S04.E09: Lucha De Apuestas

[Bruinsfan]

That said, isn't the Kaupe supposed to be a Hawaiian evil spirit that lures people to their deaths and eats them? I don't care how compelling Mona found his puppydog eyes and hirsute muscles, that argues pretty strongly against treating him like a beloved pet-boyfriend.

[fifiwesfan]

In regards to Ava, I think its an act.  I think she's onto something going on behind her back at the TB and is going rogue undercover, pushing Sara away and siding with Hank will make him trust her and she can 'be brought into the family', so to speak.  When its over she'll tell Sara she couldn't take a chance by telling her her plan and that she had to make it look real.

Edited April 3, 2019 by fifiwesfan

[Starfish35]

I don’t think so.  For one thing, Hank doesn’t know Sara and Ava are together, so she’d really have no reason to stage such a scene.  

I think Ava was angry at Sara, and sometimes in the middle of an argument you end up taking a position that you might not really endorse if you thought it through, because you’re hurt and angry and don’t want to admit you’re wrong.  Ava didn’t want to hear that Sara might have had a good reason for what she did.  She was hurt and angry and had probably been fuming for hours over it, and wasn’t going to back down.   

She’s not wrong that the Legends were sending the magical creatures to hell just a few weeks ago, and she probably does feel like she’s stuck her neck out for Sara and the Legends plenty of times without reciprocation.  Where she got off-track was regarding the torture and experimentation, and I think we’ll see her come to realize how wrong she is on that in the coming weeks.

And remember, too, that Ava hasn’t had the experience with these creatures that the Legends have.  Her own two personal experiences (at the camp and with the serial-killer doll) have been pretty horrific.  So she doesn’t have the sympathetic viewpoint that the others have had.

Edited April 4, 2019 by Starfish35

[tennisgurl]

I wonder how much Ava being all "I choose team humans!" is some kind of angst or displacement about her actually being a clone? Like she has to be super committed to her life protecting humans, so that no one will ever comment on how she isnt fully human herself?

[johntfs]

10 hours ago, blackwing said:

So after the Kaupe died, his Kaupe essence transferred into Mona and now Mona has it?  How come he was a Kaupe the whole time but hers comes and goes?  I'm sure we are in for a "strange deaths keep happening and no one knows why" storyline.

I like the concept of Mona but I don't like how she's played as a complete ditz.  I hate her voice.  I wonder if that's the actress' real voice or if she is playing up the ditzy little girl voice.

I think they built Mona up as the sweet, naive, ditzy-approachable person to amp the contrast with "...who also turns into something that rips people's faces off."  I think a lesser show (The Flash) would do something like have the Kaupe power be a semi-useful curse that the Legends were trying to cure.  I think this show will reveal that its nothing like lycanthropy but was, in fact, Konone's final gift to Mona to help her protect herself as he was dying.  I think the key to controlling the power will be Mona and the other recognizing that sweet, cute, ditzy little Mona kill that Time Agent in Kaupe form because Mona wanted to kill him for killing Konone.

[jhlipton]

On 4/2/2019 at 3:04 PM, Maelstrom said:

I really felt he didn't fit with the show or the team, but he's finally starting to feel like one of the gang. Especially now that he's loosened up and dropped the whole "I'm such a dark brooding loner" vibe and started acting like a part of the lovable, screwball Waverider family.

Exactly!

15 hours ago, questionfear said:

what if "our" Ava has been kidnapped and the Ava we saw was a clone? We saw Ava and Sara walk into the Time Bureau and then the next time Ava is running around she's really cold to everyone, including Sara.

I thought that, too.  But why would the clone cry when there's no one around to see.  I think the arguments others have made work better.

[darkestboy]

And it's back. Not my favourite episode but even non fave episodes are ridiculously fun and this one was certainly that until the last moment where Mona showed us what she can now do.

I think she will work with the Legends and I quite liked her scenes with Mick in this one as well. The Kaupe as a Mexican wrestler and Constantine's own fanboying over El Cura was pretty amusing.

I like Nate and Zari as a team but I so don't want them as a romantic pairing. Nice the Legends are aware of what Hank is mostly up to as well.

Sara and Ava's "break up" did feel a little forced though.

Gary getting his memories - that guy really can't catch a break. Ray was a funny acting captain this week, 7/10

[Cekrypton1]

Oh, show, I missed you. A solid, if not spectacular return, but then it would be hard to follow the awesomeness that was 'The Legends of To Meow-Meow.'

I feel like the Ava/Sara break-up was well-handled in that neither of them were wrong. Ava's point was valid in that the Legends had been condemning creatures to Hell, and were going to do the same to nü-Amaya not too long ago. And just because they slightly humanized Konane, it was still captured for being a dangerous beast. Of course, Sara's point that these creatures may be redeemable (the not-hellbound Charlie) should be something to give Ava pause.

I was wondering why the Nate/Zari pairing and note Ray/Zari, given the presence of Charlie, and then had to remember (December was a long time ago!) that Ray is into Nora Darkh.

[statsgirl]

I really liked that Nate was on to his father, and how the show revealed it with Zari in the background.

On 4/3/2019 at 2:33 PM, johntfs said:

Ava did have a somewhat justifiable point of view.  Replace "magical creatures" with "terrorists" you pretty much have the debate that raged through much of 2000s after 9/11.  Again, let's recall that Charlie aside all of these beings, including the Kaupe are (or were) viciously murderous.  Sure we want to be high-minded and poo-poo torture/experimentation, but most of the Time Agents are regular human people who don't have superpowers or even super training like Sara.  They need to understand the weaknesses of these beings in order to capture/defeat them.  And pretty much the only way to learn those weaknesses is through, yes, experimentation.

Experimentation and torture are actually very poor ways to learn those things. It's one of the reasons the American Psychological Association refused to have anything to do with the "enhanced interrogation" at Guantanamo Bay.

Edited April 5, 2019 by statsgirl

[Starfish35]

2 hours ago, statsgirl said:

Experimentation and torture are actually very poor ways to learn those things.

Torture, no. But experimentation?  If you’re not looking at them as sentient feeling creatures.....well, I mean, there’s a lot of experiments performed with lab rats.  And to play devil’s advocate for a moment, while we the audience are looking through the sympathetic viewpoint of Charlie and Mona’s kaupe, there’s some of these creatures that aren’t quite so easy to humanize, such as the Baba Yaga, that eats babies.  From Ava’s viewpoint, some experiments on such a creature might be well worth the greater good of learning how to protect people’s children from them.

[benteen]

Good to have this show back!

I really enjoyed the wrestling storyline.  I don't watch wrestling any longer but I still appreciate when it's done and done well on TV.  Liked Constantine's interaction with the wrestler whose name I admit I can't remember.  Agreed that Nate and Zari have good chemistry together (really, this show excels in interpersonal relationships) and I think the conflict between Sara and Ava was well done.  This show continues to be all kinds of crazy fun.

[Goldmoon]

I just have to weigh in here.  I found this so boring it was excruciating!  I never liked Mona and don't care about her story.  She was far too cavalier about the Kope getting carried away with violence, like a dog-owner who can't keep the beast under control.  (I adore dogs - people, though ...)

I don't feel this season's writing has been on par with the last two seasons.

[BaggythePanther]

On 4/3/2019 at 1:33 PM, johntfs said:

They need to understand the weaknesses of these beings in order to capture/defeat them.  And pretty much the only way to learn those weaknesses is through, yes, experimentation. 

These are magical creatures. There are books and stories with information about how to defeat these creatures. John has been using the information from lore to subdue the creatures. And when all else fails, just do what human prisons (and the Legends) do - have one creature as an informant to provide info on how to catch others.

But they’d rather just torture them.

ETA: Not here for Nate/Zari. And coming back from such a long hiatus to an episode centered around a character I don’t really like made this episode very disappointing for me.

Edited April 6, 2019 by BaggythePanther
Added more thoughts

[Lugal]

It's a blurry line between torture and experimentation.

[statsgirl]

19 hours ago, Starfish35 said:

Torture, no. But experimentation?  If you’re not looking at them as sentient feeling creatures.....well, I mean, there’s a lot of experiments performed with lab rats.

There are. The moment I walked out of my first grad course in psychology was when they took us to the rat lab and showed us the current experiment which was not only cruel but unnecessary given what we already knew. (It was to starve the rats while they were in the same room as other rats that they could hear eating and induce ulcers by giving them brain lesions. Another experiment we learned about was cutting parts of brain of monkeys out (because they are so similar to ours) and then giving them electric shocks to find out if what they are no longer doing is being they can't do it or because they no longer want to do it.  The problem is that the information didn't transfer to humans because strokes are never as clean cut as those lesions in animal brains. Fortunately there are fewer of those experiments nowadays because monkeys are very expensive and we have fMRI machines and can do it better on humans.

If it was such a good idea, why were the guys in black doctoring the film to cover up what they're doing and lying that Mona did it?

As @BaggythePanther said, Constantine's books containing the wisdom of the ages about magical creatures. More useful than torturing them individually.

[Starfish35]

1 hour ago, statsgirl said:

If it was such a good idea, why were the guys in black doctoring the film to cover up what they're doing and lying that Mona did it?

Hey, I’m not on the side of the Men in Black.  What they’re doing is obviously for shady purposes (my guess is weaponizing the creatures in some way).  I’m just saying I can also see it from Ava’s perspective.

[legaleagle53]

On 4/4/2019 at 11:34 PM, Starfish35 said:

Torture, no. But experimentation?  If you’re not looking at them as sentient feeling creatures.....well, I mean, there’s a lot of experiments performed with lab rats.  And to play devil’s advocate for a moment, while we the audience are looking through the sympathetic viewpoint of Charlie and Mona’s kaupe, there’s some of these creatures that aren’t quite so easy to humanize, such as the Baba Yaga, that eats babies.  From Ava’s viewpoint, some experiments on such a creature might be well worth the greater good of learning how to protect people’s children from them.

Tell that to Zari. In HER native time period, that's what ARGUS does to metas for fun and profit as a way to weaponize their powers.  Maybe Ava needs to pay a visit to 2042 for enlightenment.