Reign Review: Season Two Episode One: "The Plague"

Reign's back! I'm almost positive that last season I ended up reviewing the entire second half of the season here on the blog as opposed to on my Youtube channel. I'm not sure if that will happen this time. I'll probably try to make more Youtube reviews, but I'm going to try and also start posting those videos here as well. I always mean to start doing that but don't. Maybe actually saying it publicly will force me to. Anyway, on with the episode...

We got so much of Mary and Catherine together in this episode, which is great for me. As I said all last season, Catherine is by far my favorite character, and Mary is definitely second. That may seem a bit odd since they're very different from each other, but I really love each of their character's. Plus, I really love how their relationship has progressed through the show, and that only continued in this episode. I love how Catherine fluctuates between trying to show Mary how to be a good queen to trying to gain power of her own at Mary's expense. They have an interesting dynamic that I always enjoy seeing played out.

I really enjoyed the conflict between the two of them in this episode. It's a nice topic to explore with Mary trying to figure out how to run a country while also sticking to her morals. I hope that's something they continue to explore in the future. It also makes me interested from what I know historically about Mary. I'm thinking about something happening significantly in the future from where the show is, but it's all rather interesting to me when thinking about Mary's character in the show.

I don't think it's surprising that the plague would, of course, enter the castle. I do have to say that the plague is such a nasty way to die, and this episode helped remind me how thankful I am that it's not an issue anymore. It was definitely on my mind that this storyline would really have no choice but to include deaths, but I wasn't all that worried about any major characters dying.

Pascal's death wasn't incredibly surprising either, since he hasn't been around long, but I would have enjoyed him sticking around. In a way it sort of felt like a cop out. Kenna and Sebastian were caring for him (which I thought was a nice little story), but that lasted almost no time at all thinks to his death. Nothing came from it except a sad death scene. I wish that had been something they carried out longer.

There was also the bit where they made everyone think Catherine was dying. Funny thing about this, I didn't really have much emotion when this happened. Catherine's my favorite character, so I definitely didn't want her to die, but I wasn't really bothered either. I think enough of me realized that there was no way they would actually kill her off, not like that at least. And I'm thankful for that too. She makes the show so much more fantastic. (I did love what Catherine decided to tell Mary once she thought she was dying.)

Francis and Lola are a storyline that I'm not entirely sure how to feel about. It'll be interesting to see if Lola and the baby leave or not. I just really hope they don't kill either Lola or the baby off in the plague to be honest because that would most definitely be a cop out. Them leaving kind of would too, and I don't really think they're going to do that. Leaving Lola and the baby at the castle is too good of an opportunity for drama. The only other thing to say about them I think is that I loved the scene where the baby was crying and Francis is awkwardly deciding what to do. That was pretty great.

Overall, I thought this was a pretty good episode. I look forward to seeing what happens next. I suppose we could still get a major character death from the plague, but I'm not really expecting that at this point. We'll see I suppose.

Life Post: "Relaxing" Day of Korra, Writing, and Homework

Today has been pretty great so far. Without having class this morning, I got to sleep in, which was amazing, and the new episode of Korra came out. I'm about halfway through right now. I want nothing more than to watch it, but I want to get my homework done and out of the way too. I compromised by watching it bits at a time, but I'm loving it so far. I really, really want to finished. (I just wish Nick's video player wasn't so cranky about people pausing the video and coming back to try and play it later, I have to keep refreshing the video and moving it to where I was, but it never wants to go to that exact place. That player is weird.)

Not having class today has also given me an excuse to actually write some today. I've already written quite a bit today, and I hope to write more later. I was doing that instead of homework though, so right now I'm focusing on homework again. If I can get that done, then I'll have more time to write, but I have to do my homework before I'm doing it way late into the day.

Book Review: Frozen by Melissa de la Cruz and Michael Johnston

ISBN: 0399257543
Published: October 2nd, 2014 (first published January 1st, 2013)
Publisher: Orchard Books
Read from August 19th to September 21st, 2014
Synopsis from Goodreads:

From New York Times bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz and Michael Johnston comes this remarkable first book in a spellbinding new series about the dawn of a new kind of magic.
Welcome to New Vegas, a city once covered in bling, now blanketed in ice. Like much of the destroyed planet, the place knows only one temperature—freezing. But some things never change. The diamond in the ice desert is still a 24-hour hedonistic playground and nothing keeps the crowds away from the casino floors, never mind the rumors about sinister sorcery in its shadows.
At the heart of this city is Natasha Kestal, a young blackjack dealer looking for a way out. Like many, she's heard of a mythical land simply called “the Blue.” They say it’s a paradise, where the sun still shines and the waters are turquoise. More importantly, it’s a place where Nat won’t be persecuted, even if her darkest secret comes to light.
But passage to the Blue is treacherous, if not impossible, and her only shot is to bet on a ragtag crew of mercenaries led by a cocky runner named Ryan Wesson to take her there. Danger and deceit await on every corner, even as Nat and Wes find themselves inexorably drawn to each other. But can true love survive the lies? Fiery hearts collide in this fantastic tale of the evil men do and the awesome power within us all.

Review:

I received this book for review from Netgalley. The main reason I decided to read and review it is that I've heard many people say they've enjoyed Melissa de la Cruz's other books. There was also the fact that its synopsis immediately had me intrigued. You're told right away that it's a fantasy book, and you can also pretty much get the dystopic aspects from the synopsis. I love both fantasy and dystopian, so I was interested to see those sort of combined.

That being said, I didn't really end up being all that intrigued by the world created in the book. The world's gone into another ice age, which has caused the nations to kind of fall apart. The USA is now the RSA or the Remaining States of America. In addition to that, some people have started being born with special powers and there's this mysterious place called the Blue (which is also talked about as being Atlantis, Avalon, etc. at different times in history) where the world hasn't completely fall apart like it has everywhere else. That all sounds good in theory, but I'll admit that I wasn't blown away by it. Something about the world just didn't work for me. I couldn't get a good sense of how they had went from the world we have today to the one they have. Most of that had to do with the magic than anything else. I love fantasy, but something seemed weird about how everything played out. It's not something I can directly put my finger on because it wasn't anything I flat out hated. I just couldn't really get into it.

I did enjoy the book more than anything, but I'm not sure if I enjoyed it enough to continue with the series. If I happen to see the next book in the future, maybe I'll pick it up, but I don't see myself going that far out of my way to read it. It wasn't a bad book, and I can definitely see that others would like it much more than I would. If you find the synopsis interesting, then I would recommend going ahead and giving it a try.

Life Post: Papers and Reading and Studying

The rain we're currently having isn't helping with the gloom and stress of this week. Pretty much the only thing we talked about in Spanish today (and I mean even in the lesson) is how stressed everyone is over midterms. This week has pretty much evened out for me after the very chaotic start, but I'm still feeling the stress that everyone else is too. I'm mostly just trying to focus on getting my work done for that particular day and not focusing too much on how much I need to do overall.

I still haven't written any this week, but I'm hoping that I can squeeze it in tomorrow since my only class is canceled, which I've never been more thankful for. It's possible I could write today, but I'm already looking at the long list of papers and reading and studying that I need to do today (and haven't started on yet as I just woke up from a nap) and it's almost certainly not going to happen.

Season two of Reign airs tonight, so my biggest goal is to have my homework finished before it comes on. Since it comes on at nine, I should be able to accomplish that. I've been working on homework until late recently, but I've been getting it done by about nine at the latest. Let's just hope that tonight's not an exception. I'd hate to be working on homework wile trying to focus on Reign just because I don't want to be up really late. (Sure I don't have class tomorrow, but I'd like to use that opportunity to actually get sleep.)

Just a little more than a week until midterms are over...

Life Post: Midterms Are Coming

Happy October, everyone. I guess I should start getting into the Halloween spirit now, but I'm still adjusting to that fact that it's autumn. (Random fun fact: I've started trying to phase fall out of my vocabulary when it comes to the season. I think autumn is one of my favorite words, and it's not used enough. "Fall," on the other hand, is a terrible name for a season.)

School is really starting to get busy. I had a heavy workload the past two days, and I didn't think much of it because that's been happening intermittently the entire semester. Now though it's starting to look like that's not really going to let up until midterms are over (i.e. midterm break). That means the rest of this week and next are probably going to get really stressful. Honestly, this week didn't start off too great, but that was due to a variety of factors. I don't think I was alone either because I seemed to get the sense that this week has been going pretty terribly for a lot of people on campus. Today was better though even though my workload is even larger than the past couple of days. It's kind of ironic. That being said, I don't want to think about the amount of homework I still have to do tonight. Let's just focus on the fact that I'm almost halfway done with it.

I haven't done any writing since Sunday because of all the work. I honestly don't know if I'll get any done until after midterms. This draft is taking much longer than I would have hoped. Sometimes I look at the word count and can't believe I've written so little in such a long span of time. I think that more than anything else shows me how much my workload has increased since freshmen year. I don't even want to think about what senior year will be like. I just want to get through midterms, and then hopefully get some writing done over break, even if it's only two days long (or four with the weekend).

Reign also comes back tomorrow, and then we have Korra on Friday. I can't decide whether that's a good distraction in order to distress or if it's a bad distraction that will take away from studying time. I guess we'll see, but I am really excited for them both.