Vampire Diaries Season 8B Predictions and Wishlist

It's been a disappointing Season 8 for TVD, let's face it, and it's very hard to fathom how the writers are going to pick up all those pieces and glue them into some kind of winning conclusion.  But I like to hope for the best, especially given past precedent such as Elena's classy and door-leaving-open exit at the end of Season 6, which was the most jaw-droppingly brilliantly-constructed and beautifully executed leap of faith.

Wishes and Predictions!

1.  This one is a sad, bad, mad one.  I'm pretty sure the writers are gonna make us sit through several more episodes of humanity-free Salvatores, and make us listen to Sybil and Seline blah-blah-blahing a whole bunch more.  To which no one looks forward.

Vampires with no humanity are the Julians of Season 8.

2.  The Hell plotline: I've been hoping all along that when the scoobies defeat Cade, the souls undeserving of condemnation will be released from Hell.  You know, like presumably Tyler (he killed people, so one assumes that according to Cade's law that if you look at a fly the wrong way, you're evil, he was pretty much screwed), my Season 8 new character fave Georgie (Georgie and Alaric forever!), etc. etc.  I doubt Katherine will be set free after all she's done, but it would be so cool to see her again...that's assuming Nina Dobrev comes back for anything at all, which is unfortunately an assumption.  

3.  Speaking of which, Elena.  Let's confront the lovely, tiny, delicate-faced elephant in the room.  Will she be back?  Fierce hope that Elena at least awakens at the end of the finale lives on.  Because if there's one thing in this show that means more to some of us, one of whom is me, than anything else, it's Delena!  Let this glorious OTP be as it should at the end of the show!  They need their happily ever after, and we viewers have earned seeing the real Damon again right where he should be.

4.  What will happen to Bonnie?  My theory is that she dies peacefully in old age (flash forward sequence), Enzo by her side, since he'd taken the cure for vampirism years ago.  Then Elena can wake up without Bonnie dying tragically young and missing out on her romantic, blissful life with Enzo.  And also, we all want Bon Bon to have her powers back ASAP and for the rest of the final season of the show, please!

Massive thanks are due to Bonenzo for propping up an often abysmal season with their gorgeous love story.

5.  Are we going to see Kai again? The show's only truly great villain aside from Klaus and Katherine is rumored to make one more brief appearance, which would be terrific.  He's such a fascinating character that I truly can't believe he was confined to one season.

6.  Steroline Wedding.  This seems like a given, and I know the Steroline fans deserve this richly.  

Buuuuttttt I really hope that someday, some way, Klaus and Caroline end up together.  Some ships you just never get over, love.

Even though this has been the worst season of the show since 5, and with its downright depressing constant barrage of cruelty, pretty much worse than 5 (which after all, was more boring than actually mean), TVD never ceases to surprise and often amaze.  I can't wait to see what the series finale in March will hold.  Even though I'm sort of terrified to find out.  Gah!

Feel free to add your own hopes and fears and guesses in the comments!

Agents of Shield: Season 4 so far and Philinda musings

(insert spoiler warning for seasons 1-4 here)

What drives me crazy about this season of Agents of Shield is how despite its flaws, boring bits, predictable bits, and easily avoidable, face-palm and fast-forward inducing Ghost Rider storyline, when it comes down to everything happening with the core characters, I still care so much.  This show has its hooks in me so deeply that even after last season, which I like to call "My Baby Killed My Other Baby and They Made Me Watch,"* I am incredibly attached to the sagas of Coulson, May, Skye Daisy,** and Fitzsimmons.

Our new story arc, LMD, benefits so hugely by not being Ghost Rider that it almost seriously cannot effing fail. Plus, who doesn't love androids?  Good androids, bad ones, the creepiness and insidious sneaky-sneaky-ness of androids, how they reveal humanity's own potential for greatness and evil while spinning off into their own self-aware adventures of unpredictable mayhem, it's all great.  

But why do we have to go down this Fringe/Vampire Diaries retread path of having the fake robot May switched in for the real one right when Philinda was just about to happen?

Sure, it's familiar and makes us flinch with its possible implications and consequences, including the idea that moments we wanted experienced first with the real Philinda will be seen with...Fauxlinda...cringe!  Gah!  I still care so much!

Philinda's increased focus in Season 4 has been a major leap forward and one factor that kept me onboard when with so many other shows, lesser shows, I might have disembarked after last year's shark-jumping disasterpiece.

The truth is that no matter how many insane, weird, frustrating or heartbreaking twists and turns AOS takes, it's still and always captivating due to the strength of its characters, performances, and world.  Let's see how that strength may hopefully fuel LMD and guide AOS back to its previous level of Seasons 1-2A perfection (a girl can dream)...!

*Even the dreadful, forced and rushed fauxmance between Coulson and Rosalind did little to prepare me for the nosedive the season took by having Phil kill Grant Ward (I can still barely form the words).  But first, they totally destroyed the entire character of Ward as he'd been clearly and exquisitely crafted from Season 1-2A, like ripping the damn Mona Lisa off the Louvre wall, tearing it up, stomping on it, and then, just for good measure, setting it on fire and waving the flaming pieces in our faces.  

Still, I continue to love this show.  It's amazing.

**(whispers) she'll always be Skye to me!  Hahahaha (maniacal laughter).  But.  Really though.

Not over this, never will be

"we're the same, split right down the center."

"a kiss can be deadlier if you mean it."

One of my earliest ships and still one of the best ever.

Re-watching this astounding display of perfect chemistry makes me newly a) wish there was a version of Batman Returns that just leaves out the entire overdone Penguin plotline (done so much better on Gotham, speaking of which, they also do a fantastic Bruce/Selena on Gotham, and furthermore, I really need to catch up on Gotham) and b) feel totally blown away by the poetic romantic tragedy, the more-than-a-glimmer of hope at the very end with that fantastic Breakfast at Tiffany's homage.

This film shows the two sides of Tim Burton as a directer with such crystal clarity: the trouble that occurs when he overindulges in the silly melodramatic clownishness wink/wink cartoony annoyances that plague the otherwise promising Penguin plot, and the triumph he achieves when he lands on the truly inspiring, the beautiful and unfathomably deep meaning of his characters' identities, hopes, desires, and dreams. That's what we get with the unforgettably swoon-worthy, sexy yet oddly adorkable Bruce/Selena, Batman/Catwoman plot. The gothic underpinnings of the film serve, with their inherent coolness and exquisite application, to make the problematic aspects more bearable, yet somehow the adorable 1992-ness of the Bruce/Selina plot feels deeper and more meaningful, more emotionally resonant and vulnerable.  A total and complete classic.