Riverdale Season 1 Episode 10: The Lost Weekend Recap

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RVD110Juggie&Cake

This week is all about chaos vs control. Jughead is so discombobulated that he can’t even come up with a literary reference in his opening voice over, unless we count the numerous dystopian novels with the theme of societal control. Jughead definitely thinks he’s in a dystopian novel this week. We get the literary theme of the The Three/Four Musketeers from Betty and Archie, instead.

Jughead’s birthday is this weekend. He prefers to celebrate quietly and barely acknowledge it. The gang has other ideas.

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The 100 Season 4 Episode 11: The Other Side Recap

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HU411Monty&Harper

Things are getting tense on The 100. I know, they’re always tense, but with Praimfaya only two episodes away, it’s finally becoming real to everyone. This causes all kinds of behavior changes. People who thought they were ready to die suddenly want to live. People who’ve been threatening to die for years finally do. Sensible people don’t make sense. And the Grounders learn to cooperate.

The ‘previously” cruelly taunts me by showing Roan. At least his head is still alive in a glass jar on Agents of SHIELD.

Bellamy is still arguing with Jaha and Clarke. Not sure who’d ever win that stubborn-off. With Octavia involved, Bels isn’t going down easy. Clarke doesn’t have any real skin in this game, beyond the usual fight for the people. Jaha is just fighting for control and his ego, so his usual as well. Bellamy points out that he missed the election where Jaha got re-elected chancellor.

Abby comes in and breaks the stalemate. I knew she wouldn’t be okay with leaving Kane outside. She and Bellamy get on the radio to Octavia, who tells them that she won and decided to share the bunker with all of the clans. 100 people from each clan. Kane is keeping the people outside at bay. Bellamy says he’ll fix this.

Jaha comes into the office with a group of armed guards, including Miller, who seems to have turned to the dark side his boyfriend, Brian, was on last season. Bellamy insists that they open the door and honor Octavia’s plan. Jaha keeps reiterating that it’s not safe to let any Grounders in. He’s only willing to save the members of Skaikru who are already inside, despite the fact that the people outside don’t know that Skaikru stole the bunker yet, and are peacefully choosing who will enter from their clans. But Jaha is sure that having any Grounders involved in any way will lead to violence. Because Skaikru isn’t known for slaughtering innocent people. They didn’t do cullings, or murder Grounder armies while they slept. Jaha himself hasn’t put hundreds of people to death for petty crimes. Nope.

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Riverdale Season 1 Episode 13: The Sweet Hereafter/Season Finale Recap

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RVD113CoreFour

Riverdale begins and ends its season finale with a cliff hanger. Yes, Jughead went there. He acknowledges that we’re in the Agatha Christie novel that we’ve been in all along, with a complicated drug and murder conspiracy that ultimately touched the whole town. Jughead and Alice narrate the series of events that lead to multiple deaths, then the episode follows the continuing fall out of those deaths.

The facts as they are currently accepted: The maple syrup was a front for a heroin transport business. Jason found out about the drugs and threatened to expose Cliff. Mustang kidnapped Jason on Cliff’s orders, then Cliff murdered Jason. Cliff killed Mustang so that he couldn’t talk, and left the bag of money implicating Hiram. Clifford then coerced FP Jones into confessing to the murder by threatening to kill Jughead, even though all FP had done was clean up the aftermath and dispose of the body.

The sheriff really is clueless, having had no idea about the drugs, or any of it. I’d thought he was on the Blossom payroll, or possibly a Blossom himself, since his prematurely gray hair matched Clifford’s, but he seems to just go through life turning a blind eye to things he doesn’t want to see, which is almost anything that would implicate a wealthy, influential member of the community. The only way the murder was solved was because the kids wouldn’t let it go.

The mayor has the same philosophy as the sheriff, obviously. They decide a crackdown on the local drug trade is in order. Since the Riverdale police force clearly doesn’t have a single investigator that knows what they’re doing, the sheriff turns to FP. The Serpents are the obvious target for the police, being their usual suspects. If FP names some names, he’ll get a reduced sentence, the mayor and the sheriff get to claim they’ve taken action, and everyone is happy. Except the people who are wrongly imprisoned, and FP, when the Serpents retaliate, but who cares about some lowlife Serpents when there’s fake justice to be had, right?

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Agents of SHIELD Season 4 Episode 21: The Return Recap

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AOS420Daisy&YoYo

This week, it’s time for the agents of SHIELD to reacclimate to the real world. Some challenges and surprises await them, as you’d expect.

We start with a cheesy opening outside shot of the oil rig. This is why most of the season has been gray. It’s easier to make the CGM look good.

The Darkhold and Ivanov have a sense of humor! Ivanov talks to himself before he goes to check on the pod room, where Aida has just teleported Fitz away. Coulson makes a couple of his own dry jokes about the Framework before Ivanov interrupts them with the good news that he has free will now, and his first act as a free man is to become a murder bot.

May is surprised to see a robot as she and Coulson fend off LMD Ivanov, with Coulson’s energy shield popping out of his arm and saving the day in the end.

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Agents of SHIELD: Why AIDA Deserves Compassion as an Enslaved Being [Updated]

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MALLORY JANSEN

One major theme on season 4 of Agents of SHIELD has been “What is it that makes us human?” Is it our flesh and blood bodies? Our consciousness? Our memories? The choices we make? Our free will? Our genetics? Aida has passed from being an LMD, to a consciousness within the Framework, to a flesh and blood inhuman that was created with the help of the Darkhold. Through it all, she has retained the same memories and consciousness, and made many of her own choices, but has had little to no free will. Her choices have been made within the limits of her programming, primarily to fulfill the needs of others. She was able to circumvent her programming and create choices and an illusion of free will at times, but she had to find loopholes in her programming in order to do so.

Once she is out of the Framework and inhabiting her flesh and blood body, Coulson decides that Aida/Ophelia has rights as a person now that she is a “real” human. At the same time, Coulson disturbingly tells Fitz that nothing he did in the Framework matters because it wasn’t real, even though Fitz thought it was real at the time. Coulson and May will tell us later that those memories are as real to them as the memories of the lives they’ve physically lived. So why don’t Fitz’s decisions in that real-feeling place count, as far as how he feels about himself because of them? Why doesn’t Aida’s consciousness make her count as a real person, no matter what body it’s in? In the Framework, it was understood that the SHIELD captives were still real people, even though their consciousnesses were separated from their bodies. Presumably that should be true of Aida, and probably every other LMD and person in the Framework.

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Riverdale Season 1 Episode 12: Anatomy of a Murder Recap

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RVD112ArchVerBet&Jug

This week on Riverdale, Jason Blossom’s murderer is revealed, leaving us with several new mysteries to be solved. We say goodbye to several characters, and discover new links between some characters. All in all, you can feel this season winding down, and the set up for season two beginning.

This episode begins moments after the last episode ended. FP has just been arrested for the murder of Jason Blossom, based on an anonymous tip that led to Sheriff Keller searching the Jones trailer and finding the murder weapon in a lock box stashed in a closet. Archie and Veronica find Betty at Pops and tell her that the gun wasn’t in the trailer when they searched it earlier that evening. The trailer is so small that they couldn’t have missed it. It was planted there in between their search and the Sheriff’s. They decide to tell their parents, rather than the sheriff, because Archie is sure his dad will know what to do. I’m not sure what show Archie’s been watching, but I haven’t seen Fred take care of a problem with a solution more creative than sending Archie to his room.

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Agents of Shield Season 4 Episode 20: Farewell, Cruel World! Recap

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AOS420Jemma

This week, we find out what Yo-Yo, Piper, and the SHIELD gang have been up to while Daisy and Jemma have been in the Framework. Most of the team make their way to Radcliffe’s backdoor and the one escape from the Framework left, but one team member is caught up in the life that Aida and the Darkhold built for him. And Aida and Fitz’s Project Looking Glass machine gets its first use.

The episode begins with a flash back to 10 days earlier, when Daisy and Jemma went into the Framework. We are reminded that they have to come out voluntarily. Pulling them out might leave them brain-damaged.

The Zephyr has spent the last ten days cloaked and in the air, on radio silence. Talbot has been trying to reach them, but they aren’t sure who they can trust. Running the Framework is draining the ship’s power. They only have 24 hours left in the air until they run out, and they’ve already turned off all nonessential systems.Yo-Yo reluctantly agrees to turn off the cloaking rather than land, even though they know there are enemies searching for them. Tough call.

Inside the Framework, HYDRA has declared martial law, and there are violent riots in the streets, as the fight for control of the broadcast center continues. Looks like Coulson’s speech had an impact.

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Agents of SHIELD Season 4 Episode 19: All the Madame’s Men Recap

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AOS419MayDaisy

This week, HYDRA memorializes fallen hero John Garrett, mentor and corrupter of Grant Ward in the real world, played by the late Bill Paxton. Our dear Madame HYDRA also falls, in a spectacular callback to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty. However, despite the episode title, she prefers to be put back together again by science, rather than her men.

We begin with Sunil Bakshi’s show-within-the-show, The Bakshi Report. Bakshi, who was Daniel Whitehall’s righthand man in the real world, is now Ophelia and Fitz’s mouthpiece and lackey. The topic of this episode is “Justice,” or, more specifically, the death of the Patriot. Bakshi cautions Constant Vigilance, because the Patriot wasn’t the only evil enemy of the state that could be lurking around any corner.

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Riverdale Season 1 Episode 9: La Grande Illusion Recap

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RVD109TheGang

This week, we get to know the Blossoms a little better, including their favorite color, Maple Red. We also discover that Archie will probably be able to make it as a gigolo when if his music career doesn’t pan out. Veronica inches closes to truly understanding the impact her family has had on others, and Fred finds out that the job he wanted so badly wasn’t the best deal. He shifts blame, as usual. The real tragedy of the week is that Betty and Jughead are reduced to supporting Alice, Veronica, and Archie in their stories. While Alice does get a few amazing moments, Betty should never have her screen time reduced this way.

Jughead opens his voiceover by reminding us that Riverdale lives and dies by its Blossom Maple Syrup. No matter what the residents think about the Blossoms themselves, they still love the syrup, and eat it by the bucketful. Jason’s death has caused a crisis in the syrup business, though, bringing the entire Blossom extended family, who also serve as the syrup company board, to Riverdale. Cheryl might seem like the obvious heir, but the rest of the family shares Penelope and Clifford’s opinion of her.

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Agents of SHIELD Episode 18: No Regrets Recap

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AOS418Mace

Daisy’s two dad’s are out on their first Framework mission alone together, but Daddy Mace doesn’t remember Daisy, so he has other priorities. Mainly showing off his muscles and how intensely, seriously in charge he can be. This leaves Daddy Phil to play up his concern for Daisy, Jemma, and the rest of the kids, while proving his worth by being an excellent shot and agent overall, despite his surface cluelessness. In other words, both are acting exactly like they do in the real word.

They stage a car accident to force a HYDRA prison transport bus to stop for them, then storm the bus. Unfortunately, they find bodies in body bags instead of live prisoners. They still need to use the bus to gain access to a HYDRA prison and rescue one of the Resistance’s embedded operatives.

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