To Squee Or Not to Squee, vol. 4

Another year, another cornucopia of upcoming (or recently released) pop culture events by which to get potentially excited. Just to remind folks, these are all things that I’m looking forward to experiencing, while at the same time dreading for one reason or another. Sometimes, when you reach into the barrel of pickles, you get an electric eel. No idea where that analogy came from. There’s a tenuous theme this time: science fiction and the cosmos! So it’s only fitting to call this post:

C4UTIOUS ENTHUSI4SM 4: SP4CE 4DVENTURES

American Gods: The TV Show
WHAT IT IS: With no exaggeration, I consider Neil Gaiman’s American Gods to be not only one of the best examples of modern fantasy, but one of the finest 21st-century novels, period. It’s a whirlwind of gods, mortals, and stranger beings; it’s a love letter to Americana; it’s a murder mystery. It’s a masterpiece, which is not a term I just toss out. And it’s apparently gonna be a TV show! Someday. Maybe.
WHY I’M EXCITED: Because American Gods is a novel that cries out for this type of serialization. Tons of main and recurring characters, interesting subplots, a lot of fantasy but not a lot of crazy special-effects crap. A high concept in a largely urban setting. Thanks to Game of Thrones, the mega-budgeted TV epic is no longer a pipe dream. And you don’t have to be a mythology buff to appreciate modern-day incarnations of Odin, Loki, Anansi, Anubis, Kali, and other such deities. It’ll have something for everyone. And everything for me!
WHY I’M SKEPTICAL: Well, besides the usual potential for cock-ups, the status of the show is a wee bit tenuous. HBO originally nabbed it, which would have been perfect, but then they dropped it and now it belongs to FremantleMedia, the folks behind American Idol. Okay, they’ve done a lot more than that, but I would’ve preferred HBO because this is not a story that can be watered down. Okay? It can’t. Make it into another Supernatural and I will kill you all, TV network people. This is almost my favorite book of all time and I expect you to blow me away with delight. Is that too much to ask?
SQUEE FACTOR: 9
DANGER LEVEL: 9

Broken Age
WHAT IT IS: It’s the thing that made people realize the world is now ruled by Kickstarter. Well, in part. Tim Schafer, the man behind such gaming gems as Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, and Psychonauts, decided to raise money for a modern-day point-and-click adventure, and wound up with more moolah than many world charities. Hence, Broken Age, a game following both a young man in the future and a young woman in a fantasy realm. The game’s first act has recently been released.
WHY I’M EXCITED: I thrive on games like this -- artsy puzzlers with real atmosphere. Some people say point-and-click is obsolete. I say, eat a dick strudel. I love Schafer’s work and it gives me such hope that so many people are willing to pay to support a new, “traditional” game from him. This could start a true rebirth of the genre!
WHY I’M SKEPTICAL: Unfortunately, it seems like the old ways are lost. Modern point-and-clickers, even good ones like The Cave, often seem scared to alienate anyone by being too difficult. By contrast, a game like Monkey Island could keep you puzzling for hours, and that was the damn point. I’ve heard Broken Age is pretty easy, which isn’t entirely a bad thing if the writing and design are topnotch. But I still fret. Also, I fucking hate the new trend for releasing games in installments. I do not fucking want to play half the game and then wait around. I fucking want the entire fucking product. Which is the main reason I haven’t bought Broken Age yet. Ugh...it frustrates me. Don’t get me wrong, I plan to love the hell out of this game. I just insist on holding it to an unfair standard. I must be aging.
SQUEE FACTOR: 8
DANGER LEVEL: 5

UPDATE: I played Act I of the game! Read about it here.
UPDATE 2: My post on Act II can be found here.

Cute Fuzzy Video Game Movies
WHAT THEY ARE: At first, this entry was just about the Ratchet & Clank movie coming out in 2015. And then along came the trailer for 2016’s Sly Cooper flick. Good lord. Two game franchises I love, both starring charismatic furballs, both getting the big-screen treatment. By the same film studio. It’s a sinister plot!
WHY I’M EXCITED: Well, not only do I adore these two series, I feel like both of them could use a jump-start. Ratchet’s been twiddling his oversized thumbs. Sly just had a fun new game that, I fear, wasn’t successful enough to warrant another sequel. But if their movies take off...it might open the door for awesome new gaming. Plus, of course, both films look like they’ll be fun, silly, exciting, and overall faithful to the source material.
WHY I’M SKEPTICAL: Besides the fact that most of Rainmaker Entertainment’s oeuvre consists of Barbie films? I guess I just fear that nobody will take these seriously. In today’s animated feature film world, you have to work your ass off to compete with the likes of Pixar and Dreamworks. Will these films even snag a theatrical release? If they do, I have different qualms about each. Based on its trailer, the Ratchet film looks like an extended video game cutscene, and it’s also an origin story, which’ll be exasperating to us fans. (Ratchet started out as a real douchebag...) Meanwhile, the Sly film features a massive redesign of the characters (my God, they gave Sly PANTS!) that could alienate the fanbase. And both will have to appeal to the uninitiated. And, again, Barbie films.
SQUEE FACTOR: 5
DANGER LEVEL: 7

X-Men: Days of Future Past
WHAT IT IS: Hang on, is there an Avengers movie this year? No? Okay, then this might just be the big honking superhero event of 2014! Somehow tying together all the X-Men movies, this epic escapade sees Prof. Xavier, Magneto, Wolverine, Storm, Mystique, and the rest of the mutant gang travel back in time to avert a horrific future caused by mutant-hunting robots created by Peter Dinklage. Did I really just write that sentence?
WHY I’M EXCITED: Mostly out of shock. I like the X-Men movies but they are all the fuck over the place in quality, and after the confused mound of misfortune that was X-Men 3: The Last Stand, it seemed like the main franchise was kaput. So I was utterly bewildered (in a good way) when they not only lured back original director Bryan Singer, but also got so many cast members to return! It feels like the Greatest Hits album of the franchise, and it’s dealing with a very beloved story arc from the comics, not to mention introducing fan favorites like Bishop and Quicksilver. Bottom line, this might well be the incredible world-shaking X-Men spectacle that The Last Stand tried and failed to be. It’s a miracle that this project came together and I hope for its sweet miracle juice to spurt from theater screens.
WHY I’M SKEPTICAL: On the flip side, this looks like it could be a trainwreck more historical than the Old 97. One of the series’ biggest problems is having too many mutants bloating the storyline, and Days of Future Past will have more mutants than ever before. Original superteam plus younger prequel team plus a bunch of newcomers? Yeah, remember how Mystique had like three minutes of screen time in The Last Stand? It may be like that, only worse. A HUGE warning siren already went off when they revealed that Anna Paquin’s Rogue has been entirely cut from the fucking movie during the editing process. So, no biggie, we’re just treating our beloved main characters like disposable resources. This film is a bomb waiting to explode, but when it does, will it shower us with glory or decaying whale blubber? Jump-start the franchise or dip it in cement and bury it forever?
SQUEE FACTOR: 8
DANGER LEVEL: 10

UPDATE: I watched it! Read my reaction here.

Guardians of the Galaxy
WHAT IT IS: Hold the phone, perhaps this is the big honking superhero event of 2014, though the term “hero” must be used loosely. The Marvelverse is reaching out to its more eccentric properties and exposing us to this, a kooky space adventure featuring a team of lawless mercs that includes a humanoid tree, a trigger-happy raccoon, and Zoe Saldana with green skin. Basically, if you had no clue what was happening after the credits of Thor: The Dark World......this. This was happening.
WHY I’M EXCITED: I like weird. Nay, I have a massive love affair with weird. And I’m super-chuffed that Marvel’s biggest movie event of the year is something so kooky, anarchic, random, and WTFish. Hell, I never even read the source comic and I still think this looks awesome. As we’ve learned from Master Downey Jr. and Master Hiddleston, the Marvel movies are best when they mix action with humor, and GotG does that in spades, with extra humor. Also, it looks like they’re staying true to the comic (for instance, Rocket Raccoon is not a cuddly-wuddly mascot; he’s a mean, ruthless badass). Just watch the trailer and tell me it didn’t make you grin. All the message-board people going “Baww, this looks retarded!” can fuck off, because they said the same thing about The Avengers and look how that turned out.
WHY I’M SKEPTICAL: I’m not. Not really. Well, maybe a little. This film could fall into the trap of trying too hard. “Look, something funny and random! Aren’t we clever?! BE AMUSED!” I’ve seen that happen enough times. Action plus yuks can equal poison. But the Marvel films are the cure. I’m confident that this rude, oddball cousin will fit right into the family. And maybe one day...dare I imagine...a Guardians/Avengers crossover? Oh, my stars and garters.
SQUEE FACTOR: 9
DANGER LEVEL: 2

UPDATE: I watched it! Read my reaction here.

Obduction
WHAT IT IS: A new game by the creative team that made Myst. It’s a first-person puzzler, like Myst, in which a mysterious object transports you to a cryptic world. Like Myst. Another crowdfunded project, details on this remain scarce, but I hear it might be a lot like Myst.
WHY I’M EXCITED: Omigod. Omigod, you guys. Did I or did I not write an entire series of blog posts about Myst and its sequels and legacy? Do you have any idea of my reaction when I learned about Obduction? I may have screamed a bit. This is my new favorite thing to watch breathlessly for updates. I love the concept art they’ve released thus far. I love that they’re keeping the focus on puzzles and exploration. See, I told you games like this will never die! This one’s powered by the Unreal engine and seems to have a vaguely steampunkish flavor, and absolutely everything about it makes me happy. When it comes out, I will take any steps to ensure I can play it right away. Including buying a whole new fucking laptop, if need be.
WHY I’M SKEPTICAL: In my last Cautious Enthusiasm post, I mentioned that it’s sometimes awkward when an artist returns to their defining work after a long absence. I want the makers to remember what they did right, and not compromise their vision at all. There’s no real reason to assume this won’t kick ass. I’m just paranoid because this game’s a dream come true. I’m afraid it’s going to pop like a soap bubble. I’ll feel better after I go play some more Submachine.
SQUEE FACTOR: Over 9000
DANGER LEVEL: 2

Interstellar
WHAT IT IS: Christopher Nolan’s next film. And we all know who that is. I don’t even have to mention that he directed the recent Batman trilogy, Inception, and Memento. You already know that. Interstellar will be about a group of cosmonauts (including Matthew McConaughey, Jessica Chastain, and Anne Hathaway) who set out to explore a wormhole.
WHY I’M EXCITED: Everyone else is, so why shouldn’t I be? Nolan is a darling at the moment, with a reputation for mixing intense action with artfulness and Big Ideas, dragging the action/adventure genre out of the pits of inanity. Even his weaker films (like The Prestige) are a cut above average. Like Inception before it, Interstellar is being kept under wraps and projects a great cloak of mystery; all the first trailer told us was that rocket ships are cool. We’ll be learning more as the year progresses, and I’m pretty confident that the final film will be exciting, brainy, and profound.
WHY I’M SKEPTICAL: Every great director fumbles now and then. Spielberg had his 1941. Scorsese had his Gangs of New York. Shyamalan had his Everything After Unbreakable. Will Nolan finally drop the ball? I mean, if it’s too nerdy, the drooling masses will be scared away, but if it’s too dumb, we’ll feel betrayed. Plenty of people like to point at Nolan’s work and scream, “Overrated!” and the things he’s often accused of -- weak female characters, plots that don’t hold up to logic, pretentiousness -- will probably resurface here. And you can’t make a sci-fi action film and not tell anyone what it’s about; we learned that from the tragic fate of John Carter. So let’s not crown this with accolades until we know more about it, mmmkay?
SQUEE FACTOR: 8
DANGER LEVEL: 4

UPDATE: I watched it! Read my reaction here.

More Freaking Harry Potter Films (Sort Of)
WHAT IT IS: You thought the franchise was dead? Fool, it NEVER dies! Yep, there’s gonna be more Potter films, though they won’t be about Harry himself. Next up is an adaptation of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the popular textbook/field guide that J.K. Rowling published IRL. The film will be set in the early 20th century and will focus on Newt Scamander, famed wizard zoologist and “author” of the text. Google “Newt Scamander” and you’ll find many, many photos of Benedict Cumberbatch, so I guess we know how the fans swing.
WHY I’M EXCITED: Hey, Harry Potter is fun. I never said it wasn’t. I’m excited to see a Potterverse story set in the past; Rowling has clearly plotted out the entire freaking history of her world, and this gives both her and the filmmakers the opportunity to explore deeper. Also, something tells me Fantastic Beasts may have a lighter, more whimsical tone, and I’m down with that. I mean, the later Potter films were very good, but all that gray, drippy grimness wears on you after awhile. This could be something younger kids will like, while still bringing the wit that appeals to adult viewers. And I agree: Cumberbatch.
WHY I’M SKEPTICAL: Welllll....the first two Potter films were very light and whimsical, and they were also absolute rubbish, ignoring atmosphere in favor of carefully checking off plot points. Fantastic Beasts won’t have to worry about such things, but that leads to another problem: the book is a fucking field guide. It is literally just a list of weird creatures -- fun to read, yes, but to adapt into something with a plot and characters and stuff? Turning it into a film seems a bit like a forced attempt to get more moolah from a franchise that has already reaped bajillions. And where do you go from there? Quidditch Through the Ages might be neat, but...Tales of Beedle the Bard? Give me a break. I worry that twenty years from now, a withered J.K. Rowling is going to be wheezing, “Great news! They’re remaking the entire original series from Percy’s point of view!” I’m all in favor of a movie about magical monsters, but don’t create a monster.
SQUEE FACTOR: 7
DANGER LEVEL: 6

The Playstation 4
WHAT IT IS: Oh, come on.
WHY I’M EXCITED: I’m just hardcore enough of a gamer to get all worked up over a new console generation, and my loyalty has been to Sony ever since I watched a friend play Shadow of the Colossus. They misstepped a bit with the PS3, but now it seems like they might be on the right track, helped along by the fact that Microsoft hilariously shot themselves in the balls by attempting to present the Xbox One as a combination Facebook app, creepy stalker, and money-burning device. Because it’s about the FUCKING GAMES, guys. And the PS4 has some cool-looking ones. The Witness. InFamous 3. Rime. And...maybe...one day...if God is merciful...The Last Guardian. For that alone, I want a goddamn PS4. I want to help it win the 8th-gen war. So far, the Wii U is too gimmicky and the Xbox One has already become the Newt Gingrich of consoles. Go, Sony!
WHY I’M SKEPTICAL: I can’t make any real predictions yet -- especially now, when console exclusivity is a thing of the past. Consoles always seem to disappoint with their starting lineup, probably because game studios don’t know when the console shift will happen and often have to hurriedly revamp an in-development game, with painful results. Believe me, I will be getting a PS4. But not for awhile. I have a whole bunch of PS3 games I haven’t even gotten around to yet, and just because the 8th-gen graphics look great doesn’t mean the gameplay is any good. The PS4 needs to prove itself before I’ll take it seriously, and its victory over Microsoft is due mainly to the fact that Microsoft went first at E3. Wait and watch. And never let your guard down. To be a console gamer is to be paranoid.
SQUEE FACTOR: For the games, 9 or 10. For the console, too early to say.
DANGER LEVEL: It goes to eleven.

So, these should keep me busy. If I totally run out of ideas for blog posts, at least I’ll still have my Cautious Enthusiasm series. Don’t forget to check the old lists for updates (here, here, and here). And stay optimistic, because I’ve found that my enthusiasm pays off more often than not. Woohoo!

To Squee Or Not to Squee: Bobby Dollar

I’m working on a fourth Cautious Enthusiasm post, but in the meantime, here’s something from the first list!

I love to read, but there are very few authors of whom I can say I’ve read their entire body of work. Hell, I worship Neil Gaiman, but I’ve never gotten around to Stardust, mainly because it looks like something silly he scribbled down in between official projects. But talk to me about Tad Williams. I dare you. I’ve read every damn adult novel he’s ever published, and loved each one. It’s partly because, rather than whip out a bookshelf’s worth of quickies, he’s published a modest number of books, all of which are gi-freaking-gantic. I suspect he’d feel unworthy of his ancestors if he ever published a book that had fewer than four hundred pages. And I devour long books like Adam Richman devours Texas-themed steakhouse challenges. Williams is probably best known for traditional fantasy, but the man ain’t content with a single genre. Thus far, he’s written three series: Memory, Sorrow & Thorn (Tolkien-style high fantasy), Otherland (ridiculously epic cyberpunk), and Shadowmarch (more Tolkien-style high fantasy), as well as the standalone novels Tailchaser’s Song (like Watership Down but with cats and way weirder) and The War of the Flowers (best described as “fairy tales meet heavy metal”). Now he’s doing something brand-new. Well, to him.

It’s urban fantasy! A genre I find slightly tiresome because...well...it tends to all look and sound the same to me. Oh, look, we’re in a noir cityscape and everything is dark and gritty, but there’s also supernatural creatures and magic and shit! I’d put Tolkien-style as the most overdone fantasy genre, but urban is close behind. That’s why I was cautiously enthusiastic: I knew I’d enjoy anything by Williams, but the idea of badass angels and demons who keep silver-bullet-shooting magnums in their trench coats is so tired. Hellblazer did it. Dresden Files did it. Night Watch did it. China Miéville has done it several times in several ways. Those are just the examples I don’t have to look up. And let’s not forget that the current market is swamped with repetitive romantic tripe in which some streetwise woman or girl is armpit-deep in vampires, werewolves, demons, immortals, faeries, genetically enhanced superhunks, blah blah blah blah blah. I really wanted Tad Williams to try a less abundant genre. But we’re resigned, so how does his “Bobby Dollar” series compare?

Based on one book, I like it fine. If it’s gonna embrace urban/biblical fantasy clichés, at least it does so with some flair. Our hero is Bobby Dollar, a wry, likable dude who inhabits the parched, history-stung metropolis of San Judas, California. Bobby’s seen a lot in his life...and his afterlife. You see, his official name is Doloriel and he’s an angel. Heaven, Hell, angels, demons -- all exist. Thankfully, Williams doesn’t waste time with logical explanations for any of it. It all just is, and your average mortal is conditioned to ignore the celestial and infernal beings duking it out right under his or her honker. Bobby is an advocate, basically a divine lawyer, who appears on behalf of the recently-deceased and argues that they should go to Heaven rather than Hell. When he’s not working, he hangs out with his angel buddies and drives gorgeous old cars. As you’d expect, weird things start happening. Certain deceased souls are beginning to vanish, and neither Heaven nor Hell knows where they’re going. A demonic advocate is horribly murdered. A monstrous shadow-beast begins hunting Bobby to the ground. There’s a mysterious MacGuffin that everyone seems to think Bobby possesses, even though he doesn’t even know what it is. There’s a love triangle, complicated by the fact that one of the female elements is a drop-dead gorgeous demon. There’s gunplay and sex and comic relief and a tangled plot with many red herrings. It all gets the job done.

I admire Williams’ ability to change his narrative voice. He excels at the overly arch fantasy tone (“I am undone, sir!” cried Briony tremulously. “Would that I could but know your true feelings!”), but with Bobby Dollar, he shifts easily into a modern, snarky voice. I believe this is the first book he’s ever written with a first-person narrator, but you wouldn’t know it. Bobby’s a fun guy, wisecracking but never grating. His love affair with San Judas is palpable, and his flair for rule-breaking is refreshing if typical. Williams surrounds him with an entertaining mix of angels, demons, ghosts, clueless mortals, and even stranger entities (Bobby’s information broker is a reverse were-hog; it’s complicated). As with most noir, there’s a long list of possible suspects, and it’s likely that more than one dirty deed is underway, and everyone has a secret to tell, and so forth. The difference is that Bobby knows the clichés himself, and keeps his damn eyes open. Well, most of the time. The narrative gets a bit weaker in the second half when Bobby gets cozy with the aforementioned gorgeous demon. He does that annoying thing that male protagonists do where he can’t get over his romantic conquest, and -- recite with me! -- the more she pushes him away, the more he wants her. Because women, even strong women, are somehow defined by how much a man wants them. Come on, Tad, that’s old-school chauvinism, and the annoying thing is, it’s possible he’s doing it on purpose because it’s another noir archetype. The Hero and the Dangerous Woman. Tale as old as time.

Anyway. I still wish Williams had tried something off the beaten path, but his take on urban noir fantasy is quite enjoyable. The Dirty Streets of Heaven is the first in a trilogy about Bobby’s escapades, and the ending solves the mysteries that need solving while establishing the footwork for the sequels. I’ll read them for sure. Honestly, Tad Williams would have to drop the ball pretty hard for me to not read his work. I respect him for genre-hopping, for crafting incredible epics, and for keeping fantasy literature from sliding entirely into the mire of Forgotten Realms bullshit. Keep fighting the good fight. Maybe I’ll be able to join you one day.

VERDICT: Holy squee.

Dang-Blasted Video Game Theories

Dang-Blasted Video Game Theories

Know what I haven’t heard much about recently? That debate over whether video games can be art. I’d ask if my side won, but during the debate it became pretty clear that everyone was gonna have to agree to disagree. It all depends on whether you believe art can only exist for its own sake, and whether anything with an “agenda” or “use” loses the right to be art. I don’t believe that. I believe a video game, a car, a building, or a gourmet dinner can be art if they stir our senses and emotions. I think history will prove me right. Sorry, Roger Ebert. I love you but you were wrong.

On a somewhat related note, some of the games I played last year stirred my brainbox, and I found myself developing some interesting theories about stuff in the games that went unsaid. Hell, most of my theories are no doubt completely wrong and serve only to demonstrate how even a video game can have multiple interpretations. You know, like ART. Please enjoy these odd little interpretive suggestions; I’m proud of them.

SPOILERS AHEAD! WATCH YOURSELF!

Anodyne: The Game Is About Making a Game

Anodyne is one weird little trinket of a game -- a fake-retro adventure in the style of, say, early Legend of Zelda in which you play an archetypal hero saving an archetypal realm from evil -- armed only with a broom. The game absolutely refuses to make sense. The overworld is pretty standard -- green fields, cliffs, desert -- but from it you access some utterly bizarre realms, such as a black-and-white suburbia populated by ghosts and dead bodies, and a trippy sci-fi fortress ruled by friendly talking pyramids. There is no thematic or spatial connection between these areas. Many of the characters and bosses speak as if they’re ordinary people in some dude’s ordinary life. Are you that dude? Since the main character never talks, we don’t know. If you die and then decline to continue the game, you appear in a plain-looking bedroom. So is the whole game a dream? A metaphor? If the latter, what the fuck does it signify? The game’s so obtuse that you could pick any explanation you wanted.

And here is mine. I believe that Anodyne is about the creative process -- the very act of making a game (or a novel, or a painting; pick your poison). I believe this because I am a writer of fiction, and the arc of Anodyne is familiar to me. You construct a story, beginning with stock elements, then embellishing the framework with distinct details. Some stuff doesn’t work, while other stuff appears from nowhere and surprises you with its brilliance. You work in elements from your own life, facts you find interesting, people who become characters. The initial idea may be altered and twisted beyond what you imagined. It’s like the guys who made Anodyne just took every idea they had, every boxcar in their train of thought, and stuck it in there to demonstrate where the process of gamemaking took them. They got frustrated, they slacked off, they changed their minds -- and it all went into the final product. That’s pretty metaphysical and probably too corkscrewy of an explanation, but like I said, this game refuses to explain itself. So why not? It’s a game about a game.

God of War III: Athena Isn’t Real

In the third God of War installment, main protagonist Kratos kills all the Greek gods. Allllll the Greek gods. (Well, except for Aphrodite, who merely gets done in by Kratos’ presumably tiny penis.) He is aided in his odyssey of murder by Athena, who he killed in the last game, but who seems cool with that. She appears as a kind of mystical green Force-ghost, giving Kratos advice and pointing him in the right direction as he seeks Pandora’s Box. At the end, after killing Zeus, Kratos learns he has become the vessel for Hope, the one good thing within the box. Athena demands that he turn Hope over to her so she can rule the world with it. Instead, Kratos kills himself, thwarting her plans. The problem I have with this scenario is that they never explain why Athena can stick around as a mystical ghost and none of the other gods can. What makes her special? It ain’t her goodness, because she turns out to be kind of a gigantic bitch. What?

My theory is that the goddess of war and wisdom (oxymoron, lol) is truly dead and gone, and that the “Athena” who appears in God of War III is a hallucination experienced by the deeply unhinged Kratos -- basically a manifestation of his own conscience. His self-loathing stands in his way, so his brain conjures up an image of someone he respects to act as a motivator. He’s tricking himself into continuing on his terrible quest by making himself believe Athena’s got his back and knows all the answers. Then at the end, when Athena wants to claim Hope for herself, it’s really Kratos struggling with his own desire for power, with the devil on his shoulder telling him he could rule the human race. But he’s just noble and/or nihilistic enough to reject the idea and hand Hope over to humanity so they can figure things out for themselves. In other words, the last power-hungry god Kratos kills is...Kratos. Because we need to evolve without powerful assholes dictating our fates. And when Kratos dies, Athena vanishes, because she was never there to begin with.

And, yeah, I know that the post-credits easter egg implies Kratos isn’t really dead. But let’s save further theorizing for when they make God of War IV: Oops, We Forgot to Kill Dionysus, God of Wine and Orgies.

Thieves In Time: Sly Cooper Is His Own Ancestor

Okay...out of all these theories, this is the silliest and least convincing. But when it occurred to me, I could not leave it alone. It won me over with its utterly bonkers logic. I’ve written plenty about the fourth Sly Cooper game, but let’s talk about the ending. It is a cruel ending, because it sets up yet another sequel that may never exist. After defeating his latest foe, Sly winds up...wait for it...lost in time. His allies have no idea where he went or how to find him. But we’ve got an inkling. If you get full completion on the game, you’re treated to a bonus scene in which Sly wakes up to find himself stranded in ancient Egypt. Cool, so the probably-never-to-be-made fifth game will have an Egyptian level! But I think it may be way more than that.

The franchise has heavily referenced Sly’s various ancestors, skilled raccoon thieves from different time periods. One of them is the ancient Egyptian thief, Slytunkhamen. According to the Sly Cooper wiki, he is the original creator of the Thievius Raccoonus, the holy bible of thievery. He also had a son, Slytunkhamen II. So here’s my crazy-ass theory. Sly Cooper isn’t descended from Slytunkhamen -- he is Slytunkhamen. I think that when he was stuck in ancient Egypt, he renamed himself and set about beginning the Cooper legacy. And he was there long enough to have a son, continuing a line that would eventually lead to.....himself. How’s that for a paradox? I don’t have a shred of concrete evidence to support this. Well, except for the name: Slytunkhamen. Coincidence?

Now, it appears Slytunkhamen didn’t begin the Cooper lineage. One known ancestor predates him: Bob the Cavecoon from Prehistoric times. But I can work the theory around him in a couple ways. Perhaps Bob’s own lineage produces the female raccoon whom Sly falls in love with, and knocks up, in ancient Egypt. (It can’t be Sly’s regular love interest, Carmelita Fox, because they’re different species.) Or, alternatively, perhaps Sly wins the affection of Slytunkhamen, gets “adopted” by him, and becomes Slytunkhamen II, going on to build the hidden vault where the Coopers keep all their stolen treasures. Is it weird, how much thought I can put into this? It serves to distract me from the fact that the fifth Sly game will likely remain a dream in my head. Sigh.

Bastion: Rucks and The Kid Are the Same Person

I’ve saved the best for last; this was the theory that kicked off this blog post, and it’s the one I most think could be legit -- a possible easter egg from the gamemakers. In Bastion, you play as a voiceless kid (known, creatively, as “The Kid”) who awakens to find his world has been destroyed by a cataclysm. Soon enough, The Kid meets an elderly man named Rucks, who also narrates the game. With Rucks’ mentoring, The Kid is able to build the Bastion, a kind of combination stronghold and secret club house, from which civilization may be repaired. There’s a lot of plot after that, involving two warring nations, betrayal, secrets, romance, etc. Through it all, Rucks is there, guiding The Kid to success. And why?

Because Rucks is The Kid, all grown up.

I really, really believe this is true. First off, their physical appearances are similar enough; The Kid even has white hair. Secondly, Rucks helpfully tells us The Kid’s entire backstory. Did he learn it from The Kid? Nope -- he lived it. The Kid is a soldier-guard for the city of Caelondia and Rucks, we eventually learn, was a military engineer who designed some nasty weapons for Caelondia -- you can imagine such a career path from child to adult. But the big giveaway is at the end. You have a choice: you can abandon Caelondia to ruin and set off to explore the world, or you can turn back time, resetting the world to before everything went to hell. However, if you choose the latter option, Rucks warns that all knowledge since then will be lost, and there’s nothing to say the same calamity won’t occur all over again. And he should know. Because he’s seen it. He was The Kid. And when he turned back time, he somehow wound up in some sort of loop, retaining his memories, continuing to age. Perhaps he’s witnessed the wrong choices made over and over. Now he’s trying to fix things permanently by mentoring and coaching his own past self. When I played Bastion, I turned down the time-reversal option because I believed it to be unwise: everyone would just relive their mistakes. And that’s what I believe Rucks is trying to tell you. You who are also him.

I love video games. Can you tell? Can’t wait to see what gaming treats come next. And what secrets may lie between the pixels.

American Horror Story: Coven--FINALE

3.13: The Seven Wonders

--Thus it comes to a close once again. The story ends, the curtain’s drawn, the actors go home, and only a single light is left burning to indulge the ghosts of the theatre. And, yeah, I’m getting all profound and shit, but even a show as loopy as American Horror Story has its profundities. The season finale of Coven was a bit refreshing: nothing really zany happened, the death count was lower than previous seasons have led us to expect, and the ending was...wait. Did they give us a happy resolution? Did Sarah Paulson actually have something good happen to her? What are these strange warm, glowy feelings in my abdomen? Did I watch the wrong show?

--Yeah, the overall mood of the finale was weirdly upbeat a lot of the time. Starting from the beginning. What’s the oddest, yet most appropriate way to ring in the Seven Wonders? A fucking music video! Stevie Nicks drifts about the golden-lit interiors of Miss R’s like the hippest angel in Heaven, lip-synching her heart out. Which begs the question: did she literally sing the song, as a kind of blessing/invocation, or was that sequence a sort of fan-servicey breaking of the fourth wall, a brief acknowledgment that none of this is real? Up for debate. Then it was time for Zoe, Misty, Queenie, and Madison to take on those infamous trials.

--Telekinesis. They moved some candlesticks. Easy.

--Mind Control. A bit of tension here, as Zoe and Madison used their powers to fight over poor FrankenKyle. Madison made Kyle choke Zoe, in a delicious bit of foreshadowing. But everyone passed.

--Visiting the Afterlife. This was where the one truly upsetting thing happened, as the Seven Wonders claimed their first casualty. And it wasn’t who we were expecting. All the girls crossed over, but Misty Day got stuck. Her Hell was a classroom where she had to murder a frog, over and over, while all the kids laughed. She couldn’t wake up. Dawn broke. I was relaxed, expecting a last-minute save. And then Misty’s body crumbled to dust. The most innocent of the witches was lost forever. I am legitimately saddened by this. I guess you could call it a rumination on how the good aren’t always rewarded for their goodness. Poor Misty. Like Nan, she deserved more.

--Transmutation. The high-strung girls all nailed this power, and used it to unwind with some teleport tag. Things went downhill very abruptly when Zoe bamfed herself onto a spiky iron rod and was killed. OOPS. In a moment of sublime bitchitude, Madison was asked to bring Zoe back and instead revived a squashed fly. Good lord. Are all the good witches doomed? Is the coven really going to be cursed with a new version of Fiona? Cordelia and Myrtle despaired, until Myrtle had a eureka moment that you’d think someone would have thought of already: what about the dark horse in the room? The witch who’s literally born of great power, and has never been able to see it within herself? Who is now (almost) free from her debilitating mommy issues? What about Cordelia?

--Pyrokinesis. Cordelia lit a candle with her mind. Simple, but triumphant. She breezed through the earlier Wonders as well. Suddenly, Madison looked worried.

--Divination. The blind seer studied some pebbles and played a hidden-object hunt with great success. Madison, tasked with the same simple game, utterly blew it. She’s not clairvoyant. There’s something she can’t do. So she can’t be Supreme. Pissed and petulant, unable to cope with not having something she wants, the starlet stormed away to ragequit Miss R’s forever. Delectable irony: during her tantrum, she grabbed a cigarette from Anna-Lee Leighton’s silver dispenser, the very object she was supposed to find. HA.

--Finally, Resurrection. Cordelia breathed her sweet breath into Zoe and revived her. At the same time, Kyle was upstairs, strangling Madison to death for manipulating him. RIP, wasted young woman who blew every single chance you were given. Kyle’s done being used. Well, maybe not entirely, because Spalding’s ghost showed up to, er, claim the body. “I’m the help,” he leered, and left the rest of the sentence unspoken: And now, Kyle, so are you. At least Kyle gets Zoe as consolation. Downstairs, Zoe gasped back to life. Cordelia’s eyes were restored....by magic. Her greenhouse bloomed. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the new Supreme: Cordelia Foxx, daughter of Fiona.

--It was too good to be true. As Cordelia went public, inviting aspiring young witches into the coven, ushering in a new era of witchitude, I waited for something dreadful to happen. Some enemy to swoop in and undo all that happiness. Instead, we got a fiery swansong. Myrtle, who has always acted for the good of the coven, pointed out that she kinda sorta murdered her fellow council members -- and if Cordelia is going to be a legit Supreme, she has to take the bad along with the good. Justice had to be done. It was a lesson, the final lesson, Myrtle had to teach. Thus, Myrtle Snow was burned at the stake. Again. But this time, on her own terms. She’d done her work; she was ready to ascend into what I’m sure was the most fabulous, fashionable Afterlife of them all. Frances Conroy Frances Conroy Frances Conroy Frances Conroy FRANCES CONROY.

--One last piece of business. Fiona. As I suspected, her “death” at the Axeman’s hands was a big old fakeout. But her true death couldn’t be averted. Skeletal and wasted, she appeared in Miss R’s for a final heart-to-heart with Cordelia. Would Fiona make one last desperate grab at life? No...she was tired. She’d figured things out. So had Cordelia. Their meeting wasn’t one of those sappy, forgiveness-drenched reconciliations, but a regretful acknowledgment of all the mistakes they’d made as mother and daughter. It was powerful. Cordelia could have satisfied herself by killing Fiona in mercy and revenge, but she didn’t. She made Fiona accept death. And did Fiona? Well, after collapsing lifeless in her daughter’s arms, the ex-Supreme found herself in a rustic cabin with a smiling Axeman offering her catfish. To her, it wasn’t a bucolic Heaven but a backwoods Hell. (“Knotty piiiiiiiine!!!!”) There was Papa Legba, laughing. However, I found that scene to be a bit ambiguous. Not necessarily a Hell for Fiona, more a Purgatory. I think that, sooner or later, Fiona may find happiness in that cabin with that man. After all, she has eternity. Her move.

--We ended with a reminder of the beginning. Welcome to Miss Robichaux’s. Enjoy your new career as a witch. Only now, Cordelia is the warm, smiling Supreme. Zoe and Queenie are her faithful council. Kyle’s the butler. And a swarm of eager young girls are flocking in to inject new life into the place, to fill those blank white rooms with laughter and color. Whatever happens next, things are looking up for witchcraft. Cordelia smiles on all those fresh faces. Curtain.

--So what are my final thoughts, my final grade? Well, I loved it, obviously. That said, Asylum was better. This show is always gonna be a bit unfocused, but Asylum managed to pull everything together for a very strong, poignant final act. When it ended, I felt like one big story had been told. With Coven, it felt like a lot of different stories clamoring for time, and at the end, they quickly picked one subplot and tossed aside the rest. This season was unmoored, for better and for worse. Regard how some promising subplots (Zoe’s deadly vagina, Cordelia’s infertility, the immortal minotaur) were dropped early on, as though the show got bored with them. How other subplots (the witch hunters, Joan and Luke Ramsey) existed awkwardly within the narrative and ended without amounting to much. Note how certain characters (Fiona in particular) seemed to change their motives on a whim, and how others (Zoe and Kyle, oy) were diminished, wasted. American Horror Story takes the narrative approach of throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. It gets frustrating, not gonna lie. I’m especially annoyed that they took two great characters, Madame LaLaurie and Marie Laveau, and got rid of them too early; somehow, I wanted more from their ultimate fate. And I have to ask: what exactly happened to that poor baby in Spalding’s attic?

--So, yeah, this season was a bit structurally weak. Okay, it was very structurally week. But did that make me dislike it? Was I disappointed? Nope! I know this show’s faults. And I accept them. Because the reward is one helluva fun time. I love being surprised and shocked into laughter...or, sometimes, shocked into silence. I love the actresses and actors they’ve found to inhabit their stories. AHS taps into the love of playing a character that’s the reason so many people want to act in the first place. Look at Jessica Lange, Frances Conroy, or Lily Rabe, and see how much fun they’re clearly having. Then look at Sarah Paulson, and see how seriously they still take the material. For them alone, I award the show high marks. And I will keep coming back.

--Season Four! What do we know? Well, they revealed it’ll be set in the year 1950. A ton of faces will likely be returning. It’s probably going to be Jessica Lange’s last season, and she may be playing a German. Maybe. Place your bets. American Horror Story: Atomic Age? American Horror Story: Red Scare? American Horror Story: Invention of the Credit Card? Whatever they choose, I’m aboard. My seat in the audience is reserved. I’m waiting for the curtain to go up again. You’ll always see me here when it does. Because this is my Heaven, and Papa Legba can suck it.

--Witch out.

American Horror Story: Coven--Episode 12

3.12: Go to Hell

--I can’t decide if this was an amazing ep or an infuriating one. I think I’ll go with amazing, because so many scenes moved me on some level, or at least made me gigglesnort. The infuriating part comes from the fact that a lot of stuff happened that you’d think would have been saved till next week’s finale. I mean, if you take “Go to Hell” at face value, the show just blew its load way too quickly by offing the three women who most make Coven what it is. But I have my theories, so read on.

--For sure, there were many climaxes this week, though none of the orgasmic variety. Seemingly the only thing that didn’t happen were the Seven Wonders, which were set up via a highly amusing silent-movie skit with some cute Salem girls frolicking in a barn -- complete with dialogue cards and dawn-of-cinema special effects. Loved it. Now we know that the Wonders consist of telekinesis, pyrokinesis, transmutation (basically teleporting), transfer of life force, mind control, clairvoyance, and a trip to the afterlife. So, every power we’ve already seen done. And it’s easy for an aspiring young witch to get herself killed attempting the Wonders. Foreshadowing? Probably. Fiona was back to her old plan of making Queenie the next Supreme, or so it seemed, but Queenie had more important things to do...

--Such as bidding farewell to Madame LaLaurie. Maybe. Queenie figured out that LaLaurie had gifted New Orleans with many, many, many separate pieces of Marie Laveau, then went to confront the evil Grande Dame in her old house where, hilariously, LaLaurie had taken over as tour guide and was painting a far more flattering picture of herself for confused tourists. If this was LaLaurie’s swansong, it was a doozy. She revealed to Queenie that her earlier tears were not because she’d seen the light, but because she despaired to exist in such a “degenerate” world. The scary thing is, her words rang true in an awful kind of way. An argument could be made that racism still thrives, just more insidiously, disguised as sympathy. When Queenie suggested redemption, LaLaurie just laughed: she’d seen how little forgiveness matters in a world where you can just cry crocodile tears on TV, especially if you’re famous. Ouch. It takes someone from the past to point out the demons of the present. It was a good speech, but it bit LaLaurie in the ass, because Queenie had already struck a deal with Papa Legba during a trip to a fried chicken-themed afterlife, and she proceeded to truly, actually, for-realsies, stab LaLaurie to death. Maybe.

--Queenie was one courageous figure this week. The other was Cordelia, back in badass mode, whose powers were initially reluctant to show themselves. It took a tender moment with Fiona to open Cordelia’s third eye once again, and what did she see? A nightmare. Miss Robichaux’s strewn with the butchered bodies of all the witches, and a wraithlike Fiona smoking over Cordelia’s corpse. The final, desperate act of a desperate, dying woman. Cordelia saw some other useful things too. Where Misty was buried, for instance. And Fiona’s plans for the Axeman. We all thought he was gonna desert her, but nope: it was Fiona who had decided to jet off to warmer climes and leave her undead sweetie-pie to rot. Cordelia paid the Axeman a visit and showed him proof. He reacted about how you’d expect.

--Zoe and Kyle are back! BOOOOOO! Seriously, I wanted them to be gone for good, I really did. I wanted this show to make a statement about how power and glory aren’t for everyone. But, no, Zoe decided she’s the Supreme after all (after reviving a dead vagrant who really should’ve stayed dead) and dragged her useless frankenboy back for more scenes of hanging uselessly in the background. Being useless. One episode left to make these two matter, show. Just saying.

--Despite all the Emmy-worthy material being tossed around by Lange, Bates, and Bassett this week, my favorite scene was when Misty returned to the coven and decided her usual peace-loving ways could take a backseat in favor of beating the ever-loving snot out of Madison while the other witches watched with varying degrees of relish. (Cordelia’s icy “I’m good” when the catfight began was beautiful.) Good lord, was that satisfying. And not exactly out of character; remember way back when Misty murdered some rednecks with her crocodile buddies? She’s a true witch, all right. Also awesome: the Axeman popped in, all bloody and vengeful, and every single witch in the coven smacked him down. It was then Cordelia’s turn to be bitten in the ass, as she realized the blood came from her mother...

--Yes. Fiona Goode is dead. Maybe. Her final confrontation with the Axeman was shot largely in a single take and was yet another example of how good this show can be when it tries. All Fiona’s demons, her inner conflicts, her bitterness and fear. All there. She was spiteful. She was sad. She was self-pitying and self-loathing. Still stuck in her selfish cycle. And the Axeman couldn’t take it any more. He killed her. And then, back at Miss R’s, the young witches of the coven drew knives and stabbed him to death, just as their predecessors had done. And Cordelia wept, because her modern, liberal mindset just doesn’t work on witches; she can’t even stick to it herself. To be a witch is to shed blood. Fiona demonstrated that best, and now she is gone, fed to the gators, nothing left but an unfinished painting. Maybe. LaLaurie and Laveau are gone too, banished to a hell that looks an awful lot like LaLaurie’s torture attic. One of them is in a cage, forced to watch her mistreated loved ones suffer. The other one is the torturer, forced to cause pain and anguish for all eternity, trapped by her own rage. Papa Legba watches and laughs. Maybe.

--Why all the maybes? Because I just don’t quite buy that this is the end for these women. I want to believe this show is smarter than that. Fiona’s end in particular seemed way too premature and way too ignominious. Here’s my theory. Two theories, actually. The final episode will deal directly with the Seven Wonders, one of which is a voyage to the afterlife. I suspect that said voyage will allow more closure for LaLaurie and Laveau, a chance to give both of them a more definitive kiss-off. As for Fiona, I wonder if she might be playing a long con. What if the vision she gave Cordelia was a hoax? What if she tricked the Axeman as well, muddled his mind into thinking he’d killed her? What if she is indeed planning to run away, but for the good of the coven? Cutting ties with the witches by making them believe she is dead and digested? Letting them start afresh, with her shade haunting them as an example of what not to do? I’d like to believe this is the case. We shall see. Oh, yes. We shall see.

--Final shout-out to Priceiswrong on TV.com. Not only are his photo recaps of Coven hilarious, they have provided me with many of the pics for my own recaps. I have celebrated by sticking extra photos in this post! And the next one.

American Horror Story: Coven--Episode 11

3.11: Protect the Coven

--First off, I had another dream about AHS last night. I dreamed that Madison was trying to kill everyone else in the coven, which she did by causing a train crash. Then she set Zoe on fire. Honestly, I’m putting nothing past this show right now.

--So much for Delphi Trust, I guess. Nice to see the continuing trend of not really taking the witch hunters seriously. Fiona and Harrison Renard agreed to a nice, peaceful meeting to negotiate some terms, and you expected it to be a trap for the witches, but no: Renard was legitimately prepared to show his belly and let the witches win for now. For now. What he didn’t realize was that witches are not businessfolk. They are goddamn witches. Hence, Fiona unleashing her cuddly-wuddly Axeman on the Delphi Trust suits in a hilarious, cathartic massacre. Laveau imbibing a Diet Sprite and then snapping post-murder pics with her phone was, like, the epitome of beauty. And I gotta say, I was impressed by Renard’s totally chill approach to his own death. Dude had class. Now the question is, will Fiona take up the Axeman’s offer to run off and become a cute farm couple? His love for her seems legit. That was the question of the week: to protect the coven, or to abandon it, knowing how rotten it’s become?

--I predict Madison’s going down. Or, I hope she is. I just kind of fucking hate her now, and the way she’s acting -- prancing around like she already owns the joint, treating everyone like shit -- makes me think someone’s gonna re-murder her ass before she becomes even worse than Fiona. Hey, we already know Myrtle has a psychotic streak. Wouldn’t mind seeing it again. It’s funny how the whackjob Myrtle with her melon baller of death and her shout-outs to famous fashionistas is the one person who’s honestly acting for the good of the coven. Well, not entirely, because Cordelia, in her desperation and shame, gouged her eyes out all over again. That twist was easy to see coming, but I’m glad, because I prefer blind hardass Cordelia over whiny, guilty Cordelia. Make it so.

--Queenie’s alive! Because it’d been awhile since an apparently dead character showed up without a scratch! Chalk it up to the fact that as Fiona fades, her witchy power pinballs around, looking for a new vessel -- but in the meantime, everyone’s power levels peak. Which basically means any witch can do any spell as the plot requires it. No idea what role Queenie has to play in the endgame, but I’m not displeased at her return.

--Zoe and FrankenKyle got some actual material this week, and it wasn’t bad. The show seemed to acknowledge that both of them are kinda helpless in the face of the ruthlessness committed by the other characters. Zoe figured out what really happened to Nan, but how could she challenge Fiona and Laveau? Madison dropped some jealous hints that when she’s in charge, Zoe and Kyle are fucked. Then the well-meaning Myrtle offered Zoe tickets to Disney World, insisting that she and her boytoy had to flee before they became either corpses or selfish shitheads. Poor Kyle, as I pointed out way back at the beginning, is a Nice Guy, and his mind has been repaired just enough for him to fear his own monstrosity. How can he function in the real world? Zoe’s there for him, though, and the episode ended with victory music as the two lovebirds hopped onto a bus like something out of a rom-com. Know what? I’m fine with not seeing them again, because they’re superfluous, but also because it would be a neat thing to have these two characters escape the dreadful fate that seems to befall AHS protagonists and win a true happily-ever-after. But with two eps to go, I’m not counting on their lasting getaway.

--The meaty stuff went to Madame LaLaurie this time around; she even got a voiceover! Put back together by Queenie, she was returned to Miss R’s to continue living in servitude and humiliation, and I guess all that Civil Rights footage didn’t take, because she didn’t waste her time disembowling a fresh black man in Spalding’s creepy doll museum. Apparently, this has to do with some sort of vague fascination with human biology, or maybe it’s just because she snapped after encountering some chicken blood one time in 1830; the flashbacks and voiceovers were a bit vague on that. Oh, LaLaurie...it’s like you’re laughing at us for feeling sympathy toward you (can’t deny, her slipping Madison’s zombie poo into the coven’s evening soup was epic). Spalding’s ghost popped up and manipulated LaLaurie into attempting to kill Laveau with Benadryl, which obviously didn’t work, but things did end up with the voodoo queen at the mercy of the vengeful house staff. Funny how, in his own wrongheaded way, Spalding is also trying to protect the coven. And now he has a real-life baby to play dress-up with! Awwwwww! But bad things are in store for Laveau, unless LaLaurie’s more reformed than she thinks. Who’s the bad guy here? I DON’T KNOWWWW. And it’s amusing.

--Two more episodes remain, during which the coven has to figure out who the hell is ascending and who else has to die in the meantime. Will Fiona do the right thing? Will Madison get smacked down? Is LaLaurie a redemption story or not? Who will rescue poor buried Misty (the early graveyard scene suggested it’s gonna be Cordelia)? Are Zoe and Kyle through with all things witchy? Whatever happens, I’d like for the show to break from tradition and not end with pretty much everyone dead. Or a ghost. Or killed and brought back to life. Or killed, brought back to life, then killed again. Or cursed with immortality and buried alive. Or killed, buried, brought back to life, buried again, dug up, killed again....uh.......

American Horror Story: Coven--Episode 10

3.10: The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks

--Can you believe this episode title? I half-expected the showrunners to appear onscreen, kowtowing before Ms. Nicks and wailing, “WE ARE NOT WORTHEEEEEE!!!!” I admit that, while the return of AHS is cause for jubilation, I’d been dreading this ep just a little bit, because I feared it was gonna shoehorn Stevie Nicks into the story for purely masturbatory purposes. Figuratively, that is. I hope. However, this ep was as chilling, shocking, and morbidly did-they-really-just-do-that hilarious as ever. And Nicks’ participation, plus that stupid title, are actually kind of ironic. Those magical delights don’t mean much when surrounded by betrayal and murder galore.

--I’m kinda pleased that the witch hunters of Delphi Trust aren’t overshadowing the coven’s inner problems. Not yet, anyway. After the massacre of her people, Marie Laveau is a far more contrite woman, and now that she’s moved beyond merely hating Fiona, she’s seeing her own, twisted reflection. The two witchy bigwigs proceeded to fuck Delphi Trust all to shit with my new favorite spell on this show, a summoning of the Greek goddess Hecate via bundles of Benjamins and a doomed mouse in a maze. Which somehow caused economic collapse and an abrupt FBI crackdown. Neat! Now Delphi Trust has been toppled, but that just means Hank’s dad, Harrison Renard, is gunning for the witches. Which is what they want? Maybe?

--The whole sisterly bonding thing between Fiona and Laveau reached very bizarre heights when Laveau revealed her backstory: she’s immortal because she sold her soul to voodoo deity Papa Legba (Lance Reddick, even better than I dreamed), who turns up once a year, bedecked in dreadlocks and bones and snorting coke, to demand an innocent soul. The first sacrifice Laveau had to make was her own baby, and she’s been nabbing hapless infants for Papa ever since. Fiona’s ears perked up: immortality, and all she has to do is murder people? Sign her up! Sigh...it’s a little sad to see Fiona reverting to her bad old ways, but after spurning Cordelia for being stupid enough to marry a witch-hunter, Fiona must be feeling like all her newly-built bridges are burnt anyway. Ah, but Fiona’s soul is long-gone, so no immortality juujuu for her, says Papa. So she’s desperate. And she’s not the only one.

--This week, FrankenKyle went and...oh, wait, he didn’t even appear. Because THAT’S HOW POINTLESS HE IS.

--Right, right, Stevie Nicks. Prior to her decision to kill absolutely everyone, Fiona was courting Misty as the new Supreme, sealing the deal by inviting Nicks (who’s a witch, duh) over for drinks and music. Needless to say, Misty was knocked flat (literally), but her special treatment caused Madison to throw enough shade to cause a solar eclipse. Madison sez: I’m more powerful, I came back from the dead, and I’m richer, so why am I not Supreme? And in case we forgot, Madison is a giant, giant bitch. Which is why she lured Misty to a neat jazz funeral, demonstrated her power by bringing the dead guy back to life, then knocked Misty out, stuffed her into the coffin, and told the bedazzled cemetery dudes to inter it. Well, SHIT. No more magical resurrections for our heroes! At least until Misty gets out of that coffin, because she obviously will, because at this point, she’s the only person on the show who isn’t a horrible human being in some way. And that includes...

--Nan. Poor, poor Nan, whom I really loved, and who actually could have been the Supreme, I think. But despite her newfound badassitude and rapidly growing powers (“Put out your cigarette. Now stick it in your vagina”), Nan was just too damn nice to live. True, she laid down a shocking revenge-killing on Joan Ramsey by forcing her to drink bleach, but that was justified. And let me just say that it was a rather abrupt way to end the Ramsey subplot. Now that it’s all over, what was the point of Joan and Luke? I guess they were on hand to instigate Nan’s slide into darkness. But it was all for naught, because when Nan found the baby Laveau had kidnapped, Fiona and Laveau decided Papa Legba might prefer a different flavor of “innocent” and drowned Nan in a bathtub. GOD FUCKING DAMMIT, I WANTED HER AS SUPREME. FUCK. So Nan is yet another tragic character, struck down before she could find true happiness, but maybe she’ll become buddies with Papa Legba and get to be a voodoo demigod or something. She deserves that much.

--Meanwhile, Madame LaLaurie was...oh, wait, she didn’t appear either. Her, I actually missed. I wonder...presumably the cops were all over Laveau’s hair salon, so did they or didn’t they find the living, disembodied head of a reformed racist socialite? I’m picturing LaLaurie’s head on the desk of a bewildered police captain, growling, “Look, I’m only gonna explain this one more time...”

--The episode ended not with a shocking cliffhanger, but with Stevie Nicks singing some more while Fiona listened, crying sweet tears for all she’s experienced in life, and for the shitty human being she’s become. Note the composition: Nicks’ seat at the piano was right beneath the portrait of former Supreme Anna-Lee, Fiona’s first victim. And not her last. Meanwhile, Madison only cares about herself, Cordelia has decided she’s worthless, Zoe might as well be a fucking coat rack for all she contributes to the plot any more, Misty’s in a coffin, and Myrtle...just wants to play her theremin and be all aloof. Jesus, is it gonna have to be Marie Laveau who unites the coven and kicks witch-hunter ass? I’m down. Her stankface alone could cause human flesh to evaporate.