One Pice 795 Review: Team Sanji Returns! Also, KAIDO!

One Piece, Chapter 795: Suicide

Oh, sure, lots of things happen in this chapter -- it's not paced quite as well as the previous two, but it's still got its share of content -- but the big appeal for me is the return of Sanji, Nami, Chopper and Brook after close to a year of them disappearing! And I honestly thought we'd cut away to them already captured by Big Mom's crew, and would be the impetus for a rescue arc, but it doesn't seem to be the case. Alas this also means that twat Momonosuke's showed up as well, but hey. The other big thing, is, of course, Kaido's reveal and backstory, which I'll talk about in more detail later on.

But we first start of the chapter with a couple of short follow-ups to some characters. We've got Fujitora's team, where he's using excuses like "oh the die showed a 1 today" to justify not hunting down Luffy. So he's not going to outright disobey Akainu's order to bring back Luffy's head, but neither is he in a big hurry to do it, and is actually obstructing his subordinates like Maynard who actually do want to hunt Luffy down. Or maybe he's literally just basing it on the dice roll. Either way, Fujitora's cool. 

We've see the interior of Dressrosa Palace, and apparently the troops and whatnot, all bandaged up (because in mangaland bandages can cure any kind of wound) and talking about how no one saw where Luffy's men went after the whole debacle. We see the allied pirates like Don Chinjao, Bartolomeo, a chained-up Cavendish-Hakuba and Baby 5 all hanging out and just kind of sleeping. Riku tells Rebecca that she will be a princess. So I guess Rebecca as next straw-hat is not going to be a thing? I don't care for Rebecca enough either way, although having her join the straw hats will be kind of a neat difference to the ending of Alabasta.

We then cut away to Team Sanji, who are on the Thousand Sunny and seem to have eluded Big Mom after a year's worth of offscreen running around. Sanji and Chopper are arguing with Caesar Clown, who's being an ass like usual. They've apparently been separated from Nami, Brook and that twat Momonosuke, who are being chased by these two weird dudes -- a burly dude with goggles and horns riding an elephant, and a woman who somehow is more skimpily dressed than Rebecca, which is not an easy feat. 

Nami has notably traded her bikini-top-and-jeans for something less obviously fanservicey.

There's a gigantic eruption of, um, water, because One Piece islands are weird, which knocks everyone out for a spin. Nami saves Brook and Momonosuke from drowning, and the man attacks them with "Sheep's Bone", his hands apparently, um, transforming into a goat's horns? Or something? Is he a goat Zoan? Brook does comment on his power while blocking with a new, if unremarkable attack, "Soul Parade". It's enough to block the dude, who's apparently called Master Sheep's Head, before Sanji delivers a Diable Jambe: Mutton Shot finisher. Y'know, because mutton? Sheep? Heh.

Sanji's lecherous behavior drives creeps the shit out of skimpy-armour girl, who retreats with Sheep's Head... they're apparently hunting the samurai, presumably Kinemon, and the girl apparently doesn't want to deal with Sanji so much that she's willing to just say that they found nothing. Team Sanji briefly talk about a mysterious girl who got away, who is watching them from the bushes. Chopper found something. And Master Sheep's Head is apparently a member of... -dun dun dunnn- the Kaidou Pirates!

Meanwhile, in the Kid-Alliance Pirate Base, a gigantic explosion sends some of the lesser members (including Heat, who IIRC is the only other named member of Kid's crew other than Killer). Everyone, even the captains, are confused as to what is going on. Is Shanks making a pre-emptive attack? They found a hole the shape of a man, and then there's this background dialogue going on, about how the strong live and the weak die.

Apparently the Kid-Alliance base is located under a Sky Island, and while Hawkins and Apoo don't put much stock in the myth, the fact that, y'know, a dude fell down from the sky, followed by a gigantic ship, kind of puts that doubt into question. 

We then get a mini-flashback to a few minutes before, of Urouge, who walks up to the mysterious figure despite the protests of his crew that the man is trouble. The narration starts again about how this man had wanted to die, how nothing his enemies did -- even when he was sent for execution -- had been able to kill him. As Urouge says a prayer, the man jumps like ten thousand feet down from the sky island to die, which was why he crashed down onto the Kid Alliance base.

(I guess Urouge just sorta meets the dude randomly on the Sky Islands then)

And as the narration delivers in excruciating detail how all kinds of torture and killing methods simply doesn't work on him, how he's captured by the Marines and Yonkou but they failed to kill him, how spears and hanging ropes mysteriously break and torture doesn't work on him... and he actually finds it a hobby. And as the man in question pulls himself out of the hole in the ground, the narration tells us his identity -- KAIDO -- the unseen, the monsterous power behind Doflamingo and everything, and he finds all these death attempts so amusing that it's a hobby. He's this gigantic dude that towers over Kid, Hawkins and Apoo -- I don't think the three of them really stand much of a chance if Kaido decides on a whim to end them then and there -- and seems to be some kind of a hybrid between the Vikingiest of the Vikings with a Genghis Khan mustache. He's got giant horns as well. 

Kaido talks about how Whitebeard did a number on him, what the hell that's about? He doesn't seem to care about Team Kid, and just rants to himself about how Joker needs to prepare for the 'last battle he'll have', and how he's going to unleash a gigantic war because the world's too freaking mundane and boring and he's going to burn everything down. "Time to light the match to the biggest war in history" or something along those lines.

(Does he not know Whitebeard's dead? Is he picking a fight with Whitebeard? I think that's going to be a disappointment in goofiness even for One Piece)

Well, holy shit! I certainly didn't expect Kaido to show up here and now of all times, and for him to show up in Kid's base. And I do like how the chapter seems to lead into something that's, well... not quite exactly, y'know, fucking Kaido. I was honestly kind of confused that the chapter seems to be focusing on some random dude that's involved with Kid and Urouge and whatnot. So cool for that. And I certainly didn't expect him to look so... human. I mean, he's got horns and is gigantic as fuck, but he's not, like a monstrous creature or a demon or whatever like the whole 'strongest creature' moniker seemed to suggest. But still considering he's an unkillable immortal thing he might as well as not be a human, I guess? Also I guess the big thing we saw a couple chapters back when Drake and whanot isn't... Kaido? Or are they just on the Sky Island? Eh, not quite important.

Despite the rather 'what the fuck is going on why are we here' moment at the beginning of the segue into Team Sanji, it's certainly an awesome chapter. It's extremely exciting, and an absolute treat to read and just go 'whaaat' at every single page.

So yeah, fuck Wano and the Samurai country and whatever, we've got fucking Kaido and Akainu and the Revolutionary Army and whatnot to contend with. Kinemon and Momonosuke can just kind of disappear and never show up again because holy shit Kaido

Agents of SHIELD S2E21-22 Review: Season Finale!

Agents of SHIELD, Season 2, Episodes 21-22: S.O.S.

It took me quite a while betwen my review of the other superhero shows season finales and Agents of SHIELD... mostly because my laptop ate the mammoth review I wrote for the two-part finale and I got so pissed off at losing it that I just kind of didn't do it for a while.

Anyway, I guess this will be fairly shorter than my normal TV episode reviews, mostly because I'll be a lot more concise compared to my normal self. So overall? This two-parter? It's basically an epic movie. And I love it. Agents of SHIELD arguably has one of the worst series of episodes around the first half of the second season, but it has slowly getting better and better after the season break, and its finale actually feels like something on par with some of the better Marvel Studios movies, and arguably a far more solid and satisfying watch compared to the messy Age of Ultron. It has a lot of interesting powers and action scenes, some really great character moments, and a lot of great lines.

The action is split up into two locations. A majority of the cast is involved in the Inhuman War aboard the Illiad and Lianshi, whereas a small cast -- May, Bobbi, Hunter, Ward and 33 -- are doing their own thing and dealing with Ward's insane machinations. And while I frowned at doing that last episode, the payoff for the Bobbi-Hunter and Ward-33 pair is absolutely well done and it keeps their outstanding character relationships from kind of bogging down the big Inhuman thing going on.

And it's wrapped up pretty well with a neat little bow, and had it not been for the final, assholish scene, it would even be a pretty good series finale. Season three is already confirmed, but this episode does wrap up most of the plot threads and character moments.

Skye finally gains full control of her powers, gets to resolve her conflict between her loyalty to SHIELD and the Inhumans, gets to meet and have absolutely meaningful moments with her parents and have a closure, especially that face-off with the clearly fanatical and insane Jiaying. Cal finally transforms into Mr. Hyde, shows that his love for Skye is indeed his defining quality, does a heel-face-turn to do the dirty deed and kill Jiaying -- a heartbreaking scene as Cal clearly doesn't want to kill his wife, but knows that she's gone off the deep end and he needs to be the one to do it instead of Skye -- before getting mindwiped courtesy of TAHITI. It's a bittersweet ending for Cal, who, despite being someone tolerable at best earlier this season, has developed into a complex character that's equal bits tragic and fun. He's taken out of the picture, but not killed off and that's pretty well done. I also appreciate bringing back TAHITI as a way to neutralize Cal.

Coulson regains control of SHIELD despite all the setbacks, and loses an arm. Fitz finally finds himself competent again, even managing to kill arguably the most dangerous Inhuman that's fighting against them -- Gordon -- and rekindles his old friendship with Simmons that got torn apart (badly) in this second season, with hints that it's blossoming into something sweeter. Simmons also remembers that she's a nice person and kind of forgets all those 'I'm turning xenophobic and evil' scenes from before. Mack decides that despite his hatred of the aliens, he is still loyal to his friends and helps out in the final battle, and gets instated in that 'the guy who distrusts the leader and thus will keep the leader in check' role.

Throughout this season the reason for May's robotic detachment is revealed and she finally gets to actually deal with it in this episode, and the end shows her rekindling her old relationship with her ex-husband and actually smiling genuinely. She also manages to end the little rivalry with Agent 33... who turned out to be a relatively more complex character than I thought she would be, being put into the role as Ward's protege, and Ward actually does see himself 'helping' 33 find her roots after she is freed from those controlling her.

Except, y'know, Ward's plans involve brutally murdering and psychologically torturing the one he blames for 33's condition. We saw Ward doing a similar thing with his brother back then, and now he does it to Bobbi for 33's sake... and because of that, during the ensuing battle Ward accidentally kills Agent 33, adding a layer of depth and tragicness to Ward, which leads him to go from Anti-Villain wild card into fully embracing the villain mantle as he takes over leadership of Hydra. 33 getting her end is pretty nice too... she's been kind of the weak link in most of the recent episodes, but she does manage to serve her purpose as Ward's insane motivation and twisted love interest, and the way she's taken out is pretty well done too.

Raina, a complex and fluctuating character throughout both seasons, who's struggling with identity in the past couple of episodes, finally finds out that she does belong with the angels, and manages to make Skye see the truth about Jiaying's evil, albeit at the cost of her life. Raina's weird and I could probably write an entire post dissecting her soul-searching character but let's just say she got a good exit and leave it at that. Lincoln is... well, no one is surprised to see him join the good guys.

Bobbi and Hunter's relationship has not been explored well throughout the season, though it's always a source of snarky humour. Bobbi's past of sacrificing things for the greater good comes back to bite her in the ass, which is nice. There's a distinct problem of 'you're keeping secrets from me but I can't help but love you' on Hunter's side, and this episode finally shows that Bobbi actually does love Hunter back, having her take a bullet for Hunter and that scene was wonderfully shot. Overall it ends in good stuff and neat conclusions for most of the main cast, with several foreshadowings -- Skye name-drops the Secret Avengers, and the Terrigen crystals have apparently found their way into fish oil, allowing a neat way for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (well, Agents of SHIELD since the movies try their best to ignore the show due to conflicting creators) to introduce new metahumans whenever they want to.

If that god damned Kree monolith didn't just break out of its case and gloop up poor Simmons, because god damn it can Fitz-Simmons not be happy

Also, shame that despite giving Mack an opportunity to give Skye the nickname 'Tremors', he didn't actually use Skye/Daisy's comic book codename 'Quake'. Boo.

But overall it's a great episode, showcasing this big war between the Inhumans and SHIELD pretty well as the Inhumans take over the Illiad and the Kree weapon and wanting to use it against the humans and whatnot. We get some cool powers too... as mentioned before, Cal finally assumes his Mr. Hyde form, which is kind of disappointing though making it any more drastic would go on Hulk territory. We've got Gordon and Lincoln with their teleporty and electricity powers, and this new Inhuman hot chick (named Alisha, apparently. And less nicely, nicknamed 'Ginger Ninja' by Mack) who has Multiple Man powers. And Jiaying shows that her regeneration powers? Well, they're not just regeneration. It's full-on vampiric draining and she will drain the life of other people to heal herself, which was the reason that Cal and Jiaying massacred a village in the backstory.

We've got a lot of action scenes, of course, and I'm just sad that poor Deathlok missed all of the action this episode. May and Skye in particular got some pretty awesome fighting scenes. We've got Fitz and Skye remembering that they also have science and computer skills respectively, May caused Ward to take out his own ally with some smarts, and Fitz was absolutely instrumental in taking out Gordon -- both by creating the forcefield, and by stabbing him through the chest. The show almost makes it look like Fitz was the one that got stabbed, which I won't put it over the show-writers to do considering Triplett's sudden death. But no, Fitz survives, so yay.

But it's not just all the action... even throughout it all, we get some pretty cool character moments. We've got Coulson using his 'I just want to help you' schtick to befriend Cal, who has formed kind of a grudging respect over their mutual care over Skye, to convince Cal that he is just a pawn in Jiaying's games and finally use him to take out Jiaying. Hunter was snarking throughout his rampage in hunting down Bobbi, and the desperation in his voice as he searches for her is well done -- as is Bobbi, equally desperate, puts herself in the way of the crossbow meant for Hunter. That was a tense sequence.

It's not a perfect episode, of course, with several parts beying rather odd -- why would Coulson get Fitz and Simmons to revive Cal when he knows that Cal is sent into the SHIELD base as a trojan horse? I get that Coulson is nice and probably is banking on converting the crazy dude, but look at the amount of damage that Cal did! It's a miracle no one got killed. The torture scene with Bobbi went on a bit too long for my liking too. And as much as I enjoy Evil!Jiaying, Redeemed!Raina and Nice!Simmons, the sudden change seemed a bit jarring. Jiaying isn't quite that bad, since we actually got hints that she's not quite that nice thanks to her association with Gordon, we just don't know how far she is willing to go. Raina, too, is easy to look over, though her death kind of leaves a bit of a bad taste in the whole 'this is about Skye' thing. Simmons' sudden change of heart from being evil (trying to kill Ward in particular) and xenophobic into Nice!Simmons from season one was also abrupt, though a welcome one. I guess when she comes out of the Kree monolith we'll see what's up?

I've been rambling for a while, and overall it's an absolutely solid finale. Bring on season three! I could probably make this review longer, talk a bit more, but I need to review Ant-Man.

One Piece 794 Review: Sabo Origins

One Piece, Chapter 794: Sabo's Adventure

Well, we didn't pick up at all on the freaking cliffhanger with Fujitora and Akainu's conversation from last chapter, because god damn it One Piece. But what we did get in this chapter is relatively interesting, so it can be partially forgiven for that.

Also last chapter I didn't quite catch that apparently Capone Bege is on a Big Mom ship. The flag was kinda small, but I guess Capone's just helping them out in hunting down Team Sanji and Caesar Clown.

Apparently the Straw Hats, Kyros, Law and Bellamy have gathered in Kyros' house, and Sabo has shown up to look at a sleeping Luffy before going off. Sabo and Robin apparently know each other, though it isn't quite clear whether Robin is keeping this information a secret from Luffy or she just doesn't know Sabo all that well.

Franky is doing some self-repair on his face which looks hella uncomfortable.

Sabo, then, does a bit of an exposition to Zoro and Robin about how he's been "dead this whole time" and a short recap of their childhood adventures and the unfortunate incident with the ship. Apparently Monkey D. Dragon found Sabo right after he got shot to hell by the Tenryubito ship. Apparently the shock of the explosion gave Sabo amnesia! And memory loss is kind of lazy writing when it comes to explaining character motivations, but it kind of makes some sort of sense because it's in the past -- a lot more stomachable than random amnesia in the present (RE: Nanatsu no Taizai). They know he's called Sabo because of the name on his belongings, and the only thing Sabo remembers is to run away from that city, so yeah, the dickishness Sabo's parents transcend amnesia.

We also get a couple of speaking lines from Ivankov, a cameo from Imazuma, and a couple of interesting-looking Revolutionaries who I bet will get names and whatnot in databooks and stuff. 

We also get a bit of a little 'I'm trapped in a birdcage' moment from Sabo. Get it, birdcage? Yeah, it's kind of weak.

Apparently Ace "filled him in", but in a tragic way -- Sabo's memory of everything was jogged after Ace's death was broadcasted in the news all over the world, which neatly explains why Sabo wasn't around kicking ass during the Whitebeard War. It truly is sad and the art and mini-flashback panels really capture Sabo's state of mind as it pieces together just what is happening. Apparently the shock put him in a fever for three days, because manga logic.

And apparently Sabo targeted the Dressrosa Coliseum for the express purpose of obtaining the Mera Mera no Mi. We get a recap of Luffy's meeting with Sabo, but instead of seeing it from Bartolomeo's point of view with Sabo and Luffy's side of the conversation being left unspoken, we now see it from the brother's side of the conversation and Luffy basically freaks out in a really cliched but still heartwarming moment .Nothing much to say here... it's a good scene, let's leave it at that. 

Present-day-Sabo talks about how CP0 is probably returning to Dressrosa so we are going to get them, which is good. He leaves a Vivre Card with Zoro, and despite the similarity with their last meeting with Ace, Zoro actually lampshades this which makes me think that they're not going to pull the same thing and make this be a bad omen for Sabo or anything.

Sabo heads off and after a quick report to Hack and a unfunny running gag with either Hack or Koala getting angry at the person holding the snail phone thing when Sabo hangs up, apparently Sabo is sitting on an army of flying crows... and the lead crows tells Sabo that he can bring out these crows whenever. So a Devil Fruit user... but what? A Zoan? An Awakened Zoan who can create more crows? Or just a weird Paramecia?

Either way Sabo is hurrying off somewhere, maybe to fight CP0? Please don't let Sabo's fight be interrupted like his fight against Fujitora. And his fight against Jesus Burgess.

And One Piece is on break next week whyyyy

Overall it's pretty interesting. We could've done with some trimming, but I personally felt that those scenes were pretty emotional, even if the amnesia thing is still a bit iffy. But oh well. 

One Piece 793 Review: Akainu VS Fujitora! Team Kidd VS Shanks! Kaido! Aokiji-Blackbeard Alliance(?)!

One Piece, Chapter 793: The Tiger and the Dog

This chapter picks up right where we left off last time, and it injects a healthy dose of Holy Shit into the series, which is extremely welcome since One Piece has been kind of... m'eh near the end of the Doflamingo arc.

We start off with Fujitora telling Riku that he had gambled that the pirates will take care of Doflamingo themselves, which was why he did jack shit against either side after the whole soul-searching bit. "With what face could a man of the very system that allowed (Doflamingo) to run amok attempt to point a finger at him and speak about justice?" Fujitora, you're one cool cookie. We get a bit of Kyros dismissing the Tontatta and Riku telling his people to shelter the pirates in the castle. 

And then we finally get to the good parts as we get to Mariejois, the Holy Land. Akainu is talking to the Gorosei! I have been eagerly anticipating when we see Akainu again after the timeskip, ad I honestly forgot all about the Gorosei. And they're arguing -- the news about Doflamingo's fall haven't reached them yet. Akainu is absolutely pissed the fuck off about the false information regarding Doflamingo's abdication from the throne and from the Shichibukai, talking about how for someone of the likes of Doflamingo the marines lost face and caused chaos in the world. 

The Gorosei people are just pulling your general 'apathic scheming rulers' card and just talking about how Akainu is being insolent, how the worth of the marines' face is less than zero, and how the marines are just the outward face of the World Government. Apparently the whole matter was entrusted to the Cipher Pol... finally, someone remembers CP0 is around! Akainu basically tells them that they got fucked over by the 'Puppets of the Tenryubito' and they're just pretending that it was all part of the plan.

So I guess the Gorosei are less in rank compared to the Tenryubito? I dunno, things aren't exactly that clear.

One of the Gorosei who has a Whitebeard-esque beard demands Akainu to explain about Aokiji's behaviours, especially since an enormous power like Aokiji has... apparently... joined forces with Blackbeard of all people. What in the actual fuck? Is this a bad translation? Is the line supposed to read something like 'Aokiji is a power comparable to Blackbeard' or 'you let Aokiji loose like you did Blackbeard' or something? But the couple of translations I can find on the internet are variations of Aokiji joining forces with Blackbeard because what the fuck? He did say something about having a connection to the underworld back when we last saw him in Punk Hazard, but still, holy shit.

EDIT: As a friend of mine informed me after I wrote this review, apparently Aokiji joining up with Blackbeard has been mentioned in passing by Burgess all the way back in chapter 720. Well, shit, okay then.

And then someone tells them about the whole 'Doflamingo has been defeated thing', and as the Gorosei and Akainu basically react like we did to the Aokiji-Blackbeard alliance (i.e. "holy shit") we get a montage of all the people in the world reacting, how some wars are ended because weapons and SMILE are unable to be delivered. 

We then get a montage of all the more important characters. First, a big marine ship with someone that's either Sengoku or Garp talking with Tsuru and... honestly just doesn't seem too bothered. Bonney is walking around, reading a newspaper while stealing a pizza and in her little-girl form, noting about how Luffy and Law has balls. Maybe Bonney can join up with Luffy's ever-growing army-alliance thing? That would be interesting. I like Bonney. She's got all sorts of mystery around her regarding just why Akainu wanted to capture her so much back before the timeskip.

Urouge is on some random sky island resting from a wounds, and someone else apparently arrived. Capone is on his own ship, noting about how Luffy and Law are doing well... and they're apparently gunning for Caesar Clown! Who, last we saw a full year ago, is being chased down by fucking Big Mom. We need follow-up on that god damn it... maybe Capone can help out Team Sanji to escape Big Mom? Dunno if they stand much of a chance either way, though.

Kidd, Apoo and Hawkins are just eating together talking about how Luffy and Law must be targetting Kaido in the end, and note that they are targetting a different Yonko... Shanks. I don't know how this will go. Will Shanks just take down this alliance without breaking a sweat because he is Shanks? Or will the three of them take down Shanks and be a more personal villain for Luffy? Kidd certainly has been built up to be quite a villain of sorts since his first appearance...

Also Killer is eating noodles through the holes in his mask which is hilarious.

We then cut to X-Drake, who noted that Doflamingo killed his father a long time ago -- so yeah, that kid in the flashback is indeed Drake, and he wasn't a member of the crew -- he was the son of the captain. And apparently Drake has joined up with Kaido! It was implied when he showed up to save Scotch from Caribou in one of the cover stories, but we have direct confirmation that Drake has indeed joined up with Kaido... who finally makes his first silhouetted appearance and he's this weird giant mountain with two slug horns or some shit. 

Dunno what I expected, but it certainly isn't that.

And finally, as if everything else wasn't enough, we get the titular confrontation between Akainu and Fujitora. Akainu's pissed that Fujitora didn't report to HQ first, while Fujitora just flat-out states that he didn't want HQ to create a cover story that'll stop the truth from spreading out. We get a short flashback of Smoker telling Fujitora about how the World Government covered up the whole Alabasta incident with Crocodile -- good that the similarities between the two arcs are noted -- and we get a short present-day moment with Smoker, Tashigi and the Punk Hazard kids going to Vegapunk's lab.

Back to the Akainu-Fujitora conversation, Akainu is still freaking pissed off that they could've covered it up without losing the face of the Marines, while Fujitora tells him to fuck off for considering lying and how the World Government is the ones who fucked up by creating the Shichibukai in the first place. Akainu is all like "your actions have fucked up the Marines' credibility" while Fujitora is all like "if the Marines' credibility is broken as easily as admitting a single mistake, then it never was credible in the first place".

Akainu tells Fujitora that until he brings the heads of Luffy and Law, the doors of every Marine door in the world will be closed to him... and Fujitora cryptically says that "that's the way I want it". Which means... what? Is he defecting from the Marines? Does he want an excuse to butt heads with Akainu? I would totally like to see that.

Looking forward to the next chapter, definitely. 

Agents of SHIELD S2E20: Plot Twist

Agents of SHIELD, Season 2, Episode 20: Scars

Let’s get to cracking the last of the superhero TV season finales that I have outstanding! Out of all the four shows I review, the Flash was awesome as I expected it would, Gotham was a flop as I expected it would, and Arrow was…. simply messy. But while I expected Agents of SHIELD to be somewhere in between Arrow and Gotham in terms of quality, since the introduction of the Inhumans (who are finally referred to by name in this episode), it has continued to regain a second wind that more than makes up for the crappy first half of the second season. The last few episodes to close out season two of Agents of SHIELD has been a string of absolutely well-written and solid stories, and the writers clearly made use of their mid-season break to sort things out. And this one was no exception.

This episode, of course, takes place after Age of Ultron, and surprise, surprise, Coulson was the one who provided Nick Fury with the Helicarrier, which was the mysterious Theta Protocol. It’s heroic, definitely, but there really is no real reason for Coulson to keep it a secret from May beyond helping to string along the ‘Coulson keeps secrets’ plot. It’s another weak part in this episode, but honestly it’s a rather minor complaint.  Though I do like the nice and absolutely appropriate stealth tie-in to the wider Marvel Universe when Gonzales compares Coulson to Tony Stark, in which a single man does secret projects that are not shared to the rest of the team. It’s an absolutely fitting comparison for Gonzales to make in light of recent events, and the timing for the conversation – right after Age of Ultron – is impeccable. I almost wonder if they planned out Coulson’s weird little secret-keeping agenda just to make this comparison.

Coulson himself doesn’t really have that much justification for keeping such a big secret from May and the others, which leads to May and Coulson going into a bit of a conflict when it comes to choosing who should represent SHIELD to talk to the Inhumans. I do like the little cold war thing going on as the three main powers in SHIELD – Coulson, Gonzales and May – are trying to be passive-aggressive yet still work towards the greater SHIELD goal. The little SHIELD Civil War thing is rather quietly folded up as they just basically work together against this greater threat. Also presumably Coulson and Fury’s big display just kind of shut everyone else up because, dude, they’ve got Thor and Hulk on their side.

May gets a nice little angry moment when she rants to Coulson about what really happened in Bahrain – her killing the little girl instead of her being just a casualty.

Skye is the main lynchpin to finally bring together both SHIELD and the Inhumans, with her presence (and SHIELD “acquiring” Lincoln) being a way to get both sides in a room, on a meeting table. And considering Gonzales’s season-long xenophobia towards powered people, and his insistence to go into the meeting with the leader of the Inhumans, as well as Raina’s constant prophetic dreams about SHIELD attacking Lai Xi, it seems like the obvious option that Gonzales is going to cause the war between SHIELD and the Inhumans, either by attacking the Inhuman leader or simply by being an ass.

So of course the show chooses to surprise us by showing a far more human side to Gonzales, and I think the show’s handling of Gonzales, pig-headedness aside, has been pretty excellent in developing into a pretty three-dimensional character. Yes, he doesn’t trust powered people and thinks of them more as assets than people, but he still recognizes that, yes, they are people. He just wants to index them and keep tabs on them to control them so they don’t hurt everyone else. And the fact that the mysterious item Weaver hands to Gonzales turns out to be a precious personal trinket that Gonzales is handing off to Jiaying as a gesture of peace.

Granted it is relatively stupid for him to bring the gun to the meeting, but you can’t blame him for being paranoid. It’s also odd that they didn’t send Bobbi or Weaver or whoever else to go to the meeting because everyone knows that Gonzales is a power-hating bigot, which is just as subjective as Coulson’s fatherly feelings… though Gonzales does make good on trying to be a peaceful negotiator. But still, the argument could’ve been worded better.

In retrospect Jiaying has been doing some rather questionable things throughout all her appearances when she’s not interacting with her daughter, but still, we chalk it up to ‘oh those wacky Inhumans and their rigid societies’ instead of ‘Jiaying secretly wants war because…’ which, I suppose, will be explained in the actual finale. It’s a sudden plot twist that was handled really well as Jiaying suddenly goes absolutely apeshit when an outsider compares being crippled to Whitehall’s vivisection (though honestly Gonzales wasn’t being an ass about it) and cracks open one of the Terrigen mist things which apparently kills Gonzales off, then uses Gonzales’ gun to shoot her shoulder and paint herself as the victim. So Raina’s fears actually came to life – not because Gonzales is evil or Gonzales panicked, but because Jiaying was pulling everyone’s strings. And it really looks like Jiaying just went angry because Gonzales tried to Index the Inhumans all Nazi-like, so up until she goes on her little rant she doesn’t really seem evil, just angry.

So, yeah, Jiaying for final big bad, while Gonzales's last act is one of relative peacefulness. Nice twist. 

And it puts Jiaying’s actions throughout the episode in a far more sinister light. Jiaying’s second-in-command Gordon, who is always shown as somewhat stern if not outright evil, seems to be just following orders when he infiltrated the Iliad. Raina being ignored seemed to be just the story slapping her with a healthy dose of the boy who cried wolf, but it turns out that she was telling the truth and Jiaying was manipulating events to her designs. Can’t blame them for distrusting Raina, though. Good job, Gordon, for sticking to your loyalties.

And the tender moment between Jiaying and Cal as they warm up to each other and decide to hand Cal over for the good of their daughter? By the end of this episode I’m not quite sure how much of it is just the two of them working together as this Evil Couple™ or Jiaying just manipulating Cal emotionally to make him into a pawn. Regardless of the case, Cal’s inside a SHIELD Quinjet, having ingested his chemicals so we’ll be seeing Mr. Hyde soon instead of just season-long teases of his actual power.

There’s also some nice little well-done continuity excuses regarding the big question to why the Kree never bothered to look for the Inhumans before. Skye and Raina’s Terrigenesis uses a Diviner and a Kree Temple, which Lincoln notes as the ‘old-fashioned’ way, whereas Jiaying explains here that Lai Xi uses Terrigenesis crystals from a melted-down Diviner instead of the normal Diviner-in-a-Kree-Temple way, which was why the Kree didn’t bother to investigate before. And having been made from melted Diviner metal, the mist is absolutely lethal to normal humans.

Skye’s found herself trapped in between the Inhumans and her real, biological parents who definitely love her, as well as SHIELD, who are far more rough but also contains her adoptive family. And it comes to a head when the two butt heads, and she defends the Inhumans against May by bringing up the Bahrain incident which is honestly a bit of a low brow, especially since it’s the fact that the Inhumans lost control of one of their own that the Bahrain incident happened.

I don’t think that other than that Skye really got that much to do this time around, and neither did Fitz, Simmons or Hunter – Hunter did a fun little doodle of Raina while in a meeting, though, which was funny. The Koenigs return, apparently having been preparing Theta Protocol which accounts for their absence. Deathlok seems to have been written out of the finale thanks to his injuries, while Lincoln is just brooding and being all ‘we Inhumans need secrecy!’ The main point for the second-stringers this time around is Agent 33 making use of her May-face (which someone really should’ve remembered to remove between this episode and the last) to trick Bobbi and kidnap her… for some unspecified machinations that she has cooked up with Ward involving the proper way to exact revenge. Which really felt a bit shoehorned in, though its eventual payoff in the finale actually works rather well.

Also, Mack quits because, uh, he really hates aliens all that much and is a bit of a whiny bitch, but I’m sure he’ll show up in the finale when our heroes need him in a gallant manner.

There’s also a pretty cool racism theme throughout the episode, not just from SHIELD, but from the Inhumans as well. Team Gonzales, of course, are giant racists as established before and Mack quits simply because he hates aliens. And May goes on the warpath when he realizes the Inhumans are related to Bahrain. But the Inhumans are racists too, with Gordon verbally abusing Cal over the fact that his powers aren’t real, while the thing that made Jiaying snap seems to be the fact that a human deigned to take pity on her.

There’s also the whole mysterious thing on the Iliad, which has been foreshadowed but never shown until now, which is this weird monolith that keeps turning into liquid and back again – and is apparently a Kree weapon of mass destruction that can wipe out the Inhumans. Or something. So that means it will definitely not be set off since we have an Inhumans movie coming up, but will be a big plot device in the upcoming war.

Overall, a pretty awesome penultimate episode that shakes things up by switching Jiaying and Gonzales’s primary antagonist and reasonable authority figure roles in an absolutely organic and believable way that still comes off as a twist. It sets up a SHIELD-vs-Inhumans war, pitting two ‘good’ organizations with valid goals, with Skye trapped in the thick of it all, and builds up the two other outstanding villains – Cal and Ward – who all have their own agendas. Definitely well-done, this.

The Flash S1E23 Review: Time Travel, Speed Force, Flashpoint and Explosive Finale

The Flash, Season 1, Episode 23: Fast Enough

The first season of Flash, easily my favourite TV series, ends with a bang. It doesn't quite carry the same 'holy shit awesome' quotient as the previous episode, but it certainly punches me with a gigantic emotional blow. It's certainly not the perfect finale, I won't go around calling it that, but it is one hell of a gorgeous conclusion to the epic first season. 

The main point of this episode, the big overreaching theme, is time travel, and Barry's decision on whether to go back and prevent the big tragedy of Eobard Thawne killing his mother from happening. Whether he decides to stop all the bad things in his life from happening, or to give it up for the greater good and to continue living with all the friends and new family he's made instead of dwelling on the things he lost in the past. It's beautifully executed, even if Eobard Thawne's time-travel logic doesn't really make a lick of sense.

On a meta sense, fans who know about the Flashpoint arc of the comics are wondering if Barry will go back, save his mother and plunge the world into an alternate crapsack future because of the 'for want of a nail' logic and bring us screaming into New 52 which would be horrible. But that's really obviously not going to happen, what with this show being tied so closely to Arrow, but it's still a pretty nice little climax that works in more ways than one. It's great on its own, but it's got an additional layer for comic book fans.

Meta-stuff aside, this episode alone explores so much about Barry Allen's characterization, his growth over the season, and all the things he's been struggling with, in ways that more than satisfies. His conversation with Joe about how they'll always be family no matter what, and Barry telling Joe that he is his father whatever happens is absolutely poignant, and all the different characters telling Barry to go and be happy while he struggles over what to do with his power to change the timeline... it's far more emotional than any romance thread as Barry struggles over to hand over this 'happy ending' of having a group of friends and a surrogate family for an ideal dream of what-may-have-been with his mother alive and him married to Iris. It's fantastic. 

The opening really helps, too, with Barry Allen delivering a calm but angry declaration about how the man responsible for killing his mother is now in front of him. With last episode giving us more than adequate comic book action and fighty scenes, most of the episode focuses on character moments -- not that this episode didn't have fighty scenes, of course, but the main impact was delivered through characterization.

Barry and Eobard-Wells's conversation are absolutely glorious. It did get a bit information-dump-y as Eobard explains his rather vague motivations of taking revenge against the Barry of a previous timeline, as well as some odd explanation about his master plan -- make use of the time window that Barry creates when he goes back in time to return to his future... except if Barry actually does save his mother, then that means Eobard Thawne won't become Harrison Wells and won't be able to engineer everything that happens and whatnot, but I guess splinter timelines and whatnot are a thing. It just doesn't really make that much sense, but hey, whatever.

I also don't really know why Cisco and the others bothered helping Eobard out to create the Time Sphere. I guess they want Eobard out of the way, but why they didn't just stick Eobard's cell full with sleeping gas and pump seventeen bullets through Eobard's head, I don't know. I guess Joe, Cisco and Caitlin are nicer people than I am.

I mean, hell, they even got Eobard some fucking Big Belly Burger while he's in his cell, which is by far the most hilarious visual joke this series has ever done. 

But more about Eobard is how great his emotional attachment to the main cast has been, and when he tells Barry and Cisco that they are like his own sons, it does feel real through all of Eobard-Wells' insanity. I absolutely love how complex of a villain Eobard is, and it's a nice juxtaposition of Barry meeting both of his fathers, Joe and Henry, both of whom want what's best for Barry, while Wells, while claiming to care for Cisco like a son, also says with no hesitation that he is sure he will kill Cisco if it needs to be done.

I love the little bait-and-switch as Wells genuinely looks horrified and apologizes to Cisco when Cisco confronts him about the whole 'you killed me' thing, and explains that he is apologizing not for killing Cisco in the alternate timeline, but for the fact that Cisco has became a metahuman.

And that, too, is an absolutely great explanation to the question that's been brushed off with 'as long as it works' regarding Cisco somehow retaining memories about the splinter timeline that was retconned by Barry's time travel. Cisco himself is a metahuman, and his Vibe powers is to see through alternate dimensions... which is a power that the actual comic-book Vibe recently got, which is an awesome revelation. Again, both in the normal and meta sense of the way because Cisco having a metahuman power itself is a great revelation, but as a comic book fan I am surprised that they're not just making Cisco 'earthquake man' and actually using this obscure power of his in a way that makes absolute sense to the plot.

Caitlin and Ronnie also get married this episode before everything goes all shot to hell, which is a nice little moment of happiness for them. Professor Stein, absent throughout last episode, also shows up and takes over Wells' role as the resident senior scientist who understands crazy timey wimey metaphysics and Martin Stein is having an absolute blast either snarking with Ronnie or just making ridiculously funny remarks about time travel. 

But the big emotional point of this episode isn't Wells, or Cisco, or Caitlin, or Barry, or Joe. I actually, y'know, cried a little when Barry travels back through time... and decides to defy Flashpoint and not create a brand-new timeline where everyone is happy or anything like that, but instead simply just going back, forcing himself to wait in another room holding back his anger and tears as his mother is murdered in the other room, and then taking the time to get some closure and actually say goodbye to his mother before she died, assuring her that somehow, somehow, he came back from the future and both he and his father is okay. It's really powerful as he gives up revenge, or even trying to take a third option, and just waits behind to let history take its course but not before getting some personal closure.

And in a nice little moment only able to be done with time travel, there's this talk about how Barry keeps taking advice from other people -- Joe, Iris, Henry, Wells -- and it's time for him to make his own decisions. The kicker? Right before the climatic moment with Barry choosing not to fight Past!Eobard, he takes advice of someone, namely his future self. He's still taking advice, but making decisions on his own, if that makes sense.

It's a powerful moment for everyone involved, and I really cannot express enough just how much this is a gigantic character moment for Barry. It's amazing, and definitely redefined Barry Allen as a character within my mind when previously he's just "generic Silver Age superhero that came before Wally West". It's a fucking poweful moment.

We did get an awesome moment when Barry returns to the present day to give a gigantic YOU KILLED MY MOM punch to Eobard Thawne's face that breaks the Time Sphere.

Eddie, too, decides to say 'fuck destiny' and decides to carve his own path, brushing off Eobard's constant nagging that he will never matter and he will never get the girl, proposing to be with Iris himself and generally being awesome at the end when Barry and Eobard goes toe-to-toe once more. It's a great little final fight, and as Eobard has Barry on the ropes and promises to kill everyone, we hear a gunshot and see Eobard looking surprised, as if Eddie just shot Eobard from the back -- which itself, again, is a nice meta joke to how Eobard actually died during Flashpoint -- but Eddie shot himself in the chest, giving Eobard a gigantic figurative 'fuck you' as he shows that despite everything, Eddie Thawne does matter and he too can choose destiny. Eddie's death was awesome as he goes down with a smile while Iris shrieks in the background and Joe does the most horrified "WHAT DID YOU DO". It's heartbreaking. 

Granted Eddie's big sacrifice is kind of dulled by all the memes that flooded the internet about how he could've had a vasectomy or shot himself in the balls to get the same effect, but come on.

Eobard's face reverts from his Harrison Wells face to his 'original' face, calls Cisco for help which is a nice little touching moment, before he fucking disintegrates and gets eaten by time itself, which breaks apart into a gigantic time-wormhole that sucks everything, and Barry heads off to stop another crisis as the credits roll.

It's a great ending, an absolutely awesome way to explore the origins of the Flash while keeping it fresh... and it still carries a lot of questions... what, exactly, did FutureAlternateTimeline!Barry do to Eobard Thawne to drive him to such anger? What is the whole crisis thing which ended up not having anything to do with this season's finale? What's going to happen with the time wormhole thing and what effects will it have? Will erasing Eobard from the timeline undo everything he's done as Harrison Wells? And more importantly -- what happened to the Future!Barry that fought Eobard Thawne in the past?

I'm not entirely convinced Eobard Thawne and Eddie Thawne won't return in the future, and I won't even try to guess what they've got planned for season two, but man, this season ending! And we still haven't gotten to nitpicking all the Easter Eggs that we saw in the Speed Force yet. I mean, in addition to the eyeroll-inducing 'one minute and fifty two seconds' joke, too, and the whole Flashpoint thing. Let's do another list, because there's a fair amount of it.

• We've got Cisco making a little bubble time machine that both he and Eobard dubs the 'Time Sphere', and Eobard mentions that 'Rip Hunter' will be proud. In the DC comics, Rip Hunter is the leader of the Time Masters, a group of people riding a time machine called the Time Sphere to keep time in balance. Rip Hunter himself will be making an appearance in the next spinoff, Legends of Tomorrow.
• Speaking of which, as Barry runs through the Speed Force, he sees glimpses of future events to happen in Legends of Tomorrow which you can check out in a trailer in Youtube, seeing the team made up of Captain Cold, Heat Wave, White Canary, Atom, Hawkgirl and Flash himself fighting against a giant robot. 
• The Speed Force is predominantly blue, just like how it's portrayed in the comics.
• We get to see Caitlin dressed up as Killer Frost, which may be taken from the original timeline, or foreshadowing future developments of Caitlin actually becoming Killer Frost.
• We also get to see the Flash Museum, a prominent location in the comics. 
• Barry is in jail... not exactly a comic Easter Egg, but it certainly raises questions on what this scene is about. A generic 'alternate timeline with reversed positions'? Foreshadowing for a future plot point? I dunno.
• As Eobard prepares to go through the time wormhole, a very distinct silver helmet with wings flies through that Eobard is really afraid of -- the helmet belongs to Jay Garrick, the first Flash in the comics (Barry, despite being the most prominent, is the second) which probably hints on a future appearance.
• Future!AlternateTimeline!Flash that our Flash sees in the past (it's confusing, innit) is wearing the bright red Flash costume with the white chest insignia that the Future!Flash in Eobard's newspaper wears.
• As mentioned above, Eobard's death is a homage to his death in Flashpoint where he gets killed from behind while gloating over Barry, except instead of being stabbed, Eddie shoots himself.
• Without rambling too much, the triumphant finale does kind of echo how Barry Allen dies in the comics during the Crisis of Infinite Earths.
• Not DC, this time, but at one point Martin Stein drops an 'Excelsior', catchphrase of Stan Lee. Y'know, the dude that runs Marvel comics.

So yeah, in addition to an emotionally-charged finale, an action-packed one, we also get hints for future developments. Jay Garrick! Killer Frost! Rip Hunter! Legends of Tomorrow!

But even without all the geeky stuff? The episode still stands fine on its own as being a dramatic thing with most of the geeky stuff being dramatic on its own. So yeah, working on so many levels, this is one hell of a grand finale.

The Flash S1E22 Review: Words cannot express my happiness

The Flash, Season 1, Episode 22: Rogue Air

There aren't really many moments that blew me away in any media. I do indulge the occassional geeky giggle as awesome scenes play out, and that usually made my day. But this episode? This episode blew my mind several times, and again towards the end. I may have been overreacting somewhat, but I so love this show, and I admit that taking so long to review this particular episode is mainly because of just how much I love it. If I had to choose one moment from the series to chose as the most awesome, the short but undeniably glorious lineup of Arrow, Flash and Firestorm facing off against Reverse-Flash as all their individual powers light up, and the flurry of action that followed next, would definitely be on the top.

It is my favourite moment in this series, in cinematic superhero adaptations and probably one of my favourite scenes in fiction non-stop. I mean, yes, the Avengers had more characters, better comic accuracy (half the players involved here are wearing black), a bigger budget and possibly arguably better actors, but I didn't grow up with the Avengers or anything Marvel. And when I watched the Avengers, we know they're all going to show up and be a team. This? This was a gigantic surprise for me because I didn't spoil myself with trailers. I mean, I expected a climatic fight between Barry and Eobard next episode in the finale, not at the end of this one.

But no, the two face off, and suddenly Firestorm shows up, which is cool and unexpected on its own, but Arrow shows up too with that loud TWAAAAANG from his show's soundtrack, all poised together as a proto-Justice-League to bring Reverse-Flash down. And Reverse-Flash felt like a massive threat to the team in a way that Loki nor Ultron ever were because Reverse-Flash, being a superior metahuman compared to the Flash, is easily the most powerful among the four of them.

Shame that Ray Palmer can't show up because that would make it even more awesome, but he does contribute to the Reverse-Flash's downfall by making these nanites that inhibit Reverse-Flash's speed.

And the battle was quick and decisive, not pointlessly dragged out like it could easily have been. I mean, I want to see more of it, but having it just this impactful, added to the surprise that this climatic battle happened not on the final episode of the season but on the episode before it, are truly great storymaking choices. And the nanite arrows are a pretty great way to let Oliver be able to contribute to defeating Reverse-Flash because face it, he's pretty outmatched. The show does its best to let every member of the proto Justice League shne, with Firestorm's barrage of fireballs easily throwing Reverse-Flash around but he himself gets taken out by the whirling hand trick. And while you'd think a depowered Reverse-Flash wouldn't be much of a problem for Green Arrow to bring down, Eobard Thawne is a pretty great martial artist himself, going toe-to-toe with Oliver Queen and giving him a fair fight before regaining his speed.

And that makes him an even bigger threat. Not only is he faster and smarter than Barry Allen, even without his speed he's also a great martial artist while all Barry has going for him are boxing lessons from Eddie. Yeah, Barry's screwed.

But go down the Reverse-Flash does at the end of this episode, with the help of Green Arrow and Firestorm, and no scene can possibly make me as happy as the music buildup as the three heroes assemble, and their powers activate one by one -- Oliver notches an arrow, Barry's got the lightning in his eyeballs, Firestorm goes flame-on, while Eobard uses the god damned costume ring... it just strokes all the right parts for my geekness. The only way this could be better if Oliver shows up in his bright green costume, Firestorm gets his own yellow-red suit and Barry's costume is brighter red, but what can you do.

I could go on and on, but all this is just the last five minutes of the episode. The rest of it? Actually pretty fucking awesome too, I must say. This is absolutely the best example of the writers and everyone involved just pulling all the stops for an episode before the finale. Comparing it with its sister show, which just spends its time pulling the 'Oliver is TOTALLY evil' card while just setting players up for a finale, this episode is having none of that bullshit and actually tells a story of its own while still setting up for an explosive finale.

Because make no mistake -- we got the Justice League at the end of this episode, and while it may have less prominent members and rather crappy costumes compared to the big movie version coming out... whenever WB decides on their exact plans for the DC movie franchise... there's a big difference of knowing that you're going into a movie starring the JLA, and watching a TV series where these guys are built up as characters gradually, and suddenly showing up to team-up and take down this monster of a villain.

And the good guys aren't the only team-up this time around, because every single metahuman bad guy in Barry's little prison gang up on Team Flash. We'll get to the awesomeness of Captain Cold later on, but I am just here to say that seeing no less than five super-powered metahumans who each have been built up in their own personal episodes all break free and engage in a gigantic battle royale against the Flash is just glorious. Peekaboo, Weather Wizard, Rainbow Raider, Deathbolt, the Mist... they all return, broken free by Captain Cold and Golden Glider just to fuck around with the Flash. The only real one that's missing from this party is Heat Wave, but hey, can't have everything.

It's just awesome, and the scene where Deathbolt, Weather Wizard and the Mist are just shooting off their visually impressive special attacks are a wonder to behold. It's fast, yes, it goes pretty quickly, but it's still undoubtedly awesome.

Captain Cold returns and he is absolutely in tiptop condition with snarkiness, hamminess and outgambitting everyone, and is just being such a gigantic presence in every scene he shows up in. Definitely makes me like him a lot more, and this episode shows that he's not entirely honourable either. He's got his own crazy code of honour, but it operates in an odd way and it's absolutely a blast.

Let's break down this mammoth of an episode bit by bit. After Team Flash discovers that he's actually using the STAR Labs generator which itself is a pretty neat twist that makes sense since it fits with foreshadowing and everything, Reverse-Flash zips out, having done whatever he needs to do, while Barry wants to save the defeated metahumans in the STAR Labs basement before the activation of the particle accelerator kills them. Again, while naive, it's still pretty great to see superheroes who aren't being Punisher-clones. It's just refreshing to see. Naive, yes, but refreshing.

And I do like how Joe is strongly opposed against keeping the defeated metahumans in their own private basement prison. I mean, granted, there wasn't much they could do in Iron Heights Prison to keep these dudes locked up, but still, the moral implications of keeping these metahumans caged up is a nice thing to explore. Joe's little conversation with the DA is a nice little hint, perhaps, of future things to come? Seeing Peekaboo go from 'street thug' to 'psychopath' is a nice little subtle way to show that what Barry and company did to the metahumans they took down might not be the most ethical thing to do to them.

We've also got the Eddie situation kind of resolved in an anti-climatic way, with Eobard's future information thing basically breaking him and he breaks up with Iris and I honestly cannot give any less fucks because SUPERHERO SUPERVILLAIN RUMBLE FIGHT MATCH GO

Barry himself may be making a lot of stupid decisions in this episode, but on the other hand, I do like how he's trying to both emulate Oliver and trying to make decisions without Eobard-Wells. It is kind of a nice, subtle way to foreshadow Oliver's appearance later on in the episode without being completely anal and obvious, and also a line of thought that Barry's definitely going to explore. His little breakdown over just how angry he is that Eobard has been ahead of him all the time is absolutely well-done as well. It feels organic, and not ham-fisted either. All the talk about making morally questionable decisions to gain the upper hand and everything, only for it to bite him in the ass...

Granted, it's a bit of a broken Aesop since Barry has been a lot more effective than Oliver ever has been throughout season three. But still.

There's an odd lull in the main Reverse-Flash plot as he disappears from this episode at the beginning only to return at the end because the magic future machine needs time to charge -- do like, once more, Cisco being unable to do jack shit to future tech -- but that gave us Captain Cold and it's awesome. Captain Cold takes center stage as the nominal villain for the most part of the episode, basically presenting himself as 'the lesser evil' in the grand scheme of things, and ends up fucking Barry over. Cold does save Barry from Deathbolt, killing the poor personality-less fucker, but he's also managed to force Barry to owe him a favour for saving his life, as well as recruit both Weather Wizard and Rainbow Raider. The Mist and Peekaboo, while less pleasant people, will probably be on good terms with Cold after this as well. Plus he gets all his records wiped out to the dust as part of the deal. It's some nice little manipulation from Captain Cold, who, lest we forget, has no powers.

I do like the little complexity with Captain Cold. He doesn't like killing, but he won't hesitate to do so. He wants to rob things and generally likes the thrill, but won't move out of Central City just because he likes it there. He will cheat and steal and backstab, but he has some kind of twisted code of honour enough to keep him from letting Barry die.

We get some quality comedy when Cold kills Deathbolt and converses with the other future-Rogues, as well. Rainbow Raider making a 'oh, okay, that makes sense' shrug when Captain Cold says that he killed Deathbolt because he owed him money, Rainbow Raider saying a meek 'thank you' when Cold matter-of-fact-ly acts for one and the gloriously pissed off expression from Weather Wizard to Raider because he quickly submits to Captain Cold... yeah, we're hinting on big alliances coming between Captain Cold and the Weather Wizard, two of the primary members of the core Rogues team. Weather Wizard gets a fair amount of scenes showing him as relatively observant and calculating in between shouting as he summons lightning bolts and tornadoes, and I am looking forward for the inevitable team-up between Weather Wizard, Captain Cold and Heat Wave.

Mist also gets some great moments just channeling his inner psychopath, while Peekaboo gets a rather brutal scene beating down Caitlin. All the metahumans other than Deathbolt, who got a deadly dose of frostbite to the face, are on the loose, setting things up for season two.

One weaker point of this episode is the lack of explanation regarding Deathbolt, who probably caused quite a bit of fans who only watch Flash without watching Arrow to be confused at this one metahuman who showed up out of nowhere. What, Cisco just dropping a throwaway 'oh, Deathbolt, the dude Ray left at our doorstep last week' is too hard to work in? Jeez.

I guess the rest of Team Flash just being so accepting of Captain Cold and Golden Glider helping them is a bit stupid, and that's not to say of Barry's initial decision to ask Cold for help. But it made for absolutely entertaining television so it's something that I'm willing to look over and brush off with 'Barry is frustrated'.

And we also get quite a bit of homages to past events in the series as well as Easter Eggs for comic book readers. List form? Okay.

In-series continuity nods:

• Y'know, everyone who only showed up once or twice actually shows up again.
• Barry uses the tornado-arm trick that Wells taught him to put out a fire to defeat the Mist. Reverse-Flash uses that same trick with far greater power to blow away Firestorm later on.
• Cisco realizes that fluid floats anytime time travel is involved, so he brings along a soda.
• Joe reminds everyone that the original function of the Pipeline is to rehabilitate the evil metahumans.
• References to ARGUS, Captain Boomerang and the Lian Yu island.
• Oliver is in his League of Assassins outfit, so I guess he just took... some time off? Probably happened in between him joining in and Team Arrow's big assault on Nanda Parbat.
• Oliver asks Barry for a 'favour', setting up Barry's own guest star in Arrow's season three finale.
• Eobard-Wells needing to 'charge' his speed has been foreshadowed several times after the initial reveal. This episode shows that a future-machine in the wheelchair helps him do this and is why he's so much faster than Barry.

Comic book Easter-eggs:

• Captain Cold mentions that Ferris Air closed down because one of their pilots disappeared, an unmistakable reference to the Hal Jordan version of Green Lantern's origin story. Ferris Air itself has gotten a name-drop in one episode of Arrow near the climax. What is all this buildup?
• Lisa Snart gets her comic book codename, 'Golden Glider'.
• The two evil metahumans that Captain Cold talk to at the end are Weather Wizard, who is a core member of the Rogues in the comic, and Rainbow Raider, who is a reject from the comic-book version of the group. 
• Eobard finally shows that he can launch his costume from his ring to swiftly change into it, just like the comic-book version of Barry Allen.

It's an explosive penultimate episode, and a massive explosion of action and characters before we get to more emotionally-charged stuff involving Barry and Eobard's rivalry and the whole talk about Barry's mother. With Reverse-Flash actually being taken out by a combination of Flash and Firestorm's metahuman brute force and Oliver shooting three doses of Ray's speed-negating arrows into his back, it's a surprising way to take out the main villain because in these things the final episode usually involves the main villain being in full strength and the hero needing to beat him down. Again, in addition to being really awesome, the Flash manages to break conventional boring ol' storyteling in favour for something far, far superior.

I just absolutely adore and love this episode. I just do.

One Piece 792 Review: This should've really happened last chapter

One Piece, Chapter 792: Prostrate

This is a good post-battle chapter. It deals with the ramifications of what's happened, ties up some loose ends, and delivers a far more impactful post-climax chapter than the bullshit from before, where it's just Gatz taking the entire chapter to blubber the same 'Lucy is awesome Doflamingo is shit we're all controlled puppets freedom blah blah' speech everyone has been giving. It's like we're dragging things out to have a big event in chapter 800 or some bullshit. This is a far superior chapter, but the impact is clearly diluted.

For starters, we start off with a single panel of people cheering -- a lot more palatable than having half the chapter just showing people cheering -- while Sabo looks on, having taken Burgess down. Really, can't we have the fight take place in the last chapter instead of Gatz bullshitting? So many things that could've happened that is far more interesting.

Burgess tries to taunt Sabo because he's a dick, talking about how Ace keeps begging them not to tell Luffy when he was defeated, and just tries to piss Sabo off, talking about how Ace didn't even think about the Marines using his life and how meaningless the gesture was. Sabo grabs Burgess by the face and shoots off this pretty terrifying angry face, while Burgess apparently is goading Sabo to get close so he can... uh, stab the Logia fruit user with a knife? I guess Burgess can use Armament Haki, but it's still kind of a moronic move on his part.

And Sabo just explodes Burgess with a Fire Fist, while proclaiming that he won't have any regrets. Burgess is done, but he's screaming as he's sent flying away so he's dead yet. Pretty good confrontation, but really, bit disappointing that we didn't get to see much of the fight.

Would be really cool to have Sabo actually kill Burgess, making him a hero we root for but with a twist since this is One Piece and no one but Ace and Whitebeard really dies (we haven't seen Monet and Vergo's bodies, so) and it would be a cool twist, but I guess that's a bit too dark.

Koala contacts Sabo, having trying to call him throughout the conversation with Burgess, and apparently they took a 'list' from Doflamingo's base or something. We get a little montage of the defeated Doflamingo pirates -- apparently Trebol is not blown up and Buffalo shows up again -- and they're cuffing them with Seastone cuffs. We don't get a closeup at Doflamingo's glasses-less face. See, these are the things that we really want to know from the conclusion: the Marines arresting the defeated bad guys, the ending of Sabo and Burgess' fight, the Revolutionaries' agenda... not some bullshit speech by Gatz and a godawfully long montage of people reacting to Birdcage being gone.

We also get Fujitora doing stuff, again, another plot point that people actually care about, and apparently he's forbidding contact with the HQ while broadcasting a speech to the neighbouring kingdoms. We get the citizens begging King Riku to be their king, even though he sees himself as a failure -- again, far more effective than just showing them cheering for an entire chapter. King Elizabello apparently also informed all the other kings about Riku's return, and Fujitora shows up and bows down to beg forgiveness because of all the evil that the Government has allowed to run rampant, and how this is undoubtedly the World Government's fault.

Apparently both Fujitora and Elizabello are just conspiring to let the world know how badly Doflamingo and the World Government has fucked up before they get orders to do otherwise, which is pretty awesome! Fujitora just gave the World Government a giant middle finger so they can't cover it up like they did Alabasta. And the chapter closes with a news article that the Luffy-Law alliance has defeated Doflamingo.

Pretty awesome stuff, from start to finish. Why did we need the previous chapter again? This is how you do a proper post-climax wrap up chapter. You can have things actually, y'know, happen in it. Wrap up plot threads. Not just a goddamned montage and an anal speech stretched out over twenty pages. Jeez. So what's up with CP0? They're not doing anything? What's up with Big Mom? Still a bunch of questions, but hey, this is still a great chapter.