K.D

VIP

5

I enjoyed the scene showing the arrival of the Kennedys and their introduction to Elizabeth and Philip. The commentary made by the two palace staff is hilarious. The Kennedys enter with Jackie leading ("President first, President first"). Jackie addresses Elizabeth as Your Majesty and shakes her hand (“no curtsy!", "no curtsy."). She then addresses Philip as Your Grace, ("Your Royal Highness." :asterisk_symbol:eye roll). Then John has his turn. "Good evening Your Royal Majesty," he says, with twinkling eyes and a hand shake ("oh, dear" :asterisk_symbol:anxiety over the blunders builds). Then he also calls Prince Philip Your Grace ("Did they not get the protocol sheet?", "Yes. They obviously didn’t read it."). Finally the Queen politely ends the awkward palaver by saying "Shall we?", to which JFK nods, says, "Jackie?", and Jackie starts walking into the dining room ahead of the other three. Wow :joy:. Elizabeth shoes such impeccable manners by following her, intuiting that JFK clearly intends to converse with "His Grace" alone (you ladies run along now, the men are taking)! The palace officials end their commentary as one says, "Sorry Sir" to which the other replies "A shambles!". Response? "Indeed". I suspect you have to be British (I’m Australian but lived in London during my 20s) to appreciate the hilarity of the scene - I’m sad for Americans, who may find this scene difficult to understand.
introduced to Prince Philip, JFK

You know how I said the season 5 finale was kind of lame? This was better, but far from totally satisfying. I know a few decades is nothing when you have an eternity to look forward to, but it still sucks that Chloe had to be a single mother. It's not fair to her. I cried so much when Deckerstar were saying goodbye (a really messy, snotty cry). All the little callbacks like Chloe playing that simple melody on the piano were so sweet and Lauren and Tom really did a breathtaking job. But still, it didn't have to be this way. I think it would've been much better if Lucifer had chosen to commute to Hell and still be in Rory's life, and that moment had created an alternate timeline - so that Rory from the original timeline still arrived to fullfil her purpose, but everything from that point on was different. IMO that would've been much better than the time loop idea. When it comes to time travel, you can pretty much get away with any bullshit explanation anyway. Everyone else ended up in a really good place, so at least that was nice. Maze and Eve kicking ass and taking names together, Charlie sprouting wings... I liked all of that. Also they really got Tricia Helfer to come back without giving her any dialogue lmao.

I will miss this show. Even though I feel like it had run its course and there weren't any stories left to tell, I'm still a little sad to see it go. It wasn't a perfect show, but it had some great moments, especially when it rose above the case of the week stuff and focused more on the celestial side of things and the relationships between the characters. It had such an interesting, diverse and lovable bunch of characters who all changed and grew in organic ways. The humor was always top notch, but the show also had some genuine emotion and a lot of heart. All in all, I will remember Lucifer fondly.

EDIT: After giving myself some time to fully digest this season and this final episode, I realized that there is something deeply messed up about a show that has always been about free will - Lucifer choosing to stay on Earth, Amenadiel choosing humanity, Chloe choosing to love Lucifer (remember how big of a deal the "does she only have feelings for me because she's a gift from God?" debacle was?), Maze choosing to develop human emotions and form connections with people, Eve choosing her own path after literally being made for someone else - not giving its leads any choice in the end and forcing them to follow a predetermined path. Again, the alternate timeline idea was right there and it would've reaffirmed the show's message that you make your own fate.

• Tim Kono's murderer was no surprise, given what was revealed on episode 9. But some people overthought this, thinking it’s more complicated than it was, and decided Jan seems too obvious to be the murderer, so now are disappointed. But the show is first and foremost a comedy, and a murder mystery second. Considering how the plot of this show was so stupid, one must watch it to enjoy Steve and Martin's comedic talents, and the humor because as a mystery it's just awful.

• I don't have a problem with the reveal, however, Jan got uncharacteristically sloppy in the final, and that was kind of unsatisfying. Especially that cliche confrontation (when Jan didn't even see Mabel) made me want to roll my eyes. It felt too much like a Bond villain.

• The elevator scene with Charles, and his neighbors, was one of the funniest scenes in the whole show.

• I like that Oliver was pushing around all of their recording equipment in a dog stroller. And then even wheeling Charles around.

• Charles remembered Mabel telling him he didn't need to sign his name on his texts.

• "Lonely guys with notable age differences I met in an elevator." - I like the comment about how both relationships are age-inappropriate.

• I wanted season 2 to be an entirely separate case, maybe revolving around the popularity of the podcast or something like that. I understand that the writers used the opening scene of the show to keep the audience hooked for another season, but the mystery wasn't fully solved, and that left us with way too many questions. My biggest one - why did the police cover up the toxicology report?

Looking forward for season 2!

[7.8/10] I’m not well-versed enough in the comics to know which came first, but given the timing, it’s hard not to feel like the Spider-Man/Black Cat pairing here is imitating the Batman/Catwoman vibe from Batman Returns. And it’s a little cheesy and contrived here (Spider-Man’s worked with tons of people whose identities he didn’t know without complaint, like Daredevil for instance, and how in the world doesn't Peter recognize Felicia?), but the dynamic is a good one, and it’s entertaining to see the two of them do the slap-slap-kiss routine.

Plus Kingpin and his criminal enterprise vs. Nick Fury and Shield is a good little battle to be staging. The fake out with Spider-Man posing as The Cat to free Felicia’s dad is a good one, and while throwing Dr. Octopus into the mix makes for a bit of villain overload, it makes for some cool action as Spidey, Black Cat, Doc Ock, and the rest of Kingpin’s goons are duking it out at 10,000.

All-in-all, this was a pretty nice little duology. Felicia getting unreplicable Super Soldier powers is a little convenient, as is her dad returning to Shield, thereby restoring the status quo, but the episode moves along at a good clip, and stages some pretty exciting set pieces in the process, while establishing a dynamic between Spidey and Black Cat that is, if not wholly original, at least still fun.

[8.2/10] Overstuffed, but with good things, so it’s hard to be upset. As an MCU fan, it was cool for me to see return appearances from Mordo and Dormamu, plus the Spider-Man: The Animated Series debut of Rhodey as War Machine and quick glimpses of Tony Stark! Seeing Spider-Man and War Machine team up to stop the symbiote invasion of Stark Industries was cool, and I appreciated Rhdoes’s no-nonsense attitude in fighting the slimy bad guys.

We’ve also officially begun the show trying to make Venom more of an anti-hero than a straight-up villain (which I am, perhaps, particularly sensitive to given the trailer for the new Venom film which dropped recently and plays up Venom as a gray area good guy). It’s all very rushed, as we get roughly one and a half scenes of Eddie Brock having therapy with a prison psychiatrist he has feelings for, which turns out to be the thing motivating him to do some good.

Again, it’s very fast, and odd for multiple reasons. For one thing, Dr. Kafka is pushing the idea that the symbiote was just a delusion from Brock, which seems strange since Venom was clearly out on the town wreaking havoc publicly in his prior appearance. (Though I guess maybe the public just assumed it was Spider-Man?). Plus, angry Eddie Brock (voiced by Hank Azaria) still sounds too much like Frank Grimes for his boasts not to seem at least a little amusing.

But I like the introduction of Carnage here. Cletus Kasady is genuinely creepy and unnerving long before he puts on the suit. There’s an unhinged quality that sells him as a particularly weird and psychotic threat. Plus his symbiote is looser and goopier than Venom, making him just kind of gross in the way he moves around. Even the notion of the symbiote reproducing is a little creepy. It’s a little obvious how they’re positioning Carnage to be even worse so that Venom doesn't look so bad and can make his face turn, but it works.

The plot is a little convoluted, with it being less than clear why Dormamu needs the symbiote brothers to swipe Tony’s dimensional portal thingy as opposed to just having Mordo do it himself, and Madame Webb continues to be cryptic and kind of useless, but Spidey at least acknowledges it.

Overall, on a structural level, this episode has some flaws, but the stuff going down is just too cool to care.