but now I'm worried about supervolcanoes

[kindkit]

I finished watching S2 of Warehouse 13. I wasn't all that surprised when H. G. Wells turned out to be a sort-of villain. The thing is, I could never square her self-presentation as someone driven temporarily off the rails by grief with the fact that she murdered James MacPherson in cold blood. He was in handcuffs, no threat to anyone, when she ripped the protective crystal necklace off him, and it was making me absolutely nuts that everyone on the show (except possibly Artie) seemed to have forgotten that.

The trope of "I will destroy the world because of my devastating grief" and "no, I will talk you down because I know you're still a decent person inside" has been done before, and better (I was actually expecting them to lampshade it with some reference to Xander's "yellow crayon" speech, if only because Pete is enough of a geek that he must have watched Buffy, but they never did). Still, I did like the Myka-H.G. slashy friendship while it lasted, and I wouldn't be unhappy to see H.G. come back and actually reform. I do think story arcs should allow for redemption, and not just the heroic self-sacrifice kind.

Speaking of heroic self-sacrifice, holy crap, they killed Mark Sheppard Benedict Valda! Nooooooooo! I should have been expecting it from the instant they brought him back for the episode and made him nice (the sudden emotional connection between him and Pete was interesting, not to mention slashy, but just a teensy bit out of left field). Damn, I like Mark Sheppard and I'm sad that he won't be on the show anymore.

On the plus side, they got rid of Pete's annoying girlfriend. She was never anything but "Pete's love interest," with no significant personality of her own apart from the obligatory snarkiness that TV and movie writers mistake for Strong Female Characterization. I'm hoping her absence will also cut down on the number of Pete's half-naked scenes, because I do not enjoy them one bit. Mind you, I could do without all the het romances on the show, except Claudia/Todd, which I liked. It came closest to both partners having some personality, and it didn't involve nonsense like Myka (of all people) still being hung up on the high school football star she used to tutor.

The cliffhanger of Myka leaving made me roll my eyes a bit, because obviously she's not actually gone unless the show's going to be cancelled, which it isn't. TV Tropes doesn't seem to have a term for the faux cliffhanger ("what cliffhanger?" isn't quite right, nor is "pseudo crisis"), which is a shame, because "OMG is the show's main character GONE FOREVER????" is an all-too-common trope. Hint: the answer's almost always no. ETA: angevin2 suggests Like You Would Really Do It as the appropriate trope, and it's a good fit. The S2 ending is "Like You Would Really Do It" crossed with a cliffhanger, I guess.

Comments

[lemposoi]

Redemption via heroic self-sacrifice is a trope that has really come to bug me, for various reasons... I won't slam anyone who likes it, I know that if it's been getting on my tits, that's mostly just my problem. One reason is the association I can't help but make with the manga/anime trope of "gay/trans character turns straight/cis and sacrifices him/herself for a hetero/cissexual love interest/hero soon after" (Fushigi Yugi and Angel Sanctuary had the trans versions of this). I guess I also just dislike the whole idea that there are good people and bad people and you can't be either at different times, that good people never do bad things, and bad people never do good things. Willow's redemption could only happen because when she was bad, she was a different person. What's so difficult about the idea that a person can be a good person most of the time, and still do some terrible things under other circumstances, and not be someone else when it happens? Or vice versa. It's like the "be redeemed and become part of the group again" storyline is actually about allegiances rather than moral essentialism, though it's presented as essentially BEING "good" - "now we can trust you, because you've entered into a new social role/self which is under control and not threatening to us" - and the "be redeemed and die" thing is just about getting both vindication for how right the protagonist was, a chance to showcase the protagonist's mercy and understanding, and yet get to see the transgressor punished.