Project Type: Geekly TV

Bob’s Burgers
Kyle’s Review

This week’s episode of Bob’s Burgers used the common theme in animated sitcoms of random stories, making references of other intellectual properties, but unlike other animated shows, Bob’s Burgers gave us context for these “Gayle Tales.”

We discover that the three kids (Tina, Louise, and Gene) did something to earn their mother’s wrath but we don’t know what they did yet. As Linda’s about to explain why she grounded the three to Bob, Aunt Gayle walks into the store to save the day. This is the first appearance for Gayle this season, but even if you’ve never seen the show or forgot who she was as a character, you learn everything you need to know about her in an instant when Louise says, “Hey, there’s Aunt Gayle and surprise, surprise, she’s crying again.” Gayle needs cheering up and a new date for the theater. The kids are more than happy to accompany Gayle, and a conflicting Linda wants to make her sister happy but also wants to uphold her punishment of the kids. Eventually, Linda challenges the kids to write essays that include their Aunt Gayle and a Scott Bakula reference (because Gayle loved him in Quantum Leap), and that’s where the goofy stories about other intellectual properties come into play.

I won’t go into detail about each of the three stories—I will say that one of them prompts Bob to butt into the tale and ask Louise (his youngest child) if she’s been watching Game of Thrones—but in less than three minutes, Bob’s Burgers established well-defined motivations before launching into these story parodies. Once we get to the various tales, we see how each child views the other characters in town and in their family, and we get the payoff at the end of what the kids did to tick off Linda. I won’t spoil it but it’s pretty minor and involves Linda feeling embarrassed and having to purchase a month’s supply of maxi pads.

Verdict: Other animated sitcoms have used the retelling of other intellectual properties before, but Bob’s Burgers does it the best.

Marvel’s Agent Carter
Kyle’s Review
So we’ve seen Agent Carter’s first season in its entirety, and if you’ve been reading our write ups for the last couple of months, you know what our main complaints have been for the series so far and these issues continued, including the reintroduction of Cap-heavy references, with the finale. I won’t go into detail about these over-the-top allusions, but the Cap references do illustrate the Marvel TV world’s major shortcoming. Nothing gets ventured so nothing’s gained by watching.

Sure, these shows are eye-candy. If you want to see more of “Hotwell” on-screen, you can’t go wrong with Agent Carter, and I loved an actual Jarvis—he was the Avengers butler in the comics and not just Tony’s—because James D’Arcy gave us a great sidekick for Peggy, but the show didn’t reveal anything we didn’t already know. So what was the point of telling the story?

We got some minor reveals in this show, but any major ones occurred in Marvel’s cinematic universe and we saw ripple effects from the movies in Agent Carter. What more would you expect from Agent Carter? Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD can’t advance their own storyline without the movies stepping in and Agent Carter has the added handicap of being a prequel.

Prequels are usually a bad idea—just ask most Star Wars fans—but Agent Carter did garner plenty of viewers and it looks like it might get renewed. I can get on board with a second season…perhaps.

I loved the inclusion of not one but two strong female characters, but they need to let Peggy be Peggy. Marvel also needs more strong females. I just wished Agent Carter could have more of an impact on the greater Marvel universe. Maybe a second season will impact the universe, but I doubt it.

Verdict: Agent Carter’s rough around the edges but those edges might get smoothed out next season—if there is a next season—but Marvel’s TV track-record suggests that they won’t.

Arrow
Jim’s Review
Arrow headed into their brief hiatus with an episode that tried to do an awful lot. Thea’s development continued, and I think it has been long overdue, however there seems to be something manic about the pacing.

Ollie’s insistence on rescuing Malcolm felt initially believable, but actually chasing the league to Nanda Parbat stretched things too far. I enjoyed that Diggle was given a chance to be an active participant here, and we were successfully reminded of the fact that he can handle himself, but the premise felt flimsy. At what point does Oliver just embrace the concept of a plan-B?

Again, we saw Laurel cry, and almost cry. I was sick of it in season 1, and now I’m just praying she learns a third trick.

Seeing Roy open up to Thea about his traumatic experience under the influence of mirikuru was a nice touch, and it fleshed out their relationship which as mostly been on hold.

The big reveal with Ra’s was the thing that bugged me most. It’s not that it doesn’t fit, it’s that it’s another element lifted from Batman. All things considered, it’s just another reminder of the glaring absence in an otherwise solid TV universe DC is building.

Kyle’s Take
This week’s episode “Nanda Parbat” continued Arrow’s trend of fast forwarding past character development and getting to a showdown of some sort. There hasn’t been much of a build up for anything this season and I wonder why the Arrow would stick out his neck for Merlyn. I don’t buy that it’s completely for Thea, and I only half believe Ollie when he said he lost his confidence.

Ollie has lost his mojo, but it’s mostly his ability to lie and garner support. He can’t convince anyone of anything—not even Laurel. The pod person herself caught Ollie in a lie. The show didn’t put a fine point on Ollie’s lack of subterfuge. That could be because Team Arrow wanted to add a hidden layer of subtext, but I’m not convinced Arrow has the requisite subtly for that kind of subtext. If they do, good on them, but at any rate “Nanda Parbat” did manage to juggle a lot of mistrust between Ollie and his supporting cast, and this mistrust blended well with the sheer number of people who know Arrow’s secret identity.

Who doesn’t know Ollie’s the Arrow? I know. Diggle’s baby, but even the Diggle baby’s been in the Arrow Cave. Still, the mass of people who know Arrow’s secret identity worked because Diggle was the only one willing to help Ollie. Arrow’s support system is not what it used to be, so that makes the offer Ollie received from Ra’s all the more tempting.

I do agree that Ra’s wanting someone to following in his footsteps reeks of Batman, and I’ll add that The Atom’s inclusion in this episode felt odd. He didn’t mesh with the rest of the story and he’s supposed to make a Flash crossover first thing after this two-week hiatus, which makes me question his link with Arrow. Perhaps he’ll get his own series next year. That would be fun. We may not have Batman or Superman, but we’ll have the guy who once played Superman playing a guy that can shrink.

Verdict:
A lot of stuff happened in this episode. Some of it worked and some didn’t work as well, but there are things to look forward to after the short break.

Check out our Arrow secrets page here.

The Flash
Jim’s Review
This week’s episode was hit and miss. The continued exploration of future Barry’s time-travel back to the night of his mom’s murder made for some interesting internal conflict. Barry has begun to wrestle with the idea of being destined to fail, and on a more subtle level, they’ve even broached the idea of alternate timelines, which is always a handy concept to turn to when creating a superhero show.

The focus on FIRESTORM made for some good emotional material between Ronnie and Caitlin, and some decent chuckles between Dr. Stein and Ronnie. Their dynamic, at times, kept the episode from getting too dry, and served the sometimes light-hearted tone of the show while Barry’s story took him into more troubled waters.

General Eiling is not a compelling villain. He’s the definition of one-dimensional, and his material is really just a network of evil-military-clichés. His involvement in the episode dragged it down, and forced me to suspend disbelief more than I’m ordinarily comfortable with. Why would people on the run return to their homes? Why wouldn’t the general have people waiting at STAR Labs and Professor Stein’s house? Why would a secret base have its designation on crates in the interrogation room? Why can Barry outrun bullets, and a nuclear explosion, but not some little spikes?

I’ll stop pulling at those threads before I make this episode sound worse than it was, because it really wasn’t all that bad. Iris’ storyline was sort of lost in the shuffle, but that’s probably for the best. Yes, it seems she’s on the case, investigating STAR Labs, but the show has not established her as an intellectual heavyweight, but rather the sorority girl who needs the nerd to do her homework, how much of a threat does she really pose here?

For all this episode didn’t get right, the tag teased some really exciting stuff. We get a look at Harrison being the Harrison that Barry doesn’t know yet, and a huge look at a Flash villain we’ve been teased with already. There’s definitely a lot to look forward to for next week.

Kyle’s Take
Looks like Jim didn’t leave a lot of meat on this bone. Again, I can’t disagree with much of what he’s saying, so I’ll go a different route.

Jim touched on one of The Flash’s greatest strengths: tempering dramatic waters with a touch of comedy. Cisco usually plays the role of comedic relief, but when he’s unable to do it, the rest of the cast can fill in for him. This week’s episode “Fallout” saw Cisco dropping some sweet pop-culture references—who didn’t like how he explained time travel theory to Detective West by means of Terminator and Back to the Future?—and the addition of Firestorm as a dual-personality presented another character capable of filling those light-hearted shoes. With that said I’ll admit that I wasn’t as impressed with half of “Fallout’s” serious elements.

We touched on it months ago that General Eiling doesn’t work as a character, and he still doesn’t. Clancy Brown’s talents are wasted, playing that shuffling cliché. Iris as the reporter who’ll uncover STAR Lab’s secrets doesn’t ring true. Her connection with Barry was the only reason she got Flash stories, and she hasn’t shown that she can do anything without Barry’s help. The only way she blows the STAR Labs story open is if Barry opens the front door for her. But despite the lesser half of dramatic threads, “Fallout’s” other half of drama did ring true.

I enjoyed Caitlin and Ronnie’s star-crossed lover’s story—this made Caitlin relatable and softened her edges, which was nice to see. I also liked the continued Barry’s mother’s murder investigation and time-traveling Barry story threads, but the most exciting part of this week’s episode was the tag. You’ve got to love Harrison as a speedster, and I geeked out at the first real appearance of a major villain.

Verdict:
This episode stumbled, but as long as Barry keeps running, he’ll punch his way to another great episode.

Dash to our The Flash secrets page to learn more about Barry, Firestorm, and more.

Arrow
Jim’s Review

I feel like I’ve been saying this a lot lately, but Arrow was up and down. This week featured less Laurel, but still some, which is automatically too much.

The premise of the episode, needing to go back to the island to prepare for a rematch with Ra’s was already shaky. The payoff to it was new material for Slade, and that was the strength of the episode. I was hoping for a much larger and more developed confrontation, but what we got was–if nothing else–a good call-back to the highs of last season. I think the real let-down was that Slade ended up back in the cell. I was hoping this visit to the island would put Deathstroke back in play.

The flashback segments gave us another look at Tommy, and that was a plus, as being reminded of his friendship with Ollie was humanizing for both characters, but some of the attempts to tie the past to the future–or vise versa–were painful. I cringed at the tongue-in-cheek reference to Ollie’s disguise not being enough even if he smeared grease paint over his face. Shoe-horning Diggle and Felicity into the flashback segments didn’t help the awkward factor.

Thea learning about Malcom using her to kill Sara was another overdue development, and it added something to the tension, but this is another case of the writers rushing a story along. Malcolm and Thea’s relationship was never given enough time to build for its destruction to mean much.

There’s still time for this season to end on a strong note, but this week’s episode wasn’t enough of a step in that direction.

Kyle’s Take
I thought and hoped we’d get another Deathstroke sighting but this was not the Deathstroke I wanted. The Joker’s line in The Dark Knight, “If you’re good at something, never do it for free,” fits Deathstroke better than it fits The Joker, and in this episode Slade was nothing more than Merlyn’s free play thing.

Then we find that Ollie and Thea were stupid enough to return to the island at Merlyn’s suggestion. Why would they go without him? I’d keep an eye on that slime and question why the island’s a better training location than the Sierra Nevadas, the Cascades, the Rockies or the Appalachians. Ra’s lives in the mountains. He actually lives on a mountain that’s more than a mile high–I’m looking at you, Denver. You train in a location similar to the one you’ll encounter. Case in point, the US Marines moved their basic training from the Baltimore/Annapolis region to South Carolina because they were preparing to go to Vietnam and Paris Island, SC closely resembled the climate and terrain of southeast Asia.

I did like the flashbacks with Tommy and disliked the scenes with Diggle and Felicity. Tommy acting as Thea’s adopted brother worked and tied into Ollie wanting to protect his sister. Diggle was superfluous, but Felicity’s cameo did nothing more than provide fan service. The most popular form of Arrow fanfiction is Olicity stories. People wanted to see Felicity and Ollie together, and we got a “He’s cute” from Felicity. And I didn’t cringed when I heard the grease paint line. I had an awkward laugh that turned into a groan. This line proved that Team Arrow knows it’s flailing, and they’re trying to tap into something that works on The Flash. Arrow needed to set up a precedent for lines like that in order for them to work.

But worse than awkward flashbacks was watching Arrow’s decision to fast forward nine months between seasons bite them in the behind again this week. Skipping Roy’s training, Detective Lance becoming police Captain, and the Arrow ascending to Starling City’s public defender don’t hurt, they actually helped. But we traded Roy’s training for the new Black Canary’s, so that’s a wash, and missing Thea and Merlyn’s nine months together torpedoed the dramatic turn of Thea denouncing her father.

We were told and not shown Thea and Merlyn’s relationship. If this was the endgame for this season, we should’ve seen these two together in flashbacks (more than the one or two we saw). Even if the flashbacks lasted only a minute or two each week, something (of consequence) would’ve been preferable to nothing. And nothing was what I got out of Thea’s big speech.

Verdict:
Arrow’s uneven writing has bogged down this season, and this week best illustrated how.

Take aim at our Arrow secrets page.

Marvel’s Agent Carter
Kyle’s Review
This week’s episode “SNAFU” put a fine point on why Agent Carter erred when it insisted on shoving chauvinist references down our throats. Up to this point Peggy figuratively wagged her finger at her viewer’s pigheadedness (or their parent’s or grandparent’s pigheadedness), but this episode had her literally chewing out the audience. Yes, there were SSR agents in the room with her, but when the camera zoomed in on Peggy, the scene was framed in such a way that she let us have it. What did we do, Peggy? We watched you and listened to you for seven 40-minute episodes.

The message against misogyny is an important one, but a modicum of subtly goes a long way. Saturday Night Live—who celebrated their 40^th anniversary this past week—worked best when the humor left enough to the audience that they could be in on the joke. Agent Carter bashed us over the head with its social commentary so many times that there’s nothing to get. And what’s worse is that one can walk away from this show thinking that at least we don’t act like that anymore and that these viewpoints don’t persist today. Newsflash: they do, but Agent Carter presents these issues in a way that’s counterproductive. SNAFU is right.

Fortunately, events occurred in “SNAFU” that should put this caveman club of a message aside. The director of the SSR, Roger Dooley, pulled his best Qui-Gon Jinn (a pivotal character introduced in a prequel that makes you wonder why they aren’t mentioned later in a series) and sacrifices himself for the greater good (and then you find out why they aren’t mentioned later). But my favorite moments involved Bridget Regan as Dottie Underwood. She has enough stage presence that she’ll make you forget that the show’s named Agent Carter at times. Plus, you’ve gotta love that staircase sequence.

Verdict:
This episode put to rest any desire for an extended series.

Constantine
Kyle’s Review
We found out what—or rather who—was the source of the rising evil in Constantine’s season—but perhaps its series—finale. I won’t spoil it here in the review, but I can’t say that it surprised me as much as Constantine wanted.

I did like the reintroduction of Jim Corrigan. He figures in the greater DC Comics Universe but his first appearance occurred before we started our Constantine secrets page, so we’ll discuss him more there. We also get an interesting—if not a little unbelievable—love triangle between Corrigan, Zed, and John. I don’t think the show earned such a triangle, but should Constantine get renewed for another season, this arc could have legs.

Speaking of renewal, there still isn’t word one way or the other as to whether or not Constantine will see a second season with NBC. If I was a Magic Eight Ball, I’d say, “All signs point to no,” but I liked the single finger salute Constantine gave its network on the way out. The network warned the show to never have a scene with John smoking. Up to this point Constantine tiptoed around its titular character’s habit. This episode saw John sparking one every chance he could get.

I haven’t mentioned the finale’s main plotline. That’s because it fell a little flat. The villain of the week rapes and murders young girls—which has the requisite level of creepiness for Constantine—but there are so many other story threads that get shoehorned into this episode (the love triangle, the source of the rising evil revealed, and the return of Papa Midnite) that we don’t get enough time with it. For me this cram-session tracks, because Constantine originally thought it had 20+ episodes, but it only got 13.

Verdict: Constantine showed that it has enough for a second season should it get picked up for a second season with NBC or if it transitions to another network.

Travel down the dark path farther with our Constantine secrets page.

Grimm
Kyle’s Review
This episode of Grimm reminded me a lot of last week’s episode of Arrow. A lot happened to correct needless entanglements, so the characters can progress and advance the story toward a definite goal. Grimm has had movement but that movement at times felt more like several people in a rowboat, rowing in opposite directions.

The Wesen of the week worked. Not only did its powers lend themselves to an arsonist, it forced team Grimm to do a little detective work, which is always a good thing. We also got a tip of the hat toward an earlier Grimm baddie, too. Monroe faced the Bauerschwein, pig person, that killed his best friend in season one. In short Bauershwein and Blutbad, wolf person, don’t get along, so Monroe—who has faced discrimination of the highest order this season—had to face his own prejudices, and I loved that angle.

I also liked how team Grimm took down the Wesen of the week. We don’t see Super Soakers as a lethal weapon too often, and Grimm doesn’t take itself so seriously that Nick wouldn’t place the kid’s toy beside a morning star and a broadsword as one of a Grimm’s weapons of choice. But the single development that did the most in giving Grimm its direction was the battle between Adalind and Juliette.

This episode illustrated Adalind’s greatest weakness: she has no subtly. She depends entirely on brute strength, but with Juliette as the most powerful hexenbeist in the land, Adalind will have to grow as a character. That might make her more watchable. On the same token, the damage left in the two hexenbeist’s wake led to Juliette coming out of the Wesen closet to Nick.

Verdict: This entertaining episode could get Grimm going in the right direction.

Bob’s Burgers
Kyle’s Review
“The Millie-churian Candidate” explored Millie and Louise’s sick relationship. It isn’t just Millie with an obsession. I loved the clever and subtle point so much that I got a little disappointed when the episode closed with explaining the conceit in great detail.

Louise has a knack at getting her way. She talks at people whether they’re beefcake bouncers or a towering teen like Logan, but she works best one-on-one. Millie garners the support of their fellow Wagstaff schoolmates. Millie gets away with stalking Louise, and every time Louise fights back, Wagstaff chastises her for doing so. This only causes Louise to act out more. This week’s episode showed Millie and Louise at their psychotic best when Millie runs for school president just so she can make Louise her besty for life.

Eventually, Louise thwarts Millie by buying into Millie’s campaign promise and that forces Millie to show her true colors. I loved how the two play off each other, and this is another example of how Bob’s Burgers has developed characters over the course of several seasons. I just wished there wasn’t a big reveal at the end.

An explanation comes by way of a third presidential candidate telling us how he set up Louise and Millie to fail. While I liked how Henry—and welcome back to the show, Henry—plays the two against each other, his putting too fine a point on Louise getting just as crazy about Millie as Millie is about her went a little too far.

Verdict: Another solid episode to a great season of Bob’s Burgers.

The Flash

Jim’s Review
This week’s Flash was another solid entry in what has been a surprisingly strong debut season. I think letting Barry build a romantic relationship lets us see something a little different from what he’s shown, much the way his night out with Caitlin did last week. The stuff with Joe and Cisco was also intriguing, as it continued the slow boil they’ve had between Joe and Harrison. FIRESTORM’s story took a step forward, too, and that was important for continuing the momentum of the show.

I can’t say I cared much for Iris’ part in this episode. They acknowledged the problem with her not wanting to be with Barry, while not wanting Barry to be with someone else. Barry actually confronted her about it, but I have to say that it still runs the risk of making Iris unlikeable.

I think the biggest highlight of the episode was Joe’s investigation into Barry’s mom’s murder. As I said before, it does raise the stakes between him and Wells, but the revelation about whose blood was at the scene of the crime feels like an exciting plot point.

Kyle’s Take
This episode of The Flash may be called “The Nuclear Man,” but it shined brightest with the continued Wells/West saga.

I’m still not sure if Wells and West—or Harrison and Joe, if you’re on a first name basis—need to showdown at high noon, but it’s nice to see how they play off other characters. In this episode West challenges Cisco’s loyalty to Wells and this should introduce some more internal struggle for Cisco. I also enjoyed the titular story that acted more like a side story.

The FIRESTORM arc took a few steps forward. Caitlin Snow will have to work a lot harder to reconnect with Ronnie, but Ronnie’s still in there somewhere. Firestorm is more Dr. Stein now. Hopefully he stabilizes.

And speaking of stabilizing, Barry stabilized his love life by declaring his deep like for Linda Park, but how Iris reacted to this news pulled her likeability into question. It could be that Iris just discovered latent feelings for Barry that only sprung to the surface when she saw him with another woman. This tracks for me as I think the crime scene investigation will reveal that there’s a second Reverse-Flash.

I mentioned another character could be Reverse-Flash/Professor Zoom months ago, but this episode choreographed that Wells is a reformed Reverse-Flash and that Eddie Thane could be Professor Zoom, who killed Barry’s mom. Wells unlocked the secret to his Reverse-Flash suit (in order to help Firestorm), and Iris expressed feelings for Barry that could take a bite out of Thane’s heart. Could Dr. Wells’s actions and Iris’s feelings lead to Thane becoming Professor Zoom?

We’ll have to see.

Verdict:
Another great episode in a dynamite first season.

Check out our Flash secrets page.

Arrow

Jim’s Review
This episode is titled “Canaries.” Laurel is now Black Canary. Let’s test how well you’ve been paying attention, kids. What’s my problem with this episode? That’s right. It’s a Laurel-heavy episode, and that makes for a great big minus right off the bat. That’s the bad news. The good news is the episode’s secondary stories actually salvaged quite a bit.

Without getting too deep into spoiler territory, I feel like this week’s episode lead to some plot developments that were well overdue, and I think those could serve to streamline some story-telling in the future, and given how convoluted much of this season has felt, that’s something to look forward to.

Aside from moving Starling City and the Queen family’s present-day stories ahead, I actually think the flashback sequences were better executed than they have been lately. It didn’t feel like quite as much of a reach tying that into the central plot.

With the previews for next week’s episode showing Ollie and Thea returning to the island, I’m really hoping that they’re going to end up revisiting some of the things that worked well in season 2, most specifically, a more focused conflict.

Kyle’s Take
I want to take a contrary viewpoint to Jim’s argument, but I can’t—much. I didn’t mind Laurel as much as Jim in this episode. That could be because she goes toe to toe with Sara or that she confronts the fact that she isn’t her sister or that I wanted to see her bleed and she did.

Sadistic glee aside—tee hee—Laurel took a step toward being a likeable human, or just being a human. She told her father about her sister’s death. But on the heels of my half-hearted Laurel fancy, Arrow has to retire the man, the one-trick pony Dr. Vertigo, who got Laurel to that point with her father. Dr. Vertigo only shows up when someone has issues and injects them with vertigo so they don’t have to go to a therapist. Arrow did prescribe some much needed medication with “Canaries’” other side stories.

Smoke on the Waller. Could ARGUS be in play?
Should I sing that?
Smoooooke on the Waaaaaller—could ARGUS be in a play-ee?
The fact that Arrow could reintroduce ARGUS (or a host of others) as an antagonist, both with this episode’s flashbacks and with Ollie and Thea returning to the island, means that this episode’s flashbacks did more than any others in recent history. To say that Arrow crowbarred flashbacks into the central plots of this season’s episodes sullies the good name of crowbars.

But can Arrow maintain this momentum—if you could call it momentum—to the season finale?

Verdict:
The bar was low, but this episode was well above average for this season of Arrow.

Make a beeline for our Arrow secrets page.

Marvel’s Agent Carter

Kyle’s Review
Last week’s episode of Agent Carter was pretty good, but that’s because of the guest stars and the creepy Black Widow references. This week featured Peggy’s inevitable capture by the SSR.

But before the SSR’s Carter hunt, Peggy—and I’m on a first name basis with Peggy Carter, Jim—got to strut her stuff as an analyst. The SSR got out of her way, which was a shock, but that didn’t last as Sousa announced what he had discovered last week: Peggy was the mysterious blonde.

While I like how the ladies of Agent Carter work behind the scenes and how that’s accurate for the show’s time period, Peggy was one of the founding members of SHIELD, according to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The way Peggy’s world’s portrayed will make the big reveal a punchline with little to no hope for a longer series to follow. I’ve made my peace with that

Agent Carter functions like a Star Wars prequel. Nothing gets ventured, the conclusion’s already set, and we’re subjected to wealth of stereotypes.

Verdict:
A lukewarm episode, coming off the heels of last week’s fantastic guest stars.

Bob’s Burgers

Kyle’s Review
Bob’s Burgers is at its best when its characters have vastly different realities. It’s all about perception. Bob and Linda’s wild, romantic week of Valentine’s Day gestures illustrates this best in this week’s “Can’t Buy Me Math.”

And the best scene stems from what should be a simple bubble bath. Linda dumps an entire bottle of suds into the tub and finds the all-bubble bath as the most romantic thing possible, while Bob comments on how the bath water is more of a bath paste and that it stings his eyes. The scene turns nuclear when Gene and Louise have to use the bathroom while their parents are in the tub. The presence of the two kids spoils the mood—for Linda—and effectively ends the dispute of whether or not the bath is romantic, but the Belchers live like the Brady Bunch and only have one toilet, so when Louise says she’ll use the other toilet, she means the bath tub and asks her parents to move to one side. Yikes!

But the show gets its title from Tina’s story thread. Tina had her own chance to shine in this episode, but she doesn’t need the frenetic pace of the other characters. Her deliciously one-track mind works to perfection when paired with the smart and witty Darryl. Long story short, she and Darryl reheat the Can’t Buy Me Love plot and get others to fall in love with them by pretending to be in love with each other, but Tina warns Darryl that he could fall in love with her—per the Can’t Buy Me Love story—and even though Darryl catches the reference and moves on to his next thought, Tina repeats the entire Can’t Buy Me Love plot a second, third, and fourth time. This serves as an excellent reminder of the character development from Bob’s Burgers early episodes.

Verdict: Another great episode for what could be Bob’s Burgers’ best season.

Constantine

Kyle’s Review
John continued to assemble Voltron this week, but his new team member was a character we know from several episodes: the angel Manny.

It wasn’t the best idea to clip Manny’s wings. As Manny said, “he can’t communicate with the divine,” so John’s in with the big man upstairs went away. Before I get to questioning John’s reasons, I’ll say that adding Manny to the team proved satisfying. Constantine has developed an arc—they even increased the amount of time Manny spent with John per visit—that it made sense that he’d take a more hands on approach to John’s guidance. But one thing bothered me. John put the kibosh on Manny’s flight because he cared for Zed.

I get that John’s changed since his days in Newcastle, but he hasn’t known Zed for that long and her appearances on the show have been hit and miss. Even when she’s in an episode, it doesn’t mean that she accompanies John. We’re on episode twelve, and the two have had six episodes together at best, and it was only two or three appearances ago that John questioned Zed’s loyalty to him.

Now I would buy John forcing Manny to help because he didn’t want another Newcastle debacle. Constantine flirted with this reasoning, but ultimately landed on the feelings for Zed angle. So close.

But don’t misinterpret my reservations of John’s motives as a knock on the acting—you can only work with what you’re given. Kudos all around. I especially liked the chemistry between Harold Perrineau (Manny) and Angelica Celaya (Zed). Matt Ryan (John Constantine) gave a fine performance as well. And one thing I did like about the writing was that they brought back the idea of magic has its price. Zed’s visions were caused by a brain tumor.

There’s still no word as to whether or not NBC plans to cancel or renew Constantine, but SyFy has expressed interested to continue the show as the original title Hellblazer.

Verdict: A small bump in the road—as far as John’s motives are concerned—couldn’t derail this overall solid episode.

Travel further down the infernal trail with our Constantine secrets page.

Grimm

Kyle’s Review
This season of Grimm has had a lot of movement. I don’t know if that equates to character development—there have been some nice threads like Juliette—but the season has kept my interest. I’ll get to the good stuff in a bit but I want to illustrate what I mean by a lot of movement. Let’s use Sergeant Wu’s story arc as example.

Wu is already a full-fledged member of Team Grimm as he knows as much about the Grimm world as Hank, who found out about Wesen in the first season. I’ll admit that it took time, but while the transition took time, it should have taken more. Wu spent time in a mental institution for his Wesen encounter late last season, and he flipped out at a bar five or six episodes ago. Five or six episodes is roughly a month and half. Would he be able to take on Wesen so soon? It takes more time to recover from what Wu experienced in order to get to the point he’s at now, but it doesn’t feel like it’s only been five or six episodes, and that’ because Grimm has crammed so many things in short order: a kidnapping, a honeymoon, and Nick getting his Grimm back. But the biggest thing going right now is the two or three episode Juliette as a Hexenbiest.

Speaking of which Juliette discovered that she’s the most powerful Hexenbiest in Portland this week—not bad for an infant witch. She met with the grand master Hexenbiest—that’s my title for her, since Grimm gave context for her—and the grand master hex told Juliette that there’s no going back to human for her. Figures. This same grand master hex also told Juliette that she should keep her Hexenbiestness to herself. Wasn’t that convenient?

But that wasn’t as convenient as the Wesen of the week. A new manticore threatened Portland, but he did little more than prove that Wu was a fulltime member of Team Grimm and that Juliette was the most powerful Hexenbiest. Throw in the return of Adalind and the reintroduction of the magic baby, and you get one episode with a lot of fireworks. But do fireworks count as development or just movement?

Verdict: A lot happened—maybe not enough character development—but this episode of Grimm managed to tie many things together, or at least get all the major characters together in the same city.

Agent Carter

Kyle’s Review

This was the best episode of Agent Carter to date. I loved the focus on Dottie. Her eerie training in Russia’s Black Widow program—yes, the same program that produced the Avengers’ Black Widow, yay—was spot on, and we got a fire hose of Dottie as a character in the opening sequences. The visceral action of her handcuffing herself to the bed showed how ingrained her training is and proved unsettling.

Even better was that Carter got out from behind the desk in earnest, while the men around her in the SSR soften their chauvinist stance. We got a hint that maybe Thompson picks on Peggy for the same reason schoolboys tug on schoolgirls hair, and that works, but I didn’t completely buy the SSR director’s decision to send Carter to Russia. The series has painted the SSR as such pigs that it’d take more than a couple of agents dying for him to send Carter in someone else’s stead. You can’t have an agency that’s so over the top sexist and then expect us to believe that they’ll spin 180 degrees and give Carter a chance. Still, I’m glad they did. But Carter got a little help from her friends.

The guest stars injected some much needed energy: Dum Dum Dugan and Peggy have a sweet rapport. In fact, the great chemistry between these two actors undercut what should have been a stronger scene between Thompson and Peggy, when Thompson revealed to Peggy that he had killed innocents.

Hopefully this episode was a sign of things to come.

Verdict: Just the momentum swing Agent Carter needed for its story’s second half.

The Flash

Jim’s Review

This week’s episode focused somewhat on personal relationships. It led to a couple of touching moments between Barry and his father that ran the risk of being a bit hokey, but actually worked well for me. Caitlin and Barry’s night out was a little bit on-the-nose, and drunk Caitlin wasn’t always easy to take, but it felt like believable character development. As with most things with this week’s villain, the story felt a little underdeveloped. I think that may have been the product of needing to split time with last week’s villain to further the FIRESTORM subplot.

Speaking of last week’s villain and the FIRESTORM subplot, I think Cisco really shined this week. For those of you who don’t read the comics, this will be a bit of a spoiler, but if they do decide to let Cisco become Vibe on this show, his exchange with Pied Piper gave us a nice little preview. Cisco showed us just enough to let us know he can handle himself better than we probably expected, but not so well that it’s unbelievable without some explanation.

On its own, this episode was another solid entry. Some of the secondary plotlines took small steps forward, and it was entertaining as ever, but the real standout this week was, for me, the tag with Grodd making his first appearance on the show. We still haven’t seen him talk, and we don’t know if he can yet at this point, but I really applaud the show for taking a chance on a character who is going to be difficult to portray in any sort of satisfying way. It will be a huge challenge, but I’m excited to see it happen.

Kyle’s Take

Jim and I agree. Peek-a-boo may have been the rogue of the week, but Cisco took center stage. Not only did he handle himself better than we thought he would, he stepped out of the goofy sidekick role and added some substance. It doesn’t hurt that Cisco and Pied Piper play well off each other, too. In fact, Pied Piper is such a better developed character that you forgot about the villain of the week.

I was disappointed with how The Flash portrayed Peek-a-boo. If you read the comic, she has a heart-breaking backstory, one where you might root for her. Here, she’s just a clichéd girl in love with a bad boy. Yuck.

And with Cisco carrying a heavy load, this week’s yucks came from Caitlin. Barry and Caitlin’s wild night felt forced. It did complement the weight of Cisco’s side story and illustrated Caitlin’s inability to move on from Ronnie, but with Ronnie/Firestorm set to return, it’s like Jim said, it’s too “on-the-nose.” You knew nothing could come of Caitlin stepping out because Ronnie waited in the wings. Still, we got introduced to Linda Park (more on her in our secrets page), and that’s not a bad thing.

It was also nice to see Barry’s bio-dad Henry, too, but this episode had a lot more marking time than usual. It wasn’t as bad as Arrow—Arrow’s been running in place for most of the season—but this episode was little more than a bus stop for the impending Firestorm, Rogues, and Reverse-Flash episodes.

Phew. Tack on an Atom crossover and we have a lot to look forward to in the future, but sorry, Jim. Grodd remains a tease. I can’t wait to see how they handle him, too and perhaps we’ll see him in episode 14 just before the return of The Rogues, but next episode is “The Nuclear Man.” Bring on Firestorm.

Verdict: A solid episode but more could’ve been done with the rogue of the week.

Run deeper into The Flash’s lore with our secrets page.

Arrow

Jim’s Review

This week’s Arrow brought the conflict in the Glades, and Brick’s campaign to an end. I can’t say the resolution to the problem was satisfying. A guy who is meant to be invincible was ultimately defeated when he was simply hit harder. That felt too much like an anti-climax, and there were some other unfortunate areas where disbelief needed to be suspended a little too much. Specifically, character motivations were unclear, if not completely unbelievable. The Glades are burning, but Ted decides to throw in and help in the fight because Laurel asked him? The show’s reasoning behind an Ollie/Malcolm teamup is fundamentally flawed. If “Only the student has hope of defeating the master,” Ollie would need to train under Ra’s, not Malcolm.

There was some really rough dialogue. Much of it was delivered in flashbacks by child actors portraying Ollie and Tommy as children, so I would normally be forgiving, but anyone who says, “Mummy,” and isn’t referring to an undead monster needs to be stricken with something heavy.

Speaking of Ollie, he came to town in this episode, but the homecoming came at the tail end, and I can’t help but feel the conflict with Felicity that blunted the reunion was manufactured.

It wasn’t a terrible episode, but I’m afraid it’s really just another entry in a season that hasn’t lived up to last. The promise of a rematch with Ra’s could breathe life into season 3, and give the writers an angle to work in the long-term. I think that’s where the hope is here.

Kyle’s Take

Arrow proved that it has little if any direction with this episode. Brick’s story arc ended like all bad anime filler arcs end: little fanfare for the “main” villain and few–if no–repercussions for the main characters. It’s like the writers decided they’d slum it with a few Brick episodes, while the source material gave them ammunition for the “real” story.

But unlike an anime getting too far ahead of a manga’s creator, Arrow has decades of source material. There’s no excuse for this. Pick an antagonist/story/thread or threads/protagonist and run with it.

Are they building up to an epic battle with Ra’s? Maybe. And if so, who’s fighting Ra’s? “Only the student has hope of defeating the master” could mean that Merlyn plans to fight Ra’s, but we know that Merlyn’s a selfish SOB—I don’t care what the flashbacks this week say, he brainwashed his daughter into killing someone—so it’s unlikely Merlyn throws down with the Demon’s Head.

Putting that on the backburner, you have to ask yourself, is a battle with Ra’s the final goal? I don’t know. Maseo has name-dropped Waller in the last three or four flashbacks, so ARGUS could factor into the finale and/or future—but ARGUS hasn’t done anything. I’d like to see Slade/Deathstroke and/or The Suicide Squad again. But has anything lead to justifying his/their return?

Then we have to discuss another character that didn’t make an appearance in this episode: The Atom. In the comics, Starling City is Star City, so Atom converting Starling into Star has him literally pushing Arrow out of his own city. Once Atom completes the transformation from Starling City to Star City, is the Arrow still relevant?

I hope he is, and I hope the show remains relevant while introducing new heroes, anti-heroes, and villains.

Verdict: While not the worst episode this season, this episode does little to nothing in stopping Arrow’s tailspin.

Check out our Arrow secrets page for this week.