Legends of Tomorrow S01E12 Review: Child Hunter

Legends of Tomorrow, Season 1, Episode 12: Last Refuge

Last Refuge finally decides to have the Time Masters stop dicking around and pull off a Terminator as they send a really competent assassin, the Pilgrim (who, to my knowledge, is an original character) to go to the past and start killing off child versions of our heroes. Yeah, why not have Chronos or the Hunters do just that before? Sheesh, for a bunch of Time Masters, they are kind of incompetent, aren't they?

The Pilgrim is played by a memorable actress, at least, conveying an aura of cold callousness as she goes around shooting kids in the head and wiping them out of time (with visual effects of erased-from-time akin to how Eobard Thawne died in Flash's first season finale). And thus we once more take a break from the Vandal Savage plot to hop around to moments of Team Legends' childhood eras and stop the Pilgrim from murdering their child versions. While we get some interesting moments -- especially and unexpectedly Mick Rory (both child and adult) dealing with the guilt of having accidentally burnt his family to death. We've got some nice banter between a younger Sara and Quentin (Present-day Sara struggles really hard not to spill anything regarding the tragedies poor Quentin will have to endure), and indeed baby Captain Cold is cute. 

But what really sold the episode's emotional weight was Jackson, who has never made that huge of an impact to me and always felt like a satellite character to the far more well-written and interesting Martin Stein. He always felt like a poor man's Ronnie Raymond/Victor Stone to me, but this episode finally gave him some much-needed emotional focus. He never knew his father, who was killed in military combat, and the chance to actually meet his father before he was deployed to his doomed mission. Jackson displays a range of emotion that he never really had a chance to before, and you can't help but feel for the kid as he struggles with whether to reveal his identity as the son his father will never have a chance to meet. That scene was just tear-jerking, especially with how Jackson's father was all like 'yeah, that's my kid. He's going to grow up to be awesome.' and considering the amount of self-esteem issues Jackson is established as having, it's a great moment. It's a nice break from just being a young hothead, and made me care for him in a way that I never did before.

Emotional moments aside, the main premise of the plot, to save the children version of themselves, really didn't feel all that tense, though the final fight against the Pilgrim in that weird out-of-timeline place was a lot more fun than the previous laser slugfests. The Pilgrim apparently has temporal-stopping powers and it's cool to see her basically stop every single energy blast in her tracks, and shows just how kinda outclassed by her compatriots White Canary is. Seriously, Rip couldn't have lent her a laser pistol or something?

Changes to the timeline or keeping it constant seems to be thrown out of the window, though at least Rip shows up with these memory-erasing pills to make Quentin forget about that time when a Terminator shows up an tries to kill his daughter. Presumably Rip did the same with a lot of the characters we saw in previous episodes? The big overreaching plot of what Rip's backstory is never interested me despite Snart's prodding, and the payoff -- that he was a street urchin that was taken up and trained by the Time Masters... or rather, "Mum", who is a nice no-nonsense woman who doesn't give a shit about the Time Masters and chooses to ally with her adopted son. It's... a backstory, at least, even if it's not one that's all that interesting. Worth noting is that Rip Hunter's real name, "Michael", is a reference to Michael John Carter, alter-ego of time-travelling superhero Booster Gold, who is Rip Hunter's father in the comics. Booster Gold really needs a TV series of his own, though the cinematic universe has their hands tight on Booster Gold and Blue Beetle (a.k.a. the role that ultimately was written into Ray Palmer in CW). 

Having Kid Hunter stab the Pilgrim and causing her to lose control of her Kylo Ren Force powers is a nice touch to making it somewhat relevant, though.

We get some long-winded romantic bullshit from Kendra and Ray which is essentially the same thing they did last week. And the week before that. You'd think having Ray see his dead wife in flesh and alive would cause him to have second thoughts about the relationship and be conflicted and everything, but no. Kendra Saunders is easily the weakest link of the show, and her constant whining and moping about her love problems really brings to shame... basically all other iterations of Hawkgirl over the years of comic and cartoon incarnations. 

The main plot of the Pilgrim or Rip's backstory ended up not really holding that much interest. While the Pilgrim was a far more competent villain than the plot device Chronos or the disposable Hunter trio, she still ended up being throwaway. And the Time Masters really felt like ciphers at this point. Maybe show them having to fix one of the messes to the timeline that the Legends team did? Really, the big takeaways from this episode was from Jackson's interaction with his father, as well as other assorted moments from the Legends and their families.

Despite the strong moments for Jackson, it's still ultimately a mostly average and mediocre outing, and I highly doubt the 'ticking clock' introduced here with their histories unraveling with their younger selves taken out of time will ultimately matter... and while we abandon the filler plots for some actual Vandal Savage fighting one wonders how ultimately entertaining or successful it will be.

Game of Thrones S06E03 Review: Rulers Lose Control

Game of Thrones, Season 6, Episode 3: Oathbreaker

Damn, this episode of Game of Thrones, though! We don't get to see our buddies in Dorne or the Iron Islands, and instead take a tour of the normal cast again. Also, we get to see Sam! Who I kind of forgot existed. His scenes are still as mind-numbingly boring and I don't care. He's on a boat going to the Citadel or whatever, but there's your generic 'what am I going to do with this lovesick wildling woman' problem that I honestly still don't care about. Nah, I've got so much to talk about in this review other than freaking Samwell Tarly. I'm sorry, Sam, you're a nice bloke but I don't really give a rat's ass about your story here. Not when there's so much going on in this episode. 

One of the biggest event that happened in this episode, of course, is Brandon Stark going in these weird flashbacks back to that nebulous period of time prior to the show's start, where all sorts of conspiracy theories about the vague flashbacks and biased tidbits of information we are given about all the mysteries in the past -- namely, the Tower of Joy. Mentioned as early as the first book, the Tower of Joy is the subject of many a speculation, and finally, we get to see the scene! Except, not really. All kinds of conspiracy theories, mostly relating to the possible fact that Jon Snow was in fact not Ned Stark's bastard child but the secret lovechild of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, who possibly, maybe, died in childbirth in the Tower of Joy and made Ned swore to keep it a secret. Or something. There are a lot of subtle hints in the first book that could possibly hint at this big plot twist -- and the author have gone to state that the secret to Jon Snow's parentage could be found as early as the first book.

Except, y'know, it's still a fan theory, and while far more dedicated fans than I have searched across hundreds of pages over the multiple books, it's still very vague and very open to interpretation. So how cool is it, finally, to see the Tower of Joy once more? The fact that the Three-Eyed Raven brought Bran here to see this event take place means that, yes, there is some truly important thing going on in the Tower of Joy. Something monumental. Something that would shatter the fanbase.

Except that cockblocking Three-Eyed Raven just pulled Bran out of that flashback! What the hell! My reaction was exactly the same with Bran's. Bring me back! But nah, the Three-Eyed Raven gives some random mystical mumbo jumbo about telling Bran that he needs to know everything before he leaves but he won't let Bran continue on that particular flashback because damn.

In any case, though, for all of you show-only viewers who don't understand a word of the last three paragraphs, just take my word that this flashback is going to be important whether this theory holds true or not. All we see in this episode is the confrontation between Ned Stark, Howland Reed and a bunch of Stark allies against three two members of the Kingsguard that are holding the Tower of Joy, inside which Lyanna Stark (allegedly abducted by force by crown prince Rhaegar, but accounts vary on whether this is an elopement or a kidnapping). It's a pretty damn awesome scene, with Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, dual-wielding swords and making it look awesome as he literally cuts through Ned's entire party bar him and Reed. 

And there's a nice moment of 'winners are the ones who write the history' as Bran, who insists that his father slew Arthur Dayne, witnesses as Arthur Dayne completely overpowers Ned before being stabbed in the back by Howland Reed. No shame to Dayne, though -- for his short career in Game of Thrones he was pretty damn honourable, got a couple of great lines, visibly had mutual respect with Ned Stark, and got executed by Ned himself if nothing else. Plus dual-wielding swords are cool.

Oh, and Bran's big destiny is not to replace the Three-Eyed Raven and be a child of the forest or a tree or whatever, so yay for that. I've never really been a big fan of that particular fandom theory.

In the present day, though... while the previous two episodes showed new rulers taking over (Ramsay, the Sand Snakes, the High Sparrow of sorts) or making plans to take over (Euron Greyjoy), this episode shows a lot of leaders and rulers losing their grip on their power.

Take King Tommen, the nominal king of Westeros at this moment. Tommen is starting to grow into a complex character after being in periphery for the majority of the past five seasons. He's Cersei's son, he's Margeary's husband, he's Joffrey's brother, he's Tywin's grandson... he's never really been given proper scenes to shine, always dragged in one direction and that, and quite ironically enough, his realization that Tywin is kinda manipulating him with his 'advice' might just cause him to be even more manipulated by the High Sparrow.

The High Sparrow is the most nicest-speaking piece of dickwad in all of Westeros, isn't he? He's so scary mostly because we can't really tell if what he believes is truly religious zealousy taken up to eleven, or just him hiding behind that veneer or religion, while taking advantage of a pushover king and manipulating a cult of easily-duped people under oppressive reigns of other dickwads. In any case, Tommen's gotten a bit of fire after his last conversation with Cersei, coming in with armed guards (smart move) and confronting the High Sparrow. Uncharacteristically for Game of Thrones no one gets stabbed or gutted in this scene, but good on Tommen for channeling a bit of his inner Joffrey to intimidate the High Sparrow... who quickly counters with some advice about redemption and how Cersei's redeeming qualities is as a mother, while still refusing to budge on his stance of allowing Cersei to at least mourn Myrcella's death. Man, what a twat, this High Sparrow fella. Tommen isn't even asking for Margeary's release, or any kind of unreasonable request. He just wants his mother to be able to mourn his dead sister in peace.

While Qyburn has obtained control over Varys's network of little birds with bribes of candy (in the show, apparently Varys doesn't make use of creepy kids with their tongues cut out but rather just, y'know, a bunch of normal kids), Cersei and Jaime aren't having a nice time at all. They have the zombie Mountain, of course, but one big soldier isn't quite enough to storm the Faith Militant and crush the High Sparrow's head. Also they kinda just went ahead and confirmed that, yes, that is the Mountain and doesn't try to hide his identity behind that Robert Strong bit.

Cersei, Jaime and the Mountain kinda gatecrash the Small Council meeting, but none of the Small Council members are really keen to help out Cersei after her annexing power from every single one of them back in early season five. Kevan Lannister is back (presumably Tommen actually called him off-screen), and he's still not taking any shits from Cersei. Also back with her is the coolest old woman in the world, Lady Olenna Tyrell, who, while still quite ready to do something about the Faith Militant to get her granddaughter back, is still not taking any shits from Cersei either, reminding her that, nope, she ain't the queen anymore. The way Olenna and Kevan systematically cuts down Cersei's feeble attempts to regain power is hilarious, and as with all Small Council scenes, it's a treat to watch. "We can't make you leave, but you can't make us stay" indeed.

It's nice to see Grand Maester Pycelle return again, really an underutilized character in these later seasons. His quick transition from ranting about the zombie Mountain to shitting his pants to returning into a doddering senile idiot... well, Cersei's certainly no Tywin or Tyrion, since she doesn't really seem to notice that bit.

Anyway, King's Landing ends up with Cersei and Jaime sitting in an empty room, their only allies being the insane Qyburn and the brainless Mountain. The loyalties of the Small Council lie with Tommen, who is a bit of a pushover from all sides, as well as Kevan and Olenna, both uninterested with the twins' selfish vendetta. Also they both kind of hate Cersei Lannister quite justifiably. 

While Tyrion is participating in an attempt to get Grey Worm and Missandei to engage in conversation -- apparently a far harder task than talking to the dragons last week -- Varys is being quite busy. He interrogates that one Harpy woman that seduced that one Unsullied soldier way back in season four or five or whatever, and doesn't torture or make threats against her son, no. Varys makes it clear that he knows the Harpy's weakness, but he doesn't threaten the child. I'm not sure if it's because of some personal code of honour or blatant lies, but he does give a far better option. Give him information, and in return, Varys will make her 'happy' by means of passage out of all this mess to, well, elsewhere. Away from the assassins of the Harpy fanatics, and definitely a far better option than having her head chopped off. 

The big revelation that it's the wise masters of Astapor, Yunkai and the other cities that Daenerys had subjugated in seasons two through four isn't a big surprise, honestly. So these other slave-drivers are sponsoring the Harpies. Now the question is, really, what will Varys and Tyrion do about it? 

Daenerys, meanwhile, is brought before the widows of Vaes Dothrak. We get a far, far more majestic portrayal of Vaes Dothrak with far more extras and giant horse statues than we ever got with the Dothraki before, and Daenerys is stripped of her power and her blue clothes, re-dressed in Dothraki widow garb. Her attempts to flex her authority muscles are crushed as the old ladies there are former Khal wives as well, and their Khals, too, once promised that they would rule the world just as Khal Drogo did. Now the big conflict, really, is that Daenerys Targaryen did not surrender herself to Vaes Dothrak immediately after Khal Drogo's death as Dothraki Khaleesis are wont to, so there's going to be a trial to see if she'll die or be forced to live in that Dothraki nunnery with other old ladies. Or something.

Again, though, she has a fucking dragon. Once Drogon gets off his little tantrum and bothers to come back... I mean, you could count on Sir Friendzone and Sir Loverboy to come rescue her, but I prefer Drogon, because, y'know, he's a motherfucking dragon.

For Arya Stark... Or, rather, "a girl", she continues to be depersonalized. We get to see a bit of a montage as she gets brought back to the coven of the Faceless Men, and is further abused and trained, being asked personal questions about her. Or rather, about Arya Stark, her previous identity. We're not quite sure how much of it is just Arya playing along for the sake of her life, or if she truly has been brainwashed. Her deadpan expression through all this is quite ambiguous. But we get the Waif questioning her about "Arya Stark's list", which she mentions is quite short. Arya has apparently crossed the Hound off her list, both wanting him dead and not wanting him dead at the same time. Will the Hound return? I freaking hope so, certainly. Dude's got a great 'death' scene but he's too cool to leave dead, dammit!

Also, Jaqen H'gahr who may or may not be the Jaqen from season three ends up telling Arya to drink from that poison pool. She does, because she is 'no one', and is rewarded with her eyesight again. And she just managed to unlock Daredevil senses and block the Waif, too! Now whether Arya Stark can break free of this insane cult, or if the Faceless Men have a particularly insane 'training from hell' regimen... or whatever the fuck their deal is... well.

In Winterfell we don't see the little party with Sansa, Theon, Brienne and Pod at all, but rather focus on Ramsay Bolton's ascension into a ruler. Which is quite less fun for him than feeding mothers and babies to dogs. While the Karstark representative was quite the yes-man for Ramsay, he is beset with Smalljon Umber, son to Greatjon Umber, the dude whose arm was eaten by Robb's direwolf and ends up being his right-hand man. The Umbers have since been relegated to the bare minimum role in season two, so much that Greatjon Umber wasn't even present in the Red Wedding and died off-screen here. 

Smalljon Umber, whose favourite word is 'cunt', stands up against Ramsay in the most satisfying way ever. He refuses to kiss Ramsay's hand or bend the knee, telling him to fuck off, insulting the Karstark fellow by calling him a pedophile, and straight-up tells Ramsay that he killed his father and there's no use pretending otherwise. Smalljon Umber's a, well, cunt, but he's awesome! But he enters an alliance of convenience with Ramsay because he hates the Starks, and he doesn't want Jon Snow to lead an army of wildlings down because his territories are the closest to the Wall. Now Ramsay doesn't take shit from anyone, and while Smalljon's alliance does mean that he has control of two of the biggest families of the North... the fact that Smalljon can so blatantly refuse to kowtow to Ramsay is probably signs of his rule fraying.

Alas, Ramsay Bolton is presented with two captives. No, not Sansa and Theon... but rather, Osha and Rickon Stark, who has been out of focus since forever. Also, the head of poor Shaggydog, who died off-screen. Man, lotsa off-screen deaths in this one. Ramsay finally gets his hands on two likable characters again, and we all know what he does to likable characters. Hopefully Rickon ends up faring better than Theon did and survives with his genitals intact, and Osha ends up faring better than Sansa did and survives without getting raped. Because, well, Ramsay likes his women 'wild', apparently. Man, poor Osha and poor Rickon. And this does mean that, well, Ramsay has a Stark under his control once more.

Who the fuck expected Rickon Stark to be relevant to the plot in this way? Awesome job, storywriters!

Oh, and framing the episode is Jon Snow rising up from the dead. The opening scene is a bit more optimistic and haunting, with Dolorous Edd, Tormund Giantsbane, Ser Davos Seaworth and Melisandre all having their own points of view about Jon coming back to life. Davos is just desperate for an answer, Edd is confused but happy that it is Jon, Melisandre rants about some big destiny in store... and Tormund makes a dick joke. Never change, Tormund.

The final scene shows the execution of the ringleaders of Jon's death. And like what he always did, Jon Snow wields the sword that executes the condemned. Bowen Marsh and Yarwyck never did a lot in the show, but Jon gets a final scene with Alliser Thorne. How much of Thorne's rebellion is out of a sense of misguided duty, and how much because of his resentment to Jon Snow? I could argue either way for hours, and Thorne is, I think, one of the nicely complex minor characters of this show. Thorne is unapologetic and has balls enough to tell Jon that he still thinks it's the right thing to do, and is the only one out of the four to have his head raised high in anticipation of his death by hanging. Thorne does tell Jon that, well, he won't ever stop fighting, which probably participated in Jon's decision later.

Oh, and there's that little twat of a kid, Ollie. Unlike Thorne, no one feels sorry for this cunt. A kid he may be, but his death is one of the rare times in Game of Thrones where I'm glad the show does not spare children from deaths.

And then Jon takes off his Night Watch's Commander cloak and hands it off to Edd, telling him to wear it or burn it or whatever, because Jon Snow doesn't give two shits about the Night's Watch anymore and heads off. I mean, yeah, the oath does say 'to the death', and technically Jon did die. Now how much of it is Jon running away from all the destiny and all the insane responsibilities hanging upon him, having to broker peace between wildlings and night brothers, fighting the White Walkers, dealing with all the insane politics of the world while his family die left and right? And, the bigger question... what will Jon Snow do now?

All great cliffhangers, really -- Jon, Ned, Ramsay, Cersei, Tommen, Varys, Tyrion -- all the 'what will they do now's are piling up, and it will be interesting to see all these conflicts unfold. It's definitely an eventful episode. Really excited for next week, though that is honestly quite a given. 

Legends of Tomorrow S01E11 Review: Jonah Hex, Past Kendra and Rip's Failures

Legends of Tomorrow, Season 1, Episode 11: The Magnificent Eight

Not played by Josh Brolin. He's busy courting death.

Yeah, we don't get anywhere closer to stopping Vandal Savage this episode, and it's ultimately cowboy filler, but what a fun episode this is! In the series of disappointingly-plotted episodes that is episodes 10-13, there is this little fun gem. It won't be mistaken for a big, pivotal episode, and really it will be remembered for the episode where they played cowboys, but it was fun to watch nonetheless.

Jonah Hex himself doesn't get really that big of a role to play in this episode, and quite surprisingly he doesn't get an origin story here, but he was still really fun to have around. He doesn't have any of the voodoo powers that his live-action counterpart had (and it's far more true to his comic-book counterpart), and I thought it was a shame that the big cowboy shootouts ended up falling to Ray and Rip, but he was still memorable. The fact that the small-time cowboy town is apparently a convergence point where a lot of time travel had happened before, and the fact that Jonah Hex is totally acquainted with Rip Hunter is a welcome development that makes Hex a lot cooler than he should be. Maybe Jonah Hex himself can be a main character in a future Legends of Tomorrow season? He's just sort of there, memorable enough but doesn't distract from the main Legends team. Kinda like how Barry Allen was in his appearance in Arrow, I guess.

We get some nice moments for Rip Hunter, and we see why he was so jaded about leaving time as it is. Apparently he had became addicted to the Western period and had spent some time cowboying it around with Jonah Hex before, and while nothing ultimately came out of it, seeing yet another reminder of how Rip fucked up in the past is a nice touch. The shared backstory, and the cryptic allusions we get to it, is welcome. Apparently Rip's cowboy coat and his son's name came from Jonah Hex. It's a nice nod and inversion of how Jonah Hex has been thrown into the future several times in DC's attempts to make this scarfaced cowboy relevant in the mainstream universe.

Kendra met her past reincarnated self, this fat lady, who tells her some cryptic relationship advice that dating non-Carter men would only lead to disaster. It's an eyeball-rolling moment, really, even if they touch upon the reincarnation bit which is much appreciated. It really felt like a distraction to all the more awesome cowboying around we had in this episode, though, and yet another example of the show trying to inject pointless romantic tension into a show that really doesn't need it. Sara went along with Kendra to try to at least stop that particular B-plot from suffering, and, well, Sara is a hell lot more entertaining than Kendra ever will be.

Likewise, the B-plot of Martin Stein saving H.G. Wells with antibiotics is fun though ultimately pointless. (When they said 'Wells' I honestly thought he was going to be Harrison Wells' ancestor, though!) Unlike Kendra, however, Stein's plot doesn't take up that much screentime and is nowhere as annoying.

After the fight against the gangsters where Rip quickdraws the fuck out of the evil cowboy man, the Time Masters' assassins, the Hunters (who Heat Wave built up to be super-powerful dudes) show up and... ended up not really worth a damn, actually, with the Legends team wiping the three faceless dudes out in record time. It's a fun battle, but the Hunters going all 'we're just fodder, the Pilgrim will be coming hur hur' is a bit stupid, honestly. Especially since we all know this random assassin will probably be defeated next episode. It is helluva satisfying to see the Legends team drop all pretenses of being normal cowboys and start sprouting wings, lobbing fireballs and shrinking down in the Wild West.

Jonah Hex going all 'yeah I've seen everything nothing surprises me' and later on shocked and then calmly crossing himself when Firestorm combines is the most hilarious scene in the CW universe.

Also, Mick Rory has been slowly, over the course of this episode and the two before it, slowly been reintegrated into the team. He's letting his guard down, and while he's not really being all friendly and buddy-buddy as he was before, he still knows where he stands, and even lets his guard down a bit with that drinking contest with Sara in the bar. (He lost!). Captain Cold also gets a couple of cool moments shooting the cowboy in that bar to protect Stein, and he's generally just awesome throughout this episode. 

The episode also has a nice, central theme of not allowing destiny to dictate their actions. After kind of failing with Degaton last episode, and Jonah Hex reminding Rip of causing a city to be razed in the past, the episode shows how the characters are choosing to basically say screw destiny and screw keeping the timeline intact if they can do these small things to help the people in their present. Whether it's Martin giving antibiotics, or Ray and Hex fighting against the cowboy bandits... and, um, Kendra... loving Ray instead of holding a torch for the dead Carter? Yeah, Kendra's subplot is just dumb.

Overall, it's definitely a solid episode. A filler episode, yes, but an unmistakably solid one. And that's coming from someone who doesn't even like Westerns! 

Agents of SHIELD S03E11 Review: The War Continues

Agents of SHIELD, Season 3, Episode 11: Bouncing Back

I said I'm catching up on reviewing all the superhero shows this month*, and by golly I'm doing it! I've been neglecting Agents of SHIELD for the past two months, though, and it's about time I start catching up on that.

*except for Gotham

Agents of SHIELD has been on uneven footing with how season two ended, and being compared with its far more excellent Netflix siblings can't be good for its reputation. The fact that this episode apparently started with a 'hey, this catastrophic event will happen in the future!' a la Arrow also doesn't fill me with confidence. Oh, golly, a spaceship exploding above Earth with someone apparently dead in it (apparently Elena, the Inhuman introduced this episode). I honestly am never a fan of these kind of in media res scenes, because it saps a good chunk of tension since, well, it's going to be inevitable that said scene will happen.

But the rest of this episode was quite brilliant! It builds up with Gideon Malick's band of Hydra coming into terms with its new leadership in the mysterious alien Inhuman inhabiting Grant Ward's body. Meanwhile, SHIELD has to deal with a couple new Inhumans, namely Elena Rodriguez, otherwise known as Yo-Yo or Slingshot in the comics. She's got a cool variation on the superspeed power, in that she slingshots between where she wants to go and her current position in the duration of a heartbeat. Yo-Yo is an obscure enough character that I have no idea who she is, and it's curious to see if she's going to be just a generic villain-of-the-week (albeit a sympathetic one) or if she's going to be a prospective ally. We get a pretty standard miscommunication plot as SHIELD hunts Elena down for stealing weapons from the police. Apparently Elena and her cousin are a member of freedom fighters (Elena being somewhat duped by her cousin), who are fighting the semi-dictator regime led by a different Inhuman, officer Lucio, who has Medusa-Eyes power. Lucio is suitably creepy with minimal dialogue, and it's a great action scene as it took Skye, Joey and Elena's combined efforts to bring him down. 

In other words, Joey is an understated awesome part of the show. He might be more civilian than agent, but holy shit, he melts Lucio's glasses to his face!

And while this is all quite interesting, the bit where Gideon Malick and his flunky Giyera is trying to assess what Not-Ward is capable of doing, and what his true agenda is, ends up being the more interesting part of the show. Not-Ward almost appears to kill Giyera, but it seems more akin to a display of his powers that wins out Giyera's loyalty. Hydra also manages to capture officer Lucio and bring him before Not-Ward for some nefarious purpose. It's odd that SHIELD doesn't go to shoot down that Hydra vessel, but I guess they're less concerned about Lucio than they are about Elena. It's a victory for both SHIELD and Hydra, with SHIELD gaining a new Inhuman ally and another potential candidate for Skye's (it's going to be difficult to refer to her as Daisy) growing Secret Warriors team, while Hydra themselves are gathering Inhumans for nefarious purposes.

Not-Ward (or Maveth, or It, or Hydra, or whatever you want to call him because his name doesn't get revealed for a couple more episodes) is a nicely different villain from Grant Ward, and the makeup team does a pretty great job portraying his emancipated state.

There's a bit of a subplot with Werner Von Strucker, having been brain-dead since we last saw him, being put into the Tahiti machine to see what's going on in his head. Lincoln gets to do stuff to stimulate his brain, which is gruesome and awesome at the same time. 

We get a welcome minor role from President Ellis (reprised by the same actor from Iron Man 3) who establishes that Gideon Malick is still technically untouchable thanks to his many connections and lack of evidence, but Coulson isn't taking it laying down and he calls Malick to lay the cards down that he's not fucking around. SHIELD is finally authorized under the government again, albeit using the ATCU as their public front. We brought back Talbot (who, in a soberingly sad scene, is on bad terms with his family) and he's apparently going to be the head of ATCU. It's going to be fun to see him interact with Coulson, if nothing else.

It's a bit clunky, but we showed some other pretty nice scenes. Fitz and Simmons' reconciliation is delightfully underplayed yet suitably dramatic and heartwarming enough, not hyped up to be an episode-long drama like some lesser show would. Coulson talking about his guilt in coldly executing Ward is well done as well. Mack had some great scenes with Elena that's sure to get all the shipping wheels going on. Skye and Lincoln are definitely being an official ship, and... it makes sense, I guess? I don't particularly care either way. 

Agents of SHIELD sometimes tries to juggle too many plot threads at once, but sometimes, like this episode, they do so really well. And honestly, being in a position where I've watched but not yet reviewed like the next ten episodes, I can safely say that this is the beginning of a string of great, excellent quality for Agents of SHIELD. 

Legends of Tomorrow S01E10 Review: Per Degaton!

Legends of Tomorrow, Season 1, Episode 10: Progeny

Hail Hydra!

After last week's entertaining episode with Chronos/Heat Wave, it's a bit sad to see the follow-up be so... bland. In theory it would be interesting to see the Legends team travel to another point in the timeline to once more do battle with Vandal Savage. And with the fact that they're fighting Vandal Savage in the future of 2147, they can choose to be slightly more liberal with what they do, since it doesn't technically impact their present-day situation (and prevents viewers from scratching their head at how setting off nuclear explosions in Russian prisons or TerroristCon doesn't change the timeline). 

The backstory of this particular timeline is even quite nice for the short time that it's shown on-screen. The world's taken over by corporations, chief among them one led by Tor Degaton, father to classic DC villain Per Degaton (who, in his comic-book incarnation, is a Nazi with time-travel powers). Oh, and the world of 2147 is suffering from overpopulation, and the only stability to be found is in Tor Degaton's dictator-led nation of Kasnia policed by Iron Sentinels OMACs Atom robots (as if the Iron Man jokes aren't enough already). And in several years Per Degaton will become Future Hitler in releasing an Armageddon virus or whatever which will wipe out a chunk of the population, thus leading Vandal Savage's rise to power in the future. Vandal Savage, of course, is playing the evil vizier, being the Palpatine to Per Degaton's Anakin and whispering in his ear and eventually leading to Per Degaton committing patricide and genocide.

Also Per Degaton was totally name-dropped in the first episode by Rip Hunter, which is a nice little call-forward.

Alas, Degaton really wasn't that memorable a character beyond being basically Child Hitler, though he does manage to raise some interesting moral questions -- whether killing a child to save millions when the child hasn't done anything wrong is ethical. It's a classic dilemma in all time-travel stories, but this episode really fails to be that dramatic, mostly because the final decision on pulling the trigger on Degaton ultimately fell to Rip Hunter, who we all know won't do jack shit to kill the kid. And what Rip did to dissuade Degaton? Two or three cryptic sentences to try and convince him that Vandal Savage is evil. Yeah, three sentences against years and years of Vandal Savage brainwashing. That really won't work, will it? Per Degaton is set up to be caught between loyalties to his father and to Savage, but nothing ultimately came out of it as the Legends did a half-assed job of trying to reform him before buggering off and leaving 2147 to Degaton and Savage's tender mercies.

Seriously, you would think that the likes of Ray Palmer and Martin Stein would ball for Rip Hunter to go to the point where the Armageddon Virus was unleashed and stop it and prevent the deaths of millions if they were not comfortable with killing the child Degaton. Hey, killing the dude when he's grown up into Future Hitler is a different thing, right?

A far more interesting chunk to the plot is Captain Cold and Heat Wave, which I think is something that holds true for every episode, really. The two finally have their dirty, angry confrontation and ended it with a brutal fistfight. Rory kind of lost all desire to escape, though he's still kinda angry at Snart, the two more or less made up by the end of the episode. It played out organically over two episodes, and is one of the better character moments of the show. Sara also had a nice role to play, goading both Rory and Snart into eventually confronting each other and duking it out. Unlike Degaton, there was a threat that either Snart or Rory would seriously injure the other enough to irreparably injure their already-broken friendship, and it's something when two dudes fighting felt more tense than the stop-future-Hitler plot.

Sadly, add a huge chunk of uninteresting side plots and you can just see how much of the time that could've been spent to making the Degaton dilemma interesting be thrown out of the window. Ray and Kendra's romance is just weak, and the long-ass amount of screentime that they spent on whether they should be together really felt like it should have happened, oh, I don't know, before they lived for two years together in the fifties? The random flashbacks to Carter and Kendra's life in the past really felt unnecessary and shoehorned in. 

Ray Palmer's arc is also weak for all the wrong reasons. The fact that the dude was so obsessed with possibly impregnating a random woman (not even Felicity!) and having a child to further his legacy is just... kinda dumb, considering that, hey, he might have gotten married and sired a kid after the events of Legends of Tomorrow. The fact that he was so obsessed with the idea of being a father without knowing he had a child is just dumb when really focusing on his brainchild, the Atom suits, being perverted by Vandal Savage, would've been a far less stupid character arc for him.

The fact that the episode ended with the oddly stupid and pointless twist that Ray's brother was the one behind weaponizing the Atom suits really doesn't add anything to the story either and just felt... strange.

The action scenes in this episode was a nice treat to behold, though, with Firestorm and Hawkgirl going up against the army of Iron Legion Atom drones being pretty cool, with Atom making far more liberal use of his shrinking powers. 

Also, Rip's indecisiveness and stupidity ended up, well, actively aiding Vandal Savage's rise to power in the future as Per Degaton killed his father two years too early, and Savage's rise to power, again, began way too early. At least the show punishes its characters for being such idiots this episode. But still, other than the Rory/Snart moments and the cool robot army fight scenes, a good chunk of this episode are simply poorly-realized good concepts. Which, I think, is a recurring theme for this show in the foreseeable gauntlet of episodes we have left to review. 

Digimon Adventure Tri. M02 Review: And the Plot Thickens

Digimon Tri, Movie 2: Determination

(Nearly two months late, I know...)

Well, that was kinda messy. Digimon Tri tries to pull off the mystery regarding the whole virus and Meicoomon and what happened to the 02 kids over several movies released over the span of two or three years, and very little is revealed to us in this movie. Enough to make us question and speculate, but honestly not really enough to satiate the curiousity we had ever since the first movie. Really, this second movie ended up raising more questions than answering it, and while I don't doubt that the writing team is competent enough to save some things for movie four or five, it's still honestly quite grating when they're wasting time doing random anime school festival and hot bath tropes instead of addressing some of the big questions we have about what's going on.

This particular movie focuses on two of the original kids in particular -- Mimi and Joe, as if the poster didn't already tell you. And it does a good job on that front! It also integrated newcomer Meiko into the group quite seamlessly, and on those two fronts the movie serves a very adequate job. Joe's frustrations about choosing between being a Chosen Child and fighting for the safety of the world versus, well his own problems with his studies and his future is extremely palpable for anyone in the 18-20 age category. His conflict with Gomamon, thinking that he drove his partner out with his constant anti-social tendencies, while Gomamon himself is just going away to keep out of Joe's business, and the raw confrontation between the two, is spectacular. Joe's one of the more unsung heroes of the original Digimon series, and I do love that the movies expanded on it.

Mimi trying to fit in to the school and being ostracized for being so weird and bringing all kinds of gaijin Western philosophy into Japan and talking/acting first before she thinks is also portrayed well. Over the course of the original series Mimi grew from being the load of the team into, well, someone who ends up finding her niche pretty well. And, after facing off against evil psycho-clowns and demonic abominations, something like a class-event concert certainly won't faze Mimi. This all comes to a head when both as a Chosen Child and as a student, Mimi kinda fucks up. Charging in to fight Ogremon without waiting for backup (and despite being told to wait for everyone to arrive) just to give the 'good guys' some good PR ends up backfiring so bad, and she gets confronted by a bunch of her fellow students. Mimi is forced to think about herself, whether she's selfish and thoughtless, and ends up finding a happy medium between the two.

Meiko, I think, is one of the catalysts for Mimi's character growth. Mimi's the most outgoing of the group and integrates Meiko almost immediately and keeps finding ways to drag her along and get her to loosen up and have fun. And both Meiko and Meicoomon have enough personalities as far as the screentime they're allotted allows them -- Meiko's shy but ultimately loyal to her friends, while Meicoomon is just a childish, pampered fellow, right until the sudden plot twist that, hey, the Mary-Sue-looking Digimon ends up being a plot device.

But honestly this movie just doesn't have enough meat to stand on its own. Even taking it as a second installment, there is just so much filler going on in this movie that it's hard to pay attention. We get a very long sequence in the hot springs, which is fun! Having the digimon get more scenes is great. We get Biyomon and Meicoomon caught in some hijinks. But it just went on for way too long and I think some of the overtly fanservicey moments in the hot springs (both for the boys and girls) end up just being padding. Add that to the extended school festival bit at the end, and it just becomes tiresome. I mean, I get that it works to display Mimi being reckless in both combat and civilian life, but any moment in that school festival without Mimi just feels like stupid padding. All the long, extended sequences with the cheerleader outfit and all that bullshit could've been cut to one-third of their length and still have the same impact. 

While we get another classic first-season Digimon supporting character as Leomon (who apparently came back to life off-screen) shows up, helping the Chosen Children to subdue a berserk Ogremon -- we don't find out, ever, what happened to Ogremon and if Leomon keeps him chained up somewhere. Leomon shows up and talks a bit about the virus but ultimately other than some cryptic email sent to Koushiro we don't learn much.

Near the end, Ken in full Digimon Kaiser outfit shows up for no reason (and it even appears that he's just like a hologram or something) to kidnap Meicoomon and the original Chosen Children are just being quiet about what happened to the Zero Two cast. Leomon, Gomamon and Palmon get trapped in this trippy dimension and are forced to fight a shadowy version Imperialdramon... okay, the fanboy in me can't help but just be happy at seeing this, including Gomamon and Palmon finally being allowed to reach their final forms (Rosemon, I think, actually goes into Digimon Savers' Burst Modef or a second)... but fanboyism and great visuals aside, nothing ultimately gets answered by that fight. Meicoomon kills Leomon just because she can, before buggering off.

The other characters don't end up doing much. Koushiro has some funny moments being easily screwed with the mysterious Maki (who's totally evil, or pretending to be evil) sending him fanservice photos of Mimi, and we get some obligatory Taichi/Yamato still having friction with each other thanks to Omegamon splitting last movie, and Hikari gets a short moment with Joe and Taichi asking all the hard questions. Sora is there to bounce dialogue off, and Takeru barely did anything. Ultimately, it's still watchable despite the filler and probably would stand up better once we can watch Digimon Tri in one fall swoop, but as it is, they really need to pick things up if they want Digimon Tri to revitalize the franchise and be remembered as a good series. 

The Flash S02E20 Review: Death of the Flash

The Flash, Season 2, Episode 20: Rupture

Well they're just intent on jamming up the season's last leg with filler episodes, aren't they? Kudos to the writing team for finally getting Zoom to actually do something instead of looming around being a menacing threat. Zoom finally starts off his invasion of Earth-1 by showing up in the police station and going all 'boo!' before... spending almost the entire episode doing nothing, happy to let his flunky footsoldier Rupture handle all the terrorizing instead of, y'know, taking care of everything himself. I mean, it's not like he's got any bigger plans to do. Also, for all of Wells' talk about Zoom controlling an army of metahumans, we only ever see one or two out in action at a time. I mean, an army of faceless metahumans shooting generic fireballs or whatever would've been cool -- they did it over in Supergirl -- but, nah, have a dude with a generic energy scythe weapon.

Also, why not train Vibe to actually fight? Having the Earth-2 version of his brother show up and then having Cisco play the absolute minimum role in defeating him just seems like a wasted opportunity. We get some token reconciliation between Dante and Cisco which I honestly don't really even care about! Dante could've disappeared from the episode after Cisco meeting him in the bar and the episode wouldn't be any worse for it. Rupture has a pretty decent-looking costume and an awesome name (and apparently a faithful adaptation of a New 52 Vibe villain), I admit, but he's a lousy-ass villain who really failed to pose a threat even with the Flash depowered. And any real impact from the Ramon brothers was kinda... well, not there at all.

Nope, not Star-Lord.

Barry also adamantly refuses to try and at least regain his speed, which is just utterly dumb. I mean, it's one thing when they're just facing low-level villains like the Mist or the Geomancer, but this is a Zoom-led invasion, someone they cannot defeat even with a powered-up Barry. I keep agreeing with Wells that they need to stand and fight, but for some inexplicable reason Barry just pussies out and spends his time not trying to find a way to take down Zoom, but go around and getting all three of his father-figures into an argument on whether to endanger Barry's life. At the cost of the lives of like two dozen policemen, thank you very much. Yeah, there is some degree of moping and self-pity allowed for superheroes, but this is just kinda blah, especially since we already spent last episode with just exactly that. 

And then they do the experiment anyway and Barry gets eaten by the speed force, so oops! Thankfully Wally West and Jesse Wells get caught in the speed-giving wave, so the real Flash and Jesse Quick can perhaps show Zoom a one-two next episode. Screw Barry, he's an idiot. Go cool your head off in the speed force.

Also in addition to all that, we get a bunch of bad plotlines being pulled out again for the sake of having groan-worthy side-plots. Henry Allen gives a not-so-subtle hint that, hey, his mother was 'Garrick' too, so maybe the real Jay Garrick is actually Earth-2 Henry Allen! Man in the mask and all that! Yeah, no one saw that coming [/sarcasm]. Also the Barry-Iris shipping finally slaps us in the face, though at least they've devoted some screentime to this creepy borderline-incest shipping unlike Caitlin-Jay which was and still is dumb. 

Also, 'Barry is dead' is kind of a eye-rolling cliffhanger especially since we know Barry Allen will show up alive and well with super-speed to attend that funeral in Arrow, if the idea of killing off the main character isn't already eye-rolling in itself.

They really could've gone in a lot of better ways in incorporating Barry's struggles on choosing to brave the dangers of recreating his origin story, in exploring the ethics and conflict of recreating the particle explosion, in incorporating Rupture and Cisco, in building up Zoom as an actual threat... we could've had a half-decent story. Alas, this is just really badly written and inconsistently paced. Hey, do better in the finale, okay?