Titans "Bruce Wayne"
Also reviews for the latest episodes of DC Super Hero Girls, Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure, Elena Of Avalor, Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers: Cyberverse, Transformers: Rescue Bots Academy, Power Rangers Beast Morphers, The Good Place, Black Jesus, and The Blacklist.
Titans "Bruce Wayne"
That was a disaster. Season one bad. Holy smokes.
Do you know who Bruce Wayne is on this show? Clint Eastwood's empty chair. He'll say any horrible thing you can imagine if Clint (or Dick) pretends real hard. I always believed this show's Dick Grayson was a sociopath. But he hallucinates Bruce saying things he would never say in the middle of missions? He's freaking crazy.
Also was this the first f-bomb dropped by Batman in any media anywhere? Leave it to this show to deal the Batman mythos its low points.
I love Krypto smashing through the window with Eve. Her stuff with Conner was the only decent thing in the episode.
Bruce Wayne doing the Batusi around strippers is the reason this show is everything wrong with DC Universe. The strippers in the background were distracting while important information was being told to the audience. They used to call that "sexposition" on Games Of Thrones, but I can't think of any legit critic of Game of Thrones thinking it was a good thing. Game of Thrones has a pretty toxic fandom because of people who responded well to stuff like that. It's why I don't take that show seriously. And it's why no-one should take this show seriously.
And finally, the end scene is the problem with the show in a nutshell. It keeps having Dick Grayson do unforgivable things. And then expects the audience to forgive him anyways. It doesn't work like that. I still haven't forgiven for taking off from Rachel last season after promising he'd be here for her. I don't see why this show keeps piling transgression after transgression, and crime after crime, and still expect me to root for Dick. Oh, hey, Dick killed Slade's innocent, deaf son. But he feels bad, so it's okay.
I'm tired of this. I don't know why I expected more, but the last few episodes haven't sucked. I would have preferred it if they did. Because I wouldn't be this disappointed if the season had been this bad all along. *.
DC Super Hero Girls "Shell Shock"
It's like Kara has almost completely forgotten she has Supergirl's powers. Chickens should NOT be giving her trouble. **.
Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure "Be Very Afraid"
Like Estaban on Elena of Avalor, I studied Cass's expressions and movements very closely this episode. The verdict: She doesn't have it in her. Like Estaban, she can be saved. She has it even easier than Estaban in that the heroes WANT to save her.
I like that Varian still feels guilt and that the Kingdom is still mad at him. It's good it wasn't just forgotten.
Lance fighting his fears was great.
I am not only surprised Red can talk as the Wolf, but also that she has her little girl voice.
That climax had legit tension. A master class in everything to do right in a dire and near impossible situation. The writers must have been watching Back To The Future recently. Amazing.
That was good but the climax bumps it up to great. I HAVE to give that five stars now because of that ending. *****.
Elena Of Avalor "Sugar Rush"
How smart is this show? It doesn't have the dog eat the chocolate.
That was a super funny reaction to the spell, and Flo was even funnier and cuter than ever. The moral was nice too.
Good episode. ****.
Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles "Man Vs. Sewer"
They learned a valuable something about something somethinging Raph alone again.
:Leo has to go first because he sells the fewest action figures. I can't tell if that's a meta moment, and if he knows they are in a merchandised TV show or not. And if not, why he said it.
Don's observation that port shorts are a sign that a person is not deemed fit for society is a good one.
This was all right, but outside of those funny jokes, it didn't wow me. **1/2.
Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles "The Mutant Menace"
Punctuation doesn't matter when your face is stuck in concrete. Very astute observation there.
I love that Donnie secretly has money.
Anybody ever seen pitchforks in lower Manhattan? Mama, things are gettin' RUSTIC out there! Great line.
Raph is no longer in his doing sit-ups every day phase.
Do you call them Mousers if there are no mice involved with the gimmick on this show?
I hear Kid Genius jails are rough.
Fun. ****.
Transformers: Cyberverse "Parley"
Parley is a great episode title. It's a good word and a strong word. I approve of episode titles that use words that way.
Who was the Samurai looking robot who killed Slipstream? Why did he do it? And why didn't he get any blame?
Also isn't Soundwave's whole thing espionage? So shouldn't he be like the LAST person trying to shut Slipstream up as she tries to give him vital intel? They could have given that role to a Decepticon who entire gimmick was NOT initially based on listening.
I also don't understand why the Seekers go after Slipstream when Starscream orders them to. His orders boil down to "Stop her from revealing I plan to kill all of you!" Why are they backing those specific orders up? Shouldn't they be joining Slipstream and escaping too?
That was still pretty good although the talks breaking down due to stupidity and misunderstanding is not my favorite thing. It's one of the things I hate most about this franchise. ***1/2.
Transformers: Rescue Bots Academy "All That Glitters"
I feel like the episode had the wrong moral about cheating. Just based on what Chase allowed Whirl to do at the beginning, what Hoist did was fair. Hoist correctly noted the difference in that he did it behind everyone's back while Whirl did her stint openly. And I kind of think that that's right, but the episode still doesn't quite get that Hoist's actions are actually okay following the rules set up. The only not-okay thing is being sneaky. If Hoist had brought back Chuck, explained how and why he did it, and rubbed Chase's face in his questionable lesson at the beginning of the episode, I don't think it would be cheating at all. It would be Kirk rigging the Kobiyashi Maru. Impressive. And I don't think the episode quite understood that, or that the idea that you use every advantage you can in rescues is not only a good one, but probably a resolute, unbreakable one too. I feel like the show is punishing Hoist for doing exactly was he was taught. That doesn't sit right with me. *1/2.
Transformers: Rescue Bots Academy "Dig Feet"
The show is STILL exploring the characters wanting fame? I feel like I've gone over why this is a terrible idea for this premise and the kids in the audience a million times but I am STILL aware of two things.
1. The show is fundamentally flawed and will never change or stop being bad for kids and safety tips.
2. It happens every other episode so I don't feel the need to go any more in-depth than that. 1/2.
Power Rangers Beast Morphers "Hypnotic Halloween"
Before I give that a justifiably bad review I'll say something. An adult cynic who saw that might dismissively say they ripped off the "characters turn into their costumes on Halloween" idea from Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I don't see anyone else outside of Buffy using that idea as a rip-off at all. As far as I'm concerned, Buffy create a great new trope, that is actually better suited for shows with younger viewers. It doesn't happen very often when a modernish show creates a new idea. But if they do, I think it's perfectly all right for other shows to put their characters through it too. If writers weren't allowed to copy ideas, we'd never have anything new to watch at all.
Now to get to my main objection, which I don't think is unreasonable, and maybe you can tell me if I'm crazy. But as far as action sequences go, this show doesn't amaze me. But special effects have gotten far along enough in Hollywood that they can do credible mecha battles on a kiddie TV show budget. The climaxes don't excite me, but I see how a four-year-old would think they are mindblowing. So we've established the show doesn't suck at this one thing.
So why is it, whenever the franchise invariably does a clip show for the Halloween and Christmas episodes, they don't ever play back the fights with the monsters or the robots battles? They strictly keep to the sitcom stuff. And the thing I especially notice about the clips, is that they invariably pick out the very worse clips of the sitcom stuff. I'm not saying this is a good show. But they have material they can show off, and a good excuse to show action without having to pay for new footage. Why are they stuck on the stuff that is boring and probably even the little kids don't like?
That was an unusually bad episode otherwise. Ravi cannot do an English accent to save his life, but Zoe and Devon's Nordic attempts were even worse. It's like they were too young to ever have heard someone else speak with that accent, and seem to be imitating Peter Griffin's "Moonman" accent from Handiquacks. And then Zoe randomly is using a terrible Southern accent for the doctor she's pretending to be, and I'm like "If I had a group of performers this incapable of handling this specific material, I'd change the material to something they COULD handle." Instead this goes out over the air. And I get that they're kids, and real kids don't nail accents in real life. But it's also fiction, it's television, and watching that go wrong is painful on every level you can think of.
I don't blame the kids for flubbing the performances. I blame the adults who sent out the flubbed performances anyways. It's not fair to them. Power Rangers is NOT a good show to put on your audition reel.
This is not a good show in general, and it annoys me. But I'm still here. So who's fault is that actually? *1/2.
The Good Place "Tinker, Tailor, Demon, Spy"
Lots of good twists including Bad Janet being the one to dump Jason. I believed Glen's motivations. I just thought he was wrong about Michael. And I guessed that right at least.
I think Eleanor was overthinking whether Michael was Vicki, and waiting until the self-sacrificing moment to believe it's him. When Michael says he doesn't want to reveal himself because they'd never look at him the same way again, it's him. Not merely because it's a touching and genuine thing to say. It's that something like that would never occur to Vicki. The demons have been winging it in their Good Place roles, and Vicki is not credible enough to say something that real and believable. The idea would never even occur to her.
Jason is the Knight in shining armor going to get his girl-not-a-girl. That was a great moment for him at the end.
The sex toys were gross. That was the point, but ick. Sex diapers. People are nasty.
Great episode. ****1/2.
Black Jesus "Operation Shut'emdown"
I dunno. The ones without Jesus front and center don't tend to work for me. I'm gonna say, I disliked that.
Why? It wasn't any one thing. The episode started off promising, with the tourists and the drive-by, and them applauding, and Boonie and Jesus being outraged by that, and the fact that the woman didn't pay for the weed. And I thought it was beyond subversive that nobody in the tour group got a scratch on them. They are privilege personified, and nothing will shake their beliefs that this is just a game for people below their station. This is a questionable moral on a show where God exists, but good Lord, I recognized some of these wannabes.
But the episode is very quick to lose me. When Boonie is teaching his daughter how to bag weed to improve her math skills, I'm thinking that as horrible as it is that the tourists devalue the characters' lives, it's clear they don't value them themselves all that much.
I also found Lloyd bathing in booze completely degrading. I get John Witherspoon is a comic actor, but that's not something you should ever ask an actor to do. I felt the same about Shalinka and the ice pop. The jokes weren't funny, and did not justify making the actors look that bad.
I did like two things as the episode went on. One of them did, in fact, involve Shalinka, in her empathizing with the guy whose military service messed him up, but waving the gun in his face to let him know she wasn't going to tolerate his insanity either. That was both funny and touching, which is the entire selling point of the show.
The other thing has of course to do with Jesus, or at least the implications of Jesus. Ms. Tudi begs off testing the boner pills on Jesus because he supposedly can do nothing with them. Jesus doesn't disagree, but I wonder. It strikes me as far more likely that the magic of Jesus involves equipment that DOES work, and him never getting tempted to use it instead.
Also, Jesus on Viagra would be the show exploring the correct controversy. Boonie is an easy laugh, but a far less interesting choice.
I also found the idea that he does not like the idea of fake Viagra because it's getting the old people's hopes up. It's not the premarital sex Jesus objects to, it's mistreating the elderly. Which is SO him and so this show.
The tour guide claims that since the average lifespan of a drug dealer is 28 years old, that those two were clearly past their prime. Personally, I think one of those people being Jesus H. Everlasting Christ messes with that specific statistic entirely.
Jesus claims God gave old people technology because he finds that funny. Read the Old Testament. God is NOT above torturing innocent people for his own amusement. The math on that checks out. McGruder did his homework there and showed his work.
I'm giving that a negative grade and review. *1/2.
The Blacklist "Les Fleurs Du Mal"
One of my biggest problems with The Blacklist is that it's high inventive high-concept crimes could give some very unscrupulous and disturbed people bad ideas. I think not many of the crimes are imitable by the public at large, but God knows sociopaths often have a ton of money at their disposal and this show could give them ideas.
You think I'm overreacting, right? I am chillingly reminded of the faxt that carjackings were not an actual problem for this country until 20/20 foolishly did an "expose" on them and then everyone started doing them. Also remember that the mass of school shootings only started after Columbine. Before that, they didn't really exist, or at least they weren't well-known or national news. Once that happened, some sociopathic kids got some very bad ideas over the years.
Ultimately, I didn't find this week's specific crime TOO bad because at the end of the day, it's just a souped up version of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery. I think society will live past this.
The way Francesca got that picture was amazing. That is a move Sydney Bristow would pull on Alias. After she did something that awesome Red must have immediately known something was up with her, and that cover story wouldn't past muster. That is not the move of a civilian, former military training or not.
I am well aware that Red gained leverage by threatening to blow an FBI asset. I don't think the FBI would be glad he's doing that, although the genius thing is that it throws off suspicion of himself. It's an extremely audacious idea for a blackmail scheme coming from Red.
I would have felt a lot better about the deathtrap if Aram himself were in it. Not just because he's a series regular, and they ain't gonna knock him off for a standalone case of the week, but I suspect Aram is one of the few guys in the room who could survive one of those deathtraps.
When he gets flashbacks to Navabi he goes into full-on hero mode and turns into James Bond. He's so freaking gallant as a hero. It's very weird that Aram is the tech guy on the show. His actor DOES have a leading man look.
The weak spot of the episode annoyed me so early on that I (thankfully incorrectly) predicted I'd be giving the episode a negative review. It's the Katarina stuff. It's not just awful, it's television. She does nothinjg but make double-entendres and speak in riddles undercover, which is something actual spies don't do, much less one I'm supposed to believed is seasoned in it and better at it than Red. She's a spy who doesn't want people to know she's alive, not a Batman villain. I don't blame the show for having Liz fail to see the obvious red flags in her statements, because Liz is the worst, terrible at her job, and sucks on every level. It's totally consistent something this dumb was over her head. But I don't have to pretend it's remotely acceptable no matter how many trailer bait moments they give NBC. If somebody only watched the NBC promos, they'd wind up thinking the show is worse than it is. But God knows the show loves feeding into those trailers like few other shows.
But yeah, other than that the episode was solid. ***1/2.
Titans "Bruce Wayne"
That was a disaster. Season one bad. Holy smokes.
Do you know who Bruce Wayne is on this show? Clint Eastwood's empty chair. He'll say any horrible thing you can imagine if Clint (or Dick) pretends real hard. I always believed this show's Dick Grayson was a sociopath. But he hallucinates Bruce saying things he would never say in the middle of missions? He's freaking crazy.
Also was this the first f-bomb dropped by Batman in any media anywhere? Leave it to this show to deal the Batman mythos its low points.
I love Krypto smashing through the window with Eve. Her stuff with Conner was the only decent thing in the episode.
Bruce Wayne doing the Batusi around strippers is the reason this show is everything wrong with DC Universe. The strippers in the background were distracting while important information was being told to the audience. They used to call that "sexposition" on Games Of Thrones, but I can't think of any legit critic of Game of Thrones thinking it was a good thing. Game of Thrones has a pretty toxic fandom because of people who responded well to stuff like that. It's why I don't take that show seriously. And it's why no-one should take this show seriously.
And finally, the end scene is the problem with the show in a nutshell. It keeps having Dick Grayson do unforgivable things. And then expects the audience to forgive him anyways. It doesn't work like that. I still haven't forgiven for taking off from Rachel last season after promising he'd be here for her. I don't see why this show keeps piling transgression after transgression, and crime after crime, and still expect me to root for Dick. Oh, hey, Dick killed Slade's innocent, deaf son. But he feels bad, so it's okay.
I'm tired of this. I don't know why I expected more, but the last few episodes haven't sucked. I would have preferred it if they did. Because I wouldn't be this disappointed if the season had been this bad all along. *.
DC Super Hero Girls "Shell Shock"
It's like Kara has almost completely forgotten she has Supergirl's powers. Chickens should NOT be giving her trouble. **.
Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure "Be Very Afraid"
Like Estaban on Elena of Avalor, I studied Cass's expressions and movements very closely this episode. The verdict: She doesn't have it in her. Like Estaban, she can be saved. She has it even easier than Estaban in that the heroes WANT to save her.
I like that Varian still feels guilt and that the Kingdom is still mad at him. It's good it wasn't just forgotten.
Lance fighting his fears was great.
I am not only surprised Red can talk as the Wolf, but also that she has her little girl voice.
That climax had legit tension. A master class in everything to do right in a dire and near impossible situation. The writers must have been watching Back To The Future recently. Amazing.
That was good but the climax bumps it up to great. I HAVE to give that five stars now because of that ending. *****.
Elena Of Avalor "Sugar Rush"
How smart is this show? It doesn't have the dog eat the chocolate.
That was a super funny reaction to the spell, and Flo was even funnier and cuter than ever. The moral was nice too.
Good episode. ****.
Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles "Man Vs. Sewer"
They learned a valuable something about something somethinging Raph alone again.
:Leo has to go first because he sells the fewest action figures. I can't tell if that's a meta moment, and if he knows they are in a merchandised TV show or not. And if not, why he said it.
Don's observation that port shorts are a sign that a person is not deemed fit for society is a good one.
This was all right, but outside of those funny jokes, it didn't wow me. **1/2.
Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles "The Mutant Menace"
Punctuation doesn't matter when your face is stuck in concrete. Very astute observation there.
I love that Donnie secretly has money.
Anybody ever seen pitchforks in lower Manhattan? Mama, things are gettin' RUSTIC out there! Great line.
Raph is no longer in his doing sit-ups every day phase.
Do you call them Mousers if there are no mice involved with the gimmick on this show?
I hear Kid Genius jails are rough.
Fun. ****.
Transformers: Cyberverse "Parley"
Parley is a great episode title. It's a good word and a strong word. I approve of episode titles that use words that way.
Who was the Samurai looking robot who killed Slipstream? Why did he do it? And why didn't he get any blame?
Also isn't Soundwave's whole thing espionage? So shouldn't he be like the LAST person trying to shut Slipstream up as she tries to give him vital intel? They could have given that role to a Decepticon who entire gimmick was NOT initially based on listening.
I also don't understand why the Seekers go after Slipstream when Starscream orders them to. His orders boil down to "Stop her from revealing I plan to kill all of you!" Why are they backing those specific orders up? Shouldn't they be joining Slipstream and escaping too?
That was still pretty good although the talks breaking down due to stupidity and misunderstanding is not my favorite thing. It's one of the things I hate most about this franchise. ***1/2.
Transformers: Rescue Bots Academy "All That Glitters"
I feel like the episode had the wrong moral about cheating. Just based on what Chase allowed Whirl to do at the beginning, what Hoist did was fair. Hoist correctly noted the difference in that he did it behind everyone's back while Whirl did her stint openly. And I kind of think that that's right, but the episode still doesn't quite get that Hoist's actions are actually okay following the rules set up. The only not-okay thing is being sneaky. If Hoist had brought back Chuck, explained how and why he did it, and rubbed Chase's face in his questionable lesson at the beginning of the episode, I don't think it would be cheating at all. It would be Kirk rigging the Kobiyashi Maru. Impressive. And I don't think the episode quite understood that, or that the idea that you use every advantage you can in rescues is not only a good one, but probably a resolute, unbreakable one too. I feel like the show is punishing Hoist for doing exactly was he was taught. That doesn't sit right with me. *1/2.
Transformers: Rescue Bots Academy "Dig Feet"
The show is STILL exploring the characters wanting fame? I feel like I've gone over why this is a terrible idea for this premise and the kids in the audience a million times but I am STILL aware of two things.
1. The show is fundamentally flawed and will never change or stop being bad for kids and safety tips.
2. It happens every other episode so I don't feel the need to go any more in-depth than that. 1/2.
Power Rangers Beast Morphers "Hypnotic Halloween"
Before I give that a justifiably bad review I'll say something. An adult cynic who saw that might dismissively say they ripped off the "characters turn into their costumes on Halloween" idea from Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I don't see anyone else outside of Buffy using that idea as a rip-off at all. As far as I'm concerned, Buffy create a great new trope, that is actually better suited for shows with younger viewers. It doesn't happen very often when a modernish show creates a new idea. But if they do, I think it's perfectly all right for other shows to put their characters through it too. If writers weren't allowed to copy ideas, we'd never have anything new to watch at all.
Now to get to my main objection, which I don't think is unreasonable, and maybe you can tell me if I'm crazy. But as far as action sequences go, this show doesn't amaze me. But special effects have gotten far along enough in Hollywood that they can do credible mecha battles on a kiddie TV show budget. The climaxes don't excite me, but I see how a four-year-old would think they are mindblowing. So we've established the show doesn't suck at this one thing.
So why is it, whenever the franchise invariably does a clip show for the Halloween and Christmas episodes, they don't ever play back the fights with the monsters or the robots battles? They strictly keep to the sitcom stuff. And the thing I especially notice about the clips, is that they invariably pick out the very worse clips of the sitcom stuff. I'm not saying this is a good show. But they have material they can show off, and a good excuse to show action without having to pay for new footage. Why are they stuck on the stuff that is boring and probably even the little kids don't like?
That was an unusually bad episode otherwise. Ravi cannot do an English accent to save his life, but Zoe and Devon's Nordic attempts were even worse. It's like they were too young to ever have heard someone else speak with that accent, and seem to be imitating Peter Griffin's "Moonman" accent from Handiquacks. And then Zoe randomly is using a terrible Southern accent for the doctor she's pretending to be, and I'm like "If I had a group of performers this incapable of handling this specific material, I'd change the material to something they COULD handle." Instead this goes out over the air. And I get that they're kids, and real kids don't nail accents in real life. But it's also fiction, it's television, and watching that go wrong is painful on every level you can think of.
I don't blame the kids for flubbing the performances. I blame the adults who sent out the flubbed performances anyways. It's not fair to them. Power Rangers is NOT a good show to put on your audition reel.
This is not a good show in general, and it annoys me. But I'm still here. So who's fault is that actually? *1/2.
The Good Place "Tinker, Tailor, Demon, Spy"
Lots of good twists including Bad Janet being the one to dump Jason. I believed Glen's motivations. I just thought he was wrong about Michael. And I guessed that right at least.
I think Eleanor was overthinking whether Michael was Vicki, and waiting until the self-sacrificing moment to believe it's him. When Michael says he doesn't want to reveal himself because they'd never look at him the same way again, it's him. Not merely because it's a touching and genuine thing to say. It's that something like that would never occur to Vicki. The demons have been winging it in their Good Place roles, and Vicki is not credible enough to say something that real and believable. The idea would never even occur to her.
Jason is the Knight in shining armor going to get his girl-not-a-girl. That was a great moment for him at the end.
The sex toys were gross. That was the point, but ick. Sex diapers. People are nasty.
Great episode. ****1/2.
Black Jesus "Operation Shut'emdown"
I dunno. The ones without Jesus front and center don't tend to work for me. I'm gonna say, I disliked that.
Why? It wasn't any one thing. The episode started off promising, with the tourists and the drive-by, and them applauding, and Boonie and Jesus being outraged by that, and the fact that the woman didn't pay for the weed. And I thought it was beyond subversive that nobody in the tour group got a scratch on them. They are privilege personified, and nothing will shake their beliefs that this is just a game for people below their station. This is a questionable moral on a show where God exists, but good Lord, I recognized some of these wannabes.
But the episode is very quick to lose me. When Boonie is teaching his daughter how to bag weed to improve her math skills, I'm thinking that as horrible as it is that the tourists devalue the characters' lives, it's clear they don't value them themselves all that much.
I also found Lloyd bathing in booze completely degrading. I get John Witherspoon is a comic actor, but that's not something you should ever ask an actor to do. I felt the same about Shalinka and the ice pop. The jokes weren't funny, and did not justify making the actors look that bad.
I did like two things as the episode went on. One of them did, in fact, involve Shalinka, in her empathizing with the guy whose military service messed him up, but waving the gun in his face to let him know she wasn't going to tolerate his insanity either. That was both funny and touching, which is the entire selling point of the show.
The other thing has of course to do with Jesus, or at least the implications of Jesus. Ms. Tudi begs off testing the boner pills on Jesus because he supposedly can do nothing with them. Jesus doesn't disagree, but I wonder. It strikes me as far more likely that the magic of Jesus involves equipment that DOES work, and him never getting tempted to use it instead.
Also, Jesus on Viagra would be the show exploring the correct controversy. Boonie is an easy laugh, but a far less interesting choice.
I also found the idea that he does not like the idea of fake Viagra because it's getting the old people's hopes up. It's not the premarital sex Jesus objects to, it's mistreating the elderly. Which is SO him and so this show.
The tour guide claims that since the average lifespan of a drug dealer is 28 years old, that those two were clearly past their prime. Personally, I think one of those people being Jesus H. Everlasting Christ messes with that specific statistic entirely.
Jesus claims God gave old people technology because he finds that funny. Read the Old Testament. God is NOT above torturing innocent people for his own amusement. The math on that checks out. McGruder did his homework there and showed his work.
I'm giving that a negative grade and review. *1/2.
The Blacklist "Les Fleurs Du Mal"
One of my biggest problems with The Blacklist is that it's high inventive high-concept crimes could give some very unscrupulous and disturbed people bad ideas. I think not many of the crimes are imitable by the public at large, but God knows sociopaths often have a ton of money at their disposal and this show could give them ideas.
You think I'm overreacting, right? I am chillingly reminded of the faxt that carjackings were not an actual problem for this country until 20/20 foolishly did an "expose" on them and then everyone started doing them. Also remember that the mass of school shootings only started after Columbine. Before that, they didn't really exist, or at least they weren't well-known or national news. Once that happened, some sociopathic kids got some very bad ideas over the years.
Ultimately, I didn't find this week's specific crime TOO bad because at the end of the day, it's just a souped up version of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery. I think society will live past this.
The way Francesca got that picture was amazing. That is a move Sydney Bristow would pull on Alias. After she did something that awesome Red must have immediately known something was up with her, and that cover story wouldn't past muster. That is not the move of a civilian, former military training or not.
I am well aware that Red gained leverage by threatening to blow an FBI asset. I don't think the FBI would be glad he's doing that, although the genius thing is that it throws off suspicion of himself. It's an extremely audacious idea for a blackmail scheme coming from Red.
I would have felt a lot better about the deathtrap if Aram himself were in it. Not just because he's a series regular, and they ain't gonna knock him off for a standalone case of the week, but I suspect Aram is one of the few guys in the room who could survive one of those deathtraps.
When he gets flashbacks to Navabi he goes into full-on hero mode and turns into James Bond. He's so freaking gallant as a hero. It's very weird that Aram is the tech guy on the show. His actor DOES have a leading man look.
The weak spot of the episode annoyed me so early on that I (thankfully incorrectly) predicted I'd be giving the episode a negative review. It's the Katarina stuff. It's not just awful, it's television. She does nothinjg but make double-entendres and speak in riddles undercover, which is something actual spies don't do, much less one I'm supposed to believed is seasoned in it and better at it than Red. She's a spy who doesn't want people to know she's alive, not a Batman villain. I don't blame the show for having Liz fail to see the obvious red flags in her statements, because Liz is the worst, terrible at her job, and sucks on every level. It's totally consistent something this dumb was over her head. But I don't have to pretend it's remotely acceptable no matter how many trailer bait moments they give NBC. If somebody only watched the NBC promos, they'd wind up thinking the show is worse than it is. But God knows the show loves feeding into those trailers like few other shows.
But yeah, other than that the episode was solid. ***1/2.