Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

:-) I liked it, of course I did. Its bizarre story and its bizarre characters got to me. I like how it's written, because I sort of feel like it wasn't as easy as one might think. What I mean is, this story of a bizarre London Below, so different from the London Above, is full of strange things, like there's actually an Earl with his court inside a train's carriage in Earl's Court Station, and Knightsbridge is called Night's Bridge, where its complete darkness is terrifying and the Night can take anyone as tribute, and the main characters are called Door because she can open any door, and the marquis de Carabas... and I feel like maybe it's not so easy to write all this stuff and not make a joke of it, the mockery of a story. I read this fantasy novel as seriously as I would have read any other 'serious literature' story, and I liked Door, and Anaesthesia, and the rats, and even Hunter and the Angel, but most of all I deeply felt for the marquis, poor thing who got tortured and killed for nothing and I don't think he got the appreciation he deserved for what he suffered, but I appreciated that the very last image of the book is with him :-) Made me feel like I wasn't the only one who liked him, like I was meant to, you know.

Another thing I really, really appreciated was the absence of love stories in London Below, because not many writers would have abstained from making Door and Richard fall in love. 

The story: Richard Mayhew moved to London (from Scotland I think) and after three years he had a job, friends at the work place and a beautiful girlfriend, until one day he met a girl on the street: Door. She was hurt, bleeding, pleading for help but refusing to go to a hospital, so Richard left Jessica where she was (making her so angry she broke the engagement) and took Door to his apartment to help her. This act of kindness changed his life.
She was in trouble, two cutthroats were after her: Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar, who reminded me so much of Mr Pin and Mr Tulip from Terry Pratchett's The Truth :-p
She asked a pigeon to bring a message from her to the marquis de Carabas, and he sent a rat with a reply, and Richard went to meet him: "he wore a huge dandyish black coat that was not quite a frock coat nor exactly a trench coat, and high black boots, and beneath his coat, raggedy clothes. His eyes burned white in an extremely dark face. And he grinned white teeth, momentarily, as if at a private joke of his own, and bowed to Richard and said 'De Carabas, at your service' ".
The marquis then went up a roof to Old Bailey, to give him a silver box to keep safe, and only later on, step by step, we learn what was in it. Old Bailey used it to bring him back, and further on the marquis asked Hunter: "do you keep your life hidden anywhere, Hunter?", so there you have it, why he did indeed die and yet he came back and is now very much alive :-)
Door and the marquis go away, but now Richard doesn't belong to his own world anymore, it's like he doesn't exist, people don't see him or remember him, and machines don't accept his pin number, so he was forced to look for Door for an explanation and possibly some help. A beggar, one of the very few people that live in both worlds, helped him enter London Below. The first people he met there were not friendly, but luckily Master Longtail recognized him from having met him in his apartment when "I threw the remote control at it" and ordered the Rat-speakers to get him safe to the Floating Market and Anaesthesia is to get him there, by crossing Night's Bridge where she bravely defended him against Varney (soon to be late-Varney) "the best bravo and guard in the underside" and "the best since Hunter's day" : in his own words. The Night takes her, so that's the last we see of her, poor girl, she was so nice. At the market Richard swaps his handkerchief for informations and finds Door and the marquis auditioning for a bodyguard. Varney would have been hired but Hunter's back, so she gets the job, and every fool reader is relieved, believing it to be a good thing, and it was, up to a point. Door had found her father's diary hidden in his study, telling her to go to the angel Islington (there's an Angel Station in Islington, of course) and to trust him, and anyone who thought: 'how could he hide it? He had no time to do it before he was killed!' will find a suitable answer.
They have to separate for a while. Door and Richard go to Islington and drink his Atlantis wine, then go on another little adventure to procure the key Islington asked them for, then go to the next market to get what they need, sure of meeting the marquis there.
Meanwhile, the marquis went to meet Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar, and I wonder if Gaiman tried to make us suspect that he was a traitor, there. I never did, I just waited to see what would happen.
They exchanged a few words then he tried to escape but was caught and tortured and finally killed. He did it on purpose, to discover who was behind all this, because people are not careful with their words when they are about to kill you or after they have killed you.
There's a piece about him that reads "the marquis de Carabas was not a good man, and he knew himself well enough to be perfectly certain that he was not a brave man. He had long since decided that the world, Above or Below, was a place that wished to be deceived, and to this end, he had named himself from a lie in a fairytale, and created himself - his clothes, his manner, his carriage - as a grand joke", and also Lord Portico's words to his daughter: "he's a fraud and a cheat and possibly even something of a monster. If you're ever in trouble, go to him. He will protect you, girl. He has to"
So, his throat ultimately cut, he was thrown in the sewer. He was found, brought to the market, bought by Old Bailey and brought on a roof, than revived using the silver box (and the egg inside). He tried to go back to the market to meet them, but they were gone already. They should have waited for him, they didn't even worry. Anyway, he followed them. He was in time to save Richard from Lamia, the velvet Richard himself had hired as a guide and that now was sucking his warmth and his life out of him. The marquis forced her to give it back, then warned her: "go near him again and I'll come by day to your cavern while you sleep and I'll burn it to the ground" which he didn't have to do. His debt to Lord Portico who once saved his life binds him to take care and protect her , not him, and certainly not in the future. Okay he may not be a good man, but he's not a bad man either, and I didn't like that a few minutes later Richard thought of him as a mad bastard.
Hunter betrays Door handing her to Croup and Vandemar, then she dies trying to kill the Beast of London, which Richard manages to finish off under her instructions. They reach Door and all three are chained. Islington wants her to release him from his prison, opening the door to Heaven where he wants to become the only master, but instead Door opens a door to "as far away as I could send him. Halfway across space and time" where Croup and Vandemar go also. Now Door is safe and her family's death has been avenged, the marquis has repaid his debt and Richard manages to go back to his old life thanks to the key. Once there he happily finds his old life: his job with a big promotion, a better apartment and his friend Gary. He meets Jessica but realizes it is definitely over. She asks: "did you meet someone?" and "he hesitated. He thought of Lamia and Hunter and Anaesthesia and even Door but none of them were someones in the way that she meant. 'No, no one else' he said. And then, realizing it was true as he said it 'I've just changed, that's all'"
I loved this bit. And I love that till the end Richard remembered Anaesthesia.
After all he went through, this life is now plain and boring, so he uses the knife Hunter gave him to draw a door on a wall and call out for someone and then he waits. After a little while:
"there was a man standing in the doorway, with his arms folded theatrically. He stood there until he was certain that Richard had seen him, and then he yawned hugely, covering his mouth with a dark hand. The marquis de Carabas raised an eyebrow. 'Well?' he said irritably. 'Are you coming?'. Richard stared at him for a heartbeat. Then Richard nodded, without trusting himself to speak, and stood up. And they walked away together through the hole in the wall, back into the darkness, leaving nothing behind them, not even the doorway"
It was lovely to have the last image with the marquis :-)

One of the things I love about how it's written, is that there aren't too many descriptions. London Below gets more or less the same amount as London Above; it would have easily fallen into a mockery had he lost too many words in describing every little thing. The 'silver-box-insurance' for example: we learn as we go on as much as we need to know, and there's no need for more. Why doesn't everyone do that, can everyone do it, how did he put his life away inside an egg... these things aren't important, not really. We get as many descriptions and explanations as we need to picture the scene and understand it, but not too much as to become boring or ridiculous. I really enjoyed it and I'd like very much to read its sequel (I think Door has a sister still alive somewhere..) if ever he should fancy the idea of writing it :-)

Harvey - 1950

I love it, love it, love it :-)
It starts with Elwood P. Dowd (James Stewart, love him) walking out of his house and stopping to let someone invisible pass. After he goes out, his sister and her daughter prepare themselves for a party they're having in the house. Miss Johnson had been hired to serve at the party, but she leaves in a hurry because "a man introduced me to somebody (invisible Harvey;-p) Do you think I'd stay in this house after that?"   .... come on, it's not like he went after her with a knife!
Myrtle Mae says "oh mother, people get run over by trucks every day. Why can't something like that happen to uncle Elwood?" .... :-/ what a girl, huh?
Myrtle Mae (Victoria Horne) is all against him and wouldn't want him around, but her mother Veta (Josephine Hull) reminds her "your uncle Elwood is not living with us, we're living with him" because "why did grandmother leave all of her property to uncle Elwood?"
She's angry because no man will ever want her because her uncle's crazy. That's why they're having this party at all, to have her "started socially".
I liked the scenes in the bar, where the barman knows Elwood and talks to him about Harvey like a normal thing :-) Nice Mr Cracker :-)
When Elwood meets a man in the bar who tells him about the "reception" at his home he says "Veta didn't tell me anything about this; must have slipped her mind" and then he goes home because he worries she might be offended if he's not there :-p
Elwood does everything with Harvey, and he buys tickets for two, and he introduces everybody to Harvey, he hears him and talks to him, and people they all run away, so Veta wants to have him hospitalized, because she's ashamed of him.
Mr Sanderson (Charles Drake) is the young doctor so full oh himself, so sure he's such a great psychiatrist, and he thinks Veta crazy and has her locked up. Probably because she confesses that sometimes she can see Harvey too: "a big white rabbit, six feet high, or is it six feet three and a half?".
Miss Kelly (Peggy Dow) is in love with the doctor, who knows why since he treats her with such contempt.
Wilson (Jesse White) carries poor Veta over his shoulders and puts her in a cell. They try to explain the situation to Elwood who is so very nice and kind, and says of Miss kelly "isn't she lovely? Isn't she... (turning to her) you're very lovely my dear" - "why thank you Mr Dowd, some people don't seem to think so" - "well some people are blind. That's very often brought to my attention" :lol:
Elwood tries many times to introduce them to Harvey, but they keep talking and not notice and don't let him. :-p The doctor explains that Veta came insisting that Elwood needed treatment but it's her that's not well and must stay there.
The wife of Dr Chumley meets Elwood outside and he tells her about Harvey: he's a Pooka! and his best friend too! The dictionary says : "Pooka=from old Celtic mythology. A fairy spirit in animal form, always very large. The Pooka appears here and there, now and then, to this one and that one. A benign but mischievous creature, very fond of rumpots, crackpots, and how are you Mr Wilson?"
When she tells her husband, he's furious, saying Dr Sanderson "let a psychopathic case walk out" (very wrongly I think though, because seeing imaginary rabbits doesn't mean someone is a psychopath at all!)
Dr Chumley (Cecil Kellaway) and everybody else go after Elwood to bring him back in. Veta is left free and she's very shocked and angry that "they put me in and let Elwood out". When Wilson comes to her home to look for Elwood, Myrtle Mae fixes him something to eat *rolling eyes*. Elwood come home bringing a painting of him and Harvey (although it's not clear who made it if nobody else can see him, or maybe this painter could..) but they don't notice.
Dr Chumley goes to Charlie's to find Elwood but after four hours he hasn't come back yet, so Wilson, Sanderson and Kelly go there too. There's only Elwood present. Wilson asks Mr Cracker "Is he alone?" and the reply: "well, there's two schools of thought sir" :-p
Elwood has Dr Sanderson dance with Kelly :-p
I like everything about Elwood, and everything he says :-p "I've wrestled with reality for 35 years and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it" ; "I have so many things to do. Harvey and I sit in the bars, have a drink or two, play the jukebox, and soon the faces of all the people, they turn toward mine and they smile, and they're saying 'we don't know your name mister but you're a very nice fella' Harvey and I warm ourselves on all these golden moments. We've entered as strangers and soon we have friends" and they talk and people tell him their stories and their hopes "their loves and their hates, all very large because nobody ever brings anything small into a bar" ; "one night several years ago I was walking early in the evening down Fairfax Street (..) and I heard this voice saying 'good evening Mr Dowd', well I turned around and there was this big six-foot rabbit leaning against a lamp-post. Now, I thought nothing of that because when you've lived in a town as long as I've lived in this one you get used to the fact that everybody knows your name, and naturally I went over to chat with him, and (..) we talked for a while (..) then Harvey said 'what name do you like?', 'Harvey's always been my favourite name', 'what a coincidence, my name happens to be Harvey'"  :lol: adorable.
Back to the sanatorium, we understand that Dr Chumley saw Harvey too. Elwood talks with him about Harvey: "Harvey can look at your clock and stop it, and you can go anywhere you like, with anyone you like and stay as long as you like and when you get back, not one minute will have ticked by" and "Harvey has overcome not only time and space but any objections" :lol:
Harvey always said he'll do anything for Elwood but he never asked him anything because "so far I haven't been able to think of any place I'd rather be, I always have a wonderful time wherever I am, whoever I'm with". He's always so nice, he's not angry even when he understands that Veta wants to lock him up in there - "years ago my mother used to say to me 'in this world Elwood you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant. Well for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me" :lol: There's such a peaceful look in his face, he's so charming and adorable :-)
They all want Elwood to take a serum that will bring him back to reality, and he won't see the rabbit but only his duties. Of course Elwood doesn't want it, he doesn't think he needs it, but then Veta starts crying, saying that they have no life at all, that they're miserable, so sweet Elwood accepts to take it, and the look on his face, oh it breaks my heart.
While they wait outside, the taxi driver (Wallace Ford) comes for his money but Veta can't find any in her bag, so he should wait for Elwood to come out, but the man's not happy about it, so they have Elwood come out at once and they talk, very friendly. "A sweet guy" says the man later, and he tells her of the other people that have taken that serum. "I brought them out here to get that stuff and frove them home afterwards. It changes them. On the way out here they sit back and enjoy the ride. They talk to me. Sometimes we stop and watch the sunsets and look at the birds flying. Sometimes we stop and watch the birds when there ain't no birds, and look at the sunsets when it's raining. We have a swell time. And I always get a big tip. But afterwards, they crab and crab. They yell at me, 'watch the lights! watch the brakes! watch the intersection!', they scream at me to hurry (..) it's no fun. And no tips (..) after this he'll be a perfectly normal human being, and you know what stinkers they are" :-D
Veta screams now to stop it, she doesn't want her brother to be like that, and even says "and what's wrong with Harvey? If Elwood and Myrtle Mae and I want to live with Harvey, what is it to you?" :-) Elwood is all happy and smiling :-) and now Veta finds her money in her bag and understands that Harvey hid it to stop this nonsense :-)
Veta dislikes Wilson after what he did to her and so she wants him away from Myrtle Mae, but Elwood is so nice he says "very nice couple" and invites Wilson home for dinner :-) so now Myrtle Mae is no more against him.
Harvey thinks of staying with Dr Chumley for a while because he asked, and Elwood doesn't mind, but is sad about it, but he's just walking out the sanatorium's gate when he comes back, and they talk and we see Elwood smile : "oh thank you Harvey, I prefer you too " :-)
How lovely, isn't it? So so lovely :-)

Little notes:
Elwood is 42. He reads 'sense and sensibility' aloud to Harvey while waiting :-p
It's not clear to me why Elwood's father is called John Stiverson, I mean, shouldn't he be called Dowd??

From the pulitzer prize play by Mary Chase who also wrote the screenplay (! I didn't know this, that's why I'm writing it down here :-p)

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Finished! Finally! My gosh, I didn't like it at all, so full of vicious characters and deeds. Everyone but the narrator is either very bad or very stupid, and children came out of nowhere all of a sudden.
I admit it is indeed well written and sort of captivating, because of that, but I didn't like the story of cruelty, vengeance, hate and depravation, or the idiocy of some characters like Isabella: how could I pity her? He was cruel, yes, but she had been an idiot. No comparison with those women who think they've married a good man who turns out a monster: this is different, he showed her the monster that he was, everybody told her the fiend that he was, but she was all 'if I want him I can have him'.
The only decent character is Ellen Dean, also called Nelly, the narrator of the story. I felt for poor Hareton, the only one who encountered my sympathy: he was vulgar and rough only because ignorance had been forced on him and he knew no different, poor lad.
Heathcliff started out as a victim, but was so cruel afterwards that I have no pity for him. Edgar Linton embraced his fate willingly, he should have known better. Catherine Earnshaw only thought of herself. Hindley Earnshaw was cruel and stupid altogether. Catherine Linton was a spoiled brat and Linton Heathcliff a pathetic, self-absorbed peevish thing of a boy. Isabella was the stupidest of all, listening to nobody and regretting her actions/marriage the very next day.
There's plenty of love-stories, and yet not one that grips my heart, because when you think about it, they had no social life at all, so nobody really fell in love, nobody chose, nobody was picked among the many; Catherine knew two boys and loved them both; little Cathy knew two also, and loved the educated one, and when he was no more decided to educate the other to love him; Isabella knew but one and got him. I mean, it's not like in other stories when people meet other people in "society".
Surely, there's a lot that we don't see, because this is Nelly's tale, and she tells it her way, so there may be many things she doesn't say, but I'm sure there weren't all that many other boys and girls available, considering that a gentleman's daughter/son would not even look at someone who was not their equal.
There's one nice image, at the end of the book, but just one is not enough to save the book.
The story:
There's a new tenant at Thrushcross Grange, and after meeting unpleasant Heathcliff he's really curious to learn about him so he asks housekeeper Ellen to tell him the whole story.
At first, at Wuthering Heights the Earnshaw family lived alone: father, mother and children fourteen-year-old Hindley and six-year-old Catherine, plus our Ellen and her mother, and Ellen was always very close to the family and as children they played together.
One day the father came home with a child, found alone in the streets, belonging to nobody (apparently) and he just took him home, like a pet. Because of him the man broke or lost the gifts he had brought for his children, so they hated Heathcliff right away...
Hindley was always jealous of him; Catherine only at first, then the two became very close. The mother didn't want the "gipsy brat" in the house and wanted to "fling it out of doors" :-/ After two years she died, though. Hindley was sent away to school, and Catherine was always so wayward that her dad said to her face "I cannot love thee, thou 'rt worse than thy brother" who mistreated Heathcliff. When the man died, after three years, Hindley came back for the funeral with his wife Frances, and became the tyrant of the family. Heathcliff's education stopped, he was to work out of doors instead, like a servant.  One night Heathcliff and Catherine (when she was 12) were out, looking at the Linton children: Isabella was 11 and screaming, and her older brother Edgar was weeping. They laughed at them and tried to run away when heard, but a dog got her ankle. He was sent away as a little vagabond, while she was recognized and cared for, and stayed there for five weeks, and came home almost like a Lady, "her manners much improved".
Heathcliff was dirty and wild, and felt bad.   -Next summer was 1778, nearly 23 years ago -
Hindley's wife died after giving birth to little Hareton, the true heir of Wuthering Heights. Hindley was so desperate he became more tyrannical than ever, sent all servants away but Nelly and hideous Joseph, and between his bad ways and his bad companions he started his new life of "degrading himself past redemption". At 15 Catherine was used to acting one way with Heathcliff and one way with the Lintons. When Heathcliff told her to send away Edgar and stay with him she said "what do you talk about? It's no company at all when people know nothing and say nothing".
Catherine wanted to stay alone with Edgar so she became angry at Nelly and hurt her and made a big scene, she did even strike him, and he was shocked and almost left but instead came back and proposed, the silly man.
When Hindley came home drunk and was violent with Nelly and little Hareton, and he caused the child to fall but Heathcliff happened to be there and save him : "his countenance (..) expressed the intensest anguish at having made himself the instrument of thwarting his own revenge".
When Cathy confessed to Nelly that she accepted Edgar's proposal she added: "in my soul and in my heart I'm convinced I'm wrong. I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in Heaven, and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn't have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now so he shall never know how I love him: and that not because he's handsome but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same". She thought that marrying Edgar she could also help Heathcliff, but without her knowing he had heard her words and went away. Cathy got ill calling him all night under the rain. Mrs Linton took her to Thrushcross Grange and soon both her and Mr Linton took the fever and died (no good deed goes unpunished..). After three years Cathy married Edgar and Nelly was forced to leave nearly-five-year-old Hareton and go live with her at Thrushcross grange. In only ten months the child changed greatly: he forgot Nelly and became wild and cursing.
 Cathy lived happily for six months ( +o-) with Edgar and Isabella indulging and spoiling her; then Heathcliff came back, a wealthy man. After he was "absent and silent for three years", Catherine now was all "I'm afraid the joy is too great to be real". He went to stay at Wuthering Heights with Hindley! A mystery for everybody. He wanted to live near Cathy, and his frequent visits caused eighteen-year-old Isabella to lose her head: "I love him more than ever you loved Edgar and he might love me if you would let him". Cathy tried to warn her: "he's not a rough diamond, he's a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man".
When Cathy said everything to Heathcliff, he looked at Isabelle with aversion, but she still didn't get it. When Nelly told Cathy, she had a big fight with Heathcliff, and when Nelly told Edgar, there was an even bigger fight. Cathy cared about Isabelle and therefore was angry at Heathcliff, but even angrier at Edgar who wanted to throw him out: "after constant indulgence of one's weak nature and the other's bad one, I earn for thanks two samples of blind ingratitude, stupid to absurdity. Edgar, I was defending you and yours, and I wish Heathcliff may flog you sick for daring to think an evil thought of me".
After that she locked herself in her room, fasted for three days, and came out not at all well, kind of delusional.
Nelly found Isabella's springer almost choked, hanged, poor thing, but she saved it. In the morning they discovered that Isabella had eloped with Heathcliff. Edgar was grieved, and considered her no more his sister. Six weeks later he received a letter, to inform him that they were married. A fortnight later Nelly received one too, where she learned her situation. Isabella was now living at Wuthering Heights, living with wild Hareton, fanatic Joseph, mad Hindley and cruel Heathcliff: she had learned to fear him and hate him. When Nelly went to see her, Heathcliff said: "the very morrow of our wedding she was weeping to go home" (no other comments, but I wonder about their wedding night: in the afternoon she loved him, in the morning she feared him and hated him..), and "she abandoned (her house) under a delusion, picturing in me a hero of romance (..) so obstinately has she persisted in forming a fabulous notion of my character (..) the passion was wholly on one side and I never told her a lie about it. She cannot accuse me of showing one bit of deceitful softness. The first thing she saw me do, on coming out of the Grange, was to hang up her little dog (..) no brutality disgusted her (..) if only her precious person was secure from injury". He never loved her and had no problem in saying so. He only loved Cathy, who never recovered. Catherine Earnshow died giving birth to her daughter Catherine Linton. The night after her funeral, Isabelle escaped and went near London, and after a few months (maybe six) she gave birth to Linton. After a few months since Cathy's death, Hindley died, drunk. Hindley had mortgaged everything he had for cash, all gone in drinking and gambling. Heathcliff supplied the cash, so now he was the owner of Wuthering Heights and everything. He kept Hareton as a servant. Little Cathy grew up a recluse, but happily indulged. Edgar didn't want to risk an encounter with Heathcliff. After 13 years, when Isabelle was dying she called her brother to take her son and take care of him, but Heathcliff wanted him so Linton had to go living at Wuthering Heights. Disobedient Miss Cathy wandered to the Heights and was shocked and offended when a servant told her that vulgar Hareton was her cousin. Three years after she first saw Linton at her house for like a couple of hours, she wandered again to the Heights, and found Heathcliff quite cordial because he wanted the two to fall in love. Edgar tried explaining to her what Heathcliff really was, but the miss kept writing to Linton anyway, and soon those letters became love-letters. When she found out, Ellen tried to put a stop to it, but the little miss was quite stupid. Linton was unbearable, spoiled, annoying, false, but she called him "my sweet darling cousin" and "pretty Linton" :-/ idiot. She said "I've learned to endure his selfishness and spite with nearly as little resentment as his sufferings" :-/
When Ellen told Edgar, he stopped her from going there again, if he wanted Linton could come to her, but Heathcliff didn't agree, so they agreed to meet in the open. Linton was weak and sick but his father didn't care at all, he only wanted him to marry Cathy, so forced him to meet her outside. Cathy was rather disappointed to see him so silent, sometimes sleepy, but he was terrified of her leaving too soon, afraid that his father might see, and he succeeded in luring her in the house, afraid for himself but not thinking about her at all. Heathcliff locked Cathy and Ellen in the house, and forced Cathy to marry Linton while Nelly was locked up for four days and five nights. Right after the marriage, Linton started acting in a despicable way, not caring for her at all, saying things like a wife should obey and she has nothing because now it all belongs to him. Cathy managed to escape just in time to see her father alive, so she was able to say goodbye before he died. Heathcliff came to take her back, though, leaving Ellen at TG. Nobody at WH cared about Linton's health, only Cathy, so no doctor was ever called. After he died, she was left by herself and treated with contempt. Hareton liked her, clearly always had, but she kept treating him badly, with disgust, the double idiot.
Mr Lockwood knew everything there was to know now; having decided to go away he went to WH to say goodbye, although TG was still his for several months to come because Heathcliff was not willing to change the agreement. Cathy was very haughty, scorning poor Hareton for his ignorance, the little brat, she should have helped him instead!
They shared a cheerless dinner then parted. 1802 Mr Lockwood came back after a few months, and found things to be quite different. Nelly was now living at Wuthering Heights again, and Hareton and Cathy appeared to be in love, playing and kissing while she was teaching him to read properly. Nelly told him the rest of the story, what happened in those months of his absence: Cathy became sorry of how she had treated Hareton, probably because she had nobody else there and he might have proved a good ally, so she made peace with him and they became friends, and she started teaching him. Heathcliff strangely was not particularly angry, he acted very strangely. In those days he was not feeling like himself, he felt like he had no reason to go on, no Catherine to love and no enemy to defeat. He stopped eating and sleeping for four days, always smiling (!!) and absorbed in his own thoughts. One morning they found him outside, on the ground, dead with his eyes opened and a smile on his face.
Finally. With him gone everything changed, of course. Cathy was to marry Hareton and go back to Thrushcross Grange with Nelly.
There was a rumour that Heathcliff and Catherine's ghosts were sometimes seen about the moor, and that's it. The end.

My fake fiancé - 2009

I like it. I like Melissa Joan Hart, she's funny, I'd like to see her in more movies :-) and I really hope that  people can accept her all grown up and won't keep seeing her as teenage Sabrina, since sometimes these things happen. Here she plays Jennifer, while Joey Lawrence plays Vince. They did a series together, "Melissa and Joey" I think, but I'd like to see her in something else too.
The plot is nothing too original, but the movie is nice.
Jennifer loses all her possessions, while Vince has a big gambling debt (the only thing I didn't like, not a bit, is this: the boss and his two men, too silly for my taste: there should be a limit!) so they have an idea: pretend to get married to get all the gifts and share the money. I think she was going to keep all the presents, while he was to keep all the cash.
It starts well, but day after day they get to know and like each other, and they both fall (secretly) in love with each other. They are both good people and they bring out the best in each other. As plot goes, this is basically it, very easy, quite plain, no big switch at any point.
The bits with the gangster and his two men were useless and stupid, they were too unreal.
Jennifer was nice and with a big family who took to Vince quickly and warmly. Vince loves his mother but doesn't have a relationship with his father, who also had a gambling problem, but Vince will stop now, of course. Still, Vince will force himself to ask him for money because her family was paying for everything, and they were a regular family, not rich.
The best part was: every time a member of her family praised her choice, stating how sure they were of his love for her; her sister saying she can clearly see the love in his eyes every time he looks at her... and all the time Jennifer was feeling guilty and miserable because she was having second thoughts, feeling remorse about deceiving her family so.
She told Vince she "doesn't want to marry a man who doesn't love her" and this too was nice because she didn't say "a marriage without love" or "a man I don't love" :-p she only thought that he didn't love her, but she knew she loved him, and maybe was twice miserable for that.
I like it because so often is easier to understand the feelings of others when they don't concern us, but when we are involved it's all more difficult :-p
At the wedding,  he doesn't read the vows she wrote for him, instead he gives a speech 'from the heart', telling her how he fell in love with her, and when it's her turn to read what he wrote for her, the only words on the card are "will you marry me for real?" and he kneels down and offers a ring waiting for the answer. She gives another speech, on the same tone as he did, then says yes and they kiss and the priest has to do all the rest quickly because they won't stop kissing :-) It was nice indeed. I like Melissa a lot,  I hope to see more of her :-)

A strange disappearance by Anna Katharine Green

First of all, it's dated 1880 so it's very old-style, but it's not just that. Even compared to other old books I've read, dated maybe 1901 or 1908, this "a strange disappearance" is very old-fashion. I want to quote two little passages, that will explain better what I mean, but they can be a bit of a spoiler maybe, but not too much anyway.
Quote 1: "will you crown all your other acts of devotion with a pardon that will restore me to my manhood and that place in your esteem which I covet above every other earthly good?"
Quote 2: "the men with a dogged air from which the bravado had however fled, turned and looked from one to the other of us in a fearful, inquiring way that duly confessed to the force of the impression made by these words upon their slow but not unimaginative minds"
Conclusion, it wasn't bad but not exciting either, and rather too old for me.
Now to the story:
the protagonist is a detective, but he is known only as Q., his full name is not disclosed. He seems to be talking to some friends, and he wants to tell them the story of a strange disappearance that happened but of which they knew nothing.
He starts from the day Mrs Daniels went to the police station to report the kidnapping of a girl. A sewing girl by the name of Emily had been taken away from the house by some unknown men.  They both work for rich bachelor Mr Holman Blake, who doesn't know a thing about this Emily and doesn't even care. Mrs Daniels however is awfully worried and keeps repeating "she must be found".
Q. investigates with some help from senior detective Mr Gryce. Q. starts following Blake around, during his wanderings in the poor and dangerous places of the city, and even during a journey that came out to be to the house of two escaped convicts.
At last he's forced to say the truth (I admit it really annoyed me his air of superiority and his 'you dare' to the police, as if he was above everyone else and not just a human being like all other men, just more lucky :-/)
He tells them a long story: he had been in love with his cousin Evelyn Blake, but his father would not have it. He strongly opposed marriage between cousins, so Holman went away to try and forget about her. Once on his way to meet a friend, he was surprised by a bad storm and took refuge inside an Inn run by a father with his son and daughter. During the night, the girl Luttra woke him up and urged him to leave; unfortunately her father and brother were not asleep but at the door ready to stop her. Luttra was brave and smart enough to win this round and gain their escape. Once safely away, she explains to him that she had overheard them; their greed for money was about to lead them into killing him to rob him, and she wouldn't have it.
As a thank you, he had her admitted to a good school to give her an education, "a course of three years" , but apparently she only stayed there for two years...
Holman had gone back to loving Evelyn, until his father had enough of it and gave him an ultimatum.  He had to get married (not to a cousin!) or he would lose his inheritance, and he only had a month to do it!
He thought of Luttra, and she agreed to marry him. When he met her, his father was most pleased and welcomed her without any questions about who she was but with open arms calling her 'daughter'. Once Luttra had left the room Holman told his old man that he did not love Luttra and was therefore going away, and Luttra heard it all. She was shocked and hurt because she unlike him she did love him and had married him out of love, not realizing he had never spoken of love to her.
Luttra could not stand Holman having to leave his own home, so she went away instead, leaving him free. However, very soon she came back with a black wig to conceal her blonde/red hair, for she could not live in a house that was not her husband's. Only Mrs Daniels knew about her real identity, Holman never knew or even suspected. A year went by this way. Now Holman's feelings had drastically changed after Evelyn's marriage to a Count. Although the Count died and Evelyn was now free again, Holman could not forgive her because she married for money more than love, although this was exactly what he had done himself. No, actually he had done even worse because he had deceived Luttra and had let her go alone, but what do you know, since he was a man the fact was not so vile in his eyes, but she was a woman and had to act superior  and blah blah blah, it made me sick.
So, he now loved Luttra and was trying to find her everywhere, not knowing that she was right there in his own house.
Now that the police have all the facts, our detectives find her. Her father and brother got a room opposite Blake's house,  that they could watch him and plan something against him; Q designed a way to rescue her and arrest them.
He had Mrs Daniels write a note in French so that Luttra could understand it but her family won't be able to (wow, two years in school and she knows everything now). She had to come out of the room and hide, while Q would wear her shawl and go in pretending to be her. It was a success, they arrested the father, then waited for the brother to come back and arrested him too. The detectives blackmailed the convicts in order to secure their silence over their relationship with Luttra, that nobody will have to suspect any connection between them.
Blake came to confess his love for her, and she was happy, but still firm in her decision to go away to spare him the humiliation, the shame, the uneasiness of her position and family. She was very stubborn and her altruism very annoying, as if Blake was some kind of God she was sacrificing herself to. Mrs Daniels was called and she too asked Luttra to stay but as I said: stubborn. The Countess came as well, welcoming her into her family, but this changed nothing, so Mrs Daniels had no other choice but to show them all the secret will of the late Mr Blake. He had suffered to see her go, so he decided that either Holman got her back in a year's time, or all his money would go to her, his daughter-in-law, and not to his son.

Now she can't stand of course to leave him penny-less, so she agrees to stay. Holman knew nothing about it though.
They have a big party when they sort of re-marry, and the Countess gives a big party for them and helps them answering all people's curious questions about Luttra without actually giving away any information at all, and Luttra gave Q all her gratitude for his help.

Ask any girl - 1959

I love it and I've always loved it, since the first time I watched it. It's very funny and it's sweet. Not original maybe, the story is very much like "Sabrina", with the innocent girl changing herself for the man (she thinks) she loves and wants and the two brothers: the younger a playboy who likes going out with lots of girls and never works, and the older brother, the serious responsible one. She has a crush on the younger but she'll love the elder.
Same thing, you'll say, just like Sabrina, and I reply: so what? Who cares, the film is lovely, and funny too.
The girl here is Shirley MacLaine, so pretty and so funny. The playboy is Gig Young, whom I confess I know only for this film, and the older brother is David Niven, a favourite of mine since always.
The story is very old-fashioned, a girl looking for a job and a husband, who will "settle for nothing less than marriage". Morals are so that she gets thrown out of the boarding house where she was staying simply because she had been photographed with some prostitutes (although of course cleared of all charged :-p), to the point that the word prostitute is too much for this movie, and nobody can say it.
Her friend Ginny settles for marrying the first guy who asks her : "but why?" - "because he asked me" and here she explains her theory that girls don't do the choosing but are merely products on a shelf: men come, take a look, and if they like something "they take us home", and she was getting "pretty scared of staying on that shelf", so Meg Wheeler (MacLaine) has an idea. She asks her boss Miles (Niven) to help her "I want to sell myself - as a wife!". He works in field research and he's intrigued , so he accepts. She wants his brother Evan (Young) to propose to her, so Miles starts dating all the girls in Evan's phone book to find out what he likes about them. For weeks Meg and Miles spend a lot of time together, and Meg learns to laugh like MaryLouise and walk like Ines and dance like Juliet, while dressing like Yvonne, wearing Barbra's perfume and 'blinking' (but I don't think she managed to put on her big fake eyelashes) like Debra O'Toole. Meg has even gone to have her hair done to match Bonny's haircolour, carrot-red. It's not known if she ever managed to cook like Gabriella, but it doesn't matter. Obviously the plan is working, because now Evan can find all the things he finds irresistible combined in just one woman, and he proposes, but now she's not so thrilled, because something has happened. Miles showed her another girl's specialty: kissing, and I love that scene, that one kiss, their only kiss in the film, but it says everything, and changes everything. Spending so much time together they had already started to appreciate one another, they liked each other, and the kiss brought everything to the surface. Now she doesn't want Evan anymore because she had to change herself and he proposed to a fake Meg, not the real one. Before giving Evan her answer, a bit confused poor girl, she wants him to ask for his brother's approval, and again I so love the scene when Evan and Meg get home and Miles is right there in front of them as they open the door. Evan doesn't see him at first, but Miles and Meg instantly see each other and stare at each other, and the way they do that says it all.
She'd want Miles to stop the marriage and say he loves her, but he says "I approve" because he thinks she loves Evan. Meg confesses everything they've done and turns down Evan's proposal.
Now, at the beginning of the film there was another man she had met at her first job: Ross. They dated for a while, until he invited her to his aunt's house without telling her that they'd be alone there. As she finds out she runs away, but now she calls him and accepts that same proposal. Her friend Ginny tells Miles everything and he calls Evan. Together they catch the same train because Miles insists that if Evan loves her he should take her away from there and hit Ross, but then he ends up doing so himself. Meg is utterly drunk and she tells Evan: "I love Miles but he doesn't love me" - "yes he does" - "no he doesn't" :lol: then Miles takes her away and the next scene is Meg and Miles hugging happily on their honeymoon :-)
I've never heard anyone talking about this film, I guess it's true that it's just a little film and, as said already, not at all original, but I love it. Maybe with two different actors I wouldn't have liked it so much, entirely possible and quite probable too, but things being as they are I love it, it's funny and sweet and romantic and adorable.

ITA tutte le ragazze lo sanno

You can't take it with you - 1938

A very old movie who shows all its years, but nice :-) It has a young James Stewart in it :-) and the most bizarre family ever :-p but of course it's very much unrealistic, like stories in fairytales, it totally lacks any sense of reality. It's like a Romeo and Juliet story with a happy ending.
It's about two family, a poor/bizarre one and the other very rich and snob. The rich family sees Mr Kirby (Edward Arnold) as a man who thinks only about money, his annoying and tremendously snob wife (Mary Forbes) and their adorable son Tony (James Stewart :-p). He falls in love with his secretary, Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur), but obviously his parents and specially his mother strongly opposes the affair.
On the other side we have the bizarre family of Mr Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore) who once had a proper, regular job like Mr Kirby, until one day he realized he was working all the time but he wasn't having any fun, so he went out and never went back :-p Since then, he decided to do only what he liked to do, which seems a lovely idea, but of course it is in this film where nobody puts him in jail or takes away his house because he hasn't paid any taxes at all in the last.. I don't know maybe 50 years, I think he wasn't even married yet when he decided to change life, and now he's Alice's  grandpa.
In real life that would not be possible.
His family has been taught to live like that, doing only what they want to do, so there is his daughter Penny who at moment writes screenplays (using a little kitty to hold the papers together :-p) but it's not clear what she eventually does with them. She's married to Paul, who makes firecrackers, and they're Alice's parents.
They have another daughter, Essie, who is a good cook and makes terrific cakes and cookies, but she likes to dance so she goes around the house always dancing, and has a hideous teacher coming to see her every evening (I don't know if he comes every evening, but for sure he never comes in the afternoon, he always arrives in time for dinner..). Essie is married to Ed, who I don't remember what he does, but he sure likes to play a musical instrument I don't know the name of, and Ed and Essie are madly in love and made for each other.
Paul works downstairs in their laboratory, with Mr DePinna who was once the iceman that came knowing on their door nine years ago and was invited to stay for a while and he never left :-p
Mr Vanderhof meets Mr Poppins at the bank, and invites him to stay too, because he doesn't like his job there, and because he likes to make up things, invent new things. How lovely is that thing he shows, that flowery-vase with the little white rabbit coming out :-)
They are all happy and love each other :-) The only modern thing about this movie is a line that Mr Vanderhof says talking to Penny: "Lincoln said: 'with malice toward none, with charity for all'; nowadays they say 'think the way I do or I'll bomb the daylights out of you' " :lol: quite true.

Now, Mr Kirby has a big business all planned, but to make it work he needs to buy the whole 12 blocks of , what a coincidence, Mr Vanderhof neighbourhood, but he owns his own house and has no intention of selling, because too many memories of his late wife are connected with that old house.
He doesn't know it at first, though, and goes to Mr Vanderhof house because Alice wants Tony's parents to meet her family and be done with it :-p Alike knows all too well that his mother doesn't approve of her, and tries her best to arrange a nice dinner, preparing everything with the help and cooperation of her family. Unfortunately (:-p) Tony doesn't want them to pretend, he wants his parents to know them for what they really are, so he and his parents (unaware of his trick) come a day earlier, when nobody was waiting for them, and they see Essie dancing around in a tutu, with her hideous "Russian" teacher, Ed playing his music, grandpa throwing darts and Penny painting Mr DePinna: a real mess. When the Kirbys realize the mistake, they're very polite , but the night is a complete disaster; it was already going badly, but then the police comes in, believing them all revolutionaries. Because of their intrusion, the fireworks go off in the laboratory, and they are all arrested. While in jail, Kirby learns that Vanderhof is the one who won't sell his house, and believes it all a plan to use his son to get to him; at this point Vanderhof looses it and makes a big speech on how Kirby is living an empty life, full of money that he won't be able to take with him when his time will come but without any friends. Later he apologizes for his words.
When they go all before the judge, Kirby has like four or five lawyers, I don't remember, and Vanderhof none. I really liked that judge, and how he couldn't help smiling and laughing at the Vanderhof story and all the fracas that came.
Vanderhof must pay 100 dollars because making fireworks in his own house without any legal permit is a serious thing, and although Kirby offers to pay it, he won't accept it. The 100 dollars are paid by the room full of friends, things that impresses Kirby. He has lots of lawyers, but Vanderhof has lots of friends.
Mrs Kirby is still coldly on her positions, and wants to hide the real reason why they were at that house, and Mr Vanderhof tries to lie to help Kirby, but Alice won't stand for it. She comes forward and tells the real reason; Tony backs her up, but maybe a little too late, and now she's very angry, she's the one who doesn't want to be related to them. She says it all then storms out and goes away.
The papers report that Tony's mother said "just an ambitious stenographer" of her.
Alice has gone away and nobody knows where she is, and for once her family is no more happy and dancing, they are all sad. Tony comes looking for her or for news about where she might be, but they don't know and can't tell him. Finally she writes to them, but she says she can't come back because she wants to forget all about it and can't do it there, so Grandpa decides to sell the house and go near her.
Mr Kirby starts having his doubts, remembering a bit of conscience, but not enough to stop him from going through with his business, until Tony comes in saying that he quits his job and wants to go away. Tony says he never liked the job at the bank, and that lately he was keeping at it only because of Alice but now there's no point, and has come to say goodbye.
Mr Kirby wanted to make him president of whatever he was about to do, but now it all probably seems vane to him. So much that he walks out of the bank without a word to anybody, not signing the deal.
Alice hears about the selling of the house and comes back to stop it. Tony arrives and seeing her tries to talk to her, but she's still angry.
Kirby goes to Vanderhof and finds a empty house (because they are moving) but grandpa is still there, and welcomes him in. Kirby asks his advice and help regarding Tony, and grandpa suggests playing together their harmonicas, and something will happen.
They play together, and hearing the music Ed comes in and joins in, and Essie starts dancing, and Alice and Tony comes down to see what's going on, and Kirby sees his son, and finally nods his approval and Alice is all happy and hugs Tony, while Mrs Kirby simply faints :-p
It all ends with them eating all together :-)

ITA l'eterna illusione

Bell, book and candle - 1958

I liked it, but I was just a little bit sad at how it ended. Not too much, because it ended well of course, this is not the kind of movie that one could accept ending badly, but I would have liked it if she didn't have to choose one or the other..
Well, this is the story of a witch, Gillian (Kim Novak). Her brother Nicky (Jack Lemmon), her aunt Queenie (Elsa Lanchester) and their closest friends are all witches and warlocks. They have powers, but honestly not all that much, the most of them. I mean, what can Nicky do, other than turn on and off the lights in the street? Their world is not explained detailed, because this is after all a love story not a story about magic, so I don't know if there's anything more to her being a witch. She has the same lifespan as everyone else, I think. Still, she's bored to death, she hasn't much fun with the idea of making magic, and she always have the same friends, and is bored bored bored.
She lives with her cat Pyewacket, and she uses the cat to do her magic.. she can't do magic without the cat... I would have wondered "is it her or is it the cat?" if she hadn't done a spell without Pyewacket, with her Christmas gift.
It is said that witches can't fall in love and can't cry, and also that if a witch falls in love she loses all her powers and stops being a witch.
Gil likes Shep (James Stewart) her new upstairs neighbour, but when Queenie suggests winning him over with a spell she replies "I don't want him that way";  she meets him on Christmas Eve, because Queenie had 'broken' his phone and he came to Gil's shop to make a phone call. They exchange a few words, he's a publisher and he would like to meet the author of the book she's reading, then Queenie comes to take her to go out and they go their separate way. That same night, Shep and his girlfriend Merle go to the Zodiac club, the club Gil had spoken to him about. It turns out that Gil and Merle know each other, they were at school together, in the same dormitory, but they didn't get along. It's a bizarre club, more Halloween than Christmas, very noisy, but Shep seems to enjoy himself, but he has to go because Merle hates the noise (well, Gil and Nicky were doing it on purpose to distress her :-p) (p.s. I sort of liked that French performer, he was cool :-p)
Gil tells Queenie that "all the girls loathed her. She was a liar and a sneak" speaking of course of Merle.
Back home, Gil Nicky and Queenie exchange gifts, and we see again how Gil prefers normal gifts to magical gifts, although occasionally she enjoys it. Nicky gives her a magical gift, a sort of liquid to summon people using an image, and Gil summons the writer :-p Nicky says here that it didn't work when he tried to use it, but when Gil tries it (without Pyewacket) it works. The procedure includes burning the picture, and a sort of green fire comes out, and passing-by Shep sees that fire and comes in "I thought the place was going up in flames", and she offers him a brandy. Nice Queenie leaves the two of them alone taking Nicky away with her :-)
Gil starts flirting a bit, saying how it is nice to have him there (more or less :-p) and he immediately goes "Merle and I are getting married tomorrow. I mean today!" and he starts blabbering, so she understands she has no time and calls Pyewacket; she sings a tune to the cat and Shep does NOT go away. He was about to, but he comes back and kisses her. They spent the rest of the night together (wandering around the city and kissing) and then Shep says things like "I feel spellbound", and "what has it meant for you? these hours?" and "I know it doesn't make sense but I have an idea I must be in love with you. Has it hit you that way?"
He's supposed to get married in a few hours, but he breaks it off. "I'm not drunk. I may be intoxicated but not drunk" :-p and of course Merle doesn't understand what's going on: "you're almost like another person" - "that's exactly the way I feel Merle, like another person, and I just don't seem to want to marry you any longer, and you wouldn't want me to marry you when I don't want to, would you?" and "let's just say that we are 'uncoupling'" and "I almost forgot my hat" :-p I like how he laughs saying that :-p but then again, I always like him :-)
Sidney Redlitch (Ernie Kovacs) the writer comes to see him :-p saying he's writing a new book, on witchcraft, and that the Zodiac is their headquarters, of witches and warlocks. He says "ring the bell, close the book, quench the candle. That's how they used to exorcise them, put them out of business, in medieval times of course" when Shep takes him to meet Gil and her relatives. Gil doesn't like this book idea, and tells Nicky "put him off the track", but instead Nicky reveals himself to Redlitch and helps him with the book, for a 50-50 of the money.
After two weeks together, Shep starts talking about marriage and Gil is evasive, saying she's not the type for marriage, then she says "I wish I could", and to herself "I wonder if I could" then her cat looks at her and she says "I will if I want to" and to Shep "I will" accepting to marry him. Shep is all happy and adorable :-) Really adorable :-)
She decides that if she wants to marry him then "renouncing" is the only way, still she does one last spell so that nobody will ever publish that book; obviously now Shep turns it down as "absolute trash".
Gil confesses anyway to Shep, or tries to as he won't believe a word she says to him. He says if you have magic prove it but she won't because she gave it up, but she could if she wanted to, she still has her powers, only she says that if she keeps doing it she'll never stop the habit, sort of.. kind of silly if you ask me, she should have prove it anyway.
She also confesses she put a spell on him, and he recalls that first night and says "I seemed to see you for the first time". He can't believe it but keeps thinking about it, then Queenie admits to him that she's one too but can't prove it either because she swore not to do magic in the apartment house, she took an oath :-p To make him believe and understand, the explains to him about the thunderstorms that troubled so much Merle when they were at school: "Gil made them happen, but she had to do it to settle accounts with her, just as she had to do what she did about you" and she also says that Gil put that spell on him "otherwise you'd have gone and married Miss Kittredge".
This upsets him a lot, because he still doesn't believe in the magic bit yet, but what he understands is very much troubling: "you mean that Gil went after me out of spite against Merle?" and when Queenie replies: "not altogether, she liked you" he gets even more angry: "she liked me?" raising his voice. Queenie doesn't see his side of things, and goes on "that's a great deal for us Shep, it's not as if we could fall in love, love is quite impossible" ... oh dear... of course he's out of himself..
He's very angry now and goes straight to Gil: "you didn't tell me that you went after me deliberately just to spite her, did you?" and "are you in love with me now?" because that's what matters to him, of course, not silly things about magic. He's upset because she doesn't love him!
The only thing she can say is: "I'm more in love with you than I've ever been with anyone", but that's not an answer that can satisfy him of course, and he thinks that "it's all been a merry little adventure" for her.
"I'm getting out of this building" he says, and "I'm not coming back, ever" but Gil says "you will, you have to". He doesn't believe it at first, but he finds himself right back and this time he understands it's all true. He goes to Nicky for help, and Nicky takes him to see Mrs De Passe. She gives him a disgusting potion to drink and asks for 1000 dollars :-p Now he's free from her spell, and he moves apartment. She's angry, she thinks (and threatens) to put a spell on Merle but she can't find Pyewacket, he has left her. When she finds tears on her face, she understands why. It's all clear now, the cat has left her because she's no more a witch, she has lost her powers by falling in love.
Of course in a way she already was, but "I didn't know what it was".
Only now she's alone, and what she feels hurts: "I don't want to be human, not now"
Nicky doesn't care at all "she asked for it" but after two months Queenie is worried for her: "she's so alone, even Pyewacket left her. If only something could be done about getting her and Shep together nature might take its course".
She can't tell him because Gil made her promise not to, and Nicky won't help so Queenie sends the cat to him, so he has to bring it back to Gil - not knowing of the latest news, he still thinks Pyewacket is her cat, but actually he's now Queenie's, and I wonder, now that Pyewacket is her cat, is she more powerful or not? Anyway, I'm sort of sorry that Gil has no more powers now, seems unfair that she had to choose between what she was and love :-/
While there, Shep sees her cry, and now everything changes because he knows she loves him, so happy ending for the two of them, together again, madly in love :-) and "it's real this time, or has it been real all along?"
Of course it had, if you think about it Shep liked her from the start, otherwise why did he go to the Zodiac that time? Merle didn't want to, and it was Christmas Eve and they didn't even know where the club was, and yet he dragged her in search of this place where he knew he would find Gil...
Anyway, magic or not, it ends with them hugging hard, being all happy :-) Sweet :-)

ITA una strega in paradiso

Babylon 5 season 1

I like it enough somehow, but it's no special page in science-fiction. My favourite thing is Ivanova, because she's a strong woman, she values her career, but without giving up on her feelings. She's not icy, she's a good character; then I like Lennier. I missed any real relationship between characters, they simply do their job but almost never interact on a human level. There's one scene between Garibaldi and Sinclair, and a little scene between Sinclair and Ivanova, but it's not enough to "feel" the characters.
Another problem is how little futuristic it seems. In episode 2 we have Sinclair using his ship like a claw-machine to grab another ship, and in episode 3 we see Vir playing pocket videogames and Londo watching semi-naked girls dance at the night club. That sounds more like the 90s than like 2258. Again in ep 21 we see the night-club with an addition of gambling. Sure, in ep 3 we also see that they use crystals as usb keys, but that's a small thing for a sci-fi show. Also, in ep 12 we see that workers have less rights than they have now. It's not a matter of budget but of ideas.

"it was the dawn of the Third Age of mankind, 10 years after the Earth-Minbari war. The Babylon Project was a dream given form. Its goal: to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully. It's a port of call, home away from home for diplomats, hustlers, entrepreneurs and wanderers. Humans and aliens, wrapped in 2.500.000 tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night. It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last, best hope for peace. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258. The name of the place is Babylon 5."
Michael O'Hare as commander Jeffrey Sinclair
Claudia Christian as Lt. Commander Susan Ivanova
Jerry Doyle as Security Chief Michael Garibaldi
Mira Furlan as Delenn
also
Richard Biggs as Dr Stephen Franklin
Andrea Thompson as Talia Winters
Stephen Furst as Vir
Bill Mumy as Lennier
Caitlin Brown as Na'Toth
with
Andrea Katsulas as G'Kar
Peter Jurasik as Londo


The episodes:
1- Midnight on the firing line (mezzanotte di fuoco) - It starts off with Centauri agricultural colony Ragesh 3 being attacked. Centauri Ambassador Londo Mollari thinks the Narn are responsible. Narn ambassador G'Kar said at first that he knew nothing about it, then he said "I just heard", still acting innocent, but not for long; they have a fight and G'Kar sort of threatens him. Londo is very worried because his beloved nephew Carn is on that colony, a job he personally found for him to 'keep him safe, out of military life', the irony. Commander Sinclair has to put on a gas-mask to visit ambassador Kosh. Londo is upset because the Centauri Republic is going to do nothing about the attack. Londo says he'll die 20 years from now, killing and/or being killed by G'Kar. G'Kar remembers how green his planet was before the Centauri ruined it. Sinclair says to him after it's been clear that the Narn attacked it: "you didn't even have the decency to pick a military target" and "the sneak attack is the first resort of a coward", and he adds in disgust: "a poorly-armed civilian colony". Apparently though, the Centauri invaded the Narn sector "and began their 100-year reign of terror"; Ragesh 3 was once Narn, but it's been Centauri's property for a century now. Londo wants to kill G'Kar, shoot him, but the telepath senses that and warns Garibaldi, who stops him. The cmdr stops a raider's attack, then "on the command and control ship" he found proof that the Narn were selling weapons to the Raiders, and also that their attack on Ragesh 3 was unprovoked and uninvited, so either the Narn withdraw or he'll show the proof to the Council..
Lt. Cmdr Ivanova doesn't like the telepathic woman and keeps avoiding her. When they finally talk, it turns out that Ivanova hates the Psi Corps, because when they discovered that her mother was a telepath, they let her choose: 1-join the corps, 2-go to prison, 3-agree to take certain drugs for the rest of her life. Obviously she chose the drugs, she didn't want to abandon her family: once a week for 10 years, strong drugs until she couldn't take it anymore and committed suicide.
The vote for the Earth President: Santiago won, a man who promised to cut the budget, to defend Earth culture against the foreigners.. blah blah blah, usual stuff they always say.
At the end of the episode we see what is Garibaldi's second favourite thing in the world: Looney Tunes cartoons, shared with (I think) the Minbari Ambassador, who didn't understand his enthusiasm or his love for popcorn, but very politely tried both :-)
2- Soul Hunter (cacciatore di anime) - Dr Franklin arrives to start working here. A ship comes out of hyperspace in bad shape; Sinclair grabs it with his ship (literally grabs it, high technology :-p) avoiding a collision with the station. The rescued is identified by Delenn as Shak Tot, a Soul Hunter. She wants to kill "it"  "before it's too late, before someone dies". She says that soul hunters are immortal, and they sense death and are drawn to it. They can steal the soul at the moment of death. Several alien ships want to leave the station as soon as they hear about his presence. A con-man is stabbed to death and this alien starts speaking. He says they don't steal, they "save" the souls of special people, but the Minbari won't let them help them: "we have saved only a few. Very rare. Rarest of all their leader, Dukhat, dying. Your fault. Your war." he wanted to take Dukhat's soul but the Minbari stopped him and he died and all that he was was gone.
The dead body of the con-man is launched towards a burning-star because his family can't afford to bring him/it home. Franking: "typical human lifespan is almost 100 years but it's barely a second compared to what's out there. Wouldn't be so bad if life didn't take so long to figure out. Seems you just start to get it right and then... it's over" - Ivanova "it doesn't matter, if we lived 200 years we'd still be humans. We'd still make the same mistakes" - F:"you're a pessimist" - Iv:"I'm Russian, Doctor, we understand these things" :lol: Actually I don't know why it's funny, I like the way she says it, I guess :-)
The hunter thinks that the soul ends with death unless they preserve it, while Delenn thinks the soul will be reincarnated in the next generation of Minbari. He calls her Satai Delenn of the Grey Council, stating that she was  a leader, not an ambassador, then he escapes from the medlab. Another hunter comes to warn Sinclair that the first one is "deeply disturbed" and  might kill someone, because he has stopped waiting for them to die, now he kills them to take their souls. Of course Sinclair stops him. He was about to take Delenn's soul by killing her, but Sinclair turned his machine against him. Delenn is of course alive, which according to the doctor is quite remarkable because a human would have died after losing so much blood. Delenn was about to say something to Sinclair but then she fell asleep and never said it. Sinclair returns the 'collection of souls' to Delenn, and she sets them all free. At this point I have an observation: she sets them free whatever species they might be, because the soul hunter said before that taking Minbari's souls is not at all easy, so he can't have had many.
3- Born to the purple (mistero a Babylon 5) - The Centauri dancer that Londo likes so much has a master who orders her to spy on him. She actually seems to like Londo, for real, but she must obey because she's a slave and he owns her. Londo likes her very much.
She puts something on his drink to make him sleep, then she copies all his personal files into a crystal and leaves. She should give the crystal to her master, but instead she runs away, trying to escape him.
The bastard then tells Londo a few lies about her and the big truth of what she did.
I like Londo's answer when he asks for Sinclair's help: Sinclair sees a great opportunity here, since the Narn-Centauri negotiations are going badly because of the two stubborn ambassadors who hate each other, so he says that he'll help him if he will agree to his compromise on the treaty, and Londo replies "I'll even seal it with a kiss" :-p you know, like they used to say a long time ago, apparently:-)
He said it well :-)
The bastard gets to the girl first, but Miss Winters the telepath helps them get her location from his mind, so they save both the girl and the data. When Adira Tyree (Fabiana Udenio) leaves the station, Londo goes to say goodbye; he gives her back her freedom (Sinclair secured it from the bastard) and he also gives her a jewel (a precious pin) then she boards the ship and is gone.
Side story: Garibaldi is trying to find out who is using an unauthorized channel, but Ivanova doesn't seem as concern about it as he is. She says it might be a malfunction but he doesn't let it go, he keeps at it and he witnesses Ivanova herself using it, to talk to her dying father. It's touching. He says that after her mother and brother died he was so deep in grief he didn't give her the love she deserved, but he's sorry now and very proud of her, then he dies and she cries. He tells her that he tracked the call, but he won't report it as such, but as a computer error.
4- Infection (infezione) - Dr Vance Hendricks comes to the station to see Dr Franklin, who once was his student. He's an archeologist (David McCallum), and he smuggles in ancient organic artifacts for the doctor to study and analyze. One of them takes control of the man who touched it and transforms him; now he goes around with a weapon instead of a hand, killing people. It appears that that organic thing is a weapon, created by fanatics to kill everyone was not "pure race", so the weapon killed all the 'enemies' and then all the creators, because nobody is 'pure'.
This sounds a lot like a Star Trek episode, or two :-p
Sinclair goes heroic on Garibaldi again, and he goes alone. Like Kirk would have done, he talks to the weapon, makes him see that his world he wants to protect so much is dead, and has been for 1000 years, destroyed by those like him who should have protected it, so the "weapon" kills itself, but not Nelson, the man whose body was taken over by it.
Dr Franklin turns Vance in and he's arrested. The doctor is worried that what happened to that world might happen to Earth too, where there is talk of "Earth pure" and hate against aliens and such things, then the artifacts are confiscated for planetary security :-/
 Garibaldi confronts Jeff Sinclair as a friend: after the war some people act strangely, sometimes, like he's doing, putting himself in such danger: "some people call that being a hero, maybe so, I don't know, I've never been one, (...) I think they're looking for something worth dying for because that's easier than finding something worth living for" - that was a good scene, between Garibaldi and Sinclair.
A girl comes to the station, she's a journalist and wants to interview Sinclair for Interstellar Network News. She keeps poking around but Ivanova has her own way to stop her from annoying the commander any further "Don't. You're too young to experience that much pain.." :-p
5- The parliament of dreams (palazzo dei sogni) - The station is full of people come to "demonstrate their religious belief": at the Centauri "Celebration of life" Londo and Ivanova are quite enjoying themselves (read: getting ridiculously drunk). Delenn is joined by Lennier (he wasn't on he station before, he introduces himself to her now after calling her Satai Delenn): the Minbari celebration is much more serious, and features the word "death" many times.
For the Earth demonstration, Sinclair assembles a long row of people, each representing a different faith: catholic, atheist, buddhist, muslim, jew, aborigine, shinto, etc etc.
Second story: G'Kar's life has been seriously threatened by an old enemy now dead. Apparently before dying he hired an assassin, to kill him within 48 hours, and G'Kar is freaking out, but with good reasons. The assassin indeed comes, but G'Kar's assistant Na'Toth saves him.
Side story: Sinclair hooks up with an on-and-off girlfriend again, Catherine.
6- Mind war (guerra delle menti) - Bester (Walter Koenig) and an even more annoying girl are psycops looking for a powerful telepath who's been experimented upon. They demand Sinclair's help and question Miss Winters, who knows nothing about it, but they scan her mind because they 'have to be sure'. It's painful, apparently, but right after, Jason shows himself to her, explaining how incredibly powerful he has become and how dangerous it would be if the psy corps got him and discovered how to make others like him. She believes him, and cares a lot about him because they were once lovers, and she asks Sinclair to meet him and Sinclair agrees to help him. Unfortunately they are stopped by the psy corps before they can reach Jason's ship ( or a ship they give to him, not sure), and they try to overpower him with their minds combined, but he's too strong for them, and he kills the girl while Bester is only knocked down, then he leaves. Once outside the station, Jason becomes something else, a big light out in space and he speaks telepathically with them, giving Talia the gift of telekinesis and saying goodbye to Sinclair "I will see you again in a million years".
Something like this also happened on Star Trek. Just saying.
Bester has to yield to Sinclair's condition and agree to their version of the story, that Jason simply escaped. "but that's a lie" - Sinclair:"yes it is. what's your point?" one of my fav Sinclair moments.
Side story: Sigma 957 is the class 4 world Catherine wants to explore for exploitation. Before going she needs approval from G'Kar because that's Narn property. G'Kar warns her many times that the place is not safe, but she doesn't listen to him. "No one here is exactly what he appears" he says "my warning is sincere, ignore it at your own peril".
She does ignore it, and goes anyway, then a big colourful thing appears and vanishes, sucking all the energy of her ship. She'd have no chance of survival, but two Narn ships sent by G'Kar come to help her. He tells her "there are things in the universe billions of years older than either of our races... we have as much chance of communicating with them as an ant has with us. We know, we've tried".
7- The war prayer (preghiera di sangue) - A friend of Delenn, a performer, is attacked by the Pro-Earth Group; two young Centauri come to the station to escape arranged marriages because they love each other and they too are attacked.
Mayann "I have travelled far and seen much and what I have seen tells me that all sentient beings are best defined by their capacity and their need for love"- Londo "she will learn to live without it" -  Mayann"as you did". He's touched by this remark. He remembers his father crying and saying "my shoes are too tight but it doesn't matter because I have forgotten how to dance" I like these words.
Londo finds a legal way to let the two lovers be together :-)
An ex-lover of Susan comes to the station. Ivanova left him eight years ago for her career, and now he tells her that he can accept it, and therefore is planning on staying and start working on Babylon 5.  She seems to like him a lot, but then Garibaldi discovers he's with the Pro-Earth group, if not the leader, and tells Sinclair and Susan. Sinclair tries to play undercover, and Malcolm is all "we want to put Earth back at the centre of the Universe, our Universe" oh my what an ignorant idiot, and there are so many like him, wanting to feel superior at all costs, when they so are not.
The pro-Earth group members were camouflage-clothes.  They were planning on killing the four major ambassadors, but Sinclair and Ivanova stop them and arrest them.
Sinclair also mentions that Earth won the war against the Minbari because "they let us win"
8- And the sky full of stars (un cielo pieno di stelle) - Some men arrive on the station bringing trouble to Sinclair. A new security man is highly indebted because he likes to gamble. Because of this, he sells a power source to those dangerous men for money, and they use it to enter Sinclair's mind after, I think, kidnapping him. He's 39, born of Mars Colony May 3, 2219, just for the record.
They keep him under drugs and enter his mind, but after a while he manages to get free and escape, but he's delusional because of the drugs, and also remembers things he didn't remember before, like Delenn in a grey robe. Garibaldi and everyone else is looking for him, and when they find him he shoots at them, but Delenn approaches him nonetheless, saying "I'm your friend" and he says "I know you" then he collapses. He is cured, but when Delenn asks him if he remembers anything he lies and says no. Luckily for him, since there is there a Minbari man that tells Delenn he must never know or he'll be killed. Still, he doesn't know the meaning of the little he remembers (of having been interrogated by the Grey Council, and then let go) but he's determined to find out.
9- Deathwalker (la morte in agguato) - A woman just arrived and Na'Toth attacks her, furiously, claiming she's Deathwalker; Garibaldi finds her Dilgar uniform, military rank War Master, which seems to prove that she's really Jha'dur (Sarah Douglas) also called Deathwalker. She admits to it when she wakes up: she discovered a serum of virtual immortality (it slows the aging process and prevents sickness) through experiments on aliens like the Narns. Sinclair asks for Lennier and Delenn's help and G'Kar tries to deal with her to get the serum, but Jha'dur asks for Na'toth's head in return! So evil!
Garibaldi is the only one who says "there is no choice" because her experiments were cruel to say the least. She infected, and killed, and experimented upon, she doesn't deserve anything.
"She wiped out entire races, destroyed whole planets, experimented on living beings, now she wants to make everybody immortal? Why?"
Earth wants her too, and Sinclair is inclined to follow the orders "she can save more lives than she took; if she can make the deaths she caused have meaning, isn't that worth considering?" No, I say, it's not that easy, because you can't justify her actions like this. Luckily G'Kar calls Ambassador Kalika (Robin Curtis) and an assembly of people stops her being sent to Earth. The Centauri, Narn, and even Minbari vote no at the Council, so she won't be put on trial on Babylon 5, but lots of aliens demand she'll be given over to them. Ivanova stalls them by making them argue on who should be the first to attack and claim her (:-p), while Sinclair makes a deal with the League (all those alien races that are not Centauri, Narn or Minbari are united in the League and have only one vote in the Council... doesn't seem very fair..): he reaches a compromise: they'll send some of their people to Earth to develop together the serum, and after that Jha'dur will be turned over to them. However, when Sinclair talks to Jha'dur, she scorns his attempt at justice by revealing that the serum needs an ingredient that can not be synthesized but must be taken from living beings "if you want to live forever, another one must die: you will fall upon one another like wolves. It'll make what we did pale by comparison. The billions who'll live forever will be a testimony to my work and the billions who are murdered to buy that immortality will be the continuance of my work. Not like us? You will become us!"
A Vorlon ship (Kosh's race) comes out while Jha'dur is leaving, and destroys her ship killing her.
Londo's comment: "well, all's well that ends well"
Sort of side story, whose significance is not clear to me. Talia Winters is employed by Ambassador Kosh in some strange negotiations between him and a weird man with some sort of machine in his brain.
It was developed differently, but the evil-doctor-with-the-miraculous-cure dilemma was also a Star Trek episode.
10- Believers (tra la vita e la morte) - An alien child is sick, but a simple surgery procedure could cure him, however his parents won't allow it for spiritual reasons, even if that means his sure death.
They are the "children of time" and if you "open them" their soul will be lost. The doctor and his assistant disagree on the way he's dealing with the situation. The doctor tries to go over their heads appealing to Sinclair, and the parents try to find protection from the ambassadors, but G'Kar, Londo, Kosh and Delenn, they all refuse. Sinclair also refuses, and the doctor wants to operate anyway, with the help of his assistant. The boy lives, feels well, but his parents refuse him now. They take him only to kill him because "that was not their son; because his spirit had gone when he was cut open, and was only a shell now" ... unbelievable.
Ivanova has nothing to do and is very bored, and wants a mission. :-p She goes on a mission to escort a damaged ship to Babylon 5. She finds herself surrounded by raiders and she engages battle alone, but she comes back safe.
11- Survivors (i sopravvissuti) - President Santiago is due to come to Babylon 5. There's an explosion, and head of Presidential Security Lianna takes over the case.
Michael knew Lianna seventeen years ago. He was working in a bad place full of crimes, and he was the only one that was honest and cared about justice and law. He started drinking to get through the day, then he befriended Lianna's father. Things started to go well, until the day some criminals killed his friend to get to him.
He stopped drinking, and that why he goes to the barman "I need a drink! Water! Straight!"
Lianna blames him, and now someone is trying to frame him for sabotage. He is a fugitive now, and starts drinking again, so they find him. She interrogates him, but he's still trying to figure out who could have framed him up, and the only possibility seems to be Cutter, one of her agents. When they confront him, Cutter knocks her down and fights Michael, who luckily manages to communicate with Ivanova just in time. Cutter was working for the Pro-Earth group, against Santiago alien policy. Before she leaves, Michael has a chance to talk to her again, and they clear things up. Before going, she hugs him :-)
12- By any means necessary (a qualsiasi costo) - A Narn cargo ship blows out a cargo bay, and a Babylon 5 worker dies. Their representative tries to explain how the workers can not be blamed for the accident. The equipment is not adequate and there are not enough workers for the amount of work and traffic there is: "the workers have been forced to work triple shifts because they are understaffed in every area".
The accident was caused by cheap equipment, cheap materials, something like that, so Sinclair hopes (naive) to get an increase in the station budget. The increase is denied (obviously, the governments tend to give less and less money for the well-being of their people) , no surprise there, no. The workers contract states that they can't go on strike so they call in sick. That's an illegal strike, and senator Hidoshi sends a man, Zento, to deal with it. What he does is : he orders Sinclair to arrest any illegal striker who won't go back to work! Zento is unhappy when Sinclair ends the situation by studying closely the "Rush act", by which he is authorized to use "any means necessary"  so he gives amnesty to all the workers and takes money away from the military budget.
G'Kar needs a specific plant for his religious ceremony, but it was in the cargo that got destroyed. Mollari has the only one on Babylon 5 but he refuses to give it or sell it to G'Kar.
Sinclair has made enemies in the Senate (not Hidoshi though, it would appear) but he got G'Kar's thanks for resolving his religious problem.
13- Signs and portents (premonizioni) - Londo bury for his Government a very important thing called 'the eye', a sort of precious jewel symbol of a noble family or something like that, I don't remember. Lord Kiro and his aunt Nadira come to take it back to their planet. Raiders steal it with the help of Kiro who thinks they'll help him take the power over the Emperor, but he's wrong.
A strange man asks every Ambassador "what do you want?" and at the end he gives the eye back to Londo, who already thought his career was over now that the eye was lost.
Nadira has a vision of Babylon 5 exploding and she warns Sinclair hoping he might avoid that future.
Garibaldi discovers how Sinclair got this command: the Minbari demanded to have a say on who'll be commander of Babylon 5 and they refused any other name: they wanted him.
14- TKO (scambio) - Walker Smith (Greg McKinney) is an old friend of Garibaldi. He was a great fighter until he was set up and his career ruined, but now he wants his last big chance: he wants to fight in the Mutai, a fighting tournament for aliens. There are no rules, the one still standing is the winner. No humans has ever fought in the Mutai, and Smith is initially turned down. An alien, ex-fighter, helps him by telling him what to do. Smith and Garibaldi go to a match, and when the Mutai champion wins, and the Mu-ta-do, the Master of the Game, asks who is brave enough to challenge him, Smith volunteers. The challenge is accepted and when they fight he can hold his own. They are both good fighters, and it goes on for a while like I-punch-you-you-punch-me, and at the end they are both on their knees and it is declared a tie, but Smith is now accepted in the Mutai circle, and he's made history on Earth as the first human ever to fight in the Mutai. He can return to Earth now.
Second story: a rabbi comes to help Susan in dealing with her loss; after her father died she didn't go to the funeral nor she mourned him here on Babylon 5. For some time she refuses to sit the Shiva, the ceremony where she mourns him with her friends and family, but at the end she changes her mind and mourns him and cries, and remembers him with the rabbi, some friends (I suppose, never seen them) and Sinclair "her dear friend". Crying is good, it'll do her good.
15- Grail (il calice sacro) - It starts with a piece of comedy: an alien, of the kind 'we know', all grey and long and thin, is on trial; a man says that the alien's ancestors kidnapped and experimented upon one of his ancestors, who was believed a madman and scorned by everyone.
Main story: a man named Aldous Gajic (David Warner) comes to Babylon 5: he's on a lifetime mission to find the Holy Grail.. yes, exactly. However, these represented here are not our times, where such a mission would be proof of a distressed/insane mind or else of a con-man asking for money to help him on his sacred mission. No, Aldous is really a good man, who demands nothing of others but on the contrary is the first to help. He once had a regular job, but after he lost his family nothing made sense anymore until he met the 'previous seeker' who gave him a purpose in life and believed in him. Now he's doing the same for Jinxo, a petty thief, rather incompetent, probably because he's actually a good man and stealing is a pathetic act of less-worthy people.
There's a creature who sucks the brain of people, and it's used by Douce (or something like that) to help him get rid of whoever he wants (it doesn't actually 'kill', as I understand it, but you're left empty, there's nothing left of you in your head). Jinxo owes Douce a lot of money, that's why he's caught stealing money (well, credits) from Aldous. At the trial, Aldous asks the judge to free Jinxo( that he will call by his real name Thomas) and put him under his care.
Jinxo worked on Babylon 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, and each time the station blew up just after he left, so he thinks he is Babylon 5's curse, that if he leaves Babylon 5 will explode, but Aldous sees things differently. He's not cursed, he's lucky and special because he survived, very closely, four times. Aldous has lots of money, a good heart, and can fight, but bad guys never fight honorably so he's taken prisoner and Jinxo runs to Sinclair for help. The judge is also a prisoner. When the cavalry arrives and there's a fight, Thomas tries to free the judge, and Aldous protects him when someone is about to shoot him, so Aldous dies instead. Thomas takes on himself his mission and money and purpose; now he finally has a purpose in life and intends to fulfil his obligation and his promise to the man that turned his life around.
16- Eyes (occhi spaziali) - Garibaldi is building a motorbike (Kawasaki is all I remember of his long description :-p) and Lennier wants to help him with the Japanese manual :-)He's a quick study indeed! Since Garibaldi has no time now, he also offers to work on it himself, and at the end of the episode the bike will be completed and they'll ride it through the station together :-)
A hateful colonel comes to the station to investigate all command personnel , and he's accompanied by Mr Harriman Gray (Jeffrey Combs) from PsyCorps, who's here to scan their minds, but they refuse. The colonel's reason is much more personal, though; he hates Sinclair because he got Babylon 5. The colonel wanted this command, and is quite pissed off over it.
Susan would rather resign her post than be scanned, but she won't need to go that far because Sinclair and Garibaldi discovered the reason behind the colonel's witch-hunt (his hate, read above) and suggests Gray should scan both of them, not just Sinclair. Gray does it, but the colonel is on a frenzy and points a gun at them, so Gray stops him with a word "pain" into his brain :-p
Not a bad episode. I hated Bester, but I'd like to see Gray again :-)
17- Legacies (l'eredità) - A Minbari warrior is dead. He was a great leader and his clan of warriors come to Babylon 5 to honor him publicly; but before the war he was a religious man who wished for a quiet life and a quiet death. Because of this Delenn and her people "steal" the body and cremate him. The warriors make a big fuss over the disappearance of the body and insist on a big investigation. Their leader even attacks Sinclair.
To end this situation, Satai Delenn imposes her authority over him, even ordering him to apologize to Sinclair. When he does, the commander has nice words over the bravery and honor of the deceased  and the two man leave at peace.
The other story of the episode: a girl is found stealing, but she also just discovered to be a telepath. Talia would send her directly to Earth, to the PsyCorps, but of course Ivanova strongly opposes the idea. At the end, after considering all her choices, Alisa decides to go with the Minbari :-)
18- A voice in the wilderness part 1 (spazio part 1) - While civilian scientists are surveying the planet below, they are shot at. Missiles. Back to Babylon 5 they go, and they say they believe there's something artificial down there, and probably something worth protecting. Sinclair and Ivanova go there themselves and discover, five miles below the surface, big big machines like they've never seen, but also the image of a  man asking for help. They find him attached to some machinery or portal or something and they try to take him back to Babylon 5 to be cured. Meanwhile, on the Mars colony there's a rebellion going on and all communications are off. Sinclair and Ivanova have nobody there anymore, but Garibaldi left a woman when he came to work here. He's worried sick for her and asks for Talia's help in trying to contact her.
19- A voice in the wilderness part 2 (spazio part 2) - The alien that was in that machine recovered a bit of strength, enough to talk and explain, but he has only a few days to live, and without him the planet will explode taking Babylon 5 with it. An Earth ship and an alien ship come for the place and its wonders, but they can't have it.
Delenn's friend and ex-mentor takes the place of the alien into the machine, stabilizing the situation. Now there's no more risk of an explosion.
Garibaldi's friend Lise has been located on Mars. The rebellion is under control now. She's wounded but ok and he can speak to her. He tells her he made a mistake leaving her, but now she's married and about to have a baby.
20- Babylon squared (corruzione a Babylon 5) - Delenn is called back by the Grey Council to be made their leader, but she doesn't want to leave Babylon 5 forever. Apparently they stopped the war because there was a prophecy regarding humans, but one doubts it "what is it that makes the humans so special?"  *sigh* humans really think they are so special, don't they? All these movies, throughout the years, all the same: humans are so special, so noble, with so much to teach... how stupid is it, don't they ever take a good look around? The things humans would do for money are endless and indescribable. The things they do for every other reason all reunite under one word: superiority. Humans like so much to feel superior to others. Humans do not want to live in peace like brothers and sisters, each of them wants to be superior to everybody else. They all have that same look in their eyes: "i'm superior because: I have more money; I'm the master and you're the slave; I follow the 'sacred book' rules; I have weapons and you don't; I don't let old superstition guide my life; etc etc etc this might go on forever.
Humans are not superiors. Look around: so much injustice and horrible things going on!
Anyway, Babylon 4 reappears. Apparently it's shifting through time, and Sinclair tries to evacuate as many as possible before it disappears again. Now, why this five-at-a-time-policy? I understand they can't run all at once, it would be a mess, but five at a time? They don't have much time!
There's also a sort of alien on Babylon 4. He's from another time I think. They all escape, and then we see that "the One" so worshipped by the alien was actually an older Sinclair who "tried to warn them" of some great was about to come, and with him there's someone (I think it was Delenn) who spoke very affectionately to him.
Delenn goes back to Babylon 5, not sure is she's still accepted in the Council or not, it's for sure they didn't take well her refusing to be the leader, but she still have at least a friend in the Council. Good.
 21- The quality of mercy (il dono della misericordia) - Again we see that in 2258 humans and aliens spend their nights watching girls dancing and undressing, drinking alcohol and playing poker for money *rolling eyes*
 A man is a murderer, but they can't afford to send him to Earth or to keep him in prison and can not kill him, so they have only one chance: erase completely his personality. Talia scans him and is horrified.
The doctor goes down below to cure for free those who can't afford to pay, and discovers that there's another one, a woman who is healing people using an alien device. She's not a fraud, though, she's a good woman, and the machine works by giving her patients some of her life-energy. When the murderer escapes, and is wounded, he goes to her and force her to help him threatening her daughter's life, she does so, but when she realizes he'll never let the girl live, she uses the machine in reverse, taking his life force and giving him all her pain and terminal illness. He dies, and she's cured, but feels the guilt of taking a man's life. She'll leave the station, on a journey to redeem herself. She turns her machine over to Doctor Franklin :-)
22- Chrysalis (metamorfosi) - Narn and Centauri have yet another quarrel, over quadrant 37 this time. Neither G'Kar nor Londo wants to back down when that strange man that brought Londo back 'the eye' comes back to offer him his help, and he accepts it. The Narn outpost is destroyed, 10.000 Narns die, everything is destroyed.
Sinclair plans to marry Catherine and Garibaldi and Ivanova are to be best man and maid of honor.
There's a conspiracy and Garibaldi is shot by a traitor security man. The Earth President is killed, although everyone on Earth keeps believing it an accident.
The mysterious man Morden talks to the 'shadows', they have mysterious plans.
Delenn begins a mysterious transformation, and nobody knows what'll be of her, and Lennier is afraid for her.
The episode (and the series) ends without telling us what it'll be of Delenn, of Garibaldi, or of anything else. The new President doesn't seem so keen on aliens, he's probably part of Home Guard too..
The marriage too is on hold, another cliffhanger for next series.
I wonder if I can find the other seasons on dvd...