Enthused!

After a belated start, we meet the dreaded Philippe...and oh no, we kind of love him? He's manipulative and objectively terrible...but we can't help it? It's a problem. Also a problem is Diana and Matthew needing to validate their relationship ad nauseum, much ado about blood rage, and ! Matthew and Diana finally have the sex! Come for the vampire paganism, stay for Annie's Moose Truther red string.

In this Very Special Episode, we are beyond Enthused to be chatting with Olivia Dade, author of Spoiler Alert. (It’s a romance novel featuring fanfiction, so obviously Nikki had to read it immediately.) We spent much of our time fangirling at Olivia, but we also talked about such far-ranging topics as fat-shaming, boundary-setting with families, fanfiction for mental health, and how to record a respectable smashcut on a VCR. Come for the toxicity in romance, stay for the Game of Thrones bashing.

In our first ever bonus episode, Annie rants about Season 25 of The Bachelor, which featured the first Black romantic male lead in the history of the franchise. For those blissfully unaware of what went down, it was an utter shit show of epic proportions, and one that clearly demonstrates the need for #ownvoices across all storytelling platforms. CW for racism and white toxicity. 

In this episode, we wander through Season 2 Episodes 3 and 4 of Discovery of Witches. We compare past and present Elizabethan dynasties, and honestly Meghan Markle would probably be better at navigating the social intricacies of the 1500s than fictional Diana is. There are lovely moments of grinding things in mortars and pestles, very pretty knot magic, and some random kid that’s suddenly Diana & Matthew’s son???  And then we go into modern times and spend waaaaayyyyy too much time with Marcus and co *yawn.* Come for the bloodrage, stay for the eels and nightmares.

(ALSO, apologies for some of the choppiness in this episode. Our recording platform cut out a few times, so there are a coupla awkward moments where or word or two gets dropped. But don't worry, our in-house editor isn't a perfectionist and definitely didn't gnash her teeth and tear her hair trying to make everything as smooth as possible.)

BTW, if like Nikki you're curious about how your fruit aesthetic preferences can predict your mental age, here's a fun quiz for you that definitely won't make you despair of humanity! https://www.buzzfeed.com/abakergal/we-can-guess-if-your-a-millennial-boomer-or-gen-eb6losgyd 

In this Episode of Enthused, we travel back in time with Discovery of Witches… but in true Diana fashion, we do it by knowing nothing, and caring nothing, about history. On the other hand, there are frilly collars, a creepy priest vamp, and an emo Kit Marlowe that Matthew 100% slept with. Come for us continuing to bitch about Diana’s terrible magic, stay for the ranting about Shakespeare conspiracy theories and Nikki spontaneously breaking into song ("Wandaaaa Visionnn").

In this episode, we are discovering some witches! Or rather, a willfully ignorant witch is discovering literally everything. We cover the entire first season of Discovery of Witches at breakneck speed, pausing for some appreciation for hollow-cheeked vamps and dark academia, and, er, a mocking critique or two of some silly storytelling tropes. But! There are Scottish manors and French castles! And pneumatic tubes summoning magical books! And adorable haunted houses that you want to keep as a pet! Plus some truly diabolical villains. Catch up on Season 1 with us before we time-travel next week into Season 2...

We have arrived at the final episode of Bridgerton, and well, we've been saving up some rants for ya'll, so buckle up. In this episode, we take the writers to task for their egregious character development in Marina. We are thoroughly unsatisfied with magic rain as a means of conflict resolution. Lady Whistledown is finally revealed and...sigh. Annie disparages Daphne’s placenta and Nikki says good riddance to Siena. Stick around for our closing rant on the importance of integrity in storytelling, suitably situated between references to The Bachelor and the Hot Priest. And join us next time for our recap of A Discovery of Witches, Season 1!

Annie is still missing carbs and wishes the ladies of the ton would start putting bread rolls in their hair baskets. Meanwhile Nikki is trying to grow sourdough and it's stunted...much like Daphne and Simon's emotional capacity. Basically, we're still done with all these people, but we have fun yelling about it!

We have officially arrived at the worst episode of the season . . . yay? As if they are doing a sexy Green Eggs and Ham, Daphne and Simon have sex here, there, and everywhere! Sometimes in libraries, in gazebos, and at least once with a parasol. And it’s great except it’s actually not because it’s ALL LIES. This show, which has thus far been a source of frothy joy, takes one hell of a turn. Nikki will never forgive Marina, Annie wants to give Daphne a very exacting seminar about consent, and basically we hate everyone. Come share in our huffs of outrage and help us ponder whether any of these people are actually redeemable. 

Daphne and Simon get married and there’s wisteria inside the church!  And then--trumpets sound--they do the marital act! Rest assured we talk about it in excessive detail. Also it's Inauguration Day IRL and we're tipsy! Come for the artistic orgies, stay for Annie waxing poetic about Michelle Obama's magisterial wardrobe and Kamala's adorable nieces. Enjoy Nikki's fun tangent about syphilis. We proudly bestow upon you this blooper reel of an episode as an emblem of hope that there are better days ahead....