Fall TV 2014: My Picks

Ah, it's that time of year again. The temperatures are (finally) cooling off, kids are headed back to school, and a young-ish girl's mind turns to thoughts of the new Fall television season.

What? It's hormonal and all a perfectly normal part of development.

As usual there are a lot of new shows airing this Fall on the networks and I'm here to hopefully provide a little guidance as to what is looking good. Now, please bear in mind, I'm not one of those fancy paid tv critics who has access to advance pilots and press packets. Oh, no. Instead, my opinions are based solely on the descriptions I have read of the shows, who is starring in them, the "buzz" on the internet, and my gut. So basically, I am completely uninformed. Which in America makes me an expert!

And just so you know that I take this shit very seriously, here are my notes and viewing grid that I have compiled over the past few days:

The most impressive thing is actually that I have nice handwriting. 

So, here the 5 shows I am most looking forward to in the new Fall season (in no particular order):

Constantine: Friday nights at 10:00PM on NBC, premiere on 10/24 (oooh, right before Halloween!). 

From the NBC website: "Based on the wildly popular comic book series "Hellblazer" from DC Comics, seasoned demon hunter and master of the occult John Constantine (Matt Ryan, "Criminal Minds") is armed with a ferocious knowledge of the dark arts and a wickedly naughty wit. He fights the good fight - or at least he did. With his soul already damned to hell, he's decided to abandon his campaign against evil until a series of events thrusts him back into the fray, and he'll do whatever it takes to protect the innocent."

There has already been some controversy with the show, notably that the character isn't bisexual and doesn't smoke (since he is and does both in the comics), and some casting shake-ups, but the pilot has tested well with critics and the folks at Comic Con. Also, I really liked the movie (the one with the amazing Tilda Swinton and, oh yeah Keanu Reeves was in there too). This one just pushes all my fangirl buttons and I admit--I'm looking forward to it!

Sure, he's smoking hot...but he is supposed to be SMOKING.

Gotham: Monday nights at 8:00PM on FOX, premiere on 9/22. 

I'm not the only TV Slut excited about Gotham; Clovis has already laid claim to the recapping privileges. This shouldn't be a big surprise, he is a bit of a comic book nerd. That's right--this one is another comic book adaption, though it takes even more liberties than Constantine and The Flash (discussed below).

FOX says, "The good. The evil. The beginning. Everyone knows the name Commissioner Gordon. He is one of the crime world's greatest foes, a man whose reputation is synonymous with law and order. But what is known of Gordon's story and his rise from rookie detective to Police Commissioner? What did it take to navigate the multiple layers of corruption that secretly ruled Gotham City, the spawning ground of the world's most iconic villains? And what circumstances created them – the larger-than-life personas who would become Catwoman, The Penguin, The Riddler, Two-Face and The Joker? GOTHAM is an origin story of the great DC Comics Super-Villains and vigilantes, revealing an entirely new chapter that has never been told."

I am intrigued by the premise, and hey, it's got Jada Pinkett Smith as a mob boss. Baller. 

The Flash: Tuesday nights at 8:00PM on The CW.

Yes, it's ANOTHER comic book adaption! It really pays to have a successful comic book series these days. Literally. Anyhoodle, The Flash is a spin-off from Arrow (which has become one of my favorite action dramas) so I have high hopes. It also stars the adorable Grant Gustin (who guest starred on Arrow last year and was also delightful as an evil gay rival glee-clubber on Glee). Rumor has it we can also expect lots of crossovers with Arrow including Felicity--who was set-up as a love interest for Barry last season. 

CW's official description: "Barry Allen is a brilliant, driven and endearingly geeky CSI investigator, whose determination to uncover the truth about his mother’s strange death leads him to follow up on every unexplained urban legend and scientific advancement that comes along. Barry’s latest obsession is a cutting edge particle accelerator, created by visionary physicist Harrison Wells and his S.T.A.R. Labs team. However, something goes horribly wrong during the public unveiling, and when the devastating explosion causes a freak storm, many lives are lost and Barry is struck by lightning. After nine months in a coma, Barry awakens to find his life has changed once again – the accident has given him the power of super speed, granting him the ability to move through Central City like an unseen guardian angel. Barry has always had the heart of a hero and now he has the legs to match, but he quickly learns that being a superhero is not as easy as it seems -- and he can’t do it alone."

Jane the Virgin: Monday nights at 9:00PM on The CW, premiere on 10/13.

I know, I know, it's a terrible title. But this adaption of a Venezuelan telenovela has been getting a lot of positive buzz for months and the previews I've seen make it seem very Ugly Betty-esque. The description below doesn't really due the show any favors (it also sounds kind of terrible), but trust me on this one. It should be funny, entertaining, and seems like it has a good heart. 

The CW says: "When Jane Villanueva was a young girl, her grandmother, Alba, convinced her of two things: telenovelas are the highest form of entertainment, and women must protect their virginity at all costs. Now age 23, Jane is a driven young woman studying to become a teacher, nursing a dream to be a writer, and supporting herself with a job at a hot new Miami hotel. All of Jane’s meticulous life plans are turned upside down, however, when she sees her doctor for a routine check-up and is accidentally artificially inseminated with a specimen meant for the patient in the next room. Unbeknownst to her, the specimen belongs to Rafael, a reformed playboy and cancer survivor, who is not only the new owner of the hotel where Jane works but also a former summer crush of hers. A few weeks later, the unsuspecting Jane is faced with the most important decisions of her life. Will she continue with the pregnancy? How can she explain the situation to her fiancé and family? And what should she do about the wishes of the biological father, Rafael, and his scheming wife Petra?"

Oh, you cannot imagine how hard I would sue that doctor.

And....finally.....Z Nation: Friday nights at 10:00PM on SyFy, premiere on 9/12 (THIS FRIDAY!).

It's like The Walking Dead, except, you know, if things actually happened and people did more than just randomly walk around in the zombie-ridden world and then inexplicably decide to stand still for long periods of time without formulating any long term plans for their basic survival. Did I say that out loud? OH YES I DID. Basically, it will be The Walking Dead but not boring. At least, that's the hope!

From the SyFy website: "Z Nation starts three years after the zombie virus has gutted the country, a team of everyday heroes must transport the only known survivor of the plague from New York to California, where the last functioning viral lab waits for his blood. Although the antibodies he carries are the world’s last, best hope for a vaccine, he hides a dark secret that threatens them all. With humankind’s survival at stake, the ragtag band embarks on a journey of survival across three thousand miles of rusted-out post-apocalyptic America."

Z Nation also wins the "best tagline" contest this year.

Honorable mention for Gracepoint over on FOX, a remake of the astounding BBC series, Broadchurch.

Some random/interesting stats I pulled from my personalized tv viewing grid for the Fall:

--FOX and ABC are tied for the network I will watch most--I plan on viewing 8 shows on each network (including new and returning programs). 

--My busiest time slot is Tuesday between 9:00 and 10:00PM, there are 4 shows I want to watch! Agents of SHIELD, Supernatural, and New Girl/The Mindy Project. I think I am going to have to record SHIELD and the FOX comedies and then catch Supernatural on On Demand. Sorry, Jensen, but you know I still love you--though your show has been a bit long in the tooth for a while.

--There are 15 new shows I plan to give a try! But please bear in mind: even though I picked 15 new shows to watch, most of them won't make my cut after the first episode. And I will probably only choose about 3 to stick with through the entire season. 

And now it's your turn! Anything you are looking forward to seeing this Fall? If you need a good resource to plan your viewing schedule, check out TV Guide's website where they have a day-by-day viewing grid and a premiere calendar. 

Happy viewing!

Spring show reviews

Every Spring the networks roll out some new shows trying to fill the gaps left by the failed Fall shows. Hope springs eternal--maybe this time they'll find something that catches on! But from what I have seen so far...I'm not sure we have any big hits. Here are some capsule reviews of some of the new shows I've managed to catch!

Resurrection: what would you do if your long dead loved ones suddenly started coming home? Looking the exact same as they did at the time of their death and with no memory of anything since their unfortunate...accidents? This set of circumstance is the central plot of ABC's Resurrection, which is actually not too bad. In fact, it's pretty good, if a bit meandering.

In the small town of Arcadia, Missouri, people are starting to come back from the dead. Not like zombie hordes, but one or two people here and there. They aren't hungry for brains, but just want to get back to their lives. Except they've been gone for quite some time...and their families aren't sure whether they are the same. All the medical tests seem to indicate and they are normal healthy humans, but clearly something strange is afoot.

Well, that's not ominous at all.

I am enjoying this show more than I thought I would, I think in part because it's way darker than I expected. Not everyone who has come back is a good person and the show is doing a nice job of teasing out subtle clues about the how and why of the resurrections. I genuinely want to find out what happens next and to know what the hell is going on. The cast is also pretty great, especially the always good Omar Epps as a US immigration agent (random, I know) who finds himself at the middle of the mystery.

Resurrection airs Sunday evenings at 9:00 EST and you can catch up with all the episodes over on the show's website.

Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge: Syfy's new show is clearly trying to capture the same magic as the fantastic Face Off. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work for me.

In JHCSC, the contestants are challenged to create and fabricate creatures that are Jim Henson-y in style. Human actors/puppeteers bring the creatures to life (usually from inside the large puppet body) and they are "shot" on a soundstage in the Jim Henson studios in front of the panel of the judges.

I like the concept, but the show just doesn't have the same entertainment value as Face Off. Maybe it's because the challenges are a little more limited as they are constrained by the muppet-style of the overall show's conceit, but I just find it hard to get into. I'll give it a few more episodes, but unless things pick up I don't think I'll stick with it.

Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge airs Tuesday evenings at 10:00 EST on Syfy.

Turn: It doesn't really matter if this new AMC show is terrible (it isn't), because I am going to watch it no matter what. There are two reasons:

1) It takes place during the Revolutionary War, a criminally un-represented area of American history in movies and television.

2) The cast includes JJ Feild who played the dreamy Mr. Henry Tilney in the BBC's most recent adaptation of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. You bros might know him as "the English guy in the beret" who was part of Captain America's team in Captain America: The First Avenger.

It takes a real man to rock a cravat. 

The good news is the show isn't terrible, hurray! It is a bit confusing though, so make sure you are sitting on the thinking side of your couch and are paying attention. It's not really the type of show you can just have on in the background while you wander around your apartment picking up and putting away all your shoes.*

The show tells the story of America's first spy ring...which sounds fancy but really just means it's about this farmer (Jamie Bell, sans Billy Elliot dancing shoes, alas) who lives in British-occupied New York and ends up reluctantly spying for the Continental Army. I say reluctantly not because he was a British loyalist, but because he basically just wants to live with his family and grow cabbages or lettuce or something. But you know, these things happen. And I guess he ends up forming something called the Culper Ring and inventing modern spycraft? This is all according to the show's website. After the first two episodes the spies have only just figured that maybe hanging a special petticoat on a wash line isn't the best way to communicate with each other. Baby steps.

Anyway, it's enjoyable if a bit complicated, but the attention to detail in the sets and costumes is nice. Also, JJ Feild. So you should watch it.

TURN airs Sunday evenings at 9:00 EST on AMC. You can watch the two episodes that have already aired over on the website.


*Just me?

Helix

I have a poor track record with Syfy original drama series. Sure, I like their Canadian imports (like Lost Girl), and there have been some winners (Battlestar Galactica), but for the most part I find their shows like Warehouse 13, Eureka, and Haven barely tolerable.

So I didn't have high hopes for the new series, Helix. But the preview looked intriguing--kind of like that episode of The X-Files, Ice, where Mulder and Scully travel to the arctic to investigate a parasitic worm alien thing that was dug out of the ice.

And it turns out Helix is actually better than intriguing: it's tense, creepy, and the plot goes way past what I saw in the previews. Think of it as The Thing + Contagion + The Walking Dead = AWESOME.

From the Syfy show page:

Helix is an intense thriller about a team of scientists from the Centers for Disease Control who travel to a high-tech research facility in the Arctic to investigate a possible disease outbreak, only to find themselves pulled into a terrifying life-and-death struggle that holds the key to mankind's salvation...or total annihilation. Helix is the product of some of the biggest names in genre television, starting with Executive Producer Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica). 

The show takes what has become a standard genre plot (weird viral/parasitic outbreak in the arctic), and adds some cool twists by teasing out details of larger mysteries. What is the real purpose behind the experiments at the research facility? Why is the head honcho creepily obsessed with one of the CDC scientists? Who is the military engineer really working for? I'm invested in finding the answers which is more than I can say for most drama series these days.

Two other things that really make the show work. A certain percentage of the infected people become what the CDC calls "vectors." Meaning they seek to the spread the infection to as many people as possible....which in the Helix world means they become crazy feral monsters who run you down and vomit black goo into your mouth. Think fast zombies, but with less brain munching and more black fluid expulsion. Not only are the current survivors fearful of invisible microbes, they also have to watch out for their friends and colleagues.

This will certainly end well for us all.

The nature of the assaults (the vomiting of the black goo into the victim's mouth) is almost sexual in nature which only adds to the terrifying atmosphere. It's frightening in the same way the Alien moves are frightening--the assault is invasive and violating and all the scarier for it.

Helix is not for the faint of heart--while there isn't a lot of typical gun/knife/punching violence, as mentioned above there's lots of fluid spewing and claustrophobic tense scenes. But there's also a complex and interesting plot which moves the show beyond the typical Syfy series. I definitely recommend checking it out.

Helix airs on the Syfy channel Fridays at 10:00 pm EST and the pilot episode is available for viewing online on the show's home page.

Recapping AHS: Burn The Witch!

Yes, there’s a lot of zombie stuff we need to get into, but before we do that, let’s take a quick detour back to Halloween, 1833, shall we? Madame Lalaurie is hosting her All Hallows Eve gala and has decided to do the whole peeled grapes in the bowl as eyeballs thing. Only, this is Madame Lalaurie and her endless supply of actual body parts, so she’s kind of done it in reverse. All this grossing out the eligible bachelors has got Madame’s daughters bummed out – they’re never going to land a good man with mother making the men stick their hands into tureens of slave entrails, after all. Borquita, the eldest daughter, in particular is getting sick of mom’s shit and suggests to her sisters that maybe they should end mother’s life a little early. Of course, Madame’s no fool and has all three of her daughters taken from their beds that night and locked into the same torture cages as the slaves in the attic, promising to leave them there for “no more than a year” if they’re good. Borquita, in particular, has earned a “special present.” Delphine promises to stuff her mouth full of shit on Christmas day. All of which is to say that we can understand a why the three daughters, now properly zombified by Marie Laveau’s spell in the modern day, are leading the zombie horde that’s invading Miss Robicheaux’s in the hopes of maybe having a few words with Delphine. Payback, she is a bitch.

Which one is the ugly one again?

Speaking of bad mother/daughter relationships, Fiona has barely managed to get Cordelia to a hospital following her attack. The acid has burned through Cordelia optic nerve, effectively making her blind. Fiona isn’t taking it well, between the emotions and the pills she’s popping and the alcohol from earlier.

At the house, Nan figures out that the zombies are, actually, zombies since she can’t hear their thoughts. Zoe takes command, turning off the lights and telling the girls to bar the windows. Cute boy Luke figures it all for a prank, however and goes outside to confront the zombies, believing them to be kids playing pranks. When he goes outside, the zombies… do nothing. We’ve seen shambling zombies and running rage zombies, but these are apparently the boring variety. At least they are until a levitating Marie Laveau suddenly issues a command and the zombies spring to life and begin to devour passersby. At which point Luke finally loses his shit, but not before being attacked. Nan’s having none of it and runs outside to help. Zoe, meanwhile, orders everyone upstairs before heading out to find Nan and Luke, who have managed to get into a car that’s being swarmed.

"Fear not, powerful ladies. I, a man, am here."

Fiona wanders around an increasingly creepy hospital, searching for…I don’t know, absolution? Distraction? More drugs? More drugs. She finds the physicians’ store and, using magic to get in, helps herself to a few new designer cocktails before heading back into the hallway, just in time to see the robed figure that attacked Cordelia wandering through the hallway in the distance.  Before she can catch up with it, though, she’s distracted by a woman screaming in a room by herself. The woman has just delivered a stillborn baby and because this is the most criminally understaffed hospital in all of New Orleans, the staff has just left the baby’s corpse next to the traumatized women and left them both in the room. Fiona picks up the infant’s corpse and forces it into the mother’s arms, demanding that she hold her new daughter and tell her how much she loves her. Fiona is trying to exorcise her own demons and in the process has just instilled about twenty new ones into this poor young woman. The young mother, terrified, complies with Fiona’s insisting that she tell the baby how beautiful she is, how she’ll never leave her, etc. It’s ridiculously creepy right up until the point when Fiona places her hand on the child’s blue corpse and the dead baby suddenly comes life. Yay?

Inside the school, Delphine is getting ice for Queenie, who’s still suffering from that Minotaur goring/sexing, when she spies one of the zombies through the window of the kitchen. Who should it be but none other than ZombieBorquita! Delphine instantly opens the door to her, proving that being alive for 250 years still doesn’t proclude acting like an idiot. Not that Delphine’s ever made good life decisions, but there we are. Delphine begs Borquita to “come back to me”, asking her to remember in some part of her that Delphine is her mother. Thing is, Borquita doesremember that, which is not great news for Delphine or her throat as the zombie lunges.

Upstairs, Queenie and Spaulding hide in a room while Borquita advances toward them. Queenie attemps to use her powers to harm Boquita, but while being a human voodoo doll is probably great against humans, it does crap all against something that’s already dead. Things are looking dire, right up until Delphine herself shows up behind Borquita and shoves a poker through the zombie’s heart, bringing her down finally. “She had a monster for a mother,” Delphine sobs. “This last act was the only kindness I ever did for her.”

Back in that car, things are looking worse for Nan and Luke until Zoe distracts the zombies by literally banging a pot and pan together and getting them to run after her. They chase her into a storage shed, proving that even witches turn into classic Final Girl clichés when they’re in horror movies. Nan and Luke take advantage of the distraction and try to run, but Luke’s bleeding out and the zombies are approaching. And then bring on ZOE, the MOTHER FUCKING ZOMBIE SLAYER with her motherfucking CHAINSAW! (Also, well done to Spaulding for keeping a well-stocked lawn shed, apparently.) Zoe mows down the zombies wicked hardcare, right up until the last one when the chainsaw stops working. Zoe is backed into a corner, but suddenly gets cool and calm, uttering words in a foreigh language and shutting down the zombie. At the same time, a levitating Marie Laveau plummets to the floor. “Shit,” she says, picking herself up. “I don’t know what that was, but they got some real power at that witch house now…”

In the hospital, Hank has come to Cordelia’s side, giving Fiona a chance to trash him. He tries to argue that he’s the moral one here which, you know, heh. Fiona tells him he has fifteen minutes with her alone and then he needs to be done. “You can go on your own or my way,” She tells him. “I don’t care which, although I prefer the latter.” Hank goes to touch Cordelia’s hand and instantly Cordelia screams awake – and sees everything that Hank did to the redheaded girl last episode.

"Well, shit."

The next morning, it’s time for clean-up, which always sucks on November 1^st, but really sucks now because it involves burning dead bodies. “Maybe we should get some more cedar chips to cover the stench?” Zoe suggests to Nan as they throw more body parts onto a fire in the backyard. Fiona thanks Zoe for what she did to keep the Coven safe and just then, the Council arrives. Again. Time for more Witch Court!

Myrtle Snow should really know by now that Witch Court against Fiona is never going to go the way she wants it to.  Yes, Madison is still missing. Cordelia is assaulted. The Council insists that since everything’s happened since Fiona has come back to New Orleans, Fiona needs to abandon her position as Supreme and give authority of the Coven to the Council. Fiona, however, claims that Myrtle is up to more than she let’s on. “Our enemy hides in plain sight,” she insists and names that enemy as Myrtle herself, accusing her of being the person in the robe who attacked Cordelia and reveals that Myrtle was even in town before Madison went missing, hiding out in a cheap hotel and plotting to overthrow Fiona, even maintaining a serial killer wall of pictures of Fiona, which Fiona has helpfully gotten pictures of on her cell phone. As the final proof, Fiona yanks off Myrtle’s glove to reveal that her hand is burned and disfigured by the same acid that was used to attack Cordelia. “You give us no choice,” the Council members say when confronted with the evidence. “Burn the witch.”

Myrtle resigns herself, saying she’s been swimming against the tide all her life and she will go proudly to the fire. The thing is, this is all very literal. The next day, Myrtle is marched out to a quarry with a pitch that’s already been set up. The Council, Fiona, the students and the albino black men cart Myrtle up to the pitch and douse her with kerosene. (Sidebar, I kind of love that this is so matter-of-fact. Like, this is such a normal part of witch life that there’s just a pitch already made up for these occasions.) Myrtle uses her last words to decry everyone as being like toads in a pot that Fiona is slowly bringing to a boil. “I’d rather burn that boil,” Myrtle declares just before Fiona lights her up with her cigarette LIKE A BOSS.

"Come on, Baby, light my fire…"

Later, the truth (such as it is) comes out. Queenie comes to Fiona and tells her that she’s not sure they did the right thing. Turns out, those burns on Myrtle’s hands? They were made by Queenie burning her own hands in the acid and putting the wounds on Myrtle. Queenie is doubting her actions, but Fiona sweet talks her, complimenting her on her strength and her bright future. “You could arise to heights you dare not imagine,” Fiona tells her. “Maybe that’s what this Coven needs – a Supreme of color.”

Upstairs, meanwhile, Spaulding is covering his attic of dolls with disinfectant and deodorant, covering the stench of Madison’s rapidly decaying body. When he tries to her move her from the chest he’s got her stored in, he accidently rips off one of her arms. Comedy!

Back at the burning pitch, meanwhile, who should stumble onto the charred remains of Myrtle snow but Misty Day, out from the swamp on her…I don’t know, constitutional? Or something? Earth child Misty bends down, places her hands on Myrtle’s charred corpse and Myrtle opens her eyes.

Recapping AHS: That Voodoo That You Do

Happy (belated) Halloween, everyone! Here's the second of two recaps that I'm behind on. The first one is below.

Picture it. New Orleans. 1961. The halcyon days of America’s innocence are pretty much non-existent if you’re black and southern as a young black boy finds out when he’s chased down his street in broad daylight and lynched by four white men. Guess New Orleans has a Stand Your Ground law. Know who doesn’t take kindly to this whole Emmitt Till shit? Marie Fucking Laveau. 

"Aw no, Mama gonna do somthin' 'bout this."

After painting symbols on the floor and some drumming and some serious snake killing, Marie casts a spell. The white men, out in a field somewhere that night bemoaning the “n**gers that just keep coming” are, understandably, surprised when outside their barn hands start to come out of the ground. Hands attached to bodies. There’s snarling, growling and…wait...yes… WE HAVE ZOMBIES PEOPLE! WE HAVE FULL-ON ZOMBIES EATING THE RACIST ASSHOLES! (Including, hilariously, a long-dead Confederate Civil War soldier.) Well done, zombies.

In the modern day, we get an idea of what Spaulding, the house’s butler, likes to do in his free time, which is to play old-timey photographs and have wickedly creepy tea parties in a room full of dolls. Spaulding hears Fiona and Madison coming home and arrives in time to watch Fiona slice Madison’s throat open. Spaulding rolls Madison up into the carpet, per Fiona’s request. “I’ve always enjoyed our little talks together,” Fiona tells him. “Particularly since you lost your tongue. Makes you seem wiser, somehow.”

Just then, Fiona hears a window breaking out back and finds Queenie laying on the ground, gored through her stomach and weeping as the Minotaur rises behind her. Cut to Fiona, looking bloodied, bringing Cordelia to treat Queenie who is rapidly dying. Cordelia and Fiona argue over both of their attempts to see Marie as they try to heal Queenie using magic. Fiona fears that a war is beginning again. “I went there to show strength,” she tells Cordelia, “And you undermined me.” In Fiona’s bedroom, Delphine is terrified and confesses that Marie sent the Minotaur to kill her and that Queenie saved her. Fiona assures her that she knows and that the Minotaur isn’t coming back. How does she know?

Well, in Marie’s salon the next day, as Marie does up a neighborhood woman for free in preparation for the Mayor’s annual Halloween ball, a large box arrives delivered by “some freak who didn’t say a word.” Marie opens the box and screams, finding the Minotaur’s severed head. Oh, it is ON. Marie begins to plot when one of her compatriots tries to convince her not to begin war again, reminding her that it was Marie and Fiona’s Supreme who signed the original peace agreement in the late 60s that allowed the witches and the voodoo to coexist without fighting.

Oh, Minotaur. We hardly knew ye.

Back at the House, Kyle is still getting more out of the banging his head against the wall parts of life than anything else and Zoe is about at her wits’ end for what she’s done to him. She offers to make him some food and in the process finds a box of rat poison. You know, as you do. Figuring maybe there’s a way to Put All This Right, she mixes some into the oatmeal and then heads back upstairs to find Kyle missing and the front door wide open. Kyle is on the loose on Halloween, just as the kids are coming out for Trick or Treating. Because of course he is.

Meanwhile, Fiona is getting Delphine to help her get ready for Halloween. Delphine HILARIOUSLY has some outdated ideas about what “the end of harvest” means, including lighting the traditional bonfires and leaving out offerings to keep away demons, because people out of time are riots! Fiona, meanwhile, doesn't have the time to even deal with this shit and bring Delphine up to speed, not when she's got a holiday to celebrate. 

Werk.

Cordelia is missing her husband, Hank. Hank has told Cordelia that he is out of town on business in Baton Rouge. He’s not wrong, it’s just that business means having loud, screaming, sweaty sex with another woman that he met online in a hotel outside of town. During the naked afterglow, the two talk about Halloween and the girl wants to know what Frank was last year for Halloween. “I was a monster,” he tells her.

Subtle, guy.

Back at the house, Queenie is doing better, but there are problems. Three of them. Yes, kids – The Council has arrived, lead by Myrtle Snow who’s still “mad about Tartan.” Cordelia tells them that she’s got everything under control, the assault on Queenie was terrible but she’s doing better. Oh wait, that’s not why you’re here? Oh God. I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking attempting to treat with Marie Laveau for fertility spells. Um. That’s not what you’re here for either? Basically, Cordelia sucks at playing anything close to her vest. No, the reason why the Council has arrived is because they were summoned by Nan, who believes Madison has been murdered because she can’t hear her thoughts anymore.

Judges Dowdy, Fabulous, and Dapper presiding. 

And it’s time for Witches Court! Hilariously, one of the three council actually acts as stenographer. They routinely question each of the women. Cordelia fucks it up again by basically admitting that she has no control over Madison. Zoe looks like she’s about ready to crack again. Queenie couldn’t give a shit. “If she’s dead, it’s probably because she got wasted and offered the Grim Reaper a hand job or something,” she tells the Council. Nan, however, confesses that Madison was demonstrating new powers suddenly, a telling sign for a witch that is starting to become more powerful.

Back at the Hotel, Frank and the girl talk after their marathoning sex. She’s sweet, although clearly sheltered. She praises him for being “quite the world traveler, big shot USDA agent,” for having been to exotic places like San Diego. Apparently they met on a website for people who like to collect Thomas Kincaid paintings. She’s utterly smitten, praising him for not immediately asking for her nude pics. She really likes him and just asks that he doesn’t break her heart. He just smiles, holds her close, and pulls out a gun and shoots her through the head.

Back to Court! Myrtle Snow is not pleased with how Fiona has been comporting herself in her job. Fiona hasn’t been living up, not doing the things that a Supreme is supposed to do, is the only one who has been the last person to see a missing witch alive in this very house over the past 40 years, yadda yadda yadda.

To the Flashback! At the School in 1971, a young Fiona was able to convince the Council of the day that Anna-Lee went missing, possibly at the hands of Marie Laveau. The Council announces that Fiona will be the Supreme-elect after she begins the Tests of the Seven Wonders, a kind of Sorting Hat for this coven. Meanwhile, a young Myrtle is not pleased, muttering that she can’t believe Fiona is getting away with murder. As Fiona competes in the Tests, Myrtle concocts a plan – she’s noticed that young Spaulding always seems to be cleaning up after Fiona, so she enchants Spaulding’s tongue such that when the Council asks him about Fiona, he’ll have no choice but to tell the truth. Later that night, the girls all discover Spaulding in a bathroom with his tongue cut out and Fiona standing over him.

Back in 2013, Myrtle is clear that she wants Fiona to burn, calling the final witness – Spaulding. She reminds Spaulding that he’s been living under the rule of the witch who has abused him while making him brew her tea for 40 years. She tells Spaulding that he needs to only to write down the name of the witch who is responsible for severing his tongue. Spaulding calmly hands Myrtle a note – it reads “Myrtle Snow”. Turns out, back in 1971, Spaulding knew of Myrtle’s attempt to enchant him and took pre-emptive measures. Calling Fiona to the bathroom that night, he confesses that he has always loved her before cutting out his own tongue to save her.

Myrtle is… not pleased, screaming that Fiona keeps killing Supremes and getting away with it. And that’s when Cordelia drops the bomb – Madison wasn’t the next Supreme. The hallmark of a Supreme is “glowing, radiant health” and Madison had a secret heart murmur, making her ineligible.  Myrtle has been barking up the wrong proverbial tree all these years.

PWNED!

At Marie’s the spells and the drumming and the snakes are in full force yet once again as the kids take to the streets for Halloween. In a graveyard somewhere, bodies begin to rise from the ground.

Delphine is stern-talking the trick or treaters for being “street urchins” and stealing too much candy. The girls debate what’s happened to Madison and Zoe wants to go looking for her (and Kyle), but Fiona has warned them not to leave the House. Upstairs, Spaulding is back to playing his records and having his tea party, all the while getting dressed…in robes… and dresses. Oh Wait. This isn’t good. And that’s when we find out where Madison is – what’s left of her is a frozen corpse, left to attend Spaulding’s tea party while he picks out a new dress for her.

I mean, at this point, I know I shouldn't be surprised, but still. Ick. 

Somewhere in the city, Fiona and Cordelia drink in celebration and, slightly tipsy, agree to play a game where they each ask the other three questions. One of Cordelia’s questions is did Fiona kill Madison. “And no lying!” she tells her. Fiona lies straight through her teeth, saying she’s innocent and trying to get out of Cordelia who she thinks the new Supreme is. Later, Cordelia is feeling the after affects of all that alcohol and gets sick in the ladies room. As she comes out of a stall from throwing up, a figure in a hood waits for her, throwing some clear liquid into her eyes, which begins to burn Cordelia.

Back at the house, the cute boy from next door has brought over cookies, but not for Madison – they’re to thank Nan for her cake. Just then, knocking at the door. Delphine opens it to see the corpses of her three daughters joined by an entire lawn-full of zombies shambling toward the house.

And yes, that was FX just giving the middle finger all over the place to AMC. 

Recapping AHS: Kill Your Masters

Happy (belated) Halloween, everyone! To celebrate, here is the first of two recaps from the past two weeks of American Horror Story. Enjoy!

Fiona can’t sleep, so she wanders down to the liquor cabinet, as all good insomniacs do, to search for something to help. Along the way, she remembers Anna-Lee, the Supreme who ran the school in 1971 when she was a wee lass herself. Turns out Supremes aren’t born – they’re made through election and “mastery of The Seven Wonders.” Fiona believed she was ready to be the next Supreme, using as evidence that Anna-Lee had been fading, falling sicker with Diabetes and heart failure while Fiona was getting stronger.  Anna-Lee felt that Fiona wasn’t the right choice to be the Supreme. Fiona felt differently and decided to take things into her own hands by cutting open Anna-Lee’s throat in the living room of the school while Spaulding, the butler watched. The problem is, in modern times, Fiona is starting to resemble Anna-Lee way more than she does her younger self. She is still desperate to become younger and has made an appointment with a plastic surgeon for a facelift.

Elsewhere, Zoe has hunted down Kyle’s mother, a salt-of-the-Earth woman who smokes weed while talking with Zoe about how she misses her son, sleeping in his room now that he’s gone. Mom tells Zoe how Kyle was the one who took care of them both, on top of going to school and being a tutor and probably walking elderly ladies across the street and saving kittens from trees. She’s clearly miserable, confessing that she was actually about to kill herself out of grief when Zoe called her. Zoe tries to comfort her, promising that she’s see Kyle again.

"Again, like, in a totally not fundamentalist Christian kind of way."

Back at the school, the neighbors are moving in. The neighbors, BTW, include the requisite stud-muffin who takes off his shirt provocatively while moving heavy boxes while Queenie, Nan and Madison watch eagerly. The ogling is not unnoticed by the lad’s hyper religious mother. Upstairs meanwhile, Delphine is watching Barack Obama giving a speech and sobbing. “LIESSSSSSSSSSS!” she hisses at the TV when Fiona tells her about all the progress black people have made.

Thank you, Jesus, for giving us this scene.

Anyway, Delphine has to make a living in the modern world. Fiona has decided to make her the new Maid. As her first task, she berates Queenie when Queenie asks for a sandwich, calling her a “foul negress”. A fight almost breaks out until Fiona intervenes, deciding the best way to resolve this particular problem is to make Delphine Queenie’s “personal slave.” Oh Delphine – the future isn’t always bright, is it?

In the swamp, Misty cuddles on the bed with ZombieKyle and signs along to Stevie Nicks. Honestly, I kind of love these two together, more than Kyle and Zoe. The show is clearly going to force us to go with the boring pairing when this one is way more interesting. Either way, Zoe arrives to find that Kyle is mostly bodily healed, even if he’s still nonverbal. Misty wants them both to stay for dinner, probably because she’d like to talk more about Fleetwood Mac with someone other than a reanimated alligator, but Zoe insists that she has to get Kyle back to civilization. Misty tries to keep Kyle, but Zoe separates them, promising to come back for Misty. “No you won’t,” she mutters sadly to herself as they leave.

Nan and Madison are bringing a cake to the cute boy next door. Madison has dressed her best “I’m here to get laid” dress, but cute boy Luke seems impervious to her sexy talk, preferring to talk with Nan about the cake. It’s lemon cake, “I knew it was your favorite,” Nan tells him. Luke is totally into it, although his mother is quick to shoo the girls out, saying they’re on their way to church, despite it not even being Sunday. “You know that’s a crock of shit,” Madison tells them, seductively holding the cake knife. When the mother struggles with it, Madison causes the knife to go flying across the room and the curtains to spontaneous light on fire. “I didn’t know you could do that,” Nan says. “Neither did I,” Madison responds.

Cordelia is back at the doctor’s getting bad news. At the same time, so is Fiona. Both of them have concerning blood work. For Cordelia it means no baby. For Fiona, it means no elective surgery, and possibly something else. Later, as Fiona is contemplating her fate, she gets a visit from Joan Ramsey, the religious mother next store who has brought her a copy of the Bible, something she always does when she visits a new place. She’s not happy with the girls “invading” her property and dressed so scandalously that she fears for her son’s virginity. She also spills the beans about the knife and the curtains, which raises Fiona’s interest. Madison enters the room to taunt Joan, scaring her away. Fiona, however, wants a longer talk with Madison.

"I do what the Good Book tells me. Like judging people indiscriminately and casting stones."

Zoe, brain trust that she is, has brought Kyle to his old home, left him on the front porch and rings the doorbell. Apparently “The Monkey’s Paw” is not on the curriculum at Miss Robicheaux’s. Either way, Kyle’s mom is ecstatic to see her son again. Perhaps too much so. That night, Kyle lays in his bed and his mother is still trying to figure it all out. She sits next to Kyle, asking how it is that his body looks different than she remembers it. Why does she have such attention paid to her son’s body? That’s odd. But it doesn’t matter, she insists, laying next to him and kissing him lightly. Then more than lightly. Then moving her hand over his chest. Then farther down. Then OH DEAR GOD, PEOPLE – WE HAVE INCEST! WE HAVE MAJOR INCEST HAPPENING! OH GOD IS NOTHING SACRED?!?!

Cordelia has gone to the other side of the tracks to get a meeting with Marie Laveau. Marie is sitting on a throne (literally) made of gold and alligator bodies and bones and lots of other things. Awesomely, she’s also playing Solitare on her iPad. Loves it. Cordelia wants to know about Marie’s world-famous fertility spell. “You know that spell ain’t no picnic for anyone involved,” Marie warns. We see Cordelia led to a fire while Marie dances while eating the hottest pepper on Earth and throwing a mason jar of Cordelia’s husband’s “Baby gravy” over the fire while Cordelia is covered in the blood of a goat’s slit throat. Just Kidding! That’s what would have happened if Marie was feeling up to helping the daughter of her now-sworn enemy, Fiona.

"It's for the best. It takes days to get rid of White Eye."

Zoe gets a call from Kyle’s mother, saying Kyle’s come back but it’s not him. She then tells Kyle that she knows that she’s “been possessive” but it’s time for him to move on with his life, even if she knows that he needed it as much as she did. Kyle has moved from blank nonverbal to threatening nonverbal as his mother tries to begin the make outs with him again. “That girl doesn’t know how please you, not like I can,” she tells him as Kyle finally manages to remember the word for “NOOOOOOOO!” and grabs one of his sports trophies and begins to smash in his mother’s head. Later, Zoe arrives at Kyle’s darkened house to find a pulpy mother and a bloody Kyle.

Fiona and Madison are having brunch. Fiona is eager to teach Madison what she’s needs to know, telling her that she’s going to be the next Supreme. As a test, she tells Madison to make a man standing across the street walk into busy traffic. Madison manages it, though the man is unhurt when the cars stop around him.

At home, Queenie has made Delphine make her dinner, including Peach Cobbler. Delphine tries to tell Queenie to stop eating if she wants to even land a man before noticing something in the darkness outside. Suddenly the Minotaur appears at the window and begins to bang against the door with his horns. Delphine spills the beans that she’s not just some racist maid, but she begs Queenie to save her from the Minotaur in any case. Queenie cuts open Delphine’s palm and obsorbs some of the blood onto a towel before sending her upstairs for safety and then heading outside. Terrified, but strangely excited as well, Queenie lures the Minotaur to an alley behind the house. “You just wanted love, and that makes you a beast,” she tells it. “They called me that too, but that’s not who we are. We both deserve love like everyone else. Don’t you want to love me?” Because why not, American Horror Story? Why not also have necrophiliac bestiality in the episode about incest?

Availing ourselves fully of the "parental discretion advised" warning tonight, I see.

Madison and Fiona have been having quite the day, ending it now at a pool hall and cleaning up while drinking and flirting with men. For a coke-head, Madison can’t really hold her liquor. They come home boozy and Fiona lays her cards on the table – Madison is going to be the next Supreme. She knows because her exploration into surgery has revealed that she has terminal cancer, which she attributes to her powers waning because the new Supreme, Madison, is taking her lifeforce, just as she herself did to Anna-Lee 40 years ago. Madison wants to help Fiona, but Fiona doesn’t want to go out of life ugly, bald and on chemo. “I’ve led a disreputable life, but I’ve done it in style and I’ll die likewise,” she tells her. Fiona recognizes that she’s been a shitty Supreme, wasting her power on herself instead of promoting the other witches like Anna-Lee did.

Fiona admits that she cut Anna-Lee’s throat right where Madison is standing with this very knife. Fiona tries to give the knife to Maidson, asking her to do to Fiona what Fiona did to Anna-Lee. Madison struggles, insisting that she can’t and doesn’t want to and suddenly Fiona is opening Madison’s throat, just like Anna-Lee’s. Spaulding is even right back in the room, watching like before. Madison bleeds out all over her white dress and onto the white rug on the floor before collapsing onto it. Fiona looks equal parts horrified with herself and pleased. “Bury her deep,” she tells Spaulding. “This coven doesn’t need a new Supreme. It needs a new rug.”

Well, this didn't go as planned.

Recapping AHS: I Can Make You A Man (In Just 50 Minutes)

Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of Swamp People! Kidding! It’s still AHS, although you’d be forgiven for confusing the two given that we spend the first five minutes tonight following around two guys with thick accents who are wearing flannel and Stars and Bars t-shirts as they hunt gators in the swamp and bring them back to their camp. When they arrive, Misty Day, somehow miraculously having survived her Joan of Arc routine, is wandering through the camp while “Edge of Seventeen” plays from somewhere. Misty looks at the gator carcasses and declares it “wrong, all wrong” before reviving two of the gators who come after the hicks, dragging them head-first into the swamp water as Misty wanders off into the distance, the strains of Stevie Nicks still playing in her head.

You can go your own way...

Morning at Hogwarts. Zoe is still focusing on dead Kyle, but Madison thinks she should get over it. “Those guys were his brothers,” Madison says. “He’d have gone after me too.” Meanwhile, Delia is trying to get everyone downstairs for the pledge of allegiance or something and notices a horrible smell coming from Fiona’s room. Fiona blames it on “Chinese herbs” she bought down at the local Witches-R-Us, but of course it’s Delphine, Madame LaLaurie herself. She may not have decayed, but she still was in the dirt for 180 years, so she’s not exactly fresh. Also, she’s kind of freaked out by the modern world and things like cell phones and electricity. Basically, Fiona brought home a puppy. A puppy that used to strip the flesh off living people.

At Morning Vespers, we learn how Queenie came to the school. Seems after a customer at the friend chicken joint she worked at in Detroit last year called her a “stupid fat ass” she plunged her arm into a vat of hot oil to fry the man’s skin. “I grew up on white girl shit like Charmed and Sabrina the Teenage Cracker,” she tells the girls to explain why she didn’t want to come originally. Turns out she’s since learned she’s a descendent of Tituba, so she’s kind of royalty.

Damn. Queenie don't play.

Just then, the cops arrive! They want a word with Madison and Zoe. Seems witnesses totally noticed the movie star actress going into a back room at a frat party with the dead boys. Madison insists that nothing happened, but Zoe is starting to crack. When the cops want to know why Zoe went to the hospital to visit a survivor who died after she left in the same way her ex-boyfriend did, Zoe looses her shit and tells the cops everything. As in, “they gang-raped her and we’re all witches and we all have powers and please don’t send us to jail GAH!” Fiona intervenes, pouring two glasses of water for the cops and spitting in them. She offers the glasses to the cops, one of whom drinks immediately but the other is, understandably, a little wierded out. Fiona stares him down and he starts to shake. “In about 10 seconds I’m going to turn those brains of yours to scrambled eggs,” she tells him if he doesn’t drink from the cup. As the cop begins to bleed from his nose, he grabs the glass and downs it. They’re under Fiona’s spell as she tells them to forget everything before heading upstairs to Madison and Zoe and throwing them literally across the room.  She tells them the cops were nothing and Zoe is soft if she is afraid of them. Witches have been persecuted throughout time, she reminds them, so when The Man comes, you don’t get scared, you close ranks. The real point, according to Fiona, is “in this whole wide wicked world, the only thing you really have to be afraid of is me.”

The next day, Madison and Zoe head for a little breaking and entering at the local morgue, thanks to Madison learning how to pick a lock for a catburgler movie she was once cast in. “I’m going to pay you back,” Madison tells Zoe, showing her a resurrection spell that she found in the house. Inside the morgue, the girls find the remains of the boys killed in the bus crash. And by remains, we mean piles of body parts, including Kyle’s head, on tables. Madison sees an opportunity, or as she calls it “a challenge” to assemble the perfect boy. I’m getting the sense Madison wasn’t great with her Barbie dolls as a child.

Delia, meanwhile, is with her husband and getting bad news from her doctor. Short version, they’ve been trying to get pregnant and… it’s not going well. Their options are becoming limited and Hank, Delia’s husband, wants her to start considering, you know, fucking MAGIC to fix the problem. Delia is reluctant. “This kind of magic is dark, it’s about life and death,” she tells him.

At home, Fiona has brought Delphine a plate of friend chicken to loosen her tongue about how it was that she’s survived almost 200 years in a hole in the ground. Delphine recounts what happened – it wasn’t poison that Marie Laveau gave her – it was something to make her immortal. The night it happened, Marie freed the slaves in the attic and had Delphine’s daughters hung by their necks from the house’s balcony. “Don’t think that they didn’t suffer,” she told Delphine after showing her their mutilated bodies, “because they did greatly.” Marie’s curse was be to keep Delphine alive forever but trapped in a box in the ground.  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Fiona deadpans after hearing the story and casually offering her a bite of chicken.

That’s cold, Fiona. Both your attitude and the chicken.

In the morgue, Zoe and Madison have sewn Kyle back together (more or less) using the…ahem…choicest cuts and are starting their spell. There’s chanting, smoke, screaming, freaky sounds, flames leaping up, pentagrams drawn in blood. The usual for a teenage girl séance, really. Madison gives it her best, clearly shooting for that Teen Choice Award nomination, but when all the smoke and creepy music clears, Kyle is still just a pile of sewn together corpse pieces. “Well, that was a bust,” Madison declares before gathering up her purse and heading out, not even bothering to clean up. Zoe lingers, using the old “I left my phone in here somewhere and I’m totally not going to use this chance to do something weird that will bring back the Frankenstein-like monstrosity that we’ve just created.” Zoe apologizes to Kyle’s corpse, leaning in to kiss him (kinky) just as the Medical Examiner shows up for work. ‘Bout time, really. Security in New Orleans just must be really lax or something. The Medical Examiner is, understandably, a little unnerved by what he sees and finds Zoe cowering just as a reanimated Kyle rises from the table, grabs the Examiner and beats him to death. Undead Kyle has anger management issues, but if I woke up sewn into the body parts of my dead frat brothers, I like to think I’d so the same.

"Gosh, I hope we don't all learn a tragic lesson about the thin line between life and death over this."

In the Ninth Ward, Fiona is getting her hair did by a bunch of black ladies. It’s not just because she wants to be down with what the kidz are doing these days, though. The place is owned by a modern-day Marie Laveau, who spots Fiona and sends all her stylists home. “I’ll take care of this one myself,” she vamps.

At the house, Nan is having a hard time concentrating on her reading because she can sense Delphine upstairs. More annoyed than freaked out, she simply walks upstairs and frees Delphine from her ropes. “You think too loud,” she tells her and orders her out of the house. Delphine runs into Queenie on the way out and boy does that ever go well.

In the beauty parlor, Marie and Fiona snark each other for a few minutes before admitting they both know who the other is. “Your kind and my kind have been going after each other for centuries, though it’s like a hammer going after a nail,” Fiona says. Marie’s having none of this white privilege and points out that if not for Tituba, there wouldn’t be witches in America. Fiona scoffs that Tituba was an illiterate slave girl and that Fiona’s power comes from far more than some overly deified historical caricature bringing magic to the New World. And now it’s time to get real – Fiona is here because she wants whatever it is that has kept Marie young all these years and she’s willing to trade Delphine to get it. “The hammer wants the nail’s magic,” Marie laughs. “That is rich.” Fiona isn’t take no for an answer, setting Marie’s wigs on fire to show her strength and promising to be in touch. Later, Marie heads into the back room, pulling chains off the wall and talking to a man with a bull’s head. “You’re never going to believe who’s back,” she tells him.

We actually both thought this was the audition for the gender-swapped remake of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

It’s been almost a full episode since we’ve had a sex scene, so the quota is up. Delia and Hank have set up an elaborate circle of candles and salt and powders and herbs and who knows what, including a bunch of large football-sized eggs. They speak in Latin, smear blood on each other, and begin with the sexy time. As they make love, the eggs crack and snakes begin to slither out, growing rapidly in size until the snakes begin to join Delia and Hank’s bodies among the circle of flames surrounding them. It’s honestly a little like something out of a Guns and Roses video, but what can you do?

Zoe is trying to make off with Kyle’s…um…corpse? Entire pledge class? Whatever he is? He’s totally not verbal, but way into punching his head through things. Zoe is panicking while driving away from the morgue. And that’s when Misty Day herself suddenly is sitting in the backseat and wanting to know why Zoe “drew me out here.”

On the set of True Blood At Misty’s cabin in the swamp, Misty is slapping a poultice onto Kyle’s joints where his parts have been stitched together, saying that the swamp is full of natural magic and that the poultice will heal him like it healed her while “Rhiannon” is playing on her radio. Misty could feel something calling to her earlier in the day – it was Zoe and her magic calling out to bring Kyle back. “Now I’m not alone,” she says.  Zoe asks about the music and Misty tells her that Stevie Nicks is her idol and the White Witch, the only other witch that Misty knows. Not sure if this is going to be an awesome plot point featuring a Stevie Nicks cameo (please God yes) or just a joke. Time will tell. Zoe needs to get to school at any rate, but agrees to let Kyle stay with Mist, mostly because the house has seen enough stinky bodies for one day, thanks.

Fiona finds Delphine moping out in front of her old house and bemoaning how she’s been remembered as a monster. “I was a woman of my time,” she justifies herself as Fiona snorts. “If ten of each hundred things I read about you were true, you deserved to be under all that dirt,” Fiona says. Delphine insists that she loved her girls, in her own way. “Even the ugly one,” she says, slightly undercutting her own argument. Either way, it was the thought of her girls that kept her mind occupied these past 180 years. She asks Fiona if she’s a witch to kill her and let her find peace. “Oh I may kill you, but not today,” Fiona says before telling her to buck up and come back home.

In the Flesh

Leave it to the Brits to shake up the zombie genre. I don't know why I'm surprised, after all, it was Brits that brought us Shawn of the Dead, which is arguably responsible for the re-popularity of the genre as a whole. It also seems that British television is just....well, better. But I confess that I was doubtful about another zombie show. Was there really anything interesting left to say about zombies??

Turns out, yes. Yes, there is.

In the Flesh, a three episode series that recently aired on BBC America, tells a very different story than your typical zombie show. There's no rag-tag group of survivors fighting their way through an apocalyptic landscape, trying to survive in a world gone mad. This also isn't the story of one brave man (or woman) living in a world dealing with a zombie outbreak.

Instead, In the Flesh deals with what happens after. And guess what guys? We won! Zombies didn't overrun the world and eat everyone! Instead, we found a way to treat the disease that caused the dead to rise and are now working to integrate them back into their previous lives so they can become useful members of society. Go Team Living!

(record scratch)

Yes, you read that right. We beat the zombies. There's no real apocalypse in this story. Sure lots of people died, but luckily in the universe, the bite of a zombie doesn't turn you into one. Instead, you just die. And now, with regular doses of a drug that stops you from turning into a rabid fleshhound, your undead life goes on. But if you happen to be one of the reanimated dead that has to return to the community you once feasted upon....things get a bit dicey.

And you thought YOUR teenage years were awkward.

From wikipedia:

In the Flesh is set in the fictional village of Roarton (Lancashire, England) after The Rising, in which teenager Kieren Walker was re-animated along with thousands of people who died in the year 2009. After months of rehabilitation and medication, the zombies (now referred to as partially deceased syndrome (PDS) patients by the government, but commonly known as "rotters") are judged ready to return to their homes and families. They are given cosmetics and contact lenses to conceal their decayed appearance, and must maintain a strict programme of medication to avoid going "rabid" again. Many are haunted by returning memories of the atrocities they committed while rabid. In the extremist village of Roarton, PDS sufferers face prejudice from the villagers upon their return.

In the Flesh has a lot of heavy themes. There is, of course, the idea of Kieren as an "other" separate from the traditional English village society. There are obvious parallels between the PDS patients and minority groups that have traditionally been subject to hate and bigotry. Things are a bit more complicated in this circumstance though, since the PDS peeps did actually feast on the flesh of their neighbors when they were untreated. So, you know, the fear is not entirely unfounded.

Kieren is also dealing with an overwhelming sense of guilt and shame from his prior brain-crazed state. I won't give you any big spoilers, but suffice it to say he killed people and now has to deal with the trauma. Finally, there's a lot of people lying to themselves in this show and refusing to acknowledge the reality of the current situation. It's a normal human reaction...but it never ends well.

In the Flesh is a gripping human drama. Which is pretty amazing considering it deals with zombies. You really care about the characters and what will happen to them, and I have to give props to Luke Newberry for really infusing Kieren with life and pathos--despite the fact that most of his interactions with others are quiet and uncomfortable. Oh, and that he's a freakin zombie. He does a lot of soulful staring...which could have gotten really boring really fast, except you always know there is some turmoil under the surface. There is also a lot to his character that you discover gradually throughout the series; I can think of two gasp-worthy revelations right off the bat.

There's no release date for the DVDs of series 1 that I can find, but be sure to check this one out from Netflix or on DVD when you get the chance. Oh, and there will be a second series, hurray!