The eras of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit can be broadly delineated into three: the golden era (Seasons 1-6), in which the show approximated actual television drama; the Captain Wacky era (Seasons 7-12), wherein Cragen rescued monkeys from basketballs, secret half-brothers pop up like wack-a-moles and Stabler kills approximately 70 people; the soap opera era (Season 13-18) that repositioned everything around Olivia Benson and gives every new character a tortuous drama-filled backstory while pushing out the older, better characters such as Cragen and Munch. Now we can add a fourth era, which I tentatively call the “Hey, We’re As Surprised By That Renewal As You Are” era. In a case of failing upwards, Michael Chernuchin of the now dead Chicago Justice takes over the showrunner reins and he brings with him the sense of listless apathy that pervaded Chicago Justice in spite of its good cast. Don’t get me wrong, SVU in its 908^th episode is still ridiculous, unrealistic, emotion-over-reason nonsense. Yet it’s missing the spark of righteous indignation that invests you in the bullshit, however, leaving the viewer bemused at best and annoyed at worst.

It’s not a good sign that a scene shoddily depicting Cuba (the trick to fake shooting Cuba: lighting things so it appears the Sun is sitting at the next door cafe) that ends with two guys forcing some dude into a van containing Ice-T is among the more realistic events in the episode. Forcibly repatriating a dude to the United States sets the plot into motion and those expecting “Gone Fishin’” to substantially address contemporary US/Cuban relations or more specifically Trump’s immediate reversal of Obama’s attempts to normalize will be disappointed. Then again, I’m not sure what you expected. SVU is long past the point of being able to articulate any real viewpoint; at best the show can mash-up current events, like “what if Brock Turner wrote that Google memo and was a mummy”. Ice-T’s quarry is a suspected serial rapist who fled the country right before DNA results confirmed his guilt. Benson’s relieved to see this notorious guy we’ve never seen or heard of before so she doesn’t much care that her sergeant abducted a man and brought him to the relevant jurisdiction. We’re told Byron Marks (played by some guy from Nashville who looks like a stand-in for Liev Schreiber) is charming and manipulative but from his first scene the character is played as a smug braggart, which makes you wonder whether the actor was originally cast for Gotham and ended up here on accident. He apparently picks up victims at farmers’ markets, rapes them and then pees on them as a show of dominance. There you are, ladies: another thing to fear. Not only are you likely to receive tiresome and inaccurate proselytizing against GMOs and vaccines by someone who believes breastfeeding a kid until they’re 12 is “natural”, you’re gonna be raped.

Although he’s a rapist, he’s really being charged for being a close talker.

Of the three victims, only one’s willing to testify and coincidentally it’s the recognizable actress. Amy Smart (Justified, Mirrors, Crank 1 + 2) moved on with her life to the tune of marrying a hilarious caricature of a man. He may as well be named Buford. Introduced sitting on the couch, watching televised bowling, with the remote in one hand and a beer in the other, Buford responds to his wife’s rapist being caught with a literal “whoop de doo”. His shirt has no sleeves and there is more sweat on him than Daniel Stern in C.H.U.D. It’s really a sight to behold. His wife testifying in court doesn’t just not sit well with him, he doesn’t seem to understand what the legal system entails. “She’s my wife, that makes it my decision” Buford responds when Detective Carisi points out technically whether an adult individual of legal competence can testify is up to that. He seems to think her participating in a court case about her violent rape will humiliate her in the eyes of his bar buddies. I have no idea where the fuck SVU is going with this character besides the shorthand of “Amy Smart’s life is, if anything, worse than it was in the immediate aftermath of the rape”, as the chances a beer drinkin’ TV bowling enthusiast doesn’t beat his wife are close to nil. He probably thinks her pointing out that Kevin Can Wait is a rerun constitutes as “back sass”. It’s a shame he never appears outside the initial scene, because in just the wardrobe choices he’s more interesting than anything on this fucking show the last three years. It would’ve been a good and well-supported twist if Amy Smart was poised to testify until her husband threw a bowling ball at her because she didn’t wash his favorite BBQ bib.

Pictured: every Trump voter’s sweat congealed into a…well, let’s say “sentient enough” being.

Enter: Peter Jacobsen, reprising not his SVU role as the guy who framed Donald Cragen for murder and tried to assassinate Dean Winters but as his wacky defense attorney character from Law & Order. Given later developments in the episode his presence sticks out like a sore thumb. It also does that because he’s one of those “funny” attorneys. While the antics are amusing at first, at a certain point I’m left wondering if I’m about to slide into a universe where I’m watching a courtroom dramedy about an unorthodox defense attorney. NBC could do worse than greenlight Dworkin!, like that fucking Will & Grace revival. He first argues that Ice-T’s actions could be considered torture, keeping a man locked in a van for hours on end. Then he moves that the Cuban government doesn’t look kindly upon American cops abducting people from their streets. ADA Barba makes the point, and this is kinda the episode’s point in general, that this guy is a rapist and therefore he deserves no benefit of the doubt, no rights, no privileges. He should be able to be subdued with a sock full of pennies, spirited away on a boat, placed in a human zoo and serving as entertainment to the idle rich. Because he’s a RAPIST. I think the precinct would be copacetic with it being legal for them to shoot rapists on sight. There’s never really a good cultural moment to approvingly depict the police state arguing that it deserves more power to curb the rights of people because they’re, like, REALLY BAD, but now really isn’t the time.

Cuba looks like every rum commercial I’ve ever seen.

While Byron Marks may not himself be a Cuban citizen, he is married to one and father of another, and they seem to have a vested interest in getting their husband/dad back. I like how multiple times Ice-T is pressed to admit that what he did might not be ‘legal’ and the most damning response he gets is skeptical looks. He may have earned the benefit of the doubt for being on the show for 37 seasons and this being the most action he’s taken in the last 19 seasons. “Gone Fishin’” should be more about what he did to ensure justice prevailed instead of the stupid ass detours the episode ultimately takes. Let’s cover one of those now! So Judge Johnny Sack (I KNOW) lets Marks out on his own recognizance, and like all criminals he does something really fucking stupid: he goes to Amy Smart’s house to apologize. She doesn’t take it well and Benson enters the situation with Smart holding Marks at gunpoint. Buford presumably went out for a six pack and it will take him well over an hour to walk to and from the bodega three blocks away. Benson went alone because season premieres need shitty stupid moments of the main character in some kind of danger or else the needle won’t move. It is nice to know the character has learned next to nothing after nearly two decades. We’ve seen this situation so many times before that we know exactly what Benson’s going to say. If you pull the trigger you can’t take it back, you’ll be undoing all your progress, blah blah blah. She’s not going to shoot him because it’s too late in the episode to do so. Were she to do it, it would be halfway through so there could be a court case about her shooting her rapist. This isn’t just knowledge from being a Law & Order addict, it’s simple pattern recognition.

“We need to talk.”
“About me illegally abducting a man from Cuba?”
“No, about your recent decision to dress like Batista from Dexter.”

In what seems like a real stretch, Amy Smart is allowed to recount the story of her rape to Marks’ wife in a nice conference room with the cops and lawyers in attendance. Witness tampering? I dunno. Unlike the assholes who write this show I don’t pretend to be a legal expert. Suitably horrified, she and by proxy the Cuban government drops their complaint and therefore what Ice-T did was not only legal but the right fucking thing. Dworkin and Barba works out a deal that keeps Marks in prison for at least 20 years. Yay! Now Buford won’t beat his wife to death with a bowling pin for “testimahfyin'” in front of “the Judge Judy that ain’t on TV”. She has a life of crushing submissiveness and positing “you wanna know how I got this scar?” to uninterested parties. That reminds me, previously in the show Dworkin argued that the kidnapping constituted torture because Ice-T kept Marks in a locked car in hot weather. It suggests to me a much more fruitful path: he leaves the perp in the car, guy dies of overheating. Take on the issue of dogs and babies dying in hot cars left unattended but make it about rapists because it’s Special Victims Unit. Maybe it wouldn’t be enough material for a full episode, but hey, it’d be a change of fucking pace.

“Gone Fishin’” feels like a missed opportunity to center an episode on Ice-T’s character, who is surprisingly not named Ice-T. Despite being on the show for 18 years, his spotlight episodes are minimal. Used to be he’d handle some of the gay episodes, because his son is gay and if you didn’t know that he will fucking inform you of that fact. Episodes that explored issues in the black community or ones that concerned army veterans (his backstory includes time with the Rangers) occasionally gave him a bigger role, but more and more he’s been given the Richard Belzer treatment of three snarky one-liners and that’s it. His last “storyline” was getting off his ass and taking the sergeant’s exam, finally addressing the fact that that slot hasn’t been filled for almost five years. Sure, Ice-T isn’t a great actor, but he can hold his own as evidenced by Surviving the Game and Leprechaun in the Hood, and more importantly Law & Order: SVU doesn’t fucking need great acting. It’s a slightly elevated soap opera with salacious content. The lack of utilization of Ice-T ties into the bigger problem that SVU is an ensemble show that has been, ever since Christopher Meloni left for greener pastures (or, uh, True Blood), contorted into a Mariska Hargitay showcase. None of these characters are dimensional enough to take on that role, Olivia Benson included.

She’s thinking “I really should’ve used that Mike Tyson guest spot as an excuse to quit the show.”

If judged solely on the main plot, “Gone Fishin’” would be a thoroughly mediocre of a once-okay TV show that long outlasted its natural lifespan. Yet this premiere include what promises to be an ongoing plotline for the season, prompting me to wonder how quickly I can get back to my previous level of alcoholism. Benson’s been through a lot of shit since Stabler left – she got promoted, she got abducted by the Joker (Pablo Schreiber), had to see her shitty half-brother go to jail, her beloved ex-partner we’ve never seen before turned out to be the father of Brock Turner, she bumbled through multiple chemistry-free relationships, and most importantly she finally achieved what all women/Benson wanted: motherhood. And because it’s SVU, the baby had to be the child of a sex trafficker and a prostitute who got burned alive partly due to SVU’s incompetence that the squad found at Bobby Elvis’ pornography ring. It makes more sense than Benson ‘getting pregnant’. You know how many pillows Mariska Hargitay would have to stuff under her shirt for filming?! ANYWAY. The spectre hanging over motherhood is the possibility of being a bad mom, or worse, the perception of being a bad mom. This happens in “Gone Fishin’” because her son, Noah, is a damn idiot. First he says he wishes his nanny was his mother. She wouldn’t be a bitch and make him go to school. Then he almost gets Froggered by a cab that for no fucking reason deliberately goes against the light and Olivia has to forcefully grab him out of harm’s way.

A soap opera has earned the right to use soap opera aging.

That’s it, right? You WISH. Halfway through the episode, the school calls her in to discuss the huge fucking bruises Noah has. Noah told them Benson gave them to him, and she all but calls him a shitty little liar until remembering the cab incident from before. Okay, so she did bruise him, but Noah left out a little thing called ‘context’. This whole subplot of the school investigating Benson as a child abuser could’ve been prevented if Noah added this little clause to the sentence: “she bruised me while moving me out of the way of a cab that was going to cream me”. Her career is going to end because her shitty kid, who has grown approximately 6 years in between seasons, doesn’t understand ‘nuance’. Of course, Benson doesn’t help her case by acting exactly like every abuser accused of a crime she’s questioned in the last 19 years. You can almost hear “how dare you treat me like I treat everyone else!” being broadcast off the tip of her tongue. For the cliffhanger, her old boyfriend Brian Cassidy (Dean Winters!) shows up to inform her that he’s un-retired, working for the DA’s office, and he’s working on a hot new child abuse case so hot even SVU can’t touch it. One, I’m not sure why the investigator is warning the investigated ahead of time what he’s doing. Two, either the DA’s office didn’t know they used to date, in which case they’re morons, or they don’t care that they used to date, in which case they’re morons. There’s no more a nonsensical soap opera twist they could’ve done short of having Chris Meloni appear at the door to tell Benson he’s investigating her and also Noah is actually a Stabler kid that got spirited away because there’s so goddamn many he can’t keep track of them. Thank Christ he’s busy doing…a SyFy show? Now THAT’s abuse…

Dean Winters ages like an opened bottle of Yellowtail left behind the radiator sometime during the run of CSI: Cyber.

An underwhelming main story combined with a maddeningly repetitive – seriously, we’re on like plotline #18 of “is there trouble with Noah????” – B-story makes for a shitty episode that gives me no confidence in the new joker in charge. Perhaps things will pick up when Ben Stone’s son, Peter, makes his way from cancelled Chicago Justice to this show or when Brooke Shields’ Inspector Javert character finally shows up. But I doubt it. Like, when has a situation ever been improved with Brooke Shields? No one who watched Suddenly Susan thought “that episode needed MORE Brooke Shields”. No, they said “get that David Strickland out of there!”. So just as Wish Upon told us, be careful what you wish for.

NEXT LAW & ORDOCKI: Bob Saget microchips his wife in the episode “America’s Funniest Invasions of Privacy”!

Revisit 1995 by way of 2003 with us in ‘Pride & Prejudice: A Latter-Day Comedy,’ a retelling of Austen’s most beloved classic set in the world of the Latter Day Saints. An interesting concept with great potential that was squandered on bland modernization and some very (VERY) questionable character choices. We apologize for the abundance of swearing.

Pride and Prejudice is directed by Andrew Black and stars Kam Heskin and Orlando Seale

The Good: 

A lot of gorgeous shots of Utah, which is a lovely state. The device of framing the story of Pride & Prejudice in a church setting was inventive and interesting, it had real potential. Unfortunately the opportunity was squandered in trying to make this film appeal to a broader audience. When you’re trying to split the difference between ‘hip’ and ‘traditional’ what you typically end up with is a Sears catalog of a movie.

There were a few funny beats – the news story hallucination, Jane’s constant Spanish guitar intro, but it wasn’t really enough to make us look past…

The Bad: 

…pretty much everything else. It’s not a good sign when a movie makes us nostalgic for the glossy but harmless sensibilities of ‘Material Girls,’ but this movie did. Elizabeth is unjustifiably rude and Darcy is a self-involved prig who pretends to read Kierkegaard at parties. We’ve all met that guy, NO ONE likes that guy.  This is not the Elizabeth and Darcy we all know and love.

The Ugly: 

The misogyny. I mean, wow. We understand that giving this movie a Christian backdrop changes the dynamics somewhat, but this film posits that all of the male characters, no matter how badly behaved, are already where they are supposed to be in life, and need no character growth or development. It’s the female characters who are expected to grow, learn, and change. And what is the lesson when it all comes down to it? Listen to men.

Then we have the Collins character. Oh, where to start? His tendency to “not take no for an answer” is canonical, sure, but here it is taken to extremes. His behavior is aggressive, vindictive, and borderline abusive. At one point he says “my mother told me that when a woman says no she really means yes.” Um, no, dude. She means no, and the GTFO is implied. But rather than calling Collins out for this behavior, Elizabeth rewards him by facilitating a relationship between him and Mary. She encourages her friend to pursue a man who has shown himself to be emotionally abusive. And this is where the movie lost us and lost all hope of redemption. We’re not okay with it, and we’re pretty sure Jane wouldn’t be either.

Verdict: 

wordless screams into an uncaring void

Austenland stars Kerri Russell, JJ Field, Bret McKenzie, Jane Seymour and Jennifer Coolidge. Directed by Jerusha Hess

The Good:

Keri Russell had marvelous chemistry and rapport with everyone, but with Field in particular. The immediate friendship between her and Jennifer Coolidge’s character was a delight to watch, and her empowering realization halfway through the movie made us stand up and cheer. Bret McKenzie was charming as all-get-out and James Callis, Georgia King, and Ricky Whittle took turns making us laugh. A lot. Eagle-eyed viewers could make a drinking game out of spotting the “set animals” and “Modest” statuary in the movie.

The Bad:

A lot of the dialogue was clunky and not all of it worked. I still suspect that Jennifer Coolidge wasn’t given a script, only told to “just be yourself.”

The Ugly:

Keri Russell’s clothes until about halfway through the movie. Wowsers.

Verdict:

Smart, charming, funny. A definite rewatch.

Podcast Music by Nicolai Heidlas

Podcast art by Josh Hollis

‘Clueless’ stars Alicia Silverstone, Paul Rudd, Brittany Murphy, and Stacey Dash. Directed by Amy Heckerling

The Good: 

Pretty much everything, from Cher’s bubbly kindness to the recurring joke of Josh’s penchant for Radiohead, there is nothing not to love about this movie.

The Bad: 

This was a reminder of a time when we all liked Stacey Dash. Were we ever so young?

The Ugly: 

Elton, the forefather of what would eventually become the Nice Guy™

Verdict: 

Squeeeeeeeee!

Podcast Music by Nicolai Heidlas

Brand spankin’ New Podcast art by Josh Hollis

In this episode, Beau and Sammi discuss the 2006 Ode to Celebrity Culture, Material Girls. Directed by Martha Coolidge, Starring Hilary Duff, Haylie Duff, Anjelica Huston, and Brent Spiner. Based (very loosely) on Jane Austen’s ‘Sense & Sensibility.’

The Good: 

Not Much, we’re afraid. Topping just over 2 hours, this movie is long, has very little by way of plot, and is a harsh reminder of how shallow the celebrity-worshipping culture of 2006 was. The only bright spot was a name-drop of Fred Durst and Tara Reid, which just goes to show that thankfully, we can outgrow things.

The Bad: 

All of it, pretty much. Not even Brent Spiner’s incredibly hammy performance could save this movie from itself, which insults the poor, the wealthy, and even the people in between.

The Ugly: 

The clothes, mostly. Some terrible stereotypes of gay men, hispanic women, and aspiring college students.

Verdict: 

Stale fart in an ATM booth

episode theme song ‘Back in Summer’ by Nicolai Heidlas 

THEN

Amara rips Lucifer out of Castiel in a pretty hilarious CGI Effect. All the corpses have no eyes cause Luci keeps flashing them. Crowley tries to stay relevant to the plot. Mary, Lady Bevell, the dearly departed Miss Watts.

NOW

The set of Twilight. Soft candlelight, white sheets, and missionary sex. Who knew Sammy was so basic? (Okay, everyone knew that.) A post-coital Sam tries to catch his breath in bed while Lady Bevell covers herself primly with aforementioned white sheets. PFFFT. I immediately dismiss this scenario, not because I find it unlikely that Sam would bed his kidnapper and torturer but because Lady B’s hair is PERFECT. If she’d just engaged in that Zesty Enterprise we call sex with a robust gent like Sam her hair would look like Russel Brand’s on his worst day.

She gently questions him, he answers some conversationally, but I’m too distracted by the fact that they’re drinking red wine over the white sheets. They’re going to lose their deposit. Lady B tries to pry further but Sammy grins and says “are we just going to talk all night?” Her expression can only be described as “oh, very well,” another thing that tells me this is a hallucination. While Dean will always own my heart you can’t look at Sam and think “Ugh, I GUESS he’ll do.”

Yeah, what a chore. 

Cas is in rural Missouri having a phone conversation with Dean back at the bunker. Dean asks advice re: Mary, telling Cas that while he’s happier than he thought possible, there’s a weirdness between him and Mary that he doesn’t know how to bridge. Cas speaks for the audience when he says “don’t make things needlessly complicated.”

Mary comes in as the call ends and asks for an update on Sam. There’s some cuteness with Mary not knowing what databases are (I’m pretty sure Databases existed in the 80’s, come on writers) telling Dean “our house didn’t have an electric typewriter.” Mary lets it drop that she heard Dean’s conversation with Cas. Mary wonders how she’s going to face Sam when they do find him, reminding Dean that she started their path into the Hunter life when she made the deal with Yellow Eyes.

Back to the sexy torture basement. Sam and Lady B are still abed, the candles are still burning. Lady B says it surprises her that despite the efforts of all the Hunters, monsters still run rampant through the country. Well, yeah. You may not have noticed on the map but America is kinda big. I doubt there are enough hunters per square mile to keep monsters at bay, not to mention between Lucifer, Crowley, Lilith and Leviathan their numbers have been thinned JUST A SMIDGE. Sam starts to remember his torture and snaps back to reality, where he’s still chained to a chair being interrogated by Lady B, or as I like to call her, The Devil in J. Crew.

As an aside, I’d like to point out this is what made Dick Roman such a great villain. His inherent whiteness. Like you know there’s a monster walking around in this white man’s skin but part of the monster was always Dick Roman himself. Same with Lady B, I think. There’s something so terrifying in her WASP-iness. Anyway, Sam is rightfully pissed and Lady B smugly informs Sam that the real torture is about to start before surveying the tools of “interrogation.”

Morning at the bunker. Mary comes in with a cup of coffee and I notice that she has acquired the Hunters Uniform of a plaid shirt and jeans. She tells Dean she had dreams all night, things she’d forgotten about, funny stuff that John did. She says he was a great father and Dean is trying so hard not to give her the heavy eye of the truly jaded. Thankfully, the phone rings. It’s Cas. He found a farm that was rented by an English lady. When Dean asks if he got a look inside Cas tells him it’s heavily warded. Dean says maybe he should have opened with that? Ah, Banter. He sends Dean the address and there is some back-and-forth on whether or not Mary is going with. Dean says he can’t do his job if he has to worry about Mom. I’m trying real hard not to get annoyed at Dean. I mean, she was a Hunter long before she was a suburban housewife and future sainted martyr. Please, writers, don’t have Dean spend the whole season patronizing Mary. Please. Anyway, she wins the argument and they’re off.

What’s her secret? She shops at Hunters r’ Us!

Back in the torture basement, Lady B is doing her thing. She says she wants names, locations and oh yeah let’s talk about you and Ruby. O-kaaaay. Sam looks wounded. I mean, he is wounded, but the other kind of wounded. He gives good puppy face. Lady B’s phone rings and she answers it, addressing someone named Mick. Mick is a fellow Man of Letters who says “you’ve been a very bad girl, Toni.” He says that she’s disobeyed orders, and has found the dearly departed Miss Watts, and informs Lady B that he is en route.

Some restaurant. Rowena is on a date, and her hair and clothes are on point, a modest soft white blouse and emerald-colored jacket. Green is definitely a power color on her, but then again I have yet to see Rowena in anything that didn’t make her look stunning. Does Ruth Connell look bad in any color? The makeup is, as always, a little heavy for my likes but she’s looking damn fine. She tells her date she ran away from boarding school as a girl to be a part of the Royal Ballet. Okay, sure. A familiar voice asks if she’d like more wine and hey we’re all so surprised to see it’s Crowley. No, we’re not. Ugh. I love Crowley, don’t get me wrong, but his storyline should have ended many seasons ago. So I will do my best to skim all the Crowley parts throughout this season because his plot lines often go nowhere and seldom tie into the larger story.

I might be a 300-year-old witch and occasionally evil but let’s not pretend that I’m not settling.

Crowley wants Rowena’s help locating Lucifer. Rowena just wants to settle down with a rich man and be left alone. I can’t say I blame her, but Crowley says he has a score to settle.

Cut to a ROCK MUSIC CONCERT. Thankfully we catch the tail end and don’t have to hear whatever hair metal the millennials now love ironically. The ROCK MUSIC CONCERT is for the not-at-all-generic aging rocker Vince Vicente, played here by one Mr. Richard Springfield.

In a lot of ways, I think Rick Springfield was perfect to play this role the same way Robert Downey, Jr. was perfect to play Tony Stark. And because he’s a human being and I am too, I won’t be making any facelift cracks, because why would I.

Vince doesn’t want to experience the wonders of Cleveland, despite his bandmate Tommy’s invitation. If you thought the novelty of Rick Springfield would be the sum total of this role, don’t. Springfield is a pretty good actor, and this scene is well played. He’s mourning for someone, a young woman, and it’s a nice transition to see Vince go from beaming onstage to brittle and shaken when he’s alone. This isn’t the brusque indulgent mourning we’ve seen on this show (from Dean mostly) but an older and more thoughtful grief. A decade has passed since his wife died, and Vince is going about his life on autopilot. He’s not the man he was, but he’s doing the only thing he knows how to do. It’s gracefully done, and I wanted to give Springfield credit. A breeze and some flickering lights tell Vince he’s not really alone.

Dean and Mary are en route to Torture Acres. Mary says that since she’s been dead for 33 years she’s the last person they’ll be expecting. Dean notes “you were good at this, weren’t you?” and she admits that she was. She reminds Dean that Hunters all end up the same way. Dean shakily tells her that her death changed John and that Sammy, when he was old enough, got out of the life. He proudly tells Mary that Sam went to Stanford. I love that Dean is still so proud of Sam for that. *heart eyes* Mary is incredulous that Sam had a chance to get out and didn’t take it. Dean tells her about John going missing, but nobody is mentioning Jess and I can’t help wonder why. Come on, we brought Mary back, let’s bring Jess back too. It has nothing to do with my crush on Adrianne Palicki.

Posh hotel suite. Vince should really ask for a room with less offensive wallpaper. He mopes around a bit before going to the bathroom and turning on the faucet. The water quickly turns to bluh-bluh-bluh-BLOOD which Vince unfortunately splashes all over his face before looking in the mirror and, predictably, screaming.

Maybe he’s born with it…

Turns out it was a SPOOKY ILLUSION, just before the framed photos start flying across the room. Vince is freaking out when a woman’s voice calls his name. Like Nick in Season 5, Vince is getting a visit from his dearly departed Jen. This seems to be a theme with Lucifer. I’d rather see a plot line about his preference for men in mourning than his beef with Crowley. Jen says she’s sorry for swallowing all those pills and Vince says he’s sorry he left her alone all the time. Considering Springfield’s own history, this can’t have been an easy scene. She says she can bring him peace if she lets her in and he immediately says a tearful Yes. And Lucifer has a new home! I wonder how long this will last? From what I recall Nick was only a temporary vessel and only Sammy was his “one true vessel.” I’ve had a long-standing theory that the show will end as a coda to the Season 5 episode “The End,” and keeping Lucifer in play only gives that theory life.

Rowena is doing her magic thing. To Crowley’s impatience, she says “It’s witchcraft, not google maps!” She found his location, but Rowena isn’t into any of the Lucifer revenge stuff, she just wants to retire to Boca with her sugar daddy.

Dean and Marry arrive at Torture Acres. Dean is going to poke around, Mary wants to go with but he asks her to stay and keep Cas company.

Cleveland. Tommy comes to see Vince and notices he’s awfully dressed up for rehearsal. While Vince is still drinking heavily, he’s standing straighter, his voice is firmer, and when Tommy asks if he has other plans there is a definite twinkle in his eye when he replies “I dooo.” I love that they’ve kept Lucifer as this charming rogue no matter who plays him. His eyes grow red and he knocks Tommy through a wall.

Dean tries the cellar door (hee) at Torture Acres to no avail before he realizes he’s now stuck in what I can only guess is a Devil’s Trap but for humans. And with a son-of-a-bitch, we cut to Lady B opening the basement door. Poor Sammy is looking pretty messed up. He tells Lady B to go screw herself. This seems to piss her off, and she produces Dean. Sam is stunned to see his unexploded brother (as Dean was the “bomb” that was going to take down Amara in the Season 11 finale) and Lady B smarms that while Sam can endure her torture, he won’t be able to endure seeing her attentions turned on Dean. OOOH he mad now.

Vince comes to Hell and tells Crowley to get off his throne. Crowley and Rowena freeze him and Crowley throws sulfuric acid in Vince’s face. Ouch. Too bad for Crowley, Lucifer isn’t going anywhere. He heals himself and Crowley vamooses, leaving Rowena in Vince’s dubious care.

Lady B cracks Dean in the jaw with brass knuckles and asks about Benny, “the vampire you befriended and released from purgatory.” Aw, I miss Benny. The point, I think, is that Lady B and her brethren see everything in black & white while the Hunters know there are many shades of gray.

While they have a few seconds alone, Sam tells Dean “angry spice” is British Men of Letters. Dean is confused until Lady B comes back to taunt them some more. The sound of a gun cocking from behind her is followed by a “get away from my boys.” Both Lady B and Sam are stunned, and Mary gives Dean the keys to his shackles. She takes a moment to be gobsmacked that the enormous lug chained to the chair is her little Sammy, which Lady B uses to her advantage, and a fight breaks out. Dean gets busy freeing himself while the women fight. For a moment the Winchesters have the advantage until Lady B activates a spell that seems to be choking Mary. She demands Dean drop the gun. Dean appears to relent but instead clocks Lady B in the temple, knocking her out. Mary is okay! Dean said he knew she was using her Chinese Mind Control technique because, contrary to what Lady B thought, he actually HAS been reading the books in the bunker.

Mick, the other Man of Letters, appears in the room with Cas. He tells Dean “well played” and looks impressed. He apologizes to the Winchesters and tells them that Lady B will face punishment back in London. Dean wants to mete out some punishment right here in the good old US of A. Mick says some of the BMoL suspects some kind of malfeasance amongst the American Hunters but does admit the Winchesters have been “partially” carrying on the MoL’s work since the American chapter was destroyed by Abbadon back in the day. After some tension, Mick extends the olive branch and gives the Winchesters his card, saying they want to work together. Lady B looks like she’d rather drink some of Crowley’s acid.

Bunker. A bucket labeled “Sandy’s Chicken” sits empty at the table and a very full Dean thanks mom for the feast. She laughs and says she would have cooked but “I…don’t.” Dean’s whole existence is rocked when she admits that the meatloaf he loved so much as a tot “came from the Piggly Wiggly.” However, all if forgiven when she asks “do you still like pie?” and produces a blueberry pie which Dean gobbles down disgustingly while Sam smiles painfully across the table. Looks like Cas still has the healing touch, as his face is now unmarred by Lady B’s efforts.

The Winchesters all agree that the BMoL are not to be trusted despite Mick’s olive branch. Mary suggests they “call the internet” and see what they can find out. Dean and Sam smile and tell her she was “so close.”

Vince (who I guess I should just start calling Lucifer) decides that Rowena will be a valuable prisoner. Rowena would rather be “sipping martinis with Republicans at the tennis club” but sadly that is not an option for her.

Sam knocks on Mary’s door. He’s brought her a cup of tea. He’s very cute and aw-shucks, all shoulder shrugs as he says he understands what it’s like to feel like you don’t fit in. Mary says she just has a lot of blanks to fill in. Sam nods and hands over John’s journal, saying he hopes that helps her. I guess it’s good John never talked about his love child in that journal, because I’m sure that’s *exactly* what Mary wants to read about. She is touched by the gesture and asks Sam why he came back to Hunting after getting out. He says “it’s my family. This is what we do.” Mary seems disappointed by this, but the Sam says, with tears in his eyes, “for me,having you here, fills in the biggest blank” and they hug. When did this room get so dusty?

As Heart’s “Lost Angel” plays Dean drinks beer and looks at family photos. In his hand is one of Mary and baby Sam, in his lap is one of him and Sam with Bobby. As Mary opens John’s journal, she sees John’s medals and a photograph of a group of Hunters, with Bobby being front and center. She looks confused, and I like that they’re trying to draw a line from their blood family to Bobby, who in the end was the real father to them. I imagine Mary will have some confusion as to why this trucker-cap-wearing junk man played such an important role in their lives.

Driving along, Lady B tells Mick she will not get on that plane. Mick insists she will, as her mission was to befriend and gain the trust of the American Hunters, as that’s what the Home Office wants. He says the Winchesters have also had their fair share of successes. Lady B insists they need to be eliminated and Mick says “if push comes to shove, I’m prepared for that.” Lady B can’t believe that Mick would get his hands dirty and Mick reluctantly says “Well, we have Mr. Catch for that.” The “psychopath” who Lady B was really afraid of. Mick tells her he’s already been sent for, and we see a man’s figure in a room, loading up a suitcase with lots of guns and knives. In the background, Tower Bridge!

Well, that’s it for this week. I might have to eat crow on my Mary/Cas shipping, but I hope to see more development between the Winchester family, even if that means some painful truths. Until next week, keep your salt and holy water close at hand.

But first, a word from the Department of Backstory. I’ve watched all 11 seasons of this show, sometimes faithfully, sometimes out of some feeling of obligation. Every season has its highlights, and there have been only a few episodes that were so bad I wanted to quit watching (I think the X-files might have only had one, Buffy had maybe three, Lost…well, the less said about that the better). If you’re wondering if I’m qualified to recap this show, I can assure you I am well versed in all 11 seasons. Here I am talking about it Crystal for the podcast!  So with all that said, let’s jump on in…

The Road So Far (Seasons 1-11) 

This episode does not begin with the ubiquitous Kansas harmonies of “Carry On My Wayward Son,” but rather with “Bad Boys” by April Wine.

THEN

Saving people, hunting things. A Brit (Wo)Man of Letters zaps Cas and shoots Sammy. Amara and God do their yin & yang thing and run off to start a folk band (I’m guessing) but not before Amara gives Dean the one thing he needs: his mommy! That’s right, Our Lady of Ceiling Fire, Mary Winchester, still in that very unbecoming white cotton sacrificial gown nightgown.

NOW

Mary, understandably freaked out and mistrustful, handles Dean pretty easily until some convincing on Dean’s part assures her that she is, in fact, IN THE YEAR TWO THOUSAAAAAND (and sixteen). I was dubious about this development at the end of last season. Mary has always been this rallying cry for the Winchesters, and throughout the show has been portrayed as being almost saintlike. I shouldn’t have worried, writer Andrew Dabb and Director Philip Sgriccia give Samatha Smith a chance to stretch this character’s legs a bit. The result is a refreshingly 3-dimensional and ultimately human Mary Winchester, so yay. There’s also been talk in the past (specifically somewhere around the season 4 Finale?) that Sam is “just like dad,” a theme that we’ve seen repeated throughout the seasons. We’ve seen this disappointment from Dean, who worshipped his (sorry, terrible) father and wanted nothing more than to be just like John and never quite could. Now, watching Dean interact with his long-lost mother, we see why. He’s just like Mary, and it’s pretty damn great.

Back to the Campbell family reunion, Dean has to break the bad news that Mary is back from the dead, 33 years in the future. With a litany of facts including John & Mary’s meet-cute, he finally makes his point that he’s her son, and with a touch, she realizes that it’s true. There’s a lot of focus on hands in this episode, particularly Mary’s. She pulls him into a maternal hug, and it’s pretty devastating.

No YOU’RE crying!

The Credit splash this year appears to be a brand on flesh, or perhaps it’s stone. We cut to a truck trucking along past cornfields, country music playing on the radio and a pretty hillbilly that would look perfectly at home here in Portland behind the wheel. There’s an external shot and we see, amusingly, a billboard advertising the (Unbelievable! Amazing!) Mystery Spot.

 A meteor zooms by and crashes in–I have to admit–a pretty neat effect. The meteor turns out to be Cas, who puts hillbilly hipster to sleep and steals his truck after verifying that he is a paltry 3 hours from the bunker. I can’t remember why Cas can’t Angel around anymore. I thought that was fixed? Feel free to remind me in the comments.

Campbell Family Values. Dean is breaking the news of John’s death to Mary, who is understandably distraught. She’s a little aghast that her hunky mechanic husband turned out to be a Hunter, and raised her children in the life. I’m SO HAPPY they’re pointing this out. In John’s life-turned-revenge-fantasy, did he never once consider that this is NOT what Mary would have wanted for her children? I maintain that John was a selfish person and terrible father, but now I have to consider that he might have also been a crappy husband too. To subject your children to years of neglect and (strongly implied) abuse only to have a son with another woman and be “dad” to that kid…I can’t think of a bigger way to dishonor the memory of Mary. BUT I DIGRESS. I guess John Winchester had his moments because Mary is really grieving for him. Dean recaps Mary’s previous appearances on the show, apart from that harrowing episode in Heaven where she was Zachariah’s galpal.

The Lady of Letters, who the show credits tell me is named “Lady Antonia Bevell” knocks on a door and a sleepy looking man answers. He’s a vet, it turns out, and she wants him to dig the bullet out of Sam’s leg. Poor Sammy is tied up and fairly bloody in the back of the SUV. The doctor balks at first, but Lady Bevell knows there are few problems that can’t be solved without throwing a bag o’cash at it, and the doctor agrees.

Elsewhere, Crowley inspects an eyeless corpse. He hides as a couple of henchdemons (one recently freed from a teenage girl and still having some residual d-r-a-m-a) arrive to dispose of said corpse before meeting “the big guy,” who we later find out is Lucifer. Yawn. As much as I enjoy Lucifer, if he ain’t Mark Pellegrino I can’t guarantee I’ll be interested.

We cut to a house that has seen better days (Supernatural’s favorite kind) and a sensible red heel as Lady Bevell paces and tells her child she’ll be home soon. She clearly hasn’t seen the previous 11 seasons. Downstairs, Sam is shackled to a chair and being watched by a sleek and dangerous Bronagh Waugh, who I last saw playing the wife of a serial killer on The Fall. Here, she’s called Miss Watts, though I’m not sure if that’s a joke since her job seems to be poking Sam with a cattle prod.

Lady Bevell tells Sammy she “just wants to talk.” Mmmhmm. I find a cup of coffee or a glass of wine to be far more effective in getting people to loosen up. Sam declines, telling Lady Bevell “I’ve been tortured by the Devil himself. You’re just an accent in a pantsuit.” Harsh, but, I’m not the one shackled to a chair.

Dean brings Ma Winchester to the Men of Letters bunker. She’s impressed and glad to be wearing actual clothes and not the shroud nightgown of death. They spot the bloody sigil on the wall and the trail of blood from Lady Bevell shooting Sammy. Dean gives Mary a gun and tells her to stay put while he investigates. While Dean is investigating Cas comes in and he and Mary are instantly suspicious of each other until Dean comes back. Cas says “Deeeeean!” and throws his arms around him, earning a look from Mary. Awkward introductions are made and Cas informs mother and son that Sammy has been moosenapped. Side note: who wants to start placing bets for a Mary/Cas pairing this season? I mean if you squint he kind of looks like young John so, maybe she’s got a type? There’s a cute moment where Mary and Cas are old fogeys together.

Mary: “Is that…a computer?”

Cas: “Yes. I don’t trust them.”

Yeah. Two tickets to Bonetown.

Speaking of Bonetown, Mary is reintroduced to Baby, and it’s a surprisingly emotional scene. She whispers “Hi, sweetheart” and I cry a little bit. Dean calls Baby sweetheart! She peers wistfully into the backseat and for a moment Dean is caught up in the reunion until he realizes she’s probably thinking about when he was conceived and is adorably squicked out. It’s so fun, so satisfying, getting to see Dean have these moments.

Back in ye olde torture basement, Ms. Watts has just given Sam a cold shower. And before you ask, yes, he’s fully clothed. Sam’s shivering like my cat after she gets a bath.

Lady Bevell is back and wants a chat. She explains that in Britain (emphasis hers) they don’t have Monster Problems™ because every inch of London is warded. We get a shot of what looks like actual London! I think that’s supposed to be St. Paul’s in the background. ANYWHOOO we are clearly getting the cautionary tale of a fascist regime because what about the monsters that aren’t so bad? I guess they get murderated too. I really hope Garth never goes there.

Lady Bevell wants to know the names & locations of all the Hunters he knows so they can be “taught.” She wants to “make America…safe” which tells me she’s completely missing the point of America. She saunters away and Miss Watts fires up a blowtorch. She asks Sam if he’s really going to make her do this and he tells her the same thing he told Lady Bevell: Screw You. Miss Watts shrugs and torches Sam’s little piggies in the grossest scene of the episode.

Commercial Break! Well, I’m sure excited about that Doctor Strange movie now.

More Crowley stalking henchdemons. Lucifer is hopping from vessel to vessel. Crowley kills the demons, who are gratingly inept. Remember a time on this show when demons were scary?

Dean, Mary and Cas find Lady Bevell’s driver. Cas roughs him up a bit until they get the info they need. Cut to Miss Watts telling Lady B “no one can take that much pain and not break.” She offers to kill Sam, quick and clean, or Lady B will have to “make the call. Bring in Mr. Katz” – she could be saying Mr. Catch or Mr. Ketch but looking forward on IMdB I think it’s Katz. Lady B is visibly shaken and says she won’t have “that psychopath” anywhere near her. Since they can’t break Sam’s body (they don’t call him Gigantor for nothing) Lady B decides they’ll have to break his mind. She produces a syringe filled with what looks like gold glitter glue.

Mary and Cas have coffee and she confesses how weird it is for her to be back. Dean interrupts just as Mary spots the vet, Dr. Marion, from earlier arriving home. They’ve been staking out his house/practice. Dean stalks up behind him (I am distracted by how pretty the Hydrangeas are) and does the menacing thing until they’re in. Mary is a little grossed out that Dr. Marion took money to dig the bullet out of a man who’d clearly been abducted. He tells them “everything he knows” but he’s no match for Mary’s mom gaze. Surprise! Dr. Marion has a phone number.

Basement of Perpetual Torture. Sam comes to, examines his ouchies, including a new puncture in his neck, and starts to explore his environs now that he’s been unshackled. Lady B and Ms. Watts watch on a monitor, Ms. Watts says she doesn’t think it’s working but Lady B assures her it will. Her iPhone rings and shows “Dr. Marion” calling, which seems like a rookie mistake to me, adding his number to her contacts. She answers and is rightfully suspicious. Just before she hangs up Dean grabs the phone and growls that she has his brother. Only the slight grinding of her molars gives away her anxiety. He promises that when not if he finds her, if Sammy is not in one piece he will take her apart. Lady B hangs up and Dean snaps the doctor’s phone in two. 

I don’t understand why I find this hot but I do

Lady B is now panicked. She tells Miss Watts “We have a problem.” You have no idea, lady. Sam tries the cellar door to no avail just as someone starts playing waterbowls in his head. He sees ghosty no-eyes Kevin, Mary on the ceiling, Jess. Dean explains to Mary that he can trace the number just as a SUV blindsides Baby, knocking Mary out. Miss Watts makes her presence known.

Lady B watches Sam stumble around the torture basement on the monitor, looking increasingly uneasy. When Sammy punches a convenient mirror, she flinches. He picks up a hefty shard and drags it across his throat, collapsing in a pool of blood. Yikes! Lady B says “no no no no” in that way people do when they’re at someone’s house and the toilet starts backing up. She grabs the trusty cattle prod and races downstairs, at which point I question a) her intelligence and b) her sanity. Seriously, Lady B, have you never watched this show?  Carver Edlund wrote some pretty accurate novelizations if they don’t get The CW in Britian. Sam is, of course, a big faker, having cut his hand open to create the pool of blood. That old chestnut! He grabs Lady B but is no match for the Cattle Prod, and she scampers upstairs, locking him in once more. A for effort, Sammy.

Meanwhile, Miss Watts has a pair of enchanted brass knuckles and knows how to use them. It’s a pretty impressive fight scene between her, Dean, and Cas while Mary is still unconscious in the car. The boys are no match for her (part of me was really rooting for her, I don’t know, she could have been a fun character to keep around) but just as she levels Dean’s gun at his pretty head Mary stabs her through the heart with Cas’ Angel sword. Talk about an October Surprise! Later, Mary is looking at her hands, rubbing them together as if washing them, even though they’re clean. Dean asks if she’s okay and she says she’s really not, which is a decision I approve of. She’s taken a human life, she shouldn’t be okay with it, but Mama bear is going to protect her cub. The episode ends with Mary feeling uncertain, Dean feeling desperate, and Sam still locked up. All in all, a decent return to form! I’m looking forward to the season, the implications around Mary’s return, her eventual reunion with Sam, whether or not she and Cas will make smooshy faces, and Rick Springfield as Lucifer I suppose?

What did you think? What are your predictions for the season?

Recommendations: Have Mercy by Shelley Ann Clark, The Bluestocking and the Rake by Norma Darcy, An Unexpected Song by Rika, The Luxury Gap by Sharla and Echoes of Pemberley by Cynthia Ingram Hensley

Song Credit: “Oh, Mr. Darcy” by The Doubleclicks

They also discuss Austen’s lasting legacy and untraditional variations of Pride & Prejudice.

Recommendations for this episode: A Searing Acquaintance by J.L. Ashton, and the many works of Abigail Reynolds, Lady Bridget’s Diary by Maya Rodale, At the Edge of the Sea by Karen M. Cox

So what happens when characters that not even comic book fans really recognize or want to see on film make that leap to the big screen?  As we saw last year with Guardians of the Galaxy (yeah, comic fans nowadays HEARD of them, but no one was clamoring for a movie), fricking gold.  I didn’t know much, if anything, about the intergalactic squad of misfits, but when I heard the description of characters and whatnot, I was all in.

Not even a year later, Marvel’s Ant-Man is hitting the big screen, and fanboys have been howling online as to why he’s getting his own movie before other, more “worthy” characters.  Though, at the same time there has been a large group of vocal supporters, mostly due to the fact that the project has been long percolating even before the creation of Marvel Studios as we know it.

Edgar Wright, co-writer and director of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End worked with partner Joe Cornish on the script for damn near a decade.  The reason given was the same old “to get it right.” However, one can assume with Wright’s busy schedule and the changing face of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he had to keep altering it to be in line with everything.

Finally it was as fast-tracked as this project could ever get, and it was actually starting to catch some buzz (except from some of those pesky fanboys).  Ultimately, however, after Wright and Marvel working together for longer than most Hollywood marriages, it ended in the same way when Wright left the project.  From the sounds of it, Marvel really liked Wright’s vision, but wanted it Diet Wright (Now With More Marvel).

Peyton Reed (Bring it On, Yes Man, Down With Love) took over and star Paul Rudd did a few rewrites with Adam McKay (like every Will Ferrell movie ever).  These changes brought on some added worry for the project, but if I’ve learned anything from my time being a nerd who’s WAY too into movies- the gambles are the big pay offs.  Usually.

And in Marvel’s case, I think the changing of the guard, so to speak, is a welcome one.  The general public and geeks might still love Tony Stark and Robert Downey Jr playing the character, but there is some fatigue growing in regards to his solo silver screen escapades.

After all this set up, does Ant-Man deliver the goods and shut up the detractors?  You’d be hard pressed to find a lot of fault with the movie.  It might not be their best effort, but Ant-Man is the most FUN Marvel Studios has had this side of Rocket Raccoon in a long time.  There are moments that had an auditorium full of people laughing, and others that had them engaged in the action.  I was definitely one of those people.

We begin in the late 1980’s with a really bad CGI de-aged Michael Douglas as Hank Pym, a character who was the original Ant-Man and in the comics the creator of bad guy Ultron.  He’s having a meeting with Agent Carter (gorgeous at any age), Howard Stark (once again played by Mad Men guy), and some asshole who plays the role of mean business suit guy who wants to use powerful technology for nefarious reasons.

Pym tells them all to blow it out their ass and takes with him the Pym Particle, a substance used to decrease the distance between atoms (shrinking formula).

Fast forward to the present day and Scott Lang has just been released from prison for burglary (he’s one of the nicest criminals cause he’s like Robin Hood), and he tries to stay straight despite going back to hanging out and living with the kind of people that could make him relapse.  And he does, supposedly to loot a rich man’s vault in which he only finds a suit with a helmet.  So he takes it anyway.

You guessed it…it’s the Ant-Man suit!

Pym and Lang end up joining forces with each other and Pym’s daughter Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly, of who I am becoming a BIG fan) to steal tech from Pym’s usurped company that tries to replicate his shrinking shtick.  The culprit is Pym’s former protégé Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) who has such bad daddy issues with Pym one wonders what kind of messed up bullshit he had with his real father.

The normal hootenanny goes down of good versus evil with the twist of a heist movie, and a hero who can telepathically talk to and work with various species of ants.  And it really worked for me.  I like the characters and the actors cast to play them, especially Rudd who went to the Star-Lord school for heroism it seems, and most everyone else has their moments, too.  This flick also has the addition of a youngling in the form of Lang’s daughter, Cassie, a first for a Marvel movie to have a familial tie such as this.

The weakest point is probably going to have to be the villain.  Stoll is a great actor, and the Yellowjacket suit he eventually dons looks rad, but the daddy issue and businessman motivation is a little thin.  Though, if this movie does explore one thing I think is interesting it’s that those are the very people pulling the strings a lot of the time.

Sure, there are people transformed by circumstance and substances, but it’s the men and women in formal wear who are really mucking up the world (and universe). Captain America and Hulk might be very different super soldiers cut from the same cloth, but they are both the result of military desire.  Black Widow is who she is because of manipulative folks who want a weapon.  And Ant-Man and his foe are both essentially the pawns of others.

Talking with some friends after the movie, I’m a little disappointed in one regard to having the Marvel slate of movies laid out for the next couple years.  While there’s a Guardians sequel coming our way, Ant-Man is so far (as far as we know) being relegated to cameos or seemingly minor roles in that slate.  But I’d much rather see another Ant-Man than I would a Thor or even Iron Man.

My only fear, however, is that by the time we perhaps do get a direct sequel to this, the property will suffer the same fatigue and become another version of those heroes where we see them playing it just a little too safe.  For now though, Ant-Man is straddling the line quite well, and even though there might be a better, or at least different version we will never see, this one is good enough that we won’t think about it all that much.

P.S. – Marvel is back to form with a scene at the very end of the credits as well as a mid-credits bit.  Both are pretty sweet in their own right, and go to further both Ant-Man and the greater MCU.

Now, to recalculate the Marvel Movie Standings as has become tradition.  Where do I have Ant-Man fitting in with all the others?

1. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
2. The Avengers
3. Guardians of the Galaxy
4. Iron Man

5. Ant-Man

6. Captain America: The First Avenger
7. Avengers: Age of Ultron
8. Iron Man 3
9. Thor: The Dark World
10. The Incredible Hulk
11. Thor

12. Iron Man 2