid. Cora and Rose buy her story and give her the job.

In bumbling Molesley news, Molesley accompanies Lady V to tea at Lady Shackleton's, and he blabs to Lady Shackleton's butler that Lady Shackleton might give him (Molesley) the butler's job. The butler says, "Umm. No," and sets about sabotaging Molesley's interview for Lady Shackleton, who proceeds to insult him and his butlering skills. Lady Violet shamfacedly takes Molesley away.

Continuing in news of the poorz, Grigg has arrived at Isobel's. Isobel immediately sets to work rehabbing him. 

I've mostly worked with prostitutes, but I suppose I could apply my skills to a down-on-his-luck actor.

Okay, enough of the working class. Back to the rich people! Edith arrives at The Criterion in London to meet with Gregson. She runs in and looks for Him. Is He there waiting for her? He is. He has News. He can divorce wifey in Germany if he becomes a German citizen. Edith asks him if he'd really do that for her, and he replies that he'd become AN ESKIMO for her. An. Eskimo. 

Because in Inuit culture, when your wife goes insane, you can just pop her onto an ice floe.

Oh, Michael! You say the sweetest things. !!! Smoochie-smoochie.

Cora tells Mrs. Hughes that she's hired Edna Braithwaite to be her new lady's maid. For. Real. Mrs. Hughes is like YOU DID WHAT. Cora chastises Mrs. Hughes for trying to hold the poor young girl back, and Mrs. Hughes decides against telling Cora the real reason she fired Edna, which I kinda don't understand. I feel like Mrs. Hughes is their trusted housekeeper, and if she told Cora that she fired Edna because she was trying to tear off Branson's pants like the day after Sybil died, Cora would listen to her, don't you think? What sayest thou? Mrs. Hughes and Carson meet with Branson and tell him that Cora's hired Edna, so look out, brother. Branson volunteers to tell Cora about what went down with Edna, and why he asked Mrs. Hughes to write her a good reference, but Carson stops him, because he doesn't want Cora to think Sybil's husband was "unworthy." No. Seriously. No. This is legit pissing me off. Why can't Carson and Mrs. Hughes go to Cora and tell her the truth about Edna? I guess that would mean we'd be down a subplot, and we all know JF prefers quantity of subplots over quality. But this legit makes no sense to me whatsoever. 

We mustn't under any circumstances let Lady Grantham know she's hired yet another crazy person.

.
Downstairs, Mrs. Patmore calls Alfred into the kitchen to tell Daisy to her face that he sent a Valentine to Ivy and not to her. I feel like this was not a good move on Mrs. Patmore's part. I get she was trying to make Daisy feel better about being so undesirable to the opposite sex and all, but sending her that Valentine only resulted in Daisy feeling humiliated. Then she involved Alfred by forcing him to tell Daisy that he wasn't into her. I don't think Mrs. Patmore was trying to be mean, but the whole thing backfired. Mrs. Patmore defo owes her a Cuisinart. I'm sorry, Daisy. Here's a pie. 

Eat your feelings. 

This week on ¡Dios Mio!, Lady Cora is walking outside the nursery and she overhears Evil Nanny West calling Lil Sybbie a "wicked little crossbreed" and a "chauffeur's daughter." For. Real. Cora walks in and is like dafuq are you saying to my grandchildren, and Evil Nanny West realizes that this is not a good look for her. She tries to explain to Cora how she was just "having a game" and explainin' to wee little Sybbie that she was an abomination in the sight of me Luurrrrd. 

I was just explainin' to the wee bairn that she's the spawn of an unnatural union. :)

Cora's like aww hell no and she fires her on the spot. Nanny West blabbers some more, but Cora summons Mrs. Hughes and tells her to put Nanny West in a different room for the night and kick her out in the morning. Well, since people who get fired from Downton always find a way to worm their way back onto the show, let's wait in anticipation for the eventual return of Evil Nanny West.

Won't it be fun to watch this place burn?

Cora later personally thanks Thomas and tells Robert that they owe him a debt of gratitude. Robert's angry that they've gotten rid of another nanny, because they're going through them faster than Captain Von Trapp.

I'm here for your children.

Down in the drawing room before dinner, Robert is with Widow Mary. The subject turns to Edith and Gregson, and she admits that Edith hasn't done too shabby with Gregson. Robert asks if he should be worried if it's serious, and if Mary knows much about Gregson. Mary says she doesn't, and remembers that Gregson talked to Matthew and then... then she abruptly stops talking because she either got all sad remembering Matthew, OR she remembers the thing. The one thing. Matthew told her that Gregson is already married, and she abruptly SHUTS UP. Good call, Mary. So is Mary going to use that as leverage to get back at Edith? Let's hope so. Robert changes the subject to shop, and Robert reiterates that he's right not to trouble Mary's feeble little female brain with talk of manly subjects like money and property and inheritance. Robert tells Mary to go to bed, and she agrees.

Mary exits the drawing room and is heading upstairs, but then she realizes she should probably go apologize to Carson, and she ends up bawling in his arms. *Tissues*

I wish you were my real dad. :( 

Down in the kitchen, Mrs. Patmore's trying to learn how to use the electric mixer, because Daisy knows how to use it, and that puts Daisy ahead of Mrs. Patmore. Mrs. Patmore has made a huge mess with whatever pancake batter she was trying to mix up. PRO-TIP: USE A SPOON. Mrs. Hughes volunteers to help clean up the mess, which is apparently going to take two people all night to clean up. It doesn't look like that big of a mess to me. Dear 1922: Get a Swiffer Wet Jet. 

At the trustees' luncheon, there's a lot of harumphing and then Mary surprises everyone by showing up AND wearing something other than black. Branson is stoked and gives up his seat to her (STOP SHIPPING THEM. NOW.), but Robert isn't thrilled. Ofs. 

Home stretch now, m'loves.

Anna warns the new batshit cray maid that she might want to steer clear of Thomas, and I'm not sure why we have to start up all of that Thomas vs. Anna and Bates business again because I thought it had been settled last season when Bates helped Thomas keep his job, but since we don't ever want to be in want of a plot, I guess the intrigue must go on.

Mary receives a Mysterious Box from Matthew's office that just HAPPENED to be sitting around that no one noticed until JUST NOW. Instead of giving the box to whom it has been addressed (Lady Stinkin Mary), Carson and Hughes decide to give it to Robert. Palm, meet Face. Robert opens it up, and finds a A Letter that Matthew wrote just before he died, detailing his wishes should something happen to him. Legit. He wrote the letter LITERALLY before he died. Robert is like, "Hmm. Should I show this to Mary?" OF COURSE YOU SHOULD. He takes it to Lady Violet and asks her opinion and she tells him to show it to Mary, and Robert still is like, "Hmmm. No. I'm not sure."  No, I really think I'm right in this, Mamma. No, you're not, Robert. There is something you are and it starts with "Wrong." Robert finally decides to show it to Mary and Mary reads it and says, "Whhhaaaaa?" Then there's some filler until we find out what the letter says.

We find out the letter WHICH MATTHEW WROTE BEFORE HE DROVE BACK TO YORKSHIRE AND DIED, says that, should anything happen to him, he wants Mary to be his sole heir. OF COURSE IT SAYS THAT AND OF COURSE HE DID. But is the letter a valid legal document? Let's take it to Murray. Survey says: of course it's valid. Do you know what this means? It means homegirl finally gets to inherit some good shit. 

Clarkson visits Grigg and Isobel (SQUEE) and tells Isobel that Grigg is much better now, thanks to her. Isobel finds Grigg a position at a theater Belfast and so he's going to Ireland. Mrs. Hughes encourages Carson to make up with Grigg before Grigg goes off to Belfast PERHAPS FOREVER BECAUSE THERE ARE NO BOATS.

But wait! There's more! In Rose is our Lady Sybil replacement news, Rose decides that she wants to go to slumming it at a dance in York at some sort of working class watering hole, but she can't ask Lady Cora or Lady Mary for permission, so she asks Anna to take her. Anna is reluctant but she agrees to take Rose anyway. It is the Roaring 20s, after all, and one must roar if one is to be accepted in society. Rose goes and poses as a parlour maid at Downton Abbey.

It's fun pretending to be poor! 

Rose thinks the dance will be ever so much fun and JUST LIKE THAT SCENE IN TITANIC WHEN KATE WINSLET GOES BELOW DECKS TO DANCE WITH LEO DICAPRIO, so she agrees to dance with a working-class bloke, Sam. Then they run into Jimmy, who is hanging out there by himself, apparently. But the fun ends there. Rose catches the eye of another working-class bloke and he asks to dance with Rose and she refuses. 

You're doing it wrong. That is not how you twerk.

Then there's a bar fight and the police arrive and Rose, Anna, Jimmy have to scurry out of there and run home so they don't end up in the pokey. So, at a fancy dinner that evening, Sam decides to show up at the kitchen of Downton Abbey and ask for, "the parlour maid, Rose" and Thomas answers the door and he is like, "Um....Whaaaaaaat?" Anna dresses Rose up in a maid outfit, because apparently telling Sammy the truth would be too much for the lad. Sam asks to call on Rose, but she lies and tells him she's promised to marry a farmer. Then they kiss and Sam leaves. Hahaha. Meeeee, Rose Flintcher, marry a farmer. OH IT IS TOO DROLL. 

No way will this ever come back to bite me in the ass. 

Branson and Lady Violet convince Mary to learn more about running the estate, and Branson takes Mary on a tour of the estate. Mary brings it up at dinner that evening, and that's when Robert decides to humiliate her by pointing out the obvious holes in her landed gentry knowledge. 

So, as I stated above, I will not be recapping this past week's episode of DA. It's not to do with anything wrong with the episode per se. It is just that, considering the disturbing events of that episode, I don't feel comfortable writing a recap that entails my personal opinions about rape or the inclusion of sexual assault in the show's story arc. For the sake of varying viewpoints, there is plenty being said here and here and here and across the internet as a whole.

So, please excuse the lack of an AP recap for this past week's episode. Feel free to discuss in the comment section. Instead of a recap, here's a red panda.