Monday night TV
Revenge 4.12 Madness
Well, I suppose it was nice that we got to see the flashback of how David survived - but the White Haired Man’s role isn’t clear, either he failed at killing David or he was brought out by Malcolm Black, or, as I suspect, they hadn’t thought through that aspect of the retcon.
I was so concentrating on the full-on Emily whispering that I misunderstood what she was telling David, until she told Nolan. But as if Emily and he were just going to get away. For one thing, he has to deal with Malcolm Black. For another, he was having a case of the flashbacks. But bless Nolan for hoping it would be true.
Louise’s brother doesn’t look much like her.
Hey, Carl’s childminder, are you getting paid enough for all that overtime you’ve been doing?
Interesting that Jack turned to David and Emily and Nolan weren’t brought in. Obviously, they had another plot - retconning that Louise’s delusions were caused by her drugs because she’s likeable, show? Okay, I’ll go along with that as her brother is one of those men who can’t carry off bow-ties and she is likeable - but let’s pretend it was character driven. Anyway, it’s all darker!David and protecting Amanda.
Lots of angry!Margiaux. I don’t know about corrupt, but the precinct certainly doesn’t care about objectivity. Although the baby’s probably stuffed with bad genes, it would be a shame if she lost it. So, I didn’t necessarily oppose Victoria telling her all, but TIME AND PLACE, woman. That was a wide open door, even if she didn’t expect Ben to eavesdrop - and why would he, actually?
Hmm, brother Lyman can prove his innocence. How far off reality were Louise’s delusions of her mama?
I did think that if they were going to kill off David, that would be a tad hasty, as he’s only just come back.
I quite enjoyed that. Some of the stakes seemed important enough for all the high drama, which isn’t always the case.
Gotham 1.17 Red Hood
I’m going to rank the various strands in order of how much I enjoyed them/cared. Sadly, their ranking in prominence in the episode is different.
So, the Red Hood Gang - the name rang a vague bell, but look, I’ve never read the comics - cue the same patter about masked freaks. They were quite amusing as was Harvey, but there was also the detecting of our detectives to endure, which left me staring at the old-fashioned TV that they use in the station, which may be a stylistic choice and meant to show us how under-resourced GCPD is, but come on, it vaguely looks ridiculous when playing CCTV footage.
Quite a step up to the strand of Oswald REALLY needing Butch’s help to run the club. What it lacked, p’raps, was big drama, but the quieter moments were fine. Certainly, the question of how much Victor’s deprogramming of Butch has stuck and what his real feelings for Fish are are interesting ones. That line from Penguin about our enemies defining us would probably work if it came out of a speech bubble, but is one of those things you have to suffer through in a live action comics adaptation.
Next came Fish’s attitude versus Jeffrey Coombs (does he get tired of getting cast as the front for the person with the real power?) And with her third way, she got to bring the gore they warned for. There was also a fill in the Doctor Who joke gap.
We had but two scenes of Barbara and her squatters, which wasn’t nearly enough for all the drama they suggested. Barbara almost coming on to Selina, or certainly trying to mould her. Selina perhaps seeing her own mother, but most clearly seeing the perpetual glass in Barbara’s hand. And so she was devastating about Barbara’s suggestion of using beauty (sexuality) as a weapon. That got an ‘I love you, Selina Kyle’ out of me, that did. But they underexplored how Ivy felt about being sidelined. I certainly don’t think Barbara has noticed the rising crazy there. I feel that they could have beefed this up a lot more, especially as we got a Bruce-Jim moment towards the end.
Fortunately, there was also Alfred backstory and a look at how bringing up Bruce affected him and their co-dependence. I didn’t expect Payne to be working undercover like he was until he was in the room with Bruce’s wall of investigations. Up until then, the hints about who ‘Alfie’ was and the fighting with Bruce without quite recognising how volatile and dangerous he is were involving enough in and of themselves. Plus the privileged kid granting largesse to his servant’s homeless friend, when that servant is family was emotionally compelling.
This entry was originally posted at http://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/168449.html.
Well, I suppose it was nice that we got to see the flashback of how David survived - but the White Haired Man’s role isn’t clear, either he failed at killing David or he was brought out by Malcolm Black, or, as I suspect, they hadn’t thought through that aspect of the retcon.
I was so concentrating on the full-on Emily whispering that I misunderstood what she was telling David, until she told Nolan. But as if Emily and he were just going to get away. For one thing, he has to deal with Malcolm Black. For another, he was having a case of the flashbacks. But bless Nolan for hoping it would be true.
Louise’s brother doesn’t look much like her.
Hey, Carl’s childminder, are you getting paid enough for all that overtime you’ve been doing?
Interesting that Jack turned to David and Emily and Nolan weren’t brought in. Obviously, they had another plot - retconning that Louise’s delusions were caused by her drugs because she’s likeable, show? Okay, I’ll go along with that as her brother is one of those men who can’t carry off bow-ties and she is likeable - but let’s pretend it was character driven. Anyway, it’s all darker!David and protecting Amanda.
Lots of angry!Margiaux. I don’t know about corrupt, but the precinct certainly doesn’t care about objectivity. Although the baby’s probably stuffed with bad genes, it would be a shame if she lost it. So, I didn’t necessarily oppose Victoria telling her all, but TIME AND PLACE, woman. That was a wide open door, even if she didn’t expect Ben to eavesdrop - and why would he, actually?
Hmm, brother Lyman can prove his innocence. How far off reality were Louise’s delusions of her mama?
I did think that if they were going to kill off David, that would be a tad hasty, as he’s only just come back.
I quite enjoyed that. Some of the stakes seemed important enough for all the high drama, which isn’t always the case.
Gotham 1.17 Red Hood
I’m going to rank the various strands in order of how much I enjoyed them/cared. Sadly, their ranking in prominence in the episode is different.
So, the Red Hood Gang - the name rang a vague bell, but look, I’ve never read the comics - cue the same patter about masked freaks. They were quite amusing as was Harvey, but there was also the detecting of our detectives to endure, which left me staring at the old-fashioned TV that they use in the station, which may be a stylistic choice and meant to show us how under-resourced GCPD is, but come on, it vaguely looks ridiculous when playing CCTV footage.
Quite a step up to the strand of Oswald REALLY needing Butch’s help to run the club. What it lacked, p’raps, was big drama, but the quieter moments were fine. Certainly, the question of how much Victor’s deprogramming of Butch has stuck and what his real feelings for Fish are are interesting ones. That line from Penguin about our enemies defining us would probably work if it came out of a speech bubble, but is one of those things you have to suffer through in a live action comics adaptation.
Next came Fish’s attitude versus Jeffrey Coombs (does he get tired of getting cast as the front for the person with the real power?) And with her third way, she got to bring the gore they warned for. There was also a fill in the Doctor Who joke gap.
We had but two scenes of Barbara and her squatters, which wasn’t nearly enough for all the drama they suggested. Barbara almost coming on to Selina, or certainly trying to mould her. Selina perhaps seeing her own mother, but most clearly seeing the perpetual glass in Barbara’s hand. And so she was devastating about Barbara’s suggestion of using beauty (sexuality) as a weapon. That got an ‘I love you, Selina Kyle’ out of me, that did. But they underexplored how Ivy felt about being sidelined. I certainly don’t think Barbara has noticed the rising crazy there. I feel that they could have beefed this up a lot more, especially as we got a Bruce-Jim moment towards the end.
Fortunately, there was also Alfred backstory and a look at how bringing up Bruce affected him and their co-dependence. I didn’t expect Payne to be working undercover like he was until he was in the room with Bruce’s wall of investigations. Up until then, the hints about who ‘Alfie’ was and the fighting with Bruce without quite recognising how volatile and dangerous he is were involving enough in and of themselves. Plus the privileged kid granting largesse to his servant’s homeless friend, when that servant is family was emotionally compelling.
This entry was originally posted at http://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/168449.html.