Many people might say that nothing much happened in this episode until the final few minutes. And to the extent that they are correct, it was some of the most beautiful "nothing" that I've seen in quite a while. In an episode full of moments worthy of awards, none stands out more than the scene between a suicidal Elliot and Trenton's little brother at a mosque.
Psychologically and emotionally, the entire series up to now can be summed up by an exchange later in the episode between Elliot and Angela, where Elliot brings up a "wishing game" that he and Angela used to play as children. "After we made all our wishes, we'd close our eyes really hard, hoping that when we opened them, it'd all come true," Elliot says. "And we thought the harder we closed them, the stronger our wishes would be. And even though they never came true, we still liked doing it. Because the ending was never our favorite part, anyway. It was the wishing. I didn't get that at first. You remember what you used to say to me right before we opened our eyes that would make it all better?"
Angela, hurting every bit as much as Elliot, takes a moment before replying. "No matter what happens, we'll be okay."
By this point, Elliot has decided not to delete himself after all. "That's the thing about deletion. It's not always permanent. There are many reasons why you wanna recover a file you just deleted. When you have that moment of panic, where it hits you, where that thing you thought had no value suddenly becomes important. Where you suddenly find new purpose for it. Maybe there are still things left for me to do."
For Elliot, one of those things is to restore some digital data that Trenton had sent to him and that had previously gone unread. Specifically, an email that she referenced in the previous episode. An email that Elliot now reads. An email that begins with: "I may have found a way to undo the hack."
Amazing episode.
Cisco and Gypsy have relationship issues because plot. Seriously, can't they pop in on each other's worlds more easily than the rest of us can move across town? So why not just be a couple and spend some of their free time together there and some of their free time together here? Why so much soapy drama over something so incredibly stupid and easily solved? So Cisco wants to wake up next to her every morning? No problem. Breach there or have her breach here, spend your quality time together and then breach back to your own world the same way most couples part in order to go to different jobs every day. It would be one thing if there were only a finite number of breaches possible or if each breach was incredibly costly in some way. But that's not the case and, again, it's beyond stupid. It's like watching two people cry every time one of them has to walk through a door and into a different room.
Bottom line: this one had some good moments, but none of them could possibly drag it up very far up from the lows of the completely contrived, tedious and extremely soapy Cisco/Gypsy story line.
Aaaaaand we get Audrey's long-anticipated return, only to learn that she's a bitter, nasty, foul-mouthed shrew. Lovely. Not as bitter as me at this point, of course, since that would be nearly impossible, but pretty close. In any case, that was fifteen minutes' of viewing pleasure right there because nothing says "entertainment" like the return of a classic character in such an ugly and unlikable way. It also came across as two people reading their parts from a script that had been handed to them five minutes before filming began. Earlier on, we had more time well spent in the form of a French hooker who needed three minutes to make it five paces from Gordon's hotel room sofa to the door, followed by Albert needing another three minutes to relay five seconds worth of information. Because there's no better way to spend those five minutes and 55 seconds, either. And we learn that Sarah Palmer has issues with turkey jerky and that the trailer park manager doesn't want his tenants to give too much blood at the hospital. And we got a random scene out of nowhere that showed us that Dougie isn't much of a baseball player. Just in case, you know, we forgot what Dougie's like. We did get maybe ten minutes' worth of relevant information and actual plot advancement, but who cares anymore? Honestly, I can't think of a single character whose fate really matters to me at this point. All I know is that LOST is in serious danger of losing its top spot on my Most Impressive Crash-and-Burns of the 21st Century list. And I will cope with my disappointment with liberal doses of snark and sarcasm.
Things had already reached the point where I was watching this show for the Hannah stuff while fast-forwarding through everything else, so of course they had to go and ruin that with a couple of big bits of stupid. First, she meets with her shady British boy toy alone when neither she nor anyone else should have allowed it, and then, after shooting him, she just goes off to have a drink or ten. So much for contacting the appropriate people and finding the body and confirming the death, or anything like that. And then, of course, we get the requisite scene of the boy toy showing us, the audience, that he had been wearing a bulletproof vest. Because that trope never gets old. Beyond that, it's sad to see that a show that began as an investigation into something as monumentally huge as the bombing of the U.S. Capitol Building in an attempt to destroy the American government has degenerated into lame and boring story lines like this one that involved a small group of people in a fire zone. Seriously? This is the sort of nail-biting successor to that initial story line that's supposed to keep people watching? And lastly, we get one more overused trope: the T-boned vehicle crash. Not only is it unoriginal, but it's also an impossibility in the context of the Secret Service protecting the First Lady. Those side streets would have been shut down during the drive. Oh, well. I'm done. As I said, I was in it for Hannah and now they've finished ruining her for me, so it's a good time to bail on this mess.
Wow. Just...wow. What a letdown. All of those random conversations at the roadhouse at the end of each episode? Meaningless. Nothing tying them together at all in the end. Audrey's fate? Audrey who? The last two episodes make it seem like she never existed. And Sarah Palmer? What was up with her, exactly? Well, now that it's all over, I can say that we'll never know. We won't know who or what she is. We won't know why she freaked out over the jerky display in the store. We won't know why things seemed to be looping when her TV was showing that boxing match. And on and on. But the many other bits of randomness that bloated various episodes, taking time away from what should have mattered? Those things ended up mattering, right? Um, no. Like the roadhouse stuff, none of those random things played any role. Just one example: the scene outside the Double R after a random gunshot. The one where Bobby goes running out and finds the screaming woman who kept laying on her horn because she wanted to get home. The kid slowly climbing up and emerging in the passenger seat. I kept wanting to think that there'd be a payoff for that overlong bit of Lynchian self-indulgence, but no such luck. I don't need everything wrapped up with a pretty bow at the end of every bit of fiction that I watch or read. I really don't. But I need more than I got here. A lot more.
First things first. I'll take a flawed show like this one over reality TV or summer reruns of the 183rd season of NCIS. So props to CBS for that. Still, the flaws. Those horrible, horrible flaws. Those avoidable flaws. Those unnecessary flaws. Here are the most glaring ones this week.
First, a repeat offender. It takes more than 30 minutes for light from Jupiter to reach Earth, but we once again have magic video that can cover that distance instantaneously. Inexcusable and avoidable. I have to believe that the science advisors for this show would know all of this, which means that they must have been ignored. So why have science advisors if you're going to ignore them? Maybe the advisors just don't care as long as the checks clear, but I do!
And then there's a bunch of air gap-related stuff. For starters, if Darius was in that air-gapped facility that blocked cellphone signals, then his RFID implant would have been blocked, as well. It would not have been able to report his location at that time. Furthermore, and for the same reason, Darius would not have been able to send texts from his phone while he was in the air-gapped facility. So either he wasn't there or someone else sent that famous text. And finally on that point, I guess Darius hasn't heard of multi-factor authentication when it comes to accessing his various batcaves, as in RFID chip and retina scan and 3D facial mapping verification for access to the places that we saw. Instead, someone gets his chip and it's full access to everything! Yay! Again, why bother to have science advisors?
And finally, a couple of liberal arts flaws. First, Harris says at one point, "He's guilty, Grace. The evidence is not circumstantial." Um, no. You have a vague and noncommittal text message and a location where multiple people would have been working. That's pretty much the epitome of "circumstantial." And second...well, pretty much Jillian's entire speech at the end, which clearly represented the show's writers projecting BIG TIME. But I'll focus on the "It is hope and only hope that will save us." Um, no. Again. Hope can motivate. Hope can inspire. Hope can get you through dark times. But hope without scientists and engineers to do the heavy lifting is just false hope. In the current context, hope will not stop an asteroid.
Competent writers could have avoided all of these issues (and others) without taking anything away from the drama. The fact that they didn't do so is disappointing. But, again, not as disappointing as being stuck with reality TV or NCIS reruns. I guess I'm just saying that my gratitude has limits. :)
I knew that they'd want to get their money's worth out of using Chris Pine in this miniseries, but I thought that he'd play a fictional composite of various real people, and that his role would be to keep the plot moving along. Instead, in the end, Jay Singletary was entirely his own fictional person, which made him more of a distraction than anything else. Still, he had Fauna's back and earned the degree of tropical redemption that he found in the end. George Hodel, on the other hand, ended up being every bit as sleazy and skeevy as one would imagine based on the actual facts, and it's too bad that art imitated life here and he didn't die a horrible, slow death in a fire. Finally, Fauna proved to be every bit as smart and resourceful as she'd been all along, but I found her crushing critique of Hodel to be beyond what a typical 16-year-old would have been capable of. Nonetheless, I enjoyed hearing her deliver every word of it. Overall, the ending was anticlimactic, but mostly satisfactory if for no other reason than the fact that Hodel didn't win while both Jay and Fauna did, in a manner of speaking.
"Please...give us an ending."
I don't think that any show will ever be able to give us a better ending than this one just did, but I hope that they all try. Because this one was just phenomenal and hit on all of the timey-wimey and character points that the show has always been good at hitting. Everyone who needed a shot at redemption got it and nailed it. Well, except for Olivia, but we knew that all along, pretty much. (But even there, her bones served a purpose.) And perhaps most importantly, everyone got an ending. Or the beginnings of endings. And happy ones, at that.
Two nice touches that I really appreciated: (1) They didn't actually show Cassie hitting the Big Red Button, so we don't know for sure if she did. The results either way are similar, but also different in terms of where Cole ended up. I choose to believe that Cole ended up in the same new timeline as the "real" others. (2) As it clung by a thread to a tree limb, that red (!) leaf that the camera panned to so that it could lead us out of the show at the very end was perfectly symbolic of all living things having an ending. Cassie and Cole and the others have one life now. Free will over destiny. Do it right or go home. No do-overs. The way that it should be.
This show worked really well for me in season one because there was a good season-long mystery arc and both the adults and the kids were mostly smart, whether they were on the side of good or evil. This season, there's no worthwhile mystery -- the Lodges buying up a bunch of land is hardly compelling drama -- and no end to the stupid things that are being done. In this episode alone, Alice Cooper covers up a death and ignores the drug connections. Dumb and dumber. And Betty goes along with it. Dumb. And Archie is convinced that Hiram Lodge is a wonderful human being even though there is zero evidence to back that position and tons of evidence to refute it. Dumb. And along with the stupidity and the lack of an overarching mystery, there's just too much soap. In short, the show has deteriorated to a huge degree and I don't know how much longer I'll be sticking with it since the writers didn't seem to plan anything beyond the first season and it's really obvious at this point. As usual, they offer a nice hook at the very end -- if it's even true -- but it's getting harder and harder to sit through 40 minutes of dreck every week for that one minute of payoff.
Despite it being far more eye candy than actual substance, the episode was much better than that lame promo that I saw long ago would have suggested. I mostly liked everyone on the Shenzhou...up to the point where Burnham embraced mutiny as an option with something like a minute left in the episode. So the weakness at the end matched the weakness of the beginning, which has its own problems. First, how did the sandstorm not wipe out their first prints in the time it took to complete the last ones? Why was Michael surprised to learn that they'd walked in something other than a straight line when the pattern that they did walk required several sharp turns? (The pattern was the Trek insignia.) And how could the ship visually see the tracks through the clouds even if the storm hadn't wiped away the prints? And if visual sightings are a thing at this point, then why didn't they have a flare in the first place?
Again, though, the rest of it was pretty good if a little too Klingon-heavy for my tastes. After all, this was a pilot and getting to know the Starfleet types was/is far more important than getting to know any particular Klingons.
Especially when it comes to network television, there tends to be an inverse relationship between the number of writers credited for a script and the quality of the final product. It's a cooks and broth thing. This pilot had six writers and did not buck the trend. There's a lot of potential in a story like this, but they had to go and pad it with stuff that will only hurt the pacing. The biggest problem is Grace, the communications gal, who is given two really stupid reasons for being relevant in all of this. First there's her Pentagon pal who says that he wants her there to manage the news about things, but if your intent is to bury the story and kill anyone who finds out (speaking of, I don't know what happened to the professor, but what purpose was served by trashing his place like that?), then why do you need a communications person if you have no intention of communicating? And on the other side of things, Elon Musk Jr. wants Grace on his team...because he doesn't have any good Pentagon contacts who can keep him informed? Seriously? Even though he's Elon Musk Jr. and is based ten minutes outside of DC? In any case, I had to chuckle that they doubled down on Grace's (presumably) non-technical background by having her daughter writing out her commencement address longhand. Elsewhere, Jillian, the sci-fi writing gal pal of our MIT student, is apparently too dense to see through his hypothetical scenario and questions. That takes some real talent on the cluelessness front. One other thing and I'll stop being so negative: the satellite imagery of the exploding rocket. First, we don't have that sort of precise overhead monitoring of the entire country, so why would they have it for this "burn test" if they want to keep the test as hush-hush as possible? It seems to me that it would be pretty easy to have that satellite looking elsewhere at that particular moment. Or, barring that, to seriously limit the availability of any footage to night-shift employees around town. Oh, well. I'll be back, but I'll probably be fast-forwarding through anything involving Grace and her daughter and any scenes with Jillian. And I'll be hoping that they still plan to introduce at least one female character who's smart, technically oriented, relevant for the right reasons, and not clueless. Because I didn't meet her in the pilot.
Way to go, David E. Kelley. You suckered me into sampling this one even though I knew, deep down, that you weren't capable of sustaining anything from start to finish. And you didn't let me down. I watched it all, going from being pleasantly surprised to hoping that things weren't going off the rails the way that they appeared to be going off the rails, and now I want those six hours of my life back.
In the end, there were no surprises in this one. No red herrings. No culprit cleverly revealed to viewers early on if they were paying close attention. It was about as linear as something like this can be and it played out like a lame Lifetime Channel movie.
So no more chances, Kelley. You made me think -- for a few episodes, at least -- that you'd finally gotten good at what you do. I won't make that mistake again.
Oh, and two last notes. First, the "greatest defense lawyer money can buy" was once again an idiot in the courtroom, but that, of course, is a reflection on Kelley's inability to write and not on a fictional character's ability to be a competent lawyer. And second...Jonathan took the hammer and held on to it all the way to the lake house? So that he could leave it there? Gee, it's too bad that there was absolutely NO PLACE that he could have ditched the thing between the crime scene and that cabin. Oh, wait. There were probably a hundred decent options. Huh. Go figure. Oh, never mind. I just need to put this thing in the rear view mirror and never look back.
A huge letdown from the season premiere. I love this show when it's being stupid in a goofy and charming way, but this one was stupid in all of the wrong and annoying ways. Rather than pile on, I'll just mention two obvious things. One, how many times and in how many different ways are Our Heroes going to have to be told that they can't change time and history? This week, it's Z's turn to need a reminder because...why? And two, while I can almost forgive that and what she does next since a little defiance can be a good thing once in a while, it's going to take some time to get over how stupid AND incompetent she was in allowing herself to get caught AND to lose her totem in the process when it all could have been so easily avoided since escape would have been easy. And those are just two of the more blatant examples of the overarching problem in this one. In short, someone in the writers' room must not like Z and must have decided that it was time to do some damage to the character in stupid ways -- the wrong kind of stupid ways. Hopefully this was a one-off and the writer responsible will be doing nothing more than copy editing work in the future.
After way too much soap and way too much filler in pretty much every episode this season, the writers explode every plotline and every character arc and every loose thread in this one. Or to put it another way, they went from screwing up the pacing from one direction to screwing it up from the other, with plenty of head-scratching details to go along with it. This season could have been SO much better if they'd just spread the wealth better. It's as if they got late word that the show was being canceled and they needed to wrap things up NOW. The one bright spot? The amazingly annoying and smug and self-righteous Jughead is dead. Or should be, based on how many thugs were pounding away at him with no end in sight. But I wouldn't put it past this show to have him survive somehow, even though you'd think that FP would have taken him directly to the hospital instead of going with the cliche-ridden option of carrying his downed son back to his "family" -- if Jughead was still alive at this point. Time will tell. Meanwhile, one Black Hood is caught while one is still out there. With one episode left in the season -- and probably the last that I'll be watching of this hot mess -- we'll see how they wrap things up next week.
Too much soap opera again, with Jughead's monologue telling us that he knows way too much about Archie and Veronica's private lives. Not that they're keeping it particularly private themselves while at school, of course. Still, I really don't want to know how Jughead knows the specifics of what he knows, so I'll just assume that he's a creepy voyeur and leave it at that. And things were only made worse by the fact that, this time around, the soap opera silliness also included having Betty act both stupid and trashy (at the same time) in the process in some monumentally misguided attempt to make herself a part of Jughead's new-ish life. And they found time to slip in a little bit more of Cheryl's developing obsession with Josie for good measure, as well. On the mystery side of things, we learn that what appeared to be clumsy attempts at misdirection on the part of the writers in the past when it came to the high school janitor were just that: clumsy attempts. In short, we got a lot of bad soap opera combined with nothing in the way of advancement on the mystery front (beyond being able to take the janitor out of consideration, which was already pretty obvious). Next week is the Fall finale. I can only hope that things rebound in a big way because this was just a terrible episode.
This has been a borderline show for me since the beginning since I turn to fiction to escape politics of any kind, not so that I can get more of it in addition to real life. But the initial premise and mystery were enough to hook me. Going into season two, it's obvious that (a) this show has an identity crisis and (b) bears little resemblance to that initial premise and that (c) the writers have no idea what to do with a bunch of additional episodes that they probably weren't expecting to get. As such, I'm literally fast-forwarding through everything in the White House -- this week's viral outbreak (that will be resolved within 42 minutes) and Confederate monuments are a far cry from bombing Congress -- at this point because it's not my thing and because I can't stand New Guy at all.
Which leaves the Hannah stuff which, while far less interesting so far than it was last year, is at least more in line with my own interests. In short, it's the stuff that could have made an interesting show on its own instead of being a small part of the bloated and generic thing that DESIGNATED SURVIVOR has become. And at this point, Hannah has learned of some ties between the First Lady's parents and some possible shady contracts or deals done as favors were called in to move the First Lady's father to the top of a heart transplant list. Not quite "Who bombed the Capitol?" stuff, but better than statues. Still, it probably would have been better to end this as a one-season thing instead of trying to extend its lifespan like this.
I realize that part of my massive disappointment with this season finale lies in the pent-up frustration that I've had all along with regard to the glacial pacing of the series from the very beginning. On an ALIEN INVASION show, for crying out loud! They could have left half of each episode on the cutting room floor and it would have lost nothing on the narrative front and definitely gained a TON on the pacing front. Something like this should be no less than 75% action and adventure and shock and awe and no more than 25% character study and introspection, and I'm being extremely generous with those percentages. But this FINALE is the worst of the entire season on that front, and I'd estimate that it was easily 95% navel-gazing and useless filler and 5% action and plot advancement. This episode had maybe five minutes of new material, and maybe a single minute of new material related to, you know, the INVASION.
The actors, as always, do fine work here. The production values are good. The director does as much as possible with the script. But jeebus cripes, what a HORRIBLE script. The writing team should be doing lame Hallmark movies, if not waiting tables someplace. And they expect people to come back for more of this snooze fest? Heck, I left THIS episode sitting and waiting for over a week before I got around to watching it, which pretty much sums of how much excitement it has instilled in me. If others are the same way, I'm guessing that the next season won't even get half the audience that this season got. What an incredible waste of potential and viewer goodwill...
There wasn't a single moment of this one that wasn't either (a) a complete waste of time or (b) stupid beyond belief or (c) both at the same time. My faves from this one:
Let's start with a minor, but annoying one. Olive knows when the cult is gonna be getting more disposable coffee cups and the response is: "How did we do anything around here before you joined us?" Um, there are maybe 50 people in the cult; just buy a sleeve or two of disposable cups at the local grocery store, Einstein. You don't need to "order" them.
Every word and action from Prince Charming when he showed up at the hit-and-run site.
Leap #1: A suspect's "They're just some guys from the club" IMMEDIATELY becomes Michaela's "We believe this is the HEADQUARTERS [emphasis mine] of a violent group."
Leap #2: Michaela sees a blue truck and, without ANYTHING to back it up, IMMEDIATELY tells her boss that "That truck was involved in a hit-and-run with another passenger."
Jared gives the bad guys one tip and THAT SAME NIGHT gets to meet one of the group's apparent bigwigs because...they're grateful AND stupid, I guess? And that's on top of the fact that Jared just HAPPENED to find that bar and that bartender to get the hots for in the first place. Now it's possible that all of this has been a setup (undercover op) since BEFORE he met the bartender, but for now, it's going in the stupid pile since I doubt that the writers have it in them to make any of it make sense. Besides, even if Jared IS working undercover, the bad guys are still being really stupid here.
Prince Charming's actions at the very end.
Meanwhile, we get NOTHING this week from the awesome and lovely Saanvi, and only a passing mention of her progress. And there was a lot of soap opera stuff that I skipped entirely. So yeah, this one was horrendous.
For Curtis's sake, I hope that the paycheck cleared.
This was...not good. So much stupidity. First among the biggies is the table setting of it all, which required some rocket scientist to decide that just before Halloween would be the perfect time to transport Michael by bus to a new facility. And let's do it at night just for fun! And with a bunch of other inmates along for the ride and only a guard or two to ride along on the bus. And no support vehicles to accompany the bus. Golly gee whiz, what could go wrong with that plan?
Then fast-forward to the end and there's the fact that Laurie had 40 years to prepare for a showdown by building a safe room and stockpiling guns and rifles, but her first move when the time comes is to leave the safe room with only one weapon and hunt room by room in the dark. Hunt for Michael. Who somehow magically knew where she lived after 40 years. Then they get him in the safe room and instead of emptying every weapon of its supply of bullets into his unconscious body, they just leave and, in typical Halloween fashion, he revives. Because of course he does. But at least he doesn't escape the fire. Or does he? By not putting a few hundred bullets into him before torching the place, they leave room for a sequel that I won't be watching.
In the end, they still haven't come close to equaling the original, let alone surpassing it. And it doesn't seem like it's going to happen anytime soon if this is the writing quality that we can expect at this point.
The mystery/thriller stuff was top-notch and there was a lot of interesting progress along those lines. Sadly, it was overwhelmed by the soapy stupidity, all of which stems from...people keeping secrets. And it makes no sense. Ben's story can be confirmed by Michaela. And Cal. And Cal's doctor. But Ben won't explain things to Grace because reasons. Seriously, WHY NOT? And as worried as he is about Cal, he'd rather be separated from the kid and leave him unprotected when he could fix it all by just being honest and specific with Grace? How does any of this make sense on any planet? Note to writers: it's possible to do "drama" without this much stupidity!!! Meanwhile, what the heck was Lourdes doing that was so important that she she never made it to the hospital after her husband was blown into a coma? One passing name drop from Michaela doesn't cut it, especially since hours had apparently elapsed. The mere existence of that tedious love triangle has already been annoying enough, but now they had to go and add this to the mix.
In short, this one gets an 8/10 for the mystery stuff and 0/10 for the "drama," and I'd give it a negative score if I could.
This is a solid espionage tale, with Australia and China playing the primary roles and the U.S. mostly lurking about in the background. Anna Torv once again comes across as competent and cool as ice, this time as a renegade reporter for a major Australian newspaper. The story centers around Canberra and Torv's Dunkley character, and many of the alphabet agencies mentioned throughout are surely familiar to Aussies if not to me, but I'm okay with accepting that they're, more or less, the counterparts of the likes of the F.B.I. and C.I.A. and Homeland Security.
It's a conspiracy tale, so it's probably a non-starter for opponents of conspiracy plots out there, but those like me who like their spies and lies will appreciate this one a lot. And it's international intrigue and skulduggery rather than just the national or interagency sort, which is a critical distinction for me. I had a few eye-rolling moments with a few plot points but decided not to rush to judgment and, sure enough, those things were explained in the finale and it all made sense and I was able to stop rolling my eyes.
Overall, this one's a perfect example of why I think that journalists make terrific protagonists in fiction. I'm looking forward to the second series on Netflix (later this year?) and highly recommend this six-episode series one.
So. Much. Soap. And I could hardly care less about any of the couples. Liam and Jillian? The biggest offenders. So of course I have to witness a day-in-the-park montage with the two of them. Gah. And then an aborted wedding at a hospital chapel Seriously, does it get any soapier than that? And then Harris and Grace? Couldn't care less. Elon and Tess? Okay, so I like the two of them a bit, but I'd prefer to see Elon focused on something more important at the moment. Elon and Uncle Walter? Shouldn't they have cleared the air a long time ago in a way that didn't have to involve all kinds of violations of urban airspace? At this point, our intrepid reporter's White House conspiracy arc is the only thing that remotely interests me, given that the writers aren't even using the asteroid business as a framing device anymore. No, it's pure soap at this point. All the way to the top, with an evil new president who can't stop twirling his mustache. In the end, the writers only had to find a way to fill a mere 13 episodes with interesting stuff and they can't even do that.
This show started out with a lot of potential, but bad acting and even worse writing is just killing it. This time, the annoying lead -- I'm still not sure if it's the actor or the character that annoys me -- spends time on a workstation in an employee break room at his former tech company because what break room doesn't have a workstation? And he's there because he backed up a virus program -- because of course he wrote a virus program because virus programs are cool and who doesn't write them? -- that he needs right there on-site instead of half a world away, which sorta totally destroys the purpose of having a backup in the first place. And he has to go there to download the virus using what must have been a USB 1.0 port, given how long it takes to download the thing. And then he escapes through a panic room that opens up into a public stairwell because that's how panic rooms work, too.
As usual with network offerings like this one, it's as if someone said, "Hey, let's do a show with a tech-heavy premise and hire a bunch of liberal arts majors to write it, and then also have them throw in some marital drama and a workplace love triangle while they're screwing up the tech stuff."
Oh, well. Only two episodes to go. And yes, I'm going to watch them despite the mess that they've made of things, and I'm pretty disgusted with myself over it already.
A few bits of dialogue that were cut from the final script to varying degrees. And trust me, this barely scratches the surface:
[A]
"I'm pretty sure that we can't trust your daughter to not mess up our plans to kill millions of people. But rather than just be the homicidal maniacs that we are and kill her while her mom is distracted, let's leave her unattended in a room from which she can easily escape because that makes a lot more sense."
"Brilliant! I guess that's why you're the boss, boss."
[B]
"We have been developing a prototype for a new weapon. An oxygen destroyer. It kills oxygen. But not the oxygen in water. It kills all of the oxygen except for THAT oxygen. But it still kills the fish IN the water. Because reasons."
[C]
"Is there any reason why we can't use an unmanned vehicle to take the nuke to Godzilla so that we can then detonate it remotely?"
"Absolutely none whatsoever, but where's the fun in that?"
"But what about Dr. Noble Death?"
"He's always been a drama queen. Let him have his moment."
[D]
"Should we be worried that Godzilla is so radioactive that he's glowing and about to explode and we're only about twenty yards away from him?"
"No, it's a magical radiation that is only effective out to a two-foot radius."
"Well, that's convenient."
"Isn't it, though?"
"What about all of this radioactive asbestos-laden dust that we're inhaling?"
"Geez, would you give it a rest already, Debbie Downer?"
This one provided some decent backstory for AltClare and even generated a fair amount of sympathy for her from me...until she showed me that the same events that generated my sympathy had turned her into someone who could kill an innocent bystander with no apparent issues of conscience. I also found it interesting that, prior to her insertion on "our" side of things, she showed intermittent signs of warmth mixed in with the general coldness. Other than that, there were a few things that bothered me with this one. (1) There were ways that AltClare could have mirrored Clare's lost virginity that would not have involved potential exposure to STDs or pregnancy, either of which would have not only presented the usual problems but would have killed the mission. And there's the fact that someone who knew "her" could have seen enough of what was going on to report it back to Peter. I assume that the writers intended this to serve as more evidence of her automaton personality at that point, but I couldn't ignore the lack of common sense. (2) The lack of a team in place to assist her and the resulting "You're on your own" sort of mentality were more than a little hard to accept, especially given the importance of her particular mission. (3) Would it have killed Peter to stash those cigars somewhere else? Someplace far, far way? Or at least in a locked drawer? Or at least in a drawer that he freaking shuts all the way? Oh, well. At this point, now that Peter has made it clear that he knows what's going on with her, I'm all the more curious about how things will move forward with our not-so-happy couple...
In terms of story, this one gets a failing grade for the first 30-40 disjointed and badly flowing minutes that come across as if they were written by someone with a five-second attention span. Not that the decision to basically do three introductory origin-ish stories in this one made it any easier, of course. Seriously, would it have killed them to do the first team movie after Aquaman and Flash each had his own solo movie under his belt? (I'm not sure if there are any plans for a Cyborg solo movie at this point.) Oh, well. On the bright side, once the team was together, things improved dramatically, and the comic relief elements were long overdue in a DC movie -- although having so much of it coming from Barry Allen is going to make it hard to take the character seriously at all in the future.
In terms of casting, good marks go to the established Henry Cavill and Gal Gadot, and while Ben Afleck has grown on me to some extent as Wayne, he just doesn't work as Batman since I'm just not a fan of a soft, middle-aged superhero who looks more like a cosplayer having a midlife crisis. Of the three newcomers, I like Jason Mamoa (Aquaman) and Ezra Miller (Flash), but not in these roles since they're too far removed from the original characters for my liking. Ray Fisher as Cyborg was okay, but it's not as if they gave the actor or the character any chance to show much personality.
All in all, this was an extremely uneven movie, but it's to be expected, given its somewhat messy and chaotic production history. In the end, if the future holds more of the latter and funny bits of this one and less of the badly done beginning, then DC just might have turned a corner here, especially coming on the heels of Gadot's solo introduction. So there's hope -- both for the future solo movies and for a team reunion at some point down the road.
It's the day before Barry and Iris get married and no one among the core group has RSVP'ed yet because that's what good friends do to each other. Alex and Sara meet and get drunk at the rehearsal dinner and have a one-night stand, but it's all okay because Kara says so the next day. Those crazy kids. Bad guys show up at the wedding with a plan that starts with killing the minister because it always makes sense to take out the least dangerous person in a room first. So much for the element of surprise. Then a bunch of the bad guys with automatic weapons fail to injure anyone, let alone kill anyone. Probably because most of them think that just standing around or fighting hand-to-hand makes more sense than, you know, putting many, many bullets into people. Meanwhile, Barry fails to incapacitate even a single bad guy even though he could have neutralized every human attacker in seconds or less. Seriously, he should have said, "Kara, go after the flying person while I take out the humans and I'll join you in five seconds to tag-team the flying person so that this whole thing is over within 60 seconds." Then Thawne would have been left alone with plenty of time to be annoyed by the fact that he'd surrounded himself with stupid people.
Grace continues to be nothing but filler. Preachy, annoying, self-absorbed filler. And her DoD pal, Harris, isn't far behind, especially now that his son has been introduced. And his son, like Grace, is complete filler, too. Preachy, annoying, self-absorbed filler. He and Grace will get along well if they ever meet. And now they've added a second potential love interest for Harris since the writers clearly wanted to be in the position to slow the big story to a crawl. But I like her a lot more than Grace, so there's that. On the much more interesting side of things, Darius is acting like a tool and doing stupid things and acting way more like Bill Nye than Elon Musk in this one. First he mucks up the proof of concept test and then he hires Liam's girlfriend --without telling Liam, of course -- and puts her on the ark project, as if she and Liam won't compare notes at some point. I'm hoping that we'll learn that he did it on purpose because he wants them to compare notes for some reason, but it's possible that they're just making him that stupid. Time will tell. Meanwhile, the Capitol Eyes reporter, Amanda, is starting to get more interesting as she pushes to learn the real story behind what's going on. Of course, just as I was realizing this, she had to go and, um, get caught up in traffic like that. But hey, she's young. She'll bounce back. Hopefully.
We get some movement on several plot points as Truman and Hawk begin to narrow down a key location near Twin Peaks while, elsewhere, Cole and Albert find a portal/wormhole location along with some signs of the Bearded Men -- with none of this coming as a surprise to them, it would seem. And in Vegas, Dougie reflects, so to speak, and later dodges a bullet in an almost literal sense before responding to a piece of music and the phrase "damn good." Nonetheless, we're 11/18ths of the way through things now and still no Original Cooper. And then...and then there was a useless and unnecessary and stupid sequence involving a stray gun and a bullet fired at the Double R. A sequence that was seemingly included for no reason other than to irritate viewers like me. When I get around to reading the recaps for this one, I expect at least a few of them to attempt to explain to me why that entire sequence involving the woman honking her car horn incessantly for several minutes and then screaming "Aah!" 51,483 times in a row -- to say nothing of what we saw along with it -- was David Lynch at his most cutting-edge directorial brilliance. I expect to be told why it was necessary and how it was a gift to the viewing audience. Me? I'm once again seeing the equivalent of a Happy Acres resident flinging his own poop around the room. The people around Lynch in real life must be like the characters around Dougie in the show itself. Utterly clueless about the fact that there is something seriously wrong with the person they're interacting with on a daily basis. At this point, other than a few sporadic morsels of interesting material given up stingily by Lynch, I've given up on seeing anything remotely like the coolness and quirky charm of early season one. I've given up on ever seeing the original Cooper. Honestly, I'm just here for the head-shaking stretches of self-destructive overindulgence like the "Aah!" one in this one, wondering what Lynch will do next with his poop. And waiting to be told why I should be raving about it.
I don't expect this show to be the best thing on television. Still, there are limits to how much over-the-top angst and dysfunction and plain ol' stupidity my low expectations can handle. Ivy's reason for avoiding Linus? Stupid. Camille's 5,483rd week of being a bitch to everyone and being shocked to find herself alone? Stupid. Seriously, what did Scagliotti do to tick off the writers to the point where they're constantly making her character so unlikable? Sure, I get it. She had a tough childhood. I could understand if she never got out of that hole, but she did...and now she's doing everything she can to jump back into that hole every single week. And not in different ways, but by being an uber bitch every single week. Consistently. Relentlessly. Completely. It's actually beyond stupid. And Fisher agreeing not to arrest the guy at the end in front of his kid? Almost as stupid as Cameron suggesting it in the first place. Again, I understand where Cameron is coming from, but he's smart enough to instantly come up with a way to handle things better than they were handled when he was the kid in that scenario. Oh, well. On the bright side, the writers don't give us outings like this one every week, but they seem to come far more often than they should.
