Supernatural
Season 12 Episode 11: “Regarding Dean”
Created by Eric Kripke
Directed by John Badham
Written by Meredith Glynn
Starring Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Misha Collins, Mark Sheppard, Ruth Connell
The CW
Air Date: Thursday, February 9th 2017, 8:00pm

Last time on Supernatural, an angel-killing lady started taking out some of Castiel’s (Misha Collins) winged associates. He met two of them, and Dean and Sam (Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki) tagged along. One then died at the hands of Lily Sunder (Alicia Witt), but they saved Ishim. The whole sordid story came out. Ishim was really a douche who was obsessed with Lily. So angry that she had taken up with another angel, he killed her angel husband and human child, lying to his brethren that the child was a nephilim. He also thought humans were animals. She bided her time and studied angel magic until she was powerful enough to kill him. Castiel ended up killing Ishim to save them all and to atone for his part in it.

Spoilers below.

Supernatural
Season 11 Episode 11: “Into The Mystic”
Created by Eric Kripke
Directed by John Badham
Written by Robbie Thompson
Starring Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Misha Collins, Mark Sheppard, Ruth Connell, Mark Pellegrino
The CW
Air Date: Wednesday, January 27th, 2016, 9:00pm

Last week’s Supernatural was a Sam/Lucifer (Jared Padalecki/Mark Pellegrino) love story as Lucifer hosted a “This is your Life” montage. We got to see the season 5 finale when Sam/Lucifer and Adam/Michael fell into hell. I think he genuinely can beat the darkness, but if it means Sam has to say yes…

Surprisingly, he does not. But that Lucifer is wily. At the last second, he got Castiel (Misha Collins) to say yes, so Lucifer got dressed in a Castiel suit. And then killed Rowena (boo!!).

Spoilers below.

Arrow
Season 4 Episode 5: “Haunted”
Directed by John Badham
Written by Brian Ford Sullivan & Oscar Balderrama
Created by Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, Andrew Kreisberg
Starring Stephen Amell, Katie Cassidy, David Ramsey, Willa Holland, Emily Bett Rickards, John Barrowman, Paul Blackthorne
The CW
Air Date: Wednesday, November 4th, 2015, 8:00pm

Last week on Arrow, Laurel (Katie Cassidy) showed Lance (Paul Blackthorne) that Sara (Caity Lotz) was alive – chained up, animilistic, wildling, but alive. He goes to Damien Darhk (Neal McDonough) for advice who seems almost a friend, and advises him to put her down. He almost goes through with it in a heartwrenching moment, but Laurel is able to talk him down. At the end though, Sara escaped. Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) is still not getting the hint that Ray is trying to communicate with her through her phone, even though Holt (Echo Kellum) tells her it’s coming from inside Palmer Tech. She is reluctant to listen to Ray’s last words but gives in. There was a little storyline involving corrupt cops, but I felt like that was background to the other stuff. The gang has a new lair, and after some hemming and hawing, Oliver (Stephen Amell) formerly announced his candidacy for mayor of Star City.

Spoilers below.

Supernatural
Season 10 Episode 15: “The Things They Carried”
Created by Eric Kripke
Directed by John Badham
Written by Jenny Klein
Starring Jensen Ackles, Jared Padelecki, Misha Collins, and Mark Sheppard
The CW
Air Date: Wednesday, March 18th, 2015, 9:00pm

All my shows are back! Spoilers!

Supernatural returns, last leaving us in February with Dean (Jensen Ackles) asking Sam (Jared Padelecki) to leave the Mark of Cain obsession alone. You know how these brothers are with each other. That never happens. Truthfully, Cain (Timothy Omundson) was perfectly dandy until the Winchesters showed up. I know we haven’t seen him since then, but he did kinda flip his lid without it, to his detriment. So what does that say? Maybe Sam should just try to put it from his mind. Maybe Dean would go crazy (more crazy) too if he rids himself of the mark. I always like when Supernatural uses Sam and Dean to parallel other theology/mythology, like when Dean was destined to be Michael and Sam was destined to be Lucifer. That didn’t quite go exactly as we thought it would be played. You cannot ignore the Cain/Abel parallel possibility.

Saturday Night Fever
Directed by John Badham
Starring John Travolta, Karen Lynn Gorney, Joseph Cali, Paul Pape, Barry Miller
Paramount Home Entertainment
Release Date: May 5, 2009

Saturday Night Fever is a portrait of a particular passion drowning as much as it can life’s harsh and unforgiving reality. Almost as if he’s hypnotized, John Travolta‘s Tony Manero struts down the streets of Brooklyn in a black jacket that’s worn over a red buttoned-up shirt that’s not fully buttoned. He’s brim full of confidence even while carrying a can of paint he got for his boss at the hardware store. He doesn’t know he’s carrying that can, doesn’t know that he’s at the age of nineteen and still universally entrenched in his dreams, and he doesn’t know anything else that isn’t relevant to dancing. His mind and thoughts are unable to resist what the night holds for him and his equally confident friends at the disco dance hall in the 2001 Odyssey club. The present is what matters to Manero, not the future: “Fuck the future,” he tells his boss.

Tony from the start of the movie is a different Tony when the film reaches its end. It’s a beautiful character study. Watching him progress from his rebel attitude into manhood as the movie deepens is what makes director John Badham‘s Saturday Night Fever a great film. Bedham knows what he’s doing when he laces his film with vulgarity, booze, sex, and more vulgarity. He’s doing it for a reason. The multitude and excess of such actions are used to make the audience as familiar with it as Tony is. Exposure to this makes Tony a one dimensional character. He’s surrounded by a wrecked home life, reckless friends, and a passion for dancing; a great talent but becomes obscured when applied to the future of Tony. Bedham believes strongly in this atmosphere so strongly that when an outsider attempts to wedge their way in they are looked upon as a foreigner, even though they seem to be more mature, successful and promising.