There are few things in this world that can make a crappy day better, Supernatural is one of them. Last night's episode is still blowing my mind. I'm literally not sure how I feel about everything, but I am questioning the meaning of life, religion, and why my hair isn't as fabulous as Amara's. Seriously, guys, her hair. I'd cut mine, but I promised future Shae that I'd never do what Past Shae did once. Some people look good with short hair, I am not one of them. Granted Amara's isn't short, it's just shorter. 

Still, our Darkness is wondering around the world, stealing souls from angsty teens and growing into one herself. It seems her hunger cannot be satiated, that is....until Uncle/Papa Crowley steps in. He's having his demons follow Amara with the simple task of killing the soulless humans she leaves behind. It's a good plan, and Crowley clearly cares for the girl. Either way, she's in some trouble. Going off and eating souls whenever she wants isn't something that's sitting well with the King of Hell. So he grounds her. Yep, the Darkness gets grounded, for the time being.

The boys are busy investigating the murders when they put the links together. Crowley may be cleaning up the mess, but he's leaving a trail. Sam and Dean are dead set on finding the two. Dean plans to kill Amara, and Sam is on this "no kill" thing, because reasons. Cas isn't doing too well, he's binge watching TV and suffering from some PTSD of his own. However, while the boys are out the Angel spots something interesting on the news. This leads him to finding Metatron, yes, the long awaited confrontation is about to happen. Sam and Dean are a bit busy though. They find the base they think Crowley is hiding Amara in and infiltrate. Which is a bit hard to do since, you know, Sam is trying not to kill any demons.

I guess he's trying not to kill their meat suits. Dean finds Amara while little brother fights three demons. Crowley shows up. After all, he's made a deal; he's offered Amara protection, in exchange for help when she's more powerful. Crowley always has a plan. Sadly, he's made a mistake. Threatening to finally kill Dean (which we all know he can't do), is something Amara is against. She uses her powers to nearly kill the King. A new deal is made, well, Amara decides to let him live if he lets Dean leave unharmed. Crowley agrees and vanishes and it's awkward. Amara and Dean have chemistry that can't be explained. She won't kill him, he won't kill her. Throwing Sam violently against a wall, however, not a problem for the Darkness.

It seems Sam is having visions again. Is he seeing the future? Is Lucifer calling to him? Or has God given him the guidance he requested in hopes of defeating the Darkness? The only one who knows more about this mysterious being is Metatron, whom is getting kicked around by an irate Baby in a Trench Coat. Castiel has had it with the Scribe's shenanigans, and he may be taking a few liberties with how he gets information. Cas is literally beating Metatron to a pulp. The now human finally cracks. Metatron explains that God didn't just snap things into existence. He had to make a sacrifice, a betrayal of biblical proportions. The Darkness happens to be God's sister, and yes this just got more complicated. It does explain the constant sibling rivalries throughout the Bible though. No wonder she's eating souls and doing what she wants. She's free. And she's out to settle a score....

I have to admit that I was actually quite impressed with the storytelling that unfolded before all of us last night on The Walking Dead, simply because of the fact that the show is shifting big time when it comes to its tone and design. A show that a year ago was giving us nothing but heartbreak and sorrow is slowly beginning to give us hope, in small doses I might add, and this week was no exception to that fact. 

Of course it didn't seem like that at first. With the dead surrounding the gates and the people of Alexandria still licking their wounds from the intense and terrifying attack from the Wolves, the show left us with a heavy air. One filled with despair and hopelessness and well, it only got worse as the minutes progressed. Deanna was seemingly lost. We saw people ready to loot the pantry, until Spencer stepped in, more on him in a moment and we also saw Betsy take her own life rather than deal with another minute of the terror she was now experiencing. 

Then something magical happened. We saw the good people of Alexandria wake up, well...at least Jessie at first with her bold decision to put down a turned Betsy and let her fellow Alexandrians know that it was time to stand and fight or end up like Betsy and suddenly...things began to change. Denise is perhaps the best example of this change since the last time we saw her she was in nothing short of a panic, thrust into the position of town doctor and watching people die because she didn't know enough to save them. But Jessie's moment of strength, and a little support from Tara as well did wonders. She calmed down, she was able to focus...and save a life.

Even Deanna who as I mentioned before seemed lost at the beginning of the episode showed growth and change as she began to focus a little deeper on a long term plan to make Alexandria sustainable, plotting out the location of future crops to feed her people before finally unleashing all of her fury on the stray walker that she discovered inside the community and heck, even Ron is getting in on being a little more bold in this world by making peace with Rick and asking for his help to learn how to shoot. But the growth isn't quite there for everyone yet. Despite Spencer's beautiful moment of inspiring others in his town, he still demonstrated his selfishness and arrogance by looting the pantry on his own.  

But regardless of the handful of people that are still struggling with fighting for something more, especially their survival in this world, there was a wonderful awakening in Alexandria last night. At last these people who have been sheltered from the realities of the world, who no doubt watched everything collapse on television rather than before their eyes are finally understanding the gravity of everything and what it means to survive and that they will have to fight to put everything back together and to see the sun rise another day. It's by far one of the most hopeful moments the show has given us in years and it's clear now that the show will continue to be working toward the all important theme of putting our world back together and the first big step toward that began at last with the people of this town finally opening their eyes. 

Well it didn't take long for The Walking Dead to go from hopeful back to darkness did it? Last week was a beautiful and uplifting episode, while this week was filled with darkness, despair and uncertainty, with just a dash of hope and one startling revelation. So let's not waste any more time and get right into discussing all the details of "Now".

The Good: I wasn't quite sure how long it was going to be before we got back to Alexandria to find out what would happen in the aftermath of the Wolves attack and how they basically screwed everything up in Rick's plan and as it turns out, the wait was minimal. Last night we discovered that Rick made it out of the RV just fine and well...he barely out ran a chunk of the superherd to make it back home and the fallout from everything that's happened in the last few hours since the plan to move them went into effect was nothing short of devastating. We saw many of the people of Alexandria fall to pieces faced with the reality of death finally being at their doorstep and Betsy's suicide was certainly an ominous note to say the least, but I did mention a dash of hope, and we did see some changes from the people in Alexandria, but there's a lot to talk about when it comes to that, so I'm going to save that for my breakdown later today.

Instead, we need to talk about a couple of pivotal moments in the show that will no doubt have some pretty hefty repercussions to say the least and let's start with the easy one, Deanna's appointing of Rick as the leader of Alexandria. It was so quick and so sudden that I had to rewind the DVR to make sure I heard her right, but it's clear Deanna no longer sees herself as the future leader of this tiny little community and for her to tell Rick he's the guy who needs to lead these folks is a huge deal and it will be interesting to see where this goes since Rick isn't 100% healed mentally yet. But of course the big shocker of the night...the fact that Maggie is pregnant. We've all been speculating on it ever since Glenn asked her to stay home and away from the carnage that was to ensue, and now it's out there in the open. She's carrying his child and that somehow makes his absence all the more devastating since we still don't know if the poor guy is dead or alive. Either way, it's a big time revelation and I have a feeling it will be important to the story as time goes on.  

The Bad: The fact that we are still waiting for an answer on Glenn's fate. This is brutal to say the least. I think at this point I'm at peace with whether he dies or not, I just would like to know which one it is. But as the weeks progress and the fact that he hasn't signaled the city yet, it doesn't bode well for one of our favorite characters. 

The Verdict: In years past this would have served as a filler episode, but it certainly didn't feel like one. With the dead surrounding the city, the turmoil happening within and the intensity of it all, well it made this episode an impressive one. That sense of impending danger was back this week and I liked this one because of how much character growth was on display for both our original group and the people of Alexandria, but that final shot...well that can't be good news. Either Spencer did something bad from high above...or the dead are slowly squeezing in. Time will tell.

 Last Sunday we took a break from the current action to find out what happened to Morgan. Let’s face it, the break was kind of needed, but added a new tension that we may not have been completely ready for. Morgan’s back story has been long awaited, as most of us have been dying to know what happened to him after Rick left. We knew his son had died, killed by his mother, but that was it. How did Morgan become the bad ass we all know and love.
 
Well, he went a bit crazy. That we knew. He’d nearly hurt Rick before, and Michone did take his last peanut butter protein bar…which, she was right, the mat said ‘welcome’. Had it been a trap? Morgan wasn’t right for the longest time, and he’d had some pretty traumatic things happen not him. Still, he was the first person Rick met after he woke from the hospital, and the first person we trusted….well, aside from Rick. The journey, however, hadn’t been easy. Morgan had started killing…everything. Living in the woods, he’d killed Walkers and people the same. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered, as he had said. Whatever was in his way, got killed. So, when he stumbled upon a cabin, complete with a goat in the front yard, it’s almost a present!
 
After all this is where he meets Eastman and that's when this episode became absolutely magical! I mean, Eastman was pretty much the only nice random person that we've ever seen on the show when you think about it. Sure he killed the guy who killed his family but that's nothing when you think about all the crazy stuff the Governor did and all the cannibals from Terminus who turned Bob's leg into Bob-BQ. He was just a good man. One who actually wanted to help people and really did everything he could to bring Morgan back from the brink and that's why I was so mad when a stupid walker bit him at the end of the episode! He deserved to go out doing something heroic, but at least he had time to make peace before Morgan put him down.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I realize this was really a gentle and wonderful episode and there was one amazing moment that I missed that we have to talk about. Did you guys notice when Eastman told Morgan he was going to hold a baby again? I heard him say that and thought something about that was important and forgot about it because of walker reasons but later it hit me...he held Judith in Alexandria! And that was totally amazing because apparently Eastman might have been a psychic and I think that's why I really wanted him to live past this episode, because at least he could tell us if Glenn is alive or not. But guys, seriously, I really wish someone would tell us if Glenn is alive, and are we going to find out about that tonight? Probably not, but I can keep hoping for it so this show stops messing with my feels. 

I've had quite a few conversations over the last week with quite a few people about the awesomeness that Ash vs. Evil Dead turned out to be last week. In fact everyone seems to agree that the show is absolutely perfect in every way and despite the joy that the show brought me I found myself once again filled with concern as I looked over this season's credits for Director and came to discover that Sam Raimi was only involved with the pilot episode.

My concern was simple, would the quality of the show hold up without Sam doing what he does best? Well last night we got the answer to that question and I'm going to go on record and say that I am nothing but a fool for ever doubting that this show would fade in any sort of way when it comes to quality because not only was last night's episode, "Bait" as awesome as the premiere, but it actually managed to add a few new wrinkles into the Evil Dead mythos that we've never quite seen before.

The first thing I'm thoroughly enjoying when it comes to this entry of the series, is the fact we are finally seeing the regular everyday world mix into the walking nightmares the Necronomicon produces. It actually adds to the lightheartedness of the show in fact since we saw people give testimony to Amanda and it was clear that in many ways, they know something is going on, but they are more than happy to stay out of it until trouble comes into play. I have a funny feeling that will matter as we move further into the series, making Ash a bigger hero in ways we have never seen before. It is also a bit of a shame we didn't get much of Amanda tonight since she is struggling with what happened to her partner still and that's an important piece to this little twist in the show as the real world begins to discover evil is real, but it looks like next week we'll see more of her and her journey.

But the centerpiece of the night revolves around the Deadites and our first real look at their madness and evil at length when Ash and Pablo arrive at Kelly's to make sure she's okay. First off, it's freaking awesome that Mimi Rogers popped up to play Kelly's mom and it's even more freaking awesome to watch her portray such a wicked creature as she toys with Ash and the remainder of her family in classic fashion. But I really loved watching her play the cat and mouse game with Ash and toy with everyone at length until Ash's left hook finally revealed her true identity and intentions. We know the Deadites like to play with their prey, but we've never seen a long con like this from them...it's a little scary to say the least.

In the end, this episode was so well done and so much fun that you barely notice that a half hour has passed and well, it definitely left me hungry for more and all the things we loved about last week were still here for us to enjoy. There was plenty of gore, courtesy of the battle with Ash's possessed jerk of a boss and the one liners this week managed to top last week's. In fact, you'll notice the quote at the top of this recap and that's something new I'll be doing every week when it comes to this series, highlighting my favorite one liner from Ash. Either way, I really can't get enough of this show, I've already watched last night's episode four times and I'm already anxiously awaiting the next episode. Until then.  

Everyone knows the story of Lizzie Borden, or maybe they don't? Dean didn't seem to, and Sam felt the need to share. Seems Lizzie Borden's old home is now a bed and breakfast. For the right price you can stay in a number of haunted rooms. Which, is mostly true? The famous story goes on to say that Lizzie murdered her parents with an axe. Lizzie was acquitted from the murders due to lack of evidence. 

The axe in question is on display in the house. So what's going on? Sam thinks it's Lizzie's' ghost that has just murdered young adults. Dean's not so sure. They leave Cas (who has discovered Netflix) and head down to investigate. With some bribery, they're able to stay in the room the couple was murdered in. Each leads their own investigation where Dean finds hidden speakers, and a light dimmer, which is responsible for the flickering lights and the sounds. Sam finds another speaker emitting some strange electrical waves that messes with ghost hunting equipment. What's devoid is the ghosts....

While there the owner is murdered. The woman was killed with an axe as well, the same as the couple. Time to play FBI for the boys, who help police look things over. The two are on their way to interrogate a possible suspect when Sam gets a call about a murder in the suburbs. They find a kid and a babysitter. The father is brutally murdered in his car in the driveway. The mother of the kid shows up and she couldn't care less about her husband being dead. Sam stays while Dean goes to talk to the possible suspect. The guy turns out to be a Lizzie Borden obsessed, harmless, nerd of a guy. There's a bit of a problem....the guy ran into Amara outside the Lizzie Borden inn. She took his soul.....he's been going through the motions, but not feeling anything.....he tells Dean all of this, and so Dean and Sam are forced to take him with them.

They're off to find the mother and find out if she's missing her soul too. The babysitter tells them where she might be, but when they get there, they find the mother and her apparent boyfriend dead. Both are knocked out and tied up. It's the babysitter from hell. Guess she was sick of the family. She's been committing all the murders. And Sam and Dean are her offering to Amara. Whatever Amara is doing, she's having various affects on people. Sam breaks free and babysitter gets a shotgun. It's not looking good for Sam until our soulless friend saves the day. He kills her....and afterwards, turns himself in for all the murders to prevent himself from doing it again. The Winchesters leave with little clues as to what Amara is up to, and it's all just one scary mess.....

If there is anything I have learned about The Walking Dead during the Scott M. Gimple era of writing, is that everything that happens on screen has a purpose or it has a message. We have seen this countless times in his tenure as showrunner since either poor decisions come back to haunt our favorite characters, or an off the cuff comment we thought meant nothing comes back to be extremely important.

I make mention of that, because I think last night's episode and all the wonder and beauty was far more significant than we are giving it credit. It was more than an episode merely designed to break up the terrible moments happening in Alexandria, I honestly think this episode managed to reveal where the show is headed philosophically after all the nightmares come to an end and it has all come about since the end of last season when Morgan first uttered the words "all life is precious."

Obviously we uncovered exactly who taught Morgan those words and why he believes it so, but there were plenty of other things that Eastman said last night that resonated with me and continue to do so a day after watching the show. After all his character was full of fascinating tidbits about his views on people and the things they do, but in the process of learning all these things from Eastman, the show and its total scope finally came into focus...Alexandria, and Rick and all the things that happen down the road are all designed to show us not only the end of mankind and how they deal with it...but how they rebuild their world and how they make it a better place. 

Look at the simple acts of kindness Eastman visited upon Morgan. He gave him implicit trust, he fed him, gave him shelter, knowing full well Morgan was shattered beyond belief and ready to harm or kill him and never once judged, never once batted an eye and held in his wavering belief that Morgan was worth salvation and that he deserved better than sheer madness or anger. It's a theme the show has always held strong to, that you get to come back from all the things you've done but Eastman demonstrated there has to be a healing process to it as well, you can't just push forward and expect everything to be okay.

All of this suddenly gives Alexandria new weight as to what it stands for, it has now become a symbol for rebirth, a chance to start again and when the madness clears as it always does at some point, no doubt Morgan will try and teach Rick some of what he knows, specifically the part about needing to heal. This is the place where people will come to grieve, unload their burdens and begin again and while that process will never be easy...at least we know now that the show is doing its damndest to give us hope, to show that there is more to the end than just sorrow and that when the dust settles and the living have outlasted the dead they will have a new lease on life with a new philosophy...that all life is precious.

Sometimes The Walking Dead can be a cruel show and these last two weeks have been a fine example of that. After all, the debate over Glenn's fate rages on and this week's episode offered no help in settling the matter because last night's 90 minute tale...was all about Morgan and it was also damn good. With that in mind, let's get right down to it and discuss, "Here's Not Here".

The Good: Well, we've all been wondering just what the hell happened to Morgan in that gap between "Clear" and the season five finale and that's where we spent our entire 90 minutes last night, learning all the details in what turned out to be another power house episode revolving around Morgan. Which is interesting when you think about it. After all, season six is the first time he's been a major character on the show yet "Clear" is still one of the series' best entries to date and last night's run was no slouch either, in fact it actually turned out to be quite a beautiful episode of redemption in so many ways.  As always, Lennie James was stellar on screen, giving us insight into the madness that consumed Morgan and if the man doesn't at least get nominated for an Emmy for this episode it's nothing short of a crime. 

In fact, I think the only writer qualified to handle Morgan in episodes like this is Scott Gimple and it so happens he wrote last night's tour de force that just happened to break us away from the nightmares happening in and around Alexandria and well, this little break from the madness worked wonderfully. It was simply fascinating to watch Morgan slowly come back from the brink...all through little acts of kindness and trust and a few ass kickings along the way and we also need to take a moment to talk about veteran actor John Carroll Lynch and his performance as Eastman last night because the man was amazing. He did such a wonderful job playing this broken man who found his redemption in the most beautiful fashion that it is an honest shame Eastman died in this episode. But, what would this show be without a little darkness to go with the beauty and those final moments with the creepy Wolf...well I guess we are going to see if everyone can be saved or not, but wow...what an episode.

The Bad: Well, two things really. It's evil of the show to keep the Glenn thing hanging over our heads, but they certainly are and I'm really bummed that Eastman didn't make it out of his cabin. This was a super cool character that deserves more screen time. Maybe he'll pop up in flashbacks. 

The Verdict: This was a wonderful episode, simple as that. It may not have advanced the plot of the season that much, but who cares? To see Morgan's redemption, to get a solid idea of why he's in Alexandria and what that all means for the future of the show gives this episode a sharp contrast over last week and I loved every second of it.

I think it is safe to say that the greatest concern any fan from any franchise has when it comes to a long awaited sequel or update to the series, is whether or not this latest entry can recapture the magic that allowed said fan to fall in love with the whole thing in the first place. After all, magical moments are what we fans live for and that concern was at the top of my mind when I heard the announcement that the next official entry in the Evil Dead franchise would be by way of the cable television series, Ash vs. Evil Dead. 

Granted some of my worries melted away when I heard about the fact every single person involved in the franchise would be coming back to work on the series in some form or fashion, but the concern was still there. After all...it's been a looooooooong time since we enjoyed a fresh adventure with our favorite monster hunter/idiot in Ash Williams and time has a funny way of giving creative folks new perspectives on the people they have brought to life and that was really the root cause of my worry, since hey, it's been thirty-four years since the first movie came out, and someone could easily put forth the idea perhaps it was time to reinvent the whole thing for a new generation. 

Well, as it turns out, my worries were all for nothing because two wonderful things happened when I sat down to watch the series premiere of the show. First and foremost...they didn't change a damn thing about Ash and that was simply fantastic and second...the magic and wonder of the original trilogy is still there. In fact, I would venture to say that this episode, "El Jefe", was an absolutely perfect piece of television through and through. It had the right mix of everything last night. There were creepy scares abound, especially in the party house where Amanda is forced to put down her possessed partner and the laughs were there when we needed them. Plus we can't talk about an entry in the Evil Dead franchise without discussing the gore and there were plenty of buckets of it spilled in the premiere. 

But the best part of this premiere...has to be Bruce Campbell and hands down this is his best performance in the series to date. He's always done a fine job as Ash, but this go round...he brought new things to the role, specifically the fact we've never seen a weaker side to Ash on this level. He's truly afraid of what happened at the cabin so long ago, and for the most part he will do anything to avoid it. That little twist on the character makes the last fifteen minutes of the show all the more amazing when Ash reverts to the kick ass monster hunter we know and love and I can't thank Bruce enough for such a wonderful performance, and if Bruce was this good in the first episode, I can only imagine how much more incredible his performances will be as the series rolls on. 

Fact is, this show is going to be amazing, because of the fact everything we love about the Evil Dead franchise is here and I never thought this would be possible...but they actually managed to enhance it. The fact that the show is on cable T.V. allows for Raimi and Bruce and company to do things they never could have done in theaters and I am so thankful for it. This really was a fine Halloween treat and I certainly hope I wasn't the only one clapping and giggling when the one liners came out and I don't know about the rest of you, but I got chills with the final word that came out of Ash's mouth. Either way, all that matters in the end is that Ash is back, and the horror world is a better place for it. Hail to the king, baby.