Legends of Tomorrow (2016) s07e07 – A Woman’s Place Is in the War Effort!

So, A Woman’s Place Is in the War Effort! bombs Bechdel in a really, really bad way. Like, there better be a scene cut or some really good excuse because it fails it by not giving Kimleigh Smith a name. She’s a Black woman working in an airplane factory in World War II; the Legends end up there and need to work to steal parts so Matt Ryan can rebuild his time machine, and Olivia Swann has a giant arc with Smith. Swann lost her temper at the 1940s racism and had to take over the factory, so the Legends don’t unintentionally get everyone fired, and Smith’s trying to convince her to slow down on the progress. It’s an awkward arc, feeling somewhat dated, especially since World War II movies erase Black people in general and Black women in particular. Still, they eventually get to a good point. Lots of character development for Swann, who seriously feels like she’s being groomed to take over the show.

But no name for Smith. So an amazing Bechdel fail.

The shitty racist boss at the plant is guest star Jason Gray-Stanford, who looks really familiar (I think it must be from “Monk”), and he takes a relatively long break from the episode because there’s not really time for him. In addition to being trapped in the WWII Homefront, the Legends also have to confront Raffi Barsoumian, who went from being the season villain to the second biggest Legends fan after Adam Tsekhman.

There are now eleven team members this season. Eleven. They’ve got to be reaching some kind of breaking point.

The main plot is Swann, Caity Lotz, Jes Macallan, and Lisseth Chavez at the plant. Lotz and Macallan get to work the floor because they’re blond white women. Swann and Chavez get sent to janitorial because shitty racists, but soon discover Smith and the other custodians are helpfully engineering-inclined. Amy Louise Pemberton’s around as Gray-Stanford’s newest suffering secretary, and it’s a good A-plot. Lots of suspense, lots of drama, some laughs. Including Macallan doing an “I Love Lucy” homage and what could be a “Ted Lasso” but probably isn’t. “Lucy” for sure, though.

The B-plot is Shayan Sobhian trying to teach Nick Zano how to be a good host, Persian-style, so Zano can impress Tala Ashe’s family when he moves into the totem dimension with her. They really need to do an episode in the totem; so far, I think they’ve shown a single room and implied another identical room, and neither seems good for “moving in together.” Sobhian and Zano are using Barsoumian as a hospitality learning opportunity because even though he’s ostensibly their prisoner, he’s really just an entitled house guest.

It’s a good episode. It’s way too full—even with some okay scenes, Ashe, Ryan, and Tsekhman are lost in the shuffle—and it could be more ambitious in the factory stuff, but it’s a good episode. It’s Swann’s first episode where she gets to run her own plotline, hence the feeling she’s in line for a promotion.

We also get a big cliffhanger involving the rest of the season; no spoilers, but let’s just say someone’s got a Plan. It ought to be fun. And there’s a nice bit of emotional weight to a twist, which may have repercussions later. So not a big enough swing—and a startling kind of fail—but “Legends” remains in excellent shape this season.

Legends of Tomorrow (2016) s06e07 – Back to the Finale: Part II

This episode packs in a lot. The action beats are numerous, suspenseful, and intense. The difference between the second two adjectives being “suspenseful” means the plot is engaging while intense means the scenes in the plot are engaging. It’s also maybe got Caity Lotz’s best acting in the series to date. She’s very much the lead of the show in her story arc, which isn’t the norm, but then she’s also like a major guest star in the other story arc.

In the present, big bad Raffi Barsoumian has just dropped a major reveal on Lotz; her reaction to it, which was last episode’s cliffhanger, kicks off Lotz’s strong performance this episode. She does it just right (all of Lotz’s strong scenes this episode involve her opposite someone not in the regular cast or at least not regular with Lotz; she and Lisseth Chavez are going to have Chavez’s best scene in the series so far this episode too). She’s still trying to escape Barsoumian’s planet, which is going to involve Dominic Purcell, Adam Tsekhman, Jes Macallan (not as her regular character but one of Barsoumian’s clones), and a little of Aliyah O'Brien. In addition to Barsoumian, of course, who’s a very fun big bad and really manages to be dangerous while silly and absurd. Because he’s just a future tech bro.

Back on Earth, the team has finally had it with the waiting and Shayan Sobhian gets super-stoned and decides he’s going to travel back in time Back to the Future: Part II style to save Lotz from the aliens. Except the rest of the team gets the idea and goes back to stop him, which leads to it sort of being Nick Zano’s plot line (he’s the most experienced team member so he’s in charge; sort of). They can’t really do too much with the season finale from last season because they don’t have Maisie Richardson-Seller guest starring so they can’t run into her. So there aren’t a lot of hijinks; there are some and they’re good, but mostly it’s the team sitting around being sad and thinking about life while being time traveling superheroes.

There’s good stuff for all the cast, though the least for Tsekhman (because there’s just so much going on) and Macallan (at least as far as her regular character goes). But Matt Ryan and Tala Ashe have good stuff, Olivia Swann gets some good stuff with Sobhian (I had to tell myself not to ship because I can’t handle the disappointment), Purcell, then Chavez too. Lots of nice juxtaposing in the script (credit to Morgan Faust and Mark Bruner); some of it gets highlighted, some of it is just echoes.

The episode’s got a surprisingly relaxed finish, especially since it’s seemingly ending the first act of the season story. But it’s also a very good relaxed finish.

Doom Patrol (2019) s02e05 – Finger Patrol

I’m not great at tracking the “Doom Patrol” creatives but I remembered Chris Dingess was working out and Shoshana Sachi was one of the good writers, so I had good feeling going into Finger Patrol and it does not disappoint. Maybe the most surprising part is how well things work out for Joivan Wade and Karen Obilom, with Wade… good in the arc? In fact, he carries some of their scenes now. It’s a really fast improvement.

The Wade and Obilom arc starts as Wade and Robotman (Brendan Fraser voicing, Riley Shanahan perambulating) go to visit Wade’s dad Silas Stone (wonderful to see in his first appearance this season) and then Wade decides he’s got to resolve the Obilom situation. Meanwhile Fraser has decided it’s time for them to become a crime-fighting duo, which goes horrifically, comically wrong. Because, of course.

Back at the mansion, Timothy Dalton is positively gleeful daughter Abi Monterey is playing with Diane Guerrero’s child-like personality. It comes right after a truly terrible scene with Guerrero having it out with Dalton about their past; it should be good, it seems to be well-written, and you can see Guerrero… trying… but every time it could connect, it doesn’t.

It’s rough. So rough the obnoxious child personality is a welcome break.

Is it a good idea for Guerrero and Monterey to play given their incredible abilities and inability to control them? Probably not, but Dalton is a terrible father.

Speaking of terrible fathers, this episode seems to be a resolution—for the time being—to the John Getz as Matt Bomer’s son subplot, which has Bomer and April Bowlby (who gets a very good C plot about trying out for community theatre) going to help Getz and the other men in the family clean out a house. Shocking and upsetting revelations abound.

It’s a really good episode with truly distressing finales for most of its arcs; Dingess and Sachi’s structure is phenomenal.

Doom Patrol (2019) s01e01

Alan Tudyk is “Doom Patrol”’s red herring. So far, anyway. He’s in the prologue, which has him getting powers from a Nazi scientist in the forties, and then he narrates. There’s always narration. Some of it’s good, some of it’s bad. When it’s good, when Tudyk’s not being to snide, it nears Jean Shepherd. When it’s bad, it’s like bad “Rocky & Bullwinkle.” Jeremy Carver’s script has a handful of easy jokes in the action, but most of them are on Tudyk in the narration. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t.

Tudyk’s also got the job of introducing the cast. First, there’s Brendan Fraser, who’s not going to be long in the show—at least in front of cameras—he gets into a major race car wreck (he’s a race car driver) and dies. Weird millionaire very much in the sixties sense when rich people could have boring mansions Timothy Dalton resurrects Fraser from his brain. It’s a whole Robocop homage sequence, which also introduces some of the other cast in background, principally April Bowlby. Bowlby’s probably going to be the make or break on “Doom Patrol.” If she’s good, she’s going to be able to hold up a lot of it.

She was a racist, elitist fifties movie star who somehow got zapped with magic and loses control of her body. Like it melts, but while expanding. Blobs out, really. Presumably by the present day—oh, other thing, none of the “Doom Patrol” members age apparently, hopefully I remember that bit later. Anyway, presumably by the present day she’s not such a hideous human being on the inside. Lots of dry wit from Bowlby.

Then there’s Matt Bomer, who spends the present wrapped up in Invisible Man garb, and apparently is possessed with an energy monster from space. Not clear what the energy monster does but cause trouble. Bomer’s all burnt up because his plane crashed back in the sixties, though it’s unclear exactly what happened after the crash. There’s also a hidden gay life subplot, which… plays weird. So far. Like, the character development’s all fake because Carver’s being so manipulative with the reveals but… whatever. It’s fine. Bomer’s good—is he actually under all those bandages, because Fraser peaces out to let Riley Shanahan do the Robotman stuff, and they have to loop Bomer’s dialogue anyway.

The last member of the team is the newest one, Diane Guerrero. She was at the mansion before Fraser got there, meaning she’s like seventy or so. At least sixty.

Guerrero’s like thirty-two. A young looking thirty-two because she’s playing a punk.

I mean, she and Fraser—once he’s the Robotman—are cute enough but the show’s internal logic is less a “trust us” and more a “who’ll notice,” which isn’t reassuring.

Excellent special effects—like, surprisingly good—and okay direction from Glen Winter help. It’s all setup this episode so who knows what the actual show will bring…

Definitely some Alan Tudyk.

Arrow (2012) s08e08 – Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Four

So.

Confession time.

During the harder-than-normal sci-fi opening to part the fourth of Crisis on Infinite Earths, I thought the crossover might have a chance. I thought if they split the first three into the one arc, then the second two into another… I thought it might work. For a few seconds in the cold open, featuring LaMonica Garrett opening a portal to the dawn of time and somehow unleashing the antimatter universe or something… I thought it had a chance. Then Garrett proved to be just as bad in the cold open as usual and, poof, so much for that possibility.

But wait, then regular human guy Osric Chau (who’s totally becoming the Atom later this year on “Legends of Tomorrow” but whatever) journals—to his dead wife—about all the sad superheroes outside time and space trying to kill time before the plot contrives a way for them to save the universe and it seems like it might get okay, since it’s centering around Chau and his regular guy take on the situation.

And, nope, the journaling stops once Grant Gustin reappears after being missing (during the hiatus between parts three and four, not like, in the present action of the episode or anything). Bummer?

The deus ex machina to get the heroes back in action is Stephen Lobo (who’s in one scene and is so terrible he deserves a callout) training Stephen Amell to be “The Spectre.” Amell’s voice gets disguised, which sort of helps with his performance. Once he’s ready to go, he visits his friends and gets the final battle under way.

Not.

Instead, the episode becomes a low rent Avengers: Endgame with Gustin flashing between moments in Amell’s “Arrow” history to collect the other heroes, who are stranded in the events. Except Chau, Melissa Benoist, and Jon Cryer, who are on a mission on the forest moon of Endor. But a low rent Endor. Cryer’s hilariously fun as Lex Luthor, but Benoist is an utter killjoy as depressed Supergirl. And Chau’s beard looks fake.

But they do get an “asshole” past standards and practices, so… win?

Once Endgame is over—the “highpoint” is Gustin bantering with super surprise guest star Ezra Miller (whose career mustn’t be in great shape as he waits for his years delayed Flash solo movie)—in case you’re wondering, Gustin’s so much better than Miller, it’s not even funny, but it’s still better than anything else because it’s at least fun. Anyway, once Endgame is over, the heroes all go to fight CGI monsters in a rock quarry while Amell fights Garrett (the evil, anti-Garrett) for the fate of the universe.

You’d think since it’s “Arrow,” one of the last episodes of “Arrow,” and Amell’s last stand, there’d be a big fight scene between the two.

Nope. They shoot CGI force lighting at each other. It’s terrible.

I suppose at least they aren’t spouting off goony expository statements about themselves as they fight, which the regular heroes do. The script, by Crisis comics writer Marv Wolfman and “Arrowverse” prime mover Marc Guggenheim, is truly godawful.

I can’t believe I thought they might save it. They somehow made it worse; the desperation of aping Endgame manages not to even be the worst thing in the episode, which is something because it’s super desperate.