arrow-8 (1)

Arrow S04E09 “Dark Waters” REVIEW

by with No Comment Reviews

Arrow S04E09 “Dark Waters” REVIEW

arrow-8 (1)

stars 4.5

Airing in the UK on Sky One, Weds 8pm
Writers: Wendie Mericle, Ben Sokolowski
Director: John Behring

 

Essential plot points:

  • Oliver’s campaign organises a Christmas clean-up event of Star City bay, which is going well until HIVE sends a drone to machine gun everyone. Felicity manages to hack the drone and stop it killing.
  • Diggle tries to talk to his brother, still locked up in a cell in the Arrowcave. The drugs Darkh uses to control his ghosts have worn off, but Andy remains loyal to HIVE.
  • Felicity’s mother is going through the decorations at the apartment to make sure there’s suitable Hanukah representation at Oliver’s campaign holiday party (Felicity being Jewish, remember) when she discovers Oliver’s engagement ring, hidden since the start of the season. She and Felicity think Oliver is going to propose.
  • Oliver calls a press conference where he reveals the attack was caused by HIVE, and outs Damian Darhk as its leader, showing a photo of him to the press.
  • Malcolm drops by to check Thea; she still doesn’t have any bloodlust, and thinks she’s cured. Malcolm is worried it’s because of a power he doesn’t fully understand yet.
  • At the holiday party, Curtis introduces Felicity to his husband, who reveals how he proposed, dismissing the “hiding a ring in the food” method of straight people. Felicity twigs Oliver was going to propose with the souffle back in episode one, and confronts him about not doing so.
  • Then Damian Darhk drops by, guns down the security guards, force-pushes Oliver through a window and abducts Felicity, Diggle and Thea.
  • Oliver goes on a rampage through the city, attacking ghosts to find out where his friends are, but getting nowhere until Malcolm gives him one of HIVE’s seconded radios. He makes contact with Darhk to make a trade: him for his friends.

arrow-7 (1)

  • Darhk takes him to a warehouse where he reveals HIVE was cultivating algae in the bay to be used to create a poison gas – which he demonstrates in a gas chamber.
  • He lets Oliver see Felicity, then has her put in the gas chamber with Diggle and Thea, before switching on the poison gas, telling Oliver that by killing his friends, he removes any need for Oliver to resist HIVE and he can be their puppet mayor. They’re rescued by Laurel and Malcolm, wearing the Green Arrow suit, just in the nick of time.
  • Team Arrow fights its way out of the warehouse with Oliver, as Oliver, and Malcolm, as the Arrow, pinning down Darhk before blowing the place up with explosive arrows. However, with no body found, the team believe he’s escaped.
  • He has indeed, and in another location takes HIVE’s leaders through an artificial cornfield to show how they’ve created breathable air, below a layer of poison gas – as part of Project Genesis.
  • Oliver switches on a Christmas tree in the bay as part of the campaign’s bid to unite the city, before proposing to Felicity. As they drive away, gunmen open fire on the limo. Oliver manages to drive them to safety, but as he pulls Felicity from the car it’s clear she’s been shot and lies bleeding and dying in his arms…
  • In flashbacks to Lian Yu, Taiana teaches Oliver how to dive, so he can swim to the wreck of the ship in the bay and retrieve its charts of the island. On the way back he fights a shark, before being discovered by Conklin and his soldiers.

 

Review:

arrow-5 (1)

Now all that Legends Of Tomorrow stuff is out the way (at least for the moment) Arrow can pick up where it left off earlier this year with the main season storyline: the battle with Damian Darhk for control of Star City. And with just one episode to take us into the mid-season break, it does so in assured style.

We take a big step forward in discovering what HIVE is up to, although the motivations aren’t completely clear yet, the methodology certainly is. Interestingly, it seems to bear a certain resemblance to Ra’s Al Ghul’s plot in Batman Begins too, not least because of an interesting line of dialogue, almost thrown away, about how humanity needed the Nazis as a “reset, a do-over” to make things better.

It helps with all this that McDonough is so damn good. As Arrow supervillains go, he’s the strongest of the four series: a creature of evil that not even the League Of Shadows wants to go up against properly, and McDonough is clearly having a ball playing the role, cranking up the villainy with knowing glee. It’s reminiscent, to some extent, of Michelle Gomez’s Missy in Doctor Who – a panto-esque bad guy who turns round and murders people in cold blood just to remind you that behind the OTT grinning is a genuine psychopath.

Interestingly, too, among all this is a story of parents and daughters, and of protecting those we love. We discover Darhk has a little girl and an almost picture-book domestic life which he returns to after committing atrocities, while the actions of Captain Lance and Malcolm Merlyn are done to protect those they love: namely Laurel and Thea.

There’s a knowing moment between the two fathers as Lance tries to explain his working with Darhk to Laurel which again helps to tie the thematic structure of the episode together.

As Laurel says, these are familial relationships that are “unconventional”, be it her and Lance or Malcolm and Thea, or even Felicity and Lance, which becomes a possibility as it emerges her mother and the captain are still in a relationship. The nature of unconventional ties and love sits alongside Felicity and Oliver’s relationship; with Oliver having not proposed because their lives changed and became dangerous again. Both Felicity and Laurel berate their loved ones – Oliver and Lance respectively – for taking decisions about their respective futures rather than letting the women decide for themselves, something that becomes a recurring message through the story and contrasted with the relationship Diggle has with his captive brother.

arrow-10 (1)

The ending of the episode’s as shocking as it is inevitable, as Oliver and Felicity’s limo is gunned down, although quite why the CEO of the city’s biggest company and its only mayoral candidate – who’s already been the victim of a drone attack a day earlier – wouldn’t be under heavy police or security escort’s a bit of a gaffe.

The clear implication is meant to be that it’s Felicity we see in the grave in the flash forward at the start of the season, and this is the moment that takes us there, although we’re not convinced yet, not least as the episode doesn’t dwell on a final visual of Felicity, crashing hastily to the end logo as Oliver takes her pulse. If this were truly the end, we’d presumably be getting the full On Her Majesty’s Secret Service treatment rather than a crash out and a cliffhanger.

We now get more than a month off until Arrow returns. A crossover wobble aside, the first chunk of series four has been superlative stuff. Here’s hoping it doesn’t indulge too much over the holidays and come back out of shape.

 

The Good:

arrow-13 (1)

  • The final sequence, as Oliver and Felicity are shot up while Damian goes home to his own domestic bliss – complete with open fire, wife and daughter, scored to “Little Drummer Boy” – is perfectly done, and leaves the show on a hell of a cliffhanger for its winter break.
  • Barrowman. Not only does Malcolm get to be a hero here (although with a glaringly obvious stunt double) but Barrowman gets the best lines after McDonough, to the point it properly teases a real Merlyn v Darhk face-off at some point. And who wouldn’t want to see that?

arrow-2 (1)

  • David Ramsay. The two scenes in which Diggle gets to face his incarcerated brother are the standout moments in an episode full of stand-out moments. Arrow is, at times, guilty of not giving Ramsay enough meaty moments but when it does he always delivers. Kudos too to Eugene Byrd, who plays Andy.
  • In an episode of high drama, there’s some beautifully played moments of comedy – especially at the party, as Oliver and Felicity meet Curtis and Paul, his husband, then Felicity stumbles across her mum and Lance cavorting. Awkward Christmas parties. We’ve all been there.

 

The Bad:

arrow-9 (1)

  • Right, let’s get this out the way first. The shark. At least they don’t actually show us Oliver fighting with a giant shark in the waters of Lian Yu, just him being chased by it and the aftermath with a nice bite out of his side. But it’s still an absolutely bloody preposterous moment.
  • On top of that, it doesn’t help that the CGI work for Oliver swimming underwater is pretty cheap looking. I kept expecting Darwin the Dolphin to pop up and swim alongside him. They’re not even shots that add anything to the story – just scene bridges, and could be cut with no harm done to the story.
  • The one problem with the closeness between Arrow and The Flash is that it exposes the moments when having someone about who can run at 500mph would save a lot of problems when going up against a super villain and his gas chamber, especially in a situation where time is of the essence. Given what a damp squib the crossover actually was last week, you’d have thought a call to Barry and co would have been more useful here…

arrow-4 (1)

  • Oliver’s plan to expose Darhk and HIVE is… odd. To say the least. Going on live TV the same day someone shot several people and saying the man responsible is someone nobody’s ever heard of, who heads up a gang of soldiers – and that coming from a mayoral candidate rather than, say, the police or the army – is pretty far-fetched. That the journalists don’t question it is even sillier. It’s not how any sensible, logical world operates.
  • IT’S ANOTHER DAMNED FIGHT IN ANOTHER DAMNED WAREHOUSE.

 

And the Random:

  • Director John Behring is a television veteran, having directed episodes of Roswell and The Cape for those of you with long enough memories. His association with Arrow goes all the way back to its sixth episode.
  • The music over the closing scenes is legendary Christmas carol “The Little Drummer Boy”, dating from the 1940s. It’s been covered a bunch of times, most famously by the Trapp Family Singers, but by artists as unlikely as Pee Wee Herman, The Jackson 5 and the Dandy Warhols. It also featured in one of the best moments in modern television: the finale of The West Wing episode “In Excelsis Deo”. Go check it out here RIGHT NOW if you haven’t seen it.

arrow-12 (1)

  • Presumably Oliver fished the engagement ring out the bowl he’d hidden it in, if it’s now back in a box and stuck away with the holiday decorations. Although now we know he can dive and hold his breath for ages, perhaps he’ll nick Curtis’ husband’s idea and hide the ring under water.

Review by Iain Hepburn. You can listen to his podcast at www.fromthesublime.com

 

• Read our other Arrow season four reviews

 

arrow-15

Arrow S04E08 “Legends Of Yesterday” REVIEW

by with No Comment Reviews

Arrow S04E08 “Legends Of Yesterday” REVIEW

arrow-15

stars 3

Airing in the UK on Sky One, Weds 8pm
Writers: Brian Ford Sullivan, Marc Guggenheim, Greg Berlanti
Director: Thor Freudenthal

 

Essential plot points:

  • Team Arrow and Team Flash get out of the city to hide in a remote farmhouse while they plan their attack on Savage.
  • Oliver returns to Central City to speak to Samantha. He asks if her son is his child, but she denies it. However, Oliver sneaks a sample of the boy’s hair for DNA testing.
  • Malcolm Merlyn arranges a meeting between Oliver, Barry and Savage to negotiate. On his way there though, Barry is overtaken by a ghost version of himself running in parallel.
  • Savage gives the heroes 24 hours to hand over Kendra and Carter or he will wipe out both Central City and Star City.
  • Kendra doesn’t want to put people’s lives at risk, but Carter tries to train her to fight and to develop her Hawkgirl powers.
  • Team Arrow tracks down a tape from the 1970s that reveals more about Randall Savage – and how to stop him, using an object related to the calamity that created his immortality.
  • Oliver has Barry run a DNA test on the boy’s hair which confirms his parental status. He asks Barry not to tell Felicity what the results of the test were, claiming it’s to do with Damien Darhk, but Felicity sees the printout.
  • Oliver goes back to see Samantha, who reveals his mother gave her $1M to keep the child out Oliver’s life and not tell him about it. She never cashed the cheque, but has kept away. Oliver wants to be a father to the boy, but Samantha insists he can’t tell anyone about the child to prevent him getting pulled into Oliver’s destructive lifestyle.
  • But when he returns to the farmhouse, Felicity confronts him about lying about his son, and breaks off their relationship.

arrow-7

  • Barry, Oliver, Kendra and Carter go to confront Savage, but their efforts fail. He kills the reincarnated Egyptians, then vaporises the city with the energy staff. Barry outruns the blast, and goes so fast he travels back in time a day.
  • Barry tells Oliver about his travelling back in time, and that Oliver being distracted causes their defeat. Oliver decides not to have the test done just now, and focuses on how to beat Savage – and change the future.
  • Cisco speaks to Kendra and tells her not to focus on being a warrior – which failed to activate her powers in the alternate future – but on the priestess aspect of her past instead, as she’s a caring person. This triggers a flashback that reveals how the lovers originally died – and how to stop Savage.
  • This time the full team Arrow joins the fight to stop Savage, and the new plan works, with Savage being destroyed.
  • Oliver returns to see Samantha, but as per the now erased timeline she insists he can’t tell anyone about his son. He agrees, and lies to Felicity when they return home.
  • Kendra and Carter leave Central City to help others – Cisco gives her a GPS tracker so he can find her if she gets in trouble.
  • Malcolm Merlyn scoops up the dusty remains of Savage into an urn, as he will live on forever…
  • In flashback, we learn how Chay-Ara and Khufu were lovers in ancient Egypt, before being discovered in bed together by Savage. He killed them both with a sword as strangely radioactive meteorites fell from the sky.

 

arrow-12

 

Review:

Last year’s first big crossover between Arrow and Flash felt like a really big deal. The idea of them going head-to-head, then joining forces and cementing a friendship felt important. But since then they’ve been popping up in each other’s shows so often, it’s almost a regular occurance.

All of which makes “Legends Of Yesterday” feel, if not bad, then at least nothing special.

The problem with “Legends Of Yesterday” is that there’s so much going on in here that has to be resolved, it’s almost unwieldy. There’s finishing off the story started in The Flash, continuing the build for Legends Of Tomorrow, plus developing both the Oliver and Felicity relationship and – two years after it first was hinted at in the show – starting the “Oliver’s secret son” storyline.

The latter’s inclusion is almost too much for the plot to take. While it makes sense to develop it while most of the action is in Central City, and the time travel element allows them to use it as an extra factor in the defeat, it feels like a story that could have been expanded over another couple of episodes. The pacing of Arrow so far this season has been largely perfectly judged, with the plots unfolding at a good rate compared to last term.

But the whole “Oliver sees his ex, meets his son, gets sworn to secrecy and lies to Felicity for the first time (twice)” could have been spun out another episode or two, even allowing for the mid-season festive break coming up shortly. The interesting development it might bring – Felicity’s anger and upset – is instantly undone, too, undermining Emily Bett Rickard’s heartfelt performance in the scene.

arrow-11

Elsewhere so much time is spent developing the stories of Hawkman and Hawkgirl that the regular Team Arrow suffers; indeed, Laurel gets so little to do this week she could have been replaced with a shop window dummy and it wouldn’t have made that much difference, while Caitlin barely even gets a look in.

Of course, that’s not necessarily a problem if you take this in isolation as an episode of Arrow, but as the voiceover makes clear the shows, and especially these episodes, are supposed to be seen as a unit.

It doesn’t help as well that Vandal Savage is, well, just there. As a villain he’s not hugely compelling, as a threat he’s fairly well dispatched and as a performance he doesn’t feel anywhere near as dangerous or frankly as big as you’d want him to be. Perhaps we’ve been spoiled by Neal McDonough’s presence as Arrow’s big bad this year, but Casper Crump’s Rasputin-with-kitchen-equipment feels distinctly small time.

arrow-1

Likewise our two relative newcomers – Ciara Renee and the appropriately named Falk Hentschel – don’t exactly overwhelm with charisma either. It doesn’t help that Hentschel looks uncannily like Coldplay frontman Chris Martin; reason alone to want Savage to beat him, surely?

This all sounds negative and it shouldn’t be. “Legends Of Yesterday” is a perfectly decent episode of Arrow, especially visually – not only do the trademark fight sequences work well, but the FX team deserve real credit for managing to make Carter and Kendra’s flight look real and solid, although quite why they’ve never worked out how to do the same for Ray Palmer remains a mystery.

The destruction of the city and the gruesome nuclear blast-esque deaths in the pre-altered timeline are spectacular, looking almost like Dr Manhattan’s exploding of people in Tiresome Hack Snyder’s godawful Watchmen film; appropriate enough, as the Hawk costumes look decidedly like Nite Owl’s outfit from that movie.

It says a lot about the strength of both series currently that even an average episode of Arrow feels significantly stronger and more enjoyable than some of season three’s shakiest moments, but “Legends Of Yesterday” feels distinctly average at times, when it should be a big, loud, blow-away moment in the show’s progression. If last year’s big cross-over event was The Avengers, this is decidedly more Age Of Ultron.

 

The Good:

arrow-9

  • It’s worth saying again, the effects for Savage destroying the city are astonishing; up there with the best Arrow’s ever done.
  • Thea makes a cheeky comment about superheroes hiding out in a farmhouse sounding like something she’s seen in a film. It’s a gag that seems especially pertinent given this seems to be a farmhouse owned by an archery expert with an apparently secret family…
  • Barrowman. Especially the scene where he threatens Oliver if any harm comes to Thea. Given his winter normally involves him doing panto in Glasgow with the Krankies, he’s got the better end of the deal this year. (Incidentally, Hasselhoff’s doing that panto this year…)
  • Director Thor Freudenthal grades the scenes in Ancient Egypt differently and brings the colour palette way down to washed out yellows, browns and greys. Given how colourful Arrow normally looks, it’s a distinct contrast, and makes the sequences as the rocks fall from the sky even more distinctive.

 

The Bad:

  • For all this is the big confrontation with an immortal waving about a magic staff to kill two reincarnated flying Egyptians, it ends with a fight in a warehouse. Again. I know the stunt team are good at this kind of thing, but occasionally a different kind of ending would be nice.

arrow-16

  • This feels more like a Flash story featuring Team Arrow, especially given it mainly takes place in Central City, but especially given the final shot of poor Oliver meeting his son, playing with Flash action figures, in a bedroom covered in Flash posters. Grief, how to give a guy a complex.
  • At the risk of this sounding skeezy, if you’re going to all the trouble of creating Egyptian costumes and sets for your flashbacks, having poor Chay-ara in very visible modern underwear doesn’t half ruin the effort. Design better costumes, for goodness sake.
  • Apparently Felicity’s magic laptop can stream betamax videos without any source of actual player? Aye, right.

 

And the Random:

  • Editor’s interjection: I wrote the review for The Flash half of this crossover without reading Iain’s review first and vice versa. It’s uncanny how similar some of the comments are, right down to the Age Of Ultron comparisons! Back to Iain now…
  • Arrow’s trend for turning to cinema directors continues with Thor Freudenthal returning to the show for his fourth episode (he did two of last season’s key stories, plus the season four opener). He also directed hit kids film Diary Of A Wimpy Kid and the second Percy Jackson film Sea Of Monsters – which was scripted by Arrow showrunner Marc Guggenheim.
  • The big confrontation (both times) takes place at Jurgens Industrial, presumably a reference to former Green Arrow artist Dan Jurgens.
  • The Staff Of Horus doesn’t appear to be related to the Orb Of Horus that Constantine was after on Lian Yu, even though he made off at the end of that episode with the shaft it was mounted on. If there’s more than one of these icons kicking about, then clearly Horus was overstaffed… (I’m sorry.)

arrow-5

  • Renee, Henschel and Crump aren’t the only characters from these episodes to cross over to Legends Of Tomorrow: Peter Francis James, who appears on the old conspiracy theory group video as Dr Aldus Boardman, will also be featuring in the spin-off.

Review by Iain Hepburn. You can listen to his podcast at www.fromthesublime.com

 

• Read our other Arrow season four reviews

 

The_Flash_legends_of_today_main

The Flash S02E08 “Legends Of Today” REVIEW

by with No Comment Reviews

The Flash S02E08 “Legends Of Today” REVIEW

The_Flash_legends_of_today_main

stars 3

Airing in the UK on: Sky 1, Tuesdays, 8pm
Writers: Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg (story); Aaron Helbing, Todd Helbing (teleplay)
Director: Ralph Hemecker

 

Essential Plot Points:

  • Immortal villain Vandal Savage (the best argument for nominative determinism ever) arrives in Central City by stowing away on a ship (presumably he was worried about getting all his knives through customs if he’d flown in).
  • He immediately starts randomly killing people then goes off to search for some woman with wings called Chay-ara (who we know as Kendra, even if she doesn’t know it yet). Turns out he needs to kill her and some guy with wings called Prince Khufu to retain his immortality and grow stronger. Chay-ara and Khufu then reincarnate so the process can happen all over again. Khufu retains his memories each time but Chay-ara always needs a memory jog.
  • After the Flash saves Kendra from Savage he takes her and Team Flash to Star City where Team Arrow can help keep her safe.
  • Prince Khufu turns up and after a bit of fighting and bickering convinces Teams Arrow and Flash that Kendra needs to  jump off a building to encourage he wings to appear. Despite some scepticism this eventually happens.
  • Savage also seeks the staff of Horus in Central City. Oliver and Barry try to stop him but fail. He now has a stick that blows things up.
  • Wells and Caitlin produce Velocity 6 – a drug that creates artificial Speedsters. They want Jay to try it but he’s reluctant.
  • Then Patty shoots Wells and the only way to save him is to remove the bullet, fast. So Jay injects himself with Velocity 6 and uses speedy hand power to phase into Wells’s chest and pluck out the bullet.
  • The drug wears off and Jay vows never to use it again, warning Wells not to use it on Barry. Yeah, right.
  • While queueing in CC Jitters for a coffee Oliver sees old flame Samantha, with a boy who would be the right age to be his son…

The_Flash_legends_of_today_fan

 

 

Review:

Last year the Flash/Arrow crosssover event was two self-contained episodes, both of which were quality hokey fun. This year it’s a two-parter which also has to bear the weight of setting up key elements for the spin-off show, Legends Of Tomorrow, was well. Sadly, like Joss Whedon’s Age Of Ultron, while this first part has a lot of fun elements, it also shows the strain of having to tick off a check list of “thing that must be included”. The result is choppy, uneven and lacking in depth.

You have to feel sorry for Falk Hentschel and Ciara Renée. This should be their big entrance as Hawkman and Hawkgirl and they’re pretty much reduced to exposition and clichés because there’s no room for anything with more depth. By the time Kendra stands on a rooftop wailing, “This is my destiny,” you’re ready to push her off the edge just to stop the stream of cringey dialogue. Luckily the flying effects are impressive and the Hawkman Vs Flash and Arrow fight is a blast (it looks like it’s come straight out of the pages of the comics) so the Hawk duo debut isn’t a total wet squib.

A scene early on is symptomatic of the scripting shortcuts going on; a rare moment when the mechanics of the writing process show through. Barry’s had one encounter with Savage and out of nowhere announces that he’s “mystical” and as Team Arrow has more experience with “mystical” they need to travel to Star City to ask for help. This is unconvincing on so many levels the writers may as well have just had Barry say, “I really want to see their new secret hide-out!” Cisco tries to plaster the cracks over with a comment about Zoom but it only highlights how desperately flimsy the reasoning is.

The whole episode is full of such easy fixes and convenient leaps of logic necessitated by the fact that it’s simply trying to do too much. This is Vandal Savage’s debut too – you know, the guy who’s going to be crucial in Legends Of Tomorrow – but he’s given little chance to come across as anything other than a by-the-numbers ranting moustache-twirler. The shtick with the metal fan is good fun, though.

Oddly the most effective strand in the episode is the one least concerned with the crossover: Wells creating Velocity 6 and Jay being forced to use it. We’re betting Jay is going to regret that in future episodes. The only real jarring moment here comes when Joe orders Patty out of STAR Labs and she meekly complies. She strikes us more as the kind of officer who’d demand to know what’s going on, even if she has just cocked up massively. No: because she’s just cocked up massively, because the cock-up only happened because nobody’s telling her what’s going on.

Other than that there’s some great quipping going on between the composite casts (Cisco offering to find a better code name for Speedy for example) and Felicity steals every scene she’s in. The action is as top-notch as ever and the effects continue to impress. “Legends Of Today” certainly isn’t a disaster, it just feels like a bit of a mess that doesn’t launch its new characters in any great style.

 

The Good:

The_Flash_legends_of_today_barry_oliver_sleeves

  • Oliver and Barry taking the piss out of each other, especially the comment about the Green Arrow costume having no sleeves (that sounded like something Stephen Amell may have said and an answer one of the producers gave him).

The_Flash_legends_of_today_more_knife_chasing

  • Both of the slow-mo Barry-chases-flying-knives scenes are very effective.
  • Felicity! Ah, if only Flash could swap her for Caitlin…
  • Having said that, Caitlin has a technobabble scene with Wells in which Danielle Panabaker actually sounds half convincing!
  • The flying effects for Mr and Ms Hawk are much better than we’d feared they’d be. We didn’t think “Gordon’s aliiiiivvvvvveeeee!!!!!” once.
  • Wells doesn’t get much to snark about this week but the way Tom Cavanagh delivers the word “attitude” in a list of things that might be preventing Barry running faster is petty needling of the highest calibre.
  • “The first time I kissed Kendra I got a vibe… no, not that kind of vibe.”

 

The Bad:

The_Flash_legends_of_today_hawkman

  • Sorry, but that helmet has clearly been designed to make Diggle feel better about his one.
  • The plot struggles to justify the crossover then struggles to contain all the elements.
  • Darkh lacks the usual chilling presence he has in Arrow and comes across more like a ’60s Batman villain.
  • But Darkh is Marlon Brandon in Apocalypse Now compared to Casper Crump as Vandal Savage, who looks like he’s about to burst into a musical number at most points. He also has some terrible dialogue.
  • It’s all a bit of a mess really.
  • And why introduce the Samantha plotline into an already overstuffed episode?

 

And The Random:

The_Flash_legends_of_today_velocity_6

  • Velocity 9 (rather than 6, but give Wells time) is a drug in the DC comics universe created by Vandal Savage that, like here, creates artificial Speedsters. But users become addicted and there are many side effects: premature ageing, exhaustion, salivating, and eventually death. It first appeared in Flash Volume 2 #12 (1988).

The_Flash_legends_of_today_savage2

  • Vandal Savage is much older in the comics having originally been a caveman who was exposed to a meteor that somehow made him immortal. His comic version’s history is not intertwined Hawkman’s and Hawkgirl’s as it is here. He was created by SF author Alfred Bester and Martin Nodell, first appearing in Green Lantern #10 (1943).

The_Flash_legends_of_today_hawkgirl

  • Hawkman was first introduced in Flash Comics #1 (1940) as was “Shiera Saunders” who would go on to make her first appearance as Hawkgirl in All Star Comics #5 (1941). At this point they were simply reincarnations of an Egyptian prince and princess. It wasn’t until the mid-’90s that DC retconned the Hawk couple’s history with the idea that they had been continually reincarnating over and over since ancient Egyptian times. In-between they spent a period reinvented as aliens from the planet Thanagar.
  • flock_of_seagullsDid Barry really refer to Damien Darhk as “Flock Of Seagulls”? We’re struggling to think of anything else he can be referring to other than the ’80s band of the same name who has a US Top 10 hit with “I Ran”. But that’s a VERY obscure reference, and while the lead singer did have white hair, it was more the style of his barnet than the colour that he was infamous for, and Darhk certainly doesn’t have hair like that. However, a cover version of “I Ran” was used in episode five of season one of The Flash, so you never know. Maybe someone on the production team is the Flock’s biggest fan?
  • Oliver jokes that he gets more bruises from Felicity than he did from Deathstroke, who was the big bad on Arrow season two.
  • Magnetic arrows have been seen many times in the comics.
  • In the Arrow episode “Haunted” John Constantine was looking for an artefact called the “Orb of Horus”. Is it related in any way to Savage’s “Staff Of Horus”, do you reckon?

The_Flash_legends_of_today_ship

  • The ship Savage arrives on is called the Tithonus, who in Greek mythology was made immortal by Zeus, but with a catch: he wasn’t given eternal youth to go with it. So he aged until his body no longer worked and he begged for death. In some versions of the tale he’s turned into an eternal tree.

The_Flash_legends_of_today_speedy_hand

  • The image of Jay inserting his hand into Wells’s chest to save his life is an inversion of the famous scene from season one when Reverse-Flash inserts his hand into Cisco’s chest to kill him. Deliberate? You decide.

Review by Dave Golder

• Read our other reviews of The Flash

• Keep up to date with all the Arrowverse news

 

arrow-1 (4)

Arrow S04E07 “Brotherhood” REVIEW

by with No Comment Reviews

Arrow S04E07 “Brotherhood” REVIEW

arrow-1 (4)

stars 4.5

Airing in the UK on Sky One, Weds 8pm
Writers: Speed Weed, Keto Shimizu
Director: James Bamford

 

Essential Plot Points:

  • Team Arrow foil a raid by HIVE’s ghosts on a bank van full of money, but the soldiers blow the money up rather than stealing it, making Oliver realise they’re trying to bankrupt the city and bring it to its knees.
  • Felicity asks Ray for his expert help after it emerges the HIVE soldiers have somehow masked their DNA, making identifying them impossible. She also badgers him to come back to his old life and job, but he resists.
  • Oliver’s political fixer Alex wants Oliver to shelve his campaign pledge to clean up Starling Bay but Oliver thinks it will help regenerate the city and create jobs. He’s also worried Oliver’s worked out he’s dating Thea.
  • Ray identifies a chemical needed to fix the DNA masking, but when Team Arrow heads to the building to retrieve some, they run up against HIVE forces. In the melee, Diggle pulls the mask off one of them… and discovers it’s his brother.
  • Darhk tells Lance his security team doesn’t trust the captain, and thinks he lured Darhk out last week to allow Team Arrow to follow him. While in his office, Lance sees a note about something going down at the docs.
  • After giving a campaign speech at a police benefit, Oliver is approached by Damien Darhk who wants to support the Queen for Mayor campaign, if Oliver drops his plans to develop the bay.
  • A sleazy guy hits on Thea while she’s out on a date with Alex. The blood lust kicks in and she batters him senseless until a shocked Alex stops her.
  • Oliver and Diggle spy on Darhk at the docks and discover he’s giving his troops a yellow pill that not only masks their DNA but makes them susceptible to his will.

arrow-2 (3)

  • Ray tells Felicity he’s not coming back because he feels like he’s failed; with Star City in trouble and Palmer Tech going the same way, he blames himself and wants to find a new focus for his life.
  • The team tracks the HIVE soldiers to a former asylum and launches a raid to capture Andy Diggle. They retrieve him, but not before Thea runs into Darhk. However, when he tries to drain the life from her, he fails… and he drains her blood lust instead.

arrow-9 (3)

  • Thea asks for Malcolm’s help in recreating the effect, while Diggle confronts his brother about the claims he was drug dealing before his supposed death. Andy says the reports are all true.
  • Oliver gives his speech at the docks pledging to improve the bay and vows that the fight for the city will be held in the daylight, not in the shadows. It’s aimed at Darhk, who watches on from the crowd.
  • In flashbacks to Lian Yu, it emerges the slave worker that Conklin bribed to try and kill Oliver is the brother of Taiana, the woman he rescued earlier this season. Reiter determines through an apparently magical bunch of twigs that Conklin was responsible, and has Oliver whip him in front of the slaves as punishment.

arrow-7 (3)

 

Review:

Finding fault with Arrow at the moment is almost an exercise in nitpicking. The show’s found such a strong vein of form for its fourth season, with both arc plot and flashback progressing at a lick, a real sense of momentum and some genuine bravery in writing, performance and direction.

Writing these reviews is almost becoming dull; not because the episodes are bad, but because there’s only so many way you can say “Arrow’s really good just now, and this week’s no different”.

So, let’s not muck about. Arrow’s really good just now, and this week’s no different.

“Brotherhood” builds on the serial storytelling of this season, with seemingly small moments from earlier this term being the catalyst for key action this week. The apparently throwaway moment when one of the HIVE soldiers didn’t kill Diggle, and the fact that HIVE had Andy Diggle killed, turn out to have been building to this: the revelation that not only is John’s brother alive, but he’s working for Damien Darhk’s operation.

Family dynamics have always been a strong part of the show, with the relationship between Oliver and Thea, Oliver and Diggle, Thea and Merlyn, the Queens and the Lances at the heart of what drives Arrow. Now we’ve got the appearance of things that could upset those balances: Ray returning and clearly still smitten with Felicity Smoak (and let’s be honest, who isn’t?), and Andy Diggle returning from the dead to face his brother. Familial loyalties that can be tested, particularly by a villain who we know values loyalty.

Weed and Shimizu’s script rattles along with a sense of purpose which, coupled by debutant director James Banford’s bold visual choices, picks up the pace after a couple of weeks of the show taking its foot off the pedal. Kudos especially to them for finding a way of making the big set piece fight look and feel different to anything Arrow’s done before.

The expanded Team Arrow has at times felt like it’s struggling to give all the cast something to do, with the storylines having largely favoured away from Diggle until now, but this week’s episode means the always reliably excellent David Ramsey gets more to do. He doesn’t fail to deliver, especially in the closing scene with the Diggle brothers coming face to face, but also in a surprisingly touching and gently understated scene with Katie Cassidy when Diggle and Laurel discuss the nature of loss and recovering loved ones.

arrow-6 (3)

But most importantly, after a couple of weeks of being in the background, Neal McDonough and his terrifying eyes are front and centre again, and his presence as Darhk elevates “Brotherhood” from being a good episode to a great one.

The quiet menace and the politician’s charisma we see, even in the wordless look he gives at Oliver’s press conference, convey so much more than any ranting histrionics from Barrowman. He’s more like a modern Bond villain than a comic book one: urbane, witty, immaculately dressed and utterly menacing.

It also helps, oddly, that he’s shorter than most of the cast following three years of BIG big bads. As Danny Boyle famously once said, small psychos are the best…

arrow-8 (3)

The Good:

  • The direction around the fight sequence at the mental asylum during the bid to extract Andy is genuinely brilliant. For the fourth episode in a row the direction takes on a radically different feel. At times it almost feels like Peep Show, it’s so close to the action, and runs in single long takes; the sequence with Speedy in the lift especially.
  • Likewise, there’s a brilliant moment at the start of the raid when Black Canary drops two floors off the roof of a building into the action, with the camera physically following her all the way down. It’s a really cleverly staged and shot sequence that manages to look better than any of the “flying” stuff in Jessica Jones.
  • The Arrowverse has always had a tongue-in-cheek approach to pop culture references, but Damien Darhk nicknaming Thea Merida – after the archer heroine in Pixar’s Brave – is one of the most expected yet.

 

The Bad:

  • Right, lets get this out the way. Doing “flying” isn’t easy if you don’t have a massive CGI budget, complicated wire work and so on. The team that make Iron Man’s flight in the MCU look so convincing have all that. The team that does effects on Arrow really doesn’t, and it shows. Much as I love Ray, and the idea of the ATOM suit, the execution of it here basically feels like an animated gif being moved across the picture. It feels like they haven’t quite worked out what they want the ATOM suit to be, other than a Primark Iron Man outfit with a hockey helmet.
  • Disappointingly there’s no follow-up on last week’s flirting between Lance and Donna, or a place for Curtis – even if that’s understandable given just how much seemed to be going on this week.
  • More just unfortunate than really bad, but Darhk being revealed to use a colour-based mind control power’s really unlucky timing this week…
  • There’s not a lot to fault with Arrow this week, so let’s just say them taking a week off for Thanksgiving is a right pain given the momentum the show’s got at the moment.

 

And the Random:

  • Veteran stunt coordinator James Banford, who’s overseen action sequences since year one on Arrow, makes his full debut as a director on this episode and on the evidence here, should be asked back ASAP.

arrow-10 (2)

  • So. Andy Diggle then. In case you haven’t worked it out, John’s brother is directly named after the brilliant British comics writer, responsible for a number of great runs – but most significantly here on Green Arrow: Year One, which inspired the tone, bits of the storyline and the appearance of China White in series one of Arrow. John Diggle was always intended as a nod in a show that’s not afraid to make little namecheck to significant DC and Green Arrow writers and artists (not least Marv Wolfman in this week’s show) but this is the most blatant namecheck of them all. If you haven’t read any of this stuff, Green Arrow: Year One is great and the Losers (which ended up being a moderately fun Hollywood film) is bloody tremendous. Both see Diggle linking up with Scottish artist Mark “Jock” Simpson, with whom he’d also worked at 2000AD.
  • This week’s obligatory 52 references – Slip 52 at the docks and Channel 52 at the press conference.

Review by Iain Hepburn. You can listen to his podcast at www.fromthesublime.com

 

• Read our other Arrow season four reviews

 

the_flash_207_gorilla_warfare_grodd_hero_shot

The Flash S02E07 “Gorilla Warfare” REVIEW

by with No Comment Reviews

The Flash S02E07 “Gorilla Warfare” REVIEW

the_flash_207_gorilla_warfare_grodd_hero_shot

 

stars 3.5

Airing in the UK on: Sky 1, Tuesdays, 8pm
Writers: Aaron Helbing, Todd Helbing
Director: Dermott Downs

 

Essential Plot Points:

  • Physically Barry is recovering well from having had his back broken by Zoom, but mentally he’s back in the mope zone, worried that he’s not the hero Central City needs. Amazingly Joe fails to buck him up so Iris calls in the cavalry: his dad, Henry. That does the trick.
  • Grodd’s back and he wants to make babies with Caitlin. No, hang on, this isn’t an HBO show: no bestiality is involved. He wants her to science up some more apes likes him. He kills a few scientists to get the chemical needs to make this possible.
  • Harry pretends to be Reverse Flash (using Wells Mark I’s old yellow costume) to confuse Grodd (who thinks of Wells Mark I as dad) and get close enough to Caitlin to rescue her.
  • Harry reveals that not all the breaches on  Earth 2 are in Central City, like they are on Earth Prime; instead they are scattered across the planet. One, handily, leads to a sanctuary for intelligent gorillas on Earth 2.
  • With Barry back in action, Team Flash lures Grodd to the relevant breach then forces him through it. Grodd arrives on Earth 2 and sees Gorilla City for the first time. If he’s ever seen Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes this can only end badly.
  • Harry comes up with a new plan: close all the breaches except the one at STAR Labs, thus forcing Zoom to use that one, then have a trap waiting for him. One problem: he doesn’t know how to close the breaches yet.
  • Cisco goes on a date with Kendra and vibes on her. He see a vision of a woman with wings. And we’re not talking Lil-Lets.

the_flash_207_gorilla_warfare_grodd3

 

Review:

Two returning guests stars this week and one blasts the other off the screen. Not to be mean to John Wesley Shipp, but the CG ape was just about the only real reason to tune in for this episode. Henry Allen’s reappearance – and, indeed the whole “Barry wallows in self-pity” stuff – felt like a particularly trite rehash of a storyline we’ve seen many, many times before. This season the writers seem to be hoping that if they regularly swap around who’s giving Barry his “pep-talk of the week” we won’t notice they keep covering the same ground.

So in some ways this is an unusual episode of The Flash. The weekly action/adventure plotlines are usually among the flimsiest elements designed mainly to push forward arc plot revelations and character development. This week, though, the Grodd storyline eclipses everything; the perfunctory father/son chats, Barry’s moping, Cisco’s slightly unbelievable date dramas, Harry’ new plan. Only the redemption of Harrison Wells (which isn’t really redemption but be still needs to gain their trust) provides some good meaty character drama and Tom Cavanagh rises to the occasioneven if his increasingly truculent hair seems to be having a parallel drama all its own.

Thankfully, the action plot provides plenty of fine set-pieces to enjoy, backed up by some excellent effects. Caitlin and Grodd continue their King Kong/Fay Wray vibe with Ms Snow the most sympathetic to the gorilla’s softer side. (Although, considering the very ’70s-looking white trouser suit Caitlin’s wearing, maybe that should be a King Kong/Jessica Lange vibe.) Having Harry pretend to be Reverse Flash is a clever conceit, as it unnerves both Barry and Cisco and adds some tension as you wonder how comfortable he feels in the suit. Not very, it seems; but is he double bluffing?

To be honest, we hope not. It would be too obvious to have Wells turn out to be a villain again. Grumpy, reluctant hero Wells is far more interesting.

Fun and lightweight, “Gorilla Warfare” is enjoyable but worryingly flimsy in areas in which the show is usually strong. Barry’s return to full (physical and mental) health feels far too quick and easy but maybe that was a scheduling necessity; you’d hardly want him in a wheelchair for the big crossover event, would you?

 

The Good:

  • Grodd! Occasionally he’s a little bit “bendy CGI” but mostly he’s a very impressive creation for a TV show. The brief chase at the end as he follows Barry through Central City is especially good.
  • Gorilla City looks great too.
  • In fact, the action and effects are what lift this otherwise fairly standard episode. The pretty colours distract from the lack of real meat.

the_flash_207_gorilla_warfare_FX_shot

  • Harry is huge fun to watch again, even though he’s softening. The scene with him mimicking Wells, saying the lines he said right before he killed Cisco, is disproportionately disturbing. It’d good to see Harry getting a decent amount of screen time, and his growing friendship with Cisco feels unforced and natural.
  • Our first glimpse of Hawkgirl as Hawkgirl, sort of flying.

 

The Bad:

the_flash_207_gorilla_warfare_father_son_chat

  • The problem with bringing Henry in to give Barry a pep talk is that John Wesley Shipp is nowhere near as convincing in this type of scene as Jesse L Martin is. Plus, Henry’s argument is based on a spurious premise that mopey Barry would have pointed out immediately; Henry always knew he was innocent, whereas Barry doesn’t know that he’s not a failure. Instead of Henry just acting like pale imitation of Joe, the writers needed to find another way he could shake Barry out of his navel-gazing – tough love? By example? By nicking his wheelchair?
  • Barry’s physical recovery seems far too easy too. Okay, he has superfast healing, but after last week’s cliffhanger (“I can’t feel my legs!”) having him on his feet in the very first scene here is a bit of an anticlimax.
  • Okay, we can just about accept that, in a weak moment, Joe may have been insensitive enough to regret not having a “real” son in front of his daughter, but we can’t accept that Iris wouldn’t have made some sarcastic comment about, “So I’m not good enough?” to pull him back into the 21st century.
  • The Cisco/Kendra romance is about as convincing as Dick Van Dyke’s cockney accent.
  • A breach that leads to a gorilla sanctuary? How convenient.
  • Why is Grodd collecting the chemicals he needs to create little Grodds before he asks Caitlin how to make mini-Grodds?
  • The attempt to humanise Grodd is a laudable one but the script doesn’t develop the idea beyond lip service.

 

And The Random:

the_flash_207_gorilla_warfare_gorilla_city

  • Gorilla City first appeared in the DC universe in The Flash #106  (1959). It was originally located on the planet Calor but was unknowingly brought to Earth by Green Lantern. You may be wondering how anyone could relocate a city without knowing; just accept it makes sense in comic logic. Its new home was in Africa. In the comics, this is where Grodd came from.

the_flash_207_gorilla_warfare_princess_bride

  • Cisco’s geek credentials have been seriously dented by his failure to use the phrase “rodents of unusual size” when listing why The Princess Bride is so great.

the_flash_207_gorilla_warfare_hawkgirl

  • “I know what I vibed,” says Cisco after his his first vibe of the episode, but we’re not sure he did know. “There was a man with these big…” We think the word you’re looking for is “breasts”. Good grief, lad, that is quite clearly NOT A MAN!

the_flash_207_gorilla_warfare_tower

  • That tower that Grodd’s using as a base look remarkably similar to the one where Chloe lived in the later seasons of Smallville.

the_flash_207_gorilla_warfare_map_1

  • A lot of the locations seen on the map that Harry’s consulting have been established as locales in Central City in the DC comics universe over the years: Brookfield Heights, Chubbuck, Petersburg, Lawrence Hill, the Van Geld Opera House. But the Miliken Standard Corporation has us stumped. An in-joke, maybe?

the_flash_207_gorilla_warfare_cisco_date

  • Cisco’s date with Kendra at the end of the episode seems to be a subtle nod to the John Cusack comedy romance movie Say Anything (1989) in which he use used a boombox held aloft to try to serenade Ione Skye. The song he uses is Peter Gabriel’s sublime “In Your Eyes”, which is also used on the soundtrack of this scene in the episode.

Review by Dave Golder

• Read our other reviews of The Flash

• Keep up to date with all the Arrowverse news

 

 

 

 

 

arrow-4 (2)

Arrow S04E06 “Lost Souls” REVIEW

by with No Comment Reviews

Arrow S04E06 “Lost Souls” REVIEW

arrow-4 (2)

stars 4.5

Airing in the UK on Sky One, Weds 8pm
Writers: Beth Schwartz, Emilio Ortega Aldrich
Director: Antonio Negret

 

Essential plot points:

  • Six months ago, while tampering with the miniaturisation on his suit, Ray Palmer blew the roof of his building and was apparently killed. Except, as we now see, he wasn’t.
  • Fast forward to now, and Felicity is obsessed with finding Ray after decoding his message last week, an obsession that’s starting to worry Curtis and Oliver.
  • Oliver’s campaign manager Alex Davis asks Thea out on a date, but gets gently KBed.
  • Sara breaks the news of her latest return to her mother, but is struggling to adjust to being alive again.
  • Ray makes contact with Felicity and Oliver, and reveals the suit shrunk him down to about the size of an action figure – and is being held captive by someone who wants access to his powers.
  • Worried about Felicity, Oliver invites her mother, Donna, over to stay, which goes down about as well as you’d expect.
  • Team Arrow launches a raid on Kord Industries to steal a piece of equipment needed to restore Ray – but in their exit, Sara brutally attacks a guard and beats him to a pulp as the blood lust takes over
  • Ray is being held by Damien Darhk, who has overheard the messages to Felicity.
  • During a domestic, Felicity reveals she blames herself for Ray’s plight as she’d been too busy travelling and having a happy life with Oliver to save him. Both end up seeking support: Oliver getting relationship advice from Diggle, Felicity from her mum.
  • Lance asks Darhk’s help in dealing with Sara – but it’s a trap to lure Darhk out so they can trace where Ray is.
  • The team, with Curtis in tow, stages a raid on the building and restores Ray to full size, with Oliver and Darhk coming face to face for the first time since the train attack. Sara loses it again and kills a guard.
  • Sara decides to leave town while she works out how to deal with the blood lust.
  • Felicity and Oliver make up. Awwwwwww.

arrow-7 (2)

  • Darhk’s people reveal they’ve worked out how to recreate some of the ATOM suit’s power – which Darhk wants them to use to power up a strange circuit diagram-like design inside his mystical box.
  • In flashbacks to Lian Yu, Ritter uses the orb retrieved by Constantine to illuminate secret writing in the underground chamber, then sends Oliver and Conklin to lead a party of slaves to a cove on the Island to search for something. Conklin bribes one of the slaves to attack Oliver but he fends him off and kills him… as Conklin watches from the shore.

 

Review:

arrow-5 (2)

There’s a weird tone to “Lost Souls”, which on paper absolutely shouldn’t work. It’s a thrilling race against time to rescue a friend being held hostage by Team Arrow’s moral enemy. At the same time it’s an emotional drama looking at guilt and making the wrong choices in relationships. And there’s more murder.

But it’s also laugh-out-loud funny most of the time. There’s an incredible lightness about the script from regular series writer Schwartz and relative newcomer Aldrich, and in theory that should work against the subject matter. Somehow, though, it really doesn’t, and what we get is a charming, amusing, gentle episode of Arrow which feels oddly short on peril yet somehow feels all the better for it.

The steady unfolding of the storylines at a regular rate this series continues to be perfectly judged. Bringing Ray back – looking remarkably healthy for a man who’s spent the last few weeks locked in a fish tank – and advancing Sara’s resurrection storyline (she seem to be affected far worse than Thea ever was) are both obviously primers for the Legends Of Tomorrow launch. Yet those storylines also advance other aspects of the plot; notably Felicity’s guilt providing the first shaky ground for her relationship with Oliver and Lance getting dragged in deeper with Darhk.

There’s a sense of cause and effect to the plot; serial storytelling which is underpinning the coherence of this series compared to last year. Darhk’s wider scheme and the flashback plot on the island are on the back burner for now. We get glimpses of what’s going on, but not enough to judge yet, which feels right while the focus is on the Legends launch.

There’s also an interesting sense of them building up Team Arrow for a fall. They’re all supremely confident in what they do – launching a raid on Kord’s warehouse, rescuing Ray in audacious fashion – that it feels like something’s got to go wrong for them soon. And given what we know from the season opener’s flash forward, that fall will presumably have catastrophic consequences.

But all that’s to come, one would imagine. For now, we’ve got a show building somewhere, full of confident performances and with so far a season that’s not really put a foot wrong. The pacing for the last couple of episodes has notably slowed down from the frenetic opener, but again this feels deliberate; the producers are putting all their pieces on the board for the forthcoming crossover (two weeks and counting) when we can expect it to all kick off.

arrow-1 (2)

It’s also great to see Echo Kellum’s engaging Curtis Holt getting more involved. He’s already been a great addition to the cast but three little moments in the episode highlight why having Mister Terrific join Team Arrow full time would be no bad thing: his seeing Oliver for the first time (“Remember: I’m married and he’s straight”), trying to work out of Oliver’s the Arrow (“It’s not you, jaw’s not right”) and him joining in on the rescue. In a show with a whole bunch of great comic performers, he’s already stolen the show.

 

The Good:

  • Ray’s back. Brandon Routh’s lovably nerdy performance last year was such an asset to the Arrowverse that his absence has been felt this year.
  • Donna’s back. Charlotte Ross’s appearance as the brassy Mother Smoak last year was great fun, and there’s the tantalising prospect of her sticking around for a while this time, thanks to…

arrow-11 (2)

  • …That scene in the bar at the end with Donna and Captain Lance. What could easily have been played for laughs is a really sweet, touching, surprisingly grown-up moment in an episode that touches on love and relationships in an interesting way.
  • Felicity and Oliver’s first domestic, during the raid on Kord, is an obvious but really nicely done pull-back-and-reveal joke.
  • There’s some lovely direction from Antonio Negret in this episode, especially the transitions to and from the flashbacks. It’s a notably different feeling from the last two episodes too, which is ideal.
  • There’s also a nice callback back to Ray and Felicity’s relationship when Oliver won’t let Felicity do anything else until she’s had a shower and a nap.

 

The Bad:

  • Spartan? C’mon, Felicity, could you not come up with a better code name for Diggle than that? It’s pretty bland. Plus, if we’re being pedantic, there’s already one (sort of) in the DC Universe – Jim Lee’s one from WildCATS and occasionally Stormwatch.
  • While it’s heartening to know Kord Industries has improved its response time, would their security team really come in all guns blazing to a store room full of expensive high-tech equipment? P45s all round, I suspect…
  • In a world of magic and meta humans it’s a bit churlish to complain about the science around Ray’s miniaturisation, except to say it’s all rubbish and handwavey pseudoscience, and instead complain about the obvious: if he’s been locked in that transparent box for weeks, where’s he going to the loo?
  • Most of Curtis and Felicity’s scenes are played for laughs, and that’s fine because Echo Vellum and Emily Bett Rickards have great comic timing, but the plinky plonky music that gets wheeled out for every damn scene is now getting jarring. It’s like a bad ’80s ITV sitcom, for goodness sake.

 

And the Random:

arrow-3 (1)

  • Ray’s fascination with insects while being shrunk down with his super suit feels like a little nod of the titfer at a certain Marvel character who made the jump to the big screen this year.
  • Perhaps I’ve missed this in the previous seasons, but is this the first time we get an actual idea where Star City is? Felicity describes the building Ray’s being held in as once being the most secure on the West Coast, so presumably Central City and locally advertised tourist destination Coast City are as well. Oliver’s been bumming about Seattle in the comics recently, although it doesn’t rain enough in Star City to be Seattle.
  • Kord Industries is, of course, owned by Ted Kord – we first heard about him at a fundraiser in the first season. In the comics, Ted Kord is a genius, inventor and the second Blue Beetle…

Review by Iain Hepburn. You can listen to his podcast at www.fromthesublime.com

 

• Read our other Arrow season four reviews

 

The_Flash_2x06_Enter_Zoom_linda_zoom2

The Flash S02E06 “Enter Zoom” REVIEW

by with No Comment Reviews

The Flash S02E06 “Enter Zoom” REVIEW

The_Flash_2x06_Enter_Zoom_linda_zoom2

stars 5

Airing in the UK on: Sky 1, Tuesdays, 8pm
Writers: Gabrielle Stanton, Brooke Eikmeier
Director: JJ Makaro

 

Essential Plot Points:

  • Doctor Light tells the Flash that if she had killed him, Zoom wanted her to take his chest emblem and throw it into a breach to prove she’s succeeded. This would summon Zoom so he could send her home.
  • Doctor Light agrees to pretend to kill the Flash to draw Zoom out.
  • Wells has developed a slowing-down formula which they intend to shoot Zoom with.
  • Doctor Light escapes from the pipeline. She’s naked, but invisible…
  • …Which means she’s left her costume behind.
  • Barry has an idea: Linda – Doctor Light’s Earth Prime doppelgänger – can pretend to be Doctor Light by dressing up in her discarded costume. Cisco instantly whips up some light ray gizmos to strap to her hands.
  • Unfortunately she makes a rubbish supervillain.
  • So Barry gives her a pep talk in which he reveals to her that he is the Flash. It works.
  • Sadly the plan to lure out Zoom with a fake fight between Barry and Linda as Doctor Light doesn’t work (we’re not surprised – Barry keeps squirming when he’s supposed to be dead and Linda keeps putting her hand up to her ear piece).
  • Patty becomes suspicious that Barry and Joe are keeping something from her, but doesn’t hold too much of a grudge after Barry passionately and impulsively kisses her. He’s just had another pep talk from Joe, y’see.
  • But later on, when no one’s expecting him, Zoom goes all Spanish Inquisition and executes Barry. Well, nearly executes him. Team Flash manage to hit Zoom with one “slow dart” before he finishes the task and he zooms off.
  • But he has left Barry paralysed from the waist down.
  • Cisco vibes on Wells and learns that Zoom has his daughter held captive back on Instagram Filter Earth.

The_Flash_2x06_Enter_Zoom_Linda_as_light_2

Review:

Barry should have listened to Jay. But he didn’t, and now Zoom has utterly humiliated him and left him paralysed. The final 1o minutes of the episode are simply magnificent; a tour de force of eye-popping action, shock twists, gut-wrenching drama and beautiful FX work that would have assured a five star review even if the rest of the episode had been a pile of steaming bat guano.

In fact, the rest of the episode is an absolute delight too, featuring some of the funniest moments so far this year. The scenes with our Earth’s Linda Park trying to become Doctor Light are huge fun, as is Linda’s goofy reaction to finding out that Barry is the Flash (“Holy crap! I’ve made out with the Flash!”). Malese Jow is such an asset to this show let’s hope that she’s in this for the long haul. Though it would be good to have a regular, young, female character on the show who hasn’t snogged Barry (although Caitlin only snogged a fake Barry, to be fair, and didn’t have much choice in the matter).

Wells-the-jerk is also great once again, though his motives are a bit confusing. He seems relieved that Cisco has found out about Jesse being captured… so why be so touchy about being touched by Vibe earlier on? There seems no reason why he would hide this from Team Flash so does he have something else to hide that Cisco hasn’t discovered yet. And since Zoom has kidnapped Jesse, why is Wells working to bring about his downfall? You’d think, as Joe does, that Zoom would be blackmailing Wells into working for him. There’s something complex going on here and Wells could yet prove either the major villain or redemptive hero of the season. Whatever the case, please, Wells 2, don’t lose your snark; it’s your best feature.

Amidst all this Patty has little to do except revert to traditional girlfriend-of-a-masked-hero mode (“he’s hiding something and keeps blowing me out on dates…!) and Caitlin is reduced to being a straightwoman, providing feed lines for the men’s punchlines. But in such a packed episode there have to be some casualties. Iris doesn’t have much to do either, but scores points for her sarcastic asides when Linda goes into super-cooking mode.

For the most part, though, this is a consummately constructed episode. It joyously breaks the formula established by the season so far then rips it apart in the final moments with shocking developments that scream “gamechanger”. It moves seamlessly from frivolous fun to gripping drama in the space of a breath. It cements Zoom as one hell of a scary foe – every moment he’s on screen he totally dominates it. And the slick direction moves through the many moods with a deft touch, letting actors act when they need to and giving the big action sequences an emotional sweep.

Bane broke Batman’s back and the Dark Knight returned. Since there are at least 16 episodes of this season left we assume the Flash will be back on his feet before long too. But for the moment, we’re still reeling.

 

The Good:

The_Flash_2x06_Enter_Zoom_the_grand_tour_3

  • Zoom’s grand tour, dragging the limp body of Barry Allen around Central City to show-off who’s boss, is massively effective. It’s real gut-wrenching stuff, featuring  special FX shots that are loaded with emotion; a rare thing on TV where FX are often just a utilitarian means to an end.
  • Linda’s training session as Doctor Light is hilarious, especially the exploding gloves and the misjudged high-five.
  • This image:

The_Flash_2x06_Enter_Zoom_cisco_double

  • Linda’s reaction to discovering Barry’s secret – “I’ve shagged a famous person!” basically.
  • The fake fight between Doctor Light and the Flash with its whispered asides and Barry regretting falling to the ground in such an awkward position.
  • Hell, Linda in general. She’s just great!
  • Caitlin: “Oh great, that could be this year’s Cold Gun. Maybe another criminal can get it and then we have Sergeant Slow!” Cisco: “I would never let that happen. Sergeant Slow is a terrible name.”
  • Caitlin: “No offence to Linda, but there is no way she can pull this off.” Wells: “Well, maybe if she didn’t scream every time she fired.”

 

The Bad:

  • Given that the real Doctor Light is still at large, it’s bizarre that Linda – who’s spent half the episode terrified – would suddenly decide to walk home at night on her own (not that if Iris had gone with her she would have been much help against Zoom).

The_Flash_2x06_Enter_Zoom_discarded_costume

  • Why would Doctor Light need to take her clothes off to become invisible? Whatever power she’s using to make herself invisible would presumably work on her clothes too. This is one clumsy piece of plotting to negate Cisco having to get out his sewing machine later in the episode to whip Linda up a costume.
  • Whereas the Barry/Joe scenes are always exquisitely acted it would be nice to get through a week without them having a heart-to-heart; they’re in danger of losing their value through overuse.
  • We still don’t understand why Zoom used so many crap henchmen first before deciding to kill Barry himself when he proves so much better at it. Okay, he still fails, but he gets a lot closer.

 

And The Random:

  • Incredibly, for such a slick, assured-looking episode that balances great performances with pacy storytelling and big effects sequence, this is the debut TV directing effort by JJ Makaro. It is not, however, his first association with the Arrowverse; he’s been stunt co-ordinator on Arrow since the beginning and has worked on 10 episodes of The Flash in the same capacity. He stunt career began in the ’80s on shows such as Airwolf and films such as Iron Eagle 2. We reckon he should get more directing gigs on the strength of his work here.

The_Flash_2x06_Enter_Zoom_52_spotting

  • We’ve been pretty rubbish at 52-spotting this year (it’s mostly been appearances of Channel 52, of which there was another in this episode). But we spotted this really obscure one to balance things out: when Cisco vibes there are three extremely brief shots of a clock with one hand… that’s pointing at 52 minutes.

The_Flash_2x06_Enter_Zoom_robert_queen

  • For the record here’s that Channel 52 appearance. This week it’s actually the version of of the channel from Instagram Filter World, where Oliver Queen died and his dad Robert Queen became ‘The Hood”. This is similar to the comic book storyline “Flashpoint’, in which Barry’s time travelling causes an alternate reality in which Bruce Wayne’s dad became Batman after Bruce is killed.

The_Flash_2x06_Enter_Zoom_unethical_reporting

  • We will get away from Channel 52 in a moment but we just had to point out: what kind of unethical reporting is this? Showing a victim’s phone so close-up you can see who her dad is?
  • “But you were fine with killing Linda Park?” “It was the best bad idea I could come up with. Leave her body for Zoom to find. He’d think I was dead and I’d be free.” Last week we were wondering why there had been no explanation why the Earth 2 assassins were killing their doppelgängers. Well, Linda 2 gives an explanation here, which is all fine and dandy, but it seems very unlikely Al Rothstein/Atom Smasher would come up with exactly the same plan.

The_Flash_2x06_Enter_Zoom_jesse

  • This week Wells 2’s daughter is named: Jesse. Then Wells uses his pet nickname for her: Jesse Quick. That’s right; she’s the show’s version of yet another speedster from the comics. Jesse Quick. She was first introduced in Justice Society Of America Vol 2 #1 (1992) and was the daughter of daughter of Golden Age heroes Johnny Quick and Liberty Belle. She went on to become the partner of the Wally West version of the Flash.
  • Patty mentions hard light, which could be a reference to the Green Lantern but we couldn’t get Rimmer out of our heads.
  • If Doctor Light can hack into STAR Labs’ fibre optics systems, how come she can’t spring herself from her cell? Maybe those doors are on a separate system for security?
  • Scarily, there are a whole bunch of “babies going through tunnels” videos on YouTube like the ones Patty and her mates are giggling at.
  • The music during Linda’s training session as Doctor Light is “Rock And Roll Rave” by The Preatures.

 

Review by Dave Golder

• Read our other reviews of The Flash

• Keep up to date with all the Arrowverse news

 

arrow-5 (1)

Arrow S04E05 “Haunted” REVIEW

by with No Comment Reviews

Arrow S04E05 “Haunted” REVIEW

arrow-5 (1)

stars 3.5

Airing in the UK on Sky One, Weds 8pm
Writers: Brian Ford Sullivan, Oscar Balderrama
Director: John Badham

 

Essential plot points:

  • Someone’s on the loose around Star City, killing people. As the police hunt the mysterious blonde female killer, Lance works out it’s his daughter.
  • Thea’s hired a new political expert, Alex Davis, to work on Oliver’s Mayoral campaign. He advises Oliver to distance himself from the Lances, and especially Laurel, if he wants to be elected.
  • Felicity is having problems listening to Ray Palmer’s final message – the file is corrupted, and she needs Curtis to clean it up.
  • Oliver and Thea are called to a nightclub where the blonde murderer is attacking someone.
  • When they arrive, they find Laurel already fighting the woman – Sara. She escapes, and Oliver realises that the “spa” weekend Thea and Laurel went to was in fact a trip to Nanda Parbat to resurrect Sara in the Lazarus pit.
  • Damien Darhk asks Captain Lance to install a device at a server farm outside the city. Lance has Felicity look at it, but there’s too much encryption on it for her to work out what it does.
  • Instead, Oliver sends Diggle with Lance as backup.
  • Felicity and Oliver realise Sara’s victims so far all look like Thea. They try to contact her, but Sara’s already found her, and Thea barely escapes with her life.
  • Oliver confronts Laurel about using the Lazarus Pit, and she points out his hypocrisy, saying he didn’t tell her about it or Thea because he never saw her as an equal.

arrow-6 (1)

  • At the server farm, the device starts deleting files about military personnel. Diggle sees his brother’s name among those being erased, but before he can do anything, security arrives.
  • Lance improvises by knocking him out and claiming he was arresting Diggle to allay their suspicions.
  • Sara turns up at the hospital. Thea, knowing she needs to die to allay Sara’s bloodlust, is ready to give in but Oliver and Laurel stop her, and set a trap to capture Sara using Thea as bait.
  • Oliver reveals Sara’s soul has been left behind in the Lazarus Pit, and to restore her he needs a favour from a friend – John Constantine.
  • He performs a ritual that takes Oliver and Laurel to where Sara’s soul is trapped, and they battle to free her, bringing her back to normal.
  • Darhk passes information to Lance, who in turn passes it on to John Diggle, about why HIVE had his brother killed; it emerges Andrew Diggle wasn’t quite the military hero John thought he was.
  • Curtis fixes the audio file, which reveals that Ray Palmer is still alive.
  • In flashbacks, Oliver meets Constantine for the first time when he turns up on Lian Yu, hunting an artefact in a secret chamber under the island. Oliver saves his life, and Constantine owes him a favour in return…

arrow-11 (1)

Review:

So, the first big crossover episode of the Arrowverse gets underway this season and it’s not with The Flash, Vixen or, indeed, forthcoming spin-off show Legends Of Tomorrow. Instead it’s with a rival show from a rival network which was cancelled months ago. Ballsy.

Not that you need to have seen the short-lived NBC version of Constantine (available here in the UK on Amazon Prime) for any of this to make sense: the script boils his character, and his relationship with Team Arrow, down very quickly and sensibly to “dodgy magical bloke Oliver helped out once, who now owes him a favour”. It’s absolutely the right approach, and instead relies on the natural charisma and performance of Matt Ryan, returning to the trench coat as if he’d never been away.

Because this isn’t so much of a crossover as a guest booking, there’s no need for reciprocal storytelling. Thus “Haunted” gets to focus on Arrow’s ongoing storylines rather than wrapping up anything from the aborted Constantine series. I’ve seen people complain elsewhere that Ryan’s not in it enough, or doesn’t get enough to do, but that misses the point.

It’s like David Tennant’s Doctor popping up in The Sarah Jane Adventures; it’s lovely to see him, and it adds an extra dimension to the story, but ultimately it’s still Sarah’s show and the focus should be on her. Besides, Constantine’s in pretty much every flashback scene: what more do you want?

arrow-7 (1)

 

Instead, the focus is on what’s happening in Star City, namely Sara’s crazed rampage through the underworld in pursuit of Thea, Laurel’s relationship with Oliver, Felicity and Curtis’s investigation into Ray Palmer’s death and Damien Darhk’s plans for… well, whatever it is he’s up to. Each of those stories progresses apace, with Constantine’s presence touching three of them, but not overpowering them.

The Laurel and Oliver plot’s the most interesting. Laurel, as a character and Katie Cassidy as an actress have never been Arrow’s strongest selling point. In fact, she’s probably the least interesting or valuable member of the Lance family, and the most emotionally fragile, yet she’s very much the heart of what’s going on – be it the Queen campaign’s new political adviser telling Oliver to distance himself from her, Oliver’s anger and guilt over Sara’s resurrection, and Darhk using Laurel as leverage to threaten Captain Lance. In an episode where Constantine tells Oliver of nexuses where bad things are drawn together, she seems to be the Arrowverse’s embodiment of one.

And while it’s nice to see Caity Lotz back, to set up her new role as White Canary in Legends, the whole battle for Sara’s soul appears to be a couple of stuntmen on a redressed Nanda Parbat set dancing about while Olly and Laurel drag her out a swimming pool. It’s all a little underwhelming and worse, the direction of the action sequence, so often Arrow’s strong point, feels really flat.

It undermines what feels like a key part of the show, certainly over the last couple of weeks, with a payoff that could be from any Arrow episode. There doesn’t actually feel like any sense of danger or threat, and cries out for some kind of different approach in visualising the battle for Sara’s soul.

Actually, a word about the direction overall. It’s lovely to see John Badham, responsible for most of my VHS collection when I was about 13, pop up again. Arrow’s style of directing is usually very templated, not least because the action sequence unit are a very well-oiled machine, but he brings a lovely sense of stillness and calm to big dialogue scenes, especially Olly and Felicity’s heart-to-heart, and the big reveal for Diggle at the end.

Between Lexi Alexander last week and Badham this week, it’s nice to see the producers trying to bring something new to the visual palate of the show, and not drawing from the regular churn of TV directors whose names pop up so often on credits.

Next week, the focus switches to Ray, as the ramping up of the set-up to Legends Of Tomorrow progresses. But more importantly, there’s a sense of the pace in the Arrow universe picking up again after a couple of episodes to catch our breath.

The Good:

arrow-8 (1)

  • Matt Ryan. Let’s not beat about the bush here, there were many, many, many things wrong with the TV version of Constantine, but Ryan’s performance as John Constantine wasn’t one of them. He hasn’t missed a beat in picking up the character in the time since Constantine was axed, and it would be a crying shame if this is the “one-time only” deal the producers claim, especially since magic and mystical powers seem to be the key theme in Arrow this year. I can’t imagine anyone’d be adverse to seeing him pop up again in the future.
  • The peacock feather – and especially Felicity’s face when Constantine hands it back to her.
  • The scene where Oliver and Felicity realise who Sara’s hunting for is beautifully written and performed, with a very gentle and sadness-tinged discussion on the nature of grief and dealing with it between two characters who have seemingly risen above their emotional damage. In fact, performance wise, this whole episode contains some of Amell’s best work this series.
  • Finally, after weeks of ragging on Katie Cassidy, she finally delivers: the scene of her confronting Oliver at the hospital gets the tone and performance dead on.
  • Lance and Diggle as a double act’s a great idea, not least the implication that both men do what they do for one reason: to protect their daughters.
  • The cliffhanger ending. It’s not like the show hasn’t done them before, but Arrow this year just feels more connected, particularly in contrast to last year. This is a story unfolding at just the right rate.

 

The Bad:

arrow-12

  • So after weeks of build-up and roping in of magical dabbler John Constantine, Sara’s restored to normal by… a fight scene. Not even a big fight scene either, not by Arrow standards. That feels like a big old let down, and worse, the producers trying to shoehorn the Arrow format into something which really could have been done differently.
  • I know Thea’s young and a bit daft at times, but would she really not have heard of Chappaquiddick (even if the Harry Potter joke’s a nice line)? It’s something that likely changed the course of American politics in the ’70s and famous enough that even on this side of the Atlantic it’s pretty well known.
  • Baron Reiter’s dismissal of Conklin’s discovery of the parachute and equipment is bizarre. Surely, if he’s so worried about infiltrators – as with Constantine turning up – he’d be more likely to act, not less. Unless Conklin’s forever claiming people are traitors and spies and Reiter’s just got a bit bored with it now.
  • No ciggies. Okay, reformed ex-smokers might not complain, but the nearest we get to TV Constantine having a smoke is stubbing one out on the ground when Oliver phones. C’mon, I know it’s 2015 (and kids, smoking really IS bad for you, m’kay) but Constantine smokes like a chimney with a death wish and you’d think he’d at least nip outside for a crafty one once he’s brought Sara back to life.

arrow-2 (1)

  • New political fixer Alex Davis, played by Suburgatory’s Parker Young, doesn’t make much of an impression. Presumably the character will start to have an influence on Oliver’s campaign over the next few weeks but on first impressions, he’s not exactly Bruno Gianelli.

And the Random:

arrow-9 (1)

  • The director of this episode is veteran British-born helmer John Badham, and if that name sounds familiar, it’s because he directed some of the biggest cinema hits of the ’70s and ’80s, including iconic genre entries such as Blue Thunder and Short Circuit, Saturday Night Fever, Stakeout (and its ’90s sequel Another Stakeout), real-time Johnny Depp curio Nick Of Time and of course the pretty much untouchable WarGames. Despite being well into his ’70s, he was also a director on the TV series of Constantine, making him the obvious choice to take care of “Haunted”.
  • The idea of a crossover between the shows had been kicking around for a while, in fact, since the Lazarus Pit became a feature of Arrow’s mythology. Stephen Amell revealed earlier this year he was originally going to pop up on Constantine. With that show being axed, the writers seem to have shoehorned him into the flashback sequences as a set-up instead.
  • Constantine and Arrow shared the same studio building, so when Constantine was axed by NBC, the producers of Arrow snaffled the character’s costume from storage. Just in case…
  • The reference to him bringing back a soul a year ago is true: it’s the soul of his partner Chas’ daughter, in the Constantine episode “Quid Pro Quo”.
  • The Orb of Horus, eh? Horus the Hawk God. Suspect we might see that coming back again sometime soon…
  • Listen out to Blake Nealy’s score for the episode. He’s worked the five note harpsichord sting from Bear McCreary’s Constantine theme into most scenes featuring John, starting from the moment we see his face after being belted in the chops by Baron Reiter.
  • Writer Brian Ford Sullivan is an Arrow veteran, working on a number of series three’s key scripts, and also co-wrote cartoon spin-off Vixen. Co-writer Oscar Balderrama has been the show’s script co-ordinator pretty much since day one, and also wrote the episode in which Sara was killed. He’s also co-writing Arrow’s first tie-in novel.

arrow-13

  • Poor old Curtis. The comic book version of Mister Terrific is an Olympic Gold Medal winner in the decathlon. Arrowverse’s version only won the bronze in 2008. In the real world, Cuban athlete Leonel Suarez picked up the bronze in Beijing – a feat he repeated in London four years later. Gold that year was won by an American, Brian Clay. Still Curtis is, at least, wearing a jacket with Fair Play on the sleeve, just like his comics counterpart.

Review by Iain Hepburn. You can listen to his podcast at www.fromthesublime.com

 

• Read our review of this week’s The Flash
• Read our other Arrow season four reviews
• Arrow & The Flash Interview Double-Bill: Cynthia Addai-Robinson & Candice Patton

 

The_Flash_2x05_the_darkness_and_the_light_jay_in_costume

The Flash S02E05 “The Darkness And The Light” REVIEW

by with No Comment Reviews

The Flash S02E05 “The Darkness And The Light” REVIEW

The_Flash_2x05_the_darkness_and_the_light_jay_in_costume

 

stars 4

Airing in the UK on: Sky 1, Tuesdays, 8pm
Writers: Ben Sokolowski & Grainne Godfree
Director: Steve Shill

 

Essential Plot Points:

  • Zoom’s rubbish assassin of the week is Dr Light, Earth 2’s Linda Park doppelgänger with super powers. She does kill someone, but it’s not Barry and it’s by accident (RIP Picture News editor Eric Larkin).
  • Earth 2’s Wells – let’s call him Harry, like Cisco – is a general dick to everyone but has a special contempt for Jay whom he regards as a loser. Barry is faster and better and more likely to take down Zoom, he thinks.
  • Jay retaliates by pointing out Harry had months to admit he created the meta-human problem on Earth 2; instead he made money out of the situation by selling meta-human-detecting technology.
  • But something has changed Harry, who now admits his guilt and vows to take down Zoom (we learn in the final scene that Zoom has kidnapped Harry’s daughter).
  • Harry outs Cisco as a meta-human because his powers can help locate Dr Light.
  • Wells’s advice helps Barry defeat Dr Light. Buoyed with confidence, Barry announces he’s ready to take on Zoom. Jay flounces off in a strop because no one believes him that Zoom is too powerful to take on.
  • Barry and Patty have a date, complicated by the fact that Barry has been blinded by Dr Light. They end up snogging.
  • Surprisingly, Iris doesn’t discover any new relatives hiding down the back of the sofa.

 

The_Flash_2x05_the_darkness_and_the_light_death_by_light

Review:

Dr Wells is dead. Long live Doctor Wells! Okay we’ve known for a few weeks now that the Earth 2 version of Central City’s answer to Steve Jobs was skulking in the shadowy edges of the storyline. But this is his first proper full-on appearance, where we finally get the measure of the man. And the decision the writers have taken is a clever one.

Because he couldn’t just be evil again. That’s been done. And besides, it wasn’t actually Wells who was evil, but Eobard Thawne in his stolen body (a fact that’s given lip service here but most of the characters seem to have difficultly accepting). On the other hand, while making this new Wells a good guy would have been a fun contrast, it’s also the really obvious move; spend a few episode making it look like he’s a villain then reveal him ro the avenging, high-tech hero.

So what we get instead is a dick, as Cisco so precisely points out. He may turn out to be a villain; he may turn out to be a hero. It doesn’t matter. For the moment, we have a self-satisfied, big headed bully who you’d loathe in real life but is fantastic to watch on screen. There’s even a little hint and quite how much of a Jeremy Clarkson he is really early on in his very first speech when he says, “Meta-humans: men –and women! –with extraordinary abilities…” You can actually hear the exclamation mark after “women” as if that’s somehow even more extraordinary.

Dick. But what a fantastic addition to the chemistry of the series.

The other highlight of the episode is Barry’s hilarious blind date with Patty. Grant Gustin proves once again that he’s a great comedy performer and the whole scene is both silly and charming. To be fair, Patty is being written as a little bit too perfect at the moment and is in danger of coming across a little shallow; Iris may not have had such a great screen chemistry with Barry but she’s by far the more multi-layered character. If the show’s playing the long game as far as getting this famous comic couple together this is probably the right way to go about it; Barry and Iris weren’t ready for each other in season one but as they both mature maybe they can come together in the future. On the other hand, giving Patty a few flaws could add a lot more depth to her portrayal. In the meantime Patarry… or Bazatty… or whatever… are a fun couple to watch.

Dr Light is slightly better than the usual villain-with-a-gimmick-of-the-week, primarily thanks to the fact she’s the doppelgänger of an existing character so she’s slightly easier to identify with. She’s still remarkably skimpy in the backstory department, though.

The_Flash_2x05_the_darkness_and_the_light_not_a_metahuman

Poor old Jay is a bit of a whipping boy at the moment and the arrival of Wells Mk 2 makes him come across as even more wet and useless (falling into a relationship with the increasingly vapid Caitlin doesn’t do him any favours, either). Wells’s arguments all seem far more convincing at the moment, but maybe he has the easier sell; arguing for caution and restraint, as Jay does, is always going to inherently sound like the weaker position. As much as Jay has been a bit of a disappointment so far, let’s hope there’s some retribution and re-assessment for him soon. He needs it, because your main memory of him this episode may well be his hopeless, “I don’t know!” when Barry asks what he should do to defeat Dr Light.

A strong episode despite a few creaky moments, “The Darkness And The Light” also benefits from a last-minute appearance from Zoom, who in a few seconds comes across as far more formidable than Reverse-Flash ever did.

 

The Good:

The_Flash_2x05_the_darkness_and_the_light_chairs

  • For some reason, the business with then chairs in the bank really amused us.
  • Barry’s “blind” date is hilarious, made better by the fact that Patty isn’t fooled in the slightest.
  • Zoom is blimmin’ scary, isn’t he? Hiring Tony Todd to do the voice was a good move.
  • The death of Eric Larkin is a bit of a shocker.
  • The new snarky Wells – an internet forum in human form – is a clever twist. Not evil; not nice; just a git. He’s great fun to watch and has some great lines (Joe: “How are you still alive?” Wells: “I don’t know. Because you missed?”)
  • “You know, our Dr Wells may have been evil but you’re just a dick.” Cisco is not impressed, clearly.

The_Flash_2x05_the_darkness_and_the_light_fist_in_heart

  • This moment, which so horrifically mirrors that shocking moment in season one when evil Wells thrust his hand into Cisco’s chest and stopped his heart. This Wells has even been told about that story; is he being deliberately cruel? Whatever the truth, it is an uncomfortable moment to witness.

 

The Bad:

The_Flash_2x05_the_darkness_and_the_light_instagram_world

  • Earth II looks like it’s been shot using the sepia filter on Instagram.

The_Flash_2x05_the_darkness_and_the_light_helmet

  • The shot where Iris shoots off Dr Light’s helmet is very unconvincing (as was the whole “Chekov’s gun” set-up with Joe giving Iris a weapon that was clearly going to come into play later in the episode).
  • Why do the Earth 2 duplicates need to kill their Earth 1 counterparts. Will this ever be explained?
  • There’s a really awkward moment late in the episode when Iris thanks Wells which feels really false and comes from nowhere. It’s not like Wells needs his ego stroked.
  • Joe: “I just want one week where we’re not surprised by somebody from out past.” It’s never a good sign when a line brings attention to a cliché you hadn’t noticed.

 

And The Random:

The_Flash_2x05_the_darkness_and_the_light_black_panther

  • Anybody else think that Zoom’s mask looked a little bit like the Black Panther’s, but with go-faster flashes?
  • Dunno whether it’s relevant but Dr Light is defeated in a train station while Zoom’s hideout seems to be a train shed. Maybe Dr Light wasn’t trying to leave on a train; maybe she was looking for a breach.

The_Flash_2x05_the_darkness_and_the_light_crash_test_dummy

  • Did you spot the remote control training dummy that Cisco built for Barry way back in the sixth episode of the first season, “The Flash Is Born”?

The_Flash_2x05_the_darkness_and_the_light_date_match

  • Hang on. Is this some kind of dating service? Or a personality test? Imagine if your meta-match was Grodd.

The_Flash_2x05_the_darkness_and_the_light_dr_light

  • There have been two main Dr Lights in the DC comics universe. The first was a supervillain called Arthur Light first introduced in Justice League of America #12 (1962). He was never a major villain though he was a member of the Fearsome Five, Injustice Gang, Injustice League, Secret Society of Super-Villains and Suicide Squad at various times. He was eventually outed as a serial rapist and killed by The Spectre in Final Crisis: Revelations #1 (2008). Meanwhile, an entirely different Dr Light, a female scientist called Kimiyo Hoshi, was created in Crisis On Infinite Earths #4 (1985) and became a superhero. In a cruel twist, Arthur Light drained her of her powers during the Infinite Crisis crossover event in 2005. She’s barely been heard of since.

The_Flash_2x05_the_darkness_and_the_light_hawk_girl

  • Kendra Saunders (played by Ciara Renee) is a character from the DC universe (introduced in Earth 2 #2, 2102) but just in case you don’t want spoilers, we’ll tell you more about her when the truth comes out on the show.

The_Flash_2x05_the_darkness_and_the_light_jessie

  • Likewise Wells’s daughter (played by Violett Beane) is destined to become The Flash’s version of another famous character from the DC comics universe (a very different version as she’s not Wells’s daughter in the comics) but we’ll deal with that when more is revealed. She’s not even named in this episode. However, did you notice her expression when Jay is outing Wells for creating the meta-humans? It’s almost like she’s recalling something at the back of her mind.
  • Presumably the friend from Atlantis that Jay refers to is Aquaman.
  • Foreshadowing alert: “Cisco, I don’t think any of us would become evil if we all of a sudden got powers,” says Caitlin Snow, who becomes the supervillain Killer Frost in the comics (and presumably will in the series if Barry’s glimpses of the future in the season one finale come true).
  • Interestingly, however, when Wells uses his meta-human detector on Caitlin it doesn’t register her, so presumably when (or if?) she becomes Killer Frost, it won’t be because she was affected by the STARLabs blast.
  • The show has referred to speed mirages before (evil Wells used them in season one) but this is the first time Barry has used this power.
  • Cisco Ramon is now officially Vibe, just like in the comics.

 

Review by Dave Golder

• Read our other reviews of The Flash

 

the_flash_2x04_fury_of_the_firestorm_flash_jax

The Flash S02E04 “The Fury Of Firestorm” REVIEW

by with No Comment Reviews

The Flash S02E04 “Fury Of The Firestorm” REVIEW

the_flash_2x04_fury_of_the_firestorm_flash_jax

stars 4

Airing in the UK on: Sky 1, Tuesdays, 8pm
Writers: Kai Yu Wu, Joe Peracchio
Director: Stefan Pleszczynski

 

Essential Plot Points:

  • Professor Stein needs to merge with another suitable Firestorm candidate otherwise he’ll die from technobabble… or something.
  • There are only two suitable candidates: a high-flying scientist – Henry Hewitt – and a former potential pro-footballer whose career was ruined by the STAR Labs super-blast – Jefferson “Jax” Jackson. He’s now a car mechanic with a dodgy knee and a sulky expression.
  • Hewitt is up for the role, Jax isn’t. Unfortunately Hewitt isn’t as compatible as they thought and the merging appears to fail. He stomps off in high dudgeon, and it turns out he has police record of violence.
  • It also turns out that the merging attempt has activated his latent power to be an extreme asshole with energy bolts.
  • Jax has second thoughts, decides he’s a team player and merges with Stein. Together, as Firestorm, they help Barry defeat Hewitt, aka, Tokamak, aka, Google it.
  • Stein and Jax fly off to Pittsburgh to appear in the spin-off… do some research.
  • Barry is attacked by King Shark, but saved by… Harrison Wells, using some gizmo he’s nicked from Mercury Labs.
  • Barry and Patty flirt, with Joe fanning the flames of romance.
  • Iris’s mum is dying, but any sympathy that may have evinced evaporates when Iris discovers that her mum has been keeping a secret – she has a son whom Joe knows nothing about.

the_flash_2x04_fury_of_the_firestorm_tokamak

 

Review:

To be honest, if it weren’t for the appearance of King Shark at the end of the episode this is probably only a three or three-and-a-half star episode: solid but nothing exceptional. The Flash by the numbers. But King Shark, although he’s on screen for less than a minute, is the undoubted highlight. By a long way.

Not just because he looks brilliant, though he undoubtedly does: this is a near-movie-quality CG monster, pulling off a potentially cheesy, silly-looking character with an impressive design and exquisite animation. This whole B-plot is a witty work of genius throughout the episode, from Barry and Patty’s smirking disbelief about the whole “land shark” idea to the marvellous shot of King Shark’s massive hand looming behind Barry as (in voiceover) he’s wibbling on about “grabbing” chances while you can. Even Barry’s startled look when he does get grabbed is a peach.

the_flash_2x04_fury_of_the_firestorm_shark1

The writers are obviously aware of the clichés they’re creating as well. A couple of weeks back we pointed out how season two had already fallen into a “Zoom hires rubbish assassin of the week” formula. Well, here we have it again but with a massively fun twist. Also, the King Shark plot neatly ties in with the “is Harrison Wells evil this year?” plot. Presumably not, judging by that ending, but let’s wait and see how things pan out, yeah?

As for the main plot? S’okay. It’s obvious where it’s going from the moment, in the teaser, when Jax says to a footballing mate, “We won us the game.” He’s a team player, y’see. Perfect material for sharing a body, unlike some stuck-up scientist who just wants his own personal glory. So there aren’t a lot of surprises in the Hewitt vs Jackson for the Firestorm Cup storyline. 

But Franz Drameh makes a charismatic addition to the cast… although he’ll primarily be part of Legends Of Tomorrow’s cast, to be fair. His more streetwise, blue-collar Firestorm makes a pleasant change from all the technobabble-spouting scientists who normally inhabit the show. And Demore Barnes as Hewitt is afforded slightly more of a backstory than many of the show’s villains of the week; he actually makes a far better psycho than he does a chirpy, big-headed scientist. We’re thinking he’ll be back for a rematch at some point.

The West’s storyline is progressing at a not-annoying but not-particularly engaging way. Candice Patton and Vanessa Williams are turning in some great acting, but so far all the revelations have been standard soap material. Nothing wrong with a little soap, but it’s difficult – so far – to see what all this has to do with the bigger picture. Of course, it will have (see the Random section below) but for the moment it all feels a little like a time-to-put-the-kettle-on distraction.

But for King Shark… we’ll forgive this episode almost anything.

 

The Good:

the_flash_2x04_fury_of_the_firestorm_shark2

  • KING SHARK! Best cameo ever. He looked amazing and was amusingly inserted into the plot, too. (But where are they going to find a cell at STAR Labs big enough to hold him?)

the_flash_2x04_fury_of_the_firestorm_the_blast

  • Franz Drameh immediately impresses as Jax/Jackson/50% of Firestorm. He has infinitely more personality than Ronnie Raymond ever did and pairing up the stuffy Professor with the streetwise mechanic should prove a more interesting dynamic.
  • You have to love the new hard-nosed Iris. She’d be a nightmare to know in real life – a trip to see a film would probably involve her investigating the cinema’s safety record – but after all the lies she had to live with in season one, it’s actually a natural step for her to check up on everything she’s told.
  • Barry and Patty make an almost too perfect couple, but there’s no denying their flirty banter is delightfully cute: “A land shark!” “A land shark? Sounds like a bad sci-fi movie.” “Or an awesome sci-fi movie.” “Totally.”

 

The Bad:

  • “Put your fins in the air!” The show has had some ropy humour in the past but this is a new low.
  • Caitlin is especially annoying in this episode. Is the fact that she suddenly fancies any guy who wanders into STAR Labs with an IQ larger than the dollars she spends per day on hair products supposed to be a running gag? It just makes her look dim. Plus Danielle Panabaker seems to have even more trouble than usual convincing anyone that she understands a word of the technobabble she has to spout.

the_flash_2x04_fury_of_the_firestorm_firestorm

  • The Firestorm special effects often don’t look as impressive as they did in season one (though they did look great in this one shot).

the_flash_2x04_fury_of_the_firestorm_gulp

  • Joe does a hilariously over-the-top gasp when Dr McGee says she’s seen Harrison Wells. We half-expected him to follow it up with a, “Zoinks!”
  • There’s an awful lot of technobabble.

 

And The Random:

the_flash_2x04_fury_of_the_firestorm_cosmic

  • Jax: “What kind of treadmill is that?” Cisco: “Cosmic.” We believe this is the first time the treadmill has been explicitly referred to as “cosmic” in the show – a reference to the cosmic treadmill introduced in the comics in The Flash #125 (1961) which Barry uses to travel through time.
  • Firestorm_v.2_-1The episode title is the same as the name of Firestorm’s second regular comic book series – The Fury Of Firestorm (though it drops the subheading The Nuclear Man, sadly). That’s a nice touch, except the episode should really have been called “The Fury Of The Rejected Firestorm”.
  • Jefferson Jackson• Jefferson Jackson was a minor character in the DC comics universe, introduced in The Fury Of Firestorm #1 (1982). Created by Gerry Conway and Pat Broderick, he was a close friend of Ronnie Raymond and often became involved in his mate’s adventures but he never became Firestorm himself. He was never seen again after The Fury Of Firestorm #35 (1985). Interestingly, his full name was never given but he was referred to as both Jackson and Jefferson.
  • King Shark• King Shark was created by Karl Kesel, and first appeared in Superboy Volume 4 #0 (1994). His father is Chondrakha the God of all Sharks, and his mother is a human. He had a successful career as a serial killer in Hawaii for years before Superboy discovered his existence. Although primarily a supervillain he was Aquaman’s sidekick for a while. He’s been a member of the Secret Six, the Secret Society of Super-Villains and the Suicide Squad (he almost made the cut for next year’s film).
  • Henry_Hewitt_01• It’s not entirely obvious unless you know the character from the comics, but Henry Hewitt is the supervillain Tokamak. Cisco does “name” him but almost by accident when Caitlin flusters, “It’s like one of those controlled fusion devices. Um…?” and Cisco offers, “Tokamak?”  Cisco later uses the name again in a line that’s easy to miss. Anyway, In the comics, Hewitt was introduced in The Fury Of Firestorm #15 in 1983 as the head of a corrupt energy conglomerate who tried to play hardball with Congress to manipulate markets on his behalf. He kidnapped a senator’s daughter and experimented on her with a process similar to that which created Firestorm and created the superhero Firehawk in the process. Then he tried the process on himself to become Tokamak.
  • Henry Hewitt works for Eikmeier Industries, which is presumably named after The Flash scriptwriter Brooke Eikmeier.
  • Who wants to place a bet that Iris’s brother is going to turn out to be Wally West… Kid Flash and the third The Flash in the comics?
  • “Would you prefer Celine Dion? I got the Titanic soundtrack in the back there,” says Jax when Professor Stein moans about his taste in music. It’s surely no coincidence that Victor Garber – who plays Stein – appeared in Titanic (1997).

Review by Dave Golder

• Read our other reviews of The Flash