Ki

Great season finale. It tied off things well enough for it to be a standalone season, even if a few new complications arose in the last few minutes. I'm glad I took the time to watch it all.

• Even though Fagin for the most part was pissing me off, he came through in the end, so I'm glad at the very least he's had that little bit of character development where we now see him as much less selfish than he was from the start. I've always seen him as a person who puts his own needs above anything else, but family now seems to be a part of that, too.
• Sneed also finally putting aside his ego and understanding that Jack is in fact a very good surgeon despite the class divide amongst other things is also finally great to see, but I do wonder (if we get a second season) how that's gonna pan out.
• Fanny's defeinitely a little underrated imo, and I've come to really admire her character. She may be a little air-headed at times, but she holds so much love for her sister, despite how their relationship had first started off at the beginning of the season.
• Interesting that Gaines is probably dead. I wonder who'll replace him.

Ok, I may have cried A LITTLE when Nezuko was reunited with Tanjiro...

But that's all to say, I do think this season was probably my least favourite compared to the others so far:

• I loved seeing more of the Hashiras in battle, but missed seeing Inosuke and Zenitsu, who are supposed to be main characters alongside our brother/sister duo. They bring a lot more of the comedy aspect to the show, which I also missed.
• The pacing of this season felt WAY too slow for me, for some reason. Like this could've been done in half the episodes, or something. Overall way too many flashbacks to ground the "newer" characters that appeared-the attack on the village started in episode 4, which meant we had 7 whole episodes to finish up those battles - the same amount of episodes Mugen Train's arc was, and the timeline for that arc is about the same (a day).
• As always, the animation has never been a let-down. It's so great, especially in the moments it counts.
• Finally getting some insight into how Muzen became a demon is fine, but I do wish we'd gotten it a little sooner, I guess? I don't know. He's not really that impressive as an overall antagonist for me, tbh. He just... Hates people and thinks they're inferior, and is striving to become the most powerful demon? Yeah, ok...
• The demons were meh, too. Hatengu and Gyokko felt uninspired, just lazily written villains. I wanted them dead so much quicker than any of the others we'd seen previously, especially the former.
• What about the marks the demons were talking about? Are they gonna explain those? Because I still am confused on that whole thing, and I'm sure the manga has touched on it more.

I think my main issue for the whole thing is the power creep/dynamic between the humans and the demons - there didn't feel like there were any big stakes in these fights this season. Yes, the demons are difficult to beat because they're upper rank, but Uzui had to literally retire after becoming essentially disabled (he lost an eye and a hand!) during the fight with a slightly weaker (or lower level) demon... And all our protagonists were at least on his level by the time we got to this arc. Nothing of the sort really happened this time around, even though we got very close w/ Kanroji.

All this to say, I'm still keen to see how this goes in the next season. While the quality of the writing has gone down, the animation is still on-par and it's at the very least enjoyable to watch/binge.

• I know the denden mushis have teeth, but these ones are... Unsettling. The ones in the anime look kinda cute :')
• Mihawk's sword looks... Kinda smaller than I remember it??? Like I fully remember the hilt being a foot over his head, even though the blade itself is massive. Also his portrayal feels kinda off to me, tbh. He's too snobbish and seems super arrogant whereas the anime has him much more humble, imo.
• "I don't fight rabbits with a cannon." is an almost direct quote, but I feel like the anime's version ("I'm no beast that goes all out when hunting a rabbit" makes so much more sense. This version's just sounds really weird?) Also what was with the "croak, croak croak"?! This Mihawk talks too much for my liking lmao.
• "He's losing so much blood"... WHERE? I know this is probably PG-13 but like... At least show a pool of blood under Zoro or something. That part felt super cartoon-y.
• I cannot believe I'm saying this, but I MISS THE "NAMI CHWAN~!"'s and just the general over-the-top swooning Sanji does for Nami:sob: The flirting was fine, but not enough imo. MAKE HIM DRAMATICALLY SERIOUS ABOUT PRETTY WOMEN! Let it be completely distracting for him!

Coming from a watcher of the anime series;

• LOVED the "YAHOOOOOOO!" moment near the end there, but it also made me realise I miss Luffy's slightly insane laughing and yelling during combat. The "itai! itai! itai!"'s could've been dropped when he got cut by Klahadore's blades or something :sob:
• Also, doesn't Merry survive getting hurt in the anime, and possibly the manga? I understand they'd probably change it so we have more of Kaya realising she can be independent now (which is better for her personal little arc).
• Also I'm pretty sure there's no well at the mansion, and Koby doesn't meet up with Usopp in the anime/manga? Again, most likely trying to emphasise that Usopp's a liar and this is the best way to do it in a short amount of time. I appreciate that.
• I miss Zoro yelling too, actually. The live action actor's portrayal feels so much more less dimensional-his personality basically just revolves around being edgy and a loner type with a sad background and a bit of a drinking problem. Glad they stuck in the fact he's absolutely terrible at directions tho :joy:
• Was fully expecting Usopp to have the Pinocchio nose, but... Nope. I guess the wardrobe department drew a line at funky hair colours for the humans while the fish-men have the super long nose, gills and webbed hands/feet?
• Now that we have Zoro, Nami and Usopp... I'm ready to see Sanji! Only thing is that I wish Zoro's hair was more of a perm or something, so we could get the "marimo!" insult lmao, the banter between those two was always so much fun.
• I also just miss the shenanigans between the Straw Hats. Little moments between things, like Luffy just being a straight up dumbass with little to no thought of consequences and everyone else yelling at him. Moments where he, from a distance, reaches out to grab his crew and they yell helplessly as they get slung away :joy: I hope it starts when we get Sanji on board!
• Also considering there's supposed to be only one of each devil fruit in the world, I'd love to see more reactions to people seeing Luffy stretch... But also, him using his powers more casually (ie. He could be sitting on one side of the kitchen in this ep and just reaching for more food on the other side. Even him just slinging himself as a means of travel... If you had those sorts of powers, I'm sure you'd use them WAY more than we've seen).

Enjoying this a lot so far, definitely a pretty good live action adaptation!

I really wanted to like this. I've been craving a good mystery show, but this fell flat, so quickly. Of course, knowing it's a CW show, I wasn't too surprised by this, but they did have a decent set-up and was willing to give it a chance: Good premise, diverse cast, the standard CW filming production and iconicly cheesy writing (think: Riverdale season 1, but it should be focusing more on the actual case itself). They have a formula, and it was replicated once again into a reboot with a name most people know.

Expectations weren't too high... But a sex scene, right from the get-go and then again towards the end really just wasn't it.

Also, I don't think the ghost element to it really works, so it's difficult to see how it will play out. Nancy Drew's mysteries were fun because you got to solve the case with her while she was also figuring them out, and adding in supernatural things that are completely foreign to us as the audience sort of takes away from that experience, because we know little to nothing of it - and who knows, maybe they even change some of the typical lore to better fit their storylines. Are they just trying to reproduce another Supernatural? Because it kinda feels like it.

I'll give it a few more episodes and see how it goes.

A few comments after watching this:
- Janet being so cryptic about the Quantum realm up until a while AFTER they're actually in it is so frustraing. Of course everyone's going to have questions, it just doesn't make sense not to warn them or inform them of certain things.
- So we know because of Endgame that Scott was trapped in the QR for a few hours and 5 years passed in the normal world... How long were they trapped in the QR in this movie and why hasn't at least a year or so passed?
- Ah yes, the whole "antagonist will take the time to yap on about their backstory and plan, until it's too late to actually go ahead with it because the good guys have foiled it"... Kang had the core, yet decided to parade his new army to Janet for so much time that Scott, Hope, Cassie, Hank, and pretty much the entire rebellion showed up... How convenient!
- This movie needed Luis. It just doesn't feel like an Antman movie without him. Could've been in any of the 2 credit scenes, or even just the ending?
- The scene where huge Scott and Cassie run and hug was... Weird. They're meant to be gigantic, but there's basically nothing around them in the scene to show up perspective, so it kinda just looks like they're normal sized.
- The battle outside with Kang was... Disappointing. Didn't feel like there were any stakes - in fact, really none of the scenes except maybe the one with Kang about to kill Scott and Cassie was.
- I do wonder if the writers actually thought about actually leaving Scott and Hope in the QR at the very end... Bit dark, but what about the line, "we both have to lose"? Really just threw that one almost immediately after it was said.
- We did not need a MODOK in this movie. Like, at all.
- Cassie's debut as an actual superhero could've been a thing in this movie. It's definitely set up at the beginning: She was already doing things for good (protesting the police who were forcing out displaced persons from the blip), and had a suit... Sure, she may have still been learning how to properly fight and this is her very first adventure, but it was a good enough setup for her to debut. Her character "arc" otherwise just feels flimsy.

• There was no indication or hint of someone else becoming a new lead character for a second season (kinda like what they did with the first ep), so it was kinda predictable from a certain point that Jules was gonna be ok - and I'm glad that she is.
• Also, did anyone else notice that Holland seemed surprised about Jules mentioning the door at the bottom of the silo? He definitely didn't know about that. existing.
• Kathleen's kinda a bitch, no? She seemed to care more about Billings' job and the status he got from it more than him as her husband.
• Also what happened with Sandy? After she got deferred from the sherrif's office... Nothing. I really thought, especially after we see her notice the background in the cafeteria change, that she'd... Be useful, somehow? But she's only there to motivate Jules into looking into what happened to Marnes... Which Jules was already interested in doing ???????
• So Jules didn't actually touch a body when she put down the badge, so, a follow-up question... How quickly are these people decomposing out in that wasteland? Iirc, it'd been about three years (?) since the previous deputy went out, so unless the toxicity of the surface is contributing to it or something else entirely... ??? Icb I fully went to Google it, but apparently it takes about 20 years to fully decompose. I'd give it probably a quarter of that at most if the earth is that bad that people die within minutes of exposure, but still ???
• Can't believe I'm saying it, but great tactic from Judicial to show the pretty landscape to make the people clean.

Interesting in seeing what happens next, so I'll stay tuned for season 2, whenever it drops.

Edit: I also knnow that Rebecca Ferguson isn't American, but I am somewhat bothered with her accent going all over the place. She wants it to be a standard American accent, but it just doesn't sounds like it sometimes-you can definitely hear between words when it sounds a little off... It has me wondering how accents and language in general would change within the silo (universe?) when the entire population (or at least a portion of it) is trapped down there like that, and how the community becomes culturally different and even somewhat less diverse as the years go on. Or maybe some things were trickled down the generations, but there's really no evidence of it since everyone just speaks English.

There's a fair amount of just... Walking in this show. Maybe too much, if you ask me. And yes, I understand it's to show how each section is separate from another and all that, but we've established that already - several times over - with dialogue (mostly through characters like the former mayor and Marnes saying they had to walk xyz amount of floors just to go to a destination, or just characters speaking about where they are/live by floor number)... So when I say it's becoming excessive, I want to point out that that whole scene at the end of this ep where Juliette travels under the silo goes from about 48:04-49:20... That's almost a FULL MINUTE of travel shots when we could've just had her go from speaking with Walk to opening up the case to find the Pez relic... We've seen her travel all the way down here before, we understand it's a trek and a half filled with stairs and ladders to get to George's hideout... It's just so unnecessary at this point.

I'm also a little annoyed at which points they've decided in the past to cut off the episode. With the exception of the first, the rest have felt a little... Janky? Or just underwhelming points to leave off from.

I'm thinking the flowers that mysteriously appeared in Nichols' room are some sort of surveillance device. I mean, if they have the technology to change the screens people see of what they think are on the outside AND have computer and radios? No doubt they have some sort of listening device, too. Just very sus that it showed up right after she was sworn in, and there have been people saying "they" or "he" can hear and see everything...

Also, I know that they lost about 140 years of information (presumably) about the surface, but... How do they not know about stars? They clearly have enough knowledge or experience to fire up machinery and grow trees indoors, what exactly ARE they teaching in school??? You'd think the kids would be asking all sorts of questions about it.

Apart from that, I do love this show, and really appreciate how much storytelling's going on with just one main location. Really gets you to look into the details of how this particular world works and everything, and in this case that's really unique - I've seen an anime touch on underground living (Gurren Lagann), but nothing quite like this where you can explore the living conditions and how people have adjusted. So far really enjoying the show, we'll see how the second half of the season pans out from here.