Failed Again!

So, seeing as how I've given up entirely on the concept of 'schedule' as far as Torchwood recaps go, they're not the only things you'll be getting. I'm going to try for at least one recap a week, but they could be Torchwood or they could be Hex or they could be Sugar Rush or they could be Skins or possibly something else entirely. I'm sure the surprise will be highly enticing.
One thing I do plan to do is actually keep up to its schedule once the third season of Sugar Rush comes around in the summer, but until then, it'll all be potluck. Enjoy!


Hex Episode 2x01 - "Cursed"

Episode grade: C-

Previously: This show pretty much just sucked, but thanks solely and completely to the talents of Jemima Rooper, I was able to convince myself that maybe it didn't, for a while. (That might occasionally happen again; that Jemima is a talented girl.) Somehow, it got a second season of thirteen whole episodes, in spite of the previously stated sucking, and also the fact that, hilariously, like, half the cast decided to quit in the interim. So, remember Thelma's new girlfriend, Pippi, or Peggy, or whatever? The show would like you not to. She's just gone, with no explanation for her disappearance, or indeed any indication that she ever existed in the first place. Troy and Gemma, you are allowed to remember, and there is a single line explaining their sudden disappearance, but otherwise, they are not heard from or mentioned ever again, and are swiftly replaced by Troy 2.0 and Gemma 2.0 (Actual names Tom and Alex, the latter of which I don't think I learned until, like, the second from last episode, so she will always be Gemma 2.0 to me. Tom I might start calling by his actual name at some point, we'll see how it goes.). There might be some others I've not thought of, and also, this is just the ones that haven't agreed to at least make a couple of appearances to let their characters leave the show somewhat organically. And, given that one of those characters is CASSIE who is actually supposed to be THE main character, they kind of had to make some sudden changes to the direction of the entire show. So, the first few episodes are a transition period to Hex 2.0, and the transition period kind of sucks, but all in all, I do think I prefer Hex 2.0 to Hex 1.0. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself, let's get to the start of the frantic retooling of every single plan they had for the overreaching story arc.

Also previously: Cassie got knocked up, and an Evil Christian doctor who was supposed to abort the devil child chose instead to remove it by caesarean without Cassie's knowledge or consent, which totally sent the world to Hell, which is where it already was, so actually, nothing much has changed, I guess. Straight into credits after that, which are cunningly disguised as being identical to season one credits right at the moment, although some of the names have changed. Laura Pyper's just been tacked on the end of the list with the non-important people, like Ella's not going to become the replacement main character once Christina Cole buggers off.

London, 1849. A blonde girl who pretty much looks like Cassie levitates a vase, in front of a crowd of stunned onlookers. She may be a McBain, but all the nonsense about the McBains that bored the crap out of me in the first couple of episodes of season one turns out to serve no purpose whatsoever in the grand scheme of things, thanks to Christina Cole's departure, so that was all a waste of time, really, wasn't it. A dude in the back watches intensely, and I think it's Azazeal, but I'm kind of thrown by the crazy huge sideburns and top hat. There are, like, pigmy tribes living in those sideburns. He tips his hat to, I don't know, the freak show organiser or whatever. I don't really know what's going on here.

Later, the girl is lying in bed. Azazeal, sans top hat now, and it definitely is him, walks in and kisses her and then leaves. I have seen the entire series now, but it's been a while since I saw this episode so right at the moment I could not possibly hope to tell you what the point of any of this is, but I do wish someone would actually say something. Azazeal wanders around, and like throws some keys or something at some guy and then goes outside, where the peasants are milling and oh, right, now I see the point of all this; this girl with dark red hair and psychotic eyes is following Azazeal and glaring at him, and the point of this is so we're all like "woah" when she shows up in the present day scenes later. Right, so, this is Ella, although they probably won't tell us that for hours, because, as you may recall, this show is kind of horrible about actually telling the audience the names of its characters. And then I just name them after Buffy characters because Joss Whedon is literally God, and all of that. I'm gonna try to cut down on that a little, so from now, David will be "David" and not "Rupert", and Jo will be "Jo" and not "Jenny". Back to what's going on right now; Ella is delightfully unhinged, which is what makes her far more interesting as a main character than Cassie, and because she is so wonderfully crazy, she slits the girl's throat. You know, the one who is Cassie, but not. Ella's hair is actually black, and also curly, in the past, but I couldn't see that before, because she was wearing a hood. But any other time we see her (including any other flashbacks, as far as I recall), it's red, and straight.

Right. The gasp of the throat slit girl segues us to Cassie also gasping, because Thelma has just thrown water at her to wake her up. Cassie bitches, Thelma is cute, it's all eerily familiar. OK, right, Cassie's been having bad dreams (the most recent of which I think is supposed to be the flashback we just saw) and her solution to this problem is apparently "Don't sleep", which is akin to "pull out before you finish" as far as effective solutions to problems go. She complains at Thelma for letting her fall asleep, Thelma tells her she'll go crazy, Cassie's all "Cool with me!" Then she takes some pills and wanders out into the corridor. Outside, a stone gargoyle on the roof cocks its head, Cassie hears the noise of this and is slightly wigged and oh God, I'd forgotten how slow moving this damn show is sometimes. Cassie stops, and waits around for the next creepy thing to happen, and eventually, it does; there's something moving outside the window. Oooooooooh-er.
Cassie ducks into a kitchen, which is sensible, because the kitchen is probably the closest thing to an armoury in this or, indeed, most other buildings. For some reason, there's a plate of mousse on the table, which Cassie decides to dig into, but she's shocked to be distracted from it by the door slowly creaking open, and, man, is her short term memory really that bad? She levitates a baking tray at the intruder, and then grabs a ladle to beat it with, but of course, the intruder is no kind of demon, it's just Felix. You know, the dumb guy who babbled incessantly about Aliens back in whatever lame episode. I'm not going to look it up. Cassie apologises for attacking him, saying "I thought you were someone else", and instead of asking, like, "Who were you planning to assault with kitchen utensils?", Felix just accepts this and tells her he was after some hot milk. Cassie cheerfully tells him she'd better leave him to it, he watches her leave with a clear look of longing.

Next day, Cassie's getting stuff out of her locker and describing the thing she saw outside the window to Thelma; "It was hideous. So hideous I almost felt sorry for it." Thelma giggles and asks Cassie if she's sure she isn't talking about Felix. Poor Felix. I'm not saying I feel sorry for him, that's just his full name, like Boone, God's Friggin' Gift To Humanity. Cassie and Thelma throw around the exposition ball some; that critter that was not Poor Felix was a Nephilim, remember, and that means that Cassie's son is not dead like he should be, remember. Thelma asks if Cassie plans to claim child benefits. Heh. Cassie said she plans instead to opt for finding, torturing and killing Azazeal. Well, one out of three ain't bad, supposedly.

In class, Leon, Roxanne and Gemma 2.0 are quickly providing the explanation for Troy and Gemma's disappearance so we can get on with the business of forgetting about them completely, and man, it's funny to see Leon acting like such a dick when I'm now so used to the new version of Leon, who is actually pretty OK. More on that story later. So, apparently Troy thought Cassie's baby was his and left the country, and Gemma followed. Now that is an airtight story. Cassie is looking glum, I guess because Troy has left, but man, that was pretty much her fault anyway. Thelma asks her "If there was something you'd always wanted to do, but never could, and then you found a way, but the way was morally dubious, what would you do?" I have no idea what she's talking about. Cassie goes with "I'm not going to sleep with you, Thelma," but apparently that is not it. OH! Wait, I do remember. Go for it, Thelma. Jo comes in, swigging from a bottle of water and looking generally haggard and forgetting what Shakespeare play it is they're supposed to be covering now, and everyone looks concerned and/or amused.

Cassie takes a trip to the hospital, Evil Christian Dr. Condescencion sees her in the waiting room and tries to flee, but Cassie catches up with him. He tries to claim that he's very busy, she tells him he's been avoiding her, and she wants to know what he did with her baby. Dr. Codescencion is all condescendingly "If you're having doubts now, I'm afraid it's too late", and tells the receptionist to call security. Cassie gives up on getting anything from him and leaves, and hegoes into his office, where Ella is waiting. This'd be the point where we're supposed to go "woah". Let's all take a moment to do that. Woah.

OK. Cafeteria, Cassie's complaining to Thelma about how the not so good doctor "can't just going around saving people's babies", Thelma points out the inherent hilarity in bitching about people saving babies, Cassie resolves to go back to the hospital and beat the truth out of the doctor, or something. On her way to her table, Poor Felix accosts Cassie to say "Hi" and invade her personal space, Cassie apologises again for attacking him with kitchen utensils, and Poor Felix just stands there grinning until Cassie gives up on attempting to communicate with him. Thelma walks past and gives Poor Felix a disdainful look up and down, hee. Cassie sits down at a table with David and Jo, which, I know she apparently has no friends who aren't dead, but that doesn't seem like her. She doesn't acknowledge them at all, and vice versa, and we pan over to their conversation, where Jo is totally absent. David reminds her about the governor's meeting next week that she's supposed to have written a report for. Jo has not done anything of the sort, and David jokes that she spent "too much time at the Christmas sales". Jo tells him "I know you think you're charming, but actually, you're just a sexist pig" and storms out, and maybe if she actually did her damn job, she'd have more ground to stand on there.

Hospital. Thelma complains that the nurses' uniforms are lot less PVC than various clothing outlets had led her to believe, and see, this kind of thing is why she's the one that gets me through the less than stellar episodes of this show, and God knows there are more than a few of those. Cassie tells her that most people come here to die, Thelma points out that dead people have desires too, and yeah it's another "By the way, Thelma is a lesbian! And a ghost! She's a lesbian ghost!" scene, but at least they managed to get through this one without using either of the actual words. Inside, Thelma holds Cassie back and points out that finding out for sure that her son is still alive will be a totally life changing event, and maybe she should think twice before going through with it. Like, Cassie pretty much knows already, but as long as she doesn't have concrete proof, they can pretend that nothing has really changed from the good ol' days when they had not a care in the world. Apart from Thelma being dead, of course. Cassie asks if while they're at it, they can pretend that she's "an international popstar and dating Brad Pitt", and while they're busy doing that, I'm going to pretend we've already done the part where it turns out that Cassie's son is alive, because we all know he is already, and no matter how cute Thelma is playing with random hospital equipment, this is hella tedious. And then Cassie finds Dr. Condescension's bloody corpse. Hooray!

Later, Thelma sneaks back into the hospital, steals the sleeping security guard's food, and heads into the morgue. She pulls corpses out of their drawers, shaking her head at an old woman and a fireman, before she settles on an attractive young blonde woman, and starts taking off her dress. It's really not nearly as gross as it appears to be right now, though, so I can carry on loving Thelma, thankfully, because man, I don't know how I'd get through this show if that stopped happening.

Cassie's asleep in the common room, and dreaming of Azazeal, and then herself, naked. We can't actually see her face, so it probably isn't really Christina Cole, but they sure do love to show Cassie naked, in spite of the fact that I'm guessing the whole Nipples Without Warning incident may have had something to do with Ms. Cole's early departure. Anyway, Dream Cassie is breastfeeding Li'l Lucifer, only she is lactating blood instead of milk. Cassie is woken by Poor Felix, who continues to be obviously lusting after Cassie and incredibly socially awkward. Fuck that shit, right. I get the point. Poor Felix wants to know what's wrong, "Is it Thelma?" Cassie stupidly is all "No, Thelma's fine, she's being really good at the moment", and there's awkward silence and then Poor Felix rambles about how he had trouble letting go of his mother when she died too. Cassie thanks him for his help as he goes, though it had nothing whatsoever to do with her actual troubles, because she's so friggin' NICE. Yawn.

Back in the morgue, the security guard wakes up, finds his cake missing, and discovers Thelma's clothes discarded on the floor. Somehow he instantly knows to open the door immediately to the right of the clothes to discover the body of the same girl Thelma did, only she is now naked. With lipstick smeared all around her mouth. It's not what it looks like! OK, uh, Thelma had a little trouble getting the top off her? And the lipstick got kind of smudged in the process of doing so? Let's go with that.

Right, see, because Thelma was just stealing the dead girl's clothes so she could wear them because she was fed up of resembling a Final Fantasy character what with the never changing of the clothes. Well, not that her original outfit was anything near the level of ludicrousness required to join those fabled ranks. I mean, the big red flower was a little much, but it's hardly a spandex one-piece with short shorts plus matching gigantic leather boots and bracelets and bizzare outer thigh coverings and tiny bronze wings. They really outdid themselves on that one, and I could not previously have imagined that to be possible. Anyway, Hex. Right, Thelma's got herself a brand new look, and Cassie tells her she looks amazing and she is not wrong. Cassie also asks where she got the clothes, of course, and Thelma is all "you don't want to know" and Cassie realises that this is the morally dubious thing she was talking about earlier. Thanks for clearing that up, guys! Thelma explains that, in addition to being able to walk through car doors, but not other kinds of doors or walls as far as we know, and also being able to touch anything except actual living people, I think, she can only wear dead people's clothes. Yeah, that makes the exact opposite of sense. OK, Cassie is kind of grossed out that Thelma is stealing dead people's clothes and, hey, she didn't even see the lipstick!

A little later, Thelma's making one of her regular vending machine stops when she spots Jo looking incredibly shifty and walking hurriedly down the corridor. Thelma follows her, of course, because maybe she'll get to read some more of Jo's erotic fiction, and Jo takes a large wad of cash out of safe, and then suddenly is driving, and Thelma has done her car door trick again. Well, come on, it's not like any of the rest of her ghost powers would keep you amused for long. Jo hands over the money to a Scandinavian looking dude, and by that I mean he is tall and strong and blonde and blue-eyed/pure and healthy, very wealthy/SWEEEEEEDEEEEEEEEEEN! Mostly just the first part. In return, he hands her a SUSPICIOUS PACKAGE. Could this be a drug deal going down?! THAT WOULD SURE EXPLAIN THE TOTAL SHAKES THAT JO SEEMS TO HAVE ALL THE TIME NOW!!! It's not a drug deal, but here's a boring anecdote from my life that tangentially related, skip to the next paragraph if you don't care. So, the other day, my housemates and I went on a three hour drive, for Krispy Kreme donuts and nothing else (TOTALLY WORTH IT. FOR REALZ.) some of which we sold on at a meager profit, which, due to being unable to find our various customers' actual houses, we did out of the back of the car, with the two front seaters getting out to open up the boot/make sure there was no surreptitious stealings, while me and t'other back seater handled calculation of cost for whatever weight (or number, if you prefer) of donuts they wanted and receiving/counting of money, respectively. And we all observed how much this resembled a theoretical drug deal, and how simple it would be to replace the donuts with crack and we would totally not get caught in the slightest, and laughs were had by all. So, that's my boring story. I hope you have a more interesting life than me!

Anyway, it turns out the SUSPICIOUS PACKAGE is actually baby formula, for Azazeal and Li'l Lucifer. Stunner. And also, Li'l Lucifer is still growing way faster than normal children, just like he did in Cassie's uterus, because we don't want to have to wait through, like, fifteen seasons of this crap before we can get on with the teenage Antichrist storyline now do we.

Thelma flees the scene, running into loud, clattering rubbish bins and tripping over her feet and crying out and just generally trying as hard as possible to alert Azazeal to her presence, and, surprise! It works. But all he does is glare at her. Come on, you could at least have said something totally unremarkable in a really threatening tone, like, "Lovely weather today, isn't it, THELMA." You're not even trying here.

Meanwhile, Cassie swims, hears something whispering her name, and is yet again suddenly surprised by the appearance of Poor Felix. This is getting ridiculous. Poor Felix has sleeping pills for Cassie, Cassie spots a Nephilim and follows it and inadvertantly walks in on Poor Felix in the shower and blah blah embarrassment cakes.

Cassie gets home, and Thelma's sitting on the bed crying. Cassie asks her what's wrong, and Thelma tearfully tells her "I got mud on my new clothes!" Aww, Thelma! Cassie acts all appropriately maternal, and Thelma eventually confesses that this may not be the only thing that was bothering her and tells Cassie about Azazeal and the baby but not Jo, oddly enough.

Cassie decides to go confront Azazeal, because that's always worked out so well for her in the past. He tells her that she'll soon come to realise that she wanted to keep the baby as much as he did, and that's just stupid. Sure, she'll realise she did want the baby after all, that's conceivable, but I'm pretty sure she wouldn't go out of her way to manipulate people into stealing foetuses that they are supposed to be killin', you know? Cassie tells Azazeal that he is arrogant and has no respect for her, and his slicked back hair is lame. Azazeal just smirks, and Cassie complains that she hasn't slept for days and there is a weird bad special effects demon stalking her. Azazeal names said demon as Barracuda or something that sounded vaguely like that and tells her he's an archangel blah blah mythology cakes. Cassie asks when the other 199 bad special effect demons might be making an appearance, Azazeal just says "All in good time", and brings over Li'l Lucifer for her to hold, telling her he has inflicted the poor child with the name of Malachi, like we needed any more proof that he's evil. (No offense to any Malachis out there, like. At least it's not Eugene.) Azazeal wants them to be a proper family, Cassie tells him to suck it and leaves, but not without a drawn out pained glance back at her 'proper family'.

Cassie walks through the gardens of the college, lost in her thoughts and Poor Felix approaches once again, although it's not a total jumping out from behind her thing, for once. Cassie asks him if all men are bastards, he tells her that they are, actually, "something to do with the genetic makeup. I don't consider myself to be particularly male. I'm more like a hybrid. I mean, I still produce milk." Cassie smiles and tells him that whatever he is (DISTURBING is the answer), Poor Felix is an improvement on most of the guys Cassie has met, and Poor Felix lights up like the proverbial extremely socially awkward and seemingly slightly mentally handicapped kid in a candy store. Cassie remains totally obvlivious to the huge crush Poor Felix is quite obviously developing.

Cassie hangs out with Thelma in some generic spot on the school grounds, Thelma quite rightly makes fun of Malachi's name. Then they provide some exposition about how it is not surprising that he is growing up so ludicrously fast, because that inevitably happens to every baby on every TV show that has ever existed. Except the ones where they just don't grow up at all. Cassie and Thelma start to walk away, and we pan over to a sleek black car pulling into the drive, out of which hops Ella. Hi!

David leads Ella through the cafeteria and tells her thrilling stories about the works of art the school occasionally has to sell to buy new computers, and everybody stares at the new girl, because she is the new girl, and also she is wearing a crazy badass leather trenchcoat. Thelma loudly proclaims Ella's hotness, Ella looks straight at her and gives her a wink. Cassie and Thelma share confused looks.

In their room, Thelma asks Cassie if she thinks Ella's a "Nephrilim", assuming that, being female, she'll be more dangerous; "brains and brawn, lethal combination". Then her train of thought merrily derails and she asks what Cassie is planning to do about Malachi. Cassie tells her to stop asking questions and gets all indignant that Thelma is attempting to engage her in conversation, because she is too tired to deal with such trifling matters as the most important friendship in her life right now, OK?

Outside, there's lightning, and christmas lights, and disco lights, and a general theme of light. Leon asks Troy 2.0 if he's ready for "a night of hardcore drugs and kinky sex". Troy 2.0 complains that Leon said they were just going for a few quiet drinks, Leon quips that "It always starts out that way", Troy 2.0 looks distinctly uncomfortable.

And inside, Leon and Roxanne and Gemma 2.0 get him to drink to the point of vomitting, and laugh at how lame he is, since apparently it didn't take too much. There's a little more exposition about the whole deal with Troy 2.0; he's replacing the original Troy in a very real sense, seeing as how he's Leon's new roommate, and Leon is mad at Troy 1.0 for leaving him, and is taking it out on Troy 2.0, since that's the closest thing he has now, I think is the gist of it. Not even the slightest hint that we're doing anything but pretending that Gemma 2.0 has been there the whole time, however. Cassie shoots dissaproving glares at them all from her place on the sidelines. And from his place on the other sidelines, Poor Felix throws some smiles and waves and OMG OMG SHE IS LOOKING AT ME CASSIE AND POOR FELIX 4EVA IDSTF!!!! looks in her direction, which Cassie acknowledges with a friendly smile and a drink raise. Ella strides into the party, and Thelma is immediately back on the subject of thinking about her, naturally. Cassie jokes that they'd better hope she does not have a Lasso of Truth if they want Thelma to keep any secrets from her, Thelma gives a cute "YOU SHALL PAY" smirk. Ella goes over and introduces herself to the Horsemen of Apocalame with a bottle of absinthe, which wins her Roxy's approval. Leon incongruously does not apparently know what absinthe is, which Ella thinks is cute, I guess, because she starts flirting with him and then apologises to Roxy for not making sure that Roxy had not already staked a claim on Leon. Roxy's all "God no," and notes that "he's a little inexperienced, if you know what I mean", and I can't imagine that anyone could possibly not know what she means. Ella apparently has no problems with this revelation either.

Cassie walks outside and finds Poor Felix smoking, and is surprised because she didn't think he did that. Poor Felix tells her that indeed he doesn't, but shrugs that "I was bored." And also "contemplating the quantum universe". Cassie tells him he'll make a great old man, Poor Felix gets disheartened and then hopeful and then disheartened and then hopeful at further conversation that I can't be bothered with. The gist of it is, as the gist of roughly half of this stupid episode has been, that Poor Felix lurves Cassie, but she does not feel the same way. Can we just get to the scene where she rips his metaphorical heart out and then a Nephilim rips his actual heart out already? Oops, spoiler.

Thelma walks the halls of the party, people ducking to one side to let her past even though they cannot see or feel or observe her presence in any way, and finds Ella. Ella asks if she's always as rude as she was earlier and snorts a little coke and asks if Thelma wants any or if she plans to just stand there gawping all day. Thelma eventually stutters out a "No, thank you" and leaves.

And right, Poor Felix asks Cassie out, she says no, and then he dies and I sure did not see this coming at all, and I am so very saddened by his shocking and pointless death. And then the Nephilim that killed him stalks around for approximately eight hours and then stradlles Cassie. Oh, isn't that spooky. Aren't you just going 'brrrrr'. No? Me neither. And then Ella appears and poses for a while, and for fuck's sake, could this scene be any more stupidly drawn out. Net result, Ella telepathically stranglectrocutes the Nephilim with Christmas lights, and tells it "This is one party you're going to wish you'd missed" and, not that I think anyone could have done much with that line, but that was a pretty horrible delivery. Ella smiles in satisfaction at a job well done, until she sees Cassie crying over poor, poor Poor Felix. Thelma checks that Cassie is OK, Ella assures her that Cassie was not in any danger, Thelma bitches that the thing probably looked pretty vicious from where Poor Felix was standing. Ella agrees, but explains that Cassie was in no danger, because the thing was actually sent to protect her, since she's the mother of Azazeal's child and all, and obviously it percieved Poor Felix as a threat. Thelma asks Ella if she is not Nephilim, then, and takes her word for it when she says she isn't, for no particular reason that I can see. And Ella tells Cassie and Thelma they should get out of there, "This party's lost it's appeal", and you know, maybe I just hate the way she says 'party'. And the fact that those are both truly horrendous lines. But really, when she says 'party' she sounds completely Australian, despite not doing so at any other point, ever, as far as I recall. That's kind of weird.

Next day, Cassie and Thelma watch the police cars pulling up, again, and Thelma tells Cassie about various theories floating around the school as to how Poor Felix died, and assures her that it wasn't her fault, at which point Ella comes in to tell Cassie that, actually, it totally was her fault. And also give some clue who the hell she is; Azazeal been trying to get a girl knocked up for centuries, but Ella's always been there to kill them before he had the chance, until now. Not that she actually mentions the "killing them" part. Thelma angrily asks if Ella could be a little less patronising, please, Ella retorts "Could your friend keep her knickers on?" Cassie doesn't care for petty squabbles, she just wants to know how to make sure no more Poor Felixes turn up dead, because you've got to assume the school has a fairly limited supply. Ella says of course she knows how to stop it, and starts walking out so she can dramatically turn around and dramatically intone that they have to dramatically kill Cassie's child. OK, a) DUH. and b) it's not like Cassie didn't already try to that in the episode prior to this one, so no, I'm afraid that ending does not rate even a single "dun", let alone all three. Suck it, Hex.