Gotham S1E8 Review: Black Mask & Hush

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 8: The Mask

I associate Black Mask and Hush together among Batman villains. They were both villains of their own respective arcs that came out around the same time, they both knew Bruce Wayne as a kid, they were both these big masterminds, they both didn't have any fancy costume other than the mask covering their faces and I didn't know about them until a fair bit later compared to the other classic Batman villains. It is, therefore, a bit of a welcome surprise that both show up in Gotham at the same episode.

And, well, the Black Mask here isn't really faithful to his comic counterpart, what with Richard Sionis being an adult at the time of this show and Bruce is, y'know, ten... but in the same vein, they switched out a fair amount of Black Mask's backstory and even changed his name into Richard as opposed to Roman Sionis, so this may very well be the father of the comic-book Black Mask who will fight Batman. Which is a fairly interesting revamp that leaves an opening for a more faithful adaptation to come down the pipeline.

Black Mask himself isn't really that much of a threat, at least not in the way he was in the comics -- he isn't a super-competent mob boss, or someone with a massive vendetta against his family who cared more about appearances than about their child. Instead, Black Mask (who isn't even called that in the episode) is the leader of a corporation who has this crazy bloodlust and sics his employees against each other in some kind of crazy deathmatch inside an office building. Also he's gotten an obsession with Japanese swords and whatnot, which explains the black oni mask he wears. It's certainly a look distinctive from his comic book counterpart, what with the crazy oni markings, but at the same time that does kind of clinch the look.

Who was behind the whole Black Mask plot was already solved mostly from the get-go, and it's not like the Goat or the Balloon Man where the main tension of the episode is hunting down just who the perpetrator is. It's more of a 'can Gordon survive against Black Mask's battle royale stadium' thing, and there's a point where Bullock has to get pissed at every single cop in GCPD to get off their asses and help out Gordon, and I do like how they acknowledge the events of the last episode having somewhat of an impact even if it doesn't shake up the status quo too much.

Bruce and Alfred, for the first time, engages in something actually interesting. I thought it would be a groan-worthy moment as Bruce gets shipped off to school, but no. He encounters Tommy Elliot, who makes sense as someone who would be around at Bruce's age. Tommy is apparently an orphan (so he's already killed his parents by this point) and is a massive dick of a kid. He insults Bruce's mother, gangs up on him, talks about gruesome death details and gets to be an all-around dick. Alfred then teaches Bruce to... well, basically Alfred drives Bruce up to Tommy's house and let Bruce deliver a righteous beating on Tommy before going off to eat pizza.

I'd say how improper such child-teaching methods are, but then no one said Bruce Wayne grew up to be a mentally healthy man. And it's certainly healthier to face your bullies, and I do like the gesture of Alfred giving Bruce his father's watch... they didn't make it apparent, but after giving it some thought, it's to make sure Bruce holds back enough strength so he doesn't really injure Tommy any more than he did.

Alfred is a massive cock. But he's being an awesome one lately.

Penguin gets a short scene where he meets up with Fish and tries to give her a peace offering, but Fish stabs him in the hand. (Fish is a bitch) We get a couple more scenes of Penguin getting his hands on his 'replacement' and apparently torturing him off-screen to get information about Fish's plans. There's also a scene of him talking with his mother, who proves to be quite an awesome evil bitch when she was younger and more sane. Not much Penguin this time around, sadly...

Because the focus is on Fish. And surprisingly, she's becoming... well, I don't hate her. She's clearly meant not to be the kind of entertaining villain the way Penguin or Black Mask are. She's the kind of villain that's supposed to be a bit of a scumbag, so I don't mind her. She interacts the most with Liza, and manages to get Liza to put Falcone to sleep so she can copy pages of Falcone's ledger that's important for whatever Fish is planning next. Fish also gives Liza some sad story about how her mother was killed in front of her (figuratively speaking; she was hiding behind the curtains) by a man of Falcone's, and she swore never to suffer under a man ever since.

It would be an interesting backstory, if a cliched one, but as the scene with the old singer -- who is, I think, implied to be Fish's mother -- shows that Fish just knows how to manipulate people. Guess we know where Oswald picked that up from.

Nygma gets some fun scenes mucking around with dead bodies, and that scene where he does an autopsy when he's apparently not supposed to? That is funny in a morbid kind of way. He only shows up in small doses to lighten the mood and I appreciate that quite a bit. Essen also shows that she wants so much to be a good cop, and keeps apologizing to Gordon for leaving him alone (despite the fact that she stood by up until Gordon brushes her off). I like Essen. She doesn't do much but hey, she's likable..

Oh, and after getting herself drunk and nearly shooting Gordon, and after Gordon kind of brushes off one of her calls, Barbara just packs up her bags and leaves. Good! Can't stand that idiot. Life outside Gotham is healthier for her anyway. This also opens up a more realistic way for Gordon to 'cheat' with Essen that doesn't make him out like a complete douchebag like it did in the comics.

Gotham S1E7 Review: Zsasz! Penguin! Falcone! Awesome!

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 7: Penguin's Umbrella

Well after six relatively average or sub-par episodes, Gotham has finally come into its own. This was a great episode. The Penguin is revealed to be playing everyone along. The end of the episode reveals that the Penguin is, in fact, working for Don Falcone and has made a deal to work his way up the Maroni family so he can destabilize the Maroni family for Falcone, whilst taking down rogue elements allied with Fish's attempted takeover. It's an awesome twist, it makes a lot of Penguin's cryptic plans and all the stuff he's doing seem a lot less of a big mad gambit and more of an actual master plan is going on. It's awesome. The Penguin is definitely my favourite character of the show and he does make it absolutely awesome. Doubly so is Falcone, who probably let Penguin have all this information so that Maroni is drunk on his power.

We see that he is manipulating everything... Penguin's reveal is only to orchestrate the next few bits of events, where Falcone forbids any outright assault on the Maroni family though they do retaliate on a gun shipment. Penguin, meanwhile, is just tugging on Maroni's strings, pushing the right buttons (calling Falcone the number one gang) and convincing him to send his men to attack one of Falcone's places... which, as we find out later, is run by Nikolai, who is Fish's partner-in-crime.

Maroni's second-in-command, Frankie, has been suspecting Penguin of playing Maroni and it's pretty obvious that he does, and Penguin delivers this awesome speech about someone's passions being someone's weakness as he reveals that he has bribed Frankie's men and then murders Frankie. It's all very awesome and downright creepy at points. And when you think about it, Falcone and Penguin together made all the profit. They took out Maroni's top henchman, moved Penguin up Maroni's organization, allows Penguin to operate freely, and took out a man who was conspiring to kill Falcone. And on top of it all, as 'compensation', all Falcone has to do is not kill Penguin (which he never intended to do in the first place) while Maroni, thanks to Penguin's advice, gives Falcone a piece of Arkham.

It's all an awesome big master plan and I am quite happy with how it's developed. (Incidentally, I hope the whole Diviner plot in Agents of SHIELD is resolved at least somewhat as elegantly as this one)

Gordon himself is a bit on the run. Falcone has sent out one 'Victor' to kill him, and as it turns out, said Victor is Victor Zsasz, who is a member of Batman's rogues gallery. It's awesome to see that we're not going to just get random serial killers like the Goat and the Balloon Man, and Zsasz is indeed suitable for one of Batman's enemies that could be operating in the scope and timeline of the show. Zsasz is played by the awesome actor who plays the Mist in the Flash, and he looks so much fun just strutting around like the crazy psychopath that he is shooting people and generally being a massive creepy fucker. He's already doing the tally-tattoo thing on his arm. It's only 27 or 28 or something around that, and it's only a couple markings on his arms instead of how it would cover his entire torso and both arms like it would be by the time the actual Batman stories roll around, but it's fine. It is, after all, still quite some time before Bruce Wayne dons the cowl.

Still, Zsasz is a nice addition to the cast member and while I doubt he'll show up every episode, I do hope he shows up quite a bit. It's nice to see Falcone having some muscle of his own that isn't allied to Fish.

Also Zsasz has Funky Town as his ringtone. That was hilarious. Zsasz is a lot of fun. I like him.

Gordon himself is proving a bit suicidal, I have to admit, with his plan of going out in a blaze of glory and bringing in Falcone and Mayor Whatshisface, and after an initial terse moment with Bullock, he later joins up in Gordon's mad crusade. Gordon's attempt to just show up for work and defy all the mob's power ends up with him getting shot a shit-ton of times by Zsasz, which is a nice little sledgehammer to his face, I bet. Though Zsasz just going around shooting everyone does make it more believable why all the cops are so afraid to cross Falcone's family.

Gordon gets saved by Allen and Montoya, however, and after passing on the Wayne murder case to them he and Bullock sort of kidnap the Mayor and head off to arrest Falcone. Thanks to Penguin (as we find out later), however, Falcone has been persuaded to spare Gordon, and we get this awesome moment where Falcone just calmly tells Gordon that Zsasz is with Barbara and has the utmost confidence that neither Gordon nor Bullock can get out of his compound without getting shot anyway. Falcone has everyone in the palm of his hand and seeing Gordon try to fight against this friendly chessmaster of a Don is going to be awesome.

Maroni, meanwhile, is a bit more volatile than Falcone is, basically going all 'I wanna hit them back' and everything. Though to his credit, there really isn't any way he could think that Penguin is working for Falcone. Who would think taking out a dozen of Falcone's man could be beneficial to him? Or that Penguin, after all the death threats and whatnot, would still be an agent of Falcone?

Fish herself is still pretty great, playing the role of 'hateable bitch' pretty awesomely. It's clear that the show doesn't really intend to portray her sympathetically, and she finds herself kind of outplayed by both Falcone and Maroni. I do like that moment where Fish is going on and on about respect and Maroni just tells Penguin to apologize sincerely like he's a kindergarten student. And that pissed-off look that Fish has when it's revealed that Falcone's people who Penguin and Frankie killed were, in fact, Nikolai's faction. Fish really needs to step up her game!

Fish's lieutenant, Butch, gets one of the funniest black comedy scenes in the show by chaining nuns across a street to stop Maroni's gun shipment. And the little scene afterwards the truck drivers are just kind of idiots.

We see a bit of Liza, and I almost forgot she changed her hair colour. She's apparently just hanging out in the Falcone mansion, doing chores and baking cookies and stuff, but according to Fish, Falcone hasn't even touched her. Considering just how brilliant Falcone has been shown in this episode and the fact that he's not just some old coot playing with chickens, I'm sure Falcone knows or at least suspects... but genuinely is interested in Liza because of the mommy similarities and whatnot. I'm curious where this part of the plot will go, though not really that much.

On the side of the angels, we see Allen and Montoya showing up like the cavalry to bail Gordon out of his fight with Zsasz, which is awesome. Montoya also admits how her feelings might've gotten in the way of her judgment, so there's that redeeming feature for her. Still not a big fan of Gotham's version of Montoya, but at least she seems to not be annoying for the forseeable future. Allen gets some more scenes this time around, helping out with Gordon's medical treatment and getting a hilarious scene where Alfred easily holds a sword to his throat right up until Gordon clears things out.

I'm not quite sure what the point of them going to the Wayne Manor is other than to give Bruce and Alfred some screen time. Bruce borders between being a sweet kid-Batman and being a bit annoying thanks to his 'I'm not just a kid'... on one hand, any kid who does that should be smacked over the head. On the other, he's the fucking Batman so he gets a pass. I'm still pretty lukewarm about their presence in the show, which is mostly just being a bit distracting and all.

Essen also gets some extra screentime more than her usual fare, and I do like how she cares enough about Gordon (hint hint) to try and convince him to get out of town, and when all the other policemen get out of the room when Zsasz arrives, Essen kept standing next to Gordon right until the point that Gordon tells her to get out. You go, Essen.

Barbara, meanwhile, gets to be the damsel in distress not once, but twice. Well, happy now that you know all the truth and nearly gotten yourself killed? Hopefully this experience will jar Barbara out of her stupidity. Honesty and love and all that, I get. Her idiocy and general 'I love Jim but I want to dig up all his secrets despite there being a perfectly good reason why he hides them' attitude really needs to go. She gets scared stiff several times when she gets confronted with the mob dudes that Gordon shoots in their apartment, and later on is apparently held hostage by Zsasz and the cookie-baking Liza. She doesn't really do enough to be annoying this time around, though.

Overall? Pretty awesome episode all around.

Gotham S1E6 Review: Goats and Bullock

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 6: The Spirit of the Goat

Another good, if slightly padded-out, episode. It's more Bullock-centric than most episodes and I do like that -- as the second-most main character, Bullock does deserve to get more screen time. The main plot here revolves around the Spirit of the Goat, a psychotic serial killer that Bullock had brought down ten years before... back when Bullock is basically an upstanding loose cannon like Gordon is today and I do like how his old, crippled partner Dix is basically acting like how Bullock acts to Gordon now. And I do like how initially the Goat seems to have some connection to Dix before that turns into a mere red herring. Anyway, ten years ago, Bullock killed the original Spirit of the Goat, but now another killer with the same M.O. as the Spirit of the Goat shows up and begins killing people in the exact same way... including a certain detail only privy to Bullock, Dix and another man who's dead.

I do like how this case is pretty personal to Bullock, and we get to see him actually be competent when he wants to. We get some fun interaction between him and Nygma, between him and Gordon and later he even solves the case by figuring out the true mastermind, who is a hypnotherapist doctor lady. Bullock's overall pretty awesome in this episode, showing some... hidden depths, I suppose? Bullock also turns out to be paying Dix's medical fees and buying Dix magazines and stuff. Nice show, Bullock. It's nice to see some depths to him because Bullock taking hits for the mob has been one of the biggest contenders why I didn't watch Gotham for so long.

The Spirit of the Goat itself is pretty unremarkable other than the fact that, y'know, there's someone pulling the strings, which is nice. Serial killers made up by the show can only get so interesting, and I do like how the Goat mask seems to be evocative of Batman's mask, right down to the horns and exposed lower face. It's a bit too obvious, but what is Gotham if not obvious?

Edward Nygma, better known among DC fans as the Riddler, also get a fair bit of screentime this episode, first by talking to Bullock and actually getting some professionalism after Bullock shoots down his first riddle... and then the whole thing with the Kringle lady where Nygma is so obviously just wanting to get her attention and be nice in his own crazy neurotic way. I do like Nygma even if he's annoying, though I thought that relatively long scene with Kringle was, again, a bit too on-the-nose. He keeps giving death glares to people who get pissed off at his riddles. It's fun, I guess, even if his obvious Riddler-emblem-mug is always in our faces.

We get some Bruce and Alfred, relatively brief this time around with them just commenting on masks and whatnot. And Selina shows up just to, y'know, remind us that she exists. She shows up and steals something from Bruce's room while he's sleeping. It's a bit all dragged on in my opinion and could use some editing, though it's still better than the earliest Gotham episodes. We'll see where this goes.

Gordon and Barbara do this whole song and dance where Barbara keeps trying to get Gordon to tell her everything, while she tries to be this expose artist trying to feed Montoya all the 'truth' she wrings out of Gordon. Even Montoya notes that this is a bad idea. I mean, the audience knows that Montoya is the most straight-up cop in the show bar none, but that is still a stupid thing to do. Especially considering her track record of going to the press the moment Gordon tells her something. Literally too dumb to live. And she picks a fight with Montoya too at the end, of course. I mean, her heart is in the right place but she's just kind of stupid all around. Go away Barbara. You're nowhere as interesting as your daughter will be.

Oswald also gets a fair amount of screen time, meeting up with his mother at last and getting some scenes with her. It's your typical Penguin stuff and it's fun. I like Penguin. Whatever happened to that poor guy he took hostage in the camper, by the way? In any case, he's a bit lying to his mother about what he's doing, although to be fair the poor woman seems to have a couple of screws loose. He's apparently set on helping Gordon out, though knowing him he's got to have some angle at doing all this.

Montoya and Allen has finally gotten themselves a witness who places Gordon at the crime scene 'shooting' Oswald, and good for them! I mean, Allen lampshades how obsessed Montoya is with the case and they literally get the witness within 24 hours of their deadline, and she's definitely got the whole ex angle going on, but she's at least sane enough to tell Barbara to get the hell away from her and from Gotham. At the end of the episode, they arrest Gordon (and Bullock), who tries to tell them the truth while not being too blatant, and Oswald, of course, shows up going all 'hello' and happy and stuff. Oswald is fun. Gordon and Bullock are going to have some things to discuss... it's an okay episode. Interested to see what's going to go on with the whole Penguin angle.

Agents of SHIELD S2E9 Review: Buncha Cryptic Stuff

Agents of SHIELD, Season 2, Episode 9: Ye Who Enter Here

Well, we get some advancement of the plot, but as always there's a bit of a stuffy feel where there's too many characters and plotlines being included and none of them really go anywhere and there's no real distinct focus. We get a little bit of practically everything and that's pretty annoying. The show is just teasing on so much and not really giving much in terms of payoff and it's starting to feel dragged on.

The main plot slugs along as it picks up from last episode, and I think this side of the episode was handled relatively well. Coulson, Bobbi, Mack and Fitz-Simmons head off to hunt down the alien city without bringing Skye... and apparently the Doctor hasn't told Hydra just where the city is. We get some nice Coulson moments as he makes that conversation with Bobbi about just what he is fighting for, about how he's different than Nick Fury and I thought that was pretty well-done. So is the Fitz-Simmons conversation... both Bobbi and Mack have apparently gone on the shipping front and are suddenly shipping the two together and kind of forcing them to, y'know, talk. Of course, this is Agents of SHIELD so things can never really get a clean conclusion, so the drama is prolonged a fair bit more with Simmons being completely unsure about how she feels about Fitz, and Fitz wanting to drop out of the science department and work as a subordinate... but is letting Simmons kind of be his partner again and complete his sentences and whatnot.

Again, this all has been dragged on and I'm honestly a bit exhausted because they're just milking the shipping angle of the show as long as they can and it's honestly quite irritating.

Anyway, apparently Bobbi and Hunter has also gotten back together in a much more healthy manner than Fitz-Simmons, and Bobbi's at least attempting to get Simmons to open up to Fitz. Also, apparently Bobbi and Mack has some secret they're keeping from Hunter. Do the two even know each other before this? Apparently they do. Also, I find that I don't really give much of a fuck about any secrets between these two.

Bobbi and Simmons' scene was great, though, at least. Simmons looks like she genuinely is going to cry there. Poor girl.

Mack gets a fair amount of screentime, and finally for whatever reason he decides to drop the cold shoulder attitude towards Simmons and gets to work shipping Fitz and Simmons together again. Sure, do it right in the middle of the important mission. Mack goes down the hole in that San Juan fortress which can apparently short-circuit all electricity and transforms Mack into a raging, angry, berserking dude. Evil!Mack beats up Coulson and nearly drops Simmons down the hole, shrugs off several shots from the Icer and Bobbi needed to taser him with her batons to take him out... and of course he falls down the hole. Apparently to his death. Well, that's one character taken out, so there's that.

Granted, to his credit Fitz drew an actual gun on Mack and is ready to drop him, but still, whatever the case, they didn't manage to reach Mack and he gets killed off.

I'm still a lot more curious about just what the hell is going on and this... this is just not really satisfying. It'll probably be a lot better if I watch like the entire season in a sitting.

On the other side of the spectrum, Raina is apparently being targeted by Hydra agents led by Agent 33, and they apparently want her alive. We see two Koenigs help her out and hide her under an invisible umbrella cloak thing, and apparently that was where the Koenigs have been all these while. There's a running gag about everyone asking how many Koenigs there are, which is at least fun.

Skye, May, Hunter and Triplett go off to extract Raina, and Skye gets into fisticuffs with Agent 33, who is still wearing that damaged May mask for whatever reason other than to be creepy. And we just get little fights here and there. We get to see Skye actually give 33 a run for her money and their fight was pretty nice. And then Raina gets all cryptic and going on and on about what the Diviner does and, y'know, doing vague Raina things that still continue to be annoying yet relevant to the big mystery. We also get a cryptic dream early on with Skye seeing a baby being abandoned by Coulson and May, her parental figures, which I'm going to assume is her flashbacking to the past. It's another mystery to add to the heap I suppose.

The big thing that Raina confirms is that the blue skinned aliens are the Kree, last seen in Guardians of the Galaxy. Well, considering the few Kree we've seen do anything in Guardians have been either ultra-racist genocidal fanatics or jackasses who doesn't care about their race's fanatics, well, it's not really that big of a surprise. Also the fact that both she and Skye are human, but Raina is a bit crazy and she's all a wild card and everything and, well, I just don't really care all that much about her either.

May and Trip and the Koenigs get some fun scenes, with May bitching about Agent 33 still wearing her face, Triplett getting confused about the Koenigs... and I like these fun scenes a lot more than all of Raina's cryptic bullshit that won't go anywhere until the mid-season finale and/or the season finale. Or Skye's vague dreams. Or Fitz-Simmons' tsun-tsun act which was heartbreaking for like the first episode but is just being dragged on and on with 'what is Simmons' real reason for infiltrating Hydra' being a supposed mystery which... which I don't really care anymore since they kept hinting and hinting and not giving anything back.

Oh and Ward shows up just to gallivant around and just take Raina (and Skye) back, whatever side he is on. Of course Skye goes with him instead of being smart and, oh, I dunno, shooting Ward in the head? Shooting Raina in the head? Skye just seems too passive and too willing to go on with Ward's demands. It's rather obvious that it's just to prolong this whole jumbled-up plot on for as long as it could. Whatever the case, Whitehall isn't pleased with Ward's streak of independence, so I'm sure Ward just has his love-driven agendas or something. I dunno. Oh, and Whitehall tells his forces to blow up the bus. Guess who's going to survive next episode? It's not much of a cliffhanger, really. Could've left it with the Mack falling down a hole and Ward kidnapping Skye and be done, but this is just pretty m'eh.

It's a bit of a tiring episode and after nine episodes of dangling little bits and bites of information and not really doing anything... and it's not even a filler episode as of such since the plot is being moved forwards, but it's moving at such a slow pace, and the focus is all over the place and it's just generally a stopgap until, big Revelations(tm) are done which will no doubt lead to more questions. There are certainly a fair amount of fun scenes -- Skye's fight with 33, Simmons and Bobbi, Coulson's speech, the Koenigs just having fun, Fitz and Simmons... but really, it's just a rather haphazard episode just to give a cliffhanger to the next episode.

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, Part 9: Sidequests & Mossdeep

More Alpha Sapphire!

Arrow S3E8 Review: Boomerang! Flash! Lyla! ARGUS!

Arrow, Season 3, Episode 8: The Brave and the Bold

This episode sort of picks up from the Flash crossover episode, except not really. Like I said before, both episodes are pretty standalone, and that difference is pretty inherent right down to the tone of both episodes, with Flash's episode focusing more on the general formula of Flash learning new things about being a superhero, and Arrow's episode having a distinct theme of darkness and Oliver's more brutal, kill-happy past. I'm also a big fan of how none of the characters feel needlessly out-of-character… though Oliver is a bit of a dick. But then we all know he's a bit of a control freak and Barry is sort of intruding in his thing.

Also, I'm a big fan about how they handled Captain Boomerang. Between Captain Boomerang and Rainbow Raider, they really are using the Flash's two least threatening and most ridiculous enemies, aren't they? Except that logically speaking, Captain Boomerang really does feel out of place as one of Flash's enemies and being someone trained with exotic weapons, he really does feel more of an opponent to Green Arrow. And it works this time around with Captain Boomerang actually facing off against his traditional opponent, the Flash, but the one that takes him down in a physical confrontation is Green Arrow while Flash is forced to use his superspeed to deal with the whole 'I placed a lot of bombs across the city set to go off at the same time' thing.

Also, we've got a lot of intrigue about ARGUS and just how dark it really is. But really, the main point of the episode is more about Barry and Oliver's interactions, which is nice because we didn't really get that much of those in Flash's episode. It was mostly just cool fight scenes GO! And here it's nice to see that getting properly explored.

There's a bit of a Batman-Superman vibe as Barry finally sees for the first time how Oliver does his torture tactics, and he's utterly horrified when he sees it in person, despite defending Oliver's tactics during the Flash episode. And I thought it was pretty well-done how they cut away from the more grimdark arrow torture scene back in the Flash crossover, yet they show the full ramifications here. And I do like Oliver Queen, control freak that he is, slightly explode at Barry when he starts questioning his methods. It may have been a bit overdone, but Oliver has done the same to Diggle and others before, so it's not completely out of character for him.

And Barry, with his more naïve wand upstanding worldview, manages to get Oliver get over his self-loathing, manages to get Oliver that he can inspire people as well and all that, which is nice. Again, while I'm not too big on the sudden 'Tommy died so suddenly I don't kill' excuse, this one works pretty naturally, and I am a big fan on the overall, gradual softening of Oliver throughout the three seasons… and with Barry going on about how the Arrow is a douche and how Oliver himself is admitting he's losing pieces of his soul to the mask, maybe it is time he adopts a different name? Something, like, oh, I dunno, Green Arrow? I mean, I would be absolutely happy about it. Also, Oliver takes the route that doesn't involve torturing Boomerang, which is nice too. I'm also a big fan on how they managed to solve the 'five bombs will detonate at the same time' conundrum, which is a lot simpler and much more of a mundane solution than what I would think.

Again, there's a distinct sense of a Batman-vs-Superman mentality going on, with Oliver going 'this is my city, this is my rules' and 'your city is a lot more sunshine and smiles and all compared to mine', while Team Flash (mostly Cisco and Caitlin) having to slightly deal with the reality that it's not just a big fun game anymore when they see someone actually lying there, bloodied and dying. It's a nice development for both parties, and it's given its own unique twist so it isn't a Batman-Superman rehash. For one, other than some harsh words being exchanged between the two and the whole enraged thing from the Flash episode, at no point does Flash and Arrow actually come to blows, verbally or physically. I mean, they have that friendly match in the end (which we don't see the result of, naturally) but other than that they really are good buddies and I really like that.

Also, as Barry claims, he's been taking Oliver's advice to heart and is visibly more concerned about getting the people away from safety. Like the moment preceding the confrontation with Boomerang (in a train station no less!) we get an awesome scene of Flash just zipping every single civilian out before a repeat of the Captain Cold incident appears. And like Oliver did in the Flash episode, Barry makes a pretty awesome dynamic entry catching those two boomerangs. Pretty awesome all around.

And, well, aside from Barry and Oliver, can we talk about Digger Harkness, our big bad villain for this episode? They made Captain Boomerang a legitimate, freaking threat and it was awesome. Boomerang's boomerangs actually look downright lethal, he uses explosive boomerangs (we get some neat explanation about just why they are awesome) and that scene where he mows down all the ARGUS agents by using boomerangs as daggers, and then the battle against Oliver and Roy where he was actually winning for a bit? Boomerang is awesome. Right up until the end where he goes on the one-on-one match against Oliver, Captain Boomerang is just going around kicking ass and taking names and it is simply brilliant.

We also get a bit of his backstory, that he's an agent for Task Force X (or Suicide Squad, as Diggle helpfully reminds us of its real, awesome name) who was actually attempted to be killed. Lyla was the one who wiped out Boomerang and his team -- presumably one that didn't include Deadshot or Bronze Tiger -- but failed to kill Boomerang because of a chip malfunction, leading to his vendetta against Lyla. Captain Boomerang is actually a thematically perfect villain for this whole angle, since his whole 'things can come back to haunt you' thing makes perfect sense with boomerangs.

Boomerang manages to out-gambit everyone from Team Arrow, ARGUS and Team Flash to infiltrate the Arrowcave and nearly kill Lyla, and would've succeeded if someone running around at superspeed hadn't been around. He's also pre-empted Flash's superspeed enough and planted all those bombs around the city.

Captain Boomerang's awesome. His fight scenes are awesome. What more can I say? They made freaking Captain Boomerang awesome and they didn't even have to change him as much as Rainbow Raider. I am so happy with all these faithful-yet-awesome adaptations of silly characters.

And tying into Boomerang, we get to see a fair bit of Lyla and Diggle, the former who's been pretty much nonexistent for the past few episodes. We get a bit of a fun moment between the two, especially Lyla's bafflement when Barry just zips in, nonchalantly eating sushi. Diggle and Lyla also have a bit of an argument going on about them keeping secrets from each other, but they're at least professional enough to let the other know about things when needed. Also, Barry is absolutely flabbergasted that Diggle didn't tell Lyla about his secret identity, when Diggle just shakes his head and goes 'no, man' which is funny. Diggle finally proposes to Lyla at the end of the episode, which is nice.

Less nice is the scene when Lyla gets boomerang'd in the side of the chest and for a moment everyone is going 'she's not breathing!' and everything, and for a moment I thought Lyla was really going to bite the dust. She seems to be the perfect candidate to be killed off too. She's a prominent enough character for the audience to care, she's morally ambiguous and her death could be something of an ironic, karmic justice thing, and considering how a lot of scenes have focused on Diggle really being lovey-dovey for his family, it seems like a pretty obvious, cruel thing to do. But thankfully the Flash's around.

Lyla also gets to talk to Oliver and they talk about extremes and stuff and how they need to be extreme to deal with maniacs like Boomerang, but that might or might not be just something Amanda Waller's drilled into both of them. I can't totally disagree with their point here, though, because Oliver doesn't have Barry hanging out in Starling City all the time.

Felicity doesn't really get much to do this time other than be the one that interacts the most with Team Flash due to being more acquainted with them and getting off some funny salmon ladder jokes (seeing Barry superspeed the salmon ladder is funny) but she's otherwise just doing her thing. There's the moment about how Felicity tries to get Cisco not to call their base the Arrowcave, and Roy immediately calls it exactly that in the next scene. Roy, having missed out on the Flash crossover episode, gets some funny scenes. We get a bit of a 'only sane man' going on between Roy and Diggle, and Roy does get a fun fight scene during the massive triple melee between him, Oliver and Boomerang. Boomerang knocks away his bow and he pulls out twin batons, which look awesome -- man, Roy needs to get more screentime. I really want to see him do a lot more other than just be Oliver's shadow.

Also, Roy initially goes 'who are these people I don't trust them' and immediately switches to 'man you guys are okay' the moment Cisco goes up to his costume and fangasms over it. And I do agree with Cisco… Arsenal's costume is awesome. Cisco and Caitlin make Oliver an updated costume that's supposed to improve his improvement by being lighter and more sturdy and everything, which is nice -- Oliver's costume really does need a bit of an upgrade, especially when he's running around next to Roy's super-awesome getup.

Caitlin and Cisco, like Felicity, do their thing with Cisco being the rowdier one that's constantly getting hyped and happy about every single thing. Caitlin mentions something about the Sara bit, but that isn't really explored. Cisco gets some fun jokes especially when Felicity and Roy immediately shots him down for ogling Thea. Cisco's fun. He's a bit of an idiot, but he's fun.

There's a fair amount of fun moments throughout the episode, which is nice -- just like how Oliver brought in a sense of reality to Team Flash, Barry also brings in a sense of fun to Team Arrow. There's the moment where Barry just sends paper flying all around in his wake, Barry just tying up an entire contingent of Bratva goons without them realizing what's happened, Ollie and Diggle trying their hardest not to get pissed at Cisco and Barry having fun… I like it loads.

The minor characters, unfortunately, get severely shafted, not helped by the normally-elusive Lyla showing up and taking up a fair chunk of screentime. Ray Palmer (Palmer Industries' logo shows up on the side of the building, though), Malcolm Merlyn, Ted Grant and Katana's family in the flashbacks are completely absent, Laurel shows up for around ten seconds saying that he needs to talk to Oliver -- but we don't find out what this is about. Quentin also only shows up to talk to Barry a bit and give him some information (no reason why Green Arrow can't just call him and ask directly). Thea shows up for two scenes, one just being shocked by a certain flash zipping past, and apparently trying to tell that dickwad Chase not to get the wrong idea, and then showing up serving drinks.

The flashback plot is a bit distracting, to be honest, and I would've wished for it to be done with entirely because this is a nice example of it breaking up the flow. Yes, we learn just why Oliver feels that it's necessary to torture people, because in the past someone blew up Hong Kong because he couldn't get the information on time. We get a nice little monologue on how killing and inflicting pain is different, and we get to see Amanda Waller being a massive masterminding bitch, which is always welcome, but other than that, though, did we really need to have these scenes? They're thematically interwoven into the episode, but I can't help but feel that it took a fair bit from the episode and just felt odd.

It does raise some questions about Oliver's true ties to Amanda Waller and indeed ARGUS in general, though. I am curious. What is Waller's agenda in Hong Kong, trying to groom him into an assassin and everything?

Captain Boomerang is apparently imprisoned in Lian Yu next to Slade Wilson… and I can't help but think that the two of them might show up in the future. After all, Boomerang is mentioned to be a former member of the ASIS or something, the same organization that Deathstroke was in. Also, they both know the location of the Arrowcave, at least… maybe we can get a dual breakout? As a sidenote, I never realized that Captain Boomerang's background has him be an Australian, which should be blindingly obvious but it never occurred to me before.

We get a couple of nice comic book nods. Lyla and Oliver briefly almost bring up the episode title, "the Brave and the Bold", which is fun. With the excuse of Barry being around, someone I think refers to Roy Harper as 'Speedy', which is a cool little nod to his original comic book codename, which looks like it's going to be assumed by Thea somewhere in the future. Quentin also calls Barry 'Bart Allen', more commonly known as Impulse and Barry's descendant from the future. Also, I'm not sure if it's intentional or not, but Quentin jokes about him being put on a bus or something, which may or may not refer to Bart Allen's death in the comics which is succeeded soon by Barry's own coming to life? Or I might just be looking too much into things.

Overall, though, a pretty awesome, fun episode. I do hope for future team-ups (and Felicity making a costume rack for Barry seems to imply this is going to happen some more times in the future) and Captain Boomerang returning either in this show or in the Flash.

Next up, bring on Ra's al Ghul!

The Flash S1E8 Review: Arrow vs Flash! Firestorm! Rainbow Raider!

The Flash, Season 1, Episode 8: Flash vs Arrow

Oh my god this episode was so much fun. How do I even break it down?

First off, before everything, I absolutely love how both crossover episodes are relatively standalone and you don't need to watch Arrow to understand the Flash's episode or vice versa. And how the tone difference is felt -- the Flash's episode is a lot more livelier like the show itself, and Arrow's episode is a lot more grounded and grimdark which suits both shows' tones perfectly. Also both episodes actually do contribute something to their respective plots, Flash's moreso than Arrow's, which makes the episodes feel a lot more relevant than just 'Arrow, Flash, fight!'

The main plot, Barry-wise, sort of involves him dealing over his naivete, which is the one thing that Oliver has a lot more than him. Barry's a bit of a show-off about the whole thing too, which is kind of what Oliver is trying to get across that the whole thing isn't just a game and he needs to be a lot more serious about taking the environment into account and all that. We get to see a bit of this as the Flash is a lot more concerned about trying to swiftly taking out the enemy, which got him under Rainbow Raider's whole red eye anger thing. There's also the whole thing with Iris, which both Caitlin and Oliver lampshade at different points in the episode -- Caitlin flat-out calls Barry out for trying to break Iris and Eddie up as the Flash, whether on purpose or not, which is a relatively pretty accurate description of what he's doing... that 'did you guys break up' sounded quite hopeful, ditto for the 'should he be'.

And probably partly thanks to Oliver being a jerk with the crossbow traps and partly due to the whole Eddie-Iris thing, the Flash quickly falls prey to the newest metahuman, Roy G. Bivolov, otherwise popularly known as the complete loser of a comic villain, Rainbow Raider. Except that the live-action Rainbow Raider focuses not on his ridiculous hard-light rainbow surfing capabilities, but on his ability to stimulate emotion (we only see red-for-anger) with his light powers. Although, granted, the whole 'emotion stimulation' thing is not something I realized up until I look it up, so yeah.

Anyway, while I expected some cut-and-dried mind-control villain to be behind the Flash fighting the Arrow, whoever it is gets controlled, we actually get a fair amount of characterization from this. Bivolov's powers enhances the anger within Barry, but his unique physiology makes the anger manifest a lot slower than the normal people Bivolov affects, and that leads to him being a lot larger jerk, especially towards Oliver. We get to see him deliver a massively brutal 'you're just jealous of me and my speed' confrontation between Barry and Oliver, goes all 'I'm not Ronnie' on Caitlin which is absolutely hurtful and he explodes on both Singh and Joe as well, which was pretty awesome in a 'man, Barry, you're a dick' kind of way.

Also, he later brutally assaults Eddie under the whole rage thing, which was relatively horrifying especially considering how there was no guarantee what Barry could do under the effects of the Rainbow Raider's 'whammy'. Barry just trash-talking Eddie and being such a massive jerk progressively, well... thankfully the Arrow shows up. And I do like how the fight between the Flash and Green Arrow played out, which was really awesome. Not only from a visual standpoint, because that one massive melee that mixes Arrow's awesome fighting choreography and the Flash's brilliant CGI... it was pretty awesome as Arrow just manages to dance-fight his way close enough to punch Barry once and he delivers a pretty brutal high-speed beatdown and a spinning vortex thing. It's awesome how the Flash's speed lets him massively outclass Arrow in everything, and equally awesome just how Oliver manages to survive long enough against Barry. That freaking moment where Barry just super-speed-metabolizes the horse tranquilizers out? Brilliant. I thought it was a fair fight between the two, where Barry wins thanks to sheer brute difference in physical ability, and Oliver wins thanks to experience. It's all awesome. And I thought how Oliver managed to get the leg up to drive it into sort of a tie is pretty awesome, first with the double-crossbow trap which Barry caught, and then by stabbing a shorter arrow through Barry's leg, the shock giving Oliver enough time to subdue him, in turn giving Wells and Joe enough time to use the crazy spectrum thing on him.

I do like how Barry's outrage at all the other characters are absolutely hurtful, yet he doesn't deny that it's partially because of suppressed emotions, and I'm a big fan on how the show doesn't make this explicit until after he's been a dick to a fair amount of people. I do like how Oliver knows Barry enough not to take the whole 'you're jealous of me' speech too seriously and knows to call it in. Likewise, Barry is always defending Oliver to both Joe and Wells, which I thought was a massive moment of awww on his part. Though in the same vein I do like how they don't just sweep Barry's massive act of brutality against Eddie under the rug.

Also, to a much lesser extent compared to the 'Flash vs Arrow' fight, I do like how Barry is using his superspeed for a lot of fun, mundane things like helping people's love life out (and also subtly telling us about how lovesick he is over Iris) and speed-painting a house.

Oliver himself is apparently tracking down Captain Boomerang down into Central City, and makes an absolutely awesome dramatic entry, taking down a brainwashed policeman with the equally awesome one-liner 'no mask'. He acts a bit tsun-tsun towards Flash initially, but eventually relents and that shake-hand for a team-up is pretty damn awesome moment in and of itself. Oliver gets to be a bit of a douche with the whole crossbow trap thing shooting Barry in the back -- a couple centimeters off and he could've speared Barry through the heart, super-speed-healing or no. Can't fault Barry for being angry. But then, Barry was a little cocky and considering Oliver's backstory and how he trained Roy, it's probably the only way Oliver knows how to train people.

Oliver acts as the unlikely mentor, and I do like how both Barry and Oliver are portrayed as being pretty flawed so each of them has their own fair points, though not all are compared until Arrow's own episode shows up. I also do like how Oliver is basically the epitome of how us normal humans can achieve to be (Batman notwithstanding) and just how dangerous an out-of-control metahuman like an evil Flash can be. Or, y'know, how fucking terrible someone with super-speed actually out of blood could be, since Angry!Barry doesn't really seem to be out for actual murder. Not like, oh, how Zoom/Reverse-Flash is. I'm a lot happy with the fight. Pretty fucking awesome. If I haven't said that like a dozen times already.

I'm a big fan how Oliver and Barry parts the episode under good terms. Both of them need some light in their lives, and I'm a big fan how Oliver and Barry has a fair amount of chemistry together and their little brotherly bond is pretty fun.

Coming with Oliver into the Flash series are Felicity (who's been around as a guest star before) and relative newcomer John Diggle. And Diggle is just so fucking hilarious. His initial appearance to Barry's super-speed is just a big, massive gaping 'what' and 'my cousin got struck by lightning once' he just takes a fair while to process everything despite them keeping him up to date. And Diggle just doesn't let it go, continuing to wonder just how fast Flash is and just how crazy he is. Also how he just stares down Cisco simply because he comes from a show that's a lot more serious, and then actually going on a bit of a 'I bet Arrow will win because of these reasons' argument with Cisco, which is a fun little reflection of how a lot of fandoms are like. And as much as the Flash had the advantage in their fight, Oliver wasn't going for the kill and Oliver only 'won' because Barry got cured of his extreme anger.

Felicity is still around doing Felicity stuff, being pretty close to Barry though they both insist that it's not happening. Barry did cause Felicity to have to strip down to her bra by burning her shirt, which is pretty hilarious. (So's Cisco's reaction afterwards). Felicity helps out with Team Flash was a bit with computer software, and despite her all-around-borderline-Mary-Sue science-awesomeness, she still defers to both Cisco and Caitlin for their respective specialties, and vice versa in regards to Felicity's computer skills, which makes a lot sense. There's also a moment where Wells cornered Felicity and straight-out demands Oliver's identity from her, but she says no. I mean, Wells figured it out, which is equal moments awesome and horrifying for Wells' part, but it's pretty cool moment for Felicity taking her stand nonetheless. Felicity gets to interact with the non-Barry members of the cast, which is cool as well -- she geeks out about Captain Boomerang's boomerang with Cisco and gets some girl-talk with Caitlin, which is cool.

Between the Flash and Arrow casts, we get the Flash cast kind of investigate Captain Boomerang's, well, boomerang, which led Team Arrow to Central City in search of where exactly it came from. Felicity also talks to Caitlin about asking her help regarding identifying the DNA for Sara's murder, which is also a nice tie-in, if a bit spoiler-y for anyone who doesn't watch Arrow yet and are going to thanks to this episode.

Caitlin and Cisco jointly really don't do much more than their usual fare, though they do get a lot of fun moments. Cisco gets that funky Yoda line, all those geek-outs over the Arrow, the little arguments with Diggle about whether which one of the Flash and Arrow would win in a fight... pretty fun. Also, the scene where Cisco just causes the boomerang he's investigating just zooming all around the lab wrecking everything is pretty fun in a morbid way -- that could've killed Caitlin. Caitlin herself gets that moment where Barry shoots her down cruelly regarding Ronnie. There's still that moment where she shoots down Barry regarding Iris too, several times, about the whole 'why are you doing this, are you trying to ruin her love life', which is pretty nice. Is she jealous?

Basically, Barry's a big dick all throughout the episode is what I'm saying. Part of it is thankfully amplified thanks to the Rainbow Raider, but I'm curious about the ramifications it'll have.

What I do know it will have is that, well, Iris, for one, hates the Flash now. We get your normal 'Iris meets the Flash secretly and it's all borderline shippy' scene early on, but when Barry outright physically assaults Eddie and throws him out of a moving car, and then ignores everything Iris said, well, I think Iris would have to be massively dense not to distrust Flash a lot. In the same vein, Eddie has been lobbying for an Anti-Flash movement... I'm not quite sure just why, since the Flash is doing a lot more good than harm, but I think it's sufficient to say there's a fair amount of jealousy from Eddie's part as well. We get into the start of an argument between Iris and Eddie in the car, about how Iris is hiding her meetups with the Flash from Eddie, but after Eddie's brutal assault from the Flash, Iris basically tells the Flash to fuck off, and Eddie gets his little taskforce. Also, pretty realistically, Eddie and Iris get back immediately afterwards after they both agree that, yes, the Flash is a menace. I actually like this -- I would think that Iris would be massively dense if she broke up with Eddie despite seeing all that.

Also I do like the little fake-out early on about how the police would not hate the Flash and be cooperative, and then throw this little curveball with an excellent explanation onto why the police are hunting down the Flash.

On a lighter tone, I do like Iris' little cheat-list line and her general fangirling over Oliver Queen, and the reaction from Barry is a bit hilarious.

Joe is a bit pissed off at the Arrow and brings up Oliver's methods of interrogating people through torture, as well as his track record of murder... though it's played in a more lighthearted 'oh, that Oliver' tone here. The Arrow episode will fix that. I do like how Oliver's behaviour in the first season is not completely forgotten, and how it's morally not right. I do like how both Wells and Joe aren't happy about Barry taking advice from Oliver, though they both learn Arrow's secret identity thanks to Wells... who either found it out himself or through his fancy future computer. Either way, Wells reveals Oliver Queen's secret identity to all. We get some funny dialogue from Cisco about this too.

Wells gets some ominous threatening dialogue with Felicity, but Felicity stands up to Wells which is awesome. Wells also apparently knew Robert Queen, and Oliver also remarks that there's something off about Wells. Yes, indeed, Oliver, if only you knew... did Wells engineer Oliver's origin story as well? That would be a bit too much meta, but it is something to think about.

Anyway, Roy G. Bivolov, the Rainbow Raider. Cisco can call the dude Prism for all he likes (that's a different DC character) but Caitlin confirms 'Rainbow Raider'. Other than the name and part of the powers, Bivolov has not much in common with the comics' version of the Rainbow Raider, who's a complete loser. The Raider gets some pretty awesome moments with his rage-vision thing, but he doesn't really do much other than make me confused as to his true identity (even though, y'know, ROY-G-BIV should be blatant). His capture even takes place off-screen! He doesn't get any kind of backstory regarding what he touches during the explosion and he doesn't get any kind of motivation beyond robbing banks and generally showcasing Barry's inexperience. He's literally a plot device. Shows up to rob a bank, which is the most banal of supervillain plots, does his whammy on Barry and disappears from the plot until the end. Which is fine, because I suppose that makes the Rainbow Raider a bit of a loser. He was a pretty fun and unexpected villain, I have to say. Like the Girder, though, he's been given a bit of a realistic overhaul as well as to make the special effects team not cry themselves to death by trying to animate their comic-book abilities in a way that doesn't look stupid.

The whole 'colour spectrum of emotions thing'... that is quite a bit of a nice little reference to the Green Lantern comics, and that actually makes sense with the context of the episode and how they managed to reverse Rainbow Raider's rage effects on Barry with multi-coloured light. That was pretty fun.

Also, the stinger this time isn't Harrison Wells doing something crazy, but FIRESTORM! Extremely hyped for his appearance, and this episode lets him shoot fire everywhere and be a fire man, which is awesome -- shame we'll have to wait until at least after next episode to see him actually be Firestorm.

Are we getting a Firestorm vs Flash fight? That would undoubtedly be awesome. ALL THE FIGHTS! Next week we're apparently getting a mid-season finale between Flash and Reverse-Flash, which is cool.

In lieu of minor characters, we learn that Singh is gay. Equality for all, I guess? I'm a lot more interested in seeing Arrow's baby-mommy, who I didn't recognize up until the end when she meets Oliver. I'm not quite sure what the point of showing this in Flash's episode is, but there certainly is no way to show it in Arrow's episode... and it's not really much of a massive plot point other than Oliver knowing that she's still around. The audience gets to know that she's a mommy, most likely to Connor Hawke. So yay for that Connor Hawke tease!

Also we get a fair amount of continuity nods to a fair amount of Arrow episodes. Not merely counting the reappearances of Firestorm and Oliver's baby-mommy, we get references to Deathstroke and Huntress (also funny how Oliver's point about funny codenames gets shot down), we get an extremely funny reference to Oliver's prison on Lian Yu when he walks around the STAR prison, Wells and Joe bring up the two terrorist attacks in Starling City (courtesy of Merlyn and Slade), there's a Palmer Industries logo briefly shown in the opening scenes, the fight against Captain Cold is referenced as an example of Barry's inexperience, and Cisco brings up Captain Cold's cryo-gun, which was initially developed to take down Barry. Tight continuity, is all I'm saying.

Overall, uh... awesome episode? I'm pretty sure this review is 90% just me going 'awesome awesome awesome' and I cannot lie, that was 90% of my reaction while watching the episode.