Agent Dark

Hmmm, nice to hear some Aussie alt-rock on the show. The background music that was playing at the bar when Linda Park introduces herself to Barry was Somebody's Talking by The Preatures.

Oh yeah, Dark City. That is an awesome movie and now you mention it, there's definitely parallels to it in this episode. Particularly with how strangers were getting put into new roles. One of the themes in Dark City was how those Alien Stranger things were using the 'Dark City' as an experiment to gain insight into the human mind. Which is exactly what Samaritan was doing with the citizens of Maple

Wow, haven't quite collected my thoughts on the episode yet, but what I can say now is that Amy Acker and Root are probably my favourite actor/character combo on TV right now. I love me some morally grey characters, and Root slipping back into old habits as she is trying to deal with the disappearance of Shaw is like character crack for me. I mean it was The Machine that was able to re-form Root from her murderous misanthropist ways in the first place, but now that She's refusing to help Root with Shaw I think there will be a bit of regression for Root. Root Unleashed if you will, not being held back by the restraining influence of the machine. Love it. Amy Acker is absolutely nailing this role. Really excited to see how this will all pan out. SHAWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!! When those interviews first came out after If-Then-Else where the producers were being cagey on the future of Shaw, I was really hoping for some sort of Shaw captured/brainwashed/turned-into-a-cyborg by the bad guys storyline and is appears that is what is happening! Awesome! My guess: Samaritan is going to recruit (possibly forcibly, with those neural transmitter things Root and Reese found at Carrow?) but The Machine is setting Shaw up as a double agent. That is why She is telling Root to stop looking for Shaw - She doesn't want her to interfere either deliberately or inadvertently with Her plans. Of course Root being Root I think that's going to happen regardless. Oh, also in this episode: Samaritan plays The Sims with the people of Maple. I was half expecting a shot of a swimming pool in the background, missing it's ladder to climb out lol

I'm not against Laurel as Black Canary. Don't get me wrong - I vastly preferred Sara and think that Caity Lotz brings alot more to the role simply in physicality than Cassidy, but that's understandable given Caity's martial arts background. But unfortunately Sara is gone. So I did like that they at least are showing that Laurel is kinda shit at being Black Canary. It definitely shows in her fighting style (which is basically swing her baton at their face really hard while getting punched back lol). Impersonating Sara to her Dad is a low blow though, but I have a feeling that it's going to come back and bite her in arse hard when Quentin finds out. I was all excited to see Caity's name in the credits, but was pretty disappointed when it turns out that she wasn't even playing Sara. They better have some goddamn flashbacks lined up of Sara and Nyssa in the League of Assassins. The other thing that I am liking is the stuff with Maseo and Tatsu. The Hong Kong flashbacks were dragging a bit in the beginning of the season, but now that Tatsu is fully involved they are picking up. Looking forward to seeing how that will turn out

lol at Emily's game: "I swear I'm normally way smoother with the ladies than this". How come that approach never works for me :( Also lol at Hanna: "The cops are going to think I was the one that stuffed Mona in a barrel of acid!" *Immediately goes out and buys Personal Protective Equipment designed for handling chemicals from her laptop at her own home*

Yeah I didn't think I implied that? I wasn't talking about Gordon asking Penguin for a favour, I specifically meant the scene in the alleyway with the crooked cop begging Gordon to spare him - substitute Gordon for Batman and that's a scene straight from Gotham 15 years in the future. I mean Gordon has always been the Lawful Good cop as opposed to Batman's more Chaotic Good vigilante. I think this episode shows that clearly, with Gordon completely unwilling to let things slide even if it's in his own personal best interest. I doubt we'll see Gordon change much from that position either, or at least I hope we don't because I think that would compromise his character. Gordon doesn't need to be an anti-hero, especially when Harvey Bullock is right there.

Eh, I found Gina's lines funny. I'm totally using the "The only reason I didn't [tell you guys] is because I don't value you as people, so why bother?" at work lol

Yeah I didn't meant to imply that he's going around threatening families of bad guys. I meant that the shadow he casts over Gotham puts enough fear into criminals that he doesn't even need to actually physically hurt a thug for them to start begging for their life - just like Gordon didn't actually do anything to that crooked cop in this episode, yet he's on his knees begging Gordon to let him go. Batman doesn't kill, of course, but the street criminals don't *know* that. They're deathly afraid for their lives when Batman swoops out of the shadows, and Batman doesn't overtly go out of his way to dissuade that notion. Yeah, The Iceberg Lounge is the name of the club/restaurant that Penguin is usually running as a legitimate front for his crime organisation in the comics (things change around obviously with various reboots and such)

Heh, Fish cut Penguin off just as he was about to say the name of his club. I guess it's too soon for The Iceberg Lounge to make an appearance. I think that's a foreshadowing of a future Gotham. Batman heavily uses the fear he puts into the common street criminal to maintain some sort of order in Gotham, though Batman is more of the 'unseen predator' type. That scene with the dirty cop begging Gordon to spare him is exactly the kind of stuff the thugs do after Batman swoops down out of the shadows and lays the smackdown. Commissioner Gordon generally doesn't approve, but he's pragmatic enough to understand that he doesn't really have a choice given how intricately Batman and Gotham are linked.

Shaw wasn't fridged at all. Fridging implies that the only reason for the death is to further other character's (usually male characters) or to further the plot. Shaw's "death" was entirely about her own character, and how she interacts with the world of Person of Interest. There are of course the real-world reasons why Shahi has to take a leave of absence. Of course Root is going to take the loss of Shaw hard, and I'll be expecting some deep emotions to boil over as Root seeks answers/vengeance. But to say that Shaw died just for Roots womanpain I think completely misses the point of how Shaw "went out". Carter and Reese might be a different story, but I am willing to cut the producers alot of slack because they've shown in good faith that they know what they're doing with this show. If they say they had always planned Carter's exit right from the beginning of the show, then I'll believe them. This is not, say, Arrow where their producers can crap on all they want but it doesn't change the fact that Sara Lance was killed off for no reason.

Oh yeah, those episodes had some great dialogue in them ranging from Harold and Arthur's poignant philosophising on the nature of their machines (including the Harold flashbacks), to Root's chillingly defiant threats to Control, to the outright funny one-liners from Shaw. And then the end scene with The Machine showing true humanity and offering comfort to Arthur and showing him the footage of him and his wife when they were younger. The only thing that let that episode down was the Reese and Fusco plotline which felt completely at odds with the rest of the episode. That's easy to overlook considering how good the rest of those two episodes were.

I think they wasted Christopher Heyerdahl as The Electrocutioner, when he was such a good fit for Hugo Strange. The Electrocutioner is such a C-Grade Batman villain, whereas introducing Hugo Strange now would work in neatly with a timeline for Bruce Wayne becoming Batman (in that Hugo Strange is always being depicted as an older 'mad scientist' kind of villain). Oh well. At least Victor Zsasz is still pretty spot on for his comic book persona. Commissioner Loeb vs James Gordon should be good to see as an ongoing rivalry, though I wonder if he's going to be sticking around (Loeb is usually portrayed as the corrupt Commissioner when Batman first appears in Gotham, which would mean he'd would have to have been in the position for at least 10 years in this timelime since Bruce is only like 12 right now...) Best part of the episode was the Falcone, Maroni and Penguin stuff. Fish's plan seems pretty silly in retrospect - just hope Falcone rolls over? No contingency if he decides to come after her? Unless there's some yet to be revealed master-plan... It's going to be very interesting now that The Penguin has wormed his way into both the major player's backpockets. I like this, since it's a good start to show how The Penguin becomes such a major player down the track in Gotham and how despite outward appearances will eventually become a worthy adversary to Batman.

Oh lol, imagine the kind of comments should have been posting on the "That's So Rachel" message boards. I think that was a missed opportunity in the S6 premiere to have some fake twitter messages from @snix absolutely trashing the show pop up on the screen.

That's certainly my view. Like Santana seems to spend so much effort on keeping up her appearance of "I'm from Lima Heights, I aint afraid to cut a bitch" tough girl act, yet then she'll go use a reference to some obscure Broadway musical to insult Rachel with. Like why would she even know that? haha. Personally I think there's a huge nerd hiding under the facade that Santana likes to put up That's all any of the characters on Glee have ever been. They exist mainly as devices to sing covers of Showtunes/Pop music, and occasionally deliver whatever PSA the producers have decided is important for the kids of the nation to hear.

DC has a character like this - Booster Gold. He's a time-traveller from the future, where he was a failed sportstar turned janitor. He gets an idea to travel back in time (with a "borrowed" Legion of Superheroes power ring lol) to current day Earth, alongside his robot sidekick Skeets, and uses Skeet's knowledge of future events to become a Superhero and gain the adoration of the public. His costume is basically like a Racing Team jumpsuit with all his sponsors logos over it, and he never misses a camera opportunity to promote himself (and his sponsor's products) when he 'conveniently' turns up to save the day. I'm pretty sure there was talk of a Booster Gold TV series at some point too. I think they used his character on Smallville, but he would fit in nicely on The Flash imo

The whole of Relevance imo. I mean the show was good before, but it was that episode where it went from Good to fan-fucking-tastic. Everything from The Machine interrupting the opening credits, to the fact that the show was entirely from the point of view of a new character with only 'cameo' appearances from the main characters. And the fact that it really opened up the show's wider lore.

Heh, for a show that everyone seems to not care about anymore, it certainly is still able to get everyone up on their high-horses and proclaim their moral outrage (whether its over Kurt interrupting Santana's proposal or Santana's rant, whichever 'side' you are on). Here's what I took from the rant scene - it was the only genuinely funny part of the episode. Everything from Santana seemingly endless stream-of-consciousness (something that I find inherently funny, like you have to wonder what thought processes lead up to those comments - does she just notice these things about people and store those thoughts for an opportune moment? lol) to Rachel's hilarious reactions (she was probably just glad it wasn't directed at her for a change) to the random passerby's in the background being all like 'wtf??' to Santana literally just stopping and walking away at the end. It was a very well acted scene, especially on Naya's part and that makes all the difference in the world. IMO this show would be a million times better if it was just Santana and Sue ripping into everyone every episode.

The track played at the end of the episode was The Violent Bear It Away, by Moby. I think the expectation was that they'd go straight to Team Machine getting vengeance for Shaw, but I think it was an inspired choice to subvert that and go with broadening the Person of Interest mythology. Sure it felt a little abrupt after the stunning end to the last episode, but I think the contrast to The Devils Share (where we immediately went into mourning over Carter) was intentional. Both Team Machine and us, the viewers, are in the dark over Shaw's ultimate fate and this episode worked to reinforce that and remind us that this is not the same situation as with Carter. But Root at the end was heartbreaking :( Amy Acker does such a phenomenal job at showing Root's pain and completely sells the devastation that Root has over Shaw's loss. I think Root (and Reese) are desperately trying to believe that Shaw is still alive and are going to great lengths to try and find anything that will confirm that. Harold on the other hand seems resigned to the fact that Shaw is dead - yet another casualty to weigh on his conscious. Slightly disappointed to not see any of Fusco's reaction though - considering the circumstances in which Shaw saved his sons life back in The Crossing I think Fusco will have a pretty strong reaction to losing Shaw. Hopefully that will be in the next episode. To continue the Batman/DC Comics parallels that a lot of people noted early on when this show started, Control is Amanda Waller (from the Suicide Squad comics. And not the faux-Waller that Arrow and the New52 comics have, but the real deal). I can only echo what other people have said about how much of a stone-cold powerhouse she is. This show does such a great job of making it's tertiary and supporting characters into fleshed out people, with their fully realised character arcs.

I'm not sure why Sue Sylvester's regime was portrayed as a bad thing. As far as I could see, the school has improved measurably since the days of Principal Figgins and Will Schuester.... I thought "Home" was the best song of the night. That track got a heap of airplay here in Australia back in 2009, and Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zero's have proper indie cred, which is kinda why it's so surprising to see them on Glee. Hopefully that's a sign that since they know no-one cares about the show anymore that they will broaden their musical genres a bit. I guess they felt they had to put a Top40 pop song in (also I'm normally all about Aussies kicking goals overseas, but America you can keep Iggy Azalea...), however I did like that "Homecoming" went from 80's New Wave, to Modern Funk, to 60's R&B then back to Indie Folk. (Also, while I do really like the song, I can't help but laugh a bit at "Home" these days - it's pretty much sold on the romantic "story" between the characters of the male and female leads (Alex Ebert and Jade Castrinos), particularly in the spoken section in the middle of that song, yet the band had a rather nasty split last year where they kicked Jade out of the band lol. Oh well). Not sure I was sold at all on the instrumental arrangements of either "Home", "Tightrope" or "Mustang Sally" though. Something just felt completely wrong about them, almost as if they've put effort in to get the vocals sounding good but only put a cursory effort into making the instruments sound good. "Tightrope" has a really upbeat energetic funk feeling to it which was there in the actress' performance (she's no Janelle Monae, but she had a good crack at it) but completely missing from the instruments. "Mustang Sally" was absent of the 60's R&B vibe that makes it such a great song and "Home" seemed to be missing all the little flourishes that really pop out in between the lyrics. They even managed to make the synthesizers on "Take On Me" sound fake - which doesn't even make any sense!

Just on that Emergency Stop button (I've never heard them referred to as mushroom buttons here in Australia, is that an American thing?), it does kinda make sense it would be there as a security override for a secure elevator. The guard who's meant to be stationed there at the desk would check the camera feed from the elevator, and if he sees something shifty he can smack the button and stop the elevator. Also I've seen people question why Shaw had to run over to that Emergency Stop button, and not have just thrown a gun or a shoe as I've seen some people suggest lol, and that is because those Emergency Stop buttons "lock in" when they are activated (that way you ensure the emergency stop stays active after you've pushed it) and need to be physically twisted so they "pop out" to reset the circuit. As for why Shaw couldn't have then ran back and dived into the elevator - the cage that pulls down is almost certainly going to have a mechanical interlock that needs to be released (ie the cage needs to be down fully in the closed position - there's even a sign hanging on the cage that says 'please close door after exiting') before the elevator will move. From a technical point of view I don't think there was anything contrived about why Shaw had to do what she did.

Having not seen Iron Man 3 at the cinemas, instead watching it when it came out on Bluray, I though the Agent Carter short was pretty much the best thing about that movie.

Major missed opportunity to not have Alison wearing a do-rag when Toby visits her in jail. "I see the tables have turned".

No, Leia pecked Luke on the cheek. This was a Han and Leia kiss moments before he gets frozen in carbonite ("I love you". "I know").

Yeah I could buy that, with what his name from Honour Among Thieves (the guy who Shaw trained and who let her escape the vault). Or what about ROBO-SHAW - Martine takes Shaw back to Greer, and they begin a lengthy process to turn her into an Agent of Samaritan by the way of cybernetic implants and brainwashing. Shaw is now apparently fully under control of Samaritan when Team Machine encounter her in the future, but seeing Root again sparks something deep inside Shaw and she must fight her conditioning and break free of Samaritan's grasp. Sarah Shahi has talked in the past about wanting to go fully out there with her character - shaving her head on camera, getting a robotic arm, joining up with Samaritan. I think that would be amazing.

Behind the scenes vid with Greg Plageman and the cast talking about *that thing*.