Gotham - 'Mr. Freeze'

"Much used MST3K Quote."

Somewhere in Gotham, a man is freezing people with supercooled liquid helium, and one of his victims is a beat cop who catches him in the act (a beat cop who looks enough like Rookie Parks that it's starting to look like Gotham's ever more baroque underworld has it in for the black woman.) Jim Gordon, cleared of all wrongdoing with the blame for Theo Galavan's death firmly pinned to the Penguin, is back at work and tracking the killer in his own highly imitable style, while Bullock's usual ribbing almost provokes the increasingly unstable Nygma to violence.

We meet Victor Fries and his wife Nora. Usually present only as an astonishingly literal woman in the refrigerator, here we meet Nora still animate, a sickly but real woman on the verge of giving in to the pain and struggle of just keeping breathing, while Victor fights to find a way to freeze her in such a way that she can be revived without liquifying. He gives himself away, however, when a surly pharmacist refuses to refill one of Nora's prescriptions, leaving the original bottle behind with his address on and allowing Gordon and Bullock to collect his experiments and take Nora into custody, and it's Nora's refusal to flip on Victor that lifts her role, I think. She acknowledges that he's done wrong, but he's done it for her, and she won't betray him after that. Maybe she'll be giving him an earful later, but the police can whistle.

Victor tries to hand himself in so he can give the cops the pills Nora needs, but he gets lined up with the rest of the kooks claiming responsibility and then walks out when one of his victims recovers, giving him hope that he can save Nora after all. I see another appalling failure of GCPD security in the near future.

Barnes captures Penguin and hopes that he'll give him enough evidence to reopen the case on Gordon, but Penguin owns all responsibility and cops an insanity plea, winding up in Arkham under the care of the sinister Dr Hugo Strange, a man who apparently makes a practice of talking his patients into brutal self-mutilation and is running the Indian Hill research institute under Arkham. He seems very interested in word of Victor Fries' success.

Oh, and Tabitha Galavan gets all cosy with Butch, the current boss of Gotham's underworld, but it's Tabitha Galavan, so I find it hard to care.

As we enter the Wrath of the Villains half of the series, Fries and Strange at least look more interesting than Galavan, not least because they're not some Johnny Come Lately smug snakes we're supposed to take seriously because... I don't know. The Fries tragedy is playing out in front of us, which is pretty awesome, Strange is genuinely creepy, and Indian Hill is much easier to get a handle on than the Order of St Dumas, who were basically never explained in any real way. Sadly, even with a big secret, Gordon remains a bland lump of nothing, as convincingly dark and edgy as Riley Finn.

Person of Interest - 'If-Then-Else'

Well... bummer.

Just one episode of Person of Interest this week. Still, it's not like it's the kind of compulsive binge viewing that leaves you on a nerve-shredding cliffhanger. Right?

Team Machine swing into action to enact a countermeasure against Samaritan's economic sabotage, but this means getting into the central exchange on Wall Street to upload a stabilising program. Unfortunately, the whole thing is a trap designed to lure them in and hold them as Samaritan's operatives move in en masse to finish them off, and even Shaw, tasked with retrieving a vital code, finds herself caught up in worse as a ruined investor decides to take out his frustration against the system with a suicide vest on a city commuter train. With everything going to hell, the team look to the Machine for options. It presents a course of action which they follow through, only for Reese and Fusco to be trapped by a dozen Samaritan shooters, Harold shot dead and Shaw arrested for shooting the bomber.

And then the Machine's simulation rewinds and it tries another way.

Yes, this is a conceptual episode, with the bulk of the action taking place through a series of Machine-generated simulations as it evaluates its options in the seconds before its assets are gunned down. It first tries splitting them into two teams, before deciding it needs to keep them together, managing events so that only Fusco is available to advise Shaw, and even saving a Degas sketch that Harold admires. Each option is assessed against flashbacks to Harold teaching the Machine chess, and finally explaining that he doesn't like the game, because it is predicated on the need for war and the idea that some people are worth more than others. Life, he teaches her, is not a game, and people are not pieces.

"Never tell me the odds!"

Despite the best efforts of the Machine, things look grim until Shaw turns up like the cavalry to turn the tide. Then, just as it looks like we'll end on an up for once, it turns out that there's an override switch for the elevator that someone needs to press and protect, forcing Shaw to finally kiss Root and then make the big play. It's a move as organic to the character now as it would have been alien to her when first introduced, and we end with Martine standing over the injured Shaw with the Machine's evaluation of Shaw's chances declining fast.

And now I have to wait a week. Damnit.

'If-Then-Else' is top drawer Person if Interest, making the most of its concept and playing with the audience expectations, as well as featuring the wonderful 'simplified simulation' scene, in which the Machine, running short of time, replaces its full simulation with a version in which character dialogue is replaced with descriptive phrases of the kind of dialogue they would use. You know what...

This scene is wonderful relief after watching our heroes die a lot (especially the first time, before you know it's a simulation) as is Shaw's sudden and heroic appearance, and to top that off with the threat of losing another member of the Team... Damn this season is brutal.

The Flash - 'Escape from Earth 2'

Yep; you were a real scary villain until we got up close.

With Barry a prisoner, Cisco and Harry realise that Zoom will be coming for them, and hide in Harry's time vault with E2Barry. They make contact with E2Iris and make a plan to go after Killer Frost, perhaps the only person who knows where Zoom's hideout is, and who might be persuaded to betray the man who killed Ronnie Raymond.

Back on Earth 1, Caitlin is working on progressively better versions of Velocity to allow Jay to fight Geomancer. He is able to save the occupants of a collapsing building, but his cellular degeneration is accelerating. Caitlin thinks she can do better.

"Nobody knows, the trouble I've seen..."

In his cell, Barry gives Jesse Wells a pep talk and tries to communicate with the Man in the Iron Mask, who manages to use a POW code to spell out the name Jay, but is frustrated when Barry tries to tell him that Jay is safe on his Earth. Barry gets the idea to try to phase through his cell, but is out of resonance with Earth 2.

Caitlin finds a variant of Velocity that triggers Jay's regenerative abilities (her biochemistry is better than her counting, as she appears to jump directly from developing Velocity-7 to administering Velocity-9,) repairing his cell damage, but then Geomancer busts in. He threatens to bring the place down, but Caitlin snags him with the Boot, and can I just say that it is about time Caitlin got some badassery. I am very much in favour of this development. Unfortunately, the tremors disrupt the speed cannon and destabilise the breach.

Strange bedfellows.

Team Cisco find and recruit Frost, after a fight, who takes them to what Cisco dubs the Cliffs of Insanity. They rescue Jesse, but Barry and Buckethead are still trapped behind unbreakable glass. With a bit of a pep talk from E2Barry, however, Barry finds his mojo and phases out of the cell. At that moment, Zoom shows up, thanks Killer Frost for bringing them, and threatens to kill everyone but Barry and Harry, keeping them alive until Harry gives him Barry's speed.

Fortunately, Frost's hatred of Zoom motivates her to blast him with her powers and allow the others to get away. Buckethead is left behind, but Barry swears to return for him.

With Zoom not far behind, Barry catapults Cisco and Jesse to Earth 1 just as Jay, Joe and Iris get the speed cannon going and the breach stabilised. Barry snatches Harry from Zoom's grasp and Jay seals the breach, but Zoom pulls him through just as it collapses.

Now, this is a very interesting episode, and I'm calling that the real Jay Garrick is in that iron mask. I'm not sure if fake Jay Garrick is Zoom or some other speedster or what, but I'm guessing that his not-Jayness is why Hunter Zolomon's DNA wouldn't help. I know that Hunter Zolomon is at least one version of Zoom, but I will say right now that I really, really hope that the face under the Tony Todd-voiced mask isn't white and I reserve the right to caption the reveal 'What's a Nubian?' if he is.

But the real problem with Zoom in 'Escape from Earth 2' is that of necessity they have to get away from him, and even with the last minute Garrick-grab this means he is no longer as scary as he was. Likewise, the critical revelation that Zoom can't actually steal Speed without help makes him less scary; less an apex Speed-predator and more the fastest bully in the playground.

Childhood's End - 'The Deceivers'

"Are you ready to party?"

As the Golden Age of mankind flourishes, scientific curiosity is dying, with one Dr Boyce its last champion and that almost entirely under the direction of the Overlords.

Karellen visits Ricky to tell him that being in the Overlords' ship has made him terminally ill, and that he can not have children. This visit prompts a resurgence of the pilgrim camps outside the Stormgren farm. Elsewhere, their son's night terrors prompt the Greggsons to call in counselor Peretta Jones. Thomas Greggson describes visits to a hellish landscape and responds to a cry from his unborn baby sister, Jennifer, even as an unseen force twists and warps Peretta's crucifix.

"I know it looks like a conspiracy wall..."

The Greggsons are lured to the Boyce institute for a party where Karellen makes an appearance. He tells Milo, who has been conducting private research into the Overlords (including speculating that a previous visit is responsible for tales of demons which match the description of the Overlords themselves,) that scientific curiosity was leading humanity to its destruction. Then he arranges for Amy Greggson to be brought to a chamber with a ouija board where he coaxes the yet unborn Jennifer to 'awaken' and communicate with something away from Earth in a hugely and public light show. The Greggsons depart and Boyce is visibly shaken, but Milo recognises communication in the light; letters of the Overlord language, each representing constellations, including a previously unknown symbol standing for an uninhabited constellation*.

"For Jesus!"

Back on the farm, Karellen brings Ricky a rare and precious cure for his illness, but first Ellie and then Peretta threaten the Overlord with a shotgun, because bitches be crazy, yo (and apparently they missed that worldwide broadcast showing the Overlords preventing four semi-pro shooters failing to execute Ricky thanks to routine Overlord intervention from last episode.) Okay, in fairness Ellie is pissed when she learns that Karellen deliberately sterilised Ricky, since what is coming 'will be harder on the parents,' and Peretta because... Well, because she is crazy. She talks about faith, but actually she's consumed with religious hatred, her belief shaped not by love of her God but by hatred of what she sees as its enemies: The Overlords. She shoots Karellen**, but Ricky uses the restorative to heal him (at the cost of his own life,) and Peretta later kills herself.

Jennifer Greggson is born and her eyes go all freaky.

With 'The Deceivers' (a misleading title, as the revelation is that humans have deceived themselves) the contraction of the timeline and use of continuous characters begins to bite, and the grand scope of the novel is lost in the soap-opera minutiae of individual lives. Milo's research is interspersed with an awkward romance subplot with a colleague (she's so into him, but he's all about the research and then they go to the party and she's in  acute dress and then there's kissing) and the 'seance' scene is just monumentally over-dramatic, as the slow emergence of the true purpose of the Overlords is lost in spectacle and telekinetic child rage.

Peretta Jones, a character added for the series as the voice of the dying of Earth's religions, is too much of a crazed zealot to be sympathetic. Yael Stone's wild-eyed templar with her suicide mother is actually much less affecting than the earnestness of Lara Robinson as the younger Peretta in 'The Overlords', making her simple pleas not to forget God.

'The Deceivers' then is a less effective episode than 'The Overlords', and I worry that the overemphasis on the individual in a story explicitly about the fate of humanity as a whole will continue to dog the finale.

* And yes, the astrophysicist conflates star clusters and local stellar groups with constellations, because Stargate?
** As a side note, apparently the local Sheriff considers 'she's my friend' as sufficient ID to let someone through a police cordon, and a gunshot insufficient reason to run into a barn and investigate.

Agent Carter - 'A Little Song and Dance'

Wait... What?

The unconscious Peggy Carter dreams of a black and white SSR office which segues into a dance hall version of Season 1's diner set for a song and dance number about her love triangle, which is charming, but ultimately reinforces the slightly unfortunate drift towards a focus on her love life. Still, on the plus side it's a neat little period appropriate original number played by actors who turn out to be really rather talented in the musical department; at least good enough for one show (with choreography and backing dancers courtesy of Dancing with the Stars, the USA's version of Strictly Come Dancing.) It's also nice to see the all-too brief return of Angie from Season 1.

Freud would be doing his pieces over this image.

Woken by Edwin Jarvis - apparently appearing in the role of Howard Stark in Peggy's dream, flanked by Dottie Underwood, Ana Jarvis and Whitney Frost - she finds herself in a truck on her way to bad places. They escape, but the tension between them boils over as the walk through the desert, with Carter absolutely furious with her erstwhile partner's attempt to assassinate Frost, until she learns that he did so because Ana can never have children, and because he is too much of a coward to tell her. It's a nice scene, although I hope Ana will get some quality screen time and development in the last few episodes to keep her from taking up residence in the fridge. So far she's been great and I don't want her to suffer a tragic and traumatic injury just to move Jarvis forward.

Welcome to the desert of discomfort.

Meanwhile, Jack Thompson bluffs for America, converting a death sentence for himself, Samberley and Sousa into a fighting chance to talk Vernon Masters into letting them set a trap for Whitney Frost. Thompson sells this to Masters and later a different line to Frost by letting both believe that he is after a spot on the Council, but it becomes clear as the plan goes into action that the truth is that he is setting both Frost and Masters up for a fall, intending to take them both out and become the hero. Even on the side of the angels, he's a dick.

Frost and Wilkes have a bad week. Bereft of her role as prophet of Zero Matter and unable to extract it from Wilkes, Frost descends into babbling supervillainy; a sorry pass for a character originally shown as a strong, brilliant woman to be demanding power from a man, and for the series' only black man to be overshadowed by an unfortunately hued sinister force. Both, along with Masters, are seemingly killed when the Zero Matter overtakes Wilkes, although I suspect that his asplosion was more in the nature of a metamorphosis and hopefully Frost will have survived as well.

I really hoped to see Peggy running a slightly stronger hand than she plays in her confrontations with Thompson and Sousa this week, and she genuinely seems to be letting her feelings for the now less-than-innocent Wilkes control her in just the way she criticised Sousa for last episode and Jarvis early in this. This is currently the MCU's flagship female-led production - nuff respect to Jessica Jones, but TV still just about trumps streaming for exposure - and it needs to do better.

Also, can Marvel stop hating the black man? Please? I'm... 90% sure they don't mean it, but Daredevil and Jessica Jones both featured the brutal murder of a highly principled black supporting character in a largely white cast, and now Agent Carter's mostly principled black character has exploded after a substantial lapse in principles, and possibly been possessed.

The Shannara Chronicles - 'Reaper'

"For identification purposes, I am not an elf."

We open with a flashback to establish... oh, everything.

Elves have talked a lot of shit about the death of Prince Perfect and the war with those bastard gnomes we've never seen. Well, now we get to find out that a) Prince Perfect was killed by a team of gnomish ninjas (gnomjas) who broke into the palace, and b) while Eretria proved that breaking into the palace is a piece of piss, in this instance they snuck in through a secret door while Prince Smugchops was copping some illicit nookie with Captain Twofer (whom we later discover is now hooking up with Prince Grumpy.) The gnomes were all killed except for their leader, who was captured. You may wonder why they bring this up now, but I'm sure it will be important later.

Amberle and Wil's mission continues to be hampered by stupidity. Amberle ignores Wil's advice on the grounds that, eww, he put his dick in a Rover, while military escort leader Captain Dipshit's approach to prisoner relations runs like an audition piece for 'Nazi commandant.' Because no-one listens to Wil the one time he's right, they get ambushed by Rovers. Eretria is freed and Amberle pretty explicitly threatened with a whole lot of raping before Eretria finds her inner face, drugs the entire camp and rescues her, taking Cephalo as a hostage.

Captain Dipshit then sends one of his scouts into what turns out to be 'poisoned land', contaminated by toxic waste dumping pre-apocalypse which melts elf-flesh from the bones and is entirely harmless to horses. It's lucky they sent a scout though, since they doubtless wouldn't have identified the problem from the rusting barrels, pools of evil-looking liquid and general healthy red glow of the area.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Prince Smugchops has a PLAN. He's going to scout out the location of the rising demon army in the Breakline mountains, and since he need a local guide will trust his fate to Slanter, the gnome leader who has been hanging in shackles for a decade. I guess this is why Prince Grumpy is the heir presumptive. Unable to talk him out of it, Grumpy allows Captain Twofer to accompany Smugchops, because clearly the captain of... whatever she's captain of doesn't have any other pressing duties like, perhaps, ensuring the proper disposal of a shapeshifting demon.

"Can I axe you a question?"

Amberlie's party make their way to the fort where they are to meet Johnnie Went to the Wilderun One Time, only to have severed heads thrown at them by a huge demon who has slaughtered the entire garrison and their guide. Whee!

Wil tries to Elfstone the bastard, but suffers from some major performance anxiety. He and Daddy Cephalo lead the demon away from Amberle and into the poison patch, which Cephalo ignites, blowing up the demon. The series appears intent on pitching him as a lovable rogue again, despite that attempted rape; I'm not buying it.

Allanon has Bandon try to use his gift to contact Amberle. Instead he sees the Dagda Mor, gets locked in some sort of prison and goes all black eyes of badness. He probably would have been better off in the army.

Prince Grumpy confronts the King one more time and, after an emotional confrontation turns a hug all homicidal. No great surprise, except that oh SNAP, it's not Prince Grumpy, it's the Changeling, which immediately turns into the King and hops onto the throne, presumably figuring that if someone happens in they'll be all 'Hi your Maj; do you need us to remove this corpse that looks exactly like you?'

The Shannara Chronicles continues to be pretty but disposable television. It wants to be cool and sexy and edgy, but elves using slang isn't cool, the bland prettiness of the leads isn't actually all that sexy and rape - even threatened rape - isn't edgy, it's just unpleasant. Game of Thrones is pushing its luck vis a vis the quantity of, shall we say, sex of arguable consensuality, and Game of Thrones has a lot more substance to weigh in its favour when asking 'but is this valid?'

Legends of Tomorrow - 'White Knights'

Moscow in the Springtime.

With Kendra now able to travel, it's time for the team to jump forward to the 1980s, although the threatened parachute pants never appear as, after a stop off at the Pentagon, they're heading for Soviet Moscow.

The Pentagon heist is a lively opener which once more shows up the gaps in the team's working relationships. Initially slick, Jax's impatience with Stein's pedantic guidance (and inexperience with the difference between direct and alternating current) triggers a chain of chaos which ends with a lot of fire and Kendra going berserk on an unsuspecting guard.

As the Waverider heads for Moscow in pursuit of the now defected Savage (in as much as a 4,000 year old Ancient Egyptian can be said to have defected from or to either side in the Cold War,) Rip tasks Sara with training Kendra to hone her skills and harness her hawk-goddess* bloodlust, in the hopes of gaining a handle on her own. This is essentially busywork, however, to keep the characters occupied while the rest of the team does the A-plot. I'd be more annoyed at the women being sidelined if the men made a better showing.

Identifying a hot Russian scientist working on Savage's 'Project Svarog', Ray tries to tap his inner James Bond, but blows it completely. I strongly suspect that Ray would be a more effective superhero if Brandon Routh didn't do such an adorable woobie face when things go wrong for the Atom. Instead, it's Snart who steps in to romance Valentina Vostok and lift her wallet and security ID so that the team can investigate Project Svarog.

22. No matter how tempted I am by the prospect of unlimited power, I will
never attempt to absorb an energy field bigger than my head.

During the meanwhile, the Waverider is attacked by Kronus and forced to make a crash landing (which causes almost no significant damage,) although Rip is able to dummy a pair of Soviet heat-seekers into shooting down Kronus' time ship. When Rip and Roary go to eliminate a temporal anomaly from the ship, they find Druce, a Time Master who offers to return the team to their origin if Rip turns himself in. Rip is inclined to trust his old friend and mentor, but Roary smells a set up. The team thwarts an ambush set up by Druce and Kronus, but Jax is injured, precipitating another clash between the two halves of Firestorm. Stein reveals that he lives in terror of letting another partner be killed the way Ronnie Raymond was.

Breaking into the Svarog lab, Stein realises that Savage is trying to create his own version of Firestorm. Encountering the team has prompted him to enter a superheroic arms race, from stealing the power of the slaughtered incarnations of Hawkman and Hawkgirl to attempting to back engineer the Atom suit, and now duplicating the powers of the next heavy hitter on the list. Stein attempts to disable the Svarog thermal core, but Ray is such an Eagle Scout that he manages to sidetrack Snart into trying to save the girl, only to discover that Vostok knows exactly what she's doing, and forces Ray to sabotage Stein's sabotage on threat of shooting Snart in the face.

Snart gets away, but Roary, Ray and Stein are captured, netting two of the team's heavy hitters and disabling a third, as well as dropping Mick's heat gun into the waiting hands of Savage's technicians. Snart is furious with Rip for pulling the plug and leaving members of his crew behind, but Rip swears that they will get them back.

So, we now have a pattern emerging, in which each time zone gets a couple of episodes, a time-appropriate plot and an entry in the Legendary arms race. 'White Knights' - a title which I presume both refers to Ray's compulsion to protect Valentina Vostok and to the ballet defection drama White Nights** - has proven a polarising episode among critics, with some praising the action but criticising the yoyoing relationship between Stein and Jax, and others liking the Firestorm drama but finding the A-plot tepid. Almost universal is dissatisfaction with sidelining Kendra and Sara for the episode, especially given that one of the most successful scenes was the all too brief full-team Pentagon heist***, while Brandon Routh's kicked puppy face has met with widespread acclaim.

Having done the bulk of the set up, it feels as if we should be past most of the 'should we be doing this' drama and into the 'how do we do this' and 'how do we reconcile the different methods and priorities of the team' area. Unfortunately, we're still working to some extent on 'who is this Kendra woman and what's her deal,' Hawkgirl being the character least established in her previous appearances and her interactions with Carter Hall less than gripping. She's currently the outlier and a weak link in the team, present only because she can kill Savage given an opportunity. The other weak link is Rip, simply because he lacks context. The business with Druce desperately called for some flashbacks**** to establish Rip's prior relationship with the other Time Masters, especially Druce, and with Kronus.

In short, I like the A-plot just fine, but elsewhere it feels like we're setting up instead of moving forward, and telling where we should be showing.

* They've just started dropping the G word in there, and it occurs to me that they have not otherwise explained why being a reincarnated Egyptian priestess gives you wings. 
** I don't know the film well enough to say if the performance attended by Vostok, Snart and Ray was related.
*** I honestly would not mind much if the show was just Leverage in Time, with time travel shenanigans instead of flashbacks.
**** I can't believe I'm suggesting that a show in the Arrowverse needs more flashbacks, but it kind of does. It would even open the way for some nifty metahumour if they accidentally changed the course of history and did the same flashback but with a different resolution.

Limitless - 'Brian Finch's Black Op'

I question the wisdom of modelling any part of your life, even a day off, on the
actions of cinema's most notorious sociopathic manipulator (yes, including
Tom Ripley,) but I do appreciate the commitment to the bit.

Now with his own private stash of NZT, Brian decides to take a day off. In a prologue gleefully knocked off from Ferris Bueller (which is actually only a tiny step from the show's usual style of narration,) he calls in sick to the FBI and pockets a pill. A CIA agent comes to the FBI and asks to 'borrow' their asset for a black op, and Brian is promptly tasered and dragged into a van.

'Brian Finch's Black Op' is part homage to Ferris Bueller's Day Off (as the CIA-hired mercenary team refuse to give their names, he refers to them as characters from the movie,) and part survival horror. Trapped in the woods with three hardened psychopaths and their equally badass captive, an ex-Spetznas commando who went native in Chechnya after the war. Learning that their plan is to kill the captive rather than bringing him back for trial, Brian first sets out to save the man's life, but is soon left with the realisation that in order to survive he might just have to use his NZT-sharpened wits to make sure that everyone else dies.

Even as a projection of his subconscious, Rebecca has issues with being
dressed as Sloane from Day Off.

While Brian navigates the equally unfamiliar territories of the woods and the simple art of murder, Naz takes Rebecca and her partner with tapping every resource to find out where Brian is and get him back. Although by the end of it Brian is still suspicious that Naz may have authorised the op, she seems genuinely incensed that someone has gone over her head and snatched her drug-enhanced super-analyst.

But the question of Naz's involvement, or even of how Rebecca has managed to never see Ferris Bueller's Day Off pale next to Brian's ultimate reaction to his strange misadventure. When he talks about what he did, he is cool and collected, almost detached as Rebecca puts it, as oblivious to conscience or the value of other human lives as Ferris Bueller himself. This is not happy fun guy; it's not even Pill Brian or Badass Brian, who puts in an appearance in a three way internal dialogue. No, this is a broken Brian, a Brian who has lost something vital, and who is most directly represented in his own subconscious by a coolly practical Rebecca in short-shorts and a fringed white jacket.

Initially appearing as a gag episode, 'Brian Finch's Black Op' is actually a watershed moment, encompassing the irrevocable loss of Brian's innocence. He may not kill anyone with his own hands, but he incites murder and plots a poisoning, spared the ultimate act only by chance. I hope he gets back some of his lightness, but equally that the series doesn't try to sweep this under the rug.

Daredevil - 'Kinbaku' and 'Regrets Only'

"I'll be honest, this isn't my ideal date."

Much of the episode 'Kinbaku' takes place in flashbacks to Matt's relationship with Elektra, a rich girl he met while in college. She was wild, impulsive and passionate, bringing the tight-wound Matt out of himself, and she kidnapped his father's killer and encouraged Matt to murder the man in cold blood. For shiggles.

In the present day, Nelson & Murdock struggles with a dying caseload, but Elektra offers a princely sum for helping her in negotiations with Roxxon's Japanese division. while she claims to need a lawyer, it quickly becomes apparent that actually she is setting herself up for a brawl with the company's majority Yakuza shareholders. When Matt goes to confront her for trying to drag her into her business, he hears gunfire from below them and she dumps his Daredevil costume on the table.

It's time to dress up right."

We open 'Regrets Only' therefore with a Yakuza fight which, while technically excellent lacks a lot of the intense brutality which has been the hallmark of the series' truly great action scenes. Given her knowledge of his identity, Matt agrees to work with Elektra once, on the condition that no-one is killed; at least by them.

Meanwhile, Karen persuades Matt to persuade Foggy to take a new defence client: Frank Castle. The public defender assigned to him is deep in DA Reyes' pocket and Reyes is looking for a complete whitewash and a change of venue to see the Punisher executed across state lines and secure her political future as an anti-vigilante crusader. Slutty Blonde Lawyer admits to Foggy that Reyes is already gunning for one Jennifer Jones and plans to go after the Devil of Hell's Kitchen once the Punisher is dealt with. Karen is determined to see that he gets real justice and is represented as the tragic figure he is and not as an unmitigated psychopath.

The series continues to grind at my parental emotional
vulnerabilities.

While largely only willing to talk to Karen, after a long and heart-wrenching spell of reminiscence, Frank is persuaded to take a deal which will assure a single life sentence with a possibility of parole, only for him to flip on them at the arraignment, plead not guilty and swear that Reyes will 'burn with me', hinting that she might have been involved directly with covering up the facts surrounding his family's death (in a crossfire between the three gangs he was targeting,) concealing his military career and head wound, and putting a DNR order on him when he was hospitalised. Reyes moves heaven and earth to speed the trial forward, and Castle agrees, apparently eager for his day in court.

Elsewhere, Matt is playing superspies and... Man, this stuff is weird. It's taking the series outside its comfort zone, and not entirely successfully. Matt helps Elektra steal a keycard so that they can break into an office and locate a secret vault which I almost expected to contain Malcolm Merlin's Black Arrow costume. Elektra is clearly intent on being a bad influence on Matt, but I worry that the character is Yokoing the show.

In the aftermath of their theft of a ledger, the boss hints that he might not actually be Yakuza, so I wonder if they are actually the Hand or if Elektra is currently with the Hand and the 'Yakuza' are associated with their enemies. I guess we'll find out. For now, however, I find Elektra to be a far less compelling addition to the show than Frank Castle and we still don't really have a proper villain for the season.

Shadowhunters - 'Blood Calls to Blood'

"It's trial time; break out the community theatre set."

With Jocelyn gone but Jace's supposedly dead father - Michael Wayland - found, Jace and Clary head back to New York, where Simon and Clary go to Raphael for blood supplies for the demon-venomed Jace. Impressed by his chutzpah, Raphael takes Simon off werewolf ambassador duties and takes him on as 'special adviser for warning people not to take the piss.'

Back at the Institute, the Clave puts a rush on Isabelle's trial and sends an Inquisitor to act as judge and, apparently, also jury. The law must be upheld, they say, and the kind of rule bending that has been going on is exactly the sort of brouhaha that preceded the Circle's uprising. Isabelle asks Alec to approach Magnus Bane to be her defense attourney, which is of course all kinds of awkward.

Based on information overheard by Michael, Jace, Clary and Luke head off to get Jocelyn back. Surrounded by demons, Clary tries to use the cup to control them. When she has trouble, Michael offers to try, before revealing himself to be Valentine under a glamour. His triumph is short-lived, however, when Clary reveals that she was suspicious all along and has passed him a glamoured mug instead of the cup. Valentine flees, but as a final fuck you tells Jace that he was always Michael Wayland, and Jace's real father, making our nascent supercouple brother and sister.

Irony, motherfucker*!

Magnus basically swans through the trial quoting courtroom movies ("This whole court is out of order!") until Lydia breaks down and refuses to prosecute the case against someone whose 'crime' is showing compassion and not acting exactly the kind of angel supremacist tools who populate the Circle. The Inquisitor declares Isabelle guilty, although honestly I feel that the prosecution recusing herself and dropping all charges is at least grounds for a mistrial. The Inquisitor's immediate announcement that the sentence will be struck if the Mortal Cup is handed over basically makes a mockery of all her claims of upholding the law, and I think a little rebellion may be on the cards here.

With Jocelyn recovered, Clary hands over the cup and Isabelle is freed. Magnus gives Alec a 'why you suck' speech, telling him that he doesn't deserve to be trapped in a loveless marriage and neither does Lydia. Jace and Clary are agonised. Luke tells Simon the news and Simon's gleeful reaction pretty much jettisons my last remaining shred of respect for the character. It's now official: TV series Simon isn't a nice guy; he's a Nice Guy (TM).

So, there it is; the bombshell those of us who know the source material have been waiting for. It's not done badly, but maybe could have had a bit more dramatic punch. It's a scene that calls for a lot of emotional intensity, and Katherine McNamara and Dominic Sherwood don't quite have the range to pull it off. Perhaps it is because of this that Clary and Jace come off as incredibly selfish, but it might also be because they are written as incredibly selfish. Overall, however, Shadowhunters is doing better than could have been expected.

* This is also irony.

Person of Interest - 'The Devil You Know' and 'The Cold War'

All perfume counters should include a P90.

We cold open from last week's cliffhanger with the Blonde Bombshell - whose name is Martine - closing in on Shaw. Given that Martine is the Samaritan's god-mode angel of death, Shaw acquits herself superbly in getting out of the building to meet up with Root on a motorbike. her cover blown, Root and Harold both insist that she come back to the base as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Reese is tracking the latest number, Carl Elias, as are the Brotherhood. After Elias meets with his accountant, Reese warns him that Dominic has his police files. Elias is confidant of his preparedness - ironically, given his earlier claims, underestimating Dominic's ruthless drive - but his own people flip on him and Reese has to step in to protect him. Elias and his right hand man Scarface - aka Anthony - go on the run with Reese, finding that much of his operation has been suborned and ultimately being cornered in a derelict building where he has a secret office and vault.

Team Elias.

Fusco is tapped to provide backup, but pinned when Martine shows up fronting as a DEA agent to ask after his involvement in Shaw's escape. Shaw tries to go to their aid as well, but given the risk of exposure for the entire team, Root sedates her to bring her back to the base. With Shaw off grid and Samaritan unable to detect the flaws in its own coding, it expands its human intelligence capacity by giving Martine a team.

Anthony is captured covering Elias' escape, and Dominic offers his life to an increasingly melancholic Elias, who admits to Reese that Anthony is like family to him, the two having met in the care system. Reese seemingly convinces Elias to get out and let him take care of Anthony, but at the last moment Elias returns to the building and locks Reese out. He gives himself up and Anthony, who has resisted all pressure to flip on his boss, suggests they give Dominic the vault code. A grief-stricken Elias agrees, and the vault explodes, taking out enough of the Brotherhood soldiers for Reese to rescue Elias.

Team Elias c. 1980

While Team Machine regroup at the base and try to work out how to keep Shaw on the chain, Elias and his accountant prepare to strike back, beginning with a list of everyone who turned on them for an offer of money or power. Elias shows the one thing he retrieved from the office, a photograph of himself, Anthony and Bruce the accountant as children in the group home that he bought and more recently blew up. Elias is down, but definitely not out, as we close on a shot of him walking away along the beachfront, alone; a melancholy parallel both to his meeting with Bruce and Anthony at the start of the episode and to his gang's triumphant badass walk way back in Season 1.

And then the bears invaded...

'The Cold War' kicks off a mid-season event trilogy in which Samaritan escalates its campaign against the Machine. First, it deploys its vast resources and open process to roundly thrash Team Machine at their own game, protecting the irrelevant numbers with smooth efficiency and no messy kneecappings. Then it make an approach, asking the Machine for a meeting - avatar to avatar - and as incentive doxxing like a motherfucker, releasing a Witness Protection register and other sensitive data onto the internet. From a day virtually without crime, New York descends into virtual anarchy. As Harold, Reese and Fusco race to save as many numbers as they can, the Machine consents to the meeting. Shaw ultimately takes the risk of leaving the base to help.

Creepy.

The Machine's avatar is a creepy kid named Gabriel (although given its derivation I'm not convinced that's his real name any more than Root is Root's,) who draws like a dot matrix printer and has hacked multiple secure systems in his short life. The meeting between the two god-machines is eerie, with Root and Gabriel acting as impassive mouthpieces for the words of their masters, and the young boy delivering a cold ultimatum to the Machine: Samaritan's actions of the past two days have been to prove that its control is beneficial, but more importantly that it is better than the Machine. Now it plans to destroy its rival, but if the Machine will surrender itself, the human agents don't have to die.

The Machine sees Samaritan as a monster; Samaritan sees the Machine as weak. Harold ultimately fears that no godlike AI can ever truly share a human moral code, and that with the best intentions in the world it can, therefore, never act truly in humanity's best interests. It will always be willing to make sacrifices that a human would consider monstrous.

Its ultimatum refused, Samaritan begins its end game by infiltrating a virus into Wall Street.

Also, this episode features an increasingly rare instance of flashbacks, as we see Greer's past as an MI6 operative, ultimately disillusioned by the realisation that his boss is a KGB mole and that all the bad things he has done for King and Country are therefore utterly meaningless; that states and borders are redundant. It's a nice bit of John le Carre-esque spook drama, but ultimately adds little to Greer's character.

The conga line of death.

Team Machine's position is increasingly desperate, and with half a season still to go I worry that it's all going to get too bleak to bear. The show still has enough of a sense of humour to not be a complete downer - a fun bit with a succession of agents getting the drop on each other during the first parley and the surreal sight of Root divesting herself of a bear costume keep this episode from being a total doomfest - but it looks like a long ride to the finale.

Lucifer - 'Pilot'

Our regulars: Mazikeen (Lesley-Ann Brandt), Lucifer (Tom Ellis), Chloe Decker (Lauren German), and Amanadiel (D.B. Woodside)

I came at Lucifer, an adaptation of sorts of Mike Carey's successful and well-regarded spin-off from Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, via the recommendation of a friend of mine. To quote this recommendation verbatim:

"Lucifer...is still abysmal and should get some kind of strange medal for being the only paranormal procedural that actually puts me into some kind of trance of boredom. [My partner] took away my phone to make me watch it last week. I still couldn’t follow the plot as I kept zoning out to ponder things such as ‘the colour of my skirting boards’ rather than pay attention to the atrocity on screen"

The fact that I regard this as a recommendation may tell you something about me, but as it is nothing that my friend doesn't already know, I maintain that this is a recommendation and that this is therefore Her Fault (TM).

Tom Ellis really captures the essence of the character, as long as we assume
that the essence of the character is that 'he' wears a suit and leans on things.

So, Lucifer got fed up of Hell and moved to LA. Plus ca change, I hear you cry, but please don't; if you make too many jokes the series might start to think you're having fun and we wouldn't want to encourage it. Bored out of his mind, he runs a nightclub called Lux and sleeps around with the human women who find him carnally fascinating without his even trying. Now, I don't really know the comic character past Sandman, but I'm pretty sure his club was more of a lounge bar with piano than a TV-tame fetish bar, and that setting and Lucifer's abilities in the series - immortality, a nigh-irresistable sexual charisma (they say) and an ability to compel people to name their desires and transgressions - frankly smack more of Desire of the Endless (except very much heterosexual, of course.)

When a musical protege is gunned down outside the club, Lucifer finds a new hobby in assisting LAPD detective and former actress Chloe Decker with the investigation. Decker is basically immune to his abilities, suggesting that she is either a saint or very complicated (or both,) and from a fascination with this and generic ennui, Lucifer decides to become her partner.

The worst thing about Lucifer is that there are clearly moments when it clicks, but they are few and far between. Tom Ellis is pretty good at the easy-going charm thing, but the script tries much too hard, and for every line which zings with the necessary mix of disdain and wit, there are three that fall flat and one which just has Lucifer acting like a particularly socially inept frat boy. Moreover, Ellis fails when the script calls for Lucifer to ramp it up. The former lord of Hell requires a certain blistering intensity in his wrath; a challenge for any actor, and Ellis doesn't have it.

Lauren German is... okay, but given how extraordinary Chloe Decker is supposed to be, okay doesn't cut it. Lesley-Ann Brandt as Mazikeen is - charitably - phoning it in and D.B. Woodside has all the wrong kind of intensity as Amanadiel, an angel tasked with - apparently - bookending each episode by giving Lucifer a nagging. With a heavy-smoking British lead, moral-compass female deuteragonist and hectoring black angel, it was hard not to look at this as a deeply inferior version of the already imperfect Constantine series, and Lucifer as what John would be like if he thought a thousand-dollar suit and a posh accent would make him classy.

Gotham - 'Worse than a Crime'

"I am vengeance. I am in my nightshirt. Hmm; needs work."

The schemes of the Order of St Dumas come to a head with the ritual sacrifice of Bruce Wayne, but the enemies of Theo Galavan are gathering against them.

Gordon wakes up to the sound of the Murder Bros duet, which must have made him wonder if he was actually in hell or something. Nygma then passes on a message to Lee, who tries to convince Jim to flee town with her as she is pregnant with their child. Alfred wakes up at the dump and flees from Tabitha's search squad, before later attempting to get back to the city and being tased in the face by an over-eager beat cop.

Galavan orders Silver to redeem her failure by re-seducing Bruce and then dancing a jig at his sacrifice, but he refuses to be fooled again, even when she fakes a break out attempt. When she admits that Galavan has directed her to do this and will likely kill her if she fails, however, Bruce puts on a show for Theo, proving he's a stand up guy. Then he gets taken away and tied to a stake, where he calls his executioner a deluded old man. I'll be honest, Bruce comes out of the last couple of episodes looking unexpectedly awesome.

Okay, I'll give you this one, Gotham; this is pretty badass.

Lucius Fox reports Bruce and Alfred missing, which leads to the discovery of Alfred in the cells (because 'acting a bit crazy' is a serious enough offence that they drop you unconscious in lock-up instead of stitching up the six inch gash in your side or the deep puncture wound in your back) and the realisation that Galavan has Bruce. Barnes is still unwilling to act without evidence, knowing that they have one chance to nail Galavan before no judge in the city will touch them, so Bullock and Alfred opt for plan B: A mad charge for death or glory. Nygma isn't able to hide his superior knowledge or resist giving a riddle which Fox solves, so they join the posse comitatus, which is completed when Cat drops in to say that she knows how to get into the building.

How turns out to be Cat sneaking in through an electrical tunnel and taking out the Order's guard (I remind you, 'warriors the like of which Gotham has never seen') so she can open the door. The group then charge hilariously up twenty flights of stairs. Silver punks out and calls for the abbot to wait, which buys just enough time for Gordon and Alfred to bust in and take out the Order like it was nothing. The abbot makes an attempt to salvage the dignity of the Order, but a winded Bullock arrives in time to take him out. Bruce thanks Alfred and Cat for coming for him, but assures them he had 'a perfectly feasible plan for escape.' Good to see the birth of the patented Bat-inability to say thank you.

Galavan tries to flee by parachute, but Tabitha finally tires of him treating her friends like tools, knocks him out and gives his chute to Silver. They drift off - hopefully never to be seen again - and Gordon arrests Galavan. Then Gordon muses on whether to shoot Galavan in the head, but Barnes arrives - summoned by Fox - then Penguin knocks out Barnes and Gordon stands between them, and then we cut to Gordon and Penguin taking Galavan down to the docks, where Penguin beats him with a bat and Gordon shoots him dead.

Much as I wanted to see Galavan taken out, I'm disappointed. After all, without his agonised righteousness, Gotham's Jim Gordon doesn't really have much of a personality.

And then this happens.

So, that was 'Rise of the Villains', in which a largely inconsequential and annoying villain and his useless band of penitent losers rose and then fell again. On that basis, I'm expecting the second half of the Season - 'Wrath of the Villains' - to involve some minor leaguers being basically calm about stuff. Okay, actually we've got Mr Freeze, and Hugo Strange conducting weird experiments at Indian Hill; or possibly Mr Freeze and Hugo Strange conducting weird experiments at Indian Hill.

The Flash - 'Welcome to Earth-2'

"It's like looking in a mirror... only not."

Harry, Barry and Cisco head for Earth-2 to rescue Harry's daughter. They have a simple plan: Cisco vibes Zoom's base, Flash rescues Jesse and they head home for jelly and ice cream.

Phase 1 - closing all but one of the breaches - goes well enough, and the dimensionauts step through the final breach, only for the speed cannon to explode, giving Jay two days to repair it before Barry and Cisco are due to return. Meanwhile in Earth-2, Cisco's vibe ability fails to function, as his glasses are set to the wrong frequency. D'oh! Fortunately, Barry has a cunning plan which involves impersonating his alternate, also a police CSI, which leads us into a series of encounters with people's alternates.

In Earth-2, Iris is a detective, partnered with the well-meaning but clumsy Floyd Lawton. David Singh is a petty criminal rather than a police captain, and Joseph West is a lounge singer at 'Jitterbugs'. Iris is also married to Barry Allen (and where the hell was that chemistry in Season 1?) and Barry's willingness to continue his impersonation is frankly shameless. I don't know where the US courts - let alone the courts of the equivalent territory in Earth-2 - stand on vitiation of consent by reason of mistaken identity, but it's damn creepy. Shame on you, Barry Allen; SHAME ON YOU.

"This is my one chance to be the baddy and I plan to enjoy it!"

Less comedically/creepily, two of Zoom's minions are charged with tracking down the breachers: Deathstorm - Earth-2's version of the Ronnie Raymond Firestorm - and the ice-powered Caitlin Snow, Killer Frost. They've been teasing Frost since the start of the season and I'm glad they haven't thrown Earth-1 Caitlin into a heel turn just to get her in. They track Barry to Jitterbugs and, while he handily defeats them, Joseph is mortally wounded.

Back on Earth-1, Joe faces off against a metahuman with earthquake powers whom Jay recognises, although the Earth-2 version was defeated, suggesting this is an unusually close parallel. With the Flash out of town and Joe outmatched, Jay agrees to let Caitlin develop and administer a superior version of Velocity-7, admitting that his genetic damage and loss of speed may be related to his attempt to use V6 to increase his own speed. V7 is still imperfect, but allows Jay and Joe to at least repel 'Geomancer'.

Harry and Barry clash on Earth-2, as Barry insists he needs to help Iris. Harry encourages him to think of them as meaningless reflections, which isn't really the way to talk Barry out of anything; it might have been more effective to point out that his ineffective intel gathering expedition failed to achieve anything except getting Joseph killed, although doubtless he'd just have gone off on a guilt mission. So, Barry gets Cisco to bring an anti-Frost weapon to Iris - and even Cisco is pointing out that they ought to be helping Harry, but Barry basically doesn't seem to have fixed on Jesse as a real person in real danger yet - and Iris, Cisco and Lawton confront Killer Frost, Deathstorm and their immediate boss, Reverb, the evil Earth-2 Cisco, who can also shoot shockbeams from his hands.

Frost is neutralised by Cisco's weapon, but Deathstorm and Reverb take our Iris and Lawton (the latter looked like he might be dead) and put the smackdown on Flash when he comes in to help. Frost yells at them to stop, but too late, and Zoom shows up, enraged that they would disobey his orders not to harm any speedster they found, killing Deathstorm and Reverb with the ol' vibrating hand trick. Then he zooms off with Barry and imprisons him alongside Jesse and a guy in an iron mask.

'Welcome to Earth-2' is an oddity. It's a lot of fun, but in having fun with Earth-2 it has to go off task to the point that Barry looks like a complete asshole for leaving Harry and Jesse hanging and Zoom's appearance at the end is a rude and brutal wake up call. It does however tease the possibility of Cisco getting a level in badass in the future, as well as some hints of future crossover, with 'Bruce' and 'Hal' appearing in Earth-2 Barry's speeddials and Supergirl showing up during the transit.

Daredevil - 'New York's Finest' and 'Penny and Dime'

"My plan worked poifectly."

Following his fight with the Punisher last episode, Daredevil finds himself chained up on a roof. His mask is still on, because the Punisher doesn't care who he is underneath; he cares about the Devil, and deconstructing his MO. I said last week that one of the problems with the Punisher is that he represents the potential invalidation of the superhero milieu by pushing his Charles Bronson ethos into a four colour world, and Daredevil pulls off quite a coup by making that the text and not subtext*. He calls Daredevil a half measure: He puts criminals down and they get up again; Punisher puts them down and they stay down, never to kill again.

Karen is determined to find and help their client, although Grotto calls to make it clear he isn't interested in their help after the stitch up at the ambush. She gets angry with Foggy for not helping her, but Foggy of course knows that Matt is in serious trouble. He goes to see Claire Temple for help searching the hospital system. She makes a reference to her actions in Jessica Jones getting her in trouble with the hospital and has little time given the huge influx of gunshot gangsters as the Punisher's actions spark an all-out war. She softens a little as Foggy uses his legal kung fu to talk down a pair of feuding gang soldiers from a knife fight in ER and they confirm that Matt is not in a hospital.

Back on the roof, Daredevil tries to convince the Punisher that his way isn't needed; that there is always hope and redemption. He senses a potential connection on realising that his captor is also a New York Catholic, but Frank - his name comes out in conversation with an old Marine who lives in the building - has lost his faith and no longer believes that there is any hope of redemption; not for his targets and not for him.

Karen confronts the DA's assistant (he may be the Assistant DA, but I'm not sure,) and persuades him to let her swipe some of the Punisher files, including one for the prime suspect 'F.Castle', including an x-ray of a skull with a bullet hole in it.

To force Daredevil into a corner, Frank gives him a gun and one bullet, then drags out Grotto, puts a gun to his head and forces him to confess to killing an an elderly couple before offering a choice. Shoot Grotto or shoot Punisher to save him; either way, Punisher is right. Daredevil takes a third option, shooting a weak link in his chains, but can't close fast enough to stop Grotto getting shot. He puts Punisher down, but Grotto dies, and I quite like that while this does point up the limitations of Daredevil's approach, it's not definitive and doesn't break him.

"I will kick your ass with an empty gun duct taped to my hand."

Before he gets knocked out, Frank manages to fire a grenade into a rack of bikes outside the Dogs of Hell clubhouse (while whispering a mantra: 'One batch, two batch, penny and dime,') drawing out the gang. Daredevil gets Frank to a lift, but seeing the old man from earlier about to fall foul of the bikers he jumps out and we get the first corridor fight of the season. With an empty magnum taped to one hand and a chain still cuff to the other, Daredevil fights his way past about twenty bikers down a narrow stairwell, and once more it's fucking epic.

I know this is getting long, but this is a dramatically charged pair of episodes.

As we move into 'Penny and Dime', a retired Irish gangster named Finn (played by Tony Curran, who was in Blade II and played Thor's granddaddy in The Dark World) comes to town to lead the hunt for his son's killer. Elsewhere, the staff of Nelson and Murdock are the only attendees at the funeral of Grotto and are moved by the bleak nihilism of the priest's eulogy.

It's all about that stare.

The Irish track Frank down as the Central Park Carousel, drug and capture him. Following their trail, Daredevil - sporting a new and almost indestructible helmet and gloves - finds a wounded survivor of the capture and extracts the location of the Irish mob's torture dungeon. While Finn takes a drill to Frank's feet and threatens to do the same to his adopted dog if Frank doesn't give up the money he took from the massacre in episode 1, Karen does some detective work to locate Frank's old house. There she finds military memorabilia, but also pictures of a wife and daughter, and a well-read children's book including the refrain 'One batch, two batch, Penny and dime.'

Daredevil arrives and starts fighting his way into the warehouse. The gangsters sent to fetch the money are blown up by a booby trap and Frank busts loose, having expected capture and sutured a razor blade into his arm wound, the crazy bastard. He kills Finn, but is half-dead by now and has to let Daredevil help him out, impressed despite himself with the 'half measure's' abilities.

Daredevil rests Frank against a tombstone in a cemetery (and I'm hacked off I can't find a screenshot of that, because the parallel with the poses in 'New York's Finest' is beautiful) and Frank, suspecting he may be dying, tells his story: How he came home from fighting a war to his wife and daughter; how he refused to read her the book because he was exhausted from travel, but promised to do so the next night; and how she was killed before he could make good on his promise and died in his arms. It's a story that jabs all my emotional buttons, and Jon Bernthal sells the fuck out of it. I am never refusing to read my daughter a book again.

Maybe I'm just poisoned against her by the Daredevil movie,
but after Bernthal's tour de force, Elektra's reveal was a huge
let down.

The police arrive, and Daredevil tells Officer Friendly to take the collar, having realised that he isn't different enough from Punisher. He can't be the one catching the bad guys; it has to be the proper authorities getting the collar, the good cops (the ones who haven't been killed by crazed supersoldiers anyway.) After a slightly muted celebration, Karen walks Matt home and they make a date for dinner. He goes in and smiles, tentatively happy for the first time in who knows how long, before starting up to realise that he isn't alone. There's a woman on his sofa; a woman named Elektra.

After these two episodes, I categorically withdraw my objections to the Punisher's appearance. While he puts the methods of heroes like Daredevil in question, the level of reactive violence his actions bring ultimately undermine his approach, while his backstory perfectly explains his reasoning: Why doesn't he believe in hope and redemption? Because his hope and his redemption were torn from him. It's not easy watching, but it's superbly done. I really don't know how they plan to change gears for the slinky ninja.

* I don't know the comics, but apparently this was a comic plot that they lifted almost straight.

Shadowhunters - 'Rise Up' and 'The World Inverted'

"Seriously? Neither of you owns a shirt with sleeves?"

In the wake of the Forsaken attack the Institute goes on lockdown, and the presence of Seelie blood in the attackers leads Lydia to arrest Meliorn with the intention of sending him to the Silent Brothers for brain scranliting, because Lydia Branwell is apparently the poster child for supernatural extraordinary rendition. Alec tells Magnus he's getting married (cue Magnus Bane's kicked puppy face,) Alec and Jace argue about whether Clary is the best thing since sliced bread or a liability and Alec and Izzy argue about what the fuck is he doing getting married to some blonde he's never met when he's gay?

"Well, this isn't awkward at all."

With the Clave after the Cup, Jace has Magnus 'borrow' Alec's stylae to open the safe. Clary, Jace and Isabelle leave the Institute and hole up at the Hotel du Mort for a while, where Simon is locked in a cage with Clary to come to terms with his nature and realise that he is not an uncontrollable monster. Clary's rogue faction then negotiates an alliance with the New York Pack and the vampires to rescue Meliorn from terminal quizzing in the City of Bones. During the rescue, Alec and Jace come to blows, and Jace goads Alec to kill him, telling him he would rather die than be on opposite sides; a touching sentiment only slightly undermined by Jace's repeated choosing of Clary over Alec.

With the Clave getting testy and Isabelle under arrest for aiding Meliorn's escape, Clary and Jace take a gamble. Meliorn leads them into Seelie country, where they can open a portal to another world. From there, Clary's pendant can open a specific portal that will take her to where Valentine is, but she has to be quick because she will inhabit the body of the other world's Clary and quickly become lost.

What is not clear is why Simon is basically just Simon. Or
how Clary met the Lightwoods and came to be living in New
York without the backstory of the primary world.

'The World Inverted' is a lot of fun, with Clary encountering the alternate versions of her friends from a world without demons or Shadowhunters. Her mother is happily married to Valentine, Isabelle is a nerd and in a relationship with cooler nerd Simon, Luke has quit the police to become an antiquarian bookseller, Alec is totally at home with his sexuality and Magnus Bane is semi-retired and giving tarot readings for a living (but still the most fun and awesome thing in the series.)

While the portal is open, Jace and Meliorn have to fight off demons trying to get through to all-you-can-eat-world, which unfortunately goes tits up when the betrayal of Alec's attempt to use their parabatai bond to track Jace causes him excruciating pain. Oops.

Cheesy-awesome in any world.

Clary tries to find the portal with the aid of Magnus, while not losing her mind or letting nice-boyfriend-Jace get a) too jealous, or b) eaten by a demon. Ultimately, Jace follows her through, they kill the demon and find the portal, which takes them to Chernobyl. Here they find, not Clary's mum, but Jace's dad, who is also less dead than advertised.