All my superhero shows
I really had good intentions of doing a full review of the Invasion arc but I kept putting it off and putting it off and now the thoughts I might have put into it are gone; they were pretty detailed reaction thoughts at the time (at least for the first three parts) so you’ll get most of my thoughts on that and the mid-season finales of the CW shows. Also on the plus side I have caught up on Agents of SHIELD so there will be those thoughts.
Supergirl 2x08
I feel a little conflicted on this one. I liked most of it as an episode, but I don’t like the fact that it isn’t really part of the crossover. I’ll be able to judge the second part or that better once seeing the rest, and I do expect to do a review of the event as a whole at the end of the week, but the rest of the shows are going to be focused on this big event going on and trying to share space with both the event and all the other characters at once and I don’t really know if I think it’s going to work. Although changing up the format on Flash at least might be welcome, but we’ll discuss that tomorrow.
Anyway, this episode, as an episode of Supergirl, was pretty good. I think everything was resolved pretty neatly, almost pat, at the end, but it by and large worked. I was basically sure Lena was working against Lillian the whole time, but I kind of don’t think I was supposed to think anything else so I’m not holding it against the episode for not committing to a red herring. On one hand I’m glad we’ve gotten to a point in the world where coming out stories are basically a matter of “you need to be okay with you, the rest of us will be okay with whatever that is” on the other, I’m just not investing in this plotline and still don’t really get into Alex/Maggie; I wanted Alex to go off and flirt with Sara for a while. This episode kind of raises a question of why Kara even works at Catco anymore, she doesn’t seem to get a lot out of it besides a cover story and basically everyone she cares about works for the DEO; it wasn’t the case last season, but at this point it just doesn’t serve much narrative function as a civilian life, they could definitely change that but right now it’s not doing much. As of this episode I can’t decide if the choice not to pursue Kara/Jimmy was regular racism or fantastic racism that thinks aliens should be with aliens instead of humans; I still don’t really understand in universe why Kara backed out of it so quickly and they’ve basically ignored that it was ever a thing since then so never further explained anything but I guess I rolled with it in the story, I’m just still trying to figure it out on a meta level. I guess I don’t have any issues with Kara/Mon’el, but I’m also not all that interested and it just seems kind of obvious which I’m sort of against.
Again, I seem to be a lot more negative in this review than I felt about the episode; I think I’m still mostly not confident in the DCCW verse right now, so while I like the episode I can’t help but lead with my concerns that are most of what I have about the larger arcs.
The Flash 3x08
So apart from being pretty rushed I’d say that was a pretty decent episode. Both as an episode of Flash and as a crossover, the latter being the cause of most of the rushed-ness. There is a lot going on, especially in the rush to get everyone together, and a lot of factors aren’t really handled very well (why would Thea choose to come back for this? Why exactly was she at Felicity’s apartment at that specific moment, it’s not like there was time after Oliver got there to tell her to come over? Why didn’t they call the recruits? Why is Felicity written like it’s two and a half seasons ago, like she basically always is on Flash episodes? Why didn’t Amaya and Nate come along? Why didn’t anyone ask about Rip even though he’s mentioned so much in this episode? Why didn’t anyone call the Hawks as much as I’m fine with not having to deal with them? When did Ray have time to rebuild the suit between last Legends ep and now?)
Two points I definitely want to raise about Arrow before discussing this as a Flash episode. One is that even if all I knew about the next episode was that it was the 100th, it would be super obvious they were setting up for Oliver exploring what his life would have been if he hadn’t gotten stranded on the island in the next one. That scene was kind of awkward for this episode and is clearly setup for the next one. And...this has as much to do with being a problem with the writing on Arrow these days as it does with the way Felicity’s written on Flash and not having time for it in a crossover, but there needed to be a scene of either Felicity with Cisco or Felicity and Oliver where they talk about how big a mistake Barry made and how forgivable those kind of mistakes are. Her telling Cisco that Barry feeling bad is enough rings super hollow considering that she hasn’t forgiven Oliver for his (debatable) mistake in last year’s crossover. Also, it’s glaring on Oliver this episode, to the point where it’s almost out of character, that he thinks Barry’s mistake is understandable and forgivable. OLIVER thinks mistakes are forgivable? OLIVER, a man who never forgives himself for anything, who eats responsibility for breakfast and grief over what he’s seen and done for lunch and guilt for dinner; OLIVER thinks he can teach Barry to accept the mistakes he makes? (Also, Flash writers, Oliver has mentioned at least how his mother died to Barry before, it was a couple of years ago in a crossover episode, it was just the Arrow half where they were talking about actions and events having consequences to a person’s heart, so Flash writers may not have understood it.)
Not exploring the why and ramifications of Oliver and Felicity’s attitudes towards Barry’s screw up is a problem with a lot of sources; but the fact that Oliver’s attitude is what it is comes back to the Flash writers thinking the sun shines out of Barry’s ass. Yeah I know Cisco’s still mad and while it isn’t framing him as being in the wrong exactly (which is good) things still want me to have far more sympathy for Barry in their falling out than I do. It was really good to see people not just roll over an accept it, and I think this is going to mess Digg up for a while because he doesn’t deal with this kind of stuff well...but only on Arrow because gods forbid anyone dislike Barry on Flash. In the end, everybody decides it’s okay AND IT’S STILL NOT; yes they need to put it to the side and deal with the problem in front of them but Barry should not be leading this team, the Legends should not be ready to forgive him at all.
All that aside, this did a decent job of providing the Flash characters a bit of extra focus within the crowded narrative. I may not agree with the way they write Barry dealing with what he did, but it’s definitely consistent. I liked Wally a touch better than I have been for a while, he’s at least mostly in the right here when it came to the way the others were treating him; they don’t seem to want to come out and say that the reason no one really wants him out there is because he isn’t very responsible and has behaved like an entitled ass in the lead up to actually getting his powers but that doesn’t exactly mean they should deny him the chance to learn responsibility especially in a big situation like this. I don’t have any idea what HR brings to the table in terms of teaching Wally anything and very much still miss better versions of Wells, although I’m also instantly suspicious of his change of heart, we’ve had helpful (Th)Wells before and I apparently have some suspicion left for this one. Wally needs Oliver’s hard edge training, or at least he’s certainly the person to show Wally how unready he really is just as he did Barry.
Had we ever seen the STARLabs airfield like this before? Because I don’t remember any previous time that it was so obviously the future JLA headquarters.
Lastly, Flash writers, your female characters may be just tag-alongs most of the time, but don’t treat Felicity that way. She has a damn code name and she’s better than Cisco at computers, you’ve even remembered that before. You may not want to explore her character as much as there’s definitely room for, the Arrow writers are far from innocent on that subject themselves, but the ‘ this is all the heroes and over here Caitlin, Iris, and Felicity’ moment annoyed the crap out of me. Write your own female characters better for one, but barring that don’t act like the ones from other shows are just as unnecessary (I don’t think you acknowledged Sara is the captain of the Legends except very subtly, nor did you actually give Thea any real reason to tag along or explore how she felt to get back out there; I guess you like Kara apparently).
I...had a lot to say for once I guess.
Arrow 5x08
I really wish they hadn’t combined the 100th episode with the mega crossover even though it is what allowed them to go into the characters heads like this. But it also means it has a lot of things to juggle; though the only thing I think it fully succeeds at is being the 100th episode. As a crossover it barely qualifies, as a regular episode of Arrow it doesn’t do very well; but as an anniversary episode, it’s pretty good.
But first, why do I keep seeing things about how Olicity is totally over and we shouldn’t hold on to it? That somehow this episode was going to put it to bed for good? Because it really didn’t. Basically all of Oliver’s flashes when it came to Felicity were how much he loves her. She is among his greatest heartbreaks/failures at the end; I was going to say the only surviving one but Roy is still alive though he’s lost to Oliver; Felicity’s still there but also lost to him the way he wishes things were. And the way home is through Felicity; it’s not the mansion where his family lives, or the lair where his life as the Arrow happens, it’s Smoak Tech because Felicity is home. Actually, I see some past/present/future setup here; it’s easy to get lost in the past at the mansion, his parents and Laurel - he finds himself in the Arrow cave, his present, and largely through Diggle - the future and the way home is Smoak Tech representing Felicity but also likely foreshadowing Oliver returning to civilian life in the future.
I do wish Tommy and Roy could have somehow really been in the episode though. Especially Tommy, mostly because they shoehorned in the excuse why he wasn’t; when there’s no way Tommy would have missed this if he was alive (unless in this reality he was still in love with Laurel and so found an excuse...to the fic). I can almost understand needing to leave Roy out, because considering Thea’s journey through the episode they wouldn’t want it to seem like she was choosing to stay for him instead of it being about family, plus in this dream world Roy isn’t an important factor in making it seem perfect.
I actually really like the big fight in dreamland. I like what it says about what everyone’s greatest...enemy/fear/ghost is. Sara’s is the most obvious I think in that Darhk is what’s on her mind that she wants to fight these days, but I am glad she fought Darkh rather than Oliver doing so again. It’s interesting that it was left to us to remember why Ray’s would be mirakuru soldiers, and kind of interesting that even after everything he’s faced n LoT it’s those that killed Anna that he still considers his worst enemy (I’m not sure that’s what it would have been if dreamland had happened on LoT, but for Arrow-Ray it’s entirely right). Thea’s is maybe obvious too, but also telling; Malcolm is the enemy she’s always fighting now, often externally but also internally consistently. Digg’s being Ghosts...is right, but maybe less interesting; Digg doesn’t have a lot of demons, but Andy and by extension the Ghosts that Andy was part of is what haunts him. And Oliver fighting Deathstroke I still find telling; I think Slade represents so many things to Oliver that he’s fighting against, the man who made him a killer, the kind of person Oliver fears he might become or already be, Slade is still in many ways the face of so many of Oliver’s failures, and it’s always Deathstroke (plainly mostly because they didn’t get the actor I’m sure, but Watsonism here) so it’s also the inability to ever make things right.
I honestly don’t feel like Laurel is the face of ‘wanting to stay’ the way I expected her to be. Maybe for Sara, and a part of it for Thea and Oliver, but Thea’s is clearly mostly about her parents (Moira and Robert, but also clearly about not having to be Malcolm’s daughter) and Oliver...he’s pulling away from Laurel almost from the start, he tries to use her as the thing he wants to hold on to, but he doesn’t actually want to hold on to her...I swear this makes sense in my head. Also his last bit to Laurel almost seems like a dig at real Laurel claiming he was the love of her life; the person she fell in love with is not the person he is; but then I like taking shots at that moment because it did not make sense.
The stuff in dreamland, aka the 100th episode stuff, worked really well for me. The stuff outside of dreamland was not so good. It’s especially glaring since what’s going on in dreamland is so emotionally driven how much the stuff outside has no emotion in it. Basically everyone Felicity cares about has been abducted by aliens, they could well be dead, and she...just goes about her business. If this wasn’t so OOC I’d say it really reflected badly on her as a character, but prior to this season this was never Felicity; I wish I could say I thought it was going somewhere, that she was headed for a breakdown from having to seem strong and detached and quirky when she’s falling apart inside, but I’m not getting that vibe. Rene’s dislike of superpowers is something I wish this world would explore more but is resolved way too quickly as a subplot here. There’s no heart in the real world and it barely qualifies as a plot as it’s just kind of there, so it’s pretty meh.
And as a crossover...well the fact that it happens in the real world hampers it. I guess having Sara and Ray along in dreamland makes that a crossover too but they both started as Arrow characters, so it feels more like 100th episode return of important character than being a crossover. Especially since, except for the very end when we join up with the LoT part of things they’re basically just in Arrow mode. Barry and Kara and Cisco are just meh parts of the meh real world plot. Come to think of it, Ray’s going to have to rebuild the ATOM suit *again* after this isn’t her? (I don’t like the fact that they lost their costumes and that it will probably never be remarked on. Laurel presented Sara with that costume; though at least Oliver wasn’t wearing the original hood anymore, losing the hood he got from Shado would have been too much not to be a big deal.)
I want next episode to have team nerds on the Waverider, that’s suddenly very important to me. That and Sara getting to pilot her ship, I was hoping being a spaceship pilot she’d be able to work out the controls on the new ship but I guess ‘twas not to be.
Legends of Tomorrow 2x07
So I got the two things I asked for after last episode, and that was good. But I’m having a hard time judging this one because it is basically not an episode of LoT, it’s entirely a crossover episode. With the exception of Stein’s plot I guess, although that one raises questions of why Lily wasn’t already working with team Flash before this.
Maybe it’s after everything I’ve had to say about the last couple episodes, but I’m drawing a blank on what I want to say about this one. I liked it as the conclusion of the invasion arc, it had a lot of good character moments, of both the fun and dramatic kind, there seems to be some world change going on (now that they’re on terms with the President can we get Roy out of hiding?) but we’ll have to see whether that gets followed through on before I form an opinion. All of that is good (at least for now, we’ll see how it builds to really judge), I just don’t know that it needs a ton of comment at the moment. I think will do a wrap-up/overall review once things have settled in my mind a bit more, so I’ll leave myself with plenty to say I suppose.
(Yeah...didn’t do that.)
So apparently that was the Supergirl mid-season break point, not sure how I feel about that. When I reevaluate the season I’ll have to take that into account.
The Flash 3x09
There is so much makes-it-easy going on here, except that I’m pretty sure most of it isn’t going to stick. Well they made it easy for Barry to get his job back, and suddenly Caitlin isn’t afraid to use her powers, Cisco doesn’t suggest that maybe he’s seeing Dante because Dante isn’t supposed to be dead thus reminding people of what Barry’s done, Julian’s coming around to being friends even though he said he wouldn’t, it’s all just so easy and I don’t exactly see them going back on those elements. Even if they hadn’t set up Sabatar coming back I wouldn’t have believed he was dispatched this easily. I can’t decide if the future scene would have actually managed to be more effective if I cared about Barry, Iris, or Barry/Iris (probably at least a little) because I still wouldn’t believe for a second this show will go there. That’s basically just a repeat of Henry’s death last season and it was done entirely like something that isn’t going to come true in the way it currently looks. I don’t exactly doubt the foreshadowing saying that one of them will die, but that scene with Iris was not done as if it’s going to end up happening. Although I said that about the foreshadowing a couple episodes ago and it turned out they were just as blatant as it looked. So maybe I just don’t care about anyone involved and that’s why my reaction was “whatever.”
Arrow 5x09
That...was easily the best episode of the season so far. If the season up to now had been treated more like this, this could have had even much more weight to it, but as is it’s still really emotionally resonant. Well, I have no idea what to make of the end except to think somehow that’s Black Siren but we’ll see down the road I guess. What I want to see is what happens to Diggle next, so I hope that takes precedence since Laurel’s just whatever. So maybe Thea’s largely OOC choice to suit up last week was really more starting a character arc of her at least being a part time member of the team, and I could live with that. Also, we seem to be acknowledging that first season Oliver killed a lot of people in his missions, not just the ‘bad guys’ themselves (also, a blatant example of how little the s1 makeup did to hide Oliver’s identity as he pushes a guy back onto a table and them puts a light between his face and the other guy’s thus lighting himself up), s1 was kind of cagey on the subject but now we’re just letting it all out there and...I’m not quite sure how I feel about that because I’m not sure at this point what they’re going to do with it.
Also, sadness for Curtis/Paul. I think I respect this as a story choice as it feels fair to both characters (though I think Curtis is not giving enough thought to the consequences), but I also kind of resent it narratively as it’s one more broken relationship that didn’t exactly need to be broken (though to be fair, we haven’t really seen this happen up to now in this verse). I’m also not sure I see what the endgame of this step in things is; more episodes like this and I would be confident in seeing where they were going with this arc, but so much of this season hasn’t been like this.
As for the big thing... I said weeks ago that I was pretty Billy was going to wind up dead, and all this episode I was saying it every time he was on screen since he was narratively asking for it. And yet I definitely did not see this coming until basically Oliver shot him and then it was pretty clear Prometheus wasn’t going to be taken out so easily so obviously it was Billy. And this is rough; especially since this episode did better with Felicity’s character than anything this season except some of the stuff between her and Rory. Again, if the writers have found their stride and we get more like this, then I’d be confident in seeing the fallout from this. Because it’s not like Oliver and Felicity’s relationship was in a great place to start with; but I also don’t think she’s going to turn against him because of it. What’s been largely unacknowledged this season but I’ve remarked on is that they can’t turn to each other for support anymore and this is a situation where the person they need support from the most is each other (especially with Digg unavailable). I hope Thea at least offered to go with Felicity at the end (Oliver can’t because he’s too involved, Digg can’t because he can’t go out, Curtis has his own mess to deal with, she’s not actually that close to Rene and Rory), because I’m not sure leaving her alone should have been the choice.
When I say the episode could have had even more impact if the rest of the season had been handled this way, a lot of it has to do with that big event. It also applies it Curtis’ story that really should have had more build up, and maybe Evelyn but I’m expecting to get more of that as we go. But we could have actually explored Felicity’s feelings in this not quite love triangle, the implication is certainly that she liked him but still loved Oliver but as I’m noted many times of late that’s far between the lines until this episode; hell we could have explored Oliver’s feeling about it more and this would have been really shattering. But oh man was the flashback adorable and considering the lead in line was “You have to be true to who you are,” and they even called back to the red pen, I don’t think we’re meant to assume anything is over. Just gotten even more difficult.
Legends of Tomorrow 2x08
That was another solid episode, a lot of good moments of both the fun and meaningful kind and also RIP!!!!! I liked that it built on the Arrow events last week, more than this week’s Arrow did in a lot of ways because dreamland clearly had an impact on Sara that got explored here and felt very in character with her reaction. I was annoyed at the beginning of the episode because they’re going to the past yet again instead of ever exploring the future or doing any more sci-fi things that they definitely could do, but it was still a good episode. I find it rather amusing that Sara was already the one with the most connection (not quite the only one as Darhk did hold Ray prisoner for a while when he was stuck in miniature) to the bad guys and now Malcolm’s with them and she’s the only one with a connection there. I really liked the interplay between Sara and Malcolm, it continues the sort of irony of Malcolm Merlyn, that this villain has created an army of heroes when he decided to sink a boat; the people that will always stop him are the heroes who wouldn’t have been without the ripples of a sinking ship. I do wish we got more of what Malcolm is hoping to achieve with all this, is he doing the same as Darhk and trying to carry through on his failed evil plan, is it about saving Tommy (I hope it does save Tommy); also I couldn’t tell if he had a fake hand or if this was Malcolm from a point where he hadn’t lost his hand yet or if I should be thinking he got it back through some time travel shenanigans.
But mainly RIP!!!!! I’ve missed Rip so much. I said to myself when Mick was imagining Snart ‘Sure whatever, when do I get Rip back?’ And now I’m starting to, yay. Also, step one towards Captain makeouts.
And now...
Agents of SHIELD 4x01 - 4x08
So I watched this AoS season to date in one marathon watch, so my opinions aren’t maybe what they would have been if I had watched week to week or even taking the time to do reactions as I went. Add to that that I barely remember s3 (for that matter a lot of s2) so my opinions are a little compromised. But with those caveats, I liked a lot more of this than I didn’t. Granted my opinion may also be influenced by the show finally catering to my shipping tastes, but we’ll get to that.
I can’t decide if I kind of love it or think it’s just hysterical with the implications, but Skye is useless this season. The overall story would have gone at least 90% the same without her in the show at all and her own story wasn’t all that interesting either as it just brought her back where she started from. She’s really in this season to play off Robbie, which is...okay I guess but not what I expect after being beaten with a Skye is so special stick for three seasons. I do resent the last bit between her and Coulson because while I can get Coulson viewing her as an *eventual* head for SHIELD, and I can even see the logic to a point, but she’s at least ten years from being qualified. But all told, I didn’t dislike Skye as much I usually do, I’m still ages away from liking her but her being sidelined and irrelevant actually made me more tolerant of her.
I kind of feel like a lot of this arc hasn’t really stated yet, like we’re still setting up pieces. We barely dealt with the Watchdogs, the political story is clearly still laying groundwork, the LMD plot is escalating but did need time to be built up. The whole plot we had in this third of the season seems to have been to dangle something flashy in front of us while all the setup for the real stories happened in the background.
Viewing it that way, it makes me feel a little better about the Ghost Rider plot. That part just doesn’t fit, but it still isn’t really the point of things and somehow that makes me less resentful of the fact that there were dozens of more interesting stories to tell. We told this story instead of those because those important stories needed build up, not because they were actually ignoring those better stories...I’m not saying this very well am I?
Robbie actually wasn’t a bad character, and the ghost plot wasn’t actually that bad, I am just always way more interested in the political (both in SHIELD and the larger MCU) elements than I am introducing side plots like this. But because I can still feel the potential of bigger things the side plot feels less annoying than I’ve found some of them in the past. I may eat those words when we get into the next phase of the plot, but for now I’m still surprisingly optimistic.
A real point in this season’s favor; no Ward. No one’s even pretending to be sad that he’s gone, or even really mentioning him. If only they’d killed him off years ago.
I feel like Fitz has gotten very little to do, and like the writers aren’t sure what to do with Simmons. They are at least giving her more to do while they toy with ideas while Fitz is just mostly -there-. Weirdly I think that contributes to my still being optimistic, because the possibilities they’ve set up with Simmons definitely have potential to go somewhere, and they’re not trying to make Fitz more active than they have ideas to back it up with. On the other hand, I wouldn’t mind actually getting to see more of them as a functional couple and find it weird how little we see them as a unit now. So mixed bag but doing okay.
There’s a lot of factors where I’m still not sure where it’s going so I’m not sure what I feel, especially having watched it so fast. The new director seems a mixed bag, and I kind of like that about him, that I’m not sure if we’re supposed to agree with how the team is reluctant to trust him or if he’s a decent guy who just isn’t part of the family and maybe the team is being a little cliquish shutting him out. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to like Radcliff or if I just do because I always find that actor so charming. The actress playing Aida is doing a great job in this kind of uncanny valley of humanity and intentions, and I’m quite anxious to see where it goes.
But for me, the highlight of the season so far had been the amount of May/Coulson. They’ve been my OTP for this show since s1 and finally the show seems willing to do something with it beside make them obviously in love with each other but unwilling to do anything with it. Right from the start of the season I kept feeling like there was more of it than there had been for a while (sometimes around when Andrew was introduced the May/Coulson text became a lot more subtext). But I wasn’t sure if it was just how little I remembered things particularly from last season, I couldn’t be sure if it was any more blatant or subtle than before and I had just forgotten; but with each episode it seemed to get more...realized. And then 4x07 happened and if we weren’t already at a level we hadn’t been maybe even in the old days, at that point we were (I think “What the hell are we waiting for?” could be the new ship tagline, I’ve wondered that too, you two; though “You mean a lot to me” will probably always be their tagline).
I think the logical assumption is that Aida replaced May with LMD-May during 4x08, so it’s not as if the buildup towards the ship setting sail is compromised by the last reveal, but I do suspect this plot is going to end up making a mess of things. I’m kind of torn on how I feel about that, because I don’t want to make more pain for my OTP and the writers (being a Whedon project) were only willing to let the relationship progress because they could do so with painful things involved; but at the same time, it’s finally important to the story and therefore get some real development and I want that for them too.
So again, this season has been surprisingly...alright. I don’t know how much of that is influenced by how I’m watching it, but also find myself kind of wanting to go back to look at the previous seasons, and it’s been quite a while since I had that feeling for this show. That or maybe I want to write fic that pretends the last revel didn’t happen and we can just go forward. I may even end up watching the new episodes as they come out, for a bit at least; I do want to see how this immediate issue is resolved.
Supergirl 2x08
I feel a little conflicted on this one. I liked most of it as an episode, but I don’t like the fact that it isn’t really part of the crossover. I’ll be able to judge the second part or that better once seeing the rest, and I do expect to do a review of the event as a whole at the end of the week, but the rest of the shows are going to be focused on this big event going on and trying to share space with both the event and all the other characters at once and I don’t really know if I think it’s going to work. Although changing up the format on Flash at least might be welcome, but we’ll discuss that tomorrow.
Anyway, this episode, as an episode of Supergirl, was pretty good. I think everything was resolved pretty neatly, almost pat, at the end, but it by and large worked. I was basically sure Lena was working against Lillian the whole time, but I kind of don’t think I was supposed to think anything else so I’m not holding it against the episode for not committing to a red herring. On one hand I’m glad we’ve gotten to a point in the world where coming out stories are basically a matter of “you need to be okay with you, the rest of us will be okay with whatever that is” on the other, I’m just not investing in this plotline and still don’t really get into Alex/Maggie; I wanted Alex to go off and flirt with Sara for a while. This episode kind of raises a question of why Kara even works at Catco anymore, she doesn’t seem to get a lot out of it besides a cover story and basically everyone she cares about works for the DEO; it wasn’t the case last season, but at this point it just doesn’t serve much narrative function as a civilian life, they could definitely change that but right now it’s not doing much. As of this episode I can’t decide if the choice not to pursue Kara/Jimmy was regular racism or fantastic racism that thinks aliens should be with aliens instead of humans; I still don’t really understand in universe why Kara backed out of it so quickly and they’ve basically ignored that it was ever a thing since then so never further explained anything but I guess I rolled with it in the story, I’m just still trying to figure it out on a meta level. I guess I don’t have any issues with Kara/Mon’el, but I’m also not all that interested and it just seems kind of obvious which I’m sort of against.
Again, I seem to be a lot more negative in this review than I felt about the episode; I think I’m still mostly not confident in the DCCW verse right now, so while I like the episode I can’t help but lead with my concerns that are most of what I have about the larger arcs.
The Flash 3x08
So apart from being pretty rushed I’d say that was a pretty decent episode. Both as an episode of Flash and as a crossover, the latter being the cause of most of the rushed-ness. There is a lot going on, especially in the rush to get everyone together, and a lot of factors aren’t really handled very well (why would Thea choose to come back for this? Why exactly was she at Felicity’s apartment at that specific moment, it’s not like there was time after Oliver got there to tell her to come over? Why didn’t they call the recruits? Why is Felicity written like it’s two and a half seasons ago, like she basically always is on Flash episodes? Why didn’t Amaya and Nate come along? Why didn’t anyone ask about Rip even though he’s mentioned so much in this episode? Why didn’t anyone call the Hawks as much as I’m fine with not having to deal with them? When did Ray have time to rebuild the suit between last Legends ep and now?)
Two points I definitely want to raise about Arrow before discussing this as a Flash episode. One is that even if all I knew about the next episode was that it was the 100th, it would be super obvious they were setting up for Oliver exploring what his life would have been if he hadn’t gotten stranded on the island in the next one. That scene was kind of awkward for this episode and is clearly setup for the next one. And...this has as much to do with being a problem with the writing on Arrow these days as it does with the way Felicity’s written on Flash and not having time for it in a crossover, but there needed to be a scene of either Felicity with Cisco or Felicity and Oliver where they talk about how big a mistake Barry made and how forgivable those kind of mistakes are. Her telling Cisco that Barry feeling bad is enough rings super hollow considering that she hasn’t forgiven Oliver for his (debatable) mistake in last year’s crossover. Also, it’s glaring on Oliver this episode, to the point where it’s almost out of character, that he thinks Barry’s mistake is understandable and forgivable. OLIVER thinks mistakes are forgivable? OLIVER, a man who never forgives himself for anything, who eats responsibility for breakfast and grief over what he’s seen and done for lunch and guilt for dinner; OLIVER thinks he can teach Barry to accept the mistakes he makes? (Also, Flash writers, Oliver has mentioned at least how his mother died to Barry before, it was a couple of years ago in a crossover episode, it was just the Arrow half where they were talking about actions and events having consequences to a person’s heart, so Flash writers may not have understood it.)
Not exploring the why and ramifications of Oliver and Felicity’s attitudes towards Barry’s screw up is a problem with a lot of sources; but the fact that Oliver’s attitude is what it is comes back to the Flash writers thinking the sun shines out of Barry’s ass. Yeah I know Cisco’s still mad and while it isn’t framing him as being in the wrong exactly (which is good) things still want me to have far more sympathy for Barry in their falling out than I do. It was really good to see people not just roll over an accept it, and I think this is going to mess Digg up for a while because he doesn’t deal with this kind of stuff well...but only on Arrow because gods forbid anyone dislike Barry on Flash. In the end, everybody decides it’s okay AND IT’S STILL NOT; yes they need to put it to the side and deal with the problem in front of them but Barry should not be leading this team, the Legends should not be ready to forgive him at all.
All that aside, this did a decent job of providing the Flash characters a bit of extra focus within the crowded narrative. I may not agree with the way they write Barry dealing with what he did, but it’s definitely consistent. I liked Wally a touch better than I have been for a while, he’s at least mostly in the right here when it came to the way the others were treating him; they don’t seem to want to come out and say that the reason no one really wants him out there is because he isn’t very responsible and has behaved like an entitled ass in the lead up to actually getting his powers but that doesn’t exactly mean they should deny him the chance to learn responsibility especially in a big situation like this. I don’t have any idea what HR brings to the table in terms of teaching Wally anything and very much still miss better versions of Wells, although I’m also instantly suspicious of his change of heart, we’ve had helpful (Th)Wells before and I apparently have some suspicion left for this one. Wally needs Oliver’s hard edge training, or at least he’s certainly the person to show Wally how unready he really is just as he did Barry.
Had we ever seen the STARLabs airfield like this before? Because I don’t remember any previous time that it was so obviously the future JLA headquarters.
Lastly, Flash writers, your female characters may be just tag-alongs most of the time, but don’t treat Felicity that way. She has a damn code name and she’s better than Cisco at computers, you’ve even remembered that before. You may not want to explore her character as much as there’s definitely room for, the Arrow writers are far from innocent on that subject themselves, but the ‘ this is all the heroes and over here Caitlin, Iris, and Felicity’ moment annoyed the crap out of me. Write your own female characters better for one, but barring that don’t act like the ones from other shows are just as unnecessary (I don’t think you acknowledged Sara is the captain of the Legends except very subtly, nor did you actually give Thea any real reason to tag along or explore how she felt to get back out there; I guess you like Kara apparently).
I...had a lot to say for once I guess.
Arrow 5x08
I really wish they hadn’t combined the 100th episode with the mega crossover even though it is what allowed them to go into the characters heads like this. But it also means it has a lot of things to juggle; though the only thing I think it fully succeeds at is being the 100th episode. As a crossover it barely qualifies, as a regular episode of Arrow it doesn’t do very well; but as an anniversary episode, it’s pretty good.
But first, why do I keep seeing things about how Olicity is totally over and we shouldn’t hold on to it? That somehow this episode was going to put it to bed for good? Because it really didn’t. Basically all of Oliver’s flashes when it came to Felicity were how much he loves her. She is among his greatest heartbreaks/failures at the end; I was going to say the only surviving one but Roy is still alive though he’s lost to Oliver; Felicity’s still there but also lost to him the way he wishes things were. And the way home is through Felicity; it’s not the mansion where his family lives, or the lair where his life as the Arrow happens, it’s Smoak Tech because Felicity is home. Actually, I see some past/present/future setup here; it’s easy to get lost in the past at the mansion, his parents and Laurel - he finds himself in the Arrow cave, his present, and largely through Diggle - the future and the way home is Smoak Tech representing Felicity but also likely foreshadowing Oliver returning to civilian life in the future.
I do wish Tommy and Roy could have somehow really been in the episode though. Especially Tommy, mostly because they shoehorned in the excuse why he wasn’t; when there’s no way Tommy would have missed this if he was alive (unless in this reality he was still in love with Laurel and so found an excuse...to the fic). I can almost understand needing to leave Roy out, because considering Thea’s journey through the episode they wouldn’t want it to seem like she was choosing to stay for him instead of it being about family, plus in this dream world Roy isn’t an important factor in making it seem perfect.
I actually really like the big fight in dreamland. I like what it says about what everyone’s greatest...enemy/fear/ghost is. Sara’s is the most obvious I think in that Darhk is what’s on her mind that she wants to fight these days, but I am glad she fought Darkh rather than Oliver doing so again. It’s interesting that it was left to us to remember why Ray’s would be mirakuru soldiers, and kind of interesting that even after everything he’s faced n LoT it’s those that killed Anna that he still considers his worst enemy (I’m not sure that’s what it would have been if dreamland had happened on LoT, but for Arrow-Ray it’s entirely right). Thea’s is maybe obvious too, but also telling; Malcolm is the enemy she’s always fighting now, often externally but also internally consistently. Digg’s being Ghosts...is right, but maybe less interesting; Digg doesn’t have a lot of demons, but Andy and by extension the Ghosts that Andy was part of is what haunts him. And Oliver fighting Deathstroke I still find telling; I think Slade represents so many things to Oliver that he’s fighting against, the man who made him a killer, the kind of person Oliver fears he might become or already be, Slade is still in many ways the face of so many of Oliver’s failures, and it’s always Deathstroke (plainly mostly because they didn’t get the actor I’m sure, but Watsonism here) so it’s also the inability to ever make things right.
I honestly don’t feel like Laurel is the face of ‘wanting to stay’ the way I expected her to be. Maybe for Sara, and a part of it for Thea and Oliver, but Thea’s is clearly mostly about her parents (Moira and Robert, but also clearly about not having to be Malcolm’s daughter) and Oliver...he’s pulling away from Laurel almost from the start, he tries to use her as the thing he wants to hold on to, but he doesn’t actually want to hold on to her...I swear this makes sense in my head. Also his last bit to Laurel almost seems like a dig at real Laurel claiming he was the love of her life; the person she fell in love with is not the person he is; but then I like taking shots at that moment because it did not make sense.
The stuff in dreamland, aka the 100th episode stuff, worked really well for me. The stuff outside of dreamland was not so good. It’s especially glaring since what’s going on in dreamland is so emotionally driven how much the stuff outside has no emotion in it. Basically everyone Felicity cares about has been abducted by aliens, they could well be dead, and she...just goes about her business. If this wasn’t so OOC I’d say it really reflected badly on her as a character, but prior to this season this was never Felicity; I wish I could say I thought it was going somewhere, that she was headed for a breakdown from having to seem strong and detached and quirky when she’s falling apart inside, but I’m not getting that vibe. Rene’s dislike of superpowers is something I wish this world would explore more but is resolved way too quickly as a subplot here. There’s no heart in the real world and it barely qualifies as a plot as it’s just kind of there, so it’s pretty meh.
And as a crossover...well the fact that it happens in the real world hampers it. I guess having Sara and Ray along in dreamland makes that a crossover too but they both started as Arrow characters, so it feels more like 100th episode return of important character than being a crossover. Especially since, except for the very end when we join up with the LoT part of things they’re basically just in Arrow mode. Barry and Kara and Cisco are just meh parts of the meh real world plot. Come to think of it, Ray’s going to have to rebuild the ATOM suit *again* after this isn’t her? (I don’t like the fact that they lost their costumes and that it will probably never be remarked on. Laurel presented Sara with that costume; though at least Oliver wasn’t wearing the original hood anymore, losing the hood he got from Shado would have been too much not to be a big deal.)
I want next episode to have team nerds on the Waverider, that’s suddenly very important to me. That and Sara getting to pilot her ship, I was hoping being a spaceship pilot she’d be able to work out the controls on the new ship but I guess ‘twas not to be.
Legends of Tomorrow 2x07
So I got the two things I asked for after last episode, and that was good. But I’m having a hard time judging this one because it is basically not an episode of LoT, it’s entirely a crossover episode. With the exception of Stein’s plot I guess, although that one raises questions of why Lily wasn’t already working with team Flash before this.
Maybe it’s after everything I’ve had to say about the last couple episodes, but I’m drawing a blank on what I want to say about this one. I liked it as the conclusion of the invasion arc, it had a lot of good character moments, of both the fun and dramatic kind, there seems to be some world change going on (now that they’re on terms with the President can we get Roy out of hiding?) but we’ll have to see whether that gets followed through on before I form an opinion. All of that is good (at least for now, we’ll see how it builds to really judge), I just don’t know that it needs a ton of comment at the moment. I think will do a wrap-up/overall review once things have settled in my mind a bit more, so I’ll leave myself with plenty to say I suppose.
(Yeah...didn’t do that.)
So apparently that was the Supergirl mid-season break point, not sure how I feel about that. When I reevaluate the season I’ll have to take that into account.
The Flash 3x09
There is so much makes-it-easy going on here, except that I’m pretty sure most of it isn’t going to stick. Well they made it easy for Barry to get his job back, and suddenly Caitlin isn’t afraid to use her powers, Cisco doesn’t suggest that maybe he’s seeing Dante because Dante isn’t supposed to be dead thus reminding people of what Barry’s done, Julian’s coming around to being friends even though he said he wouldn’t, it’s all just so easy and I don’t exactly see them going back on those elements. Even if they hadn’t set up Sabatar coming back I wouldn’t have believed he was dispatched this easily. I can’t decide if the future scene would have actually managed to be more effective if I cared about Barry, Iris, or Barry/Iris (probably at least a little) because I still wouldn’t believe for a second this show will go there. That’s basically just a repeat of Henry’s death last season and it was done entirely like something that isn’t going to come true in the way it currently looks. I don’t exactly doubt the foreshadowing saying that one of them will die, but that scene with Iris was not done as if it’s going to end up happening. Although I said that about the foreshadowing a couple episodes ago and it turned out they were just as blatant as it looked. So maybe I just don’t care about anyone involved and that’s why my reaction was “whatever.”
Arrow 5x09
That...was easily the best episode of the season so far. If the season up to now had been treated more like this, this could have had even much more weight to it, but as is it’s still really emotionally resonant. Well, I have no idea what to make of the end except to think somehow that’s Black Siren but we’ll see down the road I guess. What I want to see is what happens to Diggle next, so I hope that takes precedence since Laurel’s just whatever. So maybe Thea’s largely OOC choice to suit up last week was really more starting a character arc of her at least being a part time member of the team, and I could live with that. Also, we seem to be acknowledging that first season Oliver killed a lot of people in his missions, not just the ‘bad guys’ themselves (also, a blatant example of how little the s1 makeup did to hide Oliver’s identity as he pushes a guy back onto a table and them puts a light between his face and the other guy’s thus lighting himself up), s1 was kind of cagey on the subject but now we’re just letting it all out there and...I’m not quite sure how I feel about that because I’m not sure at this point what they’re going to do with it.
Also, sadness for Curtis/Paul. I think I respect this as a story choice as it feels fair to both characters (though I think Curtis is not giving enough thought to the consequences), but I also kind of resent it narratively as it’s one more broken relationship that didn’t exactly need to be broken (though to be fair, we haven’t really seen this happen up to now in this verse). I’m also not sure I see what the endgame of this step in things is; more episodes like this and I would be confident in seeing where they were going with this arc, but so much of this season hasn’t been like this.
As for the big thing... I said weeks ago that I was pretty Billy was going to wind up dead, and all this episode I was saying it every time he was on screen since he was narratively asking for it. And yet I definitely did not see this coming until basically Oliver shot him and then it was pretty clear Prometheus wasn’t going to be taken out so easily so obviously it was Billy. And this is rough; especially since this episode did better with Felicity’s character than anything this season except some of the stuff between her and Rory. Again, if the writers have found their stride and we get more like this, then I’d be confident in seeing the fallout from this. Because it’s not like Oliver and Felicity’s relationship was in a great place to start with; but I also don’t think she’s going to turn against him because of it. What’s been largely unacknowledged this season but I’ve remarked on is that they can’t turn to each other for support anymore and this is a situation where the person they need support from the most is each other (especially with Digg unavailable). I hope Thea at least offered to go with Felicity at the end (Oliver can’t because he’s too involved, Digg can’t because he can’t go out, Curtis has his own mess to deal with, she’s not actually that close to Rene and Rory), because I’m not sure leaving her alone should have been the choice.
When I say the episode could have had even more impact if the rest of the season had been handled this way, a lot of it has to do with that big event. It also applies it Curtis’ story that really should have had more build up, and maybe Evelyn but I’m expecting to get more of that as we go. But we could have actually explored Felicity’s feelings in this not quite love triangle, the implication is certainly that she liked him but still loved Oliver but as I’m noted many times of late that’s far between the lines until this episode; hell we could have explored Oliver’s feeling about it more and this would have been really shattering. But oh man was the flashback adorable and considering the lead in line was “You have to be true to who you are,” and they even called back to the red pen, I don’t think we’re meant to assume anything is over. Just gotten even more difficult.
Legends of Tomorrow 2x08
That was another solid episode, a lot of good moments of both the fun and meaningful kind and also RIP!!!!! I liked that it built on the Arrow events last week, more than this week’s Arrow did in a lot of ways because dreamland clearly had an impact on Sara that got explored here and felt very in character with her reaction. I was annoyed at the beginning of the episode because they’re going to the past yet again instead of ever exploring the future or doing any more sci-fi things that they definitely could do, but it was still a good episode. I find it rather amusing that Sara was already the one with the most connection (not quite the only one as Darhk did hold Ray prisoner for a while when he was stuck in miniature) to the bad guys and now Malcolm’s with them and she’s the only one with a connection there. I really liked the interplay between Sara and Malcolm, it continues the sort of irony of Malcolm Merlyn, that this villain has created an army of heroes when he decided to sink a boat; the people that will always stop him are the heroes who wouldn’t have been without the ripples of a sinking ship. I do wish we got more of what Malcolm is hoping to achieve with all this, is he doing the same as Darhk and trying to carry through on his failed evil plan, is it about saving Tommy (I hope it does save Tommy); also I couldn’t tell if he had a fake hand or if this was Malcolm from a point where he hadn’t lost his hand yet or if I should be thinking he got it back through some time travel shenanigans.
But mainly RIP!!!!! I’ve missed Rip so much. I said to myself when Mick was imagining Snart ‘Sure whatever, when do I get Rip back?’ And now I’m starting to, yay. Also, step one towards Captain makeouts.
And now...
Agents of SHIELD 4x01 - 4x08
So I watched this AoS season to date in one marathon watch, so my opinions aren’t maybe what they would have been if I had watched week to week or even taking the time to do reactions as I went. Add to that that I barely remember s3 (for that matter a lot of s2) so my opinions are a little compromised. But with those caveats, I liked a lot more of this than I didn’t. Granted my opinion may also be influenced by the show finally catering to my shipping tastes, but we’ll get to that.
I can’t decide if I kind of love it or think it’s just hysterical with the implications, but Skye is useless this season. The overall story would have gone at least 90% the same without her in the show at all and her own story wasn’t all that interesting either as it just brought her back where she started from. She’s really in this season to play off Robbie, which is...okay I guess but not what I expect after being beaten with a Skye is so special stick for three seasons. I do resent the last bit between her and Coulson because while I can get Coulson viewing her as an *eventual* head for SHIELD, and I can even see the logic to a point, but she’s at least ten years from being qualified. But all told, I didn’t dislike Skye as much I usually do, I’m still ages away from liking her but her being sidelined and irrelevant actually made me more tolerant of her.
I kind of feel like a lot of this arc hasn’t really stated yet, like we’re still setting up pieces. We barely dealt with the Watchdogs, the political story is clearly still laying groundwork, the LMD plot is escalating but did need time to be built up. The whole plot we had in this third of the season seems to have been to dangle something flashy in front of us while all the setup for the real stories happened in the background.
Viewing it that way, it makes me feel a little better about the Ghost Rider plot. That part just doesn’t fit, but it still isn’t really the point of things and somehow that makes me less resentful of the fact that there were dozens of more interesting stories to tell. We told this story instead of those because those important stories needed build up, not because they were actually ignoring those better stories...I’m not saying this very well am I?
Robbie actually wasn’t a bad character, and the ghost plot wasn’t actually that bad, I am just always way more interested in the political (both in SHIELD and the larger MCU) elements than I am introducing side plots like this. But because I can still feel the potential of bigger things the side plot feels less annoying than I’ve found some of them in the past. I may eat those words when we get into the next phase of the plot, but for now I’m still surprisingly optimistic.
A real point in this season’s favor; no Ward. No one’s even pretending to be sad that he’s gone, or even really mentioning him. If only they’d killed him off years ago.
I feel like Fitz has gotten very little to do, and like the writers aren’t sure what to do with Simmons. They are at least giving her more to do while they toy with ideas while Fitz is just mostly -there-. Weirdly I think that contributes to my still being optimistic, because the possibilities they’ve set up with Simmons definitely have potential to go somewhere, and they’re not trying to make Fitz more active than they have ideas to back it up with. On the other hand, I wouldn’t mind actually getting to see more of them as a functional couple and find it weird how little we see them as a unit now. So mixed bag but doing okay.
There’s a lot of factors where I’m still not sure where it’s going so I’m not sure what I feel, especially having watched it so fast. The new director seems a mixed bag, and I kind of like that about him, that I’m not sure if we’re supposed to agree with how the team is reluctant to trust him or if he’s a decent guy who just isn’t part of the family and maybe the team is being a little cliquish shutting him out. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to like Radcliff or if I just do because I always find that actor so charming. The actress playing Aida is doing a great job in this kind of uncanny valley of humanity and intentions, and I’m quite anxious to see where it goes.
But for me, the highlight of the season so far had been the amount of May/Coulson. They’ve been my OTP for this show since s1 and finally the show seems willing to do something with it beside make them obviously in love with each other but unwilling to do anything with it. Right from the start of the season I kept feeling like there was more of it than there had been for a while (sometimes around when Andrew was introduced the May/Coulson text became a lot more subtext). But I wasn’t sure if it was just how little I remembered things particularly from last season, I couldn’t be sure if it was any more blatant or subtle than before and I had just forgotten; but with each episode it seemed to get more...realized. And then 4x07 happened and if we weren’t already at a level we hadn’t been maybe even in the old days, at that point we were (I think “What the hell are we waiting for?” could be the new ship tagline, I’ve wondered that too, you two; though “You mean a lot to me” will probably always be their tagline).
I think the logical assumption is that Aida replaced May with LMD-May during 4x08, so it’s not as if the buildup towards the ship setting sail is compromised by the last reveal, but I do suspect this plot is going to end up making a mess of things. I’m kind of torn on how I feel about that, because I don’t want to make more pain for my OTP and the writers (being a Whedon project) were only willing to let the relationship progress because they could do so with painful things involved; but at the same time, it’s finally important to the story and therefore get some real development and I want that for them too.
So again, this season has been surprisingly...alright. I don’t know how much of that is influenced by how I’m watching it, but also find myself kind of wanting to go back to look at the previous seasons, and it’s been quite a while since I had that feeling for this show. That or maybe I want to write fic that pretends the last revel didn’t happen and we can just go forward. I may even end up watching the new episodes as they come out, for a bit at least; I do want to see how this immediate issue is resolved.