Project Type: Geekly TV

Constantine

Kyle’s Review

This episode had a lot of good things going for it: we get more of Constantine as a character, the acting was better than usual, Constantine has to do some detective work, and the solution he comes up with makes some sense.

We get a reprieve from Zed this week, but let’s talk about the acting by actors who were in this week’s episode. The boy who gets possessed by a malevolent spirit is slightly more subtle than Zed’s fishhook brow scheming face, but it works. He starts the episode as a docile, let a tick suck its fill because he doesn’t want to hurt it boy, and then turns into the antichrist. But considering he only has thirty minutes to transform, the boy does morph into the pint-sized serial killer as subtly as he can. We do see him change in a few steps which make his transformation pop, and after a shaky opening sequence, the boy’s parents are believable.

Having to deal with a troubled boy reminds Constantine of his own childhood. Of course we’re fed most of this information by Manny the Angel of Exposition, but Manny actually works in this case. He colors Constantine as a child lashing out. We can also empathize with Constantine because why wouldn’t God handle this problem himself, and you got to love the line, “You’re not special like Joan. You’re more of a desperation move.”

Constantine has to show off some detective moves too. I won’t spoil the ending, but it’s a refreshing twist—on possession in this case—that’s been lacking in every episode of Constantine to date. I will highlight the earthly detective work. The twenty or so killings occur over the last 35 years. The MO’s the same and they happen in a straight line. Why wouldn’t the Birmingham Police pick up on the pattern? Why does Constantine need a magical map to notice the killings are happening in a line (he had access to newspaper clippings)? Let the cops have the earthly detective work and leave the ethereal detective work to Constantine.

Verdict: An entertaining episode with a few flaws.

Grimm

Kyle’s Review

This week’s episode of Grimm was mostly paint-by-the-numbers.

Nick got his powers back, which isn’t a surprise. It was never a question of if; it was a question of when he’d get them back. The Wesen of the week didn’t amount to much except they brought up a pre-Grimm case for Nick that he could never solve because he wasn’t a Grimm yet. Armed with the knowledge of a Grimm, the boys track down the killers, and in true melodramatic fashion, Nick becomes incapacitated when his friends need him the most. Just when all seems lost, he snaps to with his Grimm powers intact. Tada!

Everything else plays second fiddle to Nick getting back his powers, but this episode does an adequate job of reminding us of the other balls Grimm’s juggling: Adalind and the royals, Rosalee and Monroe getting shunned by Wesen-kind, Renard and his mother’s machinations, Trubel and the bizarre sect of Wesen, and Josh fleeing to Nick for help.

We’ll have to see which—if any—story threads gain clarity. There’s a lot of smoke and mirrors this season.

Verdict: An enjoyable—yet predictable—episode that might allow the show to move forward.

Bob’s Burgers

Kyle’s Review

Why would Bob ever sign up for a burger contest? Sure, he’s a gourmet burger cook, but contests just aren’t his style. It turns out that he signed up while he was polishing off a glass of wine. Something he claims he’ll never do again. Let’s hope he does.

What ensues is an unorthodox father and son bonding tale. Bob entrusts his burger’s most important ingredient to Gene—his son whose name Bob’s other two kids use as a verb for spacing out when someone needs you the most—and of course, Gene doesn’t pack the all-important black garlic. The show complicates matters two to three shades of crazy, and eventually, Gene redeems himself, and Bob pulls off his best Rocky. The story was solid, but the strength of Bob’s Burgers is the relationship between the Belcher family members, and this episode showcased that strength.

Unlike other cartoon sitcoms like The Simpsons and Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers’ family dynamic rings true. The characters are more functional as human beings (there’s no Homer or Peter) and they have surprising depth. You can also tell that every member of this family cares about each other in their own way and that should make you smile as much as the jokes.

Verdict: Another solid episode that shows why the Belcher family might be the best one on TV.

The Flash

Jim’s Review

This was an interesting, if somewhat formulaic episode. The de-powered superhero is something we’ve all seen before, though it feels very early in Flash’s development to play that card. I suppose there’s some originality in that.

Seeing Clock King come back was a cool way to prepare the audience for the upcoming Arrow/Flash crossover. It’s a character I never expected to translate well to live action TV, but it’s well executed again here.

The split conflicts, Barry and the crew under attack at the lab, and Iris and company held hostage by Clock King represented a different structure. I definitely feel the Clock King element of the episode was more interesting as Barry’s conflict was handled in sort of a hokey way. Finding how his loss of power was an issue of mind over matter was pretty unsatisfying to me.

The bright spot on Barry’s side of the episode was Dr. Wells. I still wish they’d move his story forward more, but the character certainly seems to have been complicated in this episode.

Verdict: Another entertaining episode.

Kyle’s Take: Jim and I agree for the most part. I have to add that while I appreciate the split conflicts and the shake up to the usual order of a Flash episode, we aren’t left with a lot of time with either conflict. The episode felt rushed at times because they had to wrap up both conflicts in about twenty minutes, and one of the two story threads suffered as a result. Still, there’s a lot to like in this episode: Clock King and Dr. Wells in particular.

Bob’s Burgers

Kyle’s Review

Welcome to the best, worst Thanksgiving tradition: the Running of the Turkeys.

What do you get when lock up a horde of psychotic turkeys, ducks, geese, and chickens? Comic mayhem. The family abandons Bob on his favorite holiday to go down to Wonder Wharf and take in Mr. Fishodor’s spanking new Thanksgiving Day extravaganza.

It’s hard to mention anything about this episode without giving things away, but you should see what happens when Linda encounters a cycloptic turkey, the kids when they get stuck on a Scramble Pan ride, and Bob when he decides to start his own personal disco. No one knows what sets off the poultry. It could be the pecking order, the spirit of Thanksgiving, or the beginning of a turkey revolution, but you’ll be glad Bob’s Burgers set the turkeys free.

On a side note, Teddy’s life on a turkey farm saves the groups’ giblets on more than one occasion. If you want to survive the Turkeyapocalypse, you have to think like a turkey.

Verdict: The best Thanksgiving episode in a long time.

Grimm

Kyle’s Review

This week’s episode of Grimm takes a minor step back.

Let’s start with the Wesen of the week. While I applaud the continued focus on Nick’s detective work, the solution left me scratching my head, and that was before it got silly. I can’t tell if it was meant to be funny—Grimm can have some chuckle moments—but this was a little much. The rest of the story elements don’t fare much better.

Most of the episode revolved around the ongoing drama elements. I don’t believe in the cast’s aversion to Nick’s cure. So what if Juliette looks like someone else while they make love? Team Nick throws out at least fifteen different solutions: turn out the lights, pretend that you’re role playing, she’s the same person on the inside, etc. To make matters worse, Juliette made her peace with the angle the writers are trying to take (as to why she wouldn’t want to go through with this) in the season premiere, and they toss the ick factor aside in less than an episode. The reason they toss it aside is huge, but it’s another underdeveloped thread.

We also get a groan of a new thread this week. Renard wants his baby back, even though he doesn’t know where she is. Mothers cloud everything in this series: the sorceress supreme Adalind’s mom in season one, the butt kicking and reclusive Nick’s mom in season two. Now we get the loving yet manipulative Renard’s mother. I like that there’s some depth to this character, but does Grimm have to resort to mothers every season as their twist?

The shocking third season mom Adalind gets plenty of air time in this episode too. How could anything as convenient as Adalind’s escape be anything but a hoax? She falls for it—literally. But what’s the point of breaking her spirit? The royals want the same thing as Adalind: Adalind’s magical baby. But she clearly doesn’t know where her child is and has no hope of finding her.

Verdict: Easily the weakest episode this season but still watchable.

Constantine

Kyle’s Review

This episode was undercooked in some areas but brought to the right temp in others.

The portrayal of Zed’s ability has been uneven all season, but it works for the most part here. She gains a psychic link with a malevolent spirit in New Orleans. I’m not sure if I buy her power’s link with the map introduced in the pilot, and if Zed’s going to connect with haunted cities in this way, Constantine should make weekly trips to New Orleans, but I dug the change of scenery. I also dug Papa Midnight’s return.

Papa Midnight showed that he wasn’t as deep as a puddle. He actually believes he’s helping people. While I like this angle, I’m not sure that I buy it. Someone who goes after a devil-spawned album doesn’t usually play nice with others. I’m also not sure how this will play out. We know that Zed will eventually betray Constantine—we knew this from the “I’ve got a fishhook caught in my eyebrow and I like it” glances she gives John—but I don’t know if we should see Papa Midnight take her place. He’s the best foil Constantine has at this point. I don’t think Papa will join Chas in the taxi, but it was nice to see him make an uneasy truce with John.

The malevolent spirit—actually there’s more than one—stems from Papa Midnight’s magic gone wild. I love that there was a human element underlying the demonic. You can’t spend too much time in the clouds or floating in lava. But I wish they’d avoid the Zed betraying John story arc like it’s hot lava.

My eyes hurt from the eye roll I had when Papa Midnight’s spirit buddy confirmed that “someone close to John Constantine will betray him.” We get it. Don’t wait until the end of the season for how she’ll betray him. Get it over with already.

I’d be remiss to mention that we see Chas in action this week. He gets killed again, but we see him come back to life. Still no word as to how or why he has this power. Hopefully, they’ll explain this soon.

Verdict: It was great to see Papa Midnight in action, but I’m not sure about much else.

Arrow

Jim’s Review

Arrow took a forward step this week. We were long overdue for a break from Laurel, and we got it. Thank goodness for small mercies.

With that said, I still had some pretty glaring issues with the episode. Cupid was far more corny than clever. Her performance never quite reached Count Vertigo levels of overacting, but it came closer than anything should. That, in combination with her tendencies to spout clichés about love gave her a very formulaic feel, like she could have been credited as Generic Crazy Stalker #1. I think the tipping point for me came when she was about to say, “If I can’t have you, no one can.” She didn’t get to finish the statement, but we all know it’s what she was going to say.

Speaking of formulaic plot devices, I thought that’s exactly what we got with the Ollie/Felicity/Palmer angle tonight. I can live with a love triangle, but I rolled my eyes when Ollie walks in to tell Felicity how he feels, just in time to see her locking lips with Palmer. That gave the episode something way too close to a Saved by the Bell feel.

Thea’s storyline with finding a DJ for the club bored me. It was underdeveloped, and the fact that she let the guy who’d been creeping her out all episode kiss her? That made me wonder if this was the same Thea who’d been training as an assassin in Corto Maltese just a couple episodes ago.

The flashback sequence also fell a little flat. If you read DC comics (not necessarily Green Arrow), you probably know where they’re going with the nice Japanese lady, and this week’s flashback seemed to serve little purpose but to fake that part of their audience out.

I realize that’s an awful lot on the negative side, but there were some positives here, too. Getting our first glimpse of how Palmer will become who comic book fans know he will be was nice. There was also an interesting teaser for more to come with regard to The Suicide Squad, but the real teaser is the upcoming Flash/Arrow team-up episode.

All in all, season 3 hasn’t been nearly as good as season 2. The writing on this show needs to even out. They need to let character development take more than a commercial break. Felicity is in danger of becoming little more than a bone for two dogs to fight over, and we need some scrap of conflict (other than tired romance angles) to carry through for more than an episode. It seems they’re forgetting Ra’s and Malcolm. They need those central conflicts to simmer, and fill the role that Slade did last season.

Verdict: It was better than last week, but it’s still not meeting the standard it’s set in the past.

Kyle’s Take

Arrow has no direction this season. It fires darts every which way: ARGUS, League of Assassins (Ra’s Al Ghul), Merlyn, Thea (Speedy), Brother Eye, and Suicide Squad. These are just a few. The creators must think that if they fire enough darts, they’ll eventually hit a bull’s-eye. I liked the addition of The Flash last season—because I knew The Flash was getting his own series—but this season has introduced too many heroes (some even in flashbacks): the new Black Canary, Wildcat, The Atom, and Katana. Even the villain at the end of this week’s episode was more of a stinger for The Flash. Sure, he could serve as an Arrow villain, but he’s part of The Flash’s rogues. Arrow needs to be more than a Superhero/Supervillain way station.

The Flash

Jim’s Review

This was a decent episode. We get some flashbacks to Barry’s childhood, though there really wasn’t anything surprising in it. The tie-in with the villain of the week felt a little contrived.

One of my bigger complaints with the show is that Barry really should just tell Iris already. The situation with the villain coming after her seemed to want to support the logic in maintaining the ruse, but I’m not sold.

All of this was made much worse by Barry revealing his identity to the villain/former bully at the end. I just can’t accept that he’d risk letting an enemy (even a neutralized one) know his secret, but not Iris.

I understand the story with Harrison Wells is the show’s long game, and it’s an interesting one, but I feel like they need to give us something new with it. The ending sequence adds a wrinkle to the equation, but if they string it out too much more, they’ll run the risk of telegraphing the punch.

Verdict: A decent–if not particularly impressive– episode.

Kyle’s Take

This was a weak episode of The Flash. The flashbacks gave us nothing. This episode’s main villain didn’t progress the running story arc. The episode even felt out of place. Why wasn’t this villain in the pilot? Or at least in the episode right after the pilot? We even get regurgitated lines of narration, but it’s delivered in Iris’s voice this time. This week served as a place holder for things to come. I did like the introduction of Reverse-Flash/Professor Zoom in present day Central City, but I have to agree with Jim: Harrison Wells only has until the mid-season break to reveal his plot (at least to the viewers) before his scheming becomes telegraphed.

Gotham

Jim’s Review

Gotham continued circling the drain this week. At this point, I’m beginning to suspect the writers actually have some moral objection to subtext.

Harvey Dent’s introduction to the show was absolutely cringe-worthy. His miraculous ability to turn a troubled kid’s life around in 30 seconds had all the syrupy nonsense of a GI JOE public service announcement with none of the nostalgia.

There was absolutely nothing in the scenes between Bruce and Selina that wasn’t awkward. Her mix of street-wise truisms and forced vulnerability rang completely false. I actually rolled my eyes as she told young Bruce that her mother was a government operative.

The plot of the show was no less problematic than its execution. We’re never told why it’s necessary to break one specific bomb-maker out of prison. Are there suddenly no more bomb-makers left in the world?

Probably the single most offensive aspect of the episode was its continued insistence on exploiting the “lipstick lesbian” angle. We learn that Barbara has left Jim because she wants to be away from Gotham and the GCPD hazards, but we’re shown she’s just moved on (or back to) her old flame, who happens to be a different GCPD cop. The two ladies’ end-of-show makeout session isn’t just shoddy writing, it’s a transparent attempt to draw the attention of 13-year-old boys who can’t figure out a way around their parents’ internet porn blocks.

Verdict: This show is now only valuable as accidental comedy.

Kyle’s Take
I was going to make snarky comments about this episode but I’ll leave that for Jim this week. Let’s just say that nothing works on this show. Absolutely nothing. I will focus on this episode’s ending. Bisexuality does not equal infidelity. Gay is not synonymous with unfaithful. Neither is lesbian. Gotham airs this scene just two weeks after LGBT history month ends and a month after National Coming Out Day. It’s shows like Gotham that further stereotypes, hindering marriage equality. JK Geekly is no longer reviewing Gotham.

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.

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.

Grimm

Kyle’s Review

After last week’s “Octopus Head,” I thought that Nick would see his loss of Grimm powers as a bane not a blessing given what happened at the end of the episode: Trubel gets kidnapped by an unknown group of Wesen.

We find out that there is indeed a third major Wesen faction—perhaps—or it could be another set of royals looking for a pet Grimm. These Wesen want Trubel on their side, and it looks like she’s ready to play ball, since they threatened Nick. Nick on the other hand does find that his lack of Grimm duties puts him, Hank, Trubel, and Juliette in danger even if Juliette doesn’t see it that way. It looks like the rest of the Grimm crew shares the same sentiment as multiple groups—Monroe and Rosalee, and Renard and his mother—team up to find a cure for Nick’s ailment. And watching Nick deal with his loss of Grimm powers was a strong point.

He knows Wesen are real and has encountered his fair share of them, too, so when he sees a boxer taking out his frustration on a dumpster and the dumpster takes a series of dents, he knows something’s not right. It’s the not knowing for sure that kills him. I love that aspect of this season and didn’t know if I would or not.

After a shaky start, the latest episode of Grimm “Last Fight” shows what made the series so entertaining the first couple of seasons. Trubel infiltrates a boxing gym where a strange death occurred. She catches a couple of Wesen—one’s a boxing promoter and the other’s a boxing trainer—in their Volga state (the state that has them show their animal nature) and assumes that these are the guys behind the strange death.

We know that the boxing promoter has something to do with the murder but we aren’t sure of the trainer’s involvement. We learn quickly that the trainer had little to do with the previous murder as the promoter kills the trainer. No one stops this promoter from exploiting another younger bull-type Wesen, Clay.

And it’s Clay’s story that shows Grimm’s human side. He doesn’t want to fight and when the promoter gets found out, we find that he wasn’t the only one using Clay. Spoiler: Clay’s mother abused him and forced him to fight in a gasp worthy reveal. Moments like that are what make Grimm a joy to watch.

I’m still not sold on the convoluted story arcs where the resistance and multiple sects of royals try to outwit each other. Renard’s mother isn’t as annoying as I thought she would be but she still isn’t my favorite. And don’t get me started with Adalind.

Okay. I will. She gets a jail break from someone who looks too much like Rumpelstiltskin for it to be a coincidence, and as always she doesn’t have complete command of her spells. That’s actually something I like about her, a nice flaw. She shoots first and second and then forgets to ask what the consequences are.

A couple more quick notes/questions:

1) Nick has cones in his eyes that (probably) let him see Wesen. Not quite as dumb as midichlorians but in the same ball park.

2) When Trubel was chilling in the Wesen-infested gym, why didn’t any of the Wesen notice her?

I’m warming to this season of Grimm but I’m not completely on board with the Grimm-less Nick. I’m glad that we’ve fast forward to the thought that Nick not being a Grimm is a very bad thing because I think he’ll need his powers back by the mid-season break—or at least have him on the long road to recovery by then.

Verdict: Less of the continuing drama and more of a self-contained story, this episode showcases what makes Grimm enjoyable: don’t make snap judgments of a Wesen with a fleeting glance and make fantastic creatures human.

Constantine

Kyle’s Review

The first episode of Constantine has done the most delving into John Constantine’s past. These last two episodes have done less focusing on him and more adding of characters and plot to the mix.

New characters are to be expected—especially with a wealth of source material with which to pull from—but I’d like to see more of the titular character’s checkered past. We get a taste of him with his mate dying at the hands of the demon of the week. I liked how Constantine answered Zed’s question (in regards to Constantine bringing back his friend from the dead in a gruesome way in order to see what happened to him) of “What’s the price for the spell you just cast” with a nonchalant “A couple days of my life.” It’s keeping with the feel of Hellblazer. But how much of Hellblazer are we actually getting?

The show fells scrubbed down. You can’t help but wonder if HBO, TMC, or some other premium channel would’ve given us a more faithful portrayal. And there’s a blizzard of a plot storm going on in this episode. It’s as if the creators thought that the more we throw at people, the more will stick. I’ll break down the plot—as quickly and best as I can—just to illustrate how convoluted it is.

We take a whirlwind ride to the 1930s where a dude sells his soul to the devil so he can rock the blues, and then the devil comes to the recording studio for what’s his. The recording equipment captured the voice of the devil in addition to what little of the song the dude was able to play. Fast forward to present day where the condemned dude’s producer on his deathbed tells Jasmine Fell—who works in the music industry herself—where he hid the cursed record hence the title “The Devil’s Vinyl.”

Anyone who hears the record dies, but everyone around the record wants to hear it and share the record with as many people as they can. Sort of an “I’m going to kill myself and take as many people as I can with me” deal. So far, so good. But I did say that there’s a lot of plot going on, so we just barely scratched the surface. Let’s get back to Jasmine.

Jasmine Fell wants to use the damned—we’re talking damnation damned—record as a bargaining chip with the soul broker she sold her soul to. (The Devil uses human soul brokers because they’re cheap, expendable and he can keep up with his Twitter feed.) Jasmine sold her soul in exchange for her husband’s life as he underwent cancer treatment. The deal worked, but now she doesn’t have a lot of time left before she turns out like the dude in the thirties’ recording studio, and her broker has a new deal involving the cursed record. But it’s not really the soul broker’s idea; it’s a plot by a voodoo priest so pompous he won’t stand up to great his guests: Papa Midnite.

Papa Midnite wants the record so he can wield more demonic powers, but before Midnite can get his hands on the record his henchmen catch the woogie from the vinyl and feel compelled to play the album at a night club. A mass death occurs—but it happens off camera—and we see Constantine case the scene in one minute or less—any longer and you’re investigation’s free—and then track the henchmen to a local radio station.

The henchmen mortally wound Constantine as Constantine barrels into the sound booth, but Midnite saves him, and as a thank you Constantine condemns Midnite’s henchmen and the record to hell. We literally see a fiery pit form in the radio station’s sound booth, but this only resolves the record. Jasmine’s soul is still up for grabs. So Constantine and Chas apprehend Jasmine’s soul broker and force him to eat the contract—as in a literal representation of the saying because the saying has to come from somewhere. This restores Jasmine’s soul and her husband’s cancer. The end. We think.

That’s a lot of things going on for forty-five minutes or so. So much so that Constantine can’t cultivate any ambiance or develop characters. We still don’t know how Chas got resurrected back in the pilot. Manny as the angel of death—instead of the angel of exposition—would’ve been good to know two episodes ago. Zed’s glances and Constantine’s distrust of Zed—that he voices through expository dialogue—are the only reasons we have to believe that Zed plans to betray Constantine. Zed does backstab him in the comics, but she’s a complex character who Constantine counts as one of his friends, too. Her actions in the show thus far scream ally. She’s the one who saves Constantine after he gets shot, stabbed, poisoned, and strung up by Papa Midnite.

Papa Midnite is a great foil for Constantine. I trust we’ll see more of him, but we barely see any of Chicago and just a splash of New Orleans jazz. Then, we have to question why Jasmine would store a damned record on a shelf at home, and why she’d keep it after her daughter listens to it and gets possessed. That minor plot thread never gets resolved.

Still, with all these flaws, Constantine has plenty to work with. The problem will be picking and choosing which path to take.

Verdict: An entertaining show—for the most part—that confuses plottiness for complexity. It could use a dash or two of character development and spend a little time in space, so we can get a feel for where in the world Constantine spends the episode.

Arrow

Kyle’s Review

Arrow made up for not having Felicity in last week’s episode by featuring her in this week’s episode. And there was much rejoicing.

We get more of Felicity’s backstory than we’ve ever gotten before and for the most part the flashbacks were handled well—they did slow the pace of the episode a tad, but it’s Felicity getting the flashback treatment, so I’ll overlook this shortcoming. This self-contained story gives viewers a breather from the usual last episode built off of the episode before it and now this episode builds off the last. Arrow hasn’t had a self-contained story, and while I enjoyed that aspect, I thought they could’ve gone somewhere more exciting with Felicity’s ex-boyfriend. Him coming back from the dead felt canned, and the final confrontation fell flat.

Just because the main conflict in this episode gets tied up in a nice bow doesn’t mean that other elements Arrow’s played with up to this point don’t show up. In the beginning of the episode we catch Arrow training with Arsenal, Thea sparring with Merlyn, and Laurel flailing at her boxing instructor Wildcat. Everything introduced in these training sessions comes back in satisfying ways—for the most part.

Arsenal isn’t at his best. He claims that he hasn’t been getting a lot of sleep. I won’t spoil it, but you’ll have a strong reaction to how this seemingly minor detail returns.

Thea reconciles with Ollie. She cuts out some of her lies but keeps the biggest one from Ollie—she’s training with Malcolm Merlyn—and we see Merlyn stalking Ollie and Thea. Creepy much? I’m not sure of the entire relationship between Thea and her father. Ollie does call Merlyn’s fortune blood money, so it’ll be interesting to see how Thea behaves in future episodes. And Ollie calling her Speedy felt odd. Sure, he’s called her that before, but it felt forced here. Yes. We know that Thea’s training will eventually turn her into the character Speedy.

Then, Laurel comes clean with Wildcat—not her father—about Sarah’s death. I’m still not on board with this. Is it worse for Captain Lance to find out that his youngest daughter’s dead, or that his youngest daughter’s dead and his eldest daughter has been lying to him about it for months? He will find out eventually.

Laurel’s confession prompts Wildcat to offer her a gi: one red, one black. Guess which one Laurel picks. The black one—definitely black—as in Black Canary. I don’t see Laurel jumping from rooftop to rooftop until at least the mid-season break, so I might have time to wrap my head around this.

Taking a cue from other DC Comics shows this fall, Arrow drops some nice Easter eggs.

1) Felicity’s boyfriend from college wears a Starro t-shirt. I’m wondering if Starro won’t be the first Justice League movie villain. He was the team’s first foil in the comics.

2) The episode’s name is “The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak,” when DC Comics has a tradition of entitling their comics “The Secret Origin of…”

3) The watch Ray Palmer gives to Felicity’s mother is more like a mega-computer, complete with its own wi-fi signal. It may be a stretch, but is this watch the beginning of Ray Palmer’s (a.k.a. The Atom) miniaturization technology?

4) In the comics Brother Eye is a self-aware satellite with connections with the character OMAC. Should we be expecting an appearance from OMAC? Brother Eye and the OMAC Project served as major antagonists in stories like Futures End and Infinite Crisis. And The Flash has already had a tipping of the hat to Infinite Crisis. Furthermore, in the run-up to Infinite Crisis Blue Beetle Ted Kord—the character Arrow had in place of Ray Palmer before rewrites—died attempting to stop Brother Eye after discovering that Checkmate—an organization with ties to Amanda Waller and A.R.G.U.S.—was abusing the satellite. This seems way too convenient to be coincidental.

5) Felicity says (about the super-virus she created), “I wrote it five years ago.” Futures End takes place five years into the future, so everything that happens now happened five years ago for that story line.

6) Lyla’s not around to take care of baby Sarah because she’s in Santa Prisca, which just happens to be the fictional South American nation where Bane was born in prison.

7) Felicity’s ex-boyfriend’s name is Cooper Seldon, which sounds an awful lot like Sheldon Cooper of The Big Bang Theory.

8) Felicity’s natural hair is black, just like in the comics.

9) This one isn’t as much an Easter egg as it is a question. We see Felicity’s mom, but they’re cagey about who her dad is. That leads me to believe that Felicity’s dad may be familiar to DC Comics fans, especially since he’s uber-intelligent. It could be a former leader of A.R.G.U.S.: Lex Luthor. Felicity’s mom did seem enamored by billionaires.

10) And tell me Felicity doesn’t look like Lady Death from Sandman in this promo picture.

I wouldn’t be upset if they cast Emily Bett Rickards for the part in the upcoming movie. Rickards! Rickards! Rickards!

Verdict: I love the idea of dedicating an episode to Felicity, and this is the strongest episode of Arrow so far this season. The predictable plot and disappointing final conflict furthers the show’s stumbling out of the gate, but it ends in a twist that has me intrigued. Plus, there’s plenty of fan service with all the Easter eggs.

Gotham

Kyle’s Review

Similar to the Arrow episode this week, Gotham focused on a couple of strong characters which is a good thing. To date Gotham has staked any watchability on the fact that they’re drawing from the Batman mythos, so they can roll out fifty or so characters in one episode, not even give lip service to any of them, and then add ridiculous plots and tortured dialogue to the mix. This episode may not live up to its name “Penguin’s Umbrella,” but it does an adequate job of slowing down the pace and building on a few characters.

The show revolves around Cobblepot’s elaborate plans to bring war to the city of Gotham. We get more of the halfhearted noir aesthetic in this episode with all its backstabbing, gun-pointing, and late-show flashback that fills in everything we didn’t know behind the scenes. We find out that Cobblepot’s been working for Falcone ever since he was caught snitching on Mooney. Even though the pacing is improved, it’s still clunky, and I don’t quite buy the plot. Why would Falcone trust Cobblepot so fully? I know they explained it, but their explanation sounds hollow and trite. Furthermore, it makes little sense for either Cobblepot or Falcone to keep Jim Gordon alive. The only reason to do so is that he’s Jim Gordon and has to survive. This is a testament to the show suffering from not having Batman in it. It’s handcuffed.

As always the performances are strong from John Doman (Falcone) and the stellar Robin Lord Taylor (Cobblepot). But I’m troubled by the portrayal of Cobblepot as the demonized homosexual. When Cobblepot gives one of his victims kiss on the head, his cohorts exchange a weird look. Mobsters give the kiss of death to a lot of people, so the glance was out of place. And besides, who cares if Cobblepot’s gay? He’s deliciously selfish, and his gait is perfect. I love the way he steals almost every scene he’s in with his awkward yet devilish demeanor.

We get more of the buddy cop banter between Gordon and Bullock. This makes sense as buddy cops work best when they’re up to their eyeballs in trouble. The two feel more like real people as they both invade Falcone’s home, but they do it for different reasons. I almost want to say that we see progress with that, but let’s not get too crazy.

Despite the fact that this is the best episode of Gotham so far, it has very little at stake—partially because of the show’s domineering mythos and clunky writing. I didn’t care that Barbara got caught by Victor Zsasz. Barbara’s an unlikeable character whose only goal is to complicate Jim Gordon’s character with her half-baked plotlines. We also get hit over the head with Montoya’s stilted line “Are you sure she’s safe?” when she talks with Gordon about Barbara in another low point of the show. Zsasz says “Please?” Bullock uses the term good guys. Is he eight-years-old? Please.

Some quick ones:

1) Barbara screws up everything by staying in Gotham, and the one good cop—who just happens to be a woman—on the GCPD gets killed by Zsasz. It sucks to be a woman in Gotham. Is Frank Miller writing this?

2) Mister Zsasz’s ring tone is “Funky Town.” Really?

3) Alfred takes down an agent. He’s so ninja.

4) Fish Mooney gives the most important word in the English language all the time and space it deserves. That word: Bitch.

Verdict: Despite its flaws, Gotham was palatable this week. But I won’t go so far as to say that it’s showing progress.

Bob’s Burgers

Kyle’s Review

Bob’s Burgers cooks up the most laughs as Fox’s best animated sitcom. This week’s episode marks the ubiquitous Halloween show and the return of the tortured burger puns.

We haven’t seen a new chuckle-inducing burger name on the white board in quite a while, but “Tina and the Real Ghost” gives us four: Texas Chainsaw Massa-Chard Burger, Human Polenta-pede Burger, Kales from the Crypt Burger, and the Paranormal Pepper-Jack-tivity Burger. I’m not sure I’d eat any of these. But they’re fun to read.

This episode was classic Louise, Bob, Linda, and even Tina. Bob hires a bug exterminator, and the exterminator doesn’t do his job as he believes that the restaurant’s haunted. Everyone in the family, except Bob and Louise, buys into the haunted restaurant.

At first, Bob tries to get the restaurant de-bugged but eventually goes with the haunted theme as customers dig the paranormal investigators who appear and take up residence at Bob’s Burgers. Louise feeds into everyone’s paranoia and convinces the entire town that a ghost inhabits a shoe box. Ever oblivious Linda doesn’t realize how much in pain Tina is when Tina’s ghost boyfriend—who lives in the shoebox—picks Tammie over her. But Tina overcomes and drops a little perspective when things get just zany enough at the local graveyard.

The show even maintains a little continuity which is odd for a sitcom. Tina stated in last year’s Halloween episode that it’d be her last year for Trick-or-Treating, and this season she never planned to Trick-or-Treat. I don’t know if this was by plan or by accident, but it’s nice to see.

I don’t know why we had a hiatus of more than a month between episodes one and two, but let’s hope Bob’s Burgers airs on a weekly basis. It’s one of the better shows.

Verdict: Despite a month off, Bob’s Burgers picks up where it left off by tickling our funny bone.

Grimm

Kyle’s Review

The season premiere focused on Nick, Trubel, and Octoface, but the second episode doesn’t just touch on the other disparate stories, it dives into them. While I dig some of these side stories, I’m not so crazy about all of them.

I like the main story arc, let’s call it the one with Nick losing his Grimm powers. He struggles with the loss of his abilities, and this makes sense. He didn’t have a choice before and now he does—kinda. This episode hits us over the head with what he’ll choose in the next one—we’ll discuss this later—but I like how they don’t resolve this issue in the first two episodes, and they show Nick contemplate whether or not he even wants to be a Grimm.

As an extension to the main arc Juliette’s desire for Nick not to turn back into a Grimm makes sense, and it’s handled well. But I also buy Monroe’s and Rosalee’s response to Juliette asking them not to search for a spell reverse. They know the danger ahead for the former Grimm, and thankfully, they don’t spell it out for the viewer. Another small mercy.

Trubel still isn’t as annoying as I feared—as the plucky fill-in-Grimm—but her impetuous nature gets on my nerves. I don’t know if I buy Nick and Hank getting to her in time to save her bacon either. It felt like a convenient time warp with clunky pacing. She should’ve been Octofood. Then, she gets into trouble again at episode’s end, and we know this will force Nick’s hand to become a Grimm again. Trubel gets kidnapped by an FBI/magical faction spook.

Looks like this season traded in the soap opera love for a tangled web of spy versus spy. I don’t know whether the FBI wesen works for the resistance—which we’ve heard of since season two but didn’t see in earnest until last season—or if she works for the royals or another faction we haven’t met so far. That’s all we need is a third faction.

We do get the royals in Austria again. Adalind does her best Lorde impersonation as she gets locked up for being the lesser half of a union between a royal and a hexenbeast. Hopefully, she’ll stay locked up for a while, but that serves as little respite. She’s linked with Nick, since she cast the woogie that took Nick’s powers.

Then, we find that Octoface was into espionage. For the Canadians? Or did he act as a spy in Canada, and it took him a few years to cross the border? I’m a little fuzzy on who he actually worked for and spied against. Perhaps he worked for yet another faction. Who knows? But I do know that I didn’t like how Trubel stopped him. He tried to suck the memories from her head and freaked out by the Grimm things she had seen. Really? That’s all it took. If that’s what it took to defeat him, you should’ve offered him Grimm brain a la mode days ago.

Speaking of days ago, it’s hard to believe that Sergeant Wu didn’t figure out that something was up days ago, too. That may be the main reason I don’t care for that story arc either. So many people know about the magical world or are part of the magical world that Wu comes off as stupid. I hope they don’t drag out this story arc. But that’s not the only one I wouldn’t mind seeing dropped. Minor Spoiler: Captain Renard survived because his mother brought him back to life. Are we going to see everyone’s mom in this show?

Grimm still holds my interest despite all these flaws. I like what they’re doing with Nick. Most of the supporting cast does a fine job, and even Trubel has her moments.

Verdict: Still off to a shaky start, but I like how they haven’t resolved Nick’s issues yet.

Constantine

Kyle’s Review

We had some nice developments with Constantine: John Constantine travels outside Atlanta, the dialogue improves, and Zed Martin (played by Angelica Celaya) enters the fray.

I was worried that Constantine would stick to the greater Atlanta area, so the shift to a small town outside of Pittsburgh, PA was a welcomed change. Malevolent spirits—we don’t see too much of them until the very end, and that’s a good thing—haunt the miners of this town. While casing the place, Constantine runs into Zed, who was the woman drawing pictures of Constantine at the end of the pilot. I loved the paintings of Hellblazer comic book covers in Zed’s apartment. Constantine has done a great job of dropping Easter eggs for fanboys and fangirls.

Still, Constantine and Zed share some awkward moments. I’m not sure how planned their clumsiness on screen was at first, but they settled into their roles toward the end of the episode and watching them work together—when they actually did work together—put a smile on my face. Zed is a much better choice of companion than last week’s Liv Aberdine. But there was one companion conspicuously missing from this episode: Chas.

Chas drives Constantine around everywhere, but this episode showed a glimpse of him. I guess it makes sense for him to take a backseat to introducing Zed, but I’d like to know more about how he survived last week’s attack. Chas got a power line through his chest and lived to talk about it. Granted, you can over explain things, but you have to give us something about Chas and his powers.

Then, there were the demons of the week. They weren’t as much demons as they were guardian spirits warped into doing a sorcerer’s bidding. Spoiler: I liked how the lady sorcerer used the word Romani to describe herself. Too often we hear Gypsy. Of course, Constantine uses the term Gypsy to describe her later on in the episode, so the effect isn’t as strong.

The special effects continue to impress. You have to have great special effects to pull off a character like Constantine. Nothing spells disaster faster than a lame looking demon. And nothing spells “not Constantine” than having the titular character without a cigarette in his mouth. We catch a glimpse of Constantine with a cigarette hanging from his lips this week. As I mentioned last week, TV shows can’t show someone smoking. This was a clever way to show the visual of the character with a cigarette.

But I wish they had done more with the character himself. This Constantine has faults and gives us a feel for the character, but he doesn’t quite live up to his comic book counterpart. He kind of comes off as a flawed and darker version of the character that comes on TV just before him: Nick of Grimm.

We’ll see if Constantine will explore its main character more. If it does, John Constantine could find himself in bed with Zed one week and with a boyfriend the next.

Verdict: Constantine continues its strong start but let’s hope for some more character growth.

Arrow

Kyle’s Review

Something’s off with Arrow. Perhaps it’s hard to separate it from The Flash—especially with Fecility Smoak guest starring on The Flash this week and showing up for about two minutes in this week’s episode of Arrow—when this week’s episode of The Flash got the blood pumping despite some clunky dialogue. But even when you take Arrow as its own entity, you’ll find something off about it. It lacked excitement.

Perhaps it’s the way the writers dropped everything from last episode besides Thea, Merlyn, and Nyssa al Ghul getting put back into the fold. Perhaps it’s how Merlyn returned to Starling City. Ollie had made the trip to Corto Maltese and managed to avoid any contact with Merlyn, and then Merlyn makes his way to Starling City with everyone but Ollie knowing he was there. The whole transition felt artificial. Perhaps it’s the fact that the writing staff insists on turning Laurel into the Black Canary. News flash: she can’t pull off a hard-boiled action hero. With her doe eyes Laurel hands us a soft-boiled character and we’re left asking our waiter, “Did I order this?”

I thought Ollie and Thea had a genuine moment last week in Corto Maltese, but now that she’s back in Starling City, the moment lost its luster. While I like the idea of Ollie and Thea working under the guise of “no more secrets” while both of them are keeping things from each other, it bugs me that Thea outright lies to Ollie.

She underwent assassin training to get stronger, but it looks like getting stronger really means people don’t lie to me, I lie to other people. All this I’m going to keep the truth from this person, while they keep the truth from me borders on soap opera drama. Or it’s comical like one episode of Friends, “They don’t know that we know that they know that we know.” Just cut it out or scale it back.

Speaking of comical, the one cool spin move Roy pulls off lands him face first on the ground, after Nyssa hits him with a League of Assassin knockout dart. What’s not as funny is that Roy is one of the most earnest characters in Arrow, and Thea repeatedly lies to him.

The episode had great action sequences, especially when they got Ollie, Merlyn, and Nyssa in one space, which happened a lot. But the action felt hollow. I knew how it was going to end. Ollie would never take the kill shot, Nyssa would declare Ollie an enemy when he wouldn’t, and Merlyn would escape because Ollie would eventually take arms against Nyssa because Nyssa would try to kill Merlyn. The episode even choreographed the introduction of Ra’s al Ghul through forced dialogue. The good news is that we dig deeper into the League of Assassins, and maybe that storyline can progress.

But the brightest spot for this episode has to be Ollie’s Hong Kong flashbacks. We get some nice developments. Ollie makes his first kill at Amanda Waller’s request. Then, instead of contacting his family and the outside world, Ollie helps the Yamashiro family when he borrows their laptop. We see more of Ollie becoming the man he is in Starling City. Ollie even stands up to Waller and learns more about Edward Fyers which builds on Season 1’s flashbacks. I loved that they revisited this material.

Verdict: This episode had so many flaws that the introduction of Ra’s al Ghul was more of a whimper than a gong. But Arrow has a lot to build on with Merlyn in town and Ollie’s new war with the League.

The Flash

Kyle’s Review

I had mixed feelings over this week’s episode. On one hand we get the beginning of the Flash’s Rogues—which is fitting since the episode’s title is “Going Rogue”—and that’s a great thing, but on the other hand, we get an over-the-top performance by this week’s villain, Captain Cold (played by Wentworth Miller of Prison Break fame). Cold’s one liners like “you lost your cool” were too close to Arnold Schwarzeneggar’s Mr. Freeze of Batman and Robin infamy for my taste. Fortunately, Cold doesn’t drop too many of these lines.

I was worried that The Flash could go cornball and/or over-the-top as a series with its meta-human super powers, but still the Flash lends itself to goofiness. The on-going gag in the comic is that he’s the fastest man alive, but he’s always late. This episode takes full advantage of this brevity, and it also tests the limits of what’s corny and what’s a little goofy. I believe the show performed this tightrope walk well for the most part.

We had some genuine funny moments: Barry showing off for Felicity on the treadmill, the awkward moment between Detectives West and Thawne while they wait in their car, and even a few one-liners that hit their mark. I loved the moment when Captain Cold put innocent lives in danger and said that he knows the Flash’s true weakness: trying to save everyone. The moment rang true, and I’m hoping it’s a sign of what’s to come. We haven’t seen the last of Captain Cold.

Harrison Wells remains ambiguous. There are plenty of theories as to who he is, and I even mentioned a couple of names before, but I won’t bore you with any of them right now. We get a better sense of the Flash’s group dynamic in this episode.

Cisco created the freeze gun (Captain Cold buys off the black market) to stop Barry before he knew what kind of person Barry was. Another great choice. Jesse L. Martin delivers another layered performance as Detective Joe West. He doesn’t just dislike his daughter Iris dating his partner because he’s protective of her; he doesn’t want his partner’s relationship with his daughter to cloud his ability as a cop. Great stuff.

And then there’s Felicity. I already enjoy Emily Bett Rickards’s portrayal of Felicity Smoak on Arrow—there’s a reason people lobby for her character to get with Oliver: Olicity—and that’s because she has great chemistry with the Arrow cast, but she has just as much chemistry with Grant Gustin’s Flash. Too bad she can’t be a permanent fixture on The Flash.

Verdict: While it has its share of clunky dialogue and some questionable moments, The Flash continues to deliver the goods on a weekly basis.

Gotham

Kyle’s Review

I’d find this episode entertaining if I could separate it from the previous Gotham episodes and the Batman franchise as a whole. I can’t do either, so like episodes of Gotham before it, I’m left going hunh?

Finally, we get an episode focused on Bullock instead of Gordon. We learn what kind of detective he was when he first held a badge—a lot like Gordon as it turns out—and we see the contrast of how far he’s fallen. This would’ve been a great place to first introduce the character. From here we could see his deterioration as a police officer and buy into the cop he’s become. But this isn’t the first time we’ve met Bullock in Gotham, and he’s fallen so far in ten years—and we’re given little to show us why and how he’s done so—that the flashbacks don’t do the character enough justice.

And speaking of justice, why does everyone take the law into their own hands? Batman was supposed to be somewhat of an original, but Gotham has shown countless people pulling a Batman before Batman. Even the villain in this episode, the Spirit of the Goat, targets the wealthy because Gotham’s wealthy are corrupt and need punishment, but the lameness of the Goat doesn’t stop there.

The Goat is more hokey than scary, the villain’s scheme marries Occupy Wall Street (by pushing back against the 1%) with The Penguin’s final plan in 1992’s Batman Returns (kill all the first born), and then we find an odd twist at the end that isn’t as much gasp as it is duh-dun-dumb.

I’ve said it before, and I’m saying it again. This Gotham feels like Batman’s Gotham not Gordon’s. You can even catch Gordon say that “Gotham needs something else (than a good cop),” and it shouldn’t be at that level yet.

Even though Gordon takes a backseat in this episode, we do see him reconcile with Barbara for some reason. So, they’re on again, but I don’t know or care enough about their relationship. Barbara stands by Gordon even when she knows he’s going to get arrested for Oswald Cobblepot’s murder, but even if we don’t buy her relationship with Gordon, we know why she would support him. Bullock’s willingness to go to jail indefinitely, after getting charged with conspiracy for murder, versus his anger at Gordon when he sees the Penguin waltz into the precinct makes less sense.

Sure, Bullock may get sprung from jail by Falcone, but we just saw an entire episode where Bullock is at least a competent police officer, and then that’s thrown out the window in one second. Even if Bullock was ticked at Gordon, I don’t think he’d come to blows with him in the precinct. He would’ve waited until they were alone.

Like I said earlier, this episode doesn’t even follow Gotham’s internal logic let alone the history of Batman. It negates everything it built in the last episode—of Maroni using the Penguin to take down Falcone—the moment The Penguin waddles into the precinct.

Here are some quick side notes for the episode:
There’s no Fish Mooney. Yay! Bruce isn’t in the episode much. Double Yay! But he does show off as The Batboy. Groan. Alfred not only doesn’t care for Bruce’s wellbeing, he doesn’t even check to see if all the windows are locked in Wayne Manor. Ugh. Tweenage Catwoman slips through the window Alfred left unlocked—or even left wide open—and circles the twelve-year-old Bruce. Seriously, she does everything but lick him. Ew. Edward Nygma’s hot for a bookish coworker. Hunh? And he stalks her like Catwoman hunts Bruce. Ahh. I think I’m going to be sick.

Despite all these problems, this episode could be entertaining if you forget everything you know about the Gotham series so far and refuse to believe in Batman.

Verdict: Gotham doesn’t have much direction, and what little direction it has is misplaced. There were some nice choices in this episode if the series started here, but Gotham needs to find what it is and stick with it.