Nanatsu no Taizai 130 Review: Meliodas's Power

The Seven Deadly Sins, Chapter 130: The Gently Piercing Pain

Not much of a big chapter, but we do get a couple of nice little revelations. Apparently Merlin sealed Meliodas's power not for any sinister reason, but simply because Meliodas will basically Hulk out and blow everything to kingdom come like what he did with Danafor if he gets angry, so Merlin and the druids sealed it and left Meliodas with power equivalent to 'leftover scraps', even when he lost control before. So I guess that's his 'sin of wrath'. Also the way that Meliodas can stand up to the Ten Commandments. Man, the other guys really need some kind of power boost too.

Also apparently Merlin took Meliodas' power ten years ago when a random young girl was injured when the Seven Sins were escaping, and she did so before Meliodas completely went berserk.

But they need Meliodas's full power to fight against the Ten Commandments, so they need to un-seal it. Meanwhile, Elizabeth goes through her own trial to become a druid and Zaneli isn't putting her through some sinister choice where she's "acting" as Liz in Meliodas's trial or anything like that. She just has to make some diseased seed grow.

Meliodas is forced to relive through Lisa and Wandle's death multiple times and loses control several times, which is accompanied by pretty awesome art. We don't get to see much beyond that, other than Meliodas asking for one last time to try it after seeing Elizabeth's face and resolving to protect the present.

Overall not really much happened, but we're progressing on pretty well with this Meliodas-gets-his-power-back arc, as well as learning... well, more confirming... what happened with Danafor and why Meliodas is wrath.

Fairy Tail 442 Review: The Spriggan Twelve and Pedo Doranbolt

Fairy Tail, Chapter 442: The Law of Space

This chapter's opening page was one of Wendy in a bikini, because Fairy Tail really likes showing prepubescent girls in sexualized positions. Wendy, Mavis, Chelia... but the opening page is relatively innocent enough. We actually get Doranbolt fucking lusting over Wendy at one point, and it's treated like a joke, like one of those character quirks like Natsu getting vehicular sickness or Juvia going all goo-goo over Gray. Um, it's not. Doranbolt is a pedophile, now more apparent than it ever has been. Go fuck off, Doranbolt.

I'm calling him Doranbolt because that sounds better in my head than Mest, and I've been calling him Doranbolt for years. So yeh.

Anyway, Doranbolt's extremely questionable lustful desires aside, Wendy and Carla go off with the little boy they rescued, Doranbolt teleports off to meet with their informant, while the rest of the A-team beat up the random mooks. And then Natsu and Erza go and eat some dessert from this random dude, who takes an entire page to talk about how his dream is to expand his ice cream store and whatnot before it naturally gets blown the fuck up because we need additional reasons to show that these Spriggan Twelve dudes are evil people who exist only to crush the dreams of decent people and whatnot, as ice cream dude just cries about his dream. Extremely cliched, but what can you do.

(Gray gives ice cream dude some money as compensation)

This member of the Alvarez Empire's "Brandish Force", called Marin Hollow, is the one to blow it up and he looks pretty generic as far as anime characters go. Erza's requip and Lucy's celestial summoning get effectively disabled by Marin Hollow's magic, called "The Knight", which allows him to equip anything, as well as disable any kind of space magic around him.

How does that translate to creating explosions to blow up ice cream stores, exactly? I dunno.

But apparently anyone who breaks the laws of space gets an invitation to Marin's "personal relaxation space". And both Erza and Lucy disappear into bubbles or some shit into Marin's dimension of, I dunno, PG-rated sexual dungeon or something. Marin talks about how the two women belong to him now, and then goes all angry and drops a very wounded Doranbolt, and apparently men are not allowed to use space magic in front of him. Um, okay? Women can, but you won't allow them? And you yourself use space magic? Marin Hollow, your logic does not really work. But he's insane so yeah.

Also Lucy is kind of an idiot, isn't she? Erza tries to use her magic, it doesn't work because Marin so helpfully explains like all shonen manga characters that space magic doesn't work before him. So Lucy, whose fighting powers revolve around summoning things from another dimension, is the first to try something. Good job, no really.

Marin does some teleporty magic to get away from Natsu and Gray's punches, but one of the Spriggan Twelve, Brandish (leader of the Brandish Force, I assume), shows up and Marin immediately gets subservient. Brandish is... a lady in a bikini with gigantic boobs. Yay boobs! It's kind of eyeball-roll inducing, but when the alternative is disturbing pedophilia I will go for shameless boob-and-ass displays every time.

Gray reacts with this big surprise at Brandish's magical force, but I'm not really counting on her or Marin to put up a fight, honestly. It would make for a better story if Brandish actually does defeat everyone here, including god-mode-main-characters Natsu and Erza, but I dunno. Hopefully we can get something decent and not regurgitated ad nauseum is all.

But sarcasm aside, it is a pretty great introduction, I must say. I mean, granted, Tartaros, the time-travellers and Grimoire Heart all had great introductions too and they kind of end up being poop, but let's not judge the rest of this arc by previous failures, yeah? It's pretty great. Marin, who is a mere subordinate of this arc's "big group", pretty effortlessly takes out two of the main team plus Doranbolt, and does it in a way that actually makes sense because of his powers -- control over space -- instead of some ill-defined I'm-more-powerful-than-you cockwaving. And like the Nanatsu no Taizai way of 'these guys haven't regained their magic yet', this dude that takes out half the team and runs circles over the two main dudes isn't even one of the Spriggan 12. Again, hopefully next chapter doesn't immediately feature Natsu one-shotting Brandish and Erza breaking out of the prison because. Overall, pedophilic Doranbolt aside, it's pretty solid of a chapter.

Arrow S3E23 Review: Senseless Motivations

Arrow, Season 3, Episode 23: My Name is Oliver Queen

Well, Arrow's third season finale didn't have the big epic threat or tension that either one of the first and second seasons finales had. And really, despite being mostly similar -- a large threat to the city (Merlyn's earthquake machine, Slade's superpowered army, the Alpha-Omega virus) led by a single poweful person that's Oliver's opposite in some way, the season three finale felt really flat. Unlike Malcolm Merlyn's insane rambling about wanting to cleanse the city or the personal 'destroy everything that matters to you' that Slade Wilson had, Ra's Al Ghul's "YOU WILL TAKE OVER AS THE NEW RA'S" felt stupid and is still unexplained right up until the final confrontation and Ra's eventual death. But all the stupid gambits that Malcolm, Oliver and Ra's have individually been making leading up to this point has been rather underwhelming and a lot are just eyeball rolling twist-for-the-sake-of-twists.

It's not like season one or two where the villains' performance and motivations are relatively well-defined, and their actions are mostly relatively sensible instead of the completely messy plotting and patchwork Xanatos Gambits of Oliver, Malcolm and Ra's here. And that, really, is what made this season so annoying as a whole... their motivations and actions really doesn't make sense.

Let's recap how silly everyone's motivations are, shall we, before we delve into this episode.

• Malcolm drugs Thea with mind-controlling herbs and gets her to kill Sara completely randomly just to kick off a 'who dunnit' plot. This is to bring the rage of Nyssa and the League of Assassins to Starling City. Malcolm knows this will goad Oliver to protect Thea and will turn himself over to the League.
• Then Oliver fights Ra's on the mountain, thus ridding himself of at least one enemy, while at the same time, maintaining the fact that Ra's won't be after him anymore. Oliver, of course, didn't die.
• Thea lets the League know that Malcolm is alive, while Nyssa refuses to kill Thea, and this part makes sense... but the Oliver randomly chooses to rescue Malcolm from the League because it will kill Thea's soul.
• For whatever reason, Ra's finds Oliver is fit to become his heir with no good reason beyond the extremely flimsy 'prophecy' excuse.
• Ra's does his thing to destroy Oliver's credibility, ruining his whole Arrow persona in Starling City, then almost-kills Thea (how convenient that was) to force Oliver to go to Nanda Parbat to beg for the use of Lazarus Pit.
• Sometime between this point and reaching the Lazarus Pit, Oliver and Malcolm hatch a plan so that Oliver will sneak into the League of Assassins, and destroy it from the inside before Ra's orders Oliver to raze his hometown. 
• Oliver gets to be a dick to everyone without telling them of this plan, again justified with the flimsy excuse of him being a death seeker. He then totally gets brainwashed, except he didn't.
• Team Arrow and Malcolm assault the League, while Oliver pretends to let his friends die to pretend to be loyal to Ra's, while Malcolm, after pretending to betray Oliver (again), turns out to have innoculated them against the virus.

Again, it sorta-kinda makes sense but it's still a bit too much for Malcolm and Oliver to have had all this in mind. Especially since Nyssa kind of hints that Malcolm getting the mantle of Ra's Al Ghul at the end of this episode was his plan from the 'beginning'... from him killing Sara? Yeah, I don't buy it.

Similarly, I don't buy Oliver's stupid excuse of being a death seeker as justification for not telling anybody about his plan to bring down the League from the inside, or being a dick to Diggle and Felicity. That punch from Diggle is absolutely well-deserved. Again, characters can make stupid decisions to further the plot and that's fine with me -- I forgive Agents of SHIELD and the Flash when they did it with their respective main characters in their finales because there's at least some logic or sensibility behind their actions. This? Not so much, beyond adding some drama between Oliver and Diggle's bromance.

And all throughout season three, the supposed theme is Oliver's identity issues, whether he is Oliver Queen or the Arrow or something else, with Ray taking over Queens Consolidated and his role as Felicity's boyfriend being the 'end' of Oliver Queen and Quentin finding out about the Arrowcave as well as the sidekicks having their own thing going on being the 'end' of Arrow... but really, the only reason why Oliver suddenly chose this season to be all angsty about it (not that Felicity being portrayed as more wishy-washy this season helped either) doesn't gel together that much, and despite this episode's end about how Oliver has finally found happiness through a long journey... it doesn't feel like it because all Oliver seems to do this season is, once more, distance himself as much as he can by being a dick, while the real effort to reconnect was made by his friends. The whole 'death of character' thing with Oliver being brainwashed into Al Sah-Him could be great if done properly, with all the right motivations and whatnot, but no, all it accomplishes is turn Oliver into a relatively unlikeable dick to all the other characters. It's just messy all around and done purely for the 'oh no Oliver turned evil' except not really, we know that won't happen.

The ending, sweet as it is, also doesn't make sense. Why does Oliver chose now of all times to find out that he's ready to retire and not be the Arrow? It's not as if the police are against him a new development, since that was the whole status quo in season one. It can't be that he discovered only now that he loves people, despite the dramatic Felicity moment in season two and his brotherly love for Thea being a constant motivation throughout the series. It can't be him realizing the city is in good hands, because we had that after his mountain 'death'. It's baffling, especially since moments ago he was ready to be a death seeker and blow himself up in a plane. Again, it's character development that... just happens. There really was nothing that leads to Oliver coping with his trauma and his crusade or anything, and that just felt wonky on the character front.

There were great bits in this episode, of course, with Diggle and Felicity confronting Oliver, or Thea showing up as Speedy at last, or Oliver and Nyssa taking on the league members in the airplane, or "wait for the thunder" and Barry's explosive appearance... but otherwise the episode and indeed how Ra's is taken out is really formulaic. The epic final swordfight between Ra's and Oliver has Ra's holding Oliver at sword-point, they talk for a bit... and then Oliver suddenly gets the upper hand and kills Ra's? That felt rather poorly done and honestly a bit anticlimatic after the super-awesome mountain swordfight.

Another moment that felt kind of m'eh was the lack of anything really League-like after the large army we saw last episode. Beyond Thea coming in as Speedy, all the random League virus-spreaders being taken out by the various allies of Oliver really felt like just splitting them up so Felicity will have that moment where she panics and tries to force Ray to abandon the antidote creation to fly in and save Oliver. Except, y'know, she ends up using the Atom suit herself.

Also, why the fuck did Ra's agents carry briefcases if they are already innoculated with the Alpha-Omega virus, beyond calling out attention to their identities?

Barry's cameo is absolutely gorgeous, set to the sound effect of actual thunder rumbling as he zips in, beats up everyone in Nanda Parbat, cracks some jokes about the Lazarus Pit (it's a hot tub!) and about Felicity calling his real name in front of Malcolm Merlyn... and he couldn't stay like thirty minutes longer to help them beat up Ra's Al Ghul? Unlike Oliver going off after his cameo in Flash's finale, there really is no reason for Barry to head off instead of helping Oliver out here, because surely Harrison Wells can wait in that cozy cell of his?

Also Katana randomly deciding that she came out of retirement to help Oliver last episode, but she won't help to stop the virus at least razing Starling City? That felt kind of random and out of nowhere. Though with the seeming embargo on Suicide Squad characters, I don't think Tatsu will be showing up after this season.

Dahrrk being introduced as Ra's big plan, again, feels convoluted and makes no sense beyond building Damien Dahrrk up for season four which you could do elsewhere without cramming up the finale. And how stupid was it? Ra's goes through all the trouble he did to make Oliver the new Ra's, so that he can use the Alpha-Omega bioweapon on Starling City, so he can take out Damien Dahrrk, who happens to be in that city at that time? Jeez.

Of course, Dahrrk isn't even in the city, so that was a gigantic waste of time for a red herring and foreshadowing.

Another strike against random foreshadowing is Ray Palmer tinkering with his suit and suddenly blowing up shortly before the scene with Oliver and Felicity. For anyone who doesn't already know that Ray will be the Atom, or the whole Legends of Tomorrow deal, that would totally be a sudden and completely stupid little kick-the-dog moment. I mean, I find it a hilarious black comedy to see Ray blow up, mostly because I'll know he'll be fine and be turned into the Atom, but it just came completely out of nowhere.

Thea being Speedy, though? That's awesome. That's pure awesome. Thea's the only one who really consistent in her soul-searching throughout season three, and despite being trapped within Malcolm's insane machinations, she manages to be the one among the cast that has the most solid character arc. Do also like the little 'Red Arrow' and 'Speedy' namedrops in the end, as well as the more subtle gag of Thea wearing a shirt with sequins arranged like her comic counterpart's arrowhead boob-window.

Diggle is also great, finally saying that he's had enough with all this bullshit. And while things are mostly calm between him and Oliver, he's pretty clearly pissed off about Oliver that he's quitting the crusade. Though there are hints that he might be suiting up as a superhero of his own next season, so yay? Green Lantern, maybe?

Malcolm, despite his penchant for stupidly convoluted plots like Oliver, manages to be a lot more fun and he's unapologetic in his dickery. And at the end of this episode he's the new Ra's Al Ghul, and apparently Nyssa is subservient for the moment. This might lead to Merlyn and Nyssa at each other's throats next season, or them united against Oliver for whatever reason, which certainly would be far more interesting than Ra's Al Ghul, who ended up being totally m'eh.

Oh, and the Hong Kong plot, which somehow still slugs on and clings to its unlife, finally ends as well with Oliver brutally torturing Shrieve after Akio dies. Literally nobody cares, and Oliver gets on a boat to... go back to Lian Yu? That's just plain stupid and I don't care...

And really, season three feels written more as a series finale than a season finale, especially with that ending of Oliver heading off with Felicity while leaving Speedy, Atom and the others to watch over Starling City. I'm not quite sure why that justified making Oliver so distant and unlikeable, though.

But still, I still somehow managed to enjoy myself throughout this messy affair of a finale. It's still enjoyable to some extent mostly due to seeing all the action scenes and all the non-Oliver people just have a ball saving the city. I just hope season four and Damien Dahrk or however you spell his name is a far more interesting villain than Ra's Al Ghul, we get a far more superior flashback than Hong Kong and Oliver doesn't contemplate his existence all the time.

Toriko 329 Review: Don Slime, weird monkey chefs and a bunch of cooking.

Toriko, Chapter 329: Thrilled Chefs

Team Komatsu arrive at Blue Grill, and that little chunk of Corgolem shows up behind them... only to get immediately sliced up into little cubes by some chef from a long distance away. Who are apparently this dude with a monkey mask and this dude with a bearded-face mask. Also they have four arms. All Blue Grill people have four arms apparently.

Is Alfaro one of these Blue Grill people? Huh, that might actually be an interesting explanation to his multiple arms and his freakishly powerful strength. Also a nice bit of foreshadowing/tie-in. 

Chin Chinchin somehow immediately knows that the Corgolem isn't incapacitated and will regenerate, but these mysterious masked chefs send these pelican things to ferry off the cubed-off parts of its body. Jiji gives some exposition, that the last people to have arrived in Blue Grill are Ichiryu and the three near-dead members of the 0th Biotope during the big war before the timeskip... who, as I look it up, are Warden Love and these two dudes Tack and Rala who haven't really done anything. 

Don Slime is noticeably pissed off at the mention of Ichiryu, but brushes it off with typical manga hijinks when questioned by Komatsu. 

And they arrive in Blue Grill and it's your typical Toriko montage of 'completely insane cooking', with this six-armed dude who launches his dishes halfway across the city to customers on a tower, this four-armed guy with a frying pan that cooks dishes at differing heat levels and whatnot. Kuriboh and Melk are all excited at seeing these weird pots and knives, respectively... and Match just wants to fucking eat, who cares about the cooking dangnabbit.

Jiji explains how to get to the Back World, the chefs need to display their prowess, and Monocle Guy (who is called Damala Sky and I will never remember that name) shows off his knifework, while Yuda launches food halfway across the city... two at a time. Because you cannot let customers wait a single millimeter. Komatsu and the other chefs also join in, while Chiyo muses about returning a favour.

The two masked dudes -- beard-mask is called Russher, aparently -- talk about how if they don't have enough cooking skill, they will be vehicles for the souls. They are interrupted by the revived Corgolem, who immediately gets diced into even tinier slices from Chiyo from a distance away. She also apparently used knocking on the Corgolem. No idea why Chiyo and Chinchinchinchin knows how to deal with the Corgolem better than these Blue Grill natives, but there you go.

No idea if these masked dudes are going to be the main villains or going to be helpful type dudes like Mappy or Iai-Aye were for their respective areas, but hey.

Also what the fuck is Don Slime's deal?

Overall not a particularly exciting chapter, it's nice to see all this worldbuilding and whatnot, but I really do want to get to all the good stuff. The Seven Kings and Whale King Moon and the Back World and these weird masked dudes and all that shit. And whatever the fuck Don Slime's deal is.

One PIece 791 Review: People cry

One Piece, Chapter 791: Rubble

Not a lot happens. In which, I mean, absolutely nothing happens. The entire chapter just has Gatz cry and wibble as he tries to announce that Lucy beat Doflamingo to the entire city, while we get a painfully long montage of people's faces and people reacting to the fact that Birdcage's gone. Everone cries.

Law saves Luffy, who is all out of energy after that King Kong Gun and teleports him out of the sky. 

We don't get to see Doflamingo's face without his glasses.

Yeah this is a thing that One Piece does, except in this particular case Dressrosa's been going on and on for quite some time and the Riku family has been crying and making these speeches all throughout all the climatic fights of this arc, so I really didn't care. At all.

Glad that's over with. Get back to Sabo and Burgess? Or Big Mom and Team Sanji-Nami-Chopper-Brook? That's been a hanging thread for a year. Or maybe CP0? Did we forget they existed?

Arrow S03E22 Review: Distracting Flashbacks

Arrow, Season 3, Episode 22: This is Your Sword

Let’s talk about season three for a bit, shall we? There are definitely good moments in season three – Thea Queen as an actual character going through development being the uncontested highlight of the season – but as a whole it’s kind of a mess. Again, like Arrow’s relatively shaky start, it’s a rather messy show with great actors that make it work… but there are so many things running along each other, so many random gambits and unexplained agendas, and none of them really lead to any significant payoff. The completely ridiculously boring Hong Kong flashback plot that really has been dragged along like a rotting corpse far past its expiry date, Ra’s Al Ghul ambiguous motivations for making Oliver his heir, Malcolm Merlyn’s insanely convoluted plans involving manipulating everyone, Laurel’s weird secret-keeping, Sara’s death ending up being redundant…

Yeah, it’s not the strongest season, mostly because it’s so messy. That’s not to say that it doesn’t have great moments, of course, but it’s certainly not quite as good as I hoped it would be, and this episode is yet another in a series of episodes that’s going through the motions of this uninteresting Oliver-becomes-evil-but-not-really arc. Which really feels like a rehash of the Oliver-dies-but-not-really arc, except in that one we actually get some character development for the other members of Team Arrow instead of Diggle being (rightfully) angry and Felicity just being a big bag of angstiness.

So the big reveal here is that Oliver Queen has apparently been working with Malcolm Merlyn to infiltrate and take down the league, which is not that surprising, because come on. If it was Laurel or Thea or Roy that ‘turned evil’, it would be one thing, but the main lead? Nah. Apparently Oliver’s been working with Malcolm. And only Malcolm. And he waves around the flimsy excuse of ‘keeping the circle of trust as small as possible’, which is as moronic as Laurel’s ‘so as not to hurt him’ and Joe West’s ‘to protect Iris’ excuses.

But let’s recap Oliver’s plan, shall we? So Oliver cooks this big master plan, which I assume was cooked up by the two of them while ferrying Thea’s half-dead-comatose body to Nanda Parbat because there is no reason for Oliver to contemplate accepting the offer before Ra’s forced Oliver’s hand by mortally wounding Thea (but not quite killing her because apparently Ra’s knows how efficient Oliver can get Thea to the paramedics). Oliver recruits Malcolm – who, lest we forget, in addition to being the big evil mastermind in season one, is also the one who engineered Sara’s death at the hands of a brainwashed Thea (in itself a phenomenally idiotic decision) – to help him infiltrate the League of Assassins and stop Ra’s when he tries to launch the Alpha-Omega virus on Starling City… instead of, y’know, stopping Ra’s from the get-go. Yes, Ra’s can match Oliver in hand-to-hand combat, but they could’ve gone through a whole other way than this super-convoluted plan that involves earning Ra’s trust so Oliver has to basically fuck his relationship with everyone else that matters to him. Just like there isn’t any reason for Ra’s to be so fixated on Oliver as his heir, there is also no real reason for Oliver to be all mysterious and so obsessed about being all needing to maintain the act so he’ll keep everyone in the quiet.

Granted, both Oliver and Malcolm apparently thought it’ll take Ra’s months before properly trusting Oliver to become the new Ra’s, and Oliver does like to keep his secrets, but still, it’s kind of an idiot ball for Oliver in particular not to tell at least Diggle and Felicity, and at least the show makes it a point to have them call Oliver out every single chance they can. No excuse for Ra’s, y’know, actually trusting Oliver that quickly, though, because really, he isn’t the least bit suspicious? Even with the whole someone-leaked-information-out thing? When the army that came to foil him is 100% made up of Oliver’s buddies, and Oliver already has a track record of saying ‘fuck you’ to Ra’s before?

Diggle is completely pissed off at Oliver, rightfully so, because not only did Oliver take his wife hostage, he also chose to trust Malcolm over him and Felicity. It seems to be kind of a big development if Diggle should walk out on Oliver Queen’s big cause, and his anger is truly palpable in this episode and the previous. He’s just a ball of rage this episode and he basically tells Oliver to fuck off because he’s lost all respect for him.

There’s also Felicity, of course, who has been nothing short of annoying in this season despite being the best thing in the show throughout the first two seasons. I mean, Laurel and especially Thea has been exponentially less annoying, and Felicity seems to have picked up the quota for ‘annoying female character’. Her just being an emotional trainwreck and the show just wasting so much screentime devoted to Felicity and Oliver’s romance robs valuable screentime from the already-stunted main plot. I’m not saying to do away with the romance because it’s a crucial point for both their characterizations, but really it could’ve been trimmed down with an even stronger emotional impact instead of the dragged-on affair that it is now. Really, Felicity, you and your friends are about to be killed by a killer virus and what you’re reacting to is Oliver and Nyssa’s obviously-fake wedding? And that line from Tatsu about how Oliver’s thought while near-death was Felicity was kind of too on-the-nose, even for this show.

Felicity using her iPad as a boomerang that took out one of the mooks, only for it to be really taken out by Malcolm, was comedy gold, though.

Malcolm’s random flip-flop of allegiances in this episode, especially the last one where he tries to rat out Oliver once more to Ra’s, is starting to get annoying as well. Yes, it’s plausible that he joins forces with Oliver to get at Ra’s, but the end when he’s all like “Oliver is the real traitor!” is kind of eyeball rolling. All he got for his bullshit was a cloud of killer virus… which I’m sure won’t kill them.

Also, tangentially about the virus, let’s talk about the stupid Hong Kong plot – the promise that Amanda Waller is going to have a large role in the Hong Kong plot ends up being thrown out of the window for the bullshit plot with Oliver, Maseo and Tatsu that no one cares about, and really what happened to Maseo and Tatsu to make them what they are in the present day is so blindingly transparent that it’s a frank insult that the flashbacks ran so long. In addition to the Alpha-Omega virus being a plot point, Tatsu finally rejoins the present-day cast in order to inject some relevance to the flashbacks… and, again, as I keep repeating, all this would probably be more interesting if the whole Hong Kong plot had been a two-parter episode or something along those lines earlier in the season instead of spoiling the ending of the flashbacks for those who didn’t already extrapolate it already.

Anyway, Akio dies in this episode. Don’t care. Would be sad if I didn’t see it coming twenty episodes ago. Shrieve also gets beaten down. Really there’s no excuse to have this continue on to the finale, but it will because we need some resolution. And I really wished they could’ve done all of that before this episode. Jeez.

The present-day scenes for Maseo and Tatsu is, at least, relatively sensible and gives a nice finality to the whole Hong Kong flashback sequences, being set back-to-back with Akio’s death and Tatsu singing the same sad song to both of them. Maseo’s character has really been weird throughout this season, but it’s implied that he’s became somewhat of a death seeker after Akio’s death. Doesn’t really explain why he chose to help out Ra’s Al Ghul and be fully loyal to him instead of switching sides to help Oliver bring down Ra’s from the inside, but I guess Ra’s brainwashing worked.

Both Yamashiros are kind of m’eh characters if I have to be honest, both in the flashbacks and the present. I would really warm up to them if their flashbacks weren’t so predictably and mind-numbingly boring, and if Maseo and especially Tatsu had more screentime in the present day, but as it is Tatsu (in full modern-age Katana outfit, which is cool) fights Maseo and mercy-kills him. It’s… not a bad scene, actually, with Tatsu being so sad and angry and all as Maseo talks about being freed from his freedom. I really wished they spent less time on the flashbacks and more on the present day characters. Not just in this episode, but in the season as a whole.

Also, Shrieve is really a very dull villain. His whole motivations to release the Alpha-Omega virus to kill the population of Hong Kong seems to be some stupid logic about how China’s economy is going to destroy the USA and no real reason beyond that silly logic. All those time wasted in the Hong Kong plots, and we can’t even get a decent villain? He just comes off like a truly dense motherfucker than a threatening villain.

Among Team Arrow, Laurel and the Atom are basically just along for the ride. Atom’s around for some nice CGI plane combat before being taken out… dude’s been absent for quite some time. He does show up to stealthily get Felicity to sign the papers to the transferring of the ownership of Palmer industries, a little reversal of the Isabel Rochev gambit from season two… for no real reason, really, but okay. Laurel’s just around to kick ass alongside Malcolm and Diggle, but otherwise I don’t think she really does anything significant.

Nyssa is also kind of shafted, and with all the screentime that all the needlessly long Hong Kong and Olicity plot threads clogging up this episode, it’s kind of a shame since Nyssa has all the bearings of a great plot. Being dragged to Nanda Parbat against her will, and now forced to marry Oliver… but other than the token assassination attempt – she relents quickly after that, and the little interaction over her mother’s necklace with her father Nyssa has been treated as nothing more than a plot device. Poor Nyssa.

Roy and Thea’s scene was kind of a distraction as well, but at least their scene is a great breath of fresh air as we see both of them develop as characters. We get some resolution to Roy and Thea’s romance and I thought that it was kind of stupid not to have Roy say goodbye to Thea when he leaves Starling City. I’m really sad to see Roy Harper go because I really like him as a character both in the comics and in the show, and he is undoubtedly the most underused member of Team Arrow throughout all three seasons. But it’s a nice, beautiful sendoff as he heads off to parts unknown to let Thea live her life without being on the run, and said on-the-run excuse is a nice part on the show-writers part to realistically write out Roy Harper because his actor wants to leave the show. Roy leaves his Arsenal costume behind for Thea, and while she probably needs to adjust some things to make the costume form-fitting to her more feminine body, I guess we’re going to see Speedy in full costume next episode.

Overall the main plot is really just going through the motions. The big war between Team Arrow and the League mooks is great and awesome, and there are great small moments all throughout the episode. Seeing Katana in full costume is also great. But really this finale is bogged down with too many subplots that aren’t resolved satisfactorily, way too many gambits that don’t make sense realistically and again too much time spent on the flashbacks. It's really not that bad of an episode, with the solid parts being relatively solid, but all the little problems bog it down quite a fair bit. 

Arrow S03E21 Review: The Obligatory Oliver-is-Evil Episode

Arrow, Season 3, Episode 21: Al Sah-Him

Well, they finally did the big plot development twist that Oliver Queen has totally joined the League of Assassins! And that plot twist would be completely meaningless if Oliver didn't do something evil, so we have this episode. Honestly this string of episodes really feels like it's only going through the motions of this big plot twist that everyone saw coming that Oliver ends up joining the League, and it's going through the motions until Oliver either breaks free, or is just acting all along because no way in hell is the main lead going to stay a villain. Also Team Arrow is all about the drama, especially Felicity who's getting increasingly annoying, although we know they'll totally stand up for Oliver and be all 'this is our Oliver' sometime near the finale. And he won't do anything particularly damning so unless she gets killed in the ensuing combat I really didn't feel any threat for Lyla.

So overall all this episode accomplishes is make Oliver look like a colossal dick. But hey, we got to see Thea in the Speedy costume (well, a form-fitting League of Assassins costume, but still) which is something.

Still, despite my criticisms for the plot twists not being surprising and it just going through the motions with a generic hero-turns-evil plot, it's still kind of interesting to watch. Really the big glaring question on why the fuck Ra's Al Ghul wants to push Oliver to become his heir so badly still isn't answered beyond vague prophecy stuff, and a good reason seems to be Ra's doing it more to spite his daughter for being a woman and/or a lesbian which would be a daring topic for Arrow to tackle properly... but no. The big overreaching plot of Ra's Al Ghul wanting a successor and being so fixated on Oliver is easily the weakest point of the plot, which is a shame since Ra's Al Ghul himself is extremely interesting and played by a great actor.

And really once you think about it Ra's is holding to the idiot ball quite well, isn't he? The big plot of this episode is Oliver having gone through some hallucinogenic drugs to kill a random mook who his mind portrays as Diggle-captured-by-the-League, showing how far and brainwashed Oliver has fallen, and he's sent to Starling City to take down his rival, Nyssa. On the way, he kidnaps Lyla to use as a hostage, putting him at odds with his old team and forcing them to hand over Nyssa. Oliver very notably doesn't do anything harmful to his old team and actually doesn't do anything to run the real John Diggle through. So when Oliver returns and is about to totally kill his rival, Nyssa, Ra's stops Oliver and notes how absolute Oliver's brainwashing is. Okay so Oliver is ready to kill his rival who he's only been shown to barely tolerate, but spares his old buddies, but Ra's thinks Oliver's sufficiently brainwashed? What.

We did get a pretty awesome action scene between Oliver's League mooks versus Team Arrow, which is great. Beyond the kidnapping thing (and Diggle plays off the angry-and-betrayed-friend really well) no real bridges are burned. Lyla's awesome. We really could use more of her.

Also, Laurel has apparently bonded so closely with Nyssa that they share milkshake-fries together and Nyssa is kind of ready to choose Nyssa over Lyla. And while an argument could be made about the ethics of handing over Nyssa to be executed, Laurel is still being her usual pig-headed self -- they do have a point, they don't owe Nyssa anything, she is a mass murderer and she's been nothing but trouble to the rest of the cast that isn't Laurel. It is a bit cold handing Nyssa over to be most likely executed, though, and I do like how their argument isn't totally clear cut since Diggle raises some nice questions about the things the League (and Nyssa) has done off-screen. Oliver repeating Nyssa's "vengeance is justice" line is a relatively hilarious comeback, though.

It is nice to see Laurel and Nyssa kind of bond together, though, and I really do like Nyssa trying to hard to be normal and hang out with what she probably sees to be like a surrogate little sister of sorts (also Sara-related stuff I guess) only to find her old life catching up to her.

Also, Laurel totally uses her upgraded Canary Cry! Though like Deathbolt's unexplained appearance in the Flash, we don't even get a cursory 'thanks Cisco for giving me this' throwaway line for those who only watch one show and not the other. I really like the crossovers, but I really wish for the sake of those who only watch one show, or even those who don't keep up weekly -- like me -- they do make things that happen in crossovers clear.

One of the non-action highlights in this episode for me is definitely the short talk between Thea and Felicity about Oliver. Have the two ever had a scene together, just the two of them? And Thea totally gets her super-suit, complete with hood. Which, colours and boob-window aside, is a total ringer for her comic-book Speedy costume, which is awesome. Season three Thea is awesome. For his short scenes, Malcolm also ends up showing a bit of a supportive and proud side, so he's developing nicely into anti-villain territory... though Thea still makes it clear that all this bullshit is his fault, so he isn't entirely forgiven yet. Just because it's more convenient at the moment to use Malcolm.

Oliver himself kind of fell really flat in this episode, really. We know he won't be evil, and as much as the show wants to pretend he is, it isn't even doing a good job at making him seem brainwashed beyond the Diggle stab in the opening.

Meanwhile, Ra's Al Ghul drops the bombshell that his punishment for Nyssa's betrayal is... being married to Oliver and becoming the bride of Ra's Al Ghul? Okay, Ra's, you crazy misogynist. Both Oliver and Nyssa's horrified looks are kind of hilarious, though.

We actually get some nice backstory from Ra's, further divorcing him from the 'ageless immortal leader of an assassin army' from his original Batman roots, and I'm strangely accepting of this portayal of Ra's who, while still really old and still a leader of an assassin army, is firmly established as being only the latest in a series of people to bear that mantle. With the sorta-similar DC villain Vandal Savage showing up in Legends of Tomorrow, I guess they want to play up the 'immortal' angle more with Vandal Savage and the 'assassin leader' angle with Ra's.

Ra's told Oliver about how he himself had been sent to kill a rival to the throne when he himself ascended into the title of Ra's, and when he failed to deliver the killing blow, his rival has been a thorn in his side... and became HIVE. Well, that's kind of an unexpected tie-in to that little HIVE stealth cameo from way back in that Deadshot episode, and with Deadshot killed off I thought HIVE was going to be buried for quite some while, but it seems that they're going to be building up HIVE and its leader, Damien Dahrrk (a relatively obscure Teen Titans villain and leader of HIVE), as the big bad for season four. Ra's also reveals that the various seemingly-random plotlines throughout the second and third seasons are all caused by HIVE -- sending Bronze Tiger to steal Merlyn's earthquake machine from way back in the second season, Gholem Qadir's whole sub-plot in Markovia, also from the second season, and the employer of Mark Shaw's attack from ARGUS earlier in this season. Which is kind of clever, I guess, but it still comes off from nowhere and seems to be pointless foreshadowing for the sake of foreshadowing.

It kind of comes out of nowhere, though, and even if the reason Ra's is so adamant on recruiting Oliver is to help him in his crusade against Dahrrk it kind of makes his crazy troll logic throughout season three somewhat sensible... but I dunno, since Ra's randomly pulls out the Alpha-Omega virus, which Nyssa apparently stole from him before, thus tying this into the otherwise random and distracting Hong Kong flashback arc.

I don't think anything particularly notable happens in the Hong Kong arc, really, beyond Akio apparently being affected by the virus... kid's going to die, Maseo himself pretty much confirms it's the case a while back. So why beat around the bush? Beyond the fact that the flashbacks must last the entire season, I mean? And really, we could've had the Hong Kong stuff end a couple episodes back so it doesn't clog up screentime. Show flashbacks of the League brainwashing Maseo or something, not stretch out the stupid Hong Kong attack for so long for no actual point at all.

Anyway, apparently Ra's wants Oliver to use the Alpha-Omega on Starling City to prove his loyalty because all Ra's Al Ghuls are expected to raze their former hometown. Okay, so I guess that's the plot for the finale. It came out of nowhere (again), but it kinda makes sense so whatever. Attack on the city. Yay.

Overall, despite the obvious plot developments throughout this episode and the insensibility of Ra's agendas, it's still an enjoyable episode with some great emotional moments on the parts of Nyssa, Laurel and Diggle, plus some great action scenes and freaking Speedy.

Nanatsu no Taizai 129 Review: Druids & Cave of Flashbacks

Nanatsu no Taizai, Chapter 129: Sacred Land of the Druids

A bit of a slower chapter, and I'm really antsy to get to the Ten Commandments. It's like every time we're about to get to the Ten Commandments we get interrupted by something -- Team Gilthunder's little journey, Gowther going berserk, Diane's flashback, Ban and King in the forest... not that all those things are uninteresting, but I really, really want to get to the good shit.

Team Meliodas arrive at the Stonehenge-counterpart, and apparently one of the doorway-looking stone formation is a portal to the land of the druids, though it needs the permission of the people at the other end of the portal to let them through. And the Druids waiting for them are a pair of young girls, who are the masters, and this burly scary-looking dude that's apparently just their bodyguard. Also, fifteen years old.

The, uh light-haired girl (it's a black and white manga, it can be either blonde, white, pink, light green or anywhere in the colour spectrum) with a black dress is Jenna, and the dark-haired girl with a white dress is Zaneli. The big dude is Theo. They're all acquainted with Meliodas, and Zaneli in particular seems to have... a thing for Meliodas, pulling Meliodas' hand and putting it on her breasts, though Meliodas seems to not really mind either way. Also she gives Elizabeth this look that either means Zaneli is her sister or it's a love-rivalry thing. Don't care either way.

Jenna spends most of her appearance in this chapter tormenting and mucking around with poor Hawk. Hawk and Threader are just reacting to the general insanity involving the druids, King is barely shown and just brooding, Gowther and Arthur are just standing on the side observing stuff. Presumably King and Gowther knows what's what, so naturally they don't get a lot of lines in this chapter.

Zaneli leads Meliodas and Elizabeth (who's all 'oh no how does lady Zaneli see lord Meliodas') into this dark cave, telling Meliodsa that he needs to get through a trial before he can regain his power... and then the cave is transformed into Danafor, and Meliodas meets Liz.

It's not really that surprising, honestly, because using a flashback or a 'face your greatest fear' thing has been a trope in fiction ever since Yoda's Dagobah cave in Star Wars and we've had our share of similar situations in most manga. No idea what Meliodas is supposed to do in this flashback-illusion thing, or why Elizabeth is dragged into the cave as well... maybe she's going to stand in for Liz in some sorts? I'm just more interested in seeing just how the Danafor situation went down and maybe some explanation from Merlin regarding just why/how she took Meliodas' power during the whole Zaratros affair.

Fairy Tail 441 Review: So much for infiltration

Fairy Tail, Chapter 441: Caracall Island

Well, that was fast. Not one chapter did we get from Erza going all 'we need to make this an infiltration mission! No fighting!' before we get them punching the soldiers from Alvares... Albareth... Arlbaress... yeah, whichever suits you. I'm using Alvares for now. 

But the entire chapter was honestly quite boring and blah, with a good chunk just spent recapping on how mysterious Lumen Histoire is, and apparently Wendy has obtained the vehicular-sickness thing that the other dragonslayers have. They arrive on this Caracall Island, where people from the Alvares Empire are all being just all stormtrooper-y and shit. We get an unnecessarily long sequence of the Fairy Tail members using the power of Lucy and Erza's boobs to pretend to be tourists from a guild called Cait Shelter (Wendy's illusionary guild), before seeing the Alvares soldiers bullying this kid whose father they took away... and we get a two-page spread of Natsu and the others beating down the soldiers. Yeah, okay, at least they broke cover to save an innocent kid instead of Natsu just being an idiot. I accept that. Again, though, it doesn't have to take up an entire chapter. 

Meanwhile, B-Team is heading off to find Laxus and beyond seeing the inclusion of Elfman and Levy (EDIT: and Lisanna, who I didn't notice until someone mentioned it to me) into their lineup they don't do much but do your standard Fairy Tail jokes. Gajeel and Levy have this little pick-on-each-other flirty thing going on, Elfman likes Evergreen, Juvia is upset she's not with Grey, all the character 'quirks' that don't elicit much of a response from me anymore. And they keep going all 'we can't fight them!' but of course they will because, y'know, Fairy Tail.

Overall it's a short, inoffensive but ultimately filler-y chapter. Which isn't bad, but I really want to know more about God Serena and the other two Saint dudes we saw last week. It's been a filler Fairy Tail chapter that I actually didn't dislike, which is weird to say. Let's just hope Natsu and Erza don't go into a big 'FRIENDSHIP FAIRY TAIL RAH RAH RAH' speech next week.

Gotham S1E22 Review: King of Gotham

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 22: All Happy Families Are Alike

As I feared, Gotham's myriad plot threads all come to a head in the finale, and it is a trainwreck... but bizarrely, not because of the mob parts being unsatisfactory, but because of some sudden changes to several characters that felt out of place, as well as some character changes that kinda sorta makes sense considering what happened earlier in the season, but ends up coming out of the left field in the finale. And of course we don't get a big big mafia fight (we just skipped to 'two weeks later') like what I would want, but let's not kid ourselves -- the show's really only going to show the main four players.

The most egregious example of the random character change being Carmine Falcone suddenly deciding 'oh by the way, I want to quit this whole gangster thing' came totally out of nowhere. And, yes, we did see shades of him wanting to settle down, what with all the business with Lysa and him taking a backseat throughout most of Gotham's latter half... but not having seen Falcone for a long time, compounded with this random revelation, really caught me off-guard.

Also, Selina, who really doesn't have any business poking her nose around in the whole gang plot, suddenly shows up with an ugly haircut as being recruited into part of Fish's posse. What the actual fuck? She contributes absolutely nothing to the finale other than a few exchanges of words with Gordon and being kind of a dick to him, and her joining this giant mob fight doesn't really jive well with her earlier self-serving thief but ultimately decent person who looks out for herself characterization.

Also while as awesome as it is to see a minor character like Butch being pivotal in the climatic battle between Fish and Penguin, he really haven't done anything at all throughout the past few episodes, being mostly interchangeable with Penguin's other stooge, Gabe. After the first meeting post-brainwashing, Butch kind of disappeared into the background and while it's cool to see his little brain-wreck here while trying to choose between his programming and his loyalty to Fish, and ends up shooting both of them... it still kind of felt flat, y'know? Surely we could've snuck in some scenes of Butch struggling with his loyalty in the previous two or three episodes to make his big moment here something?

Fish's return was also handled relatively poorly, just showing up in a boat for no good reason, randomly deciding she wants to be mob queen again, and showing up to arrest Falcone, Gordon and Penguin when they arrive in the same warehouse Fish was waiting at.

Also I'm not that big of a fan of Gordon spending most of his screentime this episode being chained up. They escape from Maroni's men! Oh, wait, Fish is there and they're tied up. They escape again! And then they're tied up again.

Another odd moment here was Bruce and Alfred spending so much time ransacking Thomas Wayne's study while Alfred tries his best to convince Bruce that his father was a good guy. That took way too much time and is honestly a large distraction from the whole mob thing.

But to praise the finale, the mob stuff was definite good stuff. Again, we didn't see much of it and there really isn't much reason for Falcone to go around looking at fucking chickens while a mob war was going on, but the main plot of the episode happens when Falcone's men came under attack by Maroni's men with bazookas, and he finds himself in this shitty hospital, while the city's government and police force has just basically given him up to Maroni.

I do like how Gordon understands how Falcone is the best 'bad guy', and despite his unwavering idealism throughout the season he's been forced to make deals with Penguin, and now he's actually fighting to keep Falcone alive. Again, like the Butch situation it really could've been portrayed better if we saw some interaction between Gordon and Falcone in the episodes leading up to this, or, y'know, actually saw Falcone at all. Or examples of how his grip would be better than Maroni's, beyond Maroni being a hothead and a thousand rivals will be coming for him.

At least the Loeb plot is being saved for next season, other than the short cameo in the hospital, because the finale is already cluttered enough as it is. The little shootout there with Gordon taking out Tommy Bones and a good amount of Maroni's men is a blast to watch, and the scene where Penguin arrives to Falcone and does this grandstanding speech about how despite Falcone being (mostly) a friend and mentor to him, he has been gunning for the top the whole time. It's a great, powerful scene.

So of course Gordon shows up to ruin it and chain Penguin to the wall. Penguin's whole 'you owe me a favour' thing is downplayed more than what I expected it would be, which is certainly welcome. I really thought it would take up more space and give Gordon a big moral decision moment, but no. It felt organic and nice and not really forced.

It's a shame, then, that the plot kind of became stagnant as our heroes are chained up before Fish and Maroni shows up... before picking up again when Maroni and Fish has that tense talk about 'babes' and 'number one and number two', with Maroni being drunk on power and just trying to pressure everyone to falling in line under him. Also we see Penguin's little subtle 'devil in your ear' role in getting Fish pissed off at Maroni... though to be fair, Maroni is a complete moron for immediately trying to pressure Fish to calling him boss and taunting him with the 'babes' thing moments after Penguin told Fish that Maroni wants to be the boss.

And then Fish snaps and shoots Maroni in the head.

Well, so much for being protected by canon! Everyone thought that all these characters that will show up in Batman comics will be protected by plot armour, but it seems anyone that's not Penguin is fair game. Maroni is very certainly dead as a man with a bullet in his head can be, and it's clear that beyond the big name villains like Penguin and Riddler, everyone else is probably fair game.

The big fight after that ends up being between Penguin and Fish, though we did spend a bit just wishy-washy-ing before getting to that point. It's a fun little confrontation that's a long time coming, with the Butch moment helping to make the fight slightly more tense. I do like how Fish, despite being a bit of a horrible person most of the time, actually does care for Butch enough not to blame him... while Penguin whacks Butch over in the head and pushes Penguin down into the waters below.

As any savvy comic book fan will tell you, being thrown into the water off-screen is almost assuredly a recipe for eventual survival. But that takes Fish and her weird hairstyle out of the picture for the time being, and really that was what everyone expected would happen in the finale. It's portrayed well enough to not feel formulaic, though, and Penguin's subsequent rather-pathetic "I'm the King of Gotham" yell was wonderful to see. And indeed, Maroni and Fish are dead, Falcone is out of the picture... why the other random mob people would follow Penguin is probably a mystery, but Penguin definitely wins, with the war he instigated taking out all the big players out of the picture.

I honestly half-expected Butch to push Penguin down after Fish, but that didn't happen.

Gordon gets this nice talk with Falcone after everything is done and Falcone wants to go off and retire, and that's a pretty great moment. Also unexpectedly Falcone hands Gordon over a little keepsake from Gordon's father, before walking out and entrusting the city to Gordon, a nice little parallel to the first episode's talk between Falcone and Gordon. It's still weird for Falcone to randomly decide to abandon Gotham, though, but eh.

Speaking of fathers, Bruce Wayne discovers that Thomas Wayne's big secret wasn't evidence against the Wayne boards, or evidence that Thomas Wayne is as bad as the others (though really that's probably out of bounds, as interesting a twist that would be to explore). But rather... the, uh, batcave? What the actual fuck? That was my reaction to that shot. Just me making a flat "what the fuck". Honestly don't know what to think about it.

Also running throughout the episode is this little counselling session between Leslie and Barbara. And we're left with the tenseness of whether Barbara has actually been fucked up by the Ogre enough to be planning to kill Leslie... or simply just airing her crazy experience out. At times before her eventual snapping, she does show evidence that might go one way or the other, and it would be great... if the episode didn't already have this big, interesting mob plot. Honestly Barbara going berserk and all The Shining should've been the third part of the Ogre arc instead of clogging up this finale.

It's all a bit m'eh, though Barbara's insanity was tense to watch. In a subtler sense, like Maroni's death, Barbara going all crazy effectively breaks Gotham away from traditional Batman canon since Barbara's not going to be Mrs. Gordon after all this madness.

Nygma shows up for a bit near the end, completely going psycho as he starts hearing voices in his head, delightfully complied from the insults that Kringle, Bullock and other random police people have been shouting at him and that mental break is absolutely awesome. Kringle does figure out the 'NYGMA' riddle, and while Nygma does manage to avert suspicion that breakdown as he argues with himself about the stupidity of leaving a clue and just, y'know, going bonkers is kind of awesome. With Penguin's arc mostly done in this episode beyond his mommy problems, it seems that the show is building for Riddler's origin for the next season's big bad.

It's not a great finale. It's a mess. There are certainly great parts, with the Gordon, Penguin and mob bits being the best parts... the plot kept cutting away to Barbara and Bruce without really needing to, but it's still a relatively serviceable finale. The mob plot is really great, with the scenes involving them being truly tense and a delight to watch... shame, again, that the finale was so messy and keeps cutting away to other, less interesting plotlines. With the mob plot over, though, I really don't see much that will interest me for the next season because the Batcave and Wayne mysteries doesn't really hold that much for me.

Penguin won, though, and I like the Penguin. So yeah.

Gotham S1E21 Review: Lucius Fox and Penguin's Gambit

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 21: The Anvil or the Hammer

Another relatively strong episode, this. That is despite the Ogre plot not being quite that interesting. Honestly three episodes is kind of stretching it. One-and-a-half or two episodes, tops should really be enough for the Ogre plot... but the episode is relatively strong as it builds up to the finale as we build up to the mob war that the first episode has teased, which is definitely the strongest of the many stories running through Gotham. The otherwise dull Wayne plot is injected with a huge amount of interest in the form of Lucius Fox, which is what everyone expected to happen -- Batman he may be, but a ten year old Bruce Wayne bringing down an entire corrupt corporation by himself is stretching the realms of disbelief way too much.

And having the Penguin's plot extend from a simple 'assassinate Maroni' to 'frame Falcone for attempting to assassinate Maroni and start a gang war' is an inspired choice, with Penguin fanning the flames of, well, everything involving the gang wars always being a highlight of the show. It's a shame, then, that we only have one episode left and with so many plot threads running around it's inevitable that some parts of the show will be inadequately explored.

But still, how awesome was Penguin, manipulating that assassin, Connor, to successfully try to kill Maroni while giving the little 'talk' about being from Falcone. I thought it was Penguin just trying to be hammy and dramatic as always, but no, it's actually a major plot point! And the final scene as Maroni personally channels his inner Godfather and goes around with a shotgun and his mafia attacking Falcone's people is awesome. This could really easily be the season finale, with the large cliffhanger being Maroni beginning a city-wide gang war, but alas, it's likely to be resolved in a single episode. Which is a shame.

Also of interest is Barbara Kean, as bizarre as those words might seem coming out of me. Or rather, the portrayal of Barbara Kean. I have always hated Barbara as she's portrayed in Gotham, and seeing her as a hostage of the Ogre and subjected to the emotional tortures of the Ogre who, in addition to being completely fucking insane, also preys on Barbara's own emotional problems which he sees as being somewhat similar to his own. There's brainwashing in addition to the whole emotional trauma and implied forced-sex. Plus what with Barbara herself already having problems even before he met the Ogre (the whole "if a bus hit me tomorrow no one will miss me" mentality) but that makes her all the more susceptible and this really feels like the origin story for a new Batman serial killer villain.

Ogre keeps telling Barbara to choose who she wants him to kill to show his devotion, and after being broken down from being defiant early on in the episode (a bit too fast, but then Barbara is kind of twisted in the head) she ends up choosing... not Leslie or even Gordon as I expected she would, but Barbara actually chose her parents, who we saw a grand total of one time and they were your general 'my daughter can never please me' types. Of course, Barbara is a self-entitled jackass, but her parents aren't exactly nice people too. Granted it would've made a tad more sense if we saw more of the brainwashing process, because as it is Ogre didn't really do much but make a few threats and Barbara's suddenly all for revelling in his insanity? Or is she just channelling all her repressed anger at her parents and Ogre simply made her snap? Girl's been through a lot throughout the season, after all, and I actually do kind of am interested to see where she goes next from here, whether she'll just be a broken bird locked up in Arkham or... something. I'm legitimately curious to see where she'll go from here.

And by the end of this episode, they are most certainly dead, arranged by the Ogre in a Zsasz-esque 'posed as if they're alive' display with them holding their teacups. Barbara's neutral expression throughout the short scene when Ogre moves in for the kill, and the blood splatters on her dress and her whole nonchalant attitude throughout the ordeal is a really spectacular show of just how much broken down Barbara is mentally by the Ogre.

Of course Ogre gets put down by the end of the episode, which is cool. His story and whole 'she's the one! No wait I'll kill her!' schtick was kind of getting stale through three episodes, but he certainly is a delightfully creepy monster and an effective villain. Gordon and Bullock hunting him down is also relatively generic CSI plot searching, which is fine but, again, formulaic and not that interesting.

The whole Wayne Enterprises plot is slightly weaker, with Bunderslaw being relatively generic beyond second-guessing Bruce poking around and Bruce discovering that idealism doesn't function in the dark depths of society being relatively m'eh and formulaic. I also don't like just how involved Thomas Wayne is to the whole Wayne Conspiracy thing, though then I've never really been invested in this plot. In theory it could be interesting, but I've always never liked it when origin stories are expanded way too much and have ties to every single conspiracy in the story.

We did get freaking Lucius Fox, which I totally did not expect, and he was awesome. Lucius Fox, of course, affirms that Thomas Wayne is a good man, and Fox seems to be an ally of Thomas Wayne before his death. I don't think we'll be seeing much development on this front, because this seems to be just seeding for the second season. But how cool was it seeing Lucius Fox?

I also liked the little talk between Bruce and Alfred about Reggie, and I'm thankful that wasn't dragged on as thie big hanging secret throughout the finale or the next season, and that's just done and over with. Thank you, show.

Riddler's getting more and more crazy as he brings in Doughtery's chopped-up body parts to the police precint and starts trying to get rid of the evidence, growing more and more psycho by the moment, as he goes from playing around with Doughtery's skinned skull (holy shit, how creepy it is imagining Nygma peeling the flesh and skin to leave that skull in pristine condition?) and talking to it, before going all nuts on it with a hammer? The scene where Kringle shows up at Nygma's work station and actually sees the chopped-up body parts was really tense as all signs point to Nygma, accidentally or otherwise, killing Kringle and that being his true point of no return... but no, Kringle just accepts Nygma's excuse that it's a factory accident.

Nygma faking a typed letter with that curious little 'clue' about his name? That was pretty on-the-nose, but fun as Nygma starts to divorce himself from GCPD's resident kooky forensics expert into embracing his future self as the Riddler.

There was that point in the episode where Bullock goes into this fucking weird fetish sex club with dudes in bunny masks being fed milk and all kinds of fucking weird stuff. I mean, the show refrains from showing Ogre doing anything particularly Fifty Shades of Grey beyond putting a mask on Barbara and chaining her up a couple of times, and some implied sex inbetween this episode and the previous, but the gigantic fetish sex bar thing was a bit... weird. Bullock clearly thinks so too, though, when the "show" that apparently involves a pig and a chainsaw that's mercifully kept offscreen freaks him out so much that he arrests everyone present.

Also relatively weak is Leslie Thompkins' arc in this episode, where in the beginning when Gordon is all panicked about saving Barbara, Leslie seems to be a bit jealous and pissed off, and then later admitting she's just afraid of losing Gordon. It's a bit annoying and reduces Leslie into nothing but a love interest, so no points for that.

Overall, with the finale being only a single episode, I really wished they condensed the Ogre arc into two episodes, because as it is the two major plotlines: the mob war and the Wayne plot, plus if they're going to show Barbara recovering or the Riddler being discovered by Kringle or something, would be way too much to fit into the finale. And there's the matter of Fish's comeback, because let's not delude ourselves -- that bullet probably didn't kill her. 

The Flash, S1E21: Gorilla motherfuckin' Grodd

The Flash, Season 1, Episode 21: Grodd Lives

I am really torn about this episode, really. It's a great episode, of course, as most Flash episodes are. On one hand, this version of Grodd is extremely faithful to the comics/cartoon Grodd, and I am totally so into this altered origin for him. And Grodd is a gigantic monster of a presence, and easily steals every scene he's in. I'm also a fan of how... not-annoying Iris was in this episode. But on the other hand, as much as they try to play up Grodd being affiliated with Eobard Thawne, nothing ever really comes out of it beyond Grodd being used as a distraction while Thawne continues with his mysterious timey-wimey plans, so this episode does fall a wee bit flat. Also the ending of the Flash-Grodd fight with how Barry finds his strength when Iris talks to him felt way too cheesy for my liking. 

What's good about Iris this time around is that Iris herself voices what we, as viewers, have been asking for months, which is why the fuck does everyone keep her in the dark. And really all the keeping her in the dark bit throughout the season ended up with absolutely no payoff at all since in this episode she decides forgiveness is better than being pissed at his family who could die anytime. I just hope she outgrows her clueless borderline-incestious love interest bullshit after this episode. I do absolutely love that we didn't get Iris just wallowing around but instead just straight up confronts Barry and the others in STAR Labs within two minutes of the episode starting. Good stuff.

But let's not talk about Iris too much. She got adequate screentime. Not too little as to make her seem like a doormat with regard with the revelations, but not too much that she becomes obnoxious. It's just the right amount of screentime for Iris to be... not hateable. Almost likeable. Almost. But let's not talk Iris here.

Let's talk Grodd.

Because Grodd is an excellent example of how the Flash, as a show, absolutely and truly loves the comic world it is adapting, while not being a 100% adapatation that doesn't inject anything new. In particular I'm a big fan on how they reworked Grodd's origin, yet still manages to deliver what's essentially the same character. Or what will become the comic book's version of Grodd, anyway, because as threatening and dangerous Grodd is in this episode, he's still learning, his mind still growing. 

And Flash pulls off Grodd absolutely perfectly. I have been antsy about how Grodd would be handled. The foreshadowings were perfect, of course. The show has foreshadowed Grodd all the way from episode one, he's got a bit appearance killing Eiling and holy shit what an awesome appearance that was... but Grodd is still a freaking giant gorilla with telepathic powers, and despite the recent succes of the Planet of the Apes movies with its Andy Serkis monkeys, giant gorillas are kind of a passe thing in TV shows and movies. But Grodd? Grodd was freaking perfect.

And the sheer absurdity of having a telepathic, sentient gorilla is delivered absolutely nicely. The set piece with Barry, Joe and Cisco trekking through the sewer while Grodd is just going around being a horrifying monster, striking from the shadows and creating Jurassic Park-esque ripples in the water is just brilliant, as is the creepy scratches on the wall and the helmet from that hapless worker that Grodd killed in one of his earlier appearances. And when we see him in full view, the first thing he does is telepathically force Joe to point his own gun at his head. Joe's fear is truly evident, and Grodd's little dismissive hand-wave and telepathic speaking makes it clear that Grodd? He's smart. And reducing Joe into a sobbing, terrified wreck is just a powerful scene in general.

Also he hates bananas, which is both chilling and motherfucking hilarious at the same time.

And he's an absolute threat, too. In addition to being, y'know, a freaking telepathic mass of muscles, he also easily no-sells the supersonic punch that beat the Girder during the season's earlier episodes, as well as Flash's rapid-fire punch stream, and ends up breaking the telepathic block goobledeygonk halfway through their fight. That's awesome. And he didn't really get taken out, Flash merely put him out of comission by knocking him into the pathway of a train, and as this episode's final shot shows, Grodd isn't even hurt. He's still dicking around climbing towers and being awesome.

I also love how the opening scenes showed this fully-costumed soldier, causing me to think who this presumably-obscure-DC-villain is? I mean, I thought he was going to be a simple cameo as Grodd's minion or just a throwaway villain early on, but no. It's Eiling! And Eiling being this brainwashed puppet of Grodd is utterly chilling, with Eiling's blank expression while Grodd talks through him just selling the creepiness of the scene.

Also Grodd likes Caitlin, which may or may not come into play in the future.

Barry also frees Eiling from his superhero prison and is all nice and stuff to Eiling, which actually earns him the jackass general's respect. I mean, savvy comic book fans just know that Eiling's eventually going to become the comic-book supervillain the General, but for now Eiling and Barry are having a mutual-enemy bonding moment. Will Eiling play a role in the finale against Reverse-Flash? We'll see.

Barry does his whole 'I love you Iris and we are just trying to protet you' deal, but honestly Grodd and Iris stole the entire show from Barry in this episode. Meanwhile, in the background Thawne continues being a gigantic dick to Eddie while doing mysterious, mysterious future-timey-wimey related things, being all 'hey you don't even get to marry Iris West in the future ha ha'. But Thawne just being so emotionally abusive to Eddie really feels like it's going to build up to having Eddie don the yellow suit as a version of Zoom, which is nice.

Also, Eobard's creepy red glowing eyes are apparently from his real eyes and not an effect made by his costume. That was cool.

It's not really made clear that Thawne is atually being the man-behind-the-man for Grodd. Team Flash assumes it's the case, of course, and Grodd outright states that Wells is basically 'father' and he hates guns (a possible hint to whatever trauma Eobard Thawne might've gone through?) but Eobard and Grodd never once interacted throughout the episode.

We also get a fair bit of nice little geeky nods, both to the CW universe and to the comics in general. Not only do we get continuity nods to the random worker that Grodd killed, as well as the supersonic punch, apparently Cisco had attempted to enlist Lyla and ARGUS to help out to find out about Eiling sometime before this episode, and Barry compares Grodd's mental attack to be similar to Rainbow Raider's own rage inducing powers. The comic book nods in this episode... well, besides Grodd himself, we've got his hatred of bananas, a running gag in the Justice League of America cartoon. We've got Eobard telling Eddie that the Thawne clan is a prestigious bloodline, and indeed in the comics the president of Earth's government during the far-flung future that Impulse came from is one of Eobard's descendants. And Grodd being defeated by being hit by a train is, as some nice folks have informed me, a shout-out to Solomon Grundy's first appearance in the comics when the Golden Age Green Lantern, Alan Scott, had the same problem with Grundy shrugging off every attack Alan did on him, so he lured Grundy in front of a speeding train.

And despite the filler-y feel of this episode, it's a great buildup that settles down the annoying Barry-Iris dynamic rather adequately, with an awesome late arrival in Grodd that still builds up to the remaining two episodes. And unlike Gotham or Arrow, there is very little in Flash's buildup to finale that I can really criticize, because, well, if my reviews aren't already clear enough, I truly love this show.

Gotham S1E20 Review: The Villains of Gotham and Barbara Kean

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 20: Under the Knife

A great contrast to last episode's mess, episode 20 of Gotham shows how you can have multiple plot threads running together and still tell a solid, engaging episode. One of the biggest things going on for this episode is not having the stupid waste of space and time that is the Fish-Dollmaker plotline, which gives every other plotline room to breathe. In place of Fish, we see the return of Barbara Kean, who is one of the characters I loathe with all my heart and soul from... from all fiction in general, really.

But this episode made Barbara Kean relevant, and her inclusion plays off the creepiness of Ogre really, really well! In addition to being an awesome little twist with the whole 'wrong loved one!' thing, it actually builds up Barbara's "why does the world hate me nothing goes right" self-centered and now self-loathing characterization. That mindset is the reason why I abhor Barbara so much, but it works here really well here as Ogre's "I want to find the one" seems to have been tailor-built to play off Barabara's own insane self-loathing. And Barbara being a self-loathing destructive woman who hates the world is certainly far more fun than the witless, needy mess of a character when we last saw her. I do like the nice little moment when the Ogre stopped himself from killing Barbara, not only because she apparently isn't with Gordon anymore, but Ogre sees Barbara as a potential partner who's the same twisted freak deep inside.

And we see that the Ogre himself, through his relatively convoluted backstory, has his own history with self-loathing. Yes, the whole plastic surgery angle was played a fair bit too long since it's already obvious, but the whole mother complex thing and everything regarding the rich batty woman does probably give him a fair dose of craziness. Enough craziness to have that giant room full of bondage gear... though I do find it ridiculous that Ogre keeps a freaking morning star along with his collection of leather masks and straps and whatnot. I do find it rather odd that there's no mention of the whole bondage and presumed rape whenever they describe the Ogre, but I guess him being a 'serial killer' first in the eyes of the police instead of being a kidnapper and rapist does kind of make sense.

I do note that Barbara's kind of into Ogre, at least before the self-loathing kicks in and she kicks him out, and her expression when Ogre shows Barbara his big bondage room is one more befitting confusion instead of shock or horror. Are they building Barbara up to be a villain? Ogre's partner of sorts? I dunno. But I do like how they actually chose to develop Barbara's characterization instead of just using her as a plot device -- either as the Ogre's victim, or just a plot device for Gordon to save.

Gordon and Bullock's investigation and information finding is relatively, y'know, generic and procedural. Beyond Gordon panicking about Leslie (that cat scare scene was kind of dumb) there wasn't anything particularly of note. There were some nice little atmospheric scenes as they try their best to track down the Ogre, like Bullock finding the rotten corpse and the creepy scratched-out photographs, but the focus in this episode is clearly on the villains: the Ogre, the Penguin and the Riddler.

Penguin, again, contiues to be a crazy fucker. He's recruited this random mercenary, Connor, to kill Maroni when he comes into this bar he purchased last episode, which is all fine and generic and stuff, but it's always interesting seeing Penguin's crazy antics. The big scene for Penguin and the whole mob plotline here is when Maroni does his little jovial drink with batty old Gertrude Cobblepot, before basically confronting her with biting revelations about Oswald's murderous tendencies. It's great show for all three parties involved -- Oswald, Maroni and Gertrude -- and I do love how Oswald's actor just sells the seething rage when he realizes what Maroni is playing, and the silent sobbing when he is forced to lie to his mother and his mother knows it.

It's kind of obvious for Gertrude to die at the hands of Maroni or Falcone, but I'd argue having Maroni get at Penguin in this way, ruining the relationship and trust between him and his mother, is as devastatingly effective as it would be for Penguin to see his mother gunned down in front of him, which is relatively generic as far as these traumatic origin stories go. Maroni's really hamming it up and this scene is truly excellent. I do love how Penguin immediately commits a murder right after his crazy mother confronts him and goes off to pout because she doesn't know what to believe.

And contrasting with Penguin's sociopathic murder-just-because-he's-pissed-off moment in this episode is Edward Nygma's first murder, and most likely the beginning of his own descent into villainy. Ed's quasi-accidental murder of Kringle's abusive boyfriend plays off well with Selina's own kill last episode, and there is a nice little contrast to see how the different characters react. Nygma and Kringle's dynamic has been a relatively eyeball-rolling sometimes-funny sometimes-painful-to-watch part of Gotham that I don't criticize as much because it's got other, bigger problems, but I do like how it ends up paying off as the socially awkward Nygma tries to be a hero for this girl he likes and ends up accidentally killing Douchebag McBoyfriend.

Although, yes, I do admit, having Kringle's boyfriend be a generic and almost cartoonish woman-beater jock is kind of lazy, it is still effective nonethelesss. And I do like the little parallel between Maroni confronting Gertrude a couple of scenes back with the line "what kind of person plunges a knife into someone over and over?", while that is exactly how Nygma kills his victim. And Nygma just breaking down with "oh no oh dear oh no" gives him a pretty awesome descent into villainy, something that Nygma never really had going on for him beyond his unhealthy obsession with playing around with corpses.

Bruce and Selina continue their little interpid investigation into Bunderslaw, and their scenes are relatively slow. It's a lot better to see them actually have a plan to sneak Bunderslaw's key and make a duplicate of it instead of the aimless wandering around in the streets, and having Bruce and Selina actually having planned it out beforehand does make it a fair bit more plausible. Nothing particularly interesting in this part beyond it being connected tangentially with the Ogre plot since Selina and Barbara are roommates. That bit is still weird as fuck.

But Bruce and Selina still play off each other pretty well, even if them talking about crossing the line of murder is a bit of an unsubtle shout out to how Batman doesn't kill and all that.

Overall a great episode that doesn't just waste its time building up plot lines, giving exposition that don't matter or consumed with random uninteresting sub-plots. While I contest having the Ogre plot stretched over three of the four remaining episodes instead of focusing more on Loeb or the mob, it is relatively effective and promises for a relatively content-packed finale. Hopefully it's not that messy, though... I do hope the Ogre and, I dunno, Riddler and Wayne sub-plots get wrapped up relatively quickly in the next episode so we can focus on the mob bits for a big Gotham finale.

Boku no Hero Academia 47 Review: Gran Tourino

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 47: To Wriggle

Bit of a slower chapter, both this one and the previous one. Midoriya basically got sent off to All Might's old teacher last chapter, this old geezer called Gran Tourino, and despite Midoriya being the geekiest of the geek regarding all things All Might he doesn't know anything about Gran Tourino. In true Shonen fashion, Gran Tourino is a wacky old geezer who is secretly super powerful, and since he's settling in into the 'wise old mentor' role, it really is hard not seeing him dying because all old teacher mentors, y'know, die. It's like a requirement in shonen manga, with Makarov from Fairy Tail being the only one exception I can think of.

The chapter starts off with All Might talking about the DNA composition of Noumu, and apparently he used to be human... but he's brain-dead now. And Noumu's body contains at least five separate DNA's, and his body contains multiple quirks. We've established with Todoroki that someone can have multiple quirks at once, but apparently Noumu has so many quirks, and in addition to the whole multiple DNA thing, All Might and this one generic-looking scientist fellow conclude that Noumu's powers is granted by someone whose quirk can grant quirks in other people.

Meanwhile, Midoriya is training with Gran Tourino, who lampshade the fact that All Might is a shitty teacher. Midoriya's costume is upgraded, apparently, and he's a bit apprehensive about punching an old dude but naturally Gran Tourino is awesome and all that. Gran Tourino puts Midoriya through a relatively formulaic training sequence, showing off just how awesome he is bouncing all around the room and being able to take down Midoriya even when he predicts where Gran Tourino will come in from. Tourino talks about how Midoriya's blind devotion to All Might has become restrictive shackles binding him down, and he needs to find his own path and stop thinking of All For One as this special gift entrusted to him and, y'know, just use it. Which is a nice little variation in the 'try as hard as you can until you can do it' shonen master training, too.

Iida's hanging out with this random hero with fins, and apparently he really wants to hunt down Stain, which was why he chose an internship near the city.

Stain himself, who looks delightfully creepy as all sorts of hell, meets up with Shigaraki Tomura (Handy McHand) and Blackmist. Shigaraki notes how Stain is like their great senpai, and wants to enlist him in taking out All Might and the Yuuei kids. Stain is pissed off, though, not having much interest in 'bloodlust without a cause' and how Shigaraki is just throwing a temper tantrum. Blackmist is talking to Shigaraki's mysterious teacher, who gives the same cryptic advice that Tourino did which is to let Shigaraki keep thinking on his own to simiulate his growth.

Which is what Midoriya is doing, trying to think out of the box and find his own personal application to All For One, so is Gran Tourino the television benefactor? I dunno, it seems way too obvious to be the case for me. The chapter ends with Midoriya contemplating how he should use All For One less rigidly and more flexibly, though we don't see what, exactly he comes up with.

Tourino is, of course, silently watching this and noting how great Midoriya's progression is and yadda yadda yadda. He also reveals All Might's real name, which is Toshinori.

Overall an enjoyable, if not particularly eventful, chapter. Really hope the training doesn't last too long, though.

Gotham S1E19 Review: Completely Skippable

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 19: Beasts of Prey

Gotham’s been on a break for… two months or something along those lines between episodes 18 and 19. And one thing that Gotham didn’t manage to do is to make a sufficiently interesting cliffhanger so viewers are on their seats waiting for the break to be over. Agents of SHIELD did that phenomenally well with the whole Skye-turns-into-an-Inhuman thing when they went on a two month break. Gotham didn’t have anything remotely interesting going on and was just slogging through its weekly motions when it went into hiatus, and it took me quite a while to really get back to watching it... not really helped that Agents of SHIELD, Flash and Arrow are all on their respective phenomenal season finales while Gotham is just… well, just wasn’t that interesting, really. And honestly, episode 19 was pretty crap one to come back to after a hiatus. It’s one of the messiest and least interesting Gotham episodes.

All the various plot threads are being built up – Gordon being forced to take the fight to bring down corrupt Commissioner Loeb (who set Gordon up to hunt Ogre, who targets the loved ones of the policemen sent after him), the whole mob situation with Penguin-Maroni-Falcone heating up, Bruce and Selina investigating the evil Wayne Enterprises and the GCPD is corrupt. Also whatever the fuck is going on with Fish and the Dollmaker, which thankfully gets resolved. But this episode is so messy and goes from one plot to another without much cohesion and it really is a gigantic mess.

On the police side, it seem to be building up to a multi-part arc pitting James Gordon against the Ogre, who is this handsome dude that’s totally fucked up in the head and is what happens when the Fifty Shades of Grey and Twilight mentality meets that of a psychopath. The Ogre’s a brand-new villain created for the show (the old Batman comics did have a villain called the Ogre, but he’s nothing like the one here, being a literal ogre) and while he does seem like a relatively generic serial killer on paper, kudos to the actor for putting in such a performance that delivers his stalker-y entitled psychopathic characterization. He’s totally sick in the head, actually wanting those women he kidnapped to love him and killing them when they’re not “the one”.

He does seem rather generic all in all, though, and I do hope he doesn’t last more than two episodes. The whole Ogre plot point seems to just give Gordon an excuse to finally take the war to Loeb because he gunned for Gordon’s loved ones, and I really wished that with the finale brewing up Gordon’s main focus wouldn’t be on some random psychopath but on the mob or Penguin or something.

A good chunk of the episode is also spent with Bullock and Gordon just running around trying to get down on this secret serial killer thing that other policemen apparently just shut up about and never mentioned and they spent way too long just building up the Ogre, clearly not meaning to take this anywhere because Ogre’s still got a couple of episodes to show up in.

And while you could argue that showing a pointlessly extensive flashback of the Ogre stalking and killing one of his victims is a waste of space when we could’ve inferred it, what really took up space was Fish’s scenes with the Dollmaker. Not only does Fish’s entire Dollmaker plotline pointless, a gigantic annoyance and a waste of space I watch at double-speed, the Dollmaker ends up getting taken out like a bitch and the scenes focus so much on Fish just talking to the multiple factions in the random prison that don’t mean jack shit because really who cares about any of them other than Fish and Dollmaker? And I don’t even like either of them. Fish manages to escape with the most generic series of scenes ever, of course, but she got shot in the belly. I’m sure she’ll return for the finale, though. Whatever. I don’t really want to talk about Fish other than the fact that her scenes here are simply horrid to watch.

Penguin is going around setting up an assassination attempt at Maroni, which seems to going to be the big thing on the mob side of the plotlines, at least for the next episode or two. And again, while seeing Penguin just hamming it up all pathetically and stuff is always one of the highlighs of Gotham, his scenes also drag on for too long with convincing the bartender lady and the needlessly cringe-inducing finger horror show with the pappone.

Bruce and Selina’s scenes also started off really dull, with a needlessly winded recap about how Reggie stabbed Alfred and was evil and was sent by the Wayne Enterprises people and all that. The journey of Bruce just going around before finally tracking down Reggie is just trite… though the final scene with Selina pushing Reggie out of the window when he threatens to rat them out to his superiors is a great one. Selina actually freaking kills Reggie, and I do like the shocked look on Bruce’s face. He clearly didn’t want Reggie to die, especially considering what Reggie means to Alfred, but there really wasn’t much they could do if Reggie wasn’t so stoned at that time, them being, y’know, kids. It’s a great finish, with Selina and Bruce having a bit of an argument over the killing of Reggie, and Bruce keeping this a secret from Alfred would be an interesting wrinkle to their relationship.

Again, still don’t really give much of a fuck about the whole Wayne plotline, but I am relatively invested in Bruce and Selina’s interactions. Do like them portraying Selina as an anti-villain instead of ‘a good girl who likes to steal stuff’.

Overall it’s kind of a crap shoot of an episode. The whole Ogre thing really goes nowhere and is just padding – rendered rather pointless since the next two episodes would deliver Ogre’s psychopathic character far more effective than the ‘oh the police are scared’ scenes here. Fish and Dollmaker’s plot just… kind of crashes and burns and ends without anything satisfying, but I can’t say I would care if it did, so whatever. Penguin, Gordon and Bruce really don’t do anything of substance, so the only real good thing in this episode is Bruce reacting to Selina pushing Reggie to his death. And a minute of good stuff doesn’t salvage the entire episode.