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You know, I would be fine if they just stayed friends and teammates, but if Zari and Ray ever became a thing...I could get into that. They're both really good people, but they go about it in different ways (Zari is basically Chaotic Good, while Ray is Neutral Good) that I think could balance each other out. Their personalities are different enough that it wouldn't be like they were dated their clone, but they have enough in common, that its not totally out of nowhere. Plus, their banter is cute, and they seem to just like hanging out, even when Ray is being a dork Zari is being snarky. Plus, Zari has had a tough time, and Ray has had truly awful luck in love, they deserve some happy times.

Leo: "I`m gonna ask Ray to marry me." Mick: "RAY?!?!" Leo: "My Ray, not Your Ray." Ray: "That IS my jam."

LoT brings in comic book characters, but they dont feel like they're there because they"need"to be there, but because they have an actual purpose on the show, and the writers have actual stories to tell with them. They dont ignore comic cannon, but they arent trapped to it, and instead of making characters feel shoehorned in, they find stuff for them to do. It also helps that LoT has characters that are really well defined, in ways that other shows could learn from. It means that their mad cap adventures are always grounded in a certain amount of reality, because the characters seem real, and their reactions to the things around them seem real. They also shake up the ensemble frequently, giving different characters different scenes with different people, and that makes the characters more well rounded. Like, Sara has a totally dynamic with Rip than she has with Amaya, which is totally different than her dynamic with Mick, which is different than her dynamic with Ray, and it all just adds to all of their characters. It also means characters dont get stuck in scene partner ruts, like how Dig was always with Dina for awhile, and Curtis and Rene were always a double act. It made the character dynamics less interesting, because you didn't see how they all interacted as a team, or how different people brought out different sides to each other. The writers and actors from LoT are clearly comfortable with their characters, so they arent worried about shaking things up out of fear that a dynamic wont work, like I felt sometimes in Arrow with the newbies.

This show is super good at ending things on a super creepy note. That note, and everyone realizing that the killer was not only knows who they all are, but was probably watching them, only for it to cut to the scary as hell smile guy leering at those kids was the stuff of nightmares. I also loved how when everyone realized the killer was probably watching them, their expressions were all basically "Dont freak out, dont freak out...totally freaking out but trying to play it cool..." John and Mary going to the old timie movie was really cute, and it was really cool seeing how excited and even scared people were to see a video of some water moving to music. Movies are something we take for granted now, so its really interesting to be reminded that, not so very long ago, this was cutting edge, shocking technology. I also found the John and Kreiszler scenes to be really fascinating. Theres a lot going on there between them, and you do get the long connection they have, even when their relationship clearly has a lot of ups and downs. Some good detective work from John and the Isaacsons this week, and the killer having Syphilis, plus some messed up childhood trauma (possibly connected) would certainly explain several things.

So does that make Sara a combination of Captain Planet, and...Ma Ti? Damien Darhk: "You'll pay for this Captain Sara"!

So glad I wasn't the only one thinking that! He seemed more angry and jealous than surprised ;)

God I missed LoT. Its completely nuts and yet makes so much more sense than half the crap that happens in the rest of the franchise. Great season opener! My love for this show is both deep and slightly creepy.

Oh my God I missed this show so much! So much gets packed into one episode, but it didn't feel clogged, or bogged down with plot. I loved the Leo/Constantine/Sara trio, and the Sara/John hook up was quick, but I can certainly see it. Also, they would both like to establish that this was a mutual seduction damn it! I also loved Constantine's whole intro to the team. "Yeah she has the totem of that woman you know, but this is her grandma from the 40s. And this guy is from an alternate universe.", and how John just went with it. And thank God he finally got that light! I hope he and Leo can come back again at some point, they seem to be open to it. Constantine wouldn't work as a long term cast member, but he fits into the snarky craziness of the Waverider crew really well. I continue to enjoy the Zari/Ray team ups, and them hanging out at Jitters with Nora Darhk was so weirdly hilarious and adorable. You can see how, despite their different personalities, how they also have a lot in common, especially in how they are both very empathetic towards other people. That scene also turned super intense super fast. It went from adorable sitcom to an episode of The Exorcist in about three seconds flat. I wonder how Zari and Rays connection to Nora will come into play later, or if it will at all? All the possession scenes were super creepy. Mick just wants to watch the game! Its been THREE YEARS people! And that inspires him to become a good manager, who knew? Also loved Nate sitting down to watch the game with Mick for a second, and he hands him a beer as they chat a bit. Also, of course Ray thinks that Constantine is super cool. Think somebody might have a crush... It would be awesome if Mallus ended up being defeated not just with magic, but with the team connecting with his minions.

Honestly, Rumples story ended after he sacrificed himself to stop his dad/Pan. His arc was complete right there, finally standing up to his absentee father, proving that he had grown beyond his cowardice, and sacrificing himself for his son, the way he failed to do when Bae was sucked into the Land Without Magic, which started the entire plot. That was where his character should have ended, naturally. Yeah it would have sucked to lose Bobby, but its better than him being stuck playing a Rumple who no longer has a point on the show, or a compelling character arc. He just kind of flopped around, being evil when the plot needed him to be, and less evil when the plot needed him to be. He should have just died and stayed dead, but after finally growing, for real.

Cyber Punk is often a mixed bag (you need compelling characters and decent world building to avoid looking like a cheap Blade Runner rip off), but I decided to try this, as I have been craving some decent sci fi, and I think this has potential. Good performances, and the characters, while cliche, are interesting and non grating enough to keep my interest. The world building is really interesting, and it looks freaking awesome. I do hope they explain some more about what is going on and how all the sleeve stuff works, as I am still pretty confused right now. What I am saying is, this looks like a good watch, I am totally in for this ride, no matter what weird places it takes me. I mean, it already took us to a future brothel with an Edgar Allan Poe theme, and thats enough to get me to watch the next episode alone.

Great minds think alike I guess ;) But yes Outlander is really good, and if you liked the Scotland stuff in this episode, you would really like Outlander. Its violent, as a warning, but also really romantic and fun and interesting, and has lots of interesting history about the Jacobite revolution and life in the Highlands both pre and post Jacobite rebellion. Plus, lots of hot guys in kilts!

The other thing about Black Siren being redeemed, even beyond the weird Quentin stuff, is that the writers never wrote in a good "get out of jail free" card for her. In general, if writers write a bad or morally questionable character into a show, and they want to redeem them eventually, or just make them more sympathetic, they have a "get out of jail free" card in their back pocket for the character, so that when they decide to make the character more sympathetic, or even a hero, they have something to allow the audience to be more understanding of the character, making them possibly a victim of circumstance or something they cant really control, so that the audience (and in universe good guys) can accept them and look past their evil deeds eventually. Its a teeny tiny excuse for the evil behavior, that makes the audience understand and feel bad for them, despite everything. It means that their evil wasn't totally their own doing, and there is some hope of redemption when they have a choice. Like, Nyssa and Deadshot were assassins, but Nyssa was raised to be an assassin and knew no other way to be, and Deadshot was a vet suffering from severe PTSD who HIVE took advantage of originally. Slade was a supervillain, but he was literally crazy on Mirakuru and seeing things that weren't there. Mick and Snart were career criminals and murderous, but LoT later explored Mick being actually mentally ill, and Snart was raised to be a criminal by his abusive father, and his earlier nastiness could be looked at as a brutal pragmatism he grew up with. None of that excuses everything they did, but it does allow the audience to think "well, I can see how mental illness/being raised by an evil person/suffering a massive trauma could make a fundamentally decent person do awful things..." and that moment of empathy can lead to a real redemption arc. The get out of jail free card cant be the WHOLE redemption, there needs to be some acknowledgement of mistakes made and generally some attempt to do actually good things and make up for past evils, but its the little card that can be slipped to the audience to get beyond that mental picture the audience has of the character hurting people and doing wrong, and get behind them being a sympathetic, or even heroic, character. It has to show HOW the character got to be where they are, so the audience can cheer for them to become more like the person they could have been, or at least feel sad at the lost potential. The card allows for that empathy, and some understanding, as a building block of a bigger story. I think they tried that with Black Siren and her dead father, but it doesn't really work, because its hard to see how we got from "basically decent" to "kills people" from her father dying at a young age. If they build on it further, maybe they can still pull the card for BS, but if thats it? The audience will still be thinking about the poor woman she killed in the parking garage and the security guard with a family whos blood she left all over his work. The audience can see how some things could lead a person down a dark path, but BS is on SUCH a dark, sadistic path, they needed a MUCH bigger get out of jail free card for her. They need to see how they got from "Dad died" to "sadistically killing innocents for fun", and we haven't seen it yet. Even beyond the greater failure of forcing someone to get redeemed, like Quentin is doing, they haven't given her that card that she needs. Its not an excuse, its just a sucky thing that happened, as of now. I assume they wanted to keep a BS redemption as an option, so why not write her that card?

*Flails about* Oh my GOD I missed this show so much!

I think Black Siren could have been redeemed at some point, and if Quentin got involved, it would have been fine. But, they've gone so hard on making her so awful and murderous, to the point of coming across as a particularly sadistic serial killer (as opposed to, say, Nyssa or Deadshot, who were also bad guys who found some redemption, who came across as immoral and maybe unstable, but not deranged and delighting in death), it makes her possible redemption pretty hard to swallow. Even her sad back story, of her Quentin dying when she was 13, is certainly sad, but not so sad that it totally excuses becoming such a monster later on. If they do redeem her, they need to make it HER choice, and not Quentin literally kidnapping her to force her into becoming good. Its fine to tell a bad person that they have potential to be better (Barry and Kara practically have scripts* for this) but you cant FORCE a person to become good, and you really cant force someone to become your dead daughter. Its just such a lame, half assed plot, and if BS does become redeemed after this, its going to feel very unearned. *Barry and Kara have had some success in nudging some of their less nasty bad guys towards the side of good, BUT it also seems to have the downside of the bad guy turned good dying pretty soon after. So why not have Black Siren die to save Quentin or somebody, and we can call it a day?

Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if Ernst insisted on riding with them, just because he knew there was prime quipping to be made there :)

I really am impressed at how AoS manages to work in its new characters in ways that make sense, and dont push the original main characters into the background. They find a good balance of allowing new characters into the plot organically, and know when to let a character go and when to keep them around. I found AoS rather bland at first, and then it kicked into high gear when the HYDRA arc started, then went on and off from "awesome" to "good enough" until the Ghost Rider arc, and its been a thrill ride ever since. The Ghost Rider, AI, and Space arcs were all really unique, but still tied into each other, and didn't seem like "and now, something completely different" every time. I especially loved how the Ghost Rider and AI world arc came together. Saw Antman last night on TV, and I always forget how much I love that movie until I see it again. Its such a fun ride, but without sacrificing solid character work and development. Its very much an MCU movie, but it has a different sort of vibe than a lot of the other movies. It feels like a Leverage style heist story that happens to take place in a superhero world. Of course, thats why I enjoy combined universes like the MCU and the Arrowverse (despite the billions of dull articles complaining about genre fatigue that have been coming out since 2009), you get to try different things and play around within the genre. Antman still ends with the hero fighting the villain, but its a more low key battle, and if the heroes hadn't shown up, its not like the villain would go out and immediately start blowing up buildings. They had to stop the villain for, essentially, being an amoral illegal arms dealer, not for wanting to blow up stuff with a portal in the sky. Its why I haven't gotten tired of the superhero genre yet, there is so much you can do with it with a bit of creativity. And Antman is quite a creative film, which I give it a lot of credit for. It shows you can make pretty much any weird thing work, if you commit to the concept, like finding cool ways to combine shrinking with combat, and think outside the box.

That was such a fun, lovely episode, and it was a huge relief to get something romantic and sweet after all the tragedy and sadness of last week. Victoria and Albert were both so charmed by living in a little cabin with the nice old couple, it was really endearing and adorable. It was also funny to see Albert pulling the classic guy "I have an amazing sense of direction, totally!" and then getting lost. You can tell how much they enjoyed just being "normal" people and eating with their hands and doing chores and not having to follow tons of rules and procedures. It was just super lovely, especially when the Scottish lady gave Victoria something to help her darn her socks. They were just so cute having their little Scottish adventure. Come on Mrs. Skerret,give into that Highland Fling! Her Scottish guy was super hot, and seemed like a nice guy. Mr. Franketelli is a nice guy, but they've run so hot and cold, it kind of makes more sense for her to look for other options. Of course, long distance relations are hard enough now, let alone back then. Albert was apparently the Q of the early Victorian era, creating protective umbrellas and what not. What did he and Ernst say to each other when Albert and Victoria came back? Anybody know? Very lovely scenery as well, very Outlander. Loved it.

Regina, after the second season, basically had two kinds of flashbacks. It was either: Regina is victimized and manipulated by somebody. or Regina kills and tortures tons of innocent people than cries and we`re supposed to feel sorry for her and not the several burning villages she just razed in the background. In many ways, Regina is just as much of a victim of A&Es love as the other characters were. They tried so hard to make her sympathetic, that they made her look stupid and without agency at best, and dangerously unstable at worst. I've made peace with Regina, more or less, at this point. I dont hate her the way I used to, but I dont find her very interesting either. We`ve spent so much time on her, that I've lost interest, and the things I used to like about her are long gone.

I feel like they are keeping Quentin and his Oliver away from each other during this whole "Quentin reenacts Misery on this serial killer who looks like his dead daughter" story because Oliver has already met doubles from other Earths who are NOTHING like their Earth 1 counterparts, and has learned that theres no point in treating them like the same person. Hell, Oliver killed his Earth X counterpart without a second look, and we have also met evil versions of Kara, Barry, Cisco, Caitlin, Ronnie, and, yes, Quentin himself. Would he be so quick to think that BS could still be like Laurel if he knew about his evil Nazi counterpart running around in Earth X? I think that most people have have tangled with the multiverse would be smarter than this, and thats why I think Thea and Quentin are stuck in their own little plot thread away from everyone else. Neither of them have met doubles from other Earths, so they dont have quite the same context. Or else, the audience couldn't even get close to buying this crap. Granted, I dont buy this either, but at least it isn't Oliver, who doing this BS obsession would be even MORE out of character. I dont like being irritated at Quentin, why does the show keep forcing me to be irritated with Quentin!?

It really is tragic, as they have such a great cast, in the regulars, the supporting characters, and even in minor roles, who have breathed life into generic roles and bad writing, who made me stay invested in the story, even when the story itself was crap. This season...less so, as the cast isn't really up to the standards of the past cast members, but still, its probably hard for ANY actor to make a lot of this years dialogue sound natural. And, of course, everything has to somehow be about Regina and Rumple, and that kills the ensemble that they originally created. You cant have an ensemble cast when the writers only write for two characters. There were so many subplots and story arcs that seemed almost inevitable, or were so clearly set up to be interesting, and so many just...disappeared, for the sake of giving Regina (and Rumple, to a lesser extent) more and more stories. They set up so much stuff, like the fairytale people merging with the real world, the sketchy aspects of the fairy world (including Grumpy and his fairy girlfriend), the ship teasing between Red and Whale (and later, both characters in general), the Land of Untold Stories, and so much more, all seemed right there, and could have been really interesting ways to incorporate the actors better, and increase world building, but they never did. I think at one point, A&E even said they meant to explain why Will Scarlette/The Knave was around and why he was hanging around Belle and not his wife in Wonderland, but "that would have meant less time for the Regina story, so we couldn't fit that in" meaning that they not only wasted a good actor, they overridden the characters happy ending out of laziness and their Regina obsession. It became so obvious over the course of the show that Regina was their "real" hero, and everyone else had to take a backseat to her story, and it meant that no one else got character growth (unless its egg napping, parent stabbing ret cons to create drama in the present) or to do anything really interesting. Originally, the main characters were Emma, Snow, and Charming, with Henry as a kind of junior main character, and Regina was the Big Bad, with Rumple as the wild card. Everyone else was supporting, but still had their own things going for them. However, it eventually became clear that the main characters were supposed to be Regina, Rumple, Emma, Hook, Henry, Snow/Charming as a duo, and everyone else was set dressing.

I grew to like Deke a lot more than I thought I would, and was really sad to see him go. The last scene with him and Enoch really tugged on the heart strings, and I was really invested, in characters we have only known for a few weeks! I could totally see Deke as a FitzSimmons relative, especially Fitz. He looks a decent amount like him, and they even have rather similar body language, especially when Fitz is channeling is "Leopold" dark side.

As awkward as thinking of Alba with a vibrator is (and oh, IT IS) it sweet of Jane to try to help her find happiness and move past her knee jerk "everything is a sin" mantra when it comes to sex and romance. I like the church guy, I hope it works out. "This is a place of sin! I might as well date a Protestant!". Also glad that Chris was on the date for the same reason as Jane, and we arent getting yet another love interest to keep Jane and Rafael apart. "River" Fields many movie titles cracked me. I would be totally alright with her being a recurring character/rival for Rogelio as he tries to break into the American market.

Now that the show is ending, and some people are talking about a re-watch, I gotta ask: What are you favorite scenes, characters, episodes, stories, etc. from Once? What kept YOU here for so long, through the good, the bad, and the ugly? Because, as much as I have to complain about how many ways this show failed, the reason I complain so much is because I loved it so much, and I've seen slivers of good, or even brilliant, work throughout the series. For example, I really love the episode Hat Trick. I think I actually like it more retroactively than I did at first, because it showed so many elements that the show would later dump in favor of Regina pandering and convoluted family stuff. Its got great performances, especially from Seb Stan and Jen (and them being a couple at the time probably does make their chemistry spark more), it actually played with the ideas of world hopping in a way that made sense and had actual stakes, the Hatter was a really interesting character, and I liked his combination of pitiable and scary/crazy (which Seb Stan would perfect in the MCU) and his backstory, and miserable life in Storeybrooke. You really could see how this place was a curse, and how Regina has so created a world to screw with people who upset her. It also had a magical feeling to it that would be lost later, both in the flashbacks, and in the present. I just freaking love Jefferson's ending where Emma pulls his scarf off (after saying he was crazy and delusional) and sees the decapitation scar on his neck, and he screams "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS" before disappearing out the window, leaving only a hat. Granted, a lot of that wasn't followed up on, explained, and it sucks that Jefferson wasn't used more later, but it was still a great, atmospheric episode that moved the plot and characters in natural ways, and seemed to be hitting that "fairytales in real life" sweet spot. What about you?

NTA has always kind of sucked, even when they were still on Team Arrow, so the idea of them defeating Oliver, a guy who was the actual leader of a League of Assassins for a bit, is ridiculous, and could only happen if Oliver and Diggle were seriously holding back so they wouldn't hurt them. I could see that happening but if they REALLY wanted to fight, Oliver could beat them all down after doing several shots of moonshine using one hand. I mean, Curtis and Rene, together, couldn't even take down Anatoli, and while Anatoli is certainly a tough guy, he isn't exactly a spring chicken anymore, and has always been more of a schemer than a fighter. So they think they can take down Oliver? Sure Jan.

Barry is Central Cities highest rated Uber driver!