yellowfred

So, they definitely wrapped up more plots tonight than I thought they would. I'm kind of sad that the implications of J'onn possibly turning into a White Martian were put so far to the backburner, especially since that's apparently the end of that story. While I kind of wish that they'd given Maggie and Alex at least one episode of trying to be friends, I'm not gonna argue with where they ended up (though, I'd really thought that Alex was going to be the one to get badly injured). I really enjoyed the Kara/Lena stuff this episode. I do think Lena was genuinely upset when Supergirl told her that her mother was the head of Cadmus. Like, it's one thing to know that you're mother is awful in a family setting; it's another thing to hear that she might actually be evil on a more global scale. I think, if I hadn't already been unenthused about the prospect of Kara and Mon-El getting together, that kiss would have gotten me there. It made me wish that I'd watched a lower def version so that I wouldn't have to see that trail of spittle between their mouths quite so clearly. I'm pretty sure that he's pretending not to remember the kiss because he realizes that it was awful and should never happen again, but he wanted to save face. I agree that this was not the best way to kick off the crossover. For one thing, kicking off a storyline about stopping an alien invasion with an episode focusing on the moral failings of people who see themselves as stopping alien invasions is probably not setting the best tone for what's to come.

While I do largely agree with you, I think that Maggie may have been a bit thrown off by how quickly Alex made her move. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if she was planning to have some version of that talk over drinks if Alex hadn't kissed her. I actually feel like, if she'd said all that sooner, it would have been making Alex's coming out more about her (Maggie) than about Alex. I definitely think she should have tried to be more aware of the signals she was sending Alex, particularly knowing that Alex was at least interested her (which she definitely knew, though I get the impression that Maggie underestimated how interested Alex was), but I read her more as trying to be supportive/encouraging than being flirty.

Well, not just from a shipping perspective but, to me, Rip coming back and being captain again would probably make me mad at him, especially if Sara continues to be as effective in that role as she's been. Like, I don't think Sara could ever reasonably go back to being just one of the crew, even if Rip was officially their captain again, so it's not so much about the power dynamic. For me, it would be more about the fact that the entire crew seems to see Sara as a strong leader, so if Rip wasn't able to see that and react accordingly, I'd be concerned that he doesn't respect her that much.

Well, that's a bit disappointing. I'm wondering if that's the reason we haven't heard her say anything about Snart this season. I'd been mostly willing to write off Mick's comments as his way of messing with Hex, but I'll be sad if the show is going to pretend, from now on, that Sara's only ever been interested in women. That being said, the tweets were purposefully pretty vague, so I'm not sure if it's really worth being concerned about yet. Admittedly, I'm someone who didn't see erasure of Sara's bisexuality last season, and I also wouldn't consider it erasure if she doesn't have any romantic interactions with men this season, but I know that mileage varies on that sort of thing.

Yeah, I feel like these shows keep coming really close to dealing with more complex notions of what makes a person heroic, but somehow they keep coming back to the idea of putting on a mask (or a suit, or a suit with a mask) and beating up bad guys. Also, Nate giddily deflecting bullets while the guy he was supposed to be saving was literally swinging from a noose was not the best endorsement for his heroism.

So, I was a little annoyed with Nate this episode. What kind of historian doesn't like researching history? Like, that's pretty much the whole job.

I also really enjoyed this episode. I like that they're doing something I think they should have done last season by letting Reverse Flash and Damian Dahrk pop up every few episodes, so that coming up against them has actual meaning. Speaking of Damian Darhk, I have no idea where the 'h' in his name goes, and every way I try it looks wrong. I was a little disappointed in Sara for letting some secret service guy sneak up on her like that (and, I guess, for nearly getting everyone arrested due to her Darkh-induced tunnel vision). She made up for it, though, with the whole "I'm monologuing so that you don't notice that I'm also picking your pocket" bit. As far as her causing Dhark to do all that stuff he did, I think it's been made fairly clear that the arc thing has been his plan for a while and it's not like she told him her sister's name and then gave him a picture to hold onto for a couple decades, just in case (sorry, Rip). The fact that they acknowledged that Obsidian is gay made me happier than I realized it would. The fact that Amaya seemed completely unsurprised by it and he was living in a happily committed relationship in 1987 made me even happier. I also liked that they mentioned the lavender scare without making too big of a deal out of it. Also, for my (somewhat) brief moment of taking the rules of time travel way too seriously: so, the rule seems to be that any time period that you visit that's chronologically after the time period you're "from" (meaning, the time you most recently left, I guess), it's a version of the timeline wherein you never returned (hence, Obsidian saying that Vixen never came back to the JSA). So, if that's the case, is every post-1942 time they visit just a hypothetical future, in the same way that Star City 2046 was? Then again, they've since traveled further into the future than that, and there was no mention of it only being a possible future, so maybe there's a statute of limitations on it. Like, maybe if you travel to the future that's near enough to still reasonably be in your lifetime, it's sort of screwy, but once you get a hundred plus years out, time has corrected itself for your absence?

I now have a very vivid mental image of Sara eating popcorn and watching as Team Arrow and Team Supergirl argue over who gets her. On a side note, I really hope they just have her hair like that for the promo. This has been such a good hair season for Sara, and I really don't want to see her go back to that.

So, as someone who legitimately likes James as a character, I have to agree that this plot looks terrible. Admittedly, a part of my reaction has to do with having seen a (remarkably) similar plot on Arrow (though, at least the inciting incident here isn't as terrible a decision), but I still think it's a lazy choice. I would love to see James more integrated into the main storylines, but I don't think the way to do that is by giving him a mask (or a suit) and having him fight. I'm really enjoying the Maggie/Alex stuff. I found it pretty realistic to have Alex just really wanting to spend time with her and not necessarily making that connection about why until Maggie directly brought it up. It is definitely happening a lot faster than I thought it would, but I'm actually happy that they're not drawing out the part where Alex figures out she's attracted to Maggie. Also, their first scene where Alex is trying to act appropriately sad about Maggie and her girlfriend breaking up was kind of adorable. I feel like other people have already covered a lot of the problems with Mon-El, so I'll just say that I'm starting to understand why Kryptonians hated Daxamites so much.

I'm a little bit torn about this. Like, on the one hand, I kind of love the idea of Maggie being sort of passively jealous of Supergirl, followed by Alex and Kara being sort of horrified when they find out. At the same time, though, I'm kind of rooting for Maggie to figure out that they're sisters on her own (she's a detective; she detects). Keep in mind, he is a Daxamite.

So, I'm kind of glad they didn't draw out the whole White Martian reveal. Although, about halfway through the episode, I wondered if they weren't actually going to do it. Like, I understand her telling J'onn that she's a Green Martian, but why would she pretend to be one for that fighting ring? It just seems like a lot of effort to put towards hiding something that maybe three people on the planet would even understand the significance of. I was kind of underwhelmed by the resolution to Kara's reporter sub-plot this week. When she said that she had a source, I was hoping it would be one of the aliens who'd been fighting, who could talk about what it was like and how they ended up there. Instead, she just interviewed herself, which doesn't exactly bode well for Kara ever wanting to be a real journalist. Plus, I was kind of hoping we'd get to see the article have some kind of effect (i.e. making it a lot harder for Roulette to run her business), but I guess that wouldn't have really worked with the timing of everything. Also, Lena's gotta know that Kara's Supergirl, right? I mean, that ominous look she had about Kara being there to help her can't possibly be the ominous look of someone who just earned the loyalty of one of the least influential reporters in National City. I have no words for how badly I want this to happen. Also, I feel like one of them will almost certainly say, out loud, "she's my sister," because they're both kind of terrible liars, which will probably lead to a backpedal so awkward that "I flew here...on the bus" will seem smooth by comparison.

So, one episode into her tenure as captain and I'd say the position seems to suit Sara pretty well. Even Amaya, whose most prominent personality trait so far seems to be being unimpressed with the legends, took all of three seconds to accept that Sara's the boss. I have to say, I was a little surprised that they did away with the ATOM suit the way they did. I guess it makes sense, given the flashing neon signs telling us that Ray's getting a storyline about being a hero without the suit, but still. I was kind of proud of him for managing to escape from that jail cell on his own. It almost makes up for the fact that he had a super suit on and still let it get stolen by a bunch of guys with swords (like, I get that they're skilled and all, but he can shrink, fly, and fire laser cannon things). I'm still not too excited about Nate. Like, I get that he's excited about getting to have super powers, but he almost got himself and Masako killed because he wanted to show them off. It's lucky that she just decided to ignore half the stuff he said, because he definitely tipped off the whole time-traveler thing practically every five seconds. Also, it kind of bugged me that they had the rest of the team being perfectly cool with leaving Ray's suit behind so that he could be the one to explain why they can't.

Yeah, that felt a little odd to me, too. Like, if she knew him better, that would be one thing, but her saying he's not a real hero exclusively because he has a super suit instead of super powers felt a bit off. When Sara slouched down to make Stein look taller, I laughed so hard that I had to pause the episode for a bit.

So, that episode was more fun than I thought it would be. I was a little worried that they were gonna go overboard with the whole "the JSA is so awesome" thing, so I kind of liked that it ended up being more "the JSA is so awesome, but they're also kind of jerks about it." Sara getting to be the new captain is maybe my favorite development from this episode. It seemed like a bit of an inevitability, even before Rip left, but that didn't make it any less exciting to see it happen. I also really liked that it was Stein who picked her, in probably his most decisive moment of the episode. Of course, Stein's turn as leader lead to Victor Garber singing "Edelweiss" so it wasn't all bad. On a related side note, is the opening monologue gonna be a rotating thing, or is it just gonna be Sara from now on? While I'd understand the former, I'm really pulling for the latter.

I think it was supposed to be the private network and earbuds (except when they were in the gold vault, because there was no reception in there), but I really wasn't sure during that graveyard scene. Like, it kind of looked like Shaw wasn't entirely sure where the voice was coming from. Then again, she could have just been surprised because it was Root's voice coming through her earbud.

That would pretty much be my ideal scenario, though I feel like she would more likely find out about Jeyne after going to help Jon take back Winterfell, which would then cause the break between her and Littlefinger. In the books, she's wary of him, on some levels, but the two of them are still basically a team. So, unless the show decided to go in a wildly different direction with her character (which, granted, would not be entirely unprecedented), it seems like book!Sansa is due to find out something that will stop her from viewing Littlefinger as an ally. I figure it's either going to be what he did to Jeyne or what he did to Ned, and Jeyne's definitely the more feasible of the two.

Shaw: Oh, god. You have her bad timing, too.

So, I really liked this episode. All things considered, it was much more contemplative than I was expecting it to be, which is particularly fitting, since I could say the same thing about the show itself. Personally, I really liked Finch going off to be with Grace. It worked, for me, on a number of levels. On the one hand, it's him stepping away from the Machine and trusting Her to do good in his absence. It's also a move towards him letting himself be happy, which I, personally, think he deserves. On top of that, there's the fact that John and Root and a number of other people have died to keep him alive, so throwing away his life, the way he seemed to want to, would have been a pretty hollow way to honor that sacrifice. Plus, it fit well with the way the episode put so much emphasis on the importance of human connection. Harold spent a very long time trying to avoid connecting with people after he lost Nathan; becoming so close with John (and the others) was a happy accident. So, having him actively seek a connection after losing John felt, to me, like a satisfying conclusion to his journey. I also particularly loved the idea of Shaw continuing to work the numbers. Like, just in general, I like it when series finales give you a sense that things will continue, even if they're changed, and having Shaw working the numbers as the new Interface for the new Machine seems like a fitting way to do that. Also, with the idea that keeping people's memory alive, in a way, keeps them alive, Shaw is keeping John's memory and Root's and Harold's (even though Harold isn't actually dead, but she doesn't know that). So, for me, it makes perfect sense for her to be the final shot of the series, because she's now the keeper of their legacy. Oh, man, that scene wrecked me and she played that moment so perfectly. Both the line itself and the way she reacted to it conveyed so much genuine love and understanding. Like, I'm not sure I could ever explain to a person who didn't watch this show how a statement like "if you were a shape, you'd be a straight line" could be romantic at all, and yet it's so weirdly perfect for them that I almost screamed. I also love the fact that the show made time, with everything else going on, to address the idea that Shaw felt insecure about her inability to grieve the way she thought she was supposed to. She tried to say goodbye at Root's grave and it just felt wrong, because she was trying to perform it the way she thought she should. Then, Root's message sort of gave her permission, in a way, to grieve in whatever way felt right to her, because Root understood her in that way and loved her for it. So, instead, she said goodbye to Root while looking at the Machine, which is kind of extra fitting for both of them. Plus, it sort of confirmed my theory that Root spent a significant amount of time talking out loud to the Machine about her feelings for Shaw, because that's probably too specific a statement for the Machine to have figured it out any other way. That was actually how I read the scene, too. Like, she wanted to see him look hopeful for a second before she killed him. Shaw's kind of a little shit sometimes; it's part of why I love her.

I really hope it was. It kind of seemed like they dropped whatever Root put in there in favor of using the Ice-9 to take out Samaritan, so hopefully that comes into play again somehow.

I kind of wonder if his surprise at the end had more to do with the fact that it was Samaritan-as-led-by-Decima. Like, he might have thought that Samaritan was being used in the same way that the Machine had been used by the government, not realizing that Decima had managed to infiltrate the Northern Lights program and was using that position to act beyond the scope of what it was theoretically designed for.

I might be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure Reese did kill Jessica's husband. The guy in the Mexican prison was a US Marshall that had been stalking his (ex?) wife, which got him thinking about that time he killed Jessica's husband. Also, I kind of wonder if Samaritan was just done with Greer and that whole spectacle was more for the Machine. A demonstration of Samaritan's ability to inspire loyalty, maybe? It was surprisingly eager to get the Machine to join it, maybe killing one of it's own top agents is some kind of ASI bonding ritual that Samaritan just invented.

So, I really enjoyed the alternative timeline scenes, both for the scenes themselves and for the fact that the Machine wrote her own version of "It's a Wonderful Life" with herself as George Bailey and then read it for Finch. Also, they managed to bring back a legitimately impressive number of past guest stars. I liked the detail (well, "liked," but in a sad way) that saving Jessica wasn't enough to permanently keep John away from the place he was in at the beginning of the Pilot. Also, I think his grave number was supposed to be the same as the date that he first found out about the Machine, which makes for a cool parallel to Root's. I thought it was interesting that Fusco, Root, and Shaw were all objectively in better places (Root's alive, Shaw isn't in hiding or recovering from several months of psychological torture, and Fusco's not in constant danger of being murdered by Samaritan agents), but never really evolved as people from who they were when we first met them. Like, Fusco went from being a dirty cop to being a PI, but it's not like he shows anything like remorse for what he did. Without Harold and the Machine's intervention, Root never stopped thinking of humanity as "bad code." Without being burned by them and then working the numbers, Shaw's still fine working/killing indiscriminately for the ISA. While I get that neither of them were particularly surprising outcomes for either Finch or the audience, I kind of wish that alt!Shaw still in the ISA and alt!Root working for Samaritan had gotten even half the exposition that alt!Fusco being a PI got. That being said, I kind of loved the fact that Root ended up working for Samaritan, mostly because I can't imagine any version of her story where there's an ASI out there somewhere and she doesn't find out about it and find a way to work for it. On a side note, I like to imagine that alt!Root is about a week away from killing alt!Greer and taking his place (Samaritan would, of course, be totally cool with that). As for the actual timeline stuff, I'm a little conflicted at the moment. Like, I loved seeing John and Shaw working together and dark!Harold continues to be awesome. I think the Machine has been sounding more like Root ever since Harold said he approved of that choice, which seems fitting for how much weight the Machine (and Root, for that matter) puts on things being Harold's decision. Greer going out like a fanatical idiot felt almost fittingly anti-climactic. Also, I may have laughed more than I should have at Greer's explanation that Samaritan wants the Machine to be it's "companion." I know it would have been tonally inappropriate, but I really wanted Harold to say something along the lines of "Samaritan really isn't her type." I also kind of love the idea that Harold's actual last name is "Dashwood." It gives so much more meaning to the way he proposed to Grace. Where I feel a bit conflicted is the whole "sacrificing the Machine to stop Samaritan" thing. While I think it's fitting, in a lot of ways, for that to be the endgame of this particular conflict, it also feels a little bit repetitive, since we sort of just had the Machine sacrificing Herself in the penultimate episode of last season (while I know a lot of emphasis was put on it being Harold's choice, the Machine seemed happy with his decision). On the one hand, I'm kind of hoping that they try to find a way to save the Machine next episode (which would make sense, especially if the voice over in the first episode was the Machine talking to Herself after coming back online with no memories). On the other hand, that's pretty much exactly what they did in last year's finale. Plus, on a more personal level, this being the solution means that Root's death uncomplicated things, which makes it sad in a way that it wasn't before. Like, for John, Shaw, Fusco, and (to a lesser degree) Harold, the Machine is a tool. She allows them to save people, She's their best way of fighting Samaritan, but, other than Harold, they don't seem to think of the Machine as being alive or being a person in Her own right. Even Harold, while he does see the Machine as being alive, fundamentally doesn't trust Her. Root, on the other hand, loved the Machine. Not even just in a "the Machine is her God" kind of way, either. The Machine was basically her best friend and, arguably, the love of her life (certainly in the top two). So, at this point, if Finch goes back to the team and tells them what he's done, the only person who might have tried to fight him on it already died buying him the chance to do it. Also, on an even more selfish level, I'm sad that we'll never get to see a scene of Root and Harold discussing this as a strategy, because I think it would have been amazing. Just imagine the look in Root's eyes when she realized it was their best/only option. Like, I can only vaguely conceive of what that scene would look like, and it still almost makes me cry.

I remember hearing good things about it, particularly during the second season, but I'd never made it much of a priority, since it was so hard to get caught up on. The thing that tipped it for me was finding out that Amy Acker was a recurring guest star. I ended up binging the first two seasons a few weeks before the third season started, which was probably for the best, because I don't think season one would have held my interest week-to-week (I think the quality was there, but I'm just not a big fan of procedurals).

I think May 3, 2013 is the first time that Root talked to the Machine.

I don't think the show is trying to have it that it's a good thing Root died. It is a tragedy, but it's also a choice that she made. She chose to put herself in danger to save Harold. I don't know if she knew, when she did that, that it would mean her death, but I'm confident that knowing that wouldn't have changed her decision. As far as the transcendence stuff goes, I don't particularly buy into it. At the same time, though, I still think it's significant that the Machine chose her voice. Root saw the Machine as a god, her god. The Machine having a voice was something Root wanted even before she'd spoken to Her. Having the Machine finally get a voice choose hers would probably have made her ecstatic. So, basically, yeah, Root's death is tragic and it's unfair and, honestly, once the dust is settled from this season, I might look back and feel like it was cheap. For the moment, though, I'm happy for her that she got to go out on her own terms, that she went out a hero, and that the Machine is choosing to remember her in a way that Root would have wanted.