When news broke that Matthew Vaughn was stepping back as director of X-Men: Days of Future Past, fans were a little surprised. The much-anticipated sequel to X-Men: First Class gained a ton of hype as soon as the title was announced, and Vaughn was expected to direct, off of a screenplay he worked on. With the announcement that he was off the project, but still on board as producer most thoughts turned to Bryan Singer taking over as director.
If last week showed us nothing else, it established that the people behind Arrow have zero issue with cliff hangers. Boy, what a cliffhanger it was. Granted it wasn’t anything like “who shot JR?” but for a third episode of a first season? It was pretty solid.
Thankfully they started off this week right where they left off and we see Diggle wake up with an awesome “wtf just happened here?” look on his face. WTF indeed John. I really did like how instead of hearing Oliver’s speech and immediately jumping up asking “golly gee willikers Oliver, what hijinks will we find ourselves in next?!?” he just rolls his eyes and asks when Oliver took archer classes. Way to go John, I approve of your reaction.
I also approve of this:
It’s a mosaic of Oliver’s face made up of pictures of scenes from the episode. Pretty cool. Click here for their site, they have quite a few of them.
You tell him Oliver!
Back to it! If Yao Fei continues to do things like the classic “you don’t understand me but maybe if I say it louder and with more force that might help”, I will be forced to love him forever. The look on his face the last time he said whatever word it was, made me laugh like a madwoman. Then to find out he speaks English! Ah, that was just perfect.
This episode didn’t have a bad guy from the DC Universe but rather someone from “the book”. This week’s selection is named Jason Brodeur and he is a CEO who is the least prepared for anything bad to happen that I’ve ever seen. Seriously, if you own a big company, especially one that deals in chemicals, wouldn’t you have an “I’m dumping toxic waste and now that waste is hitting the fan” contingency plan? One that doesn’t involve killing the whistle-blower and blaming it on the husband? He also seemed as if he was completely caught off guard when Arrow came after him. Hmmm…. for three weeks now (in our world at least, I don’t know that they’ve given us a timeline on the Arrow world) there’s been a vigilante hunting down corrupt and evil business men and you are surprised he showed up for you? Come on now.
Speaking of people who aren’t prepared for the consequences to their own actions, Oliver, you need to work on your secret superhero-ness. Mainly the secret part. Have you not watched Batman ever? The Batcave is hidden for a reason. That reason is hello! you don’t want anyone to know you are Arrow! Keep hiding your shit in the stairwell where there are cameras and you aren’t going to remain a secret for long. Or worse yet, you could get your ass arrested. I’m so disappointed in you. You may have learned to speak Russian and “Chinese” and how to use a bow and arrow but apparently Yao Fei failed in passing along “Superhero 101”.
I do however, have to commend the use of the voice changer. Very heads-up play. We all know that the voice would have given it away big time. It’s not like she COULDN’T SEE YOUR FACE FROM TEN FEET AWAY! I was unaware of the fact that apparently Laurel suffers from night blindness. Either that or that smeared on mask is doing an incredible job. There are a lot of things I’m willing to go fourth wall on but come on, this was a bit ridiculous.
Last week my ire was all for Thea, this week it’s Laurel. In addition to the aforementioned inability to recognize her former fiance when he’s standing right next to her, she had quite a few moments where I just couldn’t do anything but shake my head. On one hand, it’s cute that she went to the house to check on Oliver after the shooting but come on, you guys aren’t together anymore so why don’t we go ahead and skip the sanctimonious speeches. I understand it was needed to show the difference in her reaction to Oliver vs. Arrow but still, blech. Then you would think a cop’s kid would be a little bit more wary of an apartment that has no power. You would also think that maybe she wouldn’t keep her gun in an unlocked drawer! Gun safety, gun safety!!
Last I checked, Laurel is a lawyer in the legal aid office. I’m not up to date on my “what lawyers do what” but I daresay there aren’t many that go from suing a big time business owner to a class action suit against the manufacturer of smoke alarms to death penalty cases. Laurel better become the Black Canary soon because she’s getting on my nerves. At least we didn’t have to deal with “good” Merlyn this week.
Best parts of the episode? Three names; Walter, Felicity, and Digg.
Oh, Walter you smart, smart man. I knew the minute you mentioned that 2.6 million that something was fishy with Moira and so did you. Now you just need to figure out what the deal with that shipwreck is. Why would Moira keep that a secret? Same reason she had Oliver beat up, obviously, but now there are more layers that need to be investigated. Oooohhh, the intrigue! Not to mention, why did she call it Tempest? Is this incredibly handsome “Well Dressed Man” perhaps the Tempest/aka Garth? But if that’s the case then Garth would have gone bad, and what if Moira and the beautiful man aren’t necessarily bad guys? What if they are just misunderstood? All I know is, I can’t wait to find out.
If I were running the show I’d dump Thea and Laurel and just have the show be all Felicity, all the time. She is just so freaking adorable! I mean seriously, she has one scene in the entire episode and she just steals it outright. However, when she first showed up all I could think was “how on earth did this chick from IT just waltz into the CEO’s office without the slightest of problems?”, but thankfully she mentioned Walter calling her up to his office. Whew, that would have bothered me for awhile. I tend to worry about really important things like that.
No surprise, best parts of the episode belong to John Diggle. First he basically told Oliver to shove his head up his ass because there was no way he was going to be a criminal. Then he quit! Of course that was inevitable but it did allow some comic relief with his replacement. Dude was a bit of an idiot, but at least he had a “firm grip”. When he returned to Big Belly Burgers the “did Deadshot kill John’s brother?” question was answered. Apparently he did, which is good to know. This of course was the push John needed to go ahead and join Oliver. I do wonder though, is he Alfred? He did say he wasn’t a sidekick so is he someone they just added to the Green Arrow world or is he loosely based on someone else? There is no way he can be Speedy. I mean he can, but I won’t be happy about it. Lord knows the writers want to keep me happy!
If John’s sister-in-law had an issue with him doing personal security I can only imagine how less than thrilled she’s going to be with “superhero’s sidekick but not a sidekick sidekick” job he’s got now. I wonder if it comes with dental.
Minus the Laurel annoyances, I really loved this episode. I think it’s a little ballsy how fast they are moving the plot along but I like it. They could have drug out the “Ollie ditches his bodyguard everyday” schtick for at least a couple more episodes but at least this way we’ll get to see more of Diggle than just his reaction to being given the slip.
There wasn’t a whole lot of references to the DC Universe in this episode. Well there might have been but I only caught a few. If you follow the Flash then you know about Iron Heights Penitentiary. Apparently the criminals housed there are so dumb they can’t figure out that if you walk in a single file or even in pairs everyone will fit through the door. They looked like a bunch of doofuses piled up in the doorway. Then of course there was the “10:15 to Bludhaven”. Everyone knows about Bludhaven. It does beg the question, if Bludhaven is just a train ride away then maybe Nightwing will be coming to Starling City? Oh yes please!
I’m fairly certain it has nothing to do with DC Universe but I did catch one of the names on the list. None other than Charles Davenport. Hmmm, yes that is a man that perhaps the Arrow should pay a visit. Yikes.
Episode 5/”Damaged” airs on November 7th.
*I’m aware that I promised a shirtless Oliver Queen picture each week but sadly there just wasn’t any shirtless scenes this week. The closest we got was pensive Oliver.
If he were to ever change his mind there would be an obscene number of people screaming
Over this past weekend, the Wizard World Comic Con made its latest stop in Austin, Texas. The convention attracted thousands of comic book, movie, and TV lovers from all over Texas, who flocked to the Austin Convention Center to be a part of Wizard World’s fantastic event. I was lucky enough to be a part of all of the madness, and see some great costumes, celebrities, and comic book/movie related merchandise.
Although Friday convention goers were mostly comprised of fans looking to shop around at stations set up by local vendors, the Saturday crowd, for the most part, were people looking for autographs and pictures with their favorite TV and Movie personalities. Among the guests on Saturday were: Michael Rooker, Norman Reedus, CM Punk, Lou Ferrigno, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, and Patrick Stewart. Though I probably shouldn’t have been, I was absolutely amazed at how many Trekkies showed up. It was overwhelming how many people weren’t there for the comic related attractions, but for the meet and greet and panel with the Star Trek cast.
As I said earlier, Friday seemed to draw more of the comic book crowd, as local vendors were already set up, and the TV personalities hadn’t come yet. Perhaps the two biggest comic artists that showed up were Neal Adams (Batman, X-Men), and Will Conrad (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, X-Men). Both were there gladly talking with fans, and signing copies and original prints that were displayed at their section of the floor. I was lucky enough to have Neal Adams sign a print for me, and talk with him for a brief moment. During our conversation he told me that he is currently working on the next edition of The First X-Men.
I have to vent about something, and that is the fact that some stores still set up shop at comic cons not willing to bargain with costumers. To me it is ridiculous for stores to show up to a comic convention with all of their merchandise set up and when somebody wants to purchase items in bulk, they cross their arms and say, “It’s priced as marked.” I understand that in some cases, the marked price is as low as you can go. However, when a vendor says the same thing to every costumer, on every piece of merchandise, and their prices aren’t even marked down at all, I think that’s garbage.
Something that surprised me was the lack of horror movie related merchandise. Not only was it advertised on the convention website that there would be horror merchandise, but being as close to Halloween as the convention was, I figured that the inclusion of it would be a given. Never-the-less, horror movie and TV merchandise was kept to a bare minimum, which in the end was completely over-shadowed by the excess of everything else. There was an over-abundance of comic related shirts, action figures, and books, which was the main draw for most convention goers anyway.
One thing that you can always count on at a comic convention, no matter what time of the year, is that you’re going to see costumes. This weekend’s comic con being so close to Halloween was no exception, as hundreds of people came in dressed as characters from their favorite comic books, movies, and TV shows. Although most costumes were either related to Batman or Star Trek, a few comic fans creatively strayed from the path by showing up in some off the wall apparel (IE: the Terrence and Phillip pic above).
Overall Wizard World put on an amazing comic convention in Austin. The amount of different ground they covered from local vendors, artists, and various celebrities was extremely vast. Dates have already been posted for some of the Wizard World Conventions for 2013, and they will be at various locations throughout the U.S. If you find yourself anywhere near the convention sites within the next year, be sure to check it out all the great attractions that Wizard World has to offer.
One of the greatest attractions at the convention!!
Now I don’t like to talk about depressing things, but something has been bothering me for some time. I feel it is time to talk about it, right here, right now. It is something we all know about, but are not quite sure when it raised its ugly head. It is something that invades our everyday life. It is the horror of Photoshop, the tool to make stars look even prettier.
Episode 3, “Walk With Me”, was one of the most well done episodes of The Walking Dead I have seen in a long time. Instead of more of the same (the group trying to fight off a herd, someone disagrees with Rick, everyone relies on Rick to keep the group safe, Lori cries) there was a mass amount of character development. No… not just character development, storyline development!
Alas, we have our Mayor! David Morrissey is an outstanding addition to the show! When Andrea and Michonne were in the woods they were hiding because a helicopter had crashed. I had forgotten that they didn’t know that everyone who dies becomes a walker, even if they weren’t bitten. It made me almost sad. Michonne thought that she and Andrea were going to be discovered, so Michonne cut the heads off of her two walkers.
Andrea and Michonne end up being taken from the woods by our old pal Merle and his group, which includes the Mayor. They are guests in the little town of Woodbury; a walker-free safe space for survivors! There are guards defending the town from their high walls and buildings that keep the town secluded. When walkers show, they get got! It is an amazing idea. The people of Woodbury have children who attend school, the adults have jobs, and everyone feels that they still have a purpose in what is left of their post-apocalyptic world.
Andrea is much more receptive to the whole idea than Michonne, and rightfully so. While Andrea is clearly flirting with the Mayor and enjoying some well-deserved down time, Michonne is eyeballing everyone and keeping her guard up. They took the girls’ weapons away when they arrived, so we do finally see Michonne without her Katana. Personally, I like her better with it, but this is not one of those episodes. Don’t get me wrong, we still see plenty of deaths; some of them are not deserved.
The man, Tim, who was piloting the helicopter, survived and was hanging onto life by a thread. The Mayor promised that if Tim told him where is stranded group was, he would bring them back to Woodbury. Instead, the Mayor wiped out the entire group of military personnel, and took all of their supplies. I understand that he would not want anyone challenging his authority and taking over his Mayorship of the group back at Woodbury, but I got very upset when I saw this. I immediately loved the Mayor upon seeing him on this show. Seeing him heartlessly wipe out these men with his group really upset me.This was a good way to find out all of the sides to his character in one episode. Not to mention that at the end, he was sitting in front of a large amount of tanks with heads of people he’d killed, and at the very top was Tim, the survivor. It was as if he was just sitting back watching his favorite TV show episode. Just unsettling.
Merle being back could either be really great or really terrible. He would be a good addition to his brother’s group if he could stop being loyal to the Mayor. I think he should realize, with the senseless killing the Mayor has Merle doing, the second the Mayor thinks that Merle could pose a problem of any kind, he will kill him. Merle would be a great asset to Rick’s group, except that he hates Rick. Rick is the one who handcuffed Merle to the rooftop, causing him to mutilate himself to avoid being zombie food. I love how the show does every single thing they can to avoid the term “zombies”. Walkers, Biters, Living Dead… they have been called everything but that. When I think of zombies, I think of special effects and fake gore. I feel like maybe they avoid that word because it is so widely associated with pretend and they want to keep the show as realistic as possible.
Overall, this was an amazing episode. There was so much to focus on, even without going into what Rick’s group is doing at all! In fact, this might be the first episode ever without Rick in it. I enjoy the break from more of the same, and I love the new characters. These 3 episodes of season 3 have been my favorite season starter so far. I can only hope that they can keep the episodes as interesting and strong as they have been up to this point.
Grizzly Bomb 