Constantine Ep. 7 Review: Manny Does Something

Constantine, Episode 7: Blessed Are The Damned

We take a break from an onslaught of fillers starring demons and demonic creatures to bat on the other side of the spiritual spectrum this episode. We learn more about the mythology of the Constantine universe concerning angels and fallen angels, how they can't interact with the mortal world, and how if someone plucks the feather from an angel's wing they will be stuck on the mortal world and eventually die. Oh, and the feather grants miraculous powers that has some nasty-ass side effects including causing the surrounding nature to basically die off, and eventually turn those healed by the feather into Ghouls, basically bestial humans with the mentality of zombies.

I've always known that DC comics had a rich history regarding their very loose adaptation of the biblical mythology, but beyond Zauriel and Phantom Stranger I've never really cared enough to delve into the religious aspects.

Mythology aside, though, this episode is truly great in delivering some great characterization for Zed -- hinting more at her ever-mysterious backstory without revealing anything -- and Manny. Finally, it only took seven episodes for him to do something beyond just stand around and deliver cryptic warnings. Manny here ends up with a pretty disturbing heart-to-heart with his angel brethren Imogen, which reveals that he has some rather disturbing discontent with his role and how the mortals are basically idiots that keep failing over and over again.

It turns out to the surprise of, well, practically everyone (including myself) that all the angel feather stuff isn't just a honest mistake from two well-intentioned people -- Imogen and the preacher -- but rather a gambit by Imogen who turns out to be a fallen angel, banished thanks to killing a mortal. Imogen's wings are pretty fucking awesome, by the way, and the simple transformation of her wings into black is a pretty awesome scene.

Father Zachary is pretty interesting too, as this preacher who truly thinks he's given a great power to do great things. Granted the dude's an absolute moron for sticking his hand into a cage of poisonous snakes because holy shit that's dumb, but the nice little backstory about the mortal sin tainting his soul causing him to be susceptible to Imogen and causing it to fool people like Manny and Constantine to simply thinking that Imogen is a normal angel.

And Manny breaks the rule in the most awesome way, making great use of his usual 'replace someone' shtick to replace Zed and rip Imogen's heart out. That was a great scene for Manny, that's for sure, especially as he kinda seemed to have bailed, and all the talks about how the humans are squandering their gift of being able to live in the physical world.

I'm honestly disappointed that the scythe taken from the Grim Reaper himself (Black Racer) doesn't end up coming to play, though.

Also, of course, more stuff about the rising darkness with Imogen making use of the thinning walls between hell and earth to get through. Also, random seemingly-one-note hot dude at the beginning that modeled for Zed and is insistent on a date ends up showing up in the end and, well, it appears he's working for someone more sinister. I have no idea who this dude is, so, uh, yeah. Ominous foreshadowing for the future, I guess. Hopefully we can peel back the odd curtain of mystery that is Zed, because, well, all the aura of mystery around her really should be enough, no?

Chas is absent for the umpteenth time because he's "making good" with his daughter. Man, if it's not Zed, it's Chas that's absent. So much for a team.

Overall, though, it's still your generic monster-of-the-week episode, but it builds so much more into the lore compared to the previous one -- and that's really how these kinds of filler episodes should be.

Constantine Ep. 6 Review: Creepy Kids

Constantine, Episode 6: Rage of Caliban

Again, I'm not a big fan of horror. But topping the list of scary shit for me personally has to be creepy kids. I think it's why I stopped watching this episode a couple of times after starting it because, well, fuck creepy kids. I'm just not very good at this horror thing.

Ahem.

After the initial scary scenes (the scene where the ghost showed up in the kid's room, and later when the father's just fumbling around in the darkened house) the episode gets going with a far less jump-scare-y episode. And what a weird episode! Zed is conspicuously absent, written off with a quick "Zed's in art class" around one of the first scenes that featured Constantine and Chas. The episode had a pretty weird series of introdump dialogue, taking a fair bit longer for Manny to show up and talk about the rising darkness -- something that didn't deserve a rant this far into the series -- and telling Constantine about the rules of how angels cannot interfere in mortal business, something that really should've been established earlier on before we start wondering why Manny isn't doing jack shit.

Apparently this episode was intended to air as episode two before they introduced Zed, and it kinda shows. It's very much your standard filler episode with Constantine and Chas going around to fight a monster-of-the-week, and there's not much to really lift this episode from being a bogged-down filler. Oh, sure, Chas gets more screentime than he did in the past five episodes combined, it's scary thanks to the classic demonic child, and there's the nice twist that the thing possessing Henry isn't a restless spirit but the soul of the first (now catatonic) victim that has left his body. There are some nice clever hints thrown in here and there with the ax and such a focus on the first victim and Constantine going to see him and finding that he's catatonic... Marcello's role is definitely a role, we just don't know what it is until, well, it's the soulless body of the killer.

The one-off characters that Constantine helps this time around is a family with a single kid, with an asshole father that's like a sane and non-psychotic version of Kingpin's father, a mother that's far more sane and, well, the possessed kid. The episode spends an inordinate time on them, more than I think Jim Corrigan got in his guest star episode, and it honestly is a cheap way to get some scares. Like the aforementioned scene of the father stumbling around in the dark. I actually liked the bit with the haunted house with super-convincing props. That doesn't rely on jumpscares or tense familiar 'this could be your house' scene, and we have Constantine instead of poor helpless daddy facing the possessed kid. It's just scary in an atmospheric way, not scary in a 'be on your seats while the jumpscare builds up' way.

As for the characters... Constantine is still in tiptop snarky form. Manny makes some cryptic remarks and tells us a bit of backstory regarding Constantine's shitty-ass childhood, and gets some nice dialogue trades with Constantine for that. Chas apparently broke up with his girlfriend or wife, whichever she is. Poor Chas. He gets so little screentime. We get a bunch of random one-off characters like Nora, the lady that Constantine fucks, and the random paralegal that gave Constantine some stuff. Wow, there really isn't a lot in this episode, yeah?

Overall, though, it's a filler episode that's mostly devoid of character development and content beyond the odd quip or two from Constantine and the obligatory creepy lines from Manny, and way too much screentime spent on one-off filler characters. Easily the definition of a filler episode. 

Supergirl S01E04: Wacky Hijinks

Supergirl, Season 1, Episode 4: How Does She Do It

I have the luxury of binge-watching Supergirl without suffering through the little switch-up of episode ordering thanks to the Paris bombing, so we're reviewing this one before the Livewire one as it's meant to be watched. 

Yeah, this episode... is one of those wacky hijinks episode that would have been perfect in one of those slice-of-life shows. The character tries to juggle so many things and forgets stuff and babysits her boss's child and gets overwhelmed, especially when some love triangle comes in to complicate things up, and the guy he likes only views her as a friend that he can talk to... in a superhero show? Bah. The Black Widow parody trailer with basically the same premise is, y'know, a fucking parody. 

And maybe if done elegantly it might actually be good, but the plot just suffers from ADD as we jump from the myriad of mostly-uninteresting plot points. We've got someone spying on Supergirl. We've got Kara having to babysit little Carter Grant or risk losing her job. We've got James and Lucy's little love drama, we've got Kara wanting to get out of James' friendzone. We've got a serial bomber. We've got the train thing. We've got Maxwell Lord being implicated in it. None of this really get time to breathe as we jump from one scene to another... appropriate, perhaps, for the theme of the episode about Kara trying to juggle the two aspects of her life. It also makes the episode utterly uninteresting to watch, since none of the plot threads are interesting to watch at all bar the short scenes with Maxwell Lord.

Kara is frazzled throughout the episode, but her arc in this episode seems to be a very banal 'how do I multi-task' with the point made being... really, that Kara shot herself in the foot when she offered to babysit. Or at least when she left the kid with Winslow Schott. She otherwise really doesn't learn to do much. There's the whole friendzone thing, of course, but that is so obvious the moment that, hey, Lucy Lane turns out to be a good person to Kara.

Carter Grant himself isn't annoying, at least not moreso than his comic book counterpart. We get to see a nice, more human side from Cat Grant as despite her obvious frustrations and her bitchiness and her power-career woman attitude and her desire to stick it in Lois Lane's face for winning an award, she still prioritizes her motherhood above everything and is fully prepared to receive this super-big award via mail if she can't be a mother for a day. It speaks volumes about Cat Grant's character, that she is an awesome mother... one that is the sole thing I remembered from her character in the comics, so it's great that it gets represented here.. 

Carter's a bit fun in some scenes, like when he tells his mother that the best thing about Supergirl is 'her legs' before brushing it as a joke, but ultimately ends up being one among many, many distractions in this episode to both Kara and the audience.

Honestly though after the whole stunt with Carter somehow getting into the train with a bomb (while Lucy's in the other location with the bomb for maximum drama) it's honestly a huge suspension of belief that Cat didn't fire Kara. Kara didn't even do anything to really appease Cat -- she could've been responsible for 'introducing Supergirl' or some shit like that that would work to the wacky hijinks theme of the episode, but not only does Kara royally fuck up Cat's task, she also gets rewarded for it by not being fired. Yeah. Doesn't make sense.

It doesn't help that the random mad bomber whose name I don't even remember is extremely bland compared to the already sub-par quality of villains in this show. The show tries to be artistic and withhold details about the bomber's backstory and how it relates to the sick girl back home, with only the briefest allusions to being (obviously) employed by Maxwell Lord, but the explanation we get isn't only inadequate, it's also downright confusing.

Maxwell Lord, at least, is interesting. In between hamming it up, Lord gets a nice scene with Kara at the end that's absolutely reminiscent of Lex Luthor. Yeah, they're not going to play with the nice-but-jackass businessman angle for too long as Lord reveals his hand to Supergirl while the Girl of Steel isn't able to prove jack shit, which is Luthor's M.O. in most modern incarnations, most notably for me Superman: the Animated Series where Luthor and Superman's first meeting is relatively similar. The idea that Lord is using the high-tech drones and mad bomber to 'test' Supergirl's powers is a bit suspect, and he has the dignity to (at least try to) look distraught at his employee blowing himself up. Time will tell if Lord will actually be a threatening villain on the level of Luthor or even Lord's comic-book counterpart, but so far he's easily the best thing in this episode. Not that there's much competition.

But as awesome as Lord's plans are, it's really filled with holes and a crapton of insane coincidences. The two trains bomb thing kinda makes sense if Lord is trying to judge Supergirl's priorities or whatever, and the failsafe kind of justifies Lord's person being at risk for two of the three bomb incidents. But his reasons for doing so -- and being so obvious as to use his own specially manufactured bomb -- ends up not really holding up to notch, though maybe we might learn that he's as big an egomaniac as Luthor is and wants Supergirl to know that it was him that did it? The bit with the train doesn't make sense either, Supergirl only finds out about the bomber getting on the train because James was following Carter. How was Lord supposed to test Supergirl out, then?

Alex is only around to defuse bombs, apparently. She's got an awkward little scene talking about government with Lord that I kinda tuned out. Lord did manage to divulge his sad backstory -- that his parents were killed thanks to the government being dicks about safety requirements -- which is something, but Alex and Lord's scene was pretty stilted and doesn't flow well. All Alex does, really, is just watch when people deal with bombs.

Henshaw is still being mysterious. Kara catches the glowy red eyes at one point when she's a bit delirious, and Henshaw uses his presumably-Cyborg Superman powers to rip apart the bomb casing and stick his hand in to defuse it. Still being cryptic and creepy, but ultimately accomplishes nothing.

James and Lucy... yeah, they fought because James prioritizes Superman over Lucy. Um. They make up at the end of the episode. Somewhere in between we find out that Lucy is a decent human being that struck up a friendship with Kara, and something about friendzones and moving on and speaking out your mind and being a good friend and stapler destruction that kind of go around and around itself. In any case, though, Kara basically encourages James to, well, admit that he's not quite moved on yet at the risk of being thrown back into the friendzone. Yay relationship complications -- I don't really care.

Winslow... ends up being an idiot who can't even do his job of playing games with a kid properly. We get a nice, extremely subtle hint of his eventual Toyman identity when Kara comments on the toys on his desk, but he's otherwise just Mr Nice Friendzone Guy. Who can't even distract a kid with videogames right.

Overall easily the weakest episode thanks to a crap plot (well, a series of crap plots) and crappy handling of said crap plots. It's banal and dull, with a shitty cliched romance subplot that only serves to bog it down even further. Only the pretty fun performances from Maxwell Lord and Kara, and the short but fun Cat Grant scene, really makes this episode not a total disaster. Talking about the two genres without me sounding like an anti-chick-flick show is going to take a metaphor. It is kinda like cooking, really. Some things are pretty great separately. Like, say, creamy pasta and hot chili sauce. Both are individually great, as much as I hate chili I know a lot of people love that. Mix them together? Unless you've got the taste sensibilities of a sow, it doesn't work. Alien superhero action quasi-sci-fi stories and wacky hijinks chick flicks are kinda like that -- the addition of two together ends up making this icky paste that just doesn't work as well as they do individually.

Boku no Hero Academia 73 Review: Hellraiser

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 73: Good Evening

Can I just say how much I appreciate Boku no Hero Academia's "Cover Pages" with their faux-retro-comic-cover art? Because I really appreciate them. 

Anyway, the Villain Alliance apparently has even more people coming in, with Toga (whose new mask makes her look like Bane form Dark Knight Rises) and Dabi noting that they're waiting until all ten are assembled. Toga doesn't care much for her Bane mask and apparently some underground designer supplied the Villain Alliance with their new equipment. Well, if the good guys have specialized equipment... the Darth-Vader-cosplayer short dude is far more analytical, while giant Jason-Voorhes-cosplayer just wants to smash stuff. We see three more of the Villain Alliance member show up: a relatively normal-looking dude with big lips and long hair, some really twisted-looking motherfucker in bondage gear with only his mouth being visible and holy shit is this a Shonen manga or Hellraiser, and this lizard-dude with giant swords and a pair of goggles and he seems to be actually cosplaying as Stain now that I think of it. Which is hella appropriate considering the impact that Stain made on the villain community.

The rest of the chapter is more training stuff. We get a long, long string of nice dialogue from Aizawa about how the various quirks are supposed to be trained -- interesting world-building stuff that give us more insight to how the various powers can be improved instead of just 'burning justice do a thousand push-ups in heavy armour'. Raising capacity, raising duration, stuff like that which actually can be improved. Also, sucks to be the four remedial kids because Aizawa doesn't let them participate in any of the fun games and basically slave-drives them to work harder.

Midoriya gets a nice, short speech with Todoroki about Kouta, and Todoroki notes how it would be pretentious for random strangers to just drop and give a big speech about their point of view to someone who's clearly been nursing their hatred for years, and Todoroki is all like 'actions speak louder than words'. Is... is that a little jab at Naruto, that line of dialogue about how "if he were the type to be moved by words alone, then his hatred only runs skin-deep". Because that is easily one of the largest problem with a lot of Naruto. (Maybe I'll do a little rant about Naruto next year)

The rest of the chapter sets up this 'Courage Run' thing that's a cultural thing in Japan where students go in pairs into a jungle where some scary things have been prepared -- except, y'know, this one has superpowers in play, and a little contest between Classes A and B. There's some fun fluff dialogue in-between, until we cut away to a bunch of Class B students preparing frights. This black-haired girl Kodai can apparently phase out of the ground to jumpscare people, there's this ponytail girl who can stretch her hand, and this skull-faced dude called Honenuki. Honenuki suddenly collapses due to inhaling some gas, however, showing that the villains have attacked. Ponytail uses her stretchy arm to cover Kodai, but we don't really see what happened to them or indeed the Class B people.

I don't think this manga will be that dark and kill off, like, half of Class B or something -- it certainly would be the way that makes sense if it was realistic, but this is a Shonen manga, after all.

Apparently the burning smoke thing is Dabi's superpower, appropriate considering his cremation theme. Darth-Vader Gas Mask wannabe seems to be the one behind the poison gas... or something. I dunno. Meanwhile, Toga with her weird Bane mask is stalking Tsuyu and Uraraka. And apparently the cool-looking Lizard Stain cosplayer and Normal-Looking Man (who has this wrapped up giant stick) has gone in and taken out Pixiebob rather brutally, who is really the only one among the Pussy Cats that has a combat-oriented quirk. Someone sneaks up behind Kouta but I don't care about Kouta.

We haven't really seen just what these villains can do. Dabi and Toga have obviously been built up a fair bit, though they haven't really been seen in battle. For all we know, Midget Darth Vader and Jason Voorhes cosplayer and Hellraiser Bondage Man are actually very weak and are just disposable troops that the Dabi just happened to answer Dabi's call. It really depends on just how much the students have improved their quirks, because at this moment they're still in training and the professional heroes there that really can put up much of a fight are Aizawa (who's back at the lodge) and Tiger.

We'll see. Power level management and hyping up villains only for them to be taken out by random second-stringer characters who shouldn't be that powerful is one of the things that some mangas really screw up, so I'm curious just how Academia will handle it. I highly doubt anyone's going to die, though, even the Class B people. This is a Shonen manga, after all...

Toriko 353 Review: A Bunch'a Insane Animals

Toriko, Chapter 353: And Now For The Main Course

I was afraid that the Eight Kings would be just, well, wiped out. Especially after the (apparently mistranslated) dialogue last chapter about how the Neo meatball ate Moon. Well, turns out I didn't really have to worry. It's another hype-up chapter, and we don't exactly delve to the three big fights we see at the end of last chapter. No, we get a re-establishment of how there's one week left until the Gourmet Eclipse... and, well, I guess we kinda have to make our peace with the fact that we're probably not really going to see Team Zebra, Team Sani and Team Coco really do their shit. Maybe a couple chapters for each of them. If we did a Blue Grill style flashback for all four teams it would be overkill and completely derail this whole Neo crisis, so, yeah.

But anyway, we cut from one area to the next except for the ever-mysterious dragon king. Area 8, Horse King Hill... The meatball that landed there tried to puff itself up and try its best impression to look like that disgusting caterpillar monster from Berserk. But apparently Heracles just considers it to be a larger target that's easier to take aim at. Heracles did a 'Herac Breath'... and apparently a single sigh of relief from Heracles is enough to reduce everything into vacuum, and pointing it downwards is enough for it to cut through the Earth like a fucking laser. Because these Eight Kings are insane, yo.

In Area 7, Monkey Restaurant, Bambina is fighting his own meatball. And, well, the meatball he's fighting isn't in a good shape. If it's in a shape at all. Bambina is just really enjoying himself fighting against something that continuously regenerated and fought back, and is just so happy he wants it to go on forever. But apparently Bambina's punches hit like meteors and eventually the meatball just loses 'any semblance of shape, form or existence'. And Bambina cries.

We get a short scene of Zonge, free from all that sweet, sweet monkey loving, thinking of running away when the ground suddenly erupts because the Herac Breath just blows apart through it. Yeah. Meanwhile Bambina gets blown around by the force of the wind and... is happy. Because he realizes there's someone out there that can play with him.

Oh, man, drop everything and have Bambina fight Heracles. That would be fine with me.

Area 5, Food Region Forest. Apparently the Sky Deer's army of Level 4000 monsters are no match to the Neo meatball here and its ugly goblin nose, and has eaten around a hundred of the monsters on top of Sky Deer. And then suddenly the meatball finds itself in a weird void... because Sky Deer has simply stopped walking and is now angry... and apparently it created a space trapping the meatball, and it's a space that with the passing of a few seconds, it 'rots away as if hundreds of millions of years have gone by'. So, um, Sky Deer has time-controlling powers, or pocket dimension powers, or rotting powers or... well, shit, it's a fucking continent-sized deer in fucking Toriko, I can't really fathom just what powers it probably has.

Quinn's mother just broke Physics

Area 4, Gourmet Garden. The meatball here just looks so happy and cheerful and sad at the same time, gorging itself on pretty flowers... before realizing that it's dissolving in digestive fluids. The meatball then realizes that around it are ingredients not found on earth, stuff like Plum Stars, Moon-Shrooms and Meteor-Mold Fish from space. Yeah, really hinting at a possible space arc, isn't it. And the meatball realizes that it is, in fact, within the Mother Snake's stomach. And the Mother Snake can just extend its form like a damn stick jutting out of the Earth to catch extra-terrestrial space fish. Because all the insanity about the Mother Snake isn't enough already. And it's apparently 220,000 kilometers long. All righty then.

Area 3, with the Emperor Crow. The meatball has mutated into an honestly cool-looking six-winged thing with a crying face and stumpy little frog feet. It flew straight up to evade the Emperor Crow's Shadow of Death... which apparently is literal. Somehow the Emperor Crow's shadow also shot upwards, and the Emperor Crow has a sun beneath it... which doesn't make sense, until the next panel reveals that the Emperor King doesn't give shit about Physics either, and can vomit out a ball of light like the Sun to cast its Shadow of Death anywhere it wants to. And the shadow just, well, annihilates everything and all thought and just makes the meatball go pop.

Area 2, with Toriko, Starjun and Guinness. Toriko and Starjun kinda discuss a bit about getting "god", and Toriko's confident that the two of them can take down Guinness. Yeah, dream on, Toriko... you're awesome, but you survived Bambina and Heracles by luck. And look at the sheer insanity of the other eight kings... one is a 200K km snake that eats space stuff for snacks. One is a giant sun-spitting crow whose shadow incinerates all thought. One is a whale the size of a fucking moon that has a black hole for a mouth. One is a skyscraper-sized horse that can create a wind cannon cutting through the earth by simply sighing. One is a giant continent-sized deer with a forest filled with monsters and also has the ability to trap you in fucking hyperspace. One is motherfucking Bambina.

Ahem. Toriko and Starjun get ambushed by the meatball there with a gigantic wart nose, but we don't see them fight it. We cut away to Komatsu talking some shit about going to the other areas where Zebra, Sani and Coco have presumably obtained their respective ingredients. Despite Komatsu apparently finishing cooking the revival efforts in Blue Grill. Komatsu is confusing. And I don't care. I want to see Toriko and Starjun and Guinness fight the wart.

Also, Neo vs. Eight Kings? It's 7-0 so far, with the dragon king remaining elusive. Granted, those are just warts, but considering how the warts themselves have been built up by annihilating those noble blue nitros... yeah. Also, these Eight Kings just break all laws of Physics and they are awesome.

Supergirl S01E03 Review: Co-starring Clark

Supergirl, Season 1, Episode 3: Fight or Flight

Now I know I have been bashing Supergirl for a fair bit for the past two episodes about its rather slipshod writing and its poor handling of sexism or feminism or what have you. And it's a fair criticism, in my opinion -- because this episode shows how you can properly do commentary on sexism during the interview between Supergirl and Cat Grant, with Cat going all "are you planning on starting a family?" and Supergirl just delivers a simple, damning answer with "nobody ever asks my cousin these questions." No need for a full rant that lasts a minute, no need for obvious 'is it because I'm A WOMAN' line with punctuated emphasis. Just well-crafted, well-timed dialogue that's not in my face all the time. Granted it's not the best way to throw in another feminist line a minute into the episode, but it's subtle enough not to be annoying. Baby steps, people.

This episode is easily the strongest of the three episodes I've watched so far. Scripting has improved, and trimming away some of the weaker points from the previous episode -- Astra in general, one-dimensional gimmick villains, boring DEO scenes and obligatory feminist rants -- have certainly improved this episode to be, well, relatively enjoyable and up to the par set by other superhero shows. 

That doesn't mean that this episode isn't without its flaws, of course, but those annoy me a fair bit less than the ones from the first two episodes and are far more tolerable. The whole girl flick complicated romance web thing is definitely being set up and I have no interest in shit like that, but it appeals to someone (and more importantly, the main intended demographic of this show) and so far it's not distracting enough, so I don't mind too much.

Now the main theme of this episode is Supergirl trying to be her own person, be her own hero, without needing help from Superman... so ironically the villain of the week is someone who has had encounters with Superman before. Superman himself makes an appearance later down the episode to further bruise Kara's ego, despite her insistence that she needs to strike out on her own and just be Supergirl without being beholden under her cousin's shadow.

Now, granted, logically speaking it's a completely moronic move as why would you intentionally cripple yourself for a sense of self-gratification? What if, say, because Supergirl flies in half-cocked like she did, Reactron kills her or a bunch of civilians? Why not have Superman and Supergirl work together until, well, Supergirl irons out her inexperience? Of course it can't really work in context of a show that's only limited to showing Superman from the back or obscured with lens flare or via text messages, but I really thought the rather petulant 'I need to do this on by own because I'm independent' seems to generally go against the grain of the message of teamwork that these superhero shows generally teach.

Especially since, what do you know, Supergirl only ends up defeating Reactron with teamwork and the help of James, Alex and Henshaw. 

I get it, Supergirl wants to be the hero the way his cousin is, and that she wants to build up a sense of self-esteem especially since Cat Grant's bitchiness seems to be focused on tearing her confidence down and comparing her to Superman, but really it kind of undermines the whole 'I am independent' bit of Supergirl when she can't, y'know, handle Cat Grant's massive amounts of criticism.

Also, whatever the fuck happened to the 'accepting help on Krypton' speech that Kara herself gave last episode? It's not too far of a stretch that Kara's just being bullheaded in her attempt to prove herself, but still.

Yet it ends up being all right, because of Main Character Syndrome and by the end of the episode she proves that, well, she can too be an adult and beat up psychotic nuclear-powered armoured men. It's just that the way the show goes about it is pretty roundabout and kinda hypocritical.

Reactron is a fun, appropriate villain for this episode, too. Vartox and Hellgrammite are just generic monsters, and Astra is just bland all around. By giving Reactron a backstory, it really puts him way above just another villain of the week. Sure, he's still flat, but the fact that he's actively hunting Supergirl for personal reasons -- to hurt her cousin -- really works well thematically with Supergirl trying to strike out independently from Superman. The fact that Superman apparently couldn't beat him is rather on-the-nose, but hey, whatever works.

The action scenes are still good, too, with Reactron's nuclear blasts and whatnot making him a somewhat credible threat against Supergirl. Reactron is a pretty significant character thanks to certain actions concerning New Krypton in the more modern Supergirl comics, so it's nice to see him around here, showing that they're not just going to randomly pick obscure Superman villains.

Speaking of visuals, despite the nice action scenes and nuclear blasts and flight and whatnot, the bit with the molten lead just kinda looked really bad.

Also holy crap I try not to be annoyed by it, but the blue heat vision really pisses me off.

Superman, of course, ends up rescuing Kara during the midway point. Which, while the show makes a point to cause Kara to explode at James and have James apologize so badly and admit that he's a coward... isn't a bad thing. Because if Superman hadn't intervened at that point, Kara would be super-duper independent... and also fucking dead. Yes, it's a dick move for sure for James to not have faith in Kara and press the big red button on his watch (which, I have to note, delightfully looks so retro) to summon big cousin. But doing it because she's inexperienced and fighting a villain that's implied to have defeated or at least escaped Superman before is a pretty good reason.

Thankfully the show doesn't really try to villify Superman for his rescue of Kara, and just pops in to add the self-esteem drama. I do like the show cheekily explaining his lack of concern and hanging around after Kara's been nuclear-blasted to the face by having him go deal with a volcano or some shit, and I definitely like how Superman, or, well, Clark ends up still being able to have lines via text-messages. It's a nice and welcome cheat, if you may, to allow Clark to interact with Kara while still following the show's mandate of never giving him a single spoken line or show his face. Because, well, without this short scene of interaction and a nice gesture of faith (and smileys!) Clark really ends up looking like a douche who doesn't even care enough to give his cousin the time of the day and tells his best friend to do it for him. Good show, that small texting scene.

Cat is still insane and treads the line between entertaining and irritating with such grace. She leans a lot more towards the former mostly because the show dials down more on her insane brand of bitchiness and has her just make unreasonable demands like moving that poor ginger out of the way, and the whole 'I am a writer' and subsequent coffee scenes are quite funny.

James is a bit better, but still uneven. The ship tease with Kara oh-so-obviously reacting to every single person that mentions Jimmy Olsen is an obvious indication that they're going to milk this love-triangle-square for all it's worth. James summoning Superman, again, really shouldn't be villified, and balls for him running around to distract Reactron, but right now he doesn't really have much going on for him other than look handsome and be, well, the Superman substitute. His position as Superman's best friend makes him kinda like this middle-man and he says all the things that Superman should probably say to her, while taking all the blame because James is the one that presses the button. He's the experienced one of the CatCo team, though for whatever moronic reason spills Clark's identity to Winslow all by accident. All the while we've got James's own self-worth problems to deal with and how he's so scared all the time and it ends up being kinda cluttered and messy. 

Not to mention, well, the whole love triangle thing. Oh, who would've known that James has an old girlfriend that drove all the way from Metropolis to see him? The role of James' old squeeze is taken by Lucy Lane, who, in fact, was the general go-to romantic interest for Jimmy Olsen in the old Silver Age stories. She ends up marrying Ron Troupe (who, rather hilariously, is a black Daily Planet reporter) in the comics, but we'll see how it'll go here. 

Winslow ends up building this secret monitor base in an abandoned room in CatCo and just keeps trying so hard to get out of the friendzone while James just so effortlessly cuts in dances and interrupts his explanations. Fucking Winslow is really what Jimmy Olsen should act like, not this James Olsen fellow. It's bad enough when you rewrite a relatively iconic character to be the exact opposite of what he traditionally is, but you're just being moronic when you include another character with basically the same personality as what you just written out.

I really have no interest in the pairings at all, in no small part because of how the characters' behaviour are just cliched caricatures of the friendzoned nice friend, the pretty nice girl and the handsome confident awesome dude. Very trope-y.

Alex gets some cute sister-y moments, but the show dials down on the flat DEO scenes and lines and makes her a lot more interesting. Hank Henshaw still is mysterious with his sinister glowing red eyes but ends up helping Supergirl. Nothing too exciting to write home about.

Maxwell Lord's introduction is... underwhelming. It's clear that they just want to establish Maxwell Lord as this billionaire first before delving into whatever sinister plan he may have cooked up, and they seem to go for a more jackass-y version of Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne. Sure, he's rich and he's super-brilliant and he's smarter than the scientists he employs and he's altruistic enough to let Reactron kidnap him instead of his employees, but he also fires people randomly and generally acts like such a smarmy tit especially with the big reveal that, hey, he says Superman saves him! How freaking childish. Also, Cat Grant totally owns him in being a smarmy tit department, so he ends up being underwhelming.

Also there's that future train thing that's probably going to help turn National City to resemble the City of Tomorrow that's associated with Superman in the comics. Even though that title belongs to Metropolis and not the awfully named National City.

All in all there's a lot of things going on against this episode, but they're nowhere in the quantity or severity that hurt the first two episodes. And, yes, it is just the third episode. It's far more palatable and interesting than the first two, that's for sure, and I do really hope the show improves beyond this. Because the really childish 'Supergirl is bummed out because no one gives her credit' plotline is really wearing thin after three episodes, and honestly don't you want to break the stereotypical mould that women only care about how the world perceives them? This is a step backward from that. But hey, credit where credit's due... it's a decent episode. I wasn't pissed off like how I was while watching the first two. 

One Piece 811 Review: Mama

One Piece, Chapter 811: Roko

I tried doing a Magi review but my computer ate it and I'm not feeling like writing it up again, so, uh, it'll be delayed for a bit. Nothing particularly review-worthy in that chapter -- some really great and heavy stuff about how the world works with economy and military stuff that really works well when you read it, but difficult to review without transcribing the whole thing.

Ahem. One Piece! The last chapter of the year.

We're still in the flashback, and this chapter is, I think, the least interesting of the flashbacks in Zou, since we don't get any real revelations about the culture or the events during Jack's attack or whatever -- we just see the Team Curly Hat (that's so fun to write) react to the poison gas attack and eventually cure it and earn the respect of the Mink people. It honestly could've been done in two or three pages, if you're being economical, but we did get a couple of heartwarming-slash-tearjerker scenes out of it. 

Caesar Clown notes that the gas's name is Koro and laughs a bit about how it's his own creation and shit (Chopper beats him up) and apparently if the antidote isn't administered within 48 hours, it's impossible to treat. I do love how Caesar keeps getting gang-pressed into servitude. We get to see the timeline of Sanji and Brook's fight against Sheepshead in clarity (apparently Kaidou's men just left), we get a short argument from Caesar about how the Mink people hates humans, we see Wanda attacking Nami in desperation and she's just ready to blow everyone up with a bomb and her crying face is heartwrenching. We get Chopper giving a big speech about saving everyone, and we get a montage of that. We get to see them reunite with Bepo! Bepo is love.

It went down a bit too long than what I preferred and some of the scenes could've replaced some of the other less-interesting scenes from the earlier chapters, but hey, it's effective.

In the present day Luffy wants to punch Kaidou. Yeah, you do that, Luffy. Wanda also affirms that she, like the readers, don't believe that Jack is dead. Wanda and Carrot apparently Ruler's Birds, some of the few Minks that is free to go back and forth between the ruling times of Inuarashi and Nekomamushi, and they head off because Chopper wants to be a doctor and inspect Nekomamushi. There's a bit of an ominous line about how they're lucky that the full moon is hidden by the clouds. 

Zoro points out that Sanji and Caesar "Gasbrain" Clown haven't disappeared from the flashback story. Also Momonosuke, but I guess Zoro has as much respect for the little brat as I do. Momo is in a room and I completely forgot about it nevermind. Brook and Nami say that despite the contents of Sanji's letter, Sanji might not be able to return to them. Um. Maybe tell this part of the story when it's relevant right after the Nami-crying cliffhanger? Jeez. But it's nice that Sanji's disappearance is relevant to the story and is treated with slightly more urgency than it did before. 

We only get a bit of a glimpse of what happened because the page count is unfriendly towards us, but Brook notes that they made a grave error -- that due to all the shouting when they escaped from Big Mom, their forces caught wind of their destination. And considering how Pekoms is a Mink, something that fans, including myself, have guessed ever since the Mink tribe's existence is confirmed, Big Mom's ship arrives at Zou, led by Pekoms.

So maybe Sanji decides to infiltrate Big Mom's ship from the inside? It's likely that Big Mom took Mr. Plot Device, Caesar Clown, but what about Sanji? And even if Big Mom wanted Sanji for... whatever reason, there's nothing to really correlate with the 'ALIVE ONLY' poster because that's issued by the government. Next year's apparently going to be the Year of the Sanji, so, yeah, we're probably going to get a fair bit of backstory and development to the dude, making up for how he's basically nonexistent in the story for the past year. 

Also, I cannot stress how awesome Pekoms' status as a Mink and the foreshadowing of a separate race of animal-men exists out there. Not only is the 'Mink' race already foreshadowed as far back as Shabaody, but we've always assumed that talking animals are people who ate a Devil Fruit. Like, I've always assumed Bepo was someone who ate a Bear Bear Fruit, or maybe a bear who ate another variant of the Human Human Fruit like Chopper did. So when Pekoms, Mr. Lion Man, reveals that he has the Devil Fruit powers of a turtle... meaning his lion attributes isn't because of a Devil Fruit... that honestly is a clever piece of foreshadowing and considering the existence of the Fishmen I'm quite impressed indeed. 

Ahem. Looking forward to more Curly Hair adventures in 2016!

Supergirl S01E02 Review: Hellgrammite's Balls

Supergirl, Season 1, Episode 2: Stronger Together

Yeah, this is kinda still going on for the moment, though unlike the other superhero TV shows I review I don't promise to catch up fully with the season. It'll all depend on the quality of the following episodes. I'll say it for this show, though -- it's better on my heart and my sleeping hours than Constantine. I just can't do horror.

Still, having the first scene be another banal "it's not because you're a woman, Ms. Danvers" scene immediately soured me off the episode. Representing equality and anti-sexism and female empowerment is all fine and dandy. Delivering it with utterly child-like level of intelligence and writing subtlety is a wholly different matter. It's honestly an insult to the viewers watching, and an insult to Hank Henshaw's intelligence that she thinks Kara is complaining because the DEO thinks she's a woman and not because she's, y'know, fucking Supergirl, a Kryptonian godlike alien with super-strength, flight, super-speed, invulnerability, heat vision, arctic breath and super ventriloquism. No. We need to get that "it's not because you're a woman" line thrown in.

Speaking of atrocious writing, don't get me started on the totally random "he he he him him him every woman needs to work twice as hard as a man" generic feminist spiel that Cat Grant randomly goes on a tirade apropos of nothing. They were talking about Supergirl causing problems for the city whilst doing her big, spectacular rescues , and Kara is just pissed that Cat is (technically rightfully) criticizing her alter ego... which isn't the most exciting scene, but it certainly didn't need the most cliched feminist rant thrown into there. 

Obligatory but necessary "subtlety of a brick" rant over, now let's talk about the episode proper.

Because, well, it's definitely better than the pilot. There are a fair amount of weaker parts, though -- several of the scenes and sub-plots don't really work that well, and General Astra, the apparent big bad of this season revealing her identity by the second episode ends up being... pretty underwhelming. But I did like the amount of content and themes explored in this episode.

The main part of this episode for Kara's development is that, well, she's learning that she kinda sucks at this whole hero-ing thing. We see her royally fuck up the oil tanker rescue -- twice -- and this ends up being the big headlines that paints Supergirl as this inexperienced hero. Alex tries to get her to train with her in a Kryptonite-lined room where her strength is brought down to approximately human level (which mirrors a scene from the comics where Supergirl received a similar training from the Outsiders) and Alex does have a point. If she's going to be facing other aliens with the same level of power as her, only, y'know, far better trained, she's going to have to train her fighting skills! So naturally she leaves off in a huff. Yes, it's the logically stupid thing to do, but it's a decision that actually makes sense considering Supergirl's mental state at that time.

Her exploding at Cat Grant leading to that awful speech and Cat Grant randomly going into an introdump and apparently humouring Kara with what she thinks Supergirl needs to do ends up having Supergirl recruit Jimmy James and Winnslow to help her 'start small'. Because public opinion is priority over learning how to control her skills? I dunno, that just sounds like a total reversal in priorities.

I do like the nice subtle critique of Superman's solo act, with Kara talking to James about how the S symbol on their chest stands for the El family motto of being stronger together. An absolutely cliched superhero 'we need to team up' speech, but one that perhaps rings true as a criticism against Superman, and definitely fits Supergirl's ensemble team. The talk about how Clark Kent hides his identity from the public by simply wearing glasses and behaving differently is something that's explored many times in the comics -- how it's not just the glasses, but the sheer change in behaviour and attitude and being mostly invisible in his civilian identity. It's nice to see it done in live-action form, though.

The two main plots running throughout the episode -- Supergirl learning to be a proper hero, and the hunt for the dangerous alien Hellgrammite, himself sent by the mysterious Kryptonian conspiracy, ends up coming to a head in, well, what amounts to a coincidence as Hellgrammite chooses to abduct Alex and not kill her like he did the other DEO agents. And despite Alex's speech about training and whatnot, Kara gives her aunt Astra a pretty decent fight up until the arctic breath that necessitates Hank Henshaw going in with that Kryptonite shiv. Which kind of defeats the purpose of Supergirl needing to train. It kinda goes against the moral of the episode, especially when you consider that Astra's far, far more likely to have received combat training while all Supergirl did as far as tactics go is do that spinning judo throw. Supergirl absolutely disregards Alex's talk about training to fight bigger threats and while focusing on maintaining good public image is something she needs to work on, disregarding the arguably live-saving training offers ends up being rewarded with her... basically able to fight on par with an experienced Kryptonian fighter. Um. Yeah. 

Let's talk a bit about the side characters, yeah? Cat Grant flip-flops between being hilariously entertaining or extremely annoying. On one hand, her criticism against Supergirl is a pretty well-deserved wake-up call for the aspiring hero, and her insane boss rants are at least hammily delivered. On the other hand, beyond forcing James to use his connection to Superman to try and get an 'in' with Supergirl within a set amount of time is not only a dick thing to do, it's borderline moronic. And having Cat be the super-convenient plot device to administer random plot points is just rather silly.

James Olsen apparently has his own subplot where his move to National City is him trying to outgrow Superman's own shadow and trying to be known more than 'that dude who's buddies with Superman'. Really it's just a cheap excuse to have him stay in the setting and not return to the Daily Planet (like Cat threatens to do), and the subplot with him having to deliver a Supergirl interview to Cat while Kara is initially unwilling is easily the weakest point of the episode. Winslow doesn't do much and hasn't outgrown the "awkward friendzoned nice guy" mould. He meets James and pathetically tries to outshine his perceived competitor, but Winslow has like two minutes of screentime in the entire episode.

The DEO scenes are pretty bland, beyond the nice special effects in the initial missile test run and the highway chase with the Hellgrammite. Alex is also pretty bland, just showing up to deliver what the plot requires of her, be it initiating physical training from Supergirl or showing up to be a (bland) supportive sister figure or simply be a damsel in distress. She gets progressively awesome near the end when she kicks Hellgrammite in the balls and stabs the bug alien with his own stinger, and the scripting for her near the end becomes more tolerable. 

Hank Henshaw is also extremely generic, just your usual hardcase tough-love military unit leader who in the end knows which side he stands for, proven by the Kryptonite shiv rescue. His eyes also glow red, implying something more sinister. Anyone who knows Hank Henshaw's identity in the comics can probably take a hint just what's going on, because unlike Caitlin Snow, it appears that Hank already has his Cyborg Superman powers. (Or clever foreshadowing for something else that I've been spoiled about, which I'll try not to bring up until when/if we reach the episode where things are revealed.)

The villains of this piece is pretty generic. The Hellgrammite is very loosely based on a minor yet awesomely-named Superman enemy, a scientist turned bug-monster. Here it's been reimagined into a race of aliens called the Hellgrammites (now why a race of aliens has the same name as a species of insect on Earth is an odd question, but I guess it's the same reason why a race of aliens has the same name of a certain noble gas from Earth). The Hellgrammites here are these bug-people with mouths that can open wide and gross all Predator-like, and it basically confirms that non-Kryptonian aliens were stuck in Fort Rozz as well. And they can sprout these cool giant wasp stinger things from their palms all Terraformars style. Also despite being alien bugs they eat DDT. Just 'cause. The Hellgrammite doesn't really get to fight Supergirl, though, and it's just treated as another alien for the DEO to hunt down. And it's Alex that takes him out, by kicking Hellgrammite in the balls and then stabbing him with his own stinger. 

Can I just say how absolutely hilarious it was for Alex to win against the scary bug alien by kicking his balls? Because that was hilarious. Also equally hilarious is the scene where Kara goes to save a cat from a tree... only for Fluffy to turn out to be a snake.

Hellgrammite doesn't want anything to do with the whole Kryptonian conspiracy, though, and is gang-pressed into it by Astra's people. And, well, Astra... is extremely generic and unimpressive. Revealing your main villain's identity as the main character's aunt by the second episode might be a bold move, a nice inversion to how most shows hide or merely only hint at the main villain's identity from the protagonists and/or the audience... but Astra's arrival is extremely flat. Yes, that action scene is absolutely impressive, but Astra herself is extremely generic. There was a bit when Kara remembers Astra from her childhood and a bit of family angst going on, but any interest ends up being shut down as Astra goes for the generic doomsday villain route and just rants about mysterious plans for taking control of National City for unclear reasons. Like Alex and Cat, Astra suffers really badly from shitty stereotypical dialogue and lines, and perhaps is the one that suffers the most.

Also, Kryptonite is apparently something discovered relatively recently, because Supergirl is only aware of it a week ago, whereas the mere existence of something that can hurt her causes Astra to freak the fuck out. 

We get allusions to Kara's life on Krypton, which is fun. There's the whole speech about the S symbol, there's the nice flashback to Kara remembering her mother catching criminals (including the Hellgrammite), and there's, of course, the whole thing in the end where Kara gets her own interactive Space Mom AI, a staple of any Superman-related fiction. It's cool.

We get a lot of references to Superman this episode. He gets called by name a couple of times, Cat Grant name-drops Lois Lane and Clark Kent specifically, as well as Perry White. Alex mentions Superman's Fortress of Solitude. Maxwell Lord of all people gets a cameo, and apparently he's going to get a bigger role in this season. Now which version of Maxwell Lord we'll get, and whether he'll be a shifty good guy or flat-out a villain remains to be seen. 

It's still not the best of episodes. I don't mind the formulaic villain-of-the-week format, nor do I mind the two interlocking plots of Kara getting her feet wet and trying to work on both her actual fighting skills (as oddly handled as it was) and her public standings. But the weak James subplot, the weak performance and underwhelming reveal of Astra, and relatively bad scripted lines from Cat, Alex and especially Astra makes me not enjoy this episode quite as much. 

Supergirl S01E01 Review: Fetching Coffee

Supergirl, Season 1, Episode 1: Pilot

Supergirl is a show that I was absolutely soured towards thanks to all the promotion. By rights it should be a show I enjoy -- it's another show about a DC superhero, one of the flashier ones even, and as a kid I really liked Supergirl from both the cartoons and the comic-books. This show should've really appealed to me. But the original trailers basically painted this show as something that's basically the most generic chick flick ever, but with superheroes. And while you can have superhero stories take place in various genres (Ant-Man is a heist movie, Jessica Jones is a noir detective show, Guardians of the Galaxy is a space opera, Agent Carter is a period piece) it's a different thing trying to shove in as many overtly-girly tropes and 'look at us being feminists' lines into a TV show. And, well, it's one thing to be feminist and to have gender equality in the show, but it's another thing to bludgeon viewers in the head with as much subtlety as an explosion in a Michael Bay movie.

Yes, granted, a show shouldn't be judged merely on the standards of whether it meets the criteria for being a satisfactorily feminist show. And it's unfair to judge an entire series after watching a pilot episode, which have generally been hit-and-miss as far as most TV shows go. But man, this pilot is absolutely underwhelming. They've shoved in so many cliches into this episode that I'm honestly not quite sure what to make of it.

It's one thing to have a character be treated unfairly due to her gender -- it's a fair topic to pursue, even if shows like Agent Carter are less than subtle about portraying it. It's another thing for Supergirl's first episode to have Kara whine about how she got into CatCo simply because the founder is the most powerful woman businessman or another. Or to have Kara go on a rant about how she should be called Superwoman because of -insert the most blase feminist speech-. Or to have Kara and/or Alex go "why, is it because I'm a WOMAN?" Or to have the villain come from a utterly cartoonishly stupid "in my world women bow to men" alien. Again, it's a pilot episode and I shouldn't be too hard on it, but man, there's lack of subtlety, and there's this. 

In retrospect watching this pilot episode mere days after I finish Jessica Jones -- a superhero show also starring a woman and tackling mature topics with a female-dominant main cast yet doesn't stoop so low as to insult its viewers' intelligence by going all "so you think I can't take him because I'm a woman?" The fact that the writers think those lines exist to make viewers root for Supergirl really does the opposite job of trying to show a powerful female character and instead highlight what seems to be the character's subconscious feel of inadequacy... something that really shouldn't be. 

Anyway, all that talk about handling feminism with the subtlety of a piledriver aside, the pilot episode itself... well, it's underwhelming, just like most pilot episodes. 

The action scenes are cool, though, and other than my displeasure at colouring Supergirl's heat vision blue (what the actual fuck, visual effects people) most of it has been pretty cool. You've got Supergirl flying around in all the Superman poses, absolutely obliterating that truck by flying in front of it, and even saving a plane as the episode's highlight point. That plane rescue was pretty cool.

I also don't have much problems with Supergirl herself, or, well, Kara Danvers as she's known. Her backstory pilfers mostly from the post-Crisis Kara Zor-El version of the character (if I start discussing the many many women to have taken the mantle Supergirl we'll be here all day) though with the twist that Superman let her grow up with the Danvers family. Like the comics, though, despite departing Krypton at an older age than Kal-El, she arrived on Earth stuck at the same teenaged age while her cousin's grown into this icon and protector of the planet. It's just that all this backstory is delivered in gigantic chunks of exposition. And while it makes clear the whole concept behind how Supergirl is born before Kal-El but is younger, it does feel a bit inelegant how the show just drops all the backstory in one go.

The structure of the episode also suffers. While Kara's actress does an adequate job at portraying a cheerful young woman with self-worth and self-esteem issues -- her big conflict this episode is whether she's good enough to be a hero like her cousin, and everyone around her seems intent on putting her down. It's just that the way it's handled is so cliched. Kara gets discouraged, gives up, side character gives her a pep talk, she comes back. And it's done so rapidly without room to breathe.

The scenes in Cat Co. are also pretty much padding and if this is going to be the selling point and the location where most of the scenes take place, I don't really like it. Cat Grant, Jimmy Olsen and Winnslow Schott are all based on actual characters from Superman comics, but none of them behave anything at all like the characters they're based on, but rather fit the cookie-cutter moulds of characters from a girly romance show. Winnslow Schott, otherwise known as the gimmicky classic villain Toyman to DC fans, is the most generic awkward nice-guy in the friendzone ever. Cat Grant, who's a reporter and a close friend to Clark Kent, is the most stereotypical rich bitch ever, though this version of Cat is at least entertaining enough.

And Jimmy Olsen? Jimmy is one of the most iconic characters in Superman lore. Hell, in most adaptations Jimmy generally gets in before Supergirl does. And the core of his character is that he's this geeky nice guy, a sharp contrast from Superman being, well, Superman. Yet the two are best buddies. I don't mind the race lift... but really, they turn Jimmy Olsen into this... big handsome dude that's obviously the 'nice hot jock' foil to Winnslow's 'friendzoned nerd'? They really should've cast someone that fit to the mould of 'Jimmy Olsen, but black' instead of casting a random supermodel-level black dude. Honestly beyond the affirmations that, yes, Jimmy Olsen knew Superman and hails from Metropolis, you'd be hard-pressed to know that this is supposed to be Jimmy Olsen. None of the Cat Co. crew really interest me.

Yeah, I'll go with what the show does and call him James instead. He's clearly not meant to be the same character.

The main plot of this episode is Kara breaks out her superpowers to save the crashing plane with her foster sister, Alexandra Danvers, on it... and ends up being thrust into the spotlight. This ends up to her being hunted down by two parties, namely your standard MIB-expy DEO (Department of Extranormal Operations) and by a group of alien criminals who just happens to have it out for Kara's mother. Apparently when Kara's ship went out of the Phantom Zone, it dragged along a Kryptonian prison with it, unleashing the alien criminals contained within it onto Earth.

And while it's cool that they're incorporating pieces from DC lore so early in the game like the Phantom Zone and the Kryptonian criminals trapped there, it also doesn't really hold up to inspection. Why hasn't these alien criminals been active from the moment of Kara's crash-landing and chose only to be active now? Why are there aliens that aren't Kryptonians in a Kryptionian prison? Why hasn't Superman hunted down these criminals? 

It's an easy way to provide Kara with a steady supply of villains, though, and it's apparently being commanded by Kara's aunt so there's some kind of organization and hierarchy. There's also some semblance of a far-reaching plot with them apparently having a mysterious plan or some shit going on. It's fine. The throwaway starter villain, Vartox, who's just an alien villain who comes from an culture where MEN RULE (-groan-) with a Star Trek prosthetic head protrusion. Vartox's absolutely generic, has generic powers to let him go toe-to-toe with Supergirl, although at least he doesn't dress or look anything like his comic counterpart, pictured here. Seeing that shit in live action... ugh.

The DEO is headed by Hank Henshaw, better known to DC fans as Cyborg Superman (or sometimes just the Cyborg, but that'll confuse you with the Victor Stone version of Cyborg). Who's a gigantic psychopath that blew up Hal Jordan's city. And, well, Hank Henshaw here... is your generic authoritative figure that initially seems like an asshole that hits all the asshole tropes. "Go back to fetching coffee!" Man, the quality of scripting in this show is atrocious.

Alexandra Danvers (who as far as I know isn't based on a character from the comics) is a fun character, Supergirl's foster sister and the two bounce dialogue off each other pretty well, and it's a nice plot twist that Alex ends up being apparently a kickass superspy as part of the DEO. We get another juvenile "am I in this organization because my sister is an alien" self-worth plotline, but it's handled with more elegance and resolves itself more subtly at the end of the episode. 

Also the DEO has access to Kryptonite dart-guns and clamps, enough to hold Supergirl down. Yeah, they're going hard and fast at establishing elements of the lore, which is a point in its direction.

I'm also pleased with the amount of Superman references here. Obviously they can't show Superman's face, and the shots are angled to make sure that the glare of the sun obscures the Man of Steel, or we only see part of his body or the picture is too zoomed-out to make his features, but Supergirl's takeoff-from-Krypton truly incorporates all the elements with Kal-El, which is nice. We also get references to Superman being an icon in Metropolis, being best buddies with Jimmy Olsen, his first outing as Superman being a plane rescue, we get references to the Daily Planet and all that. Superman, by virtue of being, y'know, Superman, also casts a pretty long shadow.

I think I'd be remiss not to mention that they try their very best to avoid naming Superman and use strange euphemisms... but I'm told it's just for the duration of the pilot. Good, because they handle 'not saying Superman's name' with the subtlety of a brick to the face, and it gets absolutely annoying. 

Also apparently Superman asks Jimmy James to keep an eye out for Kara Danvers if she should decide to be a hero, which is kind of a dick move on Superman to Kara, revealing her identity like that, and to James, basically forcing him to change where he work just in case Kara decides to go super-heroing... awfully convenient that Vartox decides to attack a plane around the same time that James moves into National City, yeah?

National City. Ugh. I hate typing that name. Yes, they have to set this away from Metropolis to have Supergirl have her own city, but bullshit like Star City, Central City and Coast City get leeway because they were named like, in the 60's or something. National City has no such excuse. 

Overall, though, it's more of a cliche storm than anything, with a lot of the burden falling squarely on shitty scripting and an over-reliance on cliches and girly-show tropes. I can't deny that I absolutely appreciate all the comic book nods, though that does not immediately make a show good. The episode definitely lost my attention several times when it's just blathering about random stuff which is the opposite of what a pilot episode should do. It definitely doesn't deserve the rave reviews that the internet seems to give it -- just because a show stars a woman doesn't mean every single feminist in the world needs to be fan dumb and go 'rah rah awesome show'. That goes to the people that think every single superhero show is good, too. It's not unwatchable and has decent moments, in no small part helped by the fact that Kara's actress is a genuinely fun lead, but it has a long, long way to go before it becomes a properly good TV show.

We'll see if I can give enough of a shit to watch episode two.

Jessica Jones S01E13 Review: Little Anal Crumpet vs Mind-Controlling Prick

Jessica Jones, Season 1, Episode 13: AKA Smile

Well, that's an... unconventional way to end the series. Of course, I don't expect something conventional with such a different take on a superhero story, but still. A good chunk early on in the episode is just spent on Jessica panicking about getting Luke Cage some medical attention, with needles not working on his superhard skin. It's an interesting, novel concept, but honestly it took way too much time even with the totally-unfeasible "drain some of the leaking cerebral fluid via a gruesome MacGyver operation and call it a day" improvised method that they did. I guess Luke has some accelerated healing going on? Because medically speaking, that procedure, even if a nurse knew how to perform it perfectly and not injure any part of Luke's brain, would merely delay Luke's death, not cure it. But whatever. It's a superhero show, not a medical show.

And a huge chunk of the first half of the episode revolves on a cross-show cameo, Claire Temple, hailing from this show's older brother, Daredevil! And it would be cool if she just shows up and be the nurse that Jessica enlists to treat Luke, but no. She had to eat up so much screentime and talk and talk and talk to Jessica. I mean, I get the "I have this friend" conversation that refers to Daredevil is basically mandatory, and there's nothing wrong with Claire and Jessica talking for a bit, but after a while, it gets rather odd that it goes on. And on. And on. It would be okay if this didn't happen in the freaking finale, where we're tense about the Jessica/Kilgrave confrontation but instead we get a gigantic distraction.

There's nothing wrong with the Claire scene per se... she's cool, but wholly unnecessary. And would totally throw off anyone who come watching Jessica Jones without first watching Daredevil, and as much as I adore cross-continuity references, I also hate if the cameos and references take too much of a particular episode or movie and become the focus without any actual justification.

Add to the fact that the confrontation between Jessica and Luke last episode, with the situation remaining ambiguous whether Luke truly forgave Jessica over Reva ended up left hanging in the air, and Claire sucking away so much screentime really is wholly unnecessary. Jessica and Luke's relationship has been a huge part of the series since episode one (two?) and it's a shitty cop-out that they left such a huge cliffhanger last episode -- granted Luke himself is getting his own TV series and it's a fair bet Jessica will show up there, so it won't be left unignored, but it's still crappy for the conclusion of this series to leave it up like that.

What does get a conclusion, however, is Jessica and Kilgrave. And to a lesser extent, Jessica and Trish. Basically for the two adopted sisters, it boils down to the fact that they, like, love each other. Which is treated like some big, big emotional moment when Jessica chooses 'I love you' as her password, but really it isn't. Trish has been Jessica's morality pet since day one, and we've already got 'you're the only person I want to protect' thing during the Simpson episode, so it really kinda feels rather weak.

Having Trish participate in the climax is awesome, though I'm honestly not sure what role she could possibly be. The scene where she pretends to be Jessica with gigantic headphones to drown out Kilgrave's orders (literally no one thought to do this before?) is cool... but then you realize that beyond distracting Kilgrave for like ten seconds it proceeded to do absolutely nothing. If Kilgrave had told the mind-controlled policemen to shoot Trish instead of Jessica, I bet they would feel like total idiots.

And Trish totally did nothing in the final confrontation in front of the yacht, where all she managed to do by running up is to get herself trapped in a damsel in distress state. Granted all the gloating that Kilgrave did ended up giving Jessica her opening, but still, Trish's role really felt weak in the climax.

The stuff leading up to the climax is cool, though. As weak as the 'I love you' bit ended up being to me, Jessica acknowledging that Trish can come with and help her out despite shutting out practically everyone when she goes after Kilgrave is cool. If only Trish had actually done something substantial in the climax. But oh well.

We also get a pretty gruesome scene of Jessica finding what remains of poor, poor Albert. Not content to do the 'cut out your heart' thing to his father like he did before, Kilgrave has his other thralls chop off Albert's limbs and fucking put them through a blender. That's waaaay overboard, yet chillingly shows how Kilgrave has dropped all pretense of being a lovable psychopath and just be, well, a psychopath. Kilgrave's personal rants into thin air shows just how unhinged he has become, as he rants about how best to torture Jessica -- straight death, forcing her to want him yet denying her the chance to, all that -- and all the speeches via hospital intercom are pretty great.

For all it's built up to be, though, Kilgrave's enhanced mind-control powers really don't do much. Yes, he has the ability to take control of an entire hospital just by talking through TV screens and have them go on a witch hunt for Jessica, but it ends up resolved by Jessica shoving people out of the way. Kilgrave also controls a lot of policemen to shoot Jessica and force a lot of people to kill each other... which really didn't feel any different from how he normally operates.

In the same vein, while I do appreciate not falling into the superhero cliche that the final battle of the season/story arc/movie needs to involve the entire city being in danger and having the stakes just be around Jessica, Trish and the random dudes told to kill each other, it also feels quite less epic. Maybe have a bigger crowd scene or extend the hospital one a bit? Dunno.

And as a final kicker, having Trish be temporarily immune thanks to the loud music on her beats really makes Kilgrave's power upgrade seem shitty. And showing such an obvious cheat to get away from Kilgrave's mind-control powers when the entire season has been about trying to find loopholes and whatnot makes it really ring hollow.

I do love how apparently Albert powered Kilgrave up by using Hope's aborted fetus, though. Injecting more stem cells and whatnot instead of random pharmaceutical drugs (as last episode seemed to imply) is far more believable as far as superhero power-ups go, and it's nice to acknowledge that little Chekov's gun.

The final confrontation between Kilgrave and Jessica as Kilgrave takes Trish hostage (where did her beats go to?) and delivers a suitably creepy description of how Kilgrave will basically rape Trish everyday and force Trish to 'love' him just to torture Jessica. The obviously loveless kiss is perfectly shot, with the mind-controlled Trish looking passionate while Kilgrave can't give a shit and is more concerned with Jessica... and then Kilgrave randomly just goes "you really would do it, would you?" and just walk towards Jessica and go all "we can start over again, you will love me"... and it doesn't really make sense just why Kilgrave thought this time would be any different. If he had given Jessica a command, or if Jessica's facial expression showed something... I rewatched the scene like two or three times, and I still don't understand how Kilgrave went from "I will turn your sister into my sex slave and you will never find us or she will kill herself" to "oh you actually do love me." I mean, Kilgrave is insane, but the sudden leap of events really could've been handled smoothly. Hell, maybe throw the "I love you" earlier during this sequence to both fool Kilgrave and tell Trish and the audience that she's fully in control.

Of course, that didn't happen. Kilgrave walks up to Jessica talking his rant about loving each other, Jessica pretends to follow his orders to 'smile' (a nice callback to the first episode) and say 'I love you' (which really doesn't have that strong of an impact) before just grabbing Kilgrave by the face and snapping his neck.

Yeah, a classic hero, Jessica Jones ain't. Anyone who really wished for Jessica to do anything else is fooling themselves after the entire season has been building up to Jessica trying and failing to bring down Kilgrave within the system, so it's just putting down a rabid monster now. It's definitely cathartic and borderline anticlimatic, but I think it's kind of a suitable way for Kilgrave to go out. As much as I griped about the specific circumstances that led to it, it's still a suitable end to Kilgrave -- for all his bullshit about control and Jessica loving him, Jessica shows who is truly in control by simply pulling a Henry Cavill Superman and snapping his neck. It's a far more suitable and expected end for Jessica, as pyrrhic as it feels. The couple of online reviews I read before typing my own is undivided whether this ending is an absolute anticlimax that destroys the "I can be a hero" mindset that the story initially starts with, or a suitably dark and melancholic ending to one of Marvel's darker stories. I think neither are wrong, and as messy as it is, I appreciate the ending for what it is -- putting down a rabid psychopath of an animal.

With Kilgrave out the way, we tie up the rest of the B-cast and outstanding plot points. Thankfully Robyn doesn't show up. Luke wakes up, of course, talks to Claire a bit before buggering off to do his own TV show. We get Dorothy Walker sending Trish even more documents about IGH (yep, definitely sequel hook) without her asking, though there's still the emotional abuse thing going on with her promising more. Earlier in the episode Trish tells Jessica what she discovered about IGH, but in typical Jessica fashion she doesn't give two shits about it.

Hogarth gets called by Jessica halfway through to be confronted about the fetus, Jessica forces her to represent one of Kilgrave's thralls, and while Jessica is realistically arrested for the murder of Kilgrave (couldn't she just chunk Kilgrave's body into the river like she did Reuben's?) Hogarth ends up bailing her out with her unethical shark lawyer ways. Her life is in deep shit thanks to the whole divorce arc, though, as she elaborates... though she at least helps out hero out this one time.

Marcus... shows up and talks to Claire about halfway through the episode, a conversation about sidekicks that really is wholly unnecessary. Couldn't he have discovered this on his own, or have the conversation with Robyn actually make sense last episode and lead to his character becoming what's basically Jessica's conscience? It's handled rather poorly, and Marcus has been all over the place this season.

The episode ends with Jessica sitting in the ruins of Alias Investigations, cleared of charges by Hogarth. Kilgrave is dead, but apparently everyone knows about the P.I. with superpowers and we get a nice little monologue about how she's deluding herself by thinking that she's a hero as she deletes a lot of voicemail of people begging her for help. Marcus, who sticks around, ends up picking up the phone and presumably helping Jessica actually find her own hero sense, and like the Kilgrave ending above reviewers are conflicted about whether this ending makes the whole 'I can give a shit and be a hero' motivation initially moot and turn Jessica into an unlikable character that turns a blind eye to other people's problems, or if it's totally in character for her after being so emotionally drained about everything to just give a middle finger.

One could make an argument about Jessica's character arc being a subversion of your general superhero origin story. Just compare Jessica Jones with her Netflix predecessor, Daredevil, who has a more conventional story. Daredevil starts off being a relatively violent anti-hero (despite being a nice dude out of costume) and eventually mellows out throughout the season into someone more idealistic and traditional. Jessica, on the other hand, starts with all the optimism about being a hero (despite being an asshole to people in general) and tries to be idealistic, wanting to bring in Kilgrave without resorting to murder, butends up being forced into a violent anti-hero. It really depends whether you find the subversion clever, or just plain destroys the concept of superheroes. Jessica Jones is a odd beast of a character herself among a throng of more traditional superheroes that having a different outlook is actually quite welcome to me, so I don't mind the ending as much.

Overall, though, despite the nice melancholic feel that all this has, there's still something that's just lacking with the ending. Claire sucking away so much screentime and stuff like Luke Cage being deliberately left as cliffhangers in a later show definitely hurts the episode, but the fact that this episode really didn't feel as tense or emotionally charged as the previous four or five episodes really doesn't help either. Plus all my gripes about stuff like Trish being bait or Kilgrave's sudden change in mind not really making much sense. Sadly the ending really feels like one of the weaker episodes of the season, and I wished they could've put this through the editing process a little more. As it is, it's a barely satisfactory ending which makes this otherwise-awesome series not living quite up to its full potential. The series as a whole is still great -- it's an unconventional superhero story that tackles a lot of mature themes, most of all abuse (sexual, mental, drugs, emotional, parental) and accountability, and it really doesn't deserve to be called shit just because it didn't quite deliver its ending as well as it should have.

Jessica Jones S01E12 Review: Unexpected Origin Story & Power Upgrades

Jessica Jones, Season 1, Episode 12: AKA Take A Bloody Number

As we reach the penultimate episode of Jessica Jones, it reverts back to the more detective-y feel of the earlier episodes, but does not lose any of the tension built up across the second half of the season. I was worried that the Simpson/Nuke thing would kind of disrupt the tension about all things Kilgrave-related, but really while all of that was rather strangely handled, this episode works in something that kind of justifies just what Kilgrave does between the end of episode 10 and the beginning of 12 while Jessica and Trish were mucking around with their sidequest.


All too often in shows but especially in Japanese anime/manga, a villain that is a gigantic threat at the beginning of the show starts to lose credibility and start, well, losing before eventually being taken out thanks to the hero(es) improving their skills and learning new techniques and shit. I think TV Tropes calls it ‘Villain Forgot to Level Grind’. Well, not so for Kilgrave, who has kidnapped his father, Albert, two episodes ago and has apparently been working to improve his mind-controlling abilities. When Jessica (and us, the audience) start to learn about the cracks in Kilgrave’s mind-control powers, Kilgrave sets out to, well, level up and gain new skills! Or force his father to work in an attempt to enhance the range and duration of his powers, if you will.

And this all sets up beautifully as Jessica and Luke team up for three-fourths of the episode in a nice tense little detective chase throughout town as they try to figure out just what Kilgrave is doing and where he is now. Kilgrave himself is also frantic, testing out his new powers randomly at a club, forcing his father and a bunch of random scientists to work without rest… only for it to turn out that, well, he’s had Luke Cage dancing on the palm of his hand all throughout the episode. It’s a nice plot twist that while not entirely unexpected – I think I made a joke of it during my last review – is handled absolutely well. I think the biggest point to faking out the “Luke is mind-controlled” plot twist is when Jessica basically forces Luke to sit out the action for twelve hours, which seems to be a convenient way to get it out of the audience’s mind.

And while Kilgrave is arguing with his father about increasing the duration and range of his powers, we don’t actually know that he’s succeeded in lengthening the 12-hour limit to a 16-hour limit prior to this episode up until the plot twist itself. Great job, that! And as with all mind-control plot twists, there’s all the hints that Luke isn’t quite in his right state of mind. There’s the obvious going offscreen to use the shower, of course, and we see how Luke dealt with the landlady – nonviolently, but still a flagrant usage of his superpowers when usually it’s Jessica that initiates that kind of thing.

We get a lot of great moments between Jessica and Luke while they’re together (the two characters really improve each other when they’re on screen together), and we even get a great reconciliation moment when Luke apologizes to Jessica and generally spout out a lot of heartwarming things… which at the climax Kilgrave claims to have ‘script written’ it all. How much of this is true, and how much of it is Kilgrave making Luke say the hurtful ‘you killed my wife’ dialogue in the end, is up to debate, and no doubt something that’s going to shake Jessica’s emotional state. As if all the shit that’s happened to the people around her isn’t enough already. It’s a great moment, capitalizing on the heartwarming scenes earlier to make them actually turn sinister and hurtful. Having Kilgrave repeat Luke Cage’s “I’ll say I’m sorry for the rest of my life” line to be the whammy is an absolute gut punch and you can just see how much it affects Jessica. While they fight Kilgrave keeps yapping on and on about how Luke has been his puppet all along, how it’s their sexual tension being resolved… man, what an absolute dick!

And the climax is absolutely brutal. This show’s always been shy about depicting Jessica’s super-strength beyond some super heavylifting or punching someone and sending them flying more than they really should – it acknowledges Jessica’s super strength while at the same time shuns from putting it on full display like most superhero TV shows to help preserve the more realistic feel of the show. Not so for this episode, as the moment Kilgrave reveals his presence Jessica just hops down from a storey above all Batman-like as she marches towards Kilgrave… and then the reveal of Luke Cage’s mind-control pans out, and we get a superhero fight scene!  While it starts off as a normal brawl, generally Luke and Jessica hold back their powers against normal human beings – even when fighting Simpson, Jessica never really got the chance to go all out like she did here, and while it isn’t quite the level of the Hulk/Iron Man fight from Age of Ultron, there’s a fair bit of property damage. We get shit like ripping the police car door and using it as a ramming shield, or Luke making a new door on a wall to ambush Jessica… great stuff.

And, yes, Jessica “kills” Luke with a boom headshot from a policeman’s shotgun, with Luke’s consent so he gets released from Kilgrave’s thrall. Obviously anyone with any knowledge of upcoming Marvel productions knows that there’s no way they’re going to kill Luke Cage off like that, not before he stars in Defenders, but still, the emotional impact is there as Jessica just breaks down at being forced to kill one of her loved ones all thanks to Kilgrave. It’s a great, explosive climax to an episode that builds up to it pretty slowly.

Kilgrave, meanwhile, is a gigantic hammy dick throughout this episode. He’s just dark comedy personified as he just snarks onto everyone around him and just goes over the top, shouting emotionally abusive things at Jessica while pulling off the odd ridiculous dance move or two on that stage. All the darker bits work well, too. From him giving Luke Cage a death-glare when he thinks Luke soured his chances with Jessica, the blender scene, him giving the rant about how Luke never forgave Jessica and all that… And again, despite all the established limitations of Kilgrave’s powers – Jessica’s immunity, loopholes in Kilgrave’s specific commands, a 12-hour (now 24-hour) time limit, hermetically sealed rooms stop Kilgrave’s virus from influencing you – we still see how Kilgrave’s powers are so horrifying even before the big reveal that Kilgrave’s gotten a power upgrade. There’s the bit with the dude that kills himself with garden shears, of course, easily one of the most brutal deaths in the MCU that’s absolutely jarring compared to the relative lack of gore in this show. There’s the bit where Luke describes the helplessness of being controlled by Kilgrave – someone with such a strong personality like him being utterly broken by it. And there’s the bit with the random workers being forced to ‘work nonstop’ until they shit and piss in place, and Kilgrave forcing his father to put his hand into a blender to help him focus.

It all builds up to a vengeful Jessica going to be out for blood. Having the Jessica-Luke fight happen in the penultimate episode (and Nuke happening in the previous one) means that there probably won’t be a big action scene like this one in the final one, but hey, I think it’ll suit the theme of this scene for the final confrontation to simply be between Jessica and Kilgrave.

And we haven’t gotten into the B-plots yet! Whoo, this episode is packed. Let’s get Marcus and Robyn out of the way. They’re honestly pointless. There’s a bit of an emotional scene when Robyn just breaks down and regretting not letting Reuben use express delivery for his charger or whatever, but otherwise Robyn is just crazy, assaulting that poor FedEx woman in a scene that lasts too long, and Marcus is just… kinda there.

Trish and her mother, on the other hand, builds up on the oddly-placed flashback last episode and ends up being relevant. The first few scenes seemed to have Dorothy just bring flowers and try to make up with Trish, talking about how all she wanted is a relationship – something that anyone can easily sympathize with as horrible as a mother Dorothy could be. And Trish herself even seems to almost believe it when Dorothy comes back later bringing the IGH file and just going on about how Trish can at least ‘use’ her mother to get what she wants, and she talks about what a shitty excuse of a human being she used to be, and it really seems to be building up to Trish grudgingly respecting her mother… until she makes a business proposal for Trish to help promote a client, and then things get ugly. Trish really has good reason to immediately be defensive and talk down any attempts her mother makes to play nice, and at the end of their conversation Dorothy just drops all pretense of being nice and just reverts to being a bitch. A great scene, really, as irrelevant it is to the Kilgrave plot.

I’ll talk about the IGH origin story bit later, but I really do like how it kinda sorta parallels the Jessica/Luke interaction throughout the episode, and foreshadows it even. Dorothy apologizes and says all the things that Trish wants to hear – how she’s horrible, how she doesn’t expect forgiveness, how all she wants is a chance to try to reconcile… all the nice things Trish wants to hear. Except, y’know, she doesn’t accept any of them. It parallels nicely to the tender rooftop scene where Luke tells Jessica all the things she expects, wants and needs to hear. And then at the end, the shocking betrayal is revealed. Now Dorothy isn’t mind-controlled and is a special kind of evil in herself, but it’s a nice little not-too-obvious parallel between the two and I like it.

Also I generally don't care too much about symbolism in backgrounds of shots or whatever, but Dorothy brings Trish an orchid while talking shit about someone else's choice of flowers. If she didn't talk shit about someone else's gift of carnations, I wouldn't have noticed that Dorothy brought orchids for Trish... orchids are parasitic plants, which really describes Dorothy's relationship with her daughter.

Now, the IGH stuff! Jessica Jones’ backstory has been handwaved as ‘accident’ and it’s clear that the show isn’t really interested in delving into that angle. But while Trish is doing her digging to the doctors that made Simpson into Nuke, she comes across the name IGH. An organization that Dorothy happens to know, and she gives Trish a file about it in her attempts of manipulation. Obviously Dorothy is withholding some information, but apparently IGH paid the bills for Jessica’s stay in the hospital so it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to think that IGH experimented on Jessica after her accident. Her powers didn’t show up until after she was adopted by the Walkers, after all, so it totally makes sense especially with all the mystery surrounding Simpson.

Speaking of which, Reva, while dead, still provides a fair bit of intrigue that puzzles even Luke Cage. How is she connected to all the experiments on kids that created Kilgrave? Was she involved? How did she come across the information and how is she connected to Kilgrave? All of these questions have been mostly overshadowed by the ‘ZOMG Jessica killed Reva’ revelation, but now with Jessica giving Luke the yellow USB and all the Trish talk about the IGH and superpower origins, it comes back in full force. Is Reva involved with the IGH? Did the IGH have a hand in creating Luke Cage’s unbreakable skin? So many questions, and I doubt any of them will be answered next episode – it’s world-building and seeding more and more questions to be answered in future Netflix Marvel shows, and it’s totally fine.

One more episode to go. It’s not as 100% Best Superhero Show EVAR as it has been advertised to me, and it certainly has its bumps and less-impressive moments, but as someone with no emotional attachment to any of these characters bar Luke Cage, it has certainly crafted a well-done story done in a different genre compared to its superhero TV brethren. It’s darker, it’s snarkier, it’s Kilgravier. It’s a great show, I’ll give it that.