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.