So where to begin when looking at this week...did they pick up the ball they dropped a few weeks back? Are they turning these potential train wrecks back around and getting on the happy town express that caused these series to take off in the first place?
Well, the Nerdling can say...yes. Sort of. Kind of.
So, let's start with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
I've noticed, after the events of this week that there seems to be a rather unfortunate pattern with Agent May and who she chooses to get jiggy with, to put it bluntly. So much so that I'm probably now going to start using her as a show villain indicator. Is she dating someone? That's the bad guy.
For those of you still confused...last week's big, unimpressive reveal was the identity of Lash, the big bad scary inhuman as Andrew. May's ex-husband who she sort-of kind-of was getting back together with. You know, just as she sort-of, kind-of was getting together with Grant Ward way back a few seasons ago.
Did I call Andrew a minor side character that no one gave a fuck about last week? Yes. Yes I did. Because unfortunately Andrew is still a minor side character. He's the guy that appears in random episodes and only became semi-regular with this season. And lo and behold, seven episodes in and he's being taken back out again.
Which is a pity. Lash, as a comic character actually had this really strange pseudo-religious zealot motive behind him - culling the weak inhumans who were not worthy of their heritage. It would have been a nice nod to the plot of the last season and maybe an indicator that this ancient culture that had planned to Inhumanise the world had actually been intelligent enough to have a Plan B. But instead, Andrew-Lash's motives remain...unclear. Was he doing it because the Inhuman situation was stressing people out? Was he doing it for 'the lols'? We never get that. Nor do we really get a sufficient explanation as to why Lincoln came back, conveniently remembering the Ledger MacGuffin and then went full aggro batshit crazy on a capture mission.
Of course we got the standard 'May is human, see her be sad' approach which pretty much always happens with any sort of big villain reveal it would seem, we got some special effects and we got an almost artificially quick resolution to this doldrum of muddled plots that the series seemed to have blundered into.
Not perfect but certainly not as droll and filler-like as last week was. And hey, the ending though. We finally get to see something more happening. A hint of a deeper plot. Admittedly Grant still feels like he's being used as a tool but that reveal made things spicy indeed.
I honestly don't know where AoS is going to go now. Lash...unfortunately seemed like an odd filler, when he could have potentially been so much more. Now we sort of don't have much of an indicator as to an underlying plot other than 'Oooh, Spooky Sneaky Hydra.'
They picked the ball up. They just didn't do anything with it. A step in the right direction but we need some serious improvements over the next few weeks.
If there's one shining star of a show this week that not only picked up the ball but managed to win the game with a perfect point shot in the last minute...it's The Flash. Not only did the show get back to its roots with the brilliantly lighthearted 'set up', complete with banter, awkward moments and a really, really poorly enacted plan with hilariously bad acting involved...
It knocked us square off our feet and reminded us of exactly how serious a threat Zoom was. And boy oh boy, what a brutal beating that was. It was the thing Barry needed. The beatdown to bring him back down to earth, to realise he still had a lot to learn and still had a lot of improvements he could be making. The big bad properly established himself as a big bad...in the last ten minutes of the episode.
Now, a lot of people are trying to question exactly who Zoom is. Personally, I'm in love with the fact he seems so monstrous, his costume is jet black, he effectively 'killed' the Earth-2 Flash by stealing his speed and has been mentioned to be specifically targetting speedsters. All this reminds me of something that crops up a number of times in the Flash comics and relates specifically to the Flash family - specifically speedsters.
The whole Black Flash concept. The death of speedsters. But wait, Zoom gets even better. We learn the name and 'nickname' of Earth-2's Dr. Wells' daughter, who Zoom has as a prisoner. Jessie Quick.
Jessie Quick? Wait.
Jessie Quick! Now, currently she has no powers that we know of. However, the comic Jessie Quick is another speedster, another part of the Flash family as it were. Perhaps we're being teased a bit? I mean, why did Zoom take her specifically? Sure, perhaps to get at Harrison Wells. Or perhaps, because Zoom is the 'death' of speedsters so targetted a girl who essentially would have been another Speedster. After all, was Wells not Thawne in the last season? Maybe the Speedster trait is genetic? Who knows.
Hats off to the Flash for being so brutally good. It returned to its light hearted roots, advanced its underlying plot and gave us a big bad intro that pretty much floored everyone. Zoom is indeed monstrous and his savage introduction was a grim reminder of how serious a threat he was. You can only hype someone up so much before you need them to mop the floor with the hero to prove it.
Ok, so, The Flash got the ball and scored. Let's see how its 'sister' show did.
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Ok. So, one show picked up the ball at least. One show picked up the ball and performed a miracle with it. And Arrow...forgot what the ball was. As I predicted, another bland filler week. But wait, it gets better. Not only is it bland filler for Legends of Tomorrow but it's tackily done and forcibly inserted into the underlying plot.
Ray's alive! And captured by Damien Darhk! Oh no! Wait, what? What? Why was Darhk randomly shoved into the 'let's bring back Ray' filler? That makes no sense. Seriously. It makes no frigging sense.
I wanted to hope that maybe Arrow wouldn't me another bland and uninteresting week of disappointment, but no, can't have nice things now, can we? Not only do we get Felicity going full sob story over Ray being alive (and captured by the series villain who no one even knew about - what a twist!) but we have yet more Sarah angst as she just starts randomly offing people on missions. Welp. Ok. Guess we need more Sarah filler.
Between that and the characer of Laurel becoming increasingly 'damp'...wow. I don't even know why I bother anymore with this show. It appears to have been hit a lot worse than The Flash in terms of bland Legends of Tomorrow filler material...you know, despite only two characters of the entire sodding cast coming from Arrow whilst the majority of the rest are Flash intros. Wait, what? Ok, how is it that Arrow has squandered half its current season lifetime on meaningless filler fluff for two characters...and yet The Flash has not only done it with one less episode but also for six characters?!
Seriously. Arrow contributes White Canary (Sarah) and Atom (Ray). The Flash is contributing Captain Cold, Heatwave, Both halves of Firestorm, Hawkgirl, probably Hawkman and in essence Rip Hunter (who was eluded to in Season 1 and to be fair the whole other dimension/time travel gig seems to be a Flash thing).
I'm at a loss here. Arrow misses the ball, stumbles about a bit, distracts us for a few seconds with Felicity's mother's breasts, kicks the ball away for another flashback and then trips over its own shoes, curling back up into a weeping fetal ball of filler episode
In fact, the only 'good' thing about Arrow at the moment seems to be the inklings of Mister Terrific that we only get to see on fleeting occasions while they faff about in filler.
Overall?
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - better. Not good but better.
The Flash - Yes please, can we have more of this? Thanks.
Arrow - No. NO. NO.
I thank you all for reading....
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