It is finally SPRING. I’m sure we’ll manage a few more miserable days before summer kicks in, but thank goodness we made it through another winter down here in the southern hemisphere. It’s our turn for that heat wave… though I obviously don’t want things to get too dire. (Who am I kidding? I love the heat and we haven’t had a decent summer for the last two years. Bring it on).
The third season of House of the Dragon has recently wrapped up, and it served as an interesting reminder that I’ve spend the last decade or so experiencing Game of Thrones through pop-culture osmosis: never really getting involved, but being interested in how other people respond to the story – a story which in many ways is completely counterintuitive to how fandom operates these days.
One day I’ll hopefully write a longer post about my hypothesis that modern fandom is less interested in a compelling, thought-provoking story as it is about picking a character (or a ship, or a theory) and then gunning for it to “win,” either on moral or aesthetic or “just cos I want it to” grounds. In that sense, it’s understandable why House of the Dragon might be regarded as compatible with fandom, as it quite literally revolves around a competition between two factions (the Blacks and the Greens) to gain control over the Seven Kingdoms.
And yet for anyone actually paying attention, it’s clear that the point George R.R. Martin is trying to make is that monarchy is bad, and that everything about it should be burnt down (not literally of course, despite the presence of dragons) in favour of a fairer, more egalitarian system.
The civil war is between a family of inbred, imperial conquerors that nobody actually likes. They’ve just got the equivalent of nuclear weapons, so there’s not a lot the smallfolk can actually do about them (yet – we’ve still got season four to go, wherein the smallfolk do start making some political moves of their own). But this is lost on fandom, who are still arguing about what backside should be sitting on the Iron Throne, as though that’s anything even close to the point that Martin is trying to make.
In the clips I’ve seen, the show is finally starting to lean into the physical and mental toll this is taking on its erstwhile protagonist and queen, Rhaenyra. Having lost two of her sons, struggling with the day-to-day requirements of running a kingdom, and growing increasingly paranoid about the movements of her enemies, her seasonal arc culminates in a scene in which she declares herself “the Prince Who Was Promised,” to a crowd of people who don’t understand what she’s saying, and wouldn’t care in the slightest even if they did.
As usual, great swaths of fandom are focused on the aesthetics of the whole thing – the coolness of her armour, how great she sounds speaking Old Valyrian – without grasping in the slightest what is actually happening here. For the record, I’m not thrilled with yet another story about a woman going mad with power. It’s not off the table when it comes to storytelling choices, as there’s nothing stopping it from being compelling, and it’s clearly being written with more nuance than what happened to Daenerys, but in the broader scheme of things – I’ve had enough of crazy power-hungry women who need to be put down for their own good. The concept just isn’t contributing anything to the growing good of the world, you know?
But what struck me as interesting (and important) about the scene is that Rhaenyra calls upon her knowledge of the Prince Who Was Promised prophecy to justify her claim to the throne. This brought to mind the events of The Mad King, the stage play currently being performed by the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. A huge theme of that production seems to be that those who buy into the prophecy about the Prince (or Azoi Ahai) come to bitterly regret it. Lyanna for example, goes all in on the prophecy that she interprets as carrying Rhaegar’s child to provide “a third head” for the three-headed dragon – something that starts a civil war, takes the life of her brothers, and eventually claims hers as well.
(Heck, we’ve already seen this theme play out in Game of Thrones, in which Melisandre’s insistence that Stannis is the Chosen One only leads him into darkness and despair).
It was a fascinating similar note between the two stories despite each playing out in very different mediums, but one that fits with Martin’s general sense of contempt for those that base their decision-making on the amorphous words of prophecy. As Jaime Lannister says: “prophecy is like a half-trained mule. It looks as though it might be useful, but the moment you trust in it, it kicks you in the head.”
Yet muddying the waters is that prophecy and visions and “true dreaming” does have some veracity in the world of Westeros. Various characters have seen glimpses of the future that turn out to be real, not to mention the existence of undead warriors and other mystical creatures. And of course, people who command dragons that can burn down entire settlements with a single word are inevitably going to have dangerous superiority complexes. By simple dint of the fact they can do such things while others cannot indicate there must be SOMETHING special about the Targaryens.
That the theme of “don’t trust prophecy” is mingled with genuine displays of mystical power is confusing, as is the question of where exactly their prophetic dreams and visions originate from. Who or what is pulling the strings here? It’s here of course, we all walk into a brick wall, because we cannot properly examine this theme or what it means or how it’s going to play out without having access to the end of the story to lend it clarity. And George R.R. Martin certainly isn’t in a hurry to tell us.
The simple point I’m trying to make is that I found it immensely interesting that the stage play and the prequel series would strike a similar note on this issue, as (presuming that they have added intel provided by George R.R. Martin himself – which we know, as House of the Dragon revealed that Aegon’s Conquest was instigated by a dream that foretold of the Long Night and the coming of the White Walkers) provides direction on how A Song of Fire and Ice might conclude.
If, of course, it ever gets finished. Which it won’t.
Okay, so getting back to the reading/watching log… it seems like rather slim pickings this month, but I’ve got three weeks leave coming up, so you can bet I’m going to be filling it with as many books and films as I can.
Houses with a Story by Seiji Yoshida
This is a book of art by Seiji Yoshida which operates as a plot-bunny initiator (to put it in fandom terms). Featuring thirty-three houses in all, with cross-sections and a few details about who lives in them, Yoshida extends the invitation for readers to glean what inspiration they like from her artwork, and then set forth. There’s plenty to chose from, such as “House with a Dragon,” “A Lonely Ghost’s Mansion,” “An Eccentric Botanist’s Laboratory,” “World-Weary Astronomer’s Residence” and “The Methodical Witch’s House” – just for a sample of what to expect.
But it’s not just for those with writers’ block, as children would also enjoy thumbing through the pages and choosing where they’d like to visit or to live. Doris Susan Smith’s Need a House? Call Ms Mouse is another good book for this type of thing.
The joy of this book is its careful layout. One page portrays the building itself, while the other provides a cross-section, as well as a smaller blueprint. Everything is proportionally consistent (even the position of the furniture matches across the different diagrams) and everything is functional (every dwelling place contains beds, cooking areas, bathrooms and so on). No names are given as to the residences of each dwelling, only short sketches of their backstories and personality – with tiny little details for a sense of verisimilitude.
For instance, a man living in an abandoned subway station is described thusly: “he doesn’t seem to be in hiding or on the run, it’s as though he’s waiting for someone or searching for something.” Some details are even tinier, like how the older of two sisters that live in a steampunk carriage car is actually the shorter of the two. But my personal favourite would have to be the artist’s depiction of the seven dwarfs’ house. Rather than bearded little men they’re rendered as tiny sprites with red tunics and triangular hats, with a giant squirrel that lives in the tree above them as a size reference. If you look closely, the magic mirror is stored in their storehouse!
Quite a lot of this is based on Japanese culture, folklore, style and history, and there’s definitely an anime look to the illustrations. Yoshida clearly knows her architectural history, as she often points out different features of the buildings and the “Western style” mashups she depicts that have recently become prevalent in Japanese homes – for instance, having the toilet and bathtub occupy the same room.
It ends with a floorplan of her own studio, some concept sketches, comic book panels of “the Reserved Mechanic” going about his day, explanations as to how she goes about creating her art (with diagrams) and her desire to provide a story behind each illustration for the sake of inspiring her readers’ own imaginations.
Mary Anne and Miss Priss by Anne M. Martin
Two Mary Anne books in a row? What have I done to deserve this? Okay, so Mary Anne isn’t too bad when she’s actually narrating her own stories – the thing that winds me up the most is when another character is describing her as “the kindest and most sensitive person I’ve ever met in my LIFE,” and she’s spending the whole book being self-absorbed and making passive-aggressive comments. At least when we’re in her own head, we can see where she’s coming from.
This is one of the problem child books, in which an issue with one of the babysitters’ clients is noticed and dealt with by our intrepid club. This time around it’s Jenny Prezzioso, who Mary Anne notices is behaving even more fastidiously than usual: constantly washing her hands, fretting over her clothes, and refusing to join in games with the other kids. If she gets even a speck of dirt on her, she changes her entire outfit.
Mary Anne worries it’s some sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder, only for Jenny to switch tact a few sessions later and become Miss Mess instead of Miss Priss, with no regard to the state of her clothes and leaving a disaster in every room. The club suspects it has something to do with Mrs Prezzioso’s mysterious errands which have required her to hire a regular babysitter several times a week, and they soon discover she’s been taking baby Andrea to various modelling auditions. Jenny is clearly gunning for attention in the wake of her little sister’s newfound fame.
In a somewhat odd development, the situation basically resolves itself. Mary Anne tries to tell Mrs Prezzioso about how her daughter is acting in her absence, but it turns out she’s already aware. Jenny decides she wants to try her hand at modelling, only to find the whole process unspeakably dull. And finally, when Jenny’s audition for a commercial doesn’t get her a job, she shrugs it off and asks to join the kickball game with the rest of the neighbourhood kids.
So the Babysitters Club really just sit back and just observe this time around (though Mary Anne also had to clean up a lot of Jenny’s messes along the way). There are a few chapters that explore the tension and drama of getting into show business (I liked the part when Mary Anne notes: “I couldn’t get over the difference between an audition and a job. The people I’d encountered at the auditions had been brusque and cold. The people at the photo shoot were helpful and extremely considerate”) and I still maintain that anyone who puts their kids through this sort of thing is a complete monster (even the ghostwriter seems to think so, as Mrs Prezzioso constantly mentions that she’s doing all this for Andrea’s college fund).
The B-plot is the Pike triplets deciding they’ve had enough of babysitters and forming a kickball team for the neighbourhood kids. However, their complete lack of organization or disciple means it falls apart fairly quickly, and the girls step in to give them some tips on how to run things. It intersects with Jenny’s story at the very end, when she decides to forego modelling for joining the team, but is otherwise completely superfluous – and I’m going to go out on a limb and predict we’ll never hear about it again.
Once again Mallory is being taken advantage of by her parents, who are using her for babysitting without letting her attend Babysitters Club meetings, and by her count, she’s actually babysitting more for her own family than she did when she was a full-time club member. At the end she returns, and honestly, it’s not like she was gone a long time. I was under the assumption her absence and moniker as an “honorary member” would last a while longer.
Kristy and the Copycat by Anne M. Martin
It feels like a long time since we’ve had a Kristy book, and this isn’t one of her best by a long shot. Feeling a little restless with only coaching baseball instead of playing it, the babysitters encourage Kristy to try out for the school team. If she makes it, Stacey and Claudia will pick up the coaching slack with the Krushers (hijinks naturally ensue).
She gets through, only to discover that some of the older girls on the team expect her to go through an initiation (that is, hazing. I’m not sure if it was illegal when this book was published, but it definitely is now). They want her and the other three newbies to spray paint a school shed, and though Kristy initially refuses, peer pressure eventually gets the better of her and she goes through with it. The next day she’s horrified to hear over the radio that the shed burnt down, severely injuring a man who was attempting to put out the flames.
Guilt-ridden and ashamed, she expresses a desire to fess up, only for the other girls to gang up on her and state they’ll deny everything and ostracize her if she says anything. To make matters worse, she’s getting notes in her locker straight out of I Know What You Did Last Summer, in which someone threatens to expose her if she doesn’t pay them to keep quiet. Things go from bad to worse when the boy’s team (of which Logan is a part) is accused of the fire and stood down.
Kristy is on the verge of coming clean when authorial fiat swoops in to let her off the hook. Turns out that a completely different group of young people were responsible for the shed burning down, they having done so for the chance of playing the hero by putting it out again (what are the odds so many people were there on school grounds that night?) One of the other newbies confesses to sending the threatening notes, having wanted to pressure the others into coming clean, but now absolved of responsibility, they all agree to just keep quiet anyway.
So the moral of the story is “if you think you’ve done something wrong, don’t fess up straight away just in case it was actually someone else.” Okay, I jest. Kristy spells it out for the reader: that never again will she be pressured into doing something that she knows is wrong.
But wait, I hear you say. What does any of that have to do with the title or the cover art? Well, not a lot. The B-plot is Karen becoming fascinated by the idea of being a teenager and plying the older girls with questions on how to act, dress and talk. At one point Kristy snaps at her, as she’s in the midst of her doldrums and doesn’t like the idea of Karen wanting to be like her at that precise point in time – that’s the only intersection these two plots have.
I’ve no idea if Kristy making the baseball team is a development that sticks, or whether it goes the way of Dawn’s recycling initiative. There’s a mildly funny interlude in which Stacey and Claudia take over the training of the Krushers with very little idea of what they’re doing. Oh, and I’m pretty sure this is the first appearance of Karen’s pretend husband Ricky Torres in a Babysitters Club book. And… that’s it really.
Other observations: Karen’s mother calls up and is referred to as “Mrs Engle,” which baffled me for a while. I don’t think she’s ever been referenced in a BSC book before, and I’ve never heard that name before. Then there’s: “Stacey was studying her clipboard thoughtfully, where she’d written notes from a basic book of softball, and trying to figure out why she had written the word “fungo” in the margin.” Glad I’m not the only one who does that. Finally, Kristy addresses the Krushers and hears: “That is not an indoor voice,” I heard Karen say disapprovingly. They’re on the baseball field.
Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
I feel like I’ve been reading these books forever, so I’m going to have a nice long break before tackling the final three in the series (though I know Eoin Colfer has since published a sequel series about Artemis’s younger twin brothers). These next two books in the eight-set book series plots Artemis’s course from anti-villain to anti-hero: one that still has self-serving priorities, but is becoming ever-more involved in helping the good guys – somewhat against his better judgment.
The Opal Deception sees the return of Opal Koboi, the mastermind behind the events of The Arctic Incident who wants revenge on those that thwarted her, requiring a team-up between Artemis, Butler, Holly Short (who has gotten over that whole hostage crisis thing) and Commander Root in order to stop her.
The Lost Colony gets a bit weird, as Colfer introduces the concept of demons (not fallen angels but a different kind of fairy) who live in another dimension accessible by a blend of magic and time travels. Look, I’ll just get Foaly to explain:
Demons are unique among all the creatures of the Earth. Their island, Hybras, is actually an enormous moonrock that came down in the Triassic period when the moon was hit by a meteorite. From what we can glean from fairy cave paintings and virtual models, this moonrock punched into a magma stream and more or less got itself welded to the surface. Demons are descended from lunar micro-organisms that lived inside the rock. They are subject to a strong physical and mental lunar attraction – they even levitate during the full moon. And it is this attraction which pulls them back into our dimension. They have to wear silver to repel the lunar pull.”
Yeah, it’s pretty random. Why even use the word “demon” when they’re more akin to little aliens? In any case, Artemis has been tracing appearances of demons around the world, and might have met his match in Minerva Paradizo, another child criminal prodigy with a vested interest in the species (just kidding, she’s pretty useless).
There’s not a heck of a lot to say: the page counts are longer and the stakes get higher, but there’s still time for things like Mulch saving the day with flatulence and his evacuating bowels method of tunnelling through the earth. I’ve never been one for potty humour, especially in fantasy (see also: Captain Underpants).
That said, Colfer isn’t afraid to mess with the status quo: killing off at least one major character and giving his characters a chance to grow and change. Along with gradually becoming a more moral and conscientious person, Artemis now also faces the horrifying onset of puberty.
Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
I don’t think I would have chosen to watch this film of my own free will, but I had a friend around for dinner and movie, and this was the one she (rather inexplicably) decided on. I knew about its existence, but as is the way with movies you don’t watch, you end up thinking they came out only a few years ago – turns out this one is over a decade old. (I did think Colin Firth looked rather youngish).
It was also the big break of Taron Egerton, who I always get mixed up with Alden Ehrenreich, playing an angry youth from the wrong side of the tracks who is eventually recruited into a secret service organization known as the Kingsman. It’s a rather tongue-in-cheek James Bond spoof, involving things such as an evil plot for world domination achieved via SIM cards, a henchwoman with prosthetic blades instead of legs, and a number of highly stylized fight scenes – even knowing nothing else about this film, I was aware of The Oner massacre in the church.
It’s… fine I guess? Imminently silly, full of familiar actors having a good time (Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Michael Caine, Mark Hamill, Samuel L. Jackson), and featuring a recruitment process that makes the Kingsman look like absolute psychopaths, it’s at least slick and stylish and holds one’s attention. The gender politics are very 2015, with the sole female recruit depicted (somehow!) as both hypercompetent and completely inferior to her male cohorts. I’m not sure how they pulled that off, but it’s a sight to behold.
There’s also the matter of the Crown Princess of Sweden, who is held against her will in a bunker when she refuses to comply with the villain’s scheme. When Eggsy finds her, she promises him anal sex if he manages to save the world (because if you’ve been held hostage in a bunker for an unspecified period of time, this is definitely what’s at the forefront of your mind) and the second-to-last scene is her flipping onto her stomach as Eggsy enters the cell and the camera panning down to her bare backside.
Okay, look. I realize it fits the absurd tone of this film, and the encounter is both consensual and enthusiastic (the director is even on record for saying he devised the scene as a subversion of the usual Bond Girl antics in which James is the sexually aggressive one, something I’m not even going to try to unpack). But I will just say this: with the release of The Legend of Aang in the Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise, I am once more deluged with shippers dredging up their nonsensical insistence that Katara was turned into a “voiceless prize” for the hero.
No guys, THIS is what it looks like when a woman is turned into a voiceless prize for the hero.
Constantine: City of Demons (2018)
After seeing Matt Ryan play John Constantine in Legends of Tomorrow a couple of months ago, I wanted to double back and see some of his other outings as the character.
As part of the DCAMU, this film apparently precedes Justice League Dark, though it doesn’t really make much of a difference either way. Both are standalone stories. What’s more interesting is that having watched this after the first and only season of NBC’s Constantine, it fills in a few plot details regarding John’s background that the show never got around to sharing – specifically the origins of his friendship with Chas and what actually went down in Newcastle when Astra was dragged into hell.
So even though the show and the film belong in separate continuities, they’re both based on the same source material (the comic books) and don’t contradict each other in any significant way. Throw in the presence of Matt Ryan as Constantine’s voice actor, and it’s easy to view this as unconnected but complimentary adventure within the rest of the Constantine-starring vehicles. Chas’s ex-wife is even called Renee, just like in the television show (though their daughter is named Trish instead of Geraldine). It’s funny the way stories can co-exist and supplement each other like that.
After a decade of no contact, Chas reaches out to his old friend Constantine after his daughter falls into a mysterious coma (yup, the same thing happens on an episode of the show!) Constantine agrees to investigate and diagnoses dark magic at work, managing to extract an address from his various spells. The address takes him and Chas to Los Angeles, where they’re met by a demon who arranged the attack on Trish in order to employ John’s services in taking out demonic competition in the city.
I didn’t enjoy this nearly as much as I did Justice League Dark, mainly because (and I do realize this is a trivial reason) the animation on the demons and other hell denizens was so unappealing. Charnel pits, torture chambers, swimming pools full of blood and bones – it was just gross to behold. The plot wasn’t that tight either, and the ensemble not half as enjoyable as the team-up of Constantine, Batman, Zed, Deadman and Jason Blood.
Still, it was the last film in the DCAMU I needed to watch, so I can finally tick that branch of televised DC off the list.
The Old Guard 2 (2025)
Five years isn’t the longest time people have had to wait between a film and its sequel – Terminator 2 and Aliens spring to mind – but the difference there is that they ended up being two of the greatest sequels of all time. When you’re made to wait half a decade for a Netflix sequel, it has to blow people’s socks off. This does not. In fact, it’s worse than bad – it’s boring.
The Old Guard had a reasonably interesting premise: a group of immortal warriors who can survive fatal wounds lend their resources and expertise to people in need, taking a young girl called Nile (another newly discovered immortal) under their wing to show them the ropes. Along with Charlize Theron’s Andromache, there’s the lovers Joe and Nicky, who met during the Crusades on opposite sides of the conflict, and Booker, who was exiled at the end of the film for betraying them to their enemy.
Also in the mix is Veronica Ngo as Andromache’s very good friend Quỳnh (it’s never explicit, but they’re very intense with each other) who was sealed in a metal casket and thrown into the ocean, doomed to drown and be resurrected, only to immediately drown again, for centuries. It’s too horrific to think about for long, but the end of the first film revealed she had managed to escape, and had an axe to grind with Andromache for not rescuing her sooner. (This type of thing always gets on my nerves; when a good guy is blamed for things that clearly aren’t their fault and have no control over).
Andromache’s reunion with Quỳnh and the gang’s reconciliation with Booker were obviously the two emotional hooks for the audience in any hypothetical sequel, but unfortunately nothing interesting is done with them. Quỳnh is angry with Andromache until she’s not, and Booker doesn’t get much to do before his Redemption Equals Death Heroic Sacrifice.
Most of the plot revolves around Uma Thurman as the first immortal trying to achieve some nefarious scheme, and honestly – it’s just so boring. How is that even possible? Chiwetel Ejiofor and Henry Golding are here too, but they don’t contribute much.
Ironically it was fandom buzz that brought my attention to the original film in the first place, but this time around – crickets. It took too long to arrive, it was eclipsed by K-Pop Demon Hunters, and it’s ultimately only half a movie, concluding with half the team taken captive and Andromache setting off to rescue them. But since no one cared about this movie, I doubt we’ll ever see her succeed. It’s a bummer.
Fear Street: Prom Queen (2025)
Well, that was also disappointing, but at least I knew that going in. In 2021, Leigh Janick pulled off a trilogy that was far better than it had any right to be, so much so that I wrote an entire post on the subject. Though she’s still a producer, this was written and directed by Matt Palmer and yeah – I’ll spare you the rant about IPs being taken from women and given to men as soon as they get popular.
The biggest problem with this movie is simple: it doesn’t fit into the established lore of the original trilogy, though it’s clearly MEANT to, as it sets up the Shadyside/Sunnyvale dichotomy and mentions the Camp Nightwing massacre a couple of times, but nothing else makes any sense.
This deals with a mass killing at Shadyside Prom 1988, which probably should have been referred to in the original trilogy if it was the most recent massacre the town has lived through. Furthermore, it completely ignores the fact that the killers of each generational massacre were possessed by evil to commit their crimes in order to mystically enrich Sunnyvale (and specifically the Goode family). This is a crucial part of the mythos! Are we meant to infer that the killers featured here had their names written in the stone under the mall, or were they just a family of psychos that coincidentally lived in Shadyside?
It’s seemingly the latter, though that doesn’t make much sense either as they’re presented as an affluent family even though the whole point of the original trilogy was that everyone in Shadyside lived below the poverty line.
What we get is a pretty lacklustre slasher – ironically, exactly what I thought the Fear Street trilogy was going to be before I watched it. Lori Granger is a pariah among (what’s meant to be) a whole town of pariahs given that her mother has long been suspected of killing her father, even though nothing was ever proven. Weirdly enough, she’s a cop, which means she a. works with either Nick Goode or his father, even though neither make an appearance, and b. she should maybe be using police resources to figure out who killed hubby?
Lori really wants to be Prom Queen in the upcoming dance for vague self-actualization reasons, though she’s up against the members of the “wolfpack” – that is, the school’s most popular girls. Again, no such thing in the original trilogy. They were all losers that had each other’s backs.
During the dance, students keep wandering off to die in very uninteresting ways at the hands of a masked person in a red rain slicker – also a pretty uninteresting get-up for a serial killer. There are plenty of suspects and red herrings, but it eventually comes down to a pretty lacklustre reveal. Lili Taylor is completely wasted as the school principal, Ariana Greenbalt is killed off after five minutes (I was looking forward to seeing her!), and though I usually find Katherine Waterhouse profoundly bland, she at least gets to have a little fun here.
The very last scene depicts the death of the killer, with their blood forming the witch’s mark that was used in the trilogy – and again, it makes no sense! It does not fit the M.O. of the Shadyside killings at all.
Perhaps I should be grateful, as I was always leery about more movies in this continuity, recognizing that leaving some questions unanswered is a good thing, regardless of how much I would have liked to see some of those gaps filled in. Where did the Satanic book come from? How were the Goode family’s victims chosen? How did Union become two towns? Why not provide the backstory for some of the more famous killers, like Ruby Lane or the Milkman? It’s better we don’t know, and Prom Queen has pretty much ensured there won’t be anymore entries in this franchise.
K-Pop Demon Hunters (2025)
I watched this at the end of last year, and it was just as much fun the second time around – with one caveat. The same issue remains: that after establishing Rumi is half-demon, the story fails to clue us in as to what this actually means.
There’s plenty of enthusiastic chatter in fandom circles about “embracing your dark side,” but no one ever seems to be able to define it properly. It is at different point – but also simultaneously – an aesthetic, a metaphor for depression, a plea for acceptance, or an excuse for empowering guilt-free sex with a hot villain. In this case, Rumi feels conflicted about hiding her true self, and at one point asks her mentor: “why couldn’t you love all of me?” The triumphant climax is when she sings acceptance about herself and how she’s no longer going to conceal her dark half… but again, what exactly does this dark half embody?
Because the film establishes that demons whisper anxieties into people’s heads and steal their souls to feed to their demonic overlord, so if there was a risk that Rumi was ever going to do stuff like this, then yeah – she really needed to work on repressing that side of herself. But since there’s never any indication she’s going to do these things, or even feel the urge to do them, it’s unclear what she’s so worried about. Her darkest moment manifests as some cool-looking arm tattoos, a golden eye (also cool) and slightly dishevelled hair. Oh, the horror!
I think that’s the major flaw in what’s otherwise a great success story of an under-promoted original film that became a sensation through word-of-mouth. I just don’t understand what internal threat Rumi is actually facing, or how accepting her demonic side changes her life in any way.
Hustle: Season 8 (2012)
Eight seasons and forty-eight episodes brings us to the close of Hustle, and it manages to go out in style, with one last con, plenty of breaking the fourth wall, and bringing back Stacie and Danny for the Grand Finale. Nicely done. It’s strange to think it started back in 2004, which feels like a lifetime ago, and ended in 2012, which feels like yesterday.
Even though it sticks to its formula right to the very end, with one successful grift per episode, you can see the writers getting their ducks in a row: Mickey dropping hints about retirement, Eddie getting a love interest, some closure provided on the team’s interpersonal relationships, and the aforementioned return of Stacie and Danny. In fact, I was surprised at how much screentime Stacie received, edging out Emma as the final episode’s female lead. And heck, I was even pleased to see Danny, and wondered right from the start if he was the hitman who “kills” the team.
The only character missing is the erstwhile Billy, who disappeared without explanation after season four. His absence is all the more disappointing considering there was a perfect role for him as one of the fake cops that “interrupt” the con and pretends to arrest our protagonists, but he’s nowhere to be seen. What can I say, it would have been nice to see everyone accounted for, but apparently there can be only one Black guy on the team, just as there can only be one woman.
At least Eddie was there, still tending his bar that absolutely no one ever seemed to visit besides our main characters, and I’ll admit to getting a little teary when the very last post-credits scene is him turning out the lights.
Mercifully, Mickey and Emma don’t hook up onscreen, and it’s clearly established that Danny and Stacie didn’t hook up offscreen (I was a bit worried about that). Even more mercifully, Emma and Stacie don’t immediately hate each other on sight (I was also worried about that). If any couple deserved to walk off into the sunset together it was Mickey and Stacie, since Emma always seemed like such a child compared to them, but instead the show opts for a Maybe Ever After. Wise call.
A final roundup of familiar character actors take their last chance to be involved: Paterson Joseph, John Barrowman, Sheila Hancock, Patrick Baladi (Neil from The Office), Nina Sosanya (last seen in Killing Eve), Mark Williams (Arthur Weasley from Harry Potter), Raquel Cassidy (in a very different role from her part in Downton Abbey) and Sophie Ward (I just saw her last month in Young Sherlock Holmes!)
Much like Elementary (below), the show is to be commended for sticking to a formula that worked: one con-job per episode – no more, no less. No overarching villains, no romantic tumours, no arc fatigue, just solid fifty-minute stories. It’s not always perfect, as Emma is still on the receiving end of sexist comments and weird “punishments” (like having to tango with an old man as payment for his help) and the second-to-last episode involves Ash’s godson, a repulsive little shit who demands to be involved in the latest hustle, mucks it up TWICE because he won’t stay where he’s told, and who eventually steals money from the team. Yet for some reason, everyone (except Emma) treats him as a delightful little scamp and credits him for salvaging the whole thing, even though he doesn’t do that either! Ash just gets hit by inspiration after looking at his house of cards. I feel bitterly cheated the episode doesn’t end with the little toerag getting hit by a car.
But Hustle nevertheless understands the fine art of last episodes, and goes out on a high.
Constantine: Season 1 (2014 – 2015)
It was strange to watch something I knew I’d seen before, and yet had very little memory of. I recalled the gist of the pilot, appearances from a couple of Arrow actors (playing different characters in a case of retroactive You Look Familiar), the knockers in episode two… and that was it. A bit disconcerting really, though it does indicate that this show wasn’t all that memorable.
In doing a bit of research, it’s obvious it was Screwed By the Network as well, with the show originally commissioned for sixteen episodes, only for them to abruptly cut it back to thirteen, with a finale that doesn’t actually feel like a finale at all – just another Monster of the Week episode. After the cancellation, showrunner Daniel Cerone posted a completed script for what the next episode would have been.
Still, Matt Ryan got the last laugh, given his reprisal of the role on Legends and lending his voice to several DC animated films. I’m not hugely familiar with Hellraiser comics, but he’s now considered the John Constantine (sorry Keanu).
The pilot episode involves Lucy Griffiths, best known as Marian on the BBC’s Robin Hood, who sadly gets written out and never seen again after her debut. Being Dropped After the Pilot is always an odd creative choice to make for a character (remember Callie on The 100? Or Abreu in Elementary?) especially when she’s as central to the unfolding plot as Liv was. Not only does her mysterious father’s underground bunker filled with magical relics become Constantine’s HQ, but a lot of time is spent on building up her background and abilities.
It’s a shame, as Griffiths was apparently a big fan of the Hellraiser comics, and there’s nothing wrong with her character in theory or performance – apparently the executives just didn’t want an original character as a sidekick. Still, at least they cover for her departure reasonably well, as Constantine gives her a choice on whether she wants to stick around or not, and she decides – nope. I can appreciate any female character who pulls a Fuck This Shit I’m Out, and at least she leaves behind a map that pinpoints locations across America that are rife with supernatural activity.
This choice is also brought up frequently after Zed is introduced (with much the same power-set as Liv) who decides that learning about her abilities and hanging out with Constantine are worth the risk. Still, the content and vibes of the pilot feel quite different from the rest of the show, even when taking into account that premiere episodes are often designed as extended “proof of concept” mini-movies. The whole thing feels like it’s on speed dial, with Liv getting introduced to her family history, harnessing her abilities, visiting her mother, learning to scry, and then dropping out of the action forever, all within the space of forty-five minutes.
It also means that the sophomore episode, which is usually a chance for the writers to set the tone and lay out the show’s general premise, also has to handle the task of introducing a brand-new female lead.
When Constantine made the jump to Legends of Tomorrow (with a one-shot appearance on Arrow in-between) then most of the storylines featured in his own show were dropped. The rising darkness, his partnerships with Zed and Chas, the significance of those who were present at Newcastle, the existence of angels – nowhere to be seen. That said, I was mildly astonished that Astra was in fact a huge plot-point that they carried into Legends, with Olivia Swann taking on the role in the season I’ve just watched, and Constantine finally getting her out of hell. There’s a huge tonal change, and it ignores some of the details established here as to what actually happened in Newcastle, but it’s clearly the same plotline.
Then there’s all the familiar character actors who did the rounds in these types of shows throughout the noughties/teens: William Mapother (Ethan from LOST), Jeremy Crutchley (Hawthorne in Salem, Morley in Black Sails), Jonjo O'Neill (Aleister Crowley from Pennyworth), Emmett Scanlan (Delmos in Atlantis, DC Martin in The Fall) and a few Easter eggs for comic book/folklore aficionados, like the Hand of Glory, Doctor Fate’s helmet, and a ton of other magical knickknacks.
Having rewatched it for the first time since after Constantine’s move into the wider Arrowverse, there were a few other notable observations:
Although there were a few brief scenes of Constantine smoking cigarettes, his bisexuality is completely absent (though Matt Ryan seemed game, as there was a certain vibe between himself and Gary Lester).
Juliana Harkaway and Jeremy Davies both turn up as minor characters well before their stints on Arrow as the more significant Dinah Drake and Doctor John Deegan respectively. And I’ve only just now learnt that Jeremy Davies played Ritchie Simpson here, and voiced him in Justice League Dark.
It’s interesting that there’s no real love interest for him until Zari comes along in Legends – plenty of flirting, but no extended romantic entanglements. Even his rapport with Zed feels more mentor/student than potential lovers.
It must have been an expensive show to make, as Constantine Travels At the Speed of Plot all over America to investigate supernatural phenomena, only to return back to the underground bunker on a regular basis. I mean, you’d think they’d just make it the House of Mystery so he could immediately transport wherever he wants to go, just for convenience’s sake!
That said, perhaps they were trying to differentiate themselves from the eternal road-trip of Supernatural, upon which this show is clearly inspired (even though Supernatural in turn was inspired by the Hellraiser comics, mostly obviously through Cas basing his trenchcoat look on Constantine). Still, the same formatting is there: travelling through different states, dealing with demonic and angelic activity, weaving one-shot mysteries across a larger seasonal arc – the structure is practically identical.
It’s a shame it couldn’t live up to its full potential, but it kept me entertained across a couple of weekends. There’s nothing like a couch blob and a binge watch.
Elementary: Season 7 (2019)
I felt mildly devastated in getting to the seventh and final season of Elementary, as this has been a show that’s kept me company through some rough patches and the darkness of a New Zealand winter; the years marked by the recession of Jonny Lee Miller’s hairline (not to be mean, but yeah – he has visibly aged over the course of this show). Speaking of hair, Watson is blonde now, and I’ve no idea if it’s a Watson thing or a Lucy Liu thing.
This season has been cut down to a brisk thirteen episodes (which is still a lot these days, though was the norm back in Ye Olden Times of 2019) and I get the sense that this was a surprise renewal after the writers had more or less signed off at the end of season six. This was why that season ended with Holmes and Watson at Baker Street, and Marcus off to join the US Marshalls.
I’m certainly not complaining that we got to spend a little more time with these characters, and the stay of execution means that there’s time for the writers to reconcile their protagonists with Captain Gregson, get one more visitation with Kitty, do their take on Reichbach, and have Joan finally adopt a child. All these storylines would have been dropped otherwise, though they did have to completely jettison Marcus’s decision to join the Marshalls, which means an entire season worth of build-up went to waste. Ah well, life changes on a dime.
Having relocated to London to avoid murder charges, it’s not long before Sherlock and a homesick Joan are back in their usual stomping grounds of New York City, working out of the brownstone again. The reason for their return is the near-fatal shooting of Captain Gregson as part of a mystery that spans the whole season, interspersed with the usual case of the week. I would have liked to spend a bit longer in London, but this show’s heart has always been in New York.
There are plenty of familiar guest stars, seizing their last chance to appear (or reappear) on a Sherlock Holmes show: Tamzin Grieg (for only one episode, which feels criminal), Virginia Madsen (reprising her role after a long absence), Saffron Burrows for only two scenes (again, criminal), Ophelia Lovibond (giving Kitty a nice little swansong in the premiere), and Daniel Davis (Niles from The Nanny!) And because the last season did something of a goodbye tour for a number of Sherlock’s Irregulars, this one does something similar for a few recurring villains – a couple I didn’t recall, but also Ally Ioannides as Cassie, the girl who passed herself off as a rescued kidnap victim in order to claim a wealthy family’s inheritance.
They give her something of a redemption arc, which didn’t work particularly well considering the sheer sociopathic tendencies of her behaviour during her first appearance, but it certainly fit with the overarching theme of the season: to try and prevent crime before it happens.
With that in mind, the most pertinent new character is James Frain as recurring villain Odin Reichenbach. I had no idea he was turning up, but he makes it to the opening credits, and of course, any long-time fan of Sherlock Holmes will recognize the significance of his last name. He’s the most effective villain they’ve utilized in a long time, as a tech-bro who is convinced he can prevent crime before it happens by monitoring people’s private online details and assassinating them if he deems any attacks imminent.
It makes for an interesting ethical conundrum, and I have to admit that the man’s pitch is convincing. I wouldn’t have joined him, but I would have been tempted to simply sit back and let him do his thing. Unfortunately, the writers end up cheating a little, eventually revealing that Odin himself orchestrated a killing to get Holmes and Waston on-side. Later it turns out he killed someone for profit, which he tries to spin as “the greater good.”
It simplifies a complex issue (the whole “would you give up freedom for security?” and “are pre-emptive strikes ever ethical?” debate) as well as the intricacies of motive and effect. I mean, what if one of Odin’s would-be killers are themselves going after bad guys, like – oh, say the CEO of a health insurance company that engages in unfair claims and overbilling practices? (Just off the top of my head). I suppose Odin might just recruit them instead of having them murdered, but my point is that it’s a tricky situation the show doesn’t really have time to explore in all its juicy details, so they ultimately take the easy way out and make Odin a megalomaniac.
As the season winds down it becomes increasingly obvious that Natalie Dormer as Moriarty will not be making a final appearance, and in a way I’m happy that she wasn’t given the opportunity to eat the show as so many other iterations of this character have done in so many other adaptations, especially when her book counterpart is extremely minor. Still, she is in the finale in spirit, with the question of whether or not she’s alive and pulling the strings on certain criminal operations.
The focus is right where it should be: the love and friendship between Holmes and Watson (with a little extra Gregson and Marcus on the side just for good measure). We get a reasonably satisfying finale, though I would have liked some updates on Joan’s family (her mother, stepfather, half-sister and brother – I’d totally forgotten she had a brother!), Gregson’s daughter Hannah, Alfonso (who hasn’t been seen or mentioned in a while), Mrs Hudson and Clyde (seriously, how was there no Clyde?) And shout out to Eugene Hawes the mortician, just steadily doing his job away in the background of nearly every episode.
And from beginning to end, the writers never wavered from their formula, a little to their detriment, but mostly to good effect. This is a show you can drop into at any point and get a complete beginning-middle-and-end mystery with characters you enjoy spending time with – with the occasional narrative cul de sac. There’s one episode that includes a subplot about a female police officer that leaves for the private sector after she’s sexually harassed, and Captain Gregson confronting the offender. We never see either guest star again, and the situation is never referred to again. They just don’t make television like this anymore.
So, I ended up finishing both Elementary and Hustle this month, two long-running shows that I’ve spent a lot of time with over the past couple of years, and I’m a little verklempt that they’ve finally come to an end. Farewell detectives, farewell grifters. I’m gonna miss them all.
(Oh, and I laughed when an episode depicted Sherlock expressing confusion over the identity of Scrooge McDuck, because guess who had just started watching the third season of DuckTales?)
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