Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, Part 3: Not just a straight-up remake

So, I continue with Alpha Sapphire... granted, I'm playing at a very slow pace. If I'm not bogged down with work I would've completed the game within a day or two of playing it, but I'm not speed-running.

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, Part 2: Petalburg and Rustboro

More Alpha Sapphire! Again, after the break.

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, Part 1: Hoenn Confirmed

HOENN CONFIRMED

Well, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire have been released, and I am a consummate pokemon fan. Generation 3 was one of the defining generations of pokemon for me, having played generation 3 games the most during my childhood and having replayed the thing several times by heart. So while a remake might not really sound exciting to me on the surface... at the same time, it's Ruby and Sapphire... in 3D! With improved mechanics and graphics! Needless to say, I pre-ordered the shit out of these games, and they're freaking out. So I played it, at least up until I reach Petalburg.

More after the break.

Agents of SHIELD S2E8 Review: Backstories and Gambits

Agents of SHIELD, Season 2, Episode 8: The Things We Bury

Well, a lot of things happen in this episode. A lot of things. A good chunk of it is backstory -- Grant Ward, Daniel Whitehall and Skye's Father mainly, but also a bit of Mockingbird and Hunter. And a lot of these plot threads intersect each other. So, um, yeah, let's break down this episode.

Let's start with Grant (who I'll be calling that for the moment because of the multiple Wards in this episode). Two episodes ago sees him escaping the bunch of soldiers sent to escort him to execution, and he wastes close to no time in hunting down his brother Christian, which is good. If this was dragged on for any longer it'd kind of exhausting.

Grant just tears through Christian's security and drags him to where the old well where Christian apparently forced Grant to push their third brother, Thomas, down. And throughout this ride I do like how Christian is practically begging for Grant to come to his senses and Grant is all like 'stop using your wife to garner sympathy. Stop pretending to do this to facilitate my escape. Stop tying to play innocent. I know all your tricks' and stuff like that. And I really do love how it's not made really clear up until the end if Christian is even guilty at all and is a great manipulator like Grant claims... or if those are just claims by Grant. It's delicious.

We then get a pretty nice little insane interrogation where more of the same happens which really works at showing just how crazy Grant is and how great of an actor Christian is. Grant forces Christian to dig up the well and later threatens to shove Christian down the well before he finally admits that, yes, he actually did force Grant to do it. I mean, we can already sort of guess since the Ward clan is filled up with fucked up people.

Anyway, Christian thankfully is forthcoming about the details. Their mother were abusive to both Grant and Christian, and Thomas was the only one that she dotes on, and Christian absolutely hates that but was too pussy to do anything about it, so he forced Grant to be the one to do it. It's pretty fucked-up, and after the confession Grant seems to have the fire leave him and basically just gives Christian a hug and goes all 'that's what I want to hear'...

Except, you know, this is Grant Ward we're talking about, who made a career of being a double agent. So of course, while he's all hugs and smiles with Christian earlier, the end of the episode reveals that he finished what he started back before he was thrown into juvie, except he actually succeeded in burning Christian and their parents to death. It's pretty awesome how this is told to the audience after the fact, making it come as a bit of a surprise. Alas, Christian. You're a jerk, but you're leaving behind a wife... no, wait, you were cheating on her. Never mind.

Grant uses the confession, which he apparently records, to frame Christian for a murder-suicide and completely fuck up his reputation. And I do like how a couple of things are left ambiguous, like... did Grant really want to hear the answer from Christian? Is he really struggling with the answer on whether Christian did make him do it or if it's really just something he imagined? Or is he just being a cold-blooded weapon who's doing all that to torture Christian mentally and to mechanically extract a confession? Fun stuff.

Also, that's not all he does, because as this was revealed to us, he's apparently reached out to Daniel Whitehall and rejoins Hydra... except, you know, Grant Ward is a wild card.

On first glance, it seems he's joining Hydra and trying to bring it down from the inside, because we know he's killed a bunch of Hydra troops and delivered Bakshi to SHIELD. Maybe he's getting into Hydra just to get close to Skye's father. But it could've easily been the other way around. He delivers Bakshi to SHIELD to garner their favour since Bakshi is expendable, and he's rejoined with his true masters at Hydra and is going to try and worm information out of SHIELD. Considering what we know of Grant Ward, it could easily be either one... or both. Somehow.

The other big thing about this episode is the reveal of Daniel Whitehall's backstory and how he's looking the same age as he did during World War II. We see him do some experiments on the Obelisk by forcing the Chinese people from the village to touch it... somehow in a facility in Austria (I'm sure I missed a detail or two somewhere) and encounters someone who I assume is Skye's Mother. But news of Red Skull's apparent death reaches him and he's all sad and stuff.

We then get to see Whitehall after his arrest at the hands of Peggy Carter way back in episode 1, who shows up for a couple of scenes in the flashbacks, partly to promote that new Agent Carter show that's supposed to hit the networks sometime soon. Simmons also extremely unsubtly drops some 'omigod I love Agent Carter' lines which really feels like some really in-your-face advertisement. But I digress. Anyway, Whitehall, or known as Werner Reinhardt at that time, tries to bargain his way out of being locked up by promising advancements and all that, but Carter's not having any of that. Carter has seen first-hand what Whitehall/Reinhardt can do, and vows to lock him up and bury him forever. Which is kind of cold, but Reinhardt is kind of a monster, so.

Of course, as we know, that doesn't happen. 44 years later, in 1989, a certain fellow named Pierce arranges for Reinhardt's release on the grounds of budget cuts. Except, you know... Alexander Pierce? That brought a nice smile to my face. It also neatly ties in with the mention in Winter Soldier about Pierce apparently recruiting Hydra scientists. We get a nice little montage where Reinhardt's surroundings change as he ages, and apparently Hydra has discovered... Skye's mother. Again. And Skye's mother has not aged at all through the 44 years. And near the end of the episode we see just what Reinhardt does to her, as we are treated to another horrifying montage as she is dissected. Literally. We get a few gory shots of pretty bloody and relatively realistic open-body shots. Having seen corpses myself I've grown a bit immune to such sights, but the fact that they actually do show skin being ripped out and organs being pulled out is rather horrifyingly surprising. They really are flipping the censor off, aren't they?

Anyway, whatever Reinhardt gained from Skye's Mother, he managed to devise some... magic comic book sci-fi ray that restores his youth, and adapts the identity Daniel Whitehall and loses his funky German aksent in the process. That's the backstory, but the episode is well-crafted enough so that we really wonder, alongside the cast, and gets revelations gradually. It's pretty well done in my opinion.

And then comes the twist near the end that Hydra apparently have the worst cleaning service ever, because when Reinhardt tells his people to dispose of the butchered body of Skye's mother, they just bag her up in a garbage bag, with her head and shoulders still visible, and just dump it in some random jungle for vengeful husbands to find. All this trouble could've been avoided if they burnt the body or did something less moronic than dumping it in the jungle. But hey.

Reinhardt/Whitehall himself gets a few moments of characterization this time around. He's pretty much a FOR SCIENCE guy, basically being entirely uninterested in the Doctor (I'm going to refer to Skye's Father by this alias because it's less awkward to type) and his explanations about 'folklore', though considering he basically regained youth by vivisecting an alien I'm surprised he dismisses the idea of the Diviner being a key. He's extremely giddy when he realizes that Skye's mother is all youthful and stuff, just like a little kid being allowed to dissect a frog for the first time.

We also get a couple of backstory for the Diviner/Obelisk thanks to Reinhardt. Apparently it was brought down by blue-coloured angels coming down from the heavens. So it almost certainly has some relationship with whatever species that the Blue GH Alien was from... though 'angels from the heavens' is almost verbatim the line that Star-Lord's mother describes his alien father's arrival, and Star-Lord is also a half-alien like Skye... coincidence? I don't think so. Especially since between Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy, we've established that aliens have showed up on Earth before.

Reinhardt has also found out some information that these visitors had come to conquer humankind... which the Doctor hurriedly corrects him as it being a mistranslation since the visitors had come to end mankind, other than several chosen ones. Which is an interesting notion, because, again, characters from Thor and Guardians have basically dissed Terra/Midgard as this backwater planet filled with inferior species.

And speaking of the Doctor, he's a pretty interesting character. He isn't afraid to ham things up and generally subvert dramatic moments by making a big pause and goes "really, really, cool." Or just off-handedly revealing that the Diviner contains something within it, and upon seeing Coulson's shocked look, just shrugs and says 'yeah, there is something in it'. Or when Coulson asks if the Diviner is as powerful as a Tesseract, and the Doctor answers straight-away "yes" in all seriousness... before chuckling and going on about how he doesn't even know what that is. So I don't think it's an Infinity Stone, at least. What we know is that the Doctor claims that if the Diviner is brought to this mysterious city by someone compatible, it'll cause something that is 'scientifically speaking, really really cool'.

I did like how the argument between the Doctor and Reinhardt/Whitehall early on was scripted, where the Doctor is just swaggering all around and Whitehall is likewise waving his ego around, dismissing his initial stories as folklore and stuff, and later not really convinced that the Doctor can find where this City is. The Doctor's a really fun, hammy character that feels a bit too much like Garrett in that regard, but hey.

We also get to see that he's a bit of a nihilist, although that might just be a claim to get Whitehall to believe him. As we learn at the end of this episode, he knows Whitehall is the one behind the murder of his wife, since he does that 'look the enemy in the eye' thing while looking at Whitehall. Is he in league with Grant Ward, is that what's going on? The dynamic between the three major villains here is pretty interesting.

The Doctor is later involved in ambushing Team Coulson at this satellite station thing (how did they know about SHIELD's operations?) and apparently arranged this super-elaborate gambit where the Hydra troops would mortally wound Triplett enough so that he gets to operate on Triplett and therefore can talk to Coulson without Coulson arresting him? Well, he does. And it's really a big, massive gambit that hinges on Coulson striking that particular satellite and facility instead of any other alternatives, on a member of Team Coulson to be unlucky enough to be shot in a fatal-but-saveable location, and on Team Coulson not bringing a medic with them.

Yeah, that was a massively stupid plot when you think about it for a second.

But anyway, the Doctor gets his conversation with Coulson, and as always gets pissed off when he calls Skye, y'know, Skye. The Doctor reveals some information to Coulson and is basically just showing that he's stringing everyone along, and basically just acts all cryptic and stuff. I did like their conversation, and how the Doctor is just using Triplett as a hostage and forces Coulson to choose between finishing Triplett's treatment or chasing after him. It's all good fun, and the Doctor seems to have a fair bit of story planned out for him.

Also it's horribly tragic, what his backstory is, and I'm not surprised that he went on a rampage and murdered every single Hydra agent in that facility other than Reinhardt. So how did Raina and Grant Ward get into contact with him? How was Skye born... is Skye's mother pregnant when all that went down, and Reinhardt not only pillaged her organs, but her unborn baby as well? Or something?

Skye's Mother also speaks in a heavily accented Chinese that mangles all the words she's supposed to be saying, but since she's, y'know, an alien who looks like a Chinese lady, that's actually excusable.

All that, and we've just finished dissecting the three villains and we haven't even started on the good guys! Anyway, again, SHIELD is once more divided into two parts. May, Simmons, Hunter, Mockingbird and Mack stay at base and deal with Bakshi and researching Whitehall, whereas Coulson, Fitz, Skye and Triplett go to Hawaii and Australia trying to hack into this super-awesome satellite. No idea why Skye can't just hack into everything like she always does, but I guess it adds... realism? I dunno, I've never hacked before.

Let's start with the 'home' team first. May literally doesn't do shit other than give orders and reveal that SHIELD's current base used to be an old SSR site where Agent Carter operates in, and a lot of those brick walls are hidden panels. Mack, likewise, doesn't do jack shit which is much appreciated. He tries to talk to Hunter, understandably disturbed about what Coulson did last episode, but doesn't get anywhere. So he's the only doubting Thomas in the entire team? That's his role? Well, it's something, at least. He and Simmons are also not fighting in this episode and are actually relatively amicable, so there's that.

Simmons isn't angsting about Fitz again, which is nice -- save the drama when it's going to actually be explored. We get her lampshading about how Hydra could brainwash someone and they wouldn't notice at all... and then stops when she realizes what she just says. I just hope this all pays off, and either or both Bobbi and Simmons have some latent brainwashing inside them, otherwise the whole 'Simmons infiltrates Hydra and leaves Fitz behind for DRAMA' would be completely pointless. It's already inelegantly done as it is, after all. And, of course, she's -sigh- a big Agent Carter fangirl. She and Bobbi gets the most screentime out of the characters left at the base, but otherwise the show still suffers from character overload. This episode juggles everyone relatively well, but that hasn't been the case all the time.

Hunter gets sidelined as well, which is totally welcome, other than the conversations with Bobbi. And Bobbi is truly an awesome character. She's interrogating Bakshi, and is basically playing him along, trying to goad him and lets him think whether he's brainwashed with the whole Compliance thing or not. She's a great talker, and basically reads a shit-ton of stuff out of Bakshi like it's a Sherlock episode. This leads her to surmise a lot of things, basically a psych analyst, and come into a lot of conclusions not only about Bakshi, but also about Whitehall/Reinhardt as well. She's a master with words and kudos to the scriptwriters for making her pretty awesome.

But at the same time, there is one rather damning scene where she's pushing Bakshi with the folder that Hunter seems to spirit away from May and the others, and Bakshi tries to push back, citing all the 'dirty sins' that Bobbi had pulled while she was within Hydra, and she kind of... pushes back, maybe a little too hard, and Bakshi just... slams his head brutally against the table and crushes a cyanide pill hidden in his cheekbone. Well, that's progression from Hydra's old molar-cyanide-thing, at least.

We get a few Hail Hydras in the episode, which is always fun. HAIL HYDRA!

We get some nice moments on Bobbi's end, how she seems to hide some secrets, and Hunter calls her out on it, and we get an actually nice, quasi-serious argument about how Bobbi is a master liar and keeps lying about everything, making it absolutely hard to be in a relationship with her. Bobbi, of course, claims that her line is Hunter and she'd never lie to him, and at this point there's a pretty nice comparison drawn against Grant Ward, who's also a master spy and a consummate liar. Hunter tells Bobbi that he can't ever trust her... but he'll never stop trying to. Which is, granted, pretty smooth-talking, and the two end up stripping their tops and climbing into a vehicle presumably to rekindle their old marriage. It's actually a pretty nice development for these two, and I do like how they don't need to take up an entire episode to do it.

Meanwhile, Coulson makes a bit of a joke about how Fury could see five steps in front of the enemy despite being a one-eyed man, and then sends Skye and Triplett off on seemingly random errands delivering watches, buttons and ties in Hawaii... the button, apparently, would render Triplett sterile if he puts it in his pants which is a hilarious moment. And we get this speech from Triplett to Fits about how he trusts Coulson since he's the team's anchor (a nice contrast, again, to that bastard Mack) and it's always nice to see Triplett actually, y'know, existing after spending the last seven episodes basically in the background. Coulson's big plan apparently hinges on having the button and the watch delivered to two particular people who's going to shake hands and activate the EMP he's planted there, and deactivate the big satellite grid, giving them a window to hijack the satellite from a secondary facility in Australia.

Oh, and the tie is just a present from Audrey that Coulson wants to pick up from the dry-cleaning.

I thought the scene with Coulson handing out wacky errands is well done and absolutely hilarious, and then Coulson tells Fitz to practice installing some technobabble in under six minutes. We get a couple of scenes with Fitz just failing to do so with his one good hand, and it ends up being a bit filler-y. Thankfully, however, Triplett shows up with his speech, and Fitz later tells Coulson that he could do it in seven minutes... with his bad hand. Which is awesome that Fitz can finally contribute to the fieldwork even if it's something relatively tame and simple compared to his past duties and the practice-makes-perfect angle does let it sound credible.

Skye doesn't do much other than be mission control this time around, though she's apparently gotten herself to be the leader of SHIELD's computer hacker team. Triplett, like I mentioned before, fares much better, getting into a firefight and having that speech, though poor bastard sadly got himself shot in the chest and gets taken hostage while the Doctor operates on him.

Coulson and the Doctor get into a tense confrontation where things are revealed to SHIELD, and I'm going to assume that the Doctor knows where the city is (or will know, since it's unlikely that they won't piggyback Fitz's machine or whatever), and has told Whitehall, so it's going to be a race for the city for the foreseeable future. I'm also going to assume Fitz and Coulson tells Skye about their encounter with her less-than-sane father who wants Skye to be in the middle of all the chaos when they unleash the city, because a 'we'll keep this a secret because REASONS' plot has already been done before in this show. Several times.

I do like this episode. The flashbacks and the pieces of information regarding their backstories are pretty nicely woven together, and I do like how a lot of these villains -- Ward and the Doctor in particular -- have their own complex agendas which we aren't totally privy to at the moment. It answers a fair amount of questions and raises a lot more, we get to tie up Ward's little plot line with his crazy senator brother, and it's overall a pretty awesome episode to go with the last one. I mean, gee, answers!

I also do like how this episode is themed on second chances, with Ward getting a second chance in Hydra, the Doctor wanting a second chance to see his doctor, Fitz getting a second chance in the field, and Bobbi and Hunter getting a second chance at their relationship. There's also the subtle comparison between Coulson and the Doctor, how they're both chessmastering everyone present with crazy gambits and all that. It's a nice episode, and I like it.

The Flash S1E6 Review: Superman Homages and Flash Enemies

The Flash, Season 1, Episode 6: The Flash is Born

First up before anything else... Wells has been calling the Flash just that, and Barry's out-of-context opening monologues have been calling himself the Flash, and there's the Arrow's line in the pilot episode with 'saving people like a flash'... and finally, six freaking episodes in, Barry Allen is now officially the Flash.

Granted, like the Streak, it also has the additional meaning of running around showing people your nudity, but the Flash is, you know, the Flash.

Oh, this made me happy. I honestly thought we were going to spend the entire season calling him the Streak, which, while not only a phenomenally stupid name (even the in-universe characters comment on it), I also absolutely hate how Arrow's show call him 'the Vigilante' and 'the Hood' in the first season and a good part of the two. Not only are those names associated with other DC characters in my head and makes it hurt, it's also stupid to, you know, make a show about Green Arrow and not call him Green Arrow.

Between Arsenal and Flash, though, this past few days had been awesome in the name-obtaining department.

Anyway, the show's gotten a fair chunk of screentime devoted to Iris to make her less... hateable. I still dislike her because it doesn't really make sense that she's so adamant at writing her blog despite it putting friction between her and her father, as well as her best-friend-brother-figure. Really strikes me as selfish, especially since at the end of this episode Barry actually acquiesces and lets her do her thing. It's really stupid. And Iris herself is still pretty two-dimensional in my opinion.

We get something out of a Superman movie as the first scene as the Flash zips Iris up on top of a roof and gives her a... well, not an interview, but something. They talk a bit, the Flash tells Iris he doesn't like to be called the Streak, Iris fangirls over Flash... you know, Barry, if you really want Iris to stop blogging, you should probably be more forceful. We get a nice fun moment as Barry zips around and returns Iris to the coffeshop right after zipping off for the first time.

Let's talk Iris first. She obviously misses Barry, and at one point she even ignores Eddie's phone call just to talk to the Flash, which is really worrying. Lady's got a bit of an obsession. But this episode's villain of the week is something out of a Spider-Man movie in that he's Barry's old bully in elementary school, except he's gotten new superpowers now. The bully, based on Girder from the comics, shows up at where Iris works, having tracked her down from her blog (see, the idiot) and shamelessly flirts with her like the massive douchebag that he is. Iris goes all 'I have a boyfriend' and Girder just talks about how he's awesome and he's made the Flash run away and all that, and when Iris tries to warn her father (though she's not a very good liar, going all 'police ball' and everything) Girder just crushes her phone and drops a bundle of money into the tipping box.

You know, it would have been her arm or her neck that's broken if someone else other than an old school bully who wants to get in her pants had showed up at Iris' work.

Of course, like any sensible person, knowing that Girder is aware of her blog... Iris proceeds to ask for the Flash's help... in her blog. The stupidity of this I have no words for.

After a quick conversation with the Flash, she's later escorted home by police officers. That doesn't stop the Girder, though, because he basically blows everything up and abducts Iris and presumably kills those two poor policemen. And, again, it's fortunate Girder is a massive egomaniac who wants Iris to blog about him and maybe get a little comfy with him afterwards instead of some psychopath looking for revenge. You stupid dumbass, Iris.

She's standing up for herself later on, at least, refusing to back down and continues to do absolutely stupid things like sounding the alarm right next to Girder, and it's a miracle the dude hasn't beaten her to a pulp yet. She does manage to land the final punch onto Girder's face, so at least she's got that going for her. And she has enough dignity to apologize to Barry later on when the two meet each other at the end of the episode, so she's not completely hateable... and she's definitely the one responsible for spreading 'the Flash' name to the world, so she's got that going on for her...

But I still really don't like her. She's annoying, her stupidity got quite a few people killed and she isn't really interesting at all.

Barry's theme in this episode is anger management, and possibly a bit of conquering your bullies. There's certainly a bit of an Aesop theme going on in the flash episodes. And I thought it's a nice little contrast with this show's sister title, Arrow, in which Oliver never really visibly loses his temper, having been through the five years in hell and all that. After the little ego-trip with Iris on the roof, Barry heads off to stop this criminal who turns out to be a metahuman... and learns what happens when you punch metal. You break your arm. It's an absolutely painful-looking scene, and when Barry realizes that the criminal is, in fact, the bully from his childhood...

He basically gets even more and more angry. I do like how it's subtle, how he loses his temper only when Girder is involved. He's quite cool and chill when he's doing the investigation thing with Eddie, or when he's training with the robo-girder that Cisco built, but he completely flips off and zips around town when Iris tells him that Girder had confronted her. And that gets him... completely crushed by a rack filled with heavy weights.

And, oh god, that was an absolutely horrifying image of someone crushed by these heavy metal things. It's a miracle he somehow survived without any bones that break too much or whatever. It's a personal thing I cringe about, because every time I see someone weight-lift, I really am afraid of what will happen if the rack full of weights would fall down and crush someone. Now we know.

Barry and Eddie then get some nice bonding scene as Eddie, the very nice guy that he is, gets Barry to train in a little boxing and teaches him how to drive a punch properly and gets him to learn some control. We get a little bit of training before this via Cisco's girder-robot, but all that earned Barry is a dislocated shoulder. Cisco also does some simulation things about just how fast Barry needs to go, and we get a little flashback of adorable little Barry being taught a little about how to fight and knowing when to run by Joe.

Then there's the final battle, where Barry learns to fight smart, applying what Joe and Eddie taught him and just go zip around Girder and use his speed to his advantage. Though why Barry felt the need to hang on to that flagpole instead of letting go and super-speeding elsewhere, I don't know. Barry finally knows 'when to run'... except he's, you know, the Flash, and the Flash beats enemies by running. So Barry does run, zipping straight to Girder and punching him with a supersonic punch that's apparently so powerful it jars him back to normal.

You know, Barry, if you're going to run five miles away from the bad guy, why didn't you zip and bring the girl with you and get her out of harm's way? Jeez.

We get Barry apologizing to Iris at the end, of course, and accommodating her big interest for the Flash, though he suggests the name to Iris himself, which is sort of cool.

Also during their conversation we get references to a man who's on fire, but doesn't feel hot or something like that. Firestorm anyone? Granted there's like a gajillion other DC characters who's visibly on fire, but Firestorm has, y'know, actually shown up in this show.

We get a Keystone City reference somewhere in the episode too, I think.

And then Barry reveals himself and his identity to the Girder just to be petty and gloat a little and I thought that was an absolutely moronic move on his part.

Girder himself is a pretty fun villain, even if his personality is just your average bully. He's a big jerk, but he's certainly able to fend for himself, having the second-best track record amongst the villains so far in beating down the Flash a grand total of three times. I'm extremely bummed, though, that they changed Girder from being this rusty, dreadlocked, bearded giant man made out of rusty girders and has been turned into a Colossus ripoff, though. It's a bit irritating.

Also, Girder never gets called that, not even by resident villain-namer Cisco... which is odd, considering this episode's big thing is Flash getting his comic codename. Cisco instead calls the training robot dummy Girder... maybe somewhere in the future, when the show's got a larger CGI budget, the two Girders will fuse and become the comic version of Girder? I can only hope.

Though we're finally getting another proper Flash villain! It's nice. As much as I like them, none of the other villains that Flash has fought, other than the Weather Wizard and Captain Cold, have been Flash villains. Plastique and Wade Eiling are both antagonists of Captain Atom, Multiplex is Firestorm's enemy, Simon Stagg is an antagonist of Metamorpho and the Mist tussles with obscure superhero Starman. Girder, on the other hand, is very definitely a Flash enemy. So yay for that.

Girder's pretty douchebaggy, especially in his scenes with Iris, and has this narrow-minded big ego where he wants the whole world to know about him... but only tries to compete through a blog. I thought it was rather over-cheesy that Girder brought Iris to their school, right onto the lockers that he fought Barry at, in fact. But while he's not really awesome beyond being a super-tough guy, I do like the Girder. He's apparently fallen into molten metal during the night of the change. Girder ends up being imprisoned, making him the second inmate of STAR Labs after the Mist.

The action scenes have been pretty punchy-punchy despite Girder being a metahuman, though I guess it can't be helped. Girder's powers doesn't really lend to big flashy fight scenes. We get a fun fight scene with Eddie and civilian!Barry apprehending a thug and Barry needs to take a hit. I liked that scene. The scene where Flash just runs several miles away and then zooms towards the school, breaking like every single window in his way (just how much monetary damage did Barry cause?), and doing this Supersonic Mach Punch on Girder's face is equal amounts cheesy and awesome. And you know what? I'm fine with cheesiness and ridiculousness. It's a freaking superhero show, and I love it. It's fun. It's really, really fun to watch.

Eddie gets a bit of a spotlight here as well, finally getting some scenes that turn him out of the 'handsome love interest' role. Eddie helps Barry and is genuinely a nice guy, and actually helps Barry let off some steam. Eddie also reveals how he's bullied as a kid and he used to be short and fat. We also get some Eddie-Barry team up as they take down this dude who runs away... he's becoming relatively likable.

He's also asking questions about metahumans, first during the battle with Girder and seemingly being aware of the oddity of Barry getting where he was so fast. And considering Iris is all blogging about the Flash, I don't think it'll take long before Eddie does his own investigation.

Of course, thanks to his name, Eddie Thawne is one of the two primary suspects for being the Zoom/Reverse-Flash creature, but he's so nice! And he, like, hangs around with Barry and everything! Granted, if he's a time-traveling Zoom getting Iris is certainly in line with his M.O., and if he's the second Zoom (Hunter Zolomon) that's initially a cop in present-time, he has that one's backstory. Or he could just be some guy.

Whatever the case, I'm starting to like Eddie.

Caitlin and Cisco have a bit less screen time, but they're all pretty funny scenes. Freaking Caitlin's actually jealous! She's all pissed off at Barry seeing Iris and giving her not-interviews, and she's stalking Iris' blog like a jealous girlfriend. Man, Caitlin's fun. That scene with the dislocated shoulder, where she deals a world of hurt to Barry... Cisco's a lot less fun this time around, actually coming off as a bit of a shallow ditz, being more 'YAAAAY SUPER SONIC PAWNCH' than actually worried about Barry's wellbeing. And there's the whole idiocy about the girder-robot that dislocated Barry's shoulder, of course. We get some extra fun moments with the whole bully thing and whatnot, and I thought that the team has pretty good chemistry.

The fourth member of the team, Harrison Wells, continues to be cryptic. We get him being absolutely furious at Barry almost getting himself killed, which we know is a big deal for him. And he makes this 'a man of steel' joke with a knowing laugh... and I honestly laughed so hard at that point I had to pause the episode. But that's the extent of Wells' involvement with the main cast.

The big B-plot of this episode is Harrison Wells and Joe West. Joe basically talks up to Wells and just talks to him, seemingly recruiting this entirely-possible-Professor-Zoom-candidate to try and solve the mystery of Nora Allen's murder, asking about him regarding the possibilities of someone with about Barry's powers. Wells acts confused, of course, because the particle accelerator wasn't around back then, but Joe pressures Wells, who happens to be in Central City around the time Nora was murdered. Their conversation turns a bit sour and Wells tells Joe to look up Tess Morgan or something like that?

Well, apparently Wells had a wife who died in a car accident and he moved Central City to try and get away from her memories. Joe shows up and apologizes to Wells. These two characters really play off each other well, I must say. There's a fair bit of dialogue being exchanged, but I guess those are the ones that are the most important...

And for the moment, Wells seems free of suspicion, except, you know, we know he's faking his crippled-ness, he has some knowledge of the future and has this newspaper excerpt and technology from the future, is almost certainly behind the making of Barry... and yet he has a wife who died before, so he's been around ever since the time of Nora's murder and even before that. Granted he could've just been Professor Zoom who showed up earlier in the timestream or something, or making this all up... highly interesting.

After all, isn't it convenient that Nora Allen and Tess Morgan died at around the same time? Might be something more sinister at play.

And at the end, with Joe working on the case and crossing off Harrison Wells from the suspect list... freaking Professor Zoom (or, well, the Reverse-Flash, whichever name this thing is using) just zooms in and runs around the room and just fucking screams with that hollow face and those black eyes and puts the fear of the devil into Joe. I must say, they made Zoom look freaking terrifying here. He's already unsettling in the comics with his trademark black eyes, but here, he literally feels like a damn ghost-monster deal, just zipping into Joe's house and just showing how easily he could murder Joe. Zoom just spirits away nearly all of Joe's evidence and research on the Nora murder, which is certainly a practical way to do it, and threatens Iris' life if Joe doesn't stop digging into this.

Man, poor Joe.

Certainly interested to see a lot more about the whole Zoom situation. Lots of theories. Wells and Eddie are the two main suspects, though there are really some points that kind of strike both of them off the suspect list. Eddie's too nice a guy, for one, and the name seems to be a red herring, or that he'll be the second Zoom, the present-day Hunter Zolomon instead of the Zoom from the future. Wells would be phenomenally stupid to alleviate suspicion on himself and then attack Joe right afterwards, though he could just be banking on Joe having the same logic as I do and cross him right off the suspect list. And there's the story which may or may not have been fabricated and manipulated... and this all is just going off what I know of the comic's Professor Zoom and the other Zoom, which the show might or might not follow strictly.

Though this episode has thrown off my old theory about how the happening in Barry's childhood is caused by Flash and Zoom traveling back in time in the midst of a battle or something along those lines, because Zoom is definitely well and alive in the present time and has his own agenda, it seems.

Regardless, this was a pretty great episode. Certainly looking forward to more Flash villains.

One Piece 768 Review: Recaps and D's

One Piece Chapter 768: The Trigger Back Then

Cover page's still meandering about Jinbei investigating this stupid rain of buildings or whatnot. I cannot honestly say I really give a shit anymore unless there's some huge plot twist and it turns out to be, oh, the third Navy Admiral or Kaido or Shanks or someone doing it just for shits.

Thankfully we don't see more flashbacks. It was a great flashback, but it's high time we get back to the present.

We get a short half-page recap of Corazon's death as we cut back to Law's fight against Doflamingo. Law activates Room and throws a rock behind Doflamingo, using Shambles to switch places right before Doflamingo string-slashes down onto where he is. That's pretty cool. Law trash-talks Doflamingo, who definitely isn't smiling now, going all 'what do you think of the name D?' and 'I just found out you're a Celestial Dragon!' and all that stuff, driving Doflamingo mad, and I thought it was pretty cool how Law is just egging on Doflamingo, who's apparently known to be able to play to other people's emotions and just make them get pissed.

Law tries to stab Doflamingo with his sword, but Doflamingo stops it by arming his hand with that Busoshoku Armament Haki, and just grabs the sword and pulls Law towards him. He tries to slash Law right in the face with these strings and that panel where he suddenly turns looks pretty cool. He's all 'do you think you can take the head of someone descended from the gods' and seems to go in for the kill... but Law activates his own Busoshoku Haki and it's pretty freaking cool! I don't think we've ever seen Law use Haki before, and definitely not Busoshoku Haki, and apparently Doflamingo hasn't either, judging on the surprised expression on his face.

And then Law goes 'I am a D as well', which makes Doflamingo like super-duper pissed.

Though Law guarded against it, the force of Doflamingo's string slash thing is apparently so powerful that it cut a visible chunk of the palace away.

We cut away from the fight and get a few panels of what's going on around the city, with people still fighting and burning stuff. For a moment I thought that Birdcage is being withdrawn, and it might actually be, depending on what that sound effect in Japanese means. I'm confused. That panel could go either way.

We cut to Viola and King Ricky, and Viola's using her Giro Giro Fruit powers to see everything and bring the King (and the audience) up on what's happening. Law is fighting Doflamingo, and apparently Luffy was thrown down to the floor below? I honestly didn't remember this detail happening, nor do I have a clue where Luffy is at the moment. Hopefully we can get a break from the standard main-character-takes-down-arc-villain and have Law get his well-deserved revenge on Doflamingo!

We get a short glimpse of the marines (not Fujitora or Bastille, though) trying to put out the fires, and the two samurai tending over the wounded Usopp. Which is good, because other than Franky-vs-Senor and Zoro-vs-Pica I'm kind of confused as to where everyone else is. Granted it'd be better if we get a little more conventional and actually show some of these other fights, those two in particular, as actual chapters, but I guess it's all been done and we're doing this setup right now? We get this cool two-page spread as Viola describes where the members of the Donquixote family are all located.

Except, you know, Sugar, who's taken out by the power of Usopp's face, and Buffalo who's I guess dead? We haven't seen him ever since Kairos pulls that awesome-looking neck-breaking suplex on him and throws him out of the tower. I hope he doesn't, because he looks funny.

We also get epithets for most of the Donquixote pirates, and what I presume to be the official English spelling of their names. "Free Swimmer" Senor Pink is guarding the facility. "Living Statue" Pica is on top of the giant statue that used to be him, of course. Oh, and it's Pica instead of Peeka or Pika or Pikachu or whatever. Diamante is on the fourth level, Doflamingo and Trebol are on the highest-level floor... what happened to Trebol, anyway? Gladius is on the third level, and Lao G, Machvise, Baby 5 and Dellinger are on the second level. We get a few details about these two, with Lao G apparently being a practitioner of the 'Chicken Technique' which is hilariously ridiculous, and Dellinger... being a half-merman of fighting fish descent, which is not something I expected! I guess all those fighting fish things from before ended up being useful after all.

Viola goes all 'the end of the battle isn't far off', and I am honestly worried that all the things that've been built up to are just going to be montages of Zoro, Franky, Kairos and everyone else taking down their marks. On one hand, I can understand that this arc's been dragged on for a fair bit, and the writer probably regrets introducing so many characters a bit, but on the other hand I'll absolutely welcome if the fights against Gladius, Pica, Senor Pink and all the rest are properly explored.

We get a little two-page montage. First we see Senor Pink protecting a cat from being hit by Franky's punch and giving it this giant thumbs-up, and Franky wipes away those manly tears with the extendable hand from his giant cyborg hand like it's some kind of super-touching scene. Man, I love Franky. He hasn't gotten a lot of screentime. We then get a bit of Zoro and Pica, still swordfighting. Bartolomeo has apparently recovered and has erected a barrier to cover 'Robin-senpai' who's running up the barrier stairs, while Cavendish has made his way through the troops all the way to Gladius... so their fight is just starting? Huh. I had a feeling they already started the fight some time ago, but oh well.

Diamante and Kairos seem relatively well-matched, and Diamante does this 'Army Bantera' thing which seems to do something to the ground, and we don't really get to see the full result. Rebecca comments on the ground... yeah, good job not helping out your crippled father there, woman. Curious about Diamante's crazy ability and he's apparently able to use his rippling flag ability on things other than himself and his sword, so yay. We see the fucking Tontatta doing the Beelzebub style face-in-the-wall on a bunch of randoms and going off to rescue their princess... fuck the Tontatta. I honestly forgot they were in this arc at all. Man, the Tontatta could've been taken out and this arc would've been compressed so much better.

The next page is those characters introduced in the colosseum fighting with the Donquixote officers, which was mis-ordered in the first translation I read. We see King Punch (Elizabello, I think?) just punching. We then see Dellinger avoiding Demolition Cannon Ideo's explosions, and apparently Dellinger is still in the game, not taken out by... by whatever. I have a feeling he was in a bind last time we saw him. Machvise (this chapter confirms this spelling as opposed to Machvyse or whatever) uses his weight-altering powers to take down the giant dude Hajrudin.

We see Baby 5 fighting Sai, while her own hands have turned into sais. I thought this was a nice visual joke. But Baby 5, for some reason, is going 'what did you do', so maybe there's something else going on? Then Don Chinjao gets kicked right in the jaw by Lao G... that's one of the stronger competitors down there seemingly taken out, so these Donquixote pirates don't seem to be really pushovers, which is nice. We haven't really seen much of what Lao G can do, whereas Dellinger and Machvise have mostly been relegated into jokes during their little haphazard battle against Franky.

Freakin' Sabo and Koala are trying to evacuate the civilians, and Sabo! That's another character that needs more screentime. And I feel totally cheated we didn't get to see the full fight between Sabo and Fujitora. We get a bit of Viola talking, and then Fujitora's face.

Thankfully we cut back to the Law-Doflamingo fight, with Trebol apparently having pieces himself together after the events before we went into the flashback. Doflamingo gets completely pissed, trying to trash-talk Law and going all 'that D-is-the-natural-enemy is just superstition!' He's just lashing wildly with his finger-string things and Trebol shouts that Doflamingo's getting into Law's ability's range... and then Law brings his sword right into Doflamingo and does Injection Shot, the attack that Trebol was so scared of earlier.

Injection Shot pierces right through the side of Doflamingo's chest and straight through that silly feather boa thing, so that's definitely the worst hit that Doflamingo's taken all fight long. Pretty awesome. Law brings up some other dude's name, 'Hyaku', which I'm not sure is someone we've heard before. Law himself doesn't believe in all the name superstition, but he's going to kill Doflamingo regardless.

Overall still pretty entertaining. I'm fearful for the pacing of this arc, though. It has so much potential to be awesome, but there's just been so many things left in the sidelines. Kairos, Rebecca and Diamante... Zoro and Pica... Franky and Senor Pink... and whatever happened to Sanji, Brook and Nami, who meets that gigantic Big Mom ship? I think that hasn't been addressed. What about the Tontatta princess, or the Revolutionary Army, or Jesus Burgess being there, or freaking CP-0 who everyone seems to forget with? Hell, there's just too many things going on, and if it's not done right it's going to be hella annoying. But I have faith. Relatively.

For now I'm just enjoying the Law-Doflamingo fight.

Arrow S03E06 Review: Boxing Glove Arrow, Wildcat and Arsenal

Arrow, Season 3 Episode 6: Guilty

It's a bit of a slower episode, but thankfully the Roy-killing-Sara thing wasn't left on the backburner. On the other hand, it is a cop-out, which irritates me a shit-ton. On the other hand, the explanation for the cop-out isn't entirely bullshit and still opens up opportunities for Roy's characterization, so yeah. The episode's pretty well crafted, with all the multiple plot threads running throughout the episode interweaving seamlessly even though it is supposed to be a bit of a filler episode.

Let's talk about the flashback plot first, because there's less of it. Maseo and Oliver are still looking for China White (or Chien Na Wei, as Maseo insists on calling her). Granted it's phenomenally stupid to send the white guy to stealthily take out a dude in the middle of Hong Kong instead of the more oriental-looking Maseo, but these are the super-spies, so what can I say? That, of course, got Wei's courier killed. Anyway, Oliver and Maseo need to find out what the message that was supposed to be delivered, and after a game of memory with Maseo's kid, Katana (who makes it clear multiple times that she hates the gaijin bastard who's causing Amanda Waller to put a target on her family's heads) then shows up and grudgingly trains Oliver in some zen candle shit to get him to focus and wade through his subconscious memories and see what he missed.

The dead drop is a postcard that after some stegosaur steganography (what? Oliver made that joke) leads to some dude named Li Kuan Hui. There's really not much advancement in the plot here.

Of course, Oliver later breaks free from Hong Kong and returns to the island, and we know for certain that China White shows up alive and well in Starling City... they evidently failed, so what happens to Katana and her family? Will we ever see Katana cut people apart with a katana? Food for thought. It's these oddities that make the flashback scenes even worth watching, which is a good thing since all the Slade background stuff has been pretty much easy to pick out around halfway through the season, making a huge chunk of the flashback just showing and not really telling.

Anyway, the present-day sequences of the episode focuses jointly on Roy and Laurel, with Ted Grant being the guest star. With the flashbacks focusing on Oliver, and Oliver himself taking a relatively larger role this time around, it's not quite a spotlight the way Felicity and Thea were in the two previous episodes, but it's all well and good.

Anyway, Roy is still dealing with his PTSD dreams and he keeps thinking about whether he killed Sara because his memories are so vivid. Oliver takes notice of his lack of sleep and tells him to stay put while they investigate a group of murdered Culebra gangsters doing a drug deal and a serial killer that likes to write the word 'GUILTY' in blood. Roy takes advantage of this downtime to ask Felicity to test him for any remnants of Mirakuru, which comes out negative... and it's not brought up anywhere, but considering how afraid Roy is of needles, I thought it was nice that he's so bothered with it that he's willing to submit to a blood test and even pressures Felicity into doing it.

After some time while Oliver is out dealing with Laurel and Wildcat (more on them later) the tests come back negative, but... Felicity brings up this virtual autopsy program which she hooked up for Sara's body, and the angle and force and whatnot of the arrows that went into Sara was completely wrong for arrows shot from a bow... but would be consistent if they were thrown from a superpowered man like Roy. Felicity kind of has figurative balls, or trust, to break the news to Roy so calmly, I must say, because if Roy did still have Mirakuru in his blood he might snap and hurt Felicity. They rationalize it as Roy having one last episode of Mirakuru.

And after a bit of the serial killer plot, Roy immediately confronts Oliver and Laurel (who conveniently is around) and goes "I killed Sara". Granted Felicity claims the blood tests from the arrows are inconclusive, but the angle and whatnot does get explained by Roy doing it, and after the explanation of the dreams and the possible Mirakuru stuff, practically everyone buys it. To her credit Laurel doesn't slap Roy right in the face, but Roy heads off to cool himself before showing up at the climax. I thought it was a rather interesting decision, and it's relatively uncomfortable situation if Roy did kill Sara in a fit of Mirakuru-powered rage. Does he go on trial? Granted Roy does seem ready to stand trial for Sara's murder but it's still not quite fair... to either Laurel or Roy whichever choice is chosen. Of course that turns out not to be the case, sadly.

Roy shortly afterwards shows up in a motorcycle pursuing Isaac Stanzler after Oliver gets knocked down. Presumably either Diggle or Felicity contacts him? Roy comes to the rescue and engages Isaac mano a mano while the others rescue Laurel and Wildcat. Roy finally, finally makes that crazy air flip work after it failed so miserably against Nyssa. And we get some nice hand to hand combat between Roy and Isaac, who himself is also pretty conveniently (but pretty nicely, thematic-wise) a sidekick who was abandoned. Isaac wants to get into Roy's head by saying stuff like how Oliver will abandon him, and how Roy's just a weapon in Oliver's arsenal. But Roy does this awesome judo flip thing, knocks Isaac down for the count and asks Oliver not to abandon him.

All that said, though, Roy is still ready to hang that awesome red costume and turn himself in. As Roy repeats that 'weapon in your arsenal' quote, Oliver suggests that Roy adopt the Arsenal name... which is oh god yes. I'm actually honestly fine with either Speedy, Arsenal or Red Arrow, all three of Roy Harper's comic-book codenames in order of which he adopts them... Red Arrow makes a lot more sense considering the situation, and Speedy sort of does since he could be doing it in honor of Thea... except Thea isn't dead yet, and she's likelier to claim the Speedy mantle. But Arsenal, well, I do like that name as well so I can't really complain.

ARSENAL

Anyway, Oliver tells Roy to do this candle meditation thing, which nicely ties in with the flashback which seems to just be a Chekov's Gun to lead to this thing while slowly slugging on the Hong Kong plot. But I do like how both the flashback had themes about the subconscious, about memories and stuff, which fits nicely with Roy's situation at the moment. Roy finally flashes back to that time when he stabs an arrow through a police officer's chest back when he's still an angry Mirakuru-powered guy, which he doesn't remember... and Sara was present when he did so, and his memory kind of jumbled everything up.

So Roy didn't kill Sara... but he did kill another man. We won't have to deal with the big convoluted situation if Roy was responsible for Sara's murder, sadly, but it seems that our newly-christened Arsenal will need to deal with having murdered someone before, which is a trade-off I'll grudgingly accept.

The Roy stuff interests me a shit-ton more than the others, but there's still the main plot to talk about. Basically Team Arrow is hunting down a serial killer who's framing Ted Grant, and all clues initially lead to Ted Grant. Oliver is also inherently suspicious and possibly a little jealous of Ted Grant, and all signs point to him as the murderer... except any comic-book fan knows Ted Grant as the extremely not-evil superhero Wildcat, so I never believed for a second he's the one behind it.

We get a bunch of these Culebra gangsters hung up like punching bags, and as Oliver tracks down the trail of bodies, he finds one of them in Wildcat's gym and he gets into a bit of a scuffle with Wildcat (who seems to break out a couple of nice moves himself), at which point he sticks an arrow into a boxing glove and does the Boxing Glove Arrow straight into Wildcat's face.

I cannot believe it. I simply cannot believe this show, where two seasons ago it was afraid to even call Oliver Queen 'Green Arrow', would actually show the boxing glove arrow being used on-screen. I would've been happy with them just showing it and dismissing it as a joke or a failed idea. Or, hell, even just mention it in-dialogue. But no, we actually get to see the freaking Boxing Glove Arrow shot at someone's face.

Best episode award goes to this one.

But prior to this, Wildcat has been training with Laurel, and showing that Wildcat isn't just a boxer but knows a bunch of other less orthodox fighting methods as well. Laurel is extremely defensive about Wildcat, though in her defense this time it's for a good reason. She's still a bit annoying, but as she's working off her rage and bitchiness she's... she's actually becoming a bit more like late season-two Thea where her rage comes from an understandable place.

Oliver doesn't think so, though, and confronts Laurel. Oliver doesn't like Wildcat, nor the fact that Laurel is training (or letting off steam, as she justifies it) with this fellow. Oliver, like, really doesn't like him. Especially since later on Diggle and Felicity find out that Ted "Wildcat" Grant, who really has the name Wildcat in-universe which is cool as hell, seems to have been involved with a murder of a drug dealer using a brass knuckle and a left-handed punch, similar to the M.O. of the Culebran drug dealers.

Oliver catches Wildcat in his lair, and apparently Wildcat was Starling's vigilante long before Oliver Queen was. Granted Wildcat's actor doesn't look that much older than Oliver, but hey, I don't really mind. Wildcat is kind of supposed to be quite old and experienced, though this time around he's retired. I do hope he suits up. With an actual cat mask, of course. Wildcat's inclusion in the show has been extremely welcome, mostly because he's one of the last characters I'd expect to be included in Arrow. But he's been pretty fun, and the fact that he's already a vigilante opens up ways that he could show up and kick ass in a future episode.

We get a bit of a fun dialogue where Wildcat assumes that the Arrow has a hideout just like him, and Oliver, already feeling a bit jealous thanks to Laurel sticking with Wildcat, goes 'mine's bigger'. Who says Felicity has a monopoly on these kind of jokes?

Laurel, Oliver and Wildcat decide to work together, but Oliver doesn't want Laurel anywhere near the dangerous stuff. Laurel, being Laurel, of course isn't happy, but seems like the training with Wildcat has burnt away her bitchiness because she isn't that much of one this time around. Laurel gets completely rattled when Roy confesses as apparently the one behind Sara's murder, but to her credit she doesn't, like, try to put a bullet in Roy's head the way she did Komodo. Wildcat eventually gets captured by the police right after they meet the actual murderer, and he kind of just goes with the flow.

Laurel manages to use her DA powers to get the innocent Wildcat out, and they pry the information that the man responsible is Wildcat's once-protege, Isaac Stanzler, who was responsible for the murder attributed to Ted Grant years ago. Wildcat even makes the comparison to Roy extremely clear, calling Isaac 'something like the red dude'. And like Roy, Isaac did a murder at which point Wildcat cut him loose... which certainly didn't bode well for stuff because Isaac's going around killing people and stringing them up like punching bags.

Isaac manages to get Wildcat and Laurel at gunpoint and holds them hostage in a car, and to her credit Laurel manages to stealthily contact Team Arrow... without the villain finding out as is common in these kind of situations. Isaac shares the backstory that the Culebran drug dealers caught up to him and tortured him for years, but before he can put a bullet through Wildcat's head, Diggle, Oliver and Roy show up. Roy beats Isaac as described above.

Oliver tells Wildcat to stay away from Laurel, and Wildcat gives Oliver the advice to retire and not really make the same mistakes with Isaac that he did. Oliver, on the other hand, retorts that Wildcat's mistake was not trusting his own sidekick and abandoning him. Granted the moral sort of frays apart upon closer inspection, since Roy didn't kill Sara, committed the murder on the cop without really knowing what he did, whereas Isaac most certainly doesn't have the excuse of a rage steroid. But the point still stands to not abandon your friends.

Diggle finally gets a bit more screentime, which is awesome since he's been absolutely shafted for the past few episodes. He's involved in the initial raid on the drug deal, he's patrolling with Oliver when Roy's told to stay put, and he totally drove around that van that tried to block the car that Isaac's forcing Laurel to drive. There's also the scene where he talks to Oliver about accountability, about how they can't have two rules, one for the bad guys and one for their team. It's a nice little sentiment, about justice versus abandoning a friend... one that sadly won't get explored since Roy is, y'know, innocent.

Also, Laurel is finally getting less and less irritating. She, of course, refuses to be this thing that's protected which is great, and with an actual trainer like Wildcat training her instead of running around in a ski mask like she did a couple episodes back is certainly a way to do so. We also get a little tender scene where Oliver and Laurel do this hug in the hospital and how Oliver is so 'I care for you and I'll protect you', and added to all the seemingly jealousy-inspired hostility which seems to hint that with Laurel adopting the mantle of Black Canary in the near future, maybe we're finally getting that Season One OTP with Oliver and Laurel? If so, that seems extremely harsh considering Oliver just told Felicity to piss off and that he can't have relationships.

Either way.

Quentin kind of shows up and does police commissioner stuff, I guess. He's becoming a lot less important compared to his season one and two days where he's actually a main character.

And the final scene shows this lady archer with a midriff who shoots Isaac and the two cops dead. She introduces herself as Cupid, who in the comics is a stalker with a huge, huge lady-boner for Green Arrow. This does give her a motivation to kill Sara, who would be easily perceived as a love rival, and she does shoot arrows... but then there's the whole can of worms about the arrows not exactly coming from a bow. Kind of curious to see how they deal with Cupid, since she's not a character I'm inherently familiar with from the comics. I just know she sort of exists.

Also in a nice move which I didn't notice at all, apparently the stalkery Cupid has shown up a couple of times in the backgrounds in this episode, implying that she's been stalking Arrow. Which I thought is a nice touch, even if I'm completely confused by her entrance, thinking that she's Nyssa or Laurel-with-a-wig until the camera really zooms in quite close onto her face.

So I suppose next episode's going to deal with Cupid, and paint her as one of the possible suspects for Sara's murder. It seems that Sara's murder and the whole League of Assassins thing is going to be the big plot for season three, and with more allies showing up for Team Arrow (so far we've got Diggle; Arsenal; Wildcat, who can very well suit up; a future Black Canary in the works; Merlyn and maybe Speedy as grudging allies... ) it seems to be shaping out as quite a large battle. There's going to be Ra's and Nyssa, and maybe we'll get a couple other League of Assassins characters... oh, Talia or Lady Shiva or whatever, and maybe they can spring Slade? I'm certainly quite excited for what's to come in the future.