#also luke has major death flags and um.

[xiameow]

ok marius is kinda hot but i never said that

[abbydraper]

Bachelorette Bio Breakdown. Again.

I have said for like three years now I am done writing about this show, but the bios are just too damn fun to mock. So, here we are again. You’re welcome. 

Brian

They’re claiming he loves math so much that he is a teacher at the high school he went to. What that translates to is that he loves math so much he still lives in his mothers basement. The same one from high school. His favorite holiday is “Flag Day” which isn’t a real thing. 

Cam

He loves to be the “life of the party”, calls himself the “Dance Floor King”, can freestyle rap and play the harmonica. Basically what this means is that I will never attend a social event with Cam as he sounds like the actual death of the party. 

Chasen

Is that a real name? Chasen loves watching “The Bachelor” while drinking cocktails with his mom and has re-gifted Tiffany’s to his sister. I think Chasen would have more luck chasin’ the heart of a dude. 

Connor J. 

He says his biggest turn-off is a girl who gossips, which inevitably means he will be the first to run to Hannah with gossip because the people who say they hate gossip are the biggest gossips of them all. 

Connor S. 

Connor S. LOVES (all caps in bio, definitely not by me) Justin Bieber and listening and dancing to Spanish music, although he doesn’t speak the language. What this means to me is that he blasts “Despacito” and fucks up all of the lyrics. He does kind of resemble Luke Cafferty though... 

Daron

I feel like Daron was on FX’s “The People vs. OJ Simpson” and I just want to know what it was like to work with Sterling K. Brown. 

Devin

Devin is a talent manager who is good friends with a former “Bachelorette” suitor... so, I’m going to say Devin is here for the wrong reasons. I’m also curious if his haircut is intentional in this photo. I hope not. 

Dustin

I hope he put that he can beat anyone at Jenga so he can claim his pull-out game is strong because that’s my all time favorite pick-up line. Next to, “Nice shoes, wanna fuck?” 

Dylan

It says he is the co-founder of a fitness company that allows people to workout while donating food and this makes no sense to me. He also claims the majority of his friends are women and I’m going to guess that’s because he has a boat.  

Garrett 

Garrett is from Alabama and the date he mentioned involves football, so they’re just going to make out and yell, “Roll Tide” until he goes home for thinking Georgia has more romantic cities than Alabama. 

Grant

Grant is an actual asshole and quite proud of it. He has no interest in hearing about a workout or Instagram, so we’d totally get along. JK, he’d hate me. He also promises to call other men out this season who aren’t there for the right reasons. I see a two-on-one in his near future. See ya never. 

Hunter

A pro surfer living in California, still with his parents, that loves the water and wants to start a creative agency. What an enigma. 

Jed

How many singer/songwriters in Nashville do you think are named Jed? Jed is going to get out of the limo with his guitar and sing something stupid to Hannah. Calling it. 

Joe

His job title is, “The Box King” and I truly hope it is for the reason I want it to be. Joe has been to Vegas (from Chicago) four times this year so the box king enjoys gambling, strip clubs and pool parties. Yep, it means what I want it to. 

Joey

Honestly, I am shocked this guy isn’t a trainer. Look at him. Also he’s kind of old and boring to be on this show. 

John Paul Jones

Don’t even have to read further, I hate him. Then I read further to learn he requires you use all three of his names when addressing him AND he “rarely uses words that are less than three syllables long” so I actually hate him. Also, who fucking knows that about themselves? 

Jonathan

He claims he is the life of the party and we’ve already had another suitor claim that title, so, like -- life of the party-off? He also, “love sparklers” which seems like a weird thing to be passionate about. 

Kevin

Kevin seems like the kind of guy that has had at least two restraining orders filed against him. He wants to travel more but won’t go anywhere there isn’t a gym. Umm, I’m fairly certain cities all over the world offer hotels with a fitness center on-site, Kevin. 

Luke P.

This is definitely this seasons virgin. Maybe a “born again” virgin if that’s a real thing, but for sure a virgin of some sort. I feel like people who don’t have sex talk about sex more than people that do have sex. Relax.  

Luke S. 

Luke S. looks like the little kid in “Love Actually” who locks himself in his room because he is in love. He claims he looks like Nick Viall (he does not) and hit on Emily Ratajkowski, so he’s definitely not here for exposure. 

Matt Donald

Why are these men using more than one name? Also I won’t be able to look at him without singing, “Old Matt Donald” to the tune of “Old McDonald”. He claims he’s already in love with Hannah despite having not met her. We all know what happened to Shawn B., so things aren’t looking great for Old Matt Donald. 

Matteo

Um. "On the side” Matteo is a sperm donor with 114 children running around and I have so many questions. How does he know the number? How many times has he been intimate with himself and a cup? Why? When money is tight, don’t most people just ask their family for help? Is this normal? Is there a term for someone whose hobby is to donate sperm? WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE? 

Matthew

If Matthew wasn’t 23, I’d drive down to Newport tonight to meet him. What a dreamboat. 

Mike

Who was that guy on Kaitlyn’s season that was so arrogant and then he got down on his knee at MTA to apologize to all women? IAN! This is Ian reincarnate. Or rIANcarnate. 

Peter

He lives his life by thinking that simply by expecting good things to happen to you, they will. If that’s the case I’m expecting to win the lottery tomorrow and be a millionaire by Friday. 

Ryan

Ryan will be the first one this season to cry.

Scott

His bio is about as cliche as his name. He likes to day drink with his buddies, he acts like an asshole in public, he hits on waitresses when he’s drunk. If you’re looking for a “Scott” you can throw on a pair of short shorts and a cleavage-bearing tank top and head to your nearest rooftop bar. Scott will have a shot waiting for you. I promise. 

Thomas

Thomas played basketball over seas which I think means he played professional JV basketball. His nickname is “Mr. Fourth Quarter” and that doesn’t sound like something a man should brag about. 

Tyler C. 

There’s a lot to take in from Tyler. He has his MBA, but is using it in Jupiter, Fla.; He was drafted by the Ravens but couldn’t play because of a shoulder injury; He’s been in a serious relationship but it didn’t work out and now he’s on The Bachelorette. Tyler is the “almost made it” guy. Maybe he should be called “Mr. Fourth Quarter”. 

Tyler G. 

Tyler G. loves SoulCycle so much that he wrote it in his bio. I love you, Tyler G. However, he later admits that he adheres to a strict Keto diet, so like, let’s hit up a class, but I refuse to do brunch after. Ya know? 

Who do you think Hannah will choose? Also how many episodes until I am annoyed? 

[snarktheater]

Shadowhunters S2 — Episode 5

Last time, we killed off a major character for unclear reasons, and yet we're still somehow sticking to the stupidest parts of the plot from City of Ashes.

But hey! At least it looks like we might actually focus on Alec's feelings for once. You know, not when he put his life in danger for Jace's sake, but when he got possessed into killing someone against his consent. It's like this show understands what it should do, but doesn't really understand why.

So we open the episode with Alec shooting arrows at…I'm not sure what, since he's on the Institute's roof and shooting and nothing we can see. Because that's how \~warrior men\~ cope with their feelings: by doing pointless shows of skill(?), and not showing any actual emotion that might be relatable.

Jace shows up to tell us that Alec is feeling guilty, because he can't say that himself, I guess.

"Valentine stole the Soul-Sword. He slaughtered the Silent Brothers. We need our best soldiers—"

Good job cheering him up, Jace. And indeed, it doesn't work, and Alec jumps off the roof (with a rune, don't worry) and runs away.

Jace…does nothing about this, because there's yet another briefing. These Shadowhunters really love those briefings, don't they? I mean, I'm pretty sure they have more than one of those per day. Point is: Jace is exonerated, plus a recap how what happened at the City of Bones. Oh, and Lydia's still in bad condition after the demon attack of the previous episode, but Isabelle is fine. The show also re-establishes that there are three Mortal Instruments, although Aldertree doesn't really explain what those are, so I hope you don't need to be caught up on your Shadowhunter lore.

Not many people at the Institute are happy about Jace being back, which makes sense, but they're not main characters, so I guess it doesn't work.

Clary's plot line

Meanwhile, Clary and Simon are having a ceremony in Jocelyn's honor (I assume so, anyway, seeing as I don't speak Hebrew—and no, I don't know why they're using Jewish rituals for that). Luke's gone out of town, leaving Clary worried about him.

But who cares about that? Let's have some ship tease!

"When you die, I was devastated." "You were?"

Are you really surprised that your best friend grieved for your death?

Unfortunately, this also makes Clary wonder if it isn't possible to bring Jocelyn back from the dead, and going to Magnus for that. Apparently it is possible, but it's "dark magic" and unpredictable, so Magnus doesn't want to do it. Magnus also goes on a tangent about how his own mom killed herself when she realized her mom had given birth to a warlock, using the knife he and Simon retrieved from Camille's place, because that's…relevant? Somehow?

He does give her a magically-created picture of her and her mom on the day he met her, to make up for the memories he took from her, along with some vague advice about moving on.

Clary ends up telling Simon to go home and talk to his mom, which…I guess is a reasonable reaction to grief. She goes back to the Institute on her own to feel guilty about not agreeing to go to Idris with Jocelyn, because they might have been out of the Institute during the attack. Jace comes along, and gives her some surprisingly insightful advice.

"I've been fighting emotions my whole life. Look where it got me."

And yes, he does share his own feelings with Clary. You know something's really weird with the world when Jace Wayland is an advocate against toxic masculinity, if only just for a moment. Not that I'm complaining.

But Clary still hasn't given up on her plan: she looks through the Institute's warlock files, and finds one named Iris Rouse, who's interesting because…I don't know. The file doesn't list any skill that relates to bringing back the dead, but Clary goes to her anyway.

"Let me guess: you're heartbroken, and you want some fabulous boy to love you again." "Can you raise my mother from the dead?"

I'll be honest: this was kind of funny.

Iris seems…fairly open to the idea of helping Clary.

"Dark magic is a term used by warlocks afraid of their own powers."

She demonstrates by bringing a random bird that flew into a window back to life. How…convenient. So Iris brings Clary inside, introduces her to her goddaughter Madzie, and explains that she'll need a piece of her mom like hair or nails to proceed. Of course…it won't come for free.

God I'm glad I made that gif.

Iris asks for Clary to promise her "a favor" in the future. Clary…doesn't seem to think that that sounds like a major loophole at all.

Unfortunately (or…fortunately?), Jace catches her as she takes a lock of Jocelyn's hair. Jace tells her she can't move forward with this, because it's too risky.

Next to visit her is Alec, fresh off a visit to Magnus that didn't really go anywhere except for a pep talk. He apologizes to Clary, and says he would do anything to make things better. You can guess where this is going: yep, Clary more or less guilt-trips him into helping her bring Jocelyn back from the dead. So they head back to Iris together.

"I see you brought a guest. You boyfriend?"

I'm going to keep this reaction.

Alec isn't thrilled when he hears about the favor, but Iris sidelines him, because that totally inspires trust.

"His energy is too turbulent. I need calm, and he's not calm."

Talk about a pretty big red flag. Alec picks up on it, but Clary doesn't listen to his complaints and goes off alone.

Iris has her focus on a dear memory of her mom to repel demons who would "come near her soul". But while Iris performs the ritual, that bird from earlier comes back, flies through the window (yes, really), and…I don't know, flies around Iris all angry and stuff. Iris catches it and snaps its neck, which causes Clary to make her stop the ritual altogether, because…I don't know, she finally realizes how creepy this all was.

Speaking of creepy, Alec meets Madzie downstairs, who's also a warlock. Well, big shock. More importantly, when Alec asks her where her toys are, she shows him upstairs, to…I don't know, because suddenly it's back-and-forth time between him and Clary.

So, Clary's already made a blood oath, which I guess is some kind of magical contract, so she can't just call off the deal. Iris calls in her favor right away.

"You're going to host one of my finest creations."

Gee, who would have guessed that the warlock saying there's no such thing as dark magic is actually evil.

Specifically, she wants Clary to have a baby warlock, which…isn't possible. And I know you know it, because the episode references The Infernal Devices in another plot line, so you know that the mother's runes prevent the baby from being viable. Oh, sure, she claims she found an elixir that makes it possible, but I have some serious doubts. And hey, don't you know Tessa? She's already been mentioned last season, you should know Tessa.

So…yeah, what Alec finds is exactly that. Iris collects women and breeds them with her "private demon" to create more warlock.

"The good news is, after the baby's born, I'll do a memory wipe. You'll be back home, none the wiser."

Oh, well if you're going to have her raped but erase the memory, it's all a-okay. And can I just say that…really? Are we really using the threat of sexual violence on the protagonist already? I know I'll have to suffer through at least some of that with Sebastian eventually, I don't want to deal with it now, show!

Alec realizes something's wrong and asks Iris's nurse to lead her to Clary, but Iris has already whisked her away. The nurse reveals what's going on here, because even with the memory wipe, she apparently still remembers bits of what happened to her?

So he finds and confronts Iris. She kicks his ass, because…you know, magic, but Madzie stops her because…I guess Alec was nice to her and therefore she likes him? This gives Isabelle time to arrive by the power of convenient timing, but Iris still manages to Portal away, saying Clary still owes her a favor. Which is kind of weird, because…wouldn't this count?

Meanwhile, Clary's locked in a cell with what looks like leather fetish given a humanoid shape. She tried to keep him at bay, sees a rune appear out of nowhere, uses it on herself and uses it to…um…it's better if I show it, I think.

So not only are you giving her her rune creating power from the books (which…fine, makes sense), but you're also giving her a rune that lets her…shoot lasers? Or whatever the hell this was. According to Jace, who arrives just on time to be useless, it's sunlight.

"Look, whatever just happened, let's keep it to ourselves."

Because who needs honesty.

Cut to Jocelyn's funeral, where neither Simon nor Luke are allowed to go, although with Luke out of town and Simon dealing with his subplot, I'm not sure they'd be able to come anyway. It's all very pretty and emotional, yay.

Oh wait, never mind, episode's not over yet! We get one last shot of Luke naked…somewhere in the woods, and turning back into a wolf. Are we supposed to think he was in wolf form this whole time? They confirmed that at least a couple days had passed, that sounds like a lot. But okay, whatever you say, show. I'm sure this won't result in unbearable manpain and a sour aftertaste that Jocelyn has been fridged.

Simon's plot line

Simon does go home to his mom, and says he wants to move back in with her, but that he doesn't want her to ask questions about his schedule. Which…isn't honesty, but I guess it's better than his ridiculous attempts at keeping his distance. But of course, the lack of honesty leads to more issues.

"We should have Clary and her mother over. I haven't seen Jocelyn in ages."

And no, he doesn't tell her about Jocelyn's passing, even though it would have perfectly explained his absence from dinner and everything. Nah, it's not important.

Cut to morning, where Simon's sister shows up again. She immediately notices he acts weird, since he won't step into the sun, and she finds his blood stash. And even though he had supposedly mastered the encanto, he won't use it, because…I don't know, the show probably forgot about it.

So he's out of blood, with two ~~walking blood bags~~ humans around, and he's starting to lose control. Her mom notices something's wrong too (better late than never), and he finally tells her. Of course, she doesn't believe him at first, but she eventually does…or acts like she does, anyway. And she accepts him, which honestly is probably a more reasonable reaction than the outright rejection Simon faced in the books.

Whichever it is, she calls her doctor to do…I don't know, before coming back into Simon's room and find him eating rats. Lovely.

Jace and Isabelle's plot line

Jace is summoned by Aldertree, who's now angry that Jace saved his life at the cost of letting Valentine escape with the Mortal Sword.

"Would you prefer that I let you die?" "That's precisely what you should have done."

I mean, he's not wrong, but it's a little bit weird to me anyway.

Aldertree also bans Jace from active duty, because Jace has no discipline and…well, he is a soldier and all, discipline is kind of important. At least, for once, the adults are opposing the protagonists in a way that makes sense.

He angsts about it while sparring with Isabelle, because we need her to do something in this episode.

"Made some food for [Clary] but she didn't want to eat it." "Can you blame her?"

Oh, you just had to bring this joke back. Of course.

Well, okay, there is a point to this scene: Isabelle's wounds aren't healing as well as she claims they are. But she doesn't care about that: when Jace tells her Aldertree is sending a mission to the Iron Sisters, she requests to be put in charge of it. Aldertree won't let her go without checking on her wound, though, so he doesn't let her.

"You don't understand. I've waited my whole life to see the Iron Sisters."

That's an interesting character trait, but can't you just…visit them on some other occasion?

Thankfully (?), Aldertree has something that he claims can cure the infection.

"It's called yin fen. It's quite strong, I don't usually recommend it, but if this is a mission you're set on making…"

Um. Ummmm. Did you really just go there?

Yep, they just went there. Also, Isabelle has an instant ecstatic reaction that should probably tell you everything you need to know about where this is going, even if you haven't read The Infernal Devices. Although…I don't remember Jem getting high off of it, did he?

And…this is where they go back to the main plot line as Isabelle tells Jace that Clary and Alec left together and Jace connects the dots. That is, until the climax is over. Because once it is…you guessed it, Isabelle is using more yin fen. Because addiction is entirely the fault of the object of the addiction and not, you know, a consequence of deeper issues in a person's life and attempts at avoiding or improving those issues. Nah, that's way too simple.

Conclusion

Overall, this episode felt mostly like setup. Setup for Clary's power, obviously. That's actually a good thing, since in the books, it's first shown in the climax of City of Ashes, and explained not too long into City of Glass. This is probably a better alternative.

But then the rest of the setup, strangely enough, is…not from the books? Well, Simon's story is, albeit from later in the series. But Luke, Iris, and Isabelle? All completely made up. I can guess Iris will be a minor villain eventually, so all I can say here is that they won't take the easy way out of her working with Valentine after explicitly saying in this episode that she's acting out of fear that he will drive warlocks to extinction. Luke…I can't say anything yet beyond what I've already said—I don't want manpain, but I'm expecting it.

Isabelle, though? I feel like it's going to be the thorniest of the lot. Making her addicted to a magical drug is a pretty skeevy idea, especially considering the racebend going on with her character. It's like the writers saw the Chinese character in the book taking a magical drug and going into an opium den, and said "hey, who could we target to make the exact same mistake in our modern setting?" And that's what we got. Yay.

Now, of course, only time will tell if it is bad (or how bad it will be). But it's still making me sad, because without it, this episode could have almost been…kind of okay. Yes, really. Even the threat of sexual violence wasn't played up in Clary's interactions with the demon, so while I'm cringing that this is the one they chose to trigger her power, they at least were savvy enough to avoid triggering imagery. But no, there's always gotta be some way the show went wrong, and with this one, Isabelle's plot is it.

This is kind of depressing sometimes, you know.