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Netflix is now streaming the Danish series Dicte. The series is named for the title character, Dicte Svendsen, played by Iben Hjejle. Dicte is a crime reporter who goes back to her hometown of Aarhus after a divorce. She has an 18 year old daughter named Rose (Emilie Kruse) and an ex-husband (Lars Ranthe) who hopes for a reconciliation.
Mild spoilers ahead. Continue reading “Dicte: A Danish series about a Crime Reporter”
Lost Girl episode 4 is “When God Opens a Window.” And a helluva window it is. Big surprise, big mistakes, big lies, big anger. But the good news is that Vex (Paul Amos) and Evony (Emmanuelle Vaugier) are back.
Spoilers ahead.
Tamsin (Rachel Skarsten) was supposed to take weapons to Bo (Anna Silk) but instead she boinked a guy whose name she can’t remember. Since she used Bo’s bed, Bo wants her to share. Hello, Mr. Lucky. Tamsin shares because she knows Bo is hornier than a monkey with 8 dicks. Or something feminine and sexy.
Hunky young Fae boards a bus. Sits by pretty woman. Accidentally gets pretty woman killed by an arrow when he bends down at just the wrong moment.
Tamsin is on the couch waiting for Bo to finish with Mr. Lucky when the guy from the bus bursts in. He found Bo’s investigations ad and someone is trying to kill him.
The bus guy is Mark (Luke Bilyk). He has a sad story. Tamsin argues that he’s trouble. Bo sends Mark up to her room to get clean clothes while she and Tamsin argue over whether or not to help him.
Mark picked Dyson’s (Kris Holden-Ried) shirt with Hale’s image on it. He heard Tamsin and Bo arguing. He quickly leaves. Later they realize Mark ransacked Bo’s room and stole some stuff.
Lauren (Zoie Palmer) tries out her Downton Abbey jokes on Evony’s butler. No one likes her jokes but her. Her jokes involve a fake English accent, which she does expertly badly considering she has a beautiful English accent all her own.
The butler took Lauren to a lunch meeting with Evony (Emmanuelle Vaugier). Evony wants to know whether her money was well spent on Lauren’s clinic. Lauren asks for a security system.
Evony wants her switcheroo serum. Now. Lauren says science takes time.
Bo and Tamsin chase down Mark. He gets to Bo with his story. It’s a lot like her story. Tamsin wants to kill him. Bo and Tamsin try to work it out in a fair fight using only “I” statements.
Bo finds this in Mark’s backpack. My, doesn’t that look familiar? Plus he talks about not fitting in, leaving a string of dead bodies behind him and other story material that matches Bo’s life.
Before they can finish their argument about whether to kill Mark, Bo is hit with an arrow. Mark runs away. Tamsin removes the arrow.
Meanwhile back at the Dal, Vex (Paul Amos) appears just in time to save Trick (Rick Howland) from some thugs.
Trick takes Vex to see Dyson because Vex needs help with 3 human murders. Dyson wants to kill Vex for Massimo’s murder of Hale.
Lauren goes to Bo’s because the arrow wound won’t heal no matter how many times Bo feeds off Tamsin. Lauren digs two bits of metal out of Bo. The metal bits are alive and attracted to each other. The metal gets all sparkly inside the test tubes.
Tamsin casually goes to Bo now that the wound can heal and kisses her. Lauren doesn’t like watching how commonplace this is for Tamsin. Bo looks embarrassed but Tamsin gloats. Lauren might be dying a little inside.
They find Mark at the Dal. He tells more of his story. Bo is buying it. She’s liking this guy.
Back at the clubhouse, Bo notices that the arrow wound still hurts. Mark kisses her. She sort of pushes him away but still manages to kiss him again. She says “Wow” twice. Where have we heard that response to kisses before, eh?
The Hunter (Aaron Poole), the man with all the arrows, interrupts the smooch fest. He wants to kill Mark because Mark killed his wife and daughter.
They were expecting The Hunter. Lauren jumps out and shoots him full of tranquillizer darts. Then she accidentally shoots Mark.
They take The Hunter to the hospital and chain him down. Bo tries to charm the truth out of him. She says his story about Mark is true.
Dyson still wants to strangle Vex. Then Vex shows him some files of the 3 dead humans. All three had were killed in ritualistic ways and then tattooed.
Bo continues to question Mark. He says The Hunter killed his mother while he watched like a coward. Who’s telling the truth? Bo doesn’t know, but she does know there’s something about this young man that brings out the cougar in her. She can’t resist him.
The appearance of the 3 dead and tattooed humans happened just when the 3 dead Fae disappeared from the morgue. Vex calls Dyson a pig. This somehow makes Dyson and Lauren realize the ritual killings of the humans were done by a Fae cult. Dyson wants something from the Fae he can track.
Just when Dyson and Vex are about to track down the missing Fae, Bo calls. She needs help with the Mark problem.
Mystery woman from the elevator (Amanda Walsh) is behind the door Dyson didn’t open. She’s with a dead guy who has sparkly stuff running around his face.
Dyson and Vex arrive at the lab to find Mark trying to kill The Hunter. Dyson tells Mark that Mark is a shifter. This is news to Mark. Dyson says that Fae killing Fae is no longer allowed. Mark can’t kill the Hunter. The Hunter can’t kill Mark. New rules. The Hunter bolts.
Dyson holds Mark back from chasing after The Hunter and gets a really good sniff of the young shifter.
They go to the Dal where Dyson reveals that Mark is his son. Bo is a bit upset by this announcement. She’s been doing the horizontal mambo with Dyson, Jr.? Yikes.
Mark’s not very impressed by his new-found dad. Mark’s not the family type, even though Dyson offers to help him and be there for him. Mark leaves.
Evony stops by the lab with something old and evil and tells Lauren to guard it.
Dyson finds The Hunter with a bit of help from Vex. No more Fae not killing Fae rules for him. Not when it’s his kid involved. He goes all wolf on The Hunter and eats him up.
Bo goes home and makes Tamsin promise not to tell about her bump and grind with Mark. Tamsin promises. She says she was hard on Mark because his story was like her story. Bo responds by saying that maybe this thing with her and Tamsin is going to work.
Bo finds Dyson with dinner still on his muzzle, er, chin. He’s looking at a photo of Mark’s mother. He knew she died, but he’d never heard she was pregnant.
Dyson tells Bo he wants to be alone. As she’s leaving, he says he thinks she’s going to make a great big sister for Mark. Gulp. Big sister. Just put on a happy face, Bo. Just put on a happy face.
Dyson turns back to his desk and realizes that the three tattoos make a complete design. When he puts them together, little sparkly things run all over the design.
I’m not sure I’m crazy about Bo’s growing addiction to feeding off Tamsin every time there’s a need. Bo’s too casual about it. Tamsin, on the other hand, is feeling it. Tamsin is Bo’s investigating partner with benefits. This can only lead to bad things.
I don’t know how old the character Mark is supposed to be, but Luke Bilyk the actor is 20. Bo is supposed to be about 30 (although Anna Silk is 40). He’s old enough to be with any woman of any age, including Bo. I mention this because there were some comments about his age on Twitter. A 30 or 40 year old man kissing a 20 year old woman wouldn’t be worth a comment, would it?
Of course Dyson will find out about Bo and Mark getting it on. Of course he will. But I loved the way the first kiss with Mark took us all the way back to the first kiss with Dyson in season 1. When Bo said, “Wow,” twice just the way she did, I knew that Mark would be related to Dyson and that was why she was so inexplicably attracted to him.
I’m wondering if Lauren is just putting Evony off on giving her the reverse Fae/human switcheroo serum, or if she really cannot figure out how to do it. She turned Taft Fae. Why can’t she turn Evony back to Fae?
We got a tiny mention of Kenzi in this episode when Bo complained that the sword Mark stole from her bedroom belonged to her best friend. Miss you, Kenz.
A photo by Rachel Skarsten from her Instagram account. Are those marks something they use when they add the special effects? The special effects people on Lost Girl do an excellent job. Sparkle on!
We have a date for the premier of season 3 of Orphan Black. April 18, 2015. And we have another clever teaser for the upcoming series. This one shows Tatiana Maslany killing it as she plays one clone pretending to be another clone.
So far the teasers for season 3 have mostly been reworked bits from season 2. We don’t seen much of Ari Millen, who will play several clones in season 3. (We did see just a hint of Ari Millen in these previews a few days ago.)
I’m not getting a sense that Tony, the male clone Tatiana plays will be back. We aren’t getting any hints about whether the pencil that Sarah blasted into Rachel’s eye is going to be the end of her or a temporary setback.
We do know from publicity about Ksenia Solo guesting on the series as a healer for Cosima that Cosima is probably going to recover and survive.
I saw a preview for an upcoming movie called The Age of Adeline in the theater the other day. The male love interest was played by Michiel Huisman, who plays Cal on Orphan Black. I hope that doesn’t mean he hasn’t had time to continue on as Cal in season 3.
I love seeing these teasers but I’d like at least a few tidbits about where season 3 will go.
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel will release in late March 2015 in the US. I will be there, ready to be delighted by this wonderful cast and charming story.
New in this edition of the story will be Richerd Gere, Tamsin Greig and David Strathairn.
Still around are Dev Patel, Maggie Smith, Tina Desai, Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Celia Imrie, Penelope Wilton, Ronald Pickup, Diana Hardcastle, and Lillete Dubey.
The film is directed by John Madden from an original screenplay by Ol Parker. The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was shot in India.
The character Sonny Kapoor (Dev Patel) has plans to expand the Best Exotic Hotel for the Elderly and the Beautiful while getting married at the same time. It looks like we might get a bit of a Bollywood musical number at Sonny’s wedding. That should be fun.
Sonny’s mother is played by Lillete Dubey, who has an impressive list of credits in films made in India. She was in the first Best Exotic Marigold Hotel as well as Monsoon Wedding and many other films. She’s also a theatre director and founder of the Theatre Action Group in Delhi. In her world, she is as famous as Maggie Smith or Judi Dench is in the American/European market. It’s always wonderful to see this accomplished woman in action.
Poster and images ©Fox Searchlight Pictures
“Big in Japan” is episode 3 of season 5 of Lost Girl. Tamsin (Rachel Skarsten) is taking Kenzi’s (Ksenia Solo) place as Bo’s (Anna Silk) bestie. It had to happen that way, but, dang, I miss Kenzi.
I’ll recap the episode in pictures. Many spoilers ahead.
Bo is redecorating. Painting, hanging drapes. Dyson (Kris Holden-Ried) helps – shirtless, of course – and Bo discovers she has no interest in sex. Our favorite succubus is blocked!
All the people in the elevator died. Three had Fae DNA, including this one (Amanda Walsh). The other two were a family man and a bike courier. Dyson worries that Lauren (Zoie Palmer) is in danger because she turned The Morrigan human. Lauren admits to death threats.
Bo tries to figure out why she has no sex drive. Tamsin interrupts and suggests they go out.
Musashi (Scott Yamamura) from the Dal’s Karaoke night picks up Bo and Tamsin. Bo only agrees to go after she realizes that having Tamsin inches from her face incites not a single urge.
Lauren is frightened by things that go bump in the night. But she’s armed and well toned.
Bo wakes up, hungover, with Tamsin in her bed. (They didn’t) Bo tries to feed off a willing Tamsin, but can’t. Still no sex drive.
Look who’s in the bedroom with Bo and Tamsin. Musashi wants bodyguards because of the assassin who’s after him.
Bo and Tamsin take the bodyguard gig. At a tea house, they meet Musashi’s sister (Emily Piggford). She serves but spills hot tea on Musashi and basically calls him a jerk.
Musashi claims to be a hero who can bring light, leap over armies, and cause blizzards.
Oh my, Musashi is set to ascend – to become a god. That’s what heroes do.
Lauren is now scared enough to ask Dyson to train her in self-defense. If he puts his shirt on.
Bo gets sliced in a bodyguarding mishap. Lauren has to sew her up. She still can’t heal herself, hence the needle and thread. She tells Lauren she has no sex drive. The doc thinks it’s psychological.
Bo has no heat for Dyson or Tamsin, but Lauren is a medical professional. She offers to help. No go. Even the good doctor cannot fire up Bo’s inner succubus. Lauren worries about how vulnerable that makes Bo.
Bo is so upset she talks to Trick (Rick Howland) about sex drive. He says Aife lost it for A YEAR! He even uses the word orgasm. Trick thinks it could be psychological. Luckily Tamsin comes in with new info on the case and takes Bo away. Tamsin thinks the assassin was hired by one of the brothers.
Bo pretends to give Musashi’s brother a massage while pumping him for a confession. She realizes she’s lost her charm, too. He jumps up and tries to strangle her. Bo is rescued by the sister.
Bo realizes the sister is the one who ordered the hit. She says it’s because Musashi cannot be allowed to ascend. Seems Musashi is taking credit for his sister’s accomplishments. She’s the hero. If her brother ascends without telling the truth, he will be reduced an Akaname – cleaning toilets for the rest of his life. You can’t pretend to be a hero, but admitting dishonor will save you.
Bo and Tamsin dress up like Ninjas and crash the ascension ceremony. Musashi won’t tell the truth. His sister reveals herself as the hero. She brings the light and she causes a blizzard. Now she’s the god and bubba has to clean toilets. Forever.
Dyson is still teaching Lauren self-defense. He says she should learn to throw from her gut. They talk about how guilty Bo feels about everything.
Love the new kimono. Bo spends a lot of time in this episode looking in mirrors and telling herself she’s okay. But during this self-help mirror talk, a very angry Musashi shows up and stabs her. Makes a big hole right in the new kimono.
Someone finds our bleeding Bo and takes her to Lauren. After she’s stitched up, Bo confesses that she’s responsible for so many losses: her mom, dad, Kyle, Rainer, Hale, Kenzi. Being The One means she loses everyone and will always be alone. Everyone takes a turn telling Bo how much they love her. Well, Tamsin isn’t quite as sweet as the others, but she’s effective. All that love eases her guilt.
All the words of love give Bo her mojo back. Bo’s back, bitches! She sends everyone out of the room but Dyson.
Tamsin and Lauren listen to Bo and Dyson bumping parts in the next room. Lauren says she’s okay with it. She tells Tamsin thank you for helping with Bo.
The kind words and affirmation from Lauren reduce Tamsin to tears.
Wow. This image. Had to give you the full length – couldn’t crop off a bit. Bo goes back to the tea house. Musashi serves her tea before he has to go clean toilets. They have a heart to heart about being chosen to lead, being the hero, being vulnerable and open to the truth.
Bo leaves the heart to heart saying being chosen is bullshit. Look at her in that hat and that red dress. Honey, Agent Carter ain’t got nothing on Bo Dennis.
A late night patient wants the Fae/human switcheroo serum. He threatens the nurse at knife point, but Lauren dispatches him with a well thrown syringe. Thrown from the gut.
Party at the clubhouse! Dyson and Tamsin talk about Tamsin leaving the police and becoming Bo’s partner in the investigating business. Dyson says it’s a good thing, it works.
Lauren brings beer and wine but no news about the DNA of the three Fae from the elevator.
The gang settles in for a night watching horror movies. The candle is burning.
Guess who wakes from the dead? Yep. She kills the nurse, takes her lipstick and says, “I needed that.” When will we find out who the devil she is?
It makes me sad seeing the gang reduced to just 4. They all fit on one couch. Tamsin is great. She’s developing a heart. She’s going to make a good sidekick for Bo. But it’s hard without Kenzi. Damn.
Rachel Skarsten is the reason the phrase “Nordic beauty” was invented.
Why, when sex happens in another room, is it always noisy as furniture throwing? With very vocal, loud moaning? When we are in the same room with a sex scene it is nothing like that. Yeah, the sound effects are funny, but they don’t fit, they don’t belong. That bothers me.
Men have been taking the credit for women’s accomplishments since the origin of the patriarchy. But it’s never been a theme on Lost Girl before. The Lost Girl universe is one of equality: no sexism, no homophobia, no racism. I’m wondering if using this theme now is foreshadowing something ominous about Bo’s father – who may or may not be Hades, King of the Underworld.
Does this sound like a Lifetime movie?
Inspired by a true story. When a mysterious teenage girl shows up on their doorstep claiming to be her husband’s long lost daughter, Liz Michaels welcomes her into their home – but when Liz starts to feel pushed out of her own family, she begins to question the girl’s true motives and doubt her own sanity.
Yeah. Definitely a Lifetime movie. Mild spoilers ahead.
But there’s a twist, and it’s a big one. This movie stars Jennifer Beals. A Wife’s Nightmare is the title to look for.
A Wife’s Nightmare gave us Jennifer Beals as Liz, a wife who is unsure, compliant, nervous, and worried. She’s just returned home after a mental breakdown. The arrival of a young woman claiming to be her husband’s daughter makes her question her own mind and thoughts. The gaslighting part of the story was a new acting challenge for Jennifer Beals and she did it very well.
I was happy she found her way to some backbone by the end of the story, however. Jennifer Beals is always a pleasure to watch. The ending was most satisfying.
I’d watch Jennifer Beals in almost anything, so I wouldn’t miss this one. The last Lifetime movie I watched – Big Driver – was very good, too. Lifetime is on a roll.
The young daughter is played by Lola Tash. The husband, Gabe, is played by Dylan Neal.
Here’s a promo for the movie.
The film is part of a series, all filmed in Kelowna, British Columbia. The other films in the series are A Mother’s Nightmare, A Sister’s Nightmare and A Daughter’s Nightmare.
The cast from Orange is the New Black put together a Christmas classic for the fans. Happy holidays.
Seeing the faces of the singers in this cast – that multihued cast – is really what makes this Christmas video beautiful.
Ascension, a three night event on SyFy was emphatically uneven. It was utterly boring at times, and edge-of-the-seat exciting at others. It was predictable while being unpredictable. It was disgustingly sexist but a paean to women by the end.
Major spoilers ahead!
The situation was a set-up. The previews showed a space ship launched from Earth in the 1960s, with some tracking still going on back on earth.
The people on the space ship were actually lab rats in a lengthy and elaborate high tech experiment right here on earth. They thought they were in space to save the human race but they were not. Their every fight, sexual act, library check out and weight gain were monitored from mere feet outside their metal cocoon.
This Petri dish with 600 lives on board was headed by Captain Denninger (Brian Van Holt) who ran the ship, and his wife Viondra (Tricia Helfer) who ran the social life of the ship with the help of a crew of prostitutes. Everyone was striving to improve their lot in the world on board the ship, from the workers on the lower decks to the elites at the top.
The Captain’s opposition came from Councilman Rose (Al Sapienza) who was the smarmiest lech from the 1960s you’ve ever seen. Lord, did he need a dose of women’s liberation enlightenment.
Speaking of women’s liberation, the women spent most of their time nearly naked or completely naked, as you see in this photo of a massage from a semi-dressed woman. The men weren’t the only ones in sexist parts.
Okay, enough complaining about the state of women’s lib in the 1960s. There were some good parts to Ascension.
The action scenes were exciting, the special effects looked great, the ship itself was fabulous. Great sets. There was attention grabbing excitement at moments.
The characters and parts that Gil Bellows and Lauren Lee Smith played were my favorites. However, if this show makes it to series, which seems to have been the aim of this 3 part opening, these two may not even be there. Sigh.
Might as well talk about the possibility of going to series. There were many so cliffhangers at the end of the 6 hours, that SyFy must be thinking of keeping on with the show as a series. Teenager Crista (Ellie O’Brien) has some sort of powers that can transport people to other places with mental effort only. The man in charge of the experiment on Earth, Harris Enzmann (Gil Bellows), keeps saying Crista is the purpose of the whole social experiment. There is one small issue – her mental powers put everyone in danger because her brain blows up just about everything on the ship.
Samantha (the Lauren Lee Smith character) gets one of the men from the ship, Stokes (Brad Carter) off the ship and out into the wilds of 21st Century America with its seedy motels, quick stop liquor stores, and a full moon. We don’t know how he’s going to fare.
By the end of various disasters on the ship, Viondra is in charge, not her husband. If the show does become an ongoing series, I could certainly applaud the idea of a female captain.
A security officer who is smarter than your average cop, Aaron Gault (Brandon P Bell), is somewhere undisclosed – sent there by Crista and her superbrain.
We don’t know if Harris will still be in charge, if Crista will fly them all to Alpha Centauri on brain waves, or if Stokes will spill the story of this elaborate experiment to the world.
In short, the six hours we saw in 3 nights on SyFy were basically season 1.
Although I was a bit put off by some of the early parts of Ascension, I liked it better and better as it went along. If it does become a series, I’ll watch. Bring on season 2.
Orphan Black is releasing new promos to entice us to want season 3 to hurry up. It’s working! Hurry up, season 3! The nearest I could come to a release date is Spring 2015.
Mrs. S (Maria Doyle Kennedy) is a total badass. We know that. Here’s proof.
Also, Alison does NOT have a potty mouth. Even when she’s stoned and drunk. Even when she’s a total badass. Much to her surprise, Alison is often a total badass.
Love the humor in this video about Alison. I hope they produce similarly clever ones for all of Tatiana Maslany’s many incarnations before season 3 begins.
I would happily watch videos like these about Felix (Jordan Gavaris), Delphine (Evelyne Brochu) and Kira (Skyler Wexler), too.
Just hours after this post published this morning, a new promo for season 3 became available. It includes one of the male clones we learned about at the end of season two.
Start date on BBC America is April 18. We have a date, CloneClubbers!
In case you somehow missed this announcement: Ksenia Solo will be part of season 3 of Orphan Black. There might also be a couple of guys, too. I don’t know, maybe Justin Chatwin and James Frain, whoever they are.
The Americans will start season 3 on FX on January 28. I’ve been watching this drama about Soviet spies in the U.S. during the Cold War in the 1980s since the first season. As unlikely as it sounds to say that I like a show about Soviet spies, I am saying it here.
Much of the reason this show is so good are the outstanding performances from Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys. They are brilliant in their parts as Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, two KGB officers who pose as a married couple living near Washington, D.C. They have two children, played by Holly Taylor and Keidrich Sellati. Their neighbor Stan (Noah Emmerich) is an FBI counter-intelligence agent who spends his days trying to catch people like them, and his evenings exchanging small talk with them over barbecue.
The spies have a “handler.” For a while their handler was played by Margo Martindale, an actress I simply love. This year Frank Langella is stepping into the role of handler. Richard Thomas is also a regular, playing another FBI agent.
There are recognizable events in the story, real characters and real happenings from the period, but ultimately – at least for me – the story is about Elizabeth and Philip: their relationship, their marriage, their family.
How about it? Are there any other fans of The Americans among readers?
Photos © Copyright FX Network
