Catching Fire (2009)

*Premise spoilers*

Rolling on through to Catching Fire. I’m really loving this reread, all the little details that are jumping out in hindsight. Let’s get into it!

After the events of The Hunger Games, Katniss is back home struggling with how to move forward. Her bold move in the Arena is fanning sparks of rebellion in a number of districts, and on the eve of her shared “Victory Tour” with Peeta—with whom she has to continue the ruse to the Capitol that they’re madly in love—the president personally lets her know that the lives of everyone she loves will be on the line if she can’t do her job as Capitol puppet and pacify the masses.

Look, Catching Fire is just that girl. She really is. For my money, this is the most uneven book in the series. The great parts are positively scintillating, the type of story and characters that itch my brain so good! If it was like that all the way through, it’d be duking it out hard with Sunrise on the Reaping as my favorite. But there’s a stretch in the middle, between the Victory Tour and the announcement of the Quarter Quell for the 75^th Hunger Games, where it feels like the book is spinning its wheels. I understand Katniss’s conflict as she feels stuck between her fear of the Capitol and her guilt at not using her position/influence to make more of a difference, but the narrative result is kind of clunky. We spend several chapters watching Katniss change her mind back and forth, and it’s all tied up in a bunch of love triangle stuff, which is a weak point of the trilogy anyway. It works a little better for me on reread, but the middle section’s issues still stand out to me.

My first time reading it, I remember that it took me a long time to figure out what the book was actually about. Early on, I figured it’d be about the Victory Tour, but that wraps up so quickly and we hit the wheel-spinning stretch. It’s not until the Quarter Quell announcement that it really zeroes in on its direction, at least for me. But once it does, everything slots into place and the book is basically firing on all cylinders from there. It’s fascinating to see how this Games differs from the one in the first book, from the pre-Games events to the tributes to the Arena itself.

I’d already liked so many of the characters in the first book, and this one introduces a whole host of interesting new ones. It’s also cool to spend significant time getting to know characters from other districts. In The Hunger Games, we mainly know the District 12 crew, some of the Capitol folks, and Rue, getting much smaller glimpses of everyone else. But here, there’s a lot of neat stuff for Finnick and Mags, for Beetee and Wiress, and for Johanna. I love all these characters, and that love has only grown over time. They’re not just functions of Katniss’s journey either—we learn details of some of their backstories, and we’re able to make our own emotional connections with them.

Catching Fire is probably the book I was most excited to revisit this time around, for obvious reasons. It’s so neat to return to our introductions to characters who play such major roles in Sunrise on the Reaping, to look at them through the lens of what I’ve learned about their pasts. For that reason—and the Quarter Quell in general—I’m guessing this one will wind up being my favorite of the reread.

Warnings

Violence (including against teens,) strong thematic elements, disturbing images, sexualization of teenagers, and drinking/drug references.

Y tu Luna también: Trollhunters: Season 3, Episode 9 – “In Good Hands” (2017)

*Season 3 premise spoilers.*

*Note: Diego Luna’s character in this franchise has so much autism. I did my Tales of Arcadia rewatch and wrote these reviews a while back, before I knew that I was autistic and got better at recognizing coded characters. So I never call the character autistic in these write-ups, but it’s obvious that so much of my love for him is related to his autistic-coded traits. When I get through posting all my Tales of Arcadia reviews, there will be an epic Unhatched Observations post coming!*

I wasn’t sure what I was getting into as I started Guillermo del Toro’s sprawling Tales of Arcadia animated franchise on Netflix. I knew that all of the shows featured the voices of some great actors, and I knew I was most excited for 3Below, which starred Diego Luna and Tatiana Maslany. After nearly three full seasons of Trollhunters, this backdoor pilot/teaser for what’s to come offered up our introduction to the protagonists of the franchise’s second series.

Quickly, the overall premise of Trollhunters: for centuries, a magical amulet has chosen the Trollhunter, the Chosen One “good troll” to do battle against bad trolls and other evil creatures, protecting their society from assorted magical threats. In the pilot of the show, a new Trollhunter is chosen, but entirely unprecedented, this time it’s a human. Enter Jim Lake, Jr., a teenager from Arcadia Oaks. The amulet gives him a magical sword and armor, and with the help of his new troll buddies Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!!, his best friend Toby, and his crush/eventual girlfriend Claire, he fights to keep both Arcadia Oaks and the underground Troll Market safe from the forces of evil.

By this episode, late in season 3, we’re elbow-deep in a whole series worth of plot arcs. The Trollhunter crew has just revived Merlin from some sort of magical cryostasis in the hopes that he can help them stop Morgana, the sorceress aligned with the Big Bad trolls. Merlin gives our heroes a laundry list of items he needs for a crucial spell, but collecting the items becomes more difficult when the principal recruits Jim to help out a pair of new students, the oddball siblings Aja and Krel. Jim, Claire, and Toby frantically try to keep the increasingly odd new kids distracted as they search for everything Merlin needs.

Since I knew there was overlap between the different Tales of Arcadia shows and again, all the series have a strong voice cast, I decided to watch the whole thing from start to finish. I’ll be honest, I find Trollhunters on the whole to be enjoyable but kind of unremarkable. It certainly has its moments, and if I was a tween, I’d probably like it more. But generally, I wasn’t wowed. As I made it to season 3, I started to get antsy waiting for this episode.

Cue “In Good Hands,” instantly my favorite episode of Trollhunters and a story that got me really excited for 3Below. Because Jim has missed so many days of school due to Trollhunter-related absences, the principal points out he’s in danger of having to repeat 10^th grade. He offers a bargain: because Aja and Krel, who are both “a little strange,” are having “difficulty fitting in,” the principal will smooth over Jim’s absences if he takes the new kids under his wing.

And what new kids they are! Aja and Krel are an immediate delight, bursting onto the scene with enthusiastic confusion and fascination. Tatiana Maslany voices bubbly, off-kilter Aja, while Luna voices her standoffish but brilliant little brother Krel. As soon as they’re entrusted to Jim, they run off to examine a bicycle and exclaim over Toby’s “robot teeth” (a.k.a. braces,) with Krel prying his mouth open so Aja can take pictures of them.

Side note: for the sake of spoilers, I won’t get into Aja and Krel’s “deal” until I start reviewing 3Below, but it’s blatantly obvious that something is up with these kids and it’s ridiculous that the Trollhunter trio writes off all their weirdness as them being “European.” Like, at this point in the series, they’ve met changelings, encountered situations of body possession, have used a mask that allows someone to essentially shapeshift into someone else, and dealt with their teachers accidentally getting dosed with this troll dust that made them act all feral. They know their way around the strange and unusual, is what I’m saying.  So to look at Aja and Krel’s bizarre behavior and simply say, “I think they’re foreign exchange students”??? Holy xenophobia, Batman!

That weirdness aside, I absolutely love Aja and Krel in all their cracked wildcard glory. Since we’ll be spending so much time on this franchise, I’ll do a character-of-the-week thing to go along with my Y tu Luna también reviews, and who better to start with than Aja? Krel’s sister has a definite quirky-girl thing going on, though I’d say she doesn’t quite so full Manic Pixie Dream Girl, just because she does have a bit of an edge to her. In this episode, it’s fun to watch her ask Claire if she’s a “council princess” (since her mom is a city councilwoman) and later hack into the town’s electrical grid. Maslany’s voice performance is instantly endearing and funny.

Krel presents a major contrast to his sunshiny sister. While their introductory scene portrays him to be relaxed and eager when he’s alone with Aja, putting him with the trio causes him to go stiff, standoffish, and a little suspicious. With a posture that brings to mind Brainy from Supergirl and an aloofness reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes, he examines the world around him with a guarded interest. Neither he nor Aja have much of a social filter, but while she expresses that largely through her exuberance, Krel comes across as more superior. When Aja enthuses over riding in an elevator, Krel drawls, “I am so bored.” He admits to being fascinated by Claire’s refrigerator—“How do you know the light goes off when you close the door?”—but also asserts, “I do not trust it.”

But despite not being as immediately cuddly as his sister, I still love Krel from minute one. Luna’s performance is terrific, hitting all the right notes of intelligent, wary, a bit morbid, and kind of arrogant. And again, funny. When the trio realizes they need Aja and Krel’s help to complete Merlin’s list, I love Luna’s matter-of-fact delivery as Krel explains what he’s built for them: “Capacitor—I made it from the microwave.” And when he needs extra metal for his contraption, he demands, “Toby, I need your robot teeth.”

For my first/last impressions, I’m going to do Tales of Arcadia as a whole, with additional notes as I finish each series. Here we go!

Recommend?

In General – At this point in the franchise, I would’ve said “maybe,” but this episode is a breath of fresh air that feels like a promise of really fun things to come. So it’s a definite “yes” to this episode, with an eagerness for the upcoming 3Below.

Diego Luna – Absolutely. Krel is fantastic, and a lot of that is down to Luna’s performance. This is a different sort of character for him, and he plays it so well.

Warnings

Gross-out humor, scary moments for kids, dark imagery, and some “don’t try this at home.”

Other Doctor Lives: Broadchurch: Series 1, Episode 7 (2013)

*Written in 2017*

Penultimate episode of the season, which of course means things kicking off in a big way, both in terms of the case and in the personal lives of the characters. As penultimate episodes go, I think it’s pretty decent: some strong acting, good tension, and reasonable intrigue.

The latest suspect in the case has brought an added wrinkle to the proceedings—outright accusing someone else, which has never really happened in the show thus far. Hardy and Ellie tag-team interrogating their two suspects, trying to figure out who knows what and how matters really stand between the two of them. Some personal hardships lead Hardy to reveal more of what went down in his past failed case, and Beth and Mark have an important moment between them.

Some good acting all around in the interrogations scene. All the actors involved do a fine job, and what’s more, the scenes demonstrate how Ellie is growing as a detective. As I’ve said before, this is a relief. I’ve appreciated her take-no-crap attitude for most of the season, but it’s a lot more satisfying when it’s backed up by smart police work. As for the two suspects, we’ve seen for a while that there’s something up between them, but this episode lays that out in the open, and it goes in a direction I wasn’t expecting my first time through the series.

It’s another episode where it feels like Jodie Whittaker doesn’t have a huge presence, but she makes the most of the screentime she does have. Beth and Mark find their grief over Danny, along with a handful of other complicating circumstances, putting a severe strain on their marriage, and they turn to Paul (the vicar) to counsel them. Whittaker is excellent in this scene, really stripping bare the depth of Beth’s loss; she’s in the throes of bargaining, and it’s heartbreaking for her to enumerate everything she’d endure if it would bring Danny back to her. At the same time, she’s wrestling with the future and desperately trying to get Mark to understand what she’s saying. Whittaker really nails the devastating, wrecked nature of it all.

*Written in 2025*

Before I get into David Tennant, I want to mention that Jonathan Bailey/Olly has some good scenes in this episode, most of which are with Hardy, so that’s cool! It’s fun to see them onscreen together in a situation where Hardy isn’t just perpetually annoyed with Olly’s existence.

As for Hardy, it’s a pretty strong episode for David Tennant, if not the best for the good D.I. himself. Hardy’s ongoing health issues are coming to a head, and when the chief supervisor gets wind of them, he feels a ticking clock to solve the case before he’s forcefully removed from duty. So we have a clearly-unwell Hardy painfully dragging himself around, cutting corners in his desperation to find Danny’s killer. He leans on Ellie to fill in for him when he can’t manage it, but then he undermines her when he gets in on the action.

But like I said, even if Hardy isn’t at his best, Tennant’s performance is excellent. I really like how he plays Hardy’s tired, matter-of-fact fatalism when Ellie tries to dissuade him from soldiering on with the case.

ELLIE: “You’ll kill yourself!”

HARDY: “If that’s what it takes.”

ELLIE: “No, it’s not worth dying for!”

HARDY: “Not for you, maybe.”

And like I said in my original review, we also get to learn more about how the Sandbrook case fell apart. As Hardy opens up about the details there, Tennant does a really nice job—he delivers the facts with a sort of stoic “what’s done is done” air, but at the same time, he can’t keep the regret from creeping into his voice. I especially love him urging another character to contact the family from that case, saying, “Just tell ‘em that I haven’t given up on Sandbrook and that the case is still open.”