Supergirl S05E04 Review: Bye James Olsen

Supergirl, Season 5, Episode 4: In Plain Sight

Well, that was... uneven? There are some decent moments in this episode, but it's mostly sort of rushed. The Ma'alefa'ak storyline is relatively muted, mostly due to the fact that unlike most other emotionally-charged confrontations in Supergirl, we really don't quite have enough screentime between J'onn and Malefic for the conflict to really have the oomph it deserves. Maybe add another five or six episodes down the line and the two might actually develop into believable brothers, but we have had such a lack of proper interaction between the two that all we really have between them is Malefic's seething hatred and J'onn's guilt. It's not terrible, but the combination of the sub-par CGI in the opening fight sequence and the genuinely bland and repetitive "oh no Alex wants to bring out the Martian-killing gun" and "Malefic takes over another one of J'onn's friends" felt rather flat. It's enough of a plot to be stretched out over 40 minutes without being too tiring, but it's also something that I feel we've seen before, and, hell, done better in the show. There's also a wind-controlling metahuman/alien or something, but she's kind of just there, vaguely connected to the plot while not being a proper antagonist.

And Alex's girlfriend being this literal plot device that's able to detect Malefic while also turning Alex into a bit of an extremist in hunting down the bad guy feels a bit eyeball-rolling to me. I dunno. Kelly still feels flat to me as a character, more of a plot device than her actual thing, and I really wished that there was a bit more to her.

Speaking of characters that really could've been better... James Olsen! Easily the character that Supergirl struggled with the most, throughout its four-seasons-and-a-bit-more run, the show has never found anything good to do with James Olsen. Mechad Brooks tries his best for sure, but the character's gone from a bizarrely non-geeky adaptation of Jimmy Olsen to flat love interest to angsty vigilante to Lena's love interest to the People's Hero and... and they really never stuck and never really ended up finding anything good to do with James. I'm not sure if the actor wanted out or if the writers finally decided to shrug him off, but we get this random story about how James returns to Calvintown, find out that it's a town with one of those "everyone is corrupt" government, and then after meeting a poor kid called Simon Kirby whose mom is unjustly imprisoned, James decides to stay behind and be a champion of the people.

And it might've been a bit believable, but everything just happens so quickly through a series of expositions, and James Olsen's character throughout the past couple of seasons have been so inconsistent that when he decides to leave National City and start up a newspaper in Calvintown to champion truth or whatever (as impractical as that is), yeah, why not? I dunno. I never hated James Olsen in the show, at least I don't think I did, but it'd be hard for me to say that I'll miss him. Hell, even that farewell scene at the bar feels particularly muted for the CW superhero show that has been infamous for wearing its heart on its sleeve.

The other B-plot in the episode is Kara's investigation into William Dey, which also crisscrosses with Nia Nal and Brainy's little lover's spat. Brainy and Lena get a couple of neat scenes, and so do Kara and Nia, and I kind of appreciate that this doesn't end up overtaking the entire episode. At the end of the episode Kara sort of discovers that William Dey is involved in some huge conspiracy... but Dey claims that he's a good guy all along, that the douchebag persona is something he's cultivating to get everyone to hate him, that he actually think Kara's writing is the bomb (such an important thing to emphasize in that conversation that I groaned a little) and also he's a secret agent investigating Andrea Rojas. Okay sure whatever. I'm genuinely unenthused about this character or what he thinks about Kara's writing, or if this "actually super nice secret agent guy" is in fact another facade. The William Dey stuff is decently written and acted enough for me to not really complain about it, but like everything revolving around the CatCo takeover storyline, I'm just sort of passively consuming it until the inevitable Leviathan/Lena Luthor tie-in happens.

Speaking of Lena, she shows up to help out the Super Friends to fix the Phantom Zone Projector to beat Ma'alefa'ak in this episode after Alex goes a bit off the rails. Credit where credit's due, at least the mind-controlled-Alex/J'onn scenes are done well by the actors, and J'onn's heartbreak at being called out as a scum faker loser by the woman she loves like a daughter is well-portrayed. But the episode ends with Ma'alefa'ak teleported into Lena Luthor's lab, and it seems that this is where we're going? The slow buildup to whatever the fuck Lena's master plan is has been interesting, but I'm curious to see where Ma'alefa'ak comes into all this, and how Lena's going to get the martian's mind-altering powers into play.

Overall, though, a pretty underwhelming episode. There were some decent moments in it, but I can't say that any of them particularly appealed to me. James Olsen's sendoff was very muted; the Ma'alefa'ak stuff was repetitive; the William Dey stuff earned a shrug; the Lena stuff is toothless buildup and... eh. I'm not sure what direction Supergirl's heading towards now, but it's one where the episodes feel particularly oddly directionless. I'm not quite sure how to put it into words, but I feel like none of the half-dozen ongoing plotlines feel like they're doing anything for me, y'know?

DC Easter Eggs Corner: 

• Simon Kirby's name is taken from Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, two comic book authors whose thematic relevance here is that they're the co-creators of DC's first Guardian.
• After being hired as James' photographer, he's quick to call James "Chief", which is what comic-book Jimmy Olsen always calls Perry White. 
• The wind-making alien/metahuman lady is called "Breathtaker", sharing a name and powers with a minor enemy of the Teen Titans, a member of the mercenary supervillain group called the Hangmen.

The Flash S06E04 Review: The Monitor's Secret Sewer Base

The Flash, Season 6, Episode 4: There Will Be Blood

I've actually done a bit of a binge-watch of The Flash and Supergirl over the past couple of days, am halfway through Arrow and Black Lightning's backlog, and hopefully we'll be ready to finally review Crisis on Infinite Earths within the next couple of weeks. I plan to maybe also catch up to Batwoman and Black Lightning by that point? Despite the lack of DC superhero TV reviews on my part over the past couple of months, it's an event that I'm unreasonably excited for. I'm remaining completely unspoiled over the apparently insane amounts of cameo that Crisis on Infinite Earths has, and I do love that at least two of the shows are intrinsically tied into the build-up to Crisis crossover.

The Flash is honestly just buying time until we get to the Crisis crossover in episode 9, by building up Ramsey "Bloodwork" Russo as this arc villain while also giving a bit of a focus on a member of Team Flash in the episodes leading up to it, which is pretty neat thematically even if it doesn't really work as well as it should. Last episode it was Killer Frost, and this episode it's Cisco.

Fresh off the revelation that Barry Allen's going to die and there's nothing they can do to stop it, as much as Barry and Iris have accepted it, none of the others are quite as willing to do so. Ralph spends a good chunk of his minor screentime being kinda somber; Joe manages to hold his own until that amazingly powerful scene at the end (he's Barry's dad, after all), but the focus of the episode is how Cisco is taking it, and that's by trying his damnadest to find a way to save Barry. And, to be fair, this is a team who spent nearly every second of every episode of season four basically saying 'fuck you' to the thought of Iris being destined to die to Savitar in the future. So yeah, you can definitely bet that Cisco's going to do whatever he can to stop his buddy from dying.

While Cisco's all trying to find a way to stop Barry Allen from dying, Barry himself is trying to train Team Flash to be prepared to take over from him when he's gone, and in Cisco's case it's by distracting him and getting him to help save a life -- Ramsey Rosso's, in this case. The audience, of course, knows that it's a fucking bad idea and that Ramsey's an utter psychopath that's being set up to be the main villain of the season (or at least half-season, if we finish dealing with him by episode 9), but there's something that's so Barry Allen in seeing him basically see Ramsey as a sad, frustrated man who he can help. Plus, hey, Barry thinks that this would allow them to cure at least one form of cancer. Which I'm surprised isn't higher in STAR Labs' super-genius scientists' to-do list.


Also while all of this goes on, our new mysterious and suspicious dimension-hopping Nash Wells shows up, and he quickly uses his plot device powers of plot devicing to tell our heroes that McCulloch Technologies has the tissue-replicating serum that can cure every disease by giving people tissue-replicating diseases, apparently lifted from the Dominator homeworld (!) after that whole alien invasion a couple crossovers back. Nash makes a deal with Cisco and Barry, directing them and helping in the heist to take the magic drug, in exchange for Cisco building him some sci-fi cyber-whatsit-plot-device-or-other.

The heist is pretty standard stuff, nothing super exciting, but Cisco ends up pickpocketing the serum because he wants to use it to save Barry instead of giving it to some other dude. Which is selfish as all hell, but you can kinda see where it's coming from. Of course, the fact that the serum needs to be kept at precisely minus fifteen degrees means that it's pretty quick for Barry to figure out that, hey, Cisco randomly has a new freezer set at minus fifteen degrees. It's kinda ridiculous, but at the same time Grant Gustin and Carlos Valdez's acting are pretty great in this scene. Barry's full of disappointment, but Cisco's indignation and defense, and later shame at realizing what he's done, are all done very well.

Meanwhile, while all of this is going on (and the Barry/Joe and Ralph/Iris storylines play out in the background), Ramsey Rosso, the random person that Barry's just trying to save because he's a god-dang superhero... is still doing psychotic experimentation with blood, trying to figure out just what made Mitch Romero tick in the previous episode. And in comes Barry with some alien goop and, hey, maybe we can avert this particular crisis, right? Except nope, the cure doesn't work for Ramsey, and he goes batshit insane... until he discovers that his metahuman blood-controlling abilities can cure him, but only if he drains blood from dead or dying people... and best of all, if they're in a state of fear. It's kind of over the top, but I'm not sure how much of it is actually true in the situation and how much of it is just Ramsey being a crazy mofo.

The episode's climax ends up with Ramsey going on a rampage in a hospital, killing a bunch of patients and doctors before finally culminating with him killing the doctor who failed to cure his mother. We get a neat stand-off between Ramsey against Barry and Killer Frost, and it's pretty heartbreaking to see just how much Barry's insistence that saving this random life is going to be worth it end up with Ramsey essentially becoming a supervillain. Some neat visuals in this scene, my favourite being the blood zombies crawling and gnawing behind Killer Frost's wall of ice. Ramsey's gone off the deep end at this point, ranting about how he's going to beat death itself and how his powers will mean everlasting life and whatnot. The episode ends with a bit of a downer with Ramsey revealing his identity as one of the more unhinged metahumans Team Flash has had to deal with, and it's... it's pretty neat buildup for the Ramsey storyline, I suppose, which will continue to run through the next couple of episodes. I think what makes Ramsey so much more effective as a villain is how organic his psychosis is built up, and most importantly, how he interacts with a couple members of our main cast. I didn't care much for him in his first couple of appearances, but his actor's certainly growing on me!

Oh, and speaking of the Crisis tie-in... Nash Wells is apparently on the trail of the Monitor (a Monitor?) and with Cisco's thing-a-ma-gig, it leads him to... a sewer in Central City. Because apparently CW's Monitor has something hidden behind a giant metal wall in the sewers or whatever?

Overall, though, a pretty solid episode. There's a sense of how a lot of these episodes are just biding time until we get to the Crisis, but honestly, I'm enjoying the "Flash has to train his buddies" storyline as well as Ramsey Rosso as a villain. Pretty neat stuff.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Swan Moon, the Dominator's home planet, is mentioned as the source of the plot device. It's a hilariously corny name for the homeworld of a race of alien invaders, and it's actually accurate to the comics!
• Killer Frost briefly talks about life "Post-Crisis", a term used by fans and DC comics itslef to refer to the state of the comics and mythology before and after the original Crisis on Infinite Earths. 
• Ralph dismisses the Sue Dearbon case by off-handedly noting that "it's not like we're going to get married". Sue Dearbon, of course, is Ralph's comic-book wife. 

Reviewing Monsters: Darkest Dungeon - DLC Enemies

A while back, we reviewed all of the monsters in Darkest Dungeon, but that isn't all the game has to offer! Like most newer-generation games, Darkest Dungeon comes with its own downloadable content -- two huge ones that add entire large areas with their own horrid monsters that we can talk about, as well as a couple smaller ones that add individual heroes and stuff.

A little disclaimer is that I've never played the newer ones, because I simply didn't have the time, but I have seen gameplay videos out there. I'm going to talk the most about the Crimson Court DLC, the DLC that I actually played... and one that I genuinely really do love the most out of most of the game's enemies.

CRIMSON COURT

Gatekeeper: I love the Crimson Court. Essentially, with the installation of this DLC, you unlock a brand-new segment of the estate, the titular crimson courtyard... and because it's a posh party and all, you can't enter unless you have an invitation. And you can only get these invitations by randomly meeting these Gatekeepers that spawn in other parts of the game, carrying a little writ you must take. I'm not sure if this is true to any actual vampire myths -- there are so many vampire myths I genuinely can't tell.

And if you can't tell, Crimson Courtyard's main enemies are... mosquito-men! But they aren't just mosquito-men, no. They're mosquito-men vampires, and it's honestly such a genius association that I'm surprised I didn't see more of mosquito-themed vampires. Hematophagic bats are such a small proportion of actual bats, and we don't really associate bats with blood-sucking outside of vampires... but mosquitoes? They suck blood and spread diseases and look so gross. And making them into these wacky aristocratic vampires is honestly just such a hilarious thing to do! Absolutely love the set of very human bloodstained teeth underneath that pointy mosquito stinger-nose, too.


Supplicant: The most basic enemies that's equivalent to the Bone Rabble or the Pelagic Groupers would be the Supplicant. It's a simple enemy, mostly relying on brute attacks and the odd blight effect or two, but otherwise is pretty simple to fight. Whereas a vast majority of the vampire-men in the Crimson Courtyard are mosquito-men, or at least have a better integration with their arthropod halves, the Supplicant is tied to a blood-sucking tick which... yeah, the poor Supplicant looks less like an insect-man monster, and more like a big, giant tick with a vertical mouth just chomped a poor dude's head off and is now piloting the rest of his body, giving a whole new meaning to "parasite". It's not a brand-new trope, and we've seen this in many other sci-fi settings, but I do like it! The idea that these tick monsters are of a lesser caste compared to the other vampires in the courtyard is also an interesting one.

Which, of course, is totally what the Supplicant is, because when it attacks, the massive tick creature opens its mouth and reveals the desiccated skull of its human host-puppet. A pretty cool and creepy monster, and honestly, I do like that they're drawing from other blood-sucking insectoids to help bulk up the vampiric hordes. You got to have your thralls, right?



Manservant: So most enemies in the Crimson Court have a 'super mode'. Most of the mosquito enemies have an attack called "The Thirst", where they stab a member of your party with their blood-thirsty proboscis, and upon doing so, they mutate into a more insectoid "Blood-lust" form. And also going The Thirst has a chance of infecting your party members with the vampiric curse. Sadly, this doesn't mean that you can play as the mosquito-monsters, which is a huge disappointment, but just drives your party members really crazy.

The Manservant is probably another basic showcase of the mosquito vampires, all of whom belong in the new "Bloodsucker" category. It is interesting how the game describes their two forms, noting that everyone in the courtyard has been transformed by the curse, but they go around pretending to be sophisticated attendants and going through the motions of a proper party, but if they get a taste of blood they permanently metamorphosize. In the Manservant's case, his butt-abdomen grows large and engorged, he grows wings and his fangs expand, and his two human legs are replaced with four buggy legs. Pretty spooky!

Also, the Manservant attacks with a butcher knife, and also shows off the lump of human meat under its tray as attacks. The Manservant, in battle, acts like an annoying support character, constantly defending its allies or unleashing stun and bleed effects.



Sycophant: The Sycophants show up everywhere in the Courtyard, and they are... giant mosquitoes that alternate between delivering The Thirst and turning your characters into infected, or launching barbs from its abdomen, which is honestly something that's more associated with tarantula spiders than mosquitoes, but these are giant vampiric mosquitoes, so I can't be too pedantic with this. Like the Manservant, the Sycophant has a "thirsty" and "bloodlust" form. I do like that despite looking like a beast, the Sycophant is as dangerous and as likely to inflict the horrible vampiric Crimson Curse on your troops as the more humanoid vampires.

I do like how it's a neat little subversion that these little non-threatening mosquitoes that honestly look like they belong in the same category as the maggots and spiders and ghoul-dogs in other areas turn out to be a higher class of monster than the humanoid Supplicant. Are the Sycophants just transformed mosquito vampires, then, like a classic vampire in bat form? Or are these larval mosquito-vampires?



Chevalier: Not all of the monsters start off fully humanoid, and the token 'big enemy' of the area, the Chevalier, could honestly serve as one of the area bosses and I doubt anyone would complain. And while it certainly does have the posh suit and the aristocratic wig of its kin, its lower body is that of a massive, multi-legged grub of some sort, like a maggot or a caterpillar, its mouth is a massive fanged affair, and it's got two massive mantis claws. The Chevalier also has the most pronounced antennae of all of the Crimson Court's enemies, too, which is something that I thought really helped in making him feel more beastly.

The lack of a proboscis-nose means that the Chevalier means that it can't spread the Crimson Curse, but it still looks pretty damn impressive nonetheless.



Esquire: Esquires should really be a rank lower than the Chevaliers if we're taking the names at face value, but I've personally found them to be more troublesome enemies than the relatively straightforward Chevaliers. The Esquires start off as pretty tall humanoids that alternate between these long-barreled guns or a rapier, with his attacks being called things like "Skewering Repartee"... but then the Esquire gets a taste of blood and mutates into the blood-thirsty form.

I really, really love just how hideous and mutated the Esquire ends up becoming, but the long, tapering insect-legs and insect proboscis translates pretty well to a more brutal version of his normal form's swordplay. He's also got a pretty awesome-looking scary fanged mouth, and follows the same "huge abdomen, four clackety legs" centaur-esque layout as the other transforming bloodsuckers. He's probably my least favourite out of the transforming ones, but that's just because the Manservant and the Courtesan both have so much more personality to them.


Courtesan: The Courtesan certainly has a massive, fancy dress. Other than her face, like the Esquire, she looks basically like a normal aristocratic lady, and her lack of weaponry certainly belies her resourcefulness. Her skills easily make her the most deadly and threatening of the non-boss enemies. In her more humanoid thirsty form, her skills just break and debuff your entire party, and she does so by essentially either singing or scolding your heroes for not exhibiting proper manners. But perhaps her most dangerous ability is to activate "Damsel in Distress", which forces an ally to 'guard' her and take all damage that would've otherwise gone her way, while also buffing said ally.

Of course, if she does get thirsty, she could very well join in the rampage herself, transforming to perhaps the most bloated mosquito monster whose abdomen is the largest of all the other basic mosquito monsters, tying in pretty well to her human form's massive dress. I'm not quite sure what that weird black-and-red bit in the center of her abdomen is, but honestly, that screeching angry face with an opened-up mouth looks pretty damn horrifying. Honestly, I'm just a pretty huge fan of all of these.


The Fanatic: Boss time! Or, well, mini-boss. You don't actually encounter the Fanatic here in the Courtyard dungeons, but he shows up in other dungeons if you enter with a member of your team infected with the Crimson Curse, ready to murder those that are infected with his gavel and holy light. The game characterizes the Fanatic as, well, someone compeletely consumed with religious fervor, being so single-minded that he'd rather burn a village's entire inhabitants at a stake at the slightest suspicion of dabbling in vampirism.

And, well... while a huge scary fanatical zealot that's ready to burn and crucify everyone in his path is unsettling, I really love the design of this dude. On first glance he looks like just a random priest-paladin-cleric bloke, but look a bit closer and you see he's basically pasted holy scrolls all over his clothes, has a ring of garlic and wooden stakes tied to one arm like a gauntlet... he's kind of uninteresting compared to the other mosquito and crystal monsters on this page, for sure, but he definitely has his charm.


Crocodilian: Apparently it's not just humans that got affected by the Crimson Curse, but the animals in the courtyard as well. One of the first mini-bosses you'll meet, the Crocodilian is a huge, mutated vampire crocodile. Which would be scary enough, but replacing a crocodile's reptilian legs with these unsettlingly tiny and out-of-place insectoid limbs is genuinely chilling. And while it's not as bizarre as the tiny bug limbs on a giant crocodile body, the fact that it sort of scrunches about seemingly like some sort of huge maggot or worm makes the Crocodilian feel extra creepy.  Throw in some additional holes on the crocodile's massive hunchback, which, of course, unleashes small swarms of insects... yeah, the Crocodilian really ends up checking the box for a lot of creep factors for me personally.

And... and honestly, what a bizarre creature this is. I've killed like a couple dozen at this point after going through the Crimson Court a couple of times to kill all of the bosses, and the Crocodilian always creeps me out.


The Baron: The first boss, the Baron, is one of the many aristocratic lords that visited your ancestor, once upon a time, and dined in disgusting revelry in the courtyard before they were all transformed by the curse into vampiric bugmen. And design-wise, while the 'humanoid' part of the Baron isn't too much different from the Esquires and Chevaliers and the like, the insect that the Baron ends up mutating into is this giant... THING. What is that supposed to be? A tick? A louse? Some sort of mite? The fact that the giant bug-abdomen has hollow red eyes on the sides of its abdomen, and a gigantic fanged mouth on the Baron's crotch adds a whole layer of unsettling creepiness to what would otherwise just be another bug-centaur man. Also, what are those arms? They look a bit too... malleable to be regular mantis bug-scythe-claws.

The boss fight isn't particularly difficult, but it can definitely catch players unawares. The Baron, as it seems, is a huge showman, and his fight will consists of "Acts" where he spawns a bunch of gross Pulsating Eggs and hides in one of them... and the eggs disables all healing, and you have to figure out which of the eggs contain the Baron. The other eggs contain extra enemies, and he just moves back and forth and unleashes debuffs, stress and moves around among his minions while waiting for the second and third acts.


The Viscount: The second boss, the Viscount, who is another bug-centaur, this time around seemingly based on another blood-sucking insect, like a thickly-armoured flea. Like the Baron, the Viscount could've been easily been handwaved as another boring bug-centaur vampire like the others if not for his relatively unique boss fight, which has him surrounded by a bunch of bodies in different stages of being eaten strewn all about the field, and you have to decide if destroying the bodies which the Viscount will consume to buff himself is a good decision or not, or if you just forego it and risk the Viscount buffing himself to bring him from full to zero as quickly as possible.


The Viscount honestly looked pretty generic to me initially, just being a fatter bug-centaur with extra armour plates and a bunch of weird grey tumours on his stomach... but then I actually fight him, and turns out that he's got a lot of creepiness with those gray bulbs. His skill "Hungry Eyes" opens these up to reveal a bunch of nasty spherical eyeballs inside, while another skill, "Served Rare", also reveals a screaming human skull on his stomach as well as two extra little mandibles that stab forwards.

It's also pointed out to me, but the biggest body (Bloodstuffed Body, on the rightmost here) is apparently that of an Esquire or a Gatekeeper, and this bit of cannibalism throws in another layer of creepiness to the Viscount.



The Countess: The final boss of the Courtyard, the Countess was the original source of the curse of the Courtyard, being a bona-fide vampire, and not that of the insect kind. And just like many other bosses in the Darkest Dungeon's various levels, she was one of the victims of your psychotic Ancestor... except, this time around, the Coutness herself was a match for your Ancestor, actually having arrived onto the estate grounds to feed herself. The Ancestor killed her, and... the entire party degenerated into... debauchery? I think they ate her body, or something? But the encounter was what ended up altered the Ancestor to the dark blood of the Darkest Dungeon itself, and the act of drinking her blood and being on top of, y'know, the burial ground of an Elder God ended up mutating everyone in the courtyard into mosquito vampires.

The Countess's first form is... she's basically like the Courtesan, except she covers her mouth with a fan and has this massive dress that tapers off into a gigantic insect abdomen that looks like a slug or something. Like any giant queen bug monster, she also injects random parasitic eggs into your party with her "Love Letter" attack. After you deal enough damage, the Countess enters a brief "flushed" state where she gets so angry she flaps her fans and, for whatever reason, becomes insanely vulnerable to your attacks.

And then she enters her final bloodlust form, and... and it's basically the same mutated mosquito centaur form that a lot of her minions have, but it's just so grotesquely hideous with way too many legs for any insect, a giant, malformed abdomen, random eggs popping up here and there, a mouth that just melds into her giant neck-thorax thing, and that cluster of grossness on her hunch-back. It's a pretty damn fitting final boss for this insect vampire queen.




The Garden Guardian: The true final boss of the Crimson Court turns out to be the courtyard itself, because the sheer amount of blood magic that's seeped into the ground has tainted the land itself, and it's animated this broken-down statue, bleeding blood from its non-orifices, and apparently filled with "cosmic hatred". It's a neat little design, for sure, and the idea of a curse that's so foul that it animates everything around it is great (something that's also explored with the fleshy interiors of the Darkest Dungeon, as well as the crystalline monsters of the Farmstead) but it's honestly just sort-of there compared to the rest of the Crimson Court DLC. It's not bad, it's just sort of foreshadowed.

Darkest Dungeon has a couple of smaller DLC's and a bigger one, but this is getting a bit long, and, well... I haven't played through the other DLC's other than Crimson Court because I simply haven't had the time. I did read them up on the wiki and the official websites, though, so at least I'll still cover their designs and what brief glimpses of the story I could gather.

Kamen Rider Kiva E21-22 Review: Queens of Fives

Kamen Rider Kiva, Episode 21: Rhapsody - the Fate of the Ring; Episode 22: Overture - Fateful Intersection

An interesting two-parter again, mostly because of the almost innocuous way that it introduces a new recurring character that I've been sort-of spoiled about before coming into this series. Blame Kamen Rider Decade for that. Still, episodes 21 and 22 are a pretty interesting pair of episodes. The 2008-era story feels like kind of a filler wacky-hijinks sort of episode, while the 1986-era one goes through a parallel "group date" premise only to delve into something that's either tedious or enticing depending on how much you like the Otoya/Yuri/Jiro love triangle. It's something that I've found tolerable only because of the acting strengths of the actors involved, and one that I find otherwise pretty lacking.

The 1986 plotline is kick-started when Yuri and Otoya seem to be developing a... more healthy relationship. It's kind of difficult to really be invested in them due to how huge of a creep Otoya can be at times, but throughout the past couple of episodes he's certainly been toned down a lot, and while "he makes her laugh" is not something you should base your whole relationship upon, the show's at least showing that Otoya is a lot more honest about what he intends to do with Yuri, but despite all his creep-tastic attitude, otherwise respects Yuri as a person. Jiro, on the other hand, is a lot more suave and whatnot, but is clearly way more toxic and abusive to Yuri. The plotline of 21 and 22 is basically kickstarted when Jiro, witnessing some silly hijinks as Otoya and Yuri joke around in a noodle store, end up proposing marriage to Yuri in perhaps the pushiest way ever, and it's... it's pretty passive-aggressive and kinda manipulative as Jiro tells Yuri to keep the ring until she decides on an answer, but spends all of 21 and 22 with a "she didn't say no, so it's clearly a yes" attitude, using it less as a way to preserve a relationship with a woman she loves and more to rub it in Otoya's face.

One conversation led to another, and eventually we have Yuri, Jiro, Otoya and, uh, Riki for some goddamn reason in a group date. Which is a Japanese cultural thing that shows up a lot in anime. The hijinks for the 1986 era mostly revolves around Jiro and Otoya hamming shit up as they try to insult each other in the group date, while Yuri's all sorta-confused about randomly being possessive about Jiro ("he's my fiance!") and then backtracking. It's a bit weird. The rather suspect writing in regards to Yuri also feels like it's just a massive chunk of "she doesn't know her emotions, she is confused", so I am certainly thankful that Takeda Kouhei and Matsuda Kenji over-act the hell out of their lines to make these scenes bearable to watch. Otoya ends up finishing episode 21 basically going on a date with one of the girls, who's apparently his childhood friend, but oh noes, love triangle, and Yuri's clearly not happy with whatever's going on.

Surprisingly, the focus for the 1986 segment of episode 21 is Riki. Initially seeming to just be there as kind of a funny gag because, ha ha, the emotionally stunted man with the personality of a brick is in a group date, and he immediately opens with "I want you to bear my descendants", but this is the 1986-era Arms Monsters and they're still monster-men. Riki ends up following one of the ladies and straight-up murders and consumes her, and we get perhaps the best dark comedy moment in the show when Riki returns to the table with the declaration that "I ate her" and everyone present thinks that Riki scored some tail.

Riki also gets an interesting action sequence, barging out of the restaurant when he smells a Fangire -- the Chameleon Fangire, who's the creature that menaces both time periods. The Chameleon Fangire is a clothes seller who sells pretty clothes and then stalks his own customers and murders them. Riki transforms into his Frankenstein Dogga form while yelling "RIKI SMASH!" and beats the fuck out of the Fangire... but then turns around and consumes the same human that he saves from the Fangire.

Episode 22's 1986 storyline is more of a continuation of the love triangle stuff, with Otoya seemingly pulled into a scam as his childhood girlfriend basically spins a sob story about how her brother is sick and can't make ends meet, and because Otoya's blinded by love and kind of a moron, ends up helping out in construction sites and whatnot to help make money for his lady friend. Yuri, meanwhile, sees this for what it is, a gold-digging scam, and calls Otoya out on being a moron... but Otoya's just a happy-go-lucky fool and he shrugs it off that it's a good thing that there was no one sick in the first place. Of course, this eventually translates to the fact that Otoya's lady friend was trying to buy an expensive dress from the Chameleon Fangire's Luxur clothes store, and we sort of abandon that plot point for some Fangire hunting action.

Yuri ends up putting the pieces together (albeit offscreen), purchase the dress that Otoya's lady friend was trying to buy, and then have Otoya cross-dress as bait to draw the Chameleon Fangire out. Which I feel was just an excuse for them to put Takeda Kouhei in a woman's dress, but okay. Jiro and Yuri show up and chase the Chameleon dude off, while Jiro sort of mocks Otoya for dressing like a woman, ha-ha-ha... but apparently the events of 21 and 22 are enough to make Yuri give back Jiro's ring and talking about how she's not ready for commitment?

(Also, Otoya shows up out of nowhere in this scene, grabs the ring and chucks it into the lake in a gloriously petty and unnecessary move, because, holy shit, that's a fucking ring. Manipulative monster or not, that probably costed Jiro a pretty penny.)

Overall, the gist of the 1986 love triangle sub-plot is... it's a neat one, and I even like the fact that Yuri seems to put together the Chameleon Fangire's scheme all on her own, but the scenes are a bit too muddled with way too much focus on the group date hijinks in episode 21 or the Otoya-works-for-love stuff in episode 22. We don't actually get to see too Otoya or Jiro, or how her perception of the two is challenged when she sees Otoya fooling around with another woman. The pacing and the focus is off, is what I feel, and beyond a couple of vague lines about how she's unsure, we never really get a satisfying reason to why she suddenly decides not to pick Jiro. Maybe a couple of extra scenes of her seeing how abrasive Jiro is, or actually seeing Otoya being super-altruistic, or something, would've gone a long way.

The 2008 story, on the other hand, is a lot more successful on the romance plot. Episode 21 starts off with a deceptively filler-y premise, basically the same sort of group date premise to parallel the 1986 scenes. Of course, the one that ends up making the 2008 group date end up being hilarious to watch is Keisuke Nago, who's such a massive dickhead with a stick up his ass that he completely misses the point of 'fun' and group dates, and acts like a complete and utter cunt, and it's gloriously funny. Between him openly declaring group dates as repugnant and improper, to every other girl on the table swooning for the mysterious cool anti-hero jerk man, to Nago randomly being able to repeat every single item that everyone ordered to the waitress (including the thank you), or Nago completely ruining the King Game by grabbing the stick, declaring himself king because he's the one most suited for it... y'know, Nago's a cunt, but when his douchebagginess is relatively limited to harmless antics like this, he's entertaining.

All of this, of course, is to stealthily introduce Suzuki Mio, a shy, bumbling waitress who is serving their table. And while we're distracted with the loudness of Kengo and Nago, or Megumi teasing Wataru for having an 'older sister' type, Mio is just in the background of these scenes, up until the point that she spills pudding or something onto Nago's dumb face. And of course Nago's the type of dude who demands to see the manager. Mio gets screamed at by the manager (although, to be fair, it is her fault) and runs out of the restaurant, and Wataru chases down after her.

Turns out that Wataru and Mio have a lot in common in that they're shy-shy-introverts that can't refuse door-to-door salesmen, and they both end up purchasing tofu from a random seller because they can't refuse, and it's just such ridiculous adorableness with far, far more chemistry than Otoya and Yuri or Jiro and Yuri ever had in 20 episodes. Episode 21 ends with a bit of a mundane action scene as Ixa and Kiva both end up showing up to fight the Chameleon Fangire, who's up to his dress-murdering spree in 2008.

Episode 22... opens with the revelation that it's Kengo that asks Mio the waitress on a date, but after a meeting at Cafe Mal d'Amour, Megumi quickly realizes that Mio doesn't feel particularly comfortable with the far-too-loud Kengo, and both Megumi and Kengo act as completely supportive and good friends that tell Wataru to go off and be happy with Mio. I love this little circle of friends, they're so wholesome.

The theme of the Wataru/Mio scenes is that "people can change", and the two of them manage to resist the urge to say yes to the tofu-maker dude, and they go on a date holding hands and stuff as they try to break out of their introverted shells. Mio apparently has always wanted to shop according to her own fashion sense, but was never able to because she succumbs to the shopkeepers' recommendations all the time, and it's a pretty adorable sequence as these two introverted babies end up growing out of their shell. Wataru even picks out a ring for Mio, which was kind of random but okay.

Of course, one of the shops they enter is run by the Chameleon Fangire's human guise, which ends up leading to the climax. Turns out, though, that the confidence to say no to tofu and to buy clothes doesn't translate to a complete 180, and poor Mio fucks up at work and spills soup onto customers, causing her to run out straight into the hungry clutches of the Chameleon Fangire. At which point, of course, Wataru shows up as Kiva, goes into Dogga Form and beat the ever-loving fuck out of the Chameleon with his big hammer. Again, not the most impressive or memorable of action scenes. Ultimately, Mio sort of admits to Wataru that she was moving too fast, and it's just as unhealthy for someone to immediately change their personality to a full 180... but she's willing to change bit by bit, and she's going to keep Wataru's ring. D'awwww.

Overall, I'm a huge, huge fan of the 2008-era story. The theme and the character development they're trying to build with both Wataru and Mio are well done, and I'm a huge fan of Mio as a character and Nago gets to actually be entertaining and not obnoxious. The 1986 scenes, on the other hand... the story is solid (if you care about the love triangle), the conflict is solid, but the resolution and pacing could've been better. 

Random Notes: 

• Suzuki Mio is played by Haga Yuria, and is one of the rare instances that an actor played a major role in multiple Kamen Rider series, having previously played Sonoda Mari, the main female protagonist from Kamen Rider 555. This is perhaps the only real spoiler that I had before coming into Kiva, that Mari's actor was a main character here since I saw the same actress reprise her Kiva role in Kamen Rider Decade. 
• Other actors on top of my head that have played multiple main characters are Takeda Kouhei (Otoya in Kiva; Grease in Build), Matsuda Kenji (Jiro in Kiva; Zanki in Hibiki) and Nakamura Yuchi (Kiriya Kyosuke in Hibiki; Zeronos in Den-O). 
• I'm not sure why a good chunk of Yuri's confusion when Jiro proposes to her is "what will Mr. Shima say?" and we even get a payoff to that as Yuri questions Mr. Shima for allowing Jiro to propose to her, and Shima shrugging it off as "you can still fight as a married woman, right?" It's not like Shima is Yuri's dad or anything. I dunno. It feels very off. 
• Know Your Fangires: It's a Chameleon Fangire, a pretty obvious design and a critter that can go invisible at will. 
• At the beginning of episode 21, Kengo begs Nago to teach him how to 'rock', and after a bit of a back-and-forth, Nago decides to do so but only if he gets paid. Because it's to teach Kengo "the harshness of the world", which is just such a fucking hilarious line. 
• Seriously, though, Megumi is the best wingman ever. Between her quickly promoting Wataru to her two lady-friends at the group date, to her quickly realizing that Mio's a better fit for Wataru and that she'd better "switch players", she's pretty amazing of a wingman.
• Kengo isn't half-bad either, quickly piecing together what's going on even after two steps into the cafe, and quickly encouraging Wataru to chase Mio and be happy. 
• Shizuka is... notably absent in these two episodes. I don't think she'll be too happy with Wataru actually getting a girlfriend without her being present, particularly since she raised such a fuss over Wataru and Megumi's not-date a while back.
• The Dogga Hammer's giant hammer-eye is able to pull off a pretty cool Ocarina of Time Lens of Truth vision that allows Kiva to see invisible enemies. 

Let's Play Pokemon Sword, Part 9: All Capes Are Off

So finally, we get the champion battle against Leon and... and I dunno, it sort of feels a bit underwhelming? Like this odd cap-off after the huge Dynamax plot that interrupted the original tournament? Leon's still got a pretty kickass battle tune, though, and I do like how he starts off his fight trash-talking us, before tossing his cape away.

Leon has a very respectable level 62-65 party, which... is still a bit lower than mine, but on average it's a bit more of a challenge. I also sort of try and fight him without using dynamax, which actually does make it significantly more difficult. Leon's first Pokemon is an Aegislash, a Pokemon near and dear to my heart since my brief forays into competitive battling in Generation VI. It's sort of a cat-and-mouse game between my Boltund and Aegislash as I sort of try to predict when he's going to use King's Shield, but eventually a Crunch takes the Aegislash down.

Leon's second pokemon is a very respectable Rhyperior, which gets one-shotted by my Inteleon's Snipe Shot. Leon then sends out Haxorus, a mighty dragon... that faces off against my Frosmoth. It's a bit of a gamble, because Frosmoth's fragile as shit, but it somehow survives the Poison Jab (I'm not sure if it's one of those happiness/curry thing) to retaliate with a OHKO Blizzard.

Leon's fourth Pokemon isn't a familiar face -- it's Dragapult, and my god what is this thing, it's glorious! It's a weird floating ghost-newt whose head is tapered off into a stealth bomber and it apparently launches its babies at the enemy. This is our pseudo-legendary, and after looking at its design a bit I figure out that it's Dragon/Ghost thanks to that casper-like tail. Dragapult takes out my Frosmoth with a Flamethrower. My Boltund fails to take the Dragapult out with a Play Rough, and it takes my doggy out with a critical Shadow Ball. Eventually it's my Sirfetch'd that manages to survive a hit from the Dragapult and finish it off with a Steel Wing.

Leon's fifth Pokemon is the predictable type-effective starter, Rilaboom. Who is a leafy hairy gorilla with a drum! That's... that's actually pretty spot-on to what I expected Grookey to evolve into, actually. I have been saving my Corviknight for this, who drill-pecks the monkey to death. Leon's final Pokemon is the gigantamax Charizard. Inteleon comes out to play, outspeeds the Charizard and takes it out with a single Hydro Cannon.

Kind of anticlimactic, but that Dragapult was pretty dang troublesome!

And with that... that's the main story of Pokemon Sword over as everyone sort of hails me as the champion, having captured Eternatus, saved Galar from President Rose's vague plans of vague evilness, and defeated the undefeatable champion Leon! Roll credits! The credits has a neat little sequence of a little music show made by Rilaboom, Obstagoon and a bunch of Toxtricity, and it closes off with a bunch of Wooloos rolling across the screen. It's cute.

Also, I genuinely do find it interesting that the main story ends without us having the chance to even capture the cover legendary Zacian (or Zamazenta, if you play Shield), and the little showcase of the ruins in the Slumbering Weald does hint that the post-game story is going to feature mainly on the cover legendaries.

But... after that whole thing, I ended up going off to take a break and just sort of explore and catch Pokemon. After finishing the main story I also basically decided that my little anti-spoiler bit is over, and I decided to take a little gander throughout Bulbapedia and Serebii about all of the new Pokemon in the generation. My playthrough has basically shown me almost all of these, and I've been spoiled about the existence of some others, so here's my quick thoughts about the new creatures that I haven't met yet (or have missed) in my playthrough:

• I don't remember meeting Greedent at all, but the pokedex says I did. I guess it's just that unmemorable? Unlike previous early-game rodents, Skwovet's line really isn't as ever-present in Galar, huh? 
• I really should've known if I took a closer look through the in-game Pokedex, but it's kind of an odd feeling to get confirmation that, say, Eldegoss and Thievul and Grapploct and whatnot are just two-stage Pokemon. I sort of expected them to be a bit more, but at the same time I'm not like, super-disappointed. 
• Applin has an alternate-game evolution called Appletun and it's d'awww so adorable, this little apple pie sad dragon boy. I still am a bit iffy on the fact that we have apple-dragons, but I am also tickled by the fact that we have apple-dragons. 
• GALARIAN CORSOLA IS A DEAD CORAL! And its evolved form CURSOLA! Cursola is the perfect English name for a dead coral Pokemon. It's amazing. This entire line is Shield exclusive and I need it. It's a pretty great design and has got a neat lore. See what you have wrought, Toxapex. See the fruits of your labour. 
• Mr. Rime is... it exists. I don't hate it. It's got a mustache. 
• I'm surprised Galarian Darmanitan and Galarian Stunfisk didn't have evolutions. I half-expected Stunfisk to, actually. 
• So Galarian Yamask evolves into Runerigus instead of Cofagrigus? It's got some disturbing pokedex lore. The painting takes over the human ghost, what the fuck.
• I also looked up how to turn Yamask into Runerigus and holy fuck yeah there's no way I'm figuring that out, what the hell.
• There are way too many Alcremie forms holy shit. I thought Vivillon was over the top but this is over the top. 
• I completely missed Eiscue. This odd ice cube penguin is apparently Stonjurner's version counterpart, and both earn a solid 'wut' from me. I'm not sure if I'm ever going to get used to them. I like a vast majority of the creatures in this generation, but I'm not sure if I'll ever really ever get used to these two. I don't even find them "cool I guess in a way" the same way some of the more iffy past designs do, y'know? 
• I've seen all four fossil combinations and they are truly unholy, and I'm actually surprised we don't get a 'purified' form for any of them. 
• Dreepy and Drakloak are neat! In addition with Dragapult, they're a very solid pseudo-legendary line. 
• No legendary trios, or any other 'bonus' legendaries outside of Eternatus, Zacian and Zamazenta. So I guess we're having a "many legendaries, only three legendaries" thing alternating then? Generation V and VII had a fuck-ton of legendaries and Ultra Beasts respectively, whereas VI and VIII had a minimal amount of them. 

There are also a fair amount of new Gigantamax forms that I haven't seen quite yet:

• No Gigantamax forms for any of the Galarian starters or legendaries, which is surprising!
• Also no Gigantamax form for Frosmoth! I know G-Max Butterfree exists, but you'd think that the Mothra reference would've been an obvious one. 
• Likewise, I'm surprised Hydreigon didn't get a G-Max form. After being one of the few pseudos to be cheated out of a Mega Evolution, you'd think that they'd give ol' three-heads a kaiju form. 
• G-max Kingler is unexpected, glorious, looks like a wacky mutant deep-sea Alaskan King Crab and he's got a glorious mustache and I love him. I didn't quite realize just how much I like Kingler until this moment. 
• I actually saw G-Max Lapras in some publication material, and apparently Gordie's mom uses one in the Shield version. It looks neat. I like the little musical note aura it has around it. 
• Regular Snorlax blocks the route. Gigantamax Snorlax IS THE ROUTE.
• Gigantamax Orbeetle is a fucking ladybug UFO and it's so stupid but so awesome at the same time. Honestly, Orbeetle is low-key starting to become one of my favourites of the region.
• Gigantamax Appletun and Flapple are the exact same thing, and it's basically just, uh, Applin poking its head out. I'm not a fan, and I prefer all three of the non-Giga forms over G-max Appleworm. 
• Gigantamax Melmetal and Toxtricity are still unavailable and no one's got 3D models of them yet, apparently. From the sprites, Toxtricity goes four-legged and looks pretty badass looking as this monstrous giant lizard, while Melmetal, uh... goes super-rigid or something, I dunno. 

I've also been capturing and evolving a bunch of the creatures I have in my box as I go through the Wild Area. My feelings about the raid Pokemon still stands and I still don't really like the raids, particularly how repetitive they've became. The fact that you actually have to grind through them to get some of the best resources in the game (EXP candies; powerful TR's; resetting the dens to spawn gigantamax pokemon) doesn't help my feelings either, but I've simmered down just a little. I do plan to at least obtain a Gigantamax Orbeetle, Kingler, Centiskorch and Butterfree in my collection, but I'm not sure if I'll last that long or if I'll just give up in frustration. 

It's also genuinely interesting seeing the sheer extent of the Pokemon they kept for Galar and the Pokemon that they didn't keep for Galar. I actually do respect the Pokemon Team a bit that they keep a relatively varied cluster of selections, instead of just picking the most marketable ones. I do really like the random encounters with the overworld pokemon in the Wild Area, too -- randomly meeting a Vikavolt, or a Steelix, or a Gardevoir, or a Drednaw, or a Ribombee... all neat stuff.

I tried to do a couple of the G-Max raid battles, but the Drednaw and Butterfree I beat ended up breaking free of their pokeballs after all the effort I put in to sit through all the cutscenes of AI trainers bungling their turns, while the battle goes on and on with the stupid barriers and whatnot. Y'know, I probably wouldn't have minded it if the fights were actually interesting, if there were actual moves or strategy involved. Say what you will about mega evolutions or totem pokemon or whatever, they were a lot more exciting than the raid battles here. I've said my piece in that previous segment, though, so eh.

I've also taken to re-exploring some of the earlier areas and going through Galar Mine 2 and Route 3 with surfing abilities. It doesn't quite unlock a whole slew of inaccessible secret areas in the same way that older GBA/DS era games did, but I did appreciate that they at least programmed in some extra little areas for exploration. I've also been training up my Toxtricity, Orbeetle and Toxapex. Out of the B-team, I think I like those three the most, although Galarian Weezing, Grimmsnarl and Obstagoon do give those a run for their money. Orbeetle's a bit irritating to use due to its defensive stats, but Toxapex's fun and Toxtricity's huge sound-moves-boosting ability allows him to rock out with Boomburst and his signature move (?) Overdrive, allowing me to see awesome animations while also dealing a ton of damage.

Anyway, after that, I ended up going back to the Slumbering Weald, where Hop's just sort of hanging out and looking at the shrine and stuff, thinking about... stuff, recent events, and what he's planning to do in the future. This being Hop, this ends up leading to a battle with his significantly leveled-up team, all of whom are around level 60. It's still the same ol' team of Dubwool, Corviknight, Cramorant, Pincurchin, Snorlax and Cinderace, though, so after my Sirfetch'd Swords Dances twice, it just literally sweeps through the entire team. Yes, even the birds.

It's at that point when Professor Sonia shows up, and apparently she's written a book about our exploits... and asks if we're returning the rusted weapons. We apparently do so, but then surprise random new antagonists out of nowhere! What is this nonsense, Bleach? It's a pair of dapper gentlemen with hairs modeled after a sword and a shield, which, uh... frankly, is pretty dang ridiculous even in Pokemon character design standards. They're called Squidward Swordward Sordward and Shieldbert, and they are apparently the descendants of the ancient Galarian kings and they're oh-so-terribly-miffled that us mere plebians dare claim the glory that's rightfully theirs in defeating Eternatus, quite quite. Absolutely love the random mention of how they totally wrote a scathing, one-star internet review for Sonia's book because of how inaccurate it was in the eyes of royalty. My god, these guys are certainly extra, aren't they?

Shit, y'know what? In like, two or three conversations, these guys end up feeling so much more punchable than any other character in the game except for Bede, and they talk up a game like they're going to plan... something or other. They make for better antagonists than the vague Rose or the toothless Team Yell, as ridiculous as they are. Time will tell if they will last long enough to leave an impression, but after laying down some posh-as-fuck smack talk, they fight! And something that genuinely caught me by surprise considering the tendency of this game? The lack of healing between the Hop and Sword Dude fight! Surprising and very welcome.

Sordward fights me, while Shieldbert apparently beats up Hop off-screen (to be fair, I just beat up his team), and despite only having four Pokemon, Sordward actually poses a decent amount of a challenge, and I do really love that his team is based around 'knightly' Pokemon. His Sirfetch'd actually takes mine out with a new move called "Meteor Assault", which I think is like a Hyper Beam style move? Presumably it's Fighting-type? It takes my Sirfetch'd out in one critical hit, but when it's recharging my Corviknight murders Sordward's Sirfetch'd. Swordward's next Pokemon is a Doublade, which my Centiskorch murders with a Fire Lash, and then my Corviknight deals with his Golisopod. Sordward's final Pokemon is a Bisharp, which survives my Centiskorch's Fire Lash and returns fire with the 4x effective Stone Edge, but gets taken out by... uh... someone else in my team or whatever.

Anyway, Swordbutt and Shieldjerk bugger off from the Slumebring Weald, having stolen the Rusty Shield from Hop and is off to do... some evil scheme or other, presumably involving corrupting Zamazenta. I dunno if I'm just so ready to latch on to any story with better build-up than the silly Chairman Rose one, or if this is just so much better, but regardless, I am excited to experience the post-game story!

Random Notes:

• Apparently, Eternatus's weird spiral-UFO form is called an "Eternamax" form and while it's registered into the Pokedex, as of now there's no way to actually access it in-game. 
• I just recently traveled to the "Lake of Outrage" sub-area of the Wild Area and it's pretty hilariously named. 
• The sheer amount of random larger Pokemon like Mudsdale and Crawdaunt and Bewear that'll simultaneously pop up into existence in Axew's Eye is a great visual treat. 
• There's a G-Max Snorlax event going on at the moment, but I'm not sure if I need the Nintendo Switch online membership stuff to make G-Max Snorlax spawn. Not that I'm super-enthused to hunt it down, mind you. 
• I got a G-Max Charmander from Leon's room, because he leaves one for me. So I guess some Pokemon are just able to Gigantamax since birth, like this Charmander? Bede might not be a hacker, I guess, and his Hattena might just be able to G-max since birth like this little Charmander.
• There's a random dude in Motostoke who tells me to see him after we become champion. Apparently he is a move tutor for a mighty base-140 special Steel-ype move called Steel Beam. This is, like, the fan-made move from a Corocoro magazine or something, I guess? \
• I'll try and get the first "Gotta Review 'Em All" article for Generation VIII somewhere up around early February or thereabouts. I'm still a bit baffled how I'm going to order this since we've got both Galarian forms that are just standalone, as well as Galarian forms that evolve into brand-new Pokemon. It'd feel odd taking pokemon like Runerigus and Cursola and Sirfetch'd out of the numbering system, but at the same time it'd be a bit odd to cover the Galarian forms separately with the knowledge that I'm going to talk about their evolved forms in the next page. 
• And that's not counting Gigantamax forms either! At least unlike Generation VI, a significant amount of native Galar Pokemon gets to show off their Gigantamax forms, but it does make it a bit confusing whether I'm going to cover them all in a single page like I did mega evolutions, or if I'm going to lump G-Max forms with their base forms.
• And I also kind of want to do a once-off revision of all of the previous Gotta Review 'Em All segments -- I feel like I didn't quite get into the groove of actually reviewing the creatures based on their design and concepts until I'm all the way into around Generations IV-V, and I do feel like I might have to take a look back and slowly do a bit of a re-review and rewrite of some of them. In particular I feel like I ended up being a bit of a GEEWUNNER with some of the first-generation Pokemon, and might be a bit unfairly too harsh on some of the Generation II and V creatures (and mega evolution) in particular. I'm not sure when I'll have the time to do so, though, and I think I'll do Generation VIII first. 

The Flash S06E03 Review: Stunted Emotions

The Flash, Season 6, Episode 3: Dead Man Running

We're going to do these a bit faster so that I can get to the gosh-darned Crisis on Infinite Earth episodes, because I'm so so behind on stuff. This one is... this is a bit of a relatively tame episode which doesn't really do a whole ton. The main storyline mostly revolves around the crew trying to deal with the metahuman-of-the-week, dark matter fueled zombie-man Mitch Romero, who the audience knows is brought to life by Dr. Ramsey Rosso's wacky experimentations. The episode also brings Ramsey into contact with Barry Allen for the first time, and... and there's some of Flash's typical heavy-handed theme of "a man who knows he's dead but still continues to move". The main villain's a literal zombie; there's the constant theme of being afraid of a terminal disease in Ramsey's story; there's Barry knowing he's going to have to sacrifice himself in the future; there's Killer Frost's absolute panic at finally accepting that she is allowed to have a life just as she's told that she might die very close in the future.... and it's all well and good, and the acting's great as usual. It just feels sort of muted, and the episode mostly feels like it's just obviously there to buy time until we reach either the inevitable clash with Ramsey Rosso's Bloodwork persona, or with the Crisis, whichever comes first. 

Ramsey's an interesting and well-acted antagonist, at least, skirting the line between understandable desperation and general dickishness, and it does play off pretty well with Barry's more self-sacrificing mentality, but I don't think we explored it enough nor is it strong enough to really last for more than a couple of episodes, and I pray we don't stretch this out the way we did the Cicada or Thinker nonsense over the past couple of seasons. I do like how everyone just thinks that Ramsey's a desperate man trying to steal dark matter, though, when in reality he's experimenting with far, far more dangerous stuff like the dark matter goop reanimating Mitch Romero's corpse. Flash and Killer Frost manage to use a generic "overload the bad guy to take him out" method to take out Romero the zombieman, but clearly Ramsay's learning from this to presumably control his own new metahuman powers. 

The Killer Frost/Barry dynamic is pretty neat, in that Barry's a bit too desperate to get Frost to quickly mature as a superhero and stuff, but it feels so much like a retread of "Barry trains Iris" that we saw so much in the previous season, as well as "look at that crazy Killer Frost" moments we've had so much of in the previous season. None of the scenes are bad by themselves and both Grant Gustin and Danielle Panabaker are great in this episode, but I just had a feeling of "been here, watched that" throughout this episode.

The B-plots in this episode is, again, well-acted but not especially exciting. Ralph's mom Debby shows up out of nowhere, and we get a lot of fun hijinks and Hartley Sawyer is as fun as ever. Pairing him up with Cecile is neat, but ultimately the B-plot randomly explores a facet of Ralph that feels shoehorned in (he has abandonment issues because his daddy left him and his mom has made up the fact that every other boyfriend has 'died' to spare him the grief or whatever?). Which is neat but not especially notable. We also get a new Harrison Wells, and at this point even the characters in-universe knows that we're just going to do this every dang season. Cisco sort of echoes my own opinion on this, and Harrison "Nash" Wells is sort of an interdimensional Indiana Jones expy who's looking for something called Eternium or whatever, and presumably he's going to factor in somehow to the Crisis. He's not especially impressive, I feel.  

Anyway, despite my relatively shorter review, this one's not terrible. It just feels like it's just building up and killing time until we can get through to the huge Crisis story that the CW team really wants to tell. A solid episode, but not a noteworthy one. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Marv Perez, Ralph's mom's boyfriend, is named after Marv Wolfman and George Perez, the writer and primary artist for the comic-book version of Crisis on Infinite Earths. 
• A Marvel comics shout-out as Ralph calls the Monitor as an "Asgardian cosplayer". 
• They've both shown up as cameos a couple of times in previous CW episodes, but Nash Wells appears outside of McCulloch Technologies, a reference to Evan McCulloch (Mirror Master II); whereas Ramsay got his Dark Matter from Ted Kord, a millionaire and the second Blue Beetle in the comics. Kord Industries has been a recurring background presence in both Arrow and Flash.
• It's likely that it's a coincidence, but in the DC comics, Eternium is the shards of the Rock of Eternity, dwelling place of the wizard Shazam, which was spread all over the universe in the 30th Century. A Legion of Super-Heroes arc focuses on them trying to collect Eternium to rebuild the Rock of Eternity.