The Living and the Endangered

SPOILER WARNING

If you have not seen tonight's episode of Grimm or last night's episode of Warehouse 13, you should leave the blog and come back later. The following review and Initial Reactions will contain spoilers. If you're interested, there's a small section of the newest "skirmish" in Neopets Obelisk War after the Initial Reactions section, as well as the Housekeeping section.

Warehouse 13 - "The Living and the Dead" - Review

I honestly don't know what to think about this episode. I was incredibly excited Warehouse 13 was back, but "The Living and the Dead" was kind of lack luster. Artie gets a "get out of dead free card," we meet another one of history's artifact users, and supposedly get a new villain introduced. At least, I hope she's going to be a villain. She certainly looks the part.

First I want to talk about Artie's mind and subsequent trauma. It was said in the episode that it makes sense for Artie's mind to be Warehouse 13, but even with that said, it was really obvious that's what it would be. The Warehouse 13 set is already there so what else would they use to do Artie's mental landscape? I found it interesting that Artie decided to communicate with Claudia and Jinks through the mental avatars of Vanessa, MacPherson, and finally Mrs. Frederic. It made sense considering Artie himself was hiding away with his memory of Leena. I'm not entirely sold, though, on the reasons the MacPherson avatar gave for showing up as one of the protectors. I'll take it at face value, though, because, well, there's nothing else to really take it as.

Artie hiding himself away with a memory loop of Leena was quite depressing, actually. I get exactly why he did it and then won't talk to anyone but Mrs. Frederic about it after he's shoved out of his mind. The trauma of what he remembers doing and what he interpreted from Leena when he killed her was just too great to lay on the people he didn't want saving him.

The rest of the story hinges on two things: the lock-picking artifact and Professor Sutton. I thought the lock-picking artifact was a handy deus machina device. I thought Professor Sutton was expertly portrayed by the ever wonderful James Marsters. His fake bumbling and pompous attitude were just brilliant. As he is immortal and it's revealed at the end of the episode that he didn't die from obviously not-fatal wounds, we should be seeing him again. I honestly can't wait.

My favorite scene from "The Living and the Dead" was in the crypt while the "poisonous darts" were flying around. Pete, Myka, and Sutton dodging them was just hilarious. I do wonder, though, what significance the diamond has to Sutton and Charlotte.

I sincerely hope next week's episode is better than this one. I expected to be utterly wowed and just wasn't.

Grimm - "Endangered" - Initial Reactions

• Oh yay, recaps.
• Constantinople? What is this nonsense?
• Cow tipping?
• Nope, udderless dead cow.
• Make that cows.
• Glowing blue thing.
• Okay... that was weirder than usual.
• So Monroe's trying to farm his parents or Nick off on Rosalee?
• It's nice seeing those two together doing normal couple-y stuff.
• Awkward.
• lol
• They're so friggin cute!
• Must. Stare. At. Key.
• Monroe knows everything about everything Wesen.
• Just happened to have a useful relative.
• For sure? You know period?
• This is gonna be cute.
• Juliette looks awesome.
• Awww...
• Yup, that was cute.
• Back to the blue guy.
• He's got a pregnant wife?
• OMG, it's that chick!
• And of course there'd be a UFO nut involved.
• So now we're being all tense with each other. Great.
• Of course there was.
• Two of those have to do with everlasting life: Alchemy & Everlasting Life
• I think Renard trusts Nick more than Nick trusts Renard.
• I love Wu.
• So... what did he take? The chick was obviously eating something.
• Hey, that looks like a reused farm location.
• Enter the UFO nut.
• Lol, Wu.
• Yup, best way to get your hands on a vehicle. Scare the bejeezus out of the driver, hope they don't run into any trees.
• And that's supposed to be what?
• I've got a feeling the UFO nut's gonna find the weird glowy Wesen.
• In other words, Wesen.
• Hooray contractions.
• Convenient abandoned cabin...
• Monroe's face.
• I like Juliette's coat.
• Except Monroe isn't actually that good at keeping secrets.
• Especially that secret.
• Well that's certainly an interesting way to put it.
• That's actually a good question. What is it with cows and aliens?
• UFO guy isn't what he seems, then. Huh.
• And he's a Wesen. Interesting.
• She has to eat their ovaries? Why?
• Rosalee's reminiscence was pretty awesome.
• So now we gotta find her.
• And be awkward about Monroe and Rosalee's relationship there.
• Bird boy's watchin'.
• And loading a gun. This is not going to end well.
• Ew... that effect was gross.
• The "Scooby Gang" to the rescue!
• Lol, Nick.
• Portable dissection table.
• Monroe has a wicked nose... not that anyone wants to point this out.
• Oh, NOW we talk about Monroe's nose.
• That was a crap shot.
• That's a slightly creepy partial vogue.
• Like, could technically be a lot of time... gotta love those TV short labors.
• Rosalee just happens to know how to deliver a baby.
• That is a really clean baby.
• And of course the jerk "UFOlogist" shows up.
• And Nick scares him for just long enough.
• Boom. Dead.
• Happy ending, for them at least.
• Okay... that's just a lot of weird.

Neopets Obelisk War Update

I know I said this thing was over, but it's really not. Three of the remaining factions have been chosen to "fight to claim the oracle's blessing for themselves" according to today's "Latest News." The three factions battling are:

1. The Seekers
2. The Thieves Guild
3. Order of the Red Erisim

Once again, I will be supporting the Order of the Red Erisim. I will not, however, be turning the blog red again.

I'll keep you updated on happenings with the new "skirmish." You currently have 29 hours to choose your faction. That's the rest of today and all of tomorrow.

Housekeeping

Uhmmm... yeah... this is basically going to be me begging you for comments. I very rarely get them and I think it would be fun to actually interact with those of you who actually read this thing. Let me know what you thought about the shows I review, my reviews, or, ya know, just say hi.

Love ya, Jessie.

Order of the Red Erisim

I've had an awfully weird day today, at least in terms of odd timing things... I woke up at 1:30 PM, which I haven't done in a very long time, and my schedule's been all wonky because of that. I did, however, have some time to find out that my chosen team for the current Neopets Plot has gotten a Neopedia article! I figured I'd go ahead and make a blog post about that.

If you have no interest whatsoever in Neopets or their plot strands, I encourage you to come back tomorrow for my initial reactions for Once Upon a Time. Hopefully, those will be up tomorrow. Also, if you've already read the Neopedia Article, there's not going to be any new information here, really. Oh, and this is very link-heavy for easy access to potentially unknown information.

Order of the Red Erisim

If it bites, zap it. If it doesn't, take it home and study it.

Turn out, I was right in assuming that the Order of the Red Erisim were made up completely of magic users. The Order is completely devoted to studying magic and everything that pertains to it.

From what I can gather about the members of the Order, there are 5 new members as of this plot:

1. Rasala the Bright - A red female Bori. Head of the Order of the Red Erisim. She appears on the "Mysterious Outskirts" page after you join the Order.
2. Alshemar of the Seventh Scroll - A male Ogrin.  Rasala's former teacher. Lives in the forests of Meridell.
3. Belisarius - A male Tonu prone to mumbling.
4. Ganfrey - A male Mynci, apparently a friend of Hilda's.
5. Hilda the Hedgewitch - A female Bruce. Champion of the Cauldron Throwdown seven years running. Apparently has a Naalala who likes to eat spellbooks.

Members essentially grandfathered into the Order from previous events:

1. Seradar - A male purple Gelert. Royal Sorcerer of Brightvale in the employ of King Hagan. Originally from The Darkest Faerie Game.
2. Morguss - A green female Moehog. Mother of The Court Dancer. Originally of the Battle for Meridell Plot.
3. Jerdana - A blue female Aisha. Also known as The Protector. Originally appeared in The Darkest Faerie Game. Later featured in the Altador Plot as the sorceress responsible for suspending Altador in slow time.

And... that's essentially it for the Order at this point... The War starts in 4 Days. Join us.

Housekeeping

All information used for this post came from the Order of the Red Erisim Neopedia Article and the NeoDex. I also grabbed some links from Neopets' Gallery of Evil. It's entirely probable that I plagarized stuff... with such a small amount of information, it's practically impossible not to.

Universe willing, tomorrow I'll have Once Upon a Time initial reactions for you.

Love ya, Jessie.