s n a s s e d + [the recap source]

Carmilla pulls out clumps of hair while Laura pleads for them to be each other’s heros, expectations be damned. This isn’t a story, Hollis, this is life, Carmilla says. Life is mean, it kicks you in the ass, bites you in two, chews you up and spits you out. Happy endings don’t exist.

Jeez, Carm. Someone got picked last for kickball a few too many times, huh?

Carm’s got one final blow left - sometimes evil just wins. The universe doesn’t give a crap about a super cute, feisty, kickass journalism major with a heart of gold. You live or die only if you’re strong enough to survive. Spoken like someone who has been kicked in the stomach by people who are supposed to love her a few too many times, and once locked in a coffin underground for 80 years. Oh Carm, I want to give you a hug and someone to trust. And some other stuff that shall not be mentioned publicly. Please don’t bite me yet.

Laura doesn’t balk. Believing in her friends is a kind of strength, she insists, but Carmilla has shut down and is no longer able to meet her halfway. She hangs up, leaving Laura stunned and sad, but slowly accepting that she’s on her own.

There isn’t time to brood or pout or eat pie-scoops full of ice cream. The Dean in a Perry suit comes shuffling in and tells Laura that it’s time to go watch Danny lead the freed Silas students across the south lawn in a giant heroic Joan of Arc moment. This can’t end well.

Laura straps her fightin’ pants on and goes to join. Apparently those pants have polka dots.

Naturally, a whole 0.6 seconds after Laura leaves the room, an exasperated Carmilla flickers back on screen and is super pissed, but willing to help after all. Aww, Carm, your timing sucks, baby, but it’s sweet how she lasted a whole ten seconds before giving in. She’s smitten with her Tiny Gay, even if she hates to admit it.

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Oop. Laura’s already down the hall. Who’s not yet down the hall? Dean Perry, who struts over like one badass MoFo in charge. Seriously, Annie has swagger.

Carmilla, please tell me you’ve clued into the fact that Perry is possessed by your mother. I mean she called you dear and sounded exactly like Dean!Laura last semester. If your mother is making a regular habit of possessing your friends, don’t you think a lady would start reading the warning signs?

This week (because this recap is basically so late Tuesday has already happened):  Please don’t tell me Laura’s saying what I think she’s saying in that preview. “It doesn’t matter. Danny’s dead.”

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Theo puts his big boy pants on and admits he made a mistake. He wanted the vampires gone and the Zetas back on top, but Vordenberg has gone too far. He almost blew Theo’s head off trying to kill catwoman (aka Carmilla). Danny is feeling a little less than sympathetic to their problems and asks what they want them to do about it. Mel says they are outnumbered by the angry villagers, but there are 500 students locked up in the catacombs. The students don’t trust her and Theo, but they might trust Danny and agree to fight. Then they could take back the school. Theo says they’ll sneak Danny across the lines to the catacombs and then go rally their guys. Danny isn’t too quick to agree, saying they’ll probably just grab her and take her to Vordenberg. They’re all taking risks here, Theo reminds everyone. If one person breaks, they’re done.  

Laura asks Danny if she trusts Mel and Theo. Danny says no. Meanwhile, all I can think about is this:

The Dean-ing that’s been going on these days. Her stance matches the one of the lady in the painting over her left shoulder. She’s not even trying to hide it anymore, and everyone else is too worried about their own crap to notice.

Back to Laura and Danny. Danny believes Mel and Theo’s plan is their best shot despite her not fully trusting them. Laura wants to go with because what if it’s a trap and also, her middle name is ‘dangerous situation? YES, I’m there’. Squashing that like a bug, Danny says no. If it is a trap, she doesn’t want anyone getting hurt but her. Laura doesn’t want to hear that. She can’t stand to lose another person. Danny thinks she’s only saying that because Laura believes Mattie and Carmilla are right. That the world is vast and meaningless and that a better world that they want is just a ridiculous naive dream. A better world is worth fighting for, Danny says, and she’s ready to suffer and die as long as it’s for the right reason. The right person, aka Tiny Gay Hollis. Welp.

Not the peppiest of pep talks, but that’s all she wrote because Theo gives the signal outside the apartment and Kirsch tells D-bear it’s now or never.

Vordiemort, as is his officially sanctioned nickname, has graduated from non-human student murder to actual human student murder for a cause, to killing defenseless trees in the name of Carmilla’s head on a stick. Or her cat pelt as a rug. Ick. Whatever the reason, Laura very nearly falls back into the Crater of Feels, but she rallies. On to other things, Silas! Huzzah!

A little while later, there’s more research happening. Laura is stressed, LaF is riffling through a pile of papers that look like my physics term paper in my final year (*PTSD shaking and twitching*), while Per is just chillin’ in Carm’s old perch, casually reading up on ways to kill the students she’s painstakingly pretending to be friends with. Seriously, she’s even lounging in Carm’s old pose, which might’ve been a mother/daughter thing.

One useless but fun fact Laura’s learned? There’s another Hellmouth in southern Pennsylvania. Maybe once Buffy’s finished with the one in Cleveland, she and Faith can pack up their UHaul and mosie on over to take care of it. Sorry Laura, I think it’ll be a while before the Slayer sisters get to your neck of the woods. Try leaving a message.

LaF suggests they look into that whole 1904 thing again, the year the campus burned down. We always knew there was something a bit more pressing and related to current events back then. Shady Perry brings over the giant textbook she grabbed earlier, which was conveniently handy, and hands it to Laura. They read off a list of people in attendance at the Board meeting around that time, which includes the entire current Board plus Mattie and VordenGlutenSchtein’s grandpapi. Or quite possibly our current Vordiemort, since the olden days one tells just as many stories and tall tales. You never know, he could be immortal and crazy. Stranger things have happened at Silas. Stranger things are happening as Silas.

Back to 1904 - people began to notice the girls going missing and, surprise, rioted. What did they use back then to document the revolution without a webcam? I’m totally imagining pilgrim!Laura debriefing the campus by hiding in a crate and charging five cents to watch her newscast. According to JP, the olden days of handwritten library catalogues were pretty painful, so it’s best not to go there.  (Where IS Jeep these days?!)

Laura discovers something interesting about Maman and her plans - in 1904, she put forth a motion to kill the anglerfish god but she was overruled. This pretty much goes against everything we’ve been led to believe going back to season one.

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So Dean Mama wanted this discovered. Light years earlier, probably, but the conclusion has finally been reached. Progress!

They debate the ethics behind the Dean wanting the fish dead and why it needed to be kept asleep with those twenty year sacrifice reunions. Perry is major shades of shady and doesn’t exactly hide the side-eyeball-shifty-eyes-not-me-not-me-not-me-HEY-LOOK-A-GIANT-CAT schtick.

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What was she supposed to do, guys? Give a lady a break. They didn’t have toilets big enough to flush a god down back in the day.

They all start to think Mattie only had files on how to kill the other Board members because the Dean started compiling them years ago. Oh yeah, and who brought those to everyone’s attention?

By now the Dean in a Perry suit must just be like, ‘FUCKING FINALLY! It took you dinklefritzes long enough, for the love of Satan I thought this mortal body was gonna die before you figured it out’. Meanwhile Laura gives LaF all the credit for coming up with the idea. Internally, Dean Perry’s eyes are rolling.

Laura announces that they’ve been overlooking something hugely important this whole time - in those files will be a way to stop Vordenberg. It’s just too bad she didn’t think of it before Carmilla went homicidal.

Ever the diplomat, Perry wants to make sure she’s got the facts down before they proceed. The Baron and his forehead Vs are heading for the Dean’s apartment and plan to kill every single one of them. Carmilla is gone, they have no weapons and nowhere to run. LaF thinks Perry has some serious PTSD or maybe that’s just them. Perry has no time for crazy. She does, however, have time for finding boards to nail across the doors and windows. Chop, chop. Maybe they dug into a pile of expired banana bread that’s hard enough to double as bricks. (What’s that? You use butter, Perry? Well then nevermind.)

Everyone vacates the room, save for Danny and Laura. Danny tells Laura it’s not her fault. Considering you killed Mattie there, Red, nice of you to backhandedly share some of the blame. Laura isn’t blameless here. I think we all know that, but Danny, girrrl, do you realize the shitstorm you just unleashed?

Laura, very directly, says it’s all her fault. The anglerfish rising, Vordenberg in charge, Mattie getting killed. Quick to interrupt, Danny says that had to be done. Mattie killed a lot of people, she was going to kill her.

At this point, Laura doesn’t look like she gives two shits about Danny’s reasoning. It happened. Spending time trying to justify why doesn’t change the fact that it happened. Laura is going to shelter the blame for this entire clusterfuck of events, which only leads me to believe that she, alone, is going to try to rectify the situation, which probably, most likely, will lead to her nearly getting killed. And others things.

Danny may as well be the teacher in Charlie Brown because Laura’s facial expression remains stagnant until Perry walks back in and quickly dismisses their touchy-feely moment.

Boards aren’t going to nail themselves. I’m sure there’s a joke in there somewhere.

Fast-forwarding to later that same day, Laura is alone and clearly in need of some personal reflection. She says she knows Danny wants to let her off of the hook, but she belongs on it. She is Captain Hook. That metaphor can’t be good, right?

But more importantly in this very moment…

Donna survived the initial siege. Can I get an amen? She’s just chillin’ on her favorite barcalounger, reading magazines while the dust settles. Vordenberg escaped out the back secret passageway while she wasn’t paying attention, hence why he was able to round up the angry mob. Donna, c’mon, you suck as hall monitor/prison guard. Seriously Maman taught you better than this.

There is no black and white where all of this is concerned. Laura is slowly figuring that out even though she thinks something is either right or it’s wrong and she is always doing the right thing. Grey areas are non-existent in the world of Hollis. Unfortunately, with that philosophy, she keeps winding up in all of these self-inflicted messes. The irony is in the fact that she has been pushing Carmilla to be better and to be good this entire time, but Laura was the one who betrayed her trust. Laura wonders how that’s good? How is that the right thing to do? All it does is make her the world’s biggest hypocrite. Oh, honey. Chin up.

Laura is finally becoming aware of what her actions -- although well-intended -- are costing others. We NSFTB. New acronym. Non-sexily fade to black. We’ll make it work.

That ‘Intro to Siege Tactics’ class must’ve been money well spent.

I’m not going to lie, I was silently hoping for Laura ‘Crazy Hair, Don’t Care’ Hollis to resurface in this next scene, but no such luck. Instead, she is busy taking an afternoon catnap when in walks Perry with a stack of books.

Still a bit groggy, Laura instinctively calls out Carmilla’s name, because it wouldn’t be Tuesday without that extra little stab in the chest parts. Once all of her mental faculties are in proper working order, Laura wonders what Perry is doing with all of those scary looking books. Perry says they’re in the middle of a war and it’s high time those books are used for purposes other than oversized door stops. Oh, and when we say ‘Perry’, we really mean the Dean.

Perry informs Laura that the books are for research because in case she hasn’t been awake the past few days, they’re losing...badly. Everything they do seems doomed. They need a plan, they need something, and this is the Dean’s house. What better way to thwart evil than to use their surroundings to their advantage, books included.

Perry is still way off-kelter for my liking. The Dean must just come and go as she pleases.

All Laura can do is smile tersely at multiple-personality Perry’s plan. That is until they hear screaming, followed by growling, coming from outside of the apartment. Big kitty cat growling. Black panther growling. More screaming. More growling. Laura wonders…

“Wow. That is a really big black cat,” Perry says, half-scared, half-seriously-captivated.

All our tiny cupcake can do is slink down in her chair. That used to be her big black cat, and now she’s gotten out the back door again and is running towards the highway (aka anglerfish carcass). Again, I think Laura is mostly disappointed in herself. Carmilla’s behavior is a direct result of events she set in motion. So, now Laura feels responsible for whatever destruction Carmilla leaves in her wake. Which is a lot, apparently.

Old Vordy of 300 years ago didn’t save Carmilla, he grave-robbed her body shortly after she was turned, locked her in a dungeon and sexually assaulted her. We don’t know if it was when she was still dead or after she rose and was too disoriented to know what was happening, but the fact is that it happened. It is very likely he raped her, or at least that feels like the conclusion we’re being pointed towards. Carm killed him and the others of his clan crawling out of his dungeon to freedom. Laura is rightfully horrified and wants to know why Carmilla never said anything, to which Carm replies “it was humiliating” and casually avoids eye contact. ‘Scuse me while my heart shatters for the 187,000th time this season.

Of course, Carmilla never lets on whether something really bothers her until it boils over at a later date, so she shrugs it off as ‘bygones’. She did kill the creep’s whole family after all, and she’s had 320 years to come to terms with it, so who’s to say if this will be addressed at a later time or not. Either way it’s sickening and brings a whole new level of trauma to her past and what she went through when becoming a vampire.

While we, and Laura, digest this, Carm and Mattie do what sisters do best and make fun of each other and their vastly different views on personal existence, then play a rousing game of ‘Ring Around the Rosy’ minus the plague and pocket-sniffing pansies.

Even Laura can’t help but smile as her then-girlfriend shows an unusual amount of goofiness that’s so often missing from a good brood. Mattie and Carm are hundreds of years old but that doesn’t stop them from being giant lovable dorks. This makes the rest of the episode hurt even more.

Back to present day and the sad baseball bat of pain to the face.

Carmilla screams and rushes over only to have Mattie collapse in her arms. She begs Mattie for a solution, to tell her what to do to stop the inevitable, and she sounds so much the lost younger sibling that it breaks our hearts all over again. At this stage, Mattie has to know it was Carmilla who sold her secret, because nobody else on planet earth knows about the necklace. In her moment of death, she neither accuses her nor addresses it, instead telling Carm that she didn’t kill those students (Summers or newspaper) and someone else out there is setting her up. Someone out there is still willing to do anything to make sure their Mother’s plans go through - even kill Mattie. Carmilla doesn’t want to hear any of it and the anguish slowly breaking her down is killing all of us.

“I didn’t think she would kill me.” Mattie can really only be referring to one person - the Dean Mother, whom we’re all 99% sure has taken over Perry’s body. (She’s still out looking for that falafel cart, by the way.) Before any more can be said, Mattie dies in Carmilla’s grieving arms.

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While the others look on, a shaking Carmilla turns the deadliest of deadly eyeballs to Danny and warns her to run. She’s gathering the riding party and going to hunt, torture and kill Danny like a fox in the moors of England back in the 1700s. Danny, whose ribs have cracked in numerous places, stands her ground and tells Carmilla to kill her then and there. Running with broken ribs is a bitch and also not really her style.

If she thought that was going to stop the vampire, she had another thing coming.

As Laura throws herself in the middle, begging Carmilla to stop, I just want to take a second to look over the incident and how it all came crashing down. The shitty thing is, there really isn’t one person to blame here. Nobody is really, truly in the red, and everyone carries some sort of responsibility for Mattie’s death and the fallout of Laura’s betrayal.

Mattie is a vampire, doing what vampires do. This includes threatening, committing violence and a general disregard for humans that we’ve seen since day one. Would she have killed Danny? We don’t know. Does she have amazing qualities and sass that we all love? Yes. Is this really fucking confusing on every level? You betcha.

Danny killed her, which nobody in this fandom is happy about. (Assumingly. If you are, you’ve been rather quiet and I haven’t seen anyone in the tags doing a firedance over Matska Belmonde’s body.) She had a little help from Perry right before the events of the evening, a little nudge towards ‘do what you need to do to end this’. But in that moment, Mattie was crushing her ribs, had just threatened death upon everyone in that room (not for the first time), and was covered in what Danny assumed to be (not without reason) her sorority sisters’ blood. Ask yourself this - in a moment of life or death, would you defend yourself with whatever tools you had at your disposal, or are you just going to let the opportunity for survival pass you by because it’s a beloved TV character on the other end? Take off your ‘I’m watching my favourite TV show’ goggles and really think about this on a literal level. Would you fault someone, yourself even, for defending their life? Hindsight is 20/20. Danny reacted quickly and without thinking, but she didn’t do it without a season’s worth of lead up. It sucks and even Danny looks remorseful in the background, but it all happens in less than five seconds. That isn’t a whole heck of a lot of time to process.

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Laura - she told Danny how to defeat Mattie, which would not have been easy for her since she knew the confidence she was betraying. This again comes on the heels of Mattie threatening to let them all die if necessary while she sorted out the Vordenberg problem herself. As a group of humans viewed little more than cattle for the slaughter (best case scenario, Mattie would’ve sold them to Corvae for a magic bag of beans), again I ask if you can really blame her for making this choice. (Saying this as someone who groaned a major, “Laura NO” at the end of that episode, I’m just as conflicted.) To vampires at Silas, humans mean very little and are worth sacrificing. When stuck in the middle of an apocalypse, one does what they need to do to survive. Even morally ambiguous things. The characters in the show don’t have the advantage we do of seeing things from above, all cut and pasted into neat videos with hours of accidental bonus footage because Laura seriously cannot remember to turn that thing off.

Carmilla - she told Laura how to end it. She knew what this could mean. Did she think Laura would tell Broadzilla how to kill her sister? (Flashback to early season 2.) No, she probably believed that the love of her afterlife would keep this to herself. But Laura isn’t a selfish person, everything she does is for the greater good, even if that continually backfires in the 19 year old’s face. Grieving, unimaginable pain aside, maybe Carm knows this deep down. It doesn’t mean she will ever forgive Laura, or that she’s somehow obligated to because it makes logical sense that Laura confided in someone she trusted, no matter how right or wrong it was. I don’t see how this is something they can ever get over, because her sister is dead and Laura played just as much a hand in it as Carmilla herself. Something major has to happen first. I’m bloody terrified at this stage what that is.

And then there’s Mrs. Clean Dean. She probably orchestrated this stuff from the start, now she’s sitting back eating cheese and laughing at everyone. Per, where art thou?

Like the title of this recap says, nobody wins. This isn’t a good guy/bad guy situation. Love has its sacrifices all right. If there’s one thing Carmilla series is really good at driving home, it’s that the world doesn’t exist in black and white. Actions, even the good ones, all have consequences.

Of course, it would be nice if they didn’t feel the need to drive it home with a tree trunk spiked with nails, but I digress.

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Where were we? Right. Danny says you bring it here and now, I’m not running. That’s not to say she’s unaffected by her actions, she looked appropriately anguished while she watched Mattie die in her sister’s arms and the following confrontation.

In what I assume is her one last tender act for the foreseeable future, Carmilla gently lays Mattie’s body down on the ground, then stands up and goes for the jugular.

Panicked, Laura leaps in between them, desperately trying to defend Danny’s actions in the face of everything they’ve ever known falling apart. Carm demands Laura get out of the way, Laura refuses. Natasha Negovanlis slays us all as she screams in Laura’s face to step aside over and over again, ignoring for as long as she can the real reason Danny was able to kill her sister. Laura finally yells that she was the one who told her, and even though Carmilla had to know it on some level, the outrage and grief on her face hammers a nail into the Hollstein coffin.

I don’t believe they’re over forever and ever; we hopefully have seasons upon season to rebuild what they once had. But I don’t see how Carmilla will ever be able to forgive Laura for the ultimate betrayal, no matter the morals or reasons behind it. Mattie was the one piece of family she had left, now she’s alone for the rest of her immortal life. The one person she ever let herself trust outside of her sister was the reason for her demise.

Did I mention yet how I’m in the corner rocking back and forth, and how I stayed there for four days, hence why this recap is so late?

Carmilla snaps. She grabs Laura by the hair in a violent move, looking for all intents and purposes like she’s about to bite her, but even now all she can do is stare at the love of her life in utter disbelief. She is so broken, so devastated, that she doesn’t know what to do first. By now, Carmilla is blaming herself and you can hear it in her words, see it on her face. Mattie told her all along this would happen and, justifications aside, Laura is the reason Mattie’s dead. She wants to eviscerate, kill, destroy things to make the pain go away, but given that it’s Laura she’s got her death mitts on, she can’t bring herself to do it.

Putting your hands on someone physically and violently is never okay. But in this moment, considering what Laura and Carmilla are experiencing, it still happens. Carm’s never once harmed Laura physically or otherwise, so I don’t think it’s fair to say she’s “abusive” in the sense of things, but she’s lashing out in her worst moment. Even now, she doesn’t hurt Laura, as much as her instincts are telling her to. It’s not pretty but it is, unfortunately, realistic.

Three hundred years of friendship, Carmilla reminds her ex. They saw Electra in 1709, the ruins of Pompeii, and the rise of the boy band in the 1980s.

(Can we get a spinoff of Carm and Mattie in the ‘80s, jammin’ to NKOTB? I mean, the possible hairstyles alone make us giddy.)

All of that ended the moment Carm chose to tell Laura how to defeat her sister and she used that knowledge to do the deed, however inadvertently.

Unable to hurt who she wants to hurt, even now, Carmilla shoves Laura away and mocks all the goody-goody things demanded of her over the past couple of months. Be good, change, and don’t forget to burn down everything you’ve ever known while you’re at it. Laura protests that she never asked for any of this, but didn’t she? Maybe without realizing it, because I really don’t believe at any point has she been so manipulative, but we’re talking about a 19-year-old optimist that left home for the first time less than a year ago and someone three centuries older who’s seen and experienced more than anyone should have to in a lifetime. Yes, Laura, you had your superhero blinders on, choosing to only see the best in what you imagined Carmilla could be, but Carmilla also let you until it was too late.

Natasha, you’re killing us softly. And by softly I mean violently and without remorse.

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Laura tries to approach Carmilla, begging her to - something, anything, and Carmilla whirls on her full of a rage and hatred we’ve never seen before.

Even though we’re all a messy ball of feels over in the corner, nobody misses the camera shake or the pitch change and how it resembles Mattie’s pterodactyl scream. Me thinks Carm just levelled up. None of us have seen anything yet.

Looking directly at Laura first, then slowly around the room, Carmilla warns them that the next person who comes anywhere near her, she will kill. And boy, does she ever mean it.

We don’t have the heart to UFC cap Honeybadger Hollis vs Hello Kitty. :(

No, we really don’t. Photoshop refuses. - E

Minus the cape, because Carmilla is about to turn this place to ashes and nobody in their right mind can stop her, she breezes by everyone and sets out to get her revenge.

Fan Expo trailer, hello there. We thought this would be episode 36. It’s episode 30. Which means we have three more weeks of uninhibited screaming, shrieking, flailing and messy bawling to get through and nobody has any idea what happens next save for a few behind-the-scenes photographs. Perrrfect. I didn’t need to be an emotionally stable adult in the workplace or anything. Fictional lesbian drama, psssh. Who cares.

I’m lying. This week will be killer.

Thoughts for the week - where did JP escape to? And did Vordenberg hightail it out of there once Mattie was dead, or did he break a hip and is currently trying to crawl away from the clutches of Donna in the back of the room while the others are distracted? I have this image of Donna wrapping her knees around his throat and slowly dragging him into a secret passage underneath the couch, never to be seen again.

Next week: LaF tries to lighten the mood by finding it funny how they can’t tell if Carm wants to save Laura or kill her again. Hey, remember the days of last season, when all we had to worry about was finding Betty? Yeah, let’s go back to that.

There are a whole host of theories out there, some driven by the evil masterminds controlling our destiny, some that came from places I’m not sure of but are definitely intriguing. The main thing everyone seems to be thinking is this - last year, Carmilla betrayed Laura and laid down the huge sacrifice at the end of the season. This year, Laura seems slated to be the one to put it all on the line. It certainly fits with her character, not just to do something like that for Carmilla, but for the safety of everyone. Sacrifice is the theme of this show for a reason.

There are also some amazingly in depth theories regarding the Chess game at play. Also, the painting theory we’ve rambled about before doesn’t seem too far off - sort of. If those paintings were made specifically for the show, then yikes. People with faster-working brains than us have already gone into detail so we highly recommend you check out some of those links.

Another theory being tossed around like a hot potato - vampifying Laura to save her from death, which could make for a wickedly different and interesting season 3. I don’t know how that would look, but if they choose to go that route, we’ll be in for a whole different ballgame moving forward.

Oh, don’t you worry, folks over at Smokebomb Entertainment. This show has such an insane following that, even if any sponsors temporarily got sucked into a wormhole and the guy left behind the renewal button missed the mark, you have one very active fan base that would make a season 3 happen. Cities would burn, Wal-Mart would sell out of pitchforks and blowtorches, and it would be in the universe’s best interest to make it happen. Jericho has nothing on Carmilla and look what they accomplished. We got this, guys. WE GOT THIS.

Before we close, one thing I want to say about this Carmilla viewing party contest - y’all might hate Canada right now, but hot DAMN, do you have any idea how often a contest comes along for Canadian citizens only?? Do you not realize how many amazeballs things are out there to win on this continent, only to read the fine print and see it’s for American residents only? The bane of every Canadian’s existence are the words, ‘Not available in your region’.  (If you think I’m lying, ask any Canadian you have ever met in person or online. I guarantee a fervent reaction to those words. Side effects include exasperated hissing, clawing of the eyeballs, and a very large goose egg from repeatedly smashing our faces into our keyboards.)

So while it would be SO COOL to have a worldwide viewing party with every last creampuff out there in attendance, I’m going to try and take advantage of the fact I never ever win anything and there is a smaller players pool for a change and my god I would quit my job and live in my car if it meant I got to go to Toronto to meet the people behind the coolest, gayest thing on the internet. After a couple of really tough years creatively, where I forgot why I wanted to be a writer one day and get to invent people and things for a living, this show has reminded me why. This show is what I was so desperate for growing up - the gayest of the gay without explanations. If pre-teen gay me could’ve seen something that wasn’t an embarrassing coming out story told by straight people that missed the mark, or a running gay joke; something where character sexuality was pre-defined and just accepted without becoming a Thing, that might’ve changed a lot of things for me. It’s pretty awesome to finally have something queer women have been angsting for for decades and in such a new, experimental medium to boot.

It also helped me through the Grey’s Anatomy crackdom that took a good 2-3 years to finally escape without remorse. Thanks to Carmilla, Laura and the rest of the creative gang, I can finally get my one year sobriety chip from Shondaland Anonymous this coming December.

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E popping in here to give a standing O to D’s Canadian pride. Seriously. It also makes me want my OOOO Canada vacation that much sooner. I’m coming for you, maple leafs!

Video is back. LaF and Kirsch have collapsed to the ground but still have a pulse. Carmilla, who still doesn’t care by the by, helps LaF to the couch and makes sure they’re comfy before returning to the ‘I told you so’ parade. Laura hesitantly asks if they’re all about to die or what; Carmilla thinks they’ve managed to sidestep death’s door once more and they were due for a reprieve. Vordenberg squeaks on about the only threat of terror confronting them now is a health hazard caused by several thousand pounds of spoiled fish. Ever the entrepreneur, Vordy wonders if they can sell the anglerfish meat off as canned tuna? Yes, with psychotropic, ball-tripping side effects. I’d hate to be the technical writer for that nutrition label.

Danny raises her fake pom-poms and is all, ‘hooray for you, you didn’t kill everyone’. She then quickly deflects blame from Vordenberg and the anglerfish to Mattie because she is the one who killed eight of her Summer Society sisters. Nine, Laura chimes in. Perry is still out trying to find that falafel cart. Vordenberg doesn’t want anyone to forget the brave students who were slain at the Voice of Silas, too.

The 2384th accusation of murder may have just been the one to finally break the camel’s back. Mattie is so sick and tired of being blamed for murder sprees she didn’t have the pleasure of committing. Danny yells they know it was her because once again, Mattie is the only vampire who roams around the Silas campus looking for the occasional lackwit to puncture with her teeth. I guess the weird video of Perry doing the actual threatening last anyone checked doesn’t matter. Of course, Vordenberg tends to agree with Danny. This type of behavior runs through Mattie’s veins, but now that she is in his “custody”, she will be tried for her crimes. Mattie can’t help but laugh because, wouldn’t you? Last night’s activities are slowing clearing up in her brain and it turns out, God blood packs one hell of a wallop. LOOK OUT.

Since she has arrived on campus, Mattie says she’s been gracious, understanding, civilized, but all anyone around here wants to do is accuse her of murder after petty murder. If that’s what they think of her, then who is she to disappoint? Mattie says she’s going to carve a swath of blood through Vordenberg’s army and drink the nation dry. She makes sure to give Carm a little love tap on the nose so as not to seem too villainous.

Laura says nothing, but looks determined to give Mattie a piece of her mind. Carmilla, who has been watching Laura like a hawk during this entire exchange, catches on and hightails it to her side. Carmilla’s eyes scream a resounding ‘no’ at her ex. 

As death on dark wings, Mattie says if they want to blame her for carnage, she’s happy to oblige. She first goes to grab Vordenberg, who scampers off screaming like a four-year-old girl before falling to the ground. Danny pipes in and says, “not until you answer for my sisters.” Instead, Mattie snatches a hold of the ginger giant and twists her into a pretzel. We hear back cracking noises, and all I can wonder is if Mattie doubled as a chiropractor in another life. It’s puns galore after that. Mattie calls Danny a ginger snap, which is oddly appropriate given the circumstances. She then goes on to say that Xena’s temper is going to put her in a bind some day, again, on the money.

Danny has this look of an anguished, ‘O RLY?’ then proceeds to somehow turn around in Mattie’s death grip, yank off her necklace, throw it on the ground and smash the living daylights out of it with her boot. 

The lights go bright, Carmilla yells Mattie’s name and all Laura is thinking is, ‘OH SHIT’. 

In case you’ve never had the misfortune of reading about the old-timey German “fairy tales” for “children”, they revolve around a crazy gnome that cuts off thumbs, burning to death when playing with matches, and falling to your death from walking in the rain. Clicky clicky for a lesson in how to traumatize your children in eastern Europe in the 1800s, something I’m sure Carm is greatly disappointed she missed out on.      

The giraffe shirt is in full view. Carm’s wearing the leather vest Laura’s been sniffing like a crack fiend for weeks. Shit’s about to get real, because these last 8.5 episodes? Hold on to your eclairs.

Laura looks at her ex-girlfriend all, ‘Um, honey? What is your drunken sister doing passed out on my Macbook? That thing cost me an entire semester’s worth of tuition and I had to fudge the numbers to get it’. Secondly, where in Buffy’s name is Lola Perry? LaF and Jeep run back into the hall in case there are any pieces big enough left to decipher their friend’s corpse. While they’re busy sifting through the carnage, tossing spare limbs left, right and centre (run, Donna!), Carmilla demands to know what Mattie did last night. Mattie looks as guilty as the freshman bro who woke up naked in the bushes with their underwear up the campus flagpole, no memory of what happened.

Of course, Mattie is much more dignified than a frosh week pledge, but not any less coherent about what the heck went on after we last saw her. Even if she’s covered in blood, she doesn’t know whose it is, though she is definitely amused at the idea it could be (but isn’t) Vordenberg’s. Laura’s stricken face never wavers and Carm can’t believe it’s Saigon 1865 all over again. Mattie doesn’t even know if she got around to eating the anglerfish yet or if the latest Zeta kegger sidetracked her before she got there. Helpful, sis, thanks for the non-clarification on that stuff.

All the while, Mattie’s channeling cat!Milla and licking her paws clean. 

Maybe it runs in the family.

LaF comes at Mattie like a crazy person, demanding to know what she did to Perry. Carmilla, who so doesn’t even care about a single human other than Laura because humans are stupid and useless, holds them back for their own safety. All the while not caring if they live or die because who cares. (Right, Carm, we all really believe you by now.)

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Mattie’s gleeful ‘I dun currrrrrrr’ is interrupted by Laura reminding everyone that their wasting of precious energy resources might come in handy this time - they forgot to turn off the webcam again. Mattie screeches to a halt - “What-now?” I don’t blame her, sometimes drunk people do stupid things when they’re on fish acid. Or so I’ve heard. Video evidence must be destroyed.

Flashback to Perry and Mattie from the night before. Mattie thinks something is seriously off with Perry, who claims to not know where any of the blood came from. Something is hinky, winky, a mystery this way comes, and Mattie’s not buying any of the innocent school girl act.

What does Miss Perry see in her dreams these days? She goes all Exorcist and starts hissing at the vampire she once tried to melt:  the great beast dead. The gates are opening. Rain of toads. The First Evil wants the Rook, etcetera etcetera. You know, your average Friday night hijinx over the Hellmouth. Everyone’s gonna die and they only have one convenient eight month period to figure it all out.

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Mattie goes from ‘I kill you’ to ‘Creepy much?’ in five seconds flat. Perry morphs into this sly, slippery fiend who sounds suspiciously like the Dean when she possessed Laura last semester. OH SNAP.

The camera goes dead. Jazzhands of fear, everybody, Perry is about to kill us all and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Now panic and freak out.

Back to present time. Carmilla flips her lid because Perry was prophesying the end of the world, and oh by the way, the Dean used to call Mattie the Rook. I don’t know how to play chess, but something about this season is starting to shape up like a game. Senet, chess, there is a theme in there somewhere, I’m just not talented enough to know what it is because I suck at board games. Mattie’s a piece in whatever is at stake, as is Perry, and something tells me the namesake of the show is doomed to play a bigger part in it as well. (Especially after the trailer for the finale. All the feels in the world about that, but this recap shall remain spoiler free.)

Mattie is so not game for any of this crap. Forget the primordial abyss and the inability to wear Prada without form, she will not be more than a four hour flight from Paris, thank you very much.

Because things aren’t quite bad enough already, in struts Vordenberg, with Danny and Kirsch hot on his heels. LaF smirks, because they think Mattie ate their best friend and has this coming, while JP slinks away unnoticed in the background. With a book he grabbed from the shelf, because daddy’s little girl computer-genius-boy probably had an epiphany we haven’t yet got to hear about. That or he was just really desperate to finish that last chapter of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows before they all die, because the final book was never properly uploaded into the Silas library file. Hang in there, JP, just remember to skip the epilogue.

Danny has her reasons for betraying Laura’s confidence - those girls she was going to meet at the crater? Dead is dead is dead. All eight of them. Suddenly, the sea of blood is starting to make sense.

Perry, what did you do?

Theory #1087: The Dean came out of creepy painting, possessed Perry, tied Donna up by the ankles so she couldn’t warn the others, and killed those girls. Then she used her laser eyebeams to knock Mattie out, blank her memory, smeared blood all over her face and left her face down on the keyboard. (Alternative - painting!Dean possessed Mattie, made her do the bad thing, then jumped back into Perry to clean up.)

All bets are off. Mattie’s secret, if Laura definitely told Danny, is bound to come out. Perry is probably not-Perry and setting Mattie up, Carmilla is terrified Laura will never forgive her, and Vordenberg is preparing to trumpet his next late-breaking news story about some snorefest that happened a thousand years ago nobody cares about because SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE AHHH.

Future Friday: Apparently Vordenberg doesn’t arrest them all because Laura and Mattie are back behind the SNN desk curtain. Huh. Eeeeenteresting.

Danny’s reaction is a mixture of ‘oh crap’, ‘awe’ and ‘r u serious?’ She can’t believe he’s asking her this now. They have bigger fish to fry, literally. Two seconds later, Danny caves. Fine. If this is the only way she can get Kirsch to concentrate on their current set doomsday problems, she’ll oblige. Yes, he has been friend zoned. Just when you think Kirsch is going to react like someone just kicked his puppy, slump in defeat and go sob into his cereal, he fist pumps and excitedly says, “YES.”

Both Danny and Laura are confused. Rejection isn’t supposed to make you bust out a happy friend zone jig. “What?” Danny asks, dumbfounded. “You’re happy about this?” Of course, he is. Who wouldn’t want to be in our friendly ginger giant’s inner circle? Kirsch says yeah, he wants way more than to be friends because Danny is super smart, a tough cookie and smokin’ hot, but he gets she doesn’t feel that way about him. Even though she doesn’t like him the way he likes her, Kirsch says he still thinks Danny is awesome. She’s like the freaking Joan of Arc of them. And she can get books off of really tall shelves.

The declaration makes Xena’s smile stretch to Grand Canyon widths. Her insides are so sappy she goes to give Kirsch a hug, who then ruins the moment by saying, “I’m all up in your friend zone.” Oh, Kirsch, boo, that’s a good way to get your fingers broken. “Please, never say that again,” Danny instructs, slightly creeped out.

Meanwhile, Laura sits as a captive audience, keeping her head incredibly still while my Zeta Society hopes crash and burn like a bad car accident in Grand Theft Auto.

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Reminding him that he did have pertinent information to share, Danny nudges Kirsch to continue telling Laura what he knows. And, as only Kirsch’s vocabulary could tell us, he says the Corvae SWAT dudes are building some sort of machine that looks like, “one of those dangly planet things had babies with a magnifying glass.” *dramatic pause* “They’re gonna kill Moby’s dick.” I have thoughts and jokes and things, but none of them are in any way appropriate for this forum, so I’m just going to move on to the next scene. Nothing to see here.

The gang’s all together again. Perry is very content with letting Vordenberg carry out the death penalty on the anglerfish. LaF, however, is not cool with that because what about Lophii’s feelings. Nobody else in the room seems to share quite the same sentiment.

LaF quickly retracts their statement and says they can just as well study the anglerfish dead. “It’s not that simple,” the purple-pant-clad vampire says. “COME ON. ANGRY SUMERIAN DEMIGOD.” Laura isn’t too concerned with voice volume at this stage in the game. Carmilla reminds everyone how not successful their last attempt to end the anglerfish’s life was. Danny doesn’t see the downside to Vordenberg going fishing in the crater, even if he fails. Ever the pragmatist, Carmilla says, uh, what if it gets loose in the process and eats all of Europe? Or, if he succeeds, everyone within a thousand miles trips on fish acid for the rest of eternity? There is a reason Mattie thought their best option was to bury it alive. She’s way more than just a snappy dresser, though Carm still laments the days her darn sister would steal her Goldfish crackers.

Laura is tired, oh-so-tired. It would be nice if one day they actually got some good news, like an accidental delivery of puppies or maybe a semi-truck carrying boxes of cookies tips over in front of their apartment. Being that lady luck is never on her side (seriously, like, ever), she gets fish murder and possible super vampires instead. Nobody's entirely sure where to go or what to do next. Still having some clout with a few Summers, Danny says she’ll rally them up if Kirsch can distract the crater crazies with that weird fish beer. If all goes to plan, just after 3 a.m., Danny and the Summers will sneak into the crater, sabotage the machine and save Lophii.

“Sounds like the only plan that we’ve got.” After rousing pep talk from captain Hollis, everyone tries to get some shut eye before the main event, but when you’re getting ready to deal with a giant fish and potentially meet your death, what is sleep?

It’s approximately 2 a.m. and neither Laura or Carmilla are sleeping. Get your minds out of the gutter. Leave them there. Instead, our favorite game, Dusty Squares - or as I like to call it, Tongue Depressor Toss, which let’s be honest would have been more fitting for this scene - has made a comeback, complete with apparel-matching game pieces.

Laura is first to make a move, rolling a ‘four’ with the sticks. Because you can do that, apparently. She moves her game piece over one of Carm’s, picks Carm’s piece up and unceremoniously drops it clear of the game board like a mic on stage. “Boom.”  

Carmilla is all, ‘No, no. No. No no no. You can’t do that.’ Meanwhile, Laura’s face says, ‘You. Roasted.’ Reading Tiny Hollis up on the rules of Senet, Carm says she can’t make that move because she didn’t go through the ‘House of Beauty’. If the game is supposed to be the ‘underworld’ then why is there a ‘House of Beauty’, Laura asks. “Don’t you think death can be beautiful?” Carm questions. “Oh my god. Full of yourself much,” Laura says, trying to contain an eye roll and successfully making Carmilla snort in the process. That’s not what she meant. Hollis then snarkily says some stuff in French, and my Rosetta Stone has dust all up on and in it so...yeah. Plus, I took like eight years of Spanish and only one quarter of French. In seventh grade. I know nothing. I’m Joey in Friends. Je m'appelle, Claude. Je de floop flee.

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This banter is beautiful, though, you guys. I want more of it.

“I am death drawn under a fair maid’s feet,” Carmilla says matter of factly. Again, trying to contain that slippery eye roll, Laura disagrees. Stahp. You guys are too cute. I can’t handle it.

A switch flips and Laura’s demeanor becomes noticeably serious. She says she was thinking what Carm said about Mattie drinking the anglerfish’s blood and how she was going to do it, too. Laura wonders if it would have killed Carm. She asks this all the while not looking at Carm once. Shrugging, Carmilla says she doesn’t know and would Laura even care. Seriously flabbergasted, Laura can’t even fathom (and neither can I) why Carmilla would think such a thing. She didn’t hide Carm in the apartment this entire time because she didn’t care or because the thought of something happening to Carmilla doesn’t make her feel like she can’t breathe (I CAN’T BREATHE RIGHT NOW) and she doesn’t know how she’s supposed to feel (I DON’T KNOW HOW I’M SUPPOSED TO FEEL EITHER) around her or what she’s supposed to do because…

There are no words needed here. Just, THIS.

This is so not friend zone behavior. Forshame. Not really. Keep going.

Laura reluctantly pulls away, saying she can’t. No, Laura, that’s the fandom’s line.

I’ve watched this scene way too many times to count. Yep. First step is admitting it. As a viewer, to take in all of the emotions from both parties, you have to watch it twice (I’m not limiting, just saying). Once focusing on Laura and once focusing on Carmilla. The looks these two give each other are enough to pierce glass. It’s raw. It’s real. It breaks my goddamn heart.

Carmilla cannot bring herself to remove her hand from Laura’s body when she quietly and somberly asks, “Why not?”

“Because right now I’m really hoping that this means that you’re gonna change. You kiss me, and it cracks me open and all of my stupid, messy hopes come tumbling out in ‘maybes’ and ‘somedays’ and how is that fair?”

“Well, who the hell cares about fair?”

“I do.”

When the dialogue is that good, I strongly dislike paraphrasing. I like to let the words do the talking instead of me. This was such a great emotional exchange. Laura is such a romantic, almost to a fault, but lets her brain rule instead of her heart. She has this idealistic view of what love should be and isn’t prepared to deviate from it. Carmilla, on the other hand, is a romantic too, just of a different variety. Her heart rules her mind, as does reality, but when the two clash, her heart always wins. Bottom line: WHY CAN’T YOU TWO JUST FIGURE YOUR SHIT OUT? I CAN’T TAKE MUCH MORE.

The two destroyers of my fangirling heart look sadder than I do. Hollis really needs that accidental delivery of puppies. Morosely, Laura says maybe when things settle down she and Carm can talk...if they survive. “If we survive,” Carmilla echoes. Laura once again neglects making prolonged eye contact with Carm because that would make this horrible feeling a reality.

In walks LaF (because of course), who says it’s almost 3 a.m. and they need to get going so they don’t leave Danny and the Summers in a lurch.

We then fade to black and not in a sexy way.

Perky Perry greets us cool kids on the ‘private list’ and clamors on about how she really should be down at the crater helping Laura, Carm, LaF, Danny and the rest of the Summers, but dang, yo, that’s not her scene. Plus, she was busy dusting, making snickerdoodles and passing out from exhaustion. Hey, baking is a full contact sport.

One thing that I’ve noticed - where is Laura with the harping on Perry’s moral compass? She’s all too quick to throw shade at Carm for not doing the right thing. Why does Perry get a pass? Doing all of this stuff with the anglerfish and fighting Vordy is to help the campus, right? It’s the right thing to do, yes? I know Laura feels like the campus going to shit is her fault, so does she feel the same way about Perry? Does she want to keep her out of it? Internal ongoing debate in my brain. What do you guys think?

Perry’s nap didn’t leave her very relaxed because when she woke up, she noticed bloody footprints on the carpet and she is scared that something very, very bad is happening. No shit, Sherlock.

“Darling, I can pretty much guarantee that,” Mattie says, dramatically rising up in the background like fucking Dracula. Woman knows how to make an entrance.

New theory: The Dean’s vampy spirit is in the creepy painting. Comes out, possesses Perry, does bad shit, cleans, takes selfies with Donna, de-possesses Perry, goes back into painting.

Shit is beginning to hit the fan at a serious clip.

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