Tag: recap

The 100 Season 4 Episode 7: Gimme Shelter Recap

~ Metacrone

HU407Murphy&Emori

The Black Rain is finally here, and nobody’s really ready for it. But, it’s okay. If you have the right kind of protection, it barely affects you, mainly regular or recurring status on the show. The island gang is grappling with their own issues, and Emori realizes that it’s about time for a shocking death amongst the minor characters. She takes steps to make sure that this week an extra is chosen instead. This makes Harper very worried that she’ll be chosen soon. We also have another therapy session between Kane and Bellamy disguised as a dangerous, hopeless rescue attempt. Fun times, kids.

Octavia and Helios are riding through the forest after last week’s near miss with executing Lincoln Ilian. She knows Ilian is following her, because he’s a homeless puppy now who’s going to imprint on the last person who was nice to him. Octavia stops, grabs Ilian, and puts a knife to his throat. Ilian has the balls to tell her she won’t survive in the forest without him. Is that the best pick up line he’s got? He must think she accidentally wandered off the side of that cliff. He moves on to more sensibly offering to help her in exchange for her having spared his life.

We’re spared more of his awkward flirting by the arrival of the Black Rain. Octavia grabs Ilian up onto Helios with her, and they head for the nearest cave.

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Legends of Tomorrow Season 2 Episode 15: Fellowship of the Spear Recap

~ Metacrone

LOT215Len&Damien

Captain Cold is back for his husband partner! Not the evolved, heroic version of Lenny that Barry Allen inspired, but still, he’s flesh and blood, in the here and now, and there don’t seem to be any time consequences after him, so I’ll take it. Let’s not talk about the version that sacrificed himself any more, I’m getting verklempt.

We start the episode in a battlefield in the middle of World War 1, because even though we have a time machine, we can’t go a few weeks forward or backward and complete the mission when the battle isn’t being fought. Where would the fun be in that? The characters all note how dire the situation is, so that we will worry about them for the entire episode. Remember Hawkman and Leonard Snart died last season, so ANYONE COULD DIE.*

Let’s jump back 72 hours. The Legends examine the fragments of the Spear in their possession. They have to find the Legion of Doom’s evil lair to collect the last fragment from them. Rip knows that they’ve been camping out at the Vanishing Point, so off we go. Len sacrificed himself there exactly a season ago, in S1 Ep15, Destiny.

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Iron Fist Season 1 Episode 4: Eight Diagram Dragon Palm Recap

~ Metacrone

IF104DannyWardJoy

Danny hasn’t fallen to the sidewalk in an Iron Fisted splat, so the series can go on. He catches onto a light pole as he’s falling from the window of the penthouse bunker, then falls again, after declaring that he needs to get himself to the surface of all things in K’un Lun. He lands on a ledge and is knocked out.

No clue how he survives the fall. Let’s go with mysticism and a tie in with Dr Strange, because that’s where this show fits in the MCU. Danny is clearly Stephen Strange’s younger, naive cousin, ready to hang out with Tom Holland’s Spiderman, the Guardians of the Galaxy, or the Agents of SHIELD. If ABC cancels AoS after season 4, new episodes could move to Netflix and fit right in with this show.

Back to the show we’re supposed to be recapping.

Danny wakes up in the penthouse bunker, the opening credits having conveniently disguised how he got there. He’s on Harold’s couch, and looks at the view of Harold’s arched window that Harold looked at in episode 2 with Kyle to the side. Danny is alone in the frame, and in the light, whereas Harold was in the dark. Ward walks in behind Danny and stands just to his side. Danny is already protected, has already received sacred instructions and is a believer. Finding Harold again brings him back to the family he was missing, but Ward crossing behind him is a reminder that everything is not as it seems.

Danny and Ward sort out the fairness of Ward pushing Danny off the building but then bringing him upstairs, because they will never stop bickering like brothers. Harold makes his grand entrance, telling them to get over it, like he probably did a thousand times when they were kids. Danny freaks and jumps to stand next to Ward, because even a crappy big brother might still protect you from a ghost.

Ward watches Danny closely, surprisingly protective of his abusive father. Danny and Harold bond over coming back from the dead, with Danny taking a moment to remember how ridiculous it is for him to argue with someone else about this. But then he succumbs to his emotions, and accepts Harold as his new father. Harold tells Danny that he’s home now and they hug.

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Iron Fist Season 1 Episode 3 Rolling Thunder Cannon Punch Recap

~ Metacrone

 

IF103Colleen

I am, as usual, the champion of the show no one else likes*. I love that Ward Meachum and his henchman keep turning up at Colleen’s dojo trying to intimidate her, and she humiliates them over and over again. She can take care of herself, and she will keep showing them that as many d*mn times as it takes. It’s pretty cool that these first few episodes have given us as much or more of Colleen as an amazing, revered fighter than they have of Danny. She’s the hometown girl with a stake in the neighborhood and a reputation. I want more Iron Fist fight scenes, too, but I’ll never complain about the female fighter being given equal time and skill. Especially when she doesn’t need to have a man come in and save her at the end of the fight, which is what generally happens.

Speaking of which, we start episode three with Ward’s go to henchmen breaking into the dojo, for Colleen’s own protection, of course. They don’t even bother to be quiet about it. Hope Colleen broke a few bones with her practice sword, to make up for the broken lock. She tells the goons she wants nothing to do with them or anything Rand.

Danny was clinging to the ceiling, because he can double as Spiderman when necessary. He promises not to cause any more trouble. Colleen says that the 3rd tenet of the Bushido code is mercy, but even that has its limits. He needs to be gone in the morning.

Ward makes his way through his father’s gorgeous building up to the penthouse bunker. He can’t find his father when he arrives, but then notices that Harold is laying in a glass case. Is he Snow White? Ultron? Hard to say. It looks like one of the cases Dr Cho and Tony Stark used in Ultron, so let’s go with healing as the guess for why he’s in there. He might have sold his soul to the devil though.

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Legends of Tomorrow Season 2 Episode 14: Moonshot Recap

~ Metacrone

LOT215Sara&Rip

This week, we go to the moon with Ray and the Reverse Flash! We lose another member of the Justice Society of America. And Rip figures out what the rest of us have known for a long time: Sara Lance is a much better captain than he is. I spent most of season 1 yelling at Sara and Snart to stage a mutiny. Also, a duet by Victor Garber and Dominic Purcell, which is the kind of thing that makes this show must see TV.

We start with original Rip dropping Henry Heywood/Commander Steel off in Manhattan in 1965, where he will be responsible for protecting the last piece of the Spear of Destiny. Moments later, new Rip, Nate, Amaya and Sara arrive to find them and retrieve the Spear fragment. We all know it won’t be that simple, though, or there won’t be an episode.

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The OA Season 1 Episode 8: Invisible Self Recap

~ Metacrone

TOA108Alone

This episode brings us to the end of season 1 and the end of the story of Prairie’s captivity. It’s full of endings, and possibly beginnings. We’re left with an ambiguous ending to the episode, after everything Prairie has told us has been questioned, reminding us that her mental health has been in question since Nancy and Abel adopted her. It’s left up to the viewer to decide how much to believe is real, and how much is fantasy, delusion or coincidence.

This episode picks up exactly where episode six left off, with Sheriff Markham walking in on Hap engrossed in listening to the rings of Saturn, while sitting in front of the captive monitors. Hap immediately confesses, but offers to use the captives to heal the Sheriff’s wife, Evelyn, who is dying from ALS. The sheriff appears unmoved as he cuffs Hap, and protests that he doesn’t make deals. Hap quotes his late mentor, Leon, saying that they both know there is no good or evil, only what a man can stand. Sheriff Markham says nothing as he drives Hap away in his patrol car without checking on the hostages. The next scene shows him carrying Evelyn to the car. He’s given in.

The captives get excited when the sheriff brings Hap downstairs at gunpoint, but only Homer and Prairie are taken out of their cages, then forced upstairs. Hap leads them to a bedroom, where he shows them Evelyn lying twisted on the bed, and tells them that he is going to lock them in the bedroom until they heal her. He and the sheriff will be watching through the monitor. He leaves Prairie and Homer alone with Evelyn.

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The OA Season 1 Episode 7: Empire of Light Recap

~ Metacrone

TOA107Prairie&Boys

This is a difficult episode. Buck’s front door slamming shut was indeed a bad omen. We spend the episode entirely in the present day, as those characters are faced with increasing emotional challenges. Prairie starts moving back out into the world and confronting people’s image of her as a victim. She’s forced to face the pain she’s caused her adoptive parents, and the trauma they caused her as a child. Her story starts to come full circle.

Abel and Nancy are woken up in the middle of the night by Prairie screaming and crying. He goes in to check on her and finds that she’s had one of her premonitory nightmares. He sits with her as she recovers. Prairie asks Abel if he’s mad at her for running away. She tells him that she thought he’d understand her note, and that she’d be back in a few days. He looks surprised, then tells her that he forgot about the note.

Prairie tells Elias, her therapist, about her dreams. He asks where the latest dream took place. She describes a place with high ceilings, lots of glass, and metal clanking, like silverware. He suggests that the dreams may be her mind putting together small clues from her environment rather than true premonitions. The dreams occur at important junctures in her life. This could mean that another juncture is coming.

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The OA Season 1 Episode 6: Forking Paths Recap

~ Metacrone

TOA106Hap

Hap is spiraling out of control, as the captives’ bond grows. He’s forgotten the original premise of his experiments, and become obsessed with Khatoun’s movements. He’s as driven to find the last movements as the captives, and to understand what the movements lead to. His obsession leads him to start making mistakes.

Buck is trying to sneak out to the regular meeting at the empty house, but his parents are still downstairs. He practices the movements until he can slip out unnoticed. On his bike ride to the house, he sees flares lighting the remains of a crash on the side of the road. The others wait for him before they start, even though he’s a little late.

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The OA Season 1 Episode 5: Paradise Recap

~ Metacrone

TOA105Homer&Hap

What is Paradise? It’s subjective, in the end. Growing up in one of the snowiest cities in the country, with a depressed, Rust Belt economy, paradise always sounded like a warm tropical island to me. But warm tropical islands have depressed economies and natural disasters of their own, making the people who live there want to find a different sort of paradise just as much. This episode looks at the expectations we have for escape, for each other, for paradise, for whatever we think should be perfect in our lives.

Hap is in a bar in Cuba to listen to a woman who plays flamenco guitar. After the performance, he approaches her on the patio. They chat, and he steers the conversation toward his study. She is an NDE survivor, and only took up the guitar after her experience. Hap makes her his usual offer, and includes helping her escape from Cuba. But she’s not as young or desperate as his other subjects. She rejects him, even though she wants to get off the island. He looks shocked, like it’s the first time this has ever happened. She dances away with a much younger man.

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Riverdale Season 1 Chapter Seven: A Lonely Place Recap

~ Metacrone

RVD107Pols&BetsinAttic

This week we are in a Wes Craven movie, among other things. I really wanted Jughead’s new home to mean that he’s Harry Potter, but Wes Craven has a movie called The People Under the Stairs, so that interpretation has to win out. For now. Not giving up completely on the idea of the Blossoms as the anti-Weasleys.

Jughead starts his voiceover musing on what makes a place feel like home. Warmth, familiarity, love, safety, acceptance, an idealized version of the American Dream? While he’s speaking, we see him sitting in a “typical” mid 20th century American kitchen with the Coopers, Jason Blossom, and Veronica. Jughead looks disturbed every time he notices something new in the scenario. Everyone else is blissfully happy. The room looks like something out of a Wes Anderson movie. Hal hands Jughead the utensils to carve the turkey that’s on the table. Jughead looks over to see his dad alone in a dark, messy living room watching TV. The knife disappears and Archie comes over to ask why Jughead stabbed him in the back. Sure enough, that’s where the knife is.

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