'Legends of Tomorrow' Season 4, Episode 9: 'Lucha de Apuestas'

 The team is tasked to find the Kaupe, which had escaped Time Bureau custody.  In true "Legends" fashion, the plot manages to rope in a variety of disparate elements: Mexican wrestling, government conspiracies, romantic tensions; and throw them together in such a way that it all still works.

The Bureau's shadier dealings have been known (to the viewer anyway) but its presentation here is more akin to other science fiction plots.  Mona herself makes a direct comparison to "The X-Files".  If you watched Justice League Unlimited back in the day, you might think that this would have been a great opportunity to bring the Question to the Arrowverse.  Sadly, it doesn't happen.  

The episode does still bring a lot to the table.  It's entertaining as all get out.  Seeing John help coach a washed up wrestler so that he can reclaim his former glory against Konane was one of the episode's many highlights.  There's quite a bit of slapstick involved, as the team has to teach Konane to lose; but seeing the two join forces against the Bureau MiB's was a splendid thing.

While the show does get wacky, it still manages to bring a healthy dose of heart to the proceedings.  The Mona/Kaupe "romance" is still a little weird, but it isn't without its heartwarming and tragic moments. When Mona does decide to part ways and say goodbye, it actually is a moving scene, even though it should be ridiculous by any stretch.  

Even Mick gets to have a serious and sincere conversation.  It's a small scene, but it was well done and Purcell did a great job with it.

Speaking of romance, it seems as if the Sara/Ava ship has sailed. The episode puts the two at odds and creates a rift that even a conversation over a tango can't fix. It is sad.  The two were great together. On the other hand, this could just be a tension building thing. The wrestler even notes that stories involve falls so that the heroes can rise.  This could be one of those things.  We'll have to see.  I'm still rooting for them.

All in all, this was a solid episode.  It brought fun, the wrestling sequences were fun, and the character moments all worked out.   This episode did shake things up on several fronts so it'll be interesting to see how things play out.

 

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'Luke Cage' Season 2, Episode 2: 'Straighten it Out'

 After no selling a Judas bullet, Luke decides to test how far his figurative zenkai boost has gone.  I was expecting a montage of Luke getting hit by friends and fans with various objects to see what would faze him, but instead, all we see is him performing various physical feats.  It does show us that Luke is a powerhouse in and of himself, and it is a fun sequence, but I'm not sure it really accomplished the goal that the characters wanted. It does allow us to see a glimpse of that "friendly neighborhood Luke Cage" persona.

In an interesting twist, Claire becomes concerned that Luke's power boost could become a detriment later.  His abilities made it hard to treat him when he did get injured, and this development could just make that worse.  

She's also concerned about Luke's estranged relationship with his father.  You can kind of see where she's coming from.  She does relate her own past to Luke's situation and her intentions are good, but at the same time, some of her ideas don't hold water.  I mean, the distance eating Luke from the inside could be true for some, but it hasn't really come up until now, so I don't really see it.  

As if that weren't enough, she's also concerned that Luke is going too far and following too closely in Matt's footsteps.  She's just very concerned this episode and it's enough to drive a wedge between the two, which I have to imagine is very concerning.

Luke does seem to prove Claire right in the final fight against Cockroach.  It was partially satisfying, given that it's established that Cockroach is a domestic abuser, but the more the fight goes on, the more you can see that Luke is slipping to the dark side and it starts to become a tad unsettling.  Even he's appalled by what he did by the episode's end.

Even though this season's story line is standing on its own, I did enjoy the nods to the other heroes.  There was even a mention of the Incident. You'd think that they could throw some allusions to more current events in, but still continuity references are continuity references.  I'll take them where I can get them.

Bushmaster gets some more screen time and some more development.  He doesn't quite have Stokes' charm and personability, but he has a fair share of it.  He gets on well with neighborhood kids and leaves a generous tip for a shopkeep who provides him with some medicinal supplies.  Speaking of the Stokes', Moriah seems to be the object of his ire.  He is made aware of Luke Cage, but doesn't really seem to have any serious beef with him.  He scoffs at Luke's reputation, but that's about it.  I got Clubber Lang vibes from the way his grudge is being developed.  Whether it goes deeper than that as the season unfolds remains to be seen.

Moriah herself is still intent on going legit by selling off her cache of guns.  Her club is pretty packed, so I don't know why it would be that hard for her.  The musical act seen here was quite good.  Just keep doing that, but apparently, that's not an option.

Instead, she reaches out to her estranged daughter...for PR reasons?  You'd think that they would make some parallel with Luke and his estranged parent, but the script mostly dodged that. It might come up later, but so far, no real connection has been made between the two character plots..  Said daughter does eventually come around to the idea, so we'll see how that plays out.  Maybe the reconnection will prove to make things worse, proving Luke's point, or go the opposite way and show how Claire's analysis was astute.  It's too soon to say.

All in all, this episode was solid.  It wasn't quite as good as the one that came before it, but there's still quite a bit to enjoy.

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'Spoony: The Motion Picture?': A Retrospective

 

It's interesting going back and watching this video years later.  I was excited when this first got posted.  Being a fan of the site, I was hyped to see what was going to come next.  As a creator, I also got a nice dose of motivation, which made for a nice bonus.

Alas, a good chunk of what he talks about doing did not come to pass.  An interesting side-effect is that the video is a lot funnier in hindsight.  His talk of leaving Twitter and not being lazy are especially notable moments.  Oddly enough, actually dropping off from social media the way he talked about probably would have worked out better for him, but that's neither here nor there.

To be fair, though, when his patreon dropped below the $5,000/month mark; he was no longer obligated to make the movie.   People didn't seem to get that about the site's setup.  It isn't like a stretch goal on a one-off crowd-funding endeavor like Indiegogo or Kickstarter.  It's a moot point now, but it still seems like it was worth pointing out.

While there are indeed lols to be had, the video still resonates with me.  As a creator who piles too much on himself, succumbs to schedule slip (different factors are involved, but schedule slip is still schedule slip regardless,) and is perpetually behind schedule as a result; a lot of what he talks about still rings true to me.  Even though he didn't actually make the progress he talks about here, hearing him talk about it still gets me into a more motivated mindset.

Would the video have the same effect for someone who didn't have the nostalgic connection that I do? Hmmm, hard to say.  The aforementioned lols wouldn't be there, even knowing the story isn't quite the same as having been through it more directly; but I think the portion where he talks about coming up with a formalized schedule and pulling away from those distraction time-sinks would still apply to a lot of creators, aspiring or otherwise.

Considering the fact that a lot of the Channel Awesome productions didn't really withstand the test of time (I never actually got around to watching the AVGN movie so I can't comment on that one way or the other,) one could argue that not getting the movie made ended up working in his favor. Or maybe he could have bucked the trend, we'll never know.  It was a lofty aspiration though, ties back into the motivation factor I talked about earlier.