One Piece 804 Review: DEATH! Really.

One Piece, Chapter 804: Adventure in the Country on the Back of an Elephant

It's a bit of a fun, light-hearted chapter with your general dose of One Piece wackiness. There were some scenes that didn't really work well -- like Kin'emon and Kanjurou just not having the time to dodge the falling monkey-ninja because they're like playing peek-a-boo randomly. That joke fell flat on its face. But the synchronized head-tilt, Robin's fun morbid thoughts, and absolutely everything about the poor sad-faced dragon (dubbed 'Ryunosuke' here) painting and how pathetic it looks, and how the scene seems to be treated as some kind of heroic, tearjerking last stand as it tries its best for all of one page to bring the Straw Hat Crew to the top of Zou, all the while Robin cheering him on and doing some really fun stuff like gasping and thinking how it's adorable it is.

Then it fades back into a painting and Robin actually freaking sheds some tears as we get his image set against a sunset. It's told with small panels so while it feels like it took some time (and probably would take some time in the anime) it doesn't feel protracted and long like that a similar joke told by Bleach or Fairy Tail would be.

And Law and Zoro just doesn't give a fuck and walks away all heartlessly, while Robin is planting flowers on Ryunosuke's grave. :(

Death! Who expected death this early on in this arc? Man, One Piece is entering dark times and shit.

Also, there's Raidou the ninja, who's apparently the thing that fell down from the top of the elephant. And also, a monkey. And he hit Kanjurou and Kin'emon and knocked them both down but they're apparently fine because they can shout at Luffy and the others. I don't particularly care about Kin'emon and everything around Wano country and all that jazz. I felt he had way overstayed his welcome for someone that's so one-dimensional, and while I don't hate him, I'm indifferent to him at best and annoyed by him at worst.

Zou itself is your general crazy anime country with whale-shaped trees and whatnot, but there are signs of battle -- we saw Team 'Human Eyebrow' (ha, good one, Zoro) fight Kaidou's people here, so no wonder. But as the Straw Hats explore the deserted town, they get attacked by Carrot, this little girl with bunny ears and bunny claw-glove things, who goes straight for Zoro. She avoids Zoro's slash and can hit hard enough to not get her hand sliced up by Zoro's blade... and quite possibly have lightning powers as well?

Carrot notes how the 'lesser Mink' has walked straight through the gates and probably took out Bariete. But before the fight with Zoro can get violent, Carrot gets interrupted by a familiar boob -- er, clothes. Well, she's dressed in Nami's clothes -- the bikini top and the black pants, but she's this weird fox or dog-person. She comes in riding this gigantic boar thing and tells Carrot that they need to deal with intruders in the whale forest. Her hair does sorta kinda look like Nami's but I don't think she's Nami -- or maybe Nami got a Zoan devil fruit? I dunno. The fact that she doesn't recognize Luffy and the others makes me think it's not Nami, since even if she's changed I would think that she would still behave like Nami, and we just got an arc where people were transformed and lose their memories, so I don't think we'll get a rehash of it again so soon.

We'll see. Do like the chapter, but I don't think it's anything particularly special.

The Flash S02E02 Review: Jay's nice hat

The Flash, Season 2, Episode 2: Flash of Two Worlds

Whoo boy, where to start? I knew this season was going to introduce Jay Garrick, Earth-2 and multiverses, but I don't believe just how upfront is is being with, well, practically everything. We even have Martin Stein doing an explanation that seemed right at home in a comic book with Earth-1 and Earth-2 straight-up being named and the Multiverse being named. It's just a shame that like last episode the general plot is still pretty episodic, though this episode deals with a lot more introdumps and whatnot, so what can you do.

But honestly what is the biggest appeal of this episode is the introduction of Earth-2's Flash (a.k.a. Flash I for comic book geeks), Jay Garrick. Or the Crimson Comet to Barry's Scarlet Speedster, as this episode actually references. And this episode, oh, what a comic book-y episode this feels, and one that actually makes sense even to someone new to the greater DC comics universe. There's a bit of an annoying 'Barry refuses to trust Jay' moment for the first half of the episode, and it's honestly getting a bit old that Anti-Social Barry is a subplot we've reused twice in this season now, but the comparisons that Barry makes to Harrison Wells actually kinda-sorta makes sense and he gets over it quickly.

Jay Garrick himself, while not as old as his comics counterpart (he's young enough for Caitlin and Iris to be happy to look at) is still older than Barry and feels great in his place as a mentor. Really getting comic book vibes from their interaction. We get Jay and Stein giving us some information about the multiverse, and some backstory about Earth-2. And this season's apparent main villain, Zoom.

Stein explains Earth-2 as an alternate version of Earth-1, where it's still got basically the same amount of people, but they take different paths -- Jay Garrick becomes Flash instead of Barry Allen, Al Rothstein becomes Atom Smasher instead of being some nobody, et cetera. And one of Jay's main villains there is Zoom, which seems to take some visual cues from the comics' Black Flash, Zoom and the Rival, among others. Zoom is basically a black-costume blue-lightning version of Barry's (not Jay's, interestingly enough) costume, but a screaming writhing mass of shadows where a face should be. And when Team Barry opened up the multiverse portal at the end of season one, Zoom and Jay were engaged in mortal combat -- explaining Jay's helmet showing up during last season's finale which he gets back in this episode.

Also I bet Earth-2's where Ronnie Raymond was sent to. 

Zoom's apparently got this obsession about being the only speedster and has an awesome, demonic guttural voice. And he can apparently freely travel between the 52 (I see what you did there, showmakers) portals to travel between Earth-1 and Earth-2, and he's just using the metahumans of Earth-2, in this case the villain Sand Demon, to get them to kill Barry Allen.

Why can't he kill Barry himself? Why can't Jay Garrick use his speed in Earth-1 beyond rule of drama? No idea.

And, yes, the fact that Jay Garrick doesn't have his speed is kind of a bummer, but I guess it makes sense for the more experienced Flash not to be able to do much otherwise he can just finish up the entire plot of this season by himself. He gets to dress up in his costume, though which is awesome. Again as with everything in superhero-TV-land, it's darker than it should, but hey I'd take something that's a darker version of the comic book design than Daredevil's fugly bullshit he got in his show.

Sand Demon's a pretty standard psycho villain with, y'know, sand powers. He's a minor Firestorm villain in the comics, and we get some mishap with the Earth-1 counterpart of Sand Demon. Barry and Jay team up to beat him, with the costumed Jay showing up to distract Sand Demon (which honestly is a bad tactical move but we see Jay in costume so yay) while Barry rescues the hostage Patty Spivot... and Jay teaches Barry to manipulate the lightning and lob it at Sand Demon to turn him into Glass Shards. Which is the standard way to deal with any sand-powered enemies in superhero comics. I can't remember if Barry can actually launch lightning in the comics, but it's a power that makes sense with the Speed Force and everything, so yay for that!

We get a shit-ton of comic book references here, including something called War of the Americas (I assume it's DC's version of WWII which involved superheroes and shit) that Jay's father participated in. Jay's origin story with lightning striking him while he's researching hard water is basically 100% his comic book origin story. And, of course, there's Jay and Barry recreating the iconic 'Flash of Two Worlds' cover that's apparently the very first Earth-1/Earth-2 crossover story, like, ever. So it's appropriate that the first adaptation of the DC Multiverse also features the two Flashes. 

Jay's awesome. Barry's awesome. That's all I can say.

Cisco gets some nice moments here bonding with professor Stein, who's permanently in "geek out over crazy science stuff" mode which is absolutely a blast to see. Cisco himself is trying to channel his Vibe powers (he namedrops the word 'Vibe' when he describes his powers) by touching the sand particles from Earth-2 Sand Demon, so I guess he's learning to channel his see-through-spacetime powers? He's freaked out by it, though, and for whatever reason wants to keep it secret even though, y'know, there's no harm in telling it to the others, so okay.

A sub-plot running throughout this episode is Patty Spivot, the newly introduced character who's desperate to join Joe's anti-metahuman task force... and the show's really trying too hard to shove her down our throat. She's great at detective work, and she gets along well with Barry, and she did her own investigation and tracked down Eddie Slick before Joe, and she is everywhere and she's got a tragic backstory and... she does get her ass handed to her by Sand Demon (no idea why he thinks kidnapping Patty instead of Joe will work better) and I honestly don't like her all that much. I don't hate her, but she is rather on-the-nose. Hopefully future episodes will tone her down.

Easter Egg time! We get a TV screen with a crossover from Arrow where Green Arrow is making a proclamation to Starling City and whatnot. I haven't watched Arrow yet! Thankfully it's not as spoilery as the crossovers in season one.

We get another DC Easter Egg. Sand Demon hides out in Woodrue plants or whatever. Jason Woodrue is the DC comic-book Floronic Man, who is basically a plant-man dude. You might know him as the asshole scientist that is involved in Poison Ivy's backstory (and killed by her) in Batman and Robin. 

To close this off... we also get a triple cliffhanger this episode! We've got Joe being visited by his wife, who is apparently estranged from him... so that's where Wally West will show up from! Huh. Martin Stein also randomly faints while giving an introdump, so we might get that Ronnie-in-Earth-2 thing addressed fairly quickly. And finally, we have our shot at Earth-2, which looks more comic-book-y than the realistic Earth-1, and apparently in that universe Harrison Wells is alive and well looking as sinister as fuck. Now the question is, is this Earth-2's Harrison Wells, or did our Eobard Thawne take over the position of that dude's Harrison Wells when he disappeared within dimensions and shit in the season one finale? And how will he factor into the plot of this season? So many questions.

Overall... it's a good episode. And while the first two episodes of season two doesn't exactly impress as much as the first season's episodes, they are still good episodes and I may be biased due to my little fangasm over multiversal stuff but hey. 

Daredevil S01E06 Review: Bull's Eye

Daredevil, Season 1, Episode 6: Condemned

Welp, I kind of hoped this episode was better trimmed. As it was, the talking scenes in the first half of the episode took way too much time, in particular the random emergency first-aid scene with Matt and Vladimir which is just filler... but it was all worth it for the confrontation between Daredevil and the Kingpin at the end... how can a conversation between two men with walkie-talkies be so awesome? That scene was perfectly scripted, and Kingpin's plan with framing Daredevil and just outlining how he just has to tell part of the truth and the public will believe him is awesome. Again, add that to 'Kingpin is Malcolm Merlyn done right'. I don't like comparing different shows, but he is! This is a far more effective and believable way to make the hero be absolutely reviled by the public, and that is by having a mysterious sniper (hint hint) shoot a random cop in front of TV and have his own dirty cops execute the poor policeman Daredevil took hostage.

Episode's tense, with the hostage thing being the main clincher as we see how much of a puppetmaster Fisk is and how much respect Daredevil gains from people like Fisk and Vladimir. Vladimir also gives some nice little 'you can't win without killing the head' type of speech. And it's absolutely well-done, especially the little heroic sacrifice Vladimir does at the end. And the speech! From one man who wants to save the city by running around in a mask, to a man who wants to save the city by uniting the gangs and extirpating the rogue elements like the Russian gang. We see various points, illustrated by Vladimir and Fisk himself, just how out of his depth Daredevil is, how Fisk is playing at a scale that matters, and I absolutely love how the show handled Fisk and the dramatic tension when the two of them just speaks.

There's also some subtle maneuvering where Kingpin actually offs the policemen who weren't completely on his pocket. Sullivan, who Daredevil himself detected isn't a dirty cop, gets a knife through his neck courtesy of Kingpin's dirty cops just to pin another murder on Daredevil, and Blake... well, Blake's in Kingpin's pocket, really (wasn't he one of the cops that killed the Russian informant?), but, well, named characters that die build so much drama. Also, Sergei the torturer gets shot dead because fuck Sergei I guess.

The little buildup of Daredevil and Vladimir from hatred enemies to grudging allies is well done -- but I wished the episode doesn't just focus so much on the two trading insults and whatnot. But then again you have to end the episode on the note of Daredevil escaping and Vladimir holding off the corrupt SWAT team, so what can you do. Vladimir has gotten a metric fuckton of characterization this episode, pity he doesn't stay long enough.

Ben Urich's also relatively interesting, and like Daredevil the dude's out of his depth as he tries so hard to find the story and gets blocked by Kingpin's TV reporter army... though it's interesting that neither Fisk nor Wesley think it's feasible to kill Urich simply because of his connections to the newspaper company he works for.

I like how Fisk and Wesley have to think about respecting the other members of their organization (Madame Gao in this case). Too often has the head of an evil organization just treated as a end-all-be-all type of figure, and this fits absolutely well with the whole gang wars theme of Daredevil. 

The other characters in the show... Claire has a nice little scene where she is in turmoil with herself whether to help give Daredevil instructions to rescue Vladimir, the man who had her beat up... though other than that she just does her nurse thing and love interest thing and is honestly uninteresting. Foggy and Karen are likewise reduced to screentime-grubbers as a good chunk of their screentime is just commenting on stuff we already know. Nothing overtly harmful, though, since their characters are still relatively decent. 

Also, to close it off, apparently Bullseye got a cameo this episode as the faceless sniper who shot that officer Blake dude, because there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it playing card in his rifle bag. As Daredevil's number-two nemesis, well, it's nice that they gave the dude something to do so early on, though it's to my knowledge he's not actually appeared in the show per se, so yeah.

Agents of SHIELD S03E02 Review: Ancient Space Sand

Agents of SHIELD, Season 3, Episode 2: Purpose in the Machine

Well, that was quick! I was expecting more buildup, more angst, more mystery, more 'let's see how much we can break Fitz's mental state', more oblique foreshadowing. Granted having the team rescue Simmons within two episodes into the season is a bit odd since Simmons being eaten by the monolith was the big out-there cliffhanger at the end of season two... but seeing how underwhelming the Fitz-Simmons plot that ran for the first half of season two ended up being, I did like the sudden twist and bone that Joss Whedon and the other creators of this show threw at us, since I honestly believed that this will end in a depressing note with either Fitz returning after that "so close yet so far" moment with Simmons, or with both Fitz and Simmons stuck in, uh, hell-planet.

But no, this episode focuses on them just trying to get Simmons back, recruiting Elliot Randolph -- better known as the Asgardian stranded on Earth, who has been MIA since season one -- in trying to figure this Kree Monolith shit out. And we actually get some payoff instead of just having things be obliquely be about alien symbols and alien blood and whatnot, which is definitely something that feels good. It's still sorta depressing since, y'know, Simmons seems to be pretty traumatized from her ordeal, but I think Fitz will take a damaged Simmons compared to a dead Simmons.

Elliot Randolph is absolutely on point, snarking along and basically every word out of his mouth is comedy gold. And that's in-between just casually going 'I've been here three thousand years ago' or lifting prison bars and blaming it on Coulson. And we do get a whole lot of nice smaller character moments for Skye, Mack, Bobbi and Andrew, who's set up shop in the new SHIELD base. It's nice, and none of them are really essential, but it does build character and I do like how the story just lets these characters breathe a little. Some people in the net pointed out that this episode felt so fuzzily different because, well, it is. We still have a main objective and a main plot (investigate the Kree portal to the hell planet thing) and rescuing Simmons is definitely engaging, but it doesn't involve the big Hydra plot nor does it involve a big drawn-out fight in the end. And while I truly appreciate fight scenes, sometimes an episode can work absolutely fine without them. This is one of those episodes.

Fitz, however, steals the show moreso than Randolph ever could, and all the build-up to him just refusing to give up from getting Simmons back... we've got some backstory about how people from the past have already been experimenting with the Kree Monolith and trying to understand where the portal goes, but all of it honestly pales in the face of Fitz's absolutely beautiful performance throughout this episode. From his single-minded obsession, to his desperate screams, to that look of utter despair near the end when he realizes his friends are reeling him in when he's just a hand's length away from Simmons, and the sheer look of bliss at the end... I honestly thought it was going to be a standard bait-and-switch, where Fitz and Simmons are just a couple of seconds away from being reunited, but the writers need to drag things out and push Simmons' rescue, to, like, the mid-season (and the viewers can probably see just what Simmons was running away from last episode) but am definitely glad that she got rescued here.

I thought the episode went on a bit too long trying to explain the pseudo-science goobledeygonk about the gothic Kree monolith portal resonator thing, and I honestly tuned the entire thing out, but hey. Also, Skye (Daisy, whatever) gets to show off more of her powers, and more importantly, far more finer control over what frequency she chooses to emit. Which is cool.

We've got a couple B-plots running along, too, the ones I'm most happy about involving the two core members of the team we didn't see last episode -- Ward and May. Grant Ward is rebuilding a new Hydra, weeding off the older, fatter generation of Hydra in favour of newer like-minded fanatics. We get a bait-and-switch as this scary black dude seems to be Ward's second in command as he mucks around crazily with that dude's car, before the rich kid that Ward 'kidnapped' ended up beating the black dude presumably to death. From the sheer fun of Ward unleashing a swarm of rats to get rid of bikini babes, to Ward showboating and kung-fu-ing an entire boat's worth of people (with a hilarious 'eh, I've got a gun' when someone actually manages to land a hit on him)... to the darker undertones of him breaking down the rich boy, revealed to be Werner von Strucker, son of Baron Wolfgang von Strucker. i do like Werner from what little we saw of him, and I do certainly hope he can be far more entertaining than the underwhelming Wolfgang von Strucker from Age of Ultron.

Ward is definitely channeling his mentor John Garrett here, though, being nonchalant and matter-of-fact, playing up that dark mentor angle while eating nachos or whatever. And by the end of this episode Werner seems to be on board with Ward's Hydra, stalking May's ex-husband Andrew.

May, meanwhile, apparently broke up with Andrew in the interim, and is actually just taking time off playing golf with her father, who busted his hip. And just like May herself and her mother, MayPapa is an absolute badass, easily reading her daughter and talking about spy shit casually. Also, talking about little May figure skating, which is all sorts of adorable. By the end of this episode, though, Hunter, in his little crusade against Ward, manages to recruit May (in no small part thanks to MayPapa) to infiltrate Hydra and bring Ward down from the inside.

Overall the May stuff doesn't really do much other than showing some character stuff and the sheer absurdity of May in a normal life, and the Ward stuff truly felt like a distraction until the revelation that he's just fucking around trying to brainwash Werner von Strucker.

From a more geeky standpoint, Skye/Daisy is still not referred to by her comicbook superhero codename, Quake. Despite Mack having a good opportunity to use it as a nickname, he opts to call her 'Tremors' again because, eh, Mack's an idiot. We also get the term 'Secret Warriors' name-dropped by Skye when she and Mack are discussing their nonexistent superhuman team. I don't think we get any explanation to what the death hell planet really is, though, again, I'm not that well-informed about Marvel comics.

It's overall a pretty solid episode. Other than the strong performances put in by Fitz and Randolph, there's nothing that's absolutely spectacular, certainly... though there's always the rather trope-defying twist of rescuing Simmons this early, which is definitely not a bad thing.

Agents of SHIELD S03E01: Fish Oil Gives You Powers

Agents of SHIELD, Season 3, Episode 1: Laws of Nature

Well that was certainly a way to start off the season! Where the Flash opted for a slower, more gradual build, Agents of SHIELD just went for straight explosions and action scenes. I do think I prefer this particular season premiere episode, though that's hardly a point docked off the Flash... with Joss Whedon no longer distracted in directing overcrowded Marvel movie sequels, he's clearly put in a lot more work for Agents of SHIELD's second season finale, and this third season is looking to be really, really good.

The opening sequence was great, with the panning view from the remnants of the chrysalis to the burning city, to this newly-awakened Inhuman, Jose "Joey" Gutierrez, running around melting all the metal around him while mysterious military people are gunning after him... and he gets rescued by Skye -- going by the name Daisy now -- showing off her newfound control over her Quake powers and strides in all superhero-like. We see that the new SHIELD, in the timeskip, has definitely put their house in order and it was a greatly scripted opening even with the sheer ridiculousness of a giant elevator box thing with rockets went down to retrieve Joey.

Also, fish oil gives you metal melting powers.

We also see SHIELD's new replacement to the Bus, which is Zephyr-One, looking pretty badass. Yeah, they definitely got a budget increase for CGI! Again, this opening scene is really strong, making me happy that they're not wasting this second (well, third, technically) chance they have to redeem themselves after the crappy first half of season two.

We get to see Skye (well, she prefers to call herself Daisy now but like Coulson I'm going to have a hard time moving on from her old name) play the 'I went through this shit too' role to Joey, explaining stuff about the Inhumans and Terrigenesis, helping to recap the stuff to viewers without feeling too tacked on. It kinda feels a bit like the X-Men mutant homosexuality metaphor, sort of (Joey's character is actually gay, which helps it out a bit) but Skye makes a distinction since you actually change. Regardless of metaphors they are still strong scenes.

On the geeky side, we get confirmation that the Terrigen mist is the only one hiding in seafood and whatnot, and the metal harmful to humans is still sitting at the bottom of the ocean. It doesn't really take up that much space, and we cut back and forth to the other characters too.

Most of this episode is centered on SHIELD trying to figure out who's kidnapping the Inhumans, with a B-plot running of Fitz going on a big search for clues, something I'll cover later. But there's this mysterious military organization apparently hunting Inhumans, something that Coulson and Hunter manage to track down throughout the episode. And I do like the little bait-and-switch we got, with Rosalind (the leader of this op team) overseeing what seems to be scientists dissecting the metahumans, and with the various incarnations of Hydra having a boner for dissecting powered people, that is what we assume... until the confrontation between Coulson and Rosalind came and Rosalind reveals that she's only found corpses and she thought Coulson was the one behind all the killing. Nope, not Hydra.

Apparently this mysterious organization is called the ATCU, basically President Ellis (who makes an unexpected return from Iron Man 3) creates a new tactical team to combat metahumans because the Avengers and SHIELD aren't enough. Rosalind certainly seems to be calling the shots, though, and while Coulson does get away under her nose -- in no small part thanks to pulling out the gag-hand trick out of Joker's book -- she certainly seems like somewhat of a threat. What I'm worried about is that we've already kind of done this 'knight templar military organization' thing before with General Talbott and Robert Gonzales, so we might be retreading old ground... but they do feel relatively fresh enough that I don't mind.

Also, the return of the President, talking about keeping these superhumans in check? Yeah, totally not a build-up to Civil War and the registration act.

Meanwhile, SkyeDaisy's attempts to make a new team of Secret Warriors is kind of put on hold because dr. Garner, y'know, does psychological assessments and that's bothersome. I mean, it's not like Skye is emotionally unstable when she first came out as an Inhuman oh wait. But Skye (yeah referring to her as Daisy's not going to work for me, at least not for the moment) is adamant on making this work, so she and Mack goes off to find Lincoln, who's working as a doctor and wants nothing to do with the Inhumans. As in traditional superhero setting, no one who wants to go back and live a normal life ever gets it, so naturally the moment that Lincoln, Skye and Mack discuss about Lincoln helping to train Joey to control his powers, the mysterious third party that has been killing Inhumans show up.

It's this new dude Lash, and he sorta kinda looks like Blackheart from the Marvel comics. Lash goes unnamed other than in solicitations and just looks like this scary dreadlocked beast-man thing that can apparently just create giant holes and doors and walls on stuff. He's just going around hunting Inhumans, and is apparently strong enough to shrug off the combined blasts of Lincoln's lightning and Skye's quake powers, as well as Mack's bullets. We don't get to see much of him before he's driven away, but Lincoln's Inhuman status has been outed and he's on the run from ATCU and presumably Lash as well.

And all while we cut back and forth between the other not-so-prominent characters in this episode. We get nice scenes of Coulson talking to both Skye and Bobbi; Coulson snarking about his new cybernetic arm (cool effects on that, too); the odd little friendship of Bobbi being buddies with Fitz (who I don't think she even had a scene with last season); Bobbi herself recovering and having some unresolved tension with Hunter (which is honestly getting old); Skye and Mack talking to Joey; Coulson's scene with Rosalind... Bobbi's temporarily relegated to a support role with the science team owing to her injury from the end of season 2, though honestly the tension with Hunter is easily the weakest point in this episode... though thankfully it's about a marriage proposal instead of a rehash of season two again. Hunter's going off to create a taskforce to hunt down Grant Ward and put him in the ground, so it's nice to see SHIELD being active on hunting down Hydra.

May is, by the way, still on holiday. Well.

Also, let's talk about Mack for a bit. I've made my dislike for Mack rather clear throughout the second season, only sorta growing to like him near the end when he starts making sense and helping Skye out. Here he seems to have gotten over his racist xenophobia, and his anger to Lincoln is less about him being a half-alien and more because he lightning-blasted some of Mack's buddies during last season's finale. He's certainly happy to hang around with Skye and near Joey, even if he's just kinda being a dick with his sarcasm. I... tolerate him, I guess. That shotgun-ax line was definitely fun, though.

Fitz, meanwhile, is just being a boss and just travelling around hunting down archaeological clues about the monolith, going up to a radical group in Middle East and just owning that confrontation by fooling them with splinter bombs (a nice callback to their usages in season two) before smoothly walking out with that parchment he needs. Yeah, confidence? Uselessness? All abandoned, apparently, and while I don't think time can just fix brain damage like that, brain-damaged-stuttering-friendzoned-Fitz was handled absolutely shittily in season two and I'd rather have an unexplained recovery than them going through that whole shit again. Definitely jarring, but I like it.

Also, I do love how we don't spend the entire premiere having Fitz trying to figure out what happens to Simmons, and just straight up jumps into what the characters are doing about the cliffhanger instead of re-iterating the cliffhanger. Gotham and its stupid batcave can learn a thing or two from this.

Of course, it ends up being for naught since inside this mysterious parchment was a single Hebrew word meaning death, and we get a heartfelt scene between Coulson and a desperate Fitz, as Coulson logically tells Fitz to move on and kind of talks about how they need to contact Simmons's family and whatnot. And we get a nice, carnal scene as Fitz, bereft of all hope, just shotgun-blasts the monolith's casing and just tries to probably kill himself or get himself to where Simmons is... but the monolith is just being a troll and him shouting and hitting the monolith is pretty raw and well-done.

And finally we cut off to the end of the episode, where Simmons is running around with torn-up clothes on some weird desert land that's apparently in space. So yeah, the monolith is a portal. Is it one of the Asgardian realms? Or is 'death' literal and we're actually exploring Marvel's hell? I mean, Lash does kinda-sorta look like Blackheart... or is it just some random Kree-related planet? Simmons is alive, though, and while I have no clue about Marvel comics beyond the most basic, I guess it'll be entertaining to see how this all ties together.

Speaking of things tying together, we get some nice little subtle nods to the Marvel movies. Not as blatant as Agent of SHIELD likes to be in the past, but we did get Sokovia (from Age of Ultron) mentioned several times, and President Ellis' speech does mention events that correspond to Avengers, Age of Ultron and Thor: The Dark World. Plus Coulson and Fitz briefly mention Pym particles (from Ant-Man) as one of the possible things that might happen to Simmons.

Overall? Extremely strong opening episode. It introduces the new status quo, shows off some impressive stuff especially for Skye-Daisy and Fitz, and introduces a bunch of new characters. The ATCU, more Inhumans, Lash the hunter... overall definitely a great episode. Looking forward to more. Definitely loving this new superhero-themed angle we're having, too. Like the Flash, Agents of SHIELD is shaping up to having a pretty strong season. Definitely optimistic.

Also, yeah, it's great that Skye is using her name Daisy in the show which does raise a lot of nice implications about her character growth, how she's changed over two seasons, how she's accepted her Inhuman self and how she's the incarnation of the Marvel comics character Quake... but she's always going to be Skye to me and like Coulson, knowing the lady as Skye for two years or whatever isn't something I can just switch overnight.

The Flash S02E01 Review: Atom Smashers

The Flash, Season 2, Episode 1: The Man Who Saved Central City

I don't think I need to re-state my love for the Flash and how absolutely great its first season was. Moreso than Agents of SHIELD, Arrow, Gotham, Daredevil and so many other superhero TV series out right now, the Flash has been the one I absolutely love everything about. So the very moment season two premiered, I watched the first episode. And with the absolutely smashing finale we got that wrapped up the Flash's new, revised origin story (and likely to be the definite one for me) we start off the second season with a modest, more character-driven stuff while all around us hints are being dropped about what direction the second season is taking. And while this first episode may have been unnecessarily slow at times, it has absolutely done its job perfectly to hype things up for this season, introducing all the new big players while still being insanely vague about it, this episode's villain showcases that we're not just going to have variations of energy beams and the special effects are going to be more elaborate... and so on.

Spoilers from here on out, so be warned.

We start off with an absolutely fun (and slightly over-the-top hammy) scene of the Flash and Firestorm fighting Captain Cold and Heat Wave, every single one of them having a blast and eating the scene up. A great way to start the episode... and we get a bit of a celebration time... until Eddie shows up. And you think that whatever Barry did in the season finale against the wormhole revised some things in the timeline... and then Wells shows up. And despite the Flash being generally more optimistic than its sister show, it's not afraid to make its casualties permanent.

We've had a six month time skip, and we see that things have relatively changed. We get a short flashback to what happened after the big wormhole thing -- after Flash stabilizes it by running around, Firestorm combines and shoots up, using the nuclear force from them separating to close the wormhole. Except Ronnie apparently is consumed by it and Martin Stein is the only one to make it out alive. Now anyone who knows anything about superhero fiction knows that being consumed by a portal with no body shown basically is tantamount to survival. Add that to knowing that Firestorm will be a main character in Legends of Tomorrow... so Ronnie, likely, isn't dead. Maybe he's just reduced to a mental voice in Martin's head, in a neat little reversal of their comic-book dynamic (sometimes) but whatever the case we have not seen the last of Ronnie.

It's kind of a poorly handled death, and the lack of screentime given to his "death" in the flashback and only the shortest of reaction scenes from Caitlin kind of basically sells it as 'yeah we know he's coming back', so it's kind of a weak point there.

His death affected the group dynamic, though, as Barry has grown morose and doing his best to channel his Oliver Queen and trying to work alone without playing it up too much. Caitlin is coping with grief and has gone over to work at Mercury labs. Cisco is working with Joe and developing anti-metahuman weapons for the police, which is awesome. And Central City's apparently left somewhat in tatters, with Barry actually zipping in and out of some old haunts -- like Jitters Coffee -- and helping to rebuild. 

But in a nice contrast to how Arrow is viewed in his hometown, the Flash enjoys a shit-ton of popularity even while he's in his brooding phase, with the city celebrating a Flash Day, no doubt building up to having stuff like the Flash Museum. We do spend a rather inordinate amount of time for Barry to brood about not deserving the glory (which I guess sort of segues into the flashback to Ronnie's "death" rather well, but it does take a bit too much screentime) before eventually showing up.

And, of course, have a metahuman battle! After a short mystery about finding the dead body of Al Rothstein very early on in this episode, he shows up dressed in Atom Smasher garb to gatecrash Flash Day, all angry and shit. Now DC comic geeks know Atom Smasher as a B-lister hero associated with the Justice Society, but right here he's just a villainous angry metahuman. The effects for Atom Smasher, with his mass-increasing size, looks a bit odd at times but it certainly does illustrate him stretching to a larger height and mass pretty well. The effects of his helmet-mask opening and closing is also absolutely cool. We get some nice little demonstration of Cisco and Joe's new "Boot" weapon, and some hints of Cisco's power of being able to see through dimensions, but ultimately the fight ends up inconclusive because we need to save the beatdown for the third act.

The rest of the episode has a 'get the gang back together into a team' with Iris and Cisco spearheading the effort to get Barry to open up and basically re-recruit everyone back to STAR Labs. I'm not exactly sure why Barry is pushing everyone away other than Ronnie's death -- which would affect Caitlin more than Barry you'd think. But everyone eventually gets together. And the scenes are definitely written well and aren't grating, but I'm just left with the feeling if all of this is necessary and if some of it couldn't be trimmed out.

And Wells-Thawne has left one last, final gift to Barry at the end of his death. Barry is given STAR Labs itself, as well as a USB drive, which has Harrison Wells unexpectedly confess to the murder of Nora Allen, delivering some damning evidence... before telling Barry, cryptically, that he will never be happy even if he gets what he want. It's a nice moment that carries vibes of both 'awww he does care' and 'what sadistic thing is he planning' that Harrison Wells had to him before he went all hammy villain, and is pretty well done.  "You'll never be truly happy, Barry Allen. Trust me. I know you."

And Henry Allen gets released! And, uh, immediately just decides to leave to figure out his life and knows that the city needs Barry more as a superhero. We know Henry's actor isn't a regular, and he's really not going to do anything exciting to the team, and he has been more genre savvy about superheroes and whatnot.... and while a strange direction for the show to take beyond possibly real-life actor issues, it still delivers a pretty strong scene between Barry and Henry. Again, it just takes a bit too much time with all these moments when I'm expecting something more adrenaline-driven for a first episode.

The chase for Atom Smasher is pretty simple. They figure out something about his metahuman powers -- he absorbs radiation to survive -- someone comes up with his comic book codename (Martin Stein this time, earning a hug from Cisco)... except Barry, while being a bit of a hardass, tries to take on him alone and fails. They try together, and succeed in taking Atom Smasher out. Which is pretty simple, and pretty entertaining.

Then comes the big reveal -- the Al Rothstein body that they found in the beginning of the episode? It wasn't Atom Smasher pre-change, or if he has some weird duplicating powers or whatever. The Atom Smasher that Barry fought wants to 'go home', and this mysterious 'Zoom' dude promises to take him home if he kills Barry. So, yeah, alternate universes confirmed, and it seems like the portal was what brought Atom Smasher (Earth-2's Al Rothstein) here. And he killed this universe's Al Rothstein. Honestly I'm pleased that I didn't think of Atom Smasher being a dimensional jumper even though I know Earth-2's going to be a thing, and I just thought that the weird Al Rothstein corpse thing was just part of this version of Atom Smasher's powers. It's a great little twist, and the fact that they bring it up a couple of times without making it too obvious is definitely a plus.

Of course, you could nitpick and remember that Harrison Wells listed Al Rothstein as one of the people 'killed' by the explosion of his reactor way back in episode 5 or 6 or whatever, but hey, apparently this universe's Al Rothstein survived long enough for him to get killed by his universe-hopping counterpart.

And, of course, the ending has the new big player show up -- Jay Garrick, a.k.a. Earth-2's Flash, a.k.a. Flash I, for comic-book readers. Whose helmet we saw randomly show up in season one's finale. And Zoom, a blackened figure with blue lightning, shows up in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment when Cisco sees through space and time to see him talking to Atom Smasher. Yeah, that was a lot faster than I expected them to show up, but I am certainly glad we're hopping into the Zoom and Earth-2 plot almost immediately.

Uh... what else? New suit has a new symbol like everyone expected. No big deal there. Flash's Bat-signal ripoff is kinda dumb, but dumb in a charming way. 

So overall? The main plot of getting the gang back together felt a bit tacky. It's a series of pretty powerful scenes... except that it doesn't really make sense that Barry is the one being emo and driving everyone away when by rights it should be Caitlin and Iris that are mourning Ronnie and Eddie. And Barry being a bit of a dick during his second fight with Atom Smasher kind of came out of nowhere. But honestly the scenes are pretty well-scripted and well-done, and despite some odd directions that the show takes -- like Henry immediately going off the show -- it still holds up pretty well, and I'm willing to overlook the large amount of padding in this episode and see it for what it is: building up the bigger picture.

Also, freaking Jay Garrick.

One Piece 803 Review: Of Dragons, Clowns and Demon Sheriffs

One Piece, Chapter 803: Climbing the Elephant

This chapter's title is certainly appropriate. Luffy's crew does jack shit in this chapter other than climbing that elephant, which takes place in two scenes at the beginning and the end of this chapter. The Barto Club ship dock next to the Thousand Sunny, and apparently Bartolomeo is just going off to go on his way and not interrupt his senpai's "holy pilgrimage". Bartolomeo does this tearful goodbye and pledges to be a good subordinate and whatnot and honestly I expected him to be far more dramatic than this -- if he leaves Luffy at all. Luffy does remember part of his name, so Bartolomeo can die happy I guess. Anyway it's exit stage left for the Barto Club, easily my favourite among the new characters introduced in the Dressrosa arc.

Kanjuro conjures up this, uh, really sad-looking pigfaced dragon thing who tries its best to climb up the giant elephant's leg all shivering and shit. Everyone thinks it is pathetic... except for Nico Robin! How adorable, Robin! It's cute indeed.

The last two pages of this chapter just shows that Team Luffy, Law and the Samurai are just climbing up Zo's leg, and both Kin'emon and Kanjurou promises to tell everything (a two-year old mystery no one cares about, honestly) about the samurai and their backstory and all that bullshit, but their main priority is meeting up with Momonosuke and their third comrade... Raizo the Ninja. Samurais and Ninjas working together? Pirates and Ninjas woring together? MADNESS!

Everyone goes all "eh, he's a ninja?" expression that the Straw-Hat males make whenever mechas and robots come up... and hilariously this includes Law. Who's just turning around with the rest of the Straw Hats all >:( and shit.  Something flies down towards Luffy and that's the cliffhanger, but who the fuck cares?

We visit three dudes who we have not seen since the timeskip, one of whom I don't think ever got a proper scene.

We see the Revolutionary Army Base "Baltigo", and we get formally introduced, finally, to Monkey D. Dragon, looking badass as fuck. And the Revolutionary Army's, well, revolution is going on pretty well, in no small part to the Donquixote Army's downfall. But Dragon mentions that the Cipher Pol is growing in strength over the years, and tells his troops not to be careful. Koala confirms that it was the Revolutionaries who took the weapons from Dressrosa, and apparently Dressrosan weapons are made up of some special kind of Wine Steel or Liq-Ore depending on the translation, though that gets glossed over. 

Dragon asks about Robin -- apparently the fake Robin's capture in Shabaody is 'news', nice little callback -- and curiously Dragon doesn't really care about news of Luffy despite being the boy's father. Although I guess Dragon just doesn't know Luffy as well as he does Robin. Which is a shame. Though he does mention that Sabo (who's training with his Mera Mera no Mi) has told him everything, so maybe he just doesn't like repetition. Dragon then tells Koala to gather the leaders of the Revolutionary Army together, to which Koala responds that they're gathering a bunch of weirdoes. Well, we know Emporio Ivankov and Bartholomew Kuma are, well, hilariously weird, but I'm just curious to see just what the top brass of the Revolutionary Army is like. We can't have everyone be cool motherfuckers like Monkey D. Dragon, after all.

Do we know any of the other members of the Revolutionary Army? Wouldn't it be cool if, oh, Crocodile or Rayleigh or whoever is revealed to be a member of the Revolutionary Army? Don't think it's likely, though.

We then cut away to two Blackbeard log-ships! Again, despite the fact that his presence is everywhere ever since the timeskip, we've never seen Blackbeard or his crew, Burgess aside, since the Marineford Wars. Man, all these dudes we haven't seen in a while coming out of the woodwork! We see Shiliew and Lafitte getting a call from Burgess. Apparently they went to retrieve Burgess in Dressrosa, but the dude isn't around. Shiliew "of the rain" is one of the fleet commanders of the Blackbeard Pirates, specifically the second fleet. "Demon Sheriff" Lafitte is the leader of the fifth fleet.

Burgess is in kind of a shit state, and while Lafitte and Shiliew are just being cool and rather down to business, Burgess just asks them to come get him -- there are lots of weapons, though no one knows where he is. Burgess tells Lafitte and Shiliew to follow his vivre card there, since he's snuck on board the weapon smuggles and followed the Revolutionaries back to Baltigo! Well. Blackbeard Pirates versus the Revolutionaries?

We cut away to the final point of interest in this chapter, "Star Clown" Buggy, who is based in Kalai Bali Island. Buggy is dressed in some long-flowing big cape that I assume he's using the Bara-Bara no Mi to make himself look bigger. Apparently Buggy's running some big pirate dispatch business, and with Doflamingo taken out of the picture, Buggy's pirates are the alternative since all the people fighting the wars need manpower and Buggy's army is all up for the task. 

Behind Buggy, his commanders -- Alvida, Mr. 3, Fat Mohji, Cabahji and the lion who's wearing clothes and shit -- are just eating and whatnot, and they inform Buggy that Hajrudin and the four other giants with him are quitting. Well, that's a surprise! So Hajrudin was working for Buggy? Well. Buggy really wouldn't want to know why Hajrudin quit, that's for sure. It's a fun little scene.

Man, we're just doing nothing these past few chapters except re-establish the setting of the new arc, a giant zombie elephant island... and just cutting back and forth between some characters who we haven't seen in a long time, and some new players... getting reintroduced to the sheer scale of One Piece after the rather messily-paced Dressrosa is absolutely welcome. Hopefully whatever big war we have will be more Marineford and less Dressrosa. Overall pretty fun chapter. We see the Blackbeard Pirates and how they operate. We get our first dose of Monkey D. Dragon and I love him. 

Gotham S02E01 Review: A Hilarious Mess

Gotham, Season 2, Episode 1: Damned If You Do

Wow, what a glorious mess. On paper, there are definitely some good things in this episode -- we get a nice little theme of the duality of what Bruce Wayne says in the middle of the episode. Something about duality, and about the ends justifying the means and all that. And choices, as well as duality, is a running theme throughout this episode, with Gordon being forced to choose between continuing his foolhardy crusade after he got his ass randomly fired at the beginning of his episode or to choose to make another deal with the devil. We've got Bruce and Alfred choosing to dig up the past and a still-irritating B-plot. We've got Loeb making his choice to, uh, save his life, or something. And we could make an argument about how Riddler struggling with his own demons and newcomer Theo Galavan showing one face to the world and another to his people... or some shit. I dunno. The point is, they at least put in some effort in making a cohesive theme throughout this episode, so props for that.

But the actual execution? It's bordering on bad fanfiction, honestly.

First up, we get a recap of what's happened since the season one finale, and apparently the whole 'Bruce discovers the proto-Batcave' cliffhanger gets left off with a handwave of them not being able to unlock the door. Which is utterly stupid. And while we did get some hilarious sarcastic quips in between Bruce (who got a sudden growth spurt, which felt unnatural but what can you do) and Alfred... but ultimately simply just scene padding because there is no real reason for us to spend dicking around with these two building fertilizer bombs. Why can't Bruce just discover the proto-Batcave at the beginning of this episode? Jeez .

We see that Penguin's basically the boss of the mobs, Bullock's been fired and is running a bar, and Gordon is reduced to a street cop. Who immediately gets fired within less than ten minutes into the episode, because why not? It's just awkward especially since we just came off a relatively hopeful ending from season one, and I thought the dynamic for season two would be a power struggle between Loeb and Gordon as they try to passive-aggressively take each other out. Well, nope, it just gets resolved in a rather truncated manner. Loeb fires Gordon for pushing another officer which is utterly moronic. Gordon angsts. Leslie is reduced to nothing but a satellite character.

Then Gordon goes off to find Penguin, ends up taking a job from him, basically does what he gave Bullock massive amounts of grief for in season one... and accidentally shot some random mafia dude dead. Whoops. It's in self-defense, granted, and Gordon's not thinking straight thanks to some words spoken to him by little Bruce... but let's get real, here. If Gordon got the "which is more important, the greater good or your own ego?" speech from someone who isn't Proto-Batman, we'd be booing and hissing... moreso than we already are.

It is dumb, is what I'm saying.

And for this favour, Penguin and Zsasz decide to head off and torment the ever-living shit out of Loeb, he resigns and Gordon is back. Zsasz actually plays around with a decapitated head, which is a nice little nod to his comic-book counterpart. For what it's worth Penguin and Zsasz really play off each other well and their interrogation scene is easily the highlight of the episode. Ben McKenzie isn't a slouch either in the acting department, performing pretty well -- it's a shame the script really doesn't give him much to do.

Also, joining Leslie in the 'downgraded to satellite character' role is Selina, who is reduced to Penguin's pet (no, not that kind of pet) and we get another eyeroll-inducing lines of "OH SHE IS LIKE A CAT NO WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND SUBTLETY"

Likewise, despite supposedly being one of the few allies Gordon has left, Essen (who gets promoted into commissioner this episode) also gets like ten seconds of screentime total with a couple of dialogue that just establishes she's on Gordon's side.

Though to be fair, Bullock, too, got a downgrade into a one-scene wonder, but that was a hilarious scene. Drunk Gordon for the win! It's at least a nice, believable development for Bullock...

Which isn't really what I could say about Riddler. Yes, he's made his first kill and we should get his descent into madness and villainy. Arguing with a psychotic voice in his head that manifests as a mirror, though? Again, like the other main actors, Riddler's actor gives a really strong performance... it just doesn't suit Riddler. Riddler is like this dude with super obsessive-compulsive disorder, not someone with a split personality. Those are two wholly different conditions akin to saying a gangrenous feet is the same with a broken rib, and while Riddler's argument with his imaginary friend -- who urges him to rape Ms Kringle in yet another display that's sure to offend feminists -- is hilarious to watch, it's also, y'know, a weird scene in general.

I've been talking about downsized characters all throughout the review, and while Gordon and Penguin do get a fairly significant amount of screentime as befitting the two leads of last season... the one that receives as much screentime is Barbara Kean, who makes her appearance strutting in yet another fanservice-y outfit... while she's being put into Arkham Asylum. What in the actual hell. She then proceeds to be the most hilarious parody of a bitchy character ever, and, well, that's a way to make use of a character that's reviled by the audience, I guess. She, uh, kind of randomly flirts with several people in the Asylum, and while it's not shown selling her body to Black Mask is implied to have happened simply for Barbara to go all yandere and go "Gordon it's her fault not mine" and "LESLIE I KEEEEELL YOU" and it's really just so badly written that it truly is hilarious to watch. Yeah, the writers clearly have no idea what to do with her. And it's a riot.

Also I know Arkham Asylum is a crapshit prison asylum thing, but yeah, good job, prison managers, for putting your young female prisoners in a body-fitting prison suit around with all your crazy, burly male prisoners. I mean, it's a good thing Barbara is ready to become Black Mask's bitch, otherwise she's rape fodder, isn't she? Yeah, from the Riddler-rape thing from earlier in this episode to the implied BDSM brainwashing with the Ogre and Barbara and whatnot, I'm not quite sure what the writers of this show are smoking.

And then we have the utterly ridiculous Zaardon the Soul Reaper, who would be embarrassing to watch even in the Adam West Batman TV, let alone this grimdark version of Batman. And apparently Zaardon the Soul Reaper with his ridiculous hammy scenery-chewing performance is part of some convoluted plot to sneak him into Arkham Asylum so he can burp out blue gas so he can knock out a bunch of people who happens to be the people his employer needs so that he can be a distraction for Tigress to break said people out.

Yeah, and I thought Arrow's Ra's Al Ghul had a stupid-convoluted plan. This is worse.

Way to make me have confidence in you, Theo Galavan, you brand-new character who I don't care about. He's just a generic evil businessman with some master plan to... uh... make the Suicide Squad? Or some bullshit like that? He and his sister, Tabitha -- who's apparently a brand-new incarnation of minor supervillain Tigress -- kidnap Barbara and her Arkham buddies. Barbara and Jerome (a.k.a. Proto-Joker) are down with it, but Richard Sionis (Black Mask Senior) is so keen on banging Barbara that it's all he's focused on. So Tigress stabs him to death for his troubles.

Yep, bring back two characters we've only seen once! Well, at least Jerome the Proto-Joker seems to be shaping up to be a major character, and, well, Gotham does do its psychopaths justice. Barbara's somehow delved from a disturbed girl with psychopathic tendencies into a master people-manipulator with shades of seductress in-between seasons, which does not particularly make sense. At all. Richard Sionis gets taken out like a bitch, but then I realized I don't care about this particular incarnation of Black Mask, so yeah, why the hell not?

This is a wreck of a train ride, isn't it? It's definitely fucking entertaining, though, in a morbid way. I know this thing's going to crash and burn, but while it's bad... at the same time it's so bad that it loops all the way back to be good and I guess I can find some enjoyment in just laughing at the insane writing choices they pick here. All the weirdness in trying to be both absurd and grimdark, all the meandering around with some plots and truncated feel of others, all the scenery-chewing, all the random allusions to rape... it's just so awful it's hilarious.

One Piece 802 Review: The Island of Zo! The Seventh Shichibukai! Kizaru!

One Piece, Chapter 802: Zo

Man, this chapter. Toriko and Bleach definitely aren't slouches, building up respectively Kyoraku and the Eight Kings, and I absolutely love those two chapters... but One Piece I think takes the cake, simply by dropping bombshell after bombshell after a pretty hype series of chapters. Almost washes off the aftertaste of padding from the Dressrosa arc. 

We start off with something relatively simple. Just the Luffy squad and the Barto Club dealing with the New World's insane weather. Some standard One Piece/Toriko 'OMFG what insane shit can we think about'. And we see that the Barto Club truly embody the chaoticness of the Straw Hats... but even worse. Apparently they somehow got all the way to the New World without a freaking navigator, and they rely on Gambia's granmama -- by calling home if they get into trouble. And Bartolomeo explains it to Usopp with the perfect "aw shucks" face. We get some comedy scenes with the Barto crew getting distracted by uses for the hail and Usopp just freaking out. Luffy is all like "NAMI SAVE US" Law is like "FML" and Zoro... actually thinks of a way, telling Bartolomeo to create a barrier... but apparently Bartolomeo is afraid of god's punishment if he goes against nature. Bartolomeo, you crazy fucker. We get a short montage of their antics on the ocean...

Before we cut away to Navy Headquarters. Apparently the A.O. Pirates under Whitebeard (I looked up, it's one of the generics who really don't have anything worthwile to talk about design-wise beyond looking like a pirate), one of the crews allied under Whitebeard, have been completely wiped out... by Edward Weeble of the Shichibukai. We see Kizaru for the first time since the timeskip (Movie Z doesn't count) and he just is still not giving a fuck, clipping his nails in the middle of the meeting and whatnot. Apparently around 600 people are killed, and this was the 16th of the Whitebeard allies that was wiped out by this Weeble fellow alone. Sucks to be part of the Whitebeard crew, since the Blackbeard army is IIRC also hunting them down. 

Kizaru is just kind of wishy-washy about Edward Weeble, as Kizaru usually is, and one of the marines really fucking casually just points out that Weeble is the flesh-and-blood of Whitebeard himself, even if it's kind of doubted. Kizaru notes that Edward Weeble, walking away from a scene of carnage and destruction, is almost like looking back at a younger version of Whitebeard all over again. 

And, uh, we see Edward Weeble (so, uh, the writer's just trolling us with the Shiki-esque silhouette from before) who's your typical One Piece big bulky character with stick feet... and holy shit he does look ridiculous. From his disproportionate body, to his snot, to his super-thin beard, to the skinny legs... he's apparently the "self-proclaimed" Whitebeard Junior, and I really think this is just affirming that Edward Weeble isn't really the son of Whitebeard. 

I mean, just look at the fucker! Also, Whitebeard's whole point of characterization is that he wants to build a family for want of one, so yeah, this tool definitely has nothing in common other than a less-epic beard. 

Also Weeble's got these stitches all over his body, so, uh, Gekko Moriah connections? Maybe? Maybe he is the 'son' in the sense that Whitebeard's body parts were used in his creation?

And then this crotchety old woman with sunglasses that just looks so freaking weird totters up and goes all 'you should kill all of those fools claiming to be your father's children' and she's apparently the self-proclaimed-Whitebeard's-Lover, Miss Bucking. Weeble is apparently very much a momma's boy.

Also jeez woman you're definitely not who Whitebeard banged. Look at all those hot nurses on Whitebeard's ship. They be far far more hotter than you.

Bucking and Weeble get a stupid "comedy" moment with a mirror and a photo and whatever, and Bucking definitely is the brains of the team, telling Weeble he has to hunt down Marco the Phoenix. I would laugh at the notion of this tool facing off against Marco, Jozu and the rest... except, y'know, he is a Shichibukai and just wiped out sixteen other crews. But Weeble apparently isn't all bad, since he doesn't really care that much about Marco and the rest, or the treasure and money Bucking is obsessed about, and wants to kill Blackbeard who killed his "father". You go, Weeble. Be productive with your apparent strength. 

Weeble and Bucking then decide to hunt down Luffy, since Luffy and Marco kinda hung out during the Marineford War. Not sure if Luffy even remembers who Marco is, but hey. Well, I definitely like Weeble. What a motherfuckingly hilarious character!

We cut away one week later to the Going Luffy-senpai... which is hilarious since the last 100 chapters took place within a week. Apparently the Barto Club pirates all get sick, since they are hilarious as hell. One of them notes something that may or may not be a mountain, but Law gives some insight about how the vivre card is pointing towards the island, so that is where Team Sanji is. Law also calls Usopp 'god' sarcastically and Usopp is just basking in the adoration and gets whacked over in the head by Franky for all his trouble. Also he gets scared because new island and shit. Law gets some fun moments with Bartolomeo going all "Straw Hat needs food" to get some.

And then we get the reveal that the island of Zo... is a gigantic elephant with an island on top of it. Well, usually when we get an animal walking through the seas with an island it's almost always a turtle, so this is something, I guess. Zo actually means elephant in Japanese, so it's definitely a fun little pun. Law notes how normal log poses cannot take them to Zo on account on it being a giant motherfucking elephant. 

Kanjurou and Law talk about the Mink Tribe, something we saw all the way back in Shabondy as a small afternote, and apparently the Mink Tribe really hates people in general and have been isolated from people for 1000 years... living on Zo. And it's apparently a fucking zombie giant elephant island, because it's not already weird enough. So are we getting some Void Century connections? Man, I'm just so hyped at the moment.