Gotham S1E4 Review: Hypocritical Bitch

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 4: Arkham

A good bit more focused than the last three episodes, and a lot more intrigue about this whole 'war' thing that's coming. The episode still does this police/detective thing of tracking down a serial murderer as the main thing, which I suppose is still tolerable. There is still a fair amount of cringeworthy moments in this episode, though.

Let's start with Oswald Cobblepot, who is still the most awesome character in the series. He's stringing everyone along, pretending to be Gordon's friend and giving him information, sneaking around and eavesdropping on Maroni... and he apparently hired three hitman to hit the Maroni-affiliated restaurant both to get a promotion within Maroni's ranks as well as to make the Maroni-Falcone war get even more heated up. I do like how Penguin's starting to do some manipulation, how he's starting to rise up in the Gotham underworld, and how he's just fooling the likes of Maroni into thinking he's a harmless fellow. That scene with him just begging not to be shot as he clutches that bag of money was pretty nice, and of course, he kills his partners with poisoned cakes and takes the rest of the money for himself.

Oswald seems to want to plunge the city into a war, except he's telling Gordon that he wants to prevent it. Dude's a bit crazy, and I'm interested what his endgame plans are.

There's a big talk about war, and we get our first good look at Arkham Asylum, and that gate does look like what Arkham Asylum's gate is in my mind, and it makes me happy. Gotham City's been extremely generic (note the lack of gargoyles for a certain man dressed in a bat to lurk upon) and it's nice to see something more faithful to the source material.

There's a big plot about how the Arkham district is being fought over by the Falcone and Maroni factions, with Falcone wanting to have it all as a show of power (and doing what the Waynes want and convert the Asylum into a brand-new thing) whereas Maroni wants to build a waste disposal place as a big 'up yours' to Falcone and show that he's weakening. It's got a pretty nice crime/politics vibe going on.

And to this end, both Falcone and Maroni hired this villain of the week, this black dude who takes up the identity of 'Richard Gladwell' as a cover and kills people with this weird-looking steel spear weapon. I'm not aware of any Batman villain with the same M.O. or name, so I'm going to assume that like the Balloon Man, he's a brand-new character created for the show. The eyeball stabbing thing is a bit gruesome, and his little gimmick does make him kind of stand out, and he ends up going after the mayor and shot all sorts to hell by Bullock and Gordon. He's a serviceable villain, memorable enough with his little gimmick but ultimately not interesting enough to keep around.

And I do like the squeaky-voiced mayor getting turned into a target, because I do like the mayor somewhat. The mayor ends up pulling a compromise, which is kind of an insult to Falcone. Also apparently Arkham Asylum isn't going to be replaced with a high-tech one like the Waynes wanted, but instead refurbished or something like that.

Gordon doesn't really do much in this episode other than his regular shtick of being the only good cop in Gotham that's doing the right thing, though notably he kills another fellow, showing that despite his distaste of violence he's not above riddling someone with bullets if that means saving an innocent live. There is this moment between Gordon and Barbara where they really fight over secrets and whatnot. Thanks to the Montoya jealous-ex-driving-a-stake thing, Barbara finally doubts Gordon enough to confront him about who 'Oswald Cobblepot' is. And Gordon, y'know, he's smart enough to remember the events of a couple episodes ago where the moment he lets slip something about work, Barbara immediately tells it to the freaking news, and thereby not only nearly costing Gordon his job, but also possibly puts them in danger.

And Barbara had the gall to pull the guilt-trip trigger, and the 'choose me or work' trigger, despite past events. And as it turns out, Barbara herself is a hypocrite over the whole secrets thing, since she ended up having to reveal to Gordon about the whole lesbians-with-Montoya thing, which ends up, as predicted, to be another can of worms that adds needless drama. And since she has let out that one relatively harmless secret, she demands Gordon tell her all about his potentially life-damaging secret despite her track record of being this bitch who can't keep secrets.

Man, Barbara is a massive hypocritical bitch.

Bullock, well... he doesn't really do much other than being lazy and pulling off that big damn heroes moment at the end, and he's at least competent enough to be afraid of a gang war. Nothing to hate about him, so there's that.

Fish is the character that receives the most screentime, and she's apparently recruiting some girl who can seduce and sing for a plan, presumably to bring down Falcone. And while that is interesting I guess, the episode spends way too long on the girls just singing and not really doing anything interesting, and do we really need that long to see Fish ask these girls to seduce her? It's weird. The fight-for-the-job was relatively brutal and I liked it, but this whole side-plot feels like a massive waste of time just to have girls in really short skirts kiss each other and whatnot. Still not really liking Fish -- though she's at least supposed to be sort of unlikable as a villain, and she's still better than Barbara. No reason for Fish's agent not to just show up to do her stuff, or for some trimming to be done.

Essen and Nygma show up each for a bit before disappearing again, just to remind us that they exist.

Maroni is quite fun to watch, and I do like his scenes. They aren't anything special, but they're fun to listen to thanks to Maroni's accent. And he does have a couple of nice scenes with Oswald and we get to know that he's at least pretty fair among his men.

We get Alfred and Bruce, who also feel like a bit of a distraction. Sure, we get that whole point where the Wayne legacy is connected to the Arkham Asylum rebuilding or something along those lines, but again do we really need Alfred and Bruce? They're relatively harmless and I don't hate them, but like the scenes of Fish's singers, they feel like nothing but padding... though they're at least talking about stuff instead of just singing and doing nothing.

Also, who's the random bearded dude that Bullock asked information out of? I thought he was interesting. Why couldn't we have a scene with him?

Overall there's still a fair amount of things I don't like in this show, the main offender being that massive bitch Barbara, but it's still building on the good things that I like from the past episodes. The fight scene between Gordon and Gladwell was relatively nicer to look at than the action scenes of past episodes, so at least they're improving. There's the intrigue over who actually hired "Gladwell" and  Hopefully we can get something more interesting than just your regular cop show, though.

Arrow S3E7 Review: The Romance Episode

Arrow, Season 3, Episode 7: Draw Back Your Bow

Yeah, I don't think I really have that much to talk about this episode, so it might be relatively shorter than my normal TV episode reviews. It's an okay episode, but it's decidedly a distraction/filler episode. It does kind of build up on the romantic tension between Oliver and Felicity, as well as Ray Palmer and Felicity, but it's not something that, in my opinion, really deserves an entire episode dedicated to love and romance. It's not that I'm hating on love and romance plotlines, because those can be great if done properly, but I thought this one was a bit on the nose, introducing Cupid the love-obsessed stalker just right when Ray Palmer is being all sweet and a love rival and stuff. I thought that some of these Ray/Felicity and Oliver/Felicity moments could have been done in other episodes, and Cupid is... relatively annoying.

I mean, yes, I do appreciate just how faithful Cupid is to her comic counterpart (which is to say, I've only read her profile in a couple of DC profile books) and her character is the one that lends to being a massive twat -- kudos to the actress for making her work. But Cupid is this hyper-obsessed maniac who really wants the Arrow to love her forever and ever and twists everything that Arrow says into a different thing. And she's basically just going around killing people to attract Arrow's attention, and she's got connections with someone who can pinpoint where the Arrow's lair is and everything.

Also I thought the little addendum to the season two finale just to give Cupid a backstory, while kind of illustrating how interconnected she is, is kind of odd since, y'know, it's been a while in-universe, and Cupid's decidedly persistent, so why didn't she make a move until now?

I do like how Cupid ain't got any archery skills. She obviously knows enough to shoot people, but when compared to Oliver I do like how Oliver can just dodge her arrows and easily break her bow.

Of course, Oliver confronts Cupid and manages to stop her from killing them both in a fit of insanity, before... handing her over to the Suicide Squad? Really? I thought this was a massive dick move on Oliver's part. I mean, yes, she's not quite a criminal and more of an ill person, and I do agree that prison doesn't serve her right... but that means you plunk her into Arkham Asylum or something, not to join the damned Suicide Squad! For one, Cupid already knows Oliver's secret lair. And for two, she's likely to actually die in the Squad, so I don't think Oliver made a really wise call if he was truly pitying Cupid.

We did get a little reference on how 'the last woman they had on the Squad was crazier than her' or something. I laughed out loud so hard at this obvious Harley Quinn reference.

Oliver himself is still dealing with the whole 'I don't have a relationship with Felicity' thing, and he kind of tells Cupid the same thing in Felicity's earshot... despite the whole flirty-flirt moments we had between Oliver and Laurel last episode. (Incidentally, Laurel is completely absent in this one) I do like how he's dealing with Felicity seemingly in a relationship with Ray, and while jealousy is something probably everyone can relate to at some point, and the little anger display Oliver did in the Arrow-Cave is pretty well done, I thought it kind of took a bit too much time and could've been built up better. I do like how Oliver ended up trying to head off and tell Felicity how he's really feeling only to find out he's too late. But other than that, I dunno, I'm not really feeling it. Seems to be too much unnecessary drama.

Whereas Diggle is basically just being a massive Olicity shipper, and trying to convince Oliver to get back with Felicity and vice versa. He does get into the field once here, but otherwise he doesn't do much. Lyla does show up for a second or two, which is cool. I like Lyla.

Roy also gets some minor screentime, and he's called Arsenal several times, which is great. He's still dealing with the police murder thing, but other than a cursory 'you don't have your A-game' dialogues here and there we don't really get much of it beyond him somehow getting taken out offscreen by Cupid. Man, poor Roy. I don't think he ever beat anyone post-Mirakuru other than Wildcat's protege last episode.

Thea gets a couple of scenes where she's auditioning DJs, and this random douchebag cockhole who's just swaggering around like some kind of overconfident dick telling everyone to go home, and he suddenly shows up again like a goddamn stalker to steal the show and semi-forcibly steal a kiss from Thea... this all came really randomly. Thea had absolutely nothing to do with the main Cupid or Felicity plots other than serving Cupid a drink that one time, and this DJ Douchebag thing literally dropped out of the sky and seems to be an extremely cheap way to introduce a love rival to Roy... and it's stupid, considering how well they made Ray Palmer's entrance, they shove in this douchebag for Thea.

Felicity gets some nice moments where she's standing up for Ray Palmer, and I do like how she's still trying to help when shit hits the fan instead of bringing up some angst about how she needs to have her own life and stuff -- girl's got her priorities in order, at least, though how she teleported from the dinner with Palmer to the Arrow-Cave, I don't know. She gets some funny moments, some sweet moments now that Palmer is likable (they kissed and everything and Felicity gave that nice speech and all), and some rather heartbreaking moments. I do like how Palmer's actually being portrayed as sweet and whatnot (despite the extravagant money thrown at Felicity) and Felicity does give us some nice funny moments like her priceless reaction to Palmer doing the Salmon Ladder. But, as I mentioned in the Flash review, she's veering kind of close to Mary Sue territory, and with no less than three love interests (Oliver, Barry and Palmer; four if you count Brother Eye) and her insane hacking skills, we're kind of getting a Felicity overload after several episodes that focus so much on her. And I'm a bit conflicted because I really really like Felicity, but I'm not a big fan of all this angsty romance-drama stuff.

Ray Palmer's changed Queen Consolidated into Palmer Technologies, complete with a revolving electron-atom thing that Palmer and Felicity point out at two separate occasions, and if that isn't enough... Palmer's apparently working on the A.T.O.M. exosuit, powered by a white dwarf star! That's a sure hint that Ray Palmer is going to become the Atom somewhere in the near future. Hell, they even showed the exosuit! This, I think, is what got me the most excited throughout the entire episode. I do like the Atom, and if Arrow takes a veer from the gritty-and-serious into something more comic book-y featuring the Atom, I would certainly be welcoming, as jarring as it is.

The flashback plot is a fair bit of heartwarming family stuff, with the Triads killing a group of ARGUS agents and both Oliver and Tatsu thinking that Maseo died in the firefight, but it's not and stuff like that. It's pretty bland, although there's a couple of funny moments with Oliver and laundry, and Tatsu whipping out a katana and whacking a dozen people into submission (without blood, I might add)... well, I do love me some Katana references, and that scene was awesome if nothing. Shame that Katana's backstory involves a dead family, so things aren't looking good for Maseo and their kid.

And at the end, Captain Boomerang shows up and kills a random dude who has 'something he needs' with a razor-sharp boomerang! He's of reasonable likeness to the original Captain Boomerang except not as colourful or silly. It's another thing that excites me because I love Captain Boomerang, as nutter as he conceptually is, and I'm certainly looking forward to next week's crossover episodes if nothing. Boomerang seems to imply that he's a former member of the Suicide Squad what with him going all 'the thing about our line of work is that it'll always come back to haunt you' line, which will be interesting, or that could just be me reading too much into things.

Overall a pretty m'eh episode that'll probably appeal to shippers -- in which case, good for them -- but is pretty filler-y for me. Cupid's kind of intentionally annoying, DJ Douchebag can fuck off and jump into a pool of acid, and the romance stuff is at least tolerable. It's not bad, but it doesn't fill me with excitement or hype other than the Atom, Katana and Captain Boomerang references.

The Flash S1E7 Review: All the Name-Dropping

The Flash, Season 1, Episode 7: Power Outage

I think this is the first episode of the Flash that doesn't feel like a standard season-one 'villain of the day' and 'moral of the day' thing. I mean, in a sense it still is... this villain Blackout (who's some dude I've never heard of before, and apparently only shows up in Flashpoint, which came out after I don't read comics anymore) shows up, Flash defeats him, end of episode. And in a nice change of pace, the police department has to deal with their own villain, Clock King, who returns from his onetime appearance in Arrow. Both the Flash and Iris learn something in this episode... but in a sense I felt truly tense while watching this episode. I mean, I know it's episode 7 and they're not going to kill off the main character, but several -- Eddie, Wells and Joe -- come pretty close to dying, and I was tense for them if nothing else. And there's a couple of nice little arguments between Barry and Wells.

Let's talk about the police station cast plot, because it's shorter and less people are involved in it. I do like how it's handled, how these secondary characters can actually stand up on their own and carry smaller mini-arcs by themselves and not have to be saved by Barry all the time.

Iris manages to be likable now that she's doing other stuff other than be a friendzoning love interest and BLOG BLOG BLOG, the latter wearing absolutely thin. She's still doing that naive cartoony Lois Lane esque thing where she goes 'the Flash will kick your ass' but, of course, this time that doesn't happen. And while Iris doesn't get a whole ton of screentime, she does manage to take down the Clock King by using the Oliver/Felicity/Slade bait and switch thing. There's also a couple funny moments with her kind of blushing over meeting the Flash, and the mug joke.

William Tockman, the Clock King, shows up again and it's a wholly unexpected return for him! I do like how he's a bit of an amalgamation between the two Clock Kings (Temple Fugate and William Tockman, owing more to the former for the looks). Clock King is wonderfully, deliciously neurotic and posh and everything, and he's easily one of my favourite villains in the CW Arrow-Flash continuity. He's so much fun! And so tragic, too, because as he reveals this time, his sister ended up dying from McGregor's Syndrome and he was denied the opportunity to even say goodbye to her. Man, what a douchebag DA. Almost makes me want to root for him if he's not shooting people left and right. I do really like him just swaggering out and shooting everybody, and I do like the more tender moments when he lets Iris say goodbye to the 'dying' Eddie. There's also a nice moment where he respects Joe enough to apply a tourniquet to Eddie's arm and do this little 'time of shot' thing, which in retrospect is absolutely appropriate for the Clock King.

What more can I say? The Clock King is freaking awesome, even if he doesn't come to blows with the Flash and kind of gets taken out like a bitch, it's still awesome to see him swagger around and do his wacky antics.

Joe has apparently come to support Barry Allen being the Flash and protecting people from the metahumans, and goes 'you need to get your powers back' and all that... though the encounter with the Reverse-Flash last episode might be a major contributing factor to that. Joe gets some nice funny moments with throwing stuff so Barry can (fail to) catch them, and there's the nice little back-and-forth negotiation with the Clock King that shows that Joe isn't just a cop. He's also pretty well-versed in literature, and that little gambit where he lets Iris get the gun... possibly for self-protection, because sending his untrained daughter to shoot a terrorist is kind of dark. But, y'know, Iris did that. I do really like that heartbreaking scene when Joe just struggles to his feet shouting IRIS when we hear a gunshot and we're not sure if it's Iris or Clock King that pulled the trigger. (From the viewer standpoint it's obviously Iris, but still)

Also I do like how Barry tries to call Joe for backup, whereas Joe/Iris is hoping that the Flash will show up. It's a nice little thing.

Eddie is high on pain meds and he's just all high and happy and absolutely hilarious. Before that he gets minimal screentime up until the Clock King shoots him a couple of times, and thanks to the ambiguous nature of Eddie Thawne's role, I was actually expecting him to maybe die or get crippled (a la the comics' Hunter Zolomon) or something. I certainly didn't dismiss his death out of hand, and I thought that was a good way to increase tension. Ever since the last episode Eddie's been relatively likable.

I think that's about it for the secondary cast, so now let's talk about the main Barry plot. I'm saving all the Wells stuff until the end because there's a fair bit to talk about him.

Anyway, the main plot is this new metahuman, Blackout, who initially seems to be this lightning-based villain... like his Marvel namesake, except instead of just shutting off lamps, this Blackout can also do Palpatine force lightning things. That is, until Blackout reveals that he can suck the lightning-speed thing right off of Barry. There's a distinct feel of Speed Force foreshadowing all around this, which is all great. And I do like how Barry looks just so miserable and weak and generally nearly-useless without his speed, and how everyone from Caitlin to Joe to Harrison Wells to some degree is all trying to cheer him up for him to get his speed back. We see just how much helping people means to Barry and how, speed or no speed, Barry keeps trying to help people.

Wells also brings up one of the things I really like about this show, just how much the Flash really enjoys being the Flash. With heroes like Batman or CW's version of Green Arrow, not to mention basically all DC superheroes adapted to the big screen recently, their heroism is really treated as a burden and an obligation, which to a sense it is... and it does work with the more somber and gritty feel of Batman and Green Arrow, but with someone like the Flash? He really really enjoys his work, and I do like how it is a stark contrast with the newest episode of Arrow I just watched, intentional or not.

Wells also brings up how Barry is using his speed for menial tasks like dressing up early or to give people in line fast coffees, or to fuck around with a mugger which was hilarious. It's another aspect of Flash that I like, how he's using his powers for relatively petty and practical things which is totally something that I would do.

And the show treats Barry losing his speed like someone losing a limb or whatever, and to an extend it must be true -- if Barry is forced to live without his speed, it isn't just like taking a thing away from someone, it would be paramount to amputating someone's leg. And I can see why he's so desperate to get his powers back even if it involves electrocuting himself with the Cosmic Treadmill.

Man, that thing is definitely going to be the Cosmic Treadmill. I've been rereading some old Flash comics and Cisco's special treadmill is so obviously designed after the Cosmic Treadmill.

Barry's borderline-naive optimism really shows when he tries to talk down Farooq, and gets shot with electricity for his troubles. I do like how he tries to at least mediate a situation first, how he isn't immediately resorting to murder. And I thought the argument between Barry and Wells about sending Girder to battle Blackout is pretty well scripted as well. Great stuff. Also he seems to have gotten a boost to his speed, which is nice, showing how Barry Allen's powers are still developing. Last episode we had the supersonic mach punch, and now we've got more glowing red blood cells.

I don't think Cisco does anything in this episode that's noteworthy other than to bounce dialogue off of, but Caitlin gets some nice moments, being the one who ended up having to 'believe' and activate the big power generator thing to jumpstart Barry. Considering how she's lost Ronnie and everything, I do think that it's a pretty nice little character growth for her. Even if the 'I believe lightning chose me for a reason' lines are pretty narmy but Barry Allen's face looks kind of, y'know, nerdy? Naive? Earnest? It just works on him, I dunno.

I think there was a Felicity reference, she upgraded their system or something. Yay Felicity, I guess? She's been a wee bit too prominent recently, and I'd prefer they dial it down a bit. As much as I like her, she's veering dangerously close to Sue territory.

Also in the Farooq flashback we see the Mardons' airplane blown off the sky, which is a nice little continuity nod.

The main villain here, Farooq Jabron (otherwise known as Blackout) is a pretty crazy-terrifying dude. It's amazing what a few layers of makeup around the eyes and making those see-through electricity lines fizzle in and out, and some great acting, can make this dude really look like a tragic, hungry psychopath. I do like his backstory, too. We're shown that he's just climbing on this electrical pole and all excited about seeing Wells' machine get activated, and getting electrocuted from there... and his friends apparently died giving him CPR. It's pretty tragic, and he's forced to go around feeding from power plants and whatnot, having to live with the knowledge that he killed his friends... who probably wouldn't be there if he didn't ask for them to accompany him. Farooq looks like the only one out of the group who's really excited about seeing the activation.

And, well, from his appearance to his behaviour it's easy to see just how crazy and deranged he is from his condition, and rightfully so.

Farooq's a pretty threatening villain, too. I'm not sure just how he knows how much electricity a human body gives out, but seeing this random nice dude get transformed into this rage-fueled energy vampire... it really makes him stand out from the evil dudes who get their powers and use them for evil (Mist, Girder, Multiplex, Weather Wizard) or Barry and Plastique, whose powers aren't forcing them to drain energy to keep alive... or being tormented by, y'know, the whole killing-friends thing. And the fact that he's out for blood, out for revenge on Wells, as well as being able to siphon off Barry's powers... I thought the final battle between the two of them were a bit m'eh, though Barry does some nice electrical dodging stuff, but that's okay. Farooq's more of a psychologically impressive villain than being really showy.

Also, Girder makes a surprise appearance! And, well, he dies, poor sod. Granted, this is a world based on DC comics and people never really stay dead for long, but I dunno. Girder gets released by Wells to fight Farooq, and for whatever reason he complies without going off after Barry or whatever. Maybe he just wants to punch things, I dunno. He seems to be able to take a hit from Farooq, blocking that electrical blast with a manly 'ouch', but soon afterwards he gets defeated off-screen and dies in Barry's arms, telling him to 'run', so at least this version of Girder isn't really that evil. I thought it was an odd decision to kill Girder off just like that, especially when Wells and Barry make it clear that Girder didn't buy that much time for them, but I guess it's to illustrate just how much of a chessmaster Wells can be? It's odd, though.

Harrison Wells, on the other hand, is certainly not reduced to a minor character. This episode shows a great deal of focus about him, painting him as a chessmaster. There's the whole Girder thing up above, and I do agree with Wells -- I'd choose the lives of my friends (who also happen to be useful) over the life of this crazy psychopath in my basement that I can manipulate. It's a nice little argument between ideals and pragmatism. And on the flip side we do get some nice moments that make Harrison Wells feel a lot more human and not just this super-evil chessmaster. He reveals that he remembers the names of every single person who died thanks to the explosion, and offers himself to Farooq to let everyone else be sapred, and it's a very poignant and powerful scene. It actually reminds me of a very similar scene from the manga D.Gray-Man, and I think that humanizes Wells pretty well. Also the scenes when he goes 'I care about you, Barry', even if the feeling is probably not just because he thinks that Barry is a swell guy. He's still a massive chessmastering prick, but he's also still human I guess?

Also to note are the names that Wells rattles off! Those are all the names of DC superheroes. Ronnie Raymond is, of course, Firestorm. Ralph Dibny is a relatively major character, the Elongated Man. Bea DaCosta is Fire, Grant Emerson is Damage and Al Rothstein is the Atom Smasher. (Also, Will Everett is the 'Amazing Man', who I've never heard before) It brought a massive smile to my face when these names are rattled off. I doubt any of them will show up other than Firestorm, but still, I do like these DC references that aren't as in-your-face like how Gotham sometimes can be.

Also, we get more scenes about Wells that seems to function to make you be confused as of what his alignment is. We get him talking to Gideon, an AI that apparently can search the future's news records and allow Wells to affirm if the timeline is damaged or not. It's a nice little time-travel gimmick that I like, which reminds me of the Golden Discs from Beast Wars (I'm just comparing everything to a bunch of other things here). And Wells wants to preserve a future in which the Flash exists and manages to make the red skies disappear. I do like how Wells makes these logs and gets quite disappointed with Barry's heroics, and his rage when Gideon fails to return any references to the Flash is pretty well-acted as well.

And the final scene where he talks to Gideon about how Barry's caring for other people is the key to unlock his potential seems to imply that all the sappy talk he had that humanizes him might just all be an act... or, on the same token, his observation might be just that. Wells is an extremely intriguing character, and extracting Farooq's blood... what is he trying to do? Is he trying to take down Barry, which doesn't make sense because he wants Barry to survive... or is he trying to force Barry to grow through tragedy or something along those lines? Or is he not evil at all, and he's been doing all this to take down the Reverse-Flash?

Absolutely intrigued, absolutely interested to find out more. The next episode is the Arrow/Flash crossover. Me excited.

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, Part 6: Free Latias! A Wild Feebas Appeared!

More Alpha Sapphire, in which I need to choose which Pokemon to use and whatnot.

One Piece 769 Review: Subverting Cliches

One Piece, Chapter 769: Bellamy, the Pirate

Cover story is still continuing on, and apparently Jinbe is hunting down the perpetrator of... of whatever the fuck is going on. I cannot remember. Man, cover stories used to be nice and short-ish, but ever since Caribou it's just dragged on and on until it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Anyway, continuing from last chapter, Law has done the 'Injection Shot' thing on Doflamingo, though apparently it didn't do anything particularly special other than stab Doflamingo. From its name I thought there was going to be poison or something involved. We then get a cool scene as Law slices off a literal chunk of the palace in his Room and just launches it at Doflamingo and Trebol, intending to sandwich them.

However, Doflamingo does this Spider Web thing and just blocks the giant falling piece of architecture. Law launches a bunch of rocks and rubble and whatnot at Doflamingo, but he manages to fly up into the sky (Trebol's apparently just gone). Law reappears behind Doflamingo, making use of the rubble, which is a cool panel.

Law tries to go in with 'Mes', which is the heart-cutting-out attack (I'm assuming Law can't do his normal body-parts-flying-everywhere stuff against Doflamingo because of Haki) but Doflamingo catches Law's hand. He then monologues about how Law is so fired up and whatnot, how if Law really wanted to kill Doflamingo all he needed to do was to pit Doflamingo against Kaido. But instead Law went in personally and let emotions get the better of him.

(Also Birdcage is apparently still up)

They bring up Corazon and the letter and whatnot, and for a moment Doflamingo tries to get into Law's mind by saying 'if you haven't fucked up so badly Dressrosa wouldn't be like this', but Law isn't buying it. Doflamingo then extends his leg, which has a single string running down it, and while trash-talking Law he then proceeds to place the leg-string on Law's arm.

And at this point it's a "will they do it?" moment with Law's arm, because, after all, this isn't Bleach where arms fall off in every battle, and I was really expecting a fake out.

We get a couple of nice dialogue back-and-forth between Law and Doflamingo and all that as they plummet down towards the ground. There was a large explosion, Trebol is clapping... and the next panel is a pretty graphic one as Law screams with his right arm sliced right off.

Good lord, that arm. It was pretty shocking to see something like this happen in One Piece on-screen instead of in a flashback or whatever. And as Law writhes on the ground, Doflamingo continues his monologue, about how the other 'D' had influenced him, and how he'll forgive Law after killing him with a lead bullet for extra irony. Doflamingo's seriously screwed in the head.

Granted, the arm is probably not going to be that big of a deal since Law has the ability to remove hearts and toss them around without killing the person and whatnot, but still.

However, before Doflamingo can put a bullet in Law's head, there's suddenly 'JET GATLING' and what I initially thought as Law's dismembered arm being gatling'd to bits which would be funny. And for this moment I was pretty disappointed because it seems that Luffy's going to come in swinging to save the day and beat down arc villain Doflamingo just because he's the main character, but no. Thankfully, it's nothing like that.

Luffy has apparently blown apart the string clone of Doflamingo that fell down with him (did we really see this happen? I cannot remember) and the string clone disappears. Hopefully for good, since there's a lot of other characters that people can fight. You know, actual villainous characters instead of string clones. This distracts Doflamingo enough for him to look down, and apparently Luffy is still fighting the string-controlled Bellamy, and until very recently, String Doflamingo as well. Luffy is all screaming and telling Doflamingo to release Bellamy from his control or he'll die.

Doflamingo goes "sure, why not" and allows Bellamy to drop to the ground, and for a moment we get a little flashback from Bellamy's point of view, back when he wanted to join Doflamingo's organization, how Doflamingo got rid of him, his old battle with Luffy (as Luffy is going "are you okay? Well of course you're not okay"), his recent meeting with Luffy that's all warm and fuzz, and later on the recent betrayals by Dellinger and Doflamingo. And all this are intercut with Luffy talking to Bellamy as he's pushing himself up, and it is made as if Bellamy is going to change his colours and help Luffy and Law in taking down Doflamingo.

And literally, right until the last page, it looks something like this. Luffy is all 'stay here, I'll help Law to beat Doflamingo for you', and Bellamy seems to go and 'do you remember this skill?', seemingly giving Luffy a boost up with his stupid spring-leg ability...

Even the second-last page with the spread isn't quite clear as Bellamy is just hopping around the massive corridor and slamming into walls and shit, which could be intepreted as him trying to bring down the upper levels and get Doflamingo that way...

But the final page makes it clear that despite everything that Doflamingo had done to him, he's not going to bite back the hand that feeds him, and despite his injuries, he's still going to take down Luffy, declaring it to be his 'last fight'. Pretty interesting subversion of the normal manga cliches.

While I don't doubt somewhere in the future Bellamy might turn good (or he might die here) and Luffy's probably going to play a role in helping Law defeat Doflamingo, if not being the one who does it himself, I for one am very happy how Law doesn't immediately get Worfed and turned into a dude-in-distress for Luffy to come in and pull of a heroic rescue. Especially since, y'know, that whole backstory that makes me really want to see Law punch Doflamingo in the face really hard.

Do like this chapter, and it's nice to see Doflamingo laying down the smackdown both physically and verbally, as well as the several moments where it's subtly evident how Doflamingo's great at controlling people. There's Bellamy, of course, and there's the ways how he's trying to get Law to be a little 'oh no it's all my fault'. Doflamingo's a really well-written villain and I really want to see him get punched in the face. Looking forward to next week's chapter.

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, Part 5: Volcanoes, Hot Springs and Daddies

Even more Alpha Sapphire after the break!

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, Part 4: The "New" Old Mauville

More Alpha Sapphire after the break!