#and have both done dubious things to get out of a guilty verdict

[nat-without-a-g]

I find it pretty funny that Henry and Glenn don’t often get along/agree with each other because I’m pretty sure they have the most things in common between each other out of the season 1 dads.

Henry’s just too much of an anxious nerd.

[cabensonsgirly]

👼These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends (Multi-Char)[NSFW]👼

Multiple SP characters x fem!reader

Xandra, Billie-Dean, Ally Mayfair, Anne Gillette, Audrey Tindall, Wilhemina Venable, Ellie Staple, Diane Sherman, Mildred Ratched.

👼Slice 2👼

Co-authored with @billiedeannovak ​ even though she’ll deny it.

👼Wordcount: 1530👼

👼Published on AO3: Read Here👼

👼 Taglist: @mrsdeanhoward @okpaulson 👼

👼 Content (some for later parts): Super Au, dubious consent, slow-burn, manipulation, face-slapping, drug-use, alcohol, smut, cunnilingus, strap-on, cum, choking, degradation, sex-work, court, bruises, spit, mommy kink, daddy kink, humiliation, public sex/teasing 👼 

👼She rolls her eyes and lets out an annoyed sigh, she was not interested in this man in the slightest and he wasn’t even that good in bed, it was his money she was after, and she would leave the relationship with all of it after they get married. He had been talking about marriage for the past few months seeing as they had been together for a few years, completely unaware of how disinterested she actually is. Anne was not a woman to fall in love, nor was she the type of woman to settle down and get married. 👼

Rita leads Anne from the courtroom, the pair laughing quietly and talking amongst themselves as they made their way to an elevator. Rita gestured for Anne to enter before she went to herself, “Rita!” the older woman fights the urge to roll her eyes, telling Anne where she was to go and how to get there before she closes the elevator door. She turns to face the woman who yelled her name “Oh what a pleasant surprise, Detective Benson. What do I owe the pleasure?”

Olivia shakes her head, jaw set firm as she stops in front of Rita “What the fuck are you doing? The evidence shows that she was the one that set the crime up! Who cares if Prestwick was blackmailed!? Gillette killed her damned parents and you know it. Just because you have some vendetta with my team doesn’t-“

Rita laughs, shaking her head with an amused smile on her face “How many times must we do this, Olivia? It is my job to defend people regardless of what they do, just like it is your job to investigate crimes ethically. I know I’m doing my job to the books; I can’t say the same about you. My advice, lie back and pretend like you’re enjoying it. You’ll last longer.” She steps into the elevator after the doors ding open, she turns to give the detective one last cursory glance “You lost, Benson.” She states before the doors close.

It doesn’t matter whether she believes Anne killed her parents or not, the woman had paid her generously to defend her and she was going to do just that. Nor does it matter the two have history, it didn’t impact the case or her ability to do her job. She was looking forward to the end of it though so she could finally actually enjoy a quiet drink without the guilt of knowing she should be working instead.

Once the doors open, she makes her way quickly to where Anne should be, letting out a breath of relief when she sees Anne sitting back in one of the seats, her blazer draped over the back of it. “You really think I’d risk doing a runner after the absolute field day you had out there? Ms. Calhoun I’m offended” she laughs, a coy smirk tugging at her lips “I’m saving the energy for once I’m cleared of my charges. How does that sound? You come back to the estate and unwind, just like the-“

Rita hushes her, swatting her arm lightly as she takes a seat opposite the blonde “Ms. Gillette! The walls have ears.” She shrugs her blazer off as well and leans back in her seat, propping her elbow up on the armrest before leaning her head against it, a small smile on her face as she looks at the woman opposite her.

“I never thought I’d be defending you in a murder case too, Anne. It’s one thing helping you get out of minor assault charges, but for a double-homicide?” She lets out a laugh, shaking her head “That is something else entirely. You were always one to make a grand show of things though, hm?” Rita quirks a brow at the blonde, a faint smirk tugging at her lips which earns an eye-roll and scoff from the blonde.

“Oh please Rita, I’m hardly as dramatic as that Tindall woman. Now, after this is all over, would you like to join me for drinks? Nothing else will happen, just an extra thank you for your hard work.” Rita sighs quietly “I can’t- I owe Novak a round after being so rough on her in court. She’s an amazing lawyer and a hard-worker, I’d rather not burn that bridge.”

Rita’s phone buzzes against the table and she immediately grabs it, turning the screen on to see the message before her eyes dart to Anne’s “They’ve reached a verdict, Ms. Gillette” she breathes out, a very faint hint of a nervous waver. “Well then, let’s get this over and done with.” Anne stands up and puts her blazer on, doing a button up in the middle then brushing some of her hair behind her ear. She follows Rita out of the room and down the hall to the elevator, this is the first time since this case started that she feels genuinely nervous- Not that she committed the crime, anyone would be nervous if they were in court.

Rita gives Anne’s arm a gentle squeeze before they exit the elevator and make their way into the court room, both ignoring the glares coming from the prosecution as they take a seat behind their table. “All stand for the Judge.” They do just that, Rita glancing at Casey out the corner of her eye, noticing how tense she appears before they take their seats again once the Judge has sat down.

Court:                 Will the jury foreperson please stand. Has the jury reached a unanimous verdict?

Foreperson:          Yes.

                                  CLERK TAKES THE VERDICT FORM

                                     AND HANDS IT TO THE JUDGE.                              

Rita rests her hand on Anne’s thigh, giving it a reassuring squeeze upon noticing how anxious the woman was before returning her hand to rest on the table with her other one.

Judge:                    The jury find the defendant not guilty. The defendant is free to go home. Lets hope we don’t see you in this court again, Ms. Gillette. The jury is thanked and excused. Court is adjourned.

Anne lets out a shaky breath before standing up and throwing her arms around Rita in a tight hug, repeatedly mumbling thank you to her. Rita returns the hug before pulling back slightly, gently wiping away the few tears that had spilled onto Anne’s cheeks, giving her a soft smile “I told you that I’d make sure you were found not guilty, Ms. Gillette. I’m a woman of my word, you should know that by now.”

Anne smiles back and lets go of Rita before running a hand through her short blonde hair “A miracle worker.” She glances over Rita’s shoulder and sees Casey watching intently, a disheartened look on her face before returning her gaze back to the woman in front of her “I should get going, it looks like Casey wants a word with you and she definitely looks like she needs a few drinks. I’ll see you around, Rita.” She kisses the woman’s cheek in farewell before taking her leave, feeling considerably lighter and more free now that the case is over.

Once she is out of the courthouse, she takes out her phone and calls her boyfriend- well, he thinks he’s her boyfriend, but she really couldn’t care less. “Hi darling, you’re talking to a free woman. No I’m not upset you couldn’t be in court, it would hardly be a good look for a detective to be seen on the alleged criminal’s side. You can make it up to me tonight when you take me out for dinner- Yes Yn can come along too, she is your daughter after all. I will take her shopping for something nice- I won’t be spoiling the girl. She needs nicer clothing to go to the restaurant I have in mind. Don’t worry- I already told you I am not going to spoil the girl. I don’t like repeating myself so it would do you some good to actually listen. I’ll pick her up from university and we’ll go from there. Mhmm, love you too. See you tonight.”

She rolls her eyes and lets out an annoyed sigh, she was not interested in this man in the slightest and he wasn’t even that good in bed, it was his money she was after, and she would leave the relationship with all of it after they get married. He had been talking about marriage for the past few months seeing as they had been together for a few years, completely unaware of how disinterested she actually is. Anne was not a woman to fall in love, nor was she the type of woman to settle down and get married.

“You better not fuck this family up too, Ms. Gillette” Anne turns to find Olivia walking towards her, thoroughly pissed off “Yn is like a daughter to me, so if I find out you do anything to upset her-“ The blonde gives her a bored look “Do you have nothing better to do, Olivia? Were you not listening to what the judge said? I’m an innocent woman, so no, I didn’t fuck my family up, daddy did when he killed my mother before himself.”

She takes a step closer to the brunette, a smug smirk settling on her face “You may be like a mother to her, Olivia, but unlike you… I actually am her step-mom, something you will never be. Now, this may be a surprise to you, seeing as you’re someone that never works, I have things to do including taking Yn clothes shopping for our celebratory dinner tonight. You’re not invited.” She fakes a pout “How unfortunate” before laughing and making her way to the car that was waiting for her before getting in, telling the driver where to go.

[per-ineptia-ad-astra]

fixing The Menagerie

The circumstances behind The Menagerie pose an interesting writing problem: how do you take an already shot, totally completed episode for an earlier version of a TV show that differs considerably from the version that actually made it to air, and turn it into an episode that you can use now, as part of that later version, in a way that actually makes sense for your audience? That would be challenging enough without the additional problems that 1.) you can't reshoot any of the original episode because you no longer have access to the sets, costumes, most of the cast, etc., and 2.) the whole reason you're doing this in the first place is because you can't get a completely new episode out in time to meet your air date, so whatever your framing device is it has to be something that can be shot and finished very quickly--and cheaply, because at absolutely no point in the making of this show has there been spare money to throw around.

When I recapped The Menagerie (eons ago, it now seems) I said in the conclusion to the second part that I thought the framing device used wasn't as effective as it could have been. So, I figured I’d put my money where my mouth was and see if I could come up with another one. Before I start I want to put out the same disclaimer I used for the Return of the Archons post: I am not a professional TV writer (or a professional anything) and I intend this only as a fun exercise and not an angry and serious screed about the writing quality of TOS, which I do very much love for being what it is. I can only offer what, in my opinion, would make a more enjoyable episode, which may not necessarily be what you would find to be a more enjoyable episode. And if you already greatly enjoy The Menagerie as it is, you probably won’t want to read this.

For the purposes of this post, I’m going to take The Cage itself as written. It has its own problems, and that might be worth its own post at some point, but I’m not going to take it on here. We’ll assume The Cage exists exactly as it was produced, and the problem now is entirely focused on how to turn it into an episode—or two—of TOS.

(And, just to get it out of the way: I’m not going to talk about how either The Cage or The Menagerie play into Discovery, AOS, or the rest of Star Trek in general. It’s obviously a very important episode backstory-wise, but for this, right now, I’m just going talk about it purely as a TOS episode.)

So, with that out of the way, let’s talk about The Menagerie for a moment. What’s wrong with it?

Well, the framing device could certainly have been worse. It’s not terrible. Hell, Part I even won a Hugo, so, guess I’m up against the Hugo committee on this one. But, there are a number of things that I find awkward about it.

In a general sense, there’s the way that, once the flashbacks start, the story is attempting to maintain two separate threads of tension: the flashback story, with the tension being on what’s going to happen to Pike, and the present-day story, with the tension being on what Spock is doing, why he’s doing it, and whether he’s going to wind up getting the death penalty for it. This second thread starts out well—by this point in TOS, we’ve gotten to know Spock well enough to know how out of character all this is for him, which makes the mystery quite gripping. However, once the flashback starts, the story struggles to maintain the tension of this second thread. The attempt to keep the present-day story as tense as the past story only results in breaks away from the action for scenes in the courtroom where something or someone stops Spock from showing the footage, which never results in anything because by the next commercial break they’re back at it. Most of these interruptions are either arbitrary (the screen goes off for no reason and then comes on again for no reason; fake!Mendez randomly decides he’s had enough and tries to stop things) or just not that interesting (Pike fell asleep), and with each one it only becomes more obvious that the only real purpose they’re serving is to pad out the framing story.

The resolution of the present-day story is also rather unsatisfying for a lot of reasons. After so much tension built up about what’s going on and why Spock is acting this way and is his life on the line and is Kirk’s career on the line and how’s he going to get out of this...it turns out that Mendez has been fake this whole time, so nothing he said or did since Kirk left the Starbase matters at all; Starfleet casually waves the whole thing aside with no repercussions, making all the build-up about Spock risking the only death penalty remaining in the Federation mean nothing whatsoever in the end; and we never really get a satisfactory answer as to why Spock insisted on carrying out his court martial the way he did. Sure, eventually the Keeper says the whole court martial was basically staged to stall Kirk so he wouldn’t focus on getting control of his ship back, but not only does that raise further questions—if Mendez was only ever an illusion sent by the Talosians, why did he try to stop the court martial several times? Why did the Talosians turn off the footage at a crucial point, and why did it come on again?--there’s also no reason given why Spock couldn’t just recount what happened himself, which could have taken up enough time if he was careful enough about it, instead of needing the Talosians to broadcast a video version of the events.

There’s also the simple fact that Pike’s ending is itself rather dubious. I suppose this one comes down to a difference of opinion between me and Gene Roddenberry (one of many) since both The Cage and The Menagerie end with a character going to permanently stay with the Talosians, with no concern at all expressed about the fact that the Talosians are cruel, torture-happy, and frankly insufferable wannabe-slavemasters who see humans as nothing more than brute animals to be caged, bred and make to work. I said I wasn’t going to tackle The Cage here so I won’t go off about its ending, no matter how much it pisses me off. But The Menagerie is also at fault here, because it needlessly repeats the exact same problem (with a bit less sexism, but still). The ending of The Menagerie gives us no sign that the Talosians have reformed in any way, and no explanation as to why they suddenly care so much about Pike to go to all this trouble for him. We’re just expected to believe that Pike’s gonna go have a nice happy illusion-life with them even though the last time we saw them they were trying to breed a race of human slaves. Really, Gene? Really?

On that note, the treatment of disability in both The Cage and The Menagerie bothers me a great deal. The effect of Pike becoming disabled is to essentially strip him of all his autonomy. I mean no disrespect to Sean Kenney here, but if they’d replaced him with a mannequin it wouldn’t have made any difference at all to the episode, because in The Menagerie Pike is not a character, he’s a prop. We’re assured repeatedly that Pike thinks and feels as much as he ever did, but we have to be told that by other characters because the episode certainly never takes any opportunity to let us in on any of it. Here’s the sum total of what we know Pike thinks about the events of The Menagerie:

1. He doesn’t want to visit with Kirk and McCoy at the beginning of the episode but allows Spock to stay.

2. He tells Spock “no” when Spock tells him his plan.

3. He keeps repeating “no” the rest of that day, which everyone is confused by but no one makes any effort to understand.

4. He falls asleep at one point.

5. He votes for a guilty verdict for Spock during the court martial, when asked.

6. He says “yes” when asked if he wants to go live with the Talosians.

Pike is treated with sympathy and the respect due to his rank and history, but mostly he’s an object of pity. We’re told he can move his chair himself, but he appears to be confined to one small hospital room that’s not even set up for his needs, and he spends the entire episode being moved around by other people. Everyone talks about how bad his situation is, but only Spock attempts to do anything to improve it—and he does so knowing that Pike doesn’t want him to do it. When Pike tells him “No,” Spock doesn’t ask any questions, he doesn’t try to find out what part of this whole thing Pike is objecting to, he just overrides Pike’s objection on the assumption that Pike is only concerned about Spock doing something so very illegal, a concern he pretty much disregards. He turns out to be right—as far as we can tell—but for all the information Spock has at the time, Pike might have been saying, “No, I don’t want to live with the Talosians.”

It doesn’t need to be that way. Pike’s condition is certainly very severe, but as I mentioned in the recap, there are plenty of other things that could have been done for him, or at least attempted. And even if none of those were done, there are other ways that the episode could have developed his character, or at least treated him like a character. Spock’s discussion at the beginning of the episode could have been a mind meld that allowed us to hear Pike’s thoughts on the matter. Spock could have heard his objections and addressed them, and he and Pike could have come to come to an agreement and actually become co-conspirators instead of Pike spending the entire episode as a helpless hostage to Spock’s plan. We could have gotten a scene of Pike and McCoy interacting after Spock tells McCoy to look after Pike—McCoy’s not only highly suspicious at that point and unlikely to be greatly put off by Spock's order to not ask Pike any questions, he’s also the one who gives a whole speech about how cruel it is that Pike “can’t reach out, and no one can reach in”--so give us a scene where he does reach out! We could have had a scene of Kirk talking with Pike—he’s certainly got plenty to ask the man about, both in general and in regard to the current situation. All he has to do is put a little extra work into how to frame his questions. The Talosians could have delivered a message from Pike at the end, or one of them could have astral-projected in earlier to have a telepathic exchange with him. We could have seen Pike express himself by moving his chair, turning towards or away people when they talk to him, interjecting a “yes” or “no” into a conversation instead of only replying when asked something, or repeating a response incessantly to show that he’s emphatic about something. (Yeah, we kinda get the latter when he’s saying “no” over and over early in the episode, but that’s only treated as a “what could he possibly be trying to communicate??? oh, if only we knew!” moment.) There were so many ways Pike could have been treated as a character, as a person, instead of a plot element who exists to be pushed around in his chair and have speeches made about how tragic his situation is.

Both The Cage and The Menagerie end with a character who is disabled choosing to spend the rest of their lives isolated from the entire rest of humanity on a barren planet inhabited by jackass aliens because, as everyone around them nods and solemnly agrees, that’s a better fate for them than living among human society. To be clear, it’s not Pike and Vina seeking solutions to their problems that I object to. If Vina wants to be represented by what is essentially an avatar of her own choosing, or if Pike feels that an illusory world offers better quality of life for him, that’s entirely their right. But when life with the Talosians is set up as a situation so horrible that we see four characters literally willing to die rather than remain on Talos 4, and then have two disabled characters say “actually it’s better this way if I stay here,” you kind of wind up with a message that looks a lot like “being disabled is a fate worse than death.” I doubt that was intentional, at least not entirely, since we see other disabled characters in TOS who are treated considerably better—but there it is, all the same.

This is not to say that there’s nothing of value in The Menagerie’s framing story. The tension between Kirk wanting to trust his friend but being forced to act in authority over him because he’s undeniably done something very seriously against the rules, and he won’t tell Kirk why, is great while it lasts. Spock’s character is expanded considerably by showing us that there are some things he places above his honor and obligations as a Starfleet officer—and indeed above his own life. We see a bit of his history, a glimpse of a relationship with a former captain that he respects so much that Spock will put everything on the line to secure a better future for him; and we see how much he respects and values Kirk, that he foregoes the chance to explain himself—and thus gain an ally and aid in his cause—because to do so would put Kirk in danger as well. And we get that great little moment where Spock tells McCoy to call security on him and McCoy has absolutely no idea how to react. And we get backstory! And kind-of-continuity! Okay, it’s not much backstory, but by TOS standards it’s practically a goldmine.

I don’t want to throw all that away. But I think there must be some way to address the problems without totally losing the good parts.

It’s only fair, though, that any attempt to improve the episode should keep in mind the circumstances it was made under. I don’t know enough about budgeting and producing TV in the 1960s either generally in or in this specific case to know exactly what was available to them when it came to producing The Menagerie, so I’m just going to try to deduce roughly what we might have to work with based on what what was in the finished episodes:

Much of Part I and all of Part II take place in preexisting sets, either the Enterprise ones or the shuttlecraft interior set. The new sets include the Starbase 11 exterior—which is mostly a matte painting—Mendez’s office, Pike’s hospital room, and the Starbase computer room. The computer room is a redressed Engineering set; I suspect the hospital room is also a redressed existing set, but I don’t know for sure. It’s quite simple regardless, and is clearly mostly using existing pieces (the bed and the chair). Mendez’s office is likewise set up with pretty standard preexisting TOS set dressing pieces, with the exception of some cut-outs outside the window standing in for the Starbase exterior.

Discounting any background extras we have five new characters: Commodore Mendez, Piper, Chief Humbolt (the computer room guy), Lt. Hansen, and Pike himself. Of these, only Mendez and Pike have much significant screen time. So, we can assume that hiring an extensive guest cast is probably not on the table here.

Most of the original cast from The Cage are probably not available. Pike we know is definitely out—Jeffrey Hunter wasn’t willing to come back after The Cage failed, and probably would have been too expensive to hire for two episodes anyway. Leonard Nimoy and Majel Barrett were, obviously, still working on TOS, so presumably we could incorporate past-Spock and Number One if we really needed to. Since Malachi Throne was also on hand for The Menagerie, we could record new dialogue for the Keeper (as The Menagerie did indeed do), but presumably no new footage (Throne voiced the Keeper, but they and all the other Talosians were portrayed onscreen by female actors). I don’t know if any of the other original cast could have been gotten back, but since they weren’t, let’s assume we can’t use them.

Let’s also assume that all of the sets, costumes, makeup, etc., from The Cage are inaccessible. In reality I’m sure at least something was still kicking around in storage somewhere, or was reused for TOS, but there’s no point in trying to figure out exactly what, so for simplicity’s sake we’ll say anything we might want to use from The Cage has to be recreated from scratch, and if it can’t be then we can’t use it.

Because the entire reason this is going on in the first place is because the effects work was making TOS run behind schedule, we can’t have much in the way of effects for The Menagerie, especially post-production effects. There’s a shot of the planet Starbase 11 is on, a matte painting for the Starbase 11 exterior, a couple uses of the transporter, Pike’s chair and makeup, some shots of the Enterprise and the shuttle flying around in space, and some things being shown on screens—and I think that’s more or less about it.

So. If I was told that I had to take The Cage and wrap it up as a TOS episode with the above restrictions in mind, here’s some things I would keep in mind:

If we look at this from a starting-from-scratch perspective, it seems to me that if you have an episode that you need to incorporate into your main show that has an almost entirely different cast, and one of the characters from your original episode, who has never once been seen or even referenced in your main show, is played by an actor that you can’t get back, the simplest thing to do is to not show that character. We don’t actually need Pike himself to be onscreen for The Menagerie. That he would be at least mentioned in some capacity, sure, but we do in fact have the opportunity to avoid putting some poor dude through five hours of makeup by simply having Pike remain offscreen. We'll probably wind up putting someone else through five hours of makeup, but we'll get to that in a bit.

For me at least, if the Talosians are going to re-appear, they either need to still be villains in some sense or we need to know that they have begun to change their behavior in some way. To have them simply show up again and be treated as friendly after everything that happened in The Cage, with absolutely no acknowledgment of the fact that they did do everything they did in The Cage...it just doesn’t make sense, and it’s much too distracting for me to get past.

Although I’ve set the rule that I’m not going to change The Cage itself, The Menagerie being a sequel to those events opens up the opportunity to follow up on the ending of The Cage in a different direction. In other words, I’m going to rescue Vina, because her fate in The Cage really, really bothers me.

Insisting on the preexisting footage being literally shown as a video in-universe has always felt pointlessly awkward to me. It’s so weird that the characters have to stop and go, “Hang on, what? Where’d this come from? This can’t possibly be security footage. Why does it have different camera angles?” to forestall the exact same questions the audience were probably having at that point. And, as I said above, there’s really not a good explanation as to why the footage did have to be shown in that manner. It seems to me that it would be much simpler to have the flashback footage be just that: a flashback. A story which is being recounted, but not literally shown, in-universe. By doing so you avoid having to open up a bunch of dead-end plot threads about why the footage looks the way it does and is being shown the way it does. I think we can give the audience at least enough credit to assume they’ll understand that if a character starts recounting an event, and the scene cuts to footage of that event, that footage is a representation of what the character is saying, not literally something being shown in-universe.

I’m not going to bother with the whole “going to Talos 4 warrants the death penalty!!” thing. It doesn’t make a great deal of sense to begin with, and it never actually pays off in The Menagerie. We can manage a better source of tension than that, I think.

All of this would ultimately take my version of The Menagerie in a pretty different direction than the actual episode, I admit. It's a rather drastic change, but, if I was tasked with writing a framing story for using The Cage in TOS, here's how I'd do it:

The Enterprise is out tooling around doing their usual business when Uhura picks up a distress call from a ship stranded in space. It’s very faint, distant, and there’s something odd about it, but of course they’re gonna follow up on it because that’s how they roll. So they head off in the direction of the call, but the funny thing is that as they get closer, Uhura says that the source of the distress call appears to be moving around. They follow it, send some hails, and finally get back a scratchy, staticky response: it’s coming from a ship that’s been heavily damaged, and the crew is no longer able to steer it, so it’s drifting erratically through space. Kirk has Uhura send a hail: “We’ve received your signal. Keep broadcasting it and we’ll find you.”

They keep following the ship. It’s difficult—the call is weak, and the Enterprise has to go carefully or risk overshooting it. After they’ve been chasing it for a while, Spock points out that they should be wary of entering a nearby star system, because it contains a planet all Federation ships are warned to avoid. Kirk, of course, doesn’t want to give up on the damaged ship, but Spock steps over to his chair and quietly says, “Captain...I should warn you that it may be the lesser of two evils to abandon this ship, rather than risk going too close to Talos 4.”

Kirk, of course, is stunned to hear Spock say this, and asks what makes Talos 4 so dangerous. Spock says it would take rather a long time to explain. Kirk says that Spock almost sounds like he’s familiar with the place, and Spock replies, “More than familiar, captain. I’ve been there before.”

[dramatic sting, cut to commercial]

Since it looks like the damaged ship will take a while to track down, Kirk has McCoy, Scotty and Spock convene in a briefing room to hear Spock’s story. Spock gives a short introduction: “What I am about to tell you, gentlemen, occurred as I said thirteen years ago, when the Enterprise was under the command of Captain Christopher Pike. I’ve pulled up the log entries of Captain Pike pertaining to this time to provide his own perspective on the matter, as it was he that had the closest encounter with the Talosians. At the time, the Enterprise had only recently escaped a disastrous encounter on Rigel 7 which had resulted in the deaths of three crewmen and injuries to several more, including myself. Some of the injuries were beyond the capacity of the ship’s doctors to treat, so we were en route to the Vega colony for treatment when we began receiving a distress signal...”

Spock’s voice-over fades out over a transition to the Cage footage. We watch that--perhaps interspersed with the occasional bit of narration from Spock, or a question from Kirk or McCoy or Scotty--until about the point where the landing party encounters the fake survivors' camp and Pike is captured by the Talosians. Then Spock is suddenly interrupted by Sulu calling Kirk to the bridge. Everyone hurries up to the bridge, where Uhura reports that the distress call has suddenly disappeared. Sulu says it's not just that: somehow, he doesn't understand how or why, his sensors are suddenly showing that they're not on the same course or even in the same place that they were only moments ago. Somehow, they've wound up in the Talos star system--and they're heading directly for Talos 4.

"It is just as I feared," Spock says gravely. "This has all been a trap."

Kirk orders Sulu to change course, and he tries—but somehow the ship doesn’t divert even a little. It’s like the helm just isn’t responding. Kirk does all the usual things, telling Scotty to do something, etc, nothing’s working, and then Uhura reports that they’re receiving a hail. And it appears to be coming from Talos IV.

Naturally Kirk tells her to put it on. The voice on the other end is staticky and faint. "Greetings. Is this...the Enterprise?"

"This is the Enterprise. I'm Captain James Kirk."

Silence for a moment. Then the voice on the other end, obviously surprised, says, "Captain Kirk? Not Captain Pike?"

"Captain Pike no longer commands this vessel."

There's a long pause. "I see. We were...in error. We apologize for the deception, Captain Kirk. It was important that we bring Captain Pike to this planet, but we feared that his...past experiences here...would leave him unwilling to come close enough to hear our message.”

“That would be a most logical decision for Captain Pike, were he here,” Spock says coldly. “Considering the nature of those experiences.”

“You speak as though you are familiar with what transpired here before, then.”

“I am First Officer Spock. I was present aboard the Enterprise as Science Officer during the events thirteen years ago.”

There’s an even longer pause. When the voice returns, the signal is even more crackly than ever. “Our apologies, this communication is...difficult to maintain. We must wait to deliver the message in full until you are...closer to our planet. However...until then...you may be assured, Spock...that this time...” [pause for more crackling] “This time...the intent of the Talosians...is peaceful.”

The signal cuts out, and Uhura can’t get it back. The ship appears to still be locked on course for Talos 4. With seemingly nothing else to do for the moment but wait, everyone goes back to the briefing room, where Spock continues recounting Pike’s story.

At some point, Spock has to pause so everyone can go take a break, and everyone else files out of the room while he remains behind for a moment, staring at the computer contemplatively. Then suddenly, we hear a voice saying, “Spock--” and Spock turns around in surprise. We can’t see exactly what he’s looking at, only a soft glow at the edge of the camera, and then the scene cuts away.

Kirk’s grabbing a nap in his quarters when he’s woken by an urgent message: they’re still some way from Talos 4, but the ship appears to have stopped moving all on its own. He hurries up to the bridge, where Sulu tells him that it seems like they’re having some kind of computer error with the helm, but they can’t track it down yet. In the middle of all this, Uhura whirls around and exclaims, “Sir! Shuttle bay reports Mr. Spock has knocked out the tech on duty and is boarding one of the shuttles!” Kirk yells for security to get down there, but they are, of course, too late: Spock rigged the shuttle bay doors to open automatically and flies out before they can stop him.

Stunned and confused, Kirk orders Uhura to raise the shuttle, which she does.

“Spock, are you out of your mind?!”

“Negative, captain. My reasoning is quite sound, though I regret I cannot explain it to you just yet.”

Kirk yells for the tractor beam to grab the shuttle, but Sulu can’t get the tractor beam to respond either.

“You need not be concerned, captain. I believe it is well within Mr. Scott’s abilities to repair the computer in due time.”

“You did this to the computer?”

“It was necessary. You will find the transporter similarly incapacitated. I could not risk you coming after me, or stopping me. Not yet.”

“Spock—do you know what you’re risking by doing this? You were the one who warned me not to go near Talos 4!”

“Yes, captain. And it is because I know what the Talosians are capable of that I am doing this. Either they are telling the truth, in which case there is no danger...or they are not, in which case it is better that I alone risk doing this.” A pause. “Jim...wait 24 hours for me. If I do not contact you by then...you must leave in all haste.”

“I’m not leaving you behind!”

“You must. 24 hours.” And with that, Spock ends the call. As Uhura’s trying fruitlessly to reestablish contact with him, she suddenly looks up and says, “Captain...we’re receiving a message from...Fleet Captain Pike?”

“What?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well...put him on.”

So Uhura puts Pike on speaker, and Kirk says, “We’re, er, in the middle of a bit of a situation, sir...what can I do for you?”

“I might ask what I can do for you, captain. Mr. Spock left a message requesting that I contact you.”

Stunned pause for a moment. “He did what?” Kirk finally says.

“About an hour ago. I regret I wasn’t able to return his call earlier, but it’s the middle of the night here...Kirk, what’s this all about?”

Kirk sighs. “It’s a long story, captain, and I don’t entirely understand it myself. Uhura, patch this into the briefing room...it’ll take a while to tell.”

A little later, we see Kirk and McCoy sitting in the briefing room as Kirk finishes up explaining everything to Pike. “What do you make of that, captain?”

“I’m not sure what to make of it, Kirk. I can’t imagine why Spock would want to go to Talos 4. All Federation starships have been warned away from there ever since our encounter with them, and Spock’s well aware of that.”

“Yes...Captain, I confess I’m not familiar with the entire story of that encounter myself...Spock was telling us about it before he, er, left, but he hadn’t finished. Could you enlighten us about the rest of it? We do have your logs, of course, but you might have more information--”

“Yes, I see what you mean. I’m not sure I’ll be able to help, but I can at least tell you what I know...”

Pike continues telling the story where Spock left off. Around about the point where Pike and the others escape from the cell, there’s a call from the bridge reporting that their sensors show that the shuttle has landed on Talos 4. Frustrated, Kirk wonders once again just what Spock thinks he’s doing down there.

We then cut to a shot of what looks kind of like the barren landscape of Talos 4, only this time there seems to be a small surface settlement among the cliffs. Then we see Spock entering a small, plainly decorated room with windows looking out to the rest of the settlement. “I am here, as agreed,” he says, and then the camera turns to show us a figure wearing a robe and a hood sitting at a table in the middle of the room.

“Welcome, Mr. Spock," the figure says. "Won’t you sit down?”

Back aboard the ship, Pike finishes telling Kirk and McCoy the story.

“So...that’s all of it?” Kirk says.

“Yes. We left Talos 4 and never looked back. Never heard anything from the Talosians, either, but Starfleet marked the place as too dangerous to visit just in case.”

“Poor Vina,” McCoy murmurs.

Pike sighs. “Leaving her there is one my greatest regrets. She seemed determined to stay, but...Even put in a request to go back, once, but Starfleet wouldn’t allow it. Too risky. I often wonder what happened to her. If she was really happy with them after all. But, as you may have gathered, Kirk, none of this explains just what the devil Spock thinks he’s doing--”

He’s interrupted by a call from Uhura: “Captain—message coming from Mr. Spock!”

“Put him on! Spock, what’s going on? Are you alright?”

“Quite well, captain. Has Captain Pike contacted the ship yet?”

“I’m on the line right now,” Pike says. “Spock, what do you think you’re playing at?”

“Ah, captain. I have someone here who wishes to speak to you.”

We then cut back to Spock sitting at the table with the figure, who takes his communicator and says, “Hello...captain.”

Pike is too stunned to speak for a moment. “Vina...? Is that you?”

“The very same. I’ve missed you.”

“I don’t understand. What’s going on?”

Between them, Spock and Vina explain just what is going on. There's been a change in Talosian society since the Enterprise left. Not all of the Talosians agreed with the plan to breed a slave race to begin with—others felt that they could, and should, attempt to reclaim the surface themselves. The incident with Captain Pike brought matters to a head, and a rebellion erupted shortly afterward. Once in power, the new leaders dedicated their efforts to repairing their ancestors’ machines and establishing a colony on the surface.

The reason the Enterprise was lured back to Talos 4 was Vina: she's had medical problems as a result of the crash and the botched surgery, and it's been getting worse for years, to the point that she likely won't live much longer if she doesn't get proper treatment. The new Talosian leaders wanted to make up for what their predecessors had done and gave her the best care they could, but simply didn't have the human medical knowledge to fix the problem. So Vina asked if they could help her get home, instead. The Talosians were concerned, however, that the Federation wouldn't believe a genuine call for help, given their history, so they hatched the plan to lure the Enterprise, and Pike with it, back to Talos 4. They've been waiting for quite a while, listening to subspace chatter, hoping the Enterprise would come near. Once it did, they put out the illusion of the damaged ship to bring the Enterprise close enough that they could maintain an illusion over the helm controls, making sure the helmsmen were not altering their course as they thought they were.

When they discovered that Pike was no longer aboard the Enterprise, they instead sent a telepathic message to Spock, hoping that his own experience with the Talosians would make him see the difference between their current society and the old one, and thus be more likely to believe them. They had to wait until the ship got close to Talos 4, because the new society of Talosians have been deliberately letting their psychic powers weaken, attempting to break the addiction to illusion that was holding them back from reclaiming the surface. They were able to keep up the illusion of the damaged ship for a while, but couldn't manage that and the illusion on the helm and extended contact with the Enterprise at the same time, making the whole thing very nearly fall apart at one point.

Kirk demands to know why Spock ran off on his own, and Spock explains that while he found the Talosians' message plausible, a risk remained that this was all an elaborate set-up. They might have been attempting another pass at the plan that failed thirteen years ago. If that was the case, Spock would be the least risky member of the crew to make contact with them, since as a non-human he wouldn't be suitable for their plans. Since he knew Kirk would never agree to that, he took the shuttle and hacked the ship's computers to ensure that they wouldn't be able to follow him, at least for a while. He now feels confident that this is not a trap, though, as the Talosians' powers have weakened enough that his own mental defenses are strong enough to mostly see through them.

So Vina accompanies Spock back to the shuttlecraft, and they fly back to the ship. Vina's taken to Sickbay while Kirk confronts Spock about stealing the shuttlecraft. Spock says he'll accept all punishment, but felt he had to do it--he saw what almost happened to Pike on Talos 4, and couldn't risk the same fate happening to Kirk. But he also felt he owed it to Pike to investigate Vina's story, and help her return if that was truly what she wanted. Kirk lets the whole matter go, because of course he does, telling Spock not to try that shit again because he can't lose his best officer and all that.

Kirk and Spock go to visit Sickbay, where McCoy reports that with proper Federation medical care Vina's prognosis is good. Kirk wants to talk to her, but McCoy tells him to wait because she's got another visitor. Kirk glances around the doorway and sees Vina sitting up in bed looking at a video monitor, from which Pike's voice is coming. Kirk smiles and says he'll come back later.

Everyone goes back to the bridge, and with the computer damage now fixed, they're preparing to leave, when Uhura reports that there's a call coming from Talos 4. Kirk has a short conversation with the Talosian on the other end, who is glad to hear that Vina will be alright. They also ask that Kirk relay a message to Pike, extending their apologies for what he went through, which Kirk assures them he will. He then adds that the Federation would likely be willing to open trade negotiations with the new Talosian government, and the Talosian says they may take them up on that. And with that, the ship flies off.

Most of this story would only require the existing Enterprise sets, and potentially some brief shots of the shuttle interior. The only new locations needed would be the Talosian settlement exterior, which could be a matte painting, and the inside of the building where Spock meets Vina, which wouldn't require much dressing. The only non-main-cast characters would be Pike, Vina, and the Talosian that contacts the Enterprise. The Talosian is a voice-only role. Pike is also a voice-only role, and would require someone who can approximate Jeffrey Hunter's voice, but it's a lot easier to find a sound-alike than someone who's a sound-alike and a look-alike--plus Pike would be thirteen years older than in The Cage, which allows some leeway. I don't know if Susan Oliver would have been willing/able to come back to play Vina, but if she wasn't, a hood, wig, careful camera shots and some old-age makeup would probably serve well enough to disguise another actress. The only special effect needed is a bit of glowiness for the Talosian that appears to Spock just out of frame.

As for the fate of Pike himself, I don't want to erase a disabled character, but I also don't really feel that Pike's appearance in The Menagerie does any justice to him as a disabled character. Did Gene always envision that kind of fate for him or did he simply seize upon it as a plot device in a desperate moment? I don't know, so in the end I decided to leave it more or less open. There would be considerable leeway for multiple options that would still allow him to serve the same role in this episode: he could be commanding another ship, he could retired and settled down somewhere, he could have suffered an accident as he did in canon and spend this entire episode talking through a voice synthesizer. Imagine whatever one feels most suitable to you.

This is only my own take on the story. I know it would have considerable repercussions to later Star Trek canon and I'm not going to make the claim that those repercussions themselves would be better than what actually happened. It's certainly a more hopeful ending than The Menagerie, on the whole, which may not be everyone's cup of tea. But it was an interesting exercise.

[atopearth]

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Part 3 - Justice for All (2nd game)

The Lost Turnabout Well, that random amnesia to set the game up again for the reader to get used to things again was...random lol. Gotta love the fake dying message that had such beautiful legible writing lol. And I guess these are one of the moments when we should thank parents for using weird and unique spellings of a name, really helps to prove that you’re not a murderer! Kinda baffled with the whole thing though, the defendant and the criminal were both so bland, and the whole case was pretty simple. But, yeah, it’s the first case to get things flowing again so I guess that’s normal! Nice to see Maya back though!~

Reunion, and Turnabout Pearl is an interesting girl…lol. I’m not sure why Mia didn’t want to reveal her aunt as an accomplice for this story, since if she doesn’t reveal it, Maya could be found guilty, especially if Phoenix isn’t able to find evidence for that. Initially, I wasn’t really sure what to think about the whole case being in the village where Maya is from and where she does her training etc, but I guess it’s nice to see her background etc. As for the case itself, although I still suck at knowing when to press statements, I’m a bit better at knowing what to present as evidence hahaha. Anyway, it was obvious that the murderer was the real Mimi who had taken her sister’s face to try and live a new life. So it was easy to know the motives etc, and how she hid in the box behind the screen etc, I guess I was mostly in a bit of a bind in terms of how the murder happened and the reason for the gunshots haha. Otherwise, that was a pretty average case, mostly because I think the witnesses and murderer this time around wasn’t very interesting. Lmao at the daughter von Karma whipping everyone she hates and then whipping Phoenix until he was unconscious when she lost lmao. Hopefully the next case is more interesting~ and I wonder what happened to Edgeworth?

Turnabout Big Top Max…is an interesting character. He looks cool, but dang does he look silly when he reverts to being a country bumpkin lolll. And…I establish that no one in this circus seems normal. Not sure about that daughter of the victim, she looks like she barely cared that her father just got murdered… Great to know that she’s sheltered and so knows nothing about outside of this circus, but dang lmao, she seems to like the puppet more than Max hahahaha. And did Franziska upgrade her whip? It looks different lol. So…Acro has a brother called Bat (loll) who is in a coma after getting bitten on the head by the lion…and this lion got shot by the Ringmaster after it happened… Hmmmm. Oh…Acro is in a wheelchair because he tried to save his brother from the lion… And Bat did what he did because he made a dare with Regina, that if he could do the same thing as her (put his head in the lion’s mouth), she would go on a date with him… How saddening yet ridiculous.

Lmao when Acro comes to court as a witness, and when Phoenix claims that he’s actually the culprit, one of the birds that flies around Acro pecks Phoenix on the head as a background thing lolll. Anyway, once we did more investigations, it was obvious that Acro was the murderer and that his aim was Regina. However, I just feel that the villains this time around in this game have rather dubious motives. I guess it was kinda cool how the “murderer who flew away” came about with the stone bust being pulled up when the coat etc accidentally caught on to it, I just think everything that occurred was still rather anticlimactic though and lacked impact this time around so I couldn’t really like it tbh.. It didn’t help that I didn’t like any of the witnesses lolll. It was understandable how things happened, but at the same time, it wasn’t a very interesting case tbh.

Farewell, my Turnabout Lmao at the Steel Samurai becoming the Nickel Samurai, this show is never gonna end, is it? Omggg Lotta again? Gotta admit, she’s not my favourite witness so seeing her twice in one game kinda kills me lol. On the other hand, I like Wendy Oldbag but she can get rather overbearing lol, so this pairing kills me. When they talked about how the manager Adrian Andrews might be the killer since the ninja actor supposedly hid her mentor’s suicide note, and since she attempted suicide because of how reliant and dependent she was on her mentor when it came to living, I guess it is possible. But I think what hit me the most was when they talked about her “dependent nature”, where she basically always needed someone important enough to her so that she would have a reason to continue living. To an extent, I can kinda relate to that, tbh, although I’m not as extreme as her, sometimes I do feel that if I lost my siblings, I don’t think I’d ever be able to pick myself up.

Anyway, since Edgeworth is back, it was expected that something would happen to Franziska to prevent her from being the prosecutor. It took a while but I’m glad to see Edgeworth and Phoenix in court together. Omggg, Engarde just turned ugly when he revealed his true self!! He was such a pretty boy too, sigh! It’s really interesting to think about the idea that Phoenix’s client is actually guilty for once. He got an assassin to kill Corrida, and Andrews got wrapped up in this when she decided to “frame” Engarde for it. But I think Celeste (Andrews mentor who committed suicide) was the most innocent victim of all this. She first “dated” Engarde back then but was thrown away, and when she thought she could have a happy marriage with Corrida, Engarde decides to tell the guy that they used to be together, so then Corrida called off the marriage, and that led her to commit suicide. But I think the most saddening thing was that even though she committed suicide, none of these guys she so loved were unhappy, instead they were still consumed in their stupid rivalry, where Corrida wanted to use the suicide note she left to show the world Engarde’s true self. It’s so saddening to think of her life just amounting to them as something like that.

It’s interesting that the last case aims at delaying the trial to save Maya since they already know Engarde is guilty, but at the same time, it’s kinda boring? It doesn’t have the same feel as the other cases where you can reveal more and more pieces of the puzzle on what actually happened, and instead focuses on how they can use everything they can to delay the verdict. Which is…quite questionable tbh. Lmaoo at Shelly De Killer (the assassin) being a witness hahahah, and it was so funny when Phoenix presses on one of his statements and asks what’s his fee, and the judge thinks Phoenix wants to kill him lmaooo. Gotta love it when Shelly gets flustered and the transceiver starts leaking oil or whatever lolll. Anyway, I knew that they’d use the fact that Engarde recorded the murder to blackmail Shelly in order to get the latter to turn against his client since he’s so hung up on the trust factor between clients. I mean, you’ve gotta admire Shelley’s work ethic! Lol.

Anyway, I didn’t like the last case in terms of story and how it played out. I think I much prefer the usual Phoenix uncovering the truth bit by bit without really knowing who the culprit is and how they did it until later, against this Engarde case that was just..such compiled with a crappy villain with crappy motives, he was basically a bad villain with no depth. I liked it that they established that both the prosecution and defence work for the truth. But at the same time, I have to say, I don’t feel like the last case really portrayed what it means to be the defence and the prosecution. I had more expectations on how it would be better handled in terms of having a “guilty” defendant as well, but yeah… Oh well. At least everyone is happy and Franziska might be a bit more like the current Edgeworth and not be so hung up on winning all the time.

Overall, I’d say Justice for All was a pretty lacklustre sequel. It rides on a lot of old characters from the previous game, which can be pretty cool, but I think just like how Powers introduces himself as an underpaid action star (LOL), this sequel was underwhelming to say the least. But I guess the biggest problem were just the stories themselves, they just weren’t very interesting, and the way things happened either felt rather cliche or just kinda over the top in a bit of a ridiculous way, whereas in the previous game, it felt like the cases and how they went about it made more sense and was done better. Also, I think Franziska wasn’t a very “fun” prosecutor either, like, I just don’t think she meshed well with Phoenix. Like, when it came to Edgeworth and von Karma, they both were unique enough that they bring a different sort of bantering and connection with Phoenix in court, whereas Franziska is basically just a whipping monster lol. Anyway, hopefully the next game will be better!

[aion-rsa]

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It Ending Explained

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This article contains The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It spoilers. Read our spoiler-free review here.

The sun is shining brightly as Arne Cheyenne Johnson (Ruairi O’Connor) stands up before the courtroom. On this bright, seemingly glorious day in God’s country, the young man who once sacrificed his own body to a demon in order to save a child is about to receive his verdict from the jury. And, even before the film’s ending crawl explains what that sentence will be, he appears aware enough to know he’s about to go to prison. Yet the musical score of The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It swells with optimistic acceptance, and the scene is is unmistakably upbeat. How can this be a happy ending?

Because what can be so bad on a day like this after the long night everyone just endured? Seriously, think about it: Of all the main line Conjuring films, The Devil Made Me Do It had the most per capita possessions, exorcisms, and even damnations of any we’ve seen. And in so doing, it marks the first of these horror movies where a five-year prison sentence is treated as uplifting…

Indeed, the two previous Conjuring movies, directed by James Wan, played out in somewhat more conventional fashions. After a cold open focused on Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) closing their previous case, we meet a new family of characters and spend up to an hour understanding their dynamics, and then their dawning awareness of demonic activity. For a surprisingly large chunk of The Conjuring 2, the Warrens are even off-screen before riding in to the rescue—always with a sense of healthy dose of rational skepticism about the evil forces at play.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It jettisons that formula and begins where previous Warren movies ended: a full-blown megawatt exorcism set piece. The one at the top here particularly plays out like a cover band doing someone else’s greatest hits set list, in this case William Friedkin’s still masterful The Exorcist (1973). There’s a priest arriving on a foggy night; body contortions; decaying young faces screaming Latin; and a (near) fatal heart attack. But this is the opening salvo into a story, which is less of a “get the demons out” yarn than it is a whodunit murder mystery.

The who in question turns out to be a character we barely ever get to know: Father Kastner’s secret and occultist daughter. Raised in the same house where the Catholic Church and Kastner stored everything occult and unholy for study and hiding, the Kastner child (she’s never given a name in the movie) grew into a woman obsessed by her priestly father’s own unhealthy fixations.

The Warrens are also no strangers to keeping cursed and possessed objects in their own homes in the Conjuring movies. Warner Bros. even made a whole “haunted Night at the Museum” movie about it via Annabelle Comes Home. But it appears whatever dark secrets John Noble’s eccentric Father Kastner learned from the Disciples of the Ram, they were too evil and perverse for even Lorraine Warren. As soon as she feels just a trace of the evil stored in Kastner’s basement, she tells him he should have burned all the books he collected more than a decade ago.

What isn’t clear, however, is whether the Disciples of the Ram’s studies are what corrupted the mind of Kastner’s daughter, who in the film is a woman in her 50s played by Eugenie Bondurant. This means she grew up as a hidden bastard child in Kastner’s home during the 1930s and ‘40s. Meanwhile we’re told Kastner exposed the Disciples of the Ram about 10 to 12 years ago, which would’ve been in the late 1960s. In fact, members of that cult have appeared in The Conjuring universe, showing up in the first Annabelle spinoff for a home invasion sequence that’s clearly (some might say grossly) modeled after the murders perpetrated by the “Manson Family” in 1969.

In any event, Kastner’s daughter grew up sharing in her father’s perverse fascination with all things occult, but she took it further by indulging in the acts of evil and Satanism that he wished to expose as dangerous. Presumably she at least studied at some point the texts her father collected from the Disciples of the Ram, as she imitated their “blood sacrifices,” which involved cursing a family or person with a hidden totem in their home. This leads to temporary demonic possession, and subsequent murder and suicide. First the possessed individual kills someone, and then themselves, presumably damning their soul to Hell (it’s later said the unnamed demon in the movie cannot return to Hell without claiming soul, which Kastner’s daughter clearly intends to be Arne’s eternal fate).

Luckily, Wilson and Farmiga’s entirely selfless and loving versions of Ed and Lorraine Warren are on the case to unravel this—even at the risk of their own lives and souls after the witch sends a cursed totem to Ed’s study hidden inside a vase of flowers. He, too, is now being possessed and compelled to murder a loved one. When Lorraine Warren spies on the occultist’s subterranean lair by touching the corpse of poor Jessica (who presumably is burning in Hell according to the movie’s logic), Lorraine can hear a train in the distance.

When Ed and Drew (Shannon Kook) then later use a map of railways to figure out where a train might be passing at midnight, they deduce it is at the Kastner house. So we end up with a grand showdown where Ed and Lorraine face off against the Kastner daughter, who is now even going so far as to murder her own father, a feeble failure of a priest who apparently wasn’t even aware she was on his property for at least several months now.

Afterward Ed is possessed by the demon and goes the full Jack Torrence by picking up a sledgehammer and planning to murder his wife. But through the power of love, Lorraine gets through to Ed’s possessed heart, freeing him from demonic influence and allowing Ed to smash the witch’s altar, which for some unexplained reason also frees Arne—who’s about to kill himself back in prison—from the demon.

With the summoned demon no longer forced to do the bidding of the Kastner daughter, it decides to take her soul back to Hell with it. Arne is spared further demonic possession, and suddenly five years in prison doesn’t look so bad when compared to an eternity in Hell.

Frankly, the ending, like much else with The Conjuring 3, left this writer more than a bit underwhelmed. The idea of the villain being a daughter borne out of the dangerous study of the occult could’ve created a spooky narrative that hit closer to home for the Warrens. After all, they never burn their own creepy mementos, which have bedeviled their daughter Judy on more than one occasion onscreen, as seen in both the original The Conjuring and Annabelle Comes Home. A movie about the pair seeing a danger to their daughter reflected by the Kastners, and one that which perhaps incorporated the whole Warren family solving the case, might’ve made for a more emotionally satisfying movie. As with the first movie, we’d once again have a story of two families, with the Warrens seeing a more shadowy contrast in the Kastners.

It would’ve been more interesting than the plot in its current form, which appears a bit like a lazy riff on the demon-worshipping cult in Hereditary, arguably the most popular supernatural horror movie to be released since The Conjuring 2. The Conjuring 3, meanwhile, also was done no favors by its rushed narrative turning Arne and the Glatzel family into largely ciphers, depriving the audience of much cathartic investment until Ed starts getting possessed himself.

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Granted, the real-life Judy Warren had nothing to do with this case and there never was a Father Kastner, so turning that into the focus of the movie would be stepping even further away from the main franchise’s increasingly dubious “based on a true story” shtick. But we’re so far from true stories, why quibble about that now? The Annabelle doll was never associated with Satanic cults or the Manson family, it never Night at the Museum’d Judy, and Ed did not have a heart attack during the Glatzel exorcism. In fact, Arne was not sentenced to five years.

Arne Cheyenne Johnson was convicted of first degree manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison—he only served five years. Additionally, the judge threw out his lawyer’s not-guilty plea by reason of demonic possession. The Conjuring 3 also did not show how Arne’s lawyer used the (legally dubious) evidence gathered by the Warrens at the Kastner house in court to get the prosecution’s charge down from first degree murder to manslaughter (the state was trying to send Johnson to the gas chamber in the film).

… But you know what? A Conjuring film that was an actual courtroom drama—perhaps with levitating witnesses and possessed prosecutors—would’ve also probably been more interesting than the movie we ended up with.

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