S01.E12/S01.E13: Ready Or Not/Who Am I?

[scarynikki12]

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Ready Or Not: After having visions from her brief time on Earth-29, Naomi seeks the advice of her protectors - Dee, Zumbado, Greg, Jen and Akira - but no one can agree on a plan...

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Who Am I?: Naomi must make a decision to protect those she loves most, but in the end, Naomi needs those closest to her to battle a powerful being that has been hunting her since birth.

 

Since these episodes are airing back to back you may discuss both here. 

[Lantern7]

Dang. Naomi learned one of the hardest lessons of the superhero: just when you think you've won, the rug gets swept out from under you, and the pain from the fall is epic. Finding you that the McDuffies basically kidnapped Baby Naomi and left her birth parents for dead . . . damn.

This happens at basically the worst time for Naomi, since the main kids are now all in the know. Lazy ass that I am, I don't know all their names. Well, just the two white guys. I know Lourdes and Nate, and it's really hard to forget Annabelle. Felt bad for her getting pelted with paintballs even though it was funny as hell.

As much promise as Naomi (and Naomi herself) have, I still can't see the series filling the hole left by Legends of Tomorrow and Batwoman. I'm up for a second season (especially if Dee comes back), but it still feels like a letdown.

PS: I always lumped Naomi and Stargirl in the Arrowverse. Turns out I was wrong. It's still a show based on DC Comics, though, so you can see why I made the assumption.

[Primal Slayer]

This was a very slow 2hr finale. It was like they had no budget left. Naomis flight at the end was.....a choice.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

1 hour ago, Lantern7 said:

This happens at basically the worst time for Naomi, since the main kids are now all in the know. Lazy ass that I am, I don't know all their names. Well, just the two white guys. I know Lourdes and Nate, and it's really hard to forget Annabelle.

Annabelle's nerdy boyfriend is Jacob. The townie architecture student with a crush on Naomi is Anthony.

[Terrafamilia]

So, the parental units are well-intentioned extremists. As if Naomi's life couldn't get any more screwed up.

I did finally figure out what Naomi's power is - the power to do whatever is convenient to the plot. Super-strength, super-speed, super-memory, visions, flight, vague do-whatever "energy" powers, leaf swirl (let me know when she levels up to leaf hurricane).

Did I miss something (hey, Deadpool 2 was on)? I couldn't make sense of the whole kidnap the adults and entice Naomi to walk into a trap after she could have easily been scooped up after the car wreck and tossed through the portal. Was it some lame test or something?

This show could really use better plotting. Mac, Julian, and red-eyes guy are working for Brutus. Do they come from the Earth-29 universe or Port Oswego's universe? If from Earth-29's then why would they know or even care what was up with Qyeala? They must have been doing a heck of a lot of background work on this foreign universe (and Mac completely vanished after trying to tempt Dee. I kept waiting for her to show up again). Why did Naomi and Annabelle go traipsing through a field of red flowers in the middle of nowhere in search of some power element? She had a vision of it. Why did she have a vision of this field when what she needed to do was set the pendant on the disc to manifest the door (I had a flashback to Being Human!)? Because she didn't do that until she got to the field so it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, or the door would only manifest in that field - for Reasons, or was it just an excuse to go on a road-trip?

[Trini]

12 hours ago, Primal Slayer said:

This was a very slow 2hr finale....

There was SO MUCH talking! But yet, I didn't get answers to most of the questions I've had all season.

So Naomi is supposed to unite The 29, restore their planet, and defeat Brutus -- But we still don't know much about Naomi's birth parents. How did Naomi get powers? How did anyone even know she would have powers as a baby, and that those powers would help their planet? Are all The 29 on Earth?? How/Why are her parents' essences in a locket?? What exactly did Brutus want with Naomi? To kill her, right? But he wanted her on Earth-29(?)?? If Greg and Jen really thought that Naomi was the key to healing their planet, why are were they doing the opposite of helping her develop her powers?

Didn't Naomi destroy that glowy rock in the woods previously? (And I think they actually showed a clip of that.)

Well, there was some fun with the teens parts of the episodes. They may not necessarily make it a problem, but I feel like too many people might know about Naomi now.

They're definitely going to have to fix a few things if this gets a second season.

[possibilities]

That felt like a series finale. Either they know they're not coming back, or they aren't sure and didn't want to leave things, um... hanging.

I like Annabelle and the actress playing her is really good.

Honestly, the plotting on this show irritates me and I can't tell if it's because it's rotten or if it's just that I'm burning out on super-hero stories.

But I like a lot of the characters, and that's why I stuck it out.

[Trini]

On 5/11/2022 at 2:51 PM, possibilities said:

Honestly, the plotting on this show irritates me and I can't tell if it's because it's rotten or if it's just that I'm burning out on super-hero stories.

Both? I think they do have several issues with plotting; and yeah, if you've watched a lot of superhero shows/movies you've seen these tropes a hundred times by now.

[Lantern7]

On 5/11/2022 at 2:51 PM, possibilities said:

That felt like a series finale. Either they know they're not coming back, or they aren't sure and didn't want to leave things, um... hanging.

Turns out it was a series finale. So many unanswered questions . . . as well as the irritation that the one Big Bad of the series looked like a homeless dude.

[thuganomics85]

Didn't get around to this until after they already announced that it was one and done, so it did take some of the investment away.  But I guess if a second season had happened, it would have involved Naomi trying find and recruit the 29, sure up a way to defeat Brutus, and dealing with the aftermath of finding out Greg and Jennifer actually killed Naomi's birth parents because they are some kind of extremists.  I also wonder if we would have seen any of Dee's journey into finding his lost love or if that would have been all handled off screen.

At least they did have everyone finally be in the know with Lourdes and Anthony finally discovering the truth about Naomi, aliens, and other dimensions as well.  Would have fun to see more of the gang finally all together and working with helping Naomi.

Kind of funny that they got Ray Porter; the guy who voiced Darkseid in the director's cut of Justice League; to play Brutus.

Show definitely squandered some of its early potential thanks to some pacing issues and other storyline choices, but I did find the cast enjoyable and I hope they go on to other work.  Out of all of them, I feel like the actress playing Annabelle has the best shot of getting some good roles going forward.

Really curious to see what is in store for comic shows; especially ones on The CW; going forward.

[Trini]

I noticed that there wasn't an actor's credit for (the voice of) Naomi's Mother, even though there was one for Naomi's Father. So who did the voice? My best guess is. . . Ava DuVernay herself?

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I would have liked to see how the Dee/Qweala story played out if this had another season.

Edited May 17, 2022 by Trini