Bob’s Burgers: “Wag the Hog”

Kyle’s Thoughts

“Wag the Hog” was a solid episode. In terms of last week’s Bob’s Burgers, it was better than “House of 1000 Bounces” and not as good as “Stand by Gene.” But this episode did something the other one haven’t done in a long time: split up the parents.

Granted, it didn’t split up the kids. Bob joined the kids with trying to sell Critter’s bike, while Linda was on her own with babysitting Critter’s critter, Side Car. As you can imagine there wasn’t as much of a dynamic change in cast coupling as I would have liked but it worked well enough. The events didn’t scrape too deep beneath the surface like “Stand by Gene,” although it did reintroduce Critter, the leader of the biker gang Bob and Linda have served the last couple of seasons. Critter’s okay. I like him well enough but the episode’s highlight was Tom Lennon and Joe Lo Truglio playing two yuppies who are wannabe bikers.

Linda out on her own means that there was a lot of Linda, but her annoying presence was undercut with Side Car. When Side Car misses his nap, he turns full on biker toddler and watching Linda try to explain why the child she’s caring for is throwing toys at other toddlers’ heads was chuckle-inducing.

This week’s episode may not have been another slam dunk, but “Wag the Hog” was a solid episode.

Thanks for reading.

Archer Review: “The Handoff”

Kyle’s Thoughts

While I had fun watching the first episode of Archer’s seventh season “The Figgis Agency,” I was left with a lot of questions and they were answered, for the most part, during “The Handoff.” Since most of the loose ends were tied up, I’ll reveal some of the things I held back in my thoughts last week.

Sterling was floating—presumably dead—in a swimming pool at the beginning of last week. This hasn’t happened yet. We just caught a glimpse of the season finale most likely. The Figgis Agency were duped into stealing a computer disc—who uses floppy discs anymore?—from the Hollywood starlet Veronica Deane, and this week they stole it back for the real Veronica Deane. These events explained how The Figgis Agency remains afloat financially. There were times I wondered if the Deane story would be an ongoing one but even if it doesn’t, Archer did a great job of showing the team’s transition into PI work. But a comedy doesn’t need to explain itself as much as a drama. A comedy needs laughs, and Archer continues to deliver.

The standout scene this week was when Malory refused to call Sterling’s phone, because Sterling uses his patented outgoing messages that sound like he answered. Hello. Yes, it’s me, Sterling. Yep. Yeah. My thoughts exactly. Just kidding. I’m off saving the world, leave a message. What’s even better is that Sterling began one of these outgoing messages with “yes, Mother, it’s me,” which was how he answered the phone when Malory called this week. Mallory called at the worst moment. Her call was how Sterling was discovered by a gang of thugs. He fought for his life but all we saw was Mallory and the rest of the agency listening to Sterling’s fight, expecting Sterling to say, just kidding. I waited for a minute, thinking they’d shift back to Sterling at some point, but I’m glad they didn’t. I laughed and didn’t quit after the third punch—at least I thought it was a punch—and by the time we see Sterling, he’s bloody and naked.

Fake outgoing messages wasn’t the only old joke that returned. Phrasing made a couple of appearances. Pam tried to supplant it with “Politics,” but Sterling rejected that joke. I liked the nod to this election year but I’m also glad Archer won’t pander to the upcoming election: it gets enough coverage. Lana mentioned her and Sterling’s child, so I’m glad they haven’t dropped that side story like so many wee-baby Shamuses. And Krieger made his triumphant return. I can’t wait to see his next invention.

“The Handoff” worked on many levels. It set up The Figgis Agency for future PI work, while keeping the pool scene hanging over the season’s head. And I love the bit of fashion advice Sterling gave this week. When asked why he was naked (after his fight for life), Sterling answered, “It’s after Labor Day.” Excellent.

Thanks for reading.

Arrow Review: “Eleven-Fifty-Nine”

Jim’s Thoughts

The last couple of weeks have been rough for Arrow. Coming back from another break, I’d hoped it’d come back strong, and it didn’t. This week, I can say the show found some meaningful momentum again, and the reason for that is what I’ve been saying all season, and that’s Darhk. “Eleven-Fifty-Nine” got back to telling the best part of the story, and so while it wasn’t a perfect episode, it held my interest.

The flashback scenes didn’t bore me as much as they have been. The tie-in to the present day was more apparent, and that may be why. The exploration of the notion that a person can be redeemed has been done to death and then some on this show, so it wasn’t the freshest material, but it made those scenes not feel quite so much like a tangent.

The conflict between Ollie and John Diggle was reasonably well done, though again, we’ve seen this question of trust before. There’s something to be said for recurring themes, so it’s not necessarily a bad idea to revisit these elements, but it doesn’t do a lot for long-term character development. What may have saved it was the bit of role reversal. Where Diggle once warned Oliver not to be blinded by family ties, that was Ollie’s line this week, and they mentioned that in the episode. What I really liked about this segment is that Ollie was right. The way he’s flubbed things with various members of the team, it felt like Ollie needed one in the win column, and he got that, with grim consequences.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

The rest of the episode is difficult to talk about without giving anything away, so consider yourself warned for spoilers. The big, emotional ending to the episode, and indirectly, the grim consequences I just mentioned was that Laurel died. I’ve made no secret out of having disliked her character in past seasons, though Felicity definitely surpassed her as Laurel actually became downright tolerable. Her heart-to-heart with Ollie just before her death felt very much like telegraphing the punch, and I can’t get too invested in their romantic past. The fact that they each seemed to there at the end made me wince, because I can’t forget that Ollie became stranded on Lian Yu when he ran off with her sister. Simply put, this show (and Flash) do relationships very badly. Kyle and I spoke recently about the many (MANY) “loves” of Oliver Queen, and it’s become impossible to take any of them seriously. Hey, even Felicity was smitten with Barry, “in love” with Ray Palmer, and ditto with Ollie within the course of a couple years if you take the show’s timeline seriously. That also made Laurel’s use of her last lines as a plea for Ollie’s relationship with Felicity all the more annoying.

I realize the producers of the show have stated this death will be permanent (read: no trip to the Lazarus Pit), but as Kyle and I have both pointed out, Flash has also used time travel and breaches into alternate universes. Add to that the fact that they’ve confirmed we’ll get a look at Earth 2’s Laurel Lance as Black Siren, and it gets tough to know exactly how seriously we need to take this death.

***END OF SPOILERS***

As we get the buildup for the final confrontation with Damien Darhk, I’m hoping the show won’t distract us with too many more villains-of-the-week. Darhk really has been the selling point for this season, and the show does best when it recognizes that.

Kyle’s Take

Agreed. “Eleven-Fifty-Nine” did a good job reintroducing the one thing that’s worked on the show this season: Damien Darhk. The silly thing is that Arrow keeps getting away from him, and the last two weeks watched like a dare. How bad can we make this show? Thankfully, “Eleven-Fifty-Nine”–despite its flaws–was watchable.

The death won’t stick (Arrow will take a mulligan just like they did with Sara), the Diggle-Ollie drama was old hat, and there has been so much “love” in the air that it affects my sinuses.

I forget at times that Arrow and Flash are part of the CW, the same network that brought us One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl, Roswell, Charmed, and Dawson’s Creek, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that complicated love pentagrams take shape. What was wrong with the classic love triangle? Even with love’s jagged edges, I enjoyed Arrow this week. If we see more episodes like this one and hopefully some better ones, it’ll hold my interest until the season finale.

Thanks for reading.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Review: “Space-Time”

Kyle’s Thoughts

I can’t help but think that Marvel teases DC for some of its storytelling issues, while ignoring their own. Perhaps they don’t do it intentionally, but there was one time when Marvel treated DC like a dog that pooped on the floor and they had to rub its nose in it. The Avengers trying to evacuate citizens of a foreign town in Age of Ultron was a finger wag for Man of Steel where Superman doesn’t care about hundreds of thousands of Metropolis citizens. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s “Space-time” is a bit of a stretch when it comes to Marvel teasing DC, but it does address an issue Jim and I have covered in DC superhero shows on more than one occasion. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D kills a character and we know they’re dead.

This isn’t the first time Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. killed a character, but the manner in which the death occurred makes me wonder if this isn’t another Marvel ninner-ninner-ninner. Agents sets up a character like Jean Dewolff (Spectacular Spider-man #107-110, written by Peter David) where we learn enough about a character to care for them and we see them die by Hydra’s hand in the show’s opening moments.

Turns out that the victim has precognition so we saw his future death and here’s where the ninner-ninner-ninner comes into play. DC shows use time-travel, universe hopping, and fountains of youth to return characters from the dead as unlimited mulligans. In “Space-time,” Marvel used precognition so S.H.I.E.L.D. could stage a rescue. Which storytelling method is more legitimate? Well, I used golf terms in those two scenarios, so DC shot 50-100 mulligans on the first tee and kept saying do-over, while Marvel grabbed a couple of range ball buckets and practiced, so they could hit the first shot well. I’m guilty of taking copious mulligans, but I’d say the second method is more legitimate.

“Space-time” also killed off a bit character because no one believes a primary or secondary character can ever die. Superman’s dead. Please. Deadpool died two months before Marvel was going to relaunch its books. Like we can’t see what’s going to happen in two months. Surprise! Deadpool’s back. Since the character who died on this week’s Agents was a bit character, he’s going to stay dead. Agents has had its share of characters leaving the show this season, and it’s done a good job of saying final goodbyes: Rosalind, Bobbi and Hunter were compromised so they’ll only return as guests, and Lash has also taken over Andrew this week. I’m sad to see Blair Underwood’s Dr. Garner go, but it was only a matter of time before Lash assumed complete control. The moment Andrew shares with Agent May is the episode’s best. You should watch “Space-time” if only for that moment.

There’s one character who we knew Agents wouldn’t kill, and they showed him “die” anyway: Agent Ward. Ward is one of those primary characters you know won’t stay dead. In fact he was “dead” all of five minutes before returning as “It” or It-Ward. This occurred before the mid-season break, but I’m bringing it up here again to show that Marvel shows are guilty of similar sins as DC shows. It-Ward also rubbed me the wrong way this week. His power looks too much like Whitney Frost’s in Agent Carter for it to be coincidence and yet, I don’t think they’re tied in any meaningful way. If Frost and It-Ward do have a connection, I’ll be okay with it, but if they don’t, it’s lazy.

It-Ward even called Malick’s motivation into question. I bought Malick’s desire to bring “It” back to Earth when he was doing it for the glory of Hydra. I don’t buy a multi-billionaire who needs an alien to tell him that he needs to take a man’s life with his own hands to have power. Malick has been around a lot of death and it’d be shocking if he hadn’t participated. And if he wanted to kill someone with his bare hands, why didn’t he set up an R&D lab to make his own exoskeleton suit? You’d think he’d get that idea after watching Iron Man for over a decade. That’s almost as hokey as Baron Zemo from the 1960s, when he said that he never thought of making a solvent for Adhesive-X (the glue that kept his mask on his head for decades). Really? That wasn’t your first thought.

Overall “Space-time” was a very good episode because it grounded us with the death of a family man with precognition. My biggest fear is that this week began the final shift from an earthly Marvel universe to a space-faring one. This has been the trend for a while, but Agents was grounded in S.H.I.E.L.D. versus Hydra. Once Hydra fades, the show—and the greater Marvel universe—is headed further from grounded storylines. Don’t get me wrong. I geeked out when I saw the announcement for Infinity Wars, but Thanos is a character who can snap his fingers and half of creation is gone. How can one fathom that kind of power? You’d go blind if you looked at it.

Thanks for reading.

iZombie: Major trouble

Kyle’s Thoughts

iZombie continues to impress. The stories intertwine in a satisfying way, and “Reflections of the Way Liv Used to Be” called back to one of the show’s more fun episodes “Zombie Bro.” Austin and Brody, two of Liv’s former fraternity brothers, added levity and illustrated how much Liv has been through this season. I still don’t buy her relationship with Drake, it ascended too quickly and crashed like Icarus, but she has taken a more hands on approach toward crime fighting, which gives credence to why Major would keep his actions as the Chaos Killer—or Kidnapper—from her. And of course we had more twists and turns where the Chaos Killer arc is concerned.

I won’t spoil it here, but Major was in major trouble at episode’s end, and the fallout from his issues should be enough to propel iZombie to its season finale. If you caught iZombie last week, you know that Major’s been re-zombiefied. If you didn’t catch last week’s iZombie, I’m sorry for that spoiler. Major has a similar reaction to brains as Liv. He ate the happy-go-lucky brains—another callout to a stellar iZombie episode “Eternal Sunshine of the Caffeinated Mind”—and that led to some great moments with Major, Ravi, and Blaine. A super positive Major even uttered one of the better lines in the show: “Who we were is not who we are, it’s practice for who we want to be.” That’s surprisingly deep for a character who functioned as comic relief at the time he said it. And that’s iZombie surprisingly deep.

I may not care about Drake and Liv’s short-lived relationship, but the story radiates into Liv’s professional career, and not just because she misses him. Detective Lou Benedetto, Drake’s contact at the Seattle PD, factored into “Reflections of the Way Liv Used to Be.” Benedetto offered the dark negative to Detective Babineaux’s by-the-book cop routine. I won’t say how things go down and spoil the episode’s story, but Babineaux received some much needed development.

Blaine and Ravi took a backseat this week, but they still had some scene stealing moments. Blaine will factor into the show as it moves toward its finale. He’s the linchpin with Liv and her origin, Major and the zombie cure, Mr. Boss and the drug trade, and Peyton and her case against Mr. Boss. An amnesic Blaine may prove to be the deadliest Blaine. And how Ravi interacted with Blaine and super-happy Major was fun.

If Blaine and Ravi were in the backseat, Vaughn Du Clark (Steven Weber) was an afterthought. He didn’t even get a credit, but Du Clark was electric in the scenes he was in. He won’t win any father of the year awards, but that’s what makes Du Clark compelling. He quickly turned on her after she became a zombie—we knew she turned last week but I’m sorry if that’s a spoiler—but before then, he doted on her in his own way. To be honest I’m not sure how he functions without Gilda. She’s the one who ran Max Rager. I’m sure that will come to a head in the not-so-distant future.

iZombie has hit its stride, while the other DC Comics shows on the CW continue to flounder. I hope it can maintain its momentum and something tells me it can. “Reflections of the Way Liv Used to Be” was another solid episode.

Thanks for reading.

Bob’s Burgers: Narts to a two-butted goat

Kyle’s Thoughts

Okay, “Stand by Gene” was Bob’s Burgers’ return to form I was waiting for. The kids and adults were split in the same manner as “House of 1000 Bounces,” so increase that ratio to five out of the past six Bob’s Burgers episodes, but the non-focus kids—Gene’s the focus as the name “Stand by Gene” suggests—are more than just background. Tina, Louise, Jimmy Junior, Zeke, and even Regular Sized Rudy had moments to shine.

Gene hears a rumor that there’s a two-butted goat in town and convinces all the other kids to find it. He and Zeke become bosom buddies, so that engages Jimmy Junior. Louise bets Gene the restaurant’s end of the day cleaning that a two-butted goat doesn’t exist, so that provides Louise with a reason for going on this journey. And Tina waxes poetic about her future and her destined beau, and she’s certain one of the boys on the collective journey will be her true love, and that incorporates her.

Even though I’d like to see Bob’s Burgers divvy up different characters, “Stand by Gene” exhibited good storytelling. Every character had a reason to be there and they weren’t wasted. The two stories even converged, which was a refreshing bonus.

The adult side of the story added more characters than usual. Bob gets tired of losing to Linda with every game they play, so he wants his friends Mort, Teddy, and even the mailman to beat her at a game of Narts (napkin darts). The games a terrible mess but Bob and Linda don’t care because business is dead and they already told the kids that they’d have to clean up at the end of the day.

Eventually, Bob remembers that Linda’s his wife and he shouldn’t be so petty and root for her. As a result the adults didn’t have as well developed a story as the kids but it was still effective and tied into Louise being thankful that she saw a two-butted goat, even if it meant she had to clean up the restaurant. The same restaurant that has wet napkins darts on every wall, inch of floor, and seat. Louise’s “What the heck happened here?” is priceless.

“Stand by Gene” had more energy. It had more character. It had more of what makes Bob’s Burgers fun. It even had a catchy song about a two-butted goat. It’s pure Fartmony.

Thanks for reading.

Bob’s Burgers: The Belcher kids crash a birthday party

Kyle’s Thoughts

Bob’s Burgers has had a lot of episodes this season where it splits up the adults and children, and I’ve grown weary of this practice. Sure, the series has featured this tactic on more than one occasion but they broke it up in years past, while “House of 1000 Bounces” marks the fourth episode out of the last five where the show has broken up its principal characters like this. It’s an okay episode, but I’d like more variety.

Usually, I like how Bob’s Burgers brings in secondary characters and fleshes them out but I’m not invested in Regular Sized Rudy. He owns one of the greatest names on the show but he’s a milk toast. I guess I’m harsh on him at the moment because of the typical for season six parent-children split and because Louise is his foil. Whenever there’s a children episode, one Belcher kid takes point, and Louise overshadows Regular Sized Rudy at Rudy’s birthday party. I like Louise but she’s the only Belcher kid who hasn’t grown. She takes everything to the limit with no regard to other people’s feelings. At the end of each of her episodes her heart grows three sizes and she makes things right. Lather, rinse, repeat. “House of 1000 Bounces” uses this same formula.

The parent side of the story was nonsensical. Actually, I thought it worked because it was so silly. Bob’s afraid of pigeons because he watched Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds at a young age, and a pigeon gets stuck in the restaurant. That’s it. But that’s all you need for a few laughs. Bob deals with his fears, as he often does, and winds up in a bubble bath with the pigeon.

Bob’s Burgers started the season strong—“Gayle Makin” Bob Sled” notwithstanding. “Hauntening” and “Nice-Capades” were stand out episodes, but the show has hit a touch of spring doldrums. “House of 1000 Bounces” is one half of a double-header. I haven’t seen “Stand by Gene” yet, but it sounds like another kid-driven episode.

Thanks for reading.

Grimm: Evil’s only “Skin Deep”

Kyle’s Thoughts

I haven’t covered Grimm in a few weeks, so I’ll play catch up. The Renard story has taken center stage. I like how the story has progressed. Grimm has done a great job of building it with workable chunks each week. If you take this story and look at it in a vacuum of just this season, it makes perfect sense. I’m wondering if Grimm has picked up a lot of new viewers, and the writers’ room is catering to them. But as someone who has seen the previous four Grimm season, I’m not sold on the story because of how Renard has been portrayed in the past.

Renard rejected his royal heritage. Who cares about being mayor of Portland, when you can be a prince of another country? I believe he rejected running for mayor, or being appointed another country’s consulate, earlier this season or late last season, so his sudden turn as mayoral candidate is a head scratcher. As is his wanting to reunite with his daughter. I had forgotten Renard and Adalind even had a daughter until it was mentioned as a political move to reunite the family. This comes off as an artificial way to throw a wrench in Nick and Adalind’s budding relationship.

Adalind and Nick don’t need another complication. She’s regaining her hexenbeist powers, and that’s enough, but I’m down with building more obstacles. Adalind has been a good mother to Kelly (her and Nick’s son), so reintroducing her child with Renard should force her into action because of her parental instincts. I just wished Grimm hadn’t dropped Adalind’s first child. I think Nick could get behind Adalind reuniting with her daughter, even if she does revert to hexenbeist form, but she’s keeping too many secrets from him and that never ends well. I’d call Adalind’s secret keeping and the strain it’s caused on her and Nick’s relationship one of this season’s strengths.

Eve has to be one of this season’s weaknesses. She’s Juliette but not Juliette. And we found out during the latest episode “Skin Deep” that she possesses some of Juliette’s memories, but she’s still not Juliette. It’s confusing. In seasons past Juliette was an emotional rollercoaster, so her robotic performance this season is a reprieve, but it’s still robotic.

I could warm up to Eve and how she is now—Bitsie Tulloch has done a great job portraying a character devoid of emotion—but Hadrian’s Wall has too many more mysteries that I can’t wrap my head around. It’s a secret branch of the FBI, which means that the United States government knows of Wesen, but we don’t know anything else about the agency. Hadrian’s Wall begs the questions who knows of it and when did they know it, but Grimm hasn’t shown any signs of answers. This secret government group opposes The Black Claw, and that’s all we know.

The Black Claw has also had its ups and downs. Some episodes Grimm gives us a good taste of these terrorists, while other episodes are so wrapped up in the group’s machinations, that we’re not sure which issues they stand for. We were first introduced to The Black Claw with their slaughtering of anyone who doesn’t believe the same way they do. So that colored my opinion of them and the actions they took after those initial episodes. Killing off the wesen council: good, effective, and in keeping with their previous actions. Manipulating Portland’s mayoral race: not so good and out of character for the group. Clearly Renard doesn’t own their ideals. Why would they waste their time converting him? Seriously, Renard’s story line would be great if you had amnesia.

With the ongoing arcs out of the way, I’ll give some thoughts on the wesens of the week these past few episodes. I’ll be brief.

“Silence of the Slams” gave us a nice wrinkle to the usual weekly wesen. I like it when Grimm switches its typical wesen antagonist for something a little foreign, and that was what worked with this down on his luck Luchador. What I didn’t like was that the wesen who made the magic Luchador mask was another one and done wesen.

“Lycanthropia” took the usual blutbad wesen and turned it on its ear. I like it when Grimm takes one of its staple wesen, like the blutbad, and changes it up, so this worked for the episode. Unfortunately, the mystery’s twist was too obvious. The prime suspect was a red herring and it was his loved one who was the killer.

“Skin Deep” presented a familiar story of someone sucking youth from young people and selling it as a fountain of youth cream. The wesen was another one and done, so that was working against “Skin Deep,” and the story was not only familiar, it was tired. But Grimm did a great job of presenting the story. Who cares if it ended the way you’d expect? It was entertaining and the final scene of the story was haunting.

Overall, Grimm has had a strong season. While I prefer episodes prior to the mid-season break, there’s enough in these past few episodes to hold my interest.

Thanks for reading.

Archer Review: “The Figgis Agency”

Kyle’s Thoughts

The seventh season of Archer marks the third consecutive year the show has changed its format. I was a little worried before Archer Vice and it proved to be one of the better season. The CIA season last year was a little closer to the original Archer, but I still panicked with Archer’s shift to a private investigator, Magnum PI style. Like Archer Vice, this was a wildly different angle for the show, but I shouldn’t question Archer’s direction. They hit it out of the park most of the time, and Archer PI—at least for the first episode—is no different.

The beautiful thing is that Archer keeps their characters intact, while presenting a new world view each season. I won’t spoil it here, but the opening is Breaking Bad (another great show) in nature, so you know Archer’s going to have fun. And that’s what Archer is, fun.

Each new job the gang takes illustrates a new way Sterling can fail and that’s where the change in the show’s direction is a strength. We’ve seen Sterling goof as a secret agent, a drug lord, and as a CIA operative, but a job as a private investigator presents new pratfalls and puns. This is the first time Sterling has to break into a building to procure evidence, and he leaves the work to Lana and Ray, while he plays with infrared goggles. He’s so like Predator.

It’s too soon to tell what will be this season’s ongoing joke or jokes. “Inappropes” (short for inappropriate), “phrasing,” and “Danger Zone” have been staples in the past, getting peppered into most seasons after they were introduced, but Archer adds at least one new wrinkle to keep things fresh.

I’m sure the first episode’s name “The Figgis Agency” will factor into the show going forward. Sterling’s ticked off that his investigation agency isn’t named after him, and that it’s named after Cyril Figgis. The reason for the agency’s name is that Figgis has multiple degrees, assets, and the certificates to open an agency, while Sterling’s a screw up. Cyril loves to remind Sterling of the agency’s name, so you know there’ll be plenty of explosions.

I don’t want to accidently spoil anything, so I won’t go into too much detail. Just know that Sterling remains as knuckleheaded and suave as ever. And that the first episode’s a blast.

Thanks for reading.

Arrow Review: “Beacon of Hope”

Jim’s Thoughts

Remember last week when I called Cupid the worst Arrow villain since Count Vertigo? That’s probably still true, but this week brought back the second worst villain since Count Vertigo. I guess maybe The Bug-eyed Bandit was a Flash villain at first, but you get the idea. I didn’t miss her.

Bee puns and awkward environmental conservation speeches were only one of the problems, to be fair. It was at least equally detrimental to the episode that we got more Olicity rammed down our throats. Aside from the fact that I’ve found Felicity increasingly insufferable of late, it’s also hard to play the “we miss you” angle when she’s been gone for all of a day or two.

The flashbacks were more of the same. I haven’t cared about that story, and it doesn’t seem to be tying into the present in any meaningful way. At this point, it’s wasted screen time that could (and should) have been devoted to the Damien Darhk story, which wasn’t given enough time to make much sense at all.

I’ve liked Curtis’ character well enough this season, but I can’t say he was effective in this episode. He was too much of a gender-flipped Felicity, and I have to gig the show for the scene where Lance chastises Curtis for screaming. The connotation there is that his masculinity is being questioned, and with a homosexual character, that comes off as surprisingly regressive and insensitive.

Here’s hoping Arrow finds its footing soon. This was not the bounce-back week I was hoping for.

Kyle’s Take

Yikes! Looks like Arrow’s Chipotle cleanse will take another week to get through its system. I’m with Jim. I didn’t like the Bug-eyed Bandit when she was on The Flash. The positive—if it is one—is that we saw more of her face during “Beacon of Hope.” The negative is that she had more dialogue. Don’t feed us an environmental treatise within dialogue. Why? Bee…cause it’s tacky like tortured bee puns. Looks like someone needs to bee…have. Ugh.

Even when Olicity isn’t a thing, it’s still a thing. There’s a demographic that gobbles up anything and everything Olicity, but I’m not a member of that group. Arrow has made it a point to alienate anyone who isn’t on Team Olicity, so Jim and I have been out in the cold most of this season. Oh, and coupling Felicity’s mom with Captain Lance so she’ll be in more episodes is another way to bring Olicity into the forefront. Mother Smoak’s an insufferable character in her own right bee…cause (couldn’t help myself) she voices Olicity fans’ concerns. Seriously, Olicity fans are so catered to that they have their own character who speaks for them in the show. Ugh.

Chastise might be too strong a word to describe what Lance said to Curtis. That doesn’t mean that what Lance said wasn’t insensitive or regressive. Jim’s 100% correct on that front. In fact, half the dialogue that involved Curtis flew in the vicinity of obscenity. “You’re a dude-ish Felicity?” A dude-ish Felicity? What? Welcome to the 90s, Arrow. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Ugh.

The flashbacks bore me. Get rid of them; they haven’t worked since Deathstroke. Murmur came out of nowhere and now, he’s buddy-buddy with Darhk. Sure, that makes sense. Arrow explained that Darhk had kidnapped Murmur’s mother. That’s problematic bee…cause (I’ll stop, maybe) that’s similar to what Darhk did to Ollie, the show hadn’t set up that Darhk would’ve had the foresight to kidnap Murmur’s mother in advance of going to the prison where Murmur was king, and it hadn’t been established that Murmur even had a mother who was still alive. Darhk was the one thing that was working. Just, ugh.

Arrow took longer to get to its rocky stretch of road—the show has a history of ineffective episodes right after its mid-season break—but it’s made up for lost time with some stinkers these past two weeks. We’re careening closer to the season finale, so Arrow should get things back on track. It will get back on track, won’t it? I’m hoping it does.

Thanks for reading.