Five thoughts after watching "The Joining"
1) "So we're just throwing around words that start with 'bat', now. That's fine." OMG, Dick, I love you so much. Also Lucius. I love Lucius like whoa ("Pretty exciting, if you're into metallurgy." And who isn't, Imposter!Lucius? *g*). And J'onn! Hi, J'onn! I just saw you in Sandman a few days ago! How ya been, buddy? And why all the punching? Not really gonna endear you to Bats, here.
1a) "If you're trying to nod, you need a neck." I find this hysterical for some reason. Also, if that robot head starts spewing milky liquid, I'm calling Deliberate Rip-Off Foul.
2) OMFG, am I hallucinating, or did I seriously just see the writing credit I think I just saw? Jane Espenson and Doug Petrie, you guys. Dude. I had absolutely no idea. This excites me way more than it probably should. (If I'm not very much mistaken, Espenson is the first female writer to work on this show. It's pretty sad that it took until the fourth season finale to make that happen, but at least they got a quality writer when it finally did, unlike some shows I could mention ::coughcoughDoctorWhocoughcough::)
2a) They pulled off an Alfred joke! They actually wrote a joke for Alfred that made me laugh. Of course, I was already laughing at "Kick his head off," but, yes. Alfred doesn't suck when written by Espenson and Petrie.
2b) In fact, so far from sucking, I LOVE him in "Part Two," especially the conversation he has with Lucius. Why can't we have had this Alfred the whole way through?
3) Bruce, you never worked alone, you dink. You just admitted you've been working with Lucius since forever, and Alfred has been around even longer... I always think of "I'm All Alone" from Spamalot in moments like these.
3a) "I could teach a college course on Martians." Oooooh, snap, I have a new Alternate Universe headcanon...!
3b) "I guess we both guard our secrets closely." Yeah, if talking about them openly in a diner counts as "guarding them closely," sure. You both do that.
4) Oh, man, how appropriate is it that the episode that introduces Bats to the Justice League is the one that opens the action up to the whole world? I just love that we actually get to see the effect of all of this on the inmates at Arkham, and that Gordon is intelligent enough to just accept that they would want to defend their planet, too. (That said, what did they do with the inmates when the Joining was defeated?)
4a) That look when Bats is all, "Yeah, I totes know about you people already; you're not all that sneaky"? That look is SO WALLY. (Watch it not even be Wally...)
4b) Green Arrow's little salute is so perfect and fuzzy, too.
4c) So...we're not getting any of the Justice League women, then? Really? Not even Wonder Woman? ::siiiiiigh:: Don't do this, show.
5) Yay, defeating the alien robot invaders in an epic manner...! Except, y'know, how did that destroy the ones that weren't made of Wayne Industries tech? We appear to have just completely forgotten that there were alien robot invaders that began making more alien robot invaders using Wayne tech...which I guess means there were alien robot invaders, and then their domestic robot insurgency offspring. The alien ones shouldn't have been affected when the domestic ones were destroyed.
Season Five is going to be good stuff, if this is any indication.