Bob Canada's BlogWorld

This week on Legends Of Tomorrow, the crew runs into another historical figure, in an episode that's incredibly messy, muddled and nonsensical. The cast gamely tries their best to save it with their usual winning performances, but sadly it's a lost cause.

Usually when the Legends meet an historical figure they have to protect them from some kind of harm. So when they run into PT Barnum this week, it was interesting to see that expectation reversed, as he turned out to be the ostensible villain of the episode!

Since Arthur Darvill (aka Rip Hunter) is just making occasional guest appearances again this season, it looks like the writers are grooming Agent Sharpe to be his proxy. And for the second time in as many episodes, Sharpe and White Canary ended up in an epic knock-down, drag-out fight. At this point it's pretty obvious they're gonna end up kissing before the end of the season!

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
Flashback to six months ago, as Vixen's making donuts for Steel. He laughs at her quaint 1942 ways, says nobody bakes anymore and runs out for some crappy store-bought donuts. While he's out, Vixen sees a news report about her granddaughter Mari, who's the modern day Vixen. She gets a worried look on her face. When Steel returns, Vixen's gone without so much as a note (what a dick move!).

Cut to the present day. On board the Waverider, Atom shows Jackson and Steel his newest invention— a wrist-mounted shrink ray. What a coincidence that he just happened to build it in this episode, as it's going to come in mighty handy in a few minutes.

Gideon analyzes the data she got from the Time Bureau to map out all the temporal aberrations on Earth. The Legends decide to try and clean up one, to score points with the Bureau. They pick PT Barnum's Circus in 1870 Wisconsin.

The Legends fly to the circus and blend in with the crowd. Atom, Steel and Jackson soon discover the source of the time aberration— somehow Barnum's gotten hold of a real live sabertooth tiger! For some reason, Steel unlocks the cage so Atom can use his shrink ray on it. Something goes wrong, and he accidentally causes the tiger to grow instead! It leaps out of its cage and runs off.

White Canary says there's only one person who can help catch and contain the tiger— Vixen. She then takes a shuttle and flies back to 1942 to pick her up. Or they could have just tried the shrink ray again, but no, messing up time even further is good too. Canary arrives and asks her to come with, but Vixen's reluctant, fearing it'll upset Steel. Canary say he'll be thrilled to see her.

Canary and Vixen return to the Waverider. Oddly enough, Steel is NOT thrilled to see Vixen, as he's still smarting over her walking out on him. Atom gives Canary his shrink ray, and the two women head out to hunt for the sabretooth tiger.

Meanwhile, Atom and Jackson take Steel to an 1870s saloon so he can drown his sorrows in booze. PT Barnum just happens to be in the saloon as well, with a strongman pal and a bearded lady. Barnum's upset that he's lost the tiger, his main attraction. Steel gets into a fight with a drunk and "steels" up. Barnum sees him and realizes he's just found a new star. He invites the Legends back to the circus.

Meanwhile, Canary and Vixen search the jungles of Wisconsin (!) for the sabretooth tiger. They find it, and Canary manages to shrink it and toss it in a birdcage on the ship. She could have done that herself! Why the hell'd she have to pull Vixen out of her own time?

For some reason, Steel decides to go back to the ship to talk to Vixen while Atom and Jackson meet Barnum at the circus. ~~B'wana Beast~~, er, I mean the Strongman knocks them out and puts them in a cage. Um... wasn't the whole idea for Barnum to capture Steel, who he's WITNESSED using superpowers? As far as he knows, these two are ordinary humans. When Atom and Jackson wake, they try to convince Barnum that they don't have powers, but he doesn't believe them. I know, I know, none of this makes any sense, but let's just move on.

Canary and Vixen find a drunken Steel passed out in the Waverider's cargo bay. They ask where Atom and Jackson are, and he says they went to the circus without him. Canary and the others go back to the circus, and she realizes they're being tailed. She captures their observer, who turns out to be "Gary," a nerdy Time Bureau agent (who appeared briefly in last week's episode). Apparently Agent Sharpe assigned him to watch the Legends. Vixen and Steel are then captured by Barnum and tossed in a cage.

Back on the Waverider, Heat Wave accidentally lets the tiny sabretooth tiger out of its cage for no reason other than story complication purposes.

At the circus, Steel's too drunk to "steel up" and escape the cage (hey, it happens to all guys now and then). He asks Vixen to use her powers to get them out, but she says she doesn't dare. She claims she can no longer control her powers, and is afraid she'll fly into a berserker rage and kill someone. Hey, just like Wolverine! She then explains to Steel why she left him six months ago. When she saw her Mari on TV, she realized she needed to return home to Zambesi to ensure her granddaughter would be born. Amazingly, Steel accepts this explanation.

On the Waverider, Canary forces Gary to check in with Agent Sharpe and assure her that the Legends have everything under control. Sharpe doesn't buy it, and uses a portal to appear on the ship. She announces she's placing the Legends under arrest for no reason, and says Rip was wrong to think they'd be any help against "what's coming." Canary orders Professor Stein and Heat Wave to go rescue the others, and she and Sharpe have an epic hand-to-hand battle for even more no reason. They fight so long they end up taking a break in the commissary! The sabretooth kitten wanders by and grows back to normal size. It chases the two women through the ship, until Canary's able to shrink it again. Well, that was all pointless!

Stein and Heat Wave arrive at the circus, and see that Barnum's forcing Atom and Jackson to pretend to be Siamese Twins. Yes, I know the preferred term these days is "cojoined twins," but they're in 1870, when they were still called "Siamese." So deal with it. Anyway, their act is terrible and Atom and Jackson are mocked and booed by the crowd.

Stein disguises himself as a clown in order to infiltrate the circus. Backstage, Barnum threatens to shoot Vixen in order to get Steel to "steel up." Vixen finally summons the power of a bear, breaks out of her cage and chases Barnum. One of Barnum's clowns sees Stein all made up, and realizes he's not part of the show. He chases Stein, who runs into Jackson. They clasp hands and transform into Firestorm. FINALLY, some superhero action in this superhero show!

Firestorm then flies around the circus a couple times for... for some reason. He sees Vixen chasing Barnum and tries to stop her. She swats at him, knocking him right off the screen. She then corners Barnum and is about to kill him, when Steel manages to talk her down. Barnum pretends this was all part of the "Greatest Show On The Planet," and the crowd goes wild.

On the Waverider, Gideon announces that Wisconsin is now aberration-free. Canary asks Sharpe what she meant earlier when she mentioned "what's coming." Sharpe refuses to elaborate (to drag out the plotline longer) and warns that she'll be watching them as she leaves with Gary. Vixen tells the others about the Belgian soldiers she murdered last week in 1942. They're all perfectly fine with that revelation (!), and tell her they want to help. She agrees to stay onboard a few more episodes to try and sort out her control issues.

Cut to somewhere, as we see a hooded figure kneel next to a lake and recite a spell. A figure made from water rises from the lake and solidifies into a woman. The hooded figure calls the woman "Kuasa," and says as disciples of Mallus, they have work to do.

Thoughts:
• Steel's an idiot. During the flashback, his girlfriend Vixen is fixing delicious, piping hot homemade chocolate donuts, because she's from the 1940s and has apparently never heard of supermarkets (which were invented in the 1910s). He actually laughs at her, makes her stop and runs out to get some cold, crappy, chemical-laden, mass-produced store-bought donuts instead.

No wonder she left him!

• Vixen apparently has a "conversation sensitive" TV. All the time she and Steel are talking, it's barely audible in the background. The second Steel leaves, the TV suddenly cranks up the volume by itself. Not only that, it does so right as a news story relevant to Vixen begins!

To be fair, she does pick up the remote and turn up the volume, but only after the TV already did so by itself!

• This week we finally get an explanation for Vixen's sudden disappearance, and why she moved back to 1942. The reason actually made a certain amount of sense, as she found out she had to go back to ensure her granddaughter would someday be born.

What DIDN'T make sense is why she couldn't simply tell that to Steel. Why sneak into the night without a word of explanation? Answer: for melodramatic reasons, that's why.

If she really cared that much about Steel, why not invite him back to 1942 with her? Who knows, he might be the modern Vixen's grandpappy!

• Atom takes the wrist-mounted time portal generator that Heat Wave stole from Rip last week, and somehow turns it into a shrink ray. Sure, why not? Time travel, shrinking... it's all the same thing.

Atom then says, "I was saying I reverse-engineered the Time Bureau tech that Mick stole from Rip. Now, we can locate anachronisms too!"

Um... haven't they always been able to do that? In the past Gideon was always sensing time aberrations or time quakes or something, and piloting the ship to them so the Legends could fix them. That's pretty much how every episode in Season 1 and 2 worked! Did she somehow lose that ability between seasons, and now has it back?

• Atom looks at the Aberration Map and says, "Each of these dots represents an anachronism we created by breaking time. Rip's Bureau rates them on a scale of one to ten according to their magnitude of impact and potential difficulty."

Hang on... I thought Rip and his Agents swept in last week and cleaned up all the aberrations in a matter of seconds?

By the way, Gideon's "Time Aberration Map" reminds me a bit of van Gogh's Starry Night!

• When the Legends are trying to decide which aberration to fix, Atom suggests the North Atlantic Ocean in 1912. Professor Stein hisses, "Absolutely not! I refuse to set foot on the Titanic. Whoever built that ship ought to be shot!"

Of course this was a not so subtle joke by actor Victor Garber starred in James Cameron's Titanic as Thomas Andrews, the Chief Designer of the ship.

This is second time they've made a joke about Garber's Titanic role on the show. Back in the Season 1 episode Blood Ties, Atom shrinks down to microscopic size and enters Hawkgirl's bloodstream, Fantastic Voyage style. As he looks for knife fragments in her bloodstream, he and Professor Stein have the following conversation.

Atom:"Alright, where am I headed?"
Stein:"You're exiting the tracheal artery. You should see the first fragment."
Atom:"No sign of it. Did I miss it?"
Stein:"It's the size of an iceberg, it seems highly unlikely that you could miss it."
Atom:"Heh. That's probably what they said on the Titanic."
(cut to Professor Stein as he winces in exasperation)

Sadly, this will likely be the last of the Titanic jokes, since Victor Garber's leaving the show sometime this season.

• Billy Zane plays PT Barnum in the episode, and to his credit, he throws himself into the role like a real trooper. He even added a subtle little touch to the character— when he slips into his ringmaster persona, he speaks very eloquently, with no trace of an accent. When he's offstage though, he has a definite New Yawk accent. Kudos!

By the way, Zane also starred in Titanic, as the villainous Cal Hockley. This episode's a regular Titanic reunion!

• When the Waverider arrives in 1870, Gideon says, "The anachronism is located at the grounds of PT Barnum's Roving Museum of Freaks and Hypnotic Hippodrome. Although he is erroneously credited with the phrase 'There's a sucker born every minute,' in truth, Mr.

Barnum would have never belittled paying customers."

Gideon's right about the phrase, as Barnum never actually said it. She's wrong about him never belittling his customers though. Barnum gleefully promoted many famous hoaxes during his lifetime, and said his sole personal aim was "to put money in his own coffers."

• For some reason, the tiger sounds like a kitten whenever it's shrunken. Sure, why not?

• Wondering why Canary took a time shuttle to 1942 to pick up Vixen, instead of just flying the Waverider there? Because if she'd taken the ship, then Steel would have known Vixen was coming back. By using the shuttle, Canary could spring Vixen's surprise reappearance on Steel, making for more melodrama.

• So Canary goes all the way to 1942 to pick up Vixen specifically so she can help catch the sabretooth tiger. Yet when they spot it, Vixen makes the lame excuse that using her animal powers would only provoke it. Dude, THAT'S THE ONLY REASON SHE BROUGHT YOU! And then you refuse to use your powers! You had one job...

• After Atom, Jackson, Vixen and Steel are all captured, Barnum says, "We're gonna need a bigger tent!" I'm assuming that was a Jaws reference?

• After Steel finally "steels up" and shifts to his metallic mode, Barnum amuses himself by shooting him several times— at pretty close range! He's lucky none of the bullets ricocheted off Steel's body and killed someone. Or even worse, lodged in his head!

• When Agent Sharpe finds out that Canary has a time portal device, she says it's stolen government property. So the Time Bureau is a government agency? That's NOT the impression I got last week.

• Speaking of the Time Bureau: last week we saw their HQ was filled with futuristic transparent flatscreen computer monitors. So why are their communicators so clunky-looking, like they were made in the 1970s?

They reminded me a bit of the Merlin game I had as a kid!

• The epic battle between Canary and Agent Sharpe goes on for so long, that the two of them end up taking a break! OK, I have to admit, that was pretty funny.

• Recognize Barnum's musclebound, costumed henchman?

He's B'wana Beast! Well, I'm not sure if he's supposed to be the actual character here, but he's definitely dressed like him. If you've never heard of him, he's pretty much Tarzan with superpowers.

B'wana Beast is probably the last superhero I ever expected to see on TV, especially in the politically correct hellscape that passes for our current society.

See, in the comics, Mike Maxwell was the pampered son of a millionaire, who decided to throw away his birthright and become a ranger in Zambesi (the fictional African country that Vixen's from— small world!). Unfortunately Maxwell's plane crashed on top of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Maxwell was nursed back to health by a mutant red ape, who gave him radioactive cave water or something. This caused Maxwell to grow stronger and larger. The ape then gave him an ancient helmet it found deep inside the cave. When Maxwell put it on, he could read the mind of any animal and control it. In addition, the helmet also gave him the power to combine any two animals into a chimera (????). He then called himself B'wana Beast, and became protector of the jungle.

That all sounds pretty cool, but unfortunately B'wana Beast is an example of the "White Savior" trope. You know the one— a white person finds an exotic jungle land, and immediately begins teaching the poor, stupid black natives, eventually even saving them from some deadly threat.

For good or ill, that sh*t don't fly here in 2017, and a character like that cannot be allowed to exist. Tossing out his entire backstory and turning him into a simple henchman is probably the only way you could feature him on TV without triggering today's hyper-sensitive audience.

• So what's up with Vixen's powers and her sudden berserker rages? It looks like the show may be adapting The Red storyline from the comics.

In DC Comics, there's a "morphogenic" field that connects all forms of life. Certain metahumans can tap into this field as the source of their powers. Vixen can access "The Red," which is the part of the field that connects all animals. There's also "The Green," which connects all plant life. Metas such as Swamp Thing and Poison Ivy are connected to The Green.

I'm betting whatever's going on with Vixen and her powers is somehow connected to The Red.

• Once again, murder doesn't seem to be a crime in the Arrowverse.

After everyone's safely back on the ship, Vixen confesses to the Legends that she killed a squad of Belgian soldiers in last week's episode. Amazingly, they're all completely unconcerned by this startling revelation. They pretty much all pat her on the back and say "There, there," as they promise to help her work through her murderous rages (!).

The same thing happened in Finish Line, the Season 3 finale of The Flash. In that episode, Iris tries to talk the evil Future Barry into being good. He says that's impossible, as he's a murderer many times over. She what does Iris do? Does she immediately call the police so they can lock up this time travelling killer? Nope! Instead she says, "And you are going to have to live with that. But we won't give up on you, OK? That is not what we do!"

Eh, no need for incarceration or a pesky trial. Just talk it through! Apparently in this world, murder's pretty much on the same level as shoplifting or jaywalking.

• Gideon announces that thanks to the Legends, 1870 Wisconsin is now aberration-free. Of course she says this seconds after the uncloaked Waverider flies right over the heads of three small boys from the 19th Century. Eh, no worries. I'm sure they'll never tell anyone or be affected by the fantastic, futuristic flying machine they just saw.

• At the end of the episode we see a mysterious hooded figure summon a watery woman called Kuasa. So who the heck are they supposed to be?

I'm assuming they're from The CW's animated Vixen series. There, Kuasa is a water elemental who turns out to be the sister of Mari McCabe, aka the present day Vixen (!). That would make her the 1942 Vixen's granddaughter as well.

In the animated series, Kuasa was evil and tried to steal Vixen's amulet (which is the source of her powers) for herself. She eventually switched sides and worked alongside Vixen before eventually being killed (Oops! Spoilers!). Apparently Kuasa's been plucked from the timeline before that happened? Who knows?

• This Week's Best Lines:
Jackson:"You built a shrink ray."

Atom: "I'm not particularly fond of that name. I'm calling it the hyper-molecular compressor. It's a more powerful and portable version of the tech from my suit."

Steel:"So a shrink ray?"

Atom:"Essentially."

Heat Wave:"If I see a clown, I'm outta here."
Jackson:"What? You afraid of clowns?"

Hear Wave: "No. I just don't like their stupid faces and funny shoes and razor-sharp teeth."

(apparently Heat Wave took time out from time travelling to see It!)

PT Barnum: "Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome, one and all, to the Best Show On Earth! That is a working title.

(Barnum's attempt to come up with his familiar catchphrase is a running joke throughout the episode)

Jackson:"Yo, what's that smell?"

Steel:"Oh."

Atom:"Where there's poop, there's a prize. Check it out."

Jackson:"Well, do we have to?"

Atom:"This is definitely feline feces, but unlike any I've ever seen."

Steel:"You've studied a lot of poop, big guy?"

Atom:"As an Eagle Scout, I can interpret 175 different droppings!"

(yeah, I didn't need to know that about Atom)

Steel: (to Vixen) "But we're fine without you. Everything is running smoothly."

Heat Wave:"Is that right? Haircut here "embiggened" an extinct tiger."

(apparently Heat Wave is also a fan of The Simpsons!)

Steel: (attempting to "steel" up) "Okay. I got this. Ahem"

(he tries several times, but can't transform)

Steel:"I must be dehydrated, man. This never happened to me before, I swear."

Vixen: "Where have I heard that one before?"

Steel: "Not from me. She never heard that from me."

PT Barnum: "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Greatest Show On The Planet!"

(he still doesn't get it quite right!)

PT Barnum: "Let me make it very simple for you. Become the "Man of Steel"... that is very catchy, make a note of that Or get shot."

(Barnum's quite the quip machine in this episode)

It's the premiere of Season 8 of The Walking Dead!

Wow, eight seasons already! Seems like the show started just yesterday. Shortly after it premiered it became AMC's most popular series, often scoring higher ratings than many broadcast network shows. Not bad for a series about zombies!

Coincidentally, the Season 8 premiere is also the show's 100th episode! The producers celebrate this milestone by tossing in a few scenes that echo the first episode. We'll get into those a bit later.

I'm convinced there's something wrong with showrunner Scott Gimple's brain that prevents him from telling a simple linear narrative. Virtually every episode of this series features some kind of twisted timeline. Flashbacks, flash forwards, flash sideways— you name it, and The Walking Dead's tried it. Jesus Christ, if I want a convoluted time shenanigans I'll watch Doctor Who! Just show the goddamned events in real time already.

All this timeline nonsense reminds me of the Deadpool movie. Despite the fact that I like that film quite a bit, even I have to admit it used a flashbacks to mask the fact that it only contained about thirty actual minutes of story. I have a feeling that's what's happening on The Walking Dead. Your script's only twenty minutes long? Tell it in flashback format! That's guaranteed to stretch it out to a smooth forty five minutes!

This week's episode is no different, as it contains three different timelines, all playing out simultaneously. There may even be as many as FIVE, as it's honestly hard to tell. It's like the editor took footage from several episodes, threw it all into the air and spliced it together however it landed. Jesus wept. I long for the early days of this show, when the story went from Point A to B, with no visits to X, Y and Z in between.

Season 8 appears to be adapting the All Out War storyline from the comics, which happened in Issues #121 through #126 of the comic. Based on this episode, it appears they're also adapting the infamous "Time Jump" from Issue #127 of the comic. In that issue, once the war was over, the story jumped ahead two to three years, to show the aftermath of the battle.

I have a feeling the comic was inspired by the "One Year Later" time jump in the Season 2 finale of the rebooted Battlestar Galactica. That episode had a huge impact on the audience, and after it aired dozens of other shows tried their hand at time jumping.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
There are three (maybe even five— it's hard to tell) timelines in this episode, because showrunner Scott Gimple is an idiot. To avoid confusion, I'm gonna deal with them one at a time.

In the first timeline, the three "good" communities— Alexandria, the Kingdom and the Hilltop— prepare for war against Negan and the Saviors. We see several scenes of them stockpiling weapons and welding armor to their cars and trucks.

Meanwhile, Negan's right hand man Dwight, who's secretly decided to work with Rick, is working on his bike at the Sanctuary. Suddenly an arrow shoots into the front tire. Attached to the arrow is a message from Darryl, which reads, "Tomorrow." Dwight realizes this is when the attack is scheduled, and helpfully writes down a comprehensive list of all of Negan's many outposts. He shoots it back to Daryl.

Elsewhere, Carol, Morgan, Tara and Daryl are out on the road, coaxing a massive walker herd toward Negan's Sanctuary.

We then get a montage of Negan's various scouts being taken out one by one, with surgical precision. Sometime later in Alexandria, Rick kisses Baby Judith (who's no longer a baby!) goodbye, and embraces Michonne. She's apparently staying behind with Carl to protect Alexandria. Rick tells them, "This is the end of it." A convoy of armored cars and trucks rolls out toward the Sanctuary.

As Rick and the others leave, we see Rosita, recovering from her gunshot wound from last season, watching and wishing she could with them. Carl tells Michonne he also wishes he could go with his dad. Michonne says his place is here, and she's ready to follow his orders (?).

The convoy stops just outside of the Sanctuary and waits for a signal. The leaders of the three groups— Rick, King Ezekiel and Maggie— each give a rousing, inspirational speech to their troops. Rick tells his assembled army that only one person needs to die today— Negan. Of course we all know that's not going to happen anytime soon.

Tara and the others stand on a highway overpass, looking anxiously in the distance. Eventually the walker herd comes around the corner. Tara, Carol, Morgan and Daryl detonate a truck in the highway as they move on, to ensure the walkers follow them.

At the Sanctuary, Negan sees the smoke from the explosion and sends out several squads of soldiers to investigate. Dwight watches them go (lucky for him Negan didn't send him out too). He looks up and sees several of Negan's men taken out by Rick's snipers. Just then, Rick's convoy rolls up. His people spill out and take positions behind their armored cars. Rick fires into the air several times, to "knock" on Negan's door.

After a minute or two, Negan, Simon and Dwight and Gavin appear on a balcony, along with Regina, who I'm not sure we've ever seen before (Redshirt Alert!). Amazingly, Negan stands out in the open, blathering for many seconds, but for some reason, neither Rick nor any of the others ever think to just blow his head off right then and there. Frustrating!

Eugene takes several dozen words to try and tell Rick there's no need for violence. Rick tells him to shut it. In his charming way, Negan starts talking about measuring dicks, and says he's not going to let his people die over this little display.

Rick tells the Saviors they'll all survive if they simply surrender, but this is their one and only chance. Negan asks if that offer applies to him, and Rick says he means to kill him personally. So do it then! Does he think it wouldn't be sporting to just open fire on him until they've bantered a bit? Negan says he doesn't believe Rick has the numbers necessary to win this war, and brings out Gregory, the leader of the Hilltop.

The weaselly Gregory announces that the Hilltop stands with Negan, and any resident who takes up arms against the Sanctuary will be thrown out, along with their families. Maggie tells the Hilltoppian members of the Army to do what they have to do, but no one leaves. Jesus yells to Gregory that the Hilltop stands with Maggie. This frustrates Simon, who shoves Gregory backward off the balcony.

Elsewhere, the Savior patrol is returning from checking out the explosion. As they drive through a nearby town, they trigger a bomb set by Tara and the others, which takes out the entire convoy. OK, that was a pretty smart plan.

Back at the Sanctuary, Rick gives Negan one last chance to surrender. When Negan refuses, Rick begins counting down from 10. When he gets to 7, he and the others open fire on the balcony.

Somehow they all miss their targets (were they even firing at them?) as Negan dives for cover and the others run back inside. For some reason, Rick and his army then waste thousands of rounds of precious ammo by shooting out the factory windows of the Sanctuary. Well that'll certainly show 'em!

Meanwhile, Daryl (who sure gets around in this episode) leads the walker herd toward the Sanctuary. As he passes various points on his bike, he shoots at previously prepared explosives, to lure the walkers along.

Rick has Negan pinned down behind a piece of wreckage, but can't get a clean shot at him. Gabriel drives the armored RV through the fence and jumps out the back. It trundles along until it reaches the Sanctuary, and Rick detonates it with a charge. Saviors and walkers alike are blown sky high.

Negan hobbles thorugh the wreckage and finds more cover. Rick continues shooting at him, determined to end him once and for all (oh, NOW he wants to shoot at him!). Gabriel appears and tells Rick they've got to leave now, as the herd is rapidly approaching. Rick's reluctant to go, but realizes he's right. For some reason, he takes a Polaroid of the ruined Sanctuary and leaves.

Gabriel hops in a car and starts to move out, but sees an injured Gregory hobbling along. Instead of running him over like any sane human would do, he jumps out to save him, and the two men are immediately pinned down by gunfire. Gregory sees the idling car, runs to it and takes off, leaving Gabriel behind. Serves him right for showing "mercy" in a world like this.

Some time later, Carol returns to the Kingdom, where she's welcomed by Ezekiel. Rick and Daryl wait in the woods for any sign of Gabriel. Daryl eventually convinces Rick that Gabriel didn't make it. Rick and the others take over Negan's satellite station. Several other groups capture two more Savior outposts.

Back at the Sanctuary, we see that Gabriel's actually still alive, desperately trying to escape as he dodges hundreds of walkers. He enters an abandoned trailer and shuts the door behind him. Suddenly Negan appears, asking if he has his "sh*ttin' pants" on. The camera then pulls up, revealing the massive walker herd surrounding the trailer and the Sanctuary. That's it for the first timeline.

We then get a scene of Carl exploring the wasteland, but it's unclear if this is part of the first timeline, or happening sometime after this episode. We see Carl driving along a highway. He stops, gets out, grabs a gas can and cautiously walks through the wreckage, in a shot-for-shot recreation of the opening of the very first episode of the show, Days Gone Bye.

As Carl approaches an abandoned gas station, he hears the voice of a man babbling on and on about being shot and hungry. The man says his mom used to tell him "May my mercy prevail over my wrath," which is a quote from the Koran. Carl sneaks up on the man and pulls a gun on him. Suddenly Rick appears and fires over the man's head, scaring him off.

Carl asks what the hell he did that for, and Rick says the man could have been one of Negan's spies. Rick says if the man's not a Savior, he hopes he survives. Carl says hope's not enough.

Sometime later, Carl returns to the gas station with two cans of vegetables and a note that reads, "Sorry." Again, it's not clear just when this is happening.

In the second timeline, we see Rick in the Hilltop, silently standing over the graves of Glenn and Abraham. He looks to the heavens and whispers, "Let mercy prevail over thy wrath," which is the same quote Carl's mystery man used.

We then see what may be yet another timeline, or it may be part of the second. Again, it's very vague and there's no way to tell. We see a closeup of Rick's face, with red eyes that indicate he's been sobbing. A shaft of rainbow colored light plays across his face, and he looks up to see the sun shining through a stained glass sign hanging... somewhere.

In the third definite timeline, Rick wakes up in bed, visibly older and with a long beard. He gets out of bed, grabs a cane and hobbles into the kitchen. He kisses Michonne as Carl walks by. He's greeted by Judith, who looks to be six or seven years old. She takes him outside and shows him a giant owl that was built for "The Fair." This scene obviously takes place after the infamous "Time Jump" from the comics, that happened in Issue #127.

Thoughts:
• At the end of last season, Dwight approached Alexandria and told Rick they both want the same thing— to see Negan dead. He then offered to help Alexandria overthrow him. Naturally Rick didn't believe Dwight, assuming he was lying. Daryl— who was tortured mercilessly by Dwight— shoved him against a wall and held a knife to his eye, ready to kill him. Dwight then told Daryl he should know from experience that he doesn't lie. Daryl then lowered the knife and released him.

And apparently that was all it took for Dwight to become a trusted member of Team Rick! Suddenly in this episode he and Dwight are exchanging notes like a couple of schoolboys! I dunno... I was expecting maybe an episode or two in which Dwight proved himself to Rick before they made him a vital part of their plan.

It's amazing how this series will completely leap over important scenes that really need to be seen, but then waste an entire episode on useless crap no one needs to see— like how Morgan got his sweet, sweet bo staff skills.

• Based on his looks and the fact that he quotes the Koran, the man Carl meets at the gas station is likely Siddiq.

He's a fairly important character from the comic, who first appeared in Issue #127. He was a former member of the Oceanside community (!), who later moved to Alexandria. In the comic he had an affair with Rosita, who was shacking up with Eugene (!!!) at the time.

It's a good bet we'll see him again, since this episode went to so much trouble introducing him. Also, in one of the timelines we saw Rick reciting Siddiq's little Koran quote, so they're obviously going to meet at some point during the season.

• I noticed something this week I don't think I've ever seen before— apparently zombies can blink! At one point Dwight walks to the Sanctuary fence to send Daryl a message. There's a guard walker chained to the fence, and as the camera pans by you can clearly see it blinking several times.

I could swear I read somewhere that the producers didn't want the walkers to blink, going so far as to digital remove any errant eyelid motion caught on camera. Maybe I'm thinking of another show.

• This isn't a nitpick, just an observation. Several times during the episode we see a shot of Tara's watch. I bet the time it's displaying is just a rough estimate at best. There'd be no way to ever know the exact time in the zombie apocalypse! It's not like you can check the time on your smartphone or dial information!

• Wow, Baby Judith, how you've grown! Last time we saw her she was still an infant. She appears to have aged at least a year or more since the Season 7 finale. She looks to be three, possibly even four years old if she's a day.

The problem with this is that it opens up a huge can of timeline worms. If Judith's aged over a year, how the holy fraking hell is Maggie still in her goddamned FIRST TRIMESTER of pregnancy? Somehow Judith's learning to drive, while Glenn's sperm still hasn't made their way to Maggie's egg.

Maggie first announced her pregnancy WAY back in Now, the fifth episode of Season 6, which aired in 2015! That was THREE YEARS AGO. And she's still not showing!

Yes, I get that the show's not unfolding in real time, but Jesus Christ! According to the interwebs, pregant women start showing sometime between twelve and sixteen weeks. So in the three years since Now aired, apparently less than three months have passed on the show. Yet during that same period, Baby Judith had a massive growth spurt, and is now three to four years old.

To make all this even worse, the producers have stated that Maggie won't give birth anytime this season! C'mon, Gimple! If you're going to ask us to believe that corpses can walk, then the least you can do is depict a realistic pregnancy!

There's some more temporal shenanigans later in the episode during the flash forward scenes. In the comic, it was informally established that the Time Jump consisted of two to three years. Judith appears to be six or seven here, so a jump of two to three years seems about right.

Note that we also see Carl and Michonne after the Time Jump, and they both appear relatively unchanged, as they would if only three years had passed.

Yet somehow Rick's aged a good TWENTY YEARS during the Time Jump. He's got a long Rip Van Winkle beard, his hairline has receded dramatically, and his eyes look ancient and weary.

I guess being a leader really does age a person. Just look at what it does to our Presidents in just four years!

• As I watched this episode, I thanked my lucky stars that I don't live in or around the Atlanta area, where The Walking Dead is filmed. Can you imagine the kind of havoc this show wreaks on the local traffic, as it's constantly shutting down highways and roads for filming?

• Subtlety, thy name is The Walking Dead! At one point Morgan sees a stray walker's about to accidentally sets off one of their explosive traps too soon. He then tries to stop it, frantically running past this religious statue that's standing out in the open for no discernible reason.

Gosh, do you think the statue might possibly be a subtle callout to this episode's title?

• Daryl and the others detonate a truck to lure Negan's soldiers away from the Sanctuary. On the way back, this little convoy sets off one of Daryl's explosive traps and is obliterated.

Boy it's really lucky for Dwight that Negan didn't send him out with the group. Especially since he's Negan's right hand man, and regularly handles incidents like this. If Negan had sent him, then Dwight would have been blown up as well.

• As Daryl (who sure gets around in this episode) rides past various points on his bike, he shoots at previously prepared explosives, to lure the walkers along.

In this scene he's supposed to be shooting at the explosive-filled boxes next to the walker. Note that his gun's not pointed anywhere remotely near the box, yet he somehow hits it and detonates it. I guess he's just that good! David Beckham, eat your heart out!

• Rick's Army wisely welds armor all over their cars to protect them, but then inexplicabloy leave their tires exposed and vulnerable. Couldn't they have rigged up some kind of covering to protect them as well? One Savior sharpshooter could easily shoot out the whole caravan's tires, leaving them unable to get away.

• I'm convinced that Scott Gimple secretly hates The Walking Dead fans. This episode offers ample proof of that.

Rick gives a rousing speech to his army before they attack the Sanctuary, and says Negan's the only one who has to die for the mission to be a success. The army then rolls right up to the Sanctuary's front door. Negan comes out, cocks his head and sways his hips and bragging about the size of his dick for a good five minutes. All through this scene, Rick's hiding behind an armored car, with a clear shot of his nemesis. He could easily blow Negan's head off his neck at any time during his taunting little speech, but of course he doesn't. Instead he asks him to surrender.

To say this scene was frustrating would be the understatement of the year.

OK, I knew Rick wasn't going to kill Negan here, as his storyline still has a lot of miles to go before it plays out. That's not the frustrating part. What was maddening was that the scene existed in the first place. This isn't real life, it's a TV show. Events can play out any way the writers want. So why come up with a scene in which Rick has ample opportunity to kill Negan when you know that's not going to happen for a long, long time?

• Rick gives Negan an ultimatum, which he of course ignores. Rick and the others then open fire on Negan and his lieutenants. They all miss of course, as Negan and his people scramble for cover. For some reason, Rick's Army then starts shooting out all the windows of the Sanctuary.

What the hell? This may have been the stupidest thing that's ever happened on this show, and that's saying something! What possible purpose did it serve to needlessly shoot out the windows? Was it supposed to send a message? Were they hoping all the Saviors' stuff would be ruined next time it rains?

The worst part about the scene is that Rick's crew probably wastes several thousand rounds of ammo for absolutely no reason. Are bullets really that plentiful in this world? I'm gonna say no, they're not. Just last season there was such a shortage of ammo that Eugene had to try and figure out how to make more. And he ended up making just one bullet (for Rosita to use on Negan) before defecting to the Saviors. So where the hell is all this superfluous ammo coming from?

• As Rick and his Army depart, Father Gabriel drives the RV into the Sanctuary compound and detonates it.

I was gonna say, "R.I.P. Dale's RV" here, thinking it was one of the longest surviving "characters" on the show. But when researching the episode, I found out that's NOT Dale's RV. It's been gone since the end of Season 2. The RV in this episode belonged to Aaron. He was driving it when he ran into Rick & Co. back in Season 5 and brought them all to Alexandria.

• Even in death, this zombie's walking around with saggy-ass pants.

• At the end of the episode, an armed Father Gabriel gets trapped in a trailer with Negan. Realizing the momentous opportunity he has, Gabriel immediately shoots Negan in the head before killing himself, thereby ending the Savior threat and giving his death meaning.

Naw, I'm just screwin' with you. Of course he doesn't do anything like that. This is The Walking Dead, after all. Instead Gabriel's gonna get captured, and we'll get five or six episodes of Negan torturing him before he's killed in the mid season finale.

• Since this is the 100th episode of the show, the producers decided to celebrate by going back to where it all began. Mercy features several scenes echo the very first episode, Days Gone Bye.

The first of these scenes features Carl, who perfectly recreates his dad's actions in the opening minutes of the first episode.

Days Gone Bye opens with Rick pulling up to an overturned truck on a deserted highway.

In Mercy, Carl drives his van up to a similarly wrecked truck.

Rick then grabs a gas can out of his trunk and threads his way through a tangle of wrecked cars. In Carl's scene, he does the same.

Rick walks down a slight incline. For some reason he makes an odd gesture by reaching under his jacket, like he's going to pull out his gun. Apparently he changes his mind, and walks on.

Carl does the exact same thing, going so far as to reach under his shirt for no good reason.

Rick then takes a peek inside an abandoned car and sees a fresh corpse, covered in flies. His face screws up in disgust, as the smell of death pours from the hot car. It looks like the dead woman has a nasty head wound, which would explain why she doesn't try to kill Rick.

Carl also takes a look inside a car, seeing a much more desiccated corpse. He also sniffs slightly, although this particular dead body's so dried up I don't see how it could still stink much.

The flies in the Rick scene bring up a good point— why isn't this world completely overrun with flies? You'd think they'd have a field day on a planet full of rotting, shambling corpses. Every time Rick or one of the other characters opens their mouth, they should be inhaling a dozen or more flies!

One last thing about this "Peeking In The Car" scene. Look at the figure inside the car behind Carl. What the hell is that? It looks for all the world like a department store mannequin or a moldy CPR dummy. Whatever it is, it looks fake as hell, and I can't believe no one on set spotted it and replaced it with something better.

As Rick passes through the cars, he looks down and sees an abandoned plastic tricycle.

Carl does the same, and sees a tricycle that's been exposed to the elements a bit longer.

Rick hears footsteps, but can't see anyone. He carefully sets his hat on the ground, bends down and peers under the car, hoping to see the source of the footsteps.

Carl removes his hat and bends down to get a good look as well. Amazingly, the hat he sets down is the same one Rick wore in Episode 1, just a bit worse for wear!

Eventually Rick discovers the source of the footsteps— a little girl who's become a walker. She runs at Rick and he's forced to shoot her in the head.

Carl finds the source of the footsteps he heard, and it turns out to be Siddiq (probably). Rick chases him off, and then sees a walker who looks amazingly like the girl from the first episode, but older. He grabs his trusty axe and walks offscreen to take care of her.

Mercy features another scene that echoes the very first episode. In Days Gone Bye, Rick's shot in the line of duty, shortly before the zombie apocalypse starts. He then wakes up in a deserted hospital and looks over to see a wilted bouquet of flowers.

In this episode, Rick wakes up after the Time Jump, and looks over to see a fresh bouquet of flowers.

By the way, once the Time Jump occurs for real, will Andrew Lincoln have to wear his old man makeup all the time?

Lastly, this week's episode mimics the final scene of the very first show.

At the end of Days Gone Bye, Rick's hopelessly trapped inside a National Guard tank, surrounded by walkers. He hears Glenn's voice on the radio, as the camera slowly pulls up to reveal the massive horde of hungry zombies.

At the end of this episode, Father Gabriel's left behind just as the walker herd arrives. He hides inside a trailer, only to find it's also being occupied by Negan— the man he just tried to kill. The camera slowly pulls up to reveal the massive horde of hungry zombies surrounding the trailer.

These homages to the first episode are cool, and very well done, but... ultimately I have to wonder if they were a good idea. In the end all they do is point out how much the series has changed over the past eight years— and not always for the better!

If you're a regular reader of my blog (as millions are), you know of my fascination with regional Mexican restaurant chain Hacienda and their series of increasingly puzzling billboards.

Hacienda's marketing campaign seems to be based on the old adage that "There's No Such Thing As Bad Publicity." To that end, they regularly feature billboards with controversial messages, apparently for no other reason than to get people talking about them. You can see some of their past dubious efforts here.

This is their latest billboard, that I spotted just down the street a couple days ago. There's nothing particularly controversial about this one, but it is mystifying.

Just what the hell is "Adult" Mac-N-Cheese? What does that even mean? How is mac-n-cheese adult?

Does it mean it's extra spicy, and kids won't be able to handle it? Do they pour a little alcohol in the cheese sauce? Or does it mean the pasta's x-rated, and is shaped like pee-pees and hoo-has?

Your guess is as good as mine.

So far the producers of The Flash are living up to their promise to make the series fun again. Luck Be A Lady ramped up the comedy to eleven, possibly making it the funniest episode of the entire series. That's a good thing, by the way!

This week's storyline was also much more coherent and focused than last week's murky, muddled plot. It also didn't hurt that this episode's villain Hazard was much more fleshed out than last week's awful Kilg%re. Hazard was sympathetic and even likable, despite her villain status.

Luck Be A Lady also features several major cast changes as well. So far it's been traditional to feature a new version of Harrison Wells in each season. First we had the actual Harrison Wells, then in Season 2 we had Harry (who was from Earth-2) and last year we got HR, who hailed from Earth-19. Apparently there's not going to be a new Wells this year, as Harry's returned to the show. He's probably the best of the Wellses so far, so that's probably for the best.

The other big change this week (SPOILERS!) is the not-so-surprising departure of Wally West. As I've been saying for the past few weeks, Wally no longer has any actual function on the show, as the writers seemingly have no idea what to do with him anymore. Looks like they finally realized that as well, as he leaves the series at the end of this episode.

It seems like the writers realized STAR Labs was getting a bit too crowded, and decided to do some pruning this season. First Julian was summarily banished between seasons, and now Wally's getting the boot.

Although I liked both characters, it's probably a good idea to whittle down the cast a bit, so we don't get more characters standing around in the background like extras.

This week Team Flash discovers Barry accidentally created twelve new metahumans to menace Central City. I have a feeling we'll be meeting one per week until the mid season finale, when the Flash will face off against The Thinker, making room for a new story arc in the second half.

There's one other big revelation this week, involving Joe and Cecile, who announces she's pregnant. Hopefully this doesn't immediately mark her for death. In past years I could easily see that happening, but surely the writers wouldn't do something like that in this lighter, more fun season.

I do have to wonder though... if the producers thought there were too many Wests on the show, why are they bringing in another?

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
In his lair, The Thinker observes a Central City resident named Becky Sharpe, a mousy, unassertive and disheveled young woman who may be the unluckiest person on the planet. On this particular day she comes home to find her boyfriend cheating on her, groped by a gambler at her casino job, and ultimately fired for spilling a drink on a customer. Her luck changes though when she boards a bus filled with eleven other passengers, including Ramsey Deacon (see last week's episode). As the bus pulls away, an explosion bathes the passengers in a bright light.

Cut to STAR Labs, where Wally's anxiously waiting in the Breach Room for a visit from Jesse Quick. A portal opens, and Harry, (the Harrison Wells of Earth-2) steps through. He tells Wally that Jesse's breaking up with him (and apparently couldn't bother to tell him in person). Wally's crushed.

Meanwhile we see Becky, who now looks like a beautiful, confident young woman, saunter into a bank and simply take a million bucks from the vault. Apparently the bus explosion somehow changed her luck for the better. The more good luck she has, the worse things go for everyone around her, as Central City experiences disaster after disaster. Barry rushes to the scene to stop Rebecca, but slips on thousands of marbles that accidentally spill into the street (!).

At STAR, Team Flash realizes that Becky is a metahuman who somehow generates a luck field. They're puzzled as to where she got her powers though, since she wasn't in town during the particle accelerator explosion that created all the city's other metas.

At Joe's house, Cecile calls a plumber to check the house's noisy pipes. Joe's shocked when he finds out it'll cost $15,000 to replace them. Cecile suggests selling the place and buying a new one, but Joe's reluctant to leave his family home. Meanwhile Barry and Iris' wedding plans are scuttled when they can't seem to find a venue. All this bad luck leads Cisco to believe that Team Flash has been cursed by Becky.

Cisco, Harry and Barry examine CCTV footage and discover that Becky got her powers from the bus explosion. Barry realizes it's all his fault. Back in The Flash Reborn, he exited the Speed Force right next to the bus, which caused an explosion that exposed the passengers to dark matter and gave them all powers.

The pipes burst in Joe's house, and he tells Barry that Cecile wants him to sell. Barry says it's no big deal, as Joe will still have his memories of raising his family no matter where he lives. Good Ol' Sentimental Barry!

Cisco tracks Becky to Jitters, and Barry rushes there to try and talk her out of using her good luck powers. Note that he doesn't try to arrest her, so... I guess that means he's OK with all the money she stole from the bank? Becky says she's not gonna stop, as she's had bad luck her entire life, and the universe owes her. Barry lets her leave, since getting too close to her will cause him to have bad luck (which he's already having, so... I don't see the problem).

Iris calls Barry and says to meet her in a church. When he gets there, she tells him she wants to get married NOW. As in this instant. She says bad luck has canceled their wedding plans dozens of times now, and she's afraid if they don't get married immediately, they never will.

Barry agrees, and they approach the altar. The priest begins the ceremony, but suddenly starts choking, as he's allergic to cinnamon incense and has to be carried away. Cue sad trombone.

At STAR Labs, Cisco and Harry are arguing just like in the old days. Cisco asks why he came back to Earth-1 if he's just going to fight. Harry admits that he helped his daughter Jessie form her own Team Flash on Earth-2 (even though the last time we saw her she was moving to Earth-3 to help out there). Jesse then summarily kicked him off the team he founded, proving she's really quite the piece of work.

Suddenly alarms start blaring, as Becky's luck field inexplicably begins spreading throughout the city. Cisco gives Rebecca the code name "Hazard." She returns to the casino where she worked, this time as a customer. Every time she wins, Central City residents lose. Suddenly the STAR Labs particle accelerator comes back online and threatens to explode (which seems impossible, since it already did so four years ago, but let's just roll with it or we'll be here all day).

Cisco and Harry try to shut down the accelerator while Barry rushes to the casino to stop Hazard. Unfortunately her powers cause him to slip on a pile of loose quarters, and he falls and handcuffs himself. Wah-wahhhhhh.

With seconds to go, Harry gets the brilliant idea to just let the accelerator explode. For some insane reason, Cisco agrees. The accelerator overloads and sends out a blast of blue energy that reverses Hazard's powers (but apparently no one else's). Barry's then able to free himself and haul her away. When Cisco asks Harry how he knew the accelerator wouldn't destroy them all, he replies, "Lucky guess." Oy.

Hazard's taken to Iron Heights prison. Cisco tells Harry he doesn't have to return to Earth-2, as he'll always have a home here. Awwww. Harry shows the gang an infrared image of the bus that was exposed to dark matter, and they see there were twelve people aboard. They realize there are still ten metas out there.

Harry theorizes that someone wanted Barry to exit the Speed Force at that exact place and time to create an army of metas. But who? In the background we see the Samuroid head from The Flash Reborn lying on a table. We then see The Thinker is using the helmet to spy on Team Flash.

Wally enters and says ~~he has no purpose on the show anymore~~, er, I mean no place on the team anymore, and is going off to find himself in Blue Valley, wherever the hell that is.

Joe comes home to see Cecile fixing up his house. He says he's decided to sell, but she says she's changed her mind (of course) and wants him to keep it. She then tells Joe she's pregnant, leaving him completely and motionlessly stunned.

Thoughts:
• When the Thinker's listing Becky Sharpe's run of bad luck, he mentions that she writes "I am jinxed" on her MySpace page. I think that was supposed to be a joke. MySpace fell far out of favor over ten years ago, so only a loser would still be using it.

• During Becky's run of bad luck, she walks up to her car and sees it's been booted. She shrieks and says, "Great! There goes another car!"

Um... does that mean whenever the city boots her car, she just abandons it and buys another one?

• The Flash often follows what I call "The Inverse Superhero Costume Accuracy Rule." This means that whenever a major character like Mirror Master appears on the show, he'll be dressed in a normal men's suit instead of anything resembling his costume from the comics.

On the other hand, when an extremely minor character appears— like Hazard, for instance— she'll look EXACTLY like she does in the comic, as if she just stepped off the printed page. Frustrating!

• Believe it or not, Hazard's actually a villain from DC Comics. She first appeared back in 1987, in Infinity Inc. #34. She's the granddaughter of The Gambler, a Golden Age villain who often faced off against Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern.

In the comics, Hazard used a pair of special dice that she'd roll to influence probability, and cause a person to have good or bad luck.

By the way, Infinity Inc. #34 was drawn by Todd McFarlane, the creator of Spawn and one of the co-founders of Image Comics.

• I love Becky's awkward I.D. photo, that looks like it was taken before she was ready!

• After a rousing game of Laser Tag, Joe buys lunch for Team Flash. We see Barry order three burgers, five churros and six funnel cakes (!).

It's been a while since the show reminded us that due to his speedster powers and increased metabolism, Barry needs to eat a huge amount of food every day.

• Jesse Quick makes a very brief cameo in this episode, to give Wally the brush-off in her Breakup Cube message.

I dunno why they didn't just have her appear for real in the episode— maybe actress Violett Beane just wasn't available (although a quick check of IMDB shows she's currently not doing much).

Whatever the reason, her absence this week didn't do the character any favors. Between breaking up with Wally long distance and throwing her dad off the team he helped create, Jesse really comes off as an enormous asshole in this episode.

• Harry tells Cisco that his daughter Jesse kicked him off the team he helped her form on Earth-2. Wha...? The last time we saw Jesse was in the Season 3's Into The Speed Force. In that episode, Jesse announced she was moving to Earth-3, to protect it while its resident speedster Jay Garrick was off occupying the Speed Force.

I guess once Barry entered the Speed Force in the Season 3 finale, Jay was free to return to Earth-3 and Jesse must have moved back home to Earth-2. All while we weren't looking!

• Once again, Team Flash implies that every metahuman that appears in Central City had to be created by the particle accelerator explosion. I don't have time to go through every episode for proof, but I'm sure that's not true. What about all the metas Zoom sent from Earth-2 to challenge Barry? What about Grodd? And King Shark?

• This week we find out that when Barry exited the Speed Force, he accidentally exposed the passengers on a city bus to dark matter, creating twelve new metahumans.

You know, it really is very nice of these metas to politely take turns and show up one per week, instead of attacking the city all at once.

• Last week I said I didn't understand how Kilg%re's powers worked or how he got them. I still don't understand how they work, but at least this episode explains how he came by them— exposure to dark matter. Better late than never, I guess.

• Iris gets a STAR Labs alert and says there are two 211s (aka robbery) at both the First National and O'Sullivan Bank.

The Flash loves to use comic book writer and artist names in its Central City landmarks. I can't seem to find any DC personnel named "O'Sullivan" though. I guess sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

• When Becky enters the bank, her powers cause everyone around she passes to experience bad luck. First her Uber cab glitches, so the driver can't charge her for the ride. Next a bank guard chokes for no good reason, knocking a repairman off his ladder and causing him to grab hold of a security camera. Then a customer knocks his coffee over, which shorts out the teller's computer. Lastly a woman on her phone runs by, yelling at her presumably senile mother not to touch the oven (meaning Becky's power must be able to reach through phone lines!).

This all happens in one long tracking shot, and reminds me a lot of the opening "slapstick" scene of Superman III (aka The One With Richard Pryor).

• By the way, Becky sashays into the bank vault to the tune of Luck Be A Lady, sung by Frank Sinatra. Although the song was written by Frank Loesser, the version heard here was conducted by bandleader Nelson Riddle, who frequently worked with Sinatra.

So what's all this got to do with anything, you ask? Welp, Riddle also composed most of the music for the 1966 Batman TV show! Neal Hefti wrote the opening theme, but Riddle did all the rest.

• The Flash is famous for its ridiculous comic book science, which often outdoes the most outlandish technobabble on any of the modern Star Trek series.

In this episode though, Harry explains Becky's luck powers in a way that comes dangerously close to making sense! Check out the following conversation:

Harry: "Okay, Ramon, what you call juju, I call quantum entanglement. Discrete quantum particles are connected, and when triggered, they simulate a synchronicity that, to the untrained eye— to the common eye— could seem like luck."
Barry: "So if Becky can affect the particles around her in a positive way, then their connected particles start spinning negatively."
Caitlin:"So when good things happen to her, bad things happen all around her."
Cisco:"Great, she's got a good luck field."

Quantum entanglement is a real scientific phenomenon, and connected particles really can affect one another over great distances! This is actually a pretty clever way to attempt to scientifically explain something as esoteric as "luck." Well done, writers!

• This week we learn that Iris' middle name is Ann. Good to know.

• Cecile calls Joe in a panic because the ceiling pipes in his rapidly decaying house are leaking. Barry shuts off the water at superspeed to prevent further damage. Later during Hazard's Bad Luck Spree, the ceiling starts leaking even more. How's that happening if the water was shut off? Did Joe or Cecile turn it back on in between scenes?

• Cecile calls a plumber, who says it'll cost $15,000 to replace the pipes in Joe's house. Joe moans and says, "My great uncle paid less for this whole place. I guess I'm gonna have to open the piggy bank."

Wow. Joe must have a sizable piggy bank indeed, if he can draw $15 grand and not clean it out! How much do CCPD detectives make per year?

• At the beginning of the episode, Hazard's fired from her dealer job at the casino. Later after she acquires her good luck powers, she enters the casino as a customer and wins millions.

Eh, I don't think so. It's highly unlikely any casino would ever let a former employee in to gamble.

• Late in the episode, Becky's powers increase exponentially, which sets off an alarm in STAR Labs. Caitlin says, "Guys, there are low probability events happening all over the city! Becky's quantum field is expanding!"

In other words, STAR Labs has sensors that can detect bad luck. Got it!
• Becky's bad luck field causes the STAR Labs particle accelerator to power up and threaten to explode. Um... just how's that possible? Didn't it already explode four years ago, in the very first episode? How can it explode again? Did Cisco rebuild it? And if so, why?

• Becky's powers cause a goose to be sucked into the engine of a plane flying over Central City, causing the pilot to attempt a water landing.

The plane's pilot looks a LOT like Captain "Sully" Sullenberger. He's the pilot who landed US Airlines Flight 1549 in the middle of the Hudson River back in 2009. There's no way you can convince me that the resemblance wasn't intentional.

• When Harry and Cisco let the particle accelerator go ahead and explode, it expels a massive wave of blue energy that shorts out Hazard's powers.

First of all, I don't see why the wave would interfere with Hazard's powers, since she didn't get them from the original accelerator explosion. Secondly, it's lucky (heh) for Barry that this second wave didn't shut down HIS powers as well! Especially since he got his speed from the initial explosion!

• Once the crisis has passed, Wally announces he's leaving the show, and is going to stay with a friend in Blue Valley. A couple things here:

First of all, it's odd that he doesn't go to Earth-2 to be with Jesse, since she's the source of all his angst and soul-searching.

Secondly, in the comics Wally West grew up in Blue Valley, so I assume this is a nod to that big of trivia.

There's a rumor that Wally may be leaving to show up on the upcoming Titans TV series. In the comics, Kid Flash was an integral part of the Teen Titans from the beginning, so it would make sense for him to show up on the team.

I have a feeling Wally's not gone for good. Hopefully when he eventually comes back, the writers will figure out something to do with him.

• At the end of the episode, we see The Thinker's monitoring Team Flash through the Samuroid helmet they picked up in the season premiere. What a lucky break for The Thinker that Cisco just casually plopped it on top of a backup drive in the STAR Labs Cortex, perfectly placed so its eye cameras could capture the gang's every movement. I guess The Thinker really thought that through!

• The funniest part of the episode— heck, of the entire series— was when Cecile told Joe she's pregnant, and he simply froze in place for several seconds before they smash cut to black. The actual video looked pretty much identical to the still image above!

• This Week's Best Lines:
Barry: (as he's hit while playing Laser Tag) "They got me!"
Cisco: "Oh, you have failed this city."

(this is of course the catchphrase Oliver Queen growls to villains and corrupt businessmen over on Arrow)

Cisco: (to the kid who shot Barry at Laser Tag) "You better watch yourself, Chad. Come at me at the paintball field next time. I'll kick your little... (sees Chad's mom) Hey! Mrs.
McConnell. How you doing? Chad's a treasure. He really is."

Wally:"What is what is this thing?"

Harry:"Break... Breakup cube. You don't have breakup cubes on your Earth? Oh, that's not good. Okay. Okay. A breakup cube is, uh... kind of what it sounds like. You know, you record a message for the person you want to... the person, and you, uh, pick a music setting, and then there's a tissue that pops out if you need that. You know, a breakup cube."

Iris: (as Barry enters the room while she's trying on her wedding dress) "Barry! Oh, my God.
Turn around!"

Barry:"I did!"

Iris:"Did you see?"

Barry: "No, I didn't see."
Iris:"You saw!"

Barry: "I did see. But just for a second."
Iris:"Which is like an eternity for a speedster!"

Barry: (trying to avoid a funeral procession as he and Iris rush to be married) "Sorry, sorry."
Iris: "Sorry, excuse me. Beautiful service."
Barry: "So sorry."
Iris:"I love this coffin. Is that cedar?"

(once again, these two have terrific comedic timing, so it's nice to see them get to use it for a change!)

Harry: "But then, Jesse goes and kicks me off the team, all right? Apparently I'm too much like me, whatever that means. I push too hard. You know, too many tests. Too many training sessions. You know, I don't allow the team enough time for their personal bonding. I don't understand millennials."

(apparently millennials are a thing even over on Earth-2!)

Harry: "This is not my world."
Cisco:"Oh, and Earth-2 is? Did you make a bunch of friends there that I don't know about? What, are they all tall, brooding dudes with bad haircuts?"

Harry:"I have I have colleagues. Work colleagues. And, uh... some of them I don't dislike."

Blade Runner 2049 was written by Michael Green and Hampton Fancher. It was directed by Denis Villeneuve (which is pronounced "Den-EEE Vill-nuv.")/

Green is a very uneven writer, who previously penned Green Lantern (yikes!), Logan (very good), Alien: Covenant (oy) and the upcoming Murder On The Orient Express. Fancher is primarily an actor, who previously wrote the original Blade Runner, The Mighty Quinn and The Minus Man.

Villneueve is a darned good filmmaker who directed Prisoners, Enemy, Sicario and Arrival.

According to IMDB, the movie was co-produced by Bud Yorkin. If you're of a certain age, you may remember him as the producer of such iconic TV series such as All In The Family, Maude, Good Times and Sandford And Son. So what the hell's he doing producing a movie like this? Talk about strange bedfellows! Apparently Blade Runner 2049 must have been in development for quite a while, considering Yorkin somehow produced the film despite the fact that he died in 2015.

The film is of course a sequel to 1982's Blade Runner. Man, if ever there was a film that did NOT need a followup, it's that one. It's a thinking man's sci-fi movie, and a perfect example of a "one and done" movie. The story had a definite and satisfying ending, and what happened afterward was best left to the audience's imagination.

That's why when Blade Runner 2049 was first announced, I naturally expected the worst. I anticipated a sub-par, mindless, modern sci-fi action film that tarnished the legacy of the original. Fortunately that isn't the case here. Blade Runner 2049 is the rare sequel that actually surpasses the original. There, I said it. It's better than Blade Runner! Deal with it!

I have to admit I was horrified when I sat down in the cineplex and this logo flashed across the screen at the beginning of the film.

Uh-oh. It's a Sony picture. That's something you never want to see at the start of a movie.

Sony Pictures is the wonderful studio that pumps out hit after hit, year after year to universal critical accla... HAW, HAW, HAW! Sorry, I couldn't finish that sentence with a straight face. Sony's the absolute worst, as they consistently churn out flop after flop. Seeing them desperately try to come up with a hit is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Virtually every decision they make as a corporation is wrong. How the hell do Anthony Vinciquerra and Tom Rothman keep their jobs?

Fortunately this time things worked out, and they managed to make a decent movie. I guess if you swing at enough balls, you're bound to hit a homer eventually.

The original film has been very divisive among science fiction fans since it first premiered. Half the audience claims it's a thought-provoking, revolutionary piece of visionary cinema, whose spectacular production design and world building is still influencing movies today. The other half thinks it's the dullest piece of schlock ever shot to film, filled with bizarre characters and over the top acting. Oddly enough, they're both right!

Ever since I first saw the film way back in 1982, I've been a Blade Runner apologist, adamantly defending it against its critics as one of the best sci-fi films ever made. I hadn't seen the film in years though, so I recently rewatched it to refresh my memory before seeing the sequel.

Wow. What a difference a few years makes. This time around, I began to see some of the haters' points. Blade Runner really is a plodding, glacially-paced film. I don't mind slow burn movies now and then, but if a film's going to demand my attention than it damn well better be leading up to something amazing.

Sadly, that's not the case with the original Blade Runner, as absolutely nothing happens in the entire film. Four Replicants illegally return to Earth to find their creator and demand he extend their limited lifespans. They find him, but unfortunately he can't help them. They murder him, then sit around waiting for retired Replicant-killer Rick Deckard to blunder in and kill them all. That's pretty much it!

The best part of the film comes at the end, when Deckard hunts down lead Replicant Roy Batty. He handily wipes the floor with Deckard, and just as he's about to kill him, he feels his own death coming on. He lets Deckard live, then sits down and gives a poignant little speech about "tears in the rain." In that instant the artificial person becomes more human than the real thing.

It's a powerful moment, but hardly worth the two hour slog to get there. One decent scene does not a good movie make.

The film erroneously concentrates on Deckard, the least interesting and most uncharismatic character in movie history. Batty's story was much more compelling, but unfortunately he's shoved to the sidelines, appearing in just a handful of scenes. I dunno, maybe that's why he's so interesting—it's the Boba Fett Effect.

Then there's the whole "Deckard = Replicant" controversy that's been brewing over the years and further dividing fans. Many viewers are under the ridiculous and misguided notion that Rick Deckard is secretly a Replicant, while the other side thinks that's the stupidest thing they've ever heard.

I fall squarely in the "Not A Replicant" camp, as storywise it makes absolutely no sense. We're told that Replicants have a built in three to four year lifespan, yet Deckard's been hunting them down for decades— long enough that he's actually retired from the job.

Some fans argue that Deckard's years of memories were implanted, but everyone around him acts as if he's been doing the job forever. If he was unknowingly a Replicant, EVERYONE around him would have to be in on the secret and be careful never to spill the beans.

Not to mention the fact that the entire point of the movie is Deckard's awakening humanity. He's been on the job so long that he's become as cold and emotionless as the Replicants he hunts for a living. When Batty lets him live, he ends up becoming more human than Deckard. In that moment, Deckard's own long-dormant humanity finally awakens.

If Deckard's secretly a Replicant, then the entire theme of the film becomes pointless!

The "Deckard's A Replicant" notion didn't become a thing until long after the movie's initial release. Original director Ridley Scott then heard about the theory and absolutely loved it, going so far as to release a re-edited version of the film, called Blade Runner: The Final Cut. This rejiggered "ultimate" version makes it clear that Deckard IS a Replicant.

Even folks who were involved in the film think this is a mistake. Original screenwriter Hampton Fancher adamantly states that in his script, Deckard was never meant to be a Replicant. Even actor Harrison Ford, who played Deckard, thinks it's a stupid idea.

I had a baaaad feeling that Blade Runner 2049 would confirm the theory once and for all. How could it not? It's a sequel after all, so the issue would have to come up. Thankfully, director Denis Villeneuve was smart enough to skirt around the issue, leaving the answer vague. If you're Pro Replicant, there's nothing in the film to prove you wrong, and vice versa. Smart!

On the plus side, the original Blade Runner does feature a tremendous example of world building, and is a visually stunning example of pre-CGI special effects. But without a compelling story, it's all meaningless. It's a cold, passionless and emotionally distant piece of filmmaking. Maybe that was the point, who knows?

Happily, Blade Runner 2049 avoids all the problems of the original. It doesn't simply rehash the same plot, but tells a new and compelling story, that's a logical extrapolation of the first film. It also focuses on the right characters this time, as well as expanding on its world building. In effect it does everything the original failed to do.

Maybe it helped that the filmmakers have had thirty five years to think about the film and figure out what not to do in a sequel.

Sadly, like its predecessor, Blade Runner 2049 is a box office dud. So far it's grossed just $81 million against its whopping $150 million budget. It's done much better overseas, where it's made $142 million, for a worldwide total of $233 million.

That's still not enough to make it a success. Due to marketing and other costs, these days movies need to make twice their production budget just to break even. Blade Runner 2049 has a long way to go before it passes that magic $300 million amount. Which is too bad, as it's a darned good movie.

The film's box office failure shouldn't come as a surprise, as the exact same thing happened back in 1982 with the original Blade Runner. It only managed to gross an anemic $32 million against its $28 million budget, making it a HUGE financial disaster. It didn't become a fanboy fave and cult classic until long after its theatrical run.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
It's long and convoluted, so strap yourselves in.

We begin with a wordy opening caption, just like in the original movie. Early in the 21st Century, the Tyrell Corporation created Replicants, artificial humans who were indistinguishable from the real thing. They were used as slave labor, doing jobs no human wanted. In an effort to prevent them from revolting, all Replicants had a built in three to four year life span. Apparently that plan didn't work, as the Nexus-6 through 8 Replicants rebelled anyway, causing the Tyrell Corp to go bankrupt. There was then an ecological disaster, as famine swept the Earth.

Niander Wallace (played by Jared Leto) when swooped in and invented "synthetic farming," which saved the world. He then took control of the Tyrell Corp's assets, perfecting Replicants with the release of the Nexus-9 series. These new Replicants have no lifespan limit, but are more obedient and less prone to revolt. They're still used as slaves though, and some are employed as "Blade Runners," hunting down the few remaining older Nexus models who are wandering around. Agent K (played by Ryan Gosling) is one such Replicant.

OK, we're all caught up now.

Agent KD6-3.7, or K for short, flies to a remote farm outside L.A., where he's tracked down Sapper Morton (played by Dave Bautista), a rogue Nexus-8 Replicant. They have an epic fight, and Morton says he feels sorry for K, as he wouldn't be hunting his own kind if he'd seen the miracles he's witnessed. K has no idea what Morton's talking about and kills him. K launches a drone to scan the farm, and discovers an old chest buried under a dead tree. He radios for a squad to retrieve it.

K returns to the LAPD, where he undergoes a baseline test to make sure he's not developed any rebellious glitches. He passes, then goes home to his sparse apartment, where he activates his holographic girlfriend Joi. He tells Joi he's bought her a new mobile holo-projector, which will allow her to pick up objects and even leave the apartment.

Back at the Police Department, the forensics team discovers the chest K found contains a female human skeleton. Closer examination reveals the woman died during an emergency C-section. K notes there's a Tyrell serial number on one of the bones, indicating the woman was a Replicant.

This is a huge shock to everyone, since Replicants weren't designed to become pregnant. K's boss Lieutenant Joshi (played by Robin Wright) says if the public finds out that Replicants can breed, it'll tear the world apart. She orders him to destroy the skeleton, burn Morton's farm and track down the Replicant child, if it's still alive. K has mixed feelings about killing something that was born instead of made. He takes one of the female Replicant's eyeballs (because this movie, like the one before it, is all about the eyes) and leaves.

K goes to the Tyrell Pyramid— now called the Wallace Corporation— to find answers. A helpful clerk looks at the serial number on the eyeball and says it's from an older Replicant model, and may be hard to track down. Apparently there was an event called The Blackout in 2022 that wiped out virtually all previously recorded digital files (?).

A Replicant named Luv helps K and discovers the serial number belonged to Rachael (played by Sean Young), an experimental Replicant seen in the first film who went missing thirty years ago. Luv plays a recording of Rachael talking to Rick Deckard (played by Harrison Ford), the hero of the previous movie.

K then visits Gaff (played by Edward James Olmos), who ~~shows up purely for fan service~~, er, I mean gives him some info he already knows. Gaff says Deckard and Rachael fell in love and eloped. K realizes the two had a child who's still out there somewhere.

Luv reports to her boss, the blind Niander Wallace. He says that in order to establish additional off-world colonies, the world needs more Replicants than he can build. In order to meet the demand, he needs Replicants that can breed. He claims that Tyrell figured out how to accomplish this, but his notes were lost during The Blackout (how convenient for the plot!). Wallace says the secret lies with the Rachel and Deckard's child, and orders Luv to find it. Luv goes to the Police Department to steal Rachael's remains (which K was supposed to destroy).

Meanwhile K returns to Morton's farm and finds a photo of a woman— who's not Rachael— holding the magic baby. He realizes the farm was full of Replicants who were protecting Rachael's child. He examines the tree again and notices the date 6/10/22 carved into it. This upsets K, as it's his inception date, and he— and the audience— assume this means he's the special Replicant baby.

K reports to Joshi, who asks him about his most precious childhood memory. He tells her about the time a group of bullies chased him to steal his carved wooden horse, and he hid it in a furnace so they wouldn't find it. Wow. Cool memory, dude! K realizes this has to be an implanted memory (since he's only a few years old), but notes the horse had the date 6/10/22 carved into it.

K discovers records of two children born on 6/10/22— a boy and a girl. They were both taken to an orphanage in San Diego, but the girl later died there of a genetic disease. K flies to the orphanage to look for info on the boy. His spinner's shot down by scavengers, who surround and attack him. He's saved by Luv, who's secretly been monitoring him and remotely wipes out the scavengers with bombs.

K enters the orphanage, which is run by a Caretaker (played by Lennie James of The Walking Dead fame). He orders the Caretaker to show him his records. When he looks for info on the boy, he finds those pages have been torn out of the book by someone. K notes that the orphanage feels familiar to him, and is shocked when he sees the furnace from his memory. He's even more shocked when he finds his wooden horse inside! This pretty much seals the idea that K is Rachel's son and was born, not made. This is all way too obvious though, which means it's gotta be a red herring.

Back at his apartment, K tells Joi he thinks he's the Special Replicant Child. She says if he was born then he has a soul, and needs a real name. She decides to call him "Joe." He's still not convinced his horse memory is real, so Joi suggests he contact a memory implant specialist, which is apparently a thing in the future.

K visits Dr. Ana Stelline, who creates memories for Replicants. Stelline's a "bubble girl" who has a defective immune system and lives in a sealed, sterile room. She was "orphaned" when her parents moved to an off-world colony and left her on Earth (CLUE!). She uses a technobabble device to examine K's wooden horse memory, and declares it's real. This upsets K greatly.

Back at the Police Station, a visibly agitated K fails his baseline test. Joshi warns him that her superiors will be coming for him, as they believe he's the Replicant Child. She gives him forty eight hours to disappear. K returns home and uploads Joi's program from her server into the mobile emitter so he can take her with him. He warns her that if the emitter's destroyed, there's no backup and she'll be gone forever, proving K doesn't understand how computer files work.

Luv arrives at the Police Station and asks Joshi where K is. She refuses to tell, so Luv kills her and searches her computer files to find K. Meanwhile, K takes the wooden horse to a specialist, who tells him contains radioactive tritium. He says there's only one place to find that sort of radiation— the ruins of Las Vegas.

K flies to Vegas, where he finds Rick Deckard living in an abandoned casino (that apparently shields him from radiation). Deckard holds K at gunpoint, assuming he's there to kill him. After a brief fight, Deckard realizes K's just there for info.

Deckard confirms that Rachael did indeed became pregnant, but because he was still being hunted (for some reason?) he left her in the care of a group of Replicants (including Morton) before going into hiding. He's never seen his child and doesn't know where it is.

Suddenly the hotel's attacked by Wallace's goons, including Luv. K dispatches the henchmen and battles Luv. She severely injures him, and destroys his mobile holo-emitter, "killing" Joi (which we all saw coming). She leaves K for dead and takes Deckard back to Wallace.

K's rescued by a members of a Replicant Freedom Movement who were also tailing him (I thought this guy was a cop who knew how to move around secretly?). Their leader Freysa says she was there when Rachel died in childbirth, and saw the baby as a miracle. They deliberately caused The Blackout in order to destroy as many records as possible and protect the child, as well as to destroy the secret of how Tyrell made Replicants who could breed.

K proudly tells Freysa that he's Rachel's child, but she tells him it was a girl. He says if that's true, why does he have memories of the wooden horse? She says that memory was implanted in many Replicants, in order to unify them or something. He makes the incredibly intuitive leap that this means Dr. Stelline is really Rachel and Deckard's child.

Freysa tells K that Wallace will torture Deckard to find out the secret of Breedable Replicants. They say if Wallace succeeds, he'll be able to create as many Slave Replicants as he wants, which is something they can't allow.

Back in L.A., Deckard's brought to Wallace, who questions him. Deckard insists he doesn't know who his child is or where to find it. Wallace tries to bribe Deckard by bringing in a ~~Replicant~~, er, replica of Rachael, who looks exactly as she did thirty years ago in the original film. Deckard's visibly shaken by the sight of Young Rachel, but composes himself and tells Wallace that "the real thing had green eyes." Angered, Wallace orders Luv to kill the Rachael copy, and tells her to take Deckard to an off-world colony, where they have ways of making him talk or something.

Luv and Deckard fly off, followed by two escort vehicles. Suddenly K appears in a Spinner, blowing the escorts out of the sky. He forces Luv's car to crash land on a beach. K and Luv have an epic beatdown fight that goes on way too long. Meanwhile Deckard, who's cuffed inside the Spinner, is in danger of drowning as it slowly sinks.

Luv mortally wounds K, but he manages to rally and hold her head under water, killing her. He rescues Deckard just before the Spinner sinks. K says Deckard's free now, as Wallace will assume he drowned in the car.

K takes Deckard to Dr. Stelline's bubble. Deckard goes in and realizes Stelline is the Special Replicant Child, and the daughter he never knew. Outside, K slowly lies down on the steps. He stares up at the snow falling down and peacefully dies.

Thoughts:
• Regular readers of my blog know that one of my pet peeves is when a movie's set in a radically different society and features incredibly advanced technollgy, but is set just fifteen or twenty years from now.

The original Blade Runner was definitely guilty of this, as it took place in the far off year of 2019. Even back when I first saw it in 1982, I knew we wouldn't have artificial people, flying cars and offworld colonies by then. Would it have killed them to have set the movie in 2119? Or even later?

Since Blade Runner 2049 is a sequel, it naturally suffers from thie same problem. Its future history feels extremely compressed, as none of the things we see in the movie are ever going to come to pass in the next thirty years.

• Ridley Scott was originally set to direct the film, but chose to work on Alien: Covenant instead. I didn't care for Covenant at all, but let's all thank the Movie Gods that it exists, because it kept Scott out of the Blade Runner 2049 director's chair. Scott's done good work in the past, but his recent output has been spotty at best, so I'm grateful he kept his hands off this film (he did sign on as one of the producers though).

• Ryan Gosling was director Denis Villeneuve's first and only choice to play Agent K. Gosling was the perfect choice too, since I can't think of an actor better suited to play a stoic, emotionless android. ZING!

• Or course the biggest casting news in Blade Runner 2049 is that Harrison Ford returns as Rick Deckard. Ford apparently forgot how to perform the role though, and pretty much plays himself in the film. In fact, looking at the image above, it would not surprise me a bit to learn those are his own clothes, and he just wore 'em to the set and growled, "Let's get this over with."

• Villeneuve was hoping to get singer David Bowie to play Niander Wallace. He'd have been perfect, but sadly, Bowie died before filming began.

• Are you a fan of actor Jared Leto? Well, that's too damned bad then, because virtually every second of his performance is seen in the trailers. His appearance in the film amounts to little more than a cameo.

Leto is an infamous method actor, and you may remember reading about his jaw dropping antics on the set of 2016's Suicide Squad. Welp, he was at it again on during the filming of Blade Runner 2049. He didn't mail any rats or used condoms to his co-stars this time, but he did have himself fitted with a pair of milky contact lenses that completely blocked his vision, in an effort to accurately play the blind Niander Wallace.

Sigh... couldn't he just act like he was blind? How hard could that be? Actors have been doing it convincingly for hundreds of years now. Once again, I gotta say that I think so-called method actors just don't understand how to do their jobs. If you have to actually BE angry in order to ACT angry, then you're just not doing it right.

• Speaking of Niander Wallace, I'm having a problem understanding his relatively youthful appearance. The original film was set in 2019, so obviously Blade Runner 2049 takes place thirty years later. Fine.

We're told that sometime after 2019, Wallace took over the bankrupt Tyrell Corporation and turned it around, making it more successful than ever before. Wallace looks to be around forty years old (in real life, Jared Leto's currently forty five). Did he really take over the Tyrell business when he was just TEN?

I suppose you could argue that he may have discovered some youth drug as a byproductg of Replicant technology or something, but... I dunno. There's something seriously wrong with his timeline.

• Edward James Olmos makes a very brief cameo as Graf, his character from the original Blade Runner. Unfortunately his appearance does little to advance the plot in any way, and is nothing but pure fan service. The movie basically points at him and says, "Hey, remember GRAF? Remember the cool origami animals he made? Eh? EH?"

• The most surprising return in Blade Runner 2049 has to be Sean Young, as a newly created Replicant of Rachael as she looked thirty five years ago (our time).

In order to recreate the young Rachael, the filmmakers used model Loren Peta as a body double. Peta was outfitted in Rachael's signature wide-shouldered dress and faux 1940s hairdo. The effects team then created a highly detailed digital head of the er, young Sean Young. This CGI head was then painstakingly mapped over Peta's real face.

It's a pretty darned good illusion too! Much, much better than the dicey recreations of Grandma Tarkin and Princess Leia from last year's Rogue One. I tell ya, CGI's getting scary good these days, and it won't be long before it becomes altogether undetectable.

• Dave Bautisa (Drax of the Guardians Of The Galaxy films) shows up for a few minutes as Replicant Sapper Morton. I'm puzzled by Morton's tiny little glasses here.

Replicants are designed to work as slave labor in hostile environments that are deadly to humans. They're created, not born. This implies that they're superior to us, right? So why the hell does Morton need glasses then? Replicants are stronger than humans, so shouldn't their eyesight be better as well?

Both the Tyrell and Wallace corporations advertised their Replicants as "More human than human." Based on their poorly made eyes, it looks like that's a big fat lie!

• Hans Zimmer wrote the music for Blade Runner 2049, which has definite echoes of the original film's 1980s synth-laced score. It was a nice touch, but I have to admit it was a bit jarring to hear synthesizer music in this day and age.

• Whenever Agent K comes back from a mission, he has to undergo a baseline test to make sure he's not getting squirrelly and thinking of rebelling. This test consists of him sitting in an empty white room, repeating phrases spoken over a loudspeaker.

The phrase he has to repeat is "Cells interlinked within cells interlinked within one stem. And dreadfully distinct against the dark, a tall white fountain played."

These lines are from Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire. I have no idea what the book's about or what this might mean, but later on we see a copy of it in K's apartment.

• The name of the building in which Agent K lives is "Mobius 21." I'm betting that's a nod to sci-fi illustrator Moebius, aka Jean Giraud, who did production design on the original Blade Runner.

• Whenever Agent K activates his holo-girlfriend Joi, we hear a brief startup tone. For some reason it plays the first few notes of Peter's Theme, from Peter And The Wolf.

I'm sure this probably means something, but I have no idea what.

By the way, Joi's "mobile emitter" works EXACTLY like the one used by the holographic Doctor in Star Trek: Voyager. In the show he was initially confined to the sickbay, but later the crew acquired a futuristic mobile holo-emitter, that allowed him to go on away missions with the human members of the crew.

• Man, the infamous and cliched "orange and teal color scheme" is alive and well in the movie's poster.

• As part of its world building, the original Blade Runner featured ads for lots of actual companies and products, in an effort to ground the movie and make it seem more realistic.

The problem is that many of the companies chosen actually went out of business long before the film's 2019 setting. Fans have dubbed this curious phenomenon The Blade Runner Curse. Here's an example of a few of the companies hit by the so-called curse:

Pan Am went bankrupt in 1991.

Atari changed hands and is now a completely different corporation.

RCA was bought by G.E. in 1986 and dismantled.

Bell Telephone's monopoly was broken up in 1982, shortly after Blade Runner was released. It merged with several other companies and became AT&T.

Cuisinart filed for bankruptcy in 1990, but reorganized and is still making kitchen gadgets.

Of the companies featured in the first film, the only two that are still going strong are Coca-Cola and Tsingtao Beer.

Oddly enough, Blade Runner 2049 still features prominent and incongruous ads for Pan Am and Atari. When asked about this, Denis Villeneuve explained that both movies take place in an alternate reality, where these corporations are still going strong. And where artificial humans were developed sometime in the 2000s!

There's also a crap ton of Sony product placement in the film as well, which I guess shouldn't be surprising.

• Surprisingly, the Blade Runner films have always been vague about just what the hell a Replicant is. Yes, yes, they're artificial people, but what the hell does that mean? They're definitely not robots or androids, as we see they're filled with blood and guts, and can be killed the same way a human can. They're sentient, and they're alive.

They're not cloned humans either. In Blade Runner, we saw an elderly Chinese man named Chew in a lab, who somehow designed and created Replicant eyes. This implies that they're constructed, not grown.

Apparently they're just synthetic people that are built in some undefined way, and are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. Somehow Eldon Tyrell figured out how to create life. Artificial life, yes, but life just the same. So... wouldn't that technically make him a god?

Even more astonishing, Tyrell somehow created a Replicant that could give birth!

• As I mentioned earlier, there's a very definite "eyeball" theme running though these movies. Again, I'm not sure what this means, but I'm sure all these eyes symbolize something. Window to the soul and all that, maybe?

The very second scene in Blade Runner is of the LA cityscape reflected in an eye.

The Voight Kampff machine, which tests for Replicants, examines the eyes as part of its process.

Batty has some eye-related fun.

Pris highlights her eyes.

We also learn that in certain light, Replicants eyes shine red.

Batty kills his father by crushing his skull and eyes.

Blade Runner 2049 also begins with an extreme closeup of an eye.

And of course Niander Wallace is sightless, but sees with the help of a swarm of flying drones.

* In the original film, Replicant Roy Batty and his pals were all Nexus-6 models. The Nexus-6 had a built in four year lifespan. In Blade Runner 2049, Sapper Morton is a Nexus-8 model, which can live much longer and even visibly age. Agent K is a Nexus-9. They're similar to the 8s, but are more subservient and less prone to revolt.

So where were the Nexus-7s? When K examines the bones found at Morton's farm, they're labeled with a serial number that begins with N7. The bones turn out to be Rachael's, so it's pretty obvious she was a Nexus-7 model— and possibly the only one ever made.

The Nexus-7s were apparently capable of becoming pregnant, and the last model created by Tyrell before he was killed. The secret of "Breeding Replicants" was lost with him, which is why the 8s and 9s, which were designed by Wallace, can't reproduce.

• At one point Wallace and Luv walk through a room filled with containers displaying various Replicant prototypes. Some fans have pointed out that the model at far right looks a LOT like the Engineer from Ridley Scott's Prometheus and Alien: Covenant movies. They're convinced this means the ALIEN and Blade Runner universes are connected.

Gods help us if that's true. Ridley Scott needs to stay as far away from the Blade Runner franchise as possible, before he ruins it as well.

• As K walks through the city, he's bombarded by ads featuring gigantic holographic people. Boy, I can't wait for THAT particular method of marketing to become a reality. That was, I say, that was sarcasm, son!

Blade Runner 2049 is a thoughtful, intelligent and well-made sci-fi film that's a rare example of a sequel surpassing the original. Instead of rehashing the same plot, it expands on the story in a logical and meaningful way, which is a rarity in Hollywood these days. It clocks in at a whopping two hours and forty three minutes, but thankfully doesn't ever drag like the original. I'm giving it a very rare A-.

This week's Legends Of Tomorrow is another so-so affair, elevated somewhat by some impressive fight sequences, and the usual fun character bits.

It's also notable for introducing a new Legend into the mix— Zari Tomaz. Viewers of a certain age may recognize Zari as a modernized Isis, last seen in her own 1970s Saturday morning show.

Unfortunately Zari doesn't make much of an impression in this episode. She's the standard Cynical Female Hacker Anti-Hero character *yawn!), seen over and over in movies and TV. Think Lizbeth Salander, but without the bad hair and a blander attitude. I realize this is only her first episode, but so far there's nothing in Zari's personality that makes her stand out on the team. Right now I can't tell if it's the character or the actress herself that's dull. Either way, hopefully actress Tala Ashe steps up her game quite a bit in subsequent episodes.

The only slightly interesting thing about Zari so far is she hails from the future, so it might be nice to see another character from a different era on this time travel show.

Fortunately Kuasa more than made up for Zari's dullness. She brought a real sense of danger and menace to her character, and with her shape shifting powers, came off as a watery T-1000! Hopefully she'll stick around for a few more episodes.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
In 2042 Seattle, two guards in an armored car are transporting a prisoner to ARGUS. Suddenly they're stopped by Kuasa, the water witch we saw at the end of last week's episode. She uses her powers to kill the guards and opens the rear of the transport, only to find the prisoner escaped in the commotion.

Onboard the Waverider, Steel tells a disinterested Professor Stein about his relationship problems with Vixen. Stein looks up and sees Vixen unconsciously using her animal powers to stick to the ceiling like a spider. When they wake her she has no memory of the event, and worries she might summon the power of an elephant and crash through the hull of the ship, which seems like a reasonable fear.

Gideon monitors the Time Bureau and picks up a "Code 99" in 2042 Seattle. They fly off to investigate. Once there they find the city's become a police state, and ARGUS is enforcing martial law. They run into the wimpy Agent Gary Green, who's been sent by the Time Bureau to rescue the prisoner who was in the AGRUS transport. He tells them they're not the only ones looking for the prisoner— there's also a woman who can turn into water who's after their quarry.

Gideon somehow locates the mysterious prisoner, a hacker named Zari Tomaz. The Legends track her down, but are quickly surrounded by ARGUS grunts. Apparently metahumans were outlawed in 2021, and they place the Legends under arrest.

White Canary gives the signal and the Legends attack, easily defeating the ARGUS agents. Unfortunately Zari escapes in the confusion. Kuasa looks on from the shadows.

Back on the Waverider, Stein examines Vixen but can't find anything medically wrong with her. She insists that's because her problem is mystical, not scientific. She says there's something wrong with her magical totem, and Steel suggests flying to the past to ask her ancestors what's wrong. For some reason, Vixen rejects this perfectly logical (for this show) idea.

The Legends track Zari to a dive bar (with Heat Wave's help). They approach her, but she tells them she doesn't need their help. Suddenly Kuasa attacks. Canary and Heat Wave stay behind to fight her, while the others take Zari to the ship.

Everyone returns to the Waverider, and the Legends ask Zari why Kuasa's after her. She claims she doesn't know, and they tell her they want to use her as bait to capture Kuasa. She agrees, on the condition that they help rescue her brother from an ARGUS prison. Apparently having nothing better to do, the Legends go along with this plan.

Meanwhile Steel has Gideon synthesize a Lyoga root, a plant that contains a powerful hallucinogen. With it, Vixen can go on a vision quest and ask her ancestors what's wrong with her totem. She drinks the Lyoga root, and for no good reason, Steel does as well.

The Legends sneak into the ARGUS prison (pretty easily, I might add). They figure out which cell Zari's brother is in, and go to free him. Jackson watches a bank of monitors and sees that ARGUS is not just incarcerating metahumans, but torturing them as well. Enraged, he then opens ALL the cells in the facility, freeing every prisoner (except of course the ones who are currently being tortured).

In the confusion, Zari sneaks off and enters a storage room, where she finds an amulet. She puts it on and sneaks off. She's intercepted by the Legends, who realize there was no brother, and she duped them in order to steal the amulet. She congratulates them on their deductive abilities, and uses the amulet to conjure a tornado and fly off.

Canary sends Atom after her, and calls Steel to come and get them in the ship. Unfortunately he's under the influence of the Lyoga root, and is extremely high. He eventually makes his way to the bridge and sets a course for the Legends. Somehow the ship finds its way to the Legends, and they all board.

We then see Vixen on her vision quest. She wanders through a "jungle," and meets one of her ancestors. The woman tells Vixen all she has to do is trust in her powers. Really, that's it? All this trouble for a goddamned "Believe In Yourself" message?

Atom catches up with Zari, who's standing in the middle of some ruins. She says this the place was a sanctuary where she was supposed to meet her brother, but it was presumably destroyed by ARGUS. Kuasa then shows up and Atom calls for help.

The Legends head for Atom's location, but are intercepted by a massive Time Bureau ship, captained by Agent Sharpe. Once again she says they're all screwups and under arrest, yadda yadda. She also demands they hand over Zari, for some reason. Canary realizes Gary told Sharpe where they were, and he opens a portal and scrams before she can kill him. Canary orders Gideon to hightail it out of there.

Meanwhile Atom attacks Kuasa, but is no match for her. She starts drowning him with her water powers, until Zari steps in and asks what the hell she wants. Kuasa says she wants Zari's new magic amulet. Zari says finders keepers, and she and Kuasa battle one another.

On the Waverider, Vixen emerges from her quest, seemingly her old self again. The Time Bureau ship begins firing on the Waverider, threatening to destroy it. Canary turns the Waverider around and heads right for the larger ship. At the last second, Sharpe teleports the Time Bureau ship out of the way.

Zari and Atom are still fighting Kuasa, as the Legends arrive. Vixen steps forward and Kuasa attacks her. Vixen easily deflects her blast, and knocks her half a block away. Kuasa uses a totem of her own to teleport away.

On the Waverider, Vixen announces she's in control of herself again, but has decided to stay onboard for a while longer. Zari plans to go back to 2042, until Vixen tells her she thinks their amulets are connected somehow. Zari agrees to stay with the Legends to search for answers.

Cut to Ivy Town in 1988, where we a young boy is being chased by a group of bullies. He hides in a sewer, where he sees a pair of glowing yellow eyes. Having never read Stephen King's It, the boy introduces himself to the unseen figure as Ray Palmer, aka Atom!

Thoughts:
• The opening narration's back! Huzzah! I dunno why they didn't do it the past two weeks, but I'm glad it's back. I like the way all the Arrowverse shows do these little narrations, to get new viewers up to speed.

This week Canary recites a brand new narration:

"How will we be remembered? Will it be for saving the world twice? Nope, we're the team who broke time. That's right, history has been torn to shreds, which means it's up to us to put it back together again piece by piece, fixing these so-called anachronisms before we get torn to shreds. So please don't call us heroes. We're Legends."

• At the beginning of the episode, Vixen summons the power of a spider while she's asleep and sticks to the ceiling. Coincidence, or a nod to Spider-Man?

• New character Zari is of course a revised, updated version of Isis. She first appeared way back in 1975, in her own live action Saturday morning show called The Secrets Of Isis. The show was obviously an attempt to ape the success of the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman series, which debuted the same year.

In the series, science teacher Andrea Thomas discovers an ancient mystical amulet on a dig in Egypt. She puts in on, and finds the amulet grants superpowers to whoever wears it. Whenever Andrea would say, "Oh, mighty Isis," she'd be transformed into a female superhero.

Isis had quite a range of powers, which she usually summoned by reciting a rhyme. By saying, "Oh zephyr winds which blow on high, lift me now so I can fly" she'd take to the air and zoom away. In addition to flight, Isis also had super strength, could control the elements, weather and even increase gravity. She could pass through walls, see into the recent past, conjure up trees and animals, and even stop and reverse time (!).

Naturally since this is a CW show, Zari looks absolutely nothing like the original character. Obviously there's no way they were ever gonna call her "Isis" in this day and age, but couldn't they do some sort of update of the character's look? Something besides having her walk around in everyday civilian clothing?

The only concession they made to the original version was Isis' magic amulet. In this episode, Zari breaks into an ARGUS prison and steals a golden amulet with a red center.

This new amulet is identical to the one Isis wore around her head in her show. Nice attention to detail!

One last thing about The Secrets Of Isis— there were three episodes of the series that crossed over with Shazam! It featured Captain Marvel, and was another sort of a companion show to Isis.

It's probably a long shot, but could the appearance of Isis on Legends mean we might someday get an appearance by Captain Marvel? Or Shazam, or whatever the hell he's called these days?

• Things we learned this week: Time Agent Gary's last name is Green.

• Much of the episode takes place in 2042. According to Legends Of Tomorrow, in 2021 all metahumans and religions will be declared illegal. Wow, that's not that long from now! Better hurry and read those bibles while you still can!

• While searching for Zari, several of the Legends are confronted by an ARGUS drone. It shrieks, "Sara Lance, Nathaniel Heywood, Raymond Palmer and Mick Rory, you are listed in the Metahuman Registry as missing! You are hereby under arrest for violating the Anti-Metahuman Act!"

There's just one problem with that statement— only one of these particular Legends is a metahuman! According to the internet, a metahuman is someone with superpowers, roughly equivalent to a mutant. Sara Lance, aka White Canary, is a ninja assassin. Raymond Palmer, aka Atom, wears an Iron Man-like suit that allows him to fly and shrink. Mick Rory, aka Heat Wave, is a plain old ordinary human who carries a compact flamethrower!

The only one of the group who could be considered a metahuman is Nate Heywood, aka Steel, who can transform his skin into metal. Sounds like the ARGUS drone is using a very broad definition of the term!

• Professor Stein examines Vixen, using science to try and solve her anger management issues. She tells him her problem isn't scientific, but mystical in nature. He says mysticism is just "science that hasn't been understood yet."

That sounds an awful lot like scifi author Arthur C. Clarke's quote, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Which I bet was intentional.

• After the Legends track down Zari, they have the following conversation:

Zari:"Okay, I’ll help you, on one condition. You help me break my brother out of the ARGUS facility where they’re holding him."
Heat Wave:"Prison break. I’m in."

As you're no doubt well aware, actor Dominic Purcell, who plays Heat Wave, starred in Prison Break for four seasons.

This isn't the first time they've done a Prison Break joke. Captain Cold did it first back in the Season 1 episode Fail-Safe.

• At one point the Legends discuss the state of Future ARGUS:

Atom: "You know what I don’t get? ARGUS. In 2016, they weren’t..."

Heat Wave: "Idiots!"
Atom: "Well, I was gonna say they weren’t trying to control the city with killer drones, but..."Canary: "Any authoritarian organization always goes bad. Always."
Jackson:"Which means it’s only a matter of time before Rip and his Time Bureau turn into the Time Gestapo."

Hmm... is that just superfluous dialogue, or an ominous bit of foreshadowing? Is the Time Bureau going to become evil in the second half of the season, or was that just some filler dialogue? We already got Evil Rip last season, so we don't need a repeat of it this year as well.

• When Zari's first brought on board the Waverider, we get yet another shot of just how impossibly vast the interior is. Given the relatively small size of the ship, there's no way all these enormous rooms could possibly fit inside it. It's almost like the producers are doing it on purpose now, just to mess with us!

In fact this week they even add ANOTHER new room to the Waverider! This one looks like some sort of study, I guess. It's definitely a different room than the office/library/trophy room Rip had in Season 1.

• As always, the fight scenes on this show are amazing. Especially the fight between Canary and Kuasa. Caity Lotz (aka Canary) is definitely the series' MVP, as her stuntwork is continually impressive. Tracy Ifeachor as Kuasa was no slouch either!

• Vixen believes her rage problems are being caused by the mystical totem she wears around her neck, and frets over what to do about it. I guess it never occurs to her or anyone else to just take the thing off until they figure out what's wrong with it.

• Vixen says the totem is the "legacy of her ancestors," so Steel suggests they use the Waverider to go back in time and ask them what's wrong with it. For some reason, Vixen poo-poos this completely logical idea, and instead embarks on a mystic vision quest. Sure, why not?

• So how does Vixen eventually solve her anger management issues? Why, she simply drinks some magic tea and gets a visit from the ghost of an auntie who says, "Trust your power." That's it! Problem solved! Well, that was certainly easy! I thought sure her rages would last at least until the mid season finale, but I guess not.

• Kuasa's totem allows her to transform her body into water. It looks like she can just change her mass into a corresponding amount of liquid, and can't actually generate water.

At one point she attacks Atom by turning her hand into liquid and forcing it into his nose and mouth. A bit later she stops trying to kill him and starts battling Zari. Atom then spits out a mouthful of water and announces that Kuasa "tastes terrible."

If he's spitting out liquid, then that implies she left some of herself inside him! Ew! I hope the part she left in him wasn't anything important, like a spleen or part of a lung!

I guess it's possible that she can actually generate water from nothing and isn't always using her own mass, but if that's the case it wasn't made very clear.

• At one point Canary calls for the Waverider to come rescue the Legends. Unfortunately the only person who answers is Steel, who's hopped up on Lyoga root. Com-O-Dee them ensues as he struggles to stagger to the bridge and try to fly the ship.

I guess Professor Stein must have been in the can doing a crossword puzzle at the time, and couldn't help? What about Gideon herself? Why couldn't Canary just order the ship to fly itself to their location?

• Late in the third act, the Legends come to the rescue and surround Kuasa. For some reason, Jackson's there pointing a large, futuristic gun at her. Gosh, I wonder why he's doing that, instead of forming the ultra powerful Firestorm with Professor Stein?

Answer: Because the show blew its effects budget on water morphing scenes this week, that's why! There wasn't anything left over for Firestorm effects.

• Kuasa attacks the confident and newly revived Vixen, who easily repels her watery blast.

Whenever Vixen uses her power, we see a glowing blue image of an animal surround her. I have no idea what animal she's using to protect herself from Kuasa's attack. I think maybe it's supposed to be a manta ray? That would make sense, since it's a watery creature, but I honestly can't tell what animal she's using.

• During their brief fight, Vixen knocks Kuasa into next Thursday. Kuasa makes a puzzling remark that she can't kill Vixen without killing herself. That's because Vixen's her grandma! Or at least she is in the CW Seed animated Vixen series.

If that's true in live action as well, then why the hell did Mallus (this year's as-yet unseen big bad) recruit Kuasa to attack the Legends, knowing that she doesn't dare harm Vixen?

• By the way, when Atom first sees Kuasa in action, he says, "I fought someone with water powers like this a few years ago!" Atom really did pop up in Season 2 of the animated Vixen series, where he fought Kuasa!

• Apparently all these women and their various totems are related somehow, in a way I'm sure we'll find out by the mid-season break. Vixen has the Animal Totem, Kuasa was the Water one, and Zari's totem apparently lets her control the air.

• Agent Sharpe's first name is Ava. I think this is the first we're hearing of this, but I'm not sure.

• At the end of the episode we see a flashback to Ivy Town in 1988, where young Atom hides in a sewer and apparently meets Pennywise The Dancing Clown! Looks like somebody on the staff really liked the recent It movie!

• This Week's Best Lines:
Jackson: "What’s going on?"

Canary:"We intercepted a distress call from one of Rip’s Time Bureau agents."
Heat Wave:"Why? Actually, forget it. I don’t care."
Canary:"It’s the dweeby one, Gary."
Heat Wave: "Still don’t care."

Jackson: (in 2042 Seattle) "Something feels off about this place."
Atom: "Yeah. Like, where is everybody?"

Heat Wave: "Martial law. It’s a police state."
Jackson: "How do you know?"

Heat Wave: "I can smell pigs."

Atom: (after the Legends rescue Gary) "What’s going on?"

Gary: "No, this is classified Time Bureau business."
Heat Wave:"Open your mouth and say some words."
Canary:"Guess you’re gonna have to decide who you’re more afraid of. Agent Sharpe or Mick here."

Canary: (to the Legends) "Get her to the ship!"

Zari: "You guys have a ship? Is it a big ship?"

(Oh, Zari, if you only knew! It may not be very big on the outside, but it's huge on the inside!)

Zari: "I can’t believe it. You guys are time-traveling superheroes."

Atom:"Yeah, we’ve actually saved the world twice. Not that we’re counting."
Zari: "Really? You saved the world."
Atom: "Twice!"

Zari:"Then why does it still suck?"

Canary:"Nate, how are we doing with that rescue?"

Steel: "I’m givin’ her all she’s got, Cap’n! The ship can’t take much more of this!"

Gideon: "Actually, Dr. Heywood, the engines are still idling."

(cut to some kind of bird flying by the hovering ship)

Canary: "Ray, you have eyes on Zari?"

Atom: "Yep, I’m on her tail Not literally. I’m following her posterior from a respectable distance."
(only the straight-laced, uptight Atom would answer a simple question like that!)

Steel: (experiencing the effects of the Lyoga root) "Quiet! The marshmallows are talking."

Gideon: (as she's attacked by the Time Bureau ship) Oh, dear! I’m afraid our rear deflectors have been completely lost, Captain.
(somehow I find the idea of a ship that politely announces its being destroyed hilarious)

Kuasa: (to Zari) "You had your chance. I was willing to offer you a compromise. But now I have to kill you."
Jackson:"I’m afraid we can’t let you do that!"

Heat Wave:"If anyone’s gonna kill Haircut, it’s me, lady."
Atom: "Aw, thanks, Mick."
Heat Wave: "Pleasure."

Saw this at Target last night.

Just in time for Xmas! Get your copies of Kong: Skull Island for the low, low price of just $14.99. Originally $15! Hurry, this amazing sale won't last long!

This week on The Orville, we get a good old fashioned Trek-like message episode, one that's massively relevant to our lives today.

Majority Rule examines the downside of social media, including mob rule, mistaking opinion for fact and the pitfalls of everyone having their own personal soapbox. It's a timely take on the age old question, "Who needs facts in the court of popular opinion?"

It's pretty amazing— and more than a little scary— how closely this episode mirrored our current society. How many times in recent months have we seen someone's life completely ruined after the public ostracized them for speaking one wrong little word?

And think about how today every person can publicly voice their opinion, which is then immediately canceled out by someone on the other side doing the same, until the ether's filled with so many uninformed points of view that it blurs into static.

Overall I liked this episode a lot, as the social commentary and satire was sharp and right on point. But the effect was marred a bit by the focus of this episode, Orville navigator John LaMarr. He was long overdue for a spotlight episode, as so far about the only thing we've learned about him is that he like drinking Space Cokes.

Sadly John turned out to be the weakest part of the episode. What the hell was wrong with him? He's been a bit of a goofball since the series began, but this episode definitely didn't do him any favors, as it made him look like a complete idiot. He's an officer onboard a Union spaceship, and he's on a covert mission to another planet, so of course that's the best possible time to start grinding his junk against a statue, which naturally lands him in trouble with the natives.

I'm assuming we're supposed to like John and were supposed to identify and sympathize with him here, but his antics with the statue even made me want to punch him in the face. Even after John's ultimately exonerated, he STILL hasn't learned his lesson, as he tells the native they can all "suck ass." Seriously? Are we really supposed to like this character?

It would have been much better if they'd gone with the "Alara Offends Someone With Her Choice Of Hats" subplot as the reason for the problem. Her innocent faux pax was much more believable, and the audience would have immediately identified and sympathized with her, which would have made the episode nearly flawless. And if were really determined to do a John episode, they could have toned down his cockiness and given him the hat as the plot engine.

SPOILERS:

The Plot:
We begin on the planet Sargas-4, a VERY Earth-like world. A young woman named Lysella gets ready for work as she watches The Breakfast Show, which features two men named Lewis and Tom, who are apologizing for their recent "disgraceful" behavior.

As the two men express their regrets, the bottom of the TV screen registers how many "up" and "down" votes the public's giving them. Unfortunately for them, the downvotes far outweigh the ups. Lysella casually presses the downvote symbol on her screen because "one of the guys has weird eyes."

We then see Lewis and Tom being marched through a prison, until they come to a small room. Tom looks inside, freaks out and takes off running. He's shot in the back by one of the guards, as Lewis is hustled into the room. He's then strapped into a chair and a high tech helmet is placed on his head. Lewis looks at a tote board, and when his downvotes reach ten million, the helmet begins shocking him.

The Orville then arrives at Sargus-4. Captain Mercer tells the crew that two Union anthropologists have been studying the planet for a month, sending back interesting data, and then suddenly went silent. The Orville's been assigned to find out what happened to them.

Mercer checks on the Landing Team, which consists of Kelly, Doctor Finn, Alara and for some reason, John. They're all donning typical Sargasian clothing and complaining about it. Alara wears a large, ridiculous looking hat and a bandage on her nose to cover her Xelayan features. Mercer gives them each a stack of money, since Sargus is still a "capitalist culture." He tells them to go in, find the anthropologists, bring them back and leave as tiny a footprint on the planet as possible. Which pretty much guarantees there'll be trouble.

The Landing Team flies down to Sargas. They're amazed at how much it looks like old Earth (implying they all know what old Earth looked like). They note that everyone around them is wearing a badge with both up and downvote arrows on them. Kelly approaches a newsstand, shows the vendor photos of Lewis and Tom and asks if he's seen them. He thinks it's a joke, as they're currently two of the most infamous people on the planet. He says they used to hang out at a cafe up the street.

The vendor then asks them where their badges are. Kelly says they lost them, and he offers to sell them a set of four for forty "lods." They buy them and each member of the team puts on a badge.

As they walk along, John chides Alara for going through two boyfriends in two months. She defends herself by saying she dumped Andy because he danced weird. When they ask what that means, Alara says he was "too grindy."

John then asks what "too grindy" means. He sees a statue of a woman next to him, and for some reason climbs up and starts grinding against it, asking Alara if this is what she means. Suddenly the people around him gasp, and start filming John with their phones. Kelly yells at him to stop, as they're supposed to be inconspicuous.

The team enters the cafe where Lewis and Tom were last seen, which is where Lysella just happens to work. Kelly asks if she's seen either of the two men, and Lysella says of course, as they're famous. She also mentions they were both "corrected." Doctor Finn asks what that means, but before Lysella can answer, John's badge starts registering thousands of downvotes. Lysella's horrified, and asks John what the hell he did.

A monitor in the cafe then plays a news report of John grinding against the statue. As John's downvotes increase, Lysella tells him he's got to leave. The team hurries out of the cafe, and are immediately surrounded by angry citizens. Kelly contacts Mercer and tells him there's been an incident, and they're returning to the shuttle. Before they can do so, the police then arrive and arrest John!

On the Orville, Mercer contacts Admiral Tucker (last seen in Command Performance), for permission to extract the Landing Team from Sargas. For some reason Tucker refuses to authorize a rescue (which doesn't make any sense, as things are only going to get worse) and says John will have to play by the Sargasians' rules.

On the planet, John is taken to the police station, where he's assigned not a lawyer, but a "publicity officer" named Willks. He explains that John committed a lewd act against a statue of Mella Giffendon, a beloved pioneer hero on Sargas. The video was uploaded to the "Master Feed," where it got over a million downvotes, which is a crime on Sargas.

Willkes is there to help John organize his "apology tour," to say he's sorry for what he did. If the public believes he's sincere and his downvotes stay below ten million, he's free to go. If they top that amount, he'll be taken in for "social correction." When John asks what that means, Willks says he'll undergo a series of neuroligical treatments to eliminate and prevent any future transgressions. Uh-oh!

John's allowed to meet with the rest of the Landing Party, and tells them about the apology tour. He asks if the Orville can't just send down an armed rescue party, but Kelly says the Admiral forbids it. John says he's allowed one person to go on the tour with him, and wants it to be Kelly.

John then begins his apology tour on The Chat, a thinly disguised version of (*shudder*) The View. John tries to apologize, but the hosts tear him to shreds, saying he doesn't sound sincere enough. Kelly contacts Mercer, who's watching the show on the main viewscreen. He's amazed that this planet's legal system seems to rely solely on public vote. Isaac chimes in and says what they're seeing is "an absolute, unstructured democracy." He says there's no record of this system occurring on any other planet in the Union. No wonder!

The show doesn't go well for John, but it gets even worse when one of the hosts asks him who Mella Giffendon was and why she's famous. John doesn't know, and tries to bluff his way through by saying she "saved the whale forests." This cause his downvotes to increase even more, to four million!

Meanwhile, Alara and Doctor Finn return to the cafe to talk to Lysella. She tells them she's sorry they were associated with a "criminal" like John, and says she can't believe she thought he was cute. They ask if she might know where Lewis and Tom were living before their correction.

Just then, a man wearing a hat similar to Alara's appears. He hisses that she's not "Kelvic," which is apparently some sort of religious or ethnic group here, and tells her to take it off immediately. Doctor Finn hurries her into a bathroom so she can put a scarf around Alara's alien forehead and ears. Just then Lysella enters and sees Alara's not human. She tries to run, but they grab her before she can get away.

Cut to Alara, Doctor Finn and Lysella at an outdoor bar. They explain that they're aliens from two different planets in the Union. They sent anthropologists here to study their world, but lost contact with them and want to find them. Doctor Finn asks what Lewis and Tom did, and Lysella says they committed the heinous crime of not giving up their subway seats to a pregnant woman, and shows her a video of the incident. Doctor Finn says it looks like they just didn't see the woman, and Lysella says it doesn't matter, as the people have voted.

Lysella says one of the men tried to run and was killed, but she doesn't know which one. She says once someone's corrected, they're sent home. Alara, Doctor Finn and Lysella than find Lewis' apartment. Doctor Finn, who's a former colleague of Lewis, sees him sitting on his bed. She asks if he's OK, and he replies like a brain dead zombie that he's "well." He drones on that he did something wrong, but he's been corrected and is now happy and healthy. The Doctor tells Alara she needs to get Lewis to the ship.

John goes on another talk show, and things go badly again as his downvotes pass nine million. Willkes tells Kelly that if John's downvotes stay below ten million until the tour ends, he'll be fine. But he says he's never seen anyone with this many votes avoid correction.

On the ship, Doctor Finn examines Lewis, and says he's been lobotomized somehow, and not even the Orville's medical tech can reverse the damage. She tells Mercer they can't let the same thing happen to John. Mercer says the Admiral told him he couldn't send anyone in, but didn't say anything about taking someone out. He tells Doctor Finn he's brining Lysella aboard the Orville.

Cut to Alara flying Lysella up to the ship. She meets with Mercer, Isaac and Bortus. She explains that everyone on Sargas-4 gets a badge when they turn eighteen, and wear them for the rest of their lives. It's how they can tell who's "good" and "bad" in their society. She asks how Earth society works, and Mercer says they elect representatives who discuss issues and enact laws. Lysella scoffs at this, saying everyone deserves a voice. Isaac says he believes her society confuses opinion with knowledge.

Mercer says they need a way to turn the tide of public opinion, and Lysella says everyone uses and reads the Master Feed. Isaac says he may have a plan.

Just then John's taken into the conversion chamber, and is strapped into the chair. Willkes tells Kelly the Final Vote begins in seven minutes. On the Orville, Isaac gains access to the Master Feed. Mercer asks Lysella what kinds of things would endear John to the public. She suggests trying things like saying he financially supports his grandmother, that he was overweight as a child, and showing him reuniting with his dog after coming home from war. Isaac floods the Feed with these items, and the populace begins sharing them.

In the conversion room, John watches helplessly as his downvotes climb toward ten million. Suddenly they begin to slow, and miraculously stop at 9,999,9966. Well, at least they didn't go for 9,999,999.

The tour ends, and Willkes says John's a free man. They return Lysella to Sargas, and the Orville flies off.

Cut to Lysella waking up sometime later as she watches The Breakfast Show, which features yet another person on an apology tour. She reaches for the screen to vote, then thinks better of it, shuts off the TV and goes about her day.

Thoughts:
• This isn't really a nitpick, just an observation...

When Lysella's alarm clock starts beeping, she reaches over and slams the top of it, shutting it off.

Take a look at the crystal clear pyramidal top of that clock! It looks like it comes to a pretty sharp point. Lysella really slams that thing when she shuts it off. I can't help thinking that that has to hurt when she smacks it every morning!

• Last week on Legends Of Tomorrow, I noted that Vixen had a "conversation sensitive" TV. Somehow it knew to mute itself whenever she was speaking, but automatically turn up the volume whenever there was a broadcast something relative to the plot.

Looks like Lysella has the same model of TV! Hers quietly mumbles in the background while she's on the phone, but then cranks itself up when she's done.

• Does Tom (no last names, please) the Union anthropologist look familiar to you? If you grew up in the 1960s or 1970s he will.

He's played by Barry Livingston, aka Ernie Douglas of My Three Sons fame! What a bizarre cameo.

• When the Orville arrives at Sargas-4, the Landing Team replicates typical native clothing so they can fit while investigating the planet. There're a lot of interesting details in this little scene.

Note that Alara's red uniform is neatly folded and lying on the platform behind her, and John's orange one is just visible in the lower right. And as we join the scene, we see John pulling on a pair of tight skinny jeans.

This means that apparently all the members of the Landing Team stripped off their uniforms and got dressed— in front of one another!

I could maybe see the gals undressing together, but John too? I guess in the 25th Century modesty no longer exists!

• Why the hell is John on this Landing Team in the first place? Kelly was there because she a senior officer, Doctor Finn because she was a collegue of missing anthropologist Lewis, and Alara because she's Chief Of Security. But there's no good reason for John, the ship's navigator, to be there. Yeah, he's a pilot, but in the past we've seen Kelly fly a shuttle, and Alara does it later in this episode.

The only reason for him to be on this Team was to give him a spotlight show and to get the plot rolling.

• Mercer says that before Lewis and Tom disappeared, they sent back some "interesting images." I guess none of that info included the fact that Sargas-4's system of justice operated on a bizarre point system! If they had, maybe the Landing Team might have been a bit better prepared!

• Does the Union have a "Prime Directive" like the Federation of Star Trek? Sometimes it seems like they do, other times not.

Mercer tells his Landing Party to "leave as small a footprint" on Sargas-4 as possible, indicating he doesn't want to pollute their culture. Similarly, Admiral Tucker tells him he doesn't want to reveal the existence of life on other planets to the Sargasians, fearing it'd freak them out.

Put together, this would seem to indicate there's some sort of Union rule about interfering with other planets. But then in the third act, Mercer yanks Lysella from her comfortable little society and brings her to the Orville, showing her a whole new universe teeming with wonders. And then he plops her back down on the planet when he's done with her, with nary a memory wipe to be seen!

• Once again, a ship exits the Orville's shuttle bay and barely misses one of the engine rings. What a terrible and dangerous design!

• The biggest surprise in this episode— the Union has cloaking technology! That's certainly a surprise!

So is it just the shuttle that can cloak, or can the Orville do it as well? If so, it would have come in very handy a few episodes back in Command Performance, when the Orville was trying to sneak into the Calivon System. Too bad Alara didn't remember the ship had that capability back then.

• Man, Saras-4 really IS a marvel of parallel planetary development! Take a look at that silver car in the foreground. It's hard to see the nameplate in this image, but that's a Chevy Cruze!

What are the odds that a culture on another planet four hundred years in the future would manufacture a car identical to one Earth people are driving around now?

• In addition to having Chevys, the people of Sargas-4 apparently worship a central God. Several times during the episode various citizen say, "Oh my God." And at one point John even says, "I swear to God" once and no one questions what he means, so... looks like they practice some sort of monotheism.

For what it's worth, they also have dogs as well.

• The inhabitants of Sargas-4 also speak, read and write English! They have to be, right, since the Landing Team can perfectly understand what everyone's saying and read the numbers on their various TV screens. What an astronomical coincidence!

Once again, this "Everyone In The Galaxy Speaks English" trope is just one of those things we're all going to have to accept on this show, and move on. I will attempt to stop mentioning it every week, but I'm not making any promises.

• Looks like it's the year 2015 on Sargas-4. If you zoom in and look at the magazine right next to the news vendor's right arm, it reads, "The New 2016 Silverado." Car companies always release their new models in the third or fourth quarter of the previous year, so that means it's 2015 here!

• Funny how pretty much everything on Sargas is just like Earth, but their currency is inexplicably called "lods."

• There's a subtle little bit of design in this episode that to help indicate this episode isn't taking place on Earth— everyone on Sargas-4 has double collars and lapels! The men also tie their ties oddly as well. It's pretty subtle, and I have to admit I didn't even notice it the first time I watched the episode. Pretty cool!

By the way, Willkes was played by actor Stephen Culp, who's actually another Trek alumni. He played Major Hayes of the MACOs in the third season of Enterprise.

• Although I like this episode quite a bit, the logic of it starts to crumble a bit if you think about it too hard. The "Upvote Society" on this planet couldn't possibly be much more than a couple of decades old. The badges and all the up and down voting are connected to the Master Feed, right? So this "ultimate democracy" couldn't have developed until the Sargasians invented their version of the internet and wifi. Unless hundreds of years before that everyone had mechanical voting machines in their houses!

• Next time I go to a comic book convention, I expect to see a poop-ton of Sargas-4 cosplayers. It'd be pretty easy! All you need is a lighted badge. You can even wear your own regular clothes!

OK, you might need a shirt with double collars, but still...

• Man, the fake The View show in this episode was every bit as horrible and annoying as the real thing!

Over the years Seth MacFarlane's made numerous jokes about The View on Family Guy, so it's not hard to figure out what he thinks of the show.

• By the way, it's too bad John apparently didn't have a bluetooth earpiece like the one Kelly has. Then when The Chat host asked him what Mella Giffenden did, Isaac could have quickly looked up the info and piped it into John's ear, saving him a lot of trouble and strife!

• This week we find out that Xelayans are from the planet Xelayan. I dunno, that sounds really awkward to me. Why not Xelaya?

• Doctor Finn's hair deserves some scrutiny in this episode. When she goes undercover on Sargas-4, she doesn't have her characteristic lock of color-coordinated green hair (so she'll fit in better, I guess?).

She then finds the brain-damaged Lewis and brings him up to the Orville. Mercer enters the sickbay for a report, and suddenly Finn's wearing her medical uniform, complete with her hunk of green hair!

That means she must have flown Lewis to the ship, helped into sickbay, told him to sit quietly for a while, went to her cabin, changed into her uniform and took the time to die her hair— all before examining him!

• Alara flies Lysella up to the ship in a shuttle. As they approach the Orville, Lysella tries to take a photo of the ship on her phone.

If you look closely at her smartphone screen, you can see a tiny little image of the Orville in the middle of it! Nice attention to detail!

Sadly, it appears that even the people of Sargas-4 insist on taking goddamned vertical videos, even though we all then have to try and watch them on widescreen TVs. People are idiots all over the galaxy.

• This Week's Incongruous 21st Century (And Earlier!) References:
When Gordon finds out that Sargus-4 is almost identical to 21st Century Earth, he wants to go there and order a Manwich.

"Friggin" is apparently still a faux curse word.

Somehow Justin Bieber is still known, but his name has mutated to "Bustin Jieber."

Gordon mentions American Idol. Now in its 416th Season!

• THIS WEEK'S STAR TREK SWIPES:
Gordon's amazed that Sargus-4 looks so much like Earth. Mercer says, "With all the different planets in the galaxy, you're bound to have some cases of parallel species development." Captain Kirk said much the same thing when the Enterprise ran into an exact duplicate of Earth (right down to the shape of the continents) in The Original Series episode Miri. This was known as "Hodgkin's Law Of Parallel Planetary Development," and was intended to explain why Kirk & Co. visited so many Earth-type planets.

Alara and the others seem puzzled by the concept of money, implying the Union no longer uses it. In all the various Trek series, the Federation doesn't use currency (technically they kind of use it on Deep Space Nine, but only when dealing with alien cultures).

As the Landing Team prepares to infiltrate Sargas-4, Alara wears a ridiculously large hat and what appears to be a Breathe Right strip on her nose, to hide her alien features. Later she ditches the hat and ties a scarf around her head to hide her pointed, scalloped ears.

On The Original Series Spock often wore a wide array of hats to cover his ears when he'd go undercover or to Earth of the past.

He hid his ears with a scarf in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home as well!

I'm assuming the bandage was a shoutout to Bajoran officer Major Kira, who hid her nose ridges the same way when she visited Earth's past in the DS9 episode Past Tense: Part 2.

Who knew war could be so dull?

This week's The Walking Dead is the second episode in the All Out War storyline from the comics, in which Alexandria, the Hilltop and the Kingdom join forces against Negan and the Saviors.

It should have been an exciting, rousing episode with tons of action. Instead all we got were endless scenes of people firing thousands and thousands of rounds of ammo at one another. There was lots of sound and fury, but like a famous writer once said, it signified nothing.

Once again the series tries to obscure its paper thin plot by cutting up a straightforward story into chunks and randomly splicing the pieces together. The episode spotlights four different groups as they attack various Savior outposts, but unfortunately the art school editing makes it difficult to figure out which team you're watching.

Even worse, there's a terrible sense of geography in the episode. I had absolutely no idea where most of these Savior outposts were supposed to be, and where they were in relation to one another. In fact for a good while I thought the Alexandrians were attacking the Sanctuary, and wondered where Negan was— and what happened to the herd of walkers we saw last week. I finally realized Aaron & Co. were attacking some completely different Savior compound, whereabouts unknown.

The show's always played fast & loose with just where all these communities are located, but this episode took the confusion to a whole new level. I have to blame episode director Rosemary Rodriguez for this. Rodriguez is no newcomer, as she's directed various episodes of many TV series such as Third Watch, Law & Order, Rescue Me, Castle, Criminal Minds, Without A Trace, Elementary and Jessica Jones. So what the hell happened here?

The best part of the episode was no doubt Morgan waging a one man war against the Saviors. The former peacenik goes ballistic here, purposefully striding the halls and picking off enemies left and right with one shot, like he was in a live action video game. All that was missing was the score and his health level in the upper right corner.

The only other notable thing about this episode is the surprise return of an old character, as the series is seemingly doing its level best to remind us of Season 1. At this rate I fully expect to find out the Vatos are working for Negan as well. More on just who returns below.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
Since this episode pretty much consists of various people shooting at one another for forty two minutes, I'm not gonna write a lengthy, blow by blow account. The plot involves four major groups whose storylines are intertwined, but I'm gonna go through them separately to avoid confusion.

Shootout 1
At a Savior outpost somewhere, Maury (who I don't think we've seen before) is supervising a group of workers. She tries to radio several of the other outposts, but no one responds. She realizes something's wrong, and orders a worker to lock the stairwell. Just then a squad of Alexandrians in armored cars roars up and start firing on the Saviors.

Among the Alexandrians are Aaron and Eric, along with Scott and Tobin (bonus points if you remember who those last two are). They and several others fire tens of thousands of rounds at the Saviors, pinning them down. The Saviors fire back, but many are hit and killed. Eventually their corpses reanimate and start attacking the remaining Saviors, which I have to admit was pretty damned cool. One of the newly created walkers kills Maury, who for some reason sits and stares at it while it attacks her.

The Alexandrians continue firing for another thirty minutes or so, until Eric's hit in the gut. Aaron drags him away from the firefight, leaving his fate unknown (he didn't suddenly spew any backstory in the episode, so that means he'll be fine).

Shootout 2
Carol and King Ezekiel lead a group of Kingdom soldiers and attack a Savior outpost in a pharmacy (I think?). They pick off a herd of walkers that pours out of the building. Unfortunately the Savior assigned to the post gets away.

Carol says if he makes it to the Sanctuary and warns Negan, they'll lose their element of surprise. Ezekiel tells her not to worry, insisting they'll catch him. He orders some of his subjects to return to the Kingdom for reinforcements, and to release his pet tiger Shiva. He, Carol and the rest then chase the lone Savior.

Along the way, Ezekiel explains his terminally upbeat philosophy to Carol. Eventually they spot the Savior, but before they can dispatch him, Shiva appears and tears him to pieces. Luckily she can somehow sense who's good & bad. Jerry sees the man had a radio and undoubtedly warned the Saviors before he died. Carol says the Saviors know they're coming. Ezekiel shouts, "Indeed they do!" as he pulls out his sword and points it in the air, rallying his troops.

Shootout 3
Jesus, Morgan, Tara, Diane and several Hilltopians observe the Savior satellite station. It's surrounded by a protective, fenced-in "moat" of walkers. Jesus says if they fire on the walkers, the Saviors will hear and then they'll never get in. Morgan tells Jesus he'll take care of it. When several Hilltopians ask if he needs help, he declines, saying, "I don't die." Uh-oh...

Morgan bangs on the fence to attract a group of walkers. This draws the attention of two Savior Guards, who are killed by Diane. The group enters the building, which is seemingly filled with an endless supply of Saviors. The Hilltopians sweep through the station, picking off dozens of Saviors with just one shot. Morgan and two others are shot and seemingly killed. So much for Morgan not dying!

Jesus and Tara enter a room and find a Savior who's so scared he's peed himself. He claims he's just a worker, and was forced to leave his family to guard the station. Tara wants to kill him, but Jesus stops her, saying they don't kill unarmed people begging for their lives. Suddenly the man grabs Jesus from behind and holds a gun to his head. Tara tries to get a clear shot at him, but can't. Just then Jesus twists out of the man's grip and knocks him out. Tara starts to shoot him, but again Jesus won't allow it, tying him up instead.

Morgan then wakes up, saved from the gunshots by his Kingdom combat gear. He glides through the station, taking out dozens of Saviors like he's in Call Of Duty, which is pretty impressive. He's now an unstoppable killing machine, completely unrecognizable from the pacifist of a couple seasons ago.

Jesus and the others sneak out of the station and wait for the Saviors to exit. A lone Savior comes out, sees the Hilltopian army, lays down his gun and surrenders. He calls for his comrades to do the same, and a huge number of Saviors pour out and give up. Seriously, how many hundred people were inside this place?

Just then Morgan comes out of the station, sees the assembled group of Saviors and aims his gun at them. Jesus tries to talk him down, but Morgan thinks it's a bad idea to let the Saviors live. Eventually Jesus wins (you might even say he "saves") and Morgan reluctantly stands down.

Shootout 4
Rick and Daryl raid yet another Savior outpost, believing it contains a cache of guns and ammo. This particular outpost may be near the one Aaron's group attacks, as we can hear gunfire in the distance. I'm not sure though, since as I said, the geography in this episode is very, very poor. They make their way to the top floor, and Rick says they can search faster if they split up.

Daryl looks through an office, and opens a closet. It contains a dogfood sandwich and a pair of handcuffs, reminding him of his imprisonment in the Sanctuary. Meanwhile Rick finds a small apartment and looks around. He's attacked from behind by a Savior, and they have a brutal, no-holds barred fight. Rick ends it by shoving the man against a shelf support jutting from the wall, impaling him.

Rick then enters a nursery, with the name "Gracie" painted on the wall. He finds a baby girl asleep in a crib. He realizes he just killed the baby's father, who was only following Negan's orders. Whoops!

Rick enters another room and pokes around. He picks up a photo of a family and looks at it. Suddenly a voice behind him says, "It's over, Rick. I called the Saviors. They're coming." Rick turns around and sees it's Morales, who we last saw way back at the end of Season 1. He points his gun at Rick as the episode ends.

Thoughts:

• The actor title cards in the opening credits get tweaked a bit this season.

Most of them remain the same: Rick's image still features his gun, Daryl's his "angel wing" vest, Maggie's the photo of Glenn that she burned (which I bet she wishes she had back), Carl's "Away With You" graffiti, Carol's knife, Morgan's "crazy vision" view of the woods, Eugene's bullet-making machinery and Negan's baseball bat and red hot iron. There are a few new ones though.

Danai Gurira as Michonne gets a new title card, featuring a closeup of her samurai sword. These images usually have some relevance to the characters, showcasing their weapon of choice or some plot point they were involved in.

Alana Masterson as Tara gets a new image of the satellite station, which replaces last season's shot of a moldy boat. The boat made sense, as she discovered the Oceanside community last year. I have no idea how the satellites relate to her.

Christian Serratos as Rosita gets a new image of a pile of guns, replacing last year's abandoned house with a busted window. The guns make much more sense for her character.

Seth Gilliam as Father Gabriel finally moves up to the main credits, with an inexplicable shot of a sewer drain. Um... is that supposed to be a comment on his character?

Ross Marquand as Aaron also moves on up, getting an image of a bent and faded photo. This makes sense, as a couple seasons ago he invited Rick & Co. to Alexandria by showing them pictures he took of the place.

The title screen continues to decay more with each passing season. This year it's actually starting to miss large chunks out of the letters.

• What was up with all the arty, slo-mo extreme closeups of each of the main characers at the beginning and end of the episode? I tell you, sometimes I think this show's being filmed and edited by a first year film school student.

• I do like the Alexandrians' makeshift, armored "battle fleet." We saw a bit of them last week, but it looks like they've been busy and plated up several more cars. This makes perfect sense, and has a sort of Mad Max vibe, which is perfect for a post apocalyptic show.

• That said, the Alexandria Shootout scene was absolutely ridiculous. They roar up to the Savior outpost and start blazing away at them, firing thousands of rounds and Negan's people. Then the camera pulls back and we see the two groups are only twenty feet apart!

Are you freakin' kidding me? Look at how close they are to one another! And even more amazing, despite the fact that both groups are armed with automatic weapons and ceaselessly unload them at one another for half an hour, there are surprisingly few casualties on either side. They literally can't hit one another from twenty feet away!

The whole preposterous scene made me laugh out loud, as it reminded me of this shootout from The Naked Gun.

• The only good thing about the Alexandrian Shootout was their plan to kill a few Saviors, then keep the others pinned down long enough for the corpses to turn and attack their own people. That was a damned smart idea, and I don't think we've seen anyone on the show weaponize zombies like that before.

• I brought this up last week, but it's worth another mention— just how much ammo does Rick's Army have? The Alexandria group fires a good ten thousand rounds at the Saviors in this episode. Maybe more. And all without reloading!

If you'll remember, just last season ammo was so scarce that Eugene was trying to figure out a way to make more. And after a lot of blood, sweat and tears he managed to make exactly one bullet for Rosita to use against Negan!

Yes, last season Rick & Co. stole the Oceanside community's guns and ammo, but surely they went through it all in this episode.

The only downside to this scene was when Maury the Savior was killed by one of her own recently turned comrades. Despite the fact that she was tough as nails all through the episode and constantly barking orders at her people, the second she sees a walker lurching toward her she seemingly freezes in place and lets it rip out her throat. Odd.

• Outside the satellite outpost, Morgan leans his bo staff against a tree and arms himself with a machine gun. I'm guessing this was a symbolic scene, as he literally cast off his pacifist ways?

• I have no idea what's going on with Morgan anymore. A few seasons back he was the Supreme Pacifist, who refused to take another life, even if it meant sacrificing his own. Then a season or so later, he was forced to kill, and realized it's sometimes necessary in this brave new world. Now in this episode he's a one man killing machine whose impossible to contain. He even tries to kill the Saviors after they've surrendered.

I have this feeling that The Walking Dead writing room features a spinning wheel with Morgan's face in the center. Around the edges are phrases like, "I Refuse To Kill,""I Only Kill When Necessary,""I Don't Die" and "ME KILL ALL I SEE!" The writers then spin the wheel and whatever it lands on, that's Morgan's philosophy for that week's episode.

Actually, I think they must use that same wheel for ALL the characters, in order to give them something to do and fill up airtime. A couple seasons ago Carol inexplicably went from badass killer to "I Want To Be Alone" in between episodes. And this week Jesus suddenly refuses to let Tara kill a Savior, even after the man tries to kill him.

• Ultimately the surviving Satellite Saviors throw down their weapons and surrender to the Hilltopians. There must be at least fifty or sixty of them— so what the hell is Jesus gonna do with 'em all? Do any of the the three "good" colonies have a jail large enough to hold this many prisoners? Do they have enough food and water to spare for that many captives? I don't think Jesus thought this plan though...

• So what was up with the weird looking walker that Ezekiel's group ran into? It looked like it fell into a vat of acid or something, as its flesh had been eaten away instead of rotting. There was no explanation as to what happened to it, so I'm betting it'll become relevant in a future episode.

Or not. Who knows anymore on this show?

• I'm fascinated by the way Shiva can always seem to tell who's an ally and who she should attack. Maybe she can pick up non-verbal cues from Ezekiel and figure it out.

• Caro's puzzled by King Ezekiel's relentlessly cheery outlook in the face of certain death. He drops the Shakespearean patois for a second and tells her, "Fake it 'til you make it, baby! I am king because I have provided a light to guide my people forward in the darkness. There will be no fantasies of failure this day."

It's nice to occasionally see through Ezekiel's act, and realize he's putting on an act and isn't actually an insane man who believes he's a king.

• I have no idea where the building Rick & Daryl searched is located, but it must be close to one of the other groups. The whole time they're in the building, you can hear gunfire in the background. It had to be near the Alexandrian or Hilltopian firefights, as the Kingdomites didn't fire their weapons much in the episode.

Would it have killed the director to have shown us just exactly where Rick & Daryl were?

• I enjoyed the brutal fight between Rick and the Savior who attacked him. There was a visceral quality to it, as it felt real instead of rehearsed. I could almost believe the two were actually fighting for real!

Kudos to Rick for creative use of a shelf support too. Although that had to be one of the most telegraphed deaths in the history of the series. The second they knocked down the shelf and I saw the supports jutting out, I knew what was gonna happen.

• After Rick impales the Savior, he finds a baby girl in a nursery, and realizes he just killed her father. He then catches a glimpse of himself in a mirror and doesn't particularly like the man staring back at him. OK, that was a nice touch, and a powerful little scene.

• The big surprise in this episode was the return of Morales, a reveal that was as unexpected as it was un-asked for.

Morales was last seen wayyyyyy back in Season 1. He, his wife and his two children were part of the original group of survivors that Rick encountered, and soon began bossing around.

In the Season 1 episode Wildfire, Rick decided the group should try to make it to the CDC in Atlanta, figuring they'd find safety there. Morales disagrees, and he and his family leave the group to head for Alabama.

That's the last we saw of him until this episode. Apparently he either didn't make it to Alabama, or changed his mind and outran Rick to Virginia, getting there some time before he did.

It's not yet clear if Morales' family survived and is living at the Sanctuary. Based on how pissed he seems to be to see Rick, I'm gonna guess they must have perished along the way.

One last thing about Morales— he was pretty doughy when we last saw him eight years ago, but in this episode he's slimmed down and become quite fit. I guess living in the Zombie Apocalypse will do that to a person!

This week The Flash gives us another pretty decent and very funny episode. Wow, two in a row now! Let's hope they can keep up the streak!

Elongated Journey Into Night (com-O-dee!) featured 2, count 'em two major guest stars, as we were introduced to both longtime DC Comic character Elongated Man, and relative newcomer Breacher. This made for slightly crowded episode, as Breacher's storyline was relegated to the B-plot.

I have to wonder if Breacher's storyline would have had more of an impact if he'd had an entire episode devoted to him. Maybe the writers didn't think there was enough material there to fill forty two minutes, I dunno.

It was great to see Elongated Man finally make it into live action. Unfortunately, for some reason the writers made the decision to give the typically lighthearted hero a much darker origin. Why they did this I have no idea, other than to give him a cliched redemption arc.

The jury's still out on whether or not Elongated Man will be a valuable asset to the show, but I'm curious as to why the powers that be feel the need to make him a part of Team Flash. Just last week they booted Wally off the series, presumably because there wasn't enough for him to do. Now a week later they bring in a brand new character. Odd.

That said, actor Hartley Sawyer's a joy to watch as the Elongated Man, giving a wonderfully comic performance, and looking like he just stepped out of the comics.

Even better was the always great Danny Trejo as Breacher, father of Gypsy and instant thorn in Cisco's side. The scenes with Cisco and Breacher were comedy gold, and even though you could see the resolution coming from a mile away, the journey was worth it.

This week the Elongated Man also name drops Clifford DeVoe, aka The Thinker. This finally gives Barry a clue as to who's behind the creation of the dark matter metahumans, so we can get this storyline in gear.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:

Cisco and Gypsy finally manage to find time for a date. As the action heats up, he asks Gypsy her real name, but she playfully refuses to tell him. She then leaves the room to slip into something more comfortable. The second she's gone, a terrifying-looking man vibes into Cisco's bedroom. He identifies himself as Breacher, says he's Gypsy's father and announces he's going to kill Cisco. Fortunately Gypsy stops him in time.

Cut to the CCPD, where Mayor Bellows is campaigning for reelection. After the speech, Joe asks Barry if he's found any info on the busload of passengers who were exposed to dark matter a few weeks ago, which turned them all into potential evil metahumans. Barry says over nine hundred people rode that particular bus that day, meaning it'll be next to impossible to I.D. them all. Barry senses Joe's hiding something, but he denies it. Of course Joe really is keeping something to himself— the fact that he's about to be a father again!

At STAR Labs, Cisco's giving Breacher a tour of the place. Barry enters and searches through evidence found on the dark matter busdriver. He finds a business card belonging to Ralph Dibny, a former policeman who's now working freelance as a private eye. Barry hates Dibny, claiming he's a dirty cop who was thrown off the force.

Barry and Joe pay a visit to Dibny's office, to find out if he was exposed to dark matter. Dibny asks how much to info's worth to him, and Barry realizes he hasn't changed. Dibny denies having any powers, and Barry and Joe leave. Seconds later, a couple of mobsters enter the office and dangle Dibny off the roof. As he screams for them to stop, his legs begin stretching. They keep on stretching until his body's lying on the street far below (apparently this must have spooked the mobsters and they ran away?). Barry and Joe just happen to see this as they're leaving, and realize Dibny was lying about being exposed.

Cut to STAR Labs, where Caitlin's examining Dibny, whose legs are piled all over the room. Caitlin and Harry determine the dark matter polymerized Dibnys's cells, making them elastic. He can now stretch his entire body, much like Silly Putty.

Meanwhile, Cisco, Gypsy and Breacher go to Jitters for coffee. When Gypsy leaves to get their order, Breacher says Cisco's not worthy of dating his daughter. He says he's going to hunt him for the next twenty four hours, at the end of which he'll kill him. Cisco's not quite sure if he's serious or not, until Breacher starts counting down from ten. He tells Cisco he can't use his powers to get away from him, and continues counting. Cisco hightails it out of the coffee shop and looks for a place to hide.

Back at STAR, Team Flash debates what to do with Dibny. Barry doesn't trust him, and suggests tossing him in the Secret Super Jail. Caitlin disagrees, saying she took an oath to help people, no matter what they might have done in the past. She says if they had a sample of Dibny's non-mutated DNA, she might be able to fix him.

Barry goes back to Dibny's office to check it for DNA, taking Iris along for some reason. Iris asks Barry why he hates Dibny so much. He explains that one of his first cases as a CSI involved a woman named Judy Gimlin, who was stabbed to death. Her husband Reagan was the prime suspect, but they had no evidence to convict him. Dibny miraculously found a knife covered with the husband's fingerprints, that tied him to the crime scene. Reagan was then tried and convicted. Barry wanted to be sure though, so he examined the knife and found the blade didn't match Judy's wound, meaning Dibny planted the knife, then lied about it under oath. Barry ratted him out and got him fired, which explains why they hate each other.

Iris says people can change, but Barry doesn't believe it. Iris finds a hairbrush containing Dibny's skin cells. For some reason, she continues searching after this, opening a desk drawer and seeing a bomb inside. Luckily Barry grabs her and vibrates the two of them through the floor before the bomb explodes.

Back at STAR Labs, Iris gives Caitlin the DNA-laden brush. Joe says he checked Dibny's phone, and found records of fifteen calls between him and Mayor Bellows, which seems suspicious. Cisco crawls through a vent near Harry, who suggests he set a trap for Breacher instead of trying to avoid him.

Caitlin synthesizes a serum that'll stabilize Dibny's body. He drinks it, and his legs retract to normal length. She tells him it's like muscle memory, and if he thinks of a shape his body will take it. Of course Dibny immediately gives himself a six pack.

Barry and Joe visit Mayor Bellows to find out why Dibny's been calling him. The Mayor reluctantly reveals he cheated on his wife, and Dibny somehow got photos and has been blackmailing him. Barry tells the Mayor not to worry about it, as he'll take care of Dibny. After they leave, the Mayor summons the two goons we saw earlier, and tells them to kill Dibny— and any cops who get in their way (!).

Barry returns to STAR and demands Dibny stop blackmailing the Mayor. This escalates into a huge argument, as Dibny says Barry caused him to lose everything, and the Mayor can afford to lose a little bit of money. Barry accuses Dibny of being a dirty cop, saying he got what he deserved. Barry even goes so far as to punch Dibny, getting his hand stuck in his pliable face. Dibny untangles himself from Barry and leaves in a huff.

Meanwhile, Cisco lures Breacher into a lab. When Breacher arrives, Cisco springs his trap, enclosing him in some sort of cubical force field. Breacher's undeterred, as he pulls out a huge knife (some might even call it a machete) he took from an Earth-48 bounty hunter and somehow slices his way out of the field. Cisco's horrified, and runs off again.

Later Joe shows up at Barry's place with beer. He tells Barry he thinks he should cut Dibny some slack (HAW!) and give him a second chance. Just then there's a knock at the door, and when Barry answers it, the Mayor's goons open fire. Barry knocks out the goons, then plucks the bullets out of the air before they hit him or Joe. Barry realizes the Mayor will send someone after Dibny next.

Dibney meets with the Mayor in an alley. The Mayor hands him a case filled with $200,000, and demands the incriminating photos. Dibny gives Bellows the photos, then apparently takes Barry's barbs to heart and tells him to keep the money. The Mayor's confused, not sure what just happened. He then pulls out a gun and shoots Dibny in the head. Fortunately for him, the bullets bounce off his rubbery face.

Just then Barry zooms in, takes the gun from Mayor Bellows and tells him he's under arrest. Suddenly Breacher vibes in, sees Dibny and thinks he's a Plastoid (an alien species that decimated his Earth). He fires several vibe blasts at Dibny, who dodges them and causes Barry to get hit. Joe arrives, and in the confusion the Mayor takes him hostage and flies off in a chopper.

Breacher's about to kill Dibny when Cisco vibes in. He says his mistake helped create Dibny, and bravely says he's not about to let Breacher kill him. Breacher stands down. Barry realizes Joe's been kidnapped, but says he's too weak from Breacher's blast to catch the chopper. Cisco says he can't vibe up to it either, as "the event horizon would tear it apart." (?).

Barry and Cisco look at Dibny and say it's up to him to save Joe. Dibny says he's no hero, but Barry gives him a Patented The CW Pep Talk® and says he knows he has it in him. And just to prove it, he takes off his mask to reveal his secret identity (of course). Dibny can't believe the man who destroyed his life is really the Flash, but says he'll try.

Dibny stretches his arm and reaches for the chopper. He manages to grab hold of it, and somehow he's not pulled off the ground when he does. Barry then runs up Dibny's arm (!), and into the chopper, where he grabs the Mayor's gun and captures him. Joe, in shock, chooses that moment to blurt out that Cecile's pregnant. Barry says he knew he was hiding something!

Back at STAR Labs, the gang celebrates Joe's news with cigars. Breacher tells Cisco he still hates him, but he respects him for standing up to him and has decided not to kill him. He then calls Gypsy by her real name of Cynthia, saying it's time to go. He also reveals his real name is "Josh." Cisco laughs it up at this reveal, until the two bounty hunters glare at him.

That night Caitlin goes home and sees the words "We Miss You, Come Back Soon" scratched into her apartment door. I'm assuming this has something to do with her time working in the dive bar as Killer Frost a few episodes back.

Barry fixes up Dibny's office and says he forgives him, going so far as to offer him a spot on Team Flash. As a show of good faith, Dibny tells Barry that he didn't make all the calls to the Mayor. They came from someone named DeVoe. Barry recognizes the name from last season, but doesn't know who he is. Dibny says he smells a mystery, implying he's on the case...

Thoughts:

• Wally's still briefly visible in the opening narration. I'm betting that means he's not gone for good.

• Gypsy's a bounty hunter who tracks down people who violate her world's "No Traveling Between Dimensions" law. Once again, apparently this rule doesn't apply to members of her profession, since she freely visits Earth-1 just to go on a date! And her dad also appears just to check up on her!

• I'm amazed that in our currently overly sensitive, politically correct society, no SWJs have complained about a character named "Gypsy."

• At his press conference, Mayor Bellows says, "You know, some of you may not realize, but before I was mayor, I was a cop in this very precinct."

Actor Vito D'Ambrosio, who plays the Mayor, also starred as Officer Anthony Bellows on the 1990 Flash TV series. Apparently Bellows was a cop in the Arrowverse as well, and went on to become Mayor.

John Wesley Shipp, Amanda Pays and Alex Desert, who starred in the 1990 series, have also guest starred on the modern Flash as well. Pays and Desert even play characters with the same names as the ones on the original show. I'm assuming this means the old series took place on Earth-90 or something.

• The other guest star in this episode is long-running DC Comics character the Elongated Man. This unfortunately named metahuman comes from a long line of stretchable superheroes, including DC's Plastic Man (yes, they have two characters with elastic powers) and Marvel's Mr. Fantastic.

In the comics, the Elongated Man, aka Ralph Dibny, was one of the first of DC's Silver Age superheroes. As a child, Dibny was fascinated by contortionists, and discovered they all drank a popular soda called Gingold, which contained an extract of the "gingo" plant. He created his own super-concentrated version of it, which when drank would give him stretching powers.

There's even a shoutout to this original origin in the episode, as we catch a quick glimpse of a bottle of Gingold in Dibny's desk drawer! Cool!

Dibny's powers allow him to stretch his extremities to ridiculous lengths, become flat enough to slip under a door, or use his finger to pick locks. He can also disguise himself by rearranging the features of his pliable face. The one thing he can't do though is form his body into objects, like his counterpart Plastic Man can.

Comic book Dibny often teamed up with other superheroes, including the Flash, and eventually joined the Justice League. Dibny was one of the first superheroes to reveal his secret identity to the public, and one of the few to ever marry. He and his wife Sue had a perfect marriage, and often solved crimes together, like a comic book Nick and Nora Charles. Unlike most comics, Elongated Man's stories always involved mysteries, and invited the reader to play along and try to guess the culprit.

The 2000s were not kind to Elongated Man (or any character, for that matter). In the Identity Crisis miniseries, Sue Dibny is brutally murdered— while pregnant! Aren't modern comics fun, kids? The loss of his beloved wife threw Ralph into a tailspin of depression, causing him to contemplate suicide. He was eventually killed in The New 52, and reuinited with Sue in the afterlife. The two now solve crimes as ghostly detectives. I swear I'm not making up any of that.

Since this is a CW show, of course the live action version of Elongated Man has a completely different origin as a dirty cop turned down on his luck private detective. This new backstory does nothing but paint Dibny in a decidedly unpleasant and sleazy light. I'm assuming the writers did this so they can give the character a standard TV redemption arc.

Actually his origin's closer to that of Plastic Man, who, if I'm not mistaken, actually started out as a criminal and ended up becoming a hero. Barry even name drops Plas in this episode.

I'm not sure how much we'll be seeing of him on The Flash this season, but I can pretty much guarantee this version of the Elongated Man won't be wearing his costume. I'm also betting entire episodes will go by without seeing him use his powers, and those CGI stretching effects are no doubt too costly to include on a weekly basis.

• Actor Hartley Sawyer plays Elongated Man, and kudos to whoever made the decision to cast him.

With his rubbery features, expressive eyes and jutting chin, Sawyer looks exactly like the Elongated Man. Seriously, he looks like as if he just stepped off the printed page.

Sawyer give a very Jim Carrey-esque manic performance in the episode. He even looks and sounds a bit like a Young Carrey, which was no doubt another factor that led to his hiring.

I'm seeing elements of another actor in him though. In certain scenes, Sawyer looks a lot like Dick York, the original Darin on Bewitched! Especially around the eyes, and that chin! If anyone ever decides to do another remake of that series, they could do worse than to hire Hartley Sawyer!

• Speaking of actors, Danny Trejo as Breacher may be the most perfect instance of casting in the history of television! I can't think of anyone better suited to play a terrifying interdimentional bounty hunter. Or the angry father of a girlfriend. What man wouldn't be scared poopless by a potential father in law who looked like Danny Trejo?

In the comics Breacher really is Gypsy's dad, but there his real name is Quell Mordeth and not "Josh." But Gypsy's real name is Cynthia in the comics though!

Can you believe Trejo is currently seventy three? He doesn't look it, and I have no doubt he could still easily kick my ass.

By the way, if you don't know anything about Trejo's past, look it up sometime. He's had a pretty interesting life!

• Last week Team Flash discovered that twelve passengers on a Central City bus were exposed to dark matter and became metahumans. At the time I wondered if the bus driver was one of them. Nope! Apparently he drowned in his own bathtub, which I'm sure was somehow orchestrated by The Thinker.

While we're on the topic of this bus, Joe asks Barry if he has any leads on the exposed passengers. Barry says no, as over NINE HUNDRED people rode that particular bus on the day in question. Holy crap! That sounds really high. Either Central City only has one bus in operation, or they have an amazingly vital and popular mass transit system! Must be all those hipsters and millennials who're so engrossed in their phones that they'd rather ride the bus than bother with driving.

• When we first see Dibny, he's meeting with a distraught client named Mrs. Broome.

Comic book writer John Broome created the Elongated Man back in 1960. Broome also wrote on many Silver Age Flash comics. His name should be familiar to fans of the show, as they often use it in street addresses and such.

• This week we find out that Barry Allen and Ralph Dibny are former colleagues who had a bitter falling out and can't stand one another. Funny how in the past four years, Barry's never mentioned Dibny even once, despite the fact he loathes him.

This is what you call your basic retcon. Actually Dibny's entire appearance here is a huge retcon. Way back in the Season 1 episode Power Outage, Harrison Wells mentions the names of the people who died in the particle accelerator explosion. With the exception of villain of the week Blackout's friends Jake and Darya, the names are all those of various DC superheroes, including Al Rothstein (Atom Smasher), Grant Emerson (Damage), Will Everett (Amazing Man), Bea DaCosta (Fire), Ronnie Raymond (one half of Firestorm) and lastly, Ralph Dibny.

Huh? So how's Dibny still alive if he died way back in Season 1? I'm assuming he was brought back to life as a result of Barry dicking around with time and creating Flashpoint.

Ironically Dibny blames Barry for all his problems, but without him he'd be dead!

• Twice during this episode, Dibny says, "I smell a mystery." That's his catchphrase from the comic, which is always accompanied by his nose stretching and wiggling. The second time he says it, his nose indeed stretches a bit and wiggles.

• Caitlin wins this week's Scientific Accuracy Award.

Caitlin sedates Dibny after he starts freaking out about his condition. She says, "I finally calmed him down. Amazing what 50 milligrams of Lorazepam can do when you get it in aerosol form."

I checked, and Lorazepam is a real drug that's used to treat seizure disorders, such as epilepsy. It can also be used before surgery to relieve anxiety. Well done, writers!
.

Later she figures out a way to control Dibny's stretching power:

Dibny: (drinking the cure Caitlin hands him) "Ugh! What was that?"

Caitlin:"It's a serum of sulfur, zinc oxide and steric acid to cross-link your polymerized cells."

Dibny:"In English."

Caitlin:"It's gonna fix you."

(Dibny's legs contract to normal length)

Dibny: "Oh. You did it. I'm cured!"

Caitlin: "Well, not cured. All I did was introduce a stabilizing enzyme to reset your body to default shape through vulcanization."

Turns out that sulfur, zinc oxide and steric acid really are used in vulcanization! Kudos to the writers for looking that up!

• Joe says, "I pulled the 'LUDS' on Dibney's phone." I had no idea what that meant, so Google to the rescue. Apparently LUDS stands for "Local Usage Data." Now I know. And so do you!

• Barry actually admits in this episode that in the past Team Flash has locked up metahumans without a trial. Um... yeah, that's illegal. About as illegal as it gets.

This is called lampshading, and it's an old trick used in TV shows and movies. It's a cheap way for the writers to acknowledge something they know doesn't make any sense before the audience can point it out, and then not actually do anything about it.

• There's at least one, and possibly two Machete jokes in this episode, no doubt in honor of Danny Trejo. The first occurs when Cisco's talking to Harry while packing weapons to use against Breacher. He picks up several items and holds them up one by one to Harry, who nods his approval. Cisco then picks up a large Machete and shows it to Harry, who glances at it and says, "Too much."

The second one may be a Machete reference, but I'm not sure. Cisco generates a force cube trap around Breacher, who pulls out a large knife he took off an Earth-48 bounty hunter and cuts his way out of it. It's not quite a machete, but it's a damned big knife, so it's close enough. I'm gonna go ahead and count it.

• Earth-19 Watch:
Apparently at some point in the past, Earth-19 was invaded by Plastoids, which were apparently some kind of alien shapeshifters. They decimated the planet, going so far as to destroy all of Earth-19's entire coffee crops. Breacher says he'll never drink coffee again, to remind him of how much he loathes the Plastoids.

Later he mistakes Dibny for a Plastoid, implying they must be humanoids who can stretch their limbs.

• Once again, Barry immediately reveals his secret identity to someone he just met. Is there anyone left on the show at this point who doesn't know he's the Flash?

• Does Dibny have super strength as well as stretching powers? Late in the third act, he reaches up and grabs hold of Mayor Bellows' rapidly fleeing chopper. Sure, why not? But instead of being instantly yanked off his feet as should have happened, he stands his ground and holds the chopper in place as it tries to fly off.

He doesn't even brace himself with his other arm, or wrap his feet around anything. He just stands normally as the helicopter struggles to get away. Yeah, no. That can't happen. Yes, I get that this is a comic book world that features impossible physics on a weekly basis, but c'mon. If you're going to ask me to believe in a man who can stretch his arms, then you've got to give me a small amount of reality somewhere else.

• This Week's Best Lines:

Breacher: (walking unchallenged into STAR Labs) "This facility is poorly guarded."
Barry: "Clearly."
(See? Even Breacher thinks it's ridiculous that anyone off the street can walk into the place!)

Harry: (discussing Breacher with Cisco) "What is wrong with you?"
Cisco: "Have you seen his face? The guy's killed people with that face. I'm not even joking. Gypsy said that literally happened!"

Harry:"Just take him for coffee, okay? Go for coffee, get to know him a little bit better. I bet that you'll be pleasantly surprised at how much you have in common, right? You both have the same powers. You're breachers. You have ridiculous hair. He has ridiculous hair."
Cisco: "Okay, but..."
Harry:"And you both love Gypsy."
Cisco: "Are you actually giving me decent relationship advice right now?"

Breacher:"I don't wanna be here anymore!"

Caitlin: (as Breacher passes her at STAR Labs) "Why is the scariest person I've ever seen roaming our halls?"

Breacher: (to Cisco, after telling him he's going to hunt him) "I have hunted some of the worst breach criminals in history. Marla the Dark Lord. Soolunga of Sheerdra. The Sand People of Scar.You will be easy prey."

Cisco: "Do you do this with all her boyfriends?"
Breacher:"I hunted her last one, yes."
Cisco: "Where is he now?"
Breacher: "I don't know."
Cisco: "He got away?"
Breacher: "I don't know where you go when you die."

Barry: "What's your business with Mayor Bellows?"
Dibny: "Nothing. Just calling to tell him what a swell job I think he's doing."
Barry: "15 times?"
Dibny: "12 of those were butt dials."

Breacher: (as he hunts Cisco) "Say good-bye, my little enemy."
(obviously Scarface exists on Earth-19)

Mayor Bellows:"Since killing you didn't work out, what we agreed upon. 200K. Let me have the photographs."
Dibny:"Here's the pictures. Keep the money."
Bellows: "What?"
Dibny: "I take it back."
Bellows: "Take it back?"
Dibny: "I take my blackmail back."
Bellows: "Is this some kind of a trick?"
Dibny: "I'm not dirty. And I don't want any part of this anymore. And don't you forget, I can tie you to that bomb you had your goons plant in my office, so if you don't walk away, I will go to the cops."
Bellows: "That's still blackmail."
Dibny: "No, it's not."
Bellows:"Yes, it is. You're telling me if I don't give you this money, you won't go to the cops."
Dibny:"Okay, fine. I am blackmailing you into not being blackmailed."
Bellows:"So, we're good, then."
Dibny: "Yeah, we're good."

Dibny: (as Barry reveals his secret identity to yet another person) "Dude, are you kidding me? You're the Flash? Everyone else gets struck by lightning and dies, and you get super powers?"

Breacher: (after Cisco tries one last time to bond with him) "I hate you."
Cisco:"Wow. Really thought that one would work."
Breacher:"But I respect you. You're a steadfast warrior who would fight the fiercest of enemies to protect your friend and the only person I love."
Cisco: "With my dying breath, sir."
Breacher:"I know that, but I still hate you."
Gypsy:"I have never seen him gush like that."
Cisco: "That's gushing? I'm terrified to experience him loving me."

Best. Legends Of Tomorrow. Ever!

Seriously, that was a damned fun hour of television. The first couple of episodes this season were a bit iffy, but this week's was a return to form for the series. I love the way it gleefully embraces its comic book roots, and all the Silver Age insanity that implies.

This week's episode is one big homage to the 1980s in general, and to E.T. The Extraterrestrial in particular. In fact the entire plot was pretty much lifted wholesale from E.T., as Young Ray Palmer finds a baby alien that everyone wants to get their hands on. Not that there's anything wrong with that! The episode took the basic framework of E.T. and tweaked it just enough to make it interesting.

Phone Home also gives us some insight into the perpetually upbeat Atom, as we see his self-described idyllic childhood wasn't quite as rosy as he remembers it. It also plants some pretty obvious seeds for an Atom/Zari relationship.

The only downside to the episode, which sets up the departure of Victor Garber as Professor Stein. He's gonna leave a HUGE hole in the series, that I'm not sure can be filled.

Besides missing Garber as Stein, I'm a bit concerned with what his absence will mean for Firestorm. The character's unique in the comic world, as he's formed from two separate individuals who have to learn how to work as one in order to function.

If they come up with some lame technobabble way for Firestorm to exist just as Jefferson Jackson, then he's gonna be little more than a Human Torch knockoff. Hopefully they'll bring in a new half for Firestorm somehow.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:

We begin with Young Atom, aka Ray Palmer, running through the lab set of E.T. The Extraterrestrial, er, I mean a plastic-draped, makeshift research facility in Ivy Town in 1988. He's cornered by a couple of government agents, one of which is a young Agent Smith, last seen in the big Invasion crossover event. Young Ray makes a grab for Smith's keys, and the other agent shoots him dead (!). Holy crap!

Cut to the present day onboard the Waverider. Atom's trying to conduct a teambuilding exercise for the benefit of Zari, the newest Legend. Suddenly he winks out of existence. The Legends all wonder what the hell just happened, and Gideon helpfully states that Atom was killed on October 31st, 1988. So why's he just now disappearing? Because time travel never makes any sense.

White Canary orders Gideon to take them to October 30th, 1988 so they can prevent Atom's death. As soon as they arrive he reappears (since he hasn't been killed yet). Don't think about it too hard, or you'll get a headache. The Legends don period-appropriate clothing (as always) and set out to find who killed Atom and stop them.

The Legends split up into two-man teams and tail Young Ray. Atom and Zari scope out the school and watch Young Ray as he walks home. Atom seems excited to be back in 1988, which puzzles Zari, since, you know, his younger self is about to die. He tells her he always tries to see the bright side of any situation.

Heat Wave follows Young Ray to a newsstand, and is shocked to see him stealing candy bars. This greatly impresses Heat Wave, who says Young Ray actually had balls. Young Ray continues on his way, making it home safe and sound. The Legends all meet up across the street from Young Ray's house, and report nothing out of the ordinary. Canary says their presence must have spooked Young Ray's killer, and suggests they check the historical records to see if he's still alive after Halloween.

Atom feels something's off, and sneaks around the back of his old house. He peeks in the window, and sees his younger self offering candy to something under his bed. Suddenly a tiny, blubbery little shape crawls out and sits beside Young Ray. It's a baby Dominator— the species that invaded Earth in 2016!

Back on the Waverider, Zari's amazed that aliens are real. The Legends explain to her that the Dominators are extremely dangerous. They're super strong, have advanced technology and worst of all, are telepathic. They can even take control of a subject's mind and make them do things against their will. Vixen wonders if an infant Dominator might be harmless, but Gideon says it somehow has all the strength and mind control powers of an adult of the species.

Believing the Dominator is what kills Young Ray, Canary says they need to get it away from him and send it back where it belongs. Atom says that should be easy, as all they have to do is wait until the next morning when his mom's at work and his younger self's at school, and they'll have the whole house to themselves.

Meanwhile, Jackson runs into Professor Stein in one of the Waverider's many spacious corridors. He asks where Stein was during the briefing, and the Professor nervously gives him a lame answer. Jackson accuses Stein of not wanting to be on the team anymore. The Professor denies this and walks off in a huff. Just then Heat Wave appears, and says he thinks he knows what the Professor's hiding.

Cut to the next day at Young Ray's house. Atom and Zari enter, and go to Young Ray's room. They find the baby Dominator hiding in the closet. Just as they're about to grab it, they hear Young Ray coming! Apparently he skipped school to stay home with his new alien pal! Atom's horrified by this turn of events— first his younger self shoplifts, now he's playing hooky!

Zari dives under the bed, and Atom does the only thing he can think of— he shrinks down to action figure size. Thinking he's a toy, the baby Dominator grabs Atom and starts playing with him. Young Ray enters and tells the alien, which he's named "Gumball," to stop playing with the figure and sets in on his desk. The two then start watching a videotape of Singin' In The Rain.

Steel and Vixen are staking out the house, disguised as Animal Control workers. Suddenly they spot Young Ray's mom unexpectedly pull into the driveway, in her wood-paneled station wagon. They radio Atom and Zari to warn them. Young Ray hears his mom coming, shuts off the TV and shoos Gumball back into the closet.

Mrs. Palmer enters the room and asks what the hell Young Ray's doing home. He lies and says he's sick. She doesn't believe him, and tells him he's going back to school immediately. This angers Gumball, who starts to open the closet door and attack her. Zari radios for someone to do something.

Steel and Vixen then ring the doorbell. Mrs. Palmer answers, and the two say they're with Animal Control. Steel shamelessly flirts with her, asking if there's a cougar on the premises (haw!). She lets them in, and for some reason starts venting with these two strangers about Young Ray, saying he's always bringing home stray animals. She says she wishes he'd make some real friends and stop being so... weird. Of course Young Ray accidentally hears all this and is heartbroken. He puts Gumball in his backpack— along with Action Figure-Sized Atom (who he still thinks is a toy) and runs away from home.

Zari chases Young Ray into the woods, telling him that he's in danger. She says if he's not careful, Gumball's going to lose his temper and kill him. He doesn't believe her of course, saying Gumball's his only friend. He takes off running again and Zari somehow loses him.

Meanwhile on the Waverider, Heat Wave meets with Jackson. He says he believes Stein is ratting out the Legends to the Time Bureau. Jackson doesn't believe it, but Heat Wave shows him that someone's been taking the Jump Ship out and then erasing the logs. So I guess Heat Wave's an expert in futuristic computer record-keeping procedures now?

Back in the woods, Agent Smith and another black suited government goon search for Gumball and Young Ray. Steel and Vixen see them and warn the others. Canary's also out looking for them, and runs into an adult Dominator who knocks her out.

Heat Wave and Jackson discover Stein's set up a secret lab in a spare storage room (!) on the Waverider. Jackson pokes around, and finds Stein's cobbled together a special time radio, one that can send and receive messages in any era. This would seem to confirm Heat Wave's suspicions.

Meanwhile, Zari finds Young Ray in a "fort" he built in the woods. She tells him again that he's in danger, but he still won't listen. She sees he's named his fort "Camelot," and tries talking to him as if she's an Arthurian character. She finally gains his trust, and just as he's about to come out of the fort, Smith and his goons attack. They knock out Zari and capture Young Ray and Gumball.

Cut to a makeshift government lab, which appears to be in a recreation center. Smith and the other agents have Gumball in restraints and under sedation. Smith tells the others to interrogate Young Ray, and then kill him when they're done (!).

Back on the Waverider, Jackson and Heat Wave confront Stein about his treachery, and sabotage the Jump Ship (!) so he can't use it again. He tells them they're way off, and says he's been using the Jump Ship to travel to 2017, where his daughter Lily's about to give birth. He made the time radio so she could contact him when she went into labor— which she just did. Whoops! Jackson and Heat Wave realize they've been idiots, and want to make it up to him. Unfortunately the Jump Ship's now unusable, so they decide to take the the Waverider to 2017 to make sure Stein's there for the birth of his grandchild. Sure, why not? It's not like there's a crisis going on there in 1988!

Canary wakes up in a cocoon spun by the Dominator Queen, who asks where her baby is. Canary says if she lets her go, she'll help her find Gumball. The Queen isn't having it, and simply reads Canary's mind. She sees an image of Young Ray's house, and lumbers off toward it.

In the rec center, Atom crawls out of the backpack, grows to normal size and rescues Zari (luckily all the agents must have been on break while he did this, as none of them are around). He tells Zari they have to find his younger self immediately, as the agents are preparing to kill him.

Cut to a replay of the cold open, as Young Ray's cornered by a Agent Smith and another government goon. Young Ray makes a grab for Smith's keys, and as the other agents starts to shoot, Atom appears and blasts them, saving his younger self. Canary frees herself from the cocoon and warns the others that the Dominator Queen is heading for Young Ray's house.

Steel goes to Young Ray's house, and Mrs. Palmer opens the door. She grabs Steel and throws him on the couch and violently seduces him, which seems a bit out of character. Right on cue, Vixen finds the REAL Mrs. Palmer cocooned in the woods. Good thing the Domiator Queen is considerate enough to simply incapacitate all these people instead of killing them!

Vixen bursts into Young Ray's house and does her best Ripley impression, telling Steel to get away from Mrs. Palmer. He has no idea what she's talking about, until the Dominator shows her true form. Vixen summons the power of a cougar (I see what they did there) and attacks. The two women fight, and for some reason Steel starts throwing record albums at the Queen. Yeah, that'll hurt her!

Canary plans to somehow lure the Queen into the Waverider's brig, until she finds a note pinned to a tree (?) saying Stein, Jackson and Heat Wave "borrowed" the ship.

In the rec center lab, Atom, Zari and Young Ray free Gumball from his restraints. Just then Agent Smith enters with his squad and orders them to halt. This angers Gumball, and Atom pleads with Smith to stop. Smith ignores him, and Gumball takes over the minds of the agents, forcing them to sing Good Morning from Singin' In The Rain.

Atom, Zari and Young Ray escape with Gumball. Zari spots some kids' bikes (which are sitting at the rec center's bike rack late at night for some reason) and says they can use those to get away. Steel and Vixen are running through the woods, with the Queen close behind them. Canary sighs and says she hopes everyone meets all at the same time.

Zari and Young Ray ride their bikes toward the woods, as Atom flies along behind. Zari worries they won't get to the rendezvous in time, so she slaps her amulet and uses her elemental powers to lift the bikes into the air, past an impossibly large moon. Meanwhile, Stephen Spielberg picks up his phone and makes a call to his attorneys.

All the groups manage to meet up in time, of course. The Queen appears and roars at the assembled Legends. Young Ray sets his backpack on the ground, and Gumball totters off. Gumball bids his new friend a tearful farewell, and then leaps into the waiting arms of his mother. They teleport away.

In 2017, Stein holds his grandson, saying he's glad he got to be there to witness his birth. Jackson apologizes for thinking he was betraying them. Heat Wave passes out cigars.

Back in 1988, Atom tells his mom she's doing a good job with Young Ray, and not to worry about him as he'll turn out OK. Zari says goodbye to Young Ray, and says he did the right thing by letting Gumball go. She assures him that things will get better, and then asks why he's not going Trick Or Treating. He says he can't, as he planned on going with Gumball.

Cut to Young Ray, dressed as the Atom, followed by the real Atom and the rest of the Legends in full costume— including Zari in her Isis getup! Er, I mean her superhero Isis getup, not a radical terrorist Isis getup. Young Ray's friends are suitably impressed that he has such cool friends. Heat Wave demands the kids hand over their candy... and their allowances.

Back on the Waverider, Atom and Zari bond, or rather bond again, since she already made a connection with his younger self back in 1988. She says she wants to watch Singin' In The Rain with him. As Atom fixes the popcorn, Jackson says he needs his help. He says Stein would obviously rather be with his real family, and wants Atom to help him "break up" Firestorm.

Thoughts:

• Professor Stein does this week's opening narration, which seems to be the same one Canary read last week. Enjoy his dulcet tones while you can, as sadly he's leaving the show soon.

• If you saw the end of last week's episode, you'll remember that Young Ray hid from some bullies in a storm drain and saw... something in the shadows.

The episode did its best too make it look like It and make us think he was meeting Pennywise in the sewer, but we now know he really found a baby Dominator. Which is just as bad, if not worse!

Oddly enough, this week's episode decides to skip any scenes of Young Ray sneaking the alien into his house, naming him, finding out what he eats, etc. I guess they realized we'd take all that for granted and just cut right to the two of them watching musicals together.

• This we learn that despite the fact that the Waverider contains an impossibly large interior, there's apparently only one bathroom.

• Young Ray's death was front page news in the Ivy Town Times on November 3rd, 1988. Vixen reads the article and says Young Ray went missing on October 31st, and his body was discovered two days later, which would be November 2nd. So his death really would make it into the newspaper on the 3rd. Nice attention to detail by the prop department!

Note that the article also mentions his "shaken" parents and older brother "Sydney." Atom mentions Sydney by name in the episode, even though we never see him. Or his father, for that matter. I'm assuming Dad must have split at some point, and maybe Sydney lives with him?

By the way, the boy version of the name is generally spelled "Sidney," not "Sydney."

One last thing about newspapers. As the Legends are tailing Young Ray in 1988, we see Professor Stein perusing a paper whose headline reads "Reagan Tears Down U.S. Embassy Over Listening Devices Found."

This was a real news story from late October 1988. The White House discovered that the U.S. Embassy in Russia was so riddled with listening devices that the only way to be rid of them was to tear down the building and put up a brand new one (!).

The actual story ran in the New York Times on October 27, 1988. This particular scene takes place on October 30th, so it's possible that the Ivy Town Times didn't get around to covering it until then. So again, nice attention to detail here!

There's a slight problem with the headline though— it says "Reagan Tears Down U.S. Embassy." The building wasn't destroyed on October 27th, that's just the date that Reagan made the decision to raze it. The actual demolition didn't happen until much later. Ah well. I'll go ahead and give 'em this one.

• According to this episode, Atom was eight years old in 1988. That would make him thirty seven in 2017. Actor Brandon Routh is currently thirty eight, so that's just about right!

• When Young Ray's killed in the past, Atom blinks out of existence in the present. The Legends then return to the day before his death, and he magically reappears (because he's not been killed yet). I doubt if that makes any temporal sense, but I have to admit it was kind of a cool idea.

• For some reason, Zari's first exposure to time travel causes her to briefly speak French. Odd that none of the other Legends suffer any side effects from the trip. I seem to remember way back in the pilot, Rip Hunter said they might experience some odd effects as a result of time travel. Maybe the other Legends have done it so much at this point that they've built up a tolerance to it?

• As usual, whenever the Legends travel to the past, they try their best to blend in with the times. I'm guessing Jackson's attempting to look like LL Cool J?

And of course Canary's opted for the Madonna "Material Girl" look.

• The Legends tail Young Ray in 1988 to protect him, as well as figure out who's trying to kill him. Honestly, their blatant and obvious attempts at "surveillance" make them look far more suspicious than an potential killer. I'm surprised no one saw them and called the cops!

• Man, Legends Of Tomorrow sure lovvvvvves its Back To The Future references. This week, Steel keeps an eye on Young Ray while waxing a DeLorean in a driveway. A couple things here:

First of all, whose house is this, and who owns the car? Did Steel see a DeLorean parked in a driveway along Young Ray's route, and decide to "blend in" with the neighborhood by waxing it?

Secondly, can you even wax a DeLorean? The body's not painted, it's made of bare aluminum!

• At one point Atom spies on his younger self through his bedroom window. Note that since Young Ray's eight years old, he has dinosaur curtains in his room. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but that T-rex skull on the curtains look a lot like the Jurassic Park logo. That's a problem, since that movie wasn't a thing until 1993.

It could just be a case of there being a limited number of ways to draw a T-rex skull.

• Atom and Zari sneak into Young Ray's house to capture Gumball. Zari, who's from the future, marvels at all the 1988 artifacts in the house. At one point she picks up a record album and asks, "Hey, who's Billy Jo-EL?"

Really? Somehow she thinks the very common name of "Joel" is pronounced like a Kryptonian moniker? She's supposed to be a computer hacker, so she can't be that illiterate. I guess they don't have Hooked On Phonics in 2042.

• Kudos to actor Jack Fisher, who did a great job as Young Ray Palmer. He's one of the few child actors I've seen who's not immediately annoying, and he actually looks like a young Brandon Routh.

• Props as well to the Legends effects team that created Gumball. Somehow they managed to take a horrifying Dominator and make it look cute. The CGI was pretty darned good as well, especially for a TV budget!

• Here's something you don't see every day: nitpicking a show within a show!

Young Ray puts in a tape and watches Singin' In The Rain with Gumball. A couple of things here:

First of all, the tape doesn't start at the beginning, but appears to be cued up to the Good Morning song and dance number. This isn't necessarily a mistake, as it may be Young Ray's favorite song, and he likes hearing it. Or it means Young Ray isn't kind, and doesn't rewind.

Secondly, the lyrics go:
Danny Kaye:"It's 1:30 already. It's morning!"
Debbie Reynolds:"Yes. And what a lovely morning!"
Danny Kaye:"Good morning."
Debbie Reynolds: "Good morning."
Gene Kelly:"We've talked the whole night through."
Debbie Reynolds:"Good Morning."
Danny Kaye:"Good Morning."
Gene Kelly: "To you!"

I dunno how things work in musical land, but around these parts 1:30 am is not the morning, or the whole night through. Heck, that's usually bedtime for me!

• This week we learn that Ray Palmer's middle name is Carson.

• When the Legends find out Young Ray's harboring a baby Dominator, Zari's completely amazed to find out that aliens are real. Uh... that doesn't make any sense. Zari's from the year 2042, so the fact that extraterrestrials invaded Earth in 2016 should be old news to her. Plus, she looks like she's in her early thirties, which means she was alive in 2016 when the Invasion happened!

Maybe in in the dystopian world of 2042, the government did a really good job of covering up knowledge of the Invasion?

• Gideon notes that Gumball's a danger to Young Ray, as an infant Dominator has the same strength as the adult, but with "none of its discretion." That doesn't seem right. How the hell can a baby be as strong as a full grown adult?

• I really loved the scene in which Steel dresses as an animal control worker and asks the very hot Mrs. Palmer, "Is there a cougar on the premises?" I laughed harder at that line than I have at anything all year.

On a related note, later in the episode, the Dominator Queen disguises itself as Mrs. Palmer and tries to seduce Steel. Vixen enters and fights the Queen by summoning the power of... a cougar! Someone's having a lot of fun creating this show!

• If Agent Smith looks familiar to you, that's because he was in the big Invasion crossover last year. In those episodes, he first encountered the Dominators in 1951 (where he was played by actor Jacob Richter) and later in 2016 (where he was played by Donnelly Rhodes).

Amazingly, the Smith seen here in 1988 looks EXACTLY like the version we saw in 1951, despite the fact he's thirty seven years older. I guess he's got really good genes! Methinks someone's math is off somewhere.

• When Agent Smith and his lackey are searching the woods for Gumball, they use what sounds like a Geiger counter, which crackles up a storm. Holy crap! Is Gumball radioactive?

• I know I keep bringing up the size of the Waverider each week, but it just fascinates me. In this episode Jackson discovers Professor Stein has converted one of the Waverider's spare storage rooms into a lab. A SPARE storage room! On a ship a bit larger than the average sized house! I'm tellin' ya, this thing's bigger on the inside than the outside!
• Writing logical, cohesive time travel stories that make sense is hard. Always has been, always will be. This episode proves that in spades.

For example, Heat Wave sabotages the Jump Ship because he thinks Professor Stein's been using it to travel to 2017 and sell out the Legends to the Time Bureau. Of course that's wrong, as Stein's really been using it to visit his pregnant daughter, who just went into labor. Since Heat Wave broke the Jump Ship, he and Jackson decide to borrow the Waverider so Stein can witness the birth of his grandson.

The three men act like they've got to leave immediately or they'll miss the birth. What the hell's their hurry? They have a TIME SHIP! So what if Stein's stuck in 1988 while his daughter's in labor in 2017? It doesn't matter! He can travel to the exact moment she gives birth any time he wants. Even if he somehow did miss the event, he could just go back in time and still see it. See what I mean?

There's also no reason to take the Waverider in the middle of the crisis either. Jackson can spend as much time as he needs to fix the damage Heat Wave caused to the Jump Ship, and then Stein can simply set its coordinates for an hour before Lily gives birth! He can NEVER miss the blessed event as long as he's got a time machine at his disposal.

The episode treats his grandson's birth like it's happening at the same time as the 1988 events in this episode, but that's simply not true. It's all done for drama and story purposes of course, and they blow over it so quickly that it takes a while to realize something's not quite right.

• Atom and Zari infiltrate the government lab to rescue Young Ray and Gumball. Suddenly a government agent grabs Zari and injects her with a knockout drug. It must be potent stuff, because she goes out like a light before he even sticks the needle in her neck!

• There's an Asian scientist on Smith's team who sports a hairstyle that is most definitely not from 1988.

• I think a smiling Dominator may be even more horrifying than a snarling one.

• Although this episode is all about the 1980s, it's primarily a big love letter to E.T. The Extraterrestrial, featuring tons of references to the film. Here are the ones I noticed (and it's possible there were even more):

In E.T., Elliot sneaks into a government research lab draped with plastic sheeting, in order to rescue his alien friend.
In Phone Home, Young Ray enters a similar facility to rescue his alien pal Gumball.

Elliot and his siblings are being raised by their mom, as their dad is nowhere to be seen.
Young Ray's also being raised by a single mother.

E.T. features a scene that takes place on Halloween, as Elliot and E.T. go trick or treating.
Phone Home takes place around and on Halloween as well.

Elliot hides E.T. in his bedroom. When his mom unexpectedly enters the room and opens the closet, E.T. freezes and pretends to be a stuffed animal.
When Atom and Zari enter Young Ray's room and open the closet, Gumball freezes and pretends to be a stuffed animal.

Then there's the big bike scene. Elliot and his friends jump on their bikes and try to get E.T. back to his spaceship before it takes off. When they're menaced by government agents, E.T. uses his magic space powers to cause the kids' bikes to fly through the air, and touch down at the UFO landing site.
Here Young Ray, Atom and Zari are trying to reunite Gumball with his mother. Young Ray and Zari hop on a couple of bikes, and Zari uses her elemental powers to lift them in the air.

Seriously, the bike scenes here are pretty much identical to the ones in E.T. Same shots, same camera angles, everything. It's actually pretty impressive. Someone spent a lot of time replicating these scenes! Hopefully Universal Studios won't sue them too badly.

And of course there's the ending, in which Elliot says a tearful goodbye to E.T.
Young Ray does the same, giving up his only friend Gumball for his own good.

• Since this episode's set in 1988, we see a bunch of kids in 80s appropriate Halloween costumes. That's a kid dressed as Pee-wee Herman on the right. And is that Catwoman in the center?

There's also a kid dressed as a Rubik's Cube...

And even Michael Jackson (note the barely visible white glove on his right hand). That looks like Pee-wee again behind him, with an Obi-Wan on the left.

• At the end of the episode, Young Ray's "friends" Gus and Ty show up dressed as a pair of spooky skeletons.

I'm wondering if their costumes are supposed to be an homage to this? Which would be unfortunate, since it totally wasn't a thing in 1988. Maybe it's just a coincidence, and Gus & Ty are supposed to be generic skeletons.

• Before the Legends leave 1988, they decide to help out Young Ray one last time. They suit up in their superhero costumes (some of which we've not seen in forever!) and go trick or treating with him.

Note that even Zari's in costume, wearing a getup very much like the one her Saturday morning inspiration Isis wore in the 1970s! It's not exact, but it's fairly close. Get a good look at this costume though, because you're likely never going to see it again!

• This is some really hardcore nitpicking, but whatever. Back in 2017, we see Professor Stein got to see the birth of his grandson after all. Note that on the wall behind him, there's an engraved nameplate reading "Lily Stein."

Really? An engraved nameplate? Not just a piece of paper with her name scribbled on it? What kind of fancy hospital goes to the trouble and expense of engraving nameplates for patients that are only gonna be in a room for one or two days?

• Lily names her baby "Ronnie." That's of course an homage to Ronnie Raymond, the original half of Firestorm. Does Lily know about him? And if she does, so what? He was important to her father, but what's he to her? She never even met him, as far as we know.

• This Week's Best Lines:

Zari: (to the assembled Legends) "Besides, I've already have you all figured out. The old guy wants to be anywhere but on this ship. These two (Steel and Vixen) have some will-they-won't-they thing going on. Rory's been drunk since breakfast. Jax is wondering if I'm single. And your ship's still mad at me for doing a teeny hack on her subsystems. Now, what's this about one bathroom?

Steel: (after Atom's wiped out of existence) "Wait, Ray's dead?"

Heat Wave: (who was participating in a "trust fall" when Atom disappeard) "He better be."

Zari: "So you're always this positive, even when you're dead? How can you pretend like everything's okay?"

Atom: "I'm not pretending. I believe it. I found that if I can trust in myself, I can believe everything's okay, and it usually is. It's called positive thinking. Give it a shot."

Zari:"Is he for real?"

(I've noticed Atom's "positive thinking" trait seems to become more exaggerated with each passing season)

Atom: (spotting his younger self coming out of school) "Wow, there I am!"

Young Atom:"Thanks for the pop quiz, Mrs. Garvin. It really reinforced some fundamentals."

Zari: "Yeah, that's definitely you."

(I love that "fundamentals" line! Only Atom would think to thank a teacher for testing him!)

Atom: (entering his childhood house) "Home, sweet home. Wait."

Zari:"What? What is it?"

Atom:"No shoes on the carpet. I guess I can probably let go of that now."

Canary: (monitoring Young Atom's bedroom) "Is that music?"

Atom:"Yeah, 'Singin' in the Rain.' Only the best musical ever."

Heat Wave: "Not as good as "Fiddler on the Roof."

(Canary and Stein turn to gape at him)

Steel: (to Atom over the comm) "Do you anyone who owns a green station wagon with fake wood paneling?"

Atom: "What's my mom doing home?"

Steel:"Dude, you never mentioned your mom was hot!"

Atom: (horrified) "Why would I ever mention that?"

Dominator Queen:"You know what I'm looking for."

Canary:"A breath mint? Dermatologist recommendation? Reese's Pieces?"

Dominator Queen: "Grrrrr..."

Canary: "Oh, right, your kid."

Vixen: (to the Dominator Queen disguised as Atom's mom) "Get away from him, you bitch!"

(apparently Vixen, who's from the 1940s, has been catching up on her film knowledge)

Steel:"Oh, my God. I kissed a Dominator. And I liked it."

Steel: (after Gumball's reunited with his mom) "I'm not crying. I just have, uh, alien goo in my eye."

Canary:"Yeah, me too."

Steel: "Now I'm gonna go brush my teeth forever."
Atom:"Wait, why?"

Heat Wave: (passing out cigars after seeing Stein's newborn grandson) "I thought we should celebrate."

Stein: "Oh."

Heat Wave:"One for you. (hands cigar to Jackson). One for you. (hands cigar to Stein).

Stein:"Thank you."

Heat Wave: "And one for you. (hands a cigar to the baby)"

Jackson:"Man, dude, come on, man. Not the baby!"

Zari: (looking at Halloween candy) "You know, in my time, the FDA outlawed all this."

Atom:"Guess they got my letters."
(again, only the straight-laced Atom would try to get candy outlawed!)

I just posted this almost exactly a month ago, but I'm going to keep doing it until something changes. Which will be never.

DATELINE: Cleveland, Ohio–– In response to overwhelming consumer demand, this week the American Association Of Decorative Hardware And Fixtures announced it's making a fundamental design change in all flagpoles. Beginning immediately, all poles manufactured in America will be designed to display flags at half mast only.

Sid Silverbaum, President of the Association, said, "We got a lot of feedback from various groundskeepers, patriots and elderly veterans from around the country, all of whom are exhausted from constantly having to trudge out to their poles and lower their flags to half mast every two to three days. Frankly it just doesn't make sense to make poles that display flags all the way at the top anymore."

According to Silverbaum, the new Half-Master® brand poles will be in stores by the end of the year, just in time for the latest mass shooting or Independence Day, whichever comes first.

This week on The Orville we get another character spotlight episode. Actually it's a twofer, as it focuses on both Doctor Finn and Isaac. While it might seem like it's ostensibly a Finn episode, it's really more about Isaac, as he most definitely takes front and center.

Into The Fold is a perfect example of the infamous "Shuttle Episodes" that plagued all the modern Star Trek series. You know the type— one or more characters takes a shuttle out for some reason, there's some kind of engine trouble, they crash on an unexplored planet and then spend the rest of the episode trying to survive until they're rescued late in the third act.

Shuttle Episodes are also a cheap and hackneyed way to take two wildly disparate characters and put them in an isolated situation where they're forced to get along.

Star Trek: Voyager in particular was notorious for overusing this particular trope. Every time a shuttle appeared on that show, it was guaranteed to crash on an uncharted planet by the end of the cold open.

As you can probably tell, I'm not a fan of these kinds of episodes, which is why I wasn't very enthused about Into The Fold. It's probably the worst episode the series has done so far, in my opinion. Fortunately it was elevated a bit by Isaac and his interaction with Doctor Finn's horrible kids.

Best of all, I was impressed by the behavior of the Orville crew in this episode. For once everyone (even Gordon and John) acted professionally and performed their jobs efficiently as they searched for the missing shuttle. Even better, Doctor Finn and Isaac acted exactly as they should have in a life or death situation, and nobody did anything overly stupid. Amazing!

If Into The Fold seems more Trek-ish that most Orville episodes, there's a good reason for that. It was written by longtime Trek alumni Andre Boramis, along with Brannon Braga (who also directed).

Boramis was the "science consultant" on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise. He also wrote many episodes of Voyager and Enterprise, the latter of which he also produced.

Braga started out as an intern on TNG in 1990, somehow moving up to the position of executive producer (!). He worked as executive producer and showrunner on Voyager and Enterprise, as well as working on Star Trek Generations and Star Trek: First Contact. For a time he also dated actress Jeri Ryan, aka Seven Of Nine of Voyager fame.

Braga's a controversial and divisive figure among Trekdom, as his work is very uneven. He wrote some of the best episodes of TNG, including All Good Things... (which one a Primetime Emmy and Hugo Award), as well as Cause And Effect. During his time on Voyager he also wrote Threshold (aka The One Where Captain Janeway And Tom Paris Turn Into Giant Salamanders) , which is widely considered to be the all-time worst episode of any iteration of Trek.

His scripts were notorious for being filled with elements of body horror. If a member of the crew got transformed into a giant spider or was bitten by an oversized worm inside the transporter beam, it's a good bet it was a Brannon Braga episode.

Fortunately Into The Fold is nowhere near as bad as Threshold, even though a bit of Braga's body horror fascination does creep into the episode, as it contains a heaping helping of mutants suffering from a space disease.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
The Orville's in space dock as the crew updates its systems. Doctor Finn takes advantage of the downtime to take her two horrible kids to an amusement park on Arboreus Prime. Her younger son Ty is excited about the trip, but older, surly son Marcus doesn't want to go.

In the shuttle bay, Finn loads the luggage into a ship. Marcus swaggers in playing a "futuristic" handheld videogame that looks suspiciously like an iPhone with an extra piece glued to it. She tells him this is family time, and he's not to bring a game. He shrieks, "You suck!" and somehow doesn't get backhanded across the mouth, as should have happened. His words will come back to haunt him later.

Kelly tells Finn that she can't spare John to fly them to the planet, as he's helping overhaul the shi. She assigns Isaac to fly them instead. Isaac's anxious to go, as it'll give him a chance to "observe human familial dynamics at close range." Finn's less than enthused by this development.

The shuttle takes off, and Finn's kids act like complete little assholes the whole time, which even the robotic, emotionless Isaac notices and points out. He asks why Finn doesn't have a husband, and she says she decided she wanted kids, but not a marriage.

Since this is a Brannon Braga episode, the shuttle begins vibrating as it encounters a "gravity shear" from a "spacial fold" ahead. As Isaac plots a course around it, Ty grabs Marcus' videogame (which he wasn't supposed to bring) and hurls it toward the front of the ship. It hits the control panel, causing the shuttle to head right toward the fold.

Right on cue, Isaac says the gravitational pull is too strong for the shuttle's engines, and it's pulled in. They fly through some sort of special effects tunnel and emerge a thousand light years away, which Isaac says is in "uncharted space." That doesn't seem right, but let's just go with it.

Isaac notes that the hull's fractured and main power is offline. He detects a large planet ahead with a number of moons, some of which are habitable. Finn tells him to pick one and head for it. Not sure how you do that with no power, but there you go. Maybe they have secondary power.

The shuttle enters the atmosphere of the planet's third moon. The ship starts venting plasma, and Finn goes to the back to switch on the emergency technobabble reserves. Just then the shuttle hits the top of a mountain, causing the ship to fracture even more. Finn's half breaks off completely and lands somewhere in the mountains. Isaac's half— containing the kids— crashes in the middle of a forest.

Isaac tries to call Finn, but there's no reply. Marcus' knee is dislocated, so Isaac pops it back into place for him. Meanwhile in the mountains, Doctor Finn lies unconscious next to her half of the shuttle. Something comes along and drags her away.

Isaac determines the likely location of the tail section, and says he'll make better time if he goes alone. He gives Marcus a blaster, saying it'll increase his chances of survival by twenty four percent. He then goes off in search of Finn.

He finds the tail section, but no sign of Doctor Finn. Back at the front of the ship, the kids hear something rustling around outside. Suddenly a mutant humanoid grabs Ty and runs off with him. Marcus aims his blaster at the mutant, but it's shot by Isaac, who's returned just in time.

Back in space dock, Kelly informs Mercer that Doctor Finn's shuttle never made it to Arboreus Prime. Mercer orders John to set a course for Finn's last known coordinates. John asks how he's supposed to do that, as the ship's navigational array is sitting in a pile on the floor. Mercer says they'll just have to use old fashioned star charts. So, like... maps? They're gonna use a map of the galaxy, like they're driving on the interstate?

Back on the moon, Isaac tries to repair the shuttle. The kids start bickering again, and Isaac eventually has enough and roars at them just like Finn did. This takes the kids aback, causing them to stop. Isaac then says the shuttle wreckage is out of Dysonium, and they'll need more to scan for Finn and send out a distress signal. Isaac determines there's Dysonium in the nearby mountains, and says they'll all go look for some in the morning.

Meanwhile, Doctor Finn wakes up on a cot inside a locked room. An alien man enters and brings her a tray of food, telling her to eat. She asks where she is and where her kids are, but the man doesn't answer. He sets down the tray and locks her in. Finn notices a sheet of metal bolted over a window.

The next morning, Isaac, Marcus and Ty set off for the mountains. They're approached by three mutants, who demand Isaac hand over the kids to them. When Isaac says they're under his protection, they attack. Isaac easily stuns them with his blaster. He theorizes the mutants wanted to eat the kids. This terrifies Ty, who grabs hold of Isaac's hand. Isaac doesn't understand this behavior, but rolls with it.

Finn tries to pry the metal off the window. She stops when the man returns. He sees her tray's untouched, and demands she eat, because food is scarce on the moon. He tells her his name is Drogen, and she's very lucky he found her. When she says her kids and Isaac are out there somewhere, Drogen says it's not safe outside, and they're likely already dead.

When Finn asks what happened, Drogen explains there was a war, and the enemy put "Paloxis" in the water supply. Millions died, and the ones left became infected and sick. The food supply's almost gone, forcing the survivors to become cannibals. He says he saw what was coming and stored enough food and water to last a long time. And with that he locks her inside again.

Isaac, Marcus and Ty come to a shallow stream. They cross it, and of course Ty slips and falls in, getting a good mouthful of Paloxis-tainted water. Groan!

Meanwhile, the Orville's following the shuttle's ion trail, and sees it leads into the spacial fold. Mercer orders John to fly the ship in. It's a rough ride, but the Orville makes it through with only minimal damage. Unfortunately there's no sign of the shuttle. John scans the area and says there's a gas giant nearby with seventy two moons (!), thirty six of which can support life. Mercer says that's likely where the shuttle went, and they'll have to search the habitable moons one at a time.

Back on the moon, Isaac and the kids camp out for the night. Marcus feels bad for disrespecting his mother, especially since she could be dead. Isaac tries to comfort him. Ty talks Isaac into telling them the story of Peter Rabbit, but in Doctor Finn's voice.

In her cell, Finn manages to pry the metal plate off the window. Unfortunately she sees she's on the top floor of a building that's several hundred feet tall. Wa-wahhhhh! So much for that idea!

The next morning Marcus wakes up, and Isaac says they can start moving again. Unfortunately he sees that Ty's face is covered with sores, as he's suffering from Paloxis poisoning.

Doctor Finn tries a new plan. She slices open her arm, then calls Drogen for help. He asks what happened, and she says she slipped and cut her arm. She says she has a medkit back in the shuttle wreckage, and asks him to go get it. He's reluctant to leave his "safe place," but she says if she doesn't get antibiotics, she could get an infection and die, and then he'd be "all alone" again. As she says this, she creepily strokes his hand. Drogen gets the message, and leaves for the shuttle.

As soon as he's gone, Finn pries the metal off the window and climbs out onto a ledge. She inches over to another window and climbs back into Drogen's little apartment. She rummages through his stuff and finds a large knife, plus her communicator.

She contacts Isaac and asks if the kids are alright (hey, that'd make a good song title). Isaac says they're alive, but Ty's sick. Marcus tells her he's sorry he said she sucked. Finn tells him she understands that people say things when they're angry that they don't really mean. Really, we're doing this now? Could this wait until a less dangerous time?

Just then Broden returns, and Finn stabs him with the knife. He slams her into the wall, and she somehow grabs his holstered gun without him noticing. He comes at her again and she shoots him dead. She then uses her communicator, which apparently also doubles as a scanner, to find the shuttle crash site and rendezvous with Isaac and the kids.

Along the way, Finn's attacked by a mutant. She shoots him too, then takes a sample of his diseased blood. She heads off again, unaware she's being followed by a whole herd of mutants.

She makes it back to the shuttle and is reunited with the kids and Isaac. She examines Ty, but says there's nothing she can do for him here. Isaac takes the Dysonium he recovered in the mountains, uses it to power up the shuttle and sends out a distress signal. The power almost immediately goes out again. Isaac says there was only enough Dysonium to send out a short distress burst.

He says if the Orville detects their signal, it could take them weeks to arrive at normal speed (he doesn't know the Orville also took a shortcut through the spacial fold). Finn says Ty doesn't have weeks. She says if she had the ship's medical resources, she might be able to use the mutant's blood to synthesize a cure. She says she can't just sit by and watch Ty die (heh). Isaac reaches out and holds her hand, a gesture which he apparently now understands.

On the Orville, Alara detects a faint blip from one of the planet's innermost moons. Hoping it's from the downed shuttle, Mercer orders Gordon to set a course. As the ship arrives at the moon, Alara scans the surface and detects the lifesigns of three humans and one artificial being. Bortus chimes in and says there are two dozen other life forms heading for Finn and the others. Mercer orders Gordon to take a shuttle to the surface.

The mutants begin converging on the shuttle. Isaac uses his superhuman reflexes to take them out one at a time, like he's in a videogame. For some reason, he says he needs help. Finn gives Marcus a blaster and tells him to help Isaac. Marcus shoots at a few mutants, but of course misses. Isaac tells him to concentrate, which apparently works, as he starts hitting them.

Just then shots are fired from above, scaring off the remaining mutants. It's Gordon in the shuttle. Hooray!

Cut to the Orville's sickbay, where we see Ty's fully recovered. Doctor Finn says she was able to synthesize a cure for the Paloxis poisoning. Kelly says she's going to try and get permission from the Admiralty to distribute the cure to the mutants, if they'll let them help. Um... why would they not?

Finn visits Isaac in Engineering, thanks him for helping save her kids, and welcomes him to the family.

Thoughts:
• In the cold open, Ty enters Doctor Finn's bedroom and wakes her up by yelling, "Mommy. Mommy. Mommy! Mommy! MOMMY! MOM! MOMMEEE!!"

That had to be a Family Guy reference, from back in the days when Stewie would do the same thing to his mom Lois.

• The big revelation in this episode is that Doctor Finn is apparently a single mother with two young sons. That's definitely news to the audience! Funny how she's never so much as even mentioned them before now!

Over on Star Trek: The Next Generation they made a big deal over the fact that the Enterprise-D was one of the first starships in the fleet to allow children and families on board. Apparently the Orville allows kids too (especially now that Bortus and Klyden recently became parents), but doesn't make a big deal about it.

• The Orville's shuttle bay set is suitably huge, but whenever we see it there's always just one ship inside. I feel like there should be at least ten or twelve other shuttles parked in there. Surely it wouldn't be that tough to add a few CGI ships in the background? Maybe it's a budget thing. Or maybe we're supposed to assume there's a whole role of shuttles just behind the camera?

• When Marcus enters the shuttle bay, he's playing a futuristic video game. Doctor Finn tells him he's not bringing it, as this trip is for family time. He then groans and shuts the game off, with an attitude that makes you just want to smack him.

Note that when he holds up the game, it looks amazingly like a standard iPhone with a retractable piece of plexiglass glued to the side! That's a cheap and clever way to make a prop with practical animated effects, but... they could have disguised it a little bit better. At least put some sort of futuristic frame around the phone or something.

• As she's leaving, Finn tells Kelly that Doctor Parley will be able to handle any medical emergencies while she's gone. This makes perfect sense, as there's likely more than just one doctor on the ship.

• With each passing scene, the shuttle interior set seems to get a little longer. It looks pretty spacious before the crash, as there's room for six seats and some kind of little engineering alcove. After the shuttle splits in two, somehow each half seems to double in length! Funny how that happened, eh? Maybe the spacial fold "stretched" the ship (wink, wink).

• The spacial fold throws the shuttle a thousand light years from its original position, which Isaac says puts them in "uncharted territory."

Hmm. Somebody's math is way off somewhere here. A few weeks ago in Pria, Mercer boasts that the Orville is capable of speeds "exceeding ten light years per hour." That means they could travel a thousand light years in just four days! So if the ship flies in one direction for a hundred hours it'll be completely off their star charts? Does that seem right?

I think the spacial fold needed to throw them way more than a thousand light years. More like a hundred thousand.

• In this episode we finally get a halfhearted explanation as to why the Orville crew can understand every alien race they encounter.

When Doctor Finn wakes up in Drogen's cell, she demands to leave. He tells her that's impossible, and she's in the only "safe place" on the moon. She sarcastically says that her translator must be broken, because he has a different definition of "safe" than she does.

I'm assuming this means the Orville crew has some sort of tiny devices embedded in their ears that automatically translate any language for them. They may even have some sort of vocal implant to translate their speech for other races.

It's not a perfect solution, since whenever we see an alien its mouth seems to be synched up with the English it appears to be speaking, but... eh. At least they attempted an explanation, even if it's not a completely satisfactory one. I'm willing to give 'em this one and move on.

• This week's special guest star is Brian Thompson, who plays Drogen.

You may not know Thompson's name, but you probably recognize his wide-mouthed face, as he's been in tons of sci-fi and action movies and TV shows. That's him next to a young, blue-haired Bill Paxton in The Terminator.

He's also no stranger to Star Trek, as over the years he appeared as various aliens in TNG, DS9 and Enterprise.

• At one point Isaac tries to repair the crashed shuttle, while Marcus and Ty argue and fight next to him. Hilariously, Isaac tells them their bickering is "highly distracting."

At first I thought this scene didn't make any sense, since Isaac's electronic brain no doubt allows him to process millions of tasks and operations at the same time. It would literally be impossible for him to become distracted. But then I realized that's the joke! Finn's kids are such horrible little assholes that they managed to fluster and piss off a robot!

• When the Orville arrives at the moon, Alara scans the surface and detects Finn and the others. Bortus then chimes in and ominously says, "Captain, I'm detecting two dozen life forms converging on their location."

We then see a helpful shot of Bortus' map, complete with orange dots representing the mutants. Guess how many intruders its displaying? Twenty four, right? Nope! Try thirty three! Ah well. Maybe counting isn't Bortus' strong suit.

• When the mutants attack, Isaac tells Finn he'll protect the shuttle. He stands outside, impressively picking off the attackers one by one with mechanical precision.

For some reason he then calls to Finn and says, "Doctor, we are under heavy siege. I cannot repel them alone." I dunno, it looks like he's doing a damned fine job to me!

Obviously he didn't need any help, but the episode needed him to say that so Marcus could help and finish up hi redemption arc.

• Doctor Finn hands Marcus a blaster and tells him to go help Isaac fight off the mutants. She takes great pains to set his blaster on stun, saying, "They may not value life, but WE do."

HAW, HAW, HAW! Good one, Doctor Finn! Try telling that to Drogen after you shot him to death for saving your life! Or to the mutant you murdered on your way back to the shuttle! You "valued" their lives so much it killed them.

OK, I get that she had no choice but to kill the mutant who attacked her, since he was planning on eating her. But it seems like she didn't need to straight up kill Drogen. He wasn't evil or a cannibal, and he really did save her life. Sure, he was keeping her locked in her cell, but I got the impression he was doing that for her own good, until she accepted her situation and stopped trying to escape.

I dunno. He was a lot bigger than her and had no intention of letting her go, so maybe she really didn't have any other choice but to kill him. Her line about "valuing life" still makes me laugh though.

• This Week's Best Lines— Almost All Of Which Belonged To Isaac:

Isaac: "Doctor, are your children always this combative?"

Finn: "Only when they're awake."

Isaac:"The older, less intelligent one seems to derive pleasure from inflicting damage on his younger, weaker sibling."

Finn:"He's a kid. They act up. (turning around to face the kids) OH MY GOD IF I HAVE TO COME BACK THERE ONE MORE TIME I WILL LOSE MY MIND! Knock it off!"

Isaac:"On my planet, if a program is not functioning properly, it is deleted."

Finn: "Well, that's always an option."

Isaac:"If you wish I will vaporize them."

Isaac: "I have noticed that many other families on the Orville include two parents. Where is your counterpart?"

Finn: "I don't have a husband."

Isaac: "Was he destroyed?"

Finn: "No."
Isaac:"Did you grow to despise each other, and terminate your coupling?"

Marcus:"Hey! You can't just leave us here!"
Isaac: "You are small and feeble. I will move at a faster pace alone. The weapon will increase your chances of survival by twenty four percent."

Ty:"It's your fault we crashed."

Marcus:"It is not. You're the one who threw my game at the helm."

Ty:"Well you shouldn't have brought it anyway. Mom said you couldn't!"

Isaac:"This conflict is highly distracting."

Marcus:"Well when we find Mom, you're gonna be in so much trouble!"

Ty: "You're the one that's in trouble!"

Isaac:"Cease. Immediately."

Marcus:"You're gonna be grounded for like, ten years. You're gonna be an old man by the time you come out your room!"

Ty: "I'm not! You're a liar!"

Isaac: "Children. Cut the crap right now. If i have to come back there one more time, I swear to god I'm going to lose my mind."

(note that Isaac's last bit is the exact same thing Doctor Finn said, only it works for him!)

Ty: (grabbing for Marcus' videogame) "It's my turn to play!"

Marcus:"You don't get a turn."

Ty: "That's not fair!"
Marcus: "You're the one who said I shouldn't bring it, so you don't get to play!"

Ty: "You don't get to make the rules."

Marcus: "Yeah. I do."
Ty: (whining) "Isaaaaaaac!"

(Isaac grabs the game from Marcus, hurls it in the air and shoots it with his blaster, destroying it)

Isaac: "The game is never to be spoken of again."

(the kids stand silently, looking stunned)

Isaac: "Marcus, you have not consumed your ration bar. Are you unwell?"

Marcus:"When we were leaving, I told my Mom she sucked. That was one of the last things I said to her."

Isaac: "It is quite possible your mother is alive."

Marcus: (hopeful) "What makes you say that?"

Isaac: "There was no sign of blood or severed limbs in the shuttle."

Ty: "Mom used to tell us bedtime stories before we went to sleep. Can you tell us a story?"

Isaac: "I will do my best. Please adjust your bodies to a horizontal bearing."

(the kids stare blankly at him)

Isaac:"Lie down. There was once a Doctor and her two children. They embarked on a recreational journey to a leisure planet. Their shuttle was diverted by a spacial anomaly, and crashed into a mountain. The children survived with the help of a more advanced artificial life form. Their mother was missing or dead. The end.

Marcus:"Man, I hate that story!"

Doctor Finn: "The boys adore you. I don't know why or how you managed to keep them in line, but I'm sure as hell glad you did."

Isaac: "I simply adjusted my programming to accommodate their sibling dynamics and emotional responses. Your failed attempts at discipline were also instructive."

Finn: (shocked) "Well... anyway. I'll leave you alone."

Isaac: "May I make a final observation? Your children are unruly, disrespectful, volatile and highly unpredictable. I am quite fond of them."

Finn: "Welcome to the family."

• This Week's Incongruous 21st Century (And Earlier!) References:

There weren't many of them this week.

In Engineering, the repair crew listens to Barry Manilow while they work.

At one point Gordon sees the spacial fold and says, "Back at Union Point we called that a "glory hole."

• THIS WEEK'S STAR TREK SWIPES:
Wow, there's honestly too many to count. The entire episode is one big homage to my least favorite type of Star Trek story. There's the shuttle that immediately runs into trouble and crashes, the completely different characters who are forced to work together to survive, the crew members stranded on a technologically primitive planet, the main ship that's desperately searching for them, and on and on.

This week's episode of The Walking Dead was a little better than the previous one, but it was still riddled with some massive and frankly puzzling problems.

SPOILERS FOR THE EPISODE FROM THIS POINT ON! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!

The biggest issue in Monsters was undoubtedly the fate of Morales, a character who unexpectedly popped up at the end of last week's episode after a seven year absence from the show.

The internet made a huge deal over the return of actor Juan Gabriel Pareja as Morales, a character forgotten by all but the most rabid fans. Based on all the hoopla, most viewers (myself included) naturally assumed Pareja had signed up for the entire season, and Morales would become a brand new thorn in the side Rick and his crew. Or perhaps the fact that good ol' boy Morales had hooked up with the Saviors might cause Rick to question whether Negan and his people were as bad as he thought.

Unfortunately we got none even close to either of those subplots. So what did the producers give us instead? Nothing. They gave us absolutely nothing. Morales shows up, screams at Rick for no reason for ten minutes, and is causally and unexpectedly shot dead by Daryl.

What the hell was the point of that? Why would the writers dredge up an ancient character from the first season and then immediately kill him? For all its intense buildup, the return of Morales was utterly and completely pointless. Or as Daryl says in the episode, "It doesn't matter. Not one bit."

Almost as bad was the dull and dreary moral debate between Morgan, who thinks they ought to execute the Savior prisoners, and Jesus, who ridiculously and inexplicably argues to save them. Yes, everyone, the writers want you to know that "Jesus saves." Subtlety , they name is The Walking Dead.

The thing is, in another situation this ethical dilemma might actually be compelling. But the world of The Walking Dead is a harsh and brutal one. We've seen over and over that sparing one's enemies always comes back to bite one in the ass. Jesus has the right idea, but it's the wrong place and definitely the wrong time. Everyone in the audience knows this, yet the writers are determined to hit us over the head with the idea week after week after week, which leads to dull viewing.

It also doesn't help that Jesus' sudden beneficent attitude seems to have come out of nowhere between episodes. He's certainly never had a problem with killing in the past. So why's he suddenly reluctant to do so now? I've said it before, but I've never been more convinced of it— the writers on this show have a big "Motivation Wheel," and they spin it to see what disposition each character will have this week.

Lastly, the episode placed way too much importance on the death of Eric, a character who most viewers probably forgot about a couple seasons ago. Oh no! Not Eric! Not the guy who's appeared in exactly sixteen episodes— usually in the far, far background! How's the show going to survive without such a vital and integral character?

Based on the amount of time devoted to it, it's obvious the writers wanted us to think the loss of Eric was an iconic moment in the series, second only to Glenn's death. Instead I imagine most members of the audience were scratching their heads, trying to remember who the hell he was and why Aaron kept kissing him. In three seasons we learned absolutely nothing about Eric, making the attempts at giving him a big emotional sendoff maudlin and unearned.

The one bright spot in the episode was Daryl's treatment of the Saviors. He dispatched both Morales and lower-level Savior Todd with a complete and total lack of sympathy or concern. This actually makes perfect sense, given Daryl's treatment at the hands of the Saviors last year after Negan captured him.

Rick in particular seemed taken aback by Daryl's brutality, which I could very well see becoming a source of friction between them later in the season.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
Once again, there are four— strike that, five— interconnected storylines going on, so to avoid confusion I'm gonna go through them one at a time instead of cross cutting.

Group 1:
We pick up right where we left off last week, as Morales holds Rick at gunpoint in the Savior outpost. He seems amazed that the "Rick From Alexandria" that Negan's always going on about is the same Rick he knew from Season 1. Morales tells Rick he has orders not to kill him, and to bring him back to Negan.

When Rick asks Morales where his family is, he says they never made it to Alabama. Rick says he lost people too, listing Lori, Shane, Andrea and Glenn (screw T-Dog and Jacqui, I guess). For some reason he points out that Negan killed Glenn in front of his pregnant wife. Morales seems momentarily taken aback that Glenn was "married."

Rick asks Morales why he hooked up with the Saviors. He says after his family was killed he almost died of despair. The Saviors found him, thought he was worth saving and gave him a new purpose. They argue back and forth some more, and then suddenly Daryl bursts in and shoots an arrow into Morales' neck, killing him. Rick's horrified and shouts "That was Morales!" Daryl calmly and coldly says, "I know who it was. It don't matter. Not one little bit."Harsh!

Just then the two hear a group of Saviors entering the outpost and take off running. They enter a narrow corridor, which unfortunately is blocked by Saviors at both ends. D'oh! Rick & Daryl fire off several hundred rounds at them, and amazingly Daryl actually runs out of ammo, which is something I don't think we've seen happen in... well, ever.

Rick's almost out of ammo too, so he shoots a standard fire extinguisher that's hanging on the wall, which somehow fills the entire corridor with a thick white smokescreen (which isn't how a fire extinguisher works, but whatever). They manage to kill the Saviors in the confusion and escape.

When Rick & Daryl exit the building we see that all this time they've been inside the compound Aaron and the Alexandrians have been attacking. That would have been helpful info to have had last week! Rick takes Poloroids of the dead Saviors, apparently planning to make a scrapbook to send to Negan. The Alexandrians climb in their Mad Max cars and head out, while Rick and Daryl stay behind for some reason.

Suddenly someone shoots at them. It's Todd, a non-essential Savior we saw last week. Rick tells him to come out, lay down his gun and he won't hurt him. Todd reluctantly does so. Rick asks why there were no guns in this particular outpost, when they had intel that there was.Todd says they were ordered to move the weapons the day before the attack. This implies someone knew Rick was planning to raid the post. Todd asks if he can go, and Daryl callously shoots him in the head, much to Rick's exasperation.

Group 2:
The Alexandrians continue firing thousands and thousands of rounds at the Saviors outside their outpost, pinning them down. Suddenly the Saviors make a run for it and run inside the building. This means they'll run into Rick and Daryl, who are searching the post for weapons.

Meanwhile, Aaron helps his wounded husband Eric away from the battle. He looks at Eric's wound and sees it went clean through, which he says is "good." Aaron sits Eric down against a tree and says he'll get him to the Kingdom's doctor. Eric realizes he's a goner and tells Aaron he loves him. For some reason he then tells Aaron to go back and help the others. They kiss goodbye, and amazingly, Aaron actually gets up and goes back to the battle, leaving his loved one to die alone (!).

After the battle's over, Aaron returns to the tree and sees Eric's gone. He looks around wildly and sees his reanimated body shambling away in the distance. Aaron starts to run toward him, but Scott stops him, saying the walker isn't Eric anymore. Scott tells him they've got to go now, before Savior reinforcements show up.

Rick exits the outpost with Baby Gracie, who he found inside last week. Aaron sees her and says he'll take her to the Hilltop. Rick reluctantly hands over the baby to the wild-eyed crazy man.

Group 3:
Tara sits in the back of a slow moving truck, as her group escorts two or three dozen Savior prisoners (who are tied to one another) to the Hilltop. Why they're taking them to that tiny colony is anyone's guess. Eduardo says Maggie will know what to do with them, and Tara says she'll kill them as revenge for Glenn's death. Morgan tells Jesus this forced march is a bad idea. Jesus reminds him that it's necessary, as they don't execute prisoners. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. Yawn.

Morgan marches near Jared, the Savior who killed young Ben last season. Jared continually taunts Morgan, who finally has enough and points his rifle at him. Just then a herd of walkers begins hilariously tumbling down a steep bank. They then get to their feet and start attacking both the Hilltopians and Saviors. Jesus, Morgan and the others kill as many walkers as they can, but several Saviors are bitten.

In the confusion, a group of tied-together Saviors— including Jared— make a break for it and run into the woods. Morgan chases after them and shoots one of the Savior, causing them all to fall down. He aims at Jared next, but suddenly Jesus appears and kicks the gun out of his hand. They argue again, as Morgan says the Saviors will never change. Jesus says they have to find a way to make peace, since they'll all have to live with one another once the war's over.

Morgan decides he's had enough and attacks Jesus with his bo staff. Their battle goes on way too long in an attempt to eat up screen time. Morgan seriously tries to kill Jesus, who eventually disarms him. Jesus asks if he's done, and Morgan says he knows there's something wrong with his head, but he's not wrong about killing the Saviors. He says he can't be part of this anymore and walks out of the woods. Tara says Morgan's right.

Group 4:
At the Hilltop, slimy former leader Gregory drives up and demands that Maggie let him in. She asks what he's doing with Gabriel's car, and of course he lies and says he found it. He says Negan forced him to say all the horrible things he said, and he was only trying to save lives. He claims Negan already knew their plans.

After a few more minutes of embarrassing begging, Maggie foolishly lets Gregory in. Enid asks why, and Maggie says because he's not worth killing. Yet.

Just then Jesus and his group arrive with the surviving Savior prisoners. Gregory tells Maggie not to let them in, and for once she agrees with him. Jesus says they can put them in some empty trailers in the back of the Hilltop, where I'm sure they'll never, ever, ever cause anyone any trouble.

Group 5:
King Ezekiel gives his soldiers yet another flowery and rousing speech, telling them he's smiling even though a squad of Saviors are coming for them. He leads the Kingdomites through a field, where they're suddenly surrounded by an army of Negan's people. Just then Carol and a smaller group of Kingdom soldiers pop up and mow down the Saviors in a massive hail of bullets. Ezekiel foolishly tempts the gods by happily proclaiming they didn't lose a single soldier in the attack.

They ambush a second group of Saviors and wipe them out as well. Once again, Ezekiel cockily announces the Kingdom didn't lose a single person.

The Kingdomites wipe out a third squad of Saviors (Jesus Christ, how many thousand people does Negan have?) and capture their outpost. Ezekiel asks for it one last time as he looks at Carol, smiles and shouts, "Not one!"

Right on cue, Ezekiel suddenly sees a Savior sniper hiding in the window of the outpost. He yells for everyone to take cover, just as several of his soldiers dive on top of him. They're shot in the back by the sniper, as we smash cut to black.

Thoughts:
• When we last saw Morales in Season 1, he and his family (wife Miranda and kids Louis and Eliza) decided to leave Rick's group and head for Alabama. When he reappeared last week, I wondered if his family survived and was living in the Sanctuary.

According to Morales they did not. I'm assuming they were killed by walkers sometime between Season 1 and 8, but we'll never find out for sure now.

• Morales spends a good deal of time monologuing and threatening Rick. At one point he tells Rick, "And we'll get you to Negan. Or we won't. Either way, we're gonna settle your shit, Peaches."

I think Morales is making a joke about the fact that Rick's from Georgia? You know, Georgia peaches and all that? Which makes no sense, as Morales was living in Georgia as well when he met Rick.

This brings up a good question— why the hell is Morales so angry at Rick? They left each other on good terms in Season 1, and Rick had no part whatsoever in the death of Morales' family. Is it because he's on Negan's side now, and Rick's been killing Saviors by the boatload?

• By the way, is it any wonder Morales was didn't make it to the end of the episode? He stands with his back completely against an open doorway, screaming at the top of his lungs at Rick for a good ten minutes. He was practically begging Daryl to sneak up and kill him.

• Last week I pointed out that The Damned episode featured some truly terrible geography, as it was impossible to tell just where each of Rick's four invasion forces were in relation to one another. This week we FINALLY find out that Rick & Daryl are sneaking around inside the same building that Aaron and the Alexandria team are attacking. Finally! Was that really so hard to tell us?

• This is how Scott of Team Alexandria uses a car as cover in a gunfight. That's right, he's standing directly in front of an open car window, as if it's an impenetrable barrier. There's no way a Savior bullet could possibly sail through that and strike him!

How the hell did this nimrod survive but Eric was somehow shot in the gut?

• This is some extreme nitpicking, especially for a show about walking corpses, but whatever.

During the battle at the outpost, Rick and Daryl are trapped in a corridor by Saviors. Desperate, Rick shoots a fire extinguisher on the wall, which blasts out a thick cloud of white smoke that somehow fills up the entire hundred foot long corridor.

Is there really that much chemical powder inside a fire extinguisher? I'm guessing not.

• After the Alexandria attack, there's exactly one Savior left alive. Well, until Daryl unceremoniously shoots him in the head, that is. You probably don't recognize him, but the lone Savior is Todd.

We saw him briefly at the beginning of last week's episode, getting yelled at by Maury (that's Todd at right in the yellow coveralls).

There's no reason you should have picked up on this, and I have to admit I didn't even realize the two characters were the same person until I researched the episode for my review. Do the producers of the show think the audience can really recognize all these people, after just a few seconds of screen time?

• Why the hell did Aaron leave Eric to die alone? Who does that? Who props a seriously wounded loved one against a tree and says, "See ya later?" There were plenty of other Alexandrians left to carry on the attack— they wouldn't have missed Aaron one bit.

Even worse, Aaron makes no attempt to treat Eric's gunshot wound or get him medical help. Well, strike that— he does take off Eric's jacket and tie it around his waist in a laughable attempt to stop the bleeding. That'll help!

I was shocked that Eric broke the rule this week. So far it's been an unwritten rule on the show that important deaths MUST be witnessed by another character. Doomed characters will also usually start spouting detailed backstories right before they're killed as well.

Neither of these rules applied to Eric's death. He had a few brief words of farewell with Aaron, then expired offscreen.

Was this some lame attempt by the writers to shock us by unexpectedly breaking the rules? If so, it didn't work.

• There were lots of gory zombie attacks this week, which is something we haven't see in a long time.

There were also a lot of wonderfully disgusting walkers as well, including this one, whose skin looks like it's about ready to slide off its body.

Last week the Kingdom soldiers encountered another odd-looking walker that looked like its skin had been partially dissolved. Did the same thing happen to this walker as well? Is there some disease causing zombies to fall apart, or maybe someone out there spraying them with acid? Or are these two saggy zombies just a coincidence?

I'm kind of wondering if these two odd-looking walkers are members of the Whisperers, the next threat that's scheduled to arrive after the Negan storyline wraps up. The Whisperers are a group of weirdos who wear suits made out of zombie skins, so they can move undetected among walker herds.

Check out the walker in the photo above. It actually looks like its wearing a mask, so who knows? Maybe this is some subtle Whisperer foreshadowing. On the other hand, in the comics the Whisperers tended to keep a low profile, so it's unlikely they'd actually attack a person. so... I dunno what to think right now.

• During the march to the Hilltop, Morgan's taunted by a greasy, long-haired Savior named Jared. You may remember him from last season, as the man who killed Benjamin, Morgan's young protege. That explains why Morgan seethes with rage every time he looks at him.

• Despite the fact that Morgan really needs to be on some serious meds right now, he's totally right about the Savior prisoners. None of the three colonies is set up to house dozens of dangerous prisoners. Especially the Hilltop. It's the tiniest of the settlements, as it's about the size of the average parking lot. Where the hell does Jesus think they're gonna stash twenty or thirty extra people?

• Speaking of Morgan, last week I noted that he seemingly abandoned his trademark bo staff before entering the enemy compound and going ballistic on the Saviors (like he was in a video game). I wondered if the scene of his setting down his staff was supposed to be symbolic, as if he was literally casting off his peaceful ways.

Looks like I was reading too much into it. This week he's still crazy, but he's got his staff back. So never mind.

• Gregory slithers his way back to the Hilltop this week, begging for Maggie to let him in. I actually groaned out loud when she finally did so! What the hell? There was no reason to let him in, other than because the script said so. And because he'll be a cheap and hackneyed source of conflict, which is the source of all drama.

• Man, King Ezekiel was really asking for it in this episode. Every time the action cut back to him, he was smiling away and bragging about how they hadn't lost a single Kingdom soldier in their attacks.

Did anyone NOT see the unfortunate ending coming from a mile away, like a Thanksgiving Day parade float?

• There was no sign of Negan or Father Gabriel again this week. I assume these first three episodes of the season are all happening simultaneously, and that Negan and Gabriel haven't been trapped inside that trailer outside the Sanctuary for nearly a month!

• Speaking of Gabriel, there's a fan theory floating around out there that he's actually a mole who's working for Negan. That actually makes a lot of sense, since he's always been kind of twitchy and suspicious. Plus there was all the nonsense last season when Jadis and the Scavengers somehow "forced" him to clean out Alexandria's pantry.

I could easily see him betraying Rick to Negan, plus it would give the character something to actually do besides sit around and whine.

• There's another theory that Baby Judith is going to be killed soon, only to be replaced by the recently introduced Baby Gracie.

There's actually some pretty strong evidence to support this theory. In last week's episode, Rick discovered Baby Gracie snoring away in a crib inside the Savior compound. Note the flop-eared stuffed rabbit standing watch above her head.

Now think back to Rick's flash-forward in the season premiere. We see what we assume is an older Baby Judith, who's holding what appears to be the exact same flop-eared, stuffed rabbit in her hand! Is the girl in the flash forward actually Gracie, and not Judith?

The only problem with this theory is we don't see the bunny when Rick hands Gracie over to Aaron, so he can take her to the Hilltop.

I suppose it's possible Judith might be doomed, since she was killed off in the comic years and years ago (at the same time as Lori). But why off and then turn right around and bring in a backup baby? Other than to artificially generate some drama for Rick, of course?

This week's episode wasn't quite as fun as last week's, but overall it wasn't a bad hour of TV (strike that— forty two minutes of TV).

Girls Night Outfinally introduces the mysterious, oft-hinted at Amunet Black, played by Katee Sackhoff (of BattleStar Galactica fame). Her performance is wonderfully hammy and a lot of fun, but for some reason the Oregon-born Sackhoff plays Amunet with a dodgy British accent that's only a step or two above Dick Van Dyke's in Mary Poppins. Why she chose to adopt that particular accent (or any at all, for that matter), I have no idea.

Ralph's back this week, meaning I guess he's now an official member of Team Flash and not just an occasional guest star. I'm growing to like Ralph more and more, as his irreverent tone and moral ambiguity is a breath of fresh air. He's definitely a better fit for the team than Julian Albert ever was (sorry, Tom Felton!).

Oddly enough Ralph's personality seems less like the Elongated Man of the comics, and more like Plastic Man (who was doing Deadpool's shtick back in the 1940s!). Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I just thought it was worth a mention.

Poor Team Flash. This week Barry and Iris have their respective pre-wedding parties, and both of them can only manage to scrape up two or three work friends. In fact neither of them really seem to know anyone outside of STAR Labs (Caitlin even points this out in the episode, as she mentions that she and Iris aren't exactly besties).

I get why this is— the cast is big enough already, and the show doesn't need a bunch of extra characters for the leads to pal around with. Still, it seems a bit sad.

Lastly, I don't think Barry used his powers once in this episode. Or did he?

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
Team Flash is in STAR Labs, trying to figure out who Barry's future foe "DeVoe" could be. Suddenly Felicity Smoak wanders in from the set of Arrow, ready to celebrate Iris' bachelorette party. Caitlin's prepping to leave town because of the whole Killer Frost thing, but Iris and Felicity talk her into partying with them.

Meanwhile at Joe's house, Cecile's showing her ultrasound pictures to her daughter Joanie, who the writers apparently remembered is a character on the show. Just then Joe, Barry, Cisco and Harry arrive. They shoo the gals away so they can start Barry's "wild" bachelor party.

Cisco plays home movies of Barry and Iris growing up together as foster siblings, which would be of interest to every psychiatrist in Central City. Suddenly Ralph Dibney barges in uninvited, declares the party a sausage fest and talks the gang into coming with him.

Iris, Felicity, Caitlin are joined by Cecile at a fancy restaurant, where they celebrate with drinks and feather boas. Suddenly Norvok, the guy who's been threatening Killer Frost since the season premiere, shows up. Once again he tells Caitlin that Amunet isn't finished with her, and to come with him. Iris thinks Norvok's a stripper, until he pulls out his glass eye and a large, disgusting tentacle then slithers out of the empty socket and grabs at the women. Caitlin uncontrollably transforms into Killer Frost and blasts Norvak through the window.

Ralph takes the guys to The Golden Booty, a sleazy strip club. Not surprisingly, he's on a first name basis with the staff. Despite the depressing nature of the club, the guys decide they might as well stay. A bouncer tells them to hand over their cell phones (so they can't take videos of the dancers, I guess?) and they toss 'em in a box. If you don't realize this will become a plot point in a few minutes, then you've never seen a TV show before.

The guys all sidle up to the bar and order drinks. Barry says he wishes he could get drunk with them, but his speedster metabolism burns off the alcohol as fast as he can drink it. Cisco tells him never fear, and presents him with a special speedster brew guaranteed to get him hammered. We then see a shot of Barry's cell phone ringing away in a box, as Iris frantically tries calling him. Told you!

The girls return to STAR Labs, and Killer Frost inexplicably comes along with them. She packs some clothes (does Caitlin live at STAR?) as she tells Iris that Caitlin was planning to leave anyway. Iris tries to stop her, but Frost threatens her until she lets her go.

At the club, a drunken Barry staggers around telling everyone he's the Flash. Fortunately the customers all laugh and dismiss this as drunken rantings. The gang sits down to watch the next dancer take the stage, and they're shocked when it turns out to be Joanie! Gasp!

Killer Frost then enters a different nightclub, which isn't at all confusing, as it looks much like the strip joint. Iris, Felicity and Cecile secretly follow her, in order to save her or something. Frost approaches a woman in a slinky black leather catsuit (of course), who we find out is the mysterious Amunet. Frost asks why she sent her snake-eyed lackey to attack her. Amunet apologizes, and says she wanted to show her something in person.

Amunet takes Killer Frost to the club's basement, where she has an alarmingly skinny guy chained up. She says the man's a metahuman named "Weeper," and kicks him hard in the gut. The bruised and battered man sheds a single tear that glows bright blue. Amunet takes the tear and says it's somehow a powerful drug. She explains she plans on selling the drug, and needs the powerful Killer Frost as a bodyguard. Frost refuses and Amunet threatens to kill her if she tries to leave. Wait, Amunet's powerful enough to take on Killer Frost, but she can't protect herself? I'm confused. Just then Iris enters and tells everyone to calm down. For some reason, Amunet doesn't instantly execute Iris for her buttinskiness, and lets her and Frost leave.

At STAR, Killer Frost explains how she got mixed up in this mess. She says Caitlin heard rumors that Amunet had technology that could cure her, so she went to work for her as hired muscle. Of course the tech didn't work, and now she's bound to Amunet. Frost says she's planning to leave Earth-1 for good (with the help of an unknown breacher) and start a new life on another world.

Iris tells Felicity and Cecile about Weeper, who's one of the twelve metas that Barry accidentally created, and says they have to save him from Amunet. Amazingly they all agree to go along with this plan.

Back at the club, Joe talks with Joanie and asks her what the hell she's doing. She feeds him a huge line of bull, saying she's not a stripper, but is simply dancing in order to research a book on the strength of women. That... that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Just then a dancer accuses Ralph of stealing $20 from her. Naturally this causes a huge row in the club, made even worse when Joe tries to calm everyone down by announcing he's a cop.

Amunet confronts Killer Frost under an overpass. She finally demonstrates her power by controlling a bucket full of metal shards, which fly up and form a gauntlet around her hand (more on that later). The two metas then engage in a brief fight, and Amunet fires a blast of shards at Frost, knocking her down. She then starts beating Frost, literally punching her out of Caitlin's body. She continues hitting the now powerless Caitlin, and just as she's about to deliver the killing blow, the cops arrive. Amunet easily kills them, but in the confusion Caitlin gets away.

Meanwhile Barry, Joe, Cisco and Ralph are cooling their heels in jail after the club fight. Joe tells Barry he's terrified of becoming a father again at his age. Barry says Joe raised him and Iris alone, and assures him he'll do just fine. Harry arrives and bails them out.

Iris finds Caitlin in STAR Labs, stitching up her surprisingly mild wounds. Iris persuades her to let them help take down Amunet. Caitlin reluctantly agrees, and says Amunet can control amnico, a specific metal alloy. Felicity scans the city and detects a large amount of the metal in an abandoned industrial park (of course). Iris, Caitlin and Felicity sneak into Amunet's hideout, while Cecile monitors them in a van.

Inside the building, Amunet presents Weeper to a group of Japanese mobsters, and demonstrates his power. The lead mobster tries the tear drug and immediately offers to buy all of it that Amunet has. Just then Iris and Felicity move in with their STAR-Labs brand blasters, telling everyone to freeze. Unfortunately two of the mobsters sneak up behind them and tell 'em to drop their weapons. D'oh!

Iris and Felicity are brought before Amunet, who says she'll have to kill them. Just then Caitlin shows up and says she'll come back to work for her if she lets the two women go. Amunet says that ship's passed, and attacks with her metal shards. Caitlin transforms back into Killer Frost, forming a protective ice dome around herself, Iris and Felicity.

As the shards begin chewing through the ice dome, Iris radios Cecile and tells her to turn on the powerful electromagnet in the ceiling of the factory. Just how and why it's possible for Cecile to be able to do this is left to our imaginations. Anyway, she turns on the magnet and Amunet's metal shards are ripped off her hand, leaving her powerless.

Killer Frost then forms a large icicle, intending to stab Amunet in the heart with it. Iris talks her down, and Amunet sneaks away in all the confusion. They free Weeper and he scampers off into the night as well.

Back at STAR, the guys and gals run into one another, and both groups lie, saying their special nights out were completely uneventful. Frost turns back into Caitlin, and Iris asks her to be maid of honor in her upcoming wedding. Joe admits to Cecile that he's scared about their baby, and she admits she is too. They feel better knowing they're scared together.

Cut to Weeper sneaking through the alleys of Central City. Suddenly he's confronted by The Thinker in his flying Barcalounger. He tells Weeper he went to a lot of trouble to create him, and isn't nearly done with him.

Thoughts:
• At the beginning of the episode, Team Flash is trying to figure out just who the mysterious "DeVoe" is. Barry asks why it's taking so long, and Cisco says, "Do you know how many people in this state are named DeVoe?" Hmm... exactly which state would that be, Cisco? They've never established just where Central City's located.

• At one point we see Caitlin booking a plane ticket from the Ferris Air website. Does that mean Green Lantern exists somewhere in the Arrowverse? C'mon guys! Stop teasing us and introduce Hal Jordan already!

• For the second week in a row, a character waltzes into STAR Labs unchallenged and points it out to Team Flash. When Felicity enters STAR Labs she tells the gang, "I literally walked in here. You have no security, you have no alarms, you have nothing on your door. You guys might wanna consider something, anything at all."

Breacher said much the same thing in last week's episode. I thought Cisco said he took care of the security situation last season? Maybe he did and Flashpoint undid it.

• Cisco plays home videos of Barry and Iris at the bachelor party. I'm betting at least some of it was actual footage of a young Grant Gustin, as the kid in the video looks a lot like him.

• We got a "This house is bitchin" joke this week. When Ralph barges uninvited into the West house, he and Cisco have the following conversation:

Cisco: "You weren't invited."
Ralph: "Wow, this house is, uh..."
Cisco: "Bitchin'?"
Ralph: "No. Small. Looks much bigger from the street."

This of course is a callback to the season premiere, in which Barry was drawing alien symbols on the walls just after he got out of the Speed Force. Still no idea what it means, but the fact that they brought it up again implies it's eventually gonna be important.

• It makes perfect sense that Ralph is The Golden Booty's #1 Customer!

• At the club, a very drunken Barry loudly announces to everyone that he's the Flash. Joe hurriedly whisks him away before he can blow his secret identity.

Why bother? At this point Barry's told his "secret" to so many people that the strip club customers probably already know who he is.

• Joe's horrified when he sees Cecile's daughter Joanie seemingly working as a stripper at The Golden Booty. When he asks her what the hell she's doing there, she tells him she's researching a book about feminism, saying, "Because we live in a society that's dictated by the male gaze. I wanna control the narrative of feminism, okay? I wanna show the world that a powerful, strong woman can wear anything, be it a bikini or a pantsuit."

So... help me out here, because I'm confused. Joanie thinks stripping for a living's demeaning to women, so she's stripping to... empower herself, or some bullsh*t like that? I officially hate this character.

• So how come Harry didn't get arrested at during the big fight at The Golden Booty? Did he sit calmly in his seat and not get involved in the fight? Or was he in the can when it started? Whatever the reason, it's a good thing he didn't get arrested too, so he could bail out the others.

It's also a good thing that no one at the CCPD recognized Harry when he sauntered in rescue the guys. Despite the fact that Harry's from Earth-2, he still looks exactly like Harrison Wells, the man who publicly announced he killed Barry's mother. The police could have easily thrown him in the slammer and charged him with murder!

Seems like it might be a good idea for him to wear a hat and dark glasses whenever he goes out in public on Earth-1.

• Amunet's bodyguard with the tentacle growing out of his eye socket is named Norvock. According to the Arrowverse wiki page, his full name is Hunk Norvock. Sure, why not?

I looked him up, and amazingly Hunk Norvock is actually from The Flash comic! He appeared in All Flash Quarterly #12, way back in 1943. Not surprisingly the comic version didn't have a gross tentacle that slithered out of his eye hole. Instead he was a crime boss killed by The Thinker.

Somebody on the writing staff's been doing their homework!

• This week's big bad is Amunet Black, who's a low-rent Magneto knockoff who can psychically control metal.

Welllll, that's not quite true. Apparently Amumet can't control just any kind of metal. Instead she can only manipulate alnico, an alloy of aluminum, nickel and cobalt (which is a real thing, by the way). Jesus, talk about a specific power!

In order to use her power, Amunet carries around a bucket full of alnico shards, which she can form into a gauntlet around her hand, or fire at an enemy. Yes, that's right, this supervillain can only use her power if she's carrying around a bucketfull of a very particular metal!

I guess it never occurred to her to, oh, I don't know, maybe form the shards into an elaborate necklace or chest plate until she needs it? But no, carrying them around in a goddamned bucket is fine too.

It kind of undermines Amunet's danger if a superhero confronts her and she says, "Don't move, guv! Gimme 'alf a mo to nip off and get me bucket!"

Amunet's actually from the comics, and was created by Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver back in The Flash: Iron Heights special back in 2001.

She calls herself "Blacksmith" in the comics, and of course has a completely different look and backstory. Although she did run "The Network," an underground black market for supervillains to buy and sell contraband items, much like she did in this episode.

The comic version's powers are completely different though. Blacksmith's body has been mutated into the perfect combination of flesh and metal, and she has the ability to fuse organic and inorganic matter together. I don't see how that's useful, but there you go.

• Jesus Christ, would someone please get Weeper a sandwich? He's practically transparent!

• Caitlin must have an incredibly hard and durable skull. Amunet forms a large METALLIC gauntlet around her hand and uses it to repeatedly punch Killer Frost in the face. She apparently knocks out Frost, who then transforms into plain old powerless Caitlin. Undeterred, Amunet continues punching her four or five more times with her metal-clad hand. Amazingly Caitlin's skull doesn't split in half, and she's only knocked unconscious.

Later in STAR Labs we do see her stitching up her arm, but her face only has a couple of superficial cuts on it.

• Amunet's hideout is in Lawrence Hills. The Flash loves to name streets and buildings after famous comic book creators, but I couldn't find any mention of anyone named Lawrence. Sometimes a cigar's just a cigar.

• Iris and Felicity sneak into Amunet's hideout and try to capture her. Note that Felicity wield's Cisco's freeze gun, which is just like the one Captain Cold stole from him. They're really getting their money's worth out of that prop lately, as Caitlin used it a couple weeks ago in Mixed Signals.

• It seems odd that Killer Frost let Amunet run off instead of freezing her feet to the ground and calling the cops. Heck, there's already a cop in their little group!

• At the end of the episode, Weeper runs through the city, but is confronted by The Thinker in his floating recliner.

It's amazing just how much The Thinker looks like Metron here. Metron's a DC character who's an ally of the New Gods, and explores the time and space in his Moebius Chair.

I'm sure this is nothing more than a coincidence, as The Thinker and Metron are about as unrelated as two characters can be, and it's also extremely unlikely that the Arrowverse would introduce the New Gods anytime soon. But it's interesting how much the two characters look alike.

• This Week's Best Lines:

Barry: "We had a heads-up that someday, someone named DeVoe would be one of my greatest foes.
Cisco:"And the other thing to think about is, do you know how many people there are in this state alone with the name DeVoe?"
Barry: "No."
Harry: "Thousands. And we still don't have an age."
Cisco:"Unless one of your greatest foes is the three-month-old William DeVoe who lives four blocks from here."
Barry: "I don't think one of my greatest enemies is a baby."
Cisco:"Evil killer baby."
Harry: "Ehh, could happen."
Barry:"You're right."

Cisco: (seeing Harry chug his brandy, which is meant to be sipped) "That was meant to be enjoyed!"
Harry:"I enjoyed it."
(I gotta admit, that line made me laugh out loud)

Harry: (seeing Ralph's photo in The Golden Booty) "Uh, Disney, you're a regular in this joint?"

Iris: "I am not just gonna abandon our teammate."
Cecile:"Fine. I'm coming with you."
Iris: "No, Cecile, you're pregnant."
Cecile: "And your father will kill me if you get killed at your own bachelorette party!"

Barry: (drunkenly whooping it up at the strip club) "Because I'm the Flash!"
Joe: "Let's get you back to the table."
(Joe sits Barry at a table. Suddenly Barry's body jerks a bit, as there's a whooshing sound)
Joe: "Barry? What did you just do?:
Barry: "I just went and got peanuts from the bar."
Joe: "You didn't even move."
Barry:"Or did I?"

Amunet: "You and I could have been gods."
Killer Frost: "I used to work with a god. Over it."

(Cecile activates the electromagnet, stripping Amunet of her metal gauntlet)
Killer Frost: (to Amunet) "Not so scary without your bling now, are ya, sister?"

Barry: (to Iris) "Hey. I saw you called seventeen times, everything okay?"
(This line made me laugh too. Sure, Barry! Everyone calls seventeen times in a row when there's no emergency!)

DATELINE: Hollywood–– This week streaming giant Netflix announced that due to numerous allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct, it was firing actor Kevin Spacey from their popular political series House Of Cards.

Filming of the series' sixth season was well underway when the allegations surfaced. Initially Netflix suspended production on the show, but later announced they severed their relationship with Spacey and planned to continue production without him.

This move will prove highly problematic for the network, as Spacey played main character Frank Underwood, the ostensible star of the series.

When asked how House Of Cards could possibly continue in light of these developments, a Netflix spokesman said they planned to replace Spacey with actor Dick Sargent, and simply never mention it or acknowledge the change in the show.

This week on Legends Of Tomorrow, Rip Hunter returns as the team ostensibly hunts a vampire in Victorian London.

Sadly, Return Of The Mack was nowhere near as fun as last week's episode. It promised us an adventure featuring elements of Jack The Ripper, Sherlock Holmes and Bram Stoker. Unfortunately it delivered on none of that. There wasn't even an actual vampire in this vampire episode!

Add to that the return of Asshole Rip, the twentieth or thirtieth resurrection of Damien Darhk and some jaw-droppingly terrible writing and you get an episode that's mediocre at best. Feh.

I really hate to see actor Victor Garber leave the show, but they seem to be making his final episodes count. This week he pulls double duty, playing both Professor Stein AND his ancestor, Sir Henry Stein! Two Steins for the price of one! Sadly his Sir Henry character had little or nothing to do with the actual plot, and seemed to be included just to give Garber something extra to do.

The past few weeks I've been a bit worried about what's going to happen to Firestorm on the show. Firestorm's unique in all of superherodom, as he's one of the only characters who's made up of two people, each of which have to learn to work together to operate him. Without that hook, he's just a run of the mill Human Torch clone.

I was hoping the show wouldn't actually remove Professor Stein without bringing in a replacement for him. Unfortunately it looks like that's exactly what's going to happen. Unless the producers have some sort of secret plan to bring in a new character, Firestorm's going to continue as Jefferson Jackson only.

This week the show introduced a new character, the psychic Madame Eleanore. According to online sources, her full name is Eleanor Darhk, and she's supposedly the daughter of supervillain Damien Darhk. There was nothing in this episode to actually indicate that, so I'm honestly not sure if it's true or not. Hopefully we'll find out one way or the other in the next few weeks.

Lastly, there's some troubling news concerning the Arrowverse. It seems that Andrew Kreisberg, who co-created Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl and Legends Of Tomorrow, is the latest Hollywood figure to be accused of sexual harassment.

Warner Bros. Television Group announced it's suspended Kreisberg until further notice. What this means for the future of the Arrowverse isn't yet clear. I doubt anything will happen to the shows, as they're currently among the most popular on The CW, but it's still troubling and disturbing.

What a wonderful world we live in.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
In 1895 London, a woman walks through the narrow streets alone at night. She sees a man following her and ducks into an alley. She screams as she sees a dead body on the ground. The man who was "following" her turns out to be Rip Hunter, in full Victorian garb. He examines the dead body, says it's been drained of blood and finds two puncture wounds on the victim's neck. Victorian Vampires!

On the Waverider, Atom helps Jackson secretly try to separate Professor Stein from Firestorm. This is patently ridiculous, but let's just roll with it or we'll be here all day. Atom tells Jackson the serum he's concocted may cause short term memory loss. Uh-oh. Prepare for forgetfulness jokes!

Zari excitedly tells the others she can't wait to take the Waverider to 2041 to prevent her brother from dying. White Canary tries to explain to her that it doesn't work like that, citing Rip's many failed attempts to save his family in Season 1, and her trying to prevent her sister Laurel's death. Zari says why have a time ship if you can't use it, and stalks off in a huff. She has a point.

Steel studies the anachronism map and says there's a report of vampires in 1895 London. The Legends head there to check it out.

Canary, Atom, Jackson, Steel and Heat Wave disguise themselves as policemen and visit the coroner's office. Heat Wave sees the vampire's victim lying on the slab, takes the stake he always carries with him (!) and rams it through its chest, to make sure the corpse doesn't come back to life. Just then the Legends hear a ringtone, and realize the coroner is wearing a 2016 Palmer Tech 7G Smart Watch (made by Atom's company).

They question the coroner, who says the watch belonged to a dead man dressed in strange clothes who "fell out of the sky" a few days ago. He examined the man, took the watch for himself and sent him on to be buried in Stones Hollow cemetery. They wipe the coroner's memory and head for the graveyard.

At the cemetery, they find a freshly dug up grave, and are shocked when Rip crawls up out of it! They're even more shocked when he says he needs their help.

Back on the ship, Stein suspects that Jackson's hiding something from him. Why Jackson doesn't just tell Stein his plan is apparently none of our business. Vixen and Zari get into an argument about something, and both their amulets being glowing. They suspect they're connected somehow (you think?).

Canary and the others ask Rip why he needs their help, and if the Time Bureau's after them again. He says they're safe, as the Time Bureau doesn't know he's secretly meeting with them. He says for the past five years he's been chasing Mallus, an ancient and super powerful evil entity. He believes Mallus is recruiting an army from all across time, in order to conquer the universe or something.

Rip says the Time Bureau doesn't approve of his crusade against Mallus, so he's going after him alone. He asks the Legends to help him. Canary agrees, but only if he calls off the Time Bureau permanently.

The Legends then use Steel as vampire bait, presumably because his power will protect him from a bite. He wanders the streets of London, daring the vampire to attack him. Suddenly he's distracted by a man who looks exactly like Professor Stein. Just then another man comes up behind Steel and injects him with a drug, knocking him out.

Steel wakes up strapped to a table in a lab. Naturally, the knockout drug has scrambled his powers, so he can't break free. He notices he's hooked up to a contraption that will drain his blood into a nearby tank, and starts freaking out.

Steel uses his Bluetooth to contact the ship, fills them in on his situation and tells them about the Stein lookalike. Gideon says the doppelganger is Sir Henry Stein, a celebrated actor and distant ancestor of Professor Stein. Steel says he doesn't know where he is, but there's a painting of a red moon in the room. Rip suspects that Sir Henry is part of a cult that plans to use Steel in a "blood moon" ritual, presumably to summon Mallus.

Rip, Canary, Heat Wave, Vixen and Zari track down Sir Henry, and attend a party hosted by him. He introduces Madame Eleanor, a woman who claims she can speak with the dead. She zeroes in on Zari, goes into a trance and starts channeling Zari's deceased brother, which understandably freaks her out. Rip and Canary sneak off to look for Steel.

Meanwhile, Steel's still strapped to that slab (I guess his powers STILL aren't working). A scientist enters and prepares to drain Steel's blood with a special two pronged syringe that leaves marks like a vampire's bite. So there really aren't any vampires in this vampire episode. Boooooooooo!!!

Back on the Waverider, Atom and Jackson get sidetracked and try to figure out where the smart watch came from. The contact Curtis from Team Arrow, to remind us that these shows are all connected. Curtis somehow determines the watch came from none other than— Damien Darhk!

Rip and Canary burst into the lab, knock out the scientist and rescue Steel. Canary opens the tank and sees Darhk's lifeless body lying inside. Apparently Steel's blood was meant to revive him. Rip theorizes that Darhk is one of Mallus' recruits. Instead of simply chopping off Darhk's head and ending his threat once and for all, for some reason Canary tells everyone to retreat to the ship.

On the Waverider, Canary says they need to keep Darhk from coming back to life (so... why didn't she destroy him when she just had the chance?). Rip disagrees, saying Mallus will be arriving during the blood moon ritual to recruit Darhk. If they kill him, they'll lose their chance to eliminate Mallus.

Stein confronts Atom and Jackson, demanding to know what they're up to. Jackson reluctantly says he's trying to break up Firestorm so Stein can go home and be with his new grandson. Quite rightly, this upsets Stein and he storms out.

Rip exits the Waverider and uses a secret code to lock down the ship and prevent anyone from leaving. He then goes to the blood moon ritual in the hopes of killing Mallus. What he doesn't know is that Zari already sneaked off the ship.

Zari meets with Madame Eleanor, and asks her to channel her dead brother again. Eleanor says she'll need something personal in order to do so (even though she didn't need anything the first time she did it). Zari stupidly hands over her Isis amulet. Right on cue, Eleanore knocks out Zari and makes off with the amulet. Sigh...

The ritual begins, and Eleanor dedicates it to Mallus. She flips a switch to pump Darhk full of blood and revive him. Just then Rip steps in to stop it. A portal opens, and several other Time Bureau agents step through as backup. Um... why exactly are they there?

Eleanor then channels Mallus himself, who sounds a lot like Walter Bishop. Mallus says it's too late to stop him, and Darhk suddenly comes back to life. Back on the Waverider, Canary discovers they can't leave the ship, but they can fly it. She orders Gideon to take them to the ritual.

The Time Bureau agents (minus Rip of course) attack Darhk, but he easily kills them all. He then grabs Rip and begins choking him. Just then the Legends arrive and save Rip. Zari gets her amulet back. Darhk and Madame Eleanor teleport away (natch).

Back on the ship, Stein makes up with Jackson, and agrees to help with the Firestorm separation. Canary tells Rip that an entire squad of Time Bureau agents died because of him and his quest. She says she can't trust him, and Agent Sharpe appears and takes Rip away for judgement. Sharpe thanks Canary for tipping her off about Rip, and in exchange says the Legends are free to do as they please.

Thoughts:
• Rip does this week's opening narration.

• This week we find out that Heat Wave has been carrying around a wooden stake his entire life, just in case he ever runs into a vampire!

• The Legends run into Sir Henry Stein, a distant relative of the Professor. Stein comments on his ancestor, saying "Family lore recalls him as being an eccentric."

The Stein clan must have some damn thorough family lore, if he knows what an ancestor from a hundred and twenty two years ago was like. I couldn't tell you what anyone in my family was like past my grandparents!

• When Steel's strapped to the gurney, he bangs the right side of his head on the table to activate the comm in his ear and call the ship for help. A bit later he bangs the left side of his head to do the same thing. Do the Legends really wear comms in both ears?

• Madame Eleanor channels Zari's brother Behrad, who accuses her of running off and letting him die.

Wait a minute— Zari's brother died in 2042. The Legends are currently in 1895. How the hell can Eleanor channel the ghost of a man who hasn't even been born yet? Can spirits travel back and forth through time? Or did Eleanor just read Zari's mind, get the basic details and pretend to be possessed by her brother?

• When Canary refuses to go along with Rip's plan, he activates a secret code called the Gentleman's Dreadnought, which causes Gideon to cover the entire ship in metal plates, locking it down and preventing the Legends from leaving.

A bit later, Canary discovers that the Gentleman's Dreadnought only prevents them from leaving the ship— it doesn't prevent them from flying it.

That seems like a pretty big design flaw in the code! It's like somehow locking someone inside a car, but forgetting they could still drive away in it!

• The whole subplot with Jackson secretly trying to separate Stein from Firestorm makes absolutely ZERO sense. We've been told since the series began (and in this episode as well!) that the two share a psychic link, and can sense what the other's thinking or feeling. So how in the name of Stan Lee's Toupee could Stein not know what Jackson's planning?

Apparently their psychic link only works when it's convenient to the plot— or the writers remember it.

• Damien Darhk's chronology is so convoluted at this point that I have no idea if it makes any sense for him to even exist in this episode or not.

• I did like Rip's little grenades that freeze the flow of time for a few seconds when detonated. The Legends need to get ahold of a box of those, stat!

• Time after time in superhero movies and TV shows we've seen a giant blue laser beam stab up into the sky in the third act. This week's episode actually gives us something different— a giant white beam shooting down from the full moon!

• Did the voice of Mallus sound familiar? It should— he was played by actor John Noble, of The Lord Of The Rings and Fringe fame!

• Poor Rip. This episode marks the second time he's been kicked off a team he formed! First the Legends, and now the Time Bureau. Harsh! It almost makes me feel sorry for him. Almost.

• The biggest question of the episode: did Heat Wave ever get to finish reading Dracula?

Loved Heat Wave's little reading glasses too.

By the way, I was fully expecting him to lose his copy of the book somewhere in 1895 London. Then in the tag scene we'd see a hand reach down, pick up the book and start leafing through it. Someone would then say, "Oi, Bram, wot's that you got there?" Bram Stoker would go on to "write"Dracula two years later in 1897.

I thought they didn't agree with his Ahab-like campaign against Mallus?

• This Week's Best Lines:

Professor Stein: "There's no such thing as vampires. Increased immigration at the fin de siecle (aka the end of the century) and the fear that good English women would lose their virtue to foreign predators is responsible for these ludicrous stories."

(I gotta say, that's a pretty interesting theory, and makes perfect sense!)

Canary: "Victorian London. Opium dens and low-cut corsets."

Steel: "Arthur Conan Doyle and the rolling fog."

Heat Wave:"Syphilis, whores, and vampires."

Jackson:"There's a strong smell of garlic."

Heat Wave: "It's tied around my neck."

Canary: "Yep, you're a regular Van Helsing."

Steel:"That's from Dracula."

Heat Wave:"I'm reading it. Don't tell me the end."

Heat Wave:"Trusting the Englishman was a damn mistake."

Rip: (over the comm system) "You know we're all on comms, don't you, Mr. Rory?"
Heat Wave:"I don't give a rat's ass."

Zari:"I can't believe we're in a time where women can't vote and the Internet's not a thing.

Savages."
(Um... isn't she from a dystopian, totalitarian police state future? And she's judging the past?)

Rip: (trying to convince the Legends to go along with his plan) "If we destroy Darhk's body, we destroy any chance of apprehending Mallus at the resurrection ceremony."

Steel: "If Sara says 'Kill Darhk' or 'Re-kill Darhk' or 'Prop him up in a convertible like Weekend at Bernie's,' that's what we do, because she's the captain."

Rip: "Look, Sara. I understand how perilous it would be for Mr. Darhk to return."

Canary:"Do you? Because I'm the only one in this room that's been resurrected, and it wasn't an improvement."

Atom: (seconds before the Waverider may be destroyed) "Aww, who wants to hold hands?" Steel: "Ray, it's not freakin'Toy Story 3!"

No sign of any vampires.
I wish this was like a Kristen Stewart type, all broody and sparkly.
Vampires don't sparkle.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=dcs-legends-of-tomorrow-2016&episode=s03e05

This week's episode of The Orville was a pretty good one, even if it was a mishmash of about ten different Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine episode.

On the plus side, the episode featured the return of guest star Rob Lowe as Darulio, who made a brief cameo in the pilot. Lowe's pretty much doing his Chris Traeger character from Parks & Recreation here, to great affect. Who could blame Kelly for having an affair with someone as just plain likable as Rob Freakin' Lowe?

On the down side, this week's episode dredged up Kelly's affair once again, which made me audibly groan. Yes, I get that her infidelity is a huge part of the series' premise, but in the past few weeks it looked like the series was finally starting to move past the incident. And suddenly it's back this week, in a HUGE way. Jesus, how many times does it have to be thrown in our faces?

Happily, it looks like this episode may have finally put the issue to rest, as Mercer gains a bit of understanding into why Kelly did what she did.

Since this was a Mercer-centric episode and dredged up the affair again, I assumed it was scripted by Seth MacFarlane, Nope! It was actually written by Elizabeth Heldens, whoever that is. She previously wrote for Friday Night Lights, Boston Public, Bionic Woman (the new one) and Mercy.

I enjoyed this episode quite a bit, even though the plot was very predictable and you could see the resolution coming down the street from a mile away. As soon as it was revealed that Darulio's pheromones were causing the crew to lust after one another, I knew they'd use them on the warring Ambassadors. Same goes for the revelation that the two warring species shared a common ancestor. Eh, at this point in time it's pretty much impossible to come out with a new idea, so it didn't bother me much.

Wow, I just realized there're only four more episodes left in the season! Can you believe it?

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
It's Karaoke Night onboard the Orville, and Kelly belts out a tune in reasonably respectable voice. Mercer's in the audience, smiling at Kelly as he remembers the good times they had. Unfortunately that's about to change, as Mercer gets a priority message from Admiral Halsey.

Halsey tells Mercer that two warring races— the Navarians and the Bruidians— are fighting over the planet Lapovius. He worries that if they go to war, they could drag the Union into the conflict. Supposedly an ancient artifact has been found on Lapovius, and the Navarians and Bruidians have agreed that whichever race's DNA is found on it will win control of the planet.

The two races have agreed to let a neutral party examine the artifact onboard the Orville. Halsey says he's sending a "forensic archaeologist" to perform the test. Halsey says the best possible outcome is for the two races to agree to share the planet.

The Orville rendezvous with the Olympia, and the mysterious archaeologist comes aboard. Unfortunately he turns out to be Darulio, the alien that Kelly slept with while she was married to Mercer. Ouch. Mercer's livid of course, but Darulio diffuses the situation by saying he there to work and this mission is bigger than all of them. Mercer reluctantly realizes he's right, and decides not to kill him. In private, Mercer and Kelly rehash the same old infidelity argument again.

Meanwhile, Alara escorts Darulio to his quarters. He accidentally steps on Yaphit, which seems to be a common occurrence on the ship. Yaphit says it's no problem, but notices a bit of his amorphous body stuck to Darulio's leg and asks for it back. He pulls the fragment off and places it back on Yaphit (Big Plot Point!).

In Sickbay, Doctor Finn examines Bortus' and Klyden's child Topa. Bortus reveals to the Doctor that parenthood is causing a strain on their relationship. I'm betting this subplot will boil up the surface before the season's done.

Yaphit enters Sickbay and once again professes his undying love for Doctor Finn. He offers her flowers, which she takes from his tentacle, briefly brushing her hand against it (Another Big Plot Point!). He then starts serenading her with a guitar and she flips out, telling him they're never going to be a thing, and if he doesn't stop she's issuing a formal complaint. A dejected Yaphit slithers out of Sickbay.

Kelly enters the lab and tells Darulio that she regrets their affair, and nothing will ever happen between them again because she's trying to rebuild a professional relationship with Mercer. Darulio listens intently, then suddenly reaches out and brushes a stray hair from Kelly's face. She instantly starts shamelessly flirting with him.
Isaac announces the Navarians and Bruidians have arrived in the shuttle bay, but Kelly's not there to meet them. Mercer goes to Kelly's very spacious quarters and finds her in bed with Darulio—again. Groan! Mercer and Kelly have another epic argument, and he quite rightly points out that her unprofessional actions could cause an interstellar war.

Mercer and Kelly enter the shuttle bay, where the Navarian and Bruidian ambassadors are about to come to blows. Mercer calms them down, telling them he's prepared luxury accommodations for both races. He then very professionally suggests they get some rest, and in the morning try to see if there's any way both sides can share Lapovius— just to say they tried. The Ambassadors are impressed with his logical and sensible manner.

Kelly talks with Alara and says she's in love with Darulio and wants to marry him (!). Alara's appalled, and doesn't quite know what to say. Meanwhile, Mercer talks with Gordon about what Kelly did. He says he's going to kick Darulio off the ship immediately.

Mercer goes to the lab and tells Darulio to pack his crap and get off the ship. Darulio says fine, but says he's discovered the alien artifact is an ancient birthing pot that contains DNA inside it. He's analyzing the data and should know which species it's from soon. Mercer looks in the microscope at the DNA, inadvertently touching the same surface Darulio did. His attitude instantly changes, and he tells Darulio he might as well stay and complete his research. He even asks him out for drinks later!

Cut to Yaphit's quarters (?), where Doctor Finn pays him a visit. She's wearing a slinky blue dress, and says she's changed his mind about him. They kiss, sort of, and Yaphit asks her if she'd like to "go for a swim."

Meanwhile, Gordon enters Mercer's quarters and finds him plucking his eyebrows in preparation for his "date" with Darulio. When Gordon asks why he's not meeting with the ambassadors, Mercer runs off to the mess hall. He's shocked to see Kelly at the table with Darulio as well. The two snipe at one another when Darulio leaves to get them drinks.

On the bridge, the ambassadors demand to speak to the Captain. Bortus does his best to diffuse the situation. Alara tells Bortus that Kelly's been acting odd lately, and Gordon says Mercer's doing the same. Just then Doctor Finn's horrible kids, Marcus and Ty, enter the bridge and say they can't find their mother anywhere. Alara goes to Sickbay to look for Finn, and finds her in her office, completely enveloped by Yaphit. Ew! Later after she's dressed, Finn tells Alara she's in love with Yaphit and they're getting married.

Bortus contacts Alara and says the ambassadors are fed up and threatening to settle the Lapovius dispute in battle. Alara goes to Darulio's lab and finds Mercer and Kelly there, still shamelessly flirting with them. She says she needs to speak to Darulio alone about a security matter, and the others leave.

Alara asks Darulio what's going on. He admits that once a year, Retepsians go into heat and release a powerful pheromone that's transferred through touch. He says he must have inadvertently affected Mercer and Kelly when he shook hands with them. He says it's a harmless reaction and will wear off in a few days. Alara points out that if the Navarians and Bruidians go to war, it'll be his fault.

Mercer and Kelly finally meet with the ambassadors. It doesn't go well. They begin arguing with one another, and the Bruidian Ambassador tells the Navarians he's calling in his battle fleet. The Narvians announce they're doing the same. Mercer says he's met the most wonderful guy, is late for a date and leaves.

Isaac examines Darulio's pheromones and says there's no known antidote. Just then the Navarian and Bruidian battle fleets arrive over Lapovius. Bortus contacts Mercer, who's in Darulio's quarters, where the two have apparently just had sex (!). Wow, that's something even Captain Kirk never did on TOS! Darulio looks out the window, sees the two fleets massing and finally realizes the seriousness of the situation. He goes to the bridge and says he may be able to help diffuse the Navarian/Bruidian conflict.

The two fleets open fire on one another, as we're treated to an impressive (for TV) space battle.

A few minutes later Alara and Darulio return to the bridge, and she opens a channel to both fleets. The Navarian and Bruidian Ambassadors then enter, walking hand in hand. They each tell their respective fleets to stand down, announce they're in love and that they're getting married. The two then embrace and kiss. Yep, exactly where we all expected the plot to go.

Sometime later, everyone's back to normal. Mercer apologizes to Kelly, who's just as embarrassed. Kelly wonders what'll happen when the pheromones wear off the Ambassadors. Right on cue, Darulio enters and announces that the DNA he found in the birthing pot was both Navarian and Bruidian, as the two apparently share a common ancestor. This means the two races will somehow have to share Lapovius. Also exactly where we all expected the plot to go.

As Darulio starts to leave, Kelly asks him if he was in heat a year ago when she cheated with him. After all, if he was, then she wasn't responsible for her actions and the affair wasn't her fault. He gives her an odd half smile and says, "Maybe."

Thoughts:
• The big question in this episode is whether or not Daruilo knows the effect his pheromones have on humans. If he wasn't aware, then the whole incident could be chalked up as an unfortunate accident. If he did indeed know how this would affect the crew, then it makes him look like a blue-skinned Harvey Weinstein.

When Alara confronts him in the third act, Darulio seems slightly surprised and says, "I must have infected Ed and Kelly when I shook hands with them."

That implies he probably didn't realized what was happening before, but definitely figured it out at that point. But instead of taking steps to prevent himself from infecting even more people, he just rolls with it, saying he doesn't understand why it's such a big deal. Even worse, he doesn't even isolate himself from the already infected Mercer and Kelly. In fact he goes right ahead and has a chemically-induced coupling with Mercer!

This colors Darulio's actions in a decidedly unpleasant light. He straight up roofied Mercer and Kelly and took full, knowing advantage of them, justifying his actions by saying he comes from a culture that believes "it's rude to turn down an offer of sex."

That changes Darulio from "Lovable Free Spirit" to "Sleazy Sexual Predator." Not really a message we need right now, in light of current out-of-control events.

And then there's Yaphit and Doctor Finn. I full believe Yaphit's infection of Finn was accidental and inadvertent. But based on the way Finn comes on to Yaphit— when she'd harshly threatened to reprimand him earlier— you'd think he'd have realized something was off somewhere, and tried a little bit harder to fight off her advances.

By the way, how about the fact that Mercer— the Captain of the ship— straight up falls in love with Darulio and has sex with him? Talk about "Where No Man Has Gone Before!" Amazingly, the episode doesn't make a big deal about it. Sure, Gordon's a bit surprised by Mercer's actions, but not judgmental Overall the crew isn't weirded out by the coupling, as it's just treated like a normal, every day situation. This is something even TNG never dared to tackle. Progress!

• One thing I enjoy about this series— the Orville crew seems to have a lot of fun together. The officers hang out together in the mess hall, they throw parties in their quarters, and this week they even have Karaoke Night. The crew members genuinely seem to like one another.

Compare that to Star Trek Discovery (what I've seen of it), where crew members actively stab each other in the back and everyone's a horrible asshole.

• Another thing I liked about this episode— for the most part, everyone did their jobs in a professional manner (until the pheromones started flying). Alara, Bortus and Isaac— who weren't affected by Darulio— acted like real starship officers and performed their duties efficiently and by the book. Even Gordon seemed uncharacteristically serious and restrained.

I was even impressed with Mercer's initial handing of the Navarians and the Bruidians, rationally asking them to consider sharing the planet, "just to say we tried."

Of course his professionalism went all to hell the minute he was affected by the pheromones, but for one brief moment there, he acted like a true captain!

• During Karaoke Night, Bortus— who just last week announced he can sing— takes the stage. He's just about to belt out his rendition of My Heart Will Go On when he's rudely interrupted by a message from Admiral Halsey.

I'm betting this will become a running joke on the show, and we'll never get to hear Bortus sing until the series finale.

• Kudos to The Orville's makeup and costume departments, as they really outdid themselves in this episode. The alien makeup in particular was incredible this week— especially the "bone-headed" (literally) Navarians, and the John Kerry-esque Bruidians!

I particularly liked this character, who I'm calling Karaoke Guy. By the way, ten points to Gryffindor to anyone who can figure out how the actor inside this particular makeup can see out of it! Surely he's not looking out all those nostril holes, right?

Back in the day on TNG, show creator Gene Roddenberry outlawed any alien makeup that hid an actor's eyes, feeling they were the most expressive part of the face. That's why virtually every alien in all the modern Trek series ended up looking like plain old humans with oddly wrinkled foreheads. Boring!

Apparently The Orville has no such restrictions, so it's really nice to finally see some truly alien crew members for a change.

Even if the Karaoke Guy did look a bit like Doctor Who's Dalek Sec.

• Rob Lowe returns as Darulio, the blue-skinned Retepsian who's a thorn in both Mercer and Kelly's sides.

Lowe made a very brief appearance as Darulio back in the pilot episode as well. His makeup looked subtly different then— I have a feeling they must have switched makeup studios after the pilot, and sculpted a new prosthetic for this episode. Whatever they did, something about his looks has changed this week.

• The Bruidian Ambassador was played by ~~2004 Presidential candidate John Kerry~~, er, I mean actor Derek Mears. You may not recognize Mears' name, but if you're a fan of horror movies you've definitely seen his face. He's been in literally hundreds of films and TV episodes, including the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies, The Hills Have Eyes remakes and the 2009 Friday The 13th remake, in which he played Jason Voorhees.

He's also no stranger to Star Trek, as he had a small part in the Enterprise episode Borderland, in which he played a green-skinned Orion guard (that's him above at the left).

• The Navarian Ambassador was played by J. Paul Boehmer, who's also a Trek alum. He guest starred on DS9, as well as playing a German SS Officer (?) on Voyager.

• Dann, the bulbous-headed alien in this episode who's obsessed with elevator music, was played by Mike Henry. He provides the voices for many animated characters in the MacFarlaneverse, including Cleveland Brown, Herbert, Bruce, and Consuela.

• Victor Garber returns this week for another brief appearance as Admiral Halsey. Appropriately, there's sort of a Titanic joke in this episode. Bortus starts to sing Celine Dion's horrible song My Heart Will Go On from James Cameron's Titanic. In the movie Garber played Thomas Andrews, the man who designed the the Titanic!

• Admiral Halsey orders the Orville to rendezvous with the Olympia and transfer the artifact and archeologist onboard. Um... if Darulio and the artifact were already onboard the Olympia, why not just stay there?

Answer: Because the action needed to take place on the Orville, so Darulio could infect Mercer and Kelly and the plot could happen.

• After Halsey signs off, the conference room viewscreen displays an image of the Space Dock orbiting Earth. It appears to be the same dock— and possibly even the same shot— of the one we saw in the pilot. Maybe it's like a screensaver, and cycles through images from past episodes?

• The Orville rendezvous with the Olympia, and Alara announces that the "Forensic Archeologist" has arrived in the shuttlebay. Kelly asks his name, and very oddly, Alara says the Olympia's sending that info shorty. Kelly then specifically orders her to send her the name on her comm as soon as it comes through.

Alara then gets the info and sees it's Darulio. Instead of simply calling Kelly and Mercer on their comms as ordered— and giving them a bit of warning before they meet him— for some reason she chooses to run out of the bridge and try to intercept them. Or course she doesn't catch up with Mercer and Kelly until AFTER they're unpleasantly surprised by Darulio.

This entire scene is about as contrived as it gets. It also doesn't make any sense. As I said, all Alara had to do was simply contact Kelly on her comm. There was no reason whatsoever to try and tell her in person. The scene was awkward, clumsy, and obviously designed solely so Darulio's presence would be a big reveal to both Mercer and the audience. C'mon, Orville writers! You can do better than that.

• At one point Darulio tells Kelly that he cut out sugar and has been eating healthier. Was that a Chris Traegar Parks & Recreation joke?

• This week we're introduced to the Olympia, another Union ship. It's a slightly smaller vessel than the Orville, with only two engine rings. This of course makes it look even more like a ladies' slingback shoe.

• Last week I mentioned that every time we've ever seen the shuttle bay, there's always just one ship visible in it. The Orville has to have more than just the one shuttle, right? I said it'd be nice if every now and then we saw a few more of them lined up against the back wall.

Ask and you shall receive, I guess. This week we actually catch a glimpse of a second shuttle in the bay! Cool! Apparently the producers are reading my blog, and updating the show accordingly!

• In the sickbay, Doctor Finn hands Baby Topa back to Bortus and Klyden and says, "And we're done with all of his shots." I'm assuming "shot" has survived as a generic medical term, as they surely don't still use hypodermic needles in the 25th Century.

• Subplot Watch: In this episode we get yet another very subtle hint that Alara's in love with Mercer. And another indication of friction between Bortus and Klyden. Expect both these B-plots to come to a head before the season finale.

• In the B-plot, Yaphit tries yet again to hook up with Doctor Finn. He says, "Look, just give me a chance, huh? I really care about you. I see how warm you are. I see what a good mother you are to those awful boys."

Haw! See? It's not just me! Even an amorphous blob thinks Finn's kids are horrible little assholes!

Speaking of Marcus and Ty, they make a brief and unexpected appearance in Cupid's Dagger. I would bet anything they filmed their short scene during Into The Fold, instead of calling them back this week just to shoot a five second sequence.

• As I was watching the episode, I couldn't figure out why Doctor Finn fell hard for Yaphit. After all, Darulio's the one with the pheromones, right? So it would make much more sense for her to be attracted to him, rather than a giant amoeba.

At first I thought maybe Darulio's pheromones were floating all over the ship and making everyone horny for everyone else. But the chemicals don't seem to affect any other races on the ship except for humans. So again, why would Finn be attracted to Yaphit?

After watching the episode a second time (yep, I watch these shows more than once in order to write a review!), I finally figured it out. Darulio accidentally walked right through Yaphit, getting a hunk of his body stuck to his pants.

Darulio then grabbed the piece of Yaphit and placed it back in his body. This caused Yaphit to absorb Darulio's pheromones, but due to his alien physique he wasn't affected by them.

Later Yaphit slithers into Sickbay and offers Doctor Finn a bouquet of flowers. When she takes them from him, she inadvertently touches his tentacle, and voila! The pheromones get transferred to her through touch, and she falls for Yaphit instead of Darulio! Subtle and convoluted, but it makes sense!

• This is some hardcore nitpicking, but whatever. Yaphit is an amorphous, blob-like lifeform with no discernible brain or organs— in fact, nothing but a crudely-formed slit of a mouth. This means his brain isn't centralized like ours is, but distributed evenly throughout his entire body. In effect, every cell of his body IS Yaphit!

When Darulio walks through Yaphit, he gets a piece of him stuck to his pants. For some reason, this piece just sits there like a large, inanimate booger. Shouldn't that piece of him be just as alive as the rest of his body? Why doesn't it crawl down Darulio's leg and jump back into Yaphit, the way the T-1000's parts flow back into him?
Told you it was hardcore!

• One last thing about Yaphit. When Finn's trying to seduce him, she spots a photo on the wall, and for some reason asks if it's of him and his mom. Why she'd that's his mom in the photo, or even HIM for that matter (since it's impossible to tell just who it is), is anyone's guess.

Anyway, Yaphit answers her by saying, "My species reproduces by mitosis. That used to be my mom, but now it's me and my brother."

So... Yaphit's mom changed sex when she split in two? That doesn't make any sense. Here on Earth, mitosis is described as the process in which a "mother" cell divides into two identical "daugther" cells. Unless things are radically different on Yaphit's world, he should be a perfect copy of his mom.

Does this mean someday Yaphit's going to reproduce and become a female?

• Jesus Christ! In this episode we see that both Mercer and Kelly have absolutely enormous two story cabins, complete with staircases (!) leading to the upper level! Man, even Captain Picard didn't even have that much personal space on the Enterprise-D! How the hell can there possibly be that much room in the ship?

I guess rank really doth have its privileges!

Heck, even Yaphit seems to have an hilariously huge cabin as well. Why the hell does a small blob need that much space?

• Once Alara figures out what's going on, she places Darulio under house arrest. Apparently that doesn't mean actually locking him in his quarters, because a bit later he shows up on the bridge!

• This Week's Incongruous 21st Century (And Earlier!) References:

The anachronisms in this episode mostly involved songs. Kelly sings Any Way You Want It by Journey during karaoke night. Bortus starts to sing Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On before he's rudely interrupted. And after Kelly's dumped, she listens to Carole King's It's Too Late Baby.

Once again, this would be like us listening to music from the 1500s!

• THIS WEEK'S STAR TREK SWIPES:
Good lord, there were so many this week!

TNG did the "Warring Delegates Meets Onboard The Enterprise" plot several times. In Lonely Among Us, the Enterprise-D hosted the Relay and the Anticans on board the ship. They also brought Antedean delegates onboard in Manhunt, the Legarans in Sarek and a whole host of ambassadors in The Price. And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head! There were probably even more of these episodes in TNG and the other various Trek shows.

TNG also did the "Alien Visitor Inadvertently Affects The Mood Of The Crew" trope many times as well. When Spock's father Sarek came onboard the ship in, er, Sarek, his space Alzheimer's psychically affected the crew and made them start fighting one another. In Violations, the visiting Ullians traumatize the crew with painful memories.

The most blatant use of this plot was in The Perfect Mate, which features a Kriosian woman named Kamala, whose powerful pheromones adversely affect the males of the crew! Sound familiar?

These plots weren't limited to TNG either. In the DS9 episode Fascination, Lwaxana Troi visited the station while suffering from Zanthi fever. This caused her to telepathically project her feelings to everyone on the station, causing them to temporarily lust after one another.

Also, The Original Series and TNG both used an alien virus (transmitted through touch) to infect the crews, make them "drunk" and start hitting on one another.

Again, there were probably more of these types of episodes in the other Trek shows, but these are the ones that immediately come to mind.

I'm not sure, but I think this episode marks the first time we've seen the elevator interiors on the Orville. Note that they feature lighted indicators to show that the elevators are traveling up, down and sideways— exactly like the ones in every Trek show ever made!

During the battle between the Navarians and the Bruidians, Isaac suggests the Orville try to extend its deflector shields between the two sides, to prevent them from destroying one another. That tactic was tried several times over on TNG.

When Doctor Finn visits Yaphit's quarters, he shows her his "bed." This turns out to be just a shallow basin he can flow into when he relaxes his form. Over on DS9, Odo, the station's shape-shifting constable, had a small bucket that he'd flow into when he needed to rest and recharge.

I'm woefully behind on my movie reviews lately, so I'm gonna do my best to catch up!

Happy Death Day was written by Scott Lobdell and directed by Christopher B. Landon.

Lobdell is primarily a comic book writer, who worked on many Marvel series such as X-Men, Generation X, Daredevil and Alpha Flight, along with Teen Titans for DC. He's written comics for various other companies as well. This appears to be his first theatrical writing credit.

Landon is a writer and director, as well as the son of TV legend Michael Landon. He previously wrote Another Day In Paradise, Blood & Chocolate, Disturbia, Paranormal Activity 2, 3 and 4 and Viral. He wrote and directed Burning Palms, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones and Scouts Guide To The Zombie Apocalypse.

I honestly wasn't expecting much from this film, but I ended up liking it quite a bit. Happy Death Day is a fun and tightly constructed film that's actually smart, which is a rarity these days at the box office. Best of all, It establishes a logical set of rules and then sticks to them. Eh, for the most part. Unfortunately the plot train flies off the track late in the third act, but if you can overlook that it's not a bad little movie.

Most critics are calling Happy Death Day a mix between Scream and Groundhog Day, and that's actually a pretty apt description. It takes the self-aware, deconstructionist attitude and murder mystery of Scream and combines it seamlessly with the time-looping shenanigans of Groundhog Day.

Director Christopher Landon even admitted in an interview that the film shamelessly copies Groundhog Day's concept and structure. Eh, I don't see that as a problem. Although Groundhog Day is undoubtedly the most popular and well known instance of the Time Loop Story, it didn't invent the concept by any means. As near as I can tell the idea's been around for decades, first appearing in the short story Doubled And Redoubled in the February, 1941 issue of Unknown magazine (it's possible there are even earlier instances of the concept).

There's nothing wrong with using an existing plotline or concept as a starting off point, as long as you bring something new to the table. Fortunately Happy Death Day does this, by grafting the slasher movie angle onto the Loop, and giving main character Tree a deadline for solving her own murder.

Oddly enough, there's very little gore to be found in Happy Death Day. In fact, for a horror film it's strangely... polite, for lack of a better word. For example, Tree's supposedly a typical Mean Girl student, but not really, as she never seems anywhere near as bad as her snooty sorority sisters. This applies to most of the other characters as well— they're all designed to be college stereotypes, but none of them ever quite seem to fit into their predetermined roles.

The film's been in Development Hell for an entire decade, as it was first announced way back in 2007, when it was inexplicably titled Half To Death. At that time Michael Bay (!) was set to produce, with Megan Fox (of course) starring. Let's all thank the Movie Gods that that awful, explosion-filled version of the movie never got made!

Many years later, the script surfaced again, and was optioned by Blumhouse Productions in 2016. Blumhouse is on fire lately, as they've put out a series of low budget, high grossing little films that have absolutely cleaned up at the box office. They're responsible for the Paranormal Activity and The Purge franchises, as well as the recent Split and Get Out.

Universal Studios really needs to take a look at Blumhouse's business model and copy it wholesale. Instead of inexplicably trying to turn their Universal Monsters characters into Marvel superheroes (I'm lookin' at you, The Mummy), they could feature them in a series of small, atmospheric and genuinely scary movies. Then they could sit back and watch the money roll in!

So far the Happy Death Day's a box office hit, grossing $88 million worldwide against its tiny $5 million budget! Impressive! You know what that means— look for Happy Death Day II: The Deathening sometime next year!

MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD, INCLUDING THE IDENTITY OF THE KILLER! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!

The Plot:
It's Monday the 18th, which just happens to be Bayfield College student "Tree" Gelbman's (oy gevalt!) birthday. She wakes up from a drunken stupor in the dorm room of fellow student Carter Davis. Her phone rings, but when she sees it's her estranged father she ignores it. She asks for some aspirin, and as she heads out the door she runs into Carter's roommate Ryan, who asks if he slept with Tree. Awkward!

As Tree walks across the campus, she sees a series of events that'll become very important later on. She passes a Goth student who leers at her, a girl who tries to get her to sign a global warming petition, a smooching couple sitting on the grass who get soaked when the sprinklers come on, a car with a blaring alarm that no one pays any attention to and a frat pledge who passes out during his hazing. She also runs into Tim, a student she dated once, who's now obsessed with her (Suspect #1!).

She returns to her dorm room, where her roommate Lori Spengler, who's a nursing student, proudly presents her with a cupcake she baked from scratch. Tree blows out the candle and dumps the cupcake in the trash, dismissively stating "it's loaded with carbs." This visibly angers Lori, who folds her arms and glares at Tree as she leaves (Suspect #2!).

Tree then meets with Professor Gregory Butler in his office. Tree's in one of his classes, and is secretly having an affair with him. Gregory's wife Stephanie unexpectedly shows up, and he nervously acts as if he and Tree were discussing classwork. Stephanie obviously doesn't buy it, and icily eyes Tree as she hurriedly leaves (Suspect #3!).

Tree then joins Danielle Bouseman and her fellow snotty sorority sisters for a meeting about the big Spring Dance. Carter walks by and accidentally spills his food on Tree. He apologizes and tries to return a bracelet she left in his dorm, but she hushes him up as she doesn't want her sisters knowing she spent the night with such a loser.

That night Tree walks alone through the dark, foreboding campus, on her way to a party. She passes a group of rowdy guys wearing "Bayfield Babies" merch. Yes, you read right, this school's mascot is a giant baby (!). As she walks under a bridge, she sees a music box sitting in the middle of the sidewalk, chiming away. She turns around to see a figure in a Bayfield Baby mask, staring ominously at her. Tree takes off running, and is chased by the Baby Killer. It catches her and stabs her to death (!). The End.

Tree then wakes up in Carter's room, thinking it was all a dream. She asks for aspirin and runs into Ryan again. Outside, she experiences the same events she saw the day before— Goth, global warming girl, soaked couple, car alarm, frat pledge. She's visibly confused by this, but passes it off as simple deja vu.

Tree enters her room, where Lori gives her another cupcake, but this time she sets it on a dresser instead of throwing it in the trash (this detail's important, as it shows us Tree can change the events of the day). She meets with her sisters at lunch and Carter dumps his food on her again.

That night Tree walks to the party once more, but this time avoids the bridge. She arrives and sees it's really a surprise party for her, organized by Danielle. Suddenly a figure in a Baby mask appears, and Tree's so flustered she punches him in the face. The figure turns out to be Nick, Danielle's boyfriend. Tree enjoys the party, and later gets a text from Danielle, accusing her of hooking up with Nick (Suspect #4).

For some reason, Tree wanders up to Nick's room. He puts on the Baby mask and tries to scare her, which doesn't work. She's REALLY scared though when the Baby Killer appears and stabs Nick. He then grabs a bong, breaks it in half and stabs Tree with a shard of glass.

Tree wakes up in Carter's room again. She runs outside and sees the same five events, and finally realizes she's stuck in some sort of time loop and is reliving the same day over and over. Lori tells her to relax and get some sleep. Tree locks the room tight and even boards up the windows (!) so the Baby Killer can't get in. It doesn't work, as he crashes into the room and stabs her anyway.

Tree wakes up in Carter's room, and this time explains the situation to him. He doesn't believe her until they go outside and she perfectly predicts the five events. They go through a list of suspects, trying to figure out who keeps killing her. For some reason, Carter believes that if Tree figures out who the killer is, she'll be free of the time loop.

Tree then lives through her birthday several more times, investigating and eliminating various suspects. She rules out Tim after finding out he's secretly gay (not sure why that would prevent him from trying to kill her, but whatever). She tails Greg's wife Stephanie, but is drowned by the Baby Killer while doing so, ruling her out. She also accuses Danielle, but the two of them begin fighting and both are killed by a bus (!).

Tree wakes up in pain and goes to the hospital, where x-rays show her numerous deaths are somehow adding up, causing internal injuries and other traumas. The doctor says by all rights she should be dead, which means her investigation now has a countdown. While in the infirmary, she goes to Gregory's office (I guess he's a doctor as well as a professor?), suspecting him of being the Baby Killer. She roots through his office, finding a Baby mask in a drawer.

Gregory returns, but before she can accuse him, he's stabbed by the actual Baby Killer. She runs through the parking lot, steals a car and flies off. She thinks she's finally escaped the curse, until she's stopped by the police. She lies and says she's drunk so she'll be thrown in a cell, safe from the Killer.

The cop cuffs her and puts her in the back of his car. Suddenly he's mowed down as the Baby Killer crashes his car into the police cruiser, causing its gas tank to leak. The Baby Killer then drops a lit candle onto the stream of leaking gas (which is a big clue!) and Tree's blown up real good.

She wakes in Carter's room, and has to convince him all over again that she's reliving the same day. She notes that she's getting weaker each time through the loop, and worries she'll die for real before finding out who the Killer is and preventing her death. Just then Tree sees a news report on the capture of notorious serial killer Joseph Tombs, who targets young coeds. She's convinced Tombs must be the Baby Killer (which of course is way too obvious).

Tree and Carter enter the hospital, determined to stop Tombs, but see he's already escaped his restraints and killed the security guard posted outside his room. Tombs grabs Carter and snaps his neck, and Tree grabs a fire axe and runs. She hides in an empty room and when Tombs enters, she attacks him. She's about to deliver the killing blow, when she realizes if she eliminates Tombs, she's sentenced Carter to permanent death. She then climbs to the top of a bell tower, tells Tombs she'll see him soon and hangs herself (!).

She wakes up in Carter's room, and enjoys her last time through the loop. She signs the petition, warns the students before they're soaked and places a pillow under the fainting frat pledge. She tells Tim she knows his secret, and to be himself. She then breaks up with Gregory and drops his class. She even eats a tray full of junk food in front of her snotty sorority sisters, going so far as to pour chocolate milk over Danielle's head.

Tree then meets her dad for lunch and attempts to reconnect with him. She says it's been hard for her to see him since her mom died, but promises to try and be a better person.

That night Tree goes to the hospital, and instead of simply warning the guard that Tombs is about to escape, she pulls a knife on him, takes his gun, and tells him to go get backup. She then enters the room, sees Tombs asleep and pulls the trigger. Unfortunately it doesn't go off, as she's apparently never heard of a safety switch. Just then Tombs leaps out of bed and slams her against the wall. There's a momentary power outage (that happens at the same time every day), which takes Tombs off guard. Tree grabs the gun and shoots him dead.

With the danger seemingly passed, Tree returns to her dorm room. Really? So I guess the authorities has no questions for her after she threatened a guard and killed a prisoner in cold blood? Apparently not. She calls Carter and invites him to her room. Carter admits that the two of them have never had sex— she simply passed out in his room and he put her to bed. She decides to remedy that, and they sleep together. She sees the birthday cupcake Lori made for her and decides to eat it (MAJOR CLUE!).

Tree then wakes up again in Carter's room, and realizes she's still in the loop. Even though she killed Tombs, somehow she still died again. She returns to her room and Lori offers her a homemade cupcake again. Suddenly Tree realizes that she never ate the cupcake in any of the other previous loops. The cupcake was poisoned, and Lori's the Baby Killer!

When Tree accuses her, Lori immediately starts monologuing and admits she's the killer. She says that as a nursing student it was easy to free Tombs and make him look like a suspect in Tree's murder. The only thing Tree can't figure out is why. Lori says it's because she was in love with Gregory, but Tree stole him from her. Really, that's it? Even Tree thinks this is a stupid and lame motive, and says so. Lori attacks her, and the two begin fighting. Tree grabs the poisoned cupcake and shoves it into Lori's mouth, then pushes her out the window for good measure. Lori falls to her death, and thankfully doesn't get back up.

Later Tree and Carter watch a news report on the incident. Carter says the whole thing reminds him of the movie Groundhog Day, but Tree says she's never heard of it. Oh, meta humor, you're hilarious!

The next day Tree wakes up in Carter's dorm room, and for a horrified second thinks she's still stuck in the loop. Carter finally tells her it's Tuesday the 19th, and they laugh and laugh.

Thoughts:

• I don't have a lot to say about this film, so this'll be short.

• So... Tree's college team is called the "Bayfield Babies." Yep, that's right, the Babies. I can't find any images of it online yet, but their school mascot looks very much like that of the Big Boy restaurant chain. Wow, I bet a large, goofy-looking baby will really strike fear in the opposing team!

• Not a nitpick, just an observation: Even though its never stated onscreen, the movie takes place in New Orleans. About halfway through the film Tree's arrested by a police officer. If you look closely, he has a Louisiana-shaped patch on the arms of his jacket.

• For some reason, everyone at Tree's birthday party is drinking out of blue plastic cups. I honestly don't think I've ever seen blue ones before, as they're almost always red.

This makes me wonder if there was some kind of product placement issue? Like the Solo company wanted too much money to use their red cups in the film? Or maybe they didn't want their product associated with a slasher movie, and the prop department had to scramble and find a different color?

• In Harold Ramis' classic film Groundhog Day, main character Phil Connors wakes up to find himself in a time loop, reliving the same day over and over and over again. When he discovers there's no way out of the loop, he goes through the Five Stages Of Grief.

Tree goes through a similar, if not quite as elaborate, scenario in Happy Death Day.

Denial
At first Phil doesn't believe the same day's repeating itself, and he has to go through the loop several times before he finally realizes what's happening.

At first Tree Gelbman doesn't believe the same day's repeating itself, and she has to go through the loop several times before he finally realizes what's happening.

Anger
After a few times through the loop, Phil angrily smashes his alarm clock that plays the same song every morning.

After a few times through the loop, Tree angrily throws her cell phone across the room when it plays the same ringtone every morning. In addition, she's mighty pissed when she finds out she has to die every day until she can figure out who killed her.

Bargaining
Phil "bargains" when he visits a psychiatrist, who he believes can somehow fix him and get him out of the loop.

Tree sort of "bargains" when she confides in Carter and asks him for help. The two then try to figure out who the Baby Killer could be.

Depression
Phil eventually lapses into a deep depression, spending all day watching TV. He also tries killing himself multiple times in an effort to escape the loop (it doesn't work).

Tree sort of falls into a depression when she learns that each of her deaths is weakening her, and she has to find her killer before it's too late.

Acceptance

Phil eventually accepts his situation, and uses the time loop to better himself as a person. Once he becomes the best person he can be, he's released from the loop.

Tree eventually accepts her situation, and goes through one last "Perfect Day," righting various wrongs, helping those around her and ultimately becoming a better person. She finally finds her killer and kills them, which releases her from the loop.

• Here's a fun question to ponder in the shower: Just how does this Time Loop work? Is Tree stuck inside some sort of tiny bubble universe in which the same day plays over and over, and then once she prevents her death she returns to the our reality? Or is the entire world stuck in the Time Loop with her? Did you and I and everyone in the world have to relive the same day over and over again just so one snooty sorority girl could learn to be a better person?

• Happy Death Day manages to add an interesting new wrinkle to the Time Loop Story. See, every time Tree's killed in a new way each time through the loop, she wakes up again the next morning with a corresponding injury. The injuries aren't life threatening at first— for example, she wakes up with a stiff neck after being choked— but they're cumulative. She realizes that each time she's killed brings her a little closer to permanent death.

This gives her investigation a time limit and a new urgency, and is a clever addition to the concept.

• Very late in the film, the movie introduces us to serial killer Joseph Tombs, who Tree believes is the one killing her. Really? A killer called Tombs? Who named this character, Charles Dickens?

• Will Tombs still manage to escape and kill the hospital guard one last time?

Lori admits she loosened Tombs' restraints so he could escape. Since he's a known serial killer, the police would automatically suspect him of killing Tree instead of Lori. But just when did Lori free Tombs?

If Tree killed Lori before she had a chance to loosen Tombs's straps, then everything's OK. Tomb's won't break free, won't kill the guard and won't escape into the night. But if Tree killed Lori after she freed him, then Tombs' is gonna kill the guard and escape one last time.

• As I said earlier, the film goes off the rails in the third act with the surprise reveal that Tree's roommate Lori is the Baby Killer. I was with the film all the way up to that point, but this particular revelation was a bit hard to accept.

Why's that? Because all through the movie we see the Baby Killer exhibiting what could only be described as superstrength. On several occasions she grabs Tree and literally tosses her across the room. Heck, she even does much the same to Danielle's boyfriend Nick as she lifts him off the ground and stabs him before tossing him away like an old shirt.

Call me an out-of-touch old dinosaur if you want, but it's a simple fact of human existence that women have less upper body strength than men. Especially a woman as thin and willowy as Lori. There's no way in hell she could have throw another human being around as easily as she did.

The only way this could have worked is if Lori— who's a medical student— raided the hospital's medical locker for steroids.

Lori's motivation is pretty dodgy as well. Once she's revealed as the Baby Killer, Tree asks her why she wants to kill her. Lori replies that she was secretly in love with Gregory, and Tree stole him away from her. Really? That's it? She becomes a goddamned slasher movie villain over a man? Jesus Christ! Puncture Tree's tires, key her car or post nude photos of her on Facebook, but don't MURDER her over a guy!

• Tree ends up shoving Lori out their dorm room window, killing her. Since Tree's not in prison at the end of the movie, I guess the police must have believed her story that her roommate was an insane murderer, and that she killed her in self defense.

• At the very end of the movie, Carter says the whole Time Loop incident reminds him of the movie Groundhog Day. Tree replies that she's never heard of the movie before.

This is called "lampshading" in the script writing biz. The idea here is that by deliberately calling attention to a plot hole or other implausibility in the script, the writer diffuses the problem, which robs his critics of their ammunition. Nice try.

Happy Death Day is a fun little slasher film that's much better than it has any right to be. It borrows elements liberally from Groundhog Day, but actually manages to put a new and interesting spin on them. It falls apart a bit late in the third act, but it's still worth a look. I give it a good solid B.

This week's The Walking Dead was the best episode of the season so far, which I admit comes close to damning it with faint praise.

Some guy focused on King Ezekiel, the outlandish ruler, eloquent and overly confident ruler of the Kingdom and its people. I like the character quite a bit, but even I have to admit he's been begging to be taken down a notch or twelve the past few weeks. His endless "And Yet I Smile" speeches and his bold assurances that the Kingdom wouldn't lose a single soldier in the upcoming war, it was inevitable that the gods would eventually slap him down. And boy, did they!

Khary Payton did an incredible job as Ezekiel, playing a man who realizes his subjects bought into his ridiculous Ren Faire act so completely they were literally willing to die for him. And just as the guilt of that realization sinks in, he's confronted with the fact that his people are STILL following him, even in death! It wasn't exactly subtle, but it was a damned cool scene.

My favorite part of the episode were the scenes between Ezekiel and his loyal subject Jerry. After his epic humbling, Ezekiel tearfully admits he's a fraud to Jerry. Of course Jerry knows Ezekiel's not an actual king, but it's a lie he needs to believe, in order to go on. It's a nice little moment between the two men.

Hopefully this tearing down of Ezekiel and his Kingdom will make him emerge as an even stronger leader later on.

There was a bit of a B-plot this week, as Carol, Rick and Daryl desperately tried to keep a shipment of weapons (including a very deadly Gatling gun) from being returned to Negan. For some insane reason, this is the first time all season that the audience has been informed of Rick's plan. The first three episodes were filled with fragmented, poorly-filmed shootouts with no apparent goal in mind. Hell, we had no idea where Rick's various groups were even located until this episode!

Think how much better the season would have played out so far if, in the premiere episode, Rick had spelled out the plan to his people, and by proxy the audience. Just think how much better it would have been if we'd known WHY the Alexandrians were attacking the Savior outpost, and why they were risking their lives to do so.

Without any such context, these battles are confusing and meaningless, and lack any urgency or tension.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
Since this is The Walking Dead, we begin with a flashback sequence. We see Ezekiel getting ready in the morning, as he literally puts on his kingly persona. Subtle!

We then see a montage of Kingdom soldiers getting ready for the upcoming battle with the Saviors, as they say goodbye to their loved ones. Ezekiel gives them all his rousing "And Yet I Smile" speech, promising them they'll defeat the Saviors and win the day with no casualties. Uh-oh. The Kingdomites all cheer their beloved "king."

Smash cut to the aftermath of the battle at the Savior outpost we saw last week, in which a Savior sniper cut down the Kingdom army with a Gatling gun (or something very much like one). Ezekiel's people sacrificed themselves to save him by piling on top of their King. After a few minutes Ezekiel craws from underneath the pile of lifeless and dismembered bodies (luckily the sniper got bored and left). He's horrified as he sees the remains of his people strewn over the field.

Suddenly the Kingdom corpses start to stir as they reanimate. Ezekiel realizes he needs to get away fast, but he's been shot in the leg and can't stand. He's forced to crawl away (the ultimate indignity for a king) as his own people start shambling toward him. He grabs weapons from nearby corpses, but unfortunately they're all empty. Just as one of the walkers is about to attack Ezekiel, it's shot in the head. A lone surviving Kingdomite named Alvaro appears, and helps Ezekiel get away.

Inside the outpost, the Saviors pack up the Gatling gun and other weapons. Carol, who somehow survived the attack, sneaks around the outpost. She crawls into the ceiling and shoots down, killing several of the Saviors. Unfortunately two survive and begin firing back at her. She runs off, and the Saviors finish loading up the guns to take back to the Sanctuary.

Meanwhile, Alvaro and Ezekiel hobble to safety. Ezekiel asks where Shiva is, but Alvaro says he hasn't seen her. Suddenly Alvaro's shot through the chest and dies, as Ezekiel topples to the ground. A creepy Savior named Gunther appears and takes Ezekiel hostage.

Gunther tells Ezekiel he's taking him to the Sanctuary to present him to Negan. He takes Ezekiel's sword and mocks him, telling him he's nothing but a con man who bamboozled his people into thinking he's an actual king. He points to the pursuing walkers and notes that Ezekiel's people are still blindly following him, even in death. Harsh!

Outside the outpost, Carol sees the Saviors loading the guns into a truck. She fires at them, but for plot reasons can't seem to hit a single one of them. The Saviors fire back, and there's another lengthy gun battle, as thousands more rounds of ammo are spent.

Gunther and Ezekiel come to a fence with a locked gate. Gunther tries to unlock it as the walkers loom closer. Ezekiel asks for his sword back so he can fight off the walkers. Gunther refuses, and then makes a decision. He was under orders to bring Ezekiel to Negan intact, but he says his head will do just fine. Just as Gunther's about to decapitate Ezekiel, he's split clean in two (!) by Jerry, Ezekiel's right hand man. Just how such a large, hulking target managed to survive the Gatling gun attack and sneak up behind Gunther is left to our imaginations.

Carol's still pinned down, so she tries a new tactic. She yells to the Saviors that she's out of ammo, and offers to tell where her people are if they let her live. One of the Saviors approaches her, and she grabs him and holds a knife to his throat, threatening to kill him. The Saviors apparently don't care, as they fire THROUGH their man at her (!). Carol dives to the ground and activates an electric gate, letting hundreds of walkers into the outpost courtyard. The Saviors forget about her as they try (and fail) to fight off the walkers.

Jerry tries to open the gate with his axe, but it breaks. With their backs against the fence, he and Ezekiel have no choice but to fight the approaching walkers.

Carol sees there're only two Saviors left in the courtyard, and says she's not letting them take the guns. Just then she looks over and notices Ezekiel and Jerry fighting for their lives against the fence, as we realize everyone's in the same place. Carol makes a decision and heads toward the fence.

She opens fire on the walkers, cutting down most, but not all of them. She then unlocks the fence and rescues Ezekiel and Jerry. Just then the two Saviors drive off with all the guns. Ezekiel's crushed, as this means his people died for nothing, and the Sanctuary will get the guns back. Just then Carol hears a motorcycle and says, "Don't be too sure."

Cut to Daryl on his bike, and Rick in a jeep as they follow the Savior truck. Never mind where they've been or how they got here, I guess. The Saviors see Daryl and fire at him, causing him to swerve and run off the road. Rick floors it and catches up to the truck. Suddenly one of the Saviors jumps in the back and fires the Gatling gun at him. Rick swerves, revealing Daryl behind him. Apparently we're not supposed to wonder how he got back on his bike so quickly and caught up. Anyhow, Daryl shoots the Gatling Savior.

Rick then pulls up next to the truck and does his best Indiana Jones impression, jumping into the passenger seat. He stabs the driver and jumps out of the truck. It swerves and flies down a steep cliff. Yay, they got the guns!

Meanwhile, Carol, Ezekiel and Jerry are still on the run from the Kingdomite walker herd. Ezekiel does the old, "I'm slowing you down, leave me behind" shtick, but they refuse to listen. The come to a deep ravine, filled with leaking barrels of toxic waste. The ravine's full of really gross walkers whose skin's been partially dissolved by the caustic sludge. Carol and the others are forced to splash through the ravine. Carol clambers up the other side, and Jerry struggles to lift Ezekiel, as the acid walkers close in. Jerry says he's sorry he failed "his Majesty."

Ezekiel breaks down and yells, "I'm not your king! I'm not your Majesty! I ain't no king. I am nothing. I'm just some guy." Houston, we have a title! Jerry of course knows this, but also realizes that the Kingdom needs its ruler now more than ever. He refuses to give up, and continues trying to lift Ezekiel up to Carol.

Just then Shiva appears, and tears into the acid zombies, sacrificing her life for Ezekiel and giving him a chance to escape. Jerry and Ezekiel finally climb out of the gully to safety. Ezekiel's devastated by the loss of his pet.

Sometime later, Ezekiel, Carol and Jerry stumble back into the Kingdom. The Kingdomites rush to them, shocked and stunned to see only three of their soldiers survived. A beaten and broken Ezekiel silently shuffles off to his chambers. He's no longer smiling.

Thoughts:
• The Walking Dead continues to be the most subtle show on TV, as the episode begins with a shot of King Ezekiel going through his morning routine and dressing for his role as leader. See? He's literally putting on his kingly persona the way one puts on a costume! Get it?

• Some day I hope to watch an episode of The Walking Dead that unfolds in real time, without any flashbacks, flash forwards or scenes edited out of order. It's becoming increasing obvious that these constant time shifts are just a ploy to distract the audience from the fact that there's no actual story. At this point it's like a lame and overused magic trick.

• I think the scariest and most disturbing part of this week's episode was this.

That's right— an onscreen credit for Pollyanna McIntosh. She's the weirdo who plays Jadis, the leader of the Gargage Pail Kids who were introduced last season. If she's still gettin' a credit, then you know what that means— she and her ridiculous clan are gonna be back on the show at some point this season. Shudder.

• As his soldiers reanimate and shamble toward him, the hobbled Ezekiel can only crawl away. He grabs a couple of discarded guns, but unfortunately they're all empty. D'oh!

Funny how in the past few weeks everyone on both sides has seemingly had infinite ammo, but then when someone REALLY needs a gun— suddenly they're all empty.

• Noooooo!!! Not, er, Red Headed Kingdom Soldier! Why, God, why? He had so much to live for! Say it ain't so!!!

I think maybe this Kingdomite's name was Daniel? Maybe? He's been popping up in the background for two seasons now, so we should definitely know his name at this point. This show's absolutely terrible when it comes to identifying characters for the audience. I shouldn't have to go to the Walking Dead wiki page to find out what the hell a character's name is.

• I dunno where they found the guy who played Gunther, but he was creepy as hell. He looked like the unholy offspring between David Koresh and Jeffery Dahmer. There was something... unwholesome and disturbing about him. He looks like someone who spends his spare time torturing small animals.

Gunther was played by actor Whitmer Thomas, who fortunately doesn't look anywhere near as unpleasant in real life.

• Gunther realizes there's no way he's going to be able to drag an intact Ezekiel all the way back to the Sanctuary, but soon realizes that's impossible. He says, "Negan was hoping to have your ass chained to the Sanctuary fence. You, the Widow, Rick. But your head on a pike will do just fine."

COMIC BOOK SPOILER AHEAD! Highlight to reveal: ——— This is likely an ominous bit of foreshadowing at King Ezekiel's fate in the comic. After the Negan storyline plays out, the three "good" colonies encounter the Whisperers, a group of bizarre weirdoes who wear walker skins so they can walk freely among zombies. The Whisperers launch a secret attack against the colonies, beheading various citizens and placing their heads on pikes as a warning to stay out of their territory. Sadly, Ezekiel's head is one of them that ends up on a spike.———

Whether this will eventually happen on the show or not remains to be seen.

• It was a truly awesome moment when Jerry appeared and cleaved Gunther in two with his mighty axe. But was it really necessary for Jerry to rage chop him a second time? Surely Gunther wasn't gonna reanimate after being bisected down the middle!

• I was very happy to see Jerry somehow survived the Gatling gun attack, as he's just a cool character. I was terrified though that they'd spared him just so they could turn around and kill him while we watched. Luckily that didn't happen. At least not this week.

• There're a lot of really obvious CGI bullet strikes when the Saviors shoot at the truck Carol hides behind.

By the way, I know next to nothing about guns, but even I've noticed that no matter what kind of weapon the characters fire, there never seems to be any recoil. Funny how that works out, eh?

• Oh, the perils of jumbling your series' timelines.

This week we see Ezekiel giving his troops his patented "And Yet I Smile" speech right before they go into battle. Fine. But then we get a flashback that takes place before this moment, in which Ezekiel and Carol are walking along, and he gives her the same exact speech.

Then last week in Monsters, Ezekiel and Carol were walking along on their way to wipe out a Savior stronghold. She asks him why he's smiling, and he gives her the speech again!

If you untangle all the scenes and put them in proper order, they go like this:

— Ezekiel and Carol are talking sometime before the Savior battle, and he gives her his "And Yet I Smile" speech.

— Ezekiel inspires his troops with the "And Yet I Smile" speech before they leave the Kingdom and go to battle.

— Ezekiel and Carol are walking to the Savior battle, and he gives her the "And Yet I Smile" speech, as if she's not heard it twice already.

The writers would have probably realized this screwup if they'd stop with the goddamned flashbacks and twisted timelines, and just show us what's happening in linear time.

• As Carol, Ezekiel and Jerry try to run from the pursuing walker herd, they struggle over a railroad track. I'd think after the events of Season 5, Carol would steer as far away from train tracks as possible!

• I guess in all the fear and confusion, no one ever thought to simply have the hulking Jerry carry Ezekiel on his back, rather than making the poor man limp along at one mile per hour.

• During the big car chase, the Saviors fire their Gatling gun at the pursuing Rick. Oddly enough, the gun does relatively little damage to his jeep— about all it does is poke a small hole in the radiator. This is surprising, since it literally tore the Savior soldiers limb from limb.

• Apparently Rick is now Indiana Jones, as he leaps from his jeep into a moving transport truck and stabs the driver. The only thing missing is the Ark Of The Covenant in the back of the truck!

• A couple weeks ago in The Damned, I pointed out that in the opening credits, the images that appear behind an actor's name usually (but not always) have something to do with their character. For example, a photo of Rick's trusty police revolver appears behind Andrew Lincoln's name, while Michonne's samurai sword appears behind Danai Gurira's.

I also noted that this season Seth Gilliam, aka Father Gabriel, had been promoted to the opening credits. For some reason, an image of a large sewer drain appears behind Gilliam's name. I said I couldn't figure out what, if anything, that had to do with the character.

Welp, I still don't know what the image has to do with him, but at least now we know where it comes from. It's the sewer drain that dumped toxic waste into the gulley and created the sludge walkers.

• Back in The Damned, the Kingdomites ran into a walker that looked like it'd been partially dissolved. Ezekiel saw it and wondered, "What befell this creature?" Well, now we know! There's a whole pocket of walkers in the gully that've been eaten away by caustic waste leaking from several barrels.

I couldn't find a really good image of them from this episode, as the camera was constantly moving across them. This is about the best I could do.

Here's a pretty good behind the scenes production photo of one of them, in all its disgusting glory. Remind you of anything?

According to Walking Dead producer/director/makeup artist Greg Nicotero, the Sludge Walkers were an homage to Emil Antonowski's gruesome fate from the original Robocop! Cool!

• R.I.P. Shiva. You will be missed.

I knew she this was gonna be Shiva's last episode as soon as Ezekiel started infodumping her backstory to Carol (which he already explained to her once last season). It's traditional on The Walkind Dead that any time a character suddenly starts telling their life story to someone, they'll end up dead before the episode's over. Shiva couldn't tell anyone her story herself, so Ezekiel did it for her.

I think this is supposed to give the character's demise some added emotion. Instead it's like a big 'ol warning buzzer, telling the audience a death's coming.

Her death didn't really come as much of a surprise. Shiva died in the comic around this time, so it was inevitable that it would happen on the show as well.

Not to mention the fact that CGI is notoriously expensive, so I'm sure the producers were more than happy to be shed of her.

Regardless of why they offed her, it probably says something about the writing on this show when the saddest death so far this season was that of a CGI tiger.

• I dunno, I'd like to think a full-grown tiger could escape from a mob of wriggling, partially-dissolved dead bodies. Seems like she could have easily torn them all to shreds and leaped out of the gully to fight another day.

Legends Of Tomorrow Season 3, Episode 2: Freakshow

The Walking Dead Season 8, Episode 1: Mercy

Hacienda Does It Again!

The Flash Season 4, Episode 3: Luck Be A Lady

It Came From The Cineplex: Blade Runner 2049

Legends Of Tomorrow Season 3, Episode 3: Zari

These Prices Won't Last Long!

The Orville Season 1, Episode 7: Majority Rule

The Walking Dead Season 8, Episode 2: The Damned

The Flash Season 4, Episode 4: Elongated Journey Into Night

Legends Of Tomorrow Season 3, Episode 4: Phone Home

Flagged Post (November 2017)

The Orville Season 1, Episode 8: Into The Fold

The Walking Dead Season 8, Episode 3: Monsters

The Flash Season 4, Episode 5: Girls Night Out

Toppling Like A House Of... Something

Legends Of Tomorrow Season 3, Episode 5: Return Of The Mack

The Orville Season 1, Episode 9: Cupid's Dagger

It Came From The Cineplex: Happy Death Day

The Walking Dead Season 8, Episode 4: Some Guy