Hearthstone News: Rogue Quest Nerf, Legendary Distributions & Announcement of an Announcement

It's been a busy couple of weeks for Hearthstone. I've not really been playing all that much, being content with just mucking around in the wild ladder and grinding Arena for gold and packs... but not opening them at all. Because there are a fair amount of game-changing things that are coming to Hearthstone.

Fuck this guy, really

Also, July 6th is the next expansion announcement, which some people are saying that it might be called "Return of the Lich King" which I will get super excited for and I do like that unlike Un'Goro the name of the expansion isn't spoiled like three months in advance so there's some degree of uncertainty to it all.

First up is the slightly older news that as with the upcoming expansion, you'll never, ever get a duplicate legendary in your pack, ever again. It cross-checks with your collection, and I appreciate this so much. As someone who got a Tirion in a pack after he crafted it, two Yogg-Sarons in a row, and also got three Hobart Grapplehammers and two Wickerflame Burnbristles out of the Gadgetzan packs, I'm a big fan of this change. It also means that getting Nat Pagle and Captain Greenskin relatively recently in Classic packs means that they will not show up in any more packs I open so yay for that! Oh, and with all new expansions, you're guaranteed a legendary card within your first 10 packs before the traditional pity timer sets in. Yay!

Also a small and slightly less relevant change is that you'll never roll three of the same card in the same pack, which is mostly relevant for common cards.

Thank you, Blizzard. This means I have to hold on to the packs I got from Arena and Tavern Brawl recently, because I'll wait until the guaranteed 'no duplicate legendaries' patch sets in so I won't get those duplicate Ozruks or Nat Pagles.

The next big change is news of an upcoming balance change, which will nerf quest rogue. You need five to trigger the quest instead of four, which I think is still fair! I personally don't think quest rogue is as problematic as some of the older cards they nerfed, but nerfing it before it gets too out of hand (maybe whatever next expansion will have really strong cards that the deck can abuse?) is definnitely a smart move to do. And I do love the fact that the nerf doesn't actually kill the quest card. It's still playable and in my opinion it's still good (if it were six cards, or if the minions became 4/4's or something, I think the card would be dead) just less flexible and a lot trickier than it was before.

So yeah, really liking this. We'll see what the next expansion is, and I'm surprised it's so early on -- Un'Goro might be my favourite expansion in that I didn't feel the brain-dead boredom that I did naer the end of the Gadgetzan and Karazhan expansions.

Boku no Hero Academia 143 Review: Bide

My Hero Academia, Chapter 143: Let's Have Ourselves A Match, Rappa

Honestly, it's a pretty basic fight. One of the good guys gets a little shocked at the power gap and doesn't do anything, but seeing his comrade in danger he finally mans up and jumps into the fray and becomes the all-important game-changer.

But My Hero Academia puts a spin on it. Kirishima's BSOD is justified because Unbreakable is a power-up he recently obtained and is over the moon with, and to see it broken so easily, and the fact that even his pro hero mentor is taking such a pounding, would break him. And Rappa and Fat Gum's fight is pretty brutal, with Rappa's unstoppable ORA ORA ORA's being tanked by Fat Gum and it looks hella painful. The manga establishes relatively early on that Fat Gum is trying to store up the energy from those punches to unleash all at once, Meliodas Full Counter style, but even with his powers he's getting seriously worn down. Then Kirishima jumps into the barrage, and tries his best to withstand the barrage of fists, hardening whenever he breaks... and when Kirishima is about to counter-attack, the barrier comes back up and the boy, exhausted, falls down.

But that brief moment of badass defiance, while ultimately not landing a single blow onto the bad guys, allows Fat Gum to transform into a skinnier version of himself and is about to unleash all the power launched upon him.

The two villains are also an interesting dynamic. Rappa tells his zen monk partner, Tengai, to shut off the barrier because this whole 'combo' thing was enforced by "Overhole". So yeah, Rappa isn't a manic Overhaul worshipper like the other disposables that Suneater fought in the previous fight. He just wants to fight fight fight beat beat beat and he even punches Tengai (well, Tengai's shield) at one point to get him to stop interfering, and when Tengai does put up a shield at the end of the chapter to block Kirishima's one strike, Rappa's pissed as hell. Again, pretty basic chapter, but it's intense and brutal, and very enjoyable because of that.

One Piece 870 Review: Fighting Big Mom

One Piece, Chapter 870: Farewell

Cover page... Bartrolomeo straight-up shanked a dude to death with a wooden stake! Yeah, he's the "Cannibal" and don't you forget. I do like that the manga, while mainly portraying Bartolomeo as a Luffy fanboy, doesn't completely forget that the dude was initially introduced as a psychopath who cuts off people's tongues. Even if he's on the side of our heroes it's not like that automatically means he's a good guy, he's still a psychopath.

So the chapter was pretty cool. Big Mom's forces are arrayed out, and they promise to massacre every single person in the castle as Big Mom herself rampages. Everyone stops Luffy from going out, because they're a strike team that's there to get Sanji and the poneglyph, and it's time to bug out... it's not like they have their full force (well, mostly Zoro) with them. Bege then gives this speech about how he doesn't give a shit about the Straw Hats, but he's going to stand firm for his own family (Chiffon's basically disowned by Big Mom at this point, too) and crew, and decides to dispel his Big Father form, allowing Caesar to fly him out of there while everyone else is still within his body.

Caesar shoots the plan down and while he's a pussy he's also got a point -- everyone there can use Haki, so they'll get shot down pretty easily.

At which point Judge confronts Sanji and asks him why he saved them, and Sanji's answer is pretty cool. His boss, Zeff, wouldn't have liked it, and Sanji talked about how he's never going to live in a way that will make him too ashamed to see Zeff in the eye, and Sanji laughing at his family's death is something that Zeff will be ashamed of. He then goes on a rant to Judge, saying that Vinsmoke Sanji is dead, and demands Judge quite confrontationally to "TELL ME YOU'RE NOT MY FATHER!" Judge decides to never approach Sanji or East Blue, and decides to have the Germa be the scapegoat to hold off Big Mom, because he 'won't be indebted to a failure'.

Caesar and Capone barely make it away from Big Mom's sun fire attack when the castle mode is released. Ichiji's a gigantic dick who tells Niji that he's a fool for showing concern to a wounded Reiju... but of course, while Capone and Caesar make a getaway, Luffy and Sanji jump out  and unleash a Diable Jambe/Elephant Gun combo that blocks Big Mom's lightning strike... yeah, these guys are too stupid and bullheaded to obey orders. Well, one thing that's for sure... next chapter's going to be hella interesting. 

Legion S01E08 Review: The King

Legion, Season 1, Episode 8: Chapter 8

So, the first season of Legion ends, and it ends pretty amazingly. I don't think anything can really stand up to the trippiness and the masterful, genre-bending bit of the first few episodes, but it's still a pretty bizarre ride.

How does the episode start off? Well, by showing that Clark (a.k.a. mr burn-face) is a loving family man, which is a bit of a weird, cheap way to build up sympathy for Division Three just to make David's decision not to go murderkill everyone more meaningful. Which... okay? It felt a bit unnecessary, but on the other hand Clark does have so much more to do in this episode as a minor character than the Eye did, being a creepy stalker and all. We still see David create this hilariously creepy stuck-together-tower of Division Three goons, helplessly held together with psychic powers. Now, the question is to what to do with them. A nuclear strike is being ordered on the compound, apparently. Ptonomy wants to kill Clark and go to war. Melanie wants to read his mind and steal the secrets. David wants to act like his daddy and reason and try to coexist. Cary, the only sane man in the room, doesn't really give a shit about this missile malarkey, because he really wants to rip the fucking Shadow King out of David's head before he breaks free.

But he already has. Somewhat. Syd gets a mental visit from Lenny (Shadow King, Lenny -- Aubrey Plaza's performance is so strong that I kind of view Lenny as the primary being), who justifies it as their minds being connected after the body-swap thing. Lenny tells Syd about how she's been within David's mind since infancy, and ripping her out is something that will kill or irreparably damage David. Syd doesn't trust Lenny, but talks to Clark about the details in hopes of earning the Division's cooperation.

David is strapped into a machine that will identify all the brain waves in David's head and suck them out. Okay, science mumbo-jumbo stuff! No idea when Cary had the time to build all this, but since he produced the mental headband out of nowhere I guess part of his mutant powers is to create insane-looking sci-fi plot devices? This allows David to relive the opening of the first episode via a trip down the memory lane as the Shadow King's influence is burned away, before meeting Lenny once more. "Who am I without you?" David asks Lenny. Throughout the season Lenny has been compared to a disease, a tumour, a parasite, inner demons and an alternate personality.  And, yes, the question remains, and it's something that's chillingly similar to what people with mental problems may have -- will I be the same person after this part of my mind is literally exorcised?

And then Syd does something rather stupid, and gives the Shadow King that way out, by sucking him out with a body-swapping kiss. The Shadow King, now bereft of David's full powers, makes use of his/her own and jumps from Syd to Kerry. Ptonomy shoots the place up, but Kerry's martial arts skills allows Lenny-in-Kerry to whack Ptonomy down. We get an awesome bit when Lenny-in-Kerry and David charge each other, causing David to push Lenny out of Kerry... but the only other host Lenny can jump in? Oliver.

Oliver, who's mucking around the central power chamber helping to fix things, and just to be extra-cruel, he gets possessed just as he regains some memories about his wife Melanie... but possessed he is, and before anyone realizes what's happening, Oliver and Lenny are gone, driving down the road and going to get... something. Again, if there's one thing that I will criticize heavily about this season is that the Shadow King's motivations are never made super-clear when she does something that isn't just a power play for David's body. I guess they're now just hunting down Professor X, driving down the nice mountain roads on a sexy sports car?

Division Three leaves with some talk of possible cooperation (and the threat that shit David strongkt), and if nothing else Clark seems convinced that these dudes aren't completely evil. Besides, they have 

a common enemy to hunt in the form of the Shadow King now. The story ends -- the Shadow King escapes with Oliver, but at least he's out of David's mind, he's mostly sane, and Division Three are frenemies instead of outright enemies. In David's awesome ultimatum: "War is over... if you want it."

But this is a Marvel show, and Marvel shows have end-credit teases, and in one of the most bizarre ones ever, we have a giant silver floating Pokeball fly in and quite literally shrink David down and capture him and flying away. Is the villain for Legion's second season going to be Mewtwo? I highly doubt it. Is it going to be Mojo? God, don't let it be Mojo.

Still, despite some bits that feel like they could have been treated a little better, this absolutely bizarre show has quickly grown into one of my favourite stories. Once more, it's not for everyone, but it's definitely one that is worth checking out.

The Walking Dead S03E16 Review: Proactive Murder

The Walking Dead, Season 3, Episode 16: Welcome to the Tombs

Okay, it's a bit of a disappointing end as far as season finales go, but as part of what's presumably an overreaching story it's a good enough entry. I think the biggest problem is the huge, huge build-up that basically every episode after the kidnapping of Glenn and Maggie had to this promised big war between the Woodbury residents and Team Rick, which did happen, in a way, but ended very quickly before the halfway mark, with a lot of this final episode of season three devoted more to tying up loose ends, showing the Governor's insanity, killing off Andrea (yay!) and some cold hard truth from Carl about being proactive.

So yeah. It's a good story, and if this was somewhere in the middle of a season I would praise this a lot. The problem is, as a season finale, it doesn't quite have any sort of satisfying conclusion at all, and both the action and emotion doesn't quite reach the heights of, say, the episode where Lori died, or the first raid mission on Woodbury, or the final episodes of season two with the Shane confrontation and the farm being overrun.

This episode spends a lot of time with Andrea, too, who we last saw in the Governor's torture room strapped to a chair. We also address the Milton problem, which is a shame because I feel like we didn't quite have enough time with Milton -- he's interesting, but ultimately more of a plot device than a character. The Governor beats Milton up a bit, and when he fails to prove his loyalty and kill Andrea, instead turning on the Governor, the Governor stabs him and leaves him to die, because he will kill Andrea anyway when he becomes a walker. I think the episode spends way too much time with Andrea trying to break free with the pliers that Milton dropped behind her, which took a lot of time. And she keeps stopping every time Milton says something, which is just dumb. Only for Team Rick to later find Andrea having killed the Milton zombie, but not before she gets bitten.

It's a bit of a strange death because honestly it gets dragged on for so long for... what? The false hope that she'll escape? The awesome line from the Governor that "if you die, you kill"? Really, Andrea should've just died at the end of her focus episode, gunned down by the Governor as she reaches the prison. She'll still have a chance to crawl up to Rick and company and have a tearjerking death... but so much of her writing is so muddled, and apparently the big reason for her actions? She doesn't want anyone to die. Yeah. Naive girl. She's dead, though, so that's another poorly-plotted and poorly-written character gone from the cast, which I'm glad.

Ultimately what happened to Andrea reinforces Carl's point of view in this episode, about proactive killing. It's very cold, and to Hershel's horror at one point in the episode Carl shot a surrendering young Woodbury soldier in the head when he's clearly handing his weapon over. Carl's point of view isn't wrong, as cold-blooded as he is, and he has a point. If Carl hadn't killed the walker that eventually killed Dale, he would've been alive. If Rick had been decisive about killing Andrew, Lori would've been alive. If Rick had killed the Governor in the meeting, Merle wouldn't have died. And that applies to Andrea as well -- if she had taken one of the two chances she could have had to kill the Governor, none of this would happen. She wouldn't have died, Milton wouldn't have died, and the 'good people of Woodbury' that she championed so hard during her arguments with Rick wouldn't have died. 

The Governor is also intriguing in this episode, though. He's been... inconsistently plotted to move the plot along, but all and all he fared a lot better than Andrea or Rick did. The line to Milton when asked what his daughter would think of him, "She'd be afraid of me. But if I had been like this from the start, she'd be alive." And that sadistic choice for Milton is very chilling. He rounds up everyone, and both Tyreese and Sasha elected to stay behind -- and for a moment it seemed like the Governor was going to gun them down before giving them a gun.

The attack on the prison was anticlimactic, though seemingly by design. We get to see the Governor's people arm themselves up, before launching grenades that blew apart the two watchtowers in the prison. There's a lot of smashing, a lot of machine gun fire, as the Governor's army enters the seemingly abandoned prison. The episode is shot in a way that seems to imply that Rick's people are going to escape and try their luck elsewhere, with a long, extended shot of Carl packing his things at the beginning, but it's a trap. They scare the Woodbury army (which, by the way, is mostly made up of the rounded-up civilians instead of the Governor's normal goons, a huge majority of which died over the course of the season) away with zombies in the prison, prison alarms, and later on Maggie and Glenn wearing riot armour and going all crazy on the Woodbury army.

Great stuff from the prison crew, by the way, and even halfway through the episode when they had to clear some zombies for Strike Force Rick to hunt down the Governor, Carol and even fucking Beth get to stab zombies with a crowbar. We all know Carol's grown a backbone over the third season (remember season two Carol, who only exists to argue with the rest of the cast?) but Beth finally gets something to do! I honestly forget she existed half the time.

Anyway, back to the post-battle stuff. The Governor is forced to retreat, and he's pissed off at how nearly his entire army retreated. The Governor is absolutely pissed off as he confronts his people, all of whom just want to return to Woodbury... to which the Governor just machineguns the entire army down, to the shock of his lieutenants -- Martinez and this one black dude that's been a recurring extra just watch in shock as all this happened, and while it's a bit of a suspension of disbelief that no one bothered to either fire back or tackle the Governor, it's a suitably horrific moment. We don't see much of the Governor after this, so he just buggered off with Martinez and the black dude to... somewhere, I guess. The Governor's madness is clear, and he's just going to embrace his role to be a villain. He's survived to live another day, I guess.

Oh, and Allen, Tyreese's douchebag group-mate, tries to pull a gun on the Governor. He takes forever to do this and gets headshotted. That's one named character that died, unless any of the Woodbury people had names or personalities that I don't remember or care about. Allen's son, whose name I don't even remember, apparently died in a previous episode? I assume he's one of the casualties that were killed by Merle last episode. I don't care for Allen, though that's one plot thread that gets quickly cut off. 

One survivor, Karen, otherwise known as that one girl that Andrea talked to that one time early in the season, manages to meet up with the badass trio of Rick, Daryl and Michonne -- the three people setting out to murder the Governor and end this -- and everyone is suitably horrified to find out what the Governor did. It's fortunate Karen survived, because Karen managed to explain the situation to Tyreese and Sasha (both of whom are already second-guessing the Governor) and then the group ends up finding Andrea enough to help her shoot herself before she became the zombie.

One of the biggest problems with Tyreese is how he just seemed to just flit from one place to the next. I'm honestly surprised he and Sasha didn't just bugger out of Woodbury, and just why they decided to join the established-to-be-crazy Rick is a bit suspect. The episode ends with Rick bringing the remaining survivors in Woodbury to the prison, which is a bit of an odd move as contested by Carl, but the alternative is leaving these people who are established to be unable to fight to just stay in Woodbury without the ability to defend themselves.

Which means more cannon fodder for next season, I guess -- hopefully some of them become memorable and they don't just end up one-dimensional redshirts like Oscar and Axel. 

So yeah, a bit of a strange way to end the season. I do like how the situation isn't black and white, with Carl's argument having a huge amount of merit. After all, the boy that Carl shot did try to hand his gun over instead of dropping it, a trick that Carl himself had witnessed during the Shane/Rick confrontation in season two, so it's not as horrific a scene as it probably could've been. Still a bit of a cold-blooded move, but I like how this isn't black and white, and the alternative might cause Carl to end up in a situation similar to Andrea unable to bring herself to kill anyone.

It's... a very interesting way to end a season, which is more focused on building up possible plotlines in the fourth season more than anything. The assault on the prison could've stood to take a slightly longer run, and Andrea struggling with the pliers just isn't interesting at all, but eh, it could've been worse.

Overall, though, how was the season? Comparing it to the oft-maligned second season it's a definitive improvement, simply by the sheer fact that more things happen, and introducing two new settings with different groups of people make it work so much better when it's just the group in the farm just dealing with one or two problems (Carl getting shot, later Randall, and finally Shane). The fact that the Governor is a tangible threat throughout the third season also gives the show some focus beyond just 'survive from zombies', as well as the great comparisons between the prison and Woodbury, is ver well done. And for the most part, the plotlines that meander throughout the season generally work well -- the high emotional point is still the crisis caused by Andrew, and the intense sequence where two long-running members of the group die. The assault to rescue Glenn and Maggie was also very well-done, with several wild cards like Michonne and Merle in play. And the two focus episodes -- the one with Michonne, Rick and Carl, as well as last episode with Merle -- were very well done.

But it's still far from being great, because a lot of the same problems that I have with the second season still stands. A lot of the times our protagonists's actions, or rather, how they arrive at the conclusion that this is what they needed to do, is muddled. The Governor, Andrea and Rick all suffer greatly from this, and while it's easy to handwave the Governor's plot holes with 'he's a maniac' (though the show does vary very wildly on how coherent the dude is, because he ranges from being a psychotic madman to intelligent mastermind seemingly on a whim), Andrea and Rick don't get that much leeway, and the show's attempt to use Andrea as a bridge between the two settings failed pretty miserably.

But the scripting is somewhat better in this season, with Daryl, Carol, Maggie and Merle all significantly improved from their one-dimensional portrayals. Hershel is a bit of a problem and Carl's an enigma, but they don't annoy me as much as, say, season-two-Lori or season-two-Carol. Of course, there's also the fact that a lot of the newly introduced characters don't have much personality going on for them, making caring for them somewhat pointless (the two prisoners Oscar and Axel are prime examples, but also Tyreese and basically everyone in Woodbury except for Governor and Milton). But overall it's still an improvement, and considering this series still has at least five more seasons to go at the time of writing, I'd say that people liked it enough for it to have a chance to improve. We'll take a brief break from Walking Dead -- it's not the most popular series on the blog, after all, though I still kinda wanna do the rest of the episodes. 

Movie Review: Teen Titans - The Judas Contract

Teen Titans: The Judas Contract (2017)

I know I should've been excited for this, but the end result is honestly a bit underwhelming. I've watched two adaptations of the Judas Contract now, the epic storyline that pushed the New Teen Titans title in the 80's into prominence. It was the plot that the second season of Teen Titans (relatively recently I reviewed every single episode of it) was loosely adapted on, and it was also one of the first graphic novels that I read. As part of an ongoing, and as part of a storyline that really sold Deathstroke as this master manipulator, it was an amazing experience.

Yet this DC animated movie adaptation felt... I don't know. Lackluster, I guess? It acts as a sequel to Justice League vs. Teen Titans, and is therefore also in the same New-52-based animated movie continuity spearheaded by Justice League: War, and its cast of Titans follows the format of that continuity. Starfire and Nightwing as the trainers, and Damian Wayne/Robin, Blue Beetle, Raven and Beast Boy to round up the Teen Titans. Oh, and, of course, Terra. Who, in this movie, is just quickly introduced as this weird new addition to the team that almost as quickly shows that she's a rather unpleasant girl. Even when bonding with Beast Boy, she's more brusque than friendly, and I never really bought just why the Titans really felt at ease with Terra so much that they'd let their guard down that much. Though I guess Damian Wayne is such a Grade A douchebag that they're obliged to do so?

I realize comparing it to both the source material and a different adaptation isn't exactly fair, but in the New Teen Titans comic, Terra was a recurring character even before the Judas Contract storyline, and she's obfuscating niceness to Beast Boy (or, well, Changeling as he's known in the comics at that time) so even though the audience knows that she's a sleeper agent for Deathstroke, the reactions of the Titans to her betrayal is something I'm invested in. Ditto for the cartoon, which took a different approach and have Terra actually be an innocent that the Titans befriend, and later corrupted by Deathstroke with promises of acceptance and power, and then sent back in. 

Here? Here is where an adaptation tries to adapt all the big moments and the broad strokes of the Judas Contract storyline, but loses sight of what makes it so appealing. If anything else, it treats the Brother Blood storyline of draining the powers of the Titans and becoming a god as more of the 'main' storyline, and not just a peripheral subplot that happens to intersect. The voice acting is pretty amazing (with Deathstroke and Terrra being particularly well-acted ones) and I love seeing some classic comic book panels and action sequences reproduced on-screen, but at the same time it just lacks... I dunno, it lacks oomph, I guess?

Part of it is that the movie tries to tack on a lot of things. The Terra/Raven rivalry and Terra/Beast Boy romance was always part of the original source material, as is the creepy Terra/Deathstroke romance (which they thankfully changed to Deathstroke declining Terra's underage advances), but at the same time not really enough is spent to dwell on any of the relationships that when Terra turns on Beast Boy and later on Deathstroke it just seems like an 'eh, makes sense' plot twist that doesn't really push the emotional buttons that it did a decade ago when I first discovered and read the comic for the first time. Add that to things that they didn't really do enough of but tacked on anyway -- like Blue Beetle's father issues, or Nightwing/Starfire moving on to the next step in their relationship, or the (admittedly very enjoyable) Nightwing/Robin dynamic where they've developed from their antagonistic headbutting in 'Son of Batman' into something brotherly.

A good chunk of the characterization screentime is, thankfully, delivered to Terra herself, so while the scripting and pacing isn't as well done as I would've wished, the voice acting and the script does put a fair amount of focus on Terra as a dark, tortured and confused character. At the end it kind of reduces her into a screaming angry girl instead of the more complex incarnations that the 00's cartoon or the original comic book versions, but she's at least somewhat enjoyable.

Deathstroke in particular, despite the excellent voice work, a point of contention for me. I don't mind, really, having a reduced role for the likes of Raven or Nightwing, and even Beast Boy getting reduced roles as a satellite love interest definitely works if the timeframe is relatively constricted. But Deathstroke suffers from the burden of the strange decision to change him from an independent mercenary with an obsession for control into a disgraced League of Assassins member. And unfortunately, thanks to his motivations here being set to just having revenge on Damian, it makes the character look way too petty and one-dimensional. And while removing Deathstroke's backstory or the admittance of his son Jericho into the Teen Titans would bloat up the movie even further, at least one of these two would've worked in nicely with some of the surplus filler material for the lesser Titans being cut out. 

Of course, it's still a superhero action movie at the end of the day, and it still has enough appeal on terms of that. Terra's powers, as well as those of Raven and Brother Blood, look relatively fantastic. But other than Terra, Robin and Deathstroke, it might be a little mean to say that the rest of the voice work are... merely perfunctory. None of them stand out as being annoying, but here I am, two hours after watching the movie, and I can barely remember what Blue Beetle or Raven sounded like -- something I have no problem remembering with a stronger voice cast. I'm severely underwhelmed by what really should have been a great triumph, but cutting out too much things from the original source material, adding unnecessary plotlines and the lack of buildup all hurt the movie from being good to being merely watchable. It's worth a decent look, but don't expect the same level of greatness that these 'greatest hits adapted into movies' things should be.

(No DC Easter Eggs Corner for these movies, I think -- they are more or less huge love letters to the original comic book arcs that the movies are based upon, and there's no point in listing every single thing there.)

The Walking Dead S03E15 Review: Merle Has A Point

The Walking Dead, Season 3, Episode 15: This Sorrowful Life

The confrontation in this episode was excellent, and honestly, everything regarding Merle from his first meeting with Daryl to his final end is extremely well-told. The thing that doesn't make it well-told? The same reason why I can't give a shit about Andrea last episode... though the Merle story is a lot more consistent than the Andrea story by a huge margin, of course.

The first, biggest problem, is Rick being a bit of a wishy-washy idiot regarding the whole Michonne thing. The thing is, he has absolutely no reason to really trust the Governor, and if the Governor ended up deciding to betray them anyway it's a bit stupid for Rick to hand over one of their better fighters. And Rick goes from 'okay, I'm going to do it' to 'okay, Michonne made friends with my son' during the Clear episode, to 'shit, I think we have to do it but we're going to keep it a secret' early in this episode only to change his mind and go 'no, wait, let's not' around the halfway mark. This makes Rick really hard to respect, and at the end of the episode he kind of understands that, noting that his little attempt at dictatorship is over since he sees that, well, basically he's become the Governor.

The thing is, Hershel agreeing with Rick seems a bit out of place considering he's the voice of sanity among all this, and the lack of Glenn in the proceedings is a bit jarring (though Glenn's probably going to make an argument against trusting the Governor and that would change Rick's mind early on). I don't understand why the show doesn't just have Merle overhear them discussing it without Rick actually going through with it, and have him bugger off on his own accord. Or something. I dunno. It all seems so rushed and there's a lack of cohesion between Rick's train of thought ever since the Governor gave him this deal, and why he would include the loose cannon Merle as part of his plan is a bit suspect.

Still, the stuff between Merle and Michonne is great, and honestly Merle is fun all throughout the episode. From ripping mattresses apart in search of meth to the conversation with Daryl noting that Rick's too much of an officer friendly to pull it off, to him conking Michonne in the head, and the conversations they had in the car. Merle apparently hasn't killed anyone prior to the zombie apocalypse, or even prior to meeting the Governor, and Michonne questions how Merle is just being everyone's errand boy. There's a cool bit that Merle decides to go on with Rick's plan before he pussies out, and his observations are pretty spot-on... that Rick needed him to do the dirty work, and that's his role in the community that pretty obviously rejects him. Granted there's all the stuff about torture and everything, so Merle is someone who'll never belong... but he does make his train of thought very clear: his brother cares for the prison, and he cares for the brother. Ergo, he'll have to make things right with the prison for the sake of his brother.

They get into a couple of nice, introspective moments down their little trip, and in addition to that we get a very badass moment as Michonne, tied with wire and bound to a post, manages to still murder two zombies when Merle is dealing with another one. She straight-up garrottes a zombie with her hands still tied, and that's awesome. The dialogue exchange between Merle and Michonne aren't very straight to the point, but Merle eventually has a change of heart after Michonne points out that the Governor is the creature that made Merle a killer, cutting Michonne loose as he buggers off to murder the Governor on his own.

Why that manages to shake Merle off his funk is a bit hard to say, and why Michonne returned to the prison where a couple of hours ago Rick was perfectly happy with turning her over to the Governor instead of running off (as Merle points out, she's an outsider as much as he is)... but I don't really care all that much because the sequence of Merle drinkin whiskey in his car as he lets the music blare loudly and attract zombies... before it's clear that he's not suicidal, just luring the zombies towards the meeting point, dealing a pretty significant blow against the Governor's men as they are forced to do battle with them. I'm not sure if Martinez or one of Tyreese's group was among those who got fucked over by the zombies, but a couple of soldiers definitely went down, and Merle using the chaos to snipe a couple of the Governor's soldiers in the midst of it all was pretty awesome.

And honestly, Merle had the Governor in his crosshairs as he took aim from the building if not for a zombie attacking him. The battle between Merle and the Governor was very brutal and physical, with the two of them just on each other's throats and at one point the Governor bit off two of Merle's fingers, what the shit. Merle's final line is "I ain't begging ya!" as he stands in defiance while the Governor draws a gun on him, and exit Merle. 

Merle isn't a wholly likable character, and his presence after Daryl drags him back to the prison is a bit questionable since he's just around to be abrasive while not really doing much, so it's a bit strange that he would have this change of heart, but I guess the conversations with Daryl and Michonne manages to make him... die on his own terms? Try to solve this dirty problem for the sake of his brother, without having to hand over a woman for the Governor to torture? A realization that he'll never fit with the prison group, yet knowing he has to do something to help his brother? Get revenge for all the Governor's done to him? Whatever the case, it's a very cool scene, and what truly gets me is when Daryl arrives, too late to participate in the chaos, looking at the dead bodies in desperation...

Only to find zombie Merle feeding on a random body. Daryl's despair as he pushes zombie Merle away, before being forced to tackle him and stab him in the head many times to put him down, before breaking down crying, actually made me far more emotional than Rick's reaction to Lori's death, simply because of how Daryl was so desperately trying to catch up with Merle throughout this episode. 

Meanwhile, in the midst of the Merle/Michonne story, and Rick being a bit inconsistent in characterization, Glenn proposes to Maggie with a ring he stole by snapping off the fingers of a random zombie. I really hope he washes that ring before that proposal. 

But Merle's dead, the Governor's crazy, Daryl's grieving, and the next episode is the final one of this season and is poised to at least bring a conclusion to the Governor/Rick conundrum. Sadly, this probably means that Andrea, imprisoned by the Governor in his basement, will come to play, which isn't something I look forward to. 

The Walking Dead S03E14 Review: Andrea Running Around

The Walking Dead, Season 3, Episode 14: Prey

As the plot escalates, I find some of it falling apart in different places. The big problem is Andrea, and to a lesser degree, the Governor. The Governor has finally stopped being wishy-washy about the inconsistency regarding how he's written, and has embraced his inner psychopath. After writing last episode's review I keep trying to think as to why the Governor just doesn't actually kill Rick, Daryl and Hershel right then and there and deal with the weakened prison group later, but now he's embraced his role as card-carrying villain and he's a lot more consistent and impressive in this manner.

This is another episode with great focus, because it's another episode that takes place almost entirely in Woodbury, focusing on Andrea, the Governor and Milton, with a B-plot starring Tyreese's poorly-defined group. We did get a brief cameo of Rick at the end, but it's basically from Andrea's POV. 

It's actually a pretty good episode... if Andrea was an actual character that I cared about. In a superior show, Andrea would've had a long, well-written crisis of conscience as she experiences the nice, happy life of Woodbury, seeing maybe one or two of the harsher things that Rick's team did, seen the peaceful society of Woodbury fall apart (which we saw, just not quite enough as other than a couple of scenes Woodbury seemed to have like three or four people and a whole bunch of faceless nobodies I don't care about)... but she's just so inconsistently written and adding this to her last appearance where she had the perfect chance to end the Governor but pussies out, it's a bit hard to really root for her, and it's a problem worse than Michonne or Rick in this season -- Michonne was just undeveloped and unhelpful, and Rick at least has the dead wife thing going on for him. Andrea? She's just a wishy-washy idiot, it seems.

And her holier-than-thou nonsense is a bit jarring, really, and honestly the better 'betray the Governor because he's crazy' story here goes to Milton. Milton has been shown to respect the Governor greatly, and he disagrees with some of the things the Governor is doing -- like the last straw from the previous episode, which is killing Team Rick regardless of whether they give up Michonne or not. It's a far more logical change in loyalties, and unlike Andrea hesitating last episode, Milton not wanting Andrea to shoot the Governor on the spot is a lot more sensible. He can articulate the unwanted fallout that would destroy Woodbury, he still has a friendship with the Governor... it's just that he can't in good conscience allow the Governor to go murder-kill everyone. 

Compare this to Andrea, who just acts like an idiot in episodes prior to this. Andrea's decision is basically to run off and try to warn the prison people, and I guess it's better late than not at all? And for all the talk about the good people of Woodbury, no effort is made to even warn them. You damn hypocrite, Andrea. It's a rocky road to get to this point when Andrea finally realizes the Governor is crazy, and I'd argue that the payoff isn't all that well. Honestly, again, I'm more invested in Miton's story running in the background, where in the midst of the Governor going hunting to murder Andrea (for no reason than he's a psychopath, it seems) he manages to sneak out and implied to have been the one to burn the zombies in the pit they're getting ready to use against the Prison people.

Mind you, we don't get confirmation that it's Milton, but the Governor seems to think so. It could've been Tyreese and maybe he's that good at calling the Governor's bluff, but Tyreese is confused about the 'gasoline' when questioned by the Governor and seems to be far more regretful and apologetic over the fight in the pit and nothing else. Whereas Milton does the classic mistake of 'tell the big bad guy something he hasn't told anyone yet'. 

Andrea's heel-face-turn takes place pretty quickly, with the rest of the episode showing Andrea's one-woman run towards the prison, and I guess it's told as well as it's could. It's tense, with the Governor chasing her, and several encounters with zombies -- that confrontation in the building with Andrea unleashing a corridor full of zombies (and apparently the Governor single-handedly defeated like more than a dozen walkers all on his own! Good shit, man), and the Governor just embracing his inner serial killer and doing all kinds of creepy whistling and glass-smashing is nice.

In a way it's a bit of a shame that some of the complexity of the Governor as a likable, personable leadership figure hiding a mean streak is kind of lost, but on the other hand it's still a lot more consistent and entertaining for the Governor to act like an utter psychopath due to how... bad the show has been at showing the 'villain with good publicity' portion of Governor's character. 

Tyreese's group gets a lot more focus, and honestly it would probably have more impact if I actually know who any of these people are. Case in point is how I didn't even realize that Allen was supposed to be part of Tyreese's group. The conflict is honestly a bit bland, with Allen being angry that Tyreese apparently is more heroic than he was in front of his now-deceased wife, and Allen's way too happy about being a part of the community but doesn't want Tyreese to fuck it up for him. This comes to blows near the zombie pits where apparently the Governor is planning to feed Rick and company to, but an argument between Allen and Tyreese ended with Tyreese winning. Tyreese isn't happy with a lot of what's going on but he does want a place to stay despite Andrea's unhelpfully cryptic warnings, and the Governor brushes it off as 'oh, it's scare tactics' and how they don't share all their plans with people they barely know. Of course Tyreese will eventually have a crisis of conscience of his own, so he's at least being developed as compared to Nice-Girl, Allen and Allen's son. If we were shown Woodbury through Tyreese's eyes as opposed to Andrea's idiocy I think this season would've been so much better.

There's a of a very weird flashback at the beginning with Michonne and Andrea talking about Michonne's pet zombies and that she knew about them before (is the zombie the 'I talk to my dead boyfriend' thing?) but it adds nothing really significant that we don't already know. 

So yeah, the story about Andrea is somewhat well-told and well-focused, and it's a cool bit of a futile endeavour thing as the Governor catches up with Andrea literal seconds before Rick saw her, but overall Tyreese and Milton, despite appearing in far less scenes than Andrea, show far more interesting moral dilemmas than Andrea is. 

The Walking Dead S03E13 Review: Parley

The Walking Dead, Season 3, Episode 13: Arrow on the Doorpost

It's a bit of an odd bit of storytelling where two episodes ago both sides were preparing to go to war with each other and are all talking about how much they hate the other side, the previous episode was a little side-quest thing where it only stars a couple of characters, and this episode starts with... the jarring opening scene where suddenly Rick, Daryl and Hershel have a badass little entrance as they click their guns and all, walk into this random shack in the woods and sit down with the Governor for a parley. I honestly thought I missed an episode, especially since this is the Walking Dead and they're a huge proponent of telling and showing.

But hey, it works, and I guess last episode's bonding moment between Carl (and by extension the audience and Michonne is supposed to make us care for her so there's an emotional response of 'no, not Michonne!' when the Governor basically demands her head in exchange for peace. A bit of a cheap tactic but hey.

The talk between Rick and the Governor was very well-scripted and well acted by both actors, with neither of them making it a secret that they want to stab each other in the face. Rick was far colder and less interested in playing nice, while the Governor is far happier to play his veneer of civil faux-reasonable leader, trying to brush things under the bridge, telling stories about the tragedy of his wife to elicit an emotional response from his opponent, while still making it clear that they're only going to play by his rules.

There's an absolutely hilarious scene where Andrea comes in and tries her best to go 'hey, guys, talk it out, we're all buddies here, yay!' like a little girl who's trying to get her two parents who are angry to totally make up by pretending to invite each other to a lunch date. It doesn't work in real life for parents, let alone for two people who are out for each other's blood. What was Andrea thinking? The Governor flat-out doesn't let her be part of the negotiation after a bit of talking down to her, and I think Rick has had it with her utter stupidity.

The thing is, Andrea has been spending nearly every scene after her arrival in Woodbury acting like she's part of the leadership, and she really looks hurt when the Governor tells her to piss the fuck off. The thing is, she's not. She's fucking the Governor, yes, but she's the newest member to the community and how she keeps challenging Milton and Martinez, who actually are part of the Governor's, well, government.

And to top it off, adding to a huge list of Andrea being a total dumbass, after this obvious disrespect for her, she's happy to return with the Governor and exchange smiles like nothing just happened, believing so blindly that, yeah, they worked out a deal. She didn't even try to push for specifics! I think she might be brain-damaged at this point. The thing is, from various sources like Rick in this episode and Michonne in previous episodes, as well as seeing with her own two eyes, Andrea knows, more or less, about every single vile thing that the Governor has done except for keeping a zombie daughter (I don't think anyone told her that) and killing the National Guardsmen (no one ever mentions this, and only Merle and the Governor really know about it), including something horrible that he did to Maggie. Nope, not a single bit of suspicion. Girl, you're stupid.

What's cool are the interactions between the two lieutenants of both Rick and the Governor. While the bosses are inside deciding their fates, Daryl and Hershel size up their opposing counterparts in Martinez and Milton. Hershel and Milton have a shared interest at trying to preserve human history and talk a bit about more cerebral stuff (including a hilarious scene where Milton asks to see Hershel's amputated stump, where we previously see Hershel hide a gun), while Daryl and Martinez (whose name I only learn this episode, despite him appearing nearly every episode in Woodbury scenes) try to show each other up as they bash zombie heads with their signature weapons of a crossbow and a baseball bat respectively. There's a nice bit of 'we're both soldiers' vibe when they eventually take a moment to bond a little in shared respect, while also not being naive -- this doesn't change a damn thing and they'll be gunning for each other's head in an episode or two.

Anyway, Rick is ready to just set up borders, and operate on a 'you don't fuck with us, we don't fuck with you' treaty, as long as he gets to keep the prison. He misunderstands the Governor's main interest, though -- he doesn't want the prison, he wants revenge. And the deaths of people who wronged him. He doesn't make it clear, though, and instead insists on Rick just handing over Michonne to him, otherwise he'll not even look at the maps Rick has drawn up. He tries to gain the upper hand in all this, first by playing nice and offering whiskey and all that nonsense, then sympathy by telling him the sob story about his wife, and then trying to get a rise out of him by bringing up the fact that his daughter's father might be Shane (man, Andrea is a blabbermouth), and later on just trying to fool him with the Michonne deal, noting that Michonne is an unstable loose cannon, potentially dangerous, and it's not worth it to sacrifice the lives of his children for Michonne.

The Governor gives Rick two days to consider this trade, before the two groups leave. It's not until the final scenes where the Governor speaks to Milton that it's confirmed that, yeah, it's a con. The Governor might specifically want Michonne dead for 'killing' his daughter, but he's not going to allow someone who's been proven to fight back to continue living. He's going to murder Rick Grimes and anyone with him the moment they show up for the treaty.

We get a couple of brief check-ins at the prison. Merle might be cutting back on actual backstabbing and racist and sexist comments, but he's still an abrasive little shit. I do agree with him wanting to murder the Governor, and for what he's done to Maggie, I'm pretty sure Glenn does as well, but he makes it clear that he's going to respect Rick going there for a treaty, even standing up to Merle physically and brawling with him a bit -- very fun to see it's Maggie that whacks Merle out. Maggie and Glenn finally rekindle their romance with an extended sex scene. Meanwhile, Merle talks to Michonne, noting that the two of them want the Governor dead, and the rest are too soft, so they apparently want to hatch a plan to straight-up assassinate the one-eyed fucker.

Meanwhile, Rick and Hershel have a nice, deep talk after Rick tells everyone else that the Governor wants war and nothing else. He only confides in Hershel about the deal of handing Michonne over to the Governor for the treaty. Hershel quickly calls out the fact that the Governor might be tricking him, and Rick acknowledges this... but still is more inclined to turn over Michonne, and wishes the less-cynical Hershel could talk him out of it. The episode ends on that note, an interesting conundrum to ponder. Yes, at this moment, the audience knows that the Governor plans to doublecross Rick, but Rick doesn't -- is it worth the risk, giving away Michonne for the chance to end all of this? Is the Governor that trustworthy? And if he thinks the Governor is not, is it him being paranoid again? Yeah. Good stuff, Andrea aside. 

The Walking Dead S03E12 Review: A Trip Down Memory Lane

The Walking Dead, Season 3, Episode 12: Clear

I feel that the huge twist of Morgan's appearance in this episode is absolutely spoiled by the abruptly random 'previously on AMC's the Walking Dead' goes all-out to show the meeting between Rick and Morgan in the show's premiere. Morgan hasn't even been mentioned at all since around halfway through season one, and really, there's no subtler way to ruin his surprise comeback than that. 

This episode is very different, mostly due to the episode, similar to episode three this season (focusing solely on the Governor, Merle, Andrea and Michonne), this episode focuses on a small group of characters -- Rick, Carl and Michonne, as well as guest star Morgan -- and never deviates from them. This focus is very much welcomed, not because I hate the other characters (well, other than Andrea) but because it allows the show to tell such a more effective story. 

This episode is also very well done due to the sheer amount of character work given to three of arguably the most problematic characters in the prison cast. Rick and Michonne I've bitched about for the last four or five episodes, and it's very welcome to see Rick finally come to his senses and have shades of the older, more confident pre-Lori leader, while Michonne finally gets some scenes that show that she's more than just an antisocial zombie killing machine. Carl also gets to grow out beyond the creepy broken shell of a boy who says wise things, as this time around he gets to show that, yes, above all things, he's still a young child. And if Rick's far more interested in wandering around chasing ghosts than caring for his daughter, Carl's going to have to do it. And yes, technically running into a tavern filled with zombies for something as impractical as a photograph is utterly stupid, but there's a nice bit of comparison between Morgan, who's so broken by loss that he has became a hermit of a maniac, hoarding guns and designing elaborate death traps, to Carl, who likewise has lost his family but still has enough hope and sense to get his shit together yet not forget the memories of those they lost. That's what makes him human.

The trio of Rick, Carl and Michonne make their way to Rick's old town, which is surprising considering the setting has been left behind all the way since the debut of the series. They needed more guns as the ones they had were all spent during the gun fights against the Governor. Michonne tags along with them, and Carl makes it clear what the audience -- or at least me -- is thinking. Michonne is unpredictable and mysterious (read: undeveloped) and untrustworthy. Rick's excuse that Michonne and Merle in the same location together is a recipe for disaster is dumb as shit, too. So yeah, the 'main' story of getting guns isn't that important, and it's just a goal that happens to be done. No, the main course of this particular episode is the emotional bit.

Morgan is a character we briefly meet at the very first episode of the series, and since then he hasn't fared well. Rick promised to call him on a walkie-talkie every day, but he hasn't done it, not even once -- I can't remember if he actually tried and he couldn't get a signal or something along those lines, or he's just too absorbed with staying alive that he forgot... but he forgot. Morgan's son's death also is a huge factor in him dying, because his son was killed by the walker that once had been his wife, and he blames himself for being too much of a coward to shoot the wife-zombie back when he had the chance. There is a brilliant bit of nihilism to Morgan even when he's calmed down, noting that all the good and bad people die, and that includes Rick. Only the weak will inherit the Earth. 

It tells a brilliant story that shows that all these side characters have their own story, and in between the first episode and this one Morgan has been through a lot. Maybe that hitchhiker they left behind had a story of his own, and the mysterious Erin -- of whom we only saw a spraypaint on the street in a way similar to how Rick's group tried to leave messages to Sofia, as well as her eventual fate when Michonne briefly notes how one of the zombies in the streets has a bangle with the name Erin on it. Morgan has been through shit, he's dealing with grief, and he's gone crazy. It's a bit of a wake-up call for Rick, who's forced to confront that, yeah, he, too, is going crazy from grief, and at the end of the episode he's willing to confide a little to Michonne -- who hilariously shrugs it off with a 'I used to talk to my dead boyfriend.'

Michonne gets some actual characterization as she tries to impress Rick and Carl with her being trustworthy, while Carl tries to do something personal on his own, which is getting a photograph of his mother to later show to Little Ass-Kicker when she's older. Michonne here isn't just a scowling, silent mystery samurai, but her snarking around with Rick and her protectiveness of Carl is well-displayed, making her a lot more likable. Not as well-defined as she could've been, but definitely an improvement that doesn't betray her earlier portrayals.

In addition to his motivations to get the picture for Judith, Carl really shows how much he's grown, isn't he? In addition to the very inventive usage of skateboards and mice to distract the zombies, the lack of hesitation as he gunned down Morgan (Carl didn't know Morgan was wearing that bulletproof vest) before Michonne or Rick could get to him is portrayed well. 

Also, can I just say how well-done the spray-paints are in telling a story? Walking Dead isn't the most subtle show, with lots of groan-worthy introdump dialogue being spoken out of the mouths of its characters, but the psychotic chalk writings that Morgan leaves all around his room and in town speaks volumes. It shows his descent into madness, it shows his desperation because everyone turned, and it shows the breaking point -- his son's turning into a zombie. The room looks delightfully like the mind a paranoid madman, with lists of weapons and a map showing how he has 'cleared' some areas, and the warning all around town warns people off from coming near him.

Morgan is dealing with loss, and has gone crazy, which is exactly my complaint with Rick for the past seven or eight episodes. Like Rick, Morgan is also pushing people away, albeit imaginary people, and has gone absolutely extreme in his rejection, building elaborate death traps like the spike wall things to trap walkers, the bomb under the carpet, and the absolutely hilarious axe tripwire trap behind a curtain. ('Not shitting you!' on the curtain, with the revelation later that the axe had 'Told you' spraypainted on it) There's also Morgan shooting at Rick and company with a rifle, and later attacking Rick with a knife and calling him someone who wears the faces of the dead. Morgan has gone mad from the isolation, and is an extreme picture of what Rick could've became.

I also liked how the show had a sense of humour. From the running joke of the trio absolutely ignoring the random hitch-hiker and the brick joke that the hitch-hiker died at the end of the episode... to the dark comedy of them reversing the car to loot his backpack (hey, pragmatism!), or Michonne showing that she stole a rainbow-coloured cat toy from the tavern because she likes it, to Michonne eating Morgan's food ("the mat said welcome!"), the episode helps to give some lightheartedness that is definitely to the story's benefit. 

No, it's not the most eventful episode of the Walking Dead, but the break from the Woodbury-Prison war to explore a more insightful look at how people have changed while trying to survive not just the zombie apocalypse but grief, is very much welcome, and the character development for Rick and Michonne? Definitely welcome. 

Fairy Tail 541 Review: A Montage of Monatges

Fairy Tail, Chapter 541: Magic of Hope

God, what an inane title we have for this chapter.

Here we go with my weekly anger therapy!

Also, hey, Tartaros! An arc filled with disappointment, the last few decent villains in the series taken out in increasingly moronic ways, Because She's Erza, Happy Afro Suicide Bombs, the stupid-ass Gray-Papa fakeouts and the shittiest heel-face-turn for Minerva. Yeah, this is where the series went from 'it's dwindling' to 'shit'.

Anyway, the chapter starts off with yet another 'hey let's have a close up of every single character' page, which is a recurring bad habit of this manga. Because it needs actual content to fill up this chapter, after all. Wendy and Gajeel prove that they are one-trick ponies and do the exact same thing they have been doing since they show up -- wouldn't it kill them to go into Dragon Force and Steel Iron Shadow Dragon whatever thing that powers them up and made them cool for a single chapter? No? We're going to stick with fuckin' Iron Dragon Sword which we've seen ad nauseum? Okay. Acnologia takes out Sting, Rogue, Cobra and even Laxus in basically two panels. The first three, after all, are completely shit, ineffective morons, so hopefully they stay down so the actual characters with actual power can finish the fight. Acnologia gives absolutely inane lines like "I am the strongest dragon in the world obviously". What a stupid scene.

Also, God Serena, a.k.a. strongest mage in all of the world of the ten wizard saints with the power of six dragons in him or whatever gets defeated by Acnologia with a single poke. Some shitty-ass punk like Cobra who barely even counts as a dragon slayer survives being tossed around? Truly, this manga is the pinnacle of sensible power levels. 

We have even more inane lines that are literally repeating the same discussion from last chapter, though at least we're discussing how every single character there is useless -- they're either utter morons, or their magic will be ineffective. Also, a bit obvious that it's just going to go on yet another 'close up of every single character' thing going on, most obviously after Lucy asks her question. Did the reaction panels from Erza, Gray, Happy, Makarov and the random Z-listers that necessary? Maybe they're surprised Lucy has anything useful to contribute, but she's been running on deus ex machina powers for the past twenty or so chapters.

Lucy wants to make Acnologia have that vehicle sickness thing and tells them to get Acnologia on a boat. (Also, we just had Acnologia fight a boat and it was ridiculous as fuck) Which would be a monumentally stupid plan because why in the hell would a dragon willingly land on a boat... but then Acnologia is a moron, and Lucy is an equally stupid moron, so yeah, why not? Let's make Acnologia sea-sick. That's a lot, lot more insipid than Naruto using the Harem no Jutsu during the final battle -- that's a spur-of-the-moment thing meant to distract due to how ridiculous this is. This is Lucy legitimately thinking that it's a brilliant plan and everyone going 'aaah I see'. No wonder that dumb-shit Mavis is considered a tactician, everyone else is simply so much dumber!

Meanwhile Lucy asks Levy and Fried to go to the library to look for 'that' magic. Of course. it's the Magic of Bonds. They're going to literally weaponize friendship to defeat Acnologia. What the fuck? Stupid as shit, man. Is it foreshadowed? Kinda-sorta, doesn't make it any less stupid when you lead into the reveal that it's the 'magic of bonds' and show the flashback of them holding hands. Also, only Fairy Tail members really matter -- I'm not sure why guys like Angel and Rufus are even around for. Lucy even tells them to 'gather as many Fairy Tail members'. Not able-bodied mages, not our allies.

Did we need seven and a half pages to go "hey, Fairy Sphere was effective that one time, let's use it again"? Yeah, no. But then this isn't a good manga by any stretch.

Also, also, why did no one think of using Fairy Sphere when they fought the Spriggans? Their whole point was to protect Mavis, right? Yep, idiots. The three great magics ended up being utterly pointless, yeah? Fairy Glitter only exists to have Cana shoot it around and have it be tanked by every villain she faces off against, everyone forgot about Fairy Sphere until this chapter, and Fairy Law kills you off when you use it except when it doesn't because this manga pays no heed about consistency or continuity. 

Also, what bullshit is it that swords and magic cannot defeat a dragon? What bullcrap, Erza beat a dragon literally ten chapters ago with a broken arm and a sword. Though I guess it's Acnologia specifically? Would help me remember that he's a magic-eating dragon if, y'know, he's ever shown actually eating magic beyond the hideously ambiguous 'devoured the ravines of time' goobledeygonk we got last chapter.

Also, also, "we have to try" is such a bullshit piece of dialogue to treat as a badass end-the-conversation one-liner. Without resorting to the obvious Yoda quote, having to try just means that you have no fucking plan what to do and that you're an idiot who's trying to force something to happen because of the power of determination and that doesn't ever work in real life or in good fiction or in decent fiction. But this is Fairy Tail, where a punch when you remember that you have friends trumps ultra-powerful magic of space time and fancy butterfly wings. So.

Acnologia continues to rant about how he's going to "I WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING!" "DESTRUCTION, THAT IS ALL!" and bullshit like that which makes motherfucking Kaguya or Juhabach sound eloquent in comparison -- at least their villain monologues look like they're not written by a three-year-old writing a fanfiction. 

Oh, hey, one entire-page-panel of Natsu being angry and saying some dumbass shit he says in every fight. That's even worse than Acnologia's lines or the seven and a half roundtable montage. Next chapter I bet he'll punch Acnologia really, really hard after thinking about his friends really, really hard, and it's going to be hilarious. 

Doranbolt transports Gray and Juvia where they ask Lyon and the others for a boat. Let's acknowledge that Lyon, by the way, gives absolutely no shit about what's going on and is holding a beer mug and having a picnic. Good job, Lyon! New favourite character. Also, Juvia, shut your face hole up. You've been doing the same ridiculous one-note gimmick of 'kyaaaa gray-sama' for 500-odd chapters. Jeez fuck, you have absolutely no depth to you and every single time the author tries to give you something or other you completely revert to being a one-note kyaaaaa madly in love archetype, until there's literally nothing about what made you somewhat interesting originally (sad backstory, being an actual powerhouse, etc) left beyond a single one-note joke, making the whole point of her existence is to go kyaaa gray-sama. Fuck right off, Juvia. 

We then get yet another montage of characters reacting to Acnologia, including such important characters like Lisanna (a.k.a. girl who 'came back to life' and ended up literally doing absolutely nothing afterwards), Midnight (a.k.a. dude in drag who never, ever wins a fight ever in his life) and Minerva (a.k.a. psycho bitch whose evil past no one ever acknowledges because she feels bad about it so everything bad she has ever done is forgiven instantly and anyone who disagrees gets punched by Sting), because that is so necessary. It's not like any of you minor good-aligned characters are going to die, the manga doesn't have the balls to kill a minor non-entity like Chelia, all of you are safe! 

Also a montage of the search for the tome with Fairy Sphere. Because of course you only bring five people with you, Lucy, despite all your talk about how this is of paramount importance. And Makarov, like the piece of geriartic shit that he is, does nothing but sit on a pile of books like a boss. Fuck right off too, Makarov, you're even worse than Juvia.

Yeah. This is a filler chapter, through and through. Props for remembering the Fairy Sphere plot hole exists for the anti-magic dragon. Man, if the manga isn't devoid of content anymore, we get this served-up hodgepodge of stupid-ass scenes that are either a repetition of last chapter's scenes, or a stretched-out conversation that should've taken like two panels to do. What a stupid mess this is. 

Nanatsu no Taizai 223 Review: Curses!

The Seven Deadly Sins, Chapter 223: Bewildered Lovers

The chapter's a relatively simple one. Elizabeth introdumps about what Zeldoris told her to Diane and Elaine, and apparently Meliodas just brushes the thing off -- something that Meliodas doesn't want Elizabeth to remember? Ban, meanwhile, wants to sit out the mission because while he accepts that Merascylla-Merascula-whichever-spelling has to be defeated and maybe killed, he still wants to be next to Elaine when she dies. Though of course, the whole 'do you know how it feels to see the woman you love die all over again' line comes off as a bit too thick. 

Then Elizabeth starts rambling about weird things, like noting how young Merlin looks and stuff, and apparently she has a weird Sharingan-esque pupil thing going on, before passing out. Meliodas is absolutely pissed off at this, and says that if Elizabeth regains all 3000 years of her memory, she'll die in three days, and starts telling a flashback of their curse, which begins apparently... after the whole event that Diane and King saw? I'm not sure. 

Overall it's another moving-pieces chapter, so I really don't have much to say about this one. 

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S01E15 Review: Wedding Rings and Piercings

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Season 1, Episode 15: A Hero's Proof

[updated 10/2018]

This episode mainly focuses on the fight between Joseph and Wamuu. Well, it was two-on-one at first, but after shooting some rather sub-par CGI bubbles at Wamuu, Caesar sort of just got himself knocked out. It's kind of okay, honestly -- I've always thought that this particular leg of Battle Tendency was always paced a bit oddly in the manga, and it's about the same feeling watching it in the anime. There are so many moments where it's evident that Wamuu just stands around doing nothing, while Joseph pulls off increasingly nonsensical crazy shit. And it's certainly entertaining, don't get me wrong, but even considering the usage of Hamon, it really stretches the suspension of disbelief just how fast Joseph can set up his traps and all that nonsense. Even considering the fact that Wamuu just stands still a lot.

Thankfully, both Joseph and Wamuu's voice actors are insanely bombastic and hammy (Speedwagon gets a couple of similarly hammy lines, but he makes the best out of them). Joseph throws in a lot of fun English words, with "OH NO!" and his... "Cracker Volley", whatever the hell those bolas are supposed to be, and just why he's carrying those around.

Wamuu, for his part, ends up recognizing Hamon as an ability that is able to truly hurt him, and we get to see his powers -- where all three Pillar Men here seem to have Santana's wacky body-contortionist powers, Wamuu is able to create little whirlwinds with his hair bangles, and his arms can spin to create what the subtitles call the "Holy Sandstorm". The voice actor and line are a lot more bombastic about it.

There was a weird moment where the anime tries to be too faithful to the manga and has some random bloke read a narration about how "Joseph is still the hero of the story and he's not actually running away", which I thought was just weird. Definitely took me out of the episode. Maybe it would've worked better if it just showed up in actual writing, instead of some dude narrating it.

Anyway, the battle ends up with Caesar's face fucked up, and Joseph's silly mine cart trick accomplishing nothing. Joseph manages to bullshit an excuse about how he's going to get stronger and eggs Wamuu to fight him in a month and not kill him, and... and for some reason, these Pillar Men that thinks of humans as nothing but bugs decides to humour him.

And then he leaves a ring that he very coincidentally has on his person, a ring that has the very, very specific ability to eject a lethal poison in a month. How bizarrely convenient! Wamuu puts it in Joseph's aorta, making it the little insurance that Joseph will come back -- because he has the antidote in a different ring. ACDC, apparently not wanting to be left out, puts a second ring in Joseph's wind-pipe. While I do enjoy the setup for a typical shonen "fight me after a set amount of time" trope, it is kind of bullshit to have these magical timer-poison rings conveniently on their person.

And the Pillar Men leave, leaving Caesar cradling a wounded Joseph, and it's... ultimately the episode's still entertaining thanks to the voice acting and the competent animation, but I do think that it's nowhere as good as it could have been.

Legion S01E07 Review: McAvoy or Stewart?

Legion, Season 1, Episode 7: Chapter 7

Hoo! Last episode was a bit of a slight misstep, but this one finally brings us back to speed. If anything, it's actually brilliant in integrating both the exposition and world-building parts of David Haller's backstory in conjunction with the mental image of him literally putting himself back together after the damage that Lenny did to him.

The Clockworks fascimile in David's head has gone rogue. In addition to the Eye stalking poor Kerry, and Lenny interrogating Amy for 'that man' that brought David to her family, the other inmates, basically NPCs in a game, have gone amuck. Syd's still asleep, I'm not sure where Ptonomy is in all this mess, and David's stuck in his personal coffin. Things are dire, and I am struck by how thematic that the final battle is literally a battle in the mind. Of sorts. 

Cary and Oliver, meanwhile, are still in that iceberg lounge thing and they have a conversation about the true identity of Lenny, where from a bunch of other clues (including the dog) they figure out the identity of the parasite in David's mind, a powerful mutant called Amahl Farouk. Known to Cary and X-Men fans worldwide as the villain Shadow King. Actually knowing who Shadow King was, it's a nice little bonus -- especially since the dude has never felt or looked as terrifyingly unsettling as he does here. Oliver and Cary are the more pragmatic problem-solvers here. They want to use Cary's weird head-band thing to do two things -- isolate the Shadow King and David, and to stop the bullets from hitting David when time resumes. It's not clear if he stopped time or if it's moving normally and the whole Clockworks stuff is just going at the very very fast speed of thought, and considering David's powers it could go either way. But to do either of that, they need to free David.

That's all a discussion in the brief flashback, because in the present time Cary shows up inside Oliver's scuba suit to rescue Syd, they communicate and Cary gives several pairs of 3D glasses that will help them see through Lenny's illusions? Okay then. That bit didn't quite made a lot of sense, but I suppose so.

Melanie is also running around the Astral Plane, but I'm not sure if she does anything before meeting up with Oliver and Cary, and Oliver has spent so long in the Astral Plane that he doesn't even remember Melanie. (Someone should've given him a quick crash course -- if David isn't aware of Melanie's backstory, Cary certainly damn well does). We also find that in the real-world, Rudy is dead and has been Mystique-replaced by the Eye.  Does anyone remember Rudy? I actually forgot he existed at this point of the show. The death isn't dwelt on for too long, and neither is the real-world parts because they still can't do much.

Oh, and we get to see poor Rudy's soul-mind thing in Clockworks, reduced into a comatose drooling man in a wheelchair as Syd and Kerry run around. But that's not where the big revelations are, no. The big revelation is David... who has a conversation with himself. The British, rational, confident version of himself. Rational David reminds David Prime (that's what I'm going to call him) that, hey, they're not trapped in a real coffin, so let's make a big-ass lecture room with huge chalkboards. Then we get one helluva load of introdumps done in hilarious chalk-stick-men animation. It gives a full storyline about what David himself remembers, and while part of me is annoyed that I'm treated like a kid and shown the same information twice, the revelation is more like a summary of what the Shadow King has been doing, which different characters uncover different parts while David is just remembering. We also get some all-but-outright confirmation about Legion's parentage, if the brief glance of a wheelchair with an X-sprocketed wheel isn't enough. This also allows David to flex his 'manipulate the world my mind created' powers, and I do like how the British-accented Rational David is the most hilarious guide ever. Great job, too, to Dan Stevens for selling the various aspects of David Haller not just in this episode but throughout the season. Also the scene, I think, is necessary because of how David has never been sure about many aspects of his life. Earlier in the season Melanie had to tell him that all the strange occurrences are because of mutant powers and not madness. And now, he has to tell himself that Lenny isn't part of his powers, but the parasitic Shadow King.

David breaks out of his prison in a very awesome scene -- which really shouldn't be awesome, because it's just a man screaming and blowing up a CGI coffin, but the fact that David has finally, for-reals-now, taken control of his life and his mind, is well done. I'm not entirely sure just why Lenny killed the Eye first, but kill him he did, and in the real world the Eye's body is crumpled into a disgusting cube of body parts. As Lenny runs around and chases Kerry and Syd in a hilarious voiceless section set up like the old-timey movies,  she also realizes what Team Oliver is trying to do, and speeds up time in the real world. Meanwhile David runs through some weird mental shit as he runs around the same series of corridors before he has enough and blows the illusion up with his powers. 

Melanie and Cary put the headband on David. Rudy (who's apparently dying, not dead) manages to use his powers to stall mental Lenny a bit longer. In the Astral Realm, David charges Lenny. And when boom everyone returns to their proper bodies in the real world, David is once more in full control of his powers, vaporizes the bullets, and we get a glance of Lenny/Shadow King stuck in the mental coffin. Everything looks to come up sunshines and smiles. David and Amy make up, Rudy isn't dead, Oliver is walking around from his years-long slumber and making breakfast...  but then Division Three shows up, lead by the burnt-face dude that David supposedly killed back in episode one. Which... is weird? I really don't buy that these guys are a threat to a Phoenix-tier reality-warping mutant like David, so back when I was watching it was absolutely weird and a bit of a downer. If anything else, the real threat here is Lenny busting a crack in her mental prison-coffin just as Division Three is about to fire.

Regardless, though, episode 7 of Legion is still a huge climax. Yes, what exactly happened -- Lenny dicks around and only manages to kill the one person the audience isn't rooting for is a bit suspect, and then David wakes up after the revelation and just wins -- isn't the most interesting thing in the world. But the battle in the mind, with David going through the themes that has been set up throughout the series, to embrace who he is, embrace the truth amid the lies, learn about his enemy's backstory... I thought that we probably could've intermixed the Oliver/Cary and David/David introdump to make it less repetitive. But the rest of the episode is kind of amazing. Add that to the amazing and insane lighting choices, silent-movie bit that actually worked, and the amazing, amazingly intense score? Yeah, I really like this episode. 

Legion S01E06 Review: Dance Number

Legion, Season 1, Episode 6: Chapter 6

So yeah, we spend nearly the entire episode in the mental institution. It's the most stupid 'obligatory episode' ever and it never ever really works, not for the least that it's never going to be the big grand revelation for all the fantastical things that has happened in the show. Like, no, no one's going to believe that Smallville or Supernatural will end with the revelation that everything you cared for is just mass schizophreniac minds at work. But Legion? It's a show that has a justification for it, and the fact that it's quickly established to the audience as an illusion in David's headspace is definitely well done.

In a neat twist of one of my most disliked tropes, Lenny, under the guise of the lead psychiatrist, tries to convince everyone present that,  yeah, they're all mentally ill. But, of course, as powerful as Lenny is, she can't give a perfect representation of something because it's David's mind after all. Syd feels like she's in a dream but not really, she sees David's bedroom door and weird stuff manifesting at a particular point in the Clockworks hospital (accompanied with eerie music). But Syd -- who gets to be main character of the episode, has trouble convincing David of anything at all because no mutant powers are active in the imagined Clockworks, and David's just wanting to get better and get through his therapy, because he has gotten a balance between his mania and depression. So, uh, he apparently has bipolar disorder in addition to schizophrenia? I'll buy that, he's had some mood swings over the past few episodes. Lenny-induced mood swings, still, but hey, Dream!David doesn't know that. In any case, Syd tries to figure out that they're in an alternate reality while David keeps telling her that, no, don't let the delusions win. 

Everyone gets a therapy session with dr. Lenny, which is entertaining but ultimately doesn't go anywhere. Lenny just dismisses all their delusions, and poor Ptonomy doesn't even get to do much in this episode after the interview with Lenny.

Oh, also, after that moment when everyone goes to sleep (including a sad moment where Cary and Kerry are puzzled as to why they literally stick together all the time without any real justification) Lenny pulls off all the stops and goes into an insane dance number. Whyever for? I dunno, but it works in the context of the show. Madness is the name of the game. 

Oliver Bird, having spent the past few episodes in the literal periphery of both viewers and characters, apparently can travel into people's dreams with his Scooby Doo scuba suit, and I'm not sure if it's his mutant power (I'll assume it is) or that he's also a psychic like Lenny and David, and manages to successfully spirit Melanie Bird and Cary away to try and help things out in the physical plane -- where they find that everything's frozen in time, but at the same time they can't Quicksilver their way out of this.

This leaves Kerry alone, and god, in one of the creepiest yet simplest moments of the show, we have the Eye in all his glorious creepiness starting to stalk Kerry. Also, Syd sees this gross-ass weird... organ... thing and this causes the Devil in Yellow Eyes to transform and kidnap Syd and shove her into the bedroom and put her to sleep with earphones, but not before David notices and notes that something is wrong. 

Lenny starts giving a monologue to David about how she is a fungus, a parasite, clinging to David, not caring about anything but the power David can grant him. Usually she'll move on from one host to the next, but with David the sheer power he has makes her want to cohabitate, something she's quickly losing patience for. Lenny tells David huge hints about his father, a holier-than-thou type that hides him away to keep him safe, and apparently Lenny's just sick of all this cloak and dagger stuff. She doesn't care anymore about David's self-esteem, his desire for love, his desire for relationships, and in her words, "all I need you for is your body." She shoves David into this strange coffin in the deep recesses of his/their/her mind. With everyone in trouble, the episode leaves at a cliffhanger. It's a bit unclear just who is responsible for this bizarre Summerland bit, whether it's David or Lenny, or a little bit or both -- Lenny's motivations are a bit muddy, which I think is one of the weaker bits of the episode. But more importantly, Lenny has taken the advantage, shoving David down and taking over. I guess the reasons she's not done it before is because it's easier to allow the host to keep doing what it thinks it wants to do? I dunno. It's a bit weaker than previous and upcoming entries in my opinion. So.

The Walking Dead S03E11 Review: Negotiations

The Walking Dead, Season 3, Epissode 11: I Ain't A Judas

Andrea is a very... interesting character. Her character arc hasn't been very well-written, and unlike Lori in her last few episodes, there really isn't enough content in season three (and boy Andrea does get a lot of scenes in season three) to really make her super likable. Her season one arc was simple and predictable, angsting about killing her sister when she becomes a zombie. Her season two arc was a horrible mess as she gets her weird adoptive-father plotline with Dale (and often comes off as a whiny bitch because of that) and the equally badly-written Shane fangirl thing. Here she's placed in a unique position where she knows the people in the prison are fundamentally good people -- people she lived with -- while at the same time wanting to issue peace for this newfound community and haven she's found in Woodbury.

But really, what should be an emotionally-charged story about a character being torn between two loyalties... Rick's group, inexplicably far colder and far more aggressive than she remembers them to be, who tells her the harsh truth, versus the Governor, who very unsubtly hides a lot of things from Andrea, and is making an army... and Andrea is trying to prevent bloodshed. The deaths of the innocent kids like Asthma Boy that's drafted into the Governor's army if nothing else. The thing is, though, Andrea is such an idiot that her eventual choice to... wiffle-waffle with Carol's advice to slit the Governor post-sex ends up making her look far more stupid than she already is. Previously I could just buy her excuses of not knowing all the sinister things that the Governor is doing, but between seeing the gladiatorial matches, seeing how unstable the Governor has became and the mandatory army drafting of children, she really looks stupid. 

Not to mention everyone from Michonne to Carol to Merle telling Andrea of all the evil things that the Governor did to them. Firing first during the assault in the prison, sending Merle to kill Michonne (and likely Andrea too if she had left with them), and all that... but Andrea's just dumb. Even her conversation with Michonne fell flat as she just kind of doesn't come off as sympathetic at all, only dumb and naive. Andrea just repeats the same old lines of how there are good people in Woodbury, but either because she's a fucking coward or out of some weird sense of loyalty, she didn't manage to cut off the head of the person that's responsible for this war in the first place. 

What's awesome is the stark contrast that Team Rick shows when dealing with Andrea, though. Everyone from Rick and Daryl (who promises to take the Governor's other eye) to even nominally pacifistic ones like Hershel and Carol are noting how it's a kill-or-be-killed situation with the bastard Governor and they're not compromising on that stance. Everyone there has suffered from the Governor, either from the attack on the prison, or from being abducted and tortured in Michonne, Daryl, Maggie and Glenn's case. I find it hilarious that they describe Axel as 'that prisoner guy we kinda liked', despite Axel having like a grand total of five, six lines in the entire series. 

Carol gets the best line in this episode, talking about the very detailed plan of Andrea having sex and giving the Governor the best night of his life before ending his life. You can't help but think of Carol's abusive shitface of a husband from season one, really, and how now that she's grown into a more independent woman she's flirting with the idea of what she could have done. Michonne gets some semblance of characterization (and possibly the most lines she's got throughout the season) as she argues with Andrea, an argument she wins mostly by default because Andrea's kind of an idiot. It's one thing to be confused at her friends being super-scary badasses or wanting to save the civilians of Woodbury (did we know any by name, really, other than the Governor's inner circle?), and there's the super-stupid lines like accusing Michonne of poisoning the group against the Governor. 

Also, I do like the show being somewhat self-referential at its portrayal of Carl as this child soldier, by portraying the Governor arming the children in Woodbury and going all 'adolescence is an invention of the 20th century' and forcing poor Asthma Boy to hold a gun. (Of course the kid has asthma, you can't sympathize with children unless they have asthma!) I guess the difference is that Rick and Shane never intended for Carl to go to war with other humans and is teaching him to defend himself out of necessity, while the Governor has a lot of capable adults but wants to bulk up his army with children?

The politics in Woodbury are somewhat interesting, with the Governor taking a dictator-esque stance by arming the children to the teeth, and Milton playing loyal-spy with that aura of nerdy pushability that makes him get 'pushed around' by Andrea so convincingly. Of course, fooling Andrea isn't the hardest thing to do in the world, so. Rather interestingly, Milton runs into Tyreese's group, who are a lot happier to come across a bunch of people that are less crazy than psycho-Rick, and goes in to help out the Governor. I don't really care that much about Tyreese's group, really, considering how undeveloped they are.

We get a very cool scene early on with Rick being a mopey mess and generally being a shit, but at least people call him out on it this time around, with Hershel finally raising his voice "GIT BACK HERE!" and telling Rick to grow some balls and act like the dictator he poses himself to be at the end of season two. Rick doesn't have an answer to that, and it comes to Carl telling him to stop being a leader and let Hershel or Daryl take over. Carl is a bit of a strange character, being a child who's forced to face hardships thanks to the whole zombie apocalypse thing, and seeing him take a different stance of badassery and tell Rick to let someone else lead is a pretty cool scene.

There are brief debates about Merle's presence in the prison, mostly from Glenn (who gives the impressive comparison that they didn't let Shane stay with them despite committing similar sins to Merle -- and Shane is arguably more stable than Merle is), but those are more perfunctory than the Glenn/Rick shouting match we had a couple of episodes ago, and I guess keeping Merle in a prison cell (and him actually behaving this time around, apologizing to Michonne without sarcasm and all) is kind of showing how they 'solved' this particular conundrum. 

We did get the well-written scene between Merle and Hershel bonding over a bible verse about severed limbs, which is well-written but has no emotional impact because, well, Hershel and Merle never met each other before, and are only bonding over their shared connection of being amputees. It's a bit weird to see Hershel speak up in favour of keeping Merle around, too -- that's a bit of an oddity, really, considering how Glenn, Hershel's purported 'like a son', is the one brutalized by Merle and very visibly distressed at the thought of Merle being around them. 

The Walking Dead S03E10 Review: Grown Men Acting Like Kids

The Walking Dead, Season 3, Episode 10: Home

Yeah, not the best showing for our heroes in the Walking Dead. Really, with all the men clamouring to take charge, none of them bar Hershel really make a good case for it. Rick's gone straight off the deep end, wandering outside the prison compound looking for images of his wife. Glenn's still hot off the whole torture thing, very much wanting to take revenge and go on the offensive, pissed off at Daryl abandoning them and Rick being crazy. Daryl is off trying to hang out with Merle, but the character development he's gotten since then is getting in the way. Carl's a sullen kid, Hershel's old and tired, and Axel's a nonentity. 

Rick and Glenn, in particular, don't really make very good showings of themselves here. Neither does Merle, but Merle was always a sack of shit, as Daryl so eloquently puts it. Rick really should've been tied up like that one crazy dude from the first season, because as much as he tries to be in charge and shoos away perfectly nice help in Tyreese's group (who's completely absent in this episode) the lunatic just wanders out of the prison compound, leaving doors open (thankfully Michonne's there, right?) to look for hallucinations of his dead wife. It's a miracle no walker jumped him then and there. Not the biggest fan of Rick right now, especially when his pointless Twilight-style vision chasing ends up with him in a position where he's vulnerable to zombie hordes and he can't help his friends out when the Governor attacks at the climax of the episode.

Glenn's also being very hot-headed, though his frustration at the Governor's torture of him and Maggie (he assumes Maggie was raped, though, while she affirms that nothing happened beyond the stripping) and his irritation at Rick going all cuckoo is evident. He's angry, and his fraying relationship with Maggie -- of which I'd say neither party is in the wrong, it's just very short-triggered emotions and a general fact that there's no real right protocol to deal with victims of sexual assault -- is causing him to get into some really questionable choices. Like randomly taking a car out for a drive presumably for no reason other than to clear his mind. Of course Glenn also does this utterly stupid thing right before the Governor attacks, leaving their prison even more vulnerable. 

So yeah, if I was keeping score, neither Rick nor Glenn really appealed to me this point. The real standout scenes go to the Dixon brothers. The prison scenes are just blah right up until the Governor shows up with his army of soldiers and machineguns and battering-ram vans filled with walker cargo. The Woodbury scenes prior aren't much to talk about either, just obvious filler and transition scenes. We've got Andrea being congratulated for her speech, we've got the Governor back to his old self and smoothly dodging questions about his weird zombie daughter and whatever, and we've got the Governor's interactions with Milton and getting him squarely on his side.

So yeah, the Dixon brothers. We finally get a chance to see the two of them separated from the rest of the group. Daryl and Merle caring for each other is evident from how they are willing to just drop everything to rescue the other, and, well, Merle is still a douchebag. Being someone's brother means you just have a higher tolerance to your sibling's antics, and Daryl is practically a saint for taking on all the vitriol that Merle launches at him, mocking his newfound code of honour and continually mocking Rick. It's a very nice bit of character development for Daryl when he corrects Merle dismissing Glenn as a Chinaman, when a season or two ago it's Daryl that gets corrected for calling Glenn exactly the same thing. 

We get a very awesome scene as Daryl gets spurred into action when a random family is besieged by a horde of zombies. Merle ends up only getting a couple of kills out of indifference while Daryl massacres the whole thing, and the two brothers come to blows when Merle is ready to just loot the poor family's car, while Daryl pulls out his crossbow and aims it at Merle. The two come to butt heads over this decision, and Daryl's newfound decency ends up spiraling to a different argument altogether. Merle confronts Daryl for 'abandoning' him, playing that card again, but Daryl notes rightfully that Merle cut off his own hand, and Daryl came back for Merle. There's some talk about how Merle is the one who keeps leaving Daryl behind, something that's an obvious reference to an abusive father considering how Merle just quickly mellows down from being ready to physically beat Daryl up to a stammering apology. 

Daryl elects to return to the prison, whether Merle likes it or not, because he realizes that he belongs there far more than being the subject of verbal abuse by Merle, and the two Dixon brothers arrive in time to rescue crazy Rick from a horde of zombies. Yeah, even Merle and his cool blade-hand.

Let's talk about the climax. After putting the wool over Andrea's eyes, the Governor leads a strike team to the prison, and, well, seems to pick the time to attack briefly after Glenn leaves, so Glenn's stupid little tantrum might actually be the catalyst for the Governor's attack. Axel gets shot in the head immediately after giving some superficial backstory in an attempt to flirt with Carol. Whoops, bye, Axel, we barely knew you. That's all of the prisoner group dead, and honestly I would actually argue with Glenn's sentiment a couple of episodes ago -- why even bother? Still, it's a sudden and effectively surprising death, with the group in the prison quickly shaken into action.

I do like how utterly unprepared they were. Daryl and Glenn are missing, of course, and Rick is outside of the compound, but the group are so used to shooting zombies that don't shoot back, and it's very clear that a lot of them are very inexperienced. Take Carl, for example, usually very confidently mowing down zombies with the most detached look a ten-year-old kid can have, and here, faced with thugs who shoot back, he doesn't know when to peek from his cover and all that. Beth is barely a factor, and Michonne is hilariously bad with a gun -- which is to be expected considering she's a sword nut. Maggie's the only one who gets a kill, shooting one of the Governor's snipers... but not before the Governor unleashes a battering ram van that unleashes a wave of zombies into the courtyard. 

The Governor has some really fun poses there where he's clearly mocking and testing the prison's defenses, and they did force him to retreat, but it's definitely a loss for the prison crew as now the courtyard is once more filled with walkers, and the big gate is mangled.

So yeah, a pretty fun little conflict, but my favourite scene in this episode definitely has to be Merle and Daryl, where the two actors have such great chemistry where they're clearly being abrasive jerks (of a differing scale, but still) to each other but you can still feel the brotherly bond they share.