More superhero shows roundup
May. 28th, 2016 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urthOkay, so rounding out the DC-CW shows for the season along with Agents of SHIELD, both episode reviews and end of season thoughts. I’ve got plenty of shows I still need to catch up on that I may or may not do episode by episode reactions to (Caste I might since I’ve done most of the season, but things like Reign where I’m so far behind probably not) and we’ll see if I then think to do a season reaction when I do get through it. I’m also not sure I’ll do them next season, there have been good and bad points to doing them that I’ll weight before next fall. So enjoy the last of these for some indeterminate amount of time (it could be a week if I do Castle, or it could be never, who knows).
The Flash 2x22
That episode was weird. I liked most of it, but as a whole it was weird mixture of too epic for a penultimate episode and not epic enough for a finale; I was pretty sure we’re getting the standard 23 eps this season so I figured this had to be the penultimate one, but I’m not sure it worked as that. For one, last week’s ep was such a disappointment that ramping up the action this quickly was jarring; and Barry’s attitude was more than a little off-putting (though I think it might have been supposed to be since everyone kept calling him on it). Also the fact that he was so sure everything was going to be fine super telegraphed that something bad was going to happen and I’m not really surprised it was Henry. I had sort of been lulled into complacency by him and Tina flirting (which I gather was a reference to the 90s’ Flash from what I know of it), even if I’d thought about it I might have wondered if that was going to be the new excuse why Henry wasn’t always around because I never believed he was going to join the cast full time. The relationship between Henry and Barry hasn’t worked for me all season; they had far better chemistry through glass last season than they can manage fully interacting and it just never made sense that Henry wasn’t around. There could have been a story in their continued separation but the show refused to recognize it as a thing, I thought they were starting to here with Barry pointing out how Henry hadn’t been around, which Henry acted like it was about the time he was in jail and couldn’t teach Barry to drive etc. when the bigger betrayal in my eyes was that he skipped town immediately after getting out of jail. As for using Laurel as the villain they fought this week, it’s a convenient way of keeping the actress around in the universe for a bit, and had some good moments, but still seems like something of a missed opportunity. It worked, I just wish it had been...more...more. I did like Wally’s story here, and I don’t see how they were going to get through that dinner without Wally finding out about Barry even if Zoom hadn’t shown up; everybody else in that room knew. I think that’s plenty of babble for the penultimate ep, let’s see how it ends next week.
Arrow 4x22
In some ways this episode’s structure was the same kind-of-awkward one I just talked and sort of complained about in Flash, and yet it didn’t rub me the wrong way nearly as much. Partly because no one thought it was completely over and done with before ‘surprisingly’ going to shit again. They had bought themselves time to breathe and that was all, and that was what they knew was going on. At times it was a little odd that the episode was so focused on action-packed keyboarding but since so much character drama was happening around that it worked just fine for me. I kind of wish Lance had a little more to do, and would have been an interesting extra player in the Smoak family drama and hacking hour, but I guess I understand why they wouldn’t go that way. It did occur to me in Thea’s plot that this could have been explicitly tied to the drugs used last season which would have made Malcolm slightly more deplorable than he already was with his actions here (maybe Malcolm was using the ones from last year instead of the yellow pills as Thea was more directly controlled where others seem more blissed out), because I was definitely having flashbacks to Thea killing Sara when Thea was threatening Oliver. Whichever form of mind control was going on, Malcom needs to eat shit and die, his parenting style is all kind of crap. Next to him Noah looks like father of the year, and while I’m not sure that’s intentional it is an effect of how Noah does keep showing up in episodes where Malcolm is just retched as a long absentee now trying to get involved father. I also like how many old characters (mostly villains) came out of the woodwork for this story, it’s been a treat. I know I won’t really be judging this until after the last episode, but I pretty much liked this one; even the flashbacks weren’t too bad, although they did mess up the flow a fair bit.
Legends of Tomorrow 1x16
So is everyone okay if I headcanon that we really are living in a world related to Doctor Who and Rex Tyler is related to Rose Tyler (or at least named in honor of her/for the show)? What, they wanted me to care all that much about namechecking the JSA? When what I wanted was for him to be either Jonas that somehow survived or Rip and Sara’s future kid (btw, Rip/Sara is now definitely my big ship for this show, the two of them just work so well together). It was a fine finale although I really wanted Carter to die saving them in the final time section, because I really hate Carter; although if both Hawk characters really are leaving...well I’m still pissed off because I have never seen anything to convince me this relationship will make either of them – but especially Kendra – happy, but at least I won’t have to watch it anymore so that’s something. I certainly won’t miss either of them as I hate Carter and never really fully warmed to Kendra, so I’m actually going to resent it if they do come back next season when I was finally free of them and if the story isn’t about fighting Savage those two don’t have to be there anymore (although I still maintain they can find and kill him in 2016 and change the course of history again). There wasn’t a lot for Ray to do in this episode, and that’s okay in so far as it goes, but I still find his ‘roll over and take it’ attitude toward Kendra going back to Carter rubs me the wrong way, but that has more to do with my opinion of the Hawks and me wanting people to call them on how horrible their relationship is than being about Ray (plus, it’s kind of in character for Ray who had basically the same attitude to Felicity running off with Oliver, and taking his jet). I guess Mick didn’t have a ton to do either but what he had was good; he’s still a long way from being my favorite character, but he’s gotten steadily better all season. I like both Jax and Stein and the continued progress of their partnership and abilities. But the main draw of the episode was Sara and Rip; now we know what Lance is doing during the Arrow finale if doesn’t put in much of an appearance (Sara says she’ll stay and help fight Darhk so this must be before the finale actually ends? Or it’s setting up that Darhk will still be at large when the season is over? If these people had proven to be able to handle concurrent timelines. Also, yes, let’s all meet in Star City in the middle of Darhk’s apocalypse, sounds brilliant) and Sara’s righteous fury at Rip was amazing. The scene where they hash out why he played it the way he did was what cemented my most of the season suspicion that I was going to ship these two, because they’ve always been a good team but this gave some real drama. And since this episode also rather established that Rip can start to let go of the family he lost, I’m going to sail my little ship at least until I’m probably proved wrong next season.
As a season view. This show needs some work going into season 2, needs to better establish how time really works from this perspective because as is one gets the feeling no one really knows; if they could establish that the writers at least know without having to spell it out in show it would be okay, but I need a better feeling it is understood at least. The characters, especially without the Hawks, are coming along nicely so no real complaints there (if the Hawks are going to come back though...there’s some big work that needs to be done to salvage the characters). I happen to love Rip the character, but if there was one character I think does need some work it’s probably him; they introduced several avenues his character could develop down, but didn’t go very far with any of them, all that potential is still there but it needs a bit more definition going forward. Especially if the Hawks do leave, it’s an interesting tactic for the series to be willing to change out stars on a fairly regular basis; they already killed Snart and let the Hawks go, leaving plenty of room to bring on some different characters next season, perhaps some of the refugees from Earth 2 hanging around on Flash (actually Jesse would be a pretty awesome addition). I’m hesitant to say I support this as a general choice for the series because it may just be that so far it’s been characters I at most kind of cared for who have been written out; I might feel differently if it had been ones I liked more but I think it would depend on how their storylines end and again I’m not in a position to say much with what we’ve had so far. I do want it explored more next season what the Oculus’ place was; are they now free to swoop in and save Miranda and Jonas before they die without the Time Masters interference, for example? There are a few different paths I can see next season taking in terms of large scale/meta goals, trying to address some of my large scale/meta issues with this season, but whether it goes any of the ways I’m currently thinking or not, I’ll definitely be along for the ride hoping it finds its own way. It’s pretty much all been good so far (except Carter, fuck that guy), but I want it to be great.
Agents of SHIELD 3x20
I definitely more liked than didn’t like that episode. I thought the plot was solid and the twists worked nicely, a lot of the character interaction worked pretty well, and it was a nice use of several lesser cast members. *But* I have some fundamental problems going on with it. I don’t like stories where the moral is to have faith or that the characters are directed by a higher purpose, especially where it seems to reduce them to have less agency in their lives and existence; Lash is not some grand purpose, he’s a tragedy brought on by Skye’s mom’s (whose name I didn’t learn how to spell and refuse to try now) booby trapped files turning a good man into a remorseless killer. I have nothing against the Inhumans exactly, but the whole chosen people angle makes me want to murder. My other problem is more MCU at large; Civil War was about regulating the Avengers, about holding vigilantes responsible and making sure they were held accountable for their actions; it’s a murky grey area of who’s right and wrong where everybody was pretty much wrong. Bringing registration into it shifts the moral high ground back to Cap (except that that wasn’t what he was objecting to so it’s more like Cap’s on the right side but not speaking to the right reasons). Yeah it was something the show had been building to with the Inhumans arc (and I still think it’s more of a grey issue than a lot of people do) but it doesn’t fit with the movie presentation very well.
Agents of SHIELD 3x21
Obviously these were done as a two-parter and it shows. I considered not even doing any write-up for this half, partly since it’s only half a story and partly because not a lot happened (because it’s only half a story). The character work was mostly flat but may still pay off, the action was alright...at least the earlier action, the closing one involved outrunning gas and if it disperses that slowly I don’t see that it’s as terrible a threat as it could be. But one last time, I suspect there will be at least one more round of swap-the-cross for who ends up dying, although FitzSimmons are a bit too happy for me to confidently say it won’t be one of them (or it’s just what they’re going to do with they’re summer vacation, but I guess I might as well go see.
Agents of SHIELD 3x22
Let’s ignore the last few scenes for a bit, those really belong in a separate string of thoughts; over all the episode was...better than average for this show, definitely good in places, and not a lot of bad. I was hoping we were going to get to keep Radcliff, and it looks like we will (I’ve loved the actor since Sliding Doors so I’m a sucker for him being so much fun on the show) so I’m happy about that, even if he’s apparently going to remake all of Tony’s past mistakes. The zombie minions didn’t really work for me these last few episodes, but they were a relatively minor aspect and just there to establish the end threat more than to be interesting in their own right. I was worried there for a minute they were going to kill May (since it obviously wasn’t going to be Skye and I was counting on Fitz passing off the hot potato again) and I was pretty sure that was going to be the end of me ever watching the show again, so I’m glad it didn’t go that way (in the end May and Coulson have significant eye contact, Fitz and Simmons and have significant eye contact, Skye has no one to have significant eye contact with); although damn the guy who pays Lincoln is a billion times better actor than the gal who plays Skye, to the point where when they’re actually acting off each other instead of over coms, she’s a decent enough actress to make me feel things too. I’ve never (and apparently never will be) that big a fan of Lincoln, but I should have felt something for him Captain America-ing the end, and I can’t say I did, any emotion I got from that string of things was when he and Skye were talking in a cargo bay which was a fine scene. It wasn’t that great in terms of any character, but it wasn’t bad I suppose, a little bit with Skye and it’s really just the usual Skye mess.
As for the last couple scene teasing next season...I’m not sure how I feel about them. Are we going to be starting at this point in the story are will they back up and we’ll watch it get to this point? I’m not sure I’m crazy about either option so I’m not exactly rooting for one over the other, but I worry about either. I am however much more interested in Skye and a villain/rouge anti-hero than I have ever been in her as a SHIELD agent...although again I worry about how things will be handled because the show seems to like Skye a lot more than I do. There’s a lot of questions raised by those last couple scenes and the answers might be quite interesting (who’s directing SHIELD, I’m holding out for Hill, I love Hill), and I’d be more excited if the show had given me reasons to be optimistic about it tackling them (the only era of this show that ever made me optimist was right after Winter Soldier, because there were a string of pretty good episodes there, but that glow was fading even by the end of s1). I can fully believe that in six months the Sokovia Accords reach and grasp has gotten stronger and the ATCU gotten power over SHIELD to a fair extent, and I think that would be interesting to explore if I trusted this show to be able to tell that complex a story. Plus throwing Radcliff’s new creation into the mix and it could and should be good...I just wish I was hopeful it would be.
I’m not sure I feel like doing a season wrap up on this one. Since I’ve forgotten so much of the first half and marathoned so much of the second I don’t know that I have particularly layered thoughts. And I’m not exactly in a rush to rewatch it, so it’ll probably be a while before I develop any. I will say that the death setup was still kind of annoying but I found it better handled than on Arrow this season (one of the few ways I’d put this above Arrow) because it actually counted in story rather than just teasing the audience (although then people start making decisions based on fate and I complain about that too because no one but Babylon 5 seems to know how to handle that kind of thing to my satisfaction.
The Flash 2x23
I’m going to have to think about how I feel about this one; there were moments I really liked but the whole thing...and especially the ending...I can’t decide what I feel just yet. A moment’s pause makes me wonder if this might have been a last minute addition even, to hasten the joining on the universe with Supergirl in the Crisis on a not-infinite number of Earths. I’m not quite sure how that will make sense but I kind of wonder. It sort of connects to my big problem all episode, because dealing with Barry in this situation needed some outside help, namely Oliver and/or Felicity; Oliver as the person who has gone through all this crap himself, and/or Felicity as the person with a front row seat to what happens when a person lets this crap get to them and the one who does a better job of connecting with Barry emotionally. Yes, Barry has a good support system who are all there for him, he could talk to any of them, but basically none of them are willing to be confrontational about it in a way the Arrow characters would have been; plus the fact that it exemplifies the consequences of going to the dark side in a way closer to home than fake-Jay’s efforts did. It was also kind of glaring to me how much fake-Jay turned into Slade in his efforts to make Barry suffer, which again just made me want the Arrow group to be there. And once they threw open the breaches and were trying to cause a Crisis on a potentially infinite number of Earths I wanted Supergirl to show up; I haven’t actually watched the show to know if that would work with whatever she’s got going on (I suspect they didn’t want to leave it on too big a cliffhanger since it’ll be flipping networks next year and they’ll have to try drawing in a slightly different audience and wouldn’t want to start in the middle of things, but I would also expect there was some form of cliffhanger), but this threat needed more heroes instead of one hero and a cheering section . But while that niggled at me all through the episode, it didn’t exactly drag it down, but the ending...and I don’t just mean Barry’s going-to-prove-catastrophic choice in the last bit (though it amuses me to think each season will end with Barry traveling back to that night and making different choices about whether to save his mom each time, getting to the point where he has to remember, ‘okay, me-1 is in the closet, me-3 is stopping me me-2, me-4 is fighting an extra Thawne in the backyard...). I don’t believe for a second Harry, Jesse, and mask-Jay are out of the story for good, and sure as hell didn’t at the time (right now I’m having a very slight doubt since Barry redoing the timeline may be how we end up with yet a different version of Wells – the would-have-been original), there’s too much left that can be done with these characters as their own and in relation to the full regulars. Barry and Iris just don’t work for me; I’ve tried, it may not always sound it but I have, as they hit so many of my usual likes in ships and the show hasn’t really deviated from the idea of them as endgame, but I wanted/needed so much better handling of it than we got; it’s so early-Oliver/Laurel, but even if Arrow’s writers had kept to that course they had more freedom in what the relationship might have become, and as it turned out they went with them not having one. And the true end of the episode...yeah I don’t think I liked it; it is entirely possible they have some great ideas what to do with this writing choice, I will happily eat my reservations in the fall if it turns into something great, but I’m not happy with it now.
As for the season overall...it’s been rather all over the place. There’s been more good than bad certainly, but the bad has kind of tainted a lot of things about the story. I suspect it needs a rewatch to better see if it hangs better together, and I’ll probably do most of my thoughts after watching Arrow and write about the DC CW verse as a whole (kind of...for now) but I’m just not as into Flash as I wish I was. Also, I can’t quite help but feel this final twist also undoes a lot of what I was going to say next season could be about, and that’s that after the ‘metapocalypse’ I think people might start making a bigger issue out all the metas showing up; I’m still disturbed by the fact that there don’t seem to be any other good metas running around; but now first we have to resolve this Crisis on an indeterminate number of Earths before we can start building a more layered universe where there are actual societal consequences for things.
Arrow 4x23
That was kind of weird too, but I’m not left feeling angry, just not sure I’m satisfied. In this case I think I will be once I get to watch it much more quickly, but my immediate reaction is kind of muddled, which I guess tracks with things in show. I don’t know if I ever said it, but I’ve long been suspecting this season was going to end with a breaking of the Arrow team, so I wasn’t at all surprised to see that happen, I’m more surprised Oliver didn’t run even briefly (although given the life expectancy of Star(ling) City mayors the last few years I’d think they have a lot of security around them that I’m not sure how Oliver plans to dodge for long), I didn’t think he’d make it back to the island this time, but maybe crying in the dark in Ivy Town. The person I couldn’t figure out if or why or how might run was Felicity so I’m also not shocked she didn’t. I’m surprised Diggle is running back to the Army, but once seen it makes sense. The resolution of the Darhk plot wasn’t maybe as well handled as it might have been; even if Darhk can’t use magic on Oliver what’s stopping him from using it in general, and why don’t the Ghosts shoot the mob instead of rushing them, but thematically it was exactly right. Also did Cooper die or was he just paralyzed and can get a bio-stimulant now and he and Felicity can be bio-stimulant twins (plus him maybe being the romantic rival next season?); but whichever way that ended, I liked that we had a small-scale appeal to humanity battle like that amidst the epic outside. I assume Felicity’s going to end up back in charge of Palmer Tech (or starting Smoak...whatever add-on the future didn’t tell us), and it doesn’t appear it’s going to happen because Ray reappears and just leaves her in charge, so we’ll probably see it happen next season. Also it’s a little odd that Oliver brings up the city surviving the Undertaking while we’re supposed to root for Malcolm on team good guys here. And are we going to get an explanation for how the idol got from ARGUS storage to Darhk’s possession? Plus I thought Lyla was going to be in the last scene on the island, but I didn’t see her there.
A few thoughts on the season overall; first, I liked it. It only had a few really high marks, but it had more of those than real low points, and the low points mostly had a certain...understandability to them. Really, my biggest critique is still them telling us early on that someone was going to die but not connecting that foreshadowing into the story in any way, I didn’t feel it worked at all and was really more limiting than engaging (both in terms of being able to remove possibilities from grave watch, and feeling like it ended up not having the Serenity effect – where someone dies and then you wonder who else could die – but rather that having done things this way with Laurel no one else was going to die. I guess that wasn’t true for the verse as a whole since Flash and LoT killed off some people...maybe considering time travel, but it’s how I felt about any other threat to the main characters considering the grave setup). It occurred to me during this episode that the tam really needs a medic, and then I remembered that they have the option of bringing Paul into the know at some point. Also I’ve really liked Curtis this season, though I hope they have some bigger plans for him, isn’t he supposed to be a superhero too? The flashbacks remain a stone around the series’ neck and they keep getting worse with each season (seasons 1&2 were about even at ‘okay’ but after that it’s been getting worse), although I’m more hopeful for next season considering it’s the last and there’s a lot they must know needs to get done. For a while now I’ve been treating this in my head as if it’s definitely going to be five season show, since that’s when they’ll lap themselves on flashbacks, so a good deal of how I feel next season might or should go has to do with whether or not it’s going to be the last one. If it is going to be the last one, then let’s not waste time next season before getting the team back together, letting Oliver and Felicity get back together, it might make sense to have Malcolm as the big bad again to bookend the series. If they do plan to go past season 5 that last point may not apply and they can take some more time on the first two but still not that long. Because obviously the team is going to get back together and as far as Oliver and Felicity go...if next season is the end there is no time at all to do another love story and even if we’re not that much in endgame the characters still basically can’t be written with anyone else at this point so why not just let them be happy and together instead of forcing your characters to be apart just because it’s supposedly better drama? In universe I still think both of them are kind of in the wrong when it comes to the reasons for their breakup, but I also understand why they both made the decisions they did that caused it. Kind of like with some of the choices at the end of the season, they may or may not have been right in character or quite as well handled/setup as they could have been, but I get it.
And that’s kind of why this show remains my favorite of these shows, the characters are pretty conflicted and still finding their way through their lives, but they make the most sense to me as characters; and they don’t make decisions to undo their entire lives that just piss me off. It’s just the more fulfilling of the shows for what I like in my stories. At some point I do plan to watch Supergirl before things start up this fall (I assume it will be on Netflix by then, if not...we’ll see) and I don’t know exactly where it will fall in my ranking so far since I’m kind of pissed at Flash, and there’s room to debate against LoT is SG turns out to be better than I’m kind of expecting, but I don’t see it being better than Arrow for me.
The Flash 2x22
That episode was weird. I liked most of it, but as a whole it was weird mixture of too epic for a penultimate episode and not epic enough for a finale; I was pretty sure we’re getting the standard 23 eps this season so I figured this had to be the penultimate one, but I’m not sure it worked as that. For one, last week’s ep was such a disappointment that ramping up the action this quickly was jarring; and Barry’s attitude was more than a little off-putting (though I think it might have been supposed to be since everyone kept calling him on it). Also the fact that he was so sure everything was going to be fine super telegraphed that something bad was going to happen and I’m not really surprised it was Henry. I had sort of been lulled into complacency by him and Tina flirting (which I gather was a reference to the 90s’ Flash from what I know of it), even if I’d thought about it I might have wondered if that was going to be the new excuse why Henry wasn’t always around because I never believed he was going to join the cast full time. The relationship between Henry and Barry hasn’t worked for me all season; they had far better chemistry through glass last season than they can manage fully interacting and it just never made sense that Henry wasn’t around. There could have been a story in their continued separation but the show refused to recognize it as a thing, I thought they were starting to here with Barry pointing out how Henry hadn’t been around, which Henry acted like it was about the time he was in jail and couldn’t teach Barry to drive etc. when the bigger betrayal in my eyes was that he skipped town immediately after getting out of jail. As for using Laurel as the villain they fought this week, it’s a convenient way of keeping the actress around in the universe for a bit, and had some good moments, but still seems like something of a missed opportunity. It worked, I just wish it had been...more...more. I did like Wally’s story here, and I don’t see how they were going to get through that dinner without Wally finding out about Barry even if Zoom hadn’t shown up; everybody else in that room knew. I think that’s plenty of babble for the penultimate ep, let’s see how it ends next week.
Arrow 4x22
In some ways this episode’s structure was the same kind-of-awkward one I just talked and sort of complained about in Flash, and yet it didn’t rub me the wrong way nearly as much. Partly because no one thought it was completely over and done with before ‘surprisingly’ going to shit again. They had bought themselves time to breathe and that was all, and that was what they knew was going on. At times it was a little odd that the episode was so focused on action-packed keyboarding but since so much character drama was happening around that it worked just fine for me. I kind of wish Lance had a little more to do, and would have been an interesting extra player in the Smoak family drama and hacking hour, but I guess I understand why they wouldn’t go that way. It did occur to me in Thea’s plot that this could have been explicitly tied to the drugs used last season which would have made Malcolm slightly more deplorable than he already was with his actions here (maybe Malcolm was using the ones from last year instead of the yellow pills as Thea was more directly controlled where others seem more blissed out), because I was definitely having flashbacks to Thea killing Sara when Thea was threatening Oliver. Whichever form of mind control was going on, Malcom needs to eat shit and die, his parenting style is all kind of crap. Next to him Noah looks like father of the year, and while I’m not sure that’s intentional it is an effect of how Noah does keep showing up in episodes where Malcolm is just retched as a long absentee now trying to get involved father. I also like how many old characters (mostly villains) came out of the woodwork for this story, it’s been a treat. I know I won’t really be judging this until after the last episode, but I pretty much liked this one; even the flashbacks weren’t too bad, although they did mess up the flow a fair bit.
Legends of Tomorrow 1x16
So is everyone okay if I headcanon that we really are living in a world related to Doctor Who and Rex Tyler is related to Rose Tyler (or at least named in honor of her/for the show)? What, they wanted me to care all that much about namechecking the JSA? When what I wanted was for him to be either Jonas that somehow survived or Rip and Sara’s future kid (btw, Rip/Sara is now definitely my big ship for this show, the two of them just work so well together). It was a fine finale although I really wanted Carter to die saving them in the final time section, because I really hate Carter; although if both Hawk characters really are leaving...well I’m still pissed off because I have never seen anything to convince me this relationship will make either of them – but especially Kendra – happy, but at least I won’t have to watch it anymore so that’s something. I certainly won’t miss either of them as I hate Carter and never really fully warmed to Kendra, so I’m actually going to resent it if they do come back next season when I was finally free of them and if the story isn’t about fighting Savage those two don’t have to be there anymore (although I still maintain they can find and kill him in 2016 and change the course of history again). There wasn’t a lot for Ray to do in this episode, and that’s okay in so far as it goes, but I still find his ‘roll over and take it’ attitude toward Kendra going back to Carter rubs me the wrong way, but that has more to do with my opinion of the Hawks and me wanting people to call them on how horrible their relationship is than being about Ray (plus, it’s kind of in character for Ray who had basically the same attitude to Felicity running off with Oliver, and taking his jet). I guess Mick didn’t have a ton to do either but what he had was good; he’s still a long way from being my favorite character, but he’s gotten steadily better all season. I like both Jax and Stein and the continued progress of their partnership and abilities. But the main draw of the episode was Sara and Rip; now we know what Lance is doing during the Arrow finale if doesn’t put in much of an appearance (Sara says she’ll stay and help fight Darhk so this must be before the finale actually ends? Or it’s setting up that Darhk will still be at large when the season is over? If these people had proven to be able to handle concurrent timelines. Also, yes, let’s all meet in Star City in the middle of Darhk’s apocalypse, sounds brilliant) and Sara’s righteous fury at Rip was amazing. The scene where they hash out why he played it the way he did was what cemented my most of the season suspicion that I was going to ship these two, because they’ve always been a good team but this gave some real drama. And since this episode also rather established that Rip can start to let go of the family he lost, I’m going to sail my little ship at least until I’m probably proved wrong next season.
As a season view. This show needs some work going into season 2, needs to better establish how time really works from this perspective because as is one gets the feeling no one really knows; if they could establish that the writers at least know without having to spell it out in show it would be okay, but I need a better feeling it is understood at least. The characters, especially without the Hawks, are coming along nicely so no real complaints there (if the Hawks are going to come back though...there’s some big work that needs to be done to salvage the characters). I happen to love Rip the character, but if there was one character I think does need some work it’s probably him; they introduced several avenues his character could develop down, but didn’t go very far with any of them, all that potential is still there but it needs a bit more definition going forward. Especially if the Hawks do leave, it’s an interesting tactic for the series to be willing to change out stars on a fairly regular basis; they already killed Snart and let the Hawks go, leaving plenty of room to bring on some different characters next season, perhaps some of the refugees from Earth 2 hanging around on Flash (actually Jesse would be a pretty awesome addition). I’m hesitant to say I support this as a general choice for the series because it may just be that so far it’s been characters I at most kind of cared for who have been written out; I might feel differently if it had been ones I liked more but I think it would depend on how their storylines end and again I’m not in a position to say much with what we’ve had so far. I do want it explored more next season what the Oculus’ place was; are they now free to swoop in and save Miranda and Jonas before they die without the Time Masters interference, for example? There are a few different paths I can see next season taking in terms of large scale/meta goals, trying to address some of my large scale/meta issues with this season, but whether it goes any of the ways I’m currently thinking or not, I’ll definitely be along for the ride hoping it finds its own way. It’s pretty much all been good so far (except Carter, fuck that guy), but I want it to be great.
Agents of SHIELD 3x20
I definitely more liked than didn’t like that episode. I thought the plot was solid and the twists worked nicely, a lot of the character interaction worked pretty well, and it was a nice use of several lesser cast members. *But* I have some fundamental problems going on with it. I don’t like stories where the moral is to have faith or that the characters are directed by a higher purpose, especially where it seems to reduce them to have less agency in their lives and existence; Lash is not some grand purpose, he’s a tragedy brought on by Skye’s mom’s (whose name I didn’t learn how to spell and refuse to try now) booby trapped files turning a good man into a remorseless killer. I have nothing against the Inhumans exactly, but the whole chosen people angle makes me want to murder. My other problem is more MCU at large; Civil War was about regulating the Avengers, about holding vigilantes responsible and making sure they were held accountable for their actions; it’s a murky grey area of who’s right and wrong where everybody was pretty much wrong. Bringing registration into it shifts the moral high ground back to Cap (except that that wasn’t what he was objecting to so it’s more like Cap’s on the right side but not speaking to the right reasons). Yeah it was something the show had been building to with the Inhumans arc (and I still think it’s more of a grey issue than a lot of people do) but it doesn’t fit with the movie presentation very well.
Agents of SHIELD 3x21
Obviously these were done as a two-parter and it shows. I considered not even doing any write-up for this half, partly since it’s only half a story and partly because not a lot happened (because it’s only half a story). The character work was mostly flat but may still pay off, the action was alright...at least the earlier action, the closing one involved outrunning gas and if it disperses that slowly I don’t see that it’s as terrible a threat as it could be. But one last time, I suspect there will be at least one more round of swap-the-cross for who ends up dying, although FitzSimmons are a bit too happy for me to confidently say it won’t be one of them (or it’s just what they’re going to do with they’re summer vacation, but I guess I might as well go see.
Agents of SHIELD 3x22
Let’s ignore the last few scenes for a bit, those really belong in a separate string of thoughts; over all the episode was...better than average for this show, definitely good in places, and not a lot of bad. I was hoping we were going to get to keep Radcliff, and it looks like we will (I’ve loved the actor since Sliding Doors so I’m a sucker for him being so much fun on the show) so I’m happy about that, even if he’s apparently going to remake all of Tony’s past mistakes. The zombie minions didn’t really work for me these last few episodes, but they were a relatively minor aspect and just there to establish the end threat more than to be interesting in their own right. I was worried there for a minute they were going to kill May (since it obviously wasn’t going to be Skye and I was counting on Fitz passing off the hot potato again) and I was pretty sure that was going to be the end of me ever watching the show again, so I’m glad it didn’t go that way (in the end May and Coulson have significant eye contact, Fitz and Simmons and have significant eye contact, Skye has no one to have significant eye contact with); although damn the guy who pays Lincoln is a billion times better actor than the gal who plays Skye, to the point where when they’re actually acting off each other instead of over coms, she’s a decent enough actress to make me feel things too. I’ve never (and apparently never will be) that big a fan of Lincoln, but I should have felt something for him Captain America-ing the end, and I can’t say I did, any emotion I got from that string of things was when he and Skye were talking in a cargo bay which was a fine scene. It wasn’t that great in terms of any character, but it wasn’t bad I suppose, a little bit with Skye and it’s really just the usual Skye mess.
As for the last couple scene teasing next season...I’m not sure how I feel about them. Are we going to be starting at this point in the story are will they back up and we’ll watch it get to this point? I’m not sure I’m crazy about either option so I’m not exactly rooting for one over the other, but I worry about either. I am however much more interested in Skye and a villain/rouge anti-hero than I have ever been in her as a SHIELD agent...although again I worry about how things will be handled because the show seems to like Skye a lot more than I do. There’s a lot of questions raised by those last couple scenes and the answers might be quite interesting (who’s directing SHIELD, I’m holding out for Hill, I love Hill), and I’d be more excited if the show had given me reasons to be optimistic about it tackling them (the only era of this show that ever made me optimist was right after Winter Soldier, because there were a string of pretty good episodes there, but that glow was fading even by the end of s1). I can fully believe that in six months the Sokovia Accords reach and grasp has gotten stronger and the ATCU gotten power over SHIELD to a fair extent, and I think that would be interesting to explore if I trusted this show to be able to tell that complex a story. Plus throwing Radcliff’s new creation into the mix and it could and should be good...I just wish I was hopeful it would be.
I’m not sure I feel like doing a season wrap up on this one. Since I’ve forgotten so much of the first half and marathoned so much of the second I don’t know that I have particularly layered thoughts. And I’m not exactly in a rush to rewatch it, so it’ll probably be a while before I develop any. I will say that the death setup was still kind of annoying but I found it better handled than on Arrow this season (one of the few ways I’d put this above Arrow) because it actually counted in story rather than just teasing the audience (although then people start making decisions based on fate and I complain about that too because no one but Babylon 5 seems to know how to handle that kind of thing to my satisfaction.
The Flash 2x23
I’m going to have to think about how I feel about this one; there were moments I really liked but the whole thing...and especially the ending...I can’t decide what I feel just yet. A moment’s pause makes me wonder if this might have been a last minute addition even, to hasten the joining on the universe with Supergirl in the Crisis on a not-infinite number of Earths. I’m not quite sure how that will make sense but I kind of wonder. It sort of connects to my big problem all episode, because dealing with Barry in this situation needed some outside help, namely Oliver and/or Felicity; Oliver as the person who has gone through all this crap himself, and/or Felicity as the person with a front row seat to what happens when a person lets this crap get to them and the one who does a better job of connecting with Barry emotionally. Yes, Barry has a good support system who are all there for him, he could talk to any of them, but basically none of them are willing to be confrontational about it in a way the Arrow characters would have been; plus the fact that it exemplifies the consequences of going to the dark side in a way closer to home than fake-Jay’s efforts did. It was also kind of glaring to me how much fake-Jay turned into Slade in his efforts to make Barry suffer, which again just made me want the Arrow group to be there. And once they threw open the breaches and were trying to cause a Crisis on a potentially infinite number of Earths I wanted Supergirl to show up; I haven’t actually watched the show to know if that would work with whatever she’s got going on (I suspect they didn’t want to leave it on too big a cliffhanger since it’ll be flipping networks next year and they’ll have to try drawing in a slightly different audience and wouldn’t want to start in the middle of things, but I would also expect there was some form of cliffhanger), but this threat needed more heroes instead of one hero and a cheering section . But while that niggled at me all through the episode, it didn’t exactly drag it down, but the ending...and I don’t just mean Barry’s going-to-prove-catastrophic choice in the last bit (though it amuses me to think each season will end with Barry traveling back to that night and making different choices about whether to save his mom each time, getting to the point where he has to remember, ‘okay, me-1 is in the closet, me-3 is stopping me me-2, me-4 is fighting an extra Thawne in the backyard...). I don’t believe for a second Harry, Jesse, and mask-Jay are out of the story for good, and sure as hell didn’t at the time (right now I’m having a very slight doubt since Barry redoing the timeline may be how we end up with yet a different version of Wells – the would-have-been original), there’s too much left that can be done with these characters as their own and in relation to the full regulars. Barry and Iris just don’t work for me; I’ve tried, it may not always sound it but I have, as they hit so many of my usual likes in ships and the show hasn’t really deviated from the idea of them as endgame, but I wanted/needed so much better handling of it than we got; it’s so early-Oliver/Laurel, but even if Arrow’s writers had kept to that course they had more freedom in what the relationship might have become, and as it turned out they went with them not having one. And the true end of the episode...yeah I don’t think I liked it; it is entirely possible they have some great ideas what to do with this writing choice, I will happily eat my reservations in the fall if it turns into something great, but I’m not happy with it now.
As for the season overall...it’s been rather all over the place. There’s been more good than bad certainly, but the bad has kind of tainted a lot of things about the story. I suspect it needs a rewatch to better see if it hangs better together, and I’ll probably do most of my thoughts after watching Arrow and write about the DC CW verse as a whole (kind of...for now) but I’m just not as into Flash as I wish I was. Also, I can’t quite help but feel this final twist also undoes a lot of what I was going to say next season could be about, and that’s that after the ‘metapocalypse’ I think people might start making a bigger issue out all the metas showing up; I’m still disturbed by the fact that there don’t seem to be any other good metas running around; but now first we have to resolve this Crisis on an indeterminate number of Earths before we can start building a more layered universe where there are actual societal consequences for things.
Arrow 4x23
That was kind of weird too, but I’m not left feeling angry, just not sure I’m satisfied. In this case I think I will be once I get to watch it much more quickly, but my immediate reaction is kind of muddled, which I guess tracks with things in show. I don’t know if I ever said it, but I’ve long been suspecting this season was going to end with a breaking of the Arrow team, so I wasn’t at all surprised to see that happen, I’m more surprised Oliver didn’t run even briefly (although given the life expectancy of Star(ling) City mayors the last few years I’d think they have a lot of security around them that I’m not sure how Oliver plans to dodge for long), I didn’t think he’d make it back to the island this time, but maybe crying in the dark in Ivy Town. The person I couldn’t figure out if or why or how might run was Felicity so I’m also not shocked she didn’t. I’m surprised Diggle is running back to the Army, but once seen it makes sense. The resolution of the Darhk plot wasn’t maybe as well handled as it might have been; even if Darhk can’t use magic on Oliver what’s stopping him from using it in general, and why don’t the Ghosts shoot the mob instead of rushing them, but thematically it was exactly right. Also did Cooper die or was he just paralyzed and can get a bio-stimulant now and he and Felicity can be bio-stimulant twins (plus him maybe being the romantic rival next season?); but whichever way that ended, I liked that we had a small-scale appeal to humanity battle like that amidst the epic outside. I assume Felicity’s going to end up back in charge of Palmer Tech (or starting Smoak...whatever add-on the future didn’t tell us), and it doesn’t appear it’s going to happen because Ray reappears and just leaves her in charge, so we’ll probably see it happen next season. Also it’s a little odd that Oliver brings up the city surviving the Undertaking while we’re supposed to root for Malcolm on team good guys here. And are we going to get an explanation for how the idol got from ARGUS storage to Darhk’s possession? Plus I thought Lyla was going to be in the last scene on the island, but I didn’t see her there.
A few thoughts on the season overall; first, I liked it. It only had a few really high marks, but it had more of those than real low points, and the low points mostly had a certain...understandability to them. Really, my biggest critique is still them telling us early on that someone was going to die but not connecting that foreshadowing into the story in any way, I didn’t feel it worked at all and was really more limiting than engaging (both in terms of being able to remove possibilities from grave watch, and feeling like it ended up not having the Serenity effect – where someone dies and then you wonder who else could die – but rather that having done things this way with Laurel no one else was going to die. I guess that wasn’t true for the verse as a whole since Flash and LoT killed off some people...maybe considering time travel, but it’s how I felt about any other threat to the main characters considering the grave setup). It occurred to me during this episode that the tam really needs a medic, and then I remembered that they have the option of bringing Paul into the know at some point. Also I’ve really liked Curtis this season, though I hope they have some bigger plans for him, isn’t he supposed to be a superhero too? The flashbacks remain a stone around the series’ neck and they keep getting worse with each season (seasons 1&2 were about even at ‘okay’ but after that it’s been getting worse), although I’m more hopeful for next season considering it’s the last and there’s a lot they must know needs to get done. For a while now I’ve been treating this in my head as if it’s definitely going to be five season show, since that’s when they’ll lap themselves on flashbacks, so a good deal of how I feel next season might or should go has to do with whether or not it’s going to be the last one. If it is going to be the last one, then let’s not waste time next season before getting the team back together, letting Oliver and Felicity get back together, it might make sense to have Malcolm as the big bad again to bookend the series. If they do plan to go past season 5 that last point may not apply and they can take some more time on the first two but still not that long. Because obviously the team is going to get back together and as far as Oliver and Felicity go...if next season is the end there is no time at all to do another love story and even if we’re not that much in endgame the characters still basically can’t be written with anyone else at this point so why not just let them be happy and together instead of forcing your characters to be apart just because it’s supposedly better drama? In universe I still think both of them are kind of in the wrong when it comes to the reasons for their breakup, but I also understand why they both made the decisions they did that caused it. Kind of like with some of the choices at the end of the season, they may or may not have been right in character or quite as well handled/setup as they could have been, but I get it.
And that’s kind of why this show remains my favorite of these shows, the characters are pretty conflicted and still finding their way through their lives, but they make the most sense to me as characters; and they don’t make decisions to undo their entire lives that just piss me off. It’s just the more fulfilling of the shows for what I like in my stories. At some point I do plan to watch Supergirl before things start up this fall (I assume it will be on Netflix by then, if not...we’ll see) and I don’t know exactly where it will fall in my ranking so far since I’m kind of pissed at Flash, and there’s room to debate against LoT is SG turns out to be better than I’m kind of expecting, but I don’t see it being better than Arrow for me.
