Scandal 5.7: Does the Devil Really Deserve a Second Chance?

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It’s time once again for Laura’s weekly Scandal recap!

This week’s episode of Scandal, called “Even the Devil Deserves a Second Chance,” dealt with the darker side of human nature and the lies we tell ourselves about the evil inside both us and others. The case of the week tackled a world-renowned feminist who’s been raping women for years with his wife’s help, while Olivia had to face the repercussions of her own selfish decision to free her father from prison to avoid marrying Fitz. Both surround themselves in a web of lies while fighting for truth and justice. The parallels are unsettling, to say the least, even though I think many of us viewers do feel for Olivia while fully despising the actions of the rapist.

The episode began with one of the best lines of the night, as Fitz celebrated the end of the impeachment hearings. He raised a glass and toasted, “To Congress: May their heads one day depart from their asses.” Yes, please! Can we give our own Congress the same toast and hope maybe they’ll listen? Fitz and Olivia have also smoothed things over. He’s not upset she returned the ring and ran out on the wedding, since getting married in that way wasn’t what either of them wanted. Fitz joked that Liv still “gets to date the most powerful man in the world.” How right he is, even as he cedes that power to his beloved girlfriend. Even Olivia and Abby are back to their close friendship. When Abby asked Liv about a rumor she heard that Congress was blackmailed into ending the hearings, Olivia told Abby she doesn’t want to have to lie to her so she can’t answer. Finally, the festivities turned to Vice President Susan Ross flirting with David as she offered to give him a ride to an event at the National Association of the Chiefs of Police the following day.

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Fangirl Thursday: Shared Joy Is the Best Joy

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Today is the kind of day that reminds me why I love being a fangirl.

If you haven’t seen my next-level fangirling on Twitter, a new Once Upon a Time sneak peek was released today that sent a good portion of the fandom into the best kind of hysterics: gif-using, all caps Tweeting, I CANNOT HANDLE THE FEELS hysterics. In a not-so-shocking development, it turns out that Killian Jones loves Emma Swan. And he wants to give up the thing that’s protected him for 300 years in order to protect her now as she fights to defeat the darkness inside her.

Cue the happy “shipper” sobs (including my own).

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TV Time: Once Upon a Time 5.06

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Title The Bear and the Bow

Two-Sentence Summary Emma’s quest to turn Rumplestiltskin into a hero takes a dangerous turn when she sends Merida after Belle. In flashbacks, we see a better side of Merida and Belle’s relationship, as Belle helps Merida believe in her own ability to save her brothers and take back her place on the throne.

Favorite Line “You can make your own fate.” (Belle)

My Thoughts Heroism takes many forms. Sometimes, it’s a brave woman with a bow and arrow fighting for her family and her right to rule her people. Sometimes, it’s a group of people who will never stop fighting for the person they love—even when it seems she’s stopped fighting for herself. Sometimes, it’s a brilliant woman with a gift for seeing the best in people and a heart that’s always ready to forgive. And sometimes, it’s a man who spent his whole life running and hiding who finally chooses to stand up and believe that he—even with all his past misdeeds—can change his fate.

There are so many ways a person can be strong, and Once Upon a Time has always embraced the idea that emotional, inner strength is just as important as the kind of strength it takes to shoot an arrow or wield a sword. “The Bear and the Bow” was all about different kinds of strength and how they all contribute to different kinds of heroism. The bravery it takes to face down a bear or a group of warriors is important, but just as important (if not more so) is the bravery it takes to admit your faults and failings without trying to justify them and to apologize to those you’ve hurt.

Taking ownership of your actions and your choices is such an important theme on Once Upon a Time. But it doesn’t stop at just admitting the bad things you’ve done. You also have to believe that you have the strength within yourself to be better than those bad choices. You have to believe, as Belle told Merida, that you can make your own fate. You can define yourself on your own terms by believing you can be worthy, brave, and strong enough just as you are. Regina learned that last season. Killian learned it, too. Merida and Rumplestiltskin both learned it in this episode. And it’s a theme that’s been at the heart of Emma’s character since she first told us all the way back in Season One:

People are going to tell you who you are your whole life. You just gotta punch back and say, ‘No, this is who I am.’ You want people to look at you differently? Make them. You want to change things? You’re gonna have to go out there and change them yourself…

Emma seems to have twisted that beautiful sentiment into punching back and telling people she’s the Dark One now. But that’s not Emma talking; it’s the Dark One talking through her. The darkness convinced Emma that she needed it, that she was stronger and better with it than without it. And she let it creep into her heart and define her, to the point where she’s now trying so hard to convince everyone that this is who she is now, when we know Emma is still there underneath the darkness. But that little bit of Emma seems resigned to the idea that she’s fated to be the Dark One and live the lonely life that comes with that identity.

How a person decides to change their fate and the fate of those they love has always been an important theme on Once Upon a Time, and the stories of both Merida and Rumplestiltskin might prove to foreshadow what made Emma fully embrace the darkness back in Camelot. Both Merida and Rumplestiltskin believed they had to use magic to make themselves stronger to change their fate and the fate of those they loved. They wanted to use dangerous magic to protect their loved ones because they believed they weren’t strong enough to save them from almost certain death on their own. While Rumplestiltskin made the choice to become the Dark One to protect Bae hundreds of years before Merida tried to turn herself into a bear to save her brothers, both of them were fueled by desperation to save the people they loved. Could that be what pushed Emma to fully embrace the darkness? My gut says yes.

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The Best Thing I Saw on TV This Week (10/25 – 11/1)

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This week in television started with a very emotional episode of Once Upon a Time, another instant-classic Halloween episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and my favorite episode of The Good Wife so far this season. On Monday, Supergirl debuted with plenty of “girl power,” Dancing with the Stars aired its annual Halloween episode, and Jane the Virgin tugged at all our heartstrings as we saw Mateo’s baptism and Jane’s struggle with whether or not to go to grad school and leave him behind. Tuesday’s episode of The Mindy Project reminded us that things are always better with Annette, and The Flash introduced us to Jefferson Jackson while also bringing Barry and Patty one step closer to romance. Wednesday gave us the Halloween episode of Black-ish, which had enough humor to balance out the very heavy hour of Nashville that followed it (including its genuinely shocking cliffhanger). And my Thursdays have become infinitely brighter now that Billy on the Street is how I end my night.

This was another week that reminded me how happy and thankful I am to have added Jane the Virgin to my TV viewing lineup. “Chapter Twenty-Five” made me laugh (Jane’s happy dance upon getting her grad school acceptance letter was amazing), made me cheer (I’ve never been so happy to see a baby blink!), and made me cry. In fact, Mateo’s baptism made me cry harder than anything that’s aired so far on television this year, but what I loved about it was that they weren’t tears caused by angst; they were tears caused by the most beautiful display of parental love I’ve seen on TV in ages. Watching all three generations of Villanueva women deliver Alba’s original message to Xiomara was a powerful testament to the love mothers have for their children. It got to the heart of what this show is about and what makes it special: the real, sincere love between those three generations of Villanueva women (and the love they all now have for baby Mateo).

I started crying the moment Gina Rodriguez began reading, and her work in that scene was masterful. (Give the woman another Golden Globe right now!) But where the crying became sobbing was at this line: “May you always let your faith be greater than your fear.” Sometimes a TV show knows exactly what advice you need to hear, and I needed those words this week. I know that those are words I will carry in my heart forever, and I love when TV moments become moments that have an impact on my life well after I’m done watching them.

Because I couldn’t find a video of this beautiful moment, here’s a link to a gifset (Thanks, Tumblr!). 

What was the best thing you saw on TV this week?

Scandal 5.6: Weddings, Escapes, and Betrayal, Oh My!

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It’s time once again for Laura’s rundown of this week’s episode of Scandal!

Fitz and Mellie finally got divorced, Fitz and Olivia almost got married, Jake once again lost a woman he loved, and Papa Pope returned. Sounds like a Thursday! The Scandal crew also had to contend with a Senate hearing and walking the fine line between truth and perjury, while keeping Fitz and Liv safe. So let’s dive into all this, shall we?

To Say I Do or Not to Say I Do?
A good portion of the episode dealt with whether or not Fitz and Olivia should get married. Cyrus essentially proposes to Olivia on Fitz’s behalf as the three of them talked in the Oval Office, explaining that if they’re married she can’t testify against him. Olivia, as we might expect, reacted in horror: “A shotgun wedding on the heels of a quickie divorce? You may as well turn the Oval Office into a drive-thru wedding chapel.” Of course, that’s not her main issue with the entire situation.

She confided in Abby, who characteristically rambled on without thinking as she freaked out over being in the president’s bedroom. She speculated about how hellish being First Lady must be until Liv told her that Fitz wants to get married. Liv, naturally, feels the same way Abby does, hence part of her hesitation in getting married. So instead of a wedding, she’s decided to lie on the stand, “because otherwise Fitz will be impeached and I love him too much to let that happen.” Abby, thankfully, asked the question on many viewers’ minds: If you love him, then why not just get married?

Olivia: We’re not ready to get married. It would just be a last minute get out of jail free card. I don’t want that for us.
Abby: If you take the stand, you could end up going to jail.
Olivia: And if I get married? What in the hell do you think this is?

She clarified her point by looking around the president’s bedroom, as did Abby. It’s lavish, but as First Lady, it would be a kind of elegant prison, just as Mellie told her.

Fitz thought if he redid the proposal in a more romantic way then he’d get Olivia to say yes—that it was simply the circumstances of Cyrus discussing their marriage like a business transaction that got in the way. He put together a romantic setting—rose petals, candles, him in a tuxedo, and getting down on one knee. But Olivia stopped him; that’s not what she wants. Since he admitted he didn’t want to do the elaborate proposal thing either, she asked why he bothered.

Fitz: Because I love you. Because you are what I want. But obviously you don’t feel the same.
Olivia: We’re not ready.
Fitz: You’re not ready. And you know what I think? You never will be.
Olivia: That’s not fair.
Fitz: Then answer the question, Olivia. What is it that you want? (She doesn’t say anything, just looks at him) That’s what I thought.

Poor Fitz. Even though I don’t think the two of them should get married, I felt for him in that scene. His actions later in the episode made me less sympathetic, but we’ll get to that. Eventually, Liv agreed to marry him, but she clearly started regretting her decision in the moments before the wedding when her new Secret Service detail explained how her life will now work. She was saved at the last minute by Mellie and her father, although instead of telling Fitz directly, she had Abby return the ring to him.

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Fangirl Thursday: What’s a Must-Watch For Your Halloween?

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With Halloween right around the corner, it seemed fitting to have this week’s Fangirl Thursday post be an ode to all the spooky or silly (or maybe both?) movies or TV shows that you simply can’t miss during this time of year.

I will freely admit that I am not a horror movie fan. I’m the world’s biggest chicken when it comes to scary movies, so my tastes lean much closer to It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown than The Exorcist. I think this is also the time to fess up to the fact that I still have yet to see Hocus Pocus and The Nightmare Before Christmas, two Halloween classics. (Someone please tell me where I go to turn in my nerdy girl card after admitting that.)

While I’m not one for most traditional Halloween media, I do love some staples of the season: the aforementioned It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is a favorite of mine, and, on the opposite end of the spectrum, I have been known to enjoy The Rocky Horror Picture Show at this time of year (especially when I was in college).

However, most of my Halloween favorites come from the world of television. I’m a sucker for any and all of the Halloweentown movies from The Disney Channel, and I’m sure one of those will be on in my house at some point this weekend. But I’m also a huge fan of Halloween episodes of TV shows—from the ones that are completely themed to the holiday (Castle’s “Demons”) to the ones that have Halloween as merely a backdrop to some of my favorite moments in TV history. (I’m looking at you, “Halloween Surprise” from Parks and Recreation.)

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TV Time: Once Upon a Time 5.05

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I’m sorry for my delay in getting this one posted, fellow Oncers. Sometimes life doesn’t understand that it needs to slow down so I can write about TV! Hopefully this post proves to be worth the wait.

Source: ABC/Jack Rowand

Source: ABC/Jack Rowand

Title Dreamcatcher

Two-Sentence Summary In Camelot, Emma’s desire to get rid of the darkness in her by freeing Merlin causes her to step further into the darkness by breaking Henry’s heart. When Henry finds out the truth about what Emma did to him, it ruins the relationship they were trying to work on back in Storybrooke, while Merida works to make Rumplestiltskin brave and the heroes discover Excalibur hidden in Emma’s house.

Favorite Lines
Emma: I didn’t have a choice.
Regina: There’s always a choice, Emma. You’ve said that to me a thousand times.

My Thoughts Innocence is a precious thing, and its loss is something to be mourned. “Dreamcatcher” was all about the loss of innocence and what that does to a person. It reminded us of the intense grief we feel when first loves turn into first heartbreak, but it also touched on one of the most painful losses of innocence that comes with growing up: the discovery even the people we believe in the most are capable of letting us down and hurting us.

Henry has always been defined by his faith; he has the heart of the truest believer, after all. And that’s never been clearer than in his relationship with Emma. He was the first person to believe in her as a both a hero and a mother. He believed in her so much that he was willing to eat a poisoned apple turnover because he knew she would save him. And that act wasn’t just an act of a boy believing in a hero; it was an act of a boy believing in his mother.

But Henry isn’t a little boy anymore; he’s growing up. And—just as we saw his relationship with Regina deepen in recent seasons as he explored the complexities of his adoptive mother’s capacity for both good and evil—it was time for him to face the idea that his birth mother has both good and evil in her, too. “Dreamcatcher” brought Henry face-to-face with Emma’s dark side, and, while it devastated me, it made for incredibly compelling television.

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The Best Thing I Saw on TV This Week (10/18 – 10/25)

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This week in television kicked off on Sunday with a closer look at several of the love stories on Once Upon a Time; a classic Jake/Holt team-up on Brooklyn Nine-Nine; and an episode of The Good Wife that put both Jackie and Veronica in the spotlight. On Monday, the contestants on Dancing with the Stars paid homage to some of the most famous dance routines in pop culture history; Jane the Virgin introduced us to “Bachelorette Jane;” and Castle showed us that it doesn’t take an expert in sniffing out the truth to know that Castle and Beckett still care for each other. Tuesday’s episode of The Flash gave us more insight into both the West and Snart families, and Wednesday’s episode of Nashville continued to tackle heavy material—as Deacon and Scarlett worked through their issues, while Avery and Juliette seemed unable to work through theirs.

While there were plenty of strong moments on television this week, my favorite was basically a forgone conclusion from the moment it aired on Sunday night. I’m a sucker for romance; I love a good love story. And there’s something truly special about getting to watch a new fairytale romance being created right before our eyes every week on Once Upon a Time through the relationship between Emma and Killian.

This season of Once Upon a Time is full of darkness, but what I love so much about this show is that it never feels hopeless. There’s always something sweet to balance out the bitter. And in this episode, that sweetness came from Emma and Killian’s scenes in Camelot. Whether it was Killian’s adorable enthusiasm upon learning about Henry’s crush (Could Colin O’Donoghue have a more perfectly expressive face? I think not.) or his insistence that he and Emma could get back to a “white picket fence life” (O’Donoghue’s sincere line delivery made me cry once again in that moment), I was struck by the beauty of this character who battled darkness for centuries embracing the light within himself just in time to help Emma hold on to the light inside of her.

The idea of love being a light in the darkness was shown in such a beautiful way during Emma and Killian’s scene among the flowers. The cinematography during that scene was stunning, with both characters bathed in a gentle, glowing light. Sometimes all we need to let go of the demons in our own head is to share our struggle with someone—to open up and let someone help us. Emma was able to do that with Killian, and she was rewarded for putting her faith in their love with a much-needed moment of peace.

The sweeping camera work during their kiss solidified this moment as one of pure fairytale romance, and sometimes that’s all you want from a show called Once Upon a Time. At a time when a lot of the shows I watch are having trouble balancing heavy and hopeful storylines, Once Upon a Time has achieved that balance this season, and much of its success has come from its focus on the way love can provide a light for us and give us strength in the darkest times in our lives.

What was the best thing you saw on TV this week?

Scandal 5.5: Lessons on How to Fix a Fixer

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It’s time for Laura’s take on the latest episode of Scandal!

I have to start off by complimenting the writing of this episode, because it was brilliant. The speech that Olivia Pope gave during her talk show appearance, magnificently delivered by Kerry Washington, was beautiful. And the final scene between Fitz and Cyrus—at turns dramatic, heartbreaking, and somehow even weirdly heartwarming—also had award-caliber writing and acting. The realism of a mother sending her son books with index cards that completely spoil the entire story make me wonder if someone in the writer’s room has a mother who actually did that for them.

I now want to touch on one of the more serious aspects of the episode: the lax rules surrounding impeachment. In the episode, David quoted President Gerald Ford as saying, “An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of Congress considers it to be at a given moment in history.” Considering President Clinton essentially got impeached for lying about engaging in a sexual act with an intern, that seems to be 100% accurate. Shouldn’t our constitution have a more strict law regarding what constitutes an impeachable offense? I realize our Founding Fathers probably never foresaw the mockery our current batch of lawmakers would make of the institution, preferring to close down the government rather than reach across the aisle to compromise, but it seems a president’s political enemies could find almost any reason to impeach him. David’s absolutely right when he told Fitz that “Congress is prosecutor and judge and jury.” That’s the way our system currently works. Anyone else have a major problem with that?

Okay, now that I’m done with the rant, let’s get back to the much more pleasant topic of Scandal, where the president did in fact commit the very impeachable offense of going to war to save his mistress. Not only could it ruin his presidency, it could send him straight to jail, no passing “Go,” no collecting $200. That’s where the phenomenal scene between Fitz and Cyrus comes in. In exchange for once again being made Chief of Staff (along with various other demands like Fitz firing Elizabeth North), Cyrus will return to work at the White House and keep silent about the fact Fitz saw the tape of Olivia while she was a hostage.

The bulk of the episode, however, was devoted to the question of how to fix Olivia’s reputation in front of the world. At first, things didn’t exactly go as planned. As Cyrus said, “I don’t even know how the hell they found out about that ring. But she’s managed to go from being a slut, to an Everywoman, to your sister-wife in under 48 hours. I didn’t even know that was possible.”

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Fangirl Thursday: We Can Do It!

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As we approach the two-month countdown until the January 1 deadline for submissions for The Fan Mail Project (the book of letters to female characters that I’m compiling), I wanted to devote a little time on a Fangirl Thursday to thank all of the fangirls (and fanboys) who have sent in letters so far. Fangirl Thursday posts are usually places to share excitement, so it seems fitting for me to use this post to tell you that there’s nothing like the excitement I feel when I look into my inbox and see a new letter. (There’s also nothing like the tears I cry while reading almost every single beautiful letter, but that’s another story for another post…)

I’ve received letters to characters as varied as Scarlett O’Hara, Cristina Yang, Claire Underwood, and Hermione Granger. These letters are already painting such an amazing portrait of why female representation in the media matters—because, for as diverse as the characters have been, the people who’ve written letters to me so far are even more diverse. It’s been a true pleasure to read your stories, and it’s a true honor to be trusted with sharing this part of you with the world in a way that will make you proud to be involved with this project.

And if you haven’t sent in a letter yet (or you want to send in more), there’s still plenty of time to write! If you’re having trouble settling on a character to write about, here’s a shortlist of much-loved female characters still missing from Fan Mail right now:
• Lorelai/Rory/Emily Gilmore (Gilmore Girls)
• Dana Scully (The X-Files)
• Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice)
• Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games)
• Sarah Walker (Chuck)
• Peggy Carter (Agent Carter)
• Sydney Bristow (Alias—but don’t worry, I’ll be rectifying this one myself soon)
• Arya/Sansa/Brienne/Daenerys/Cersei/etc. (Game of Thrones)
• Zoe/Inara/Kaylee/River (Firefly)
• Natasha Romanoff (Marvel comics/movies)
• Luna Lovegood (Harry Potter)
• Regina/Snow/Red/Belle/etc. (Once Upon a Time) (I’ve gotten a couple of letters to Emma so far but could always use more!)

If you’re looking for inspiration, maybe that list can help you get started, but that’s by no means a comprehensive list of characters worth writing about. Choose a character whose story moves you to write—which character do you think of when you need confidence, or when you feel lonely, or when you want to believe things are going to turn out okay? Which character has been a part of your life for so long that you don’t know who you are independent of their influence? Which character helped you navigate the rough waters of high school, or college, or parenthood? That’s who you should write to. And take it from someone who knows—the letter you’re most proud of might be one you never planned to write.

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