yellowfred

I feel like the people of Nassau are the last ones she'd have to worry about having an issue with Max. Like, she was basically in charge of Nassau before Rogers got there, then she was the de facto leader of the council of advisers during Rogers' rule. Her being a biracial former prostitute didn't particularly hinder her in either role. Regarding Silver and Flint, I do think their friendship is genuine, but I also think that, from Flint's perspective, Silver is the one who betrayed him. In fairness, Silver's decision was, fundamentally, pretty selfish. I mean, the cache of gems isn't actually his personal property; it belongs to all of them. Well, I guess technically it's still Anne's, but I think she's effectively donated it to the war effort, as it were. Either way, Silver trading it for Madi isn't something he's doing because it's right for all of them, it's something he's doing for himself. Whether or not it's worse than Flint's decision to trade the cache for English forces leaving Nassau is debatable, but I think Flint's perfectly within reason to see Silver's actions as a betrayal.

I was wondering that myself. Like, I guess they maybe could have just been roughed up by both groups and are already back up and running, but it still seems like a bit of a stretch. I agree. As much as Max understands the importance of being able to influence others, she also knows, better than almost anyone, the limits of being in a position where your only power is being able to influence someone else. Rogers may have made things a lot worse for Eleanor, but Eleanor and Rogers made things much worse for Max by ignoring her advice about how to deescalate the situation with the pirate rebellion.

I don't think it's personal. Flint's just the main obstacle keeping Nassau from being a good investment for her. I kind of wonder if she actually picked him out by name or if she asked Jack and Max who the driving force behind the continued pirate resistance is. Optimistically, that also means that Jack doesn't necessarily have to kill Flint, just take him out of the picture, which means that Max's labor camp/hideaway for rich people (which may or may not contain Thomas Hamilton) could still come back into play.

I thought this was a really good episode. I really enjoyed all the Philadelphia stuff. Eleanor's grandmother (did we learn her name?) was great, and her scene with Jack and Max was the highlight of the episode, for me. I agree that Jack's attempt to kill Flint will almost certainly not end well. I actually don't think he's gonna die, though, mostly because that would probably leave Max, Anne, and Idelle just hanging out in Philadelphia for the rest of the season. I could have done without the scene of Rogers mourning Eleanor, partly because I'm not all that invested in Rogers, as a character, but also because I really dislike lingering shots of dead bodies. I was a little confused about the Mrs. Hudson reveal. Like, I thought we actually saw her talking with her spy contact when he told her that they wanted Jack handed over with the cache. I might be misremembering the specifics, but I think she was saying that the cache was going to be delivered and he said something about that not being enough. She might have exaggerated the urgency to Rogers, but she didn't just make it up.

My understanding is that they're doing original songs. It was announced a while back that Rachel Bloom (from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) was writing songs for it.

Like, I know it's become kind of a joke, but I'm pretty sure this is exactly what the producers had in mind when they came up with those contracts. I mean, I'm sure the fact that it placated certain segments of the audience was a nice benefit, but I wouldn't be surprised if the main purpose was so that they didn't have to jump through hoops to get the actors to come in for a flashback scene or two.

I really liked this episode, but, honestly, I think it would have been better if Kara hadn't been able to stop the ship. I love Alex, but she was being reckless this episode, and it's not like this is the first time. If anyone should have been getting a speech about the difference between being right and being lucky, it's her. And, as much as I appreciate Maggie's "ride or die" attitude, J'onn was clearly the one actually looking out for her well-being, so it kind of sucks that he was the one who had to apologize.I have somewhat mixed feelings about Kara getting fired. On the one hand, it's been pretty clear that the show has zero interest in writing that aspect of her story, so it's probably for the best that they stop pretending otherwise so that I can stop getting my hopes up. On the other hand, without that, Kara's only story this season is her relationship with Mon El, which is just so many layers of depressing I don't even know where to start*. Also, as far as getting the story out, I'm surprised Supergirl can't just call a press conference or something. An official Supergirl twitter feed could have been good, too. Either way, she shouldn't be submitting it as a piece of investigative journalism when it's basically a personal press release. Personally, I don't mind it. Like, there are several aspects that I don't think have been done particularly well, but I tend to be in the camp that believes comic book characters, by their nature, can't be apolitical. * For the record, though, if I had to start somewhere, the part where she said that she doesn't need to be who she is now that she has a boyfriend was really kind of gross, and it's sad that only having one really gross relationship thing is such a vast improvement over the past two episodes with them.

I think that Flint and Silver are on the Walrus while Jack and Max are on Rogers' old ship (the sloop he was on when Teach was going after him, which they then stole back from the British guards).

I mean, I guess? I feel like that's a few too many layers of causation for my taste. Like, sure, Vane's death was a huge motivating factor for the resistance, but Berringer played as much a role as she did (if not a bigger one) in the pirates gaining enough support to retake Nassau. Not to mention, that gives her credit for Rogers having a disproportionate response to Nassau being retaken, which I don't think is fair. Plus, the Spanish guy that killed her didn't even know who she was. He just killed her because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I mean, she's been a major player in this whole conflict from the very beginning, and I think she deserved better than getting killed as collateral damage because of Rogers' mistake. Side note: if Madi is, in fact, dead, she also deserved better.

Man, that was a rough one. Normally, I'm pretty firmly in the "no body, no death" camp about these things, but the serious looking head wound, coupled with being passed out in a burning building, seems like too much to overcome. I'm kind of mad that Eleanor ended up dead because of something Rogers did. Like, Rogers is a piece of shit, and he totally deserves to have his recklessness backfire on him spectacularly, but Eleanor should have died because of something she did. I feel like she's earned that, at least. I actually have higher hopes for Max's plan than I do for Flint's. I mean, it's generally a lot easier to go after one guy than it is the whole of civilization. It doesn't hurt that the one guy has just destroyed his only means of income at a time when he's just barely keeping out of debtor's prison. Plus, they have at least a couple people on their ship who can look respectable for Eleanor's grandfather if the need arises.

That could also be an indication that he realizes Archie's kind of useless. If that ever comes up in conversation, Archie's mind is gonna be completely blown.

I think, at the end of the day, cutting the order for Supergirl almost in half is more disruptive than just not ordering extra episodes of Legends of Tomorrow. As far as actor salaries, I wouldn't be surprised if they're a bit higher than the CW's usual, but I doubt it's that significant. I haven't heard much about this specific instance, so I could be wrong, but CBS doesn't usually pay actors that much at first, especially if they're not expected to be a big draw. The main reason that CBS pays so many high salaries now is that they have a lot of long running shows, and the actors have been able to negotiate for a lot more over time.

The Mary Sue has kind of an interesting article about Rip's brainwashing storyline. Some mild spoilers for the next couple episodes (and Arrow season 3, a bit), but nothing that hasn't been announced in official press releases.

Yeah, I also thought the triangle would be more central to the narrative, but I can't say I'm upset that it's not. Like, both Betty and Veronica are more interesting away from Archie, and I don't think he has enough chemistry with either of them to warrant pushing that aspect to the forefront of the show. I'm sure we won't be able to avoid it, in the long term, but I can imagine that the writers might be worried about the audience getting burned out on the love triangle if they push it too hard in the first season. On kind of a random side note, the whole "just stick to football" thing seemed like an odd insult for a bunch of football players to use.

Okay, serious question: what, exactly, did Archie think Josie's real name was? I can only imagine the look of abject betrayal on his face when he finds out that Betty's real name is Elizabeth.

Very true, though I'd say it was apparent from the time Evelyn first showed up and everyone was all upset, because what kind of monster would dress up in a dead woman's clothes and run around pretending to be her? I think it felt extra glaring this episode because any one of these people could have saved Dinah a whole subplot's worth of angst by just telling her how Laurel became the Black Canary in the first place.

I wonder if this is referring to some of the decisions that original!Rip made that Sara disagreed with. Like, I guess she could be talking about the stuff he's done as evil!Rip, but saying "she didn't like and didn't appreciate" being shot, point-blank, and then having her neck broken seems like it would be something of an understatement.

Yeah, I could see a lot of ways the "tension" could work with those two, but an overt power struggle isn't one of them. The two of them respect each other too much for that.

Yeah, I still don't buy that Ray could beat Damian in a straight up sword fight, but it was kinda worth it for Damian being the one to remember that they're from the future and they can use guns.

Honestly, I feel like this might be the more likely option. Just because you have an affinity for herding cats doesn't mean it's a fun job to have.

Yeah, I think the whole thing only gets sketchier when you have the mayor having secret meetings with the chief of police, basically telling him to drop his investigation, because it interferes with a cover-up he's got going with the DA's office. I mean, I get that he has his reasons, but Oliver is running a remarkably corrupt administration. Also, since Dinah is now wearing a mask that looks exactly like Sara's old one and using a bo staff like Sara did/does, is anyone going to tell her that the whole legacy she's carrying on didn't actually start with Laurel?

It wasn't even thirty minutes later. At the beginning of that exact conversation, she was the one saying that Ray had made his choice and the spear fragment was the priority. She was actually more adamant about it than Sara was. Regarding Arthur and Guinevere, I'm fairly certain most versions Arthurian legend portray their marriage as politically motivated. They're about 50/50 on whether they also happened to love each other. I think this version of Guinevere pretty clearly thought of Arthur as a friend who she respected and also happened to be married to (when she talked about him being off on a boar hunt, I half expected her to wistfully add that he'd probably be gone for hours, though I guess that was implied). I'm fairly certain she wouldn't have batted an eye at Stargirl and Arthur being in love.

Personally, I think the direction they're going with James this season is kind of symptomatic of the shift towards making it more purely a crime-fighting show, rather than about balancing crime-fighting with a civilian identity. That's actually been sort of a general trend of the Arrow-verse for a while. Like, it's probably most notable on Supergirl, since it was such an abrupt change, but both Arrow and The Flash have been heading that way for a while. That's not necessarily a complaint. Legends is probably my favorite of the DCTV shows at the moment, and none of them have civilian identities to balance. Plus, I'm familiar with enough superhero stories to know how repetitive those plotlines can get. At the same time, though, it doesn't leave a lot of room to give narrative weight to characters who don't fall on the crime-fighting side of the story, which I think is unfortunate.

So, I really enjoyed this episode. I feel like the whole idealism vs. pragmatism theme got a little muddled at a few points, but the story was a lot of fun. Plus, it was probably the first time I really bought Nate as an historian, even if his historical knowledge pretty much amounted to him walking around saying "this isn't how any of this works." Sara and Guinevere were cute. I briefly worried that I was reading too much into it when the two of them were talking earlier in the episode. I kind of loved Sara's look of mild annoyance when she realized that she'd accidentally become a figure in Arthurian legend.

I have kind of mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, she'll almost certainly be there in service of Sara's storyline, which means there'll be a lot of focus on Sara's storyline, which I'm pretty much always in favor of. On the other hand, I feel like it's kind of beating a dead horse at this point. Like, Sara's accepted her sister's death, she's gotten closure. She's already chosen to walk away from a). a chance to pre-emptively kill Damian Dhark so that he can't kill Laurel, b). an alien-induced hallucination of Laurel, and c). an offer to have a normal life where Laurel is still alive. I get that, of all the things in her reality, Laurel being dead is still the one that Sara would most want to change, but I'm not sure how many different variations they can have on that same theme before it just gets tired. Then again, I think it'll kind of depend on how they do it. Like, I could see it working as flashbacks or something to help flesh out Sara's storyline in the present day (Arrow used to be really good at that, so I feel like Legends could pull it off at least one more time). Black Siren could also be fun (look, I just really want to know what Earth-2 Sara is like). Other than that, though, I worry that it'll just feel repetitive.