Anna Pigeon 1.8 “The Death Grin”

The son of an influencer is found dead in the park, poisoned. Freida knows him, just to make things more personal.

And the influencer, a photographer, is kind of a bitch, dying of cancer, and has a boy toy. Mavis is…yeah. She’s a piece of work.

Buck, it turns out, is not her biological son. And she’s treating her daughter like dirt…but it’s pretty reciprocal.

Meanwhile, we have dead fish in the river, poisoned by sulfuric acid. Something bad is going on in the park.

Jesse, who has been offered a job in Arizona, is investigating and is shot.

Oh, and we have lesbians! Freida and Christina appear to be dating now. This show really needs a good secondary romance, too.

Critter of the week: Anna’s black horse. Because I can’t do the dead fish.

Anna Pigeon 1.9 “Nature vs. Nurture”

Critter of the week: A sick golden retriever.

Implausibility of the week: Anna’s New York City apartment is empty?

We find out more about Anna’s parents…and why she’s so screwed up. Abandoned with an aunt? Ow.

Jesse turns out to be a wanted criminal…for a pipeline protest that went wrong. (Yes, he recovers just fine from being shot). Now he can’t go to Arizona.

Of course, what’s going on in the park is…illicit pollution and water contamination. Should have known.

(We also get to see the horse and the cat. I want to pet all three of them.)

Cinema Disaster: Ancestral World

The most memorable thing about this movie is the fight choreography. This is not a compliment; it is memorable for being terrible.

Otherwise, we get average special effects, mediocre acting, and a thoroughly predictable “plot.” Well, storyline. I can barely call it a plot.

I’d love to say the actors do the best with the material given, but they really don’t. Jennifer Mischiati plows through her lines as Lantris and Ryan A. Phillips barely manages annoying as Prince Mairok. The King can’t be bothered to leave his throne and the bad guy could chew a lot more scenery.

Some events were so predictable as to initiate groaning. Yet, it had a certain charm to it. And for a typical ren faire movie the special effects are not, actually, bad at all. Except for the swords, which appeared to be made of cardboard.

As a mindless popcorn movie, I’ve watched far worse. As actual cinema…meh.

Anna Pigeon 1.10 “SOS”

Make note. When Anna leaves her horse, she ties him up correctly using a lead rope.

When he runs for the other rangers, his bridle has been cut, implying she tied him up incorrectly using the bridle.

I think that Spiridakos may be the only person who knows what she’s doing with horses.

This is the end of the season and also the end of the season…the park is heading for winter mode and most of the rangers are heading out. Anna gets an SOS and follows it, but it turns out to be the bad guys tricking her so they can hunt her down.

Apparently they’re involved in illicit uranium prospecting.

(CW: The dog is very sick. He doesn’t actually die, but…poor thing).

Cute moment: Cat in a barrel. The cat is adorable. And would absolutely jump into the barrel…

Killjoys 1.1 “Bangarang.”

I missed this Canadian work of…space opera/cyberpunk…when it first came out a bit over a decade ago.

The setting is the far future, the Quad Planetary System (the image is implausible, but I will buy a system with four inhabitable planets), run by a company so big everyone there just calls it the Company.

Dutch and Johnny are so-caled killjoys, which is what bounty hunters are called in this world. Dutch is a pretty ethical bounty hunter; she doesn’t take kill warrants. But Johnny finds out about one for somebody he knows…

(It’s his brother).

This comes with something I love: A snarky talking starship. I am a huge fan of sentient starships (this one is called Lucy) and a particular fan of snarky starships. I have a feeling that’s the only regular character I won’t be routinely yelling at while watching this.

It also comes with scenes and outfits that make my feminist and sapphic sides face off against each other. The first episode has a very male gaze moment and, of course, Dutch wears a lot of form fitting clothing. Mmm, but on the other hand, meh.

Killjoys “aren’t supposed to take sides” is another thing we find out. They’re going to take sides.

We got the Boxing Episode out of the way early.