dwmarch

Damn, this episode had all the Stars and all the Wars: C-3P0 because why not? Space Whales doing awesome Space Whale stuff. Ahsoka messing with Huyang. A space minefield that made sense because the mines could actually move! A great big ship pounding down on a tiny one. A fighter squadron chasing a hero ship through a debris field. Using the hero ship to provide air support to the troops on the ground. The enemies deploying drones to scout as they approached. Lots of lightsaber fights! Competent Force usage! Ahsoka hijacking Baylin's space wolf and riding off while he stands, suitably impressed. Cutesy little creatures fighting back using pots and pans and shit. Thrawn crapping his finely tailored uniform when finding out who Ahsoka's master was. Great episode, lots of buildup in order to get here but this one was fantastic.

What I took from that scene was that every criticism directed at the pack animal was actually meant for herself.

I loved one of the early scenes where his arm transforms into a gun and it is totally a ZF-1 from The Fifth Element. Fun movie, lots of heart and actual emotion, decent villain and good supporting characters! I'm more of a Marvel fan myself but I would put this one in DC's win column.

Baylan said he's after some great power that he can feel. Okay sure, you do you but at the same time, have you considered that the Night Sisters and Thrawn are no slouches and they are in a hurry to leave? Baylan hasn't been villainous enough for Ahsoka to have to kill him so I have a feeling he's going to find this great power, try to harness it and get his face melted off in the process. I wonder if the Night Sisters realized what a compliment they were giving Sabine in saying she "reeked of Jedi". I thought her Jedi odor would be characterized as more of a kitten fart at this point. The ring around the planet being a cloud of Purgill bones is a haunting image. That is a lot of dead space whales right there. I liked that the turtle people live in homes that look like turtle shells. I also liked that one of them was up on the roof trying to fix his TV antenna. Some things really are universal! Thrawn's Jank-class Star Destroyer is very cool. I also love his Stormtroopers with the armor that has been repaired with gold. His one lieutenant with the custom mask is haunting.

Well in the case of NCIS Hawaii, it came up in one of the crossover episodes that SAC Tenant's jurisdiction is basically anything and anywhere touched by the Pacific Ocean. This was the ridiculous justification offered so that she could travel with the other characters away from Hawaii but still maintain the authority to yell FEDERAL AGENT while chasing the bad guys across said ocean. I will call this jurisfiction. In the case of this show, based on the preview clip, I'm going to say they need the US agents there to provide a source of jurisfriction instead.

Sabine's other option was to die so I think staying alive so she could tag along with Baylan was the best of very sparse options. I also think Baylan was using the Force on her to convince her. How does he know who Ezra is or that this relationship is meaningful to Sabine? We also see that when Baylan destroys the map he has to run it through with a lightsaber and then hold it there for several seconds. Based on that, it seems likely that Baylan told Sabine to go ahead and shoot the map because he already knew her little pew-pew gun wasn't even going to scratch the paint. Sabine must have figured that out too so between that and the non-Jedi mind tricks it became clear that she wasn't going to win this one at that particular moment.

The make-up scene with Charles and Oliver was hilarious. I loved when they kicked Matthew Broderick out. It's interesting to catch up with Theo again. I appreciate that they had Mabel admit that her sign language isn't 100% and she doesn't understand some of what he is signing to her.

The social network shown isn't Facebook but is meant to look and function basically the same way. A freeze-frame of the scene doesn't show the time of the post but does show that the first comment on it was "two hours ago" which suggests to me that this picture was posted on the same day it was found. This along with the random break-in at the QRF's house shows that in this secretive world they can sometimes get tripped up by some unanticipated absurdity blowing their cover.

Good to see Carson again although was his squad called Phoenix Squadron? Stop naming aircraft after a bird that explodes and has to be rebuilt from ash! Speaking of fighting politely, Sabine took a little courtesy pause during her fight with Shin too. And she would only fight using one style at a time. Why not corner her with your lightsaber and then hit her with the Mandalorian mixtape? Hard to block a lightsaber and a missile at the same time. When Hera's kid said "Moooom" after the ring ship took off, I was sure he was going to finish with "...I think I shit my pants!" I'm glad we got to see Baylin throwing down in this episode, he's spent the last couple of episodes standing around staring at stuff. Don't get me wrong, he looks like a boss doing it but I was hoping for more show, less tell and this episode delivered. I also loved how smooth he was at flipping Sabine, defeating her without having to use any actual violence and destroying the map himself once he was done with it.

I'm with Mabel as regards the guys having their heads way up their asses most of the time. Sometimes it is cute and funny but there are times to focus and they never seem to get there without Mabel having to babysit them. Having said that, for no reason in particular I suspect Tobert of being the killer now. That would mean Mabel is also being willfully blind about the situation and also means the guys are going to have to figure out how to rescue her. He totally was, hence why he pronounced it to be a good day.

I could see it. Where did Dr. Mayer come from? All the MPC people started seeing her in secret so the referral must have come from someone at MPC. Perhaps even Mike himself. Is he rich enough to get a doctor to throw her ethics out the window? We've seen plenty of sketchy doctors on this show, including Wendy herself.

I was certain Aaliyah was going to be a part of the family business somehow because otherwise she is the absolute stereotype of the American idea of an oppressed Muslim woman. But I guess we saved nuance for the oil politics and left it out for the characters. Maybe she'll be the villain in season 2. Having said that, I do really like the team vibe of the QRF. Everything I know about these types of commando units comes from G.I. Joe, Tom Clancy novels and shows like SEAL Team but this team felt like real soldiers to me. Like when they get onto the yacht, what's the first thing they do? They inventory their gear because they know stuff can get lost in transit and they'd rather find out sooner than later. That was a nice touch. There are some Youtube channels where former Special Forces/Tier 1, etc types critique these shows and I'd love to see what they say about this show because I think if they got nothing else right, they had a great advisor for the military aspects. Taylor Sheridan shows (at least the ones I have seen) don't skimp on the brutality so the kills on Terror Dad and Terror Husband were great. Cruz didn't stab them once and walk away, she knifed the shit out of them in multiple spots. I noticed she took the extra moment to slice the dad's neck but she didn't do the same for the son so I wonder if he might have survived. But I'm pretty sure we cut back to the scene later and he's still on the floor so I guess not. I thought it was somewhat realistic that a black swan like that could happen. The Lioness program probably does a deep dive on a person's digital identity but does that include running facial recognition on Facebook pictures? The profile was some other Marine's and Cruz may not have even been tagged in the picture so there was no way for the CIA to find it other than to use methods that are probably not legal in the US. Speaking of bureaucratic entanglements, the State Department wants to be in charge of the operation but the CIA just went ahead and did their own thing anyhow. The first half of the episode is a bunch of infighting about how impossible it will be to extract Cruz. But if the idea was to scrub the mission, why are they all gathered in the White House Situation Room? I don't work at the State Department, CIA or anything even close to either but when my boss decides we're not doing something we don't hold an all hands on deck meeting where the employees get to argue that they should be allow to go ahead while simultaneously doing the work that we were told we weren't going to do.

Well look at it this way, Sabine. If you're the worst Jedi who ever Jedi'd, there's nowhere to go but up, right? I don't require Star Wars to offer me any kind of explanation for the logistics of this but I find it weird that Hera's kid is human except with green hair. I assume his father is fully human. Super bold of Ahsoka to assume that her stunt on the wing of the ship would compel the enemies to focus on her rather than just blowing up the ship she was standing on. I didn't know "come at me, bro" was a legitimate usage of the Force. Speaking of the Force (or is it The Force?), it is hilarious that Sabine is basically in the same position as Silent Bob in Mallrats. Put my coffee cup just out of reach from me and I'll be a Jedi Master in about fifteen minutes.

Did someone order lesbians? Leather-clad lipstick lesbians? I'll just leave them here at the front door I guess so that nobody misses them. Once again, I think Aaliyah is the real player here. Her security dude asked if he should chase Cruz and she said no, probably because she didn't want to blow her cover. Speaking of which, why is Cruz's listening device a relatively giant piece of tech with a bright light on it? Hollywood has convinced me that microphones and transmitters are now small enough to basically be hidden almost literally anywhere. Like for example, I bet that Aaliyah has planted such a device in one of the buttons on Cruz's coat.

Now we'll never know if that nudity coordinator got out of the bathroom!

No, Cruz is supposed to take him out by any means necessary. So the idea is that wherever and whenever she meets him, she will improvise a weapon and kill him on the spot. The drone strike is for her, after she has been captured and is in the process of being tortured. She could possibly escape but they are assuming that won't be the case. Having seen far too many shows and movies where the squad of Ultimate Badasses are the only ones who can save the world (even though they aren't even supposed to be there today), there is some element of this. Having said that, they also wanted to make sure no witnesses would be left alive as well, something the cops might not be as willing to do.

So there is Morgan Freeman! Always fun to hear him say "this is some bullshit" in that legendary voice. But I wish the show had done a bit more to spell out who he was. They are at the White House but the President isn't there. But there are a group of angry bureaucrats present to remind everyone that this CIA-on-American-soil plot is not even legal. Okay, that is nice... but who are they? I think someone called Morgan Freeman Mr. Secretary. Secretary of what? Defense? Commerce? The Interior? Also, who is Nicole Kidman's husband? He is glued to the newspaper at all times, apparently doesn't like sex (maybe he can't get over Nicole Kidman's doll-like face either) and says sage but ambiguous things every time she walks into the room. He's worth brokering information to and from even though she's the CIA director! He's a finance guy. The puppet master pulling the strings of the CIA? For some reason I have the impression that the unseen bad guy will not actually be the bad guy after all, it will be the bride who will be behind it all. She's smart and crafty and she has done things that suggest she's into counter-surveillance. If the good guys can have Lionesses why can't the bad guys? I think there are two possible reasons for this. First, Kyle can get $30,000 on an ask but the QRF can't (although they do seem to spend money like it is water). Second, I have a feeling this is going to come back and bite him in the ass later. One of those kids is going to call the cops or something and then they will be in the position of having to murder three teenagers and anyone else nearby which they are probably not authorized to do.

First, big props to Stephen Kunken, who plays Spyros. I must give credit to an actor with the power to annoy me with every moment of a character's existence. Spyros is such a smug, obnoxious prick and a little of him goes such a long way. I'm not sure what happened in the Dollar Bill plot. He had some information that he wasn't ethically allowed to act on so he had to find some other way. So he ends up being forced to reunite with Mafee who is able to make these shady trades. Once that is done, Dollar Bill and Scooter have some weird poker game involving the serial numbers from actual dollar bills and when DB figures out that Scooter has been holding five aces this whole time, respect is given and they come to an agreement about how to get along so DB can do his thing. Erm, okay. I was hoping Mafee was going to get Dollar Bill stoned, that could have been fun. Also, did I miss something with the visit to Jock? Chuck just brought him some nice cowboy boots and all was forgiven? I don't remember a boot fetish being part of Jock's character. In fact, that's more Chuck's thing. So I guess it makes sense that Chuck would think of it but it doesn't make sense that Jock would be so happy about it. I guess jail footwear really sucks? I laughed at Wendy calling Axe's son Gordie Gecko and Axe taking it as a compliment. I understood that reference! Speaking of references I'm pretty sure I heard someone make one and someone else say the target audience wouldn't get it! So rare for them to hang that particular lampshade on this show! Most of the time they just spout off obscure knowledge and whomever is receiving knows exactly what they are talking about, like Chuck and Dave having a boxing match by talking about old boxers. I know who the old boxers are which is to say I have heard the names but I could not virtually spar with someone by calling out their specific moves (unless it's the classic Tyson move of biting someone's ear off). I wonder if Axe was just testing his crew with the temptation to work for him in Europe. Obviously he intends to join them so I would imagine he was just checking to see if they have the required level of commitment to oppose Prince? I guess the allure of shiny things is a running theme through this episode. Least realistic aspect of the episode: a man needing to do molly because he can't get wood for Piper Perabo!

Well, I liked Mayor of Kingstown and this show has the exact same vibe to it so I'm onboard for whatever this season brings us. Also getting strong vibes of first season 24 here although that could be due to the daughter's car accident plot. Nicole Kidman looks weird, I can't pin down what it is about her but her face is disturbing in this show. Could be that she's doing that reverse-aging thing celebrities do now where they end up looking younger than they were 20-30 years ago.

Wasn't Ira also due to become a judge but Chuck sabotaged him to keep him where he was? I was waiting for that plot to blow up when it happened but it didn't come up again in that season.

This isn't supposed to have aired as of August 11th? (Spoiler tag edited out after air date) Wow, I was 100% correct about Dollar Bill's firm, High Plains Capital. Mafee is high and Dollar Bill is plain! I made that joke back in the day based on Dan Soder (the actor who plays Mafee) appearing on a comedian's Youtube channel where he let us know in no uncertain terms that cannabis is not a performance enhancer in the competitive sport of table soccer. You can see it here, it is hilarious watching him get absolutely destroyed by an opponent who is wearing oven mitts. I'm not familiar with that "I'm so awesome" song that was playing when Wendy was coming in to MPC at the beginning. I can only assume they were using this music ironically. The reporter was a little over the top. I mean, even for this show. And I don't really buy the whole thing where he can just barge in because he's going to write some story that is going to talk some shit. I guess the production team on this show doesn't read a lot of papers lately. I know alliances are always shifting on this show but I don't specifically remember Taylor rejoining Team Axe and if the reason for this was supposed to be the office shenanigans in this episode, I'm not sold. Also not yet sold on Prince as Hitler. Wishing to stop the United States from turning into Idiocracy does not necessarily call for Nazi tactics. I guess Hollywood ankle monitors let you just wander as you please? I was under the impression that real ones keep you confined to a single location which should be an area somewhat smaller than "lower Manhattan".

That was kind of funny. The creature comes up, snarls at her and then immediately departs in a scene shamelessly lifted from Alien 3. Listen, Gorn youngling, I have seen Xenomorphs before and you sir, are no Xenomorph. I would not love it if Batel was rescued from the planet only to die from the unwanted pregnancy which must be terminated because of the risk to the mother. Say, I wonder if they are reaching for a particular metaphor here, perhaps trying to drag some modern-day politics into the plot? Nah... Yeah, that was weird. The Cayuga is a decent-sized ship, you'd think there could be one or two more sealed compartments somewhere inside the hull where crewpersons might have holed up awaiting rescue. Too bad, you've been reassigned planet-side! They didn't really show him doing it but there is an implication that Spock has to pilot the Cayuga's saucer which makes this a weird reference to the Insane Clown Posse's Wizard of the Hood album, which is a retelling of The Wizard of Oz. "I seen her in the window so I was running around moving shit and aiming it so!"

I will chalk it up to confusing editing although I also thought someone called him Mueller in a scene. I guess he isn't Cathy's dad though since Jack does not seem to recognize him and I believe they met in the first season.

I'm ready. I hate-watched all 10 seasons of The Blacklist and I actually enjoy this show so I'm looking forward to it.

That was a fun episode. As others have said, not quite as great as Once More With Feeling but not bad either and it could have been really cringe. I have read an interview that said they were trying to do a musical during Picard and I shudder to think of how that would have turned out. But the SNW cast did an admirable job here and had some great songs. La'an missed out on an opportunity to bust out her Roots leather jacket during her ballad. If DTI let her keep the watch, they certainly let her keep the jacket. I liked how the crew speculated that because the anomaly looked like a zipper it would also function like one and they were just plain wrong. That does not happen often in Star Trek. Usually it is "we understand this new thing to be similar to something we are familiar with therefore they function identically because the plot requires them to". The Klingon boy band was hilarious. I would have also enjoyed a rap battle. The Epic Rap Battles of History guys are still around and they've come a long way since Captain Kirk vs. Christopher Columbus. Edit: I just rewatched the Klingons singing and there is a half-second shot of Uhura looking over at Sam Kirk... who is grooving away to the song.