Gotham S02E05 Review: Fireflies, Firebugs and Azraels

Gotham, Season 2, Episode 5: Scarification

This episode marks the start of a two-parter or three-parter starring a reinventation of a classic Batman villain: Firebug. Or Firefly, as the character is apparently solicitized as. See, here Firebug is the name of a family of arsonists, the Firebug Brothers, possibly a cheeky reference to how many minor unmemorable villains there are called Firebug. And among them is Bridget Pike, abused stepsister of the jackass Firebug brothers, and we see her being forced by circumstances to go from Selina's BFF who's afraid of fire to someone who actually starts to relish the power that the homemade flame-cannon grants her. It's a standard, solid episode on that front as the status quo isn't really changed. Gordon tries to hunt down a criminal working for the bigger Gallavan plot.

We get some nice moments between Selina and Bridget, telling her to basically stick up against her asshole, emotionally abusive brothers, and some nice little hypocrisy on her part as Bridget confronts that she herself is desperate for a family.

We get some nice development between the Gallavan-Penguin front, and Penguin is absolutely entertaining as always. There's some mystery going on to just why Gallavan wants to blow up old Wayne buildings, and thanks to recovering an antique knife Penguin manages to hear some crazy story about how several centuries ago there's a blood-feud between the Wayne family and the Dumas family (ancestors of the Gallavans), who was wiped off the history of Gotham and exiled to a monastery and therefore there's some stupid blood feud over a Romeo-and-Juliet thing that happened centuries ago. What is this, fucking Game of Thrones?

Um what? While it might be very, very loosely based on the Court of Owls arc, and the names of the five great families are definitely names of important characters in Batman lore, this seems to be an entirely original backstory... and one that, while creative, makes Theo Gallavan look like a bigger moron than he already is, wanting to kill Bruce Wayne simply because of a slight committed centuries ago. It does add some depth to the otherwise boring ultra-businessman-with-vague-plans-for-the-city shtick that Kingpin, Malcolm Merlyn, Damien Darhk and so many other superhero TV villains have played with greater elegance than Theo Gallavan.

Theo Gallavan is, of course, still a far more interesting character than the similarly show-original Fish Mooney last season. He's just a gigantic prick and I want to punch him in the face. At least the St. Dumas plot might deliver something fresh to the show, which it definitely needs right now.

Penguin goes crazy, chops Butch's hand off, and who's betting that this will be the moment that caused Butch to actually turn against Penguin? Obvious plot twist is obvious.

Oh well, let's just talk Batman lore. Five great families: Wayne, Dumas, Kane, Elliot and Crowne. Wayne is obvious, of course. The Dumas family, or more specifically Order of St. Dumas, which is actually referenced to where they were exiled in the past, is an order of... well, Templars, basically, who created Azrael, one of Batman's major supporting characters with a centuries-long vendetta as well. The Kanes is a reference to Kathy Kane, otherwise known as Batwoman, and in some stories the family of Martha Wayne before she married into the Wayne family. Elliot is the family of Thomas "Tommy" Elliot, the bully we saw on the first season and in the comics, the identity of the villain Hush. The Crownes are... uh, some dudes from the Night of the Owls comics that I haven't read.

Also, the jackass Wayne employee from the finale of season one, Bunderslaw, gets absolutely brutalized by the Gallavans and had his eye gouged out. Poor fucker. 

A sub-par episode, honestly. Firefly is entertaining enough, but the show's just kind of all over the place.

Constantine Ep. 3 Review: Constantine's Bag of Tricks

Constantine, Episode 3: The Devil's Vinyl

That is actually more like it. The general plot of this episode, with soul brokers and a cursed vinyl that compels you to play it but will kill whoever listens to it, is far more interesting than the previous one. It helps that the stakes to the whole thing, the people that Constantine and Zed need to protect -- the couple who had made the unfortunate deal -- are made relatively clear in the first fifteen minutes of the episode instead of the haphazard 'who's the bad guy' deal we had last episode.

It helps that we don't need much of the exposition and character introductions that so burdened the first two episodes. The focus is still very much on Constantine and Zed, but this episode gives them more room to actually muck around with more colourful magical artifacts and just feels generally funner while still retaining a sense of horror. We've got crazy stuff like the coffin nails that attract each other, we've got the playing card that turns into whatever helps the user out, the creepy hand of glory which gives a spectacularly eerie visual as all the bodies in the morgue are brought back to temporal life... far more fun than just the two of them running around a mining town looking for clues.

We also peel back more layers of Constantine beyond one-liners. We learn he was in a rock band, which isn't super-crucial or anything but is a hilarious detail. He has no problem dealing with Zed but is suspicious enough to have Chas dig into her. We see him struggle a little against using the cursed vinyl as a leverage to get his soul back, or just burn it back to hell where it belongs.

Zed's motivations for sticking around Constantine is explored a little -- she's trying to learn to control and understand her scrying powers. And, y'know, help out the people who're involved in all of this madness and all that stuff. We also see a bit more of her shrewdness with pickpocketing the morgue guard earlier on, showing that stealing Constantine's wallet last episode wasn't just a fluke. And her smart thinking managed to get her in time to do a big damn heroes moment to save Constantine from zipties and a hobo, because the show isn't crazy enough as it is.

Chas gets a couple minor roles introducing Zed to their mystical safehouse, and promises some more mysteries surrounding their base, including a corridor of doors. He also smashes the radio station's power unit as the most practical way to prevent the vinyl from being broadcasted. Manny shows up a bit to send off a dying man, and later on just to do another cryptic talk with John.

The main villain of this episode, however, isn't a demon. Yes, there's the cursed vinyl, but it's more of a plot device than anything. Papa Midnite, who I assume is based on a comic-book villain thanks to his name, is a voodoo priest that also happens to be a mafia boss. And the man behind Anton the Soul Broker (himself having a more hilarious name than Papa Midnite) and the concept of damnation is explored a bit more in this episode. Papa Midnite is smooth and cool, and has this never-miss shotgun he uses during his big damn heroes moment to rescue Constantine. Obviously Papa isn't a good guy -- he leaves Constantine to bleed out and plans to use the vinyl for nefarious purposes -- but he is a calculated element, and his 'professional respect' by giving Constantine the antidote to the anticoagulant on a nearby table to reward him if he escapes is pretty nice of him. And while he wants to use the vinyl as... leverage or something, he isn't about to let the two possessed goons broadcast it all over town.

That said, though, it was a gigantic coincidence that a deaf dude was around when the two goons played the vinyl in the club. And I thought that the red herring with the daughter being tempted by the vinyl not being followed up is... a bit strange. But whatever.

Overall a far superior episode than the previous two, and, y'know, far less jumpscares and far more crazy magic objects. Which is good for me.

Gotham S02E04 Review: The Return of Penguin

Gotham, Season 2, Episode 4: Strike Force

We're back to something that incorporates less of Batman's more fantastical villains and something more cops-and-gangsters in this episode. The titular Strike Force of this episode is thanks to the introduction to the (AFAIK) show-original character Nathaniel Barnes, who seems to be the exact opposite of Loeb -- a harsh Knight Templar character who will make sure everyone follows the rules, or damn the consequences. Something that gives Gordon a smile as large as a kid on Christmas Day.

They assemble a strike force of young talented cadets whose names I will never remember, because the other side of the plot, Penguin trying to maintain order over being the King of Gotham and ends up absolutely undermined by the show's favourite villains, the Gallavan assholes, who utterly shits on Penguin and have apparently kidnapped the poor dude's mother. They tell Penguin to assassinate the other mayoral candidates and take a shot at Theo Gallavan and miss. It does lead to a nice callback to Batman: The Animated Series, one of the greatest DC cartoons ever simply because I watched it as a kid, where Gallavan is on a podium and ducks before the fake assassin on a car even opens fire.

We get the return of Victor Zsasz, which is absolutely grand as he just goes about his business all happy-like. Zsasz is an understated gem of Gotham. He's just such fun to have around.

Penguin immediately substitutes for the lack of Protojoker, and reminds us once more why he is the King of Gotham... the show, if not the city, delivering a stark reminder why I watched the first season -- his performance here is absolutely grand, from him using a shotgun to keep his mafia troops to submission, being incensed at being called the 'King of Garbage' to the terror on his face when he sees his mother caught hostage, to the pissed off scream he has at  the end, to the pissed-off, desperate look he has when he kills the first candidate. "I am a mother!" Absolutely grand performances, and the only thing that really makes me forgive the show for using Theo Gallavan to undermine Penguin. And I guess Gallavan is an effective villain from a story-telling point... just not a very likable one. And I hope Penguin dumps him into the Gotham River later.

Granted, Penguin's a bit unhinged because he goes off and kills the first candidate by himself despite having a well-known deformity by his odd waddle, and sending Zsasz, a man known to be in his employ, after the second. I guess he's just pissed about poor mommy.

We have some Bruce and Wayne plot I honestly can't give a rat's ass about. Alfred slaps Selina for killing Reggie and tells her to stay the fuck away. We have Nygma getting a date with Kringle, and while it's entertaining to see him argue with his split personality, it is something that people really associate with Riddler. Two-Face or Ventriloquist, maybe, but it's a rather strange decision to pick with Riddler. Kringle may or may not suspected Nygma for killing Douchebag Boyfriend last season. I don't really care, but okay?

We get Silver St. Cloud here, one of Batman's traditional love interests, and she's apparently Theo Gallavan's ward and she spends her days hopping in fountains. Um what.

Gallavan doesn't get much to do other than taunt Penguin and act like a total twat. Barbara is still being crazy and shit. Tabitha Gallavan... I'm not sure what her function is in this series other than imply at BDSM and incestuous relationships. I dunno. It's weird. This show is weird.

Toriko 349 Review: Trippy Space Cruise Restaurant World

Toriko, Chapter 349: Our Memory

Well that was a weird chapter. It's like Komatsu ate some really weird drugs, which kinda describes an out-of-world experience. Which isn't a bad thing, because the past two or three chapters when it's not giving gigantic introdumps about Another and time-space and warp space it's just showing the progression of things that kinda isn't as interesting as before.

We start off relatively normal. Komatsu enters the soul world and his food spirit thing activates and whatnot. Don Slime starts transforming into the big bearded form we saw in the previous chapter that shows the 'later...' portion, and Slime notes how the food spirits in the underworld is absolutely not as well-behaved as Komatsu, and we get the normal group of grotesque things. There's this one thing with floating hands stretching his own face, something that's just so toothy, something with a mouth within a mouth... yeah, this is like Berserk-lite in terms of designing its monsters.

In the real world, Jiji and Rin are panicking over the fact that all the bodies are basically dead since their appetite is gone. And appetite in Toriko-world is every fiber of your being and heart and soul and everything important in life. They put the bodies in the urchin garlic thing from waaaaay back during this arc's introduction.

They meet King of the Underworld Cthulhu Hades Ika, who apparently is a Soul Saiseya, so yay all the souls will be returned to life.

And then, well, Komatsu starts having an acid trip. He keeps thinking how there's no sense of time or space or anything beyond him being a chef. Slime does a bit of an exposition about how this place is connected with Moon's stomach and anything he eats gets ejected there and transformed into food spirits, and the appetite demons gather there, desiring to eat. Slime also says how a normal human with no gourmet cells will turn into these tiny will-o-wisps and eventually lose every memory other than food. That sucks.

And, well, the acid kicks in and Komatsu starts going 'who what am I why am I here' and he's suddenly IN SPACE! And there's a fucking cruise liner in space! And on that cruise liner appetite demons are eating, and that includes Toriko's red and blue oni... on a table with some dude with wings whose face keeps being covered by speech bubbles because fuck you I guess. Does Toriko have a third dude inside him? Is that Urouge from One Piece? Kaka shows up, but Komatsu doesn't even remember who she is. Some tripping thing seeing the big warty Neo. Damala Sky cooking. Chiyo presumably meeting her son.

And then Toriko-Komatsu bromance saves the day, because red oni Toriko speaks and Komatsu blubbers down because of BRO LOVE, and starts cooking for the appetite spirits.

Hello, Tommyrod's spirit! You apparently survived Don Slime's mega kamehameha attack.

Meanwhile, Don Slime sees Another show up.

What a fucking weird chapter! Par for the course as far as Toriko chapters go, of course, but man.

One Piece 808 Review: Jack's Rampage & More Minks

One Piece, Chapter 808: Duke Inuarashi

The cover story shows the three kids in Usopp's village and the rich girl that Usopp is sweet on being super-dramatic because, well, they probably didn't realize that Sogeking was Usopp! And now he's, well, God Usopp! The chapter itself is decent, a followup to the previous chapter, showing us a bit more in detail about Jack's assault on the Mink people, and exploring a bit about the present-day Mink civilization.

Sheepshead shows up again and basically acts as Jack's announcer, dramatically announcing Jack as Kaido's right-hand man. Well, damn, that just make Jack a crapton more relevant. He's the captain of the Mammoth, presumably the name of his ship. Sheepshead calls Jack one of the three beings called the 'Calamities'... interesting. Was Whitebeard one of those? And his nickname or epithet or whatever is "Jack the Drought", because anywhere he passes looks like as if it had experienced a drought... most likely because of him rampaging and destroying everything and not some actual Groudon power thing. All the Minks try to reason like nice, decent people, but Jack isn't interested in talking with anyone, not the leaders, not the civilians when they give the excuse that they have no fucking idea who Raizo is. We get a one-and-a-half page splash of him punching a street-worth of buildings with his mammoth nose, and both Sheepshead and Ginrummy talk about how 'samurai' is a catch-all phrase for all Wano warriors.

Also, so I guess he was Kaido's answer to the government capturing Doflamingo. Which means that the Marines knowingly engaged Kaido's forces when they were kinda scared shitless before in anything Yonko-related. But they've got Fujitora and Sengoku on board, so I guess...

We see the Mink people at least attempt to fight back with their mysterious electrical power (Enel?), beating back the Pleasures, who are just mooks... then Jack refuses to parlay and sends in the gifters, who I'm assuming are the people who ate Caesar's artificial devil fruits. We see at least a crab guy, someone with horns, someone with what appears to be mouse ears and a couple of others with generic fangs and horns. And, y'know, rampage and destroy the city.

In the present day Brook tries to get Luffy to not talk about the samurai, so of course he immediately says it. Usopp, Nami and Brook utterly beat Luffy up and Brook makes some excuse about how Luffy is talking about the '...inja... injured' which was probably a pun better translated in its original Japanese.

We then meet Lord Sicilian, the lion Mink who we were kinda heard about before, and he kinda looks like Absalom with a crapton more hair. He's apparently a dude that does things to extremes, be it apologizing or being super-manly which means nothing sweet. We then see Duke Inuarashi, who, well, is a dog-man. And bandaged up a lot. Inuarashi is also apparently the country's strongest warrior, though he apparently didn't quite last against Jack and his secret weapon... Caesar's poison gas weapon.

So, um, where's Caesar Clown now? We're still kind of figuring out what happened during the short time-jump in-between the end of Dressrosa and now, and next chapter seems to be more exposition. As much as I want some actual progression in the story and it's kind of overdue for one, it's still awesome to just learn all about Jack.

Constantine Ep. 2 Review: Introducing the For-Realies Female Lead

Constantine, Episode 2: The Darkness Beneath

A bit of a stepdown as the series goes into a more 'monster-of-the-week' format. We kind of leave behind the supporting characters we met last episode -- Liv is outright written out, Ritchie and Manny don't appear, and Chas can't come along because of dome noodle incident involving a succubus and a derailed train. So this episode focuses almost solely on Constantine and our new female lead, Zed. Who, uh, has a fair amount of similarities to Liv last episode. They both have mystical scrying powers, Zed's just involve less blood. They both have no experience with the spiritual. Constantine doesn't want either of them along since he works along and all that.

The two of them investigate a mining town, while Zed tries to convince Constantine that she can help out for... uh... reasons? I dunno. This episode brings them against *looks up spelling* the Coblynau, spirits of dead miners who are normally docile and actually help out real miners, but have for some reason gone around and trying to kill people. We've got a dude that got killed by burning into flames, and another dude drowned by having muddy water fill up a car. They don't really feel as threatening as Frucifer last episode, though, and it's just as well since this episode mostly functions to introduce Zed. We get a pretty long red herring involving an ex-priest, and the pacing feels a bit jumbled as Constantine and Zed just jump from one clue to another, and finally face off against the one who summoned the Coblynau, a gypsy who's married to the miner killed at the start of the episode, in typical Scooby Doo fashion -- it's the character introduced in the first act and disappears for the rest of the episode.

I think it's also borderline racist for Constantine to just go 'oh then I remembered, you're Romani', though. Zed's... an okay character. She's your average nonoffensive sidekick character, but on the other hand she doesn't have anything going on for her or her personality beyond having vision powers. She's not whiny and I'll take that, at least.

It's basically a pretty decent monster of the week episode, introducing us to Zed -- who has like 11 episodes to grow to a character I like, because right now she just fells pretty generic. So's the monsters in this episode, and other than some throwaway lines about some rising darkness and ominous greater force, this episode ultimately only serves to introduce us to the main female lead. It succeeds in that regard, at least. There honestly isn't much to talk about this one, a wholly middling episode.

Gotham S02E03 Review: Wanna See A Magic Trick?

Gotham, Season 2, Episode 3: The Last Laugh

Jerome dies nooooo

But he dies in style, at the very least, with a diabolically Joker-esque scheme with him delivering yet another absolutely strong episode of Gotham. Yes, most of the other parts not featuring the Joker plot is of middling interest to me, but hey, we've gone from bullshit like the Balloon Man and the Goat Mask... Head... Man...? Into something that  actually feels like a Batman episode. Tragically it's cut short by killing Joker just to get the season's unimpressive villain into place as the false saviour of the city.

The setup for the episode is simple. Gordon is on the hunt for the Maniax!, or what is left of them, anyway, while Bruce, Alfred and Leslie get trapped in the fundraiser event where the 'magician' promised throughout the episode turns out to be Jerome. Plus Barbara decked out in a fancy showgirl outfit.

We also get an absolutely on-the-spot scene with Jerome confronting his father in the midway part of the episode, and holy shit, Jerome is an absolute blast in every scene he shows up in. We know, of course, that none of the main characters are going to be harmed, but damn if the scene isn't intense. He's definitely going to be a hard act to follow with any future Proto-Jokers that Gotham might use in the future, though the end of the episode paints an absolutely chilling image of Jerome's Joker laughter and eventual death inspiring a crapton of people, from hobos in bars to two random punks to a kid with fighting parents, to start laughing and just give in to the madness. It's a chilling, effective scene. And with Jerome's talks about chaos and being remembered throughout this episode and the previous one, it's an absolutely well-written and well-acted scene.

I guess they're going with 'who is the real Joker' in the future, but I thought that Jerome really could've stuck around for a while. He was freaking entertaining. But alas, Villain Sue Theo Galavan stabs him in the neck, proclaims himself Gotham's saviour or some bullshit and basically everyone present loves him, while I scream because I wanted Jerome to kill Galavan and upstage the show. Boo.

We get some bullshit as Barbara continues to insert herself in nonsensical love triangles with not one but both Galavan siblings. We get Selina showing up and... doing something with Bruce, I'm not sure what. We get Gordon and Bullock as a team again. We get Penguin dissing Jerome's chaos, possibly setting up for him returning and actually doing stuff. And how Bruce mentions how he, Alfred and Gordon make a team actually made me smile a little. Yes, you will. Just not in this show, sadly.

And the sheer amount of nice mythology gags and in-jokes! We've got Jerome making a joke about Bruce having a split personality, which, of course, is in reference to him being Batman in the future. Barbara hangs around with a giant mallet while dressed as Joker's assistant, one of the signature weapons of Harley Quinn, Joker's main sidekick. Jerome using the water squirter gun is a common joke in Joker stories. Jerome's corpse locked in a smiling grin is similar to the fate of the Jack Nicholson version of the Joker in the 1989 film. Alfred trying to hit on Leslie is probably a gag on how the (much older) Leslie Thompkins in the comics is sometimes a thing with Alfred. And the title of the episode, 'the Last Laugh', is a reference to Batman: The Animated Series episode. And the whole magic trick thing, of course, hails to Heath Ledger's The Dark Knight.

But sadly, with the absolutely entertaining and spot-on Jerome out of the show, I'm not sure if the odd plot of Theo Gallavan's vague takeover plans for the city that involve Gordon and Bruce being alive for whatever reason will continue to pique my interest. Subsequent reviews may be far shorter than my usual fare of TV episode reviews depending on how I feel about them.

Constantine Ep. 1 Review: Fucking Jumpscares & Lightning Demons

Constantine, Episode 1: Non Est Asylum

Before we review this, let's put all cards on the table. I'm not... very well-versed in the mystical side of DC comics. I haven't read Sandman, I haven't read Hellblazer, and I don't see it happening in the near future. Any knowledge I know about all the mystical aspects of the DC comics generally come from JLA stories or crossover ones like Underworld Unleashed, something decidedly more fantastical and involving more superheroes and supervillains and less about damnation of souls and heaven and hell than what we deal with in Hellblazer. Or, since we're talking about the TV show, Constantine. 

But, hey, sometimes it just takes an actor. And Matt Ryan's performance as the wisecracking, snark-ass British exorcist John Constantine in Arrow's crossover episode interested me enough to, well, find out more about this character whose backstory and personality I only know in fragments from all the DC comics I've read. And, hey, why not kill two birds with one stone and review the TV series at the same time? Surely it can't be as bad as Gotham.

Well, I should really have known that delving into a TV series about demons and exorcism -- even one based on DC comics -- would involve horror. And those fucking jumpscares! We get quite a few here. Done to great effect, perhaps, but I am not someone who watches horror movies. The ones here honestly aren't that bad, because I'm expecting something to happen -- like when there appears to be something behind Liv's car, or when Talia's corpse started trashing... it was still scary when what did happen, y'know, happened, but stuff like, oh, the bloody eyeball randomly popping, or that fucking scene when the grandmother randomly vomited out black blood from her eyes and mouth... did we need that? Motherfucker.

Unlike most reviewers out there, though, I haven't read the critically-acclaimed Hellblazer and there's like 300 issues so I'm not about to start to, so maybe I'll give a different perspective from most of the reviews out there? I dunno.

Now the pilot throws us into the deep end, and, something I'm thankful about in regards with most of the superhero TV shows, it's not another origin story. John Constantine, in fact, is in flunk because of a past event that he's done which haunts him throughout this episode. A failed exorcism caused the damnation of the soul of a little girl, Astra, courtesy of a powerful demon Nergal, and it's implied that Constantine's soul is next in line. We peel back this backstory bit by bit through the episode, as well as things about why Constantine is so obsessed with the occult -- he 'killed' his mother in childbirth and has been trying to find out a way to contact her spirit. Also his father is abusive because why not.

Of course, this ends up changing as a message from beyond delivered by a combination of possession, red paint and cockroaches causes Constantine to get out of the mental institution he's in and start investigating the paranormal activities around the female lead, Liv Aberdine, daughter of Constantine's old deceased friend, Jasper Winters... and both father and daughter have scrying abilities, as well as the ability to see the spiritual world around them. While she's built up to be the female lead in this episode, and has all the hallmarks of one -- plot-important powers, relations to Constantine's dark past, and being the 'fish out of water' archetype that the audience is supposed to identify with. She apparently gets written out of the pilot, though, as I'm told, and she exits the show, spooked out by all the crazy shit happening, though not before filling Constantine's map with lots of blood dots.

The pilot episode jumps hard and fast, and while the focus is on Constantine and Liv, we get introduced to a slew of supporting characters. We've got Manny the angel, who has the ability to apparently stop time, take the place of other people to creepily talk to Constantine and has wings. We've got Chas Chandler, Constantine's oldest friend and ally who has the strange ability to apparently regenerate from being stabbed through the chest by a power line. And Ritchie Simpson... who doesn't want anything to do with Constantine after Astra's death but is apparently a hacker dude.

The villain of this episode, a demon who stalks Liv, is Furcifer, an electrical-type demon, and it's mostly just generic evilness and dismemberment and possession, though it doesn't dip too deep into horror imagery and alternates it with something more fantastical, like possessing the power cables and causing big hellfire explosions. And there's the end, of course, where he uses a fake version of Astra to try and trick Constantine. It's mostly standard stuff, a starter villain to get our hero out of his funk and peel back his character a bit, as he eventually accepts Manny's role for possible redemption and goes on a rampage to kill all demons or something along those lines.

We get a couple of nice Easter Eggs to go, too. Obviously there's Dr. Fate's helmet being the spotlight of a short scene, but Constantine's little hideout is a treasure trove of DC Easter Eggs. There probably are a lot more Hellblazer-related goodies that I'm not able to recognize, but among others we've got Pandora's Box, we've got mentions of Horus and all that -- Horus being involved in the origin stories of both Captain Marvel and Hawkman -- and of course there's Constantine summoning flames onto his hands and transitioning into one of his comic-book line arts... before transitioning again into something that's being drawn by a mysterious character. A nice little meta moment, there.

Also apparently the namecard thing from Arrow is a running joke, it seems! And apparently up until the Arrow crossover Constantine still hasn't gotten his name cards changed. Hee hee.

Overall, it's a pretty decent episode as far as pilot episodes go. The main appeal is still Constantine and just what is driving him and his hilarious dry wisecracking. I'm not sure if all the scary horror aspects sits well with everyone -- though I guess you can't have a show about demons without a couple of horrifying shots. Not sure if it will live up to the hype that Hellblazer had, and its cancellation seems to imply exactly the opposite, but the pilot's certainly interested me enough to sample a bit more. Just probably not all in one go.

Gotham S02E02 Review: All Hail the Clown Prince

Gotham, Season 2, Episode 2: Knock Knock

I admit, I was honestly not looking forward to continuing Gotham as a series to review. Or even watching it, period. The first episode of this season certainly doesn't do it any favours, being so utterly bad that it's actually hilarious to watch. But this episode? This could be one of the strongest episodes in Gotham even compared to those of the first season. We ignore some of the stupidity from the first episode and instead we allow Jerome Valeska, a.k.a. Proto-Joker, to steal the show.

And boy, does he steal the show! He channels Mark Hamill and Heath Ledger so brilliantly, with the sudden mood changes and the laughter of the former, and the psychosis of the latter. And we even get a Dark Knight reference with how Jerome shows the shaky-cam video to Gotham City near the end of the episode! There's really not much to praise in this episode beyond how absolutely awesome Jerome is. The idea that the Joker has a definite origin makes me angry a lot, but Jerome's situation is ambiguous enough at the moment that he may or may not be the Joker. He definitely embodies everything that the Joker is, though, from the voice to the mannerisms, even down to the insanity like when he played that Russian Roulette game with Mook #2, and killed that same dude because he spoke his line when they assaulted the police station. He's just absolutely grand, from delivering a deep, disturbing speech to just mucking around with katanas and chainsaws.

Also, the criminals broken out of Arkham Asylum announced themselves as the Maniax!, and that exclamation point is crucial, what with that opening scene with Jerome and Amygdala throwing hostages spraypainted with the letters off the building. The Maniax! feature, well, Proto-Joker, Barbara, Amygdala (who remembers him from the Electrocutioner episode?), and, uh, Mook #1 and Mook #2, both of which die at the end of the episode because who gives a fuck.

They actually do feel like a threat too, with that horrifying will-they-or-won't-they as they sprayed a bus full of cheerleaders with gasoline, ready to set it on fire. And at the end of the episode, after Gordon is distracted by Barbara showing up, in comes Jerome and his gang of Maniax!, shooting everyone up brutally. Basically the ones to escape being killed are the named characters -- Leslie hides under the autopsy table, Nygma pushes Kringle out of the way.

And, well, that conversation between Jerome and Sarah Essen was absolutely brilliant. And, well, Jerome ends up killing poor Essen at the end of the episode, a dark echo to how her comic-book counterpart met her demise -- shot in the stomach by the Joker. Though the mood between these two scenes are absolutely different. Jerome's using this as a big warning and a big 'fuck you' to Gotham City, promising that the city, well, will burn.

The rest of the chapter is weak, though. Theo Galavan still fails to impress, though his plan to be a hero for the city by beating the 'bad guys' makes... well, it makes as much sense as anything else that happens in this show, really. I'm honestly surprised that during the Russian Roulette game Jerome doesn't unload the loaded gun onto Galavan. Barbara is apparently banging the Tigress, and is reduced to a generic insane jealous psychopath. It is hilarious to see Barbara whenever she shows up, though, due to how she has embraced her role and is absolutely over-the-top. Nygma arguing with himself is still dumb and the sooner we get some payoff to this, the better. Bullock is odd, because they go nowhere with his retirement thing and now he's back um okay what was the point of all that

The Wayne stuff... we all know Bruce is not going to permanently fire Alfred and it's honestly a bit of an eye-rolling 'okay stop delaying the bullshit' moment as once more just what is inside Thomas Wayne's proto-batcave is delayed because Alfred axed the computers. It's implied that Thomas has been going around being a vigilante, though, which is something that I don't like. Lucius and Alfred's scene is awesome, though. There's no denying that.

But all the weaker scenes are absolutely eclipsed by the Joker, er, sorry, Jerome. He does have a way with words and charisma and holy shit, he is awesome.

Arrow S04E07 Review: Zombie Siblings

Arrow, Season 4, Episode 7: Brotherhood

Yeah, Andy Diggle's not dead, and is working for HIVE. And may or may not be brainwashed or zombified, considering the things both stated outright and implied in this episode. Is this going to be a running theme, dead siblings being brought back to life? Though for Andy Diggle, his death may just be a false one. Maybe he was already part of HIVE from the beginning and just faked his death in Afganisthan. Or he was recruited into HIVE after his 'death', the way Oliver was recruited by Amanda Waller in last season's flashback scenes. I dunno. It's something that I honestly guessed when we had such a big Andy Diggle focus for the episodes in this season, and when some random HIVE mook didn't shoot Diggle dead back in episode 2 or 3 or whatever, well... it is definitely a well-done plot twist, though.

One of the main points of conflict in this episode is Diggle refusing to accept that his brother could be redeemed and insisting that the man that was Andy Diggle is dead. Oliver, meanwhile, is the voice of redemption and kept insisting that Andy Diggle could be coerced, or HIVE could be mind-controlling him or something, though he admits to Diggle that part of it is because he needs to believe that everyone can be redeemed. It leads to a couple more Oliver-Diggle conflict scenes, though at least it's part of a new conflict instead of a rehash of earlier scenes. We get an absolutely heartwarming "I came here for my brother... the green one." line from Diggle, we get basically everyone helping Oliver get Andy back, no questions asked, and that even includes people like Ray Palmer who I don't think has even an exchange of words with Diggle, ever.

It's all good stuff, even if it's not one that's really gripping to me. Diggle not wanting to at least entertain the chance of his brother being mind-controlled felt a bit odd, and him just insisting that his brother is beyond redemption.

But we're finally delving into the HIVE/Darhk plotline, and we start the episode off relatively benign, with them fighting the ghosts, learning that their DNA strands has been degraded by some kind of weird nonexistent chemical that Ray manages to track to a certain company and all that, and Diggle manages to unmask one of the Ghosts in the process, finding, well, Andy Diggle, in the flesh and blood.

Quentin Lance, meanwhile, is not in good favours with Damien Darhk because he quite rightly thinks that Darhk calling him last episode (which led Team Arrow to rescue Ray from him) is a trick. Now Quentin sees a conveniently placed piece of paper with 'Dock Whatever' written in large letters which I honestly thought was going to be a trap for our heroes, though Darhk might've just intentionally left it at a place and time that Quentin would be in a place to see said intel and put two and two together. Either way, I think Quentin Lance's tenure as a mole within HIVE might be in jeopardy. Do love how this was done relatively subtly, though.

We also see some creepier things that HIVE did. We have Darhk making a huge deal about how the HIVE Ghosts take these pills that changes their DNA... and makes them absolutely compliant to Darhk's orders. Now this obviously isn't absolute because we saw some HIVE troops talk back against Darhk before, but still. He also says the ominous line about how 'you are ghosts, you don't know how right you are', which might imply that they aren't in any records thanks to the virus Quentin planted, plus the whole DNA-degrader thing... but considering Andy is supposedly dead and we're dealing with mysticism here, are they technically zombies? It might seem a bit too far-fetched for Arrow. Maybe in Constantine, but still.

Prospective-mayor Oliver is confronted by Damien Darhk at one point, who tells him to back off from restoring the bay because HIVE needs it, Darhk pulling his 'join us or suffer the consequences' talk. Both Diggle and Felicity tell him off for being an idiot for rehashing last season's infiltrate the bad guys plot falling back to his old habits despite wanting to start over. So at the end of he episode Oliver Queen announces that he's still going on with this and he's going to fight for the city 'in the light', a big 'fuck you' to a watching Damien Darhk.

Ray also gets a bit more to do than just throw around wisecracks, though like Sara he goes off for some soul-searching at the end of the episode. He did get a couple of nice, platonic-friendship moments with Felicity which is cool.

But perhaps the one person to get the most focus other than Diggle in this episode is Thea Queen, unexpectedly. We have the odd distraction of her dating Alex Davis, who, like Darhk, doesn't want Oliver to reform the bay. We already have Thea's boyfriend turning out to be evil and part of a big organization, so I don't think Alex Davis is anything but a red herring, but hey. We have Thea beating the crap out of a creep in a club, going back to her old bloodlust, and Malcolm Merlyn, Mr. Father of the Year, shows up and basically tells Thea to murder a pedophile. Which honestly isn't a bad plan, but I guess I'm more sadistic than Thea.

Thea gets an absolutely awesome action scene with Andy that just goes non-stop as they go into a lift and then back out, a scene that's absolutely well-shot. As a side-note, Atom just pulling an Iron Man and swooping in full armour and beating dudes up back-to-back with the Green Arrow is also brilliant as well.

I thought it was odd that after Thea beat Andy up, she's all like 'I need backup in dragging Andy back', and then she just strolls around on her own while Laurel apparently is dragging Andy offscreen. She does manage to meet Damien Darhk, who has gained 'teleport behind your enemy' among his long repertoire of unexplained mystical powers. He tries to use death touch... and Thea's Lazarus Pit thing apparently protected her from it, because Darhk's skin suddenly lights up like those Extremis dudes from Iron Man 3, and as she confides to Merlyn later on, it apparently sated her bloodlust as well. Interesting!

In the flashback, apparently the dude that Oliver killed last episode is the lady (Taiana)'s brother. Drama! Reiter uses mystic branches and twigs as a lie diviner. Oliver whips a dude. It's a good thing this takes so much screentime.

A bit of an uneven episode, but a brilliant one for both Diggle and Thea, and some great moments for Oliver as well. The drama gets to be a bit much for a bit, but it's understandable under the circumstances. Sadly we're reaching the mid-season break, tough, so we'll be bereft of episodes for a while.

Arrow S04E06 Review: The Atom Returns

Arrow, Season 4, Episode 6: Lost Souls

Well, after all the praise I heaped upon Arrow after reviewing the previous episode, it seems we take a step back from being great to being... well, just your run-of-the-mill good. It's not a bad episode by any means, filled with powerful scenes and plot development, and it disguises its 'preparing cast members for Legends of Tomorrow' far more elegantly than the Flash did, actually taking time to work the Ray Palmer and Sara Lance plot threads into the season's story and have them gradually develop bit by bit before having an episode focusing entirely on them. Compare it, with its sister show, where it just goes 'here, have a Captain Cold episode. Then have a New Firestorm episode'. Credit where credit's due.

And this episode, well, focuses mostly on the search for Ray Palmer and who's holding the shrunken ex-Superman. From Felicity's point of view. And having someone confront their relationship definitely could lead to great emotional points, and the fact that her ex-boyfriend returns from the dead and is apparently at the hands of Damien Darhk (of course) makes some nice emotional challenges where Oliver and Felicity clashes. And, yes, I get that television shows need these kind of romantic relationship clashes to survive. It helps feed the hardcore shippers and romantic relationships do have a place in most works of fiction.

But honestly do we need yet another reminder to why season three was so bad? Felicity is just angsting and being angry at Oliver for not apparently putting his biggest game, and some talk about 'I'm not the kind of woman who falls head over heels over a man!' and some bullshit like that. She does have a point about Oliver taking things easy -- even if there's nothing else you can do, you don't just go around planning big cordon bleu dinners when your friend's life is in danger.

Thankfully, though, that kind of tacky 'I'm an independent woman damn it' plot isn't the sole focus of the episode, and Felicity shows herself to actually be independent, something that's far more important for feminism and gender equality than just insisting on these facts. We get her going on a mission that's partly caused by her guild over what she sees as abandoning Ray to go off have some fun with Oliver in Ivy Town.

Ivy Town, by the way, is Atom's hometown in DC comics, adding a hilarious layer of meta-irony.

It's great that Felicity is given far more things to do instead of just angsting over her relationship with Oliver and Ray, with all the stuff she's gotten managing the company with Holt and actively trying to get Ray Palmer back. It's far more interesting to see that, and Felicity's interactions with her airheaded mother is always fun. I honestly didn't expect Donna to return again, but we get at least a couple of funny -- if unnecessary -- scenes between the two.

And Oliver, well, he may seem callous but it at least comes from a good heart. We get some insecurities from him, too, thinking about how he thinks Ray is technically the better man for Felicity... but Diggle goes the 'she chose you', and Donna gives a 'you cannot let this chance for true love escape' speech and... it's still better than how it was handled in season three but I still don't much care for these kind of pointless drama.

That scene with Oliver and Diggle talking about how they missed the bottle of vodka in the Verdant Arrowcave, though? That was a hilarious, heartwarming moment of bro-hood as they just point at each other with that 'yea man' look on their face.

Ray Palmer himself, despite the focus of the episode being on him, doesn't really get much to do since he's just in distress for most of the episode, they assault the Latin Building, we get awesome fight scenes, and we get him back. He does give a couple of hilarious talk scenes with his 'cool! ... but that's bad' shtick and some fun jokes about giant cockroaches and Spectre and shit -- rather hilariously this episode came out in the same week as Spectre did. He chooses to remain dead and figure things out, leaving Palmer Industries to Felicity, and it's probably going to tie into the whole 'lost souls trying to figure out what to do' theme that Legends of Tomorrow is going to have.

Olicity drama aside, though, we have some genuinely funny scenes like Felicity and Oliver having a bit of a lover's spat while apparently everyone can hear it. Thea's grin, Laurel and Sara going in with a synchronized 'so can we', is both hilarious.

Also funny is Curtis Holt, and his reaction when Oliver comes in -- 'he's straight, you're married' -- made me laugh so hard, a way to use sexuality as humour without degrading the gay people. Holt also gets to contribute here, using the 'Bronze medal Olympics' skills he talked about last episode (something that's also common to his comic-book counterpart) to parachute into the building and get Felicity to do stuff. Also the scene where he tries to pull a Silver St. Cloud and study Batman Green Arrow's chin to figure out who he is, and utterly failing to get Oliver Queen's identity, is another riot.

Also, thanks to Curtis Holt, Diggle gets an improvised code-name courtesy of Felicity, namely Spartan. A quick google shows me a Wildstorm character with the same name, who has nothing in common with Diggle, so it might just be a tongue-in-cheek ad lib by Felicity, or something more permanent and original. Either way...

We get some more hints that Sara Lance, well, still isn't quite herself. She gives in to the same rage that Thea did, except, well, being an actual assassin for a good chunk of her life she actually snaps a dude's neck. This leads her to leave town (and the show) to figure things out after a tearful farewell to Laurel. Also do like the short moments that she has with Quentin and Laurel while in civilian getup. Short and sweet.

Darhk has some weird plan and can control chains to choke Oliver's neck, but still haven't impresses me as the Big Bad of the season. He talks about using the reverse-engineered power source from Ray Palmer's dwarf star thing to power up... some weird fold-out board. Whatever.

In the flashback, the jackass mercenary leader tries to get some random dude to kill Oliver. Of course he fails because duh. Reiter explores the mystic nexus place that Constantine found the Egyptian staff last episode, confirming that he's after something bigger and most likely HIVE-related. Don't care.

Overall a slightly weaker episode thanks to all the pointless insertion of the stupid drama, but still solid thanks to its own merits. We're still in full build-up phase, though, with Damien Darhk still being kept in mystery and his big game plan still mysterious and shit. We're just setting up character pieces for both Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow, resolving some outstanding plot threads from season three's climax, and finally putting a close to both the Ray Palmer and Sara Lance arcs. I think in the next episode or two we'll have some actual progression for the Damien Darhk thing... which depending on how it's handled might change my opinion on the season.

Arrow S04E05 Review: Reviving Soulless People & A Cancelled Show

Arrow, Season 4, Episode 5: Haunted

Well, this is the episode that crossed over with Constantine, a show based on a DC character who my knowledge about is... minimal, at best. I know he's a member of the Shadowpact and I know he bangs Zatanna, but other than that all I know about John Constantine is that he's one among DC's many, many mystic-based characters. So the concept of the show doesn't really appeal to me. The fact that it initially was not part of the CW Arrow/Flash continuity until this episode is probably another factor.

Well, the show ended up getting cancelled after its first season, but apparently Constantine himself, well, has been shoved into the Arrowverse. And for a character that I really didn't give a shit about before, John Constantine was an absolute blast in this episode. He's got this snarky British accent and just dicks around while still being effective, and that's awesome.

And one thing I really love is how Constantine was brought in. Yes, TV-writing and guest star constraints means that you can't get Constantine's actor for, like, half of the season without paying a substantial amount of money, so they have to restrict his appearance in this one special crossover episode. But I absolutely love how organic Constantine was brought in, how his role felt truly necessary and organic. Sara Lance being, well, a body without a soul has been a plot thread that dangled for a couple of episodes now, and the present day sequences focused on, well, the Arrow Team (especially Thea) going to capture Sara's body, as well as some generic Laurel-Oliver bitch fight moment.

The majority of Constantine's appearances in this episode happened in the Lian Yu flashbacks, making them... absolutely crucial to the episode thanks to Constantine's excellent performance in there. I mean, yes, he was brought in during the present day sequences to speak his magic gibberish and bring Oliver and Laurel into the trippy dreamworld to rescue Sara's soul from... from whatever the fuck those things that take the form of Ra's assassins really are. It also makes sense, from a storytelling point of view, to show us just how Oliver Queen met mysticism before, and why he had the idea to call up Constantine for the events of this episode.

This also, indirectly, helps to somewhat justify the writing reason why Thea and Laurel didn't confide in Oliver from the get-go, since it would totally be a dick move for Oliver not to just call up Constantine on the first try to fix Sara. By keeping it a secret for a couple of episodes, it allows them to have build up the soulless Sara Lance subplot pretty well.

Granted, though, it was odd (and a bit dickish) that Oliver, who knows that Damien Darhk is like a sorcerer or some shit, doesn't ask Constantine to stick around and combat the demonic fight, but sometimes we're reminded TV shows are restricted by TV show rules. Boo.

The way it is structured was honestly quite like how most Arrow flashbacks are structured. Oliver learns a valuable life lesson while surviving at the island, which in various levels of obviousness ends up applying to the conflict he's facing in the present day. Granted John Constantine actually shows up in the flesh in the present day, which makes it different, but then he's treated quite like most other guest stars. A lot more attention is given to him, yes, but not as much as Barry Allen normally gets during big crossover episodes, and since they aren't exactly promoting Constantine and just making him this likable dude whose adventures have now been retconned to the Arrowverse's backstory, it's pretty cool.

I absolutely love the moment after Constantine pulls out the weird Egyptian Horus staff thing and pops off the glowing red orb and gives it to Oliver to fool Reiter, because the staff is the magical object. That had me laughing. Is the Egyptian rod meant to be something? I mean, Hawkman/Hawkgirl are reincarnations of ancient Egyptian rulers in some stories, so tie-in? Dr. Fate? Captain Marvel? Or just a cool artifact?

Also, apparently Lian Yu is a nexus for disaster and whatnot, so it isn't just contrived plot coincidence but an actual mystical reason for all the shit that goes down on Lian Yu... okay, it's still contrived plot coincidence, but one with a handwaved reason.

Constantine also brings in what seems to be the main plot for the otherwise random distraction that is the Lian Yu sequences, that Baron Blitzkrieg Rieter is hunting for something mystical. We see Oliver and Constantine bonding over them playing at some Indiana Jones artifact recovery, and I think the fact that Oliver can bypass the 'for pure of heart' mystic runes is part of the reason why Constantine trusts Oliver so much. There's also the Chekov's Gun of Constantine transferring one of the runes to Oliver, no doubt something that will protect him from whatever mysticism Reiter is unearthing in the climax of the Lian Yu arc. In the present-day Constantine also notes how scary Darhk is, and considering how they've just fought possibly demonic beings within Sara Lance's personal purgatory soul world thing, it's supposed to really build Darhk up as this... well, scary demonic entity. *cough*BrotherBlood*cough*

Except, well, other than his death touches and constant threatening of Quentin Lance and generally flipflopping between being a smart, understanding crime boss and just another rundown 'you have failed me, mook' big villain. He's really not feeling that much threatening beyond his death touch and repelling powers.

But anyway, this episode doesn't really have much on Damien Darhk, and largely just focuses on Constantine and closing the book on the insane-Sara plotline. It's handled elegantly, and that smartass Constantine is definitely the highlight of the episode. Granted, I've honestly expected the Constantine Episode (which I know will happen this season, but I don't know the specific episode) to deal with Sara Lance's revival into the White Canary, but I don't know the specifics and this is definitely great.

And the awesome thing is, it's a very packed episode. Constantine and Sara aren't the only things going on in this episode. We've got Thea Queen's short but sweet struggle over whether she should just let Sara kill her because she still feels some modicum of guilt over herself -- and over the fact that she killed those two dudes thanks to Malcolm "Father of the Year" Merlyn. We get a nice, sweet moment where Oliver is just happy that Thea is safe and sound and not judge her over keeping secrets and shit.

Another big point is the Oliver vs. Laurel confrontation... and, yes, Laurel does have a point about Oliver not treating her as an equal sometimes, an argument that she's been parroting on and on and on and on ad nauseam ever since season two. And holy shit, it's still as nauseating. It's better since, well, Laurel's not in the best mental state thanks to both her own ego at wanting to do whatever she could for her sister, and the big guilt that's eating at her heart thanks to bringing Sara back as this mindless killing machine. More elegantly handled and set up than all the previous Oliver Laurel fights, but still, damn, Laurel, you're annoying when you try to be preachy and talk about hypocrisy when you yourself is the biggest hypocrite in the room.

All's well, though, because the two mend their relationship and we get a distinct feel of finality for Laurel and Oliver's friction at the end of this episode. There's also a short mini-subplot of this random strategist dude, Alex Davis who is introduced for like a minute and suggests Oliver distancing himself from Laurel Lance to prevent scandals from affecting his mayorship. It's a bit of an on-the-nose development that coincides with the Oliver-Laurel subplot, but it's equally heartwarming when Oliver gives Davis a figurative middle finger and just shouts something along the lines of "HEY LAUREL LANCE MY BEST BUDDY" out loud.

And unlikely as it is, we have two entirely unrelated plot lines going on. We've got Quentin Lance being forced by Damien Darhk to upload some kind of data-deleting virus into a big database, probably the way that Darhk creates his Ghosts, a venture that John Diggle helps out in. The two play off each other very well as they snark and snark and it's just fun... and then plot relevancy kick in as apparently one of the names being deleted is Andy Diggle. Then the security come and Quentin pretty awesomely bluffs his way out by claiming to have 'tracked this hacker here'. Quentin confronts Darhk about Andy Diggle, and Darhk was actually kind enough to give Quentin a file with everything about Andy on it. Apparently he was a rival crime boss and Diggle doesn't know anything about it... though knowing this show, there's probably something more than that to have HIVE kill him off (or maybe pretend to kill him off?) though just having Diggle angst over the fact that the brother he held on a pedestal used to be a gigantic criminal.

We continue to have Holt and Felicity do their Ray Palmer digging, and we actually see poor Ray Palmer shrunken and trapped in a tiny glass jar thing. Holt actually shows up with a fair amount of Mr. Terrific homages, with a slightly-off-colour jacket that matches the cut of his Mr. Terrific costume, and the words "Fair Play" on one of the sleeves, which is Mr. Terrific's catchphrase. Yay for DC Easter Eggs! They don't get much to do beyond a lot of technical talky talky in this episode, but they end up finding out that Ray is alive and in trouble, so there's that. Felicity is adorable when talking about everything mystical related.

Overall, another solid one, and it's honestly surprising to see Arrow being far more solid than the Flash... which still isn't bad, but these solid stream of episodes from Arrow where Flash has been sort of faltering and just being underwhelming so far is admittedly surprising. Keep up the good work, Arrow!

Arrow S04E04 Review: Quentin's Soul-Searching

Arrow, Season 4, Episode 4: Beyond Redemption

A bit of a slower, less comic-book-y story as we take a break from the Anarkys and Double Downs and resort to a slightly more old-school ploy with a show-original criminal without any fancy codenames, and one that feels more at home with the vigilantism theme of the first season. Here we have a dirty cop playing games with drug deals while equipped with the anti-vigilante equipment which gives the writers a reason to have them outclass and escape our heroes in the second act. It's honestly kind of an okay-ish generic plot that is palatable yet ultimately forgettable.

Which is a good thing, because this episode's big focus is on Quentin Lance. Quentin Lance is always a haphazardly-written character that still always manages to shine very brightly among the Arrow cast thanks to the absolutely strong performance by his actor, Paul Blackthorne, and sadly his character is usually under-utilized or used as the source of needless drama as the show tries so hard (with varying degrees of quality depending on the season) to make him an antagonist yet still on the side of angels. Indeed, these past three episodes Quentin's role is basically giving snide remarks at Oliver yet still helpful enough when it comes down to catching the criminals... but his secretive dark dealings with Damien Darhk really promises to give him a huge role.

And this episode? Boy, does Quentin Lance shine brightly in this episode. Both the big potential character development spots for Quentin are both explored in this episode, firstly Laurel showing her the revived-but-insane Sara, whereas Oliver finds out about his deals with Darhk and the two men have a great heart-to-heart. It all ties together neatly as both Quentin and Oliver resolve to be better people with an awesome speech near the end by Quentin as he talks down the corrupt policewoman. Quentin's expression just turning from disbelief to joy to... well, however you can describe that look of horror when the mood whiplashes from what is possibly the happiest moment of his life (his dead daughter turns out to have been revived from the dead) into, well, seeing a thing that wears the face of his daughter but acts like an animal.

And then we have that odd moment of father-to-father friendship with Damien Darhk, which shows that despite him showing up to kill off his own mooks every episode, Darhk has standards of his own. And him pointing his gun at crazy!Sara, trying to ask for forgiveness, before eventually breaking down when Laurel confronts him... holy fuck, that's a wonderful, wonderful sequence. We all know Quentin's not going to shoot Sara because, well, that would be a waste of the whole Lazarus Pit thing, but damn if that scene doesn't tug at the heart strings.

I honestly feel that they should've kept Sara Lance's involvement in the Legends of Tomorrow series a bit of a surprise because this would make a 'holy shit where are they going with this' moment with Sara's role in this season, but I'm honestly fine with it.

And then Oliver confronts him and Quentin just alternates between regret, self-loathing, anger at both himself and Darhk and the world, self-defense... and granted Quentin does have a point that Oliver doesn't really have the right to lecture him about keeping secrets since Oliver's basically a mass-murderer in the first season. But then Quentin keeps pretending to be better than everyone, than Oliver and Laurel and all the other people who keep secrets, when he's the one that's figuratively in bed with the devil. But after that tense confrontation with Oliver, and eventually making up near the end thanks to Quentin talking down Liza Warner, Quentin apparently is now Oliver's man inside HIVE. Well. Plot relevance! Character development! Not two things I thought was going to happen in a single episode.  Definitely one of the strongest, most character-driven episodes in Arrow since, well, forever.

Other plots continue to happen in the fringes of the Quentin Lance spotlight-stealing-show. We've got Curits Holt mucking around with Palmer's destroyed Atom suit and trying to get Felicity to move on and try to at least figure out what caused Palmer's death. It seems that the 'dead loved one' has been transferred to his now non-existent wife to his brother so we don't get a dead-gay-love-interest scene that could be interpreted as tasteless, which is cool. It's not a bad moment for Felicity and it acknowledges that someone doesn't just, well, lose feelings for an old loved one even if Oli-city is still the show's OTP. Something that its sister show The Flash could really need to learn. RE: Caitlin Snow. Also, can we recover Ray Palmer already?

Laurel learns a lesson from previous seasons (shock!) and immediately tells Quentin about Sara. Who is still an animal, and I suspect that the added mysticism to the show with John Constantine's future appearance and maybe Damien Darhk himself will be the solution. But for now, though, Sara's all crazy, strangling Laurel with a chain, and at the end of the episode breaking free. Next episode we'll have Laurel and Oliver undoubtedly clashing over, well, the fact that Laurel brought Sara back with the Lazarus Pit.

Oliver is also running for mayor, and I absolutely love that moment with Thea that really showed their brother-sister interactions well. See? This is how you do interactions, now have them at each other's throats for the sake of drama fifteen minutes into the first episode of the season. Granted it's plot-relevant because of the madness from the Lazarus Pit, but still. Thea's cool in this episode despite her minimal screentime. And Oliver repeating the 'I spent five years in hell' line from the opening intros could've really been cheesy, but holy shit, it really works for his mayoral campaign. #VoteQueen2015.

The flashback sequence has some generic plot going on about Oliver hiding the as-of-yet-unnamed-lady's death with the fake-death trick we saw all the way back in Season One, as well as Yao Fei's cave. Some nice throwbacks in the present-day sequence with Oliver using the "you have failed this city" catchphrase for the first time since, well, forever, showing respect to the good parts of the older grimdark material despite the shift in tone.

Overall it's great. Damien Darhk has a mysterious mystic-looking crate delivered to him. Both that, Sara's escape and eventual return to sanity, as well as Ray Palmer being shrunk (is anyone still honestly believing that Ray is dead?) seem to be the buildup for the next episode or two, and I'm looking forward to it.

Arrow S04E03 Review: No More Rezzes

Arrow, Season 4, Episode 3: Restoration

When you have a cheap and relatively reliable way to bring someone back from the dead, you really need to find a reason that it doesn't get used for every single character who died previously in the story, or how this way to bring someone back from the dead doesn't get used to everyone who died afterwards, thus making any sense of tension in the story moot as anyone who can die will just get revived. Arrow -- with it's relatively high bodycount -- has been skirting this issue by not having the Lazarus Pit actually resurrect the dead as it does in the comics. It only prolongs Ra's Al Ghul's life. It only brought Thea back from a near-death coma.

The comics, likewise, skirted this issue depending on who's writing it. Sometimes there's a cooldown (for lack of a better term) on when the Lazarus Pit can be used. Each Lazarus Pit can be only used one per person. The madness that comes with the Lazarus Pit may be permanent depending on the person that used it. Stuff like that. 

And with Arrow finally treating the long-lasting side effects of Thea's near-death experience as a plot point, added with Laurel's insane plan to bring Sara back... Laurel's plan basically hinges on 'go to Nanda Parbat, nag really hard until Nyssa gives in'. And, well, basically no one there really thinks it's a good idea. Malcolm and Nyssa both consider it an abomination. Thea doesn't want Sara to have this weird aggressive bloodlust that she has. So, uh, of course, Arrow reverts back to season three form and have the catch-all be-all explanation of "Malcolm has a plan that totally needs this to happen" and the newly-minted Demon's Head allows them to dip Sara in. Because he wants to give Sara redemption by having her fight her killer or something that will in turn help Thea deal with her own bloodlust who how what now?

Also, I know she's blinded by love (or, well, grief, as Nyssa points out) but Laurel, dammit, three episodes in and you're reverting back to 'insist on making stupid decisions despite everyone who knows better telling you otherwise' form? Seriously? Honestly Laurel why do you make it so hard to like you?

Granted we all know Sara Lance will return and be revived for Legends of Tomorrow, which is definitely welcome even if it doesn't make sense how Malcolm just changes his point of view like that. So while she's insane and it seems that the Pit, like, brought back nothing but animalistic rage (the whole 'body's brought back but not the soul' deal), we all know Sara will return to her senses quite soon, though having it play out a bit longer would definitely be better, storytelling wise, if only to see how Nyssa and Laurel will react to it.

Also, before anyone has a chance, to, like, revive every else who has died in the show (I'm honestly surprised Malcolm hasn't tried to bring Tommy back yet) Nyssa goes ahead and destroys it with... something that turns the Lazarus Pit into a pink cotton candy fluff maker thing. Sorry, making fun of the FX was mean. But still, good job, Nyssa! You allowed the show writers to bring back a plot relevant and IMO previously under-utilized character, yet closed the way for any cheap resurrections.

The stuff with Malcolm and Thea are a bit better, even if both of them are dumbasses who went along with Laurel's plan. Which is cool that Sara's back and undoubtedly going to regain her sanity, but it really felt dumb, in-universe. Apparently the Lazarus Pit has the added effect of having a live-pay-for-live policy, and forces Thea to seek out and kll the one who 'killed' her... which doesn't do her much good since, y'know, Ra's Al Ghul is no longer among the living. Malcolm's solution? Lie to her about some weird mystic sage, then send two mooks into her room, forcing Thea to revert to instinct and accidentally kill them... thus sating her bloodlust.

It's a dick move on Malcolm's part, though no doubt he's doing it with the best of intentions. Thea's, like, a vampire or some shit now, and with all the mysticism coming in (hello, John Constantine, and another show I undoubtedly need to catch up on) this series it's sort of appropriate, I guess?

Again, I'm grateful they blew the Lazarus Pit option out of the water. Yay for that.

Meanwhile, Oliver, John and Felicity reform what Felicity calls 'Original Team Arrow', and it's nice to see the original dynamic. Of course, this is thankfully used to resolve some of the outstanding problems that Oliver and Diggle have, and Felicity absolutely exploding at them is brilliant. Am a big fan to see the old interactions, and how they've grown over three seasons, have became. We see some nice callbacks to the original season, the good points that made Arrow stick around despite its grimdark trying-to-hard-to-be-realistic attitude on the superhero genre. Some references to stuff like the Dodger (man, remember that idiot?) and whatnot. We have Felicity pulling off something similar to how Oliver treated her on Holt, we have your standard Oliver/Diggle disagreement being solved and them having grudging respect and being bash brothers again...

And we have sort of tied up the loose end of a plot thread from all the way back in seas one, which is Diggle's brother's killer. Sort of. The woman who hired Deadshot, Mina Fayad, shows up in town with a metahuman in tow, and Diggle and Oliver go after the former and latter respectively. And get their ass whooped. And then they work together and... well, bring down the metahuman, because Damien Darhk just killed Fayad for failing him. He seems to like to do it a lot.

Darhk also apparently reports to a higher board within HIVE (the traditional leaders from the comics, I bet) so, yeah, HIVE is going to be a far bigger threat. Who knows, maybe Darhk is just the mid-season antagonist. He shows more of his mystical Force powers, levitating one of Double Down's cards and throwing it around here and there to kill Fayad. 

Also, Mr. Terrific... isn't Michael Holt, but rather, Curtis Holt. Which I'm told is an alias used by Michael Holt in the comics so whatever. I may or may not alternate between the two in my reviews. He's cool in this episode, and has struck up some funny chemistry with Felicity, who is a far worse liar than Oliver ever was. And the scenes between the two were comedy gold, from Felicity trying very hard (and failing) to use random poker terminology and bluff her way through Holt's questions, to the conversation about secret elevators and Felicity trying to machinegun her way and battle Double Down.

We get hints of things to come, with Holt developing contact lenses with HD screens... and T-Spheres. Man, considering the sheer amount of teasing that CW usually does for embracing their comic-book superhero persona, Holt is certainly making quick progress on that! Just repair those spheres and make them able to float and scan rooms and deliver data to you at high speed and you're golden. Fair Play and all that shit, man.

Also, we get Felicity's iPhone going fritzy and being all Digimon and shit, shooting a screen full of weird Matrix codes (does Felicity honestly think it's normal?) and eventually spelling out her name. Yeah, Ray Palmer's definitely messing around there, asking for help or some shit.

Double Dare, this episode's villain of the week, is a tattooed man who can rip out the playing cards tattooed onto his skin and throw them all Gambit-style. He's a rather minor Flash villain that I actually know about, a shittier version of the Tattooed Man (who is also a different minor villain, but can turn all tattooes into life, not just cards). We get some cool gibberish about how the playing cards are equal parts tattoo ink and human tissue, we get some really cool scenes of Double Down throwing the cards around, and it's interesting that he's basically a killer for hire and not working for HIVE.

Darhk may be all super-mysterious about his goals and shit, while going around killing his own subordinates and hiring people like Anarky and Double Dare, but really Double Down's quite impressive in this episode. I'm mildly surprised he managed to go off to Iron Heights without Damien Darhk pulling a Darth Vader and killing three minions this episode. Who wants to bet that if there's a big villain breakout episode in The Flash, Double Dare will show up without explanation to people who hasn't watched arrow, the same way Deathbolt did last season? Mmm? Do better, crossover episode people!

Also for whatever reason one of the HIVE ghosts has a clear shot at Diggle' head but doesn't take it. Why? Why is Diggle important? 

Flashback has slogged back into uninteresting territory. Oliver makes a friend with one of the slaves. Torture. Military people. Minefields. Is every problem in the flashback going to be solved with a minefield?

Overall, the strong parts of this episode were really strong. It's a great episode, but early Arrow episodes have always been strong. Buildups have always been strong. It's the payoffs that don't usually deliver. And with this episode two of Arrow's greatest weaknesses come forth: flashback sequences that no one gives a shit about, and people going along with stupid decisions because Laurel insists on taking them and/or Malcolm Merlyn has some big grandiose plan. Props on getting rid of the Lazarus Pit, though, and hopefully Sara's resurrection is at least handled... decently. 

Arrow S04E02 Review: Psycho Anarky & Civilian Mr. Terrific

Arrow, Season 4, Episode 2: The Candidate

First up, can we say how awesome the opening fight scene was? Yeah. It doesn't go on for too long, and we've seen more impressive ones across Arrow's life as a series, but that scene, just a group of costumed non-powered superheroes beating up mooks just filled me with happiness. The crazy staff-swinging Anarky battle against the Green Arrow and his subsequent burning-man melee against Speedy are both pretty cool, too. Arrow may not do a lot of things right, but fight scenes? That's its forte. Now moving on...

This episode is pretty great! My inevitable complaints about the show getting Anarky absolutely wrong aside for an adaptation of the character (which I'll talk about later on), it's an extremely well done episode. Where to begin?

Oliver Queen, the newly-minted Green Arrow, struggles with several problems here. There's, obviously, the main plot of Anarky going around and menacing the city. There's the episode-long problem of Thea's anger issues. And there's Quentin's damning question of just how he will be different. Well, apparently, it involves Oliver Queen smiling more. That's a start. Also, at the end, he got an epiphany that he can run for mayor because he can defend himself -- something that actually makes the excuse plot of having Darhk and Anarky menace a prospective mayor actually tie in to the plot.

The Thea side of the plot is also relatively well done, and while initially it seemed like just another excuse to insert friction between Oliver and Thea, delving into yet another exhaustive 'two good guy characters fight' plot that Arrow is so well-known for... this one actually has a pretty good reason. The Lazarus Pit potentially changing Thea. And we actually see Thea's temper get worse when triggered, like the little sparring session gone awry with Oliver in the base, and her, well, fucking setting poor Anarky on fire during the climax. It's a great tie-in to the Lazarus Pit, and certainly far more interesting as a story than just temporarily causing someone to go into a berserker rage as in the comics -- a change from the source material that I really like now that I think about it.

It's a small thing, too, but I really like how Oliver and Thea has developed into a really effective brother-sister team both in costume and outside of it, with the two of them getting paired up plenty of times in this episode. And seeing something normal like the two of them meeting a family friend, or just Oliver being a proper big brother instead of being overbearing like he would in the first two seasons... it's nice.

Also, Laurel's big plan for Thea's anger issues? A spa treatment! Which is absolutely hilarious until you realize that Thea's explanation of the Lazarus Pit and Laurel going all 'yeah he would do anything to protect his sister...' earlier on is hinting at Laurel doing something absolutely insane. And despite doing very little in this episode other than bouncing dialogue off Thea and Diggle, her role at the end, telling Thea that she's taking her to Nanda Parbat for the twofold reasons of curing Thea's madness and reviving Sara. They actually show us Sara's corpse at the end, which is a lot prettier than what a year-old corpse should really look. Quite interesting, even if the end result of this particular arc is blatantly obvious to anyone who's watched Legends of Tomorrow's trailer, released around two months-ish before this episode aired.

Felicity's arc sort of mirrored Oliver's, in trying to find out how she can do things differently. And I really like how Oliver and Felicity's romance is dialed down. It's still there, they're still sweet around each other, but making it not be the central focus or the big drama moment of an episode really works well for the story. Here we see Felicity settling into her role as the big boss of Palmer Tech and having to deal with downsizing and being forced to fire people. We get her trying to figure things out and end up faking out the business directors with something big and revolutionarizing that... she hasn't planned out yet.

Also introduced this episode is likable geeky dude, Michael Holt, who to comic-book readers is the awesome if poorly-named superhero Mister Terrific. Man, Mr. Terrific is a shit name even by comic book standards, but he's a pretty impressive character in the comics that went through a pretty awesome character arc throughout the JSA stories I've read him in. I was quite surprised because I didn't know he was going to be in the show. And, yeah, this is a far more inexperienced and decidedly civilian Michael Holt, but he's pretty cool.

(The big revolutionary technology is going to be the T-Sphere, isn't it?)

Granted the show could've done without the obvious obligatory evil businessman dude that apparently told Holt to make a firing algorithm or whatever, because that felt cheap, but he still comes off well. Oh, and he's gay in this continuity and is married. Comics!Mr. Terrific has a wife, though I don't think changing his sexuality really is going to matter because, well, Comics!Mr. Terrific's wife is post-humous. So, uh, if Michael Holt in this series is going to be Mr. Terrific I don't see things going well with his husband. That could be a fair way off, though who knows?

Diggle, as Felicity points out, needs a codename. (And to think I joked about his helmet looking like Mr. Terrific in my previous review!) And Felicity actually has a point, since if the characters are saying stuff like 'Felicity do this' out loud it's going to tip villains off. I'm surprised it hasn't already. Maybe we can call her Oracle or Calculator or something? Diggle can be... uh, didn't they already call him 'Freelancer' during the Suicide Squad episodes, which I miss dearly?

Diggle continues to be elusive to the rest of the team with the whole HIVE thing, and he's basically reduced to 'those two guys' with Laurel, bonding briefly over the death of a sibling. But he's still getting the least screentime out of the main cast and it's a shame, honestly.

Quentin Lance's still being a dick, though from his point of view, well, the criminals are still being delivered set on fire and shit. Though notably he still keeps Oliver's secret safe... so far. He confronts Damien Darhk, which is cool, though we've yet to see exactly how Quentin got in with Darhk and their specific arrangements.

Darhk himself takes a backseat and is basically just the dude that hires Anarky in this episode. And he's a bit of a hypocrite, isn't he? Anarky kidnaps the daughter of their target and Darhk immediately thinks it's crossing a line and he's a psychopath that doesn't fit Darhk's designs for order, but in the same breath he threatens to use Quentin's daughter against him if he should disobey him. What? Darhk and HIVE (I'm not calling them Ghosts when I can use their real name) doesn't really have a definite goal as of yet, just seemingly trying to assassinate anyone who tries to become mayor.

And said mayor, Jessica Danforth... is kind of an idiot, isn't she? I mean, balls for attempting to run for mayor and being generally likable, but still, sending her daughter to library for a modicum of normalcy when someone just tried to assassinate her? That's just stupidity.

Anarky! Anarky is... well, he's a great villain here. He just has relatively little in common with comic book Anarky. Here, Lonnie Machin (while the term 'anarchy' is used a couple of times he's not yet known by that name) is a loose cannon, an embodiment of chaos, and a well-known crime enforcer. Comic book Anarky, on the other hand, is a child prodigy who has an extremely nuanced political and philosophical point of view that's more about tearing down governments to empower the people, a stark contrast from, well, chaos. Comics!Anarky would absolutely hate the Anarky here... who in all his desire for chaos actually resembles Comics!Anarky's possible father, the Joker. Huh. Maybe that's why I like this version of Anarky quite a bit?

He's definitely a villain with a presence, though. No golden mask or big hat, but he definitely has his comic-book counterpart's penchant with gimmick staves, and him fighting Oliver with two electrified staves is absolutely brilliant. And while as much as I dislike the deviation from his comic book persona, I can't say that I'm not entertained by this variant of the character.

We get some nice little continuity nods, too, with him making his classic symbol, the A with a circle, out of the paramedics' blood. And apparently he used to work for the Bertinellis, the crime family that Huntress was born in. Man, poor Huntress. Is she ever going to return? Anarky also apparently worked for a certain Rick Pinzolo, a name mentioned twice in the episode, but googling it doesn't seem to yield any DC-related results. So I dunno.

In the flashbacks, Oliver gets a haircut. He infiltrates some big secret militant operation forcing people to become slaves led by Baron Reiter, otherwise known as the obscure World War era Wonder Woman villain Baron Blitzkrieg. Who is a Nazi in the source material, but here, obviously, he's not. He's even played a black dude! Doubtful that Reiter's going to become like his comic book counterpart and they're just plucking a name from DC lore (like Shrieve last season) just for the hell of it, but hey. Also it's nice that despite this season's lighter tone, they're not just flushing continuity down the drain and Oliver Queen is still in full Assassin's Creed expert killer mode since all the flashbacks will lead to Grimdark-Season-One Oliver. Depressing to watch, yes, but it makes sense.

Overall, a very solid episode all around. I quite like it. Not something I expected from Arrow, honestly, after the gigantic mess that is the third season, so this fourth season might just rise from the ashes just like Sara Lance no doubt will do in a future episode.

Arrow S04E01 Review: Something Old, Something New

Arrow, Season 4, Episode 1: Green Arrow

I have to admit, I honestly am not very hyped to return to Arrow. It had an extremely messy third season that kept promising interesting things yet failed to deliver in almost every front that was not named 'Thea Queen' or 'Malcolm Merlyn'. Add the ridiculously convoluted season-wide plot, and, well, I wasn't looking forward to the fourth season at all. And this is why I watched the season premiere way after I caught up with basically everything else bar Gotham. And honestly, this is when the fact that there are so many superhero TV shows to choose from starts to get a little daunting. I haven't even touched (or considered touching, really) Supergirl or Jessica Jones, and Arrow's already being edged out. And this season premiere... well, it did get my attention back, but it doesn't really fill me with confidence.

You can always trust an Arrow episode to be solid in and of itself, building up to a larger picture and generally telling a good story within itself. But string together all the character developments and sudden plot twists and all the needless drama and it kind of gets exhaustive. This episode... well, delivers some of the familiar character drama that CW shows are so infamous for, but as always, still manages to do enough to at least pique my interest for the time being. Now whether Arrow's fourth season will manage to do its work and actually rope me in again, I can't say.

First up, well, the finality of last season's ending with Oliver and Felicity being happy and riding into the sunset gets revoked... though we know we're getting a fourth season even before that finale was out, so that point is moot. The backtrack is done rather tastefully, though, with the Oliver/Felicity romance being kept intact (we even have Oliver's adorable attempt to propose to Felicity through souffles and shit) and the show making it clear that, well, both of them miss the vigilante life, if in different ways. Felicty apparently already helping out the B-team behind Oliver's back, and them generally looking pretty bored with civilian life helps round it up. Though the short opening with Oliver running through a forest before cutting to him just jogging and returning and talking about omelettes and shit is pretty fun.

Meanwhile, we cut away from that to highlight all the changes in Starling City... or rather, renamed Star City to follow its real name from the comic books after Ray Palmer's "death" at the end of last season. A death, that, by the way, no one even so much as mentions. You'd think Felicity at least would be shocked by the apparent death of her good friend and ex-lover, but anytime anyone mentions Ray it's just done in the factual sense.

The city's plagued by a gang called the Ghosts, who are all using James Bond cyanide pills and shit. We see a pretty cool action sequence of the assault spearheaded by Black Canary, Red Arrow Speedy (sorry, Thea) and, uh... John Diggle. Who shows up in that weird Magneto-esque helmet. And he doesn't even have a codename yet. What, is that helmet supposed to be a reverse-version of Mister Terrific's weird facepaint-mask thing? Or is it just a dumb Magneto knockoff?

Also I'm honestly a bit confused how Oliver isn't fine with Thea beating people up a bit excessively, but Diggle can apparently just alternate between shooting tranq darts and blowing holes in people rather randomly this episode. Huh.

But because the show's titled Arrow, the B-team, as it did back during the Brick arc, really fail to be effective as the Ghosts get away. No one (not even good ol' Walter Steel, who's namedropped) wants to be mayor, so the city's ran by a bunch of leadership figures that gets assassinated when villain-of-the-episode, the egomaniac Damien Darhk shows up, makes a deal, gets refused and sends assassins after the leadership figures. By the mid point of the episode, all are dead except for Quentin Lance, who shares a pretty cool action sequence with his daughter.

Quentin also makes it pretty clear that Star City is in pretty shit state as businesses are shutting down, and after all the bullshit that the city has suffered thanks to the events of the past three seasons people are getting the hell out of Star City. Wouldn't you? Some nice cute references to The Flash are made, with Quentin comparing Star City's shit state with Central City having Flash Days and shit. There's also a train station being made to connect the two cities, which end up being foreshadowing for what's to come.

Thea and Laurel go off to recruit Oliver (notsomuch Felicity, who's already on board) from his vacation to help wipe the Ghosts out, a decision they made behind Diggle's back. And the main conflict for our heroes is whether Diggle can forgive Oliver, and it's... honestly annoying at times. It's bearable because it makes sense for Diggle to be angry at Oliver, who kidnapped his wife and possibly jeopardized her life just to maintain cover; but again it's a leftover of stupid plot decisions from season three -- which is why Oliver didn't bring Diggle in on his plan. Lyla forgives Oliver, though, and by the end of this episode the two have a bit of a grudging friendship after working together to stop the giant train bomb.

Speaking of which, yes, the train bomb is the main plot for the second half of the episode, and I am absolutely pleased that the show seems to be dropping its faux-grimdark-realism that plagued its first season so badly. Using the excuse that in-universe the Arrow is outed as Roy Harper, Oliver dons a new sleveless costume, hacks every broadcasting station and proclaims that "I AM GREEN ARROW", a moment that sends chills down my spine, as ridiculously narmy and silly as it was.

We finally get the proper name! And it only took us like three years or some shit.

Thea goes from 'just going along with the flow and delivering fun quips' to 'being passive-aggressive when her brother confronts her about her anger issues'. Whatever. She looks good in the costume, that must be said.

Damien Darhk promises to be everything that Brother Blood and Ra's Al Ghul never was in their respective appearances, though future episodes will judge whether this is to be real. While the other members of Team Arrow (and myself) immediately assume that Damien Darhk being all death-touch is signs of him being a metahuman, Oliver corrects them, saying that, well, it's magic. Mysticism. And indeed we see Damien later pull a Magneto (always the Magneto) with Oliver's arrows, stopping the mid-air and launching them back at Oliver, and recovering from Diggle's tranquilizer bullet very quickly. And the fact that, y'know, he does a blood ritual at some weird voodoo shrine to... wait, is that motherfucking Trigon?

Yeah, it looks like Damien Darhk is worshipping Trigon the Terrible, who is Raven's demon daddy from Teen Titans. Yeah, looks like he's going to be subbing for a proper Brother Blood, not the stupid mayor wannabe we got in season two.

The flashbacks, sadly, are still around... though it wouldn't be Arrow without flashbacks, wouldn't it? We see just why Oliver got back from Hong Kong to Lian Yu, because apparently after the events of last season's flashbacks, Oliver tried his hand on vigilantism in Coast City and, well, got his ass handed to him. Amanda Waller found him, and after a faux-friendly drink, basically drugged him and gangpressed poor Oliver into airdropping back to Lian Yu to figure out things that happened there. Which is definitely better than the odd distraction that was the Hong Kong plot, but I don't honestly care.

No, what I cared, far more than Oliver and Waller and Suicide Squad, was the Green Lantern teases we got there. I mean, The Flash already teased a missing pilot in Ferris Air way back in the latter episodes of its first season, but in this episode, well, a billboard with Coast City has the words "In brightest day, in blackest night, come to Coast City, when money's tight". A hilarious corruption of the Green Lantern mantra... but to clinch it further, the first establishing shot of the bar that Waller and Oliver are hanging out in passes through a leather flight jacket with the name Jordan. As in Hal Jordan. Dammit, Hal, show up already!

Also, apparently Quentin is in league with Darhk, signing up for... something that obviously went too far. We'll see just what. It probably involves the resurrection of Sara. I dunno. I'm like nearly an entire month late to this party and stuff has probably already been revealed.

And we actually have a bit of a flash-forward at the end of the episode, an event that happens six months later. We see Barry Allen (hey hey hey cameo! We also get a quick Zoom reference there.) showing up next to Oliver in front of a grave of an unspecified fallen ally. Laurel? Thea? Felicity? Diggle? Quentin? Umm... Wildcat? Is Wildcat even still alive? We don't get to see just who it is, just that Oliver thinks he's not done quite enough and seems to be ready to go on a roaring rampage of revenge.

Also, from a writing standpoint not specifying who is put on the grave -- just someone important to Oliver -- and the circumstances behind what's going on kept ambiguous enough really is clever from a writing standpoint, because it gives the writers a large amount of leeway to revise their plans in case, oh, unexpected crossovers or actor problems or whatever shows up.

All of this combined has certainly piqued my interest, though just how soon I will be attempting the subsequent episodes remains to be seen. The inner fanboy is just happy that after so long... the Arrow is now the Green Arrow.

Nanatsu no Taizai 151 Review: Earthbending

Nanatsu no Taizai, Chapter 151: The Stage Awaits Us

We take a break from the Escanor stuff to focus almost fully on Diane. And it's honestly not quite interesting. We get the expected explanation for Matrona's survival. Someone saved her, she ends up being a pacifist because of Past!Diane. Present-day Diane angsts over her lack of memories while still being happy-go-lucky, and I'm honestly not a big fan of this stupid amnesia plot at all. Matrona talks about how the dance basically makes her one with the earth since they have to listen to the earth and whatnot, so maybe by learning this she can, oh, I dunno, earthbend or something?

This takes up nearly two-thirds of the chapter, until an ugly-ass vulture demon thing drops brochures for a fight festival in Vaizel, the town where the previous fight festival happened -- which we know has been wiped out by some of the Ten Commandments. Meliodas (and an uncharacteristically chipper Gilthunder) is happy to join it because they can't sense Escanor anymore, possibly because the dude's gone into hiding or something.

The demons return to their masters, the giant four-armed burlap-headed Commandment and the cute little girl with tentacles. She's pouting because one of the ugly bird things didn't return, while her bigger partner notes how she loves imitating humans. Tentacle-girl notes how this is efficient at gathering strong souls in one place, and she thinks about how Meliodas will be around because she knows Meliodas.

Well, we're returning back to more Ten Commandments stuff, which is something, at least. Bit of a disappointing chapter otherwise, though.