She-Hulk, Jen - Sep 22

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the latest ‘She-Hulk’ episode instead. Only… it is not doing so hot either – this week’s episode’s highlight, apparently, was when the titular character, wearing a sparkling pink dress, punched Titania – who was back for round three – in the mouth. Titania was wearing an equally sparkling pink power suit, BTW. So what?

So earlier this week I watched the latest HoD episode – you know, the one where Daemon T. kills his wife with little more than a big rock. Killer Croc from the DC-verse would have been so proud!.. But we are not Killer Croc, and I, for one, find it kind distasteful that team HBO and co. have needlessly vilified Daemon T. just for extra drama.

Again, in the book, Daemon is not a good man, but his wife dies pointedly from natural causes and he has nothing to do with it, Targaryen family powers or not. By making Daemon actually do the deed, team HBO and co. have made him something of a misogynist and have diminished him as a person and as a character. The fact that HoD’s main protagonist – you know, the ‘new and improved’ Dany – wants to elope with him does not help anyone either… but wait!

In this universe, actually being an evil asshole gets you ahead! Daemon and co. are doing the right thing by their standards! Well, yes, and don’t forget – the upcoming Dance of the Dragons thingy will be the start of the end for the Targaryen dynasty; odds are good that GM was going to revive their reign at the end of ASOIAF, but now that ASOIAF faded away, and GoT ended up with a Stark on the throne instead… yeah, this makes it hard to root for anyone on the show and I’m actually hoping that all of the Targaryens featured on the show so far will die – but there was one unexpected side-effect: I remembered MCU’s AoS.

…yes, I’ve been talking about it on and off for ever, but this time the death of Ms. Daemon reminded me of Fennec Shand from the SW-verse instead. Why?

In SW, Fennec is shot down, left to die, but with Boba’s help she recovers and becomes his assistant.

In MCU, Kara is shot down – not unlike Fennec – and is just killed-off by the show.

Put otherwise, Fennec is SW’s Kara, and the issue isn’t that that Ming-Na Wen, plays Fennec on SW, and played both the Cavalry and agent 33 on MCU, (in a manner of speaking, but still), and it isn’t that Disney properties recycle each other’s ideas, but how AoS has treated Kara. Agent 33 was an interesting character, and the showrunners could have pulled a Fennec and kept her alive, but they did not. Indeed, Kara did not have to be a regular character on the show at all – they just could have sent her off to her mother, (with or without her memories intact), or done something similar, (as they did to the characters of Lance and Bobbi in S5), and that would have been the end. Instead, they flat-out treated her as crap, and that is the final line.

…Not that HBO is treating its’ powerful women characters any better – Ms. Daemon was verbally abused by her asshole husband at first and then killed-off by him, while the surrogate Dany is coming off as Daemon’s female counterpart instead. Oh, and one of her (potential) minions just killed-off her new husband’s same-sex partner. Take that, modern socio-political values!

…In the ‘She-Hulk’ we do not go so far, but it is the same direction still. In the comics – and the cartoons – the character in question was, and is, one of the Hulk’s most powerful relatives and allies, and Titania is her adversary and arch-nemesis. On the show, the two appear to be little more than just two semi-toxic bitches that just cannot get along because that would be the reasonable and sensible thing, am I right, fellows? Oh, and the ‘Mr. Immortal’ subplot, cannot forget that – a Marvel character has faked his death 8 times, effectively becoming a bigamist! Ha-ha-ha! ‘Futurama’ actually did that plotline first, save that its’ bigamist did not fake his death, he just shapeshifted and packed-on more wives. Have to admire his stamina, if nothing else – but he still were taken down by all of his wives, just less legally and more violently than Mr. Immortal has been.

…There is also MCU’s Abomination, who was last seen on the show having a cult with multiple girlfriends – and he got set free. Aside from the moral issues, there’s the fact that he got diminished from being a monstrous reflection of the Hulk into a mere jerk too – but that is what ‘She-Hulk’ the show does, apparently – it diminishes all the Marvel characters that it touches, no wonder the original Hulk fled to Sakaar in the episode 1x02 before it was too late – or maybe it was, we’ll just have to wait and see.

...That said, my original point is this is what the American nation have come down to, after ‘MeToo’ and all of that? Between HoD’s handling of Ms. Daemon on one hand, and ‘She-Hulk’ making its’ titular character a mockery of the ‘powerful female character’ concept, I am really sore at real life. Did I mention that it sucks?

…Well, this is it for now, people – I will see you all soon.

AoS episode 7x11 - Aug 6

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, especially if you are a cicada, from the U.S. state of West Virginia, which are being infected by some insecticidal fungus, which is neutering and killing them, (presumably in that order). That said, the scientists, (starting with the various entomologists), are cool about it, saying that this cicada species will survive this. Fair enough, but where does this leave us?

With the latest episode of AoS – next week it is going to be the double-feature series’ finale! Sounds exciting, and after yesterday’s episode, the series could use it. Pause. Let us restart.

Yesterday’s episode was lackluster, to say the least, as it featured the usual set of AoS’ shortcomings.

First, there were plot twists – i.e., Kora talked to Daisy that Sibyl told Kora that Daisy would not abandon her sister…and Daisy showed that she considers Simmons to be her sister, not Kora. Very poignant, really, but considering that Jemma and Skye were friends from the start, and Kora appeared… what? Only halfway through the S7 and she and Daisy didn’t really interact until now? Yeah, suddenly the twist appears to be a lot less twisty.

…Incidentally, when did Daisy and Jemma acknowledge themselves ‘sisters’? In S6, they had some bonding on an alien planet, but no acknowledgement of sisterhood. In S3, Bobbi Morse acknowledged either one of them to be her ‘sister’… and that was the Russian mission episode after which Bobbi and Lance left the show for good, (yes, Lance appeared in one S5 episode, but his appearance was perfunctory, so let’s let it slide), so not a good track here, people! AoS tried to do a dramatic, poignant twist, but it just managed to make itself look stupid itself.

…The mention of S3 brings us to Grant Ward – in this week’s episode, Kora actually mentioned him, talking how she, (+Nathaniel Malick? – things were blurry for me by that point), could bring back all of the team Time Bus’s deceased friends, including those, who died because of Ward. Pause. How does, or did, Kora learn about Grant Ward and co? Did the Sibyl and Malick tell her about him? If so, why?

No, really, why? Yes, Grant Ward became of the greatest enemies of S.H.I.E.L.D., thanks to Coulson’s hubris, Melinda’s viciousness, and his own arrogance, (among other reasons), so it would make sense to bring him to the anti-Time Bus party, but instead, we got a young John Garret, who acts nothing like who his grown-up version acted in S1. …Yes, MCU brought the son of the original John Garrett actor to play this new version, but so what? I like trivia points as much as anyone does, but even I acknowledge that trivia on its’ own does not make a successful TV episode, (among other things). Pause.

Let us put Ward aside from the moment and return to the inconsistency issue – did anyone notice that the AoS rebooted itself again? The S7 premiere was all about the Chronocons and time travel, but by now both of them took a second seat to the InHumans, as well as Nathaniel Malick and his not quite Hydra. Notably, Gideon Malick, Nathaniel’s elder brother and the Hydra head from the S3, is quite absent from the episode. Ouch.

…And yet, the issue of Gideon Malick is nowhere as prominent as the great big jarring absence of Leo Fitz. The man had been physically absent from S7, and though his absence is a major plot point, sadly, YouTube had told too much: there is a video clip that has Jeff Ward, (who plays Deke Shaw), acknowledge that he and Iain, (who plays Fitz, no duh!), cannot stand each other. Ergo, first we had the S6, where Leo had been kept separate from the rest of the team because of reasons, (feel free to re-watch AoS’ S6 to re-learn all about them), and now we got S7, which is glaringly Fitz-free. Since the series’ finale is coming up next week, I really hope that Leo will finally re-appear on the show and save everyone, because he is just that adorable.

And if he doesn’t? That does not matter, sadly, because after the next week, that is it for AoS – it will be done and gone. High road, low road, it does not matter: they are about to be done for good, and while they are doing it better than how HBO’s GoT did it, that’s because practically anyone can do it better than how GoT did it. And yes, the last season of GoT has similarities to AoS in general – but that is another story.

…Well, this is it for now. See you all soon!