1) Arm-Fall-Off Boy: C; 2) Madame Fatal: D; 3) Doorman: A; 4) Gin Genie: C; 5) Leather Boy: C; 6) Stone Boy: A
Takes off his arm and beats people with it.
Cross dresses, wears makeup to age himself and fights crime.
Teleports himself and others but only to adjacent rooms.
Creates seismic waves equal to her blood alcohol content
Mistook a super hero team ad of “are you an adventure seeker?” for a bondage listing.
Turns into stone but can’t move when he’s a stone.
Are ready for another round of lame super heroes? Hey, just be thankful that it’s almost Thanksgiving. By now you should know the drill. We give you a lame super hero and a list of possible lame powers to match, and you have to choose which one is the real power.
1) Arm-Fall-Off Boy
a) His limbs detach from his body for easy transport in a suitcase—that’s one way to cut down on airfare.
b) He rips off an arm, reveals a weapon underneath, and the arm grows back quickly.
c) Takes off his arm and beats people with it—just like those old He-Man toys: take that, Merman.
d) No foe can hold onto their handheld firearms.
2) Madame Fatal
a) Make love to her and you die.
b) Make love to her, and she dies but comes back to life as the same woman in a different town.
c) Wears makeup to age herself and fights crime—kind of like a cosplay Murder She Wrote.
d) Cross dresses, wears makeup to age himself and fights crime—kind of like a cosplay Murder She Wrote meets Norman Bates.
3) Doorman
a) Teleports himself and others but only to adjacent rooms.
b) Teleports himself and others to pocket, parallel dimensions.
c) Becomes a door to parallel dimensions—just so long as he’s not a revolving door.
d) Has a door to another dimension on his chest.
4) Gin Genie
a) Grants three wishes but you can only summon her if you drink an entire bottle of gin.
b) Makes others around her drunk.
c) Creates seismic waves equal to her blood alcohol content.
d) Rolls down the street, smokes endo, drinking her gin and juice—with her mind on her money and her money on her mind.
5) Leather Boy
a) Watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre and thought Leatherface had a nice shtick.
b) Uses whips and other leather based objects to fight crime.
c) Mistook a super hero team ad of “are you an adventure seeker?” for a bondage listing.
d) Transforms into a crocodile and has the proportional jaw strength of a croc.
6) Stone Boy
a) Turns into stone but can’t move when he’s a stone.
b) Manifests stones and flings them at his enemies—he’s always the one to cast the first stone.
c) Creates a perfect tombstone every time with his mind.
d) Smokes a bowl every day and gobbles everything he sees.
Bob’s Burgers
Kyle’s Review
Bob’s Burgers is back after another long hiatus. And the show didn’t miss a beat. Sure, there are chuckles to be had, but the strength of Bob’ Burgers is its heart.
Bob finds out that Teddy received a less than sterling diagnosis from his doctor: high cholesterol, heart issues, and he should change his eating habits. But Teddy is Bob’s best customer. Bob struggles with being the one that’s endangering his friend’s life and with the fact that Teddy is his best friend. Linda convinces him with a song—as only Linda can do—and we get another musical gem. “He crashes on the couch when he loses his job. He helps you pee when you have that thing.”
Linda also serves as the bridge between Bob’s story arc and the one with the kids, who get the idea to spill water in the walk-in freezer. A Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome escapade ensues. What’s worse is that instead of talking the kids out of pushing each other on the ice, Linda makes the kids costumes that mimic Thunderdome get ups. The kids battle it out in the “Freezerdome,” and they do so in classic fashion: Zeke over powers everyone in his match-up bracket, while Louise cheats. In the end, Linda behaves worse than the kids—when Louise and Gene face off she asks them, “Who wants Mommy’s love more”—and Louise ends up victorious.
The two threads intertwine, and we’re left with a satisfying ending with most loose ends tied up. It may seem formulaic but this episode shows how in sync Bob’s Burgers is even when it hasn’t been on the air much.
Here are some tortured burger puns from this week:
1) Romaines of the Day Burger
2) Beet-er Late than Never Burger
3) Parsnips- Français Burger
4) Sub-Conscious Burger (from Bob’s nightmare about killing Teddy)
5) Peas and Thank You Burger
6) Belt Buckle Belly Buster Burger (a 5 pound burger from one of Bob’s competitors The Feed Bag)
Verdict: Bob’s Burgers remains—or is it romaines—one of the best shows on the air. The characters are well defined and have room to grow.
Grimm
Kyle’s Review
Thank goodness. We get a break from last year’s Wesen of the week—this season of Grimm is making an effort to distance itself from the sputtering last season—but continue with the ongoing sagas of Nick and Adalind. Let’s start with the continuing drama. Nick finds out about last week’s Trubel abduction. Grimm doesn’t concentrate too much time on this, so I won’t either. I’m sure we’ll see more of this new faction next week. Then, we have the dream team of Monroe and Rosalee helping Renard’s mom recreate Adalind’s potion. Some creepy moments ensue, a couple of clunky dialogue exchanges as well, but for the most part these scenes work to drive the Grimm-less Nick storyline forward. Thankfully, we don’t get a lot of Adalind this week, but what we do see of her is an interesting scene in a royal castle turret. I won’t spoil the scene, but this part of the castle comes off as an evil Hogwarts. If future Adalind scenes build off of this one, I can get behind the occasional Adalind scene.
Renard returns to police headquarters. And there was much rejoicing. It took me a while to warm to him this season because he was absent a lot last season, but I’m down with him trying to get back to business as usual and failing because Sergeant Wu asks him about Trubel. While I’m still not interested in the whole will, how, and when will Wu find out about Wesen and Grimms story arc, it’s nice to see Grimm show the different angles and obstacles Wu faces. We’ll have to see if there’s dissention as to how to handle Wu. If there is some, we could be in for a treat. If everyone agrees on how to deal with Wu, this could be a groan.
We get anything but a groan with this week’s monster-creature-non-Wesen. Grimm tackles the Golem myth this week, and I like their take on the defender of a creature. I really like how Trubel drops her tough girl act a bit and shows us some layers. I was worried she’d keep up the hard-boiled girl from the streets routine. Nick and Hank had their ubiquitous “we’ll have to put Trubel in trouble, so maybe Nick should become a Grimm again” moment, but they didn’t dwell on it as much. I was disappointed that we didn’t see Nick deploy his detective skills. The guy who summons the Golem confesses. While this makes sense for the character, I’m still upset that we lost Nick in action as a detective.
Verdict: Grimm looks like it’s returning to its first and second season form. We’ll have to see how certain threads play out, but so far, so good. Awkward dialogue aside, this was a solid episode.
Constantine
Kyle’s Review
Finally, we get an episode of Constantine focused on the titular character John. As a result we see less of the mystical and get more of a melodrama.
John is a bastard. He’s not supposed to be a hero, and he certainly doesn’t live up to that billing in this episode as he sacrifices his friend Gary Lester to an Ebola demon. Okay. They’re actually called hunger demons. But viewers aren’t allowed to connect fully with Gary. He’s an addict and most shows view addicts of all kinds as dispensable. Just watch one episode of Law and Order, and you’ll see what I mean.
But “addicts as expendable” isn’t the only trope in which this episode draws. We get the redemption story arc with both John and Gary. John dubs Gary as worthless, even though Gary gives Zed a stirring speech about how he’s going to turn his life around, and then we see Gary as worthless, trying to score dope. As John says, “People don’t change.” We see the world’s ugliest coin storm, and Zed calls it beautiful. This odd rainfall announces the arrival of Manny, The Angel of Exposition. Even John coins the phrase “Pennies from heaven” in reference to an angel appearing. Ugh. But we do drop the police procedural element of the show, and that’s a good thing.
Unfortunately, we may have lost the police procedural element, but when Zed touches Gary, she gets a heroin flashback a la CSI. We could’ve done without that. And despite the fact that “Feast of Friends” is based on the first issue of Hellblazer, it tones down the idea of a hunger demon. We saw the cleanest cockroaches—Casper beetles, sorry—and the hunger demon doesn’t drive people to eat anything in sight. Sure, we get a victim eating half-cooked fries directly from a vat and another eating a person’s face, but if the only thing available to consume is gasoline, we should see someone chugging gasoline.
For such a rootless show, we don’t get a lot of travel. “Feast of Friends” marks the fourth episode, and half the episodes are based in Atlanta. I said it before that I think the only reason John’s based out of Atlanta is because of financial issues. I guess I shouldn’t get too hung up on Atlanta. Breaking Bad was supposed to be set in Southern California, but SoCal proved too expensive, and Albuquerque gave them a discount. Still, Breaking Bad used Albuquerque as its own character. And Constantine is no Breaking Bad.
Here are a few quick ones:
1) Loved it when John changed the worker mishap sign to read zero days since last incident.
2) John drops a good line, “It’s not rocket surgery” when he and Gary break into a museum to steal a mystic artifact.
3) Even Gary sees John for the bastard he is when he says, “This was your plan all along.”
4) Where can I get a zero gravity trap?
Verdict: I won’t hold my breath and say that Constantine’s improving, but we do see a lot of who John is. This episode has its moments. Hopefully, there are enough of these moments to build on.
First Appearance: Sentinels of the Multiverse: Base Game
Who it is: A self-aware robotics factory like Mega-Mold of the X-Men’s Sentinel fame.
Initial Side: Self-Aware Robotics Factory
Innate Power (Initial Side): At the end of the villain turn, shuffle the villain trash and draw from the top until a drone or component is revealed. Put it into play.
Advanced Power (Initial Side): Increase all damage dealt by devices by 1.
Villain Cards that Begin Game in Play: None
How it flips to its other side: Once at the start of every villain turn
Nemesis: Omnitron-X
Second Side: Rampaging Robot
Innate Power (Second Side): At the end of the villain turn, play the top card of the villain deck.
Advanced Power (Second Side): Reduce all damage dealt to devices by 1.
Most Fiendish Ongoing Card: Adaptive Plating Subroutine: After Omnitron is dealt damage, Omnitron becomes immune to that type of damage. Whenever Omnitron is dealt a different type of damage, Omnitron’s damage immunity switches to that type.
Most Fiendish One-Shot Card: Sedative Flechettes: Omnitron deals each hero target 5 projectile damage. Destroy all hero ongoing cards.
Most Fiendish Villain Target Card: Electro-Pulse Explosive (HP 15): At the start of the villain turn, this card deals each hero target X lightning damage, where X = the current HP of this card.
How to Defeat Omnitron: (Sung to the tune of Monty Python’s “Spam.”) Drones, drones, drones, drones. Omnitron doesn’t win if it gets a lot of drones in play, but heroes can’t win if there are any devices (including drones) in play.
Omnitron doesn’t have a lot shielding, and what little shielding it has is easily dealt with. In fact, Omnitron may be the most straightforward villain from the base game. While you can’t let the drones build up on you (and the “Electro-Pulse Explosive” stinks if you don’t take down its HP immediately), most of the other cards in Omnitron’s villain deck can be dealt with by dealing Omnitron damage. And that’s what you want to do.
Omnitron has the most HP of all the Sentinels of the Multiverse base game villains, but unlike the other villains, you don’t have to worry about another win condition. To make matters worse, its villain cards don’t take off much heat from Omnitron. Load up on damage buffs and have fun laying down the smack.
The Flash
Why It’s Number 1:
The Flash isn’t perfect but let’s be honest: there aren’t many shows that are perfect. The Flash does deliver entertainment on a weekly basis, key roles exhibit strong acting, and the show’s headed in an exciting direction. Despite some clunky dialogue, The Flash has a solid foundation with its writing. And Central City feels a lot different than Arrow’s Starling City. We’re not sure The Flash will stay on top, but we won’t be surprised if stays in the Top 5 for most of the year.
Bob’s Burgers
Why It’s Number 2:
Bob’s Burgers should be number 1, but its infrequent schedule keeps it from our top spot. Despite lengthy breaks between episodes, we feel right at home with the characters as soon as they hit the screen. That’s why Bob’s Burgers leapfrogs over some other good shows to claim the second spot on our list.
The Awesomes
Why It’s Number 3:
The Awesomes wrapped up their second season a while ago (available on Hulu Plus); otherwise it’d be higher on our list. The show also lost its way during the season, but once we got to a blitz of character introductions, we received some great character development. There were only ten episodes in the season, and when the last three episodes knock off your socks, the show has to be on a top five list somewhere. Another show should take The Awesomes’ place next month, but it’s our number three pick this month.
Arrow
Why It’s Number 4:
We almost wanted to put Arrow at four this month, but it edges out Constantine by a small margin. Arrow puts far too much emphasis on Laurel becoming the new Black Canary that it’s difficult to place it any higher than fourth. And probably shouldn’t be fourth. Still, Arrow has some great action sequences, and the Felicity heavy episode gave some much needed fan-service.
Constantine
Why It’s Number 5:
We don’t know if it’s a sign of the end times that Constantine makes our list, but there aren’t a lot of great geekly TV shows out there at the moment, so it rounds out our Top 5. We knew Constantine couldn’t follow the source material too closely as it’s a major network show. It does an okay job giving viewers a Hellblazer-light flavor. And Matt Ryan does a good job as the titular character despite some spotty dialogue and character development.
First Appearance: Sentinels of the Multiverse: Base Game
Who he is: A Darkseid type—or maybe he’s the Multiverse’s Thanos
Initial Side: Conquering Alien Warlord
Innate Power (Initial Side): Reduce damage to Grand Warlord Voss by 2 for each minion in play. At the start of the villain turn, if 10 or more minions are in play, the planet has been overrun by the Thorathian army. Grand Warlord Voss has conquered the Earth. Game over.
Advanced Power (Initial Side): Decrease damage dealt by heroes by 1.
Villain Cards that Begin Game in Play: 4 minion cards. You can’t take over the world without minions.
How he flips to his other side: If there are no minions in play at the start of the villain turn.
Nemesis: Tempest
Second Side: Super-Thorathian Warrior
Innate Power (Second Side): At the start of the villain turn, if there are 2 or more minions in play, flip Grand Warlord Voss’s villain character card. Reduce damage to Grand Warlord Voss by 1 for each minion in play. At the end of the villain turn, Grand Warlord Voss deals the hero target with the highest HP 3 energy damage and the hero target with the lowest HP 2 fire damage.
Advanced Power (Second Side): At the end of the villain turn, play a villain card.
Most Fiendish Ongoing Card: Forced Deployment: When this card is destroyed, put all minion cards from the villain trash into play. At the start of the villain turn, destroy this card.
Most Fiendish One-Shot Card: There are no one-shot cards. Grand Warlord Voss specializes in ongoing cards.
Most Fiendish Villain Target Card: TCF “Stalwart” (18 HP): This card is immune to melee damage. At the start of the villain turn, this card deals each hero target 3 energy damage. At the end of the villain turn, if there are 2 or fewer minion cards in play, shuffle the villain trash and draw from the top until 2 minion cards are revealed. Put them into play.
How to Defeat Grand Warlord Voss: Perhaps the most difficult villain from the Sentinels of the Multiverse base game, Grand Warlord Voss combines the worst parts of Citizen Dawn and Baron Blood to make the most unholy arch villain. Voss uses minions like Dawn uses citizens, but Voss’s minions are more than meat shields, if he gets 10 or more minions in play, he gets the win.
This may be the moment you break out Visionary’s cards “Suggestion” and “Brain Burn,” but there’s a chance you aren’t playing with her, and that’s fine. You’ll have to deal copious amounts of global damage. Tempest is by far the best hero for global damage, but Tachyon isn’t too bad, and Ra specializes in damage. Just make sure you have other heroes—like Legacy—supporting your damage dealers.
First Appearance: Sentinels of the Multiverse: Base Game
Who she is: The master of light, Citizen Dawn always prepares, perched to take on the heroes of the Multiverse
Initial Side: Leader of the Citizens of the Sun
Innate Power (Initial Side): At the end of the villain turn, Citizen Dawn deals the hero target with the highest HP 2 energy damage.
Advanced Power (Initial Side): Increase all damage dealt by Citizens by 1.
Villain Cards that Begin Game in Play: 3 Citizen cards, which are smaller villain targets who have unique abilities that don’t do the heroes any favors.
How she flips to her other side: If there are 5 or more citizens in the villain trash.
Nemesis: Expatriette
Second Side: Merged with the Power of the Sun
Innate Power (Second Side): Citizen Dawn is immune to damage. At the start of the villain turn, if there are 3 or more citizens in play, flip Citizen Dawn’s character card. At the end of the villain turn, play the top card of the villain deck.
Advanced Power (Second Side): Do not flip Citizen Dawn until there are 5 or more citizens in play.
Most Fiendish Ongoing Card: Luminous Leadership: Increase each citizen’s maximum HP by 1. (Whenever a target’s maximum HP is increased, that target’s current HP is increased by the same amount.)
Most Fiendish One-Shot Card: Devastating Aurora: Destroy all hero ongoing cards. Destroy all equipment cards. Destroy all environment cards.
Most Fiendish Villain Target Card: Citizen Truth (HP 7): Villain targets other than “Citizen Truth” are immune to damage. Reduce damage dealt to “Citizen Truth” by 1. When “Citizen Dare” is put into play, this card deals the hero target with the highest HP 3 melee damage; destroy this card.
How to Defeat Citizen Dawn: Dawn’s biggest asset is her army of citizens. Global damage works best against these pesky ne’er-do-wells, but if she has “Citizen Truth” in play, you have to get rid of him or else he provides a shield for every other villain target, including Citizen Dawn.
Tempest works best for global damage. If you have him on your team, you can have Tempest knock out the weeny citizens, while other players concentrate on Dawn herself. If you don’t have Tempest on your team, you’ll have to spread responsibilities between citizen damage and damaging Dawn with each hero.
First Appearance: Sentinels of the Multiverse: Base Game
Who he is: He plays Lex Luthor to Legacy’s Superman—sort of.
Initial Side: Terralunar Impulsion Beam Inventor
Innate Power (Initial Side): At the start of the villain turn, if the villain trash has 15 or more cards in it, Baron Blade’s Terralunar Impulsion Beam activates, dragging the Moon into the Earth. Game over.
Advanced Power (Initial Side): At the end of each villain turn, put the top card of the villain deck into the villain trash.
Villain Cards that Begin Game in Play: Mobile Defense Platform (10 HP): Baron Blade is immune to damage.
How he flips to his other side: When he reaches 0 or fewer HP.
Nemesis: Legacy
Second Side: Vengeful Mad Scientist
Innate Power (Second Side): At the end of the villain turn, Baron Blade deals the hero target with the highest HP 4 energy damage
Advanced Power (Second Side): Reduce damage dealt to Baron Blade by 1.
Most Fiendish Ongoing Card: Backlash Field: The first time Baron Blade is dealt damage each turn, he deals 3 lightning damage to the source of that damage. Whenever Baron Blade is dealt 5 or more damage in a single turn, put the top card of the villain deck into the villain trash.
Most Fiendish One-Shot Card: Consider the Price of Victory!: Each player discards 1 card and Baron Blade deals each hero target 2 sonic damage. Put as many cards from the top of the villain deck into the villain trash as the total number of cards discarded this way.
Most Fiendish Villain Target Card: Mobile Defense Platform (HP 10): Baron Blade is immune to damage.
How to Defeat Baron Blade: Baron Blade is the prototypical video game villain where when you deal him enough damage, he takes a different form and players have to take another strategy to defeat him.
At first, Baron Blade wants you to discard his villain deck. This is when he’s most dangerous. If he gets 15 cards in his trash before he flips over, he wins. You have only two choices to stop this. 1) Use the Visionary’s cards “Suggestion” or “Brain Burn” to put cards from the villain trash into the villain deck, or 2) Deal enough damage in a hurry to get Baron Blade to transform to his second state.
Blade isn’t too difficult to wear down, so option number one isn’t a necessity, but don’t dilly dally with him.
The Flash
Kyle’s Review
The Flash has improved in one key area over the past two episodes. Villains can be more than one and done—The Rogues were introduced in the last episode—and this episode shows that you can develop villains just like heroes.
Plastique fits in with the rest of the cast and has a touch of complexity that makes her shine in this episode. We see her struggle with her power, and that’s a good thing, but it felt rushed. She’s discarded quickly. Even still, people don’t stay dead in comics for very long, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t see her again soon. Her former senior officer General Eiling, who wants to use her as a weapon, factors heavily in this episode too. Despite the generic tough-guy military man role—try picking Eiling out from the crowd of other overbearing generals—Clancy Brown, who plays Eiling, has a great onscreen presence. And I don’t think this is the last we’ll see of him either.
Hopefully, we haven’t seen the last of The Flash adding humor to the mix. DC tends to take itself too seriously. It’s nice to see Caitlin Snow drop lines like “Didn’t think this one through” when Cisco picked out a boomerang for Plastique’s power try outs and “I know how to perform a lobotomy” when Cisco tries to make a move on Plastique. I agree with Caitlin’s attitude toward Cisco’s relationship with Plastique. I would like to have seen more fleshing out of Cisco’s deep like.
But we definitely saw more fleshing out of Harrison Wells. He shows more of his hand, and we get a sweet teaser at the end of this episode. The segment’s set “five years ago”—DC loves making things exactly five years ago (Felicity in last week’s Arrow)—and it involves Eiling and the origin of another popular and bizarre Flash super villain. I won’t say who the villain is but we caught a hint of him in the series’ pilot.
Speaking of pilot, the chemistry between Detective West and Barry is so smooth it acts like it’s on auto-pilot. Okay. Those are two different kinds of pilots, but you get the point. I love the moment West has with Barry when he lets him know that he’s aware of Barry’s feelings for Iris. This makes sense for the character. The Flash has done a great job handling West’s character, and Jesse L. Martin (Detective West) is a calming influence on the cast. We need to get as much of him as possible. The same can’t be said for Candice Patton (Iris). She’s a little clunky with her delivery but at least they’re expanding on the West family dynamic.
I don’t agree with the direction The Flash is taking with the triangle of Detective West, Iris, and Barry. Barry and West want to keep Iris in the dark about the Flash. If Arrow’s taught us anything, you can’t keep a secret of that magnitude from your loved ones for too long, and when they do find out about the secret, they’ll resent you for lying to them. I might disagree with the choice of keeping Barry’s identity a secret, but I can’t explain why Barry would cut Iris out of his life for not quitting her Flash blog. They’re so much like Superman and Lois Lane.
Iris and the Flash share a moment at the coffee shop Iris works at that screams the original Christopher Reeve Superman. I liked the explanation (that Barry gives to Detective West) of how the Flash masks his voice. He vibrates his vocal chords. I can’t say that I buy the scene with Iris and the Flash. While I like the tip of the hat to Superman, I don’t like the familiarity the Flash has with Iris.
This episode shows The Flash heading in the right direction. It had more build up than action, but I liked the focus on the characters.
Verdict: The Flash continues to entertain. It builds on its characters—particularly its villains—and complicates the West family dynamic. While some clunky dialogue—and acting—still exists, the show looks like it’s headed in the right direction.
Arrow
Kyle’s Review
This week’s episode of Arrow is “Guilty” of being as subtle as an elephant charging down Starling City’s Main Street. It turns out that Laurel’s trainer Wildcat was also a former vigilante who had a young sidekick. Sound like someone you know? The parallels between Wildcat and Arrow are shoved down our throat, but unfortunately, “Guilty” focuses on Wildcat’s relationship with his former protégé rather than the relationship between Arrow and Roy despite last episode’s bombshell.
That bombshell proved to be a red herring. I kind of figured it would be, but we do get an idea of who Black Canary’s killer is based on Felicity’s forensic analysis. Still, “Guilty” didn’t give Roy’s story the time and space it needed to play out before letting it waft into the air. I may be a little bitter because we get a lot of Laurel in this episode, and she even sports her patented doe eyes. Laurel will become the new Black Canary, and I suppose she proved herself by staying calm in adversity and every episode shows her training hard. I still don’t know if I buy this many people with top-notch training in one city—Wildcat and his buddy make two more—but at least they’re putting in the time with Laurel.
We don’t get much of the cast outside the two vigilante tandems and Laurel but we do see flashback Ollie learn the skill of meditation which is relevant to “Guilty’s” plot, and more importantly, Roy’s mental health. Why didn’t Ollie teach Roy meditation earlier? I’d think a guy on a Mirakuru bender would need some clarity.
But it’s clear that one great thing happened on Arrow this week. We see the boxing glove arrow in action. This goofy specialty arrow blended into the scene so well and flashed so quickly that I almost missed it at first. That just goes to show you that a boxing glove arrow to the face was more subtle than the parallels between Wildcat and Arrow.
We see Wildcat’s former apprentice getting sprung by a new villain at episode’s end. I don’t believe this new villain has anything to do with Sara’s death either, but we see another wrinkle added to the story. Arrow has a lot of wrinkles this season with the League of Assassins, A.R.G.U.S., Sara’s murder mystery, Thea and Meryln, and this new villain. Let’s hope they find a path to follow before the show gets too pruney.
Verdict: A couple of nice developments are undercut by zeroing in on the wrong crime fighter/sidekick duo. Starling City gets a little more cramped.
Jim’s Take
Kyle and I pretty much agree. This was an especially disappointing episode. I wasn’t sure what more we ended up learning about Sara’s murder, other than it wasn’t Roy after all. I also hated that Wildcat and his sidekick are too young. Arrow has already been active for 2 years, so another vigilante active 6 years prior to this episode doesn’t fly. When Arrow first started, there was no mention of Wildcat, but the writers of the show would rather cast their own time line and logic aside than have to cast smoke with gray hair.
Gotham
Kyle’s Review
Gotham has never had a strong narrative arc or character development, and any watchability lies with which actors show up in an episode and in what combinations. Last week’s “Penguin’s Umbrella” focused on Oswald Cobblepot, Don Falcone, and the hint of a buddy cop dynamic between Gordon and Bullock. The plot for “Penguin’s Umbrella” didn’t make much sense, but it was enjoyable if you turned off your brain. This week’s episode “The Mask” drops any kind of pseudo momentum the last episode had.
Be warned, “The Mask” could be Gotham’s jumping the shark moment if it had been good at any point in its short history. I don’t see how they can torture viewers with 22 episodes of 44 minutes apiece, but I’ll spare you and stay brief.
This episode deflates the hint of a relationship between Gordon and Bullock last week. It tries to reestablish things at the end but falls flat. Gotham throws together some half-hearted GCPD come to Gordon’s rescue, complete with Bullock giving a stirring speech—well, a Bullock sarcastic special of a speech—but what the GCPD does makes no difference.
The flavor of Black Mask, this week’s villain, is inconsequential. He runs a corporate Fight Club. Seriously, that’s the lame arc of this police procedural. Things get tied up at the end not because they should be but because the 44 minutes were up, and you can’t have the episode run long or develop any plotlines for the future.
On top of all its other shortcomings Gotham can’t figure out what it wants to be. Are we focusing on Gordon and Bullock, the not-so-subtle power struggle in the mob, Batboy, tweenage Catwoman, a police procedural show, or whatever strikes Gotham’s fancy next week? You can blend a few things together, but you can’t put everything into one show. Let’s get to some quick ones.
1) We don’t get that much of Cobblepot—one of the few consistent performances on the show—but what we do get of him is with his mom—yuck—and Mooney – groan.
2) Mooney continues her ridiculous plot—that the audience already knows will fail—to overthrow Falcone. Penguin should hunt her down already.
3) Batboy returns. As usual he doesn’t deal with issues as Bruce Wayne. He thinks like Batman in Underoos.
4) Tweenage Catwoman shows up. She’s either the world’s worst thief or she wants to get with Jim Gordon at police headquarters.
5) Barbara’s justifiably freaked out, but no one cares.
6) Alfred’s going to be Bruce’s sensei. Okay?
7) Gotham has been so bad that if it continues this way for long, we may have to discontinue our reviews of it. We really don’t want to be too negative.
Verdict: This one’s a stinker. Skip it.
There have been a lot of great card games in the past fifteen to twenty years. The following’s a sampling of such games. Can you name these games in the order they were released?
jkgeekly.com 