...and now, The Thrilling Conclusion to the DCCW Catch-Up Finale! This week Host Matthew J Blanchard once again welcomes older brother (Patrick) back aboard The Four Color Ark, to clean house on the remaining episodes of The Flash and Supergirl's recent seasons. Join us, won't you...

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The Four Color Ark makes its True Triumphant Return this week as Host Matthew J Blanchard begins to make good on a near impossible promise. In Part 1 of the DCCW Catch-Up Finale, Matt welcomes his Camp Crystal Lake Revisited Co-Host, and brother, Patrick. Together, The Brothers Blanchard begin to tackle the remaining episodes from the former print run of Four Color Television. Stay Tuned Next Week for the Thrilling Conclusion! 

And, don't forget to check out The Brothers Blanchard's latest series, Every Town Has An Elm Street over on The Movie Ark, New Episodes Every Friday! 

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In this Special Crossover Podcast, Matthew J Blanchard (The Four Color Ark / Camp Crystal Lake Revisited) and I (Noah Blanchard - The Movie Ark / Rodriguez Revisited) unite our Cousin Powers to bring you a Franchise Deep Dive on The Marvel Cinematic Universe. *Note* Neither of us had seen Ant-Man and The Wasp as of this recording so no worries on spoilers, But GIANT SPOILER ALERT for all of he other 19 films discussed. We hope you enjoy, talk to you soon True Believers! 

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Presents

DC/CW Television Week 22

No catching up, it’s a full week of CW programming!  With the season finale of Legends of Tomorrow, the second to last episode of the season of Black Lightning, the return of The Flash and an Arrow that sees Oliver as an army of one.

Legends of Tomorrow Season 3 Episode 18: “The Good, the Bad and the Cuddly”

RECAP

Mallus has risen, and the time demon is ready to destroy everything – the Legends included – but Rip Hunter has an idea that just might by them some time. The Time Master removes the time engine from The Waverider and takes it to where Mallus is located, detonating it and destroying the both of them; Rip knows that this will only weaken Mallus, but it will buy the Legends time to escape and regroup.  Sara sets a course for the temporal blind spot that is Salvation South Dakota in the Old West. The Legends travel to the past where they’ll meet up with their old ally Jonah Hex and hide out in a place where they hope Mallus will be unable to find them and their totems. Of course, things never quite work out for The Legends: Mallus has gathered warriors to his side – foes the Legends have faced throughout this season: Julius Caesar, Blackbeard, and Freydis the sister of Leif Erikson. Ray has a plan that might save the life of Nora Darhk and the team, and Damien volunteers to help him do it – but Sara has put the Waverider on lockdown.  Ray steals the jumpship and is almost caught by Nate before jumping back to Zambeze just before the emergence of Mallus. Meanwhile, back in Salvation, Ava arrives with a large group of allies of the Legends – ready to join the fight against Mallus. With Ava are Helen of Troy (now sporting full on Themyscirran battle regalia,) Gary, and alternate version of Kuasa who is now the Vixen, and a future version of Jax who wants to help his former teammates one last time. Sara and the team attempt to use their totems to create a being of pure light, a totem warrior, who can fight Mallus – and despite Nate’s comparison of the entity to Voltron – the first attempt is less than stellar.  Back in Zambeze, to no one’s surprise, Damien Darhk betrays Ray and rather than attempting to save everyone – he simply takes Nora’s place as the host for the demon Mallus. Ray escapes back to Salvation with Nora in tow. Mallus’ soldiers return and The Legends allies, complete with Ray and Nora rise up to face them attempting to buy time for the Legends to merge their stones and create a being of pure light to fight Mallus. Mallus himself arrives while the Legends perform their ritual, and they create the one being who can fight Mallus: a giant living embodiment of the children’s toy Beebo. Beebo and Mallus do battle in the skies above Salvation, but Mallus is no match for the blue fluffy toy embodying the combined powers of the Legends of Tomorrow. Mallus is defeated, and the Legends win the day.  Ava takes Mallus’ warriors and her own volunteers back to their rightful times, Jax says goodbye to his friends once more, and Ray gives Nora the means to escape and start a new life elsewhere. Amaya returns to the 1940’s to live her life in Zambeze so that her daughter will take on her totem and timeline will be protected. The Legends retire to Aruba to enjoy a much deserved vacation, but it is short lived when John Constantine shows up the head of a demon, informing the Legends that when they let Mallus loose – other demons escaped as well.

REVIEW

This season the CW/DC Universe has been fairly consistent: Arrow has been the most nimble with its storytelling; The Flash has had the most heart; Black Lightning has been the best written; and yes Legends of Tomorrow has been the most fun of all five series.  I don’t think anything can better exemplify that than the idea that the big weapon to defeat the evil demon, is a child’s stuffed toy brought to life for a giant martial arts fight with a winged demon. If there is a more “Legends of Tomorrow” ending, I defy you to tell me what it is.  While it was awesome to have the return of Jax, Jonah Hex, Helen of Troy, Caesar, Freydis and Blackbeard – it did make this particular episode feel awful crowded, which is saying a lot because Legends is pretty adept at juggling a massive cast. It did however feel like some of our actual cast got short shrift to incorporate beats with returning characters (looking at you Wally.) That said, this episode was an absolute blast to watch and I can’t wait to see where season four is going to take us.

EPISODE MVP

First appearing around the midseason, no one expected this character to become as important as they did, but at the end you can’t imagine the season without them.  I’m of course referring to Beebo: The God of War.

The Flash Season 4 Episode 17: “Null and Annoyed”

RECAP

Barry and Ralph are running combat drills against a holographic DeVoe in the speed lab, the plan is for Ralph to stretch himself to look like Barry so that DeVoe has to choose which Flash is the real Flash in the fight, but Ralph isn’t taking the training seriously. This in turn convinces Barry that Ralph isn’t taking the threat DeVoe poses serious.  Harry on the other hand is using his version of the Thinking Cap to try to locate the two remaining bus metas, but he’s having an incredibly difficult time in doing so despite his brain power being amplified by his device. Meanwhile in the DeVoe pocket dimension, Marlize finds Clifford is claiming his new body is fading quickly – she begins to draw up plans to alter his chair and thinking cap to prolong the current body, but finds that DeVoe was already working on similar plans.  Marlize picks up where DeVoe left off and begins perfecting his work. Elsewhere in Central City, two security guards named Jay and Bob (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith) get a priceless artifact stolen out from under their noses by a meta with the ability to make objects float away. Barry and Ralph crash Joe’s crime scene to try to get info on the meta, and discover she’s a thief by the name of Janet Petty (Bethany Brown) – one of the two missing bus meta’s Harry identified in the previous episode.  Before the S.T.A.R. Labs team can get too invested in helping Barry, Harry, and Ralph; a distraction shows up in the form of Breacher (Danny Trejo) whose powers are on the fritz and has come to Earth 1 to ask Cisco for assistance. Joe manages to get some of Petty’s aliases – and after entering that information into his search algorithm Harry is able to locate her with his Thinking Cap. Barry and Ralph go to the office of shady P.I. Earl Cox (Paul McGillion) and Ralph once again decides to not follow Barry’s instructions and go renegade – resulting in Janet aka Null turning Barry into a human balloon.  Marlize discovers that DeVoe is dosing her tea with chemicals secreted by the Meta “The Weeper” to make her compliant and begins researching to discover what specifically he’s doing. Barry becomes frustrated with Ralph’s inability to take things seriously and benches him. Cisco and Caitlin discover that Breacher is losing his abilities because he’s getting old – Cisco scrambles to find a way to help Breacher without telling him he’s old so he gives him antihistamine pills as a placebo. Barry races off to stop Janet robbing a jewelry store, and manages to get close enough without her noticing to put her in power dampening cuffs – but she has a backup plan: she had made a minivan weightless and left it floating well above the skyline.  Once her powers were dampened, the minivan started to fall – leaving Barry with a choice to take her in or save the person in the car. Barry races up the building to save the driver, and Janet picks the lock on her cuffs and escapes. Cisco gets a vibe from Breachers pills and realizes he’s in danger – so he vibes to Earth 19 to save him and then tells him the truth about his condition. Breacher angrily vibes away. Marlize has discovered what DeVoe is doing and is recording a video to herself so that she won’t forget – she discovers that she has recorded this video 43 times already when DeVoe shows up and uses Weeper’s tears along with Brainstorm’s powers to wipe her memory once more. Barry apologizes to Ralph, who admits to Barry that he plays pranks and makes jokes and doesn’t take things seriously because he’s terrified of what DeVoe will do.  The two of them go off to stop Janet at a Museum gala, she floats Barry into the stratosphere – but Ralph manages to stretch over and cuff her. The problem is now Barry is falling back to Earth very very rapidly; Ralph turns into a giant airbag and catches the falling speedster. Janet is placed in the pipeline. Marlize wakes up and due to her memory erasure has the exact same conversation with DeVoe about needing to upgrade his chair to extend his use of his current body. Breacher returns to Earth 1 and tells Cisco that he’s retired, and then offers Cisco his job hunting down Breachers on Earth 19. Harry takes his Thinking Cap and walks into Eobard Thawne’s time vault, he plugs his Cap into a device installed where Thawne used to keep his Reverse Flash suit and activates Gideon (the Morena Baccarin version rather than the Legends of Tomorrow version) for the first time since season one.

REVIEW

Before we get too deep into the episode, I just want to call out the awesomeness that is having Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith portray the Earth 1 versions of Jay and Silent Bob as hapless Central City security guards.  I’ve enjoyed all of the Smith directed episodes of The Flash, but this extra element just made it all the more fun – almost as much fun as seeing Jay and Silent Bob in their Askewniverse incarnation guesting in the background of Kevin Smith’s run on Green Arrow back in the day.  That said, lets dig in to what is now our 4th episode about Ralph having to come to grips with being a hero and part of the team.  I’m a fan of the character of Ralph Dibny, I’ve even got some room in my heart for this particular incarnation – who frankly is not quite the Ralph of the comics – but for the love of god please make this the last “Ralph has to step up” episode. If Barry has to deliver another “you can do it” speech to Ralph, I think I’m going to get angry.  The A-Story with “Null” was relatively handcuffed to the Ralph issue, so the episode really lived and breathed on the B-Story with Cisco having trouble telling a proud old Danny Trejo that he’s too old for super-heroics – a poignant and amusing premise that finally allowed Kevin Smith to direct Danny Trejo. The big stuff though is the growing frustration of Harry Wells and his questionable actions with his “Thinking Cap.”  Cisco refused to help him fuel the device with dark matter, but it looks like that is precisely what he is doing in Thawne’s Time Vault – which is bad enough. Activating Gideon, and speaking to her in the cadence Tom Cavanagh usually reserves for his portrayal of Thawne raised so many questions that I have to watch episode 18 as soon as goddamn possible. Maybe, just maybe… things are picking up.

EPISODE MVP

I’m going to award this weeks MVP title to Kim Engelbrecht who in an episode where she could have been upstaged by Danny Trejo or Jay and Silent Bob, delivered a heartbreaking performance as a woman discovering that her husband is using her for some nefarious purpose.

Black Lightning Season 1 Episode 12: “The Resurrection and the Light: The Book of Pain”

RECAP

Tobias Whale is alive, and completely healed form his bullet wounds thanks to Martin Proctor and the ASA, and Whale isn’t the only fully healed surprise: Khalil is once more able to walk.  Proctor allows Tobias to take over all of Lady Eve’s operations on one condition: that Tobias capture Black Lightning and bring him to the ASA alive. All of the ASA created metahumans die before fully accessing their powers – which makes Black Lightning the only successful metahuman in Freeland.  Proctor wants to study Black Lightning to determine why he hasn’t died like the rest. Meanwhile, Lynn and Jefferson have some lightning fueled sex and talk about rekindling their relationship once and for all. The next morning, while driving to work, Jefferson sees Khalil walking on the side of the road and confronts him about his miracle cure – trying to help Khalil recognize he is being taken advantage of.  Tobias brings in the security guard who pulled him to safety at the club melee, and kills him for not saving his sister as well. Jefferson informs Jennifer that Khalil is walking again and tells her not to see him again; Jefferson, Gambi, and Anissa begin trying to track down Proctor to save the frozen kids and end this once and for all. Lynn tells Jennifer that she might be able to provide a cure, and when Jefferson hears this he feels threatened and decides he doesn’t want to get back together with her.  Jennifer meets with a defensive and somewhat violent Khalil who refuses to tell her who performed his surgery. Tobias meets with Khalil and tells him he has to attack Garfield High, because that will draw Black Lightning out so they can capture him. Lala gets a mysterious phone call and goes off to kill an ASA sponsored arms dealer that Gambi gets intel from. Khalil stalks through the hallways of Garfield, shooting students with darts launched from superpowered gauntlets – teachers and students try to stop him but he tosses them aside like rag dolls. Jennifer tries to stop him, but he doesn’t hurt her – he just tells her to get out.  Anissa and Jefferson hear about what’s going on at Garfield on the police scanner and head to the school which is fully under siege. Khalil is the bait, but Tobias and Syonide are in the school as well – Syonide has students held in a classroom at gunpoint and Tobias is waiting for a one on one confrontation with Black Lightning. Anissa rescues the kids from Syonide and the two have a knockdown drag out fight, while Black Lightning and Tobias Whale go at it. Tobias and Black Lightning are evenly matched, until Khalil shows up and shoots Jefferson with one of his darts. Tobias finds no pulse and realizes that Khalil has killed Black Lightning, and is about to unmask him when Anissa shows up and distracts them.  Khalil and Tobias run, but Jefferson is indeed dead. Jennifer comes upon her father and sister and in her grief shocks Black Lightning back to life. The Pierce family and Gambi bug out to a cabin in the woods. Proctor asks Vice Principal Fowdy if she saw whether or not Black Lightning was dead, she says that she only saw Thunder carrying his body out of the school. Back at Tobias’ hideout, a scared and angry Lala tries to lash out at Tobias but can’t bring himself to do it for some reason. Tobias offers Lala a place in his organization, Lala accepts.

REVIEW

Black Lightning has consistently hit on serious issues that are plaguing are society and have approached each one through a unique lens that the other shows lack.  We’ve looked at Black Lives Matter, we’ve looked at systemic racism in policing in black neighborhoods, so it shouldn’t come as a shock that the penultimate episode is centered around an active shooter in a high school.  What is surprising is how raw it feels, and how the children in the episode seem almost practiced at responding to it. Thankfully Tobias returned to the show as we rounded the corner into the last two episodes, because his absence left a void that even Gregg Henry’s slimiest of slimeball villains wasn’t able to fill.  The character of Khalil has suddenly gone from being the least interesting player on Team Tobias to the most interesting, it’s clear he’s conflicted – he wants to hate Black Lightning but he clearly doubts what he has to do to revenge himself upon the hero. I suspect in next week’s finale, Khalil will learn that it was Tobias Whale who paralyzed him.  Everything that has been simmering all season has now fully come to a boil and it is all building to next week’s season finale, and I’m going to weigh in early and say that I think that Black Lightning’s freshman season is tied with The Flash as the strongest first season of a the five CW/DC shows. The way William Catlett plays the broken terror of Lala when he sees Tobias again for the first time almost earned him this weeks MVP.

EPISODE MVP

Jordan Calloway’s Khalil shows incredible dramatic range as he gets drawn further and further into Tobias’ dangerous war against Black Lightning.

Arrow Season 6 Episode 18: “Fundamentals”

RECAP

Oliver and Felicity are in the Arrow Cave discussing how to take down Ricardo Diaz; Felicity informs Oliver that all the security cameras at SCPD Headquarters cut off every night at 10:13PM and don’t come back on until 10:45PM.  Oliver suspects that this means Diaz is at the precinct and if he can go bring Diaz in all of the impeachment mess can come to an end – which is when Diggle walks in. Felicity tried to get Diggle and Ollie in a room together so that they can work through their differences, but the breach is at this point irreparable.  Councilman Collins has a meeting with Oliver about preliminary impeachment hearings at a Council meeting later in the day, urging Oliver that he needs to be able to provide rock solid evidence that connects the DA and Police Chief to Ricardo Diaz – or he will be impeached. They shake hands, and Oliver heads home to take William to his science fair.  Felicity gives Oliver the evidence he needs, but it’s a catch -22: the only person who could acquire this evidence is The Green Arrow so he either takes down the ex DA by revealing he’s the Green Arrow or he protects his secret identity and gets impeached. In a fit of irrational anger, Oliver destroys William’s science fair project and screams at his son.  Felicity tells Oliver to leave. Down in the Arrow Cave, Felicity comes down to tell him that she wants a separation after seeing how he treated his own son. Shortly after Quentin Lance shows up and the two talk about how to proceed with the impeachment; Quentin tells Oliver that everything will blow over and that he’s proud of the man Oliver has become – he leaves planning to see Oliver in an hour at the council meeting about impeachment.  The elevator in the cave opens and out steps: Adrian Chase (Josh Segarra) in full Prometheus getup claiming to be back from the dead. Oliver and Adrian battle it out, Oliver gets shot in the arm and manages to get Adrian into a headlock, Adrian threatens that unless Oliver kills him he will keep coming and he will target Felicity and William. Oliver snaps Adrian’s neck. Adrian vanishes, as do the bullets in Oliver’s arm – Ollie realizes he’s hallucinating.  Adrian returns and taunts Oliver, while Ollie performs a blood test on himself to determine what is in his system – and sure enough he was dosed with Vertigo when he shook Councilman Collins’ hand earlier. Oliver’s hallucinations get stronger – he sees himself in the Queen Mansion before leaving on the Queen’s Gambit: talking to young Laurel Lance. He then finds himself in his own apartment confronting a Ricardo Diaz who stabs him in the gut. Oliver wakes up in the Arrow Cave, and calls Quentin to say he’s been dosed with Vertigo but is on his way.  Before he can leave he faces another hallucination, he sees himself in full on Season One “Hood” regalia challenging him about how he has failed his city. Oliver admits to “The Hood” that he lost the mission. He then heads to the council meeting where he knows he has no other choice: he tries to present his evidence, but falls into the exact trap he knew he would - the council accuses him of being The Green Arrow. Quentin makes a convenient excuse to get Oliver out of there. Vertigo fueled Adrian confronts Ollie again and tells him the only way to end this is to go to the SCPD and capture Diaz.  Felicity and William get home from the Science fair and Felicity’s phone starts going nuts with updates about Oliver – she discovers he’s headed to SCPD but isn’t on comms and she can’t get a hold of him. She calls Quentin and asks him to head to SCPD, then she heads that way herself. Outside SCPD Quentin encounters Oliver wearing his old “Hood costume” and Ollie knocks Quentin out before going inside; he then takes down a handful of cops before getting to a door where on the other side waiting for him are Diaz and several dozen armed cops ready to kill the Green Arrow. Felicity arrives at SCPD, trying to talk Oliver down – she knows about the Vertigo and she tries to convince him she’s real and really here to help him.  He accuses her of asking for a separation and she says that THAT Felicity was a hallucination but she’s real and she’s not going anywhere. She manages to get through to him and the two manage to escape before the swarm of cops find them. Back that cave, the effects of Vertigo are wearing off – but it’s too late. Oliver has been impeached and Quentin Lance has been named Mayor in his stead. Oliver tells Felicity he needs to take the mission back to basics and start working alone, like he did in the beginning. Oliver apologizes to William for what he did, and William forgives him – telling him that like Felicity he isn’t going anywhere.

REVIEW

An episode that really puts Oliver through the ringer, there’s at least one of these every season and they never fail to disappoint.  Bringing Josh Segarra back to reprise his role as Adrian Chase was a great choice, not solely because he represents a level of personal stakes for Oliver that no one beyond Slade Wilson does. The other reason for his return is because the last episode that took this approach to Oliver was the Season 5 episode where Chase had Oliver prisoner and was forcing him to admit that deep down he really is a killer.  Once again this is not entirely what I expected would be the next step on the season long journey – after the collapse of the relationship with Diggle I expected we were going to have a more traditional Oliver gets overwhelmed by something he can’t handle episode. Instead we get an episode that rededicates Oliver to his core mission of trying to make Star City a better place, and reminds him how it all began in a way no other event could.  Of course, Oliver’s memory about how it all began is fairly skewed – because even in those early days operating in Starling he had Diggle by his side operating as a shot caller. I suspect what we’ll see is a self assured Green Arrow arise from the ashes of Team Arrow, one who will be willing to work with a team rather than lead one. We’ll see if that bears fruit though, since very few of my season six predictions have.

EPISODE MVP

Another Stephen Amell centric episode that shines; proof positive that when you get out of this man’s way he delivers gold time and time again.

NEXT WEEK: Supergirl battles Toyman from beyond the grave; Team Flash battles The Thinker on their turf; Black Lightning has a final showdown with the ASA and Tobias Whale; Green Arrow takes to the streets of Star City without backup.

Presents

Four Color Catch Up – Final Part

THE STRAGGLERS

THE FINAL CATCH UP DOCUMENT.

Legends of Tomorrow Season 3 Episode 16: “I, Ava”

RECAP

The Darhk’s are at it again, and they have come to Detroit in the present and seriously hurt Amaya’s granddaughter who never received the Zambeze totem and never became Vixen.  Nate and Wally head off to correct this anomaly while Zari attempts to train Mick on how to use his fire totem. Gary shows up to ask for help in finding Director Sharpe who has gone missing, so Ray, Sara and Gary go off to ask Ava’s parents for help – here they discover that Ava’s parents are actors hired by Rip Hunter and that Ava has no real history to speak of.  All of her records point to the year 2213 which was declared a temporal “No Fly Zone.” The three hijack the Time Bureau’s mother ship and go to the year 2213 where they discover that Ava is a genetically engineered line of cloned servants. The Darhk’s show up in Detroit and capture Nate, Wally escapes and returns to The Waverider. While Nora tries to figure out how to use all the totems, Damien can’t bring himself to actually torture Nate and they have a conversation about how Damien feels he’s losing Nora to Mallus.  Real Ava teleports to the future and must help Sara, Ray and Gary escape the future and return to the present. Amaya and Wally go to Detroit to save Nate, and in the fight Nora kills Kuasa. Wally steals the remaining totems. Everyone heads back to the ship, and begin plotting what to do about Mallus, but Amaya has had enough. Amaya steals the jumpship and goes back in time to 1992 to prevent the destruction of Zambeze so that her granddaughter Kuasa won’t be killed by the Darhk’s.

REVIEW

I’ll admit I’ve not been the biggest fan of Ava Sharpe and the Time Bureau, but I was intrigued by the idea that there was some sort of mystery involving her.  THIS was that mystery? She’s a clone that Rip took from the future and mind wiped to be a super agent? Seriously? I expected better of Legends. Over on the other side of the plot, the confrontation with the Darhk’s felt more like the show I not so secretly adore.  The idea that Damien’s heart just isn’t in it anymore because of the impending fate of his daughter, the fake torture of Nate, this is all just a masterstroke of levity in what is essentially a very dull episode. The death of Kuasa and Amaya stealing the time shuttle to jump back to Zambeze in the 1990’s seems like a promising story choice, and with two episodes left: who knows where this goes?

EPISODE MVP

Once more it’s Neal McDonough as Damien Dark.  The fake torture scene with Nate alone almost makes him the season MVP.

Legends of Tomorrow Season 3 Episode 17: “Guest Starring John Noble”

RECAP

Gorilla Grodd goes back in time to try to kill Barrack Obama when he was a college student so as to create a large enough time anomaly to release Mallus from his temporal prison. Mallus escapes and takes over the body of Nora Darhk, but the Legends arrive in the past and save Obama – thus reversing the effect on Nora.  Damien Darhk volunteers to try again with Obama and uses his time stone to travel to the Waverider and ask The Legends for help. Damien doesn’t want to lose his daughter, and he is willing to work with the good guys to save her – even promising to let Sara kill him when it’s all over. Mick is annoyed that everyone keeps interrupting his Lord of the Rings marathon, and Ray realizes that Denethor from Lord of the Rings sounds exactly like Mallus.  Ray goes back in time to New Zealand in 1999 while Lord of the Rings was in production and poses as a Production Assistant to record the actor John Noble delivering dialogue as Mallus so that he can shrink down and play it through his suit in Nora’s ear to push her into a trap. Damien and Ray spring their trap and Nora is held prisoner on the Waverider. Meanwhile Nate and Wally are trying to deal with the fact that Amaya is about to create a major aberration when she rewrites the history of Zambeze.  Sara realizes that she has only two options, force Amaya to abandon her plan or let Mallus free. Sara decides to let Amaya change the future so that Mallus will be freed, and the Legends wielding all five totems will destroy Mallus forever. Damien volunteers to wield the death totem, but betrays the team rather than allow Nora to be killed. He unleashes Grodd to try to make sure that Zambeze gets destroyed like it’s supposed to so that Mallus will remain locked away and Nora will remain safe. Ultimately, it isn’t enough – the changes already made to the timeline are enough to protect Zambeze. The timeline is altered enough that Mallus is finally able to exit his temporal cage.

REVIEW

Let’s start at the top and work our way through the brilliant moments in this episode: Grodd going back in time to kill Barrack Obama is the first thing we see and it is far, FAR from the craziest in this penultimate hour of Legends of Tomorrow. I’m not sure how I feel about Obama being included though, the events of the Dominators crossover last season led me to believe that this world had a fictional President – but that’s just continuity grousing. Damien flipping sides and having a non-flippant, REAL conversation with Sara Lance is probably the best scripted about face on a character in the entire Arrowverse canon.  Sara going to young Obama for advice was genius. The decision to let Mallus loose so as to stop him, and allowing Amaya to change the history of Zambeze in order to do that is just a mind-blowing and incredibly Legends style plot beat. Then, of course, there is the title of the episode which stems from what I believe is the MOST meta scene Legends has ever done. Commenting on the fact that the demon Mallus is voiced on the show by the actor John Noble by going back in time in the show to the set of Lord of the Rings to get the actor John Noble to record audio pretending to be the demon Mallus is just hilarious and perfect. Bonus points for the fact that it all comes about because Mick Rory is watching The Return of the King.  The “Ava’s a clone” plot is made EVEN LAMER by the intimation that not only is she a clone, she’s not even the first clone that Rip has employed at the Bureau. I’d almost forgive it if she were the prototype for all the clones, or if all those clones were some sort of smokescreen to hide her true nature – but Rip gives no indication that this is the case.

EPISODE MVP

I’m going to give this to guest star John Noble, for his dual role as the menacing demon Mallus (both speaking through Courtney Ford and as a GIANT demon) and as himself in 1999 on the set of Lord of the Rings complaining about Peter Jackson making him eat chicken on screen.

Black Lightning Season 1 Episode 10: “Sins of the Father: The Book of Redemption”

RECAP

An old drug dealer named Two Bits sees a young girl exhibit powers after taking Green Light and getting immediately taken away by the ASA. Anissa acts on the information Gambi gave her and investigates the location of the cryogenically frozen children, and discovers they’re all very much alive.  She runs off to get the help of Black Lightning, but when they get back – all the bodies are gone. Two Bits comes to Jefferson to tell him about the girl getting kidnapped, because she had been wearing a Garfield High uniform. Jefferson asks Anissa and Jennifer to stay home while he investigates the disappearances and how it connects to the school LaLa offers his own mother as collateral to a number of drug suppliers to get enough Cocaine and Weed to fill the drug vacuum created when Black Lightning destroyed the Green Light manufacturing operation.  Proctor captures Gambi and tortures him until he reveals who Black Lightning is, Gambi refuses to crack. Jefferson reaches out to try to keep the young boy Lala introduced him to in the first episode off of drugs, but is interrupted by ASA agents who say if he wants to see Gambi alive again. Proctor believes that threatening Jefferson will make Gambi turn on Black Lightning. Jefferson goes with the agents and creates an electrical disturbance that distracts the guards and allows Gambi to escape. Gambi and Jefferson flee, Gambi apologizes to Jefferson and tells him to get his children and Lynn to safety.  Gambi then tells Jefferson that if the ASA is capturing kids again, then they must have a spotter – someone who can keep an eye on the children being given Green Light. Martin Proctor meets with his spotter, the Vice Principal of Garfield, and tells her that he now believes that Jefferson Pierce is Black Lightning. Jefferson, Anissa, Jennifer and Lynn relocate to Jefferson’s father’s house which has sat untouched for years.

REVIEW

The closer we draw to the end of the season, the more deftly drawn out the events of this series are.  We’re being given ample to time to ponder the mystery of the resurrected LaLa and how that will tie in with the still missing Tobias Whale; to wonder at the true nature of what the ASA is doing with those frozen high schoolers they’ve had on ice for 30 years; to sit back and watch the wreckage of the relationship between Gambi and Jefferson.  Black Lightning consistently gives us the space and time to let ideas sit with us and marinate. This episode takes all of the simmering plot elements, except one, and brings it all to a boil. With the ASA kidnapping children; the revelation that the Vice Principal of Garfield has been working with the ASA all along; the capture and torture of Gambi to smoke out Black Lightning; LaLa’s rebuilding of his empire without the access to Green Light; the continuing tension between the Pierce daughters over the nature of their powers.   There is frankly just a lot going on in this episode, and it’s hard to believe that we’re only two episodes away from the season finale. The shell game the ASA is playing with the bodies of the kids from 30 years ago is fascinating, but the highlight of the episode is the fortitude of Gambi as he refuses to sell out Jefferson – and the relief with Jefferson arrives to rescue Gambi from the ASA.

EPISODE MVP

James Remar kills it once more this week as a stoic and slightly badass Gambi.

Black Lightning Season 1 Episode 11: “Black Jesus: The Book of Crucifixion”

RECAP

Vice Principal Fowdy is reluctant to do what Proctor and the ASA ask of her, but she doesn’t hesitate for long before turning Jefferson Pierce over to the corrupt cops of Freeland.  She bribes two of the corrupt cops and gives them files on Jefferson. Jefferson is in the classroom teaching when the police show up with warrants for his arrest – they search his car, his office and then arrest him.  Jefferson’s students try to physically block the police from taking Mr. Pierce away, but Jefferson doesn’t allow this to escalate into a violent incident. He calms his students down, he calms Jennifer down, and he calms Anissa down, all while being marched out of Garfield High in handcuffs.  Jefferson is processed into jail, on charges of distributing Green Light. Henderson doesn’t believe it and begins investigating what went down, he interviews Jefferson and believes him when he says he’s being set up. Gambi reveals to Anissa that the ASA is behind this because they believe Jefferson is Black Lightning, if they can convince the ASA that Jefferson isn’t Black Lightning – then Jefferson should be released.  Meanwhile, Henderson’s investigation is bearing fruit: he uncovers massive payouts to one of the crooked cops and tries to get him to roll on the others. Gambi creates a holographic projector that will allow Anissa to go out on the street and it will appear that Black Lightning is with her. Thunder and Black Lightning chase a runaway car through the streets of Freeland, no one is the wiser that it’s a remote controlled car driven by Gambi and a holographic Black Lightning.  Vice Principal Fowdy urges the ASA to release Jefferson since there is television footage of Black Lightning on the streets of Freeland, but Proctor ignores her. Henderson on the other hand has gotten his mark to roll on the other conspirators – the crooked cop admits that he planted the evidence and was paid to take down Jefferson. Jefferson is released, and Henderson arrests the rest of the crooked cops. Henderson is promoted to Deputy Chief of Police and is placed in charge of the task force to root out crooked cops.  Jefferson and the Pierce’s have a celebratory meal as a family, and that family includes Gambi. Jefferson admits that he may never forget what Gambi did, but he wants to move forward with him.

REVIEW

The superhero having to endure a human imprisonment rather than reveal his secret identity is a shopworn comics trope, but played out here on Black Lightning it is more compelling than I think I’ve ever seen it before.  Jefferson’s arrest plays out far more realistically than many other lead character arrests on prime time television, and it feels like the natural extension of the scene in the first episode where the cops pull Jefferson over for driving while black.  The construction of this is not meant to feel like Black Lightning is being hauled off to jail, but that Jefferson Pierce is being unduly arrested and framed for a crime he didn’t commit. Watching the students of Garfield rise up to attempt to prevent Jefferson’s arrest was the proof in the pudding about the strength of Jefferson’s leadership at the school that we’ve been lacking lately.  The idea of using a holographic Black Lightning to exonerate Jefferson is fairly “comic book-y,” but it plays fairly well. I kind of expected that Jennifer would be needed to pull off the exoneration of her father, but I guess that just means her big moment and heroic turn will happen either next week or the week after. The greatest moments of this episode, beyond the incredibly weighty performance of Cress Williams, were the moments where Henderson rose up to tear down the corruption in the police precinct.  Henderson, for those unaware, has been a long time associate of Black Lightning – but one with a much more storied past than you’d know from watching the series. Black Lightning, in the comics, is not from a city called Freeland – but from an area of Metropolis known as Suicide Slum. The Inspector Henderson who assisted the comic book version of Jefferson Pierce was none other than the original Inspector William Henderson first introduced in the 1940’s radio show: The Adventures of Superman. It is nice to see the television version of Henderson being a badass policeman, just like his comic namesake.

EPISODE MVP

Cress Williams gives possibly his strongest performance as Jefferson Pierce yet in the scenes where he has to comply with a police force that will attempt to destroy him for any resistance.

Presents

Four Color Catch Up  Part Four

ARROW

When you left us we were working through our massive backlog of episodes to get you back up to date with all the fun goings on in the CW/DC Universe.  We travelled through time with the Legends of Tomorrow, and defended the city of Freeland with Black Lightning and stopped a nuclear bomb with The Flash, and now it’s time to get you caught up on the episodes we missed of Arrow.  So without further ado, and with shorter recap sections for brevity:

Arrow Season 6 Episode 14: “Collision Course”

RECAP

Star City is out of money, and all of the funds that Cayden James blackmailed the city for have been withdrawn from his account in the Corto Maltese by none other than Evil Laurel Lance. The corruption in the police department is becoming fairly evident, but without the city’s budget – there is nothing that can be done to remedy any of the bad situations in Star City.  Quentin lets Oliver know that Laurel is recovering from Dinah’s gut shot at his cabin in the woods, but “The Outsiders” also find out that Laurel is alive. What follows is a race against time for both teams to try to track down Laurel before the other, and it is not at all a pretty sight. When the two teams clash in the woods, no one holds back and the two teams attempt to rip each other to shreds, Oliver especially lays a fairly brutal beating on Wild Dog – the kind that could leave Rene crippled for life.  The Outsiders break off their assault to get Rene to the hospital, while Oliver heads off to try to find Laurel – but her trail has seemingly gone cold. Oliver has to admit to the city council that he was unable to locate the money the city paid to Cayden James. Elsewhere, Evil Laurel stumbles out of the woods and approaches a truck driver – but rather than kill him and steal his truck, she asks for his help and claims to be the Earth 1 Laurel Lance.

REVIEW

The showdown we’ve been building toward for the last six episodes proved to be far more explosive than I think anyone in the audience was prepared for.  The typical approach toward this on television would be that the two teams finally come to the central locus of their conflict, and discover that they need to work together to resolve it and move forward together, leading ultimately to a reconciliation.  Arrow goes a very different way with the idea that these two teams clash now in a way that proves almost fatal for Wild Dog – who is largely the backbone of the other team. I did not expect that the revolving door of Cayden James/Black Siren/Anatoly/Ricardo Diaz was really just a corruption backdrop to the ongoing drama that is this incredibly messy process of Oliver discovering his identity in the wake of the destruction on Lian Yu at the end of season five.   With Wild Dog now in the hospital and the team irrevocably fractured, I don’t imagine things are going to go smoothly for either team now. The big question is this final moment with Black Siren coming out of the woods claiming to be Laurel Lance, has getting shot messed with her head to the point where she believes she’s the real Laurel?

EPISODE MVP

Echo Kellum keeps selling the anger and frustration of being in the splintered team situation.  If it weren’t for his relatability, I suspect the constant anger and tension between the existing teams would be nigh unwatchable.

Arrow Season 6 Episode 15: “Doppelganger”

RECAP

Laurel Lance lives? Stranger things have certainly happened in Star City, but this one seems very strange indeed.  We don’t, however, have time to deal with this single event because Star City is splitting apart at the seams. First we learn that there is a surprise witness against Oliver Queen in his trial as the vigilante Green Arrow, next we learn that Ricardo Diaz seems to have large swaths of the SCPD in his pocket.  Dinah agrees to work with Quentin and Oliver in rooting out corruption within the SCPD, promising that when it’s all over she WILL return to dealing with Laurel. Oliver, Diggle and Felicity track down the secret witness only to discover that it Roy Harper held against his will by corrupt cops. Knowing that it is Roy convince Thea that it’s time to come off the bench and suit up as Speedy to help free her former boyfriend from incarceration.  Oliver, Thea, Diggle and Felicity work together once more to bust Roy out of the cell he’s being held in at the arrangement of Ricardo Diaz and bring him back to the safety of the Arrow Cave once more. He explains that he was captured somewhere near Hub City and that he would never betray Oliver. Thea and Roy decide to leave Star City together and build a life together elsewhere. Laurel is settling into her new fake life as the dead Laurel Lance, but Team Arrow isn’t alone in knowing the truth: Ricardo Diaz begins using Laurel as a source for information about Quentin Lance and the Mayor’s office.

REVIEW

Let me begin by making an appeal directly to the Producers of Arrow:  Please, please, please, let go of the idea of keeping Laurel Lance around.  I’m sure Katie Cassidy is a wonderful person, and a fine member of your cast who is game to deliver whatever you write for her.  I suspect everyone enjoys her presence on set, and it might not even feel right without her there. The audience does not feel the same way about her, or her performance, as you do.  The audience does not feel the same way about Black Siren, that we felt about the original or “good” Laurel. In the parlance of the movie Mean Girls, you’re trying to make Fetch happen and it’ll never happen.   Let Laurel go. That said, let’s look at the episode. The emergence of a seemingly impenetrable shadow regime under the control of Ricardo Diaz is sudden and I’m looking forward to some explanation of how he was able to take complete control Star City under the noses of both Team Arrow and Cayden James.  The highlight of this episode, without doubt, was the return of Colton Haynes as Roy Harper – and the return of Thea Queen to her Red costume to help rescue him. The entire city stacking up against Oliver seems potentially insurmountable without a team. Finally I’ve got to say I’m curious why we haven’t seen Rene in the hospital – Rick Gonzalez’ performance as Rene/Wild Dog was the impetus for the breakup of team Arrow in the first place, and it’s strange to not see him reacting to the events as they’ve played out thus far.

EPISODE MVP

Willa Holland really delivers some of her best work in the entire six year run of playing Thea.

Arrow Season 6 Episode 16: “The Thanatos Guild”

RECAP

Malcolm Merlin gathered together surviving members of the League of Assassins into a new organization known as The Thanatos Guild and told them that he has a secret map that will restore the strength and power of the League to its former standing in the world.  Now, the Thanatos Guild is ready to track down Merlin’s secret map and find the source of power they were promised. Nyssa Al Ghul discovers their intentions and comes so Star City to illicit the help of Thea Queen. Thea is about to leave town forever with Roy when Nyssa shows up and explains that the Thanatos Guild believe that Thea will know where the map is and are coming to try to kill her.  Thea, Roy, Team Arrow and Nyssa go looking for Merlin’s map before The Guild can try to find it, and what they discover is a puzzle box rather than a map itself. Reluctantly, Thea begins to realize that fighting alongside Nyssa – she might be able to find her purpose in the way that Oliver found his in the Green Arrow hood. The two teams meet in a second massive conflict and Team Arrow manages to defeat the Guild and recover the pieces needed to determine what Merlin’s map really leads to.  Merlin had discovered that there are more Lazarus Pits scattered across the globe, Nyssa asks Thea to come with her to destroy them all. Thea agrees, and Roy decides to travel with them. Thea, Roy and Nyssa leave Star City – presumably forever.

REVIEW

Oh Malcolm Merlin, why can’t we quit you?  One of the things I’ve enjoyed about this season of Arrow is that it has spent an entire year building out its narrative from standard, shop worn tropes common to their comic book source material and comic related television.  The story about the team breaking up over a philosophical difference? The Avengers did that, so did the Justice League, the X-Men, The Titans – but what has made Arrow’s narrative successful has been that they’ve combined those tropes with standard TV tropes and done so in not entirely expected ways.  This episode is a perfect example: the last appearance of Willa Holland as a series regular is a typical “one last mission” tv trope of a goodbye to one of the stars of the show – coupled with a standard comic book trope where “the dead secret organization is very much alive.” Either one of these on its own could have a perfectly serviceable episode, but together it creates an episode that puts one of the toys back in the box and pulls out a host of others to take its place.  Thea Queen and Roy Harper exit the narrative, but the League of Assassins is back and potentially more dangerous than ever, and we get fan favorite Nyssa Al’Ghul back as well. This becomes a mirror that can be held up to Oliver – as Thea figures out that her place is following the League it shows Oliver that his place really is in that silly green hood. The comedic interplay with Nyssa and Felicity over who really is the wife of Oliver Queen made for some light hearted moments in an otherwise action heavy hour.

EPISODE MVP

Katrina Law gave her strongest performance as Nyssa Al’Ghul yet.  Finally this character has stepped out of her father’s shadow and is a confident and powerful leader in her own right.

Arrow Season 6 Episode 17: “Brothers In Arms”

RECAP

Diaz doesn’t just have the police in his pocket, he’s got people at every single level of Star City’s government.  He has already won, and it is far too late for Oliver to do anything about it. Dinah and Curtis are able to give Oliver the first real list of names of who is in his pocket – including the acting Chief of Police and the District Attorney.  Felicity urges Oliver to finally come clean to Diggle that he has no intention of giving up the mantle of Green Arrow, and reluctantly Oliver does so. Diggle has a strong emotional reaction to this at first, and goes to his wife for some advice. She asks why he’s suddenly so emotionally connected to being the Green Arrow rather than Spartan – he isn’t entirely sure why.  Oliver has a sit down the Police Chief and the DA who both refuse Ollies offers of protection against Diaz, they are in his pocket and they aren’t coming out. Oliver fires them. Back at the Arrow Cave, Diggle attempts to apologize to Oliver for getting angry – but he just gets angrier. He admits that he feels Oliver is failing the city and that Oliver has lost the mission – now serving as the Arrow out of vanity rather than duty.  The two get into a heated argument that escalates and escalates until they start beating the shit out of each other. Felicity breaks it up, and the two team members go off on a mission together – but the damage is done. Diggle blames Oliver for the breakup of the two teams, for Diaz getting a foothold in the city, all of it. Diggle quits the team and leaves. Meanwhile, with the help of Laurel Lance, Diaz has convinced the fired Chief of Police and DA to call for the impeachment of Oliver Queen on the grounds that his firing of them was an attempt to obstruct justice in his impending trial.

REVIEW

Every single moment in the six years of Arrow thus far: all of the uneven episodes, all of the season plots that stretched believability, all of the strange left hand turns, all of it was worth it to finally see John Diggle beat the shit out of Oliver Queen. Sure the fight is super short because Felicity breaks it up, sure Oliver gets some good hits in of his own – but watching the nearly two minute fight it is clear that if this were to go the distance Oliver would lose.  The real meat of the episode though is the argument that builds up to the most satisfying fistfight in Arrow history, and this fight is just as satisfying – Diggle calling Oliver out on every bad choice he’s made since getting to Lian Yu at the end of last season and Oliver giving just as good as he gets. I called it a few episodes back, but this makes it clear: the collapse of Team Arrow and not the fate of Star City has been the true story of season 6. This episode marks a tectonic shift – because even when making questionable decisions Oliver has always had Diggle in his corner: how will he proceed without Diggle?  How will Diggle proceed without the team? Did anything else happen in this episode? Actually: yes, but nothing as powerful or as game changing as the fracturing of ORIGINAL Team Arrow. I’m constantly impressed with the way Season 6 continues to surprise.

EPISODE MVP

David Ramsey.  Flat out, the Diggle arc in this episode is some of the strongest material that’s been written in all six years and the man chews it up and spits it back out.

Presents

Four Color Catch Up Part Three

The Flash

When you left us we were working through our massive backlog of episodes to get you back up to date with all the fun goings on in the CW/DC Universe.  We travelled through time with the Legends of Tomorrow, and defended the city of Freeland with Black Lightning, and now it’s time to get you caught up on the episodes we missed of The Flash.  So without further ado, and with shorter recap sections for brevity:

The Flash Season 4 Episode 14: “Subject 9”

RECAP

Barry has been released from prison and has gone back to his life, but Central City isn’t welcoming him back with open arms.  The mayor has put pressure on the CCPD, and Director Singh, to not allow Barry to return to his job in the crime lab until the bad publicity from his trial has blown over.  Singh will not directly fire Barry, but places him on an extended leave of absence. All the better to give him time to track down DeVoe. Ralph on the other hand is beginning to feel more than a little cooped up, he’s now on a “buddy system” where a member of Team Flash is with him at all times.  While investigating the bus with Cisco, Ralph finds a CD by an aspiring country musician named Izzy Bowen. Ralph and Barry track Ms. Bowen down and discover that she has the ability to amplify sound into a weapon – this enables her to play her music effortlessly and use it as a weapon. Cisco gives her the name: The Fiddler, who is in no way interested in Barry and Ralph’s spiel so she uses her powers to distract them and escape.  Barry and Ralph aren’t the only ones desperate to track down the remaining bus meta’s – Becky Sharpe’s body is depleting fast and DeVoe needs a new host body. Ralph and Barry are on hand in costume when DeVoe makes his move and are witness to Izzy using her powers to defeat DeVoe. Team Flash takes Izzy back to S.T.A.R. Labs in an attempt to bring her into the fold against DeVoe, and Ralph develops a bit of a crush on the lady. Meanwhile, Harry creates a device for Cecille that will allow her to cancel out her gestational mind reading while she sleeps.  Harry realizes that this device could be used against DeVoe and pitches it to Team Flash, who all immediately recognize it as the device mentioned by Savitar that Team Flash created to stop DeVoe. Izzy gets frustrated with Team Flash and runs off to take her chances on her own, but she is almost instantly tracked down by DeVoe. Barry and Ralph show up and try their best to save Izzy, but the Neural Dampener built by Harry doesn’t work. DeVoe claims Izzy’s body as well, and Harry begins working on another device he can use to help Team Flash take down DeVoe.   Ralph and Barry bond over the loss of Izzy.

REVIEW

Reconceptualizing the classic Flash villain “The Fiddler” as a young, female, up and coming Country singer as opposed to the aging, male, classical violin virtuoso is a masterstroke that sets up a chance to give Ralph a reason to try to stretch beyond just being the sidekick hero to Barry.  It’s really Ralph’s attempts to connect with Izzy, and his success in trying to prove to her that Team Flash has the best interests of the world at heart that locomotive ahead this narrative – and as of this moment furthers the notion that Ralph can actually be a character rather than a caricature.   We’re also starting to see the cracks in the foundations of the DeVoe marriage, with Marlize having issues with Clifford’s actions as they spiral further and further from their intended plan. Watching Harry attempt to reach out to Cecile in an attempt to form a friendship outside of S.T.A.R. Labs is hilarious, and thankfully finally pays off the seeds laid by Abra Kadabra and Savitar in Season Three about defeating DeVoe.  While I fully anticipate this will ultimately lead to DeVoe’s defeat, I suspect it will come at something of a price to Harry who has taken proving himself to be smarter than DeVoe to obsessive levels.

EPISODE MVP

Danielle Nicolet who exhibits the patience of a saint in scenes with the overactive child that is Harry Wells.

The Flash Season 4 Episode 15: “Enter Flashtime”

RECAP

There won’t be much to recap here, because this episode is very much about the way the characters react to the situation than about the progression of the plot itself.  Jesse Quick has hopped over to Earth -1 to visit her Dad, and is on site with Barry when a nuclear bomb goes off in Central City. Barry immediately starts running at his top speed, slowing down time around him to try to find a solution.  Jesse can move alongside him – but both speedsters are new to the concept of going this fast. Barry sends Jess to Earth 3 to illicit the help of Jay Garrick, while Barry speeds up other members of Team Flash to superspeed (just as he did to Iris in the courtroom when she was going to admit his identity) to try to formulate a plan to dispose of the exploding device.  Cisco cannot breach it out of Central City because he’s moving too fast; Caitlin can’t freeze it for the same reason. Harry suggests letting the bomb go into the Speed Force so that it explodes there instead of in Central City. Jesse returns with Jay Garrick, who immediately suggests that Harry’s plan is stupid and that they should in no way attempt it as it might take all of their powers away forever.  Eventually Jay gets to a point where he can’t keep up and he slows down to the speed everyone else is frozen at. Barry urges Jesse to return to Earth 2 before it’s too late, she instead goes to see her Dad one last time before she too falls to normal speed and freeze. Barry pulls Iris into Flashtime and she helps Barry realize that he doesn’t need to put the bomb into the Speed Force, but he can use the Speed Force storm to destroy the bomb.  Way back in episode one, to allow Barry to escape the Speed Force prison Team Flash launched a probe with Barry’s DNA into the Speed Force to convince the Speed Force that he was in there even when he wasn’t. Barry races into the Speed Force, retrieving that ball of his own DNA so that when he leaves the Speed Force the Speed Force storm resumes – and he makes sure that the lightning from the storm is aimed directly at the nuke. The speed force energy prevents the nuclear blast and renders the bomb inert, Barry returns his DNA into the Speed Force and everyone returns to normal.

REVIEW

This is definitely in contention for best episode of The Flash thus far.  Often Flash is a show of big events that never quite fully live up to the potential of a show about a man who can move at speeds that you and I simply cannot comprehend.  It’s long been the complaint about Barry’s (and Wally’s for us comic fans) power set that he’s simply too overpowered – and the comics capitalize on that power in inventive ways that create challenging stories for The Flash that require unique applications of his speed.  Often, the series – by virtue of an effects budget and the need for more grounded storytelling – sticks to the tried and true: Barry races against time to stop the problem while Team Flash solves anything that doesn’t involve speed through the application of cool tech developed by Cisco and Harry.  It’s a formula that works well for the show, but it can lack the inventiveness shown in the comics. Enter Flashtime challenges that head on by creating an entire episode spent moving at Barry’s top speed – with the brilliant touch that the other speedsters who join in to help stop the explosion aren’t able to hold out as long as Barry.  Effectively a bottle episode hanging on three actors and two primary sets is created in such a way that it conveys a level of Barry’s powers that we’ve not yet seen. The other brilliant part of this construction of this episode is that it hangs an entire episode on the strength of Grant Gustin; with so many characters on The Flash, Barry oftentimes is overshadowed by the likes of Cisco or Harry.  It’s nice to scale back and let the star of the show shine on his own once more. As great as it is to have both Jesse Quick and Jay Garrick along for the ride protecting Central City, it highlights the absence of Wally West. Obviously the character had already shuffled on over to Legends of Tomorrow, but it is a damn shame that this show has a better handle on how to use Jesse and Jay as supporting speedsters than it has on how to include Kid Flash.

EPISODE MVP

Carlos Valdes as Cisco Ramon stands frozen in place better than any of the other actors this week.  I’m just kidding. This week it’s all Grant Gustin as a Barry Allen pushed to the very limits of his abilities to save his friends.

The Flash Season 4 Episode 16: “Run, Iris, Run.”

RECAP

Team Flash has a bit of a groove going; Harry is building his own thinking cap, Iris is calling the shots in S.T.A.R. Labs and things are going okay.  Still, Ralph isn’t so sure about Iris as a leader – and he begins to question why she is making the calls when she doesn’t have any real skin in the game.  As a result of that, Iris agrees to go into the field with Barry to investigate a mysterious bank robbery where a metahuman lost his powers. It turns out that during the robbery an EMT named Matthew Kim – a Bus Meta –used his abilities to remove the criminals powers.  Kim has the powers to transfer metahuman abilities from one person to another, and when he fears that Team Flash is coming to get him – he gives The Flash’s powers to Iris and escapes. The team has to figure out how to give Barry his powers back, and Iris takes on her role as The Flash in his absence, even helping to stop a large building fire and save hundreds of people – just like Barry would.  A classic meta named Melting Pot creates a thermal cyclone and there isn’t a whole lot of time to figure out how to stop it; Harry uses his new Thinking Cap to figure out that Iris needs to create a tidal wave to take the cyclone out – but she’s afraid she can’t do it. Barry talks her through it, she runs back and forth until she creates enough force to take out the cyclone and brings Melting Pot in.  The team tracks down Matthew Kim and recruits him to 1. Give Barry his powers back and 2. Join them in trying to take down DeVoe. Ralph accepts Iris’ leadership, but Iris realizes something is missing from her life – so she reopens her long dormant blog and takes a step toward becoming a reporter again. Harry uses his Thinking Cap and comes up with the names of the last two bus metas that Devoe is searching for.

REVIEW

The standard “powerless character gains power/powerful character loses power” trope can easily slide into parody, but thankfully that wasn’t the case with Iris gaining Barry’s powers and Barry suddenly having to join the support staff.  Obviously there is some inherent comedy with usually confident and hard charging Barry having to stay at STAR Labs and use a computer, and that is mined quickly before pushing forward into what is the central theme of the episode: exploring Iris’ role as a leader, a hero, and a team member.   This season has introduced us to a different version of Iris West, one who picked up the pieces after Barry’s disappearance into the Speed Force and took over leadership of the new Team Flash that was built around Wally West. As the season has progressed Iris has continued to lead the team, but at the cost of her own individuality.  This episode is used as a lens to remind Iris that she has value to contribute outside of Team Flash, whilst also showing Ralph that he can trust in her leadership and her decisions. Introducing a Bus Meta beyond Ralph who finally gets saved by Team Flash was a much needed win for the team at the point where they’ve had so very few.

EPISODE MVP

Candace Patton steps beyond her usual level of performance and gives us an introspection that was well earned and well portrayed.

Presents

THE FOUR COLOR CATCH UP

Part Two

Between the mid-winter blahs and a case of the flu, The Four Color Ark is in need of a great deal of maintenance to get us up to date.  To get caught up we’re going to do quicker recaps and review episodes in groupings of four. In our last part we looked back at the last four weeks’ worth of episodes of Legends of Tomorrow, and in part two we’re going to jump in to get caught up on Black Lightning.

Black Lightning Season 1, Episode 6: “Three Sevens: The Book of Thunder” WEEK 16

RECAP

When last we left Black Lightning, he’d been pretty badly beaten by Joey Toledo; still unable to get to his feet things get much worse as Toledo has tipped the police to Black Lightning’s location and are on their way.   Gambi manages to get Jefferson to the safety of the tailor shop and an angry lecture from Lynn. Still learning about her powers Anissa has resumed her social activist activities and leads a protest of Confederate statues that gets her arrested.  Jefferson tries to convince Anissa that her activism is dangerous and could get her killed. Lynn is given a copy of an MRI of someone who was using Green Light and recognizes it as being eerily similar to Jefferson’s MRI scan. Jennifer decides that Khalil’s injuries are putting a burden on their relationship, and while she is trying to be understanding Khalil’s rage goes further than she anticipated – even to posting attacks against her on social media.   Gambi attempts to get Jefferson to back off of his hunt for Tobias Whale – firstly because he fears Jefferson will try to kill him and also to keep his own secret. Anissa hears that a white nationalist killed a protestor at the Confederate statue she suits up and uses her powers to destroy the statue. Jefferson manages to track down a doctor who treats Tobias for his albinism and sets up a trap to catch him. Anissa asks Lynn to do some research for her on the data she found in her grandfathers storage shed.  Jennifer breaks up with Khalil. Two guys show up to rough up Lynn and steal her data, while she is on the phone with Jefferson. Jefferson drops his efforts to take down Tobias and races to Lynn’s lab, but isn’t the first one there. Anissa shows up in costume and takes care of the guys who attacked Lynn, and when Jefferson shows up he can’t tell that the superheroine Thunder is Anissa – the two fight and Jefferson kicks her ass. Lynn, finally untied, reveals that Thunder is Anissa – together Lynn and Jefferson rush Anissa to Gambi’s.  Tobias promises Khalil he’ll walk again. And Anissa wakes up to see her father is Black Lightning.

REVIEW

We’re ramping up on the idea that Gambi has a deep and dark secret that he needs to keep from Jefferson, and is connected to some incredibly large conspiracy related to Tobias Whale, Green Light and Black Lightning.  I’ve already devoted some column inches to the real origin of Peter Gambi, so I won’t do so again here, but clearly this is going in much the direction I’d expected. The fight between Black Lightning and Thunder was excellent to watch, particularly because it showcased the standard Superhero crossover trope where the two heroes have a fight scene caused by a misunderstanding before teaming up.  Lynn Pierce is slowly becoming my least favorite character. I appreciate that she is meant to be a foil for Jefferson, but the way her opinions of Black Lightning and Jefferson’s actions spin on a dime is getting incredibly irksome as it’s not handled with any real consistency.

EPISODE MVP

Jordan Calloway who brings an incredibly realistic rage to his scenes as Khalil, this episode allows him to deliver perhaps the most chillingly realistic performance of the entire series thus far.

Black Lightning Season 1, Episode 7: “Equinox: The Book of Fate” WEEK 17

RECAP

We rejoin Black Lightning with Lynn diagnosing Anissa with a concussion after her title bout with Black Lightning, and Lynn trying desperately to convince Anissa to not follow Jeff into the family business of superheroism.  Meanwhile Gambi and Jefferson have a serious conversation about Gambi’s withholding of information about the return of Tobias Whale, which Gambi again simply attributes to not wanting to see Jefferson become a murderer. Jefferson and Lynn go to the police about the break in at the lab and a composite sketch is generated of Lynn’s assailants.  Lady Eve gets a copy of the sketch and has her henchmen go off to “take care of it” before notifying Gambi that the situation is being dealt with. Inspector Henderson reaches out to Black Lightning to try to figure out who the mysterious meta is who destroyed the Confederate statue, while Gambi has a parley with Lady Eve about Tobias and how he has broken the agreement.  Anissa and Jefferson argue about Anissa’s role as a superhero, and Jennifer picks up on the tension. Anissa discovers that her father’s editor has been killed for giving her information that led to her finding the mysterious vial and data. Gambi murders Joey Toledo. Anissa and Lynn have an argument about being a hero. Lynn, swayed by Anissa’s argument, realizes Anissa won’t give up and asks Jefferson to train her to do it right so that she’ll be safe.  Lynn then asks Gambi to make Anissa a super suit like Jefferson’s. Jefferson and Anissa have a conversation about Jeff’s father, and Jefferson agrees to teach her. Jefferson and Henderson tracked Joey Toledo’s movements to a jazz club set to reopen – Jefferson reasons that this must mean Tobias Whale is behind the jazz club. As Black Lightning, Jefferson heads to the jazz club and is drawing close to Tobias when Whale’s guards catch sight of him and attack.  A massive shootout erupts and in the fracas both Tobias and his sister Kiesha take bullets, Tobias manages to escape and Jefferson stays with Kiesha trying to stabilize her – but unfortunately she dies in his arms. Across town at Lady Eve’s mortuary Tobias’ henchmen arrive with lightning guns and kill Lady Eve, framing Black Lightning for her murder. Inspector Henderson calls Black Lightning and accuses him of Lady Eve’s murder, saying that this time he has gone too far.   In a mysterious hotel room, Lala wakes up – very much alive.

REVIEW

First off… Lala’s alive? Quoi? As twists go, that was the last thing I expected.  Speaking of twists, I also didn’t expect that we were going to lose Lady Eve this early in the shows run.  Also surprising, the death of Kiesha. This episode really seems like the writers room brief was: “do every unexpected thing you can imagine.” It’s an incredible thing to hit episode 7 and just completely flip the script on where the show is going. The slow burn on the growing tension between Jefferson and Gambi over the mysterious secret is being played razor tight, which is great to see.  A conflict like this one would have blown up swiftly if it were taking place on any of the other CW/DC series. Gambi’s excitement over creating a super suit for Anissa is definitely a highlight of the episode, my only complaint here is that Jennifer seemed conspicuously absent in this episode – yes she had a single scene where she commented on the tension between Jefferson and Anissa, but beyond that she was just kind of gone.

EPISODE MVP

Kyanna Simone Simpson’s Kiesha really sold the portrayal of the power behind the throne that is Tobias Whale in this, her final episode.  She also had an incredible death scene where she without saying a word out-acted Cress Williams.

Black Lightning Season 1, Episode 8: “The Book of Revelations” WEEK 18

RECAP

In Gambi’s basement, Jefferson is in full on Yoda mode – walking Anissa through a training session against holographic criminals.  Word has gotten out that Black Lightning is being blamed for the murder of Lady Eve, and the city is not reacting well. Black Lightning as a murderer isn’t the only shocking thing going on, as Lala walks into his own nightclub as if nothing has happened – confusing the hell out of his surviving henchmen.  A mysterious member of the ASA named Martin Proctor (Gregg Henry) meets with Gambi to inform him that he is bringing in a team to kill Black Lightning. Anissa and Jefferson break into the morgue where Lady Eve’s body is being held and get information that enables Gambi to determine that she was killed with a  weapon that would need a nuclear power cell. Gambi begins trying to track the radiation, and ends up heading to church to try to seek some guidance on what to do. Jennifer and her friend Keisha are hanging up posters at school when Keisha begins to fall off a scaffolding – in reaction to the tension - lightning erupts from Jennifer: destroying her cell phone.  Gambi manages to track the radiation signal, goes off to investigate; while Lynn discovers that the mysterious vial found in Jefferson’s father’s locker is in fact a vaccine for Green Light and informs Anissa and Jefferson. The two heroes go off after the radiation Gambi found and manage to find a cache of weapons buried in the woods. Jefferson calls Henderson as Black Lightning and asks him to send officers to their coordinates so that he can clear his name.  Instead, a crooked cop shows up to the scene and tampers with the evidence. Lynn confronts Gambi about the possibility of a cure for Green Light, and correctly senses that Gambi knows much more than he’s letting on. Gambi tells Lynn that he needs to speak with Jefferson immediately. Lala is wandering around Freeland talking to the ghost of Lawanda, who is trying to shepherd him back into his old life. Jefferson arrives to talk with Gambi, and Gambi confesses his role in everything that has happened in Freeland.  Gambi was a member of a government agency known as the ASA that began experimenting on the people of Freeland almost 30 years ago with the drug that came to be known as Green Light. When Gambi realized that the drug was making children sick, he turned the data over to Jefferson’s father, which is what got him killed. He felt responsible so he took Jefferson under his wing. Jefferson, unsurprisingly, does not react well and storms out – blaming Gambi for the death of his father. Jennifer tries to get assurance from Anissa about the electrical damage to her phone being nothing major, but Anissa realizes it means that Jennifer also has powers.

REVIEW

Finally the Gambi reveal, and with a neat twist that he isn’t really even named Peter Gambi.  Thankfully, as expected, they keep Gambi out of actually being involved in the death of Jefferson’s father in this version – which makes his actions questionable but not reprehensible.  Honestly the Jefferson and Anissa plot where they’re trying to clear Black Lightning’s good name is fairly straightforward, and there is much more interesting material to be mined in Jennifer’s experience with her emerging powers and the incredibly insane return of Lala who is haunted by a very different ghost of Lawanda.  It raises so many questions, and answers exactly none of them; Is the means of Lala’s return the same thing that keeps Tobias from aging? Could Lady Eve return the same way that Lala did? Or even Kiesha? Had she lived, would Lady Eve have been there to help Lala through the process in a more constructive way? Jennifer’s first steps toward becoming Lightning are interesting, and it’s nice to see her powers emerging in similar but different ways than Anissa’s powers at the start of the season.  Perennial sleaze Gregg Henry showing up as the leader of the ASA is a brilliant casting choice, and once I’m surprised the CW/DC Universe hadn’t already made – Henry would have just as easily been at home as cutthroat executive alongside Moira Queen on Arrow.

EPISODE MVP

James Remar really blew the doors of his performance as Gambi in this episode, showcasing a man at a crossroads with perfect internal conflict – as he finally confesses his truth to Jefferson even we as the audience start to see Gambi differently than we had before.  Beautifully played.

Black Lightning Season 1, Episode 9: “The Book of Little Black Lies” WEEK 19

RECAP

Jefferson is not a happy man; he’s mad at Gambi for his long held secret, he’s mad at Henderson for sending a crooked cop to retrieve the weapon that would exonerate Black Lightning for Lady Eve’s murder.  Meanwhile, Anissa is incredibly tactless in dealing with the concept that Jennifer has powers. She brazenly demonstrates her powers to Jennifer and blurts out that Jefferson is Black Lightning, causing Jennifer to run to her father for confirmation.  When Jefferson admits who he is, Jennifer storms off. Lynn has some words with Anissa about how she handled the revelation about the family issues to Jennifer, and after accepting an apology on the issue: Jefferson begins working with Anissa to devise their plan to finally get Green Light off the streets of Freeland.  As they work through the old research and courthouse documents, Lynn reaches out to Jennifer to try to talk her through the trauma of her emerging powers. Jefferson and Anissa hit pay dirt in their researching, discovering payments to Jefferson’s father from a company called BendsCorp. Meanwhile, Gambi is trying to track down the lightning weapons used on Lady Eve, and he is willing to stoop to some old school black ops techniques to get the info from a Russian agent.  Anissa and Jefferson don some Presidential Halloween masks to break into a law firm where they can shake down information about BendsCorp. Afterwards, Anissa and Jennifer have a heart to heart about their powers. Gambi tracks the guns down and goes to investigate the warehouse, discovering that the weapons were created by the same organization he was a part of and that they have the kids affected by Green Light 20 years earlier in cryostasis. Gambi reaches out to Anissa to try to get her to convince Jefferson to trust him and go after the ASA and Martin Proctor – and true to his word he gives Anissa her new super suit.  Jennifer talks to Lynn about how she feels like a freak and how she would just rather have a normal life. Elsewhere, Jefferson and Anissa are following Martin Proctor – while at the same time Inspector Henderson is on the trail of some crooked cops who are trading in high tech weaponry. Henderson and Black Lightning converge at Proctor’s warehouse and a fight ensues – Proctor manages to escape, Henderson arrests a chemist working on Green Light for the ASA and Black Lightning/Thunder torch the ASA warehouse. Later that night at home, Jefferson finally approaches Jennifer and apologizes for keeping his secret from her. The two drop their plans and have a father/daughter movie night so that they can reconnect.

REVIEW

This ASA conspiracy is so twisting and deep that I simply cannot predict exactly how it’s meant to conclude. I mean this government agency has released a drug that gives people increased strength; has cryogenically frozen a group of teenagers who are in fact older than Jefferson; are potentially responsible for Jefferson getting powers; are definitely responsible for Lady Eve’s ability to resurrect the dead; and equally responsible for the agelessness of Tobias Whale – all in the name of trying to control the inner city population of Freeland?  Is the ASA like a really militarized version of DARPA? Anissa and Jefferson’s continued quest to clear Black Lightning’s name feels like it dominated an episode that lived in the aftermath of a whole host of unanswered questions – both about the ASA and about Lala and about Jennifer’s emerging powers. It was nice to wrap out that storyline and put Jefferson back in the suit, alongside the reveal of the Gambi created Thunder suit for Anissa – which looks excellent. I’m glad that Gregg Henry’s Proctor was able to slink away to remain a threat for Gambi and Jefferson.  One of the best moments in the whole episode though was the quiet moment between Jennifer and Anissa where Jennifer informs Anissa that she has more fans online than Black Lightning does.

EPISODE MVP

China Anne McCLain finally gets a chance to really shine as she struggles through her own powers, as well as the fact that her sister is Thunder and her father is Black Lightning.  She doesn’t overplay it, nor does she go too subtle – which given her history as an actor on more didactic Disney channel shows – it is a deft piece of acting that she was able to thread that needle so well.

UP NEXT: In Part Three of The Four Color Catch Up, we’re bringing it home with our look at Arrow and The Flash.

Presents

THE FOUR COLOR CATCH UP

Part One

Between the mid-winter blahs and a case of the flu, The Four Color Ark is in need of a great deal of maintenance to get us up to date.  To get caught up we’re going to do quicker recaps and review episodes in groupings of four. In Part One of our Catch Up Special we’re going to focus on Legends of Tomorrow which has been running straight through since it started airing again in February and is drawing closer and closer to its season finale in two weeks.

Legends of Tomorrow Season 3 Episode 12: “The Curse of the Earth Totem”  WEEK 16

RECAP

Sara goes on a date with Ava, and the two ladies just want to get away from the stresses of protecting the timeline for one night, but with the Legends on the case the likelihood of that happening is incredibly slim.  When we left them last time, Rip Hunter had tracked down the missing speedster Wally West and was asking for his assistance with an urgent matter. A reluctant Wally West questions Rip about what he needs and isn’t entirely convinced by the Time Master’s motives, until the two get drunk together and dash off to sing some Karaoke.  Meanwhile the Legends decide they need to get a hold of the Earth Totem before Damien and Nora Darhk can, so they head back to 1717 to steal it from Blackbeard himself. It turns out that Blackbeard is a huge coward, the Darhk’s are in 1717 as well and back in 2018 a mysterious speedster steals Time Agent Gary’s time travel device AND Rip Hunter’s coat.  Amaya convinces all of Blackbeard’s followers that she’s a rough and tumble pirate so they can aid in the struggle against the Darhk’s, but it doesn’t pay off in the long run as Nora Darhk manages to steal Amaya’s totem. Cowardly Blackbeard gives Damien Darhk the location of the cursed Earth totem, and Damien digs it up – along with the zombified bearer of it who begins killing any Pirate she can find. With things going hilariously off the rails both Sara and Ava bail on their dates to deal with their respective emergencies that ultimately intersect as the two sort out their feelings for each other while Pirates board the Waverider.  Ray uses his anti-magic weapon on Nora Darhk and it clearly works as the Legends escape while Nora begins to die. Feeling terrible about killing another human, and seeing an opportunity to retrieve Amaya’s stolen totem – Ray steals the time shuttle and goes back to 1717 to offer Damien Darhk a trade: Amaya’s totem in exchange for healing Nora. Damien gives Ray the totem, and Ray injects Nora with a cure – immediately she wakes up and chokes Ray until he passes out.

REVIEW

So we have a fairly serviceable homage to Pirates of the Caribbean, with cursed treasure providing eternal life to the damned person who wears it – and we get an extra helping of the Darhk family to make it extra fun.  Though it is becoming glaringly obvious that Nora Darhk is not nearly as charismatic and enjoyable a character as her father, which is a shame because I believe Courtney Ford can play gonzo crazy just as well as Neal McDonough.  The Amaya needs to find her inner strength story is an odd one to set up as happening before her totem is stolen from her, but it’s serviceable and doesn’t weigh the episode down too much. The highlights of the episode really do come from the introduction of Wally West in this episode, having drunken adventures with Rip Hunter while lamenting that he doesn’t really fit in with the gang at S.T.A.R. Labs.  Wally and Rip drunkenly singing Careless Whisper is indeed an episode, and perhaps a series highlight.

EPISODE MVP

Double winners this week as Keiynan Lonsdale and Arthur Darvill share the limelight.  Drunk Wally and Rip really make for a dynamic duo, and it’s great to have two characters who feel like outsiders fighting to find their way back inside.

Legends of Tomorrow Season 3 Episode 13: “No Country for Old Dads”  WEEK 17

RECAP

It takes a while, but eventually the Legends notice that Ray is missing and discover a video message he sent them confirming that he’s been taken prisoner by the Darhk’s who want Ray to use his scientific knowledge to help them recreate the damaged Fire Totem.  The Legends are deep into attempting to figure out how to track down Ray, when Rip and Wally use Gary’s time device to appear on the bridge of the Waverider seeking the assistance of the Legends in stopping Mallus. Back in Darhk imprisonment, Ray tries to earn his freedom by informing Damien that the only thing that could possibly reforge the fire totem would be cold fusion, which simply doesn’t exist.  Except it almost did. Back in the day, a younger Damien Darhk was hired to assassinate an Eastern German scientist who had created cold fusion – so to reforge the totem all they have to do is go back in time and steal the formula from the scientist before Darhk can kill him. Nora volunteers for the mission as she apparently feels the need to prove her capabilities to Daddy Darhkest – and takes Ray back in time with her.  It’s a race against time as past Damien Darhk is almost always one step away from killing the scientist no matter what Nora and Ray do to try to save him and get the formula, since in their first encounter past Darhk destroyed their time stone preventing them from going back to the present. Eventually present Damien begins to feel it’s taking too long and goes back in time to try to assist Nora, only to discover that she and Ray have run afoul of his younger self.  The Legends have followed some false leads to try to track down Ray but with no luck. Ray, in an attempt to cross the Berlin Wall blasts a hole in the wall knowing it will create an anachronism and draw the attention of the Legends. The Legends see Ray’s timequake and rush to save the day, arriving just as the two Damien Darhk’s are going toe to toe over the fate of Nora. Nora finally manages to make Amaya’s totem work, and Wally races into the fray to save Ray and bring him back to the Waverider – as well as the fire totem which he pickpockets from Damien as a souvenir.  Gorilla Grodd attacks the Time Bureau and kills the leadership – making Ava the senior agent and new interim director. Ava calls off the manhunt for Rip, Rip scrubs information about Ava from the Waverider computer banks, and Wally West decides that instead of returning to 2018 with Rip and Ava – he’d like to remain aboard the Waverider and become a Legend.

REVIEW

What’s better than Damien Darhk?  TWO Damien Darhk’s who are diametrically opposed to each other.  This was the episode I’ve kind of been waiting for in terms of both the Darhk’s and the Legends; in Darhk territory it was starting to feel like we needed an episode that defined the relationship of Nora and Damien – and this episode does that in spades.  Damien as an overprotective father who has become this overt monster in the hopes of leaving a legacy for Nora; and Nora as the daughter desperate to show her father that she can take care of herself really elevates the material here and showcases that these two characters are worthy villains for our Legends.  Over on the Legends side of the coin, we needed an outing that showcased how a character like Wally West could integrate with the disparate team that are the Legends of Tomorrow. The fake out adventure on the way to find Ray, to show Wally that the Legends are a lot looser than Team Flash was a great play on the idea of Kid Flash taking souvenirs from his adventures on the Young Justice cartoon – and it also showed Wally that he can loosen up a little bit on this new team.  At this early point, it seems like joining the Legends is really going to help Wally open up a bit and grow into his own character (just like his comic counterpart who grew by leaps and bounds through his appearances in The Teen Titans.) It was also excellent to see real life couple Courtney Ford and Brandon Routh playing off of each other so effortlessly on their mission to East Germany; not only because their chemistry is so well played – but because we’re starting to see the results of Ray’s tinkering with Nora’s past in 2018.  She remembers how the Legends treated her as a little girl, and it is softening her view of them.

EPISODE MVP

This episode is the Courtney Ford show, left right and center.  Even in an episode that has not one but two scenery chewing Neal McDonough’s.

Legends of Tomorrow Season 3 Episode 14: “Amazing Grace”  WEEK 18

RECAP

A young man buys a guitar with seemingly magical powers, a young man named Elvis Presley (Luke Bilyk.)  In the present, something has changed things subtly on the Waverider: (Nate isn’t using hair product anymore, Mick’s pet rat is no longer named Axl but is suddenly named Josh Groban.)  Gideon quickly scans the timeline and determines that the anachronism stems from the fact that Memphis Tennessee was abandoned in the 1950’s due to “mass hysteria.” Without Memphis, there would be no rock and roll music, and thus history would be irrevocably altered.  The Legends hop back to Memphis in the 1950’s and quickly discover that Elvis Presley is in possession of a guitar with the mysterious fifth totem mounted in the neck. Wally steals Elvis’ guitar and replaces it with a fake so that the team can take the totem, which causes Elvis to have a disastrous performance and lose confidence.  Nate and Amaya convince the team that without the guitar Elvis won’t be able to make his recording at Sun Records and rock and roll will never be born. Elvis shows up and records his first record, but his uncle has him arrested and thrown in jail, and takes the record to his church where he intends to destroy it. Wally and Zari convince Elvis’ uncle that Elvis rock and roll music isn’t “of the devil” and Wally races the recording to the radio station where Elvis track was first played so that history will be restored.  Except that the totem attached to Elvis’ guitar is the “death totem” which gives Elvis complete control over the dead, even the recently deceased pet rat of Mick Rory aka Axl/Josh Groban. His music playing over the airwaves in Memphis raises ghosts from every grave in Memphis. Nate busts Elvis out of prison and reunites him with his guitar so that Elvis can dispel the ghosts, and Elvis does so. With his confidence full restored and rock history preserved, Elvis gives the death totem to the Legends and goes off to meet his destiny.  The Legends lock the death totem up in a box, finally one totem ahead of Damien Darhk.

REVIEW

Another brilliant play on the concept that alteration to pop culture of the past can alter the present for our heroes in drastic ways, is done much more subtly this time around with the erasure of Elvis Presley than with the erasure of Star Wars, but the concept is indeed the same.  Degrassi alum Luke Bilyk plays a rather impressive Elvis, and the episode is fairly straightforward for an episode of Legends. It is interesting to see Amaya without her totem slowly begin to question her place in the world and with the Legends. The interplay between Zari and Wally, where the previous newcomer tries to convince Wally to slow down and not always use his superspeed as a crutch is a brilliant moment – and it showcases just why Wally may have needed to be removed from The Flash.  Wally’s first instinct is to use his speed to solve the problem directly, where Barry’s first instinct is to research first – remaining on the other show forced Wally to either fail constantly so that Barry’s method could win the day, or be written out of scenes intentionally so that Barry’s ultimate arrival at the speed based solution wouldn’t ring hollow. Splitting the two speedsters up allows both to be true to their own characters.

EPISODE MVP

Dominic Purcell brings it home with his hilarious and somber portrayal of a man losing his pet rat, then being assaulted by the ghost of his pet rat, then burying his pet rat.  Bonus points to Brandon Routh for Ray Palmer’s earnestness in throwing a funeral for said rat.

Legends of Tomorrow Season 3 Episode 15: “Necromancing the Stone”  WEEK 19

RECAP

Sara and Ava are finally a full-fledged couple and things couldn’t be going better, except that the Darhk’s and Mallus are creating multiple anachronisms at once to try to tax the Legends ability to fix time – which will weaken the bonds holding Mallus and allow him to enter our world.  Sara breaks the team up and sends them off to deal with different anachronisms, while Ray and Rory go off to work on the Fire Totem. When the teams return they find Mick napping, Ray unconscious and possibly dying and an eerily pale and demonic Sara Lance wearing the Death Totem. A fight ensues and it is only thanks to Wally that the team makes it out.  Sara puts the ship on lockdown, and the team realizes they need Constantine to try to exorcise Mallus from Sara. Ava and Agent Gary track down Constantine to illicit his help, and while the three of them prepare the exorcism, the Legends play a game of cat and mouse throughout the Waverider with Sara. Ava and Constantine deal with some sexual tension over the fact that they’ve both recently been with Sara, while Agent Gary likens the situation to a D&D campaign he played in.  Mallus, in Sara’s body, manages to incapacitate everyone by manipulating their emotions and straight up kicking their ass. It comes down to Amaya and Mick, and the newly reformed Fire Totem. Amaya at first wants to claim the totem as her own, but realizes it is meant for Mick – convincing him to wear it and become a totem bearer. Mick uses the new found abilities from his totem to combat Mallus on the Waverider, Constantine and Ava portal to the Waverider to push Mallus back to his dimension and free Sara.  Sara has a vision in Mallus’ realm where Nora Darhk tries to recruit her to Mallus’ side – but Sara is strong enough to resist the temptation and thanks to Constantine regains control of her own body. Sara, afraid of putting Ava in danger, breaks up with her; and back on Earth: Agent Gary has a special player at his latest D&D session: John Constantine.

REVIEW

The good guy? Possessed by the evil totem into being the bad guy?  It’s a standard trope but it does play well. The tension between Ava and John Constantine was gloriously played, even though it was clear that the encounter with Constantine didn’t mean what Ava thought it meant.  The other standard trope in this episode was each Legend confronting someone or something from their past was interestingly done, and it worked out well that Violett Bean was in town for her appearance in the Flash episode “Flashtime” to be available to appear as Jesse in Wally West’s nightmare vision.  This wasn’t necessarily the strongest Legends episode, but it was pretty good. I think my biggest complaint is less with the episode and more with the portrayal of D&D. While Dungeons & Dragons is gaining a considerable amount of mainstream acceptance, it’s still being employed by Hollywood as an undertaking only made by uber nerds like Agent Gary (in full cloak) or the cast of The Big Bang Theory.  Real people play this game, normal people play this game, it’s time to stop making fun of people who play this game. Though it was fun to twist that a little by having Constantine joining the fun, it didn’t subvert the punchline enough to make it not insulting.

EPISODE MVP

Matt Ryan as Constantine should become a regular cast member on this show because he’s just so much fun… oh wait: HE DID!  Starting next season John Constantine will be a full time member of the Waverider crew.

UP NEXT:  In Part Two of our Four Color Catch Up we’re going to get up to date on Black Lightning!

In this edition of The Four Color Ark, Host Matthew J. Blanchard takes listeners inside the origins of the most iconic character in four color history, Superman. 

Intro ("The Big Rescue" by John Williams) Outro ("Finale/End Title March" by John Williams) 

Send Feedback : dirtypoolfilms@gmail.com 

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Presents

DC/CW Television Week 14/15

The Olympics are over and we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled updates shortly.  In the meantime, here is our last update column covering Weeks 14 and 15.

Legends of Tomorrow Season 3, Episode 10: “Daddy Darhkest”

RECAP

When we left The Legends back in 2017, John Constantine had just shown up to tell Sara that there was a demon that knew her by name – turns out Constantine was called in to perform an exorcism on a girl named Emily – and that was when he encountered the demon who called Sara by name.  Sara instantly pieces together that this demon is Mallus, and the team plans to help him complete the exorcism.  Kuasa shows up to try to prevent the exorcism, Nate uses Snart’s cold gun to freeze Kuasa – and Mallus lashes out with his power and throws Constantine, Sara and Snart back in time to 1969.  Zari and Ray are building what they think will be an anti-magic gun that could be used on Nora Dahrk, while Mick is taking advantage of the rare opportunity to watch live football since the crew in the present (relatively.)  When the crew come to him for advice on what’s going on, he tells them to put the frozen Kuasa on ice for the moment and sends Nate, Ray and Zari back to the asylum to find out what went wrong.  It doesn’t take long for them to discover that this girl named Emily, is really Nora Dahrk who became a ward of the state after her father was killed by The Green Arrow at the end of Arrow Season 4.  Ray and Zari bust Nora out and take her out into the real world to try to make her feel normal and buy some time.  Meanwhile back in 1969 Snart, Sara and Constantine separate to enact a plan to leave a message in the asylum for The Legends to find in 2017.  Sara and John end up having some laundry room sex, while poor Snart gets caught by orderlies – his note for the future Legends gets read and the staff presumes he is crazy and prepares to give him a lobotomy.  Before they can do anything to Leo, Sara and Constantine show up and save the day.  The team revises their escape plan and decides that what they’ll do is let Mallus possess Sara long enough for Sara to enter the spirit plane and draw the same time travel rune that Emily/Nora drew to send them back to 1969.  Meanwhile in Star City Jitters everyone is having a lovely time until Emily/Nora sees a news report about Oliver Queen being accused of being The Green Arrow. Seeing a photo of her father’s killer freaks her out, Mallus emerges and craziness ensues.  While Mallus is possessing both Sara in 1969 and Emily/Nora in 2017 the young girl and the woman can communicate with each other in the spirit realm.  Sara encourages Emily/Nora to fight back against Mallus and draws her rune.  Mallus rages through SC Jitters until encountering Zari who touches him causing physical pain to Nora.  Mallus fades away and Damian Dahrk shows up, revealing to his daughter for the first time that he is still alive.  He places her in the care of the nurses from the asylum and informs her that she must get stronger to bring him back to life.  Sara, Snart and Constantine return to the present.  Kuasa and Amaya have a conversation about the future, where Kuasa somewhat convinces Amaya that she is motivated by the best interests of their people. Amaya lets her go.  Constantine leaves, but first tells Ray to use his anti-magic gun to kill Sara if she becomes possessed again; Snart decides he’s returning to Earth-X and says goodbye to Mick.  Sara calls Ava to flirt, but is told that surprisingly Rip Hunter has escaped his prison and disappeared.

REVIEW

Back from the long hiatus, Legends returns with the long brewing episode featuring John Constantine trying to perform an exorcism with the help of Sara Lance – the result is the best episode of Constantine that never aired and an odd amalgam episode of Legends that is not quite sure what it wants to be.  The time displacement to the 1960’s and the straightforward plot by the team in the past to leave a note for their future selves is relatively well played. Perhaps too much time is spent exploring the mysterious origins of the young possessed girl who turns out to be Nora Dahrk and the setting up of a secret cult-run mental institution in Starling/Star City.  There is a long road from young Nora’s conflicted self, and the batshit crazy version of Nora that Courtney Ford is playing in the future iterations of the character; so the episode leaves me very curious just what happened in between the two events in her life.  Damian Dahrk is certainly no candidate for father of the year, but he’s not nearly as psychopathic as his daughter is.  What happens to break her so thoroughly, and did meeting The Legends in the past mark a change in her timeline that can be exploited moving into the back half of the season?  The brilliant emotional goodbye between Earth X’s Leo Snart and Mick is exactly the goodbye we needed between these two fan favorite characters and the actors who play them.  It’s a shame to see Wentworth Miller leave the show again so soon after coming back, but it’s made easier through this being the sunnier Leo and not the snarkier Captain Cold.

EPISODE MVP

Matt Ryan* is excellent as John Constantine, and gives you a sense that this character has a rich life beyond this story that he’s in currently.  By god someone should give him his own show, oh wait…

Black Lightning Season 1, Episode 5: “And Then the Devil Brought the Plague: The Book of Green Light”

RECAP

Gambi and Black Lightning are testing the Black Lightning suit’s new flight ability and it works incredibly well.  Gambi suggests Jefferson has done enough testing, but Black Lightning wants to keep on flying – and flies right into a police standoff with someone high on Green Light.  Black Lightning stops the cops from shooting the guy, and manages to take him down – suggesting that the cops try a taser before pulling their guns.  Meanwhile Tobias Whale shows up in Gambi’s shop under the pretense of buying a new suit, but really he wants Black Lightning’s identity – the takeaway though is that both Gambi and Tobias Whale know a lot more about what is really going on in Freeland than Black Lightning does.  Tobias goes home and Tori informs him that visiting the Tailor was a mistake, and that all of his failures stem from the fact that he never defeated his oldest enemy.  Tobias reveals that he is tired of his current situation and wants to play at the same level as Lady Eve, Tori says she can help with that.  Black Lightning goes out looking for the name of the seller of Green Light and gets the name Joey Toledo – the former right hand man of Tobias Whale whom he believes should be long gone.  Gambi is unsurprised to find that Toledo is back and begins to try to track him down – when suddenly Jefferson collapses in Gambi’s shop.  Not knowing what to do, Gambi calls Lynn to try to help.   Anissa is researching people with powers and comes across information about a conspiracy of children with powers who disappeared over thirty years ago; the video she watches on this conspiracy speaks of the reporter who was breaking the story being killed before he could reveal everything: and the name of the reporter was Alvin Pierce – her grandfather.  Jennifer goes ice skating with her friends and gets in a fight with two other girls, but defends her self adequately – breaking one of her attackers arm.  Jefferson is recovering from his headaches while Gambi looks over the suit to see if it is the cause of Jeff’s issues.  As Black Lightning, Jefferson hides in the shadows and tells Inspector Henderson to look into Joey Toledo to tack down the supply of Green Light.  The mother of the girl whose arm Jennifer broke shows up at the Pierce house to confront Jefferson and Lynn, and the couple manage to calm the women and it seems they arrange to pay the medical expenses.  When Jennifer gets home, Lynn punishes her – the ensuing conversation someone divides the parents, as Jefferson is somewhat proud of Jennifer’s fighting ability and that it was self-defense.   Anissa meets with Alvin Pierce’s former Editor at the paper and he is at first terrified to give her any information about the events that got her grandfather killed, though he does relent and gives her all the records he has of the last story Alvin was writing. She searches those records and finds a key to a storage facility.  Anissa goes on a shopping trip and acquires a starter superhero costume to conceal her identity when she goes to the storage facility.  Henderson calls Black Lightning with the whereabouts of Joey Toledo.  Tobias and Tori go to visit Tobias’ first enemy: their father Eldridge (T.C. Carson) and after a brief conversation: Tobias crushes his father’s spine and leaves him for dead.  Jefferson shows up at Gambi’s to retrieve the Black Lightning costume, Gambi says he thinks the suits control system is interacting dangerously with Jefferson’s system and is causing his seizures.  Jefferson takes the suit anyways and goes after Joey Toledo.  Anissa, wearing her new costume, goes to the storage facility of her grandfather and finds copious records, and an old rusted safe in which she finds a vial containing some mysterious liquid.  Black Lightning confronts Joey Toledo, but in the middle of their fight he has another seizure and collapses to the ground, Toledo escapes but Black Lightning remains on the ground convulsing.

REVIEW

I’m going to get the BIG geekery out of the way first and talk about the incredibly comics accurate first costume that Anissa wears in the final scene when she goes to the mysterious storage unit formerly owned by her grandfather.  To begin with, her costume shopping sequence was delightful, but to have her in the end standing tall in the actual costume Thunder costume was just an awesome nod to long time fans of the property.  Now onto the rest of the episode – the joy from Jefferson as he flew for the first time was incredibly well handled, and it was a necessary direction to move in.  Frankly watching Black Lightning walk everywhere was getting a tad tiresome. Tobias and Gambi’s shop showdown reveals two very unique pieces of information about these characters that is unique to the television series. First is that Tobias Whale has some sort of serum that is preventing him from aging, presumably this serum was administered by Lady Eve when Tobias courted membership in Kobra.  The second piece of information is that at one point Gambi was a member of the ASA (a clandestine security agency known for creating metahumans) and that Tobias believes he still is.  In the world of the comics, neither of these facts is true, but in this revised context where Kobra is an overarching threat that controls The 100 and Jefferson’s father was killed for exposing a metahuman experiment conspiracy the addition of these elements certainly opens up the story in fascinating ways.  In the original comics concept, Jefferson’s father was killed by a mob hitman – and that hitman was none other than Peter Gambi who left the lifestyle and became a tailor in Metropolis to try to redeem himself through helping Black Lightning save lives.  Here we’re presented with a clear understanding that it was Tobias Whale who killed Jefferson’s father.  If, as I’m guessing, Gambi and the ASA were responsible for the experiment that caused the disappearance of teenagers and the creation of Black Lightning that would preserve the dynamic of Gambi having a dark secret that he is attempting to atone for – while not directly making him a former murderer as the comics did.  Speaking of murder, Tori’s plan to put Tobias to rights by tracking down and murdering their abusive father is the most sadistic thing the Whale family has done yet.  Jefferson’s powers causing damage to him getting worse the more he uses them is an interesting trope, but I fear it might get overwrought if not dealt with relatively quickly.

EPISODE MVP

Nafessa Williams* for taking us on Anissa Pierce’s surprisingly joyous superhero origin story in the midst of the overwhelming darkness of the current stalemate between Black Lightning and The 100.

WEEK 15

Legends of Tomorrow Season 3, Episode 11: “Here I Go Again”

RECAP

While the legends are off on a disco mission in the 70’s, Zari is installing a program into Gideon that is designed to look for loopholes in the timeline that The Legends could exploit to change time for the better, like when she left Helen of Troy on the island of Themyscarra rather than returning her to Greece proper.  The problem is that Sara Lance is ardently opposed to any such loopholes, and demands that Zari fix Gideon and remove the program – the two have a fight that quickly escalates before Zari storms off to the engines.  Nate and Amaya head off to argue over whether they should continue to have sex or not, Ray goes off to do laundry and Mick goes off to do the same after smashing an 8-Track tape of the Abba album Waterloo.   Zari heads off to the engine room to fix the ship, and is sprayed in the face with some sort of glowing fluid immediately before the ship explodes.

While the legends are off on a disco mission in the 70’s, Zari is experiencing some déjà vu as the starts to live the same day over again, complete with the same argument with Sara and the same accident in the engine room and the same rattling of the ship before it explodes.

While the legends are off on a disco mission in the 70’s, Zari is now definitely convinced that she is stuck in a time loop where her consciousness snaps back to her argument with Sara and she lives out the last half hour of her life before the Waverider explodes and sends her right back to the beginning.

While the legends are off on a disco mission – Zari believes that perhaps something the rest of the crew is doing is responsible for the explosion so she tries to recruit help from Nate – who at the end of one loop urges her to go to him in the next loop and invoke Groundhog Day to get his help.  Nate and Zari now go through several loops investigating each of the crew members to determine what actions they are undertaking that might lead to the explosion:  Mick is doing his laundry but is mysteriously leaving his quarters locked.  Zari and Nate sneak in and take several loops to get through all of Mick’s various booby traps that he has left in place to hide his deep dark secret: which is the typewriter on which he is writing the manuscript for his science fiction, bodice ripping, romance novel.  They discover that Ray is struggling with the idea that he might have to kill Sara.  They then discover that Sara is sneaking off to the shuttle to talk to Ava – where she reveals that her issue with Zari’s plan isn’t Zari but the temptation to use one of these time loopholes as a means to save Laurel from dying at the hands of Damian Dahrk.  Zari goes a little nuts and has a montage where she decides to just have several loops of fun before finally she tries to get Sara to help her.  Sara instantly believes Zari about the time loop and the whole crew begins to search for the bomb, and with one dramatic exception they turn up completely empty… Time Agent Gary has teleported aboard and trapped himself in the garbage chute.  Zari takes a device off him and destroys it before he can explain that it is a device he employed to create the time loops until they could discover what destroyed The Waverider.  All hope is lost until Zari realizes the one place they never looked: the crushed 8-Track tape that Mick brought on board.  With seconds to spare and no way to get the tape off the ship, and no time loop to save them now: Zari locks herself in the library and tells the crew how she feels about each of them before using the powers of her totem to try to prevent the explosion from destroying the rest of the ship.  Zari has a brief interlude where she meets a physical embodiment of Gideon who claims to have created this scenario in Zari’s mind to get her to fully embrace her role as a member of the crew. She then wakes up in the med bay, recovering from being sprayed in the face with time engine lube – and computer Gideon denies ever having done anything to Zari.  Meanwhile in 2018 China, Wally West is practicing meditation in a Zen garden when Rip Hunter arrives and says that he needs Wally’s help to save the universe.

REVIEW

Before anything else is said: I feel the need to point out the hilarity of the fact that the episode begins with The Legends returning from a mission involving the crew in the 1970’s and the Abba album Waterloo – where Mick returns from the mission dressed as a French soldier from the Battle of Waterloo.  This moment is quick and is brushed aside so quickly, but it has stuck with me since watching it.  What happened on this mission? This is the standard “stuck in a timeloop” episode that frankly I’m surprised took this long to do, and while it certainly provided us some interesting looks at our characters beyond what we normally presume we know about them – it didn’t particularly break any new ground with this timeloop plot.  It’s literally Groundhog Day on an exploding Waverider with Zari having to get to know her teammates better to find a way to save the ship and escape the loop.  The fun, of course, is in our peaks at the lives of the Legends between adventures: with Nate and Amaya secreting off to continue their affair – and Ray Palmer obsessing over his secret knowledge that he may have to one day kill Sara if she becomes possessed by Mallus.  Sara continues to sneak away from her crew to have a secret conversation with Ava Sharpe of the time agency as their “will they/won’t they/of course they definitely will and probably next episode” romance continues to “develop.”  The real comedy comes from seeing that Mick is writing a trashy sci fi romance novel.  Where the episode shines, as it often does, is in its reference game.  The episode is basically Groundhog Day, so of course it calls out Groundhog Day by name.  Ray Palmer, instead of referencing Groundhog Day when discussing the time loop throws a nod to the classic time loop episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation “Cause and Effect” which also featured a time loop that repeatedly ended with the explosion of the space ship.  Growing weary of the time loop, Nate urges Zari to take a break and have a “mid time loop montage” as a reference to the time loop episode of Stargate SG-1.  The writers are in on the joke and they love letting us know it, which as always makes Legends a hell of a lot of fun – even when it isn’t particularly strong of an episode.  The urgency of it all was undercut by the knowledge that it was all a figment of Zari’s imagination caused by Gideon, and Wally West’s last act reveal felt like it was cut from next weeks episode and tacked on to this one.  Bonus points to Caty Lotz for taking advantage of having her cast mates in 70’s costumes to direct an impromptu Bee Gee’s music video.

EPISODE MVP

Tala Ashe’s Zari gives a great and desperate performance as the only one aware of the time loop, but this week and for the first time this season: Nick Zano* was finally a standout.  When the character of Nate Heywood was added to the roster in Season 2 he was a breath of fresh air, bringing a genre saavy self awareness to the show that built some of the season’s funniest moments.  In Season 3 this sense of humor has been largely absent: but here it is once more and it is incredibly welcome.

NEXT WEEK: With the Olympics over the DC/CW Universe returns!  On Legends of Tomorrow: The Legends take on Black Beard the Pirate and Damian Dahrk.  On The Flash: Barry Allen is free and trying to prevent DeVoe from capturing a music playing meta.  On Black Lightning: The showdown we’ve been building toward: Black Lightning Vs. Tobias Whale. On Arrow: With Cayden James out of the way it’s the showdown we’ve been hoping to avoid: Team Arrow vs. Team Outsiders!

Presents

DC/CW Television Week Thirteen

Sorry for the delay folks, but the Four Color Ark offices were stricken with the dread and debilitating disease known as: Olympicitis and we were too busy watching Canadian Shuffleboard to get our usual reviews out to you.  So this week we’ve got a double bill covering the missing three weeks.  This issue we’ll show you Week 13 which features four of the five DC/CW shows, and next issue we’ll present Weeks 14 and 15 which features only one episode of Black Lightning and two episodes of Legends of Tomorrow.  

Supergirl Season 3, Episode 13: “Both Sides Now”

RECAP

The DEO and Supergirl track the second World Killer to her home and they breach to find a seemingly normal girl listening to music, then that seemingly normal girl shifts from her everyday human form and becomes the Kryptonian bio-weapon known as Purity (Krys Marshell) – complete with a strange set of vibrational powers.  The team manage to subdue her and bring her in along with some Kryptonian crystals she had in her possession.  Supergirl pieces together that she is literally two separate identities sharing a body.  Supergirl believes she can reach out to the human side, while Alex believes that to be Supergirls innate naiveté.  Mon-El asks J’onn for a piece of his ship to jump start the batteries of the Legion vessel; this sends J’onn, Mon-El and Wynn on a space ship repair side journey.  Out in the real world, Lena is worried about her friend Sam and orders her to take a day off and spend it with Ruby.  Sam and Ruby play hookie from school and work, heading off to have a mother/daughter adventure.  On the Legion ship there is some frosty tension between Mon-El and Imra, and Winn gives J’onn some space to talk to Mon-El about his marital troubles – but Mon-El has no interest in discussing it.  Back at the DEO, Purity’s crystals explode taking out the power to the DEO and allowing Purity to escape.  Sam and Ruby are engaging in a lovely afternoon of ice skating when Sam is suddenly triggered to become Reign and vanishes – leaving Ruby worried and alone.  In a panic she calls Lena Luthor who comes to pick her up and take her home.  Mon-El and J’onn have a discussion about the tension in Mon-El’s marriage, which it turns out was really a marriage of convenience to unite the peoples of Earth and Imra’s home planet.  Supergirl and the DEO track Purity into the subway system of National City and a fight ensues; Alex tries Supergirl’s tactic and reaches out to the human buried within Purity and it works until Reign shows up and prepares to kill Alex.  Purity convinces Reign to not kill everyone’s favorite agent and offers to go with her if it will spare Alex.  Reign takes Purity to her Fortress of Killitude; Mon-El has an honest conversation with his wife; Kara and Alex talk about the tension between them caused by Alex not really being over Maggie.   Imra reveals to Mon-El that their presence in the 21st Century was no accident, she and Brainiac 5 undertook a secret mission which she will soon reveal to him.  At L-Corp Sam shows up in a panic to collect her daughter and Lena confronts her about her disappearances and her blackouts – there is a moment where Sam briefly becomes Reign and Lena tells Sam she knows what’s wrong with her and promises to help her fix it.

REVIEW

Given everything that has happened after the return from Crisis on Earth X, this was an episode I was very much expecting to see; a sort of restatement of Supergirl’s core principles juxtaposed against the more militaristic ideology of Alex Danvers and the DEO.  Season One had very much played this dynamic as this secretive paramilitary government agency rising to meet alien threats in a more compassionate way as a result of Supergirl’s influence – and somewhere in Season Two that concept got lost.  Reintroducing it as kind of the key to defeating Reign, making it a matter of not stopping Reign but of saving Sam is a deftly handled bit of writing.  I am curious to see if the momentum of slowly putting back in place dropped elements of the series canon is something that will hold up after what is now essentially a two-month gap between aired episodes.  The revelation that things are not necessarily perfect in Mon-El and Imra land has me worried somewhat. This Legion focused/married Mon-El has been a vast improvement on last season’s iteration of the character; so if all of that growth gets chucked out the window so that we can put Supergirl and Mon-El back together romantically I will feel somewhat cheated.  The notion that Lena Luthor will be involved in the final act of the Sam/Reign saga in some way is hardly surprising and I suspect will lead to the Lex style heel turn that seems almost inevitable for the character.

EPSIODE MVP

David Harewood’s J’onn J’onzz returns to the role for which he is best suited: being the father figure at the center of the series, offering strong council and advice to both Mon-El and Supergirl.  

The Flash Season 4, Episode 13: “True Colors”

RECAP

When we left Barry Allen he’d been drugged by Warden Wolfe and was being dragged away, we return to find him waking up in the metahuman wing of Iron Heights with all of the other Bus Meta’s from the course of this season.  Warden Wolfe has called Amunet Black to arrange the sale of the Bus Meta’s to her, and has added the crown jewel of a speedster to the collection to get himself even more money – but he withholds the information that the speedster is none other than The Flash.  When Iris and Cecille arrive at Iron Heights to visit Barry, Wolfe informs them that there was a fight and all of the inmates involved – including Barry – are in solitary and that they cannot visit him.  It’s a great cover, except that Cecille has gestational Metahuman mind reading powers and immediately reads that Wolfe is planning to sell Barry to Amunet Black.  At the secret evil lair of the DeVoe’s: husband and wife are having a bit of an argument over Clifford’s increasing recklessness as he grows closer to completing his plan.  Ralph has a run in with a rival P.I. named Earl Cox (Paul McGillion) who makes him feel like a failure, as Ralph describes the incident to his friends at S.T.A.R. Labs his rubbery body reshapes itself until he looks exactly like Cox.  Realizing that Ralph’s new mimicry ability might be the key to preventing the sale of the Bus Meta’s to Amunet, Iris has Ralph morph into Warden Wolfe and set up a meeting with Amunet to call off the sale.  In Iron Heights Barry is using his “ordinary forensic scientist” skills to take his lunch and various other items to create the means to escape the metahuman wing, he succeeds and breaks out all the Bus Meta’s – including a very reluctant Becky Sharpe who just wants to serve her time where she can’t hurt anyone else.  Ralph as Warden Wolfe meets with Amunet, and it goes swimmingly for a bit – until he reverts back to normal Ralph and blows his cover, Ralph manages to escape.  Amunet calls real Wolfe about the sale, which forces Wolfe to check on his metas and discover they’ve escaped his power dampening prison.  The Bus Metas manage to finally navigate the tunnels beneath Iron Heights and exit into the free air where their powers are restored to them – only to find Warden Wolfe and his corrupt prison guards waiting for them.  A brief fight ensues when Amunet shows up, and then suddenly DeVoe arrives and in turn uses the same part of his super chair that he used on Dominick Lanse to steal the powers from each of the Bus Meta’s before downloading himself into Becky Sharpe’s body.  Cisco and Caitlin show just in time to free Barry and mop up the fight, but it is too late for Warden Wolfe and his men who are all dead.  DeVoe escapes in his new body and Cisco preps to vibe everyone out, but Barry refuses to escape – he runs back to his original cell and phases inside as if nothing has happened.  At Barry’s appeal hearing, the judge is ready to dismiss the case entirely – when suddenly the doors open and in rolls the wheelchair of Clifford DeVoe in which sits a very alive DeVoe who claims that Barry Allen didn’t kill him.  Ralph Dibney has taken the form of Clifford DeVoe, and it works: Barry’s conviction is overturned and he is released from prison.  DeVoe in his new body continues his machinations to do whatever he is doing, but there is now increased tension with his wife – and Team Flash realizes that the key to all of this might be the remaining Bus Meta’s: one of whom is Ralph Dibney himself.

REVIEW

When this episode aired I immediately took to social media to crack wise about how it used similar tropes to the original Trial of the Flash from the comics, which is an amusing notion that it used ultimately the same beats to end this story but with a very unique spin.  Check our feed for a detailed Trial of The Flash breakdown on The Four Color Ark podcast if you are curious for the full skinny; but the gist is that comic book Barry was spared from prison by a face changing Iris West-Allen posing as a juror to vote in favor of Barry’s innocence. Here that same conceit spawns out of Elongated Man discovering that he can change his own face as well, and taking the form of Clifford DeVoe to claim that he is not actually dead.  While this is a neat get out of jail card for Barry, it creates an interesting long-term problem in whether or not Ralph is going to continue to pose as the presumed dead DeVoe.  More damning though is that the set up for this finale wastes a brilliant actor in the form of Canadian actor Paul McGillion known best to fans of Stargate Atlantis as Dr. Carson Beckett.  McGillion is a journeyman character actor and here he is just kind of there for two quick and pointless scenes.  I suppose this might be rectified later, as the character of Earl Cox is introduced as a foil for Ralph and might reappear before the season is out.  Barry’s escape attempt with the “bus meta’s” showed sides of these villains that were compelling, particularly Becky Sharpe’s unwillingness to inflict her powers upon Central City once again.  The brief battle with Iron Heights staff and the way that DeVoe absorbed the bus meta’s powers before downloading himself into the consciousness of Becky Sharpe asks some intriguing questions about DeVoe and his abilities: if he can simply download his consciousness into any body: why not Barry’s body?  Is he only able to leach powers from and/or download into the bodies of the metas created in the bus incident – and somehow unable to the same to anyone whose powers were derived from the Particle Accelerator?

EPISODE MVP

In an episode with two brilliant performances by Richard Brooks* as both Warden Wolfe and as Ralph Dibney pretending to be Warden Wolfe I would be simply remiss not to give the man his due.  I was hoping his turn as questionable Warden of Iron Heights would last longer, but I’m definitely very pleased with what we were given.

Black Lightning Season 1, Episode 4: “Black Jesus”

RECAP

In Garfield High, a student has taken the new drug Green Light and is tearing apart the men’s room.  Jefferson goes there to try to stop him, and ends up needing to shoot the kid with lightning to take him down as apparently Green Light gives users superhuman strength.  Tobias Whale is called onto the carpet by Lady Eve for his absolute failure in stopping the protests last week, and questions whether his reputation as the killer of Black Lightning was really a lie.  Jennifer is spending a great deal of time at the hospital trying to help Khalil work through his physical therapy, both her homework and track practice schedule are suffering as a result; meanwhile eldest daughter Anissa unleashes some of her strength on a group of Green Light pushers who were trying to sell to Garfield High students.  Black Lightning tracks down the name of a seller of Green Light, and approaches him first as Jefferson Pierce without results and then returns once more as Black Lightning and gets more details about the source of the drugs.  Gambi examines the drugs and determines that they are instantly addictive.   The school board demands that Jefferson expel the boy found in the bathroom with Green Light, and Jefferson sets up a confrontation between him and the board because he has always had exclusive control over disciplining students at Garfield – he sends the Vice Principal to speak with the board and it becomes clear that she is growing to resent being used by Jefferson as a go between with the board.  Jennifer decides that she wants to quit track, and despite being told to think it over – she decides that helping care for Khalil is more important than her own goals.  Tobias Whale tracks down the Medical Examiner who examined the body of Black Lightning all those years ago when Whale supposedly killed him, and the ME reveals that he never really confirmed it was Black Lightning – he just assumed.  Whale kills the ME and calls his sister, asking her to come back to Freeland to help her determine his next course of action.  Khalil is told that he will never walk again, and Jennifer swears to stand by him. Jefferson agrees to give up his say on discipline at Garfield if it means that the student on Green Light can remain at Garfield. Black Lightning goes to surveil the warehouse where Green Light ships out.  Elsewhere Anissa goes to visit Grace, and the two are jumped by a group of homophobic white guys – Anissa unleashes after Grace is knocked unconscious and takes all of the violent homophobes down by stomping on the parking lot with enough force to create an earthquake that shatters a transformer on a light pole.  Black Lightning is about to go investigate the explosion he heard in the distance, but Gambi tells him not to and watches the entire incident after hacking the security cams.  Gambi tells him that whoever caused the explosion is long gone, despite the fact that he clearly saw it was Anissa and she is still on scene with her friend Grace.  Gambi sneaks to the location and takes photos of the impact crater that Anissa created with her powers.  Black Lightning follows the shipment of Green Light back to an even larger warehouse – clearly this drug ring is MUCH bigger than just The 100.  Elsewhere, Tori Whale (Edwina Findley)* shows up and with her brother Tobias they come up with a plan to turn public sentiment against Black Lightning.  In his hospital room Khalil finds that video game systems and televisions and a cell phone – all the cool toys any 17 year old would want – have been sent to him by a mysterious benefactor.  The mysterious benefactor arrives to introduce himself, and Tobias Whale sits down with Khalil to talk to him about how they’re both victims who have had their lives destroyed by the vile outlaw Black Lightning.

REVIEW

Last week I talked about typical episodic television structure where Episode 3 serves as a kind of breather before we plunge into the first major turn of the season arc – it’s a standard structure trope that episode 3 of Black Lightning subverted – by reversing the usual standard and having episode 4 fill that role tonally.  “Black Jesus” is a deep breath episode where we finally get a chance to look at all of the collateral damage from the first few episodes.  We spend some time living with Jefferson Pierce as the principal of Garfield High having to deal with the  beginnings of a drug epidemic within the halls of his school; we spend some time with Tobias Whale having to deal with the fallout of his very overt actions in dealing with the protest march; we spend time dealing with Khalil’s spinal injury as a result of Tobias’ actions.  The name of the game in this episode is in facing the consequences of our actions, and showing how the characters rise to meet the challenges that arise out of those consequences.  Jefferson doubles down on protecting the kids of Garfield and is willing to trade away some of his power as principal to protect his students from expulsion; Anissa takes to the streets to take down drug dealers preying on the kids of Freeland in a way that feels much more urgent and primal – the not-yet-tempered actions of a hero in training; Jennifer takes personal responsibility for Khalil’s injuries.  It is interesting to see that Jennifer is the only one who reaches out to deal with consequences that were not of her own making, which is a great taste of who she’ll one day become.

EPISODE MVP

Jill Scott* as Lady Eve in the scene where she is questioning the loyalty and commitment of Tobias Whale gives a performance that is genuinely creepy and speaks of a level of power that Tobias fears and aspires to.  

Arrow Season 6, Episode 13: “The Devil’s Greatest Trick”

RECAP

Cayden James is done toying with Oliver Queen and the people of Star City, and plans to finally detonate his thermobaric bomb at midnight, he has a scheduled airlift planned to get him and his Revenge Squad out of Star City before the bomb goes off.  Oliver, Diggle, Felicity and Alena go over the evidence that was used to frame Oliver for the murder of Cayden’s son – the same basic face replacement algorithm that was used to create the fake still image of Oliver as Green Arrow earlier in the season.  The Revenge Squad has gathered for the airlift, but they can’t help but notice it hasn’t arrived yet.  Oliver and Diggle track down Cayden James and show him the evidence that Oliver was framed for the murder of James’ son, in the hopes of convincing him to halt the bomb detonation.  James examines the data and realizes that the only person who could have sent him this false evidence is one of his own Revenge Squad team members – and they all have now scattered from their airlift site now that they realize it isn’t coming.  Rather than shutting down the bomb, James tells Oliver that he will only shut it down if Oliver helps him track down all of his teammates so he can determine who betrayed him.  Team Arrow realizes they need help in tracking down the Revenge Squaders – so they call Rene and Curtis.  Meanwhile, Dinah has tracked down Black Siren and they are engaged in an epic battle for revenge over the death of Vigilante last episode.  Before Dinah can unleash fully on Black Siren, Oliver arrives and uses a restraining arrow to lasso both sonic warriors to pillars in the building they’re fighting in.  Dinah is violently opposed to turning Black Siren over to Cayden James, wanting instead to simply kill her now – which puts her at odds with Quentin Lance who believes he can still rehabilitate his daughter’s doppelgänger. Debating what to do with her, her would be killer and her would be redeemer are left to guard her while the rest of the team track down the others.  Curtis and Rene go off in search of Ricardo Diaz, while Diggle and Oliver go off on the trail of Anatoly.  Meanwhile, in the Arrow Cave, William is scared for his father and listening to the team as they plan where to meet Cayden James.  William sneaks out thinking he can help Oliver if he gets to the meet in time.  Oliver delivers Anatoly and sees William, there is some monologuing from Cayden James directed at William -  Oliver tells the boy to hide.  Curtis and Rene arrive with Ricardo Diaz, and Quentin and Dinah arrive with Black Siren.  James refuses to stop the detonator until someone confesses to murdering his son; as the detonation draws closer: Black Siren falsely confesses.  James tries to shut down the detonator, but his signal is interfering with Black Siren’s power dampening collar.  She realizes this, rips off the collar and creates a massive blast – and escapes in the confusion.  Outside she enters into a fight with Dinah, and Quentin gets in the way so that Black Siren can escape – Dinah is having none of that and simply shoots Black Siren in the stomach.  In the fight inside everyone engaged with henchmen, Diaz and Anatoly both escape and Oliver manages to disarm the bomb and capture Cayden James.  James is taken into custody.  In custody Oliver talks to Cayden and wants him to provide proof that this isn’t a ploy to get into prison to destroy the city – complying: James gives Oliver information that might lead to the capture of Diaz and Anatoly.  Quentin Lance is trying to nurse Black Siren through her gut wound.  The next day Diaz arrives in lock up to admit it was he that killed James’ son, and all so he could get Cayden to put all the pieces in place for Diaz to take over the city.  Now that Star City is primed for that takeover, he no longer needs James – so he simply kills him.

REVIEW

Everything about this episode screams that it was intended to be a Season Finale, it’s like the writers decided to do a 13 episode season that blows up and immediately dives into a second 10 episode season, which is a brilliant conceit.  It is also a bold direction for a show that has been accused of dragging out season long mystery villain arcs for far too long.  Obviously to untangle the Gordian knot that is Cayden James’ plot to nuke Star City to get vengeance for the death of his son, we must first dispel the illusion that Oliver Queen is responsible for said death.  Then we’re off to the races in a gonzo chase to gather up the henchmen to determine which one was secretly the big bad the entire time, the decision to make it Ricardo Diaz or Richard “The Dragon” was in retrospect a rather logical choice given that he is a prior existing comic book villain for Green Arrow.  The Comic book Diaz created his group: “The Longbow Hunters” and basically performed the exact same actions that Cayden James’ team did in the first half of the season.  It’s possible that with Diaz now revealed we’ll get a different and more deadly team made up of some all star Arrow villains out for the reward for the head of Oliver Queen.  From a place within the narrative of Arrow itself, I’m unsure if the Diaz twist is earned.  From the perspective of the show as written, it would have perhaps been more logical if the ultimate villain had turned out to be Anatoly.  Anatoly as the villain would reflect the arc of the season better in that he would embody the choice Oliver had to make between his older life, and his son William. While the urgency of no longer being Green Arrow has been removed, it is still plain that Oliver’s Bratva past is at odds with his life as father and mayor.  Thankfully the conclusion of the Cayden James plot doesn’t undo the tension between Team Arrow and The Outsiders, because the broken team dynamic is still quite compelling – even if it feels like it is close to running its course narratively.

EPISODE MVP

Michael Emerson* who in his final outing as Cayden James added great pathos to his arc through his performance in the flashback scenes as a man trying to forge a relationship with his son – and damaged by this relationship being ripped away from him right as he was on the brink.

When the slate of 2017 Four Color Films, TV, and Comics is so monumental that one host can't tackle it alone...The Brothers Blanchard (Matthew & Patrick) and The Blanchard Brothers (Noah & Gavin) must unite! The Ark of E Network & The Blanchard Cousins are proud to present The Four Color Ark 2017 Review Roundtable. 

Intro / Outro ("Forest Fight" by Marco Beltrami from the Logan Soundtrack) *Note* Please, once again, forgive the audio quality in some sections of the cast, this was our first attempt at a 4-man recording session in The Ark of E Studio North.  

Send Feedback: dirtypoolfilms@gmail.com 

For more from The Ark of E, Follow Us: On Instagram @tharkofenetwork , Twitter @thearkofe , Facebook : The Ark of E

In this edition of Another Story Altogether, Host Matthew J. Blanchard talks you through one of the most iconic and increasingly relevant arcs in The Flash's long and storied history, The Trial of the Flash. 

Intro ("Flash vs Arrow" by Blake Neely) Outro ("Proud of You" by Blake Neely) 

Send Feedback : dirtypoolfilms@gmail.com

Follow more from The Ark of E : On Instagram @thearkofenetwork , Twitter @thearkofe , Facebook : The Ark of E

Presents

DC/CW Television Week Twelve

Supergirl Season 3, Episode 12: “For Good”

RECAP

Someone tries to kill Morgan Edge by blowing up his car, and Edge thinks it was Lena Luthor.  James and Kara immediately jump into investigator mode and start trying to figure out who tried to kill Edge, because they both know deep in their souls that Lena would never do such a thing.  Elsewhere Alex enters into caregiver mode to perform some tests on Sam to discover where her missing time goes.  Lena struggles with the fact that her friends keep talking about how she would never try to kill Morgan, when she knows that she did try to kill him once before.  She admits as much to her friends, and they stand by her – but not before an attempt is made on her life through a poisoned cup of coffee.  James chases down who poisoned Lena while Kara races her to the medical facility at the DEO.  Alex manages to save Lena’s life and Kara returns her to the CatCo offices. Lena wakes up and the info from James and Kara leads her to discover that the person who attempted to kill Morgan Edge is none other than her own mother Lillian.  Lillian plays the maniacal mother just wanting to protect her daughter, and Lena leaves.  Kara and Lena figure out where Lillian will strike and go to try to save him.  Lena offers to spare him if he just confesses to having tried to kill her earlier, and he records a confession just as a brilliant light display made up of drones turns deadly and starts targeting people at Morgan Edge’s cocktail party.  Lillian arrives and one of the drones transforms into the Lexosuit, Supergirl and Lillian do battle and Mon-El has the idea to have Winn reprogram the other drones to attack Lena’s suit.  In the end Lillian is taken down by her own drones, Morgan and Lillian both go to jail and Sam gets her test results.  Now that she knows there isn’t anything wrong with her, she admits her issues to her friends and they agree to stand by her.

REVIEW

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Corporate titans battle it out, blah blah blah… LILLIAN LUTHOR WAS WEARING THE LEXOSUIT! This episode could have featured Kara in a room with Lena talking about toast for 35 minutes so long as the rest of the episode featured Lillian Luthor in the iconic green and purple battlesuit Lex Luthor built to fight Superman in the early 1980’s.  As for the back and forth between Morgan Edge and Lena Luthor, it was all very empty and predictable, it was in fact so generic that I’m not sure if this plot wasn’t recycled from an episode of Smallville – it certainly feels familiar.  What it was though, was perfunctory – like this was a beat that the writers simply wanted to wrap up and move on from.  Frankly I couldn’t blame them if that were the case, this take on Morgan Edge hadn’t really gone anywhere or done anything since his first appearance.  Though this episode did give us our first Maxwell Lord reference since Season One, which was nice.  With just one more episode to go before Supergirl goes on an extended hiatus, let’s hope that next week doesn’t fizzle like this one did.

EPISODE MVP

Jeremy Jordan provides the usual support, but the glee with which he discusses the Lexosuit makes him a true standout in this week’s episode (and perhaps the only one in this dud.)

The Flash Season 4, Episode 12: “Honey I Shrunk Team Flash”

RECAP

Barry and Big Sir have become buddies in prison, and their conversations lead Barry to learn that Big Sir was falsely convicted of a crime he didn’t commit – just like Henry.  Barry asks Team Flash for help in working the decades old case to try to exonerate his friend.  Meanwhile on the outside, Cecille’s pregnancy hormones have interacted with some latent dark matter to give her temporary metahuman powers, particularly the ability to read minds – which causes some awkwardness with Joe who doesn’t want every one of his stray thoughts to be read by his girlfriend.  The new mayor is on site to dedicate a new Mercury Labs building, when the building itself mysteriously vanishes, in fact it was shrunk down to the size of a lego toy and taken by Sylbert Rundine (Derek Mears) a meta with the ability to shrink objects.  Ralph, Joe and Cisco investigate Rundine and while he is attempting to escape he uses his powers to shrink Ralph and Joe.  Joe uncovers evidence to suggest that maybe Rundine is the person who framed Big Sir, and Cisco names Rundine: Dwarfstar.  Barry tries to convince Big sir that he and the S.T.A.R. Labs team have found the guy who really committed his crime and that they will get him out of Iron Heights, and while he is resistant at first: eventually Big Sir starts to have hope again.  Harry reaches out to Felicity for some schematics of Ray Palmer’s shrinking tech and reverse engineers it to figure out how to fix the now six inches tall Ralph and Cisco – the problem is he rushes into it and actually makes their cells even more unstable.  A frustrated Harry tries and tries to figure out the problem, but it just isn’t making sense and his friends are hours away from death.  Cisco gives Harry a pep talk about how he can save them and how he can save Barry from his situation in Iron Heights, Harry realizes that Rundine’s powers work differently than Palmer’s technology and figures out how to fix Cisco and Ralph.  Cecille and Joe visit a counselor to try to work through the tension over Cecille’s powers.  Harry, Joe, and a still shrunk Cisco and Ralph then track down Rundine and try to get him to use his powers to unshrink Cisco and Ralph.  A fight ensues and a back and forth of powers until finally Rundine tries to shrink Harry – but the particles intersect with Cisco and Ralph making them big again.  Rundine is taken in but refuses to confess to Big Sir’s crime.   Barry breaks the bad news to Big Sir, who takes it in stride and thanks Barry for trying.  Later that night Barry uses his powers to take Big Sir to a small Japanese village he’d said he’d always wanted to visit.  Barry’s use of powers to free Big Sir came with a big price, Warden Wolfe had a hidden camera pointed at Barry’s cell and it captured him using his speed to escape.  Wolfe drugs Barry and has him dragged to the metahuman wing of Iron Heights, where he calls Amunet Black and claims he’s captured a very big fish for her.

REVIEW

To begin with: I’ve met Derek Mears the stuntman/actor who plays Dwarfstar in this weeks episode of The Flash, and he is super cool.  If you ever get a chance to meet him at a convention, you should definitely take it.  That bit of personal connection out of the way: THIS is finally what we’ve been waiting for – a Flash episode with a humorous premise that still takes itself seriously.  That said, this episode did feel a little barebones, but that straightforward narrative worked to give us time to breathe a little and have some important character beats.  Taking the time to see that Harry feels responsible for failing Barry, to see that Cisco is still the calm center of Team Flash – watching over teammates like Harry when they reach their breaking points, these moments are a great reminder of why we fell in love with this team in the first place.  There are however some things that don’t work.  The initial premise that pregnancy has given Cecille powers is a unique one, but the way it plays out over the course of the episode feels a bit uneven.  I suspect that the inclusion of this storyline with a known pregnant character getting temporary abilities is meant to sow another seed in the suspected Iris pregnancy storyline.   The big thing that doesn’t work though is the ending with Barry using his powers to help Big Sir escape Iron Heights to a quiet Japanese village where he can live out his days in peace.  On the surface this seems like a good concept, but this is meant to be the same Barry Allen who multiple times actively chose not to use his powers to help Henry Allen escape Iron Heights.  I get that Barry is disheartened by the inability to set Big Sir free, despite knowing for certain that he is innocent – but Barry has been at that same crossroad before and kept working the case: certain that he could exonerate the wrongly accused.  Of course, the use of his powers to free Big Sir sets off the big end of episode twist, where Warden Wolfe of Iron Heights is revealed to be an incredibly intelligent by desperately corrupt individual.  The Big Sir stuff feels out of character, but the result is such a well-played twist that I somewhat must forgive the out of character moment.

EPISODE MVP

Carlos Valdes returns to top honors this week with a nimble performance where he is given some gut bustingly funny moments and the heaviest emotional scene in the episode, all while being six inches tall.

Black Lightning Season 1, Episode 03: “Lawanda: The Book of Burial”

RECAP

The episode begins with Lawanda’s funeral, which serves as a rallying cry for Reverend Jeremiah Holt (Clifton Powell) who is tired of allowing The 100 to run Freeland’s streets and intends to march with 100 others to try to shut down the nefarious gang.  Inspector Henderson tries to talk the good Reverend out of his plan, but Holt just makes it very clear just how trustworthy the police of Freeland really are.  Jefferson also attempts to talk the Reverend out of the march, but is informed that this is all inspired by the resurgence of Black Lightning.  Jefferson and Gambi work up some new tech for the Black Lightning suit so that Jefferson can protect the march.  Anissa is exploring her newfound superpowers and falls in with a comic book fan named Grace Choi (Chantal Thuy) who invites her to a Superhero costume party at a bar.  Other Pierce daughter Jennifer decides that she is ready to have sex and announces it to her parents, leading to much liberal consternation and a plan to get Jennifer on birth control.  Tobias Whale goes before Lady Eve (Jill Scott) who is calling him on the carpet for letting the Black Lightning situation get out of hand, and for allowing the Reverends march in the first place – a somewhat subservient Tobias promises to deal with the situation.  Gambi and Jefferson set up a barricade to shift the parade route of the march, and Jefferson provides overwatch as a mass of protestors march to take back their streets.  Tobias has put a gunman in the crowd, not to assassinate the Reverend but to kill protestors indiscriminately to make people fear speaking up.  Black Lightning stops the shooter and the crowd begins to sing Amazing Grace – but Tobias Whale is nearby with his henchwoman Syonide (Charlbi Dean) whom he orders to shoot Black Lightning.  Syonide misses and shoots the Reverend, the bullet tears through him and Jennifer’s boyfriend.  Black Lightning gets away before the cops show up, Jennifer races to the hospital to be with her potentially dying boyfriend: Anissa and Lynn travel with her to comfort her – and Tobias Whale has done the one thing he wanted to avoid: he has created a martyr in the form of Reverend Holt.

REVIEW

The third episode of a television show is usually the episode where we slow down the pace of the ongoing plot and take some time to give a little development to secondary characters;  Arrow did this by having a sharpshooter targeting Oliver Queen so that we could explore Diggle’s backstory and put Oliver in more scenes with his family; Flash delved deep into the backstory of Caitlin and Ronnie; Supergirl had a villain beat the Maid of Might up drastically – giving us time to explore the gang at CatCo reacting to Supergirl through Kara.  Black Lightning’s ‘take a breather’ certainly spends a little time getting to know the Pierce children, but I wouldn’t say that a massive protest march and an assassination attempt could be considered “slowing the pace.”  What we do get is more of Freeland holding Black Lightning and Jefferson Pierce to a standard most superheroes are not held to, and some intriguing questions about the show itself and its place in the broader televised DC Universe.  What exactly is the nature of The 100 if Tobias Whale isn’t entirely in charge; is it some sort of city-wide cabal that runs much deeper than just an oppressive street gang?  Does the 100 answer to Kobra, or has Lady Eve been reformulated to be something even more sinister? What happened with Whale and Black Lightning? Where does Black Lightning fit into the cosmology of the CW/DCU when the character of Grace Choi holds up an in universe copy of The Outsiders # 16 to show to Anissa Pierce?  Does this hint at a broader multiverse approach where Black Lightning is on its own Earth and the events of other Earths are published as comic books (which is a staple of DC Multiverse theory,) or is this just a cute nod to the fact that Black Lightning, Anissa and Grace are all members of The Outsiders?   Does it mean anything at all?  It’s nice to spend a little time building up the relationship between Gambi and Jefferson, and to build on the mystique of the 100.

EPISODE MVP

Finally I can give this title to star Cress Williams for his brilliant scene attempting to discourage a young man from having sex with his daughter.  Classic and very well handled Principal Pierce.

Arrow Season 6, Episode 12: “All for Nothing”

RECAP

A.R.G.U.S tries to get into Star City to track down James’ bomb, but he takes them out immediately.  It has been eight days with the city cut off from the rest of the world, and nerves are starting to fray.  Team Arrow is scouring the city trying to find James’ bomb, but they are not having any luck.  The Outsiders are working with Vigilante to try to take James down from the inside.  Oliver and Diggle manage to track Vigilante and are about to capture him, when The Outsiders show up to let them know that Vigilante is under cover.  Felicity comes up with a plan to use the sniffer from season 5 to get intel directly from James’ servers, but it has to be installed manually.  Vigilante agrees to the mission and goes in with the device, meanwhile Felicity and Alena hunker down to go through all of the data.  Vigilante gets in, gets the device installed but is immediately found by Cayden James.  He stalls for time, and manages to transmit all of his data to Team Arrow: but he’s been made. James has his guards bring him in, and Anatoly begins to torture him – which is incredibly hard to do to a man who heals damage instantly. Alena and Felicity discover the footage used to frame Oliver for the murder of Cayden James’ son, and begin a lengthy analysis of it.  Vigilante’s coms get turned on and everyone in the Foundry hears him screaming as Anatoly tortures him, Felicity discovers the location of the bomb.  Dinah demands the team go in to extract Vigilante, Oliver says they need to get the bomb – Dinah rightly points out that if it were Felicity or Lilah being held by the bad guys there would be no arguing with Oliver or Diggle that they would go in.  Oliver relents and lets her leave, and her team agrees to go with her.  Ollie and Diggle go to the bomb site which is far too big for the two of them to search alone.  The Outsiders go to try to rescue Vigilante and get into a fight with Cayden James and his guards.  There is a small explosion and Dinah is trapped under some rubble, Vigilante is about to pull the rubble off of her when Cayden James and Black Siren arrive.  Black Siren forces Vigilante onto a spike and on orders from James kills him with Dinah watching.  Black Siren sonic screams into his ear into his brain liquefies.  Anatoly lays a trap for Oliver that distracts him long enough for Anatoly to load the bomb on one of five trucks and escape. Rene and Curtis pull Dinah out of the rubble and take her back to base, after a while – still shaken by the death of her former partner and ex boyfriend – Dinah asks if Oliver got the bomb.  Curtis explains he didn’t, and Dinah falls apart over the idea that Vigilante died for nothing.  Oliver ultimately comes to her apartment to explain that because of Vigilante they have acquired an incredibly amount of information that will help them stop Cayden James, but she isn’t having it.  She states that she feels Vigilantes methods were correct and she vows to kill every member of Cayden’s team: starting with Black Siren.

REVIEW

It is REALLY hard not to get caught up in comparing this episode with The Dark Knight Rises, the set up is exactly the same.  No one can get into Star City, no one can get out of Star City, there is a bomb roving the city ready to go off at any moment and it’s now just a waiting game until the bomb goes off.  I guess that as the television show inspired by Nolan’s Dark Knight, it was more or less inevitable that Arrow would end up mining the same territory once again – but this feels very on the nose.  Also, I said it last week but it feels much more apt after this episode: the stakes are now way too high for episode 12 of the season.  Next week Cayden James is threatening to blow the nuke, that feels like a season finale kind of plot beat, so I’ve once more literally no idea where Arrow is going this season.  This is a nice change of pace, that even when the show is overly referential it is still surprising.  The continued tension between The Outsiders and Team Arrow plays very nicely, though I’m not entirely sure that the flashbacks throughout the episode ever actually earn any kind of good will on Vigilante’s behalf.  It’s interesting to see that having his back against the wall has turned Oliver back toward his own worst impulses. Rather than the confident, self-assured Green Arrow from the first half of the season; the situation with Cayden James has pushed Oliver back to the version of himself that skulks around the foundry plotting how best to confront Ra’s Al Ghul from Season 3.    Will lightness return to Oliver’s life?  I certainly hope so, but this particular journey has given us a glimpse at something far beyond the stoicism of years 1-5, we now see all the cracks in the veneer and the real Oliver just below the surface – and that’s a new place for Arrow. I suspect even more now that there will be a change up of villain in the next few episodes, and we’ll get a surprise introduction of whoever framed Oliver for the death of Cayden’s son.  

EPISODE MVP

Juliana Harkavy once again takes top honors for bringing a sense of sad reality to an episode that showed the entire five year arc of her relationship with Vigilante – from their meeting at the CCPD to his death at the hands of Black Siren.  She brought some real powerful emotion to this episode.

NEXT TIME:  Supergirl vs a Worldkiller. Warden Wolfe tries to sell Barry to Amunet Black. Anissa Pierce joins her father in the fight for Freeland. Black Canary plans to take revenge on Black Siren

Presents

DC/CW Television Week Eleven

Supergirl Season 3, Episode 11: “Fort Rozz”

RECAP

While researching the Worldkiller, Winn discovers the list of prisoners who were on Fort Rozz (the Kryptonian Phantom Zone prison from Season One) and that one of those prisoners is a priestess who knows a lot about the Worldkiller.  The first problem is finding Fort Rozz, since Supergirl tossed it into space.  The second problem is where Fort Rozz ended up; it is in orbit of a star that emits a radiation harmful to men – and a light wavelength that will sap Kara’s powers from her.  Kara needs a team of ladies to go with her to Fort Rozz, and she recruits some unlikely candidates: Saturn Girl is the first one to join the team, but then Supergirl reaches out to Live Wire and Psi – two of her bitter enemies.  Meanwhile, in normal people land, Sam is going away on business for L-Corp and needs someone to watch Ruby.  Enter Alex, the currently wounded DEO agent with nothing but time on her hands.  Supergirl and her team of rivals leave for Fort Rozz and when they arrive they find a ship in a deteriorating orbit full of dangerous aliens who have no love for the daughter of their jailor (Kara’s mom for those that missed Season One.) Psi and Saturn Girl have an incident that leaves Saturn Girl rattled and causes everyone to lost trust in Psi so they remain on the ship.  Reign is informed that Supergirl is at Fort Rozz so she jumps in a pod and heads there as well.  Supergirl manages to find the Kryptonian priestess (Sarah Douglas) and gathers information on the multiple Worldkillers who were genetically engineered in Krypton’s last days and sent to Earth.  Before they can get all the intel they came for, Reign shows up to stop Supergirl – and their fight reveals something Supergirl did not expect: Reign’s powers are not tied to Earth’s yellow sun the way Kara’s powers are. Supergirl fights valiantly against a villain she cannot possible beat, Live Wire sacrifices herself to save Kara.  Psi manages to arrive in time to prevent Reign from catching Kara again and uses her mental powers on the Kryptonian villain, and it is just enough to briefly break the Reign personalities control – giving Sam control of her body again.  Psi and Supergirl escape and head back to Earth.  Sam also returns to Earth and realizes she has been missing time and never arrived at her L-Corp business trip.  She asks Alex for help in figuring out what is wrong with her.  Elsewhere – two young women are hit by a speeding car and survive completely unscathed and we are left to wonder: are these the other Worldkillers?

REVIEW

Here in The Four Color Ark I have been somewhat reluctant to talk about some of the behind the scenes problems that have plagued the Arrow-verse this year in the wake of the bombshell sexual harassment allegations against and subsequent firing of Andrew Kreisberg for cause.  Largely I feel that we focus on the storytelling and not the process of creation, and I present these reviews as a fan and not as an expert on television production.  I stand with the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, and I support the organization/empowerment network Shethority that was founded by the DC/CW female cast members.   This is the first episode in a post Kreisberg franchise, and it’s somewhat striking to me how night and day the difference is between the tone of the previous 10 episodes and this one.  This feels like a return to the hopeful, female empowering, and earnest tone of Season One – something that felt like it didn’t survive the jump from CBS and LA to the CW and Vancouver.  The fact that this tonal resurgence happens in an episode that centers around Season One elements like the relationship between Supergirl and Live Wire, as well as the Kryptonian prison ship Fort Rozz feels intentional. It’s like the writers are saying that these are the elements that were lost under Kreisberg’s leadership throughout Season Two, and that they don’t want to leave those elements off the table any longer.  It’s a satisfying return to form, although not a perfect one.  Wrapping out the Live Wire storyline is probably for the best, as it gives Kara a reason to push forward in taking Reign down – and it takes a weak performance off the table.  Including Sarah Douglas as the Kryptonian Priestess with the information about Reign and the other Worldkillers is a masterful call back to her role as Ursa in Superman II.  Random musing: is anyone ever going to notice that CFO of L-Corp keeps shirking important duties and disappearing for days on end?

EPISODE MVP

Yael Grobglas as the villain Psi* who gives the subtlest performance of deciding to do the right thing by following the example of Supergirl and Live Wire.

The Flash Season 4, Episode 11: “The Elongated Knight Rises”

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Barry is settling in to life in Iron Heights as best he can, but it certainly isn’t easy for him in a place where everyone knows he’s a cop.  Iris visits him every day, and he is trying to not make waves inside.  He has a brief encounter with Axel Walker, the Trickster’s son, who later that evening escapes with the help of his mother Zoey Clark (Corinne Bohrer) who was the original Trickster’s sidekick: Prank.  The two of them decide to go on a classic Trickster rampage, and Ralph Dibney suits up to stop them.  Ralph has done some basic crime fighting in Barry’s absence and has been given the name “The Stretchy Man” by the media – and he rushes to stop The Trickster to strengthen his good name, only to have the Trickster spray him with an acid that begins breaking down the chemical bonds of his leg.  Finally: Ralph Dibney is vulnerable to something.  Inside Iron Heights a gang tries to jump Barry and kill him, but a rather large gentleman named Big Sir (Bill Goldberg) intervenes and saves Barry’s life as repayment for a debt he feels he owes to Barry’s dad Henry who had saved his life.  Prank and the Trickster capture some people and create a deadly game-show to call out “The Stretchy Man,” but Ralph has completely lost confidence in his abilities now that he has faced his own mortality.  Cisco has created him a new supersuit, but he is too scared to don it and too scared to stop the Terrible Twosome.  Cisco and Caitlin vibe to the gameshow location but they aren’t enough and get captured.  Ralph tries to bust Barry out of prison so that he can stop Trickster, but instead he gets a pep talk that inspires him to put on his suite and go save the day.  And he does.  Ralph arrives just in time to save Caitlin, Cisco and the civilians.  This time Tricksters acid has no effect and Ralph is the big damn hero, he even has a chance to rename himself and accidentally names himself The Elongated Man.   In Iron Heights Barry sees that Big Sir is about to get jumped himself and intervenes, stopping the gang.  Big Sir and Barry sit down together and start bonding over conversation about Henry.

REVIEW

Perhaps it is the old school Flash fan in me, but it is in episodes like this where The Flash continues to shine.  On its surface we have a relatively simple episode about the young Trickster escaping Iron Heights to torment Central City once again, but that’s when this series leans in and pulls from deep within the lore to deliver a treat to longtime fans.   In 1991 CBS’ The Flash starring John Wesley Shipp aired an episode called The Trial of the Trickster in which a woman named Zoey Clark broke Mark Hammill’s Trickster out of jail and became his sidekick Prank (a sort of prototype Harley Quinn;) in Season 1 of the CW Flash we established the Mark Hammill’s Trickster had preyed upon Central City in the 90’s while wearing the same costume as his CBS series counterpart and that the new Trickster on the show was his son.  This episode doubled down on that 91 Flash connection by having Corinne Bohrer reprise her role as Prank, establishing her as the new Trickster’s mother.  Any time this series has connected to the old series, magic has ensued.  Bohrer is amazing as the manic Prank, working with her son to try to take down Central City’s newest hero, setting the stage for this to be Ralph Dibney’s coming out party.  And Ralph actually delivers, finally taking the bull by the horns and being a hero.  Goldberg is excellent in his cameo as Big Sir, adding a great deal of heart to the relatively plodding B-story about Barry getting used to life inside Iron Heights.  Random musing: I know he doesn’t want to make another Savitar – but why hasn’t Barry just made a time remnant of himself to get around the whole “imprisoned in Iron Heights” dilemma?  To play this logically you could easily just have it so that the Barry outside of Iron Heights being The Flash is the time remnant and the one serving his time stoically in prison is the real Barry Allen.

EPISODE MVP

Corinne Bohrer* for reprising a 27 year old performance and making it feel both fresh and deeply rooted in lore.  You could feel the presence of Mark Hammill in this episode without a single frame ever showing him, and that is entirely because of Corinne.

Black Lightning Season 1, Episode 02: “Lawanda: The Book of Hope”

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Picking up where we left off last week, Jefferson is beaten from his fight with LaLa’s gang and is unable to sleep from the pain.  His ex-wife soothes him a little and the two talk about the events that just transpired, she makes it plain that she thinks he is addicted to being Black Lightning and that she is sorry she asked him to use his powers.  The next day he has an assembly for the parents at his school and he speaks about the closing of the motel after the fight with Black Lightning, but the parents are quick to inform him that it reopened within hours and they are scared for their own children who weren’t nearly as lucky as his.  One of the parents’ present is Lawanda, who was one of Jefferson’s students when he first began teaching at Garfield.  Lawanda’s daughter is in with LaLa’s men and she wants Jefferson’s help.  LaLa sends a messenger to Jefferson’s house to let him know that his family isn’t safe, before finding Will and killing him for creating this situation in the first place.  Jefferson comes to LaLa and wants to square off, but LaLa has armed men with him and will not negotiate.  Lawanda begins staking out the motel, taking photos of the license plates of every man’s car who comes there to sleep with one of LaLa’s girls.  Lawanda is shot and killed, her body dumped miles away. Jefferson loses it, he feels guilty for Lawanda’s death and the state of Freeland since his retirement from being Black Lightning – he feels he could have saved so many lives – and he goes out to prove just that while letting the whole city know: Black Lightning is back.  Black Lightning confronts LaLa and his men and manages to take LaLa down, but before he can finish the fight: Henderson shows up to arrest LaLa.  Lawanda had been recording video on her cell phone when she confronted LaLa, and her cell phone footage captured the moment LaLa shot her.  LaLa is placed in lock up, and Black Lightning is ready to fix his city.  The only real hitch here, is Tobias Whale.  Whale pulls up in a limo, gets out and a cop escorts him into the Police station, taking him directly to LaLa’s cell.  The cop opens the cell and walks away, looking the other way while Whale strangles LaLa as casually as if he were just having a conversation.  Whale walks away in silence, and walks past his own wanted poster.

REVIEW

I love everything about this series so far; it is grounded, unflinchingly honest and surprisingly realistic.  There are two moments that illustrate this perfectly:  the first is the meeting in the school gym where Jefferson is talking about the effect of episode one on the neighborhood and the typical expectations of the Superhero genre are thrown out the window.  Jefferson saved his daughters from the motel so he thinks it’s done, and in a normal superhero show he’d be right.  In this show, the seedy motel waited maybe twenty minutes after the cops left to reopen as if nothing had happened.  That alone would be a great subversion of the normal genre tropes – but we’re not done.  Someone in the audience asks the question EVERYONE would ask in a real situation like this: “why did Black Lightning only rescue your children?”  The second moment that perfectly illustrates the realism is the moment where Lynn and Gambi discuss the fact that they blame each other for what happened the first time Jefferson was Black Lightning, neither offers any kind of apology or pushes a plot forwarding “let’s get along for Jeff’s sake” style argument: they both just basically say: ‘No, it’s your fault’ and walk away.  In real life tensions don’t magically ease, certainly not long held grudges like that one – it’s a very small moment but an incredibly real one.  Cress Williams’ Jefferson has some truly great material in this episode, building his relationship to the community – to his children – to his own powers, and not a single second of that is wasted. The cold blooded nature with which LaLa dealt with the Will situation seemed starkly unsettling, until we realized it was only a precursor to Tobias Whale doing the same to LaLa.  Absolutely EVERYTHING about this episode was perfectly executed, pun definitely intended.

EPISODE MVP

Tracey Bonner as Lawanda* brought a real sense of grief and loss that became central to this episode as she staked out the motel looking for her daughter.  The fact that this humble mother is what sparks Jefferson to finally put that suit back on permanently is a deft bit of storytelling.

Arrow Season 6, Episode 11: “We Fall”

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It’s just a normal day in Star City, William is getting help with his math homework from Felicity before leaving on a school trip – Oliver doesn’t have many meetings – things seem okay for the moment. And then weird power anomalies and internet disruptions begin to wreak havoc. Elevators electrocute their passengers, a small airplane crashes on the highway, this is all clearly the work of Cayden James – but Felicity has no idea how to figure out what exactly he is doing. That is until Cayden James shows up at City Hall to meet with Mayor Queen to tell him exactly what he is doing.  Cayden says that his takeover was timed to commemorate the day one year ago where The Green Arrow killed his son, James then threatens to use his bomb to destroy Star City if Oliver doesn’t deposit millions of dollars in an off-shore account by midnight.  Elsewhere Curtis, Rene and Dinah (briefly calling themselves The Outsiders) track a signal from Vigilante, who separates Curtis from the rest of the team and informs him that he is actually a good guy who is deep undercover within James’ organization.  Vigilante claims that James is about to make his massive move to completely control Star City and he needs help to stop him, he feeds Curtis some information about an accident James will cause in the Subway in a few hours time. Felicity realizes that James is targeting every way out of and into the city – he means to trap everyone inside Star City and hold it ransom.  Oliver races to where his son’s school bus is located in the tunnels under the city and saves him; revealing that he lied and is still The Green Arrow. Felicity talks to Alena and discovers that James’ belief that Oliver killed his son stems from video footage that was sent to him from someone in Corto Maltese.  Oliver and Felicity both know that this video footage must be fabricated, because on this day one year ago when James’ son was killed – Oliver and Team Arrow were in Hub City trying to recruit Dinah to the team.  Curtis informs Team Arrow that James is targeting the Subway, and his team goes to stop a train collision. After stopping the collision, Curtis reveals his intel came from Vigilante – who gives Curtis more intel about where to take on James and disarm his bomb.  Dinah and Rene decide to trust Curtis and call Ollie and Diggle in for back up.  The reunited, though only briefly, Team Arrow tries to stop James and his men: but they are too late.  The city is closed off and the bomb is now on the move.  Oliver does the one thing he swore he wouldn’t do, and wires money into James’ account.

REVIEW

First I have to admit to geeking out extensively over the decision of Curtis to try to rename the new Team Arrow as The Outsiders.  I’ve often told the story of how my love of comics as a medium was sparked off of seeing a K-Mart polybagged collection of five comics, with the visible cover being Batman #416.  What I’ve rarely shared is what the other four comics were, the set included Batman #414-416 and two older issues that served as filler: one being The New Teen Titans #29 from 1987 which kicked off a lifelong fascination with Wally West and his tenure as The Flash.  The other filler book was 1984’s Batman and the Outsiders #14 featuring Batman, Metamorpho, Halo, Geo-Force, and Black Lightning. Ever since reading those two filler books I have had a soft spot in my heart for second tier (and sometimes third tier) team books; The Justice League may have the flashier characters but The Titans and The Outsiders always have more interesting storytelling.  So it was awesome to me that Curtis Holt otherwise known as Mr. Terrific wants to name his team The Outsiders (specifically given that the comic version of Mr. Terrific is creating his own team called The Terrific’s and is including longtime Outsiders member Metamorpho.

Watching the two teams go at the problem of saving the city from different angles has been used effectively to give us a better understanding of who “The Outsiders” are, in contrast to the already incredibly well established Team Arrow.  We get the expected twist of the mole in James’ organization, but in the form of Vigilante instead of Anatoly who long time viewers expected to be infiltrating the organization on Oliver’s behalf.  It is of course perfectly fitting that Curtis is the first one to consider trusting Vigilante.  Things are ramping up very heavily in this episode, with Cayden James doing his best Bane impression and cutting Star City off from the rest of the US so that he can hold it hostage with a moving bomb – which seems an odd point to ratchet up the tension considering there are eleven episodes after this one.  Where does the show have any headroom if we go to 11 straight episodes of the sword of Damocles hanging over Ollie’s head – it didn’t work on The Flash last year with Savitar.  I suspect we’re going to get a March sweeps reshuffling where we reveal who it was who framed Oliver to Cayden James and that person then becomes the real big bad for the duration of the season.

EPISODE MVP

Emily Bett Rickards* who made the melodrama of the “William just found out Oliver never stopped being the Green Arrow” subplot bearable.

NEXT TIME: Someone is trying to kill Morgan Edge, and it might be Lena Luthor on Supergirl. Cisco and Ralph are shrunk down to the size of G.I. Joes on The Flash. Black Lightning is back, and some people are not excited on Black Lightning. Gotham City is under siege by Bane, I mean Star City is under siege by Cayden James on Arrow.

Presents

DC/CW Television Week 10

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to 2018 and the return of the CW DC Television Universe.  We have a brand new series to welcome into the fold and a few schedule changes to take note of: so I hope you’re ready to head on back to the world of costumed heroism.

First off we have a casting shake-up that everyone saw coming but no one could get the CW to confirm: Keiynan Lonsdale’s Wally West will be joining the cast of Legends of Tomorrow for what looks to be the remainder of its third season.

Also we’ve got brand new series: Black Lightning debuting which means we have five CW DC shows, and only four CW DC timeslots.  Stick with me this is where it gets interesting:  Supergirl will air on Monday nights in its 8:00 PM timeslot until February 12th.  Beginning February 12th, Legends of Tomorrow will take over the Monday 8:00 PM timeslot and will every week until its season finale airs on April 9th.  The following week on April 16th, Supergirl returns and will run out the rest of its season with its season finale airing on June 18th.  Black Lightning is taking over the Tuesday 9:00 PM timeslot formerly held by Legends of Tomorrow and will remain there throughout its first season.  The Flash and Arrow will continue in their respective timeslots uninterrupted.

All of that housekeeping out of the way: let’s dive straight in.

Supergirl Season 3, Episode 10: “Legion of Superheroes”

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When we left Supergirl on the other side of the divide between 2017 and 2018 she had been beaten into a coma by the Kryptonian genetically engineered superweapon/single mom Reign.  When we rejoin her now she is getting a knock on the door of her apartment, and letting in a blue skinned visitor named Brainiac 5 (Jesse Rath) who informs her that she’s not really in her apartment.  Kara is trapped in her own mind as a result of the coma that Reign beat her into, and Brainy is a member of the Legion that Mon-El woke up to communicate with her while she heals.  The big problem is that Reign is still out there, completely unchecked, and Mon-El refuses to join the fight to stop her. He explains that this is because there is an alien menace called the Blight threatening Earth in the future and the Legion went to find the means to save Earth, and rather than saving that info on a flash drive they encoded it into their own DNA.  If they die, so does the future.  We check back into mind prison Kara, and she is pissed about the fact that she can’t wake up – particularly after Brainy tells her there is no reason she should still be comatose.  While James covers for Kara’s absence at CatCo, the DEO is planning to try to take Reign out by using a plan created as a contingency should Superman ever go evil.  Reign is behaving as a savior who is eliminating all evil doers, so the DEO sets up a fake bank robbery and when Reign comes to kill the bank robbers they all turn out to be DEO agents with Kryptonite weapons and other tech designed to be used against Superman.  None of it works, and Alex breaks her leg.  James calls J’onn out to pretend to be Kara with Lena so that Kara won’t lose her job.   Supergirl tries to heat vision her way out of her apartment, but that doesn’t work so well either.  Brainy explains that he believes her subconscious is trapping her in her own mind until she works out some issues.  Reign goes to Albatross Bay prison, and Mon-El decides that he will indeed join the fight to stop Reign after all, and the DEO decides the best way to do that is to mainline some Kryptonite right into her neck.  Reign tries to kill some prisoners, Mon-El and Imra show up to stop her.  Meanwhile in mind prison, Kara realizes that her subconscious is trying to remind her to be Kara Danvers, that she’s stronger when she’s human.  She wakes up just in time to save Mon-El from having his ass kicked by Reign.  Reign escapes to her fortress and it turns out in the prison confusion Coville escaped and is now not Supergirl’s devoted worshipper but Reigns.  Kara and Alex have a little sister time and things start feeling normal again.

REVIEW

I’ve got a bit of a bugaboo to address here that is not within the narrative of the episode, so I’ll hit on that first.  Supergirl has created a world where Clark Kent/Superman is just a text away, but willing to give Kara the space she needs to handle her own life in National City.  As an idea, that is a delicate balancing act – because you don’t want to reference Superman TOO much (as they did in the first half of Season One.)  The other side of that equation though is that you don’t want to reference Superman too little, and this feels like a time where Superman needed to be referenced in some way shape or form.  Kara is in a coma because in the last episode a Kryptonian villain beat her nearly to death. If there is something going on in Metropolis that is so important that Superman can’t hop over to the West Coast to check on his cousin who is possibly dead, it would be fairly newsworthy and you think it might be worthy of a mention.  Otherwise there should have been some sort of mention about Clark having come to check on her, of course that would open the can of worms of having Superman (who has a Legion Flight Ring in his Fortress) interacting with Legion Members.  Still – somewhere there needed to be something that doesn’t make it look like Superman doesn’t care about his cousin.

Before I stray too far into the rest of the episode here, I need to talk about Brainiac  5 who is one of my favorite characters in the Legion of Super-Heroes’.  Brainy, in the comics, is a green skinned alien with bright blond hair who is the smartest guy in the room (you would be too if your ancestor was the original Brainiac who often nearly killed Superman.  The bluish tinted makeup, white haired, glowing orb forehead look on the live action iteration here is off-putting and not what I would prefer: but the characterization is spot on so I forgive it and am firmly on Team Brainy.

The mind prison conceit that Kara’s subconscious will not release her back into the waking world until she deals with her behavior is a strained premise, but frankly it’s an attempt by the writers to deal with an issue that has been a drag on the character’s momentum since the season began.  What was the most appealing about this show in Season One was that Kara’s optimism and sense of humanity was innate and unshakeable, in Season Two the character began to sort of load her identity into her relationship with Mon-El and here in Season Three her reaction to that relationship ending has swallowed her whole.  It’s a fine story and it’s relatable, we’ve all been shaken to our core by the end of a relationship.  The problem is that this is still her show, and the direction so far has kept her from shining in the way she can as the central figure of this show.  In a connected universe where Oliver Queen and Barry Allen have soldiered on through bad breakups without sacrificing any of their agency, the time has long since passed to put Kara back to rights and move forward.  Reminding Kara of who she really is by using the trappings of Kara’s apartment and a photo of her cat Streaky is a deft and subtle way of reminding both Kara and the audience of what really works about Melissa’s performance as this character.  

The rest of the episode is more or less forgettable, and some things are incredibly predictable: like having the creepy Kryptonian cultist join Reign’s side.  All in all, not Supergirl’s best Season 3 episode.

EPISODE 10 MVP

This week I’m calling out a brilliant moment from Melissa Benoist this week: With Supergirl in a coma the team is covering for Kara Danvers’ disappearance which necessitates once more J’onn J’onzz shapeshifting into the Girl of Steel and pretending to be Kara Danvers.  The multi layered performance of Benoist playing David Harewood’s J’onn pretending to be Kara is an absolute joy to watch.  Bonus points go to actual David Harewood for playing the aftermath of learning how good a kisser James Olsen really is.

Black Lightning Season 1, Episode 01: “The Resurrection”

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Jefferson Pierce (Cress Williams) is sitting in a police station with his daughter Jennifer (China McClain) while they await the release of eldest daughter Anissa (Nafessa Williams) who has been arrested while attending a protest against the violent and oppressive street gang known as The 100 that runs the streets of Freeland.  When Anissa is released, the Pierce’s get in their car and hustle toward a fundraiser at Garfield high school where Jefferson is the principal.  En route to this fundraiser, Jefferson is stopped by the Police and hauled out of his car – handcuffed and detained all because a woman’s liquor store was robbed and she said it was a black male who committed the crime.  He is held until she says it wasn’t him.  Later at the school, Pierce is honored for his work within the community by Inspector Henderson (Damon Gupton.)  Jennifer goes off with her friends to a club run by the 100 gang, and gets involved with a boy named Will who owes money to his cousin: a mid level dealer named LaLa (William Catlett) who detains Will and Jennifer, threatening to force Jennifer to prostitute herself at the Seahorse Motel to work off Will’s debt.   Anissa tells Jefferson where Jennifer is and he shows up there, using his power to control electricity to enable his daughter’s escape.  Jefferson’s estranged wife checks on Jennifer after she gets home to make sure everything is fine, and Jefferson goes to a tailor named Peter Gambi (James Remar) to get patched up.  We learn the backstory, that Jefferson Pierce discovered he had powers to control electricity and became the Superhero known as Black Lightning.  Jefferson’s then wife Lynn (Christine Adams) and Gambi were the only ones who knew, Gambi designed Jefferson’s costume and helped him with his heroics while Lynn – a neuroscientist – studied Jefferson.  Ultimately Lynn demanded that for the good of their children, Jefferson needed to stop being Black Lightning and he agreed.  Gambi, in the present, tries to convince Jefferson to resume his role as Black Lightning. Will shows up at Garfield High and has a disastrous interaction with Anissa and Jennifer that ends with him threatening Jefferson.  Jefferson confronts LaLa who agrees to get Will to leave Jefferson’s children alone, but it’s too late.  Will has already gone to kidnap them and brought them to the Seahorse.  Everyone knows that the girls have been taken there, but the police are taking their sweet time to do anything, so Lynn asks Jefferson to become Black Lightning again and save the girls.  Jefferson goes to Gambi to get a new super suit and goes to the Seahorse, taking down LaLa’s operation and saving his girls.  Black Lightning is back.  Word immediately reaches top level mob boss Tobias Whale (Marvin “Krondon” Jones III) who claims that this isn’t the real Black Lightning, because he killed the real one.

REVIEW

I had toyed with the idea of delving very deeply on Black Lightning with its own separate review, but the more I thought about it – the more I realized the show itself was so instantly at home among its peers that it belonged being reviewed alongside them.  My first thoughts about the series are that it is the most mature comic book series I’ve yet seen.  The Netflix Marvel universe conveys maturity through grit, grime and often intense violence – and while this certainly feels more grown up than the four color counterparts of the CW, those shows ultimately still live and breathe in the same spaces.  Not true of Black Lightning.  We’re first introduced to Jefferson Pierce as a hero whose origin story has long since passed us by, and we subvert the trope of the first episode being about building a support system because Jefferson already has one.  Rather than slowly exposing a world where big villains live, we dive into a world where small injustices mask much larger and more real world evils like racism, gang violence, bigotry.  Jefferson Pierce is presented as a man who has spent his life serving his community in ways much larger than his brief stint as a costumed vigilante when his children were little, and it is in this sense of community that we see Freeland as a much more REAL place than Central City or National City.  Jefferson’s having given up the hero life for the sake of his daughters is the kind of sacrifice Oliver Queen wasn’t able to make for 6 whole episodes over on Arrow.  The dangers of a club owned by a deadly street gang, the best run high school in a troubled neighborhood, all of these backdrops in this pilot episode serve to create a reality to Freeland and the characters in it that is compelling and engrossing in a way other shows haven’t been.  Central City/National City/Star City/Metropolis/Gotham are all “anywhere’s” that ultimately feel like nowhere; New York in the Marvel TV Universe is treated less as a locale and more as another character; Freeland is real enough that it feels less like anywhere and more like right here.  The cast is fantastic, and these characters arrive very thoroughly fleshed out but without fitting into the sort of standard CW/DC mold.  Obviously watch this space to see if I remain as impressed with the series as I was of this outing, but certainly for this week: Black Lightning was the best of the CW output.  The mid level menace of a man like LaLa doing real word level crime at the behest of a “Kingpin” like Tobias Whale manages to feel more realistic than the machinations of The Kingpin over on Daredevil.

EPISODE 01 MVP

I wanted to come out of the gate giving this to Cress Williams for his portrayal as Jefferson Pierce, and he very nearly took the top spot.  Except of course that Marvin “Krondon” Jones is so incredibly dialed in to the malice and strength of Tobias Whale* that he just had to get top honors.

The Flash Season 4, Episode 10: “The Trial of the Flash”

RECAP

Barry Allen is on trial for the murder of Clifford DeVoe, and all the evidence points to him – what’s worse is that he refuses to testify in his own defense because doing so would require him to lie about any questions that might relate to The Flash.  Cecille has taken a leave of absence from the DA’s office to mount Barry’s defense, and Team Flash is trying to figure out just how to exonerate Barry.  In the background of all of this, people all throughout the city are succumbing to massive amounts of radiation.  Cisco, Caitlin, and Harry investigate the strange radiation; Iris tries to convince Barry to testify; and Joe goes off with Ralph to try to get pictures of DeVoe’s wife in an embrace with DeVoe’s new body so that Cecille can use this to create reasonable doubt, but Marlize DeVoe just paints a picture of a marriage in crisis because of Clifford’s ALS – and Clifford encouraging her to find physical comfort with someone who could meet her needs.  Knowing that this didn’t play well, Iris plans to admit in court that Barry is the Flash so that she can save him, Barry superspeeds to her and they have a conversation at superspeed about how he can’t endanger her or anyone else by revealing his identity.  Desperate to save Barry, Joe tries to get Ralph to break into the DeVoe house so that Joe can plant evidence to exonerate his son/son-in-law – Ralph convinces him not to.  Cisco and Harry discover the radiation is due to a meta who is about to go nuclear, Barry leaves his own trial to save the day – but it’s just a momentary blip of heroism before the jury comes back with a verdict: Barry Allen is found guilty for the murder of Clifford DeVoe and is taken to Iron Heights where he is put in the same cell that once housed his father Henry.

REVIEW

First: FLASH PREDICTIONS:  Iris is pregnant, which is where her mysterious ability to talk to Barry at superspeed came from.

The Flash, on trial for murder, for comic fans – we have been down this road before with some incredibly strange results.  The most significant of these was the multipart 1980’s Trial of The Flash, where The Flash (not Barry Allen) was on trial for the murder of long time rogue Eobard Thawne. The CW Trial of the Flash is not nearly as out there, nor does it take as long with Barry Allen being tried and sentenced all in one episodes – though both stories see Barry Allen represented by Cecille Horton.   Granted, the comic version of Cecille offered a more thorough defense for Barry than live action Cecille did.  I understand that Barry didn’t want to testify and have to perjure himself if pressed to answer questions that dealt with his double life, but I’m still unsure why that would prevent Cecille from pressing DeVoe’s wife further on cross examination.  Even a bad episode of Law & Order would have blown the case wide open with the revelation of an extra-marital affair.  Speaking of Ralph, it was wonderful to see him actually be portrayed as a human being again rather than a walking talking sleazy cartoon; having him be the one to give Joe West the crucial perspective on what would happen if he planted evidence in the DeVoe home to try to exonerate Barry was incredibly well played.

EPISODE 10 MVP

Every week we tune in to the events of The Flash and we watch amazing performances from our main cast, but this week they finally gave some nice meaty dialogue and emotion to long term supporting player Patrick Sabongui.  Captain Singh* has been on board since episode one and we’ve had some great moments with him as a character, but the conflict he experiences having to testify against Barry is palpable and beautifully played.  When in the end of the episode they cross cut Barry’s sentencing with Singh giving a press conference thanking The Flash for saving the day, you can’t help but wonder if Singh knows who The Flash really is.

Arrow Season 6, Episode 10: “Divided”

RECAP

Cayden James and his Green Arrow Revenge Squad need access to the ports, and the best way to do that is to take over the mob controlled ports of the Bertinelli family (From way back in Season 1) to do that they strong arm Jerry Bertinelli (SGU guy) and give him 24 hours to turn over the docks.  Curtis comes over to take another stab at activating the tech that will help Diggle get over his tremor, even though he is still not rejoining Team Arrow.  Diggle’s implant causes interference that accidentally reveals the bug that Black Siren placed in the Arrow cave, and Felicity rigs up a temporary way to fool the surveillance.  Oliver has Felicity back trace the bug, and is contacted by Bertinelli who wants to use the old “The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend” principle to sic Green Arrow on Cayden James.  Oliver discovers proof that Cayden has built a team, and gathers the current team members and those who just quit to fill them in on the surveillance.  Everyone gets a little tense over the fact that Oliver, Dig and Felicity knew about the bugs for a whole 24 hours without notifying them.  Oliver drops the bomb that Vigilante, otherwise known as Dinah’s ex Vince, is on James’ team.   Nobody takes the news well.  Curtis offers to help Rene get out of his situation with the FBI by hacking them to discover what info they have on him and Oliver – Dinah confronts Vince and he manages to narrowly edge her out in a fight to escape.  Oliver goes to confront James’ team alone and manages to only barely escape, the Bertinelli’s give the docks to Cayden James.  Oliver realizes he can’t work alone, and offers his apologies and the opportunity to bring the other three back onto the team.  They refuse and form a team of their own, but not before Curtis gives Diggle a now complete implant that should reverse his never damage thoroughly.  Oliver, Felicity and Diggle prepare to try to face James as the team they once were; while Curtis introduces his teammates to their new base of operations.

REVIEW

I have a startling observation for you, something I don’t think I’ve ever been able to say about Arrow before: Oliver Queen is a human being who is just as capable of fear as any of the rest of us.  Everything that has happened since Cayden James threatened Oliver’s son several episodes ago has come from a place of Oliver being afraid, and it is causing him to make bad decisions to try to protect himself.  For once he is not the all brooding, always correct proto-Batman of the CW universe – and it is incredible to see.  The way he flails from not trusting the other half of the team; to realizing he cannot proceed without them; to pulling back to the insular core of himself, Diggle and Felicity is like watching a cornered animal look for an escape plan.  Watching Team Arrow compress back to its Season One core is compelling, but that story is not nearly as interesting to me as an audience member as watching the formation of the new team of Wild Dog, Mr. Terrific and Black Canary.  Even once they’re aware that Cayden James had bugged them and manipulated the team into falling apart as a divide and conquer tactic, they’re still so hurt and angered by Oliver’s mistrust of them – that they cannot rejoin the team.  Obviously, this being television and all, the two teams will work together before the season’s end and everything will go back to normal.  For now, the tension between these former teammates is palpable, and kudos to Arrow for letting the show breathe in this uncomfortable place for a little while.

EPISODE 10 MVP

Juliana Harkavy’s Dinah Drake* brings us home with a performance borne out of anger and frustration over being betrayed by her partner AND ousted by Oliver.

In the First New Episode of 2018, Ark of E Co-Founder, Noah Blanchard joins his cousin, Host Matthew J. Blanchard for a lengthy review of The DCU; from Man of Steel to Justice League.

Intro ("Spark of The Flash" by Danny Elfman) Outro ("The Fastest Man Alive - Always Late" by Blake Neely) 

Send Feedback : thearkofe@gmail.com , dirtypoolfilms@gmail.com 

Follow Us: On Instagram @thearkofenetwork , Twitter @thearkofe , Facebook : The Ark of E

Presents

DC/CW Television Week Nine

With the holidays looming over us, and Star Wars dominating the entertainment world: things have been a little hectic here in the Ark Offices North, but after a few delays we finally bring you the DC/CW mid-season finale special.  Our favorite shows are going dark until the third week of January, and when they return things will be a little different:  first off we’re getting a fifth DC/CW series in the form of: Black Lightning which will take over Legends of Tomorrow’s Tuesday night timeslot after The Flash.  Supergirl will return in mid-January and will air four episodes until February 12th, when it is replaced on Monday nights with Legends of Tomorrow; the remainder of the Legends season will air from February through April and Supergirl will return from her lengthy hiatus on April 16th to air the rest of her season.  Both Arrow and The Flash are unaffected by all the schedule shuffling and will air as normal. Confused?  Yeah, me too.   As always we’ll bring you all the recaps and reviews each week after it airs, and keep you in the loop on any schedule changes.  

That said, We’re going to close out our 2017 Four Color Television columns with this look at the Midseason Finales of our favorite DC Superhero shows and we hope you’ll come back and see us in the new year when we start all over again.  Happy Holidays one and all!

Supergirl Season 3, Episode 09: “Reign”

RECAP

Still not entirely able to cope with the strange new reality of Mon-El having returned from the future with his wife, Kara decides to throw herself into the Holidays by throwing a party for her friends – everyone makes it: even Samantha and her daughter Ruby.  A good time is being had by all until J’onn informs Kara that they have a DEO situation and must leave; Supergirl and Martian Manhunter show up at a site where they discover strange Kryptonian symbols burned into a field.  Kara immediately goes to the holographic A.I. of her mother for answers, but even the massive computer database made to look like Alura Zor-El cannot translate the glyph that predates the known Kryptonian language.  Fortunately, there is someone out there who can: mysterious cult leader Thomas Coville (Chad Lowe) reaches out to Kara so that he can inform her that he learned many secrets of Krypton’s past from the escapees from Fort Roz, and that in particular he learned that the Kryptonian symbol appearing all over National City is the Mark of the Beast.  The first piece of a prophesized apocalypse, the Kryptonian Beast will bring about the fall of the righteous and reign over the end of days.  Analysis of the burned symbols proves that they were made with heat vision.  Meanwhile Samantha is having an even harder time balancing being the CFO of L-Corp with being a mom and she isn’t entirely sure why.  James and Lena suggest to Samantha that Morgan Edge is responsible for everything and blame him for nearly assassinating Lena, and immediately thereafter: Morgan Edge is attacked by a shadowy Kryptonian woman and barely manages to escape.  Supergirl decides to take a page out of the mysterious woman’s page and burns the El family crest onto a building in hopes of calling the other Kryptonian out: and it works.  Wearing a costume that somewhat hides her face, Samantha and Kara meet and discuss their roles in this prophecy before engaging in a truly brutal fight that tears apart office buildings in downtown National City and ends with the woman calling herself Reign tossing the broken, bloody and battered Supergirl off of a skyscraper to crash unconscious into the ground below.  The DEO team arrives and gets Kara to their medical facilities, but they are unable to revive Supergirl.  With a thready pulse, and worried friends hovering around her: The Girl of Steel remains in a coma.

REVIEW

After a season of Kara being crushed by the weight of her resounding sadness over the loss of Mon-El, and Alex’s build up to and response to the break up with Maggie – it feels like this episode FINALLY decided on a direction – and an interesting direction at that.  The comic version of Reign is a genetically engineered superweapon capable of bringing a world to its knees, and every single bit of that origin except having been engineered on Krypton is jettisoned in favor of an origin where Samantha/Reign basically takes on the role of Doomsday, and physically breaks our hero before our very eyes.  Admittedly the “Doomsday” origin that is coopted here for Reign is mostly the Davis Bloome/Doomsday origin presented in Season 8 of Smallville – but grafted onto Supergirl that same story works like gangbusters.  There are some truly great moments in this episode, from J’onn’s father trying cocoa for the first time, to Chad Lowe’s incredibly creepy performance as a cult leader: but the real meat of this episode is in the fight between Supergirl and Reign and as knock down/drag out’s go it was incredibly effective.  More targeted and less explosive than the big screen fight between Doomsday and Superman in Batman V. Superman, this managed to be more faithful to the classic bout that killed the Man of Steel – with a dash of the total beat down at the hands of Nuclear Man thrown in for good measure.  Reign doesn’t get as good as she gives – Reign just thoroughly breaks the Girl of Steel.  All in all, a hell of a note to go out on for the year.

EPISODE MVP: Chad Lowe’s Coville* again sets an unsettling tone from which every bit of dramatic tension in this episode springs from.  Truly an amazing performance, and so very creepy.

The Flash Season 4, Episode 09: “Don’t Run”

RECAP

Back from their honeymoon, Barry and Iris are ready to start living their lives together – and Barry has never been happier.  The couple go through their wedding gifts – one of which is a set of knives where one knife is missing - and make some snarky comments about how Oliver and Felicity hijacked their wedding.  Meanwhile at S.T.A.R. Labs, Caitlin is feeling a little out of sorts after learning that her teammates have begun palling around with Killer Frost – she is now wondering if she even has a place on the team when she heads off to get some coffee at C.C. Jitters.   While she is enjoying her specialty coffee, and getting a much needed pep talk from Harry Wells of all people, Amunet Black (Katee Sackhoff) arrives and overpowers Harry to kidnap Caitlin.  Elsewhere, after returning many stolen microwaves given to them as wedding gifts by Mick Rory, The Thinker arrives in his floating chair and is able to kidnap Barry.   Two teammates taken and the S.T.A.R. Labs satellite cannot effectively look for both of them at the same time, Cisco’s vibes are likewise proving ineffective.  Amunet is forcing Caitlin to perform emergency surgery on a telepathic metahuman named Dominic (Kendrick Samson) who has a piece of Amunet’s shrapnel in his neck; and DeVoe has Barry trapped in a force-field prison from which he cannot escape.  Harry and Joe visit the DeVoe household and search it top to bottom looking for Barry, but there is no evidence he is there.  Caitlin bonds with Dominic and the two form a plan to escape from Amunet; meanwhile Iris is forced to make a choice – keep looking for both Caitlin and Barry and the same time which limits the effectiveness of the satellite and might cause both team members to be lost: or choose between them and possibly save one of them.  Caitlin chooses to tell Cisco to retask the satellite to look for Caitlin, because Barry can take care of himself.  Thanks to Iris’ timely choice, Team Flash locates Caitlin just in time to assist when her escape plan with Dominic is being put into effect.  Cisco vibes himself and Ralph over to where Caitlin is and they rescue her and Dominic.  Elsewhere, Barry outthinks DeVoe by vibrating so fast that he cannot be seen.  When DeVoe lowers the force field to investigate, Barry superspeeds out of the trap and escapes, with DeVoe hot on his tail they race and tumble and fight through the skies of Central City until finally DeVoe crashes into the water and Barry survives thanks to the life-raft Cisco installed in his new suit.  Everyone is reunited, and they cannot find DeVoe’s body – so Team Flash decides to take their mind off of what just happened by going to Joe’s for his Christmas party; Caitlin invites Dominic.  The party is in full swing when the burglar alarm goes off at Barry and Iris’ apartment, Barry races home to investigate but finds a seemingly empty home.  He is about to investigate further when his phone rings, it is the telepathic Dominic calling from the party at Joes – but Dominic has a startling revelation to make.  Dominic’s telepathic abilities allowed DeVoe to download his mind into Dominic’s body so that he would now have a healthy body to reside in while he works on his plan to bring about the enlightenment.  Every detail of DeVoes plan was carefully constructed, right down to the anonymous wedding gift of a knife set with only one knife in it.  The other knife in the set, is plunged into the chest of Clifford DeVoe’s old body – and the police have already arrived and are pounding on the door.  They know Barry is inside, he thinks about running but knows he can’t.  As the door breaks open and the police come inside to arrest him for the murder of Clifford DeVoe he whispers to himself: “Don’t Run.”

REVIEW

The fact that The Flash managed to hold back the twist that DeVoe was going to implant himself in a new body for the rest of the season should be commended – and much like the Thinker’s overall plan: it was executed perfectly.  I hope that somehow Neil Sandilands will return as DeVoe, even though he is now in Dominic’s body – because Sandilands’ villainous turn has only been rivalled by Tom Cavanagh’s Eobard Thawne.  Of course I’m going to update you on Ralph Dibney watch 2K17: where I unfortunately cannot report any change – he is still just serving as lame comic relief.  Katee Sackhoff’s ridiculous British accent is again terrible, but the real meat of this episode is in the reveal of just how many steps ahead of Barry Allen DeVoe really is.  The News of course is that this sets up the TV version of one of the most amazing stories in Flash history where The Flash was on trial for the murder of Reverse Flash, which amazingly was teased way back in Season One when Barry entered the Speed Force and saw visions of his own future before running back to the night his mother was killed.   While this particular arc was originally designed for Reverse Flash, it makes perfect sense to use DeVoe for this story as he represents someone who can easily twist events to conspire against Barry.  As much as Supergirl had felt aimless to this point, Flash had felt like there were no stakes anymore: this episode turned that notion on its head and gave us some of the highest stakes we’ve ever had to play for – possibly even putting the outing of Barry’s identity on the table for the first time in a while.

EPISODE MVP: Neil Sandilands* who once more, and hopefully not for the last time, brings amazing menace to the role of Clifford DeVoe

Legends of Tomorrow Season 3, Episode 09: “Beebo the God of War”

RECAP

The crew of the Waverider is feeling the absence of Professor Stein, so imagine their surprise when their first major anachronism after his death involves a time displaced version of his younger self from the late 1980’s.  The year was 1989 and THE toy of the year was a robotic talking doll named Beebo*, and Martin Stein was trying to acquire said toy for his daughter Lily when he and it fell through a crack in time and wound up in America when Leif Erikson and his sister were here.  Immediately the Vikings mistake Beebo for a god, and begin following his commands which creates a major aberration in time where America becomes a Viking nation and Christmas disappears completely – replaced with Beebo Day.  Sara mobilizes the team to try to steal back the doll, but sidelines Jax so that he can’t get involved too deeply with the situation involving Martin Stein.  The gang manages to get Stein free and gets him back to the ship but are unable to retrieve the doll, so Ray recommends they pose as Norse gods and demand the return of Beebo.  Instead, Sara has them pose as Vikings and they feast with Leif and his crew in an attempt to get ahold of Beebo before the doll does any REAL damage.  Jax takes young Martin back home and gives him a letter with instructions to not open it until November of 2017, and our team of heroes is captured by the Vikings.  Before they can be executed, a flash of lighting appears in the sky and a man claiming to be Odin appears – the man is none other than Damien Darhk.  Ray is annoyed that Darhk stole is plan, there is a fight – Beebo is destroyed: but the future is still Viking controlled and Christmas is now a celebration of Odin.  Ray has Gideon fabricate a new Beebo and shrinks down so that he can control it like a puppet, there is another fight and in the battle Nora Darhk is wounded.  Concerned for his daughter, Damien Darhk grabs her and timeshifts away – the future is restored.  Except that nothing has changed regarding Martin Stein, he has still died as a result of sacrificing himself to save his team – Jax returns to the 80’s to question Martin and he admits he destroyed the letter and doesn’t want any knowledge about his own future.  Jax decided that without Martin he feels he doesn’t know who he is anymore and decides to leave the Waverider to discover his own place in the world.  Sara escorts Jax off the ship to where he can take on his new life, but when she returns to the Waverider she finds John Constantine: The Hellblazer waiting for her to ask for help with a little girl possessed by a demon – a demon who knows Sara’s name.

REVIEW

After losing Victor Garber in the crossover the previous week, Legends definitely needed to fall back on a fun episode, and the strange tale of a talking doll becoming the god to a group of Vikings certainly fit the bill.  The humor was just the palate cleanser we needed, from Beebo himself to Leo Snart playing therapist for the bereaved crew by forcing them to confront the Martin Stein puppet he created to help them channel their grief.  There is nothing about this episode that doesn’t underline Garber’s absence while pointing in the direction they must go without him.  As an ensemble show, Legends tends to make the most of these simple/straightforward stories in a way that other shows really can’t.  The departure of Franz Drameh from the series was completely unexpected, and the producers have informed us that while the door is open for Jax to return – there is no immediate plan for it.  We’re also told that he will be replaced on the show by a “current member of the Arrowverse”and the speculation currently is pointing toward this new member being none other than Wally West.  So, fingers crossed for some decent usage of Kid Flash.

EPISODE MVP: Wentworth Miller* as Leo Snart.  The Earth-X touchy/feely Citizen Cold may be a short lived concept without any legs, but for the moment his antics deeply amuse me and that’s what I want on Legends.

Arrow Season 6, Episode 09: “Irreconcilable Differences”

RECAP

Oliver and Felicity have a second wedding ceremony, separate from the one they ruined for Iris and Barry, and the whole team is in attendance.  Quentin Lance gives Oliver the watch his own father gave him on his wedding day; Curtis gets a little sad drunk over his own failed marriage; Thea gets down to bonding with William in full on Aunt mode; Diggle and Dinah mingle happily and Rene toasts the happy couple.  Nothing could go wrong, except the DA has let slip to Quentin that their case is based on the fact that someone is willing to testify in open court that Oliver Queen is the Green Arrow – and not just anyone: someone on the team.  Felicity and Oliver immediately start looking into the whereabouts and interactions of the new team members to discover which of them is a traitor, which doesn’t bode well for Dinah who has been spending an inordinate amount of time hanging out with her ex, the self titled Vigilante who wants to take out Green Arrow for not being extreme enough.  Meanwhile Evil Laurel kidnaps Quentin Lance and Cayden James demands Oliver trade a one of a kind piece of ARGUS Tech for his safe release.  Team Arrow breaks into ARGUS and steal the device but things get a little tense and they reconvene at the cave to squabble it out. The team confronts each other and Oliver accuses Dinah of being a traitor, but Rene reveals he is the one who said he would testify against Ollie.  Ollie kicks him out of the Arrow Cave.  Evil Laurel and Quentin Lance have a little Father/Alternate Earth daughter time and bond a little over who they once were to each other. Diggle talks Oliver into agreeing to take the full team, including Rene, to make the exchange to retrieve Quentin.  Felicity and Curtis sabotage the device James wants, and the team shows up to the meet – but it’s clear that Oliver is compartmentalizing and sidelining the newer team members.  Curtis and Rene go off on their own and in doing so they manage to discover where Quentin is being held by Laurel.  Oliver and James’ men have a showdown when James realizes his device has been tampered with.  Laurel lets Quentin go, and the team returns to the Cave where Oliver and Rene have it out about whether or not Rene can be trusted.  Oliver kicks Rene off the team for not following orders at the exchange; Dinah says she can’t trust Oliver anymore and quits the team; Curtis quits as well because he feels betrayed that Oliver and Felicity violated their privacy and bugged them.  Team Arrow has completely shattered and all that remains are the original team of Oliver, Diggle and Felicity.  Elsewhere Cayden James reveals that he has assembled his own team to take down Oliver Queen a team consisting of Evil Laurel, Ricardo Diaz, Vigilante and Oliver’s former Bratva friend: Anatoly.  Breaking apart Team Arrow was all just part of Cayden’s plan, which is just getting started.

REVIEW

I’m not exactly sure how I missed that the big bad of this season was going to be an Anti-Team Arrow, in retrospect it makes perfect sense.  It even fits this years brilliant theme of keeping Team Arrow’s equilibrium constantly shifting while Cayden James’ team becomes stable.  Truly it’s a brilliant little piece of TV plotting.  My secret heart is of course that Anatoly (the brilliant David Nykl) is actually working with Oliver and will betray Cayden James before the season is out, but I suspect that this is highly unlikely.  While the break-up of Team Arrow was sort of expected it still played brilliantly by rooting itself in Oliver Queen’s constant failure to trust people and let them in and thus being a foundational flaw in the team that Oliver will have to grow past if he wants to defeat James’ team.  The way the episode was set up with a lovelorn Curtis lamenting his lot in life, he became an excellent red herring in the “who betrayed Oliver?” plot – so much so that I was genuinely surprised by the reveal that it was Rene.  The scenes between Rene and Oliver were BRILLIANTLY handled as the two spat venom at each other over concepts like trust and loyalty.  Arrow remains near the top of the stack week after week, even if it took six years to get there.

EPISODE MVP  Echo Kellum’s Curtis* just barely edges out Rene this week with a beautifully portrayed sense of betrayal and disappointment at the way Oliver and Felicity spied on him.  This is some of the best work we’ve yet seen from Kellum.

We’re on a bit of a Holiday Break folks, but we’ll return in the New Year with a handful of “The Season So Far” editions to reflect on how we got to where we are today.

Until then: Happy Holidays.

Presents

CRISIS ON EARTH X

Last year the DC/CW shows gave us a three night crossover that spanned The Flash, Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow and gave us the story of an alien race invading the Earth to prevent the rise of metahumans like Barry Allen.  Naturally the follow up to this needed to be bigger and more epic, and it certainly was.

PART ONE - SUPERGIRL

After a brief teaser where a mysterious dark archer kills a much more Captain America inspired Guardian, our story begins with the Superheroes of Earth-1, Earth-38, and the time-displaced Waverider gathering in Central City to celebrate the wedding of Barry Allen and Iris West.  Team Flash provides Jax and Martin Stein with a serum that will cure them of the Firestorm Matrix before the festivities begin. Iris takes the girls out for some dress fittings, Barry takes Ollie and the guys out for suit fittings and everyone meets up at C.C. Jitters for a rehearsal dinner and toast by Joe West.  Drinking abounds, and there is an awkward hookup between Alex Danvers and Sara Lance, as well as a terribly impolite impromptu proposal by Oliver Queen that Felicity Smoak quickly rejects.  Other than these few moments of awkward, everything seems to be normal – until Nazis led by a mysterious flying girl and a dark archer show up and assault the wedding.  Team Earth One immediately jumps in to fight the Nazi’s in an epic brawl that really showcases the kind of adventure the CW is capable of, and every hero involved in the fight gets to have a truly badass moment – even characters like Kid Flash who will disappear from the rest of the crossover so as to protect civilians like Joe and Cecille who aren’t a part of the main story.  The main group of Nazi’s escapes with their flying woman and main dark archer, but the Earth One heroes manage to capture the Nazi version of Prometheus.  Fortunately, the only real casualty of this first battle was the officiant at the Wedding (William Katt,) but many are wounded – and Cisco is comatose.

PART TWO - ARROW

Prometheus is unmasked and is none other than Tommy Merlyn, Oliver Queen’s best friend who died way back in Season One of Arrow – which leads the combined group of heroes to presume that he is a time displaced anachronism like the ones the Legends deal with week after week but Barry correctly surmises that he is from an alternate Earth.  Harry Wells, ever the font of multiversal knowledge pieces it all together and informs the team that Tommy is from the 53rd Earth in the Multiverse – the Earth so horrible it isn’t even given a number: it is simply known as Earth X.  Earth X is the world where the Nazi’s won World War II and created a worldwide third reich that lasted until Hitler’s death and beyond.  Tommy taunts Oliver during interrogation before ultimately killing himself with some cyanide.  S.T.A.R. Labs detects a Nazi break in at a facility in Central City and Supergirl, Flash and Arrow race to the scene – with Supergirl and The Flash arriving long before Oliver.  The Earth-X team of villains: the dark archer, the flying girl, and a speedster in a costume that looks like Reverse Flash reveal their identities to our heroes.  They are the Earth-X counterparts to our team, mostly.  While the dark archer is indeed the Earth-X Oliver Queen (aka The Fuhrer) and the flying woman is the Earth-X Kara Zor-El (Overgirl); the speedster is the Earth One Eobard Thawne once more wearing the face of Harrison Wells to truly stab at Barry once again.  We get a brilliant three on three fight between two Green Arrow’s, two Supergirls, and two Speedsters – a fight that gives Oliver the chance to prove that he is prepared for his friends going bad when he shoots Overgirl with a Kryptonite arrow.  The Earth X-ers get away, but not for long.  Overgirl’s blood is on the arrow she was shot with, and a quick analysis shows that her cells are supercharged with solar radiation, which means tracking her will be incredibly easy.  All the heroes suit up to go after the Earth X-ers and face them in an epic showdown, but Evil Oliver is missing from the fray because he is at S.T.A.R. Labs taking on the civilians who remained there.  At the end of the battle our heroes are divided, beaten and captured.  When our heroes wake up they are in a concentration camp on Earth-X under guard by the Nazi’s and the only hero who is not with them, is Supergirl.

PART THREE – THE FLASH

While the big guns are trapped on Earth-X wearing power dampening collars, anyone who could save them on Earth One is trapped in the pipeline at S.T.A.R. Labs with a bickering Harry Wells and Cisco Ramon.  The only ones free at S.T.A.R. Labs are Iris and Felicity who are making their way through maintenance hatches – it is from this hiding place that they determine the X-er’s true plan.  Killing their weaker selves, conquering Earth-1, these are all just bonuses: they came for Supergirl and the technology Eobard Thawne has built into S.T.A.R. Labs.  Overgirl has taken in too much solar radiation and is dying, the only thing that will save her is a heart transplant from Supergirl.  Meanwhile on Earth-X, our heroes – along with another man named Ray (soon to be revealed as The Ray as played Russel Tovey) are marched by evil Quentin Lance to face a firing squad.  With guns trained on them, and no powers in sight there is no hope – until they are saved at the last minute by a resistance fighter with a cold gun: the Earth-X Leonard Snart aka Citizen Cold.  Snart and The Ray take the heroes to the resistance base in Star City where the team pleads multiple times with General Winslow Schott to help them return to Earth One via the Breach the Fuhrer uses to get back and forth.  There is some arm twisting, but ultimately the standard switcheroo plan is launched with Good Oliver posing as Evil Oliver to gain access to the base so that he can shut down a power dampener that will allow the rest of the team to arrive.  Meanwhile in S.T.A.R. Labs, Felicity and Iris manage to cut the power to the facility to prevent Thawne’s impending surgery by shutting down his “red sun” generator allowing Supergirl to start regenerating.  Felicity sends out a distress call to the Legends who didn’t attend the wedding.  Oliver’s infiltration plan goes a little sideways and a shootout enables him to cut off the dampening field, but the controls for the breach are damaged and they need to reopen the breach manually.  Furthermore, before the breach closed the Earth-X Doomsday weapon went through the breach: a Nazi crewed version of the Waverider.  General Winn gets an itchy trigger finger and launches a weapon intended to destroy the breach facility.  Flash and The Ray work together to stop the weapon, an android known to comic fans as Red Tornado – while Oliver and crew fight it out with Nazi’s in order to open the breach.  In S.T.A.R. Labs Thawne captures Iris and is threatening to kill her if Felicity doesn’t give him the encrypted password he needs to restore the power.  Supergirl demands that Felicity comply, that no one will die because of her – Felicity gives the code and Thawne restores the power.  Over on Earth –X the march to the breach room is not going well.  Jax and Professor Stein split apart to fix the machines to open the breach, but before he is able to do so: Martin Stein is shot in the back by a Nazi and collapses to the ground.

PART FOUR – LEGENDS OF TOMORROW

The heroes in Earth X are pinned down by gunfire, while Flash and The Ray are locked in combat with Red Tornado.  Martin Stein pulls himself to his feet and pushes onward to throw the switch that will open the breach and just before he is able to do so he is shot once more.  He manages to throw the switch anyway, and the energy blast from the breach kills all the remaining Nazi’s.   In S.T.A.R. Labs Thawne attempts to slice open Supergirl but something is holding back his scalpel, that something is Ray Palmer: The Legends have arrived.  The Legends bust Cisco and Team Arrow out of the pipeline and the X-ers begin to retreat to the Nazi Waverider, the heroes return through the breach and the war has definitely turned in favor of the heroes of Earth One. On the Waverider, despite all efforts to save his life, Martin Stein is dying and the only thing keeping him alive is his psychic link with Jax – that same link is acting as an anchor and Jax will die with Stein.  Stein has Gideon synthesize Cisco’s Firestorm cure and asks Jax to help him take it, this will sever their link and allow Stein to die so that Jax will live.  Jax tearfully complies and everyone mourns Martin Stein before rallying to stop the Earth-X’ers in his name.  What follows is the big damn hero battle that everyone wanted, and it does not disappoint.  There is spaceship combat between the two Waveriders, there is a Superhero melee on the ground with just about every hero in the DC CW Universe as they take down Nazi’s.  The Waverider crew discovers that when Overgirl reaches critical mass she will erupt in a nuclear explosion.  The massively awesome fight ends up coming down to three core conflicts: Supergirl vs. Overgirl in the air, Oliver vs Evil Oliver under a bridge, and Flash vs. Reverse Flash everywhere.  Supergirl flies the dying Overgirl into space where erupts without killing anyone, Oliver kills his evil self with a shot through the heart, and Barry defeats Thawne but refuses to kill him – ultimately letting him go.  The evil Waverider is destroyed, everyone attends the funeral of Martin Stein, and then everyone goes back to where they belong.  Leo Snart opts to stay with the Legends for a little while, The Ray returns to Earth-X, Supergirl and Alex return to Earth-38 leaving only Barry, Iris, Oliver, and Felicity.  Barry and Iris say they now intend to just elope rather than having another full fledged wedding that could be ruined, Felicity points out that Diggle is ordained as a minister to perform weddings and Barry races to Star City to retrieve him.  As always Diggle throws up after travelling at superspeed, but he performs a dual ceremony where both Barry and Iris AND Oliver and Felicity get married.

REVIEW

Holy Shit, these episodes were fantastic.  While I could indeed review these on the same standards as I normally do the CW/DC TV series, that would be doing a great disservice to this event.  Frankly while these are indeed produced as episodes of the four main series, this is a self-contained story that is not wholly an episode of any of the other shows.  For the purpose of this review I’m going to break it up into its four parts and talk about some of the awesome stuff that happened, while trying to keep it from getting too long.

PART ONE

Setting the stage for this epic was handled incredibly well, and of all the fight sequences the bookends were really the best parts.  The first fight in the wedding chapel allowed everyone to shine and was directed so brilliantly, it even gave Wally West some sweet moves that show that maybe – just maybe – he’s growing into a better speedster than Barry.  The emotional core of the episode though was the wedding of Barry and Iris, which has been percolating since last season and it was a brilliant touch to have Kara sing “Runnin’ Home to You” the song Barry sang when he asked Iris to marry him in the musical.  The neat little easter egg of the excited waitress who may or may not be a West/Allen child from the future was cute, but the really awesome moment was the cameo of William Katt – TV’s Greatest American Hero – as the officiant of Barry and Iris’ wedding.  Barry and Katt’s character from that series have a great deal in common, and his appearance makes up for the absence of John Wesley Shipp as Jay Garrick.

PART ONE MVP: Stephen Amell* who brings a kindlier, more big brotherly approach to Oliver in this crossover – I like this version of Ollie and by god I want to see him more often.  He’s been moving in this direction on Arrow and I hope to hell it sticks.

PART TWO

TOMMY MERLYN?!!!  This is an amazing nod to speculation last year that Prometheus was going to end up being Earth 2’s Tommy Merlyn, and it really hits Ollie and Felicity where they live emotionally.  This is the episode where everything starts to get explained and the fights do suffer a little because of it, but even a little less action is not a bad thing in this case because what is there is perfect.  The Kryptonite arrow plays beautifully, as does Kara’s reaction to it.  It really works that this happens after the quick, but brilliant gag, where Barry zips in to the location of the fight and waits a moment for Kara to arrive and then the two of them stand there for a moment until Oliver finally shows up on his motorcycle and chides them for forgetting that he doesn’t have superspeed.  Amell and Benoist really shine in this episode, both as Arrow and Supergirl but also as Dark Archer and Overgirl.  You can see their affection for each other, and when it’s revealed that they’re married it feels natural, while at the same time feeling perfectly wrong as a pairing for OUR Ollie and our Kara.  

PART TWO MVP:  Melissa Benoist who brings so much malice to Overgirl that it makes that basic fairness of Supergirl shown so much the brighter.

PART THREE

Leo Snart is the single greatest thing ever.  I want an episode where somehow Leo Snart and Leonard Snart interact with each other, because they are perfect polar opposites.  It is so well constructed using the themes of LGBT inclusivity on these shows as a counterpoint to the darkness of the narrative surrounding the Nazi’s – and it’s no mistake that our heroes are repudiating the alt-right.  Of the three episodes, you can tell that this one was written as a bottle episode – to save costs for the other three parts which is why it takes place almost exclusively in standing sets like S.T.A.R. Labs and the Arrow Cave.  The comedic value of everyone trapped in the pipeline is a great touch, but the real winner in this entire exchange is Jeremy Jordan who gets some real meat to chew as the alternate version of Win.  Effectively he gets to be Alex, and it suits him well.  Amell starts to show the cracks in the façade of evil Oliver, which highlights just which Oliver is weak and which is strong.  The slow Bataan death march to the demise of Martin Stein is predictable but still plays well.   Props to Grant Gustin for doing an amazing impression of Wentworth Miller in a scene where he explains the Earth One Snart’s ethos to the Earth-X hero.

PART THREE MVP:  Wentworth Miller* who brings a welcome dose of whimsy and heroism to the bleakest chapter of this event.

PART FOUR

The death of Martin Stein is beautifully handled, well crafted, well acted and completely serves as the rallying cry our heroes need to take on the Nazi’s in this final chapter.  That said, the final fight is so gonzo and balls to the wall comic-book-y that it just cannot be praised too much.  Everything feels like the final chapter of a 4 issue mini series and it plays amazingly.  There is so much great stuff here that I simply couldn’t highlight it all.  Firstly, I have to call out the brilliance of Tom Cavanagh who brilliantly plays two characters here – trust me it’s worth it.  The final act inclusion of Ray Palmer and the Legends was the shot in the arm this episode needed to carry us to the ending, and it was awesome to see them play the big damn heroes, especially after having been somewhat neglected in last year’s crossover.   There is a perfect call back to Superman II where Supergirl delivers the Christopher Reeve classic line: “General, would you care to step outside”  of all the great moments in all four hours of this crossover – that was the one that made me literally cheer.  Russell Tovey was fun as The Ray.  The Diggle wedding ceremony was well handled, even if it was terribly impolite of Ollie and Felicity to step all over Iris and Barry’s moment AGAIN.  If I were to make any criticism it is that across all of this, Barry got lost in the shuffle a little bit – though in fairness so much of last years crossover was centered on Barry that it is fair he isn’t the main focus this time.

PART FOUR MVP: Tom Cavanagh* who so expertly plays two characters as distinctly different that you almost forget that there aren’t two actors playing the roles.  Stephen Amell and Melissa Benoist do a fine job playing two versions of the same character, but Cavanagh raises it to an art form.  He even outdoes himself her and it is glorious to behold.

OVERALL MVP: Victor Garber*.  We all knew that Martin Stein would be exiting the series, and as this episode played out it became obvious that the writers took this as an opportunity to really let Victor Garber shine and showcase just how much of an impact he has had on this television universe.  It was a joy to watch his final performances as Martin Stein just as it has been a joy to watch him each week since he first appeared on The Flash.

NEXT WEEK:  Mid Season Finale’s for all four shows.

Presents

DC/CW Television Week Seven

Thanksgiving may slow us down, but it will never prevent us from delivering the DC/CW Recap Review!

Supergirl Season 3, Episode 7: “Wake Up”

Recap

Seismometers in National City have detected some sort of event in the city and DEO scanners have determined that it was caused by a spaceship that crashed her thousands of years ago.  Kara, J’onn and Winn go to investigate and discover an incredibly advanced vessel with stasis pods being protected by a trigger happy, bearded, and somehow no longer affected by atmospheric lead: Mon-El.  Samantha, meanwhile, has embraced the fact that there is something wrong about her and decides to go visit her adoptive mother for answers.  Despite having disowned Samantha for getting pregnant with Ruby in the first place, adoptive mom decides it is time to let Samantha know the truth and takes her to the barn to show her the pod Samantha arrived in – which ejects a glowing pulsing crystal for Samantha.  Back at the DEO Mon-El is being cold to Kara and it turns out that while 7 months have passed on Earth, Mon-El has experienced 7 years and is being cryptic about the time travel shenanigans that brought him back to Earth.  After an escape attempt that goes badly Mon-El admits he travelled into the far future of the 31st Century, but still refuses to give up any details of what brought him back to the 21st Century.  Samantha goes on a journey deep into the desert with her mystery crystal and it constructs for her a Kryptonian fortress not unlike Clark’s Fortress of Solitude.  Inside she learns that she is a Kryptonian weapon, and her mind is reprogrammed by the fortress.  Mon-El convinces Winn to help him get back to the ship by saying that Kara’s future is at stake, ultimately Kara shows up while Winn and Mon-El are attempting to revive someone trapped in one of the stasis pods.  Mon-El reveals that the woman they revive is Imra Ardeen, his wife in the 32st Century – and known to Comic fans as Saturn Girl.

Review

Yay, Mon-El’s back…  I know some people were missing him, but frankly I was glad to have without the character for the previous six weeks of stories.  I’m torn n the way this episode went down, because as a lover of DC Comics Time Travel I really love a good Legion story, and this was the episode that finally paid off the appearance of the Legion flight ring way back in Season One.  Hell this episode introduced Saturn Girl for goodness sake, but it did it by returning to us a terrible Mon-El.  Samantha’s discovery of her own Kryptonian origins were fascinating in that they made sure that her experience on earth more closely mirrored Clark’s than Kara’s: crash landed in a small farm town, taken in by a farmer, true origins hidden, raised to be normal, given a crystal that creates a fortress – Reign is every bit the anti-Superman.  Given that Season Two established that Superman’s most dangerous villain to date was Zod this is a nice touch – establishing that Superman faced a Kryptonian who had more in common with Supergirl and vice-versa.  Anytime these writers use a standard trope from the Superman lore to highlight the differences between Kara and Clark I am always on board.  Seeing more interplay between M’yrnn and J’onn J’onzz is awesome and I demand that we are given as much of them as possible throughout the rest of Season Three.  Coolest moment of the episode though was J’onn preventing Kara from tunneling to the Legion ship by phasing himself, her and Winn through the ground.

Episode 07 MVP: For the first time this entire season the recipient is Melissa Benoist* who plays the emotional damage of dealing with Mon-El’s return perfectly.  For someone who has been actively shying away from being Kara Danvers – she dove straight back into her glasses/ponytail identity when Mon-El returned.

The Flash Season 4, Episode 7: ”Therefore I Am”

Recap

We pick up where we left off last week with Joe and Barry interviewing Clifford DeVoe and his wife.  What follows from this seemingly normal couple politely answering Joe’s questions is an episode told half in the present and half in flashback.

Flashback Five Years Ago: Clifford DeVoe is an absent minded professor who has a dream of being able to better deliver knowledge to the college students he teaches, his wife Marlize is a mechanical genius and the two together are working on a plan that will change the way everyone receives knowledge.  Central to that plan is a device that Clifford has dreamed up and called his “Thinking Cap” which will enable to his mind to be flexible enough to deliver the knowledge he wishes to deliver.  Marlize builds the device but there is no means of powering it, except Clifford postulates that a failure of Harrison Wells’ Particle Accelerator might generate enough exotic matter to power his device.  Marlize and Clifford attend the same pre ignition press conference for the accelerator that Barry and Iris attended and even ask a question of Wells himself, who intimates that he knows how Clifford DeVoe is (which of course really means that Eobard Thawne knows who Clifford DeVoe will become.)  The particle accelerator explodes and electricity charges up DeVoe’s thinking cap but the emergence of his meta-gene has a side effect.  While giving DeVoe an incredible increase in knowledge – it also gives him an advanced form of ALS that is destroying his body.  Marlize builds a device that will enable him to live longer.

The Present: Clifford and Marlize DeVoe present themselves as a perfectly normal couple in order to throw Team Flash off their scent, but the only one who is never shaken is Barry himself.  Despite everyone doubting him he persists in trying to investigate the DeVoes, so they report him to Captain Singh as having harassed them.  He breaks into their home to try to gather information, and is caught on film in the process – so they initiate a restraining order.  Just when no one believes Barry, he decides to follow his gut and confront DeVoe who reveals that he knows Barry is the Flash and that he is manipulating everyone.  He taunts that he is many many steps ahead of Team Flash.  Barry returns to S.T.A.R. Labs and tells the gang what’s up, Wally returns from Blue Valley and everyone begins preparing to take down DeVoe – after Barry and Iris’ wedding.

Review

The second they step out of their self-imposed Stepford story structure where each scene must have a punchline to “keep things light” the Flash writers deliver this brilliant introduction to The Thinker and his origins.  Neil Sandilands and Kim Engelbrecht fantastically create a deep and believable relationship that is every bit the mirror image of Barry’s relationship with Iris – full of deep and abiding love and support – and the kind of teamwork that makes challenging choices together.  The setup for who they are and what they have become together is brilliantly laid for the payoff of the season plot, but I’m not entirely sure it is well served by this “the Villain is so hidden that no one believes the hero” trope episode. When he finally does monologue with Barry about how far behind him Team Flash really is, Sandilands chews all the scenery and some of your living room with it in an absolutely chilling performance.  Barry reacts to it in a way that shows he is starting to grow beyond the fear that allowed Thawne, Zoom, and Savitar to get the better of him.  This episode also gave us a glimpse at the Eobard Thawne version of Harrison Wells – and quite a glimpse it was.  Showing us that Thawne recognized The Thinker and supported him in his process of testing his thinking cap shows the truly deep, long term planning that Thawne undertook in preparing the Particle Accelerator to create Barry earlier than intended.  Best moment of the episode was the throwaway line upon Wally’s return to S.T.A.R. Labs where he mentions fighting a starfish from outer space, otherwise known to DC Comics fans as Starro: The Conquerer.

Episode 07 MVP: Neil Sandilands who imbued his Clifford DeVoe* with SO MUCH MALICE, and yet so much pathos.  He left himself so open that truly his motivations could be coming from anywhere, and his hatred of Barry could be motivated by anything: we just know he is a force to be reckoned with.

Legends of Tomorrow Season 3, Episode 7: “Welcome to the Jungle”

Recap

With Sara still unconscious the team uses random selection to discover which anachronism to try to fix, and that leads them to Vietnam to discover a mysterious creature in the jungles of Vietnam that is shifting the outcome of the war.  The team begins tracking down the strange creature, and it doesn’t take long to discover for Ray, Zari and Amaya to discover that a shadowy cult has formed deep in the Jungle worshipping something they say is as powerful as God.  Nate and Mick hook up with some Green Berets who are hunting the same creature they are, only to find that the leader of this team is Mick’s own father Dick Rory (Evan Jones.)  Meanwhile Jax discovers that Martin Stein has collected the greatest minds from history and are trying to find a way to safely split Firestorm.  Ray, Zari and Amaya find the shadowy creature and discover it is none other than Gorilla Grodd.  Mick and Nate deal with Mick’s complicated emotions over meeting his father again, and ultimately the team discovers that Grodd’s plan is to capture LBJ on his visit to Vietnam and launch World War III.  Jax runs off without Martin to try to save LBJ’s life, Amaya tries to convince Grodd to go back to his home time willingly but he runs off to try to steal the Waverider.  Jax saves LBJ from a field of landmines, Mick manages to not murder his father, Stein protects the Waverider, Sara wakes up and Damien Dahrk pulls Grodd to the present to save him from the Legends.  LBJ gifts Jax with Ladybird’s Pecan Pie recipe as a reward for his heroism

Review

Gorilla Grodd in an Apocalypse Now referencing jaunt through the Vietnam War is the last thing I expected, but exactly what I needed.  The team tracking him through the jungle is not nearly as important a focus of the episode as the Mick vs. his Dad conflict which really gives us the Kurtz-y feeling we all want from an episode set in Vietnam.  The appearance of President Johnson was just strange, and I have so many questions: starting with: why was he in an Army uniform?  Johnson was himself a Navy man, and we have photos of him visiting Vietnam in regular clothes – so I’m REALLY unsure who made this production decision, but it was supremely strange.  I love that Grodd is now aligned with Damien Dahrk, this could lead to some amazing things as this years Legion of Doom is shaping up to be way more fun than last years.

Episode 07 MVP: Guest Star Evan Jones* who plays a version of Dick Rory that paints a very easy picture of why Mick would have burned his father alive.  

Arrow Season 6, Episode 7: “Thanksgiving”

Recap

It is Thanksgiving in Star City and the Mayor is busy giving meals to the homeless with his son and girlfriend, when suddenly Agent Samanda Watson shows up to arrest Oliver Queen on charges of murder, assault, breaking and entering, etc. etc. etc. all stemming from his activity as Green Arrow.  Thankfully though, John Diggle is currently fulfilling the role of Green Arrow and recognizes that if the criminals of Star City believe that Green Arrow is in prison – they will come out of the woodwork and take to the streets.   Oliver prepares his legal defense, and Team Arrow prepares to defend Star City in his stead.  Meanwhile Cayden James and Black Siren break into a chemical plant and steal a nano polymer that will serve as a major component of a bomb.  Oliver is released on bail, and Mr. Terrific injects his new prototype into Diggle in an attempt to repair his nerve damage.  Team Arrow takes the field to try to prevent a second Cayden James/Black Siren heist – but Diggle collapses instantly in incredible pain.  Team Arrow is not able to prevent the second heist and now Cayden James has the components he needs for a massive bomb.  With Diggle in the hospital Team Arrow has to finally let Oliver and Felicity in on the nature of Dig’s secret drug use and his long standing nerve damage.  Oliver and Diggle have an altercation where both men say some things they’ll come to regret, but eventually Oliver circles back to apologize to Diggle for pushing him to become the Green Arrow, but Diggle admits he wants to be Green Arrow and apologizes for going about it wrongly.  Oliver takes over as Green Arrow temporarily and leads the team to try to stop James’ Bomb – which we discover is planted at a Billy Joel concert.  James has planted fake cops, and Team Arrow engages them while Oliver tracks the bomb to its source where he meets Cayden James himself.  James admits that the bomb is a fake and he was using it to get Oliver’s attention so that he can monologue to the hero about why he intends to take down Green Arrow.  Cayden James says he lost his son because of Oliver – and that he will have his revenge.  James’ team manages to escape and Team Arrow realizes it was way too easy to take them down… because it was all a set up.  Footage of Team Arrow fighting cops has gone viral and it has an effect on the anti-vigilante legislation vote, fearing that Team Arrow is anti-cop: Star City has voted to make vigilantism illegal.  The team prepares for the worst, Oliver and Diggle completely bury the hatchet and finally Thea comes out of the coma she has been in since the explosion on Lian Yu at the end of Season Five.

Review

For two weeks in a row: Arrow was not the best hour of DC/CW Television – this week having been narrowly edged out by The Flash.  Guys, I think… I think I’ve finally fallen truly in love with Arrow and I’m not sure what to do about it.  For years it was my least favorite and I gave it so much shit, but here it is: being awesome… AGAIN!  This was the episode where Oliver Queen’s house of cards finally collapsed in truly spectacular ways.  Getting arrested, the threat of a trial, the passing of the anti-vigilante legislation, Diggle’s secret finally coming to light, having to take up the mantle of Green Arrow again temporarily, nothing in this episode is a good thing for Ollie – except of course for Thea waking up.  God help me I even liked the Billy Joel cameo, especially in the context that Rene is a huge Billy Joel fan.  Much like the President Johnson thing on Legends, I’m just really curious why they decided to hold the election in Star City on the Friday after Thanksgiving – that’s just an odd thing to do and makes no American electoral sense.  It was great to see a little family Thanksgiving time, and seeing little pieces of the dynamic form like John telling William to call him John but Oliver telling him to stick to Mr. Diggle.  I think if Arrow keeps telling stories this good, I’ll have to eat an incredible amount of crow someday for all the bad things I said about it.  

How often do TV shows suddenly get good in Season Six?

Episode 07 MVP: In an episode full of fantastic performances from every single member of this cast, I’m going to give this one to the person who week after week for the last six weeks has almost won this title: Rick Gonzalez*. Rene/Wild Dog continues to be a massive high point in every single episode, but his snark and humor were on point this week.

NEXT WEEK: THE. BIGGEST. EVENT. OF THE SEASON!

And

The Four Color Ark

Present:

JUSTICE LEAGUE

Four Color Friends and Movie Maniacs alike, welcome back to another as close to spoiler free look at the latest superhero movie to hit theaters.  Let’s get the silly questions out of the way before we dive in:  No I didn’t do a hot take review on Thor: Ragnarok; Yes I am sorry I didn’t review Taika Waititi’s brilliantly fun take on Thor; No, I didn’t get paid to say I like Justice League; Yes I am a huge DC fan and am therefore somewhat biased; Yes, I actually did like BvS.

Still with me?

Good, because this one is going to be interesting.  With the film having been released a scant few days ago I’d like to continue the trend we started with the Wonder Woman and Spiderman: Homecoming reviews and keep this as spoiler free as possible – with a more in depth conversation coming soon via a Movie Ark/Four Color crossover podcast.  The problem with that is that there is a LOT to spoil within this movie – so we’ll have to tread very carefully.

The big question of course is: is Justice League good?  It is certainly a more fun movie than was Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice – but it is not necessarily a better constructed film than the often criticized BvS.  Wonder Woman still reigns supreme as the best DC film, but Justice League is arguably second or third depending on your thoughts on the at times complex narrative of BvS.  The big difference is this: Justice League is top to bottom a fun movie.  The core League members are a lot of fun, even stodgy old Batman is allowed to smile from time to time and crack a joke.  

The Mighty Marvel Marching Society would have you believe that we must obviously compare Justice League to Thor: Ragnarok and by that it objectively fails to deliver a superior film.  To that I suggest that we don’t need to compare the two cinematic universes at all, and if we did we should compare Justice League with The Avengers as each film represents the first full team film.  On that basis, I think Justice League is an equal to, and in some cases superior to its analogous Marvel film because the characters are much more fully realized as their comic’s counterparts in this film – and the paper thin plot here is slightly thicker than the paper thin plot of Marvel’s first team outing.

The basic premise of Justice League is that the villain Steppenwolf once tried to conquer the earth and use three “Mother Boxes” to terraform this planet to resemble his home (which while never clearly stated in the film: is known as Apokalips currently under the rule of his nephew Darkseid.)  Steppenwolf was not prepared for the alliance of Atlanteans, Amazonians, Men and Green Lanternsl; he was defeated and driven off of Earth and the three Mother Boxes were separated.  Atlantis guarded one box beneath the sea, the Amazon’s guarded one on the hidden island of Themyscira, and Men buried the third so that it would remain forever lost.  In the wake of Superman’s death, darkness has overtaken the planet and this darkness awakens the Mother Boxes – alerting Steppenwolf that the world is once again ripe for the taking.  Steppenwolf returns to earth to hunt his missing Mother Boxes and unite them to redeem himself for his earlier failure.  This time, there is nothing standing in his way except Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince who agree to build a team to try to defend the planet from the invaders.  The rest, is spoilers.

It's a straightforward plot that spends a lot of time introducing the new characters and building a dynamic, and perhaps the best way to review the movie without spoilers is to look at the individual characters.

Batman is fundamentally changed by his encounter with Superman in the previous film.  He feels tremendous guilt and blames himself for Superman’s death, and he has recognized that his methods are very much darker than Superman’s.  This is a Batman who has turned the page on who he was and is attempting to be the hopeful leader that Superman would have been had he survived.  This is also a Batman who, for the first time in any medium, actively states that he understands that Superman was fundamentally more human than he is.  That is a truth about the relationship about Batman and Superman that oozes off the page, but has never been expressly stated.  Taking on a mentor role to Barry Allen, and being antagonized by Arthur Curry really makes Affleck’s Bruce Wayne the backbone of this team and his casting REALLY pays off in this film.

Wonder Woman is much more the woman we saw in Patty Jenkins’ film than the secret recluse we last saw in Zack Snyder’s BvS.  There are narrative moments that are required to deal with the notion that Diana spent the hundred years after Wonder Woman hiding away because of what was stated in Batman V. Superman, but there is little in this film that doesn’t immediately showcase just how inspiration and badass Diana of Themyscira can be.  Thanks to the brilliant portrayal of Gal Gadot, Diana stands head and shoulders above the rest of the team. Her reluctance to lead comes from a place that makes sense, but it enables her to develop a nurturing relationship with Cyborg that elevates his role in the film significantly.

The Flash is the comedic high point of this film.  I have been joking since Ezra Miller was cast that he was #NotMyFlash and now that I’ve seen his performance I now say he is #STILLNotMyFlash.  If you’re a Four Color Ark reader I’ve spend many column inches talking about The Flash so I’ll try to be succinct here.  The classic version of Barry Allen in the comics was a boring, rules oriented, stick in the mud – so each live action adaptation has drawn more on the characterization of the “fun” Flash: Wally West.  John Wesley Shipp’s Flash and Grant Gustin’s Flash are both effectively different mixtures of Wally West and Barry Allen.  Ezra Miller’s Flash is more a mixture of Wally West and Barry’s future grandson the constantly energetic Bart Allen – better known to comic fans as Impulse.  Making Ezra Miller’s Barry fundamentally different than Grant Gustn’s Barry works well for this film, and allows him to fill a much different role in this film than Gustin fills in the CW universe of shows.    Miller’s Barry is unsure of himself, awkward, and finds it difficult to relate to people who move so much slower than he does.  His youthful excitement at all things throughout the film is infectious – and his constant need to find validation from Batman and friendship from Cyborg is a wonderful dynamic  #NotMyFlash is #TotallyMyImpulse and is  a hell of a lot of fun.

Aquaman is fundamentally different than his comic counterpart at first blush, but the seeds of the strident master of the Trident are definitely there.   Jason Momoa plays Arthur Curry as a man who doesn’t have a home and desperately wants to fit in somewhere, either below the sea or here on Earth.  His lack of belief in being accepted of course makes him reluctant to immediately join Batman’s team, and he becomes both the action star of the film, and Batman’s foil.

Cyborg is sadly the weakest component of the team, and it feels like most of that is due to the Warner Bros. mandate that this film not exceed 2 hours.  We know from the trailers that footage was shot of Ray Fisher as Victor Stone prior to the accident that nearly killed him and caused his father to use the Mother Box to turn his son into a cyborg.  Victor’s life has always been one filled with pathos, because he views himself as a cybernetic Frankenstein, and begrudges his father for his condition.  With the cut of this film delivered in theatres, we see very little of that pathos – and frankly very little to make us really connect to Victor’s arc of accepting his situation and even coming to enjoy his powers.  Ray Fisher squeezes all the marrow out of what little screen time he does have, but there just sadly is so little of him here.

Superman is the best and worst kept secret in this film.  EVERYONE knows he is coming back, not everyone knows how – and I’ll say nothing about the nature of his return to life except this:  the Superman delivered to us in this film is every bit the Superman you want to see on the big screen.  He’s hopeful, he smiles, he reassures everyone, he focuses on saving civilians at the expense of stopping the villain.  If one took Man of Steel, Batman V. Superman, and Justice League and just looked at them through the lens of Superman you can see a unique arc develop for the character where we follow him from a man unsure of his power in Man of Steel, to a hero frightened by his influence in Batman V. Superman, to a Superman finally accepting his role in the world fully in Justice League.  It plays very well and it redeems many of the complaints about the character from the previous two films.  Superman is the character a lot of people were most worried about going into this film, but he ends up being a highlight.

Steppenwolf is a placeholder villain, and doesn’t really rise above the heroes he is attempting to best.  There is no sense of menace, just gravelly voiced threats – so in that regard he is much like Alexis Denisof’s “The Other” in the MCU.  Wasted opportunity to showcase an amazing actor in Ciaran Hinds.

The Guest Cast Jeremy Irons is still fantastic as Alfred; Amy Adams is a perfectly fine Lois Lane; Diane Lane’s Martha is kind of wasted in this; Billy Crudup gives an interesting take on Henry Allen imprisoned in Iron Heights that definitely differentiates his Henry from John Wesley Ship’s version on the CW; Connie Nielsen’s Queen Hippolyta is awesome and I want more Themyscira; Amber Heard is briefly enjoyable as Mera;  Joe Morton as Silas Stone is perfectly fine but much like Ray Fisher I feel he was short shrifted in this. The REAL character you’re in this section to read about is: J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon and the answer to the question in your mind is: YES, he is more like the comic Jim Gordon than Gary Oldman was, and you will walk away wanting to see more rooftop conversations between him and Ben Affleck.

Overall the film is a lot of fun, but it is by no means a perfect film: if you want perfect, watch Wonder Woman.  What this film is, is a wonderful introduction to the Justice League that leaves room for these characters to grow and their world to become richer.  When you reach the end of this film, you’ll see the central metaphor of this franchise has always been about pulling the world of the DCEU out of darkness and into the light of hope.  This film does that, and leaves it off with the age of heroes fully realized… dawn is here and we’re finally in for the DC Universe as it SHOULD exist on screen.

Presents

DC/CW Television Week Six

Supergirl Season 3, Episode 06:”Midvale”

RECAP:

In the wake of the breakup of Maggie and Alex, Kara takes Alex home to Midvale to spend a little time getting over the emotional trauma of losing the woman she was going to marry; but Alex gets a little mean when she drinks and lashes out at Kara for the way she has behaved since Mon-El vanished.  The two go to bed angry, and we dissolve into an episode long flashback to what life was like in the Danvers home before Alex and Kara bonded.  10 years ago Alex and Kara could not be any more different, to begin with they hate each other – and are constantly fighting the notion of “bonding.”  Alex hangs out with the popular kids, and Kara hangs out at the losers table with Kenny – the astronomy nerd who has a super obvious crush on the girl of steel.  Kara has her heads firmly in the clouds, drawing Superman symbols on her notebooks – daydreaming about living with Clark and being a Krytponian hero just like him: this is a Kara Zor-El who has not embraced being Kara Danvers and just wants to go off to be Supergirl.  Kenny invites Kara out to watch the stars, and tries to make a move on her, but Kara misses the opportunity to kiss the boy and heads home.  The next morning – Kenny has been murdered and Kara takes on the case.  Alex, it turns out, was being tutored by Kenny and is equally gutted by his death – the two work together to investigate how Kenny died.  The two teenagers approach the investigation in a way that clearly reflects the characters they will be in the present storyline, and the two work through multiple suspects: outing the star quarterback as a pothead; exposing an illicit relationship between a teacher and a student; and ultimately discovering the real motive for Kenny’s death: Kenny had accidentally caught Midvale’s Sheriff brokering a drug deal.  Alex and Kara stop the sheriff and get him arrested – but the fact that Alex was almost murdered twice and a visit from an FBI agent who looked exactly like her mother telling her to avoid using her powers scares Kara into blending in better.  Alex and Kara forge their strong relationship in the aftermath of the death of Kenny and we cut back to the present where the two sisters have bonded over their shared relationship losses and are ready to head home to National City.

REVIEW:

This is the first truly good episode of Supergirl this season, and it barely even features the primary cast.  Melissa Benoist and Chyler Leigh portray Kara and Alex in a framing story that opens and closes the episode, then they scurry off to shoot Crisis on Earth X while two amazing young actresses play the teenage versions of the characters.  Two PERFECTLY CAST young actresses who will make you question whether or not someone in Canada has developed the time travel necessary to have made this episode work perfectly.  It is a great tale of how these two inseparable sisters truly bonded, but at its heart it is something far more interesting.  “Midvale” is a big sappy love letter to the WB’s “Smallville” in both overt and subtle ways.  The biggest one of course is that big obvious reference Kara made to Chloe Sullivan, Clark’s good friend and computer whiz who helps the girls decrypt the pictures on Kenny’s laptop – Chloe Sullivan was created whole cloth for Smallville and has made only a few appearances in the comics, so this is indeed a direct reference to the show.  The Chloe reference is a bit unfortunately timed as it came out just last week that the actress who played Chloe, Allison Mack, is apparently at the head of a creepy BDSM sex cult.  Quickly moving past that, this episode is structured like a Smallville mystery episode, playing on the themes of the superpowered teenager struggling with their identity in the small town they call home, and turning to an adoptive family member for support and guidance; what makes this work well is that they use these standard tropes from that other series to highlight the differences between Clark Kent and Kara Danvers. Clark wanted desperately to fit in and be normal, where Kara wants nothing more than to shed her human life and be super; Clark’s primary support system was his adoptive parents Jonathan and Martha, Kara at this point in the story sees Eliza as overbearing. Obviously the appearance of Erica Durance as FBI agent Noel Neill counts as both a reference to Smallville and to The Adventures of Superman, but in reality this is just a dick move on J’onn J’onzz’s part in trying to discourage Kara from using her powers.  The final nod to Smallville is a blink and you’ll miss it moment where the exterior of Midvale High is the exact same building used as the exterior of Smallville High.  The chemistry between the young Alex and Kara is fantastic and used so well that you never actually feel like you aren’t watching the characters you know and love.

EPISODE MVP: This week we’re giving this nod to two people: Izabella Vidovic* who brought young Kara to life and Olivia Nikkanen* who became young Alex.  These two girls did such an amazing job portraying younger versions of older characters that one could seamlessly believe that they grow up to be Melissa Benoist and Chyler Leigh.

The Flash Season 4, Episode 06: “When Harry Met Harry”

RECAP

Barry is continuing to train Ralph Dibney in how to be a hero, and Harry Wells has an idea on how to uncover the mystery of the man known only as DeVoe who seems to have orchestrated Barry’s return from the Speed Force.  Harry reaches out to a group of his “friends” from other earths in the multiverse to help him discover a theory as to who DeVoe is and how to find him: his friends turn out to be other Harrison Wellses from other earths.  Meanwhile Joe and Barry are brought in to investigate a homicide where it appears a man was killed by a statue.  One of the metas made on DeVoes bus has the ability to control effigies, and some investigation shows that it is a Native American woman named Mina Chaytan who is attempting to steal back an artifact stolen from her people.  Barry and Ralph suit up to go stop her, but she endangers the life of an art dealer to buy time to escape – Barry chooses to save the dealer and Chaytan gets away making Ralph angry at the idea of letting the criminal go free to save someone elses life.  In their second encounter with Chaytan she again divides the attentions of the team to effect a getaway – Barry goes to save bystanders but Ralph insists on catching her no matter what: and a child is electrocuted by a downed power line in the process.  Ralph is hit hard by his mistake, and sulks a little bit before he is confronted by a Barry Allen pep talk about being a better hero.  The two then find out that Chaytan is escaping from the CCPD.  Barry and Ralph race to stop Chaytan once again and do indeed manage to stop her without endangering anyone else – and Ralph does some cool fighting with an animated effigy of a dinosaur.  Ralph visits the wounded little girl in the hospital, and Harry reveals that the Cisco named “Council of Wells” has discovered who DeVoe is.  Rather than being cautious: Barry races to DeVoe and is confronted with a  seemingly normal man in a wheelchair.

REVIEW

I think that The Flash writers are so gun shy from last season’s overly dark Savitar plotline that they’ve forgotten how to write The Flash.  Over the summer we were promised that this season would return to the lighter more engaging tone of Season One, all we’ve been given instead is a sort of forced lightheartedness and a show that goes out of its way to deliver punchlines. Unnecessary punchlines.  Groan worthy punchlines that are being peppered into the episode to “lighten the tone” rather than simply writing a better episode of The Flash.  For example let’s look at last year when Harry Wells helped Team Flash send a call out across the multiverse to recruit a new Wells to help out at S.T.A.R. Labs.  We had a hilarious scene where the team looked through a few purposefully over the top alternate Wellses but it just a quick and cute gate that was in service of shuffling Harry off the show and introducing H.R.  This week we get “The Council of Wells” which is an extended and unnecessary riff on a German Minimalist Wells, a Matthew McConaughey esque Wells and a strange Australian Cyborg Wells.  That’s all, that’s the whole joke.  There is a tiny little bit of nuance in there about how Harry is really just reacting negatively to his own worst traits – but by and large there is nothing there but the forced opportunity to have Tom Cavanagh stretch his comedic legs.  The A story about Barry training an increasingly arrogant Ralph Dibney to be a hero until Ralph’s arrogance forces him to learn Barry’s lesson’s really quickly is also miles behind Flash’s best storytelling from Seasons 1 and 2.  The Flash is at its best when the show’s light-heartedness comes from the fact that Barry Allen is a naturally optimistic guy, and the comedy grows organically out of the characters and their interactions.  For example two weeks ago when Elongated Man first appeared we were treated to a great deal of slapstick physical comedy with Ralph’s elongated limbs – but the funniest joke in the whole episode was where Joe West was so repulsed that he threw up.  The vomit wasn’t the joke that landed, it was Joe commenting that it had taken three years of really weird shit and stretchy Ralph finally hit his threshold – and it works because the joke plays on that character in a specific way.  It’s not too late to give us a light hearted take on this show again, without forcing the comedy.  I trust we can get back there.

EPISODE MVP: I’m giving this once more to Hartley Sawyer* for taking a heavy handed episode about his redemptive arc, and made it work.  He elevated the material and did the work to show that beneath his slimeball façade, the wheels are turning toward making him something better.

Legends of Tomorrow Season 3, Episode 06: “Helen Hunt”

RECAP

Helen of Troy (Bar Paly*) has, through the breaking of the timeline, found herself in old Hollywood, and she immediately becomes Tinsel Town’s hottest commodity: starting a bidding war between Warner Bros. and other studios.  On board The Waverider Ray is implementing Stein and Jax’s plan to ty to place the Firestorm matrix fully within Jax – but the plan backfires and instead places Stein in Jax’s body and Jax in Stein’s.  The team goes to Hollywood to try to track down Helen to take her back to her own time, but before they can nab her she escapes the lot in the car of the head of a rival studio launching a potential shooting war between film studios.  Helen is cursed and her beauty will fuel this kind of violence wherever she goes.  The team tracks her to a Hollywood cocktail party, where they find Damian Dahrk waiting for them and demanding parlay with Sara to negotiate a way out of the situation without a fight.  While they meet to talk, Stein in Jax’s body meets and is immediately smitten with Hedy Lamarr (Celia Massingham) while Mick, Nate and Ray manage to get charmed by Helen into starting a fight. The team bolts back to the Waverider to regroup, and only the ladies return to nab Helen and bring her back to the Waverider to take her home.  All is well, until suddenly the ship no longer functions.  Helen arriving and being cast as Helen of Troy in the Warner Bros. Picture being filmed disrupted the timeline and prevented Hedy Lamarr from patenting the frequency hopping system that today is the background of cellular communication.  Jax/Stein leaves the Waverider to try to put Ms. Lamarr back on the right path, Dahrk shows up to try to kill Jax/Stein and the Legends show up to save the day.  Hedy Lamarr figures out how to return Stein and Jax to their proper bodies and Zari takes a reluctant Helen back to her own time, but rather than taking her back to her own place in time she takes her to an island of warrior women known as Themyscira.

REVIEW

There are a limited number of episodes left that will feature Victor Garber as a regular member of the Legends cast, and you can see the writers are reacting to that by attempting to squeeze every last drop of awesome out of the time they have left with him on the show.  First up is this week’s body swap episode where Garber is allowed to do his best impression of Franz Drameh’s Jax and vice versa.  If I’m to be honest, Franz did the better job of playing his opposite number – his Victor Garber impersonation is spot on and absolutely hilarious.  Aside from the fun of the two halves of Firestorm being swapped, the rest of the episode is a fairly straight forward retelling of the legend of Helen of Troy and the way she corrupts men’s hearts with her beauty, but kudos to the Legends writers for putting the twist that Helen is aware of her power and wants nothing to do with it.  We finally get confirmation that Courtney Ford’s Eleanor Dahrk is indeed the daughter of Damien Dahrk, and of course Damien’s second full episode back is full of awesome snark and sass from the immortal magician. The BIG piece of awesome in this episode though is the ending where Zari takes to an island of warrior women which turns out –of course – to be Themyscira: home to the Amazons and their champion: Wonder Woman.  Though it may not be exactly the same, the Legends crew certainly used shots of an island that incredibly like the island featured in the film version of Wonder Woman which is way badass.

EPISODE MVP: Franz Drameh* for giving us an amazing performance of Professor Stein trapped in Jax’s body.  Truly brilliant and absolutely hilarious.

Arrow Season 6, Episode 06: “Promises Kept”

RECAP

DEATHSTROKE STORY:

We pick up literally where we left off with Slade discovering that his son Joe is actually the leader of the notorious terrorist organization known as the Jackals, and worse he is threatening to murder Slade right there and then.  Slade however is not intimidated by a mere gun to his face and makes a solid case that the Jackals could use a merc like him in their ranks, Joe brings him on board – completely unaware that Slade is looking for information he can use to stop whatever the Jackals are planning.  Oliver reveals to Slade that he never left town and won’t leave town until Slade saves Joe and they stop whatever the Jackals are after.  Ollie does some sneaky investigation and discovers that they’re planning to blow up the water supply of Kaznia, leaving millions of people with a tainted water supply.  Ollie attempts to steal the detonator but gets captured and brought to Joe who brings his father’s hated enemy to him.  Joe encourages Slade to kill Oliver Queen once and for all, instead Slade breaks Ollie loose and the two escape to plan how to disrupt Jackals’ assault on the water supply.  Ollie gives Slade a pep talk about honor and dignity and the two go off to face Joe and the Jackals again.  Oliver fights the terrorists and Slade fights his son who reveals to his father that he knew Slade was a killer long before he was affected by the Mirakuru – and demands an explanation why Slade would forgive Oliver.  Slade explains that he forgave Oliver because Oliver forgave him – because nothing is unforgivable.  Joe gets the upperhand and is about to kill Slade, but Oliver intervenes.  Joe escapes, leaving Slade once more without his son.  Slade and Oliver part company, Oliver returns home to Star City even more convinced that he made the right choice by stepping away from being the Green Arrow.

STAR CITY STORY

Oliver may have made a huge mistake by naming Diggle as The Green Arrow, Diggle’s nerves are not getting any better and he is needing to take more and more of his mysterious drug to compensate.  It turns out that the drug is an experimental drug not yet approved by the FDA being sold by a man named Ricardo Diaz (Kirk Acevedo) and Diggle is getting in way over his head trying to keep himself supplied with the drug.  Dig finally tells Lilah that he’s using the drug, and she rightly calls him out for the way he moralized over decisions she was making as the head of ARGUS.  Meanwhile Team Arrow is going after a mysterious drug dealer named The Dragon who has stolen a military grade 3D printer so he can synthesize his own chemical compounds. During a botched robbery Diggle comes face to face with The Dragon and discovers that it is his own drug supplier: Diaz.  Felicity tries to track down Diaz, but the dude is a ghost – Diggle reveals he knows Diaz’ base of operations but fails to tell the team how he found it.  They raid his space but Diaz kills his employees and torches his product rather than face Green Arrow and company.  Diggle lets the team in on his secret and apologizes for lying to them, everyone forgives him and they offer to help treat his injury and get him out in the field the right way.

REVIEW:

If you come here to see whether I yet again declare that Arrow delivered the best hour of DC/CW television this week, then I will tell you that it very nearly did.  Supergirl was such a strong episode that it managed to edge out Arrow – but only barely.  The Star City storyline where Diggle’s drug usage finally collided with the team was an excellent way to tie up the threads of Dig’s secrecy and turn Diggle’s tension with Lilah on its head by having John make the same mistakes in taking over from Oliver that Lilah did in taking over from Amanda Waller.   The way the team forgives Diggle for his secrets and lies is heartwarming, but the best moment is from Curtis who admits to being offended that Diggle didn’t come to him for treatment – after all he was the man who developed the tech that gave Felicity back the use of her legs. The true star of the show though is the A Story following Slade and Oliver as they navigate the fall out of what has become of Joe Wilson. This week we complicate Manu Bennett’s performance ever further by calling on him to play three different versions of Slade: the pre Mirakuru version of his character, the version succumbing to the mania of the Mirakuru, and the current Slade who has risen above the effects of that drug and is attempting to atone for what he did under its effects.  The nuance of each of these different performances is excellently calibrated so that you can see the entire arc of who Slade has been in just a handful of scenes.  If anyone out there is waiting for my vote I say again: please give this version of Slade his own series.  Overall the episode’s A story is a straightforward story of mirrors:  Joe Wilson – the actual son of Slade is a mirror of the man Slade tried to turn Oliver into on the Island; Oliver is a mirror of Slade himself when they were on Lian Yu, and Joe is a mirror of the man Slade became as a result of the Mirakuru – and it is Oliver that has the simple way out of the conflict between these three realities: honestly revealing who you are.  If nothing else, Oliver stepping back from the role of Green Arrow served to give him the experience and wisdom to give Slade the advice he needs to confront Joe honestly to try to repair the breach in their relationship.

EPISODE MVP:  Stephen Amell* who for the first time in 6 seasons of television actually manages to overshadow Manu Bennett in a scene.

Next Week:  Mon-El returns to Earth. The Thinker taunts Barry.  The Legends hunt Gorilla Grodd. Oliver Queen goes to jail.

In Two Weeks: THE CROSSOVER EVENT

Presents

CW/DC TV - Week 5 - Recap/Review

HOUSEKEEPING:

We’ve been doing some really in depth and lengthy recaps/reviews of all four of the CW tv series.  This week we’re going to try something different – we’re going to see how you guys feel about shorter recaps.  So below, in one column: let’s look at week 5 of the DC/CW shows.

Supergirl Season 3, Episode 05: “Damage”

RECAP

Alex and Maggie are definitely going to break up over the fact that Alex wants to be a mom and Maggie doesn’t want to have kids, meanwhile random children all throughout National City are getting incredibly sick with symptoms of lead poisoning.  Morgan Edge has leveraged the illness of these children into an opportunity to take down L Corp by blaming Lena Luthor’s lead weapon that ended the Daxamite invasion.  Lena goes out of her way to try to prove in this crisis that she is not Lex Luthor, she steps aside from her leadership roles in both L Corp and Catco until the issue is resolved – but she quickly turns her proactive steps at saving the brand into a slide into self-recrimination and heavy drinking.  Too drunk to actively engage with resolving the problem, Lena sleeps it off while Kara teams up with Samantha to investigate.  Ultimately the two find that all the affected children swim in a community pool that has been treated with a chemical that mimics all the symptoms of lead poisoning.  Kara tells a now sober Lena what they have uncovered and the name of the company that manufactured the chemical – Lena recognizes it as one of Morgan Edge’s holdings and goes to confront him.  Edge incapacitates her and stages her on board a plane full of more of the dangerous chemical to take her out once and for all: but Supergirl saves the day.  Lena and Jimmy do some serious flirting, and Alex pulls the trigger on breaking up with Maggie.  Kara rushes to her sister’s side and tells her to pack up, they’re going home to Midvale for a little post break up R&R

REVIEW

Kevin Smith Returns!  Kevin has directed some of the best episodes of The Flash and Supergirl over the last two years, and this episode is sadly the first real clunker he’s helmed.  Through no fault of the direction, this episode never really gets off the ground, the B story of the Alex/Maggie breakup sucks a lot of the oxygen out of what is obviously a fairly straightforward corporate frame job in the A plot.  The way that Lena reacts to the negative press and the possibility that she will forever be stained with the same brush as Lex leads to some really heavy handed person recrimination that comes off a little hollow from Lena who still is unsure what country she is from, but for some reason is now being set up for some James Olsen canoodling.

EPISODE 05 MVP: Chyler Leigh* once again who brings some real heartbreak to the aftermath of her breakup with Maggie.

The Flash Season 4, Episode 05: “Girls Night Out”

RECAP

In Central City we’re drawing ever closer to the impending nuptials of Barry and Iris, which means it is time for the bachelor/bachelorette parties. Felicity Smoak takes some time off from the craziness in Star City to join in on Iris’ party - but mysteriously Caitlin is trying to skip out on the party and leave town. The girls convince Cait to stay and they head out for a dinner featuring: Iris, Felicity, Caitlin and Cecile. The boys gather for a quiet bachelor party at Joe’s - but are interrupted by an uninvited Ralph Dibney who takes Barry, Joe, Harry, and Cisco to a strip club. The girls soon find out that Caitlin is afraid that the metahuman drug dealer/mob boss who helped her over the summer is after her, and Killer Frost comes forth to try to take out the dangerous Amunet Black (Katee Sackhoff) before she can get to Caitlin.  The girls spend the episode working to take down the meta crime boss without the boys’ help, while the boys get themselves into a fight and eventually get thrown in jail.  Iris helps Caitlin get a better handle on both sides of her identity, while a very hungover Barry Allen helps Joe get over his fears about being a dad again so late in life.  Both the girls and the guys are vague with each other about their horrible evenings.

REVIEW

Last week’s introduction of Ralph Dibney felt like a possible turning point on an off season, this week felt like a return to the aimless wandering of the episodes that preceded Dibney’s arrival.  Granted this is a classic Bachelor Party gone wrong trope episode, and the gender swapping so it was the Bachelorette Party that drove the episode was a nice change – the episode still just felt like a series of bad choices from characters who should damn well know better.  We’re now told that Caitlin Snow and Killer Frost are two different entities and we’re given a Banner/Hulk comparison to explain it – which establishes that the Marvel comics are indeed comics in the DC Television universe.  Since no other meta has behaved that way, I’m unsure of why Caitlin is broken like this.  The comedy deriving from a drunk Barry Allen was great the first time it was on screen; it unfortunately wore out its welcome fairly quickly.  Katee Sackhoff’s debut as Amunet Black was marred by her strange choice to use an over the top and terrible British accent for the character.  Perhaps in the crossover episode in a few weeks the Earth 38 Lena Luthor and the Earth 1 Amunet Black will have a vocal chord convergance and each will appear afterwards using their native accents and we can just give up on either trying to be from the side of the Atlantic they weren’t born on.  Next week’s episode looks like it might return to the momentum we expected after the Elongated entry into the show.

EPISODE 05 MVP: Emily Bett Rickards* who proved once again that her character fits much more effortlessly into the world of Central City and S.T.A.R. Labs than she does her own digs over on Arrow.

Legends of Tomorrow Season 3, Episode 05: “Return of the Mack”

RECAP

Rip’s back and this time he’s defying the time agency that he created to hunt a mysterious time traveling villain, and the Legends meet him in 1897 trying to track down a time traveling Vampire.  Ray and Jax forward their study into separating the Firestorm by severing the psychic link between Jax and Stein, which gives Jax some issues with his short term memory.  Rip tells the Legends that he needs their help hunting the mysterious and manipulative Mallus who has been orchestrating events through time and creating his own aberrations; and that Mallus must in some way be connected to the Vampire. The hunt for the Vampire leads our heroes to an 1890’s coroner who has a PalmerTech smart watch on his wrist that he claimed from a corpse that literally fell from the sky.  A quick fingerprint analysis back at the Waverider shows that the watch has three sets of fingerprints – one belonging to the coroner, one to Oliver Queen and one to a mysterious third party – presumably the owner of the watch.  While searching for the Vampire, Nate gets kidnapped by a Stein’s ancestor who works for Mallus and is involved with the plot to revive the corpse from the future.  A quick call to 2017 Star City reveals the identity of the third fingerprints: none other than Damien Dahrk.  Dahrk’s daughter Eleanor (Courtney Ford) performs a ritual that brings Damien back to life – and she is briefly possessed by the disembodied voice of Mallus (John Noble) who taunts Rip Hunter and the Legends.  Dahrk kills some lackeys before time travelling to destinations unknown.  Team Legends calls Rip on his need to be an anarchist, even on teams he creates himself – and Sara turns him over to the Time Bureau in exchange for the freedom for The Legends to do what they want with the Waverider.  Stein discovers what Ray and Jax are up to and after feeling slightly rejected, he comes around to understanding that Jax is trying to give Stein the gift of his freedom.  Stein agrees to help Jax figure out how to sever the Firestorm linkage between them.

REVIEW

We haven’t progressed very far from where we started at the beginning of Season 3, Rip is still terrible and kind of a pain in the ass; Nate is still horribly unfunny even though they think he’s the comedic center of the show; and the rest of the team is perfectly serviceable in their roles.  This episode did however have a great deal of charm, as Legends often does – mostly in this episode deriving from the hurt and rejected feelings of Martin Stein once he realized that Jax wants to break up Firestorm.  Mick as a vampire obsessed criminal who carries around stakes just so he can destroy the undead in case he ever comes across one is just the kind of kookiness I love and expect from Mick.   Victor Garber in a double roll as both Martin and Martin’s ancestor the slightly evil actor was a delight, as was seeing Brandon Routh’s longtime girlfriend Courtney Ford appear as Damien Dahrk’s daughter.  The true joy of the episode though was in the return of Neal McDonough as Damien Dark resurrecting to chew scenery in a dance/fight choreographed to Mark Morrison’s Return of the Mack.  This sequence was so delightfully quirky in a way that was perfect for both Dahrk and Legends as a whole.

EPISODE 05 MVP: You guessed it: Neal McDonough*.  Damien Dahrk is a fan favorite, and his return his was stellar.  Can’t wait to see him meet up with the John Noble voiced Mallus.

Arrow Season 6, Episode 05: “Deathstroke Returns”

RECAP

With Slade Wilson calling in a favor, Oliver has to decide if he’s going to leave the country on a mission to help Slade find his son or not.  It turns out that Joe joined the Australian intelligence service just like his father and a mission gone wrong landed him in a Kasnian prison.  Slade tells Ollie that he doesn’t have to come along, but if he does join the mission it won’t be as Green Arrow, but it will be as Oliver Queen Mayor of Star City.  Oliver talks to William and tells him he plans to help his friend Slade find his son, William understands and Oliver agrees to go.  In Star City, Vigilante has resurfaced right as the debate over the Anti-Vigilante Bill is heating up.  Last season’s mysterious second masked vigilante resurfaces and seems to be targeting the sponsor of the bill, and gets in the sights of The Black Canary. In a confrontation between the two, Vigilante’s mask is shattered by Dinah’s Canary Cry and Vigilante is revealed to be Dinah’s former CCPD partner (and lover) Vincent Sobel who it turns out was given incredible healing powers the night of the particle accelerator explosion.  As Vincent races to kill the sponsor of the anti-vigilante bill, Dinah races to save her.  Dinah comes out on top and Vincent manages to get away.  In Kasnia, Oliver poses as a member of an amnesty organization there to barter for Joe’s release – but he is told that Joe was killed in the prison yard.  Slade and Ollie investigate and it turns out this is all very fishy, they return to the prison and speak to the warden who reveals that a terrorist group called The Jackals have taken Joe.  Slade preps to take on the Jackals to get revenge, and drugs Oliver to prevent him from getting involved so that he can go home to William in Star City.  Slade assaults the Jackals compound, violently cutting through them all, Oliver comes to and rushes to assist Slade – arriving just in time to watch as Slade comes face to face with the leader of the Jackals: his own son whose “kidnapping” was just a cover for a rescue by his own men.

REVIEW

After a single week reprieve, I type out the following words once more: “this week, again, Arrow is the best of the CW/DC TV series.”  This week it is because Arrow had an exceptionally good episode, while the remaining three shows had exceptionally mediocre episodes.  The B story with the reveal of Vigilante was frankly not overly good, but it was handled in a somewhat plausible and straightforward way that kept the narrative moving in and around the A story.  The A story, frankly, is all the fans actually came for – and Manu Bennett’s Slade Wilson does not disappoint in this episode.  His interactions with Ollie are on point, and he has the single most amazing fight scene the show has had in some time, and Arrow is known for its great fight scenes.  The stunt work as Slade takes on Jackal showed the TV audience the brutality that Deathstroke is capable of in the comics, and it was awesome.  We didn’t just get Manu working with Stephen Amell in the present as the one eyed, embittered but once again Noble Slade – we got Flashbacks.  There may not be any more flashbacks to Oliver stranded on Lian Yu, but we got some truly terrifying flashbacks to Slade’s job before he himself went to Lian Yu.  Flashback Slade is the kind of father who takes his son on a camping trip just as cover so he can get close and interrogate a Chinese national about the location of Yao Fei… Slade Wilson is not winning any father of the year awards… but what he is getting is:

EPISODE 05 MVP: Manu Bennett*.  Seriously: Marc Guggenheim, Manu says he wants Slade to have his own streaming platform series where he can be the hyper violent Merc that Deathstroke deserves to be: MAKE IT HAPPEN sir.  A lot of us would watch a Manu Bennett Slade series.

NEXT WEEK: Supergirl goes back to Midvale. Ralph Dibney gets a supersuit. The Legends go to old Hollywood. Slade Wilson faces off with his son.

Also Next Week: JUSTICE LEAGUE

Presents

DC/CW Television Week Four Part Two

Supergirl Season 3, Episode 04: “The Faithful”

RECAP

Two years ago Thomas Coville’s life was over.  His wife had left him, his job was falling apart and Coville (Chad Lowe) found himself at rock bottom, drunk on a plane that had lost multiple engines and was going to crash.  Coville looked around to see people praying, and looked on them with contempt – and then suddenly the plane righted itself and landed in the water.  He looked out the window onto the wing and saw a woman pull herself out of the water before taking off into the sky.  That was the day that Kara Danvers chose to become Supergirl.

Today, Samantha Arias is acting as both the CFO of L Corp and as Ruby’s mother at a soccer game – trading off phone calls and pretending to watch her daughter play.  Suddenly another mother comes up and starts talking about how both Samantha and Ruby are special, that they were chosen, and that the pair should come to a meeting of a very special group.  The woman hands Samantha a pamphlet with a Kryptonian glyph on it.  Later that day Lena and Kara are on an outing and meet up with Samantha at L Corp when Kara notices the glyph and asks if she can take the pamphlet, Samantha lets her and Lena invites Samantha to join them later that evening for a girls night Kara is hosting – Sam agrees.

Back at Catco Winn and James see Kara investigating the pamphlet and see that it has distracted her greatly, she informs them that glyph on the front of it is the symbol of Rao: the god of Krypton.  The two agree to join her at the meeting listed on the pamphlet, and the three go to a small gathering area where Coville reveals himself as a priest of sorts presiding over a meeting of people who all worship Supergirl.  Each member of the church was saved by Supergirl, and each now worship her as a prophet of Rao.  Later that night Kara has to excuse herself from girls night to stop a massive fire, only to discover the fire was set by a member of Coville’s cult that wanted to be blessed by Supergirl.

Kara goes to Coville under the guise of writing an article for Catco Magazine about his group, but Coville instantly recognizes her as Supergirl and shows her that he has a kryptonian artifact holding the sacred texts of Rao – the backbone of Krypton’s faith.  Supergirl tries to convince Coville that his views are dangerous and that she doesn’t support them, but he dismisses her as having lost her way in Rao and offers to help her return to his grace.

Supergirl realizes that the artifact Coville found was part of a probe that Kryptonians had sent out to teach other cultures about life on Krypton, much like the Voyager probes we humans launched in the 70’s.  She has Winn look for Kryptonian power sources like the ones used on these probes and Winn finds it, in a stadium during a football game – and worse the energy signature is unstable.  Coville has built a bomb, knowing that Supergirl will come and will disable the bomb “anointing” the people in the stadium and finding her way back to Rao.  Supergirl arrives on the scene but before she can stop the bomb she collapses in pain and agony due to exposure to Kryptonite. Coville’s followers recognize that Coville is crazy and flee, Coville himself attempts to disable the bomb and fails.  Alex arrives and is able to get the Krpytonite away from Supergirl, but she is still too weak to take the bomb and fly it far enough away in time.  Supergirl uses her heat vision to melt a massive hole deep into ground, expending her powers and collapsing on the ground; Alex forces Coville to help her push the probe into the hole and the bomb explodes deep below the surface of the earth – but the shockwave of the explosion shakes the massive ship in the ocean that Supergirl glimpsed in Epsode 1 of the season.  

Kara visits Coville in jail, still he worships her and believe it is his role in Rao’s plan to put Supergirl back on her path.  Kara, Alex and Lena join Sam at a school pageant of Ruby’s and Alex breaks down – finally revealing to Kara that she wants to be a mom and that Maggie doesn’t want kids.  Later that day in her bathroom at home Sam looks in the mirror and sees Kryptonian writing all over her skin.  She collapses on the ground as an eerie cloaked figure tells her that “one day [she] will reign.”  

REVIEW

If Flash gave us the best episode of the CW/DC TV week – Supergirl delivered the second best with this incredibly eerie look at the idea of people who would turn Supergirl and her powers into an article of faith to be followed.  It’s unsettling, but incredibly powerful, to consider the idea that people would view her as a legitimate miracle.  That people would see her and Superman as true saviors and instruments of God’s will – and possibly gods themselves.  Chad Lowe gives a truly unsettling but ultimately completely believable performance as Coville – this cult leader who just wants to pray to someone that will actually answer his prayers.  For the first time in quite a while this episode usued the character of James effectively by having him tell a story of the first time Superman saved him, a first hand account not unlike those being shared by the cultists that shows how easy it would be to come around to the idea of a Superman or a Supergirl as a god.

Episode 04 MVP: Chad Lowe* as Coville.  His belief is so utterly believable and unsettling.  Fascinating performance in an amazing episode.

Arrow Season 6, Episode 04: “Reversal”

RECAP

In a swanky club in Star City, Black Siren seduces a guy and lures him into an alley where she uses her sonic scream to kill him.  Elsewhere in Star City, Oliver and Felicity are out on their first date as Olicity version 2.0 and are discussing how to balance their relationship and Felicity’s Team Arrow responsibilities when Curtis calls about the dead guy.  When Felicity gets to the bunker Team Arrow is already on the case, Dinah is on scene with the SCPD and has already ID’d Black Siren as the killer and are looking into ways of tracking her.  Felicity heads home and calls Oliver to meet her there for some “desert,” but when she gets home she discovers she is not alone. Alena from the hacktivist group Helix is waiting for her to ask her help in stopping Cayden James the cyber terrorist from killing millions of people.  Laurel kills her second victim and the team hits the streets to try to find her.

Oliver shows up at Felicity’s apartment just as Alena and Felicity are about to leave to try to use the tech infrastructure at the abandoned Helix site to track Cayden James – but first they need to get their hands on a ghost drive.  Alena knows a tech dealer named Amnesiac who operates out of a rave.  Black Canary kills her third victim, by introducing herself as Dinah- but Curtis has discovered a way to track her via the use of her sonic scream – and victim number three pings this tracker.  Team Arrow arrives too late to save the target but just in time for a Black Siren vs. Black Canary rematch.   Alena and Felicity make it to the rave and the man calling himself Amnesiac and just when it looks like the deal might go wrong a man in a mysterious mask shows up and beats up Amnesiac and his goons.  That man, of course is Ollie, who saved the day but managed to skunk the deal.  Felicity steals a ghost drive and tells Oliver to stay out of it, Alena and Felicity head to Helix.

Team Arrow has noticed a strange pattern with the kills, each of the victims led a boring and invisible life and had no priors – it was almost like each of them had a fabricated identity.  Curtis admits he isn’t good enough to hack their real identities, but Felicity could.  Meanwhile though Curtis has a theory on how to better track Black Siren.  Diggle calls Felicity who explains to him that she is dealing with the Cayden James problem and feels guilty because she convinced Team Arrow to break him out of the A.R.G.U.S. Black site in the first place.   Curtis finds Black Siren, standing with a familiar man very near to where Felicity currently is.  Diggle realizes who the man is and mobilizes the team.  

Meanwhile in Helix, Black Siren and a large group of goons bust the place up trying to kill Alena, and Cayden James (Michael Emerson) finally reveals himself to Felicity.  Team Arrow shows up just in time and joins the fracas, managing to chase off Black Siren and James’ goons but not before Alena is wounded in the attack.

Felicity makes sure Alena is safe and stable in the hospital and helps to find the identities of the three Black Siren victims.  It turns out that they are the three people who have access to the black site known as “The Vault” where the servers that contain the entire global internet are stored, and Cayden James’ plan involves bringing down the internet.   Felicity writes some code that will track the location, but it will take time to locate.  Diggle sends the distraught Felicity home, where after a bit Oliver shows up to give her a pep talk about how she can deal with her guilt and how she should push forward and make the situation right in the present – the kind of speech she usually gives to him.

Curtis locates the vault.  James and his team are already there, using stolen fingerprints off of the three victims to access the massive facility.  Shortly afterwards Team Arrow arrives and discovers that James has somehow reprogrammed the servers to explode.  Felicity begins hacking what James has done, but James makes it so that she must hack the bomb from the same terminal he set it up on.  The team fights and provides cover for her to get to the location, but she lacks the guidance she needs to get there.  Suddenly a voice comes on comms telling her where to go, Oliver is in the Bunker and he performs the Felicity role of Overwatch and guides Felicity to the location.  Felicity hacks while the team fights.  Black Siren and Diggle have a face off that is about to go badly until Rene swoops in and saves Diggle.  Felicity stops the bomb, but all the goons get away.

Felicity meets with Alena in the hospital, where Alena suggests that Felicity and Curtis should use their startup to further develop a mass producible version of the spinal implant that Curtis built to allow Felicity to walk again.  Alena also gives Felicity permission to steal the name Helix for her company which she now names Helix Dynamics as she offers Alena a job.  Cayden James reveals to Black Siren that the whole plot was a feint to get Felicity to do some hacking on the vault that would set the stage for the next phase of his plan, and he then gives Black Siren some tech that will prevent Curtis from tracking her sonic scream again.

Finally at Felicity’s apartment Oliver and Felicity are about to finally have the “desert” they’ve been trying to get to all episode when Oliver’s phone rings.  On the other end is Slade Wilson, and he is asking for Oliver’s help.

REVIEW

All is again right with the world; Arrow has delivered the third best episode of the DC/CW Television week in a week featuring highlight episodes from all four series.  I hesitate to say that this episode dropped in quality, just that the other series rose to meet it (and in two other cases exceed.  This episode was effectively the Felicity version of last week’s Diggle centric episode where the former sidekick is in the position of needing emotional support from a retired Oliver.  This one plays just as well, but gives Emily Bett Rickards a chance to play a bit of the tortured and guilt ridden hero the way that Oliver usually does.  The team is behaving like a well oiled machine, and the new status quo for Team Arrow is quite enjoyable.  There is no further exploration of Diggle’s doping plot, but no one will be upset if that is a slow burn arc.  Michael Emerson finally appears as the cyberterrorist teased last year, and while that certainly works I still feel it was a missed opportunity not to put him in the role of Vic Sage as The Question.

Episode 04 MVP: Emily Bett Rickards* playing some serious guilt and anger as a Felicity forced to test her limits.

Next Week:  Morgan Edge Vs. Lena Luthor on Supergirl.  Barry’s Bachelor Party Vs. Iris’ Bridal Shower on The Flash.  The Legends Vs. a Vampire on Legends of Tomorrow. Slade Wilson Vs. Everyone on Arrow.

Present

DC/CW Television Week Four Part One

The Flash Season 4, Episode 04: “Elongated Journey Into Night”

RECAP

Cisco and Gypsy are having a bit of a romantic night in and things are about to get super hot and heavy, but Gypsy heads off to the bathroom for a hot second and while she’s gone: a breach opens and out pops Breacher (Danny Trejo) Gypsy’s over-protective father from Earth 19 and the premiere hunter of world hopping villains. The next morning at CCPD Mayor Bellows is kicking off his reelection campaign with a stump speech about his days as a cop and how he supports the CCPD, Barry and Joe extricate themselves from the media fracas and head up to Barry’s lab to discuss ways to track down the mysterious bus passengers.  Joe is still purposefully keeping the secret that Cecille is pregnant, but everyone keeps making reference to how he seems off – but in a good way.  As if he’s glowing.

Barry and Joe arrive at S.T.A.R. Labs to find Breacher there, spending the day with a very frustrated Cisco who solicits a little advice on how he should proceed from Harry.  Harry suggests that Cisco take Breacher out for coffee, and Cisco recognizes this as good advice and follows suit.  The rest of Team Flash has discovered that the bus driver of the Speed Force affected bus was murdered and among his personal effects was a business card of a private detective named Ralph Dibney (Hartley Sawyer) who was once a cop at CCPD and apparently has some bad blood with Barry.   At CC Jitters, Cisco arrives at a table with three coffees for himself, Gypsy and Breacher – but Breacher informs Cisco he would like something else.  Gypsy goes off to buy her father a tea, and Breacher avails himself of that opportunity to inform Cisco that he plans to hunt Cisco for the next 24 hours until he agrees to no longer date Gypsy. Seeing this threat as more of the promise it actually is, Cisco bolts and not long after Breacher follows.

Barry and Joe visit Private Detective Ralph Dibney, who from the looks of things has a list of enemies a mile long – and they can’t even convince the guy to admit he was on the bus let alone provide them with further information.  They leave, and immediately after they are out the door: two goons burst in and take Dibney up to the roof where they hang him over the edge to shake him down.  The only problem is, they literally shake him down:  Dibney’s torso stretches until his body land safely on the ground with his legs still in the goons hands.  Dibney hits the ground just as Barry and Joe walk by the alley he is spilling into so they take him to S.T.A.R. Labs.  Barry suggests they should throw Dibney in containment because he’s obviously a criminal, he was “dirty then, and he’s dirty now.”  Caitlin, however, will have none of this shit and calls Barry on his hypocrisy for a change.  She also says that if she had access to some of his pre-dark matter affected DNA she might be able to stabilize his cells so that he could have a measure of control over his rubber-like body.  Iris and Barry head back to Dibney’s office to collect a DNA sample and Barry explains why he and Dibney don’t get along.  Back in the early days of Barry’s career he was working a case with Dibney where a man had murdered his wife and there was no evidence to help convict him; then Dibney miraculously found the murder weapon with the suspects fingerprints: open and shut case right? Wrong.  Barry analyzed the knife and discovered it wasn’t the one used in the murder, it had been planted by Dibney.  Barry went to his supervisors with that info, and Dibney was kicked off of the force.  Just as Barry finishes his story in the present, he accidentally sets off an explosive that the goons had planted in Dibney’s office.

Still on the run from Breacher, Cisco sneaks into S.T.A.R. Labs and gets more advice from Harry who recommends that Cisco create a trap to catch Breacher to beat him at his own game because Vibing may be Cisco’s meta power, but his real superpower is building things.  Meanwhile Joe has discovered that Dibney was blackmailing the Mayor, but Dibney refuses to explain why – so Joe and Barry go straight to the source.  Mayor Bellows explains that he had cheated on his wife and Dibney caught him in the act and was blackmailing the mayor to keep it quiet – but as soon as he is away from Barry and Joe Mayor Bellows orders his goons to kill Dibney and the West/Allen team.  Barry confronts Dibney about his blackmailing of the Mayor and how it proves how dirty Ralph is.  Caitlin fabricates a compound that puts Dibney back in control of his powers, and Cisco’s trap for Breacher fails drastically.  Ralph bolts from S.T.A.R. Labs so that he can meet up with Mayor Bellows, Breacher sees footage of Ralph and mistakes him for an alien that attacked Earth 19 and vows to kill him.  Joe and The Flash track Dibney to the Mayor and are about to arrest the Mayor when Breacher shows up to kill Ralph, The Mayor kidnaps Joe and makes his way to the roof of a building where a chopper is waiting.  Breacher is more than a match for The Flash, but luckily Cisco shows up to protect Barry and Ralph.  Meanwhile Mayor Bellows is getting away with Joe.

Barry reveals his identity and gives Ralph a pep talk, Ralph stretches his arms to catch the chopper and Barry runs up Ralph’s arms – saving Joe and capturing the Mayor.  Overcome by the emotion of the moment, Joe blurts out that Cecille is pregnant.  Team Flash celebrates the joyous news, Breacher reveals that while he still hates Cisco he now at least respects him and the two leave for Earth 19 – but not before Breacher reveals that Gypsy’s real name is Cynthia and his is Josh.  Barry attempts to bury the hatchet with Dibney by asking him to join Team Flash and let Barry train him to be a hero.

REVIEW

THIS, this was the episode I have been waiting for since the season began.  Returning to form with an episode that embraces the fun and history of the DC comics universe while still dealing with the events of the episode in a serious manner.  The tone is not comedy for comedies sake as with last week’s appearance of Hazard, this was a light episode that layered in some serious dramatic moments that posed fundamental questions regarding the nature of The Flash and his brand of heroism.  A Ralph Dibney who planted evidence so a murderer could not get away is certainly operating outside the confines of the law and deserved to be kicked off of the force, but was that truly any different than the way that Barry and Team Flash lock up metahumans in the S.T.A.R. Labs pipeline without any access to due process?  This was the first episode in a long time that felt like the kind of storytelling I fell in love with on this show way back in season one.  The beating heart of Barry Allen is what makes this show work, and the constant wear and tear by Zoom and then Savitar kept us from seeing a lot of stories through that particular lens, and it was awesome to see the writers suddenly get what had been missing in the series.  This was Tom Cavanagh’s second episode of The Flash as director, and it may be one of my favorites in the series overall.  Danny Trejo was excellent in the B story as the overbearing father trying to make sure that Cisco is good enough to date his daughter, but this story belonged to the private eye with the nose for clues.  Ralph deviates slightly from the Ralph Dibney of the comics, but in the end he is presented almost as he exists in four colors – his nose even twitches when he smells a mystery which was a cheer inducing moment for longtime fans.  Making Mayor Bellows crooked was a great way to bring Ralph and Barry into alignment on an issue, but as a fan of the 1990 Flash series this one hurt a little bit.  Tony Bellows (Vito D’Ambrosio) was the young cop partnered with the gruff and older Officer Murphy on the older Flash series and seeing the same character as the Mayor in this alternate Central City was always one of my favorite call backs to the older show.

Finally this season, I can say that The Flash was the best episode of this week’s CW shows.

Episode 04 MVP: My gut instinct is to call this for Danny Trejo, because he was just so damn funny in this episode, but Hartley Sawyer is the true winner of this week’s award.  Bringing to life a character who is in equal measure a classic comic character and a mirror image of our tv version of Barry Allen was not an easy task, and Sawyer took it and ran with it in some truly great ways.

Legends of Tomorrow Season 3, Episode 04: “Phone Home”

RECAP

In 1988 little Ray Palmer is attempting to save his little friend Gumball from the government agents who kidnapped them both, but these agents have no compunction against killing a child.  A shot rings out and Ray Palmer is killed at just 8 years old.  Meanwhile, on the Waverider, adult Ray Palmer is leading the Legends in a team building exercise complete with trust falls.  When Mick is about to fall into Ray’s waiting arms, Ray vanishes from existence.  Gideon reveals that Ray Palmer was found dead on November 1st 1988, so Sara sets a course for October 30th  so that they can save Ray’s life.  When they arrive at a point prior to his death, adult Ray returns to existence and they begin to try to figure out how to save him.  Newcomer Zari marvels at the notion that even knowing they are attempting to solve his own death – Ray is still unflinchingly upbeat.

The team goes undercover in 80’s gear to track young Ray and attempt to discover how he dies, and ultimately the gang follows him back to his home in Ivy Town where adult Ray spies through the window that his younger self has somehow befriended a baby dominator and presumes that the dominator will turn on and kill young Ray.

The team hatches a plan to return the next day while Ray is at school, retrieve the dominator, and return it to where it belongs.  Zari and Ray break in, Amaya and Nate provide overwatch – there’s only one problem: young Ray didn’t go to school – he played hookie to hang out with his friend Gumball.  Ray shrinks down to hide, Zari hides under the bed and young Ray settles in to watch Singing in the Rain with Gumball.  Ray’s mom has been called by Ray’s school about him not showing up and she shows up to yell at Ray, Zari and Ray need a distraction so they can snag Gumball and get out of the house.  Nate and Amaya, who are posing as Animal Control show up to provide a distraction – but young Ray packs up Gumball and an action figure sized adult Ray and runs away. Sara detects another time ship has arrived and leaves to investigate

Meanwhile on the Waverider, Jax and Rory suspect that Professor Stein has been ratting the team out to the Time Bureau so they set up in the time shuttle to catch him in the act  - sabotaging the shuttle so he cannot escape.  Of course he hasn’t turned on the team, he is actually attempting to return to 2017 to witness the birth of his grandchild.

The feds capture Young Ray, Zari and Gumball; a Dominator captures Sara; and Jax commandeers the Waverider to take Stein to see the birth of his grandchild.  Adult Ray returns to normal size and breaks out Zari and young Ray – giving his younger self a speech about needing to grow up and realize that the world is not as nice as he wants it to be.  Zari gives an opposing speech about being positive.  The team escape with Gumball and return him to his mother who had captured Sara.  The team reunites and the Legends accompany the dweeby Young Ray Palmer Trick or Treating.

REVIEW

After last season’s George Lucas centered episode, and the way in which J.R.R. Tolkien was so thoroughly involved in the season finale – a Spielberg episode was indeed quite expected and very welcome – though I feel like the episodes obvious connection to E.T. should have been lampshaded a bit more.  When the team met George Lucas we let the team make the references because the joke is that Lucas doesn’t know what Star Wars is yet, but we the audience and as time travelers so do our core characters.  Taking that same premise forward to a Ray Palmer centered E.T. analog is amusing, but the episode is set in 1988, a full six years after the release of the film. We already know for a fact that Ray has seen E.T. so there is no reason that young Ray couldn’t have been in on the fun a little.  I had a bit of a moment when I realized that this episode was establishing that Ray Palmer and I are the same age, a moment that quickly disintegrated when I realized that Brandon Routh and I are in reality roughly the same age and if I wasn’t aware of that when Superman Returns came out – I shouldn’t be too concerned about it 11 years later.  Beyond the Spielberg shoutouts and the look at a young and geeky Ray Palmer, what this episode really sets up is a relationship between Zari and Ray by allowing Zari to slowly but surely be won over by the young Ray rather than directly being charmed by Brandon Routh’s adult Ray.  From a storytelling standpoint it was a master stroke because it provided us a fresh perspective on the positive, can do attitude of Ray – deconstructing it and reconstructing it for us all while giving the newcomer a chance to play off of it in an unexpected way.  The birth of Stein’s grandchild, and the subsequent decision by Jax to begin working on a way to dissolve the Firestorm partnership has been telegraphed for weeks, and I’m not looking forward to seeing them find a way to shuffle Garber off of the show.  And I won’t say much about the inclusion of more Nate Heywood awkward comedy making its way into an otherwise excellent episode, except to implore the writers: please stop using this guy for comic relief in this manner.  Nate works well in the brotherly dynamic between him and Ray, and he works as the character who is most wonkishly enthusiastic about history – but as Dudebro McYuckster he is an unqualified disaster.

Episode 04 MVP: Brandon Routh who took this deconstruction of Happy Go-Lucky Ray Palmer and imbued it with pathos and charm in a way that enriches who Ray has been shown to be in previous encounters.

NEXT: Supergirl and Arrow.

Presents

DC/CW Television Week Three Part Two

Supergirl Season 3, Episode 3: “Far From the Tree”

RECAP

Alex and Kara are discussing the upcoming Wedding Shower that Eliza Danvers is throwing for her daughter when J’onn shows up to inform the girls that he will be unable to attend the party because of last week’s mysterious summons from M’gann.  Supergirl immediately tells J’onn that if he’s going to Mars, she is definitely going with him so that he doesn’t have to face that journey alone – even if it means missing her sister’s shower; Alex likewise says she would go in a heartbeat if she were able to survive the conditions on Mars.  J’onn takes Supergirl to a garage where he keeps a 1952 Chevrolet Convertible which also happens to be his spaceship; and explains to an incredulous Kryptonian that he comes from a race of shapeshifters, so why should she be surprised that their technology can shapeshift as well.  With that the ship transforms back into a spaceship and the two launch for their rendezvous with M’gann.  In National City, Eliza has made a home cooked meal for Alex and Maggie and the three are discussing Alex’s childhood which leads to the sensitive subject of Maggie’s parents who we learned in season two had disowned her as a teenager.  The result of this discussion is the most haunting description of a parent’s homophobia ever shared on prime-time television.   

Meanwhile on Mars, Kara and J’onn make contact with M’gann and the other members of the White Martian resistance who inform J’onn that there is another Green Martian who still lives, J’onn’s own father M'yrnn J'onzz (Justice League Animated J’onn J’onzz Carl Lumbly) who has been held prisoner by the Whites for two hundred years while the Whites torture him to discover the location of a religious relic that is a psychic weapon capable of allowing the Whites to track down and kill all of the resistance members.  J’onn attempts to speak with M’yrnn, but M’yrnn refuses to believe that this man before him is really his son – he believes the Whites are trying once more to get the staff’s location from him.

On the advice of Alex, Maggie reaches out to her father and invites him to their wedding shower.  J’onn attempts once more to get through to M’yrnn, but the powerful telepath will not open his mind to J’onn and he still believes it to be a trick.  A conflict explosively interrupts things at the resistance HQ; Supergirl, J’onn and M’yrnn flee.  Meanwhile on Earth Maggie’s dad Oscar (Carlos Bernard) visits briefly at the party and seems to be attempting to make a real effort to get to know his daughter, until he sees her with Alex.  In disgust he runs out, Maggie chases him and he informs her that he refuses to support her choices.

Supergirl manages to get through to M’yrnn, M’yrnn psychically bonds with J’onn and the two embrace each other.  M’yrnn informs J’onn and the resistance where the Whites are digging for the staff.  Supergirl and The Resistance show up in J’onn’s spaceship (in full 52 Chevy mode blaring some Britney Spears) and a brief battle ensues for the staff.  The Resistance wins the day and decides to give the staff to Supergirl and J’onn to make sure that they protect it from the Whites and the Resistance.  Maggie confronts her father and tells him that she does not need his validation and that she cannot condone his bigotry.  Supergirl, J’onn and M’yrnn return to Earth.

REVIEW

Supergirl seems at last to be regaining its footing after two weak first episodes, and it has done so by doubling down on making this episode about Supergirl’s central narrative metaphor: Family.  J’onn’s arc with his father is very well handled, but I wonder how well the Martian culture sequences play to an audience that hasn’t steeped themselves as thoroughly as I have over the years.  M’yrnn J’onzz is an intriguing character brilliantly portrayed by Carl Lumbly, which brings that extra layer of awesome when taking into account that Lumbly spent years as the voice of J’onn J’onzz on the animated Justice League and Justice League Unlimited series’.  The incredible pathos of the very REAL homophobia and bigotry of Maggie’s father is incredibly heartbreaking – particularly the story of how he disowned her as a teenager and the explanation why all these years later.  Supergirl doesn’t shy away from taking on real world issues, and it’s incredibly strong when it does.

Episode 03 MVP:  My inner fanboy wants to say Carl Lumbly owned this episode left right and center, but Floriana Lima* played her struggle with her conflicting emotions toward her father and his actions so expertly that she frankly broke my heart a little.  Opportunities for nuanced performances like this don’t often come up on superhero television, and I’d be remiss to not call this one out.

Arrow Season 6, Episode 3: “Next of Kin”

RECAP

John Diggle makes his debut as Green Arrow in a staggeringly violent, but well controlled outing where the entire team works well together, of course it can’t remain that simple – but that is how it begins.   Samanda Watson shows up the next day to harass Oliver about the goings ons, pointing out rightly to Oliver that for some reason this new Green Arrow isn’t firing any arrows and that she isn’t fooled into getting off Oliver’s trail.

Mercenary Onyx Adams (Chastity Dotson) and her team break into Kord industries to hack their computers, and Detective Drake is on the scene immediately to investigate.  Working with Curtis and Felicity Team Arrow uncovers that Onyx was hacking them for delivery schedules and is targeting a truck that is carrying a consignment of gas.   Oliver spends some time with William and discovers that his son is incredibly nervous about a math test he feels unprepared for.  Oliver gives William some bad advice and William gets a little prickly toward his not so academically inclined father.  Team Arrow discovers that Onyx and her Special Ops team are after a toxic gas compound and it seems they want to go after a former member of their team.

Diggle and team suit up to stop the truck heist, but it goes spectacularly bad – at exactly the wrong moment Diggle freezes and fails to make a choice that allows Onyx and her team to get away with the gas they intended to steal.  A very pissed off Rene comes to Oliver to demand that he return to the role of Green Arrow because Diggle is failing and the consequences could be disastrous.  News of the heist is all over the place and the city council is seriously considering an anti vigilante bill that would criminalize Green Arrow and his team specifically.

Oliver asks Felicity to tutor William in math and gives Diggle a pep talk to try to get him from sulking too much over the previous night’s failure.  Oliver informs Diggle that there wouldn’t be a Green Arrow without John’s influence; wearing the hood was initially just about vengeance for Oliver, but it was Diggle who had showed Oliver that he could use that identity to help people in need.  Oliver encourages Diggle to believe in himself.  Felicity tutors William and the two get along extremely well.

Diggle and team suit up and go to an event where Onyx’s target is, and are confronted with a gas distraction and a team of Special Ops soldiers that divide the team.  Diggle doesn’t hesitate this time, he gives orders like a seasoned pro and goes after Onyx –taking both her and her target into custody.  Rene apologizes for doubting Diggle, but Dig understands completely.  The team celebrates their first win under Diggle’s leadership; Curtis and Felicity unveil what they’ve built: a crossbow that fires full arrows instead of bolts so that non archer Diggle can finally and truly be The Green Arrow.  Oliver uses a legal loophole to buy time to prevent the city council from approving the anti vigilante legislation by making a motion that it become a city wide referendum so that the people can vote on the measure.  Dinah gives Diggle a compliment on his leadership.  Oliver swings by Felicity to say that he wants to finally be with her and have her be a part of William’s life – there is some implied Olicity sex and all is right with the world.  In a shadowy alley, a man pays a drug dealer a lot of money for some doses of a drug.  The man reveals his identity, with his arm trembling John Diggle opens the case and injects himself with a dose –steadying his hand.

REVIEW

Another week where Arrow takes the top spot in my ranking of the four shows with a tour de force performance by David Ramsey as a John Diggle struggling to decide how best to honor Oliver’s request to become the Green Arrow.  Seeing John, who has often been the second in command, struggle with how to step into a leadership role and struggle with how to be as sure of himself as Oliver was in the role is an excellent sort of deep breath before the series dives down deep into wherever it intends to go next.  Putting Quentin Lance and Oliver Queen in the position of actually attempting to figure out how to distance themselves from Team Arrow publicly is a masterstroke.  The final fight where we do get to at last see Diggle’s Green Arrow in all his glory fighting with Onyx in the limousine is so staged in such a way that it doesn’t resemble any of the amazing Stephen Amell fight sequences we’ve seen over the course of the previous five years – or for that matter the two attempts in this episode for Diggle to duplicate those kinds of scenes.  Through the action scene, Diggle is finally able to make the role his own.

Episode 03 MVP: David Ramsey* for trying to figure out how to move forward as Green Arrow.

Next Week: Supergirl meets a creepy cult.  Barry meets a dirty cop.  Ray meets himself.  Team Arrow meets Black Siren (again.)  

Presents

DC CW Television Week Three Part One

The Flash Season 4, Episode 03: “Luck Be a Lady”

RECAP

Becky Sharpe (Sugar Lyn Beard) is one of those poor unfortunate people who has been the victim of bad luck her entire life, until her constant misfortune puts her in the path of the Thinker as she gets on a mysterious bus with last week’s villain Kilg%re.  Meanwhile Team Flash is enjoying a little R&R with some Laser Tag and a picnic hosted by Cecille and Joe when they get an alert that a breach is opened.  The team races back to S.T.A.R. Labs just in time to see Harry Wells pop through from Earth 2 bearing an unfortunate device known as a break up cube sent by Jesse Quick to be delivered to Wally, Harry’s bed side manner in dealing with delivering the bad news to Wally that Jesse is dumping him is as tactless as ever.  Shortly after the team learns of several banks reporting missing money, and we learn that Becky Sharpe has somehow managed to luckily walk into banks and walk out with money without ever getting caught – it’s like she has become the luckiest girl in the world.  Barry races to a bank Becky is currently robbing and as she is making her effortless get away in an ber that waited patiently for her, a shipping crate falls off of a truck releasing thousands of ball bearings that trip The Flash before he can stop her.  Cisco gives Becky the metahuman codename: Hazard. Cecille and Joe begin experiencing incredibly bad luck at the West house as pipes are breaking and the heretofore awesome house has become a money pit.  Bad luck is also the name of the game for Iris and Barry who lose out on not one but two wedding venues due to unexpected cancellations. Harry and Cisco are at each other’s throats until Harry reveals that Jesse Quick has basically kicked him out of his own home because he had become overbearing in helping her create a support team of her own much like Team Flash.

Joe is able to ID Becky based on her previous bad luck, but there is only one problem: Becky didn’t come to Central City until after the Particle Accelerator explosion.  Much like Kilg%re before her, there is no way that Becky became a meta like all the others.  Harry and Cisco track her dark manner energy to the point where it is the strongest and that leads the two of them and Barry to a spot in the middle of a Central City street.  Harry and Cisco are stumped, but Barry immediately realizes what happened, because this is the same street where Cisco’s breach into the Speed Force opened up and allowed Barry to leave.  Harry explains that the dark matter energy poured out of the Speed Force into the surrounding area and in particular onto a bus that was engulfed in the breach and anyone who was on that bus has the potential to be a Meta.  Barry tracks Becky down at CC Jitters and has a conversation with her about the fact that she is a meta, and Becky shows that her luck powers can and will negatively affect others with dangerous results unless Barry let’s her go.  Later at S.T.A.R. Labs Team Flash is moping because they blame themselves for creating the new batch of metas and Cisco believes the team is now cursed, at the West house things are getting worse and worse and we soon learn that Central City itself is in grave danger.

The luckier Becky gets, the stronger the field of bad luck around her gets – and she is currently at a casino winning roll after roll of craps. Planes are about to crash, storms are raging, and the particle accelerator is powering back on.  Barry races to the casino to stop Becky but somehow manages to put power dampening handcuffs on himself instead of her. Harry and Cisco race to try to shut down the particle accelerator in fear of another explosion until Harry suddenly has an epiphany and urges Cisco to just let the accelerator explode again.  The accelerator sends a wave of particles out in a massive explosion that interacts with the charged luck field around Becky and the two cancel each other out.  Barry, now free from the dampening cuffs, arrests Becky.  Cisco tells Harry that he is welcome to stay with Team Flash and build a life with them on Earth one, and after agreeing to rejoin Team Flash Harry discovers that both Becky and Kilg%re were on the bus affected by the Speed Force along with 10 others.  Harry posits that The Thinker manipulated Team Flash into opening the Speed Force to retrieve The Flash in order to create 12 metahumans.  Wally decides he needs to get away from Central City for a while and leaves for Blue Valley to stay with a friend, and Joe goes home to Cecille where she reveals to him that she is pregnant.

REVIEW

Aside from the fact that he rolled back in with the most terrible wig this show has ever employed, Tom Cavanagh’s return as Harry Wells was the kick in the ass this episode needed.  Doubling down on an old school “fun” episode of The Flash, the first experience with Hazard definitely mined the light hearted side of Flash lore. We got a pay off from some of the pieces of gibberish that Barry was spouting back in the season premiere, in particular the mysterious translated: “This house is bitchin’” existing as an exchange between Cecille and Joe West when discussing whether or not to sell the West household.  Of course the “We’re going to need more diapers” might also connect to the West pregnancy, though I suspect it is going to be reserved for the Tornado Twins.  Speculation is running rampant over whether or not this new West child will be named Daniel (the third Reverse Flash was named Daniel West and was Wally II’s father) and whether or not he’ll be a speedster.  The reference to Wally moving to Blue Valley is a cute homage to the origin of comic book Wally West. On lesser notes, this episode felt very light and insubstantial except for the S.T.A.R. Labs moments.  Episode 04 will introduce a classic DC comics characters, so maybe that will be a bit stronger.

Episode 03 MVP: Tom Cavanagh* who returned as the gruff and awesomely snarky Harry Wells and brought back a much needed foil for Cisco.

Legends of Tomorrow Season 3, Episode 03: “Zari”

RECAP

Time Agent Gary is in the near future trying to stop an anachronism involving the attempted murder of an outlaw named Zari Tomaz (new castmember Tala Ashe) and gets caught up in a serious fight where he feels he’s in enough danger that he needs to call in some back up.  The only problem is that his distress call is picked up not by the Time Bureau, but by The Legends.  On board the Waverider Nate and Professor Stein are both attempting to figure out why Amaya is having trouble with her powers, much to the annoyance of Amaya herself who tells Sara she finally understands what the term “mansplaining” means.  Sara gets word of Gary’s plight and decides it’s time for the Legends to intervene on his behalf, so they set their course for the not too distant future to stop a time traveling assassin.  The team goes off to figure out what is going on and come across a future where A.R.G.U.S. has criminalized metahumans and holds all the powered people in a metahuman prison.  The target of the time travelling assassin Kuasa* (Amaya’s evil granddaughter) is Zari Tomaz, a woman with a rap sheet a mile long who claims to be looking to free her brother from A.R.G.U.S.   Zari, reluctantly, agrees to let the team use her as bait to draw out the time travelling assassin – so long as the team helps her break in to the A.R.G.U.S. prison to free her brother. Mick, Ray, Sara and Jax head off with Zari to do some B&E, while Nate convinces Amaya that the best way to explore the problem she is having with her powers is to go on a vision quest and talk to the previous wielders of her totem.  To achieve this Nate has Gideon synthesize a ritualistic psychotropic drug that he administers to both himself and Amaya.  

Meanwhile in the A.R.G.U.S. prison, things go terribly wrong when Zari turns on the team and reveals that she was just using them to break in so that she could steal an item that once belonged to her dead brother, an amulet that is incredibly important to her.  Her ruse exposed, it is too late to turn back because A.R.G.U.S. agents and Kuasa are descending upon them.  Overwhelmed by the inhumanity of A.R.G.U.S. Jax releases all the metas from their cells as a diversion.  Zari reveals that her amulet provides her with powers, and uses the power of flight to bolt from the scene.  Ray chases off after Zari, and all the Legends who can’t fly call for backup from a Nate who is too stoned to properly fly the Waverider.  Amaya on the other hand is having a legitimate vision about how to handle her power fluctuations and is greeted by her ancestor who tells her she must protect a mysterious “her” whose fate she is tied to.  

The Waverider is about to go back up Ray when a much larger time ship pops out captained by Agent Sharpe.  Sara sends the team off in a shuttle to help Ray and Zari, while she battles Agent Sharpe.  The team arrives to find Ray and Zari battling with Kuasa, Amaya now fully in control of her powers again faces off against the woman she does not yet know is her granddaughter and defeats her handily – but in the process learns the truth.  Sara manages to chase Sharpe away and the team gathers back together, Amaya invites Zari to join the team believing that she is the one whose fate is intertwined with Amaya and her totem.  Zari agrees to join the team and Agent Sharpe threatens the Legends.  Meanwhile in the 1980’s young Ray Palmer is running from some bullies and decides to hide in a storm drain where he meets a weird growling alien.

REVIEW

Before I go too deep on any major plot point I’m going to start with the worst part of the entire episode and that is Nick Zano’s terrible “high” performance.  Think of every movie of the week cliché about how someone behaves when on drugs, and that is how Nate Heywood behaved on the drug that gave Amaya her visions.  For a show that likes using a sense of realistic human behavior to take the wind out of the sails of more traditional superhero storytelling convention, this was an incredibly disappointing piece of over the top comedy that wasn’t necessary at all in this otherwise great episode.  Introducing Zari in such a way that her amulet may be a totem tied to Amaya’s totem, but leaving open the possibility that the spirit of her ancestors is warning her about Kuasa instead is a wonderful little touch – and I hope that it remains unresolved for a little while just who the ancestor spirit was talking about.  Mick instantly bonds with Zari, who while motivated by acquiring a family heirloom is still a criminal; it will be nice to have some prime time for crime time with Mick again.  The not so distant future seems to be an outcropping of the anti vigilantism measures that are being discussed in the present timeline in Star City, which is a nice nod to wherever the Arrow team is taking that story.  

Episode 03 MVP: young Jack Fisher who in maybe 45 seconds of screentime as the 1980’s Ray Palmer set up a perfect E.T. arc for this weeks episode.

Next Time: We finally review Week 3’s Supergirl and Arrow.

In the latest episode of The Four Color Ark, Host Matthew J. Blanchard is joined by Ark of E Co-Founder / Editor In Chief Noah Blanchard to discuss the past, present, and future of the podcast. They begin with a look at a few recent DC Comics, focusing heavily on the current Dark Nights storyline and the forthcoming Doomsday Clock run. Then our intrepid heroes take a brief walk through the current seasons of the DCCW shows, which you can follow week to week with Matthew's regular Four Color Television series on thearkofe.com. Matt wraps things up by introducing a new regular segment to the show, Sell Me On It!, and teases a few upcoming episodes. The Four Color Ark Podcast has returned! And, in the immortal words of Cisco Ramon, "We back, baby"

Intro / Outro ("Batman 1966 Meets Metal" by 331Erock) Check out their other awesome work on YouTube : www.youtube.com/user/331Erock

Send Feedback and Sell Me On It! Submissions: dirtypoolfilms@gmail.com , or thearkofe@gmail.com 

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Presents

Four Color TV Week 2 Part 2

Supergirl Season 3 Episode 2: “Triggers”

RECAP:

Morning in National City and so very much is going on: Alex and Maggie are having their happy breakfast, while newcomer Samantha Arias (AKA Reign played by Odette Annable) is making breakfast for her daughter Ruby before going off to start her mysterious new high paying job.  Elsewhere, a still slightly mopey Kara Danvers is prepping for what turns out to be Lena Luthor’s first day owning Catco.  Lena shows up and blindsides Jimmy by announcing that she will be working exclusively at Catco until she has a better understanding of the media company she just purchased.  Kara gives her new boss a planner before flying off to the DEO because of an alert on her phone.  Meanwhile at the DEO, Alex and Maggie are arguing over whether they should have a band or a DJ at their wedding when Supergirl shows up to ask what the alert was about.  Winn informs the team that two banks have been knocked over by a mysterious woman who never drew a weapon or threatened anyone, the guards simply laid down in terror and let her empty the vault, an alert goes off notifying the team that another bank is being robbed as they speak and Supergirl races off to save the day.  Of course things are not so simple, as the thief is a meta named Psi (Yael Grobglas) with telepathic powers who forces the people around her to experience their worse fear – and Supergirl is not immune to this power.  Psi cripples Supergirl with fear and waltzes away with the money in the vault.   Back at the DEO afterwards, J’onn scans Kara’s mind and comes back with evidence of telepathic tampering from a Meta that causes him to set Winn off on creating a psychic dampening device.  Kara heads back to Catco where it looks like Jimmy and Lena are about to get into a serious turf war over the leadership of the company, there is some sort of tension brewing there – but it doesn’t heat up completely yet.  Samantha is called from her first day at her new job because her daughter got in a fight at school, and Samantha takes the rest of the day off to deal with the situation thanks to her surprisingly cool mystery boss.  Ruby thinks that her mom has superpowers and wants her to admit it.

Supergirl goes after Psi again and gets whammied again, this time she remembers enough to note that Psi’s powers are fear based – which narrows down Winn’s approach and we see that her fears are tied up in the destruction of Krypton.  Back once more at Catco, Lena rightly tries to get a moody Kara to do her damn job as a reporter and gets into a kerfuffle with the girl of steel over whatever issue is plaguing her.  Ruby sneaks out and goes to a pizza joint by herself and it just happens to be where Supergirl and Psi are going to have their final confrontation.  When the powers start flying and the danger is all around, Ruby thinks this will give her mom a chance to prove she’s a superhero and save her.  This does not go as plan as it just ends up endangering both Samantha and Ruby who are both thankfully saved mid fight by Supergirl.  Psi whammies Supergirl a third time and we finally reveal her real fear, that Mon-El is dead and it is her fault.  Alex tries to comfort her sister, and it is enough to get her to face Psi again and draw the strength to overcome her fear and defeat the Meta.  Samantha gets Ruby to accept that she doesn’t have powers, Psi is taken away in cuffs and Kara heads back to Catco to apologize to her boss and friend Lena whose head she thoroughly bit off earlier.  Lena and Kara come to terms and all seems happy, which is when Lena’s stand in at LCorp arrives for a meet and greet with Lena.  Samantha arrives at Catco to meet Lena and is introduced to Kara Danvers.  The Kryptonian bioweapon who doesn’t know she’s a bio weapon shakes the Kryptonian superhero’s hand.  Finally at a bar, J’onn J’onnz gets a psychic message from Miss Martian that he is needed on Mars, and that there is another green martian.

REVIEW:

Mopey Kara Danvers, even if it is less mopey than last week, still doesn’t work very well – though a metahuman threat with an emotional component is far closer to this shows wheelhouse than last week’s shadowy businessman/mercenary bomb threat.  The slow build up of the reveal of Supergirl’s worst fear was well handled, giving a satisfying emotional punch when we finally get to the moment where Supergirl finally breaks down in tears repeating again and again that she killed Mon-El. On a lighter note, this episode featured a little more cohesion from the DEO team, and it certainly gave Jeremy Jordan his biggest opportunity to shine as Winn in quite a while.  The tension between Lena and Jimmy could lead to a massive showdown between Superman’s best pal and Lex’s little sister, but I suspect this is going to move into more or a traditional plotline where the two hook up. Katie McGrath’s accent is still questionable, but slightly more American than Irish in this episode.  The Reign story feels a little too pat for my tastes, that she just happens to be working for Lena Luthor and just happens to be the new Exec at LCorp feels contrived.

Episode 02 MVP: Jeremy Jordan* who reminds us that when written properly Winn can be the most supportive player on team Supergirl.

Arrow Season 6 Episode 2: “Tribute”

RECAP:

Mayor Queen does a press gaggle on his way into City Hall where he deftly claims that he isn’t the Green Arrow and suggests that the photo dropped at the end of episode one has been doctored.  Having gotten past the press, Rene informs Ollie and Quentin that the city has just been granted an insurance payout of 20 Million dollars over the damages to the SCPD HQ from last episode.  Before they can discuss further they arrive at Oliver’s office to find FBI agent Samanda Watson (Sydelle Noel) waiting for him to inform him that they are opening an investigation into whether or not he is indeed the violent criminal known as The Green Arrow.   In the Arrow Cave, Felicity and Curtis start trying to figure out the origin of the mysterious photo of Oliver in the Green Arrow costume; and at the SCPD Dinah and Diggle are rehashing the issue with him not firing his gun at all.  Oliver, Quentin and a group of reporters go to a warehouse that will be the future home of a company owned by Markovian businessmen in an initiative to bring 800 new jobs to Star City.  In the midst of this great announcement, Russian terrorists show up and start shooting up the place – capturing some of the Markovian businessmen.  Ollie is able to get most of the reporters to safety and they speed away in the van that brought them to the site of the press conference, but not before he sees Anatoly (recurringly awesome David Nykl) who indicates that he will hold the Markovians hostage.  At this point Ollie assumes that it was Anatoly who leaked the photo of him as Green Arrow to tie his hands in the midst of this hostage plot, but before he can react in any way as Mayor of Star City – he is called to an emergency involving his son William who has gotten into a fight at school with some 8th graders over whether or not Oliver really is The Green Arrow.  Ollie mistakenly gives William some advice about fighting by recommending he break the nose of the biggest kid on the playground; William tells Oliver he doesn’t care about the fighting and that what upsets him is the knowledge that Ollie might die one day and leave him alone.  Oliver tells William that he will never leave but –ever the bright kid – William points out that it isn’t Oliver’s choice so long as he continues to go out as Green Arrow. The team raids a Bratva restaurant and save all of the Markovians except their CEO. Dinah continues to throw shade on Diggle for not acknowledging that he is a liability to the team; the FBI informs the Mayor’s office that they intend to interview Ollie’s son in connection to the Green Arrow case.  Oliver and Rene discuss the situation and Oliver expresses real regret at having lied to William in an attempt to calm him down.   It is at this point that Anatoly calls to video chat with Oliver.  He has introduced a poison into the CEO and will deliver the antidote when Oliver delivers the 20 million dollar insurance payout to Anatoly.  Felicity and Curtis manage to use the photo of the CEO to diagnose the toxin Anatoly used on him, and send Diggle and Dinah to get the antidote from the hospital.  While getting the cure from Dr. Schwartz Dinah discovers that what is wrong with Diggle is that he has degenerative nerve damage which is causing his tremors, he admits to being compromised and says he’ll tell Oliver.  

The entire team arrives to the Bratva stronghold and sneak in, and Ollie finds his way to Anatoly who after killing the CEO explains that he and Oliver are longer friends and that he has to publicly destroy that relationship to regain face with the rest of the Bratva.  Oliver accuses Anatoly of betraying his principles, but Anatoly reminds Ollie that he remains an honorable man and proves it by explaining all the ways he could have gone about gaining revenge on Oliver, including harming William, but he didn’t because of their friendship.  Ollie accuses Anatoly of leaking the photo, and Anatoly swears that he didn’t.  Anatoly moves to escape, and Oliver threatens to shoot him, but Anatoly knows it is a bluff and indeed Oliver cannot bring himself to kill his former friend.  Felicity and Curtis discover that the photo outing Oliver as Green Arrow was faked and gets the info to the news, Oliver talks to William and explains that he is working on a plan to make sure that he’ll always be around to protect his son before heading off to have a conversation with Diggle.  Before Diggle can tell Oliver about his injury, Oliver asks him to take over as the Green Arrow and not just as a feint to throw the FBI off the scent – but permanently so that Oliver can retire.  Diggle agrees.

REVIEW:

Let’s begin with the BIG news.  The press conference at the beginning of the episode doesn’t just involve Ollie claiming he isn’t The Green Arrow, he does it by referencing Bruce Wayne – confirming for the very first time that Bruce exists in the Arrowverse.  The name drop amongst name drops, the only bigger one would be if they suddenly decided to reference Clark Kent.  Very cool and very unexpected.

Last week I talked about the real possibility that this episode would just reverse the Oliver as Green Arrow reveal, and of course that is indeed what happened – but it didn’t revert to the status quo as so many of the CW shows often do.  Placing Diggle into the role of Green Arrow shows a willingness to continue shaking things up in this sixth season, and it is a welcome endeavor.  For the second week in a row I find myself noting that Arrow delivered the best episode of the four DC/CW Universe – a statement which admittedly stings my soul just slightly.

Of course the status quo will be restored, before long Oliver will be back in the green leather as the one and only Green Arrow in Star City, but until then – I’m on board with this topsy turvy world where Arrow is seemingly at the top of its game.

Episode 02 MVP:  Stephen Amell himself who delivers the most nuanced performance in six seasons, drawing on so many layers as the episode twists and turns – giving us glimpses of not just the scowling Arrow we know and love but also that young man who we last saw on a life raft with his father way back in season one.  The decision to give up being The Green Arrow is rooted in every choice Amell has made as an actor to date and it ALL pays off in the scene in Williams room where he hints at his plan for the first time.  Brilliant performance.

NEXT WEEK:  J’onn goes back to Mars and meets his Dad. Barry runs into a meta that makes him unlucky (and Harry Wells returns). The Legends meet The Mighty Isis. John Diggle is The Green Arrow

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Four Color Television

The Flash Season 4, Episode 02: “Mixed Signals”

Recap:

It’s a new day in Central City and Barry Allen is just trying to get caught up with everything he’s missed in the six months he spent trapped inside the Speed Force, but this is still Central City and that means it’s time for another Meta attack.  This time it is in the form of a mysterious computer code named Kilg%re which seems to be targeting tech billionaires, the first in a brutal elevator accident and the second by overriding the controls of their Tesla.  When Barry makes a wrong turn into a construction zone that endangers the driver, Iris decides that maybe the communication between her and Barry is not where it should be since his return – so she enrolls them in couple’s therapy.  Iris and Barry aren’t the only couple having a bit of an issue: Gypsy shows up on Earth One to go on a date with Cisco, but the tech genius is too distracted attempting to crack the hackers Kilg%re code.  Caitlyn recognizes that the code seems almost biological which puts them on the trail of a Meta.  A disastrous first appointment with the therapist is interrupted by Joe’s Team Flash Panic Button as the Kilg%re code has taken over a bomb squad robot and chucked a grenade at Joe and the billionaire Barry saved from the hacked Tesla.  Barry races in and manages to snag all of the grenade shrapnel before it does any damage to Joe, and returns to S.T.A.R. Labs to get going on discovering what is going on with the Kilg%re code.  Cisco recognizes the names of the victims so far and races to his collection of teenage magazines, which are sadly just computer magazines (complete with motherboard of the month centerfolds.)  Two of the victims are members of a group that created and sold a massive program a decade ago, and the third is a female tech billionaire also living in Central City.  Wally and Joe head off to surveil the next victims home, while Barry and Iris are off to a rescheduled appointment with the therapist.  What starts out as a back and forth about Barry not listening to Iris about the construction zone earlier in the episode quickly manifests the real issue causing the strife between the two; Iris is still harboring legitimate resentment over the fact that Barry went into the Speed Force without talking it over with her. Cisco confronts Gypsy about her being upset over his missing their date, and she admits that the real issue is that on her Earth this day is a Valentine’s Day like holiday known as 1:1:1 day about the coming together of two individual souls. 

Joe and Wally are on site when the Meta controlling Kilg%re, a man named Ramsey Deacon (Dominic Burgess) who helped design Kilg%re but was cut out of the massive profits resulting from its sale, attacks the third member of the team by using his mind to recalibrate her digital insulin pump.  Wally shows up and saves her, but is too late as Deacon has escaped and kidnapped the Tesla driver once more.   Wally and Barry manage to track Deacon down, but Deacon uses his ability to take control of Barry’s new Flash suit which Cisco has loaded up with all the coolest tech – including a blaster he uses to knock Wally out.  Without the ability to remove his own suit and with a self-destruct moments away from going off, Barry is out of ideas – but Iris has a solution and Barry has to demonstrate he trusts her.  Iris recommends Barry throw lighting at himself to shock the suit and give him back control, and it works.  Deacon is taken into custody, Iris and Barry are communicating again, Cisco finally has his romantic evening with Gypsy – everything is right with the world. Except for one major problem… Deacon wasn’t in Central City the night of the particle accelerator explosion.  Joe and Barry come to Iron Heights to ask Deacon how he got his powers, Deacon doesn’t answer, but he does say he wasn’t alone in getting powers from this source… Back in The Thinker’s lair, Thinker and the Mechanic talk about the need to find “the others” to move their plan forward.

REVIEW

After a somewhat tepid season opener, this episode is back to basics Flash.  A fun concept, with the S.T.A.R. Labs crew working together and showcasing the things that make them a successful team.  There is an A story about The Flash, a B story about Barry himself, and a C story about another member of the team (Cisco in this case) that ties into both the A and B stories – in terms of episodic formula: We back baby. The Iris and Barry plotline is cute and full of some well-placed humor, but not quite as amusing or as well played as the Cisco and Gypsy plotline. The reusing of sets across all four CW shows is getting to be a little much though, the episode opens with a Tech Billionaire looking at an apartment he wants to purchase in Central City and then being killed when the Kilg%re virus takes over the apartments elevator.  This is a neat enough premise, except clearly the apartment the billionaire was looking at is the exact same set as Oliver Queen’s apartment from Arrow and the malfunctioning Elevator is the very same one that leads into the Arrow Cave.  It feels petty to gripe about set design, but this is becoming a routine thing.  This episode also introduced us to a longstanding Flash character in the form of Iron Height Prison’s overbearing Warden Gregory Wolfe – here played by Law and Order alumni Richard Brooks with all his cold menace.

Episode 02 MVP: Jessica Camacho*, who played a silent frustration with Cisco for incredible comedic effect.

Legends of Tomorrow Season 3, Episode 02: “Freakshow”

RECAP

Nate is melancholy about his breakup with Amaya, Ray has used the pilfered Time Bureau tech and his own designs to create a shrink ray, and Sara is looking for a nice easy Anachronism to solve so that she can prove to Rip and the Bureau that the Legends still have what it takes.  Just another Tuesday on the Waverider.  Sara and Gideon pick an anachronism that takes them to 1870 where a time anachronism had found its way into P. T. Barnum's Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan & Hippodrome.  The Legends check out the Circus, and are keeping an eye on P.T. Barnum himself (Billy Zane) while Ray, Nate and Jax go looking for the anachronism – which turns out to be a Saber-toothed Tiger.  Ray uses his shrink ray on the Tiger, but mistakenly enlarges the wild time displaced animal which allows it to easily escape.  Knowing that the Legends need an assist from an animal expert, Sara hops in the time shuttle and zips back to 1942 to recruit Amaya to rejoin the team for this one last mission.  Sara and Amaya return, and head off to deal with the Sabertooth. 

Meanwhile Nate and the other guys hit a saloon where Nate proceeds to get incredibly drunk and accidently exposes his powers to P.T. Barnum.  While Sara and Amaya are busy capturing the Sabertooth, P.T. Barnum is busy capturing Ray and Jax – who he forces to act as conjoined twins in his circus.  A member of the Time Bureau named Gary is tailing The Legends and Sara captures him, throwing him in the Waverider’s brig to get info on why he is following them; which it turns out is because the level one time anachronism they came to repair has jumped to a level nine in the brief time they have been present. Nate and Amaya have a heart-to-heart where she reveals she broke up with him to return to her own time and thus protect the life of her granddaughter – the current Vixen of 2017.  It is at this moment that the two of them are likewise captured by P.T. Barnum who sees the superpowered team of Legends as an opportune way to turn his circus into a rousing success.  Agent Sharpe of the Time Bureau shows up to try to rescue Gary and gets into a massive fight with Sara, while Stein and Mick go to rescue their team.  Mick fights some clowns, Stein and Jax merge into Firestorm and zip around the sky while Amaya channels the essence of a Bear and loses all control, coming within a stone’s throw of murdering P.T. Barnum.  The team goes back to return the Tiger to its own time, Amaya admits that she has lost control of her powers and feels she might murder people, and in the present a mysterious cloaked figure recruits Amaya’s other granddaughter Kuasa for some nefarious purpose.

REVIEW

Episode two of Legends feels far more like the fun adventure series that we were given last year, and it was a welcome return to form.  As always the Legends are our favorite screw ups and this was an opportunity to watch them gradually make a simple situation far worse than it ever needed to be.  The Nate and Amaya relationship arc makes perfect sense on both sides and is played well as both comedic and as heartbreakingly serious, and the actors are able to deliver on both levels.  Brandon Routh’s Ray Palmer is getting a little weirder as this series progresses, and I fear they may push him into truly insane territory.  The big news though is that Victor Garber has announced he will soon be leaving the series to return to Broadway, which means our days with Martin Stein are numbered.   Billy Zane was incredibly fun and funny as P.T. Barnum, and I hope that they find a way to bring the character back as a foil for the Legends somehow.  So far we have very little hint of what might be going on with our mysterious cloaked villain, and it feels nice to not instantly know what is coming for a change.  I hope this season can spend a little time going for a slow burn.

Episode 02 MVP: Adam Tsekhman as Gary the inept Time Agent, whom I hope we see very much more of.

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DC TELEVISION PREMIERE WEEK 2

EVEN PREMIERIER

NIGHT TWO PART TWO

Legends of Tomorrow Season 3, Episode 01: “Aruba-Con”

When we last saw the Legends they had said goodbye to their former team leader Rip Hunter before crashing the Waverider into a downtown Los Angeles infested with dinosaurs. Before the Legends can do anything about the situation strange portals start opening up directly in front of the dinosaurs, whisking them back to their native time.  Men and women in black suits use memory erasing wands on citizens and Rip Hunter arrives to inform the Legends that though he had just left them five minutes ago, through the beauty of time travel he has in fact spent the last five years building a new team called the Time Bureau: a sophisticated, well trained and cohesive unit that renders the Legends obsolete.  He confiscates the Waverider and returns the legends to the present.

The Legends, with no other choice, settle back into their new old lives.  Sara gets a job at Sink, Shower & Stuff (the DC Universe equivalent of Bed, Bath & Beyond,) where she seems to be constantly on report for her violent tendencies; Ray, whose company has been all but ruined, is forced to get a job working for a software company developing the next “hot” dating app. Nate has broken up with Amaya and is taking said breakup hard, he has thrown himself into being a hero in Central City which really means he fights a little bit before Kid Flash runs in and mops everything up.  Professor Stein is settling into a leisurely life after discovering that his daughter is pregnant; Jax has just dropped out of college because compared with time travel it is frightfully boring; Amaya has returned to 1942 where she belongs; and Mick is hanging out in Aruba, enjoying a private beach until he is interrupted by Julius Caesar.

Not knowing what to do about the anachronism of Caesar being on the beach, Mick immediately calls Sara for help.  Sara promptly quits her job and gathers together the team – minus Jax and Stein - to discuss the situation, planning to use capturing Caesar as proof to Rip that the team should be allowed to time travel again.  After going  to Aruba and capturing Caesar/rescuing Mick, Rip informs the Legends that they are far too volatile to ever be allowed to travel through time again.  There’s just one problem, the Caesar they helped the Bureau capture wasn’t the real Caesar – it was a toga wearing frat boy.

With the real Caesar still on the loose, Sara has the brilliant idea to steal the Waverider and take care of Caesar on their own.  But first they have to swing by Central City to pick up Jax and Stein so that Jax can effect much needed repairs to the ship.  The full team shows up in Aruba again and wastes no time in capturing Caesar and returning him to ancient Rome.  Using a stolen MiB inspired mind wipe wand from the Time Bureau, the team wipes Caesar’s memory – but the would be Emperor manages to steal a history book from Nate that reveals his unfortunate experience with the Ides of March.  The Legends go back to the Waverider thinking they have succeeded in fixing the anachronism, but time isn’t corrected because of the stolen book – and worse: The Time Bureau knows this.  Rip and Time Agents pop in to try to fix what the Legends screwed up, and get outmaneuvered by Caesar himself.  The Legends go full superhero to save the day, and Rip begrudgingly lets them continue to travel time in the Waverider.

REVIEW:

Legends is our third premiere, and it’s our third CW/DC episode in a row where the premise is that our heroine/hero/ensemble has been taken off the board and is in a weird mental state as a result of it.  It also falls into this writer has dubbed: The Riker Trap.

The Riker Trap: Named for First Officer William T. Riker of the Starship Enterprise, this particular Television Sin comes from the Season 3/Season 4 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation “Best of Both Worlds” parts one and two.  In that classic episode the season 3 finale ended with Riker in possession of a fully charged weapon capable of destroying a Borg Cube, ordering Worf to fire on the ship where Captain Picard has been assimilated and is now a Borg drone.  Season 4 resumes with the weapon having no effect and the fans dreams of an epic opening shattered on the floor.  The awesome effects of the cliffhanger are quickly and unsatisfyingly resolved so that the show can get back to normal.

The CW series is fond of using The Riker Trap.  Season 1 of The Flash employed this with the dangerous black hole that was easily stopped off screen, and Legends uses it here to quickly shuffle away the dinosaurs and any hope that the third season might begin with the Legends having to face up to the damage they caused to the timeline.  Instead we get a brief fish out of water story that forces our time traveling heroes to *gasp* get jobs.  The high stakes we ended Season 2 with are immediately removed.

The introduction of the Time Bureau is interesting, but so much of their aesthetic is a direct lift from Men in Black – and aside from the fact that they’re stuffy and rules driven, I fail to see how they will make a suitable foil for The Legends.  

Then there is Rip Hunter, the character who started off in Season One as mildly interesting but slightly unrelatable spent the second season reduced to a brainwashed heel who returned toward the end of the season as a jealous and insecure jerk.  Now his failure is complete and he has become the lame opposition of the heroes of the show. Gone is the cool brown duster and the laser pistol, not he’s got a button down suit and role as the middle manager of the private time cops; which makes no sense for the character because we were introduced to Rip as “the rebel” of The Time Masters.

Hopefully Episode 2 will feel more like the fun, gonzo adventure that Season 2 consistently delivered to us.

Episode 01 MVP: Dominic Purcell, without whom the first episode of Legends of Tomorrow would have been a largely joyless affair.

Episode 01 Honorable Mention: Keiynan Lonsdale, whose brief appearance as Kid Flash was more fun and like comics Wally West than his entire appearance in Episode 01 of The Flash.

NIGHT THREE

Arrow Season 6 Episode 01: “Fallout”

Perhaps for the final time in an Arrow Recap we’ll break the recap into the flashback timeline and the present timeline.

RECAP:

Lian Yu Flashback:  We’re told that we will spend no more time on good old Lian Yu, and while I expect that will be proven wrong – we’ll proceed with this final flaming goodbye to the island that turned spoiled Ollie into gruff and heroic Oliver.    When we left Ollie at the end of Season 5 he was watching multiple explosions rip across the face of Lian Yu, potentially killing all of his friends.  We rejoin him, and his son William, picking through the wreckage looking for survivors – and it isn’t long before they discover that Slade Wilson is alive and well and looking for survivors himself.  We’re given little teases of what happened to everyone; Diggle got his shoulder wrecked by some shrapnel, though we suspect something far worse has happened to him mentally; Mr. Terrific and Wild Dog got very lucky, as did Felicity.  The main crux of the flashbacks though are the fates of Thea, William’s mother, Black Siren, Quentin Lance and Black Canary:  Vice Mayor QL prevented Black Siren from killing Black Canary by shooting his daughter’s evil doppelgänger and – he presumes – killing her.  Black Canary decides to lie to the time and convinces Quentin to do the same, to spare him from having to deal with the pain of saying that he shot and killed Laurel.   Elsewhere, Slade Wilson leads Oliver to Thea who is bloodied and unconscious but still alive – William’s mother is not so lucky.  She urges Oliver to look after their son before dying in front of Oliver.  A mysterious helicopter lands on the island and a man in a suit gets out….

Star City: The Present:  Oliver and team behave like a well-oiled machine when they take down mercenary Alex Faust who is threatening to fire a deadly missile into the city.  Mr. Terrific and his T-Spheres come to the rescue and Faust is taken into custody by the SCPD.  Everyone goes back to the Arrow-Cave, settles down with some Big Belly Burger and goes on with their lives like normal.  Except things are not normal; a very living Black Siren and her gang shoot their way into the SCPD and Faust blasts his way out.  Dinah Drake thinks Siren was targeting Quentin Lance and goes to check on him, only to find he is having yet another struggle with whether or not he should crawl into a bottle over what he did.

Felicity tracks down Black Siren’s gang and the team goes after them, a massive fight ensues – and in the process Diggle struggles with his trembling hand and fails to shoot someone attacking Wild Dog causing Rene to fall off a bridge – collapsing his lung and landing him in the hospital.  Quentin and Dinah tell the team that they think Black Siren is targeting Quentin for, you know, killing her: which makes her next target very likely the SCPD Police Academy graduation where QL will be speaking before the graduating class.  The team agrees to set up surveillance there, and have some extra anti Siren tech in place that requires Felicity to be onsite; Diggle offers to remain at the Arrow Cave and run comms.  Team Arrow hangs out in their civvies at the graduation, waiting for the attack…

Unsurprisingly it was a diversion and Siren’s real target was the Arrow Cave.  Black Siren’s team blasts their way in, and Diggle is again trembling and unable to fire his gun, luckily Team Arrow shows up quickly and is able to route the villains and send them packing.  On her way out, Black Siren taunts Quentin.  After taking stock of the items in the Arrow Cave, the team learns that Siren’s objective was stealing two of Curtis’ prototype T-Spheres.  

Oliver gets Rene another court date to try to regain custody of his daughter, Dinah confronts Diggle when she learns he never fired his gun Ollie visits a hospital ward where we learn finally that Thea is alive but in a coma, while there he meets with Slade Wilson who is about to go looking for his son but takes a moment to give Oliver some advice about his struggles with William.  Oliver goes home to deal with a son who is still slightly afraid of his father – there is a bonding moment and then Felicity calls with an emergency.  Felicity tells him to turn to the news immediately, when he does he sees that someone has leaked a photo of him in full Green Arrow garb with his mask off.  Finally, someone has proof that Oliver Queen is the Green Arrow

REVIEW

I’m about to say something I thought I’d never say, I actually feel that this episode of Arrow was stronger than the other three episodes that aired around it.  This was a refreshing change of pace from the other three premieres, all of which were about resetting the status quo before reverting back to the regular type of story the shows tell.  

Arrow’s premiere was in no way about the status quo, everything in this episode was about change – from Diggle being sidelined by pain or possibly fear, to Dinah stepping up as a stronger member of the team than Laurel ever was, to Oliver and his son having a live in maid, to the final HUGE potential change where Oliver is outed as Green Arrow.  This was an episode of Arrow firing on all cylinders, and doing what Arrow does best: which is a small story being told about big personalities.  The Oliver/Green Arrow reveal may be short lived, but if this is legitimate it could change the very nature of the series – and in a way in which there is comic book precedent.  The statements over the summer were not wrong, this is a lighter and slightly more carefree Oliver, though we are still miles away from the comic book version of the Emerald Archer.

I suspect the next episode will delve a little deeper into what happened in the immediate aftermath of the explosion on Lian Yu so that we can see in greater detail how Felicity survived and more of what fully happened to Diggle.   Of course the main thrust of the coming episode is going to be to find a way to deny, once again, that Oliver Queen is a costumed vigilante.  Maybe they won’t just handwave this one away, and we’ll see some real consequences on a CW show.

Episode 01 MVP: Juliana Harkavy who has come into her own as Dinah Drake/Black Canary in a way that really gels with the current team, while showing that she could easily take on the role in this team that Dinah Lance serves in the comics.  

NEXT WEEK:  Supergirl fights a psychic. Barry’s new suit has some glitches. The Legends vs. P.T. Barnum. Oliver Queen is The Green Arrow.

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DC TELEVISION PREMIERE WEEK

NIGHT ONE

Supergirl Season 3, Episode 01: “Girl of Steel”

RECAP:

We open with a picturesque sequence with Kara walking through a wheat field on a beautiful day with her boyfriend, as they move further along Kara catches sight of a beautiful woman in a blue dress and as the woman returns Kara sees that it is her mother Alura (now played by Erica Durance)*. 

As she snaps awake from her daydream we are introduced to a version of Supergirl we’ve never seen before: cold and moody, skipping outings with her friends, missing deadlines at Catco, this is a Girl of Steel who seems to have all but forsaken her identity as Kara Danvers.

In the aftermath of Season Two Cat Grant has joined the administration of President Marsdin (Lynda Carter) as her new Press Secretary; National City has been rebuilt through the efforts of Supergirl and a council made up of prominent business leaders like Lena Luthor and Media Mogul/Evil Businessman Morgan Edge (Adrian Pasdar)* who desperately wants the council to approve a housing development he’d like to make at the waterfront.  The very docks where in just a few short days the city plans to  dedicate a statue to Supergirl.  

Part of Morgan Edge’s plan is to buy out all the primary shares of CatCo so that he can use it to turn public opinion against L Corp (the rebranded LexCorp now being run by Lex’s sister.) The other part of the plan is that he has hired one of the best mercenaries on the planet (no not Deathstroke) named Bloodsport (David St. Louis) to launch a missile that will destroy the waterfront property and clear the way for Edge’s housing development

Meanwhile both the DEO and CatCo teams are tired of Supergirl feeling sorry for herself after losing Mon-El.  Supergirl on the other hand is not done wallowing, she quits her job as a reporter at CatCo and tells her sister Alex that she is done pretending to be human – that Kara Danvers was a mistake.

A good lecture form J’onn J’onzz and a pitched battle with a submarine featuring a mysterious daydream message from Mon-El are enough to snap Kara out of her funk.  The cloaked Sub is stopped, Potential season villain Reign (Odette Annable)* makes her first appearance, and after a brief argument over the size of the pending Sanvers wedding – Alex asks J’onn to walk her down the aisle.  Back in Kara’s daytime life we learn that Lena Luthor managed to buy CatCo out from under Morgan Edge and wants Kara to return to work as a reporter to help her run the company.

Reawakened to her humanity, Kara decides it is time to stop moping – puts on her glasses and goes out to the bar to meet her friends.

Reign has a weird dream featuring a demonic creature wearing the same dress as Kara’s mother whilst standing in the same field.

REVIEW:

This season premiere didn’t have the immediate “hit the ground running” feel that season two did, but a lot of that episode’s urgency came from the introduction of Superman and the introduction of the new Canadian locations and sets.  The benefit of having so thoroughly established itself not once, but twice, Supergirl is now free to take a breath and give us a slow burn season opener.  

Seeing a Supergirl who mopes and broods feels fundamentally wrong, and before long the audience is just as on board with snapping her back to normal as the rest of the team at the DEO.  

The introduction of not only Reign, but also the mysterious idea that Mon-El is still somehow communicating with Kara from wherever his weird space portal took him is handled slowly – which thus far in the CW Arrowverse is not something we’ve seen.  Usually we’re confronted very early with what our overarching plotlines are and the season slowly unravels the details of “how” it happened or will happen.  It’s refreshing to take something and just let it play.

Morgan Edge is a great scenery chewing business baddie in the vein of a Lex Luthor, and it is fun to see him dive in deep and start building a menacing figure – but what really doesn’t work is that most of his interactions in the episode are with a Katie McGrath who it seems completely forgot how to do the American accent she had utilized for Lena Luthor in season two. Slipping back and forth between her natural Irish lilt and an austere American dialect makes her performance more than a little distracting.

Episode 01 MVP: Chyler Leigh* who doubles down on the heart in the absence of Kara Danvers, and manages to deliver the two funniest exchanges of the episode when she refuses to acknowledge that moody Kara behaves a lot like normal Alex and again when she demands that J’onn not offer any evidence that she is capable of crying.

NIGHT TWO PART ONE

The Flash Season 4, Episode 01: “The Flash Reborn”

RECAP:

With Barry Allen trapped in the Speed Force, Team Flash has had to adapt to keep Central City safe.  We return to them already in progress, with Team Kid Flash (a name that is getting very little traction) working like a relatively well-oiled machine.  Wally and Cisco are working well as a unit, bantering as they chase the teleporting villain Peek-A-Boo (Britne Oldford) in a direction that steers her toward the waiting handcuffs of Joe West and the CCPD; all at the direction of Iris who is calling the shots from her desk at S.T.A.R. Labs.  Iris has become overbearing in her leadership of Team Flash, trying to hold herself and the team together without Barry – until a mysterious Samurai with energy-releasing katanas shows up with a demand that Wally and Cisco turn over “the real Flash” within twenty-four hours before easily taking them both down with his super swords.

Iris feels that they need to power through to find a solution to the Samurai problem, but Cisco decides that the only way to do it is to find a way to release Barry from the Speed Force prison and get the Flash back into the game.  To do this he recruits Caitlin Snow to come out of her self-imposed Killer Frost related retirement and help him tweak the Speed Force Bazooka to launch a ball of Quark Matter infused with Barry’s DNA into the Speed Force thus freeing Barry to return.  Team Flash, minus an Iris who opposes the plan, shows up at the abandoned airstrip where Barry first tested his powers with S.T.A.R. Labs back in Season One – and Cisco fires the Bazooka off, but Barry does not return.

Except, 300 miles away a hole rips open in the Speed Force and out runs a naked and confused Barry Allen.  With his brain scrambled, Barry is in no way ready to help Team Flash so they put him in a holding cell until they can get through to him.  Wally runs off to face the mysterious Samurai wearing Barry’s old Flash suit (Cisco has already built Barry a new one) and gets his ass handed to him.  Iris takes a leap of faith and turns herself over to the Samurai, hoping that it will shake Barry out of his scrambled state and that he will come after her.  And she is correct.  Barry explodes out of the containment cell (which was an impossible feat for both he and Reverse Flash before) and races after Iris and the Samurai at speeds no speedster has achieved to date.  He defeats the Samurai and reunites with the love of his life, once again completely Barry Allen.

Team Flash discovers that the Samurai was a robot, Cisco names it a Samuroid.  Barry tells the team that he has no memory of his time in the speed force, or of his stint with a swiss cheese brain.  Caitlin decides to stay with Team Flash, but when she tries to quit her job at the seedy dive bar she is accosted and must break out some Killer Frost ice to save herself.  

And finally: The Mechanic (Kim Engelbrecht) and The Thinker (Neil Sandilands) make their debut in a final tease that shows The Thinker was responsible for sending the Samuroid after Team Flash.

REVIEW:

Once again, we begin the season Wellsless as Tom Cavanagh does not appear – just like Seasons one and two.

The fear when Barry stepped into the Speed Force at the end of Season 3 was that much like the Flashpoint timeline he created in the previous cliffhanger, his disappearance would be wrapped up very quickly in the new season and would feel consequentless.   That is exactly what happened, even though it did play rather well.  The version of the team that was comprised of Iris, Wally and Joe was a fun dynamic and it would have been nice to let that breathe a little bit; maybe let Wally West be The Flash for a couple of episodes before needing to pull Barry out of the Speed Force.  That said, the premiere handled both Barry’s absence and return rather well.  His strange behavior on coming out of the Speed Force came across as a kind of aphasia where he simply was not making sense, but as an audience member it was readily apparent that some of the things Barry was saying were snatches of dialogue from previous episodes, and some that hinted at future storylines.  The conceit being that Barry had lived his life on a loop within the Speed Force and was still experiencing it all out of order once he returned to S.T.A.R. Labs.

The story was relatively straightforward, but it was excellent to see Team Flash facing off against a Samuroid.  The new Flash Suit is great looking, it adds more gold lightning elements and is much more of a classic Flash red than the previous iterations of the suit on the show.  Next episode seems to be all about the suit and how some of Cisco’s engineering of the suit might go wrong (presumably due to The Thinker.)

The stated mission of Season Four was to return to the lighthearted tone of Season One, and it’s certainly moving in that direction.

Episode 01 MVP: Carlos Valdes who finally brought Cisco back around full to his more bantery Season One/Season Two self.  The comedy was welcome, and grounding his desire to get Barry and Caitlin back in the raw emotion of him missing his friends and missing the way things used to be really allowed the character to shine.  Best moment: “We back baby!”

Unlike Team Flash, we aren’t “back” because we never left – but we are certainly kicking off the Four Color TV Column in earnest with this look at Flash and Supergirl.

Stay tuned for Part II, our look at Legends of Tomorrow and Arrow’s Season Premieres.  

Presents

Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow: Where do we go from here?

Just a few days, my Mirakuru warriors, before the Maid of Might bursts back onto our TV screens and brings with her the entirety of the CW DC Television Universe.   We’ve spent all summer looking backward and the last two weeks looking toward what is in store for us this season on Arrow and The Flash.  Now it’s time to look toward the Adventures of Supergirl and the time-traveling antics of Legends of Tomorrow.

But first, Big Belly Burger:

SUPERGIRL

When we left Kara she had just defeated the invading force of Daxamites, but in doing so had made it so that her own boyfriend Mon-El could no longer live on Earth.  Mon-El escaped in a pod, before being promptly sucked into a portal – and Supergirl flew away alone.  So, what happens next?

When we did this last week for The Flash crew we looked at what the new season might bring for each of the main characters and we’ll do the same here.  Starting of course with:

KARA/SUPERGIRL

We’ve seen the season finale trope where the hero makes the big sacrifice and runs away from their actions before.  At the end of Season 2 of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Buffy quit being the Slayer and fled to Los Angeles after sacrificing Angel to save the world; at the end of Season 2 of Smallville Clark Kent put on a red kryptonite ring and fled to Metropolis to hide from the damage he wrought back home.  What we’ve never really seen though is the way in which Kara Danvers is reacting to her sacrifice – usually the hero gives up their heroic identity or becomes someone new entirely; Supergirl has instead chosen to stop being Kara and only focus on her identity as Supergirl.  With her heart broken, Kara is leaning into her stronger persona – but I doubt it will be too long before Kara is back to smiling uncontrollably and being our big damn hero.   But with certain Kryptonian developments, expect our Girl of Steel to be put through the ringer once again.  

ALEX DANVERS

Everyone’s favorite DEO Scientist/Badass spent last season settling into a relationship with National City Detective Maggie Sawyer, and that relationship seems to be going strong.  We have been promised by series producers that this season will restore the emphasis on the relationship between Kara and Alex, which you can see seems to be an important part in making the turn to get Kara back to normal at the beginning of the season.

JAMES OLSEN

Season two ended the flirtation between James and Kara and pulled him into a plotline where he took on the Superhero mantle of The Guardian.  We’ve been told that Season Three will feature a new love interest for James and a deeper exploration of the friendship between James and Winn.

HANK/J’ONN

My favorite Martian spent season two struggling to come to terms with his own hatred of the White Martians and the fact that they destroyed his family.  We didn’t see much of the character filling the role of surrogate father to Alex and Kara that we’d seen in Season One, but producers are hinting that we’ll again see more of that in Season Three.  We’ve also been told that J’onn is going to have a big family story when he gets to reconnect with his own father played by Carl Lumbly (otherwise known as the actor who famously played Martian Manhunter on the Justice League Animate series.)

CAT GRANT

We don’t know much, but we do know that Cat will appear in more episodes in Season 3 than she did in Season 2.  Hopefully this will be part of a major storyline involving Cat Grant and The President of the United States played by Linda Carter.

LENA LUTHOR

Sister to Lex, friend to Kara, brilliant scientific mind.  There is simply no way that this season doesn’t further tease a fall from grace that follows the path Michael Rosenbaum charted as Lex on Smallville.

MON-EL

We’re told that Mon-El’s disappearance at the end of the season will be a central mystery in Season Three, and this coupled with other casting news is leading to speculation that Mon-El’s season ending portal was in fact a portal to the 31st Century.

REIGN

The main villain of Season 3, Reign is a Kryptonian experiment launched to Earth around the same time Kara and Clark were.  In the comics Reign was a biological weapon known as a Worldkiller, and in the show we’ll meet her as portrayed by Odette Annable - a single mother who is unaware she was genetically engineered on Krypton.  Expect shades of Davis Bloome from Season 8 of Smallville.

ALURA ZOR-EL

Actress Laura Benanti will not be making the move to Vancouver to reappear as Kara Zor-El’s dead mother, instead the role will now be filled by Smallville alum (the second Lois Lane to appear on Supergirl to date) Erica Durance.

SATURN GIRL

Actress Amy Jackson has been cast as Saturn Girl, a member of the Legion of Superheroes: the group of legacy heroes in the 31st century that are inspired by the modern DC Universe heroes.  Is she responsible for the time portal that whisked Mon-El to the future?  Will we see other members of the Legion?  Will we finally see something come of the Legion Flight Ring teased back in Season One?  

SUPERMAN

No word yet on whether or not Tyler Hoechlin will return during Season Three.

THE THEME

The stated focus of Season 3 is on what it means to be human, and the struggle to embrace one’s humanity.  This is fertile ground to explore with both Supergirl, and Reign who is as far from human as Kara herself.  It could well be we’ve heard no word of the return of Superman because frankly a Clark Kent appearance early in the season might undermine the exploration of this theme as it relates to Kara.  Clark has his humanity thoroughly figured out after all.

Now we move to: LEGENDS OF TOMORROW

When last we left the Legends they had stopped the Legion of Doom and thoroughly broken time.  What happens next?

Legends is a little different in that our ensemble is way too interconnected to look at what the upcoming season might mean for each individual character, so for the purpose of this article let’s look at the broad strokes.

BROKEN TIME

Dinosaurs in LA, the team finally makes it to Aruba where Mick has been suggesting they go since Season One – only to find that Julius Caesar is there.  There is a lot of fall-out from Season two that our team is going to have to deal with.  There’s just one tiny problem:

THE TIME BUREAU

Rip Hunter has taken his time shuttle and recruited a second team of time travelers to fix time, and the comparison between the two teams is that The Time Bureau is a scalpel and The Legends are a chainsaw.  With another team out there trying to fix the things The Legends broke, things are bound to get a little tricky.

ISIS

Digging backwards into the DC Archive, Legends is adding to the Legends roster by including Tala Ashe in the role of Zari Adrianna Tomaz  - an archaeologist who discovers an amulet that allows her to transform into the Egyptian goddess Isis.

THE OTHER VIXEN

Amaya Jiwe is Vixen, or rather she is the 1940’s Justice Society version of Vixen.  In the present there is another Vixen, who has an evil sister named Kuasa (Tracy Ifeachor) who is going to bring the time bending family drama of the Vixens to the forefront on Legends Season 3.

P.T. BARNUM

Billy Zane (yes that Billy Zane) will be joining the show as P.T. Barnum, possibly as a villain – possibly just for an episode.  Who knows? Who cares? So much scenery will be chewed.

ALL YOUR FAVORITES

Neal McDonough has been added as a series regular for Season 3, meaning that there is so much more Damian Darhk snark coming our way in Season 3.  He isn’t , however, the only one as we know that Wentworth Miller has been listed as a recurring character this season – one hopes this means they have plans to finally reverse Leonard Snart’s unnecessary and untimely demise.

NEXT WEEK: Join us for our first week of full episode reviews.  From the moment the Girl of Steel takes flight, to the moment we finally find out who survived the explosion on Lian Yu: we’re you’re one stop shop for recap and review.

To catch all the DC CW goodness for yourself – tune into your local CW channel on the following schedule.

Starting October 9th Supergirl airs Mondays at 8:00 PM Eastern/7:00 PM Central

Starting October 10th The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8:00 PM Eastern/7:00 PM Central

Also Starting October 10th Legends of Tomorrow airs Tuesdays at 9:00 PM Eastern/8:00 PM Central

Starting October 12th Arrow airs Thursdays at 9:00PM Eastern/8:00 PM Central

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Presents

The Flash: Where do we go from here?

We draw ever closer to the premiere of the CW DC Television shows, and while we have spent an entire summer looking backward at what these shows were, it is now time to look forward to what might be coming in the fast approaching new season.

When last we looked in on Central City, Barry Allen had defeated Savitar but with a major cost that needed to be paid.  Without a speedster occupying the Speed Force prison created for Savitar, the Speed Force unleashed a storm that would rip the Universe apart – and someone needed to willingly enter the prison to stop the storm.  Barry said goodbye to his friends and family and stepped into the Speed Force, with no idea just how long he would be there.    So what happens next?

When we did this last week for the Arrow crew we looked at what the new season might bring for each of the main characters and we’ll do the same here.  Starting of course with:

BARRY

Well the latest trailer seems to indicate that Barry is getting pulled out of the Speed Force sooner than some of us thought he would, but that isn’t all that surprising – he is after all the star of the show and television is understandably less willing to replace their lead for an extended period of time.  We do know from interviews with Grant Gustin that Barry won’t quite be himself when he returns, and will spend a little time rediscovering who he is.  The big pieces of news are 1.) that Barry will be getting a new Flash suit this season with a brighter red and more gold lightning bolt accents (and rather early on from the looks of it) and 2.) the Barry/Iris wedding will be happening this year.

IRIS

Candice Patton has been quite excited about the fact that Iris is taking on a leadership role at S.T.A.R. Labs in Barry’s absence and is making herself much more at home with the other members of Team Flash. It’s certainly nice to see the actress excited about where this season is going after the doom and gloom of last season, and it looks like the West/Allen nuptials will be coming in the first half of the season – right around the time of the four part cross over event.

WALLY

During the first week of production on Season four of The Flash, photos leaked of Keiynan Lonsdale wearing the Barry Allen Flash suit rather than his own Kid Flash gear.  This fueled rumors that we would spend longer than expected with Barry in the Speed Force and Wally filling the role of The Flash.  We now know that Barry is returning much sooner than expected and that Wally’s time in the red suit will be short lived.  Lonsdale himself went on record as saying that he feels like Wally has a lot of growing up to do before he can be ready to take on the red jumpsuit and lead Team Flash alone.  We do know that in the absence of Barry, Wally has worked closely with Cisco and the two will have built up a better rapport.

CISCO

Cisco Ramon is lost without his best friend and just wants to bring him home, which looks like it will cause a little conflict between Cisco and Iris.  We don’t know much about what is coming down the pike for Cisco beyond that he’ll soon be meeting his multiverse hopping girlfriends father played by none other than Danny Trejo.

CAITLIN

Doctor Snow is back with Team Flash, but the Producers are hinting that her days as Killer Frost might not be over.  Producer Andrew Kreisberg said that “If you’re a fan of Caitlin Snow, you’ll be very happy with Season four, and if you’re a fan of Killer Frost you’ll be very happy with season four.”  Who knows where that goes, beyond the fact that Team Flash is back to normal fairly quickly in the season.

JOE

We don’t know much about Joe’s arc in season four, beyond the fact that he’ll continue to explore a relationship with the District Attorney Cecille Horton.

HARRISON/HARRY/HR WELLS

The one element no preview so far has shown us is Tom Cavanagh’s role in the upcoming season.  At the end of last season we watched H.R. Wells sacrifice himself in Iris’ place and Earth 2’s Harry Wells promise to stick around for a while to work with Team Flash.  We have learned though that the sixth episode of the season will be titled “When Harry Met Harry” so there is simply no telling what multiverse hijinks will go on, and what Cavanagh has in store for us this year.

JULIAN

Apparently Tom Felton’s Julian Albert will not be a series regular in season four, what this means for the character we have no idea.

RALPH DIBNY

The classic detective with a nose for clues, The Elongated Man Ralph Dibny will be joining The Flash in Season Four as played by Hartley Sawyer (Glory Daze, Young and the Restless.)  Dibny was referenced in The Flash Season One as having gone missing on the day the particle accelerator exploded, so it is awesome to see this being paid off finally.

THE MECHANIC

Kim Engelbrecht has been cast as “The Mechanic” a mysterious character working alongside the season villain Clifford DeVoe.  Nothing is known about The Mechanic, and there is very little corollary in the DC Universe.  

THE THINKER

Neil Sandilands (The 100) has been cast as the main villain of Season Four, Clifford DeVoe aka The Thinker – one of The Flash comic books oldest villains.  Introduced in 1943 as a villain for original Flash Jay Garrick, DeVoe was a former lawyer who took on a career as a criminal mastermind and shot-caller for small time villains.  Later incarnations of The Thinker were almost inhumanly intelligent, and it seems that the TV version may take a cue from other versions of the character.  Producers are billing him as “The Fastest Mind Alive.”

THE TONE

Andrew Kreisberg has spent the summer getting the word out that this season will bring back the lighter tone of Season One and will restore the joy and sense of adventure that made that initial season so successful.  Following on the heels of the oppressively dark Season 3, this is a welcome change.  Another welcome change is that The Flash will not be facing off against another speedster for the entire season, the “I must get faster to defeat [Speedster X]” formula can certainly use a break.

THE CROSSOVER

Just this past weekend it was announced that the CWDC crossover this year will be the four hour “Crisis on Earth X” which appears to be our heroes versus their evil counterparts from another earth in the multiverse.  The poster released to tease the event certainly makes it look like everything goes down at Barry and Iris’ wedding.  

NEXT WEEK:  What to expect from Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow’s third seasons.

IN TWO WEEKS: The DC Universe returns to the CW!

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In this week's episode Matthew flies solo and discusses one of his favorite Marvel heroes, Captain America. Taking a break from the small screen, Matt dives into the four color pages of one of the most game-changing runs in Cap's long and storied history. 

Intro ("Captain America March" by Alan Silvestri from the Captain America: The First Avenger Soundtrack) Outro ("Captain America Theme" by Jack Urbont from the 1966 Marvel Super Heroes Show) 

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Presents

Arrow: Where do we go from here?

There are just a handful of weeks left before the CW DC Universe bursts back onto our TV Screens; and while we have spent an entire summer looking backward it is now time to cast our eyes forward to what might happen in the upcoming season.

When last we left Arrow, Oliver Queen was on a boat in the South China Sea – having just shot Prometheus to save his son William when all of a sudden the entire island of Lian Yu erupted into a massive series of explosions with the entirety of Team Arrow somewhere on the island.  Where could Arrow possibly go from that explosive ending.

Before we branch off into wild speculation, let’s take a look at what we know about Arrow Season 6 so far.  As always contractual obligations give us the quickest and most obvious spoilers in that almost every single person whose fate was left in question at the end of Season 5 is under contract to return in Season 6.  Just because they’re definitely coming back does not mean that there are no consequences to last season’s finale table flip.  Let’s look at what we know is coming for our favorite characters.

OLIVER

Oliver was never in any danger of blowing up, because it’s kind of hard to have a show called Arrow without The Green Arrow – also he was safely on a boat when the bomb went off – but we are led to believe that the bomb will fundamentally change Ollie’s life as it will leave him the primary care giver to his son William.  Star Stephen Amell has been hinting that he would like to see this coming season feature a brighter more comics accurate version of Oliver now that the character has confronted the trauma of his time at Lian Yu – whether that will come about still remains to be seen.

FELICITY

Little has been revealed so far about the final fate of Felicity Smoak, but the writers and producers have stated that Felicity will have to contend with the Anonymous styled hacker group known as Helix who as a result of Season 5 are not exactly thrilled with Team Arrow’s uber hacker.

DIGGLE

The slow leak of news about Season 6 has also revealed little about the fate of John Diggle except for direct quotes from David Ramsey who says that his character is “deeply affected” by the events on Lian Yu – emotionally and physically.  Is it possible that Diggle has been severely wounded by Oliver’s crusade much as Felicity was during Season 4?  Another piece of Diggle related news is that rocky times are coming for Dig and his wife Lyla, whom Diggle worries is losing her moral compass and becoming more and more like former A.R.G.U.S. Director Amanda Waller.

SLADE WILSON

Long since believed to be off limits to Arrow thanks to Joe Mangianello’s Slade supposedly set as the villain in The Batman, fans were shocked to get a return of Manu Bennett as Deathstroke at the end of Season 5.  What we know for certain now is that Slade will be a big part of at least the first part of Season 6, with promises that there will be a two part episode devoted specifically to Slade and his search for his son Joseph who will be played by relative unknown Liam Hall.  No longer clouded by the Mirakuru, Slade is still somewhat of an X-Factor because he clearly has not completely forgiven Oliver for the death of Shado.  Expect some tension between our leather clad warriors.

THEA QUEEN

Thea is the wild card in all of this, we have no real statements about a direction the character will take in Season 6 and Willa Holland had already taken on a smaller role on the show during Season 5.  Could Thea be dead? Sure.  Has that stopped Thea before? No.

QUENTIN LANCE

The Vice Mayor is another for whom we just don’t have any information, which is not atypical at this point since he is on the civilian side for the most part.  Without any news, and given the fact that this show practically gets off on killing members of the Lance family in Season Premiere’s – QL might be in trouble.  If he does survive, expect him to have some drama with his dead daughter’s Earth 2 doppelgänger as well as her replacement.

WILD DOG

Newcomer to Team Arrow, has been added as a series regular for the upcoming season, so it seems that Rene is safe from any lasting explosion damage.

MISTER TERRIFIC

Still no word on the fate of Curtis Holt either, so it’s fair to say that Mr. Holt might not be entirely safe.

BLACK CANARY

Also added as a new series regular, the Dinah Drake version of Black Canary is getting a new super suit this year to help her do some serious ass kicking as part of Team Arrow.

BLACK SIREN

The woman that simply will not die, Laurel Lance returns once more in the form of the Earth 2 villainess Black Siren who may or may not be hoping to explore the things that made Earth 1 Laurel such a good person.  Expect tension between the two ladies with The Canary Cry.

ROY HARPER

Colton Haynes has confirmed that Roy Harper aka Arsenal WILL return to Arrow in Season 6, though we currently know nothing more than that.

MALCOLM MERLYN

One of only two characters we KNOW was killed in the explosion on Lian Yu, actor John Barrowman expressed sadness that his time on Arrow was over and regret over how it had ended and within hours DC/CW Producers went out of their way to publicly inform Barrowman and the world that Malcolm Merlyn can and WILL return whenever Barrowman would like.  Even death can’t stop a fun actor in a world with a vast multiverse.

RICARDO DIAZ

Kirk Acevedo (The Thin Red Line, Band of Brothers, Fringe)  is joining the series in a recurring role as Ricardo Diaz, alias Richard Dragon a master martial artist who trained some of the greatest fighters in the DC Universe, including Nightwing, Huntress, and Batgirl.  More important to Arrow Season 6 is the fact that Diaz/Dragon is a member of the League of Assassins (who don’t like Oliver very much after all) as well as being a member of an organization known as The Longbow Hunters who served as a modern update to the original team of deadly assassins who targeted and nearly destroyed The Green Arrow.

SAMANDA WATSON

Sydelle Noel (GLOW) will be joining Arrow as an FBI agent hunting down the connection between Oliver Queen and The Green Arrow.

UNNAMED MICHAEL EMERSON CHARACTER

We know that Michael Emerson (Lost, Person of Interest) has been cast in a role on Arrow, beyond that we know literally nothing.  A vague comment was that he would be playing a character similar to roles he has played in the past has led to a great deal of internet speculation that he is playing the leader of HELIX, and that would be the safest bet.  My hope is that they are doing something amazing that would also really suit Emerson as an actor, and that would be to cast Emerson in the role of Vic Sage otherwise known as The Question – a brilliant costumed private investigator who was trained in combat by Ricardo Diaz.

VIGILANTE

The biggest dangling thread from Season 5 isn’t the elite hacker organization that is after Felicity, it is the murderous Vigilante known as Vigilante who it was revealed in a surprise twist was NOT Adrian Chase right before the character vanished for the remainder of the season.  Who is behind those ski goggles if not Chase, who is hunting the streets of Star City?  We’re told we’ll see this mystery resolved.  Is it Michael Emerson, or in a strange twist does Adrian Chase have a twin brother who is also looking to ruin Oliver’s life?

SPECULATION:

Early in the summer Stephen Amell hinted that someone we have not seen since Season One will return. I am hard pressed to think of any Season One characters who didn’t at least have one more appearance, so feel free to speculate wildly.

The casting of Acevedo as Diaz has fueled speculation that Arrow will do their own version of The Longbow Hunters storyline (either the original or the New 52 version) and while that would certainly be a strong story – it is quite similar to what was done last season with the character of Prometheus.  

I suspect we will see a grounded season where Oliver works to rebuild Team Arrow and put his own life back together while vigilantes inspired by him and villains looking to depose him band together in an all against the middle plot reminiscent of Deathstroke’s scheme from Season two.  I have my fingers crossed for another appearance by The Huntress to tie into Ricardo Diaz.

In four weeks we’ll have our answer when Arrow moves to its new night and time: Thursdays at 9:00 on the CW.

NEXT WEEK: With Barry trapped in the Speed Force, who is The Fastest Man Alive?

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In this week's episode Matthew welcomes a Very Special Guest, Ms. Katie Gillespie, to discuss their binge through all of CW's The Flash Season 1. 

Intro / Outro ("The Fastest Man Alive" by Blake Neely) 

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and

The Scoring Session

Present

The Music of The CW

Each month on The Scoring Session we look at the fascinating and complex role musical score plays in the narrative of motion pictures, and today we’re going to shift that focus to the four-color television series’ of The CW.

In a feature length film a composer is given a finite story that they create thematic music for, in our first issue of The Scoring Session we explored John Williams’ score for Superman: The Movie which was broken down into the following themes: The Krypton Theme, The Smallville Theme, The Metropolis Theme, The Lex Luthor Theme, The Superman Theme and The Love Theme.  It is one of the most finely crafted film scores ever made, and it serves as a template for other superhero films that come after, but it had the benefit of the movie being complete.  

Unless we’re talking about a mini series, television series composers don’t have the luxury of scoring a completed project – so how does one approach creating a score for a show like Arrow or The Flash?

Blake Neely, composer of all the DC CW television universe shows, approached his scores by creating versatile overall themes for the series that could double as both action set pieces for the shows themselves and as main themes for the lead character.  For the dark and brooding Arrow he created a synth and strings heavy percussive score that represents the street level vigilantism of Oliver Queen. The other score elements of the series in its pilot phase and throughout the course of the last six years have grown out of this simple dramatic motif.

Brought in to create the theme for The Flash two years later, Neely decided to create a score that is equal parts a soft melodic piano scale that represents the gentle Barry Allen and a matching synth scale that represents his speed demon alter ego The Flash.  The Fastest Man Alive’s theme is a note progression that rises and rises again and again, the repetitive and fast motion of a run.  The synth and piano musical palate, with additional stings of 50’s sci fi sound effects, permeate the rest of The Flash score.

When scoring the more traditionally heroic Supergirl Neely decided to give her series a broad and traditional Superhero theme in the vein of Williams’ hopeful Superman score.  To reflect the strong and hopeful nature of the Girl of Steel, Neely leaned into a full orchestra and delivered a score that felt more open and cinematic than the other two.

Legends of Tomorrow is a more unique challenge in that, unlike the other three CW DC shows, it focuses on more than just one hero.  To reflect the massive ensemble cast and the way they interact Neely pulled out all the stops and created a thematic piece that employs the style of all the other shows in a uniquely action-oriented heroic package.  A little synth and strings to represent the characters from Arrow, a little orchestral strings and operatic voices for the heroic new characters and some rising piano scales to represent the characters from The Flash, with a dash of hard rock guitar to round everything out.

It’s all fairly standard fair, but it is accomplished with a unique flair that makes each of the four series feel uniquely grounded musically.  During the yearly crossovers though, Neely is given a chance to truly shine by creating a self contained cinematic score that contains all the series individual elements as well as the bold thematic underpinnings of the crossover.  The first major crossover blended the Arrow and Flash themes into a bold action score that fit both characters, the second crossover fit together in a way that set the stage for the premiere of Legends of Tomorrow, and the third crossover (the four night Invasion!) storyline merged all four shows into a truly epic visual and musical experience.

The true opportunity to really stretch his legs musically was afforded to Neely during this most recent season with a special crossover episode that found The Flash and Supergirl trapped inside a musical.  Working with Rachel Bloom of My Crazy Ex Girlfirned, and Benj Paseck and Justin Paul of La La Land fame to write lyrics to two original numbers – Neely wrote the music and reorchestrated other standards and covers to provide 42 minutes of music for an American Song Book, Bugsby Berkely 1940’s Holloywood style musical in which both Kara Danvers and Barry Allen are trapped.

Puling from the highly musical cast of both Supergirl and The Flash, the musical opens properly with Melissa Benoist delivering her solo of the classic ‘Moon River’ which segues into the big opening number that utilizes almost the entire cast, a bold showstopper version of “Put a Little Love in Your Heart.”

Next up is an incredible rendition of the “Guys and Dolls” classic “More I cannot Wish you” belted out by the Broadway/West End luminaries of Victor Garber, Jesse L. Martin, and John Barrowman.  The second Jesse L. Martin began to sing, big crocodile tears formed on my face, this piece was incredibly moving.

After the legacy voices have delivered an amazing number, it’s time for The Flash and Supergirl to do as the episode title promised and perform their duet.  Written by Rachel Bloom, their number “Superfriend” is a fun piece that plants its tongue firmly in cheek allowing these two talents to shine as both singers and dancers.

In the end of course this all took place on an episode of The Flash, so Barry needs one final number to wrap out the episode – and to do that we go to the Pascek and Paul collaboration “Running Home To You” ballad sung by Barry to Iris.

I would have liked to hear a little more from Jeremy Jordan and Carlos Valdes. Winn and Cisco have some serious pipes and I wished they’d really gotten to use them, but overall this musical episode was quite effective.  There were some unfair comparisons between this episode and the classic “Once More With Feeling” musical episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, with some reviewers complaining that this episode was “lazy” because Joss Whedon had written a full libretto for his Broadway style musical.  These reviewers, I feel, missed the point that this was meant to be inspired by Bugsby Berkely Hollywood musicals full of standards backing up thin but heartfelt plots like Hollywood Hotel, Comet over Broadway or Girl Crazy.  Both episodes are displaying two different subsets of the genre.

NEXT WEEK:  Who survived the Island?  A look ahead at Arrow Season 6

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Presents

Always Hold on to Smallville

Long ago the conventional wisdom was that superheroes were the domain of children’s storytelling, and even though comic books themselves grew beyond that – it took longer for other media to come around to the idea that four color characters could be used to tell complex dramatic stories.  No matter how enjoyable Richard Donner’s Superman, or Tim Burton’s Batman are – there is no denying that both films were made with their tongues firmly planted in their cheek.   

The comic book television series of today are infinitely more mature and sedate than their predecessors, even light hearted romps like Legends of Tomorrow or Supergirl are much more serious ventures than shows like Mutant X or Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.  The modern approach is inspired by one groundbreaking Warner Bros. TV series that changed the scope of television forever: Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  I know, based on the title of this column you thought I was going to say Smallville – and while I will be effusive in my praise for the 10 seasons of Clark Kent growing up to become the Man of Steel I also want to fairly portray the paradigm shift that created the world we now live in.

Premiering in late 1996, just after the surprise sleeper hit of Wes Craven’s Scream, Buffy exploded onto the small screen and created a zeitgeist that propelled the nearly dead WB Television network to sudden success.  The net result was that Hollywood finally took notice of the teen demographic and their incredible buying power, which shifted the way TV was marketed and the kinds of shows that got made on networks like The WB, UPN, and Fox.  The teen explosion gave us Dawson’s Creek, Charmed, Felicity, The Gilmore Girls, Angel, Roswell and many more, with many of the writers and producers of those shows going on to create and produce a lot of our modern genre television.  Greg Berlanti the mastermind behind Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow was the head writer on Dawson’s Creek; Drew Goddard and Douglas Petrie – the minds behind Daredevil and The Defenders were both staff writers and producers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.  Buffy shifted the way TV targets an audience, it served as the proving ground for talented writers, directors, and actors that now define not just genre television but all television – and it created a very simple formula for a live action superhero show.  Each season focused on a “Big Bad” whose villainy was the overarching plot of the entire season; standalone episodes were the main focus with a monster of the week – but the “Big Bad” plot would slowly unfold until it erupted at mid-season and then came to a conclusion at the end of the season.  Many shows have now copied that formula, including the DC CW TV series’ and the Marvel Netflix series’.

The first show to take the Buffy formula and apply it directly to a superhero format was indeed Smallville which premiered in 2001 a little over a month after 9/11.  Originally pitched as a “young Batman series” Al Gough and Miles Millar’s WB project was retooled to focus on a young Superman when it became clear that Batman was unavailable – the result was a show that took the young man who would one day be Superman and turned him into a modern teenager just trying to squeak by unnoticed with special powers  Rules were set up from the get go that there would be “no tights and no flights” meaning we would spend the series focused on the more human elements of Clark Kent than the fantastical hero he one day becomes.  Relative unknown actor Tom Welling took on the role of Clark Kent, being raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent as portrayed fantastically by John Schneider and Annette O’Toole.  Clark’s friends in the small farming community of Smallville were made up of cub reporter/alien aficionado Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack,) all around good guy/car enthusiast Pete Ross (Same Jones III,) and girl next door/Clark’s unrequited crush Lana Lang (Kristen Kreuk.)  Making things difficult for Clark would be bad boy who hasn’t quite gone evil yet/Clark’s new best friend Lex Luthor as envisioned by Michael Rosenbaum – who has been banished to Smallville by his father Lionel Luthor (John Glover) to prove himself.  

The first four seasons of the series focused on Clark making his way through High School while discovering his Kryptonian origins and developing his new powers slowly.  Clark at first only has his invulnerability, his speed and his strength – the rest comes over time.  Clark is given ample opportunity to test his powers as they emerge, because in a brilliant move on the part of the producers Clark and his ship crashed in Smallville the same day as the meteoric debris of Krpyton – while the radioactive bits of meteor rock known as Kryptonite are deadly to Clark – they have a different effect on human physiology.  Most of the people who come into routine contact with Kryptonite are mutated by the element and gifted with amazing powers that often lead them to becoming the “freaks of the week” that Clark must stop to save his town.  An early meteor freak was Amy Adams who would go on to play Lois Lane herself in Man of Steel. If this meteor infected bad guy of the week formula sounds to you like a familiar plot point, it should – in Smallville it is Kryptonite that turns random people into potentially villainous meteor freaks, but in Central City it is the particle accelerator that created the metahumans that The Flash must face.  

Lex Luthor is Clark’s friend, but he’s far from stupid, and he realizes that Clark is way too close to all the mysterious goings on in Smallville; so he begins to investigate his friend.  Lex will draw closer and closer to the truth about Clark as the series progresses, and this will put Clark in considerable danger.  On the flip side of the coin the friends who wouldn’t dissect Clark for his secrets all eventually learn the truth, Pete learns earliest – then Chloe and then finally Lana.  Chloe Sullivan’s cousin Lois Lane (Erica Durance) is introduced in season four and spends a great deal of time circling the secret herself.

Season One is a simply a “freak of the week” season that introduces us to the world of Smallville, and the threat of the Luthors.  Season Two introduces more of the Superman mythos in the form of a mysterious voice named Jor-El (General Zod himself, Terrence Stamp) that attempts to exert control over Clark.  Season Three reveals the true danger to perhaps the entire world is the influence the truly vile Lionel Luthor has had on his son Lex.  Season Four features a plot by a cabal of rich socialites to capture a “traveler” they believed had been sent to earth who would have a storehouse of great alien power and artifacts, and ends with Clark uniting those artifacts to create The Fortress of Solitude.  If you’ve never seen Smallville – these are the best four seasons of the series and Season two of Smallville is one of the finest 22 hours of television you will ever watch.

Moving beyond High School, Smallville has a three meandering seasons where Clark goes to and drops out of College, Jonathan Kent dies, Clark meets other superheroes like Aquaman, Green Arrow, Cyborg and a speedster named Bart Allen. Lex gets possessed by the spirt of General Zod which is able to escape The Phantom Zone, Lex gets freed from that possession, marries Lana, finds yet more weird prophecy from the rich people cabal that leads him to discovering the Fortress of Solitude and Clark’s secret.  Lex murders his own father and then attempts to kill Clark by toppling the Fortress of Solitude on top of himself and the Man of Steel in a season finale that marked Michael Rosenbaum’s departure from the series.

The loss of Rosenbaum causes the series to refocus during the next three seasons.  Clark and Lois get jobs at The Daily Planet, and it turns out that Clark wasn’t the only being launched from Krypton – a young man named Davis Bloome (Sam Witwer) it turns out is a living bioweapon better known to comic fans as Doomsday; the creature known for killing Superman.  Season 8 focuses on Clark discovering Doomsday and stopping him before he can destroy Metropolis (the conceit of a show called Smallville taking place in Smallville having long been obliterated.)  Season 9 of Smallville focuses on the arrival in Metropolis of Kryptonian clones from the city of Kandor lead by Major Zod who was cloned from the General himself. Lois officially learns Clark’s secret and Season 10 is spent wrapping up all of the elements (specifically the power of flight) that are required to finally take Clark Kent from being the secretive hero known as “the Blur” and turn him into Superman so that he can face the season’s Big Bad who we discover has been manipulating the shadowy rich people cabal all along, an alien despot named Darkseid whose plans for Earth can only be thwarted by Superman.  After 10 years the series finale wraps up the journey to become Superman by having Clark Kent finally put on the tights and save the day, even if it is incredibly brief.

As previously stated, the first four seasons are the best.  What comes after is never quite as powerful or as well conceived as the first few seasons were, but in Season 8 and beyond Smallville gets playful with the DC Universe source material and introduces The Justice Society, Hawkman, Blue Beetle, The Legion, Superboy the clone that is part Lex/part Clark, Checkmate, The Suicide Squad, Deadshot, Deathstroke, Metallo, Booster Gold, and many many more.

At its worst Smallville was a show that attempted to respect the DC comics source material and the Richard Donner Superman movies to give us a show that tried to be true to the spirit of the comics – even if it sometimes fell short.  At its best Smallville gave us the definitive version of Clark’s youth and experiences coming to grips with his powers.  Arrow, Flash, Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl are the direct descendent of Smallville in many ways – not least of which being that they also shoot in Vancouver and often use many of the same actors and shooting locations.  For example, the Queen Family mansion in Starling City, is the same mansion used as the Luthor Mansion in Smallville, and many Smallville actors have appeared on the new DC CW Series; most recently Smallville’s Lois Lane Erica Durance took over the role of Kara’s mother Alura on Supergirl.

One of the things that will always make Smallville stand out for its fans is the amazing casting choices the series made. I enjoy Kevin Costner and Diane Lane in Man of Steel, but John Schneider and Annette O’Toole are iconic as Jonathan and Martha Kent.  When I think of Lex Luthor, my mind doesn’t jump to Jesse Eisenberg – it envisions Michael Rosenbaum.  The core original cast of Smallville were near perfect, which is why there was such talk about a petition to have Tom Welling appear as Superman on Supergirl.  The only real shame is that we never got to see more than just five minutes of the Superman Welling’s Clark would grow up to be.

Thank you for joining me in our brief look at the daunting ten-year experience that is Smallville, in the future we may dig a little deeper and explore the series some more – but in the present we’re getting closer and closer to the fall premieres of the CW TV series’ so it’s time to get back to the Arrowverse.

Next Week:   Four Color TV Meets The Scoring Session to talk about Blake Neely’s score work across the Arrowverse AND The Flash/Supergirl crossover musical.

IN TWO WEEKS: Who survived the explosion?  What does the future hold for Oliver Queen? It’s our Arrow Season Six Sneak Peek.

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In the first full-length episode of The Four Color Ark, The Brothers Blanchard (Patrick and Matthew) give their thoughts on The Netflix Marvel Cinematic Universe Shows (Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist) and tackle Season 1 of The Defenders. *Note: Please forgive the audio quality in some sections of the cast, we're still working out some of the technical kinks on this new feed*

Intro (*New* "Marvel Studios Theme" by Michael Giacchino) Break / Outro ("The Defenders - Main Theme" by John Paesano) 

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Presents

THE FOUR COLOR TV/FROM THE LONGBOX CROSSOVER EVENT

Barry Allen is Terrible at Time Travel

Or

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Flashpoint

At this point DC comics has become known as the company that throws out their old continuity and reboots every few decades, but in reality that has only happened twice.  The first complete company reboot/relaunch was the 1985/1986 12 Issue Event Series: Crisis on Infinite Earths, which told the story of what happens when many alternate worlds collide.  The second, and most recent, line wide reboot was what became known as ‘The New 52,” a complete do over that spawned off the Geoff Johns’ Flash parable about time travel gone wrong: 

As we’ve spent our summer recapping The Flash TV Series and comparing both Barry Allen and Eobard Thawne from the show to their comic book counterparts we have definitely taken an orbit or two around the events of Flashpoint, but it is time to dive right in and look at Flashpoint in all its complexity.

At the end of Blackest Night, Barry Allen was back in the land of the living and the DC Universe was home to not one Flash but two. Geoff Johns spent time introducing us to the all-new all modern Barry Allen as he settled back into his life in Central City after “several years” of time in continuity, but over 20 years publishing time.  Johns didn’t just bring Barry back form the dead, he also restored Barry’s greatest nemesis: Eobard Thawne a.k.a. Professor Zoom, a.k.a. The Reverse Flash – the speedster from the future who was obsessed with destroying and replacing Barry Allen.  Prior to this point, Barry was the squarest of Superheroes – he had a wife and kids, a job, and parents who loved him.  Johns decided to change that last part dramatically by having Thawne go back in time and kill Barry’s mother Nora and frame his father Henry for the crime.  With all of that backstory in place we dive into Flashpoint proper wherein:

Barry Allen wakes up one morning without his superspeed – furthermore his mother is once again alive, his father is dead of a heart attack, Leonard Snart is the hero of Central City, there never was a Justice League, Superman has never existed, Batman is a murderous vigilante that strikes fear in the heart of everyone, and Atlantis and Themyscira are at war with each other causing devastation throughout the world.

Believing himself to be trapped in another dimension, Barry begins looking for someone who can help him and keeps coming up short.  Hal Jordan is not accessible to him, the rest of the Justice League are either listed as wanted terrorist or serve as the despotic leaders of nations that want to destroy the world – the only person he can think to go to is Batman.  Barry packs up his crap and heads over to Gotham City and Wayne Manor where he confronts a much older and more dangerous Batman than the one he remembers.  In this dimension, when the Wayne family was attacked in Crime Alley it wasn’t Thomas and Martha who died and left behind their orphan child Bruce, it was Thomas who now survived his wife and child – claiming the mantle of Batman to make sure no one suffered their fates.

Suffice to say the war between the Atlanteans, following their King Arthur Curry, and the Amazonians under the control of Queen Diana is not going well.  Cyborg, Victor Stone, is working directly for the President attempting to put together a team that can defend America from the onslaught that will surely come soon. Back in the Batcave, Thomas Wayne has no reason to trust Barry Allen but is moderately swayed by Barry’s fervent and passionate belief that he knows Thomas’ son Bruce.  Barry has a moment where he is attempting to recall a meeting with Bruce to relay to Thomas, but as he is describing it – his memory of that world is rewritten by memories of his life in a Central City where he is not The Flash.  This is the moment where Barry realizes that this is not some alternate dimension, this “Flashpoint” is an alteration to his own timeline – and the changes are starting to fix themselves around Barry like concrete. The elder Wayne agrees to help Barry attempt to recreate the accident that gave him his powers, and the result is disastrous.  Badly burned and still without his powers, Barry Allen recuperates in Wayne Manor while attempting to convince Batman to let him try again to jumpstart his own powers using items in the Batcave.

Steve Trevor is captured and interrogated by Wonder Woman, revealing thanks to the Lasso of Truth that the US is spying on the Amazons, war is on its way to the US. Back at Wayne Manor, Barry is strapped into an Electric Chair – already badly charred and possibly close to death, this is the last ditch attempt to restore Barry’s powers, and this time it works.  Given back his speed, Barry heals rapidly and ejects his costume from his Flash ring (seriously it’s a ring that keeps a miniaturized version of his costume) only to find the costume inside isn’t his costume: but the yellow costume of the Reverse Flash.  Convinced now that this massive change to the timeline is all because of Reverse Flash, Barry agrees to help Batman and Cyborg fight the Amazonians and Atlanteans if they’ll help him fight Thawne and restore the timeline.

First stop for the trio of heroes is to break an incredibly powerful alien entity out of the laboratory he’s been captive in for over 30 years since his ship crashed on Earth in rural Kansas. Familiar in origin only, this Kal-El is far from the Clark Kent that Barry remembers, small and frail but with massive powers derived from the Sun – the trio is unsure if Subject O of Project Superman will actually be on their side in the coming battle.  Seemingly afraid, the Flashpoint Superman flees into the sky – and Barry begins to forget Clark Kent as his memories change again.

The trio head for the front line of the battle, where Batman believes that Captain Marvel can use his lightning to prevent Flash’s memories from changing any further – but they are too late because the battle begins in earnest.  Flash, Batman, Cyborg, and the Marvel Family now merged together as Captain Thunder race to the front where Wonder Woman and Aquaman are finally at war.  The conflict is messy and disturbing, and in the middle of it Eobard Thawne returns to destroy Barry Allen once and for all.

Thawne reveals that it wasn’t his actions that ripped the timeline apart, it was Barry himself who ran back in time and pulled the entirety of the Speed Force into himself to stop Thawne from killing his mother that resulted in this nightmare timeline, this time Barry Allen was the villain.  Additionally the destruction of the timeline had made Eobard Thawne a living paradox, which meant he no longer needed to keep Barry alive to preserve his own timeline.  Stronger and ready to be rid of Barry, Eobard closes in for the kill when suddenly a wounded and dying Batman runs Thawne through with an Amazonian sword.  

Superman arrives to help the heroes, but this catastrophic war has claimed so many lives, millions are dead.  Thomas Wayne pleads with Barry to reset the timeline to its original state and restore all those lives – restore the timeline where his son lived and he did not.  Barry knows that the only way to save those millions is to go back in time and allow Thawne to kill his mother.  Barry agrees, and is given a letter written by Thomas Wayne to deliver to Bruce Wayne once the timeline is restored.  Barry races to his mother’s home to say goodbye, he explains to her what he must do and she urges him to do what needs be done to save reality – but it is still such a hard choice for Barry to make.  Tearfully he runs back in time and merges with his younger self before he can summon the energy of the Speed Force to stop Thawne.  Thawne succeeds in killing Nora Allen and Barry returns to his own timeline and delivers a letter from one Batman to another.

The timeline that Barry returns to is slightly different than the one he left from, but for the moment everything is fully restored.

ANALYSIS:

Why is Flashpoint so important that I’m willing to merge two columns to discuss it? After Crisis on Infinite Earths almost every major hero had their origin retold, except for Barry Allen – he was dead and gone – so the only origin that Barry Allen had was his silver age origin which was rather milquetoast prior to the lightning bolt that made him the chummiest of chummy heroes. Flashpoint gave Barry a new origin, one that the CW TV Flash series followed to the letter almost.  Barry now becomes a CSI because he is obsessed with solving the murder of his mother Nora who died in a mysterious attack by a man in a yellow suit when he was a child.  His father Henry was wrongly convicted for the crime, and a single minded Barry spent his formative years attempting to exonerate his father and honor his mother.  This description is both the Flashpoint/New 52 Flash origin as well as the Grant Gustin/CW origin, and from what we know so far about the Ezra Miller version of The Flash in the DC Movie Universe – this appears to be his origin as well.

Flashpoint has been rather faithfully adapted so far in the DC Animated Feature: The Flashpoint Paradox, Season 2 of the CW Series ended with Barry preventing the death of his mother and rebooting the timeline, and it has been announced that the troubled Flash DC live action movie starring Ezra Miller has been renamed Flashpoint and will adapt the events of this comic.

Is this too much Flashpoint?  Perhaps.  With an animated movie and a loose adaptation at the head of Season 3 of the CW Series – Flashpoint has been fairly well covered.  Certainly Gustin’s Barry didn’t run around with a grizzled Thomas Wayne or get involved in a big war between Atlantis and Themyscira - his Flashpoint being a more grounded and personal one – but the theme that Barry Allen is so desperate to restore his mother to life that he fundamentally rips time apart is very evident even on the CW.  A cinematic Flashpoint does afford the opportunity to tweak the timeline a bit, and the DCEU may be looking to use that to deal with some of the complaints about the “tone” of their films being too dark.  

Ultimately, the Flashpoint origin makes Barry Allen the middle ground between Superman and Batman.  Clark Kent lost his birth parents and has found a way to move forward in hope, embracing his life with the Kents in Smallville and becoming a beacon of hope for all of Earth.  Batman, the opposite side of that coin, has found a way to move forward in anger – embracing a life of vengeance that will keep any other from suffering as he had.  Barry Allen is the middle ground, the one who moves forward in grief and when given a chance to change the past – to deliver wish fulfillment to the little boy buried deep inside him – he will unfailingly go back and try to save his mother’s life.  Again and again. Superman may be the most idealized of the three, Batman the most realistic, but Barry is the most human and the most relatable.

Next Week: There is only one rule you need to know as we pull into our next destination.  It’s “No tights, no flights” as the Four Color train pulls into Smallville to take a look at the DC TV Series that presaged our current CW franchise.

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Host Matthew J. Blanchard introduces The Ark of E Network's newest production, The Four Color Ark; a podcast devoted to all that four color storytelling has to offer - from the page to the big screen and the smaller one in-between. In this primer, Matt recounts the birth of his comic book fandom and sets up what listeners can expect from future episodes of the show. Stay tuned... 

Intro / Outro ("Smallville Season 8 - End Title" by Louis Febre) 

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Presents

THE MARVEL TAKEOVER

DAY FIVE:  IRON FIST SEASON ONE

Excelsior!  This is the final installment of The Marvel Takeover and our last series to recap before the premier of the Netflix Marvel Series: The Defenders.  It’s time to take a look at the young man whose family died in a plane crash near the mystical city of K’un Lun leaving him as the sole survivor – raised by warrior monks to become: The Immortal IRON FIST.

SEASON ONE RECAP

Danny Rand (Finn Jones) has more or less grown up in the mystical city of K’un Lun but decides that since he now has glowing hand superpowers, it’s time to return to New York City and reclaim his family’s legacy.  Barefoot and wearing tattered robes Danny walks into Rand Enterprises and demands to see Harold Meachum, whom he believes should be in charge.  Looking for all the world like a homeless man, Security does not take Danny all that seriously in his claim that he is the long lost heir to the Rand name and try to remove him from the building - - but being the Iron Fist means Danny has learned some sweet kung fu moves that he uses to fight his way to the top floor where he finds his childhood friends, and children of the deceased Harold Meachum, Ward (Tom Pelphrey) and Joy (Jessica Stroup.) There is some back and forth, and the younger Meachums do not immediately believe this man to be their long since believed deceased friend.  Danny leaves and spends a little time living in a park before he finds his way to a dojo run by Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick) where he demonstrates more sweet kung fu when Ward sends mercenaries to capture Danny.  The next day he goes a little stalkerazzi and follows Joy, attempting to reach out to her to get her on his side; instead she drugs him and has him committed to a psychiatric hospital.

The supposedly dead Harold Meachum (David Wenham) is actually very much alive and in hiding, the only person who knows he is alive is his son Ward.  Harold sneaks into the psychiatric hospital to talk to a drugged Danny who reveals that he is the Iron Fist – the defender of K’un Lun and the sworn enemy of The Hand.  Since it was The Hand who cured his cancer but forced him into a life of hidden servitude, Harold starts instantly scheming of ways to use Danny to his advantage.  Meanwhile Danny’s doctor thinks he suffers from delusions, and Ward sends in men posing as patients to kill Danny.  Danny uses yet more sweet kung fu and his mystical hand powers to defeat these men and escape.

Joy figures out that the guy claiming to be Danny must really be Danny and tracks him down, offering him $100 Million to change his name and disappear without ever troubling the Meachum’s again.  Danny refuses and does what any good rich kid does, he lawyers up by going to visit Jeri Hogarth (Carrie Anne Moss) who helps Danny build a case to reclaim his identity – the key component being a ceramic bowl Danny made as a kid and gave to Joy.  This bowl contains a fingerprint that matches Danny’s and proves the legitimacy of his claim.  In return for helping him reclaim his name, all Jeri asks is to be on retainer to Rand Enterprises.

Harold’s weird schemes involve the need to purchase a particular pier and turn it over to the Hand.  Danny deduces that Harold Meachum is really alive and follows Ward to Meachum’s home, where Ward first pushes Danny off the ledge then apparently saves his life and presents him to Harold who convinces Danny to help destroy The Hand in New York and free Harold from his exile.  Harold tells his son to allow Danny to return to Rand Enterprises and reclaim his role as majority shareholder.  Danny returns to his father’s company and begins to throw his weight around, making unpopular decisions that concern the board of directors.  Members of the Triad ultimately track down Joy for her role in the purchase of the pier that has been turned over to The Hand and are planning to kill her; Danny intervenes and takes Joy to Colleen’s dojo where she’ll be safe.  The Hand informs Harold of what has happened to Joy and grants him the permission to kill the Triad member who wounded her in the attack.

Danny discovers that The Hand is responsible for a new synthetic heroin, and comes to Ward with a sample to try to convince him that Rand should take them down – Ward dismisses Danny’s concerns and pockets the heroin to take as part of his growing addiction.  Danny then discovers that Rand’s Staten Island facility is spewing carcinogenic waste, and is caught on camera publicly apologizing and committing Rand Enterprises to clean up the mess – which of course angers the board.  Ward gets together a meeting to strategize how to respond, and the most favored option is to oust Danny and try to restore consumer confidence by putting the Meachum’s back on top.  Placed into another situation where he has no control and is under the thumb of Harold, Ward takes the potent synthetic heroin he took from Danny and immediately overdoses.  Meanwhile Danny pops by Colleen’s dojo to see if she’ll come along and help him confirm his theory that the synthetic heroin is being shipped out of the docks that were just purchased by Rand and turned over to The Hand, Colleen agrees to go after dismissing her latest student: Claire Temple.  Colleen and Danny discover trucks full of heroin and a Russian chemist who is conscripted to work for Madame Gao.  

Ward throws out all of his drugs and agrees to help Danny search Rand Enterprise warehouses for more clues about the heroin supply chain, and the pair search together until Danny finds an invitation from Madame Gao to face The Hand in ritual combat.   Facing off against Andrei and Girgori Veznikov, The Bride of Nine Spiders, and Scythe – Danny uses yet more sweet kung fu to defeat all of them but is less than successful when facing Madame Gao herself.  Danny manages to make it out alive, but barely.  Claire and Colleen take the Russian chemist to a hospital because he is in terrible shape, but he is captured by The Hand.  

Meanwhile in Harold’s penthouse prison, The Hand has shown up to get intel from him on the nature of his relationship with Danny – who shows up just in time to turn the tide so that Harold can kill the two.  Harold forces Ward to do the clean up on this.  

Rand Enterprises decides that Danny and the Meachums are all a liability to the company and ousts all of them.  Danny, Colleen and Claire kidnap Gao and learn that The Hand can bring people back to life, but those who are brought back go crazier after each return.  Furious over losing his job and all his money, which was his escape hatch from his father’s terrible life, Ward kills Harold… but not for long.

Harold revives again, and just as Danny had learned – he comes back more psychotic.  He kills his assistant and plants drugs in Ward’s car so that he’ll be arrested and sent to a psychiatric hospital.  Harold reveals himself to Joy and the two have an eerie reunion.  Meanwhile The Hand has descended on Colleen’s dojo to retrieve Gao, the battle is fierce but for some reason Danny is having a hard time harnessing his chi to do his sweet kung fu and he is knocked unconscious.  Danny wakes up at a martial arts compound run by a man named Bakuto (Ramon Rodriquez) who it turns out is one of the leaders of The Hand, and the former sensei of Colleen Wing who is a secret Hand member as well.  Betrayed, Danny tries to find a way to escape the compound.  His wish is granted when his friend Davos from K’un Lun arrives.  Davos helps Danny escape, and as the two fight their way through a sea of Hand ninja’s – Colleen opens the main gate allowing Davos and Danny to escape.

Harold kills the board member who ousted his children and makes it look like a suicide, he then makes sure the rest of the board reinstates Joy and Ward.  Ward escapes the hospital, Colleen escapes The Hand.  Ward goes to the Penthouse to try to destroy Harold and rescue his sister – Colleen goes to find Danny to help him take down The Hand.  Davos wants to return to K’un Lun, but Danny won’t – not until The Hand has been destroyed.  Bakuto and The Hand head for the Penthouse so that they can finish siphoning all of Rand’s money into Hand accounts.  A massive showdown happens, battle lines are drawn, and in the end Danny refuses to kill Bakuto; but Davos does.  Danny and Davos fight, Davos admits he is jealous that Danny is the Iron Fist and he is not.  Davos and Bakuto’s bodies disappear.

Harold comes back to work at Rand, alive and well, and prepares to announce his return to the world.  Colleen and Danny return to Bakuto’s compound to find it completely abandoned except for the prison Bakuto had placed Gao into.  Gao reveals to Danny that Harold was the architect of the plane crash that killed Danny’s parents, and that Harold wanted the secrets of K’un Lun for himself but settled for the powers of The Hand.  Enraged Danny races to Rand Enterprises to face Harold, Ward agrees to help stop Harold and Danny finds his way to the roof and his final showdown with the seemingly immortal Harold Meachum.  The fight is short, Danny channels his Chi and uses yet more sweet kung fu – Harold falls off of the roof and to his death.  Ward makes sure that Harold cannot live again by cremating the body, but a furious Joy aligns with Davos to plot the death of Danny Rand.  Danny takes Colleen back to K’un Lun, but finds that in his absence the gate has been closed and he cannot return.

ANALYSIS

Iron Fist is unfortunately the weakest of all the Netflix shows and is the victim of its own choices.  The cast is full of actors who deliver quiet menace and understatement with aplomb – all would be fantastic additions to the corporate and legal world of Hell’s Kitchen inhabited by Matt Murdock.  The characters they are playing however are far more showboat than the performances given, and it shows that some of these roles are terribly miscast. David Wenham and Jessica Henwick are the standout performances, and Wenhams’ mainly for the fact that it is so out there.  

The pacing of this series is so slow that it becomes a real slough to get through, and the pace doesn’t ever really pick up.

Danny Rand is made into the “sworn enemy of the Hand” in this series, which will I’m sure come into play tomorrow when The Defenders premieres.  This choice, however, undermines the character of Danny in some fundamental ways (to say nothing of what it does to Daredevil.)  Danny in the comics is dedicated to his role as the Iron Fist, but placing him in a position from the start where he abandons his post to run back to America takes this sober hero and turns him into a fickle teenager.  That characterization makes a lot of the “sweet kung fu” tedious.  Additionally, in the comics, Iron Fist has nothing to do with The Hand.  The two characters most concerned with fighting The Hand are Daredevil and Wolverine.  Giving that connection to Danny may make the characters much easier to connect in Defenders, but it robs Daredevil of some of what makes him unique.

Rosario Dawson’s Claire Temple is more active in this series since she is learning how to fight from Colleen Wing, but this is the first series where her character felt shoehorned in.

TODAY: NETFLIX PREMIERES THE DEFENDERS!

SOMETIME SOON: The Four Color Podcast will discuss the entire franchise so far, including the episodes that premiere today.  Keep an ear out for it!

NEXT WEEK:  We return to the DC Universe where Barry Allen breaks the timeline several times in our Flashpoint Special!

Presents

THE MARVEL TAKEOVER

DAY FOUR: LUKE CAGE SEASON ONE

To me my Marvel Zombies! We’re now in day four of our All Marvel Event where we explore the Netflix Marvel series before The Defenders join forces tomorrow!  We’ve looked at The Man Without Fear and The Drunk Detective, and now we’ll set our sights on Power Man himself: Luke Cage.

SEASON 1 RECAP

When we first met Luke Cage (Mike Colter) in Jessica Jones Season One, we learned that he had unbreakable skin and that his wife was murdered under mysterious circumstances that relate to Luke’s origin.  When we pick up Luke’s story in the first episode of Season One we find that Luke works by day sweeping up hair in Pop’s Barbershop and by night washing dishes at the nightclub Harlem’s Paradise. Pop (Frankie Faison) runs his barbershop as a place where residents of Harlem can go to escape the threat and influence of gangs, while Cornell Stokes (Mahershala Ali) –aka Cottonmouth – runs guns through his club to support multiple gangs.  Cottonmouth is selling guns for a man named Diamondback who supplies him with stolen weapons from Hammer Industries (which you may remember is the rival to Stark Industries in Iron Man 2.)  Stokes sells these guns and supports his cousin – the councilwoman Mariah Dillard (Alfre Woodard) who is by and large a legitimate politician who has built her unsullied career on the muddy grounds of Stokes’ criminal enterprise.  Some of the young men who hang out at Pops’ get mixed up in a weapon deal that goes incredibly south, and Pop sends Luke to track down the one survivor and bring him back to the Barbershop because the shop is neutral territory.  Two cops: Misty Knight and Rafael Scarfe (Simone Missick and Frank Whaley) show up at the shop trying to find Chico, but both Luke and Pops keep his location secret.  Luke goes to Cornell to set up a meeting with Pop, but Cornell’s right hand man is tipped off to Chico’s location and sends shooters to the Barbershop to take Chico out, wounding Chico and killing Pop.  Cornell immediately throws his aide off the roof for breaking the neutrality of Pop’s Barbershop, and then offers to pay for Pop’s funeral.  Luke agrees and takes Cornell’s money to pay for the Pops’ funeral and to keep the shop from needing to shut down.

After the funeral, Luke starts targeting Cornell’s businesses – showing up and taking his money and getting out quickly unharmed.  Cornell takes all of his money and moves it to the civic center run by Dillard, but even that doesn’t keep the money safe from an unbreakable man like Luke Cage who breaks in and steals a portion of the money.  Chico reaches out to Detective Scarfe and offers to testify against Cornell, Chico then tells Scarfe that it was Luke Cage who has been ripping off Cornell’s stash houses.  Scarfe, it turns out, is a crooked cop who is on Cornell’s payroll.  He kills Chico and then tells Cornell about Luke.  Not one to underreact, Cornell takes a missile launcher and fires a rocket into Luke Cage’s apartment complex.

Knocked unconscious by the rocket, Luke has a flashback interlude where he is framed for a crime he didn’t commit under his given name of Carl Lucas and is sent to Seagate Prison where he tries to keep his head down and serve out his sentence, but meets and falls for his group therapist Reva Connors (whom he will later marry.)  Reva isn’t the only one with her sights set on Luke – Dr. Burstein wants to conduct an experiment on him and when that experiment goes very wrong it leaves Luke with an amazing unbreakable skin.  Luke and Reva escape and go on the run, ultimate arriving in New York where Carl Lucas officially travels under the name: Luke Cage.

In the present Luke manages to lift rubble off of himself and his landlord, caught on camera Luke tells the press his name and what his powers are.  What comes next is a tug of war between Cornell and Luke, Cornell starts sending enforcers to take money from the neighborhood to offset the profits Luke cost him – and Luke keeps stepping in to save the people and retrieve their items/money.  Harlem seems to have their own Hero for Hire, and Cornell Stokes has lost control completely, so Diamondback sends his underling “Shades” (Theo Rossi) to clean up Cornell’s mess.  Shades recognizes Luke by his real name of Carl Lucas because Shades was also a prisoner at Seagate.  Shades tells Cornell about the Judas bullet, which is strong enough to pierce Luke’s skin – but it comes at a price Cornell is unwilling to pay.

Claire Temple, recently out of a job because her hospital decided to cover up a Ninja Invasion, arrives at her mother’s home in Harlem where she begins helping out in her mother’s diner – a diner that just happens to be frequented by Luke Cage – whom Claire also knows from when he was dropped off at her hospital with massive brain swelling by a concerned Jessica Jones.

Detective Scarfe is under investigation by Internal Affairs and he thinks his way out is to shake Cornell down for some cash.  Scarfe tries to blackmail Cornell and gets shot near fatally, though he is able to escape and make a run for Pop’s Barbershop where he hopes he can get some help from Luke Cage.  Luke and Claire Temple show up at Pop’s and Claire stabilizes Scarfe before the three of them start heading downtown so Scarfe can testify against Cornell.  Cornell’s gang follows on a chase, but it is his wounds that overtake Scarfe.  Before he dies, Scarfe tells Misty about his ledger which should have all the evidence anyone needs to take down Cornell.   Misty arrests Cornell Stokes, but it isn’t something that will last.  Scarfe’s ledger is deemed inadmissible and Cornell is released, but the damage is already done.  Reporters have pieced together the connections between Cornell and Dillard, and they go public – ending Councilwoman Dillard’s career forever.  In a fit of rage Mariah Dillard kills her cousin, and Shades helps her set up the crime scene to frame Luke Cage, even paying off a corroborating witness named Candace.

While he is out in public with Claire, the mysterious Diamondback (Erik LaRay Harvey) shows up and shoots Luke with the mythical Judas bullet that does indeed pierce his skin.  Claire gets Luke in an ambulance and starts heading toward a hospital, but Diamondback strikes again.  Claire diverts to a clinic.  Misty Knight has taken the statements from everyone that points toward Luke Cage as the prime suspect in the murder of Cornell Stokes, and she is hot on Luke’s tail.  Luke, Misty and Claire all converge at the clinic, but it isn’t long before Diamondback shows up too.  In the massive conflict Luke and Diamondback leave the clinic and Misty places Claire under arrest.

Diamondback reveals that he is Willis Stryker, Luke’s former best friend/illegitimate half-brother and he has come to take what he felt he was rightfully owed by Luke.   Luke manages to overpower Stryker and escape.  With no evidence to hold her, Claire is released and ultimately meets up with Luke.  The two leave town and try to find the doctor who performed the experiment that made Luke unbreakable in the first place.

In Luke’s absence, Diamondback forces Dillard to embrace her family’s gangland ties and uses her to introduce himself to more and more of the gangs of New York whom he promptly destroys.  Diamondback is building himself an empire and Dillard is implicated every step of the way.  Shade’s loyalty is to Dillard, and their relationship grows quite creepy as they grow closer.  

Luke and Claire discover Dr. Burstein and give him the flash drive containing all the data on Luke’s experiment, the doctor uses this knowledge to remove the Judas bullet from the wounded Luke and heals the unbreakable man.  Luke and Claire take their information back and head back to New York and Harlem’s Paradise where a massive melee pops off.  Diamondback and Luke fight, Misty shows up and arrests both Luke and Shades – all hell breaks loose.   Luke manages to escape, and Shade gets out on bail.  Misty sets out to find information that will exonerate Luke in the murder of Cornell, and Shades goes off to try to protect Dillard.  Misty finds Candace and gets her to agree to testify against Dillard, which will free Luke Cage.  Misty arrests Dillard.

Meanwhile, Diamondback went and got himself a power suit and showed up at Pops’ to have a massive knock down dragout fight with Luke.  The two are tearing into each other, but Stryker never loses the upper hand – until his suit runs out of power and Luke kicks the crap out of him.  The feds show up to arrest Luke because they have found that he is escaped convict Carl Lucas, Claire admits she loves Luke and decides that while he’s away she’ll take up some self-defense classes.  Luke is put in a car bound for Seagate prison, and the doctor who experimented on him shows up in the hospital room of Willis Stryker with the promise that he can use Luke’s data to make Stryker better.
 

ANALYSIS

Daredevil is a grim and gritty series where the audience is pushed along from moment to moment and never given much time to breathe, and Jessica Jones followed suit.  Luke Cage takes its time, lets you get to know every single player in this game and relishes moments spent in daylight – openly helping people with superpowers.  Additionally, Luke Cage is very steeped in the comics Blaxploitation roots;  Mahershala Ali’s Cornell Stewart is every bit a “Mr. Big” style character which is why it is so shocking when at the mid season mark he is unceremoniously murdered and replaced by Diamondback.  Mike Colter is excellent as Luke, and there is so much more for him to do in this series than in his guest appearances on Jessica Jones.  Ali and Woodard are fantastic in their roles, and one can never say enough good things about Frank Whaley.

Rosario Dawson has a lot more screentime in this series than in the previous three, but at the same time she takes a bit more of a backseat to the other events of the series.

TOMORROW: DANNY RAND COMES HOME

Presents

THE MARVEL TAKEOVER

DAY THREE: DAREDEVIL SEASON TWO

Face it True Believers, The Marvel Bullpen has taken over The Four Color Ark this week and we are deep into our examination of the Netflix Marvel series in advance of the premier of The Defenders!  When last we saw Matt Murdock he had taken down the Kingpin of Crime Wilson Fisk and taken on the mantle of Daredevil, defender of Hell’s Kitchen.

SEASON 2 RECAP

We are thrown into the deep end right from the start with the aftermath of Season One – Fisk is gone, as are the Yakuza and Chinese Tong which has resulted in a fight over the smaller gangs to fill the power vacuum created when Daredevil flipped the table and burst onto the scene publicly.  It is in this turmoil that we find out entire gang hideouts are getting completely wiped out by what appears at first blush to be an army, but we quickly uncover that it is, in fact, a one man army named Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) – otherwise known as The Punisher who is out to rid New York of organized crime in retaliation for the murder of his family.  Castle is waging a one man war to take down all of those responsible for the death of his wife and kids, and caught in the cross hairs is a mobster named Grotto who came to Nelson & Murdock for protection so that he could turn states evidence on the gangs.  Punisher and Daredevil collide at a sting set up by the NYPD and the two manage to work their way through sniper fire until Murdock is wounded and captured by The Punisher, who chains the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen to a chimney on a rooftop and tapes a gun with a single bullet to his hand.  When he wakes up Castle gives Murdock a choice, use the bullet to save Grotto by killing the Punisher; serve justice for the people by killing Grotto; or do nothing and live with the choice that his inaction led to the Castle’s murder of Grotto.  As Castle lays out his options, Murdock makes the argument to Castle that he goes too far – pleading with the broken man to back down.  Even though they are both vigilantes they are both on opposite sides of the dividing line over murder.  Showing Castle that he refuses to kill or be forced into any of the choices he has been given Daredevil creates a fourth option, he uses the gun to shoot the chains holding him down and leaps into action to try to save Grotto, but it is too late: the Punisher has already shot the gangster.

Diving into a massive melee with the gang known as The Dogs of Hell, Murdock knocks Castle unconscious and then has to fight his way through the entirety of the gang to get to safety, in what quickly becomes known as “The Stairwell Fight” Murdock shows all the deftness and tenacity he displayed in the Season One “Hallway fight” with an unloaded gun duct taped to his hand.  On his way down the stairs and out to safety Murdock does all the things that Castle accused him of, of using the city as his playground, of violently beating those in his way, of being just as bad as Castle himself.  

People are getting close to figuring out who The Punisher really is: the cops, the irish mob and even Karen Page.  The Irish mob track Frank to a carousel in the park and torture him, he turns the tables and is about to murder the mobsters who have him hostage when Daredevil shows up and helps him escape,  Castle confides in Murdock about the murder of his family and turns himself over to the police.

Nelson and Murdock agree to mount Frank Castle’s defense, and just when they start prepping the case like a well-oiled machine poised to represent a broken man who is potentially just as much a victim as he is a murderer – Matt Murdock’s ex-girlfriend Elektra Natchios (Élodie Yung) arrives on the scene and shifts Matt’s world off its axis.  Daughter of the Greek Ambassador, Elektra and Matt met when Matt was in college, and the two became a unique pair who sought adrenaline highs together until one night Elektra manipulated Matt into a disastrous confrontation with the man who murdered his father. Years later Elektra has returned seeking Matt’s help fighting the Yakuza.  Manipulating him just as easily she pulls him into her deadly conflict with the Yakuza in New York.

Karen Page forms a bond with Frank Castle as they prep for his trial, and she learns more and more about the truth of what happened the night his family was killed.  Running around with Elektra isn’t all that great for the daytime career of Matt Murdock, as he misses the opening day of the Castle’s trial and generally becomes absent at the office.  Castle refuses a plea deal and refuses to use PTSD as a defense because he feels that would be an insult to actual sufferers of PTSD.  Against recommendations from Foggy, Frank pleads not guilty.  Elektra tries to help Matt’s case by torturing a confession out of the medical examiner who altered the death certificates of Frank’s wife and kids – and Matt confesses to Foggy that the confession is invalid because of Elektra which drives the final nail in the coffin of Matt and Foggy’s friendship and partnership.  Castle is convicted and sent to prison, and Nelson & Murdock: Attorneys at Law is dissolved – leaving Matt far too much time to get involved with the increasingly dangerous machinations of Elektra.  Following a trail of clues that Elektra refuses to fully reveal to Matt, the pair end up in an abandoned building where they find a deep and mysterious giant hole that goes down seemingly forever.

Ninjas show up to attack Elektra and Matt, and the pair is saved by Matt’s former mentor Stick, who it turns out has sent Elektra to track down the evil Ninja Assassin group known as The Hand who are responsible for the hole and may soon strike against Stick and his group known as The Chaste.  The three of them follow the trail of the Hand even as it becomes more apparent to Murdock that Elektra grows more bloodthirsty and dangers with each encounter, until they discover a Hand facility known as The Farm where it turns out Nobu has returned from the death Matt Murdock delivered him to in Season One.  On The Farm, Matt and Elektra find several children who are being used as incubators for a chemical weapon; Matt gets them to the hospital where Claire Temple is a nurse so that the children can receive treatment, but the Hand show up to retrieve the children.  There is a fight between Daredevil and the Hand, but ultimately the children leave willingly and go back to the Farm where they pour their blood into some sort of ancient device.

In prison Frank Castle encounters Wilson Fisk who uses Castle to take down the Kingpin of Ryker’s Island and when he realizes that Castle would be of more use on the outside – he arranges for The Punisher to escape.  Meanwhile, Karen is still investigating the truth and cover up related to Castle’s family and it leads her to discover that it was all a part of sting operation and it points back toward a man codenamed The Blacksmith.  With Castle on the outside, hits are ordered on anyone knowing too much about The Blacksmith or Castle himself, and Frank saves Karen from the bullet meant for her.

Elektra’s bloodthirst comes from the fact that she is the mythical “Black Sky” weapon of The Hand, and that she has a destiny that could destroy the world.  He sends assassins to kill her, and the two assassination attempts – the one on Karen and the one on Elektra – collide in Chinatown near the drug warehouse of Madame Gao.  Elektra survives, Karen survives, and so does The Punisher – even though Karen says Castle perished in the massive fracas.  While the massive fight is going on, The Hand capture Stick.

Karen begins to consider Castle’s past so she can write a story about him for the Bulletin to show the whole of who Frank was as a person rather than just the monster everyone has seen on the news.  This leads her to interview Frank’s former commanding officer from the marines a retired Ray Schoonover (Clancy Brown) who she quickly discovers is The Blacksmith.  Before she can attempt to escape, Punisher shows up and kills Schoonover and takes Karen back to the city.

Nobu is still alive and shows up to reveal Elektra’s origins as the Black Sky, Elektra considers joining them but Murdock convinces her that whatever destiny the Hand claims she has – she can choose her own.  Together she and Matt help Stick escape the Hand and get him to the safety of Murdock’s home.  In retaliation, the Hand kidnap several people close to Daredevil or whom Daredevil has helped.  Murdock and Elektra track down where the Hand are keeping the hostages and fights with a massive number of Hand ninjas to attempt to free them.  There are too many ninjas to fight and they have the upper hand, the ninjas are about to kill Daredevil – but Elektra sacrifices herself to save him.  Still there are just far too many ninjas for Matt to handle, it seems the hostages will all be killed – until shots ring out revealing The Punisher has come to this site to help Daredevil.  Between his own fighting and Castle thinning the heard with his guns, Matt is able to rescue the hostages.  Stick tracks down Nobu and cuts his head off, preventing him from coming back a third time.  Murdock decides that he will choose to continue to follow a path of emotional attachment rather than the cloistered philosophy of Stick – to that end he reveals to Karen Page that he is Daredevil.  Finally, the Hand digs up the body of Elektra and places her corpse in the strange device the children on the Farm poured their blood into.

ANALYSIS

If Daredevil Season One is a straightforward, slow burn introduction to the character of Matt Murdock and the often-seedy underbelly of Hell’s Kitchen; Season Two is a no holds barred deep dive into that world that doesn’t take any time to make sure you’re familiar or comfortable.  The introduction of Jon Bernthal as The Punisher and Elodie Yung turns this season into an exploration of the tightrope that Matt Murdock walks every night he puts on his red horns and goes out to protect Hell’s Kitchen.  Without compassion, he is just as dangerous as Frank Castle, and without temperance he is just as much an adrenaline junkie as Elektra – both characters are used as a mirror to reflect what a much darker version of Daredevil could be.  Additionally both Bernthal and Yung turn in incredible performances, in particular Bernthal’s standout turn as Frank Castle that earned him his own forthcoming series.  

The third appearance of Rosario Dawson severs her ties with the hospital she works at and sets her up to make a move to Luke Cage where she will be a much more active participant in the events of the series.  

Overall this season of Daredevil is excellent, but not quite as powerful as Season One.

TOMORROW: SWEET CHRISTMAS!

FRIDAY: SWORN ENEMY OF THE HAND

Presents

THE MARVEL TAKEOVER

DAY TWO: JESSICA JONES SEASON ONE

Get out your Mighty Marvel Checklist and get ready to see if you won a no-prize, because we’re back with day two of our complete Marvel Takeover. She’s a hard drinking, hard fighting, rough and tumble private eye with superpowers – let’s dig in and take a look at Jessica Jones Season One!

SEASON 1 RECAP

Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter,) of Alias Investigations, is barely scraping a living off of the bottom of the barrel as a Private Investigator in New York – and it certainly doesn’t help that she’s an alcoholic who has really bad luck at keeping her office door intact.  Also she has a strange obsession with this local bartender named Luke Cage (Mike Colter,) whom she is often following.  She does the occasional job for lawyer Jeri Hogarth (Carrie-Anne Moss) but mostly she is hired to track people down, which is exactly how we find her at the beginning of the series.  The Shlottman family hires Jessica to track down their daughter Hope, who Jessica quickly discovers is under thrall to Kilgrave (David Tennant,) a man with incredible mind control powers who took control of Jessica in a similar fashion and is the source of the alcoholic detective’s PTSD. Kilgrave is able to overthrow the mind of anyone and force them to do his bidding with but a simple command.  Jessica wants nothing to do with the case and plans to bolt, but her good friend Trish Walker (Rachael Taylor) convinces her she has to do for Hope what no one could do for her.  Giving it a brief, but valiant effort, Jessica is too late and the dangerous Kilgrave has forced Hope to murder her parents before severing his control of her.

Jeri Hogarth agrees to represent Hope, and Trish Walker agrees to use her radio show to try to help Hope and perhaps take Kilgrave down once and for all – while Jessica begins looking for medical grade anesthetic which she believes will put Kilgrave in a deep sleep state long enough for her to take him down.  The result is that Trish puts herself in Kilgrave’s crosshairs who mind whammies Sergeant Will Simpson (Wil Traval) of the NYPD to kill Walker.  Jessica arrives in time to use the powerful anesthetic meant for Kilgrave on Trish to make it look to Simpson that she is dead, Jessica then follows Simpson back to Kilgrave and manages to save Simpson from the command that he should walk off of a balcony to his death.  

Jessica discovers that Kilgrave has a shrine to her in the place he was occupying and that he has a photographer spying on her for him. Jessica then spends a little time joining Luke Cage on a one way train to Pound Town when they both discover that with their superpowers they can have super-sex.  Trish and Will Simpson have a tense exchange that leads to the two of them also getting fleshy with each other, and Hogarth begins processing a lot of people coming out of the woodwork claiming to be victims of Kilgrave.

Trish, Will, and Jessica launch a plan to capture Kilgrave that goes quite awry when, after injecting him with more of the anesthetic, they are attacked by bodyguards under the control of Kilgrave.  It also turns out that Hope is pregnant with Kilgraves child, and after having an abortion Jeri Hogarth steals the fetal remains for some nefarious purpose.  Luke Cage hires Jessica as a detective to help him recover some evidence about the death of his wife Reva, who it turns out Jessica killed on orders from Kilgrave – which she confesses to Luke, ending their relationship.

Getting desperate to take down Kilgrave, Jessica hatches a plan to get herself thrown into a Supermax Prison so that when Kilgrave comes for her all of his actions will be on tape for all to see – and when she discovers that her neighbor is dead she enacts said plan.  Jessica takes the severed head of her neighbor into a police station and confesses to his murder, but before she can be taken in properly: Kilgrave arrives and shows that he is powerful enough to bend an entire precinct full of police officers to his will.  Here, with the officers standing down from anything they intended to do to Jessica, Kilgrave admits that he is in love with Jessica because she is the only one who has ever resisted him.  He then invites her to go home with him, promising that he will let the policemen go if she does.  Jessica agrees and willingly goes with Kilgrave who takes her to her childhood home which he has now purchased and outfitted just as Jessica remembers from her youth.

Kilgrave and Jessica spend several days together, slowly entering a strange captor/captive relationship where Kilgrave reveals that his parents experimented on him as a child to create the monster he is today.  Jessica tries to convince him to use his powers for good, and briefly he is able to – but his true nature comes through and he always uses his powers for his own benefit.  Simpson plants a bomb to kill Kilgrave, but manages to wound himself severely – just as Jessica manages to incapacitate Kilgrave and take him to a hermetically sealed room where he cannot give anyone commands ever again.  

Trish and Simpson go to a hospital, where a very near death Simpson insists upon seeing a Dr. Kozlov who gives him miraculous pills that nearly instantly heal him.  Meanwhile Jessica goes to seek out Kilgrave’s parents and brings Hogarth and a police officer to witness the state of things with Kilgrave.  While he is briefly contained, it doesn’t last long as Kilgrave uses his powers to get free and begin the process of killing his family who have been hand delivered to him by Jessica.

Simpson’s miracle pills make him much stronger, but they also make him paranoid and prone to violence and his condition deteriorates every time he takes more of the pills.  Meanwhile Kilgrave has taken control of Luke Cage and sends him after Jessica in a knock down drag out fight between two powerful beings and puts Luke Cage in a place to meet Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson) the nurse who is quickly becoming the medic to the heroes.

Kilgrave has holed up in an apartment and convinced his father to use Hogarth’s fetal tissue to make him even stronger in hopes he can again control Jessica.  Jessica tracks him down to find he has control of the mooring slip of a yacht and all the people around, Kilgrave takes Trish hostage and believes he has control of Jessica whom he commands to say “I love you.”  Jessica does exactly as she is told, only to prove she is still free of Kilgrave’s control she looks directly at Trish and as she says the words she snaps Kilgrave’s neck.  Jessica is arrested for killing Kilgrave, but Hogarth pays her bail and agrees to defend her – and as news spreads of what happened: suddenly Jessica’s phone begins ringing off the hook with potential clients.

ANALYSIS

Based on the Brian Michael Bendis comic Alias, Jessica Jones leans very hard on comics accuracy in a way that Daredevil Season One didn’t. The production goes out of its way to recreate many of the important moments from the first few arcs of the comic, sometimes shot for shot replicating panel art from Alias.  Krysten Ritter absolutely shines as the alcoholic PTSD victim Jones, and Rachel Taylor gives us a great glimpse of her comic origins as Hellcat as we see her take no shit attitude.  Mike Colter as Luke Cage is incredible and makes you really want to see a Luke Cage series, and thankfully we won’t have to wait too long to see one.  Wil Traval plays a great version of the comic character Nuke, who while named Frank Simpson rather than Will, is the product of the experimental program that created Wolverine.  The real standout performance here though is David Tennant in a role so disturbingly charming that you very quickly forget this is the same man who played The Tenth Doctor.  

Once more Rosario Dawson gives a fantastic performance that heightens the show around her and builds the connective tissue that ties Jessica Jones to Daredevil as we build toward The Defenders.

TOMORROW: Daredevil & Elektra

THURSDAY: Luke Cage & Misty Knight

FRIDAY: Danny Rand & Colleen Wing

Presents

THE MARVEL TAKEOVER

DAY ONE: DAREDEVIL SEASON ONE

It is finally happening good folks of the Merry Marvel Marching Society, we’ll have no talk about the Distinguished Competitor this week because we’re devoting five straight days to all things Marvel in honor of the impending release of The Defenders.  This Friday the Netflix Marvel shows will team up a man without fear, a woman of incredible strength, an unbreakable man and the immortal defender of K’un Lun.  Let’s make mine Marvel and waste no time diving right in with the first of the Marvel series: Daredevil.

Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) was just a smart kid trying to do the right thing when he pushed an old man out of the way of an oncoming truck, he wasn’t prepared for the toxic waste that was going to spill into his eyes and drive him blind.  He certainly wasn’t prepared for the way that losing his sight would vastly amp up his other senses; giving him a unique radar sense, an enhanced sense of smell, and an incredibly sensitive sense of touch.  Young Matt was dealt another major blow when his father – Boxer “Battlin’ Jack” Murdock – was murdered for refusing to throw a fight. After learning to control his new senses, young Matt Murdock grew up and became an attorney – pairing with his friend Franklin “Foggy” Nelson (Elden Henson) to open their own law firm in Hell’s Kitchen New York.  

SEASON ONE RECAP

The duo’s first client is Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) a young woman who has discovered a pension scam at the construction company for which she is an office assistant – her discovery has landed her framed for a crime and very much hunted by an assassin.  Nelson & Murdock Attorneys at Law swoop in and prevent her from prosecution, and Matt Murdock swoops in wearing a black outfit to fight off her would be assassin.  It turns out that Murdock has been using his abilities, and his cool ninja-like outfit, to fight crime for some time now.  He dispatches the men sent to kill Karen, and delivers her and information that will save her life to journalist Ben Urich –who sadly works for The New York Bulletin and not The Daily Bugle.  Urich (Vondie Curtis-Hall) exposes the construction company scandal, and an exonerated Karen Page takes a job as the front desk assistant for Nelson and Murdock.  The only hitch is that the construction scandal scratched the surface of a much larger mafia scandal that could tear New York apart, and the architect of this grand scheme sends his assistant James Wesley (Toby Leonard Moore) to clean up the mess and dispose of the black clad vigilante who saved Ms. Karen Page’s life.

Wesley first contracts the Russian Mob to take care of the vigilante, and they attempt to do so by kidnapping a child to draw the vigilante out of hiding.  Murdock tracks the kidnappers down, makes a disastrous first attempt at rescuing the boy that leaves him bleeding to death in a dumpster until he is found by a nurse named Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson) who takes him back to her place and stitches him up – cementing herself as the linking device that ties each of the Netflix shows together.  After healing Murdock takes a second go at rescuing the boy by storming the Russian stronghold in a tense and violent fight down a hallway that quickly becomes the centerpiece of the Season One.

It turns out that the Russians, the Yakuza, the Italian Mafia, and legitimate Wall Street interests have banded together under the leadership of a Kingpin of Crime to reshape the city after the events of The Avengers, and that Kingpin is named Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) who has gradually consolidated all of the criminal interests he could under one banner where the main gangs collaborate with each other.  This delicate house of cards has come almost to completion, and a loose cannon like a black clad vigilante could destroy everything – so Fisk declares all-out war on the man in black.

Karen Page, working independently of Nelson & Murdock, teams up with Ben Urich to discover the identity of the mysterious Kingpin while Matt Murdock tries to take down the gangs under Fisk’s control.  Things get progressively worse for Matt on his journey – all of his opponents have incredible armored clothing that he can barely penetrate, and worse the Yakuza is bolstered by an ancient ninja clan known as The Hand that Matt was trained to fight by his tough as nails sensei known as Stick (Scott Glenn) who reappears to let Matt know that the dangerous plan of the Hand that they have been trained to stop is in the process of happening in New York under the direction of the meticulous Madame Gao (Wai Ching Ho) and the dangerous Nobu (Peter Shinkoda) who seeks to bring a Hand weapon known as Black Sky into the city.  Together Stick and Matt capture the Black Sky, which it turns out is a young boy whom Stick murders.  Matt and Stick have it out in Matt’s apartment and Matt defeats his mentor who agrees to leave the city.   Karen and Ben discover the secret to Wilson Fisk is that Fisk murdered his own father to protect his mother and intend to use this against him, meanwhile Nobu demands Fisk make good on the promise of gifting him and The Hand a city block that has been evacuated of all tenants with the exception of Nelson & Murdock client Mrs. Cardenas.  Fisk has Cardenas murdered which enrages the vigilante now known as The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, Murdock goes first to face Nobu who is moving into the territory and is able to after a protracted battle defeat the leader of the Hand – but Matt is severely weakened and beaten which makes him no match for the beating he then receives at the hands of Wilson Fisk himself.  Matt manages to escape and make it to his apartment where he collapses in full view of Foggy Nelson who feels utterly betrayed to learn that Matt is not who he had always presented himself to be.  The rift between them grows as Foggy discovers more about the secrets Murdock has been keeping.

Murdock recovers, but is urged by Claire Temple to better protect himself – which he does by tracking down the guy who has been supplying the Kingpin’s men with such great body armor a man named Melvin Potter.  Matt rescues someone dear to Melvin and in exchange he commissions an armored suit that he can use when protecting Hell’s Kitchen.  Melvin gets to work, and Murdock goes off to begin taking down Madame Gao’s heroin trade.  Karen Page gets into a dangerous meeting with Fisk’s right hand man Wesley and only manages to escape by killing him.  Ben Urich’s editor kills Ben’s story about Fisk, and then fires Urich after Ben accuses him of being on the take from Fisk – but the actual mole at the Bulletin informs Fisk of the details of Urich’s story and Fisk has him murdered.

Foggy and Matt reconcile their differences and start building a legal case against Fisk which they turn over to the Feds, which in turn gets Fisk arrested – but he manages to escape custody and is hunted by a now fully armored in red Matt Murdock.  The two fight and ultimately Murdock prevails, Fisk is taken back into custody and the city at large now has a new hero officially named: Daredevil.

ANALYSIS

My first exposure to the character of Daredevil was the Rex Smith portrayal in the made for TV movie: The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, and the character fascinated me from that moment forward. Thanks to incredible runs on the comics from the likes of Kevin Smith and David Mack I delved deeply in the late nineties and began building a back issue catalog that spanned the Frank Miller tenure on the character.  It would be fair to say that if there were a single Marvel character who stands toe to toe with the other company’s pantheon in my fandom it would be a difficult choice for me between Daredevil and Captain America.  Having seen the source material treated less than charitably in the early 2000’s Ben Affleck film, I was itching at the opportunity to see a more serious take on Matt Murdock and his role in the Marvel Universe – but I was admittedly unsure of Charlie Cox.  Thankfully I was quickly put at ease because Charlie Cox is Matt Murdock pulled directly from the pages of the classic Miller/Romita Jr. mini-series Daredevil: The Man Without Fear.  Just as true to Murdock as Cox is, Elden Henson is an almost note perfect version of Foggy Nelson – though Henson’s version is a little more put together than his rumpled comics counterpart.  Deborah Ann Woll takes a more than affable shot at portraying the complicated and at times much maligned Karen Page.  All of that said, the real meat of Season One comes in the performances of Vondie Curtis-Hall as a true street level Ben Urich going after the story of a lifetime and Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk consolidating his power.  From the moment these two actors hit the screen, you’re glued to everything they do – and in the form of Fisk…. Yipes the things he does.

Much is said of the action in Season One, particularly the oft praised Hallway fight in Episode 2, but the thing that makes this series work is not just the bare-knuckled violence.  Season One of Daredevil ratchets the tension repeatedly on what is ultimately a fairly simple narrative to turn the fight between Daredevil and the gangs of New York into a meat grinder pulling the character of Matt Murdock apart again and again before only occasionally putting him back together.  The constant back and forth between doing what he must, feeling compelled to do more and then absolving his catholic guilt over what he has done is at its core the most quintessential version of the character.  The inevitable showdown between D’Onofrio’s Kingpin and Cox’s Daredevil is an amazing cataclysm of two freight trains steaming toward each other and then crashing gloriously before our eyes.  

The character of Claire Temple, who will appear again and again as the Marvel series’ unfold quickly becomes a fan favorite, as does the devious and mysterious Madame Gao.  The usage of Stilt Man as the designer of Daredevil’s costume is a lovely nod to comic’s continuity.

Season One of Daredevil kicks things off in such fantastic style and creates a formula that the other Netflix Marvel series will attempt to emulate.  Overall, nothing has yet topped it – not even Daredevil Season Two which will introduce us to The Punisher.

TOMORROW: Jessica Jones and The Purple Man

WEDNESDAY: Daredevil Vs. Frank Castle

THURSDAY: Luke Cage is a Hero for Hire

FRIDAY: The Immature Iron Fist

BEYOND FRIDAY: The inaugural episode of The Four Color Ark Podcast, we will kick things off with a discussion about the entirety of the Netflix Marvel Canon - including THE DEFENDERS.