Legion Season 1 Episode 1: Chapter 1 Recap

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Now that it’s back on HULU, let’s talk about Legion! THIS show is the Twin Peaks of the current era, if anything is, a groundbreaking, mindbending thrill ride that’s artistic and unpredictable, but full of heart, and characters you’ll care about. It substitutes Dan Stevens, who’s quickly becoming a sought after star, for Kyle MacLachlan, as the lovable pseudo-everyman in a topsy-turvy world.

As with Twin Peaks, viewers seem to either love this show or hate it. Going in with an open mind and letting go of the need for linear, mundane storytelling is crucial. We spend time in a mental institution this season, trying to determine what’s reality and what isn’t, for some very good reasons. Unlike Twins Peaks, the writers of this show actually know where they’re taking us, so don’t worry, just strap in and enjoy the ride!

Chapter 1 begins with a montage of the infancy and childhood of David Haller, otherwise known as Legion. It’s set to The Who’s Happy Jack. By the time he’s a teenager, David is drinking, doing drugs, and involved with petty crimes, in addition to the auditory and visual hallucinations he’s dealt with for his entire life. And he occasionally moves things with his mind.

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Marvel’s Runaways Season 1 Episode 5: Kingdom Recap

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This week on Runaways the characters reached some major turning points. The kids all banded together for the first time to fight off a common enemy. The Pride accomplished the goal they’d been working toward for 15 years, and revived Dr Doom. We found out more about Geoffrey, Catherine, Victor, and Tina, giving us more insight into their characters, and possibly the future timeline of the show. And we might have met Karolina’s real father.

The cold open shows us a flashback to a prison in LA, eighteen years ago. Geoffrey and Darius are incarcerated together. Geoffrey has a visitor. They assume it’s his lawyer, but it’s a man named Jonah. He makes a $5 million offer to buy a run down strip mall that Geoffrey owns in Compton, one of the worst parts of LA.

Catherine has arrived during the conversation, and she helps Geoffrey work out a deal to sell, but retain partnership rights with Jonah to manage the property, since it’s in a poverty-stricken black neighborhood. Geoffrey just has to find a way out of prison in the next month. He talks Darius into confessing to the murder that Geoffrey committed, in exchange for Geoffrey promising to take care of Darius and his family for life. Darius will do a minimum of ten extra years in prison for Geoffrey’s crime.

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Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 2: Orientation Part 2 Recap

 

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The second episode of this two parter slips in much more information than Part 1, and brings up even more questions, chief among them, WHERE IS FITZ??? One postcard in two episodes is not enough. While the world could always use another Nazi zombie movie, especially when JJ Abrams is involved, Fitz is sorely needed in the future, rather than the past. Shouldn’t Steve and Bucky be taking on the World War 2 era Nazi zombies, anyway?

Alas, the rest of the team is left to cope with the news that the monolith flung them 90+ years into the future, where the earth has been blasted into a debris field and a piece of shell, without the one member who might be able to work the problem. On second thought, maybe those sneaky showrunners sent him off to do a movie for a reason. As Jemma says, she’s not the kind of scientist who can whip up some time travel at a moment’s notice. But Fitz just might be able to do it, after working with Aida and Radcliffe. They needed to leave Fitz behind to slow the plot down a bit.

Part 2 picks up immediately after the end of Part 1. Jemma and May try to wrap their brains around what they’re seeing through the trawler’s windows: about a third of the earth’s surface remains, with atmosphere on top, some crust, and glowing red under the eggshell shaped curve of its underside. The rest of the earth has become the debris field we’ve been watching since the tag at the end of last season.

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Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 1: Orientation Part 1 Recap

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Agents of SHIELD is back! In space! The one thing they haven’t done yet, TM Mack. With the Kree, the most vicious Blue Man Group impersonators known to this, or any other galaxy. And without Fitz. 😭 Jemma and I are nearly inconsolable, but it’s not our first rodeo time in space, so we will soldier on and use the scientific method to make the worst decisions possible, damn it.

But first, let’s rewind to discover how the team got into space. We follow a bald, middle-aged man going through his morning routine at his home, including going for a swim, drinking one of the peanut butter flavored nutritional shakes that are the sole contents of his fridge, and peeling off his human skin suit so that he can take a shower in his alien nakedness.

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The Gifted Season 1 Episode 9: outfoX Recap

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This week, The Gifted continues to explore its central theme of family. The main theme of this season is the question of protection: How far is too far when it comes to protecting family? How much pain and suffering is it okay to cause others in your quest to save or avenge your own? How far can you go before you become the monster?

But there is also the question of who counts as family, and the necessity of making hard choices. Will you be able to live with yourself if you don’t go far enough to help someone, save someone, or catch someone? How do you find balance?

One of the best things about this show is that we’ve been given both sides of the conflict all along, and with extreme and reasonable characters on both sides. Jace’s need for revenge is very understandable, but now, after this episode, he’s faced with destroying a family that he knows, and a father who loves his children the way Jace loved Grace.

Except Andy and Lauren won’t die the quick, clean death that Grace did. They’ll be tortured and exploited for as long as Campbell wants to use them, then murdered, with their bodies left to rot somewhere.

You could see it in Jace’s face at the end of the episode, when he realized who he’d caught. He’d finally reached the point where he had to ask himself, “How far is too far?”

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Marvel’s Runaways Season 1 Episode 4: Fifteen Recap

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The Runaways get serious about their investigation of their parents this week, while their parents get serious about fixing the mistakes made the night of the ritual. By the end of the episode, we’ve gotten a pretty clear idea about the morality and criminal competency level of many of the parents, though a couple remain elusive. The kids start the episode with differing opinions about their parents, but by the end, their investigation brings them into alignment.

The cold open shows us the Minoru family discovering Amy’s body after her suicide. Nico finds Amy dead in bed before school. She looks blue, but that could be a lighting effect. Nico reacts normally, screaming for her parents, crying, calling 911. Tina and Robert react calmly, almost as if they expected this. They seal the house rather than calling for help. Tina uses a jolt from her staff to knock Nico unconscious so that she can’t call 911, then locks Nico in her room. When Nico wakes up, she uses the house cameras to spy on her mother, who is busy paying off a local police detective.

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Marvel’s Runaways Season 1 Episode 3: Destiny Recap

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This episode is the third part of the three part introduction to the series. We’re done with the night of the Pride ritual, and it’s time to cope with the morning after.

The episode begins with a flashback to ten years ago, when everyone attended the funeral of Molly’s parents, who died in a house fire. The entire Pride, and their children, are there. Little four year old Molly sits alone in a tiny wheel chair with a pink cast on her right leg. She’s next to the Yorkes, who look devastated. The entire Pride has the grace to display varying levels of sadness, except for Tina, who looks like the funeral is making her miss another board meeting. The distaste and impatience on her face are palpable.

After the funeral, everyone gathers together for food and memories. Tina conspicuously pulls her sleeve down to cover the thick bandages on her right hand and arm. Geoffrey confronts Robert about Pride members potentially murdering each other, but Robert insists it was a cooking accident. He implies that he didn’t see the cooking accident, saying he’d know if she’d done something to the Hernandez.

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Marvel’s Runaways Season 1 Episode 2: Rewind Recap

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In episode 2 of the Runaways, aptly titled Rewind, we spend most of the episode within the same time frame covered by episode 1, Reunion. This time around, we spend more time with the parents, who are full of secrets. Every family is keeping more secrets from their kids, and each other, than just the true nature of the PRIDE.

The episode opens on the moment when Molly takes her photo of the Pride ritual. The kids and parents all try not to panic. Tina suggests that the flash may have been light from the staff bouncing off the sound barrier she created.

The kids run upstairs and try to escape, but the secret passageway door has automatically closed and locked. Molly uses her new super strength to force it open. None of the other kids realize what she did.

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A Brief History of Romantic StuckyNat Part 5: Captain America: Civil War from Berlin to Wakanda

This is the fifth and final part in my five part series about romantic StuckyNat, the story of Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, and Natasha Romanoff falling in love with and wanting to be with each other. This part picks up in the middle of Captain America: Civil War, as Zemo is evaluating Bucky in his cell. It ends with the end of the movie. I’ve worked hard to keep the series canon compliant, so there’s no speculation about anything beyond the tags at the end of the film. ( I’d be happy to speculate in another post, just ask in the comments!)

Bucky couldn’t believe his ears as he heard the things this psychiatrist was saying to him. He’d known something was wrong even before the fake doctor had pulled out the red book and started reading his code words. Bucky panicked and started pounding his way out of the cell, as he felt himself disappearing inside his own mind again. He was left to watch helplessly as he hurt the two people he loved most in the world, again, nearly killed Howard’s son, and dozens of others. This nightmare would never be over. Even buried deep inside himself, barely aware, he was devastated. It didn’t matter how long he ran, or hid, or tried to avoid anything or anyone that could control him. He’d always be found and used. It was a relief when Steve finally knocked him out. He wanted to stay that way forever.
When he woke up, Bucky wasn’t sure where he was, only that his arm was restrained in an awkward position and he wasn’t back in a cell. Once again, he didn’t even try to get free. If the red book was back in play, it was better for everyone if he was contained. Steve looked like he didn’t know who Bucky was any more. Like Bucky had already used up all of his chances to prove that he was still Steve’s Bucky. Bucky himself wasn’t sure if he was Steve’s Bucky anymore.
Then they started talking. Bucky realized that the combination of Steve and Natasha’s presence, and that last cognitive recalibration, had restored a flood of memories he hadn’t had access to before. There was no time to sift through them all now, but he felt a rush of warmth at how much more familiar Steve felt to him. He’d known all along that he loved Steve, but he hadn’t had all of the memories to help him realize why, or to read Steve’s body language. Now much of that had come back to him, and it was like finally coming home. Even though he also realized that Steve didn’t quite love him back in the same way, Bucky still knew he’d lay down his life for Steve all over again.

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A Brief History of Romantic StuckyNat Part 4: Captain America: Civil War from Lagos to Berlin

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Part One   Part Two   Part Three   Part Five

This is the fourth part of a five part series on romantic StuckyNat. It tells the story of the MCU versions of Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, and Natasha Romanoff from the point of view of all three characters as if they were in love with each other. This part covers the beginning of Captain America: Civil War, from the mission in Lagos, Nigeria to Bucky’s arrival and imprisonment in Berlin, Germany. Part five will cover the rest of the movie. The series is canon-compliant.


Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff had worked with their new recruits, Sam Wilson and Wanda Maximoff, intensively for the last year. They’d become a cohesive team. Wanda and Sam had earned the right to call themselves Avengers. With the rest of the Avengers busy with other projects or semiretired, the four of them had begun going out on missions together.

They’d been tracking Brock Rumlow for a few months when they became aware of the Lagos op. Steve and his team gathered what intel they could, then continued surveillance at the probable site. Once Rumlow’s vehicles had been spotted, the team pursued and intercepted the terrorists Rumlow was working with. Everyone remembered and used their training, working together and taking down an organized attack force. But then Rumlow caught Steve off guard, and manipulated him into overlooking a goddamn bomb strapped to Rumlow’s chest. Steve might not ever forgive himself for putting Wanda in the position of having to clean up after him. A position she wasn’t ready for yet, and which had terrible consequences.

The Lagos mission wasn’t a complete disaster, though the rest of the world acted like it was. Steve tried to remind himself of how much of the mission went right, before Rumlow played him so easily by invoking Bucky’s name. They’d worked well as a team, they’d stopped the theft of a bioweapon, and the new maneuvers that combined each person’s unique talents went off without a hitch. If only he hadn’t allowed himself to become distracted at the thought of new information about Bucky, grasping at any possibility, after so long without leads. Now Wanda, and all of the casualties in Lagos, were paying the price for his mistake. As a soldier Steve knew that mistakes were going to happen, you just had to keep going, and try to do the best you could with the situation. It was so much harder to cope with failure as an Avenger in the 21st century than it had been in his time. Now there were cameras everywhere and 24 hour news waiting to pounce and place blame. Somehow the Avengers never really got to tell their side of the story.

 Wanda had become like a daughter to him. They had so much in common, with them both being science experiments who had lost their soulmates, homes and families. Training her was a joy that finally brought some of the meaning back to his life that had been missing since Bucky fell. He was damned if he was going to let one accident, something that happened during the course of saving countless lives, be used as an excuse to put her under government control. She was a person first. It was time the world stopped thinking of human beings as weapons. That was no better than thinking of them as property. Wanda, Steve, Bucky, Thor, Bruce, and all of the other enhanced individuals belonged to themselves, not to any government. Bucky had already spent 70 years as property. Enough was enough.
That was his real problem with the Accords. He didn’t like that a government agency was taking control over their activities again, either, but they could negotiate on that. It was Ross’ attitude toward the enhanced, and the way he slanted and twisted his arguments to hide his real motivations, that made up Steve’s mind.
He saw how the sides were falling. The regular humans, and Tony’s creation Vision, on the side of government control. Steve and Wanda, the two enhanced, and Steve’s close, loyal friend Sam on the side of freedom. He was sad to see Natasha side with Tony. Steve understood and agreed with some of her reasoning, but he couldn’t risk what he knew the accords meant for people like himself, Bucky, and Wanda. He’d seen the concentration camps in Germany, and the Japanese internment camps in his own country. He’d seen what had been done to Bucky. Steve just couldn’t allow the potential for that type of abuse of power to become legal again. People’s fear of someone more powerful than them was not a just reason for imprisoning or owning others.
Then Steve got the call that Peggy had died, and every other thought left his head. He knew this was coming, but still, he was devastated. God, he missed Bucky so much. He was desperate to have Bucky by his side to say goodbye to Peg. She was almost his last link to the past. Bucky was the only other person he knew who would remember her, if Bucky even did remember her.
For the 3rd time in his life, he cried until there was nothing left in him. He cried for Peggy, for Bucky, for the future together they’d all lost. Peggy had told him, after he’d woken up in the 21st century to find attitudes about sex and sexualities very different from what he remembered, that she’d always known that he was in love with Bucky, too, and that Bucky was in love with him. She said she knew Steve loved her, and realized that he was probably bisexual. Peggy confessed to being bisexual as well, and having been in love with a woman before she settled down and married her husband. Steve was relieved to hear that Peggy was so accepting of the truth about him and Bucky, and grateful she was willing to share the truth about herself. Then she dropped the biggest bomb of all. Peggy told Steve that she hadn’t wanted to take him away from Bucky. Instead, she had a solution that might have worked for all of them. She and Steve could’ve gotten married, and Bucky could’ve been a 3rd person in their relationship, living with them equally, but appearing to be a roommate who’d never married as far as the rest of the world knew. She hadn’t said anything during the war because it didn’t seem like their relationship was at that point yet. She was waiting for the end of the war, when they could all actually get serious.
This, of course, floored Steve, since he hadn’t even realized he was in love with Bucky at that time. He had no idea how he would have reacted to the idea at first, or what would have happened in the long run, but it sounded like absolute heaven to him now. He was keeping it in the back of his head, should more miracles occur. Maybe he would get Bucky back, and wouldn’t lose Natasha in the argument over the Accords. Having a relationship with both Bucky and Nat would be his dream, if they were both open to it. He didn’t know how he’d even begin to bring it up, but he’d worry about that after those miracles occurred.

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