Constantine Ep. 5 Review: Spectres, Grand Poobah & Jackass of All Trades Team-Up

Constantine, Episode 5: Danse Voudou

Been a while since I did my last Constantine review. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of horror shows and while this particular episode isn't bad in the jumpscare or horrifying imagery department, y'know, sometimes you just need to take a break. Plus, y'know, Jessica Jones is a gigantic distraction. But hey, Constantine is back for the three or four of you who read it.

Anyway, episode five and we already have the obligatory team-up between the protagonist and his arch-enemy against a greater threat! Constantine's setting of having his nominal arch-enemy as a voodoo priest slash mob boss makes it a rather unique situation where neither of them want to have these ersatz murdering restless spirits running around after a talk-to-the-dead spell by Papa Midnite went awry and start raising the spirits from the dead, killing off random people. It's a standard horror ghost story, starting off with two ghosts that kill with a pattern and it turns out that the regrets of the ones who brought them to life ended up anchoring them to the living world. And, well, the whole Rising Darkness thing that's been hinted since episode two is the main fault of this. We get a hint that someone will betray Constantine and bring about the Rising Darkness, and since no one's really developed enough to actually be suspicious... I'm guessing it could go either way.

On the surface it's a relatively straightforward monster-of-the-week episode, with elements that draw from Western hitch-hiker ghost stories and the Japanese urban ghost Kuchisake-onna (with a perfect transcription of how the ghost acts depending on your answers). It's not terrible, it's not exactly memorable, and in the grand scheme of things it'll just be one among the many episodes leading from Constantine's introduction to the big plot twists and ending at the end of the season. But I do like it! I don't think it's as strong as the previous episode which featured some actual hard character moments on Constantine's part, but it's still fun.

Constantine and Midnite are absolutely awesome scenery chewers, absolutely rocking it with some insane pieces of dialogue. "You're the jackass of all trades and master of none", and Midnite talking about how Constantine is a 'magpie of magic' who try to cobble together his own haphazard magic from multiple cultures instead of just trusting a single pantheon of old gods like Midnite's loa is a nice little touch, though how much this will be delved upon I'm not quite sure. Midnite also mentions his voodoo-head sister, Cedella, and apparently it's a 'hotline to hell'. Throw in some nice little hints about their past meetings, plus Midnite sending Cedella to hell just like Constantine did, and the two's relationship feels a lot deeper instead of just two episodes.

Also, Jim Corrigan, better known to DC fans as alter-ego to the Spectre, shows up! We also get a bit of a prophecy hinting (it's so easy to randomly throw it in shows like Constantine) that he is well on his way to suffer from a tragic death and be reborn as the green, speedo-wearing angel of vengeance. But DC knowledge aside, Corrigan is an entertaining cop, and while he doesn't get to do much here beyond being a cynical cop who later, well, believes in all the ghostly things going on and delivers some hints about Zed's past, it might set him up for future appearances! If he does this season. Otherwise people unfamiliar with the Spectre will just be absolutely confused at the random green mist and bloodied face he has at the end.

Zed and Chas also get fairly more screentime here, with Zed getting a not unsignificant amount hanging around with Constantine and Corrigan. Constantine and Papa still steal the episode, of course, but Zed dealing with the hitchhiker ghost and doing her own detective work that go way beyond Constantine's safe zone and hints that Corrigan has about a missing person's file or whatnot. Chas actually puts his immortality (well, resurrection powers) to good use by braving the Kuchisake-onna and allowing her to stab him. A lot. Before waking up.

Constantine also makes use of more wacky magical trinkets... though the ones here, like the tacky-looking glowing bracelet jewel thing, isn't quite as spooky or creepy as the ones we saw before.

There's a nice little change of pace in that there's no unleashed demon or evil gypsy practitioner that Constantine needs to hunt and put down -- yes, people die because of the ghosts, but the root of it all is still an accident. One perpetrated by Papa Midnite instead of Constantine himself, yes, but still, it does give us a breath of fresh air after the throwaway villains (plus one where Midnite was the main villain) of the previous few episodes. The whole 'fixing your own mistake' thing probably resonated relatively well with Constantine's own goals for his soul's redemption.

Overall, though, it's an okay monster-of-the-week episode. It's a self-contained story that lets our main characters shine and develop for a bit, an unexpected cameo from another DC character, and utterly vague hints at the Rising Darkness and a traitor in the midst, whatever the hell that is. Zed's the obvious choice with her mysterious past and unexplained powers, so she's definitely the red herring. Chas? Manny? That hacker dude whose name I forgot? Does Papa Midnite count?

Jessica Jones S01E11 Review: And Now A Secondary Villain

Jessica Jones, Season 1, Episode 11: AKA I've Got the Blues

This is a great episode that's honestly a bit hurt by its position in the season. We're fresh of a series of big moments that starred Kilgrave in a huge fashion, where he's easily the second most prominent character in the show in the past few episodes and eclipsing anyone not named Jessica Jones. They've traded away the big mystery of the main villain in favour of having him confront the main protagonist, which usually leads to a huge thing between the two of them. Thus it's a strange position to explore the two main plot points of this episode -- the focus of the episode deals with the whole Crazy!Simpson plot, and there are a couple of flashbacks showing Jessica's origin and Trish's abusive bitch of a mother. In a vacuum both parts are really strong, but its location here, right after Kilgrave makes his big move in a string of fast-paced events that killed at least three supporting characters... we take a break and fight this secondary villain whose rise to villainy is dubiously handled at best.

Kilgrave himself doesn't appear throughout the entire episode, up until the final shot where he blows up Luke Cage's bar in the dude's triumphant return to the show. Granted the man himself is invulnerable, but man, that bar. Also, if I'm a betting man... either Simpson or Luke Cage will end up mind-controlled for Kilgrave to use against Jessica, because if Jessica and Luke go up against Kilgrave...Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the interactions between Jessica and Trish in both present and past, and the episode is another in a string of really solid episodes, and this particular plot point really needed to be resolved... but it really just felt odd that this distraction which was really more suitable on episode 8 or 9 took place in, well, the third-last episode. I honestly thought Simpson's role would be far more involved in the conflict with Kilgrave, making him relevant as the show reaches its end... and instead, we get this oddity of an episode. Which is odd, since I really liked it... but I came into this episode expecting more Kilgrave-vs-Jessica, and for the first fifteen minutes or so we get a bit of a slower detective work as Jessica hunts morgues for Albert's body (and finds Clemons instead) which is nice. Slower episodes are okay because we really needed one after all that excitement, but then we take a detour to revisit the whole Simpson thing and that's just weird.


Let's talk about the flashbacks first, because it's shorter. It's nice and sweet seeing how Jessica discovers her powers, which felt like something out of the X-Men movies. Still no explanation as to how she gets them at all, and I honestly have given up hope on the series actually telling us. Dorothy Walker is a horrible excuse for a parent, and while we've gotten hints of this before when Jessica confronts her in the present day, Dorothy thinks that taking in Jessica as basically a ratings stunt to cover up Trish "setting fire to a nightclub" and honestly is more concerned about how Patsy is going to save Jessica as those are the words she says to Jessica the very moment she shows signs of consciousness. Compare that to Trish, who, while totally inappropriate in her flippant manner, is more concerned about telling Jessica that her family's dead.

And then the point where Trish finds out Jessica has superpowers -- in a fun display of strength as Jessica accidentally destroys a marble sink, though one must wonder just why young Trish knows exactly how heavy a sink is. As this goes on, we hear Trish and Dorothy arguing, and Dorothy is downright abusive both verbally and physically, cutting Trish's shoulder with one of Trish's awards to boot. They make a nice little sister-y deal that Trish doesn't tell anyone about Jessica's powers, and Jessica doesn't "save" Trish. Of course, when Dorothy tries to get Trish to vomit out a pizza (holy shit, woman!) Jessica saves Trish from the abuse by, well, throwing the abusive mother against a wall, thus rather cutely making them even in breaking their promises. Also, Dorothy is a piece of shit of a woman.

My question is, well, while this juxtaposes nicely against Jessica and Trish's focus on their sisterhood this episode, it just really feels a bit odd that this takes place in, again, the third-last episode of a series you're meant to binge-watch. It would've fit better earlier in the season.

Jessica's awesome. All the detective work isn't anything you can't get from the thirty dozen other cop/detective shows out there, but she actually does show emotion here -- a rarity in the series. The grief she had over Hope's corpse, the evident distaste she has against covering it up, the grief she had when Trish apparently dies... yeah, she may "hate the world" and all that, but she's not a woman made of ice. Good for you, Jessica.

I also liked the need to 'nerf' Jessica to make the drugged-up Simpson feel like a legitimate threat, and having her get hit by a truck when her paranoia led her to chase some random dude with a purple suit is a great way to show how stress is getting to her (a point mentioned by Trish multiple times earlier in the episode) and to show that, even injured, she's still tough as hell since that truck seemed to be in as bad a shape as she is.

Trish is awesome too. Most of her character moments I think came from comparing how much she's grown from the flashbacks to the present-day scenes, and at the same time seeing how at core she's still sarcastic yet not harmful... she just learned to lean more towards cheerful now that the abusive mother is out of the picture. She gets some interaction with Simpson, who acts like a less harmful version of the stalker boyfriend as compared to Kilgrave... well, up until he eats those drugs. Trish manages to be resourceful, not only saving the wounded Jessica from being strangled to death but eventually braving the red pill and fighting toe-to-toe with Simpson. Hellcat go! And, yes, she ended up almost asphyxiating from the side effects of the red drug. Panicking and wounded and all, but Jessica honestly couldn't try and track down the blue pills? You'd think it would be more effective than waiting for an ambulance.

Simpson is a great threat as he just shows to be beyond reasoning, and his big motivation is just an exaggerated version of the 'we need to kill Kilgrave, Jessica is hindering me' spiel he's been talking about throughout the season. We thought it was just to provide a differing POV compared to Jessica, but alas it's grown into a full-blown one-dimensional psychosis. To some degree we see a bit of the old Simpson's personality and protectiveness of Trish show up, but well, I was totally cheering for Jessica and Trish to beat the crap out of him. And they did! I was pleasantly surprised how big of a role Trish played in beating Simpson down.

Sadly they don't confirm the kill, and Kozlov's men decide to round up Simpson's body. Whether he'll show up later this season for Kilgrave to mindfuck or it's just hints of more to come when we get to Defenders, we'll see. Maybe someone will actually call him Ruin, though don't let him paint the American flag on his face. That's just dumb.

Overall, though, while the fight between Jessica, Trish and Simpson is perfectly shot and extremely tense -- especially since there's no guarantee Trish will survive the overdose -- again, Simpson going off the deep end with the cheap shrug of a justification "he took some drugs that muddled his mind" really felt too cheap for a show like this. Oh well, at least it's entertaining.

Still don't see the point of Robyn and she's annoying. She's really overstaying her welcome and the whole point of her seemed to just be a bitch to Malcolm, whose big worldview of people being good in the world having been shattered by, well, everything Kilgrave. And Robyn playing devil-on-the-shoulder and being such a huge bitch. And, well, let's be honest, Jessica's a dick to Malcolm at times. Though I honestly don't see why Malcolm and Robyn got so much screen time in this episode. Padding out time?

To note is that joining Kilgrave in absence is Jeri Hogarth. Is she done for the series with last episode? I wouldn't be surprised.

Overall, though, while a confusing entry to the series, taken in a vacuum it's still a great episode -- it's just that positioning and their handling of Simpson this past couple of episodes is relatively poorly thought-out. But since we're getting back to Kilgraving and we're definitely going to stay on track for the next two final episodes, I guess we might as well tie up all loose ends. I just wished the sideplots were tied up earlier so we don't have this oddity of an episode.

Jessica Jones S01E10 Review: Kumbaya Circles & White Horses

Jessica Jones, Season 1, Episode 10: AKA 1000 Cuts

So, yeah, the show has basically abandoned all pretense of being a noir story with superhero elements that it had in the earlier episodes. And while this slight change in genre worked in its favour in the previous two or three episodes where it's far more action packed and more of a Jessica-vs-Kilgrave conrfontation, this episode really felt off. A lot of the B-plots ends up being aborted or utterly changed to feel relatively unnatural in such a TV show, and while I do realize that sticking strictly to genre conventions will hurt storytelling and make it predictable, it's also odd the change of tone that the series is taking.

It's a good thing that the series still feels epic, though, with Kilgrave being as badass and awesome a villain as ever. But let's leave that for last as I make good on my blog's name and actually rant a bit about aspects of this episode.

Following up Ruben's death, after it was handwaved rather oddly before, is welcome... if only Robyn wasn't such an annoying piece of shit. Seeing her be desperate as she puts missing person posters around and Malcolm struggling with his guilt is a nice gesture -- if a rather inappropriate and unwelcome at this point in storytelling as it promises distraction. And it did! Poor Malcolm ends up blubbering about the whole thing to the Kilgrave support group, and somehow Robyn shows up, works up a frenzy and gets them to become a mob to fight against Jessica. Jessica, who, mind you, was the only person who believed them. Even if they don't know of Jessica's crusade against Kilgrave you'd think this random psychotic bitch telling them to basically mob-lynch Jessica (and in the process unleash Kilgrave onto the world) feels like a forced plot twist. Robyn has been unlikable since day one, and any sympathy she might've gained from Jessica's questionable decision of keeping her brother's death from her has evaporated.

Speaking of which, Malcolm ends up being a bit of a distraction himself -- he hasn't quite degenerated to Robyn-level of "I hope Kilgrave kills her next" but he was kinda annoying since his purpose this episode is to feature Robyn's insanity.

And Hogarth is revealed to be the one who sprung Kilgrave out of jail, but Kilgrave predictably takes control of Hogarth -- who brings him to Wendy possibly to kill two birds with one stone and bring the two of them in close proximity. What was unexpected was Wendy and Kilgrave bonding over their personal love problems and their loved ones not appreciating grand romantic gestures-- an absolutely delightful scene... which takes a turn for the darker as Kilgrave starts interrogating Hogarth and finds out about the fetus. It's all good here, and Kilgrave telling Wendy to kill Hogarth with the titular 1000 cuts is suitably chilling... and then Pam randomly shows up, whacks Wendy and her head got... what is a verb that describes that? The edge of that table impaled her temporal lobe. It's a gruesome and honestly a bit over-the-top death, but the whole Hogarth/Wendy/Pam subplot which has been increasingly distracting just gets shut down as Pam is so disgusted by Hogarth doing all this and walks out, leaving Hogarth alone. It's brutal, and I do hope that it's over with in this episode. The whole divorce sub-plot felt overdrawn at times despite the great acting from the characters involved, and now I hope we can use all this crapton of trauma to actually develop Jeri Hogarth. Maybe that aborted fetus (which was apparently useless) would be of eventual use?

What I don't like is that beyond her trying to use Kilgrave to deal with her divorce situation, Hogarth doesn't seem to have a long-term game plan for dealing with or using Kilgrave, and it seems rather dumb for a character who's been built up as being sensible and pragmatic. I mean, it could be just Kilgrave manipulating her the moment she gives into temptation and opens that door, but still, it just feels rather forced just to unleash more melodrama. The fact that she fucked everyone over just for... ambiguous gains of no sensible reason makes her absolutely unlikable.

Meanwhile, uh, officer Simpson has apparently randomly embraced his comic book supervillain persona, which just felt stupid and out of nowhere. Hell, if I hadn't done that little research last episode I would be absolutely gawking at this unnatural change. He's been extremely passionate about bringing Kilgrave to justice, yes, but randomly showing up and killing officer Clemons for no good reason really came out of nowhere. Then he tries to get to Kilgrave's father, accidentally slaps Trish and gets booted out of the episode. I just don't... I honestly just don't get it. Even other shows that are far more superhero-comic based try to make a 'heroic character who eventually turns evil' feel gradual instead of being laughably random like this.

Man, Clemons, you really shouldn't be discussing your retirement out loud in every other scene. And to make his death worse, Simpson didn't even have to kill Clemons. Yes, he destroys all the evidence so that Kilgrave couldn't be prosecuted, but why do that? It really doesn't make sense when held up to slightly closer scrutiny. He's just crazy and while crazy villains can be entertaining this one just doesn't make sense.

Also, Hope, whose unfair trial has been the driving force behind Jessica Jones staying around to try and defeat Kilgrave ever since episode one, to try and struggle and be the hero she thought she couldn't be... ends up being a random downer ending as Hope kills herself to 'free' Jessica from the burden of trying to save her and not kill Kilgrave in the process. It's a bold plot twist, but one that I don't really find worked smoothly. I guess they're trying to imply that any pretense of being a superhero, at being a hero in the classical sense, is lost with Hope's death (man, in hindsight, what an obvious 'meaningful' name Hope has) and it's no longer a redemption arc for Jessica to reclaim her 'hero' status or even just to save a person, but Jessica's now just out for blood and to murder Kilgrave.

So with three episodes down the line naturally Jessica won't be anywhere in punching distance to Kilgrave like the many ample times she's got a chance to do so in the past few episodes. 

At least the two principal characters of the conflict -- Jessica and Kilgrave -- are handled pretty well in this episode. The conversation between the two is great, Jessica snarking at Hogarth at the face of Wendy's death (while comforting Pam in the same breath) is great, and despite spending most of the episode running where the plot demands her to, she's still pretty fun. I did like how she got around Kilgrave's commands, by having Trish have a bullet in her head by having one of them in her mouth -- and Trish's simple helpless meek squeak after the compulsion to put a bullet in her head is gone is just heartbreaking, showing just how horrifyingly absolute Kilgrave's powers are. And, well, the fact that Jessica is immune is definitely going to be a game-changer now, though Kilgrave having people ready to hang themselves as insurance still means that Kilgrave's not exactly helpless.

Speaking of Kilgrave's victims, can we say how chilling it is for his victims to be unable to stop themselves from obeying his commands even when Kilgrave's gone? With the 12 hour and 'technical obeying' limiters in play, we see the creepy moment where Trish is just sobbing, trying to whack that bullet into the side of her head futilely until Jessica convinces her not to. We see Papa-Kilgrave wake up from being unconscious and try to immediately cut his heart out. And even after he was bound up and talks like a normal person to the rest of the cast, there's a visible point when he suddenly points out that he needs to cut his heart out -- despite being absolutely coherent all throughout the scene. Pretty chilling. 

We also get some flashbacks to a point in time that the show has been keeping absolutely vague throughout all this, which was when Kilgrave and Jessica were in a relationship. And, well, Jessica's slight refusals and rebuttals, as well as Kilgrave losing his temper and telling Jessica to cut off her ear -- he stopped, but still, the fact that he did that makes the whole 'you're the thing I care about most in the world' speeches ring far more hollowly than before. I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand it is totally in character with how Kilgrave has been behaving, but on the other hand, it seems like a cheap attempt to go all 'lol look at this monster of a character' and demonize Kilgrave even more than he already has, losing the single point of decency that the dude has, which was his sick love towards Jessica. Now that's gone, and Jessica's reason to not kill him is gone since Hope's dead, and I felt that the show's pushing it a bit too hard. I mean, he idealizes that scene, clinging to that one moment where he thought Jessica had a thing for him because he let her out of his control for all of 18 seconds...

The weird scene with Jessica jumping off a building onto a white horse is just weirdly trippy and dumb, though.

Now whether the vaccine that daddy-Kilgrave and Trish have been spending the entire episode worked and daddy-Kilgrave is just playing along with his son's orders, or if he just simply failed to resist, isn't exactly made clear. Apparently Kilgrave's powers work with a virus? Somehow? It's a plot point, I guess, though it's one that isn't really exciting considering everything else going on and it honestly felt a bit like an afterthought.

It's a messy episode. On one hand, the good stuff is good. Jessica, Kilgrave and the Hograth subplot (lack of proper reasoning on Hogarth's part aside) are definitely on point this episode. The flashbacks and the macabre setup with the gallows and the 1000 cuts. The little plot development with the vaccine are great. But it's strung together rather sloppily compared to most other Jessica Jones episodes, and it's bogged down even further by the utterly idiotic and moronic Robyn plot, and Simpson randomly being evil doesn't work for me either. 

Jessica Jones S01E09 Review: From One Pyschopath To Another

Jessica Jones, Season 1, Episode 9: AKA Sin Bin

After the excellent episode 8 where we see Kilgrave and Jessica interact all trying to be buddy-buddy with Kilgrave firmly in control and Jessica trying to work his way out, we see the exact opposite here, with Jessica in control and Kilgrave in a hermetically sealed glass room... and they are definitely not buddy-buddy-ing. It's decidedly less funny, and involves Jessica nearly crossing the line several times. Arguably she did -- she tortured Kilgrave for what seems to be hours with videos of his fucked-up childhood, beat Kilgrave up so brutally that Jeri walked out of the room and Trish electroshocked her, manipulated that poor policeman dude and used Kilgrave's parents as what amounts to bait, causing the death of one.

Meanwhile, Simpson is apparently on his way to becoming a metahuman by taking multi-coloured drugs, Jessica is immune to Kilgrave's powers, and Jeri Hogarth struggles all throughout this episode with whether to take the sweet bargain that Kilgrave made. And, in a nice little refreshing subversion despite all the buildup that Hogarth is absolutely disgusted with Jessica torturing Kilgrave and being far more occupied and distressed with her divorce, ends up not succumbing to temptation. 

Or did she? After all, someone must've cut those wires and who better than Hogarth? It's left pretty ambiguous at the moment, though.

It's definitely a great, content-packed episode, and it leads to an absolutely tense final act where I literally have no idea what's going to happen as more and more characters gather. We've got Jessica and her basically starting to go more violent and desperate. We've got Trish, who's probably the only thing stopping Jessica from killing Kilgrave. We've got Hogarth, who as I mentioned before has had some absolutely blatant hints that she's considering taking whatever offer Kilgrave undoubtedly made in that offscreen moment where the two are left alone. We've got that poor black policeman whose name I forgot (EDIT: Clemons) who gets dragged along. We've got the scientist parents who apparently tried to cure Kilgrave -- er, Kevin -- of some mysterious irreversible disease and ended up giving him mind-control powers and have been running for the past thirty or so years. Hell, I honestly half-expected Simpson to burst in with his newly-acquired superpowers.

So, yeah, Kilgrave is a made-up name that he gave himself, and Jessica pretty funnily calls little 'Kevin' out on it.

It truly comes to a head as all Jessica wants is to get Kilgrave to demonstrate his abilities on-camera, even volunteering herself to be mind-controlled by Kilgrave and stepping into the room to antagonize him and get a reaction out of him. Granted, this ends up being pointless what with the revelation at the end of the episode, but still it's a pretty emotional scene, as Kilgrave's desperate begging start to waver between earnest distress or just staging an act.

Kilgrave's grand in this episode, isn't he? Both Kilgrave and Jessica. They're just displaying all kinds of spectrum, but Kilgrave's particular brand of sociopathy as he's definitely disturbed by all the videos, as he begs for forgiveness from Jessica at one point, as he snarks it up... it's brilliant how it's so ambiguous which lines are earnest and which lines are just blatant well-acted lies.

Of course, the big deadline of Hope being given a 48-hour window to take a deal which both Hogarth and Hope are totally behind makes Jessica even more desperate. The audience gets some additional tension what with Hogarth not being supportive at all, complaining how Jessica doesn't even help her, how Pam is withholding sweet sweet sex from her until she displays her lawyer scariness and beats her ex-wife in court, and how she was left alone with Kilgrave and all the hints point that she's absolutely interested in finding an easy way out for the Wendy problem. 

We get Jessica doing some PI stuff and while it's the weak link in the episode, the payoff was certainly worth it. We get some explanation to Kilgrave's past -- his parents, while definitely not nice people themselves for what they put their son and by proxy every single one of his victims through (and daddy Kilgrave definitely wants to run the hell away) at least have some kind of an excuse to experiment on Kilgrave, to treat some incurable disease or somesuch, but they went too far. And, well, even as a kid Kilgrave is insane, and the lack of proper parenting isn't the cause of his insanity. It's good. It gives gives Kilgrave somewhat of a semblance of humanity, yet the audience doesn't fully sympathize with him. 

And for a moment it seemed that mommy was actually apologizing, actually sorry at Kilgrave... and then come the scissors. I'm honestly not sure whether that's a spontaneous decision on part of mommy Kilgrave, or Jessica actually wanting to stage Kilgrave's mother stabbing herself and relying on the electricity to knock everyone out. Either way, though, Kilgrave's line telling his mother to stab herself once for every year she left him alone... and his subsequent lines of telling his father to cut his heart out, and telling Trish to put a bullet in her head... yeah, good thing that gun is inexplicably unloaded. And poor Clemons' hand totally broke a couple of bones as he forcibly squeezed it through the handcuffs to obey Kilgrave's orders. Definitely a tense scene.

Also, Jessica's totally immune to Kilgrave's powers, which we actually got hints on and I picked up on it during the police escape scene. Plus hinted on as early as the third or fourth episode when she walked away from Kilgrave after killing Luke's wife.

While I absolutely love Jessica's desperation and her interactions with Kilgrave, her game plan really kind of feels faulty. It's probably supposed to be a representation of Jessica's own mental state, all frazzled up by all the contact with Kilgrave. But it's still kinda dumb and Hogarth even notes it. Hope gets a pretty good deal with less than 20 years in jail, and only has a limited window of time to take it, while Jessica's just hellbent on producing a video of Kilgrave showing his ability... and unless she's counting on Kilgrave's mother stabbing herself to death on camera, like Hogarth said basically anything that happens in that room can be dismissed as staged. If it was just Kilgrave's mother pointing a pair of scissors at herself I don't think that would be great evidence.

Furthermore the way Jessica gets her evidence won't fly in court, I think. Abduction, electroshock torture, chaining a police officer and pointing a gun to his head... yeah, Jessica's definitely not doing this the right way.

Meanwhile, Simpson ended up making it and keep asking for a certain dr. Kozlov or however the hell you type his name. And it all seems to be some good ol' fashioned superhero-style mysterious military organization scientists who fixed Simpson up good as new, and gives him some mysterious pills. A quick lookup confirms to me that, yes, Will Simpson is the MCU's version of the character Nuke (who apparently has the catchphrase "give me a red" like he said here), albeit with his first name changed from Frank to Will, who is a... Daredevil supervillain? Huh, that's interesting! Curious to see how this will pan out, or if we'll even have a resolution in this season. Is this how all of you less-versed-with-DC-lore people react when watching The Flash? I definitely like this, finding out that these seemingly disposable characters who grow into a role and ended up being adaptations of superheroes and supervillains...

Absolutely thrilling. It's tense throughout the episode and while there are several weak points, like Jessica's little too-conveniently-fast PI-clue-search leading to finding the university and the names of the parents and Marcus' survivor group and the parents themselves... that felt a bit like a fumble, but as I said before the payoff with Kilgrave confronting his parents is definitely worth it. And, y'know, my earlier rant about the sensibility of Jessica's course of actions. But hey. She's not in the most stable of minds herself. It's pretty tense, and while some character decisions may be questionable -- and honestly I'm a bit tired of the whole divorce subplot myself -- it's still a pretty good watch and easily one of the stronger episodes so far. 

Arrow S04E09 Review: To Kill Off Characters

Arrow, Season 4, Episode 9: Dark Waters

Well, before we were distracted by all the crossover episodes last week (where Darhk was randomly stealing a bunch of chemical weapons that still go unmentioned) Oliver had been promising to drag the battle against Darhk out into the light. And, well, he made good on that promise by cleaning the river like he said he was going to do, so, uh, Darhk sent in a drone helicopter to shoot the place up. Team Arrow responds by having Oliver literally expose Damian Darhk by showing his face and damning him for being the leader of the ghosts. I did like that scene where Darhk seethes and force-chokes that TV while the other HIVE higher-ups are all like "lol you done fucked up".

What follows is an extremely fun and engaging cat-and-mouse chase between Darhk and Oliver, as Oliver tries to assert that he is not afraid, while Darhk goes around gatecrashing Oliver's public parties with his army of fearless cult troopers and kidnaps Felicity, Thea and Diggle. Oliver recruits his remaining allies plus Malcolm Merlyn and ends up confronting Darhk again, this time as Oliver Queen. Malcolm helps to protect the Green Arrow's identity by cosplaying as him. We get a tense moment where it seemed like all three of Oliver's kidnapped loved ones were going to be gassed to death while Oliver can only mouth "I love you" to Felicity helplessly -- it's obviously a fake-out as the show's not going to kill off three main characters at the same time. But the promise of a main character dying has been hanging over our heads since that flash-forward in season one, and one of them may very well succumb to the gas earlier than the others or something.

Of course, Merlyn and Black Canary show up, free them, and then Merlyn and Oliver manage to do battle with Darth Darhk's Sith powers and apparently blow him up. Darhk, of course, survives -- they even lampshade how movie villains never die if you don't find their body -- and instead sends a group of gunmen to shoot Oliver and Felicity up, leading to the final scene of this episode, and, well, the mid-season cliffhanger, that Felicity is apparently killed or at least pretty badly injured by the shoot-up.

And, of course, the Olicity ship receives extra weight this episode with Felicity and Donna finding Oliver's wedding ring and Felicity basically fritzing out over the wedding ring and confronting Oliver in her trademark awkward manner during the first publicity show right before she gets kidnapped. And Oliver actually proposed to her at the end during their second publicity event in public and it's a grand and romantic moment. And they're all totally well done, a nice break and a welcome development in their relationship -- far more welcome than the retconned-out-of-timeline drama we got last episode, anyway.

So of course Felicity gets shot.

Now I'm not 100% sure that Felicity is done for, although if there's one character in this episode I'd say is the least safe from dying it would be Felicity. I think Thea and Laurel are safe thanks to having graduated into their comic book superhero namesakes, and Diggle's still got a fair amount of unresolved personal plot going on with Andy. So really it comes down to either Felicity or Quentin, both show-original characters which increase their deathiness factor by a fair bit, and Felicity, the main female protagonist for three and a half seasons, will definitely bring about more of the intended reaction (i.e. rage and grief) from the audience than Quentin.

Of course, that is if Felicity's death didn't end up being a cop-out. Main cast deaths is really a fickle topic to tackle, and handled poorly it could end up like the Sara Lance debacle in season three, one of the few times that I'm glad they went back on killing a character. But killing Felicity off right here, right now? It would definitely be brutal, and more scarily for her, it's a great way to kill off Felicity as most of her hanging plot points have been wrapped up and she's now just sticking around to be adorable and have those nice sweet moments with Oliver.

Eh, we'll see next year. It's definitely a bold move if they actually do go through with it, and one that would be a huge, costly mistake that'll haunt Oliver and possibly drive him over the edge.

Darhk himself is in tiptop form this episode, ranging from chewing the scenery, dropping smarmy one-liners, force-choking people, renegading on deals, party-crashing and talking back to his HIVE buddies. We also learn that Darhk has a wife and a daughter, and while it does provide a nice Godfather-esque juxtaposition as the show cuts back and forth between Darhk decorating a Christmas tree with his daughter to Oliver and Felicity's limo being shot, I think it kind of comes out of nowhere as a cheap attempt to humanize Darhk or something. It's weird to show this as the grand revelation at the end of the episode.

The other HIVE members are really unhappy with Darhk putting so much thought into the election and to his personal vendetta against Oliver Queen, and I do like how HIVE isn't just under one man, making the name even more appropriate. Their goals still remain elusive, with something called Genesis that involves some algae in the Star City river that can spread some kind of poisonous gas that works pretty fast and a giant underground field of corn... yeah, he's probably going to try to kill everyone in Star City with said gas, but to what end? It's honestly a lot less interesting than the drama involving Darhk and Oliver, though, and the two of them really play off each other well in the scenes they shared.

Oliver and Felicity's interactions are likewise adorable, and I honestly appreciate very much how none of the stupid secret son angst ends up being brought up, and the episode focuses almost exclusively on the wedding ring and Oliver's insecurity about whether his allies can take care of themselves. Same old conversation, but with a twist since he finally relents and freaking proposes to Felicity.

Oh well. Let's talk about the other characters. Thea doesn't get to do much! You'd think Oliver would have some angst about seeing his sister die next to his girlfriend, but nah, Oliver just looks at Thea almost like an afterthought in that gas chamber. I mean, Laurel and Merlyn show up like five seconds later, but still. Thea's encounter with Darhk a while back apparently left her bloodlust gone, which is cool. Not sure where they are going with that. So, uh, Thea going for the kill with Vandal Savage during the crossover is just actual anger issues, then.

Diggle's subplot with Andy and how Andy is a real jackass as opposed to a brainwashed one ends up kind of being boring, and after the big reveal there really isn't much they did with the dude trapped in a cage being an asshole.

Donna Smoak is adorable in every single scene she shares with Felicity, and I'm definitely not looking forward to seeing her break down if Felicity does die. The gleeful jumping around she does when she discovers the ring and how she's just so panicked when Felicity gets kidnapped and all... yeah, if Felicity dies, Oliver and Donna are so going to break down. Also, Donna's dating Quentin Lance, and Felicity catching the two of them kissing is an absolutely comedic scene.

Speaking of Quentin, he's got a nice little mini-plot going on with Laurel, where the two come to a mutual understanding about how Quentin's always going to be there to look out for Laurel, despite Laurel being able to beat people up by herself. I was worried the "Quentin worked for Darhk" thing would be another in a series of season-long drama, but it was resolved quickly without being handwaved, which is cool. Quentin showing up in the climax with the cavalry and dropping Bond one-liners like a boss is also much appreciated.

Quentin and Merlyn sharing a quick look of mutual understanding as fathers with problematic daughters is the absolute best scene in this episode. "Good luck" indeed.

Merlyn is another one that steals every scene he pops into, from giving an incredulous "I'm Ra's Al Ghul!" to reply to Quentin's questions where he got the Ghost telephone, to his aforementioned father bonding moment with Quentin, snarking about Laurel's bondage outfit, to his nice little less-tense conversation with Thea (they even joke!), to finally showing up decked in Green Arrow armour, and ending up fighting Damian Darhk alongside Oliver Queen. And Merlyn fared pretty well, shooting an exploding arrow onto Darhk. Even if Darhk would've choked him to death if Oliver didn't barge in it's still good showing from him.

Laurel doesn't get to do much either, but her Canary Cry finally manages to do something tangible than just stun people for a while as she uses it to break the gas chamber glass.

The flashback is easily the weakest part of the episode, because I literally don't care. We revisit the Amazo, the ship featured in season two's flashbacks, so Oliver could get a map. He punches a shark off-screen (BOO!) but gets captured red-handed by Conklin. I honestly don't give a fuck and it distracts from all the more interesting thing going on.

So yeah, whether Felicity dies or not, this is definitely an eventful episode and a pretty awesome mid-season episode. Between Arrow and SHIELD, it's been a good month for mid-season finales. Now let's see if Flash can top it.

Jessica Jones S01E08 Review: Obi-Wan Kilgrave

Jessica Jones, Season 1, Episode 8: AKA WWJD?

Another pretty awesome episode, messy letter-filled title aside, and it really shows the quality of writing when most of the episode is just Jessica living in her old childhood house alongside Kilgrave. We see all the nice, romantic (and extremely stalkerrific) gestures Kilgrave did for Jessica like basically recrafting the entire house as Jessica left it, up to finding the proper CD's with a magnifying glass. Yeah, dude just upped the bar for what's considered too stalker-y.

For his part, Kilgrave never once resorted to using his powers at Jessica, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have insurance in play. There is Hank the bodyguard, of course, useless as he would be against Jessica in a fistfight. The two poor workers, Laurent and Alva, go from being happy at the high salary to being shocked at Kilgrave basically using them as insurance, having the hold razors to their necks, being ordered to tear each other's face off if Jessica and Kilgrave don't come back from their little trip, et cetera.

And the show really makes it great, showing good Kilgrave moments and jumping to something horrific he orders the two workers to do or him just casually saying how much of a sociopath he is. We get him humiliating the "I knew something bad was going to happen" neighbour that Jessica clearly hates, which was honestly an awesome moment. We get him showing Jessica the contents of the mysterious yellow USB, which contains videos that presumably detail just how Kilgrave got his power -- his utterly abusive childhood videos of his scientist parents basically using him as a human guinea pig is heartbreaking and horrifying to watch and even Jessica manages to feel sympathy for the fucker.

Granted Jessica brings up the point that Kilgrave basically raped her, mind-control consent or no. And Kilgrave can't just hide behind the "I was not taught morals as a kid" excuse to justify everything he does, like Hope's parents' death. Though granted, Kilgrave displays that, yes, a good chunk of why he's so fucked up is because his childhood is so fucked up. He literally has no idea how love or morality works, and we see him expressing genuine frustration at waiting for someone to do what he wants. It was a power he lived with ever since he was a child, and he has never known a world where he can't just command someone to do what he wants. Plus, y'know, Kilgrave is funny! "I WANT CAKE!!!" and "once I told a man to screw himself..." and all the lines when he's not being a sociopath is absolutely made of win.

And then, y'know, just as we're about to get some sympathy for him he flippantly tells the two nice people working for him to tear each other's face off. And as Jessica points out, even if Kilgrave is somehow redeemed -- a mammoth task and not one I see happening in this show -- it doesn't automatically justify all the shit he's done in the past.

Though the show does display how Jessica might harness Kilgrave's power for good, with the two of them basically Obi-Wan Kenobi-ing through the police barricade around a hostage situation, then Kilgrave basically stopping the insane dude from shooting up his family. Kilgrave just wants the dude to shotgun himself in the head, though Jessica stops him. Could Jessica teach Kilgrave morality, make him turn over a new leaf, make him realize how he's wrong? After all, Kilgrave did express satisfaction and gratification at the grateful faces of the people he's helped, and that's at least a reason for him to try and be good and not consider everyone that's not Jessica as "fungible".

Nah, this is Jessica Jones we're talking about. In a more optimistic show, maybe Kilgrave will be redeemed. Redeemed as a guilt-ridden anti-hero or some shit. Yeah, that would sound great. But this is Jessica Jones. We're not having that kind of shit, and Jessica's absurdly simple way of getting Kilgrave knocked out, which was to drug the food of all his victims and then stab Kilgrave while he's unawares. Drugging the food of the two workers is a great move too, because with them knocked out as well they'll have no way to respond if Kilgrave shouts out "kill yourself" or something along those lines. Also the delicious, delicious irony that Jessica manipulates events to get at Kilgrave, which is what Kilgrave is doing throughout the entire season -- manipulating events to get at Jessica.

Her initial plan to record Kilgrave confessing to being involved in Hope's murders is rather ill-planned and Kilgrave catches on to it within like two minutes, though it's still not as bad as the supermax thing.

Also, getting Hope free and not have her spend her whole life behind bars is a pretty great motivation and justification for Jessica to not just punch a hole through Kilgrave's chest. Convenient plot device? Yeah, but it still works. (Also, Hope's totally going to die, isn't she? I don't watch ahead while doing these reviews, so I dunno)

Simpson doesn't share the same priorities as Jessica, though, and his plan, which is first to try and blow Kilgrave up with a bomb in the basement (which comes back brilliantly at the end) and later on shows up as the cavalry to bail Jessica out from Hank the guard... who really should not have given Jessica trouble at all. I mean, Hank's carrying a gun and Jessica's not bulletproof, but a bullrush charge from a powered superhuman would definitely knock the wind out of Hank. Or using Kilgrave as a shield. Or doing the oddly-shot jumping trick earlier. It's a bit odd that Simpson has became so obsessed with killing Kilgrave, but on the other hand we do need to show someone taking the opposite side of the argument, which is cool.

Granted Simpson's an absolute idiot for actually looking into the bag when the nosy neighbour walked up all "Kilgrave told me to give you this", though I suspect he's not dead. The shot was ambiguous enough, and I think a show like this would make his death pretty final. As far as I know he doesn't have a comic-book counterpart like Trish Walker or Jeri Hogarth, though, so he's more disposable than them... though certain characters' fates in Daredevil's two final episodes means this is honestly quite up in the open. I don't care enough about Simpson to wish for his survival or death, though that bitch of a neighbour definitely doesn't deserve a bomb to the face.

The fact that Kilgrave planned for all this to happen also probably means that he anticipated it, somehow? I wouldn't put it past him.

Also, Kilgrave's name is apparently "Kevin", which is a whole lot more generic-sounding than Zebediah Killgrave from the comics, but okay. Why not?

We get to see Jessica's flashbacks to when her family was killed, partly because Jessica and her brother were fighting over a Game Boy (it's yellow just like mine!) which distracted their driving father. It doesn't really add much to the story, but it's also quite short so whatever.

Both Hogarth and Trish have minimal roles in the episode. Hogarth continues with her divorce and Wendy is not backing the fuck down, and actually gets a couple of nice verbal jabs in during their short scene. Kilgrave knows that Hogarth is looking for dirt on Wendy, though, and considering how Hogarth's all happy to be all 'Kilgrave's power on our side' a couple episodes back, we might have a pretty unconventional team-up soon. Trish shows up to argue with Simpson for a bit which is honestly uninteresting, and far more powerfully when Jessica shows up at her doorstep, their sisterhood and friendship absolutely showing as she's the only person that Jessica turns to when she's confused as all hell.

Perhaps the only part of the episode that felt weak to me was Jessica's super-jump, which looks so comically silly that it really looks like she's just jumping to the side conveniently off-camera.

Yeah, definitely a grand episode. Jessica's pretty awesome in this episode especially when she's conflicted about what to do. Kilgrave just steals every damn scene he's in, showing the sociopathy pretty well, and both he and Jessica play absolutely well with each other. Lots of brilliant scenes, and cutting out the side characters to focus on these two is an absolutely brilliant move.

Jessica Jones S01E07 Review: Manual Decapitation

Jessica Jones, Season 1, Episode 7: AKA Top-Shelf Perverts

Unfortunately, the title of this episode is said not in reference to Killgrave, as appropriate as it would have been. 

This episode is kinda... off. It's still pretty good, following the previous formula of taking a single conflict and making it tie into the larger Kilgrave plot. But this one kinda struggles to maintain some sort of coherence, in no small part caused by Jessica's downright moronic plan to land herself in supermax and use it as a trap to get Kilgrave. And, well, it's a dumb plan that's also noted various times by Malcolm, Trish and Hogarth. And by the audience, no doubt. But it's still pretty eye-rolling as the tone of this episode seemed to go from noir mystery spiced with superheroes into something zanier... which doesn't really fit the tone of the series. 

There are still some pretty great moments in the episode, though, chief among them Kilgrave's scene in the police station (more on that later) but also the beginning with the sudden Reuben death. I honestly don't care about the characters of Reuben and Robin, with them being absolutely annoying. Reuben's point seemed to just to give someone to be a hopeless suitor to Jessica, and he gets absolutely ignored and killed off unceremoniously because with his addled brain he had the misfortune to say "I love her" in front of Kilgrave. Woop.

Anyway, Jessica tries to use Reuben's death and frame herself to get herself to supermax, basically blackmailing Hogarth to try to represent her -- another dimwitted move as Hogarth immediately spouts something about her being a lawyer who doesn't lose cases when Jessica tries to recruit her. Yeah.

And Jessica seems to take the "you're a piece of shit" thing a bit too hard and actually does become a piece of shit to poor, poor, abused Wendy. Jessica isn't supposed to be the most likable of characters or whatever, but that was still absolutely mean and heartless of her. Thank goodness that despite how she looks Wendy isn't about to give in to Hogarth's demands, and tries to blackmail her -- proving to be far more effective at digging dirt on someone who's actually dirty. The divorce plot is a bit of an odd distraction but I'm firmly on Team Wendy here.

The rest of the supporting characters all show up but most of them don't do much beyond pointing out how stupid the supermax plan is, which probably helped in making this episode feel not quite as solid as the ones preceding it. Hogarth shows up in her requisite scenes for her plot, then shows up again to tell Jessica she's an idiot. Trish fucks Simpson, and the two of them are apparently doing their own investigations that they're keeping secret from Jessica. Malcolm's just there to bounce dialogue off. 

We also get the rather random introduction to Dorothy Walker, Trish's mother who was implied to be physically abusive to Trish. We see a short flashback near the end where she adopts Jessica and is basically kinda dismissive, not wanting to waste time to look for Jessica's missing journal and kinda enforcing that Jessica address her in the super-polite "thank you ms Walker" way. It makes present-day Jessica's accusations that she's "pimping" out Trish to get royalties and adopted her as a publicity move far more believable, especially when Dorothy herself is absolutely defensive and refuses to admit that she might've done Trish wrong, something that apparently involves what she waves off as 'the doctors prescribing too much medication'. It's far more chilling and hits home harder than Dorothy's comic-book counterpart who I've been told apparently tried to sell Trish's soul to the devil for youth and beauty. Yay comic books!

Anyway, one thing leads to another and while Malcolm and Trish try to clean up the evidence and dump Reuben's body into the river -- Malcolm giving a nice, short prayer -- Jessica stops it, rips Reuben's head off and just marches to the police precinct all crazy-like... and after Hogarth's beautiful scene where she just tells Jessica off that she doesn't lose cases, Kilgrave comes in, and has the entire police station basically point guns at each other nonchalantly. An absolutely chilling and well-executed scene.

And Kilgrave's grand monologue absolutely makes this episode. We see just how much he 'loves', or, rather, desires Jessica, since he doesn't really seem to understand the concept of how love works. And he wants Jessica to love him back, not just follow his orders. Again, it's another example of how truly demented and sick Kilgrave is, and how he backpedals about describing Jessica as the 'thing... sorry, person' that he truly loved is absolutely well done. Some appropriate scenery eating like when a telephone disturbs his 'declaration of undying love' and he threatens to forcefeed anyone whose phone sounds next, before he picks up Reuben's head in that plastic bag and just merrily goes on his way while the entire police station bursts into laughter because Kilgrave tells them to laugh and forget it as a joke...

But Jessica, notably, doesn't. So either it's a bit of a writing flub, or Kilgrave can selectively pick who his commands go to, or maybe Jessica's gotten some immunity against Kilgrave's orders, something which we see her display after Reva's death (though this scene certainly doesn't shock Jessica as much as being forced to kill someone would). Her being able to resist Kilgrave's Kilgraving would definitely make a control freak like him desire her more, and that might be the reason why he's practicing other forms of control -- money, sweet-talking, et cetera.

And at the end of the episode, well, Jessica ends up falling to Kilgrave's demands and returns to her old house, witnessed by officer Simpson. And it's honestly rather odd why she just doesn't punch Kilgrave through the chest right then and there (Hope, yes, but you'd think leaving her in jail would be the better alternative than having Kilgrave going around killing people). I dunno. Could've been executed better, in my opinion.

We get a couple of nice Easter Eggs that I was able to spot this time around. We get a short cameo by sergeant Mahoney from the Daredevil series, a.k.a. the only polieman who isn't in Kingpin's pocket. Dude really deserved more scenes in Daredevil other than being the friend in the force that they can safely count on dispensing justice. We get a photograph of Stan Lee in the police station which apparently also appeared in Daredevil, but I didn't quite catch it. Also we get a bit of a nod-nod-wink as the subsitute bartender asks Jessica if she's going to have Luke's baby... which the two actually did in the comics. A cute little baby girl. But, well, that's the comics and this is the show.

This episode's multiple plot strands don't quite weave a coherent story like previous episodes did, though, with the divorce and mommy issues being completely divorced (hee) from the whole Reuben's death and Kilgrave plot.