Ladyeowyn328 Reviews

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Dirty Girls (2003) Season 7, Episode 18

One of the best villains is introduced

[8/10 · 8 December 2012]

Season 7 is definitely not the best (difficult to top 3 and 5), but it isn't the worst either (hello seasons 4 and 6). The fast pacing keeps the interest, despite the constant gloom of impending peril without a real plan of execution.

Which is why Caleb is such a refreshing change of pace.

I am a fan of Nathan Fillion. He's freakin' HI-larious. And since I was so used to him in the role of Malcolm Reynolds, I immediately cheered in relief when he picked up the potential slayer in the beginning. Of course she was safe.

And then I nearly peed myself when he called her a whore. Nathan Fillion plays creepy and evil every bit as well as, if not better than, he plays the good guy with a cause. Caleb is unflinching in his cruelty, and unlike some of the previous Big Bads, the actor makes me believe that he actually relishes in the viciousness of his crimes. Yes, Spike is wonderful in his bad days, and we believe that he likes being badass, like we believe that Angelus likes messing with Buffy's head. But Caleb is a whole new breed. Pure loathing for women runs in his veins. He doesn't just enjoy the taste of blood on his hands, he follows through unlike any other villain in a poetic and powerful way.

I love to hate him, and *Spoiler Alert of upcoming episodes* Buffy's ultimate defeat of him is one of the most satisfying slayings she carries out.

Favorite Moments: Faith and Spike talking about when they met. Faith and Buffy. Actually, pretty much every moment with Faith was golden. She's another refreshing change of pace, and they should have brought her back far sooner.

Chuck: Chuck Versus the Goodbye (2012) Season 5, Episode 13

A good kind of frustrating

[9/10 · 31 May 2012]

Though many people will disagree, I find that the best books and movies have a very frustrating course with a not-so-happy ending. This is because if it doesn't suck in the middle, it's not much of an adventure and there's nothing to cheer over in the end. Yes, I wish they would have given us just one more episode in which we see more of Sarah's memories come back, but at the same time, I love that they left it open to interpretation.

If you are dissatisfied, just assume that when they kissed, Sarah got a great many memories back and lived happily ever after, and then read no further.

If you are satisfied with an ambiguous ending, well, let the speculation begin! Personally, I think it took a bit of time and there was a lot of filling-in on Chuck's part, but that eventually, Sarah fell in love with Chuck again and they never really broke away from the spy life.

But all the best endings leave you thinking for a long time after it's finished, and since I'm reeling, I consider it a success.

Castle: Countdown (2011) Season 3, Episode 17

Great Fiction When You Suspend Your Disbelief

[9/10 · 1 March 2011]

I know, Castle fans, I did not give this a ten out of ten, and for that, I ask forgiveness. But if I was going to grade this based on all Castle episodes, I would say at the very least, Knockdown was better, but I didn't hate it. In fact, far from it. This was a great episode.

That said, we start this episode where the last one left off, with Beckett and Castle facing certain death in a freezer. But seeing as this isn't the end of the season, much less the end of the series, we're pretty sure they're gonna make it. And they do, but not without some shivery confessions of how sorry they are that they got each other in such a fix and one potential confession of love (but we'll never know for sure because Beckett passes out around "lo-"). After the grand rescue, they do some digging, figure out who the Bad Guy is, and run all over town after him.

And, oh yeah, Beckett's Honey Bunches of Lovin' Josh decides that his girlfriend is more important than Haiti and shows up just in time to use his medical expertise on the hypothermic pair. Damn Josh and his wild romantic notions! Doesn't he know that being there for his girlfriend only gets in the way of Castle being there for her?! Anyway, after the Bad Guy gets caught, we face a dilemma that very few Cop shows face these days, and that is that the suspect isn't talking. I know what you're thinking, and that is, "Wait, you mean when they sat him down and told him they knew he was guilty, he didn't just deflate and say, 'Oh, damn, you got me...'?" I'm totally thinking the same thing, but this guy even withstands a gun to his face, so we know he's not playing around. Because most suspects see the gun and go, "J/K. J/K!" So, back to square one, our group does some fancy out-of-the box thinking and they figure it out and get to the bomb just in time to see.... that they're about thirty seconds from dying. Seriously, the fact that Caskett got to it in time is a miracle on its own because Castle used some psychologicalness to figure out what route the bomber would use, and there's no bomb squad people with them.

So, Crap. What do you do when you're very certainly going to die in the next few seconds? They can't run, and I think the best part of the whole episode is what they did next: Much like the end of Toy Story 3, they grabbed hands and held on. No words, because let's face it, if you're in that kind of situation with no time to think, it's hard enough to breathe, much less talk. And then, in truly Castley fashion, our hero reaches out and grabs the fistful of wires and pulls. And we're stuck thinking "UM!....."

Yeah.

And then laughter. Because it totally worked.

The thing is, Caskett nearly died holding onto one another not once, but twice in a single day. I don't know about you, but I'd totally need a drink or seven, but they're cool with just laughing over it at the precinct. And even though this episode was a lot of fun, the writers had to stretch the truth quite a bit. But in the end, we'll overlook the ridiculously fast hypothermia recovery absent of frostbite, the sheer stamina and lack of Post-Traumatic breakdowns of our heroes, and all the science and reality behind industrial freezers and dirty bombs, and we'll focus on the most important thing:

Josh sucks.

Oh, and P.S. One way the writers could go, if they wanted to be especially daring, would be at the end of the series to flash back to the freezer or the bomb and have us realize that it was all just a dream or a flash of what could have been between Beckett and Castle as they died.

Bones: The End in the Beginning (2009) Season 4, Episode 26

It grows on you until it's your favorite.

[10/10 · 29 January 2011]

I will admit, when I first saw this episode, I hated it. Well, sort of. I hated that we weren't seeing what was going on in the real world and we had to travel a bunny trail in the meantime. But since then, I've seen what happened after, and then I went back to this episode and watched it again. Needless to say, I liked it much better the second time.

Here's the thing: they should have made this an episode in season 5. Had they woken up Booth and done the whole "Booth had a dream he was married to Brennan and got all confused for several weeks" thing without showing us the dream, we would have been wondering: What happened in that dream? Why were the clothes awesome? What is this other life that Booth fell in love with, only to awaken to the sheer disappointment that Brennan is not expressing her undying love for him? By the time we saw the dream episode, we would have been chomping at the bit to find out what happened in coma-world. Which brings me to my main point: This is one of my favorite episodes. As a stand-alone, it has an interesting plot line, a satisfying ending for the mere fact that we know it's one of the characters already introduced, and a love story. We can take this episode by itself and be satisfied with a job well done.

And when we add the context of the real-life Bones situation, we can love it more. It's a window into the heads of our two main characters; Brennan, who wrote the story, clearly pictures another life with the man she loves and what it would be like if she didn't see death every day. Booth, who dreams it, imagines what would happen if he acted on his own feelings and falls in love with the result.

So, maybe you'll hate this episode when you see it at the end of the fourth season, but I suggest that you go back, when all is said and done, and watch it again. See if you don't fall in love with it too.