"Stellar" season 6 discussion thread

Millennium 🌠

(Stella steps out of her bathroom, where she’d been preparing for bed, to find “Millennium” sitting on her bed.)

Millennium: Hey, if it isn’t Stella Winterborn! How did you like my little game with the runaway bus this afternoon? Fun, right?

Stella: Wait, YOU did that? What the hell is wrong with you??

Millennium: What? It’s just a little bit of fun. You found it kind of exciting, did you not?

Stella: I almost died!

Millennium: So what? You’ve died lots of times. I always fix it.

Stella: I’M SORRY??

Millennium: …Did I say something wrong?

Stella: My life is not your little gameboard to amuse yourself with!

Millennium: Oh, don’t act so high and mighty, Stella Winterborn. You do the same thing all the time. Do you think I don’t know how many times you’ve killed that little blue hedgehog by letting him drop down into those spikes?

Stella: The difference is that the little blue hedgehog isn’t real.

Millennium: Oh? And who made you the arbiter of what’s real? Surely you can see that you’re privileging your own subjective—

Stella: We can have this conversation another time. I’m going to bed. Good night.

Millennium: You’re getting awfully bossy lately, Stella Winterborn…I like that.

(“Millennium” teleports out.)

Millennium 🌠

(Stella and Rudolf walk down the stairs to find “Millennium” sitting on the couch in her basement. Millennium’s hair is straight, which is unusual.)

Millennium: Hello again, Stella Winterborn, Rudolf Ravenwood. Long time, no see.

Stella: Oh, it’s you. The weird kid with the weird powers. Why did you straighten your hair?

Millennium: I’m experimenting with a new look. What do you think, Stella Winterborn?

Stella: Honestly? You looked cuter with the curls.

Millennium: Hmph.

(“Millennium” pouts and her hair returns to its normal curliness.)

Stella: Oh, so you do care what I think of you, then!

Millennium: I did not say that.

Stella: Then why did you recurlify your hair just now?

Millennium: How on Earth is this what you’re focusing on? Do you not have any questions about why the omnipotent celestial entity is in your basement?

Stella: Just admit you want me to think you’re cute.

Millennium: I don’t need the approval of some arrogant mortal! I can shave myself bald if I want!

(“Millennium” hops up from the couch and storms off up the stairs.)

Stella: …I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen her walk out of a room.

Rudolf: You must have seriously pissed her off.

Millennium 🌠

“Millennium” didn’t actually have anything to do with the plot of this episode. She just showed up because she wanted attention, then stormed out and didn’t return until several episodes later when she actually had a role in the narrative.

Millennium 🌠

At this point, we’ve kind of established that “Millennium” is not exactly a character written by a writer and played by an actress, but an actual reality-warping entity who shows up on set and inserts herself into the show, and the cast and crew just kind of have to work around her.

Millennium 🌠

Rudolf: Wow, Stella! You’ve really been on top of things this week!

Stella: I’ve acquired a powerful new concoction. It enhances focus, boosts energy and alertness, and suppresses appetite. It’s extremely potent and must only be used with strict caution.

Laura: Your psychiatrist wrote you an Adderall prescription again.

Stella: That’s a rather common name for it, yes.

Millennium 🌠

Stellar Christmas special: It’s clear and dry on Christmas Eve, so Stella attempts to make it snow, but she loses control and it becomes a full-on blizzard, leading to Stella and Rudolf and Xandra getting stranded in the snow in Rudolf’s SUV on the way back from the outlet mall.

Laura, over the phone: Stella?

Stella: Laura! Thank the stars you answered! I know you hate phone calls, but this is an emergency.

Laura: This storm…did you do that, Stella?

Stella: Kind of…sort of…yes. I just wanted some light flurries!

Laura: Stella…

Stella: Look, Rudolf and Xandra and I are stranded on Route 45.

Laura: You got stranded in a snowstorm on Christmas Eve? Even though you have trusty ol’ Rudolf there to guide you?

Rudolf: Hilarious. Never heard that one before. Good job, Laura.

Stella: OK, but seriously. I tried the usual tow truck services, but they’re all tied up. They said it’d be hours before they can even start heading this way.

Laura: And you want me to do what?

Stella: I don’t know. Find someone who can help.

Laura: How about that weird kid with the Matilda powers who follows you around everywhere? Lenni something. She can just poof you out of there.

Stella: Millennium?? I don’t exactly have her on speed dial, Laura.

Laura: So pray to her or something! She’s basically an all-powerful deity, right?

Stella: Laura, please…

Laura isn’t able to help them out, so they remain stuck in the car in a ditch. Most of the episode is taken up by skits parodying classic Christmas specials, with the framing device being each of the three telling a story to pass the time.

The stranded-in-a-ditch plot is resolved when Stella gets a phone call from Rory, who enthusiastically thanks her for the storm because it’s obscured the sun enough for it to be safe for Rory to go outside before nightfall. They realize that Rory, with her super vampire strength, could get the car unstuck. The last shot of the episode is Rudolf’s SUV being pushed down the road from behind by Rory.

The after-credits sequence shows Rory trying to get in on the storytelling, but she keeps getting the wrong holiday. After the others dismiss her attempts to tell stories about a bunny hiding eggs, a jack-o’-lantern who came to life, and a turkey, she settles on…the story of a vampire girl who saved Christmas by rescuing her friends from a snowstorm caused by a wicked witch named Winterborn.

Hybris

Laura Aashto has the supernatural ability to recall everything she’s ever experienced in perfect detail. That’s part of why she never actually attends her classes—she doesn’t have to study the way other students do, she just reads the textbook once and retains the information forever. As long as she shows up on exam day, she’s fine.

She specifically holes up in the library all day because she can use the books there to feed the endless database of knowledge that is her mind.

Millennium 🌠

Wizard of Oz parody episode!

Witch: Follow the yellow brick road, Stella!

Stella: What even are you talking about? This is a plain old city street paved with plain old asphalt.

The witch points up to a lamppost, where there’s an ordinary, FHWA-compliant street name sign reading YELLOWBRICK RD

Millennium 🌠

Millennium: It doesn’t really matter what happens, right? I can always just fix it if things go too far. As long as you’re not boring me, that’s all I—

(Stella slaps Millennium across the face.)

Millennium: Hey! What kind of witch are you? Going around hitting little girls!

Stella: I thought you were a million years old.

Millennium: Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive!

Stella: Get out.

Millennium: Apologize right now!

Stella: Or else what? You’ll make a blizzard on the Fourth of July? I said, get out.

Millennium: Shut up! I’m leaving! But not because you told me to!

(Millennium teleports out)

Imicow

blizzard on the Fourth of July? I’m in

Hybris

(Vice Principal Hastings, who is secretly Marlowe St. Vincent, a member of a witch-hunting cult called The Inquisitors, walks into the school library. Laura Aashto addresses him without looking up from her laptop.)

Laura: Hello, Mr. St. Vincent.

St. Vincent: …How do you know that name?

Laura: I know everything, Mr. St. Vincent.

St. Vincent: Do you, now? You know, kids like you shouldn’t go around making claims they can’t back up.

Laura: What was your favorite book as a child, Mr. St. Vincent?

St. Vincent: …The Secret Garden, I suppose.

Laura: “When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another. Her father had held a position under the English Government and had always been busy and ill himself, and her mother had been a great beauty who cared only to go to parties and amuse herself with gay people. She had not wanted a little girl at all, and when Mary was born—”

St. Vincent: Alright, alright, I get the point.

Laura: You know the funny thing, Mr. St. Vincent?

St. Vincent: Yeah?

Laura: You don’t remember how that book goes. I could be making it up entirely and you’d never be able to call my bluff.

St. Vincent: Never mind that. I’m here because—

Laura: Because you want me to take you to Ms. Winterborn and Mr. Ravenwood. I’m not doing that.

St. Vincent: I don’t think you understand the position you’re in, young lady.

Laura: I am seated in a chair at a study nook in the library of New Salem High School. And I intend to stay that way, regardless of what you would prefer, Mr. St. Vincent.

St. Vincent: Don’t get smart with me, Aashto. I know you know where they are.

Laura: I told you. I know everything. That doesn’t mean I have to tell you any of it.

Hybris

(St. Vincent draws a pistol and aims at Laura. Laura still doesn’t turn around.)

Laura: I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Mr. St. Vincent. At least not if I still wanted the Biblio Athanasia.

St. Vincent: What the hell are you talking about?

Laura: Let’s engage in a little thought experiment., Mr. St. Vincent. Let’s say, hypothetically, that you have a student who is a Detective by birth and can remember anything she has ever read in perfect detail, right down to every misplaced semicolon. Let’s say, hypothetically, that this student came into possession of the Biblio Athanasia and eagerly read the entire thing. And let’s further speculate that this student, whoever she may be, then destroyed the physical book. It would be rather counter to your objectives to kill that student, wouldn’t it? Because the book you’ve been after your entire life now exists only in her mind. Come to think of it, that hypothetical student might have quite a bit of leverage over you now, wouldn’t she?

(St. Vincent grits his teeth.)

St. Vincent: What do you want, Aashto?

(Laura finally turns around.)

Laura: You can do whatever you think you need to do with Stella Winterborn and Rudolf Ravenwood. But you leave Alexandra DuBois out of it. Understood?

St. Vincent: …As you wish.

Laura: Good. Now get out of my library.

(Several episodes later, Rudolf and St. Vincent are fighting in the front hallway of the high school when Stella shouts down from the top of the stairs. She’s holding a book in one hand and aiming her wand at St. Vincent with the other.)

Stella: It’s over, St. Vincent. We have the Biblio Athanasia.

St. Vincent: Impossible! The Aashto girl destroyed it! She said so herself!

(Laura emerges from behind Stella.)

Laura: I told you it was a hypothetical, Mr. St. Vincent.

Millennium 🌠

Stella: You really only think about yourself, don’t you?

Millennium: …As opposed to what?

Millennium 🌠

(Stella walks onto a bridge over a river in New Salem. “Millennium” is waiting there, staring at the reflections of the city lights on the water.)

Millennium: Stella Winterborn! What are you doing here?

Stella: It’s the funniest thing. I was just thinking “I would love to talk to Millennium right now as we watch the view from the 18th Avenue bridge”, and when I got here you just happened to be here. Quite the coincidence!

Millennium: What are you implying? Do you think you’re special or something?

Stella: You certainly seem to think I’m special.

Millennium: I said nothing of the sort! Don’t flatter yourself, Stella Winterborn! There are over 8,000,000,000 of you humans, and every last one of you is unremarkable and interchangeable.

Stella: Is that so? I guess I’ll be on my way, then.

Millennium: No, no, wait, don’t go!

Stella: Oh?

Millennium: …Since all 8,000,000,000 of you are interchangeable, I might as well chat with the one who’s already here. But don’t let it go to your head, Stella Winterborn. It’s solely a matter of convenience, as I say.

Stella: Uh-huh.

Millennium 🌠

There was that really weird scene in “Armistice of the Sorcerers, Part I” when Laura Aashto and “Millennium” were talking as if they already knew each other even though they hadn’t had even a single scene together up to that point

Nobody quite seems sure if that was meant to imply they used their respective powers to learn about each other or whether it was just a lazy plot hole

Millennium 🌠

Millennium: Blew it again, eh, Stella Winterborn? Alas and alack.

Stella: It’s easy to be smug and arrogant when you’re…whatever you are. But you wouldn’t last a day as a human and we both know it.

Millennium: Is that so? Now who’s being smug and arrogant? I would make a perfect human. Literally perfect!

Stella: OK, put your magic where your mouth is. Make yourself human for 24 hours.

Millennium: Ha, challenge accepted!

(Millennium snaps her fingers. Nothing visually changes.)

Millennium: There. Until 17:21:44 tomorrow, I’m an ordinary human. Not that you can tell the difference. You’ll just have to take my word for—

(Stella baps Millennium over the head with her wand.)

Millennium: Ow! What the hell did you just do, you sadistic sociopath?

Stella: That’s called “pain”. What do you think? Do you like it?

Millennium: Ha! You think you can get one over on me that easily, Stella Winterborn? I already told you, I am a perfect—

(Stella baps Millennium’s head with her wand again.)

Millennium: Hey! Knock it off, will ya? You’ve made your point.

Stella: Oh? Am I bothering you?

Millennium: I did not say that!

Stella: I didn’t say you did.

(They stare at each other in silence for a moment.)

Millennium: Now what?

Stella: How about we go for ice cream? Here, follow me.

Millennium: I’m a leader, not a follower.

Stella: OK. You lead the way to the ice cream shop, then.

Millennium: Hmph. I shall offer you the privilege of guiding me just this once.

Stella: Uh-huh.

Millennium 🌠

It’s a Millennium episode. We all know what that means. Millennium is going to show up, do something wacky with her Q powers to get Stella’s attention, then shout “IT’S NOT LIKE I LIKE YOU OR ANYTHING” and peace out. Same as it ever was. This episode does nothing to advance the plot and I’m pretty sure they only bothered because Carly Robin Ravenswood [Rory Pike’s actress] wasn’t available for filming for the main story arc this week. Good gravy.

—fandom blogger Dawn Serlylight on Stellar season 7 episode 10, “Disorderly Conduct”

Imicow

this show is full of obnoxious people

Millennium 🌠

Imicow this show is full of obnoxious people

Specifically, I’m drawing from the Whedon/Buffy tradition wherein every character has to be Deadpan Snarker®, because nothing endears your cast to the audience more than them constantly being smug and sarcastic to each other even when it’s really not warranted.

Millennium 🌠

I’m doing something right, then!

Millennium 🌠

Climactic episode in which the New Salem High School principal (who may or may not be the same Mr. Crowley who’s the principal of Jessica Fletcher High School) goes missing and “Vice Principal Hastings” (really the witch-hunter Marlowe St. Vincent) becomes acting principal and turns the school into an authoritarian hellhole.

Extremely unsubtle Nazi imagery, the hall monitors working as his secret police, etc.

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