Now, first things first, The Weeken'd was a seriously annoying factor.  While great in the first two episodes, he quickly became a "superhero syndrome" type of figure, no matter what crap he pulled, or how much drugs he used, it was all cool and awesome.  It shows he produced the whole series... 

 

 Jocelyn is a popular pop music artist, who is preparing for her come back after that her last tour had to be cancelled due to a mental breakdown.  After rehearsals, she meet Tedros in a nightclub, with whom she immediatly connects and asks to come to her house to help her with her new song.  During a BDSM style rehearsal, she rewrites the song totally from what it was intended to be.  Her manager and the tour and label representatives aren't over the world of it though, and during the shoot of the videoclip Jocelyn overdoes herself, breaking down again.  

 

Tedros comes back to her house together with Chloe and Izaak, two of the people from his nightclub.  He begins asserting control over Jocelyn's life and moves into the house with all his followers, and he makes her scrap her planned album to start anew with a new creative direction.  Tedros forces her to reveal her past to his group, which is nothing less then a cult.

 

When her manager has a background run on Tedros, it turns out he is nothing then a fraud and a petty criminal with a string of domestic abuse trials.  Xander, the creative assistant of Jocelyn, is also tortured until he submits into his cult, yet the cult harbours very talented and gifted, unsigned artists.  When she learns how she was tricked into his grasp by her background dancer, she decides to get back at him by having sex with her ex in earshot of Tedros.

 

When her team comes to judge if the tour can go on, she accuses Tedros of being a fraud and has him paid off to get out of her life.  He refuses, but her manager enlists his connections at Vanity Fair to totally ruin him and his reputation.  Yet during the opening night of her tour, she had him brought to her and calls him on stage, naming him the love of her life before everyone, including her flabbergasted management...

 

See, that is exactly what I mean, instead of the reasonable thing that her manager buries him somewhere under a rock (literally as one of her team suggests), he is brought forward as the bigger then life figure in the world... 

 

 

 

 

Nicole Kidman stars as Romy, the CEO of a robot company, and dissatisfied with her sexlife with Jacob (Antonio Banderas).  One day, an encounter with a young man, who turns out to be one of the new interns at her company, stirs something inside her.  His commanding, dominating personae (sorry, he was just a creep to be honest), they meet in a hotel where he let's her be a dog, showing he is the one in power.

 

Their affair gets ever more sexually intense, even with him turning up at her country home, much to her chagrin.  He plays the power game with her, and starts dating Romy's secretary to be able to get back in her house, who knows about her affair.  She confesses it to her husband, though toning it down to a one-night stand after Esme threathens to tell if she doesn't get a promotion.  Jacob runs in on Romy and Samuel, but as he suffers a panic attack, Samuel calms him down.

 

 

He takes on a new job in Japan, and she rekindles her relation with Jacob, though she only able to orgasm by thinking back on the doggy play in the hotel with Samuel.

 

 

 

 

Tetsuo Tosu is a normal salaryman, when one day he meets up with his daughter Reika for lunch.  He learns that her boyfriend, Nobuto, is physically abusing her, and he tails him one day.  When he is inside Reika's appartment, Nobuto arrives and he hides in the closet, overhearing him telling others he will extract more money from her before getting rid of her.  He bursts out of the closet, killing Nobuto with a ricecooker.  Together with his wife Kasen, they decide to get rid of the body.

Almost caught by Kubo, one of Nobuto's friends, he boils the body to a smaller mass in the bathtub, transporting it inside a suitcase.  Being followed, they manage to mislead Kubo and his band, before burying the body in the garden.  But they return, capturing Kasen and abducting Tetsuo on his way home.  Bound on a chair, a man called Kyoichi beats him and threatens to kill him.  tetsuo convinces Kyoichi to let him live, and help him out finding Nobuto who the cronies think has just eloped with the money.

 

 

Tetsuo works with Kyoichi against a deadline, his life on the line.  They learn Nobuto ripped off his own gang, but as they do a job for the club owner Kyoichi is wounded as they flee.  Tetsuo is forced to film a confession that he killed one of the gang members, as insurance of him telling on the gang's actions to the police.  He and Kasen decide that their best means of survival is convincing them Nobuto is still alive, trying to fake it with video material.

Back in a club, he accidentally meets Nobuto's father, as back home they manage to unlock Nobuto's phone.  But Kyoichi's gang suspect it is a fake, and he visits Tetsuo and Kasen at home.  Kasen gives him a laxative to his coffee though, as Reika passes by her home.  Kyoichi leaves a note in her shoe to contact him, as Kasen learns he wants to kill Tetsuo.  Kyoichi is more and more burried in staged evidence by Tetsuo, causing the mob leader Takeda to restrain him and make due with him.  

But Kyoichi escapes barely, piecing together the events that led to him being framed, phoning Nobuto's father and explaining his theory.  Matori goes to Reika's appartment, coming face to face with Tetsuo who is wracked by guilt for a father losing his child.  But soon they come to blows, as Matori tells Tesuo Reika is unimportant, enraging Tetsuo.  But as he thinks of his child, Matori stabs himself in the stomach with a kitchen knife, telling Tetsuo if he doesn't make it back, they will know Tetsuo was the cullprit.  He manages to evade discovery, and burries the body in the woods.

And while it contains quite a lot of nudity (expected considering the topic) for some reason it never felt gratuit, which is quite an achievement in my book.  This seven part series is a tale about toxic adoration for an elder brother, about masochism, and of course about Rocco's entrance into the adult industry.

It starts in Paris in the year 2004, where he announces his retirement before a stunned crowd, telling his agent and cousin Gabriele he can see his dead brother Tomasso.  Returning to 1974, we find a young Rocco in his impoverished village of Ortano with his family, including mentally disabled Claudio and his older (bastard) brother Tomasso whom he adores, as a symbol of masculinity.  Tomasso has a relationship with the prettiest girl in the village, Lucia, even though he finds her cheating on him.  Claudio dies due to a heart attack, ravaging his family, as Rocco comes across a copy of the erotic magazine Supersex and decides he wants to become like the star of the book, Gabriel Pontello.

Tomasso marries Lucia though his family is not allowed to attend, and moves to Paris.  Rocco follows him as soon as he is 18, starting to work in his restaurant as a waiter.  But soon he learns about his attraction on women, sleeping with several of the patrons that come over for dinner.  When a girl, Sylvie, asks to go to the toilet, he starts his first relationship, but soon it starts to dwindle as she can't stand the smell of him sleeping with other women after he does a client.  This is the start of how his sexwork starts to affect his mental health as well as destroying any relational bonds he tries to maintain.

 

When he becomes a regular at a local libertine club, his relation crashes, but he meets Pontello who sees a future star in him.  While his first job on set doesn't turn out well, he soon starts to make a name due to the size of his equipment and the passion he performs with, and his star starts rising in the adult industry.  But slowly his point of view on unstable Tomasso starts to shift, especially after he finds out Lucia works the streets in La Pigale as well to fund their lifestyle, getting pregnant in the process.  He leaves the household after a fight with his drunk brother, and focusses on his career as he becomes a celebrity working with the biggest stars in Los Angeles.

 

When his mother gets sick, he returns home until her passing away, but back at work he reaches his highlight, winning the male performer of the year award under the eyes of his family.  Tomasso tries to redeem himself, even opening a restaurant named after his deceased stepmother, but the gipsys in the village burn it down after an argument and everyone thinks he died in the fire.  But then it turns out he isn't seeing ghosts back at Paris 2004, instead going on a last night out with his brother after he prevents Tomasso making a grave mistake when Lucia remarries, having left Tomasso after another drunken fight.

 

 

They share a last night on the roofs, and reclaim Claudio's helmet from the restaurant Tomasso used to run in Paris.  He leaves his brother behind, knowing he will be comitting suicide as soon as he leaves.  

This was a truly engaging series, and while Rocco Siffredi has been known for his more extreme tastes in sexual acts, something ommitted from the series and his rising career, it still offers a good insight into the trials and tribulations he went on to his road to becoming one of the leading male stars of the adult industry.

When Poirot solves a theft at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, he is approached by the British police to solve a case for them in London.  Thanks to his friend Bouc, he gets a place onboard the Orient Express together with a heap of excentric passengers like american business man Edward Ratchett, american man-hunting widow Caroline Hubbard, austrian professor Hardman, russian princess Dragomiroff, and spanish missionary Pilar Estravados (she replaces the swedish nurse from the books).

To give an impression of the star cast, read those characters again but replacing their names with Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Willem Dafoe dame Judy Dench and Penelope Cruz... you get the idea.

Ratchett offers Poirot to become a sort of bodyguard for him during the trip, as he made enemies during his business ventures and fears retaliation.  But Poirot refuses, as he sees Ratchett for the crooked business man and swindler that he is.  That night, Ratchett is murdered, Poirot having seen as the only one a person in a red kimono running through the train.  Mrs Hubbard claims someone was in her compartment that night, and Poirot starts an investigation.  He gets some additional time for this as an avalanche blocks the trains journey, waiting for it to be dug out by railroad workers.

Poirot finds a partly burned note that connects Ratchett to the murder of a young girl called Daisy Armstrong.  He had received a letter from her father asking for help, but colonel Armstrong took his own life before he could answer.  Her mother had died after giving birth to a stillborn baby, making it in essence a double crime.  He discovers Ratchett was indeed her kidnapper and murderer, John Casetti.  The family's nursemaid was wrongly blamed and took her own life in custody, while being proved innocent later on though.  

When he uncovers more evidence, Hubbard is stabbed but luckily none lethal.  He discovers that in one way or another, many of the passengers are connected to the Armstrong family or case, as he is shot in the shoulder by doctor Arbuthnot who claims responsibility for the murder.  Knowing he was a former army sniper, he realises he never actually wanted to kill him.  He confronts the passengers offering two possible theories, and also revealing all their connections to the case, and they all had motive, while the other is a simple exterior assassin boarded and escaped the train.

He predicts they all acted together, which Hubbard, who really was Daisy's grandmother, confirms.  She had planned the murder and enlisted all the others to help with it, and everyone took a turn stabbing Casetti.  He challenges the passengers to shoot him as he can`t let the truth be covered up, as he, obsessed with truth and balance, simply cannot lie.

With the train back on track, Poirot decides justice is just impossible in this case, and for the first time he will have to live with a lie and imbalance, as he decides to go for the lone assassin theorem instead, letting them all go with the murder...

Starring the always delightfully grom Sam Elliot (so this is what Bufford was up to after Gettysburg!) as Shea Brennan, a Pinkerton agent leading the expedition.  He had lost wife and daughter to the smallpox, and just when he was about to commit suicide his partner Thomas arrives, convincing him to take a job at the Pinkerton agency in Fort Worth for an escorting job across the Great Plains.

Together with the Dutton family, whose father is a Confederate civil war veteran, and a group of Slavic and German immigrants, the wagon train sets out.  The tensions between the immigrants and the american members of the train strain though, and leading to the death of Dutton's niece Mary Abel.  The inexperienced travellers find themselves victim to nature's harsh reality like dysentry of rattlesnake bites, as well as thievery amongst the group.  Shea forces the cullprits out, while Dutton's daughter Elsa takes on the cowgirl style of life, becomming smitten with one of the cowboys in the caravan, Ennis.

With food running short as one of the food wagons gets lost in the crossing of a river, as a group of bandits wants to raid the wagon train.  In the ensuing fight, Ennis is killed, and Shea tries to comfort Elsa.  They enter the Comache lands, paying the tax to be allowed to cross.  And Elsa befriends a Comanche who just goes by the name Sam.  A storm arrives, scattering the cattle and destroying wagons, but as Elsa is confronted by rustlers as she tries to gather the cattle, Sam and his partner save her.

Shea wants to cut the journey short now that their supplies and wagons are destroyed, but Dutton challenges the decision and wants to push on to Oregon.  Elsa has fallen in love with Sam, and taking their ways marries him.  She will accompany the train to Oregon, then return to Comanche territory to be with him.  But in Lakota territory, the dwindling group suffers more casualties, and when they find a massacred group of Lakota women and children, Shea and Thomas realize they will get the blame.  As Shea, Thomas and Dutton find the murderers, the rest of the settler's have retreated towards a nearby US army fort, but a Lakota attack kills a number of them before Elsa defuses the situation, but getting seriously wounded.

The Wagon Train moves on into Wyoming territory to find help, but find no surgeon to help Elsa.  Threatened by the Crow tribe, she realizes she will die, and at their advice travels with her father to a valley called Paradise to find her burial spot and a place for her family to settle.  Here, she dies in her father's arms under a tree.  A year later, Shea arrives at the Pacific Ocean, and his promise to his late wife fullfilled, shoots himself on the beach to be back with her as the other's start to build homes for their new life...

 

The palace is becoming renown across the world as a marvel to behold, but inside it's walls a scandal takes place when a poisoning happens.  A playwright arrives at the palace while madame De Montespan, who carries Louis XIV's child, tries to make her influence bigger.

 

 

His brother Philippe is forced to marry a german princess in order to secure an alliance, as the dutch are becoming more and more a threat for Louis.  He decides to go to war, even personally leading his forces.  This leads to more murders happening in his abscence, and while Louis suffers from insomnia, he becomes so paranoid he believes God is out to punish him.  Madame de Monetspan loses their child, as it becomes clear a plot is being forged to overthrow him while away.

 

During the war, the army gets stalled at Amsterdam, and William of Orange comes forth to meet Louis XIV, offering an alliance.  The talks go on, but it makes Louis realise of the error of his convictions, and he throws away the possible treaty to return to Versailles.  Upon his arrival, he decides to put order onto things, and weed out the traitor.  He reinstates Marchal as head of the police, and his brutal but efficient methods make him unravel a satanic cult, and half the court seemingly being involved in the poisoning.  But the playwright is at the core of it all as the traitor, and Philippe tries to gain his trust in order to force him to reveal his intentions.

 

 

While the poisonmaker is arrested together with a lot of notables at court, de Motespan who was also involved and lately ignored by Louis XIV is spared at first.  The spy is shot down by Philipps lover, as the brothers settle their differences... but the dangers to the throne haven`t passed, as Marchal barely prevents the King being poisoned during the eastern mass.

This also geve me the chance to watch part 1 and 2 after each other, going through all 20 episodes in one go.

 

And in this final season, the saga of the Lothbrooks will come to a close, as all of them will be meeting the fate they are destined to.  Ivar and his bodyguards, on the run for his brothers, travel the Silk Road and find themselves suddenly guests of Prince Oleg of the Kievite Rus.  But the prince is an ambitious christian, and first he assassinates his brother, the ruler of the Rus, and takes his young son Igor hostage.  Igor is taught by Ivar though, and Uvar bides his time, convincing Oleg to invade Norway.

 

In Kattegat, Bjorn receives news Harald has been captured by King Olaf, and against the will of Lagertha travels to aid him.  But it is all a grand plan by King Olaf to make Bjorn Ironside the king of all kings, and he organises an election.  However, Harald has drawn a veil before their eyes, and he gets elected instead.  Bjorn suddenly gets a dread feeling, and upon his return he learns Lagertha has died, killed by his brother Hvitserk in a drunken stupor.  He banishes his brother who travels in pursuit of Ivar to kill him, but instead joins his machinations in Rus.

Prince Oleg has gathered a mighty army, and they travel to Norway, swiftly overwhelming Harald's defences before taking camp before Kattegat.  Bjorn, who has been mortally wounded, rallies the jarls and kings one last time, trashing the Rus army before his gates before dying of his wounds.

Ubbe has been travelling to Iceland, meeting Othere who claims to have seen the Golden Land, and an expedition is mounted.  While they suffer greatly on the way, they manage to make ground after a long journey, meeting the natives of those lands and... finding the missing Floki again.

In Rus, Ivar and Hvisterk take their leave after putting Igor back on the throne, but the drunken behaviour of his countrymen in a now ruled by Harald Kattegat annoys him greatly.  He convinces them to go back to their old raiding ways, and launch a new attack after all those years on Wessex, mightiest of England's kingdoms.  Ivar and the viking army, which he now leads after Harald has fallen in battle, faces of against Alfred and his army, as well as his belief in Christ.

As the armies engage each other, it comes down to both Ivar and Alfred trying to find their Lord as they both sturggle to gain the upper hand.  Hvitserk is nearly struck down, as he is overpowered by the enemy soldiers.  But Ivar steps in, saving him at his own expense as he is stabbed down by an english soldier, as he dies in Hvitserk's arms, next to a burning cross.  Alfred and Hvitserk decide to talk a peace treaty for the future of both their peoples, as he converts to Christianity...

In the Golden Land one of the vikings slays the chieftains son while searching for gold, breaking the trust between the two groups.  As the son is buried in their traditional ways, Ubbe sentences the perpetraitor to the Blood Eagle, with the natives in attendance.  But at the last moment, Ubbe decides to slid his throat like he did with the chieftains son, as he doesn`t want him to enter Walhalla and restore the brittle relationship.

 

Will is a succesfull surgeon, making fame when he seperates twins in a complicated procedure.  Happily married and father of two, he seems to be on the fast track to a great career, especially when his father in law wants to make him a government official for the medical sector.

But at the inauguration party, he meets Anna, the fiancee of his son Jay.  He becomes enthralled with her, and she invites him over a few days later to her appartment.  Here she explains the rules to him, on how they will be having a master and servant orientated affair.  Will loses himself totally in her, while trying to keep it all a secret for the outside world, especially his wife and son.  So obsessed he is with her, he even follows them to Paris on a romantic weekend of the young couple...

But one day, Jay comes to her place, and finds them in the middle of it.  As a result, he commits suicide before their eyes.  Will sees his world, his career and his marriage crash and burn, while Anna just disappears.  It hasn`t been the first time she ensnared someone into her web, resulting in a suicide, as it happened to her own brother as well.  Will goes to search for her, but she turns him down and leaves to unknown places...

Okay, so I don`t get the hype about this series.  Was it terrible?  No.  Was it good?  Also no though.  It is just a plain, nothing spectacular (or explicit, unless you want to see the Oakenshield's bare bottom) thirteen in a dozen drama series to be honest.

Noah is the black sheep of the Wolfson family, having refused to step into the diamond business as his tate wanted.  He returns to Belgium from his job in London when his younger brother Yanki commits suicide, a result of high gambling debts.  But there is more at hand, which brings the company in dire waters.

 

It turns out he has been making deals with the Albanian maffia, who are using diamonds for laundring their drug money.  The family has to pay up his debts, as Noah finds a solution, even though it might not be totally legal.  he has been living a shady life it seems, as his mother in law is the leader of a gang in London, running a druglab herself, and she brokers the deal between them.

 

When, in order to fullfil an order of the maffia that was necessary to be made for the company to survive, Eli and Adina vote on an indian diamant trader to become the next president of the Bourse, their dad collapses from a stroke, and Noah starts to return to the ways of his family. 

When his father dies, Eli tries to get the company from all three heirs, influenced by Benny.  But the plan fails, and instead Adina is named sole successor by their mom.  However, she refuses and splits the shares along the three of them, while Benny is removed and blocked from the market.  But Noah is put in a hard spot, as Kendra and the Albanian maffia want to continue their whitewashing drugtraffic.

Eli decides to go co-operate with the police, going to a secret banker that laundry's money.  In the meantime, Noah has to set up a meeting between the Albanians and a Brazilian minister, but he backs out in the end.  This results in his family and company being threatened, and when they even go as far as approach his son, he decides to try and take matters in his own hands.  With the police on their tail as Eli backed out of becomming a witness to hand information about money laundring, Noah goes to steal diamonds from a company a friend of his works at.

But he is planning a set-up with those stones, and even though it goes sour at first, he manages to solve the issues for both himself, the company and even the district.  Even though it is at the expense of his family in London as he has to make the hard choice of which one to save, and which one to send to jail...

To be honest, I liked the series because I was there when it was filmed and it is fun to see the buildings and all again (and the mistakes in layout on how it is presented on screen versus how the district actually is), but the story itself... far less.  And it was quite unrealistic on some points I can`t disclose.

Sofia and Javier are now a couple, Natalia and Maria have moved out of town due to the drug affair, Gerry is serving in a juvenile detention center... and they are on the brink of graduation now.  This led to them making a pact, that no-one would ever tell what happened.  The body had been mysteriously moved and classified suicide, so no-one knows.  Or is there, because All Your Secrets is back and vows to bring it all out.  Of course, everyone suspects Raul being back to his old habits, but he denies.

When Pablo is called a few times by a strange number, convinced it is Maria, Sofia and Javier go out to investigate, and find it is actually Natalia, telling them her sister is dead, drowned in the sea.  Claudia is found out to be having a relation with the arts teacher, but as Raul is the next victim of AYS he involuntarily causes an accident that gravely injures Pablo.

One of Javier's teammates is put into a wheelchair as they do a mix-up between him and Javier, as Natalia confesses she was send by AYS to spy on them and give their whereabouts, in exchange to finding out what drove Maria.  Gerry is taken to a LGBT+ assembly by Luis's mother, where he can come to terms with his feelings.  

Back at Sofia's house, Javier and Natalia get close again, but just as they are about to kiss he backs out, confessing to her his and his father's role in hiding Susana's body, but a drone has recorded everything.  Sofia discover that her father has another family outside theirs, leaving her heartbroken.  After confronting him, she decides that him serving his time is enough punishment for her father, and she leaves him behind in jail.  As she contacts the hacker, he forces them to each turn one of the group in for their crime.  

They learn AYS is not a hacker, but a collective that was inadvertetly founded by Bruno when he posted his grievances on a forum.  But he has lost control over them and now they keep taking it further and furtherm kidnapping Raul and forcing him to make a fake confession of him being AYS once again.  Gerry, being beaten up by his homophobic inmates, is allowed to serve his sentence from home.  But as he has no contact with his family, he is saved by Luis's mother who wants to be his guardian and guide him through those months.  

When Ernesto, who barely can handle computers, won a contest she realises he has been in the loop, and confronts him.  He confesses to Sofia that in exchange for a hefty sum, he just had to put his name under some files and tap the school computer, as the collective could get their hands on their data that way.  As the graduation ceremony approaches, Gerry seeks out the group notifying them someone is using Raul's profiles.  They go and free Sofia, who was captured by Bruno when seeking him out, and Raul from the cult. 

As they go to the school festival, Sofia gives a speech, but in doing that she also confesses to everyone what they did and how they where involved.  They are sentenced to community service.  A few months later, Sofia and Javier meet, who has made a theory it was still all raul behind it.  Sofia laughs it away, before going outside and driving off with Raul on his motorcycle...

 

 

 

During a funeral ceremony at the Nacional School his account suddenly comes to life posting one cannot bury the past.  Soon various students involved directly or indirectly, like the (gorgeous) lesbian student Alex, are assaulted by an unknown revenger.

 

Sofia and Javier are out to discover the identity, and in doing so learn that Raul is housing the fugitive Gerry who was the one that killed Luis.  At the same time, Nati, who started dealing drugs to make up for her debts, finds herself in problems as her stock was lost and now she has to pay up, her partner in it, Jordi, fleeing.  All the while, her twin sister struggles with an unwanted pregnancy as she was the one Isabella's (the trans girl from season 1 that now moved to the States) boyfriend cheated with.

Sofia and her mother are removed from their house now that her father is still alive, and move in with the principal.  Her father wants to talk with her mother, but she has called the police and he is arrested as they meet.  Luis mom's house is put on fire by an unknown assailant when Sofia and Javier are there to look for clues.

While the attacks continue and it turns out Maria had been lying to Pablo, not telling him she had an abortion, Gerry starts coming to terms with himself for being gay.  But in Sofia's efforts to get information out of the still manipulative Raul, Javier and Nati find comfort with each other and start becoming an item.  He offers to help her out any way he can, but she decides to try to find a sugar daddy, her first date ending with Javier's dad.

While Sofia and Raul try to locate Gerry, they find out he went to a queer club, where he meets with a bartender he previously encountered in a gaybar.  As he makes his escape from them, he goes to Felipe, and they make love to each other as he starts coming out of the closet.  As they go back to his appartment, Raul and Sofia sleep together and he promises her to not lie anymore.  But Raul is tased by the avenger, and he steals all the money from Raul's vault.

While the news get out that Raul and Sofia harbour Gerry, the former principal Quintanilla is attacked by bees on the toilet.  Afterwards, Sofia confronts her mother she had her father locked up in jail, before getting hold of Luis's drawings whom all tell the tale of how he would take revenge on the others, understanding the pattern now that the avenger is following.  In a flashback, it is shown Luis had made a drawing for Gerry which he really liked, but under the pressure of Dario and Ernesto, as well as his homophobic father, Gerry lashes out to Luis instead, starting to bully him even though he was genuinly moved by the drawing.  He goes to Luis's mother, and tells her he will be turning himself in as he is wracked with guilt.  

Javier discover his father and Nathalia making out, though this is part of a plan gone wrong to get the money by the twin sisters, leaving her behind in anger.  Gerry and Raul are trying to trick the avenger, and are brought to the school's roof, where it turns out to be none other then Alex.  But Sofia and Javier intervene and can bring her to her senses.  Susanna shows up and wants to keep the money for herself, falling from the roof and to her death... 

The tale spins around Sofia Herrera, an introvert student in the National College.  One day, a hacker reveals that the most beautiful girl in the class is actually a transgender, and that he will be revealing the secrets of others as well.  Together with new student Javier Williams, Sofie starts the search to find out the hacker, as she doesn`t want her secret out.

As she confirms the hacker she wants revenge, the ball starts rolling as many more are being blackmailed by him, inlcuding Luis, a defenseless person who is being bullied by tough kid Gerry.  When the secrets of the people that wronged Isabella are leaked, and a fight breaks out between Gerry, Raul, pablo and other guys of the group.  At the principals office, Sofia also discovers he is not only dating her widowed mother, but plans to ask her for marriage.

Luis reveals he is the hacker to get expelled from school, as he doesn't want to be there for the bullying.  But Gerry wants his revenge, and the hacker forces a duel between them in which Luis is smahed on the boardwalk edge by Luis, gravely injured and falling into a coma, but also turning out he was lying it was him as a result as the hacker immediatly contacts his next victim.

Raul, who's parents have fled the country for corruption, organises a huge party.  Sofia attends in an effort ot find clues of the hacker, but ends up kissing with Raul after javier had left the party.  As Raul goes to search for a blown fuse, she is kidnapped by the hacker.

She gathers clues in the car as she is semi-conscious, and together with Raul and Javier uses them to find the location where she was taken.  Here they discover that Bruno, an IT kid from school, lives, but they just know he can`t be the hacker, just a lapdog for him.  After he makes his escape, it looks like Javier might be involved in it all.  But it turns out he has perhaps the heaviest secret of them all, having accidentally killed a soccer friend.  But then the hacker reveals that at the end of the year party, he will reveal all their secrets at once.

The hacker is namely none other then Raul, something Sofia discovers when she sleeps with him.  But after being beaten by Pablo, he unleashes the video and reveals all the secrets, a massive fight errupting at the school party.  In the hospital though, Gerry watches Luis die in his coma, and mad with grief wants his revenge on the hacker.  He grabs a pistol from home and goes to the party, but in a struggle as he wants to shoot Raul, Javier steps in and gets shot, the season ending as he bleeds on the pavement with the others gathering around him...

Okay, I didn`t see that coming to be honest, I thought for a long time it was Sofia herself behind it all.  But this is a fun series, though I have no idea what season 2 might bring now that the hacker is known and the secrets are out. 

It starts with the tale of a girl named Vueko and her group of adventurers, who discover the island the Abyss is located on, searching for a mysterious golden city of where no-one can return.  They descent the layers, only to take the submarine seen at the end of the 3rd movie and arrive in the city itself.  It then cuts to Riko, Reg and Nanachi who also arrive there now.

But during the night, Prushka, who is now a crystallized being, is stolen from them.  A strange message leads them to a village full of Hollows, where they find Prushka again, being worked on by a jeweller.  After they learn the protective power of the village, they encounter Faputa, Princess of the Hollows and who seems to know Reg.  Her robot companion, which seems to be similar yet less advanced then Reg, returns him to the village after a meeting between him and Faputo, where he learns only a little about his origins.

Riko, in search of Reg and Nanachi, finds and frees Vueko, one of the Three Seers of the initial party of adventurers.  She is brought before Belaf, another survivor warped into a Hollow, and finds nanachi who has sold herself to slumber with a reincarnated Mitty.  The village power of granting one's deepest wish should one sell themselves to it having taken her into her hold.  Riko must find a way to free her, but the village comes under attack and with the help of a now turned White Whistle Prushka, able to unlock Reg's full potential, they ward of the danger.

Vueko tells them the dark tale of what befell her own party, and the girl Irumyuui, a young girl they took along on their journey as they found her cast-out by the villagers living on the edge of the Abyss back in those days.  But when they fall sick, their leader takes the children of Irumyuui, who is transforming in a Hollow due to a wish granting egg relic, to feed and save the party.  It is revealed the village IS actually the young girl, and the population being parasites living of her.  Faputa is her last born child, and the one that lived, who is there to grant her Mother the wish of death and destroy the Hollows.

When the defences are breached, she must choose her fate, as does Vueko who regrets all those days she stood by back then, which turns out to be almost 150 years, witgout doing anything to save Irumyuui and free her of her pain...

We watched the first instalment, and that was an okay movie with, errm, lot of scenic views.  But part two, well, rubbish.  So Noshi and me sat down for this one, and how the firefight ended for Laura, who was shot in the climax of the second movie.

Okay, a small scar.  That's it.  And a pact between the two maffia clans that where involved in that fight.  Problem solved.  And that is also about it for this movie in terms of suspense, which basically is done as such after 4 minutes.

What follows is the story of Laura who doubts wether she wants to stay with Massimo, or go for her new found intrest, and of the opposing clan, Nacho.  To that end, she goes out with her friend Olga, has dinners, and goes to visit her parents after a drunk Massimo thinks she had an affair during the affiar he had but didn`t have (it was his now dead evil twin).  Yeaaaaah, and that actually is about it for this movie, two hours was way to long, and in the end... it is yet another open ending.

Now, it is my understanding that in Poland these movies are very popular, but in order for me to actually sit through yet another instalment of this should that ever arrive... I doubt it very much.

Terribly boring stuff this was, even with the, errrm, scenic views.  Which basically ends with the two uber alpha macho's tongueing each other in her dreams. 

Because this is a true masterpiece by Wit Studious, the animation is gorgeous and full of movement, the colours on said titular bubbles is truly playing your eye... amazing work.

The story is that a few years ago, mysterious bubbles started falling to earth, breaking the laws of reality.  When an explosion on Tokyo Tower concentrates them allaround Tokyo, the city becomes uninhabitable.  But young people sneak into the city to hold games of "Battleground Parcours", and the Blue Blazes are one of the top teams, thanks to an introvert boy named Hibiki, who has hearing ultrasensitivity.

One day Hibiki tries to climb the tower as he hears a woman's voice singing, but falls in the water and is about to drown.  One of the bubbles however combines with his final exhale, transforming in a young girl that saves him.  He takes her along to his team, calling her Uta, and she joins their ranks, unknown to Hibiki and the others what she really is.

They beat a rival team, the Undertakers, together in a very intense game, but in the final catch when Uta takes Hibiki's arm, it dissolves into bubbles.  Bubble activity starts up again as it threatens to destroy Tokyom so the residents try to flee but get stuck.  It comes down to Hibiki and his friends to get to the tower where Uta went to in order to try and stop the activity.

Hibiki manages to reach her, and learns of how one particular bubble was attracted to him all those years ago before the explosion, and how it saved him.  Since then, it has been watching over him, as she fell in love with Hibiki like the tale of the Little Mermaid.  She fades into bubbles, but in her last breath she tells him it was worth it all to become human, no matter how briefly, and be with him.  The bubbles are calming, and Tokyo is being rebuild, but Hibiki still practices parkour, with a bubble following him...