LG: Big in Japan - Dec 22

And so, yet another episode of LG has come to an end. Isn’t it great?

Sadly – no, not really. After a very exciting two-part season starter, this particular episode of LG was not so good.

What was it about? Bo is in the dumps due to Kenzi’s departure and will not feed – on chi. She is a succubus, and so she needs chi to survive; without it, she will die. To make matters more complicated, she and Tamsin are hired by some Japanese Fae ex-samurai as bodyguards, while in the B-plotline Lauren goes to Dyson for advice on self-defense – boxing or whatnot. So?

So, the entire episode (“Big in Japan”) was primarily dealing with team Bo dealing with Kenzi’s departure on one hand, and on the other, the cast and crew of LG had to figure out the new dynamics with Ksenia gone as well. As a consequence, the entire “Japan” episode feels disjointed and rushed, with the characters having little motivation behind their actions, especially Dyson and Lauren. The two of them just do not mesh this great together, not at all.

Bo and Tamsin had a better time working out the team dynamics between them, but all of the Japanese stuff got in the way. Yes, the ‘Hel’ duology had plenty of terms of Norse and Greek myth in it, but LG took all of those terms – Valhalla, Tartarus, etc – and put its’ own spin on them. Here, in ‘Japan’ the Japanese myths, depictions, associations, allusions, etc are straight in the foreground, and are rather overwhelming on one hand, and pointless on the other. There just was not a lot of Japanese-Fae action in this episode, period; it just gave a feeling of procrastination to the team Bo resolution.

On the other hand, in the Dyson-Lauren plotline we had a nurse/assistant of Lauren’s, whose purpose was to be held hostage by a junkie of a patient at first and then to be murdered by Amanda Walsh’s character; this is the fastest introduction and disposal of a character that isn’t a red shirt in a Star Trek episode...

So: team Bo got over – sort of – Kenzi’s departure, and Amanda Walsh’s character is getting ever closer to Bo and her friends. That is good. Otherwise, this episode did not have a lot going on for it. Thus – a C+.

LG: Hel part 2 - Dec 14

And so, last night gave us the second part of the season starter episode, and it was not what most of us expected. More precisely, there was little violence, no fighting as it was, for example, the Hel part 1 – or is it Hades?.. Instead, we get Bo running around in a dilapidated run-down building of an underworld (or is it the otherworld?) while her friends work out how to get her out – a typical Team Bo event, in short – if you disregard the lack of violence. 

On the other hand...let us start with the elephant in the room – the underworld. In the first part, LG showed that in place of Heaven it had Valhalla, and now, in place of Hell, or even Hel, it got Hades, the Greek underworld. Sigh. The Greek version is the easiest way out, especially after Rick Riordan had finally completed his series about PJ and friends vs. Gaea. If they didn’t want to do a Norse Hel, for example, they could’ve used a Sumerian one, or a Japanese one, etc – but instead they went for the Greek. It’s the easy way out, period.

The depiction of Hades (yes, it is the name of both the god and the kingdom – one of the three Greek kingdoms – of the dead) is very unusual, though: it is the abandoned, broken-down version of ‘hotel Valhalla’. In this version, though, there are no customers, for Hades the god is losing his powers, and dwells in a third domain, which is featureless in its’ darkness, save for one giant mystical candle, which Bo steals for reasons given to her by Persephone, (who is more of a sister role here to Bo, rather than a stepmother, even though she's Hades' bride, as it is in the Greek myths), after the obligatory sex scene, of course, ‘cause this is Bo.

That brings us to Lauren – apparently, in LG, the world of the living and the world of the dead (or at least Hades’ old haunt) are connected, and certain messages and sensations can come across the border, so to speak. Or maybe it was because Dyson distracted Tamsin’s sister Valkyrie Stacy, and the doorway between the world of the living and Valhalla didn’t close, until Bo was able to escape. Persephone got eaten, though…

Getting back to Lauren…she was little more than comic relief in this episode alongside Kenzi, as was Kenzi herself. In fact, Kenzi and her role were something of a weak link in this episode, as after getting rescued from her coffin, Kenzi (with Lauren’s help) messed around with an Ouija board, and trapped some sort of a spirit – perhaps the same puca that harassed Bo while the latter hanged around Persephone – and then shot it at the end of the episode, saving Bo, before leaving the show for good. (Well, her actress did, that is.)

Lastly, that scene, when Kenzi came to Bo’s rescue felt tacked-on, giving Kenzi at least one more heroic thing to do before going to Spain and away from Toronto, Canada. Firstly, for Kenzi to leave ‘her Bo-Bo’ behind is definitely OOC. And in-between lies the fact that Kenzi’s character in this episode was underplayed and little used – perhaps the actress just wanted to leave the show for good, but was forced to say for the season’s starter, who knows?

With Kenzi hanging in the background, the same can be said for Lauren (who in this episode was little more than Kenzi’s sidekick), and Trick, (who had to run his bar, probably), leaving just Tamsin and Dyson to deal with Valhalla and Stacy. 

Stacy, as it was said before, is Tamsin’s sister Valkyrie, and for the record let it be noted that LG did a very masterful job with the Valkyries’ make-up during Tamsin and Stacy’s final confrontation in this episode. As far as Valkyries go, Stacy is competent and not as blonde as she looks, but she tends to be obnoxious… that is probably her fatal flaw, so to speak. Either way, without others to back her up, Stacy tends to lose to Tamsin, it seems, which is good. And who knows, maybe she’ll even stick around, as a special guest star or a regular of the cast.

Finally, Dyson. He kept the gates of Valhalla from closing long enough for Bo to escape. That’s what he did in a nutshell. He also tried to send Stacy after Vex (who left for England, or thereabouts, at the end of S4), but failed to trick her – Stacy isn’t as clever as Lauren, but she isn’t too dumb either…

So: Bo is back, Kenzi has left for good, the LG canon is going to undergo some final and drastic changes, and Bo also got her mystical candle and lit it, which forged some sort of a mystic bond with a mystery character (the actress’ Amanda Walsh, BTW), who also has a similar candle. Who knows what’ll happen next?!

S.H.I.E.L.D., Become - Dec 9

And so, “Agents” have come the mid-season finale in their plotline – and in a big, exciting way, too.

Firstly, this episode established all of the main couples by now. There are the FitzSimmons, with Fitz doing his best in getting out of the ‘friends’ zone to which he’d been relegated by Jemma. There are Phil and Mel, with the two of them finally realizing that they are more than friends and colleagues, and there are this season’s newcomers, Lance and Bobbi, who appear to have made-up, even though Bobbi (ala the Mockingbird) has a secret hidden on some sort of a memory stick. Hopefully, she is not another double agent for Hydra, because that would be bad.

Finally, there are Ward and Skye, with Skye shooting Ward in the back because of karma. Ward had betrayed his teammates back in S1 (in case anyone has forgotten), metaphorically shooting them in the back, and Skye has repaid him by literally shooting him in the back. Ward is still more than ‘just’ competent, (in particular, Skye hadn’t killed him – he had Kevlar under his clothes or something similar), but he is also selfish, and thus he is limited as a person, unlike Skye, who is selfless and is part of a team (a very important traits in the world of ‘Agents’, not so much in the real world), and who thus gets to be zapped with the alien crystals at the end of the ep.

And what’s more, she seems to remain basically human in appearance afterwards too. Tripp, who became caught in all of the excitement died, sadly; Raina (just like another new character, who had appeared at the end of the episode), might have become inhuman in appearance; and Skye has not. The setting of the episode finale, including the music, suggest that Skye has become something more, perhaps superior, than an ordinary human as well, just as her father had told her. (He also told her that her name was actually Daisy, but that is another story.)

This episode also has Whitehall killed off, hopefully for good (with stolen alien organs you never know), and we learn that the true name of Skye’s father is Cal, while Skye/Daisy herself is half-Chinese, though she does not look like it. This ties-in with May and Coulson being her surrogate parents, and if one remembers that the previous episode has started with Skye dreaming – among other things – about a baby being abandoned by a couple, (talking about a poison fruit from a poison tree, BTW), played out by Phil and Mel, (and Coulson is Anglo-American, while May is of an Oriental descent), then one may wonder if Skye’s pre-orphan days weren’t as rosy as her father makes them out to be. Of course, he is also quite unbalanced, (and possesses superhuman strength and endurance), so whatever information he shares, is probably biased to begin with.

What is left? Tripplet dies when the crystals are destroyed (by him); Mack recovers once the same crystals are destroyed; and agent 33 is also alive, unlike Whitehall, and helps Ward get to safety. Hopefully now Ward will have to rethink some of his previous choices and do something else with his life – or not. He and Skye are Buffy and Angel/Angelus of the ‘Agents’ world, with the Inhumans playing the role of demons and the supernatural (a man who can see without eyes is a good example of that sort of thing), and the role/function of Acathla is still up for grabs...probably.

So: Ward had been outmaneuvered by Skye, who had been outmaneuvered by Raina; Whitehall is dead, Skye’s father and agent 33 are alive; Tripp is dead, though the other agents are alive; and aliens from other worlds are about to make an appearance. When ‘Agents’ S2 resumes in 2015, this is going to be really good!

LG: Hel part 1 - Dec 7

And so, the 5^th – and final – season of LG has begun vigorously! This season begins where S4 has ended, with Hale and Kenzi dead and Bo doing what she can to fix this state of affairs. In this particular case, it is on with a pair of magical slippers and off to the Valhalla, the current version of the LG-verse afterlife. 

Now, let us be frank. Valhalla, just like the Valkyries, is Norse, whereas the first seasons had a more Celtic bend to their mythos, but just like the departed Una Mens, the last seasons of LG have a different take on things than the first; something, apparently, has changed (or someone has changed, gotten replaced, quit, etc) on LG behind the scenes, and so LG has changed itself.

One may argue that this statement is unimportant, for LG take on Valhalla is ambiguous at least: from the inside it is a swanky hotel (more US than Canadian in style); from the outside – it is a snowbound wasteland with a statue of (apparently) Odin standing tall. (Or maybe it is Thor – who knows?)

Fair enough, but the choice of the afterlife for LG is still interesting: unlike Heaven, Valhalla was more materialistic and real, just like the Norse, who had invented (or imagined) it, less with the matters of the spirit than with the matters of heart and body – LG appears to be following this sort of reasoning too: when Bo meets Kenzi, the latter is enjoying luxuries such as food and clothing; but food and clothing alone do not make a person (well, not every person) happy, and that’s why Kenzi wants to get out. 

...And, because Bo is a selfless succubus of a character, she wants Kenzi to stay in hotel Valhalla instead, marry Hale, and finally have some happiness in her life. Well, her afterlife, if you want to be technical. Sadly, Bo’s father has other plans, and apparently he has shanghaied Hale from their wedding, and Bo has to confront him (her father) and possibly rescue Hale.

Among other characters whom we have met already in this season are other Valkyries (with whom Tamsin does not get along, apparently), and their mistress (and the Lady of Valhalla, perhaps), Freya or Freyja. The latter (alongside a reference to Bifrost, a bridge/highway/elevator between all of the realms) is another nod to the Norse myths, and again, it is a true one. The Norse did consider Freya to be something of a queen/mistress of the Valkyries, the only goddess, who could stand up to Odin, besides his wife Frigg (but there is confusion between the two goddesses, and one of Freya’s husbands was named Od/Odd/Odr, so let’s just assume that Freya and Frigg may be one goddess with two names). So far, Odin himself is absent, so naturally that Freya is the one in charge – of Tamsin’s fellow Valkyries (like Stacy) and of Valhalla itself.

This brings us to Tamsin, who really does not like Valhalla – apparently, as she tells Bo, whenever she is home, she does something to it. So far, however, it appears to be the other way around: Tamsin briefly went crazy (in a homage to Stanley Kubrick), and Bo had to smack her out of it. So far it is Valhalla one, Tamsin zero.

Or maybe it is more than one for Valhalla. At the end of this episode, as Kenzi wakes up in her coffin (a la the bride in “Kill Bill 2”) and Bo is riding the elevator to Hel (one ‘l’ in the Norse version, not two, as the episode’s title might indicate), more of the hotel Valhalla’s staff are holding Tamsin, while Stacy gloats – but perhaps Dyson and Lauren can rescue her.

Dyson and Lauren, now, they have been mostly background characters in this ep; Dyson hanging around with Trick (who had been left to man the rear guard at the end of this episode); Lauren – at her own personal clinic, which deals with Fae as well, since there’s at least one fire-breathing patient in it.

Of course, the question as to how Lauren got this sort of clinic after she had turned Evony human back in S4 is a plot hole, just one of the latest plot holes that had haunted since S1 at least. The plotline shuffling since S4 had not helped matters either – but otherwise, in Lauren’s case, the episode has held-up.

The only other weak point of the episode was the hotel Valhalla’s crowd – it came and went without any sense or planning. Sometimes it was there, other times it was not, and it did not make sense, not even in the LG version of Valhalla. But the episode still worked, it was a good one, and it promises a lot of excitement to come before the show finishes!

S.H.I.E.L.D. and JW - December 3

And so, the end of 2014 is shaping to be a really intense month. For me personally it involves some very serious family issues that I and the rest of my family will be solving for years to come – but that is not my point for now, let us speak about something else.

For one thing, the S2 of S.H.I.E.L.D. has really sped up its pace. Just like S1, it is supposed to have 22 episodes; but unlike S1, which generally sped up in later episodes, from “Yes Men” onwards, S2 has been fast-paced from the start, what with the special effects, new guest supervillains, and now aliens thrown into the mix. It also means that there is less character development; Grant appears to have killed his family off at last – Angelus would have been so proud – and is back in working for Hydra once more: so much for the morally grey area. But then again, Skye has broken up with him...so Grant is taking her to her father, the Doctor, who is also working for Hydra for the moment. Yes, this tenuous cooperation between Ward, the Doctor and Whitehall, among others, is supposed to show how selfishness never works-out in the end, but so far? It is not very obvious to the audience.

While Ward is off working for Hydra once more, Raina had to provide the back-story for the series, by introducing Skye – and the audience – to the Kree. So far they are only in the background, depicted vaguely as ‘blue angels’, but apparently they have created the Obelisk/Diviner as well as the underground city that Coulson planned to blow up...and it doesn’t work. Not just in the Marvel universe, where agent Mack was apparently taken over by some unknown force (frankly, this hidden city beneath San Juan sounds a lot like a Hellmouth, albeit a sci-fi one, with nuts and bolts), but also in the real world, especially the wide-angle shots of Coulson and Morse as they walked around the human city. Those shots were pointless and just aimed to eat-up screen time, while Skye and the others first rescued Raina and then were surrounded by Hydra’s planes. 

As for the hidden city itself, so far it is a different version of the Hellmouth – Whedon continues to work with the old favorites. So far this place has cost S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Mack, and as Whitehall and agent 33 plan to shoot the S.H.I.E.L.D. airplane out of the sky, the cost may just mount up.

Of course, agent 33 is another sticky point in S.H.I.E.L.D. plotline – she had been brainwashed by Hydra after all, shouldn’t S.H.I.E.L.D. try to recapture her and fix her mind? Apparently not, just as they did with Donnie Gill earlier in S2; S.H.I.E.L.D. may have the better people, but Hydra got the better technology.

And on another level, agent 33 is just a reason for Ming-Na Wen to act out a bit – as long as agent 33 resembles agent May with a horrific burn on her face (and a robotic voice, too), Ming-Na Wen can play her too. Fair enough. Patton Oswald, who plays agent Keonig, broke the mold in a different way: he plays several identical brothers at the same time.

All of this acting is quite fun to watch, but it gets old after a while; hopefully, the next episode of S.H.I.E.L.D. will be more factual and less CGI-intense.

And speaking of CGI, the film ‘Jurassic World’ has also released its’ trailer. Oh dear.

As far as films go, JW seems to have problems from the start; one of those problems are the featherless dinosaurs. JP3 had feathered raptors already – JW seems to have done away with feathers once more: on the velociraptors, on the ‘ostrich dinosaurs’ (probably Gallimimus), and etc – all of the film’s theropods appear to be featherless, making the dinofans not happy.

And neither does the oversized mosasaur. These prehistoric cousins of the monitor lizards were huge, 8-12 m on average, but JW monster is bigger yet...for the purely dramatic effect. That, and to cash in, subtly, on the SeaWorld scandals that involve killer whales: the scene where the mosasaur eats a shark is certainly reminiscent of dolphin and killer whale feedings in captivity...

Finally, the D-Rex. It is completely unnecessary. Back in the earlier films, the ‘basic’ T-Rex and Spinosaurus already did a more than appropriate job of nearly unstoppable giant monsters, with raptors being the smaller and smarter version. Now, we got a dinosaur of a Frankenstein monster running around...supposedly true to Crichton’s idea of a man-made creation gone wrong. Fair enough, but JW (and JP) dinosaurs already are man-made creations; you want natural dinosaurs, go outside and look at birds (pigeons, sparrows, gulls, starlings, etc) – there go your dinosaurs! The D-Rex is unnecessary elaboration on an already well-developed scheme.

And on top of it all, JW has a real-life scandal as well – there are rumors that the film has utilized paleoart of other people without, well, acknowledging this sort of thing. It is unknown exactly how much truth in this rumor, but speaking of truth? Dinomedia already has problems. Ever since Planet Dinosaur back in 2013, the TV dinosaurs were relatively lackluster and outdated; JW is their new big chance to shine...and the film does not appear to deliver, planning to show instead the same outdated featherless raptors, and overlarge mosasaurs and the D-Rex. It is just sad, that is what it is.

And so, while agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are racing against clock and Hydra to enter a hidden city, and JW is about to deliver yet another monster-dino film, I leave you for now.