Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

TELEVISION

Actress Agnes Bruckner (The Returned) will play Emma’s one-time childhood friend (and Maleficent’s child) Lily in an upcoming episode of Once Upon a Time. (Natalie Abrams at Entertainment Weekly)

Actors Reed Diamond (Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Devon Gummersall (Mad Men) and Mykelti Williamson (Justified) have all joined the upcoming WGN America historical series Underground that follows a group of slaves planning a daring escape from a Georgia plantation to cross 600 miles to freedom. Diamond will play Tom Macon, a plantation owner and political candidate who has trouble believing his own slaves would ever consider running while Gummersall will have the series regular role of John Hawkes, a lawyer and abolitionist who is trying to reconcile the way things are with the way things should be; and Williamson will recur as Moses, a fiery preacher for the slaves on the plantation who decides to take his family on the run. The cast of the show includes Christopher Meloni (Law & Order: SVU), Jurnee Smollett-Bell (Friday Night Lights), Aldis Hodge (Rectify) and Jessica De Gouw (Arrow). (Erik Pedersen at Deadline and Kate Stanhope at The Hollywood Reporter)

Actress Mamie Gummer (The Good Wife) has joined the cast of the WGN America series Manhattan for the show’s second season, playing a street-smart spy who uses her charm and sexuality to pass atomic secrets to the Soviets. (Whitney Friedlander at Variety)

Actor Jimmy Jean-Louis will reprise his role of The Haitian on Heroes: Reborn, which will air as a limited series later this year. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Actress Nina Dobrev has announced that she will not be returning to The Vampire Diaries for the show’s 7th season set for this fall. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Actress Annet Mahendru (The Americans) will appear in the FOX thriller The Following, playing a character that is being described as “very sexy, very dangerous but also very sophisticated”. (Kimberly Roots at TV Line)

Actress Melina Kanakaredes (Providence and CSI: NY) has joined the cast of the CBS summer series Extant where she will appear in two episodes, playing Dorothy, a tightly wound, by-the-book circuit court judge who also happens to be the estranged wife of JD Richter (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). The show will return for its second season on July 1. (Michael Ausiello at TV Line)

Actor John Noble (Sleepy Hollow and Fringe) will guest star in an upcoming episode of Forever, playing Aubrey Griffin, a wheelchair-bound expert of history and antiques. When a museum curator dies with a cursed Roman dagger in her possession, Aubrey gets caught up in solving the mystery behind the weapon. (Rebecca Iannucci at TV Line)

Actress Eliza Dushku (Dollhouse and Buffy) will recur on the upcoming 4th season of Banshee, playing Agent Veronica Dawson, a sexy and shockingly reckless FBI profiler, who will team up with Lucas Hood (series lead Antony Starr) to catch a serial killer. (Andy Swift at TV Line and Deadline)

Actor Peter Stormare (The Blacklist and Prison Break) will have a recurring role on Graceland when it returns for its 3rd season on the USA Network. He will play Martun Sarkissian, the Head of the Armenian Mafia, who runs an international arms business. (Kate Stanhope at The Hollywood Reporter)

Pivot and Sky Atlantic have given a second season order to the series Fortitude. (Aaron Couch at The Hollywood Reporter)

Actor Wallace Langham (CSI) will appear in the season finale of Castle. There are no details yet on what role he will play. (Matt Mitovich at TV Line)

Actress Lucy Griffiths (True Blood and Robin Hood) will appear in the AMC comic book adaptation of Preacher, the controversial 1990s series from DC Comics that revolves around Rev. Jesse Custer, a badass Texas preacher who, after losing his faith, learns that God has left heaven and forsaken his duties. She will co-star as Emily Woodrow, a no-nonsense single mother of three. (Lesley Goldberg at The Hollywood Reporter)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

It looks like ABC has faith in the Marvel Universe, as they are developing a spin-off series to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. but there are no specifics yet on what this potential series could focus on just yet. (James Hibberd at Entertainment Weekly)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Here are the top 10 box offices movies from last weekend courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1. Furious 7 – 147 million
2. Home – 27 million
3. Get Hard – 13 million
4. Cinderella – 10.2 million
5. The Divergent Series: Insurgent – 10.1 million
6. It Follows – 2.5 million
7. Woman in Gold – 2.1 million
8. Kingsman: The Secret Service – 1.8 million
9. Do You Believe? – 1.5 million
10. The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel – 1.1 million

Q&A SECTION (with Michael Ausiello at TV Line)

Question: If Once Upon a Time’s Cruella and Ursula fell through the portal at the same time as Maleficent’s baby, why didn’t they take care of her? Will we see what happened to them right after they went through? —Larry

Ausiello: Those questions — as well as the matter of Lily proceeding to age a couple decades while Cruella and Ursula didn’t — will be answered at the beginning of the winningly titled April 19 episode, “Sympathy for the De Vil.”

Question: I’ll take whatever you may have on The Flash during this pesky one-week break! –Liz

Ausiello: OK, here goes:

* At WonderCon, Danielle Panabaker hinted that we may see Caitlin dabble with her Killer Frost fate sooner than expected.

* There are no flies on Iris, who will very quickly glean that Eddie is hiding something from her. (And when she finds out about all who have lied to her? Think: angry + devastated.)

* The Grodd episode promises to be scarier — and funnier — than you might imagine.

* The inclusion of Captain Cold and Heat Wave in the Arrow/Flash spinoff series will affect The Flash’s storyline toward season’s end – and is one of the reasons Cold learned the Flash’s secret identity.

Question: Longtime reader and fan, first-time question-asker! I’m wondering what kind of Outlander surprises might be in store in the second half of the season for those of us die-hard book fans? Any crazy changes/additions we should prepare for? —Tracy

Ausiello: Creator/executive producer Ronald D. Moore recently told TV Line about a slight discrepancy taking place at the very end of the season. To keep it spoiler-free for those who haven’t read the Diana Gabaldon novel: There’s that thing that happens at a place that rhymes with “Schmentworth,” and then “instead of going to France and playing all the abbey scenes there, I chose to keep the abbey in Scotland so there is still a danger to them and a need to escape.” But, he reassures fans of the books, “the abbey scenes are still there.”

Question: I would love to have some scoop on Gotham. I really need some spoilers about Bruce and Alfred. —Veronika

Ausiello: Be careful what you wish for, Ronnie. Gotham boss Bruno Heller told Matt Mitovich that although stabbing victim Alfred will be up and about when the Fox drama returns on Monday, he’ll have a dickens of a time stopping Master Bruce from discovering “something about his family that is earth-shattering.”

Question: Arrow scoop, please! —C.J.

Ausiello: This just in: The title of the Season 3 finale is “My Name Is Oliver Queen,” as confirmed by EP Marc Guggenheim on Twitter.

That’s it. Until next weekend!