Arrow - 'Spectre of the Gun', 'The Sin-Eater' and 'Fighting Fire with Fire'

This scene has basically no heroic shenanigans. It's a cold bit of brutal
near-realism.

Full disclosure in advance: Despite Arrow sharing a universe with Constantine, and thus with Jim Corrigan, The Spectre does not appear in the episode 'Spectre of the Gun'. I'm sad too. 

Instead, it's a political issues episode about gun crime, in which Oliver Queen resolves the tension between gun control (as represented by Curtis) and gun owners' rights (as represented by Rene, who lost his wife in a home invasion while trying to get his gun from the safe,) by talking down a despairing father who lost his own family to gun crime and appears to be seeking revenge on the city officials who didn't pass stricter gun ordnance by shooting up public buildings, and by creating a piece of civic legislation which satisfies all parties by being incredibly vaguely described.

"Oliver Queen doesn't have a patent on flashbacks, you know."

Also, Vigilante turns up and is 'Hi, I'm still here. This may be important at some stage.'

In 'The Sin Eater', Thea asks Felicity to discredit Oliver's reporter girlfriend after she asks if he's the Green Arrow, on account of… well, having seen him naked and not being an idiot, aside from anything else. There's probably a villain of the week, but honestly, we watched these three episodes over a week or so and I'm tired and hazy on the specifics of each episode to the point that I'm glad I'm not doing this professionally. Seriously, my major takeaway is that Curtis resolves to help Rene get custody of his daughter back, having lost it because he was dishonourably discharged from the Marines and after the home invasion his junkie wife's stash and his temper convinced CPS that he was an unfit parent(1).

But that wasn't in this episode.

Right! China White, Cupid and that female SCPD cop who went rogue(2) bust out of prison and go looking for Church's rainy day fund. Everyone feels responsible for shit, although mostly Oliver and Quentin, and someone tips off the SCPD that Oliver and the DA covered up the fact that the Green Arrow killed Billy Malone. Oliver is able to persuade the police that the Green Arrow was set up and still does good work, but then someone tips off the press and people start talking about impeachment.

 

Dinah Drake proves herself a natural at the vital skill of rooftop posing.

Thus to 'Fighting Fire with Fire', in which Vigilante targets Oliver for his corrupt defence of murderous vigilantes (what?) and more importantly, Curtis gets his T-spheres working. Vigilante schools the team, although he is ultimately forced to flee, and also goes toe to toe with Prometheus, or as he is revealed to be DA Chase! (Hanna called this one. If I'm honest, I thought Chase was going to turn out to be Vigilante.) Denied the chance to testify and explain his actions, Oliver holds a press conference and throws the Green Arrow identity to the wolves along with the Hood and the Arrow. I have no idea where he's going to go next. Just 'the Green' perhaps?

Thea gets Felicity to dig up dirt on political opponents and finally opts to quit before her political savagery gets as bad as her Lazarus bloodlust. Diggle has a heart to heart with Felicity about the consequences of fighting fire with fire, but although she un-frames Oliver's girlfriend (I want to say Susan,) ultimately Felicity goes the other way and throws in with Helix (or seems to; might be a trick.)

 

"I had to become someone else. Something else. I am... The Green Mayor."

This season of Arrow is determined to go just as dark as possible, although occasionally this is at the cost of sense or consistency. It's really unclear why Vigilante's reaction to Oliver's actions is to put him on a hit list instead of looking to make an arrangement, although it might make sense if we ever see beneath that mask. I don't really know. Also… I kind of miss Rory, and part of me wonders if they wrote him out because he'd built up too much rapport with Felicity for her to be able to go the way she's going if he was still around to look woobie at her.

Also flashbacks. Anatoly calls out the Bratva boss and Oliver presents evidence that Dolph Lundgren gave him an extra personal bribe to make peace, leading to a Bratva boss shootout.

(1) On the other hand, we were terrified the daughter was going to get shot.

(2) I don't remember her name because it's a real people name. Aliases are easier to remember.

Legends of Tomorrow - 'Doomworld' and 'Aruba'

Honestly, this says a lot about Damien Darhk(1).

While the rest of the Arrowverse goes on hiatus for a couple more weeks, Legends of Tomorrow wraps its sophomore season in style.

'Doomworld' sees the Legion of Doom as masters of creation. Damien Darhk rules Star City with a magical fist, Malcolm Merlyn rules the League of Assassins and Thea is his doting daughter, and Thawne runs STAR Labs and saves the world from time to time. Snart and Roary are pulling crimes and getting away with it thanks to Snart having basically bought Central City and its Police Department. The rest of the Legends have been rewritten as the Legion's bitches. Sara and Amaya are Darhk's enforcers (we open with a vigilante Felicity Smoak being killed by Sara and her mask added to Darhk's collection,) Nate is a nobody conspiracy theorist, Ray is a STAR Labs janitor and Jax is Stein's draconian supervisor on a project for Thawne to create a nuclear furnace in which the Spear can be destroyed.

Nate realises that the world is wrong, but goes to Thawne for help. Fortunately, Ray has retained a tinkering streak and created a memory gun than restores their minds. They are able to restore most of the Legends, but Stein is too frightened and alerts Thawne. A face turn from Roary allows Amaya to seize the Spear, but Snart kills her with his cold gun and Thawne dismisses both the Legends and the rebellious Legion as inconsequential.

In 'Aruba', Rip and Gideon get the damaged Waverrider working, but it has been shrunk using the ATOM suit. Ray recovers his suit and the remnants of the team return to 1916 in an attempt to destroy the Spear before reality can be changed(2). This involves them crossing paths with their past selves, and also Thawne, who of course is still able to time travel himself. Thawne kills Ray and destroys the Blood of Christ, leaving no choice but to try to use the Spear. Both sets of Legends clash with the Legion and an army of Thawne's time remnants, before Sara is able to activate the Spear. She has a spiritual heart to heart with her late sister before Thawne takes the Spear from her, but this is enough time to make one change to the original reality: Removing the power of the Spear itself.

 

"Are we missing some people?"

Without the Spear's power and seriously messing with time, Thawne is torn apart by the Black Flash, and the Doomworld versions of the Legends fade from existence. The original versions – Legends Classic – return the other members of the Legion to their respective fates(3) and head off into the wild, time-coloured yonder. Amaya chooses to continue to travel with the team, destiny bedamned. Rip chooses to walk the Earth, like Kane in Kung Fu, leaving Sara in charge. Roary suggests a break in Aruba, but a time quake caused by interacting with their past selves knocks the Waverrider into Los Angeles… in the middle of a dinosaur attack.

So, I guess the big takeaway is that Barry Allen is no longer the most irresponsible time traveller in the Arrowverse. Good for him. I have literally no more idea how or why the Legends' plan worked this time out than last season, but I think the important thing is that I didn't get suspicious of it until after I'd watched the episode. Whereas even though it was some of the best of the season, I was going 'oh, come on!' during the season 1 finale. All in all, this has been a much better season, with Amaya and even Nate a vast improvement on the Hawks, and just way more punching famous people in the face, messing with history and generally having fun with the concept, instead of visiting a succession of historical cul de sacs and failing repeatedly to be effective at stopping Vandal Savage at all.

What awaits us in Season 3? Are the Legends locked out of the main continuity, or will Star City become suddenly velociraptor rich in episode 5.22 of Arrow? Will John Diggle Jr. ever revert to Sara? Will I ever let that one go(4)? Well, at the very least I guess we have some dino-punching, perhaps Amaya invoking her inner T-rex again, and Roary growling at stuff. Man, when did I get to appreciate Dominic Purcell so much?

(1) Although it's not as damning as the absence of any mention of his family in the new reality.

(2) I'm not sure why that 1916 still exists when all of reality was rewritten, but okay.

(3) Death, redemption and death, and a crappy apartment and a daughter who despises him, respectively.

(4) No.

The Flash - 'Abra Kadabra'

"Gonna reach out and grab ya."

With Savatar on the loose and Iris’ life in the balance, it’s time for a meta of the week.

Actually, the fiendish illusionist Abra Kadabra is not a meta, and nor in this incarnation is he a magician. Instead, as in his original appearance, he is a dimension-hopping criminal from the far-flung future who uses some form of sufficiently advanced science to seem to wield magical powers. Despite this massive technological advantage, he’s stealing local tech, and although Team Flash soon capture him – with a little help from Gypsy, who has her own axe to grind with Abra Kadabra he has a trump card to play: Because he’s from the future, he knows who Savatar is and how to save Iris. He just won’t tell them unless they let him go instead of turning him over to Gypsy to be executed on her Earth. Amazingly, Barry doesn’t immediately make the executive decision to let him go, but Joe does.

The team realise that Abra is stealing the components for a time sphere, and that his capture and escape were part of an infiltration of STAR Labs to steal the power core of the Time Vault. Fortunately, this means that they can track the time sphere’s engines and Barry is able to phase Abra right out of his cockpit and deliver him back to Gypsy, he and Iris having chosen that he can not be allowed to bargain his way out of justice for the murders he has committed. Nonetheless, Barry appeals to his basic humanity, only to be told that the Flash is the hated arch enemy of generations of villains to come, and that denying him the information allows him to feel that he has hurt the Flash almost as much as Savatar did. So, you know, he’s a dick, and Barry ‘Master Planner’ Allen decides he’s going to run into the future and find out what’s what (because ignoring what Earth-3 Flash tells him has always worked out so well.)

Caitlin does the self-surgery thing from Ronin almost word for word.

During Abra’s initial attack on STAR Labs, Caitlin was injured and, despite directing Julian to operate her, she seizes in the stinger. To save her, Julian takes her power nullifying pendant so that her metahuman metabolism can heal her, which means that oops, now we have Killer Frost in the hizz-ouse.

While showy and flash, Abra Kadabra lacks an iconic power set, and his Derrin Brown get up lacks the flair of a more traditional magician’s costume. Consequently, and despite his knowledge of the future, he is a less-than stellar villain of the week. The set up for next week’s presumed conflict with Killer Frost is also a little ho-hum, because I have never been fond of the powers = evil plotline. If anything, surely Killer Frost’s powers are supposed to reflect the emotional cold inside her, which our Earth-1 Caitlin does not have? We’ve a three week wait now for what will surely be either a friendship is magic cul de sac which returns us to the status quo, or a complete downer ending which dismisses Danielle Panabaker from the show, which would kind of suck (although it would give Tom Felton a chance to look mightily woobie.)

Supergirl - 'Distant Sun'

And all of this could have been avoided if Mon-el had only sprung for a decent
restaurant.

Despite all the song and dance in last week's The Flash crossover, Kara still seems to have the worst kind of trouble: Guy trouble.

Our heroine is chillin' at home with her honey, who is becoming pretty domesticated in his way, when an alien attack turns out to be bait for an attempt on her life. A message found on the attacker reveals that someone has put a price on Kara's head and Mon-el is pretty sure that he knows who: His parents. They deny it, but after a psychic assassin tries to puppeteer Mon-el into killing Kara, J'onn brain wrestles the truth out of him. Kara suggests that they make an appeal to his mother, Rhea, but she tries to stab Kara with Kryptonite sai and, of course, Mon-el agrees to go with his parents if they will spare Kara's life. They go back to the ship and Mommy dearest cancels the hit, which Mon-el's dad is clearly shocked to hear about.

"The power of the mind is absolute."

Kara determines to rescue Mon-el, whether he's asked her to or not, but this means going against a presidential order not to pick a fight with a sovereign power with a space navy. They use the transmat arch from the Slaver's Moon episode to get to the ship, where Kara smacks around Daxamite guards until Rhea steps in and her Kryptonite blades bounce off the Martian Manhunter. Meanwhile Kara rescues Mon-el from a cell where he has been confined to contemplate the virtue of traditional values. As the battle escalates, Mon-el appeals once more to his parents and his dad lets him go. After they depart, Rhea kills her husband for his betrayal, which is… Well, honestly it was so obvious I was half-expecting him to kill her as the only possible twist, but that didn't happen.

In the B-plot, Maggie runs into her ex and, as a result of trying to be the cool girlfriend, Alex learns that Maggie cheated on the ex. She confronts Maggie, not to be judgey, but to tell her that she doesn't have to present an ideal of herself. She can take the bad bits of Maggie's past, if Maggie can learn to trust someone close to her again after the hurt of her coming out.

Oh, and remember how the President is an alien? Well, we get a reminder of that. I guess that's going to come up when Rhea goes to war.

So, another week of front and centre romance and I'm itching for Rhea to start bombarding. It's not that I'm anti-romance, I just don't like the way Kara's relationship has taken over her life. I want to see her getting out there as Kara Danvers, ace blogger and citizen journalist, rather than wallowing at home and exulting in the snuggling opportunities that unemployment represents. As for the Daxamite plotline, it's… okay. Terri Hatcher is playing Rhea a little too much hatchet-faced bitch for my money; with her constant protestations that Krypton took everything from her, a rawer performance would carry more power. Much like Lillian Luthor, Rhea is kind of wrong, but for the right reasons, and that needs to be shown more than told.

TV Roundup: Agents of SHIELD - 'Broken Promises' and 'Patriot'; Person of Interest - 'Shotseeker' and 'A More Perfect Union'

With the Ghost Rider storyline wrapped up, it's time to move into the second subset of Agents of SHIELD Season 4, subtitled 'LMD'.

Also, Senator Nadeer takes her brother off somewhere quiet and offs him for
becoming an Inhuman.

In 'Broken Promises', Aida continues to hold Agent May hostage and attempts to break into SHIELD HQ to steal the Darkhold before it can be taken away for disposal. When the LMD Agent May tries to stop her, Aida turns her off, but it's clear that this May thinks that she is the real deal. Aida gets a fair way, but ultimately Fitz cuts off her access to the system and Mack cuts off her head. Fitz and Simmons have a bit of a bust up over whether this is a glitch in a worthwhile programme or – as Mack insists – robots are bad. Mack and Yo-Yo's banter about technohorror movies is adorbs. The big reveal is that Aida – the real deal, the decapitated one was a duplicate – is still operating under instructions from Radcliffe, who wants to get hold of the Darkhold for his own reasons, although he is clearly freaked out that Aida has jumped to murder to keep their plans secret.

 

Coulson and Mack decide to go dutch.

'Patriot' puts the arc on the backburner for a week. Aida and Radcliffe have to contend with the real May, who can't be contained in a soothing simulation because of who she is. I'm putting even odds on next week being set largely or entirely in May's subconscious as she navigates a more violent simulation to break out of her sedation again. Elsewhere, a Watch Dog sniper takes a shot at Mace during a medal ceremony for Quake, and then his Quinjet is shot down. Mack and Coulson are forced to protect the director when it turns out that he isn't an inhuman at all, but given superstrength by Project Patriot, a sub-Captain America supersoldier drug(1) which is currently wearing off. Mace comes through by ballsing it out and pretending to be badass, but after confessing that even the initial act of heroism which brought him to prominence was an accident, cedes operational control back to Coulson.

LMD is currently proving a less interesting arc than Ghost Rider, if only because bad robots have been done before. The fact that Aida is still working for a largely well-meaning Radcliffe has mitigated some of the more obvious courses, but I remain sceptical that this will go to any really new places. Also, Fitz is talking to Aida's severed head, which can't be good.

The cyber-war hots up in Person of Interest's final season, and I am more than ever convinced that I liked it best as a procedural.

It's that man again.

In 'Shotseeker' a technical consultant is in danger as he begins to suspect that an automated system for distinguishing gunshots from other noises in public audio feeds has been got at to ignore certain incidents. Obviously it is Samaritan doing the getting at in this case, using Shotseeker to steer emergency responses away from inconvenient crime scenes. Fusco takes note of the fact that, while murder is way down, suicide and disappearances are up, and begins to press to be read into the secret even as Samaritan takes note of him. Also getting on the radar, Elias' accountant Bruce is pushing to find out who arranged the hit on his friend, only to be taken to meet with Elias himself, who was saved by Team Machine and put into hiding. Elias warns Bruce to back off their new enemy. Meanwhile, tests against a clone of Samaritan show that in any open conflict, the Machine is doomed to lose, and Harold ponders the possibility that the Machine should be creating its own code now.

The upbeat ending where all of our characters realise that they're going to die
alone. Woo.

'A More Perfect Union' sees the Machine throw up a marriage licence, so Harold and Reese infiltrate a wedding - Harold as an overseas uncle and Reese after netting an invitation while acting as the hen party stripper's security guy - where possible horse-doping, social climbing and Harold's Irish accent provide more than enough reasons for murder. Also, Harold gets to sing. Back in the city, Fusco continues to track missing person's reports, using a room with no surveillance, and discovers a cache of bodies in a condemned sewer tunnel. Unfortunately, at that moment the tunnel is destroyed with explosives, trapping Fusco – and worse, Bear – in the collapse.

In an unrelated C-plot, Grier shows Shaw the people he claims Team Machine overlooks who are still deserving of 'adjustment'. Later, Samaritan's analogue interface – still creepy – explains that only Samaritan can prevent mutually assured destruction, before blowing up a Russian embassy and allowing the nuke to rain down on what turns out to be another simulation.

So, yeah, I'm not so into the Samaritan thing since Samaritan became able to completely control Shaw's perception. Something about it has taken the show that one step beyond its day after tomorrow SF premise and now it feels a little silly to me, I think. It's all subjective, of course, and the bulk of the show is still good, but this appears to be my breaking point.

Expect a slowing of TV Roundup in the future, as I am becoming a full time Dad, which is bound to impact my TV viewing. On the other hand, my partner is also moving in, so we may yet catch up on Arrow and The 100.

Legends of Tomorrow - 'Fellowship of the Spear'

All quiet on the Western Front.

If I were speaking dispassionately, I would probably suggest that time travel fiction is at its most effective when eschewing the lure of celebrity. I find Timeless' reliance on encounters with famous people to be one of its great weaknesses. "Here we are in 1927 to rescue Charles Lindberg. Only Josephine Baker and Ernest Hemmingway can help us now!" On the other hand, maybe because of its generally more four-colour themes, or maybe because Martin Stein punched Einstein, I find I mind less in Legends of Tomorrow.

This time, the gang have broken into Thawne's base of operations at the ruined Vanishing Point to steal the last parts of the Spear(1). Now they are looking for the means to destroy the self-healing, reality warping Spear of Destiny, and that means appears to be the Blood of Christ. I think it's fortunate that Rip nixes the idea of a mission to the crucifixion itself (the life and times of Christ are a time travel no-no of the highest order, due to their profound influence on the course of history,) and instead they seek out an academic who wrote an unpublished paper tracking the possible course of Sir Galahad as he returned from his quest for the Holy Grail, bearing with him a vial of the Blood of Christ. That academic is John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, because of course he is(2).

 

It's that man again.

The team contact Tolkien - who is at least accurately portrayed as a shell-shocked average lieutenant with trench fever, rather than as an unstoppable badass like Timeless' shot at Ian Fleming - at the Battle of the Somme, because that puts him right up close to the supposed location of the Blood, and can't possibly contribute any complications (aside from throwing Mick off his game because the Germans aren't Nazis.) Mick and Amaya are both leaning Boromirward and suggesting that they could use the Spear to change reality for the better, by restoring Snart or preventing the wholesale slaughter of Amaya's people. The rest of the team stands firm, however: It's too much power. Pursuing a clue at a church, the team are surprised to encounter Snart, and not self-sacrificing hero Snart; pre-Legends gitbag Snart. This leads them to immediately treat Mick as suspect, and it's honestly no huge surprise when, having engineered a ceasefire to retrieve the wounded through a bit of PA hijacking and a ripped off Aragorn speech(3) from Rip, Mick defects to the Legion of Doom. Ray at least has the grace to take issue with the other Legends when they get huffy about how they trusted him.

So, the Legion gets the Spear and Nate drops the Blood, and as Malcolm Merlyn has retrieved the instruction manual for the Spear(4) they grasp the Spear and chant up a change in reality.

 

"Well, this war really sucks."

So, as you may have gathered the Tolkien connection is used as an excuse for a whole lot of Lord of the Rings riffing, although for reasons of recognition it's weighted towards the movie which Tolkien had no direct hand in. The most authentic line they drop in is our man's CO calling him a 'fool of a Tolkien'. So it's a bit, and it's cute, but it's more problematic than the George Lucas stuff earlier in the series and would have made more sense if Fran Walsh had turned out to have been hella into Arthuriana.

In and of itself, Legends is all but unrecognisable from the slog that was Season 1. The Legion of Doom is a much better antagonist, allowing for a cut and thrust conflict rather than the Legends shooting ineffectual spitballs at Vandal Savage, and while the turn against Mick was sudden, it was hardly unprecedented. Amaya has come into her own lately, as knowing of the fate of her county and specifically her village has positioned her to want to use the Spear and not feel selfish. The history of twentieth century Africa is a horror show even without the addition of magic-seeking warlords, and it's not like no-one else is bending any rules.

(1) By means of Firestorm transmuting an impenetrable case into jelly beans.

(2) Full disclosure, I once name-dropped Tolkien in a Stargate/Cthulhu crossover fanfic; I'm not taking the high ground here, I'm just being a snarky git.

(3) And I'm pretty sure it's a speech that's only in the movie, although I've not re-read in a while, which dilutes the whole thing they're going for.

(4) Who wrote such a thing? Had they worked it out through trial and error? What was the world like before they got into this whole thing? Will Sara Diggle be restored? No; not letting it go.

Legion - Chapter 8

Levitating badass.

And so it ends, as it began, in weirdness.

David literally brushes aside the threat of Division 3, opting to negotiate with his former interrogator Clark – who gets a moving montage at the top of the episode detailing his recovery from the attack on the pool, and showing us his relationship with his husband and adopted son – as he calmly assumes a near-unassailable leadership position at Summerland. Kerry is still mad as hell at Cary, Oliver doesn't remember who Melanie is, and Division 3 are watching through an implant in Clark's destroyed right eye.

Melanie explains to Clark that David is a world-breaker; he changes the rules and makes the Divisions and their paramilitary forces irrelevant. However, Syd reveals the existence of the Shadow King when David suffers an attack. Cary tries to expunge the King, but it proves resistant, threatening to kill David even as it is destroyed and contacting Syd telepathically to offer a deal. Syd uses her power to take the King out of David, then transfers it to Kerry when the latter tries to stop her. Kerry/the Shadow King kicks the crap out of pretty much everyone, until David confronts them and ejects the King. Unfortunately, in the aftermath of the fight, with pretty much everyone unconscious, the King gets into Oliver's mind and takes off.

We end with Clark recognising that perhaps the Shadow King is a unifying mutual enemy and Oliver and 'Lenny' heading south in search of something or someone. Then in a stinger, Division 3 sends a drone which teleports David into some sort of pocket space inside itself, which is pretty messed up.

Legion has been the other superhero show, a unique entity, and even in its big action finale it doesn't let up on that front. The battle is uniquely twisty. Cary and Kerry's reconciliation after she gets possessed and beats the snot out of him is touching, and very little outside of the opening ten minutes of Up is as heartbreaking as the semi-amnesiac Oliver remembering who his wife is moments before being possessed by the King. This is the show that we need in the face of the utter drabness of Iron Fist and the continuing sine wave of quality that is Agents of SHIELD to remind us that Marvel is still in the game, TV-wise. If there is a weakness in the series it is that David essentially became less interesting as he became more in control, but in that respect the stinger turns that on its head and leaves us with the prospect of a Season 2 not entirely overshadowed by David's awesomeness, but with the same balance of power and vulnerability as we've seen this year.