S03.E03: The Compass

[AnimeMania]

NICKY TRAVELS TO THAILAND — After learning that Henry (Eddie Liu) is a person of interest in a heist gone wrong, Nicky (Olivia Liang) travels to Thailand to help him — a move that forces them to confront their unresolved issues. When Mei-Li (Kheng Hua Tan) needs help reorganizing at Harmony Dumplings, Jin (Tzi Ma) and Althea (Shannon Dang) team up to help. Elsewhere, Ryan (Jon Prasida) gets some relationship advice from an unlikely source.

Original Airdate: October 19, 2022       9pm        The CW 

[Cress]

When they kept talking about Genesis, I thought it might be a resurrection spell to bring someone back to life, but instead we just see Henry absorb a ton of magic energy. I'm not sure what the Zarco guy wanted from Genesis or how he expected to control Henry.

Looks like Xiao is still inside Pei-Ling. Is there anyway to get rid of the alchemist and let Zhilan come back?

[paigow]

Zarco is truly an idiot... he never noticed that both minions were neutralized... 

[Camera One]

At the start, I was disappointed to hear that Pei-Ling had already met the family, and we didn't get to see it!  But it was fun to see her with Ryan and then Mei-Li.   I really hope she gets to stick around since she's a nice addition.  

I liked all the little subplots with the different family members.  Ryan's fight with Sebastian was a bit petty, but understandable.  Althea's organization of the supplies was amusing, though the menu must be small to have a separate station for every dish.  

I didn't even mind Zhilan's subplot in that otherworld.  Hopefully, the souls can be released when the Harvester is defeated.

Nicky moving on felt a bit fast.  Henry leaving Nicky with no contact wasn't very well justified.  I'm not sure I like the direction of Henry becoming the Compass Bearer, another mythical/magical position with the Genesis mumbo jumbo.

[thuganomics85]

Man, first they bring back Simon and now Razor pops back up for a scene (and gets his ass kicked thoroughly, heh.)  They seem to be all about bring back one-off characters from season one.  I wonder who else could possibly return?

Disappointed that we didn't actually get to see Pei-Ling meet the Shen family for the first time (that dinner was probably fun as hell!), but I enjoyed her scenes with Ryan and using her wisdom to help him with his current romantic issues!  And the seen with Mei-Li was close to perfect as well.  But it certainly looks like Xiao is still in there after all and just reared her ugly head for a brief moment.  With Nicky far away right now, this is troubling news!

Liked seeing Althea use her skills to make Harmony Dumpling's supplies be better coordinated with the different and more varied supplies they now have with the acquisition.  Hopefully we will continue to see how effective she still can be even without the internet.  And it looks like it might have helped Jin to go outside his own comfort zone and work for this Andrew guy.  Aww, like father like daughter!

Looks like Zhilan has now decided to just face this Harvester fellow head-on.  Not sure how it will exactly play out but I'm guessing it will end with her going back into the real world.

Nicky and Henry have now reunited.  At least they didn't drag things out and Nicky already revealed to him that she's moved on and they just can't go back (although she still didn't get time to mention Bo/having a new boyfriend.)  Of course all of that will likely be put to the side for a bit since it turns out Henry is the Compass Bearer now for some mysterious Genesis thing, and I'm that ritual or whatever gave him some kind of powers.  Fun!

[paigow]

5 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

Looks like Zhilan has now decided to just face this Harvester fellow head-on.  Not sure how it will exactly play out but I'm guessing it will end with her going back into the real world.

Henry will use the power of Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel to retrieve Zhilan, transfer Pei-Ling into Zhilan, then kill the body of Pei-Ling with Xiao inside.

[possibilities]

I love how in one scene, Jhilan gets told everybody knows she's a murderer. So in the next scene she offers to kill someone/something. 

[paigow]

2 hours ago, possibilities said:

I love how in one scene, Jhilan gets told everybody knows she's a murderer. So in the next scene she offers to kill someone/something. 

And she has superpowers (relatively speaking)

[Trini]

A lot of stuff happened here but I don't feel it had much impact (to me).

I think the pacing has been really off this season so far; like, Henry finding the Compass and the Foundation, and getting magical powers (sigh) would have taken at least half a season. What's the rush? On the other hand, they should start combining storylines because....

... Nearly every character has a separate story going on. I think they could have deleted one, maybe even two, of the minor subplots to let the other stories be more fleshed out. And shallowly, I think the fight with Razor could have been longer.

So was the actor for Henry's father unavailable, or did they run out of money for guest stars? Because I think we could have used some flashbacks with him.

So with Henry now a conduit to magic realms -- if I understand correctly -- then that looks like how we will get Zhilan back, and he'll probably have to deal with Xiao/Pei Ling too.

Zhilan is really getting a better redemption arc than a lot of other "reformed" TV villains.

I thought Pei Ling apologizing to Mei Li was a really nice scene.

[tennisgurl]

Wow, first Simon and now Razor? Everyone's coming back this season, its like the ghosts of one off characters past! I thought this was a good episode, even if I think we might have had one too many subplots. I am glad that we already reunited Henry and Nicky, even if it just pushes us towards that inevitable love triangle, now made more complicated by Henry being some kind of magic generator thing. I usually like this shows mythology and magic, but I hope they aren't going to over complicate things by making everyone some kind of special chosen one. 

Zhilan and Simon are a surprisingly fun pairing, and I like that Zhilan is stuck with a guy who she murdered on her redemption quest, it makes her have to really face the consequences of her actions head on, literally having to stare her victim in the face. 

I'm sad that we didn't get to see Pei-Ling have her first family dinner with the Shen's, but I really liked seeing her give Ryan some advice and I loved her scene with Mei Li, having her around with the family really adds a nice new dynamic to the domestic scenes. But looks like The Alchemist is still hanging around causing trouble...

[Trini]

5 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I usually like this shows mythology and magic, but I hope they aren't going to over complicate things by making everyone some kind of special chosen one. 

LOL - I also thought to myself, if this gets a fourth season, who's going to be The Chosen One this time? I vote Jin!

[Camera One]

On 10/22/2022 at 11:27 PM, Trini said:

I think the pacing has been really off this season so far; like, Henry finding the Compass and the Foundation, and getting magical powers (sigh) would have taken at least half a season. What's the rush? On the other hand, they should start combining storylines because....

I agree it just felt too sudden.  I was thinking maybe they rushed it to get him back to San Francisco faster, and if it's linked to Zhilan, they want to move that along too.  I agree the pacing could have been better.  The Henry scenes in the first episode this season were pretty much a waste of time.  Yes, he can be a cool bad boy too.  

Quote

Nearly every character has a separate story going on. I think they could have deleted one, maybe even two, of the minor subplots to let the other stories be more fleshed out.

This show tended to do this even last season and the secondary subplots do tend to be more sparse.  Though I still find them to be entertaining.  Ryan's storyline did cross with Pei-lin, Althea's did cross with her parents' and Henry's finally collided with Nicky's.  It probably didn't help that we also took time off for Zhilan, which made it a four in one.  

[Trini]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

Althea's did cross with her parents'

This was the one that I was most unsatisfied with. One scene, Althea has to organize everthing, then the next time we get back to her, it's just already done. It just wasn't much of a story, and it felt like stuff was cut.

[Camera One]

51 minutes ago, Trini said:

This was the one that I was most unsatisfied with. One scene, Althea has to organize everthing, then the next time we get back to her, it's just already done. It just wasn't much of a story, and it felt like stuff was cut.

I would have liked to see a little more too.  Though I can imagine that was all the writers wanted to show.  She seemed stuck, and then surprise!  It's all perfectly organized in an innovative way.   Just to add a bit of levity into the episode.

[KaMeJean]

Quote

Quote

Althea's did cross with her parents'

This was the one that I was most unsatisfied with. One scene, Althea has to organize everthing, then the next time we get back to her, it's just already done. It just wasn't much of a story, and it felt like stuff was cut.

They had to cut 12 whole minutes to make it fit.