Okay, so the world of the lands surrounding that Stygian railroad weren't as thoroughly thoughtfully fleshed out as I'd've liked. But, it was a nice way for Donna and Tim to meet and return, and it gave us a last (and better) goodbye for Hank.
And for everyone mad that Hank didn't get his return, consider: Donna and Tim woke up in the bodies they'd left behind: how would that have worked out for Hank? :-(
Definitely got the impression that Sidious was very much enjoying this (then quite rare) opportunity to flex.
So the Fountain of Imperium is sort of a cousin to the Mycelium? Iiinteresting...
As fun as all of that was, who else thinks that not hovering a while to search for Kayla (before blasting away into space) is going to come back and bite them later?
Best line:
"Oh, look at the time!" —Hondo Ohnaka
Nice seeing that brief cameo-moment of original-timeline Zari. I hope we get to see more of she who was the center of one of the best time-loop episodes ever.
Interesting mix. Some strong story-parallels to the original (both with Vicious and with Pierrot le Fou), with some differences that mostly worked well. (Except maybe for that one-hires-the-other thing; not sure that makes sense given who's involved. And I'm not sure that the reasoning for Pierrot le Fou's emotional crumble at the end was as clear as it was in the original.) Crazy, messy, mostly fun stuff.
But those gorram jerks abandoned Ein all alone on that dock. Not okay, guys. Not okay.
So we know that some (Jonas, Ulrich) can cross times through the odd metal gates in the caves. But others... Mikkel would probably remember if he'd opened and passed through those stiff heavy gates, and gone back. And I have trouble imagining Gretchen opening the gates at all. So... uh...
Again, some good stuff and some seriously lazy-writing bits.
Such as: That's not how CEO transitions work at all; like an "acting CEO" (which made no sense here to begin with) would have the authority to sign her job over to someone else without the approval of the company's board (which was threatening to fire her a few episodes ago) like that. But if it makes a story advancement easier for lazy writers...
So the Lazarus Pits here are pretty different from the ones on Earth Prime, eh?
Hmm. Let's let two superpowered but very emotionally and socially immature children play completely unsupervised for a couple of days. What could go wrong?
Okay, so for some reason, the 100+ year old kid still is still physically a kid. The show already has weird anti-aging phenomenon sprinkled all over. Okay. But, after 100+ years of life experience (even if a bunch of it was spent locked away), she still has the emotional maturity of a little kid? How does that happen? It just makes it a little more difficult to take her or her issues seriously.
Wow. My reactions to this one are a bit all over the place, but...
First of all, nice job adapting the anime's opening-credits sequence. That was fun. And now that music's back stuck in my head.
For the most part, this one's story is that of the original anime's "Asteroid Blues" episode, with some minor adjustments, and that much works pretty well, although introducing Faye this early is a bit odd but... we'll see what they do with that.
I'm not sure I like giving Jet a family, making his immediate motivations about buying his daughter a decent birthday present. That sorta works, but the anime's making him the starving loner ex-cop whose motivation is mostly about putting food on the increasingly empty table seemed more effective. Otherwise, I'm liking Mustafa Shakir's take on Jet a lot—as well as John Cho's on Spike. Haven't seen enough of Daniella Pineda's Faye yet to have much opinion, but her attitude seems to work so far. (I don't really care that this Faye's not playing so hard to original-Faye's overt sensual angle, as long as this Faye is otherwise similar and interesting.)
As for the end... Hmm. Vicious is, of course, well, vicious, but that seemed rather unnecessarily unstable of him. And was that Julia? If so, that's a rather large change...
Waitaminute. No preview-of-next-session with those randomly wacky character narrations? Perhaps they were a bit too goofy to adapt well. Sigh. They were a fun dessert to each anime ep.
Overall, an interesting start with its own adjustments and wrinkles which we'll have to watch to see how they play out.
I do have to wonder, watching this, how much of Boba's drive to avenge his father comes from within vs. being stoked by old-friend-of-Jango Aurra Sing. Probably a mix of both, but it might say something about the influences of elders/mentors on the youngers' choices, such as Aurra Sing on Boba, Plo Koon (and Tera Sinube and Luminara Unduli and...) on Ahsoka, etc.
I'm having increasing difficulty with Liz's apparent loss of thinking skills. I get that she's angry as hell as Redd, but what led her to believe that a one-pound semtex bomb was an appropriately surgical tool with which to take out Redd and only Redd in a hospital, regardless of how you think you've timed the placement? How does the very idea not scream out collateral damage?
At least Aram's afterward reaction seemed deeply appropriate. Everyone else... and especially Donald...
I feel a little like, alongside Dembe, shaking my head at it all...
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.
Ryan: "Ok. So how do we dose that many people all at once?"
Luke: "You have to inject each person one at a time."
Ryan: "But that means…"
Me: "It's time to call Barry."
Straight outta the ISSP's Arkham Asylum...
While it was nice seeing everyone return to help save the day, it would have been so much nicer if those appearances had been given real substance and felt less like shallow tokens.
That was oddly fascinatingly done, overall; cool stuff. (And WTF, Ed?) Except... then what? Just like that? Where'd the ending go?
Oddly amusing when the episode's title makes no sense at all until the very last minute of the episode.
So I liked pretty much every bit with Gloria, Esperanza, and Astra, and the thing with the pocket-mansion, but most of the rest was like watching gradeschoolers throw around goofy story ideas. I hope there's a better story-plan this is feeding into...
Damn, Connor. Not like that, like Dick did to you.
Daaamn. Double cliff-hangers with a side of Cliff-shrapnel? Brutal.
Spoiler: The Candlemaker is truly evil. The Candlemaker is COVID.
Daaam. Dark.
The team (or at least Beth now) has to wonder about the limits or conditions of Eclypso's true real-world power if he's attacking them specifically with illusions and psychological warfare instead of just taking them out head-on.
I don't know. I'm kind of all over the place on this one.
7 (good) bits: End scene with Cindy and Bobbie and Eclipso, maybe the bits with Richard and Pat, and maybe Rick's DoorDashing.
6 (fair) bits: Most parts with Jenny.
5 (meh) bits: Most parts with Courtney.
4 (poor) bits: Huge green flares (and a new crater) in the park in the middle of town and no one notices.
YMMV.
I just... what is... going... errg.
Lemme see if I can break some of this down:
Overall high-level storyline: fair (6/10).
Actual story-portrayal execution: ranges from terrible to fair (4/10).
Sigh.
2021-01-01T00:00:00Z2021-12-31T23:59:59Z