TV Recap

    Hey everybody!  I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend.  Although the Patriots lost AGAIN, and therefore robbed me of my free coffee on Monday, I still got to see a lot of good TV, including a special behind-the-scenes special for Shadowhunters, (more on that below).  Plus, there are about 17 more days until Christmas and 11 until my birthday, so there's something for me to be happy about!  I'm going to be talking about some of my shows today, at least one of which is now on winter break.  I'll also be breaking down my thoughts on the Shadowhunters special, so stay tuned for that if you're interested or obsessed, like I am.  If you haven't been watching or are not caught up in Once, Arrow, Flash or Agents of Shield, BEWARE OF SPOILERS below!

(www.tv.com)

    Once had ALL the feels this week, as we see Emma become the better of two evils in order to battle Dark Hook and his master plan to destroy everything Emma loves, (except himself of course).  It looks like Emma has forgotten she's also a Dark One, but that's alright because everyone is completely OK with it.  Everyone has the Mark of Cane on them, thanks to Dark Hook, which means that they all just bought a one-way ticket to Hell, unless someone can come up with a way to finagle out of it.  Emma does, but Hook thwarts her once again, causing everyone to just give up and spend time with each other.  This episode seemed very blah to me after everything we'd been going through up until this point.  I did enjoy the little flashbacks of Hook and his father, but nothing was really explained at the end, so we have NO idea if Liam #2 is still alive and/or if he's looking for Hook, his big half-brother and their father's murderer.  In the end, Hook changes his mind at the last second and gives Emma the sword in order to run him through, like a real girlfriend would.  It's all very emotional because Killian was like the only really hot guy left on the show, (Charming is OK, but he's not my type...plus he's barely spoken in last few episodes).  But when you think it's over, you get Rumple, who's been biding his time until he can revert back to his evil ways again.  Thanks to some bit of leftover magic dust he had stocked up in one of his cabinets, Rumple now has all of the past lives of the Dark Ones trapped inside him, plus the dagger, ultimately making him more powerful than he's ever been.  Emma threatens to tell Belle, now that they've rekindled their relationship, so Rumple agrees to do Emma a favor.  Which is to bring her and her entire family to Hell to get Killian back.  Didn't they just get out of that mess?  Anyway, we'll see what happens when this show comes back from hiatus, but I'm guessing a lot of betrayal and dead enemies.

(superherohype.com)

    Arrow and Flash had a crossover episode last week, which was really cool to watch.  Barry was trying to find ways to increase his speed since taking on Zoom has decreased his confidence significantly.  Cisco and Kendra have taken things to the next level, but are interrupted on their date by Vandal Savage, the random bad guy of this crossover.  Savage is here specifically for Kendra, who is actually Hawk Girl in a reincarnated state.  It takes most of the episode, and a little help from Team Arrow, to figure this out.  We also meet Kendra's counterpart, Hawk Guy, (I don't know what he's actually called).  Their souls are apparently linked so that in each new life, they can find each other again, (AWWW).  Poor Cisco... How can you possible compete with that?  Anyway, Kendra finds her wings by free-falling off a skyscraper, Barry and Oliver work together to figure out the best course of action when dealing with the mystical Savage.  They figure out that Savage is immortal and that he's hunting mystical objects related to Hawk Girl's origin.  Malcolm Merlin offers some words of encouragement on the nature of immortality as both teams convene over drinks at Ollie's apartment.  There are lots of jabs at each other, (Barry nags Ollie about no sleeves, Cisco insists on renaming Speedy, Barry comments on Merlin's shadowy entrance, etc.).  Hawk Guy swoops in, (literally), takes Kendra, gets beaten by Team Awesome and questioned about what he knows.  Eventually, they all figure out that Savage is after a magical scepter, which he gets his hands on, but not without a fight from Arrow and Flash.  After realizing that Savage is after Kendra, now that she's gotten her powers back, they leave for Star City, but not before Oliver has an awkward run-in with the child he fathered with that girl Moira paid off back in Season 2 or something.  WHAT?!
    Enter the Arrow crossover, Legends of Yesterday.  As I'm writing this, I just realized that Oliver had more story line in the Flash crossover and Barry had more story line in the Arrow crossover...weird.  Anyway, both teams travel to a farmhouse on the outskirts of Star City, (cue Thea making an obvious joke about Avengers: Age of Ultron), to regroup and come up with a plan to take on Savage.  Hawk Girl and Guy train outside and attempt to spend some time together in order to rekindle her lost memories.Oliver attempts to make contact with his long lost son while keeping it from Felicity, (HORRIBLE move).  Eventually, everyone is finally ready with what they think is an OK plan.  During the final confrontation, Savage uses the staff to incinerate everyone, which immediately causes you to think this is either a dream sequence or something because EVERYONE CAN'T DIE.  Barry runs so fast he turns back time, thank God, and he tries to help the team think of a better plan than the one that got them killed originally.  They do and it works and everyone wins, even Ollie, getting to spend some one-on-one with his son Will.  However, he still doesn't tell Felicity and she definitely KNOWS something is up, so this will not end well.  Overall, a great crossover, but the sole purpose was to set up Legends of Tomorrow, so we'll see how well that worked.

(mcuexchange.com)

    Agents of Shield has slowly been losing my interest as of late.  I'm not sure why, but I'm just not as invested anymore.  Last week, we saw Coulson lose his lady love by way of sniper rifle to the throat, thanks to Ward, whose goal is to now make Coulson suffer.  It's working.  Coulson then spends the entire episode trying to find Ward and kill him.  We haven't seen a lot of May or Skye/Daisy lately either, and even less of Lincoln, (which is a crying shame).  Everyone has been beaten so badly at this point, but I can't see May lying low for too much longer because of what happened with Andrew.  She's never been one to sulk.  But I loved Fitz-Simmons in this and the bond they have is obvious.  Fitz went through a portal for her!  I'm curious to see what will happen next week when Hydra tells Simmons that they only needed Fitz as a sacrifice to their horrendous Squid God...  I wish I cared more.  They wouldn't kill of Fitz, would they?...

    

(youtube.com)

    The Shadowhunters special was probably the highlight of my night, (because I'm obsessed).  It was called "Beyond the Shadows" and featured footage from behind the scenes of filming the show, (obviously), as well as little clips and snippets we haven't seen yet in any of the trailers.  LIKE MORE MALEC!!  After watching this, I feel a lot better about watching the TV series in January, (WHY must I wait another MONTH?!).  I'm still not 100% sure this is going to make me happy because I know they are going against the book on a lot of details, but I'm hoping that I still like what they've done with the story.  Besides Malec stuff, (one of the episodes is called "Malec!"), they showed more footage of scenes from the show, which gives us an idea of what we might see from the books in the first season.  We're definitely getting Simon's burial, when he becomes a vampire, and it looks like we're going to meet Isabelle's Seelie/Faerie boyfriend, which means a trip down into the Seelie Court.  This means we can expect content from at least the first two books, if not a bit of the third, although I've seen nothing so far to suggest that yet.  There are only 13 episodes in the first season, so I have no idea what they're going to do or how they're going to split things up.  Regardless, I've already watched the special twice and it's on YouTube and ABC Family's website, so I'll leave the link here so you guys can watch it if you're interested.  I believe the show will be better received if all the guys go shirtless.

    Ok, I think that's about all I have for you today.  If you watch any of these shows or have thoughts on the Shadowhunters show, let me know in the comments below.  Until next time, I remain your faithful correspondent.