The second function didn’t pay off until this week, but it did so with a bang (and yes, that was a joke about how Mack got shot in the leg, because jowly Kelly McGillis had no time for him and his penis-having ways). Addy is officially broken. The revelation about having to grant her family mercy? That didn’t serve to bring her any sort of peace. If anything, it pushed her over the edge....

Hungary is a country that has a history of producing animated shorts that push the boundaries of possibility. Hungarian animators first started to produce works in the 1910s, but it was really during the cold war years that freedom of expression was explored through animation, with black humour or traditional folktales being used to raise points about the repressive Communist government. In the 1980s experimentation with different styles and approaches abounded, including the production of the very first fully digitally animated film....

Ticket to Ride (The Beatles) – The Chase Danced to by Ian Chesterton, like your dad. This appears thanks to the Doctor’s Space Time Telegraph or ‘Time Telly’ which he nicked from The Space Museum the previous week, and which is only ever used in this story. When the signal cuts out, the Doctor harumphs that it has ‘squashed my favourite Beatles!’ That same year, Goldfinger was released, in which James Bond makes a dismissive remark about wearing earplugs at a Beatles concert and thus proving that William Hartnell is just a little bit more with it and sexy than Sean Connery....

So how does the finale go down? Let’s find out now… Olivia is questioned over the assassination of Jonas Hodges. Meanwhile Ethan Kanin comes to the White House and meets Aaron. He retrieves a recording from his old office but is pinched by Olivia’s staff when she catches wind of what has happened. Although he is searched, he manages to pull the old switcheroo on them! Aaron having the real copy on him....

In November, when Agents of SHIELD kind of sort of tied into Thor: Dark World, fans cried foul because it was the most ancillary of crossovers. Not so this time, as the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier completely and utterly fuel this Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon penned episode. It’s like you can almost tack “Turn, Turn, Turn” on to the end of Winter Soldier and it would fit seamlessly…except for, y’know, the lack of Captain America and Winter Soldier, but you get my meaning....

American Dad!: Season 12, Episode 2 “I’ll take my letter jacket in a woman’s medium.” This leads Steve right into the fins of Klaus, who is more than eager to coach Steve into re-convincing the water polo coach, James Hetfield (“So it’s a good thing that I’m this very different James Hetfield”) that he’s worth another shot. This is a pretty fun pair-up for the episode, and between this entry and the premiere, Klaus is batting two-for-two so far this season, which might be an all-time first....

This week’s episode continued avoiding Zoe’s storyline, which helps. Tonight we only got a few brief moments with Tasissa Farmiga and her big, deer-in-the-headlights eyes, and it’s the right move. When you have actresses like Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, and Angela Basset chewing up all the scenery they can get their hands on, it just doesn’t bode well to waste time with Zoe and her Warm Bodies but creepier plot....

One of the show’s biggest issues is the ever-shifting allegiance of the main characters. It is so hard to keep up with what side everyone is on and the minute I think I have a grasp on things, it changes again. Last week I could have sworn that Cordelia and Fiona patched things up like a proper mother and daughter and now are joined together in an effort to defeat Marie, or the witch hunters, or someone, I don’t know, but this week Fiona is screaming about how much of a useless failure her daughter is for marrying a witch hunter and now they hate each other more than ever....

3.11 Protect The Coven There is a lot going on in this season of American Horror Story, as the coven is full of witches with their own agendas, there’s the looming spectre of witch hunters, there’s the crowning of a new supreme, and there’s all the interpersonal relationship conflicts between various witches, ghost butlers, immortal racists, voodoo queens, serial killers, and powerful supernatural figures to keep track of. Unlike previous seasons, it seems like nobody leaves the coven, or Coven, for very long, so the pressure seems like it’s going to keep on building until it blows up....

2.12 Continuum And that direction, before you can ask, is upside down and hanging off a crane. We’ve seen a lot of tonight’s tricks before – unusual shot framing, Dutch angles, time-jumping smash cuts and match cuts – but nothing has been quite as elegantly executed as that not-so-simple crane shot where Kit walks under the camera, gets into his truck, drives off, and is replaced by a meth-smoking (I assume it’s meth, because he’s dressed like a meth head) Johnny Thredson blasting aggressive rock and roll music in a white-trash sports car in the parking lot of a failed bookstore....

There had been rumors from 2015 that suggested Garfield had in fact been fired by Sony from Spider-Man, following an alleged dispute with-then Sony chief Kaz Hirai over a special promotional event. The event in question was set to take place in Brazil, where The Amazing Spider-Man 3 was reportedly set to be confirmed, but Garfield ducked out, with sickness the given reason. The Guardian has quizzed him on just what happened, and whether he effectively sabotaged his own Spider-Man future by not attending the event....

For starters, I have to give credit to the opening with Sebastian Blood’s visit to his “aunt” at Langford. It’s moody and atmospheric, and right off the bat there’s a great bit of dialogue. “Still worshipping the old gods, I see,” Blood says, as he walks into the hospital room to find her saying her rosary. It’s a fun villain line, and since Sebastian Blood has mostly been the epitome of charm when not wearing that skull mask, seeing his “true self” creep through here was a nice touch....

Every now and then an episode comes along that makes the case that ALL TV shows should switch to the cable model of 10-13 episode short seasons. “Draw Back Your Bow” was one of those episodes of Arrow, because it’s difficult to imagine anyone ever wanting to revisit this on their Blu-ray set or via Netflix. I’m going to keep this one short, since I have no real desire to relive it over the course of my usual thousand words or so....

Arrow Season 6 Episode 2 “Tribute” sputtered out of the gate with a main storyline that even the characters admit we have all seen before. It also serves to remind us of how ridiculous it is that anyone in Star City ever bought that the Hood and the Green Arrow were separate vigilantes – I mean come on, the suits weren’t even that different. On the positive side, this episode set up or built upon several points of conflict between Oliver and people who are fundamentally good (or at least not evil), which will likely be richer in the long run....

Ash vs Evil Dead Season 2 Episode 7 Have you ever seen the Buffy episode “Normal Again?” It’s from the show’s sixth season. It’s about Buffy waking up in a mental institution and realizing that her life is one big delusion. This Rod Serling-esque twist was effective where it was placed in the season’s overarching narrative because it emphasized how the character of Buffy herself wanted to escape the darkness of her life at that time....

When the trailer for Atomic Blonde first came out several months ago it became one of the highlights in many a cinephile’s calendar. It promised a tale of spies and subterfuge, set during the eve of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, with another kick-ass lead role for Charlize Theron forming imagery that had all the makings to be iconic. Consider the fact it was superbly soundtracked to Sweet Dreams by the Eurythmics, almost to the extent of looking like it had be choreographed and tailor-made for that particularly haunting slice of New Wave, it looked like it would be on track to be a surprise summer hit....

The King Of Omashu Maybe I’m just a bit harsh on it as important stuff does goes down in the episode. We are introduced to Earthbending and its pretty cool stuff, especially when characters are making quicksand or tearing bits off of walls or seemingly phasing through the ground. And we encounter the Earth Kingdom city of Omashu, as well as its king (who – you guessed it! – becomes increasingly important as the show goes on)....

This is the position that True Blood producer Alan Ball’s new show Banshee now finds itself in as its first season arrives on home release. Here in the UK, Banshee went out on a Monday night, following Game of Thrones for most of its run. This probably wasn’t the wisest piece of scheduling – an audience hooked on the latest developments in Westeros probably wasn’t in the mood to immediately leap into another hour of high-tension, all-encompassing television....

1.3 What’s Wrong With Norman Which is more than can be said for young Norman. The hints of deep rage continue to burst through his awkward, shifty exterior and he’s responding less and less well to pressure. Freddie Highmore is doing sterling work in the role, perfectly capturing Norman’s, how to put this? Peculiarities? He handles them like an affliction, revealing, for example, that he cannot even remember attacking his brother with the meat tenderiser....

1.5 Ocean View It’s relationship crisis week in White Pine Bay, and a great opportunity to explore some of the emotional interactions that underpin the stranger goings-on in the town. We start the episode with that staple of a young man’s development – the walk of shame. Walk of pride would be a more appropriate term, especially with the delicious grin that Highmore wears as he wanders back to the motel at eight in the morning....