Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, Part 12: Ever Grande City is Fancy

I finish the regular story more of Alpha Sapphire!

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire 11: Too Much Water

More Alpha Sapphire.

Arrow S3E9 Review: Ra's al Ghul

Arrow, Season 3, Episode 9: the Climb

Pretty awesome episode. The episode mostly cuts back and forth between Oliver climbing a mountain and the events that led up to it, hence the title. It's a pretty eventful episode, too, with lots of revelations and things being told here.

First up, the true identity of the killer of Sara is revealed to be... Thea Queen! Malcolm has apparently drugged his own daughter with some kind of mind-controlling amnesia-inducing herb thing found in Corto Maltese, and brought Thea to Starling City for the express purpose of murdering Sara, the assassin sent after Malcolm. It's a massively insane gambit on Malcolm's part, but it's one that seems to somewhat pay off. Thea is someone who will catch Sara off-guard, as we saw in her death scene, and Malcolm even has a video proving Thea's identity, so it won't be another cop-out like how Roy-the-killer was.

Anyway, the DNA left behind in the arrow is a near-identical match to Oliver's DNA, and after a bit we learn that it's not Malcolm planting the DNA on the arrow, but rather it's because Thea is the one who shot them. We get a bit where Oliver has to confront Thea but not reveal too much -- still curious why Oliver doesn't just tell her everything, which I'm sure will get Thea on his side if not away from Merlyn's. But whatever the case, Oliver comes twice, first as Oliver and then as the Arrow, and Oliver sees that Thea at least is lying about some things, with her giving Oliver a bit of a nice, brief scuffle.

Then Malcolm confronts Oliver and delivers his ultimatum: either try and reveal Malcolm as the instigator and cause the League to kill both Malcolm and Thea, or go and hand himself in and face Ra's al Ghul in a trial of combat. Knowing that Oliver will not sacrifice Thea, Malcolm has basically made his two greatest enemies fight each other to the death. And, obviously, the victor in this matchup is pretty obvious. After disappearing in the second season and sitting in the sidelines for most of the third, Malcolm Merlyn is back, full with villainy and vengeance and awesomeness. You go, Malcolm.

Thea isn't half-bad herself, considering that I absolutely abhorred her during her emo phase. She's a lot more fun and interesting now. We get that last hug between Thea and Oliver, where she probably just is confused about all that's happening and refusing to believe that his father is evil. And those two little snowman-cookie things with 'Oliver' and 'Thea' written on it? Pretty sad, considering what happens. And how she manages to pretend to be a weak little girl before suddenly busting out moves and jumping off the railing, leading to the most hilarious 'what in the fuck' look from Oliver.

Also, all the respect to Oliver for braving through all this to protect his little sister.

And a lot of the puzzle pieces regarding Sara's murder is starting to get pieced together, how the whole 'trajectory' thing isn't because of Mirakuru strength but because of Thea's shorter height, and how Sara recognized the killer and everything. A mind-controlled Thea is a pretty fun twist, but it's not the only one here.

First up, the League is starting to move, which had instigated the massive manhunt for Thea's killer. Nyssa is basically threatening to scourge Starling City and kill a lot of people if Sara's killer isn't brought to justice, and we get to see a bunch of random League assassins just string Oliver up like it's no problem. We get some additional backstory about the League's history and methods and whatnot, and Oliver eventually submits himself to the League, claiming that he is Sara's murderer with the justification that Sara was the one who asked for it -- which is actually a pretty good reason considering Sara's past clash with Nyssa.

I like Nyssa. This show makes her so much likable than her comic counterpart. Nyssa is still doing her thing as Ra's daughter wanting vengeance and all that.

We also get some monologue from Ra's stating that the League of Assassins is cleaning the filth of the world, ridding of all the corruption and whatnot even if they, y'know, murder a lot of people. It's a nice adaptation of the comic book's version of Ra's al Ghul's goals, with the ultimate goal being a better world, and damn whoever has the misfortune to get in their way.

Ra's, on the other hand... if there is any doubt that this Ra's al Ghul is more faithful to the comics, there is certainly none by the end of this episode. We get oblique references to the Lazarus Pit, how Ra's calls Oliver a boy and how his last challenge is sixty-five years ago. Ra's al Ghul's fight against Oliver in the end? Absolutely beautiful. Ra's completely destroys Oliver bare-handed, stealing Oliver's sword from him and just absolutely parrying and having fun with Oliver, and I do like how Ra's al Ghul's threat isn't cheapened by having him spare Oliver or whatnot. After all, Oliver is no Batman. Ra's absolutely destroys Oliver in that battle, culminating in a stab through the chest and kicking him down a mountain. I do like how Oliver seems to suddenly get a second wind as they approach the edge of the cliff, seemingly playing weak to drive the obviously-playing Ra's down the mountain, but no. Throat chop. Ra's, you are awesome.

Ra's also knows that Oliver isn't the one responsible for Sara's murder, which is awesome and will probably clear the bad blood between Nyssa and Oliver. Do like the little prayer Ra's gives Oliver before sending him plummeting to his apparent death, which shows just how honorable Ra's really is.

Also, the shirtless battle of swords with Ra's al Ghul might or might not be based on a fairly old comic featuring a similar confrontation between Batman and Ra's, which is certainly welcome. Except unlike Batman, Oliver stands absolutely no chance. And considering how the big bad of season one, Merlyn, is absolutely pissing in his pants at the mention of Ra's al Ghul, and how Oliver is able to give the big bad of season two, Slade, a run for his money even with Mirakuru... Ra's is awesome.

Now, I don't buy for a second that Oliver will die from this fight... a stab through the right side of the chest is synonymous to 'near-fatal wound with a 100% survival rate' in manga, and falling down a chasm is synonymous to 'most likely survived the fall' in cartoons and TV shows. And the show's not going to rename itself 'Diggle' or 'Atom' next episode. But it is still a shocking twist and a big cliffhanger to leave the episode on. Absolutely excited to see how Oliver survives and what his master plan is.

Granted Oliver might just want to die and/or fake his death so Ra's comes to Starling City and kills Merlyn, who is no longer under his protection, but that is absolutely risky. How does he know Ra's will stab him in the right side of his chest instead of his heart, or his head?

Or maybe it's the simple matter of Ra's sticking Oliver in a Lazarus Pit. I dunno.

Also what is Malcolm Merlyn thinking, sending the only one who is putting him under his protection to fight Ra's al Ghul?

We also get the revelation that Maseo from the Hong Kong plot is actually a member of the League of Assassins as the Phantom. What happened in Hong Kong? Maseo himself doesn't do much in the present-day times other than hang around with Nyssa and showing that he's willing to kill people at random in Starling City. But in the flashback, we see some actual development and relevance to the Hong Kong stuff which has been pretty annoying as of late.

In the flashback sequence, China White apparently uses the same herb-drug thing that Malcolm uses in the present day (gee what a coincidence) and has obtained this super-virus O-Me-Ga (meaning Omega in English, which cracked me up) for whatever reason, and managed to beat Tatsu and kidnap her. Also, Oliver's torture methods are useless against someone brainwashed as such. I'm curious to see if Tatsu the Katana really dies -- since Katana's backstory involved her husband and son getting killed, so is Maseo taking up the mantle as a gender-reversed Katana? And why is China White such a big deal back then when she's kind of just a random triad villain in season one? Intriguing, but not quite as much as the whole League plot.

Diggle, Roy and Felicity don't really get to do much other than be those three guys who tell Oliver to not be blinded by the 'family' thing and later saying their touching goodbyes. Quentin only shows up at the beginning. Felicity gets that line of dialogue telling Oliver to kill Ra's because sparing him will only lead to even more revenge and whatnot... granted it's darkly funny how it seems to be built up to Oliver winning and having to choose a 'will you kill this one time' moment... but nope, Ra's just absolutely demolishes him.

There's a bit of Felicity-Palmer shipping bullshit going on, but thankfully that gets taken out of the picture quickly enough for Palmer to reveal his backstory... his fiancee, Anna, was killed by the Mirakuru soldiers which is why he feels guilty about kissing Felicity. It's unexpected, certainly. Also, Palmer reveals his own ideas for the future... the A.T.O.M. exosuit, previously known as OMAC. I do like how both the Atom and the Maseo plots takes up minimal screen time yet still manages to deliver quite an impact.

When he starts rattling off those letters that form OMAC instead of ATOM, I was pretty surprised. Interesting where this is going. Are we going to adapt the whole OMAC/Brother Eye plot from Infinite Crisis? Done well, that could be pretty interesting even if it'll feel a bit too similar to Slade's army of super-powered humans at the end of season two.

And running through all these interesting plot lines is... Laurel, who, uh, despite her absolutely selfish and barely-justified reasons for keeping Sara's death to herself, blabs about it not only to her mother, but also randomly to Thea. Brilliant, Laurel. After insisting Oliver and Nyssa keep it a secret, you blab about it to two people in the span of a day. Granted Laurel revealing this to Thea might lead to some kind of confrontation between Thea and Merlyn, so that's good for Thea, but it kind of makes Laurel relatively more annoying.

Also with Thea revealed as the killer and Laurel revealed as a single-minded idiot, Laurel and Thea's showdown in the future seems inevitable... and I do hope Thea wins. Not only would it make more sense -- Thea's been training for several months under an assassin with brutal training methods, whereas Laurel has... learned boxing for a month -- it would also be absolutely cathartic since Laurel has been nothing but annoying. Yes, it's justifiable that he lost his sister, but she's not the only one with dead people in her backstory. Also, she's selfish. Remember how absolutely pissed off she was when she discovered that her father was keeping Sara being alive from her? Yeah? Freaking hypocrite.

One Piece 770 Review: Minor Characters Get Taken Out

One Piece Chapter 770: The Lance of Elbaf

I have been talking about how One Piece could take a break from the Doflamingo/Law conflict and focus a bit on the other fights, but these aren't really the fights that I expected. It's still entertaining and it's nice to see a couple more minor characters get taken out of the way to give way for the more interesting ones. I feel that pacing's gone relatively haywire as far as fight matchups go in this arc, which is a bit of a shame.

We get the Jinbei cover story where Jinbei apparently discovers a bunch of crates or some shit. Don't care.

We get a bit of a recap on the Bellamy/Luffy situation where Luffy tries to talk Bellamy down from fighting him, reminding Bellamy that Doflamingo betrayed him. And then Bellamy just does this spring-punch loaded with Armament Haki that sends Luffy doubling over, coughing blood. Man, everybody be doing Armament Haki these days. Sadly that's the only bit between Luffy and Bellamy which we see this chapter, and I wished we got a bit more of them.

We then get a bit more of the Zoro-vs-Pica fight, another one I'm interested to see and has been stagnating for quite a while now. Pica grows a smaller version of his body compared to the initial giant statue and punches Zoro down near the other people in the plateau, but Zoro cuts through that not-so-giant statue with ease. Pica starts moving away from Zoro yet again... it's been like the third time this happens, I think.

Suddenly we're interrupted by 'Admiral's Dignity: Align' from Orlombus, and the Doflamingo Parents randomly line up. Is it a devil fruit power, or is Orlombus' voice just so awesome? Regardless, Orlumbus literally goes bowling with the random goons that have lined up, who apparently are chasing Zoro (and pose no threat, really). Orlumbus introduces himself to Zoro and, really, he's like the least interesting of the Coliseum characters in play at the moment. Why do we have him?

Pica's face shows up in the plateau wall, and it's another giant thing, and he laughs... which is apparently a hilarious laugh rendered even moreso by his high-pitched voice (which is kind of lost in the manga format, but whatever). Zoro mocks it, and Pica goes berserk, creating these 'Charstone' spikes that do even more damage to the random Doflamingo goons running around. Zoro wants to chop Pica up and I wish they actually fight instead of just keep moving locations.

Sadly we cut away to Dellinger suddenly showing up and getting pissed off at Pica, but Ideo the Destruction Cannon just jumps up and explode-punches Dellinger in the face. Meanwhile, Baby 5 is facing off against Sai and apparently she mis-interprets some double entrende sounding things from Sai as him needing her, and her character quirk kicks in and she basically falls for Sai... okay, that bit is actually pretty funny.

Meanwhile, Machvise, the least interesting amongst Doflamingo's people, gets ready to attack again. Below him, Hajrudin, who got taken out last chapter, goes all 'is this the pride of an Elbaf warrior' and all that stuff, and rises up with BURNING JUSTICE as Machvise does a million tonnes body press thing, apparently aiming for Zoro (still not a threat). Hajrudin summons enough spirit to just lurch out and deliver a gigantic uppercut to the superheavy Machvise and send him toppling up where he apparently gets cut up by the Birdcage. But this breaks every bone in Hajrudin's arm and somehow knocks off one of his teeth. That's two minor characters taken out... one of which has been taken out last chapter already.

Why can't this be about more important characters? Why did the likes of Hajrudin and Orlumbus, who aren't interesting in the slightest, get a spotlight? It could've been the more interesting, established members of the Coliseum gang like Don Chinjao or Cavendish or Bartolomeo taking out one of these minor Doflamingo executives like Machvise, but no. And really, does anyone care about these Z-list characters? Some of the Coliseum group are interesting, but not Ideo or Hajrudin or Orlumbus, who are one-trick ponies even when they get things to do. And especially when there are far more interesting fights all over the battlefield we could be seeing. Doflamingo vs Law, Luffy vs Bellamy, Zoro vs Pica, Kyros vs Diamante... Franky vs Senor Pink, sort of... but no, we get Hajrudin. Sigh.

The Flash S1E9 Review: Zoom Zoom

The Flash, Season 1, Episode 9: the Man in the Yellow Suit

Well, damn. That was quite the episode. I mean, from the episode title and from the trailers and everything I know that the Flash is going to fight the Reverse-Flash (seems we're going to call him that instead of Professor Zoom) but I didn't expect them to reveal Reverse-Flash's identity. Fair warning, after this paragraph I'm not going to hold back on spoilers for those who haven't watched the episode yet.

Anyway, I'm going to talk about Reverse-Flash a bit later on and talk about the other stuff first, because rather surprisingly the Reverse-Flash thing, while obviously being the main plot, isn't the only thing going on in this episode. Running alongside the whole Reverse-Flash thing and the whole mystery and whatnot surrounding it are two minor plots: Firestorm and the Barry/Iris shipping situation.

Firestorm first, because he's cooler. Anyway apparently Hobo Ronnie is quasi-stalking Caitlin of sorts, and meeting her in the parking lot and bursting into flames, and when Caitlin enlists Cisco's help to hunt Ronnie down, he refuses to acknowledge the name Ronnie or be addressed by that name, preferring the name Firestorm. Which is awesome that he gets his hero codename right off the bat, because sometimes this show likes to skirt around the codenames like how it did so for Girder and Multiplex and Blackout and Rainbow Raider, only giving those off at the end. No, Firestorm ain't having any of that shit. He wants to be called Firestorm, and damn right he should -- that is an awesome name.

Firestorm's refusal to admit that he is indeed Ronnie is a nice little hint to the fact that we might actually be playing the whole dual-identity angle between Ronnie Raymond and Martin Stein, if I'm not mistaken, the two psyches that make up the whole that is Firestorm. It's awesome. And then Firestorm shows up at the end to send a gigantic column of flame in Reverse-Flash's way, abruptly ending the clash of Flashes and being awesome all around. Firestorm then shoots off into the air as a trail of smoke. And can I say just how awesome Firestorm's flames look? Because they are awesome. We don't really see much of him, but he's awesome nonetheless, with the money shot being that one when he bursts into flames and shoots into the sky.

Caitlin, by being connected to Firestorm/Ronnie, gets this heartbreaking moment in the middle of the episode where she basically just absent-mindedly fiddling with her engagement ring after the second meeting with Ronnie and has just... broken down. It's absolutely devastating how she just goes on about the things she would've given up for one more minute with Ronnie, but the fact that Ronnie is either amnesiac or whatever the heck afflicts him... man, poor Caitlin.

Cisco's role this episode is basically pretty much the same as usual, though he gets a surprisingly mature moment giving Caitlin that hug she desperately needs. Cisco, sadly, fails us all when he goes through a couple of names but doesn't even come up with 'Reverse-Flash' or 'Zoom'. Really, Cisco? Opposite Flash? So close.

Meanwhile Barry gets to deal with a shit ton of things, and this is not a happy Christmas for him. He gets a bunch of happy moments during that gift exchange and just mucking around with that Christmas tree with Joe, but suddenly the Reverse-Flash apparently shows up, Barry chases after the Reverse-Flash, but fails to even land a single punch in. He's not strong enough, not fast enough, and generally is on the receiving end of a losing fight. And then there's those moments where Barry has to lie to Iris to her face for the umpteenth time, and after completely breaking down in front of his father, we get a little description from Daddy Allen about how Barry's obsession has meant that the Man in the Yellow Suit had taken yet another thing from them.

And we do get to see a little bit of this obsession, how he rather effectively (and one might say, viciously) sort of threaten to expose Mercury Labs' research to the public if they don't cooperate and provide the lure for Reverse-Flash. Barry's still polite and he isn't raging like he was when he's angry last episode, but it's still pretty OOC and even Barry himself realizes it.

We also get a pretty effective speech about Barry's fear of being alone, which kind of translates to his situation with Iris throughout his entire life, and the theme of fear is pretty present throughout the episode, and Barry's speech to Joe at the very end is pretty well done. And indeed a lot about this episode is about the absolutely horrifying Reverse-Flash that has already killed Barry's mother, nearly killed Barry and only spared Iris/Joe/Eddie by a whim.

And then there's Barry's... actually well-done declaration of love. I mean, I'm still a bit creeped by the idea of the two of them being a thing since, y'know, they're basically adopted siblings and all. Plus this episode seems mighty convenient by having everybody bring Iris up -- even Daddy Allen, who goes from 'you have been obsessing so much that you chose your career to catch this killer' to 'you lost Iris too' without a really good segue. But it was a relatively well done scene. It would have been so easy to make Barry look like a douche, to make Iris look like a douche. It would've been too easy to make Barry seem self-entitled and kind of put Iris down for not noticing his feelings, but no. Barry's declaration is just him being brutally honest but not without the usual 'leave him and be with me love is more important' spiel that would happen if this was a soap drama. And it is absolutely realistic too for Iris to just sit there dumbfounded with nothing to say -- after all, she is in a healthy and growing relationship with Eddie.

Iris doesn't get to do really much, but we see how much of a sister and a friend she is to Barry, and we see just how much Barry loves her with the ring replica and whatnot but doesn't dare to intrude on her happiness. I don't really mind Iris so much now that her one-track-mind regarding her blog has been taken out of the picture.

Joe does more Joe stuff. Nothing too spectacular other than being someone for Barry to bounce dialogue off of, and we get that rather heartwarming description about how having Barry as what amounts to a son brightened up his life, but otherwise it's your standard likable Joe.

Other than the whole we're moving together subplot that really doesn't go anywhere important other than to be the catalyst for Barry's declaration of love, Eddie gets to shoehorn himself into the plot to hunt down the Reverse-Flash by forcing himself into the operation. His whole 'Flash is evil' thing ends up being somewhat shaken by seeing a different Flash and the whole 'he saved our lives' dialogue from Joe. I like Eddie. I want to see more of him.

And, well, putting it off for a while, let's talk about the Reverse-Flash, who, by the end of this episode, is revealed to be Harrison Wells in the 'Harrison Wells does something cryptic and awesome' section of the episode. Which is absolutely weird, since the show makes it very very clear that the Reverse-Flash is indeed within that forcefield, and was brutally hitting Wells -- the injuries we see in the end are definitely real, and it's interesting just how Wells manages to do that illusion. I thought that the whole Reverse-Flash theory will be brought to a bit of a stop since we see Reverse-Flash pretty brutally beating up on Wells while Eddie watches, and placing Eddie there seems to just be a reaffirmation that he, in fact, is not Reverse-Flash. The two main candidates for Reverse-Flash seem to have been eliminated, the more likely Wells especially since he gets to be on screen next to Reverse-Flash...

Yet the stinger begs to differ.

Also, Cisco goes on that spiel about how there were two lightning bolts -- red and yellow -- during the night of Nora Allen's death. I mean, we could have a back-in-time situation where the Flash and Reverse-Flash take their fight back to the past and that causes Nora's death somehow, or there might simply be two Reverse-Flashes, as Cisco theorizes. Inertia, perhaps? Though the time-travel bit seems far likelier considering how Wells was talking about faster than light speed and we've already seen the Cosmic Treadmill so many times.

I do like how Wells being the Reverse-Flash is obvious yet at the same time not. I thought Wells being the Reverse-Flash was so damn obvious that he must be a red herring, and then there's the whole 'I have an alibi' thing and the fact that he wants to preserve Flash's existence... but at the same time, there's the fact that he killed Simon Stagg, the fact that he's prone to being scary, the fact that he comes from the future (like the Reverse-Flash), and the pretty sly inclusion that he is often referred to as 'Professor' Wells. Professor, being, of course, part of Reverse-Flash's full title: Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash.

Of course, the main point is... just what is Wells' agenda? Is there a second man he is working with? Why did he spare Joe West and Eddie Thawne? How did he assimilate with the present-day people so well that he even had a wife and an alibi and was able to meet Oliver Queen's father? Did Reverse-Flash kill the real Harrison Wells and take over his identity? Or is Harrison Wells merely an agent of the real Reverse-Flash? Or is there a simpler reason to everything and Reverse-Flash can just create multiple after-images? Or maybe two Reverse-Flashes traveled back in time or something?

Did the Reverse-Flash spare Eddie Thawne because he's an ancestor of the time-traveling Reverse-Flash? That last bit is a pet theory of mine, because Reverse-Flash's actual identity in the comic is Eobard Thawne, and Eddie could easily be either an ancestor or simply Eobard with a more common-sounding name. Zoom in the comics also started out as a policeman, and that backstory further fans the flames for Eddie being a Reverse-Flash/Zoom candidate. Lots of questions, lots of possibilities and whatnot.

Still, all we know is Harrison Wells is the Reverse-Flash. Or a Reverse-Flash, at least.

This certainly puts a sinister spin on... on practically everything Wells had done before. Hell, even the lines in this episode, like how he wants the Tachyon plot device as a bait, or how he was slightly miffled that Cisco and Caitlin hid Ronnie's existence from him...

And the Reverse-Flash himself, well, the show certainly did a pretty awesome job on making him look awesome. On the surface painting Reverse-Flash's yellow costume with black on the limbs as if the Reverse-Flash had slammed headlong into a tar pit would be a bad artistic decision, but the fact that the Reverse-Flash is constantly moving and vibrating and generally looking more like a sentient bolt of lightning in a human shape than a dude in spandex, and it works!

And Reverse-Flash's absolutely horrifying red visor-eyes? I absolutely loved what they did with them, especially in that one shot during the initial city-wide chase where we briefly see Reverse-Flash's face at a close up and ooh those eyes. Absolutely well done.

And I'm a big fan on how scary the Reverse-Flash is, even when he shows up a lot of times in this episode. The fact that he's vibrating most of the time and generally looks like a hollow suit and how he's inhumanly just vibrating all around... I am a big fan of the clash between the Flashes at STAR Labs in the end, especially how the two are just this one giant lightning bolt, one swarming force of nature just exploding out of the ceiling. It's absolutely awesome. The fighting might have been kept to a minimal, with the clash in the stadium more of a survival battle and more of Barry trying to keep up with the Reverse-Flash, whereas the STAR Labs fight ended up being a beatdown interrupted by Firestorm. But still, pretty awesome. Reverse-Flash just gets to be creepy and cryptic and generally just trash-talks everyone. He's awesome.

We get a fair amount of homaging going around, too. We've got Cisco referring to the yellow lightning from Barry's case as a 'Speedster', a term used to denote people with Flash-tier superspeed in the comics. We've got him referring to Reverse-Flash as 'Opposite Flash', and shortly after Reverse-Flash himself goes 'you could say that I am his... reverse'. And Harrison Wells apparently stores the Reverse-Flash costume on a ring with a lightning bolt on it, the way the comic Barry Allen stores his costume. And it seems to be connected to a harness that vibrates or something, which is curious. Is Wells not a speedster after all, and only the suit allows him to move fast? Or is that just an aesthetic thing to tell us, the audience that, yes, Wells is the Reverse-Flash and look the suit is vibrating?

So many questions. All I know is that I'm loving this show. Never before has 'Merry Christmas' sounded so sinister.

Gotham S1E9 Review: Two-Face & Bombs

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 9: Harvey Dent

There's a bit of a disappointing mish-mash of plot threads in here. Granted it's nowhere as bad as Agents of SHIELD recently, but it's still a step down compared to the previous episodes.

The main plot, unlike what the episode title might lead you to believe, does not involve Harvey Dent in any form or way, which itself is a bit of a letdown. We get a normal generic cop show cliche episode where the mentally ill mad bomber Ian Hargrove gets broken out while being transferred from Blackgate prison (though it's nice to see Blackgate prison) to a mental health facility, and ends up being used by the remnants of Nikolai's faction, working under Fish's orders, to break into Falcone's vault and steal his money. It moves on the main Fish-Falcone conflict on ever so slowly, and it really isn't all that interesting other than to see the fact that Fish is finally doing something to take down Falcone instead of just using Liza. It's all pretty generic and uninteresting because Falcone doesn't even show up and Fish doesn't even do much.

It's all a bit boring to be honest, although the idea that Hargrove is being forced to do this against his will and the constant reminders that he is sick instead of outright evil ends up establishing the change that Arkham Asylum has became a prison for the criminally insane... which really isn't that big of a deal.

There is the introduction of Harvey Dent, who's already a young DA at this point in time apparently, who wants to spread out the word that they have a witness to rattle the actual perpetrators of the Wayne murders to confess, but Dent seems to just want to bring down Dick Lovecraft. We get the obligatory toin-tossing sequence, and apparently Dent uses a double-headed coin (two faces, get it? Oh, Gotham, you're so transparent) to fool little kids to rehabilitate and stuff, and he has a side personality where he gets scary and stuff. It really just seems to be a bit of a foreshadowing to next episode, Lovecraft, and while Harvey Dent is slightly intriguing, I find that I don't particularly care.

The third major running plot, if you could call it that, is the completely random decision to let Selina Kyle (who showed up at the end of last episode) in the Wayne Manor. And we get some scenes between the two children Selina and Bruce that's at least a bit fun, with Selina commenting on just how weird Bruce's desire to hone his bodies despite the fact that he has everything is, Alfred training Bruce in boxing and teasing him about Selina, and the little food fight... we also get a little tearjerker moment where Selina tells Bruce about her mother that's alive, honest, she's just being this super-rich actress that's secretly a government secret agent and she'll be home someday. That is pretty sad and haertbreaking for such a normally strong and sure-of-herself Selina.

But other than the unexpectedly welcome strong performances by Selina and Bruce, the rest of the cast kind of just... m'eh. Bullock and Gordon don't really do anything interesting, we get more of the same Nygma moments... Even Penguin's scenes aren't enough to grab my interest this episode, which is a bit of a disappointment. He finds out that Liza is the spy for Fish, and kind of threatens her a little... but then tells her to continue spying on Falcone. The scene with Penguin took a fair amount of time for absolutely no payoff, and I'm not really sure what Penguin plans to do.

Also, the whole Barbara sideplot... I just don't really fucking care. Barbara walking out is kind of a positive thing for the show, and we see Gordon angst a bit in the beginning and the end, but that's it. Also apparently Barbara is sleeping with Montoya, to the utter and complete surprise of nobody because Barbara is, as I have said many times, a poorly-written, shallow, idiotic love interest that adds nothing to the show other than to annoy me.

Overall there are a couple strong parts, but really not enough to make this episode anything but filler. It really is just setting up what Penguin is planning to do about the knowledge regarding Liza, and the whole Harvey/Selina Wayne witness situation.

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire Part 10: Rain-Induced Apocalypse

Even more Hoenn!