Tag: review

Agents of SHIELD Season 7 Episode 8: Why Use Avatar The Last Airbender as the Theme for an 80s Episode?

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

NATALIA CORDOVA-BUCKLEY, MING-NA WEN

Episode 8 Recap

Throughout S7, Agents of SHIELD has used film and TV themes and tropes from the eras it’s visited in each episode to help tell the story. In S7Ep8, After, Before, which took place in 1983, the show broke from this tradition and explicitly referenced two 21st century shows- Avatar the Last Airbender (2005) and its sequel series The Legend of Korra (2012), both from Nickelodeon.

I found this confusing, since both series were influenced by the Japanese animation style of anime and by Eastern cultures, but they are made by two white, American men, so they are actually neither anime nor Asian. It didn’t make sense to include them in this episode as 80s or Eastern shows. When I write it out like that in a single sentence and you’ve already seen the episode, I imagine the connection becomes obvious, but it took awhile for me to remember those facts about the Avatar series and make the connection.

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Agents of SHIELD Season 7 Episode 8: After, Before Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 2 Comments

MING-NA WEN, NATALIA CORDOVA-BUCKLEY

In season 7, episode 8 we find out what the rest of the team were doing while Mack and Deke were stuck in the early 80s. Jemma and Enoch attempt to fix the time drive, but realize it requires a quick fix, as in, the skills of a speedster. Now that we need them to save the team, it’s time to get serious about solving the issue with Elena’s powers.

Her powers didn’t matter to the team when the loss only affected her. It’s every man for himself in S7. There’s so little trust that even a crew of fewer than 10, who are fighting for their lives, are forming factions.

Daisy suggests they visit her mom, Jiaying, at Afterlife for a consultation on inhuman genetics and powers, so May and Elena fly there in the quinjet. Jiaying hasn’t yet been tortured by Dr Whitehall, met Daisy’s Dad, Cal, or given birth to Daisy yet, so we meet a younger, more compassionate version of the character. Spending a little quiet time at Afterlife is as illuminating and refreshing for May and Elena as it was for Daisy and Raina. The two agents also run into some new and old acquaintances.

Wait- can I put in a request for a visit from pre-terrigenesis Raina before the season ends? We should be getting to her storylines soon.

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Agents of SHIELD Season 7 Episode 7: The Totally Excellent Adventures of Mack and the D Recap

~ Metacrone

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Agents of SHIELD’s lucky double 7s episode is just what it says on the tin: Deke and Mack’s excellent and not so excellent adventures while stranded in the 1980s after the Zephyr’s time drive goes on the fritz. They get stranded when Mack needs some alone time after the untimely deaths of both of his parents in 1976 at the hands of the Chronicoms. Introvert Mack takes the rest of 1982 and much of 1983 as much needed “me time” to process everything that’s happened to him, probably going back to when he joined SHIELD in S2. Maybe even back to the death of his infant daughter, Hope.

Extroverted Deke makes himself at home in the Lighthouse- wait, that is his home. Poor guy, he can never get away from it. At least he always knows where he can live, rent free, in every era. Always landing on his feet is Deke’s talent, so he gets to work exercising it by creating a cover band that’s also his spy team, with the band as their cover identity. Get it?

He also keeps an eye on Mack, whether Mack wants him to or not.

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Dark Season 3 Episode 2: The Survivors

~ Metacrone ~ 13 Comments

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After the Harry Potter costume party of getting to know Martha/Eva’s world in S3EP1, in episode 2 it’s finally time to visit Adam’s post-apocalypse world, which is a form of the world without Winden that Hannah and Ulrich have dreamed of for decades. Ironically, Hannah and Ulrich both flaked out on the apocalypse and have retired separately in the Winden of previous decades. Katharina followed Ulrich.

Peter and Elizabeth serve as our point of view characters for the aftermath of the shockwave as they search for Charlotte and Franziska. Charlotte has jumped forward 33 years and is now in the barren future with Adult Elizabeth. The version of Young Alt Martha who transported Jonas to her world, then left him behind, is with Stranger, Bartosz, Franziska and Magnus in 1888.

We spend much of this episode in 1987, where things have changed in the last 3 months.

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Snowpiercer Season 1 Episode 8: These Are His Revolutions Recap

~ Metacrone

Snowpiercer S1Ep8 LJ & Javi

Revolution comes to Snowpiercer in episode 8, along with the truth about Mr Wilford’s fate. Melanie is taken into custody by the jackboots and everyone finally has to choose their side. Miss Audrey finds a fabulous outfit for the occasion and LJ fires the first shot before things take their bloody turn.

Recap

Ruth has the voiceover this week. At first it appears we’re viewing a commercial for her posh Bed & Breakfast from the Old World, but before long the ways she’s been changed by life on the train sneak in. This is the Ruth whose Hospitality protocols include freezing off the arms of children in retaliation for their attempts to make a better life for themselves, not the Ruth who takes in strangers from the storm and gives them personal attention even though they don’t have a reservation.

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Snowpiercer Season 1 Episode 7: The Universe Is Indifferent Recap

~ Metacrone

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Episode 7, aptly titled The Universe Is Indifferent, brings us not just the fridging of Josie, but the actual freezing, at the hands of her fellow white woman, Melanie Cavill. Though she dies so that others can live and emote, Josie goes out calling for justice and a sense of morality based on what’s right and wrong, rather than moral relativism based on convenience.

This might have the most self-aware fridging in TV history, given the way Snowpiercer narrowly avoided the Bury Your Gays trope. Josie could have saved herself by giving up the name of Bess Till, a lesbian character, probably dooming Bess to death instead, but she refused to betray another woman the way Zarah betrayed her. (Zarah is pregnant and her unborn child was threatened, so that’s a different issue.)

Josie hasn’t been one of my favorite characters, but she went out fighting for the greater good even beyond the needs of the train, proving she was the conscience of the Tail all along. I respect that. Before she died, she passed the role of Train Conscience on to Bess. Let’s hope Bess can rise to the occasion. And stay alive.

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Reprisal Season 1 Episode 9: “dammit” Recap

~ Metacrone

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In episode 9 the characters brush off their failures and recreate themselves, weaving new legends that fit the past and future as they prefer to see it. Meredith wakes up in Katherine’s motel room, but her loyalty is still to Burt, so first she tries his latest version of events on for size, in trade for Katherine’s location. Katherine has other plans for the evening, since it’s her and Bash’s anniversary. They remember the past and take care of unfinished business.

Burt chooses to believe Avron’s version of the duffel bag story, which implicates Matty. This is probably because he perceives Matty as a Joel loyalist, having been gone for the last 2 years of Matty’s Burt worship. This is not a wise decision on Burt’s part, especially combined with the easily dismissed lies he tells to Meredith.

The old man is slipping. Or self-destructing. Either way, the romances are over in this episode.

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Snowpiercer Season 1 Episode 6: Trouble Comes Sideways Recap

~ Metacrone

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In episode 6, Melanie saves the train from derailment and a workers’ strike, Andre tries and fails to assassinate Melanie, and the train has a party. It’s another busy day in the life of Mr Wilford and the Train Detective, odd couple of the apocalypse.

However, the train is bleeding and none of Melanie’s fixes address the underlying causes.

Recap

Snowpiercer S1E6 Oz Finishes Shaving

Oz gets the voiceover this week. It’s the morning after Till knocked him out so she could help Josie save Layton. He seems not only recovered, but feeling good after his ordeal in the Drawers and wherever he disappeared to while she was gone.

Oz is in his tiny, industrial gray cabin, shaving with a straight razor.

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Reprisal Season 1 Episode 8: The Horse Cabbage Heart Recap

~ Metacrone

Reprisal S1Ep8 Queenie Confronts Burt & Joel

In episode 8 of Reprisal, the characters deal with the aftermath of Katherine’s attack on the Bang-A-Rang and other recent events. Joel tries to go backsies on Konstantinov’s death, but Jukes points out that if there’s anything you can’t take back, it’s a relatively unprovoked murder. Avron discovers that the Monster Ring had an inside man among the Brawlers, but Bru doesn’t want to believe him, since no one likes him anyway. Ethan, the inside man, knows Avron’s right and alerts Katherine.

This is the episode of hitting bottom. Between Burt and Katherine’s messes, most of the characters feel angry, betrayed, helpless and confused, even Katherine herself. They’ve all made mistakes and are letting their emotions get in the way of good judgement, compounding the mistakes. This episode is spent gathering information while also ignoring the obvious. Or mentally escaping and then forming the beginnings of their next terrible plans.

We also learn more about Katherine and Witt’s pasts. Katherine is the queen of personal reinvention that allows one to stay the same deep down and Witt is the king of lying to oneself in order to ignore painful truths forever. Both skill sets allow them to protect their true selves when Burt and the Brawlers try to break them.

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Snowpiercer Season 1 Episode 5: Justice Never Boarded Recap

~ Metacrone

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In episode 5 of Snowpiercer, LJ goes to trial for her part in the murders of Sean and Nikki, Josie goes uptrain to search for Andre and Miss Audrey takes action to ensure that Melanie will get Nikki the justice she deserves. The Folgers pressure Melanie to go easy on LJ. Bess moves in with Jinju and gets a 2nd class chip implant to go with her bourgeois 2nd class privileges.

It’s a tough episode for Melanie, but she manages to find some stress relief.

Recap

We begin with Andre, who is sealed up tight in a drawer. He normally looks so robust, despite 7 years in the Tail, but now he has a grayish cast to his skin. The version of kronole used as a suppression drug is so poisonous that it gives the entire body a death pall, while turning the insides jet black, which can be seen externally by viewing the gums.

As Nikki claimed, it’s not like sleep. He’s having a combination of flashbacks and dreams. He’s back in the Tail, reliving memories of subduing the cannibal cult. That story was real, and largely happened the way he told it, if these dreams reflect reality. But he killed the cult leaders alone, at the insistence of the rest of the Tail, using a shiv they’d created, instead of the story about group solidarity overcoming an evil villain that Andre told in the Drawers.

The Tail leaders did all share in eating the heart, including Josie, Pike, Last Australian, Z-Wreck, Strong Boy, Big John and Lights.

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