Arrow S04E13 Review: League of Assassins - Civil War

Arrow, Season 4, Episode 13: Sins of the Father

It's a pretty great episode. I didn't quite like how the final battle between Oliver and Merlyn went, which just felt rather short and unimpressive, and the battles between the random ninjas ended up being confusing because both Nyssa and Malcolm loyalists all wear the same black uniform -- I get that shedding their garb for something different would not make sense realistically and story-wise, but that was kinda confusing and honestly kinda boring up until the war and the destruction get dragged out to Star City streets.

A good chunk of this episode is Oliver's own moral dilemma as he has to struggle between picking sides in the League of Assassin's big civil war, and it's certainly one that was handled far better than anything in Season 3. Nyssa and Malcolm are both likable in their own way, and like Diggle and Felicity I was actually cheering for Oliver to kill Malcolm Merlyn. That is definitely the most sensible cause -- Nyssa has the cure for the dying Thea, is not a manipulative bastard like Malcolm (who we are reminded brainwashed his own daughter to kill Sara and place herself in Ra's Al Ghul's crosshairs), did not create a big earthquake machine. And that is why I cannot be a proper superhero like Green Arrow, I guess. But Oliver is determined to find a way where Nyssa and Malcolm both walk out of the encounter alive, even if it's partly for Thea's sake.

Well, arm-less is still alive, after all.

I thought the execution was decent, if slightly iffy-paced. I'm curious why Nyssa didn't just go ahead with the trial of combat in the first place both of them eventually agreed, but I guess Oliver himself pushing for a logical conclusion was what made the two of them think with something other than their swords. Oliver curb-stomping Merlyn is... something that I honestly hoped to be more epic. Instead it's just short and kinda disappointing that Merlyn didn't give much of a fight.

It's a bigger twist than having any one of the players (Thea, Malcolm or Nyssa) die, and is definitely the superior writing option. Death can be good, but sometimes death just feels like a cheap way to end a character that they've been spending so much time building up. Arrow's Nyssa has grown into her own character that's far more likable than her comic-book counterpart, and this episode has her grow out of the shadow of her father, partly inspired by Oliver, and finally complete a circle of characterization as she ends up disbanding the League of Assassins and melting the ring, the biggest 'fuck you' ever that she could've done to Malcolm.

Malcolm Merlyn getting what he deserved really has been a long time coming. Even discounting the fact that he was the Big Bad of season one and fucked up half the city with an earthquake machine, there was every single event in season three that he set in motion by brainwashing Thea to kill Sara. He's since been turned into a token evil teammate thanks to being Thea's father, and he's just charismatic enough for the audience to roll with it, but unlike, say, Captain Cold, Malcolm Merlyn is an actual psychopathic murderer.

It also gives us a nice little moment to show that Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow, can actually be a far more positive force of good than the more barbaric 'kill all mooks' vigilante he was three seasons ago. It's fascinating when a character who we knew is a killer resolves not to be one, yet is faced with a seemingly lucrative choice where killing one evil bastard will save the life of a loved one, stop a big assassin war and generally be good for everyone except for Malcolm, who really deserves it. Yet he shows himself to be the better man.

There's definitely a 'daddy issues' theme going on with this episode, if the title wasn't clear enough. Nyssa struggles to escape the sins of her father, Thea's father is blatantly refusing to believe or trade fairly for the only cure to save his daughter, Oliver recounts his father both in the flashback and the present, and Felicity's B-plot involves her dealing with her own father. More on that later.

Thea's finally cured of her bloodlust, and the threat of Nyssa's League of Assassins is no more, but Malcolm Merlyn might rise to the occasion as a major villain once more with a single-minded grudge against Oliver Queen now. He casually name-drops William to Oliver, and later reveals the existence of Oliver's secret son to Damian Darhk, and suddenly so much makes sense. The fact that Oliver finding out about William became the star of an episode and promptly forgotten... yeah, Oliver's past sins are all going to come back to haunt him. And we suddenly have a far more major candidate for that body in the grave.

And will dissolving the League of Assassins... affect anything at all? They've been implied to be opposing if not directly fighting HIVE, so will Oliver doing so cost him a huge advantage against Damien Darhk?

I think Felicity's B-plots this season have been really strong, after last season turned her into this lovesick blubbery mess. This episode, in particular, has Felicity deal with whether to accept the fact that her father, the Calculator, has really turned over a leaf for good. Is he trying to reconnect with his daughter after finding out that they had one thing in common? And Felicity so desperately wants it to be true, but she was warned -- by her mother, who breaks her veneer of ditzy crazy mommy to deliver one of the harshest and grief-tinged lines in the show -- not to trust him. And, well, Felicity was open-hearted enough to give Calculator the benefit of the doubt, but was definitely smart enough to get to him in a test of character, and ends up setting Noah up to be arrested. Felicity's lines at the end where she's pissed that she feels guilty, or the fact that Noah was enough to make her feel guilty despite not deserving it, is a really heartwrenching line.

The flashbacks were... still forgettable. I don't really buy that Taiana switches over from being 'I hate Oliver and will rat him out to Reiter' to being his steadfast BFF ally in the span of two short scenes and a sob story. But it moves the plot forward and the sooner we're done with this the better.

Overall, a slightly uneven but still satisfying episode. I think it's weaker than the previous one, but honestly it takes a lot to top that episode. 

Legends of Tomorrow S01E04 Review: Ray is Dumb

Legends of Tomorrow, Season 1, Episode 4: White Knights

We finally swap out the seventies for the eighties. This week's Flash got me real excited for travelling to different eras with Connor Hawke, Jonah Hex and the Legion being teased, and this episode... well, it worked marvelously on some parts, and it didn't on some others. Let's go with the bad first, then the good, shall we?

First up, Ray even points out the idiocy of not letting him just shrink down as the Atom and do whatever they need to do. Ray could've done it both in the Pentagon and the Russian science facility to far greater effect than what they ended up doing, but it's extremely odd for them to go in this direction and even lampshade it. Ray himself ends up kind of fucking up kind of bad in the end. If he would just left Valentina Vostok alone and not be enamoured by the idea of redeeming the poor pretty scientist 'duped' by Vandal Savage, they would've finished up the mission far cleaner than they did.

Another thing that really didn't work was Sara and Kendra. I get it, they're trying to give some character development. Sara's bloodlust, and Kendra dealing with the fact that she needs to build up her own confidence and control Chay'Ara within her and deal with Carter's death... but the way they went about doing it ends up feeling rather stilted and odd. It's just done rather poorly, and after all the buildup that Sara and Kendra are trying to get their bloodlust under control, neither of them show up to help beat Chronos or the Russians. That felt like a real missed opportunity. Or maybe Arrow going with the whole 'anger issues' thing with Laurel, Slade, Thea and Sara on different seasons kind of made me sick of the plot line being revisited again.

The Firestorm interaction irked me a fair bit initially, because it was totally Jax's fault not listening to Stein that fucked up the Pentagon mission and blew everyone else's cover. But then we get a couple of great moments for the always-awesome Martin Stein, confessing that he's especially hard to Jax because he didn't want to lose Jax the way he lost Ronnie. I thought this was kind of a great tie-in to the fact that they cut Ronnie Raymond out for whatever the hell reason. Martin also got a great moment when he arrives at the reasonable (but wrong) conclusion that he should stop putting Jax's life in danger and goes in alone to stop that Russian Firestorm power core thing.

Of course, though, Jax is just running high on emotion and he did redeem himself somewhat by trying to save Stein's life via radio near the end, but hey. I thought it was odd since they reconciled in episode two over the whole kidnapping thing, but it's a small inconsistency I'm willing to swallow.

The rest of the episode was definitely brilliant, though. From the fun little infiltration of the Pentagon, which naturally caused all hell to break loose, to the space fight with "Boba Fett" Chronos, to everything surrounding Rip Hunter, Captain Cold, Martin Stein and Heat Wave, who stole the show in their respective scenes.... the show was on full throttle in terms of writing quality for those scenes.

Captain Cold is just awesome, just being suave and pickpocketing every single person they meet. He lays down the charm on both that lady in the Pentagon and Valentina Vostok, and completely outshines lovesick Ray. Ray is just so desperate to impress Valentina, yet he just gets coldly turned away and I loved that scene. Leonard Snart just steals the scene (and the mission, and a kiss, and a wallet). That scene in the end where he's just absolutely pissed off at Rip and is sitting in his office all calm and freeze-gun pointed at his face is brilliant.

Meanwhile, as the cast splits up, Rip Hunter and Heat Wave investigate the crash site of Chronos's ship, only to find Time Master Druce claiming that Chronos is dead, and offering him and his team full amnesty if they returned with him. Heat Wave, showing that he's nowhere as dumb as he acts, tells Rip to reject the offer, knowing that the Time Masters are just trying to get them all in one place so they can be killed. It's nice to see the Time Masters be more proactive instead of just relying on Chronos -- that break-in in the Pentagon probably ruffled some feathers. Maybe that's the reason ARGUS was formed? It was a great scene -- we don't believe for a moment that Chronos died off-screen, or that Rip will give up -- but it was executed well. Chronos and Druce are driven away by the sudden appearance of Rip's allies.

I like Druce! He's a far more compelling antagonist than Chronos, who sadly lives up to his 'Boba Fett' nickname... looks cool, acts cool, does nothing but hang around in the background, looking menacing and getting beaten easily. Druce doesn't fight, but he tries to get in Rip's head, he definitely is a friend of Rip and you truly believe that the two are buddies before all this madness.

The bit at the end where Captain Cold was forced to escape and leave Ray, Mick and Martin captured by the Russians in league with Vandal Savage was great, too, mostly because I was expecting the remaining three or four members of the Legends team to show up and help. I'm honestly not sure why Rip is sure that Ray and Mick would be spared, and I thought that bit was odd if nothing else, but it was a great scene. Shame Ray's just, y'know, dumb. It ends on a cliffhanger, with the promise that Savage's lackey Valentina Vostok (who's evil, don't you know) is planning to create a Russian Firestorm. I'm not sure whether this also happened in the original timeline, or if Savage got his inspiration from fighting Firestorm in the seventies, but hey, it's a nice little plot for now that facilitates taking prisoners.

Comic-book fans like me are probably rejoicing now, because there is a Russian Firestorm in the comics, namely Mikhail Arkadin, otherwise known as the villain-turned-ally Pozhar, who I think actually became Firestorm for a bit. Valentina Vostok is a character I am more familiar with -- the alter-ego of the Doom Patrol superhero Negative Woman, who later took the alias 'White Queen' of Checkmate... we'll see whether this version of the character will embrace the light as Ray Palmer desperately wants her to. I thought the title of the episode is pretty fun, too, very subtly referencing Checkmate and Vostok's role in that organization.

More Easter Eggs include... well, everything in Rip Hunter's office, basically. Some of the artifacts we missed last episode are shown in panning shots, like Hourman's hourglass. We also get Ray Palmer being nicknamed 'boy scout' numerous times by Captain Cold... which, y'know, Superman reference, past actor's career, we all know the drill.

Overall? It's definitely a weaker episode than the previous one, but the strong scenes here really work. It's definitely entertaining and, well I really do love this show. 

The Flash S02E13 Review: Infinite Earths

The Flash, Season 2, Episode 13: Welcome to Earth-2

Holy spitballs, Batman! There are just so many Easter Eggs and DC Comic references in this episode I'm just going to dedicate a short list at the bottom of the article for them. 

With that out of the way, how awesome was this episode? Holy shit, it's just so much fun to watch, and it's not because of the whole Easter Eggs thing. But this episode, wow, it just has so much going on about it. We get plot development, we get character development, the plot twist with Reverb was well done, Jay actually fucking super-speeds in this episode which I think blew my mind more than anything that actually happened...

Earth-2 was definitely fun, though. It draws upon the show's awesome lore, showing how life is different for all the characters of the show. Cisco, Caitlin and Ronnie are supervillains, Joe is a musician and has a rocky relationship with Barry, Barry is a fanboy reporter (I laughed so hard when Barry tasers his Earth-2 counterpart for fanboying) and is married to police chief Iris, Nora Allen is alive and vacationing to Atlantis, Captain Singh is a criminal and motherfucking DEADSHOT of all people is a policeman and Iris's partner.

Okay, let's drop everything and can I say how unexpected motherfucking Deadshot showing up again is? I was totally pissed when Arrow aborted his story arc and killed him off (in an admittedly awesome death scene) thanks to the stupid Suicide Squad embargo, but I never, ever expected to see Deadshot show up in Earth-2 instead of, oh, one of the Arrow main cast or maybe even Good Captain Cold (he's mayor here though) or something. I mean, yeah, we get Tokamak being a respectable and humble civilian, but Tokamak showing up is expected. Motherfucking Deadshot showing up in a later scene made me go whaaaa

And Deadshot is awesome, too, by the way. I mean, he's a lousy shot and couldn't even kill Darth Cisco at nearly point-blank range, but his bumblingness yet insistence to come and help really made me like him... so of course he probably died thanks to that blast by Reverb. 

Anyway, this episode, much to Harrison Wells' chagrin, Barry insists on masquerading as his Earth-2 counterpart to gather intel, and ends up getting dragged home by his alter-ego's wife. He, uh, is forced to play along, and I think I cried a little when he got to call his Earth-2 Mom again. He's fun as we get to experience the differences of Earth-2 and Earth-1 from Barry's eyes and it's hilarious. We get some hilarious awkwardness between Barry and Earth-2 Joe. Er, Joseph. And then the villains show up. I am absolutely so happy to see Ronnie Raymond back again, even if it's as the villainous Deathstorm. But Killer Frost is definitely the one to steal the show, being the one with an actual personality and lines while Deathstorm just stands in the background being all flame-on and looking menacing and shit. 

I think one of the weaker parts of the episode is Earth-2 Joe's death. I mean, yes, it's good to have these doppelgangers who can be disposed off with minimal impact to the audience, but I thought that it was slightly unnecessary and ended up feeling overdramatic. It is a punch in the gut to Barry, though, who definitely dropped the ball on this. Harry did tell him not to mess around and focus on Zoom and Jesse... I mean, there's no rule saying you can't muck around with your alt-universe doppelganger. This isn't Legends of Tomorrow time travel, altering things is perfectly fine. Oh well, it's emotional enough for Barry, at least. 

And then there's that bit with the big revelation that Earth-2 Cisco Ramon is... a supervillain, Reverb. And unlike our Cisco, Reverb has harnessed his full potential, which includes the power that comic-book fans know Vibe for -- creating weaponized vibration waves. Reverb is clearly calling the shots here, scaring Killer Frost to submission and again, it's a plot twist that I didn't see coming. Reverb talks a big game, and the actor is clearly enjoying hamming it up. Reverb promises our Cisco that they can rule together and he can show Cisco how to unlock the full potential of his powers. He even kills poor Deadshot! You might be forgiven in thinking that Reverb would be the arc villain of a couple of episodes, be Zoom's treacherous second-in-command or something...

And then, well, Zoom comes in, kills Deathstorm, and then kills Reverb in the exact same way that Reverse-Flash killed Cisco in that one splinter timeline in season one.

And the Zoom just zooms away with Barry, placing him in a cage nearby Jesse Wells and this weird-ass dude with an iron mask who I can't think of who it might be yet. It's definitely a shocking cliffhanger, it helps make Zoom feel like a credible threat, and more importantly, it's pretty freaking awesome seeing all these supervillains fight each other. I'm just bummed that Darth Cisco got taken out by Zoom so quickly. It's a waste of such a potentially interesting villain.

More importantly, we see a good chunk of Earth-2 characters and their roles, so the theory about Zoom being Earth-2 Barry Allen is kind of out of the window. Henry Allen, on the other hand... or maybe even Eddie Thawne... we'll see. 

We get some filler for Joe, Jay and Caitlin on Earth-1. We get the big revelation that Jay Garrick didn't lose his speed from Zoom's theft, but rather by abusing Velocity-6... which is a really weird-ass thing to keep hidden from the thing. Wouldn't him going all 'this drug is bad because it literally kills you' be a far more compelling reason for them not to use it instead of 'durr hurr Harrison Wells evil'? We actually see Jay Garrick actually be the Flash, actually super-speeding around and doing that cool thing with the super-speed-punch on his helmet and creating a blast of soundwave. 

Of course he pratfalls like a second later and gets manhandled by the Geomancer, but hey, Jay Garrick has superspeed again! Who knew that would happen? Come on, show, let Jay actually be the Flash for once, jeez. Why do you hate him so much?

Geomancer's a decent filler villain with earthquake powers. Mostly because I remember him as being a filler villain no one takes seriously in the comics. But it's still fun, giving the mostly-normal team on Earth-1 someone to deal with. It's definitely stronger than the past Jay/Caitlin plots we've had, but it's definitely the weak subplot in this otherwise really strong episode.

Killer Frost talk, yeah, before we get to the trivia. As much as I enjoy ham-fisted Killer Frost here I'm kinda disappointed that they chickened out and just went with Evil Earth-2 Caitlin Snow. All throughout season one I've been wondering how they are going to go about with turning likable ol' Caitlin Snow into a villain. I speculated something involving Firestorm, something involving a fallout between her and the STAR team... but it appears they're just going to cop out from making Caitlin evil and just do the requisite Killer Frost villain scene with a doppelganger. Oh well.

Man, I really hoped Earth-2 Deadshot didn't die in this episode. I really liked him.

If it isn't obvious already, I loved this episode. It's what Flash needs to be, and it's something that really brings it back to the awesome quality it had in season one when it kinda faltered in recent episodes to mediocre or slightly-above-average level. Man, I love this episode. So much.

The DC Easter Egg Column

So one of the biggest sources of Easter Eggs is actually the trip between the two Earths, just like how the Speed Force in Season one's climax had a lot of Easter Eggs. 

• The design of the tunnel, especially near the end with so many Earths surrounding it, would be reminiscent to how the DC Multiverse is traditionally depicted. Y'know, Infinite Earths and all that.
• We see a dude in a Green Arrow suit, most likely referencing Connor Hawke, who's about to make his appearance in Legends of Tomorrow. Or is there an old live-action Green Arrow show I don't know about? Eh.
• We see a glimpse of a different Flash. This clip is from the old Flash TV series starring John Wesley Shipp, a.k.a. Henry Allen in this show.
• We see Supergirl from Supergirl in her full glory! What in the actual hell? Apparently the two shows are going to have a crossover. Possibly involving multiple earths. Yay!
• We also see Jonah Hex the cowboy, also slated to make his appearance in Legends of Tomorrow.
• We see Grodd again!
• We see someone holding up a badge (flight ring, maybe?) of the Legion of Super-Heroes, a group of superheroes in the 30th Century in the books. This was so out of the left field, man.

And then other Easter Eggs itself...

• We get a thinly-disguised "Free and Just Society" mural prominently featuring Jay Garrick's Flash, which is of course a reference to the Justice Society, of which Jay Garrick is a prominent member.
• Earth-2 Barry Allen wearing a bow tie is a direct nod to Barry Allen's traditional civilian attire in the comics.
• Barry Allen and Iris West, are, of course, the canonical love interest pairing that are married in the comics. 
• Earth-2 Barry Allen's phone has speed dials for Diana, Hal and Bruce... of course a reference to Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Batman's secret identities.
• Of course, as has been mentioned by Jay in a previous episode, Atlantis, hometown of Aquaman, is present in Earth-2 and is so integrated to society that it is an actual vacation spot.
• The idea of alternate earths where the superheroes are instead supervillains is taken from DC comics' Earth-3.
• I talked about Velocity-9 before, and this obviously features an earlier iteration of the serum, but Velocity-9 is a speed-boosting serum used by Inertia and several other characters in the comics.
• Jay Garrick needing a boost in speed is actually something of a problem in the comics as well. While Jay is by no means slow and never depowered like his TV counterpart, he is noted to be slower than Barry Allen and Wally West because he wasn't as attuned to the Speed Force.
• A bit of an internal-continuity thing instead of something from the comics, but one of the rifts that Barry closed at the opening is the one they sent Grodd through.

Oh, the hell with it. Let's go with some origin stories. 

• Caitlin Snow is, in the comics, the identity of the third Killer Frost, who is traditionally a supervillain. Her status as the lover of Firestorm is taken from the first Killer Frost (Crystal Frost), though.
• Deathstorm is the name adapted by Ronnie Raymond when he died and became a zombie Firestorm.
• Geomancer is a bit of a loser villain that showed up in the JSA comics, and definitely not one I thought would ever, ever show up in a live-action adaptation. He's significantly more dangerous here.
• Reverb is taken from the name of the alter-ego of comic-book Vibe's brother, Armando Ramone, who succeeded Vibe as a superhero.
• I have no clue who that dude with the iron mask is, honestly.

Agent Carter S02E05 Review: Heist

Agent Carter, Season 2, Episode 5: The Atomic Job

Another strong episode from Agent Carter. Again, it's nothing particularly spectacular, but it was enjoyable, I didn't have anything that I dislike about it, and it progressed the main story. Where last episode we've got an origin story for our leading lady, this episode we have... a heist! And plot development! Jason finds out that he can suck up the Zero Matter within the autopsy chunk from the frozen lady, so Peggy and Jarvis go on wacky capers to steal the body... only to find out that Whitney Frost is literally a step ahead, and drains every single Zero Matter from the corpse.

What follows is, well, Whitney Frost wanting to re-stage the atomic bomb explosion that formed the Zero Matter in the first place. There's a bit of foreshadowing/world-building as both Jason and Whitney note that they are drawn to other sources of Zero Matter, but we'll probably save that for later.

What more exciting, though, is the heist! In addition to show regulars Peggy, Jarvis and Sousa, this time around we recruit two wacky characters. Rose, the fat jolly secretary lady who, like the grandma from Captain America: the First Avenger, is a fully trained agent on her own. She just never stepped into the battlefield. We also have the thankless passive-aggressive dr. Samberly, who's got a nice decent scene in the first two episodes that make him memorable enough. And honestly, I actually kinda feel for the poor dude. No one likes him, he gave up so much to join the SSR, and he really sin't appreciated. Yes, he gets to be a bit of a butt monkey and source of comedic relief, but is he so different from Peggy Carter herself, living a thankless life, no one remembering him, despite performing admirably? The dude invented a memory wipe, for fuck's sake! I mean, yeah, dude's a bit bumbling and a bit of an idiot, but I was glad he made it out safely.

Including Rose and Samberly actually also raised the stakes of the heist, really. I mean, we know Peggy's absolutely safe, and both Jarvis and Sousa are main characters and are safe enough until there's like a big end-of-season conflict or something. But Rose and Samberly? Especially with Sousa going on the tangent that Rose is untrained? Yeah, I was totally scared that one of these two would bite it -- they were actually likable people and having them die simply would be quite sad indeed. 

Also, how hilarious was that slow walk? I mean, Guardians of the Galaxy did the 'slow walk while everyone isn't taking it seriously' first, and I bet some other movies did it as well, but how many of them have the group arrive at the spot, and then it turned out to be just wrong because Jarvis parked the car elsewhere?

We get a couple of wacky hijinks, of course, with Samberly accidentally locking Jarvis in a room with an atomic bomb, forcing our favourite butler to handle the disarming of the nuke himself. We get Samberly being all awkward around Rose, we get Rose taking down Maggia goons on her own, we get some crazy James Bond-style lightning field disc grenade thing courtesy of Samberly... it's all fun and good, and we even get a great climax with Peggy facing off against Frost. I mean, yeah, we all know that Peggy's not going to be eaten by black goop or die from that rusty spike, so it's a good thing the show doesn't treat us like idiots and have the show cut straight to Nurse Violet patching Peggy up.

Not really a big fan of Violet being all "you're still in love with her, aren't you?" bit, though Sousa's disaster of a marriage proposal earlier this episode was actually pretty freaking hilarious. Sousa's not going to survive this series, is he? He's definitely grown on me since season one, being actually likable instead of being just the love interest archetype. But that scene where Violet confronts Sousa about his old love really felt jarring considering the really sweet and well-done awkward confession earlier in the episode.

I've gone through nearly the entire episode without talking about Whitney Frost, but man, she's also awesome! She's basically running this show now, and that fact is further enforced by the scene in the end where Chadwick refuses to help her out after they failed to get the nuke, and she basically puts her feet down. But Whitney Frost has been dominating every scene, more and more subtly undermining Chadwick's supposed authority over her.

The scene with where she dominates the conversation with the mob boss and basically forces her husband to be indebted to Maggia mastermind Joseph Manfredi is awesome. Joseph Manfredi is better known to Marvel comic fans as the anti-hero Blackwing, and is the leader of the Maggia, Marvel Comics' version of the mafia, though the organization went unnamed in this episode. Manfredi had a short scene, though he definitely stole it with his eccentricities, like totally beating the crap out of one of his bodyguards for "undressing a lady with your eyes". I'm not sure if Manfredi's going to be a secondary antagonist for the second season, or if it's just a nice little nod to the fans, but I could very easily see this psychotic mob boss be an ally for Whitney Frost... especially since Chadwick is scared shitless and summons an emergency meeting of the Council of Nine at the end of the episode.

We also get more references to Thomas Gloucester this episode as a powerful influential member of the Council of Nine -- he showed up as 'Tom' in the Council's first appearance and the previous two episodes made references to him by name. I dunno, I hope more of the Council's members actually do something instead of just being ciphers or bumbling idiots like Hugh Jones (who I honestly forgot had met Peggy Carter before, actually). As a side-note Thomas Gloucester is also apparently based on a Marvel comics villain as well, so hopefully he manages to do something interesting. 

I do like how basically both Peggy and Whitney play their hands to each other -- Whitney displays her power and Peggy shows that she's totally onto Whitney -- so we won't have too much silly subterfuge between the two main players in the episodes to come.

Oh, and Jason also possibly disappears elsewhere, so we're definitely hopefully getting more about that mysterious Zero Matter origin dark dimension thing that I've been trying to avoid spoilers about. It's overall a mostly light-hearted episode right until the final scenes where things get serious. I thought that Peggy-goes-undercover scene with Hugh Jones or whoever the Roxxon head is went on for too long, but holy shit abusing the memory wipe device is hilarious. 

We get some plot develpoment, we get development of primary and supporting characters, the plot goes on... yeah, I honestly didn't see myself really getting this hooked to Agent Carter, but I actually am. It's never going to get 10/10 or 9/10 scores if I were the type of reviewer to give scores, but it consistently scores between the 7-8/10 range and above-average consistency is definitely something I can appreciate.

One Piece 816 Review: Plot Twist

One Piece, Chapter 816: Cat and Dog

A bit of a shorter chapter, and a plot development that I am really, really glad happened. We don't get anything about Sanji or Big Mom, focusing more on the conflict of the Minks and the Samurai, but hey, we needed to get that out of the way. It's mostly a decent chapter, and we thought it was going to hinge on the Straw Hats stopping Kin'emon, Kanjurou and Momonosuke -- and Kin'emon being an idiot anyway and stepping in and asking everyone... but it turns out, the Minks had been enduring all that torture, all that limb chopping, to protect Raizou. And the Minks and the Kogetsu Clan of Zou have been comrades for years -- and every single fucking Mink knew that Raizou is safe, and have been protecting him.

There's also this bit where Inuarashi and Nekomamushi are like grr grr cat dog angry angry which went on for a bit too long -- though it did build up the illusion that the Minks might be distracted from the samurai thing by infighting, which was decent.

And, well, this is how you do a 'we will never betray our friends' scene, Fairy Tail. One Piece doesn't really shy from that kind of friendship speeches, but they save those sentences only when it really is dramatic and suitable, so it actually has a powerful impact. And, well, all those torture scenes that we thought were only to illustrate the brutality of Jack's men (well they still do) and the hatred that the Minks might understandably have for the Samurai aren't just wasted like that, since it shows just how hardcore and awesome the Minks are for enduring through all that.

Overall, a nice short-and-sweet chapter. Of course I really want to know more about Sanji and Germa 66 and Vinsmoke and Big Mom and all that, but if we're going to wrap up the Minks and Zou first, well, why not. Less distraction for us this way. Maybe once we get a Raizou chapter we can leave the samurai behind and go focus on the Yonkou? It's definitely surprising, a great twist and I love it when a plot twist is dropped on me and it makes sense yet it's something I never even considered before. 

Cover page's nearly all the characters of Water Seven reacting to a newspaper. Tyrannosaurus is there! Yay!

Agent Carter S02E04 Review: Flashbacks Galore

Agent Carter, Season 2, Episode 4: Smoke & Mirrors

Agent Carter is consistently good every week. It still doesn't quite have the same 'wow' effect as the big revelations about the Zero Matter in the second episode, but it's still consistently quite good. This week is both fast-paced and slow-paced at the same time. Fast-paced because we get a lot of plot being moved forward, namely Peggy and Sousa deciding to assault the Arena Club... even if it got shut down rather quickly thanks to some administrative red tape thanks to our good buddy FBI-man Vernon. I think the weakest point is another sense of deja vu that Peggy Carter is once again doing an investigation where the authorities have shut her down, though at least this time around part of the SSR is on her side. 

On the villain side, the hitman, Rufus Hunt, gets bullied around, interrogated with the fake malaria injection, before being eaten by Whitney Frost's new Zero Matter powers. Whitney Frost embracing her powers by experimenting with rats, her brief panicking about her looks, something that her shitty mother told her is the only thing she's worth for, and ultimately embracing it by consuming Rufus Hunt in front of poor, frightened Chadwick... yeah, plot progression is hard and fast this episode.

On the other hand, we get a lot of flashbacks for both Peggy and Whitney -- though for a moment I got confused and thought that they were all about Peggy. Oh well. Mea culpa. It's slow-pawhaced, really, but functions somewhat to build upon the characters that this season is telling us about. Necessary? Hardly. But are they entertaining, and do they build up the characters? Yeah. Poor Whitney Frost (well, Agnes Cully) had a shitty mother who didn't approve of all her interest in science, insists that her looks are the only thing that will get her ahead in life, blames her for her lover sleeping around with other women, and generally is a shitty mother all around.

Peggy's mom kinda disapproves of her wanting to be the dragonslayer instead of the princess in playtime, wanting her to be a good little girl, but nowhere to the extent of Whitney's shitty mother. We see more of Peggy being engaged to a 'Fred', while her brother, Michael, wants Peggy to choose a life of a spy, something that Michael knows is more suited to what Peggy wants to. And, well, Michael died. Man, that was sad. It was a nice development and a nice juxtaposition how they were both forced to be moulded into what women should be at that time period, and how Peggy ultimately rejected her 'perfect life', which she fooled herself of wanting, and instead chose her heart's calling. A bit odd that we've never heard about Michael Carter at all before this, but the scenes really worked well.

Again, feminism handled well. A lot better than how Agent Carter's first season was, and definitely miles and miles more well-written than Supergirl. I could be mean and start nitpicking that show, but let's not.

Incidentally, Rufus Hunt is played by the same actor that played Reactron from Supergirl. 

Ahem. Back to Agent Carter... Jarvis was still funny with his antics with the tranquilizer gun, pretending to be an American toughie and everything. Sousa was fine, being a nice ally, and the revelation that Vernon gave the same communist speech to him was kind of hilarious in hindsight. Wilkes is still the weaker part of the protagonists, with the potential romance angle really not working out as well as it should, though with him seeing visions about dark holes and shit are definitely interesting. Does he have more powers? What are the extent of his powers beyond just being intangible? And, more importantly, what are Whitney Frost's limits?

Overall, a lot happened in the present day, but it moved so fast thanks to a good chunk of the screentime used for flashbacks. And while it could've been trimmed out a little the flashbacks did help to build Frost and Peggy's characters. The Zero Matter and Council of Nine (we have a name!) plotlines continue to move forward, and I'm definitely far more interested with this season than I was at this point last season. 

Legends of Tomorrow S01E03 Review: Dark Pasts

Legends of Tomorrow, Season 1, Episode 3: Blood Ties

Holy shit, this episode was also good! We shine the spotlight on several of the other characters who were slightly shafted in the last two episodes -- most notably Rip Hunter and the Atom, who barely did anything in episode two -- but also gives White Canary much-needed screentime, allows Vandal Savage to actually be a threatening villain, and Captain Cold actually gave me sad feels.

Still stuck in the seventies, the team split up again, with the Rogues gangpressing Jefferson with them to steal an emerald... which seems like a wacky subplot until characterization happened and we all feel for Captain Cold. The Atom and Martin Stein, meanwhile, have their own sidequest to cure a bunch of microscopic blade fragments that are going towards Kendra Saunder's heart (Hawkgirl herself is mostly out of it this episode). This leaves Rip Hunter and Sara Lance as the only ones of the team that's doing anything in relation to the Vandal Savage plot.

And it's a nice little split-up as it gives the cast members more time to breathe. We get some more implications of what it's like to manipulate the timeline. Rip Hunter apparently tried to kill Vandal Savage in ancient Egypt, but failed, instead spawning a legend about this mythical Gareeb that opposes Vandal Savage. Vandal Savage himself proves to be far more badass and dangerous than his past two outings. One of the biggest problems is that, well, last episode Vandal Savage himself isn't that much of a threat to a superhuman team if his powers just is, well, master hand-to-hand combatant and great knife thrower. And unable to be killed by anyone but Kendra.

Well, this episode Vandal Savage breaks out the magic beams and manages to hold down the fort against the Rogues and Rip Hunter. And as much as Hunter manages to deal a mortal wound to Savage, the fact that Savage can just regenerate from his wound means that their work isn't done. It begs the question of why they don't just bring Vandal Savage with them and chop him up or something, but that's really how you make chronal villains like Per Degaton and Krona so nevermind that. Savage's horrifying in this episode, especially near his 'death' where he promises to wait until he finds Rip's family, whose faces he memorizes, and he will hunt them down. 

Vandal Savage also shows a horrifying cult, using Hawkman's blood to give his cultists extended life. Among Savage's troops is the ninja banker Mr. Blake, who had a fair amount of awesome fight scenes with White Canary in this episode, and actually became a bit of a fun little character despite being mostly a mook. The other prominent cultist, the crazy-faced Caleb who bears more than a resemblance to Gotham's insane Penguin, also drank Carter's blood and I'm curious if any of them will show up in the next time period. Well, maybe not Blake. Sara kinda broke him.

Sara, the White Canary, shows some of her dealing with the aftermath of being resurrected, dealing with whether she's a monster or not, her bloodlust, and her career of killing, and I think it's something that her shafted screentime in Arrow didn't quite give her enough justice. Granted it would be preaching to the choir with Thea going through a similar thing, and I do appreciate how in-between ass-kickings and all that Sara is given some time to show that, yes, she's going to have a character arc and isn't just around for her looks.

And in addition to Rip's travel to ancient Egypt and failing to kill Savage then, this show also shows that, well, time travel doesn't always work the way you want. Captain Cold steals the emerald that his father would fail in stealing and go to jail for -- turning his father into the abusive motherfucker we saw on Flash -- but while he tries to steal that emerald and give it to Lewis Snart... Lewis ends up going to jail nonetheless for trying to sell said emerald. Time doesn't want you to fuck with it, apparently.

I do like how even Heat Wave tried to caution Captain Cold against messing with the timeline, and even if he's the dumb one of the team (lampshaded by a hilarious joke early in this episode) he's not, y'know, brick-level dumb.

Captain Cold's where it's at, though, and him visiting his younger self "Leo" and telling little Leo not to let anyone step all over him and shit, and resisting the urge to beat up or kill his father because doing so would prevent Lisa from being born... Lenny's reminiscing of how his father never beat him or his mother until he went to jail is suitably melancholic, and it really works well with this swaggering character that he, too, has a vulnerable point. He's a charming villain, a 'don't mess with me' suave character... but the flawed individual beneath Captain Cold, Lenny Snart, is equally compelling. 

Martin Stein and Ray Palmer have less of a stellar scene compared to the other two teams. We get some nice moments where Ray starts to doubt himself, and Stein tries to pretend that he remembers Ray Palmer as one of the best students (which turns out to be a lie) and the two characters and actors certainly have great chemistry with each other, but the sudden confidence loss felt a bit out of character and forced on Ray Palmer. I guess last episode of humiliation kinda hurt him somewhat? The bit about Martin forcing Ray to admit who he lost felt odd, though. It's decent, at least, if not wholly interesting. And most importantly, it gives the Atom, well, something to do instead of being that one guy who I forgets about. And finally, making use of the crazy shrinking abilities and having Ray run around in Kendra's bloodstream zapping giant debris pieces (as insanely unrealistic as the CGI portrays it to be) is a very comic-booky moment and one that elevates Atom beyond Iron-Man-Knockoff that he's been rightfully accused to be in Arrow's third season.

Kendra doesn't get to do much, being in a coma for nearly the entirety of the episode, though we did get a bit of closure as we bury Carter and Albus. 

Rip gives us a big reference in seeing "Men of Steel die and Dark Knights fall", and beyond referencing related characters like Oracle and the little Wayne cameo in Flash's future newspaper, this is the closest the CW-verse has to referencing the existence of Superman and Batman. Yay! Future plot-relevance, or just a nice cameo? Hopefully the former. 

We get a couple of fun easter eggs, and not just to DC comics either. Ray references the Titanic, and Martin Stein's actor Victor Garber acted in Titanic, with his expression when Ray brings it up being just hilarious. Ray's dead wife, whose last name was not revealed in Arrow, is revealed to be Anna Loring. Ray Palmer's wife in the comics is called Jean Loring, but a different character bearing her name have shown up before Ray Palmer did in Arrow, hence Anna. Vandal notes a previous encounter with Jack the Ripper, when in DC comics lore Vandal Savage himself is Jack the Ripper.

Rip Hunter's room (around five minutes into the episode) is a treasure trove of DC references, and while we don't get a glimpse of all of the props made for Rip's office (including references to Sgt. Rock, Hourman, Dr. Mid-Nite, Sandman and Ma Hunkel), this episode you can definitely spot Jonah Hex's wanted poster on the wall. Jonah Hex, of course, is the DC-comics Western-era mystic cowboy man, whose appearance in this show has already been confirmed. Will the others... whoa, a JSA appearance will probably blow me mind.

Great episode, still, even if the Atom/Stein bit didn't work as well as I hoped it would the rest really shines.