One Piece 775: Backstory. MANLY Backstory.

One Piece, Chapter 775: To Lucy Anne, With Love

Pretty good chapter, though compared to the last one with the rather uninteresting Tontatta stuff anything's going to be an improvement. We get a bit of the Tontattas and some tsundere moments or whatever on Leo's part... and Leo is apparently the one that's being an oblivious little dick while Mancherie is just a normal, kind person who gets normally offended to Leo's insulting remarks. Jora's still alive, and thinks to herself how she needs to tell Doflamingo about what's happening, and apparently Mancherie's Heal Heal Fruit is able to 'restore' in addition to heal, and Doflamingo is planning to use it on the Smile Factory if it's destroyed. But restoration apparently takes chunks out of Mancherie's life, which isn't nice.

Despite my general disdain for anything Tontatta related, I guess I like Mancherie? She's kinda cute and she's got an interesting fruit.

We cut away to Franky and Senor Pink's fight, the last (and manliest) of the fights not involving the Executives. And it's been going on for quite a while, kind of an on-off battle thing with Franky and Senor Pink that never gets resolved. And they kind of lampshade it, how Senor Pink's constant swimming suplex attack (named Nyan Nyan Suplex, apparently) has been done so many times, like 30 times in a row, and Franky has never dodged it. Kind of a lampshade on just how many times we've seen that, isn't it? But apparently whether it be Franky's punches or Senor Pink's suplexes, neither one of them is going to dodge because that wouldn't be the manly thing to do.  That's kind of hilarious, actually. Franky talks about how his 'Strong Style' means that he'll take on Senor Pink's attacks head on because his opponent is as manly as him.

Y'know, even if they fight with nipple lights and diaper bombs.

Franky talks about how he's going to protect the Tontatta, and Senor Pink goes on about how he's going to make the next attack his last. He tells Franky to take his strongest attack, and swims really fast towards Franky -- which is apparently why he's randomly standing so far away. Senor Pink charges at Franky while swimming, and swims up a building straight into the sky. While in mid-air, Senor Pink kind of mutters about how he's closer to Lucy Anne (or Lucian as some has translated her name) and his son Gimlett, before focusing on the fight. Senor Pink reveals that Franky's back is still flesh, and drops down in his ultimate Nyan Nyan Suplex attack, which is named 'Baby Buster'.

Franky, of course, gets up and that lower-right panel of his eyes and mouth glowing with Terminator robot fire is pretty scary yet awesome at the same time. Senor Pink just stands there as Franky unleashes 'Franky Iron Boxing', which is basically a shit-ton of punches.

And then we get a flashback for Senor Pink... which is one of the most fucking sad backstories in One Piece history. Like, ever. Apparently back when he's still a smartly-dressed gentleman, Senor Pink fell in love with this woman, Lucy Anne, who hated pirates, so Senor Pink (who is, of course, a pirate) lied and said he was a banker. They eventually get married, have a kid, and all that... and naturally, Senor Pink is still off doing pirate stuff while working. And one day Senor Pink comes back home to be told that Gimlett's dead thanks to a fever, and when Lucy Anne tried to contact the bank, the little ruse is discovered.

Lucy Anne runs out into a stormy night in anger and the next page shows her in a vegetable state, apparently caught under a landslide during the storm. That would be horrible enough in and of itself, how Senor Pink is just crying and being all sad and stuff, but at one point he brings in their dead son's bonnet and fools around with it, wearing it and making him look like Gimlett... and the vegetative Lucy Anne smiles a bit. And ever since that happened, Senor Pink began dressing like a baby, with the bonnet and the sucker and the diaper. We see a bit of the doctors, the people in the street, Diamante, Trebol and a bunch of people who call him a pervert all react to his new fashion, but he doesn't give a shit, simply because this getup gets his vegetative wife to smile for him.

That is fucking sad. Also makes Senor Pink's ridiculousness feel absolutely sad. Like Baby 5, I'm pretty sure that if I ever read the Dressrosa arc their antics won't feel as ridiculous and random as they initially did. Man, Senor Pink.

Of course, Senor Pink in the present day falls down, and Franky wins... no surprise there, but that backstory kind of made me really feel for Senor Pink. Franky wipes away Pink's tears and promises to drink with him the next time they meet each other while he advances on the factory... well, after so long of having Franky and Pink's fight be interrupted and/or just shown glimpses of, it's kind of a pretty satisfying conclusion.

One Piece's on a hiatus next week (and there aren't any cover stories this chapter) and we're going to enter the final stages of the arc. Zoro vs Pica. Kyros, Robin and Rebecca vs Diamante. Luffy vs Bellamy. Law vs Doflamingo. And Trebol's somewhere in that fight too. Also interested to see how Fujitora and Sabo and their respective factions react to the whole thing. Not to mention the whole CP-0 and Big Mom things that's been kind of placed way in the sidelines.

The Flash S1E11 Review: Evil Hearing Aids

The Flash, Season 1, Episode 11: The Sound and the Fury

Well, that's another awesome episode. I wasn't really too familiar with the Pied Piper as a character -- I know he exists, I know he's a cool anti-hero/anti-villain dude in the comics, I know he's gay, I know his powers... but I'm not acquainted with the character all that much. And as the villain of the episode, he's awesome. It's an awesome episode, really, combining both the 'villain of the week/moral of the week' formula with the whole big Reverse-Flash plot. I certainly was not expecting all the whole Harrison Wells stuff being part of Pied Piper's backstory.

I mean, the Flash still does a fair amount of things in this episode, but it's safe to say that Harrison Wells and Pied Piper (a.k.a. Hartley Rathaway) stole the show. Let's go with Piper first... I'm quite happy to see him be a badass villain. They openly talk about how he's gay, how his father disowned him for coming out (which we saw a bit of last episode when Captain Cold robbed his dear old folks) but other than an off-hand comment about being escorted with men wearing leather, never in this episode did the Pied Piper act like a stereotypically camp gay person, which is a good thing. He's pretty cool, in fact, with his being a gigantic douchebag and being a chessmaster.

I also like how this one villain isn't someone new that Team Flash encounters like practically every other villain out there, but rather a blast from the past. And they simply never mentioned Hartley before simply because 'he was mostly a jerk, but sometimes he's a dick'. And he is! We saw that he's awesome in both chessmastering, he was basically Harrison Wells' second-in-command back in the day, but he is also a gigantic prick. He insults Cisco simply for showing up with a Keep Calm shirt, he dicks around and makes jokes about Ronnie's death in front of Caitlin, slaps Caitlin, he basically treats Cisco like shit and tries to kill Flash just to spite Harrison Wells.

He's kind of a psychopath, but hey, he's got reasons and stuff, so he isn't entirely unsympathetic. Still a gigantic fuckwad, though. I do like his design, keeping the iconic green hood from the comics, even if he hasn't gotten a flute yet and relies on these two metallic gauntlets on his arms to launch sonic waves at stuff which can break stuff. His sonic waves can apparently also move cars in the air and toss them down a dam, because, uh... physics I guess. He's also rendered deaf by the particle explosion, and requires what Cisco dubs to be 'evil hearing aids' to stop a ringing pain going off in his ears, which is kind of a cool concept to tie to the whole sound thing.

Overall he's a petty little shit who's playing a big chess game with Wells, and I do like the little bait and switch. We think that Rathaway knows about the whole Reverse-Flash secret and Wells tried to get him silenced or something, but no. The big secret is that, y'know, Wells had Rathaway fired because Rathaway warned Wells about the possibility of the accelerator blowing up. Which is a fair thing to get angry about, but Rathaway kind of crossed the line after he tried to kill Barry even after Wells had admitted his sin in front of everybody.

I thought some of the sonic waves didn't look so good, actually, though I bet animated those sound waves can't be as easy as the glowing zap lines of Captain Cold and Heat Wave's guns. It's still nice enough to not distract, though, especially in the later scenes.

Rathaway also has a little rivalry going on with Cisco, basically refusing to acknowledge Cisco's worth and getting into verbal fights with Cisco several times. Which I thought was kind of nicely done, and Wells consoling Cisco about how he is the heart of the team, while a bit cheesy, was nice. Rathaway also drops the big bomb on Cisco, though, promising him at the end of the episode that Cisco will let him out because he knows all about Ronnie. Dun dun dunnn! Also didn't expect all this to tie into the Firestorm plot, which is a nice way to make everything connected without turning it into a clusterfuck.

Granted there is the big, gaping plot hole on why they placed Rathaway in their metahuman jail block instead of, y'know, handing him over to the police. I mean, the police arrested Captain Cold and Heat Wave last episode, so why the fuck did they leave Rathaway to Team Flash? He's definitely not a metahuman, people can definitely charge him for resisting arrest and blowing shit up with sonic beams... and he's definitely someone who is pretty likely to figure out a way to break out of that prison.

That's something that really bugged me. And he ended up in the STAR Labs prison not once but twice.

Harrison Wells gets the brunt of the characterization, though! He gets some 'it's nice to be a hero' moments and some cryptic 'oh, yes indeed, we need to document this for the future' lines that, y'know... he also gets a fair bit of characterization that at times makes me doubt that he's actually the same Reverse-Flash that's been going around killing people's mothers and shit. But if there was ever any doubt that Harrison Wells is the Reverse-Flash, he actually gets on his feet and zips around in super-speed, leaving behind red lightning. More on his speed and whatnot later on, but Wells does shine pretty well in this episode. He is certainly humanized more than the heartless chessmaster, and from acknowledging his sins to the public and his friends, admitting his pride (or, y'know, most-likely-deliberate sabotage of the particle accelerator) and generally being taken down off his pedestal is pretty well-written. It's definitely Wells' time to shine this episode.

And that's without all the fun Reverse-Flash stuff. Harrison Wells has super-speed, yes, and he is the Reverse-Flash, yes, but when he ran out of his little Gideon safe chamber, he basically falls down because his legs are vibrating badly, which means that there is something... odd with his speed. Rathaway isn't a secret keeper for Wells' alter ego, however, and we learn at the end of the episode as Wells speaks to Gideon the AI that he is apparently absorbing his speed from the weird robot chest-claw thing... from the Speed Force, which finally is named. Wells notes that he can only absorb around 35% and his speed is fluctuating, which actually gives somewhat of a reason for why he likes to run off from his fights with Flash other than, y'know, plot necessity. And it seems that his 'endgame' is attempting to permanently drain Barry Allen's speed. Or something.

Also, he says 'I failed this city' in his apology speech, which, thanks to Arrow, is absolutely fucking hilarious and I laughed so hard at that one.

Cisco also gets a fair bit of screen time this time around, dealing with his self-worth issues and constantly being put down by Rathaway back then and now, and I do like how he gets really serious when shit gets down, and how Wells later reassures him that the fact that he has empathy and humour isn't a bad thing. It's a pretty fun episode and I do like how the secondary characters are slowly getting fleshed out. Caitlin... I don't think she does anything notable beyond general Caitlin stuff, but next episode's probably going to be a Firestorm one so we might see her do stuff.

The sudden alternation of languages that Rathaway uses to talk to the STAR Labs people (Latin when talking with Wells, Spanish with Cisco and French with Caitlin) is kind of a nice touch to show just how accomplished Rathaway is in things other than physics... and how much of a dickwad he is.

There is a B-plot of Iris getting a job as a reporter, finally, which is her comic book counterpart's job. And there's the twist that the bosses basically don't give a shit about her if she can't pull out her Flash connections and get a Flash story and how her superiors are being a dick to her... which is kind of being somewhat similar to Agent Carter's plot but more subtle. Wells does throw her a bone, which is nice, and I suspect the Flash will be talking to her very very soon, and maybe she'll have to choose between being known as 'that reporter who's only something because she knows the Flash' and being an actual, legit, reporter, which could be an interesting thing to explore.

Joe doesn't do much other than fooling around with Barry's explanation of sound shattering glass, and later having that 'aw' moment with how Barry tells him he can't be replaced (which IMO kind of came out of nowhere) but he's apparently conducting his own investigation of Wells alongside Eddie Thawne (who very may well be an accomplice, but likelier to be a red herring). He does laugh at everything from Cisco's description of Rathaway to Barry's little glass-shattering experiment and he's funny. I like him.

Barry himself... again, other than his interactions being the good guy while talking to Wells and Joe and the rest, I don't think there's anything particularly notable that he does.

Oh, and the Royal Flush Gang reappears! Which is always fun. It's the second appearance of the gang in the CW show's continuity, and this time they're a trio of motorcycle riding thieves or something wearing helmets with card markings they may or may not be the same group with the ones that showed up in Arrow. If they aren't, it is kind of fitting considering how there's like a gajillion different incarnations of the Royal Flush Gang in the DC comics... but it's likely that they are. Which is cool. I like the idea of a Royal Flush Gang hanging around. And the way Flash took them down was funny.

Overall a pretty solid episode, and I'm highly interested to see what's to come. Reverse-Flash, Firestorm, Pied Piper... so many things are going on, and I'm definitely looking forward to the mysteries being unraveled little by little.

Gotham S1E13 Review: Gray Morality

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 13: Welcome Back, Jim Gordon

After the big, explosive last episode, we return to more mundane detective/gangster stuff, with around two big plotlines and a couple absolutely unrelated smaller things going on at the same time. It's actually a pretty fun episode, albeit one that could've had a faster pacing. It's not really that big of a complain in my opinion, though.

The main plot is Gordon confronting Arnold Flass, who DC veterans would recognize as the shitty cop from the Year One comics who Jim Gordon beats up and brings down for being corrupt. Also Gordon's comic-book first partner. And basically the same thing happens here albeit without Gordon beating up Flass in the woods. Though even without prior comic book knowledge, the show doesn't really try to cover up the fact that Flass is a gigantic scumbag who has everyone in his pockets. And the whole drug bust thing isn't really the big interest, though the scene where Jim Gordon just marches up to Flass and arrests him in front of everyone is pretty awesome. We also see how much of a goddamn asshole Flass was, with the victim who he killed being extremely likable. It's a pretty generic 'I'm a good guy, I have a great relationship with my wife, I'm honest oh no I'm dead and here's my grieving family and it's sad' poor victim, but that doesn't make it any less effective.

The thing that makes it more interesting than just some generic police plot is the fact that Gordon, at his wits end with no one really willing to help (he tried Bullock, Essen, and attempting to apprehend Delaware twice) he seeks help from Penguin... and Penguin's second-in-command, Gabriel, basically waterboards Delaware's wife and tortures her to get information out of Delaware. And the scene at the end with Delaware basically begging and broken in front of Gordon and pleading for him to leave his wife and kids alone... it's pretty jarring to see how such a gigantic douchebag like Delaware has been broken down by Gordon's one mistake of trusting his friend, Penguin.

Granted Penguin himself is doing it all in good interest, and he does genuinely want to be friends with Gordon... he just doesn't particularly care how he does it. All the talk about favours and drinking and stuff... A good chunk of the episode is Penguin inviting his slightly-cuccoo mother to Fish Mooney's club, which is pretty much going to be revamped by the Penguin into the Iceberg Lounge in all but name. We get some rather 'eh' moments with Gertrude, and I truly expected Gertrude to be caught in the crossfire between Penguin and Fish... but no, that doesn't happen.

Fish, well... she spends the first third of the episode being dragged into this torture chamber run by this dude called Bob who only manages to slap her once and put her head into a bag. Butch manages to break free and beat Bob up before he could smash Fish's kneecaps, and rescues her... and Fish wants to kill Penguin first before skipping town, which is fair enough, since Penguin is just spending an entire minute's worth of screentime getting drunk and being kind of hilarious (even if that scene ran on for a bit too long). Fish cuts him off before he can name it the Iceberg Lounge, but instead of doing the smart thing and shooting him right there or beating him to death with the baseball bat, Fish forces Penguin to kiss her shoes, and even has an angry shouty-conversation with him for a bit, allowing Mr. Zsasz and his three weird gothic henchwomen to show up and rescue Penguin. Who's a bit more awesome this episode, even when he's still getting beat.

Also Fish brings up the 'umbrella boy' thing, which I totally forgot was a thing. I guess Oswald will start embracing all the things that used to be jeerings to him. He's already embraced the Penguin nickname, after all.

Butch manages to kill one of Zsasz's henchwomen, and Zsasz goes around and gets to make creepy faces and I am definitely liking this incarnation of Zsasz. Butch manages to get Fish to safety and stays behind for a heroic sacrifice... but Zsasz shoots Butch in the knee and I think brings Butch back to torture. Butch is kind of awesome for a minor character this episode, what with his loyalty and everything.

Also, Falcone should've really left Zsasz around near the torture house so Butch couldn't get away.

At the end of the episode Bullock helps Fish escape and get to a ship out of Gotham, but Fish promises vengeance and asks Bullock to help her find Butch, and it's nice to see that Bullock still has his own grayer areas which makes him a bit more complex than just Gordon's ever-snarking partner. I also do like how Bullock and Essen knows all the ins and outs of the corruption, and doesn't really tell Gordon that unless it's relevant because, y'know, Gordon is a crazy warpath of justice and naivete.

That's about it for the two main plots, and time to move to the side-plots. We've got Eddie Nygma doing his Riddler stints, getting shouted at by Bullock... and giving Kringle a non-riddle poem. Of course he gets absolutely humiliated by Kringle's generic-jock friends who discover the poem, but Kringle herself seems to... not mind Nygma's letter enough to apologize for her friends' behaviour, though she still obviously doesn't care much for Nygma himself. Which is nice and all, but I still do think it takes a bit too much screentime. Nygma's scenes while not interacting with Kringle is kind of hilarious, including his gigantic smile when Gordon is arresting Flass.

Also, using a giant magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers to separate onions from his spaghetti or whatever? You know you can just ask the takeout to not include the onions?

The other side-plot involves Bruce Wayne going around looking for Selina, and it takes up, again, a fair bit too much of screen-time. We get the little handwave that Alfred took Bruce to Switzerland or something for a while which was why he wasn't around last episode, but he's going around looking for Selina, wanting to give her a snowglobe. He finds Ivy instead, who's still being creepy (but at least seems to have gotten better) and Ivy asks $20 from him to deliver a message to Selina. And, Selina, of course, being the tough-girl-but-fragile-inside messed up girl that she is, basically tells Bruce to fuck off and lies to him about seeing the Wayne killers. She probably doesn't have real friends and is totally freaked out at the prospect of someone who acts so nicely but in her head is doing it to get something out of her. And thus, Bruce Wayne has smashed a snowglobe and learned what heartbreak is for the first time. I don't... particularly care, I guess?

Relatively great episode, even if Falcone is kind of an idiot for putting Fish in the rather-incompetent Bob's hands, and the slow side-plots... but I must admit, the show does have a couple of tense moments. Fish's torture (even if I don't exactly like Fish), the scene where the witness dude is obviously going to be murdered, the scenes with Penguin fooling around with his mother and I expect Fish to come in and gun her down... The next episode is THE FEARSOME DR CRANE and being a big Scarecrow fan I'm either going to love that episode to bits or bitch all about it.

Arrow S3E10 Review: Team Arrow Without Arrow

Arrow, Season 3, Episode 10: Left Behind

Not quite a huge, eventful episode like the Flash or Gotham episodes this week, but still, after some time without Arrow we finally return to see the aftermath of Oliver Queen's apparent death (spoiler alert: he will return) and most of the episode deals pretty poignantly with Felicity, Diggle and Roy, especially Felicity, simply just breaking down from the pressure of maintaining Star City without Oliver. It's kind of a slower chapter compared to the last one, with several plot threads running along at once -- the rise of a new villain, Merlyn's attempts to do whatever the hell he is planning, moving along the Hong Kong flashback plot with Oliver and Maseo going after Alpha, Felicity basically just falling apart, and Laurel finally donning the Canary garb.

I do like how the episode doesn't bullshit too much about Oliver being dead... to the audience, at least. Felicity, Diggle and the rest reacted pretty badly to the news of Oliver dying, but us, the audience, are greeted with numerous shots of a hooded figure dragging Oliver's corpse away from the cliff. It's actually in trailers and the two main contenders being speculated for the role are Merlyn or Maseo, and the episode reveals that it is, in fact, Maseo. And at the end of the episode Maseo recruits the help of the apparently-still-alive Tatsu to bring Oliver Queen straight back into the land of the living. Not sure how they did that. Lazarus Pit, perhaps? Whatever.

Felicity gets a lot of spotlight here, what with her breaking down, but I think this episode John Diggle and Roy Harper ends up really standing out, since Diggle in particular hasn't really done jack shit this season and to be honest Roy hasn't been doing much other than replacing Sarah as Oliver's backup. Diggle even dons the Arrow costume for the opening shot! It's apparently way too tight for him, though. I do like how they're just going on with the fight and it's a nice change of pace to see the two of them working together and beating people up and stuff like that. They're fun. We get a lot of cool Roy acrobatics... the action scenes in this episode were pretty awesome.

Felicity shows a lot more of the emotional side of things as she initially refuses to believe that Oliver is dead, and the show kind of tells us that it's only been 3 days so we're a bit behind the Flash in the timeline and this places this episode in December 2014. Felicity is just so... broken, I guess. She tries so hard to function both among Team Arrow and in Ray's company, but she ends up just breaking down. There was that scene where she just breaks down in front of Ray and telling him that she can't help him 'commit suicide', and she kind of fucked up the whole operation against Brick by calling in the cops and leading to their escape.

Ray is still fun even if I think he gets a bit too much screentime. He's continuing to work on the Atom suit, namely the gauntlet, though it's a bit too close to Iron Man scenes for my tastes. There are some troubles with chips and whatnot (and Felicity is refusing to help) and I do like the scene when he basically uncharacteristically tells Felicity to not pull the 'this is what Anna would've wanted' card. Which is definitely something a lot more fictional characters need to do, because using dead people you don't know as justification for emotionally manipulating other people, as good as your intentions are? That's disrespectful.

Meanwhile, we seem to have the rise of yet another major villain, Brick (a.k.a. Daniel Brickwell), who is one of the few DC villains that uniquely belongs to Green Arrow. I admit I'm completely unfamiliar with Brick himself and thought that he's just a big mafia boss dude, but there is apparently more than meets the eye to Brick. Not only is the guy playing him pretty charismatic and hammy... and hammy is good... he does feel threatening and when Diggle shot him in the head, apparently he has really hard skin or something going on. Mirakuru? A metahuman from Central City? He's building up an army of criminals with a grudge against Team Arrow by tearing down the legal system and destroying evidences and whatnot and, well, I'm not exactly paying much attention to all the legal stuff being waved around, but I guess Brick is going to be an arc villain similar to Brother Blood in season two.

And as much as I dislike Laurel, I must admit her build-up to taking up the mantle of the Canary (or rather, the Black Canary) is done pretty well. I do like how she's the one who keeps hanging on to hope that Oliver will return as one by one Felicity and Diggle's resolves are broken down by how ineffective they are. Though if we don't know Oliver will be coming back, I'm sure Laurel's crusade will be another in a series of self-destructive decisions. But she's apparently going to take the mantle of Black Canary at least for now, and she finally dons her costume... which, while still being black form-fitting leather, is actually different from Sarah's. Only the mask and the wig are shared. She kicks ass in one scene and I do like how she's playing it smart with Sarah's Canary Cry grenade things now.

Shame she kind of ruined her big entrance by not saying 'I'm the Canary' but some silly 'I'm the justice you cannot run from' or some cheesy thing like that.

Merlyn was pretty awesome in this episode too, stealing every scene he comes in. His sparring and constant manipulation of Thea's emotions, showing up in the Arrow Cave to deliver the bad news and everything... though I did feel that he moved from one place to another was way too fast with little to no transition. He basically moves back and forth from the Arrow Cave to Nanda Parbat and back with not much interlude in between. And for whatever reason he wants Thea to leave Star City and never return (which was what Thea said in season 2's finale, but, y'know...)

Thea was pretty strong in the few scenes she showed up in, and that scene with Roy where she's just so scared about what's happened to Ollie and asks Roy to ask the Arrow for help... that was heartbreaking for the two of them. And I do like how Thea, while still clueless about Oliver's alter ego, is at least not stupid enough to let Arsenal get past him.

The flashback side of the plot was pretty fun, with Amanda Waller being a gigantic chessmaster as always, and both Maseo and Oliver really wanting to mount a rescue for Tatsu while knowing the importance of placing priorities. I do like how Oliver helping Maseo out by placing a tracer on one of China White's goons ended up earning him the life debt, and the two scenes are placed pretty well next to each other. Oliver still has some problem killing people, and it's interesting what's going to happen in between Hong Kong and the start of season one that turns Oliver from the reluctant assassin that he is here and the cold-blooded killer he will become. I also do like how this allows Oliver to still have a presence in the episode while being almost entirely absent in the present-day scenes.

Also, interestingly, both Maseo and Tatsu survive Hong Kong in the present day (and Maseo isn't a gender-swapped version of Katana like many people speculated), but they are living apart. And Katana's comic-book backstory involved the deaths of her entire family. So maybe something bad is going to befall their son?

It's a pretty strong episode, if not particularly a spectacular one. But for a more emtion-oriented episode with several nice action scenes, it's one that lets the supporting cast shine. Granted I thought the pacing could've been better as Merlyn seemed to be a pretty quick way just to get the plot from points A to B, and the flashbacks do take up a fair too much of the episode's runtime, but in my opinion it's still a pretty solid episode.

One PIece 774: Pointless Tontatta

One Piece Chapter 774: Leo, the Tontatta Troop Leader

Remember how I said in the last chapter how we should be wrapping things up now with the big fights? Of course we fucking don't, and we cut away to the most filler-worthy and least interesting of everything that's going on in Dressrosa right now: the Tontatta rescuing their princess and apparently Jora's still up and about. I just find that I don't really care all that much.

The cover story has Jinbe scolding Wadatsumi, and I guess in another couple of chapters the cover story will finally be done?

The chapter starts of kind of strongly, with Diamante facing off against Robin, Rebecca and Kyros. Robin notes how Diamante is handicapping them too much, presumably with the flowing ground, but Diamante is apparently confident that he has the upper hand against the three people there. Apparently Robin isn't going to get in the way of Kyros' vendetta, promising to protect Rebecca while Kyros takes down Diamante. Which is... acceptable, I guess, but I wanted to see Robin fight...

We cut away to random soldiers who are taking Gladius' unconscious body away, and Bartolomeo, instead of, y'know, barrier-ing them to death, just lets them leave. Why, Bartolomeo? Why aren't you doing any of your crazy ultra-violent things? Jeez.

Sadly, we cut away to the Tontatta, who are being contacted by Viola. Viola has seen that Jora has taken ahold of Princess Mancherie and apparently wants to force the little Tontatta to make use of her abilities... because of course she has one. It's apparently the Heal Heal Fruit, which kind of makes sense that they want to lock her up... though wouldn't it be more practical to kill her and have the fruit respawn? Eh, whatever.

Leo and the Rhinoceros Beetle Tontatta are charging through the pirate mooks, while Jora is doing her annoying thing of saying -zamasu at the end of everything and going all 'who are you calling Boa Hancock?' and all that. We get our first look at Mancherie, who of course is just a little girl and all that who doesn't want to fight. Jora orders Mancherie to use the powers of the Heal-Heal Fruit on the defeated executives... Machvise, Dellinger, Lao G and Sugar. How did Dellinger get there so fast? Also, no one gives a shit about poor Buffalo, apparently.

Jora also notes that Mancherie was the one responsible for Sugar's recovery earlier. But Mancherie has discovered (somehow) that, gasp, the Donquixote Pirates jailing her up are bad people! Jora and the others are stricken by her cuteness before Jora kind of... tries to twist Mancherie's head off or something, but that causes her to cry and her tears apparently revive a random mook.

Viola tells Leo that Jora is basically PG-torturing Mancherie to get the tears out, and Leo is, of course, just being all heroic and shit and I don't care about the damn Tontatta. We get Usopp freaking out over the idea of Sugar getting resurrected, which is kind of funny sort of, but then there's a drawn-out sequence of people screaming for Leo to help, Jora squeezing the tears out, and Kabu knocking the unconscious bodies of the other executives away with 'Beetle Upper'. Kind of boring, honestly.

Leo uses his stitch-stitch fruit, which I honsetly totally forgot he had, to stitch everyone of the wounded to Jora, and pulls their bodies as projectiles to squash Jora flat in 'Auto-Couture: Patchwork'. It's kind of an interesting attack if I cared about Leo, and we get a heroic moment where Leo catches Mancherie and jokes about her weight... well, I still don't care about the Tontatta. What about that bee Devil Fruit girl Tontatta? Where did she disappear off to? Also, Leo's Stitch-Stitch fruit is kind of a shitty version of Doflamingo's String-String Fruit, isn't it?

Bah. I don't care. The Tontatta is dealt with in as well as they possibly could've been, and I really wished this was dealt with far earlier in this arc. It's kind of even more pointless than the lesser executives being taken out, and I'm just antsy to get to the good parts of the climax.

Gotham S1E12 Review: Electrocutioner vs Maroni; Fish vs Falcone

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 12: What the Little Bird Told Him

After a wobbly past few episodes, Gotham proves that when it comes to Big Events, it can pull it off pretty well. It's kind of like Agents of Shield in that aspect, actually. Anyway, the big thing this time is two-fold. Fish finally makes his move against Don Falcone, while the Electrocutioner takes the battle against Don Maroni. Meanwhile, Gordon is tasked to take down the Electrocutioner with his career at stake. Also, the Penguin.

I'm going to talk about the Fish/Falcone bits first because those are more interesting to me. After being built up for half the season, Fish's BIG MOVE turns out to be pretty... pathetic, actually. After her rather smart manipulation of people during that armoury job, her masterstroke apparently involves her just forcibly kidnapping Lisa and forcing Falcone to step down. Really, Fish? I expected more from you. Though I did like the little speech that Fish gives about Falcone being weak and this way at least he can be happy... I kind of believe that, somewhat.

Lisa is... well, she obviously is starting to like Don Falcone's treatment of her, and how much of a gentleman Falcone is that she keeps asking Fish to not really hurt Falcone. And it's obvious that Falcone doesn't really have that much of a beef with Lisa personally.

But Falcone, despite actually looking like kind of a weak old has-been earlier who only has Zsasz and Penguin truly supporting him, ends up gaining a fire at the end of the episode. We get him wistfully remarking about how nice it would be to actually retire, about how Fish might have actually deserved her spot and whatnot... and then he fucking chokes Lisa to death, which was the most surprising scene period in Gotham. I did not expect that, and that was a brutal yet awesome twist. Falcone's turned pretty awesome by trusting Penguin's words enough to at least have his forces stationed as backup, while he confirms Lisa's betrayal himself by looking into her eyes or some shit like that. And, man, that choke-to-death? That was brutal. And freaking sad, somewhat.

To her credit, Fish tries to move in but she really can't do much.

So Fish and Butch are being kept alive because Falcone apparently has plans, but I don't see them surviving really long considering just how absolutely angry Falcone was for them desecrating the memory of his mother.

Victor Zsasz also makes a reappearance, being his usual creepy self, and that alone really makes him fun. He's hella loyal to Falcone, though, shutting up quickly after suggesting that he can take out Fish's entire crew by himself. And I absolutely believe him, that crazy psychopath.

The Penguin... he's been having a pathetic series of scenes lately, hasn't he? Last episode he was a massive butt monkey that's a stark contrast to his normal planning, and all he did in this episode to ensure Fish's downfall (which I had thought to be some elaborate, well-thought-out-plan) ends up being him just telling Falcone at the right time... which I guess was when Fish and Lisa make their move, I suppose? Granted it does make some sense with Falcone probably going to be obstinate and distrustful of Penguin if the kidnapping hadn't gone down, but when I watched the episode it was kind of confusing.

Penguin shows up first in this episode at a big lunch session with the Maronis, at which point Falcone orders him to come back. Going off with the excuse of his sick mother, he ends up getting zapped by the Electrocutioner, and apparently being shocked into unconsciousness by a gajillion volts of electricity causes him to randomly go into spasms and shout that he's working for Falcone right in front of Maroni. And then he gets lugged around like trash, gets confronted by Maroni, and then gets electrocuted again. He's all smug at the end of the episode but unlike his previous appearances there's nothing that he did that's particularly noteworthy in his normal massively planned-out playing-people-against-each-other schtick. It's a shame, really. I expected Penguin to do more than just rat Lisa to Falcone at the right time...

Though I guess all that's well ends well? For Penguin, at least. Fish, not so much. Lisa? Definitely not.

Maroni kind of looks like a moron. Not only is he just being subservient to Gordon telling him to go into custody, Maroni realises that Penguin is working for Falcone, but doesn't let him off with any more than a stern talking-to. Granted I'm going to assume Penguin made a deal with him, but really? Well, I guess we know why Maroni's name sounds a lot like 'moron'. He's being a big funny ham, though, and him just swaggering in the police station was fun.

We also meet Commissioner Loeb, who appears to be a corrupt stern bastard. He gets head-to-head with Gordon, but Gordon manages to push the right buttons to give him one last chance to get reinstated. Gordon was kind of awesome in how he just refuses to back down, but he's kind of outshone by Bullock, who is just so damned hilarious the entire episode. He's basically dragged into Loeb's deal without doing anything wrong, and Gordon doesn't even have a proper plan. He's hilarious, he's pissed off at Gordon yet kind of impressed by him at the same time. Bullock's just fun all around.

The Electrocutioner dresses up in kind of a nice little getup with some kind of crazy electrocution gauntlet and machinery strapped onto his person, and actually gets called the Electrocutioner several times on-screen. Also, he's apparently not Jack Gruber, but Jack Budchinsky, so he's definitely related to the comic Electrocutioner. And apparently he wants to get into Arkham Asylum to observe stuff or something? Eh, dude's kind of crazy. And I like him! Electrocutioner is just such a massive ham. He's basically out for blood for his four partners that screwed him over. He lobotomized one and forced him two write 'I shall not betray my friends' over and over like a vegetable, and is out for Maroni, which leads him into the path of our heroes.

We get some actually awesome scenes that would feel right at home in a more sci-fi heavy show like Agents of Shield or the Flash, with the Electrocutioner zapping up the entire building, launching weird Transformer electricty-bombs and even somehow using electrical whips to swipe off Gordon's gun. Somehow. And, naturally, since he's the Electrocutioner he gets taken out in the most anticlimactic way possible, by Gordon pouring a cup of water on his gizmo, at which point he just blinks and goes 'oh' with such a hilarious expression on his face.

That was freaking awesome and hilarious. And absolutely appropriate for the Electrocutioner. Apparently being taken out like a bitch in less than two seconds is something that runs in the family.

Amygdala is just a thug, and is apparently Aaron Denzig instead of Aaron Helzinger, but for all intents and purposes is basically the same dude, which is 'dumb muscle without a moral sense'. He gets taken out quite quickly, but I liked that someone remembers he exists.

There was also a lot more Riddler than normal, though it wasn't as grating as his previous large screentime. He gets to be useful and helpful for a good chunk of it, introducing the rubber boots, and the scene where he creeps on Kringle ran for a bit too long. We get people calling him a weirdo and a creep and he seems definitely bothered by it, so we may get to see the Riddler's descent into darkness sooner than later, I suppose? (The cupcake riddle made absolutely no sense, though)

At the end of the episode Gordon gets his job back, which is fun and good even if that kind of makes the mid-season cliffhanger of Gordon being deported into Arkham pointless since it's resolved in less than two episodes. Beyond putting Gordon into conflict with the higher-ups, at least.

And I guess there is Barbara's scene. She goes home to her parents, who I'm sure aren't pleasant people despite looking pleasant right now. Or they may be. Either way my sympathy for Barbara will still be non-existent and I still don't give two shits about her.

But I'm not going to go into a five-paragraph rant about that bitch, and leave this review on a happy note. It was a good one, if slightly uneven.

The Flash S1E10 Review: I really love this show

The Flash, Season 1, Episode 10: Revenge of the Rogues

Yeah, that was quite a long wait for the Flash. It's back, though, and, man, what an episode to return to! We get the reappearance of Captain Cold, my favourite character in the series, and he's brought his buddy Heat Wave. And, well, mother of hells, they do make the two of them really feel like their comic book counterparts. Heat Wave in particular. And not only that, we also get a few more intriguing details about the whole Firestorm thing, which is apparently F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M. and is related to one Martin Stein and one Jason Rusch. There's also some foreshadowing for future characters, as well as a wee bit on Iris, Eddie and Wells.

Of course, being a Flash episode there's bound to be a moral, though again this is executed rather beautifully even if they do spend a wee bit too much time on it at the climatic battle. The moral this time is basically 'going faster is not always the answer' and indeed Barry is obsessed with outspeeding the Reverse-Flash at the beginning of the episode and it's only by slowing down that he and Wells manage to outwit the Rogues. Barry is still in tiptop shape, doing general Barry stuff, and I do like how he tries to make priorities and put the Reverse-Flash over the Rogues, and that ends up costing the policemen pretty dearly.

There are some cool sequences like the opening battle with that crazy sci-fi attack drone, which is a lot more beautiful than what I would expect from a throwaway opening sequence. And we get a massively awesome battle of Flash just zipping around while tongues of flame and ice beams shoot around. It's just random beams of light moving around a screen and Barry's obviously going to win, but for whatever reason I was just smiling all throughout the battle and felt just so freaking happy that they're just doing this comic book thing without any pretense of being overtly gritty or realistic. Also, those are quite well-done fire blasts and ice beams and whatnot.

And, of course, thanks to Captain Cold and Heat Wave, the Flash is now revealed to the entire world. Yay! Also he gets called the Scarlet Speedster, which is a nice nod to the comics as well.

Captain Cold and Heat Wave are just hamming it up this episode and they are freaking glorious. New arrival Heat Wave has gotten a more urbanized version of his classic costume, though he still keeps the goggles and the heat gun is a lot more faithful than I expected it would be. There's the weird little fuel tank just hanging out there, and the triangle-shaped barrel... and Heat Wave is as much a pyromaniac that has a love-hate relationship with Captain Cold as his comic book counterpart. We get some sequences of him just looking into matches and infernos and saying about how it's beautiful and everything, we've got that scene that shows that he has burn scars all over his body and he rants about how being burnt has freed what he really is... it's a nice depiction of pyromania that highlights all the psychopathic tendencies yet doesn't go too overboard.

Also, I do like Heat Wave being portrayed as a dumb thug, yet not one that's brainless. He's ready to face off against Cold during that terse moment in the base, he's ready to call Cold out when they were just baiting the Flash by robbing the exotic car expo, and has that moment where he talks to Cold and thinks about what to do before burning the painting...

Also Heat Wave is just a big ham, isn't he? "I don't understand why they call you cops the heat. I AM THE HEAT!" That scene just cracks me up.

Captain Cold also brings more awesome to the table with his micro-managing and his anger at Heat Wave for losing control, but he definitely respects and appreciates Heat Wave a lot more than the random thugs he killed (and spared) in his debut episode. I do like Cold. It's more of the same compared to the last episode with the added obsession with taking down the Flash... as well as the subtle parallel to how Barry himself is obsessed at taking down the Reverse-Flash. Cold is a pretty cool villain, if you'll pardon the pun, and plays off Heat Wave extremely well. I still think Heat Wave stole the show this time around, but Cold is still very very awesome. Not really much to say about Cold, really, other than the fact that he is still freaking awesome.

Also, even if they get captured by the police at the end of the episode, we know it's not going to last as they're broken out almost immediately by Cold's sister, Lisa Snart... otherwise known as the supervillain Golden Glider. We don't get to see most of her, just her hand, but that is truly unexpected! I was honestly expecting Pied Piper to come to the rescue considering how he's everywhere in the trailers and his parents had a cameo in this episode, but no! Plus, I'd think the show would introduce the other 'main' members, Mirror Master and the second Weather Wizard. But Golden Glider is cool.

Also, Pied Piper's parents, the Rathaways, make an appearance as the rich upper-class people who Cold and Heat Wave steal that painting from. The father rejects a call from his son Hartwell Rathaway and claims that he doesn't have a son anymore, and I'm going out on a limb to say that it's because of his, y'know, gay-ness. We'll see. Pied Piper's slated to appear in the next episode or something and I certainly want to see him. MORE ROGUES!

There were a couple of B-plot running alongside the main Rogues plot, most of it focusing on Caitlin finding out more about Firestorm before being captured by Cold. I honestly expected Captain Cold to leave behind an ice grenade that'll kickstart the whole Killer Frost thing, but I guess we can take our time with that.

Anyway, in an attempt to research Firestorm, Caitlin and Barry both discover that 'Firestorm' is, in fact, an acronym for 'Fusion, Ignition, Research Experiment and Science of Transmutation Originating RNA and Molecular Structures'. We get a quick explanation from the two of them regarding Firestorm's nuclear powers, and it's nice to see that they're not just dumbing Firestorm down into what's basically the Human Torch and is actually acknowledging the geekiness of Firestorm's chemistry textbook powers.


Caitlin tracks down the author of the paper, Jason Rusch (Firestorm II in the comics), and after a bit confronts him about the Firestorm project. Rusch explains that his professor, one Martin Stein (hint, hint) has gone missing after the funding for the Firestorm project was shut down and he apparently received help from an unknown benefactor. Well, I know Stein and Ronnie are going to be Firestorm and there are going to be some weird personality stuff involved, but throwing in what I'm assuming to be Wells into the fray... plus the whole conspiracy thing... it certainly makes me get all excited for the Firestorm. This is an excellent take on the character's origin, keeping it extremely faithful yet making me so interested in it.

Caitlin herself, for her credit, isn't afraid to stare down Heat Wave, though I can't help but think that the whole bomb situation ends up being too much of a distraction especially with the constant cutting back and forth between the Flash/Cold/Heat Wave triple battle.

Wells is still being a kind mentor, in a fashion, despite the reveal to the audience that he is the, or a, Reverse-Flash. He almost stands up in the opening sequence to rescue Barry from that one missile (which is yet another cool sequence) and gets some rather ominous lines in the episode, though he lightens the mood up by acknowledging some of Cisco's nicknames like Captain Cold and the Reverse-Flash.

Cisco does his nicknaming thing, of course, coming up with Heat Wave (of course), and name-drops Ghostbusters and crossing-the-streams, but he actually gets a pretty cool moment when he demonstrates the anti-Cold riot shields and gives that speech about making up for their past mistakes. Surprisingly mature there, Cisco.

Eddie gets over the fact that the Flash tries to murder him a couple episodes back, and manages to save Barry by blocking him with Cisco's riot shield for the few crucial seconds for Barry to get up and speed them to safety. I guess most is forgiven between the two of them? They get a cool shot together while arresting the Rogues. Granted I'm not quite sure why Barry doesn't just zip towards the Rogues and tear the guns away from them in super-speed, but I guess we can't have a cool fight if that happens.

Iris gets a couple of harmless scenes where she's preparing to move out and Barry later makes peace with the fact that Iris and Eddie are going to be together, and there are a couple of touching scenes between Iris and Barry, as well as Iris and Joe. And apparently Barry moves back into Joe's house to at least keep his foster father figure company.


Man, this episode was awesome. I like it so much. It's such a comic-book show, it's got such nice characters, and it has pretty great self-contained pacing while still building up to larger things.

Gotham S1E11 Review: Leslie Thompkins! Amygdala! Electrocutioner!

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 11: Rogues' Gallery

There are many things in this episode that I can easily divide into the good and the bad. Rarely have I been so divisive with an episode before, where I really like the inclusion of some things, and just don't give a fuck about everything else.

I dunno. I've been cranky lately.

Anyway, the biggest thing for me here is the introduction of longtime Batman supporting character, Dr. Leslie Thompkins, which is actually a pretty sensible choice to include in Gotham which I never really thought of before. She's pretty likable, even if her personality is the generic 'likable person in a sea of assholes'. Granted, her personality never really grew beyond that in the comics I've read, but I don't mind having Leslie around. She's got a fair amount of scenes, but I don't think there are anything particularly noteworthy. I could rant about how she should be the age of Alfred instead of looking as young as Gordon, but honestly that doesn't bother me too much.

Jack Gruber, the only smart and sane inmate in Arkham Asylum, of course, escapes to survive another day. I do like Jack Gruber, who, as the internet informs me, is meant to be a new incarnation of the Electrocutioner. He's an extremely minor Batman villain who shows up to die in Arkham City. Gruber is definitely a different Electrocutioner from the one in Arkham City (who's named Lester Budchinsky or something like that), and goes around with a pair of gigantic electric gauntlets and shocking people around. This Electrocutioner is a soft-spoken dapper psychopath who goes around doing electroshock experiments on Arkham inmates to bend them to his will. It's a rather interesting villain and one that I think has almost as much staying power as Zsasz or Penguin does.

Of course, the other theory is that he's possibly going to become the Joker in the future because his name is Jack and he's crazy and being built up as a villain. Yeah no.

The third comic-book character in this episode is one that I am extremely happy to realize without having to look up, which is another minor Batman villain, Amygdala. Known only by his first name Aaron in the episode, Amygdala here is shown in a relatively faithful depiction as a really mentally ill man who is unable to tell lies or have a proper moral compass, so he follows the orders of anyone who seems smart... which happens to be Gruber, here.

I'm also a rather big fan of the scene where Bullock just storms in all swaggering to help out his buddy, arresting that asshole head warden or whatever and generally being so happy to help Gordon out. Bullock is fun.

That's about all the really good things I like about this episode, though. It's an atmospheric one, setting up the Arkham Asylum and what seems to be a recurring villain, but at the same time it's so padded out. The whole cop show routine of Gordon trying to figure out what's going on, who's the killer and interviewing the crazy inmates and failing, and the supervisor being a gigantic obstructive douchebag... It's just really boring and it just drags on and on and I am entirely bored in any scene that doesn't have Bullock or Gruber in it. Did we really need that extended sequence of them doing that stupid play in the beginning?

Props to portraying the insane inmates as actually insane instead of just angry prisoners, though.

And we cut off to a lot of other scenes, because so much is going on yet nothing of significance is really happening. We have a little B-plot where the Penguin fucks up and spends the episode in jail, we've got Fish slowly inching her plot for domination forwards, we've got Fish's second-in-command Butch wrestling with his loyalty to a close friend or to Fish, we've got Selina helping out Poison Ivy, we've got the grand return of Barbara who proves to nestle straight back into "alpha bitch" territory, plus the stupid romance with Renee...

There's just too much going on, but nothing really does happen beyond the introductions and the setup. The main Gordon/Arkham plot is basically just a glorified filler episode that really is padded out, with some cryptic hints to whoever is really running the city and has a lot of agendas, of course. And a lot of the people introduced in this episode on the Arkham side ended up being red herrings. The black supervisor jerkass dude who 'knows stuff' ends up getting killed by Gruber at the end of the episode, and the not-Leslie nurse who at first seemed to be the villain-of-the-episode gets trampled right after the big reveal. (There really was no tension to that reveal, though, since Leslie is a lot more obviously a good guy even without prior comic knowledge.)

Also, how in the flying fuck can an inmate pose as a nurse without anyone realizing it? Even the boss, as much as a jerk he is in trying to get Gordon fired, would have thought that the moment someone gets lobotomized the first suspect would be her. It took a long while of Bullock grilling him that he finally relents. Jeez.

Though I guess this is Arkham Asylum.

Anyway, the other characters... Penguin started off well, with the whole 'I'm the Penguin', seemingly having embraced his identity... and then spends the entire episode waffling and generally being submissive and having fucked up, getting torn apart verbally by Bullock and later by Maroni, which is kind of jarring considering just how entertaining and how much of a 'I have a plan' he has been these past few episodes. And I just don't see the point of everything, beyond driving a rift between Penguin and Maroni, which really could've been done far more elegantly. It really begs to question if this is going to mean something down the line, or if it's just showing Penguin for the sake of showing Penguin... in which case it's the first time in the series that it falls really flat on its face.

The Fish/Butch angle was kind of obvious. I mean, it's done kind of well and Butch does get some personality, which I like. Butch has to choose between his close friend Whatshisface and his loyalty to Fish... except if, y'know, it isn't so blindingly obvious what Butch's answer is going to be. Felt kind of dragged out, but nowhere as much as all the other B-plots in this episode.

I did like how Selina is nice enough to help out the dying Poison Ivy despite Selina being scared shitless of Ivy last episode... but knowing Ivy's backstory, Selina really should've known better than to bring her to Gordon's apartment to recover. Ivy's really playing the creepy child card really well, and I guess she's going to have a personal vendetta against Gordon somehow despite being a scrawny little girl? She seems to have discovered the identity of the house's owner anyway. Also we totally needed that ten seconds of the camera panning on a shot of Selina perching on the balcony. Because that's totally necessary.

Ivy is, apparently, a vegan when she was a child. I find this darkly hilarious.

And, of course, there is Barbara, who really needs some goddamned therapy. Firstly she's a gigantic bitch to Renee simply for her trying to look out for her best interests. Secondly, she's a gigantic bitch who refuses to address all her problems like a mature woman. Thirdly, she apparently cannot tell a ten-year-old girl's voice from what I assume to be her thinking that it's Gordon's new girlfriend. (Also, damn hypocrite if she gets pissed if Gordon moved on when she left him to sleep with Renee in the same night). Fourthly? She's a gigantic bitch.

Technically it's a pretty serviceable episode, sufficiently engaging enough, but it's so padded out and the general premise is kind of boring at times and that kind of eclipses all the good vibes I would've otherwise gotten. I get the same feel that I did from the Agent Carter pilot where beyond a couple specific points, I just can't bring myself to care about much that's going on.

Or maybe I'm just sleepy. Eh.

Agent Carter Episode 1 Review: 'whelmed

Agent Carter, Pilot: Now is Not the End

As a testament to the fact that one shouldn't read reviews before watching or reading something, I was absolutely freaking underwhelmed with Agent Carter's pilot episode, despite all the rave reviews it's received. It's actually a pretty okay pilot, certainly a stronger one than, say, Gotham's pilot... but I just can't bring myself to really care.

I don't particularly care about Agent Carter as a character even before I watched the pilot, and indeed I find it really, really hard to care about any of Captain America's supporting cast that were introduced in his first movie. Partly because they're all too dead to matter in the present day, and being set as a period piece isn't really impressive for me. And that's really a problem that a lot of 'Zero' stories done in manga have, or even some parts of Arrow or Gotham. I don't particularly care for some random plot introduced that doesn't have a bearing on the present-day plot. And, y'know, a lot of things have already revealed to have happened. We know Hydra will infiltrate SHIELD, we know Carter will marry someone, we know Howard Stark will end up getting murdered by Hydra, we know his name will be cleared, we know Peggy Carter won't die anywhere throughout the show, et cetera, et cetera.

Overall the pilot was... beautifully produced, I have to give them that. It's got all the post-WWII atmosphere or whatever going on and it's just that, y'know, I don't really fucking care. All the sexism will probably appeal to a lot of feminists out there, how Carter is going to step over all the sexism that is rampant in that period, but I thought the show is just being so unsubtle with the sexism, like the completely needless, distracting and cringe-inducing scene of Carter threatening to rip out a random douchebag jerk's brachial artery for being a misogynist... which is all nice and well, but does it have a place in the episode? I'm all for a strong female lead and sexual equality, of course, but there is a line between portraying sexism and being really, really painfully obvious about it.

I'm not going to get into a major debate about feminists or sexism or whatever. All for gender equality. But I certainly dislike just how painfully anvillicious this aspect of the show is, and at points it takes away from Carter's character and the whole spy plot, and it kind of signs something that's pretty m'eh if half of Carter's personality is going to be just her showing that she can be competent in spite of being in a men-dominated workplace. Era-oriented realism aside, that's kind of... eh, I dunno. It's a gigantic can of worms I'd prefer not to open.

There's also the 'ladies' matters' excuse that Carter gives the male agents, and the reactions from the male agents were quite funny. I guess sex ed weren't that great back then?

It's not my major complaint, though. There is a big plot going on about how Carter is going to go around and gather all the 'bad babies' that has been stolen from Howard Stark's vault, and she comes into contact with this mysterious organization Leviathan who apparently makes its members be mute so they can talk through some weird mechanical translator thing. All the while Carter has to work with Edwin Jarvis, Howard Stark's butler, who is freaking hilarious. Both Carter and Jarvis are strong personalities on their own to make me like the episode a lot more than Gotham's pilot, and Jarvis in particular is rather fun for his constant henpecked trying-to-hide-the-spy-life-from-his-wife antics.

There's that moment where it's kind of sad that Carter's roommate got killed off-screen, which I thought was a pretty jarring turn from the rest of the episode, which was pretty well done.

Pacing wise they could've done better. I thought the typewriter thing that the Levianthan dude did to communicate with his superiors is kind of a cool concept, but after they take the time to clickety-clack through every single line being talked back and forth you'd think they would trim it down a bit. Also thought Peggy infiltrating the casino was dragged on a fair bit as well.

There were also some nice little shout-outs to other Marvel movies, like the Vita rays, the entire concept of Jarvis, Anton Vanko showing up, and some other stuff too.

The supporting cast is... well, they don't do much other than Jarvis or Stark, since it's the first episode, but we've got the competent boss of the SSR, the sexist misogynist douchebag, and the nice crippled dude who stands up for Carter. I don't know if any of them are people in the comics since I'm not a big Marvel comics geek, so I don't particularly care.

But overall I just can't really bring myself to care about Agent Carter's show. I mean, more power to the people who do, since it's a beautifully crafted show and I'm sure it'll appeal a lot to people who like period pieces and whatnot, and it's cool we're getting a show starring a woman... but, y'know, a lot of stuff make me just don't really care about this show enough to follow it regularly.

There's just too much things that are just random generic stuff. It's like Agents of Shield with its generic evil sci-fi technology organization, only they swapped out 'Centipede' with 'Leviathan' and super-cyborg-implants with neon orange globe-bombs. There really isn't much promise of anything really superhero-y like Agents of Shield or the Flash, and... well, I dunno. It doesn't feel like something I would really like. It's a solid pilot, and I just, y'know, don't particularly care. I will probably give episodes two and three a shot, but I don't particularly care about Agent Carter or indeed anything in the setting of the show enough -- the post-WWII era, the founding of SHIELD, the whole premise of yet another big evil organization -- to feel guilty about not following the show at all. I dunno. I'm not hating on the show just because it has rave reviews or whatever. It's just that I'm pretty underwhelmed unless some big game-changer superheroes or whatever gets in play.

It's like... I watch Arrow and the Flash because they are adaptations of comic book superheroes, and I didn't even care about the Flash enough to check it out until the second or third episodes before it became my all-time favourite superhero TV show, and the only reason I watched Arrow was because of Deathstroke. And Agents of Shield, as much as I like it, is an unevenly paced show... but it stars Coulson, someone I care about, and runs in the background of a movie series I really adore. Gotham, for being such a bland show, is, y'know, about Batman characters.

Agent Carter? I don't care about her as a character. Not because she's a woman, because I will watch the shit about a show starring Catwoman or Black Widow or Wonder Woman or Mockingbird or Starfire or the Wasp or any of the many female superheroes out there. I don't care about Agent Carter specifically, nor do I care about Howard Stark or Edwin Jarvis. Or the Post-WWII setting. I just... don't. And the pilot isn't really impressive enough to budge me off my indifference. If I'm really bored, I'll probably watch the next episodes. Apparently there are only going to be eight? It's really hard to care about just some random plot that happened in the past that can be resolved in under eight episodes.

TL;DR... it's cool that this show exists. It's awesome that a woman is finally being a main character in a TV show. Good that we're addressing sexism. It's a beautiful pilot. It's just that... the entire premise and setting of the show just doesn't click together with me enough to bring me to care. More power for all of you who do, though, 'cause it's a well-done show and I liked what I saw.

One Piece 773 Review: Bartolomeo's Spotlight

One Piece, Chapter 773: Half and Half

Finally! It's been quite a while since we have had a new chapter of One Piece (and Bleach, and Toriko, and Magi...) but it's finally back. We open with a cover story, and apparently Wadatsumi, who has been revealed as the one behind all the missing buildings and whatnot, is doing so in return for the offerings on a shrine because, uh, uh... shit, I don't even know what's going on. Maybe Wadatsumi is just being dumb and shit? Once all this is over I'll have to read everything in one sitting to make sense of it.

We start off picking up where we left off last year, with Cavendish-Hakuba having taken down Dellinger in one slash. And indeed Dellinger is basically just out. Bartolomeo is freaking out over the weirdness of Cavendish's transformation, noting how his face has changed and how that was what happened during the Coliseum match. Then we have Bartolomeo just being an idiot and going all 'he's not Cavendish, he's some other dish! I wonder what dish that is!' Hakuba then slashes at Bartolomeo's barrier and freaks him out, but the barrier holds fast. Hakuba then catches sight of Robin and goes after her, but Robin, after being in a passive role for quite a while, manages to finally show some of her original badassery by summoning a shit-ton of hands to hold Hakuba in place.

And Bartolomeo, naturally, is just fangasming in place going all 'how impertinent I was to think that she needed protecting!'

Cavendish and Hakuba reveal themselves to be actual split personalities, and since this is One Piece they come into conflict in the most hilarious way ever. Cavendish apparently is aware of Hakuba existing within him, and for a moment Cavendish takes over and apologizes, before Hakuba takes over again and goes 'I WILL CUT YOU UP!' And then they just argue with each other while Robin and Bartolomeo just watch and go '......' It comes to a head when Cavendish and Hakuba pulls off a Two-Face, spouts Rinnegans and just, y'know, be like that.

Also, is Hakuba equipped with Armament Haki? His skin seems to be done in that same sheen effect done for Armament Haki. Just a random observation.

Cavendish asks Robin to release him since he's okay now, but Robin isn't an idiot. The comedy moment is cut short because Gladius finally makes his move, implanting a gigantic explosion onto the rock wall that Robin was creating arm-stairs on. It's a super gigantic explosion that will engulf Robin and Cavendish if it blows off, and Bartolomeo charges in towards Gladius with his fist engulfed in a barrier bubble. Gladius confirms that if he gets taken out, the explosion will be cancelled (which is kind of a stupid thing to happen in any kind of fiction, but hey, this is manga.

Gladius then launches his hair like a freaking dart machinegun at Bartolomeo, and apparently his hairs contains some numbing poison. Because freaking why not? Also he gets bald in one section of his head which I thought was hilarious.

Gladius then proves to be even more hilarious by transforming into a gigantic balloon, which is absolutely freaking ridiculous. He gives Bartolomeo an ultimatum. If Bartolomeo defeats him in time, the wall bomb gets defused, but his body will launch super-poisonous hair needles up at Robin. And if he doesn't defeat Gladius, the wall will explode anyway. Bartolmeo gets a generic recap panel, before going 'oh right, that guy I don't care about is up there with her!' and then calls out for Cabbage to shield Robin with his body. Of course! But the abrupt transformation makes him unreliable, so Bartolomeo takes a third option.

He tries to do a kamikaze attack and creates a giant 'Barrier Ball' bubble around himself and the hilarious balloon Gladius. Bartolomeo pulls out a dagger and slits Gladius' throat, and Gladius apparently explodes in a gigantic 'Fashion Punk' and the explosion kind of rips Bartolomeo up a bit since this is a manga and explosions don't unleash a storm of heat waves and death. Robin goes all 'no!' and stuff. But Gladius reveals that Bartolomeo has mistakenly stabbed his shoulder instead. Also, Gladius is all bald now, which is hilarious.

As the stone wall is about to explode, Cavendish-Hakuba has kind of became split and promises to bring Robin up with his speed, and as Gladius rips up the wall with 'Punk Rock: Super Arena' and kind of mocks Bartolomeo since he's protected from the giant explosion by being inside Bartolomeo's little bubble. But of course Cavendish-Hakuba has saved Robin, even though the Cavendish half has to stop the Hakuba half's sword, and they make it up before Cavendish falls asleep.

Gladius is all surprised, but Bartolomeo gets all serious and his coat has apparently gotten ripped up in the explosion. He leaps into the air with some cool monologue about how he's lacking power and will some time be a man Luffy-sempai can rely on. He covers his fist in a barrier bubble, which is apparently 'Homage: God Fist', before jumping into the air and fucking punches Gladius's face into the rocks. Bartlomeo unleashes an absolutely awesome Bari Bari no Pistol, which is obviously an attack he tries to emulate his beloved Luffy-sempai, and, well, what can I say? Bartolomeo's freaking awesome. I mean, Cavendish, too, but he's kind of overshadowed by Bartolomeo.

That's Gladius out, and other than Senor Pink and Bellamy, who are fighting Franky and Luffy respectively, we only have the executives left. Zoro versus Pica, Luffy and Law versus Doflamingo and Trebol... and Rebecca and Kyros versus Diamante. Which we see again.

Diamante's ability to screw up the ground has apparently made it unstable enough for Rebecca and Kyros to retain their footing, and Diamante sends his sword snaking towards Rebecca, and for whatever reason Kyros doesn't jump in the way and tells Rebecca to run for it instead. Robin, however, arrives and does a 'Mil Fleur: Moth Orchid', which... does something. There are arms sprouting out from Diamante's sword like a pinwheel and a shit ton of hands arranged together like butterflies or whatever just sprouting out from the air. What does it do, and how does that stop Diamante's sword? I have no fucking idea, but I am extremely pumped at the idea of Nico Robin being awesome.

Robin promises to protect Rebecca, and while part of me wants Rebecca and Kyros to bring down Diamante, the man who has fucked up their lives... it has been forever since Nico Robin has been a badass and actually brought down someone, and I am super-pumped about Robin possibly bringing down a main villain like Diamante. Maybe they can all have a shot at Diamante? Robin is awesome and she's been criminally underused since the timeskip.

Gotham S1E10 Review: I'm the Butler

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 10: Lovecraft

So I totally missed this episode back when I was binge-watching Gotham... better late than never, eh? Alas, this episode doesn't show Gordon and Bullock facing off against Cthulhu and the Elder Gods, but it does show Alfred Pennyworth being the most hardcore badass in the entire series, which is kind of a fair tradeoff.

The main villain for this episode is another comic-book originated villain... or rather, a villain based on a video game's race-flipped, gender-flipped, power-swapped version of a comic book villain. Namely, a villain based on Arkham City's female Copperhead, which, beyond the name and snake theme, has really nothing in common with the colourful white snakeman in a orange-and-green costume from the comics.

This Copperhead isn't explicitly named per se, but she is a black woman who works as a hired assassin and her fighting style is basically based on contortionist-based martial arts. And there are some shots laid over with sound effects resembling snake hisses, so yeah. Copperhead isn't particularly engaging, but she's interesting enough to hold the episode. She's this super-professional hired killer who isn't afraid to bring in backup, or go for little girls, but she doesn't want to kill Bruce (and, as it seems, Gordon when she knocked him out), simply because they are not on her contract. The poor gardener working for Bruce Wayne is apparently fair game, though, because not only was he killed, he got cut up only for Copperhead to fake being injured.

She's threatening enough, though, and more importantly we don't find out who hired Copperhead. It could be either the Falcone or Maroni families, or whatever mysterious organization that that Wayne Enterprise's worker Molly Mathis is working with. The League of Assassins? Or something new? Or maybe it's just the Falcone/Maroni conflict and I'm thinking too much.

Anyways, Copperhead's cool, but she was massively overshadowed by the awesomeness of one Alfred Pennyworth. And he would like you to know that he isn't a valet -- he's a butler. I was a bit iffy about Alfred, but this episode makes him just so freaking awesome. You have been redeemed in my book, Alfred. He's just so freaking determined to find Bruce that he just isn't afraid to do anything. And it's a heartwarming moment in the end when he finally does meet Bruce. But the journey there with Bullock? The two are assholes of varying degrees, and it is a riot to watch them work together so seamlessly. Alfred starts off wrestling three-on-one with professional assassins, then using a goddamned cane to beat the crap out of one of them. He also manages to shrug off a shot to the shoulder enough to land a killing shot against one of the assassins, and tells the cop nursing his wound later on to fuck off. He gets to call Gordon out on his stupidity of putting Selina and Bruce at risk, and basically goes on a rampage with Bullock. He bribes street kids easily, and that moment with Fish's lackey Butch where he just calmly starts off what sounds like an anecdote, before shoving a shiv to his throat. And then he wins over information from Fish with some sweet talk.

And Alfred is just a butler.

He is awesome.

The main focus of the episode isn't Lovecraft as the title implies, and indeed the man in question only appears for like five minutes and alludes to some big conspiracy before Copperhead kills him. Instead, the episode focuses mostly on Bruce and Selina on the run. Bruce initially is such a massive dick to Selina, who indeed was just trying to make conversation and he's all like 'you have an ulterior motive, and you are not a nice person'. Man, Bruce, what an antisocial dick. But despite being two annoying kids and me just anticipating for more Alfred and more of the mafia wars stuff, I do have to admit that the two child actors were phenomenal, giving a pretty awesome performance. And I do like how this is a bit of a wake-up call to Bruce, how he goes from just trying to balance himself on the stairs to actually be in a life-and-death situation.

He's like super worried about Alfred, he's having his stupid naivete and detective work all broken down by both the more cynical Selina and the world in general... and Selina herself is pretty fun, with her sass and her 'hard love' and just generally winding Bruce up. She's basically kind of broken inside and trying to compensate for that by acting tough and kind of screwing around with Bruce, but it's kind of subtly implied that all her insults about 'orphan' and her asking Bruce just what Alfred is shows that she's envious of Bruce having a family. There's also some scenes of realism versus optimism between Selina and Bruce, which while not quite perfect was explored quite a bit. Also liked Bruce's sudden reaction to Selina attempting to hawk off the Waynes' treasures (including Thomas Wayne's watch that Bruce used to bash Hush's face in a while back) and being absolutely fucking indignant not because Selina was trying to sell them, but because the prices they were talking about are too low.

The jump scene was a bit too long for my tastes, and at least it isn't a super-extended scene. The second half of the episode does feel a little too padded out with 'tense' scenes stretched out more than they should. Eventually Selina does leave Bruce behind with Copperhead, but to her credit she does wait until the cops have definitely arrived and Copperhead has done her 'I don't like killing people outside my contract' spiel. And Selina does come back to say good bye, return stuff to keep things honest between them and give Bruce a kiss. That was nice.

It's... the most relevant to the episode the two have been, and while I'm not quite a big fan of having the two of them getting so much screen time, it's at least not annoying enough. I do like the atmosphere of the Flea, this underground scene that looks pretty atmospheric.

The climax of the episode happens when Selina visits her fence, Clyde, which is kind of an idiot ball on her part despite being genre savvy enough for the rest of the episode. Basically everyone from Fish to Copperhead to Bullock to Alfred have connected the dots, and of course Clyde sells them out. And of course Clyde leaves them alone in a room instead of posting a guard or two to keep watch after them. Clyde is scum. He looks like a creepy ass douchebag. It's a good thing he gets arrested.

Also, Selina keeps some weird metal box with some markings as a souvenir from Wayne Manor. I'm not sure if this is going to be significant later on or not, but I'm betting it is.

Also, Poison Ivy makes a surprise appearance! And she plays up the creepy angle so much, that even Selina, the sassy girl who mouths off at everyone from cops to the mafia, is visibly terrified of her. Her mother's apparently committed suicide and she ran away from adoption. And I do like how she's not a full-out psychopath. She has some semblance of sanity, how she knows the people adopting her are 'nice folks' and how she can make an argument to not be angry at Bruce Wayne, but there is something definitely off about her and that 'crazy-but-not-quite' really is unnerving.

Gordon himself doesn't do much this episode, other than the short interrogation of Lovecraft and uncovering some huge-ass conspiracy for the city. Being present at Lovecraft's death and kind of helping Dent out in bringing down the 'foundation of the city' or whatever causes the asshole Mayor, who's definitely spooked, to come down hard on him and ship him off to Arkham Asylum as a guard, which I guess is going to be part of the second season's plot -- Arkham Asylum and the huge mystery conspiracy.

Bullock gets more screen time, with some fun dialogue back-and-forth with Alfred although not quite enough. He gets in Gordon's face for hiding the whole Wayne murder case from him, which was hilariously shot down by Alfred. Bullock doesn't do much, but I do like how at the end he is attached enough to Gordon to miss him when he's gone.

Harvey Dent, for all the build-up we got, doesn't get to do much either, other than being relatively incompetent enough to leak out Gordon's name to let whoever is behind Copperhead to put two and two together. And Dent is visibly more concerned about bringing down Lovecraft compared to, y'know, assassins going after the children or the information leak or whatever, going all 'this is a technical win!' and all that. Yeah, Dent isn't exactly the nice two-shoes that he usually is pre-Two-Face. He's a bit of a tool, really.

Nigma's awkward goodbye to Gordon is handled quite well, I thought. That was heartwarming in that 'I have no social skills' way.

The rest of the episode revolves around Don Falcone, and the plot cuts back and forth between the whole Bruce/Selina situation and Don Falcone attempting to figure out just what the fuck has been going on from last episode, and his little tantrum has caused both Penguin and Fish to move their own agendas up. First up we see Falcone arranging a not-so-peaceful meeting with the Penguin, and Falcone blames Maroni for the whole money thing from last episode, and he's pissed over the fact that he thinks Penguin had betrayed him by not telling him about the money rob.

But Penguin, of course, knows nothing about this being from Maroni, though Falcone is kind of distrustful enough (rightfully) to blame Penguin possibly being a Starscream. And he also dismisses the Penguin's personal vendetta against Fish without adequate proof. Penguin sees Liza and then suggests to Falcone that there might be a mole, as well as noting that Maroni has the subtlety of a brick so it can't be him. Falcone sets Penguin off to do his dirty work, and Penguin's driver, a dude named Gabriel, asks Penguin why he doesn't tell the truth... and the Penguin, apparently, has plans. Liza is apparently a time bomb that Penguin wants to set off at the right time. I'm highly interested in just what Penguin is planning.

Falcone, meanwhile, kills one of the members of his family, Bannion, for failing to guard the armoury. Kind of reasserting his authority and possibly trying to get Fish to give herself away. I do like the atmospheric image of Bannion with his face slumped in pasta, though. Fish, meanwhile, does indeed start trying to gather her resources. Falcone's increased demands for pay or whatever has caused several family captains to fall under Fish's influence, and it's kind of a smart move on her part, capitalizing on Falcone's rather rash decision.

Fish also knows all about the Lovecraft case and the Wayne witnesses, showing some awesomeness on her part to gather information, which is nice. Fish is getting kind of more and more competent recently, and while I am still not a fan of her she does make for an exciting antagonist. She also apparently has enough of a tender side to get caught under Alfred's sweet talk and appealing to her honour to give him the information he needs. Or it could simply be Alfred's aura of freaking awesomeness.

Overall it's a pretty decent episode. It's not quite as strong as several earlier ones, but it's definitely a stark improvement from the earliest episodes of the series. I'm having relatively high hopes that Gotham could go from a slightly-below-average show to something far better.