And Suddenly, Cliffhangers!

Apologies readers, for the lack of MtG Deck Tech this week, or indeed any recent posts until now. Other 'real life' issues cropped up and as such they had to take priority.

First, let's start this off properly. This week's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., The Flash and Arrow. All three took a week's break over thanksgiving and all three are fast approaching the mid-season Winter finale stage. As such what should we be expecting?

Well, the following. We should be expecting the shows to pick up the pace. To start ramping to a more and more dramatic situation. We should be expecting hints as to what is to come and what is to be. We should expecting tensions to start rising and key developments to start to unfold.

So far AoS and The Flash picked up the pace last time we checked, after a series of disappointing droll, almost filler-like weeks that lead to nothing in particular happening. Arrow seemed damned and determined to flop about and accomplish nothing. So, let's go in deep and see if a week's break was enough to save them.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. starts by pretty much pulling the carpet out from under us, kicking us in the feels and triggering that deep down 'Oh Shit' feeling that we all knew lay deep within Coulson. See that lovely picture of Coulson and Roz having a lovely meal? See the happy couple?

Unlike Agent May it would appear to be that Coulson's relationships are actually genuine things. And within the first five minutes Roz is shot dead by a silenced bullet, bleeding out in Coulson's arms and we get an extreme camera zoom to reveal....

Grant fucking Ward. Coupled with a snarky phone call and suddenly Grant Ward is viable again. We get a semi standard 'spy genre' action sequence, complete with extraction...then the slow, long walk of Oh Shit. Coulson is pissed. Coulson is hurt.

And for those of you who don't remember what happened the last time Coulson got upset with someone?

Well....he grew a gigantic pair of balls and shot a god with a gun. Admittedly that didn't work out so well but it just goes to show that it's always the quiet, happy ones that you have to watch out for. This of course sets the pace for the rest of the episode.

It gets more and more reckless in pace and you end up seeing the entire scenario ramping up. This part, I find, is rather clever. It's a reflection of Phil's mindset. It's erratic, it's uncontrolled. Things spiral out of control with what appear to be several obvious indicators for what is going to be a most explosive finale. You have a desperate Mac now in charge of SHIELD, unsure what he's supposed to do...and resorting to sending in the Inhumans. You've got Hydra fortifying up and sending an expedition through to the Alien world, after capturing Fitz-Simmons and playing on the Puppy Dog Fitz situation enough to make him break through some tortue of Simmons.

And you have Coulson crazily pushing closer and closer to the point where the closing minutes of the episode are...I kid you not...

Coulson jumping out of a plane, smashing through a glass ceiling and going straight through the portal to the alien world. 

So what do we have here? We have the Inhumans being deployed. Hydra all fortified. An expedition that includes Grant Ward having gone through as well as the insane skydiving Phil Coulson. We know some big uber scary Inhuman waits on the other side...and we know Phil's crazy enough to go straight for Ward as revenge becomes a shared theme.

I can't really do much of an in depth analysis of this episode...really. There was no solid plot. It was almost all erratic build up to a finale where I have no doubt their special effects budget has all been siphoned to.

It's a shame about Roz...but the thing is? Her death was genuinely more shocking than the remarkably bland and flat Agent May relationship crashes that are commonly played by AoS as their plot trump card. Hell, no mention of Lash whatsoever. None. Not one. 

Oh......kay?

And now for Arrow and The Flash. Sigh. Sadly, they do not warrant seperate reviews this week. They made their bed, they get to lie in it. It's the semi-annual crossover episode....and when I first heard about this a few weeks back I cringed.

Because, really, all this crossover brings is yet more Legends of Tomorrow filler. Seriously. Let's look at the plot of these shared episodes. We have Kendra going Hawkgirl. We have Carter Hall being introduced. We have Vandal Savage being introduced. When LoT was first announced and we saw the first teasers...I honestly was excited. Vandal Savage is an amazing character and to utilise him in such a way got me seriously hyped up for the series.

But I didn't expect...or indeed want this. I didn't want two shows to be repeatedly bogged down in what is essentially filler fluff for the new series due out in the new year. Not like this guys. You could have done webisodes. Little animated clips. You could have introduced some easter eggs. Or hell, kept all of the Legends filler in these two crossover episodes and we would have been fine. 

Now, the initial rumour that started floating about around two weeks ago...sadly, not true. No return of King Shark. Practically no outside plot apart from the following two bits; Harrison Wells-2 gets shot and is saved by Jay Garrick and a formulated speed potion...and Ollie has a kid - which we sort of knew about from a flashback clip last season. Well, now the kid is confirmed and now Patsy knows about Wells-2.

Okay. So...that's the plot progression? We see no Earth-2 metahumans. We get what is essentially a cameo from Darhk. We get the inevitable Cisco is being dumped storyline...and we get an awful lot of Malcolm Merlyn and his League of Assholes Being A Dick. An awful lot. He crops up unannounced several times and we see, at the end, him Being A Dick. 

Oh ho ho. Yay. 

No. Not really. I felt this whole crossover was just...meaningless. It suffered the same problems that all the other 'filler' episodes had. It was bland. It was pointless. Now, if this was 'it' then that would have been fine. But the fact that this was tacked on to several other filler episodes and gave nothing to the plots that are now stagnating, in the case of Arrow for two to three weeks means that I will have to give this pair of episodes a solid thumbs down.

Still no Killer Frost. No rumoured return of King Shark. It was nothing more than promotional material for Legends of Tomorrow and even the little 'off' bits of plot they did throw in seemed to be nothing more than padding for the events of the filler episodes. Ollie's son? Yeah, that seemed to serve as nothing more than a 'trigger gimmick' to set up Barry's time travel shenanigans by putting Ollie off his game. The Wells incident? Seemingly nothing more than a reference to 'Barry needs to go faster'. 

Oh well. Maybe we can finally get the actual plots for these series? Maybe we can salvage something in the last few episodes before the mid-season break?

I just don't know what The CW are doing with this. We get it. New series coming out. Yay. Hype hype. We know already. But for the love of god please stop drowning the quality of your other shows to push this new one onto us. My 'hype' is dying out the more you do this guys.

Right.

40k at the weekend and maybe, just maybe I can eke in something MtG related as an apology for missing this week out to you guys.

Donate if you wish, leave a comment if you wish and until next time...

Have fun.

And Now A Schedule

Hello all.

Quiet week, I know. But the holiday pause on TV combined with no donations (so no FNM) and no luck trading or securing a box to open means...well...not a lot that can be done. However, this post is for some good news.

Effective this week The Legendary Nerdling now has a schedule and it is as follows!

Tuesdays - Magic Deck Tech and Discussion. Here I will plan decks, discuss options and consider pros and cons of current concerns as well as give some feedback on recent events for the MtG community.

Thursdays - TV Review Bonanza. Here I will review the current series of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., The Flash and Arrow.

Saturdays - FNM Feedback and Results. Should I get any donations I will attend Friday Night Magic and report the outcome, what was played and so on come Saturday.

Sunday - 40k Rants and Reviews. Product reviews, tactics, army lists...all things 40k shall be on the Sunday.

Scattered liberally will be other TV and movie reviews, game reviews and anything else like product openings.

Hopefully this can help get a pattern going for you, the reader.

Remember folks, always feel free to comment with suggestions and opinions and should you wish to donate (so that a FNM Feedback can be posted up on Saturday or any other thing you wish can be reviewed) feel free to do so with the button over yonder. --->

Until Next Time!

So, no reviews this week...

My bad folks.

Forgot that so many series just disappear around thanksgiving for a week or two, so as a result I've had nothing to watch and review. Oops. Things should hopefully return to normal as of next week.

Unfortunately it doesn't look like there's going to be a FNM for me this week either - no donations so no funds spare to go in and play the deck I posted up earlier in the week. Sadly this means there's probably not going to be anything on Saturday either.

Once again folks, I ask for comments and feedback. This is surprisingly important to any blogger, writer or artist out there. Ultimately I want to do things for you. I want to review the things you want to see reviewed, I want to have educated debates with you, I want feedback from you.

I'd love to keep doing this on my own but I'm beginning to feel this is stagnating just a bit. Even worse when it's a dead week such as this one.

Donations, as always can be made via the button to the right. Comments can be left below.

You can also follow me on Twitter - @RoccoLostInHull

But please, leave comments on what you want to see reviewed, what you want me to watch or play or any suggestions you may have for a regular series of posts. This blog is peaking at 50 viewers every now and then. I want it to reach even more. Spread the word folks, share if you like and please, please please...

Provide some feedback. Good or bad, it's all ultimately good in the end.

MtG: Some Standard Deckbrewing - Mardu Allies

Hello again all.

Do not worry - your regular Flash/Arrow/Agents of Shield review will be up on Thursday...but what I am doing now is something different. As some of you may remember, when I put up the poll a few weeks back one of the concepts I discussed doing was a MtG Deck Tech type series - possibly leading to me attending FNMs, playing the decks out and reviewing and going over my performance on the Saturday.

Of course, this is all donation dependant...so feel free to click the button and donate if you like but for now I'm going to discuss an idea. 

First I will recommend a very handy site - www.shoeboxmtg.com. Now I know cataloging collections is tedious and tiresome but the advantage of doing so is that once it's done it's minimal effort to do again. Furthermore, Shoebox MtG also has a function where you can search decks, going back the past month or two, pulling up decks from the Top 8, 16, 32 etc from sanctioned MtG events and it compares your collection, letting you know what you need to spend to finish a deck or how many cards you are shy of a deck. This is of course great for deckbuilding and brewing as it lets you find a frame you are close to and with a bit of tinkering or splashing you can add to it and substitute what you have for what is missing, or add new things altogether.

And that is just what I chose to do with the deck we are discussing today.

The 'shell' is Kenneth Durant's B/W Allies from the SCG Standard - Rhode Island that took place over a month ago. Tweaking some numbers, splashing a bit more red and substituting what is lacking and we end up with a deck that looks something like.... this.

To break it down here...

3x Ally Encampment
2x Altar's Reap
2x Bloodstained Mire
1x Chasm Guide
1x Crackling Doom
4x Drana's Emissary
2x Drana, Liberator of Malakir
3x Evolving Wilds
3x Expedition Envoy
2x Firemantle Mage
3x Kalastria Healer
2x Kor Bladewhirl
2x Lantern Scout
2x Makindi Patrol
1x March from the Tomb
2x Mountain
5x Plains
1x Resolute Blademaster
2x Retreat to Emeria
3x Serene Steward
2x Smoldering Marsh
2x Stasis Snare
5x Swamp
2x Valorous Stance
3x Zulaport Cutthroat

Sideboard
1x Aligned Hedron Network
2x Angelic Captain
2x Blighted Steppe
2x Despise
1x Felidar Sovereign
1x Harsh Sustenance
1x Quarantine Field
1x Smite the Monstrous
2x Stasis Snare
2x Transgress the Mind

What we have is a deck of several small creatures and a glut of 1, 2 and 3 CMCs throughout. For most decks this is probably a bad idea...but not so for Allies. You want to be able to drop multiple things a turn to trigger the myriad rally effects but you also want to make sure you can always get something down. It is a very, very straightforward aggro deck that relies on a cascade of effects to quickly overrun and swamp the opponent.

Much like the Abzan Warrior decks of Tarkir it's all about synergy. In this case it's Creature type that's super important and best of all? It's cheap. I tweaked the Shell a bit to include some fetch lands and splash a bit more red it as well as a few different allies for different effects. The sideboard is very much an adaptive sideboard...

Which also can turn the deck into a Lifegain deck. Now let me tell you, even without the sideboard elements of the Blighted Steppe, Sustenance and the Sovereign as a win-con this deck gains life fast. Triggering lifelink, the Emissary's proc each turn, the Healer and Cutthroat procs...it swings life fast and with the life swinging it ramps up just as fast.

I feel this could be fun at a local FNM, possibly this Friday should any donations come through - certainly a different pace from my attempts at Temur or Grixis Eldrazi. Much quicker, which is ultimately something needed.

Even better, this is a cheap deck - probably easily set up on MTGO as well. The real cost in actual money is the fetches but take those out and it's a $50 deck. 30 tix on MTGO. 

As always comments are welcome, as are donations and suggestions for anything else you'd like me to see or do.

Jessica Jones....AKA Why Netflix is the Perfect Dream for Marvel's Cinematic Universe

Let's cut straight to the point, shall we?

A few years ago, realising the success of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and how it could cover some of Marvel's huge catalogue of characters that would probably never get full blown movies of their own...combined with getting a whole bunch of licenses back from Fox (Daredevil, the Punisher, Ghost Rider, Blade amongst others) the creative team decided to look through that catalogue.

Yeah, AoS is a solid series...but there's some characters who are just too...dark to fit in with AoS. They don't match its archetype of storyline. And they're not really ones who mesh well with Marvel's planned movies. Street level characters. Characters like Daredevil, the Defenders, the Punisher....

Characters that have a lot of very, very painful backstory to them. Backstory that involves domestic abuse, rape, drugs, alcoholism...stuff you really can't put in movies (not with Marvel's intended audiences) or indeed on TV as it would fall past the watershed.

And there we have Netflix. No ratings. No watershed. Complete freedom to create a series at a time, to give these street level characters the love they deserve. I'm not going to review and sing praise of Daredevil...because it was already incredible. It did a better job at getting the story down and true, we did not see the iconic costume until the last episode...but you know what? That worked. The character fit into the cinematic universe like a charm and the series played very heavily on the fact that a lot of the ghetto and slum districts of major cities would not fall under government surveilance. It also broached the idea that metahumans could come about from different sources- Daredevil gave us the traditional science origin...but also gave us the first hints of mystical influences.

Now, on to Jessica Jones. No spoilers. Just commentary on the storyline, the acting and how wonderfully this series portrayed the darker aspects of the comics it was based off of. Sure, I can comment that it's a huge leap forward for the 'gender issues' that have always surrounded comics. DC's over there fussing about Wonder Woman and still being reluctant to give her a solo movie of her own and Supergirl unfortunately seems...very light and fluffy.

And then Marvel drop this on us. It's equally as dark as Daredevil, it's clever, it has wit and you know what? The fact that the lead is a woman doesn't dampen or hamper the superhero staple one bit. It helps that Marvel chose a sensible character to test this approach with...Ms. Jones dresses sensibly, she's street-smart and here's the catch. No fancy origin. No alien history. Indeed, half the time she does what she does with her wits.

Unfortunately, as much as I would love to sing praise for Krysten Ritter's delightful portrayal of a character who has some tragically dark roots, as well as her wit, her down to earth style and her honest nature...

The show was stolen...by a certain...Purple Man.

What? No. No. Not that purple man...thing...whatever the Grimace actually is...

This one. Holy Christ...Tennant's range is displayed beautifully throughout this series. For someone whose rise to fame came from playing such a lighthearted character (or that's how everyone sees the Doctor) you have to also realise...that character was very, very dark in his nature. Some of the Doctor's lines are brutal...

And it's no different with Tennant's Kilgrave. His performance is genuinely disturbing and reaches a level that's only truly obtainable through Netflix with its lack of ratings or watershed. And so it should. The character in the comics also went down a very...very dark path. I will warn you now. 

Those panels alone...yeah. Squickworthy. To see this series respect this sort of perturbing darkness is huge. To see Tennant portral the Purple Man's emotions so vividly...from the creepy to the controlling to the outraged tantrums...yeaaaaaah.

Not to say that he was the only star of the show. In fact, it's hard to focus on just one person. Every character had life. Admittedly some were more loathsome than others but you sort of connected with every face you came across. The fact that Luke Cage became a prominent figure...well, not only is that a pleasant nod to the relationship in the comics..but it's also good for setting up his own series. 

I've seen some other reviews complain about some...fairly inane points to be honest. So let's address those here.

Why hasn't SHIELD, Hydra or some other organisation picked up on X's activities? Because the big organisations don't care so much about what happens in a run down district of a major city. There are no significantly big events to warrant their attention and the characters involved are not actively seeking attention.

Why don't the characters mention, comment on or care about what happened from Daredevil? Again, because these shows are street level. There is mention of Daredevil at the very end but I'll be honest here. Neither side sought publicity. The events of a corrupt crimelord being brought down...not really significant since it's always implied this sort of thing is practically commonplace about Hell's Kitchen.

Why are there no cameos from the big names? Again, these are not the events to warrant their attention. At the time of these shows they were off dicking about after Hydra or whatever. I doubt you're going to send the big guns in for a report that a car was lifted up.

What I do hope this leads to....?

Going from this and assuming that the other Netflix shows are well done...and that Daredevil Season 2 is also relatively smooth (and bless it for giving us The Punisher)? I hope we'll see a 'New Avengers' story arc. This is possible with Marvel having partially gotten the rights back for Spider-Man and one could hope that Fox relinquish their death grip on the X-franchise so we can get a Wolverine...although at this point it would have to be a 'new' Wolverine since Jackman's contract is up and I doubt he'd step back in.

Unfortunately, Marvel confirming that Spider-Man is still going to be a teenage kid in Civil War means that should we ever see a New Avengers arc...well...we're going to miss out on one gem of interaction.

Yeah. That interaction. Where Luke Cage felt threatened by Peter Parker's past history with Jessica.

As always folks...

Thanks for reading, feel free to comment and feel free to donate as well...FNM this week is Standard so £6 would be a gem to rustle up for an article on Saturday...but if not, well, not to be.

State of the Blog: Results and the Nerdling Promise!

Hello all.

Time for an update and a promise of sorts. As you can see, to the left there is now a Donation button. Allow me to explain why.

Last week I put up a poll - asking whether or not people wanted this blog to become dedicated to a specific aspect or to remain a general all-rounder with a variety of topics. The two votes and two comments on the last State of the Blog post made it clear - I should remain with a variety of topics.

However, I am still putting up a donation button and allow me to explain why.

I love reviewing things. I love opening product, seeing what I've pulled and I'd love to start regularly attending local Friday Night Magics and to make a regular series of Saturday posts reviewing the outcome of the night, what I pulled, what I drafted, deck-tech and the like. However, there is one thing that holds me back.

And it doesn't hold me back for FNM either. It prevents me from getting games to review, it prevents me from doing a lot of thing and in the long run this could hamper me. Money. Currently I am unemployed, hunting jobs but also having to put a lot of bills on slow burning arrangements which means that when I do get a job it'll bite me in the arse and I'll be paying back a lot over time.

So with that in mind...

I have decided to ask for Donations. But let's lay down some rules and make a promise to you, the Reader.

• 1) Donations will be used for content for the Blog and nothing more. This is not food money. This is not rent money. This is money to either attend events, purchase products to open/play and review or to contribute toward adding new features to the blog, such as getting a decent camera set up for video reviews, getting MTGO set up to play online and do deck tech there or to play specific games or review specific product as requested by the readers (You should be able to leave a message there!)
• 2) Nerdling Blog Posts will become more regular, constant and consistent. Donations will help to create a regular series (a FNM series, a MTGO series, a PC Game review series, a 'Loot Crate' review series) of posts that shall be put up on a set day, circumstances permitting. Should the donator wish they will be accredited and thanked (always thanked, seriously). And when the Nerdling does eventually find a new job and start working, blog quality and frequency will not suffer as a result.
• 3) Donations go toward whatever the donator requests. Completely in your control guys. You have the final say on what to watch, what to read, what to open and review. If this means I get stuck watching chick flicks for a month then so be it.
• 4) The Nerdling will spend donations wisely - he will find the best deals he can for sealed product or games and make the full use of every pound, penny and dollar donated his way to further the growth of the Blog.
• 5) Should The Legendary Nerdling grow into something big, get sponsors and get product etc. donated then the Nerdling will start to do things like Giveaways and raffles. The Nerdling will give back to those who have given to him.

There. Those are now my rules. I must follow them. And rest assured I will.

But let us give you a breakdown of costs so you understand.

What Does Everything Cost

Local FNM Standard - £6

Local FNM Draft - £13

Local Club Draft (Chaos Drafts, Block Drafts, Legendary Drafts etc) - £10

Local Game Day - £6

Local Pre-Release - £25

Cost of average PC Game  - £40

Cost of average Indie PC Game - £10

Cost of Sealed Booster Box (online vendors) - £75 (not including postage)

Cost of Sealed Fat Pack (online vendors) - £35 (not including postage) 

Cost of Booster Pack - £4

Cost of MTGO set up - $10

Cost of Digital Camera to record videos etc - £150ish (?)

Cost of watching a chick flick currently in cinemas  - £7

As you can see, it adds up. I've been very fortunate in being able to trade for things until now - I hope you guys realise that, for this blog so far I've spent/traded for £275 worth of boxes, games and events. But now comes the hard slog.

Thank you all for reading so far. Please, feel free to donate if you can or want to and as always feel free to make suggestions about what you want me to watch, read, play or open to review for you and I shall try to do my very best to get it done for you.

But seriously...please don't send me to watch a month's worth of chick flicks. You think my suffering through Arrow is bad....

Big Catch Up 3: Hey Look, Plot! Poke it with a stick!

I'm at something of a loss here. Really, I am. After several weeks of bland disappointment from both the Marvel and DC television camps this week happened. This week happened without too much stalling, needless sister series filler or resurrection plots. This week happened and my word, it was good.

Let's start with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. shall we? Let's go over some key points from the past few weeks...

The past few weeks...were slow. They dragged out. They showed no promise of Inhumans despite an epidemic of them. They showed no progression of Grant Ward, despite his status as a recurring series villain and the hype that built up over his new Hydra. They introduced a big bad in the form of a filler character who promptly seemed to drop straight off the record again after the somewhat fruitless 'Agent May has feelings' situation happened. Again.

What could they possibly do to fix this?

Well, to start with open up with a Grant Ward centric scene. Advance the plot just a bit more from the 'Ooooh, Hydra' tease and see that there is some serious concern about the character. And straight into a fight scene where Ward demonstrates what happens when a rogue agent is a rogue agent. Now I know some people are dissatisfied by how easily he seems to dust off his attackers..'they're meant to be trained Hydra agents!' they would cry. As though trained Hydra agents in the comics were more than faceless mooks.

Sorry, trained Hydra agents don't cut it against a guy who was Hydra trained, SHIELD trained and personal pet project of the original Deathlok trained. Yeah, the super spy angle may be off-putting but really, after Cal you lost the right to complain that the villain is seemingly all powerful. It's more the personality we should be looking at...

And Grant Ward is still a big mystery.

Further on, we discover that Coulson isn't as unsuspecting about his new not-quite girlfriend as we all thought. Referencing something she said a number of episodes back he sets into motion a plan to figure out what is going on. Which goes into another golden staple for the series. The comedy infiltration angle.

Now, this...this is a gem. The angle of Hunter as a cynical hacker for profit whose sole purpose seems to be to piss people off is hilarious. For a character who was little more than a minor background character they're doing a lot with him and I for one love it.

Now some people complain that Hunter was not the right choice. Why send him when they could have sent Daisy? Well, for one I'd like to assume that the ATCU are rather concerned with Inhumans and would recognise Daisy a mile off. Her being a portable earthquake generator Inhuman and all. Same with Lincoln. They are on the 'list' so sending them in...wouldn't be infiltration at all.

The plan's convoluted but the reveals that come from this sequence of events are huge. First, we discover the fish oil capsules and the cryo-tubes of failed experiements. Then we discover the Inhuman agent. And we also discover that Andrew/Lash isn't there at all but having a bit of a chat...with a certain Gideon Malick.

Remember the whole bugbear about the lack of Inhumans and the relatively slow, stale pace for a season that we hoped would be significantly more action-packed, especially since we have a proper meta-scale agent now? Well, it would seem that Hydra are trying to make Inhumans. We might be getting a full on war.

Of course, the reveal about Malick at this point was inevitable...Coulson cornering Ros and getting the pieces together just seemed 'mandatory'.

But wait, there's more big reveal coming. Grant tracks the vault down. And Malick starts to explain the history of Hydra...at the same time as Fitz pieces together the logo on the uniform and the symbol from the castle.

Hail Hydra indeed. Slightly disappointed it wasn't The Hellfire Club but considering the stranglehold that Fox has on the X-family....it would have been too much to expect that to sneak through.

All told a very solid improvement. Grant Ward, action, further reinforcement and promises of action...yes please. Let's pick up the pace and get going!

Now, let's move on to CW's The Flash. 

Gorilla Warfare. Cheesy pun aside it's always good to have a Grodd episode. I personally prefer the episodes with proper metas that aren't just 'a guy that can do X'. And the fact that Grodd's not Earth-2 related or indeed even connected to Zoom is just that much better.

This guys is how you do a 'filler' episode when you want to stall the plot just a little bit. You keep up the action but you keep it distanced from your primary plotline. And Grodd was always a solid go-to for this. Now, sadly, this isn't the Grodd we know and love from the comics...no race of super intelligent apes...though Garrick hints to that Grodd on Earth-2. But Grodd is still Grodd.

Strong, smart, cunning. The plot is relatively straight forward. Grodd steals stuff. Grodd kidnaps the lovely Ms Snow. And because Barry is having his long overdue crisis of faith it's up to the 'normals' to figure out a way to save her.

Seeing Wells in the 'spare' Reverse Flash costume...well...that sent shivers down some spines. And when Cisco decided to coach him...oh my indeed. The uncanny similarity was even more apparant and though it didn't hold up long against Grodd it certainly was enough to give everyone a case of the jeebies. Wells as a character is dominant and terrifying...even without his last season revelations. The fact that Earth-2's version pulled off the same level of terror with the 'son I never had' line was just too good.

And fathers were an important theme. The return of Barry's father to pull him out of his funk (thank you CW for not making this 6 episodes of emo Barry), the relationship between Wells and Grodd and Iris' secret concerning Joe's possible unknown son. Who, if it isn't Wally West...I might just have to find something to eat.

I mean, come on guys. First you give us Jessie Quick on Earth-2 and now you tease to a mystery male West that is going to have to be Wally.

The only let down for me? The mandatory Hawkgirl bits. Bleh. I am getting more and more tired of this. I can not stress exactly how pointless this whole angle is and I hope that once Legends of Tomorrow is underway that we never see a return to this style of direction again. Introduce new series in web shorts, animated clips or special one off episodes, sure. But please, please do not eat half a season with filler and fluff for two of your shows.

Speaking of the second show...

Summary time. 

First, it seems the plot points that were just wrapped up...may have been incorrectly wrapped up! Alright. Thank you. Thank you for not having such a bland and meaningless ending to the Diggle saga. The brother being alive twist was...I don't know yet. But I am glad it's not as cut and dry as the pathetic excuse of last week.

Thankfully, it's an episode with no Sarah. Thank fucking god for that. And Roy's involvement is as it used to be - helpful when he needed to be helpful, not to the point of completely dominating the show.

We get a little bit more going on...mainly Darhk stepping foot into Ollie's politics, learning that Captain Lance is no longer trusted...ok. Fine. We get Thea losing control and nearly rampaging...and the odd discovery that Darhk's 'magic' and her do not mix. Okay....?

But something about Arrow still isn't sitting right with me. It seems like the show is still trying to pick up the pieces of something. The flashbacks are important...we know that...but I would really like if we could get some sort of significant reveal and soon? Please,

For now Arrow is rapidly dropping down in interest for me. To the point where I might stop bothering. We need something to spice it up...something to shake the rather stagnant position everyone is in up. 

Yeah, the Arrow review is brief. Meh. That is how I feel about it. 

So, overall...?

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and The Flash were great this week. They both went back to their roots and that helps a lot. There is a lesson here...if you want something to have impact...or you want to stall something...make sure you have options. Present it in a familiar way, don't let up on the action and make sure it's still relevant.

Arrow. I...yeah. No. Come on. I appreciate the fact there was no LoT filler. I really do. But I do wish you'd either pick up the pace a little bit or realise what made the impact of your earlier seasons significant. We need big reveals. We need drama. We need something besides the mandatory half an hour of faffing about.