Thogek

VIP

8

Lena Luthor, meet Clifford "The Thinker" DeVoe. Clifford, Lena. You two should talk.

In the Good Omens book, Crowley's old Bentley was quite the character in and of itself, especially when it came to that fire. Not as much in this series, up 'til now; It's nice to finally see it get its due here. :-)

I'm feeling like some of these side-adventures that incidentally affect some far-off village deserve their own short-story collection.
Eliot and the First Key.
Margot and the Ice Axes.
Quentin and the Repair of Small Objects
...

Woowww.

"I know who you are. You are the whirlwind." —John Pilgrim

"Behold, a whirlwind of the Lord is gone forth in fury, even a grievous whirlwind; it shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked." —Jeremiah 23:19

"Damn right." —Frank Castle

Thank you, Jon Bernthal, for bringing to such life the Frank "The Punisher" Castle we will all remember.

Gotta like just about everything so far. Matt has a long way to come back from in many ways...

If I had to sum up a low and a high...

Low: No real explanation of how Matt survived Midland Circle? Really? That's disappointing.

High: Every time Sister Maggie spoke.

That sight at the end, of John lighting his cigarette by leaning into the fireball, was worth pausing on for several seconds to appreciate the poster-shot appropriateness of the moment.

From now on, whenever Oliver says "I have an idea" like that, John's stomach should drop, hard.

Oh, Quentin. I have to wonder which path would end up destroying you more, this one or the bottle...

I didn't quite get why they allowed him to return his transit-clone with his memories of the encounter. He's clearly established that they won't be able to talk or threaten him out of continuing to attack them, so any little piece of information they can prevent him from obtaining about what happened and how they pushed him back... and what he offered the colony worlds' representatives... Sigh.

But other than that, fun stuff. And yet another don't-mess-with-Five reminder.

It is rather amazing how richly these few well-chosen flashback-brushstrokes of Kate/Kaplan's past fleshed out her history and motivations toward both Masha/Elizabeth and Raymond, as well as why she acted to help Liz behind Redd's back the way she did. A masterful filling-in and tying together of so much.

Honestly, after all this, it's become difficult to decide who should come out on top between Raymond and Kate (if either one truly must). Kate seems to be the only one who fully understands how Raymond's original mission of protection has evolved into an unshakable obsession of control to the point of itself repeatedly threatening the mission...

These characters are all always good for their artistically agile snippery, but...
"You know of Swayze?" earned a quick use of my pause button so that I could resume breathing before continuing. (And the following recitation did not disappoint.)

If I ignore the reverse-the-feed-and-overload-their-power-systems solution, and even with AP-5's overdoing the arrogant monologuing, it was a fun diversion before the madness heats up next ep. ;-)

Some small clunky bits here and there, but overall a pretty good closer to the series. Certainly better than some of the other Arrowverse shows got.

I actually kinda liked that the main story was wrapped about 2/3 in, and the remaining third was postscripts and other wrap-ups which we're all done pretty well, if a bit more abbreviatedly than I'd've ideally liked. And, of those final closing bits... Artemis may well have delivered the biggest and most impressive daaamn reaction of the season, and Shade one of the best closing lines.

Not bad, peoples. Not bad.

Hmm. So how much of the Dark Army Minions' willingness to die for the cause is fueled by their belief that White Rose will bring them back once the mission is complete?

So much of this episode (including that panoramic battle sequence) had so much potential to build and be the climactic sendoff of the series. However, so much careless lazy clumsiness in the design of its details wasted so much of that potential that the result... Sigh.

I think the only part that I actually liked was Esme grabbing the All Stone and throwing it down to break it in three. Besides that Esme may have been the best acted in this episode (and the moments featuring her generally being the better ones), that one move reflected some of how I felt about most of the episode as a whole.

I'd been wondering how Rita would finally end up back in the present. The possibility of her doing a Dr. Helen Magnus return had occurred to me, but... still... 😮

Welcome to the Dada Sanctuary?

At the end, that security monitor image with the cell ("zelle") number in the corner... I have to wonder if the use of cell number 2187 was a deliberate reference.

It ain't detention block AA-23, but...

That's okay. Finn didn't get the reference, either.

"Nah. I got this."

Oh, crap.

What could go wrong?

About the selection of hosts for travelers...

I get the mistake concerning Marcy's selection: information isn't always perfect, and her case was unexpectedly odd. But... are there just so few viable options compared to the need that they have to accept traveling into people with babies and wives? Seems like an otherwise very odd choice that deserves a little explanation...

With those two right there at the iconic Ace Chemicals, the one dunking the other... taking Jeremiah sooo close to the classic Joker origin story... Starting to wonder if we actually will hear the Joker name somewhere in there...

Good: Decent plot advancement, suggestion that maybe Vance isn't just a jerk, etc.

Bad: Ben's super ninja spy-and-computer skills (and luck) (which drove much of the plot-advancement) aren't terribly believable.

Why am I half-expecting those Kaupe-napping thugs to turn out to have been working for a new black-op program reporting to Hank?

So much wow.

I'd wondered how this movie would manage to handle so many varied superheroes and their interactions. I'll just say here that: It works.

And now I'm going to be wondering for the next year: What the heck did Stephen see?
And why was Nick's unquestioning impulse to send a message to them/her?

I suspect we won't know much on those until the releases of Captain Marvel and Avengers 4.

Knowing that our heroes have been through this loop of time who-knows-how-many times already, I have to wonder what can be different this time around that'll let them finally win and avoid The Ultimate EarthQuake. Then, I see this episode, and (among all the other amazingness and YoYo's horror), I wonder: Did their past trips through this time-loop include Zeke getting pulled back in time with them? Hmmm....

This is a total side-note, but...
As I catch up on various recorded shows at different rates, I was somewhat amused by hearing very similar speeches from Raymond Reddington (to FBI Special Agent Harold Cooper) and from Ralph Dibny (to CCPD Detective Joe West). :-)

So far, this is turning out to be the strongest DCTV crossover so far. Good stuff all around. Well, almost...

One big gripe: When the partial Team Arrow (Dinah, Rene, and Curtis) appear and attack Black Arrow, why didn't they... you know... attack? I'd expect to see Dinah's Canary Cry, Rene's guns, and Curtis's T-Spheres all blazing in an all-out assault to take this Very Important Villain down. But... All hand-to-hand? Against an alternate version of a guy they all know can kick their collective asses?
What the... Why? That has to have been the dumbest tactical call ever. These people're smarter than that. Dammit, Writers!

But in the moments that I can push that glaring sore-thumb aside, good stuff.

I was a little disappointed that they redshirted Dave "Bam Bam" Baumgardner so quickly like that. I may not have liked the way he ended up being added to the team, but he seemed like a good guy; would've been cool to see him and Wyatt cooperating in all the anti-Rittenhouse madness coming up, but... sigh. Oh, well.

Other than that, great stuff. They seem to be getting better at involving the "locals" in creative ways: Hemingway can be a jerk, but he was a good jerk, and Baker was just brilliant...

Wow. Maybe "toxic co-dependent" wasn't so far off... :-(

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'.) ;-)

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...)