Five Things From: Modern Family 4×7, Arrested

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Five Things From. This time we are looking back at season 4 episode 7 of Modern Family, Arrested. Which five things stood out and for what reasons? Let’s take a closer look…

1. Fakon

Cam served up some bacon but it wasn’t real bacon, it was vegan bacon…and it wasn’t even real fake bacon as he had made his own. His fake fake bacon was made from soy which unbeknownst to him, Luke was allergic to. As a vegetarian, when it comes to meat alternatives, I always find myself torn: if it is Quorn then I am okay or if it is “veggie” in the sense of made from potatoes with veg then I am okay. Other meat alternatives I struggle with though and I can’t stomach vegan bacon personally. Vegan sausage rolls though? I can’t get enough of those! Anyway, back to Modern Family!😅🙈

2. Didi

Didi is a character who usually really irritates me and I don’t enjoy seeing. Surprisingly, she was actually quite cleverly used here as she revelled in the news of Gloria’s pregnancy. I really like the idea of her thinking that Jay’s dream of sailing into retirement with his young new wife has been scuppered by the baby. Whether that be actually true or not doesn’t matter; the fact that she finds happiness in it is enough of an amusing plot point.

3. Phil

I’ll get more onto the episode’s main focus of Hayley getting arrested soon enough but I wanted to give a special mention to Phil. When it became necessary, he became the no-nonsense parent and really gave Hayley the harsh truth that she needed to here. It was so much more impactful since a) it came from Phil rather than Claire, b) Claire didn’t demand that he do it, and c) they didn’t undercut it with him making a joke or something silly happen to him.

4. Expelled

Was Hayley getting kicked out a bit harsh? I’m not American so I can’t judge the tolerance of the school system there. At British Unis this isn’t the case as much as you are old enough to drink as soon as you get there. A cynical part of me thinks that the writers couldn’t work out how to keep Hayley in the show while having her at collage long-term so had her expelled and come back home to make their job easier…

5. Poster

Did anyone else catch that large painting of Dylan and Hayley in her collage dorm room? They were on a bed with Dylan being topless and then it was also signed by Dylan. Did he paint that for her? That’s sweet I guess.

Five Things From: The Owl House 2×18, Labyrinth Runners

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Five Things From. This time we are looking back at season 2 episode 18 of The Owl House, Labyrinth Runners. Which five things stood out and for  what reasons? Let’s take a closer look…

1. First of All

I won’t to get this little moan out of the way as at the end of the day, it is purely a personal preference. I didn’t like how this episode relied on side characters to carry the story at this stage of the season. This is especially true as we have been on a run of very strong episode lately. I don’t like Gus anyway and having him front and centre made the whole thing less important. Not having Luz there made it all lack urgency and I never really found myself fully invested as a result. With that out of the way, let’s carry on…

2. Use Your Eyes!

I did actually feel sorry for Gus at the start of the episode when he realised that once again, a friendship he believed to be real was in fact fake. He found out in an awful way though as the guy was just so stupid in not looking before speaking. Gus was basically right in front of him when he told another student that he was just pretending to be his friend.

3. Paranormatorium

The Paranormatorium has to be one of my favourite names for a room ever! It is just so fun to stay! Hunter was living in there after running away from the Emperor’s coven and we found out that the Emperor wants him found. Interestingly, not all of the coven know the whole story as some were saying that the Emperor wanted them to find Hunter as Belos was worried about him.

4. We finish each other’s…

A moment which really did tickle me was a short exchange between two guards when one accidentally finished the other’s sentence. They were trying to capture Hunter when the first guard said “put him” with the second cutting him off and saying “out of his misery”. The first guard was shocked and said that he was going to say to sleep. An awkward moment where one guard’s bloodthirstiness was accidentally outed!

5. Adrian Graye

We got to meet Adrian Graye in this episode who was the leader of the Illusionist Coven. I loved how they made him like a stuck-up, artsy film director and how he belittled the guards, treating like his own film crew. The poor guys were out of their element and trying their best but he was having none of it. He isn’t on Darius’ level, but he was a very fun coven head and antagonist for the episode.

Five Things From: Seven Deadly Sins 3×8, The Druid’s Holy Land

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Five Things From. This time we are looking back at season 3 episode 8 of the Seven Deadly Sins, The Druid’s Holy Land. Which five things stood out and for what reasons? Let’s take a closer look…

1. Gowther

I’m just going to say it straight; why the hell is Gowther still welcome on this team? They have done way too much to hurt the other members and are a liability to put it mildly. They have become really unlikeable and although I don’t want to throw the word irredeemable out there, they will have to do an awful lot to win people’s trust back in any lasting way.

2. Human?

At one point, a group of demons were described as looking humanlike…how is that accurate when one of them was Galand? They look like a giant, red scorpion demon! I know that some of the armour designs are on the larger and more extravagant side but still! I would definitely not called Galand in all there are, particularly humanlike.

3. Mom

Does Hawk’s mom have a name? They all just call her “Hawk’s mom” which was actually quite amusing as it was said deadpan and seriously. Part of me would like them to just keep referring to her as such and it is fun to see her becoming more of a character in her own right, rather than just being a one-dimensional mode of transport.

4. Druid Chiefs

This episode introduced us to the druid chiefs who consisted of two ladies and a big, strong boy called Theo. Let me tell you, Theo did not look 15 at all! I’m intrigued how big a role they play going forward. They don’t need to go down the path of Elizabeth being jealous of how the girls treat Meliodas because I really don’t care. I have never been invested in her and Meliodas as the romantic leads. King and Diane; that’s the ship I’m on board for!

5. Derieri

I know very little about this demon but they have a very cool name. Sure, we would all love a bit of character development but at the moment, having a badass sounding name ranks you pretty high amongst the ten commandments.

(A little bit on the negative side is this review but I still enjoyed parts of the episode. Let’s see what next time brings.)

Five Things From: Modern Family 4×6, Yard Sale

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Five Things From. This time we are looking back at season 4 episode 6 of Modern Family, Yard Sale. Which five things stood out and for what reasons? Let’s take a closer look.

1. Dummy

At the start of the episode during the year sale, Manny brings out an unopened box only for it to be immediately snatched off of him by Gloria. He asks to know what is in it but she refuses to tell him. A part of me would have found it funny if that was it and we never found out but it turned out to be a ventriloquist dummy. It was called Uncle Grumpy and they waited right until the end to make the gag that it looked like Jay! I was waiting for it and then thought they weren’t going to do it. They really leaned in to it though by having him and the dummy sport matching outfits. It was a great payoff. They all found Gloria’s act quite entertaining despite her clearly not being able to not show her mouth moving…although her actual material seemed pretty decent.

2. Michael

Alex’s boyfriend Michael from Prom was back and was as camp and flamboyant as ever. I wouldn’t say it was sensitive but Claire’s concern for her daughter was coming from the right place. She wanted her daughter to be at least 18 or 19 before getting her heart broke by a gay guy so she can at least drink herself through it. Ignoring the concern that the legal drinking age in America is 21, Claire just didn’t want to see her daughter get hurt. Michael is sure he isn’t gay though…or at least just doesn’t want to admit to it. I hope that he appears again so that we can see him come to love and accept who he is.

3. Bread

Who the hell did that guy think he was asking for some bread to test if the toaster he was buying still worked? That guy has serious trust issues. It wasn’t even out for sale; he went and took it from inside the house! What was he doing!? It got me really annoyed for Jay!

4. Safety Net

Cam wanted to get rid of all his old jeans now that he has lost weight and they no longer fit him. Mitchell wanted to keep them as Cam has lost weight and got rid of jeans before, only to put the weight back on and have to buy bigger sized jeans again. This disagreement actually bought up an interesting debate about the jeans being a safety net. Cam said that keeping them won’t help him stay motivated to keep the weight off. I would say I agree with him…although I wouldn’t transfer that logic to other types of safety nets like trapeze ones.

5. Phil

Phil’s life flashed before his eyes as he lay trapped beneath a motorcycle in the middle of nowhere with no phone signal. As terrible as the situation may have been, he could have waited more than 27 minutes to record a goodbye message to his family on his phone. At least get into hours before you resort to that. We also saw he ordered and received a sandwich while stuck under there. Why didn’t the delivery person help him?

Five Things From: The Owl House 2×17, Edge of the World

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Five Things From. This time we are looking back at season 2 episode 17 of The Owl House, Edge of the World. Which five things stood out and for what reasons? Let’s take a closer look…

1. It was all a dream

The beginning episode seemingly had King’s family appearing at the owl house and being welcomed in for a “getting to know you” dinner by Eda and Luz. First of all I double checked that I hadn’t missed an episode and after that sat thinking that this is all rather rushed and sudden. It turned out that it was all a dream. In hindsight that is a shame for King as now we know he will never get to experience for real what he did in his dream.😔

2. Listen to Hooty!

Before setting off on their journey, Hooty informed the rest of the group that he could hear marching at the edge of the forest. The moment was moved on from very quickly and it wasn’t acknowledged by any of the other characters. I was left wondering what it was about but the answer came to fruition right at the end of the episode as the Emperor’s coven guards surrounded the owl house. People need to start listening to Hooty!

3. Oh Hooty

A few minutes later when they got to the island, Hooty then demonstrated why people end up ignoring him as he spoke absolute rubbish. How did he always think that Luz had three arms?! I guess he at least showed concern when he thought that the extra arm had fallen off.🙈 I still felt it was a little harsh near the end of the episode though when he was unfairly referred to as an ungodly sock monster!

4. The Titan Trappers

We met the Titan Trappers who we believed were King’s family and for a while it looked like all was going well for King. About halfway through the episode you started to think that things were going too well but I loved how they drip fed the reveal. They foreshadowed it by having Tarak say multiple times that King’s dad must have passed down his skull to him. It didn’t really click with me the first time but the second time I did think, “wait, do their skulls come off?” It turned out that they wear Titan skulls on their heads and are more humanoid-like in appearance.

5. King

King is such a good sympathetic character and you could really see how much he wanted this new family he discovered to be the truth. I like how they didn’t go down the route of Luz trying to convince him and then the pair falling out. There was no need to cause a temporary falling out so I’m glad they didn’t. You had Luz solving the mystery with Hooty separate to King being deceived and then the two plots combined when they got to the reveal. It worked better as it didn’t make you pick a side between the two characters.

Five Things From: Modern Family 4×5, Open House of Horrors

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Five Things From. This time we are looking at season 4 episode 5 of Modern Family, Open House of Horrors. Which five things stood out and for what reasons? Let’s take a closer look…

1. Horror

We all know that Claire is a big fan of Halloween but her enthusiasm has come back to bite her this time. In a short flashback, she definitely made things a little to gory and visceral for the small children trick or treating at her house. She even gave that one poor man a heart attack! Phil argued, saying that all she did was make a bit of spit and pee come out of him. He claimed that a similar thing happens with him when he sees monkeys in people clothes…erm, ok.

2. Royal Pains

Lily really wanted to dress up as a princess for Halloween and it was revealed to be because she was told by Mitchell that her real mum was a princess. The honest talk they had with her at the end was poignant and sweet but they should have had that talk as soon as she started asking about her mum. If they hadn’t had lied, that bird would have still been alive…apparently.

3. Jay

Just no Jay no. Don’t try and be flirty with the much younger police officer. It made him come across as rather creepy. I know there is the ongoing story with Jay struggling to come to terms with his age but having him awkwardly flirt with young police officers is not the way to make you sympathise with him. His fancy dress costume, coined “Medieval Knievel was spot on.

4. Rudeness

Those two teens who turned up to trick or treat at Jay and Gloria’s were very rude. Not only were their skeleton and lemon costumes basic at best, they were extremely rude saying that Gloria looked too old to be pregnant. Whatever age she should be, she looks good for it and also I don’t think she is too old to be having a baby. Jay, arguably but not Gloria.

5. Ending on a high-note

Manny trying to get in with the cool kids and ending up getting egged by his own mother was hilarious and also taught him an important lesson to not try and get in with people solely based around you thinking that they’re cool.

Five Things From: The Owl House 2×16, Hollow Mind

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of five Things From. This time we are looking back at season 2 episode 16 of The Owl House, Hollow Mind. Which five things stood out and for what reasons? Let’s take a closer look…

1. A Half-Century Reign

We found out that Emperor Belos has been in charge of the Boiling Isles for 50 years! This was given as the reason as to why many people weren’t jumping on Luz’s words about Belos being evil. They didn’t just have the people seem ignorant or dismissive; I liked that they gave a reasoning to why they weren’t all rallying in outrage. King worded it very well when saying, “No one wants to think they’ve wasted their life following the wrong person”. That is both true and rather sad.

2. What a Command

When trying to detain a masked group of vigilantes (who we didn’t get to see but I think Raine has something to do with it), Hunter made quite the order. I want to know if “I forbid you to flee” would ever actually work in any situation.

3. Backstory

This episode gave us lots of backstory on Belos and it was all very dramatic. Focussing in more on Luz’s horror as she realised how everything played out and connected together was very well done. Even if you weren’t overly surprised yourself, you still felt the emotion through Luz as she is such an investible character.

4. The Mystery of the Golden Guard

They did manage however to throw in some more mystery and intrigue in regard to the history of the Golden Guard. Hunter is not the nephew of Belos like he was led to believe. They also suggested that Belos kills the Golden Guards as they all end up turning on him eventually. Hunter looks the most like whoever Belos based him on and they are saying that he is something called a Grim Walker…I have so many questions but am very intrigued. It just adds another layer of sinisterness to Belos who could have been in danger of just being a generic dictator.

5. The Collector

Who is this mysterious collector being who was talking to Belos. It was very childlike and playful. It reminded me of a similar entity seen in the Full Metal Alchemist anime. How much is Belos pulling the strings here? Is the collector the one with all of the real power? Overall a damn fine episode!

Five Things From: Modern Family 4×4, The Butler’s Escape

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Five Things From. This time we are looking back at season 4 episode 4 of Modern Family, The Butler’s Escape. Which five things stood out and for what reasons? Let’s take a closer look…

1. Magic

The title “The Butler’s Escape” was referring to a famous escapology trick. Personally, I have heard of and seen variations of the trick but have never heard the “origin story” of the trick that Phil told. The subplot was a good insight into Phil and Luke’s relationship although I felt that the message got a little muddied in the end. Despite being technically good at it, Luke wanted to quit magic as he didn’t enjoy it. Phil disapproved of this and wanted his son to carry on. It seemed as if Phil was trying to live out one of his dreams through his son.

The natural conclusion that looked to be happening was that Phil would allow Luke to quit magic but voiced his worry that the two of them would soon start growing apart. This would have been a suitable end but then they through in the extra plot point of Luke now wanting to quit because kids at school picked on him for it. This would also be a fair enough story to tell but doing them both together just made for a confusing end. Did Luke actually like magic? Did he end up quitting it? It just felt unnecessarily overegged.

2. Teaching

As a teacher myself, I have seen people with the enthusiasm that Cam have disastrously crash and burn. You can introduce the more flamboyant and unique aspects later on but you don’t want to overwhelm the students early on. You need to start by building those genuine relationships with the kids. Get them onside and then you can ramp up your lessons to be extravagant as you want: if your kids trust you, then they will gladly come along for the ride with you. The jumper didn’t help either. You have to build up to wearing that too. That teacher who “accidentally” spilt juice on it did him a favour.

3. Manny

Manny had my favourite quip of the whole episode. While Cam’s debut lesson was spiralling out of control, Manny said to Luke that, “there’s no way he (Cam) ran this past Mitchell”. It was just a fun insight into how they know each other so well as an extended family.

4. Hotels

Speaking of Manny, how unlucky and coincidental was it for Jay that Manny was in that very same hotel? What time of the day even was this? It felt a tad contrived honestly.

5. Jay

Jay was understandably struggling to go to sleep as a result of Gloria’s snoring while being heavily pregnant. Should he have just sucked it up? I can completely get why you could argue he should but also it would be unarguable that the man can’t sleep and is just very tired. Like Gloria said, honesty and separate sleeping areas would have nipped this problem in the bud.

Five Things From: Seven Deadly Sins 3×6, The Chief Holy Knight Atones For His Sins

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Five Things From. This time we are looking back at season 3 episode 6 of Seven Deadly Sins, The Chief Holy Knight Atones For His Sins (what a terrible name for an episode that is, it’s like something from One Piece). Which five things stood out and for what reasons? Let’s take a closer look…

1. Hendrickson

Right…they went about redeeming Hendrickson in a very easy way in my opinion. Oh, he was possessed the whole time so had no control over what he was doing. It just felt like the easy option. I did however love the white outfit that Hendrickson now sports. That was a very cool look. I just feel like he isn’t really atoning if he didn’t actually choose to do the bad things in the first place.

2. Jobs

You did have to feel sorry for Hendrickson though when he revealed what job he was made to do when he was younger. Making a child sit and guard corpses until they have decomposed is awful; that’s a job that would be terrible for anyone, let alone a child. Then because he didn’t do it right, they kicked him out of the town! Who are these awful people.

3. Power Levels

Near the end of the episode, the team reflected on how their combined power levels would only just be enough to beat one of the Ten Commandments and would stand no chance if they battled them all together. Interestingly, King has a higher power level than Meliodas which surprised me as he has always been presented as the strongest. Also, they were counting Ban and Merlin in their calculations which was a bit optimistic. Ban has made it clear that he is off on his own for a while (he will presumably rejoin later on but still) and Merlin is still stone which is apparently extremely hard to reverse. Her soul is somehow now stuck in a magic cube so that she can still communicate and drop functional exposition when needed.

4. Checkov’s Bracelet

Gowther is back in human form and revealed that he now has a restraint bracelet to keep his powers in check. They have to be implementing the “Checkov’s Gun theory here”: the idea from playwright Checkov that if you establish a character has a gun earlier in the play, it is surely going to be fired at some point. You have to know that the restraint bracelet is coming off again sooner or later!

5. Memories

Why are they punishing people for getting invested in the Diane-King love story, I get that you need to have obstacles, ups and downs but I just want to see them happy. I just hope they don’t drag her memory loss out for too long! It is so much better than the awful Meliodas-Elizabeth romance.

Five Things From: The Owl House 2×15, Them’s the Breaks, Kid

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Five Things From. This time we are looking back at season 2 episode 15 of The Owl House, Them’s the Breaks, Kid. Which five things stood out and for what reasons? Let’s take a closer look…

1. Key Notes

Luz was experimenting with various glyphs at the start of the episode and was making notes about them in her notebook. One of the notes simply read “petrification-bad”. We then saw that she had a petrified figure that she had practiced on. I hope that it was a toy and not a small, innocent creature that she had practiced on! Also, Hooty ate a demon’s arm and nobody batted an eye! I’m pretty sure it was still attached to the rest of it too!

2. Faust

We spent the majority of the episode in a flashback, looking back at Eda’s time at Hexside school for witches. We met Headteacher Faust and he was a truly terrifying being. Credit to the art department because his design was great! He was extremely strict and had an issue with the squeakiness of shoes, although it was actually the squeaky ones he preferred! How can you trust shoes that don’t squeak?

3. Lateness

Faust also earned himself the line of the episode. His expectations were so high that he wasn’t even happy with the students arriving on time! In his eyes, being on time is the beginning of the road to being late. Is he wrong?

4. Threats

The head of the plant coven was making various threats this episode about turning children into mulch for her garden and poisoning people. It was funny how legitimately annoyed she was whenever she was informed that these things she was suggesting were illegal. If nobody would have warned her, I’m pretty sure that she would have followed through with at least some of these.

5. Raine

I don’t really find Raine that much of an interesting character and nothing that happened in this episode really changed that opinion. What I did pick up on however is that they use the they/them pronouns and a little research confirmed that they are a non-binary character. It is really good to see this type of representation in animated shows and I also like that it isn’t the defining trait of the character. They happen to be non-binary while being a fully formed character too. Win-win.