dwmarch

Tom: Hey Lizzie, let's get married again! Lizzie: Um, dude, I might just do something stupid and get myself killed in the next five minutes... Tom: I know, right?! And apparently Lizzie's ninja skills are deactivated by sex. Whatever happened to the gal who can parkour over twelve-foot high fences or kick a man so hard (with her teeny tiny little boots) that she collapses the guy's lung? Some random dude comes up to her, basically announces that he's going to attack her and proceeds to do so with Lizzie getting absolutely no defense other than curling up into a fetal ball. Was this some foreshadowing for the baby? It's fetal, it's useless and people will attack it for no good reason! Coming soon to a Blacklist near you! However, while Lizzie has been slipping, Ressler has apparently starting going to the same gym the T-1000 trains at. He catches up to a moving vehicle, jumps on it and hangs onto his gun while they swerve and shoot at him. That's a signature move of the T-1000 and was in T2 and Genisys. I hope this means we get a plot in which some devious blacklister replaced Ressler with a robot and no one noticed. I expect we might revisit this in the future but did that landlady actually have a change of heart that was not inspired by the silenced pistol of Raymond Reddington? I was surprised the camera didn't pull back to show him sitting there ready to make a vacancy. I liked the idea of a fake Red and I loved how the real Red used this situation to clear his name but... considering we've had about three dozen blacklisters put in the ground by now, shouldn't it be obvious that Red is playing both sides? And didn't he used to be very cavalier about the idea of being an informant? I remember him telling someone "the FBI works for me". I feel as though a closer examination of this show's byzantine plot would reveal that there is absolutely no way Red's position could be a secret to anyone. And we're back to the good old FBI, the ones that can be lead around by the nose by any bad guy who is sufficiently bored. And again they fall for the trick of the secret elevator that leads to a basement exit. And again they know someone is in danger so they send two agents instead of a dozen. And again they ask this pending kidnap victim politely if they'll pretty please come along because there might be danger out there. I have a feeling that the real FBI would be nowhere near as considerate of your son's piano lesson. I thought real Red and fake Red were working together until the end. Because if not, real Red had to be ready for a situation in which his enemies would send a cunning impostor (whom he happened to be buddies with back in the day) to pretend to be him just so they could get a jump on him at the meeting he called. Again this is one of those Blacklist plots which would basically be impossible if any of the timing was off anywhere. Or if the bad guys had not shown their hand and had maybe kidnapped the FBI lady first. And about that FBI lady. So here's some woman who has no attachment to the task force. However, she's entrusted with the secret of Raymond Reddington despite the fact that pretty much every criminal mastermind in the known universe has beef with him. Despite having this knowledge and the knowledge of every other FBI informant in existence, this woman walks around completely unprotected and responds with puzzlement when told someone is coming after her. I don't know how the actual FBI keeps their secrets but I'm pretty sure it isn't like this!

I thought the best expressions were from the lounge singer Nicky when Deb was telling him she didn't have much time left. When he realizes what the situation is he wears grief on his face and even though it was only for a moment I noticed it. It was an incredibly emotional moment from two characters who have only been in a few episodes. Kono and Adam have been angst-ing it up for a few seasons now and all their tearful farewells have never matched the emotional intensity of Aunt Deb announcing that there isn't going to be a next time.

Braddah Iz! I am pretty sure this show is saving his "Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" (which may be the saddest song in the history of sad songs) for the finale. I enjoyed the episode overall. Lots of good character moments. McGarrett checking on Kono was overdue. Chin getting some action was awesome. I prefer Abby's version in which Chin was the aggressor. In any case, he's getting some. Funny that that is what inspires the detective skills of his comrades. I am a Microsoft fan myself so I appreciated the diss of the Apple watch as a "Dick Tracy" watch. I also noticed that the "Jerry alert" means that Jerry Ortega is one of the few people actually developing apps for Windows Phone. The "villain" motivation in this episode didn't make a lot of sense. God damn, there's two tons of explosives here! I'd better steal a van and drive them around myself! Aunt Deb made me cry. I'm man enough to admit it.

Damn, that was good. That was actually good. And I'm pretty sure there were only two gunshots in the whole episode. Red's crew getting it done was awesome. That is what this show should be. The adventures of Red's crew as they turn the eighth floor into the sixth and punk people who really ought to know better. It's an inversion of the usual formula, which is the bad guys always being one step ahead of the FBI. That show was not fun to watch. This one was. I liked that the Cabal's courthouse lackey was more savvy than he looked. "You'll just spend a couple years in a mental institution," they promise him, as if that is in any way something he'd like to do. He comes back with "Just make sure my kids get the money after I die." I loved that Samar was the one who had a bunch of weapons on her and Mr. Kaplan was also impressed by that. The only sour note for me was Ressler complaining that Laurel Hitchens just walks away. Well, if only someone had figured out that she had committed a murder and then gone out to gather some evidence maybe that wouldn't have happened, Donald!

Other than Kono in leather pants, this episode was pretty meh. I think there's some good stuff to explore in Kamekona's past and some potential in the conflicts between Steve and Danny. But mashing them both together in the same episode didn't work for me. Halawa continues to be a cartoon jail. Gabriel can now walk in there as he pleases while Adam is stuck inside. Come on Adam, you used to be a gangster! You must have some buddies on the inside who can help you with this tragic misunderstanding! Especially since Adam now knows that Gabriel made a power play against three major gangs. There should be a lineup of people waiting to go after Gabriel right now and who better to lead them than Adam? It's not as though the gates and towers of Halawa have ever stopped anybody from doing anything nefarious.

Indeed. He forget he's a federal agent first and vengeance machine second. "I know you murdered somebody!" Ressler outrages! But the real outrage is that if he knows where there's a goddamn body he should go and get it and then come back and make an arrest! I know it was established that they can just breeze out of jail anytime they want but that doesn't mean Ressler should stop trying. The CIA can't crack a 7-letter password that is the name of one of the staff? The FBI black site really needs some security upgrades. Now the box can be gassed from outside. How exactly does that work? CIA lackeys come through the door rolling in some dollies of nitrogen tanks. The security asks what that's all about. The CIA guy says never you mind and pretend you don't see us setting up to pump it in on a prisoner. Security nods and moves out of the way apparently. Sure, why not? But why does the box have a ventilation system vulnerability like that in the first place? Red and Navabi were awfully snuggly this episode. Is this a new thing? That plot where Harold's wife was cheating on him was so exciting that I had forgotten all about it. I sure hope those crazy kids work it out! It just wouldn't be the same without their affection and work-life balance. Why didn't Tom take the gun and kill Solomon himself? He's murdered a bunch of people before. The resolution to the Pulp Fiction briefcase was better than I was expecting. Those would be worth a lot.

As much as I enjoyed this episode and indeed this entire season, I am perplexed. The showrunners recently gave an interview in which they mentioned that the season 4 finale was a letdown, disengaging entirely from action-filled Pakistan for the relationship angst of the DC suburbs. But we're not doing that again, they declared. So instead they just do the relationship angst where the story was set. However, we did get some gunfire at the end so I guess that counts as action. Since we've seen a lot of "homages" to 24 this season I thought perhaps the finale would be in real time. Nope. Bang bang bang, emotional moment with dying regretful terrorist, cut to crisis averted scene where police and ambulances are everywhere. Carrie's clicky-ass heels should have been a warning not only to the guys in the tunnel but also to terrorists in neighboring countries. She's lucky she got away with a bruised wrist. Suffering for fashion indeed. When Jonas woke Carrie up I kept saying that she should apologize to him. No Carrie, that is not how you apologize! Bad Carrie! I hope During blames his good but not perfect grasp of English for the terrible mistake he made. If he's offering Carrie a big stake in the During Foundation and the opportunity to decide how the whole thing is run, great. If he's offering her the D in During, complete fail and he should know better! Although I don't like the fate of the character, I appreciate the show twisting the knife by having Carrie ask if attempting to wake Quinn up is what caused the major brain damage. Yes Carrie, in extreme situations you will have to make decisions that cost people their lives. You will have to send good soldiers off to die for nebulous reasons. And by now you should be getting used to it.

No. As I mentioned upthread, she just somehow knows and I will accept that at face value unless the show abuses it in lieu of a plot. I can for the moment accept that Carrie would (in her spare time) figure out where the guy lived. She might have figured it out when she was off her meds, since that apparently gives her magical powers. In any case, so long as this isn't overused I will accept it... but I'm watching you, Homeland.

According to Alex Gansa, it was indeed an ADR reference. http://www.ew.com/article/2015/12/11/homeland-isis-interview

When it happened I said to myself, Saul, stop trying to help people who are in prison! They just kill themselves! However, I appreciate that this might be setting up a plot for next year. We know the leaked CIA docs had a reference to Javadi, the season 3 "bastard but he's our bastard". If the documents get leaked we could be dealing with Javadi being killed and the fallout from a very unhappy Iran. Otherwise there's 1,200 something other plots to choose from. No kidding! Like how many people have ever intentionally shot themselves? Are you sure and I mean damn sure you're not going to nick an artery? I was hoping for some Tom Clancy style fakeout here. Like Allison is in the hospital convalescing and Saul comes in telling her in Russian that everything will be okay. She says "Da, comrade" and he says "Gotcha, bitch!" Alas, I'll have to re-read Red Storm Rising if I want to savor that moment again. I am offering a limited admiration for Carrie knowing where the Hezbollah commander for Berlin lived. The show never explained how she knew but I can believe in very limited circumstances that Carrie is just that smart/crafty. However, if this is overused it becomes a superpower and ceases to work for me. This point may have already passed for the audience at large... like, a long time ago. If Carrie knew what the real target was why didn't she just pull the fire alarm at the train station? Also, I have never been on the Berlin train system but from what I have seen of a similar system in Vancouver the gates are not just sitting there waiting to be messed with by any asshole with a bike lock. I am pretty sure they roll down from the ceiling. Berlin may be different though and props to the producers if they found an accurate if highly unlikely detail about the Berlin subway. I spoke to a bike lock about this episode and it said "what are you trying to do, make me into this decade's box cutter?!"

A recurring trope of this show is that some nefarious things are going on right under 5-0's noses at pretty much all times. 5-0 has a tendency to gather information haphazardly, jump to a lot of conclusions and make a lot of mistakes through excessive trust of people who turn out to be bad guys. So it seems entirely plausible to me that Gabriel Waincroft was regarded by 5-0 as nothing more than a punk when it turns out he's actually a criminal mastermind who's been at it since he was a kid. But they'd have to acknowledge that on the show for it to work. I assume for the record that Gabriel's criminal mastermind abilities manifested solely because the show needed another Big Bad after killing off Wo Fat.

Well, I hope it's not considered a breach of etiquette here to post twice in a row like it was at TWOP but since no one else wants a piece of this weaksauce winter finale I feel obligated. I appreciate that Abby is starting to raise an eyebrow at 5-0's creative interpretation of "means and immunity". Steve was basically doing a high-speed waterboarding on a suspect and that is something that a real cop should object to rather than giggling about it and promising not to take it home with her. Adam has less than 24 hours before he has to give himself up and report to prison. He chooses to go to a Buddhist temple. To each their own but if I had one day of liberty left I think I'd spend it worshiping at the temple of Kono myself. Then again, maybe Adam isn't worried because he knows if he turns around and lets loose with a good fart the gates of Halawa will open for him. At least that's how they've worked for everyone else who has ever wanted to get out of there. The boxing versus MMA argument had absolutely no nuance to it. Danno's reasons why boxing is superior? It's civilized, it's "the sweet science" and it requires patience. McGarrett doesn't even get to offer a counterargument beyond name-checking Randy Couture and his fast victory. There could have been a good argument there (say for example McGarrett explaining to Danno that there is no punch that will get him out of a rear naked choke) but since this is the boxing episode MMA just got dissed. Gabriel makes a deal with the Yakuza and then immediately betrays them and assassinates their leader? Okay... I am hoping the show doesn't sweep this under the rug and we end up having a massive gang war that 5-0 gets caught in the middle of. The other gangs should be retaliating as well. The bad guys target the local boxer's brother because they want his security pass. They offered him what, $50k for it? And then they murder him when he says no? An event like that would require a lot of people wearing staff badges. I am sure they could have bought a pile of them for that money if they had approached people who didn't have a personal connection to the main event!

In one of the sneak peeks for the episode, McGarrett name-checks Randy Couture when arguing with Danno about whether MMA is superior to boxing. So we have Randy Couture existing as an MMA fighter in 5-0's universe. But in two encounters with Jason Duclair the serial arsonist McGarrett never mentioned how much he resembles Randy Couture. I mean those suckers are identical, right down to the cauliflower ears!

We've already seen the Inhuman characters on this show getting gassed when over-extending their powers. I assume the same is true for Wo Fat's telekinesis. It makes sense if you think about it from a non-powered point of view. You're fighting someone. You can either pick that person up and slam them against a wall or you can pick up a gun and shoot them. Same idea with the powers. Wo Fat has no idea how many SHIELD mooks he might be up against so he's conserving his strength in case he needs to battle someone else right around the corner.

I keep hearing it in Butt-Head's voice. "Settle down, Maveth." Well, since Hydra probably didn't gather the cuddly Inhumans to be the big daddy Inhuman's army, Andrew actually ended up helping the good guys. I thought it was a bit of shame that none of them realized that. I thought Coulson was breaking his heart because, you know. And I am happy I called the Will reveal all the way back in the 4,722 Hours thread. See you at the lotto terminal!

Join the BND, you can wear your leather pants to work! I was worried that after all this cribbing from 24 they were going for some Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan when Carrie found Quinn. The Wrath of Quinn? Also, Saul gets reduced to that wronged character who always popped up on 24, the one the good guys hope can sweet talk the truth out of the bad guy but ends up getting violent instead. I appreciated the mention of turning Allison over to counter-intelligence once she's shipped back to the states but of course there's a crisis so forget about that. Did they not realize that the Russian told them a lot of nothing that sounded like it might be something? Six barrels of Bad Shit went missing in Syria back in the day. So what? That is not important at all right now. What is important is where it ended up! The congressional hearings can come later!

Unnecessary exposition of the night courtesy of Bobbi: "Ermagerd, they're shooting at us! We can't stay here!" Yes Bobbi, you're absolutely correct. I hope the pilot of the plane gets that message. I loved Lincoln rolling his eyes at Mack's speech, as if he knew it was cut and pasted from The Motivational Inspirations of Phil Coulson. Fitz and Simmons disappointed me this episode. Leading them to where all the science gear is should lead to a similar result as locking the A-Team in a machine shop. Beyond Simmons trying to kick Malick in the nuts and Fitz struggling against his bonds I don't think they even tried to escape. Let's have Coulson being all sad and mopey not because he loved Rosalind (he barely knew her after all) but because the part he feels the worst about is that he never got to enjoy that hamburger. Malick gave Ward a hard time for trying have Coulson killed. However, I am sure that since Ward's operation was infiltrated the last time he is currently contracting out to Dial-A-Mook (now providing services to Homeland, The Blacklist and Blindspot! Call today, mooks are standing by! 1-800-HENCHMAN!) and while he appreciates that the price per mook is below market rates you ultimately get what you pay for. I would have loved to see Fitz explaining to Ward how he brought Simmons back. "With a rope... you idiot."

Another thing I thought of that they nicked from 24 for this episode: having the Director of the CIA personally supervise an interrogation. The CIA has a counterintelligence division and according to Wiki there's also a National Counterintelligence Center. All of these people have jobs that would involve finding moles like Allison. The CIA's efforts to expose spies would not consist of rushed operations to flush the game. I can give the show a partial pass on that because Saul and Carrie were kind of on the run when they brought this in (although CI should have been waiting there for them!). However, there is no need for Dar Adal to personally interrogate Allison. If she's guilty it won't be found out through the judgment call of the senior mandarin at CIA. It will be through detective work and a trail of shiny, illicit purses that are above Allison's pay grade even if she is careful to shop for sales.

I sometimes describe this show as "24 but realistic" but in this episode they left off the "but realistic" part. Let's examine the 24 checklist. Lying to your lover while trying to expose their treachery? Check. Bad guys getting off on a technicality? Check. Fugitives who were only a few minutes ago running from the CIA/CTU are all of a sudden welcome back at central command because they bring useful intel? Check. Plot armor as a counter-agent to a deadly WMD? Check. I was hoping that Quinn's homeboy was going to puncture that hose the other guy was bitching about earlier. Gas all the terrorists while Quinn laughs. Too bad. However, there was one moment I really loved. Saul is completely discombobulated because he's just found out he's not Allison's one and only. Carrie as usual is focused on the mission and wants to turn up the heat. Saul tells her to up the ante. Rather than asking Saul what he would do, Carrie tells him "alright, we'll come up with a plan and get back to you." She's never usually this insightful when it comes to other people's emotions!

That was how I read this scene. Hogarth might hate Wendy due to divorce shenanigans but she knows Wendy is a good doctor.

While I didn't appreciate the gore of seeing a half-eaten body in this episode I was enjoying pork chops at the time so I guess that's fair. I always like it when this show switches roles up so I loved seeing Danno as a professor. It's interesting that his demeanor as a cop translates well to the classroom. There was not twenty pounds of weed in that bag. Weed is bulky. Twenty pounds would have been falling out of that ceiling panel like tribbles on Captain Kirk's head. Props to this show for having a plot in which a character sits around waiting for a pig to shit a bullet. And Jerry seemed to enjoy himself for what that is worth. A little of Danno's nephew goes a long way but I think he was put to good use here.

Indeed. Ressler finds out that it was actually Samar (and not Harold) who warned Lizzie previously. But even after finding this out he decides to leave the decision to prosecute Harold in the hands of someone else despite knowing that Harold hasn't done a goddamn thing (other than serving up that gourmet shit for Tom). Some principles there, Ressler.

"Is that what I think it is?" An undisguised, unashamed Pulp Fiction reference? Yes indeed although this show is going to eventually have to show us what was in there and why it was supposed to save Lizzie. I've never even seen it and I was waiting for one of the redneck mooks to tell Reddington what a purdy mouth he has.

These are the same monolith. It was in the castle back in the day, somehow got moved until SHIELD found it and was brought back to the castle by SHIELD in 3x02.

And how about Rosalind in that beautiful black leather dress? Nice misdirection there too. Black leather usually means evil (on ambiguous characters; the rest of the team tends to dress like they live in the Gap's "everybody in leather" campaign) so it was nice to find out that Roz actually didn't know what was what and her dress was nothing more than an indication of her sophisticated style. I couldn't be happier. Judging by Simmons' reaction to Fitz's gentlemanly behavior she must have read my post about Fitz having all kinds of reasons to be upset with her. I'm glad the ATCU was smart enough not to warehouse Lash with the other inhumans. The location they thought he was being kept in was broken into immediately, twice! When they were laying out the symbols of the ancient secret society I was sure they were going to work a Wolf, Ram and Hart reference in there. Call it a third of a reference at least.