...And On And On And On

Hex Episode 1x02 - "Life Goes On"

Episode Grade: C-


So, this one is not better, as I'd hoped, and yet, somehow, I'm again left believing that there's a good chance it will get better. First time, that pretty much made sense, but now I'm really just being stupidly optimistic. Whatever.

So, anyway. Previously: Rupert exposited his heart out about Rachel McBain, first mistress of the estate GONE WILD. Cassie found a Smurf Penis. Cassie bled in the Smurf Penis. Thelma was a lesbian. Cassie has psychotelekinetipyromanical powers. Cassie looooves Troy, Thelma looooves Cassie, Cassie looooves Thelma but won't admit it. Some rockin' guitar kicks in to attempt to distract from the fact that even a one minute recap of the events of the first episode is kind of dull. Azazeal was a creepy fucker. Love is a sacrifice, love is a sacrifice, love is a sacrifice. Ergo, Cassie was punk'd by Azazeal into sacrificing Thelma, who excellently turned up as a snarky ghost at her own funeral. I think we're all up to speed.

Credits. I would die for something interesting to watch, I would sell my soul for something interesting to watch, so on and so forth.

Generic Club, young people party hard, as is their wont. Cassie orders a pint of non-product placed lager, and promptly throws it on a random guy. Cassie apologises profusely over and over, and he's all "Oh! Oh! My jacket!" and "I'm covered in lager! Really crap non-product placed lager!" and gets with the flirting, offering to buy her another drink. Cassie looks pleased with the attention but turns down the offer anyway. A really socially awkward guy approaches Cassie and starts enthusing about how something she said in class was really, really interesting. If Cassie says interesting things, why not actually show this in the episodes? Socially Awakward starts going on and on about how much he knows about the Aliens films. Cassie doesn't care. I don't care. Nobody cares. What is the point of this? Cassie is bored into seeing Azazeal in full on cheap looking yellow demon-thing get up wandering around the club, and disinterestedly tells "Felix" he's a genius as she wanders off to follow Azazeal. Felix nods all "awwwl-right", and asks some other random girl if she likes Aliens, which OK, was sort of funny.

Cassie wanders the halls (for an unnecessarily long time, of course), and happens upon the guy she spilled her crappy non-product placed lager on earlier convulsing on the floor of the toilets. Cassie looks mildly perplexed at him as he slowly gets up, and runs out of the room, totally ignoring Cassie asking if he's alright. Cassie looks around, then follows.

In the club, Roxanne and Gemma bitchily watch Cassie from a stairway and bitch about how miserable she always looks. Yeah, it's almost as if HER BEST FRIEND DIED a (presumably) short time ago. For fuck's sake. They're horrible people. I got that memo loud and clear last week.

Dancing, dancing, dancing. Cassie spots convulsing lager spill guy (let's jut call him Ted. That's actually picked at random). Ted has bloodshot eyes. Ooooooh. Spooky.

Hey guys, you know what doesn't build up tension when you use it in every single fucking scene to build up tension? Cassie slowly wandering down a hallway, looking mildly perplexed. Also, anything else. So, Cassie eventually finds Ted assaulting some girl, and telekinetics a fire extinguisher to spray in his face. She apparently has to actually tell generic screaming victim to run before the girl thinks to do so, so frankly, I think it's clear she deserved everything she was about to get. Ted chases Cassie outside, who pulls her exact same fusebox trick from last week to throw him off. Come on, you're already recycling uses of a power as broad as that in the second episode? That's just really, really lazy. This time it has the addition of actually electrocuting Ted, but still.

Cassie limps her way home, pausing to note the fact that Azazeal is being a creepy stalker as always. Now, bitches, if you want to bitch at someone for looking completely miserable all the fucking time, this is your guy. Cassie just looks mildly perplexed.

Cassie goes inside, to her room and lies on her bed, crying. She looks over at the bare half of the room where Thelma's stuff used to be, and cries some more. That's really sad and affecting and all, but, I was promised Ghost Thelma. It's been ten minutes now.

Oh, hey, there she is. So, Thelma and Cassie lie in bed in their underwear and make out for a while, in the hopes that this will keep the penises in the audience interested. Yeah, this really is pretty gratuitous. But hey, it's better than Cassie walking slowly down hallways, so, gratuitous away.

Cassie wakes up, and tells Thelma, who's sitting on the end of her bed smirking, to stop doing that. Thelma's all "That's not what you said a second ago", which is cheesy as hell, but she clearly knows it, so it's still funny. Cassie objects to the underwear Thelma chose to dress her in which, also funny. As I suspected, Ghost Thelma is kind of awesome. Especially in comparison to the dreariness that came before she finally showed her face. Cassie ineffectually complains some more, then goes off to class.

Locker Room. Thelma observes that some extra has been eating a lot of natural yoghurt lately. Cassie exasperatedly asks if she doesn't have anything better to do than follow her around. She doesn't. Apart from in the first ten minutes of the episode, anyway. Thelma asks if Cassie's "been stalked by any fallen angels lately", and there's some faux-blasé discussion of such.

Outside, Cassie complains that she "just wishes [she] could make everything normal again." Nice try, but this still isn't the British Buffy, guys. At Cassie's "Why me?" whining, Thelma points out that Azazeal said it was "no coincidence that [Cassie] found the [Smurf Penis]." Cassie corrects her on her pronounciation of [Smurf Penis], and complains some more that she's had enough of Azazeal, and apparently by extension, she's also had enough of media class, since she decides to skip it. Thelma shouts "Skiver!" at her retreating form, and decides to stop following her around for a while.

The Sad Tinkly Piano of Cassie Walking Down A Lonely Country Path plays a Cassie walks down a lonely country path. The camera artfully shows nothing but the backs of her legs for a while. They are pretty nice to look at, though. A little way down the path, there's a parked car, out of which jumps Troy, desperate for someone who can fix his car, because if his car doesn't get fixed, he'll never be able to save kids from the horror of bad school dinners! Also, he's apparently been sitting there for half an hour, even though we can quite clearly see that Cassie can't have walked more than about ten minutes from the college. Troy is hella lazy. Also, Cassie, just by glancing at the car, diagnoses that he's flooded the engine, which is curable by leaving it for fifteen minutes. Troy offers her a lift by way of thanks, and also in the hope that it will keep her from telling anyone how crap he is with cars. Mmmm, contrivancey. Cassie turns down this offer for no discernable reason, so Troy drives along behind her, listing all the heated seats and other such features that his crappy little car doesn't actually have as selling points until Cassie gives in. They make googly eyes at each other for a while. She's really dull, he's really dull, so you'd think they'd be a perfect match, but there's really no chemistry here.

At Generic Café now, Troy is telling Cassie the fascinating story of how Leon sings in his sleep. Xylophone of Ensuing Wacky Hijinks starts up as we see Thelma's head pop out from behind a wall. Cassie spots her spying, looks annoyed and then looks down at the table sadly for some reason. Troy's suddenly like, "Oh shit, not the best person to moan about my roommate to", but Cassie tells him it's fine. Troy helpfully clichés "It's strange, isn't it?" Well, at the end of the day, you win some, you lose some. Cassie tells him people are making it strange by being all weird around her and the like. Thelma stalks around making crazy ostrich faces. I have no idea. Cassie bemusedly tells Troy that the college is planning on dedicating a bench to Thelma, and asked her where Thelma's favourite spot was. Troy says "You must miss her, though", and Cassie tells him she gets the feeling Thelma is still there, watching over her. See, it's funny, because Ghost Thelma is actually there, watching over her! Ha ha! Shut up, Xylophone of Ensuing Wacky Hijinks.

Blah de bleedy, Cassie and Troy go back to college, Jenny greets them with a stern look and says she missed them in Media today, Cassie feeds her some crap about having a doctor's appointment to which Troy gave her a lift, which Jenny totally accepts, because it's Cassie, and there's that weird "Cassie can do no wrong" thing going on with the staff in this place. Troy thanks her for covering for him, and says if she needs company, he's always happy to get away from Leon, "And I promise I won't be nice to you." Okay, heh.

Night time exterior shot. Azazeal stands ominously. He's trying to do that thing with a thin strip of light illuminating just his eyes, but he's a little too short, so it's actually illuminating his forehead. Hee hee! Close up on his eyes, which are bloodshot. He ominously lights a cigarette, and looks at, I guess Cassie's bedroom window. Ominously.

Bathroom. Despite being a ghost, Thelma is apparently perfectly able to pick things up. OK. She can touch things, she can affect people's dreams, this ghost thing doesn't seem like such a bad gig. But then, having Cassie as your sole company is a pretty big down side. Cassie complains about Thelma spying on her, tells her not to do it again. Thelma goes through her stuff and finds a condom, Cassie complains some more with overuse of the word 'just'. Thelma asks "When exactly were you planning to use this... Ribbed for her pleasure? Like that works." Cassie's all "How would you know?", blah blah banter, both stop dead in their tracks outside when they see Rachel standing there. Oh wait, that's the bad lighting striking again, it's actually the girl Rachel sacrificed. She walks up to Cassie, shows her her bloody fingernails. Or, where her fingernails would be if she actually had any. Cassie gapes for a while, then little girl momentarily morphs into cheap looking yellowy demon Azazeal and back again and starts strangling Cassie. Thelma helpfully shouts "Run!" and they do, slamming the door behind them. door handle rattles. Cassie smashes a lamp and grabs the wires for some electroshop therapy. Thelma stands around looking scared. You're already dead, Thelma, what's she going to do? Door handle stops rattling. Night time exterior shot to show passage of time.

Cassie picks up pieces of broken lamp. Thelma paces around and gibbers "That was so not funny. We were having a nice conversation, then suddenly Freak Girl pops up." Yes, I know. I did just watch that. And frankly, Freak Girl won't cut it as a nickname. Must try harder. Cassie tells her to stop freaking out so, Thelma shouts "Ghosts get scared too!" in case we'd forgotten about the ghost thing, what with all the picking up of objects. Thelma authoratively states that they need to know what's going on, and looks significantly at the Smurf Penis. Cassie objects for a while, but then gives in. Thelma says "Good girl... Or something a little less patronising", and at Cassie asking if she wants to be thrown to the nail girl, gives a somewhat hilarious "No miss, sorry miss". Also, Nail Girl won't cut it as a nickname either. Cassie hesitantly grasps the Smurf Penis, gets flashes of Nail Freak Girl showing off her lack of nails again, and Probably Also Nail Freak Girl hanging from a tree. And then the soundtrack gets all "Check out this shocking information" as Cassie describes what we just saw to Thelma in dramatic revelation voice. It's "show, DON'T tell", not "show, THEN tell", writers.

Azazeal stands by the same tree, looking mournful. Well, duh.

Uh oh, people are probably going to be losing interest by now, quick! Naked showering Cassie! Blah blah nipplecakes. Thelma enjoys the show. Cassie is startled when she sees Thelma watching and bitches at her for it. Thelma's defence is "You should be grateful I can't grope you", which is not the kind of thing that would stand up well in a court of law. Also; she can't? Ghost Thelma's abilities are not making much sense right now. Gemma and Roxanne bitchily walk into the room, Roxanne is bitchily describing her horrifying vivid dream last night about bitchily having lots of bitchy sex with Thelma. Bitchily. Cassie pops out from behind the shower curtain to give Thelma a Look. Thelma continues her string of horrible defenses with "Have you any idea how frustrating it is being a lesbian ghost?" Wait, Thelma's a lesbian? Gosh, I had no idea. Gemma bitchily laughs and bitchily proclaims this gross, as Thelma is dead, Roxanne bitchily starts "Well, obviously she wasn't..." to which Gemma bitchily says "Now that would be interesting." Yeah, interesting is exactly the right word to describe necrophilia, Gemma. Absolutely. Cassie decides to piss on their cornflakes by walking out of the shower and glaring at them. Thelma awesomely blows Roxanne a kiss as she follows Cassie out.

Outside, Cassie walks along a path, soundtrack gets all ominous for a while then Azazeal appears and creepily says "Look at you. You're a mess." Also, he's actually smiling, which is really unsettling. Particularly when he tells Cassie "Poor Thelma. I didn't want to do that. But sometimes trivial things get in the way." Yeeeee. He carries on being creepy and vague about destiny and the like, and basically ignores Cassie asking about Freaky Nail Girl, then tells her "We're the same, you and I. If you could see your soul, you'd know", and wanders off. Lingering close up on Cassie's mildly perplexed face. Stop doing that!

Cassie and, at the opposite end of the room, The Bitches, watching Leon and Troy play pool. Leon and The Bitches talk hornily and bitchily, respectively, about whether Cassie and Thelma ever got it on. Troy rolls his eyes at them. Cassie leaves, Troy plays his shot and follows. Gemma bitchily rolls her eyes and says "Oh, off he pops". So, apparently Gemma and Troy aren't dating anymore, I guess. Whatever. I don't care. So, Troy catches up to Cassie, asks if she wants to go for a drink sometime. Cassie turns him down right at the moment because "things are awkward" and "it's hard to explain" and suchlike. Whatever, Cassie.

Cassie sits on a wall watching Troy play football. Thelma hops up to join her, and continues the questioning about Azazeal. Cassie's like "change the record", Thelma starts ranting about what a terrible evil men are, Cassie tells her "You're the most dramatic ghost I've ever known." Hex drinking game for teetotallers: take a shot every time Thelma appears in a scene and there's no overt mention of the fact that she's a lesbian or a ghost. Thelma complains that Cassie never watched her play netball, Cassie deadpans "You were crap."

Cassie sleeps. Creepy lullaby music and random images fading into each other. SKOBOW. The Hanging Tree. Bloodshot eyes. Freaky Nail Girl. Azazeal reminds us that "History has a habit of repeating itself". Azazeal creepily watches Cassie sleeping.

Outside, Jenny catches up to Cassie and says she's concerned about her, it's not like her to miss classes, rah rah rah. Cassie tells her "I've said sorry, what do you want to do, cane me?" Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if the answer was 'yes'. Cassie dismisses concerns, as ever. Thelma has apparently been waiting around a corner to pop out and suggest "Maybe you should cry more, try a bit of self-mutilation". Oh, apparently Jenny's name is actually Jo. I think Jenny is close enough. Also, Thelma reports that she writes erotic fiction in her spare time, and adds "It's not very good." Heh. Cassie spots The Hanging Tree and walks over to it. She starts digging around in the ground underneath it, and Thelma helps her out, continuing the mystery of what she can and can't do. What they find under a thin layer of soil is the gravestone of one Esther McBain, ostensibly Freaky Nail Girl, and Rachel's daughter. I don't know why Cassie is so certain of either of these facts, but whatever.

Thelma eats crisps and looks at the painting of Rachel. For no apparent reason, she decides to walk to the other side of the room, where a door apparently opens by itself. Also, she has a reflection. Fine. She grabs a candle and takes up Cassie usual 'walk slowly down a hallway' routine, but she at least has more than two facial expressions. Her ghostly compulsions or whatever the hell have led her into the room where love is sacrifice, love is sacrifice, love is sacrifice, which makes her shiver a little. She notices something on the wall, but I don't have a clue what, because bad lighting again. She opens up a chest, there's a doll inside. And finally, she tears off all the horrible brown wallpaper to discover that the walls are all covered in crude drawings of Robert Smith. Thelma's kind of wigged out.

Next day, Thelma's freaking out to Cassie about, and asks if she thinks it has anything to do with what Azazeal said about history repeating itself. Azazeal, history's habit of repeating itself is nothing compared to this show's habit of repeating itself. Cassie basically just tells her to fuck off.

In the cafeteria, Rupert's with Jenny, so he's in enigmatic mode, not expositional; "Do you know what was considered to be the world's first convenience food?" Jenny's obsessive response is "If I guess right, can we talk about Cassie?" Seriously, woman, get a hobby. Besides writing erotic fiction that's probably thinly disguised from being about you and Cassie. The correct answer is, apparently, "the humble sausage". So, blah blah, Cassie's not dealing with Thelma's death well. The conversation is intensely predictable, but Rupert being kind of cool as ever saves it from being entirely dull. Cassie's mother is, in Rupert's words, "still a fruitcake", which Jenny pointedly corrects to "still undergoing treatment". Rupert asks about her dad, but he's essentialy non-existant (which, again, nice try, but you're still not Buffy). So, is there any reason whatsoever that Rupert wouldn't already know that, besides an exuse to force in some exposition here? No. No, there isn't. Rupert tries to go back to discussing sausages, but of course, Jenny won't allow him to steer the conversation away from Cassie. She wants him to talk to Cassie, as they apparently have a "special bond". But surely not as special as the bond between you and Cassie, Jenny!

Media class, Gemma bitchily reads a Yates poem aloud. Leon giggles at the word "breast", because he's twelve. Troy and Cassie glance sadly at each other repeatedly. Jenny informs them that the poem is about Zeus in the form of a swan raping a woman, and that some people find the poem offensive. Gemma bitchily knows this is because they think Yates is getting off on it, Leon says "You can't blame him for that." Cassie continues to make moony eyes at Troy, Jenny sets the class an assignment and dismisses them. Cassie goes over to Troy to breathily say "Hi", Troy mimics, Leon gets all single-entendre-y as ever, Troy and Cassie glare at him until he goes away. Cassie tells him she's OK for having a drink with Troy after all.

Pool hall, Cassie wants to know if Thelma is ever going to stop eating, Thelma tells her no, because she can eat whatever she wants without gaining a pound. OK, so, totally fixed image comes with the ghost thing. Fine, that makes sense. Also, Thelma doesn't think she's exploiting her ghostliness enough; she could dance naked in the headmaster's office and no one would know. Oh, so her clothes apparently aren't part of the fixed image. No, that doesn't really make sense. Thelma asks what Cassie's up to tonight, Cassie tells her she's going on a date, which makes Thelma choke on her crisps. Cassie's getting annoyed with Thelma, so she gets up to make herself some coffee or tea or whatever. Thelma notices that Cassie's been drawing her own crude picture of Robert Smith all over her work. Ruh roh!

In their room, Thelma's obtained a weird Edea style hairband thing from God knows where. Cassie wants to know if she looks alright, Thelma sadly assures her that she does. Cassie apologises for this whole thing being so hard on Thelma, but she kind of needs it, and Thelma knows it, and tells her to have a good time, and it's the kind of sweetness that there really ought to be far, far more of between these two, dammit.

Cassie gets into to Troy's car, Thelma forlornly watches them leave, then goes of to do some more detective work. Well, first some more eating. She actually buys chocolate from a vending machine. You're just trying to annoy me with this shit now, aren't you? So, Thelma wanders down a hallway for a while eating her chocolate, then spots a Henry VIII family tree on a whiteboard through an open doorway, which leads her to do some investigation into Cassie's family tree. So, she's perfectly able to root through filing cabinets, and hold a torch in her mouth. Fine, fine. Also, she gets spooked momentarily by footsteps outside, which, no one can even see you! What do you think is going to happen? Anyway, her discovery: Cassie's been receiving cheques for large sums of money from, presumably, her father, name of James McBain. Dun dun dun! Oh, also, Azazeal's still staking Cassie. Dun dun dun! And, yeah, that's the thrilling cliffhanger that ends the episode. Seriously, that's a second act break at best. Which, would put it halfway through the episode, which is, incidentally, the point we've reached in this season. Yes, already. There's only five episodes, and the first one was double length. So apparently they've paced what should be one episode as an entire season. Well, I've still got hope for things improving next week, because the second half should start bringing some payoff for all the masses and masses of buildup.

Sunday Shuffle #5: "You already used Betsy, like, six months ago."

It's almost actually Sunday, this week!

Art Brut - Emily Kane

Oh, awesome. So, yeah, this is the one where the whole "no actual music talent whatsoever" thing not only doesn't matter, but actually works to their advantage. It's massively awkward and adolescent sounding, and that's the whole point, and it's really quite beautiful. The rest of the album isn't in the same league. In fact, it's not even playing the same sport, if that's not stretching cliché analogies too far.

James - Ring The Bells

No one does uplifting anthems better than James. No one. No, not even The Flaming Lips. I'm serious. No one.

Mew - Comforting Sounds

Not to be confused with Comfort In Sound, Feeder's last remotely adequate album. Wow, this a really great week so far. I'm not really at all familiar with the rest of Frengers, the album that this comes from, but this is the first Mew song I ever heard, and damn is it a good one for that. Really turns the epic up to 11, and man do I love epic.

David Ford - Katie

And the good just keeps on coming. I Sincerely Apologise For All The Trouble I've Caused suffers a little from the saminess bug, but as I discovered with Keane last week, if you take a song out of an album like that on its own, you might be surprised by how much you enjoy it. As with Katie.

Gorillaz - Last Living Souls

This is definitely my favourite song from Demon Days, because I could just listen to that repeating string part over and over all day. Seriously, I know there's gotta be some crap near the end of this ten to make up for the awesome so far. Or maybe I'll get karmic payback next week.

Melt Wizard - Weis & Hickman

"Ruled by a dancing wizard and a man with runes on his motherfuckin' face". Don't tell me you can write lyrics as good as that. You're wrong. No one can write lyrics as good as that. No, but, in all seriousness, a) I really can't say it any better than Dr. David Thorpe, b) Very interesting that this should come up in the same week as Emily Kane since they are, in many ways, the same song. Both utterly transcendent. Download this now. I'm serious.

Delays - Lillian

Seriously, this really doesn't sound very much like The Bluetones. I don't know what you're talking about.

Jeff Buckley - Grace

I have Jeff Buckley songs? Huh. I totally didn't know that. Also, what's up with all the girls' names this week? Seriously. Oh, the song? Eh, I know it's blasphemous and all, but Jeff Buckley really doesn't do a lot for me, I'm afraid.

Brand New - Jaws Theme Swimming

Hang on, this is the worst song on Deja Entendu, isn't it? I'm sure it is, but... Seriously, is it really? Fucking hell, I love that album. "Take a leap from out the window 'cause it's way too far to go through the door". Oh yeah.

Final Fantasy - Your Light Is Spent

Unusual as it appears to be, I actually love Has A Good Home very nearly as much as I love He Poos Clouds. Unlike the latter, it does have a few songs that really, really stand out above the others, of which Your Light Is Spent is not one, but that's not a failure on the part of the rest of the album, that's just those particular songs being obscenely awesome. Your Light Is Spent is totally gorgeous.

Less "British Buffy", More "Lesbian Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)"

Yeah, I'm not sticking to the Sugar Rush theme for post titles for these. Let me warn you now, this is going to be a hella long post, because EIGHTY MINUTE EPISODE. Jesus.

Hex Episode 1x01 - "The Story Begins" (Hex episodes come with actual titles of their own!)

Episode Grade: C


First up, the word "H3X" in Standard Gothic Font With Backwards E inside a fiery hexagon, so we know what show we're watching.

Moody piano fades into the extrmely badly lit exterior of a large building of a type that is unidentifiable due to previously mentioned bad lighting. A blonde girl with somewhat ludicrous dangling earrings stands in the equally badly lit interior. OK, I'm adjusting the contrast settings on my screen. Blonde Girl walks down an ornate staircase, and we can see (just about, if we squint really, really hard) that she's also wearing an old-fashioned nightgown, and the that wholely inadequate lighting is coming from a few candles dotted here and there. The point we're supposed to take from this is that this is Not Present Day, I guess. Blonde Girl eavesdrops for a moment on some rich arseholes in the next room, laughing about slaves dying and shit, then moves on. One of the rich arseholes follows solely for the purpose of informing us that her name is Rachael. She tells him she's needed in the kitchen. A lantern bobs up and down and heads towards the kitchen. I imagine it's being held by Rachael, but I still can't see shit. Inside, an old black guy does some sort of ritual involving chanting, a phallic blue vase and decapitating a chicken, while a less old black guy starts totally having sex with Rachael right there, and the rest of the assorted black people in the room watch one or other of these activities.

Credits. More black backgrounds and orange fiery stuff, and a song I don't know (though I'm going to assume it's by Garbage), with all "I would die for you" lyrics. Tone it down with the oppressively cheery stuff here, guys, I feel like I'm watching Barney!

We're once again outside the building, but now it's daytime, so I can actually see it. It's some sort of big manor house or something. Man, I feel obliged to provide some sort of description after bringing to attention the fact that I couldn't see it, but, not doing such a great job. Anyway, there are also a whole bunch of Young People milling around outside in modern day Young People attire, so I guess we're not in the past any more, either. And also, this place is clearly not some sort of manor house any more, it's a college. Inside, there's some sort of english literature or somesuch class, and we get our first look at a bunch of the major characters. So. Girl with weird bowlcut hair and too much makeup, who'll be known as Cleopatra until further notice. Generically pretty blonde girl, who is the main character, and will be called Cassie, since it's her name and I can't be bothered to come up with a nickname for the few minutes before we find that out. Offering her an already sucked lollipop is every lesbian stereotype ever, rolled into one, who'll be known as Lesbian until she gets a name/other character traits. The teacher, who, much like Drew Barrymore in Donny Darko, is trying to be Down With The Kids. Picking a name totally at random here, she'll be Jenny. Girl who, from a two second glance, is quite clearly a bitch. Guy who is probably supposed to be the attractive male of the piece, but is worryingly remniscent of Jamie Oliver. And finally, Danny Out Of McFly, Who Until I'd Almost Finished Writing This Recap, I Had Confused With Dougie Out Of McFly, So It's Possible I'll Miss Correcting Some Instances Of Referring To Him As Dougie Out Of McFly. After Jenny finishes reading a poem to the class, Cleopatra asks "What does it mean when it says 'sucked on CUNT-ry pleasures?'" Fucking teenagers, eh? Jenny rolls eyes and tells her to use her imagination. Jamie Oliver suggests that Lesbian can show her later, and also names Lesbian as Thelma. Danny Out Of McFly says he'd like to see this, because being a horny idiot is his character trait. Cleopatra continues to feign ignorance, so Jenny tells her "Maybe your boyfriend doesn't like you enough. Oh, burn.

At their lockers now, Thelma is telling Cassie about a special offer on waxes or something. Cassie points out that Thelma has never waxed in her life, Thelma flirts "No, but you have", because there is clearly a thing going on between these two. I totally didn't know this show is also about lesbians, I swear. There's more vaguely interesting banter about this, and also, Thelma is disgusted by Jamie Oliver making out with Two Second Bitch right in the corridor. Cassie looks somewhat crushed, because clearly, she has a thing for one or the other of these two.

Girls bathroom. Two Second Bitch looks through an astoundingly large and easily accesible ventilation shaft straight into male shower room. Yeah, right. She names Jamie Oliver as Troy, and makes fun of the size of some other guy's cock, then starts yammering about the wonderfulness of her relationship with Troy, so that Cassie can stand in the background looking sad and pensive some more, in case we hadn't got the point.

We spend a few minutes watching Cassie walk out through the corridor, along a path outside, and into some sort of dark room full of junk, because I guess if they didn't show that, I'd be all "What? But she was in the bathroom? HOW DID SHE GET THERE?!" Thanks for helping me out there. Pan slowly across the room to Cassie, smoking. She looks at her watch, and puts the cigarette out, but trips on some crap as she's walking out, and thus decides that she doesn't, in fact, need to go somewhere urgently, and has time to slowly pick up a little bone cross and the phallic blue vase from the teaser. Slowly. Apparently the vase an important object, and thusly deserves a nickname, so; Smurf Penis. Thank you, I'll be here all night. She cuts herself on one of the sharp protrusions at the bottom of the Smurf Penis, and drips blood into it ominously. And slowly. If it seems like I'm repeating myself a lot in this recap, it's because I'm trying to convey an accurate portrayal of the experience of watching the episode.

Night time now. Turns out Cassie and Thelma are roommates, which is no massive shock. Cassie draws charcoal pictures. Thelma is bored and gets all in Cassie's personal space for a bit, then starts needling Cassie for having a thing for Troy. Cassie unconvincingly denies it. Thelma continues to annoy her. Cassie continues to display a total lack of remarkable personality traits. Thelma notices the Smurf Penis on a chest of drawers, and asks Cassie about it. Cassie has nothing interesting to say about it. I can see that becoming a trend.

Later that night (I assume), Cassie is having a nightmare involving Rachael, dead bodies hanging from trees, bald Rachael, and the word "AZAZEAL" carved into a piece of wood. Cassie wakes with a start, Thelma hurriedly comes over to comfort her. It's just a dream, Thelma says. But it FELT REAL, Cassie replies. Dun dun dun. Also, Cassie calls Thelma her "dyke in shining armour", and is the only one to laugh at this, because it's not actually funny.

Outside, Cassie's carrying a large pile of her drawings, to be contrivedly knocked all over the floor when Troy runs into her. Yes, really. Troy is friendly, but on the other hand, he looks like Jamie Oliver. Cassie gazes wistfully after him for a while. Jenny appears to ask her to give a presentation on whatever "this week's film" is. There's a little friendly banter to demonstrate that Cassie is a good student, and Jenny is a good person and blah blah.

Art class, in which we learn that a) Cleopatra does, in fact, have a forehead and b) the art teacher at this school is an absolute dick. Cleopatra shows her painting, which is a grey/black blob with stylised pink and red flowers scaterred around, to the class, claiming "It's about desire. Sexual desire." and how "When you desire something, or someone, it can be very frustrating." Art teacher calls her Roxanne and tells her he sees none of that, and that her painting is shit, basically. Dick. Danny Out Of McFly gleefully puts his hand up and shows a drawing of a huge >_< face, labelled "ROXY". Art Dicko calls Cassie up to show her painting, which is somewhat more traditional art. Roxanne bitches that "someone needs to get out more". Art Dicko mocks her some more, and enthuses about how great Cassie is. He asks what inspired her and such like, but Cassie says nothing, because she is Shy. Danny Out Of McFly suggests that her inspiration was "I need a shag". Also, we find out his actual name is Leon in this scene.

Cassie showers, and you can totally see her nipple, which I mention because apparently Christina Cole had no idea this was going to happen until the after the episode aired or something. Her nipple being shown, that is, I assume she was at least aware they were filming her at the time. Also, there appears to be no point to this scene other than to show Cassie naked. Well, they have to do something to try to keep interest, I guess, and the dialogue sure isn't working so far. The Smurf Penis sits ominously on the chest of drawers for a while. Cassie gets out of the shower, and hears some ghostly whispers of "Azazeal", then turns to see bald Rachael bleeding in the mirror, which then explodes a little. Which would all have been very shocking, I'm sure, if it wasn't for the "Tension! Is Ramping Up! Tension! Tension! Tension!" strings beating me over the head for the last nine hours or so. Cassie looks mildly perplexed.

Thelma comes into their dorm, where Cassie is lying in the foetal position on her bed, and starts complaining about the yoga teacher sexually assaulting her. She absent-mindedly grabs some food (of a kind that is indistinguishable due to bad lighting) from Cassie's bedside table and starts eating. Cassie takes the unkown food and pissily says "they're mine!", then goes back to curling up and staring at the wall. Thelma chews angrily at her for a while, then asks "Are you going to be a miserable cow all night?" The answer, apparently, is yes.

Boys run around outside. The headmaster (which I know because Jenny actually calls him "headmaster", rather than ever telling us his name) somewhat seedily admires them. Again picking a name totally at random, I'm going to call him Rupert. Though, to be honest, he's really more Robin Wood. They banter a little, then Rupert gets to insulting Roxanne some. She's clearly an idiot, but I haven't seen anything worthy of the utter despisal the entire staff of the college appear to have for her. Rupert and Jenny also get to talking about Cassie, what with her being the main character and all. Jenny starts "I know you have a soft spot for her..." Rupert asks "Is that a technical term?" By all rights, that should not be a notably interesting line, but... I have to take what I can get. Jenny is worried that Cassie lacks confidence, and would rather be "stupid and popular", which she might regret in later life. Rupert replies "Hopefully not. Hopefully, she'll be regretting all the men she's slept with." Also, throughout this conversation, he's doing weird things with a knife and an orange. Wait, is that an actual interesting character? Woah. Jenny gets tired of his crap, and strolls out. "Or women," Rupert adds as she leaves.

Cassie and Thelma are outside, apparently having a picnic of some kind. Cassie tells us she would shag Saddam Hussein, marry Tony Blair, kill George Bush, because apparently this stupid game is what passes for wit around here. A group of guys including Troy runs past, so Cassie takes the opportunity to direct some lust his way before generically listing three Hollywood actresses for Thelma, who answers instantly. "Thought about that one before, haven't you?" Cassie taunts. Hilarious. There's a little sudden seriousness, Thelma asking if Cassie is not having more "funny turns" which almost approaches sweet, then Thelma goes off to her ceramics class and the scene ends.

Cassie walks. For a while. More ghostly "Azazeal" whispering, and Cassie spots a guy too far away to see anything other than that he's dressed in black on the other side of a river/lake/some kind of body of water. Cassie walks some more. Again with the ghostly whispers and the stupid Tension! Tension! Tension! music. Close-up flash of the guy, who, from that quick flash, looks a lot like Gaius Baltar. But I'm going to call him Azazeal, because SPOILER, he's Azazeal. To be fair, the show actually treats that as an "oh, please don't tell me you hadn't figured that out yet" rather than a big reveal when it finally gets around to it. Anyway, at this point a tree branch falls off a tree. Cassie looks mildly perplexed again. She walks a little further, and happens upon Roxanne being broken up with by the art teacher, whose name is apparently Ben. Which is an actual awesome bit of plotting straight out of left field, because I sure didn't see that coming. So, kudos for that, at least. Roxanne is not taking it well. Cassie is nice to her, and they have a sweet moment. It's taken a full twenty minutes, but it seems maybe they've at least started to find ways to hold my interest now.

In her room, Cassie examines the Smurf Penis some more, and traces a finger along a carving on the side of it, which gives her a flash of Rachael in the throes of torture and/or orgasm. Cassie jumps back and breathes heavily for a while, then touches the Smurf Penis some more, and is gifted with images of dead Rachael floating in the SKOBOW (Some Kind Of Body Of Water, natch), the usual ghostly whispers, then somewhat less dead Rachael making out with Azazeal. Cassie again jumps back and again breathes heavily. She gets startled by a knock at the door. Tension! Tension! Tension! It's Roxanne. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" she asks as she barges straight in. But no, don't worry, Cassie was just fondling phallic objects and breathing heavily. Roxanne's here because she wants to make sure Cassie isn't going to tell anyone about her and Ben, but she's pretty nice about it, and it's apparently out of concern for what it will do to his career as much as for herself. She thanks Cassie for being so nice to her, and invites her over to watch a movie with "us". No prizes for guessing who that entails. Cassie shyly says she'll see if she's not too busy, then goes back to staring at the Smurf Penis once Roxanne has left.

Cut to Cassie, sitting and watching porn with Roxanne, Leon, Troy and his still nameless girlfriend and a few extras. Everyone else is amused by Leon's open-mouthed intense concentration on the film.

Thelma enters her room, bringing a mug she made for Cassie in Ceramics, cider and scones, suggesting they have "a cream tea. Without the cream. Or the tea." Uh huh. Thelma is surprised to discover that Cassie is not actually there, but apparently immediately figures out where she is. She enters, waits for Cassie to see her hurt look, then leaves. Cassie looks slightly apologetic, but stays put. Later now, Cassie tiptoes into their room, so as not to wake Thelma.

Next day, Thelma is being pissy at Cassie in the cafeteria, so Cassie wanders off, bumps into someone, then notices a painting of Rachael on the wall. Rupert sees her looking at it and decides that it might be an idea to get the plot moving along a little in the next hour, and starts off on some unsolicited exposition. So pertinent imformation: Rachael McBain, first mistress of the estate, became fascinated by the religion of the African servants; voodoo, and apparently sacrificed a young maid to try to summon someone or something. Yeah, no prizes, I'm afraid. She later went insane, and her husband stayed with her to the bitter end because "Sometimes love is a sacrifice too." Exposition now thoroughly exposited, Rupert wanders off and leaves Cassie to looking mildly perplexed at the painting as the ghostly whispers ghostly whisper "Rachael" at her. Cassie then goes outside to look mildly perplexed at the SKOBOW. For a while. Not even halfway through yet, guys.

In Generic Town now, Cassie happens upon Roxanne and Nameless Girlfriend outside a café or something. Cassie says hi, Roxanne offers a seat, the other bitch bitchily completely ignores her for as long as possible. Roxanne finally informs us the other chick's name is Gemma, and tells Cassie that she has nothing to wear for Leon's party tonight. Plot point! Gemma gives up on ignoring Cassie and bitches "You must have the same problem", because, if you were wondering, she's a total bitch, guys. Roxanne starts teasing her about the fact that she's only going because Troy will be there. Gemma denies this (bitchily) and walks off. "Funny how toilet and chocolate cake always seems to go together," Roxanne comments as she leaves. Dude. Let me tell you, Roxanne is undoubtedly the best thing about this show thus far. She thanks Cassie for keeping quiet about the affair, then passive aggressives that no one else knows about it, "so if it gets out, I'll know it was you," then invites Cassie to Leon's party.

At home, Cassie is deciding on an outfit when she accidentally knocks the mug Thelma made for her off the bedside table. Quick zoom to her squinting eyes, and the mug starts rotating, suspended in mid air. That's telekinesis, Kyle. Cassie stares at it for a while, looking, of course, mildly perplexed, until her concentration is thrown by Thelma entering, and the mug crashes to the ground. Thelma is a little angry at this, obviously, and Cassie tersely apologises then snaps at her for not immediately shutting up. Thelma is a little taken aback, and asks if something is going on with Cassie; "I'm thinking sudden character change usually attributed to drug addiction, parental divorce, secret membership of the CIA..." Heh. Cassie continues to be pissy at her, and eventually storms out of the room.

Mournful piano slowly montages us through Cassie wandering through Generic Town, buying clothes from Generic Clothes Shop, trying on clothes, blah blah blah. Totally ignoring the fact that things are clearly not great between them, Cassie insists on getting Thelma's opinion on the outfit. Thelma is non-committal. Cassie starts yammering about this and that and SHUT UP, ending with "I just don't have that... thing, you know?" Man, do I ever. She finally gets the idea that Thelma is not happy with her, so the scene can end.

Generic Club. Cassie looks uncomfortable for a while, then spots Roxanne, and meanders her way through the dancefloor towards her. Roxanne tells her she looks amazing. Cassie notices her watching some guy and friendlily tells her "He's cute! Looks more your type." Roxanne pointedly asks "More than...?", but Cassie is an idiot and needs to have "DO NOT TALK ABOUT IT" actually spelled out for her. Also, Roxanne's accent, which has been varying between upper class English and some kind of Eastern European throughout the episode has suddenly become completely Australian, so I don't know what the hell is going on there. Roxanne walks away to talk to Mr. More Your Type, and Cassie goes back to looking uncomfortable until she spots Troy with no bitch hanging off him, and goes to talk to him. They share some reasonably amusing banter about how the large crowd is only there for the free bar, but Troy won't care "as long as he gets his end away", but then Gemma arrives to bitchily pull Troy away and once again make bitchy comments to Cassie for no particular reason.

Roxanne approaches Leon to manipulatively tell him that Cassie is totally into him and told her she'd be giving him a present that she thinks he'll like. Well, there goes that. There's really no need for two totally iredeemable bitches, guys. Well, there's really no need for one. Fuck off.

Leon gets his deluded self over to Cassie and asks where his present is. She unwittingly flirts "I think I left it at home", and offers to buy him a drink. Wait, did you not say it was a free bar just five minutes ago? Come on now. Leon wants to bypass that and go straight to the present, and asks if she doesn't want to give him a taster before they go. Cassie is like, WTF? Leon kisses her and asks if that was what she had in mind. Cassie tells him no, and says she's going to go find her friends now. Leon pissily tells her "You haven't got any!", then starts getting all grabby. Cassie pulls away and goes to the corridor outside. Leon follows and apologises, telling her "I really like you, Cassie." For some fucking reason she replies "And I like you, Leon." Seriously, what the fuck? Leon, understandably, takes this the wrong way, and by "the wrong way", I mean "the only fucking way anyone would take that", and starts getting handsy again, so Cassie uses her newfound powers to throw him off guard by exploding a nearby fusebox.

Cassie runs towards home. Tension! Tension! Tension! strings Tension! Tension! Tension! their way into a frenzy as she TRIPS OVER A ROCK OR SOMETHING. She goes inside and, ridiculously slowly, starts ascending the staircase, as the camera slowly starts zooming towards her arse, then jumps through completely random angles for no particular reason, then a ZOMBIE HAND grabs her arm. Hi, Rachael. She walks in a circle around Cassie a few times, and The Ghostly Whispers play their smash hit "Azazeal, Azazeal, Azazeal". Cassie looks mildly perplexed over and over, until the Tension! Tension! Tension! is broken by Jenny appearing at the top of the staircase and asking Cassie what's wrong. Cassie has no reasonable answer to give, so she just carries on giving a mildly perplexed look until the director decides to end the scene.

Cassie, looking actually a bit distraught, walks into her room crying. Thelma takes this actual reasonable point to forget the arguing that went on, and asks Cassie what the hell is going on. Eventually Cassie explains all about the telekinesis and suchlike, and it takes a pretty long time, and she offers no imformation that we didn't already know, so, that's nice. Well, she says it happens when she's angry or scared or upset or whatever, and she has no control over it, which were only implied before, I guess. Thelma, for her part, is pretty cool throughout. I'm warming to her a lot. She notices Cassie looking pointedly at the Smurf Penis, so she goes over to it. Cassie tells her not to touch it. She hesitates momentarily, then does anyway. Cassie asks if she feels anything, then at the lack of reply, sniffs "You think I'm crazy." Thelma sweetly has faith in her, and Cassie tells Thelma she's the only person she trusts with this. It's quite a nice moment.

Next day. Cassie and Thelma talking by their lockers. Leon and Troy walk past, Leon glares at Cassie, then they start pointing and laughing. Scene ends.

Outside, Thelma is yammering her heart out to Cassie about how she senses her presence even when she's not there, and Cassie totally ignores her to stare at Azazeal ominousing in the distance. Thelma notices and calls her on it. Cassie denies that she wasn't listening, Thelma asks what she just said then. "That you wanted my arse", Cassie tells her. "God no, I'm quite happy with my own," Thelma replies. Well, that actually resembles wit.

Inside, Cassie is doing her nails, and telekinetics the nail polish across the table, which is a) just plain lazy and b) you don't look very angry, scared or upset, Cassie, and c) why was it even on the other side of the table if she'd already started? Thelma gets weirded out by this actual proof of the crap Cassie was saying last night.

And now we're watching Frankenstein. OK. Uh, disembodied eyes following Bunsen burner. Disembodied hand spazzing out. "Fascinating, isn't it?" asks a guy who I guess is probably Dr. Frankenstein. "Not really, I've seen better hotel porn," says Leon. Which is Jenny's cue to stop the tape and ask "Luke" to get the curtains. The rest of the class start making mocking "Lukey Lukey Luke" noises at him, which I do find kind of hilarious, because it's basically the actors with actual work making fun of an extra. Jenny tells the class their homework is to compare and contrast the different film versions of Frankenstein they've seen with Mary Shelley's original. Class all groan and mutter "bitch" and suchlike. After everyone else leaves, Jenny cautiously asks if Cassie is OK after her total freakout last night. Cassie is totally dismissive, Jenny keeps on asking, so Cassie gravely tells her "I'm addicted to freebase crack." "Right," Jennie whispers. "And I've taken to prostitution to feed my habit." "Good choice." Hee! Cassie starts to leave now, and Jenny calls after her "You can always buy me a drink, if you want to talk." There's showing concern for your students, and there's full-on being a creepy obsessive stalker, Jenny.

The Sad, Mournful Piano Of Mourning Sadness plays as we slowly zoom onto the worst lit scene yet. That patch of slightly off-black kind of looks like Cassie's hair, so I guess she's sitting there. Probably looking sad and pensive. I know you guys are trying to create an atmosphere and all, but it would be nice if I could actually see what was happening, especially in dialogue free scenes. Blurry probably-Cassie moves around a bit. Oh, I think she's reaching around the little nook and/or crannie where she found the Smurf Penis. Yeah, there's that little bone cross, and there's the piece of wood that might, in fact, actually be a slab of stone that has "AZAZEAL" carved into it. Cassie looks at it. I can't see her face, but I'd bet she's looking mildly perplexed. Thelma shouts "Cassie!" from the doorway, Cassie hurriedly puts the wood/stone back into the nook/crannie. Thelma asks if she's OK, Cassie dismissively says she fine, Thelma hesitates, then says "I need a favour."

Said favour is, apparently, Cassie lying on her back, in her underwear on a large sheet of paper, so Thelma can draw around her outline. There's no pertinent reason for Cassie to need to be in her underwear for this that I can see. Flirting, giggling, rah rah rah. It's cute.

Another art class, Leon is loudly declaring that Cassie's vagina is going to rust shut and suchlike, which Gemma is bitchily finding hilarious, while Thelma glares at him. Cassie takes a more proactive approach, and, quite deliberately telepyromanically sets fire to a wireframe bug thing suspended from the ceiling above his head. I'm totally in favour of this. Everyone runs around screaming when it falls to the floor and sets his trousers on fire. Cassie gives a satisfied smile, Thelma gives her a suspicious look.

In his office, Rupert is angrily hammering at his laptop keyboard. Cassie hovers in the doorway and waits for him to notice her. He does, tells her to sit down, and asks what happened. Cassie immediately gets all defensive and, like, "I didn't use my psychic powers to set that thing on fire! You can't prove anything!" Rupert's like, "Duh. I'm just legally obliged to ask everyone what they saw." Cassie saw nothing, NOTHING I TELL YOU. She does admit that she "can't think of anyone more suitable" for spontaneous human combustion. Rupert gets bored of the fire thing and asks if she's happy here. Cassie, as always, is dismissively happy. Rupert asks if she has a boyfriend. "Not exactly," Cassie replies, by which she means "No, but I am totally leading my lesbian roommate on, so I think I should get some points for that." Rupert is all "No? What am I teaching these boys?" He's kind of awesome when he's not having to be Exposition Guy. Which is, sadly, kind of rare. Cassie suggests that maybe it's not them, it's her. Rupert smiles and decides that's enough discussion about the incident and she can go now. Cassie pauses before leaving and decides to ask him who Azazeal is. Rupert gets an "Oh, is it time for more exposition already?" look, and tells her that Azazeal is the leader of the Nephilim, which is Hebrew for "Fallen Ones". Angels who fell in love with mortal women. There are dozens of them, dozens! Uh, I mean 200. God cast them into the abyss, where they've remained ever since. Hooray! "But what if they haven't?" Cassie asks. Oh no! "Well, there's some stuff about feasting on the souls of men, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over it." Oh, Ok. Cassie asks if he thinks the Nephilim really exist, to which he replies "Absolutely. Most of them are in Year 11." Heh. And that's apparently a good enough place to end a scene. Fine.

Locker Room. Thelma is all teasingly "So, I thought we could watch a movie, play some scrabble, find a man with an extra large hose in case some else decides to spontaneously burst into flames." "No one's as toxic as Leon," Cassie replies. Yeah, once we passed the halfway point, the writers seemed to work out what wit is. Cool. Thelma's all "J'accuse!". Cassie claims it wasn't deliberate, just "divine retribution". Also, she's looking significantly at Gemma bitchily hanging onto Troy at this point. Cassie's starting to seem slightly less boring and slightly more psychotic at this point, which is a change I think I can get behind. Cassie tries to cajole Thelma into going to a party tonight. Thelma is reluctant.

Then to Cassie and Thelma's room for a bit of classic "people totally make sex noises when trying to put on clothes that are too small for them" "humour". Yeah, that will never get old. Apropos of nothing, Cassie asks if Thelma's ever thought about plastic surgery. "Absolutely," Thelma replies, "I've started saving already!" There's a little talk of "designer vaginas" which Cassie agrees with me is a somewhat disturbing concept, then "Lady Marmalade" starts up to segue us into the party.

Cassie, after glancing sadly at Troy and Gemma, starts flirting quite blatantly with Thelma. Thelma enjoys this for a while, until Cassie goes back to looking forlorn at Troy and Gemma again. Cassie takes absolutely forever, interspersed with clips of Leon acting like a moron, to squintily telekinetic a wire around Leon's feet, tripping him and making him knock the wine glass from Gemma's hand all over Troy's shirt. Seriously, if you cut scenes like this to their actual necessary length, the episode would be about half an hour long. Gemma bitches at Leon, Leon laughs at her, Troy disappears to a back room somewhere. Cassie stalkily follows him, telling Thelma she's going to get another drink. Roxanne walks in and also laughs at Gemma. Thelma walks past and, uh, grabs Gemma's breast? Maybe? I don't know.

Troy is attempting to wash his shirt, and, him being shirtless and all, we can see he has a tattoo on his arm of what appears to be an amorphous black blob. Yeah, I'm thinking of getting one of those. Cassie stands in the doorway gawking until he notices her. She embarrasses herself with some jokes that fall totally flat, Troy reasonably politely tells her to fuck off, and Thelma takes a turn at the ancient art of doorway gawking. Cassie sees her in the mirror, and takes off after her.

Piano Of Big Emotional Climax starts up as we follow Cassie following Thelma towards a Big Emotional Climax. Cassie's using the always ridiculous "it wasn't what it looked like". Also, "I didn't do anything" and rah rah rah. Her words are pretty irrelevant to the scene, really, because this is all about Thelma and about Jemima Rooper demonstrating that she is most likely too good for this show. Thelma calls out Cassie on the whole 'no control over my powers' crap, and goes on that "this is what you've always wanted, isn't it? A bit of control." Cassie offers substanceless denials, face somewhere between her classic mild perplexity and other classic sad and pensive. Thelma continues; "That's why you like me, you think you can do what you like with me. Because you know how I feel about you." To this, Cassie claims "I feel the same about you". Thelma agrees that she does, and Cassie's suddenly like "Well, not quite the same way." NO TAKE BACKS! YOU LOOOOVE HER! CASSIE AND THELMA, SITTING IN A TREE! etc. etc. Cassie claims of the blatant flirting earlier that "we were just having a laugh!" which is the perfect setup for a closing statement from Thelma; "You were!"
Oh wait, my mistake. That's not a closing statement, just a short interval, because they haven't yet stretched this scene to at least twice as long as it ought to be. Thelma spells out exactly what she's been practically spelling out for the entire scene. I'm sure you can figure it out for yourself. Cassie continues to be useless, Thelma eventually runs off. Cassie lamely shouts "Thelma, wait!", then notices Azazeal ominousing in the shadows. He promptly vanishes. There's some ominousing and tensioning of the soundtrack, and Cassie stands around looking mildly perplexed until the scene ends.

Cassie wakes up with a start. Thelma's not there. Time for another look of mild perplexity! Man, I will never get tired of those.

Outside, police are questioning extras. And now we start getting something that actually resembles good television. Inside, Rupert and Jenny are looking melancholy and uncomfortable, and, along with a police officer, are questioning Cassie. I'm sure I don't need to tell you how she looks. Cassie tells us what happened last night, which of course, we just saw. But we do learn that Thelma has gone missing without anyone even directly explaining that Thelma has gone missing, which is a truly novel way of doing things. Also, they've employed the philosophy of "less is more" to the soundtrack for once, which is most definitely a good move. Oppressive silence in these kind of scenes works far better than oppressive string sections. After some detailed interrogation of things that couldn't possibly bear any importance to a police investigation as far as I can see, but I'm sure that's realistic, Cassie wanders off outside to watch the police question more extras, and no prizes for guessing who she sees hovering ominously in the distance. This time he doesn't vanish, but walks along a path through a gate, so Cassie follows. More terrible lighting as we presumably follow Cassie following Azazeal to wherever he's going. Oh look, it's Rachael's grave. Except her name is actually spelt "Rachel", but fuck it, I've already had to go through correcting "Dougie Out Of McFly" to "Danny Out Of McFly", so previous "Rachael"'s can stay right where they are. Her epitaph, as well as correcting my spelling, says "1715-1746, Beloved wife of Thomas", if you were wondering. I can't imagine you were, but whatever. There's a little more-ghostly-than-usual whispering that might be "Cassie" or might be "Azazeal", then some quiet wandering, and silence suddenly shattered by a car alarm. A Phil Mitchell lookalike wanders into frame and switches it off.

Cassie stands around drinking water from a plastic cup. Strings tension stringily, ghosts whisper ghostily. Cassie crushes the cup in her hand. Very, very slowly, she follows Azazeal into a room where he's being all arch-gothic and playing a grand piano with a vase of red roses on it. What's actually kind of cool is that the piano on the soundtrack quite seamlessly merges into the piano he's playing here. Cassie asks where Thelma is. Azazeal answers that question with a non-answering question of his own. Cassie claims to not know who he is. He tells her not to insult his intelligence, which is advice the writers could have done with throughout. Cassie tries to be all Junior Miss Tough Chick of the Universe, but she's quite clearly way out of her depth with this guy, who, let me tell you, is about a thousand times more creepy now he's actually talking. He tells her matter of factly that he needs to regain his strength, and Cassie is going to help him. Cassie protests, he rolls his eyes and asks "Do we have to pretend that you have a choice?" Cassie simply says "Yes", Azaeal simply says "Fine", then picks a petal from one of the roses and tells her "It wasn't an accident that you found the [Smurf Penis]. Nothing is." and that her powers thus far are "just a taste of things to come." He lets go of the rose petal, and it stays hovering in mid air, which the soundtrack guy who sneakily went back to the piano when Azazeal departed it evidently finds totally creepy. Cassie asks about Rachel, Azazeal claims he did nothing she didn't want, then a tear falls down his cheek as Cassie points out that he drove Rachel mad, which may be the creepiest thing so far. He mournfully tells her that "Rachel was her own undoing", and Cassie obviously realises that she's hit a sore spot and doesn't want to go opening old wounds for the poor satanically evil demon guy, so she gets back to Thelma. Azazeal agrees to take her to see Thelma, and actually opens a secret passageway by moving a book in the bookshelf. I kid you not. He sure loves his clichés. Anyway, he's damn creepy, and I get that this scene wouldn't have worked at all as well if they didn't build him up like they did, but... I really don't think it needed as much as they gave it. Which is pretty much true for just about everything in this episode.

So, Azazeal takes Cassie into the candlelit room where he's got Thelma tied to a chair and blindfolded. He takes off the blindfold, gets out a knife and tells Cassie "It's the only way." Thelma is totally scared shitless. Cassie attempts to telekinetically drop a chandelier on Azazeal's head, but he dodges it unflinchingly, and says "You don't understand yet. A sacrifice must be willing. Must be a sacrifice in the true sense of the word." Cassie tries to telekinetically untie Thelma while Azazeal strides menacingly towards her and goads her into admitting that she loves Thelma, and would give herself for her, thus making it a willing sacrifice. And so he stabs Thelma. I don't quite see how that works, because Cassie was the one who made the sacrifice, not Thelma, but whatever. Dude, Thelma's dead. They sure like to remove their likeable characters one way or another, huh? Azazeal casually wanders, probably into a pentagram on the floor, and says "I told you I needed a willing sacrifice", like, WE GET IT ALREADY, and his eyes go bloodshot, then in a massively cheap looking effect, he morphs into a yellowy anorexic wingéd thing and raises his hands in an "I am an instrument of God" fashion. Well, I mean, not actually the "instrument of God" part.

Cassie wakes up with a start. Thelma's not there. Time for another look of mild perplexity! Man, I will never get tired of those.

Outside, police are questioning extras. Ah! Infinite loop! Ah! Ah! No, wait, these are different extras. Cassie saunters over to the SKOBOW, where a policeman is pulling Thelma's totally dead body out of the water, and Cassie breaks down crying.

Funeral, priest blathers funeral talk, some of which is there to make it clear that everyone appears to believe that Thelma died by drowning, some of it just for atmosphere, everyone stands around looking sad. Cassie stands out among all the black by wearing a massively inappropriately bright red beret. Everyone is looking all sad, Leon particularly so, which is interesting. Troy gives a half-smile at Cassie, she returns it. Roxanne, despite sticking with black, has one-upped Cassie on the ridiculous hat front by wearing an entire black sheep on her head. Azazeal watches creepily from a distance. Cassie looks sad some more, but the mood is suddenly broken when Thelma appears next to her and says "They're bloody loving this; 'Don't be a dyke or you'll end up topping yourself'. Hee! Cassie looks shocked, nobody else reacts, because evidently they can't see her. And, mercifully, the episode is finally over. Seriously, EIGHTY MINUTES. Man.

So, while I kind of hated this episode, it definitely looks to have the potential to get much much better. I mean, Thelma is kind of cool, and could go either way on that as a ghost, and in future there won't be an hour of buildup before Azazeal gets to be a creepy fucker so, we'll see.

Sunday Shuffle #4: "Mondays aren't Sundays! Quit messing with my head!"

So, uh, I forgot it was Sunday yesterday. How lame is that. Anyway.

JJ72 - Earthy Delights. This is JJ72 at their most Muse-like, which is undoubtedly awesome. I am totally in favour of the crazy-ass distorted falsetto employed in this. As opposed to the regular-ass falsetto usually employed in JJ72 songs. It's very short too, but in a good way. Awesome.

Keane - Sunshine. Taken on its own, this is actually very pretty and all, but I can't say I've ever noticed before, because it comes near the end of the album, and there's only so much of this kind of thing you can take before your mind drifts off elsewhere.

JJ72 - Higher Than Gods. Wow, two JJ72 b sides already, how odd. And this one also has definitely hints of Muse. Are all their b sides like this? How have I not noticed that before? This one is about twice as long as Earthly Delights, and the lyrics appear to consist entirely of the word "Ah". It does outstay it's welcome a little by the end.

Suede - Beautiful Loser. This is one of those late Suede songs that you can already know exactly what it sounds like before you've even heard it. Also, it contains the verse "your brain is drip-connected to the satellite/your heart is not a part of your brain/aesthetics and inventions well they pass you by/and complicate your day", which is so many shades of awful, I don't even know where to start.

The Smiths - The Hand That Rocks The Cradle. Oh, now this I really like. Though, if you could mumble a little less in future, Morrissey, that'd be great.

Coldplay - 1.36. Eh. It's just kind of there. No particular substance to it. At least it's short.

Just like Pink Floyd - The Show Must Go On which, like most of The Wall, just shouldn't be taken outside of the context of the album. That's silly.

Here's something that is not at all short, but is all kinds of awesome: Bright Eyes - Waste Of Paint. So much lyrical awesomeness going on here. And it's incredibly necessary to keep a song as sparse as this going even near as long as it does, but it has it. I don't think I've heard Conor Oberst do better than this.

Also awesome: The Libertines - Campaign Of Hate. The Libertines has nothing on Up The Bracket for me, but this song is great. "FASTER!" The Libertines has nothing on Up The Bracket for me, but this song is great.

And to finish up, awesome again! British Sea Power - Remember Me. Good week. So, this is a great and catchy and pumping and all, but it's awesomeness is totally overshadowed by both The Wurzels' cover of this, and British Sea Power's reciprocal cover of their I Am A Cider Drinker, which are, together, just about the greatest thing ever.

So, next week, I'll think about that whole 'doing things before the last possible minute instead of after' idea. And, if you're wondering, Hex episode one recap is about 80% done, so that should be up before the next Sunday Shuffle.

Sunday Shuffle #3: Title Now Less Accurate Than Ever!

Let's have a little (or not so) foreword before I get on with the main point of this, shall we? So, yeah, first season Sugar Rush recaps are done. I don't know exactly when I'll get started on the second, though certainly in time to get third season (assuming there is one) going in 'real time' (ie. while the season is still airing). As you may have noticed, I love Sugar Rush. A lot. More than I expected, going into it, actually, or even realised until the last couple (Though I am somewhat resentful of the fact that Kim is such a great character that I had no call to use "Kim You Bore Me To Death" as a post title, honestly). I also enjoyed writing so much crap about it quite a lot more than I actually thought I would. Hence why that ended up being practically the only thing I've written in here so far. So, I'm going to want to do more of that. And if I stuck to just Sugar Rush, I'd run out of episodes in pretty short order.
When I originally sat down to decide which show to start recapping first, I had a couple of shows I was thinking about doing, one being Sugar Rush, obviously, the other being Shameless. In the end, I picked Sugar Rush because a) the episodes are half the length, so that would help ease me in a little, and b) I do really enjoy Shameless, but they're all from Manchester, so half time, I don't have a clue what they're talking about. And, rather than trying to get over that hurdle yet, I decided, hey, why not try something I've never watched before? What's the worst that could happen? Also, much as I love Sugar Rush, me being me, I do need me some good (or not) sci-fi/fantasy to sink my teeth into. So, next on the roster shall be Hex. Going into it, pretty much all I know is that it was advertised as "the British Buffy". If they're right, it should be awesome, but let's face it, it's more likely it'll turn out to be "the British Charmed".

But that's not our concern right now, let's get on with the "Sunday" Shuffle now, shall we? First up, Travis again! Remember them? Well, this, The Humpty Dumpty Love Song comes from third album The Invisible Band, when they were still mostly putting out reasonably good songs, and this is certainly one of those. It does that nice slow building thing that works so well when you do it right, and when he sings "All I need is you" he does actually sound like he means it, which is always good. Boy, that did cut out rather suddenly though. Odd.

Another repeat appearance of a band, Brand New this time, with Mix Tape. It comes from good but mostly unremarkable debut Your Favorite Weapon, but it's one of the best from that album, fantastic little rant that really demonstrates Jesse Lacey's excellent wit. "I've got a $20 bill says no one's ever seen you without makeup/You're always made up/And I'm sick of your tattoos/And the way you always criticise The Smiths/And Morrissey". Shit, I just want to quote the whole song. Anyway the best part is in the second verse where those last two lines become "The way you don't appreciate Brand New/Or me"

U2 - Beautiful Day. Oh, you know.

Longview - Feel The Same. Dear god, this is plodding. I know you can do better than this, Longview. Seriously. This is dull, dull, dull. Shut up already.

Muse - Apocalypse Please. Well, this sure isn't plodding. "THIS IS THE EEEND YEEEEEEEEEAAAHEEEEND THIS IS THE END. OF THE WORLD." Ah, Muse. when you're written the perfect apocalypse rock opera (Arockalypse opera? Rock operapocalypse? No, shut up, me.) you've clearly always aspired to, the only way to go is... sideways. But anyway, this is the opening to said rockapocalopera, and is, of course, pretty perfect for such purpose. "THEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYEAAAHEEEEND! OF THE WORLD!!!"

Clor - Magic Touch. OK, this is kind of scary. I do find something rather unsettling about Clor, though The Knife make that rather pale in comparison. And wow, that was a totally random place for a burst of guitar fuzz. I rather like this, really. But it's scary.

The Divine Comedy - Bad Ambassador. Honestly, it's a nice song, but it's decidedly lacking in awesome lines for a Divine Comedy song. Hmm... "I'm not the pope and I don't want to be/The Archbishop of Canterbury"? It's barely quotable at all.

The Flaming Lips - Hold Your Head. And now we're back to the unsettling again. Wayne Coyne, I know your voice is pretty fucked, but don't whisper like that. It's highly perturbing.

Crowded House - Weather With You. Wow, I'd forgotten quite how ridiculously long this takes to get to the chorus. Once it finally gets there though, it's a pretty wonderful release, and there is no way to not sing along.

The Tears - Imperfection. Bernard Butler and Brett Anderson get back together and... make an album that sounds far more like A New Morning than any other Suede album. This song was, in fact, on that album, but called Obsessions.

Never Look At The Sun

Sugar Rush Episode 1x10 - "Coming Of Age, Part II"

Episode Grade: A+


No KimVo previouslies this time, just a quick repeat of the last few seconds of the previous episode. Hi Beth! Bye Beth! And, credits.

But that's wholly inadequate for not confusing the kind of people who start watching a show on it's season finale. So, regardless of whether they actually exist, KimVo gets it in now. But I'm going to assume they don't exist, and ignore her. Right on with the new stuff then; Kim runs across the beach, shouting for Sugar. Sugar's still crying, and still covered in blood, and I can see a bunch of extras milling about in the background, but Kim is the only person who pays any attention to her. Man, people in Brighton are desensitized. So, Kim rather ineffectually attempts to clean up the blood a little, and, holding her shit together remarkably well, calmly asks Sugar to tell her what happened. Sugar hysterically shouts that she has to leave, Kim holds her and tells her she's going nowhere in that state. Sugar finally gets out "I stabbed someone, alright!" and walks unsteadily away. Kim gives herself a moment to take this in, then runs after her.

Sugar's now powerwalking down a darkened street, with Kim trailing behind. Sugar's lost a lot of the hysterical edge, though there's still some definite panic going on. She suggests that they need a lot more money than what they have. KimVo tells us she's not asking more questions about the "stabbing thing" because "having a project seemed to be calming [Sugar] down." Sugar steals a bag and changes out of the bloody shirt, Kim counts money from a stolen purse. Sugar bitches at her for not getting more. "Gradually," KimVo says, "The scared girl I found under the pier started to look like Sugar again." Kim spots some patrolling cops, and Sugar yells "Fuck!" and brings her hands up to cover her face, which is probably not the most inconcspicuous thing she could be doing, but they don't notice her anyway. Kim suggests that Sugar come back to her place, as she can get money there. On the way back, Sugar tells Kim she plans to run away to London, and asks if Kim wants to come. Kim doesn't answer, so she quickly retracts the offer.

Sugar loiters outside while Kim goes in to get the money. She's momentarily distracted by Stella and Nathan cooking dinner together, and sounding happy. Kim seems pleased until Stella says "I'm so glad you're back, I didn't want to leave without saying goodbye." Stella explains her completely valid reasons for leaving, Kim gives a stroppy "Bye then." and storms upstairs.

Where she cries. And cries some more. And then KimVo decides that the idea of running away with Sugar is looking highly attractive all of a sudden. Her words; "Why stick around for the boring finale, when you could be co-starring in an adventure of your own?" which, considering we've seen about all we're going to of Nathan and Stella until next season, is some pretty hilarious meta-commentary, I'd say. Kim stuffs clothes and suchlike into a bag, then goes into her parents' room, grabs a handful of jewelery and stuffs in there too. And also, the contents of Stella's purse. Matt walks in and tells her "Don't forget your toothbrush", and hands it to her. Hee! Aww. Man. That's so perfect. Kim agrees, and gives him a sweet smile and a kiss on the cheek as she leaves. And, from now until the last seconds of the episode, the only faces we're going to see are Kim and Sugar. They're the only ones who matter.

Though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet, we will make him run

Outside, Sugar's a little taken aback by the fact that Kim's decided to join her, but goes along with it. They get into a little friendly banter on the way to the train station about the jobs they'll be getting when they reach London, which is cut short by the appearance of a police car. Sugar again goes for the 'act as suspiciously as possible' method of avoiding suspicion, and again gets away with it. Kim tells her not to worry about just the one car, but Sugar's all paranoid about snipers on the roof and helicopters and shit, so new plan; they're getting a bus. Kim points out that Sugar still hasn't explained how the stab-happiness came about, Sugar hisses "There's no time!"

Cut, hilariously, to Sugar and Kim, waiting in silence at a bus stop. For a while. Heh. Kim gets a message, most likely from Beth. It seems a little odd that she's waited this long, but fine. Sugar quite blatantly leans over to read it, and asks Kim if that's her new girlfriend. Kim angrily tells Sugar she doesn't have a girlfriend. Which is your own stupid fault, Kim. Sugar points out that she's clearly all dressed up for someone. Kim, annoyed, says "well, there wasn't much point, was there?" and Sugar tells her to piss off then. Word. Kim refuses, she's in for the long haul now, whether Sugar wants her or not. Little more silent waiting, then Sugar starts asking more about Beth. Kim's doesn't tell her anything remotely substantial, then a bus arrives, and Sugar jumps up and down with hands in her pockets to protect from the cold and shouts "bus!" which is just insanely cute. And awesome, because otherwise I'd totally forget that she's as much too young for this shit as Kim.

In a café now, neither of them know where they are. Geographically speaking, either. Kim muses clichéically about how you can live somewhere and not really know it. Then, pointedly, "It's like people. Live with them all your life, and still not know who they are." Sugar, showing immense insight, twigs that Stella's fucked up once again. Well, in Kim's eyes, anyway, I'd say Stella's actually in the right for, like, the first time ever. "Sorry," Sugar says, "If you are." Heh. And hey, remember how Lenora Crichlow is as awesome as Olivia Hallinan, but hasn't previously had much call to show it? Well. Just seemed like a good time to bring that up, I can't think why. Sugar's really feeling the awkward silences that are going on here, and tells Kim she can leave if she wants. That way, more silence, but less awkward. But Kim, of course, refuses, so Sugar realises that she's going to have to let the walls come down a little. Or a lot. First piece of new information; she stabbed the guy with a broken bottle. Kim asks who he was. Sugar shrugs "Dunno, just some guy I was fucking and..." then explains from the start; "I met this really fit guy down Lost Vegas [which, incidentally, I'd have known was the actual name of "The Pyjama Party", had I been paying more attention. Doesn't matter at this point; I doubt we're ever going THERE again.]. We went to the beach. Fucked. Fine... And then his mate's on me." Quick shot of Kim's look of horror. "Soon as he's finished, his mate's on me. Fucking Melissa. He was s'posed to be hers, innit. She bailed on me. Just took me by surprise, that's all." Just took me by surprise. Seriously, this scene is just... it's hard to watch, and neither of them make it easy at all, but equally, it's impossible to look away. And seriously, "That's all." If that doesn't make you want to cry... And Sugar's actually laughing now. "Never done two before. Kind of thing a girl needs to prepare for, right?" And Kim... her face just doesn't change at all, at any point, but it's all in the eyes. Like, seriously, everything. "Anyway, he was a Right. Minger. Stunk of burgers." And, momentarily, the mask comes off entirely, and the tears flow; "I told him to stop, and get off, and he wouldn't." Kim, completely mortified now, asks if she's alright. And Sugar's back to trying to convince her that it's no big deal. "Yeah. No, yeah, I'm fine. It's that poor bastard you should worry about." Which, in spite of it all, does get a chuckle from me, because that's pretty awesome. "Bleeding with his pants round his ankles." And funny back to heartwrenching in three seconds; "Why are they like that with me, Kizz? Why does no one fall in love with me, and follow me round like how Tom does with you?" DAMN, though, that's almost as bad as Kim's "Why can't I meet someone that I get on with?" and so on last week. Kim, intensely, "Because they're mad?" Sugar kind of rolls her eyes a little and gives that a rather dismissive "yeah", like, 'Oh, right. I forgot who I was talking to.' Which, again, is kind of hilarious in spite of it all. And, looks like we're through the pain barrier for now, at least. So, what's next, Kim? "Know how to steal a car?" Excellent.

"The way I figure it, this town has bad for both of us," KimVo reports, "Time to get the hell out of Dodge." Yeah, KimVo, you really can't pull that one off, I'm afraid. Anyway, Kim and Sugar cheerily give a two-finger salute to Brighton on their way out. Kim gets all immature and showing her age and asks Sugar if she can have a turn driving, going so far as to cry "Pretty please! I'll be your best friend!" I mean, she's kind of doing it ironically, but still. It'd be hilarious if it wasn't so awful. Sugar mutters "Jesus Christ,", because clearly she's well above such juvenile activity, but apparently relents, because there's a sudden cut and they've swapped places. And now Kim's flooring it with reckless abandon, and Sugar's panickingly telling her to slow down, but she's totally gone into suicidal thrillseeker mode. Well, until she has totally swerve to avoid hitting another car, anyway. Kim, fairly impressively, manages to do so without causing damage to either party, but Sugar is still not best pleased, so she gets out and starts walking away. Kim follows, of course, and after a short shouting match, persuades her to stop.

And now they're leaning over a road bridge, smoking, and Sugar's going for total denial as a healing technique. "Shoulda just let that guy finish off. Shoot his load and be done. Could be down Lost Vegas now havin' a right laugh about it." But Kim's totally not letting that one fly, so she's going to stand there and state the obvious; "Except it's not funny." Seriously. Sugar tries to carry on regardless, but Kim, again with the obvious stating, tells her "He raped you." But the kind of direct, simple truth is too painful for Sugar to just look at it as directly as that. So "I didn't go down to the beach for a picnic, I knew what I was there for." Fucking hell, though. I knew what I was there for. Kim points out that, as Sugar herself has admitted, she's always to out of it to really know what's going on. And that gives Sugar an out. "So you're saying I'm raped every time I have sex?" Because that makes it better. That, she can take. One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic. "It's no different from the other times" is what she's been trying to convince herself the whole time, and now she's found a way to get Kim to let her have that. And, to make sure Kim stops pressing, at Kim's "It's fucked up" she responds "So's wanting to rub fannies with other girls." She knows exactly the buttons to press, and she will press them until she gets her way. And right now, her way is denial. Give it up, Kim, you cannot win this. And so she does. As Kim starts to walk away, Sugar, genuinely confused, asks "What do you care anyway?", giving Kim the opportunity to be terribly embarrassing in her praise of Sugar. Not that she's wrong. Smart? Yeah. Gorgeous? Well, not really my type, but sure. Funny? "It's that poor bastard you should be worrying about". So. Yeah. Cool? Well, what the hell do I know? But, seriously, you should listing things certainly before that one, Kim. Less is more. And finally; wasting herself on guys who don't give a shit. Quite obviously a yes. But Sugar, quite awesomely, points out "That's my choice, isn't it?" Whichever one it was that I said I liked her best in? I was wrong. It's this one. It's definitely this one.

Back in the car now, both calmed down rather (Sugar's in the driver's seat, though, because would you trust Kim to drive after that?) There's silence for a while, neither of them at all sure what they're doing any more. Sugar asks if Kim still wants to come to London. Kim, once again displaying total immaturity, snots "I don't care." Total fucking lie, and you both know it. Oddly, Sugar decides to go off on her own version of Kim's gushing praise speech at this point, though she's less embarrassing, of course. Well, it's less direct, all going to university and marrying rich lesbians and, basically, "you're going to have a wonderful life." Kim deludedly tells Sugar that she will too, but Sugar, being the realist now, says "Once I get out of prison, with a fat arse and a heroin habit, maybe." Kim notices Sugar's ability to make the tragedy of her life funny now, and giggles a little at that, but Sugar's careened back into angst mode again already. It is hard to keep up with her. "I want a penthouse," she says sadly, "Even if it's just for one night." And Kim, sparkle in her eyes, tells her to "drive then."

That seems like the perfect cue for a montage of the girls driving through London and admiring the artificially lit momuments, right? Right. They pull up outside a posh hotel, and Sugar claims "No one is going to look for a couple of skanks like us here." If you weren't leaving blatant clues like the stolen car parked right outside, and Stella's credit card wasn't obviously going to be traced, you might have a point. Anyway, they go into their room, which is... spacious. Seriously though, how does Stella's card have enough to afford this, even for one night? She hasn't earned it, that's for sure. Sugar looks out the window and admires the view. Kim doesn't look out the window, and admires the view.

And now they're in the bath together. Sugar admires the jewelery Kim stole from Stella, and yes, she uses the word "bling". And now it's time to delve into a little character backstory; Sugar tells Kim she's never been in a hotel, or even on holiday before. "Mum says 'What's the point of going on holiday when you live in a holiday town?'" It occurs to me that we've never even seen Sugar's mother, but then, that's kind of the point, isn't it? Showing some awesome continuity sense again, Kim replies that since Stella and Nathan love France, her holidays invariably involve them taking her and Matt to France, then getting drunk and leaving Kim and Matt to themselves. Sugar complains that her champagne is dry, and Kim gets all faux-pretentious explaining that it's meant to be. Yes, I really just said 'faux-pretentious'. Shut up. Sugar asks her to go downstairs and get some sugar to put in it (and, man, I have trouble typing 'sugar' uncapitalised now). Kim gives her a somewhat outraged look and tells "You can't put sugar in champagne!" And, of course, Sugar flirtingly responds "You can put a little Sugar in anything." I'm sure you can see where this is going. She starts moving her leg under the water towards Kim, but Kim tells her to stop "unless [she] mean[s] it". So, they have a water/champagne fight instead. Yeah.

More sombre mood now, sitting around in bathrobes. Sugar asks Kim if she'd rather be there with "that girl". Kim pointlessly plays dumb for a second, then tells her Beth's name and asks why she's interested. Sugar claims "I'm not interested! I just thought you were", then fairly quickly contradicts the first part by asking "So, you shagged her yet?". Kim's not feeling this at all, but answers anyway. Sugar carries on "I bet you've snogged though." Kim gives this a "Maybe". Sugar asks if Beth's a better kisser than her. Kim doesn't answer that one. Sugar presses asking, "Come on, who do you prefer, me or her?" which is a totally different question. Kim non-answers "Beth's great." Yeah, that's a real glowing reccomendation, Tony the Tiger. "She's really cool." Oh, well that improves it a whole lot. It occurs to Kim that she might be able to get out of this interrogation by asking some questions of her own, so she asks Sugar who she'd rather be there with, if she could choose anyone in the world. Sugar shallows "Brad Pitt", then, as an afterthought, "but you'll do." Shockingly, Kim's not exactly thrilled by that, and asks "Why?" "Just because," Sugar lamely replies. And now we're getting back to the heavy stuff again. "Why did you call me tonight?" It's a pretty simple answer; "Because I knew you'd come." Which we all knew already, but still. Ouch. "Yeah," Kim says emotionlessly, "Makes sense." Yeah. "It's always going to be like this, isn't it? You call, I come running. You say 'jump', I say 'How high?'" Well, you know who needs to do something to change that, Kim? I'll give you a clue; it's not Sugar. Kim gives a list of all the crap she's done for Sugar over the previous nine episodes; translating for French wankers; kissing Sugar so she could pull, so on and so forth, then tells her to "name one thing you've done for me. One thing. One. Sodding. Thing." I'm sure I don't need to tell you that Olivia rocks this speech, but apparently I will anyway. She does. Kim walks away from Sugar, over to the window. Sugar hesitates for a second, then follows, and says "I'm sorry." And then leans in for a kiss, because she's apologised, so everthying's alright now, right? Well, no. Kim again tells her to stop, but Sugar brushes hair out of Kim's face and tells her "Don't worry. I really mean it this time." And that's enough for Kim. She believes it. And I'm not getting dizzy, so I guess the camera believes it too. And, I mean, this time. That's the key. So, yeah, I believe it. Right here, right now, it's true. This time. It has to be. It's the only truth there is. Just for one night, they get the penthouse. Just for one night.

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again

So, now it's all over but the montage. I don't what this song is, but they've been quietly slipping in little bits of it all over the season, and it's totally perfect for this. A police car pulls up outside the hotel, and Stella and Nathan step out the back. Inside, Kim and Sugar wake up post-coitally. Kim smiles. Sugar hesitates for a second, then returns it. Stella and Nathan walk down the corridor with a couple of cops. Kim smiles some more. "Don't you just love happy Hollywood endings?" KimVo asks. No, but I sure as hell loved this one.

Sunday Shuffle #2: Electric Boogaloo

So, kicking things off this week, Brand New - untitled #6. So, from my admittedly fairly limited knowledge of the emo genre, Brand New's second album Deja Entendu totally blasts all others out of the water.

The follow up should be coming soon, and I'm sure I'll talk more about when it does, but for now I'm making do with a collection of demos of songs that may or may not appear on that album, of which this is the 6th. I don't have a clue what method was used to number them, but whatever it is, it put this one 6th. The collection as a whole has certainly done nothing to dent my excitement about that album, but this one in particular is just so very murky and as to make it difficult to make anything of it.

Next, The Sleepy Jackson - Rain Falls For Wind. Wait, are you sure? Because I'm sure this is a James song. Seriously, this is totally on Pleased To Meet You, I swear. Well, uh, that album is awesome, so I guess this must be too.

Story Of The Year - Page Avenue. So, this is one of those things that ended up in my [MUSIC PLAYER OF CHOICE] library through no deliberate intention of mine. It's emo pop-punk stuff that's certainly not blasting anything out of anywhere, but it's not bad, as this sort of thing goes. I can listen to this and not get annoyed, which is something.

Stereophonics - Positively 4th Street. Well, it's not as bad as their cover of Nothing Compares 2 U, which is actually the worst thing ever.

The Bluetones - The Watchman. Mark Morriss's (far too many esses there) voice is really too wimpy for this song, but... it's The Bluetones. They're one of those bands that I just can't really be negative about, you know? They made me love music.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Throw Away Your Television. It's from By The Way which is (not counting Greatest Hits, which totally wins if you do) most definitely their only good album. Mostly because, unlike the others, it doesn't have too many songs like this. Still, despite not having actually heard it, I'm going to assume that this better than just about anything on Stadium Arcadium. If there's one thing the world didn't need, it's a Red Hot Chili Peppers double album.

Haven - Til The End. Well this is just great because it's so fun to attempt to sing along with that ridiculous voice, honestly. Still, this, their first single, is and will almost certainly remain their crowning achievement.

Haven - Out Of Reach. Come on now. It's not fun enough for two songs.

JJ72 - I Saw A Prayer. So, why wasn't this the second single? Seriously, Always And Forever? What the hell? Well, since no one cared by then anyway, Serpent Sky would be best for the hilarity, but seriously, Always And Forever? Why?

And to finish off, Mew - Circuitry Of The Wolf. Well, that's just a completely stupid place to end. It's an intro. It cuts off just when it's starting to get going. Argh. You just haven't been very impressive with the choices this week, [MUSIC PLAYER OF CHOICE]. Try harder next time.