Emotions can be a powerful thing in our lives, for some even more so than others.  Some people are able to control their emotions and only let them show when they want to, others are able to shut them down completely, while there are still others that cannot control them, no matter how hard they try.  I am in the first group when it comes to this, I have taken many years to get control over my emotions and sometimes they come creeping out when I least expect it, but most of the time, they are in check.  This is not something that comes to us over night, it is something that you need to learn how to control and for the people that have little to no control over them, you know exactly what I mean. There is nothing wrong with keeping your emotions on your sleeve, but they can wind up turning you into a crazy mess if you are not able to lock them up for a small part of your day.

In court Laurel Janus is waiting to hear the verdict of her husband’s killer, Stanley Coe. When the judge hands down a sentence that is no less than fifteen years and no longer than life, Laurel is full of rage and wants Stanley to be truly punished for what he did to her life. Before exiting the courthouse, Laurel asks the DA for her husband’s effects, just to have them.  Although this is a strange request the DA complies and Laurel walks out with her husband’s watch and the glasses he was wearing that night. Trying to keep her cool before driving home, Laurel sees a glimmer in the glasses and cannot figure out what is causing it. Putting them on, she sees her husband sitting in the car and she knows there is something strange happening.

Taking with her best friend Becca at the house about the case, Laurel tells her about what she saw in the glasses.  While Becca believes that Laurel is losing her mind, she suggests that Laurel should distance herself from what has become her obsession over the past two years.  Laurel thinks that this is a good idea and cleans up all of the newspaper clippings, articles and all of Nick’s effects, everything but his glasses.  Seeing the glimmer again while in the garage, she puts them on and sees Stanley Coe standing before her, yelling at Nick about embezzling money from their company.  Knowing that Stanley is the killer, Laurel does not have to go on with the vision and with her head starting to hurt, she takes off the glasses.

Telling Becca what she saw, her friend is worried that Laurel is back on the booze and drugs that she has always fallen back to, but Laurel has been straight for over sixteen months and will not go back to her old ways.  Becoming curious of why Nick’s body was not found in the kitchen where she saw the altercation in the glasses, Laurel gives them another shot.  Seeing her husband and Stanley fighting, she sees that Stanley walks away after he has defeated his new foe.  Being called by the DA, telling her that she will have to testify again, Laurel tries to get the case reopened with her new information, but they will not allow her visions to be part of the case, so once again, she heads back home to see what really happened.  Putting the glasses on in the bathroom where Nick was found, Laurel sees the killer come up behind him, but hears him call out her name, Becca.  Finding out that Becca and Nick were sleeping together, Laurel loses it and tries to get her best friend to admit that she is the killer, but Becca loved Nick and would not do anything to hurt him, so one more time, Laurel finds herself in the bathroom with Nick’s glasses on and finds out who the killer has been all along.

Laurel has a rough backstory, she was in and out of rehab for months and even though she loved her husband, he was getting tired of the babysitting. Stealing money from his company was supposed to help him get away and when that was found out by his partner, Nick could not defend his actions.  Even though Stanley wanted to kill his friend for ruining him, he walked away from the situation knowing that he had what he needed, but Laurel could not walk away with what she discovers. Hearing her best friend’s name being called out by her husband, Laurel became enraged and took matters into her own hands and made sure that she would never lose anything of hers to Becca again.  Starring Portia de Rossi as Laurel, Kristin Lehman as Becca, William DeVry as Nick and Dion Luther as Stanley Coe, this episode turned into the ultimate love triangle gone wrong.  Laurel might not have been in the wrong for doing what she did, but seeing herself covered in her husband’s blood made her crazier than she would admit to being.  If you find yourself in an emotional situation, you might want to take a breath before you react.  It could feel like the right thing to do at the time, but you may end up hurting someone you truly care for without thinking about it.

The more I think about it, the more I love the fact that Agent Carter continues to play out every single week like an hour long comic book. The show always gives us just enough to advance the plot while doing everything it can to make sure its vibrant characters remain the focus and this week was no exception.

In fact "The Atomic Job" not only stayed the course with the unique design for this show, it also managed to bring the laughs. This chapter in Peggy Carter's adventures was filled to the brim with lighthearted and hilarious moments while making sure to maintain the danger that is Whitney Frost and Zero Matter at the same time, so its probably best to discuss that first, since we learned much about this mysterious element and what it could be doing to Whitney.

It turns out that Zero Matter craves more Zero Matter, something we discovered quickly in the opening part of the episode when Doctor Wilkes absorbs the stuff and becomes tangible in our universe once again if only for a moment. It leads to one epic plotline/showdown between Peggy and Whitney as Ms. Frost decides the only way to get the exact amount of Zero Matter that her body seems to crave, after sucking up what was left from Jane Scott's body, is to replicate the explosion that brought it into our world in the first place and well...Whitney is just getting down right scary. We know that Zero Matter is changing her through and through but into what exactly has yet to be seen. We just know at this point, it seems to be corrupting her mind and twisting her and quite frankly...in the last ten minutes she was one terrifying villain with how she tried to absorb Peggy and her husband as well. 

But like I mentioned before, it wasn't all gloom and doom this go round because there was plenty of funny to be found as well courtesy of two wonderful moments. The first one that caught my eye was the assembly of Peggy's makeshift Avengers if you will as they prepare to infiltrate the Roxxon facility when they bring Rose and Dr. Samberly into the fold. That moment felt like a little shout out to Guardians of the Galaxy and it worked so well. But the hardest laughs of the night came from when Peggy visited Hugh Jones' office to steal a special key and in order to keep her cover she had to make use of a memory inhibitor...over and over again. That whole little bit was funny enough that I had to pause the show a couple of times to get the laughs out of my system before moving on, so bravo to the show for finding its comedic groove.

Either way, the show continues to suck me in. This whole Zero Matter piece is simply fascinating and Whitney Frost as a whole is becoming one of the most mysterious Marvel villains yet, because despite what we saw and assumed about her this week there are still questions left unanswered. Is she simply a misunderstood woman who is being manipulated by this strange element, or is she someone whose internal darkness is being brought to the surface and enhanced by the matter? Time will tell but last night the show only made the wait for answers worse in those final moments when Wilkes started to fade before our eyes once again. I would say I expect the show to reveal it all to us quickly, but that's really not Agent Carter's style so I'll happily buckle up and enjoy the ride, especially since it looks like the always demented Dottie is returning to the show next week. Until then.

Have you ever forgot something that you did, or how you ended up somewhere?  I think everyone has had that happen at least once in their lives, if not on several occasions.  Not being able to remember a short amount of time is nothing to be concerned with as it happens to everyone and if you are doing the exact same thing every day, it happens more often.  Did I close the garage door, did I turn off the iron, did I turn off the stove?  Any of these sound familiar?  I am sure they all do, but these are just seconds out of your day.  Once you are not able to remember days to weeks, there might be something else happening and you should definitely get yourself checked out.

Zack Walker is loving life, at least when he is around the hospital with his lovely fiancé Maria.  Wheeling in their next patient, the two start joking about Zack’s impending bachelor party and what will happen.  Joking that he will not be able to remember what happened, Maria guarantees that she will know everything that goes down as her brother will be there with him.  As the two keep their spirits high for the weeding, their patient Mr. Fisk is in a coma and not able to do anything, including being able to tune the two love birds out. 

When getting ready to leave the hospital, Zack is hit with what seems like a panic attack, but when he wakes up, he knows it is much more than that.  Waking up in a hotel in Portland, Oregon, Zack is unsure about how he arrived there.  After talking to the desk clerk, Zack knows that he was awake when he arrived, he just has no recollection of it.  Calling Maria and telling her where he is and promising that he will be back home in Phoenix the next day, Zack is more concerned about what happened while he was blacked out.  Getting in the car and heading south, Zack instead finds himself moving further up north and now is in a meeting with an underground group that he seems to have a deal with.  Receiving a gun that can beat metal detectors and scanners, Zack is starting to put the pieces together.

Waking up from another blackout in a new hotel room, Zack gets to see firsthand what is blacked out self is up to.  With a map drawn out of where he needs to be at certain times, Zack thinks that he is going to kill the president’s daughter.  Not wanting to allow this to happen, Zack calls the Secret Service to get them to detain him so he cannot harm a soul, but when his story does not seem to make sense, Agent Carl Taggart has to get verification that Zack is on the level.  Inspecting his room and seeing all of the timing and maps, Agent Taggart has no doubt that this man is going to kill the first daughter, but when Zack blacks out again, the Agent is not able to stop him from getting close.  Watching the first daughter enter the hotel and riding up the escalator to greet her fans, Zack goes through blackout after blackout until he finds himself standing with a smoking gun in his hand.

This is a fun situation to think about.  What if someone was able to control your body without you knowing what is happening?   But it could also be very frightening to think that someone would be able to control you and do anything that they want without your permission.  I don’t know what would be able to cause this, but if it is for the greater good, and I could help, sign me up.  Not really, I don’t want anyone messing with my mind or body, I pretty much have it set the way I like it.  Starring Ethan Embry as Zack Walker, Alexandra Barreto as Maria and Nathaniel DeVeaux as Agent Carl Taggart.  This is an interesting storyline that ties every step up at the end, but you have to be able to read the clues as to who is doing what, the same way as Zack does when he keeps finding a gun in his possession.  

It's extremely rare when a television show gives me pause, and by pause, I mean that right after the episode has ended I mute the television and take a moment to collect my thoughts in silence because of how absolutely stellar or absolutely horrifying a particular episode of the show I'm watching turned out to be. 

In fact the only series that manages to pull this off on a regular basis is The Walking Dead for obvious reasons but this week, Supergirl managed to become another show on that short list because "For the Girl Who Has Everything" simply left me in awe through and through with one powerful and fantastic tale. I mean really, this show continues to top itself and this episode...well it was absolutely perfect. 

Yes, I completely understand that is an incredibly bold statement to put forth about this particular episode, but I stand by it for several reasons. For one the acting and action were absolutely perfect this go round, and they were only further enhanced by the show's wonderful thematic concepts this week, the first one being the importance of family. After all, there was a real beauty in watching all of Kara's friends and adopted Earth family come together to save her and Alex's desire to go into Kara's mind and bring her out of her Black Mercy induced fantasy was a bold one to say the least since there was the chance that Alex might not make it out alive. These people genuinely care about and love Kara and I'm always a fan of seeing everyone put aside their differences for the greater good.  

But the part that I enjoyed the most about last night was the focus on loss and regret, since the Black Mercy managed to draw out Kara's deepest regrets when it came to her fantasy world. Sure several characters referred to it as her version of "heaven" but there was nothing heavenly about it when you really take a moment to reflect on it all. At every turn she was faced with a world long gone and emotions that she had spent the last twelve years dealing with, which makes the incredibly raw fury that Kara exhibited when she came out of the whole thing all the more impressive. We've never seen Kara this angry or this focused before and it gave that final battle with Non all the more gravity because holy cow...she beat the tar out of him and well, how could you not root for her or cheer every time she slugged him? He deserved it.

Yet the surprises didn't end there. In the midst of all this quality writing, this episode dropped a game changer on us as well...the death of Astra. I honestly did not see this coming at all, much less at the hands of Alex. We know she's tough, we know she's a badass, but last night she crossed one hell of a line and while Hank took the fall for putting down Kara's aunt, at some point she is going to discover her sister was the one responsible and considering that she and Astra made amends...well I've got a bad feeling that discovery won't go well. Either way, I'm still beaming over this episode. It was beautiful, it was haunting and tragic and one that quite frankly, I think needs several viewings to truly appreciate all the little nuances that went into every single second and one that in my mind, cemented Supergirl as one of the best shows on television this year. Until next time.

There can be times when you just want to keep to yourself and not let anyone else in.  These times can be good to clear your head, but if you decide to live your entire life this way, you will be alone and never be able to figure out why.  I jump on and off of this boat quite frequently these days, but it usually only happens for a couple day period and then I am dying to talk to somebody.  It is always safer to walk with your head up and acknowledge the people in the world around you, just so they know you want to be a part of it.

Melina Kroner is living the life she always wanted.  With her dog and her fiancé, she has nothing left to prove to the world, but it seems to want something more from her.  After nearly being hit by a speeding car, Melina curses the driver and heads home, but there is someone following her on the way.  A strange bus is watching her, but she is not willing to get on and wants to get home to her fiancé Adam and let him know what happened.  Although Adam is upset she was walking the dog, he gets over it since the two are slated to be married soon and he knows that the bride to be is always right, no matter what.

While getting her dress fitted, Melina finds out that her registry has been taken out of the computer.  Not understanding what that means for her wedding plans, she continues on with her daily routine, but that bus is still showing up and the driver says that they are waiting for her.  Knowing something strange is happening now, Melina comes up with a theory of what happened to her and is passing it on to anyone that will listen.  With her mother and Adam not believing the farfetched story that she was killed by the speeding car, they do see that wedding stress is getting the best of their girl and want to help her in any way that they can.

Getting a cup of coffee with Adam, the barista knows Melina by name and claims that she trained her.  Melina denies this with all of her might since she is an English teacher and the girl must be wrong.  Trying to get the coffee cups refilled for her and Adam, Melina is astonished to see that one cup has gone missing and so has her fiancé.  Running home to find him, Melina sees all of her pictures in the house have been changed to just her and her dog, Adam is missing from all of them.  Starting to accept her own theory that she is dead, Melina sees the bus outside of her house and goes to talk to the driver.  Even though he wants her to get on, he is not able to force her to, but when he pulls away Melina is left to see an accident that happened earlier in the evening.

A very mental heavy episode as you are not able to determine what is real and what is not.  Melina knows that her life is great and with everything going her way, she does not have time to die.  But this bus that is haunting her is making her have second thoughts, and when things start changing in her daily life, it becomes apparent that she could be imagining the entire thing.  Staring Ione Skye as Melina, Dylan Walsh as Adam and Art Kitching as the Bus Driver, it is an easy story to get caught up in and wonder what might be really happening in your own life.  There is nothing wrong with making the extra move to try and make things a little bit better, or to make something just flat out happen so you know you are alive.

Horror is always at its best when it gives life to the most mundane parts of our day and makes them chilling and creepy. I say that because we've all been there after seeing the right kind of scary movie or television episode. You know what I'm talking about, where you go to do something simple later on and instantly recall that eerie moment you saw on screen and feel a shiver run down your spine. 

One show that's always been solid at making that happen is The X-Files and this week's episode, "Home Again" decided it was high time to give us something routine to fear once again, while at the same time...taking us deep into Scully's mind and emotions in powerful fashion. In fact, the contrast of this episode took me off guard in a good way to be honest...but I was not expecting a mix of horror and genuine emotion but as always the show managed to deliver on both fronts in what turned out to be another freak of the week episode. 

This go round the scares came in impressive fashion from a being known as The Band-Aid Nose Man. While that name may make you snicker at its over-the-top-ness, his presentation was in no way as hilarious as his name. This creature was a defender of the homeless and well...as gross as they come. He reeked of garbage and oozed green goo but what matters...is that he was terrifying. He always arrived by way of a garbage truck, appearing from the back of it and what was equally more impressive was the fact he could tear his victims in half with a flick of his wrist. Every single moment this guy was on screen was handled in creepy fashion as he appeared from the shadows of darkness to avenge people who cannot fight back and he was at his core a vintage X-Files monster. I love the fact he more or less is a product of imagination willed to life and I love the fact we never quite know if he is gone for good or not. 

But as I mentioned before there was an emotional side to the story as well by way of Scully and the surprising storyline of her mother's death. This was a well done piece of storytelling as we watched Dana do her best to be the anchor for her family, and herself really as her mother's health slipped away following a major heart attack, and well, I was quite surprised to see the unflappable Scully be broken down by this event. I don't mean that in a bad way, losing a loved one is a horrible thing, but to see Scully demand to go back to work, and to see how this moment begins to put her life and her choices into perspective was powerful stuff. Kudos to Gillian Anderson for delivering an incredible performance along the way, but one has to wonder now...is Mulder and Scully's son William going to reappear on the show? 

After all this is the second time now that their estranged son has taken center stage and those little moments where Scully saw "William" on her phone before realizing it was someone else, and her long talk with Mulder makes me wonder now if their son is going to pop up in the season finale in a couple of weeks as the conspiracy brews in the background of the story. Either way, I really did enjoy this episode. It's not the strongest that season ten has offered up to us, but my gut is telling me the Scully storyline was super important and while it may not have advanced the conspiracy storyline, it sure was a lot of fun seeing a creepy as hell monster return to the show's center stage and I know that from now on, I'll never hear the song "Downtown" the same ever again, or trust seeing a garbage truck driving around in the middle of the night. Until next time.

If you were able to travel back in time and change something horrendous that happened, would you do it?  Most people would say yes, since there have been so many tragedies over the years and if you are able to save a handful of lives, it would be worth it.  But what if you give it another thought, what if what you do will cause the tragedies to happen?  It is one of those things that nobody seems to think about when this topic comes up, you could be the cause rather than the solution. 

Andrea Collins is being sent back in time with one purpose and one alone, to kill Adolf Hitler before he is even able to walk.  With the right DNA structure to travel back in time, she is on a one way trip to change history and save sixty million lives.  She has no regrets for what she is about to do and will make sure she accomplishes her task at all costs.  But when she arrives in a little town outside of Germany, her attitude begins to change. Arriving at Alois Hitler’s home, Andrea is masquerading as his new house keeper to get close to the child.  Finding out that Alois has already lost three children, his newest baby will not be with someone he does not trust.  As Kristina is the baby’s primary care giver since Klara Hitler has become ill, Andrea needs to find a way to get close to the baby and put an end to his tyranny before it can even begin.  Trying to suffocate the baby, Andrea is confronted by Klara and finds out all of the trouble that has taken place in the house, especially with the spirits.  Thinking that Klara is off her rocker, Andrea retreats to her room and makes a plan for the next day.

Only having two days to accomplish her task, Andrea is against the clock and when an opportunity to go see Richard Wagner is dangled in front of her, she has an even better idea.  Convincing Alois to take Kristina with him instead, Andrea will have enough time to take care of the baby without anyone being able to stop her.  But when entering the room and seeing the eyes of the other Hitler children that have died, she has a break down and has to change her approach once again.  Heading downstairs and seeing Klara reading in the lounge, Andrea begs the baby’s mother to take her son and leave the country.  Klara does not believe a word that her new house keeper is saying and dismisses it as a crazy rambling. 

Her final day before the real house keeper arrives upon her, Andrea has still not been able to carry out any of her plans, so she is down to the wire.  When Alois Hitler is having his higher ups over for dinner, Andrea hears the baby crying and knows that this will be her last chance.  Telling Kristina to care for the guests while she will care for the child, Andrea does the only thing she can think of.  Taking the baby under her arm, Andrea runs to the nearby bridge and jumps in to the river killing herself and the baby.  Beside herself, Kristina has to find a way to bring a baby back to Alois or she will be dead as well.  Needing another baby, Kristina has little options but to improvise to save her own skin for the Hitler family, but will someone else’s child make that much of a difference?
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An intriguing take on something that has been talked about ever since I can remember, and probably even longer.  If Hitler could have been killed before he took power, would it have changed the world so drastically?  I am up in the air about this subject and this episode says no since there is another baby that is invited into the Hitler family that turns out to be the Führer that changed the world.  With Alois’s teachings and rantings about how bad the country has become, it is easy to see where Adolf got his values.  Starring Katherine Heigl as Andrea, James Remar as Alois Hitler, Nancy Sivak as Klara and Jillian Fargey as Kristina, this cast delivered something that I rarely see in a television show, the emotions of what could happen if you truly wanted to change the world.  Each character does their part, but you never get to see any sympathy towards the Hitler family and why a situation like this could be so difficult to go through with.  

No matter who you are, you have to agree that deadlines suck.  Some people are able to prepare for these, but most of us hold off until the last minute and have to work our butts off to make sure everything is done at the last minute.  Deadlines are especially hard for writers who are experiencing writers’ block, as most of us know, there is no way to force a story if it is not there.  But there is another profession that I have not thought about, the artists who are on the same time schedule who need inspiration to draw.  It is the same for them and although I am not able to draw, not even a decent stick figure, I know the troubles that they feel, especially when they do not have any inspiration.

Andrew Lomax is trying to get into the spirit of things once again, but is having a hard time getting inspired.  After his first graphic novel made the New York Times Top 100 list, he knows that his next project will have to be something out of this world.  Failing to come up with any ideas that will work for him, he starts daydreaming about a woman that could be his muse and get him through this hard time, but he needs something more.  After throwing away another page, Andrew looks at the drawing he has made of his dream girl and she suddenly comes to life.

After making love, the two sit at Andrew’s drawing table and try to come up with an idea of what he can do to top his last novel.  Knowing that this new idea is exactly what he needs to break his writer's block, Andrew is inspired once again and gets back to work.  Between drawing and making love, Andrew knows that he will make his deadline without a problem, but when he sees his dream girl outside of the house flirting with the cable man, he knows he will have to start laying down some ground rules for his girl.  After Sondra leaves the house in a huff, Andrew finds a way to track her down at the local gas station and sees that she is pursuing her own intentions. 

Being frustrated, Andrew sees Sondra sitting at his table and working on the graphic novel he has been slaving over for the past few days.  Even with the proper technique being used and the fact that her drawings as good as his, Andrew wants to make sure that his dream girl will respect his wishes and not those of someone else.  But when he hears Sam, the cable guy in the back room, Andrew has to come to terms with what is happening to him.  As he tries to be angry with Sondra, he has to be receptive to what she is telling him about what is really happening.  When he knows that Sondra will not respect his wishes of being his dream girl, he threatens to erase her, but what he does not know will change his outlook on comics and love for the rest of his days.
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After meeting several artists and authors over the years, I can see how easy it could be to get caught up and need a muse to keep the fresh ideas flowing.  Thankfully, none of these people have told me that they have experienced this kind of event…yet.  It is hard to keep your eye on the prize when you do not have someone giving you a helpful push to greatness, I mean, ideas run out after a little while and you need to find them somewhere. One could see this as a depressing episode, but I see it as a glimmer of hope if you are able to create someone or something that can help you get out of your rut, and if that idea becomes toxic you should let it go, rather than taking it out on those people that you have real feelings for.  Starring Adrian Pasdar as Andrew and Shannon Elizabeth as Sondra, you are able to feel the true pain of an artist when they both take to the screen. It is easy to look forward and see the end result, but when you start looking at the details, you may be dumbfounded with what you find.