The Walking Dead S04E13 Review: Coincidence

The Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 13: Alone

Welp, while I really liked the previous episode, this one doesn't feel anywhere as good as that. It really feels like a step in the way as the show tries to get a good chunk of its scattered cast all gathering at this Terminus place. 

A good chunk of why this episode felt particularly weak is the Maggie/Sasha/Bob storyline where the three of them split up because Sasha doesn't want to go to Terminus while Maggie thinks that Glenn would've gone to Terminus. All the while, Sasha's not-boyfriend Bob (were the two of them ever shown doing anything at all before? Can't remember) is super convinced that sticking together with Maggie is the right thing to do. All well and good, but did you need to take the entire episode to do that? Did Bob need to have that opening flashback? Also the sheer amount of coincidences is just honestly dumb. So Sasha happens to shack up in a building that's right next to where Maggie was sleeping, and happens to look out of the window just as zombies arrive to assault Maggie? And the two of them just happen to stumble upon Bob? It's honestly just kind of dumb, and all that for what? Just to get them on the way to Terminus? Why not just have them not disagree in the first place? It's a weird writing decision because none of the three actually get any sort of character development beyond 'oh no we have to stick together'. Bob and Sasha are still 'nice person' ciphers and Maggie has a one-track 'find Glenn' mind. 

So yeah, despite the very strong character moments for Michonne, Carl, Beth and Daryl over the past three or four episodes, this episode fails to do anything remotely approaching that for Team Maggie.

Daryl and Beth go through more of the same thing that they did last episode, only this time we don't really get much of a payoff. Daryl gets his faith in humanity restored, only to be seemingly abandoned by Beth, and this causes him to go on another emo bend until he apparently threw his lot in after being found by the same crew of jackasses that fought Rick two episodes ago. Come on, Daryl, you know Beth's probably not alone in that car -- you guys spent like five minutes noting how there were people hanging around your hideout until very recently, are you that genre blind?

Overall, a pretty weak episode. 

Superman TAS S01E06 Review: Enter the Parasite

Superman, Season 1, Episode 6: Feeding Time

Honesty time, Parasite is probably my favourite major recurring Superman villains. Discounting the amazingness of Luthor and Brainiac, I've always had a fondness for Parasite. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was his design -- purple skin with silver straps all over, and an extra lamprey-leech mouth in the modern comics. Maybe it was his tragic backstory. Maybe it was his cool powers. Maybe it was that one Hero-Clix figure I own as a kid and I liked very much because it's the only character I recognize from my meager collection.

But whatever the case, this episode brings us Parasite, and short of his brief moments of Kryptonite weakness, this is when Superman is actually put through the wringer. In the pilot Superman was able to more or less hold his own, and against the Toyman he was never truly in danger. Here? The Parasite is a bona fide powered human himself, and the Parasite's powers allows him to not only drain someone's powers, it also leaves Superman powerless temporarily... but more scarily, it also allows the Parasite to 'download' people's minds. Nothing is scarier than Clark hanging out in the safety of his apartment only for the Parasite to break the sanctity of a superhero's civilian identity and jump him, tying him up in a basement and feeding off of him periodically. Add that to various scenes of a powerless Clark just looking sick and miserable while other people talk about putting their faith in Superman is also well-done, making the scene when the heroic music swells as he tells Perry how Superman is 'probably going to come back' only for the Parasite to jump Clark and beat the shit out of him. 

The Parasite's just so awesome, and unlike the Toyman (whose origin story is told briefly through a book), we actually see the Parasite's origin story unfold on-screen. He's a pathetic janitor who ends up getting doused with some science-y chemicals, and transforms into a hideous purple creature that drains other living things, like mice and that unfortunate patrolwoman and Superman himself, to survive. The conflict with his partner in crime, Martin, isn't necessary but adds extra depth to Parasite being bullied pre-transformation and becoming the bully post-transformation. 

We also get some nice continuity bits with the previous episode, with Hamilton helping Superman to develop a lead anti-Kryptonite suit, which ends up helping Superman defeat the Parasite. That final conflict was pretty cool, too, and seeing Parasite drain too much Kryptonite and overload himself, being locked as a vegetable, before gaining a brief bit of sentience when he drains a passing cockroach, is well done. 

Oh, and I guess I have to mention that this is the first of the many Jimmy Olsen centric episodes here. He's... all right. I remembered him being very annoying back when I was a kid, but here he's just... well, he's Jimmy. A little irritating, a little over-eager, but honestly just a sidekick who wants to help. I can't really hate him for that -- he's mostly just bland. 

Overall, the Jimmy stuff is a little weak, and I thought the pacing of the episode could be framed better, but I really liked Parasite's origin story. Well, mostly I just like Parasite, but the episode's also relatively decent.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Parasite, real name Rudy Jones, is based on the Superman villain of the same name, and his transformation into the Parasite is more or less identical to his post-crisis origin story, though some versions of his backstory had Darkseid or Luthor be behind his transformation into the Parasite. There were other versions of the Parasite in DC comics' history (Raymond Jensen, the pre-Crisis Parasite who was retconned out of existence during the Crisis; dr. Torval Freeman, a scientist absorbed by Rudy Jones but was able to retain his ego; Alex and Alexandra Allston, a pair of twins who were transformed by the villain Ruin as new Parasites after Rudy Jones's presumed death; Joshua Allen, the New 52 Parasite, who was transformed due to an alien creature) but Rudy Jones is by far the most iconic. 

Superman TAS S01E05 Review: To Kill The Man of Tomorrow

Superman: The Animated Series, Season 1, Episode 5: A Little Piece of Home

It's another villain-of-the-week episode, and this time around Lex Luthor takes central stage. Luthor in Superman: TAS is unique in that we don't actually see the man brought down and arrested until Justice League, at least not to my knowledge, so he spends a good chunk of these episodes orchestrating events and getting away relatively without getting put into jail himself, which is interesting -- it sets up some kind of a status quo for the show, keeping Luthor's threat as this untouchable public figure while also letting him tangle with Superman.

The episode also features, more importantly, the debut of Superman's greatest nemesis -- Kryptonite, the titluar pieces of home. An attempt to foil a robbery by the honestly pathetic Caroli brothers turns into Superman struggling to walk as he gets near Kryptonite -- something Luthor catches on to and quickly weaponises. In a memorable scene from when I watched this episode from my childhood, Luthor contracts the hired gun named Joey (and Mercy totally emasculates him by kicking that beanbag -- I love Mercy) who then menaces Superman with a jetpack and leads him to Kryptonite.

Then begins a nice game of cat-and-mouse as the forces of Superman, Lois Lane and Professor Hamilton of STAR Labs (also low-key sneaking in Hamilton and the Labs, quickly establishing them as trustworthy allies), as well as Luthor's forces. There's also some nice bits of showing Clark Kent's attempts to hide his weakness to the sliver of Kryptonite that Lois has.

Again, Luthor tries to make a deal with Superman, who naturally refuses to cooperate, and this really shows a great deal about Luthor. Yes, Superman is doing the hero things we expect him to do and admire him for doing, but Luthor's a more complex beast. It's not enough to kill Superman, though that's not unwelcome -- he wants Superman to bend down to him, more than anything, and that's what makes Luthor's motivations so interesting.

Also, in a moment that went over my head when I watched this episode as a kid (which I remember mostly for the Mercy scene), Luthor catches on to Peterson colluding with Lois Lane and STAR labs, and the last we see of Peterson is Luthor closing the door and telling Peterson that Mercy will totally give him a ride home and 'deal' with him, while the man looks absolutely scared. The scary thing about this isn't the death threat, it's the implicit undertones that it's actually done. We never see Peterson again after this, there's no real way out for him from the situation and even if Superman could arrive fast enough, he's not even aware of what's happening. For a show that spent its previous episode dealing with Toyman and his giant duck, I'm genuinely surprised at how dark it gets in this episode.

And then we have Superman fighting a giant robot dinosaur that Lex controls via an old-timey SNES controller, while Lois Lane plays basketball with Kryptonite and a lead cup, and all is well with the world. Unless you're poor Peterson.

But while, once more, Luthor's actions cannot be tied back to him (though, I dunno, a giant dinosaur robot of death in his museum that moonlights as a display must be hard to explain) we get to see the final shot of the episode -- Luthor's men combing the Earth for more Kryptonite. He's found out how to hurt Superman, and while he has prevailed this day, it's not long before Luthor pulls off something scary. Maybe he'll make the Kryptonite not removable from his next robot. Eh? Eh?

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• First appearances of Emil Hamilton and Mercy Graves. Mercy, Luthor's bodyguard-chauffeur, is a character created from the show and later imported into mainstream comics similar to Harley Quinn and Rene Montoya. Professor Hamilton first appeared in the 80's, initially as a villain before becoming one of Superman's allies and a major character in STAR Labs. 
• Also the first acknowledged appearance of Superman's weakness of Kryptonite, though hardly will be the last. 

The Walking Dead S04E12 Review: Drinking Game

The Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 12: Still

It's another bottle episode, focusing on Beth and Daryl's little misadventures without any stopping elsewhere, and for a moment I thought I was going to rant about what an annoying little shit Beth is, and how Daryl's gone from the interesting badass to an emo angry douche. But turns out that while the first... oh, twenty to twenty-five minutes of the episode is just following them doing generic survival things, creepy shit (how creepy are those zombies still hanging from their nooses?), Daryl rescuing Beth from stuff, playing 'have you or haven't you' games and talking about 'oh no we should survive' and stuff like that it turns out that they're both dealing with grief in their own way, and the confrontation with Daryl making such a huge ruckus and kind of forcing Beth to learn crossbowing is very raw and emotional. Helps that the rest of the episode ends up building up to the fact that the house they're shacking in is actually Daryl's old house. 

So Beth is just trying to keep up hope and distract herself from so much of the pain and death that had happened, trying to believe that they should be good people because what's the point of suffering and all that if they haven't? Meanwhile, Daryl feels responsible. If he had been stronger, if he had hunted down the Governor more aggressively, if he had shot the Governor before he hacked Hershel's head off... stuff like that. But at the same time, Beth is far more willing to let go of the past and just move on, because she knows there's no sense to wallow in the past, whereas Daryl is trapped in so much horrors both recent and past. What I get from his story is that the zombie apocalypse turned Daryl from a junkie without a purpose (who nearly got himself killed over an argument about a cartoon at one point) into one of the most badass members of their little group... only to absolutely fail at actually doing his job at being the badass guardian. 

It's probably a bit too slow of an episode for my liking, but the contrast between Beth's forced optimism and Daryl's cynical self-loathing is very well-done, and the two of them play off each other well. I'm not sure if the show's trying for the shipping route or not, but that final scene with them burning down Daryl's asshat father's house and flipping it off is pretty awesome. At the end of the episode both characters have grown somewhat, in a way that doesn't feel really unnatural. Beth grew somewhat stronger as being around Daryl has caused her to become more independent, while Daryl gets through his emo phase. 

So yeah, an episode that starts out very weak, but ends up actually making use of the weaker first half to make the last ten to fifteen minutes of the episode an absolute delight of character development. A filler episode that actually felt like one of the stronger entries in this season, which is not a thing I can say often about the Walking Dead.  

Superman TAS S01E04 Review: Dolls, Ducks and Gangsters

Superman: the Animated Series,  Season 1, Episode 4: Fun and Games

So this episode is your typical bad guy guest star episode, which was the norm for cartoons of the period. We get the first colourful villain of the series, the iconic villain Toyman. Or rather, the DCAU's absolutely sinister portrayal of the dude. The DCAU has never been a stranger of reinventing characters when it needs to (see: Mr. Freeze, Brainiac, the Question and many others) and its interpretation of the Toyman as a sociopathic manchild dressed up in an always-grinning porcelain doll is horrifyingly eerie. Because, jeez, look at that unblinking, creepy-ass grin. 

The plotline is really rather simple. Toyman's rampage is fueled by a hatred of vengeance towards the dirty politician Bruno Mannheim, who dabbles in gangster robberies on the sidelines. Lois's article on the psychiatric analysis of Toyman causes the man to kidnap Lois, and after dressing her up like a doll, Toyman basically wants Lois to write a flattering article about his assassination of Bruno Mannheim. There's the strange suspension of disbelief on how the son of a washed-out toymaker is able to get enough resources to create an unbreakable asphyxiation gel, a super-powerful bouncy ball, automated robot planes and a gigantic robot duck, but it's not something that distracts too much from the admittedly rather simple plot of Superman's fight against the Toyman.

It's a relatively simple yet enjoyable episode, painting Toyman as a sick psychopath that still deserves a sliver of sympathy due to his backstory. Like Batman: TAS, Superman doesn't waste any time in trying to build up a Rogues' Gallery of villains that it can work with, and Toyman is a nice, low-note adventure to start off with. Toyman himself is interesting enough of a gimmick villain to make me entertained. Also loved that final shot of Mannheim being shown the shattered Toyman mask and you can just see the man pissing himself with the thought of Toyman out there hunting for him.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Toyman is an adaptation of the comic-book villain Toyman, specifically the first, Winslow Schott. However, due to the liberties it takes with Toyman's appearance (the comic-book version of Toyman is just a dude in a suit and glasses) and making him a dude in a porcelain doll suit, this Toyman is identified as Winslow Schott Junior, whereas his father, who died in his backstory, bears a resemblance to the comic book version of the Toyman.
• Bruno Mannheim, a.k.a. "Ugly" Mannheim, is a leader of the Intergang in the comics. Not gonna say much about it here -- he's going to return with more plot significance, is all you need to know. 

The Walking Dead S04E11 Review: Zombie-Killing is Fun

The Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 11: Claimed

This is a bit of an episode that was difficult for me to really pay attention mostly because I just... don't really care about what's going on? I'm not sure whether it's the new influx of flat, new characters, or the very boring Rick subplot that runs throughout the episode, the absolutely slow pacing, or simply just exhaustion from all the depressive themes that Walking Dead has been having for the past few episodes leading to a cathartic and meaningless action sequence... I dunno.

The thing is, there really isn't any real newness to what's going on in this episode. Things suck, people are horrible, and we repeat the same few strokes. Yes, we get Michonne being adorable and bonding with Carl, but their journey to look for resources and Michonne stumbling upon a child's room and freaking out are things we've already seen far more effectively in the previous episode, and Michonne's room-by-room backstory revelation is far, far more inelegant and boring than the classy flashback we had two episodes ago, with Carl's pushy 'omg are there any others?' falling flat and off.

Rick hides under a bed as a bunch of assholes literally come out of nowhere and ransack the house they're holed in, and we get a far-too-long sequence of Rick being exhausted, Rick hiding under the bed, Rick sneaking out of the house, and Rick meeting up with Carl and Michonne. Easily the weakest of the three storylines that run in this episode -- the tension doesn't really work, and it really could stand to be reduced to one-third of its runtime. Yes, we've got a roving band of anarchist jackasses, but it's nothing really new -- it's something we've already dealt with ever since season two. 

Meanwhile, Glenn's single-minded and wants to return to Maggie, and, um, that's all I can describe about his character, really, which is a shame. Glenn's been a favourite in seasons one through three, but ever since he became sick in season four he's either lovesick or sick-and-dying. And it's just boring and one-dimensional. Likewise, Tara is also a very flat character. She was indistinguishable from her sister back when she's hanging around the Governor, and now she's just kind of... around. I literally can't tell you a single thing about her character beyond the fact that she's slightly wracked by guilt. 

Honestly I'm far more interested in the new characters: Abraham (a.k.a. Colonel EpicBeard), Rosita (a.k.a. Badass Military Girl) and Eugene (a.k.a. Arrogant Scientist). Somehow in the middle of this all there are these three people, in a mission to escort Eugene to Washington and apparently find a way to cure the zombie plague.

Of course, they end up being idiots for forcing Glenn and Tara to come along with them, Glenn throws a tantrum, Abraham and Glenn fight and in the scuffle zombies attack and their military truck got shot up. It's honestly a bit irritating, really, how we're introduced to this very interesting subplot of possibly saving the world (or maybe they're just delusional?) but end up just being waylaid and sent off to wander the road again. 

It's a very uneven and honestly pretty bland episode. 

Superman TAS S01E01-03: You'll Believe A Man Can Fly

Superman: the Animated Series, Season 1, Episodes 1-3: The Last Son of Krypton

Truth & Justice.

Hello and welcome! I've never actually watched Superman: the Animated Series properly. I watched most of the first season, I watched a couple of other episodes here and there, and I read up plot summaries to prepare me for reviewing Justice League, but I've never actually watched the series properly. Now that Justice League Unlimited has been done with, I've decided to review Superman: TAS. It's hopefully not going to take as long as JLU and the upcoming Young Justice reviews in no small part because Superman: TAS is a lot less serialized and thus it's a lot easier to review.

That said, though, this first review is probably going to be a bit longer thanks to it being three episodes forming a mini-movie. Plotline wise, it's basically any Superman origin story, just done in the DCAU format, but thanks to the relatively long running time we get adequate pit-stops on every important point in Superman's origin story. There's Jor-El and Lara in Krypton, there's him discovering his powers in the town of Smallville, there's the brief conversation with the hologram of Jor-El, there's him as an adult arriving at the Daily Planet as we're quickly introduced to the Daily Planet supporting cast, there's the Superman-saves-a-plane, there's the interview with Lois Lane, there's the fight with the first villain. I'm pretty sure that anyone that's going to read these reviews know in full detail what Superman's origin story is, so I don't really have to say much about that beyond the fact that it's amazingly done, it's paced fast enough so that I don't get bored (unlike certain live-action adaptations) yet slow enough to let you absorb the journey from Clark Kent to Superman. 

However, even this early on there are a fair amount of signs that Superman: TAS is going to take a different stance compared to its predecessor, Batman: TAS. Working off the same model that Batman Beyond worked on, there's some seeds of buildup for main villains being done in the pilot -- two, in fact. Brainiac and Luthor both get a relatively large amount of buildup in the episode, hinting at their larger role later down the series and then through to Justice League and JLU, and despite being behind the Kaznian attack and being John Corben's employer, Luthor doesn't really get caught, merely inconvenienced. Brainiac, likewise, gets away scot-free and gets a brand-new backstory for being the very supercomputer that deluded the rest of Krypton, one of the most awesome backstories I've ever seen being done for the classic Superman villain.

Speaking of which, I'm a big fan of how the first part (the first episode of the three-parter, if you treat this as a three-parter episode instead of a TV movie) actually gave Jor-El a relatively large role. Jor-El has been elevated from just a figure in Superman's backstory since the iconic live-action portrayal of Jor-El by Marlon Brando in 1978, being portrayed post-humously as this super-advanced AI that gives Kal some advice that his human parents cannot. This version of Jor-El also gets a pretty cool plot point where he tries to prove his theories that Krypton is, in fact, doomed, and in one fall swoop quickly gives us a backstory about the Phantom Zone and Argo, the Kryptonian society and also has a nice little sub-plot where even Jor-El's wife and father-in-law start doubting him.

It turns out, though, that in the world of Superman: TAS things went a little more conspiratorial than normal. See, in this continuity, Krypton has its own Skynet, a supercomputer network that overviews everything and basically acts to confirm opinions. Like Google, but sentient, has a creepy monotone voice, and pretty much intent on covering up any mention of Krypton blowing up so that he can focus his efforts on uploading himself into a satellite and escape its destruction.

The first part is probably the part of the pilot that dragged on a little, and both the encounter with the Shoggoth (actually identified as such!) and the Brainiac security guards are obvious padding, but at the same time it actually builds Jor-El up into a character we relatively care about, and gives us enough information about Krypton so that it's not an abstract place that we're told where Superman comes from.

The other scenes after baby Kal-El lands on that farm in Smallville and the fateful encounter with a young Jonathan and Martha, and later him being confused as he discovers his powers in school (also a brief role by Lana Lang) and the amazing moments when he discovers his alien heritage and that he can fly... it's amazing stuff, going through the origin story of the Man of Steel once more. Being a longtime DC fan it has been one of the most unchanged constants of the lore, yet the way it's presented here is still exciting enough to hold my attention throughout it all.

And then comes the adult stuff, where Clark Kent end up showing up at the Daily Planet, meeting with the loud boss Perry White, the nebbish cameraman Jimmy Olsen (who actually doesn't do jack-all in this pilot) and the second lead of this show, Lois Lane. And while Tim Daly is an amazing pick for Superman, Dana Delany is even better for Lois Lane. While Lois still has to do double duty as a damsel in distress -- this is still a Superman show, after all -- she's also portrayed not as the dumb bimbo of the Golden Age comics but a far more shrewd and cunning reporter, but also a pleasant human being to be around. She and Clark quickly puts together some things about the reason Luthor would want his LexoSkel-5000 (really, Luthor? Lexo-Skel?) suit to be stolen, she's smart enough to have a contingency plan and the only reason it goes south is because Bibbo is too thirsty at that time, and while she does need rescuing, she has her share of fighting, including swinging a crane to whack one of Corben's mooks in the head. Lois also gets a warmer scene of bonding with both Clark and Superman, which is nice.

The big action sequences here are Superman fighting the Kaznian terrorists stealing Luthor's LexoSkel suit and the subsequent rescue of the airplane, and later the longer action sequence against John Corben riding said LexoSkel suit. Which are fine, I guess -- the huge explosions really sell that it's going to involve higher stakes compared to its brother show, Batman: TAS, and it displays the scale of what they're trying to accomplish, though the fact that it's still the first episodes of the show is relatively evident in the rather iffy action scenes.

Nothing is quite as awesome as Luthor, who we saw as nothing but unflappable from when we first saw him (Clancy Brown fits into that role like a fucking glove even this early on) and then he starts talking down to Superman, this man flying outside his window, being derisive, then putting out his businessman bargain charm, then trying intimidation tactics... and Superman is just this unflappable, arm-crossed mass of alien muscle that refuses to budge. To an egomaniac and control freak like Luthor, it's quite literally the biggest insult you could do to the man, and seeing Luthor completely lose it and lob things at Superman, who calmly crushes it, says a couple of simple lines: "I'll be watching", before flying off and ignoring Luthor's angry rants... yeah, badass.

So yeah, definitely an enjoyable opening set of episodes. Superman: The Animated Series hasn't been as fondly remembered as the goodness of Batman: The Animated Series or the epic scale of the Justice League cartoons, and the subject material might be to blame (Superman is just isn't as terribly interesting as Batman, and recent live-action attempts being relative flops don't help much either) but at the same time I find myself more interested than ever to really see a series revolving around the Man of Steel. The animation is great and crisp, the soundtrack is uplifting and dramatic (if a little repetitive around action scenes) and the scripting is great. Points for the best line in the episodes go to Pa Kent as he tries to explain that his son is an adopted alien. "You know some babies arrive in storks..."

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• I'm not going to go through the origin stories of our heroes and villains one by one, that'd take too much work, but most of the characters introduced here all hail from the Golden Age of Superman's comics, except for Bibbo Bibbowski who came in the 80's and 90's comics. As mentioned in my review, Brainiac's origins differs the most from the rest of the characters.
• Note that the El family on Krypton has a little white puppy. I'm not sure if Krypto the Superdog ever makes it into Superman: TAS, but this is definitely him. 
• The Phantom Zone and a planet called Argo are mentioned by the Kryptonians, which will both be important later on in the series. Also note the green rocks formed when Krypton explodes, which obviously is Kryptonite.
• Martha briefly mentions a caped freak in Gotham City, which, of course, is a reference to Batman, putting the adventures of Batman's earlier seasons earlier in the timeline compared to Superman: TAS. No worries, though, since they'll eventually meet and the rest would be history.
• Having watched Justice League relatively recently, I'm surprised that the fictional nation of Kaznia actually originates from Superman: The Animated Series.
• Jor-El identifies the green blob-tentacle monster that attacked him as a shoggoth, a reference to the works of H.P. Lovecraft -- the Cthulhu mythos. Fittingly, the shoggoth was first introduced in the story "At the Mountains of Madness", a story starring a group of explorers digging in the icy tundra and stumbling upon an unearthly civilization. 
• The 'Nice S' pun is actually cut out of some broadcasts. Considering the things they snuck into later seasons of Justice League and Batman: TAS, I'm actually surprised that this, of all things, got cut.

Movie Review: Dragon Ball Z - Resurrection F

Dragon Ball Z - Resurrection F

A while back I reviewed Battle of Gods, the first of the two canonical, Akira-Toriyama-penned sequels to Dragon Ball Z. I watched Resurrection F directly after that, but ended up not writing up a review to it. Time will tell if I ever start with Dragon Ball Super, because of how I've ended up letting my JJBA reviews kind of fall on the wayside, but hey, we'll see. 

The general consensus of Resurrection F is that it's... okay. Which is more or less what my sentiments about it is, really. That's why anime-movies as a medium to tell an ongoing story doesn't really work that well, something that the Naruto pre-Boruto movies showed -- it's all invariably just generic 'oh, another in a line of Otsusuki clan members wreak havoc, the good guys beat them!' Thankfully they caught this problem after F, and decided to make it an anime series instead. 

So F takes place after Battle of Gods, and features the return of Dragon Ball Z's uncontested most iconic villain, Frieza, when the remnants of his troops run around to Earth to use the Dragon Balls and bring Frieza back to life. Frieza then decides to boast that since his big Achilles' Heel was that he had been so sure that he's numero uno in the universe, he's going to train now to try and surpass the likes of Goku. Small problem? Goku and Vegeta are also training with Whis at Beerus's plane. Also, y'know, motherfucking Beerus exists. The climax loses a lot of its tension when Beerus and Whis literally show up halfway through to make food jokes and makes it clear that Frieza, in his golden form, is pants-shittingly scared of Beerus and only plot contrivance makes Beerus more concerned with strawberry cakes and not pimp-slapping Frieza. And even then, the likes of Gotenks and Majin Buu don't show up either despite them being a candidate to match Frieza's power levels. It would be something if Frieza turns out to be able to Worf Effect and one-shot them no problem or whatever (like what Beerus did to Buu in the last movie) but their absence here in an alien invasion just felt strange. Krillin even tells Android 18 to stay back at one point -- why, exactly?

This leads to a relatively weak and repetitive fight between the Super Saiyan Blue forms of Vegeta and Goku -- and while I'm a big Vegeta fan and seeing him get equal billing to Goku in this movie, poor Frieza himself never felt like the threat that he used to be. Frieza's afraid of Beerus, Whis is even stronger than Beerus, and both Goku and Vegeta actually have time to take turns to beat Frieza up. Sure, the Earth gets blown up, but Whis literally reverses time immediately. It's a bit odd, really, when the main part of the movie has me going 'okay, can Frieza even put up a decent fight against Goku, let alone Goku and Vegeta?' instead of 'oh my god how do they win against this new foe?' Like, honestly, I'm not sure why the characters are worried when in theory Gohan should be able to take on non-golden Frieza no problem, lack of training notwithstanding.

There's a lot of cool things in the movie, though. The creepiness of Frieza being brought back to life, with an amazing rock star theme song, and him immediately reverting to form and blasting his minions? That's awesomely done. The big early battle royale action sequence of Piccolo, Krillin, Master Roshi, Gohan and Tenshinhan against Frieza's army is amazingly done and a wonder to behold. Master fuckin' Roshi gets in on the action! However, it quickly ends, and we're just left with a sequence that's just 'wait for Goku and Vegeta to show up' and that's easily the weakest part of the movie -- the Goku/Vegeta/Frieza fight may be generic but it's at least a cool action sequence... albeit not one that's particularly innovative.

Oh, and there's this random space cop that's from Akira's other work. He's... okay. A bit in the movie too much for my tastes, but I didn't mind him that much.

I enjoyed it enough as a brief action anime movie, and the animation is gorgeous (though it ended up being a bit spotty around the time Frieza went Golden, but the first half is pretty enough I'm not complaining) but it certainly leaves a fair bit to be desired, especially compared to its predecessor.

The Walking Dead S04E10 Review: Anthology

The Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 10: Inmates

It's a stark contrast to the previous episode, where 'Inmates' jumped from one group to another as a way to catch up. I honestly don't really know if any of the zombies or the father-son pair that Tyreese stumbles into are supposed to be any particular people I should be sad about, because I don't recognize any of them. We just jump from various groups -- Daryl and Beth; Tyreese, Judith and the creepy girls (Judith is alive!) who meet Carol; Maggie, Sasha and Bob; Glenn and... er... lady from Brian's army whose name I cannot remember -- at a pretty fast pace. Most of them got out okay, we're just establishing where they are. There's a distinct difference between the tones and pacing of the first two halves of Walking Dead's fourth season, in a way similar to the newer Gotham seasons, and it really feels like we're having two mini-seasons instead of one longer one. Which is perfectly fine, I think.

Daryl and Beth are basically there to show that they're still alive. We get a bit of a long monologue about Beth talking to her diary about how they need to have hope that the prison will be good juxtaposed against the two of them being pretty fucked up while running from zombies, and her being insistent that they'll meet survivors soon and getting pretty broken down when said survivors turned out to be zombie chow. 

Tyreese apparently saved Judith (something that's honestly not a big surprise -- I knew one of the group made out with Judith, I just don't know who) and the two creepy kids, Mica and Lizzie. Who are still indistinguishable to me -- one's a bit of a coward and the other is a hardass survivor, but damned if I can tell them apart. Tyreese and the kids, naturally, stumble across Carol, because, y'know, maximum drama! Carol is the mother-figure of the creepy girls, but at the same time she killed Tyreese's girlfriend. Tyreese doesn't know about this, though, so he treats Carol's return with a hug. Future drama! This group meets a little map leading to 'Terminus', which is... the next sanctuary they're going to hole up in, I guess? Man, I missed Carol. She's been gone for a good chunk of episodes now. 

There was a pretty tense sequence where Tyreese is forced to leave the two girls with baby Judith as he goes off to investigate screaming people (RIP Christopher, who I'm not sure if we ever met before), and it's pretty tense -- the coward girl, understandably, freaks the fuck out, but the timely arrival of Carol saves them. Judith's a baby so she's more or less dead weight that's crying and demands milk and diapers all the time, and for a moment I thought the show was going to have Lizzie (?) kill her by suffocating her but thankfully that didn't happen.

Maggie, Bob and Sasha reach the bus that drove off on its own during the fall of the prison, and they find it filled with zombies. It's a bit of a horrifying moment as Maggie basically wants to make sure whether Glenn is alive or dead -- with her father recently murdered and her not knowing what happened to her husband and her sister, she's really, really desperate and it's a very palpable bit as Sasha and Bob lets the walkers out one by one as Maggie stabs them in the head, praying that none of them are Glenn. Of course, this means every single background extra from Woodbury is freaking dead, with only Bob, Lizzie and Mica ending up mattering. Well, I guess it's for the better -- none of them actually mattered.

But apparently Glenn's left in the prison, hanging on a concrete edge with zombies all below him. Didn't he go with the people in the bus? I have no fucking idea what happened, because last I remembered Glenn went with the people on the bus, but hey, apparently he got off, and found himself at one end of a collapsed walkway. After waking up, Glenn has the time to gather riot gear, an assault rifle and a backpack full of resources, go through some badass moments as he charged the crowd of zombies, recruit... random Governor-allied lady as an ally, before collapsing out of tiredness, and they're confronted by this new group of people in a military van who don't look to be particularly nice folk. 

More story got told in this episode, and there are some great moments, but all in all I think they could've done better by not being so... filler-y, I guess? It really felt like the show was too slow-paced and too fast-paced at times in this episode, and neither the slow pace nor the fast pace happened in the right bits... which is probably the fault of the anthology method of storytelling in general. Eh, overall it's still pretty enjoyable, I guess, with lots of setup including this 'Terminus' place and the group of people Glenn met at the end of the episode.

The Walking Dead S04E09 Review: Spotlight - Carl

The Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 9: After

The previous episode was the mid-season finale of season four, and, well, instead of a two-day break audiences back in 2013 they probably waited for a couple of months. So we go from the huge, status-quo-destroying mid-season finale into this episode. Instead of a big action sequence, though, we instead get a far more personal episode on Carl. And a fair bit of Michonne, but mostly Carl. Only three members of the main cast really show up in this episode -- Michonne, Carl and Rick (who spends all of it half-dead on a couch), with the fates of what happened to the rest of the cast basically unknown to us. And the focus of the episode is definitely on Carl, who is a very... divisive character in the fanbase, as I get it. I personally don't have much of a problem with psycho-child trying-to-be-a-man Carl, it's Rick that I have a lot of problems with. And Carl voices a lot of my complaints about Rick in a very, very epic rant -- where everyone tries their best to survive all he's doing is play farmer and be mopey and hope things can get to normal (but continues to lord over people like Carol and Carl with the moral high ground) where Carl would've preferred Rick to not continue leaving in a dream world -- this isn't going to be a normal world anymore.

It's definitely a slow episode, one that takes its time showing some trippy flashbacks, long shots of the autumn-leaf-covered street that the group finds themselves in, showing the aftermath of the prison war (and Hershel's creepy zombie head), showing Carl doing very human things like vomiting, getting excited when he sees DVD's and tubs of pudding, showing him panting after surviving one zombie crisis after another... it's definitely the right choice to backpedal a bit after the breakneck action sequences we've got in the past few episodes, and showing off Carl -- who has a lot of screentime but not enough development -- and his mindset, acknowledging that while he's matured way faster than any child his age, he's also still a child. From his loud ranting at his unconscious father, to his begging for Rick to wake up, both sides of Carl's personality is shown very well.

Rick himself is just broken. He's juggling facing the possible death of his infant daughter (something I'm sure will end up to be a fake-out) with trying to survive and be a good father to Carl, but the injuries and tiredness he's accumulated over the past few episodes have kind of worn him down so much that the moment they find a house to take shelter in he just conks out and doesn't wake up until the last two minutes of the episode.

Michonne, meanwhile, is the most human she's ever been here. The only real emotion she's shown before is in response to Andrea's death, or during her 'funny serious' moments during her little duet adventure with Carl, but here we get a jarring transition from our usual Walking Dead fare into Michonne making dinner while joking around with two men -- one is clearly her boyfriend/husband, and the other is a close friend or a brother or something, and one is definitely her child. Seeing Michonne, miss mysterious badass samurai, be joking around just like any young woman, is a very, very jarring moment, and the flashbacks fall apart. The conversations take a sudden harsh tone -- talking about survival and living where they've previously been talking about movies and whatnot. The sudden appearance of Michonne's katana as she slides it into the knife rack (though if pre-zombie-apocalypse Michonne actually makes beef goulash with a katana I wouldn't be fully surprised) and the sudden flash of thunder as Michonne's child disappears, and her boyfriend and friend turns up as the handless, jawless zombie bodyguards that Michonne hangs out with during her earliest appearances. Perhaps it came a bit too late, and some concrete hints to her backstory would've been far better appreciated during season three, but it's definitely portrayed well here. No, the nature of the flashback doesn't really tell us in definite terms what happens, but the implications -- Michonne's lover took their son to death with them, or maybe it's just them going to another settlement and getting fucked up in the way? Turns out that you can have your cake and eat it -- Michonne's backstory is still as mysterious as ever, but by peeling back some layers we make her a lot more human.

Perhaps the most powerful moment is when Michonne walks with her two newly-acquired handless, jawless walker pets as she walks alongside a horde of zombies she sees a dreadlocked black woman who looks similar to her and it ends up unnerving her enough to break her cover and just slaughter like two dozen zombies. It shows that, like Carl and Rick, beneath all the hard-ass badass samurai lady she's still, well, human, someone whose priorities isn't 'how to kill a horde of zombies' or 'where to get supplies to survive the next week' or 'are any of my friends still alive' but simple things like movies, art galleries and dinner. 

Michonne ends up tracking Rick and Carl to their newfound shelter, while Carl himself has his own victory by getting a lot of resources as well as the fact that his father turned out to be alive, so that's three people having their small tiny victory -- which is insignificant in the wake of the global zombie apocalypse, but we're human and these sort of small victories end up being very significant.

The Walking Dead S04E08 Review: Governor Rematch

The Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 8: Too Far Gone

Well, that was... an eventful episode. Must've been the mid-season finale or something, because holy shit, a lot of things went down in this episode. People died, there was this huge chaotic battle in the prison, and, well, the prison itself got fucked up.

After watching this, I honestly remain unconvinced that we needed to waste two episodes showing off what the Governor's doing and how he's a better, more caring leader... only for him to relapse and be a bastard once more. It's confusing, really -- on one hand, he's got a legitimate motive in wanting to protect his new band of people. On the other hand, last episode he's killing his second-in-commands faster than Darth Vader abroad a Star Destroyer, and he shot his adoptive daughter in the head without any reaction at all... which really makes him a lot less interesting almost immediately. He also spends a good chunk of this episode doing, well, what he does for the most part of season three, although at least his negotiations run longer and the terms he gives Rick are far sweeter than S3!Governor... he still ends up cutting Hershel's neck (hacking is more like it), ordering his tank to blow up the prison, quite literally fucking up the prison, getting most of his group dead, and causing the prison group to get scattered.

The thing is, I'm not quite sure why we couldn't have had this huge storyline happen at the end of season three, or at the beginning of season four. There's really not much character growth to the Governor at the end, so why did we have to bring the momentum of the story to a screeching halt, then have the Governor do more or less what he did at the season finale? Hell, you could even change some of the events if you wanted Tyreese and the rest of the Woodbury camp redshirts to bulk up the numbers in the prison. I dunno, feels like pretty convoluted writing to me.

In the end, the Governor gets into a one-on-one brawl with Rick, but thankfully (because I've grown to really dislike Rick over this season and the previous one) it's not him that gets the kill. Michonne ends her little obsessive revenge arc (though there's not much to that) by shishkebabing the Governor through the chest, and he gets a mercy-kill courtesy of... Lily? Whichever of Lily and Tara that's Megan's mom. 

Rick and Governor, as well as Hershel and Governor, have this little 'we're not too far gone' talk, but it's more of dressing in order to make this not just a simple bang-bang shoot-out. We also get the attempted advancements of some plotlines, with Rick talking to Daryl about his very controversial decision to let Carol bugger off on her own (something I totally forgot thanks to the two Governor-centric episodes since we last saw the prison group last), a conversation that was a lot calmer and involving a lot less punching than I expected. Tyreese discovered the rat-feeding conspiracy, and blames whoever murdered his girlfriend (wouldn't you?) but before Rick and Daryl got a chance to tell him whodunnit, the Governor arrives with his fucking tank. 

So a lot of characters die. A lot of characters I don't care about, mind, you -- Hershel and the Governor are the only deaths that mattered -- but still, they were recurring characters and elicited enough 'oh shit' moments from me.

Killing Hershel is a very awesome move -- I don't think any of the other characters would be as effective as Hershel. He's likable, he's gotten a lot of screentime recently, and he's too weak to really defend himself. Plus, unlike, say, Carl or Maggie or Daryl or Glenn, Hershel is the one character in the prison that's unambiguously good and decent. No real reason why on earth the Governor wouldn't cut Michonne's head off first -- from a pragmatic standpoint Michonne's an actual threat, and as the episode shows, she actually does escape... other than to be a huge dick about it. 

Then a big shootout and a tank cannon explosion happens. Meanwhile while all of this is happening, we get a fake-out with a zombie attempting to cross the lake, Pirates of the Caribbean style, but Megan gets bit by a zombie that just happens to be buried under the pile of soil she's playing in -- dang flash floods, am I right? She gets bit, the Governor mercy kills her, before dying shortly courtesy of Michonne and Lily. 

The action scene was superb, and was everything that season three promised but didn't quite manage to reach. We've got the tank blowing holes in the prison and crushing the fences, we've got Daryl and his very awesome zombie shield, and he force-feeds the tank a goddamned grenade this was awesome), before shooting an arrow to, uh, Military Recurring Character Man. Carl gets to save Rick, and we've got Carol's two psychotic kids shooting the Governor's soldiers, including Tara's girlfriend, and saving Tyreese. I don't particularly care for Lizzie, little psychopath that she is, but that was an awesome takedown.

Everyone gets split up in the huge chaos, and Rick and Carl stumble upon Lil' Asskicker's bloodied baby carriage. Mind you, who the fuck had the bright idea of leaving the baby with a bunch of clearly demented kids instead of giving it to, oh, Beth or Glenn or someone? The fact that we didn't actually see a body -- even if the show wanted to avoid killing a baby on-screen, I wouldn't put it past them to show like a hand or feet left behind -- really makes me think that Baby Judith was taken by the dudes on the bus that, uh, drove off on their own?

In addition to Hershel, Governor, Megan and Judith (okay that last one not really), we also lose practically every single member of the Governor's group -- who I'm sure have names and personalities and all but I couldn't tell you if I remember even a single one -- and some people from the prison group. I think all the important characters got away, though I couldn't say for sure. Glenn's with the bus and the majority of the escapees, Tyreese runs off with psycho girls (meaning that this group will encounter Carol with a 100% certainty because drama), Daryl's with Beth, Rick's with Carl, while Maggie's with Sasha and Bob. I think both Lily and Tara make it out alive, though I'm not sure how they'll manage to outrun all the zombies gathering around the noise without help. I think that's everyone important? Maggie running around because Beth ran off to look for her is hilariously dumb yet very realistic considering the chaos.

So yeah, the prison burned down, Daryl blows up a tank, Hershel is zombie chow, the Governor's finally dead... it's an awesome conclusion, I'm not doubting that, but what I'm doubting is whether it's right to do it at this point in the show, and not a couple of episodes earlier. Oh well, at least Governor's dead. He's had a good run, but he's definitely overstayed his welcome. 

Game of Thrones S07E02 Review: Recaps and Choices

Game of Thrones, Season 7, Episode 2: Stormborn

A running theme I see throughout this episode is choices. Theon has to make the choice of charging in to fight his big scary Viking warrior uncle and save his sister, or succumb to past mental traumas and jump overboard. Jon has to make the choice to submit to the popular opinion that he should stay in the North, or to abdicate leadership to Sansa while he goes off to meet Daenerys. Sam has to make a choice on whether to help Jorah Mormont or not. Daenerys has to likewise make various choices -- submit to popular opinion of her court to one-shot King's Landing, or go through a more intricate plan to win the hearts of the people; as well as the choices on what to do with Varys the Spider. Randyll Tarly has to make a choice of taking the dishonourable deal Jaime offers him, or to follow what's honourable and pledge his loyalty to the Tyrells. Hell, even Nymeria the direwolf has to make a choice whether it will follow Arya back to Winterfell, or ignore her and continue being the pack mother to the wolves of the forest.


A fair amount of this episode's still a holdover from the previous one, where the three main rulers in place -- Daenerys, Jon/Sansa and Cersei -- consolidate their armies and strategies. Cersei's insanely outmatched, but Daenerys wants to rule instead of conquer, whereas Jon's far more concerned with the White Walker threat and he knows that the motley crew of wildlings, northerners and night brothers, as powerful as they are, won't stand a chance against the army of the dead. So both Daenerys and Jon really try their best to go and do what they think is best.

We spend only a brief moment with Cersei in this episode, seeing her basically do what Tyrion predicted she would do -- talk about how Daenerys, daughter of the Mad King, crucifier of noblemen (it's some really nice selective propaganda) is coming with a horde of savage Dothraki barbarians and mindless, soulless Unsullied -- which, of course, Tyrion and Daenerys direct away from King's Landing to deny Cersei this advantage. Cersei's forces are still relatively nobodies other than Jaime, Qyburn and Zombie Mountain, but Jaime gets to talk with Randyll Tarly, Sam's father. Randyll gives a pretty cool speech about how the Tarlys' name means something and he doesn't stab people  in the back, but Jaime pulls out the silver tongue and promises the Warden of the South position to Randyll, potentially putting Randyll at odds with Sam. Really, really want to see Sam shishkebab this fucker with Heartsbane, that's for sure. Highly unlikely, though.

Cersei also discusses with Qyburn about how to deal with dragons, and apparently Qyburn watched the Hobbit. He stages a demonstration with a gigantic crossbow with one of the dragon skulls they have in their basement, working on the actually-solid logic of 'they can be hurt, they can be killed' considering how Drogon being hurt with spears apparently spread enough to Qyburn's ears.

That's about it for Team Cersei in this episode, though, unless you count Euron at the end. So let's talk Team Jon.

A good chunk of the Team Jon episodes is just Jon waffling on whether he needs to go to Dragonstone. Sansa and Davos and various other house heads remind Jon that this is exactly how his grandfather Rickard died, as well as Robb and Ned. Jon actually listens to this until he gets Sam's raven from last episode, which shows that the huge pile of Dragonglass? It's actually under Dragonstone, making Jon and Daenerys's team-up all the more important. Except every single person in the room (even cute miss badass Lyanna Mormont!) thinks it's a fucking bad idea to trust Daenerys -- not to mention that distrust against Lannister and Targaryen houses are still insanely high. I did love the callbacks to Tyrion's interactions with Jon and Sansa in older seasons, but Sansa's guarded suspicion, considering what she's been through, is certainly understandable. Sansa and the others are painted as short-sighted fools, but can you blame them? As Jon Snow reminds us all, none of them have seen the Army of the Dead or what it'll take to defeat them. Apparently, the man knows far, far more than nothing this time around.

This leaves Sansa as the de facto Lady of Winterfell as Jon and Davos head down to Dragonstone to negotiate with Daenerys. Daenerys expects Jon to bow, though I'm pretty sure the conversation will go slightly differently than that. Littlefinger's role in all this is expounded upon. He's been woefully underused for the past season and I believe completely absent in the one before, so seeing him back in full slimy form is amazing. He doesn't get to do much but deliver ominous smirks and smiles from the background, but finally gets to have a conversation with Jon in the Stark crypts, where he, in his own words, tries to have a full conversation with Jon. Jon just straight-up doesn't trust Littlefinger (although I would argue that he hasn't properly met the man before, I could believe someone else like Sansa or Robb telling him all about it), although he was at least civil when Littlefinger brilliantly spins around events to make it look like he's a steadfast ally to not just Sansa but the Stark family all along. Of course, ending the conversation with "I love Sansa, just as I loved her mother" is going to get Littlefinger punched in the face by Sansa's brother (well cousin but whatever), what did you expect was going to happen there, Littlefinger?

Anyway, Sansa's Lady of Winterfell and that's going to give her a lot more agency to be proactive instead of just arguing with Jon all the time. Jon's going to Dragonstone... but so is Davos even if he doesn't get a lot to do this episode -- and, lest we forget, Melisandre is also at Dragonstone. So that's going to be an interesting conversation.

Let's talk Arya, actually. Despite the gigantic uproar about the Ed Sheeran cameo last episode (which I don't get, all you silly people overreacting, the man had like two, three lines and then just sat in the background, I didn't even notice him until after the episode and someone told me) she didn't follow that particular plot line, and she went back to retracing her steps towards King's Landing. We get the welcome return of Hot Pie, her old travelling companion, and we get to see how much of an antisocial, soulless Faceless Girl she's became, as she ends up being almost entirely alien to Hot Pie despite still being technically friendly (her remark about making pies is hilarious and I shouldn't have found it so funny but I laughed my ass off). She also gets the in-universe revelation that Jon Snow has became the King in the North and killed the Boltons. Then she has to choose between two paths, on whether to continue on to King's Landing and turn Cersei into a pie, or to return to her family. She ends up returning to her family, and that was more emotional than I expected it to be.

She meets Nymeria's pack of wolves in the way, which is yet another callback to the rich history that the TV series has developed over the past six seasons, and Nymeria's grown to titanic proportions and is the alpha female of her own pack of wolves. It's a logical explanation, and a payoff everyone's expecting... yet, just like Arya herself having changed from a spunky little tomboy girl into a morose, sometimes-emotionless psychotic assassin, so has Nymeria. We haven't seen Nymeria at all since Arya drove her away to run into the woods back when Joffrey was doing his prat-prince deal, yet she's gone through her own trials and tribulations. "It's not her", Arya says at the end of the beautifully-choreographed scene, and while I am sad that Nymeria and Arya won't be this awesome hunter-and-pet team murdering queens and mountains together, it... makes sense? "It's not her" could apply to the fact that Nymeria had grown into a different wolf herself, and as such won't accept being reduced to a simple pet to a human anymore, but it could also be Arya trying to rationalize Nymeria's thinking -- the Arya that stood before Nymeria is so alien, so changed, from the Arya that Nymeria knew waaaaaay back in season one, that she's not going anywhere with her. So yeah, that's a scene that I liked more after reviewing.

Oh, we have another member of Team Jon that's separated from the main North cast, and that's Samwell Tarly. We get a brief conversation about Archmaester Horace Slughorn Ebrose (he gets a name!) chronicling the current history and Sam deciding that it needed a catchier name (it's totally going to be 'A Game of Thrones' isn't it). But mostly it's just Sam going against his masters to try an experimental treatment to treat Jorah Mormont, telling Jorah that he served under Jeor Mormont and thus Jorah owes Sam's loyalty thanks to that. Coincidentally, Sam helping Jorah is certainly going to come into play for the inevitable Jon-Daenerys alliance. Now the problem is how the two of them are going to leave Oldtown and get to Dragonstone.

So, back to Team Daenerys, then,  of whom we get the most screentime in no small part due to it having the most big name characters. Daenerys spends a fair bit of time around the big map table, and in the opening scene, dissects Varys's contributions to her cause. Keep in mind how Daenerys has been (similar to the problem Jon faced last episode) been unrelenting in her 'justice', uncompromisingly exiling Jorah Mormont only to find him still loyal in exile. Now he had a choice. He laid out Varys's sins to bear -- how he betrayed any member of the royalty he didn't like and supported the next. The Mad King, Robert Baratheon, even his brother Viserys. Varys's role in planting the idea for Viserys to obtain a Dothraki Horde via marriage, and his subsequent ordering Daenerys's assassination back in season... three? is also brought up. But Varys's impassioned speech to Daenerys, about how he's always done for the people, is something we know of him during Varys's past conversations with Tyrion, and it's a very, very awesome unflinching speech from him as he tells Daenerys -- behead him, feed him to the dragons, but he is doing what he feels is right for the people. Daenerys opts to keep those valuable to her, those known quantities she can control, and decides to keep Varys around as her conscience. If ever she becomes the type of ruler that Aerys, Robert or Joffrey became, Varys should tell her how to change instead of plotting behind her back.

Her big strategy discussion with her far-more-developed lieutenants is a lot more interesting than Cersei or Jon's strategy session where only two or three people mattered. Yes, Varys is silent throughout the actual discussion, and Tyrion is more of a spokesperson for Daenerys, but Daenerys's deft handling of the situation as she tries to juggle Yara Greyjoy, Ellaria Sand and, most importantly, the most badass old lady in the entirety of Westeros, Queen of Thorns Olenna Tyrell, is amazing. Olenna and Ellaria are very, very ready to just tear down King's Landing out of vengeance, and Daenerys's initial plans to just have the two of their forces (and the Ironborn) besiege King's Landing so they don't feel like an army of invading foreigners, is a solid rebuttal against Cersei's character assassination attempts and very logical, and she quickly puts to rest any doubt that she won't be participating by ordering the Unsullied and Dothraki to depose Casterly Rock. She also finds it beneficial to work together with the King in the North, provided he bend the knee.

We also see her have an amazing conversation with Olenna Tyrell after the meeting, where she gives a few sage words of advice -- Margeary was a queen beloved by the people, and she also ended up quickly dead. Olenna tells Daenerys to be ruthless and ignore the advice of smart men to survive. Again, Olenna, Varys and Tyrion are all wise and have all succeeded where others have failed but they have different views as to the type of ruler Dany should be. It's interesting.

Also, Daenerys's group finally meets Melisandre. It's... it's an okay scene, I guess? It didn't last very long, and felt more like an acknowledgement of another part of the Westeros setting that Daenerys's presence has bled over into.

We get a relatively long payoff scene between Grey Worm (who's about to invade Casterly Rock) and Missandei, where Grey Worm gives a speech about how the Unsullied are trained to conquer their fears at a young age -- some horrid swim or drown type of shit. But Grey Worm never had any fear... yet now he has fear thanks to finding love. It's standard stuff but both Grey Worm and Missandei have been characters we know and followed through for a long time and to see their relationship pay off is definitely nice. Grey Worm's raw embarrassment and hurt as Missandei takes off his clothes and sees his disfigured genitals is well-portrayed, as is the quick discussion of the logistics of a castrated man having sex -- oral!

And then, Yara and Theon are supposed to bring Ellaria and the rest of the Sand Snakes back to Dorne. We get a brief scene of the Sand Snakes teasing each other, and Yara and Ellaria flirting and trying to fuck. It's about time for the episode to end at that point, and I was honestly caught off-guard when the ship suddenly shook, and apparently Euron's gigantic Ironborn fleet shows up and the two go to war with each other. We get some cool scenes especially on the part of the Ironborns, with Euron, Yara and even Theon hacking apart goons on all sides. It's a suddenly tense last five minutes of the episode as chaos breaks out and Euron completely smashes a huge wing of Daenerys's army, kidnapping the heads of Dorne and essentially sinking the Ironborn portion of Daenerys's forces.

But let's talk about the characters themselves. The Sand Snakes were much-maligned by the Game of Thrones fandom for being, well, kind of shit and bland and personality-less, but they were at least somewhat memorable if for all the wrong reasons. One of them (the Jessica Henwick one) uses a whip, but that's all I can tell them apart from. Euron, in his murderous rampage of Yara-allied Greyjoys, is assaulted by the two that aren't Ellaria's daughters, Obara (the spear one) and Nymeria (the whip one, I had to look up these names). And say what you want about them being badly written characters, at least their fighting scenes looked cool. Euron dominated all of them, of course, but the spearfighting between Obara and Euron's pretty badass, and Nymeria's horridly impractical whip in closed quarters is demonstrated well and the two get the ax.

Ellaria and Tyene get to kill a bunch of Ironborn, but they end up being hostages to Euron. Yara gets to fight Euron a bit but is quickly overpowered, upon which we get the final scene of the episode. Theon's pussying out might be easily derided to someone who doesn't put too much thought into watching an episode, but at the same time, the composition of the shot, as well as Theon's own history with dealing with diseased, torture-happy lunatics, means that his PTSD won over and he defaults to jumping off of high buildings to escape his fate. Though honestly, even without the PTSD, it's not like Theon can really save Yara at that point.

Still, it's a pretty shocking ending to the episode, and I certainly didn't expect that. Great stuff. I don't super-care about the Sand Snakes dying, but the larger picture of what Euron single-handedly accomplishes for Team Cersei is amazingly portrayed here. As is, y'know, the rest of the episode. 

Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom [1984]

A couple of days ago I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark,  the first movie in the Indiana Jones franchise which would become a cult classic. Today we're going to be talking about Temple of Doom, and I don't think I have much to talk about this movie, to be honest. It's a sequel, one that puts INDIANA JONES squarely in the title because it's gone beyond the one-shot-and-done mentality of Raiders. Yet, at the same time, as the internet tells me, Temple of Doom is meant to be a prequel. Not that there's much to really tie Temple of Doom to Raiders of the Lost Ark, mind you, beyond Indiana Jones' presence as a protagonist in both movies.

Temple of Doom is a flawed movie, albeit still managing to retain an aura of fun about it. It's really hard to justify some of the flaws of the movie some thirty years later, though, simply because of how utterly racist it gets at times, so let's tackle that part of my criticism first. Firstly, the opening act's racist Chinese businessmen, who are not only greedy bastards that cackle like morons when Indy drinks the cup of poison, and instead of smartly waiting for Indy to die from the poison instead elects to taunt him. There's also the sheer incompetence of the hired pilots, who, for no particular reason other than to facilitate Indy's crash-landing in India (which is a lot further from China than the map implies, mind you) decides to jump ship with a parachute instead of shooting them or pushing them out of the plane. 

It's not entirely racist, mind you, with several positive supporting Chinese characters like Indy's plucky sidekick Shortround, and that other Chinese dude that got his ass shot in the opening scene. A lot of people find Shortround annoying, and while I can see that, I actually find him a refreshing breath of air because while he does shout every single line he is given with a less-than flattering thick accent, he's also a very competent sidekick and one whose friendship with Indy is at least portrayed very well.

The portrayal of India is a bit less... well done, with the good guys' village being shown to be run down and ramshackle and backwards, with weird nasty-looking food that our protagonists tolerate at best, and cultures that some of the white characters make fun of. And it's not even shot in India, but in Sri Lanka, so it's not even the right group of Asians. It gets worse when we get to the palace, where the only flimsy justification for the racist portrayals is that they're all under the control of the psychotic Kali-worshiping cult. Despite Kali being an actual goddess in the Hindu pantheon, and while these particular cultists are insane, the movie's portrayal of Kali as this demonic figure demanding human sacrifice is pretty sacrilegious. And that's not to mention the whole 'look at all these yucky food! Indians eat eyeball soup and monkey brains, how horrifyingly grotesque!' scene, which can, I suppose, be justified by the Kali cult trying to gross-out Indy and the others, but still, the racist implications are still there.

I dunno. Older Hollywood movies tend to have some measure of racist undertones, but I felt that Temple of Doom kind of took it too far. That doesn't stop me from actually enjoying the movie and laughing at some parts of the racism, mind you, but the movie has a fair amount more problems than racism.

And the biggest problem is easily Willie. Coming off Raiders of the Lost Ark, where main girl Marion has her moments of trying to outfox Belloq, or her action scenes in the bar, giving her equal amounts of 'damsel in distress' moments and 'independent character' moments. It's not perfect, and Marion has her share of annoying screeching moments, but that pales compared to Willie, who spends 100% of her screentime either being a spoiled princess ("I cracked my nail!" "I don't wanna eat weird exotic food!") or being a screeching harpy. And I know she's a dancer that gets dragged against her will, but shit, that doesn't mean she has to stick for the entire movie!

Let's talk about what the movie does right, which is, as ever, atmosphere and set pieces. I'm not a big fan of the weird fight at Club Obi-Wan, which felt more like slapstick comedy than anything, but Indy and Short Round going off to free the enslaved children and recover the mystical plot device from the Thuggees. It might go a little bit too mystical mumbo-jumbo for my tastes compared to the previous entry (where the only supernatural bit was only the Ark vaporizing the Nazis at the end) but otherwise it's fun stuff as we jump from one cool set piece to the next. From the surprisingly graphic heart-ripping magical ritual with the unfortunate sap being sacrificed to hellfire, to the fight against the slave driver, to evil Indy, and most importantly, to the amazingly choreographed roller coaster ride in the mine, it's breakneck action afterwards.

Now if only Willie was written out of this movie!

It's fun stuff, with lots of action scenes and fun swashbuckling moments, and while nowhere near as good as the first movie (sequels rarely are, Empire Strikes Back and Winter Soldier notwithstanding) it's still one that, while having a relatively large amount of weak parts, still gave me a decent time while watching it once I get past the racist undertones. 

The Walking Dead S04E07 Review: One-Eyed Bastard

The Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 7: Dead Weight

Decent episode, though I'm unconvinced the previous and this episode needed to be split into two episodes instead of being condensed into one, or one-and-a-half at most. The Governor (a.k.a. Brian) is kind of flip-flopping between his past psychotic self and his attempts at being a good father. He tries his damn best to be a good part of the community ran by Martinez, but old habits die hard. At least he's got some motivation, though -- a justification to do what's necessary to protect his adoptive daughter. It's kinda hard to root for him, though, when he feeds Martinez (who gets a lot of characterization this episode, actually trying to make nice with Brian) to a pit of zombies, chokes one of the other leaders of the community to death and forces another to basically be strong and hard enough to be the leader he wants to. There are some really weird plot choices, Martinez being super-accepting and not at all paranoid, quickly buddy-buddying with the Governor only to be fed to zombies seconds later, or the very quick way that Mitch or whatever that dude's name is quickly accepted the Governor even though he just admitted to killing his brother. 

It's... it's all not bad scenes, it's just that these characters that aren't the Governor are introduced and discarded within minutes of each other that I didn't even get to learn their names. Hell, I haven't even remembered which one of Tara and Lily is the one banging the Governor and which one is the one that's into girls, and we're presented with another slew of new characters. It's all done relatively well from the side of the Governor... on one hand, taking two episodes just to show the Governor was a bit too much. On the other, the really rapid sequence of the Governor going aimlessly to finding his heart to returning to form as a psychopathic villain really does feel forced... and pointless, because the Governor ends up being psychotic, with a bunch of followers and ready to besiege the prison, something he's already in at the end of season three. We do get some perspective as to his mindset and motivations thanks to these two episodes, something that we never really got in season three due to keeping his origins suuuuper mysterious, but still, it does a lot but at the same time not quite enough. 

There are some really nice horror pieces, like the zombie that attacked Megan at the end and literally fell apart as Lily (or Tara) is grabbing at its feet. Or the zombie in the lake that the Governor tried to get rid of the evidence, or Martinez's death, or the swamp zombies, or the decapitated heads of the 'liar' and the 'rapist'... but ultimately those are just set pieces, and I find a bit of disconnect o this whole Governor plot. I dunno. I just find that these two episodes tell a very good story, yet at the same time it's not a particularly necessary or interesting one. 

Pokemon of the Week #19: Rhyhorn

#111: Rhyhorn, the Spikes Pokemon


So this week we're going to look at one of the original 151, Rhyhorn. Well, the randomizer actually picked Marshadow this week, but that thing doesn't actually have much lore yet. Rerolling the dice gave me another one of those damn elemental monkeys, and I'm not going to talk about them. So, Rhyhorn.

What's Rhyhorn, really? It's this awesome-looking rhinoceros-protoceratops beast made out of rocks. Rocks arranged in the shape of armour plating. Among the denizens of the first generation, I've always found the likes of Rhyhorn and Nidoking to be strangely far more complex than the 'animal with a particular element' that a good chunk of the generation had. And honestly, at the risk of sounding like a Genwunner, it's the right balance of complexity that makes Rhyhorn's design busy enough to look like what they wanted him to look -- an armoured rock dinosaur rhinoceros -- without adding superfluous details that distract from the spirit of the thing.

It's a pretty cool looking beast, that's for sure. It evolves into Rhydon, a bipedal fat theropodal dinosaur thing with a fucking drill for a horn.  The less said about Rhyperior, the better -- what an ugly-ass creature. Though I did love the arm-cannons as a concept, and he's undoubtedly a powerful beast in the metagame, Rhyperior isn't a design I'm terribly fond of.

hurrrrrrr

Rhyhorn, though, is one of those rare cases where I think that the basic stage of an evolution line is actually the coolest-looking out of the three. And I'm not saying that because I'm obligated to talk about Rhyhorn. It's just cool, okay? At a glance it's simply a rock rhinoceros, but the shape of the head resembles that of ceratopsian dinosaurs so much, and a combination of the shifting armour plates and the angry look it has on its face just makes him look so dang badass.

I have to confess that I never really paid much attention to Rhyhorn in the original generation one games -- it had an ugly-ass sprite, it's one of the many Rock/Ground types that feel really weak because Grass-types and Water-types sneeze on them and they die, and my biggest memory of Rhyhorn is when this whole epic battle with Giovanni in his gym gets set up only for him to throw out this weak-ass tail-whipping Rhyhorn. It's nowhere as cool-looking as it looked in the anime or the TCG.

I did have the TCG as a kid, with a pretty cool art, though. That's something. But my main exposure was still the games, which I still treat as the 'main' canon, so the lack of Rhyhorn representation -- it's an uncommon find in the frustrating Safari Zone that I only catch to turn itno a Rhydon and put into my box -- means that Rhyhorn completely flew under my radar until well into Generation III. I'm not sure Rhyhorns ever played a super-important part in the anime or the manga, either. Rhydons were, I remember, but Rhyhorn? There was one in the first Mewtwo movie, I think?

Rhyhorn in Generation III was still a Safari Zone encounter, but I remembered it being far more common there, given with a far more impressive-looking sprite that looked truer to the Ken Sugimori art. Generation IV made him an uncommon cave encounter, and Generation VI made him an integral part of the plot, with Rhyhorn being one of the very first Pokemon you meet in the game as an overworld 3D model -- the Generation VI protagonist's mother was a fucking Rhyhorn racer, and you can ride around in a Rhyhorn! I'm pretty sure that's the biggest relevance Rhyhorn has ever gotten in the games beyond his role as Giovanni's first fodder Pokemon.

For all my griping about Rhyhorn being under-represented, despite showing up relatively late in the games, Rhyhorn's actually a pretty shit Pokemon battle-wise. It's an insanely physical Pokemon, with more than half of its stats lumped into physical attack and defense. Which is probably great before the physical/special split, but is absolutely atrocious now. Rhydon isn't super-special either (though he looks cool) and Rhyperior's a pretty cool metagame bruiser, but Rhyhorn himself is burdened with the same weaknesses that all Rock/Ground dual types had -- four times weakness to two of the three available starters. You don't need Solarbeams or Hydro Pumps to kill a Rhyhorn, a simple Bubble will do. Again, a high physical defense statline is probably a great compensation for its 4x weakness to Grass and Water back in Generation I, but now? Yuck.

Disclaimer: Team Magma never
used a Rhyhorn in the games

Offensively Rhyhorn's actually insanely diverse, not helped by Generation I's hilariously unbalanced TM distribution. Naturally Rhyhorn learns almost exclusively physical attack moves, mostly just Rock and Ground with Megahorn added to Rhyhorn's repertoire in the third generation. He gets absolutely insane shit like Fire Blast, Thunderbolt and Blizzard from TMs... which probably hits less than Tackle on Rhyhorn's statline.

Lore-wise, all the Pokedex entries talk about how Rhyhorn's a dumb, charging battering ram. It has a one-track mind! It can't turn when it starts running! It won't stop charging until it falls asleep! It has bones 1000 times harder than human bones! It's brain is small! It can topple buildings!

Rhyhorn's honestly a really cool design that's near-unusable in the games thanks to its horrid stats and weak types. I mean, yeah, sure, Rhyperior's awesome and all, but this is about Rhyhorn. But that's honestly the weakness of many of the first two generations. It's just a shame that this cool design is never really going to see much use in the games. Like, I'm kind of tired of the Gen I love they've been showering us throughout the sixth and seventh generation, but if they really wanted to show Generation I love, update the statlines of the first two generations to match with the physical/special split!

TL;DR, cool rock rhino.

One Piece 873 Review: Big Mom's Pursuit

One Piece, Chapter 873: Trapped Like Sweets in a Cage

Bit sick, so you'll forgive me if I'm a bit less verbose and/or late in reviews this week.

The cover page's kinda whatever. Bartolomeo's advertising Luffy-senpai stickers when they meet a village with Shanks' flag waving atop it. Could be a cool foreshadowing to Shanks being reintroduced into the plot again? Certainly overdue. But does Bartolomeo even know about Shanks at all? I'm certainly curious. 

We get the members of the Big Mom family picking themselves up and Katakuri directs everyone in an attempt to go and hunt down the Straw Hats down. Pekoms also shows up and fills them on just what Jinbe's crew did to him. I do like how the likes of Brulee or Pekoms aren't suddenly buddies with the Straw Hats simply because of their alliances of convenience, I always feel that inferior manga who randomly decides that 'hey, these two fight alongside each other for a fight, so the life-long allegiances that these villainous characters are totally thrown away, right?' Yeah, no. Also, apparently Big Mom's crew is invading the Germa ships. Whatever happened to the actual Vinsmokes, though? That wasn't made entirely clear.

Of course, Big Mom is rampaging. Smoothie manages to get away from the smashy-smash, but apparently Opera got his lifespan sucked away by Big Mom. Is he dead? Doesn't really matter, honestly (and it's not like it's a particularly big loss, we just had another big goop-man not too long ago in Trebol). Streussen is unable to make the cake because he's injured during the fall. A lot of people, including myself, speculated that Sanji might just be the cook to cook up the cake and placate and/or make a brief alliance with Big Mom, but on the other hand, it's nice to see that particular 'obvious route' get thrown out of the window.

Perospero manages to trick Big Mom and tell her that the Straw Hats totally store the spare wedding cake that they totally made, and after a horrifying threatening panel, Big Mom hops on Zeus and flies off to hunt down the Straw Hats personally. 

Perospero is freaking out, but then Pudding shows up and says that, yeah, they can actually make the cake with the time that Perospero bought them. She wants to 'reward' Big Mom for getting rid of Sanji for her -- what Pudding's thinking right now is still kind of ambiguous and slightly all-over-the-place, but it's not particularly bad and ambiguity's always been the name of her game anyway. She's like doubling-down on the 'I hate Sanji' thing, I think. It's entirely possible that it's just going to be Pudding that makes the cake to placate Big Mom, and shows up to rescue Sanji? 

The Straw Hats, meanwhile, have a brief sequence where they hijack poor King Baum (who's like having some smoochie-smooch time with a lady tree of all things) but then Big Mom shows up on her cloud carpet, screaming "CAAAAAKE!" and intent on murdering them. So yeah -- disregard all my talk last week about this being an anticlimactic conclusion because clearly we're just starting to ramp up to the climax. Good stuff.

TV Review: House of Cards, Season 1

House of Cards, Season 1

I thought about making this an episodic thing, but I can only sustain one old TV series at a time, and I'm already halfway through with Walking Dead, might as well as see it to its bitter, shambling end. I'm far more at home reviewing fantasy/sci-fi material than politics, anyway. But I recently watched the entire first season of House of Cards, and it's... an experience. It's around 4 years old now, and one of the pioneers of Netflix's "here, have an entire season online in a single day" model.

And it's... well, the experimental portions of the show are definitely evident here. That's not to say that it's bad, of course. It felt like reading a novel translated onto live-action, only without the constraints of having to end every episode with a conclusion. Obviously each episode kind of comes into its own, but the whole thing blurs together because that, I think, is the intention of releasing 13 episodes at once.

One of the biggest weakness of House of Cards is its... dryness. Kevin Spacey, as this master manipulator Frank Underwood, is absolutely entertaining, of course, and the main plot of politics and Frank's big plan to get back at the administration and elevate himself to a position of higher power is... well, I'm hardly an expert in American politics (read: I don't know jack shit about it) but I managed to follow the series relatively well without it resorting to huge introdumps. It's well-acted, all the actors involved are definitely talented, but there's this mechanical efficiency with the method of storytelling that honestly robs the cast of any personality. It's good, don't get me wrong, but it's not... that great, if you get what I mean? The show doesn't feel like it's about actual characters, but pieces on the board moving and following a script. The actors do their best, but a lot of the more emotionally-charged decisions fell flat and felt like it happened just because it's needed for the story.

Which seems like harsh criticism, but thankfully, once more, the actors do their best to make the weak scripting work. Way too much time is spent on the setup and the education bill and the watershed act, and while Frank is absolutely entertaining as all hell to watch, there's a sense that if the series continues with just 'oh look at how devious Frank is' it's going to be an interesting procedural but not a particularly engaging larger story. Frank did get a couple of humbling moments, most interestingly the eight episode which had him romp around his old campus and display that he's more than a vengeful political machine, and the moments where he shows that he actually does miss his wife, but other than that he's honestly a bit one-note and only Kevin Spacey's amazing performance saves the character. The other big star in the show is Peter Russo (Corey Stoll), who, in my opinion, displayed way more humanity and character than the rest of the cast did, between his struggles to balance his moral ethics with his part in Frank's machinations, his struggles to be a good boyfriend and father and leader of the small people, and all that stuff.

His journey through trying to get through a sea full of drug abuse, free sex and alcoholism, being played on a string by Frank as he forces Russo to basically fuck over a lot of the people he cared for in order for one of Frank's chessboard moves to work, and then groomed up into the next governor only for Frank to reveal in the third-to-last episode that Russo's actually a fall man and ends up getting killed off after hitting rock bottom... Russo's easily the most entertaining character in the show, and the revelation that Frank built him up to literally discard him is a well executed twist.

There were some points in the show, looking back, where things felt a little off (if Frank wanted Russo as a fall guy, why freak out so badly about the watershed act?) but overall the plot kinda made sense. The introduction of Raymond Tusk as the bigger chessmaster that has been manipulating events to get Frank to strike a deal with him in the last two episodes is a twist I don't mind at all -- though the last two episodes felt more like setup for the next season more than a conclusion to season one's story.

The other big players here are Frank's wife Claire (Robin Wright) and plucky reporter Zoe (Kate Mara), and whether you like them or not is really subjective on whether you buy their act. Both Wright and Mara are amazing actresses that played with their material really well, but Zoe's role from a younger version of Frank's "I'll do anything to advance" mindset to rather abruptly going from being happy to trade sex for services to suddenly refusing to do so despite insisting multiple times earlier in the season that the age gap doesn't bother her felt like it wasn't a well-developed change of dynamics, and, again, seemed to exist solely to give Zoe a reason to be an antagonist in the next season because at the end of this she's gone from Frank's lover into someone actively trying to unravel the conspiracy. It's not the worst writing I've ever seen, of course, but the reporter stuff that she did earlier in the season is absolutely boring, and the Frank/Zoe scenes don't really work that well despite both the actors' efforts and looking back at it as a whole, the Zoe plotline really borderlines on ridiculousness if not for Kate Mara's amazing efforts at making the character slightly sensible.

Claire is a little bit better, because her role as Frank's partner and emotional confidant in a bond different from the traditional romantic husband/wife bond is well-displayed, as is her growing annoyance at Frank passing over her work for his own agendas and sleeping with Zoe (something she's okay with initially, but come on). But any time we go back to the sub-plot with the drilling platform and the pregnant idealist partner and it's just so freaking boring.

There are other sub-plots and characters, of course. Frank's right-hand man Doug Stamper is a personal favourite minor character, having great scenes with Frank, Russo and plot device prostitute Rachel. Also, the... chief of something-or-other Linda Vasquez is also a character I'm very fond of. Raymond Tusk, the 'final' antagonist that's built up for the next season is delightfully hammy. But by and by the rest of the supporting cast are either strawmen that only exists to be antagonistic for the duration of the arc, or are unmemorable.

It's clear from the get-go that this season is simply a set-up for what's to come next, and it suffers somewhat from that. Perhaps a more trimmed-down season, with maybe 9 or 10 episodes instead of 14, would have worked and be paced a lot better. Despite my complaints it's still a show that I like a fair bit, proving that a standout cast can really save a half-baked script. I'm sure that if I watched the latter seasons this one would probably be a bit better looking back, but at the same time there are a fair bit of things that go against it that annoyed me while watching it.

The Walking Dead S04E06 Review: Search For Redemption

The Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 6: Live Bait

Pretty good episode, a stark difference from the last two episode's attempt at a focused episode. Which is surprising, considering how little actually happened in this one -- everything that happened in this episode happened way before season four's events even began, and even the end didn't show us just how the Governor got to the prison. But it's a lot more interesting. I'm honestly not sure why -- maybe last episode didn't really give us a real character development for Hershel, and that's the big problem? Hershel is awesome, and he's being Hershel, the nice old man who's optimistic and religious in the face of all the horror around him, but he doesn't really grow as a character. Maybe that's it. Whereas here, the enigmatic Governor, after being... inconsistent last season, gets systematically broken down in one of the most effective montages I've ever seen -- first being abandoned by his two loyal soldiers, then seeing Woodbury abandoned and burnt down, and basically reduced to a mere shadow of his previously proud self. 

And yes, the story here really didn't deserve forty minutes to tell... there really was no need to spend so much time showing the Governor's new life in the apartment hanging out with the family, and just showing that the Governor has some capacity to do good... and the unmistakable bonding between the Governor and Megan. I suppose if we compressed the story it would've felt rushed and unbelievable, but by the same token it's a story that dragged on for a bit. There were a bunch of great moments simply because the family (including the terminal father) is given time to grow and the audience actually ends up knowing who these people are, compared to the nobodies that died last episode who I didn't realize existed until two seconds before they die. 

It's a bit of a retooling from last season's Governor, who alternates between a cold, calculating mastermind and just a crazy psychopath, which is something the villain definitely needs. The journey from proud psychopath to broken-down aimless wanderer to just someone who wants to be a father once more, but knowing that this world makes it close to impossible, is told well. And we get some of the most brutal zombie takedowns in a while, with the Governor unleashing his inner psychopath while protecting Megan. How awesome was that scene where the Governor literally ripped someone's throat out? Also, on a more horrifying manner, was the way the Governor bashed the family's father's head in when he turned into a zombie, something that none of the family members expected to happen. 

I'm not sure where the show is going on with the Governor. The flashbacks and references to what he did makes it clear that we're not wiping the slate clean from his inconsistent portrayals before, but he's trying to turn himself into someone else, so maybe it's this attempt to become a father figure and a protector to Megan that's going to be the crux of the Governor's characterization. We'll see. This episode ends with the Governor meeting Martinez, one of the soldiers that left him behind, and it's interesting to see if next episode will be another Governor flashback episode, to which it'll be a bit overkill in my opinion. We'll see. I enjoyed the episode, if nothing else, but hopefully the Governor would turn out better than he did last season.