Chicago Redshirt

I assume that the ceremony at the Smithsonian made it public knowledge that Cap gave Sam the shield and that Sam channeled Indy and said "that belongs in a museum." I doubt people necessarily know the implications that Cap wanted Sam to be Cap 2.0. I would assume the HBCU would still have participated in the event. After all, a) Sam did give up the shield willingly as opposed to the powers that be saying "gotta give it to a white guy" and b) a gig's a gig. I don't necessarily agree with the viewpoint, but it's pretty entitled to think "I'm going to insert myself in your business so I can bitch at you about something on your mind." That is arguably what friends do from time to time, but Bucky and Sam aren't really friends like that. It isn't a crazy take to see the entitlement as a form of white privilege. I'm under the impression Sam donated it to the museum. I guess it's possible that either Tony designed the Falcon 2.0 suit for the government or with government resources. Or the suit is based on intellectual property from the government? Howard Stark made the shield out of vibranium that the U.S. owned. He made a bunch of other types of shields, but there was only one vibranium one. The shield Steve gave Sam was plucked from a previous time and brought to 2023. But that shield was still created from the vibranium the government owned in the 40s. The broken shield was the original version that Howard Stark fashioned from government property. Howard Stark didn't own the metal; the government did. If you follow that line of logic, Sam was never truly in a position to donate the shield to the Smithsonian any more than someone would be to donate a library book they've checked out to another library.

Famous pro skateboarder Tony Hawk has raised numerous instances where people comment to him that he sort of looks like Tony Hawk or see him with skateboards and wonder if he's trying to be like Tony Hawk or things like that. I bring this up because it shows how it's easy to not draw connections in real life to celebrities. There may be a gap in the public's mind between the Bucky who is featured in the Smithsonian exhibit about Cap and the Howling Commandos on the one hand and the Winter Soldier guy who shot up DC a bit ago, the guy who was wanted for blowing up the U;N. and the guy who was part of the Avengers in defeating Thanos most recently. I'd imagine there would be a range of folks, from people who barely know who Captain America is to people who are super-fans of every aspect of the Avengers and could tell you Bucky's favorite ice cream flavor.

A few small changes would have improved Sophie's character and this episode a lot, IMO: 1. Have Sophie independently realize that Jordan was at the scene of the shooting and may have seen something. As things stand the Bat Team and the FFS both figure out Jordan's involvement on their own. The FFS even manages to figure out where she has gone and send thugs to attack her before Sophie has any clue as to Jordan's involvement. Sophie has access to a small army and is a professional investigator. She had every opportunity to see the unfinished tag at the crime scene and to recognize it as her sister's handiwork. She should have been able to put the pieces together at least as fast as Mary. 2. Have Sophie and Jordan plan to meet at Crows HQ. (the Crows' Nest?) It is stupid to have Jordan pop up unexpectedly in the backseat of Sophie's car for a bunch of reasons. First, presumably the parking lot should be more secure. Second, for it to happen, Jordan would have to have either a key to Sophie's car or mad lockpicking skillz, neither of which make much sense. Third, even putting that aside, no normal being in Jordan's position would go across town, wait for possibly hours for Sophie to finish her shift (remember, she is working on the assassination of a police commissioner, which should be a big deal and there could be who knows how much work to do on the case) and then surprise her. It would make way more sense to text/call her, even cryptically to say that she needs help. Plus, it makes Sophie, a professional investigator, look bad that she can be surprised by someone hiding in the backseat of her car. Again. It was just a couple months ago or less that Alice surprised her. Letting your guard down the once could happen to anyone, but getting caught twice is just sloppy. It would be better for the story if the two arranged to meet, preferably with Sophie being the one to set it up. It would show her as proactive, caring and smart rather than this passive character who things happen to. 3. Have Sophie defend herself from wave 1 of FFS goons Again, Sophie does pretty much nothing when the FFS goons shows up. It's fine that Batwoman saves the day and everything. But these goons brought crowbars and such to a gun fight. I get that the show probably doesn't want Sophie shooting and killing people for political or other reasons. (I am trying to remember if, across the various Arrowverse shows, the human cops like Quentin Lance, Joe West, Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer have ever just shot at normal humans and am coming up blank even though it's OK for Arrow or Wild Dog to put holes in people.). But it makes her look really bad if she has a gun, takes it out, and just is kind of there. 4. Have Sophie stand up for the Crows We get it, the Crows have done a lot of shady shit over the years, and basically everybody thinks they are shady. Having Sophie just take all the accusations about how bad the Crows are isn't a good look. Either she agrees with the criticisms, in which case, what is she doing as part of the job? or she doesn't and she's too passive to defend her vocation and herself. It would be more interesting if she at least put up some sort of defense. Not all Crows, or sure there are a few bad apples, but the Crows did all these great things too, or if it weren't for the Crows, Gotham would be an even bigger shithole than it is now. 5. Have Sophie's investigation bear its own fruit It would have been way better if one of the things the Crows were looking into -- say, how the CC footage was fudged to eliminate evidence of the shooting -- led somewhere that the Bat Team didn't already beat them to. Maybe it could be the thing that got Sophie to the Black Mask Lair instead of Luke saying, hey Batwoman's comms are down, can you check it out? 6. Have her try to flip Angelique or get more info out of her or at least do SOMETHING about her false confession Like discussed above at length, just accepting it is contrary to who Sophie is supposed to be (or at least, who I think the writers should want her to be) -- a dedicated, fierce advocate of fairness and justice, a professional investigator of crime, and a person with compassion for others.

The Anti-Life Equation is a pretty long-lived concept from the comics as a motivator for Darkseid.

I'd have to see a news source to believe that the feds did not question a single insurrection suspect who did not request a lawyer without voluntarily providing them with one. Because that would be extremely unusual. I would imagine that most suspects invoked their right to an attorney and then of course were provided with a lawyer. An attorney would be ethically barred from sharing with Sophie anything that Angelique told her in confidence. So the attorney could not ethically get information from Angelique and turn around to provide it to Sophie. Trying to employ an attorney in that way would be Sophie showing that the distrust of Crows that exists is completely justified. An attorney could be an ally to convince Angelique that she should flip and look out for her own interests rather than Ryan's; or that she/Sophie can safeguard Ryan, or things like that. But it also is fair to think that if Angelique is already distrustful of Sophie and the justice system, she's going to be distrustful of an attorney that Sophie helps procure for her, especially when it is an attorney Angelique did not want and when the attorney tells her to do things that Sophie wants. It also should be pointed out that Angelique would probably be wise to suspect that the attorney would be either linked to Black Mask or someone the FFS could/would monitor or intimidate into giving up information. Providing an attorney for someone who doesn't ask for one might be a good thing to do, but it's not "the right thing" to do. There is no legal or moral obligation to give someone an attorney who doesn't want one. There is (at least in my mind) a moral obligation to do more than "oh well, I guess I will accept this false confession and let someone be prosecuted for a crime they did not commit." Although morally and legally I suppose one could attempt to justify it because even taking Angelique at her word that she was just driving under the impression that she was just doing one last job for the FFS before getting out, she is potentially guilty under accomplice liability or felony-murder depending on the circumstances. So Angelique is not innocent of murder in the sort of way that Ryan was innocent of possessing her drugs.

My point is how would a dynamic and professional character react to that refusal to talk? Your answer may vary. Mine is: not like Sophie did, which was with acceptance and (as far as we were shown and up till now) no further action than giving Ryan Sophie's bracelet. Hell, even saying to Ryan "I tried everything to get her to tell me the truth about what happened" would IMO have improved the scene a lot. Or showing some of that frustration that as things stand, Angelique is going to possibly get the death penalty for a crime she didn't commit. Now maybe Sophie tried all sorts of stuff off screen. But that's on the writers. They chose not to show Sophie in her best possible light, given that she was dealt a bum hand.

Agreed on the first point. But on the second point, we weren't shown that Sophie pushed at all. She seemingly was like, Oh well, she's going to stick with a story that I know to be BS. Imagine that it was Jim Gordon, the lead from the Closer, the crew from the various Law & Orders, pretty much any fictional investigator who was faced with an obviously lying witness and a false confession that is standing in the way of trying to determine who really killed someone, let alone a police commissioner. Would they be as blase and nonchalant about it as Sophie seemed to be? Absolutely not. They'd threaten the witness, cajole the witness, get frustrate with the witness, explore alternate means of getting to the truth. And it's possible of course that Sophie does that in an upcoming episode. But as things stand, she just is like, eh, it is what it is. Angelique loved you enough to lie for you, Ryan and go to jail for a crime she didn't commit, just like you went to jail for her.

People under arrest don't typically get assigned counsel while being interrogated. They have to demand an attorney, and only then should in theory would that trigger getting them one. (In practice, there is a question of what constituting demanding an attorney. There was a somewhat infamous ruling where a suspect saying something akin to "so why don't you give me a lawyer, dawg" was deemed to not be demanding a lawyer, which was memed because the court was apparently not familiar with slang and so thought he was talking about possibly getting "a lawyer dog."). Anyway, if Angelique didn't want a lawyer, Sophie had no ability to foist one on her. And there was no reason for Angelique to want one since she was planning to throw herself on her sword. Come to think of it, it doesn't really make sense for the FFS to have wanted Angelique to do that. First, because why would the FFS think that threatening Ryan -- then not even Angelique's girlfriend -- would provide enough incentive for Angelique to frame herself? Or that she wouldn't flip if Ryan could be made secure? Or just flip in general? Asking someone to frame herself for what is a death sentence/life without the possibility of parole crime is crazy. And also, they had to know that the cops knew that there was a witness who saw three perps. Maybe they can count on the cops/Crows to be indifferent to the facts, I guess? The point is the writers didn't think much through. They just wanted to do a scene to play around with shippers. Aw, look, Angelique really does care! Aw look, the path is now clear for Sophie and Ryan to get together! Are there official names for these ships? Rangelique? SoRy? Anyway again, Sophie could -- and should -- have done a lot more investigating. Remember, two people who assassinated a police commissioner are still out thr4e! Or even if she felt she was unable to do anything, they could have had Sophie play things less blaze. Like she should be furious and frustrated that Angelique was so stubborn and blocking her from the truth. It would be nice if the writers would work in a little more originality. We have Alice playing the role of Brand X Joker, Safiyah playing the role of Brand X R'as Al Ghul, and now they are trying to turn Sophie into Brand X Jim Gordon, the early years. Which would be fine, but pretty much every relevant incarnation of early Jim Gordon (Batman Begins/the Dark Knight, Gotham, Batman: Year One and the comics) had him idealistic, active with integrity, often wrestling with dilemmas that he was in. And so far, the writers haven't brought much of that to Sophie. She's just...there. It's sad that her sister upstaged her in terms of well, basically everything, in this episode. I don't know if that's a writing, directing, or acting issue, or some combination of all three. But it's a problem.

As always, I love your summaries and snark. But I have to comment on these comments. We haven't heard much about the Gotham prosecutors in this series (or really across the main Bat-mythos ever except for the fact that Harvey Dent was the Rare Good Hard-Working D.A./assistant D.A. and look how he turned out. I haven't read deep into Gotham Central, so maybe that had more prosecutors?). But it is a fair assumption that Gotham's prosecutors are generally as lazy, incompetent and corrupt as the police and the Crows. So it is believable that even if Sophie was like, "We can't believe this confession! I have a witness who said there were two gunmen and Angelique was only the getaway driver! There were bullets from two different guns and the trajectory of the bullets shows it couldn't be a single shooter" (just making these things up, obviously), the D.A. would likely be, "Moore, don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Take the W." Sophie's promise to Batwoman was to protect Angelique from the FFS, not to protect her generally. Angelique can (and apparently did) decline to have counsel and if she does there's not really anything Sophie could do about that.

Part of the "nothing matters" would/could be "borders don't matter," "old national rivalries don't matter" etc. And part of getting over that nihilism might be clinging to a philosophy of "one world, one people" and building that up as something to believe in. Or it could simply be that Thanos's genocide had the desired result in some ways -- having half as many people on Earth led to a more fair distribution of resources, and with everyone returned, there's concern about the old world order returning.

The pandemic, as bad as it is, is not at all the same thing as an external enemy who is capable of exterminating all of us at a whim and making our existing differences look petty by comparison. There is no need to band together or die to fight it. We have historical contexts for pandemics.

It's not just a question of numbers in the population though. It's about a series of world-changing events. In the real 1970s world, we all were still operating off of hundreds/thousands of years of rivalries and the sense that we might be all there is in terms of intelligent life. The MCU in 2018 no longer was so lucky. It had endured first an alien invasion, but of aliens that still were beatable. Then a risked ELE through Ultron. And then finally a power beyond comprehension snapped half the universe's life out of existence. In the face of such a power and who knows what other threats out there, it seems plausible that it became clear that a lot of the old divisions no longer work and could not be sustained. How much reason would there be to proud of America or antagonistic toward Iran (to pick an example) if you were aware that existential threats from space could wipe us off the globe at any second? In this series, we are meant to imagine that when the Blip happened, all the united earth feeling that happened went away.

America in the MCU still has plenty of enemies. There are terrorist organizations, including, but not limited to the Ten Rings, AIM, Hydra and/or Hydra off-shoots. We've been introduced to the Flag Smashers who clearly pose some level of threat to American interests. Walker acknowledges Sam's Big Three and so might have to face off against, aliens, android or wizards. Remember their America has experienced massive threats from Loki, Ultron and Thanos in the last 10ish years, and there's no sign of that stopping, Steve was a crucial part of beating back each of those threats. And MCU America presumably has some variants of the normal threats that real America has from other countries.

There's some suspension of disbelief required for comic book, but even with people not recognizing Clark and Kara, there's more room to understand that. Other than the trope, there is no reason to believe that Superman and Supergirl bother with civilian identities. They could just live in the Fortress of Solitude and use alien tech to feed themselves, if they even eat. So it is more reasonable to think "Huh, it's funny that Clark kinda looks like Superman if he were slouching." I don't think it is as reasonable when you are talking about regular people who have to find ways to support themselves. And in particular when you are talking about people you have slept with and supposedly have love-of-your-life feelings for, and when the person doesn't do much to disguise themselves beyond wearing a mask that doesn't obscure their eyes. They still probably smell, talk, and sound similar to how they do as civilians. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure that any serious ex of mine who showed up in a Batwoman costume I'd probably be like, "Nancy?" Especially if Nancy kept saying stuff like, "I'm a friend of Batwoman and she wanted you to do X?" I don't think that's genre savviness. I think that's just reality/ Roman Sionis is a business person. I think it safe to say that he is Black Mask because he didn't disguise his voice in his undercover guise. I suppose there could be something to him ordering the hit on the commish so that he could run.

Marvel is clear about him having started as a Nazi in the movies but glosses over him being a true believer in whites as the master race, Jews and the other races being inferior, etc. etc. as well as the ramifications of that. I think we are saying the same thing, but just in different ways.

Not to nitpick too much, especially as I brain froze and wrote Slovakia when I should have said Sokovia earlier in the thread, but California is not generally considered the South. I would say again that Marvel has glossed over a lot, from downplaying that Red Skull was a Nazi (and indeed making it so that he envisioned a new world order that would blow up Berlin) to that even the most advanced white person from the 1940s would probably not fall into the category of "woke" by today's standards.

I think, sadly, this is exactly where they are going with Kate. For some reason BM blames Kate for his daughter's death, perhaps knowing she's BW. He engineers the mid-air kidnapping/attack on Kate for...reasons. And somehow either plants evidence of real!Kate at the crash to be discovered later or it's just there. Meanwhile, he has kept real!Kate under his control for what has to be at least three months by the end of this episode, also for reasons. And now he's brought in noted hypnotist Enigma. There really can only be one way this goes -- to mindwipe her and use her as the latest in the FFS army (interesting that the acronym for False Face Society is the same as "for fuck's sake"). Where at some point there will be the inevitable BW 1.0 vs. BW 2.0 fight, in which BW 2.0 will prevail, validating her right to the BW mantle. I hope I am wrong about some or all of this (other than the outcome where BW 1.0 wins and they retool the series again featuring real!Kate, because that would be IMO a sucker punch.)

There are a lot of things from the past I would enjoy a second season building on and flesh out more: Wanda and Pietro's childhood How Wanda and Pietro came to be radicalized by Hydra The creation of JARVIS The budding romance between Vision and Scarlet Witch How SWORD acquired Vision's body Where the other Avengers were More sitcoms in the Hex. In terms of things going forward, I think there are a few strings that are pretty obvious. 1. More details about the Scarlet Witch mythology and Wanda's efforts to avoid it as her destiny and to wrestle with the evil she has done 2. Wanda's efforts to try to recreate/rescue Tommy and Billy 3.The fates of Agatha, Hayward, and a number of other players. 4. The fate of White Vision

Ah, then I stand corrected. Sorry for not paying close enough attention to the gunfight. On a new topic, I should add that better writing probably would have given a better motive to the False Face Society to kill the police commissioner in the first place. I can't help think about the Joker's speech in The Dark Knight about plans and how nobody blinks an eye when a gangbanger gets shot but when he kills a mayor, everyone loses their mind. Well, shooting a police commissioner on the steps of police HQ would be a Big Deal. The Crows and the GCPD would spare nothing to try to track down the people responsible. To do it just because the commissioner threatened to go after Snakebite, that doesn't make much sense. The False False Society should be aware of this and should not want to ramp up the heat to that level for no reason, unless we're just to think that they are just crazy. Which maybe is the point, but then maybe better establish that they just give no fucks.

The show wants to have it both ways with the Crows. They are apparently a supplementary force with virtually unlimited jurisdiction. That's why earlier this season, they had Ryan under arrest for a convenience store robbery, Beyond just working for rich clients, it seems like they have some sort of broader ongoing contract with Gotham City to do...things, but the show hasn't really ever explained what are GCPD cases versus Crow cases.

Did Sophie's gun only have one bullet in it? Because if not, maybe she could try to fire more than that one shot. I probably should have said why she didn't hit Black Mask, because she had him dead to rights when he was being a weirdo and didn't know she was there. Sophie and Kate were supposed to be top markswomen back in their military academy days. So it would have been nice to have it be more realistically written that why Sophie didn't shoot BM (other than "because if she did, then we wouldn't have a Big Bad for the second half of the season." Once no one was by the saw mechanism, Ryan was fine. Even stopping to free Ryan didn't mean that she couldn't get on her Crow radio and say "Crows, we just had the head of the False Face Society flee a warehouse at Robinson and Finger. Set up a perimeter." Even if it didn't work, it would show her being proactive Sophie is portrayed as second in command of the Crows. Surely there are at least a couple who she could trust to follow her orders? And even if you accept that any backup she would bring is likely to turn on Batwoman and try to arrest her, isn't it better to risk that than getting captured or killed yourself? It is again just writer fiat that the False Face Society people didn't have lookouts ready to cap any intruders. An actual investigator -- especially one who knows that the confession is false because a) her own sister told her that there were three people in the car and described the getaway driver as having the bracelet that Angelique had b) she found Angelique tied up by other members of the False Face Society c) and who either was straight-up told by Angelique that she was giving the confession to protect Ryan or was smart enough to deduce that -- would take other steps to corroborate or to show as false the confession. Presumably the Crows recorded the "confession" and Sophie could simply tell people that it is BS. If for whatever reason prosecutors were like, long hair don't care go tthis case closed, an actual investigator would pursue a number of leads that her arrest would open up. Such as tracing her whereabouts over the past few weeks, what contacts she made by phone and e-mail, and so forth. Trying to work on Angelique and pointing out how BS her confession was would have again potentially been an interesting faceoff for Sophie. Think of the drama of Sophie confronting Angelique about how she's trying to sell some BS because she doesn't know details like what gun was used, where he was shot, etc., about how Sophie is not buying it and will have Angelique charged with murder as the getaway driver and Ryan's still in danger, trying to sell Angelique on witness protection, or on giving up leads with the cameras turned off....any number of meaty things could have happened. All with the subtext of a crook who loves Ryan and Sophie starting to fall for her But it would have been too hard for this crew to write, or maybe for the actors to act, so they did the weird bit with Sophie telling Ryan about it. after the fact rather than more fully showing it.

I don't think that we have gotten rid of Angelique permanently. If I had to guess, she is going to come back in play in one of several ways: 1. Our Heroes need a lead on False Face activity and they go to her to see if she can help out. 2. The False Face Society isn't satisfied that she won't crack and so they put a hit on her in prison 3. Ryan visits Angelique in prison, either to try to pursue a future with her despite all odds or to rule out that they could be together. Did Kate ever kill anyone that we know of? Or is Black Mask just wrongly blaming her?

A better written show would have 1. Established the Commissioner as a character sometime before now so that we might care about him and his death other than as a plot device, and probably even within the scope of the episode avoided writing him as such a complete tool so that it seems like we're actually pretty OK with his death. 1a. Better spelled out what the difference is between the Crows and GCPD 2. Not had the commissioner talk about how Snake Bite is a "sexy" drug. 3. Done something to explain or address the transition from last week's episode where Batwoman was on the verge of death with mere hours to live while in the Mediterranean and made it back to Gotham (or somewhere) to get dosed with the Desert Rose while apparently Jake and Sophie were cool with it. 4. Would have had the existence of Sophie's sister hinted at some point before as well, and probably done more to establish a sisterly dynamic than the episode did. 5. Have sold the "Angelique has dumper's remorse/actually wants to get out of the criminal lifestyle" and " better rather than by fiat, as well as the "Ryan is actually considering wanting to bring this woman who she served time for, who recently dumped her for no reason and who was an accomplice to a murder back as her love." 6. Probably have Sophie have done all the investigating that Julia is doing about Kate, to bolster Sophie's story lines. 7. Explained why Luke went with Sophie to rescue Batwoman when her coms went down rather than Julia if we're just going with a solo effort. I guess it's implied that he might have thought that Sophie could call in the Crow cavalry if needed. Which brings us to... 8. Made it more apparent why Sophie went to the Black Mask abandoned warehouse without backup that she presumably has at her disposal, why she didn't shoot Black Mask or anyone there, why she didn't chase Black Mask or put out an APB for Black Mask as far as we saw. 9. Explained why Sophie Sis didn't just frigging call Sophie and say "Hey, I need to speak to you." rather than going to her work and lying in wait in her car. 10. Had Sophie do something when multiple masked men snuck into the parking garage and started threatening her and her sister more than just kind of pull her gun out and not do anything. I know it would be weird politically, but if you're not justified shooting when people are pounding on your car and trying to get at you and your witness-to-a-murder sibling, when are you? 11. Had the cat in Alice's psychotic break box be a Cheshire Cat. 12. Had Sophie do more than metaphorically shrug her shoulders and say "Oh well, what can we do now that we have this obviously faked confession from Angelique?" 13. Had the streetwise Angelique made the connection that Ryan is BW at this point.

I came into it with a general background in Marvel and DC, but I don't think I read Invincible ever, and all I really knew about the series was it was on Amazon Prime, it was about a kid superhero growing up, and it was from one of the Walking Dead creators. So I wasn't prepared for the twist where Omni-Man killed the Guardians. Other than that, it seems like a pleasant enough, easy enough to follow show. There are a few questions that I have, but I assume the show will get around to answering them in its own time. Like: Why did Omni-Man kill the Guardians the way he did (full frontal assault en masse), as opposed to picking them off one at a time? How is it that none of the Guardians managed to broadcast "Oh shit, Omni-Man has gone bad and killed half of us?" Does Mom Invincible know that Omni-Man is evil? Note: I'm not looking for spoilery answers to these questions.