Tag: recaps

Marvel’s Runaways Season 1 Episode 5: Kingdom Recap

~ Metacrone

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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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Riverdale Season 2 Episode 8: Chapter Twenty-One- House of the Devil Recap

~ Metacrone

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On the roller coaster ride that is Riverdale, this episode is the lowest the show has ever taken us. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is echoing his old boss Ryan Murphy, and his old show Glee, with epic levels of character and plot inconsistencies, misogyny, sheer contrivances, and using audience manipulation in place of actual storytelling.

The Berlantiverse is known for many of those things as well. Just take a look at any character that the writers decide is mainly a love interest, whether it’s Mon El on Supergirl, Caitlin or Iris on The Flash, or Felicity on Arrow. Betty and Cheryl seem to be meeting the same fate on Riverdale, as their characters erode from the complex women that they were in season one into inconsistent caricatures.

This episode, Veronica and Archie continued their sexathon relationship the way it had always been, complete with sex montage. After a particularly romantic tryst in front of her parents’ fireplace, Archie, overcome with endorphins, told Veronica that he loved her. She conspicuously didn’t reply, so they did the discomfort dance and decided that Archie should leave.

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

~ Metacrone

 

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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

~ Metacrone

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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

~ Metacrone

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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

~ Metacrone

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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

~ Metacrone

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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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Riverdale Season 2 Episode 7: Chapter Twenty- Tales from the Darkside Recap

~ Metacrone

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This week, Riverdale takes its episode title seriously, as it becomes an anthology show. The 3 subplots are split into separate stories, rather than intercut throughout the episode. We also have some fun with crime show references and the usual season 2 fright fest. Every episode is a Halloween episode this season.

We open with a 50-60s style true crime monologue and scrolling text, in black and white, complete with faux aging effects. Detective Joe Friday and his badge would be proud.

The Black Hood has left a note attached to the door of Pop’s with his latest set of disappointments and demands. Aren’t these things usually attached to churches or government buildings? Why is the Black Hood so obsessed with Pop’s? Plus, he’s seriously starting to remind me of the Church Lady. He makes so many more threats and insults than he actually goes through with, and he’s so worried about everyone else’s good behavior while he’s breaking commandments. He’s a slow burn serial killer.

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Marvel’s Runaways Season 1 Episode 1: Reunion Recap

~ Metacrone

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My review of the first three episodes is HERE.

Episode 1 of Marvel’s Runaways is the first of the three episodes that HULU released together to kick off the series. The three episodes work best if watched together and viewed as an extended pilot. That makes Reunion part one, in which we focus on the titular kids.

The episode opens on a bus bringing a young woman to Los Angeles. A boy is reading a copy of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. Things are about to get weird underground.

The woman is a runaway with no place to go. She spends the night wandering around town. At one point she phones home, but doesn’t speak. Her mother calls her Destiny. A baby is crying in the background.

After she hangs up the phone, Destiny is accosted by two men who speak Spanish to her. They’re trying to get her to go with them and pushing her along, but they aren’t touching her sexually. Only one line is translated: We’re trying to save you.

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Riverdale Season 2 Episode 6: Chapter Nineteen- Death Proof Recap

~ Metacrone

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After two lackluster episodes, Riverdale brings us a glorious entry with Chapter Nineteen: Death Proof. In this episode, Riverdale: The Show remembers what it’s about, and lets the girls get on with saving the town, with help from Jughead and Archie. Even FP gets a chance to pitch in, proving once again that he’s the most practical parent in Riverdale.

The episode begins the morning after Jughead’s initiation into the Serpents. He sits on his couch and types while we hear his voice over about how everyone wears a mask in Riverdale, but occasionally the mask slips. When that happens, people scramble to replace it. Toni appears to ask Jughead if he wants breakfast, having spent the night in the trailer.

Betty runs to the Fives Seasons Hotel to check on Nick St Claire, since she gave his name to the Black Hood. She finds him alive and well, if bitter about the inconvenience of having his rape attempt interrupted. Sheriff Keller arrives in Nick’s hotel room moments after Betty. Cheryl has filed a complaint. The sheriff needs to bring Nick and his parents in for questioning.

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