Delayed TV rundown means lots of superheorics
So here's two weeks worth of TV show reviews including my rush to catch up on AoS before seeing Civil War. Thought I should actually post this before starting this week's round of shows (and playing catch up again).
The Flash 2x20
So this is sort of an area where the fact that I am an Arrow fan far above a Flash one makes this sort of a distracting episode. Everytime they would list off all the crap that was happening to them I’d add ‘And any minute you’re going to find out Laurel is dead.’ My going assumption is the Barry just phased into the speed force here and will be fine by the end of next episode, but it’s still going to be after that when they can catch up to where Arrow is in terms of what’s happening. I also kind of wonder if they’re pushing Barry/Iris forward so quickly because they are now fully committed to not following comics ships on Arrow; I’ve always gotten the same lack of feeling to really don’t want feeling toward Barry/Iris that I always got of Oliver/Laurel and the music they chose to use for their big romantic scenes was pretty much the same. They feel like brother and sister, and since that’s basically what they are it makes sense, but with them moving so quickly on changing that I’m not along with the ride. Also, I wanted to slap Henry a lot this episode; as soon as he got out of prison he ran the other way from Barry, to all appearances has not been keeping in touch that much (apparently he did not in fact come back for Christmas after I complained about it so much, otherwise he would know about Wally), then shows up and says he’s back for good and I don’t believe him. I did get a kick out of Harry looking dejected because he was demoted to third-dad status though, that cracked me up. As for the plot...well we’ve reached the point where I need to see it all play out to judge, but I guess that doesn’t stop me from judging the character stuff.
Agents of SHIELD 3x11
So I’d basically forgotten at least 75% of what happened in the first half of the season, but I don’t think that’s my main issue here. I think I was just in the entirely wrong mood to get back to this one, because I ended up just hating everything about it; I wasn’t even enjoying the parts I should have been into since we were actually getting some solid Coulson-May stuff and that’s been my jam for a long time. I was basically hating everyone here, and I want to feel like this is a complicated situation where there are no right answers in how to deal with the Inhumans issue; but I know I’m not feeling anything the show is offering on the subject here, but again I think that’s on me. At least this episode at this moment, because normally I have a lot more opinions on this kind of thing.
Arrow 4x20
I think I really liked that one. I’m not positive it was entirely great, for one Thea’s plot was pretty weak, but it really worked for me. It was a very coupley episode, though I have to say Thea and Alex make no sense and it’s not like we’ve seen much evidence of how they work through the season. The coupley stuff was easily the strongest aspect of the Oliver and Felicity side quest, as the magic lesson was only handled so-so and didn’t it seem like it was clearly setting up for ether Felicity to be the one learning to fight Darhk or them having to do it together, and then it was weird that it didn’t go there? The Diggle clan plot was really the focus here, and that was...earned; I liked it sure, but I kind of feel it’s more important that everything in it felt earned. It occurs to me that outside of brief flashes we didn’t have any flashbacks this week, which may well have been a factor in the episode’s favor as those just haven’t been working. Like with a lot of things on Flash I don’t have ton to say at this point, we’re just in it now and ready to see where it ends up.
Legends of Tomorrow 1x14
I liked so much of this episode that it’s a shame to say that the couple of things I didn’t like are kind of making me pissed off with it in spite of all the good. I really liked the flashbacks this time and felt all of them added something. I always love the relationship between Sara and Rip which was pretty important to this one, and confirms that I was right to always assume Sara was second in command. Savage in a cage was one of the better usages of Savage we’ve gotten so far, even if Ray was an absolute (and predictable) idiot to play into his hands. It was good episode for most of the cast, maybe not coincidental that it was a lot of Rip while leaving Snart and Mick mostly sidelined, and it maybe could have used a little more exploration of the Martin-Jax dynamic but what we got was good. But...sigh, you know how I hate Carter and everything connected with him? How I don’t buy that Kendra’s supposed feelings for him and think he’s an asshole for always treating her like she has to have those feelings? Yeah this episode pissed me off by continuing to try and make people think this relationship is at all romantic or acceptable. And I also can’t buy that what she and Ray had was real if she gives it so little thought before going back to Carter. That’s really my biggest issue with the episode because I despise it and basically always have, but I also have some lesser issues with the big ‘twist’ at the end because I can’t quite believe no one in the show considered that a possibility. It wasn’t even the fact that there’s still a couple episodes in the season and it clearly wasn’t going to be that easy to resolve Savage that made me suspicious. As soon as it was revealed that Savage had time travel abilities and Rip was so excited because this was just what the Time Masters would put a top to, I wondered why they wouldn’t already be on the case, and seeing as the Time Masters are dicks to rival the Time Lords I’m not really surprised they’re in league with Savage. This is much less an issue than my hatred of all things Carter, but once it actually happened like I was sort expecting it to I wondered how the character hadn’t seen it coming.
Agents of SHIELD 3x12
Well...I didn’t hate that one, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say I liked it. The main plot with the conference and all that I liked enough, far from loved but I can say I liked it; the Lincoln and Skye plot...we’ll see where it’s going, because it’s probably setting up some good stuff but I spent most of this episode telling Skye to SHUT UP because everything she said just sounded stupid. Though as I say this I have a character thought, Skye has spent her whole life searching for an identity and a cause and whenever she thinks she finds one she becomes an overeager zealot for that cause we’ve seen her like this with both Rising Tide and SHIELD and now it’s the Inhumans, if only I was confident the show realized she always an asshole when she’s like this maybe they’d let her actually become not an asshole. And then there was the Ward plot which pretty nearly ruined the whole episode for me, everytime I’d at least kind of get into the rest of the story we’d have to cut back to that horrid plot and bring the whole thing to a screeching halt. Also the actor sucks, he’s never been a good actor and this is somehow worse than Blandy McBlanderson at the start of the show. Also, also, no one seems very concerned about the no doubt many people who have died from accidental exposure to Terogin (you know, like Trip), and that bothers me. I’m still not sure if 3x11 was that bad or I was just in a bad mood, so I can’t say if this one was better or if I was just in a better mood, but I didn’t hate this one, but there was plenty to dislike anyway.
Agents of SHIELD 3x13
I feel like I should like this one a lot more than I did. It was a very focused story, was focused on the political situation in the MCU (at least this side of it) at the moment which is the aspect I’m most interested in, it had a good amount of tension to it, and the goodbye scene made me kind of misty. And yet I can’t say I liked it exactly; I liked it more than the previous couple, but in an absolute sense...I’m not sure. There’s a lot of elements that I’m not sure I really followed very well, possibly in many cases because I only kind of remember all the pieces in play in this verse, but some of it was fairly poorly explained; plus the fact that so much of this episode required being able to tell old white dudes apart and I’m not very good at that. Also the Russian Prime Minister here (who isn’t Putin) has a really plastic looking face; I won’t be surprised if we find out he’s an actual alien somewhere down the line.
Agents of SHIELD 3x14
Wait...that episode was...actually good. Aside from the fact that I still can’t tell if it’s intentionally written for us to think Skye is wrong about everything (because she is) I can’t think of much I didn’t like about this one. I never expected we would see Blake again and I’m glad we did even if I’m not entirely sure I get this choice for his character, I certainly wouldn’t say it’s OOC though. I basically liked all of the plots going on here, I like the development happening with Jemma and even though I tend to forget Andrew exists I’m glad the show isn’t and is doing interesting things with May through it. I still don’t give a damn about Lincoln, but there was some interesting stuff going on with him and Coulson. I like mini-Mack, and Mack too, and getting that kind of angle on one of the characters is something we really need to see more of. I don’t have a lot to say about Fitz, but the way he’s reacting to things is what gives me hope that we’re not supposed to side with Skye, because Fitz clearly doesn’t (neither does Mack but that’s expressed bigger rather than ongoing looks of ‘I’m not really down with this’); also poor Fitz. Plus there was actual setup for Civil War this time around, which is good since that’s probably going to be a game changer for the entire MCU it deserves some buildup.
Agents of SHIELD 3x15
I think I can give that one a stamp of alright. Even the Ward stuff wasn’t on the whole as bad as usual, although I was pretty bored during most of those scenes and aside from SHIELD finding out he’s in play here I certainly didn’t need those scenes. I would say I liked the plot of this one better than the character stuff in most places, although the stuff with Andrew and May was at least a partial exception as it was focused on the characters, just a relationship I don’t care about. Apparently I don’t think like Coulson/the writers, as the time travel in Terminator 1 makes total sense to me while I’m confused by it in the rest of the series (largely why the first in my favorite). That said while I probably agree with Fitz that that’s how foresight/time travel makes the most sense, his attitude towards things doesn’t play well with me because he seems unwilling to try and not for the best of explained of reasons.
Agents of SHIELD 3x16
That may just have been an episode designed to be as unappealing to me as possible. An episode focused on the bad guys with a lot of not-Ward and then Skye and Lincoln and the Inhumans as great chosen people, I hate all of that. I’m not even really into Coulson making not-Ward about his guilt, and I at least care about Coulson. Plus it had stupid flashbacks that added little to nothing to the story except again to prop up this thing of Inhumans as holy figures which I am hating more and more as time goes on. I wouldn’t quite say this episode was terrible per se, but it hit so many of my anti buttons that it would have had to be excellently done to qualify as alright and it wasn’t that, it may not have pissed me off exactly but I definitely didn’t like it.
Agents of SHIELD 3x17
I’m not sure how I feel about that one, It was a very full episode with a lot going on, some decent plot movement, and kind of in spite of myself I suddenly found myself caring during the last scene between Lincoln and processed-Skye. I thought the rescue scene was a little rushed at the start, but there was plenty more to do afterward, which was really the point of the episode so I guess it was alright-ish. I’d say the big FitzSimmons scene was a little too foreshadowy that one of them could be the one in space in the death vision, but so much so that I kind of doubt it will actually end up going that way. I’m also fairly conflicted about how I feel on the relationship development, it mostly worked and the suddenness was acknowledged, but I’m kind of past the point of really caring, they’ve always been fairly inevitable so I don’t feel a whole lot now that they’re actually happening. The episode was okay, any more than that I’m going to have to think on later.
Agents of SHIELD 3x18
So we’re clearly in the final arc now, except it seems to have gone entirely away from being connected to the movie events in the MCU (I am going to get around to seeing it in the next couple days, only a little late *note written after it had only been out a couple days*). But I should have liked this episode more than I did; I liked it some but as it had so many things that should appeal to me I wish I liked it more. I do like that Coulson gets a shield like Cap, and we all know how much I enjoy some solid May-Coulson drama that my shippy mind says is at least a little shippy even when they’re fighting (though isn’t Lash still in some kind of storage or did they kill him when Lash took over?). I also rather liked the FitzSimmons plot, thought it had a good balance of plot and character, I just never got quite as into it as I might have wanted to. Also I think they drew a lot of attention to Simmons’ hands being cold, but I’m not sure what they were setting up exactly. I was kind of hoping to get entirely caught up tonight, but I think I need to take a break here.
Agents of SHIELD 3x19
Well I could just as easily have waited until after seeing the movie before bothering with this episode as it had absolutely nothing I can see connecting to the movie side of things. It was also fairly useless, although I’m not sure I can quite say it was bad, it was just heavily meh. It might have been more effective if anything Skye said had sounded true, when I’m sure it was supposed to and just didn’t (at most it gives credence to my observation a couple episodes ago that she gets all zealoty about whatever cause she joins at a given point, and that’s all on her). Also somewhere in this run of episodes I’ve started to think I may end up vindicated and she’ll go back to being Skye because she may one day realize that her parents were truly awful people that she shouldn’t be giving any honor to like this; I’m still not going to stop because I hate her and them even more so I don’t care what she says. Also, I’m not a biologist of any kind but what exactly is the difference between draining the blood from a living Kree vs a super recently deceased one? Plus Skye has at most trace amounts of Kree blood in her system (in fact didn’t Simmons say only days after it happened that there was basically nothing left for her to run tests on?) so I don’t see how that’s going to be enough. The Lincoln plot was really stupid, especially since apparently there are no consequences even to his hair for them collecting a sample of brain tissue; again, not a doctor, but that doesn’t seem realistic. I am however pretty sure this is going to lead to them experimenting on Lash in the near future, his higher purpose in coming back to SHIELD and all (I seriously hate higher purpose reasoning, so read that with an appropriate amount of eye-rolling).
The Flash 2x21
I don’t think I really liked that episode; none of the plots were bad exactly, but I didn’t really like any of them either. Mostly it was Barry’s plot that bored me, we didn’t really learn that much new about him as a character yet somehow most of the stuff here still feels unearned as it hasn’t really been setup either. And I hate the ending being about the relationship, because a) he was already ready to go back so it added nothing and b) just doesn’t fit. If it were Oliver sure, Oliver I totally believe would both be hiding out in a safe mental place where he didn’t have to face his responsibilities and would be called home by one specific person (whether that person is Thea or Felicity is about the only area of question); but for Barry it should have been the family, all the people he loves and make up his home. The plot back in the real world was a little better, but it gave me my usual level of ‘shut up Henry’ because when he ran away for pretty much all season it was never about being good for Barry, it was for himself for poorly explained reasons and now that he’s decided to come back he wants to be the most important father figure in Barry’s life when he hasn’t earned that. I could however have been happy to see more of Harry’s feelings through all this. As for the stinger...well that story could have had half an episode to build up and probably been better for it. I’m sure this episode was meant as a sort of calm before the storm sort of story, but it slowed things down way too much for a show about speed.
Arrow 4x21
I’m not really sure what to say about this one, a lot of the things I could maybe say feel like I also shouldn’t because we’re in the middle of an arc here and headed straight for endgame, where I don’t have a lot of confidence speaking to what will be carried on and what won’t be and what I want to complain about either way. But a few things I was thrown by in the episode; why didn’t they just have Curtis get them what they needed? I didn’t even catch a passing mention that he was out of town for a few days or something. Also, I’m pretty sure missals don’t move that fast, to get from Russia to the eastern US would have taken at minimum a few hours not the few minutes they seemed to have. Plus...even if the governments of the world do know that was an act of terrorism there’s going to be some fallout from this one and not just radioactive fallout; a new wave of war on terror is the best case scenario after an attack like that. I also kind of didn’t like that it was Oliver who ended up fighting with Brick (also, how exactly was Malcolm going to react to Darhk bringing Brick along on the ark?) since Oliver was so not a part of the Brick arc. However I actually thought Thea’s story here was pretty good even though I don’t remember who it was she was fighting with (was it Anarchy? I feel like it might have been Anarchy). I also liked most of Felicity’s stuff, I believe I said at the time there needed to be more with her and Noah and here we’re getting it. And more importantly I think what happens at the end of the episode will set her on a very difficult emotional path. However, an event like this makes me wonder something that’s been bouncing around my head for a couple weeks now...I’m not convinced the big events of the end of this season are going to stick. I feel like maybe the fact that Barry had his speed in the grave scene is a sign that this is a timeline that’s going to be overwritten at the end of the season. I mostly believed they would kill Laurel when it happened, but letting nukes actually get into play I really question it lasting and if they’re going to undo that the decision is probably to also undo Laurel’s death )which would be cheap after a season of building expectations). Unless there are some comic book characters that come from that town who supposedly got their powers from a nuclear blast and this is the DCCW way of bringing that into play. I hope I’m wrong, because I would rather see consequences played out, and...actually, this could work since clearly the flashbacks next season will be Oliver’s Russian story and if the present day events have the US and Russia at odds it’ll dovetail nicely, but I’m still going to be concerned for now.
Legends of Tomorrow 1x15
I really liked that episode, I have one small complaint that I’ll get to in a moment, but I really liked that one. Actually, let’s get the one complaint out of the way considering the state of the world in 2166, how would anyone possibly know whether Rip’s family happened to be dead or alive? I suppose if they weren’t listed among the limited number of survivors after the fact the conclusion would be that they were dead, but that really didn’t work for me. Actually this episode is a bit of a mess forth dimensionally, but most of them have been and the whole point of the series is to make a mess with time, but they really needed to better convey how the Vanishing Point works; I always pictured that it was suspended in a temporal bubble at one end of time or the other, or that it exists in all times in a separate dimension that doesn’t experience time; either way there is no ‘past/present/future’ in my version of the Vanishing Point. Also, how does Rip not know events only ten years further out than the time his family was living in? Has he really never tried to go any further into the future at any point in his life? Or even researched what is all the same as history to him? Anyway, I think there’s going to be a lot of stuff happening in the finale and I’m not entirely sure who’s going to survive it. Not because they killed Snart here giving me ‘who else could die’ feelings, but because I’ve never been able to make up my mind whether they’re going to kill Savage and I’m starting to get a feeling like Rip may well end up dead and next season will have the rest of the team as rogue time agents (so who’s the Jack Harkness?) but I’m not sure I actually see it happening so I just don’t know.
Also, I have seen Civil War twice now and have many many thoughts on how I want to make cup after cup of hot cocoa for Tony (I’m not sure what I’m drinking, but I’m cure he needs cocoa). In the end I don’t care who’s right and wrong (because they’re all wrong to varying degrees), my heart is just broken for Tony. I haven’t quite decided if I should be writing up a huge review or just trying to write fic, but all these thoughts need to go somewhere.
Though I do think I’ll try and finally make that Tony/Pepper vid I’ve been considering for a while, it might make me feel better.
The Flash 2x20
So this is sort of an area where the fact that I am an Arrow fan far above a Flash one makes this sort of a distracting episode. Everytime they would list off all the crap that was happening to them I’d add ‘And any minute you’re going to find out Laurel is dead.’ My going assumption is the Barry just phased into the speed force here and will be fine by the end of next episode, but it’s still going to be after that when they can catch up to where Arrow is in terms of what’s happening. I also kind of wonder if they’re pushing Barry/Iris forward so quickly because they are now fully committed to not following comics ships on Arrow; I’ve always gotten the same lack of feeling to really don’t want feeling toward Barry/Iris that I always got of Oliver/Laurel and the music they chose to use for their big romantic scenes was pretty much the same. They feel like brother and sister, and since that’s basically what they are it makes sense, but with them moving so quickly on changing that I’m not along with the ride. Also, I wanted to slap Henry a lot this episode; as soon as he got out of prison he ran the other way from Barry, to all appearances has not been keeping in touch that much (apparently he did not in fact come back for Christmas after I complained about it so much, otherwise he would know about Wally), then shows up and says he’s back for good and I don’t believe him. I did get a kick out of Harry looking dejected because he was demoted to third-dad status though, that cracked me up. As for the plot...well we’ve reached the point where I need to see it all play out to judge, but I guess that doesn’t stop me from judging the character stuff.
Agents of SHIELD 3x11
So I’d basically forgotten at least 75% of what happened in the first half of the season, but I don’t think that’s my main issue here. I think I was just in the entirely wrong mood to get back to this one, because I ended up just hating everything about it; I wasn’t even enjoying the parts I should have been into since we were actually getting some solid Coulson-May stuff and that’s been my jam for a long time. I was basically hating everyone here, and I want to feel like this is a complicated situation where there are no right answers in how to deal with the Inhumans issue; but I know I’m not feeling anything the show is offering on the subject here, but again I think that’s on me. At least this episode at this moment, because normally I have a lot more opinions on this kind of thing.
Arrow 4x20
I think I really liked that one. I’m not positive it was entirely great, for one Thea’s plot was pretty weak, but it really worked for me. It was a very coupley episode, though I have to say Thea and Alex make no sense and it’s not like we’ve seen much evidence of how they work through the season. The coupley stuff was easily the strongest aspect of the Oliver and Felicity side quest, as the magic lesson was only handled so-so and didn’t it seem like it was clearly setting up for ether Felicity to be the one learning to fight Darhk or them having to do it together, and then it was weird that it didn’t go there? The Diggle clan plot was really the focus here, and that was...earned; I liked it sure, but I kind of feel it’s more important that everything in it felt earned. It occurs to me that outside of brief flashes we didn’t have any flashbacks this week, which may well have been a factor in the episode’s favor as those just haven’t been working. Like with a lot of things on Flash I don’t have ton to say at this point, we’re just in it now and ready to see where it ends up.
Legends of Tomorrow 1x14
I liked so much of this episode that it’s a shame to say that the couple of things I didn’t like are kind of making me pissed off with it in spite of all the good. I really liked the flashbacks this time and felt all of them added something. I always love the relationship between Sara and Rip which was pretty important to this one, and confirms that I was right to always assume Sara was second in command. Savage in a cage was one of the better usages of Savage we’ve gotten so far, even if Ray was an absolute (and predictable) idiot to play into his hands. It was good episode for most of the cast, maybe not coincidental that it was a lot of Rip while leaving Snart and Mick mostly sidelined, and it maybe could have used a little more exploration of the Martin-Jax dynamic but what we got was good. But...sigh, you know how I hate Carter and everything connected with him? How I don’t buy that Kendra’s supposed feelings for him and think he’s an asshole for always treating her like she has to have those feelings? Yeah this episode pissed me off by continuing to try and make people think this relationship is at all romantic or acceptable. And I also can’t buy that what she and Ray had was real if she gives it so little thought before going back to Carter. That’s really my biggest issue with the episode because I despise it and basically always have, but I also have some lesser issues with the big ‘twist’ at the end because I can’t quite believe no one in the show considered that a possibility. It wasn’t even the fact that there’s still a couple episodes in the season and it clearly wasn’t going to be that easy to resolve Savage that made me suspicious. As soon as it was revealed that Savage had time travel abilities and Rip was so excited because this was just what the Time Masters would put a top to, I wondered why they wouldn’t already be on the case, and seeing as the Time Masters are dicks to rival the Time Lords I’m not really surprised they’re in league with Savage. This is much less an issue than my hatred of all things Carter, but once it actually happened like I was sort expecting it to I wondered how the character hadn’t seen it coming.
Agents of SHIELD 3x12
Well...I didn’t hate that one, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say I liked it. The main plot with the conference and all that I liked enough, far from loved but I can say I liked it; the Lincoln and Skye plot...we’ll see where it’s going, because it’s probably setting up some good stuff but I spent most of this episode telling Skye to SHUT UP because everything she said just sounded stupid. Though as I say this I have a character thought, Skye has spent her whole life searching for an identity and a cause and whenever she thinks she finds one she becomes an overeager zealot for that cause we’ve seen her like this with both Rising Tide and SHIELD and now it’s the Inhumans, if only I was confident the show realized she always an asshole when she’s like this maybe they’d let her actually become not an asshole. And then there was the Ward plot which pretty nearly ruined the whole episode for me, everytime I’d at least kind of get into the rest of the story we’d have to cut back to that horrid plot and bring the whole thing to a screeching halt. Also the actor sucks, he’s never been a good actor and this is somehow worse than Blandy McBlanderson at the start of the show. Also, also, no one seems very concerned about the no doubt many people who have died from accidental exposure to Terogin (you know, like Trip), and that bothers me. I’m still not sure if 3x11 was that bad or I was just in a bad mood, so I can’t say if this one was better or if I was just in a better mood, but I didn’t hate this one, but there was plenty to dislike anyway.
Agents of SHIELD 3x13
I feel like I should like this one a lot more than I did. It was a very focused story, was focused on the political situation in the MCU (at least this side of it) at the moment which is the aspect I’m most interested in, it had a good amount of tension to it, and the goodbye scene made me kind of misty. And yet I can’t say I liked it exactly; I liked it more than the previous couple, but in an absolute sense...I’m not sure. There’s a lot of elements that I’m not sure I really followed very well, possibly in many cases because I only kind of remember all the pieces in play in this verse, but some of it was fairly poorly explained; plus the fact that so much of this episode required being able to tell old white dudes apart and I’m not very good at that. Also the Russian Prime Minister here (who isn’t Putin) has a really plastic looking face; I won’t be surprised if we find out he’s an actual alien somewhere down the line.
Agents of SHIELD 3x14
Wait...that episode was...actually good. Aside from the fact that I still can’t tell if it’s intentionally written for us to think Skye is wrong about everything (because she is) I can’t think of much I didn’t like about this one. I never expected we would see Blake again and I’m glad we did even if I’m not entirely sure I get this choice for his character, I certainly wouldn’t say it’s OOC though. I basically liked all of the plots going on here, I like the development happening with Jemma and even though I tend to forget Andrew exists I’m glad the show isn’t and is doing interesting things with May through it. I still don’t give a damn about Lincoln, but there was some interesting stuff going on with him and Coulson. I like mini-Mack, and Mack too, and getting that kind of angle on one of the characters is something we really need to see more of. I don’t have a lot to say about Fitz, but the way he’s reacting to things is what gives me hope that we’re not supposed to side with Skye, because Fitz clearly doesn’t (neither does Mack but that’s expressed bigger rather than ongoing looks of ‘I’m not really down with this’); also poor Fitz. Plus there was actual setup for Civil War this time around, which is good since that’s probably going to be a game changer for the entire MCU it deserves some buildup.
Agents of SHIELD 3x15
I think I can give that one a stamp of alright. Even the Ward stuff wasn’t on the whole as bad as usual, although I was pretty bored during most of those scenes and aside from SHIELD finding out he’s in play here I certainly didn’t need those scenes. I would say I liked the plot of this one better than the character stuff in most places, although the stuff with Andrew and May was at least a partial exception as it was focused on the characters, just a relationship I don’t care about. Apparently I don’t think like Coulson/the writers, as the time travel in Terminator 1 makes total sense to me while I’m confused by it in the rest of the series (largely why the first in my favorite). That said while I probably agree with Fitz that that’s how foresight/time travel makes the most sense, his attitude towards things doesn’t play well with me because he seems unwilling to try and not for the best of explained of reasons.
Agents of SHIELD 3x16
That may just have been an episode designed to be as unappealing to me as possible. An episode focused on the bad guys with a lot of not-Ward and then Skye and Lincoln and the Inhumans as great chosen people, I hate all of that. I’m not even really into Coulson making not-Ward about his guilt, and I at least care about Coulson. Plus it had stupid flashbacks that added little to nothing to the story except again to prop up this thing of Inhumans as holy figures which I am hating more and more as time goes on. I wouldn’t quite say this episode was terrible per se, but it hit so many of my anti buttons that it would have had to be excellently done to qualify as alright and it wasn’t that, it may not have pissed me off exactly but I definitely didn’t like it.
Agents of SHIELD 3x17
I’m not sure how I feel about that one, It was a very full episode with a lot going on, some decent plot movement, and kind of in spite of myself I suddenly found myself caring during the last scene between Lincoln and processed-Skye. I thought the rescue scene was a little rushed at the start, but there was plenty more to do afterward, which was really the point of the episode so I guess it was alright-ish. I’d say the big FitzSimmons scene was a little too foreshadowy that one of them could be the one in space in the death vision, but so much so that I kind of doubt it will actually end up going that way. I’m also fairly conflicted about how I feel on the relationship development, it mostly worked and the suddenness was acknowledged, but I’m kind of past the point of really caring, they’ve always been fairly inevitable so I don’t feel a whole lot now that they’re actually happening. The episode was okay, any more than that I’m going to have to think on later.
Agents of SHIELD 3x18
So we’re clearly in the final arc now, except it seems to have gone entirely away from being connected to the movie events in the MCU (I am going to get around to seeing it in the next couple days, only a little late *note written after it had only been out a couple days*). But I should have liked this episode more than I did; I liked it some but as it had so many things that should appeal to me I wish I liked it more. I do like that Coulson gets a shield like Cap, and we all know how much I enjoy some solid May-Coulson drama that my shippy mind says is at least a little shippy even when they’re fighting (though isn’t Lash still in some kind of storage or did they kill him when Lash took over?). I also rather liked the FitzSimmons plot, thought it had a good balance of plot and character, I just never got quite as into it as I might have wanted to. Also I think they drew a lot of attention to Simmons’ hands being cold, but I’m not sure what they were setting up exactly. I was kind of hoping to get entirely caught up tonight, but I think I need to take a break here.
Agents of SHIELD 3x19
Well I could just as easily have waited until after seeing the movie before bothering with this episode as it had absolutely nothing I can see connecting to the movie side of things. It was also fairly useless, although I’m not sure I can quite say it was bad, it was just heavily meh. It might have been more effective if anything Skye said had sounded true, when I’m sure it was supposed to and just didn’t (at most it gives credence to my observation a couple episodes ago that she gets all zealoty about whatever cause she joins at a given point, and that’s all on her). Also somewhere in this run of episodes I’ve started to think I may end up vindicated and she’ll go back to being Skye because she may one day realize that her parents were truly awful people that she shouldn’t be giving any honor to like this; I’m still not going to stop because I hate her and them even more so I don’t care what she says. Also, I’m not a biologist of any kind but what exactly is the difference between draining the blood from a living Kree vs a super recently deceased one? Plus Skye has at most trace amounts of Kree blood in her system (in fact didn’t Simmons say only days after it happened that there was basically nothing left for her to run tests on?) so I don’t see how that’s going to be enough. The Lincoln plot was really stupid, especially since apparently there are no consequences even to his hair for them collecting a sample of brain tissue; again, not a doctor, but that doesn’t seem realistic. I am however pretty sure this is going to lead to them experimenting on Lash in the near future, his higher purpose in coming back to SHIELD and all (I seriously hate higher purpose reasoning, so read that with an appropriate amount of eye-rolling).
The Flash 2x21
I don’t think I really liked that episode; none of the plots were bad exactly, but I didn’t really like any of them either. Mostly it was Barry’s plot that bored me, we didn’t really learn that much new about him as a character yet somehow most of the stuff here still feels unearned as it hasn’t really been setup either. And I hate the ending being about the relationship, because a) he was already ready to go back so it added nothing and b) just doesn’t fit. If it were Oliver sure, Oliver I totally believe would both be hiding out in a safe mental place where he didn’t have to face his responsibilities and would be called home by one specific person (whether that person is Thea or Felicity is about the only area of question); but for Barry it should have been the family, all the people he loves and make up his home. The plot back in the real world was a little better, but it gave me my usual level of ‘shut up Henry’ because when he ran away for pretty much all season it was never about being good for Barry, it was for himself for poorly explained reasons and now that he’s decided to come back he wants to be the most important father figure in Barry’s life when he hasn’t earned that. I could however have been happy to see more of Harry’s feelings through all this. As for the stinger...well that story could have had half an episode to build up and probably been better for it. I’m sure this episode was meant as a sort of calm before the storm sort of story, but it slowed things down way too much for a show about speed.
Arrow 4x21
I’m not really sure what to say about this one, a lot of the things I could maybe say feel like I also shouldn’t because we’re in the middle of an arc here and headed straight for endgame, where I don’t have a lot of confidence speaking to what will be carried on and what won’t be and what I want to complain about either way. But a few things I was thrown by in the episode; why didn’t they just have Curtis get them what they needed? I didn’t even catch a passing mention that he was out of town for a few days or something. Also, I’m pretty sure missals don’t move that fast, to get from Russia to the eastern US would have taken at minimum a few hours not the few minutes they seemed to have. Plus...even if the governments of the world do know that was an act of terrorism there’s going to be some fallout from this one and not just radioactive fallout; a new wave of war on terror is the best case scenario after an attack like that. I also kind of didn’t like that it was Oliver who ended up fighting with Brick (also, how exactly was Malcolm going to react to Darhk bringing Brick along on the ark?) since Oliver was so not a part of the Brick arc. However I actually thought Thea’s story here was pretty good even though I don’t remember who it was she was fighting with (was it Anarchy? I feel like it might have been Anarchy). I also liked most of Felicity’s stuff, I believe I said at the time there needed to be more with her and Noah and here we’re getting it. And more importantly I think what happens at the end of the episode will set her on a very difficult emotional path. However, an event like this makes me wonder something that’s been bouncing around my head for a couple weeks now...I’m not convinced the big events of the end of this season are going to stick. I feel like maybe the fact that Barry had his speed in the grave scene is a sign that this is a timeline that’s going to be overwritten at the end of the season. I mostly believed they would kill Laurel when it happened, but letting nukes actually get into play I really question it lasting and if they’re going to undo that the decision is probably to also undo Laurel’s death )which would be cheap after a season of building expectations). Unless there are some comic book characters that come from that town who supposedly got their powers from a nuclear blast and this is the DCCW way of bringing that into play. I hope I’m wrong, because I would rather see consequences played out, and...actually, this could work since clearly the flashbacks next season will be Oliver’s Russian story and if the present day events have the US and Russia at odds it’ll dovetail nicely, but I’m still going to be concerned for now.
Legends of Tomorrow 1x15
I really liked that episode, I have one small complaint that I’ll get to in a moment, but I really liked that one. Actually, let’s get the one complaint out of the way considering the state of the world in 2166, how would anyone possibly know whether Rip’s family happened to be dead or alive? I suppose if they weren’t listed among the limited number of survivors after the fact the conclusion would be that they were dead, but that really didn’t work for me. Actually this episode is a bit of a mess forth dimensionally, but most of them have been and the whole point of the series is to make a mess with time, but they really needed to better convey how the Vanishing Point works; I always pictured that it was suspended in a temporal bubble at one end of time or the other, or that it exists in all times in a separate dimension that doesn’t experience time; either way there is no ‘past/present/future’ in my version of the Vanishing Point. Also, how does Rip not know events only ten years further out than the time his family was living in? Has he really never tried to go any further into the future at any point in his life? Or even researched what is all the same as history to him? Anyway, I think there’s going to be a lot of stuff happening in the finale and I’m not entirely sure who’s going to survive it. Not because they killed Snart here giving me ‘who else could die’ feelings, but because I’ve never been able to make up my mind whether they’re going to kill Savage and I’m starting to get a feeling like Rip may well end up dead and next season will have the rest of the team as rogue time agents (so who’s the Jack Harkness?) but I’m not sure I actually see it happening so I just don’t know.
Also, I have seen Civil War twice now and have many many thoughts on how I want to make cup after cup of hot cocoa for Tony (I’m not sure what I’m drinking, but I’m cure he needs cocoa). In the end I don’t care who’s right and wrong (because they’re all wrong to varying degrees), my heart is just broken for Tony. I haven’t quite decided if I should be writing up a huge review or just trying to write fic, but all these thoughts need to go somewhere.
Though I do think I’ll try and finally make that Tony/Pepper vid I’ve been considering for a while, it might make me feel better.