Did anyone else kinda-sorta want to hear IG-11, somewhere along the way, say "Come with me if you want to live."? ;-)
That they can each mold their lightning power into the creation of a big lightning-sword? Okay, weird, but kinda cool.
That that somehow suddenly makes them all swordsmanship experts? WTF? No.
This episode was the usual-of-late The Flash mix of fairly well-executed moments and really poorly-executed moments, but that one... what the... I just... Sigh.
I feel a bit like both major OMG-hangers from the Season One finale were effectively wrapped up a bit too quickly and simply, but were still fun to watch (especially all of Tally's reactions), and I'm now very curious to see how all these interesting pieces will weave and meet and evolve...
Interesting if odd way to tell Liz the story of how it all started. (The nachalo. The beginning.)
While it made for a rather interesting reveal presentation, I'm also kinda stuck on wondering what actually happened in that nest; was this whole experience an internal dramatization of her immersive reading, or an actual info-beam into her head, or...
Maybe she was holding the Resurrection Stone the whole time?
I know I've said before that this show can be at its best when it goes all-in timey-wimey wacko, but this wasn't it. This was far more farcical than anything else—from candied Fidel to pointless football—and so much of it just made no sense whatsoever, including Eva handing the Waverider and mission over solely to Mick (while the rest of the crew will now do... what?). There were some fun and funny moments, but not enough of them to make up for the Bay of Farce that was the rest.
Hearing Detective Eames— er, Officer Lois say that most New Yorkers are "narcissists" was a fun little in-joke.
Funny moment when they said they were heading to Florrum: my wife, just passing through the room at that moment, heard it as going to "Florin", stopped and said "incontheivable!"
At this point, the show and story are starting to get halfway decent, even if Courtney is still acting like a moron.
I did expect a little better of smooth-investigator Pat at the hospital, though.
Hrm.
Wow. Didn't expect the episode title to end up feeling like a sort of hunting reference. :open_mouth:
Another mixed bag...
Good:
* Just about every moment with Greg in it. Not hard to like the guy, and to sympathize with what he must be going through with what he's learning. Even the mistake with the phone—not really something he would have known about—and the sadness that followed. I hope that that isn't all we see of him.
* I hoped and suspected that Allison, who is far too smart for this, was performing layers of prepared story for Madeline throughout all of that. And, indeed, in the end, Allison was giving the finger, so to speak.
Has Potential:
That end-reveal moment was kinda cool. I just hope they do something worthy with it.
Bad:
Every single emotional-crisis moment in this episode—and there were several—was sooo poorly manufactured. The concept behind them all is totally valid and in the background all the time, but, for some reason, every time it's been brought into the foreground it's been done with such supreme poke-you-in-the-eye clumsiness that I'd rather they just tossed it soft a line once in awhile and left it back there.
Naming an episode such as this after that Orwell 1984 reference... Oddly fitting.
Hmmmmm. The Sikorsky Archive... as in... sikorskyarchives.com? Or something entirely else?
In which Sir Hargreave Mcgrubney Cubbins Archibald Brian Effingham III -- a.k.a. Sir Effingham -- has his opportunity to be, indeed, an effing ham. ;-)
Did I hear correctly Chester say "Thank Rao!"?
That was an... er... interesting cross-reference.
So, lots o' fun stuff and a few bits of nefarious Lex-plot advancement, but a few serious gripes as well:
Why do the heroes always have to pause their frantically imperative rush to solve the crisis to have a deep heartfelt personal-life discussion? It was a good discussion, but... uh... there's a deadly battle going on upstairs and a wild timebomb ticking in those servers, guys; can we have this talk later?
Just about every DEO-agents-vs-hijacked-tech fight scene was utterly ridiculous. Super-advanced and deadly tech that apparently couldn't hit the side of a Sandcrawler, mad energy-bolt crossfire-chaos that somehow never manages to hit anything... C'mon, writers. I know you can formulate a scene where the super-tech poses a realistic deadly tech and is realistically and heroically fought off. Why the crazy-sloppy theatrics?
Sigh.
Farkakte. Indeed. Much farkakte. Macaroon?
Hologram of Zari Tomaz: Help me, Nathan Heywood. You're my only hope. [vanishes]
Nathan Heywood: Wait a minute. Where'd she go? Bring her back! Play back the entire message!
Gideon: What message?
Ray Palmer: That was so COOL!
Okay, I think I get what they were doing, sort of following and wrapping up on the Legends worldwide exposure at Heyworld. And, it's Legends, so there's gonna be some wacky to it. But... uh... That was pushing even the Legends' capacity for making timey-wimey wacky work.
I do like how their movie-panel at the end called out everything that was wacky about this adventure (cough), although the effectiveness with which they seemed to achieve their nothing-to-see-here back-to-normal-ness was a bit... simple.
IAC, some good stuff sprinkled about. Meeting Behrad. A bit of Sara's Crisis after-effects. A hint of the soul-chit madness to come. Not really enough (IMO) to make this episode's wackiness factor flow together as well as it sometimes does with the Legends, but... Hoping that the season to come finds the feet that this episode seems to have stumbled off of.
Just wondering: Would anyone consider declaring that one of the seven Paragons needed to save the multiverse is a Paragon of Humanity to be just a little uninclusive toward our just-as-threatened non-human friends? (Coluans, Daxamites, Dominators, Kryptonians, Martians, Thanagarians, etc.)
It'd've been particularly amusing to see the Queen Dominator (whom we once saw visit Earth 1 looking for her baby who eight-year-old Ray had named Gumball) show up to help...
IAC, otherwise, good stuff. Little things to pick on here and there but, mostly, as promised, the best Arrowverse crossover yet.
And, now, with the possibility of Spectre-Oliver...
There is obviously quite a bit going on, much of it stemming from Odell's manipulative mind. Never quite sure what to trust, or how the various pieces really fit together, but definitely fascinated to find out.
The new suit looks pretty damn cool, except that it still glows in the dark (how's he supposed to sneak up on anyone glowing like that?), and who knows what other goodies are embedded in that magical watch?
Oh, and, after watching the way he appears and speaks and presents for awhile now, my wife is now convinced that Odell is somehow related to Droopy the Dog. (Hmm. How exactly would Odell look and sound saying "I'm happy"?)
Some good stuff, a lotta crazy stuff, fun overall. Except... How the heck does that one small bomb do that much damage throughout that huge house? I think someone went rather overboard, there. But otherwise...
Making everyone's favorite butler out to be a serious national action hero in his youth, it seems.
Curious what they'll do with a second season if they get one.
So far I'm thinking some sort of Dark Angel meets Blindspot mix, but...
If nothing else, I'm pretty impressed by the performances and very curious where this'll go.
A decent close to the season, resolving one running plot, hinting at the next...
I think I'd only have two real complaints:
One, yes, Ed was getting pretty adept at finding those just sensitive enough to whisper influences to, but the ease with which he convinced the police officer stationed on Cassie's street to rush off in a panic was just too much to make any sense at all. I'd chalk it up to trying to fit the remaining story into the remaining time and coming up a little short on the time, but... still... That could have been handled much better.
Two, the manner of Ed's resolution wasn't much of a surprise, but it made sense, and was fun to watch anyway. Except that the way he simply dissolved as his past victims closed in looked... well... more like a quick lazy "okay and now he's gone the end" than a direct result of anything that was happening. I suppose one could argue that Forces We Cannot See resulted in that otherwise odd inexplicable dissolution, but... This is TV. We wanna see. Some sort of effect where the women all pushed into him or tore at him or something...
(Anyone remember Medium which had an episode ("The Devil Inside, Part 2") that did something very similar but arguably slightly better?)
IAC, nothing too hugely disappointing that I won't be waiting for word on a season two... :)
Something about MJ standing firm, wielding that mace, seems worthy of an approving I-like-this-one look from Thor.
Barry still has some serious mad trigger rage issues when it comes to anything to do with mom-killer Eobard Thawne, doesn't he?
One of the more interesting and fun episodes of late, IMO. Although that "Miss Teschmacher!" moment... damn...
My only real quibbles:
Why does the Department of Corrections hire and pay such morons? Especially the five near the helicopter, as they came running in near the end, after they must have seen what happened to the three near the door. They should have been shooting on sight from where they were. But, no. Run forward into the traps, you fools. Sigh. That scene could have been just as Lex-outsmarts-everyone impressive if those officers hadn't been idiots.
And when will J'onn realize that not everything has to be so abolutely one or the other? We are all a mix of both, light and dark, peace and violence, etc. Even a man of peace occasionally has to defend peace; that doesn't make him any less a man of peace.
Given that, in the comics, Barbara Gordon is the name of Jim Gordon's daughter, I've often wondered if Gotham's Barbara would someday die doing something unexpectedly heroic, inspiring Jim's future use of her name. That's seemed unlikely for quite awhile now, but... now... maybe?
Gotham has certainly done far wackier than that, so far, so... who knows?
The whole Emiko Queen storyline direction is interesting, if perhaps feeling a bit recycled—albeit fairly consistent with the comics origin of that name, so... okay.
That new direction's execution (acting, direction, scene blocking) in this episode—especially around Emiko herself—however, was consistently terrible, as though the directors/producers just didn't care about the experience this time around.
Sigh. And hope...
Quite an opener into Gotham's nadir, and the hints at what refined madnesses will eventually crawl out of such a crucible...
My only complaint: given that everyone knows some degree of the situation in Gotham, who decided that flying that chopper into the city at low between-the-buildings altitude was any sort of a good idea? I would have been shocked if someone hadn't taken a shot at knocking down such a valuable and accessible target. Both Bruce (in his request and instructions) and whoever piloted that chopper should have known much much better than that.
Earth-90 Barry Allen: Hello, John. You're not wearing your ring. Things must be different here.
:-O
