Bats27

-So Andrew IS Lash, called it. -What is it with Marvel Studio's grudge against the Strucker family? They keep killing them off way too early after barely any screentime. -I think that more people would be more sympathetic to Hunter if not for the fact that it was his (and his stupid plan’s) fault that they were even in that mess to begin with. Also his thing about “needs of the many” is nonsense, his motivation from the very beginning was personal vengeance.

I found it to be surprisingly believable actually.

-Elizabeth Henstridge was great in this episode. -Dear lord, Fitz just cannot catch a break it seems. -Speaking of Fitz, they guy cares enough about Simmons that he's going to risk his life AGAIN to go back and get the guy that she was sleeping with. -They pulled a cliché "we're making him act a certain way just for a big reveal for the audience." Because, in-universe, there was no reason for him to initially storm off like he was ticked off, given what his actual plan turned out to be. -And I agree with Statman that Simmons would have wanted to go back and save Astronaut guy even if they hadn't actually hooked up. He helped her, and was the only person that she'd seen in months. She'd have to be a sociopath to then just abandon him to die on that world, or live the rest of his life in that way. -I'm still curious as to what "IT" is? I hope that that gets clarified more when we go back to that planet.

Malcolm hasn’t had a rational thought in his head since his wife died it would seem. He has this amazing ability to talk himself into believing that he’s somehow the good guy and that his crazy plans not only make sense, but are right. And that’s been true since Season 1.

The Good: -The lead: Melissa Benoist is fantastic. She's adorable, and funny, and instantly endearing/likeable. Plus she fills out the suit well, both literally and figuratively. -The rest of the cast as good for the most part. -The action/effects were quite good. -The main villain seems potentially interesting. Stuff I'm not quite sure of: -Cat Grant-I hope that they tone her down a bit going forward. I don't hate her, but she was the weak link of the group here. -How they're handling Superman and his absence seems, weird to me. We'll see how it goes, but they need a better explanation for why he's not around. -Some of the dialogue was clunky. I didn't care for the "why she's called "Girl" speech and the "glasses as disguise" thing is stupid e (but then again I've always found it stupid). All in all, I'd give it a B, maybe a B+. It's got "pilot-istis" to a degree, but that's hardly unexpected. So I'm willing to see where it goes.

It was good. It did suffer from some of the same problems that plague lots of pilots, but that's not surprising. It probably should have been a two-parter, just to give more time to flesh everything out more.

Yes, Malcolm agreeing to resurrect Sara actually makes sense. Well as much sense as a psychotically deluded mind as Malcolm’s can make anyway. He wants Thea back in his life, and this is one way to try and make that happen. Sort of a “see, I’m not such a bad guy. I’m helping out your friends, please don’t hate me daughter” and all that. This show has a weird habit of fixing problems that it has, but creating new ones where they didn’t previously exist all at the same time. As big a mess as last season got to be overall, I actually came around on Laurel in the 2nd half. She was improving as a character and it seemed like they were going somewhere cool with her. Then we get to this season and they’ve either fixed or at least improved on a lot of the problems from the last one (Oliver/Felicity is a decent pairing, Thea and her issues seem interesting enough, much better villain, and they’re even addressing the Oliver/Dig thing much quicker than I expected them to). But the tradeoff seems to be that they have Laurel picking up the idiot ball and running with it full bore yet again.

And it would have been SO EASY to fix. Just change some of the dialogue, or how the scene is shot, to make it much more clear that this is a messed-up but still consensual act between two messed-up people who are grief-stricken. The scene would have still been creepy because it was a brother/sister screwing near where their son's corpse was laying, but at least there wouldn't be a rape controversy. It wouldn't have been hard to do at all, so how did NO ONE on set notice/consider this?

Agreed. I mean Roose is a bad guy himself (including being a rapist himself in the past). But he's at least got a practical/pragmatic streak to him. He might not have moral objections to what Ramsay is doing, but would see it as being counterproductive long-term (if he wants his family to hold onto the North). They NEED her. I guess the most plausible, though still kind of iffy, explanation is that he doesn't know (or at least doesn't know just HOW bad it is). But then again the only characters who's actions/motivations have made sense thus far are Ramsay and Theon, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised.

Yeah actually they are. The source material isn't perfect true enough. But given that they've shown little hesitation in making changes to said source material, they then don't get a free pass for their own mistakes because of "the source material is so and so." If it's bad writing on the show, then it's bad writing on the show, simple as that.

They can say whatever they want after the fact, and they might be telling the truth. However, it's still their responsibility to convincing ONSCREEN (which is what's most important for a TV show). And judging by the reaction to that episode, both then and now, they simply failed to do that for many people. So we can just chalk that one up to writing/directorial incompetence I guess.

No not really. They've bungled her character BADLY this season. 1. The justification for her even being their in the first place made no freaking sense on multiple levels. 2. They didn't need to resort to rape in order "empower" her. It's just a rehash of what we've already seen with her before (only with a penis involved this time). Seriously, a character who's entire story for 4+ seasons has been about being abused/humiliated/threatened/etc by multiple characters, and this is the best that they show can come up with now? Wow, real freaking original writers, way to not repeat yourself and do something different. 3. They cannot even get her "strong moments" right. So you have the sadistic psychopath who's holding you captive, has you completely at his mercy, and has been raping/torturing you nightly for weeks, and you're big response is to insult him to his face? Sorry but that doesn't make her look "strong," it makes her look like an idiot (as did her trusting Theon, and this entire plotline). 4. Writers, these characters are NOT INTERCHANGABLE!! They're different, with different arcs/purposes. Sansa is NOT Jeyne Pool and Ellaria Sands is NOT Arianne Martell. The fact that you feel like you can just cut and paste them is both lame and has backfired badly. And it really is a shame because Sophie Turner is REALLY good. I just wish that she'd been given something more interesting/less cliché to do this season.

If that's the case then they're failing, BADLY!

-That Tyene scene might have been the most pointless bit of nudity that we've gotten so far (and on this show, that's saying something). -Sam/Gilly-I like how it ended, didn't like how we got there. Seriously D&D, lay off the rapey stuff for at least a couple of episodes, jeez. Also, there were much better ways to get those two to where they were by the end. -Cersei's finally getting some comeuppance, yeah. The High Sparrow/Faith Militant thing still makes little sense though. -So how's that whole "revenge plot" going for you Sansa? Show, you have three episodes left to sell me on this, and you're not off to a good start.

Well there's also the fact that Sara and Laurel have different heights, weights, body builds, and even their costumes are quite different. Frankly, they had to write Quentin as being a completely idiot not to pick up on that at all before he talked to Sin. Oh and please for the sake of all thing's sacred, just have Laurel, Nyssa, Quentin, etc find out and be done with. No more dragging that stuff out to insufferable degrees.

"Before, I was merely discount Iron Man. But now, I am truly The Atom." The problem with Ray Palmer on Arrow is that they never were able to really integrate him into the show in a consistent/interesting way. So he was either gone for long stretches, or he was to "kind of there." He felt really disconnected from everything else that was going on. And the "love triangle" stuff between him, Oliver, and Felicity certainly didn't help matters.

No they didn't "put a lot of time" into it. If they had, then the set-up for it wouldn't have come across as so contrived. And I'm sorry, but this notion that "we NEEDED to have her be raped in order to make her important" is something that I just don't buy. It's the safe failback for lazy writers who don't know how to do anything else. There are plenty of other ways that this could have been done without resorting to yet another rape plot with yet another female character. Change it up guys. And they needed a rape scene to do this? That was essential? All of the other crap that she's gone through over the last 4+ seasons (that's basically been her whole story up till now) was enough, we had to add rape into it? Nope, not buying it.

I don't think that her character is "lacking." It's the writer's fault, they're the one's that felt like this was the ONLY way possible to "giver her agency." There were no other non-rapey possibilities in their minds. I've seen/read rape plotlines in other materials that we're done well. It's difficult, but it can be done. The problem here is not just with their "we cannot think of anything else" attitude, it's that they have in no way proven that they have to talent/finesse to execute a plot line like this well. Heck they were so inept that they apparently didn't even realize that they were writing a rape scene last season, they were that clueless. And no, GRRM having Sansa be raped in a future book would not make it better, because: -Martin himself is no infallible and I've disagreed with certain things that he's done in the books as well (including the equivalent of this particular plot). -It happening in the book doesn't then mean that it suddenly works in THIS context. It also leads to the uncomfortable thought that they might have just been waiting for Sophie Turner to turn 18 in order to do this scene.

That would be awesome, if they didn't feel the need to resort to the tired and vile "rape is empowerment" trope. Sansa had PLENTY of other reasons to do this already, and she's suffered PLENTY already to cause this change. What being repeatedly beaten, torture, degraded/humiliated for months/years, seeing her father killed, having her mother/brother/significant chunk of her family killed or scattered to the winds, having the vile Bolton's control her home, being under the sway of a creeper like LF, being attacked by her crazy aunt/cousin, and having said crazy aunt killed right in front of her, etc. All that wasn't enough, we had to add a rape unto the pile as well, seriously writers?

Except that's STILL cliché. "The only way that we can empower these two, is by horribly violating them first. Yes, we really have little creativity."

They've shown that they have no problem changing things from the source material, or even removing subplots/characters entirely, "it happened in the book" doesn't work as an excuse. They've already cut out or changed far more interesting stuff. Plus, I found this subplot to be pointless and overly gratuitous even in the book. So why would I care for it here? And there track record when it comes to handling the fallout/aftermath of rape has been nothing short of dismal. So I'm NOT inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, they're previous work/comments have given me no reason to. And yes, it is horribly cliché: -"In order to be empowered, female character must first be raped/sexually abused"-Horribly cliché. -"Male character must see female character be horribly violated in order to do something"-Horrible cliché, and disturbingly problematic in it's own right. -"Evil man is EEEVVVIILLL"-Horribly cliché.

The depressing thing is, how this all ends no longer really matters all that much to me. I'm sorry, but I cannot help it, this one incredibly foolish decision on the writer's part has ruined it for me. Even if this ends with Sansa being awesome (these writer's have an frankly ABYSMAL track record in this regard, so I'm not holding my breath), I still won't be able to really enjoy it. In my mind, it's going to be "yeah, this COULD have been awesome, if you didn't resort to have a rape be what gets her here." They still resorted to one of the cheapest, laziest, and frankly vile clichés possible, for no good reason. So no, I couldn't give them credit even then, because it could have been accomplished in a much more interesting/ less problematic way. I don't want to feel this way, but it's just that this ticks me off that much.

The problem with that theory is that they've specifically said that Littlefinger DIDN'T know about Ramsay's "habits," (which I'm buying in the slightest writers). And they also said that if he DID know, that he wouldn't have put her in that situation to begin with (which I CAN buy). And IF it turns out that the writers are really going for a "rape=redemption/empowerment" idea, then I'll probably puke my guts out in disgust.

See having Brienne, or Theon, or anyone else besides Sansa do that would also crap all over Sansa's character. Well unless the show makes it perfectly clear that they're doing so at her specific instructions/request.

And this is the best that they could come up with? The most overused, lazy, annoying, and problematic cliché imaginable. They couldn't think of ANYTHING else for her to do, even when she's hanging out with Littlefinger? WOW, clearly I gave the writers far too much credit going into this season.