They've been drawing parallels between Payback and Seven every now and then, but this episode shows the clearest. The sad thing is, if Soldier Boy is Payback's Homelander, and the team both hated their lead and tried to redeem themselves like Maeve do. then what a writing to show that Butcher is not a main character you should sympathize with. He is pragmatic, calculative, cold-blooded murderer sacrificing the redeemed Crimson Countess and Gunpowder who never liked Soldier Boy.
I find it interesting that there are parallels with Season 1 here. Butcher is back to his cold-blooded self and the compromise they're making with Soldier Boy reminds me a bit of similar ones they made with Starlight when they first discovered her. However Hughie, besides his power, seem to have not progressed much as a character, as he resorted to his confused, worst decision maker habit like we've seen in Season 1.
Other than that, the episode feels a bit lighter compared to the first three, not as packed but still better paced than the previous episode. Only 3 episodes left. Curious where they will take us. Hope this pays off.
Up until this episode The Boys Season 3 has been solid with only a few dents, but this episode the dents are getting bigger and they're kinda showing.
First of all, everything doesn't seem to be too well-paced here.
Butcher and Hughie just had a convo in previous episode about not showing him taking Tempo V, but then in the lab he just outright stormed the bullets and showing off to the others about his newfound power. And same with Hughie, who somehow got a dose too. Worse thing the lab situation doesn't seem to be even that bad. They don't seem to be outnumbered nor outgunned, and they've seen worse before. Facing Gunpowder, it's understandable why they'd need a V; but this? Seems kinda forced to me as if the writers need to just waste those Vs already.
Still on the lab: The Soldier Boy reveal seems to be a bit hurried. Butcher suddenly randomly opening up stuff while in fact they realize they're onto something dangerous which may or may not have Soldier Boy in the lab is not just reckless (we know Butcher is) but dumb. Aren't they there to find a superweapon? When Soldier Boy escaped, they just ended up stopping the search and went back home. Granted there's the situation with the team, but the whole thing about this supposedly mysterious Soldier Boy and the search for superweapon just feels really anticlimactic.
Then, the thing with Vicky and Stan Edgar. The way she outted Edgar is a surprising twist, and I kinda like that Homelander Magneto-esque speech about choosing their own kind. But it seemed to be paced oddly interspersed between fillers and actions going on with The Boys.
There are a few death flags as well (though hopefully it's just false ones): either KImiko or Frenchie or both with their "one last run" convo; MM with the "you're natural-born leader" convo; and of course Alex/Supersonic with the "I'm gonna help you cause it's the right thing to do." That's just a straight death flag and it's proven true by the end of the episode - which again, is kinda odd paced, seemingly coming out of nowhere.
To note that this isn't a bad episode at all, but it feels like things are kinda jumbled here and there, making watching especially the second half a bit tedious. Not to mention that the first half isn't as packed and well-structured as prev episodes (it's the moment they started playing the "3 seconds still shot" too much that I felt that it's a bit too filler-y). The A-Train Pepsi parody is well done though - The Boys is always the best at parody but I hope they can do more than that.
Hopefully it will get better.
Solid episode all around. The Boys staying true to its criticism on woke capitalism (carnivals overselling LGBT empowerment) while portraying how the supes despite being antagonists are still human. Loved that scene with Kimiko and Crimson Countess: showing Kimiko's childhood innocence and Crimson Countess' human side. And this episode returns to remind us that Butcher is not a hero, but a cruel, supe-hating murderer.
This first episode does take its time to show the transition from the one-year-off screen-peacetime to the action again. So it is no wonder they spent the first half of the episode rather slowly, showing the peaceful lives of the cast. They don't shake off the uncomfortable feeling of Homelander's unpredictability though; every time he's on screen I'm never so sure what would happen next. Not to mention that there's also Neuman, every time she's on screen I can't get rid of the feeling that anything something explode at anytime.
I like that they still play the vulgar sex, gross violence, and not-so-subtle allegories (Homelander being jerked off) like in previous seasons. But like the other reviewer said, I hope they don't rely too much only on those tropes and offer something new to the table.
Good episode. Kickstarted the season and made me curious of what's coming. Fares much better than the Brotherhood version here. The episode shows the consequence of Ed and Al's action to the city rather than just showing them wreaking havoc. It also shows Al as a more empathetic side compared to Ed.
This is a good episode for two reasons:
As a pilot, this sets the tone directly. Not overdone humor, enough action, and enough world-building. The mechanics is there, brief background of our protagonists are there, and the conflict is there. Ed came off as a reasonable but still haughty/bratty state alchemist. Compare this to the pilot in FMA: Brotherhood which introduced too many characters, etc, which gets confusing.
Compared to the same episode in FMA: Brotherhood, this one explains much better why the priest was beloved by his people. The people are not just blind fanatics mesmerized by miracle, but benefit materially from him. There is also enough character development between Ed & Al with the others so they don't come off as haughty edgy atheists barging to people's door. More time to set the tone and silently establishes the bigger antagonists as well.
The only thing jarring here is the people just have to be brown just because they live in desert lol. Stereotype of very 2000-ish anime.
Not sure what was wrong with the episode, but the science vs religion contrast feels a bit tacked on, and the conflict as well as the resolution feels really hurried. The citizen seems to be too foolishly gullible to believe the antagonist with no strong reason except 'muh miracles'. The antagonist seems pretty dumb to reveal his grand plan just like that for the plot to keep on going. And, the worst is, Ed sounds like an edgy Reddit atheist with his haughty "god doesn't exist" speech.
Weak pilot. Too many characters introduced, mixed with some out of place humor. Worst is that this episode shows both the state alchemists as unorganized, reckless institution (no plan at all to anticipate attack on central) and the Ice Alchemist as incompetent offender (with all that spectacle he really doesn't seem to plan anything in advance, as he gets beaten by Elric bros).
Last two episodes have been good, kinda shows the dynamics between characters (Clay being so petty with the new guy and Gemma keep trying to maintain her matriarch role). The only downside here is the a bit poorly executed gunfight.
I guess this episode has little bit of everything. There is a bit of suspense of the barn invasion. There is a bit of action in the final showdown, of course. There is a bit of Justice League cameo. There is a bit of character development during the mission preparation. There is a bit of wrapping up the story (each characters' fate, tying up loose ends, and Peacemaker making peace with himself). And there is also some stereotypical eco-message slipped in (I guess since this is the anthropocene and Thanos' ecofascism seems to be popular...).
It's not a gripping finale, but it does what it does well for an action comedy that doesn't take itself too seriously.
Highlight would be: I like that they keep Goff alive because Peacemaker's personal connection and Judomaster also alive with his chips-eating habit. I also liked that they're setting this up for future DCEU but not too blatantly obvious that they had to throw away the standalone-ness of the show like MCU/Marvel Studios usually do.
It ties all loose ends and give some resolution to Peacemaker as a character. Despite not having much progression in the plot, I don't think it's a bad episode. It develops Peacemaker, Adebayo, and Harcourt more, even though I hoped we could've seen more from how Peacemaker and Harcourt handled what happened in the episode. Characters in the show, though, do feel expendable, and I kept wondering if they'd kill Eagly. Thankfully they didn't.
"You don't like illegal aliens? These are real illegal aliens."
The show has finally started to get its grip. There's an enough amount of comic book references for the fans, enough comedy for people who watch it for the jokes, enough character development, and enough plot moving on - especially with the scene with Judomaster and the one in the ending. The only thing lacking here is the camera works during the brief action sequences; its dizzy, inconsistent, and doesn't convey the action at all.
This could've been Episode 2 as this is where things finally start to get going. Pace has been much better - if in the first two episodes I felt the need of fast-forwarding, at least in this episode I didn't feel any of that.
Show has been relying banters, irony, and sex jokes for its comedy but this episode shows some physical humor as well. Action is there but not as fleshed. Don't seem like the Peacemaker we saw in The Suicide Squad, but I guess it's supposed to be a character development.
I quite liked that they treat the quippy one-liner spouter Adebayo as seen as the dumber person by other characters, which kinda shows how ridiculous it is to be quippy in serious situation - like a slap to MCU face. I also liked they slipped in the derogatory "cape shit" to refer to superheroes/supervillains.
But I guess the episode swings between jocular and serious moments a little too hard, and it's a bit difficult to get the tone they're trying to convey here. I get it that this show is an action comedy show, but it would've been great if they can maintain a tone a bit more consistently. The drama between the couple is a bit too overdone, as well as the dick joke between Vigilante and Peacemaker, and the part where Peacemaker had to jump from ledges. I guess it's a bit too much for a 45 minutes episodes - too little substance.
It's fine overall but I hope this doesn't end up as "Deadpool but DCEU".
It's different, to say the least. Kinda nice to actually have an anti-hero in a world laden with superhero stuff, and the awkward, crass one at that. Considering Peacemaker's racist background, looking forward how to the show will handle that aspect without resorting to typical MCU style "kumbaya" take.
Not the finale we need, not the finale we deserve either... I was expecting at least a 90 minutes run. But regardless of the amount of them being cut, and sped up, I'm glad it was not a jumble mess like Season 5 finale.
A lot in the episodes feel like a callback to Season 1: the Rocinante dinner time (like the one they had with Alex and Miller), the landing and assault on the Ring surface (like the Assault on Thoth), and the negotiation/politics (like the whole Errinwright debacle). They were not as intense as the 1st Season given the time constraint, but enough to get all the things going.
The space battle leaves something to be desired, esp. on the UNN & Mars side (very far from the tenuous chaotic high command conflict back in Season 3), and the Belters' side could have more improvement (wish we could see more from the old guy Walker), but it's enough to convey the direness of the situation. Holden's crew raid is executed better than the space combat side, just like in the Thoth Station assault. Marco's demise was a bit cut short however, which feels a bit anticlimactic after they all went through. Similarly, the roundtable meeting was very simplified, without much tense and direness like we see during the tension between Earth Mars in Season 1-3 (like in Bobbie's trial), but at the very least it gives enough reason for a resolution to come up and conclude the series.
Again, this could've been more: it has improved from the less than average Season 5, but still it was not a very satisfying conclusion to this fantastic series. Alas, this is what we have. I hope we could still see more from The Expanse.
The first two episodes were weak but this one is The Expanse back at its finest. I really liked how they get up close and personal with the crews in each ships/stations - Rocinante, Tynan, Pella, even Ceres - but then they also zoom out and see things in bird view. The Expanse has always been the strongest in world building, and this episode they show it really well when the characters were observing the news. The politics is also slightly back in with the combined forces of Earth and Mars dealing with Marco leaving Ceres. I also liked how they return to working on Naomi's character as well as they did before: with simple, short dialogues between Naomi and Holden about Naomi recovering from Pella incident and working on her best as data analyst. About Naomi, in the last sequence I also liked that it was not Naomi who pulled the trigger off (I was expecting some typical melodramatic "no don't do it" stuff), but it was Holden.
I usually always have many good things to say about The Expanse, and it saddens me that I don't have lots of good to say about this episode. It feels almost like filler episode. Like in the first episode, the scene with the girl and the animals took way too much time (more than 5 minutes) - it almost feels like a Walking Dead filler episode.
The action scene is nice, but the scene with Clarissa/Peaches on steroid have been very weirdly directed in the last 2 seasons. What happened to the fast-paced tiger brawl like when she was first introduced? The effect is really poorly done - they could've learned a thing or two from how Dennis Villeneuve directed Bene Gesserit's The Voice to evoke something that is visually strong.
The only redeeming point here is Drummer's crew interaction with the old guy, which makes a good dynamic and illustrate what's been going on since Marco's uprising. This is particularly important considering the world building has been very lackluster since Season 5, which is a disappointment. Considering in this final season they only have 6 episodes. I was expecting it to be more dense given the limited episode. Alas, this is what we got.
I quite liked this first episode, kinda sets up the tone quite nicely, but the degradation in quality (due to budget, executive meddling, or whatever) is showing. The initial scene with the girl and the animals took almost 5 minutes of its own, with many still shots of the girl's expression and surrounding that don't actually contribute to something meaningful in the episode as a whole - the kind of directing you see in Walking Dead's filler episodes.
But I kinda liked how they tried to make up the shortcomings of Season 5. They tried to visually show the impact of the catastrophe caused by the asteroid shots on Earth. They tried to show how Rocinante crew tries to deal with Alex's departure/loss, something that was horribly executed in Season 5. I also quite liked how they tried to portray Marco more as a bullshitter, but it could've been done better than some abrupt speech about the people of Ceres out of nowhere. Speaking of Ceres, the decision to make Dawes' death off-screen is such a big disappointment, though understandable due to the actor having conflicting schedule. Still, disappointing.
Downside here is Filip's arc. I get it that they're trying to show him as wanting to get the recognition he wanted, but we haven't seen more what he is capable to do. So far we only sees him kill and nothing much. No leadership qualities, no camraderie qualities. So him bursting out in anger just came off some sort of angsty teen worse than Anakin in Star Wars.
Not sure how I feel about this episode. It's been a fun ride but this episode 5 is kinda weak.
It started out as John Wick-y flick with all bounty hunters chasing over the Monkey. Which would've been cool - but most of the fights happened off screen. Most villains in this episode are just meatbags; a shame since I actually enjoyed their presentation. There's also an appearance of some ghost called Yuki out of nowhere, that reminds me this is still a Marvel cartoon - which is fine, really, but the way she was introduced and put out is very jarring. No reason. She could've killed the Monkey and Bryce but decided not to due to plot armor.
The scene with the police duo is also kinda shoehorned if only to justify the death of the police-yakuza guy and put the duo back on track. So yeah, not their strongest episode.
This initially teases an Alien vibe, but it ends up quite hilarious. The real lesson: don't leave things in the fridge!
"You seem to think that time really had stopped here. That's a story from a long time ago. I've forgotten about it."
Kinda captures the moment when you think you can get back to your ex and reconcile. Life goes on. And eventually we have to accept it and move on even when we don't get to see it ends the way we wanted, just like when Jet in the end throws away the watch.
At first this episode might seem like a filler, but it serves as a good episode for the characters to breathe and immerse in the moment they just experienced.
One thing I liked from the episode is contrast.
On the cold Earth we get to see Amos and Clarissa walk through a forest the kids planted on field trip. Clarissa spoke of field trips, saying that her dad was one that donated his money to plant that much trees, and throwing references like "Schroedinger's parents", unaware of her upper class upbringing. Amos never went to field trip and didn't catch her reference. He asked instead, what does her dad get in return for planting those many trees? For Amos who grew up in the streets of Baltimore, the idea of charity field trips where people give something (plant a tree) for free is unimaginable. Clarissa then talked of her time with her distant father, and how a caretaker should be a good person. Amos rejected this idea: “There are ways that you can live a good life without being a good person.”
Other character arcs that weave the threads the plots in this episode similarly have that contrast. Avasarala struggles with uncertainty and seemingly loss of husband, as the acting secretary-general calls her for other duty. We get to see Holden aboard Rocinante, a place he would call home, but his home is manned by strangers, none of his families. In a way, Holden is alone in his home. Similarly, Filip asked Naomi how could she betray her family and if she doesn't think them as her family anymore. Naomi retorted shortly, "I guess I don't." He "family" is no longer them - but one of Rocinante crew.
Speaking of Naomi, her relatively sluggish plot line in previous episodes pays off decently in this episode. Drummer's coming to terms to temporarily ally with Marco, the one who killed two of her friends knits nicely with Naomi's story.
And there is of course Filip's story. All he has ever known in his life is the (delusional) grandeur of his dad: the swashbuckling rebel of OPA who fights for his people. Marco portrays himself a determined, righteous hero of the Belt, and his son knew no better. He never saw Marco as someone would do wrong, until Cyn - Marco's own crew - confronted him, trying to assert his duty as a supposedly foster father Naomi believed him to be. "I've never seen the two of you like that before," Filip, shaken, told Cyn. "Wouldn't be the first time," Cyn replied. And then there was the line when Filip was told that Naomi "saved everyone" during her time in Behemoth.
Filip was (is?) still a naive young boy, seeing the world only through the lens of his self-proclaimed hero of a father. He sees his father's quest as nothing but a struggle of one man to do things right where others failed. A firebrand agitator, Marco blamed everyone else as wrong, and he as right. It was the first time Filip sees the possibility that Marco himself might be as wrong. As Filip desired to know further, Marco snooped on Filip's conversation with Naomi in disgust, but unable to intervene as doing so would prove that Naomi does hold a grain of truth. And that seems to be why Filip might still worth saving - after previous episodes showing him as no better than a hard-headed boy - free from the clutch of his ambitious father.
All these are achieved with very good acting of every cast members. There were some minor slopes and disappointments, such as Clarissa's modded fight that was choreographed very poorly (they did it better in Season 3), and Bobbie and Alex's minor, relatively swiftly resolved win. But this is still a pretty decent episode, and one that has nice character development.
Not the strongest pilot: it branches on each main character's future plotlines, with Holden, Naomi, Alex, and Amos going on their own path. However it sets up the Inaros as quite detestable villains - in case killing Ashford in previous season was not enough. It started with Filip and ended with Marcos. The extras were less convincing, but the space shots - and we got lots of them (Tycho, Venus, Earth) - all are gorgeous.
Is The Handmaid's Tale a fiction of the past or a reality? Its Hulu adaptation is neither. It's a comforting fiction that we tell ourselves: a ghost from the past we still believe are still haunting us, when the ghost has become nothing but a wrinkling specter, its position taken over by another restless, invisible spirit poltergeisting our home.
The Handmaid's Tale imagines an oppressive religious America where women are treated like cattle for breeding the children of wealthy elites - where the wives are infertile and in need of third parties. Infertility is on steep rise and as such a select few fertile women are captured by the state and forced to continue the line of the most affluent.
This fiction of oppressive religious America seems like a myth that is not going to die soon - a myth perpetuated in America's first half of 20th century and still alive and kicking. Religion is all but dead in America indeed, but there has never been a time where it takes its most crude, vulgar secularization than today. The rise of right-wing extremism is not waged under the banner of Christianity, but under the banner of scientism, with Shapiro, Hitchens, and YouTubers like Sargon as its prophets. This is something Americans seem unable to admit: science prevails and wins over religious fundamentalism, but only in its pseudo-scientific form, with nothing but science in its name. In a sense, its zeitgeist is a disenchanted form of Christianity, but under the pretense of secular knowledge.
Whereas women of The Handmaid's Tale suffers from infertility, the reality of our society today happens because of poor working conditions. More Americans suffer from low birthrate due to stress and illness caused by heavy burden of work - yet giving birth remains a wish dreamed by many would be mothers. Like a liberal American myth, this issue seems to be glossed over in The Handmaid's Tale, focusing instead on women, though shown of varieties different colors, who seem to lack of any social classes. They all seem to be equally middle class, robbed of their individuality to be cattle of affluent aristocrats. First half of this episode seems to show this as a shocking revelation to the audience, but I find that this is nothing too new when you are already familiar with lives of lower income people, especially of marginalized ethnicities and in Global South - though of course in less vulgar ways.
That said, this episode is pretty decent pilot that conveys the world the writers intend it to be. The narrative structure is effective: a back and forth scenes of the life of Offred, before and after The Red Center - a form of disciplinary institution. The whole episode seems tense and bleak, with repertoire of greetings acting almost like mantras, said by subjugated people to each other in the hopes the saying will guarantee their safety from the all seeing eye. And when the particicution happens in the episode's second half, it acts almost like a carnival-esque moment, where emotions are unleashed without control, without proper object. Offred, crying when she beats the man, unleashes her frustation not on the man himself, but on her situation that disciplines her in such ways. In making a society where everyone is a spy to another, this episode does a great job. Regardless, the premise seems to be lacking, but it's still an enjoyable pilot episode when I turn a blind eye to its failings.
Not the greatest The Boys episode, esp. not Season 2's good. They have come this far to plan and strategize against Vought, yet they don't seem to have any backup plan... not with Lamplighter, who they leave only with Hughie to babysit, and especially not with Dr. Vogelbaum, the man behind all these, the most important man who should have acted as key witness? With Lamplighter, okay, they missed their chance, but Butcher and Mallory could have at least made Vogelbaum recorded his confession or some sort since they should have known that sending him off means an extremely high risk of failure. And they freaking knew there's someone out there who can pop head out of nowhere. Why don't they take any precaution?
The one scene with Hughie and Lamplighter is kind of dumb too, only showing him as ever petulant bystander who can't prioritize - which is a step down of character development since he blew Transluscent's ass. Butcher family drama seems to give a hint of character development but the pacing is too convenient as a cop out for stuff to fall apart.
As a work of TV show, it's good. It sets up the characters and the theme it wants to talk about. It starts with the aftermath end slowly reveals how the event unfolds to the disaster Chernobyl was.
However the message it tries to deliver, as it seems already obvious from the start, is very problematic: the all-too familiar story of meritocratic individual not being able to fight against the evil of bureaucracies, epitomized in the face of the Soviet state - the episode even has a speech on the need to believe on the Socialist State. This premise is very shaky, as David Graeber has famously written, bureaucracies - and its "evils" - were more prominent within the so-called neoliberal states and even corporations more than back then in Soviet era. Turning the disaster into a fight between heroic individuals also seem all too common for Hollywood who keeps hallucinating for the existence of an underdog superhero.
But let's see how it goes for now.
Not the most engaging pilot. So many setups and characters introduced at once. Mystery seems to be fleeting, lingering around the corner but there's no clear direction yet where it would lead the viewers. Feels like the episode is setting up a lot of things for the whole season at once.
"Why do things have to die?"
"It is nature. And nature is flawed."
This episode asks the question the meaning of life and death. As Campion and the kids learn the cost of survival sometimes can only be done by killing other sentient beings; Mother who wonders what it is like to be a "creator" - an actually pregnant woman; Tempest relates to a mother; and of course the bloody struggle of leadership among Mithraics.
There's something poetic about this episode, that starts with the loss of a mouse, a small creature possession of a kid that ends with the death of a pregnant creature, who reproduces life and Ambrose the leader of Mithraic survivors who were supposedly to save his group with his faith.
"Let nature run its course."
"Nature has no course."
An engrossing pilot. We see the world through the eyes of Campion, our seemingly protagonist. A world so alien, with a war of the post seem to reaching from behind, that it actually is not much forgotten as it seems to be. We were told to build a civilization anew, free from the clutch of religion that separates us in the past. But with no one else around - how? It is only Mother and Father that have sheltered us so far, androids that are completely different from us, but the closest one we can call as family - persons we trust. When someone eventually reaches us - someone human, more similar to us - they are at the same time so alien that it's hard who to trust.
This episode is a great start to open this series. The mystery, the provocation, the atmosphere - everything, even the violence. Looking forward to next episodes.
