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matt_zimmerAlso reviews for the season finale of The Flash and the latest episodes of Superman & Lois, and Monsters At Work.
Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Sahara "The Giant Haboob"
I don't really have much to say about this episode except to note the music video at the beginning was super lame. I am a nerdy white guy and I found it cringey. What's alarming is that before this cartoon the movies were extremely careful about having trendy music and fashions, so you'd think the sleek cars and beautiful people were, well, COOL. I do not love rap music for the most part, but very little of the movies (outside of the music videos) were things I ever thought were lame or stupid. And my complaints about the music videos are down to the politics of showing women gyrating their butts on camera. They are tacky, but I wouldn't describe them as uncool or lame.
This show isn't so careful about that. I notice these things, even as a lame white guy. It doesn't make me happy. **1/2.
Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Sahara "The Dead End"
I think the team escaping from the van was the first time they were ever shown being competent. The rest of the episode didn't impress me much, but I liked that bit. ***.
Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Sahara "The Empty Well"
I like the Japanese Cyborg Ninja guy. He has a cool voice.
Echo is Shelley Winters in The Poseidon Adventure at the end. Ask your parents.
Plot hole: It is not credible none of the guards in the facility have guns. I know it's a kids show, but really.
Cisco not knowing anything about valves and such shows he should perhaps not be in the field as a spy. And yet, I think he acquitted himself nicely with getting into the vent and saving Tony and Layla.
Decent. ***1/2.
Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Sahara "The Hunt"
This is essentially a 22 minute action sequence. The franchise doesn't suck at those, so it was a good episode.
I liked that Sandocal came around at the end. That was refreshing.
Good episode. ****.
Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Sahara "The Bedouin Shield"
That was dumb, but the camel race was fun.
Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but if I were Robot Samurai, I wouldn't be turning up my nose at Raphaella. Yes, she's annoying. She's also super curvy and hot (for a cartoon character). She's a mess but she might be worth it, at least if he has to spend time with her anyways.
Still, dumb. **1/2.
Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Sahara "The Eye Of The Sahara"
That was reasonably satisfying.
When Kelso starting talking about insurance I didn't like it one little bit.
I liked the last shot. Because during Cisco's clear moment of triumph, he very quickly realizes this isn't the victory he thought it was. He's so screwed. Which is a good place to leave us off.
Good episode. ***1/2.
Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Sahara "RoboCleve"
Okay, this season is stronger than the first two, especially the second. This is the penultimate episode, and we had more action and pay-off here than the first two finales combined. And we still have an episode left!
The fight scenes were pretty good (at least as far as CGI go).
This is not a funny show, but I still laughed at Donut the monkey as Mufasa. How could I not?
I like that when the robot arm malfunctioning makes the guy wake up a little, Echo and Ms. Nowhere take note. They do not actually suck at their jobs.
As hopeless as the ending is, remember that Cisco is still out there. Frankly, I'll be disappointed if the solution is anything else.
Best episode so far. ****1/2.
Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Sahara "Sirocco Fire Explosion"
Cisco coming with the cavalry was fun but I was underwhelmed by the flashback. Simply because he whiffed the Braveheart speech. If you are gonna whiff the Braveheart speech, there is no point in making it.
The Armless Robot Ninja may no longer be a robot but he's still a ninja. Handy to have him on our side for once.
The climax was both exciting and ridiculous. I actually dislike ridiculous in the films, but it's fine for a cartoon.
Solid finale. Much better than the first two seasons' endings. ****.
The Flash "The Heart Of The Matter, Part 2"
I am in a serious quandary, and this is the reason I dropped Riverdale.
That was utter dreck. It was SO bad, I was angry by the end of it. And yet I feel me spending a ton of time destroying it is almost letting it win. It took up enough of my time I'll never get back. Why am I giving something that bad even more of it?
This was my quandary for every episode of Riverdale and I ultimately dropped the show midway through the fourth horrid season. It's a little late for me to drop The Flash, and considering it's connections to The Arrowverse at large, that's another reason I'm not willing to stop next season. But that was atrocious. That was a travesty. Is The Flash as bad as Riverdale and Titans? Honestly? No. Is it as bad as Gotham? Yes. It's devolved to that. Gotham was the worst DC live-action show of all time while it was airing, until Titans completely wrecked its horrible bar. It could no longer play in the field of the worst live-action DC show when Titans took the title of worst superhero show period, and worst DC movie or TV show live-action or animated. Me saying this isn't as bad as Titans or Riverdale, and only as bad as Gotham is not complimentary. While Gotham was going, I literally could not conceive of a worse live-action DC show. But yeah, now Flash is in that same neighborhood.
What bums me out the most is that this finale sucking so much means Supergirl is going to go out badly too. It's in its last season, it's worse than it's ever been, and the series finale is gonna megasuck because nobody on the Berlanti production staff cares about their shows, at least not the higher ups. The producers of Superman & Lois put great care and thought into every episode. If and when they decide to leave, Berlanti is just going to replace them with some hack. I just hope that they never decide to leave. Because Berlanti doesn't care about great television, and if occasionally has his name attached to great television like Superman & Lois, he had absolutely nothing to do with said greatness.
Where do we go from here? I think I'll compliment the two things in the episode I liked before absolutely demolishing that as the piece of trash it was. I liked Jay using his helmet like a Captain America shield. I also very much liked the fact that the season had a closed ending and no tag. If the episode weren't so horrible I might have been satisfied with them doing that.
I'm struggling with how to proceed with the meat of the review and how to talk about why the episode sucked. I think the best way for me to do this is to "nitpick" this, and turn into Comic Book Guy, and point out every single plot inconsistency and mistake I noticed off the top of my head. And you'll see exactly how much dumb this episode actually was. Realize I do not have a photographic memory, and probably left out some stuff that pissed me off, and probably a lot.
Let's get this over with.
Nobody brings up killing Hart. This specific mistake rankles me so much because even if Team Flash decided against it like the bunch of foolish, gutless saps they are, I could accept them doing that. But instead nobody even brings it up. It was mentioned as an actual solution a couple of weeks ago, and the series simply dropped it. That isn't merely a mistake if you ask me. It's dramatic malpractice. If the show had half a mind to, they could have actually explored that controversy. They obviously would not come to the same conclusion as me, but nobody would pretend that handing Hart everything he ever wanted and giving his his memories back was the only possible way out of this.
So Barry's solution is to bring back Thawne? Seriously? That chapter in his life was over and done with, and he freaking just brings him back to life? How dumb is Barry? How dumb is this show? What kills me is that the producers had an opportunity to defang Thawne and hand Barry a Crowing Moment Of Awesome at the same time, in a season where he's done nothing but dumb things but they blew that too. When Barry says "I got faster. Didn't you?" they could have made it so that Thawne lost his powers for good. I think bringing Thawne back is stupid, but part of me would have liked the idea that Barry did it simply to rob him of the thing he values most and he'd be stuck on present day Earth as a powerless nothing.. Instead Thawne zips off confused and the episode acts like that's a victory and I should be okay with it.
So apparently the Godspeed clones use Big Nora to power up. Whose bright up was it to bring her? And how is it neither Team Flash or the Speed Force knew this very obvious and easy to predict thing was going to happen ahead of time?
So they didn't wind up killing Hart, which is dumb, because they had Thawne right there, and Barry said he brought him to do things he wouldn't allow himself to do. The series could have had Barry cluck his tongue about how immoral Thawne is but secretly winking him an "Attaboy!" in his heart of hearts as he killed him. Instead Thawne impales him with a lightning sword (in the chest no less)... and he survives. This is the moment where another person writing this review would sarcastically say "Um, okay." But this is a Matt Zimmer review because I can tell you there wasn't a single thing okay about that scene and idea. My powers of sarcasm are simply not great enough to pretend there was. My shade has limits attached to it.
And Cecile brought up an interesting point. She and Joe aren't married yet and she wants to be. We are wasting our time on the wrong wedding! Granted, Iris and Barry got shafted in "Crisis On Earth X", but really, it's so unnecessary.
I think I heard somewhere Impulse is a singer in the comics (He was singing on the cover of an issue of Adventures In The DC Universe). I don't care. That moment was super cheesy here.
So Big Nora is happy to report that because Hart is a Speedster she was able to remove the part of his memory that knew Barry was the Flash. Do you know what she could have and SHOULD have done instead? Sent him entirely back to his amnesiac state, and given Impulse and Jay Garrick a freaking break! If it's in her power to delete memories of Speedsters, than simply getting rid of the identities is wholly inadequate.
I'm starting to get too angry to continue and feel the need to leave things there. But that utterly sucked. This show is awful, will never get better, and Greg Berlanti doesn't care about the show, his cast, or the fans. And what disturbs me most is that nobody ever actually calls Berlanti on this specific thing. The worst of his shows are worse than almost anything on television not written by David E Kelley, and yet DC and the CW keep going back to him, proving once again that you can only fall upwards at DC Comics. No matter your failures, no matter how pissed off you make the fans, DC has a place for you. Berlanti needs to be fired and DC needs to rethink it's strategy for television. It used to be you went to Marvel for the movies and DC for the TV shows. Well, Marvel has since upped their TV game, and outside of Superman & Lois, and MAYBE Stargirl and Batwoman, DC TV is in as bad of a shape as it has ever been. If DC is no longer fitting into a special niche of decent cartoons and TV shows, what is the point of this?
I am looking forward to Batman: Caped Crusader and My Adventures With Superman because the live-action division of DC has turned into an utter failure. Marvel saw the animation and TV shows from Marvel Television weren't working and course-corrected. Berlanti botches show after show, and DC keeps going back to him. I'm angry, frustrated, and disappointed. This is no reason this show or Supergirl should be as bad as they are. None whatsoever. 0.
Superman & Lois "Fail Safe"
They saved the major doings in the episode for the last two minutes. And you know what? I still liked it.
I like the characters and the fact that they solve their problems by talking to each other. Lois is enraged by Clark's decision and insightfully tells him she feels guilty for yelling at him, but cooling off is not an option because Jordan has it coming next. I love that Lois can say something so awkward and honest. It reveals real vulnerabilities about herself.
I have to say I thought the stuff with Sissy was brilliant. It's a good controversy because they are both right, but Sissy doesn't know what Lois does, and can't. And when Sam is explaining the specific reasons he cannot release details, I have never agreed with him more. And yet when Sissy is pissed at Lois for refusing to do her job, I still thought she was right to be. Which is what made it a great controversy.
I personally think Clark had the right idea all along, and I thought that even before he admitted losing control felt good. I think Lois is overthinking bad guys getting ahold of that weaponry and killing Superman. Bad guys ALWAYS get ahold of weaponry to kill Superman. Many of them (like Lex Luthor) actually create it themselves. They won't be hijacking the DRD's supply because they've already got that covered. The selling point of the DRD having it is that they are something the GOOD guys need too.
Speaking of Lex, I sincerely hope that with Supergirl canceled, Lex does not cross-over to this show. Jon Cryer is the worst interpretation of that character ever both through performance and writing. The writing on Supergirl is admittedly really bad, so there is a chance the writers on this show could write him better, but I already hate the character, and even if he was written properly, Cryer and his crappy beard would still be all wrong in the role. I hope Lex either dies at the end of Supergirl, or the character is entirely retired. (His death would be preferable to me).
I like that Jonathan walks home. A different virgin with no self-respect would consider information a reasonable price to getting to make out with that girl. Jonathan is cool because he contains a level of self-respect a lot of horny kids his age lack.
I actually think Kyle's solution to move away from Smallville is the right one. And Lana is wrong that the town has changed. Yeah, the Mayor sucks, and maybe other people besides Kyle and Lana were aboard the Edge train, but Kyle makes a convenient scapegoat because of how bullying, unfair, and cruel he was to people like Lois and Clark who tried to warn the town. He didn't simply boost Edge. He basically bullied everyone away who tried to save them. The Mayor is just as guilty of supporting Edge as he was, but the Mayor can worm his way out of it because he was political about it. He tried to convince people using consensus, which is the right way to convince people of things, even bad things. Kyle was such a jackass and a nuisance he earned every bit of scorn thrown at him. And it's not that the town changed, Lana. Your husband simply ruined things. Them turning against you when things go bad is why you should never act the way Kyle did. He not only bet everything on Edge. But he squandered every bit of goodwill and respect the town previously had for him by being such a jackass about it. And when you bet THAT high a stake at the craps table, you stand to lose a LOT more than people like the Mayor (who is admittedly a scumbag) who only bet a little. Kyle staked his reputation and personal friendships with the worst thing that ever happened to the town. Smallville hasn't changed. It's just outgrown Kyle and his family.
Honestly, I'd be a LOT more pissed at Smallville if they still supported Kyle. One of the most infuriating things about current politics is that no matter how bad a person is, The Tribe will support them no matter what monstrous thing they've done. The entire politics of Smallville changing instead says This Universe is better than Our Universe. In Our Universe, if Edge ran for President after all that, he'd get at least 47% of the vote, and in Kansas, the percentage would be a lot higher. If I were Lana, I'd be madder at the town if they weren't pissed. Smallville's all right.
What does this tell us? What have we learned? Treat people decently at all times. Give them a fair shake. You never know when you'll need their support and forgiveness.
I love Sam's apology to Clark at the beginning of the episode because it was fully sincere. What I especially love is when Superman changes his mind, Sam calls Lois because he's worried about Clark. As far as Sam Lane and his feelings about Clark and his family go, everything has changed, and ultimately for the better. He trusts him totally now, and considers him like a son. And Clark being reluctant to get rid of those weapons says he's right to do so.
Do you know what I can't get over? The dude who plays Edge's Kryptonian father is shockingly ugly. You don't see actors that ugly on television every day, and I'm struggling to think of an actor I know by name who actually looks grodier than this guy. Is he an over-the-hill famous British actor that was cast solely because of his earlier career? Because he is so dumpy and bloated, and his hair is so stringy, he really should not be portraying a member of the Kryptonian ruling class. Those guys should be better specimens than every human. This guy makes my skin crawl. A rare miscast for this show.
That was essentially a filler episode between big weeks. And yet I loved it far more that The Flash's "Big Finale". Characters reasoning their way out of problems using the correct solutions is something I prefer to plot related stupidity. And it always was. I love this show and I remain frightened at how much I love it. ****.
Monsters At Work "The Big Wazowskis"
Good episode title and bowling team name.
Didn't know what to make of that Blue Mike guy. Gary, huh? What's his deal? Does this mean there are lots of different classes of monsters that look similar? If so, why is this the first time we've seen that? I'm overthinking things again, aren't I?
Liked the return of the panting, slow-moving slug.
The end title music was great too.
Solid episode. This show is growing on me. ***1/2.
Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Sahara "The Giant Haboob"
I don't really have much to say about this episode except to note the music video at the beginning was super lame. I am a nerdy white guy and I found it cringey. What's alarming is that before this cartoon the movies were extremely careful about having trendy music and fashions, so you'd think the sleek cars and beautiful people were, well, COOL. I do not love rap music for the most part, but very little of the movies (outside of the music videos) were things I ever thought were lame or stupid. And my complaints about the music videos are down to the politics of showing women gyrating their butts on camera. They are tacky, but I wouldn't describe them as uncool or lame.
This show isn't so careful about that. I notice these things, even as a lame white guy. It doesn't make me happy. **1/2.
Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Sahara "The Dead End"
I think the team escaping from the van was the first time they were ever shown being competent. The rest of the episode didn't impress me much, but I liked that bit. ***.
Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Sahara "The Empty Well"
I like the Japanese Cyborg Ninja guy. He has a cool voice.
Echo is Shelley Winters in The Poseidon Adventure at the end. Ask your parents.
Plot hole: It is not credible none of the guards in the facility have guns. I know it's a kids show, but really.
Cisco not knowing anything about valves and such shows he should perhaps not be in the field as a spy. And yet, I think he acquitted himself nicely with getting into the vent and saving Tony and Layla.
Decent. ***1/2.
Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Sahara "The Hunt"
This is essentially a 22 minute action sequence. The franchise doesn't suck at those, so it was a good episode.
I liked that Sandocal came around at the end. That was refreshing.
Good episode. ****.
Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Sahara "The Bedouin Shield"
That was dumb, but the camel race was fun.
Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but if I were Robot Samurai, I wouldn't be turning up my nose at Raphaella. Yes, she's annoying. She's also super curvy and hot (for a cartoon character). She's a mess but she might be worth it, at least if he has to spend time with her anyways.
Still, dumb. **1/2.
Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Sahara "The Eye Of The Sahara"
That was reasonably satisfying.
When Kelso starting talking about insurance I didn't like it one little bit.
I liked the last shot. Because during Cisco's clear moment of triumph, he very quickly realizes this isn't the victory he thought it was. He's so screwed. Which is a good place to leave us off.
Good episode. ***1/2.
Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Sahara "RoboCleve"
Okay, this season is stronger than the first two, especially the second. This is the penultimate episode, and we had more action and pay-off here than the first two finales combined. And we still have an episode left!
The fight scenes were pretty good (at least as far as CGI go).
This is not a funny show, but I still laughed at Donut the monkey as Mufasa. How could I not?
I like that when the robot arm malfunctioning makes the guy wake up a little, Echo and Ms. Nowhere take note. They do not actually suck at their jobs.
As hopeless as the ending is, remember that Cisco is still out there. Frankly, I'll be disappointed if the solution is anything else.
Best episode so far. ****1/2.
Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Sahara "Sirocco Fire Explosion"
Cisco coming with the cavalry was fun but I was underwhelmed by the flashback. Simply because he whiffed the Braveheart speech. If you are gonna whiff the Braveheart speech, there is no point in making it.
The Armless Robot Ninja may no longer be a robot but he's still a ninja. Handy to have him on our side for once.
The climax was both exciting and ridiculous. I actually dislike ridiculous in the films, but it's fine for a cartoon.
Solid finale. Much better than the first two seasons' endings. ****.
The Flash "The Heart Of The Matter, Part 2"
I am in a serious quandary, and this is the reason I dropped Riverdale.
That was utter dreck. It was SO bad, I was angry by the end of it. And yet I feel me spending a ton of time destroying it is almost letting it win. It took up enough of my time I'll never get back. Why am I giving something that bad even more of it?
This was my quandary for every episode of Riverdale and I ultimately dropped the show midway through the fourth horrid season. It's a little late for me to drop The Flash, and considering it's connections to The Arrowverse at large, that's another reason I'm not willing to stop next season. But that was atrocious. That was a travesty. Is The Flash as bad as Riverdale and Titans? Honestly? No. Is it as bad as Gotham? Yes. It's devolved to that. Gotham was the worst DC live-action show of all time while it was airing, until Titans completely wrecked its horrible bar. It could no longer play in the field of the worst live-action DC show when Titans took the title of worst superhero show period, and worst DC movie or TV show live-action or animated. Me saying this isn't as bad as Titans or Riverdale, and only as bad as Gotham is not complimentary. While Gotham was going, I literally could not conceive of a worse live-action DC show. But yeah, now Flash is in that same neighborhood.
What bums me out the most is that this finale sucking so much means Supergirl is going to go out badly too. It's in its last season, it's worse than it's ever been, and the series finale is gonna megasuck because nobody on the Berlanti production staff cares about their shows, at least not the higher ups. The producers of Superman & Lois put great care and thought into every episode. If and when they decide to leave, Berlanti is just going to replace them with some hack. I just hope that they never decide to leave. Because Berlanti doesn't care about great television, and if occasionally has his name attached to great television like Superman & Lois, he had absolutely nothing to do with said greatness.
Where do we go from here? I think I'll compliment the two things in the episode I liked before absolutely demolishing that as the piece of trash it was. I liked Jay using his helmet like a Captain America shield. I also very much liked the fact that the season had a closed ending and no tag. If the episode weren't so horrible I might have been satisfied with them doing that.
I'm struggling with how to proceed with the meat of the review and how to talk about why the episode sucked. I think the best way for me to do this is to "nitpick" this, and turn into Comic Book Guy, and point out every single plot inconsistency and mistake I noticed off the top of my head. And you'll see exactly how much dumb this episode actually was. Realize I do not have a photographic memory, and probably left out some stuff that pissed me off, and probably a lot.
Let's get this over with.
Nobody brings up killing Hart. This specific mistake rankles me so much because even if Team Flash decided against it like the bunch of foolish, gutless saps they are, I could accept them doing that. But instead nobody even brings it up. It was mentioned as an actual solution a couple of weeks ago, and the series simply dropped it. That isn't merely a mistake if you ask me. It's dramatic malpractice. If the show had half a mind to, they could have actually explored that controversy. They obviously would not come to the same conclusion as me, but nobody would pretend that handing Hart everything he ever wanted and giving his his memories back was the only possible way out of this.
So Barry's solution is to bring back Thawne? Seriously? That chapter in his life was over and done with, and he freaking just brings him back to life? How dumb is Barry? How dumb is this show? What kills me is that the producers had an opportunity to defang Thawne and hand Barry a Crowing Moment Of Awesome at the same time, in a season where he's done nothing but dumb things but they blew that too. When Barry says "I got faster. Didn't you?" they could have made it so that Thawne lost his powers for good. I think bringing Thawne back is stupid, but part of me would have liked the idea that Barry did it simply to rob him of the thing he values most and he'd be stuck on present day Earth as a powerless nothing.. Instead Thawne zips off confused and the episode acts like that's a victory and I should be okay with it.
So apparently the Godspeed clones use Big Nora to power up. Whose bright up was it to bring her? And how is it neither Team Flash or the Speed Force knew this very obvious and easy to predict thing was going to happen ahead of time?
So they didn't wind up killing Hart, which is dumb, because they had Thawne right there, and Barry said he brought him to do things he wouldn't allow himself to do. The series could have had Barry cluck his tongue about how immoral Thawne is but secretly winking him an "Attaboy!" in his heart of hearts as he killed him. Instead Thawne impales him with a lightning sword (in the chest no less)... and he survives. This is the moment where another person writing this review would sarcastically say "Um, okay." But this is a Matt Zimmer review because I can tell you there wasn't a single thing okay about that scene and idea. My powers of sarcasm are simply not great enough to pretend there was. My shade has limits attached to it.
And Cecile brought up an interesting point. She and Joe aren't married yet and she wants to be. We are wasting our time on the wrong wedding! Granted, Iris and Barry got shafted in "Crisis On Earth X", but really, it's so unnecessary.
I think I heard somewhere Impulse is a singer in the comics (He was singing on the cover of an issue of Adventures In The DC Universe). I don't care. That moment was super cheesy here.
So Big Nora is happy to report that because Hart is a Speedster she was able to remove the part of his memory that knew Barry was the Flash. Do you know what she could have and SHOULD have done instead? Sent him entirely back to his amnesiac state, and given Impulse and Jay Garrick a freaking break! If it's in her power to delete memories of Speedsters, than simply getting rid of the identities is wholly inadequate.
I'm starting to get too angry to continue and feel the need to leave things there. But that utterly sucked. This show is awful, will never get better, and Greg Berlanti doesn't care about the show, his cast, or the fans. And what disturbs me most is that nobody ever actually calls Berlanti on this specific thing. The worst of his shows are worse than almost anything on television not written by David E Kelley, and yet DC and the CW keep going back to him, proving once again that you can only fall upwards at DC Comics. No matter your failures, no matter how pissed off you make the fans, DC has a place for you. Berlanti needs to be fired and DC needs to rethink it's strategy for television. It used to be you went to Marvel for the movies and DC for the TV shows. Well, Marvel has since upped their TV game, and outside of Superman & Lois, and MAYBE Stargirl and Batwoman, DC TV is in as bad of a shape as it has ever been. If DC is no longer fitting into a special niche of decent cartoons and TV shows, what is the point of this?
I am looking forward to Batman: Caped Crusader and My Adventures With Superman because the live-action division of DC has turned into an utter failure. Marvel saw the animation and TV shows from Marvel Television weren't working and course-corrected. Berlanti botches show after show, and DC keeps going back to him. I'm angry, frustrated, and disappointed. This is no reason this show or Supergirl should be as bad as they are. None whatsoever. 0.
Superman & Lois "Fail Safe"
They saved the major doings in the episode for the last two minutes. And you know what? I still liked it.
I like the characters and the fact that they solve their problems by talking to each other. Lois is enraged by Clark's decision and insightfully tells him she feels guilty for yelling at him, but cooling off is not an option because Jordan has it coming next. I love that Lois can say something so awkward and honest. It reveals real vulnerabilities about herself.
I have to say I thought the stuff with Sissy was brilliant. It's a good controversy because they are both right, but Sissy doesn't know what Lois does, and can't. And when Sam is explaining the specific reasons he cannot release details, I have never agreed with him more. And yet when Sissy is pissed at Lois for refusing to do her job, I still thought she was right to be. Which is what made it a great controversy.
I personally think Clark had the right idea all along, and I thought that even before he admitted losing control felt good. I think Lois is overthinking bad guys getting ahold of that weaponry and killing Superman. Bad guys ALWAYS get ahold of weaponry to kill Superman. Many of them (like Lex Luthor) actually create it themselves. They won't be hijacking the DRD's supply because they've already got that covered. The selling point of the DRD having it is that they are something the GOOD guys need too.
Speaking of Lex, I sincerely hope that with Supergirl canceled, Lex does not cross-over to this show. Jon Cryer is the worst interpretation of that character ever both through performance and writing. The writing on Supergirl is admittedly really bad, so there is a chance the writers on this show could write him better, but I already hate the character, and even if he was written properly, Cryer and his crappy beard would still be all wrong in the role. I hope Lex either dies at the end of Supergirl, or the character is entirely retired. (His death would be preferable to me).
I like that Jonathan walks home. A different virgin with no self-respect would consider information a reasonable price to getting to make out with that girl. Jonathan is cool because he contains a level of self-respect a lot of horny kids his age lack.
I actually think Kyle's solution to move away from Smallville is the right one. And Lana is wrong that the town has changed. Yeah, the Mayor sucks, and maybe other people besides Kyle and Lana were aboard the Edge train, but Kyle makes a convenient scapegoat because of how bullying, unfair, and cruel he was to people like Lois and Clark who tried to warn the town. He didn't simply boost Edge. He basically bullied everyone away who tried to save them. The Mayor is just as guilty of supporting Edge as he was, but the Mayor can worm his way out of it because he was political about it. He tried to convince people using consensus, which is the right way to convince people of things, even bad things. Kyle was such a jackass and a nuisance he earned every bit of scorn thrown at him. And it's not that the town changed, Lana. Your husband simply ruined things. Them turning against you when things go bad is why you should never act the way Kyle did. He not only bet everything on Edge. But he squandered every bit of goodwill and respect the town previously had for him by being such a jackass about it. And when you bet THAT high a stake at the craps table, you stand to lose a LOT more than people like the Mayor (who is admittedly a scumbag) who only bet a little. Kyle staked his reputation and personal friendships with the worst thing that ever happened to the town. Smallville hasn't changed. It's just outgrown Kyle and his family.
Honestly, I'd be a LOT more pissed at Smallville if they still supported Kyle. One of the most infuriating things about current politics is that no matter how bad a person is, The Tribe will support them no matter what monstrous thing they've done. The entire politics of Smallville changing instead says This Universe is better than Our Universe. In Our Universe, if Edge ran for President after all that, he'd get at least 47% of the vote, and in Kansas, the percentage would be a lot higher. If I were Lana, I'd be madder at the town if they weren't pissed. Smallville's all right.
What does this tell us? What have we learned? Treat people decently at all times. Give them a fair shake. You never know when you'll need their support and forgiveness.
I love Sam's apology to Clark at the beginning of the episode because it was fully sincere. What I especially love is when Superman changes his mind, Sam calls Lois because he's worried about Clark. As far as Sam Lane and his feelings about Clark and his family go, everything has changed, and ultimately for the better. He trusts him totally now, and considers him like a son. And Clark being reluctant to get rid of those weapons says he's right to do so.
Do you know what I can't get over? The dude who plays Edge's Kryptonian father is shockingly ugly. You don't see actors that ugly on television every day, and I'm struggling to think of an actor I know by name who actually looks grodier than this guy. Is he an over-the-hill famous British actor that was cast solely because of his earlier career? Because he is so dumpy and bloated, and his hair is so stringy, he really should not be portraying a member of the Kryptonian ruling class. Those guys should be better specimens than every human. This guy makes my skin crawl. A rare miscast for this show.
That was essentially a filler episode between big weeks. And yet I loved it far more that The Flash's "Big Finale". Characters reasoning their way out of problems using the correct solutions is something I prefer to plot related stupidity. And it always was. I love this show and I remain frightened at how much I love it. ****.
Monsters At Work "The Big Wazowskis"
Good episode title and bowling team name.
Didn't know what to make of that Blue Mike guy. Gary, huh? What's his deal? Does this mean there are lots of different classes of monsters that look similar? If so, why is this the first time we've seen that? I'm overthinking things again, aren't I?
Liked the return of the panting, slow-moving slug.
The end title music was great too.
Solid episode. This show is growing on me. ***1/2.
