dwmarch

So many great Grogu moments this episode. I loved that he was sitting in Bo-Katan's lap and I also loved him doing the annoying toddler thing of repeating himself over and over. I hope he realizes he will not be a bad baby if he does the squeezie on Moff Gideon's windpipe, especially if he uses IG-12 to help. Hey Bo-Katan, when the villain is monologuing I know it is considered polite to wait but you really don't have to. You can start cutting through walls with your Dark Saber whenever you please rather than waiting. Hey Mandalorians, having someone carrying a Squad Automatic Weapon sure came in clutch here! Maybe bring two next time? Props to Paz Vizsla for going out like a BOSS. This is the Way! Weird for Gideon to fight the Mandalorians with his own versions of them though. I was not in martial arts for very long when I was a kid but I vividly remember the advice to not use boxing against a boxer and so on. The Imperial Mandos will have some weakness like their jetpacks freezing up once they get to a certain height or something. As unusual as the stunt casting last week was, who had Skinny Pete as a Mandalorian on their bingo card for this week? Mixed Mandalorian socials must be so awkward. Aside from having two different sets of rules for Space Chess, there's also the thing where the liberal Mandos get to eat food while the fundie Mandos get to sit there watching. Maybe they all drink smoothies or something. It would be a shame if Paz Vizsla died because he didn't get a proper breakfast.

I really like the team dynamic in this episode although I wish they had at least mentioned Lucy. But it was great to see everyone rallying for Tennant with even Cmdr. Chase and Boom Boom showing up to help even though they weren't actually asked. I also liked that this was an episode with a nice, tight timeline. The whole situation unfolds over a short time period and unlike Hawaii 5-0 we don't spend half the episode with the team having no idea what is going on. Instead, the helicopter is about five minutes late and they are starting to investigate already. It was great that Ernie went to sit with Alex. How often do we see situations in these kinds of shows where the children are instant orphans when the parents are in trouble? I liked that we had a character think of the impact this would have on Tennant's kids and actually being proactive in addressing it. Now, I feel as though the real Navy would have real people who do this as an actual job rather than seconding this duty to the IT guy (who can second his duties to the Bomb Disposal guy) but that's nitpicking. I still appreciate that we saw the effort.

So some sad sack of a dude shows up at Ressler's NA meeting just in time to be sponsored by him? Obvious plant is obvious, no? They keep mentioning security measures for the Post Office but by now you would think they'd understand that the security must also follow the Task Force members around too because every single one of them has been compromised repeatedly. Well, except Siya, who also falls into the "obvious plant is obvious" category. A bunch of people died on the ferry... that sunk beside the dock? I guess due to budgetary constraints we are left to imagine the disaster since we couldn't actually see it. Maybe the ferries in New York are different but I recently traveled on the Queen of Oak Bay which is still in service and basically just had to be repainted in a few spots after trashing Horseshoe Bay. You're going to have to do better than that convincing me that a ferry is that vulnerable. Although having said that, the Queen of Oak Bay crashed for lack of a cotter pin. Weird that the Post Office has its own lab but no staff for it. Weirdly... convenient. But I like Herbie and I don't get why the Task Force feels so put out by having to babysit him for a few hours. He's certainly not the most obnoxious character they've had in there by a long shot. Damn, they really have forgotten Liz.

When Jack said he was afraid of what was behind the door, I replied "Nah dude, we've been dragging ass on this mystery for so long it can't possibly be anything scary." That was bizarre. There is no shortage of phasers around. Maybe Worf told her to get some aggression out? I am confused by the distribution of Starfleet leather jackets. Jack had one even though he's not Starfleet at all. Seven put one on at some point and I assumed it was because she is rebellious (like the TNG crew in Insurrection who did the same). And now at the end of this episode, the entire TNG crew has decided to start wearing them. Geordi even has the Commodore version. I guess they've been cooped up for a while and probably needed a change of clothes. Is it cold on the ship? Beverly has been wearing a coat all season and they did open the ship's front door so maybe that's it. Maybe the Titan is a ship where if you want to turn up the lights you have to turn down the heat? I'm a little sad that they had Vadic promise to "execute" but not follow that up with "every MF last one of you" although I thought "fucking solids!" was hilarious. Speaking of Tarantino Trek, didn't he talk about wanting to do a scene where someone is yeeted through the bridge window and leaves a trail of guts behind? Vadic's demise pretty much checks that off.

Losing Vesco was much sadder than losing Liz. I will actually miss Vesco and I wish he had been crafty enough to escape Wujing's clutches one last time. But I think it is a bold choice to kill him off and it will move the story forward. Wujing went through all the trouble to get Dr. Perillos that beautiful long black leather skirt and for some reason she traded it for boring pants after their first meeting. Don't you want to torture in style? Why is it so hard to figure out where the Task Force is located? Numerous bad guys have already raided the place. And now, since Wujing knows Cooper is in charge, there is also the option of just following him to work. I still don't know what to make of Siya but I still think she's up to something. Ressler is blathering at her like he's got everything figured out and she's looking at the torture chair wondering if she can sneak it out of there for herself. Well, if Reddington can set up a field hospital in minutes in a feed store, logistics can't be that difficult.

Well, nice to see Tuvok again, even if it's a fake version of him. Apparently he is a Captain now. This episode reminded me a lot of 24 and not in a good way. Intricate commando-squad tactics that the baddies immediately flip. Everyone talking in riddles to extend the mystery to the next episode. An unstoppable countdown clock to a doomsday device (Lore) and another unstoppable countdown clock to the arbitrary dumb event that everyone is still going to attend despite the terrorist threat. Moles and traitors everywhere. The villains have now taken over and our heroes are going to have to pull some desperate moves at the last minute. We even had a scene with a call being traced. And this does all center around a character named Jack who is not quite right in the head and who kills almost everyone he sees.

I am hoping beyond hope here that the writers know full well we are going to figure out the traitor plots the moment they appear and so in the case of Vesco they will subvert our expectations by just flipping the plot every other episode. So I would like to see it unfold like so: Wujing tells Vesco about the Task Force. Vesco isn't stupid and kinda already knew this so he pretends to be on Wujing's side. Wujing isn't stupid so he knows Vesco is playing him but he actually wants this to happen. Vesco anticipates that Wujing will eventually betray him but he's working this into his plans. Wujing knows Vesco knows so he's coming up with counter-plans. All parties will admit at some point that they were not fooled for a second. Now since this does rely on dual instances of Blacklist characters not being stupid, I don't have too much hope but this is what I would like to see nonetheless.

So since there is a Nobody in this movie, is that a confirmation that John Wick and Nobody share a cinematic universe? Although the movie Nobody gave me the impression that Bob Odenkirk's character worked for one of the alphabet soup agencies whereas the Wick-verse doesn't seem to have any kind of governments or police forces at all beyond the High Table. Speaking of which, a long gunfight happens right in the middle of Paris and not a single cop shows up. Not even to direct traffic. Maybe they all moonlight as assassins? I also found it strange that a building the size of the Continental spontaneously explodes and when we cut back to it later, there is some police tape on the front door but that's it. And no cops attending for the big brawl at the club in Berlin even though after a while the civilians decided to flee from all the murders going on. There are definitely cops in this universe. John talked to one in the first movie. Although that cop did have the memorable bit where he sees carnage in the background, asks John if he is working again and promptly leaves. The same must go for airport security as well since John has no trouble going all over the world. I have heard there is going to be a Continental TV series and I was expecting some setup for it which I guess we got via the explosive renovation. Winston negotiates for the Continental to be rebuilt and it looks like the response was "okay, but only on a TV budget". So Winston seems to be John Wick's dad? Interesting. Now I'm curious to go back and watch the other movies to see if their scenes play any differently with that in mind. I don't think John is actually dead (although he certainly should be after getting hit by about a dozen cars, nevermind all the other stuff he sometimes literally went through) but rather I think the persona of John Wick the assassin is what has been buried. There's probably a big-ass cache of guns under that tombstone. After all, for all the variously-titled functionaries we have seen, we've never actually seen any of the 12 members of the High Table itself. So I'm going to predict that John Wick V will be along the lines of John getting torn away from his happy civilian life and deciding the only way to end this once and for all (since the world never seems to run out of mooks) is for him to kill every single member of the High Table. And since that sounds like it could be a lot of movie with a lot of cool set pieces I'm going to go one further and predict the movie will be split in two. They used a gore discretion shot here which I really appreciate. We certainly hear the sound of what is going on but the camera angle is from far away and does not go back in for a close up. In fact, the whole movie seemed fairly discreet on gore overall. I remember the first three movies being more... splattery. And while there were still a few kills in this movie that made the whole audience wince, I didn't think any of them were super brutal. For all the swords and hatchets getting flung around, it is remarkable how little blood is spilled. I guess this is a compromise that must be made when the hero character kills about 900 people in two and a half hours. That reminds me, the movie cheated on the weapons a bit. When the bad guys are getting ready for the big Paris battle we see a lot of dudes grabbing assault rifles and the like but only one shotgun shows up and everyone else is packing pistols. If I am remembering my Tom Clancy novels correctly, Kevlar is only good up to a certain caliber but John seems to have some new space-aged stuff that can't be pierced by anything. Either way, there's no real downside to at least trying long guns on him. Donnie Yen's character is also the only one around who has heard of grenades and he only throws one. A couple of claymore mines in the bushes on that long staircase and he'd be John Borscht. Despite all this nitpicking, it was a very entertaining movie and I'm glad I saw it on the big screen.

I love the idea that Chateau Picard is the Two Buck Chuck of the 25th century. Picard may be good at any number of things but it seems wine-making is not one of them. Having said that, I still bought the t-shirt:

Minor spoiler for Tales of the Jedi:

I think it is that Star Wars thing where they take a word that exists today with a perfectly good meaning and they give it another similar but not quite the same meaning. Like parsec. Or jizz.

Daystrom Station is weird. Is it a research lab or a museum? Why are these important pieces of secret technology on display with convenient signs posted so the enemies know what to steal? Why guards that come and go on a schedule? Why use some Frankenstein version of Data for defense? Why did Moriarty miss when he was shooting at them and why were the guards so disorganized? The place got broken into recently! I know Data can be literal sometimes but instead of saying JEAN LUC PICARD over and over again, why does he not say YOUR CORPSE instead? And if you can make some special sauce of Picard's remains, why would you leave James T. Kirk behind? Genesis 2.0 seems like it would be a more effective weapon than a portal device too. I guess the Bounty's cloaking device works for the same reason characters in Wonder Woman 1984 were able to steal a fully fueled jet from a museum. I wish someone would have mentioned the idea of taking the Defiant or one of the other ships and then Geordi could have said no, we took the [TECH] out because of course we did but a Bird of Prey's cloaking device doesn't have any parts on it we can do that with so we left it intact because we did [TECH] to the ship and we don't care if someone cloaks it while it's sitting in the dock. If/when that happens we just chuck bottles of Chateau Picard at it until we can see it again. The cloak on the Defiant is a newer model and it's also already compatible with Starfleet systems so I am left to believe Jack stole the Klingon one for the cool factor and/or to impress Worf. Star Trek is becoming a little more like Star Wars in this regard. It doesn't really matter which ship you are on. As long as it has power it can do whatever you need it to do. So is that it for Moriarty then? I thought he was actually going to have a role to play. As in, Lore would be behind all the shenanigans and when the crew ran out of ideas someone would suggest busting Moriarty out since he defeated Data back in the day.

I also got a laugh out of that. No wonder the space gator pops up from time to time to chew on a Mando or two with all that racket going on. And they didn't do themselves any favors feeding it a giant space chicken either. Yes that will keep it busy for a while but now it is going to become accustomed to that kind of food and since you're the source... As fun as it would have been to have a scene where the Armorer announces that they will be having fried chicken for dinner for the next two months, there is still the logistical issue of how to cook it. And knowing this bunch there probably is a specific code about not getting space chicken grease on the forge. I also have to call out the Mandalorians for the ridiculousness of the helmet rule. Don't take off your helmet except every day three times a day when you eat. And here's a foundling who can train without a helmet on because he's too young to say the creed. So... looks like we're already a little flexible when it comes to helmets, no? I got a kick out of Paz Vizsla climbing a sheer cliff while carrying his giant gun. You already know you can't use it so why haul it up the mountain with you? But being overburdened with gear you don't need in every situation is their thing so This is the Way I guess.

Well, I found this to be an entertaining if slightly fluffy episode. Dee's training has actually come around to where I suggest she start: the boring stuff. I had Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in mind but a boxing gym where she just drills the basics forever is exactly what she needs. Save the CIA stuff for next season. It was hilarious that her new love interest asked if she saw that transaction he was involved in. Dude, everyone saw that! You did it right at the door in front of everyone and while it may be a room full of people who get hit in the head a lot, that doesn't mean they are dumb! So that sketchy dude is totally coming back with a gun next week, right? Or maybe it will be a couple of weeks later. And Dee will have failed to mention that her new boyfriend had this "side hustle" that Robyn is now going to have to rescue him (and the coach and the gym) from. I don't really need the show to spend too much time dwelling on how the logistics of Equalizing works but I found it strange that a guy with no memory was not only able to find his way to Robyn online but also went right over to the bar she is based out of as well. Does she publish the address alongside her help wanted ad? Is this because of the deal with the cops and DA where they agreed to look the other way? The Equalizer: now accepting walk-ins! Robyn is having nightmares about intruders breaking into her house. Maybe her subconscious was trying to tell her something like if you want to keep bad guys away don't publish the friggin' address where you hang out! I was hoping the guy with no memory would turn out to be a badass. When the bad guys first try to clip him near the dumpster, it looked to me like he tried to step in front of Robyn to shield her from the bullets. Because the characters jump to the wrong conclusion so often on these shows, I tend to ignore the various twists and turns of the plot. But I am pretty sure the dude is heading back to Michigan... despite have committed a colorful variety of actual crimes while in NYC. Well, that's the great thing about Dante being the only Detective in the Five Boroughs, he must not have had time to bring the guy in.

Well, overall I thought season 2 was much better than season 1. If this is where the story ends so be it but I would not mind a season 3 if we have the same showrunner. Before I forget, I have to call out Gina's fashions. That belted leather skirt was awesome. Great look for her. Makes her look like someone who is in charge and someone you don't want to mess with. That long leather coat she had on at the end though? What in the actual fuck? Where did she even get that? She stashed that in her closet until her husband had been shot and her father had been thrown in jail. Now while I certainly believe any person is entitled to their own sense of style and everyone is entitled to make mistakes, those men would not have let her be seen in public wearing that. Two thoughts on Carmine being in jail. First, I don't think he's the kind of mobster that is slowed down at all by incarceration. He will have people who still answer to him and Gina is foolish to forget that although I guess her impulsivity is an established character trait. Second, Olivia showing up at his jail cell door? I'm pretty sure I already know what he's going to say to you but if you really need him to spell it out, I'm sure he'll be happy to. I like the courtroom scenes in this episode. I am not a lawyer nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn last night but sometimes it is easy to tell when a show isn't really trying too hard on the legal stuff. I didn't get that sense here. Although, having said that, the judge did make a lot of noise about Lee not being able to get any other story out of Michael than exactly what he saw on that one night and nothing more. But once Michael starts talking of his own accord, the judge just lets him keep talking. There were some great emotional moments from Fia in this episode. I think she gave the baby up to keep him away from her family and to keep him away from Michael. But Fia, don't forget, you're the one who wouldn't leave Michael alone. He made it pretty clear that he didn't want you around and you kept coming back.

It's a bit of low blow to Picard though. He discovers and reports that since the Baku are an advanced civilization that have chosen an agrarian lifestyle, Prime Directive concerns do not apply. But having said that, he didn't know that going in. Still, there are plenty of other examples in the "Prime Directive? More like Prime Suggestion!" category that Shaw could have picked from. This also seems like a good place to mention that I wish they had used the Briar Patch as an opportunity to explain the eternal Soong. On Enterprise, Arik Soong planned to escape there and had taken an interest in cybernetics. So it was possible for Noonien Soong to actually be Arik, having been kept young by the metaphasic radiation and only leaving the planet once things with the Sona got messy. And this would have explained why the Baku villagers were casually familiar with what a positronic matrix was and the specific problem with Data's.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Preemptive_Strike_(episode) This was the second to last TNG episode.

The novel continuity intentionally destroyed itself in the Coda books because the TNG, DS9 and VOY "relaunches" were all written when live-action Star Trek was as dead as dead could be (between Nemesis and Star Trek 2009). This new golden age of Trek with five shows in production at any given moment overwrites one bit or another of novel continuity every episode. For what it is worth, the authors of Star Trek novels make no claims to canon* and are well aware that live action Trek will ignore their efforts. *The Voyager novels Mosaic and Pathways were backstories on Janeway and the crew respectively and they were considered canon until they weren't anymore. Mild spoilers for the DS9 hardcover novel Unity regarding what this episode overwrote: Very, very rarely will something make it from the novels to the screen. I am pretty sure Hikaru and Nyota came from the novels. The original Titan design was from a contest in the books so it was amazing to see that on screen. A character on Prodigy is also based on a species from the New Frontier novel series. If anything else has gone from page to screen I don't recall offhand although there was a plot in Discovery that was an absolutely shameless ripoff of a DS9 novel called "Control".

I too am disappointed by their wardrobe choices while in bed together but I'll be gentlemanly and leave it at that. The highlight of the episode for me was Boom Boom and Bam Bam messing with Kai. I don't think they are being mean to him. They will lighten up when he does. Until then he should expect his comments to be taken literally and to be on the receiving end of expectant stares while he tries to figure out how to tie his shoes in their presence. Not sure how I feel about the CI. Hawaii 5-0 was hit and miss with obnoxious recurring characters and some of them stayed well past their welcome. I still want the Fish and Wildlife crew back, they were fun.

(Spoiler coded sections are minor spoilers for other Star Wars movies and shows, can never be too careful on who has seen what and I'd really hate to ruin that second surprise) So I guess the New Republic has no laws around entrapment? Pershing wouldn't have gone off to do anything on his own, Elia set him up the whole way. Sure, the Empire could throw you in jail for literally no reason but you would think the New Republic would see this kind of sting as something the ISB would do. Then again, Elia was a great social engineer so it's possible she somehow talked the authorities into thinking it was their idea. I assume she's still on team Empire though? What reward does she get out of turning Pershing's mind into soup? I thought he was destined to be part of the whole business. Well, maybe this is intended to crush the do-gooder out of him. Which the cubicle job seemed to be doing just fine at, albeit slowly. I like the parallels here between the mistakes we saw the Empire make in Andor with similar mistakes the New Republic is making. Did they say Coruscant has one trillion people on it? As in one thousand billion? Even if the whole surface is covered in skyscrapers, that seems a little high. The Mandalorians have a special living waters detector to make sure exiled Mandos can come back even though the planet was supposed to be dead and gone. That's... convenient. I'm surprised how expressive some of them can be even with their helmets on. For example, it was easy to tell that Paz Vizsla's armor was pinching his nuts.

Vesco's first question should have been "where is my goddamned cat?" but I guess he knows better than to ask by now. I liked the Four Guns and I hope we see them again. This show is way more fun when we have heists rather than angst. The FBI was almost competent in the previous episodes but here we are right back to having no idea what is going on. Cooper makes as if he's old friends with Panabaker but he clearly isn't if his idea of extra protection is to send Ressler along. Dembe is the obvious choice for VIP detail, it was his job for years before he became an agent.

Early in the season, Robert led the raid on Bunny's grandmother's house. There was also a scene where Robert killed a kid who wouldn't drop a weapon although I am not sure which gang that kid was with. Bunny also probably learned more about Robert while he was in jail. The survivors of the prison riot would have told him about the SWAT team coming in and killing everyone in sight. So I think there is a little bit of specific interest even if it is something Bunny has kept to himself up until now. On other hand, Bunny's gang has been looking for someone to punish for a while now and didn't get a great feeling of satisfaction from killing the DA so they may be adding in a SWAT commander because they don't like any cops and think he deserves it regardless. Milo is going to laugh and ask what took so long. Joseph was a terrible henchman and Iris really did Milo a favor here. I hope he offers to pay the dry cleaning bill for Iris' dress. Edit: I also just realized that Iris has only ever been shown as a victim of violence and not a perpetuator of it. Who taught her how to murder the men who abuse her? Mike did.

Yes, apparently so. One of the cadet asks "did you ever find out how they got to the quadrant?" She doesn't specify which one but it is implied that the Hirogen took a long road getting from there to here. One of the things I have noticed in newer Star Trek (since the 2009 movie) is that the producers are spending much less time trying to say certain problems have been solved by future advancements. For example, Gene Roddenberry said there were no zippers in the future. But in Star Trek 2009 and onward, clothing clearly has zippers. Trek 2009 also showed us a building with a regular 21st century door on it. In this episode, Picard drinks whiskey that is unchanged from today and there is an ad for a type of beer that also exists today. I think the production crew got tired of having to reinvent products and come up with futuristic solutions to current problems. So instead of saying baldness is curable and anyone who goes bald does it by choice, they are just going to pretend the previous Roddenberry guidance (in general as regards society being a utopia where people didn't have common problems) wasn't a thing because they know that we the fans will come up with something to explain it. In that spirit, why is there no cure for baldness? Because curing baldness requires a kind of genetic tampering that has been illegal in the Federation for hundreds of years. Look at that glorious mane Khan had. That is what happens when you try to cure baldness!

FWIW, Voyager tried hooking the holodeck up to the main power grid and came to the conclusion that it could not be done for technobabble reasons. This was so they could have the crew complaining about the lack of resources but still partying on the holodeck anytime they felt like it. I think the vehicle replicator shown on Prodigy comes from something similar - Voyager had a finite amount of shuttles and lost more than they brought along so they must have figured out a way to manufacture them... right? It is also possible that the newer holodecks incorporate some aspect of the Voyager Doctor's mobile emitter technology that can't scale up to cover an entire ship yet.