[For The Bastard Executioner‘s “Piss Profit/Proffidwyr Troeth” or any other recaps on Fetchland, assume the presence of possible spoilers.]

FX Summary:
Piss Profit/Proffidwyr Troeth. The King’s right hand visits Ventrishire on royal business; Wilkin goes on a covert mission.

When we left the troubled landscape of Ventrishire…

• Milus Corbett (aka Vampire Bill) was scheming with a rival Baron…
• Wilkin (masquerading as executioner Gawain Maddox) was being forced to do things he didn’t want to do, and…
• Widowed Baroness Ventress (our Lady Love) was telling scumbag French Earl of Cornwall Lord Gaveston she was pregnant (she isn’t) [in order to prove and heir and keep a hold of her little kingdom]

As “Piss Profit/Proffidwyr Troeth” opens, Love is in her chambers with best friend / loyal servant Isabel, handing her some very obviously bloodstained white clothes. She tells Isabel that they must be laundered separately, in secret; I suppose we know what the blood is from! (Love, remember, is supposed to be pregnant.) She is concerned about her lie, what it means, and perhaps most importantly, how to carry it through.

Isabel says maybe it isn’t / doesn’t have to be a lie:

“Every fertile field needs a serving of more than one seed to bear a good harvest.”
-Isabel

Love asks if that means she should open up her field for a good seed sowing; to which Isabel says that giving the Baroness advice is above her station (but that she will always be at Love’s service). Love and Isabel really seem as close as sisters [more on the closeness of sisters in a minute] but this being a Kurt Sutter show, I can’t help but be terrified that this is some cockeyed foreshadowing 🙁

Wilkin, with fake-son Luca Maddox, encounter witch / healer Annora at a local market. Annora gives Luca some “sweet calamus*” which lights the lad up like a christmas tree. The sweet calamus basically looks like a stick. But Luca sure seemed happy to be chewing on it!

We learn that Wilkin’s crew has been “lock knee’d” for twelve days in tight cells, but that “oils” provided by Annora (and smuggled in by Wilkin) has helped alleviate their pain.

Back at the castle, Vampire Bill catches Wilkin and Toran sneaking provisions to their imprisoned buddies. He offers to trade their freedom for a task accomplished by the fake executioner / fake tradesman. Just stop a caravan from Baron Pryce to the King (supposedly carrying a rare holy relic) to prevent him from gaining royal favor and your friends will be freed!

Of course the prospect of murdering Pryce’s soldiers and burning down their caravan doesn’t sit well with Wilkin and Toran, but they’ll do it anyway to free their friends. Oh Wilkin! What are you doing buddy? You already know that Corbett is the real “bastard” of this show!

Before we leave the castle we jump to Love, who sees a royal procession arriving. Visitors! That other bastard Lord Gaveston has ventured to Ventrishire to preside over “the declaration of heirs”. Basically, Gaveston, with a “progeny prophet” (“piss prophet”, or the “piss profit” in this week’s title) will test Love’s, you know, piss to scientifically** determine her pregnancy. Gaveston knows — or at least suspects — that Love was lying last week, having heard she is a barren Baroness.

Gaveston echoes the sentiments of Love and Isabel last week, proclaiming he hates the Welsh (remember, they both said, while visiting the King, that they hate the French). Gaveston notices Corbett’s twins, and Corbett notices Gaveston noticing the twins. They are sent on a mission.

Gaveston confronts Love in the chapel:

“Let us hope God will take pity. For when you are found to be a fraud the King will have your breasts cleaved off, your barren womb severed, and your head taken by sword.”
-Gaveston, to Love

What a pleasant visitor!

And then… The twins.

“What brings this horrid display of bacchanal*** to my chamber?”
-Gaveston, to the twins

Gaveston leaves Love to find the twins making love in his chambers. That seemed really weird to me. I mean, it was weird when the twins were making out with each other while menage-ing trois-style with Corbett; but maybe in the moment that was meant to be a turn-on for him in the moment? It is just weird in “Piss Profit/Proffidwyr Troeth” that they would be actively woohoo-ing before Gaveston even got there. No coy seduction. No “check out this novel fantasy experience we are offering up, collectively, to you, big boy” … More “well we were already hitting it incest-like, but there is plenty of room in this bed and our boss told us to so I guess you can join in”.

What might be weirder is that one of the twins openly tells Gaveston that they are there to loosen his tongue… WITH THEIRS (and then she Frenches the Frenchman)

Weird-est? Gaveston declares them “my girls” before diving between the two.

Out in the wilderness, Toran and Wilkin prepare to waylay Baron Pryce’s caravan. Toran starts to say, basically, that Wilkin is being too nice to Love (can’t be too serious about being civil to these nobles after all) but then it is time to get a-murdering.

Wilkin and Toran stick knives and arrows into the soldiers and their horses, then set the caravan on fire. They declare the “dirty deed complete” … Until they hear pained female screams from inside.

Wikkin busts up the wagon, and out pops a mortally burned woman. It is Pryce’s wife!

Oh Wilkin! You knew Knew KNEW Corbett was the wily one already!

Last week we pointed out that one of the barriers to Corbett’s plan was the existence of Pryce’s current wife. Well, I guess that is out of the way now.

Wilkin and Toran are understandably distraught. I mean they knew ahead of time that they were going to pull a drive-by on someone else’s soldiers, but apparently the death of a woman — and being used as assassins rather than regular-old murderers — was not on the planned menu. Wilkin and Corbett get into it back at the castle, which looks violent to us, but is apparently an exhilirating exchange of rasslin’ that Corbett was always in the market for.

The twins attend to the bloodied Corbett, and give him some allegedly uplifting news. According to the twins, Gaveston was not interested in their “wetted slots” but rather the handsome chamberlain only. Which sets up something like the third-of-n huge conflicts of “Piss Profit/Proffidwyr Troeth”.

Gaveston: Sup?
Corbett: Sup.
Gaveston: You sure have risen high for a poor village boy.
Corbett: I’m hitting my head on the commoner glass ceiling.
Gaveston: You are handsome and clever!
Corbett: “You flatter like a highly polished courtesan.”
Gaveston: Well enough small talk. How about you fallate me now? (also make sure you’re on your knees)
Corbett: Um… okay
Gaveston: Just kidding! “You honestly think I would let dirt-born lips tough a rod that knows only the holes of beautiful things? I’m sure there is a shit-scraper in need of a suckling.”

An understandably dejected Corbett takes his rejection out on his servant, apparently beating him to death.

Wilkin hooks Love up with Annora; and Annora figures out how to trick the piss prophet’s test, providing her with the urine of “a very pregnant wolf”

Wilkin has one of his regular hallucinations, which involves a VRERY naked**** Petra transforming into the dead, horrifically burned, zombie body of Baroness Pryce. Love brings him back to reality; Annora conducts a huge foreshadowing moment that seems to imply that there will be a substantial something between the two (which I’m sure no audience members predicted at any point before this).

Annora’s wolf-piss mixture (supposedly Love’s piss) is provided to the piss prophet, and applied to pins (to rust), blood (to swirl), and “the phallic bone of a goat” because science.

“The science arts continue to amaze me.”
-Love

So what is up with the twins? Apparently, all that ostensible incest makes perfect sense. The twins are Gaveston’s sisters (or at least half-sisters)! They are loyal to him (and apparently were all raised in a very strange household).

Annora’s magic wolf pee beats the test, which has Gaveston upset. He has to leave Ventrishire in a huff (instead of being put in charge of it and getting to cut up Love) but at least he got to have sex with his sisters.

The episode ends with a grateful, if troubled, Love embracing a still heavy hearted Wilkin in the chapel. Wilkin calls Love “my love” which is only a little bit weird (as her name is actually Love) but is set up as being awkward. They hug it out. Theis warm exchange is witnessed by Toran (already on record REE: Wilkin being too buddy-buddy with the Baroness) and Mrs. Maddox (already upset at the lack of romantic intimacy in her not-marriage, in addition to being possibly unhinged).

What a crazy episode! There is always a lot going on on The Bastard Executioner but there was actually a good bit of mystery revealing and plot resolution in “Piss Profit/Proffidwyr Troeth”; the most important of which has to be the macro characterization of Wilkin. The narrative given to the audience is that Wilkin is a good man driven into terrible but necessary circumstances; but the reality is he has ceased to be a good man (if ever he was one) already. At this point he is masquerading as an executioner solely to get revenge. So far he has executed an innocent man (if douchebag), chopped off the nose of a sweet young girl, choked a man to death with his dinner, and now unwittingly assassinated an infirm Baroness from the neighboring shire via the particularly grisly vehicle of “burning wagon”. We can infer from the descent of Jax Teller in Sons of Anarchy that Sutter’s position is that, however he started and whatever his original intentions, Sutter would likely ultimately call Wilkin irredeemable, but give him a glimmer of two or hope, just so he can get a little more leverage on the dagger-twist when his end finally does arrive. Wilkin seems completely aware of all this by the way; he was much more sulky than usual throughout.

LOVE
MIKE

* I looked it up and it can be used as a “substitute for ginger, cinnamon, or nutmeg” … That is, something with some level of flavor for the medieval palate.
** Not that scientifically, it turns out.
*** “Bacchanal” is one of my all-time favorite high school vocab words; I am not sure that Gaveston used it appropriately here; the twins may or may not have been wild, but there was no indication of drunkenness, no nod, specifically, to Bacchus. And horrid?
**** She was quite naked for basic cable and a lens flare from being well past the median episode of Game of Thrones. The camera came at her from a distance, and there was some weird Instagram filtering going on, but Petra was pretty shockingly full-frontal; heavy, in my mind, for basic cable.

Lots of Fetchland readers already subscribe to services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus, or even Marvel Unlimited.

… Which begs the question: When you have access to an almost limitless plethora of entertainment options, which ones should you pick?

“What’s Free Wednesday” is a weekly Fetchland feature spotlighting something great to read or watch available on one or more entertainment services. “Free” once you’ve paid for it, if you grok 🙂

The Kids Are All Right

Free on:

• Netflix

Married lesbians Nic and Jules, played by Annette Bening and Julianne Moore respectively, each had a child using the same sperm donor years ago. The kids are now sixteen year old Laser and eighteen year old Joni – both curious about their biological father. This premise for The Kids Are All Right intrigues at the onset but the story only gets better after that and not just because said sperm donor happens to be the amazing Mark Ruffalo. He plays Paul, a bohemian restaurateur with a chill attitude and open heart. Bening’s Nic works as an OB/GYN and is the organizational neatnick of the family. Her wife, Jules, heretofore a housewife, now jumpstarts a landscaping business with the purchase of a beat up truck.

This big change for Jules, combined with her daughter Joni going away to college, soon makes for a potent elixir of insecurity and empty nest syndrome setting the couple off on an unpredictable path. And because it’s a Julianne Moore character, you know there will be nudity… and sex. While Jules spirals into uncharted territory, the kids, Joni and Laser, get to know their sperm donor daddy. At first they keep Paul from their parents, “the moms” but then a hilarious misunderstanding results in the moms finding out about Paul. From here forward The Kids Are All Right shifts with ease back and forth between funny and heartbreaking. The dialogue captures the way people actually talk with such accuracy you’ll forget this isn’t actually Julianne Moore and Annette Bening just hanging out in real life lesbian-style. Not only does the brilliant wordplay compel but the story brings to life the complexities and frailties of crazy contradictory real human behavior. This movie reminds you that as much as people totally don’t make sense… they also really do. The writing along with remarkable acting from the entire cast make the characters unforgettably real. They will undoubtedly remind you of people you know. The insightful characterizations and fresh take on what it means to make a family will capture your heart. There are no villains or heroes in this one, just perfectly cast A-list actors in top form playing characters so familiar they feel like family.

The Kids Are All Right was ahead of its time when it came out in 2010, already presuming a world of perfectly normal, long term, gay marriage. It was also just flat out one of the best comedies of that year, if not the best one, mainly because it’s so much more than funny. This story moves and enlightens you all while you’re laughing your ass off. And most of all you can’t help but care for these women and their beautifully imperfect pairing. The film inspires a wellspring of empathy for every character even while they clash with each other, maybe especially then.

Music also brings even more authentic emotion into the story with an exceptional soundtrack as well as a lovely rendition of Joni Mitchell sung acapella by a resplendent Annette Bening one fateful night with the whole lot of them gathered at the dinner table. That particular dinner just happens to be when the rubber meets the road for this family. The truth comes out and nothing will ever be the same but that doesn’t mean things won’t get better. One thing is for certain though, every character will change as a result and you’ll be pulling for each the whole way through.

–Katherine Recap

[For The Leftovers‘ “Axis Mundi” or any other recaps on Fetchland, assume the presence of possible spoilers.]

HBO Summary:
Axis Mundi A Texas town in which no one departed becomes a magnet for tourists and people.

If you’re not familiar with the beautiful sadness and polarizing plotlines of The Leftovers season one, look no further than the title of season two, episode one, “Axis Mundi.” Watching the first season was to witness a world’s grieving process; each character mired in messy recovery from the “Sudden Departure,” a global, instantaneous, and unexplained disappearance of 140 million people – two percent of the earth’s population. Season one tangles us in this mystery – where the unanswerable questions live. It’s our own personal Axis Mundi, AKA the celestial pole or connecting place between what is known and unknown.

Speaking of place, season two of The Leftovers takes us to a new location from the start. By necessity, given that season one’s finale literally sent the main location up in flames one suburban house at a time. This fiery cleansing was just what the show needed. It’s a fresh start and there are plentiful new mysteries to boot. Chief Garvey (Justin Theroux) leaves charred Mapleton, New York for a little town called “Miracle” in what was formerly just Jarden, Texas. They call it Miracle because it’s the only place where not a single person departed. Thus, Jarden has become a sort of Mecca that appeals to seekers of all kinds, including Garvey. So, he packs up his freshly minted family and heads down south for a fresh lease on hope. The new intro song ends with the lyric, “Let the mystery be,” and damn it’s some good advice that the characters certainly seem to be taking in season two. Instead of looking for answers about the why and how of the “Sudden Departure” they’re moving forward figuratively and literally.

“Axis Mundi” begins by venturing back to prehistoric times with a heartbreaking and lovely story told without words. The action in many ways parallels the season one finale when Nora finds the abandoned baby and is then ready to commit to love even though she was about to give up everything only a moment before. This all takes place at a spot that transitions from prehistoric into a modern day waterfall and watering hole in the “Miracle” town of Jarden. There’s a shift to a sunny colorful day where teenage girls frolic in the same water where the prehistoric baby was lost and found. Dr. Brian Goodheart collects water into buckets nearby and waves a friendly farewell to the teen girls as they leave. A sign forbids water removal from the area but even though wearing a visitor bracelet, Dr. Goodheart seems oblivious. One of the teens, Evie, also fills her bottle without fear before leaving with her friends.

She returns home, a picaresque place with a seemingly perfect family – the Murphy’s, including Evie’s mother, Erika (Regina King) a doctor, her fireman father, John (Kevin Carroll) and preppy do-gooder bro, Michael (Jovan Adepo.) Michael works in town among the souvenir tables of Miracle handing out pamphlets to tourists. The buses stop there to drop off the fresh-faced hopefuls. This town is all about hope for a better life – a perfect next step for season two after a season one of suffering through grief. Unfortunately the next scene doesn’t quite deliver on that promise when Evie’s father goes to a town prophet. The “seer” reluctantly informs John that “something bad is about to happen to you.” John pretends he doesn’t believe it but the prophet was right about his upcoming birthday… The prophet is clearly a true believer, whether John is or not.

Next, before you can blink, three quick scenes flash onscreen. First, talented Evie sings a song about Jarden with a confident lilt in the gym at school. Then in snippet two, she runs full frontal buck ass naked (not even her glasses on) through some leaves. In the final scene of the brief trio Evie tells her father a knock knock joke. These short scenes are seemingly disconnected, sharing only Evie in her three very different worlds – school, the natural world, and family. After we’re left with John laughing at her joke, he’s at the firehouse. His fellow firefighters are surprised John’s calling for a “five” because he says that the prophet is Selling some lies and BS. We soon find out John means a five alarm fire. The firemen go to the prophet’s house, beat him up, and then torch his place hardcore. It burns to the ground, The Leftovers style.

Erika picks the bits of the prophet’s house out of his scarred and bloody face in her emergency room as he tells her about the warning he gave her husband. The next morning Erika goes for a run, digs up a white shoebox and finds a bird inside. It flies away. She seems to know what’s going on with this and it’s comforting to know somebody does. Then the Murphys go to church where Michael gives a gratitude pep talk, “We are spared!” Right after this the preacher from season one, Matt Jamison (a commanding Christopher Eccleston) fills in as guest preacher for the parish. He’s as enthusiastic as ever, though held back a bit by the outgoing Reverend. We find out soon after that John doesn’t share the rest of his family’s enthusiasm for church.

The next morning the Garveys move in next door to the Murphys and John drops by to meet Nora and baby Lily before inviting them to a backyard barbecue celebrating his birthday. At the BBQ Nora explains that their new preacher, Matt Jamison, is her brother and Jill is Kevin’s daughter. Later when everybody’s warmed up a bit John tells them he spent more than six years in prison for attempted murder, raising Chief Garvey’s handsome brow a bit. Michael and Jill exchange noticeable eyeball attraction upon meeting and later we find out Evie has epilepsy – so teen angst plotlines seem established. When the Garveys leave after a particularly neighborly good time BBQ, Evie hits the road with her friends.

But then at three in the morning they’re all awakened when an earthquake hits the Murphy house and soon they realize Evie never came home from her outing with friends. Phones start ringing and it turns out all her friends are missing as well. John and Michael drive to the waterfall from the first scene looking for Evie. Her phone’s in the car parked by rocks where fish now flop looking like tiny silver wings glimmering in the moonlight. The water is gone and girls are nowhere to be found. John’s shouting, “Evie! Evie! Evie!” and then the scene shifts to Erika crying at her dining room table. It seems that burning the prophet’s house down may not have changed the gravity of his prediction after all. Where’s the water? Where are the girls? This must be The Leftovers because we’ve got questions.

Other mysterious incidents:

Reminiscent of season one’s many wild animal trespassers, the Murphy’s eat lunch in a diner where Farmer Jerry enters with a goat. He throws down a sheet of plastic, slits the goat’s throat, and then with an offhand, “sorry folks” drags the dead animal away.

A woman waters her lawn in a wedding dress and veil.

Michael attends to a bearded old man who lives atop a tower with the word “miracle’ scratched in it with large block letters. He mails the man’s letter, though it lacks an address, and brings him three meals a day using a bucket and pulley system.

Evie gave her dad a gift before she left with her friends and said it was the best gift he’d ever get in his life. He hasn’t opened it yet.

Michael visits a different old man at night, knocking on his door and offering to pray with him. Potential for this man to be Michael’s grandfather because he’s old enough and looks a bit like him.

A cluster of cracks in the road is covered with plate glass, as if a museum piece.

Visitors to Miracle wear neon bracelets much like the kind for hospital patients and the Garveys have them even though they bought their house “so they won’t be bothered by park rangers,” just for a few weeks until they get acclimated.

John attempted to murder somebody and when Garvey asks him what happened he says, “Well, I didn’t try hard enough.”

–Katherine Recap

Lots of Fetchland readers already subscribe to services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus, or even Marvel Unlimited.

… Which begs the question: When you have access to an almost limitless plethora of entertainment options, which ones should you pick?

“What’s Free Wednesday” is a weekly Fetchland feature spotlighting something great to read or watch available on one or more entertainment services. “Free” once you’ve paid for it, if you grok 🙂

First Blood

Free on:

• Netflix

It’s a telling fact that the movie First Blood appears incorrectly titled in your Netflix search. Also quite noteworthy is how low the rating is in Netflix, only two stars. But that’s about as accurate as the title, and for the same reason. First Blood tells the origin story of a character we all think we know, at the mere mention of his name: Rambo. That name resounds like Homer Simpson’s “Doh!” in the American unconscious. Some dumb guy with a blazing machine gun, right? Perhaps a slurring Sylvester Stallone comes to mind. But not only is his character, John Rambo, actually a brilliant strategist and tactical master with a deeply embedded inner boy scout… John’s greatest crime is wanting to get a bite to eat in a small town that disdains Vietnam vets.

First Blood delves into how John suffers not only from the PTSD that haunts his mind and heart, but also his subhuman treatment at the hands of a small town police force who hunt him for no good reason. When you see this story of how war stole the soul of a seemingly primitive man, you quickly realize he’s a genius in disguise. Trained as a Green Beret, a war hero fighting impossible odds, John survives where no other human possibly could… And then he goes ahead and kicks some ass for good measure. Brian Dennehy plays a small town sheriff with major bullying issues. He sees John Rambo, a mild man walking through his town, as a violent and imminent threat simply because he’s a Vietnam vet. The sheriff sizes him up as a vet because of John’s army jacket and longish hair. Problem is the sheriff comes to all sorts of other less accurate conclusions as well, like that because he’s a vet, John Rambo is a danger to his town. When John doesn’t leave after the sheriff’s insistence, Dennehy arrests him for vagrancy, thus sparking a ferocious momentum that pushes Rambo to test the limits of his seemingly infinite resolve to survive.

It truly becomes a matter of survival when John escapes jailhouse humiliations and the sheriff’s men transform into hunters – literally out to kill him. Rambo’s on the run in the woods of the great Northwest and the movie snowballs with such intensity it grips you and won’t let you go. The escalation of events draws you into a grueling intimacy with the ultimate survivalist. This proximity to the pain and resilience of a man willing to do whatever it takes despite impossible odds is the real gift of this movie. A pre “Rambo” John Rambo stitches up his arm wound, builds traps, and slaughters wild animals as the suspense builds and the relentless sheriff’s department hunters close in on him.

At the time he made this movie Sylvester Stallone had just established himself as the underdog character, Rocky. So, First Blood was his first character of this kind. John Rambo counts as an underdog for sure but, ultimately it was this character that established Stallone as the iconic action hero. It’s how most of us think of Stallone these days and it all started with First Blood, revealing the innate perfection of that title. One of the reasons to recommend watching First Blood is that though the Rambo movies have been rolling out for years like condoms on prom night, this was before all that. This John Rambo remains untainted by marketing schemes, action figures, and polish in general. He’s raw, unfiltered and brutally pissed off in First Blood. This movie’s the real deal.

People see the name in Netflix and it says “Rambo – First Blood” so they rate it accordingly for a hollow action figure variety flick. But the only thing hollow about First Blood is the soul of John Rambo – he left it behind in Vietnam. With an 87% fresh rating on Rottentomatoes.com, it seems safe to say that this isn’t a two star movie. In fact, it will get your blood pumping and remind you of that survivor we all hold dear and deep inside ourselves. It’s that part of you that just knows you’re going to make it out of those woods alive. Seems like a perfect time for that kind of reminder these days with the hourglass emptying and the clock ticking on our very planet. If nothing else, there are also great camping tips for a bro on the move.

–Katherine Recap

[For The Bastard Executioner‘s “A Hunger/Newyn” or any other recaps on Fetchland, assume the presence of possible spoilers.]

FX Summary:
A Hunger/Newyn. Lady Love journeys to Windsor to learn the fate of Ventrishire from King Edward II.

The opening montage — among shots of of Wilkin reading the bible and acclimating to his new family, Lady Love journeying to meet the King, and Annora chatting up a stretched animal hide — shows Stephen Moyer’s Milus Corbett poring over maps. It’s not clear at the time what is up with the maps initially, but by the end of the episode we are explicitly told that he is an impressive man. Corbett shows himself adept not only at manipulations, but arithmetic, reignmaking, and architecture… human architecture.

With his nominal boss Love off to Windsor to meet Edward II and learn the fate of Ventrishire with her Baron now dead, Corbett arranges a covert meeting with Baron Pryce from the neighboring shire; his goal is to consolidate the power of both shires by arranging a marriage of Love to Pryce (with Corbett himself named as the chamberlain of the greater kingdom, of course).

There are two barriers to this alleged greater good: 1) Pryce already has a chamberlain, and 2) Pryce already has a wife. More on one of those in a bit.

Another dead body with its arms and legs hacked off and reversed appears in the wilderness. Ventrishire soldiers are dispatched after the (obviously) demon-worshipers who were doubtlessly responsible… But have to settle for Wilkin’s crew, whom they capture despite a mystically prescient warning from woods witch Annora.

In Windsor, Love is jerked around by the King’s right-hand sycophant, the French Sir Gaveston, who alternately compliments and insults her. Ultimately he is playing games trying to get up into her sexy golden gown (and also take Ventrishire for his own via his influence on the King). For his part, Edward II (who barely speaks English) appears to be anything but an engaged ruler and lets Gaveston do whatever he wants while practicing archery and yammering with his buddies in French.

(Love and Isabel agree in their hatred of the French.)

Love outsmarts the smarmy Gaveston and distracted King; claiming to be pregnant… With a legitimate [presumably male] heir, she trots back to Ventrishire leaving the amorous barnacle with his jaw on the floor. Sorry Gaveston, no soup castle for you! Her shire will not be chopped up and handed over to him after all. This of course raises quite a few questions… What about Corbett’s plot? How is she going to get a baby in her [in time]? Would it be too on-the-nose for Wilkin to play daddy?

Wilkin has all kinds of problems in “A Hunger/Newyn”. Romance is just one of them. Case in point, Wilkin ends one of his semi-frequent hallucinations about his dead wife making out with her; only he is actually making out with his new wife (rather Gawain Maddox’s actual wife) Jessamy. Complicating matters, the ghostly Petra tells Wilkin he has already found a new love. Jessamy wants to get all romantic, but Wilkin isn’t quite ready.

Mrs. Maddox continues to be tough to peg. She at least acts that Wilkin is Maddox, and punishes her son Luca for talking openly about his true identity (just in their apartments, mind you) by cutting him with a hot knife! Apparently the original Gawain Maddox “punished” his own family in a similar vein when they transgressed. Oddly (or perhaps not oddly at all) Luca would love to keep calling Wilkin his “daddy” regardless; Wilkin being much more kindly and tender than his actual father.

Wilkin and Toran can’t make one of their regular trips to visit Annora and the old village crew because Corbett (human architect that he is) has called for a celebratory exhibition fight between Ventrishire troops and Pryce’s… Including Wilkin of course. After dispatching one of Pryce’s soldiers in his exhibition bout, a Hulk-Smash-raging Wilkin cuts loose on Leon, having caught a glimpse of his dead wife’s sapphire cross around his neck at exactly the wrong blood-crazed moment; remember, Wilkin thinks Leon killed his wife even though we know he probably didn’t. It is only being tackled by Toran at the last second that keeps Wilkin from going too far.

Onlookers think the Ventrishire-on-Ventrishire “mock” melee is a hoot, of course.

And OF COURSE there is one guy who recognizes Wilkin from Baron Pryce’s visiting contingent. And OF COURSE it is Pryce’s chamberlain (aka Corbett’s currently unwitting rival in his proposed marriage scheme). Given that Corbett now has all of Wilkin’s old crew in his dungeons, Corbett reminds our Bastard Executioner that everyone he loves is either dead or in his power… So Wilkin has to go into executioner mode once again.

He stuffs a drumstick down the other chamberlain’s throat (making it look like a drunken choking accident), thus clearing the way for Corbett to be Number Two across two shires.

If that weren’t enough going on we also start to learn big arc things about the characters, and perhaps the greater The Bastard Executioner universe in “A Hunger/Newyn”. We learn the secret origin of Isabel’s friendship with Love; and of Love’s marriage to Baron Ventris. The bigger moment is the capture of a “Seraphim” by hostile… Well, I’m not sure who captures him actually. They are some kind of knights or priests (it is heavily implied they are Rosula). British superstar singer Ed Sheeran plays a [Rosula] torturer who gleefully plucks out the eyes of the captured Seraphim, triggering much cross-country psychic trauma for Annora. Also their boss seems to be the Archdeacon serving Edward II, so pretty high up in politics, monarchy, theocracy, or just chicanery. Because this is a Kurt Sutter show, we get to see the Seraphim blinded, like Big Otto and Bobby Elvis before him.

Gross.

Top 8 Question Marks for “A Hunger/Newyn”:

1. Who is Wilkin’s new love? It is contextually implied to be Jessamy, but come on.
2. For her part, just how coo coo is Jessamy? Zero or maximum?
3. How is Love going to get an “heir” inside her? Well I guess we all know how this works, but who is going to put it there? I’d guess we all have the same firm guess on this (I mean come on).
4. If Love has an heir, where is that going to leave Corbett’s plot with Pryce?
5. For that matter, how about Pryce’s current wife? She is supposedly sick to the point of dying… But come on.
6. How long are Berber, Calo, and Ash really going to be stuck in that dungeon?
7. What’s up with the Seraphim and all their tattoos and magic, et cetera?
8. Are we ever going to get a bit of daylight on this show? And for that matter if we do, won’t Corbett just burst into flames?

LOVE
MIKE

[For Scream Queens‘ “Chainsaw” or any other recaps on Fetchland, assume the presence of possible spoilers.]

FX Summary:
Chainsaw Chanel No. 3 shares a secret and a surprising connection between two students is revealed.

“Chainsaw” begins with scream queens, Grace and Zayday at a truckstop where they see the Red Devil between the aisles so Grace tazes him in the groin but it turns out he’s just a random freshman in the mascot costume – with tazed nuts. Then Chanel No. 5 announces to Chanel No. 1 that she’s leaving Kappa. Apparently she’s planning to focus on getting “eiffel towered” and “spit-roasted” because college remains a land ripe with visually arresting sex euphemisms. Meanwhile back at Kappa house the security guard helps Grace and Zayday test the rug in Chanel No. 2’s room for blood. Turns out Chanel No. 2 is still posting on social media, “See here she is by the pool in Bel Aire,” to which the security guard replies, “Bitch isn’t even that cute!”

Outside on quad during a candlelight vigil Chanel No. 1 approaches Chad about maybe getting back together but he’s too busy sleeping around to even give it serious consideration, though she does “shave her box in a pretty hot way.” He’s too turned off by all her “ugly pledges at Kappa.” Dean Munsch then announces to the candle-holding procession of sad sacks that the university will no longer use the Red Devil mascot given recent events. She introduces the new ice cream cone “Coney” to a collective sigh that covers the morose vigil in a sweep of deeper doldrums despite zippy dance music and a shiny, bouncing new mascot.

Grace and Zayday then take the security guard to Chanel No. 2’s mansion where they talk to her parents about how she’s still posting on Instagram, even if the pics aren’t particularly cute. Chanel’s parents are shocked by this undeniable lack of cuteness and declare that OMG their daughter “must be drinking again” and it’s so disappointing because they thought all was well due to her boyfriend Chad. The parental duo show them a letter from Chad declaring Chanel No. 2’s “hotness,” describing a weekend visit Chad made to that very same mansion and how he enjoyed the boning that thus commenced between them throughout said weekend. The mystery of Chad’s role remains.

Grace attends her first film class and it’s surprisingly taught by her dear old Daddykins – so she flees in horrified shame. Though her father, Wes, teaches literature and the whole reason he was teaching the class (Grace) just left, he teaches this film class anyway. His first order of business – showing them The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Wes ends the class with, “Aren’t we all running from the chainsaws of our past?” Um, no, weirdo but we’re all certainly wondering about you now. Except for his fellow teacher, Gigi, who apparently finds him all the more attractive now.

Next we meet Aaron Cohen, shorty McIceCreamery, the little guy inside the Coney costume. He’s finally found bliss walking the campus inside his shiny cone… but it’s not meant to be for Coney and he’s soon chainsawed in the costume closet by the Red Devil – victim #1 of episode three. Returning to Kappa house we find Chanel No. 1 in her Paris apartment-sized closet where Hester awaits with probing questions. Chanel then realizes she could prove Chad wrong about Kappa’s “ugly pledges” if she gives all the newbies makeovers and what better place to start than Hester – the Platonic ideal of scoliosis?

Chanel No. 3 then confesses to one of the pledges that her biological father is actually Charles Manson. That means if anybody finds out Chanel No. 3 will need an alibi to prove she’s not just following in Daddy’s footsteps as the killer. So, they become “alibuddies” promising to be each other’s alibis in case they each get accused of being the killer. Grace and Z return to Kappa and find out that it wasn’t just Chanel No. 2 but also 3 and 5 who were dating Chad behind 1’s back last year. Though 5’s heart wasn’t really in their one date, but of course she slept with him anyway… So, Chad’s officially really into boning Chanels every chance her gets. Grace will soon wonder if this means he’s a sociopath, as if that’s the only possible reason for such behavior. Chanel No. 1 then slowly descends the stairs as she introduces her made over Hester. Now glammed up, just like a Chanel, and it’s all pretty magical aside from Hester talking through clenched teeth and about to pass out from the pain of not wearing her neckbrace.

Next Chad does a jaunty presentation for his bros, explaining how Boone was, in fact, gay but still couldn’t possibly have killed himself. He must’ve been murdered, Chad explains. So now they’ve got to do their bro duty and avenge it by drinking too much then roaming the streets dressed all in white and flailing baseball bats. But when the bros in white encounter the Red Devil it turns out to be two Red Devils with chainsaws this time. Killing commences. Baseball bats don’t hold up too well against chainsaws… and neither do frat boy arms.

Grace heads back into Veronica Mars territory with a visit to the barista (Pete) in his dorm room to discuss who the murderer might be. He’s been investigating on his own and wants to take her on a mission. They immediately leave town together. The security guard then collars Zayday, certain she’s the killer for reasons including a tweet to @ShondaRhimes about the hit show How to Get Away With Murder and the chainsaw Zayday keeps under her bed “for protection.” Then back at the sorority house Dean Munsch gets between Gigi and Wes on their “date” but it’s more of a salad dressing taste test than a date as the three of them eat salad with about twelve dressings to choose from on their Kappa House dining table. Luckily Dean Munsch brought all that salad dressing along to keep things truly tantalizing. She calls dibs on Wes so it makes perfect sense that she’d join them on their date – right? But who has time to protest? Wes leaves super early anyway – something about being worried his daughter Grace has just left town and will get murdered.

Soon after Gigi and the Dean settle into silky twin Kappa House beds for nighty night until the Dean’s “white noise machine” turns out to be a more of a horrifying noisemaker. So, Gigi trots downstairs to the living room couch with her pillow. But guess who awaits there? It’s the Red Devil with his chainsaw! Wes hears the revving chainsaw from his car outside where he apparently fell asleep just before driving away to save his daughter. He rushes into Kappa and scares away the Red Devil. When Dean Munsch comes down to see what all the fuss is about he says, “Aha! You’re the killer!” They call the cops and the episode ends with Dean Munsch as the show’s primary suspect. Thus, we’ll have to change our guess for this week and pick another character as the killer. We can’t take the easy route… so, we’ll take the second easiest route. Who falls asleep on the way to save their daughter, anyway?

Tonight’s guess for who the Red Devil killer is: Wes

–Katherine Recap

I watch an awful lot of television but it is predominantly of the scripted variety. I have watched very little of the shows in the Reality Show Pantheon such Survivor, So You Think You Can Dance, The Amazing Race, and so on. The shows that I do watch are Chopped (which is probably more of a cooking game show than traditional reality show), Top Chef and The Voice, the last of which is currently about a third of the way through their Blind Audition round of shows.

The idea behind the Blind Auditions on The Voice is that a hopeful singer comes out on stage and performs one single song in front of four potential coaches — this season’s lineup is Blake Shelton, Pharrell Williams, Gwen Stefani, and Adam Levine — who sit with their back turned to the stage. They cannot see the contestants and have to decide based solely on that performance whether or not they want to turn around and offer the singer a spot on their team. Even one chair turning means a player will advance beyond the Blinds. It is pretty much The Hunger Games from there on out as each player is groomed by the coaches to be pitted against each other until only one is left standing — how amazing would it be to get the Lenny Kravitz crossover?

The winner either receives a recording contract or is sold to the makers of Soylent for processing. Nobody knows for sure since we rarely hear from the winners ever again. I don’t know why this is the reality show that I have latched onto but here I am back for Season 9 to deliver my hot takes on the contestants who make it past the Blind Auditions over these next couple of weeks. As of this writing two shows have aired and each coach has between four and six players on their teams.

Team Blake: Barrett Baber

The High School teacher from Arizona has the corny white guy category all but locked up and could be around for the long haul on the show. He will have to sweat a couple of head to heads with other corny white guys — there tend to be a lot of them on Team Blake — but should make it to the Live Rounds where the public will love his heroic story and the Blake Shelton country machine will get the vote out. In his backstory it was revealed that he survived a plane crash and rescued some other passengers. He thinks maybe this show is why he survived. Has to worry a little about seeming too fanatical about his “destiny” as hubris does not play well in the Lives.

Prediction: Makes it to the Live Rounds.

Team Blake: Blind Joe

Barrett Baber had better hope he is not paired up against Blind Joe in any of the culling rounds where coaches make their own team members go head to head. Joe has a compelling story, more than enough talent, and a down-to-earth sense of humor about the bad hand he has been dealt in life. He was not expected to live as a baby and was blinded during his care by poor care. I expect to see him make a deep run on the show and could see him being one of the many Team Blake alums who go on to have Country Music careers.

Prediction: Made man in the Country Mafia opening for the Swann Brothers next year.

Team Blake: Emily Ann Roberts

In her pre-Blind roll-in, Emily talked about her love for old country and invoked the names of Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton. She talked about getting double takes when she sings Folsom Prison Blues as a fresh-faced teenager at the local coffee shop. Then she went and performed wedding staple I Hope You Dance by Lee Ann Womack for her audition. Pretty disappointing after that build up but she is good. Could get lost in the shuffle if she doesn’t let that old soul out of the cage.

Prediction: Stolen by Adam Levine

Team Blake: Nadjah Nicole

Her performance of Tightrope was one of my two or three favorite in the Blind Auditions so far. She left behind the possibility of a music career years back to take care of her child and should only get stronger as she gets her performance muscle memory back. She chose to be on Team Blake over Team Adam which seemed like a misclick on her part. I don’t have a ton of confidence in Blake’s ability to pick songs for her or to be able to best showcase her talents.

Prediction: Most likely to make me curse and scream when she gets cut in favor of one of the many inevitable corny white guys (hereafter knowns as CWG) on Team Blake.

Team Blake: Zach Seabaugh

Super boring and not much in the way of character but has a better look and sound than many of the CWGs that have made deep runs on previous Blake teams.

Prediction: Eliminates Nadjah Nicole head to head.

Team Pharrell: Evan McKeel

The judges clearly heard something I did not because his Blind Audition was pretty forgettable but he got multiple chairs to turn, including Pharrell who implored him to sing a little Stevie Wonder. He utterly crushed Overjoyed and shot right up the power rankings for me as one of the competitors who can go far if he can stick to music that inspires similar performances. Emily Ann Roberts, take note!

Prediction: Eliminated late in the Live Rounds on a tarnished version of Titanium

Team Pharrell: Ivonne Acero

I have to admit I am always a sucker for the Blind Auditions when someone who did get any chair turns in a previous season comes back, implements the notes of the coaches (usually “don’t pick such a bad song”) and lands themselves on a team. That said, Pharrell and Adam may have hit their buttons a little too soon here.

Prediction: Good story albeit a short one

Team Pharrell: Mark Hood

He opened the show with a four chair turn but did not strike me as a four chair talent — they usually have something really unique and emotional in their voice. Mark may well be the corny black guy of the show. And that might be okay for him since there is not a glut of corny guys, white, black or otherwise, on Pharrell’s team for him to have to battle with in the early rounds.

Prediction: Knocked out performing Radioactive

Team Pharrell: Siahna Im

It is utterly bewildering to me how a teenaged girl with a mouthful of braces — and a speaking voice like a cartoon character — can come out and crush a rendition of Peggy Lee’s Fever. But Sianha was more than up to the task and is, for me, a favorite to go through to the finals.

Prediction: Makes tabloid headlines when she attends prom with last season’s winner Sawyer Fredericks.

Team Gwen: Braiden Sunshine

The youngest performer so far — just 15 years old — gets points for staying focused in his performance despite the fact that Gwen and Pharrell both sandbagged their chair turns until the very last second. I have become pretty jaded about younger performers after Sawyer Fredericks just steamrolled the field last season. He is going to need to establish a musical identity because being young is just not enough.

Prediction: Cloudy future for Sunshine.

Team Gwen: Ellie Lawrence

I love a good rearrangement of a bad song and Ellie Lawrence took a chance with an indie rock version of We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off. It was a risky move that might have been better held in pocket until she had already secured a berth on a team. It resulted in her landing on the team of her Ska idol Gwen Stefani. Perfect pairing that could pay off for Stefani who is the only coach this season without a win on that show.

Prediction: Most likely to actually sing a song that is on a CD gathering dust on my shelves.

Team Gwen: Noah Jackson, Hanna Ashbrook, and Tim Atlas

A handful of artists whose auditions where not shown. Not enough information to make much in the way of predictions. Gwen was the only coach who turned around for all of them and expect them not to be around for long.

Prediction: Knocked out in Battle Rounds.

Team Gwen: Kota Wade

There was an episode of Hannibal during season two featuring a serial killer who was preserving and stitching together corpses into a grotesque Pantone color wheel. I am not saying that is what Gwen is doing with the hair colors of her female contestants this season but… Wade claimed rocker roots but her voice had a twang that means she might stay on the show when she is inevitably paired off against Ellie Lawrence.

Prediction: Stolen by Blake Shelton.

Team Adam: James Dupré

The running coach storyline on the first two episodes was Adam Levine’s quest to steal a country artist from Blake’s clutches. Blake has churned multiple country artists into recording contracts regardless of how far they go on the show. If you have any twang at all in your blood, and Blake turns his chair, you would be a fool not to go with him. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you country artist and Nashville resident James Dupré.

Prediction: Back in Nashville very soon.

Team Adam: Jordan Smith

“You’ll never leave Harlan alive,” recalled Jordan Smith, who hails from Harlan, Kentucky, of the experience growing up in a small Southern town and not fitting in. He obviously struck an emotional chord with the audience and the judges and could go very far. He is waaaaaaay more talented than previous square pegs who have gone far on the show and is from the same town that my favorite TV show, Justified, is set in.

Prediction: Last person standing for Adam.

Team Adam: Keith Semple

The problem with covering a Bon Jovi song is that you tend to sound like a Bon Jovi cover band.

Prediction: Livin’ on a prayer.

Team Adam: Regina Love

Once signed to a recording deal by heavyweight champion Evander Holyfeld, Regina Love has a powerful voice but nothing that distinguishes her as an artist — at least in this audition. She will be able to go toe to toe with some of the weaker links in Adam’s team but is going to have to really put up a surprising couple of performances to make it far beyond the Battle Rounds. There have been older R&B artists on previous seasons similar to Love, with strong instruments but dated song choices.

Prediction: Most likely to sing Proud Mary.

[For The Jim Gaffigan Show‘s “Wonderful” or any other recaps on Fetchland, assume the presence of possible spoilers.]

TVLand Summary:
Wonderful. After getting frustrated with sick, lice-infested children, Jim wishes that he never got married.

The final episode of The Jim Gaffigan Show had so many inside jokes it ate itself. In the first scene Jim and his friend, Dave run into John Mulaney on the sidewalk and Mulaney talks about how he just “got offered another show on TVLand… what? TVLand, yeah sounds like an amusement park but it’s a TV channel.” Gaffigan, who was just saying he’s not disappointed he can’t go to an Australian comedy festival with Dave, now has yet another great opportunity to secretly envy a fellow comic. He grumbles and groans, like everybody else in line at Katz’s, turning Dave’s stomach so he loses his appetite, but Dave’ll get lunch anyway since it’s always on Jim. Then, finally, Gaffigan admits that yeah, he’s getting soft career-wise. In fact, at this point he’s “probably like half pillow.” Jim starts thinking maybe he should just bite the bullet, leave the family and go to Australia for the comedy festival. This will give him a chance to escape not only the stomach flu that’s ravaged his whole family for weeks but also the lice infestation he’s about to face entering the apartment.

Next thing he knows, Jeannie picks through Jim’s hair and says she didn’t find any lice but adds, “there might still be those invisible ones, though.” He consoles himself with a good solitary cry on the toilet a moment later and then the youngest Gaffigan trots in with Jim’s MacBook Air and dumps it in the full bathtub. THAT’S IT! Gaffigan out! Jim rages and then storms out into the street. It’s now time for Gaffigan’s out-of-body experience thanks to a group of hipsters on Citibikes and an oblivious Steve Buscemi listening to Call me Maybe on his headphones.

Bikes, Buscemis, and Gaffigan worlds collide so that suddenly we’re in an alternate version of Jim’s life a-la It’s a Wonderful Life. Here’s where we get the meaning behind the last The Jim Gaffigan Show episode’s title Wonderful. After all, he did just scream that he hated his life and wished he’d never gotten married. This is the natural next step – angels and lessons and celebrity guests, oh my!

Gaffigan returns to his apartment but now it’s a clean and empty bachelor pad that Jim apparently shares with Dave and apparently his old school full head of luscious hair. But then a gross one-night-stand and the fact that he owes Dave back rent sends Jim back out to the sidewalk where his Buscemi/Angel awaits. Buscemi explains that Jim’s been granted the wish of never having married Jeannie. He also explains that he only appears to Jim as Steve Buscemi but is actually a guardian angel. His angel could’ve looked like Whoopie Goldberg… but with her role in Ghost that might have been too confusing.

Gaffigan momentarily brightens with the news that he’s still a comedian in this alternate angel world. He’s excited to go to a comedy club where he might finally feel comfortable and at home again. But once at the comedy Jim immediately falls into a deep pit of despair because it turns out that in this world he’s a filthy mouthed douchebag comic who disses and slutshames cool women like Whitney Cummings. This Jim offends wife-and-kids Jim. At this point Gaffigan starts begging Angel Steve for his family life back. On the sidewalk a shrieking Jim yells at Guardian Buscemi (invisible to all others) for not telling him where he can find Jeannie. This draws scoffs and mockery from nearby Alec Baldwin and – who else – but the ever present Macauley Culkin, now with his hair back in a manbun.

Jim finally gets Steve to help him locate Jeannie. Turns out she owns a bar, has a David Beckham haircut with matching tattoos up the wazoo and married Daniel, her real-world gay best friend. But in this world Daniel loves Jim’s comedy and Snicker bars… a real shock and almost a letdown given that this can’t possibly be an authentic Daniel. He’s living a lie because everybody knows Daniel’s loathing for Jim is his favorite feeling. This world’s Jeannie is also an opposite. She has major anger issues and punches Jim right in the kisser for even mentioning the notion of her having children. She hates kids!

Wonderful then leaps into the clouds of TV episode wonderland and everything shifts gears yet again. The punch from Angel-world Jeannie knocked Jim out. He wakes up on the sidewalk in the real world where it turns out he’s just hit his head. Steve Buscemi is there but he actually is Steve Buscemi. We take a turn into META town now as Gaffigan returns to his apartment with a new, more grateful perspective. Jim can’t wait to get upstairs and when he does things are about to get REAL. We’re talking real life real.

In his apartment Jim’s actual wife and show co-creator, Jeannie, awaits rather than the actress that plays Jeannie. His real kids are in the apartment too hugging Jim, and we can even see the crew shooting. Gaffigan tells Jeannie, his real life wife, how he had this dream that they made a TV show about their family and actors played her and the kids but he played himself. Jeannie replies, “Yes, and they’re all here.” Then the cast of the show comes out of the back bedroom so they can all sing Auld Lang Syne together, arms around each other, smiling, and swaying with the tune. The cast and crew toast to a show well done. The episode exits Season One with a big “Thank You” onscreen from The Jim Gaffigan Show – so polite and typical of Gaffigan, the boy scout comic. Thank YOU, Jim and Jeannie, for the creative fun and endless laughter. We’re truly looking forward to Season Two.

–Katherine Recap

[For The Bastard Executioner‘s “Effigy/Ddelw” or any other recaps on Fetchland, assume the presence of possible spoilers.]

FX Summary:
Effigy/Ddelw. An unlikely suspect is charged with treason; Wilkin carries out his dutes at the new executioner.

“This is such a morbid show,” says Katherine Recap to me as the second episode of The Bastard Executioner opens. She has switched her Tuesday night — ahem — recap-responsibilities to the also-bloody (but ostensibly more charming) Scream Queens (you should probably check that out).

I can’t disagree with her. That morbid opening of this episode has hero — or at least main character — Wilkin Brattle with woods witch Annora, reluctantly knifing a carcass.

“Morbid,” she echoes. “Dead animals and rain.”

Just as Wilkin cuts, the scene cuts to a pair of stonemasons producing a bust of the now-dead villainous Baron. “Too much force… a gentler hand,” is the surprising piece of dialogue.

Cut again to Love, the kindly Baroness, and Isabel, her faithful servant. Love instructs Isabel to select a more colorful dress (“something cheerful”); her time of mourning that bastard of a Baron has apparently ended.

While the Baron’s widow is refocusing on cheer, his former right hand man, Milus Corbett (you know, Vampire Bill from True Blood), is anything but. Corbett is all crying over some weird grass action figures and a little medieval-style illustration of the dead Baron.

Cut back to Annora and Wilkin… It seems that body-chopping was Annora teaching Wilkin “remedies of the body”.

We then get a magical flashback, with a little boy dressed as a nun kicking the bejeezus out of some other cats also dressed as nuns with a quarterstaff… And a not-burned Kurt Sutter is watching! This is actually a pretty telling scene as far as the enigmatic The Bastard Executioner goes. It seems that The Dark Mute wasn’t always burned (we already know from last episode that he is not actually mute), and it seems used to be a monk; probably even warrior-monk, you know, like in D&D.

Wilkin tells Annora he was left with the monks by a nun, who told them he was fatherless. Was she his mother?

Annora says Wilkin’s mom’s story ended. This viewer wonders if Annora is actually his mom. Because reasons.

Back at the castle, a wagon is prepared with the bust of the dead Baron; while in the woods, teenagers with their left cheeks painted colorfully — almost like college football fans — argue about who gets to do what. An older youth, on horseback, tells three others that “they” approach; and instructs his little sister Nia (a wee ginger cutie) to wipe the color from her face, that she is only supposed to watch. She, of course, will have none of that; because foreshadowing.

Or as Sondheim once told us:

What happened then — well, that’s the play,
And he wouldn’t want us to give it away

Wilkin meets up with some of his old buds from the village. Discussion gets a bit heated. For those of us who were a bit confused about why the heroic (or at least heroic-ish) Wilkin is posing as a castle executioner — who will be presumably called on to punish or even put to death the innocent, or at least his countrymen — that is made clear. Wilkin and wingman Toran are there to determine the identities of those who burned their village and killed their families in the Pilot.

For his part, Wilkin can barely hold in his rage, “knowing” with certainty that Leon Tell is responsible for the death of his wife Petra (wearing her sapphire cross and all). Of course we the audience know that Leon actually spared Petra. The only thing certain about this situation is that it is quite going to end tragically :/

Wilkin and Toran have determined that four other knights as well as their new reeve (Vampire Bill) were responsible… It is just a question of which knights.

The ball proper gets rolling when the wagon carrying the stone likeness of the Baron is set upon by our face-painted youths.

“Noble cowards!” They chide, taunting men away from the wagon, berating them with slingshots.

Little Nia jumps onto the stone likeness, breaking off its nose… Then is immediately captured 🙁

Meanwhile, in the Maddox home, apparently the executioner’s widow has no idea that Wilkin isn’t actually her husband, and is only posing as “punisher” Gawain Maddox. Wilkin seems to think that she is just not breaking kayfabe (even when they are alone in the apartment) but this viewer at least gets the feeling that she is actually just unhinged from having such a particularly terrible life.

Wilkin doesn’t get much chance to solidify her understanding as he is called in to deal with the captured Nia.

Remember when Katherine called this show “morbid”?

The first suggestion is to pull Nia’s fingernails out to get her to talk [about rebel movements]; then someone else says “the pear” will be quicker.

WTF is the pear?

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Does “the pear” have something to do with what Monica on Friends used to refer to as “her flower” in the fat Monica flashback episodes?

Wilkin doesn’t know what to think, examining a LITERAL medieval torture device.

“You stick it in her slot,” says Toran, settling our wonderment.

“God in heaven,” replies Wilkin (echoing 100% of audience members).

Love will have none of this torturing a fifteen-year-old girl, suspecting that she was just part of some childish shenanigans rather than an actual rebel insurgent. Unfortunately Wilkin has already removed one of Nia’s fingernails before Love can get there. Also unfortunately, Nia ain’t talking.

… Not even her name!

“Giving me your name will bring no harm to anyone.”

Baroness Love figures out which village Nia is from via a combination of observations and general being-Welsh knowledge of the area. She wants to find the girl’s parents so that they “can make recompense” and she has an excuse to spare the girl torture and death.

Let’s all go! says Love. Assemble a caravan! Milus tries to object, but Love simply tells him to bring both their priest and their execration. I mean, who’d mess with that combination of redemption and revenge? Exactly.

Annora does something inexplicable with blood and a magic(?) snake. Shrug. Cut to commercial.

Love and her caravan of knights and nobles descend upong Nia’s fishing village. Nia’s mother sends for rebel leader the Wolf (Philip Jennings from FX sister-show and BDM darling The Americans), and tells her older son — the one who told Nia she couldn’t play at the top of the episode — that “that noble waif is the only thing keeping me from gutting you like a cod”.

Love offers Mother fair trade… Her daughter’s life for a meeting with the Wolf (little does she know Mother has already summoned him, or at least his forces). All mother has is “fish and poverty” for trade, claiming not to know the Wolf; the death of Nia would just mean one less mouth to feed.

Yay?

After this non-exchange, Wilkin identifies the older brother as just having been chewed out by Mother. Maybe he can get something out of him?

Big brother gives up his name (Mabon) after simply being asked one time. “I ripped out your sister’s fingernail and she didn’t give me her name.” Wilkin and company make Mabon feel pretty pathetic, informing him that they might kill her essentially for his mistake. Mabon gives them information about a secret cache of weapons as trade for Nia’s life… Under the condition that his Mother never find out it was him who gave up the goose… err… goods.

After a short interlude about bible stories and Quran-quoting, we see Love’s caravan ambushed by Welsh rebels. Wilkin spirits her away, showing off masterful sword skills in the Baroness’s defense. The priest Father Ruskin (Osip from True Detective) is surprisingly effective as well, both with mace and a hidden dagger. Toran begrudgingly saves the life of one of the knights… Who probably burned down his fillage and killed his family and stuff :/

Back at the castle, Milus tells Love that the deal Mabon made happened before the cowardly ambush, and that her head must roll or they will look weak in the face of rebellion.

Love says she will think on it.

Both Father Ruskin and Love separately notice how good Wilkin was during the rebel ambush; he tries to pass this off as handling a blade being part of his job. Love will have none of it! Swinging an ax is brutish: He’s an artist with a refined discipline.

But enough on the niceties. Love tearfully hands him her decison on Nia 🙁

The ghost of Petra appears to either help or haunt Wilkin. Love’s note becomes a snake that encircles Wilkin’s neck… and becomes paper again.

Wilkin runs to Annora for help, showing her the note. Annora gives Wilkin what we all presume to be poison, and tells him to give it to Nia about an hour before he has to do his work.

As Wilkin gives Nia Annora’s potion, Vampire Bill returns, and tells him never to open his big fat mouth in the direction of the Baroness again.

But… “I serve the Baroness,” he points out.

“Gawain Maddox serves the lady,” Milus clarifies. “Wilkin Brattle belongs to me.”

What what???

As we the audience absorb the idea that the show’s villain knows who the bastard executioner really is, we cut to the doom of poor Nia. It turns out that Love’s decision was merely to cut off Nia’s nose — in mirror to what happened to the Baron’s bust — not to actually kill her.

I am reminded of Katherine’s comment about how morbid The Bastard Executioner was at the top of the hour. There are not many shows where seeing a lovely young girl get her nose chopped off would be considered a happy ending relative to setup and expectations.

Top 8 Observations for “Effigy/Ddelw”

1. Sutter totally cheated on this one. Perhaps he’s just assuming his base audience for The Bastard Executioner are 100% transplanted Sons of Anarchy fans? A cold viewer would have had no idea that the burned The Dark Mute was the not-burned guy watching a young Welkin learn to fight in the flashback scene.
2. Man! Sorry… woman! Welsh women are tough! Nia won’t give up a word — not even her name — even after some medieval torture (though it is unclear how much Nia actually knows about Welsh rebels); and her mother was like steel and stone in the face of losing her child when negotiating with Love.
3. For someone who has devoted much of his adult life to a game called Magic… The magic / mystical elements of this show are driving me nuts. Blood, visions, angels, demons (which are apparently imaginary?), and snakes… The hoodoo abra cadabra is my least favorite part of the show right now.
4. The setup of Welkin getting Nia’s doom was super interesting, and not just for the plot twist; Love assumed Wilkin (Gawain) could read.
5. I’m all for a romp with some hot twins (Vampire Bill’s last scene being a team event with a two-girl gift package from the King), but wasn’t he secretly gay last week?
6. Maybe that’s why Milus was crying over the grass action figure at the beginning of the episode? Was he secretly in love with the Baron? I thought for a moment he might be remorseful for his executed brother but the little illustration swayed my opinion on that one. Also if I were being tag teamed by the aforementioned twins, I don’t think I would have leftover concentration to be playing with the aforementioned little doll (which he was).
7. The conflict in The Bastard Executioner to this point seems largely driven by the incompetence of young people spoiling the execution of otherwise sound acts of rebellion. In the Pilot Ash gets spotted and semi-identified, leading to the village burning and murders central to our protagonist’s motivations, and in “Effigy/Ddelw” had Nia “just watched” as she was instructed a lot of the violence would have been entirely avoided. The rebels gained very little and much of the cost has been dropped straight on Welkin’s shoulders.
8. Googling the word “ddelw” mostly just produced other recaps of this episode and did not give me any satisfying context to make my own better :/

LOVE
MIKE

[For Scream Queens‘ “Pilot; Hell Week” or any other recaps on Fetchland, assume the presence of possible spoilers.]

FX Summary:
Pilot; Hell Week The most popular sorority, Kappa House, faces changes and a devil-clad killer wreaks havoc on campus.

There are several reasons to watch the newest iteration of charm and fright from Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan, creators of the respectively charming and frightful Glee and American Horror Story. Scream Queens has a cast loaded with certifiably talented stars and the show creators’ solemn promise that they’ll kill off at least one main character per episode. This cast’s promising amalgam of cuteness and aptitude includes such teeny-bopper-beloved talent as Ariana Grande, Keke Palmer, Lea Michele, and Emma Roberts. No matter how you may feel about the verisimilitude of said “talents” before watching Scream Queens, you will certainly be assured of their many abilities after the experience.

We begin with a bit of backstory for the sorority Kappa Kappa Tau, the primary haven of horror in Scream Queens. Our story begins on a wretched dark and stormy night when one of the sisters has a surprise baby (she totally didn’t know about it, guys!) and then dies the minute her sorority sisters leave. They do what any good sisters would and immediately hide the body, though we don’t find out what happened to that incredibly unlucky baby.

Then the 2015 story opens on current Kappa, a sorority where all the prettiest girls are named Chanel, just like in real life. And they all wear pastel Chanel suits, just like college girls so often do these days. It’s clear from moment numero uno that this is a mean girl’s world and Emma Roberts plays queen mean girl, Chanel #1. Within mere minutes of episode onset we’re already wondering if she’s an actual killer or just a killer bitch. The new Dean of the University, played by real-life scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis, has a major league bone to pick with the Greek System and she starts off on her mission to destroy by calling Chanel #1 into her office for menacing threats and accusations.

Next we meet innocent curly goldilocks, Grace chatting sweetly as her widowed Dad drives her to the first day of college. She may have a link to the opening Kappa Kappa Tau scene, so guess where she’s headed? Yes, Grace will pledge Kappa Kappa Tau, right after a waterworks hug goodbye with daddykins in her bleak dorm room. But then the room gets a helluva lot sexier when the stunning and sprightly Keke Palmer enters tp announce that she’s Zeyday and they’re roomies. Grace quickly convinces Zey to rush Kappa with her because how else is Zeyday going to fulfill her dream to be the first black woman President?

Unfortunately for KKT, that night the Dean extracts every last drop of elitism from their first pledge party when she declares that according to new school rules anybody can become a member of Kappa. This is where Lea Michele comes in as Hester, a disabled Kappa wannabe and now pledge. Hester wears a ridiculous neckbrace and thus suffers with that nickname henceforth. Still, her character is a gem and not just fodder for stereotypical disability cheap shots that fall easy from the totem of wisecracks – a stultifying medical device.

One of the funniest scenes involves a text conversation between murderer and victim standing just feet away from each other. In this scene we laugh and laugh because the only sad part is that the writers take out Ariana Grande, a fan fav for certain in this fabulous mockup of the movie Scream. But she died honorably, for the sake of the funny. The truly funniest scene, though, is the heart to heart Hester (Lea Michele) has with the top Chanels about her obsession with death and body disposal. She tries to help them deal with Chanel #2’s (Ariana Grande’s) body with her perfectly executed awkward and vulnerable yet all-knowing Hester. This is followed by a slapdash security guard visitation to the sorority house. Sent to protect the sisters from imminent death, the guard manages to only frighten them further. If you’ve ever been utterly flabbergasted by the inadequacy of an alleged professional sent to do a job, this scene rings true and funny too.

Scream Queens has it all, even a Veronica Mars side plot with goldilocks Grace and an intrepid barista/reporter digging up dirt on Kappa. They fall for each other in a stock scene hilariously ripping on multiple Taylor Swift videos. Grace does all the investigative work (of course) and finds out all the info but barista boy appears to kiss well enough for her to keep him on as partner. Problem is he happens to own the outfit the killer wears… though barista boy claims it’s his school mascot costume. Another subplot involves the Dean getting the hots for every male character while also seeking some sort of revenge on all female characters. Yet another side story involves a closeted gay Jonas brother who faces an outing by Chanel #1 but then gets his throat slashed – the last of many characters killed by the shiny devil in the seemingly inexhaustible sequence of death after death after death. But then a surprising twist at the end brings him back to life when the glossy red devil opens a morgue drawer and awakens the not-actually-dead Jonas brother. Turns out they were in cahoots! Still no clue really about who the devil actually is but we certainly know a tiny bit more than nothing about him now and that’s something – right?

Pilot; Hell Week is packed with action, sillyness, and mystery – a splendid smoothie composed almost entirely of pretty girls in tiny cute costumes. The music is perfect. The tone resplendent. The story gripping. The horror satisfies even though it’s not particularly horrifying compared to most gorefests these days. Even though shocking things happen and there’s lots of blood, it stays tame because of this funny, glittery, over the top world where jokes land like gold medal gymnasts doing cartwheel after backflip after roundoff. It’s a laughfest that indulges us in the comforting balm of familiar cultural references. There’s also a glorious mockery of everyday events like when divas scream at baristas for extra hot, no foam, half caff, pumpkin spice lattes. And throughout we revel in the teasing mystery of a murderer/conman who’s working the whole campus in a gleaming red devil suit.

Tonight’s guess for who the devil that killer is: The Dean

–Katherine Recap