"I call it the Kessel Run."
That look, and the sudden-but-smooth deflation-transition to it, was so damn perfectly delivered, that it easily deserved a couple of rewind-and-rewatches.
Did we just see the energy-absorption powers of DC's Parasite?
Jack Bauer is a scary MacGyver of emergency enhanced interrogation tactics.
Jack Bauer on a one-man rescue-raid mission is always a winning hand.
Leon must be the mostly weirdly interesting individual.
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?
Oddly enough, I rather enjoyed Elliot's unusual take on How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying.
"We are chaotic."
"But Chaotic Good."
Indeed. :dagger_knife::dragon:
This is another one of those frustrating combinations of some good fun stuff and some lazy stupid.
Take the gradual elimination of the robos:
* Robo-Behrad: Taken out by a magic-blast from Astra. Cool. More of that wands-at-the-ready action please? 7/10.
* Dr. Sharpe & Robo-Astra: Assuming that Dr. Sharpe is still the Ava Clone, then I'd expect the digestion disruptor concoction to work on her, but shouldn't there have been some question of whether it would work on Robo-Astra? The Robos (starting with Robo-Hoover) were designed to fit into society, presumably including meals and such, so maybe it'd work, and I'm willing to buy that it might've, but think there should have been some quick throwaway question about whether it would. Other than that, their lure to the door and jump push into the fire works well enough for me. 6-7/10.
* Robo-Gary & Robo-Esperanza: As goofy as this was, it works quite well (and is rather funny) if watched while remembering that Robo-Gary is a moron. 7-8/10.
* Robo-Zari: Everything about this scene was so thoroughly stupid. Zari, using the barest "90s hacker" description, somehow absolutely nails Robo-Zari's current look. While I can buy that Robo-Zari may not be programmed as combatant-heavy as the other Robos, I have trouble buying that she slap-fights just like a panicked Zari. Gary I might expect to stand there indecisively gawking, but Astra could have magically frozen or stunned both Zaris, examined them both, then plug-pulled the Robo, but suggesting that Gary eat them both and spit out the non-Robo? Really? And then... Zari beats Robo-Zari? Stupid upon stupid upon... 2-3/10
* Robo-Sara & Robo-Nate: I like the basic idea, but no questions at all to "pull your CPUs" on the spot like that? Hmm. 5-6/10.
There're some classicish Legends recklessness that I could go either way on:
* Operation Ruckus: counting on the Robos to properly and safely clean all that up? (Although "Can you describe the ruckus?" was priceless).
* That last duping Robo-Nate trick; inventive and funny in the moment, but who knows what damage that moron might do while working that post? (Or maybe we haven't heard the last of it?)
IAC, a lot of this is obviously subjective, and I'm sure that some of what annoyed me will entertain others, so... shrug
OTOH, there's the impressive trick of making this-Eobard's last bit an actually sad moment, and Robo-Astra's "from Hell's heart I stab at thee" surprise which I suspect will now lead us directly (and sadly) to how the Legends finally fully take the new Waverider)...
And so,
Robo-Sarah,
following a brief bout of discovery and resistance,
gets her invitation renewed
to remain
in the Twilight Zone.
So, basically, Tannhaus created the break, Jonas/Adam and Martha/Eva perpetuated it, and everyone else suffered through this ultimate twist on Greek tragedy, all until Claudia finally figured out where the original break was. And we all felt our brains stretched and twisted trying to follow all of the convolutions that a bunch of time-traveling breaks and perpetuations would cause, despite what all the other time-travel stories have told us.
Interesting at the end to see some of who would still have existed without all the mad timeloop feedback yarnballing the family trees (and thinking through why they're still there and others aren't), and that Hannah would be the one to somehow Kenobi-sense the millions of voices crying out in release...
Daaaamn.
There was probably no way to wrap up all of that interwoven complexity in a way that would make all viewers happy, but I'm at least satisfied that this wrap-up make some sense and tied (so to speak) up the loose ends, despite the loss of some characters that will now never be. Well done.
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.
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.
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...
Oh, Ein, you data dog.
Heading into this finale did kinda have the feel of an oncoming classic tragedy. It did deliver.
Straight outta the ISSP's Arkham Asylum...
Ed must be the happiest random-wacky generator ever.
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...
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.
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.
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...
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?
So the Lazarus Pits here are pretty different from the ones on Earth Prime, eh?
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.
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.
