Batman Beyond S03E01-03 Review: Poker Face

Batman Beyond, Season 3, Episodes 1-3:

I had intended to publish this like, way back in late 2020, but I just hit a huge roadblock in both watching and writing. I'm going to proofread these and slowly release them over this month -- been really busy so I had no time to do new posts.

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Episode 1: King's Ransom

Anyway, as we enter the final season of Batman Beyond I feel that it's kind of important to note that back in the day, we really didn't have some sort of huge, overarching plot. I think it was Superman: The Animated Series that actually ended things with a huge bang at its season finales with Darkseid-related episodes, and both Justice League and especially Justice League: Unlimited had multiple storylines that felt like serialization. But that's not to say that the designers behind Batman Beyond wasn't at least thinking about wrapping loose plot threads up. Which means more recurring enemies!

"King's Ransom" features the final episode of the Royal Flush Gang, which have fallen on a bit of hard times. Without Ten, the gang isn't doing particularly well, and the prologue fight against Batman leaves the android Ace damaged and Jack captured. To make matters worse, their client, Paxton Powers (making his return from season one!) refuses to pay full price for the damaged artifact that King gives him. The whole theme of this episode is basically what terrible people King and Queen are, and how dysfunctional the two's partnership and marriage are. There's an interesting bit of world-building here with the revelation that the Royal Flush Gang is apparently a hereditary thing (we see them chronologically earlier in JLA!) from Queen's side of the family, and the most interesting part is that we see a fight between antagonists, with King and Queen holding Paxton Powers ransom.

I do like the increasing amounts of treachery and gambit tossed on top of each other. King demands Wayne-Powers to pay the ransom. Bruce Wayne refuses to pay said ransom. The Royal Flush Gang refuses to have any of Paxton's people involved. Paxton is forced to call Bruce Wayne, but then realizes he'll be ruined if Bruce Wayne makes the existence of his illegal art collection public, then hires the Royal Flush Gang to kill Bruce. We get a huge fight (involving Ace the Bat-Hound!) before we get the ultimate revelation: King betrays Queen, and the whole deal has been King making a huge plan with his mistress, Ms. Thorpe, Paxton's assassin-secretary. Ultimately, Batman arrives and stops Queen from killing King; while Commissioner Gordon arrests Paxton. 

There's also the Ten/Melanie B-plot storyline, of course, with the frosty way that she ended things with Terry in their last episode. Melanie is basically making an honest living working at a restaurant. It's... it's all right, and the ending basically has Jack seek out his sister and the two siblings make an honest living while the parents rot in jail. I can't honestly say that I care too much about them, but that's a neat little bow to tie for these characters. 

It's... it's an all right episode. It was paced a bit unevenly, but I did like the increasing pile of gambits that the members of the Royal Flush Gang just increasingly pile on each other, and the full revelation of King's plans. It's not a particularly creative solution, admittedly, and it's something I've seen before even in this show, but it's a solid episode regardless that gives both the Royal Flush Gang and Paxton Powers a fitting conclusion. 

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Episode 2: Untouchable

I don't like calling an episode in a non-serialized show as a 'filler' episode, but this is basically one, yeah? It's a completely standalone episode with a one-off villain that the episode does away with at the end of the half-hour. The concept is pretty standard sci-fi stuff, with a mystery revolving a supervillain called the Repeller, who has an electromagnetic forcefield which allows him to block everything that Batman has to throw at him, and even survive having molten slag metal poured on top of him. Through an investigation, Bruce and Terry realized that Wayne-Powers has set up a clinic with people with deficient immune systems, who can't live outside of sterile environments, and one of the technological advances they had made is something called an 'Iso Field', which creates a bubble of sterile atmosphere around them. 

Terry befriends Irene, one of the girls who quite literally has never touched anything in the outside world, and a rather good chunk of the episode is devoted to Terry befriending Irene... or the reaction of Terry's jealous girlfriend Dana when Terry keeps bringing Irene up. I'm not sure if this season will have a lot more in the Terry/Dana relationship storyline, though it's... it's honestly just kind of there. I wouldn't say that the relationship and dialogue are poorly written, because I've seen poorly written. But I won't lie and say that I'm anything but entirely indifferent to this storyline. Hell, Terry maybe even having feelings for someone that's not Dana is explored so much better in the Ten episode. Anyway, because status quo is god, ultimately at the end of the episode turns out that Irene has a boyfriend all along, which means that this storyline really brought absolutely nothing to the table. 

The actual mystery as to who the Repeller is ends up being relatively simple. There's an angry doctor that's confrontational to both Bruce and Terry and is strict towards Irene, and, surprise surprise, turns out that he's just a strict doctor who's the red herring. The much more background-looking doctor turns out to be the real Repeller, intending to use the technology and sell it to supervillains. Classic Scooby-Doo misdirection, but neither Dr. Suzuki nor Dr. Blades are really characters that are interesting enough for me to really care either way, and I feel like earlier season two episodes like "Armory" or "Payback" deal with the mystery game of who's the supervillain much, much better. 

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Episode 3: Inqueling

Another interesting one? This one is the last episode for Inque, another one of Batman Beyond's recurring villains, and when looking at the title I thought it's just a remake of "Growing Pains" from Batman: The Animated Series, but with Inque in the place of Clayface. Well, that's not the case! After a disastrous encounter with a client equipped with a special sci-fi gun, Inque founds himself wounded and desperate. She ends up looking for the aid of her biological daughter Deanna. It's an interesting situation they have here, where Inque has been sending money to Deanna, who grew up essentially alone, but hasn't even shown up once in her life prior to this episode.

There's a lot to be said here about their relationship, I feel, especially at the end of the episode where Deanna betrays Inque for essentially leaving her to fend for herself, while throughout the episode Inque has been basically extremely motherly and genuinely looks happy to see that her daughter has grown to be at least a little bit of a criminal like her. And honestly, even Inque's reasons for leaving Deanna behind -- she was on the run -- isn't even all that bad! And she's sending money to her daughter... but there's also the fact that she really could've made contact at any point before this. But then a good part of Deanna's anger towards her mother is basically the feeling of abandonment. I do feel like the fact that Deanna betrays Inque for what's essentially partially revenge and partially greed makes her so much more interesting than if she was just "I'm a good child and my parent is a villain, and it's the right thing to do". We don't really get much more out of the pair since the episode has ended, but I feel like the relationship between the two is told solidly enough in this episode that it's pretty satisfactory. 

On the good guys' side, this is a rare Batman Beyond episode without Bruce Wayne, who's off on a trip, so the entire episode hinges on Terry and Max trying to stop Inque on their own. I do really like the brief moment of vulnerability where Terry tells max that he felt like he let down Bruce that one time he screwed up and brought Inque into the Batcave, and now he basically has something to prove to his mentor. I do like that there's a slight parallel between Terry and his surrogate parent, and Deanna and her biological parent.

There's also a B-plot here where Terry blows off Dana for a date several times and I wonder if this season will have a Terry/Dana subplot running through its episodes? Unlike the previous one, though, Dana is very understanding in this one, because she thinks Terry basically sees Old Man Bruce as the father he never had. It's neat. 

The episode, as mentioned above, ultimately ends with Deanna cooperating with Inque and getting more and more funds from her to fund their little criminal enterprise, before Batman ultimately hunts them down and faces off against Inque and her daughter in a mutagenic laboratory. Interestingly, following the running pattern of Inque consistently beating Batman in fights, she still has the upper hand against Batman and very nearly kills him until the tainted mutagenic serum that her daughter gave her causes her to dissolve. 

The ending is most certainly something that the TAS team kind of likes -- they did this with Riddler in a very memorable episode in Batman: TAS, and a variation with this with Paxton Powers and Blight. But Deanna is relaxing on her new penthouse pool, seemingly having scammed her mother for all of her supervillain money. Batman arrives, giving Deanna a warning that "Inque has been dead before", leaving Deanna in a state of paranoia, and we're not sure if the shadow morphing into Inque's eye is part of her imagination or if Inque has, indeed, reformed and out for revenge. Ultimately, a very solid episode. 

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DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The events of "Ascension" is briefly brought up several times in the conversations between Bruce and Paxton. 
• The city of Bludhaven is noted in "Untouchable" as the location of a nuclear testing facility. In the comics, Bludhaven is the 'sister city' to Gotham and the location of many of Nightwing's exploits.
• Both Batman and Inque bring up the events of the episodes of her previous encounters with Batman in "Disappearing Inque" and "Black Out". In particular, Terry still feels guilty for letting Inque into the Batcave in latter. 
• The ending of "Inqueling", featuring a secondary villain seemingly getting away scot-free after the primary villain is seemingly killed, but then living a life of paranoia when Batman informs him/her that the death isn't confirmed, is similar to the fate of Daniel Mockridge in the Batman: TAS episode "If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?", where Mockridge spends the rest of his days afraid of when Riddler is going to take his revenge. 

Hawkeye S01E06 Review: The Kingpin of Crime

Hawkeye, Season 1, Episode 6: So This Is Christmas

And so Hawkeye ends its six-episode run, and... it's a fun enough finale! Not everything is wrapped up, and the show does struggle a bit in juggling its many, many characters. It also suffers a bit from not knowing what it wants to do with some of them (Maya, for example, is obviously being saved for her own TV series) but all and all, it's a pretty fun end that fits the show. I do agree that Hawkeye could have very much used an extra episode or made this one slightly longer. It wasn't quite as bad as Kang's introduction at the end of Loki, but Kingpin and his dynamics with Maya and Eleanor does feel kind of rushed. Especially if the audience members in question haven't actually seen Daredevil -- a distinct possibility considering how oddly the MCU has been handling their Netflix IP's. 

There's a conclusion and all the characters involved do get a bit of a shine, but ripping off the band-aid first... a lot of the emotional thoroughlines don't really work quite as well. Clint and Yelena's scene are... it isn't weak by any means. Renner and Pugh deliver pretty great performances and it's not like the scripting is weak, but I really did feel like they simultaneously drag that scene a bit too long and also resolve it without too much satisfaction. Likewise, while we're lost in all the action scenes, I guess last episode of 'deal with it' is the show's answer to Clint and his Ronin persona. Sure, he burns the suit at the end, but we never really got any kind of discussion on Clint's stint as a mass-murdering vigilante. 

Another one that didn't really work as well is Kingpin and Maya. We are told that Kingpin's relationship with Maya is like an adoptive father, and as always, Vincent D'Onofrio brings his A-game when he interacts with Maya and shows the tenderness of a father early in the episode, but it really does feel too little, too late. Again, it's not as bad as Loki or Falcon and the Winter Soldier's respective messy final episodes, but I really did feel like introducing Kingpin to us an episode earlier to establish the Kingpin/Maya/Kazi dynamic would've worked so much better. 

Eleanor Bishop is also... she's kind of stifled, easily the least interesting character next to the antagonists that are Kingpin, Yelena and Maya. The only reason we really care about her is just her relationship to Kate, and while we do get a confrontation, I felt like it wasn't quite as dramatic as it could've been. Again, none of these complains are enough to ruin what's otherwise a pretty solid action-packed finale, but all together it's kind of noticeable that this probably could've done with either an extra episode or a bit more polish.

Oh, and Jack Duquesne really is just a dork with sword skills, and there's absolutely nothing to do with his comic-book Swordsman alter-ego. Kind of annoying considering how long they dragged Jack as a red herring, but okay. 

But! But but but! With those out of the way, the rest of the episode is genuinely fun. Kingpin's entrance to the story is absolutely threatening and amazing. We do admittedly just throw the entire thing about the mystery story out the window in favour of an action-packed episode -- Kingpin's behind everything; Eleanor's been working as Kingpin's minion because her husband owed Kingpin money*, Jack was framed, and Eleanor now wants out, causing Kingpin to, predictably, get super-duper angry. At least he didn't bash her skull in with a car door. 

(*Her dad being a criminal is an angst-source for Kate that really didn't get touched upon)

And that ends up being the setup for the final fight in a party. Yelena wants to come in to murder Clint. Kingpin's men wants to murder Eleanor. Clint and Kate have to stop them both, and tossed into all of this is Maya and her realization that Kingpin was the one who set her dad up to die. Actually, let's talk about Maya first -- introduced as a sympathetic antagonist who seems to be there to hold Clint accountable for his actions as Ronin, all of that just sort of petered out and that's kind of felt like we got a rushed version of what would be the first arc in her TV show here. It doesn't help that her screentime with Kingpin, while powerful, was also very short -- while her relationship with Kazi is so on the sidelines that it barely registered. 

And as much as I adored the return of one of my favourite live-action supervillains ever, Kingpin is... well, his performances are as amazing as ever, but he really doesn't quite have the same amount of personal enmity towards the Hawkeyes as Maya, Yelena or Kazi had. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely enjoyed him taking his way through Kate's trick arrows, and we're definitely working by comic-book rules and there's no way Kingpin is dead, but the audience members who haven't watched Daredevil are probably confused at who this random big guy is that's stealing the show in the final episode; while those that watched Daredevil probably wouldn't have any sort of satisfaction seeing the character apparently-killed by Maya. 

Still... the action scenes are amazing and fun in this episode. Let's be honest and I'll just state flat-out that I really didn't give two shits about the LARPers and the episode would've worked so much better without them, but there's so many good stuff here. My fanboy soul definitely got excited about Kingpin and Yelena being involved so heavily! Hell, Kate-vs-Yelena's friendly superhero fighting more than fills in the quota for comedy for me -- and they are actually fun! From Kate pressing all the buttons on the elevator, to their oner fight through the office rooms, to Kate trying to follow Yelena's rappel down... it's pretty great! Other standouts also include Kate's fight against Kingpin in the toy store; Clint actually making good on his boast of splitting an arrow with a second arrow; and the two Hawkeyes standing back to back and unleashing holy hell with their trick arrows. 

The episode ends with a couple of questions -- Maya/Kingpin will undoubtedly be the focus of the 'Echo' TV show coming soon. Kazi's dead, Yelena's forgiven Clint and Eleanor's arrested. Oh, and that weird watch that was the focus of the earlier episodes belonged to Laura Barton, apparently... because the episode closes off with, well, the happy ending that Clint manages to get home in time for Christmas -- bringing along two 'strays' as Kate Bishop and Lucky the Pizza Dog to their family. And... and the review might show that I'm complaining a lot, but I really am not -- this has been a really, really fun finale. The show as a whole isn't perfect, but with the more flippant and fun-loving tone that it has, I feel like it does strike a great enough balance. It most certainly delivered at introducing Kate Bishop and making her likable, but most of all, I can't get enough of tired-old-dad Clint Barton. 

Good stuff! Hopefully sometime in the upcoming year I'll have the energy to slowly review the Phase 3 MCU movies (I've watched all the Phase 4 movies to date, but I kind of want to release them in chronological order), but you guys can expect me back with episodic Disney+ reviews. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• In addition to receiving his comic-book counterpart's iconic diamond-capped cane, Kingpin later dons the red-and-white hawaiian shirt taken from Spider-Man: Family Business.
  
• Kingpin and Maya having a conversation about seeing 'eye to eye' before she shoots him is also taken from the comics, although there (and I suspect here), Kingpin is merely shot in the eyes and blinded. 
• Hawkeye's new costume is based on how his modern counterpart is often portrayed, most notably in the Ultimate comics. 
• The cufflinks that Kate steals to use to activate her trick arrows are specifically the ones from Daredevil's first season, which are the ones that Fisk took from his abusive father. 
• Another Pym arrow shows up, this one the shrinking one instead of the enlarging one. Clint name-drops Scott (Ant-Man) when wondering what to do with the shrunken van.
• It slipped my mind a couple episodes ago, but Hawkeye using Pym tech is probably a reference to how Clint used to be Giant-Man/Goliath for a while in the comics...
• Laura's SHIELD watch has the number '19' inscribed on it, referring to Agent 19, the codename of Hawkeye's comic-book wife Mockingbird/Bobbi Morse. While Mockingbird's already adapted into the MCU in Agents of SHIELD, I guess the 'wife of Hawkeye' part goes to the MCU-original Laura Barton.
• Clint knows the secret bird-whistle between Natasha and Yelena from Black Widow, and briefly recaps their childhood escape from Ohio in the beginning of the movie. 

Kamen Rider Revice 16 Review: Deadman Infighting

Kamen Rider Revice, Episode 16: Desire to Protect - Time of the Three Igarashi Siblings!

Episode 16 is a bit of an interesting one, especially how it resolves the cliffhanger from the previous episode. I do really like that the Deadmans immediately resolve down into squabbling and infighting -- Olteca gives this huge speech about how Aguilera is just a puppet for their cultists to rally around. Julio gets absolutely angry and fights Olteca and "Yujiro", and I do find it fun! Again, it'd be nice if we saw Julio's backstory instead of him ranting about how Aguilera 'saved him' and gave him a purpose and stuff, but it's nice that these bad guys do get some characterization. Aguilera, however, out of nowhere pulls out her own transformation stamp -- and unless I'm forgetting something, this is the debut of her Queen Bee Deadman form. It's pretty neat. Aguilera rampages and shoots needles everywhere, but it's also kind of clear that Ikki's far more devoted into trying to get Aguilera to calm down more than anything. 

There's a neat acknowledgement of the deaths of the Sabertooth and Planarian Deadmans, and how the triple rider kick is, indirectly or not, one of the causes of their demise. Ikki and Daiji have a pretty well-done conversation in the bath, with Ikki trying to shoulder the burden of essentially killing these Phase 3 Deadmans... but Daiji insisting that he's also enough of a warrior to do so. It's a nice little acknowledgement of mortality for a franchise that has spent a fair amount of time either handwaving it or making death feel really cheap due to A.I. backups or ghost magic. 

There's a bit of a running thread in episodes 15 and 16 of Mama Igarashi being not at all pleased that Sakura is off fighting monsters, and goes around hiding her driver... until Hiromi comes and explains how the Igarashi siblings are super-special since not everyone can effortlessly transform like they can. 

We get to check in with the Deadmans after this, and I do really like how the villains are given ample time and being made a bit of an ensemble cast themselves -- one of the biggest weaknesses of recent shows like Saber and Zi-O is that their villains really do feel very flat, or pretty identikit. Julio's basically just being a supremely loyal follower of Aguilera, who herself is just frustrated that Julio's concerns actually do make sense. We get to hear "Yujiro" give his little speech about how he hated himself and his true identity, and Olteca... well, Olteca just wants to rule the world. Kind of the most basic villain motivation, but the fact that the rest of the villain ensemble do have something going on for them does hopefully mean that we get some backstory or depth to him in later installments. 

"Yujiro" attacks the Igarashis as they're out buying beef, and... well, in a less kid-friendly show, Mama Igarashi'd be completely dead. Instead, she just gets knocked out in a locker room and "Yujiro" didn't have the time or the mind to stab her with the knife that he's about to use on Ikki. Hiromi also helped, having put guards on the Igarashi parents -- I guess the point of this episode is to have the kids show off in front of Mama Igarashi and have her realize both the necessity of her children becoming Riders, as well as the capability of their children. 

The fight against the Chameleon Deadman is pretty cool, with him going invisible and stuff. We also get to see the Eagle, Kong and Mantis forms get an outing. Daiji gets a brand-new form, the Ex-Aid based Jackal-Live form... which feels kind of understated, I feel? He just uses it to blitz through some of the footsoldiers and that's it. I am also not the biggest fan of how they dealt with the Chameleon Deadman, who just gets kicked and blown up without any huge character moment -- not even catharsis for Daiji and Hiromi, or any resolution to the 'I hate myself' monologue. A bit weak in that part, I feel, especially since the Chameleon seems to be the primary focus of this episode. 

The episode closes with a double cliffhanger -- apparently Papa Igarashi has no heart? Who knows what the fuck is up with that. And Sakura goes to one of her classmates' house to find a mysteriously glowing and empty house. 

A bit of a slower episode and I do honestly feel like the Chameleon Deadman's story could've been extended more, but I actually am a bit excited to see what's going to happen with the three primary Deadmen. 

Random Notes

• The previous episode implied that Fenix arrested a lot of the random clubbers that are identified as cultists, but the episode noting that Aguilera is necessary for cultists to gather around really does confirm that all the footsoldier monsters that were killed before were created from these guys who willingly turn into monsters, huh.
• Hiromi, showing signs of wear and tear last episode, ends up straight-up collapsing in the opening act. Maybe him taking the 'sacrificial tertiary rider' role will actually happen...
• He does get a fancy cape to come with his new position as Fenix commander, though!
• It's kind of understated since I did a double-episode review last time, but I did enjoy how Yujiro/Chameleon's actor gets to really snap between pretending to be a serious character and a hammy bastard that's the Chameleon's true identity. 
• Oh, we actually do get to see what the Chameleon's true face is, briefly, before he disintegrates. 
• Okay, I get the creepy exposed muscle and the eyeballs, but why does a chameleon monster have a giant insect abdomen hanging off his ass?

Reviewing Monsters: The Legend of Zelda - Skyward Sword, Part 3

 The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

 

We're doing part three of Skyward Sword's bestiary! After the Lanayru Desert and a bit of a detour in fighting the Imprisoned, the game takes us to a new area -- the Thunderhead -- but unexpectedly, ends up sending Link back to the previous areas he's visited before! As of writing this, I end up going through most of the overworld segment in the return to Faron and all throughout the Ancient Cistern dungeon, the 'water temple' of this game.

I seldom do this with Zelda games, but since we actually talked about the Zoras and Gorons in either Ocarina of Time or Breath of the Wild, I think I can spare a few words for the new races introduced in the game. To wit:

Kikwi: The forested region of Faron is represented by a handful of interesting creatures called Kikwis. Crossing the kiwi bird and the kiwi fruit isn't really the biggest leap one would make, but the Kikwis are freaking adorable! Huge, fat birds with tiny stubby limbs, and adorable mask-faces that the franchise also did earlier with the Koroks, the Kikwi also carry around bulbs on their back that they use to disguise themselves. The bulbs open up like a Bulbasaur into shrubs and flowers... and effect that's nowhere as effective as the Octoroks because the Kikwis, well, they're big fat bird-people. At least they try! I found this little bit pretty dang charming. 

Mogma: The Gorons actually appear in the game as well, but we get a new race to represent the fiery, mountainous region of Eldin. And it's the Mogma! There's... I don't really have too much to say about them. They sure are mole-men, they sure have weasel-esque faces, and they sure burrow through the ground. Out of all the new sentient races in Skyward Sword, I find the Mogma probably the most underwhelming. 

Ancient Robot: I talked a bit about how the Lanayru region's gimmick works, and throughout the present-day era, you stumble on a lot of the deactivated ruins of the Ancient Robots and the machinery and magic-tech they used to operate. When you timeshift into the past, this is what they look like! Adorable, with those giant arms held aloft with electricity. I feel like these guys do really work well as the embodiment of a race of 'not too sci-fi' robots. It's interesting to note that these guys are just the miners and labourers, and the Beamoses and Armoses we meet in the dungeon are probably just the warriors and guards of the 'race'. We never did find out who made the Ancient Robots, or why or what they are mining Lanayru for...

Parella: Another race living in Faron, the Parella are an aquatic race that's a glorious mix of a seahorse and a jellyfish. And it works so well! They really don't do much and don't leave too much of an impression (plus I don't like the swimming mechanic) but I did like the visual design. I like that the main 'skeleton' of this creature is a wacky-looking seahorse, but it's got this huge... 'skirt'? It's more of a set of poofy shoulders. And a pair of fins that serve as arms. Pretty neat-looking aquatic creature! 

Not too much to say, but I did feel like tossing in a bunch of allied people that aren't just strictly humans/Hylians does make the world feel so much bigger. 

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Skytail: So this huge segment of the game takes us to a bunch of... sub-areas that are a lot smaller, or places where we revisit previous areas and explore deeper into them. One of the areas we first show up in is the gigantic storm-covered part of the Sky itself, the Thunderhead! And... it's actually rather disappointing, just a bunch of floating islands in the middle of a storm. We do get these bizarre things, though, and disappointingly, Fi doesn't have anything to say about them. The Skytails are very cool enemies that just show up in the Thunderhead and try to bite our flying bird, and are otherwise just there. I really love their designs, though! Especially check out that very cool-looking concept art! The Skytail is clearly some sort of flying insect-based creature, with those fancy pincers. It's got a serpentine body, three pairs of butterfly wings, and a massive head of moth-like hair behind its head. The concept art also shows that it's got a weird bulb on the tip of its tail... some sort of propulsion organ? Very, very cool for what's disappointingly such a minor part of the game. 

Blue Bokoblin & Green Bokoblin Archer: Once Link returns to the Faron, Eldin and Lanayru regions after dealing with the Imprisoned and Thunderhead sequences, the enemies in those areas are upgraded! Nothing too fancy, but I do appreciate that the overworld becomes just a bit more dangerous as our hero also becomes more powerful. These Blue Bokoblins show up in the overworld and are just a bit stronger. Fi identifies them as having different skin colour due to 'hailing from a different environment'. In the revisit to the Skyview Temple, apparently the Green Bokoblin population have gotten their hands on bows and arrows. Really not too much to say about them, they sure are 'blins. 

Wooden Shield Moblin: It's around this point that the Moblins also show up! These are pretty cool -- the Moblins in 3D incarnations Zelda have always been portrayed as being bigger ogre-like enemies, being straight-up menacing bulldog-men twice the size of Link in Ocarina of Time; and being troll-like lanky giants in Breath of the Wild. This incarnation of the Moblins opt for a different trope of 'giant enemy', making the Shield Moblin look imposing by virtue of being ginormously fat. They still look pretty formidable, all things considered, and are actually reasonably annoying. Their size also means that between their massive spear and their belly-slam attack, they've got a fair amount of reach. According to Fi, Link needs to hack and slash the wooden shield down to pieces in order to make the Moblin unprotected, though I honestly prefer just running circles around the Moblin and unleashing barrages of sword-stabs onto the Moblin's unprotected giant bum. Pretty cool variant of the 'blins, all things considered. 

Also, yeah, pierced nipples. You do you, Moblin, you do you. 

Earth Watcher & Sky Watcher: At this point, Link gets sucked into the 'Silent Realm', which is a minigame/sub-area where Link finds himself in a spiritual mirror of the Faron Woods (and later the Lanayru Desert, and presumably we get another version for the Eldin Mountain) without any monsters or equipment. It's a test realm, and Link has to rely on his own body to run around and collect a bunch of spirit orbs or what-have-you... while these ghostly beings try and track you down. It's an absolutely fun game of chicken, and I can't believe I'm saying this -- stealth sequences in Zelda games have always bugged me, but the Silent Realm sequences have been absolutely fun. 

None of these Silent Realm 'enemies' are really ones we fight, nor do they have Fi entries, but they do have some very, very cool designs. These two are the Watchers, vaguely resembling the Poes of previous Zelda games. They look very, very inhuman while also 'holy' in some way? They're kind of an equivalent of angels or something if they're working in a trial made by the goddess, right? I do like that they really don't look super hostile but look eerie nonetheless. The fact that it's just a robe over nothing... that red glowing eye isn't attached to a body! It's just hovering under the robes, and then below the robes are either a singular lantern or a chandelier of six of them. 

Again, it brings to mind the visual image of Zelda's resident lantern-carrying ghosts, the Poes -- particularly Twilight Princess's iteration version of them. And I do like that these giant lantern ghosts are just flying around shining their light and trying to catch you. They're just testing you!

Earth Guardian: What happens if the Watchers catch you, though? These guys get activated and start heading to bash your brains in. It's a non-standard game over and there's no combat, but man, these Guardians look pretty badass, don't they? I'm disappointed to know that they don't actually become an enemy we fight later on. The Earth Guardian can only travel on the ground, and they're basically just giant statues holding a particularly badass giant segmented club. I also really like that very flat mask, too -- the reverse triangle eyes, the triangle earrings, the triangle mouth? Gee, laying it on a bit thick that this guy serves a goddess whose whole motif is the number three, huh? The face also seems to be more of a mask grafted on to the golem than an actual face. Very cool looking, and I do love that it contrasts the other 'golem' aesthetic of the Beamoses and Armoses we saw earlier in the game as well. 

Sky Guardian: Even cooler than their 'Earth' counterparts are the Sky Guardians, who fly above the terrain as they hunt you down. I do love how they almost have a body. Almost! It's just a head, a cloak shaped like a hunchback, and two arms whose shoulder ball-joints just connect into nothingness. Very cool look all around, and of course it's got two gigantic fuck-off curved swords held in skeletal hands.  It kinda reminds me of those Death Scissors from Devil May Cry, although obviously the Sky Guardian is designed and drawn to look more... well, less obviously hostile. It's still going to kill you with its giant blades, but it's doing so as part of a goddess's holy test. 

Cranioc: The return to Faron Woods gives Link the ability to swim underwater, and while most of the enemies he faces are just the Froaks (who look more at home in the water), we do get these guys. Which are... man, what a weirdo! It's a cartoonish fish with giant lips and buckteeth, and its forehead is just a massive, scarred lump. It's like a version of a swordfish or something, but it's got a ramming appendage instead. We do have  real-life fishes like the Flowerhorn or the Parrotfish that have bumps on their heads, but they don't actually use those bumps to ram each other. The Cranioc just looks so weird because of that, and that's without taking those faces into account. 

They're kinda one-note, though -- Link just one-shots them with his underwater spin attacks. 

Blue Chuchu: Also one-note are these Blue Chuchu, which are just Chuchu that pop up underwater and also die to a single shot. I'm just doing this because I'm pedantic and want to include every single enemy I meet. 

Furnix: An interesting enemy! The Furnix, despite its rather impressive design, is just a common enemy that's faced in the next dungeon -- the Ancient Cistern. The Ancient Cistern itself is a dungeon whose design is very spiritual-looking and has a very cool heaven-and-hell vibe to it. The Furnixes fly in the skies of the central chamber, spitting fireballs at Link. I really like how they've got multiple wings, and their tails look really cool! Link needs to use his whip item to drag the Furnix down to the ground when their tails are fully unfurled. Not my favourite enemy, but cool nonetheless!

Cursed Bokoblin: The final part of the Ancient Cistern basically takes Link into a dungeon based on the underworld from Buddhist myths -- and the skeletons spread all over the ground will rise up into these Cursed Bokoblins! Very neat-looking, I like how they took the regular Bokoblin model and changes it just enough to make them spooky zombies... but still keeping an air of goofiness about them. That outstretched tongue is probably my favourite detail. Unlike how zombies are usually depicted in video games, Cursed Bokoblins are actually tougher than regular Bokoblins and keep standing up again and again. A neat little detail is that Link's Sacred Shield will actually drive them away. 

Stalmaster: The miniboss of the Ancient Cistern is the Stalmaster, which is pretty dang impressive! Decked out in golden armour and wielding four different-looking weapons, the Stalmaster looks particularly impressive in motion, where those giant swords are twirled around in pretty badass motions. General Grievous here is a lot stronger than a regular Stalfos, and it often only leaves one direction open for you to get a sword strike in -- but more than any enemy before him, I feel like the Stalmaster is extra-quick in changing which direction you can strike him from. 

Very cool -- it's a rather logical upgrade of a previous powerful enemy, and looks a lot more impressive despite just adding a pair of arms and changing the armour colour! 

Ancient Automaton: Koloktos: The boss of the Ancient Cistern is the Ancient Automaton Koloktos, which used to be the guardian of the temple that got corrupted by our good pal Ghirahim. Koloktos starts the battle as just a bunch of parts scattered across the room, and is held together by the purple miasma that you can see peeking out of his joints. This is important, because this is how you beat Koloktos! He's a giant statue peeking out of the floor of a boss room, and initially just seems invincible. Its two upper arms keep throwing those axe-blades at you, while the two lower arms just swing around and bash you. But since the arms aren't actually physically held together, Link can use the openings of Koloktos's attacks to whip and dismantle the joints of Koloktos's fragile limbs, eventually tearing down enough hands to expose the red core in Koloktos's chest. 

After doing it enough times, though, Koloktos actually reveals that he's got legs this whole time, stands up, and quintuple-wields gigantic scimitars. Very cool animation going on here, and during the fight, Link would pick up these giant scimitars and bash Koloktos to death with it. It's not my favourite design when I first saw him on a still image, but the actual boss fight and how smooth the animation for this guardian golem is, I really end up liking him a lot. 

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A bit of a shorter one, and as of the time of writing, I'm around halfway through the revisit of Lanayru Region, and we don't really have too many new enemies. I think I'll wait until I finish two dungeons before I do the next part of this! 

Hawkeye S01E05 Review: The Fat Man

Hawkeye, Season 1, Episode 5: Ronin

Spoilers for the final shot of the episode, although considering I'm around a month late to this show (I binged the show around the time this episode dropped), I don't think I am the one who needs to be spoiled. But... Kingpin baby! It doesn't just really mean the fact that one of my favourite supervillains is back, but it's the specific incarnation with the history so lovingly explored in Daredevil, which also meant that the character's history and portrayal by Vincent D'Onofrio -- and the canonicity of the MCU's unfavourite child in the Netflix Defenders shows -- are open. And that alone is the biggest Christmas present that Hawkeye can really give me. The actual buildup to the Kingpin isn't too much of a surprise, considering we've been hinting at Maya's mysterious 'boss' or 'uncle' that even Clint Barton fears for the past couple of episodes, but there was a huge, huge chance going in that Kingpin was just going to be a wink-wink-nod cameo while Echo, Yelena and Swordsman are going to be the co-antagonists of the show. 

Well, scratch one Swordsman off the list, with Jack Duquesne just kind of shipped off to prison after Eleanor goes off to investigate and finds out that the Hawkeyes' little clues actually do sync up... except, of course, turns out that Eleanor herself turns out to be pretty dang shady herself. But let's put her aside for a while... we did spend a fair bit of time with Jack, but it seems like we're either saving him for a second season of the show, or he's a genuine red herring just to set up Eleanor. I'm not really sure how the Swordsman fans out there will take it, but I for one am glad from a story-writing perspective that we're starting to clear the board. 

A good chunk of the episode splits up Clint and Kate after the huge cliffhanger of the previous episode, and while the jury is out on whether that cliffhange is warranted or necessary, it does lead to Kate meeting up with Black Widow II, Yelena Belova. While we didn't get a recap of the post-credits scene of Black Widow, we did get a showcase of what she's up to immediately prior to -- and immediately after -- she was snapped. Which, of course, makes Yelena's hurt and confusion about Natasha all feel so much more raw to her.

(I've always headcanon'd Black Widow's extremely work-focused mentality in Endgame and how she's devoting 100% of her life to being an Avenger to be partially because her family from Black Widow all got snapped)

Of course, Yelena doesn't quite go full Ronin the way Clint did in Endgame, which I am grateful for. The showmakers clearly know just why Yelena ended up being so popular in Black Widow, being a snarky young-but-competent little Black Widow, alternating between delivering some genuine pain whenever Natasha is brought up, effortlessly handwaving how easily she could've murdered Kate Bishop... and then delivering the most adorable "HIIII!" and making box mac-and-cheeses and making jokes about being a tourist in New York. It really does speak to the strength of acting for both superheroes that a good chunk of the episode is just Kate and Yelena sitting eating macaroni and bonding, and the episode doesn't really ever get quite boring. 

A really great part is that this episode does start to pad some of the problems that I did have with how they handled Black Widow as a character. What a confused way to tell her story, releasing her solo movie as an interquel after her death -- and neither Endagme nor Black Widow really acknowledged Natasha's death in the same way that Tony Stark's was throughout Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home or Steve Rogers was in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. It's not much, and it feels like it's mostly Clint and Yelena, but the way that Natasha's easily the most imporant person in the world for the two of them, we really feel the impact of the Black Widow's death here. 

The argument does end up causing Kate to defend Clint to Yelena, and basically get Kate to -- after a breakdown in front of her mother before the meeting -- question why she trusts Clint so much. Slightly off-screen, Kate also unintentionally causes Yelena to question why she's hunting Clint and who would put the crosshairs on good ol' Hawkeye.

Clint does end up having his own sub-plot, of course, although it's pretty simple. Not that it's bad, though -- Jeremy Renner really does sell the 'tired older superhero that needs to do this shit'. There's none of the roiling, barely-restrained Punisher anger or desire for vengeance. Between his call to his wife (Laura Barton doesn't really get to develop a personality, but what a champ of a wife) and the tired way that he dons the Ronin suit, Clint Barton is intense and takes everything he's doing seriously, and it's clear that he's carrying a lot of pain, but there's never any malice behind the beatdown of Echo's gang. 

Now I'm not spoiled about what happens in the final episode at the time of writing this, so I did find the events of the Ronin-vs-Tracksuit-Mafia sequence cool but somewhat puzzling. Clint as Ronin dismantles Kazi, all the background Tracksuits, before going one-on-one against Maya in a very well-choreographed sequence. He also reveals his identity, confirming that Clint Barton is Ronin... delivers the warning to stay away from his family, but... but then just drops the bombshell that Maya was betrayed by someone inside, heavily implied to be Kazi and Kingpin?

The action sequences are so cool that it did take me away from thinking too much about it at the time, but while Maya does have her own spinoff show coming in the future -- and it would be a decent enough exit after Clint 'takes down' her -- it does raise some questions since we barely even skirt over the whole 'pay up for the killings you've done' thing. It's a bit odd that we get the Ronin/Echo confrontation without actually getting a proper resolution to Clint's guilt? 

Kate does show up to bail Clint out, and while Maya seems to go exit-stage-left, Yelena has been doing some personal detective work on the person who hired her. Turns out that it's not (just) Contessa Valentina that's behind Yelena, but she went to track down who the real one who put the hit out on Clint... and it's Eleanor Bishop. Who's also hanging out with the Kingpin, who the show has been alluding to throughout its season. 

Don't get me wrong, the Eleanor twist and the Kingpin reveal is pretty great. And it's painfully obvious that Yelena was going to be an ally sooner or later. But I do wonder that with so many plot threads dangling (what about the watch?), which one the final episode would focus on? How many of the plot threads will be picked up in spinoffs, which are getting increasingly harder to track if you don't open a Wikipedia page? Will this episode be able to handle all the plot threads it has set up satisfactorily? Still, the show has been so enjoyable throughout its run, and I'm willing to give the writers the benefit of the doubt for suer. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• The cold open/flashback for this scene shows Yelena being snapped, which obviously takes place concurrent to Avengers: Infinity War. The sequence is framed similarly to Monica Rambeau in WandaVision, where we get to see a supporting character previously introduced in the movies get snapped and return. 
• We last saw Kingpin in the Netflix Defenders TV series-es, namely in the events of Daredevil's final season. 
• Yelena makes several references to Black Widow, namely a nod to a 'daddy' (Red Guardian), giving Kate points for saving a dog (Yelena likes dogs in that movie) and liking macaroni and cheese (which a young Yelena wanted in the opening scenes of the movie).
• The ex-Black-Widow that adopted a child is another rebuttal against the much-maligned scene of Natasha declaring herself a monster for being sterile in Age of Ultron. 
• The Statue of Liberty is being mentioned as being improved, which will be relevant in the concurrently-released but chronologically-later Spider-Man: No Way Home. 

Hawkeye S01E04 Review: Guest-Starring...

Hawkeye, Season 1, Episode 4: Partners, Am I Right?

A bit less action-packed compared to its preceding episode, and one that feels to be mostly setup. In a vacuum, the episode could be handwaved as 'it's the one where the two partners get into a fight, setting up the big emotional reunion in the pre-finale episode'. Which is exactly what this is -- unless episodes 5-6 really try and pull some Loki-level plot twist. Of course, Jeremy Renner and Hailee Steinfeld's chemistry and their mentor/mentee dynamic works so well that I'm actually genuinely invested in their pseudo-surrogate-parent relationship. 

The huge cliffhanger from the previous episode with Swordsman fighting against the Hawkeyes surprisingly doesn't pan out too much and ends in a civil discussion... which initially led me to believe that they might just be saving Jack Duquesne for the next season. And I kind of want them to, since we have two very active antagonists by the end of this episode. But while Clint bows out of the Bishop family drama, he gets his wife Laura to look into Jack Duquesne, and she finds out that Kate's actually right, and he is actually shady. Just to rub this point in a bit more, we even have a scene where Kate, Eleanor and Jack actually do begin to bond over them making fun of Jack's inability to say idioms properly. 

The middle part of the episode is admittedly a bit bland, with the comedy bits not all landing quite as well -- though I really, really did enjoy Kate deciding to spend her Christmas trying to get Clint to have fun a little. She sets up a movie marathon and gets them a pair of ugly sweaters because Clint's missing the same activities with his own children... and, hey, Kate's basically, like I said, his pseudo-child at this point. It's adorable as all hell, and Clint even begins to be a bit vulnerable, confiding to Kate how he first met Black Widow; as well as teaching her how to do a little coin flip trick thing. I do like the more serious moment, too, where Kate just asks Clint about whether he is Ronin, which Clint confirms. Again, I can totally see a version of this show where this scene just plain doesn't work. 

The LARP-er scene... eh. I did like the one-off joke in the second episode, and while it's funny to see Kate interact with them in a much more positive manner than Clint did, it's also rather obvious distraction to pad things out before the third act of this episode. I tend to not mind such subplots in these superhero shows, but this one felt particularly egregious considering how tightly-plotted these Disney+ shows have been. 

And then we get the huge action scene. Between Clint and Kate bickering about exit and entrance strategies, they find out that Echo has been researching Clint and making a hit list about his family. We also learn that the watch from the first episode is actually important, Clint and Laura know about it, and Echo has it in her apartment. It's... it's a bit off, admittedly, why the Hawkeyes treat this as a huge revelation, but then we have the huge fight. Kate Bishop fights Echo, while Clint Barton fights against a mysterious assailant with glowing goggles... and it's Yelena Belova!

(The revelation might take people who haven't watched Black Widow off-guards, but as someone who blogs about these things, I really don't care too much about people complaining that a comic-book show has comic-book-style guest stars -- regardless, I'm confident that the show will recap who Yelena is as needed.)

The fight scene is admittedly nowhere as impressive or flashy as any of the fight scenes in episode 3 -- though part of it might be because Maya, Clint and Yelena are all dressed in black on the rooftop. I do really like the flashier tricks that Yelena pulls in the fight, and while the discussion about Natasha earlier in the episode does kind of make her appearance here a bit predictable, it's still a pretty cool sequence. 

The whole Black Widow thing also ends up having Clint flashback to Natasha's death in Vormir, which the show very unsubtly delivers a flashback when Clint has to hold Kate in the same way he did Natasha. And it's a better reason than most to have the whole 'grizzled hero tells plucky young partner to fuck off' storyline to occur. It's definitely well-done, and I really like Clint basically shutting down any notion that he's a hero -- he's a 'weapon aimed by people who aimed [him] at the bad guys'. Again, a pretty cool episode all around -- Hawkeye's more grounded and relatively standalone story does feel like a breath of fresh air I didn't know I need. Definitely looking forward to see how the show concludes it. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• The 'boomerang arrow' discussion is taken from Hawkeye #3 from the 2012 run, the same one that inspired the previous episode, albeit with the roles reversed.. That argument is one of the trick arrow arguments in the car chase in that issue; with the boomerang arrow being the useless arrow that saved the day there. 
• Kate also wears a Laika shirt in the first issue of Hawkeye 2012. 
• Wendy Conrad is the supervillain Bombshell in the comics -- here, she's just a LARP-er, and 'Bombshell' is instead a nickname from her wife. 
• Yelena Belova, a.k.a. Black Widow II, returns hunting Clint Barton after the events of Black Widow's post-credits scene. MCU Black Widow and Hawkeye's first meeting were explored in The Avengers and Black Widow. 
• Yelena's night goggles is a reference to her modern-day costume seen in Thunderbolts, which features five of them.
• Another 'Thanos was right' meme-acknowledgement takes place with a mug.

Kamen Rider Revice 14-15 Review: Fight Club

Kamen Rider Revice, Episodes 14-15

Episode 14: The Commander is a Deadman?!

It's been a while, and I'm trying to catch up! Real life got in the way for weekly reviews. Episode 14 is an... interesting one, because of the pretty huge revelation that the previous episode gave us, but mostly it's just because this one revolves around the rest of the cast reacting to said revelation. George gathers Daiji and Hiromi and tells them that he's deduced that Wakabayashi is the traitor in their midst -- though they don't find out about the Chameleon Deadman thing until a bit later on in the episode. Our heroes decide to set up a trap for 'Wakabayashi', and while the audience already knows (or could guess) that Wakabayashi has been replaced by the Chameleon Deadman, it's certainly nice to see less-prominent characters like Hiromi panicking and still being in shock and denial over the whole thing. 

It's also a very interesting way to kill off a character, too. Modern Rider has been very skittish about actually killing off characters -- the most dramatic and well-executed ones end up being reversed at some point in the story. But the real Wakabayashi straight-up got murdered and replaced by the Chameleon Deadman prior to the first episode, so can you really call that 'killing a character'? From a narrative standpoint, not really, but we do get the raising of stakes that the knowledge that the Deadmen actually killed someone. 

The main bulk of the episode, though, is rather lighter affair. Sakura's at school being super-excited that her alter-ego of Kamen Rider Jeanne is proving to be very popular, but she's the target of the vendetta of the Planarian Deadman, whose real name is -wikis- Haitani Amahiko. Did they ever say his name on-screen? There's a small bit of comedy here and there, and a brief bit of trying to set up the secret identity dilemma that DC/Marvel superheroes are known so much for, but... but there really isn't any sort of tension because Sakura just shrugs, goes 'fuck it' and transforms to save the day. It's been a long, long while since public-secret-identities matter in these Kamen Rider shows. 

Ikki, meanwhile, fights against the evil lawyer Kudo Yasushi, who transforms into the Saber-tiger Deadman, another phase two. He just attacks Ikki in the bathhouse, and gives a bit of a dressing-down to Ikki about how he's just helping people to satisfy himself, making himself a nosy jackass, but it's something that I feels lacks a bit of a bite. 

Both Ikki and Sakura beat up their respective Deadmen enemies, but then Olteca and Julio show up to gather the two sacrifices, noting that they had their chance to deal with their 'niggling business'. Meanwhile the Chameleon Deadman steal the Giff stamp, the three other Deadmen get transformed into "Giftexs" (which are ascended Deadmen like Olteca and Julio), and we get the surprise revelation that Aguilera isn't Giff's wife, but the next sacrifice. 

Overall... pretty solid episode, I just do feel like the episode did lack a bit of an oomph. It feels a bit procedural, although it might just be intentional since the senior Deadmen are just letting Amahiko and Kudo get their vengeance attempts out of their system. Still, an overall interesting twist, and I most certainly have been liking where this show is going compared to how Saber had been at this point in its run.

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Episode 15: Eradicate! Showdown! Deadmans!

This one, meanwhile, is a pretty climactic episode that ends up being -- or feeling -- like the climax of the first long arc in Revice. A good chunk of this episode is just a huge brawl between the forces of Fenix and the Deadmans in their underground club. Apparently, "George Karizaki never loses", and he's embedded a chip within the Giff stamp in order to hunt down where the Deadmans' base is. There's a bit of a sub-plot in the first half of the episode of our heroes turning Daiji into Kagerou in order to find out the secret door to teleport into the underground base, but the Kagerou bit really just feels like padding so that the bulk of the action takes place in the second half of the episode. 

The villains are a bit more interesting, though -- particularly the primary trio. We've seen Aguilera be in a position of power for so much of the show that it's actually interesting that the dynamic is reversed. Turns out she's getting cold feet when Giff changes the deal -- she's going to be the sole sacrifice while the other five are simply there to funnel energy or something. Aguilera's been so indoctrinated into the cult that she's willing... but most certainly reluctant. Even more reluctant is Julio, who actually fights the other Giftexs for a bit before he gets subdued by numbers. A villain being redeemed isn't anything new, but I do find Aguilera's situation pretty interesting. 

Of course, a good chunk of the episode is just action scenes. Kamen Riders Revice, Live, Jeanne and Demons, as well as George and a bunch of Fenix goons, charge into the underground nightclub and fight against all the bad guys. It's pretty neat to see so many people in play, and we do get a couple of brief bits of characterization here and there -- Jeanne and Planaria Deadman have a bit of a spat; Ikki and the lawyer exchange words about the 'egoist-kun' title; Hiromi gets a pretty cool sequence of declaring how he'd rather 'struggle than die'. Also, George hams the shit up, and it's approximately twice as funny because of his English. (Oh, we get the random power-ups for Demons and Jeanne, who use the scorpion and turtle stamps respectively)

The Planaria and Sabertooth Deadmen were ultimately dissolved into light particles and absorbed by Giff when they get triple-rider-kicked by the Igarashi siblings. Also, I was most convinced that Hiromi was going to bite the dust, by the way -- he was fighting the Chameleon Deadman and while he did get a cool moment of declaring his resolve, we get to see Julio sneaking around in the background. Nope! Hiromi made it out alive!

Giff ends up... partially resurrecting? The club turns out to be some sort of weird saucer UFO with tentacles that rises up of the ground, and Ikki and Vice stay behind to try and save Aguilera (and also Julio, who's just conked out in the corner). A neat showcase to Ikki's whole 'I'm a busybody' deal, and Ikki manages to blow Giff's saucer up by spending around three minutes summoning his entire roster of CGI yoga animals. I'm... I get where they're going for and I respect them for going all in with the gimmick, but the CGI remix forms give me such a headache. 

Still, with Giff seemingly knocked down, while Aguilera and the rest rescued or arrested, it's a very interesting ending to the first arc of the show. I do wonder where we go on from here -- I feel like a good chunk of this episode is spent on making the villains a bit more distinct from each other, establishing the dynamic between them that made other shows with groups of villains (like Drive or W) so strong. These two episodes do a pretty good job at shaking up the status quo, I must say!

Random Notes

• Always did wonder why they casted a Rider alumni if he's just going to stand around in the background and be wholly unmemorable. 
• It is a nice little handwave that they want to keep the original Wakabayashi actor by having the Chameleon Deadman say that he likes this appearance more than his original one. 
• Really love that the Sabertiger Deadman's design has the eyeball within the jaws of the creature. It's just so weird. 
• The Giff statue is always pretty yonic, but seeing George caress it makes it a bit more obvious. 
• "Wow! GODDAMN!" George gets to speak so much English in episode 15. I love him. 
• The turtle stamp gives Sakura a GODDAMN MISSILE LAUNCHER.