AdamDroge Reviews

Avocado Toast (2021)

A fun movie about Millennials

[8/10 · 9 July 2021]

The point of this movie is to make you laugh. Allow you to have a little bit of fun as it pokes fun at Millennials in a harmless way.

Comedy is subjective and not everything in this movie lands for me. But that might be different everyone. And they also obviously don't have all the resources to make it as fancy and perfect as some big-budget Hollywood blockbuster. But for what it is as a small indie comedy, it's effective and harmless with a strong core of acting. Some of the side characters are annoying, but the lead male and both lead females do a great job.

Every movie is someone's life work and more people, especially people on this site, need to do a better job at respecting the filmmaking process. This particular movie took six years to make and had a lot of effort go into from someone who has a life, a full-time job, and family to feed and take care of, but still wanted to make time to follow a dream. Even if you don't like the final outcome, and I agree that not everything works for me either, the least you can do is have some respect and not casually throw out your 1/10 after giving it two seconds of thought or only watching the trailer.

It's hard to make a movie. And this one is totally fine. Give it a chance!

The Mandalorian: Chapter 12: The Siege (2020) Season 2, Episode 4

Just another filler episode...

[7/10 · 20 November 2020]

Last week they introduced Bo-Katan and named-dropped Ahsoka, which is where Mando was headed. Yet I should've known by the fact that Carl Weathers was directing, that this was yet another side adventure.

Listen, the episode wasn't bad. But the best parts of the episode are what it sets up for the future with Moff Gideon and the revelation of the cloning. Outside that, it was much like last week where we were fighting storm troopers and laughing at Baby Yoda stuff. This time with Gina Carano and Carl Weathers returning as sidekicks for our random adventure of the week.

Honestly, I don't mind these filler episodes. It just gets frustrating when they only promise us eight episodes a year, yet 90 percent of it are these filler episodes that are 30-35 minutes each. It's like they only have a small percentage of plot planned out that they're stretching out as thin as humanly possible. I love this show and this little corner of the universe they've set up. I just leave each week starving for more and I never feel satisfied. Give me longer seasons with longer episodes and DO something with the plot outside giving us a bunch of filler episodes.

The positive note is that Dave Filoni is directing next week's episode, so maybe that'll be something to look forward to. If Ahsoka doesn't finally show up, I might go crazy.

The Mandalorian: Chapter 11: The Heiress (2020) Season 2, Episode 3

YESSSSSS!!!!!

[9/10 · 13 November 2020]

OK, this was a shorter episode. Only 35 minutes with credits. But they crammed a lot in here that made me happy!

The first two episodes were both solid. I loved the first episode. It's an excellent stand-alone episode that's very much of the style of The Mandalorian. The second episode was definitely a filler episode, but it was a good filler episode. But this episode FINALLY gave us Bo Katan. In the first two episodes when he's searching for someone else of his kind, I knew it was Bo Katan that he was going to run into. And it was so great to finally see it come to fruition.

If you have no idea of who this character is, what her significance is, or why she's searching for the Darksaber (which we saw in season 1), I'm not going to spoon-feed you. Go watch Clone Wars and Rebels. Or read Wookiepedia. Is this just fan service they're throwing at us? Sure. But that's not always a bad thing, especially if it fits into the plot. This show is called "The Mandalorian." So it makes sense for other Mandalorians to show up. My only complaint with the show as a whole is it hasn't gone anywhere yet. If you're happy with nothing but episodic adventures with Pedro Pascal for the rest of this show, then fine. You're allowed to feel that way. But I've waiting for the story to go somewhere and expand the Star Wars lore. After spending so much time teasing us, I'm finally glad that we had this reveal and that we now have a solid direction.

Even if you don't know anything about Bo Katan, I still feel that this could be an entertaining episode. We have a trio of awesome Mandalorians that our protagonist joins and some fun action sequences as they take over the ship. My only complaint is that it could've been longer. This feels like 50 minutes of show that got squished into 35 minutes. So why not just make it 50 minutes? I thought the length of the first episode this season was perfect. I was hoping they'd all be like that. But oh well.

Finally, the other big reveal is that THEY FINALLY NAME-DROPPED AHSOKA!!!!! SHE'S COMING NEXT EPISODE!!!!!! Given the relationship that Bo Katan has with Ahsoka, when she told Pedro that she'll take him to a Jedi, we knew that she was referring to Ahsoka. But it was satisfying to get that official confirmation! No more of this nonsense of them dangling the rumors over our heads. We're getting Ahsoka, ladies and gentlemen!

OK, your acceptance of this will go back to the previous conversation. Is your enjoyment of this episode going to rely on your knowledge of Clone Wars and Rebels? Perhaps. But I don't care. Ahsoka became my favorite Jedi over the course of Clone Wars and Rebels. Yet they've never bothered to tell me where the frack she's been over the course of the original timeline. I want my answers and I don't care what the internet thinks. The idea that we might finally get the answers makes me pumped for next week! If you don't know who Ahsoka is, you're doing yourself a disservice. She's the greatest. And I can't wait for her live-action debut!

Trial 4 (2020)

A bit long, but very important

[9/10 · 12 November 2020]

I will admit that I'm a sucker for these types of documentaries. And there's a lot of them. In general, I love crime shows, fictional or real. But you give me a documentary or a docuseries about a person wrongfully convicted of a crime and I'll be glued to the screen. These are stories that are very important to tell. For every person like Sean Ellis who was fortunate enough to eventually go free, there's still plenty more locked behind bars. And most of them aren't lucky enough to have a Netflix documentary telling their story. It's a cold, dark, sad life for them, which is a depressing thought.

The thing that I liked about the structure of this docuseries is that they don't play this "did he or didn't he go free" game that some of them do. We don't know the very end of story right away, but we start with him getting released after being granted a new trial in 2015, then we go back to the beginning to tell what happened. The fact that he's being interviewed along the way clues us in that this probably ended well. Thus the purpose is to tell his story instead of stringing us along.

I think my biggest complaint is that I don't know if this really needed eight episodes. Granted, I know a lot of work got put into this and the filmmakers wanted to give it the time they deemed necessary. But I look at fellow shows like "The Innocence Files" from earlier this year, also on Netflix, and they only needed an episode or two for each story. They could've edited this a bit more because it does drag at times, like when they decide to spend a full episode on the District Attorney race. I think they were trying to be the next "Making a Murderer," but I don't know if they needed to.

That said, this story does have some bizarre twists and turns to it. The level of corruption that's uncovered is shocking and the justification from some of the Boston police officers that agreed to be interviewed was disturbing. That's why I say that this is important. To the reviewer who gave this one star and complained about when are they going to stop making these... the answer is when it stops becoming an issue. Which unfortunately is probably never. As long as there's still problems with the system, these stories deserve to continue to be told.

If you like this type of docuseries, you probably don't need the approval from a random internet person like myself before deciding to give it a chance, but you have it anyways, so check it out!

Yes, God, Yes (2019)

Conceptually interesting, but messy execution

[5/10 · 29 October 2020]

I'd heard buzz about this movie from various sources, so I decided to check it out on Netflix. It's about an awkward and shy teen girl going to Catholic school that is Hellfire and Brimstone towards sexuality of any sort outside marriage, but girl is going through a sexual awakening, so we have conflict.

Now listen, this has the potential of working out. It's an interesting idea and a challenge that many teens have, especially ones who grew up Christian. But in execution, this is all over the place.

The biggest problem is that the filmmakers seem to be more interested in the anti-Catholic sentiments than telling an effective coming of age story. I get it. There's a fine balance that needs to be had in raising teens in a confusing world and many Christian groups aren't the best with their approach. Which is why this premise isn't one that I have a problem with, even though I am a practicing Christian (although not Catholic). But every Catholic leader in their retreat felt so fake. Every time there was a sermon preached, it felt like the writers and actors hadn't ever been to a Sermon. It was super cheesy and awful. It made Christianity sound like a huge joke.

Now maybe you are laughing at me. The Christian guy doesn't like the anti-Christian movie. But I just want a good movie. And all the Catholic characters felt fake. And all the teenagers in the movie also felt fake and purposely stereotypical. The only real characters were our main teen, played brilliantly by Natalia Dyer from Stranger Things, and the ex-Catholic lady she talks to at the bar who tells her how awful the Catholic church is. The fact that they were the only two sane characters who felt real made me laugh.

So much like all those cheesy Christian movies with horrible acting and predictable storylines (I'm looking at you, PureFlix), this anti-Catholic movie just really misses the mark. I'd rather watch properly done coming of age movies like Eighth Grade where their focus is on making a good movie with real characters. So like I said in my header, conceptually interesting, but messy execution due to lack of focus on what makes these types of movies good.

Unsolved Mysteries: Tsunami Spirits (2020) Season 2, Episode 4

A bit out of place

[6/10 · 21 October 2020]

This episode isn't bad. It's a nice story and as a religious person I can understand and believe the part about the spirits remaining after the tsunami. I don't think anyone is lying. But I have to nitpick here. This show is called "Unsolved Mysteries." What's the mystery here that remains unsolved?

Ratched: Mildred and Edmund (2020) Season 1, Episode 8

Where did THAT come from?

[5/10 · 1 October 2020]

For the most part I really enjoyed this series. There was a lot of great acting. The characters were quite interesting. There was a lot of tension in the drama that made you want to come back for more.

But then there's this finale.

I mean, if the goal was to completely pull the rug out from under the audience with a turn that no one would see coming, then mission accomplished, I suppose. But a twist just for the sake of a twist is not satisfying, in my opinion. It's best if it makes narrative sense when you look back on it. This is just completely out of left field.

Then you look back on the whole season in retrospect and you can totally see where people are coming from with their complaints. The connection to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" with Nurse Ratched is by name only. They use that to draw you in, but then they go in a completely different direction, meaning this isn't really a prequel. Just a gimmick. And most of the deaths in the show are done simply for shock value rather than having a real purpose, which means there's a lot of story arcs that get set up that have no real purpose but to feel space.

No, that doesn't make the whole thing bad. Just a bit disappointing that they were doing so well only to fall flat on their face in the end.

But I'll be back for season 2, even if it's just for the sake of curiosity, so I guess that counts for something.

Selfie (VI) (2019)

A "Black Mirror" wannabe

[6/10 · 7 May 2020]

This is a movie that was released online via Amazon as a part of the digital SXSW film festival. Filmmakers were given the option of releasing their films this way given that COVID-19 prevented us from having an actual festival experience. And I have a feeling that the more prominent filmmakers with the higher quality films opted to not have their movies show free online. Because the four narrative feature-length films we got were a bit underwhelming.

"Selfie" is an anthological film with different segments that showcases our obsession with technology. On SXSW's website, they made the comparison to "Black Mirror," which intrigued me because I love "Black Mirror." However, that comparison ended up being more of a distraction because I kept wanting the individual segments to be as good as a "Black Mirror" episode, but they never were. In fact, it felt like more of "Black Mirror" wannabe piece. I think the movie thought it was a lot smarter, more clever, and more socially relevant than it actually was.

In fairness, this isn't bad or boring. It's well acted, well shot, and cleverly spliced together. The stories are engaging and easy to follow. It just ends leaving you feel a tad bit unsatisfied. We've seen these ideas and concepts before, presented in a more effective and impactful way. In "Black Mirror." But also in various other shows and movies. So this is more of a mildly entertaining been-there-done-that sort of thing.

Cat in the Wall (2019)

Like a documentary. But with no subject. And no point.

[4/10 · 7 May 2020]

This is a movie that was released online via Amazon as a part of their online rollout of the 2020 SXSW Film Festival. I thought this was a great idea as I love independent film and I would love to be able to go to more film festivals. But...

What in the world was this? The directors in the beginning said they normally make documentaries, but wanted to do this one as a change of pace. And that's interesting in context because this movie felt like a documentary. But with no subject matter and no overall point. Just following the random, mundane life of someone living in Britain.

Look, I often enjoy slice of life movies. But this one was just boring. Sorry.

Arrow: Lian Yu (2017) Season 5, Episode 23

And boom goes the dynamite!

[10/10 · 25 May 2017]

I am sitting here in utter amazement right now at what I just saw in the season 5 finale of "Arrow." There is so much that happened in this episode and there's no way I'm going to be able to get to it all in less than 1,000 words and I'm certainly going to forget to mention things along the way, so I apologize for that up front. But the moral of the story is that this was an epic finale. We've had five seasons of "Arrow," which has equated to over 100 episodes. I don't like declaring one certain episode as the greatest of them all, especially not moments after finishing it, but this has to be up there.

The big story here in this episode is that so many things came full circle. The biggest one of them all was the flashbacks have finally caught up to the present day. And what a clever way of doing that, seeing Oliver in his last moments on Lian Yu before returning home prior to season 1, paralleled with Oliver and many friends fighting a whole host of villains right on Lian Yu, with some absolutely phenomenal editing as we bounce back and forth in glorious "Arrow" fashion.

To start off the episode, Adrian Chase has kidnapped all of Oliver's friends, as well as his son, and have held them hostage on Lian Yu. So Oliver recruits the help of Slade Wilson, Malcolm Merlyn and Nyssa al Ghul, all of whom get their moments to shine. In addition to Adrian Chase, they are up against Talia al Ghul, Black Siren and Evelyn Sharp. And we also have Digger Harkness there, too, even though I kinda forgot he existed.

So let's go through these real quick. Oliver and Slade Wilson. I think I let out a cry for joy last week when he showed up. Slade Wilson is still the best villain this show has had and after three years of sitting in a jail cell, it was great to see him come full circle and be willing to help Oliver on this journey to stop Chase. The speech he gave to Oliver about learning to forgive himself for everything that's happened was beautiful. It was so good to see Manu Bennett back. Joe Manganiello, who will be playing Slade Wilson/Deathstroke in Ben Affleck and Matt Reeves' upcoming film "The Batman" certainly has big shoes to fill.

Next up we have Malcolm Merlyn, our second best "Arrow" villain, and his moments with Thea, who still hates him beyond belief. Until our first "boom goes the dynamite" moment when he saves her life after she steps on a mine, taking her place and sacrificing himself against her will. That conversation Thea has with Felicity after Malcolm's supposed death was also a fantastic conversation, bringing that relationship full circle.

Then we have the showdown between Talia and Nyssa. Nyssa is a fantastic character on this show and it was also wonderful seeing her back. I love her outfit, by the way. Talia hasn't had much screen time on this show, but every time we get a major Batman connection it makes me jump for joy. Their little battle didn't last long, but it made me happy to see it and I hope we get a lot more of those two in the future.

Black Siren vs. Black Canary is next. Listen, I'm still upset that they killed Laurel. I'm not going to forgive the show for that. But having Earth 2 Laurel on the show playing an evil Black Siren is fantastic. And I've warmed up to our new Black Canary, aka Dinah Drake. Their screaming battle was great, which was topped off perfectly with Quentin taking out Earth 2 Laurel. I'm sure that was extremely cathartic for him. And when he gave his stamp of approval for Dinah being called Black Canary, that was great.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but characters we did NOT see in this episode included Lyla, Anarky, Rory, Roy, Vixen, Ra's al Ghul, John Constantine, Katana, Amanda Waller, Deadshot and Tommy Merlyn. IMDb should really fix that because they're all on the cast listing for this episode on IMDb.

Finally, we have the final showdown of Adrian Chase and Oliver Queen. Yes, I still say Adrian Chase is the third best villain on this show behind Slade Wilson and Malcolm Merlyn, but it's a strong third place showing as he's kept climbing up and up this season while giving his best performance yet this episode. And he might be the one that's gotten into Oliver's head the most, which is why it was so satisfying to see Oliver win on the boat, saving William and proving to Adrian that he's not going to kill him.

But did Oliver really win? Adrian shooting himself on the head was the perfect way for him to go out because in doing so he blew up the whole island in our second "boom goes the dynamite" moment. Because, yeah, the island was ridden with explosives and the death of Adrian triggered all of those explosions.

Listen. Everyone didn't just die. We all know that they survived. Or at least some of them. We didn't just kill off the whole cast of this show besides Oliver and William. But holy fetching cow is that an incredible cliffhanger. Now I have to wait four months to see who did and didn't survive and how they pulled it off if they did survive? That's mean. And freaking awesome!

The Flash: Finish Line (2017) Season 3, Episode 23

That's it? Ouch. What a disappointing way to end a season.

[5/10 · 24 May 2017]

Last week's episode of "The Flash" was absolutely brilliant. We started off with a fun heist sequence with Barry teaming up with Snart, breaking into ARGUS and fighting off King Shark to get the final piece needed to finish the speed force bazooka, which didn't work in the first place because Future Barry is always 10 steps ahead due to the fact that he is, well, Future Barry. So despite their efforts to save Iris, she dies anyways because the plan failed and now Barry is broken, Iris-less and needs to find a way to stop Future Barry from causing more damage. It's going to be a great finale, right?

PSYCHE!!!

This show has no guts. And I get it. If you kill off main characters then you ruin the potential for future story arcs. Just look at what "Arrow" did with Laurel. Which I'm still mad about, by the way. But in a weird twist of emotional events, I bought the Iris death. It meant something to the plot and it packed an emotional punch. So of course they wipe it clean in the first few minutes. Because this show has no guts.

Our huge twist in the beginning is that it's not Iris that died. It's H.R. Because he secretly planned this thing with Iris where they digitally switch spots. Iris looks like H.R. and H.R. looks like Iris.

Here's the big problem with killing off H.R. He is literally the most expendable member of Team Flash. Why do I say that? Not because he's the one that has no powers or brains, even though that is true. It's because the show has a different version of Harrison Wells each season. Seconds after H.R. dies, Harry from Earth 2 is there, so we don't miss a beat with this character. In fact we have a better version, because I really like Earth 2 Harry. Yes, I did like H.R. this season and he had a great arc. But "The Flash" literally wiped out that huge emotional weight that it brought in our most recent episode. Because this show has no guts.

And because we've ran out of time to drag our feet and stop Savitar, he instantly goes from being one of the smartest villains to one of the stupidest villains. Did he really think Cisco was going to rebuild the speed force bazooka exactly like he wanted? And what's this whole thing about him wanting to become a god? I'm really tired of villains wanting to take over the world or the universe for no good reason. Yeah, he's butt hurt because he's just a time remnant and Team Flash rejected him. So ruining their lives makes sense. But turn yourself into a god? Please.

Speaking of dragging our feet, Barry decides they are going to try to love Future Barry into being good again. Because that's going to work out. And it made no sense, anyways. He just tried to kill your fiancé. And both Barry and Iris are just going to forgive that? And surprise! Plan fails when Barry realizes that it's impossible for Future Barry to be good because that would require Future Barry to be all fine and dandy with watching Barry and Iris get married. What about him? He has those memories of loving Iris, too. So yeah, dumb.

We finally get to our final showdown and the actual fight was kinda cool. Cisco, Gypsy, Killer Frost, Barry, Jay Garrick all fighting against Savitar. Barry stealing the suit was awesome. He should've kept that thing. But I'm sure destroying it was very cathartic. Then Iris being the one to shoot Future Barry was a cool way to finish him off. But it still had no emotional weight to it. Overall it was kind of a confusing villain to begin with. Decent idea to have a version of Barry be the villain, but poorly executed and thus a lot of missed opportunities.

But wait, we still have like 10 minutes of show left. What are we going to do now? Are we just going to leave season 3 with a beautiful, happy ending? No way. So what's our cliffhanger?

Oh. Speed force is mad. Because they freed Jay Garrick and now they need a prisoner. So out of left field, we have a tacked on ending where without a second thought Barry decides to so goodbye to all of his friends and go into the speed force. No more Barry Allen on this show.

Or so the show wants us to believe. Which I don't for one second. As I say every time Oliver Queen "retires" from being the Green Arrow, this show is freaking called "THE FLASH"!!! We can't have "THE FLASH" without THE FLASH!! Remember Flash Point from this season? Specifically do you remember how long that lasted? One episode. They could've made it a whole season in Flash Point or at least half of the season. But they didn't have the guts. So they gave it one episode and we were back. I guarantee to you that this whole idea of Barry being the prisoner of the speed force will last one episode, maybe two, into season 4. Then he'll be back.

I mean, it would be cool and gutsy to see Kid Flash and Jesse Quick take over for a whole season without the Flash. Send Grant Gustin on a year-long vacation. But in a world where Flash Point lasted one episode and Iris stayed dead for like one minute, do you really think this show has the guts to go without their star for longer than an episode or two at most?

This was a disappointing finale to a very rocky season. Maybe we can just forget this all happened and hope for a better season 4 with sharper writing and a simplified plot?

Supernatural: All Along the Watchtower (2017) Season 12, Episode 23

Man, those last five minutes...

[10/10 · 18 May 2017]

Now that we have the British Men of Letters out of the way, it's time to focus on the stuff that makes Supernatural so great. The Winchester brothers fighting alongside Crowley and Castiel against Lucifer.

This season was a mixed bag for me and it's mostly because of all the British Men of Letters stuff bogging this season down. But when we focused on this other arc, that's when things were really interesting. It felt like classic Supernatural.

The character that I really felt bad for this season was Kelly Kline, played fantastically by Courtney Ford. I mean, all she did was have an affair with the president. She had no idea that Lucifer had possessed that president at the time of the affair and that she now was carrying his son, which in this Supernatural universe is a Nephilim, which means bad news. Lucifer and son ruling the galaxy is a very bad thing. Deep inside Kelly knows that she should get rid of her son, but what's she supposed to do? It's her child and she wants to keep him and love him. And even when she tries to kill herself, that doesn't exactly work.

Courtney Ford really brings a ton to this role as Kelly, especially in this finale as she is about to give birth to this Nephilim. She knows she is about to die, and thus the emotions are high, but all she wants to do is love him. She's not going to be able to do much for him because she won't be around, but the moments of her recording her love and trying to build a crib really got to me.

Meanwhile over on Sam and Dean's side of things, they've finally learned what Crowley has done and are talking about what to do when Crowley shows up. I'm really glad that he didn't die in the previous episode. That had me worried. But no, he possessed a rat for a bit to stay alive and is now back. And the conversations where he decides that he didn't want to be the king of Hell anymore also got to me. Crowley has been one of the most interesting characters on this show over the past eight or so seasons that he's been on the show and if this was his final episode, I think this was a great way to wrap up his arc, but I'll get to that in a second.

In typical finale format, we spend much of the episode successfully building to one final moment. It's very suspenseful, edge-of-your- seat drama as you know that something big is coming and that Lucifer is most likely going to do some awful things when he finally figures out where the gang is. All of this builds to the final five minutes, which had my jaw on the floor.

So much to process is so little time. First off, it was fantastic seeing Jim Beaver back. Killing Bobby wasn't one of this show's best decisions, but it's always fun seeing how creative they are in bringing him back for cameo appearances. This time around in an alternate dimension that Lucifer's son has created. And speaking of this alternate dimension, we have a game plan to trap Lucifer here thanks to Crowley. And so much stuff happens as they put this plan into progress.

After luring Lucifer into the alternate dimension, Dean distracts him while Crowley and Sam prepare the ritual to close the portal, which of course requires a life. Who's it going to be? Well, Crowley and Lucifer now get into a verbal fight where Lucifer assures that Crowley is going to lose, as he always does. Which Crowley replies to by agreeing with that. And stabbing himself.

Wow! I don't know if this is the last of Mark A. Sheppard and Crowley on this show, but if it is, what a way to go. To go from King of Hell to sacrificing himself to stop Lucifer and to help Sam and Dean is incredible.

Then Sam and Dean escape into the normal dimension and Castiel jumps into the alternate dimension? What in the heck was he thinking. Soon Castiel and Lucifer are back out and Lucifer stabs Castiel.

Jaw dropped. Is that the end of Castiel? I certainly hope not. But what a brutal way to end if that is. Misha Collins, I hope you find your way back onto this show next season because it would feel a bit empty without you.

Saving everyone in this season is none other than Mary Winchester. With the help of some enchanted brass knuckles, punches Lucifer back into the portal, where she and Lucifer are stuck when the portal finally closes. Holy cow!

By the way, can I just quickly say how glad I am that Mark Pellegrino has been back as Lucifer this season? Lucifer in various suits has still been great, but the best Lucifer has still been Mark Pellegrino. And it was the absolute best seeing him billed as a lead role along with Jared, Jensen, Misha Collins and Mark Sheppard instead of just a guest star or special guest star.

So now the dust has settled and what do we have? Kelly Kile: Dead. Crowley: Dead. Castiel: Dead Mary Winchester: Trapped. Lucifer: Trapped. We'll see in the next season who stays dead and trapped and who shows up again. But for now it's just Sam, Dean and Demon Child. Which by the way, that final shot, showing Jack the Nephilim in the corner was a fantastic way to end this episode. So chilling.

Now we have to wait a few months to see what happens next. If this is going the direction I think it's going, season 13 should be pretty fantastic!

Supernatural: Who We Are (2017) Season 12, Episode 22

Yippee-ki-yay B.M.O.L.!

[10/10 · 18 May 2017]

Two part finale this week and I have a lot of thoughts to get out in a short amount of time, so let's get to it.

First and foremost, I have not been a fan of the British Men of Letters this season. I think it's been an absolutely atrocious story arc. Filler story for something better that they are setting up for. And pretty awful filler if you tell me, especially since they've gone around killing so many great characters this season. I get that the point is that we're supposed to hate them, but they did a little too good of a job with that. They're a useless group of turds that do nothing to help the show out AND make me hate them. After the fantastic Chuck/God arc last season, this has been a pretty pathetic way of following up.

That said, I haven't hated this season, because they have done a lot of great things that I'll mostly get to in a second in next episode's review. It's been awesome having Mary Winchester on the show and the Crowley/Lucifer stuff has been great as we build to Kelly giving birth to the son of Lucifer that spells disaster all over the place in a very good way.

But again, more of that later. For now we have to blow the BMOL out of the water because they've trapped Sam and Dean in the bunker along with Toni Bevell and Sam and Dean have had enough. After a few failed attempts to get out, Dean literally yippee-ki-yays his way out by blowing up the wall. And now we're off to war as Sam and Dean organize the remaining hunters to go for an all-out ambush.

Not going to lie, this was absolutely fantastic watching Sam and the hunters take down the BMOL. Was it a bit too easy? Perhaps. But I didn't care. It was super satisfying watching this group just totally blow the BMOL out of the water.

But that's not what made this episode so great. It was a nice bit of frosting on the cake, but the reason I love this episode is because of the Dean and Mary scenes. Thanks to the help of Toni Bevell, who for the first time this season was a tolerable character, Dean is able to go into the subconsciousness of Mary and pour his soul out to his Mom. The speech where he is telling her how much he hates her was incredible. She's ruined their lives and sent them down this miserable path. But then he brings that full circle by saying how much he loves her because she's his mom and he can't help it. This is the point where I feel Dean forgives his Mom for everything that's happened and is willing to move forward as they are. Then admitting to her that it's all worked out for the better because they've become pretty awesome was a great way to top that off.

Fortunately Dean was able to say enough to snap her out of the brainwashing because Mr. Ketch, I believe his name is, has waltzed his way into their place, killed Toni Bevell, which actually made me sad surprisingly, and ended the session in Mary's subconsciousness. He starts wailing on Dean and Dean can't do much to because of his gimp leg. I knew Mary was going to step in and finish the job. And I was happy when it happened.

About at this same time, Sam and Jody have just about defeated the BMOL when the final lady is begging them to save her life because Crowley has released Lucifer into the world and they need the help of the BMOL to stop Lucifer. I was begging Sam to pass on that offer and end this here and now, even though it probably meant bad things were going to happen with the whole Lucifer situation, I mean this is a Supernatural finale, which is why I was super happy to hear the line.

"We'll pass."

Bang.

So satisfying. Now we get to go hug it out with Sam, Dean and Mary which really got to me. Mary has done a lot of awful things this season, but can you blame her? I mean, what's the realistic situation for something like this? If they were to make it all rainbows and butterflies, that would be pretty lame. Which is why I've loved her arc this season. It's felt very human. To see Sam and Dean honestly forgive her for everything was excellent. And a great way to set up the actual finale.

To be continued...

The Flash: Infantino Street (2017) Season 3, Episode 22

Potentially the best episode of this season so far

[9/10 · 17 May 2017]

After dragging our feet in varying degrees this season, we've finally arrived at the moment we've all been waiting for. The death of Iris. But will Barry be able to save her in real-time after watching himself fail when he went to the future?

Well, we'll get to that. But first, in order to complete the speed force bazooka gun, Barry teams up with Leonard Snart, who he recruited from the 1800's, to break into ARGUS. Because Lyla is being really dumb and won't let them borrow a certain piece of technology to help save Iris' life.

This who sequence was really cool. I don't know how Barry knew exactly what time period to go back to in order to get Snart, but I kinda just accepted that because I like seeing Snart back. I missed him as a season regular on Legends this season and I really think he needs to somehow return as a regular on either Flash or Legends because he's one of the best characters in this universe and deserves more than the occasional guest appearance. Having him and Barry team up as a hero and anti-hero pair was pretty darn awesome. The whole heist sequence was pretty cool and I really loved the King Shark battle and the clever fourth wall breaking with that Jaws reference. Because we all know that this show doesn't have the budget to do King Shark complete justice, but we forgive them for that and enjoy what little of King Shark we can get with a CW TV budget.

The only part I didn't like about the ARGUS heist was Lyla. Her unwillingness to help Barry at the beginning felt out of character. But we went that route anyways, yet the show wasn't able to commit to that as we had the cheesy moment at the end with her letting Barry and Snart go free.

All of this finally sets up our showdown that we've been building towards, since Team Flash's efforts to hide Iris go complete wrong due to Future Barry tricking them. And I don't want to be the idiot to say "I told you so," but this is the ending to this season that I kinda saw coming, although I didn't know if they were going to be bold enough to follow through with it and actually kill Iris. But it seemed like we were building towards Barry doing his best to save Iris, only to be unsuccessful at doing so. Which is exactly what happened in this episode.

That's not to say that it wasn't well done, though. Because it was. First off, the realization that stopping Savitar is darn near impossible was pretty great. Everything current Barry thinks of doing to stop Evil Barry is automatically uploaded, if you will, to Evil Barry's brain due to Evil Barry being from the future in that confusingly awesome sort of way. Because, yeah, we created a bunch of weird time loops in order to make this all happen, which I partially love and partially am super confused by. There was an "Oh crap" moment for me when I realized that their plan to shoot Savitar with the speed force bazooka was bound to be a failure because Savitar had already figured out a way to stop it. That was pretty genius.

Then we had a really emotional death wherein I really felt for Iris most of all. The future version of this moment was probably a moment where Iris was blindsided as she had no idea she was about to die until it happened. But this version was tragic because Iris knows that her dying is a big possibility and when the realization hits her that Team Flash's plan has failed to save her, that look on her face tore me to pieces. This coming from a person such as myself who hasn't always been on board with Iris every step of the way.

Now the big question is how is this going to turn out? Does this show have the guts to keep Iris dead and send Candice Patton home to work on her resume for her next acting gig? Part of me thinks that they're not going to do this and that somehow Iris will be saved even though we just saw her die. Because, you know, this is The Flash after all and people have a tendency of not staying dead due to this time travel thing. But I kinda hope that they keep her dead. And surprisingly I think I would buy this as necessary emotional weight heading into next season that will help take this show to the next level. Which is funny because I'm still furious at Arrow for doing the same thing to Laurel Lance, but I suppose that is a conversation for another day.

Summing things up with this episode, I think this was an absolutely brilliant episode that did a dang good job at leading into the finale. The heist was a lot of fun as it was great seeing Snart back on the show. The emotion was high and the death of Iris gave me all the feels that a proper death of a main character should give. Now I have no idea how this is going to get resolved, which makes me happy because now I am looking forward to next week's finale. I'm not sure if the finale will be quite as good as this episode as this might be one of those situations where the second to last episode ends up being the best of the season, but we'll see how this turns out.

Arrow: Honor Thy Fathers (2017) Season 5, Episode 21

We're back on track... with an episode about Robert Queen?

[8/10 · 11 May 2017]

After last week's train wreck of an episode, it was nice to see Arrow get back on track this week. Although I'm sure I'm not the only one to be surprised that, with the third to last episode of Arrow season 5, we'd get the resolution to the Robert Queen story arc.

In Adrian Chase's continued efforts to destroy Oliver, he sends Oliver a mysterious dead corpse stuck in concrete. And why? Well, because as it turns out, this is a corpse of a man that Robert Queen killed and covered up. Oliver tries to deny this as some sort of trick and lie from Adrian, but eventually has to face the reality that his father may not have been the man that Oliver thought he was.

Yeah, this is tough. Try to think of someone close to you that has passed away who you loved and respected, then try to imagine how you would react of details surfaced of something awful they had done. Pretty heart-wrenching, right?

This is what Oliver has to deal with this episode and the emotion that comes along with it is pretty strong. The scenes between him and Thea in this episode are pretty great as they talk through it between themselves in a very Oliver/Thea sort of way. Oh, and by the way, Thea is back. She walked in the room and I was reminded that I hadn't seen her in a long time. I guess it says something that I haven't really missed her too much while she's been gone, but I was happy to see her again, so make of that what you will.

The resolution of all this I think was done pretty well as it ties into a lot of themes that have recurred throughout the series. We know that Oliver and Thea's mom wasn't the best person in the world, but she loved her two kids a lot and gave her life saving them. Thea herself was then dealt a huge blow when she learned that Malcolm Merlyn was her real biological father. Then we come full circle learning that there was a lot more to Robert Queen than Oliver and Thea knew about. As Oliver said, this whole brigade began with him trying to honor his father and now he has to come to terms with the fact that his father killed a man and covered it up? Ouch.

But the final resolution is paralleled with their mother. No, their father may not have been a good person, but he sacrificed his life to save Oliver Queen back at the beginning of the show, so it shows that he loves Oliver. And as we learned in the video that Thea watched at the end, he really loves her, too, even though he is not her biological father. It was a great way to wrap up a story line that I had no idea was going to be wrapped up at this point. But I liked it.

Then we have the battle with Adrian Chase at the end, which was pretty cool. Up until Adrian Chase gave in like a rag doll when Oliver told him that his father was ready to disown him. That was just too easy. Had that been the actual way they defeated Adrian Chase, that would've been the dumbest resolution ever. But as we saw from that final shot, and given the fact that this WASN'T the finale, Adrian Chase has something up his sleeve. He wanted to get arrested and Oliver played right into his trap without even realizing it.

And, oh yeah, we had flashbacks. Real flashbacks. They mainly consisted of Anatoly and Oliver saying their farewells. Good bromance moments. Then Dolph Lundgreen comes in and knocks Oliver out. More on that later, I suppose. And more to come on why Rene decided to NOT show up at the hearing? Even though I'm not super invested in that arc, I thought Quentin and Rene had established the fact that he WAS going to show up?

Overall, I'm glad that we're back. This is not the episode that I thought we were going to get this week, but it was much better than last week's mess, and the more I think about it, the more I really enjoyed it.

The Flash: Cause and Effect (2017) Season 3, Episode 21

Not bad, but we're dragging our feet a bit

[7/10 · 10 May 2017]

We're at episode 21 of 23 this season and after we finally reveal that Savitar is Future Barry, we throw in another filler episode? Why are we dragging our feet here?

This episode picks up right where the last episode left off, with Barry talking to Future Barry. Then the two of them have this conversation where Future Barry explains to Barry who he is and why he became Savitar, which is followed by Cisco and the team explaining everything in detail to the others.

And it's kinda awesome and... kinda super confusing at the same time. I think I like what they said, but I also need to spend more time wrapping my head around things and figuring it all out in my head. This is one of those moments where the show gets a little bit carried away with the whole timeline thing. I think next season's big baddie needs to be more simple because they've done a lot of screwing around with the timeline and it's a little much.

At that point, though, I was still excited that we were finally getting somewhere with this season's storyline after spending most of the season playing a guessing game as to who this Savitar person is. But then we slam on the brakes again. Cisco and Julian come up with a plan to take away Barry's memory, which will then cause Savitar to lose his memory, but then it kinda blows up in their face when they realize memory-less Barry is a problem. Then we spend the whole episode trying to get the memories back.

This wasn't all bad. In fact, a lot of this was rather hilarious. Especially that court room stuff. And it was fun seeing super light- hearted Barry without the knowledge of all the crap that he's been through.

But what was the overall point of this? To spend an episode establishing the fact that the bad memories are OK because they shape who we are? That's all fine and dandy and there were some decent heartfelt moments, but this feels like something that we should've established in the middle of the season, not in our third to last episode.

I did like all the stuff with Killer Frost in the office trying to solve this issue with them. I liked the moments with Cisco and Julian attempting to remind her of who she really is. I didn't like the HR/Tracy romance. That seemed like it was only there out of some sort of CW requirement that there needs to be a certain amount of romance. And I didn't like our villain of the week. Even though I liked the courtroom scenes, I don't know why he was let out and I don't think he added much at the end.

But when all is said and done, Barry has his powers and his memories back and we are... back where we were to begin the episode. Now can we actually be done dragging our feet and DO SOMETHING in the final two episodes? The King Shark tease at the end was interesting. I'm curious as to how he's going to fit into all of this.

Arrow: Underneath (2017) Season 5, Episode 20

What in the snooze-fest was that?

[4/10 · 4 May 2017]

We're sitting here in May with three episodes left following tonight's episode and for some reason we decide to throw in a boring as heck filler episode instead of doing something. Why? What was the purpose of this episode? How did it forward the plot?

It didn't. Instead we have Adrian Chase create an explosion where we have Oliver and Felicity stuck down in the bunker and we spend 40 minutes lecturing about trust. And when we're not having the trust arguments with Oliver and Felicity, we're above ground having the trust conversations with Diggle and Lila, because for some reason Diggle is acting like a big baby when he learns that his wife is doing some pretty sketchy things THAT HE HAS BEEN SPENDING THE LAST FIVE FRACKING YEARS DOING THE EXACT SAME THING AND NOW HE IS ALL BUTT-HURT ABOUT IT?!?!?!?!

Holy facepalm. What a ridiculous episode. Of course Diggle's side of things ends with him admitting that he screwed up and has just been acting like a stupid hypocrite for the whole episode. Yeah, thanks for that CW. Can we get back to our regularly scheduled season of Arrow now that we've wasted our time here?

What really frustrated me about the Oliver and Felicity side of things is that it reminded me how much I hate Olicity with a fiery passion. It's one of the things that derailed the show for two seasons given how hard they pushed Olicity. I hated it. They have zero chemistry together and it managed to turn Felicity, who was one of my favorite characters in the first two seasons, into the character on the show that I absolutely hated the most. This hurt me and it hurt me bad.

I've been spending this whole season recovering from how badly seasons 3 and 4 hurt me and I thought those wounds had done a good job of healing. But spending this whole time with Olicity again was like pouring a bunch of salt on an old wound that I didn't realize was still tender. Making this worse were the flashbacks to Oliver and Felicity having bunker sex and contrasting their conversations that they had back then to the conversations they were having in the present. Horrible. Absolutely horrible.

The only good thing here was the Curtis/Rene banter. That made me happy. Oh, and the last shot with Adrian making contact with William was fantastic because it set up what I hope is a great final three episodes. But when the best part of the episode is the final 30 seconds that teases the next episode, you know you have problems.

I don't just drop 1/10's on IMDb when I get frustrated, so I'm not doing that now. But this episode was a waste of my time and I hope we can get back on track next week. I mean, I get it. Oliver and Felicity need to trust each other as do Diggle and Lila. Diggle and Felicity need to not act like idiots. And Oliver needs to learn that he is not a killer. But we could've established in 5-10 minutes during an episode instead of spending the whole episode fleshing that out in a boring as heck way.

Oh, and is it bad of me that when Diggle, Oliver and Felicity were hanging on for their lives to that ladder and Felicity told Oliver to drop her that I was vocally cheering for him to do so? "Drop her! Drop her! Drop her!" OK, I'm done now...

The Flash: I Know Who You Are (2017) Season 3, Episode 20

"I am the future Flash"

[7/10 · 2 May 2017]

Yes, I just spoiled the reveal in the title of this review. But why are you coming to this page if you haven't seen the episode?

We've finally come to the big reveal of this season and the theory that future Barry is Savitar turned out to be the correct theory. Savitar told us a long time ago that he is the future Flash, but when he said that, I think we all assumed that there was a comma. Like, he was telling Barry that he is the future. In other words, he was telling Barry that he was going to defeat him and take over the world. Or something like that.

Nope. He was instead secretly revealing to Barry that he is the future version of Barry. I know a lot of you picked up on this long before they revealed it. If you are one of these people, give yourself a pat on the back. I didn't pick up on it until people started theorizing, and even then I wasn't sure I fully bought into it.

But now that it has been revealed, let's talk about it. Personally I have been annoyed with this season because of this guessing game that they've been making us play. The way to set up a good villain is not to put him in a fancy suit with strong powers and make the viewers play a guessing game for 85 percent of the season. I'd much rather know the villain from day one and spend the whole season building the villain up and setting up for an epic showdown at the end while having a lot of smaller showdowns in the meantime, much like they did in both seasons of Daredevil or in the first season of this show.

With that out of the way, having future Barry be our villain carries with it a lot of interesting questions. It's more than just your typical villain who's trying to take over the world or has decided to attack the hero for no apparent reason or for super cliché reasons that have been done time and time again. This is our hero vs. himself. And not in a mental or metaphorical way. In a literal way. Future Barry has come back to ruin the life of former Barry.

But why? What did Barry go through that was so horrific that he decided to go back in time to ruin his own life? And what timeline is this specific Barry from? Because we've set up quite a few of those.

If this ends up going the route of the old Planet of the Apes movies where they created their own destiny in a weird, confusing way that makes no sense when you think about it then this could be a complete disaster. But if this is Barry from a slightly different timeline that has somehow learned to work time travel and the speed force to jump timelines or something like that, then this could be brilliant. But we're going to need a lot of answers here soon because the idea of future Barry going back in time and trying to kill his past self has the potential of completely blowing up if they don't do it right.

Outside that, the stuff with Joe and Cecile I didn't care for. More CW romance nonsense that they overload us with in every show they've ever made. Some of us come here to watch a superhero TV show and not a giant romance drama.

The stuff with Tracy Brand was OK. Although it's kind of lazy writing to spend the whole season trying to figure out how to beat and unbeatable metahuman only to find a scientist at the end of the season that has all the answers.

What I liked most from this episode was the stuff with Caitlin/Killer Frost. She's been one of the best characters on this show, yet we've all known from the beginning that she was going to become Killer Frost, but to see it happen is emotionally traumatizing in a good way. That's how you build up a good villain. Make us care for the character, then have something happen that turns them bad that we buy into.

On that note, I am kind of annoyed that her metahuman powers automatically turn her evil without any inciting incident. That's just her powers. Evil ice woman. I'd rather have her discover her powers, then have some sort of inciting incident that turns her rogue. Something that Barry or Cisco do that push her away and cause her to lash out rather than her powers turning her evil for no reason. But as is, it's still emotionally effective. I just hope they let it play out naturally rather than having her be bad for an episode or two and dropping it. I want Killer Frost to be the season four baddie instead of a villain of the week.

Moral of the story here is that while I'm thankful we've finally revealed Savitar because it needed to happen a long time ago, I won't be able to have a solid opinion on this one way or the other until we get more answers. We've answered the big question. It's just that in doing so, we asked a whole bunch more questions, so we'll see how this turns out.

Bates Motel: The Cord (2017) Season 5, Episode 10

The perfect finale

[10/10 · 25 April 2017]

It's always sad when a show comes to an end. You put so much time, passion, thought and energy into a show and it leaves a bit of a hole in your soul when it comes to an end. But there's nothing worse than when a show leaves you with a bitter taste in your mouth by ending in a way that you did not think did the show justice.

Thankfully "Bates Motel" did not go that route. In fact, their finale is a contender for one of their best episodes yet. I still think that the second to last episode of season four, where Norma dies, is the best. But this is perhaps a contender for second best.

Continuing on from what happened at the end of the previous episode, which I thought was a bit silly, we have Norman in the car with Romero driving to where Norman hid Norma's body. I'm thankful that they didn't drag this on too long, but it ended up being a tragically fitting ending to Romero's character, who progressed from town Sheriff at the beginning of the show to escaped convict at the end of the show. What a tragedy. Then to see him look into the eyes of his dead wife at the end of the show and sob almost made me sob.

"Psycho" is so great because of how perfectly beautiful the tragedy is in the film. It makes you break down emotionally when you think of how things ended for Marion Crane, Norman Bates and others. I'm so glad they were able to capture that in this episode with several of the characters, but first with Romero as he is killed moments after sobbing at his dead wife's body, telling her how much he loved her.

Informing Norman that Norman killed his own mother and that he can't live with that forever were the perfect last words for Romero. Then the beginning of the end happens for Norman in this episode when his mother personality leaves him, telling him that there is nothing more for her to hide from him. He knows the whole truth and now he must deal with that on his own.

Dealing with that on his own is something he doesn't do well. In fact, he goes into a completely delusional state as his mind is thrown into the past and he thinks he is at the point where they are just barely moving into the Bates Motel. At this point, Norman's mind is completely gone and that is just sad to see. Mentally he is all alone and completely lost. He's gone. Then he calls Dylan up and speaks to him as if they just moved into Bates Motel and they want to have Dylan over for dinner.

At that point you realize that this show is going to come down to Dylan vs. Norman in the house. One of them is not coming out alive and that terrified me because I didn't know who it was going to be and I was scared that it was going to be Dylan, which made his phone conversation with Emma right before walking in super emotional.

The finale of this episode hit home. So much emotion packed into one scene. Dylan seeing his dead mother and vomiting at the sight of it spoke a lot. It helped him connect in his mind everything that had happened and how horrifying the situation was. Then his final conversation with Norman was tragic for both of them. Dylan was talking about what he wanted and that thing was nothing more than having all of them together again. He wanted Norma to be alive. He wanted Norman to be happy and well. He wanted to be able to visit for Christmas and for their daughter to meet her grandmother and uncle. So much power and so much emotion in that conversation that exemplified everything this show is about.

Then Norman grabs the knife and Dylan is forced to shoot him after begging Norman to put the knife down, but knowing that he is so mentally gone that he can't. Then the emotional scene that tops everything in the episode and perhaps everything in the show is Dylan holding his dying brother in his arms. Norman's last words to him were "Thank you," which completely tore me up inside. All the pain and torment from this mortal life is gone and Dylan helped release him of it as he now runs to be reunited with his mother and we are left with Dylan holding his dead brother in his arms sobbing.

Man, what an ending. The story of Norman Bates is tragic, both in "Psycho" and in "Bates Motel." "Psycho" is my all-time favorite movie and I honestly think "Bates Motel" did "Psycho" justice. Norman didn't die in "Psycho" or in any of the sequels. I wasn't expecting Norman to die in "Bates Motel," but looking back at this series, I think that was the perfect way for them to end this.

I'm sad for Norman. I'm sad for Norma. I'm sad for Romero. I'm sad for Bradley. I'm sad for Caleb. I'm sad for Chick. I'm sad for Emma's mom. I'm sad for a lot of other side characters that I'm not thinking of at this moment. I'm sad for Dylan that he had to see his family fall apart, but I'm glad him and Emma got a happy ending with their daughter, which is something I didn't think was going to happen.

I'm sad that this show is now over, but I'm happy they didn't drag it out further than was necessary and I'm happy they wrapped it up perfectly. I'm excited to own this whole series on DVD and I look forward to returning to it in the future on my own and with other friends and family.

Thank you, Bates Motel. You will be missed.

Bates Motel: Visiting Hours (2017) Season 5, Episode 9

The silence before the storm

[8/10 · 18 April 2017]

We have one episode left of this series and I found it interesting that they completely slammed on the brakes as they set up for the grand finale.

With season 5 having been Bates Motel's version of "Psycho," which I think they've done a good job at, I'm trying to figure out exactly what direction they're planning on going here. To be honest, I'm not exactly sure. "Psycho" ended with Norman finally getting caught and sent to a mental institution after the detective explains to the people that he has D.I.D. and that the Mother personality has almost completely taken over.

With the last couple of episodes leading up to a court case thanks to Norman rebelling against Mother and turning himself in, Mother has taken over completely in order to try to get them out of this sticky situation and man is she cunning and manipulative. Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore are at their absolute best as they both switch out constantly, often mid-conversation, yet it's impressive that the transitions are seamless as Freddie and Vera are both successfully convincing us that they are the same exact character.

We'll find out next week how this is all going to go down, but this episode chose to be quiet. Much of the episode was focused on Dylan and Emma and their reactions to learning that Norman killed Emma's mother, which Emma doesn't take lightly at all. And at this point we really feel bad for Dylan as he has to try to figure out what he should do as he knows his brother is a good person that has done bad things because of D.I.D., even though he doesn't know what it's officially called. Dylan is trying to get him into the mental institution where he belongs, but he's having a hard time trying to reconcile with Emma. I mean, when your wife is furious that your brother killed her mom, trying to get your brother into a mental institution instead of on Death Row seems like you're on the opposite side as your wife, which is extremely hard. I really felt the emotion and tension between Emma and Dylan. As much praise as Vera and Freddie have deservedly received, let's not forget how fantastic Max Thieriot and Olivia Cooke have been, especially in this episode.

My favorite part of this episode is the arc that Emma goes through. She starts the episode by being angry at everything after she learns Norman killed her mother. Then there's the tension between her and Dylan. Then as they go their separate ways for a moment, Emma deals with the death of her mother as she has her cremated and spreads her ashes. That seems like the moment that brought her peace. Then she goes to approach Norman in jail where she figures out that Norman isn't Norman at this point, but is instead Norma. The scene where Emma tells Norma that she misses Norman really got me. It's a powerful moment that successfully expresses the tragedy behind this whole situation as we get a glimpse of what could've been.

We finish the episode with the official finale setup. Alex breaks into the jail and rather easily breaks Norman out and forces him and the lawyer girl to drive to where the body of real Norma is. Honestly I felt this moment was a bit cheesier that they meant it to be. I get that he's the former Sheriff and all, but it seemed way too easy for him to break Norman out. I was laughing a bit more than I should've because it was just too ridiculous.

But I suppose I should see where this goes before passing judgment. Overall I'm surprised that more didn't happen in this episode given that there's only one episode left in this whole series, but I loved the scenes between Dylan and Emma in this episode and I really loved that final interaction between Emma and Norman. I'm excited to see what they have in store for us next week. I still have no idea how they're going to end this show, which I appreciate. I'm envisioning about three or four different potential endings in my head and I'm really curious to see which one they go with!

Bates Motel: Inseparable (2017) Season 5, Episode 7

The reunion we've all been waiting for doesn't disappoint

[9/10 · 4 April 2017]

Here's an episode that I'm sure we've all been anticipating for a long time. The reunion of Norman and Dylan.

For the most part, this episode was very quiet and subdued following the big, emotional events of the previous two episodes. On one hand it's great that they gave us audience members a bit of a breather instead of continually shoving in our faces all this high intensity. On the other hand, though, we only have four episodes left of this series, this episode included. Do we really have time to take things easy?

But alas, this was necessary. If we're following the trend that this season is no longer a "Psycho" prequel, but a recreation of "Psycho," then we have to realize that this episode is equivalent to the moment right after the famous shower scene in "Psycho" where Norman calmly disposes of Marion Crane while everyone is realizing that things aren't right after they realize that Marion has gone missing. If you are going to have a successful thriller, you need these moments. The smooth parts of the roller coaster between the two crazy moments.

The first half of this episode I really enjoyed because Norman's reaction to the major murder is much different in "Bates Motel" than it is in "Psycho." Not only did we switch things up and kill Sam Loomis instead of Marion Crane, but up to this point all the murders that Norman has committed have occurred when he was blacked out. This is the first murder where he consciously killed someone and this has destroyed him because in general he is a good person, but now he has to deal with the murder on his conscience.

Thus the bantering back and forth between himself and his alter-ego of his dead mother was really intriguing because you could tell how torn Norman is in not really knowing what to do or how to handle things. Does he turn himself in? Does he continue this lie? Does he give in to his new cold-blooded side? Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga have been top notch this season and they are at the top of their game here in the after effects of the shower scene.

Enter Dylan. A character who I've been highly anticipating the fate of and I honestly don't know what it's going to be. But Max Thieriot has been one of my favorite actors throughout this whole series. He sometimes hasn't been given much to do, but now is his time to shine and he knocks it out of the park in this episode. While we have a lot of crazy characters on this show, Dylan has always represented the normal person. The one that is mentally stable and represents all of us viewers watching this show.

With all that this show has set up these past two seasons, I've felt that this was always going to come down to Norman vs. Dylan and Dylan's first meeting with Norman following the death of their mother is perfect. He doesn't know everything that's happened, but he knows Norman is mentally unstable and that the wrong thing to do would be to overreact. So he's calm, patient and loving as he's taking everything in while trying to figure out how to best help his brother.

Meanwhile, Norman isn't prepared to face Dylan and immediately his mother alter-ego tells him that he needs to find a way to calmly get rid of Dylan, which is not going to work because Dylan has started to figure things out and he's not going away until things are solved, which means we're in for a fantastic finale to this show.

But before we get to the finale of the show, we have the finale of this episode, which was a bit insane. Dylan is trying to tell Norman to take the pills after seeing him break down while talking about Sam Loomis. Which by the way, I'm glad Dylan was able to save Madeleine from Norman. For now. I like her. Then Norman cracks. Mother takes over and attacks Dylan, which for the moment I thought was going to be the end of Dylan, but then Norman is strong enough to take control and wrestle Mother down and save Dylan. Then calls the police and confesses to the murder of Sam Loomis?

Dylan's reaction to this whole fiasco is priceless. He's just sitting there in pure shock not really knowing what to think as he sees Norman start to act like Norma then wrestle himself and wither around on the table before calling the police on himself.

So yeah, this was a more toned down episode for the most of it, but I loved it. The dynamic between Norman and Mother as Norman is trying to figure out how to deal with him killing Sam Loomis is excellent which is followed by the excellent dynamic between Norman and Dylan. Then we have fireworks at the end with Dylan almost getting killed right before the episode cuts off. Wow! And how's this all going to end? Is Romero going to get his revenge? Is Dylan going to get Norman the appropriate help? Is Madeleine going to make it out alive? Is anyone going to make it out alive? Is Norman going to be caught by the police and sent to a mental institution like is the case with the end of "Psycho"?

Only three episodes left to learn all of these answers!

Arrow: Disbanded (2017) Season 5, Episode 18

Looks like we're not in Russia anymore

[9/10 · 30 March 2017]

Listen, I really loved last week's episode. Adrian Chase has proved to be one crazy, maniacal villain. Unlike with "The Flash," they actually decided to reveal the big baddie in "Arrow," which gives us time to have some fun and develop this Oliver vs. Adrian feud. Last week Adrian won. He got in Oliver's head and broke him. Then he sent him on his way, causing Oliver to make some really dumb decisions that in turn makes it so all Hell breaks loose.

The only thing I didn't really like about last week's episode is Oliver announcing to the crew at the end that Team Arrow is being disbanded. Listen. This show is called "Arrow." It's about the Green Arrow. How many times is the show going to try to "retire" the Green Arrow and his team? At this point, it's the boy who cried wolf and I kinda get annoyed every time they go down that route.

But in this case it actually kinda worked. OK, fine. Oliver is going to whine and complain at how awful he is and Diggle is going to talk him out of it. We've seen all this before. It's gone the other way several times, too, as Diggle reminded us. "Arrow" doing "Arrow" things and recycling old story arcs that I grew tired of a long time ago.

Making it more interesting this time around is that Oliver made some really stupid decisions along the way. Let's hire Antoly and the Bratva to come kill Adrian Chase. Because that's going to turn out well. Diggle being in his right mind, while Oliver is still screwed up by Adrian Chase, knows that this is going to be a bad idea and stops the Bratva.

Yikes. Someone just kicked the hornets nest. Now if I'm reading the tea leaves correctly, we're setting up an Oliver vs. Antoly and the Bratva feud and I love it. Especially since Mr. Dolph Lundgreen is still hiding in the shadows.

The thing that makes this so great is that it goes back to a season 2 formula that worked extremely well. Making the flashbacks useful! It's been a long time since I've even cared about the flashbacks, but the last few episodes have been great. I'll admit that I didn't really care for them for most of the season, but now that I know the end goal, it's made me appreciate this whole journey as we've spent time setting up Oliver and Antoly as friends who are both part of the Bratva with Antoly now eventually taking over.

But now we're five years into the future and Antoly and Oliver have gone in two completely different directions, bringing this whole story arc full circle and reminding me of the good ole days when Slade Wilson was our main villain and we were building him up through the flashbacks.

In the meantime, Felicity continues to work for Helix, which has to blow up in her face sooner rather than later, right? But in this instance, they combine forces, with the help of Curtis, to find video evidence that Adrian Chase is in fact Prometheus and they release that to the police and to the world. Being that Adrian Chase is in fact always one step ahead of them, he figures out what is going on just in time to make his escape.

So yeah, I liked this episode! Sure, we had the same recycled story line of Oliver giving up and disbanding the team only to be talked out of it. But in doing so, he kicked the hornets nest and setup what I hope is a season 6 fight against Antoly and the Bratva. They better not wrap that up this season. When we come back in a month, it'll be all about wrapping up Adrian Chase, which I'm also excited for. I'm glad I didn't give up on "Arrow" after a disastrous season 3 and 4 because we're back!

The Flash: Abra Kadabra (2017) Season 3, Episode 18

Just tell us who Savitar is already!

[6/10 · 29 March 2017]

Quite frankly I'm slightly annoyed with this game the show creators are playing with us right now. Instead of having a main villain known from the beginning, this is the second straight season where the main villain is a mysterious, masked villain that the show is milking out the reveal for. Because we can't have a villain show himself from the beginning and spend the entire season taunting and tormenting Barry and co. We have to keep him mysterious and spend the entire season making the fans play a guessing game.

I don't like it. And what was the point of this episode? To tease us. That's literally it. We have a random, villain of the week from the future who uses magic. They catch him super fast and then he tells Barry that he knows who Savitar is and the tease of the episode is that he is going to tell us.

So Joe is the one who lets him out and Gypsy screws things up with her own personal vendetta. He escapes for a while and we catch him again where he eventually tells us... nothing. Because he was never going to anyways. He likes the idea of helping kill Iris by not telling Barry anything. Figures.

Meanwhile can we talk about how annoying Gypsy was this episode? I get her personal vendetta. Abra Kadabra killed her boyfriend and she wants him brought to justice. But can we compromise on things a bit, girl? This dude has some serious secrets that will help your new friends, but you don't give a crap about them or Iris and you'd rather let them die and suffer in favor of bringing justice with your own personal vendetta?

"Where does this leave us, Cisco?"

Hopefully nowhere. The forced romance was bogus CW nonsense anyways. It didn't work. Send her back to Earth 19 and never bring her back on the show.

So who is Savitar? And why are we 18 episodes in and have no idea who he is? I don't know about you, but I like my villains to have depth and substance to them. A villain's motivation is super important to me and I'd rather know that sooner rather than later. Right now Savitar is a useless dumb villain with a fancy suit and scary voice that wants to be evil for some unknown reason and they better have a dang good explanation for why they decided to keep everything a secret for so long. Because secret, faceless villains are annoying to me.

The one bit of progress we did get on this episode was on the Killer Frost front. Caitlin has been my favorite character since the beginning and I love Danielle Panabaker. The way they have been slowly setting up Killer Frost has been amazing. If we're talking about great villains with depth, emotion and motivation, Killer Frost is setting up to be a phenom and I want that story arc to last. In fact, if she was the season 4 villain, I would be totally down for that. That's a villain that I could get behind instead of this useless Savitar crap. Yeah, sure, they had the obligatory CW romance stuff with her and Malfoy that I rolled my eyes at. But that made the Killer Frost ending even more tragic. What if this sends Malfoy back to being Alchemy?

Yeah, there's some promise. Overall I'm still happy with this show and hopeful for its future. This specific episode just frustrated me because it was a big pointless tease. But Barry is going into the future now and Killer Frost is on the loose, so we're setting up for what I hope is a great episode that leads into a great season finale.

Too bad we have to wait a month to see it.

Bates Motel: Marion (2017) Season 5, Episode 6

A twisted re-imagining of a classic

[9/10 · 28 March 2017]

"Psycho" is my all-time favorite movie. I don't need to tell you why. That would take to long, anyways. But because "Psycho" is my all- time favorite movie, I've really enjoyed "Bates Motel." The goal for this show has never been to remake "Psycho," which I appreciate. Instead they've done their own re-imagining of the iconic story while still maintaining the same tone and feel that made "Psycho" so great. There was a lot of fluff in seasons 1-3, but those who were patient with the show were rewarded with a phenomenal season 4 that was one of the best seasons of a TV show that I may have ever seen.

Quite frankly, they could've ended the show with season 4 and I would've been perfectly happy. Except they purposely left a few strings hanging to setup a final season, mainly with Alex and Dylan. So we carry on.

For the first few episodes, I was all in. This was a great final season that had me loving all the dynamics with everyone. Then they introduced a character that they called Sam Loomis. That made me slam on the brakes. There's supposed to be 10 years before the death of Norma and the events of Marion Crane and Sam Loomis with the Bates Motel. What were they doing? And Sam Loomis is now an unlikable character who is cheating on his wife? With Rihanna?!?!?! That's not right.

So let's talk about Rihanna. She is a singer. A pretty awful singer as of late who's always been overrated in my mind. She's had just as much success on the Billboard charts as people like Michael Jackson, Madonna, The Beatles and Elvis Presley. That's just wrong. But as awful of a singer as she is, she's an even worse actress. "Battleship" is one of the worst movies of all-time in my opinion and that's in part due to Rihanna being in the star role and how bad of a job she does.

You don't ever cast Rihanna in your movie or your TV show. You just don't do it. Especially not in an iconic role. Apparently the writers of the show learned that Rihanna was a huge fan and thus reached out to her and the rest is history. I honestly don't care how much she loves the show, she should've never been on this show, certainly not as Marion Crane. That was one of the dumbest decisions ever.

Enter this episode. I was pretty angry at the show heading into this because Rihanna, as was expected, did a pretty awful job as Marion Crane, one of the most iconic characters in movie history. It was a disgrace to this show. So I was expecting to hate this episode. And for a good portion of time, it was going just as expected. Rihanna enters the motel. She is hungry for food. Norman goes to the house to make her food and Mother gets mad at him. Then he goes back and talks to Rihanna for a while before she goes into her room. She gets naked while Norman is watching and goes into the shower. This is the moment where Norman is supposed to walk in and kill her and they set it up with an almost shot for shot shower scene...

And he doesn't? Say what?

Yeah, the twist here is that this is completely opposite of the movie. Rihanna walks back into the motel and asks for the guest registry. Norman doesn't give it to her, but instead gives her the address of Sam Loomis, where she goes and learns that he has been a complete dirt bag who never told her that he is married. So Rihanna goes all "B---- Better Have My Money" on his car (go watch the music video if you don't know what I'm talking about) and goes back to Bates Motel where Norman convinces her to run away so that he doesn't sleep with her and end up killing her.

Rihanna leaves and throws her phone away, never to be seen on this show again. Hopefully.

That's actually pretty genius. In the meantime, Norman has started to figure out that Mother is a fake persona that he created, something that I also was nervous about to start out with. But it works. This instead kinda makes Norman even crazier as Mother then confesses that, while she is fake, she's also a part of Norman and they are a team that has to work together. She then convinces Norman to do something that he's never consciously done on his own. Kill a man.

Because, you see, every time Norman has killed, it's been while he's blacked out. The fact that he has now accepted his fate and killed on his own makes him a more disturbing and terrifying character that is more psychotic and crazy as he has ever been.

So instead of Marion being killed in this episode, Sam returns to the Motel where he is the one that suffer's Marion's fate at the hands of Norman. Whereupon Norman responds:

"Mother, what have I done?"

A complete opposite statement than the classic line from "Psycho" after Norman kills Marion, which is, of course, "Mother, what have you done?"

Now with Dylan likely to return to the Bates Motel and Madeleine still very much in the picture, especially now that she knows Norman was telling the truth and will likely come to him to apologize, along with Alex still looming around and Chick figuring in somehow, we've set ourselves up for quite the epic series finale. Let's hope it delivers!

I'm not going to say this was my favorite episode of the show, but given that I went in expecting to hate it, I'm impressed with the direction they took. I think Hitchcock would be pleased.

The Flash: Duet (2017) Season 3, Episode 17

Heaven forbid we have a bit of fun on this show...

[9/10 · 23 March 2017]

I just got caught up on this week's episode of The Flash and absolutely loved it. I went over to IMDb hoping to see a super high score and lots of high praise in the reviews only to be shocked to see the exact opposite.

The theme of all this hate?

"I hate musicals and this was a musical episode, so I hate it!"

Or

"This did nothing to forward the plot of the season!"

Look, every season in these shows we have around 23 episodes, which allows us to stop occasionally and have a great episode of the week. I mean, heaven forbid we have a bit of fun on this show. So if your complaint was that it didn't forward the plot, then shame on you.

If your complaint was that it was a musical, even more shame to you. I don't get why it's so cool these days to hate musicals or why some people think you can't enjoy comic book movies or TV shows AND musicals at the same time. And I would be willing to bet that many people gave their one star rating and wrote the reviews without even watching the episode. Either that or they went in super biased to begin with and were never going to give it a shot.

Truth be told, this was a genius idea. And with Beauty and the Beast and La La Land, we live in a world where we hire big name stars and then train them how to sing. Now La La Land worked out great because of the premise of the movie while the music in Beauty and the Beast was good enough, but this is a trend that makes me a little nervous because if we are going to do a musical, we should hire people who are already trained musicians.

Or better yet, find actors and actresses who are big names AND are trained musicians. Like in our DC TV Universe. John Barrowman, Jesse L. Martin and Victor Garber have years and years of Broadway experience. Victor Garber was even in a folk group back in the day. And Jeremy Jordan and Carlos Valdes, while not having quite as much experience as the previous three, also are Broadway alums with musical theater backgrounds. Added to all that, Grant Gustin and Melissa Benoist spent years on Glee and we even had their Glee co- star Darren Criss as our Music Meister.

With this much musical talent already firmly in place in this universe, it would be a darn shame if we never took advantage of it. That's what this episode is. It's taking advantage of all this musical talent in a way that is a good homage to old musicals done right.

I have high praise for this episode as all five of our musical numbers (three covers and two originals) were fantastic and I already have them downloaded on my Apple Music account. All you haters out there should just shut up and appreciate what they have accomplished here even if musicals aren't your thing.