Spoiler Alert!

Whoo! We had some doozies this week! Castle‘s plot caught me by surprise, a double-helping of Agent Carter, The Flash was pretty weighty this week, and Arrow took us on a little roller coaster. Even Legends of Tomorrow gave us a little peak at the stakes of their time-traveling adventures. Unfortunately, Grimm skipped this week, and several others are skipping several upcoming weeks. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate it when they do that? 😉

Castle

“Blame Game”

This one started out like our typical murder of the week, but it swiftly took an unexpected turn.

A reporter is shot in the back in her own apartment with a mysterious symbol (I thought it was a bulls-eye at first, but apparently not) written on her mirror. Ryan and Espo are on the case, and they follow a lead about a rusty, white van which, combined with what the victim’s coworkers say, leads them to suspect one of her fellow reporters. He has an alibi, though, but drops how she was working on a story involving old VHS tapes of kids solving puzzles.

Meanwhile, Castle is walking on air at the thought of a collaboration with Stephen King. Admittedly, that thought could dazzle most any writer’s head, but you know what they say about something being too good to be true. He walks right into a trap and gets grabbed, and then his phone is used to lure Beckett into the same trap, and she gets grabbed too.

Yep, it’s another abduction case. But one that’s connected to the murder.

They each find themselves locked into what looks like some sort of classroom, with companions, three men for Castle and two women for Beckett. Together, the seven of them (three couples and a minister) are locked into some kind of twisted game, with a series of dangerous puzzles with word-play riddles to solve. Three of them, Beckett, one of her companions, and one of Castle’s, each have a symbol on their skin, the same one that was on the murder victim’s mirror.

They solve some riddles and fail to solve others. One man nearly dies from a bee sting and then poison that was billed as epinephrine, but Castle solves the riddle about the antidote before they accidentally give him the wrong substance and kill him a third time over, saving his life. One man dies, trying to kill the rest of the men but with a gun rigged to kill the shooter, while Beckett subdues the man’s wife, whose example the man was following (clever, taking the bullets out without her seeing). Eventually, both parties use a brute-force approach: the surviving men use a desk’s legs to pry their door open while Beckett improvises an explosive to open theirs. 🙂

While that’s going on, Ryan, Espo, Haley, and Alexis are pursuing more leads, figuring out their cases are connected, finding a pair of psychologists who apparently used their own children, a twin boy and girl, in psychological experiments, testing the effects of separation anxiety. One of them, the girl, apparently died recently, hanging herself, her funeral being barely a week ago. Together, the four of them find an address and lead a team to raid it. There, they find their prime suspects bound and gagged and forced to watch “the experiment” involving Castle and Beckett in progress. The culprit: their son.

At that moment, the abducted couples have walked into the last trap: a simple, barren room, with three levers and a clock counting down. The idea is for the surviving couples to be separated, one staying behind while the other leaves, each to whatever fate. Castle and Beckett, however, have figured things out, and they break the rules, letting the bystanders go free, leaving them alone with the culprit.

There were some indicators, of course. He was supposedly on the brink of death twice over, eliciting sympathy, yet somehow lingered there long enough for Castle to solve a riddle and “save his life,” while his recovery was magnificently without blemish. He fearlessly stepped in front of a gun that was rigged to kill its user. He fearlessly walked straight into a trap despite rational protests that it could be a trap, pulling the rest of them in. He fearlessly pulled a lever everyone else was hesitant about, and then spoke about rules and consequences, and, finally, let go of the lever to shut the door.

His traps were his parents’ puzzles, adapted from their torturous original purpose to become lethal, nearly guaranteeing fatalities, but also survivors. Why take such a risk with the survivors, unless that was the true point all along? A few sympathetic figures who’d been deprived of their loves, the last survivors of a lethal game. Now that is headline material, something the world might notice, as the relevant authority figures failed to notice or do anything about when he and his sister were little. After his sister’s suicide, he wants the world to know, to see, what sort of people his parents are, and what they did. He wants revenge for his sister, and he means to die to get it. Anything less, in his eyes, is not nearly extreme enough. That’s why he killed the reporter, for only wanting to expose them, nothing more, and targeted people who could act as surrogates for the the authority figures that let them down all those years ago.

Fortunately, Castle and Beckett are too clever and formidable for him. They get the rest of the survivors out, then take him down. And then reinforcements arrive to spring them. Heh, typical! 🙂

Alexis is turning out to be quite the gumshoe, learning from such parental figures as Castle and Beckett, but also from Hayley, who’s turning our to be quite a mentor for her. After all the chaos settles down, Alexis is ready to just read for awhile, but then Hayley arrives and they have a little heart-to-heart about how Alexis worries about her father, always getting kidnapped, and Hayley reassuring her that her father gets out of all these jams because he’s good at what he does, not just by luck. Cheered a little, Alexis lets Hayley take her out for a bit of clubbing.

You know, I could sort of understand the guy’s need for revenge. If anything like this were to happen to any of my siblings, I would not rest until retribution had been achieved. But he tried to be indirect about it and make things bigger and worse than they originally were. Me, I would be more direct, refrain from involving any innocent bystanders, and, of course, not kill people. That last one would be rather important, ya know?

Agent Carter

“The Edge of Mystery” & “A Little Song and Dance”

Another double-header this week! Yay! Next week: the finale! 🙂

…which makes this the perfect time to build tension! Which they most certainly do!

After her surgery, Ana lies unconscious in a hospital bed. Her husband does not leave her side, as it should be. Carter, of course, is a wonderful friend in his time of need. She assures him, councils him to stay by Ana’s side, to talk to her so she hears his voice. She goes to get some things, including a functioning radio, clean clothes, a razor, so he can look himself when Ana wakes and sees him. As for Jarvis, he can’t but remember the past, and makes so many promises, as he talks to her, to do this, and this, and this, and this, if she will just wake up.

And so she does, complete with a quip about she heard his promise of a Burmese mountain dog, but wanted to see what else she could get out of him. 🙂 Jarvis immediately gets the physician… no, wait, first, he kisses his wife (whoo!) and then he gets the physician. 🙂

Unfortunately, as with most things, there’s a bit of bad news mixed in with the good. She’s alive, and she will recover in time, but as the doctor tells Jarvis, there is no longer any possibility of them having children. 😦 Mind you, adoption is a wonderful option that I heartily endorse, but, still, there is an emotional impact to that, like a meteor impacts the ground. Jarvis’ initial reaction is to not tell her. At least, not yet. He takes the entire burden on himself, alone. Noble, perhaps, trying to shield the woman he loves from that so soon after she was so badly hurt, but it still strikes me as a mistake. As husband and wife, they’re supposed to bear their burdens together, not individually, and hiding it can only make it all the more devastating when she learns the truth.

Needless to say, Jarvis is very much filled with a most-justifiable anger towards the monster that hurt his bride. Carter can’t prevent him from coming on any mission that could give him a chance at destroying Whitney Frost, much as she would like to.

In another corner of the world, Thompson looks up and old buddy, who, with very convenient timing, is able to find a file that incriminates Carter for some war crimes she supposedly committed. File in hand, he returns to LA to confront her, convince her to come back and “play by the rules.” Of course, the people he works for don’t play by the rules, Thompson himself has broken the rules, and Carter knows the file’s a forgery (seriously, she worked closely with Captain America, and there’s no way he is guilty of war crimes), so his argument is up in smoke practically before it’s out of his mouth.

And, true to her usual form of striking straight at the heart of things, she tells Thompson he does not need to cut corners to get ahead, he’s better than that. Which, I think, was more effective than a slap to the face or a knife to the gut. It got Thompson questioning things again, and just maybe believing in himself, for once. It’s enough that he turns on Masters.

I woudn’t call him reliable, flip-flopping too much, but for the moment, at least, he’s back on the right side. As he refused to budge for Masters, even ready to draw his sidearm if it came to it, he seems ready to take a stand.

With Ana hurt, Jarvis at her side, and Thompson still in the process of coming around, Carter and Sousa find their resources stretched thin as they contemplate rescuing Wilkes. They bring Samberly in again, both to move Wilkes’ cage and to drive the truck, not to mention create believable forgeries of the nuclear material Frost is after. Jarvis is butting in right then, and they get a message from Howard, instructions on how to build a gamma ray cannon capable of destroying zero matter. So, Samberly is building the cannon and Jarvis is driving instead.

Unfortunately, Frost has converted Wilkes to her side by that point.

They’re both scientists whose bodies are saturated with zero matter. She’s able to teach him a measure of control over his state, which gives him hope for more, and he is already very desperate for that. Interesting, Frost has been hearing a dark whisper in the back of her mind, and thinks he should be hearing too, though he denies it. Posing as Frost’s hostage in need of his cage, Wilkes is able to get close, and then to force Sousa to tell him the rods are at the SSR, where Masters and Thompson are, by holding a gun to Carter’s head.

Shame. He had such potential, including his mutual feelings for Carter, but he’s pretty much thrown that away in his own self-interest. Mind you, with an endless dark void chomping at his heels, desperation is understandable, and he’s very conflicted about his actions, his mistake, but betrayal is still betrayal. It’s hard to come back from that.

So, with things coming down to the wire, involving nukes, zero matter, and gamma rays, a lot is happening. Thompson is back with the team, though Masters managed to use those amnesia shockers on him. Samberly puffs himself up for Rose, who, I think, would be very good for him, giving him both validation and deflating his ego at the same time. Sousa and Carter have it out about being dispassionate in a crisis, a bit of their feelings coming out. And Jarvis asks Rose to look after Ana, including leaving her his last will and testament if the worst should happen. Rose, of course, takes on the task without hesitation, trying to comfort Ana, who likely saw that will.

Out in the desert, Frost, Wilkes, Masters, Sanfredi (oh, he makes pasta… how dare the maniacal gangster in love be associated with my favorite cuisine! :p ) set off the nukes and create a new breach into that dark place zero matter comes from. Frost and Wilkes drive under it, while Carter and the others set up the cannon from a distance. There’s only one shot for the cannon, and that goes to the breach, so Jarvis, frothing at the mouth, moves in for the kill, Carter following behind to try and protect him. In the shadow of the darkness, Frost no longer hears the dark whisper, but Wilkes does, and he is lifted up towards the breach, to become a vessel for more, more, more of it, a Frost screams self-absorbed fury below.

Hey, look on the bright side, Whitney! You still have a man who’s in love with you and will tell you every day how great you are! No matter that the universe seems to disagree with him, haha! 😀

The boys fire the cannon, closing the breach, Jarvis pulls up and delivers his wrath by unceremoniously shooting Frost twice, and he and Carter are only spared Manfredi’s anger in turn by how bullets apparently don’t do that much to Frost anymore. She needs them alive to make sure she can control a zero-matter-saturated Wilkes when he wakes up from his current slumber.

…yeah, things are definitely heating up!

And I love it when we can go straight into the next episode without delay! 😀 Oh, yes, all of that was one episode! 😀

Second episode this week…

First thing: while Carter is unconscious, she has one of those really weird dreams, involving a number of familiar faces (hey, Angie! 🙂 ) and her little unprecedented quandary involving the selection of potential suitors. AKA: which man’s she going to choose? (personally, I would go with Sousa, the one who stays true instead of stabbing her in the back, but whatever, her choice)

I suspect they had fun coming up with that entire song-and-dance sequence. 🙂

Back in reality, Jarvis is immediately learning about the consequences of pursuing revenge above all else, but he remains unrepentant. Filled with anger, he and Carter have it out, once they escape captivity and find themselves walking for hours beneath the blistering California sun without water. She has a point, he’s blaming her for what is partially the result of his choices, now that he’s getting to know the cost of what she does, a price she has often paid. Brought low and humble, Jarvis confesses the truth of his wife’s infertile condition, and his own cowardice in being unable to tell Ana the truth.

When they eventually find deliverance in the form of the thugs sent back to retrieve them after their escape is discovered (…seriously, they thought a measly two brutes would be a match for Carter?), Carter is adamant: Jarvis needs to go and be with his wife, not gallivanting into danger again.

Ana, however, is one of those saintly sorts, both wise, brave, and, above all, compassionate. She can’t forsake Carter, so neither can she allow her husband to do so, no matter their noble intentions. Heh, Jarvis is caught between two women, each telling him to be there in support of the other. I can think of worse positions to be in! 🙂 The entire series of events wears down Jarvis’ need to shield Ana, so when she demands the truth, which she knows he’s concealing, he is ready to tell her, and be there for her.

Meanwhile, Thompson is in his treacherous element: double-dealing, even triple-dealing. Actually, I lost track of how many dealings he does, but it’s substantial. First he talks Masters’ henchmen into taking Sousa and Samberly in alive. Then he talks Masters into using them to repair to gamma cannon, to “push back” against Frost, as he’s so wanted to, while simultaneously talking Sousa into going along with the plan. Then he talks Carter, who initially shows up looking for Masters’ blood, to go along with the plan as well. Neither she nor Sousa trust Masters not to turn on them, but they were distrusting the wrong person. Thompson talks Frost into taking out Masters, in exchange for a seat on the Council, and he talks Samberly into turning the cannon into a bomb to take out both Frost and Wilkes, or at least the zero matter within them.

So, basically, he talks his way among the competing factions and arranges for all of them to either take each other out or be taken out by him.

Silver tongue does not begin to describe it. The best part is how he manages to do this by playing up his own ambitions. Everyone can believe a selfish man when he says he’s acting in his own self-interest. That’s how he tricks you, by giving you something easy to believe and hard to see through, to see his real angle, his endgame.

Very cold, very Hydra-like, how Thompson stabs Masters in the back like that. He even looks Masters in the eye, thanks him, and walks out, leaving him to die, and ready to kill Frost as soon as he’s clear.

On the side of the angels… for the moment. But definitely no angel himself. No, I amend that, he’s on his own side. As per usual.

Still, that was an impressive bit of manipulation and deception. It’s a level of machination which reminded me of Nick Fury, the man with a millions schemes, albeit on a lower, more immediate level.

I did love that scene where Manfredi, so psychotically territorial, met the smooth talking Thompson.

When Wilkes wakes up, he knows something is wrong. It looks like he’s been turned pretty much into a walking zero matter bomb, but he’s had plenty of practice fighting its influence. He’s able to hold it in, even when Frost tries to take it out by force, for several hours. Just as he’s going critical, however, that’s when Carter shows up to rescue him. Unwilling to put others at risk, this man, who made a serious, selfish mistake, chooses to make the ultimate sacrifice instead. He locks Carter out and goes to confront Frost one last time.

Outside, Thompon is forcing Samberly to turn off his jamming device while Carter and Sousa try to stop him from pushing the button, still trying to save lives. Inside, Frost is killing Masters, the bomb is about to go off, Frost is panicking, and Wilkes walks in, on the brink of exploding with darkness.

…aaaaaaand cliffhanger!

…SERIOUSLY?! They couldn’t do the double-header next week?! Come on! 😦

Well, needless to say, I an excited for the finale! 🙂

The Flash

“King Shark”

In the wake of Jay’s murder, this episode was less action heavy, more emotional impact heavy. Everyone is traumatized, in some way, by what’s happened. Caitlin becomes withdrawn, emotionless, cold, which freaks out a Cisco who is already freaked out by his encounter with Killer Frost. Wells and Jesse live at Star Labs, which, while it’s a step up from being constantly terrorized by Zoom, still seems rather confining. And Barry just runs, and runs, and runs, hoping for something to distract him.

The distraction comes in the form of King Shark, who we met just briefly awhile ago. He breaks out of his Argus prison – yes, that is so smart of his guards to just open the laser-field cage willy-nilly – and returns to Central City to kill the Flash. Being the last of Zoom’s freaks they have to deal with (unless Dr. Light comes back to town), King Shark represents a form of closure for them. They can’t reopen the breaches, but they can take this guy down. They need to take him down. So it’s a two-way hunt.

Hey, Digs and Lyla from Arrow! Cool! And Digs is able to give Barry some much-needed insight about carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. It’s something that he, being on the outside of things but still very experienced, is very good for.

While that’s going on, Barry and Wally are trying to have some sort of relationship too. Wally feels like he’s in the shadow of Barry the Perfect, while Barry is dealing with the weight of the world and not very good at making friends anyway. Game night’s a bust, so Joe and Iris get them together to work on Wally’s project, the one he’s submitting in hopes of going to engineering school. Barry’s help is useful, but Wally’s a bit bristly, and then King Shark attacks and Barry “vanishes” so Wally thinks he’s a coward. What Wally needs to learn is that it’s not a competition, and Joe later has a conversation with him to that effect.

Back to the King Shark thing. Barry, that was very stupid of you to taunt and antagonize that huge shark-man with how he can never go home. Round one went to King Shark, though he was smart enough to withdraw just in case Argus had some trick up their sleeve. After being so physically humbled, Barry opens up and tells Joe and Iris everything that happened on Earth-2, how he feels terrible because all of this is happening because he went back in time to try and save his mother. And now, after everything, he’s left an entire world at Zoom’s mercy.

With that off his chest, Barry is able to take the fight straight to King Shark. They lay a trap, and await his arrival. Trap fails, of course, but where’s the fun in a successful trap, eh? Instead, Barry takes King Shark on in his own element, running on top of the water, running in a circle to electrify it, topped off with a lightning bolt! That was pretty cool, I say! The Flash straight up took on a formidable freak on his own and won! Now that is classic Flash! 🙂

Cisco’s freak out about Cait’s anti-meltdown both gives her the chance to explain how she’s trying not to self-destruct from her grief and sets up a hilarious joke where she acts like Killer Frost just to freak him out. Hah! He had that one coming! 😀

That said… I am recalling when Barry time traveled last season. He saw some remarkable things, all of them applying to his own past and future as the Flash, not things on Earth-2. Among them: he saw Killer Frost. So, while Cait assures Cisco that she will never be Killer Frost on their Earth… um, I can’t help but wonder. And fear. Could our dear Caitlin truly be destined to become a dangerous, psychopathic killer? 😦

…I’m suddenly reminded of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when Willow met her evil vampire self. She was a dark reflection of our favorite witch, but there’s not one thing about her that Willow herself did not display at some point. A rather somber thought, all things considered.

Jesse is plenty smart, we know, and she helps her father figure out how to track King Shark. Basically, after her captivity, she makes sure her father can’t overlook her ever again. He seems happy enough about it in the end. 🙂

Finally, at the end of the episode, Barry unveils the mounted helmet of Jay Garrick, a tribute to their fallen friend. And he swears that the fight against Zoom is not over. They’ll find a way to reopen the breaches, defeat Zoom, and save Earth-2 from his rampage.

And then, back in Zoom’s cave, we finally get a look beneath that mask. As he drop’s Jay’s dead body to the ground for his masked prisoner to see, he takes off his own, and it turns out to be… Jay?!

…ok, actually, I called that one last week. :p

He says something about complications, possibly meaning that Jay’s death was not his intention and is, in fact, a hindrance to his plans.

So, we’ve now confirmed at least three people with Jay’s face, and I suspect the masked prisoner makes four. There’s theories going around about time travel and clones and twins and such. Personally, I have favored the twin theory, until just a bit ago. I mean, how would Jay’s death would be such a complication for Zoom? Why would Zoom bother with abducting Earth-1’s Jay and erasing every trace of him? But running with the idea about clones, something struck me.

If Zoom has the capability to create a fully grown clone of Jay, one that thinks he is Jay and has Jay’s memories… well, that sort of tech doesn’t just come into existence overnight, and if it already exists for Zoom to take advantage of, then I wonder… could Zoom himself be Jay’s clone? Could the Jay we’ve known be another clone, with the original imprisoned, his face hidden? That would mean Earth-1 would only have Hunter Zolomon as Jay’s Earth-1 doppelganger, so we’d have an original on each Earth, and two clones of one of them from Earth-2. That solves the math of why there would be four of them, without making Jay and Hunter long-lost twins or something.

So, as Zoom defeats Jay just as the breach occurs, he goes to Earth-1, sees Barry, imprisons Jay, grows or uses another Jay clone, complete with memories, and sends him to nurture Barry’s speed. Barry gets faster, gets more Speed Force for Zoom to steal, having the threat presented by Zoom to deal with and a mentor in the form of “Jay.” As complicated as it would be, it would also be a comparatively simple explanation, which tells you all you need to know about the usual Flash hijinks. 😉

Perhaps Zoom needs to steal additional Speed Force in order to prolong his life, the way we saw Jay’s cell degradation momentarily halt last week? That would explain his order not to harm any other speedster, complete with his lethal anger when that order is ignored. Hmmm. I’m liking this theory more and more.

The question then is… who cloned Jay? Himself? Wells? Earth-2’s Argus?

Arrow

“Taken”

Damien had a moment in this episode where he was all, “…well… that happened.” I am feeling much the same way. Well, sort of.

Getting the flashbacks out of the way, Reiter breaks through a literal wall and wants Ollie to be the one to walk through the hole. When a spectral guardian appears, wearing Conklin’s face, talking something about being greater than destiny and punishing the trespassers for their offense, Reiter withdraws and leaves Ollie to face it. Protected by his tattoo, Ollie is deemed worthy and allowed to enter, with Reiter coming along, with his men, and Taiana.

Back in the present, Felicity is trying out Curtis’ microchip that will enable her to walk. First test, not a success. Even worse, as they are leaving, Damien comes out of the shadows to hold William’s life over Ollie’s head. Either he drops out of the race – and Damien has caught on to there being a connection between Ollie and the Green Arrow and is vastly unafraid of either figure – or William dies.

Cat’s out of the bag now, and Felicity becomes angrier and angrier with each person who knew about William while she did not (Barry, Thea, Malcolm…). She’s very unhappy, and really digs into Ollie for not telling her, for choosing to obey Samantha’s ultimatum, etc. I get that she’s hurt, but, really, once Ollie explains himself, and once Samantha herself (who gets read in on Ollie being the Green Arrow) makes it clear that she was the one who forced Ollie to choose, and especially once Ollie tells her that he’d hoped Samantha would come to trust him enough to relax her restrictions… well, I kind of wanted to lecture Felicity on how the fact that her father abandoned her to go be a terrorist does not mean every other father gives up on his child so easily. Am I the only one who thought she was a bit out of line, here?

Laurel had an interesting moment with her father. It’s been years, she knew he cheated (with her sister, among others), yet it still stings. She doesn’t take it out on Ollie though, she confides in Lance, who helps her see how sleeping around is one thing, but having a kid is far more significant, down on an instinctual level.

Fatherhood had a rather strong presence all throughout this episode. Digs and Lance are good fathers, if also flawed. They’re always there, supporting, comforting, protecting. That’s what fathers do. Ollie is wrestling with his own role as a father, wanting so badly to be a part of William’s life, wanting to keep him close and safe, but having to weigh that with the idea that giving him up might be the only way to protect him.

Finally, there’s Thea and Merlyn. She is understandably angry Merlyn used William, her nephew, against her brother. And, on top of that, refusing to bargain with Nyssa to save her, his daughter! Kidnapping William is the very last straw, and though Merlyn made her physically strong, which is all he really cares about, she knows that Robert Queen both raised her – whereas Merlyn abandoned Tommy so he could go off to Nanda Parbat in pursuit of his revenge on innocent bystanders – and truly loved her.

Congratulations, Merlyn. You’ve successfully poisoned your relationship with your only surviving family. Funny how pursuing darkness cuts you off from the light.

Anyway, back to the conflict.

To combat Damien’s magic, Team Arrow considers calling Constantine again, but he’s apparently in Hell, literally. (…you know, I would really like to know the story around that…) So they call Vixen instead, after the animated (oh! A pun! …hilarious.) adventure Ollie and Barry had with her last year. Though Damien is confident in his ability to fight the Green Arrow with his magic, Vixen pushes his power to the limit, proving he can be made vulnerable when fighting another practitioner. She’s also able to point them in the direction of targeting Damien’s idol, which, when she shatters it, makes him powerless.

Oh… I did not realize how much I’d been waiting for someone to just punch Damien in the face! 😀 Sucks having to fight fair, doesn’t, Damien? Suddenly find yourself in over your head? Hah! 😀

So, they rescue William, who now wants a Green Arrow action figure, but it’s too late. Ollie had to buy time by dropping out of the race and throwing his support behind Damien’s wife, who now runs unopposed. HIVE’s plan is about to come to fruition. And all Ollie can do is apologize for not being able to properly explain why he’s done this.

In the end, Ollie lets William go, giving his mother a taped message for when the boy turns eighteen, confessing his identity, telling him why he made this choice. Samantha is taking her boy and going into hiding. Felicity overhears his message, and chooses then to talk to him. She takes off her engagement ring, saying she needs space. She believes Ollie is incapable of leaning on her the way she thinks a husband should, and she resents, on top of everything else, being left out of his decision process regarding what to do with his kid. After she’s been quite venomous about everything that’s happened, sorry, but being mad that Ollie didn’t include her in that? Really, Felicity? Really? Sheesh, I want to punch the writers!

About the only good thing, as I see it, is how Felicity is suddenly able to walk again, as she breaks up with Ollie, and walks out.

…sorry, I know it’s a tender moment, but, really, I was like, “Yes! Ollicity is finally OVER! YES!”

Have I mentioned how much I hate Ollicity? 😉

I just want to say, for not knowing a thing about Vixen, or at least this version of her, I really liked how they made her presence so strong, but not too strong. They struck that balance rather well, I though. 🙂

Legends of Tomorrow

“Star City 2046”

You know those stories where the protagonist travels into the apocalyptic future, maybe rekindles hope among the despairing, or maybe sees the last lingering trace of what they fought for burn, and then travel back to the present to stop it? Yeah, that’s basically this episode.

The real weight of this episode fell on Rip and Sara, and I love everything to do with Sara. Sara finds her home in ruins, her family destroyed by the son of her enemy, Slade Wilson. The only ones left are the son of John Diggle, who calls himself Connor Hawke, and a literally disarmed Olliver Queen, well past his best years and broken by his losses. True, Sara and Ray (and others) alone may not have stopped this terrible future from happening, but they may have made u the difference. That’s a heavy weight pressing down on her soul, and she responds by stubbornly refusing to give up the fight at hand.

Rip was aware of the risks of removing them from their time, but believes he can simply put them back after they defeat Savage and stop this terrible nightmare from coming to be. However, that’s if things go perfectly and they can all return, so however “not real” this apocalyptic future might be, it is real to Sara. They collide, as Rip is fighting to prevent a similar fate from befalling his time and his family, yet he’s denying Sara the same chance based on his own limited perspective. Rip becomes so frustrated that he’s ready to maroon Sara in this nightmare before Stein talks some sense into him.

Meanwhile, Cold and Heatwave collide as well. Heatwave likes this time and place, and quickly takes over a gang. He’s living large, with Cold failing to persuade him, but waiting for a time to act, cold and calculating. That opportunity comes when Grant Wilson pulls the rug out from under him, commanding “his” gang with more authority than he does. Still, Heatwave wants to stay and gets all rebellious against Cold, who is accustomed to calling the shots. Cold eventually ends the talk by knocking him out and dragging him back to the ship, where Heatwave calls him on his shift in priorities from “the ultimate score” to “taking down Savage.”

The big difference between Cold and Heatwave? Cold can retain a vision of greatness, while Heatwave just wants to see the world burn.

On the lighter side of things, Jacks has a crush on Kendra. I roll my eyes. Of course they have the teenager crushing on the nearest woman at hand. He’s like a puppy, and seems to think there’s no difference between being friends with a girl and having romantic intentions towards that girl. (sigh) It was amusing to see Stein try to meddle and match-make, while they’re all trying to fix the ship, only to have it backfire. It was fairly clear that Ray wasn’t thinking of Kendra like that, but then Stein has to open his big mouth in order to determine the situation and then dissuade Ray from thinking about that, which made Ray think about that precisely. I mean, you can’t say, “Don’t think about the color yellow, stop thinking about yellow, no more yellow, yellow, yellow,” without making them think about the color yellow. Psychology works like that.

Fortunately, Kendra is nowhere near ready for that sort of thing, with all she’s been going through, so both men’s fleeting hopes are dashed. They’re even able to momentarily bond over it, in a manly, teasing sort of way. 🙂

So, Sara rekindles Ollie’s fighting spirit, they save Digs’ son – though, why did those gangsters suddenly start fighting each other? – and Rip learns a little humility. Of course with how easy it was, with Ray and Kendra just flying in (Kendra got, what, two punches in?) and the rest of the Legends just walking in guns blazing, while Ollie and Connor dispatched Deathstroke Junior… yeah, kind of anticlimactic, ya know? The Legends just walked in and dominated, so what was Rip’s hangup about helping out again?

Oh, and morbid hilarity: they actually refrain from killing in the future, but not the past. Yeah, that makes total sense.

Ah, well, they’re time traveling again, going to some other time and place to fight Savage again. Same-old, same-old.