Riverdale Season 1 Episode 10: The Lost Weekend Recap

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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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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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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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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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Riverdale Season 1 Episode 12: Anatomy of a Murder Recap

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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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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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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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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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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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The 100 Season 4 Episode 10: Die All, Die Merrily Recap

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Welcome to the first and last annual Hundred Games! The winner will be whoever is the last warrior standing at the end of the fight to the death. No cheating, unless you really, really want to, and are a named character. Alliances are allowed, but discouraged, because, as usual, Grounders don’t really understand the meaning of the words cooperation, apocalypse, or last chance for survival. Even Roan, normally one of the most sensible characters on TV, has lost his mind on this one.

This is Octavia’s episode, on screen anyway. We’ll talk about the off screen machinations happening throughout the episode later. Bellamy finds her waiting to be called out to accept her place as champion for Skaikru and they have a moment. Then Clarke gives her a bit of reassurance before sending her out to the public platform. Gaia is acting as Master of Ceremonies. Stanley Tucci didn’t loan her his blue wig, but overall, Gaia’s always enjoyable to look at, so we’ll let it slide.

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