Five thoughts after watching "Thunder" and "The Icy Depths"
1) For an episode with such a big moment for such a great character, I found this to be exceedingly uninteresting. Phil LaMarr is faultless as always, but the sort of Ozymandias-lite thing they tried to do didn't really work on any level. Xanatos pulled off the air fortress because there was more to his character; Zeus not so much. I appreciated the "gremlin" angle and loved the use of cell phones (that little bit of tech completely changes the sorts of stories that can be told - see also last night's Community, and how they had to go to increasingly greater lengths to ignore the availability of mobile communication on BtVS and Angel*), but the only other thing that held my attention was the brief appearance of Michael Bell's voice at the beginning.
2) GAWD, PENGUIN, how is it that you are always so very confident that you are going to kick Bats' ass when your ass has now been handed to you by virtually every character who has appeared in the show to date? You, sir, are delusional, and it's not entertaining or interesting.
3) MAKO'S SCARF. EWAN HAS MAKO'S SCARF. I don't need the shifty glances and suspicious interest in this umbrella to know EWAN IS A DIRTY THIEF.
4) Jolly good, indeed, Alfred, you're complicit in trapping a man in a vault. I assume one of you is planning to report him to the authorities so he doesn't starve or asphyxiate, right? And classy move, there - you've run off with the umbrella, leaving your old schoolmate behind.
5) Has no one ever turned on the light on that lighthouse before?
Bonus thought) "Did you not hear the fellow in the bat costume instruct us to stay behind?" I think this is the first time I've laughed in a non-derisive manner at something Alfred has said on this show.
* I want the go-ahead on this presentation...!
I also read Huntress: Year One and, despite some annoyance that the costumes were painted on to all of the "capes" (the dudes included, so at least it's not a gender-based thing...?), I heartily recommend it. Ivory Madison clearly has a good handle on the character, and I loved seeing some of the regular Batman characters from an outsider's point of view. Helena certainly has her own kyriarchical issues, but her story - at least in this book - is so gloriously centered around calling people on their privileges and trying to give power back to an oppressed group that tends to go unnoticed by most of the world. I'm honestly not interested in 99% of stories about organized crime (I've never seen any of the Godfather films and have zero interest in doing so; I like my critically-acclaimed genre fiction to have a few more aliens or vampires than that), but Helena Bertinelli is still far and away the most fascinating DC character I know of**.
** The Endless are technically Vertigo.
ETA: I definitely posted this hours ago, but I had it set to Private for some reason. LOL I'M DUMB. Now, I'm gonna round out this Very Batman-y Friday the 13th with the Season Three finale and some ruminating on Team StarKid's latest offering. (UGH, DYLAN SAUNDERS, I want to listen to you sing all day every day.)