Toy Story 3

We're doin' a sequel,
That's what we do in Hollywood.

I saw the first two Toy Story movies at the cinema; I don't really know why it's taken me so long to see the third and final* movie in the sequence.

Toy Story 3 picks up the theme of growing up and the abandoning of childhood playthings from Toy Story 2. Young Andy is off to college and the toys are accidentally sent not to the attic for storage but to be donated to the local daycare centre. Here they discover an apparent paradise, but with the inevitable serpent, setting the scene for a cunning escape plan.

The film maintains the standard of the series, with gorgeous animation and a witty script. It even maintains the emotional punch, building to a genuinely gripping climax and a payoff three films in the making.

It was well worth looking out on LoveFilm/Amazon Prime.

* Until about a month ago when they announced a fourth one, thus rendering The Muppets Most Wanted's satire slightly moot.

Agents of SHIELD - 'The Things We Bury' and 'Ye Who Enter Here'

And what do flashbacks mean? NAZIS!

It's the mythology episode, as SHIELD begin to close in on the city revealed in The Writing on the Walls and Whitehall's backstory with the obelisk, its guardians and Skye are fleshed out. This gives us a chance for some Nazis, some evil surgery and Dichen Lachman from Dollhouse in a small guest role. In the B plot, Ward goes after his brother with vengeance on his mind.

Skye and Ward remain my least favourite things about the series, which is a shame since they have such a major role in the arc. Triplett also has a role in this week's epsiode! He gets shot, enabling the Doctor to use him as a bargaining chip. Um... yay.

There's also a cameo from Hayley Atwell, so there's that.

Oh, fuck you! FUuuuuck you!

Rolling on to 'Ye Who Enter Here' and SHIELD go after the city and Skye goes toe to toe with Agent 33, who earlier gave May a run for her money.

This is the set-up for the season finale, so it ends in a bad place, with half the team in danger of death, half trapped in a bad place and one sacrificed to the monster. Sadly, it is none of the ones I would like to see go.

I guess on the plus side they didn't throw Triplett under the bus, but it's pretty much as bad.

Oh, and Mac might have been into some dodgy double-agent shit with Bobbi.

The Flash - 'Flash vs. Arrow'

"You shot me!"
"I heard you heal fast."

In part one of a two part crossover that I will not be watching the conclusion to until I can get through the rest of Arrow Season 2, Oliver Queen and Team Arrow pay a call on Central City in search of Captain Boomerang (although they probably wouldn't call him that) and help out Barry while they're there. The Flash is up against Roy Bivolo (aka Prism, aka 'Rainbow Raider', a name which causes Cisco to place an embargo on Caitlin ever naming anyone again.) Bivolo is a metahuman with the ability to invoke outbursts of anger in others, using his power to create distractions for his crimes.

Oliver offers to help train Barry to use his powers with more precision, but learning that not only does Eddie think he is a public menace but that Oliver is on Iris's 'Three for Free' list rankles with Barry, and when Bivolo puts the whammy on him he goes after Eddie before the Arrow intervenes, leading to the titular smackdown, pitting Oliver's discipline and experience against Barry's powers.

The fight is the action centrepiece (afterwards, Bivolo's capture happens off-screen) and it does not disappoint. Leading up to it, the interplay between Teams Arrow and Flash are wonderfully realised, from Diggle's surprise at Barry's powers ("What? You didn't tell him about me?") to Olly's face-off with Dr Wells ("There's something off about that guy.") There is also a lot of character movement, with Iris turning against the Flash (understandably enough) after his attack on Eddie, and Oliver warns Barry that his relationship with Iris is doomed. ("Guys like us don't get the girl.")

We also have a reminder of Caitlin's dead fiance in time for him to show up living homeless and on fire (in a metahuman way) in the stinger.

Mockingjay and the Rise of Part 3.1

I saw Mockingjay Part 1 a couple of weeks ago and forgot to blog it, so mostly what I have to say about it is that yeah, I enjoyed it in a pretty grim way. It's also weirdly enthralling to see Philip Seymour Hoffman still appearing in new films, and a little distracting.

Catching Fire was a bit of an odd fish; not quite new, not quite the same again, it struggled as a movie in its own right and I think that, without the promise of Mockingjay to come it would have on balance been a failure. Mockingjay Part 1 has its own problems, in particular the '3.1' issue I'm going to talk about below, but overall is a powerful and effective film. It's a lot less intimate than The Hunger Games, which had the time to introduce us to all the children who were about to die, and in some ways loses some of its punch by graduating its protagonists to professional soldiers. Its depictions of the hell of war are still punchy, however, and its refusal to allow any 'clean' victory is a solid decision.

It's main stumbling block is the recent phenomenon of dividing the final adaptation of a trilogy (or more; it really began with Harry Potter) into two films. The rationale for this is, I am sure, largely commercial; after all, The Deathly Hallows was actually a shorter book than, say, Order of the Pheonix. The purpose of part 3.1 is to get one more year of surefire box office returns before moving on to the next project, regardless of the artistic impact.

Said impact is palpable, resulting in films that retain far more of the detail, nuance and - for better or worse - pacing of the source material. It makes, overall, for more faithful adaptations (although see also The Hobbit,) but that is not intrinsically a good thing. Films and books are very different beasts, and treating them as such can result in very tedious adaptations. As much as I love The Hobbit, the opening narration of the first film - while very true to the book - could have stood to be reduced some for the sake of pace and energy.

I think 'energy' is the key thing; what makes a book crackle is not the same as what makes a film zip. Film is a visual medium, although it also uses sound, and while reading is usually done visually literature is actually more of an auditory experience. The words are key, and while we may provide the voices to go along with the pictures in our heads, the words that we hear those voices speak are fundamental to our understanding of the text. Film making is also a collaboration between the director, writer, actors and other crew members, whereas reading is a collaboration between the writer and the reader.

Books tend to go more slowly than films, partly because it takes longer to explain something than for it to happen, and partly because they have to in order for the reader to keep pace in the evolving world inside his or her head. A film ought not to be shot at the pace of a book; that would be a terrible mistake.

Notable instances of the phenomenon to date include Mockingjay and The Deathly Hallows, as well as Twilight: Breaking Dawn. The same is planned for Allegiant, the third part of the Divergent trilogy, although the director of The Maze Runner has spoken out against the idea for that franchise. The Hobbit was stretched from one book to three films, although that was because it was The Hobbit plus a bunch of material from the appendices of The Lord of the Rings adapting it into a true prequel to the Rings film trilogy.

Similarly, A Storm of Swords became two seasons of A Game of Thrones on TV (that's twenty hours for those marveling at The Hobbit's nine.) Of course, that was also often published as two separate books, and it wasn't until Season 4 brought in chunks of the next two books that the pace felt like it was dragging a little.

Of the film examples, The Deathly Hallows was arguably the most justified. There's a lot happening and a fairly natural break, such that neither film felt like it was marking time in a Matrix Reloaded stylee. For my money, Mockingjay holds up, at least as far as part 1, and the fact that everyone I know who went in having read the books pretty much knew where the break would be suggests that that too is a natural break. I've heard much bad about the extended Twilight finale, but then I move in circles where I hear bad things about Twilight more easily than good.

The danger is that, as with The Matrix and other two-part trilogies, Part 1 will become stodgy and slow, all set-up and no pay-off, while Part 2 will be dominated by a single over-stretched PJesque battle royale, and then try to wrap up too much all at once. So far, the 3.1/2s that I've seen have worked, but I can't say for sure that they wouldn't have worked just as well as a single film. I guess I can be more certain next year, after Mockingjay Part 2.

The Battle of the Five Armies

If you're disappointed by Tauriel's rather passive pose on this poster, just wait until you see the film.

So, here it is; the final installment of the Hobbit, or as you might prefer to think of it, the Lord of the Rings prequel trilogy. In a shift from his usual style, Peter Jackson has opted to eschew spectacle and instead to focus on the human (hobbit) drama of Bilbo's return to Bag End and a musing on the nature of heroism.

Nah, I'm just funning. Dwarves charge up a mountainside on battle sheep and a lot of shit gets set on fire.

I enjoyed this film, and on a technical level it's superb, but in retrospect I think it has a lot of problems, some of which can be blamed on unnecessary changes to the source material and others to unnecessary adherence to the source material, and yet others to Peter Jackson's own directorial tendencies.

The huge tapestry poster above pretty much sets out the pattern of the film, so I'm going to take it step by step. The book is pretty old and the major plot beats are all in there, so I'm going to be less wary of spoilers than I usually am with new releases these days.

We open with Smaug's attack on Laketown and the triumph of some of the most dubious archery science seen on the big screen since Robin Hood shot two guys at once. Sadly, this will be the first of many moment where the epic action is undercut by whining presence of Alfrid Lickspittle, a character who seems to have escaped from a minor Dickens work to be The Hobbits bargain-basement Grima Wormtongue. As a minor niggle, this features another instance of Jackson's tendency to big up the beasts and shrink the world. In the book the dwarves are left to speculate as to whether the dragon is dead; in the film they can look out from Dale and see that Bard has hit his mark over Laketown.

Next up, the White Council descend on Dol Guldur like the magic Rangers, determined not to leave a man behind. Galadriel leads, with Saruman and Elrond on percussion (and it's nice to see Saruman the White being the epic badass instead of coming off all Chamberlain, even if we know it ends badly.) I think it's a shame that Galadriel's arse kicking is all shining lights, and as a Rings nerd I'm pretty sure that she ought not to be revealing to anyone - least of all Sauron himself - that she wields one of the three rings. I'm also disappointed that Jackson didn't take this chance to explicitly show that Elrond and Gandalf have the other two rings, something barely touched on in the original trilogy (and I think only even mentioned in the extended versions.)

Now King of the Lonely Mountain, Thorin gets all Smaugy-Gollumy over the traysure, refusing to share with the Lakefolk even though he gave his promise, and they did kind of remove the dragon that was going to come back and eat them all. The other dwarves are doubtful, but loyal, as Thorin has them scour the halls for the Arkenstone, which Bilbo has already pocketed and now holds onto, suspecting it would only make Thorin worse.

Back in Laketown, Bard organises a refugee train to the shelter of the mountain. Alfrid whines.

In defiance of his King's orders, Legolas goes a-scouting in Gundabad, taking Tauriel with him. This is basically his hail Mary move to try to win her back from Kili, and honestly if this is his idea of showing a girl a good time it's hardly surprising he's still single (if we don't count Aragorn) by the next trilogy. There are bats and orcs in their thousands, but surprisingly few wargs given that I had always read the wargs themselves to be one of the five armies (although accounts vary on that front) and Gundabad wargs are definitely made out to be a thing in An Unexpected Journey.

Thranduil turns up at Dale with a food drive for the Lakefolk, but because this is Peter Jackson and thus all elves (barring Galadriel, Tauriel, Arwen, Legolas and occasionally Elrond) are poncy, standoffish tools, he's really only there because he banked some shinies with Thror and wants them back. There is really no end to Thranduil's dickishness in this movie. He is basically responsible for almost precipitating a war over a few rocks (yay elven detachment from material things!), and later tries to walk out on the battle because it's not going well and directly contributes to Tauriel's victimhood and Kili's death by breaking the former's bow (which may be a figurative dismissal of her assumed 'masculine' martial power, 'putting the little lady back in her place,' because he's a dick in all other ways so why not make him a misogynist as well*.)

Gandalf reaches the Lonely Mountain and warns of orcs, but Thranduil poo-poos the warnings, because when have wizards ever been reliable?

Since always, you prick! You're an elf king; you know what the fuck is up with wizards. You were alive when they came out of the West into Middle Earth all shiny with the light of Iluvatar and shit. Your people have known and respected Mithrandir for centuries! Why are you such a tool, Thranduil? Where has this come from? What the actual fuck?

Oh, right; I forgot. This is a Peter Jackson movie; there has to be emotional conflict all over the place.

During this, Alfrid is around, whining.

Bilbo offers the Arkenstone to Bard and Thranduil as a bargaining chip, but then Billy Connolly turns up on a pig with an army of dwarves from the Iron Hills and it's on like Donkey Kong until the orcs bust out of the hills through tunnels dug by shai-halud.

It was at this point I began to wonder if I were in fact having a confused fever dream and not watching an actual movie at all.

The dwarves form a battle line. Thranduil fakes that his elves won't get involved, because it's not like the orcs are the ancient enemy of his people or anything. No, wait; that's exactly what they are. Fortunately, at the last moment the elves leap into the fray. Not by shooting their fabled arrow storms at the charging orcs before they reach the dwarves, but by vaulting over the dwarven shield wall and leaping into the fray, thus proving that if you're an elf, tactics are something that happens to other people.

Bard and the elves cut back to Dale to defend the civilians (where Alfrid does all he can to stay out of danger) while Dain and the dwarves form a ring around the gates of Erebor. This scene at least establishes that Azog at least has a smattering of elemental strategarg. In fact, simply on the basis of dividing his enemies and using an elevated signalling platform to direct his troops I think we can safely conclude that a better major general has never sat-a-warg.

After a painfully protracted period of soul searching, Thorin and his company bust out of Erebor and join the fight. Thorin, Fili, Kili and Dwalin jump on convenient cavalry sheep** (seriously; the fuck did they come from? Did I just miss Dain's sheep cavalry out on the flanks somewhere?) and charge up the mountain to take out Azog.

Sadly, this is a situation for the Admiral, and despite a late warning from Bilbo, Thorin's magnificent four end up badly outmatched by Azog's command squad and Bolg's Gundabad reinforcements.

Fili dies badly and Dwalin... sort of disappears until after the battle. I'm going to assume he was fighting and not hiding. Kili is doing well until Tauriel shows up to save him, and here we hit a problem.

Thranduil decides its time to bug out, because he's a dick. Tauriel stands in his way and points an arrow at him, but he cuts her bow in half. Dick. In the end, Legolas and Tauriel head up on their own to try and take out the second orc horde; because that'll work. Being now armed only with a knife (Legolas is carrying his own knives and Orcrist at this point, but does he give the sword to Tauriel? Does he fuck. Clearly dickishness is in the genes) she is able to take out some orcs, but is fuck all use against Bolg, requiring Kili, whom she came here to rescue to abandon a strong position for a rescue bid which gets him killed.

Tcha. Women, eh?

Speaking of failures of feminism, there's a nice bit where the able-bodied women and grumpy old men of Laketown take up arms rather than passively let the menfolk protect them from an apocalyptic threat. It's just a shame we never actually get to see them fight. Ah well; maybe in the extended edition. The scene also features Alfrid trying to weasel out of fighting yet again.

Meanwhile Legolas is being all sorts of gravity defying awesome. I think Orlando Bloom must have got some sort of contract out of Jackson while he was drunk.He rescues Tauriel from Bolg and Thorin from a random troll, at the same time returning Orcrist to Thorin for his mutual annihilation duel with Azog.

Alfrid flees. Good riddance, although he was so obviously the bargain Wormtongue I actually half-expected him to show up in the Shire at the end running the auction of Bilbo's furniture.

Not pictured above are the eagles, but you knew they were coming, right? And this time, they seriously weigh in, ripping into the Gundabad horde and their war bats***. They also bring in Radagast and Beorn, neither of whom have any actual lines in this film, although Beorn gets to leap off an eagle and drop a hundred and thirty feet while turning into a bear; and why not?

Tauriel is all heartbroken over Kili's death, and presumably guilt ridden, since it's her fault. Or possibly Thranduil's. Or Peter Jackson's. What the fuck, Jackson? Not even a little bit of back-to-back badassness for our doomed lovers? If you feel the need to put in female characters (and I can see why; it's not like the book has any) then why make them ineffectual?

I suspect that there is an epic set of bad movies reviews in the making for all six of these bad boys, but I like them, for all their flaws, so I want to do it properly. That's going to mean a full rewatch of all the extended editions, so don't expect much before next Christmas.

* For the record, in my head he's also now an antebellum Southern Gentleman; like Colonel Sanders on an elk.
** Some might say goats, but those are clearly bighorn sheep.
*** The orcs and the bats are both explicitly referred to as being 'bred for war', which seems to be the arc words for the film or something and as an aside is also a term used of Sontarans.

Elementary - 'Child Predator', 'The Rat Race' and 'Lesser Evils'

Holmes and Watson bond over squat.

A triple bill of Elementary, courtesy of a day working from home due to a cold.

In 'Child Predator' the criminal is a serial kidnapper and murderer of children, known as the Balloon Man for the party balloons he leaves at the homes of his victims. Once more, this Holmes displays his priorities: Solving the case is more important than being nice to people, especially if it means saving a life. People may be little more than puzzles to him, but they are puzzles who matter.

A process of elimination.

Some people matter more than others, however, and in 'The Rat Race' Holmes establishes that bankers are at the bottom of his lifeboat list as he hunts for a serial killing sociopath in the boardroom. He even triples his usual rate for their benefit, making a mental note to come up with a usual rate to triple. In an establishing trend, this and the other two episodes all feature a double-blind mystery, with the reasoning and methodology pointing to one perpetrator, who masks the presence or identity of a second.

It would be a cardinal error to speculate without data.

'Lesser Evils' is much more about Watson than about Holmes. Although a not insignificant presence in most episodes, this one brings her to the fore with its hospital setting and a chance encounter with an old friend from her surgical days as our mismatched detectives search for an Angel of Death.

An interesting emergent theme is that Joan Watson is quicker than most John's to pick up something of Holmes's methods, and as a consequence notes herself becoming less trusting of humanity in general. This is touched on in at least two of the above episodes, but brought into focus in 'The Rat Race' when a chance statement by her date triggers a (at least partially correct) paranoid response worthy of Holmes. Holmes calls this the cost of seeing everything for the puzzle that it is.

Atlantis - 'The Marriage of True Minds' and 'The Day of the Dead'

Not the wedding episode.

The wedding of Ariadne and Telemon is now arranged, but first the groom insists his bride visit his father's kingdom. It's all a trap of course, as Telemon is working with Pasiphae to lure the Queen into an incompetent ambush.

In 'The Day of the Dead', the survivors of the ambush are holed up in a necropolis and pursued by zombies. Hercules and Pythagoras have to protect Ariadne and their travelling companions Orpheus and Eurydice, while Jason has a bit of an Enemy Mine situation going on with Pasiphae's sidekick, the Colchean sorceress Medea.

Hey everyone! It's Ronald Pickup!

If we learned one thing from Merlin, it's that other significant mythological figures don't have a good time in these things, but hey, it's a great to see Ronald Pickup and Sian Thomas bringing a spot of class to the proceedings as Orpheus and Eurydice, even if we're pretty sure something bad will happen to one or more of them. Speaking of bad things, a lot of bad things happen in these two episodes, which end with many dead and at least three lingering abdominal wounds.

'The Marriage of True Minds' is a pretty standard episode, but 'The Day of the Dead' is a thoughtful exploration of what drives the various characters, in particular Amy Manson's Medea. Her interaction with Jason actually makes him more interesting, and the confrontation between Jason's desire to see the best in everyone and the suspicion of his companions is all the more gripping for the final twist of the episode.

Dominion - 'Ouroboros'

"I remember when I had the cool outfits. No, wait..."

Gabriel possesses one of the pacifist higher angels living in Vega in order to root out the other refugees and get close enough to Alex to make him doubt Michael. Alex and Sexy Soldier Friend get it on, but Alex is in for a shock. Meanwhile, Evil Giles is getting schooled by his wussy son.

This is the big mythology episode, running up to the finale next week. The disguised Gabriel tells Alex the story of the 'Flood', Heaven's last genocidal charge against mankind, survived only by those in Noah's bunker. I find I rather like the idea of Russell Crowe's Noah as a crazed survivalist demagogue.

Less successful is the David and William Whele subplot. William's deconstruction of his father has the potential to be a powerful and compelling moment, but like a lot of the major psychological break moments in the series - the senator who takes Alan Dale and Evil Giles hostage; Alex's acceptance of his destiny - there just hasn't been enough time for it. The lion Evil Giles is forced to kill simply hasn't been adequately established as the root of his masculinity and self-identity. I think it's been in about once.

As I say, this is probably Dominion's greatest flaw, its tendency to inform where it ought to show.

The Librarians... 'and the Horns of a Dilemma'

Thank you for not smoking. Wait...

After their eventful recruitment drive, the Librarians in Training face their first mission, against the better judgement of their Guardian. The interns of Golden Axe Foods are disappearing in mysterious circumstances, and their HQ seems to be bigger, and more labyrinthine, on the inside.

'The Librarians and the Horns of a Dilemma' deals with, but does not necessarily resolve, a number of key issues: The trust issues within the team - one of them betrayed the others, another makes no bones that he looks out for number one - the different approaches of the LITs and their military-minded protector, and the continuing influence of the increased presence of magic in the world. Guest stars Tricia 'Cylon Number 6' Helfer as Golden Axe's ruthless CEO and Tyler 'Sabretooth' Mane as the Minotaur maintain the standards of the show so far (if not A-list then certainly upper B-list), with Mane in particular a literal heavyweight presence and a cut above the suit minotaur in terms of intimidation.

The episode also introduces the handy plot book, a volume in which pertinent clippings from around the world appear, as well as a magic back door to save on the Library's air fares.

Gotham - 'Lovecraft'

"If you died... Who employs butlers anymore?"

This week's episode of Gotham is all go from the very start. After a brief introduction where Selina teaches Bruce about balance, we get straight into it with a trio of assassins led by a serpentine lady (the Arkham series' female Copperhead, perhaps?) breaking into Wayne Manor and pursuing Bruce and Selina across Gotham City.

The absolute star of this week's episode is Alfred, who shows himself both willing and able to bribe, cajole, beat and shoot his way through absolutely anyone to get to his charge, even honing in on Fish Mooney's weakness; her need to appear classy. Bullock is along for the ride, but Gordon - running solo in his search for the assassins' suspected employer, the titular Lovecraft - doesn't do so well, taking a major knockback at the midseason finale (there's a lot at the moment; I'm glad I'm seeing family over Christmas.)

"She's just a kid. Why are you scared of her?"
"Because she's scary."

We get another look at the future Poison Ivy during Bruce's walk on the wild side, with Selina hinting that she is someone to be wary of. Our other recurring folks are here as well: Edward Nigma in an adorkable moment, and the Penguin under pressure as Fish Mooney's game lights a fire under Falcone. It's all go, as you'd expect leading up to the break.

The first half of the season now over, Gotham is looking pretty solid. It's had its ups and downs and it still needs to blaze a trail away from simply being a showcase of future Batman characters, but all in all it's worth coming back to, if only for Alfred and Bullock.

Atlantis - Telemon

"What's fanservice?"

Episode 3 of Atlantis gets back to the pillars of its appeal: gorgeous costumes, tortured OST romance, and well-oiled gladiatorial fanservice. There's an Amazon in the mix for the boys, but she gets killed pretty early and I'm getting the feeling that I'm not 100% in the target audience here.

Still, target audience or not, there's enough that isn't muscular pretty boys for me to still enjoy it. Jason and Ariadne and their pointlessly tragic romance (although I believe that learning he is Pasiphae's son would drive him evil, since he doesn't have much personality of his own) may be about as interesting as paint, but Pythagoras and Hercules make the show. This episode, it's primarily Pythagoras and his investigation into the mysterious Telemon, a foreign prince intent on marrying Ariadne, and who is almost certainly up to no good.

Constantine - The Saint of Last Resorts

Redefining the answer to the question: "Whats' the weirdest thing you ever
did?"

Down south of the border, dark things are moving; a mother is slaughtered, her baby abducted, and the nun caring for her calls reluctantly on an old friend for help. Enter John Constantine, sinner and egoist, to confront the Rising Darkness.

Episode 8 of Constantine just screams 'mid-season finale' - revealing the identity, if not of the rising darkness then of its primary middle men, introducing people and creatures which John believes to no longer exist and which he is genuinely terrified to learn are still kicking around, and ending on a cliffhanger for both of its main characters - and sure enough, it is.

It also introduces us to another of the Newcastle crowd; Anne-Marie, once it seems the Nancy to John's Sid, and now a genuinely devout nun in a Mexican convent. After 'Feast of Friends', 'The Saint of Last Resorts' teases that Anne-Marie will be another victim of John's 'mission', before flipping that on its head. In this case, Anne-Marie is using John; once more for a good cause, the protection of two innocent babies. The babies thing was a bit of a wobbler for me (I am not good at child peril, as I may have mentioned) and I was glad to see their immediate fate at least not made the subject of a cliffhanger.

Anyway, now I have to wait until January to find out how Constantine escapes the Invunche (unless the remaining five episodes are all in flashback, I'm presuming that he does) and what happens to Anne-Marie, Chas, the babies... Oh, and Zed, who has been kidnapped by her own father, but that subplot has been so poorly integrated into the main arc that I am currently struggling to see it as the same story.

Elementary - While You Were Sleeping

"You may not have noticed, detectives, but his man has been shot!"
(Featuring replacement second cop, Detective Bell (Jon Michael Hill.)

Elementary continues with a robbery/homicide which proves more complicated than at first appears. The robber turns out to have seen the murderer, and gives a spot on description... of a woman in a coma. As Holmes begins to discern a complex and cold-blooded plan, he must struggle with the skepticism of new police liaison Detective Bell and with Watson's attempts to fix him.

'While You Were Sleeping' combines a thoroughly modern mystery with plenty of proper Holmsian twists: The complex plotting over a relatively simple crime; the plausible-sounding but probably quite doubtful methodology of the killer (monkey glands, anyone;) a violin; and of course a chance for Holmes to expound his theory of finite brain capacity vis a vis his parentally-mandated AA meetings.

The episode also highlights one of the key differences between this Holmes and Doyle's original: Doyle's Holmes was blunt, but polished in his public manner; this one is a rampaging bull in an emotional china shop. I say this not as a complaint. Sherlock is similar, and I suspect for the similar reason that a modern Holmes does not have to negotiate as strenuously polite a society as Victorian England. This is Holmes with his few remaining social filters shut down by a world without formal courtesies.

The Flash - 'Power Outage'

That's gotta sting.

It's the helpless episode this week, as a run in with meta of the week Farooq sees the Flash drained of his powers and Barry questioning what, if anything, he is without them. Given his speech to Girder last week about how the dark energy pulse from the supercollider doesn't change who you are, just makes you more, this seems like an odd reversal, but it emphasises his attachment to being the Flash, and not just to having power, but being able to use it to help others, as his weakened state leaves him unable to aid either Team Flash as Farooq lays siege to STAR Labs, or Iris and Joe when the Clock King takes hostages at the precinct.

For all Barry's navel gazing, however, this week really belongs to Dr Wells and Iris. Wells is able to show a rare degree of uncertainty, as the depowering of the Flash sends his records of the future into a tailspin. In addition, alongside the secret ruthlessness we've come to know (which we see once more when he releases Girder to fight a suicidal holding action,) we learn that he does care about people, remembering the names of everyone killed by the pulse that he created (including Ralph 'The Elongated Man' Dibney, teasing an appearance by the Ductile Detective.)

It's possible that the police took their eyes off the ball because
they misread his jacket and assumed he was down to his last
hit point.

Meanwhile, the supercriminal known as the Clock King is being transferred from Iron Heights - having been captured in an episode of Arrow I haven't seen yet - to Central City Prison. It's also a good week for supervillains, as Girder gets a moving curtain call and the Clock King dominates his scenes with his ruthless precision and fastidous nature. In a nice turn, it falls to the hero-worshipping Iris to become a self-rescuing princess when her predicitions of a Flash-based rescue don't materialise, which makes me like her more even if the chemistry remains wrong (which, halfway through Arrow season 2 is more than I can say for Laurel.)

Dominion - 'Something Borrowed' and 'Black Eyes Blue'

And they both suddenly thought: "What am I wearing?"

Michael is training Alex to fight higher angels, while Alex struggles to overcome his grief and guilt over Bixby's death. Meanwhile William and Claire struggle to balance their public and private personas, with some of William's Gabrielite Acolytes finding his continued activity as Principe of the human church treacherous. The formerly weak Lord Alan Dale gets his groove back, forcing Evil Giles onto the back foot, before his 8-ball lover goes on the run, threatening to bring him down for good.

There's a lot of character development across these two episodes. Alex has a revelation (pretty much that he won't save anyone by being a whiny slacker) and William takes a stand. Sexy Lady Senator ends her relationship with Michael due to Evil Giles' blackmail and the fact that Michael just accepts it is a scales falling moment. Alan Dale and Evil Giles both get some much needed backstory and their battle gets more even and Pseudosapphic Diplomat gets to do some actual diplomacy, but it's Claire who does best.

"Lydia, oh Lydia..."

Evil Giles' assurance in 'Something Borrowed' that she showed strength during the events of 'The Flood' comes across as mere applesauce, but the capture and attempted exorcism (I'm sorry; eviction) of her possessed mother bring out some real backbone. By the end of 'Black Eyes Blue' she's basically positioned herself as the only significant figure in Vega's government and established a hard edge that means I can't refer to her as Impossibly Virtuous Love Interest anymore. Uriel is also established as an art lover, and manages to stake out a proper characterisation, so overall this is a good week for female representation in Dominion.

In fact, these are a pretty good couple of episodes overall. There are still developments that feel a little rushed, but the pilot season only has 8 episodes, so perhaps that is inevitable. As it stands, I will be watching a second season if it comes; let's hope that the last two episodes don't screw that up.

Agents of SHIELD - The Writing on the Wall

I guess it must feel nice that someone understands you.

As the title suggests, the plot surrounding Coulson's alien-blood hypergraphia comes to a head in this episode, as murder victims begin to show up with the symbols carved into their bodies. The trail leads Coulson to the TAHITI trial group, and a final revelation as to the nature of the images (which, huzzah, actually involves the reason why Coulson needs to carve on a plastered wall rather than just buying a tin of whiteboard paint and a box of thirty dry wipe markers.)

It a bit of an Identity Crisis moment, and it works as well as it does because Coulson is not the Justice League. It makes sense for him to have made the harsh call if it was the only means to prevent further suffering in those under his care. Also, because the decision itself isn't intrinsically stupid. Enough spoilers have leaked that, while I don't know which of the Marvel Universe's 'lost' cities is represented, I could find out easily enough, but the reveal is nicely done.

"Do nothing; just observe? Oh, why am I not surprised?"

In the subplot I want to die, Ward is all cool and shit, spotting every one of his tails and thrashing HYDRA too. I get that he needs to be a credible fugitive, but they could have done that without having to have Triplett, Morse and Hunter all look like chumps.

Okay, I can live with Hunter looking like a chump.

I originally figured that Morse deliberately made a rookie error to make Ward believe that he'd slipped the chain, but later scenes throw that interpretation in favour of more Morse and Hunter bickering. I joked about the set up becoming more like the A Team, but that might be overrating the persistent competence of the scene.

In character moments, Simmons is clearly a bit jealous of Mac, and Mac's response to the writing establishes him as the one sane man in nuSHIELD. Well, maybe Triplett; I'd know if he ever got to say or do anything*.

The series is building up to its mid-season finale in about three weeks (Channel 4 time,) and now has a clear goal and something to work towards. If no-one is left bleeding out or turning to Obelisk ash on the stones of Wundagor (or whichever one it is) across the season break, I reckon they aren't really trying. Of course, it's a foregone that we'll have a Ward/Skye/Skye's father confrontation of some sort, but maybe they'll make it not suck.

* Yes, I am labouring this point. No, I won't stop until they do.

The Librarians - 'And The Crown of King Arthur' and 'And The Sword in the Stone'

The irony is that the blonde in the middle whom they apparently felt awkward
arming  for the poster could kick all the weapon-carrying guys' arses.

The Lbrarian was a series of very much made for TV adventure movies, starring Noah Wyle, then primarily known for ER, as Flynn Carson, the latest in a line of Librarians, responsible for safeguarding a vast collection of magical artefacts and books. Over three films, he recovered the Spear of Destiny, rediscovered King Solomon's Mines, retrieved the Judas Chalice, thwarted a rogue Librarian, overcame temptation, killed Dracula and made it to at least third base with no fewer than three smoking hot guest stars. Jane Curtin and Bob Newhart played his able support team, and the Library got bigger with every film.

The Librarians is a spin off from the film series. When someone starts bumping off the failed candidates for the post of Librarian, the Library itself summons Colonel Eve Baird (Rebecca Romijn) to become Flynn's new Guardian (the brawn to the Librarian's brains, and the common sense to their head in the clouds.) Despite Flynn's reluctance (apparently due to the offscreen death of his former Guardian - and lover - Nicole Noone,) they track down the three surviving candidates, none of whom showed up for the interviews, and the five of them seek to prevent the Serpent Brotherhood taking possession of the Crown of King Arthur in order to restore magic to the world under their command.

In the second part of the pilot, everything goes tits up, as one of the candidates betrays the group, leading to an assault on the Library which ends with Flynn suffering a dolorous wound from Excalibur and Charlene (Curtin) and Judson (Newhart) collapsing the Library's pocket dimension and casting it loose from the material world. The remaining four, aided by the grumpy caretaker of the Library's annex, then have to prevent the Brotherhood returning Excalibur to the stone and thus becoming masters of the world.

The Librarians 'And the Crown of King Arthur' and 'And the Sword in the Stone' serve the dual purpose of introducing the new characters and clearing the decks of anything too expensive for a minor SyFy original series to maintain (Wyle - as Flynn leaves day-to-day Library matters to the recruits and sets out to restore the Library proper to the world - Curtin, Newhart and the major Library sets and CGIs.) This actually makes for a somewhat downbeat opening, with Judson and Charlene sacrificing themselves to close the Library, and even the triumphant finale temprered by the death of Excalibur (although the fact that I was on the verge of tears for the whimpering magic sword was perhaps a good sign that the series was doing something right.)

The team going forward is:

• Colonel Eve Baird (Romijn) - a former counter-terrorism agent with extensive combat and tactical experience and connections in the intelligence and security communities. Although originally thought to be Flynn's Guardian, she has taken responsibility for guiding and protecting the 'Librarians in Training'.
• Cassandra Cillian (Lindy Booth) - a hyperobservant, synaesthetic and mathematically savant young woman whose gifts are linked to multi-sensory hallucinations stemming from a brain tumour. She failed to show up for the interview because she was in hospital and the Brotherhood define her as being doomed by her gift.
  She betrayed the Library on the promise that the Serpent Brotherhood would share the magic they released and heal her tumour, but redeemed herself by using Excalibur's dying power to save Flynn instead of herself.
• Jacob Stone (Christian Kane) - a genius polymath with an IQ of 190, who chose to work as an oil rig cowboy in Oklahoma, writing academic papers on art and architecture under an assumed name. He is characterised as having run from his gift, and did not show up for the interview because of his craving for a simpler life.
• Ezekiel Jones (John Kim) - A brilliant technical wizard and security systems expert. Having chosen to use his abilities to become a master thief, he skipped the interview assuming his invitation to be a mistake and is deemed by the Brotherhood as having abused his gifts.
• Jenkins (John Laroquette) - caretaker of the Library's annex in Oregon, which mystically provides access to the Library's texts, but not to its artefact collections. Jenkins is a curmudgeonly figure, reluctant to take time away from his research work to train a bunch of recruits, especially when that flies in the face of Library tradition.

The recurring villain of the piece is Matt Frewer's Dulaque, Master of the Serpent Brotherhood and presumably - given the name and the Arthurian focus of the season openers - Lancelot.

The apparent budget constraints - compared to a less than lavish budget for the movies - aside, the series has some promise. The LITs are an intriguingly quirky bunch and have so far been given equal weighting, and for two fifths of the main cast, including the principle lead, to be female is no small thing. Plus the movies may be cheap and extremely silly, and probably deserving of Bad Movie Marathon reviews, but I love them.

Elementary - 'Pilot'

Lucy Liu, Aidan Quinn, Manny Perez and Johnny Lee Miller; apparently
Perez will be token-swapped for a black guy for the main run.

Thanks to Sky boxed sets (for now at least) I'm catching up on another show I missed out of the gate, Elementary, the CBS modern take on Sherlock Holmes.

Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) is hired to act as sober companion to Sherlock Holmes (Johnny Lee Miller), who is established as the kind of addict who breaks out of rehab the night before his formal release. They are a troubled pair, Watson a former surgeon who lost a patient and Holmes a former consultant for Scotland Yard whose trauma is not revealed in the Pilot (although if you know anything about a) Holmes and b) adaptations of Holmes you won't need Watson's astute probing to deduce the involvement of a, nay the, woman.) Holmes has devised his own post-rehab regimen, which involves resuming his consulting work, thanks to a connection with Captain Thomas Gregson, an NYPD detective who studied counter-terrorism methods with Special Branch post-9/11.

The first case tackled by Holmes and his new shadow involves a woman attacked in her home and apparently kidnapped, until Holmes finds her dead in her panic room. He quickly concludes that she is the second victim of a nascent serial killer, but when the murderer - a man with severe mental illness - is found dead, he becomes convinced that something more devious is at work.

The investigation is a solid opener. The writing also allows Liu's Watson to match Holmes step for step. There was a lot of schtick about gender-swapping Watson, but in its opening stages at least there is no sign that the writers are setting up a romantic relationship. Miller's Holmes may not be spot on Conan Doyle's creation, but neither is Cumberbatch's, and what both get right is the mixture of rage and precision, of detachment and involvement. Elementary's Holmes is as abrasive and disdainful of human frailty as he should be, but also utterly incensed by those who abuse that frailty.

The core relationship between Holmes and Watson gets off to a good start. Joan Watson is sharp and acerbic, with a flair for investigation that even Holmes notes with some respect. She is very much a match for Holmes, if not quite in intellect then in her force of personality, avoiding my least favourite thing about Sherlock, which is Watson's near constant bafflement. Martin Freeman does baffled very well, but after an excellent showing in 'A Study in Pink', it was a real shame to see him slip quite so much into Holmes's shadow.

The Flash - 'Flash is Born'

"What? No; Colossus is Marvel."

Things are getting personal for Barry Allen, as a new metahuman hits the streets. Physically powerful and able to transform his body into living steel, he is also the government issued bully from Barry's childhoood school (attending no doubt the same summer training programme as Bruce Wayne's school bully.) As if that weren't enough baggage, he has an interest in Iris, not just as a former classmate but as 'the Streak's' unofficial biographer.

A critical success in this episode of The Flash is that it has finally made me give a crap about Iris and her relationship with Barry, mostly by not focusing on the romance aspect. It's Eddie Thawne who picks up on the tension between the two and encourages Barry to mend bridges, stating that good friends are hard to find. It's as a friend that her peril in the final scenes works, and it doesn't hurt that she gets to be at least partly self-rescuing.

This image is titled in Portugese 'Soco Sonico'.

In the metaplot we learn a little more about Wells, and the lightning man makes another appearance, disrupting Joe's investigation into the murder of Barry's mother and threatening dire consequences if it continues. Coincidence, or conspiracy? Time will tell, I guess, although if Wells were the Reverse Flash then I can't help but think that he'd have killed General Eiler himself. Still, there are more hints of time travel, so anything is possible.

'Flash is Born' also sees the first in-universe use of 'the Flash', which puts Barry well ahead of Oliver Queen in establishing his lasting hero identity.

As a note, however, locking metahuman villains in a supercollider forever is even creepier when it's your old bully. It makes it feel vindictive, however much of a tool they are.

Constantine - 'Blessed are the Damned'

"Aunt May; is that an angel?"

Angels we have heard on high, and down low as it turns out. This week, John and Zed - Chas is out of town on family business - are drawn to a country church where a snake-handling reverend has returned from the dead with the power to heal. They soon trace this power to the feather of an angel, now trapped in the earthly plane, but the preacher is reluctant to return what has been 'given' to him.

Themes for this week include intentions and effects, and the price of magic, as well as the danger of preconceptions. Zed is automatically doubtful of a healing preacher, but awed by the sight of an angel, and Manny's inclination is to help one of his kind without question. Even John is taking a lot on trust this week.

'Blessed are the Damned' expands on the limits placed on angels, and Manny's willingness to bend the rules. It also touches on Zed's life outside Team Petty Dabbling and on her backstory. It's not a bad episode, and again has a twist which is not entirely predictable, but is definitely solvable.

Gotham - 'The Mask' and 'Harvey Dent'

"I confess, some find my management style... eccentric."

Gotham continues with a one-off episode introducing a long-standing but less well-known Batman villain, Black Mask.

The comics' brutally theatrical mob boss, Roman Sionis, is here portrayed as Richard Sionis, a businessman with a fetish for Japanese masks and a warrior ethos. In order to recruit the best candidates for his company, he forces applicants to fight to the death in an abandoned office space, because physical strength, flexible morality and a guilty conscience are of course vital character traits in an executive.

Whatever; the point is of course that the prominent mask symbolism allows the show to take a bite at one of the Batman franchise's prevailing themes of the physical and psychological masks that people wear. Is Jim Gordon truly a good cop, or is he a vicious killer who wears the white hat as a figurative mask to let him do violence without becoming the villain? Similarly, we see more of the mask worn by Cobblepot in his relationships with Fish Mooney and his mother, who incidentally takes the line of the week trophy in discussing how she dealt with a bully who envied her dancing and was sleeping with the teacher.

Cobblepot: You told on them?
Mrs Kapelput: No. I denounced her family to secret police.

Speaking of bullies, Bruce's return to mainstream education sees a confrontation with the school's government issue bully, resolved with a little help from Alfred, who continues to get cooler and cooler as his propriety slips.

The episode also has a nice showcase for Bullock, both as he tries to moderate Gordon's boat-rocking tendencies and in taking the other officers of the GCPD to task for leaving him to face Zsasz alone. 'The Mask' provides a bit of redemption for the Department as a whole, by way of Bullock's rallying of the troops.

"This is my schtick. Without the scars, it's about all I got."

Moving swiftly on, 'Harvey Dent' introduces another familiar face; Killer Croc.

Yeah, okay; it's Harvey Dent, as yet single of face, and presented to Gordon as the DA who can get shit done. Dent has a plan to dangle the existence - but not the identity - of eye witness Selina Kyle (currently in protective custody at Wayne Manor, the better to stalk Bruce) in front of the city's gangland to create pressure until someone gives up the Waynes' killer.

Dent is a cool customer, at least on the surface, but there are those masks again. We are shown from the start that he's a risk taker, and a confrontation with one of his key suspects reveals a fierce temper under the button-down, terrycloth exterior. The teaser for next week also indicates that his risk-taking will lead to trouble.

Meanwhile, gangland machinations continue, with Mooney moving against Falcone in secret and Cobblepot seeking to flip her already doubtful 'weapon'.

Across the two episodes, perhaps the most interesting developments are the triangle being formed between Alfred, Bruce and Selina and Edward Nygma. In the former instance, the tension between Alfred's focus on discipline and strength and Selina's on wits and ruthlessness finally provide an impetus towards what will become the Batman. In the latter, Nygma continues to be creepy, even performing an illegally autopsy because he thinks the ME has screwed up (which in fairness, he has.)

Barbara continues to be the least interesting thing about the series, and having her leave Gordon because she can't stomach life with a crusading cop in Gotham only to jump into bed with Montoya, a crusading cop in Gotham, just makes me like her less.

Sleepy Hollow Series 2 - 'The Kindred' and 'Root of All Evil'

And he's the good guy.

Following on from 'This is War', Abbie and Ichabod's campaign against the end times is dealt a blow with the arrival of the new sheriff, whose skepticism sees Captain Irving (series 1 regular Orlando Jones) moved to the local psychiatric hellhole and Ichabod and Jenny removed from active involvement in investigations. Meanwhile, Henry Parrish makes his presence felt and Katrina plays a dangerous game with the two horsemen; her ex-fiance and her vengeful son.

In their attempts to rescue Katrina from the Horseman of Death, Ichabod and Abbie clash over the former's decision to summon the titular monster in 'The Kindred', a Frankensteinish construct created by Benjamin Franklin, completed with the head of the Horseman and empowered with a spell which begins 'That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die.'

Lovecraft FTW.

There's what? About thirty of those pieces of silver?

In episode 3, 'The Root of All Evil', Parrish deploys another weapon against the Witnesses; a Tyrean scheckel which invokes seething feelings of betrayal. Interestingly (I thought) although the characters believe that it causes people to become traitors, what is actually shown is that those affected perceive themselves as the victims of betrayal. This may or may not become relevant, especially as Katrina seems to be working some he said, she said mojo on the Horsemen.

A minor subplot involves Captain Irving being manipulated by his new lawyer, Henry Parrish, while a larger one revolves around his replacement. Sheriff Reyes has history with the Mills sisters, having been responsible for sending their mother to everyone's favourite Arkham-esque asylum, and is not convinced by claims that the end times are upon us. Whether her aim to restore sanity to Sleepy Hollow is reasonable yet misguided, or part of Moloch's plan B remains to be seen.

Sleepy Hollow is a little predictable in parts ('The Root of All Evil' opens with an uncharacteristic spat between the Mills Sisters which belongs in mid-Season 1 and exists only to set Jenny up as a target for the coin), but continues to be suspenseful. It's drama is effective, and the humour - primarily in Ichabod's continuing fish out of water stance - works. Highlights of the latter include his rant against the credit culture and the following from 'The Root of All Evil':

Crane: Is that considered acceptable now?
Abbie follows his gaze to see two men in a cafe, holding hands
Abbie: Oh... lots of attitudes have changed since your day. Not everyone's, but the Supreme Court has upheld the Constitutional right of same-sex couples. And more and more states are even legalizing gay marriage. 

beat
Crane: I meant gentlemen wearing hats indoors. I know about homosexuals, thank you. I trained under Baron von Steuben. His affections for his own sex were well known. Also, I watched the finale of Glee.

Interstellar

"We didn't run out of planes and television sets;
we ran out of front lighting."

The latest offering from Christopher Nolan - one of a handful of 'name' directors in the current generation (seriously; it feels as if this generation's Spielberg is still Spielberg and the last director to open movies like Nolan does was... what? Tarantino?) - is Interstellar, a grandly epic space opera on the themes of global catastrophe and survival.

Cooper (played by the increasingly impressive Matthew McConaughey) is the last astronaut on Earth. A global crop blight has forced most of the surviving population to return to the land, but Cooper's dreams of space are rekindled when a gravitational anomaly in his daughter's bedroom offers him the chance to lead a mission to find a new home for humanity in another galaxy. As he and his crew head out to contact a set of initial survey missions, his daughter (Jessica Chastain, once grown up, so they know thye have someone who can really look serious surrounded by dust) works with the project's originator to crack a gravitational equation which will allow humanity to follow the trail they are blazing.

"We didn't run out of astronauts; we ran out of plumbers."

"We didn't run out of planes and television sets; we ran out of
space heaters."

Interstellar is a film about hope, about endurance and about the will to survive, both the personal determination to persist and the drive to propagate personified in one's children. It is also a film quite literally about big pictures; the film plays out across an eighty year time frame and not just interstellar but intergalactic distances, for the fate not of a person or a people, but the entire human race. Its centrepieces are its lovingly crafted space landscapes and hostile alien worlds, not least among these the post-blight Earth.

On a more philosophical level, Professor Brand (Michael Caine), by embracing the possibilities of 'plan B' - the genetic reincarnation of humanity from embryo stocks - puts the general survival of the race above the specific survival of its extant members. Meanwhile Dr Mann (Matt Damon) represents the more absolutely selfish imperative of personal survival, and the Coopers a middle ground for whom life has a sanctity beyond the theoretical; a sanctity born not in faith but in the bonds that connect people.

* As any fule no, Newton's Zeroth Law states that when a
father makes a promise to his little girl, classical mechanics
and quantum theory can suck it.

As might be expected from Nolan, there is a lot of thinking involved in the film. It's mostly philosophical rather than scientific; the whole plot is enabled by a 'wormhole' provided by a sufficiently advanced sponsor, although the science isn't as bad as some make out*. It is perhaps the depth of consideration given to how one defines 'humanity' as something to be saved that makes it a little disappointing that there is only one major non-white character (Romily, played by David Gyasi.) Contextually, diversity feels important, although its absence is more telling for the overall quality of the movie.

In a lot of ways, the film pays homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey. There are some very similar visuals in parts, and the presence of the 'stargate' in Saturnine orbit matches the location from the book if not the film. Moreover, the mission's AI members, the robots TARS and CASE, owe a clear debt to HAL, even if they are rather more mobile and benign.

TARS: Best character in the movie.

As a final note, for me perhaps the most interesting aspect of the film is that, although overall its view of humanity is positive, the end of the movie shows the last survivors of Earth apparently operating some form of combatant air force. That the Nolans choose to show a persistence of military influence says a lot to me, and I can't believe that it's a complete throwaway.

Constantine: Rage of Caliban

In retrospect, the decor should have been a giveaway...

Things get a little personal for John Constantine this week, with a malevolent spirit possessing children and bringing back memories of the ill-fated Newcastle exorcism. This spirit has been hopping from child to child down the years, killing their parents before moving on, and unless John can name it, another family will literally be torn apart.

Constantine delivers another solid episode with 'Rage of Caliban', playing off the obvious horror of a possessed and murderous child and John's genuine desire not to be responsible for another child's death. There's a twist which is not predictable but is flagged for the observant and good performances from the threatened family, eschewing the obvious options of an abusive father or cloying mother in favour of conflicting styles of genuine care.

With Constantine currently on the ropes a little (a second half-season was not ordered, although the show has not been cancelled yet) the following weeks are going to be telling. So far, we've had four good offerings, the slightly rushed 'Danse Vaudou' and the superb 'Feast of Friends'. I can only hope that the ratings support renewal.

Agents of SHIELD - A Fractured House

"This is serious; we're going to need to use the big TV..."

Hey hey! The gang's all here (maybe.) At episode six Agents of SHIELD seems to have completed its ensemble at last, the current roll call stands at:

• Phil Coulson, Director; stoic badass, ill-suited to desk work.
• Melina May, Deputy Director; very stoic and very badass, but very ill-suited to desk work.
• Barbara 'Bobbi' Morse, field agent; also very badass, but sassy and personable.
• Lance Hunter, field agent;token white male and exotic cockney.
• Skye, trainee/rookie field agent; perpetual mystery whose story we are supposed to care about.
• Antoine Triplett, field agent; perpetual ninth wheel.
• Leo Fitz, physicist; damaged genius.
• Mack, mechanic; Fitz's best buddy.
• Jemma Simmons, biologist; genius and Fitz's former best buddy.
• Grant Ward; poor lost psycho.

And outside the group:

• Glenn Talbot; teflon-coated supporting character.
• Christian Ward; smooth politician.
• Daniel Whitehall; apparently immortal HYDRA boss.
• Skye's Father; referred to only as 'the Doctor', which... okay, I just blew my own mind with that one.

Holy shit that's a lot of characters. Isn't that a lot of characters? No wonder poor Triplett never has anything to do.

"Fear my flying MacGuffin!"

In 'A Fractured House' a HYDRA assassination team wearing SHIELD colours provokes Ward's politician brother to escalate his anti-SHIELD agenda. The team try to get leverage on Christian from Ward before a global hunt destroys the fragile recovering SHIELD network, and at the same time to protect a potentially friendly Belgian minister from the assassins.

Good stuff in the episode includes Coulson's diplomacy and getting to watch Ward beg fruitlessly, and the triple threat of May, Morse and Hunter (who sound like a firm of solicitors) kicking in HYDRA agents. Morse and Hunter's bickering is... I think it's okay, but that might just be because at least it isn't Ward trying to be soulful and the show trying to sell me Skye as the team's answer to Black Widow, at least in the interrogation room.

And Fitz basically blows Simmons off to hang out with Mac. This makes me both happy and sad; happy because that bromance is forever, but sad because Simmons is currently struggling for a plot. I really want her and Triplett to get an episode with an epic undercover roadtrip or something.

Bad stuff... Well, there's a lot of Ward and Skye, and I struggle to care which, if not both, of the Ward brothers is the sociopathic liar. I think what I liked about Coulson's dealing with them is that essentially he chooses the path that profits him, since neither Ward can actually be trusted. We also have another potentially interesting SHIELD agent killed off - along with her entire team - for pathos. Given how much bigger HYDRA is to start with, this rate of attrition surely can not stand.

Season 2 is muddling along, but is honestly wobbling under the weight of its own cast. It's lost a lot of momentum in rebuilding its team and needs some really punchy episodes to get it back. 'A Fractured House' has some punchy scenes, but it isn't overall a punchy episode.