JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Vento Aureo S04E13 Review: Purple Haze, You're Making Me Blow My Mind

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Golden Wind, Episode 13: Man in the Mirror & Purple Haze

A pretty fun episode to end the Purple Haze storyline. The episode starts off where the last one left off, with Illuso and Fugo inside the mirror world, with Illuso realizing that someone is running around in the 'real world', and basically leaves the wounded Fugo behind to chase after whatever it is Abbacchio is running to get near the dog mosaic.

This time around, Abbacchio joins in the fight as a bunch of mirror smashing ensues, realizing that Fugo is warning him about the mirror... but turns out that anything reflective becomes an entrance to Man in the Mirror's dimension. Abbacchio's arm gets dragged in, but then it chokes Man in the Mirror because Illuso dragged in a transformed Moody Blues by mistake -- and, as we know, Moody Blues is able to transform into a copy of a person as it 'replays', which is a fun little usage of what I thought to be just a visual detail. The fact that Fugo is unable to hurt Man in the Mirror due to humans not being able to affect Stands is also a little detail that I forgot to mention in my review of the previous episode.

The subsequent way the fight plays out is a bit... well, to say that Illuso basically pulls a bunch of new powers out of his ass is not an understatement, I think. Abbacchio using Moody Blues to disguise himself is a fun, clever usage of "oh, right, this makes sense!" of a pre-established power. And when Formaggio does all the fancy shit that he did with Little Feet in the previous two-parter, it feels... intuitive, I guess? But Man in the Mirror basically does a whole lot of nonsense like sticking half of Abbacchio with half of Moody Blues or something. It sort of borders on making sense, I guess, but at the same time things sort of just happen and I just shrug and go "yeah, okay, superpowers with their own properties", which isn't a particularly good feeling to have when most other fights in JoJo has relatively been consistently understandable even when they're bizarre.

Abbacchio chopping off his own hand and sending it and the key back towards Giorno with Moody Blues' playback ability is kinda neat, though it definitely feels a lot like it's just a variation of Crazy Diamond's ability. We also get some nice little monologue and characterization for Abbacchio, where he admits that the only time he feels anything now is when he's doing and executing the orders of someone he considers greater. Basically, a mafia-samurai. If you can't tell, this was where the original Abbacchio flashback happened in the manga! Telling that to us earlier does help make Abbacchio feel more like a character instead of just the obligatory dick that disagrees with Giorno all the time, though, so I definitely support the anime studio in this restructuring.

Giorno, meanwhile, has pieced back the original mirror to figure out Man in the Mirror's ability, which is definitely much needed considering Giorno hasn't been doing much for the past couple of episodes. He has apparently used himself as bait, allowing to be infected by Purple Haze and allowing himself to be dragged inside the mirror.

Illuso leaves his infected hand behind in the mirror world while he himself goes out... but that instead leaves him vulnerable to the rampaging Purple Haze outside, and god damn that is a pretty gruesome death. It's mostly offscreen and covered by the titular haze, but being eaten alive by a decomposing virus is just a pretty horrid way to die. We get the obligatory JoJo barrage, and poor Illuso dies screaming.

It's a pretty fun and clever concept, I guess, using them going back and forth from a mirror dimension while an uncontrollable stand is unleashing an instant-death virus cloud... but the execution, for the first time in Vento Aureo, feels like it could've definitely been improved. Thank god for the absolutely stellar animation, though. Because holy hell.

Oh, and Giorno's still infected, but he... also pulls a bit of a bullshit from his ass, about how he turned a brick into a snake, and the snake is 'born' out of the Purple Haze virus, so it won't get sick and has the anti-venom/antibodies within its blood. Which is... what? Maybe part of it is because I have a medical background and this is just so far off from how actual acquired immunity works, but just because Giorno transforms a rock into a snake in an area bathed in poison doesn't mean that the snake has antibodies! That's just utterly ridiculous, honestly, and this sequence would've felt a lot better in any other way.

Still, we do get this arc over, with Fugo and the now-armless Abbacchio stating their respect towards Giorno. They get the key and return to Bucciarati... while the post-credits scene of this episode shows Risotto Nero, the leader of the execution squad, standing over a corpse. It's interesting, though, since if my memory's right we're not going to get him just yet. But hey.

Overall, while I really love Purple Haze, I do feel like this fight is probably one of my least favourites from Part V. It's subjective, though, and if nothing else, the animation studio's amazing work at bringing the action scenes to life and animating Purple Haze, Man in the Mirror and Moody Blues' effects is just utterly beautiful to behold. 

Pokemon: GENERATION EIGHT, SWORD AND SHIELD!

WOOOOOOOOO

And I thought the Detective Pikachu trailer was all I am going to have to talk about Pokemon this week. Or month. But apparently the announcement dropped earlier today that... hey, we got the eighth generation confirmed, complete with a trailer! No Sun and Moon announcement nonsense where it's just the title and a bunch of non-informative stuff for three months after the first announcement, either. We get a straight-up trailer!

The new region is apparently called Galar region, and it sort of has an interesting design where it's very... it's somewhat linear in a way, where it's this basically just a climb from the starting town on the south of a long continent and you make your way through the cooler parts of the region? We've never had something like this, I don't think, where most previous regions were laid out that you sort of do a rotation around a circle as you travel around the map. I'm not particularly sure what the actual inspiration for Galar is, though -- people are saying European, and I definitely could see it.


And, if nothing else, the god damned game's graphics look gorgeous. I'm slightly disappointed -- but not surprised -- that we're getting the same, identical 3D models that we've been having since X and Y, but I guess there's only so much you can do with 3D graphics without going straight into Detective Pikachu levels of attempted detail.

Like, look at the locales being shown! We've got a small farming town, some huge stadium, a misty forest, a bustling city (okay, yeah, that city does look London-y), a snowy scape, that pretty underground mine... perhaps the most intriguing is the shot at 0:50 in the trailer where there seem to be some bizarre markings carved onto the side of the hill, like alien crop circles or something. Just Deoxys having a lark, or maybe something genuinely new?

I also do like that the specific shots that they chose seemed to highlight people's worries about Let's Go. Wild battles are still a thing, so the games are not 'dumbed down' like the Let's Go games. I love Let's Go, but I also don't want them to be anything more than a one-off. I do find it a bit of a shame that neither partner Pokemon following you from behind nor Pokemon in the overworld are a thing. I had genuinely expected one of those two to be carried over to the mainline series... boo.

At least we do know that Pokemon from all generations are going to be around, with the trailer showing an eclectic selection of Pokemon from all generations. We've got Pikachu, of course, but we also have representatives from basically every single generation briefly glimpsed throughout the battles, so that's nice. I really do hope that the selection won't be quite as bare-bones as Sun and Moon were, and that it's more akin to XY. 


Most important, though, and probably one that is most relevant to everyone, is the revelation of the three starters, and... and I'm not the biggest fan? I don't flat-out hate any of them, I think, but I do feel like these feel a bit off to me. I don't know... it's less than an hour since I saw the trailer, but my gut feeling tells me that I'm probably only going to enjoy the water starter, Sobble, which is basically a shoo-in. Although being an adorable little shy gecko creature, he's already a shoo-in for me regardless of what the other two choices are. I don't super-love him yet, but I'll let him grow on to me the way previous starters did. That face, in particular, is pretty precious, and I do like his little... chameleon ability? That's cool, even if it's not something that's actually going to affect actual gameplay.

And not to hate on the other two, but I just find them kind of... they're just there? Scorbunny, the fire starter, was the first one we see, and he's a strange example where I think the official 2D art actually makes him look more charming than the 3D model. Usually, and especially with Generation VI and VII Pokemon, it's the other way around, where I see the official artwork and go "uhhh" before looking at the Pokemon's in-game model and going "shit, I like this". That was my reaction to Florges, to Zygarde, to Alolan Muk, and a bunch of others I'm sure is documented elsewhere in this blog. But I look at Scorbunny and I just feel like he's a 3D mascot for a cheap commercial, y'know? I'm really not feeling him, and he's a design that I think would grow on me through watching the anime or reading manga featuring him. (He does lend credence to the Chinese Zodiac Fire-starter theory deal, huh?)

Grookey is a bit cuter, being a baby chimp. Certainly a cuter-looking baby monkey than Pansage, but I've never been the biggest fan of monkeys. That's more on me and less on Grookey, though, and he's easily my second-favourite in the bunch. I don't have a whole ton to say about him.

And the logos for the Sword & Shield game are... interesting? I'm not sure if the wolf-like crests are just an artistic style, or if we're actually getting wolf legendaries. They kinda look the same for both logos, so I assume it's the former rather than the latter.

Ultimately I'm just still very happy to see a new Pokemon game, and hope we get more concrete details in the days to come! Honestly, I'm in a huge Pokemon mood right now after the dual trailers of Sword and Shield and the Detective Pikachu movie. I'll whip up something to recap my progress through Let's Go Pikachu, and then we'll see if I can't do some Pokemon-related reviews.

Reviewing Monsters: The Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim, Part 2 [Humanoids, Undead & Daedra]

Part two of my commentary-slash-review of all the monsters and enemies in Skyrim! This time we're going to be covering the undead, the daedra and the humanoid enemies -- not all of the humanoid enemies, mind you. You have to understand that Skyrim is a game where you can basically fight anyone you want, attack anyone you want, and a lot of the humanoids are just generated from templates, so I'm not going to obsessively cover every single permutation possible, just the most common humanoid enemies. After all, we're still going to have to talk about the expansions, which have a lot more interesting enemies!
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Draugr:

Undead enemies are a staple in any self-respecting fantasy-themed video game, and I can count on one hand the amount of fantasy games that I've played that didn't feature undead in some way. Instead of zombies, though, the nordic-themed Skyrim features draugr, which are based on actual phantom-revenants from Norse mythology. While Skyrim does admittedly contradict itself a couple of times by having some necromancers creating draugrs, for the most part, draugr are consistently shown as mummified, dessicated living corpses of the ancient Nordic warriors. Some of them are followers of the ancient dragon cult,  which is why the dragons' return brought them back to life, but a good amount of them are just, well, the corpses in Nordic barrows that have been reanimated in some way or another.

The most common sort of dungeon variant in Skyrim are the Nordic barrows -- understandable, considering the large Nordic presence in the continent, so you will meet a lot of these undead folk. And while they're relatively simple, they're definitely well-crafted undead mummy-wight-knight things. I do love their glowing blue eyes and the  attention given to making sure they do look like a mummified, petrified corpse instead of just a freshly-killed fleshy zombie. Throw in some unique armour sets that only the draugr use, and they do have a certain identity to them.

I also like how a lot of them basically hide in alcoves or sacrophagi, waiting until you pass them and disturb them, causing them to step out from their hiding. More horrifying is that not all the corpses in a nordic barrow are actually draugr enemies, and some are just actual corpses, but you don't really know until you get close enough. The variants are Draugr Thrall, Draugr, Restless Draugr (those three basically are very lightly armoured), Draugr Overlord, Draugr Wight, Draugr Wight Lord, Draugr Scourge, Draugr Scourge Lord, Draugr Deathlord and Draugr Death Overlord.

Despite being generic faceless mooks, the draugr are actually very varied. You can find draugrs that use bow and arrows, summon ice golems, wield two-handed axes and more all over the dungeons, and these humanoid enemies basically work off similar stats to the other NPC's in the world. The more powerful ones -- the Overlords and Wight Lords and Scourge Lords and Death Lords -- are actually able to use dragon shots, which makes sense considering, well, they're part of the dragon cult. Granted, their shouts tend to be pretty simple ones, basically just Unrelenting Force, Frost Breath and Disarm... but that's basically as much variation as the dragons themselves, and I honestly find Disarm to be far, far more disorienting and damaging than anything the actual dragons ever use.

Anyway, they're pretty neat ambulatory corpses.

Skeleton:

Actual, normal, bona-fide skeletons actually still do exist in Skyrim, and tend to be the absolute weakest of all undead. They can potentially hit hard, but they tend to fall down very easily. Skeletons tended to be found alongside draugr and necromancers, and.... well, they're skeletons! There's not much for me to say here. Skeleton enemies are neat, and definitely add some variation to the undead enemies in a draugr dungeon. Honestly, I do wish they had added more variations to the undead.

I do love the fact that your Unrelenting Force shout just doesn't affect the Skeleton, though, with the force of the air just going through the Skeleton's ribcages harmlessly. That is hilarious.

"Zombie"/"Revenant"

In previous games like Oblivion, the most common sort of base undead, other than skeleton, are just straight-up zombies, which use a unique model and have their own stats. In Skyrim, though, necromancy just straight-up resurrects the dead corpse you point at and brings them back to life as an unthinking meat shield for a period of time -- the spells that you (or an enemy necromancer) cast on the corpse basically does a check for the corpse's power level when it's still a living thing, and depending on the power of the spell, it may or may not work.

It's honestly one of the more interesting ways to deal with necromancy from an in-game mechanic, because most other fantasy games basically just turns corpses into a pre-existing zombie or skeleton template. This actually makes it matter if you bring back the life of some random farmer or one of the more powerful draugr warriors or bears. Yes, you can reanimate draugr, too -- you're basically infusing them with a different sort of necromantic magic, I think. And these "zombies" or "revenants" or "thralls" will basically disintegrate into dust after the magic has ran their course. Pretty simple overall, but at the same time, I'm a huge fan of how this works. Definitely adds some spice to actual  battle against necromancers where they will straight-up resurrect their fallen allies and keeping the same original power they had.

Also, sometimes it'll lead to hilarious "silly AI" moments, especially if you travel with Serana or any other companion that can cast necromancy spells, where instead of resurrecting more powerful bandits or draugr they'll choose to resurrect the corpse of the Skeever nearby.

Ghost:

I genuinely forgot these guys exist, actually, until I took a list of all enemies from Skyrim and went "oh, right, ghosts." Significantly more rare than the skeletons and draugrs, ghosts are only found in specific undead or neccromancer dungeons, and are basically just your regular NPC's with some ghostly dialogue and they drop some ghost-specific loot. I think they're also 100% immune to non-magical weaponry? I've never ran into this problem in Skyrim myself (I did in Oblivion, where ghosts show up a lot earlier and a lot more frequently). It's neat, although I really wished they had done more with the ghosts instead of doing the same old "regular NPCs put through a filter" deal like they did with the revenant/zombies. Oblivion straight-up gave ghosts a distinct, separate model! That's one of my bigger problems with Skyrim's undead. The first couple of times you delve into a draugr dungeon it's cool as all hell, but after your fifth or sixth you basically have seen them all.

Corrupted Shade

See, Skyrim? Unique-looking undead aren't that hard to make! Except these Corrupted Shades only appear in exactly one dungeon in original Skyrim (and a second one in a DLC), despite being so, so much cooler than the "transparent human" ghost. Look at this thing! It's a skeleton with glowing eyes, with its body covered in mist, and some models not even having legs. It's a shame that these are apparently unique undead that are created by a quest-specific villain in Meridia's Daedric Quest, and using this model, in my opinion, could've spiced up a lot of the undead dungeons that dot the land.

Dragon Priest

Basically the 'bosses' of the undead, the Dragon Priests are basically the Liches of the setting, taking over from, well, Liches in all previous Elder Scroll games. The Dragon Priests, as you'll find out in exploring some of the larger nordic tombs, are the servitors of the ancient, cruel dragon overlords, and are powerful magicians that are heavily implied to be behind why all the corpses in Nordic ruins walk up and attack trespassers. In the original Skyrim game, there are eight particularly powerful Dragon Priests -- Hevnoraak, Krosis, Morokei, Nahkriin, Rahgot, Otar, Volsung and Vokun -- spread all over the land of Skyrim. Some of them, like Morokei and Nahkriin, are part of larger questlines and you will encounter them, while it takes some work finding the others. Each of these named Dragon Priests cover their skeletal faces with magical masks, which honestly looks quite cool!

The various lore in their tombs tell us that these Dragon Priests have basically done profane rituals to keep their intelligence and personalities even beyond death. Some of them sacrificed the entire cult following them, some of them create draugr with the express purpose of siphoning away their energies to feed their undead state... and I really do love that the dragon priests tend to be pretty difficult fights. They are powerful spellcasters that unleash insanely destructive magical attacks, can buff themselves, and that's when they're not placed in a room with multiple Draugr Deathlords ready to fuck you up and act as the dragon priest's tanks. The combination of lore and general coolness of their design easily makes the Dragon Priets one of my favourite enemies in the game.

Vampire;

Ah, vampires! A staple of the Elder Scrolls game, vampirism is something that you, the character,  can acquire after fighting a vampire and suffering from a disease that slowly progresses over time until you transform into a vampire. And vampirism is a unique mechanic in Skyrim. It depends on how much you've fed, and the hungrier you are, the more vampiric powers you have access too... but at the same time, the more a vampire's weaknesses will affect you.

The enemy vampires are basically just, again, the same sort of humanoid enemies, just given equipment and some additional health-draining and invisibility spells that are thematic to vampires. And, of course, the whole "can pass on vampirism" deal. It's a bit of a shame, honestly, that they ended up being so boring, although at least Skyrim's level designers never miss a chance to make vampire dungeons be as gore-filled as possible. Variants include Vampire Fledgling, Blooded Vampire, Vampire Mistwalker, Vampire Nightstalker, Ancient Vampire, Volkihar Vampire and Master Vampire. That "Volkihar" moniker ends up being a bit of a nice foreshadowing to Skyrim's first expansion pack, which greatly expands on the lore of the vampires! Which we'll cover later.

Also, actual vampires are often accompanied with Vampire Thralls, which are basically just random bandit schmucks they have, well, enthralled. It's a neat, clever way to throw in some weaker enemies into the mix while having flavour. Some vampires even keep spiders as pet, which is charming!

Flame Atroanchs

Daedra now! So the Daedra are the Elder Scrolls' universe version of demons, although they work on their own unique mythology -- Daedra all come from a realm outside of Nirn, the mortal plane, and are summoned onto this world with conjuration magic and the like. Sometimes they break free of their summoner's control and can just do whatever they please in the mortal plane, sometimes they are just summoned for a brief bit. It's more akin to elementals in D&D or Warcraft more than actual demons -- it's just that some Daedra behave a lot like demons. Daedra are a huge portion of the previous game, Oblivion, where the daedric prince Mehrunes Dagon's attempted destruction and invasion of Nirn is the main plotline of the story. 

Anyway, this is the Flame Atronach, one of the three Atronach variants, and are the most commonly found enemy for magician enemies to summon. You can find Flame Atronachs in the wild, but they're rare. I really do love the look of Skyrim's Flame Atronach. The body is humanoid and female, yes, but the way the features are outlined with a combination of burning flame and molten slag, with an awesome eyeless face that still has a nose and mouth moulded into that black slag-like thing for some reason... pretty cool design! They also float over the ground, which is cool. Flame Atronachs are basically the "speedy cannon" of the three Atronachs, being the cheapest to summon, but also the most fragile and weakest of the three. Overall, though? Easily one of my favourite designs, and comparing Skyrim's redesign of the Flame Atronach to previous versions of the Atronach? There's no contest.

Frost Atronach

In contrast to their fiery sisters, Frost Atronachs are slow, lumbering, but insanely durable. They fight on close range, whacking people with their arms while emitting an aura that slows them down. I'm also a huge, huge design of the Frost Atronach here, looking like a chunk of an icy mountain or an iceberg just decided to get up and walk. From the vaguely humanoid body and the lack of a face, to the two gigantic, crude club-like hands, to the stumpy legs, there's just something so utterly charming about the Frost Atronachs. In most of my Skyrim runs, I always tended to have "Conjure Frost Atronach" hotkeyed as one of my favourite spells -- the Frost Atronach doesn't just make for a good tank, but its huge size just straight-up blocks a lot of arrows and spells that could've gone your way. 

Pretty cool giant ice dude! Also, all three Atronachs come in three variants -- Atronach, Potent Atronach and Thrall -- which basically are the same thing with differing stats. 

Storm Atronach

Sadly, the most powerful of the Atronach trio, the Storm Atronach... looks pretty dumb. I kind of get what they're going for here, this spinning embodiment of a tornado or a storm, with a bunch of rocks floating in the middle to approximate a humanoid torso and a head (with a carved face), but I honestly wished they had gone through with either making this look more storm-like, or more humanoid. It's especially galling when comparing Skyrim's pretty pitiful-looking Storm Atronach to its Flame and Frost siblings, which look distinctive and cool. And comparing it to Bethesda's other takes on the Storm Atronach -- Oblivion's electrified stone golem that can split apart into a tornado of rocks, Online's far more badass take on a humanoid golem-like figure or even Morrowind's simple electrified golem, I really do think that Skyrim dropped the ball here. 

Fortunately, Storm Atronachs are pretty rare in the game, so unless you want to summon one of your own, you won't be seeing this dude a whole lot. 

Dremora:

Dremora are one of the most common enemies seen in Skyrim's predecessor, Oblivion, but are extremely rare in Skyrim. Some are found as enemies in specific Daedric Lord quests -- I distinctively remember some being involved in Mehrunes Dagon, Sanguine and Azura's quest, and you certainly can summon them, but they're pretty rare. They look pretty badass, though, revamped from their honestly kind of ugly model in Oblivion, trading in their old pixelated armour for some badass-looking spiky plated armour. Their faces also look a lot smoother, looking less like a snarling, angry man who's hit their head on a wall and more like Darth Maul's less-spiky cousins. 

The voice acting for the Dremoras are also especially charming in their intense hamminess, and I love them. "A CHALLENGER IS NEAR!" For what's essentially just humanoids with face tattoos, horns and armour, these are admittedly pretty cool demon-men. 

Werewolf

I could've included werewolves with the monsters, but since they're just flat-out transformed humans, I'll add them here. Whereas vampirism is a pretty annoyingly complex affair where you have to manage the pros and cons of your hunger and your abilities, as well as staying out of the sun at times, werewolves just give you a huge boost to your attack and defense and speed at the cost of disabling the use of items. The two are, of course, mutually exclusive. The werewolf storyline ends up being a huge, huge quest line for the Companions, taking the place of the Fighter's Guild of previoous games. 

Werewolves as enemies are a wee bit more rare, although they certainly do show up a fair bit here and there. Non-plot-relevant werewolves actually do have some pretty  badass names -- Werewolf Savage, Werewolf Brute, Werewolf Skinwalker, Werewolf Beastmaster and Werewolf Vargr. Enemy werewolves are programmed to show up a bit more often with the two DLC's. Anyway, I do like the werewolf model. It's not the best-looking wolf-man out there, but it certainly is monstrous, capturing the savagery of the wolf side while having the gangly proportions and musculature of the human side. 

Bandits:

We're going to blaze through these humanoid enemies pretty quickly, because I don't have much to say about them. One of the most common enemy types in Skyrim are the Bandits and their variants (Bandit Outlaw, Bandit Thug, Bandit Highwayman, Bandit Plunderer, Bandit Marauder, Bandit Chief) which just hang out in forts, camps and random streets, and some of the most common ones that respawn. They can be of any race, can be of any specialty, and tend to just have whatever sort of armour is the most appropriate for your levels at that time. Some even try to shake you down for money!

Anyway, a neat aspect of the game for sure, but not one that leaves me a lot to talk about.

Forsworn:

The Forsworn are a group of witch-men that are found on the Western side of Skyrim, basically being a bunch of savage, shamanistic people that worship the 'old gods' and just terrorize the good people of the Reach, intending to reclaim the land for themselves. They would've been just another batch of angry terrorists, but damn if they have some style! The fur armour and deer antlers they have, as well as the clearly patched-together-from-bones weaponry look pretty damn distinctive. 

But the Forsworn would just be basically a bunch of shaman/cannibal-flavoured bandits if not for one specific part of their lore -- they actually work with Hagravens and seem to venerate them, and the Hagravens have transformed some their most powerful warriors into Forsworn Briarhearts, which are insanely powerful warrior-mages, and, as their name suggests, have had their hearts replaced with a "Briarheart", which looks like a weird heart-shaped flower. Interestingly, the game actually classifies these Briarhearts as undead, despite still  looking pretty flesh-and-bone. Definitely a pretty cool, if underutilized, aspect of the Forsworn culture. These witch-men are definitely pretty neat, honestly, and while I was pretty annoyed with them at first, I've definitely grown to appreciate them as enemies with a distinct flavour.

Mages:

The other sort of common enemies are the mages, coming in five different flavours -- conjurers, which tend to summon atronachs and just attack from a distance; ice mages; fire mages; storm mages (all three do what you expect them to do) and Necromancers, who raise the dead. Out of them, the necromancers are obviously the most numerous in Skyrim, acting as enemies alongside the undead or vampires. All five mage variants come in Novice, Apprentice, Adept, regular, Master and Arch subtypes depending on what level you meet them at.

Not much to say again, here, I'm only including them here due to the relatively large amount of them in Skyrim as enemies. There are a lot of other humanoid enemies I'm not going to even cover here, by the way. Generic Thieves, hags, witches, hunters, the afflicted... just quest-specific enemies. And that's not even taking into consideration bosses and named enemies!

Stormcloak & Empire

One of the more memorable aspects of Skyrim is the addition of the political Civil War, and the insanely gray area in just who is in the right and who is in the wrong. I can go all day defending and condemning both sides, and I'm not going to. Both Stormcloak and Imperial soldiers tend to just exist in melee warrior and archer variants. I'm a huge, huge fan of the quasi-roman leather armour of the Imperials, as well as the pretty badass full-face mask and that fancy sash that the Stormcloaks have. If nothing else, at least their armour all look pretty cool!

Thalmor:

Acting as the greater-scope villain of Skyrim, the Thalmor isn't an organization that you actually fight -- you disrupt some of their schemes, and end up killing a fair amount of their agents in Skyrim, but that's like killing a small regiment of a huge army. Long story short, it's the Thalmor's war against a weakened Empire that basically forces the Empire to do some political decisions that ended up alienating a huge amount of Skyrim's residents. Damn elves!

The Thalmor tend to be magic-wielders, and have some very distinguishable black-and-gold robes. Melee versions exist, too, wearing a unique variant of elven armour,  but they also fight with magical swords. Not much to say about their design here. The armour pieces look pleasant.

And... and that's it for now. There's a lot of other humanoid enemies, yes, but considering I have pretty much nothing else to say about most of them, we'll just smile and move along. We'll cover Dawnguard next time, 

Gotham S05E03 Review: Penguin Our Hero, Knows No Fear-O

Gotham, Season 5, Episode 3: Penguin, Our Hero

An... an interesting episode of Gotham, I think. It's definitely stronger than the previous episode in that I really felt like the events of this episode mattered a lot more instead of just "do a couple of side-quests", but that might just be because of my personal enjoyment of the Penguin more than anything.

The episode opens up with the wacky happenings in Penguinland, with the utterly hilarious choir singing a ridiculous Penguin anthem. "O Penguin, our hero! He knows, no fear-o!" And Penguin is furious at his secretary, Mr. Penn, that apparently a lot of Penguin's subjects are defecting to Jim Gordon because of all the rumours going around that Gordon has founded Haven. And so many of Penguin's organization has defected that during lunch later on, the angry members of the Street Demons gang (who we learn last episode has been killed by someone claiming to be Penguin) attack Penguin, while he lampshades just how stupid it was to kill just a bunch of the gang while leaving around his call card instead of just wiping them all out in one go.

Of course, Penguin being a gigantic dick to everyone ends up with Mr. Penn, his choir, and every single member of his men defecting to Gordon. Including Edward the dog, and everyone talking about Edward the dog "going willingly" is just utterly hilarious. Penguin ends up working with the Street Demons dude that he imprisoned, conscripting it and the other gangs into his army to basically bring back his people from Haven.

Of course, Gordon's men are running out of both food and ammunition, and when the inevitable confrontation happens, Penguin calls Gordon's bluff and the GCPD policemen actually do run out of bullets. Penguin and the Street Demons take over Haven, and... and it's kind of surprising that they don't just kill all the cops or whatever. But during an argument between Penguin and the Street Demons, turns out that when Penguin doesn't actually have anyone actually loyal to him, the Street Demons just end up being utterly done with his shit, and just steal all of his guns. Oh, and Mr. Penn gets shot to death. Poor Mr. Penn. He didn't manage to do much, does he?

Penguin and Gordon find themselves stuck in the same prison cell, but one of the orphans that Gordon befriended earlier in the episode help them escape by slipping them a key. This somehow leads to Gordon managing to free every single GCPD member off-screen, and get enough guns to take down the Street Demons. It's... it's honestly kind of clumsy writing, honestly, and the sheeple, seeing Penguin shooting the Street Demons leader, hail Penguin as their saviour. Really? Like, I get that the whole point of the episode is sort of showing just how unstable the people of Gotham's allegiances are, jumping from Gordon to Penguin very quickly and that hope speeches aren't received as well right after a gang invasion. But I dunno. It's weird.

Oh, we get to see Bullock attempting to get Barbara's help earlier in the episode, and basically the magic word to get Barbara to lend her help is the fact that Penguin is invading. Barbara shows up at the end of the episode wanting to murder Penguin while Gordon tries to stop Barbara from killing Penguin in Haven... but then the entire apartment complex just explodes and gets shot straight to hell, and that is a legitimate plot twist that I wasn't expecting, and actually justifies the abrupt and rapid set-up of Haven as a location last episode. There's so many unknown players in place right now that I don't really want to speculate who's behind this (presumably the same dude that bazooka'd the Wayne helicopter in episode one) but it's definitely a neat plot twist!

Meanwhile, despite her bizarre deus ex plant recovery, Selina basically gets to become a lot more aggressive in this episode, while still maintaining her sanity. I do like that they didn't just go the route of Flash's Killer Frost and have an alternate personality take over, because this way it is Selina actually consciously choosing to do the things she does. Selina and Bruce go off to hunt down Jeremiah with a nice little scene of Selina telling Bruce that she is "not yours to lose", and she's doing this whether he wants to help or not. They go to the Dark Zone, where apparently all of the maniacs live. We get to see some of the victims of the Dark Zone, with a dude that gets "KILL ME" carved into his flesh with some genuinely good prosthetics, and some dude that gets tied up and has a bomb strapped to him before blowing up and sending a shower of nails flying everywhere.

Selina and Bruce fight some of the punks, including one that is based off of the Mutant Leader from that Elseworlds comic the Dark Knight Returns, and Selina is... extremely brutal, continuing to pound and wail on the dude's face even after he gives Jeremiah's location to her. We get Bruce using a grapple line to stop Selina's fist in a pretty cool moment, and Selina at least listens to Bruce at this point.

They investigate the location and find out that Ms. Ecco, Jeremiah's little silent Harley Quinn-esque minion, has apparently became super-crazy and is leading a Cult of Jeremiah. It's definitely a fucked-up scene as she basically has everyone to play in a weird, insane game of Russian Roulette where they shoot others around them in some fucked-up ritual that Selina sort of joins in to try and get to Jeremiah... but she doesn't quite go that far to pull the trigger. And Ecco talks a lot about how their 'salvation' in Jeremiah seem like insanity to normal folk. And... and it is kind of a bizarre, insane cult that Ecco is running, because I genuinely can't see how this makes for good recruits. But I guess what Jeremiah wants are just maniacs.

We learn that Ecco apparently became insane thanks to playing the Russian Roulette game, and the bullet's still rattling in her brain. We get her pulling the gun on her head multiple times and, god, I really didn't pay any attention to Ecco in season four, but her actress really plays insanity really well, huh? Ecco pushes Selina's buttons as they fight, leading to Selina holding a gun at Ecco's head just as Bruce arrives. Bruce intervenes, causing Ecco to escape, and this leads to Selina and Bruce having an argument before Selina goes off on her own to hunt down Jeremiah.

Ultimately, I really, really like the Bruce/Selina stuff. Not so much how we got there because I still think the magic seed is handled poorly, but the character interaction between the two is definitely well-done. And while on paper I did enjoy the plot developments with Penguin and Gordon both trying to appeal to different parts of the sheep-people of Gotham, the execution in this episode is honestly somewhat suspect. It's still a fun enough episode, though.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Ms. Ecco (now called "Mummer", according to interviews) is continuing to grow into the show's version of Harley Quinn. In addition to her attire, she briefly uses the term "puddin", which is pretty much something associated with Harley Quinn.
• The shirtless punk with a funky visor that Selina beats up is visually inspired by the Mutant Leader, one of the villains in the what-if future story The Dark Knight Returns, an award winning graphic novel. His gangster minions also wear the same orange visor that the Mutant gang uses in TDKR.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S04E12 Review: A Summer Disregard, A Broken Bottle Top

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Vento Aureo, Episode 12: The Second Order From The Boss

This is a bit of a hard episode to do a review for, and I'm not exactly sure why, if I'm being honest. Again, it's an episode that I end up splitting into two parts, which I guess is actually sort of praise for the episode itself? It means that it gives me a lot to talk about.

Anyway, after a bit of Araki-style trivia moment by telling us Pompeii's backstory, we get some neat little dynamics between Giorno, Fugo and Abbacchio. It's clear that from the way these past few episodes are progressing that it's going to be Fugo's turn in the spotlight this time around, which is pretty fair -- both Stardust Crusaders and Diamond is Unbreakable do also start its first half by highlighting its secondary cast. I do love the fact that Abbacchio is still being kind of a prick towards Giorno. Sure, they fought those enemies on the boat together, but Abbacchio also notes that he still doesn't quite trust Giorno fully, and that he's still a greenhorn.

And in a hilarious call-back to a line said by Kakyoin in Stardust Crusaders about mirror stands, it turns out that he was utterly wrong and that there is a Stand that involves a world in a mirror, which is Illuso's Stand, Man in the Mirror. Again, just like the fight against Formaggio, this arc involves what's essentially a repeat of a Stand power we've seen before, but done in a far more creative way. Man in the Mirror and Hanged Man, on paper, are basically the same concept. Mirror powers. But the two of them are executed so differently, and it's pretty dang creative, actually.

As the Giorno trio walk down Pompeii's deserted ruins, Fugo ends up being the only person able to see Illuso's figure lurking in the mirror's reflection (giving us some Death 13 vibes, too), walking ominously towards them... when suddenly Giorno and Abbacchio apparently disintegrates. Except it's the other way around, and it's Fugo that gets pulled into a mirrored version of reality. Fugo quickly figures this out, which Illuso attributes to Fugo being a prodigy as far as intelligence is concerned. And, again, tying into the Death 13 vibes, Fugo ends up not being able to summon his Stand inside the mirror world, despite Fugo hyping up his Stand as something that will for-sure kill any who witness it.

Turns out that Purple Haze manifests in the real world, and that Illuso can control what parts of a person enter the mirror world, noting that his Stand ain't worth shit in a fight, but has some really powerful abilities. Purple Haze is animated utterly beautifully, by the way, the way the scene of its first appearance is shot, the way it just shivers in place, its limbs and head just trembling eerily, and the general visual just looking like an utter madman with the foam in the mouth... hell, even the normally brusque Abbacchio ends up being scared shitless, telling Giorno to cut the bullshit and just walk slowly away from Purple Haze.

And this is where the episode decides to shove in Fugo's backstory, which actually is a neat way to tie it into Illuso's line about having 'read up on' Fugo, hinting that apparently Fugo beat the shit out of his high school professor with a 4-kilogram encyclopedia volume. Turns out that Fugo was born into a rich family and is a super-smart kid... but has fits of anger and impulses of violence, which comes to a head when he is met with an... overly friendly professor. And the way that scene is portrayed is utterly creepy, because the professor honestly just seems like an overly friendly teacher up until that one line, which isn't even delivered with the usual SINISTER FILTER that anime tends to like to do. So, yeah, turns out that professor douchebag is a pedophile and deserved a 4-kilogram encyclopedia to the skull.


Of course, just like the rest of Bucciarati's gang, this sequence of justifiable violence would lead to Fugo being disowned by society (well, his parents and schoolmates, at least), but Fugo ends up smart enough to basically bullshit his way out of being caught shoplifting by quoting law quotes. One meeting with Polpo's Stand arrow later, and Fugo's given a Stand....

Except said Stand, is, of course, Purple Haze. And in the present day, while Giorno and Abbacchio are arguing, interestingly Purple Haze ends up acting like a wild animal without Fugo's instructions, something that I don't think any Stand has ever done. We've seen Stands with their own personality (Echoes, Surface) and sentient, independent Stands (Anubis, Cheap Trick), but Purple Haze is interestingly implied to be like a man-child, something that is utterly confused without Fugo to instruct.

And it's portrayed well by the utterly unnerving (if admittedly a little hilarious) sequence of him drooling on his own leg, trying to clean it up, only to get his cuffs dirty... except Purple Haze's ability is that it has a particularly deadly, flesh-dissolving virus stored in the little bubbles on his knuckles, which is the nastiest set of knuckle-dusters ever. We get to see this in action when Purple Haze unleashes his virus and kills a crow, which proceeds to violently blow up. Abbacchio notes that the range is around 5 meters, and it will indiscriminately attack anything in its path. So like the Hulk, but instead of five tonnes of muscle it kills you with a flesh-eating virus.

Kudos, by the way, for the animation team for making the decomposition of the poor crows look utterly hideous. I've basically been harping about how pretty Part V's art direction is all season long so this might sound a bit repetitive, but it is very pretty.

The episode ends with the continuation of the Abbacchio/Giorno debate, with Abbacchio putting the mission first and noting that Fugo is still alive, and failing the mission would also be failing him... but Giorno is convinced that Fugo is still alive and fighting, noting that Purple Haze has punched the nearby mirror. The "To Be Continued" cliffhanger stops on Illuso about to murder Fugo.

It's... it's a neat episode, showing off one of my all-time favourite Stands, but it does feel like it doesn't really do much other than set up Man in the Mirror and Purple Haze. A solid episode, with some really great animation for Purple Haze.

The JoJo Playlist:

• Purple Haze is named after the iconic Jimi Hendrix song, Purple Haze. It will do more than just blow your mind in JoJo-land.  
• Man in the Mirror, of course, is a reference to the iconic Michael Jackson song, Man in the Mirror. Which, despite its utterly villainous role in JoJo, is actually about starting with the man in the mirror and asking him to change his ways. 

Black Lightning S02E13 Review: Meta Hunt

Black Lightning, Season 2, Episode 13: Pillar of Fire

Maybe it's my own personal genre preferences, but I really couldn't care all that much for a lot of the B-plot drama in this episode. Part of it is my disdain at the storylines basically being stretched out so much throughout the season, but another part is just that I genuinely feel like a lot of them are just distractions from the genuinely interesting things going on in this episode.

Still, I do actually mostly have a positive opinion about this episode, because the B-plots distracting Anissa, Jennifer and Jefferson from the actual supervillain attacks happening in the final act of this episode is a genuine plot point, and I do feel that at least Jennifer and Jefferson's B-plots are probably the best material that either of those plotlines have produced.

Anyway, two of the biggest overarching storylines happening here is the fight over the pod kids. Lynn confronts Agent Odell about what the shit is going on, and under threat of leaving the project, Odell finally tells Lynn about how the Markovians have a strict "if you're not with us" policy, subtly hinting that even Black Lightning and Freeland's other superheroes might very well be the next targets of the Markovian agents. I'm not sure if Odell genuinely knows of the Pierce family's secret or if he's just taking the local superhero as an example, but it does throw in an additional wrinkle into the status quo. I like it.

Meanwhile, dr. Jace has provided Tobias with just enough serum to wake the Masters of Disaster up, and a Suicide Squad style control watch that disable the brain instead of blowing it up. Tobias randomly picks one of the four (Jace smartly provides just one serum to keep herself continually useful), and we get Marcus "Shakedown" Bishop, a metahuman with the ability to generate vibrational shockwaves. We get a pretty cool brief battle between Cutter and Shakedown, the demonstration of Shakedown's powers, the subsequent demonstration of Tobias's control switch, and then Tobias basically recruits Shakedown into his organization with one of your typical Tobias Whale speeches. It's neat. Tobias also learns that the ASA is planning to move the pod kids, and since that might potentially break the briefcase's connection from the pods, decides to sic Shakedown and Cutter onto the ASA facility. That doesn't happen until the final part of the episode, though.

Meanwhile, Lynn continues with her struggles at the ASA. It hasn't really been the most interesting part of the show, but we do get some decent material between Lynn's arguments with Odell, and her clear conflict at being so close to a breakthrough to permanently cure the kids (using Looker's... silver goop-thing? That can't be safe), and really wants to do so instead of just kowtowing to the ASA's attempts to move the kids out. I'm genuinely not sure why Lynn doesn't just wait until the kids are safely at their new facility and why she is so intent on giving the cure right now asap, but it does put her and Wendy "Windfall" Hernandez out of the way of the actual attack. I dunno. I like Lynn's story and I like bringing Windfall back, but the way we reach this plot point is a bit bizarre.

Also, during Cutter and Shakedown's attack on the ASA facility, Jace... initiates lockdown on the medical bay that Lynn and Windfall are in. I'm not sure if Jace is trying to lock the two of them in so they don't escape, or if she's trying to protect Lynn from Team Tobias out of some sort of twisted respect for her, but it does give a fair bit of depth to Helga Jace that the show hasn't afforded her in previous appearances. I do also like the wrinkle that while Shakedown seems fine to hang out with Tobias at the moment, he knows Jace is the one who fucked him and his fellow MOD's over. He's on a leash for now, but it's interesting to see how this internal friction within Team Tobias is going to last.

Speaking of internal friction, apparently Tobias and Cutter are now lovers again or something? Also, the final scene implies that they're cutting off loose ends and blowing up Todd, all 'outlived your usefulness' villain way, but the way the scene was shot conspicuously doesn't show us Todd's face which leads me to think that he's probably not actually in that car and probably still in the game in some way.

Black Lightning and Thunder would show up after being briefly distracted by their respective B-plots (which we'll cover later) to rescue Lynn and Windfall, and we learn that Team Tobias has basically absconded with every single pod kid, dr. Jace, and killed the facility's guards. Gambi and Hendersen, at least, throughout the episode, manages to find out about Tobias stealing the Masters of Disaster pods, so there's that one information victory for the good guys.

So! Let's talk about the B-plots of this episode. Anissa's the one I'm going to go over the fastest, because it's the one I genuinely don't really care about. Anissa goes in pretty deep in trying to figure out where Grace has gone, partly due to some paranoia thanks to her superheroing life. It honestly drags on for a bit too long, leading to her and Gambi to eventually figure out that 'Grace Choi' is a pseudonym, that she was abducted from her family and sold to a child prostitution ring, and something about a schizophrenia pill.

Meanwhile, Jeff gets what seems to be the last time we see this drama in Garfield High for now. The protest that Jennifer did in the previous episode to Principal Lowry's dickishness ended up going viral and since the whole point of firing Jeff is for PR reasons, the finicky board of directors end up wanting to fire Lowry and bring Jeff in. But a brief talk with a random student (everyone is basically pro-Jeff) ends up with the question "where's your second chance, Mr. Pierce?" I do like that it seems to be building up to Jeff getting redeemed because the hero is always right, but Jeff ends up actually introspecting himself and realizing that Lowry's angry words -- that he wasn't there for the school when they needed him -- ends up ringing true for Jefferson.

And frankly, and I'm impressed at the show for now actually rubbing it in our faces, is the question about where Mr. Lowry's second chance is. Jeff talks this whole talk about Lowry kicking people out to the curb if they cross the line, while Jeff cares about how people are after they get kicked out. It's something that's genuinely interesting that we, as an audience, is probably pretty ready to cheer for the racist to exit, stage left, but what about Lowry's future? Doesn't he deserve to change and get a second chance to become better? It's actually a decision that Jeff takes that honestly shows that he is the bigger man, that he acknowledges his own mistakes and also willing to give others a second chance. Plus, the whole 'you don't give Garfield High 100%' rings true when Jeff walks out of the school and gets Lynn's call about the ASA attack.

Mind you, a smarter solution is probably to put Napier or one of the other teachers in the principal position and keep Lowry around as, oh, discipline head or something, instead of "hey, keep the asshole around", but eh, whatever. I think it kinda works. Hopefully this is the last of the principal plot we see for now, though, because while it's neat in small doses, I don't want it to keep popping up every episode.

Meanwhile, Jennifer's storyline... it's in two parts, really. Her scenes this episode is capped off by various people realizing that Jennifer's power is insanely powerful, with Jeff and Gambi comparing her to an unstable nuclear bomb, with her power eclipsing that of Black Lightning's, and convenient exposition machine Pereena telling Jen that she can literally explode due to her emotions.

The other side of the story is her really wanting vengeance for Khalil, and she ends up, of course, going in half-cocked and masquerading as Anissa's Blackbird persona and beating up punks and demanding them tell her where Tobias is. Being completely inexperienced in vigilantism, this ends up with Jennifer getting overwhelmed in the next stop, although thankfully Anissa knows enough about her sister's little vendetta quest to quickly catch up. That scene with Jennifer fighting the punks is actually a pretty fun little action sequence, and I absolutely love that after Anissa saves Jennifer, she immediately assumes that the call from Jefferson is for their dad to yell at them... only to panic even more when Jeff's actually calling for backup.

It's a neat bit that really portrays the sense of escalation, that they really can't afford to dick around with running off fueled by teenage impulses or being distracted by a day job when the villains are really ratcheting things up. And that's without the Markovians going around abducting them, either! Tobias ends up the unquestioned victor of this episode, ending up with Shakedown, dr. Jace and a whole ton of pod kids and declaring himself the new metahuman arms dealer. Pretty neat episode, honestly -- if handled a bit differently I'd probably complain about the B-plots being a huge distraction, but I do think that it's a pretty well-done episode personally.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• We talked a bit about the Masters of Disaster in a previous episode, but this episode marks the debut of one of the members, Shakedown, who like his comic-book counterpart is able to generate vibrations to imitate earthquakes (all five members of the comics' Masters of Disaster have powers based on natural disasters). 
• The details are slightly different, and the Shay Lee Wylde name is not from the comics, but the gist of Grace's backstory is pretty similar to how it is in the comics. 

Arrow S07E11 Review: Trademark-Friendly Suicide Squad

Arrow, Season 7, Episode 11: Past Sins

It's an all right episode, but I'm not sure how much of that stems from me really liking the continuity nods and geeking out at the past villains showing up in the Suicide Squad (I'm going to keep calling it that) segment. There's also a nice lack of flash-forward scenes in this episode, and at this point I can probably say that Arrow's flash-forwards do nothing for me. 

Let's talk about the Oliver storyline first, where his conversation with Emiko went over really, really badly -- although in Oliver's case, he was being insistent and kind of a dick. Which... which honestly feels a bit weird to me, considering Oliver was all wishy-washy on whether he even has the right to meet Emiko after all the crap his shitty parents pulled. And that's the theme of the episode, I guess -- the Queen parents are kind of shitty people, as Emiko's not the only 'past sin' from Oliver's parents to come back and haunt him. 

The villain of the week is a dude called Sam Hackett, the son of Hackett the bodyguard that Robert Queen shot and killed in the very first episode of the series, which... which is an honestly pretty great call-back! This was something that was brought up to our attention during that prison psychologist scene, which is neat-o, and apparently all of the supposedly-censored records ended up being discovered by Sam Hackett, who's out of revenge. 

We get a pretty standard but well-executed 'go and track down the villain before he kills the hostage' sequence for the first two-thirds of the episode, with Oliver angsting on just how much his family's fucked up and that his family destroys everything it touches. Although, as Oliver himself rightly points out, never giving Hackett's family any closure is kind of an oversight on his part. Even if Oliver had wanted to hide Robert's murder for selfish reasons, at least tell Hackett's family that, yeah, he totally died of starvation or something, I dunno. And Dinah is kind of a character that's honestly been pretty bland to me after the whole Vigilante situation was over with, but she's being a pretty great, supporting friend in this season. I liked that. 

The final act of this storyline ends up with Sam Hackett taking the SCPD building hostage with some electrical-charged trap, which is a pretty fun minor supervillain thing to do, and I do like the pretty cheesy scene with Oliver basically letting his fate in the hands of Star City's good policemen, having faith that they'll do the right thing. He then denounces his father's murder of Hackett senior in a television interview, and this ends up earning some tsundere "maybe you aren't that bad" moment with Emiko. It's neat. 

The episode's actually pretty focused on Oliver, but we do have two B-plots. The Felicity/Laurel one was... it was a lot shorter, but I feel like it has a fair amount of emotional content. Laurel-2 freaks out over meeting some dude called Brett Collins, which we discover through brief flashbacks (thus meeting the flashback quota of this episode) was her first kill back in Earth-2. Brett Collins, as we find out later, was the drunk driver that killed Earth-2 Quentin Lance (after an anime-esque argument between parent and child, too!), which brings a sad but well-done context to just why Laurel-2 was so vulnerable around our Quentin. It plays to the whole 'past sins' theme as much as Oliver's does, and it's pretty neat! And considering how much Laurel freaks out and really wants to get rid of Brett, it's actually a pretty great scene! I kind of like Laurel-2 a lot more now. That scene with "but the wine!" with Felicity is also a fun, hilarious moment. 

The Suicide Squad side of the episode is... I find it kind of fun, actually. The recruits for the Ghost Suicide Patrol Squad, in addition to Ricardo Diaz himself, include China White, Cupid and Joe Wilson (who I legitimately forgot existed, and couldn't recognize out of costume). We get some pretty fun dialogue exchanges between Diggle and the Suicide Squad nominees, we get a fun little jibe on the inability to use the Suicide Squad name... and some general arguments between Diggle and Curtis about the ethics of putting bombs in criminals' heads. 

We then get a pretty hilarious line from Ricardo Diaz about how "you think it's a good idea to give me drugs?" as Curtis explains some technobabble that means he's going to shut down the Suicide Squad's bombs in order to make sure they work. And then Diaz escapes, naturally, and breaks out the other Suicide Squad nominees. And it's... it's actually pretty believable considering the plot armour Ricardo Diaz has had throughout the past two seasons, but at the point when he snaps Curtis's neck, it's kind of obvious that this is a hallucination of some sort. 

And it turns out that the whole thing is a virtual reality simulation that Curtis does in order to prevent the Suicide Squad from being implemented at all, but a way in order to get the Dante information out of Diaz without actually having to make a deal with him. It is very cathartic to see Diaz screaming, angry at being played, and it's honestly a pretty badass moment for Curtis. Unfortunately, Diggle is still pretty intent on continuing on with the Suicide Squad, which pisses off Curtis a lot. I'm... I'm not sure where we're going with the Diggle stuff? Like, I like the Suicide Squad as a concept and am happy to see them back, but Diggle as the Amanda Waller replacement seems odd. 

Ultimately, though, it's a pretty great episode. I will keep saying it, but Arrow has always been pretty poor at long-term planning, and is always best when it takes things slow and focuses on its individual episodes. This is definitely a great example of it, helping to further the Suicide Squad and Emiko storylines while still remaining pretty satisfyingly self-contained with its three plotlines. I only knew later on that this is the directional debut of David Ramsey (John Diggle's actor), which just makes me all happy inside. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Curtis was about to lampshade the Ghost Initiative's original name, Suicide Squad, before he gets cut off by Diggle.