Wow. Something about being a Marvel TV character named Ward just really screws a guy up, doesn't it?
So I suppose the final Answer is that the world split into two identical worlds, most of the people continuing on in only one of the worlds and a small fraction of the people continuing on in only the other, those in each world baffled at where everyone else "departed" off to. That's the what Answer, anyway. The why is left as an open mystery that may never be solved in either world...
But the story never was about what happened that day or why, was it? It was about what happened in and to the lives of those who continued on in the more populated world from which 2% had apparently "departed", and especially the lives of the Garveys and those around them, most especially Kevin and Nora. And in that it did deliver. Wow. And given all of that, what an ending. It would probably have taken too much and too long to depict all of what happened to Nora, so I appreciate how the story-telling summary approach fit in more easily. And how these two people, terribly broken by the massively complex fallout of the "departure", finally rejoined, each (mostly) free of the baggage that'd been haunting them for so long...
Oh, yeah. And: Yay! Laurie lived! :-)
Thank you White Rabbit Productions, Film 44, Warner Bros. Television, and HBO Entertainment for this wildly imaginative and richly illustrated ride, and for not giving up on it before giving it a true and fair conclusion.
So much depth of portrayal, all to support and frame the core realizations of the episode which can be summed up with:
"We fucked up with Nora.
and
"Take this thing out of me." "Why?" So that we can never come back to this place again."
This seemed more like a final redemption and righting of Kevin himself than it did of the world-threat Dad believed was coming. (I suppose the implication afterwards is that there was no eventful significance to the seven-year anniversary after all.)
In that sense, this episode also bookends very nicely with the next...
I like how Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. split its season into multiple sub-books this time -- "Ghost Rider" and "LMD" and "Agents of Hydra" -- across and at the end of which we see that the season's Big Bad Villain wasn't Eli Morrow and it wasn't Holden Radcliffe and it wasn't AIDA. It was the Darkhold.
Just because I can't help pondering pieces of the season's end...
Based on his description of this huge planet-spanning war and the nature of that portal he opened to return to it, I have to wonder if we'll see Robby Reyes and Stephen Strange crossing paths at some future point.
And... was that...
Phil Coulson, Agent of S.W.O.R.D.?
Phil Coulson, Enjoy to the Inhuman Royal Family?
Phil Coulson, Man on the Wall?
Whatever it is, it'll be Phil, so it'll be cool. So... back to work.
The Laurie episode. Where she seems to connect as some semblance of the supporting, re-affirming positive-enabler she once was to just about everyone around her. Watching her accept and leave Nora there was hard. Watching her the entire time she was on that boat (after Nora's "elegant" concept) was harder. She seemed so happy just then, almost peaceful. I really do hope that Jill and Tommy's utterly lovable phone shenanigans were lifeline enough, but... leaving it right then... sigh.
The depth of wow just continues to amass, toward what promises to be the oddest of storms...
Every season needs one Matt-centered episode. Filled with a dizzying mix of utter wackiness and seeming arbitrariness, but with that stubborn thread of persistent-if-evolving Purpose almost guiding him through to... somewhere...
Wow. Maybe "toxic co-dependent" wasn't so far off... :-(
[after watching a short film depicting the newly supercharged I'm-a-real-girl-now Aida learning that Fitz still isn't that into her and having the mother of all meltdown tantrums turning her onto her new everyone-will-burn path]
And this, kids, is why we never allow inhuman children to go through the Terrigen Mist process before they have accumulated significant formative experience learning to deal with the ups and downs of life. Ever. Right, Agent May?
Definitely enjoyed the final confrontations and resolution. A little hokeyness with the timing of the satellite decoy-handoff, but I much enjoyed just about everything else. Good stuff, good close to the big two-season story arc.
And there was something extra-satisfying about (1) learning that Shepherd was now being prepped for "enhanced interrogation" at a CIA blacksite and (2) Naz would be performing said interrogation. Well, that, and just the whole idea of neutralizing the beacon by electrocuting Shepherd over and over again. Yeeaaahh.
Then onto the two-years-later scene... I have layers of WTH going on in my head. Why is she there climbing walls and communing? What happened? And what happened, apparently all of the sudden, to the team? And Kurt took enough time away from searching for the team to personally come for Jane? Was there really no other way to get emergency word to her? And the box, and... suddenly the tattoos are all glow-in-the-dark-on-command? Whhaaaaa?? It feels rather off-the-deep-end all of the sudden. To date, the show's been mostly pretty strong in its plotting and planning, so I'm willing to give 'em a chance to flesh this out in the beginning of Season Three, but... I'll just focus on the end of Sandstorm and Shepherd (and that smile on Naz) for now, if that's okay.
Earth saved from the Daximite fleet by infusing the atmosphere with toxic-to-the-invaders Red Dust— er, I mean, lead particulates. Hmm. There's no way that those levels can be so quickly so high as to be so quickly fatal to Daximites and not have significant interesting effects on humans over time. We already have the term "lead poisoning" in our vocabulary for a reason.
Although I liked some aspects of the episode, some (including the savior-lead) just feel like careless sloppy writing. There's been a lot of strong potential peeking out all over this season, sometimes manifesting itself better than others. I just hope that the writing matures significantly next season, more thinking through of the connections and implications and verisimilitude of it all, and less careless contempt for the believability of fundamental plot components.
That, and more good excuses for crossovers with Earth-1. (Like Guardian getting some tactical lessons from Green Arrow. Or the Green Arrow suddenly finding himself in Earth-38's Gotham.) That'd be good, too. (Just sayin'.) ;-)
Oh, and, after Cat's rousing fight-back speech to the whole of National City, did anyone else feel flashes of last year's fight-back speech in Star City that led to the taking down of Damien Darhk?
There were definitely some weak plot-connectors in this one, arguably sloppily pasted together bits that felt like someone belatedly realized that the season is almost over and we're running out of time and we have to jam the President in there and this and that and...
The whole Air Force One sequence, the duh-what-did-you-think-was-going-to-happen shooting down of its escorts and then it. Sigh.
I appreciate that Kara wants to give Mon-El's mother a chance to surrender rather than die, but... This is Rhea. Stop seeing her as Mon-El's mother. She's not going to surrender or fight fair or do anything but Evil her Evillest Evil, more like a humanity-threatening disease than anything else, and reeaaally needs to be treated accordingly.
On the other hand...
Note to self: Whenever telling Alex Danvers to meet me outside, be sure to be very clear about what I mean by that. (And that parting shot... #like.)
And... "Do your thing, Artoo." Niiice.
I was surprised at how much I missed seeing an un-Mirakuku-maddened Slade Wilson. Our introduction to that concept ("it wore off years ago") was a decent explanation, but much too quick; I'd like to have see that slipped in somehow a few episodes ago, and then Oliver finally deciding to take a hopeful-if-desperate chance on believing in it now. But I can get past that. Seeing Deathstroke back in deadly action, with what must now be a terrible loyalty to doing absolutely everything he can to make life up to OIiver (and probably to Thea, too)... I hope he doesn't just quietly disappear next season. We can't just open that door and immediately forget about it like that...
"Uh, anyway, listen, if you'll excuse me, I gotta go find Rene and remove his head from his ass." —Quentin Lance
Ho-leee... That finale felt like it crammed two or three episodes worth of tension and advancement into— Was that really only one hour?
I think Jonas has some serious 'splainin to do. Has he really become that afraid of BPO + Whispers, or has he been misleading our favorite cluster all along, or...?
And good old Milton / Whispers / Cannibal? War, indeed. Don't mess with the Master Gorski. I found myself so hoping that Will had killed that sadistic loon, introducing his twisted brain to that concrete wall, but it seems that Will's plan reaches out a bit farther than that.
Meanwhile, Whispers (and presumably BPO) now knows about Wolfgang and Kala, in addition to Will, Riley, and Nomi. That changes everything going into Season Three...
And, while they neatly captured Whispers and Jonas, I didn't see Wolfgang being rescued in there. (Did I just miss it?) Perhaps they weren't able to get to him in that operation, and the plan includes some way of using Whispers and Jonas to get him back? I suppose we'll just have to wait—like the Sense8 junkies that we are—for Season Three to find out. I can wait. Sure. No problem. What shaking? I'll be fine. Really. Maybe.
Yes, Joong-Ki, your sister is a Terminator. And she will. Not. Stop. Until you are Cluster-fucked.
At this point, is anyone else apprehensive about Nomi and Amanita basically just going home as though nothing has happened? Even assuming that this "e-death" trick erased all concerns with police and hospitals and such, it's not like BPO will suddenly forget who and where Nomi is...
(As I pace out the brain-exploding effects of catching up on Season Two...)
It would seem that one calls Oswald a "freak" very much at one's own risk.
Anyone else see those snowy mountains outside the cell window at the end, and think of the long training time spent far away from Gotham that made Bruce Wayne into the person ready to become The Batman? Hmm... Too soon?
Anyone else feel the movie suffered from a bit of "unfulfilled potential" in not really closing the full circle of its plot?
This show can be so hit and miss. I actually found last episode ("Hole Puncher") pretty decent, a bit of an upswing, kinda fun. Then this one. Some good stuff overall, and the characters themselves are their usual fun, but... lots of sloppy plot-execution bits gluing the whole story together. And supposedly taking out one guard in his cell was enough for Murdoc to slip out of the entire Supermax prison?
Sigh.
Pondering whether to tune back in next season...
Is it too much that I almost want Kirkman to designate Agent Hannah Watts's new office as "The Division"?
Now that President Tom Kirkman knows that the terrorist conspiracy wanted him in position as the Sole Survivor and new President, maybe he should hang out with Kurt Weller and compare notes. #SandstormDidIt
"Wanna put some pants on and help me save all of magic?"
Ah, Eliot, ever the wordsmith.
I was kinda wondering if we might sometime later see Persephone again. Julia's little sparks trick at the end makes me wonder that more.
Why do I feel that Sylvia is going to exemplify why the Poison Room is so carefully guarded?
When Adrian strode away from Oliver's desk and said "you can keep the knife", did anyone else have the compulsion to yell at Oliver to get rid of that knife as completely and immediately as possible. Could be nothing, but given the depth and complexity of Adrian's plans, on even the smallest chance that that knife is somehow associated with evidence of some other crime that, if found in Oliver's possession...
I suppose it's something of a testament to the brutal effectiveness of Promethius's writing and execution that some us -- okay, maybe it's just me and the voices in my head -- can be made so paranoid by details seemingly so small.
We all thought we'd seen and understood so much about Oliver and his darkenss, but this episode delved deeper than ever into Oliver's dark relationship with his Капюшон. Something else, indeed. One hood, two shadows.
I did like almost everything about this episode -- except maybe for the "I built the control-Z gun, even though I have no idea why I did or what it does" enormo plot-shortcut. I get that they'd written themselves into a spot from which the Legends had an awful lot to recover from in two mere episodes, but... really?
And... even the pre-Legends Leonard, roguish thief that he was, happy to mess you up any number of ways while he's stealing from you, was never a killer. He actually specifically avoided killing. So I, of course, found myself rather disappointed in this new depth of cold. Makes me wonder what sort of madness Eobard fed Leonard while recruiting him -- or if the writers just forgot who Leonard was while shoehorning him in here.
But, other than those... lots of packed-in fun, from Mad Baking Chef Hunter to Unappreciated Savior Rory. And I even find myself agreeing with Malcolm: Damien is always good for pretty entertaining bad-guy monologue,
Wow. So much in this one. So much already well-said. I'll just add that...
Up 'til now, I was actually almost convinced that Adrian, after basically steering Mayor Queen into the cornered position of declaring The Green Arrow to be shoot-on-sight Public Enemy #1, was trying to get Oliver to confess publicly that he is The Green Arrow. A sort of long and twisted version of making him dig his own grave.
But, now, it seems that Adrian doesn't care about that at all. It was all more about breaking Oliver and his Monster. At least... it seems so... so far...
