Pokemon Alpha Sapphire 15: Post-Game Stuff

I do some, but not all, of the post-game stuff.

One Piece 722 Review: Crazy Cavendish and Asshole Bartolomeo

One Piece Chapter 722: Cabbage and Romeo

It's a bit better than the past two chapters that are just kind of average and kind of takes out minor characters. I mean, we still aren't moving into the big fights like Zoro and Pica, or Kyros and Diamante (though we get a bit of it) or Luffy and Doflamingo and Law and Bellamy and all that. But at least I actually care about Bartolomeo and Cavendish -- unlike Machvise and Lao G and Sai who are just kind of m'eh before all this. Bartolomeo and Cavendish are two of the more, if not the most, major characters among the Coliseum newcomers, and I am quite interested in them, so it's nice to see them.

Cover story is still continuing the Jinbei stuff and somehow he meets up with Vander Decken's giant sea giant dude Wadatsumi. I don't... I don't know what the hell is going on anymore. I'll just wait until everything is over and then just reread all the cover chapters.

Also it took me quite a while of puzzling before I got that the 'Romeo' in the chapter title refers to Bartolomeo.

The chapter starts off with a bit more of the Diamante fight, and I really hoped we would be getting more of that but judging from the title, of course it won't be. Anyway, in the sunflower fields, apparently Diamante's Army Bantera attack from way back when has caused the ground to become very wobbly and Diamante mocks Kyros and neatly wraps up his backstory in three panels. Kyros charges towards Diamante, but he blocks his sword with his steel cape.

Diamante does this 'Vipera Glaive' attack, sending his wacky wiggly sword straight towards Rebecca. She's kind of surprised but she already has her sword up somewhat... but Kyros does this cool leap through the air to deflect Diamante's sword. You could probably make an argument about the whole chickification of Rebecca the gladiator being reduced into just a passive bystander in the fight, but while there's a bit of that, there's an argument to be made about Kyros being such an overprotective father that he's not even going to allow Diamante's attack to even reach Rebecca.

Rebecca tells Kyros that he wants to join the fight, and Diamante is just being a massive dickbag and talking about how he wants to see Kyros' face after both his wife and daughter are dead. Kyros then says this kind of awesome speech about how he'll protect Rebecca, how he's unable to do so before and has been living in regret and shame, and how he'll never let his daughter swing a sword now that he's here to protect her.

I hope Rebecca does get to help out in beating Diamante, though, because I like Rebecca more than I do Kyros. At least Kyros doesn't tell Rebecca to leave or hide, which seems to be kind of the norm for manga, so yay! The two can take down Diamante together as a father-daughter team or something.

Also Kyros' face in that angry shouting panel looks a bit like Vivi's father, Nefertari Cobra. Just saying.

Really want to see more of this fight, especially on Diamante's end, because right now all he's doing is making his sword and cape all fluttery, and considering how creative One Piece has been with powers (a freaking giraffe man) I really want to see what this fluttery man can do.

We cut away to the second level where the Donquixote pirates are all 'Lao G has been defeated!' Zoro, not teasing us with the fight with Pica for once, notes how destructive the Happo Navy's power is and kind of acknowledges Sai's strength. We get a bit of Sai and Chinjao, and Baby 5, crazy girl that she is, kind of makes a dark joke about how they'll have to prepare for two ceremonies, a funeral and a wedding. It's kind of dark, but Chinjao is obviously still health if he can pull that big 'HEY' face and Baby 5 is the kind of socially-inept person who doesn't mean any real malice about it. Whatever. Those parts of this big war are kind of done.

We cut to the third level, where Gladius is fighting Cavendish and Bartolomeo. Gladius has apparently used his Pamu Pamu no Mi powers to inflate the entire terrain they're fighting like Diamante did, but instead of making it fluttery, Gladius is going to make the whole thing blow up. We get a bit of Gladius' soldiers kind of going 'we'll be caught up in it' and Gladius, being evil, of course doesn't give a shit. We also get a bit of a comedy moment where Cavendish tells Bartolomeo he wants to get behind his barrier, and I do like how Bartolomeo is still a massive dick to anyone not from the Straw Hats, picking his nose and going 'Robin-senpai and I will be in danger' while Cavendish kind of gets pissed off.

Gladius' big attack, 'Punct Rock Fest', erupts and it's kind of cool even if it's horribly ineffective and all it does is blow up the terrain and the random pirate troops just hanging around. And for a moment it seemed that Bartolomeo did act like a dick and not let Cavendish in, but he had eventually relented and we get a funny little scene where Bartolomeo tries to act cool and shit and goes 'being outside will surely mean certain death' while Cavendish is just pissed off. And then the two get into an argument, with Bartolomeo getting pissed off that Cavendish keeps wanting to go in and out of his barrier, while Cavendish is just pissed at Bartolomeo not being cooperative. I thought this flowed a lot better than last chapter's dialogue since we now both of Bartolomeo and Cavendish's personalities compared to Chinjao (whose interactions have been mostly 'you are Garp's grandson grawr') and Sai (who's a cipher) from last chapter.

Robin is apparently running up stairs created from her own legs, which seems really inefficient. Why not create a bunch of hands to pull her all the way up? Robin apparently wants to go back up Rebecca, which is cool. Gladius is using his weird goggles to zoom in on Robin, and uses some wrist-mounted Deadshot-style gun to shoot 'Catapult Punct' (the translation I read translates it as 'Punk', but since he's of the Puncture fruit I thought it's supposed to be just a shortening of the word puncture) but Bartolomeo extends his barrier in the form of a Racket, saving Robin.

Robin gives Bartolomeo this wink and it's still funny how she calls him Birdy-kun. Bartolomeo, of course, as with everything Straw-Hat-related, goes all apeshit in what can only be described as a fangasm, momentarily going all 'is she going to make me her slave' with hearts and all that, before getting a hold of himself and telling himself to have some shame. Bartolomeo is fun. I like him. He goes on about how he feels great.

Meanwhile, Cavendish and Gladius are like, going to clash. Cavendish is doing some Biken swordsplay, while Gladius expands his arms in an attack apparently named 'Blackium'. Before they can get a climatic clash, however, suddenly Bartolomeo's barrier charges forwards with Bartolomeo just raging, apparently driven to just craziness by Robin's wink. It's called 'Barrier Bulls', apparently, and he's just moving that big barrier onwards like a giant invisible bulldozer, and his expressions are absolutely hilarious. Cavendish tells Bartolomeo to stop, but Bartolomeo tells Cavendish (or rather, Cabbage, which made me smile as well) he can't stop now.

Gladius calls Dellinger to help out, and Dellinger is just standing nearby. We last saw Dellinger fighting Destruction Cannon Ideo, and apparently Ideo is still alive and kicking. Dellinger easily blocks Ideo's punch and apparently he's basically done for. Dellinger calls Ideo a member of the 'Longarm Tribe', possibly related to the 'Long-leg Tribe' that we've seen people be a member of. Ideo gives some generic speech about how a man must have honour and duty, and how he's going to buy time for Luffy since victory isn't won by a single person, while Dellinger just brutally kicks him with those weird high heels of his.

Dellinger tears off his hat and grows some shark teeth (his human teeth just fall off) and then brutally bites Ideo in the neck, before letting him drop down. Well, he's definitely out of the picture now. We get a nice face of Dellinger's crazy face as he tells us again that he's a descendant of the fighting fishes. That's short and sweet. Ideo's out, Dellinger shows off his abilities. I thought it was pretty well done.

Dellinger moves on to the third level, where Gladius is, and apparently Gladius survives the Barrier Bulls thing. Gladius tells Dellinger to get away, about how something is dangerous, while Dellinger is all 'come on, there's no one the two of us can't take down'... and then Dellinger just gets cut down. It's a slash on the side of his chest from Cavendish's insane sleepwalking alter-ego (Hakuba, as I found out after looking it up) and it's pretty cool. Delinger is apparently taken out, while Cavendish is just being scary and shit. Meanwhile Bartolomeo is just not really understanding what's going on. It's all fun.

I'm kind of curious about the specifics of Cavendish's Hakuba alter-ego, and just the specifics of how it works. Previously we're told by that one Vice Admiral (Bastille?) that Cavendish becomes Hakuba if he falls asleep, but is that really the case or is there something more sinister going on? Eh, whatever. Also curious about the limits of Bartolomeo's power and why he didn't do this crazy barrier rush before... though I guess Bartolomeo's just crazy and weird.

Overall a step up from the past chapter, mostly because we're focusing on the more interesting secondary characters like Cavendish, Bartolomeo, Cavendish and Dellinger (the latter two are a lot more interesting than Lao G and Machvise). Dellinger and Ideo get taken out, Bartolomeo and Cavendish get some fun scenes. We're kind of going through two executives or around that pace per chapter, which is good.

I'm going to assume next chapter will have the two of them taking out Gladius and maybe finish off Dellinger if he's not quite out yet. Or maybe Bartolomeo will have to deal with Hakuba-Cavendish? I hope not, though, since I think this arc is kind of suffering from a bit of overlong fatigue, and I just want to cut to the other major fights: Kyros and Rebecca versus Diamante, Zoro versus Pica, Luffy versus Bellamy, Law versus Doflamingo and maybe Franky versus Senor Pink. Gladius is basically the only minor Doflamingo officer left, and I really want it to just move to the climax with Doflamingo and Law, and then move on to all the bigger stuff like the Revolutionaries and Aokiji and Kaido and Big Mom... we haven't seen Sanji, Nami and the others for like half a year now! Whatever happened to them? I mean, I may sound a bit too harsh on this arc because I'm reading weekly instead of all in a go. It's not that I hate this, I just am really antsy to get to the good parts.

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire 14: Rayquaza vs Deoxys

In which I complete the Delta Episode.

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire 13: Delta Episode

So I tackle the post-game bonus content.

One Piece 771 Review: All this should've happened long ago

One Piece Chapter 771: Sai, the Leader of the Happo Navy

I have a feeling that all of these distracting lesser characters... Machvise, Hajrudin, Sai, Lao G... all of them should've been dealt with before we had the big Doflamingo/Law flashback combo. Because it just kind of ruins the narrative and the massive threat that has been built up. I mean, I get that taking every one of Doflamingo's people out would kind of make it an obvious Doflamingo-will-lose situation, but these minor characters like Machvise and Lao G... does anyone really expect them to do anything? Keeping, like, the Zoro-vs-Pica and Kyros-vs-Diamante stuff for later on, absolutely. And maybe a couple ones here and there. But everybody? And despite the minor Coliseum characters being somewhat interesting, I really thought that they ended up being too distracting.

And indeed, this chapter is basically the same as last chapter, except instead of Machvise we get Lao G as the Donquixote Pirates elite member that hasn't done jack shit and gets taken out, and instead of Hajrudin we get Sai as the Coliseum member that hasn't done jack shit and does something awesome. We even get a bit of something similar as a different Coliseum member (Elizabello here, Orlumbus last chapter) offers their help to Zoro in fighting Pica.

And the chapter opens up with Zoro just avoiding these rock spikes from Pica and Elizabello (who's at least a lot less random and more prominent than Orlumbus) telling Zoro of his abilities and pledging to help. Zoro gets scary and says he wants to deal with Pica all on his own -- and I do want to see that happen more than all these shit going on, and tells Elizabello to save his trump card for later. Zoro also mentions that Pica seems to be aiming for something, but we don't really get much as we cut away to... the others.

Chinjao is fighting Lao G, and Sai is fighting Baby 5 in a fashion, but it then delves into comedy. It's not entirely unfunny, and I did smile at some of them. It's not that it's a bad chapter, it's just placed really oddly in the grand scheme of things. I felt like all this would've worked better if it happened at around the time that Usopp takes out Sugar the second time, where it's both tense and funny at the same time.

Lao G's attacks are apparently all puns on an old man's health problems and it's a bit weird as he goes into combat with 'Lower Back Pain Stance'. And Lao G deals several blows to Don Chinjao and just does his crazy-looking poses and slapping 'G' onto everything he says. Lao G is like the least interesting of the Donquixote family. And then we get into a bit of a comedy routine as Chinjao goes 'I'm against your wedding, Sai!', apparently overhearing how Baby 5 has taken Sai's battle dialogue as a marriage proposal or something.

We get a bit of Sai where he just doesn't care about arranged marriages and whatever it will do to strengthen the Happo Navy and we get a couple of Lao G jokes that fell flat on me. There's a point when he... dies? His spirit goes up into the skies and he just goes back when Baby 5 calls him? That was just weird.

Sai then tells Baby 5 to die or something, and then Baby 5 actually transforms her arm into a revolver and points it at her own head with the most disturbingly cheery expression for someone holding a gun to her head. Sai then tries to stop Baby 5, saying how an easy victory will leave a bad aftertaste, not to mention being disturbing as all kinds of fuck. It's a good thing this is happening in One Piece and not in a more brutal or violent manga. And as Sai apparently goes to try and stop Baby 5, Chinjao gets pissed at Sai for sparing his enemy while Sai tells Chinjao to fuck off becoming a mentor. This part's a bit weird.

But then we get a little flashback of Baby 5, which I thought was well done, where apparently as a child she was abandoned by her mother to freaking die simply because she is 'useless and not needed'. Aww, poor Baby 5. I thought that was short, sweet and well done, and juxtaposed by Baby 5's eerily calm smiling face is just creepy and shows just how fucked up in the head she is. Maybe she's called Baby 5 literally because she's the fifth child?

Chinjao does his Kiryu Kirikugi thing with his head, intending to take out Baby 5 and punish Sai at the same time, but apparently Sai himself can use Busoshoku Haki, and freaking kicks Chinjao in the head, causing that weird-shaped head to get bent. Man, poor Chinjao. And I thought this part was done slightly poorly since we never really saw any kind of friction between Sai and Chinjao, and the scene that immediately succeeds it actually implies that they have a pretty good relationship even if Chinjao is the type of parent/grandparent that likes to get disappointed with their children.

And then Sai just slaps Baby 5 really hard and we get a good panel of his angry face, and tells her to piss off for believing that her life is useless. We get a pretty sad scene of Chinjao's crying face as his awesome drill-skull thing (which I'm going to assume is just bone and doesn't really have his brains or whatever in it) and I really feel bad for the poor dude. And Sai is just 'how the hell did I do this?' Chinjao doesn't seem to be angry, though, but ends up being kind of proud of Sai for being able to obtain this much power, and passes the 'Kiryu Kirikugi' title from his head to Sai's feet. And Chinjao just hands everything over to Sai, from the treasure in the icy continent (which he can open now) and even freedom in marriage. Which is nice and all, but I felt it really should've been done before all the tense Law-Doflamingo-Luffy-Bellamy stuff.

Chinjao then says how his sickness has been acting up and how he's not getting better after fighting Luffy, which kind of explains why he's been kind of shit recently. Then Lao G just zooms in, does the Mark of G thing and blasts Chinjao onto a wall and knocks him out. Man, I really, really feel sorry for Chinjao. Lao G has apparently done some Toriko-level shit and does this 'Battle Preservation Fist' technique that bulks him up until he's a massive muscle-man with an old man's decrepit face. He charges towards Sai, and as he does so he rants about how they'll never hand over someone as convenient as Baby 5 to them, and I thought the two panels where Baby 5 just realizes what's going on and her smiling while crying when she thinks of the word 'convenient' is pretty heartbreaking.

And then Sai suddenly goes... 'if I win, I'll make her my wife', which is a big 'wait what' moment. Since when did Sai like Baby 5? It's just weird. But Baby 5 goes happy and that's kind of nice to see, and Sai unleashes his own Kiryu Kikirugi as Chinjao watches right onto Lao G's head and kind of knocks him through the first Pica statue as he just screams G G G G G like the stupid shit that he is. And then Sai proclaims that he is a 'Don' now.

It's a bit of a weird chapter, with a lot of good moments. The Baby 5 stuff are clearly the highlight of the chapter for me, but on the inverse Lao G is pretty boring and annoying and I'm just happy to see him taken out. Sai's also pretty weird, even if the talk with Chinjao is pretty good and he does some awesome things. Like I said before, it's the positioning and general pacing of the chapter that kind of makes it not as enjoyable as it should've been. I'm going to assume next chapter we'll see some other dude take out Dellinger or Gladius... though Gladius is at least fighting Bartolomeo and Cavendish, which are a lot more interesting than Hajrudin or Sai. 

Agents of SHIELD S02E10 Review: Enter the Inhumans

Agents of SHIELD, Season 2, Episode 10: What They Become

Well, after a strong start in season two which devolved into a sluggish, messily-paced series of episodes, Agents of SHIELD has finally found redemption once more in a powerful, powerful mid-season finale. It took me a bit of a research into the whole Inhumans lore, a section of the Marvel comics universe I'm dimly aware of but never really cared enough to read. While I'm nowhere that well-versed in Marvel lore as I am with DC comics, I can definitely appreciate them slowly exploring all these obscure groups and developing the overreaching lore with the movies. I'm not really certain just how closely it will tie with the movies, but I'm happy to watch it nonetheless. Bit late to the party, but here's my review of it.

And it's an awesome episode! It's kind of like Gotham where the buildup could've been done better, but it certainly culminates well. Some of the other less interesting B-plots are thankfully put on hold, and we finally get a confrontation between a lot of the big players running around. The whole City/Obelisk thing that we've been building up from the beginning of the season ends up getting explored, and even if we don't get all that much (this is still Agents of SHIELD) this time what we get is pretty satisfactory and indeed pretty awesome.

A lot of the plot simply revolves around Skye finally meeting her father at last, and even if last episode's rather clunky way of facilitating this still doesn't sit well with me, it is a pretty emotional meeting that's been delayed and stretched out for quite a while, and I do like how Skye's Father, here finally given the name of Cal (after comic character Calvin Zabo, it appears, which I'll talk about later in the end) and the meeting between the two is pretty well-scripted. Awkwardness all around, and Cal exudes both absolute devotion to his daughter as well as showcases just how much of a fanatic to the whole vaguely-defined transformation thing he is. He's also made his hellbent revenge against Whitehall pretty clear, and I do like how, while he's not outright abusive towards Skye, he's still hard enough to somewhat kindly tell her to follow his designs. I do like how Cal is ashamed of what he has become, but he doesn't deny that he's done bad things and killed people. And he does look utterly broken when he speaks of his wife being torn apart -- and from that rather effective scene before, I can agree with his sentiment.

And then we get the other confrontation, which is Cal facing off against Whitehall. Whitehall himself proves to be a pretty masterful chess player... it's just a shame that other than that one flashback episode we don't really learn much about Whitehall to really care about him as a character. And indeed when you think about it, he's a pretty generic super-genius mad scientist slash mastermind. We get a bit of Whitehall outmaneuvering Cal and managing to outsmart both him and Ward, immobilizing Cal with this electrical chip, already knowing about Cal's connection to Skye, and then proceeding to almost go through with his threat of dissecting Skye before he is distracted.

Whitehall gets to face off against Cal, but before he can do anything Coulson... shoots Whitehall dead. Cal is a doctor and he is hellbent on keeping Whitehall alive to torture him, and he does confirm Whitehall's death, but I really don't see this being that permanent. After all, while it's a shot through the chest, Whitehall's body is still intact and who knows what kind of crazy enhancement that Skye's Mother's blood might have given him? It's still a nice twist, though, and helps to take Whitehall out of the picture for now.

Cal and Coulson, meanwhile, clash, and I do like how Cal gets more and more animalistic in his movements and his behaviour as he just freaking snaps from seeing his revenge denied of him. We get a truly brutal fight between the two, and while Coulson does manage to get a few cool martial arts moves in, Cal overpowers Coulson and Skye has to come in and threaten to shoot Cal... who calms down. After all Skye did call him 'dad'. Driven off by Skye, Cal is relatively calm and goes all 'you'll understand in time' and stuff like that, and tells Skye that her real birth name is 'Daisy'. And Skye... well, after keeping her cool while dealing with Ward and Cal, she kind of flips out over Coulson and kind of just... well, runs off to recover the Diviner to make up for it. Can't say impulsiveness doesn't run in the family.

While all this is going, May, Bobbi and Hunter are leading an assault against the other Hydra members, which gets them mostly out of the way. Ward gets blindsided and shot by Skye, which is hilarious and cathartic at the same time, though I'll talk all about Ward later on. Agent 33 is... kind of just there, and is also something I'll talk about later. Fitz, Simmons and Triplett are placing charges around the city, figuring out that Hazmat suits can protect them from being Mackified, but things get complicated when Raina, Skye and Coulson go down into the city in a three-way chase, so Triplett runs in to dismantle the bombs.

Skye and Raina find themselves in some kind of a central chamber, and we get some ominous words and explanations from Raina about the true nature of the Diviner: it grants powers and whatnot to the selected ones, and namedrops the Kree again. And as the chamber closes, Triplett finds himself trapped inside with Raina and Skye, while Coulson has to deal with Zombie Mack outside.

And then the Diviner kind of splits open to reveal a crystalline interior, and it kind of covers Raina and Skye in some kind of gooplike chrysalis. Triplett kind of panics and kicks the Diviner, and gets to be turned into stone and disintegrates for his trouble... and it's kind of moot since Skye breaks out of her chrysalis state literally seconds after Triplett apparently dies, and unleashes a big boom thing, showing that she's been transformed into a metahuman... or an Inhuman, if you will. Meanwhile, Triplett's body crumbles, Raina's been transformed into something less human-looking, and people outside are all running around.


And then there is this absolutely horrifying Eyeless Man at the end who reports to his comrades about another Diviner being activated.

So, what is it all about? Well, to someone who's unfamiliar with the Inhumans such as I, it's made pretty clear that the Diviner sort of unlocks powers (with what is apparently called the Terrigen Mist in the comics)... but only in those that have alien blood in them, which I initially thought was by interbreeding, but it seems that the alien blood is passed down. And what was initially a simple 'oh Skye is half-alien' and some vaguely-defined powers on the part of Skye's parents finally gets revealed to be mutations unique to each of them. Skye's Mother apparently has immortality, and Skye's Father... well, we know he's got a hair-trigger temper and he hates being referred to as a monster, and we know he can completely obliterate everything in his path.

The showmakers and the show itself have kind of confirmed that Cal is based on comic-book character Calvin Zabo, otherwise known as the supervillain Mr. Hyde, able to undergo a Hulk-style transformation into a monster, which would explain why he keeps talking big about being able to annihilate all of the Hydra forces but never really gets around to doing it... it's because he haven't transformed yet! And it's a good reason to why he didn't transform in front of Skye... he very well could ostracize her forever if she sees him rampage in his monster form.

And Skye... well, the show doesn't really make it explicit that the earthquakes happening are coming from her or simply because the Diviner activates some stuff, and I didn't get that the earthquakes are supposed to be from her initially. I honestly thought she was going to have some healing powers that'll allow her to heal Triplett, but I guess not. And after looking up her comic-book counterpart, I am pretty surprised that... I actually know who Quake, or Daisy Johnson, is! I read Secret War! It's really surprising, since most of the time when Agents of SHIELD references some guy I'll look it up and nod, and say, 'huh, interesting.' But for Skye, it's different. I admit that I didn't connect the dots while watching the episode, but that moment when I realized who she was meant to be was a big 'OHHHHH' moment. And I do like how comic-Daisy's surrogate father relationship with Nick Fury has been handed over to Phil Coulson here.

Granted, all those time when Cal was talking about Skye's real name I thought it was going to be some crazy alien name like, oh, Kal-El or something (not helped by Cal's name sounding a whole lot like Kal), not something as mundane as Daisy, so that completely caught me off guard.

Also I guess Skye will have earthquake powers, which is like the least likely thing I'd peg her to have... I thought she will have some crazy Vorlon-type vaguely-defined-psychic-powers thing going on, but earthquakes it is. Absolutely interested in seeing how she will deal with her powers, how she will deal with all this change, her father and everything. A lot of people give Skye flak for being a bit of a Mary Sue, and I can't say that those accusations aren't baseless, but Skye has proven time and again to be pretty interesting and that rather offsets the Sue qualities.

In a less interesting vein, Raina is also apparently an Inhuman and has been mutated into... something. We only see part of her face, but it's got quills and a catlike eye, so she's been changed physically. She's been going on and on about the whole destiny thing, and it's been a bit annoying, but at least she's being consistent in her airheaded craziness. I'm not a big fan of Raina, at least not recently after she's became an inconsistently raving fanatic, but this is intriguing. Will she accept her changes? Or will it hideously deform her and she'll be full of self-loathing or whatever?

After looking it up, there is a Marvel comics Raina and she doesn't look entirely human, but I didn't really dig in too deep since I want to be surprised and learn about their stories from this show. I do think it's pretty interesting how they're adapting these comic book characters but introducing them as brand-new ones... only to reveal that they are, in fact, based on comic book characters. It's an interesting method.

Also, at the end, it seems that the Inhuman society or whatever has been established, because one of them is definitely aware of Skye and Raina activating a Diviner. This dude is a creepy motherfucker without any eyes. Just flat skin over where the eyes should be. And, well, I did not expect that and being shocked like that at 2 AM in the morning is not a pleasant experience. Apparently people far more well-versed with the Marvel comics are speculating that this is the MCU version of Reader of the Inhumans. I guess I'll nod for the moment?

Overall I'm rather excited to see where this will go, how the whole Inhuman plot will affect the overall storyline and how they'll integrate this to the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe. Not much to say other than the fact that this has piqued my interest very much, and after having it drop down after the last few episodes, that's saying something. I like these developments, they surprised me, and I'm extremely curious to see where we'll go. I guess that about wraps out the recap-review for the Inhumans, so let's move on to the more mortal members of the cast.

Let's go with Grant Ward first. We all know he's doing everything he does recently not just because of a sense of loyalty to Hydra, SHIELD, Coulson or Cal, but rather out of love to Skye... as Raina points out. Ward gets a pretty damning line of dialogue about his past fanaticism to John Garrett, and I suppose all that time in prison and all his talks with Skye have kind of started to bring him around. We get a nice little conversation between Ward and 33, and I do like how he bares his figurative fangs against Whitehall when he threatens Skye.

Of course, Skye is still sane and I love how he puts a pair of bullets in Ward literally the moment she gets herself free of her restraints. As much as Ward may be the least evil of the villains currently in play, he is also a mass psychotic murderer, and I do like how that all isn't just forgotten for the sake of shipping. Also let's not forget that he's a pretty creepy stalker towards Skye. Well-intentioned, perhaps, but creepy nonetheless... generally you don't go out with someone who kidnaps you at gunpoint. You go, Skye.

I do like Ward. He's an effective, interesting villain. He's definitely not going to die anytime soon, and he confirms his survival at the end of the episode, but I'm interested to see where he'll go from here, or if he's still going to be head-over-heels smitten with Skye. For all his brave talk about not following anyone anymore, he's kind of really latching on to Skye, isn't he?

Agent 33... looks like we're not going to explore who she was before Whitehall converts her, and a lot of her scenes really just comprises of her proclaiming her loyalty to Whitehall and looking absolutely confused when Whitehall apparently dies. 33 has apparently thrown her lot in with Ward, who she sees as a kindred spirit, so I'm interested to see where this goes, though thankfully it took just the right amount of time to be sweet and interesting without being too bloated.

And Whitehall... I'm pretty sure he's not going to stay down. For the moment, though, it looks like he's out of the picture. It's not a 100% certainty, but I don't think his death is really going to be permanent.

Coulson gets a fair amount of screentime being a director and whatnot, and while a lot of screentime is devoted to Skye and the others, as the nominal main character Coulson does get to chase after the girl. Make no mistake, though, for this episode belongs to Skye. Coulson gets some great screentime talking to Skye and being a comforting father figure, and his brutal faceoff with Cal is pretty awesome as well. And, really, balls to Coulson for just running into that city to save Skye. Don't really think there's much he does other than showing up a lot, but Coulson's always fun.

Triplett... man, poor Triplett. He's sort of sidelined in the show, and while a lot of people think it's because the actor is shooting for Age of Ultron, it seems like he's dead now. And it's a pretty stupid and senseless way to die. Him getting trapped in the chamber is played more for laughs than anything, and him kicking the Diviner and accidentally getting a shard stuck in his chest... it's a bit of a shitty and stupid way to die considering he did jack shit to save Skye, even if he doesn't know that. And it's really a pity that Triplett has to die considering he hasn't managed to do all that much throughout all his appearances. It's like they're doing a fake out with Mack and Triplett, with Mack apparently not dying and it being replaced in the last minute with Triplett. The fact that the two candidates for death are black men are, well, kind of suspect. But I know I am a lot more shocked and sad about Triplett's senseless sacrifice and disintegration into dust, as compared to resident wallpaper Mack whose death gets a resounding 'm'eh' from me.

I just hope there's an actual reason, story-wise, for Triplett's death. To make Skye angst, or to give her something to work towards while learning to hone her Kree/Inhuman powers. I just don't like random sudden deaths for the sake of sudden deaths.

Mack survives, apparently, as the last montage of scenes of people running from the quake shows Coulson apparently recovering Mack. He spends most of the episode being a black-eyed zombie that only lets Raina and Skye pass and then lays the smackdown on Coulson when he tries to get to them. I really don't care about Mack, really, so I can't say that I'm pleased or displeased about his survival. Fitz and Simmons compares it to the Cordyceps fungus (or Ophiocordyceps, as the specific genus that they discuss) that can control ants, which is a pretty sufficient and geeky-simple explanation to how the city is making use of Mack. 

As a side-note, Cordyceps is a really interesting organism. It's one of the many weird wonders of nature that I learned from Pokemon, with the otherwise-innocent pokemon Parasect being based on a fungus taking over a bug's mind.

We get a bit of Hunter and Bobbi, but not too much that it takes up huge chunks of the episode as they used to do. It's paced well. Hunter realizes Bobbi is keeping something from him, and tells Bobbi he knows she's pocketing a thumb drive, but doesn't make a big fuss about it in this episode. They spend most of the time just doing espionage spy stuff and snarking around, which is welcome. I do like how it's sidelined, because it's really not the time to talk about the stuff Bobbi is keeping from Hunter when all these interesting Diviner stuff is going down. Slightly curious to know about what Bobbi is hiding, exactly, though I won't mind if they put it off until things have died down from the aftermath of this episode and maybe devote an episode to it.

Poor May doesn't get to do much other than the 'obviously they will escape the Hydra missiles' bit in the beginning, because really, that is supposed to be a cliffhanger? I mean, technically the actress Ming Na Wen is getting a lot of screentime playing two characters (May and 33) but May, as a character, relatively suffers. She gets some dialogue with Coulson talking about deaths and Skye and whatnot, but otherwise she fills the same role as Hunter and Bobbi, cleaning out the faceless Hydra mooks.

The Koenigs get a nice little mind-screw joke with Triplett, and apparently Coulson tells them to go to base and activate Protocol Theta, whatever the heck that is. Sounds pretty cavalry-like, though. They kind of get shooed out of the main plot shortly after the episode starts.

Lastly, Fitz and Simmons... it's not that I don't care about them, I really do. They used to jointly be my favourites among the cast, but lately they've been taking so much time up with their convoluted drama story and Simmons in particular have been the subject of a seemingly-pointless plot twist that spanned quite a while. But here they are pretty inoffensive. After the silly detente of the couple previous episodes, apparently they're starting to open up and work together again, even if there are some awkward moments between them. I thought that Fitz suggesting they split up (both Simmons and Triplett immediately shoot it down as a bad idea) is going to lead to something horrible befalling them, but I guess it's just showing that Fitz isn't completely handicapped by his injuries. Again, like Bobbi and Hunter, I'm interested in them and they deserve an episode or two. Yes, absolutely, explore their emotions and whatnot, but don't make it bloat up episodes that are leading up to something big and bog them down.

Still, that's enough ranting from me because I thought this episode was pretty good overall. Pacing was a lot better, there's a lot of stuff happening, and I hope this steers the plot into better stuff. It's pretty impactful. And really, all three of the superhero TV shows (Flash, Arrow and SHIELD) have had really powerful mid-season finales and it's been a blast talking about them.

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, Part 12: Ever Grande City is Fancy

I finish the regular story more of Alpha Sapphire!

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire 11: Too Much Water

More Alpha Sapphire.

Arrow S3E9 Review: Ra's al Ghul

Arrow, Season 3, Episode 9: the Climb

Pretty awesome episode. The episode mostly cuts back and forth between Oliver climbing a mountain and the events that led up to it, hence the title. It's a pretty eventful episode, too, with lots of revelations and things being told here.

First up, the true identity of the killer of Sara is revealed to be... Thea Queen! Malcolm has apparently drugged his own daughter with some kind of mind-controlling amnesia-inducing herb thing found in Corto Maltese, and brought Thea to Starling City for the express purpose of murdering Sara, the assassin sent after Malcolm. It's a massively insane gambit on Malcolm's part, but it's one that seems to somewhat pay off. Thea is someone who will catch Sara off-guard, as we saw in her death scene, and Malcolm even has a video proving Thea's identity, so it won't be another cop-out like how Roy-the-killer was.

Anyway, the DNA left behind in the arrow is a near-identical match to Oliver's DNA, and after a bit we learn that it's not Malcolm planting the DNA on the arrow, but rather it's because Thea is the one who shot them. We get a bit where Oliver has to confront Thea but not reveal too much -- still curious why Oliver doesn't just tell her everything, which I'm sure will get Thea on his side if not away from Merlyn's. But whatever the case, Oliver comes twice, first as Oliver and then as the Arrow, and Oliver sees that Thea at least is lying about some things, with her giving Oliver a bit of a nice, brief scuffle.

Then Malcolm confronts Oliver and delivers his ultimatum: either try and reveal Malcolm as the instigator and cause the League to kill both Malcolm and Thea, or go and hand himself in and face Ra's al Ghul in a trial of combat. Knowing that Oliver will not sacrifice Thea, Malcolm has basically made his two greatest enemies fight each other to the death. And, obviously, the victor in this matchup is pretty obvious. After disappearing in the second season and sitting in the sidelines for most of the third, Malcolm Merlyn is back, full with villainy and vengeance and awesomeness. You go, Malcolm.

Thea isn't half-bad herself, considering that I absolutely abhorred her during her emo phase. She's a lot more fun and interesting now. We get that last hug between Thea and Oliver, where she probably just is confused about all that's happening and refusing to believe that his father is evil. And those two little snowman-cookie things with 'Oliver' and 'Thea' written on it? Pretty sad, considering what happens. And how she manages to pretend to be a weak little girl before suddenly busting out moves and jumping off the railing, leading to the most hilarious 'what in the fuck' look from Oliver.

Also, all the respect to Oliver for braving through all this to protect his little sister.

And a lot of the puzzle pieces regarding Sara's murder is starting to get pieced together, how the whole 'trajectory' thing isn't because of Mirakuru strength but because of Thea's shorter height, and how Sara recognized the killer and everything. A mind-controlled Thea is a pretty fun twist, but it's not the only one here.

First up, the League is starting to move, which had instigated the massive manhunt for Thea's killer. Nyssa is basically threatening to scourge Starling City and kill a lot of people if Sara's killer isn't brought to justice, and we get to see a bunch of random League assassins just string Oliver up like it's no problem. We get some additional backstory about the League's history and methods and whatnot, and Oliver eventually submits himself to the League, claiming that he is Sara's murderer with the justification that Sara was the one who asked for it -- which is actually a pretty good reason considering Sara's past clash with Nyssa.

I like Nyssa. This show makes her so much likable than her comic counterpart. Nyssa is still doing her thing as Ra's daughter wanting vengeance and all that.

We also get some monologue from Ra's stating that the League of Assassins is cleaning the filth of the world, ridding of all the corruption and whatnot even if they, y'know, murder a lot of people. It's a nice adaptation of the comic book's version of Ra's al Ghul's goals, with the ultimate goal being a better world, and damn whoever has the misfortune to get in their way.

Ra's, on the other hand... if there is any doubt that this Ra's al Ghul is more faithful to the comics, there is certainly none by the end of this episode. We get oblique references to the Lazarus Pit, how Ra's calls Oliver a boy and how his last challenge is sixty-five years ago. Ra's al Ghul's fight against Oliver in the end? Absolutely beautiful. Ra's completely destroys Oliver bare-handed, stealing Oliver's sword from him and just absolutely parrying and having fun with Oliver, and I do like how Ra's al Ghul's threat isn't cheapened by having him spare Oliver or whatnot. After all, Oliver is no Batman. Ra's absolutely destroys Oliver in that battle, culminating in a stab through the chest and kicking him down a mountain. I do like how Oliver seems to suddenly get a second wind as they approach the edge of the cliff, seemingly playing weak to drive the obviously-playing Ra's down the mountain, but no. Throat chop. Ra's, you are awesome.

Ra's also knows that Oliver isn't the one responsible for Sara's murder, which is awesome and will probably clear the bad blood between Nyssa and Oliver. Do like the little prayer Ra's gives Oliver before sending him plummeting to his apparent death, which shows just how honorable Ra's really is.

Also, the shirtless battle of swords with Ra's al Ghul might or might not be based on a fairly old comic featuring a similar confrontation between Batman and Ra's, which is certainly welcome. Except unlike Batman, Oliver stands absolutely no chance. And considering how the big bad of season one, Merlyn, is absolutely pissing in his pants at the mention of Ra's al Ghul, and how Oliver is able to give the big bad of season two, Slade, a run for his money even with Mirakuru... Ra's is awesome.

Now, I don't buy for a second that Oliver will die from this fight... a stab through the right side of the chest is synonymous to 'near-fatal wound with a 100% survival rate' in manga, and falling down a chasm is synonymous to 'most likely survived the fall' in cartoons and TV shows. And the show's not going to rename itself 'Diggle' or 'Atom' next episode. But it is still a shocking twist and a big cliffhanger to leave the episode on. Absolutely excited to see how Oliver survives and what his master plan is.

Granted Oliver might just want to die and/or fake his death so Ra's comes to Starling City and kills Merlyn, who is no longer under his protection, but that is absolutely risky. How does he know Ra's will stab him in the right side of his chest instead of his heart, or his head?

Or maybe it's the simple matter of Ra's sticking Oliver in a Lazarus Pit. I dunno.

Also what is Malcolm Merlyn thinking, sending the only one who is putting him under his protection to fight Ra's al Ghul?

We also get the revelation that Maseo from the Hong Kong plot is actually a member of the League of Assassins as the Phantom. What happened in Hong Kong? Maseo himself doesn't do much in the present-day times other than hang around with Nyssa and showing that he's willing to kill people at random in Starling City. But in the flashback, we see some actual development and relevance to the Hong Kong stuff which has been pretty annoying as of late.

In the flashback sequence, China White apparently uses the same herb-drug thing that Malcolm uses in the present day (gee what a coincidence) and has obtained this super-virus O-Me-Ga (meaning Omega in English, which cracked me up) for whatever reason, and managed to beat Tatsu and kidnap her. Also, Oliver's torture methods are useless against someone brainwashed as such. I'm curious to see if Tatsu the Katana really dies -- since Katana's backstory involved her husband and son getting killed, so is Maseo taking up the mantle as a gender-reversed Katana? And why is China White such a big deal back then when she's kind of just a random triad villain in season one? Intriguing, but not quite as much as the whole League plot.

Diggle, Roy and Felicity don't really get to do much other than be those three guys who tell Oliver to not be blinded by the 'family' thing and later saying their touching goodbyes. Quentin only shows up at the beginning. Felicity gets that line of dialogue telling Oliver to kill Ra's because sparing him will only lead to even more revenge and whatnot... granted it's darkly funny how it seems to be built up to Oliver winning and having to choose a 'will you kill this one time' moment... but nope, Ra's just absolutely demolishes him.

There's a bit of Felicity-Palmer shipping bullshit going on, but thankfully that gets taken out of the picture quickly enough for Palmer to reveal his backstory... his fiancee, Anna, was killed by the Mirakuru soldiers which is why he feels guilty about kissing Felicity. It's unexpected, certainly. Also, Palmer reveals his own ideas for the future... the A.T.O.M. exosuit, previously known as OMAC. I do like how both the Atom and the Maseo plots takes up minimal screen time yet still manages to deliver quite an impact.

When he starts rattling off those letters that form OMAC instead of ATOM, I was pretty surprised. Interesting where this is going. Are we going to adapt the whole OMAC/Brother Eye plot from Infinite Crisis? Done well, that could be pretty interesting even if it'll feel a bit too similar to Slade's army of super-powered humans at the end of season two.

And running through all these interesting plot lines is... Laurel, who, uh, despite her absolutely selfish and barely-justified reasons for keeping Sara's death to herself, blabs about it not only to her mother, but also randomly to Thea. Brilliant, Laurel. After insisting Oliver and Nyssa keep it a secret, you blab about it to two people in the span of a day. Granted Laurel revealing this to Thea might lead to some kind of confrontation between Thea and Merlyn, so that's good for Thea, but it kind of makes Laurel relatively more annoying.

Also with Thea revealed as the killer and Laurel revealed as a single-minded idiot, Laurel and Thea's showdown in the future seems inevitable... and I do hope Thea wins. Not only would it make more sense -- Thea's been training for several months under an assassin with brutal training methods, whereas Laurel has... learned boxing for a month -- it would also be absolutely cathartic since Laurel has been nothing but annoying. Yes, it's justifiable that he lost his sister, but she's not the only one with dead people in her backstory. Also, she's selfish. Remember how absolutely pissed off she was when she discovered that her father was keeping Sara being alive from her? Yeah? Freaking hypocrite.

One Piece 770 Review: Minor Characters Get Taken Out

One Piece Chapter 770: The Lance of Elbaf

I have been talking about how One Piece could take a break from the Doflamingo/Law conflict and focus a bit on the other fights, but these aren't really the fights that I expected. It's still entertaining and it's nice to see a couple more minor characters get taken out of the way to give way for the more interesting ones. I feel that pacing's gone relatively haywire as far as fight matchups go in this arc, which is a bit of a shame.

We get the Jinbei cover story where Jinbei apparently discovers a bunch of crates or some shit. Don't care.

We get a bit of a recap on the Bellamy/Luffy situation where Luffy tries to talk Bellamy down from fighting him, reminding Bellamy that Doflamingo betrayed him. And then Bellamy just does this spring-punch loaded with Armament Haki that sends Luffy doubling over, coughing blood. Man, everybody be doing Armament Haki these days. Sadly that's the only bit between Luffy and Bellamy which we see this chapter, and I wished we got a bit more of them.

We then get a bit more of the Zoro-vs-Pica fight, another one I'm interested to see and has been stagnating for quite a while now. Pica grows a smaller version of his body compared to the initial giant statue and punches Zoro down near the other people in the plateau, but Zoro cuts through that not-so-giant statue with ease. Pica starts moving away from Zoro yet again... it's been like the third time this happens, I think.

Suddenly we're interrupted by 'Admiral's Dignity: Align' from Orlombus, and the Doflamingo Parents randomly line up. Is it a devil fruit power, or is Orlombus' voice just so awesome? Regardless, Orlumbus literally goes bowling with the random goons that have lined up, who apparently are chasing Zoro (and pose no threat, really). Orlumbus introduces himself to Zoro and, really, he's like the least interesting of the Coliseum characters in play at the moment. Why do we have him?

Pica's face shows up in the plateau wall, and it's another giant thing, and he laughs... which is apparently a hilarious laugh rendered even moreso by his high-pitched voice (which is kind of lost in the manga format, but whatever). Zoro mocks it, and Pica goes berserk, creating these 'Charstone' spikes that do even more damage to the random Doflamingo goons running around. Zoro wants to chop Pica up and I wish they actually fight instead of just keep moving locations.

Sadly we cut away to Dellinger suddenly showing up and getting pissed off at Pica, but Ideo the Destruction Cannon just jumps up and explode-punches Dellinger in the face. Meanwhile, Baby 5 is facing off against Sai and apparently she mis-interprets some double entrende sounding things from Sai as him needing her, and her character quirk kicks in and she basically falls for Sai... okay, that bit is actually pretty funny.

Meanwhile, Machvise, the least interesting amongst Doflamingo's people, gets ready to attack again. Below him, Hajrudin, who got taken out last chapter, goes all 'is this the pride of an Elbaf warrior' and all that stuff, and rises up with BURNING JUSTICE as Machvise does a million tonnes body press thing, apparently aiming for Zoro (still not a threat). Hajrudin summons enough spirit to just lurch out and deliver a gigantic uppercut to the superheavy Machvise and send him toppling up where he apparently gets cut up by the Birdcage. But this breaks every bone in Hajrudin's arm and somehow knocks off one of his teeth. That's two minor characters taken out... one of which has been taken out last chapter already.

Why can't this be about more important characters? Why did the likes of Hajrudin and Orlumbus, who aren't interesting in the slightest, get a spotlight? It could've been the more interesting, established members of the Coliseum gang like Don Chinjao or Cavendish or Bartolomeo taking out one of these minor Doflamingo executives like Machvise, but no. And really, does anyone care about these Z-list characters? Some of the Coliseum group are interesting, but not Ideo or Hajrudin or Orlumbus, who are one-trick ponies even when they get things to do. And especially when there are far more interesting fights all over the battlefield we could be seeing. Doflamingo vs Law, Luffy vs Bellamy, Zoro vs Pica, Kyros vs Diamante... Franky vs Senor Pink, sort of... but no, we get Hajrudin. Sigh.

The Flash S1E9 Review: Zoom Zoom

The Flash, Season 1, Episode 9: the Man in the Yellow Suit

Well, damn. That was quite the episode. I mean, from the episode title and from the trailers and everything I know that the Flash is going to fight the Reverse-Flash (seems we're going to call him that instead of Professor Zoom) but I didn't expect them to reveal Reverse-Flash's identity. Fair warning, after this paragraph I'm not going to hold back on spoilers for those who haven't watched the episode yet.

Anyway, I'm going to talk about Reverse-Flash a bit later on and talk about the other stuff first, because rather surprisingly the Reverse-Flash thing, while obviously being the main plot, isn't the only thing going on in this episode. Running alongside the whole Reverse-Flash thing and the whole mystery and whatnot surrounding it are two minor plots: Firestorm and the Barry/Iris shipping situation.

Firestorm first, because he's cooler. Anyway apparently Hobo Ronnie is quasi-stalking Caitlin of sorts, and meeting her in the parking lot and bursting into flames, and when Caitlin enlists Cisco's help to hunt Ronnie down, he refuses to acknowledge the name Ronnie or be addressed by that name, preferring the name Firestorm. Which is awesome that he gets his hero codename right off the bat, because sometimes this show likes to skirt around the codenames like how it did so for Girder and Multiplex and Blackout and Rainbow Raider, only giving those off at the end. No, Firestorm ain't having any of that shit. He wants to be called Firestorm, and damn right he should -- that is an awesome name.

Firestorm's refusal to admit that he is indeed Ronnie is a nice little hint to the fact that we might actually be playing the whole dual-identity angle between Ronnie Raymond and Martin Stein, if I'm not mistaken, the two psyches that make up the whole that is Firestorm. It's awesome. And then Firestorm shows up at the end to send a gigantic column of flame in Reverse-Flash's way, abruptly ending the clash of Flashes and being awesome all around. Firestorm then shoots off into the air as a trail of smoke. And can I say just how awesome Firestorm's flames look? Because they are awesome. We don't really see much of him, but he's awesome nonetheless, with the money shot being that one when he bursts into flames and shoots into the sky.

Caitlin, by being connected to Firestorm/Ronnie, gets this heartbreaking moment in the middle of the episode where she basically just absent-mindedly fiddling with her engagement ring after the second meeting with Ronnie and has just... broken down. It's absolutely devastating how she just goes on about the things she would've given up for one more minute with Ronnie, but the fact that Ronnie is either amnesiac or whatever the heck afflicts him... man, poor Caitlin.

Cisco's role this episode is basically pretty much the same as usual, though he gets a surprisingly mature moment giving Caitlin that hug she desperately needs. Cisco, sadly, fails us all when he goes through a couple of names but doesn't even come up with 'Reverse-Flash' or 'Zoom'. Really, Cisco? Opposite Flash? So close.

Meanwhile Barry gets to deal with a shit ton of things, and this is not a happy Christmas for him. He gets a bunch of happy moments during that gift exchange and just mucking around with that Christmas tree with Joe, but suddenly the Reverse-Flash apparently shows up, Barry chases after the Reverse-Flash, but fails to even land a single punch in. He's not strong enough, not fast enough, and generally is on the receiving end of a losing fight. And then there's those moments where Barry has to lie to Iris to her face for the umpteenth time, and after completely breaking down in front of his father, we get a little description from Daddy Allen about how Barry's obsession has meant that the Man in the Yellow Suit had taken yet another thing from them.

And we do get to see a little bit of this obsession, how he rather effectively (and one might say, viciously) sort of threaten to expose Mercury Labs' research to the public if they don't cooperate and provide the lure for Reverse-Flash. Barry's still polite and he isn't raging like he was when he's angry last episode, but it's still pretty OOC and even Barry himself realizes it.

We also get a pretty effective speech about Barry's fear of being alone, which kind of translates to his situation with Iris throughout his entire life, and the theme of fear is pretty present throughout the episode, and Barry's speech to Joe at the very end is pretty well done. And indeed a lot about this episode is about the absolutely horrifying Reverse-Flash that has already killed Barry's mother, nearly killed Barry and only spared Iris/Joe/Eddie by a whim.

And then there's Barry's... actually well-done declaration of love. I mean, I'm still a bit creeped by the idea of the two of them being a thing since, y'know, they're basically adopted siblings and all. Plus this episode seems mighty convenient by having everybody bring Iris up -- even Daddy Allen, who goes from 'you have been obsessing so much that you chose your career to catch this killer' to 'you lost Iris too' without a really good segue. But it was a relatively well done scene. It would have been so easy to make Barry look like a douche, to make Iris look like a douche. It would've been too easy to make Barry seem self-entitled and kind of put Iris down for not noticing his feelings, but no. Barry's declaration is just him being brutally honest but not without the usual 'leave him and be with me love is more important' spiel that would happen if this was a soap drama. And it is absolutely realistic too for Iris to just sit there dumbfounded with nothing to say -- after all, she is in a healthy and growing relationship with Eddie.

Iris doesn't get to do really much, but we see how much of a sister and a friend she is to Barry, and we see just how much Barry loves her with the ring replica and whatnot but doesn't dare to intrude on her happiness. I don't really mind Iris so much now that her one-track-mind regarding her blog has been taken out of the picture.

Joe does more Joe stuff. Nothing too spectacular other than being someone for Barry to bounce dialogue off of, and we get that rather heartwarming description about how having Barry as what amounts to a son brightened up his life, but otherwise it's your standard likable Joe.

Other than the whole we're moving together subplot that really doesn't go anywhere important other than to be the catalyst for Barry's declaration of love, Eddie gets to shoehorn himself into the plot to hunt down the Reverse-Flash by forcing himself into the operation. His whole 'Flash is evil' thing ends up being somewhat shaken by seeing a different Flash and the whole 'he saved our lives' dialogue from Joe. I like Eddie. I want to see more of him.

And, well, putting it off for a while, let's talk about the Reverse-Flash, who, by the end of this episode, is revealed to be Harrison Wells in the 'Harrison Wells does something cryptic and awesome' section of the episode. Which is absolutely weird, since the show makes it very very clear that the Reverse-Flash is indeed within that forcefield, and was brutally hitting Wells -- the injuries we see in the end are definitely real, and it's interesting just how Wells manages to do that illusion. I thought that the whole Reverse-Flash theory will be brought to a bit of a stop since we see Reverse-Flash pretty brutally beating up on Wells while Eddie watches, and placing Eddie there seems to just be a reaffirmation that he, in fact, is not Reverse-Flash. The two main candidates for Reverse-Flash seem to have been eliminated, the more likely Wells especially since he gets to be on screen next to Reverse-Flash...

Yet the stinger begs to differ.

Also, Cisco goes on that spiel about how there were two lightning bolts -- red and yellow -- during the night of Nora Allen's death. I mean, we could have a back-in-time situation where the Flash and Reverse-Flash take their fight back to the past and that causes Nora's death somehow, or there might simply be two Reverse-Flashes, as Cisco theorizes. Inertia, perhaps? Though the time-travel bit seems far likelier considering how Wells was talking about faster than light speed and we've already seen the Cosmic Treadmill so many times.

I do like how Wells being the Reverse-Flash is obvious yet at the same time not. I thought Wells being the Reverse-Flash was so damn obvious that he must be a red herring, and then there's the whole 'I have an alibi' thing and the fact that he wants to preserve Flash's existence... but at the same time, there's the fact that he killed Simon Stagg, the fact that he's prone to being scary, the fact that he comes from the future (like the Reverse-Flash), and the pretty sly inclusion that he is often referred to as 'Professor' Wells. Professor, being, of course, part of Reverse-Flash's full title: Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash.

Of course, the main point is... just what is Wells' agenda? Is there a second man he is working with? Why did he spare Joe West and Eddie Thawne? How did he assimilate with the present-day people so well that he even had a wife and an alibi and was able to meet Oliver Queen's father? Did Reverse-Flash kill the real Harrison Wells and take over his identity? Or is Harrison Wells merely an agent of the real Reverse-Flash? Or is there a simpler reason to everything and Reverse-Flash can just create multiple after-images? Or maybe two Reverse-Flashes traveled back in time or something?

Did the Reverse-Flash spare Eddie Thawne because he's an ancestor of the time-traveling Reverse-Flash? That last bit is a pet theory of mine, because Reverse-Flash's actual identity in the comic is Eobard Thawne, and Eddie could easily be either an ancestor or simply Eobard with a more common-sounding name. Zoom in the comics also started out as a policeman, and that backstory further fans the flames for Eddie being a Reverse-Flash/Zoom candidate. Lots of questions, lots of possibilities and whatnot.

Still, all we know is Harrison Wells is the Reverse-Flash. Or a Reverse-Flash, at least.

This certainly puts a sinister spin on... on practically everything Wells had done before. Hell, even the lines in this episode, like how he wants the Tachyon plot device as a bait, or how he was slightly miffled that Cisco and Caitlin hid Ronnie's existence from him...

And the Reverse-Flash himself, well, the show certainly did a pretty awesome job on making him look awesome. On the surface painting Reverse-Flash's yellow costume with black on the limbs as if the Reverse-Flash had slammed headlong into a tar pit would be a bad artistic decision, but the fact that the Reverse-Flash is constantly moving and vibrating and generally looking more like a sentient bolt of lightning in a human shape than a dude in spandex, and it works!

And Reverse-Flash's absolutely horrifying red visor-eyes? I absolutely loved what they did with them, especially in that one shot during the initial city-wide chase where we briefly see Reverse-Flash's face at a close up and ooh those eyes. Absolutely well done.

And I'm a big fan on how scary the Reverse-Flash is, even when he shows up a lot of times in this episode. The fact that he's vibrating most of the time and generally looks like a hollow suit and how he's inhumanly just vibrating all around... I am a big fan of the clash between the Flashes at STAR Labs in the end, especially how the two are just this one giant lightning bolt, one swarming force of nature just exploding out of the ceiling. It's absolutely awesome. The fighting might have been kept to a minimal, with the clash in the stadium more of a survival battle and more of Barry trying to keep up with the Reverse-Flash, whereas the STAR Labs fight ended up being a beatdown interrupted by Firestorm. But still, pretty awesome. Reverse-Flash just gets to be creepy and cryptic and generally just trash-talks everyone. He's awesome.

We get a fair amount of homaging going around, too. We've got Cisco referring to the yellow lightning from Barry's case as a 'Speedster', a term used to denote people with Flash-tier superspeed in the comics. We've got him referring to Reverse-Flash as 'Opposite Flash', and shortly after Reverse-Flash himself goes 'you could say that I am his... reverse'. And Harrison Wells apparently stores the Reverse-Flash costume on a ring with a lightning bolt on it, the way the comic Barry Allen stores his costume. And it seems to be connected to a harness that vibrates or something, which is curious. Is Wells not a speedster after all, and only the suit allows him to move fast? Or is that just an aesthetic thing to tell us, the audience that, yes, Wells is the Reverse-Flash and look the suit is vibrating?

So many questions. All I know is that I'm loving this show. Never before has 'Merry Christmas' sounded so sinister.

Gotham S1E9 Review: Two-Face & Bombs

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 9: Harvey Dent

There's a bit of a disappointing mish-mash of plot threads in here. Granted it's nowhere as bad as Agents of SHIELD recently, but it's still a step down compared to the previous episodes.

The main plot, unlike what the episode title might lead you to believe, does not involve Harvey Dent in any form or way, which itself is a bit of a letdown. We get a normal generic cop show cliche episode where the mentally ill mad bomber Ian Hargrove gets broken out while being transferred from Blackgate prison (though it's nice to see Blackgate prison) to a mental health facility, and ends up being used by the remnants of Nikolai's faction, working under Fish's orders, to break into Falcone's vault and steal his money. It moves on the main Fish-Falcone conflict on ever so slowly, and it really isn't all that interesting other than to see the fact that Fish is finally doing something to take down Falcone instead of just using Liza. It's all pretty generic and uninteresting because Falcone doesn't even show up and Fish doesn't even do much.

It's all a bit boring to be honest, although the idea that Hargrove is being forced to do this against his will and the constant reminders that he is sick instead of outright evil ends up establishing the change that Arkham Asylum has became a prison for the criminally insane... which really isn't that big of a deal.

There is the introduction of Harvey Dent, who's already a young DA at this point in time apparently, who wants to spread out the word that they have a witness to rattle the actual perpetrators of the Wayne murders to confess, but Dent seems to just want to bring down Dick Lovecraft. We get the obligatory toin-tossing sequence, and apparently Dent uses a double-headed coin (two faces, get it? Oh, Gotham, you're so transparent) to fool little kids to rehabilitate and stuff, and he has a side personality where he gets scary and stuff. It really just seems to be a bit of a foreshadowing to next episode, Lovecraft, and while Harvey Dent is slightly intriguing, I find that I don't particularly care.

The third major running plot, if you could call it that, is the completely random decision to let Selina Kyle (who showed up at the end of last episode) in the Wayne Manor. And we get some scenes between the two children Selina and Bruce that's at least a bit fun, with Selina commenting on just how weird Bruce's desire to hone his bodies despite the fact that he has everything is, Alfred training Bruce in boxing and teasing him about Selina, and the little food fight... we also get a little tearjerker moment where Selina tells Bruce about her mother that's alive, honest, she's just being this super-rich actress that's secretly a government secret agent and she'll be home someday. That is pretty sad and haertbreaking for such a normally strong and sure-of-herself Selina.

But other than the unexpectedly welcome strong performances by Selina and Bruce, the rest of the cast kind of just... m'eh. Bullock and Gordon don't really do anything interesting, we get more of the same Nygma moments... Even Penguin's scenes aren't enough to grab my interest this episode, which is a bit of a disappointment. He finds out that Liza is the spy for Fish, and kind of threatens her a little... but then tells her to continue spying on Falcone. The scene with Penguin took a fair amount of time for absolutely no payoff, and I'm not really sure what Penguin plans to do.

Also, the whole Barbara sideplot... I just don't really fucking care. Barbara walking out is kind of a positive thing for the show, and we see Gordon angst a bit in the beginning and the end, but that's it. Also apparently Barbara is sleeping with Montoya, to the utter and complete surprise of nobody because Barbara is, as I have said many times, a poorly-written, shallow, idiotic love interest that adds nothing to the show other than to annoy me.

Overall there are a couple strong parts, but really not enough to make this episode anything but filler. It really is just setting up what Penguin is planning to do about the knowledge regarding Liza, and the whole Harvey/Selina Wayne witness situation.

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire Part 10: Rain-Induced Apocalypse

Even more Hoenn!

Gotham S1E8 Review: Black Mask & Hush

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 8: The Mask

I associate Black Mask and Hush together among Batman villains. They were both villains of their own respective arcs that came out around the same time, they both knew Bruce Wayne as a kid, they were both these big masterminds, they both didn't have any fancy costume other than the mask covering their faces and I didn't know about them until a fair bit later compared to the other classic Batman villains. It is, therefore, a bit of a welcome surprise that both show up in Gotham at the same episode.

And, well, the Black Mask here isn't really faithful to his comic counterpart, what with Richard Sionis being an adult at the time of this show and Bruce is, y'know, ten... but in the same vein, they switched out a fair amount of Black Mask's backstory and even changed his name into Richard as opposed to Roman Sionis, so this may very well be the father of the comic-book Black Mask who will fight Batman. Which is a fairly interesting revamp that leaves an opening for a more faithful adaptation to come down the pipeline.

Black Mask himself isn't really that much of a threat, at least not in the way he was in the comics -- he isn't a super-competent mob boss, or someone with a massive vendetta against his family who cared more about appearances than about their child. Instead, Black Mask (who isn't even called that in the episode) is the leader of a corporation who has this crazy bloodlust and sics his employees against each other in some kind of crazy deathmatch inside an office building. Also he's gotten an obsession with Japanese swords and whatnot, which explains the black oni mask he wears. It's certainly a look distinctive from his comic book counterpart, what with the crazy oni markings, but at the same time that does kind of clinch the look.

Who was behind the whole Black Mask plot was already solved mostly from the get-go, and it's not like the Goat or the Balloon Man where the main tension of the episode is hunting down just who the perpetrator is. It's more of a 'can Gordon survive against Black Mask's battle royale stadium' thing, and there's a point where Bullock has to get pissed at every single cop in GCPD to get off their asses and help out Gordon, and I do like how they acknowledge the events of the last episode having somewhat of an impact even if it doesn't shake up the status quo too much.

Bruce and Alfred, for the first time, engages in something actually interesting. I thought it would be a groan-worthy moment as Bruce gets shipped off to school, but no. He encounters Tommy Elliot, who makes sense as someone who would be around at Bruce's age. Tommy is apparently an orphan (so he's already killed his parents by this point) and is a massive dick of a kid. He insults Bruce's mother, gangs up on him, talks about gruesome death details and gets to be an all-around dick. Alfred then teaches Bruce to... well, basically Alfred drives Bruce up to Tommy's house and let Bruce deliver a righteous beating on Tommy before going off to eat pizza.

I'd say how improper such child-teaching methods are, but then no one said Bruce Wayne grew up to be a mentally healthy man. And it's certainly healthier to face your bullies, and I do like the gesture of Alfred giving Bruce his father's watch... they didn't make it apparent, but after giving it some thought, it's to make sure Bruce holds back enough strength so he doesn't really injure Tommy any more than he did.

Alfred is a massive cock. But he's being an awesome one lately.

Penguin gets a short scene where he meets up with Fish and tries to give her a peace offering, but Fish stabs him in the hand. (Fish is a bitch) We get a couple more scenes of Penguin getting his hands on his 'replacement' and apparently torturing him off-screen to get information about Fish's plans. There's also a scene of him talking with his mother, who proves to be quite an awesome evil bitch when she was younger and more sane. Not much Penguin this time around, sadly...

Because the focus is on Fish. And surprisingly, she's becoming... well, I don't hate her. She's clearly meant not to be the kind of entertaining villain the way Penguin or Black Mask are. She's the kind of villain that's supposed to be a bit of a scumbag, so I don't mind her. She interacts the most with Liza, and manages to get Liza to put Falcone to sleep so she can copy pages of Falcone's ledger that's important for whatever Fish is planning next. Fish also gives Liza some sad story about how her mother was killed in front of her (figuratively speaking; she was hiding behind the curtains) by a man of Falcone's, and she swore never to suffer under a man ever since.

It would be an interesting backstory, if a cliched one, but as the scene with the old singer -- who is, I think, implied to be Fish's mother -- shows that Fish just knows how to manipulate people. Guess we know where Oswald picked that up from.

Nygma gets some fun scenes mucking around with dead bodies, and that scene where he does an autopsy when he's apparently not supposed to? That is funny in a morbid kind of way. He only shows up in small doses to lighten the mood and I appreciate that quite a bit. Essen also shows that she wants so much to be a good cop, and keeps apologizing to Gordon for leaving him alone (despite the fact that she stood by up until Gordon brushes her off). I like Essen. She doesn't do much but hey, she's likable..

Oh, and after getting herself drunk and nearly shooting Gordon, and after Gordon kind of brushes off one of her calls, Barbara just packs up her bags and leaves. Good! Can't stand that idiot. Life outside Gotham is healthier for her anyway. This also opens up a more realistic way for Gordon to 'cheat' with Essen that doesn't make him out like a complete douchebag like it did in the comics.

Gotham S1E7 Review: Zsasz! Penguin! Falcone! Awesome!

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 7: Penguin's Umbrella

Well after six relatively average or sub-par episodes, Gotham has finally come into its own. This was a great episode. The Penguin is revealed to be playing everyone along. The end of the episode reveals that the Penguin is, in fact, working for Don Falcone and has made a deal to work his way up the Maroni family so he can destabilize the Maroni family for Falcone, whilst taking down rogue elements allied with Fish's attempted takeover. It's an awesome twist, it makes a lot of Penguin's cryptic plans and all the stuff he's doing seem a lot less of a big mad gambit and more of an actual master plan is going on. It's awesome. The Penguin is definitely my favourite character of the show and he does make it absolutely awesome. Doubly so is Falcone, who probably let Penguin have all this information so that Maroni is drunk on his power.

We see that he is manipulating everything... Penguin's reveal is only to orchestrate the next few bits of events, where Falcone forbids any outright assault on the Maroni family though they do retaliate on a gun shipment. Penguin, meanwhile, is just tugging on Maroni's strings, pushing the right buttons (calling Falcone the number one gang) and convincing him to send his men to attack one of Falcone's places... which, as we find out later, is run by Nikolai, who is Fish's partner-in-crime.

Maroni's second-in-command, Frankie, has been suspecting Penguin of playing Maroni and it's pretty obvious that he does, and Penguin delivers this awesome speech about someone's passions being someone's weakness as he reveals that he has bribed Frankie's men and then murders Frankie. It's all very awesome and downright creepy at points. And when you think about it, Falcone and Penguin together made all the profit. They took out Maroni's top henchman, moved Penguin up Maroni's organization, allows Penguin to operate freely, and took out a man who was conspiring to kill Falcone. And on top of it all, as 'compensation', all Falcone has to do is not kill Penguin (which he never intended to do in the first place) while Maroni, thanks to Penguin's advice, gives Falcone a piece of Arkham.

It's all an awesome big master plan and I am quite happy with how it's developed. (Incidentally, I hope the whole Diviner plot in Agents of SHIELD is resolved at least somewhat as elegantly as this one)

Gordon himself is a bit on the run. Falcone has sent out one 'Victor' to kill him, and as it turns out, said Victor is Victor Zsasz, who is a member of Batman's rogues gallery. It's awesome to see that we're not going to just get random serial killers like the Goat and the Balloon Man, and Zsasz is indeed suitable for one of Batman's enemies that could be operating in the scope and timeline of the show. Zsasz is played by the awesome actor who plays the Mist in the Flash, and he looks so much fun just strutting around like the crazy psychopath that he is shooting people and generally being a massive creepy fucker. He's already doing the tally-tattoo thing on his arm. It's only 27 or 28 or something around that, and it's only a couple markings on his arms instead of how it would cover his entire torso and both arms like it would be by the time the actual Batman stories roll around, but it's fine. It is, after all, still quite some time before Bruce Wayne dons the cowl.

Still, Zsasz is a nice addition to the cast member and while I doubt he'll show up every episode, I do hope he shows up quite a bit. It's nice to see Falcone having some muscle of his own that isn't allied to Fish.

Also Zsasz has Funky Town as his ringtone. That was hilarious. Zsasz is a lot of fun. I like him.

Gordon himself is proving a bit suicidal, I have to admit, with his plan of going out in a blaze of glory and bringing in Falcone and Mayor Whatshisface, and after an initial terse moment with Bullock, he later joins up in Gordon's mad crusade. Gordon's attempt to just show up for work and defy all the mob's power ends up with him getting shot a shit-ton of times by Zsasz, which is a nice little sledgehammer to his face, I bet. Though Zsasz just going around shooting everyone does make it more believable why all the cops are so afraid to cross Falcone's family.

Gordon gets saved by Allen and Montoya, however, and after passing on the Wayne murder case to them he and Bullock sort of kidnap the Mayor and head off to arrest Falcone. Thanks to Penguin (as we find out later), however, Falcone has been persuaded to spare Gordon, and we get this awesome moment where Falcone just calmly tells Gordon that Zsasz is with Barbara and has the utmost confidence that neither Gordon nor Bullock can get out of his compound without getting shot anyway. Falcone has everyone in the palm of his hand and seeing Gordon try to fight against this friendly chessmaster of a Don is going to be awesome.

Maroni, meanwhile, is a bit more volatile than Falcone is, basically going all 'I wanna hit them back' and everything. Though to his credit, there really isn't any way he could think that Penguin is working for Falcone. Who would think taking out a dozen of Falcone's man could be beneficial to him? Or that Penguin, after all the death threats and whatnot, would still be an agent of Falcone?

Fish herself is still pretty great, playing the role of 'hateable bitch' pretty awesomely. It's clear that the show doesn't really intend to portray her sympathetically, and she finds herself kind of outplayed by both Falcone and Maroni. I do like that moment where Fish is going on and on about respect and Maroni just tells Penguin to apologize sincerely like he's a kindergarten student. And that pissed-off look that Fish has when it's revealed that Falcone's people who Penguin and Frankie killed were, in fact, Nikolai's faction. Fish really needs to step up her game!

Fish's lieutenant, Butch, gets one of the funniest black comedy scenes in the show by chaining nuns across a street to stop Maroni's gun shipment. And the little scene afterwards the truck drivers are just kind of idiots.

We see a bit of Liza, and I almost forgot she changed her hair colour. She's apparently just hanging out in the Falcone mansion, doing chores and baking cookies and stuff, but according to Fish, Falcone hasn't even touched her. Considering just how brilliant Falcone has been shown in this episode and the fact that he's not just some old coot playing with chickens, I'm sure Falcone knows or at least suspects... but genuinely is interested in Liza because of the mommy similarities and whatnot. I'm curious where this part of the plot will go, though not really that much.

On the side of the angels, we see Allen and Montoya showing up like the cavalry to bail Gordon out of his fight with Zsasz, which is awesome. Montoya also admits how her feelings might've gotten in the way of her judgment, so there's that redeeming feature for her. Still not a big fan of Gotham's version of Montoya, but at least she seems to not be annoying for the forseeable future. Allen gets some more scenes this time around, helping out with Gordon's medical treatment and getting a hilarious scene where Alfred easily holds a sword to his throat right up until Gordon clears things out.

I'm not quite sure what the point of them going to the Wayne Manor is other than to give Bruce and Alfred some screen time. Bruce borders between being a sweet kid-Batman and being a bit annoying thanks to his 'I'm not just a kid'... on one hand, any kid who does that should be smacked over the head. On the other, he's the fucking Batman so he gets a pass. I'm still pretty lukewarm about their presence in the show, which is mostly just being a bit distracting and all.

Essen also gets some extra screentime more than her usual fare, and I do like how she cares enough about Gordon (hint hint) to try and convince him to get out of town, and when all the other policemen get out of the room when Zsasz arrives, Essen kept standing next to Gordon right until the point that Gordon tells her to get out. You go, Essen.

Barbara, meanwhile, gets to be the damsel in distress not once, but twice. Well, happy now that you know all the truth and nearly gotten yourself killed? Hopefully this experience will jar Barbara out of her stupidity. Honesty and love and all that, I get. Her idiocy and general 'I love Jim but I want to dig up all his secrets despite there being a perfectly good reason why he hides them' attitude really needs to go. She gets scared stiff several times when she gets confronted with the mob dudes that Gordon shoots in their apartment, and later on is apparently held hostage by Zsasz and the cookie-baking Liza. She doesn't really do enough to be annoying this time around, though.

Overall? Pretty awesome episode all around.

Gotham S1E6 Review: Goats and Bullock

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 6: The Spirit of the Goat

Another good, if slightly padded-out, episode. It's more Bullock-centric than most episodes and I do like that -- as the second-most main character, Bullock does deserve to get more screen time. The main plot here revolves around the Spirit of the Goat, a psychotic serial killer that Bullock had brought down ten years before... back when Bullock is basically an upstanding loose cannon like Gordon is today and I do like how his old, crippled partner Dix is basically acting like how Bullock acts to Gordon now. And I do like how initially the Goat seems to have some connection to Dix before that turns into a mere red herring. Anyway, ten years ago, Bullock killed the original Spirit of the Goat, but now another killer with the same M.O. as the Spirit of the Goat shows up and begins killing people in the exact same way... including a certain detail only privy to Bullock, Dix and another man who's dead.

I do like how this case is pretty personal to Bullock, and we get to see him actually be competent when he wants to. We get some fun interaction between him and Nygma, between him and Gordon and later he even solves the case by figuring out the true mastermind, who is a hypnotherapist doctor lady. Bullock's overall pretty awesome in this episode, showing some... hidden depths, I suppose? Bullock also turns out to be paying Dix's medical fees and buying Dix magazines and stuff. Nice show, Bullock. It's nice to see some depths to him because Bullock taking hits for the mob has been one of the biggest contenders why I didn't watch Gotham for so long.

The Spirit of the Goat itself is pretty unremarkable other than the fact that, y'know, there's someone pulling the strings, which is nice. Serial killers made up by the show can only get so interesting, and I do like how the Goat mask seems to be evocative of Batman's mask, right down to the horns and exposed lower face. It's a bit too obvious, but what is Gotham if not obvious?

Edward Nygma, better known among DC fans as the Riddler, also get a fair bit of screentime this episode, first by talking to Bullock and actually getting some professionalism after Bullock shoots down his first riddle... and then the whole thing with the Kringle lady where Nygma is so obviously just wanting to get her attention and be nice in his own crazy neurotic way. I do like Nygma even if he's annoying, though I thought that relatively long scene with Kringle was, again, a bit too on-the-nose. He keeps giving death glares to people who get pissed off at his riddles. It's fun, I guess, even if his obvious Riddler-emblem-mug is always in our faces.

We get some Bruce and Alfred, relatively brief this time around with them just commenting on masks and whatnot. And Selina shows up just to, y'know, remind us that she exists. She shows up and steals something from Bruce's room while he's sleeping. It's a bit all dragged on in my opinion and could use some editing, though it's still better than the earliest Gotham episodes. We'll see where this goes.

Gordon and Barbara do this whole song and dance where Barbara keeps trying to get Gordon to tell her everything, while she tries to be this expose artist trying to feed Montoya all the 'truth' she wrings out of Gordon. Even Montoya notes that this is a bad idea. I mean, the audience knows that Montoya is the most straight-up cop in the show bar none, but that is still a stupid thing to do. Especially considering her track record of going to the press the moment Gordon tells her something. Literally too dumb to live. And she picks a fight with Montoya too at the end, of course. I mean, her heart is in the right place but she's just kind of stupid all around. Go away Barbara. You're nowhere as interesting as your daughter will be.

Oswald also gets a fair amount of screen time, meeting up with his mother at last and getting some scenes with her. It's your typical Penguin stuff and it's fun. I like Penguin. Whatever happened to that poor guy he took hostage in the camper, by the way? In any case, he's a bit lying to his mother about what he's doing, although to be fair the poor woman seems to have a couple of screws loose. He's apparently set on helping Gordon out, though knowing him he's got to have some angle at doing all this.

Montoya and Allen has finally gotten themselves a witness who places Gordon at the crime scene 'shooting' Oswald, and good for them! I mean, Allen lampshades how obsessed Montoya is with the case and they literally get the witness within 24 hours of their deadline, and she's definitely got the whole ex angle going on, but she's at least sane enough to tell Barbara to get the hell away from her and from Gotham. At the end of the episode, they arrest Gordon (and Bullock), who tries to tell them the truth while not being too blatant, and Oswald, of course, shows up going all 'hello' and happy and stuff. Oswald is fun. Gordon and Bullock are going to have some things to discuss... it's an okay episode. Interested to see what's going to go on with the whole Penguin angle.

Agents of SHIELD S2E9 Review: Buncha Cryptic Stuff

Agents of SHIELD, Season 2, Episode 9: Ye Who Enter Here

Well, we get some advancement of the plot, but as always there's a bit of a stuffy feel where there's too many characters and plotlines being included and none of them really go anywhere and there's no real distinct focus. We get a little bit of practically everything and that's pretty annoying. The show is just teasing on so much and not really giving much in terms of payoff and it's starting to feel dragged on.

The main plot slugs along as it picks up from last episode, and I think this side of the episode was handled relatively well. Coulson, Bobbi, Mack and Fitz-Simmons head off to hunt down the alien city without bringing Skye... and apparently the Doctor hasn't told Hydra just where the city is. We get some nice Coulson moments as he makes that conversation with Bobbi about just what he is fighting for, about how he's different than Nick Fury and I thought that was pretty well-done. So is the Fitz-Simmons conversation... both Bobbi and Mack have apparently gone on the shipping front and are suddenly shipping the two together and kind of forcing them to, y'know, talk. Of course, this is Agents of SHIELD so things can never really get a clean conclusion, so the drama is prolonged a fair bit more with Simmons being completely unsure about how she feels about Fitz, and Fitz wanting to drop out of the science department and work as a subordinate... but is letting Simmons kind of be his partner again and complete his sentences and whatnot.

Again, this all has been dragged on and I'm honestly a bit exhausted because they're just milking the shipping angle of the show as long as they can and it's honestly quite irritating.

Anyway, apparently Bobbi and Hunter has also gotten back together in a much more healthy manner than Fitz-Simmons, and Bobbi's at least attempting to get Simmons to open up to Fitz. Also, apparently Bobbi and Mack has some secret they're keeping from Hunter. Do the two even know each other before this? Apparently they do. Also, I find that I don't really give much of a fuck about any secrets between these two.

Bobbi and Simmons' scene was great, though, at least. Simmons looks like she genuinely is going to cry there. Poor girl.

Mack gets a fair amount of screentime, and finally for whatever reason he decides to drop the cold shoulder attitude towards Simmons and gets to work shipping Fitz and Simmons together again. Sure, do it right in the middle of the important mission. Mack goes down the hole in that San Juan fortress which can apparently short-circuit all electricity and transforms Mack into a raging, angry, berserking dude. Evil!Mack beats up Coulson and nearly drops Simmons down the hole, shrugs off several shots from the Icer and Bobbi needed to taser him with her batons to take him out... and of course he falls down the hole. Apparently to his death. Well, that's one character taken out, so there's that.

Granted, to his credit Fitz drew an actual gun on Mack and is ready to drop him, but still, whatever the case, they didn't manage to reach Mack and he gets killed off.

I'm still a lot more curious about just what the hell is going on and this... this is just not really satisfying. It'll probably be a lot better if I watch like the entire season in a sitting.

On the other side of the spectrum, Raina is apparently being targeted by Hydra agents led by Agent 33, and they apparently want her alive. We see two Koenigs help her out and hide her under an invisible umbrella cloak thing, and apparently that was where the Koenigs have been all these while. There's a running gag about everyone asking how many Koenigs there are, which is at least fun.

Skye, May, Hunter and Triplett go off to extract Raina, and Skye gets into fisticuffs with Agent 33, who is still wearing that damaged May mask for whatever reason other than to be creepy. And we just get little fights here and there. We get to see Skye actually give 33 a run for her money and their fight was pretty nice. And then Raina gets all cryptic and going on and on about what the Diviner does and, y'know, doing vague Raina things that still continue to be annoying yet relevant to the big mystery. We also get a cryptic dream early on with Skye seeing a baby being abandoned by Coulson and May, her parental figures, which I'm going to assume is her flashbacking to the past. It's another mystery to add to the heap I suppose.

The big thing that Raina confirms is that the blue skinned aliens are the Kree, last seen in Guardians of the Galaxy. Well, considering the few Kree we've seen do anything in Guardians have been either ultra-racist genocidal fanatics or jackasses who doesn't care about their race's fanatics, well, it's not really that big of a surprise. Also the fact that both she and Skye are human, but Raina is a bit crazy and she's all a wild card and everything and, well, I just don't really care all that much about her either.

May and Trip and the Koenigs get some fun scenes, with May bitching about Agent 33 still wearing her face, Triplett getting confused about the Koenigs... and I like these fun scenes a lot more than all of Raina's cryptic bullshit that won't go anywhere until the mid-season finale and/or the season finale. Or Skye's vague dreams. Or Fitz-Simmons' tsun-tsun act which was heartbreaking for like the first episode but is just being dragged on and on with 'what is Simmons' real reason for infiltrating Hydra' being a supposed mystery which... which I don't really care anymore since they kept hinting and hinting and not giving anything back.

Oh and Ward shows up just to gallivant around and just take Raina (and Skye) back, whatever side he is on. Of course Skye goes with him instead of being smart and, oh, I dunno, shooting Ward in the head? Shooting Raina in the head? Skye just seems too passive and too willing to go on with Ward's demands. It's rather obvious that it's just to prolong this whole jumbled-up plot on for as long as it could. Whatever the case, Whitehall isn't pleased with Ward's streak of independence, so I'm sure Ward just has his love-driven agendas or something. I dunno. Oh, and Whitehall tells his forces to blow up the bus. Guess who's going to survive next episode? It's not much of a cliffhanger, really. Could've left it with the Mack falling down a hole and Ward kidnapping Skye and be done, but this is just pretty m'eh.

It's a bit of a tiring episode and after nine episodes of dangling little bits and bites of information and not really doing anything... and it's not even a filler episode as of such since the plot is being moved forwards, but it's moving at such a slow pace, and the focus is all over the place and it's just generally a stopgap until, big Revelations(tm) are done which will no doubt lead to more questions. There are certainly a fair amount of fun scenes -- Skye's fight with 33, Simmons and Bobbi, Coulson's speech, the Koenigs just having fun, Fitz and Simmons... but really, it's just a rather haphazard episode just to give a cliffhanger to the next episode.

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, Part 9: Sidequests & Mossdeep

More Alpha Sapphire!

Arrow S3E8 Review: Boomerang! Flash! Lyla! ARGUS!

Arrow, Season 3, Episode 8: The Brave and the Bold

This episode sort of picks up from the Flash crossover episode, except not really. Like I said before, both episodes are pretty standalone, and that difference is pretty inherent right down to the tone of both episodes, with Flash's episode focusing more on the general formula of Flash learning new things about being a superhero, and Arrow's episode having a distinct theme of darkness and Oliver's more brutal, kill-happy past. I'm also a big fan of how none of the characters feel needlessly out-of-character… though Oliver is a bit of a dick. But then we all know he's a bit of a control freak and Barry is sort of intruding in his thing.

Also, I'm a big fan about how they handled Captain Boomerang. Between Captain Boomerang and Rainbow Raider, they really are using the Flash's two least threatening and most ridiculous enemies, aren't they? Except that logically speaking, Captain Boomerang really does feel out of place as one of Flash's enemies and being someone trained with exotic weapons, he really does feel more of an opponent to Green Arrow. And it works this time around with Captain Boomerang actually facing off against his traditional opponent, the Flash, but the one that takes him down in a physical confrontation is Green Arrow while Flash is forced to use his superspeed to deal with the whole 'I placed a lot of bombs across the city set to go off at the same time' thing.

Also, we've got a lot of intrigue about ARGUS and just how dark it really is. But really, the main point of the episode is more about Barry and Oliver's interactions, which is nice because we didn't really get that much of those in Flash's episode. It was mostly just cool fight scenes GO! And here it's nice to see that getting properly explored.

There's a bit of a Batman-Superman vibe as Barry finally sees for the first time how Oliver does his torture tactics, and he's utterly horrified when he sees it in person, despite defending Oliver's tactics during the Flash episode. And I thought it was pretty well-done how they cut away from the more grimdark arrow torture scene back in the Flash crossover, yet they show the full ramifications here. And I do like Oliver Queen, control freak that he is, slightly explode at Barry when he starts questioning his methods. It may have been a bit overdone, but Oliver has done the same to Diggle and others before, so it's not completely out of character for him.

And Barry, with his more naïve wand upstanding worldview, manages to get Oliver get over his self-loathing, manages to get Oliver that he can inspire people as well and all that, which is nice. Again, while I'm not too big on the sudden 'Tommy died so suddenly I don't kill' excuse, this one works pretty naturally, and I am a big fan on the overall, gradual softening of Oliver throughout the three seasons… and with Barry going on about how the Arrow is a douche and how Oliver himself is admitting he's losing pieces of his soul to the mask, maybe it is time he adopts a different name? Something, like, oh, I dunno, Green Arrow? I mean, I would be absolutely happy about it. Also, Oliver takes the route that doesn't involve torturing Boomerang, which is nice too. I'm also a big fan on how they managed to solve the 'five bombs will detonate at the same time' conundrum, which is a lot simpler and much more of a mundane solution than what I would think.

Again, there's a distinct sense of a Batman-vs-Superman mentality going on, with Oliver going 'this is my city, this is my rules' and 'your city is a lot more sunshine and smiles and all compared to mine', while Team Flash (mostly Cisco and Caitlin) having to slightly deal with the reality that it's not just a big fun game anymore when they see someone actually lying there, bloodied and dying. It's a nice development for both parties, and it's given its own unique twist so it isn't a Batman-Superman rehash. For one, other than some harsh words being exchanged between the two and the whole enraged thing from the Flash episode, at no point does Flash and Arrow actually come to blows, verbally or physically. I mean, they have that friendly match in the end (which we don't see the result of, naturally) but other than that they really are good buddies and I really like that.

Also, as Barry claims, he's been taking Oliver's advice to heart and is visibly more concerned about getting the people away from safety. Like the moment preceding the confrontation with Boomerang (in a train station no less!) we get an awesome scene of Flash just zipping every single civilian out before a repeat of the Captain Cold incident appears. And like Oliver did in the Flash episode, Barry makes a pretty awesome dynamic entry catching those two boomerangs. Pretty awesome all around.

And, well, aside from Barry and Oliver, can we talk about Digger Harkness, our big bad villain for this episode? They made Captain Boomerang a legitimate, freaking threat and it was awesome. Boomerang's boomerangs actually look downright lethal, he uses explosive boomerangs (we get some neat explanation about just why they are awesome) and that scene where he mows down all the ARGUS agents by using boomerangs as daggers, and then the battle against Oliver and Roy where he was actually winning for a bit? Boomerang is awesome. Right up until the end where he goes on the one-on-one match against Oliver, Captain Boomerang is just going around kicking ass and taking names and it is simply brilliant.

We also get a bit of his backstory, that he's an agent for Task Force X (or Suicide Squad, as Diggle helpfully reminds us of its real, awesome name) who was actually attempted to be killed. Lyla was the one who wiped out Boomerang and his team -- presumably one that didn't include Deadshot or Bronze Tiger -- but failed to kill Boomerang because of a chip malfunction, leading to his vendetta against Lyla. Captain Boomerang is actually a thematically perfect villain for this whole angle, since his whole 'things can come back to haunt you' thing makes perfect sense with boomerangs.

Boomerang manages to out-gambit everyone from Team Arrow, ARGUS and Team Flash to infiltrate the Arrowcave and nearly kill Lyla, and would've succeeded if someone running around at superspeed hadn't been around. He's also pre-empted Flash's superspeed enough and planted all those bombs around the city.

Captain Boomerang's awesome. His fight scenes are awesome. What more can I say? They made freaking Captain Boomerang awesome and they didn't even have to change him as much as Rainbow Raider. I am so happy with all these faithful-yet-awesome adaptations of silly characters.

And tying into Boomerang, we get to see a fair bit of Lyla and Diggle, the former who's been pretty much nonexistent for the past few episodes. We get a bit of a fun moment between the two, especially Lyla's bafflement when Barry just zips in, nonchalantly eating sushi. Diggle and Lyla also have a bit of an argument going on about them keeping secrets from each other, but they're at least professional enough to let the other know about things when needed. Also, Barry is absolutely flabbergasted that Diggle didn't tell Lyla about his secret identity, when Diggle just shakes his head and goes 'no, man' which is funny. Diggle finally proposes to Lyla at the end of the episode, which is nice.

Less nice is the scene when Lyla gets boomerang'd in the side of the chest and for a moment everyone is going 'she's not breathing!' and everything, and for a moment I thought Lyla was really going to bite the dust. She seems to be the perfect candidate to be killed off too. She's a prominent enough character for the audience to care, she's morally ambiguous and her death could be something of an ironic, karmic justice thing, and considering how a lot of scenes have focused on Diggle really being lovey-dovey for his family, it seems like a pretty obvious, cruel thing to do. But thankfully the Flash's around.

Lyla also gets to talk to Oliver and they talk about extremes and stuff and how they need to be extreme to deal with maniacs like Boomerang, but that might or might not be just something Amanda Waller's drilled into both of them. I can't totally disagree with their point here, though, because Oliver doesn't have Barry hanging out in Starling City all the time.

Felicity doesn't really get much to do this time other than be the one that interacts the most with Team Flash due to being more acquainted with them and getting off some funny salmon ladder jokes (seeing Barry superspeed the salmon ladder is funny) but she's otherwise just doing her thing. There's the moment about how Felicity tries to get Cisco not to call their base the Arrowcave, and Roy immediately calls it exactly that in the next scene. Roy, having missed out on the Flash crossover episode, gets some funny scenes. We get a bit of a 'only sane man' going on between Roy and Diggle, and Roy does get a fun fight scene during the massive triple melee between him, Oliver and Boomerang. Boomerang knocks away his bow and he pulls out twin batons, which look awesome -- man, Roy needs to get more screentime. I really want to see him do a lot more other than just be Oliver's shadow.

Also, Roy initially goes 'who are these people I don't trust them' and immediately switches to 'man you guys are okay' the moment Cisco goes up to his costume and fangasms over it. And I do agree with Cisco… Arsenal's costume is awesome. Cisco and Caitlin make Oliver an updated costume that's supposed to improve his improvement by being lighter and more sturdy and everything, which is nice -- Oliver's costume really does need a bit of an upgrade, especially when he's running around next to Roy's super-awesome getup.

Caitlin and Cisco, like Felicity, do their thing with Cisco being the rowdier one that's constantly getting hyped and happy about every single thing. Caitlin mentions something about the Sara bit, but that isn't really explored. Cisco gets some fun jokes especially when Felicity and Roy immediately shots him down for ogling Thea. Cisco's fun. He's a bit of an idiot, but he's fun.

There's a fair amount of fun moments throughout the episode, which is nice -- just like how Oliver brought in a sense of reality to Team Flash, Barry also brings in a sense of fun to Team Arrow. There's the moment where Barry just sends paper flying all around in his wake, Barry just tying up an entire contingent of Bratva goons without them realizing what's happened, Ollie and Diggle trying their hardest not to get pissed at Cisco and Barry having fun… I like it loads.

The minor characters, unfortunately, get severely shafted, not helped by the normally-elusive Lyla showing up and taking up a fair chunk of screentime. Ray Palmer (Palmer Industries' logo shows up on the side of the building, though), Malcolm Merlyn, Ted Grant and Katana's family in the flashbacks are completely absent, Laurel shows up for around ten seconds saying that he needs to talk to Oliver -- but we don't find out what this is about. Quentin also only shows up to talk to Barry a bit and give him some information (no reason why Green Arrow can't just call him and ask directly). Thea shows up for two scenes, one just being shocked by a certain flash zipping past, and apparently trying to tell that dickwad Chase not to get the wrong idea, and then showing up serving drinks.

The flashback plot is a bit distracting, to be honest, and I would've wished for it to be done with entirely because this is a nice example of it breaking up the flow. Yes, we learn just why Oliver feels that it's necessary to torture people, because in the past someone blew up Hong Kong because he couldn't get the information on time. We get a nice little monologue on how killing and inflicting pain is different, and we get to see Amanda Waller being a massive masterminding bitch, which is always welcome, but other than that, though, did we really need to have these scenes? They're thematically interwoven into the episode, but I can't help but feel that it took a fair bit from the episode and just felt odd.

It does raise some questions about Oliver's true ties to Amanda Waller and indeed ARGUS in general, though. I am curious. What is Waller's agenda in Hong Kong, trying to groom him into an assassin and everything?

Captain Boomerang is apparently imprisoned in Lian Yu next to Slade Wilson… and I can't help but think that the two of them might show up in the future. After all, Boomerang is mentioned to be a former member of the ASIS or something, the same organization that Deathstroke was in. Also, they both know the location of the Arrowcave, at least… maybe we can get a dual breakout? As a sidenote, I never realized that Captain Boomerang's background has him be an Australian, which should be blindingly obvious but it never occurred to me before.

We get a couple of nice comic book nods. Lyla and Oliver briefly almost bring up the episode title, "the Brave and the Bold", which is fun. With the excuse of Barry being around, someone I think refers to Roy Harper as 'Speedy', which is a cool little nod to his original comic book codename, which looks like it's going to be assumed by Thea somewhere in the future. Quentin also calls Barry 'Bart Allen', more commonly known as Impulse and Barry's descendant from the future. Also, I'm not sure if it's intentional or not, but Quentin jokes about him being put on a bus or something, which may or may not refer to Bart Allen's death in the comics which is succeeded soon by Barry's own coming to life? Or I might just be looking too much into things.

Overall, though, a pretty awesome, fun episode. I do hope for future team-ups (and Felicity making a costume rack for Barry seems to imply this is going to happen some more times in the future) and Captain Boomerang returning either in this show or in the Flash.

Next up, bring on Ra's al Ghul!