Gotham S1E10 Review: I'm the Butler

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 10: Lovecraft

So I totally missed this episode back when I was binge-watching Gotham... better late than never, eh? Alas, this episode doesn't show Gordon and Bullock facing off against Cthulhu and the Elder Gods, but it does show Alfred Pennyworth being the most hardcore badass in the entire series, which is kind of a fair tradeoff.

The main villain for this episode is another comic-book originated villain... or rather, a villain based on a video game's race-flipped, gender-flipped, power-swapped version of a comic book villain. Namely, a villain based on Arkham City's female Copperhead, which, beyond the name and snake theme, has really nothing in common with the colourful white snakeman in a orange-and-green costume from the comics.

This Copperhead isn't explicitly named per se, but she is a black woman who works as a hired assassin and her fighting style is basically based on contortionist-based martial arts. And there are some shots laid over with sound effects resembling snake hisses, so yeah. Copperhead isn't particularly engaging, but she's interesting enough to hold the episode. She's this super-professional hired killer who isn't afraid to bring in backup, or go for little girls, but she doesn't want to kill Bruce (and, as it seems, Gordon when she knocked him out), simply because they are not on her contract. The poor gardener working for Bruce Wayne is apparently fair game, though, because not only was he killed, he got cut up only for Copperhead to fake being injured.

She's threatening enough, though, and more importantly we don't find out who hired Copperhead. It could be either the Falcone or Maroni families, or whatever mysterious organization that that Wayne Enterprise's worker Molly Mathis is working with. The League of Assassins? Or something new? Or maybe it's just the Falcone/Maroni conflict and I'm thinking too much.

Anyways, Copperhead's cool, but she was massively overshadowed by the awesomeness of one Alfred Pennyworth. And he would like you to know that he isn't a valet -- he's a butler. I was a bit iffy about Alfred, but this episode makes him just so freaking awesome. You have been redeemed in my book, Alfred. He's just so freaking determined to find Bruce that he just isn't afraid to do anything. And it's a heartwarming moment in the end when he finally does meet Bruce. But the journey there with Bullock? The two are assholes of varying degrees, and it is a riot to watch them work together so seamlessly. Alfred starts off wrestling three-on-one with professional assassins, then using a goddamned cane to beat the crap out of one of them. He also manages to shrug off a shot to the shoulder enough to land a killing shot against one of the assassins, and tells the cop nursing his wound later on to fuck off. He gets to call Gordon out on his stupidity of putting Selina and Bruce at risk, and basically goes on a rampage with Bullock. He bribes street kids easily, and that moment with Fish's lackey Butch where he just calmly starts off what sounds like an anecdote, before shoving a shiv to his throat. And then he wins over information from Fish with some sweet talk.

And Alfred is just a butler.

He is awesome.

The main focus of the episode isn't Lovecraft as the title implies, and indeed the man in question only appears for like five minutes and alludes to some big conspiracy before Copperhead kills him. Instead, the episode focuses mostly on Bruce and Selina on the run. Bruce initially is such a massive dick to Selina, who indeed was just trying to make conversation and he's all like 'you have an ulterior motive, and you are not a nice person'. Man, Bruce, what an antisocial dick. But despite being two annoying kids and me just anticipating for more Alfred and more of the mafia wars stuff, I do have to admit that the two child actors were phenomenal, giving a pretty awesome performance. And I do like how this is a bit of a wake-up call to Bruce, how he goes from just trying to balance himself on the stairs to actually be in a life-and-death situation.

He's like super worried about Alfred, he's having his stupid naivete and detective work all broken down by both the more cynical Selina and the world in general... and Selina herself is pretty fun, with her sass and her 'hard love' and just generally winding Bruce up. She's basically kind of broken inside and trying to compensate for that by acting tough and kind of screwing around with Bruce, but it's kind of subtly implied that all her insults about 'orphan' and her asking Bruce just what Alfred is shows that she's envious of Bruce having a family. There's also some scenes of realism versus optimism between Selina and Bruce, which while not quite perfect was explored quite a bit. Also liked Bruce's sudden reaction to Selina attempting to hawk off the Waynes' treasures (including Thomas Wayne's watch that Bruce used to bash Hush's face in a while back) and being absolutely fucking indignant not because Selina was trying to sell them, but because the prices they were talking about are too low.

The jump scene was a bit too long for my tastes, and at least it isn't a super-extended scene. The second half of the episode does feel a little too padded out with 'tense' scenes stretched out more than they should. Eventually Selina does leave Bruce behind with Copperhead, but to her credit she does wait until the cops have definitely arrived and Copperhead has done her 'I don't like killing people outside my contract' spiel. And Selina does come back to say good bye, return stuff to keep things honest between them and give Bruce a kiss. That was nice.

It's... the most relevant to the episode the two have been, and while I'm not quite a big fan of having the two of them getting so much screen time, it's at least not annoying enough. I do like the atmosphere of the Flea, this underground scene that looks pretty atmospheric.

The climax of the episode happens when Selina visits her fence, Clyde, which is kind of an idiot ball on her part despite being genre savvy enough for the rest of the episode. Basically everyone from Fish to Copperhead to Bullock to Alfred have connected the dots, and of course Clyde sells them out. And of course Clyde leaves them alone in a room instead of posting a guard or two to keep watch after them. Clyde is scum. He looks like a creepy ass douchebag. It's a good thing he gets arrested.

Also, Selina keeps some weird metal box with some markings as a souvenir from Wayne Manor. I'm not sure if this is going to be significant later on or not, but I'm betting it is.

Also, Poison Ivy makes a surprise appearance! And she plays up the creepy angle so much, that even Selina, the sassy girl who mouths off at everyone from cops to the mafia, is visibly terrified of her. Her mother's apparently committed suicide and she ran away from adoption. And I do like how she's not a full-out psychopath. She has some semblance of sanity, how she knows the people adopting her are 'nice folks' and how she can make an argument to not be angry at Bruce Wayne, but there is something definitely off about her and that 'crazy-but-not-quite' really is unnerving.

Gordon himself doesn't do much this episode, other than the short interrogation of Lovecraft and uncovering some huge-ass conspiracy for the city. Being present at Lovecraft's death and kind of helping Dent out in bringing down the 'foundation of the city' or whatever causes the asshole Mayor, who's definitely spooked, to come down hard on him and ship him off to Arkham Asylum as a guard, which I guess is going to be part of the second season's plot -- Arkham Asylum and the huge mystery conspiracy.

Bullock gets more screen time, with some fun dialogue back-and-forth with Alfred although not quite enough. He gets in Gordon's face for hiding the whole Wayne murder case from him, which was hilariously shot down by Alfred. Bullock doesn't do much, but I do like how at the end he is attached enough to Gordon to miss him when he's gone.

Harvey Dent, for all the build-up we got, doesn't get to do much either, other than being relatively incompetent enough to leak out Gordon's name to let whoever is behind Copperhead to put two and two together. And Dent is visibly more concerned about bringing down Lovecraft compared to, y'know, assassins going after the children or the information leak or whatever, going all 'this is a technical win!' and all that. Yeah, Dent isn't exactly the nice two-shoes that he usually is pre-Two-Face. He's a bit of a tool, really.

Nigma's awkward goodbye to Gordon is handled quite well, I thought. That was heartwarming in that 'I have no social skills' way.

The rest of the episode revolves around Don Falcone, and the plot cuts back and forth between the whole Bruce/Selina situation and Don Falcone attempting to figure out just what the fuck has been going on from last episode, and his little tantrum has caused both Penguin and Fish to move their own agendas up. First up we see Falcone arranging a not-so-peaceful meeting with the Penguin, and Falcone blames Maroni for the whole money thing from last episode, and he's pissed over the fact that he thinks Penguin had betrayed him by not telling him about the money rob.

But Penguin, of course, knows nothing about this being from Maroni, though Falcone is kind of distrustful enough (rightfully) to blame Penguin possibly being a Starscream. And he also dismisses the Penguin's personal vendetta against Fish without adequate proof. Penguin sees Liza and then suggests to Falcone that there might be a mole, as well as noting that Maroni has the subtlety of a brick so it can't be him. Falcone sets Penguin off to do his dirty work, and Penguin's driver, a dude named Gabriel, asks Penguin why he doesn't tell the truth... and the Penguin, apparently, has plans. Liza is apparently a time bomb that Penguin wants to set off at the right time. I'm highly interested in just what Penguin is planning.

Falcone, meanwhile, kills one of the members of his family, Bannion, for failing to guard the armoury. Kind of reasserting his authority and possibly trying to get Fish to give herself away. I do like the atmospheric image of Bannion with his face slumped in pasta, though. Fish, meanwhile, does indeed start trying to gather her resources. Falcone's increased demands for pay or whatever has caused several family captains to fall under Fish's influence, and it's kind of a smart move on her part, capitalizing on Falcone's rather rash decision.

Fish also knows all about the Lovecraft case and the Wayne witnesses, showing some awesomeness on her part to gather information, which is nice. Fish is getting kind of more and more competent recently, and while I am still not a fan of her she does make for an exciting antagonist. She also apparently has enough of a tender side to get caught under Alfred's sweet talk and appealing to her honour to give him the information he needs. Or it could simply be Alfred's aura of freaking awesomeness.

Overall it's a pretty decent episode. It's not quite as strong as several earlier ones, but it's definitely a stark improvement from the earliest episodes of the series. I'm having relatively high hopes that Gotham could go from a slightly-below-average show to something far better.

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire 15: Post-Game Stuff

I do some, but not all, of the post-game stuff.

One Piece 722 Review: Crazy Cavendish and Asshole Bartolomeo

One Piece Chapter 722: Cabbage and Romeo

It's a bit better than the past two chapters that are just kind of average and kind of takes out minor characters. I mean, we still aren't moving into the big fights like Zoro and Pica, or Kyros and Diamante (though we get a bit of it) or Luffy and Doflamingo and Law and Bellamy and all that. But at least I actually care about Bartolomeo and Cavendish -- unlike Machvise and Lao G and Sai who are just kind of m'eh before all this. Bartolomeo and Cavendish are two of the more, if not the most, major characters among the Coliseum newcomers, and I am quite interested in them, so it's nice to see them.

Cover story is still continuing the Jinbei stuff and somehow he meets up with Vander Decken's giant sea giant dude Wadatsumi. I don't... I don't know what the hell is going on anymore. I'll just wait until everything is over and then just reread all the cover chapters.

Also it took me quite a while of puzzling before I got that the 'Romeo' in the chapter title refers to Bartolomeo.

The chapter starts off with a bit more of the Diamante fight, and I really hoped we would be getting more of that but judging from the title, of course it won't be. Anyway, in the sunflower fields, apparently Diamante's Army Bantera attack from way back when has caused the ground to become very wobbly and Diamante mocks Kyros and neatly wraps up his backstory in three panels. Kyros charges towards Diamante, but he blocks his sword with his steel cape.

Diamante does this 'Vipera Glaive' attack, sending his wacky wiggly sword straight towards Rebecca. She's kind of surprised but she already has her sword up somewhat... but Kyros does this cool leap through the air to deflect Diamante's sword. You could probably make an argument about the whole chickification of Rebecca the gladiator being reduced into just a passive bystander in the fight, but while there's a bit of that, there's an argument to be made about Kyros being such an overprotective father that he's not even going to allow Diamante's attack to even reach Rebecca.

Rebecca tells Kyros that he wants to join the fight, and Diamante is just being a massive dickbag and talking about how he wants to see Kyros' face after both his wife and daughter are dead. Kyros then says this kind of awesome speech about how he'll protect Rebecca, how he's unable to do so before and has been living in regret and shame, and how he'll never let his daughter swing a sword now that he's here to protect her.

I hope Rebecca does get to help out in beating Diamante, though, because I like Rebecca more than I do Kyros. At least Kyros doesn't tell Rebecca to leave or hide, which seems to be kind of the norm for manga, so yay! The two can take down Diamante together as a father-daughter team or something.

Also Kyros' face in that angry shouting panel looks a bit like Vivi's father, Nefertari Cobra. Just saying.

Really want to see more of this fight, especially on Diamante's end, because right now all he's doing is making his sword and cape all fluttery, and considering how creative One Piece has been with powers (a freaking giraffe man) I really want to see what this fluttery man can do.

We cut away to the second level where the Donquixote pirates are all 'Lao G has been defeated!' Zoro, not teasing us with the fight with Pica for once, notes how destructive the Happo Navy's power is and kind of acknowledges Sai's strength. We get a bit of Sai and Chinjao, and Baby 5, crazy girl that she is, kind of makes a dark joke about how they'll have to prepare for two ceremonies, a funeral and a wedding. It's kind of dark, but Chinjao is obviously still health if he can pull that big 'HEY' face and Baby 5 is the kind of socially-inept person who doesn't mean any real malice about it. Whatever. Those parts of this big war are kind of done.

We cut to the third level, where Gladius is fighting Cavendish and Bartolomeo. Gladius has apparently used his Pamu Pamu no Mi powers to inflate the entire terrain they're fighting like Diamante did, but instead of making it fluttery, Gladius is going to make the whole thing blow up. We get a bit of Gladius' soldiers kind of going 'we'll be caught up in it' and Gladius, being evil, of course doesn't give a shit. We also get a bit of a comedy moment where Cavendish tells Bartolomeo he wants to get behind his barrier, and I do like how Bartolomeo is still a massive dick to anyone not from the Straw Hats, picking his nose and going 'Robin-senpai and I will be in danger' while Cavendish kind of gets pissed off.

Gladius' big attack, 'Punct Rock Fest', erupts and it's kind of cool even if it's horribly ineffective and all it does is blow up the terrain and the random pirate troops just hanging around. And for a moment it seemed that Bartolomeo did act like a dick and not let Cavendish in, but he had eventually relented and we get a funny little scene where Bartolomeo tries to act cool and shit and goes 'being outside will surely mean certain death' while Cavendish is just pissed off. And then the two get into an argument, with Bartolomeo getting pissed off that Cavendish keeps wanting to go in and out of his barrier, while Cavendish is just pissed at Bartolomeo not being cooperative. I thought this flowed a lot better than last chapter's dialogue since we now both of Bartolomeo and Cavendish's personalities compared to Chinjao (whose interactions have been mostly 'you are Garp's grandson grawr') and Sai (who's a cipher) from last chapter.

Robin is apparently running up stairs created from her own legs, which seems really inefficient. Why not create a bunch of hands to pull her all the way up? Robin apparently wants to go back up Rebecca, which is cool. Gladius is using his weird goggles to zoom in on Robin, and uses some wrist-mounted Deadshot-style gun to shoot 'Catapult Punct' (the translation I read translates it as 'Punk', but since he's of the Puncture fruit I thought it's supposed to be just a shortening of the word puncture) but Bartolomeo extends his barrier in the form of a Racket, saving Robin.

Robin gives Bartolomeo this wink and it's still funny how she calls him Birdy-kun. Bartolomeo, of course, as with everything Straw-Hat-related, goes all apeshit in what can only be described as a fangasm, momentarily going all 'is she going to make me her slave' with hearts and all that, before getting a hold of himself and telling himself to have some shame. Bartolomeo is fun. I like him. He goes on about how he feels great.

Meanwhile, Cavendish and Gladius are like, going to clash. Cavendish is doing some Biken swordsplay, while Gladius expands his arms in an attack apparently named 'Blackium'. Before they can get a climatic clash, however, suddenly Bartolomeo's barrier charges forwards with Bartolomeo just raging, apparently driven to just craziness by Robin's wink. It's called 'Barrier Bulls', apparently, and he's just moving that big barrier onwards like a giant invisible bulldozer, and his expressions are absolutely hilarious. Cavendish tells Bartolomeo to stop, but Bartolomeo tells Cavendish (or rather, Cabbage, which made me smile as well) he can't stop now.

Gladius calls Dellinger to help out, and Dellinger is just standing nearby. We last saw Dellinger fighting Destruction Cannon Ideo, and apparently Ideo is still alive and kicking. Dellinger easily blocks Ideo's punch and apparently he's basically done for. Dellinger calls Ideo a member of the 'Longarm Tribe', possibly related to the 'Long-leg Tribe' that we've seen people be a member of. Ideo gives some generic speech about how a man must have honour and duty, and how he's going to buy time for Luffy since victory isn't won by a single person, while Dellinger just brutally kicks him with those weird high heels of his.

Dellinger tears off his hat and grows some shark teeth (his human teeth just fall off) and then brutally bites Ideo in the neck, before letting him drop down. Well, he's definitely out of the picture now. We get a nice face of Dellinger's crazy face as he tells us again that he's a descendant of the fighting fishes. That's short and sweet. Ideo's out, Dellinger shows off his abilities. I thought it was pretty well done.

Dellinger moves on to the third level, where Gladius is, and apparently Gladius survives the Barrier Bulls thing. Gladius tells Dellinger to get away, about how something is dangerous, while Dellinger is all 'come on, there's no one the two of us can't take down'... and then Dellinger just gets cut down. It's a slash on the side of his chest from Cavendish's insane sleepwalking alter-ego (Hakuba, as I found out after looking it up) and it's pretty cool. Delinger is apparently taken out, while Cavendish is just being scary and shit. Meanwhile Bartolomeo is just not really understanding what's going on. It's all fun.

I'm kind of curious about the specifics of Cavendish's Hakuba alter-ego, and just the specifics of how it works. Previously we're told by that one Vice Admiral (Bastille?) that Cavendish becomes Hakuba if he falls asleep, but is that really the case or is there something more sinister going on? Eh, whatever. Also curious about the limits of Bartolomeo's power and why he didn't do this crazy barrier rush before... though I guess Bartolomeo's just crazy and weird.

Overall a step up from the past chapter, mostly because we're focusing on the more interesting secondary characters like Cavendish, Bartolomeo, Cavendish and Dellinger (the latter two are a lot more interesting than Lao G and Machvise). Dellinger and Ideo get taken out, Bartolomeo and Cavendish get some fun scenes. We're kind of going through two executives or around that pace per chapter, which is good.

I'm going to assume next chapter will have the two of them taking out Gladius and maybe finish off Dellinger if he's not quite out yet. Or maybe Bartolomeo will have to deal with Hakuba-Cavendish? I hope not, though, since I think this arc is kind of suffering from a bit of overlong fatigue, and I just want to cut to the other major fights: Kyros and Rebecca versus Diamante, Zoro versus Pica, Luffy versus Bellamy, Law versus Doflamingo and maybe Franky versus Senor Pink. Gladius is basically the only minor Doflamingo officer left, and I really want it to just move to the climax with Doflamingo and Law, and then move on to all the bigger stuff like the Revolutionaries and Aokiji and Kaido and Big Mom... we haven't seen Sanji, Nami and the others for like half a year now! Whatever happened to them? I mean, I may sound a bit too harsh on this arc because I'm reading weekly instead of all in a go. It's not that I hate this, I just am really antsy to get to the good parts.

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire 14: Rayquaza vs Deoxys

In which I complete the Delta Episode.

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire 13: Delta Episode

So I tackle the post-game bonus content.

One Piece 771 Review: All this should've happened long ago

One Piece Chapter 771: Sai, the Leader of the Happo Navy

I have a feeling that all of these distracting lesser characters... Machvise, Hajrudin, Sai, Lao G... all of them should've been dealt with before we had the big Doflamingo/Law flashback combo. Because it just kind of ruins the narrative and the massive threat that has been built up. I mean, I get that taking every one of Doflamingo's people out would kind of make it an obvious Doflamingo-will-lose situation, but these minor characters like Machvise and Lao G... does anyone really expect them to do anything? Keeping, like, the Zoro-vs-Pica and Kyros-vs-Diamante stuff for later on, absolutely. And maybe a couple ones here and there. But everybody? And despite the minor Coliseum characters being somewhat interesting, I really thought that they ended up being too distracting.

And indeed, this chapter is basically the same as last chapter, except instead of Machvise we get Lao G as the Donquixote Pirates elite member that hasn't done jack shit and gets taken out, and instead of Hajrudin we get Sai as the Coliseum member that hasn't done jack shit and does something awesome. We even get a bit of something similar as a different Coliseum member (Elizabello here, Orlumbus last chapter) offers their help to Zoro in fighting Pica.

And the chapter opens up with Zoro just avoiding these rock spikes from Pica and Elizabello (who's at least a lot less random and more prominent than Orlumbus) telling Zoro of his abilities and pledging to help. Zoro gets scary and says he wants to deal with Pica all on his own -- and I do want to see that happen more than all these shit going on, and tells Elizabello to save his trump card for later. Zoro also mentions that Pica seems to be aiming for something, but we don't really get much as we cut away to... the others.

Chinjao is fighting Lao G, and Sai is fighting Baby 5 in a fashion, but it then delves into comedy. It's not entirely unfunny, and I did smile at some of them. It's not that it's a bad chapter, it's just placed really oddly in the grand scheme of things. I felt like all this would've worked better if it happened at around the time that Usopp takes out Sugar the second time, where it's both tense and funny at the same time.

Lao G's attacks are apparently all puns on an old man's health problems and it's a bit weird as he goes into combat with 'Lower Back Pain Stance'. And Lao G deals several blows to Don Chinjao and just does his crazy-looking poses and slapping 'G' onto everything he says. Lao G is like the least interesting of the Donquixote family. And then we get into a bit of a comedy routine as Chinjao goes 'I'm against your wedding, Sai!', apparently overhearing how Baby 5 has taken Sai's battle dialogue as a marriage proposal or something.

We get a bit of Sai where he just doesn't care about arranged marriages and whatever it will do to strengthen the Happo Navy and we get a couple of Lao G jokes that fell flat on me. There's a point when he... dies? His spirit goes up into the skies and he just goes back when Baby 5 calls him? That was just weird.

Sai then tells Baby 5 to die or something, and then Baby 5 actually transforms her arm into a revolver and points it at her own head with the most disturbingly cheery expression for someone holding a gun to her head. Sai then tries to stop Baby 5, saying how an easy victory will leave a bad aftertaste, not to mention being disturbing as all kinds of fuck. It's a good thing this is happening in One Piece and not in a more brutal or violent manga. And as Sai apparently goes to try and stop Baby 5, Chinjao gets pissed at Sai for sparing his enemy while Sai tells Chinjao to fuck off becoming a mentor. This part's a bit weird.

But then we get a little flashback of Baby 5, which I thought was well done, where apparently as a child she was abandoned by her mother to freaking die simply because she is 'useless and not needed'. Aww, poor Baby 5. I thought that was short, sweet and well done, and juxtaposed by Baby 5's eerily calm smiling face is just creepy and shows just how fucked up in the head she is. Maybe she's called Baby 5 literally because she's the fifth child?

Chinjao does his Kiryu Kirikugi thing with his head, intending to take out Baby 5 and punish Sai at the same time, but apparently Sai himself can use Busoshoku Haki, and freaking kicks Chinjao in the head, causing that weird-shaped head to get bent. Man, poor Chinjao. And I thought this part was done slightly poorly since we never really saw any kind of friction between Sai and Chinjao, and the scene that immediately succeeds it actually implies that they have a pretty good relationship even if Chinjao is the type of parent/grandparent that likes to get disappointed with their children.

And then Sai just slaps Baby 5 really hard and we get a good panel of his angry face, and tells her to piss off for believing that her life is useless. We get a pretty sad scene of Chinjao's crying face as his awesome drill-skull thing (which I'm going to assume is just bone and doesn't really have his brains or whatever in it) and I really feel bad for the poor dude. And Sai is just 'how the hell did I do this?' Chinjao doesn't seem to be angry, though, but ends up being kind of proud of Sai for being able to obtain this much power, and passes the 'Kiryu Kirikugi' title from his head to Sai's feet. And Chinjao just hands everything over to Sai, from the treasure in the icy continent (which he can open now) and even freedom in marriage. Which is nice and all, but I felt it really should've been done before all the tense Law-Doflamingo-Luffy-Bellamy stuff.

Chinjao then says how his sickness has been acting up and how he's not getting better after fighting Luffy, which kind of explains why he's been kind of shit recently. Then Lao G just zooms in, does the Mark of G thing and blasts Chinjao onto a wall and knocks him out. Man, I really, really feel sorry for Chinjao. Lao G has apparently done some Toriko-level shit and does this 'Battle Preservation Fist' technique that bulks him up until he's a massive muscle-man with an old man's decrepit face. He charges towards Sai, and as he does so he rants about how they'll never hand over someone as convenient as Baby 5 to them, and I thought the two panels where Baby 5 just realizes what's going on and her smiling while crying when she thinks of the word 'convenient' is pretty heartbreaking.

And then Sai suddenly goes... 'if I win, I'll make her my wife', which is a big 'wait what' moment. Since when did Sai like Baby 5? It's just weird. But Baby 5 goes happy and that's kind of nice to see, and Sai unleashes his own Kiryu Kikirugi as Chinjao watches right onto Lao G's head and kind of knocks him through the first Pica statue as he just screams G G G G G like the stupid shit that he is. And then Sai proclaims that he is a 'Don' now.

It's a bit of a weird chapter, with a lot of good moments. The Baby 5 stuff are clearly the highlight of the chapter for me, but on the inverse Lao G is pretty boring and annoying and I'm just happy to see him taken out. Sai's also pretty weird, even if the talk with Chinjao is pretty good and he does some awesome things. Like I said before, it's the positioning and general pacing of the chapter that kind of makes it not as enjoyable as it should've been. I'm going to assume next chapter we'll see some other dude take out Dellinger or Gladius... though Gladius is at least fighting Bartolomeo and Cavendish, which are a lot more interesting than Hajrudin or Sai. 

Agents of SHIELD S02E10 Review: Enter the Inhumans

Agents of SHIELD, Season 2, Episode 10: What They Become

Well, after a strong start in season two which devolved into a sluggish, messily-paced series of episodes, Agents of SHIELD has finally found redemption once more in a powerful, powerful mid-season finale. It took me a bit of a research into the whole Inhumans lore, a section of the Marvel comics universe I'm dimly aware of but never really cared enough to read. While I'm nowhere that well-versed in Marvel lore as I am with DC comics, I can definitely appreciate them slowly exploring all these obscure groups and developing the overreaching lore with the movies. I'm not really certain just how closely it will tie with the movies, but I'm happy to watch it nonetheless. Bit late to the party, but here's my review of it.

And it's an awesome episode! It's kind of like Gotham where the buildup could've been done better, but it certainly culminates well. Some of the other less interesting B-plots are thankfully put on hold, and we finally get a confrontation between a lot of the big players running around. The whole City/Obelisk thing that we've been building up from the beginning of the season ends up getting explored, and even if we don't get all that much (this is still Agents of SHIELD) this time what we get is pretty satisfactory and indeed pretty awesome.

A lot of the plot simply revolves around Skye finally meeting her father at last, and even if last episode's rather clunky way of facilitating this still doesn't sit well with me, it is a pretty emotional meeting that's been delayed and stretched out for quite a while, and I do like how Skye's Father, here finally given the name of Cal (after comic character Calvin Zabo, it appears, which I'll talk about later in the end) and the meeting between the two is pretty well-scripted. Awkwardness all around, and Cal exudes both absolute devotion to his daughter as well as showcases just how much of a fanatic to the whole vaguely-defined transformation thing he is. He's also made his hellbent revenge against Whitehall pretty clear, and I do like how, while he's not outright abusive towards Skye, he's still hard enough to somewhat kindly tell her to follow his designs. I do like how Cal is ashamed of what he has become, but he doesn't deny that he's done bad things and killed people. And he does look utterly broken when he speaks of his wife being torn apart -- and from that rather effective scene before, I can agree with his sentiment.

And then we get the other confrontation, which is Cal facing off against Whitehall. Whitehall himself proves to be a pretty masterful chess player... it's just a shame that other than that one flashback episode we don't really learn much about Whitehall to really care about him as a character. And indeed when you think about it, he's a pretty generic super-genius mad scientist slash mastermind. We get a bit of Whitehall outmaneuvering Cal and managing to outsmart both him and Ward, immobilizing Cal with this electrical chip, already knowing about Cal's connection to Skye, and then proceeding to almost go through with his threat of dissecting Skye before he is distracted.

Whitehall gets to face off against Cal, but before he can do anything Coulson... shoots Whitehall dead. Cal is a doctor and he is hellbent on keeping Whitehall alive to torture him, and he does confirm Whitehall's death, but I really don't see this being that permanent. After all, while it's a shot through the chest, Whitehall's body is still intact and who knows what kind of crazy enhancement that Skye's Mother's blood might have given him? It's still a nice twist, though, and helps to take Whitehall out of the picture for now.

Cal and Coulson, meanwhile, clash, and I do like how Cal gets more and more animalistic in his movements and his behaviour as he just freaking snaps from seeing his revenge denied of him. We get a truly brutal fight between the two, and while Coulson does manage to get a few cool martial arts moves in, Cal overpowers Coulson and Skye has to come in and threaten to shoot Cal... who calms down. After all Skye did call him 'dad'. Driven off by Skye, Cal is relatively calm and goes all 'you'll understand in time' and stuff like that, and tells Skye that her real birth name is 'Daisy'. And Skye... well, after keeping her cool while dealing with Ward and Cal, she kind of flips out over Coulson and kind of just... well, runs off to recover the Diviner to make up for it. Can't say impulsiveness doesn't run in the family.

While all this is going, May, Bobbi and Hunter are leading an assault against the other Hydra members, which gets them mostly out of the way. Ward gets blindsided and shot by Skye, which is hilarious and cathartic at the same time, though I'll talk all about Ward later on. Agent 33 is... kind of just there, and is also something I'll talk about later. Fitz, Simmons and Triplett are placing charges around the city, figuring out that Hazmat suits can protect them from being Mackified, but things get complicated when Raina, Skye and Coulson go down into the city in a three-way chase, so Triplett runs in to dismantle the bombs.

Skye and Raina find themselves in some kind of a central chamber, and we get some ominous words and explanations from Raina about the true nature of the Diviner: it grants powers and whatnot to the selected ones, and namedrops the Kree again. And as the chamber closes, Triplett finds himself trapped inside with Raina and Skye, while Coulson has to deal with Zombie Mack outside.

And then the Diviner kind of splits open to reveal a crystalline interior, and it kind of covers Raina and Skye in some kind of gooplike chrysalis. Triplett kind of panics and kicks the Diviner, and gets to be turned into stone and disintegrates for his trouble... and it's kind of moot since Skye breaks out of her chrysalis state literally seconds after Triplett apparently dies, and unleashes a big boom thing, showing that she's been transformed into a metahuman... or an Inhuman, if you will. Meanwhile, Triplett's body crumbles, Raina's been transformed into something less human-looking, and people outside are all running around.


And then there is this absolutely horrifying Eyeless Man at the end who reports to his comrades about another Diviner being activated.

So, what is it all about? Well, to someone who's unfamiliar with the Inhumans such as I, it's made pretty clear that the Diviner sort of unlocks powers (with what is apparently called the Terrigen Mist in the comics)... but only in those that have alien blood in them, which I initially thought was by interbreeding, but it seems that the alien blood is passed down. And what was initially a simple 'oh Skye is half-alien' and some vaguely-defined powers on the part of Skye's parents finally gets revealed to be mutations unique to each of them. Skye's Mother apparently has immortality, and Skye's Father... well, we know he's got a hair-trigger temper and he hates being referred to as a monster, and we know he can completely obliterate everything in his path.

The showmakers and the show itself have kind of confirmed that Cal is based on comic-book character Calvin Zabo, otherwise known as the supervillain Mr. Hyde, able to undergo a Hulk-style transformation into a monster, which would explain why he keeps talking big about being able to annihilate all of the Hydra forces but never really gets around to doing it... it's because he haven't transformed yet! And it's a good reason to why he didn't transform in front of Skye... he very well could ostracize her forever if she sees him rampage in his monster form.

And Skye... well, the show doesn't really make it explicit that the earthquakes happening are coming from her or simply because the Diviner activates some stuff, and I didn't get that the earthquakes are supposed to be from her initially. I honestly thought she was going to have some healing powers that'll allow her to heal Triplett, but I guess not. And after looking up her comic-book counterpart, I am pretty surprised that... I actually know who Quake, or Daisy Johnson, is! I read Secret War! It's really surprising, since most of the time when Agents of SHIELD references some guy I'll look it up and nod, and say, 'huh, interesting.' But for Skye, it's different. I admit that I didn't connect the dots while watching the episode, but that moment when I realized who she was meant to be was a big 'OHHHHH' moment. And I do like how comic-Daisy's surrogate father relationship with Nick Fury has been handed over to Phil Coulson here.

Granted, all those time when Cal was talking about Skye's real name I thought it was going to be some crazy alien name like, oh, Kal-El or something (not helped by Cal's name sounding a whole lot like Kal), not something as mundane as Daisy, so that completely caught me off guard.

Also I guess Skye will have earthquake powers, which is like the least likely thing I'd peg her to have... I thought she will have some crazy Vorlon-type vaguely-defined-psychic-powers thing going on, but earthquakes it is. Absolutely interested in seeing how she will deal with her powers, how she will deal with all this change, her father and everything. A lot of people give Skye flak for being a bit of a Mary Sue, and I can't say that those accusations aren't baseless, but Skye has proven time and again to be pretty interesting and that rather offsets the Sue qualities.

In a less interesting vein, Raina is also apparently an Inhuman and has been mutated into... something. We only see part of her face, but it's got quills and a catlike eye, so she's been changed physically. She's been going on and on about the whole destiny thing, and it's been a bit annoying, but at least she's being consistent in her airheaded craziness. I'm not a big fan of Raina, at least not recently after she's became an inconsistently raving fanatic, but this is intriguing. Will she accept her changes? Or will it hideously deform her and she'll be full of self-loathing or whatever?

After looking it up, there is a Marvel comics Raina and she doesn't look entirely human, but I didn't really dig in too deep since I want to be surprised and learn about their stories from this show. I do think it's pretty interesting how they're adapting these comic book characters but introducing them as brand-new ones... only to reveal that they are, in fact, based on comic book characters. It's an interesting method.

Also, at the end, it seems that the Inhuman society or whatever has been established, because one of them is definitely aware of Skye and Raina activating a Diviner. This dude is a creepy motherfucker without any eyes. Just flat skin over where the eyes should be. And, well, I did not expect that and being shocked like that at 2 AM in the morning is not a pleasant experience. Apparently people far more well-versed with the Marvel comics are speculating that this is the MCU version of Reader of the Inhumans. I guess I'll nod for the moment?

Overall I'm rather excited to see where this will go, how the whole Inhuman plot will affect the overall storyline and how they'll integrate this to the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe. Not much to say other than the fact that this has piqued my interest very much, and after having it drop down after the last few episodes, that's saying something. I like these developments, they surprised me, and I'm extremely curious to see where we'll go. I guess that about wraps out the recap-review for the Inhumans, so let's move on to the more mortal members of the cast.

Let's go with Grant Ward first. We all know he's doing everything he does recently not just because of a sense of loyalty to Hydra, SHIELD, Coulson or Cal, but rather out of love to Skye... as Raina points out. Ward gets a pretty damning line of dialogue about his past fanaticism to John Garrett, and I suppose all that time in prison and all his talks with Skye have kind of started to bring him around. We get a nice little conversation between Ward and 33, and I do like how he bares his figurative fangs against Whitehall when he threatens Skye.

Of course, Skye is still sane and I love how he puts a pair of bullets in Ward literally the moment she gets herself free of her restraints. As much as Ward may be the least evil of the villains currently in play, he is also a mass psychotic murderer, and I do like how that all isn't just forgotten for the sake of shipping. Also let's not forget that he's a pretty creepy stalker towards Skye. Well-intentioned, perhaps, but creepy nonetheless... generally you don't go out with someone who kidnaps you at gunpoint. You go, Skye.

I do like Ward. He's an effective, interesting villain. He's definitely not going to die anytime soon, and he confirms his survival at the end of the episode, but I'm interested to see where he'll go from here, or if he's still going to be head-over-heels smitten with Skye. For all his brave talk about not following anyone anymore, he's kind of really latching on to Skye, isn't he?

Agent 33... looks like we're not going to explore who she was before Whitehall converts her, and a lot of her scenes really just comprises of her proclaiming her loyalty to Whitehall and looking absolutely confused when Whitehall apparently dies. 33 has apparently thrown her lot in with Ward, who she sees as a kindred spirit, so I'm interested to see where this goes, though thankfully it took just the right amount of time to be sweet and interesting without being too bloated.

And Whitehall... I'm pretty sure he's not going to stay down. For the moment, though, it looks like he's out of the picture. It's not a 100% certainty, but I don't think his death is really going to be permanent.

Coulson gets a fair amount of screentime being a director and whatnot, and while a lot of screentime is devoted to Skye and the others, as the nominal main character Coulson does get to chase after the girl. Make no mistake, though, for this episode belongs to Skye. Coulson gets some great screentime talking to Skye and being a comforting father figure, and his brutal faceoff with Cal is pretty awesome as well. And, really, balls to Coulson for just running into that city to save Skye. Don't really think there's much he does other than showing up a lot, but Coulson's always fun.

Triplett... man, poor Triplett. He's sort of sidelined in the show, and while a lot of people think it's because the actor is shooting for Age of Ultron, it seems like he's dead now. And it's a pretty stupid and senseless way to die. Him getting trapped in the chamber is played more for laughs than anything, and him kicking the Diviner and accidentally getting a shard stuck in his chest... it's a bit of a shitty and stupid way to die considering he did jack shit to save Skye, even if he doesn't know that. And it's really a pity that Triplett has to die considering he hasn't managed to do all that much throughout all his appearances. It's like they're doing a fake out with Mack and Triplett, with Mack apparently not dying and it being replaced in the last minute with Triplett. The fact that the two candidates for death are black men are, well, kind of suspect. But I know I am a lot more shocked and sad about Triplett's senseless sacrifice and disintegration into dust, as compared to resident wallpaper Mack whose death gets a resounding 'm'eh' from me.

I just hope there's an actual reason, story-wise, for Triplett's death. To make Skye angst, or to give her something to work towards while learning to hone her Kree/Inhuman powers. I just don't like random sudden deaths for the sake of sudden deaths.

Mack survives, apparently, as the last montage of scenes of people running from the quake shows Coulson apparently recovering Mack. He spends most of the episode being a black-eyed zombie that only lets Raina and Skye pass and then lays the smackdown on Coulson when he tries to get to them. I really don't care about Mack, really, so I can't say that I'm pleased or displeased about his survival. Fitz and Simmons compares it to the Cordyceps fungus (or Ophiocordyceps, as the specific genus that they discuss) that can control ants, which is a pretty sufficient and geeky-simple explanation to how the city is making use of Mack. 

As a side-note, Cordyceps is a really interesting organism. It's one of the many weird wonders of nature that I learned from Pokemon, with the otherwise-innocent pokemon Parasect being based on a fungus taking over a bug's mind.

We get a bit of Hunter and Bobbi, but not too much that it takes up huge chunks of the episode as they used to do. It's paced well. Hunter realizes Bobbi is keeping something from him, and tells Bobbi he knows she's pocketing a thumb drive, but doesn't make a big fuss about it in this episode. They spend most of the time just doing espionage spy stuff and snarking around, which is welcome. I do like how it's sidelined, because it's really not the time to talk about the stuff Bobbi is keeping from Hunter when all these interesting Diviner stuff is going down. Slightly curious to know about what Bobbi is hiding, exactly, though I won't mind if they put it off until things have died down from the aftermath of this episode and maybe devote an episode to it.

Poor May doesn't get to do much other than the 'obviously they will escape the Hydra missiles' bit in the beginning, because really, that is supposed to be a cliffhanger? I mean, technically the actress Ming Na Wen is getting a lot of screentime playing two characters (May and 33) but May, as a character, relatively suffers. She gets some dialogue with Coulson talking about deaths and Skye and whatnot, but otherwise she fills the same role as Hunter and Bobbi, cleaning out the faceless Hydra mooks.

The Koenigs get a nice little mind-screw joke with Triplett, and apparently Coulson tells them to go to base and activate Protocol Theta, whatever the heck that is. Sounds pretty cavalry-like, though. They kind of get shooed out of the main plot shortly after the episode starts.

Lastly, Fitz and Simmons... it's not that I don't care about them, I really do. They used to jointly be my favourites among the cast, but lately they've been taking so much time up with their convoluted drama story and Simmons in particular have been the subject of a seemingly-pointless plot twist that spanned quite a while. But here they are pretty inoffensive. After the silly detente of the couple previous episodes, apparently they're starting to open up and work together again, even if there are some awkward moments between them. I thought that Fitz suggesting they split up (both Simmons and Triplett immediately shoot it down as a bad idea) is going to lead to something horrible befalling them, but I guess it's just showing that Fitz isn't completely handicapped by his injuries. Again, like Bobbi and Hunter, I'm interested in them and they deserve an episode or two. Yes, absolutely, explore their emotions and whatnot, but don't make it bloat up episodes that are leading up to something big and bog them down.

Still, that's enough ranting from me because I thought this episode was pretty good overall. Pacing was a lot better, there's a lot of stuff happening, and I hope this steers the plot into better stuff. It's pretty impactful. And really, all three of the superhero TV shows (Flash, Arrow and SHIELD) have had really powerful mid-season finales and it's been a blast talking about them.