Spoiler Alert!

Things are heating up! Either they’re setting up their season finales or they’re building the drama and intrigue towards such! …some more successfully than others, and we didn’t even get Gotham or The Flash this week. 😦

Once Upon a Time

“Our Decay”

So, we apparently have yet another story about true love and villains such. Is it just me, or is this getting repetitive?

Long ago, Hades visited Zalina in Oz, looking to make the time travel spell work so he could go back and take his brother’s place on high. But within moments, he found himself falling in love with the Wicked Witch, who felt something in return but did not trust such feelings and did not trust him. We saw a bit of Dorothy in this, but it was mainly the story of Hades apparently loving Zalina and her rejection of him.

So, when Zalina tries to steal her daughter back, and both of them, along with Belle, get dragged through a portal to the Underworld, she assumes Hades wants her daughter for revenge. He says he was trying to rescue her, not knowing Zalina was already there, which is plausible but I remain a little skeptical. Belle keeps the girl from Zalina, but then Zalina manages to catch up with Regina and Robin’s help and steals her, and then gives her back out of fear of hurting her, and confronts Hades… all to find out they seem to be on the same side, and he still loves her. So now Regina and Robin have to keep the baby girl from Zalina and Hades, right after Zalina just gave her back to them.

Yeah, this is all over the place, isn’t it?

He also says he made the Underworld look like Storybrooke for her, and it’s ruined because… well, his power his one of destruction, not creation. That answers the question of where the appearance of the place comes from, and it leaves, unanswered, the question of where the curse that made Storybrooke in the first place came from.

Belle stumbles onto Rumple, who inadvertently lets slip, then “confesses,” and puts a spin on, the truth. He is right, he’s not going to be a different man than he is, trying to take and keep everything he wants, but he did once consider the cost and who would be paying for it. Oh, and he left out the part where he threw Mila into the River of Lost Souls for only his own benefit before he was being blackmailed by Hades for his second-born child.

Belle’s terms come out very simply: fix everything he’s broken, make them safe, secure their child’s independent future. Reasonable demands, I’d say, especially right after a betrayal of such magnitude.

Finally, Henry’s abilities as the Author are beginning to manifest, but only when he’s unconscious or in a trance, and he’s chronicling what’s happening right now, not what happened some time ago. Even so, as unreliable as it is, it gives Snow and Charming a spark of hope after they haunt their son (from a phone booth) with a lullaby. Awww! 🙂

Castle

“Heartbreaker”

As always, a hilarious, yet heart-wrenching, tale of murder and mystery! 🙂

Esposito has an ex-fiance of nine years ago. Sonia. She’s a criminal, and he arrested her. Now a robbery is committed, along with the murder of a guard, and it’s the same MO as her last heist. She gets out for a bit to help track down the murderer, but, as it turns out, it was all part of a plan, gone wrong, for her to get out and get her share of the gold she stole and went to prison for. Her partner turned out to be a bit more murderous than she recalled. Fortunately, she was not. When the killer had Esposito on his knees, rifle at his head, Sonia drew her gun to protect him. Then she let him talk her down. She goes back to prison, but the two of them have sort of come to terms with each other.

Speaking of, now that Castle and Beckett are publicly back together, Beckett and Lucy are at odds, and when your nemesis controls all the electronics, it can make life difficult. Myself, I can’t see having one of those, but whatever. Beckett gets even by flipping a switch and Lucy become Linus. And it’s Castle’s turn. 🙂

Agents of Shield

“Spacetime”

Is it possible to change the future when you’ve already seen it? Yes and no, I think. There’s knowing the pathways and probabilities, and being able to alter course. But then there’s seeing it as something concrete, where the past and future lock together is some way that neither can be altered. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. That second one is what we got this episode, with an Inhuman who gives and shares terrible visions of people’s deaths whenever someone physically touches him.

When Daisy meets this homeless bum of an Inhuman, she sees some strange things, all of which come true, but which they misinterpret. When she saw Coulson supposedly shooting her, for instance, he was, in fact, shooting at someone on the other side of a mirror. When she saw Fitz and Simmons standing together in the snow – as an Alaskan, I know snowfall, and I knew that was not snowfall – she was actually seeing them under falling ash. When she saw herself fighting a number of guards, she missed one that she couldn’t see. (love how they gave us a little glimpse into choreography of the fights! 🙂 ) And when she saw the bum saying, “I thought you could help,” he was talking about his daughter, asking Daisy to help protect her, a request which Daisy would never refuse.

And then she touched him and saw that scene of someone in a Shield uniform with a golden crucifix dying in an explosion in space. Yeah.

This was a pretty strong episode for Daisy, but also for May. Her ex came back, turning himself in. He said his goodbyes to May, and then he transformed for “the last time.” All that was left of Andrew Garner is dead. All that’s left is Lash. Though, amid the goodbye, Garner did voice his suspicion that Lash serves a higher purpose behind his extermination of the other Inhumans. And now the team is circling what that purpose probably is: they know “Grant Ward” came back… which means It came back.

Speaking of, It gave Malick a reward for all he’s done, now that It’s back up to full strength. It used Malick and visions of terrible deaths to take over the company that helped make Coulson’s artificial hands possible. It gave an exoskeleton to Malick,to give him power. Really, it’s just a shallow, petty imitation, a cheap and delicate crutch, and one which Daisy is able to overcome with just a little bit of help. Speaking of, I wonder who’s death the Inhuman showed Malick. His, or his daughter’s? I’m betting his, as he’s so keen to have his head of security always with him now (only to be ignored), as if he were hoping to change a vision, but, then again, he might actually care about one person besides himself. Maybe.

Arrow

“Eleven Fifty-Nine”

…they killed Black Canary? Again?!

What is wrong with these people?!

I am somehow suspicious of how they treated Laurel’s death scene, but for the moment I shall take it at face value if only because I can’t think of why they would fake her death.

I very much liked her character this episode, but chronicling the possibility of her leaving and becoming the DA under the new mayor, Damien’s wife, and how much she loves being the Black Canary, felt pretty rushed. And then they made her last words about Ollie and Felicity? When that pairing is supposed to be done and over with at long last?!

Good grief!

Also rushed: the question of Andy’s status as a traitor. Seriously, that issue barely lasted half a minute, it felt like. First he drew Ollie and Digs from their HQ, while Merlyn invaded and stole back the kushu idol. Then he led Team Arrow into a trap that they could have avoided, and took an arrow in the shoulder exactly when Ollie was questioning his loyalty. Then he found the missing stone from the idol and pretended to lose a fight with an enemy, being taken hostage exactly when Damien wanted the team to stand down.

The tension between Ollie and Digs was good, but we already knew the answer to the question. Now Digs has to live with letting Andy fool him, giving Damien his powers back, and murdering Laurel in a most painful manner.

Thea and Merlyn fought twice this episode. Merlyn’s condition for helping Damien with Genesis is that he and Thea be spared, but that hardly dims the erupting feud between father and daughter. Thea had Merlyn for a moment, but hesitated and lost. Then she simply lost their second fight, Merlyn taunting her that she can’t beat him without the blood lust giving her the drive to kill. Thea may have had the back seat in this episode, but it was still pretty intense for her.

Of course I know what I want: for Thea to kick Merlyn’s butt and not kill him.

…small detail, though, what happened to Merlyn’s missing hand?

And back in the flash backs, Reiter gets his idol back, but Ollie and Taiana get the rest of the prisoners out. They exchange a promise, to find each others’ loved ones and tell them what happened if the other doesn’t make it. No great mystery that Taiana won’t be making it, because she never found Laurel and told her about Ollie saving her, so… yeah, we’re kinda just waiting for her body to drop too.

Legends of Tomorrow

“Progeny”

I wasn’t sure why they’d invoke descendants and offspring, but it had an unexpectedly strong presence in this episode. Kendra had flash backs of when she was with Carter in her previous like, and a mother. Ray had some good reason to believe he’d accidentally left an unborn child of his behind in 2016, a bloodline that went on to build the robots which facilitate Savage’s rise to global dominance. Rip contemplated what he would truly do to save his son. And we met a young boy, son of a powerful man, protege of Savage, and future dictator who destroys much of the world, preparing it for Savage’s conquest.

That last one believes Savage loves him, despite how it’s his father, not Savage, who is willing to sacrifice for him, yet he returns none of that affection, even murdering his father in his sleep that very night, right after his father secured his release from the Legends, who kidnapped him. Rip was willing to kill him, but refused in order to keep his compassion and humanity. Unfortunately, the crisis they were trying to avert is now mere days away instead of five years off. Interfering with the timeline is not the same as successfully changing it.

Unless, of course, you’re the Time Masters. They can change things however they like. Because they decided they can. Heatwave is the one to inform the Legends of what they’re up against, after some rehabilitative beating-down of Cold, who is clever but not a muscle man. The Masters will be after Heatwave too now, alongside the other Legends, and they’re sending Hunters, who are unstoppable killing machines with the power to travel through time. Just perfect.

It’s amazing how things can be so very personal for all of the Legends, yet somehow so terribly campy and dull.

Grimm

“The Believer”

There are very few things I despise more than false preachers, and few things I am more wary of than cults. The one tends to inspire the other, and we got a pair of each this week. Now, the first one is a wesen with a fearsome appearance, and he means to use it to give people hope. Unfortunately, he goes about it the wrong way, meddling with forces like fear and faith, which are not to be trifled with. The result? People die.

The second preacher actually believes her own message, and believes that the first, her ex-husband, was unfaithful because the Devil possessed him, and now goes around robbing the faithful of their money. She and her followers bribe one of the man’s loving bodyguards into betraying him, with twelve pieces of gold, but the man hangs himself out of guilt, which they attribute to the Devil inside the preacher again. The idea is to exorcise him, but all they manage to do is kill him, for which they’re all under arrest. All the dying man can do is lie to his ex-wife one more time to try and stave off her own guilt.

Fanaticism. Highly dangerous.

Elsewhere this episode, Eve impersonates Renard, while Nick and the others keep him busy. She meant to get answers out of Rachel, but… ah, things do not exactly go as planned. This was not her best-conceived plan: to impersonate a man and call Rachel over to Renard’s house late at night. Heck, if she’s going to try and impersonate him at all, not only does her acting stand in dire need of improvement, but she should have a better idea of what’s going on before going in blind. The idea might have been good, but the execution was clumsy, like taking a scalpel and just jamming it into a patient’s flesh. It does not go well.

Speaking of Renard, everyone’s reactions to his candidacy are fairly identical: suspicion. They don’t trust him, and never completely trusted him, and certainly not now they know about his connection to Black Claw. Still, they can work with him, if only to avoid tipping their hand, and keeping your enemies close is a saying for a reason.

They’re making headway on the mystery of the stick. One of Monroe’s friends is able to get them an image of the writing on the cloth. There’s Aramaic, yet to be translated, and two words in Latin: one for “Miraculous” and one for “Perilous.” So it’s a dangerous miracle. Great. Now just what is the nature of the danger?

And, finally, Wu is feeling the effects of his brush with a lycanthrope. That promises some very not-good things.