Wednesday, May 5, 2021

Black Lightning Episode Guide: Season 4, Episode 10 - The Book of Reunification: Chapter One: Revelations

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

Lynn finds herself in serious legal trouble, as the rest of Freeland's heroes find themselves suddenly powerless. As Gambi struggles to figure out what is going on, Jennifer takes drastic action to kickstart her powers and a new barrier threatens Lynn and Jefferson's marriage.


Influences

Daredevil: Born Again (a crime boss villain tries to destroy the reputation of a superhero) and Predator (Jefferson's fight with Ishmael using his suit's stealth mode).


Performances

Cress Williams does a great job of conveying Jefferson's annoyance with every little thing in this episode without descending into outright anger, indicating how well he is maintaining his calm even as it is suggested he is on the edge of losing his cool.


Artistry

The fight between Black Lightning and Ishmael is one of the show's best, even ignoring the use of special effects to let Jefferson "stealth."


Trivia

Tobias quotes Francis Bacon - “If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”


Technobabble

Jefferson's costume has a stealth mode which he triggers using his powers. Gambi also has the ability to activate the stealth mode remotely.

Jefferson and Jennifer activate their powers to materialize and dematerialize their suits. Gambi has a prototype of the module that allows them to do this, which allows him to trigger the effect remotely. This gets Jennifer and Jefferson out of their costumes now that they are powerless.

Gambi installed the forcefield which saved Jennifer from falling to death after Jefferson nearly died entering the ionosphere in 405. Presumably Jefferson's costume has the same failsafe.

Tobias' followers have bracelets that render them immune to the effects of the energy emitter.

According to the data Dr. Darius Morgan recovered, none of the women Monovista was treating for cystic fibrosis actually had the condition. All of them did have the metagene and that this was harvesting them for some other purpose.


Dialogue Triumphs

Jennifer: We need to get our powers back. They were the only real tie I had left to my identity. If I can't be Lightning anymore, who am I?
Anissa: Look, whether you have your powers, or you look different or not, you are my sister. And that, I know in my soul. So just hold on to that, okay? Until Gambi can... figure out a way for this all to go back to normal.
Jennifer: You know damn well this family doesn't do "normal."
(Anissa laughs at that.)
Grace: She's not wrong about that.

Tobias: "If a man shall begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts. But if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties." I wanna see this thing in action. 
(Tobias draws a gun and fires at Red, who grins as he stops the bullet with his magnetic powers.)
Tobias: (chuckling) Cool. Now remove the bracelet. 
(Red does so but looks a bit nervous as Tobias aims at him and fires, breaking a vase just behind him.)
Tobias: (chuckling) I wasn't gonna actually shoot you, Red. Now that we have assurances that the emitter is working, time to initiate phase two of the plan. 
(Red still looks nervous as he wordlessly puts the bracelet back on as Tobias walks past him. Tobias is still laughing to himself. He then stops and turns his head back toward Red.)
Tobias: Oh, and... you owe me a vase. That was Lalique.

(Jennifer has just recovered from electrocuting herself to reactivate her powers.)
Anissa: Oh, my God. If you would have died, I would have killed you!
Jennifer: Classic Anissa logic.

Lynn: Can we talk about what's bothering you? Is it Keith? Um, I know this must be uncomfortable for you.
Jefferson: No. It's not.
Lynn: Then why are you acting like this?
Jefferson: Like what?
Lynn: Ungrateful.
Jefferson: (standoffish) What do I have to be grateful for, Lynn? That, uh... you have no faith in me? You didn't think I could fix this? That right now, I don't have the power to protect you?


Continuity


Lightning survives the fall when her powers fail thanks to a forcefield which stops her just before she hits the ground.

TC has to make contact with Lightning using one of Gambi's ear-pieces instead of his powers, like he usually does.

Jefferson gets Gambi to activate the stealth mode in his suit. This allows him to get the jump on Ishmael, but he still struggles to hold him down.

Detective Hassan Shakur arrives with a small team of police officers, but Jefferson tells them to run for it.

Jefferson ultimately flees the fight with Ishmael.

Anissa is saved from the car by Grace knocking her out of the car's path.

Anissa finds the flash drive Dr. Darius Morgan hid the stolen data on Monovista's cystic fibrosis cure in a hidden compartment underneath the stuffed and mounted body of his dog, Rusty, whom he mentioned in 402.

TC isn't a good enough hacker without his powers to decrypt the flash-drive Anissa found, but he says he knows someone who can help. This turns out to be Painkiller's ally Philky.

Detective Shakur calls Jefferson and informs him of Lynn's arrest.

Because of Jefferson's friendship with Bill Henderson, Detective Shakur is able to get him five minutes to talk to Lynn privately.

Lynn is being held on 14 charges of violation of civil rights and accusations that she experimented on children in a government black site. This could be a reference to her work with the Green Light babies held by the ASA in earlier seasons, which Tobias would be privy to.

Jefferson tells Lynn about how all the mtahumans in Freeland seem to have lost their powers

Tobias put out an official statement distancing himself from Lynn and her clinic.

Keith Michaels, an old college friend of Lynn's who became a lawyer, has agreed to represent her.

This is the first time Jefferson met Keith Michaels, though he knows of him.

When Jefferson asks about paying Keith, Lynn says it's already been take care of. This implies that Keith is a rather famous lawyer and very expensive.

Jennifer stays the night with Grace and Anissa. 

Jennifer is worried that she isn't really her anymore without her powers.

Tobias and Red test a bracelet that renders Red immune to the effects of the energy emitter.

Lynn's bail is posted at $3 million.

Jefferson discovers that Lynn used her one phone call to call Anissa and told her to contact Keith Michaels. 

Jefferson discovers that Anissa is Keith Michael's fees using the drug money she stole from the 100 as Blackbird.

Philky tells TC he has a real gift for hacking and coding even without his powers.

Khalil has claustrophobia and starts to hyperventilate crawling through ducts.

Khalil is able to recover a digital ledger belonging to Tobias.

Keith Michaels is able to get Lynn released without bail. It turns out the judge on her case was trying to get a kid into the same college Keith and Lynn went to and Keith was able to work a deal.

It is revealed that Keith Michaels was more than a friend - he is Lynn's old boyfriend.

Keith Michaels still seems to have feelings for Lynn and seems about to say something before Jefferson shows up.

Jefferson is curt but polite to Keith, who goes a little overboard in offering to do anything he can to help Lynn.

TC delivers Philky's findings to Anissa on the cystic fibrosis data.

Philky taught TC how to attach a tracer to an IP address.

TC tracks the files to The Center for Gene Therapy and Genetic Research. This implies that someone on the clinic, working for Tobias, was covering their tracks.

Tobias has a meeting with Destiny, where he threatens to turn her in to Chief Lopez if he isn't put in charge of the Kobra Cartel. He allows her to keep a 10% managers fee of her current earnings.

The Kobra Cartel is involved in money drops, illegal gambling and human trafficking.

Destiny tries to shoot Tobias, but Red stops the bullets.

Tobias reveals that he's also made Ishmael a better offer and brought him into his direct employ.

Lauren angrily returns the Go board that Gambi gave her in 406.

Lauren reveals that she knows Gambi stole Promethium from her lab and blames him for the energy emitter being stolen as well.

Gambi swears he is innocent of that theft and can explain why he had to steal Promethium.

The ledger Khalil stole contains payroll information of various people Tobias pays thousands of dollars to every month. He decides to investigate one particular woman, who gets $20,000 a month.

Jennifer tries to kickstart her powers by electrocuting herself. She knocks out the power in Anissa's apartment in the process, but it works.

With a spark of her power back, Jennifer decided to reenter the ionosphere to fully recharge.

Jefferson point-blank tells Lynn that she doesn't trust him to help her.

Gambi brings Jefferson and Lynn dinner and talks to them about how Tobias must be using Lynn's clinic to take away everyone's powers somehow.

Lynn realizes Tobias used her - that she wasn't testing Val to find a cure for ALS, but to find a way for Tobias to harness her nullifying powers.

Gambi realizes Tobias must have found a way to partner Lynn's research with the energy emitter he was working on to create a forcefield that could nullify superpowers. 

Tobias meets, through a hologramatic interface, with a group referred to only as The Board.  This seems to be The Shadow Board, whom Lady Eve answered to.

Tobias shows the Board video of him testing the emitter with Red, proving that only his chosen few metahumans have power in Freeland.

The Shadow Board promise Tobias a place among them once he becomes Mayor of Freeland.

Grace likes the idea of not having powers and not being a superhero anymore.  Anissa says she can't give it up and doesn't want to live a regular life.

Jennifer flies into the ionosphere and starts drawing in power.

TC stops her after she gains more than enough.

Jennifer starts to disintegrate again but recovers. The energy she left behind, however, remains in the ionosphere. 


The Winick Factor

Honestly, the "do we want to be superheroes or not?" conversation seems to be the sort of conversation Anissa and Grace should have had before getting married. Then again, the show has established that Anissa is sort of impulsive.


The Bottom Line

An oddly empty episode which doesn't accomplish much beyond giving Jefferson one more thing to angst over and one more reason to be annoyed with Lynn. It's also a little late to be giving Tobias a few more hats to wear in his efforts to take over Freeland at every level, but it's worth it to see more of Tobias being smarter than everyone else in the room.

Starman Plays Quest For Glory 2 VGA, The Thief Path - Part 2

In which we sneak through the city to the money changer and discover the closest thing Shapier has to a Thieves' Guild. We then change just enough of our money to buy some of Al Chica's souvenirs and get to know the gate guard and the flower merchant.

Tuesday, May 4, 2021

Batwoman Episode Guide: Season 2, Episode 12 - Initiate Self-Destruct

 For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

Ryan is faced with a difficult decision that could expose her as Batwoman, creating a rift in the Bat Team. This leads to an unlikely alliance with Alice, who has her own score to settle with Black Mask. Meanwhile, Black Mask's plans for Kate Kane begin to unfold, as Sophie tries to decide where her loyalties truly lie.


Influences

Every Batman story where Batman forms a reluctant alliance with a villain in the name of the greater good, particularly the Halrequinade episode of Batman: The Animated Series. (Alice and Ryan have a similar scene where Alice starts playing with buttons in the Batmobile.)


Performances

Javica Leslie and Rachel Skarsten have great chemistry and the best parts of the episode center around them bantering with one another.


Artistry

The script is witty, with some great dialogues.


Bat Trivia

Black Mask makes reference to a Sionis family tradition of every family member having a replica mask made to decorate their casket. This is a nod to the comics, where Black Mask made his mask from the black wood of his father's coffin.

Mary's clinic is revealed to be located on Park Row in Gotham City. This is the same street where Thomas and Martha Wayne dies. In the comics, the once nice Park Row neighborhood deteriorated afterward and became known as Crime Alley by the time Bruce Wayne was an adult.

While using her night vision, Batwoman's coordinates were shown as being 42° 5' 23" N, -75° 6' 13" E, placing Gotham in the real-world location of Delaware County, New York, on the north of the Pepacton Reservoir. This is, it should be noted, far and away from where Cisco Ramon's map of Post-Crisis Earth showed Gotham City to be located (i.e. near Chicago, Illinois.)


Technobabble

Enigma tells Black Mask that while she has repressed Kate Kane to turn her into Circe Sionis, psychologically and behaviorally, she could do nothing to alter her voice. This was due to larynx damage during her kidnapping and subsequent torture.

Luke determines that Black Mask kept tabs on his drug labs with video feeds. This allows him to track the IP address of the cameras to get the location of the lab where Angelique was being held.

Luke has Mary deliver a targeted kill drive to Sophie - a device that, when introduced to the Crows' computer system, will scramble the data of the Batwoman blood test results.


Dialogue Triumphs

Black Mask: Masks have taken on various meanings over time. Deceit. Disguise. Cheap entertainment. But as Jung once said, we all wear masks, both to create an impression upon others but also to hide our own true natures.

Sophie: I thought you should know the Crows are in the process of extracting your DNA profile from blood spatter found at the Snakebite facility. Once they have that, they're gonna upload it to the national DNA registry. Of course, they'll need something to match it against, so you should be good unless of course you've ever been in the system. Anything you want to tell me?
Batwoman: Other than you need to destroy that sample?
Sophie: It's already being processed. They'll have the profile in a few hours. Arrest warrant won't be long after that.
Batwoman: I better use what time I have left to save the one person who had the guts to testify against Black Mask. Remember her? The one the Crows were supposed to protect?

(Batwoman enters the False Face drug lab. She finds several dead men, burned, and Alice in the middle of torturing another one.)
Batwoman: 
What the hell is this, barbeque for one?
Alice: Batty, what brings you here? Oh. Was it the odor? Honestly, I've been at this so long I can hardly smell it.
Batwoman: Why are you here?
Alice: The False Face kidnapped a friend, so I've been popping by their known hideouts, seeing if someone would be willing to spill his possible location.
Batwoman: I'm looking for someone they kidnapped, too.
Alice: Really? Her name wouldn't happen to be... pbb... I don't know... Angelique by chance?
Batwoman: How do you know that?
Alice: Well, according to Mr. Extra Crispy over here, when Angelique couldn't conjure up the special sauce that gives Snakebite its bite, Black Mask took her phone and used it to track down the actual chef, who does know all herbs and spices.
Batwoman: You're talking about Ocean.
Alice: Mm-hmm.
Batwoman: I thought you killed him.
Alice: Heh. Well, that's completely besides the point.
Batwoman: Which is?
Alice: Angelique and Ocean are apparently being held at a place that is more fortified than this one, and quite frankly, I need backup, by which I mean someone to stand behind so that the bullets don't hit my visage.
Batwoman: Damn. You're crazier than everyone already thinks.
Alice: Well, enemy of my enemy, doesn't that mean...
Batwoman: That you're still the bitch who murdered my mom.
Alice: TouchĂ©. But I'm also the bitch who knows where our beloved cooks are. 

(Batwoman and Alice are sitting in the Batmobile, observing a distant watchman.)
Batwoman: Okay. You draw him out, I'll take him out. Think you can handle that?
Alice: Sure.
(Alice reaches over and starts honking the horn of the Batmobile.)
Batwoman: What the hell are you doing?
Alice:What you asked.

Alice: If they were harmed in any way, I swear to you on my headless mother's grave...

(Alice has just finished knocking out a guard.)
Batwoman: Oh, my God. You love him.
Alice: I just kicked him for no reason.
Batwoman: Not him. Ocean.
Alice: Ocean? What? N-No.
Batwoman: Is that your boyfriend?
Alice: I drove a knife through his heart.
Batwoman: Well, for you, that's not a no.
Alice: Oh. That's true. 

Alice: Just a little piece of advice from an antihero to a hero. You can't save everyone. Not without losing who you are.

(Alice is being strangled by the masked Kate Kane.)
Alice: Help me!
Batwoman: Good luck with that.
(Batwoman turns around to leave.)
Alice: (desperately) I remember your mom. Cora. I remember her. Short hair, purple sweater. I lied about forgetting her. Now help me... please.
Batwoman: Like you said, can't save everyone. 
(Batwoman turns around again and leaves Alice for dead.)


Continuity

With the aid of Enigma, Black Mask hypnotizes Kate Kane to believe that she is his daughter, Circe Sionis.

Black Mask gives Kate a mask based on his daughter's face, which had been buried with her.

Black Mask tells Kate that she was badly burned after escaping from a fire in Arkham Asylum. This seems to be a nod to the events of 119 and would explain why Black Mask blamed Batwoman for his daughter's death, as The Crows blamed Batwoman for a riot at Arkham Asylum and the fire that followed.

Circe Sionis was apparently an inmate at Arkham Asylum.

Alice wakes up in bed with Ocean and tries to sneak out before he wake up.

As Alice is making her escape, she runs into three members of the False Face Society. They taser her and she blacks out as they are beating up Ocean.

Sophie learns about the sample of Batwoman's blood which Agent Tavaroff found in 211. She also learns that he's been authorized, by Commander Kane himself, to run a full analysis comparing it to the national DNA registry.

Sophie tries to talk to Jacob about focusing so many of the Crows' resources on Batwoman, but he refuses to talk to her, being high on Snakebite.

Luke is able to determine the location of the False Face drug lab where Angelique was being held.

Sophie lights the Bat-signal to warn Batwoman that the Crows have her blood.

Sophie does not tell Batwoman that she knows who she is now.

Ryan is not scared and says she'll use what time she has left to catch Black Mask.

Sophie says she will do what she can to destroy the sample.

Luke is in favor of dropping Angelique's rescue to focus on recovering the blood sample. Ryan tells him to help Sophie if he thinks it's that important.

Ryan discovers Alive in the middle of torturing the False Face gang members in the lab when she gets there.

Alice tells Ryan about Ocean's kidnapping and guesses that she's there looking for Angelique.

Alice suggests they team up since Angelique was apparently taken to the same place as Ocean. Ryan reluctantly agrees.

Sophie tries to sneak into the lab with the Batwoman blood sample, but finds another agent is sitting with it and watching it as it finishes compiling.

The False Face Society members holding Ocean and Angelique start recording them making a batch of Snakebite.

Mary delivers a targeted kill drive to Sophie that she can use to destroy the blood test results. She also offers to act as a distraction, so that Sophie can gain access to Jacob Kane's computer to use it.

Sophie figures out that Mary works with Batwoman as well.

Ryan handcuffs Alice outside the drug lab once they take care of all the guards on the outside.

Sophie finds out they are uploading multiple investigations to the DNA database at the same time as the Batwoman sample. This leaves her unable to use the kill drive, as it will also destroy all those records.

Mary's clinic is revealed to be located at 8845 Park Row.

Mary has changed her mind about making her clinic legitimate and shows Jacob what she has done to bring it up to code. This includes proper storage, certified nurses and doctors and Mary limiting her aid to doing the paperwork.

Mary notices that Jacob is sweating and seems anxious to leave.

Jacob notices that Mary's fax machine, the official means of notifying the police of suspicious patients (such as anyone with a bullet wound) is unplugged. He shrugs this off, however, saying that he can live with the compromise if it means Mary is talking to him again.

Sophie is able to destroy the record with Batwoman's identity before Agent Tavaroff can open it.

While covering her tracks in Jacob's office, Sophie finds his Snakebite kit.

Once Ocean and Angelique are done making the Snakebite, the False Face member filming them gets ready to kill them. He shoots Ocean before Batwoman steps in to save them.

Batwoman tells Angelique that Ryan sent her.

Ocean had apparently been talking non-stop about Alice ever since being captured.

Angelique helps Ocean to escape as Batwoman goes back for Alice.

Batwoman runs into "Circe" and the two fight.

Alice joins the fight, having freed herself, but is overpowered by "Circe".

Ryan abandons Alice, leaving her to the mercy of "Circe".

"Circe" seems to freeze up while looking at Alice, seeming to remember her somehow.

Sophie stops by Mary's clinic and asks if she's noticed Jacob acting strangely.

Mary talks about Jacob signing off on her compromise, which Sophie says seems out of character.

Sophie shows the Snakebite kit to Mary and says she thinks Jacob is using the drug.

Mary refuses to believe Jacob is an addict.

Angelique goes to Ryan and thanks her for all she did to save her.

Angelique says she's worked out a deal with the Feds and is going into Witness Protection. She wants Ryan to come with her.

Ryan refuses, saying she's not ready to give up on making Gotham a better place so kids don't suffer like they did.

Kate took Alice alive and took her to the Sionis home. Black Mask is ready to kill her, but suddenly changes his mind, saying there is one way she might be helpful.


The Bottom Line

A solid episode which establishes the depths of Black Mask's evil while giving us some great moments with Alice and Ryan playing off of each other.

Legends of Tomorrow: Season 6, Episode 1 - Ground Control to Sara Lance

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.


Plot


The party is over and the Legends have realized that they are missing a Captain! As they start trying to find some clue as to where she is, Sara tries to escape her alien captors, only to be stunned as to who one of them is.


Influences

Aliens
(The airlock scene in particular, the design of the alien monster Sara fights) and the writings of H.P. Lovecraft (alien creatures having magical powers)


Goofs

While being an alien would explain Gary's generally strange behavior over the past three years, it doesn't explain some of the weirdness where his disguise should have been exposed, such as having his nipple bitten off in Season 4.

The whole plotline falls apart if you consider that, logically, if the Legends were totally unaware that Sara Lance was kidnapped until the day after it happened, they could travel back in time to when she was kidnapped and rescue her without risking a paradox. (Then again, given the Legends' track record and how Ava goes out of her way to come up with a plan that prevents them from doing anything that would cause a paradox, it seems likely she dismissed that option, figuring that something would happen to cause them to run into their past selves.)

Along the same lines, why can't Ava try calling the DEO for help BEFORE they were destroyed in 2020?


Performances

Adam Tsekhman does a fantastic job of typing the audience off as to his identity as the sheepish alien. He also does a fantastic job mimicking Tala Ashe's Zari 2.0 when she dons his human disguise to show the proof that Gary is an alien to Ava and Nate.


Artistry

The costumes and special effects for the various aliens are amazing, looking realistic and Lovecraftian while still being just silly enough to match the tone of the show.


Trivia Of Tomorrow

The title of the episode is a parody of a lyric from the David Bowie song "Space Oddity."

This episode was the first to feature another new animated introduction, with Astra and Spooner added into the collage of the team members.

Sara talks disparagingly about being an avenger and says a real hero tries to save lives rather than avenging people who already died. This is a rather pointed reference to the name of the Avengers - the popular Marvel Comics superhero team.

Astra and Zari suggest that maybe they can find Aleister Crowley: a magician who reportedly escaped from Hell who claimed to have leaned powerful magic from aliens. In the real world, Aleister Crowley was a self-proclaimed magician and prophet. Many think he was insane or a con-artist, but he is still a legendary figure famed for his flamboyant nature and his libertine lifestyle, as he was openly bisexual at a time when it was a crime in his native England and frowned upon most places.

John Constantine claims he summoned Aleister Crowley from Hell and trapped him on Earth. This seems to be a nod to Critical Mass - a storyline from the Hellblazer comic. Through circumstances that are never fully explained, Constantine was revealed to be responsible for trapping Aleister Crowley in a magical circle on the shore of Loch Ness in Scotland. The key difference here was that, in the comics, Aleister Crowley was still alive and over 100 years old, having been faking his death for over 50 years and desperate to avoid Hell and his many magic-wielding enemies.

Most of the lore which John Constantine quotes about Crowley is true to life, particularly his original spellbook being known as The Book of The Law and Crowley's claims that it was dictated to him by an alien intelligence. It should be noted, however, that this was in the classical definition of aliens, in the same vein as the Cthulhu Mythos, before the word became synonymous with science fiction settings.


Technobabble/Arcana

Resurrecting someone with magic forges a psychic connection between the resurrected person and the magician.

Aleister Crowley was a wizard who claimed to have learned powerful spells from aliens.

Upon examining Aleister Crowley's spellbook, The Book of The Law, John Constantine determines that Aleister Crowley was not a fraud, despite dismissing him as a cook after summoning him from Hell.

Spooner Cruz has a variety of advanced weapons, including an energy rifle capable of penetrating he shields (and floor) of the Waverider.

The alien tech in Spooner Cruz's head acts like an antenna. She can use it to send out signals, but does not do so for fear of attracting attention. It allows her to sense the emotional state of the aliens she connects to, as she senses Gary's worry and desire to return to Earth.

The ritual that John puts together for finding Sara involves creating a magical link using Spooner Cruz's signal to Gary. Using that link, John creates a Sigil that will allow him to Astral Project to Gary and, hopefully, find Sara. The catalyst for the ritual is a potion of sorts, made from Gary's chrysalis. (Spooner says it tasted tangy.)

Gideon falls to find any alien tech or anything abnormal about Spooner's brain.

Spooner is able to hear aliens in the Temporal Zone.


Dialogue Triumphs

(John opens the hotel room curtains and looks out on London)
John: London 1977. The tangled knot of grime, the stodgy monarchy. This collision of punk rock and aristocracy slamming into each other like two doomed worlds, this-
Zari: This is a lot at 7 a.m., John.
(John turns around and looks at Zari, who is checking her phone. She puts it down and smiles at him.)
Zari: I'm glad you're in a good mood though.
John: Well, why shouldn't I be? You see, my soul finally belongs to me. Astra is redeemed, and...
(John playfully jumps onto the bed next to Zari)
John:
I get to wake up next to you, you lovely creature. How are you feeling?
Zari: I think a no-strings-attached hookup every now and then... is good for the soul.
(John chuckles at that.)
Zari: Even if it's with a guy whose only coat smells like booze and cigarettes.
(The two laugh and cuddle as the door opens. Ava and Mick enter. Ava is still terribly hungover.)
Ava:  Ugh. Oh, hel-lo.
(Ava's voice trails off as she sees Zari and John in bed together. Mick turns his attentions to an ice bucket and a bottle of champagne on a nearby table.)
John: Oh. Sorry, guys. You, uh, missed the party.
Ava:  Wait, are you two...?
Zari: Yeah.
Ava: Uh-oh. 
(Without a word, Mick hands Ava the ice bucket as he downs what's left of the bottle of champagne. Ava vomits as Zari looks offended. Even John looks somewhat insulted.)
Ava: Okay, sorry. I'm not judging, I just... it's none of my business. I'm fine.
(Ava suddenly gags again.)
Ava: It's an involuntary reaction!
Mick: We should burn the room. 
Zari: Hey, at least we know how to use protection, Pops.

(Nate is sitting on stage with David Bowie, who is idly plucking a tune on his guitar.)
Nate: See, my girlfriend's from another time.
David Bowie: Oh, like the future?
Nate: No. Well... technically, yes, but she's from the future with a different timeline entirely.
(David Bowie nods sympathetically, as if this all made perfect sense.)
Nate: Now she lives in a Totem. And I'm forced to be at peace with it.
David Bowie: What's her name?
Nate: (longingly) Zari. Her name is Zari. And I'm afraid I'm never gonna see her again.
(The rest of the Legends enter, with Zari 2.0 leading the pack.)
Nate: (non-clamantly) Hi, Zari. 

(John has given up on finding Sara and is getting drunk.)
John:
Look... aliens took her, all right? To space. This is really not my area of expertise. Now if it was a ghost, or a demon, or even a handle of whiskey, I could help you out with that, but I'm sorry. All right? I'm an astrologer. And you need an astronomer.
(John leaves the room. Astra is annoyed. Zari is staring at John's bum.)
Astra:
What an ass.
Zari: Yeah, he does have that going for him.

Nate: You, me, the Legends. We're the only people who are capable of handling time-traveling aliens.
Ava: Nate, if I trusted the team, I wouldn't have made an entire binder to get rid of them.

Sara: (To Spartacus) Being an avenger is stupid. The goal is to prevent death. I am a Preventer. You wanna join the Preventers, Sparty?
Spartacus: ... yes?
Sara: Good choice. Now stop opening pods. We're gonna go find who's flying the ship, and we're gonna prevent them from breathing. 

(Gary is begging Sara's forgiveness for abducting her and upsetting Ava.)
Gary: Do me in. I deserve it. I've destroyed the very thing I most stan! 
Sara: Knock it off. You're gonna help me get home. Now tell me everything that you know about this ship.
Gary: Well... when you first met, you butt heads. But any fool could tell you two were meant for each other.
(There is a long pause as Sara regards Gary.)
Sara: This SPACE ship, Gary.


Continuity

Mick returns to the Waverider, having returned Lita home, and finds it trashed and full of hungover punks. He erases their memories without comment.

Mick finds Ava passed out over the toilet in the Waverider's one bathroom.

Ava realizes Sara is missing (along with the rest of the team) when she asks why nobody tucked her into bed the night before.

Ava has a room number for the Skyemont Hotel written on her hand. This turns out to be where Zari and John Constantine spent the night.

Zari has a card for a gambling den at 244 Bow Street. The team find Astra there, about to get killed after proving to be too good at rolling the other high rollers.

Astra is a master gambler after her time in Hell.

The team find Behrad talking to one of the guards outside Buckingham Palace.

Behrad says Nate went back to the club with David Bowie, who they met at an after-after-party.

David Bowie remembers talking to Sara the night before during Charlie's concert.

Sara told David Bowie she was planning to propose to Ava and showed him the ring she'd bought.

David Bowie also captured video footage of Sara's abduction.

Ava erases David Bowie's memory and steals his Super-8 camera.

Sara wakes up inside an enclosed pod on an alien ship. She is able to escape from the pod by touching the inner controls.

Ava formulates a plan to rescue Sara and hands out binders.

John immediately throws away his binder and says he's going to see what he can do to track Sara on his own using the connection they've had since he resurrected her in A405.

Ava accounted for John doing his own thing as part of the plan. Indeed, she accounted for all of the team planning to ignore her and do their own thing.

Zari follows after John to keep an eye on him.

Astra follows after them, after reminding Ava she's not really on the team.

Behrad goes to do "research" while smoking weed.

Mick refuses to do anything since he thinks Sara is the only person who can get the team to work.

Ava's plan steps are, in order:

1. Distribute binders.
2. Have John Constantine use magic.
3. Let any romances run their course.
4. What is Astra's deal?
5. Even bad leads might prove fruitful.
6. Let Rory drink until he cooperates.

Ava's actual plan is for her and Nate to contact the DEO and ask them fo rhelp, figuring they are the experts when it comes to dealing with hostile aliens and Earthling abductions.

Nate makes reference to Sara having a one-night-stand with Alex Danvers in S308.

Sara meets Spartacus, who was held in another one of the alien pods.

John's magic can't locate Sara.

Zari suggests that Astra can look for information among her contacts in Hell.

Gideon refers to Rama Khan destroying the DEO in S518. The organization was apparently officially disbanded after, sometime in the year 2020.

Gideon also says that the ship which took Sara is a temporal anomaly which didn't exist in the original timeline.

Behrad finds a tabloid story from 20 years ago about Esperanza Cruz - a young girl who claimed to have been abducted by aliens, who implanted something in her head that allowed her to communicate with them.

Ava agrees to let Behrad approach Esperanza Cruz, who is now an adult in 2020, and asks him to take Mick with him as backup.

Spartacus plans to release all the other prisoners and lead a revolt against their captors. The first pod he touches unleashes a large insectoid monster.

Sara fights the alien and forces it back into the pod. Spartacus does nothing to help.

Spartacus is eaten by one of the aliens after he attempts to charge it directly.

John has an erotic dream about David Bowie.

Zari and Astra suggest looking up Aleister Crowley, who reportedly learned magic from aliens and escaped from Hell.

John says that Crowley was a kook and that he didn't escape from Hell. John summoned him from Hell and then trapped him on Earth.

John did take possession of Crowley's spellbook, The Book of The Law, but it's missing from where he left it.

Sara finds out that one of the aliens who kidnapped her is Gary Green.

John, Zari and Astra find a man-sized cocoon in Gary's room, along with The Book of The Law.

Behrad and Mick are knocked out by Esperanza Cruz, who has a tranquilizer dart gun.

Esperanza Cruz seems to be a Texan, as her bunker has a Texas flag.

Gary tells Sara that he was originally sent to Earth to find the quintessential human and he chose Sara Lance.

Spartacus was abducted to be lunch for Gary's boss, Kayla.

Gary claims not to eat humans anymore.

It was Gary who programmed Sara's pod to open from the inside.

Gary has no idea where Kayla is flying the ship.

Esperanza Cruz goes by the nickname Spooner and dislikes being called crazy.

Spooner thinks Mick and Behrad are aliens based on the advanced tech they are carrying.

Spooner is tech savvy enough to remove and disassemble Behrad's communicator so she can use it to listen in on the Legends.

Ava pleads with Spooner to help them find Sara using the tech in her head, promising to help her remove it once Sara is safe. Spooner doesn't accept the deal, but is knocked out by Behrad and Mick before she gets a chance to shoot anyone else.

Sara's plan is to commandeer the ship and open a wormhole to Earth's temporal zone.

Gary's poor piloting skills, first mentioned in 316, are showcased.

John puts together a ritual using Spooner to create an astral gateway to Gary. Unfortunately, it takes all of his power to maintain the link, leaving Ava to use the sigil instead of him.

Ava makes contact with Sara long enough to accept her proposal, just after Sara is knocked into a pod by Kayla.

Zari knocks John out before he dies trying to keep the connection going.

Ava's appearance inspires Sara to fight back, escaping the pod.

Sara knocks Kayla out of the ship through an open wormhold, along with several of the alien pods.

Zari waits with John until he wakes up and makes him a juice cleanse.

Astra thinks John has truly fallen for Zari and vice-versa.

Astra says she's leaving the Waverider, as she needs to figure out who she is now that she's mortal.

Gideon analyzes Spooner's head, but can find no alien technology or abnormal activity in her brain.

The Temporal Zone is full of aliens, which are emerging all across time.

Spooner agrees to stay with the Legends for now.

Gary reveals that Kayla, in addition to being his boss, was also his fiancée.

The wormhole closes before the ship can reach it and Sara and Gary, now out of fuel, start to crash towards an alien planet.


Location

London, England - 1977
Deep Space onboard an Alien Ship
Northumberland County, UK - 2020
Spooner Cruz's Compound - 2020
The Temporal Zone


The Bottom Line

A solid introduction to the new season. Yes, a lot of it is nonsensical, but since when has that ever mattered as far as the Legends are concerned? Funny and touching in equal measure, this could be the series' strongest opening ever.

Monday, May 3, 2021

Starman Plays Quest For Glory 2 VGA, The Thief Path - Part 1

In which I start to play through AGDInteractive Studio's VGA update of Quest For Glory 2. Join me as we take our first steps into the magical city of Shapier, enjoy the Arabian Nights (and Daze), talk with our friends about things we already know and struggle to get directions out of an oddly familiar man named Al Chica. 'Atsa fine.