Whedon's Much Ado trailer

People, I am really not sure how I feel about this:



I love Much Ado. LOVE it. That play is so near and dear to my heart, and informs so much of my outlook towards book and film...whether I'm reading about a couple or watching them on-screen, there's a 98% chance I'm subconsciously measuring their chemistry by the gold standard that is Beatrice and Benedick.

So. I'm just not sure about this vision of Shakespeare's timeless comedy of manners and romance. Maybe it's just the trailer -- the way its shot, the music? Maybe I'll love Amy Acker as Beatrice and whoever this Benedick guy is (Alexis Denisof -- clearly my problem is that I was never able to get into Buffy).

On the plus side, Nathan Fillion is playing Dogberry! And Clark Gregg is playing Leonato! HELLO AGENT COULSON. :) So there's that. Has anyone seen it? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Once Upon a Time 1.14: "Dreamy"

This episode of Once Upon a Time revealed the backstory of the surprisingly lovelorn dwarf Grumpy (Lee Arenberg), hinted at when he first met Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin) in prison when she was caught trying to break up Charming's wedding. Every love story in this show is SO SAD! Anyways...the episode opens in Fairy Tale Land, with the Blue Fairy (Keegan Connor Tracy) taking a pink fairy (who actually HAS A NAME) to task for being a klutz with some precious fairy dust (apparently its magic "powers the world" -- if that is the case, I'm thinking they need to cut off the Evil Queen's supply...just sayin'!). The pink fairy is named Nova (Amy Acker), a sweet and flighty dreamer who longs to be an official fairy godmother. So this brings up an interesting question -- if Nova is low fairy in the hierarchy, so to speak, why does she have a name and blue fairy is just "Blue"? Silly. So we have Nova the dreamer -- and some of her lost fairy dust falls through the ether and lands on an EGG in the dwarf mines, and out hatches Grumpy. This is a whole other issue much more disturbing than naming characters after colors -- why do dwarves hatch, fully grown?? This sorta creeps me out...

In Storybrooke we learn that Leroy, the Grumpy that was, has done a superlative job alienating his FTL dwarf friends, sadness. When Mary Margaret arrives at the diner in a mostly futile attempt to drum up volunteers for the upcoming Miner's Day festival, she gets so desperate she attempts to recruit Leroy. And he pulls out the HARLOT card (yes, apparently the dissolution of David and Kathryn's marriage is STILL all her fault). While attempting to buck up Mary Margaret's flagging spirits, Emma (Jennifer Morrison) gets a call -- a call that turns out to be the news about Kathryn's wrecked car. She heads out to investigate and Sidney (Giancarlo Esposito) shows up and offers to be all helpful (and Emma BUYS IT *headdesk*) and use his "contact" at the phone company to pull Kathryn's phone records. OF COURSE that contact turns out to be Regina (Lana Parrilla). *sigh*

Meanwhile, Leroy is stomping about the Miner's Day preparations and gets glitter spilled on his head by a nun named Astrid who turns out to be Nova. It is, of course, love at first sight. Which brings up a whole slew of other questions -- like what kind of nuns do former fairies make? And why nuns? And does Leroy have any idea who weird it is to watch him make googly eyes AT A NUN?! Did I mention Astrid is a NUN??? Weird. Those issues aside, Leroy and Astrid immediately click because that's what happens when FTL true loves meet in Storybrooke. She affirms his dream to sail around the world, and suddenly he decides that volunteering to sell the nuns' candles at the festival is the best idea ever. Of course people are going to buy stuff from Leroy, he's going to intimidate them into it, right? *wink*

Back in FTL, Grumpy-who-will-be is christened Dreamy by his special dwarf pick axe and gets the low-down on dwarf living --  no love, no women, no kids, just concentrate on mining the magic diamonds that are ground in to fairy dust that power the planet. Best part of this sequence? Dreamy and his dwarf brethren marching off to work whistling a familiar working song. :) So Dreamy does the whole mining thing for a while until one day the woman of his dreams, Nova, shows up to pick up a batch of freshly-ground fairy dust, and Dreamy has to save her from wasting dust TWICE ("my hero!"). Dreamy finds her klutziness adorable, and she drops a not-so-subtle hint that they should go "watch fireflies together." *wink,wink,nudge,nudge* This goes completely over Dreamy's head, so he gets all moody over dinner at the pub, and surprise, surprise, Belle (Emilie de Raven) is there to give him some advice -- he's in love. Now, while I loved seeing Belle in her iconic blue and white costume, I am sorta annoyed that her second appearance in the show felt somewhat wasted. I want Belle & Rumple scenes, dangit!! Belle's advice about being in love does raise an interesting question, though -- is this scene pre- or post- getting kicked out of the castle by Rumple? Thoughts?

In Storybrooke Leroy is all gung-ho to sell the nuns' candles which is apparently their only source of income. Thanks to Astrid's flightiness (ordering twelve dozen tanks of helium instead of just twelve -- why the heck do nuns need helium anyway?), the nuns are on the verge of being evicted by their landlord Mr. Gold (Robert Carlyle). Mirroring the friendship we've seen earlier in FTL, Leroy and Mary Margaret band together to SAVE THE NUNS! and try going door-to-door to sell candles, but that pesky harlot tag gets all the doors of Storybrooke slammed in their faces. But Leroy is all "never say die" and decides to sell Mr. Gold his boat for the rent money, only of course Mr. Gold is all "I can't stand nuns, let's kick 'em to the curb." (Big win here being Mr. Gold in a sharp suit, yay!) Leroy's at his wits' end when Astrid shows up with a pie to thank him for his help, and when the truth of the matter -- that not a single candle has been sold -- is revealed, it appears that Leroy and Astrid are farther than ever from reclaiming their happy ending (hello, we still have the NUN ISSUE).

Wrapping things up in FTL, Dreamy's decided to say to heck with a dwarf's life and sail the seven seas with Nova, until Bossy dwarf (Ken Kramer) plants doubts in his mind that dwarves are incapable of love, and then Blue shows up and drops the bomb that if Nova forsakes her calling she'll LOSE HER WINGS (I suppose that's better than disbelieving children making fairies drop dead, right?). Basically if you are part of either of these two groups, don't buck the system. *sadness* However, I've got to say it was a bit of a refreshing change to have a FTL romance hit the rocks thanks to someone other than the Evil Queen. After breaking the bad news to Nova, Dreamy returns to the mines with a new, harsher edge, breaking his first axe and getting rechristened with the name Grumpy by its replacement. GRUMPY NEEDS A HUG.

In Storybrooke Leroy and Mary Margaret are having a pity party until he has a moment of zen -- life shouldn't be about letting your failures or regrets define you, but instead about holding on to the good memories, and building from that. Leroy is all inspired to CARPE DIEM and takes a pick axe to a transformer, knocking out the power. I'm not gonna lie, I kinda cheered. I'm a total sucker for big moments like that. :) So now every one of those Storybrooke ingrates want to buy candles and in the blink of an eye Mary Margaret and Leroy sell out. THE NUNS ARE SAVED, because everyone decides to use candles instead of, you know, fixing the transformer. A grateful Astrid is all chummy and BFF-y with Leroy, and apparently CANDLES is the way back from the whole tramp stamp thing for Mary Margaret since Granny (Beverley Elliott) offers her OWN CANDLE so Mary Margaret can light hers (oh the symbolism!).

So all's well that ends well...almost. There's a suspicious phone call from David (Josh Dallas) to Kathryn the day of her disappearance (on the oh-so-conveniently provided phone records from Regina's lackey, Sidney), and Regina is all fake-worried-friend up in arms about Emma doing her job and not showing bias towards her roomie. Emma knows she must DO HER DUTY and goes to the festival to bring David in for questioning. The shock and horror of seeing Charming hauled off in the back of a police cruiser is BEYOND WORDS. Anyone not in Regina's camp has to know somebody's gonna get railroaded, right? *sigh*

On the whole I'm a little ambivalent about this episode. Grumpy and Nova were sweet but overall this ep felt more like filler than critical backstory. And the whole dwarves-hatching-from-eggs and fairies-turning-into-nuns thing kinda weirded me out. :P I did, however, like seeing Leroy and Mary Margaret take some tentative steps toward re-establishing their friendship in the Storybrooke world. Thoughts?

Grimm 1.11: "Tarantella"

"Tarantella" is at once the grossest, most disgusting yet simultaneously tragic and heart-breaking episode of Grimm thus far. This episode takes its inspiration from a Japanese short story entitled "The Goblin Spider," where apparently normal-looking spiders morphed into hideous, larger versions of themselves capable of horrific acts. The Grimm version of these Goblin Spiders are called Spinnetods, or Black Widows of the Wesen (creature) world. Spinnetods are female, plagued by a condition that causes rapid aging unless they literally suck the life out of three young men every five years. The tragic thing about these undeniable predators is that they are haunted by self-loathing -- they don't want to kill, but when the choice comes down to kill or rapidly age & die, well that is no choice at all. Talk about depressing!

The Spinnetod in question is played by guest star Amy Acker, which got a lot of Joss Whedon fans excited since she appeared on both Angel and Dollhouse (I never watched either, so all I can say is that I had a general impression of her as likeable). The episode opens with Amy's character, Lena, meeting a Fuchsbau (fox-like creature) on the prowl at a swanky art show. They flirt, she plays coy, he insists, and they end up back at his apartment. Apparently rethinking her decision, she tries to leave and is attacked -- quickly, and shockingly, turning the tables on the leech and transforming into a disgusting-looking spider woman, forcing him to swallow some sort of venom she's spitting up (but not before he bites off one of her fingers). If you can get past the gross factor, the set up here is pretty brilliant -- nothing about Lena's appearance or demeanor screams deadly predator, and her obvious horror and remorse in the aftermath of the killing immediately suggest that what she's just done is beyond her control -- the only question that remains is why?

Nick (David Giuntoli) and Hank (Russell Hornsby) are understandably puzzled by how a killer can essentially suck his or her victims completely dry, leaving them in a dessicated state that suggests they've been dead for months or years rather then a matter of hours. When the coroner reveals that the corrosive contains spider venom, I just have to say I think it took Nick a little longer than it should have to hit the Grimm books looking for a culprit. Really that should be his default reaction by now. :P Anyways, Lena's killed again, suggesting she's a cold-blooded predator -- but what about the earlier tears? When a match is returned on the finger found at the first crime scene, Nick and Hank realize they have some sort of ritualistic killer on their hands -- the print matches one taken at crime scenes five and ten years prior, crimes that occurred in clusters of three. Cut to Lena once again, and just when we think she's marked her third would-be victim, we discover that she's flirting with her husband at their daughter's soccer game. This dichotomy, Lena's obvious desire to appear small and normal and unobtrusive, it's completely at odds with her earlier more brazen, flirtatious behavior.

When Nick discovers an ancient scroll in Grimm HQ (a.k.a. Aunt Marie's trailer) talking about deadly "spider women," he of course turns to Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell) for more information (because OF COURSE asking a blutbad about spiders makes PERFECT sense *wink*). So OF COURSE Monroe is friends with Charlotte (Dalene Young), an elderly Spinnetod living in the local Wesen nursing home. 1) How hilarious is the idea of Wesen long-term care facilities? 2) How adorable is it that Monroe visits old spider ladies in nursing homes? I mean SERIOUSLY! Could he be more perfect?? ANYWAYS...Charlotte brings Nick face-to-face with the cost of turning one's back on the Spinnetod lifestyle -- she's actually 26 years old but looks 70 plus at best. The moment when she "jokes" about Monroe and Nick looking tasty -- the looks they exchange are priceless.

So, we cut back to Lena, who has given her husband Robert (Ryan McCluskey) the Rolex she took as a "trophy" of her first kill in this episode. Their daughter Sally (Nicole McCullough) is all "OOOH!!! SHINY!!!" and takes the watch to school to trade for a bike (weird?!?), which gets back to Nick and Hank, who take Robert in for questioning. Nick is immediately suspicious of Lena's bandaged hand, but apparently spider women can grow back minor appendages AT WILL! Who knew?! But Nick doesn't give up becaues HE'S A GRIMM, DANGIT, and pressures Robert to flip on his wife -- because it makes no sense if Lena is a Spinnetod that she could have a long marriage. And this is where their story gets MORE tragic, because they are so obviously in love with each other, yet Lena has to commit these horrible crimes in order to slow her aging process and stay with her family. Talk about a Catch-22...

The climax of this episode, with Nick and Hank attempting to prevent Lena from committing a third murder, is actually one of the more suspenseful sequences the show has featured. Nick's hunt for Lena on the eerie marina made me jump more than once. And I loved how Nick really seemed to struggle with shooting Lena -- she needed to be stopped, but Giuntoli played it in such a way as to hint at Nick's acknowledgement that on some level, Lena couldn't help who she was. This seems to make Aunt Marie's injunction to "hunt down the bad ones" that much harder -- because how do you deal with the bad ones who don't want to be bad? And even more than that, what do you do when you know there's a murderer in the making (Lena's teenage daughter), but since she hasn't done anything yet, you just have to wait for her to act first? Talk about a burden, yeesh. So Lena meets her inevitable fate in jail, rapidly aging and crying over her lost family -- it's AWFUL. I mean we shouldn't feel sorry for her but we DO because she looks like Amy Acker who is SO DANG LIKEABLE.

This episode also featured a potentially disturbing development on the homefront for Nick as far as his relationship with Juliette (Bitsie Tulloch) is concerned. Wesen children have taken to egging his house, which gets Nick concerned about his unwanted notoreity (side note: Nick & Monroe hanging out for coffee? WIN). So Nick has to Grimm-it-up if you will and instill a little healthy fear of repercussions in the Wesens spreading the news about his Grimm-status -- in this case the culprit is that pesky refrigerator repairman who got all whigged out when he realized who Nick was. It's been coming at a bit of a slow burn all season, but Nick is really stepping up in the Grimm department, becoming more proactive without (thus far, anyway) letting his "powers" go to his head. All in all, a very solid episode, though the deaths-by-corrisive-spider-acid were a bit gross. And shout-out to Captain Renard (Sasha Roiz) for continuing to look friggin' awesome in nice suits. Makes me happy. :)